{"id":"750e7ec4-29fd-448c-b575-92232d774e83","argument":"As a third year student at University, I have gone to many lectures and office hours. One thing that my friends and I have noticed is this attitude amongst professors. They complained that there is always this one professor in a meeting that Loves the sound of his her own voice meaning that they do not listen to other points of views. However, at times in class and office hours, these professors exhibit a similar attitude when they dismiss studies whose findings do not match their stance. I think this is because they gain status through publishing new results and validating their theories. Ironically, scientific advancement comes from breaking paradigms and fact checking theories. I think the current system is problematic. There needs to be a better way of breaking this stigma attitude ? , incentivizing people to collaborate and cross check their studies. I also think there needs to be a mechanism that exposes researchers and professors to practice hearing and engaging with opposing views theories  for scientists so that we might have more scientific discoveries and more accurate theories. Today it is more important than ever to get out of your own echo chamber. Professors should be another role model of this to university students. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I believe that many university professors today are unable to debate on their research with others because they are too attached to their findings."}
{"id":"fc47a620-4012-476c-9381-e833b5b3022e","argument":"say you are the person that understands constructive empiricism these type of ppl that understand constructive empiricism should never communicate with anyone outside of their circle 1 the cost is excessively high it is a waste of time talking to ppl outside of their circle it's incredibly frustrating talking to ppl outside of their circle it would not be productive to the idea of constructive empiricism to talk to ppl outside of their circle 2 anyone outside your circle has bad communication skills non constructive empiricists do not communicate clearly non constructive empiricists have low comprehension skills non constructive empiricists have extremely extremely bad interpretation skills non constructive empiricists make false assumptions non constructive empiricists make excessive assumptions 3 there is no obligation for constructive empiricists to talk to ppl outside of their circle just as a designer can keep their designs to themselves, a constructive empiricist can keep their intelligence to themselves you are not forced by non constructive empiricists to share your intelligence if you are unwilling free speech does not obligate you to speak or to share 4 those outside your circle are just stupid non constructive empiricists has low levels of intelligence non constructive empiricists has low levels of understanding non constructive empiricists has low levels of everything non constructive empiricists do not know how to communicate with constructive empiricists endless other points tho im sure they'll come up likely last ever post \u2206 is credited to any detailed examples, or data as shown by links, that are the inverse of  an intelligent person that understands constructive empiricism should never communicate with anyone outside of their circle gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"an intelligent person that understands constructive empiricism should never communicate with anyone outside of their circle"}
{"id":"280056f0-9f48-482c-b04e-f60bb7494d0b","argument":"Frustration of not being allowed in deciding procedures is a perfect petri-dish for populist ideologies and the elected personals, who use them.","conclusion":"Crowdsourcing laws would bring more citizens into the process of lawmaking as active participants."}
{"id":"6b68a813-069c-4112-bf1e-8b951a9d55d0","argument":"Neo-tantra almost purely focuses on practices such as maintaining an erection or increasing orgasmic pleasure.","conclusion":"Authentic tantra did not teach sexual technique; sex is the main focus in neo-tantra."}
{"id":"1d776344-bd91-4358-8ff7-9731e6fa1b6b","argument":"For example, no high school student can afford to pay for a university education themselves so they take out a loan to do so; knowing their education will eventually pay for it. UBI is analogous in this regard.","conclusion":"Many socioeconomic projects are initially expensive but have a significant return on investment in the long term."}
{"id":"a453ea82-b8a7-4cc1-ba9a-e69754fa2328","argument":"This is a vital element of learning new things; without direct guidance it can be far harder to learn complex ideas.","conclusion":"Lectures allow for time and space to talk to a professor."}
{"id":"e529d8e2-1fd9-43cb-8036-ac8528c35a4c","argument":"Before I begin I would like to define what I mean by Science I am describing the natural sciences such as Chemistry, Biology, and Physics. Sciences such as computer science and the social sciences are just as important. However, religion does not conflict with or impede these sciences to the extent to which it does with the natural sciences. It is narrow minded to think that we were put on this planet 6000 years ago by a god. The only strong argument for this is given in the Bible, which is quite outdated. No substantial evidence has ever surfaced to support the existence for a higher power other than self accounts by firm believers whose claims cannot be repeated. There is no religious method which allows for the solidification of beliefs. Contrast to the scientific method which permits the creation of a hypothesis, experimentation, collection and interpretation of data, repetition of the experiment, and the creation of a theory, which can be adjusted or removed altogether if new evidence is provided which rebuts the current theory. The main issue with religious individuals is that often they say that the theory of evolution is on the same level as the arguments for human creation which are in the Bible. Lots of evidence exists to support the theory of evolution, many of these can be observed in real time by people in controlled and uncontrolled settings such as the need to immunize every single year, or the ability for bacteria to become antibiotic resistant . There is no credible evidence which backs up the creation stories given by any religion, nor does any experiment exist which can be reproduced to suggest that any of these creation stories are factual. The belief in a higher power is non issue for the average person in their day to day lives however, to a scientist, it can present major issues for their work. For instance, if a Biologist is religious and they are studying cell theory, they are going to be reading peer reviewed articles and creating experiments which are repeatable, in order to test whatever hypothesis they may have about cell theory. For a religious scientist, they may become more susceptible to believing their results after one trial because they believe the bible without any convictions surrounding the lack of evidence, which can obviously be extremely harmful to the scientific method. Also, the beliefs which a religious individual holds can limit or intrude in the accepted scientific knowledge which explains a natural phenomenon. For example, say a religious student in their undergrad is taking a geology course, if the course teaches the fundamentals of the rock cycle and the formation of the Earth, religious knowledge will clash with these teachings as the bible teaches that the earth is 6000 years old, which in reality it is over 4 billion years old. The student will either have to ditch their religious beliefs regarding the age of the Earth and accept the scientific understanding, or they will be forced to deny the scientific explanation and substitute their own belief that the planet is only 6000 years old, which will result in the student doing poorly in the class. This narrow mindedness regarding religious answers has no place in the scientific community, as it can hinder one's learning. Also, the acceptance of a religious theory without any evidence can be harmful to the study of science. The evidence is what science is built around, as nothing can be proven with 100 certainty with the exception of math, where things are proven all the time, with the use of proofs . I, myself am a chemist, so I will use a chemistry example. If I believed that the plum pudding model of the atom was correct where positive and negative charges intermix in a clump to form atoms and could not be refuted with any amount of evidence, I would be laughed off the face of the earth by everyone who has studied chemistry in the last 50 years. If I said, no amount of evidence would be able to sway my beliefs about the correct model of an atom I would be letting personal beliefs obstruct science, which would make me a very bad scientist. Regardless of how hard I believe in the plum pudding model, or Santa Clause, or the Tooth Fairy, there will always be evidence to counter my beliefs. Believing in something does not make it correct. The main issues with religious people in science is that they are often closed minded individuals who believe teachings from a book that is 2000 years old which has zero evidence to support these creation ideas therefore, it would be tough to think that a religious person in science would be able to take their methods for accepting teachings and alter them between science and religion, only seeking evidence for scientific explanation, but ignoring the lack of evidence for the biblical explanations which they believe. Their beliefs also oppose scientific understanding of the natural world which makes learning about the natural sciences very difficult for someone who is not yet ready to ditch their own beliefs and accept science. These issues are why I believe there is no place for religion or religious individuals in the study and practice of science. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Theists have no place in the scientific community as a scientist or as a student; as their beliefs hinder the advancement and understanding of science."}
{"id":"93ef22a8-981a-41c2-ace4-5a69166fc8db","argument":"Carrying a gun makes people feel mentally safer since they know they are not helpless in the event of a shooting.","conclusion":"Some people conceal carry for personal safety and feel better when they have one with them."}
{"id":"10f88a1a-ad4e-48e9-9a83-aba00c66499b","argument":"Other than some personal satisfaction or enjoyment there is no real purpose to a baby on board sticker for a car The most common reason I've heard for this other than it's fun which is fine, I'm not saying people shouldn't use the BOB sticker for fun , but I'd treat it on the same level as a bumper sticker then is People know that there's a baby and drive safer. This doesn't sound true. It's one of those things that people just assume is true. I'm going to drive just as safe if there's a BOB sticker than if there isn't. My safety and car is at stake too. The fact that the owner of that vehicle is a parent is of little concern to a driver who is commuting. If anything, this is simply divulging extra information to strangers, which makes you less safe reminds me of that classic Bill Burr bit of how families often put on the back of their cars, essentially the menu for the serial killer in the car behind them Other than some personal satisfaction, can someone please change my view that there is no practical or functional purpose to using a BOB sticker? Frankly, a more stronger take on this which you can also  is that parents are better off not using the sticker at all. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Other than some personal satisfaction or enjoyment there is no real purpose to a baby-on-board sticker for a car"}
{"id":"fdf58935-23ff-43ac-b255-3608faf9092c","argument":"The President of the United States is the most powerful person in the world, arguably. Being the most powerful person in the world you should have an understanding of the discipline of economics. If you can not discuss the pros and cons of a particular methodology including the choice of statistics then you do not really have an understanding of economics that is sufficient for your position. All research hinges on its methodology. You cannot know truth from falsity in economics about factual issues without research, therefore if you do not understand research methodology you cannot distinguish truth or falsity. Therefore, I conclude that most likely all or most all the current crop of presidential candidates cannot determine truth from falsity in the realm of economics. I'm not saying this should be a legal requirement, just a practical one.","conclusion":"if you don't understand the methodology of academic economics research then you shouldn't be President of the United States"}
{"id":"a6362d52-ecf0-4ff4-a8b8-8958a0c742c8","argument":"My argument is as follows a. The whole point of a God or Deity is that they are supernatural. b. Science deals with learning things about the natural world. c. Therefore, scientific knowledge of the natural world cannot be applied to argument in a debate. Of course, my argument does not apply to any belief that relies on a God who, in order to exist or be consistent with itself, must have done something that has been proven wrong scientifically for example, if the Christian god must have created the world in six literal days for him to exist which I disagree with, although that's another  entirely , then the Christian god simply does not exist based on scientific knowledge . I should make it clear, I'm not entirely sure of my own religious beliefs. I put myself around a 5 on Dawkin's scale from The God Delusion. However, the growing reliance on scientific knowledge from both sides of the debate is something I'm starting to get annoyed with. Many religious people namely Christians Muslims and Jews use creationist arguments to debunk evolution and therefore prove God real. On the other hand, we have a lot of arguments against religion that are based on scientific knowledge themselves. What I want, in the long run, is for everyone to just be objective and seek the truth, and that means stopping arguments based on false premises from either side of the debate .","conclusion":"I believe any argument for or against the existence of a god or deity based on scientific knowledge is irrelevant."}
{"id":"b3122d50-be96-435f-b8a4-1482fd06d91e","argument":"She will not gain traction in the Interior West where both conservative and progressive voters have strong libertarian tendencies and will not accept her authoritarianism","conclusion":"Kamala Harris\u2019 is less likely than other candidates to appeal to swing states in the mid-west as her base in in urban-Democrat California."}
{"id":"cd38cc2a-e9b7-4bfb-9c13-50d1273c7cf9","argument":"Airport security has been proven to be very ineffective. For example, the TSA have missed 70 percent of fake weapons and I have heard seen personal anecdotes to the same effect. Furthermore, there is no proven example of the TSA or similar organisations having stopped a terrorist attack. This supports the arguement I will make later. Another key issue with airport security is the fact that it cause long delays for travellers. Most of those affected will say something such as \u2018It\u2019s worth it for security\u2019. But is it? Why should we face long delays to support an ineffective and intrusive system? Airport security can be used as an example of security theatre. It is an attempt to scare off potential terrorists and smugglers but is unlikely to deal with any who actually attempt to pass through. Airport security actually becomes a danger since it creates a target for terrorists. Why bother passing through when you could kill a large number of people who have nowhere to go? Why does a system which is ineffective, inconvenient and dangerous still exist. It should change and be replaced with alternative options.","conclusion":"Airport security is not only ineffective and unnecessarily time consuming, it is also very dangerous."}
{"id":"2012f64f-90ac-4ec5-9abc-905bf05cf6f7","argument":"Local white officials denied housing and business loans to Black Veterans as well as admission to all-white colleges and universities.","conclusion":"Although the G.I. Bill was intended to help all veterans, Black Veterans North and South were excluded."}
{"id":"57330f92-1a33-4413-8944-47622e759163","argument":"Breathing is more important than eating. That makes limiting greenhouse gas emissions more important than hunger. This is not saying anything about relative urgency, only importance.","conclusion":"There are endless numbers of issues that are equally important as hunger."}
{"id":"f6296be1-be33-4d3c-8b33-336f763bcdc0","argument":"To clarify my point, I believe the classification of being racist as an inherent quality is detrimental because it oversimplifies the reality of racism. The definition of racism that I believe is the harmful discrimination of a group of people considered of a certain race based on the belief that their race makes them inferior or harmed. It is a manufactured system used to separate people and justify exploitation of certain groups of people. It's a system in the same way that patriarchy is a system, something that everyone aside from the creators of that system is subject to and influenced by. It's key to think of racism as a system because it helps describe how everyone can perpetuate the system through racist actions, racist expressions of power, and even ideologically through racist remarks, and everyone can dismantle by evaluating the biases we've accumulated because of systemic racism and choosing to act against them as well as calling out racist discrimination and injustice in our society. Outright calling people a racist or racists inhibits the dismantling of racism because it mischaracterizes its systematic nature. It characterizes racism as something you either are or aren't, have or don't, implying that it's a part of our identity. Strides in racial equality from the past have served to staunchly associate the overt racism of Jim Crowe and slavery with evil and moral failings, and as a result the idea of being a racist has been linked to being an immoral member of society. It also lumps together members of overtly racist and white supremacist groups i.e. The KKK who self identify with and support racism, with the average person who disagrees with racism but still perpetuates the system. The biggest failing in characterizing racism as a personal quality is it implies that the only personal requirement of not perpetuating racism is simply not being a racist, of simply not believing the inferiority of any person group of people based on race it implies that lack of explicitly bias forgives any implicit bias if implicit bias is even recognized . It sets a basis that as long as the average person claims to not see colour and doesn't perpetuate the explicit racism of the 60s, they are forgiven from any contributions to the modern, more coded system of racism. This also makes it more difficult to understand racist attitudes people have as a result of systemic racism with bias and stereotypes, and doesn't properly acknowledge that the issue with these biases is much more with acting on them and not acknowledging them rather than them existing in themselves. Creating an understanding of acting or speaking racist encourages more dialogue but also implies that racial bias is something that can we can learn to overcome.  Edit a few word choices for clarity","conclusion":"Calling and classifying people as a \"racist\" is detrimental to dismantling racism"}
{"id":"07831711-8b52-473e-80b0-656e7e33dd5f","argument":"The definition of God as absolutely good is contradictory because 'goodness' is relative to one's moral views and there cannot exist a person or character that would seem good to every sentient being.","conclusion":"The classical definition of God is contradictory or incoherent, and thus God cannot in principle exist."}
{"id":"87d1e5b3-b0c2-4f2c-bc51-5fcb2808ddc1","argument":"I am well aware that there is no such thing as a perfect news agency, but I believe that Fox News is exceptionally biased in their reporting. It may be because they are biased in a way that dissents from my personal views, but still view them as a shining example of what news broadcasting shouldn't be. Am I right in believing that Fox News is the low of news broadcasting, or am I wrongly being biased against them making me no better than them ? Because of this, I feel like I am actually closing my mind to a lot of good, right suppoted ideas. Fox News has singlehandedly closed me off from hearing out conservative ideology, which is something that I do not like.","conclusion":"I believe Fox News is an example of what news broadcasting shouldn't be."}
{"id":"5aa665a3-62d9-419b-ae34-fde01a34059a","argument":"People are more willing to sacrifice themselves for the community. Thus, community leaders get added value from the same amount of group.","conclusion":"God is an invention of the elites and religious rules are made to ensure and enhance their power."}
{"id":"9d11a8e3-e9e9-453f-873b-086e2df27bbd","argument":"If the cause of the universe is timeless, it must have a will in order to be able to exist in a timeless state and act as the cause of a single universe or finite number of universes.","conclusion":"If the universe has a cause, the best candidate for that cause is the God of classical theism"}
{"id":"f598d712-c62f-48e2-a8fe-aafbb55b5ba0","argument":"I'd actually like my view changed on this, because I'm pretty much stuck keeping it secret to preserve friendships. My opinion on this is shaped from reading the victim statement twice and Turner's statement in full. I haven't really read much of the media's take, deliberately, but I've overheard conversations at work. What struck me about the statements was that the stories basically matched. The girl got drunk, almost certainly danced and made out with Turner, and doesn't deny leaving with him to go back to his dorm she simply doesn't remember, but it seems highly unlikely she was forced . It also appears to be consistent amongst all parties that the cyclists intervened when Turner got up to go and throw up. Nobody knows if she consented at the time except Turner. The guy had no history of violence or sexual aggression, and while he's obviously motivated to say she consented, she is motivated to say she did not, due to embarrassment and the fact that she was probably cheating on her boyfriend. She doesn't appear to know if she verbally consented however. Even if the girl didn't verbally condone fingering as Turner claims, verbal consent every step of the way is not really the way hooking up works most of the time she also says this in her victim statement . You tend to give other types of cues, which can be easily misunderstood when both parties are drunk. It seems feasible, and is not contested, that they both fell down together and started making out, which could explain the abrasions and pine needles. If Turner was still knowingly doing stuff after she had passed out that's not cool. But we don't know when she passed out, it could have been after he walked away. She doesn't remember, the cyclists don't seem to have had a good view of it before he got up. Even if he did carry on after she passed out, it appears likely she gave consent up until that point, which would make lifetime sex offender status awfully severe. He was not convicted of rape, but of three felonies intent to rape which is highly subjective and doesn't feel worthy of sex offender status given that it's only intent to commit a crime, not one that's actually been committed . Foreign penetration i.e. fingering of someone while they were drunk is a silly charge and pretty much every adult male in the US could probably be convicted of that. The final one, foreign penetration when the person is asleep, many males in steady relationships could also be convicted of, but I agree that it was bad behavior. But we don't actually know if she was unconscious while they were together, and it seems feasible that she was consenting up to the point that she passed out. I don't know what happened, and I'm sure the jury knows way more than me. But if I was judging the case based on what it seems we know, I believe I would see it as a drunken hookup gone bad, with probable consent later regretted, then made a thousand times worse by others the next day. It's very hard for me to see how Turner can be reasonably given a lifetime sex offender status.  I'd honestly appreciate it. And please be civil. Arguments that will likely not convince me are anything relating to bad behavior by people not involved directly father, attorney, journalists quoting swim times anything that doesn't directly address the legality, but instead appeals to taste it was behind a dumpster . Presumably any arguments for giving someone sex offender status should also apply if they'd made it back to the dorm room or were in the courtyard of the Taj Mahal. anything based on reactions of people who weren't there, rather than direct testimony and eye witnesses arguments that appeal to a broader sense of justice rather than this specific case e.g. this usually doesn't get successfully prosecuted nobody deserves to have their life ruined because other people of their gender and skin color got away with illegal behavior . EDIT Thanks for the patience, I know this is a hard topic. I consider my view changed, mostly based on the police report comments here led me to The report shows that the cyclists were interviewed separately at the scene and their story matches with Turner running away, rather than being tackled as he testified. I would say it does appear likely that the girl consented up to the point where she lost consciousness, and this creates a lot of complications for knowing whether or not she was fingered while unconscious the basis for two of the charges, and nobody including the cyclists observed any penetration . But based on the suspected behavior of Turner beforehand, his alcohol levels, and the likelihood that he took the initiative to run it seems unlikely to me that he bothered to stop after she became unconscious and knew what he was doing was wrong. I'm awarding deltas to the people who led me to the actual court documents, and withdraw my probably should not have been convicted . I think he probably should have been convicted. On sex offender status I'm less sure, because of the long term consequences, the likely consensual activity prior to unconsciousness, and the low likelihood of him being a threat to others after this whole ordeal. I don't believe in a justice system that doles out punishment to make people feel good, I believe things like prison and sentencing should be used correctively this may be my European upbringing perhaps . Sex offender status feels like punishment, rather than anything that is likely to benefit anyone, but I suspect that this status has more to do with the way the system works than how the sentence works rather than being discretionary I can't find that information . Thank you to everyone who was polite and thoughtful in their responses","conclusion":"Brock Turner should not have to register as a sex offender, and probably should not have been convicted at all."}
{"id":"b41107a7-5fe8-4f9a-b0ed-9a57a53dc451","argument":"In the beginning, the License was needed to fund programs, or to keep the channel ad free. However, with the proliferation of digital TV - both free and paid subscriptions - ads are an everyday part of watching TV or internet viewing. The BBC License fee is therefore outdated.","conclusion":"If BBC became subscription-based, not only will people not be forced to have a service and tax they don't want, the BBC would have to become more competitive and produce better material seeing as it would not be publicly funded."}
{"id":"07ec48a8-a1a4-4638-8d26-82104c9b3e65","argument":"Here in america, the stats are that 96 of all new car sales this year have been powered by automatic transmissions. This number has been going up and up each year. As has the death toll from traffic driving has gone up recently, but gone back down a bit, mainly due to all the new self stopping features that cars have and stuff like that. But, once the automatic transmission became more normal, crashes became more common. This isn't because of it breaking, this is because of the epidemic of distracted driving. Which is often caused due to Automatic transmissions. An automatic gives you far less to do while driving, and gives you a free hand. So what do a lot of people do? Texting while driving, eating while driving, and more. In a manual, you have to be much more alert and you have much more to do. You dont usually have a free hand, because you have to shift, pull the E brake, etc. Driving does in fact get boring to lots of people. Especially in an automatic where you only have to steer, brake, and accelerate. So, lots of people just quickly check their phones or so. Driving a manual is more enjoyable opinion, I know. and that takes more caution. Distracted driving causes a LOT of the crashes and fatalities in driving. With texting and driving alone causing 1 in 4. Texting and driving is far too common. This number ist even counting the close scrapes that ruined someones brakes or scared them. I bet you know somebody who texts and drives. Even my own sister does it. Please try to convince them not to, before they become another statistic. In Europe, the crash rate is roughly half the amount that we have here in the US. Even though they have some arguable dangerous roads most common example the autobahn . Coincidentally or not , the manual transmission is far more dominant there. Manual transmissions can also help drowsy driving become less common. You have to listen and focus more on when to shift, and its proved that more movement and more circulation helps you stay awake. Having mostly manuals would also keep many reckless people off the road. Youve been there, when some big SUV was driving like an idiot, swerving between lanes, etc. Driving a manual takes more skill, and those kinds of people would have to learn how to drive better and become more skilled at driving. And finally, due to less moving parts, manual transmissions are far less likely to break as long as you know how to use the manual transmission. You would have a far less of a chance to crash into the guy in front of you whose transmission just broke. Thanks for reading","conclusion":"We would be better off and safer if the Automatic Transmission wasn't invented or was far less common."}
{"id":"dafcfe95-4976-4bf4-ab5f-edbb1252903d","argument":"The findings of a study indicate that this relationship is frequently contingent upon the directness of lineage that a child enjoys with their grandparent.","conclusion":"The result of a paternity test can also affect the relationship a child has with their grandparent."}
{"id":"6ef0a16f-7277-48d0-926a-337ad10f2bb8","argument":"Veganism is ideal for space travel exploring other planets, and growing civilizations through colonization in the long-term, as it optimizes better with technologies, like hydroponics, than animal products do.","conclusion":"Technological innovations could take place to advance a vegan society."}
{"id":"8b092541-3915-40ef-b076-a73659a47f49","argument":"Eradicating certain communicable, vaccine-preventable diseases like polio & measles worldwide requires that developed countries continue to maintain high rates of vaccination and immunity, even though individuals in those countries are at low risk of exposure to the disease.","conclusion":"Routine childhood vaccination against preventable diseases should be mandatory worldwide."}
{"id":"03023ecf-202d-4ef1-85cf-5d8ae182f38f","argument":"The idea that a personal link between the individual and 'god' exists is not present in Confucianism but gave rise to the emergence of human rights.","conclusion":"Western values evolved in a particular way that mirrored Christian origins."}
{"id":"997d4107-7e98-408f-9ead-8c731c27009b","argument":"Many global markets are dominated by a few big firms: look, for example, to the markets in fast food, dominated by McDonald\u2019s, or the market for drilling and selling oil, dominated by Exxon, Shell and BP. This concentration of market power is natural outcome of free markets, this is because of economies of scale \u2013 a production line can produce each individual unit faster and more cheaply than if products were made individually. Also partly because the transaction costs of markets are too high i.e. the costs of negotiating, monitoring and managing all the exchange relations necessary for production and distribution of the good or service involved, corporations have an incentive to structurally organize themselves into large firms The Nature of the Firm, 1937. This also creates barriers to entry; while an individual may be able to manufacture an individual unit it is much more difficult to set up a whole factory from scratch in order to compete, there is then little possibility of competitors entering the market as a result of price rises. Being so large gives them an unfair advantage towards both their suppliers and their consumers. Large firms can collude to form oligopolies. This generates more profit for the firms involved, but raises prices above the market clearing price for consumers as the firms agree not to undercut each other, this may also be informal simply raising prices by reducing the amount of choice or supply. Vis-a\u0300-vis their suppliers, these firms gain an equally unfair bargaining advantage. A prime example is the market for low skilled labour: with a surplus of low skilled labour, each individual worker either has to accept a very low wage or be replaced by someone who does want to work for that low wage. This unequal bargaining power keeps the price for labour very low, so low that workers have no surplus budget to invest in themselves to be able gain skills, negotiate better jobs and thereby lift themselves out of poverty.","conclusion":"The free market naturally leads to concentration of power in the hands of corporations"}
{"id":"fa8307dc-3ec5-4c8c-a192-9dd36adb0be7","argument":"I know that this is a popular topic but I aim to bring a different point of view to it. I m all for a diplomatic solution to the conflict in Syria. I don't think that the Obama administration should launch any type of military action against the Assad regime. The US has already lost a lot of soft power from the war in Iraq. We don't need to lose anymore in a conflict with Syria. The reasons I feel this way are because Launching strikes will destroy what we are trying to achieve. If our airstrikes kill civilians by accident then Assad could use that to rally people against the US. Getting involved means he can blame more things on the US. Even if we specifically target military areas we will still end up hurting innocent civilians by accident. If we get involved militarily then Assad will be able to gain more power from it. We haven't been able to establish a democracy in the middle east by overthrowing the previous government successfully. The US spent billions of dollars trying to establish democracies in Iraq and Afghanistan. Both countries have been riddled with corruption. Furthermore Egypt overthrow a dictator only to elect an Islamist president who they recently overthrew. Military intervention in Syria will only weaken our power abroad even more. At a time when we are not seen favorably in the Middle East we should be strengthening our power instead of weakening it. We would only enforce the stereotype that the US is imperialistic. The war in Syria is not winnable because we don't know which faction we are fighting. If we destroy the Syrian army then we will end up fight factions that are against democracy in Syria. Any faction that we would fight doesn't have to beat us. All they would have to do is engage in Asymmetric warfare until support for the war was gone. Our intelligence on the ground is unreliable. We don't know how much of the rebels are extremists and how much are moderates. There is no consensus on who launched the CW attack. Backing the wrong side could result in more deaths. I know that some of you will bring up the humanitarian reason for going to war. Let me say this. If you are for attacking the Assad regime then why aren't you for attacking the North Korean regime? The North Korean regime has sent many people to labor camps for disagreeing with the government. I believe the case for intervention has nothing to do with CW attacks. I believe it has more to do with US interests. If it was about CW attacks we would be in Africa and North Korea. I believe the best course of action for the US is to let this war continue on as long as possible without it spilling into other countries. Letting the extremists fight each other means the US doesn't have to devote as much resources to fighting Al Queida. No matter what side wins the US loses. I m trying to see the other side","conclusion":"I don't believe the US should get involved in Syria"}
{"id":"3f105ebe-8302-4e8a-9477-e14fb3f9feb9","argument":"A Global Government could only exist if global capitalism was abolished where human and environmental welfare were the sole concern.","conclusion":"A global government would make it easier for a small corrupt group or individual to rule the world."}
{"id":"ce6c5247-7a8f-4341-b704-0f80cc48ded7","argument":"Japanese businesses' tendency to overwork employees may be a better explanation for the policy's effectiveness, meaning that said effectiveness cannot be directly attributed to the difficulties of work on period.","conclusion":"Studies that apply to Japan are only slightly relevant to the U.S. at best, due to a much larger, significantly more diverse population and current gender stigmas and conflicts."}
{"id":"0ec41f88-a928-4beb-a000-1d652f8da862","argument":"Women are underrepresented in many fields where no differences in physical capabilities apply. This is because these professions are traditionally seen as masculine.","conclusion":"Gender roles are restrictive. In many societies, women are still unable to succeed and cannot enjoy freedom because of gender roles."}
{"id":"041f5d70-91cd-4d29-b24a-5ae0512ee952","argument":"A positive relationship between parents and children is associated with higher levels of adolescent self esteem, happiness and life satisfaction.","conclusion":"The parent \/ child relationship is one of the most important relationships for a child."}
{"id":"052b4d43-6e79-487a-80f5-c7d2a1d9b0ce","argument":"States are often better placed to ensure the right to education is accessible to all as they have more resources than individual institutions so can provide educational assistance, scholarships, vouchers, run state schools etc.","conclusion":"It is a right, but that does not mean the onus is on a private institution to enforce that right. The state is better placed at ensuring education is a right for all."}
{"id":"bc71e624-4987-4f43-b108-f24f0a954d0b","argument":"It allows youth to explore their sexuality with those that have more experience, and can help teach them on how to do things safely.","conclusion":"It will make young people feel more comfortable about exploring their sexuality."}
{"id":"d0213e12-a443-4ee3-b1b2-519c876c295f","argument":"It is a challenge in most restaurants - which do not work off of exact measurements of fat, butter, and olive oil - to keep the number of calories consistent within a meal each time it is prepared. This creates the risks that the calorie counts on a menu do not accurately portray the actual calorie contents of the dish, which creates a certain risk of lawsuits.","conclusion":"It is difficult for restaurants to keep calorie counts consistent."}
{"id":"ad3a88a5-b7f7-4c94-a173-52ffd7f97eea","argument":"All are born under sin, have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God. Romans 3:23","conclusion":"There are several Bible verses and passages to emphasize equality between people."}
{"id":"f6e6e240-f62b-49d7-a831-bcda7fab5bd0","argument":"The cost of alcohol was roughly 3 times higher during prohibition than compared to previous prices pg. 7","conclusion":"Illegal drugs are mostly expensive because they are illegal legal drugs will be significantly less expensive"}
{"id":"eb4a2b5c-1c4f-4a66-8314-1ff7d4345e2c","argument":"From time to time, society takes a step back and needs to reconsider whether certain cultural norms are worth preserving. We're currently seeing a huge paradigm shift on how we perceive people smoking marijuana, for example. There are plenty of catalysts for these reversals, but a large component involves people seriously thinking about whether accepted beliefs are good for society. This often involves people discussing what the merits of a social norm are. During these discussions, people often reply with that's just the way things are. This is a non answer, and when I find myself discussing this sort of thing, I don't see it as a good reason to keep the norm. Of course, it's not a reason to discard it either. When people say this, it usually means one of two things. Often it just means that they don't understand why the rule is in place, but agree with it. This is fine, but we should really take a deep look at why some of these norms exist. Sometimes it's just a way of blindly following the status quo. I'm of the opinion that shaking up the norm is sometimes required, so this feels unsatisfactory as well. Change my view. Edit I should clarify a few things. My view is centered around critical discussions, which I realize aren't exceptionally common. If you're not intent on digging into the real reason a norm exists, that phrase may be plenty. The phrase isn't a good reason to support a norm, but it also isn't a reason not to. Most people aren't aware of why we follow a norm, simply because the reason is often nuanced and complex or understood subconsciously. This isn't a reason not to support a norm, but it isn't a reason to support it either.","conclusion":"The phrase \"that's just the way things are\" shouldn't be considered valid justification for cultural norms"}
{"id":"ea8cecdb-5768-42bf-b3a0-1fe99628267c","argument":"To be clear, I'm only talking about positive political contributions meaning I'm not including personal contributions e.g. charity, friendships . This involves using politics to make positive changes that improve the helps of most people and or reduce the amount of suffering. Looking at republican sites and posters, the consistent trend seems to be hatred of liberals over all other issues. I'm of the opinion that republicans don't really care about the impact of their policies to the country or world at large compared to the damage it does to liberals. There does seem to be a trend of them promoting their own self interest at the expense of others e.g. race, gender, immigration issues but they seem entirely motivated by the idea of helping themselves at other's expense, moreso than most political groups. There are a variety of examples of republican behaviour that convince me this is true. Trump has fanatical support despite not being particularly conservative but he hates liberals so he seems to count as their champion. Ted Cruz has been humiliated by trump but praised his ability to offend liberals recently. Most accusations of wrong doing by republicans is justified by What about Bill Clinton Obama Hillary Pelosi? as if corruption doesn't really bother them. Republicans main cards for the midterms are the tax cuts they made that will cost the federal government trillions and Nancy Pelosi who they seem to hate for no obvious reason her gender aside . Arguments for Trumps election frequently rested on the alternative being the hated Clinton rather than any positive contribution he could make. An accused paedophile Roy Moore , an open Nazi, a convicted coal baron responsible for deaths Blankenship and an admitted pussy grabber Trump have all exceeded expectations thanks to the republican party but they still seem focused on the threat posed by college 'SJWs' as if the far greater threat posed by their own members isn't an issue to them. When it comes to policies, there is a similar trend. Whether it's the environment, the Iran deal or the ACA, republicans despise the efforts of democrats and seek to undermine and unmake all of their efforts to improve things despite having no clear alternative. On abortion and guns, republicans seem unwilling to consider the wellbeing of others at all despite the consequences of their laws affecting everyone from rape victims abortion to children mass shootings . On tax cuts, they seem willing to cut their own despite the cost to future generations while denying their political opponents deductions seemingly out of spite. When it comes to popular republican 'intellectuals' or personalities e.g. Ben Shapiro, Sean Hannity, Roger Stone, Milo Yiannopolous, Tucker Carlson, Dinesh D'souza and their popular outlets e.g. Fox, Breitbart. National Review , they all focus on misrepresenting or demonizing democrats and don't seem very interested in learning or finding the truth. Essentially they focus on achieving personal profit and hurting democrats rather than making any genuine positive impact on the world, just like republican voters and politicians. So I'll  if someone can convince me that republicans genuinely believe their political decisions and policies cause more good than harm and don't base their political decisions on pure selfishness and or spite. EDIT I've awarded a delta because it's been pointed out to me that republicans could be so partisan and fanatical that they genuinely believe hurting America is justified to stop democrats. This is a depressing thought but it is possible likely given what I've seen and does change my view. I still believe that their actions overwhelmingly cause great harm but I do think it's possible they're so partisan that they either don't know this or think it's worth it. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Republicans prioritise beating democrats over making any positive political contributions to their country and the world"}
{"id":"58253702-b9f4-4b3d-a10f-d1903c055821","argument":"The Settlements, constructed on land that is neither recognizably Israel\u2019s nor which Israel has even claimed to annex are illegal, encroaching on the territory of a future Palestinian state. It is absurd for the international community to demand the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, and yet allow Israel to establish its population on that land in settlements that view themselves and are viewed by Israel as Israeli territory.1 Furthermore, their continued expansion is something that each and every Palestinian can see every day. As a result, the continued expansion both: 1. Destroys Palestinian confidence in the ability and willingness of the International community to enforce its own promises, especially after repeated American and European promises to stop their construction. 2. Convinces Palestinian opinion that the negotiating process is an Israeli game to buy time until they have changed the facts on the ground. As a consequence of these two factors, the continued expansion of settlements has an impact in driving Palestinians towards violent resistance even beyond the direct impact of the settlement construction by undermining their faith in International Law, and by adding a sense of urgency to their grievances. 1 MacIntyre, Donald, \u2018The Big Question: What are Israeli settlements, and why are they coming under pressure?\u2019, the Independent, 29 May 2009,","conclusion":"The Settlements are illegal, and demonstrate the impotence of the international community"}
{"id":"fc2c4551-c904-495c-bcc3-a40e5611a343","argument":"I will try to summarise this opinion concisely, apologies if I end up rambling. I'm open to hearing other opinions too, and my view being changed. but I haven't really seen this one being argued many places. I understand both sides of the abortion argument. I also understand that it's a discussion that is doomed to failure from the start, because no matter how much one side can say that a woman should have the right to choose, should not be subjected to a pregnancy they do not want etc. if the other believes that it is the murder of an unborn child, they won't be convinced. It's essentially arguing apples to oranges. Truth be told, I don't really know if I believe that abortion is murder or not. But frankly, I don't care if it is, because that doesn't make it wrong. I'm going to try to lay this out in the most straightforward way I can think of. What is murder? The intentional termination of life without consent. Does this mean that abortion is murder? We can argue the details as to when a pregnancy is viable, when a fetus becomes human and not an amalgamation of cells. For this purpose, let's assume that we're talking about a fetus that is viable outside of the womb. This fetus would be a human being, most people would agree. An abortion would be terminating their life, without their consent. Therefore, an abortion in this case would be considered murder. Is murder a bad thing? Here's where I likely differ from most people. I don't think that murder is inherently a bad thing. There is one thing that unites us all we are all mortal, and will all one day die. It's an inescapable reality. So, why is death a bad thing? I would argue that death is bad for the following reasons Death is existentially scary. We as humans have the ability to conceptualise death. We have enough metacognition to understand ourselves as thinking and sensing beings, and are able to imagine a world where we are dead that is to say, a future where our consciousness has been completely annihilated. That thought is well, kind of terrifying. Death deprives others of access to you. We have all experienced the death of a loved one, and the pain that comes from that. Why is it painful? Because you will never have the opportunity to laugh, joke, learn, or share any experience with that person, ever again. All you have left is the past. The deceased exists frozen forever in the memories you hold of them, in a purgatory of your mind. But that's it. The line is drawn there, and the envelope sealed. That's painful. Death is often painful. Here there are two levels of pain physical pain, and anguish. Every vertebrate, and many other living beings experiences physical pain. The ouch that comes from negative stimuli. It is generally accepted that physical pain is a part of existence. Every animal has experienced a great degree of physical pain throughout their lives and deaths. Most animals including a ton of our ancestors have met their end being eaten alive by something bigger and stronger than them, an experience that is surely extremely painful. It's more or less inevitable. Anguish is the mental pain that comes from the ability to recognize and grasp that physical pain is a side effect of the destruction or more generally, metamorphosis of our bodies, and that that event has bearing on our future selves. When you break a bone, you feel physical pain, which hurts, but you also feel anguish knowing that you will need to go to the hospital, have a cast put on, spend months doing physio, and may never fully recover. I cannot say this with certainty, but I imagine most animals do not have the capacity to experience anguish, at least not to the degree that humans especially adult humans do. So. Is murder a bad thing? In most cases, yes. Murdering someone generally means subjecting them to the existential fear of death, the anguish of experiencing the destruction of their physical body, as well as creating suffering for the loved ones of victim. Some murders are worse than others. We would all likely agree that torturing someone, or murdering them in a brutal manner is more heinous than shooting someone in the back of the head unexpectedly. This, in my opinion, is because a slow death subjects the victim to the existential fear and anguish of death. Most of us also eat meat. It is generally accepted that this murder is acceptable, as it is subjecting the victim to physical pain, but not the other negative aspects of death. We do this merely because fried chicken and steak is delicious, even though there are many alternatives that require less murder. There are many other similar situations to this. Here's where we come to abortion a fetus, or a baby for that matter, does not have the cognitive ability to conceptualise death, nor do they have the ability to feel anguish, at least not to the degree that an older and more developed human does. For evidence of this, you can look towards any small child. They do not have any understanding of death, and limited understanding that current events have bearing on their future selves hell, most teenagers don't have this Furthermore, as a fetus exists solely in its mother's womb, the murder of it does not subject those around it to any undue pain or suffering, knowing that they no longer have access to the fetus. When a woman undergoes an abortion, they are terminating a life before any of those interpersonal connections have been formed. Based on my above opinion, I don't really see an issue with abortion at all. I do however, see the issue with forcing a fully aware and cognisant person to undergo a pregnancy that they do not want. That involves subjecting them to a great deal of anguish, both from the pregnancy itself, and the knowledge that they will become a parent against their will. It is in effect, forcing them to experience the death of their past self. Which is why I'm pro choice, but for a likely extremely unpopular reason. I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts Edit I think I've managed to clarify or refine my view. If a being has no concept of death, and lacks the ability to realise that they are a mortal, do they really have a will to live? Does killing them cause anguish? If we agree that not wanting the fetus to feel physical pain is not a valid reason to be anti choice, is killing the fetus ethically wrong?","conclusion":"It does not matter if abortion is murder or not, it isn't inherently wrong"}
{"id":"86825574-29df-4b5e-9c05-dd6b184618c2","argument":"Mice, rats, worms, moles that all live in the ground inevitably are killed by large farming machines being run over them upheaving the ground in order to sow the seeds for the next season.","conclusion":"Farming inevitably murders animals too, so that would have to be forbidden too."}
{"id":"7c68da23-a42b-42c1-9612-f99930520f75","argument":"space exploration could serve as an insurance policy should something devastating happen to our planet.","conclusion":"Space exploration is necessary for the future survival of humanity"}
{"id":"41534ec9-c595-450e-9731-15dd1c8a6097","argument":"People would be at less risk of being attacked by wildlife. Drones are a safer surveillance option for humans than previous methods of monitoring like going in-person to locations.","conclusion":"New technologies, like drones can provide surveillance instead of people being in wildlife areas."}
{"id":"637fd6d0-4df6-4ad5-b039-589a178ea572","argument":"Whenever I do essays the word count can be ridiculous and I feel can make your paper less interesting. The topic can be something simple, like what do you feel about insert topic , but have a 1500 word count. The problem with high word counts is that you can convey your point in way less words. But when you write a paper that's, say 1000 words, if you have 500 words you have to make up stuff or expand sentences to the max. Just so I can have more words. I've seen people in my college classes who have WAY better, intriguing essays than me, but get marked down because their paper is a page too short. But I get more points for an okay or good paper that's past the minimum amount of words. The extra words you have to put in your paper is the equivalent to filler in anime to me. Complete bull that doesn't move the story paper along XD I'm not saying that you can write WHATEVER amount you want. I'm saying super long word counts. I don't care that you wrote a 4000000 page essay and that it was easy for you. I don't know how that's relevant at all.","conclusion":"word counts on essays are stupid and should be gotten rid of."}
{"id":"eed70b35-4ebb-4e74-9b3e-1fd186efa3cd","argument":"I define political intelligence as the ability to get others to believe as you do. I just finished reading the biography of Roger Ailes and it struck me he and the rest of the people at Fox News are incredibly good at what they do. No other media organization has as much influence on politics and public opinion as Fox News does. This isn't to say that I align politically with the network, or that what I think they do is anywhere near fair, balanced, or good for the country. Even their hard news anchors are ideologues that present information in a manipulative way. Basically I think the people at Fox News are geniuses. They have an agenda, and are able to read the conservative zeitgeist to speak to that agenda influence in a way that is unmatched by any other media org.","conclusion":"Fox News anchors and producers make up the most politiically intelligent media group in America Today"}
{"id":"c5066e73-9c1b-46be-be0e-c1ba1eb18bad","argument":"The ITV debate audience laughed when Boris Johnson said that the truth was important in politics, indicating scepticism towards the Conservative Party leader.","conclusion":"58% of the British public have a negative view of Boris Johnson, whose favourability score is -27."}
{"id":"9a49a7c2-9587-4593-80f6-fd0fe524ae9d","argument":"After a written test and a driving test designed by the state I was issued a motorcycle endorsement by the state of Mississippi that allows me to operate a motorcycle on public roads. Other than a helmet, there is zero protection from injuring myself in the event of an accident. To further my argument, some states don't even require motorcyclists to wear a helmet. However, if I am in my ~2 ton suv with multiple airbags that has met the federally regulated requirements to be considered a passenger vehicle and im on a road even with a speed limit of 25 mph, I can be issued a citation for not wearing a seat belt. The same state that allows me to drive an unsafe motor with two wheels should not be allowed to cite me for not wearing a seat belt in a car","conclusion":"Because I can drive a motorcycle, I shouldn't have to wear a seat belt in my car."}
{"id":"8465e48e-5ca4-4655-a3e9-fae0f391d301","argument":"Since January 2017, the US has seen about 4,296 protests most of which had no reports of violence.","conclusion":"Violent protests aren't the norm everywhere, but gain the most publicity."}
{"id":"deeafdd6-07c2-4fea-b642-6955444545dc","argument":"What I like Edward and jet. Jet is interesting, and has a nice backstory, if a little cliche. Edward is just fun, and I like her zaniness. The animation. Good god, it's beautiful, and some of sunrise's best work. The dub. Yeah, it is the gold standard when it comes to dubs, and I can see why. The music. Yoko motherfuckin' Kano, nuff said. The finale. It, like most episodes, starts great, but unlike other episodes, ends phenomenally. . What I don't like Every episode ends in an anticlimax aside from the finale . Take for example the episode with the floating super killer. I thought it was great at first. The killer seems to have a ulterior motive, as he wants to kill spike just for seeing him, so there is a mystery building. There's suspense, action, and a big setup for an awesome climax AND We find out the killer has a mind of a child and is just crazy And then he gets hit with a knife even though no bullets hurt him and is squished by a marching animatronic. It honestly feels rushed. And a lot of episodes are like this. Lots of buildup and climax to no resolution. Some could have been cut entirely to give episodes like this a second episode, which I think would have helped. I can't stand Faye. She is unhelpful, hurtful, lying, and toxic. Now that's fine in a character, if you put her in that light, but the show seems to think she's sympathetic or tragic, when we are given no points to sympathize with. She steals money, never brings in any, saying she's keeping what she makes, and when she does steal it, she doesn't try to ease her debt, she gambles it away. And yet she's still allowed on the ship like nothing happens. At least give her some likable qualities. Okay, I don't hate spike, but I don't get his immense praise. He's cool I guess, but he's more like a walking quote machine. Sure, some of his sayings are poignant, but the majority it just seems silly stuff you'd see on a cheesy motivational poster. His backstory is the most confusing though. He was part of a coup, but then, the coup was found out, or it didn't start yet or something, but he didn't sabotage anything, but everyone is trying to kill him, and then vicious sees him once, and then we never see him again until the end, so I don't even know who vicious is outside his name. It's just a mess, and what I did get a man who was connected to the mob, trying to escape his past didn't seem all too original either. Edward's goodbye. I've never seen a bigger fuck you to a cool character as that. The second to last episode, right before the finale, she just leaves. No, goodbye, you were good friends or something, just running off? Nothing important happens after she joined and nothing important happened until after she left. It made her feel pointless. Why have her their in the first place. None of the characters even mention her in the finale. It's like she didn't exist, and she was my favorite character. It kind of pisses me off we get all these episodes learning about the character to just not have it matter. . I've asked around a lot, but most of the responses were you just watched it wrong or you just don't like it because it's popular but I genuinely do want to like this series. So, am I missing some deeper messages, are my points bullshit, or is it just a matter of taste?","conclusion":"I don't like cowboy bebop."}
{"id":"ff6b84b0-5189-4c85-b0d9-7bc93bc7ce71","argument":"Without Christianity, there may never have be the cantata, the concerto, or the symphony. Handel Vivaldi and Bach were Christians who worked to honor God with their work","conclusion":"Religion has been one of the greatest sources for artistic expression in all of Human history."}
{"id":"9f9cec8c-6b2a-4ca2-b8d4-131d201340e5","argument":"Cities such as New York have incredibly high rent costs; rent is on average $1,638 for a 2-bedroom apartment, and can be as high as $3,895 for the same depending on location. Renting out rooms, or their entire apartment while they are away, will be a vital\/much-needed source of supplementary income for some New York residents.","conclusion":"Airbnb's services enable the previously-difficult opportunity for homeowners and tenants to employ their property rights to generate income."}
{"id":"4b18d7b3-18ed-4cac-a1af-a5a78a785ebe","argument":"I'm house sitting for my mother this weekend, and she left the key under the mat. I realized that if someone wanted to break in without kicking anything down or making too much noise, they could have easily guessed there might be a spare key there. The fact is, leaving your spare key under the mat is simply cliche. We see it in cartoons, TV shows, and far too many people do it. The mat is not an effective hiding place. I'm sure that most of the people reading this have hidden or taken a key from under their welcome mat at some point.","conclusion":"Hiding a spare key under the welcome mat is not secure. It is too commonly done and is easy to guess."}
{"id":"58506e01-3770-4f7f-8f9b-6a42a23cf078","argument":"In my mind having to have car insurance to be able to drive a car is absolutely absurd. I pay partially for the taxes to maintain the roads and I don't see why, if I wanted to, I shouldn't be able to drive legally WITHOUT car insurance. It seems to me that the argument is always something along the lines of oh, but Jack, don't you know that mandatory car insurance PROTECTS the innocents Don't you see that how mandatory car insurance provides that the victims have guaranteed compensations? Okay IF that is truly the case, and seeing how you think that requiring to have car insurance is a kind of protection for people in society, why don't we then pay for universal car insurance through our tax dollars then? At this point, they usually see this idea as ridiculous and then I say, If you think that is ridiculous, why NOT just make having car insurance a choice? I think that if the place that sold you the car was dumb enough to sell you car and have you get into an accident they should then have to cover the debt for being so stupid. I would again like to emphasize that this is not a critique of insurance but rather my critique of mandatory car insurance. I am willing to clarify any confusion you may have. I just feel like everyone I tell this opinion to thinks that I'm crazy, but I think it's perfectly reasonable.  Being that there are some people who think that everyone requires you to have car insurance I would now like to present my defense of the voluntary insurance New Hampshire The only instance in which you HAVE to pay for car insurance, which I think is reasonable here under the Mandatory Insurance Filing SR 22 What say you now ? Also, all that I'm REALLY saying is that it would be more consistent to either think we should have a voluntary car insurance for the most part or b universal car insurance. Personally, I think it should be voluntary, with the exception of frequent DUI's, who shouldn't even be driving in the first place, or with someone who has been in a serious accident, which, if they can prove with a good driving record for some amount of time, should be able to drive without car insurance. Is my position clear now?","conclusion":"I think that car insurance should not be mandatory"}
{"id":"c73c2b5d-54c2-4d5d-8a8d-66c62d7c9929","argument":"Providing access to birth control empowers women with more control over their bodies. Historically women have often suffered more because of restrictive policies related to reproduction abortion laws, restrictions on birth control purchases, parental consent policies. Men often don\u2019t have to face the consequences of their actions. Condom distribution encourages the responsibility of men and increases choices for women. It can also establish condom use as the norm, not something that women continually have to negotiate, often from a position of weakness.","conclusion":"Providing access to birth control empowers women with more control over their bodies. Historically ..."}
{"id":"99dc0a92-c1c5-47b5-8612-7f60f3f6d336","argument":"Corporations may be unwilling to associate themselves with the political goals of the LGBTQ+ community, which often align against conservative political forces. Since corporations sympathise with the economic platforms of conservative political actors, they may put pressure on pride events to ignore important political causes for the LGBTQ+ community.","conclusion":"Corporate aims are at odds with the aims of the community."}
{"id":"141f9762-270b-4347-b375-aaba8a6a3742","argument":"In the gun control debate I often see the position that gun ownership is a necessary defense against a tyrannical government. The premise seems to be that if citizens are armed then they can defend themselves in the event of their government becoming despotic. This line of thought is often in the context of the American Revolution, but my belief is that for individual ownership of weaponry to be an effective deterrent to tyranny individuals must be able to own weapons comparable to the tyrannical regime. In the modern day this would mean weapons such as tanks, mortars, chemical weapons, explosives, up to and including nuclear warheads. Without these weapons small arms alone will not be an effective deterrent to a military attack by the government. Please note I am not actually debating my position on gun control, but much more narrowly arguing against the idea that gun ownership prevents government tyranny. Please","conclusion":"arguments for 2nd amendment protections that rely on the premise: \"a well-armed populace is the best defense against tyranny\" are irrevocably flawed in the modern age"}
{"id":"f6a15d51-005f-4984-9a03-627302e22066","argument":"An example in the UK is Sexual education, which is taught only after a certain age is reached, with parental consent, and at a level appropriate for that age range.","conclusion":"Parents' concerns could be relieved by teaching sensitive topics sensibly to reduce any damage to the children."}
{"id":"16a9f6a8-ec32-47a9-aa41-682dc7004c62","argument":"I don't have a lot of experience with drugs. I only tried alchool and Weed. I drink occasionally with friends and i can enjoy it. About weed, i stopped smoking a few years ago, because it never felt that good, and i don't enjoy the high of weed tha much. It gives me something like a sleeping effect and i don't like it. However when i read about LSD it sounded amazing, and i read that it has almost no side effects or something like that, i don't know if i understood properly. Anyway if you have any experience about it, are there any negative sides about it or any reason why you would not reccomend it?","conclusion":"I've only heard good things about LSD and i really want to try it."}
{"id":"8e8e4f01-0211-4508-91aa-ff91700cd655","argument":"The Bible contains ethical and sometimes even scientific principles which are far ahead of their time. e.g. Exodus 20:12; Leviticus 11:28; Deuteronomy 22:25; Job 26:7; Matthew 5:44; Galatians 3:28","conclusion":"The existence of the Bible, as the word of God, provides evidence for the existence of God."}
{"id":"adc22dd8-d24c-41a2-b032-5b33e698dddf","argument":"The prohibition of flag burning prevents the breaches of peace that are prompted by such protests. Given that the flag does enjoy such respect amongst the citizens, those near such an act of desecration might rightly be angered. The stimulation of shock and outrage in the immediate audience is in fact the intention of the protestor. It is not necessary to condone the actions of an audience that might physically assault the protestor. Yet, it suffices to note that flag burning amounts to inciting a breach of the peace. Most societies generally prohibit this form of incitement. A ban on flag burning merely informs a potential protestor that such desecration is likely to lead to a breach of peace and is properly prohibited within the ambit of an existing offence.","conclusion":"The prohibition of flag burning prevents the breaches of peace that are prompted by such protests. G..."}
{"id":"d423b2de-cab8-4a37-8a85-9701ad20e729","argument":"In a true free society, individuals must take responsibility for their actions. If they do no harm to others or others property the rest of us should have no problem with individual choice.","conclusion":"It should be up to the individual to decide whether the risk is worth taking."}
{"id":"c9a180d4-7510-4ef9-91e6-2b32819fbe0d","argument":"Detailed knowledge of peoples' movements helps epidemiologists identify key individuals and sites in the spread of a disease allowing for better medical intervention.","conclusion":"The database would reduce harm to humans during natural disasters and epidemics."}
{"id":"866296fe-64ce-43bf-a135-f5133dc37169","argument":"Other EU nations like Austria currently restrict EU migrants using existing EU laws. Theresa May merely chose not to do so when she was Home Secretary. Brexit was never necessary to restrict migration from the EU.","conclusion":"The UK already has the ability to control immigration. It has chosen not to. The fact that there is no enforcement of these rules in the UK is not the fault of of the EU."}
{"id":"fde62dad-feb8-4461-bb77-101b0b682552","argument":"Global earnings for all employees in New-York City increased by an average 3.32% from January to May 2019 after the increase in minimum wage in December 2018. There was no significant decrease in hours worked. NYC Hours & Earnings Data","conclusion":"There is no evidence to that effect in the cities and regions that increased the minimum wage."}
{"id":"52a15856-2d4a-48e4-acca-95c184a34954","argument":"Young people are already far more reckless and many will likely forego necessary protection or be peer pressured to ignore it","conclusion":"Lowering the age of consent could lead to a larger spread of STDs."}
{"id":"dfc4ddc3-22c2-4e8c-8d19-c6897897c7bb","argument":"The Nazis oppose LGBT rights, immigration, minority rights, women's rights and democracy. Their ideology is repugnant and must be opposed","conclusion":"Someone who promotes an inhumane ideology that stands for crimes against humanity should be reprimanded."}
{"id":"07c0ea22-9800-41cf-83ee-79d10d8b7924","argument":"At trial the prosecution testified that every time you run a specific patrol car's AVL GPS you get different information locations and speeds. You don't get the same information each time & the prosecution can keep running the data until they get data points that are most damning. The defense cannot do this and shows the AVL is unreliable.","conclusion":"The AVL system is inaccurate and prone to glitches. It should not be relied on for hard evidence."}
{"id":"33709c1e-bafe-47b2-9cc2-2b2a239fa6f7","argument":"I'll lead with the statement that I don't like dogs. I don't hate them, I'm not afraid of them, but I have no desire to ever own one, mainly because they are loud, they shed everywhere, and they smell bad. I'm also allergic. My boss has two dogs that are present in our office almost every day. We don't frequently have visitors here in person, but all of the employees here usually 3 5 of us spend a good portion of the day on the phone with clients. It's just embarrassing to have to stop a conference call because one or both of the dogs noticed a squirrel outside and decided to bark like crazy. Additionally, on the rare occasion that we do have clients, contractors, deliveries, or repair people, the dogs are as likely to bite them as not. All of the employees have been bitten at least once by each dog, and one of the contractors we partner with was bitten hard enough to draw blood and tear his pants. Unsurprisingly, he basically stopped working with us after that, which is quite possibly costing us business. The behavior of these specific dogs aside, not everyone is a dog person, and I feel like the rights of non dog people to enjoy a dog free workplace trump the rights of dog owners to bring their dogs to work. Allowing dogs at work should require unanimous approval by everyone at the office, and in the event that the office is client facing, dogs should not be permitted at all.","conclusion":"Offices that involve client interaction should not allow employees to bring their pets"}
{"id":"14543e3d-3724-44e8-9ce2-c4c15a788a65","argument":"This isn't to say that things can't be done with grassroots organizations or that there are zero democratically significant institutions. My point is that power seems to move so slowly because it is impeded by a handful of influential people in a way that renders most small acts of progress practically futile. Take gay marriage. How do you look at a group of people in any form of respectable or modern way that has to decided on the rights and humanity of another person by a vote? Who will the Supreme Court, so named, ever be to a gay couple but a handful of damming consequences that pretends their will makes you more or less worthy of being equal? Or explain to me how replacing my light bulbs impacts oil subsidies or going vegetarian changes industrial farming practices.","conclusion":"I don't think \"getting the word out\" really does shit and that ultimately a few players at the top have any real consequential influence on most things."}
{"id":"86cf2bab-da4b-4800-b662-4747131235ab","argument":"If God, or the gods, were good there would be no evil in the world. Disasters would not kill millions of innocents, disease and hunger would not claim the lives of children every day, war and genocide would not slaughter people indiscriminately as they have done for countless bloody millennia. The world is awash with blood, pain, and suffering. No loving God would make a world so imperfect and troubled.1 The world\u2019s ills are perfectly explained by the natural, amoral development of the Universe, of life, and of humanity. The reality of the Universe, however, is incompatible with a God of goodness, as He is conventionally described by today\u2019s predominant religions, which stem from the Abrahamic tradition. 1 Tooley, Michael. 2009. \u201cThe Problem of Evil\u201d. Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy. Available:","conclusion":"If there is a benevolent deity, then there should not be the kinds of evil observable in the world and He would likely show more interest in His creation than He appears to have done so far:"}
{"id":"e561db6d-97f1-4288-b38a-ba97f7329c30","argument":"Human genes can be transferred into mice. These 'humanized mice' are used to study diseases and drugs, in a way which closely replicates results that might be obtained from human testing.","conclusion":"Animals often have radically different physiologies from one another, let alone people."}
{"id":"7a04a1bf-38d4-4fec-8e84-b315d5282958","argument":"In the wake of 'Exodus' coming out and the controversy about the white cast a lot of people have been going back and recommending 'The Prince of Egypt' as a movie much better representation. But it makes me uncomfortable because it's an almost all white voice cast. I really don't understand why having white people playing POC is something that's okay in an animated film and not just okay but is actively being praised. if Christian Bale and Joel Edgerton had make up on to make them seem darker everyone would agree it was awful, if it's a cartoon it's okay. I don't get the steps in between, would CGI be okay? If they were motion captured would it be okay? If it was a live action movie but instead of make up they had a CGI character where a white actor played a POC would that be as bad? I tried talking to someone about this on Twitter but they just called me an idiot. We have drawn a line in the sand on blackface being wrong but an animated movie where POC are portrayed by white ppl is still praise worthy. It still takes work away from POC actors and it's still POC having their media portrayal controlled by white people. I know comparing it to blackface is extreme because there is a long history of it being used to popularise horrible stereotypes and dehumanise but this seems like close cousins to it. And the fact that it's a positive portrayal in 'Prince of Egypt' doesn't really work as an excuse because no one would excuse black face even if it was a positive portrayal.","conclusion":"I don't think 'The Prince of Egypt' should get praise for its diversity."}
{"id":"268f43a8-447b-4ab3-a22d-6bc3cd6dab27","argument":"As I see it, the problem we have with police brutality in the US is strongly underpinned by the fact that police in general have demonstrated that they can't be trusted to adequately manage their use of typically lethal methods of force. That's not even unexpected as far as humans go managing high stress situations like that where you're running on adrenaline is a whole different ballgame than practicing at a shooting range. In addition to that, there are plenty of other methods that are designed to incapacitate rather than kill, and in high adrenaline situations where split second decisions are king, that seems like it can mean the difference between alive and dead. As such, I can't see a reason to continue giving the police access to the standard sidearms etc. that they have now, especially not the military grade weaponry. EDIT FOR CHANGE This comment at least convinced me that disarmament isn't the right conversation to be having at this point in time.","conclusion":"The police can't be trusted to manage their access to lethal force and therefore shouldn't have it."}
{"id":"31c3987a-e5d1-4ca1-b827-b541be1b732f","argument":"Just as a distinction, I\u2019d like to clarify that I\u2019m not talking about the death penalty. The death penalty carries a myriad of its own problems and its implementation is a shitshow. I\u2019m purely talking about people feeling and wanting others to die. So this is something I\u2019ve seen a lot in relation to XXXTentacion\u2019s untimely death. There are people who are saying shit like \u201cI\u2019m glad he\u2019s dead\u201d and others saying that \u201cyou shouldn\u2019t wish for anyone\u2019s death etc.\u201d I say fuck that. This is a quote about what XXX did to his pregnant wife The first incident of domestic violence occurred about two weeks later. He slapped her and broke her iPhone 6S, because she had complimented a male friend on his new jewelry. XXXTentacion later repaired the phone. Later that day, XXXTentacion left the room and returned with two grilling implements\u2014a \u201cbarbecue pitchfork\u201d and a \u201cbarbecue cleaner,\u201d she said\u2014and told her to pick between them, because he was going to put one of them in her vagina. She chose the fork. He told her to undress. He was lightly dragging the tool against her inner thigh when she passed out. He did not penetrate her with it. Following that incident, XXXTentacion began to act violently toward her often. Around July 2016, the couple moved to Orlando. When asked during the deposition to \u201cpinpoint the days he threatened to kill you,\u201d the reported victim responded, \u201cWell, when we lived in Orlando, it was literally like every day.\u201d Wishing for someone to die after doing something like this is totally fine. XXXTentacion is a disgusting person and I\u2019m totally fine with him being shot down. I don\u2019t care that he\u2019s young or whatever, there is no possible justification for what he did. Sorry I\u2019m getting a bit off track. I think it\u2019s fine to wish for others to be dead if it\u2019s justifiable. I don\u2019t think the \u201cThat makes you as bad as them\u201d argument makes sense. It\u2019s sorta like emotional self defense for lack of a better term. If someone punches you and you punch them, you\u2019re not as bad as them. If you wish for a random person to be dead, you\u2019re a bad person. If you wish for someone who commits a heinous crime like XXX, Ted Bundy, Hitler, etc. to die, you\u2019re not as bad as them.","conclusion":"Wishing for someone to die isn\u2019t inherently immoral and many people deserve to die."}
{"id":"369b7602-fa7e-4341-b93a-17b3581627e4","argument":"Operations to alter the size or appearance of children\u2019s genitals risk incontinence, scarring, lack of sensation, and psychological trauma. The procedures are irreversible, nerves that are severed cannot regrow, and scar tissue can limit options for future surgery.","conclusion":"Genital reshaping procedures can inflict psychological harm on intersex patients."}
{"id":"9a6200c9-2222-4826-9443-13846a68443b","argument":"I know there are some people who argue that it does not. I want to get more the opinion of the people who argue that it does not. The choices and decisions you make are a sum of past recollections of your experiences and things you have witnessed. You are defined by your past, but that does not mean you cannot change your opinion on a choice. You have an idle path of direction based on your experiences, and it will take a little extra effort to change from your idle path. So I am curious, why WON'T your past define you? What circumstances would make it so. Edit I thank you guys for your thorough comments, I understand this phrase is not really a black white type of quote. That being said and reiterated clarified quite a few issues I had with the phrase.","conclusion":"Your past defines you."}
{"id":"682d206a-d266-4520-80d1-1c32fd706dc2","argument":"French bank BNP Paribas - one of the world's biggest banks - admitted that the technology underpinning Bitcoin has the potential to make existing banks redundant.","conclusion":"Bitcoins may reduce reliance on the current banking system by making their function as an intermediary obsolete and thus leading to a wealth of benefits."}
{"id":"1110ee4c-814f-4784-acd4-e585cd88677d","argument":"I understand that 'tribalized' is the simple past tense and past participle of 'tribalize', and 'tribalize' is to make tribal and 'tribal' is of or relating to tribes all wiktionary . That hasn't really gotten me anywhere, has it? Maybe the reason is because that's how definitions work, it would be odd to define 'tribalized' as the past tense or past participle of making something of or relating to socially, ethnically or politically cohesive groups of people. But what if we just cut to the chase, tell me how the word relates to the root and then define the root Tribalized Past tense, transitive verb, of or relating to Tribes a socially, ethnically and politically cohesive group of people. I am coming at this from as a math person, I look at this as basic factorization, I know you word people get frustrated when people like me do this, but that's why we have this sub.","conclusion":"Dictionary definitions should not include the root of the word."}
{"id":"ff8a3e99-dee4-4622-b420-e15361c2fc65","argument":"Every time I see someone accusing another of cultural appropriation it makes my eyes roll, honestly. Here's the thing, you can't live in a multicultural society where everyone can enjoy every culture and have cultural segregation at the same time. Saying only culture X is allowed to do Y goes against the very claim that diversity is a strength and to embrace other cultures. I know that people are concerned that someone might wear or sell something food, art or anything to ridicule another culture. But here's the thing. A person needs to be a special kind of moron to do it. Imagine spending money either making or buying online, wearing it and HOPE that other people will ridicule that person for wearing it. I can't even comprehend how someone would find joy in mocking another culture and going so far and turn themselves in the object of the ridicule in their minds . So, when you see someone eating, selling, wearing something from other cultures, chances are they are doing this because they LIKE said culture. Only a complete moron would do it because they hate it. Also, cultural apropriation becomes a colossal mess the moment you start to really think about it? 1 Is any culture only to be done and enjoyed by the people it originated? Does this apply to every culture or just some? 2 Does a person need permission to dress, eat, cook, paint, etc. something from another culture? Who would give such permission? Any person from that culture? the president? Does it have expiration date? Can it be revoked at any time for no reason? I can understand that in some cases a person does not wish to see their culture as a product . But, the thing is that everything is a product in this day and age. Everything. No exceptions. Faith, health, security, transport, entertainment, clothing, food, art and so on. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Cultural Appropriation claims are mostly nonsense"}
{"id":"28068fb2-8c7f-40b2-8821-45f753b60ed4","argument":"The title states it simple enough. I realize that enjoying movies and actors is widely subjective. I get that not everyone is going to enjoy a particular movie or show. That being said, I find it difficult to see any point in Mr. Kutcher's career where he has A exhibited A list or even B list talent and B garnered a part for any other reason than his off screen antics. I bring this up because I couldn't even make it through a few minutes of 'Jobs,' and I'm angry that they gave Mr. Twitter the part. The producers could have gone with a second year drama student from NYU and gotten a much better result. Stipulations I realize that actors are sometimes limited by the scripts they are given I realize that there are other actors actresses in Hollywood that have careers fabricated by their publicity agents I realize he is not the first nor will he be the last low talent actor to be given a part that should have been given to someone with a much higher caliber of skill. I have not seen all of Mr. Kutcher's catalog. I value my time more than that. Feel free to change my view on Ashton Kutcher. gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than just downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I believe Ashton Kutcher's career is due to his fabricated social media persona and not his non-existent talent."}
{"id":"595688c1-f330-4a88-b5d2-1970460f0679","argument":"Receiving development aid strengthens already dominant political coalitions by enabling them to produce tangible results, expand their influence and stay in power. Hence, aid will only push democratisation if those in power are already working towards it - otherwise, it will simply strengthen dictators.","conclusion":"Foreign aid does not cause democratic reforms, it simply reinforces already ongoing domestic developments - both towards more democratic and more authoritarian politics."}
{"id":"3d4b254b-772f-474b-b08f-4434b74948ac","argument":"I believe that full legalization of recreational marijuana is the best way to discourage use of it. It would become so expensive that only the rich could obtain it. FDA regulations could make sure that what is in it is actually marijuana and only marijuana, instead of the PCP and other drug laced stuff you can buy on the street. Also, placing special taxes on the stuff could help the government make a pretty penny off what is, by some estimates, the most lucrative cash crop in America. Legalization would also put street dealers out of business, opening the door for legitimate corporations.","conclusion":"I believe that pot is bad and that people should be discouraged from using it. The best way to do that is full legalization."}
{"id":"94e92023-1afc-433a-a16f-8e1acbb4c121","argument":"Some vaccines such as the polio vaccine caused people to get polio. These vaccines are tainted with simian monkey virus.","conclusion":"Vaccines can harm children more than the disease they are claimed to prevent."}
{"id":"f1e17f19-7976-41ba-a3ad-d0e948ed09f2","argument":"China has performed many human rights abuses against Tibet and does not deserve to be in control of the country. Chinese rule is effecting Tibetans negatively and human rights abuses are a main reason why Tibet should be free and not under China's rule.","conclusion":"China unjustly and brutally expelled Tibetan officials when it invaded"}
{"id":"9d09f4db-ce93-4299-a2ab-e6264dc68cf4","argument":"Journalists from the Boston Globe documented sexual abuse within the Catholic Church, which helped hold powerful institutions accountable for their actions.","conclusion":"By searching for and reporting truth, journalists function as an important accountability check."}
{"id":"72fe33a2-238a-45c7-8f77-b0719143fb14","argument":"A license would only standardize and enforce politically popular or desirable parenting practices, not \"good\" parenting practices. As the nature of \"good\" is 100% subjective, it would therefore be subject to the political whims of the times. i.e. a christian government may think a good parent takes kids to church, a liberal government may think religion kills critical thinking.","conclusion":"A public licensing body would be subject to the whims of the ruling party or the various opinions and standpoints of the ruling elite."}
{"id":"0a1d591c-824e-426f-bb4b-48ccc594213b","argument":"The warmth contained by the socks helps your body thermoregulate during sleep reducing night sweats or hot flashes.","conclusion":"Wearing socks in bed increases blood flow to feet and heat loss through the skin."}
{"id":"d575d40b-2c27-43eb-a275-855a2acc922c","argument":"I believe a student's capabilities should be judged depending on their ability to perform in a hypothetical future job. Also, I consider tests to be any type of written or oral evaluation in which one or more prompts have to be answered in a short time span less than 4 hours . This being said, these are the two main reasons why I believe most tests cannot accurately determine a student's capabilities gt Time in most jobs, the employee is usually given several days to complete his her task. In tests, however, students are given a few hours, at most. I am aware that some professions such as doctors need rapid completion of tasks, but I believe that only a small number of jobs have this issue. gt Memory most tests require you to learn an extensive amount of facts by memory only when, during a real job, you would have time and resources to search for such information on the internet. In some cases, all you need to get a 100 is just a really good memory. To conclude, I believe tests should be replaced by assignments, oral presentations or written essays as these are much more similar to most jobs than tests are.","conclusion":"Most tests cannot accurately analyze a student's capabilities"}
{"id":"3d37cbf2-9c59-4b98-b0aa-f17fbd5482a9","argument":"There is a strong case that the 14th amendment of the constitution provides illegal immigrants with equal protection under the law, including in regards to the provision of driver's licenses. Such an interpretation should stand above public opinion.","conclusion":"Public opinion is irrelevant to legal\/constitutional interpretations on providing driver's licenses to illegal immigrants."}
{"id":"46742adc-1538-4f08-bba1-99db875513f5","argument":"Statistics show that mental health conditions in children are rising dramatically Yet the number of children believing in myths like Santa has remained steady This implies that belief in myths like Santa is not a significant cause of mental health issues.","conclusion":"Mental health trends do not seem to correlate with belief in childhood myths and any daydreaming they induce."}
{"id":"fd924d6e-dd19-4184-8628-aacd1d5c66ea","argument":"This has earned Johnson the reputation of a Conservative who can appeal to voters usually loyal to other parties which is an important skill for the Conservative Party. This ability will help the Conservative party win favour with a wider portion of the UK population.","conclusion":"Johnson has previously succeeded in winning elections in traditionally Labour-leaning cities, such as London in 2008."}
{"id":"1da09ef1-d3e0-4c54-ae25-0ed2ac9284cd","argument":"For the problem of evil to imply that God does not exist, one would have to be talking about a God that, if he existed, would not allow evil in the world.","conclusion":"The problem of evil implies that God does not exist."}
{"id":"433224dd-0962-4772-bb13-51031b0ca2d5","argument":"While congressional approval is not a promise of limits on pardons, it will provide additional views of impacts and reasons.","conclusion":"We can solve that problem by making pardons for those connected to the president contingent on Congressional approval."}
{"id":"0d2611a7-fc23-4635-8f70-64673835f67c","argument":"In New Zealand's 1981 election the National Party became the government as it won the most electoral seats despite only getting 38.8% of the public's vote pg 94.","conclusion":"This can result in outcomes where the majority of the public did not vote for the political party which forms the government."}
{"id":"1d3017cb-c50d-405c-b8e6-c7e784caa2a9","argument":"By getting these metals into foreign markets \"unification could help provide more than 5 trillion dollars worth of economic potential, providing millions of jobs.\"","conclusion":"NK also possesses the richest deposit of rare earth metals in the world estimated up to 10 trillion dollars"}
{"id":"382d6ce7-ffd2-41ad-bb72-b8f30d5c9b98","argument":"If minors need permission to get a bodily change such as a tattoo, which is less significant, then they shouldn\u2019t be allowed to make an irreversible change such as this.","conclusion":"Minors can lack the emotional maturity to make such a permanent life changing decision."}
{"id":"ae7672fe-d259-4058-a0d4-d7e9d36890cc","argument":"Although it is good that the female characters are strong, this portrayal is more two dimensional than the multitude of portrayals of men in the Lord of the Rings. Male characters are developed whether they are weak, strong, foolish, wise etc. Only strong women are given character development within the books.","conclusion":"While the female characters in the Lord of the Rings are excellent, it still limits the representation available for women compared to the male characters one could identify with."}
{"id":"1d24065a-b0a5-4655-951d-c5769cf983c3","argument":"So, Democrats aren't exactly in a position to stonewall and avoid nominating someone to the Supreme Court in the same way Republicans have, BUT, in theory, if it were possible it would be justifiable for democrats to do so in return. The Republicans had preempted conversations about nominating someone to the Supreme Court after Scalia's death with a blanket refusal, regardless of what names were going to be put forth. That refusal has persisted until today and will likely continue until Trump is in office. Two reasons for their course of conduct I'm aware of are Being an election year, they thought we should wait until the people decide on their new president and leave the decision up to the next President. There was a concern that whatever justice would've been appointed would not have supported their viewpoints on the court and result in a liberal leaning court. Obviously, the Supreme Court is not meant to be a political bloc, but I think pretending it is completely neutral of politics is a fiction. While there are principled reasons to abide by the rules, I think after a certain point the principles must be balanced against the cost. Therefore, the reasons I believe that democrats would've been justified in stonewalling Supreme Court nominations is that If democrats genuinely believe they are on the right side of issues, they have a moral obligation to see to it that those issues are adjudicated in a way that is in line with their beliefs see abortion, gay marriage, guns, citizens united, etc. . The Scalia vacancy belongs to the Obama administration and was effectively stolen. Republicans have no right to expect the democrats to abide by the rules when they blatantly took advantage of the system to further their agenda, just because now they are the ones with a President in the White House. The Supreme Court's neutrality is a facade so it makes sense to hold out for a justice that aligns with democrat values. I don't know that I believe this would be the best course of action, I'm merely of the opinion it's a justifiable course of action. I would like my view changed because I do value sticking to one's principles in the face of challenges. However, it seems patently unfair to democrats and their constituents to try to remain principled and be taken advantage of as a result of it without resorting to similar tactics. EDIT Fixed my butchered title. Sorry about that.  From a liberal standpoint, democrats would, hypothetically, be justified in stonewalling Supreme Court nominations by a President Trump, in lieu of the similar Republican conduct.","conclusion":"From a liberal standpoint, democrats stonewalling Supreme Court nominations by a President Trump would be hypothetically be justifiable in lieu of the similar Republican conduct."}
{"id":"773748a3-ff28-4db9-9f04-811339134ff7","argument":"First of all, the amount of people including pregnant women, or even those who have already had kids who misunderstand what a due date is is staggering. It is NOT the day by which your baby should be born that last call date is actually 1 2 weeks later. The due date is simply an average date in the middle of the average birth period. Handing a woman a single due date is like saying because she is a woman, she will be 5'4 and have a 28 day menstrual cycle. The EDD is just a number that reflects averages, NOT health or genetics. I know many although not all professionals understand a due date is just an average, but most nobody else does. Instead of a single date to personally stress over and be nagged by friends and family over, I suggest women be given EITHER A due period Congratulations Sally Jo, your baby will probably come between July 15th and August 6th INSTEAD of being given a July 25th EDD , or A TRUE due by date, last call style, set as far back as week 42. Statistically almost no women make it this far, so as the culture shifts to virtually nobody making it to their due date , people will stop expecting pestering a mom about giving birth on or by a point in time. Neither of these practices would change the woman's actual care routine from what it is now. If she is gestating longer, into the 41st week or whatever, she'd still be up for the same extra checkups and monitoring she has with our current system. Women could still elect to be induced at a developmentally appropriate time as the days went on if they wanted. It would simply get people to shut up, stop everyone from pestering and focusing on a due date, making the same dumb jokes every 3 minutes, and take that extra stress off the mom. Change my view.","conclusion":"We need to stop giving pregnant women a \"due date\"."}
{"id":"250aabd6-3dce-4a47-88a0-5b40941e0f7a","argument":"The cultivation method for cash crops promoted by the Europeans, monoculture, resulted in the long term depletion of soil inhibiting current agricultural development in the former colonies.","conclusion":"During the colonial time, countries in the Global South have been deprived of natural resources, land and human capital."}
{"id":"f80e06e2-25ff-4ef7-8ed4-ecc43ffb1a69","argument":"The purpose of prescription drugs must be remembered. Arguably they prevent against the development of serious disease and hence save both the patients the trauma of falling seriously ill and the National Health Service the cost of people falling seriously ill. Thinking about what the medicine prevents and the bigger picture makes the miniscule costs of prescription drugs in comparison seem quite appealing.","conclusion":"The price of prescription drugs is fair in proportion to what they prevent."}
{"id":"bcb1944f-9ae4-4c04-82a7-695e719a2f94","argument":"The Namibian government decided to allow the slaughter of a black rhino as a fundraising mechanism, but those funds will not necessarily go back to black rhino conservation as some claim. Instead, they will go into a general pot of money allocated to all manner of projects including those that have nothing to do with rhinos, or which could even be harmful to rhinos, such as \u201crural development.\u201d","conclusion":"Beyond the ethical or moral issues, there are still many concerns about trophy hunting that currently limit its use as a conservation tool. One of the biggest problems is that the revenue it generates often goes to the private sector rather than distributing benefits to conservation and local communities."}
{"id":"6a857094-eb2c-4925-9c73-dd687c26b4a7","argument":"Student evaluations are systematically biased against women Students in general show more respect for male faculty members than women, who are are expected to do and give more in order to be viewed positively by students.","conclusion":"Society gives preferential treatment to men and contributes to them being more powerful than women through higher salaries or by giving them more educational opportunities."}
{"id":"6cf826b8-83d4-45ba-8455-97837cf7e08a","argument":"If God took people's ability to do wrong away and we were cognizant of this we would call him a horrible oppressive figure that takes people's freedom away, and we'd instead be arguing why a good God would be so oppressive. If a parent was so controlling of they're child's behavior that they were incapable of ever doing anything wrong we'd at best call them a helicopter parent and at worst call them horribly abusive.","conclusion":"Pharaoh and the Egyptians were killing all the male children of the Israelites. God did this to protect the Israelites from this oppression, and gave Pharaoh the option to stop this from happening"}
{"id":"a5eee2d8-33c0-4118-a97e-33f82a6b4eb1","argument":"Our notions of identity as related to time would be disrupted. ie: \"I am middle-aged.\", \"I should choose a career by a certain age.\", \"Is being a great great great grandfather different from being a grandfather?\"","conclusion":"Changing this reality could lead us to mental health issues, as humans have always been mortal."}
{"id":"f1e8bda8-dbd1-4216-aa79-0a3dbd1478d6","argument":"Richard Sipe, an expert in clergy celibacy culture and sexual abuse, concluded from reading 1,500 case studies that around half of all priests were not leading celibate lives.","conclusion":"There is well-documented evidence that priests have had children and intimate relationships."}
{"id":"713136c0-7176-4633-b9ef-7dd7c03bc7fa","argument":"In logic, the law of non-contradiction states that contradictory propositions cannot both be true, e. g. the two propositions \"A is B\" and \"A is not B\" are mutually exclusive.","conclusion":"If even one of those other religions is correct then Jesus is not the Messiah. Similarly, if Jesus is Messiah then all of those other religions are wrong."}
{"id":"ead3d1db-25b4-4071-a819-6d91cfb3b179","argument":"I believe, considering the near constant state of war the human race has been in since pretty much recorded history has started, peace can't possibly be achieved completely. Countries and groups of people will always hold grudges decades, or even centuries after a specific conflict is over. We will always find new things to war and argue over, as history has proven, whether through religion, ideology, or oil, among other things. With this, I somewhat doubt we'd ever be able to get world peace, short of having some Sci Fi event where our minds become one being or something. Perhaps I am just overly cynical, who knows.","conclusion":"Peace on a world scale is not feasible."}
{"id":"95c88c37-9f59-4b05-b3c2-18710cb6f946","argument":"The employment prospects created by a university degree are substantial, and many lines of work are only available to university graduates. True merit should define the ability to attend university, not the accident of birth. With the institution of fees, access becomes more difficult, and will certainly lead to lower attendance by poorer groups. This serves to lock people into the economic situation when they are born, as getting out is much more difficult when denied access to most high\u00adincome jobs.5 5 Tribune Opinion. 2005. \u201cEducation Paves Way Out of Poverty\u201d. Greeley Tribune\u200b . Available:","conclusion":"Individuals have a right to equal opportunities that free university provides."}
{"id":"a14a24aa-14a3-489e-82f0-6cce07fb86a4","argument":"The Hogwarts teachers hosted The Triwizard Tournament in 1994, even though the tournament was renowned for being extremely dangerous, and had previously resulted in the death of its participants.","conclusion":"At Hogwarts, teenagers are taught in class how to utilize deadly magic, work with plants whose scream can kill and brew chemical weapons-level potions."}
{"id":"d19dc54e-706b-4370-8e54-1a2a75c45093","argument":"The first objection on everyone's lips is of course that they can't help it. But a couple of counter objections to that If a person is generally mean selfish angry controlling assholish by nature, isn't it also the case that they can't help it either? What does it mean to say that someone can help it? What would that even look like? Someone without a medical term for their shittiness evidently can't want to help it, if you want to look at it that way. Whether or not someone can help it isn't really the point getting stabbed in the face by someone with a stab you in the face itis wouldn't be any the less painful than getting stabbed in the face by anyone else, and we should avoid and protect ourselves from both to the same degree. I have ADHD, which means my task management skills are absolutely shit . I can't help it, I was born this way. There's meds and workarounds that help somewhat, but a neurotypical person on their worst day will still beat me on my best day. But whether I have a mental illness or am just a complete fucking ditz isn't anyone else's problem . Bottom line, the end result is that I'm quite incompetent at certain kinds of jobs, and if you hire me as, say, an air traffic controller, people are going to die. I don't think I have any right to feel discriminated against if you refuse to do so. By the same token, blind people can't help being blind, but we still don't let them drive By the same token, then, people with certain personality disorders for example, NPD are not competent to be decent to others regardless of the cause, and it is not unfair to ignore the cause when assessing the risk they pose. Alternatively, we should extend all the same tolerance and compassion to horrible people without a mental illness as we do to those with one. Look at the show Crazy Ex Girlfriend . The protagonist is consistently toxic and malicious to everyone around her, like some comic book villain. But because someone has drawn a post hoc medicalised bullseye around her set of behaviours, she is shown nothing but praise and Nth chances, despite continuing to be toxic and malicious at every opportunity. Having suffered half my life at the hands of someone like this, that attitude shits me to tears, and I think it's utterly misguided.","conclusion":"there's no useful distinction between having an unpleasant personality disorder and just having a shitty personality."}
{"id":"925341fa-8180-4726-ab70-69ed6a19a285","argument":"Title. I don't know how exactly that would be accomplished, perhaps by mixing the posts from one into the other for example, or something like that. My point is political discourse needs to come back. People on r politics constantly posting the same shit demonizing Trump over and over, and people on r T D believed that liberalism is a mental disorder, no seriously This is not helping anybody. Personally I am libertarian conservative, and a trump supporter. If that is relevant. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Political subreddits are becoming echo chambers, and there should be a way for liberal posts to have a change on r\/T_D, and conservative posts on r\/politics"}
{"id":"89111022-4d1c-4f66-9a56-a20e8ea1bdeb","argument":"Spanish Pacho\u0301n Navarro and the Turkish Catalburun are intentionally bred for a developmental defect: a cleft palate.","conclusion":"A number of purebred animals directly suffer from the characteristics they are bred for."}
{"id":"f330195a-be80-4c73-95f3-f6676556ca4d","argument":"Since 2014 Jeremy Hunt the health and social care secretary, has taken \u00a34.3bn from the NHS in England\u2019s capital budget.","conclusion":"Public satisfaction is partly falling due to the lack of funding in the NHS."}
{"id":"4796ed54-41a2-4ad3-8bfd-f171bca42e7d","argument":"As far as I understand the ideal libertarian utopian consists of fully privately owned capital and means of production. Moreover, since everything is private there is a mutual interest and profitability in respecting each other's property and rights. Thus law and resource administration is optimal and self regulated by the owners of said property, making government unnecessaryssary. I am basing the following reasoning on these assumptions. At the beginning of civilization, there was no government. Only a bunch of people who decided to stop being nomads and settle down to farm. In that sense, everyone was their own boss and all property must have been private . And there must have been a code of conduct to keep the peace and solve conflicts, which everyone agreed with. Perhaps society prospered for a while like this. But as we know, the first large civilizations were all some kind of monarchy, meaning that the self regulating utopias must have failed, if they ever existed. In other words, these early libertarian societies failed most likely because an individual got more power than the rest, and wanted to get even more. With more power he subdued the rest of society and instated himself as a ruler. Thus you have authoritarianism, as a result of the vacuum left by the anarchical libertarian society that preceeded it. Edit Thanks for all the responses. I'll be sure to answer to everyone eventually.","conclusion":"Libertarianism would eventually lead to authoritarianism"}
{"id":"a459d4b5-4c2f-4ceb-a572-5203fa954176","argument":"Chronic cocaine use causes multiple damaging health effects to the user, combined with an increased tolerance, leading to a snowball effect of deteriorating health.","conclusion":"Cocaine, a commonly-used illegal drug, has multiple negative health effects on the user."}
{"id":"fff2bd31-4160-428b-885f-56155268096e","argument":"I haven't talked to anyone about what I perceive about suicide, so I might be woefully ignorant, but I think in all but extremely rare cases suicide is completely selfish. This doesn't mean that I think people don't have the right to take their own life, that's another matter completely but it means that I think even if you say it's for some non selfish reason somehow, it boils down to being inherently selfish. Take this story for example. Now this story and the comments on it are what got me thinking about this whole matter, but the story boils down to the Mother didn't want to bother her anymore. While this seems to be for the Daughter's benefit in this case pausing to think for even a moment makes you realize how this all falls apart. She feels like she's a bother, but her Daughter obviously still cares about her since she starts crying when she finds out her Mom tried to commit suicide. The Mother ignores how her family might feel about her suicide, and the pain it could cause them and her friends because of her own emotions. Most cases of suicide I hear about are because of people's own emotions and how they just want to stop feeling pain, apathy, guilt, or whatever other negative emotion they're dealing with. I guess what my view boils down to is that unless you're committing suicide to save someone else jumping on a grenade taking a bullet, etc. it's selfish. Even then I guess it's possible to be doing that to avoid the pain of losing someone. Sorry this isn't a super well thought out post. I'll be active in the comments to clarify my views answer questions.","conclusion":"Suicide is generally selfish."}
{"id":"15814085-10e0-4618-a793-9c3b7680c9fc","argument":"Many of the Founding Fathers of the United States of America advocated very vocally for the highest degree of individual rights, and the protection of those rights. Thomas Jefferson was such an individual, and he was significantly skeptical of government.","conclusion":"Libertarianism was the philosophy of many US Founding Fathers e.g. Jefferson."}
{"id":"d26dac82-6e39-41cd-a130-fc3907b68017","argument":"As no 3rd party is being harmed during the act, it should be up to the consenting people involved to do whatever they want.","conclusion":"If a person consents to or asks to be eaten, it should be permissible to act on this."}
{"id":"385375d2-bfe3-493c-b0b3-056d50d3d63a","argument":"The United Nations Convention against Torture UNCAT which has 83 signatories and 169 parties, prohibits the use of torture around the world.","conclusion":"There are a variety of specific laws internationally that prohibit torture."}
{"id":"97f47746-1794-4490-ba79-96e9638db4bd","argument":"Gorillas feed off a very limited amount of food. Mountain Gorillas like 38 kinds of plants and Western Gorillas about 200, of the tens of thousands of plants in a rain forest.","conclusion":"The forests in which gorillas live do not die off when gorillas go extinct in these areas."}
{"id":"e5d03a3a-8076-4edd-b9a1-77ee5dbfc6ab","argument":"Mobil Chemical Company was sued for millions of dollars for advertising a range of \u201cdegradable\u201d garbage bags with claims they would break down into harmless particles even after they were buried in landfills, as it failed to provide any evidence of this.","conclusion":"Many companies have been sued for 'bogus green initiatives which not only cost them a significant amount of money, but also reduced their goodwill and customer reputation."}
{"id":"4c66e01e-ca53-409e-82d3-80e759d9440c","argument":"Anonymous is arguably the most famous group involved in internet vigilantism, Time magazine featured them as one of the \"100 Most Influential People in the World\".","conclusion":"Hacktivism is a form of hacking for socio-political purposes where hacking is the substance and form of activism."}
{"id":"be9c2a61-a5d0-4596-b7d9-3e63b5116f93","argument":"\"A Gallup Poll conducted in Bosnia and Herzegovina last year revealed that a majority of residents 66% believe their country's membership in the European Union would be a good thing.\"","conclusion":"A strong majority of Bosnians support membership in the EU."}
{"id":"7f1b11e3-a2cb-49e7-921c-d57545024aa2","argument":"I believe that the left wing parties of the world are not inherently parties of big government . My reasoning for this is that on social issues left wing liberal parties tend to favor less government control in peoples lives Ex gay rights, abortion, women's rights, etc. and that economically they only encourage government intervention in areas that the private sector fails Ex US bailout of 2009, environmental regulation, minimum wage, etc. . Also I believe that these government interventions prevent the tyranny that they are accused of trying to create. All in all left wing liberal parties actually favor less government in peoples lives socially and only encourage economic involvement to prevent exploitation whether it be of workers, the Earth or otherwise, to me that hardly sounds like big government politics and is actually miles away from looking anything like the governments of communist or socialist countries.","conclusion":"As a proud liberal, I believe that framing the Democratic party in the US, the Labour parties in Britain, Australia, Norway, etc. and other left-wing parties as \"parties of big government\" is fair."}
{"id":"9d607eaf-85b3-48dd-a670-85020011e62f","argument":"To understand all the important topics and cast a well educated vote, you have to either work in politics or study it to the point of obsession. Most people do not have time for this and in most cases learn very little about politics. Children have quite a lot of free time and could quite easily learn more about current politics than most people if they wanted to.","conclusion":"Children may not understand politics well, but neither do most voters"}
{"id":"de8b93c8-8fc6-4ac4-836c-2d65e57ead7f","argument":"Alright firstly girls and guys can be friends sure. What I'm talking about is real true BEST FRIENDS. Love except its not romantic. Constantly hanging out feeling like you are each other's number 1. Always feeling like you have each other's back. Is this really possible with a straight girl and guy? Don't feelings develop? Can a girl and guy even relate to each other 100 enough for this? For example my previous best friend had the exact same hobbies as I did, hobbies which have almost no girls in them. I bring it up because I recently changed where I live, and I miss having a real true best friend. I met a girl who has a boyfriend long distance and they seem serious and I don't think I'm in the mood for a relationship right now anyway, but I really enjoy hanging out with her, it feels like hanging out with my old best friend, and at least on my side so far it doesn't feel romantic. But I can't imagine if it ever escalates into true best friend mode that it will stay like that. I also wonder if I can really be best buds with her in general, we have things in common but aren't the perspectives of girls and guys in this world a bit too different to relate completely. Can a girl give a guy the things that a best guy buddy can?","conclusion":"Girls and guys can't be BEST friends"}
{"id":"fe0be819-3b99-4940-a8b9-6ea87390d67e","argument":"The act of bullfighting usually involves attempting to kill the bulls multiple times, and the bulls' bodies are mutilated afterwards time.com","conclusion":"The bulls suffer severe stress, and ultimately end up dying a slow and torturous death."}
{"id":"ad23f779-f769-4136-9135-80d5aab82ddc","argument":"In 2017, a study revealed that 86% of the civil legal problems reported by low-income Americans in the previous year received inadequate or no legal help.","conclusion":"The lack of lawyers has resulted in civil legal services that help people with housing, immigration, and workplace issues, being even more scarce"}
{"id":"31d568d1-8f39-4d24-92f1-03344130f7ce","argument":"Given the vast level of educational inequality in the United States, academic and extra-curricular achievement are unreliable indicators of intelligence and\/or merit.","conclusion":"Affirmative action means that intelligent, meritorious candidates who would otherwise be overlooked are given the opportunity to achieve their potential."}
{"id":"30db01f0-0cab-466e-953f-88316dd01b14","argument":"To begin, my interpretation of entertainers and athletes include mainly actors, actresses, and professional athletes. I am not downplaying their careers because I know how talented these individuals are and the work ethic they need to put into their craft to become successful. There is no doubt that it is extremely difficult to be doing what they are doing. On the other hand, having a job in the service profession is no easy feat either. The amount of schooling and training that needs to be done in order to enter the specific industry is comparable to that of any successful actor or athlete. For example, to become a specialized surgeon one would need 4 years of undergraduate schooling, 4 years of medical school, along with 3 8 years of residency and possibly fellowship just to be able to start working. This is not even mentioning how competitive it is to apply and be able to attend these professional schools to begin with. To me, it just doesn't make sense that movie stars or athletes make so much more money than say, a doctor or lawyer. The service professions are there to help others. The actors and athletes are there just to entertain. When comparing the needs of the two, it is just not the same. When choosing between watching the Super Bowl vs. getting a life saving heart bypass surgery which one takes precedence? If you look at the numbers, it is not only the average salaries that are different but also the range. Base salaries for football, those of the practice squad that don't even play in the games, start at around 300,000 while the stars can make millions a year Drew Brees made 40 million in 2013 not including endorsements . Similar trends can be observed with other sports as well as in the movie and t.v. industry. If you look at doctors, the base salary for a family practitioner starts at around 100,000. One of the top specialties in medicine is cardiology and they can make around 500,000 but rarely do you see a cardiologist hit the 1 million mark. How are the people who are saving your lives, protecting your rights, or educating your children making significantly less money than those who's jobs are just for entertainment? Now I'm not saying that the service professions should be making significantly more, but they should at least be making more in comparison to what they are making now, if not an equal amount.","conclusion":"Professional service jobs should be making up to an equal amount of money as entertainers and athletes."}
{"id":"9d78660b-2da2-4084-a320-c9d1db52ec5b","argument":"The EU directs considerable investment towards regional development in the poorer parts of the UK, at much higher numbers than the national government.","conclusion":"The EU directs considerable investment towards poorer regions of the UK that the national government tends to ignore."}
{"id":"75312ea7-d7c0-48d1-bf8b-3c23b897590d","argument":"I've just seen the Banky art picture and the more comments I read, the more I realized that our racial political correctness makes everything much more awkward then if there wasn't any word said about it. Apparently, first thing people think of when they see the picture is that the guy is black, and how racist it is and this and that. If racism wasn't mentioned mentioned everywhere ever, 24 7, maybe it would rather slowly drift away. It feels like the more we try to fix it, the bigger problem it becomes. I am not sure if I managed to get my point across, but hopefully someone here will understand what I mean. .","conclusion":"I think that racism is \"made up\" and the more we try to fix it, the more awkward it gets."}
{"id":"14be42e1-1aae-4f15-96b7-aade235a1344","argument":"If you wouldn't have been ready to offer the deceased a place to stay until they got back on their feet, in the least, but really if you weren't ready to invest in their business endeavor or a treatment program, your words aren't just empty. You actually have an passive hand in their death as if you stood silently and motionless along the hallway they walked down before they did it. i.e. If you know a painter who killed himself because his business had failed and he was an alcoholic, if you had the funds on hand and available to invest in his business and or pay for his rehab, and if you would have done so if asked, then you can say, what a bummer, hope was just around the corner. But if you thought he was a loser and there was no way you would ever be in a business arrangement with him and that he would just squander your money, then you are passively complicit. The person probably thought of everyone who knew who he could ask for help and had for whatever reason placed you in the category no help from any of them. So you have no right to be sorrowful, you weren't his friend, just another judgemental twit making his life more difficult and blaming him for all of his problems without offering any solutions.","conclusion":"If someone kills themselves, and you would have done nothing significant to help them out with their situation prior to their death, then you have no right to feign sorrow and are actually complicit through inaction."}
{"id":"b21bbc9c-60bf-44da-9c2d-b9528e5bb8a3","argument":"Zimmerman states that Trayvon confronted him, after Trayvon's girlfriend had said Trayvon got close to his dad's girlfriends house, and attacked Zimmerman. While this doesn't make sense to me, I will admit that it is plausible this is how it happened. What doesn't seem plausible to me, is that a man who was taking MMA classes three times a week, had no means to defend himself while pinned downed in a ground and pound position, which is stated as being an MMA position. What seems even less plausible to me is that Trayvon was all at once suffocating Zimmerman, slamming his head against the ground, and reaching for Zimmerman's gun while telling Zimmerman, you're going to die tonight. What would compel Trayvon, a kid who had really only ever gotten in trouble for smoking weed, to decide to kill a man he didn't know?","conclusion":"I believe that Zimmerman's belief that his life was in danger was unreasonable."}
{"id":"d4274066-059a-416d-b084-366f7ac65a47","argument":"Insects can be very calorically dense with some species containing up to 1,272 kcal per 100 g.","conclusion":"Insect meat, e.g. crickets, is highly nutritious and can replace meat nutrients."}
{"id":"7e4b1ca9-d1a2-4b24-9337-6c7d905e7cbc","argument":"Bioethicist Arthur Caplan points out, while \"prisoners are excluded from moral life. Americans have not reduced them to non-human status.\"12","conclusion":"Sex offenders lose some rights but not all; castration crosses line"}
{"id":"25b8f703-ec88-467d-9fff-2fcbfa7f16d8","argument":"Forcing people to stay alive who don't want to live is a drain on the societys welfare budget\/resources, especially if they are unable or refuse to work.","conclusion":"People have a right to choose how they want to live, this also includes the right to not live if they so want to"}
{"id":"2da0a08f-cd47-4fbf-8ccd-210d5e753100","argument":"I've saved enough money to buy a new car without applying for a loan. I want a mid size all electric four door luxury sedan. I want a mid size car because there would be enough room for myself and the wife and kids. I want an all electric car because of the ability of the electric car to produce the maximum amount of torque at any time. My almost daily commute is 24 miles 38.5 kilometers. It's approximatively half city and half highway. I believe an all electric car would be more efficient than a gas or hybrid car for my commute. Why shouldn't I buy a Tesla model 3? Please change my view. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I want to buy a Tesla model 3"}
{"id":"249dbc4f-179a-42e2-988b-8ff4bd4501c2","argument":"The United States as a whole spends 14% of GDP total income on health care. This includes the amount spent by the federal government, state governments, employers and private citizens. Many studies have found that a single-payer system would cut costs enough to allow everyone in the USA to have access to good health care without the nation as a whole spending more than it does at the moment. Medicare, a government-run health care program, has administrative costs of less than 2% of its total budget.","conclusion":"The United States as a whole spends 14% of GDP total income on health care. This includes the amo..."}
{"id":"c81f4abd-0143-44d4-a089-dd9eb60be335","argument":"Leading Canadian social-psychologist Bob Altemeyer has observed that most relevant studies illustrate that \u201cthe more one goes to church, the more likely one will be prejudiced against a variety of others.\u201d","conclusion":"The more religious people are, the more likely they are to manifest an \u201cus vs. them\u201d orientation."}
{"id":"20e89ed8-7bd1-4b65-a79b-c79ddad69381","argument":"People without the high cognitive abilities e.g. because of their genetics required to do the remaining jobs will not be able to make a living.","conclusion":"A UBI helps individuals to cope with the consequences of the next industrial revolution automation which could obliterate millions of jobs."}
{"id":"2eb0e01e-3250-4485-9c0e-95280ba1b948","argument":"Satoshi Nakamoto, the anonymous founder of Bitcoin, is estimated to hold 980,000 BTC This would make him one of the 50 richest people in the world if Bitcoin returns to its ATH of $20,000.","conclusion":"It is unknown who holds the majority of Bitcoin and whom we are feeding power to as a result."}
{"id":"7f329cdd-76cc-468f-966a-00d1266d362c","argument":"In our lived experiences, the inherent unpredictability of quanta does not translate on the macro-level, making it a redundant explanation for things like human behaviour.","conclusion":"A phenomenon is considered to be caused by quantum mechanics only if it requires quantum mechanical formalism to explain it."}
{"id":"3c49a891-ce8f-4e27-be32-6a0fc2b54fed","argument":"The problem of a high concentration of \u2018sex tourists\u2019 in a small number of destinations will disappear once a larger number of countries legalise prostitution. Supporting this motion, therefore, will reduce the problem of sex tourism.","conclusion":"The problem of a high concentration of \u2018sex tourists\u2019 in a small number of destinations will disappear."}
{"id":"80ff3181-8a03-497f-950b-27cf345c1b2f","argument":"As teenagers are unable to drink legally in pubs or bars, but are old enough to want to socialise on an evening, they are forced to do it secretly on streets and in parks. This often creates a nuisance to the wider public. It also makes it more likely that younger children will be exposed to alcohol and is often one of the causes of teenage crime, vandalism and violence.","conclusion":"As teenagers are unable to drink legally in pubs or bars, but are old enough to want to socialise on..."}
{"id":"c7f193d2-cb8a-4060-a106-a10de36bd092","argument":"In order to maximize profits, puppy mill breeders keep costs low by skimming on proper medical care, hygiene, and nutrition.","conclusion":"This is necessary to counter the overcrowded and unsanitary breeding facilities from which most pets are currently sourced."}
{"id":"bc3b6bb8-24a5-4bd6-b26c-742dbd9588d3","argument":"I believe that opinions beliefs do matter. For example, it was Hitlers opinion that jews were bad, and that led to 6 million deaths. Now, that is an extreme, but the point still stands. Just today I was talking with a friend about the Oil rigs and tar sands in Alberta. I told him it's disgustingly polluted and ruins entire habitats, climates, and could very well ruin Canada, and he disagrees. That's fine, I'm not ignorant about it, he can have his own opinion and values on it, but instead of seeing what I see he says I'm more of a capitalist, and money is greater than environment . Whether or not that is true doesn't matter, it's the fact that his opinion, and similar opinions will ruin the environment of Canada. It was peoples opinion that blacks should be slaves, and peoples opinion that Gays are sub human. It was also peoples opinion to free the blacks, and peoples opinion that are getting gay marriage legal. So, while they shouldn't matter, Opinions do matter imo.  yo","conclusion":"Opinions do matter."}
{"id":"44ac3dad-8af5-4276-956a-55068422f636","argument":"Many would see the echo chamber as comforting and rather stay in it. This is the basis of why opposing views often lead to people calling news networks, even if presented as factual, as fake news.","conclusion":"People would just select news stations they already agree with and get stuck in their bubbles."}
{"id":"fd53860b-e6a5-4c79-ab07-4c6771ea9d1d","argument":"There is a higher risk of individuals' privacy being violated by other immature, dangerous or perverted \"Peeping Tom pedophiles individuals in unisex bathrooms.","conclusion":"Unisex bathrooms enable several forms of abuse and disruption that conventional toilets do not allow in such a form."}
{"id":"bc8374a0-8ead-417a-897b-59baf9745d72","argument":"Some people think that the hijab is oppressive towards women, but most Muslim women claim to wear it out of their own free choice without being forced.","conclusion":"We could be mistaken in thinking that something causes harm when in fact it does not."}
{"id":"663e64e8-2d77-4789-836f-57212be18a12","argument":"It seems like a college education is more of an expectation than an accomplishment. Because of that, a college degree doesn't have as much value as it would if not everyone went to college. While it's necessary for some fields, it isn't for others what about trade school?","conclusion":"I don't think everyone should go to college."}
{"id":"479968cf-4150-4bcf-a021-49327867b346","argument":"I come from a poor background in a very left wing country the Netherlands myself, and so was raised with the idea that all people should be taken care of in a relatively equal manner, but I now consider such a situation disastrous and unsustainable. I mention this, because I don't want people to assume that I'm merely spoiled. I do not reject the writings of Marx, as I have learned a lot from him, and Marx saw a number of trends emerging that were correct. His only misfortune was the incomplete picture he could witness. As an example, From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs is a lie by omission. It omits the fact that our needs differ greatly, depending upon our inherent human differences. Just like only some children's IQ is raised by breastfeeding, only some humans can appreciate the beauty of nature, the taste of good wine or the image of a beautiful painting. The rest of humanity is not born with this ability, and are content living in what can only be interpreted as mediocrity by the rest of us. Middle class technocrats have asked themselves for decades how they can get the poor to visit a museum, read a book, take a walk through a forest, or eat an apple instead of a hamburger. The answer is that you can't, unless you force them by gunpoint. Their tastes are blunt, adapted to a lower form of living. Every evening, in every city, in every country, the streets receive a blueish glare as the poor turn on their television screens and huddle together to eat their microwaved meals, careful to remain silent until the commercial breaks lest they fail to hear a word uttered by actors paid to read a script. This is how it has been for decades, and we have no hope of changing it. Hobbies are for middle class people, who enjoy autonomously pursuing a goal. The poor are perfectly content staring into their television screens, the only goals they pursue are those forced upon them by necessity. Government today serves to redistribute wealth accumulated by the rich to the poor, who use it to feed more mouths and buy larger television sets. Government fulfills this task because it is elected by the majority, and since the poor are the majority, government continues to serve the interests of the poor. The rich in turn are willing to sacrifice their wealth, because the alternative they see is falling victim to a genocide, as has happened so many times before in history. When the masses rise up against their ruling elite, the result is always annihilation. The French revolution, the Russian revolution, the Holocaust, the Rwandan genocide, the Cultural revolution, the Cambodian genocide, all of these are examples of the same phenomenon The working classes rising up against their ruling elite, whom they see as being responsibility for their misery. The elites are tortured, raped, humiliated, and finally executed. Society deteriorates as a result, and culture is destroyed. Equality destroys cultures, individuals, the environment, and replaces them with a perpetually expanding neoplasm of undifferentiated cells where only the lowest common denominator can be sustained. The national dance of Equality land is Twerking, its literature consists of Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey, and its greatest work of architecture is a shopping mall. The answer to this crisis can be found in restraint. Elites have a responsibility to implement a one child policy for the poor, and to keep the world's population well below 1 billion. The ruling elite must recognize that the burden of the poor is genetically inherent, and can not be relieved through education. If we wish to preserve civilization, the best we can hope for is to recreate an agrarian society, where the diversity of labor asked of every individual promotes the survival and psychological wellbeing of the most intelligent among the poor. This is where the idea of the noble peasant comes from. Sadly, there is no such thing as a noble proletarian, because mechanization and urbanization simplifies our jobs. Although the information we are exposed to is greater than ever before, the knowledge required of us to survive and reproduce is less than ever before as well. If we do not manage to intervene and allow the crisis to continue on its current path humanity will consume the biosphere, ushering in cataclysmic changes that will destroy civilization and reduces us to the state of hunter gatherers unless we go extinct altogether. The physical reason for this endpoint could be climate change or nuclear warfare or anything along those lines, but the deeper metaphysical explanation for this tragic ending would be that the world is destroyed because there was not enough beauty left to preserve.","conclusion":"I believe inequality of wealth, political power and fertility is essential for civilization to function."}
{"id":"99a85b7a-a82b-426f-b94a-fa95cf478eb0","argument":"Foreign fighters could be an inspiration and role model for people who are at risk of becoming radicalized.","conclusion":"Allowing foreign fighters to return home could be a potential threat to national security."}
{"id":"de37f886-937c-47ec-868e-452c7ccc09ba","argument":"About 50% of the poor across Africa, including women, used rental accommodation1 , many are landless. Although it remains debatable as to whether women enter the rental market by choice or not, renting has been noted to provide a greater degree of flexibility. Renting provides flexibility to relocate and manage finances effectively over a short-term. Land titles may therefore increase immobility to those using the rental markets; and enable landlords to raise prices of renting. Titles don\u2019t help those who rent. 1 Edwards, 1990, p.255","conclusion":"Land titles do not solve the main issue for women - rental markets."}
{"id":"7bb58574-fe2b-4fac-a09f-d18a9a4be701","argument":"'Moore's Law' is an observation made by Intel co founder Gordon Moore in 1965. He noticed that the number of transistors per square inch on integrated circuits had doubled every year since their invention. This is the industry definition. To the general population, doubling the transistor count means an expectation of an increase in performance. It makes real sense that people said Moore's Law is coming to an end 10 years ago. That is when Dual core chips were made available to the home consumer. The core2duo from Intel is an example. Now what is the use of having double the number of transistors every 18 months if multithreaded software is so difficult to program. More than this, many tasks are impossible to run in parallel, and many others actually run slower over multiple cores. So you have double the transistors, which you can only turn into more cores, not a faster single core to run your single threaded tasks. A decade ago we had dual cores. Now we have dual cores which are much smaller 14nm instead of 65nm in 2006 and how is the extra space widely being used? To add a GPU on the die. Intel HD and Iris Graphics, AMD has their APUs. The rise of PC Gaming is one reason to upgrade a CPU. If you have an Intel i5 2500k from 2011, you will be told that you can comfortably play any game released. You will be told that your 4 year old CPU does not need an upgrade. The reason is that Intel's Instructions Per Clock has only increased by a few percent since 2011. There was a substantial single core performance increase between 06 09, 09 11, but not 11 present day. Intel work on a 'tick tock' schedule with their hardware. A tick is a shrinking of their architecture, and a tock is newer architecture. The shrinking from 22nm to 14nm process was so difficult that their tick broadwell and tock skylake almost launched at the same time, only a few months apart instead of 18 months. Single fast cores in high end CPUs ended in 2006. Multithreaded programming is very very difficult.","conclusion":"People who said Moore's Law was coming to an end 10 years ago were right in an important way"}
{"id":"1cbb0140-ecae-4569-98f6-537c8334589c","argument":"Government shutdowns are harmful to the economy, and cause workers to lose money. It hurts the American people. It's a petty tactic for a party who can't have its way. The republicans were playing political games with peoples lives. I've also heard that it cost the government more to shut down and restart than it saved. It's just totally irresponsible. With an amendment to the constitution forcing the house to always have a budget, then they couldn't shut down the government anymore. I think debt ceiling is also something they like to threaten with a lot. I don't think that has as many directly visible consequences though.","conclusion":"There should be an amendment to prevent government shutdowns by mandating that a budget always be passed."}
{"id":"c85efcd8-ecb1-440c-b63f-fc7861d9de41","argument":"Pascal's Wager is flawed in that it proposes infinite utility gains and losses. When one introduces infinity into utility equations, it turns out that every possible action as long as it has the possibility, however small, of converting one should have an infinite expected utility value. For this reason, going to the park is just as valid a response to Pascal's Wager as going to church.","conclusion":"The notion proposed by Pascal in his Wager is inherently flawed."}
{"id":"44a12e59-8cbf-47fb-ae9c-ec8bb7ac9ed2","argument":"With technological advancements, human workers are becoming obsolete. As this process takes place programs need to be in place to assist struggling families.","conclusion":"Automation might increase the number of people that are unable to produce enough value."}
{"id":"13694929-4249-48ee-96c8-d361733ecd89","argument":"Approximately half of all prisoners in the US meet the criteria for substance dependency or addiction.","conclusion":"Prison makes drug addiction worse, and introduces addiction to prisoners who have never used drugs."}
{"id":"824f1957-4afd-4973-a328-5ab0be1e3c6d","argument":"I do not disagree with the idea that there should be gender equality. However, I believe feminism outside of academic circles has become, to put it bluntly nothing more than an anti male circle jerk. Particularly guilty of this, are feminism circles that operate online. I think everyone can agree that places like r MensRights are detrimental to the discussion on gender equality. Not because their points are invalid, but because they go about it the wrong way entirely. If MRA's can't be taken seriously in the discussion of gender equality, why should feminists that act in the same manner be treated differently? Before the hate rolls on in I want to be VERY clear. I'm not saying that the idea of feminism is inherently wrong. I am all for gender equality, however I believe that the majority of feminists and MRA's are not concerned enough with actual gender equality, but rather lessening the disadvantage that their respective genders are burdened with. This has led to an us vs them stigma which discourages positive discussion on the topic.","conclusion":"I believe that the feminism movement has been derailed, and is no longer helpful to the discussion of gender inequality."}
{"id":"64c9de80-ac07-4fc0-9ab4-e26307134864","argument":"After watching Whale Wars Viking Shores, I can see that they're messing with the locals too much and are misinformed. Then again, I only hold this information from the show. Change My View, reddit.","conclusion":"I think that the activist group \"Sea Shepherds\" is going about everything wrong."}
{"id":"5270c6ba-77e8-49b5-bedd-4cbd7fa19cea","argument":"Investigating whether or not circumcision has occurred would require a significant invasion of the privacy of families and individuals, which would come at a considerable expense to the state.","conclusion":"It would be exceptionally difficult to enforce a ban on circumcision."}
{"id":"aed383e6-ac1e-4087-ac39-0919be1a1d5d","argument":"After the air defenses have been taken out by HARM like missiles the drones would surely be used against ground targets.","conclusion":"There would be a role for drones from the beginning in a war against Syria."}
{"id":"8e7ed80a-a866-4d59-b19e-90207fb7579b","argument":"Behaviours such as mindless repetitiveness of actions that cannot remedy a particular situation and herd mentality.","conclusion":"Religion can easily be seen as is a display of atavistic animal behaviors."}
{"id":"0a5057b0-f6ba-429c-b95f-1bfc49d3def9","argument":"The conflicting parties agreed on the terms given by the EU of respecting the EU convention of human rights and respecting UK and Ireland as partners of the Union.","conclusion":"The EU has actually been a guarantor for the Good Friday agreement in Northern Ireland. fes-london.org"}
{"id":"0b02d7c8-24dd-44d8-bb81-e6f51c55f212","argument":"I do not think this way of thinking is wrong. But I do know that many if not most people would disagree. Please understand that i am not talking about murder in an act of immediate self defense. I am specifically talking about pre calculated killing that was thought about, planned, and then acted upon. Also im sorry. I have been unable to find a source for the following story that i watched on the news a while back. So if you feel that you will need one to believe me than you should probably stop reading now. I was watching the news a few months ago. The big headlining story was about an 18 year old kid murdering his parents while they slept. Before they continued the story they cut for a commercial break. During the break, i remember thinking to myself Christ. What is wrong with people . They come back from commercials and give more details about the story. It turns out that the 18 year old's father had been raping him and his younger brother since they were small children. At this point, my opinion on the story completely flips. Understand that i wasn't exactly on the killer's side. But I definitely wasn't against him. The father rapes his own children for years and the mother never says a god damn thing. The kid is both a killer and a victim in this case. And I understand how this sounds and i get it if you don't know where i'm coming from but they deserved to die. Honestly, they deserved worse. Maybe a couple days later, i find out the kid is going to be tried for murder. And this made me much much angrier than it probably should have. Given his motive and the circumstances of the situation he was well within his right to kill them both. Everyone i talk to seems to disagree with me on this with no other answers than Because it's wrong. Please tell me why i should give this more thought. Change my view.","conclusion":"I believe there is such a thing as justifiable pre-meditated murder given the motives of the killer, and the circumstances of the situation."}
{"id":"94b167a5-8803-4477-9bf3-d5276ffef833","argument":"During the battle of Hogwarts, Narcissa Malfoy risked lying to Lord Voldemort in front of the Death Eaters about Harry's death when she found out from Harry that Draco was alive.","conclusion":"While Arthur Weasley and Lucius Malfoy appear to love their children, it is their wives who display the most willingness to risk their own safety for that of their children."}
{"id":"6894815d-ba1d-47fa-a3db-b52548941889","argument":"I don't think there are any examples of neo liberals famous or otherwise who have succinctly stated what game theory is, and how mainstream economists believe it has benefited society governments ability to understand and develop policies on global trade, regulation, or break ups of monopolies. I'm defining neo liberal as someone who believes extremely limited or no government maximizes long run economic growth and prosperity. edit to hopefully help clarify my belief There are no known instances neo liberals such as Friedrich Hayek or Milton Friedman demonstrating they understood the now generally accepted implications of game theory. I'm not asking for a reconciliation of neo liberalism and game theory, only an example of a neo liberal who has demonstrated an understanding of game theory implications in the real world. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"No Neo-liberal, which includes most libertarians, has demonstrated a basic understanding of economic game theory"}
{"id":"ace464a3-ce2f-4b04-9e85-b913f5ff28b6","argument":"To clarify, let's say if you're under 20hours a week, you can't vote. What I think this would do, is motivate politicians to increase jobs, rather than increase handouts for votes. The whole teaching a man to fish versus giving him a fish. Reasons why I think this If you don't contribute, you don't deserve a say where the money goes People who don't REALLY need the help would try harder to find a job as oppose to being on government programs because it is now less attractive With less people burdening the system, we would be able to better assist those who truly need it Politicians gain nothing by increasing the level of government assistance instead of providing people with the means to support themselves I dare you, change my view. I want real, pragmatic arguments. Not idealistic humanitarian reasoning. Those things sound nice, but don't work.","conclusion":"In the USA if you don't work, you shouldn't be allowed to vote."}
{"id":"f6884838-a3a7-4143-88cb-506bcfb19b0d","argument":"One abstinence-only curricula teaches that women need \u201cfinancial support,\u201d while men need \u201cadmiration.\u201d Another instructs: \u201cWomen gauge their happiness and judge their success on their relationships. Men\u2019s happiness and success hinge on their accomplishments.\u201d Waxman, ii","conclusion":"These programs focus on traditional gender roles such as female passivity and male aggressiveness."}
{"id":"d1c7fdda-68f6-4946-98c9-dc61f272015e","argument":"Theistic sources are contradictory, allowing one to choose morals convent for them, rather then to be consistent, or good. For example, the bible argues both for and against slavery. It is impossible to be good when what is good isn't even consistently defined.","conclusion":"Those that follow God-free, logic-based moralities are much better behaved, and consistent than theists do in no small part to fundamental foundational problems with theism."}
{"id":"33fb039a-4a03-4aee-ae4a-224ee375e397","argument":"Unlike tourism trophy hunting creates incentives to keep areas with low densities or hard to see wildlife protected.","conclusion":"Trophy hunting creates an incentive for local communities to keep the animals alive."}
{"id":"0b2c658d-d8a8-4789-b084-ea079d10c326","argument":"I very well might be opening a can of worms with this one if the mods approve the post. Please hear me out, and pray excuse the longwinding opening. And just to be clear on this, I'm not talking about subs where pictures of children were posted, just about the subs with text. I'd also like to add that I know why someone wouldn't want to give child molesters a platform . Pedophiles are the one universally hated group of people on the planet. Children are cute, small, weak, incapable. They cannot help themselves, they cannot fight back. They're dumb and have no innate knowledge on how to survive or what constitutes good and bad and must fully rely on adults, therefore anyone hurting a child or taking advantage of the innocence of children is seen as much worse as somebody who kills someone in a fit of rage. We've all been there, thinking I have to go now before I punch his stupid face into a pulp until he stops moving most can relate to killing as we've all been angry before. However, I think most of the pedo hate stems from misuse of the term. I'll define different groups. First there's the rapists that use children because they can't fight back, because they're easier to manipulate and intimidate into keeping quiet. Most cases you hear about in the news is about this kind, including the cases where underage daughters have to replace the ex wife or girlfriend. Those people would rape grown women as well if they could get away with it, they just take advantage of the opportunity. Then there's what I like to call the novelty seekers. We've seen their kind in third world countries, where NATO personnel went to child sex workers just because they were available and something one couldn't have at home. Finally there's the genuine pedophiles, people that are sexually attracted to children, some exclusively so, others non so. They often call themselves girllovers or boylovers , and those of them who do have sexual relationships with children will often confess to everything as soon as they are discovered to spare the child the courtroom. I believe that we need to see people who are sexually attracted to children as unfortunate individuals who deserve our support and our compassion. If we hear somebody we know is a pedophile our natural reaction should be I'm sorry to hear that . Nobody chooses to be a pedophile, just as nobody chooses to be black, gay or full of cancer. By spreading the hate and shunning them from society we force them into hiding, into the distant corners of the dark web where they can be accepted by their own kind, but where it is okay to promote sex with children, where pictures and videos of abuse are traded like candy and where they are subject to all the unfiltered rationalizations of their peers. There they can adopt a dangerous mindset very easily without anyone noticing, going from I'm a monster to a bit of fondling doesn't actually hurt a child to children like it when it feels good just like everybody else . Someone coming to the realization today that he or she is attracted to children should be able to find help and support easily, and that means on the open internet and yes, especially places like reddit, with a userbase that doesn't share their affliction or their views. At the moment almost no psychiatrist would be willing or knowledgeable enough to help someone with pedophilia, if such a person even could dare seek help in the first place. They live with the constant fear of being outed, the constant stress of not acting suspiciously around children, and unwanted arousal and sexual thoughts they just cannot get rid of. They're thought to be monsters, and might hate themselves for it. The poor fellas who are exclusively into children know they will never be able to have a happy relationship like other people, and the ones who are attracted to children too that can, what do you imagine their life to be when they get married and their wife pregnant? Pedophilia is a devastating diagnosis, with nobody knows how many people taking their lives because of it without anyone ever knowing why. So my argument is this nobody wants to be a monster, but to keep children safer from sexual predators we must help people cope and give them the support and the right tools to keep their spirit up and their urges down so they know how to fight temptation and where to get support if they feel like they're failing. Banning pedophile subreddits drives them into darkne t ss and denies them easily accessible support they would need to cope with their urges, and thus endangers children. . gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Banning pedophile subreddits endangers children"}
{"id":"5b639fd4-a1e9-433d-87e3-0c1808b129c2","argument":"Many patients who have attended both group and private therapy treatments have reported favouring the former.","conclusion":"Community and group based treatments are an effective way to tackle addiction."}
{"id":"f2e280ab-a2f5-4ef5-9222-c2828c83b56d","argument":"I actually want to be on anti depressants but I can't help but think like the statement above. I feel that if I take anti depressants, I will become an artificially happier person and thus once I stop taking the pills, I will be feeling even worse. I genuinely want to naturally feel happier but I also recognize that I really need help. This is what happened to me when I used to smoke weed currently 35 days weed free . When I quit, I felt even more depressed, and I'm not saying weed does this to everyone but it did this to me. Thus, I feel like anti depressants will have a similar effect.","conclusion":"Depressed people on anti-depressants are artificially becoming\/feeling better and thus the root of the problem is not being solved."}
{"id":"e5b37510-1ad8-48b4-a5f5-e77ab13ea545","argument":"The house committee voted unanimously to release democrat memo that supposedly rebuts the recently released republican memo. While I think there is enough spin over this entire situation to literally make one's own head spin, I believe that, when possible, the government should be as transparent as possible, and that it is best to make an informed opinion after being able to view as much information possible when making up one's own mind regarding any situation. So, that being said, I feel Trump should authorize the release of the democrat memo, giving more information to the people so they can be better informed. To  you must make a sound argument that there are reasons Trump should not authorize the release of this memo provided any national security elements have been removed . gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Trump should authorize the release of the democrat response memo"}
{"id":"895010dd-031e-452f-863f-d1e36c774400","argument":"Such utopias would essentially be what is known as \"intentional communities\", i.e. people who choose to live together because they share some beliefs or values. This happens here on Earth too. The issue is that the next generation of people will have a more diverse set of beliefs and values, thus leading back to mass societies of all sorts of people, like those we find on Earth. The lack of collaboration may lead to failure in space, as they don't succeed non-cohesively on Earth well.","conclusion":"Utopian ideals have yet to work on Earth, their implementation or success on Mars or another colony is not assured."}
{"id":"4fae58dc-f902-42b7-a63a-83e4c440fcad","argument":"Voters' opinion on the intricacies of the Brexit deal are unlikely to be placed at the top of negotiators' list of priorities, even if a referendum were to take place.","conclusion":"A second referendum would not help the government to reach the right decision."}
{"id":"494fad40-61a8-4349-88e8-edc548650e58","argument":"This is a short one for the sports people. I don't think teams should have to release a list of players that can't play due to injury or whatever. After a quick google search, I think the NFL might have the loosest requirement of having to announce it 90 minutes before the game. There's so much strategy that can come into this but it's being taken away. Example It's been announced that KD won't play for game 2 of the finals. Now Toronto knows not to practice for a fully loaded warriors team. In competitons, every little bit counts. Practicing for KD could make Kawhi just that much more tired and cause him to miss a game winning shot. That's the only one that is fresh on my mind. What if Toronto was under the assumption KD wasn't coming back and then boom there he is. Obviously, a frantic game plan is a bad game plan x200B Basically, I feel it takes away a strategic play for the team","conclusion":"Professional teams shouldn't be required to announce or release the name of their inactive players."}
{"id":"0aadf481-9be6-49ba-b3a8-be4308041ccb","argument":"Theistic sources are contradictory, allowing one to choose morals convent for them, rather then to be consistent, or good. For example, the bible argues both for and against slavery. It is impossible to be good when what is good isn't even consistently defined.","conclusion":"Those that follow God-free, logic-based moralities are much better behaved, and consistent than theists do in no small part to fundamental foundational problems with theism."}
{"id":"90557300-4427-47c4-a908-be88b52bdfbe","argument":"Developed countries typically are much more energy efficient than developing countries. This is an example of how they are already taking major steps to combat global warming; steps which developing countries are not taking. They have no further obligation beyond these steps.","conclusion":"Developed states are doing everything they can on climate change"}
{"id":"574abc5b-2b86-4ddc-a03a-92a66d6e37b3","argument":"As I see it, children come out of school having learned a large number of facts or not as the case may be but have very little understanding about the 'why' and 'wherefore' of the world they're in. I am not saying that the facts should not be taught. Far from it they are important and help these people become useful members of society. However thinking about thinking contemplating the idea of motivation for action and similar things are generally completely lacking from modern western education systems. From what I've seen, this leads to a society with a very large number of shallow, self absorbed people. Many people haven't emotionally developed beyond a very rudimentary idea of gratification and getting what they want. If you look to our history, this has always generally been the case. Historically, we had much more noticeable class systems with the 'elite' and the 'proletariat'. The elite did study philosophy whereas the proles generally did not. While I'm not saying this was a good situation, it did 'work' for society as a whole. In the modern world however, the classes are being broken down. They're not gone, but they're definitely different and weaker than they were before. One very important difference now is that the people who might once have been 'proles' can effect real change in society through equal voting rights. This is a good thing in my opinion but as a consequence, it is now more vital to have the widest range of people understanding some of the less tangible aspects of thought e.g. philosophy so that their vote isn't controlled by those who have learned how to control them. If people learned philosophy at school, there would be more people able and willing to contribute meaningfully to society as a whole, leading to a better life for everyone.","conclusion":"I believe philosophy as a concept needs to be taught to children in school."}
{"id":"e9dd1ee5-ecb1-41e6-85bc-51d1746a0b6b","argument":"While African integration has been slow there has been real progress in constructing the building blocks to allow further integration. African countries are already somewhat integrated: for example 14 countries in West and Central Africa use the CFA franc as currency1 and there are regional blocks in West Africa and East Africa. The existence of these regional free trade areas the Economic Community of Central African States ECCAS, the Economic Community of West African States ECOWAS, the East African Community EAC, Common Market for Eastern and Southern African Countries COMESA, and the Southern African Development Community SADC will eventually provide the springboard for further integration throughout the whole of Africa.2 The latter three of these communities have signed a memorandum of understanding to cooperate on integration and harmonise areas such as trade.3 More importantly, despite problems with the creation of a single currency, the EU remains a good model for the AU: no one would suggest that the EU is in danger of being disbanded. Though its members might have differences as to its exact structure, that debate is no different than in any other confederation. 1 Musa, Tansa, \u2018Cameroon, BEAC see no CFA franc devaluation\u2019, Reuters Africa, 28 November 2011. 2 \u2018Developments in Regional Integration in Africa\u2019, African Economic Outlook, 28 April 2012. 3 \u2018Memorandum of Understanding on Inter Regional Cooperation and Integration Amongst Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa COMESA, East African Community EAC and Southern African Development Community SADC\u2019, 19 January 2011.","conclusion":"There is already some African integration that can be built on."}
{"id":"7434fe6a-6839-4281-9970-367a030caa05","argument":"The works of J. R. R. Tolkien have served as the inspiration to painters, musicians, film-makers and writers, to such an extent that Tolkien is sometimes seen as the \"father\" of the entire genre of high fantasy.","conclusion":"Tolkien created a massive, thoroughly detailed universe which has inspired countless of other fantasy novels."}
{"id":"b9ffa817-984e-4ecb-a123-70b28fffd260","argument":"Despite extensive evidence in support Einstein's Theory of General Relativity - such as gravitational waves - scientists are unwilling to accept it as definitely true, and are constantly finding ways to challenge it","conclusion":"Even the most well-regarded physicists believed in Newton's description of gravity and motion for 200 years. This theory was disproved by Einstein in his theories of special and general relativity."}
{"id":"c4c2d328-057d-4b09-9421-0356269399d2","argument":"Most contemporary historians think that between 9 and 11 million people were taken out of Africa by European slave traders These people were denied the right to form nations in their homelands and have lived in Europe for centuries.","conclusion":"The modern history of Europe and Africa is overwhelmingly saturated with Europeans forcibly deporting Africans into European states as slaves. Having lived in these lands for generations, they can rightfully claim that Europe is their homeland too."}
{"id":"f6b8004d-e77c-4879-b8ec-398f86c4ad20","argument":"Firstly I would like to state that I have absolutely nothing against any form of reconstructive surgery. If a person has a horrible accident that has left a part of their body deformed in any way it is definitely a good idea to give them back as much of the quality of life they once had. The same can be said for anyone who was born with any kind of physical impairment. Prosthetic limbs, glass eyes, cochlear implants, skin grafts etc are all great ways of giving someone the chance to live a normal life and stop them from lamenting their disability. However, superficial surgeries that are not sanctioned by a medical professional are a waste of money and medical resources that could be used to perform more useful operations. Putting ones self through expensive and painful surgeries for nothing more than a self esteem boost is a quick fix that can lead to surgical addiction and in some cases a worse depression than a person would be in without having had surgery. If a psychologist deems it necessary for a person to have plastic surgery in order to eliminate whatever phycological problem they may have then that is fine seeing as a professional has sanctioned it. Similarly if a woman wants to get breast reduction surgery to eliminate back pain then that is fine seeing as the surgery will benefit her health. Enhancement surgeries however are often unnecessary and could potentially risk ones health if the implants get infected or risk a persons self esteem if they paid all that money and they end up lopsided The final problem I have with unnecessary surgery is that people are getting surgeries to look like their favorite celebrities such as this musically talented family here sarcasm . Now obviously they don't look exactly like their idols but more like vague representations but as technology increases and medical practices become more advanced surgical impersonation could be entirely plausible.","conclusion":"I do not think that it should be legal to get any kind of plastic surgery unless it is medically advised."}
{"id":"7e71c407-8c84-4022-829f-45504c9e8d1b","argument":"I personally have always felt that the American government is meant to Provide for the common defense, and PROMOTE the general welfare , not provide such a safety netting for everyone. As much as there is evidence to support doing it, I feel that welfare and medicaid and Medicare and such are an enabler for people to be lazy. If someone is truly required to support themselves and know that they won't have anyone there to save them, they will work much harder for their succes. Much in the same way that you would walk far more cautiously on a beam 500 feet in the air than you would walk on the same beam simply resting on the concrete. Edit words","conclusion":"I feel the American government provides too much."}
{"id":"aa4d944f-9506-434c-97a0-3fe1f2e2ae7e","argument":"In many cases, even if a university has access to a publisher's database, the complex sign in and verification process is hit or miss. Downloading the materials from a freely available source is much faster and more convenient.","conclusion":"Having to use a publisher's clunky system to view a page at a time instead of for example simply downloading a pdf promotes piracy."}
{"id":"a7cfd3d9-e004-4ff1-8507-87dca6f8882e","argument":"We cannot know exactly what, or how another is feeling. This applies to both humans and animals, and means that it can be difficult to ultimately prove the capacity for sentience. This is particularly difficult for animals, as they lack the power of speech to convey their feelings.","conclusion":"One of the key issues with understanding sentience and demonstrating its existence at a scientific level, is that the concept relates to a being\u2019s own thoughts, feelings and emotions, none of which can be fully understood or described by physiological processes or anatomical structures."}
{"id":"13107f9d-4a47-44b3-978d-45adbae09ff6","argument":"I can't deal with it, I'm trying to use logic but it seems I'm incapable to see why someone who's in his right mind would vote for Donald Trump. I don't know if there's something about a major lack of education or a really strong wish for going backwards in history in the US. From an outsider perspective, this guy represents at least ideologically everything that is wrong in human and modern civilization. Now I'm reading about this Bernie Sanders and his propositions, and I can't understand why anyone with a bit of common sense and who wants the US to achieve some kind of development as a nation won't vote for him. I see that guy as the only option. EDIT Whoa A lot of interesting and insightful answers. I think I have a better picture of these two guys now. Trump I see Trump's figure is being manipulated strongly by the media, with much of his comments being taken out of context. He's saying a lot of things that many americans want to hear. Apparently there's a difference between his show figure and his actual positions, which are considered pretty traditionally American by many of you. And a lot of comments refer to Trump's business achievements as something positive, skills that would be reflected in the country if he's elected. I sense there's a feeling of overall dissatisfaction with Obama, may be helped by the social media. I can't help but think that Trump's biggest strenght is pretty much being a big anti Obama reaction in many ways politically, socially and economically. Bernie Many of you said that you like Bernie's positions and that much of them should be good for the people, but the problem is they're pretty much utopic or unrealistic. Others stated that his vision of the economy would harm America and that the fact that he doesn't have real achievements in politics or comparing to Trump, in any business at all, is something pretty negative. The bottom line as I see it and that it was pointed out by some of you is that both of them are running heavily ideological campaigns, which makes them very similar characters, each in their own way.","conclusion":"As a non-american, I see Trump as a total regression for the US and Bernie Sanders the total opposite."}
{"id":"ff3caf22-ac68-420d-a8fc-a2efb5fcba45","argument":"Left wing populist movements are categorised as 'inclusionary' placing an emphasis on representing groups who have been left out of the political system. For example, in Latin America, populist leaders have focused on policies to help those from low socioeconomic groups p. 159.","conclusion":"Fringe movements can give hope and a promise for change to disenfranchised demographics."}
{"id":"89962f73-14e2-4d01-8b38-d158df505930","argument":"The song portrays all Africans as helpless and suffering with lyrics such as 'the only water flowing is the bitter sting of tears'.","conclusion":"'Do They Know It's Christmas?' has been accused of reinforcing stereotypes about the African continent and its people."}
{"id":"e35cd45f-e035-4e4f-82b4-50d0ac429bce","argument":"Racialism is the belief that different races of people exist. Racism is the belief that one race is inherently inferior or superior to another. Therefore, one cannot be racist without being racialist, but one can be racialist without being racist. Racism is commonly accepted to be an issue in this day and age. However, racialism is the truer scourge, as it is this belief that allows for racism to exist at all. We humans tend to define ourselves in opposition to each other We are not that . This tendency is part of how we see ourselves, and will not change. We look for the differences, and in those differences create definitions. Until we have something other than other humans to compare ourselves to, racialism and racism will remain.","conclusion":"Racialism is just as bad as Racism. Neither can be solved without the existence of another species of similar or greater intelligence to humans."}
{"id":"0a7f3763-49bc-499e-889d-bc0d9071e8be","argument":"While some religion may have thrived and survived as they provided advantages social cohesion, cooperation, rules, some present-day societies are successful at \u201csustaining large-scale cooperation with institutions such as court, police and mechanisms for enforcing contracts\u201d Norenzayan, p.9","conclusion":"Therefore, religiosity is not necessary for societies' well-being if other secular and collective institutions are strong enough."}
{"id":"e3a908a2-adee-4945-88b9-d4c65fcd6861","argument":"Part of the feminist movement\/one of the \"jokes\" in feminism is that, ultimately, some don\u2019t believe women find or even can find sex pleasurable, and many men don\u2019t know how to please women-or even don\u2019t care enough to do son.","conclusion":"It will create greater need to learn how to generate that pleasure."}
{"id":"d494dbd9-81af-4046-b466-6e501cd7e7d0","argument":"Lately I have been thinking a great deal about how being a liberal has changed so much from the 1990s to now. I remember a time when being a liberal, simply meant you support liberty and freedom. It was simple and too the point. But now we have different subset groups of liberals. We socialist liberals, libertarians, democratic liberals, social justice warrior liberals, moderate liberals, centralists etc It can all see a bit daunting at times, especially when your perception of these labels is misrepresented so often. I am starting to think that maybe focuses less on a social political label may be a better way to go about things. Granted I call myself a humanist, but try not get too obsessed with the label and focus more on what humanism means to me. There are certain behaviours of certain individuals who call themselves SJWs in which I find tarnishes the left to such a degree that I can hardly blame some individuals on the right for criticising the left. Not that I condone generalising, but I can understand why they think as they do. Taking injustices from all sides case by case, seems to be the only logical way I can continue supporting liberty and equality.Especially in an age when many right wingers have the view that the left is no longer liberal Or perhaps you could change my view?","conclusion":"Attacking a social political stance accomplishes very little"}
{"id":"5d512ea6-898c-438d-b8ae-f1f146a909d8","argument":"The ever-growing acceptability of blood donations suggests that, as such procedures become a 'norm', individuals may be prepared to go out of their way to assist.","conclusion":"This will normalise tissue donation and thus encourage people to donate tissue when they are alive."}
{"id":"d92087e1-f498-44d1-9bd1-2d0860e7efe4","argument":"\"I still maintain that Rod Laver is the best player who ever played the game because he's done something no one has ever done in the 120 or 140-year history of our sport: he won the Grand Slam as an amateur and he won the Grand Slam as a pro. If someone in some other sport held a world record no one else had, you would say that person was the best in that sport. So in my view, you've got to say Laver is the best player of all time.\" -- Tony Trabert, 5 time Grand Slam tournament winner and 30 year television analyst \"Give him credit? Shoot, the only real issue is whether the GOAT Greatest of All Time argument is a debate at all, given that posting those two Slams puts Laver in a league of his own.\" -- Peter Bodo, tennis author Therefore until Roger Federer wins at least one Grand Slam, there is no real discussion: Rod Laver is the greatest men's singles tennis player in the history of the game.","conclusion":"He has not won The Grand Slam, the single greatest, and most difficult, feat in tennis."}
{"id":"f3cbbc8a-70ee-48f5-9589-6eee67c7a979","argument":"The paradox of tolerance expressed by Karl Popper gives an example of how, if a society that is tolerant without limit, its ability to be tolerant is eventually seized or destroyed by the intolerant.","conclusion":"In a defensive democracy members of a democracy believe it is necessary to limit some speech in order to protect and perpetuate a democratic government."}
{"id":"5a9b5fc0-e5e7-4af9-91ee-fcbb146510f7","argument":"Israel was founded in order to provide a safe haven to Jews, and its ability to fulfill this function is contingent on political control being maintained by Jews. A one-state solution would threaten Jewish maintenance of political control.","conclusion":"Israel is unique; it was founded as a Jewish state in response to thousands of years of global anti-Semitism culminating in the Holocaust."}
{"id":"673cbb78-c38a-424e-b71d-47a8bafd7c18","argument":"An independent Catalonia may declare Catalan as the only official language. Spanish is sometimes mentionned as a \"domination or colonial\" language that must be dismissed from Catalonia ref. Manifesto de Koine elperiodico.com . Another opinion being discussed is that any Catalan must speak the Catalan language ref. About the multilanguage concern , Catalan Government's Spokeperson assertions Today, a part of the population does not speak Catalan.","conclusion":"Becoming independent will threaten the multicultural rights of the population. The Statute of Autonomy for Catalonia article 6 defines 3 official langages in Catalonia: Spanish, Satalan and Occitan aranese."}
{"id":"55bebb93-8ee0-445e-9322-41fd91c0c046","argument":"Societal disapproval can indirectly encourage bullying of overweight and obese populations, thus contributing to the problem.","conclusion":"Making it socially unacceptable to be obese will increase bullying of obese people."}
{"id":"5b9a8aca-ed83-4c44-9fb8-383c2175c5db","argument":"I think that English classes are pointless in an English speaking country because, yes, they DO provide grammar, and essay writing, but I feel these skills are not worth my time. Essay writing in particular is something I detest, due to the on the book format as well as a HUGE set of rules and guidelines which are unnecessarily stupid. English class seems like a waste of my time, when I could be doing other useful things, like Global History or Chemistry. Though there are thousands of people who love English and literature I'm one of those people who hates to read sappy books, especially stupid realistic fiction books about conflict and prejudice and stupid morals and things to just make an English teacher talk all day about symbols and similes Anyway, I think that my view is pretty biased. If you could change it, that would help.","conclusion":"I believe that English classes should be removed from English-speaking countries."}
{"id":"8852147f-80e8-40f9-9ce7-9ce13c37eb21","argument":"BL stadiums are larger. During the 2015\/16 season, the average size stood at 47.000 seats whereas it stood at only 38.000 in the PL.","conclusion":"The BL is more fan-friendly, attracts a bigger live audience and has a better stadium atmosphere."}
{"id":"6b00dbba-ff6f-4d2a-9419-cfa4ad8e0336","argument":"30 percent of those who had taken a pledge\u2014and broken it\u2014got pregnant while not married.","conclusion":"A study has demonstrated that purity pledges can increase teenage pregnancy rates."}
{"id":"8dc929bf-36cf-4c1c-9530-7962cd977150","argument":"Giving one's life for the nation is a sacrifice like no other. This act of courage cannot be but on an equal footstep with good singers or football players.","conclusion":"Should the Legion of Honor be restricted to war veterans?"}
{"id":"c0a17def-000b-4a61-a0f4-8fca86bf322f","argument":"The three primary umbrella models for the origin of the universe are that it began to exist at some time in the past, that it has existed statically for eternally, or that it has existed in cycles for eternity. The widely accepted Big Bang theory fits most closely with the first option.","conclusion":"Most cosmologists agree that the universe did in fact begin to exist."}
{"id":"6045b0e0-16dd-48f3-958e-f5752a20ef88","argument":"In spite of the fact that numerous studies have been conducted on the safety of vaccines, the belief that they are not remains prevalent in the US. If years of having anti-vaccine theories debunked hasn't swayed the individual in question, it's unlikely a fine will.","conclusion":"If parents fear serious health complications should they vaccinate their child, potentially having to pay a fee won't change their mind."}
{"id":"b8cb88ab-59a5-4fda-90a3-fb6a2a0fbce4","argument":"International students will, most likely, go back home after they finish their studies. Once they start work, they will contribute to the economy of their home country using the skill they gained in the UK. Which means that the UK has trained a student who has not given anything back in return: tax, years of hard work etc. Charging a higher tuition fee is one way of balancing the books! International students also do not pay any tax in the United Kingdom so they are not entitled to receive anything in return. If the charges are unfair then they should be subsidised by their home nation where their parents and ultimately they will pay tax.","conclusion":"International student do not contribute to the economy of the UK"}
{"id":"433ec708-5ff2-4b5d-bd22-9b9ea349861b","argument":"Not being punished for rule-breaking and enjoying the liberties and benefits of not being incarcerated are equivalent to directly incentivizing good behavior.","conclusion":"All major stable societies do incentivize moral behavior by not punishing people who do comply with the rules."}
{"id":"7cdadb87-3111-4995-b462-7741b5edb906","argument":"Abortion is morally impermissible, and ought to be illegal. There is an exception for the case of rape, which I will outline below. The correct way of framing the argument is as such Is the fetus alive? Yes Does a fetus have a right to life? Debated If yes to 2 does the fetus's right to live supersede the woman's right to bodily autonomy? Debated If 2 3 are answered yes , then you hold the pro life position. If either questions 2 or 3 are answered no , then you hold the pro choice position. So, I will argue that 2 and 3 ought to be answered yes So, to answer part 2, I appeal to the future of value theory. That is, the reason why killing is wrong is because it harms the individual. How does it harm the individual? It robs them of the future goods of life. That is, it is wrong to kill any living creature that has a valuable future. This means that it is acceptable to kill a patient in a permanent vegetative state because they have no valuable future left, but a fetus must have a right to life, because clearly, it has a future of value. My challenge to people who answered no on 2 if the fetus doesn't have a right to life, then does an infant have a right to life? And if it does, then what property does the infant possess, that the fetus lacks, that gave the infant the right to life? To answer part 3 If the woman consents to sex, then she consents to the risk of getting pregnant, and therefore, if she does get pregnant, incurs an obligation to carry the fetus to term, since we have already established that the fetus has a right to life. To illustrate my point I will give an example You decide to drive to work. By driving, you consent to the risk of a car accident. If you did not want to run the risk of a car accident that is, the benefit of getting to work faster was not worth the risk of getting into an accident and having to shell out a lot of money , you ought to not drive. Notice that if the woman does not consent to sex, then, clearly, she did not consent to the risk of pregnancy, and in which case, the fetus would be in violation of her autonomy a la the kidnapping violinist. Feel free to correct me if I have framed the argument incorrectly, or my logic is inconsistent. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Abortion is morally impermissible"}
{"id":"9bde95cf-520e-4501-ad91-4988f7cb4cfe","argument":"I believe the EU referendum was carried out purely to appease voters with little to no thought behind it, and with no consideration as to what would happen should the vote go in favour to leave. The Leave campaign itself was completely biased and only focused on immigration, meaning most Leave voters were ill informed. Going forward I don't believe leaving the EU will bring any benefit to the UK without access to the single market we will suffer as we have very few products that we make within the UK and most of our industries such as the fishing industry are already propped up with EU funding. In order to continue our access to the free market surely we would have to continue to allow free movement something leave voters have rejected? If we become a Tax haven I don't see how this will be beneficial to UK citizens or businesses. Can someone change my view and convince me leaving the EU is the right or sensible choice for the UK?","conclusion":"Brexit is a complete mess and the UK will not benefit in any way by leaving the European Union."}
{"id":"3e14707f-304e-4899-8b3d-4a18e013a137","argument":"Hear me out before your flame me It's obvious that a lot of non Americans talk shit about Americans because they, think America is the greatest country of all time paraphrasing, but that's the gist of alot of what I see on the internet . I am American and its hard for me to imagine anywhere better than the USA. What I do not understand is why everyone else acts like this is such a huge fault in Americans. If I didn't think that the country that I lived in was the best country in the world, wouldn't I just move? Doesn't everyone think that the country that they live in is the best country in the world ? When people from other countries England especially say that I am arrogant, I wonder, what country do you think is the best country in the world? The answer to which, I am sure, is whatever country they live in","conclusion":"America is the best country in the world -"}
{"id":"e5fd1ecb-6e6f-43d4-b5e4-3d148b8456a7","argument":"Almost by default, a single parent sees less of their children then a dual parent household. They must both work and raise their children all by themselves, while a dual parent household can have 1 working parent and 1 stay at home parent. Also, a single parent may not be the best role model for a child. For instance, a single mother may not be an adequate replacement for a father for a young boy, and vice verse for a single father and his daughter. Also single parent households are generally poorer than dual parent ones, which again makes the children's life more difficult.","conclusion":"I believe that single parent households of any gender are detrimental to a child."}
{"id":"2153081c-c07a-48a7-90a6-ef1b670926da","argument":"The famous skin folds of the Chinese Shar-Pei so valued by breeders and owners, can become breeding grounds for bacteria that cause frequent skin infections.","conclusion":"A number of purebred animals directly suffer from the characteristics they are bred for."}
{"id":"8bc12e63-06e5-4616-90cc-5bef0bf0527f","argument":"Iran funds and militarily supports a number of US-designated terrorist organizations and other paramilitary groups around the world, including Hezbollah the Houthi rebels Hamas and the Taliban","conclusion":"Iran is a rogue state that the US should not deal with."}
{"id":"5cd4dce3-cd65-4894-89af-5608f111f540","argument":"The Android deployment architecture is flawed by design. After an update is made by Google, it must be pushed to the manufacturers, and after that to the mobile companies. That keeps most Android devices running unpatched versions of the system. Apple is able to update iOS on all devices by itself, making it much safer.","conclusion":"iOS updates are delivered more reliably, much faster, for a longer time and reach more users."}
{"id":"5b6b5869-b1fb-443f-8b0f-54349fca6557","argument":"The US is founded on Enlightenment ideals that give the US its unique capacity to unleash the productive capacity and ambition of persons without undue restrictions that advance the special interests of a privileged minority.","conclusion":"The U.S. government has never had the power to compel speech, and it never should."}
{"id":"ad856299-28af-4cf8-a21e-52a7c221f784","argument":"Some plastic bottles contain traces of the chemical BPA which has been linked to increased risk of cancer and miscarriage, and changing levels of natural hormones such as testosterone. Reusing BPA-containing bottles may lead to small amounts of BPA leaking into the liquid being drunk from them.","conclusion":"There are some health risks associated with using a reusable water bottle as opposed to buying single-use ones."}
{"id":"1170ceb1-d954-47bd-b135-cfba39e10f67","argument":"Let's say the government gave everyone a basic income of 700 every month. If you had a job that only paid 700 a month, so 8,400 a year, would you not look for another job? Most ppl would look for a second job. So even with basic income, most ppl would still work. Why do ppl work in life? To provide for themselves and their family pay for the most basic needs To help make the world a better place To pay for vacations, new video games, etc Because it gives them meaning and a purpose Because it's just something to do With basic income, ppl will still work because basic incomes doesn't fulfill all of those reasons. For a small percentage of ppl, it may fulfill Reason 1 completely if they choose to live a super minimalist life and if they choose to not have children , but they may still choose to work because they have a passion for acting, music, art, or science. Basic income can help with Reason 1 but for many, 8,400 a year is not sufficient, so ppl will still work. Many ppl today, currently, make well over 8,400 a year, more than enough they need to cover basic living expenses, yet they are still working. There are ppl making 70,000 a year, yet they live well below their income level. So it seems fallacious to think that if ppl were given a mere 8,400 a year, everyone would stop working and the economy would collapse. Yes, a very small minority of people would not work, but that would be present always, whether universal income was available or not. Note A basic income of 1000 monthly works for this post too. I merely chose 700 because that may seem more realistic and attainable. Edit I'm not arguing for or against basic income. I'm only saying that even with basic income, most ppl would still work. Change my view that everyone will stop working.","conclusion":"Most ppl would still work, even if they received basic income."}
{"id":"0cd0c3df-914d-41a8-9eb5-8742878ddf76","argument":"The right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure is something which is obviously highly valuable to the individual. I think that that right has to be subject to limitations in certain circumstances. I think the limit to the right must be where the individual's right to privacy is objectively less valuable than society's right to safety from that individual. Take this admittedly not great example as an illustrative starting point Kyllo v United States NB I don't live in the US and I don't have extensive knowledge of the fourth amendment itself. I don't advocate a 1984 state .","conclusion":"I think Fourth Amendment-type rights do more harm to society as a whole than good to the individuals they protect."}
{"id":"11b3a92e-ae55-43ee-a4c4-582aedfeb2e7","argument":"Modern tools in the digital age such as BIM Building Information Modelling capture all industry designers architects, engineers, contractors, etc. inputs and outputs in the design process. However, I don't currently believe that non designers i.e. the 'users' members of a community or communities can have an increased role in such examples of design process other than traditional and basic consulting I believe they should, but don't believe there is a way that this can be done in the context of modern design process such as digital tools such as BIM, or otherwise In other words, how can the 'user' have an increased input and output in the same BIM or modern equivalent of capturing design inputs and outputs or accompanying process, as I believe designers not by specialisation 'users' still have a level of design ability, even though they may not have technical terms that traditional industry designers do. I am looking forward to hearing your points, and seeing if you can change my view gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Users can't be included in digital design-process tools such as BIM Building Information Modelling"}
{"id":"dda6d4b0-26f9-4147-a118-6eac0639e1f0","argument":"EDIT and before you start any digital pictures are not real photographs , lets agree on a definition that renders it real if its a realistic representation of the real thing. So if i take a picture of a carrot, it will be pointy and orange, not blurry with nightstars coming out of it. And i dont recognise them as legit . Oh, you took a picture and then your camera digitally altered it over the course of x seconds? you must be such a pro photographer. Yes, they look cool. Yes, people act like its legit photography. But i would toss those pictures in the same basket as photoshop pictures. This means that they have no place in contests for national geographic and that kind of stuff. Oh look at that panda, what if we expose it so it looks more fluffy or whatever, and give it some filters so it looks blue. This is cheating, fake, misleading. People may use that for their facebook albums, or that cheap wedding photographers that put their name on pictures for their pictures. But yea, seeing the sky all starry is basically false advertising. It is not a realistic representation. I know you need iso something or whatever for nighttime because there is not enough light well, use flash. the picture will be much shittier, but it will be legit at least. But i guess its ok to use it if you are taking a picture of yetti and that is the only way to capture it on film","conclusion":"Exposure pictures are not real photographs"}
{"id":"a662fe5a-e24b-4649-b194-d38404647657","argument":"The mythological creation of Centaurs is related to rape since the Ixion tried to force Hera to have sex but Zeus exchanged Hera with Nephele a cloud.","conclusion":"In Greek mythology a main characteristic for centaurs is that they take away human women and rape them. JK Rowling knows that."}
{"id":"79363cd0-ce35-455f-bec8-3aa7bbc6b5e5","argument":"With the exception of those who need to be removed from society for society's safety, the only time offenders should be 'removed from society' is for rehabilitation, and they should then be reintegrated as quickly as possible. Current systems - which include constant monitoring and parole conditions - remove total freedom from released offenders, which is detrimental to reintegration.","conclusion":"As the prisoner will re-enter the community upon completion of their sentence, it is necessary to focus on the holistic rehabilitation of the individual."}
{"id":"a7f86885-15d2-4051-90b2-364a5f24b3fd","argument":"An outline of my view I think that discrimination by anything a person fundamentally is, is abhorrent. If someone's actions aren't something you would tolerate, that's fine, but to discriminate based on Race, religion, gender, sexual preferences, political ideology, or any other trait of the nature is wrong. Where I see this occurring and being called a good thing Admission criteria for colleges is different based on race. Employment offers. Why I'm posting here. On the one side, I'm all for equal opportunity. But in both the above, it isn't equal opportunity, it's just playing with numbers to ensure an equal outcome. If one candidate is considered more specifically because they are in a group, then isn't this just as bad as excluding someone because they are in a group? I'd like to get a better understanding of the other side of this than I have from my own view, because I feel like I might be missing something from my own perspective that people can view this discrimination in favor of a group as a good thing, while simultaneously decrying discrimination against a group. A few things I'm not considering for debate The existence of these practices^ 1 That these practices are necessary based on economic history^ 2 1 For a well documented example of this in the United States Grutter v. Bollinger 2 If a poor person in the majority is given further disadvantage than a richer person in the minority specifically based on majority minority status, this argument falls apart, and if it were truly based on socioeconomics, better solutions exist, many of which are in use. As an example, there are grants available to first generation college university students, but they still require that would be recipient of the grant actually gets into a college university. Everything above this line is unchanged from the initial post. I won't be responding further. Attacking a definition I chose to use and aligns with my view doesn't change my view, it just means I could have used a completely made up term to define it or articulate my view differently. Part of this is my fault for a poorly worded title which many people seemed to take as representative without qualification of the entire view rather than reading through the post. To the few who did provide some interesting things to consider, my view hasn't changed, and likely won't continuing down the lines of discussion that were started, but a couple of those lines of questioning did make me give some thought to what other solutions might exist to the problems related to Affirmative Action and other such practices. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"There is no such thing as good discrimination."}
{"id":"d89eb39a-b318-4db9-a877-75d84eb9962b","argument":"This is one of the most dogmatic principles of education policy in the United States\u2014that education is the great equalizer and if everyone had a substantially equivalent education, society would be notably more equitable. It just doesn't ring true to me. It strikes me that the causality is the other way around i.e. improved job opportunity and family stability within a community tend to lead to better schools, but the reverse effect is far less marked . It's really hard to find good data on the subject, because there's so much ideological pollution from a wide variety of perspectives, from the near fatalism of the school choice movement to the near utopian vision of Teach for America. It's hard to know what's real.","conclusion":"I think solving education inequality will have close to no impact on social inequality."}
{"id":"8f5cea96-d9b8-4a64-a9b8-df410026feab","argument":"Eichmann was a zionist that admired Jews, yet he proudly took responsibility for the holocaust. This he justified using Kantian ethics. As an idealist he could suppress his own feelings to act out the collective will.","conclusion":"If a collective will comes to the wrong conclusion, as in the case of Nazi Germany, then the administrator would have to act out their will, even if it conflicts with his own."}
{"id":"fe83353e-3621-42f9-8aef-735f5d39171f","argument":"The EU was already a \"bridge too far\", and under the pressures of Italian crisis, Brexit, the Migrant disaster, it is already on its way to collapse.","conclusion":"There are irreconcilable differences between EU member states that make the USE a nearly impossible endeavour."}
{"id":"bcf5da76-3956-4791-af0d-521d2de65639","argument":"In Mormon 9:15-21 the Book of Mormon condemns deism by roundly condemning people \"that have imagined up unto yourselves a god who can do no miracles.\"","conclusion":"The doctrine of the Book of Mormon strongly rejects deism, because Joseph Smith disagreed with the deist views of his father and grandfather"}
{"id":"d1ec6963-926c-4663-9cc9-713e862e04cb","argument":"This is evidenced in how simple search engines - far less refined than one would hope from an 'intelligent' robot - show immensely sexist biases that are a by-product of algorithmic optimisation for higher profits of the product: Google shows six times the number of ads for high-paid executive jobs to men than to woman. Sexism is endemic in technology.","conclusion":"Technology, including the use of gendered robots, are modelled on current social norms and values; in a patriarchal, frequently misogynist society, technology may struggle to liberate itself from its creative context."}
{"id":"1b91876c-8aa3-48be-8751-45c3e243430c","argument":"My girlfriend and I have been together for over a year. We're headed off to college together where she'll be going to china for about a month per year, until she ends up going for an entire year. I'm not okay with a long distance relationship, at all. I feel she is putting an opportunity to learn a language, which she could also learn by actually going to class here, over our relationship when she knows how I feel about this. So, I just want somebody to tell me how much of a jerk I'm being by attempting to hold her back, something I already know. Please, help me change my view. This girl has all the potential in the world, and I'm just a regular guy who wants to go to a regular college and stay in my regular country.","conclusion":"I feel my relationship of a year is more important than her going to china for a year,"}
{"id":"86530052-26c9-4914-b08c-4e5960062b2a","argument":"All the political 's are liberal in nature if they are voted to the top. All political 's that are conservative are downvoted to hell. The first responses invariably come from the young, liberal, and jobless posting between the hours of 11 am and 4pm. You're on reddit having long winded discussions, so you probably have no friends. Most political arguments are talking points, and analysis is amateur at best freshman. There will invariably be a circlejerk to start out any political  that will be started by 1 conservative and 17 liberals downvoting him and patting themselves on the crotch.","conclusion":"is haunted by liberal democratic freshman and sophomore college students who are procrastinating or were incapable of making friends."}
{"id":"909ec9f8-4584-4a32-bb67-ce58d0971cff","argument":"Many conceptions of feminism do not have space for asexuality as they are based on hierarchies of sexual practice","conclusion":"The alliance between the LGBT community and feminists has only benefited certain members of the LGBT community."}
{"id":"d220f8d2-795c-46c0-b254-5fec1f867ecd","argument":"Land degradation, due to encroachments of human civilization is one of the factors behind a dramatic loss of biodiversity, which in turn threatens the stability of human population.","conclusion":"The side-effects of our growing population are becoming another lethal check on continuing growth."}
{"id":"d50bae8e-b849-4f8d-99cc-77dea1d24122","argument":"For example most bad mentalities some how or other cause others to suffer. Suffering is a good teacher of compassion as we can understand from the common line \"I don't want anyone else to suffer the way I did\". Therfore suffering can be a kind of cosmic sensitivity training.","conclusion":"Reincarnation solves the problem of evil as people could be suffering reactions to actitivities they perfmormed in previous life times. To solve the problem of evil this reactions would need to be for the purpose of correcting the mentality and conciousness of the person."}
{"id":"76a3ef68-fbe4-4a19-a1ca-9163af77ba34","argument":"The premise of this argument is that the better off a person is, the less comfortable that person will be when facing hardship. The less struggle a person has to go through, the less strength that person will develop. The less danger a person faces, the less equipped they are to face danger. When this becomes expanded to the population level and ingrained into the economy, government, education and general social interaction, society as a whole becomes characterized by weakness. This weakness is noncompetitive and detrimental to individuals. Long term, this presents significant danger not just from international adversaries, but from environmental realities. We live in the safest era in human history, yet focus more on safety than at any point in human history. These focuses seem to be psychological safety tolerance, inclusivity, acceptance , physical safety no weapons, masculine bad, diplomacy at all costs , or financial safety UBI, social welfare, redistribution. From the psychological safety perspective, this is creating a weak minded society. There is an abundance of techniques being employed to make life \u201csafer\u201d and \u201cmore enjoyable\u201d for the average person. This begins at very early age where children are taught to get an adult to solve all of their problems. Children are never allowed to be alone because something bad might happen. This pattern progresses throughout childhood into the beginning stages of adulthood. Colleges now have powerful organizations created to protect individuals from all sorts of perceived dangers. These policies don\u2019t stop there, and continue into the workplace in the form of powerful HR and company policies. People raised in this system are ill equipped to handle inevitable difficulties in life such as death or illness, and are possibly developing psychological issues at rates greater than any point in history. Mental illness in English speaking, western nations is more prevalent than many developing nations including those in Asia and Africa. Rates of suicide are certainly increasing. This appears to negatively correlate with the \u201cprogress\u201d in society. Physical safety is being threatened not necessarily at the national level, but at the international level. China and Russia specifically have been involved with the \u201cacquisition\u201d of new territory that did not explicitly belong to them. They are using force and power to take what desire, and weakness in opposition will only expedite those endeavors. Losing the stomach to fight for what you love or want will cost you those things. Financial safety is apparent in the growing desire to redistribute wealth. Increased state welfare and ideas such as universal basic income are more commonly advocated. Free college education arguably social engineering in some disciplines non specific to any trade is being promoted as a right. Raising the minimum wage to a level that would improve wealth in the lower classes at the time of implementation, but potentially cost jobs that would make this change effectively counterproductive. To be clear, I am not advocating undue suffering, or necessarily that those currently suffering aren't experiencing too much. However, if in a utopian future where suffering is an anomaly, I would argue that it would not feel like less suffering, but more. In my experience, in a spectrum of comfort, going from pain to comfort is a more powerful experience than going from comfort to pleasure. It is better to bounce back and forth from moderately uncomfortable to moderately pleasurable, than to exist continuously on the pleasurable side of comfortable.  There is an ideal level of struggle and difficulty that is most suitable for human beings happiness, and the prosperity of the societies they make up. The pursuit of utopian levels of psychological, physical and financial comfort security for all is not a net positive beyond a certain point. Promoting \u201cprogress\u201d to the detriment to power in first world nations is not exportable.","conclusion":"Comfort and security are the greatest threats to comfort and security."}
{"id":"4b620943-54bd-428d-86ad-d71a9c0750be","argument":"Personal property is an invention of one man to oppress another man and is supported only by propaganda and violence, not by some ontological state of property ness. As an idea, or a platonic form, property does not exist. Supporting premises All deeds to land are upheld only so long as there are states to uphold them. During coups, massive recessions, or even world wars property is often destroyed, pillaged, or otherwise ignored \u2013 especially fine property like sculptures and historical architecture. From an existential sense , the uniqueness of any one object in space requires it to exist on its own without ownership. This comes from neoplatonic categories accidents. Every thing has substance, quality, quantity, relation, passion affection acted upon , action acting , place, time, being in a position, condition. Jack's boat, for instance, only covers relation and only some of the time, for relation is much bigger than whether or not Jack has his hands on the boat. The boat, as a simply object in space, defies any attempt to demystify existence. In other words, you could say that the existence of Jack's boat says more about Jack's experience a human than it does about Jack's wealth. This is exactly what the Native Americans were saying, albeit through poetry rather than syllogism. You can't take it with you, you know. That should tell us something naked we came, naked we leave. Shares in a company imaginary numbers are more about debt another on paper idea and profit a number generated by other imaginary numbers . They can be repurchased by the company at which point the company owns itself, which is nonsense if we're talking about property. For the Jews and Christians out there \u2013 covet they neighbor's house isn't claiming the dignity of the neighbor's ownership so much as the dignity of the relationship and this is backed up by the year of Jubilee in which all debt was forgiven and all property released. Religious people aside, shares in a company are only valuable insofar as we're talking about profit sharing. Outside of that conversation, property breaks down. You could say this about capital in general \u2013 as representational currency, it merely represents an idea. That we find human slavery wrong says something both about the uniqueness of humans above animals and objects and about property in general if it is wrong to own a human, it's probably wrong to own. Contra it is right to love a human, therefore it is right to love. Or it is right to protect children, therefore it is right to protect. gt I'm going to bed at the moment, but I plan on responding to comments in the morning. Looking forward to learning from you all.","conclusion":"Property does not exist."}
{"id":"10b03ac5-66aa-4917-b227-ffd2b57e3c76","argument":"Anti-PC people claim personal feelings should not matter in a debate and should not be taken into consideration, although their claims of being \"silenced\" and \"censored\" are also a result of their personal feelings being hurt.","conclusion":"Anti-PC advocates draw an arbitrary line between a factual statement and one that is based on personal feelings."}
{"id":"73a2a29d-a362-48bb-8bad-2fa9b4a6a7e5","argument":"Worth noting that the vast majority of men are born and brought up by women. The vast majority of primary teaching is also by women. Both men and women have played roles in creating the human societies we observe and must accept responsibility accordingly.","conclusion":"Patriarchy is a social construct that has been used to create an overarching argument for inequality. In reality there are dominance hierarchies in both biological genders that date back millions of years."}
{"id":"17f64b63-06e2-4951-b4d8-7907d6c5f1ee","argument":"In Sweden where government has done more than any other country towards eliminating different socialization of boys and girls, career choices of men and women remain polarized along gender stereotypes. Women just don't like STEM, despite 'gender neutrality'.","conclusion":"Most human societies follow a gender division in labour which is based on biological differences and capabilities."}
{"id":"fea0a4f9-16a6-437d-8928-2670e27e6e71","argument":"In recent years I have become a big fan of Major League Baseball, watching dozens of games of my team the Rockies and following the playoffs. That said, the regular season is too long in terms of the number of games played. Every team plays 162 games per season plus 29 spring training games immediately prior to the season's opening. That's roughly double the amount of games in the NBA regular season, and roughly ten times the number of games in the NFL regular season. This means that every team will play 5 6 games per week, except during the relatively short all star break, for close to seven months excluding the postseason . This has a number of negative effects. First, it leads to position players being injured through the wear and tear of playing so often. How often is a starting position player put out of commission for a couple weeks because of a tweaked hamstring or shoulder soreness or knee pain? Starting position players often have to be rested even when teams are in still in the hunt for a playoff berth just to avoid these wear and tear injuries. Second, the sheer number of games hinders baseball's ability to be a more national sport like basketball or football. There are so many games that just trying to follow your local team will provide more than enough baseball for a year. I don't often feel motivated to watch a Yankees vs. Red Sox game on national TV when I have already seen 5 Rockies' games during the week. Compare with other major sports, especially football, where you can follow your team and still have plenty of time to follow the rest of the action. This is partially what allows football and basketball to be national sports and thus be more relevant in the national culture. The fatigue due to the number of games played dramatically reduces ratings for games on national TV. Third, the number of games also decreases local television ratings and fan attendance at the stadiums. When there are 162 games, there's no sense of missing out if you miss a game or five during the season, because no individual game is of much importance in itself save for the last 20 30 games of the season played by a handful of the 30 teams chasing a playoff berth in September . This is especially true in the mid season slog during June, July, and early August. Fourth, it makes it harder for casual fans to become more devoted fans because it is just hard to follow a team with so many games to be played. It requires a great deal of motivation and time investment to become a more devoted fan, especially if your team isn't contending. Fifth, and finally, the number of games means that the season must be very long in terms of time. Spring training starts at the beginning of March, while the World Series is played at the end of October. This causes two major problems. First, because baseball cannot be played in rough weather, and most teams play in open stadiums, this leads to a risk of games being cancelled due to snow in the early part of the season and the late part of the season and, crucially, during the playoffs. Second, this means that baseball must overlap with football at the end of the season which, given the utter dominance of football in the ratings and in sports coverage in the news, can only siphon fan attention and interest away from baseball right when it should be heating up. I believe the regular season should be shortened by at least 20 games, and perhaps as many as 50 60, to deal with the above five issues. So, Reddit, change my view","conclusion":"I believe the Major League Baseball regular season is too long in terms of the number of games played"}
{"id":"8ae0efcb-bf8e-4a57-a68f-c98316058080","argument":"EDIT Thank you to the Reddit community for helping me out with this question. I seriously thought about it, and your 35 comments I posted this same thing to r self have turned my perspective. I am just 16, it will get better, I just need to suck it up. There is this book that I will be reading that will likely help me out with forming a mindset that helps me with my success. Thank you all. I have been arguing multiple point of views to myself about this. I am 16 years old in high school, which I'm sure already sets off the hormones, you're angsty, you want attention, it really is going to seem insignificant in your future mindset. Honestly, you may be right to think that, I may be overreacting, pessimistic, selfish, and stupid. But all I can see is how logical it is to just die. The following analogy is explaining my thought process, one can say I am breaking the rule by arguing my claim and not saying why I believe it, but this is just something I thought to myself to help myself understand the motive. The argument I presented to myself when thinking about this view is the statement permanent solution to a temporary problem. When I get a burn on my skin blister fire burn rug burn whatever , I will likely cover it up with a band aid or something because it will only rub against my clothes and cause additional pain. Pain hurts and doesn't feel good, so I'd like to get rid of it and put on a band aid. This helps, and the wound soon heals. The wound would heal regardless if I put a band aid on it or not. And no, I do not consider it will stop infections and help the healing process when I put on a band aid. I only want to stop the irritation. Thus, when I am at a rough patch in my life whether it be now, in the past, or in the future , why don't I just slap a band aid on the situation and jump off a bridge? One might argue it's a lot easier to find other solutions, but is it really? I could literally go to a nearby pond a minute walk , weigh myself down with rocks, and force myself into the middle. I have researched the will to live that I presume is in most animals, and that is the only thing that would inhibit me. I've read people's stories that their will is to protect their family and raise their kids and various other values. I am a 16 year old male, I don't have anything to protect. What do I have to care about? I have thought about it and there may be something rooted into my subconscious that I truly desire, but what really is the point? I like to think of death as an equation. 1 1 2. life time death. It is as simple as that. I believe nothing to exist once my conscience has nothing to keep it alive. Of course, if there is an afterlife, nothing changes with my mentality, as such is a trivial thought to me. If I kill myself now, and find myself in some afterlife or limbo or whatever, I may regret my decision, or I may not. There is no way to tell and thus little to worry about. Back to my second paragraph, regarding what is the point. I have considered my life after high school. It will be the same as others, go to college, achieve a bachelors or masters in some field no need to specify my interests , and pursue my dream career. I may or may not achieve it, but either way my life will be the same. It is all the same time in the equation with the exact same solution. There is no you lived a better life because it is all the same in the end. As I am writing this I think of the common saying does the end justify the means? Each year that passes is extremely unique as a 16 year old. 21 years old still seems very far away. It will come surprisingly quick, and each year after that I anticipate to lose its uniqueness. I could take up snowboarding, or basketball, or some club or activity to keep my mind feeling as though it is not living a useless life. However, with a career and obligations, there will still be a sense of monotony my observation from others' experiences . By age 50, a year is just another year. It will be extremely similar to the one before it, and the one after I am genuinely asking others to tell me why it is not the best solution to kill myself. I can say I am not depressed, but I don't think 100 certainty is possible, so it may be a possibility that I am denying. Anyway, thanks for reading. TL DW I think the most logical step to end the rough patches in life is to kill myself. How is it otherwise?","conclusion":"Why do I not just kill myself? I am not depressed, it is simply the most logical solution."}
{"id":"a0df8068-3b05-42c0-a1b1-9522b17ae157","argument":"Not everyone has a home. Libraries are one of the few public spaces people can spend time without having to purchase something. Some people like ones who do not have a home don't have anywhere else to go and a library provides a place for them.","conclusion":"They can make do with what they have at home, especially since all the books are accessible through an electronic device instead of bookshelf."}
{"id":"3c733c37-90ce-4cf0-8a2d-8f25b7086bd6","argument":"Similarly. in the UK a woman cannot commit rape, and even a man being forced to have sex with a woman at knife point can only hope for significantly lesser charges.","conclusion":"Male victims of sexual violence are discouraged from reporting the offences against them, both societal and by legal systems."}
{"id":"e206bc39-da47-4a89-9cd1-eb686a3275e7","argument":"High income countries, including those in the EU, contribute the most to carbon emissions. Low-income countries contribute the least.","conclusion":"The EU has a moral obligation to developing countries, which have been disproportionately impacted by climate change."}
{"id":"112361a2-0eed-49d5-a694-ffb13055b6e1","argument":"Affirmative action is itself a form of discrimination\u2014reverse discrimination against whites. This conflicts with the idea of a color blind society where decisions are made based on \u201cmerit\u201d alone. if the goal of affirmative action is to compensate for historical discrimination, then reverse discrimination is also unfair because it punishes whites today for the crimes of their ancestors. Affirmative action is also counter productive because it stigmatises minorities, characterising them as being in need of special treatment. This is especially true of qualified and talented blacks who succeeded in today\u2019s society without affirmative action. Affirmative action may also be counter productive by putting minorities into situations where they are likely to fail and subsequently encouraging minorities to view themselves as \u201cvictims,\u201d preventing them from reaching their full potential. EDIT u exis007  regarding the suspension of AA","conclusion":"I believe that affirmative action is discriminatory, and its practice should be suspended"}
{"id":"6bab1a44-58b8-42c6-ad66-557649ccc277","argument":"Edit When I talk about the size of government, I am not talking about the number of employees or politicians. I am talking about how much power the government has over individuals, companies, private organizations, and the economy. We're all familiar with the idea that power corrupts. I happen to believe this is true. And the more power, the likelier the corruption. With that in mind, I do not understand how someone can simultaneously hold the views that 1 Corruption is bad, 2 There is a direct correlation between power and corruption, and 3 The power and scope of the government should be increased. Obviously, I understand that government is a necessary evil I'm not an anarchist. I do, however, believe that, in order to keep corruption at its lowest possible level, government should be kept as small as possible. You will still have corruption, but the less power that the government has, the less damage it can do. This is, of course, where the right and left disagree How big is too big? How small is too small? However, the thinking on the left seems to be that Washington is pretty damn corrupt, probably to its core. With that view in mind, I don't understand how they could want more power ceded to such a fundamentally corrupt institution. In other words, I think their protestations about the hardcore corruption in Washington are an implicit admission that the government is too large. At once, they simultaneously believe that the government is both too large and not large enough. What may be happening here is that these people believe that we can somehow stop politicians from being corrupt as this person suggested. This is, in my opinion, a naive and childish dream. Human nature is such that power will draw corrupt people that seek it. There will, of course, be some good ones, but they will be far outnumbered by either corrupt or corruptible people. Obviously, one recommendation, other than shrinking the government, is to elect higher quality citizens. This is surely something we should strive to do. However, the fact that a huge swath of the federal government is not elected the so called 4th branch of government and given the immense amount of power that this unelected part of government has, this reasonable sounding approach seems quite ineffectual. Secondly, as we do not currently have term limits, it is possible, and quite common, to have career politicians. I think that it is a given that the longer you stay in Washington, the more likely you are to become, if not corrupt, morally or ethically bent, so to speak. tl dr You can't complain that the government is extremely corrupt while, at the same time, working to give it more power.","conclusion":"It is paradoxical to advocate growing the size and scope of the government, but then complain about corruption and a lack of power for the citizen"}
{"id":"438a0da8-5463-4eec-adb5-58dbdb533942","argument":"Human endangering speech eg making prank bomb-threats or screaming fire in a packed cinema, should be forbidden.","conclusion":"Facebook and Twitter should remove accounts of terrorist organisations, such as ISIS, from their sites."}
{"id":"84fcee66-5888-4487-aeb3-65f54611cff9","argument":"Just a note, I do not believe in Nazism. Now, I know this view is controversial and I know it's generally frowned upon but my lifelong belief is that eugenics isn't that bad. This started before I can even remember. I felt that people who live off of welfare and do nothing all day but drugs and get fat should lose their reproductive rights. At no time I believed people should die. I just think that people should lose their ability to reproduce until they have proven worth towards society. I don't think only one group of people should be singled out. In my mind, the only way for society to change for the better is to remove those who depend on warning labels and government funding. I get that older people or people with real disabilities need help but everyone knows who is working the system and milking it for money so they don't have to work. It's people who purposely do bad in job interviews and show no concern for their personal health. Don't get me wrong, I've met a lot of fat overweight etc people who are perfectly healthy and it is truly genetic. I just believe that if someone is purposely not working so they can live for free should not be allowed to have children. In my mind, it would be better for the genetic line to die out instead of being able to propagate and spread. Given that maybe their children will be successful in life but from what I have seen, they most likely are not. EDIT I've changed my mind. Eugenics are not the best route to go. Education and opportunities is what builds empires. I still believe eugenics could be successful if we had more knowledge as a collective to determine who will be successful and who wouldn't be.","conclusion":"I am a strong believer in eugenics."}
{"id":"0255449b-18b4-414e-86b7-f8bac9680fff","argument":"Religion encourages submission to higher power, which in turn makes people susceptible to manipulation. Individuals should have their own critical thoughts about life instead of relying on an organisation. Individuals should be capable of independent thought, but religion discourages that thought.","conclusion":"Religion organizes and manipulates people in order to make them easier to control."}
{"id":"728bab94-70ee-4214-a2bb-27770d6ab54d","argument":"A religion that really wants to promote free thinking, unlike Catholicism, would wait until their potential believers are old enough to commit to the faith and understand everything that it entails.","conclusion":"Religions are routinely introduced to children who are too young to make an informed choice."}
{"id":"26a4a556-62cc-40e6-910a-9af99c0a3209","argument":"Men and women generally have different ways of thinking and\/or acting. They don't necessarily respond the same way to a problem. Having different insights in this case, due to sex differences can be positive in an organization such as the army.","conclusion":"More women in the military will improve the culture in the armed forces and improve its workings."}
{"id":"776665c7-34c0-455f-b529-8965fd03dd7c","argument":"I don't believe that anyone should be shamed for their body, but I don't believe that a doctor telling a patient that losing weight will improve their health counts as fat shaming. With the exception of those who are forced into obesity by a health defect I believe obesity completely preventable. Honestly, it seems downright irresponsible that a doctor would not inform someone whose health is hurt by their weight that they need to change something. It's never a bad idea to be sensitive about it, but you can't simply let someone continue to damage their health to avoid hurt feelings. EDIT Added some examples below. To be clear, I do understand that in some cases a doctor dismissing a patient's symptoms as a result of their weight can lead to serious health issues going ignored and that's definitely not okay, my issue is simply with patients who are told to lose weight in a clinical, not crude way taking as shaming. EDIT Wow, didn't expect to wake up to this many responses Going through everyone's comments now EDIT My view has been partially changed. While I do still believe that it's the responsibility of a doctor to bring up the subject of your weight if it's significant enough to become a risk to your health, regardless of whether or not it's the main reason for your visit because they are there to look after your health, I've also seen that there's a fundamental flaw with simply telling a patient they need to lose weight without exploring why it is that they're struggling with it to begin with. There's always the possibility it's just down to laziness, but depression, lack of nutritional knowledge, and several other things are more common than I realized as underlying issues. As for people feeling shamed and angry because they have other issues which go ignored because they are automatically dismissed as a result of their weight while I still believe this is a separate issue from my question as that was about patients feeling shamed simply because it was brought up they could benefit from losing some weight, rather than only mentioning their weight regardless of other issues this seems to be much more common than I believed. I intend to research more about it, but I assumed as clinically trained professionals it had to be a rare phenomenon. I still think in many of these cases weight management could probably have reduced symptoms or allowed an earlier diagnosis, but clearly it's an issue regardless. I do also see how this could, understandably, but people on the defensive enough about their weight so that even when their issue is addressed, if weight is brought up afterwards or in addition to it, their feelings could be hurt enough that in their mind that was the focus of the visit.","conclusion":"A doctor telling their patient that they need to lose weight shouldn't be considered fat shaming."}
{"id":"b9f3da83-2801-4046-b908-d5be59f76d31","argument":"The universe is only the sum total of all physical matter that is known to exist. Since all physical matter is known to be contingent, it follows that the collection of all physical matter is also contingent.","conclusion":"The universe requires a necessary cause whose nonexistence would be impossible. The universe itself is known to not be necessary, and its nonexistense is entirely conceivable."}
{"id":"eb934fc8-7a4e-4149-872b-e3d513ec377c","argument":"In my opinion I see cats as terrible pets. It\u2019s a 50 50 chance your cat is going to be one of the cuddly cats that loves attention or one that does his own thing and you never see it. EVERY single cat I have ever met has either swatted, nipped, bit, scratched, hissed, etc. If I had friends or even strangers in my home and my dogs did any of those things to them those people could have my dogs put down. Cats shit in a box in your house that you have to clean, they are very hard to train, less loving opinion I guess , and the list goes on. So someone please explain to me why these worthless animals are so sought after and adored by the internet.","conclusion":"Cats are worthless pets."}
{"id":"c3a64779-7625-42c6-9340-f1e04c00a535","argument":"Clothes have most of the time been made by hand using raw natural materials which is effortful and requires resources as animals or plants; that combined with hot environments and the male-centrism of most cultures it could explain the low priority given to female clothes.","conclusion":"For many time periods\/cultures it was\/is difficult to fabricate clothes, it is uncomfortable to wear them in hot weather and male armour was\/is a priority, so not covering female breasts is biased for convenience in those cultures."}
{"id":"dad243e5-e9f2-49e6-b31b-aab738d6539a","argument":"Ceremonial processions draw large crowds of people wishing to glimpse the royals passing by and wave flags. This increases nationalistic feelings and pride in the country.","conclusion":"Monarchy provides opportunity for psychologically deeply positive rituals such as coronation ceremony and national celebration thereof, which can bring social unity and cohesion"}
{"id":"67df3128-b054-4960-8e7f-5f28ce2cb51e","argument":"Only four in ten Muslims in the US were born there, yet 95% of American Muslims say they are proud to be American.","conclusion":"Immigrants generally change their perceived in-group to the host nation."}
{"id":"ddf4fb04-9c1d-410a-abdc-02c3295f0725","argument":"I suppose i should start with this caveat Yes i understand that depression is a neurological disorder and can often be remedied with medication and therapy, and that sanctioned suicide for people with mood disorders is at best ethically and medically questionable, given that someone with for instance, BPD might very well change their minds completely not long after the fact. I concur with the belief that for many people the maxim of Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem might indeed well hold true The people i'm talking about are ones for whom this maxim doesn't hold true. People who for whatever reason, be they physical or mental problems acquired through birth or unlucky life experience have ended up in positions where their day to day existence has simply become unbearable, and for whom no chance of escape exists other than life simply ending. Now this could easily be understood as an argument for assisted dying, but were i might differ from those who hold this view is that i would extend it beyond terminal incurable diseases to include people with a host of issues in their lives, People who've ended up alone in late middle age, with poor financial prospects and no family members to help ease their transition into old age, people with crippling anxiety disorders that inhibit them from ever being nonindependent from their parents or care givers, people with serious physical disabilities that condemn them to an isolated life bereft of career or social opportunities. I think that those among them who really feel they don't want to live out the rest of their lives in this way should be allowed to end their lives, and should be assisted to do so if they lack the resolve to do it themselves in some haphazard way that might not be successful, i feel that to do otherwise would be cruel, as it forces them to carry on living in mental or physical anguish for no other reason than the selfish desire of others to appear more moral Well there you have it, . gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Suicide is a perfectly rational choice for people who objectively have nothing to live for, and shouldn't be legally prevented from doing so"}
{"id":"fd120b48-73b4-4a48-93a4-5872929d8a12","argument":"Children under the age of 1 year are now learning how to use technology like smartphones","conclusion":"The early usage of smartphones trains children to get used to technology."}
{"id":"d85412b5-8043-427d-bb48-7d03f1cf3266","argument":"The credible threat of a country unilaterally implementing geoengineering may incentivize countries to agree to higher mitigation levels than in current international environmental agreements. Millad-Ball agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com","conclusion":"The threat of geoengineering in the future may incentivize countries to increase emissions reductions in the present. Urpelainen 2012 in Harding & Moreno-Cruz agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com"}
{"id":"6a5a44c2-cbae-49e5-bb6f-c9bf7186f843","argument":"Because of its territorial position Japan was chosen, not Germany. Easy salvage should be prevented, so the aim was to find a spot, where in case of failure the bomb would land in very deep water.1","conclusion":"Japan was selected to be a better target than Nazi Germany in 1943."}
{"id":"c34efa0e-ae6e-46ba-82a0-e15137779b0e","argument":"On paper I understand and can appreciate the relevance and importance of a working democracy, and it's certainly better than some alternatives. But it's the UK local elections in England today and once again, just like in the general election last year, I feel like my vote is a useless gesture. There aren't really any parties that represent my views. Well, there is one, but they lost so badly in the last election it's probably going to be another generation before anyone trusts them again. So voting for them would be a waste of time. So why bother voting at all, if my vote is just going to be ignored with so many others? In the last general election nearly two thirds of the country did NOT vote for the current government, and yet here we are. What's the solution? Change voting system? We tried that, the AV referendum was not the ideal proportional representation we need, and the country voted against it anyway. Now governments will use that as an excuse to not bother trying to change again for another generation. Attempt to find political office myself in an attempt to enact change? I am unsure of the requirements to try and become an MP, but I assume it takes large sums of time and money that I do not have. Plus, I don't really consider myself charismatic enough to convince anyone to actually vote for me. Or that I'd be able to fight the built up momentum of the current system even if they did. Maybe I'm just bitter because voting only seems to work if everyone already agrees with your point of view, and because the majority or whatever FPTP calls a majority don't agree with me I constantly feel like an outsider looking in. I'm unlikely to change my views any time soon and I doubt anyone else will either so why bother at all? Me not voting isn't going to change the outcome what so ever.","conclusion":"I genuinely don't see any point in voting in the UK local or general elections"}
{"id":"69a0f9f8-1d1c-448c-9c0d-80c7e766fcba","argument":"Because egg and meat production are separated by modern production practices the males of egg-laying chickens are often shredded shortly after hatching as they are not needed.","conclusion":"The common practices underlying the production of meat massive livestock farming are unethical."}
{"id":"b6e6cd22-bffe-48be-b7a6-04e207aa32be","argument":"Frequent delays on public transport mean that people risk arriving late to important places such as their workplace. This can have catastrophic knock-on effects.","conclusion":"One major reason for people's unwillingness to switch to public transport is reliability rather than cost."}
{"id":"c1e9c3d3-6751-478c-8c7a-adf4fb9f8fd0","argument":"Of course you need intelligence, empathy, social skills, courage etc etc they are all necessary but I believe being attractive is the single most important factor in success. We can all agree that Confidence, Good Upbringing, Self esteem, Assertive behavior, Extroversion, Magnetic personality, Charisma, Fame play a significant role in a person's success.All those traits are present in abundance in an attractive person. Also almost every successful person I have met is attractive. Of course, there are a few exceptions but they are few and far in between. Also, its not just about the genes, its the way you dress, groom and present yourself.","conclusion":"Though seemingly superficial Being Attractive is single biggest factor in achieving success in career and relationships so working on it should be a priority."}
{"id":"96a10a0f-171c-4b78-b6d6-1618de3558a9","argument":"The common assumption and statement repeated by politicians at least in the U.S. and Israel is that a nuclear Iran is completely unacceptable. I agree that it will be an inconvenience and complication, and a negative for Western interests, but it will not be a disaster. Iran obtaining nukes may actually encourage internal liberalization reform. A nuke provides ultimate protection from invasion. Hardliners use the threat of invasion to scare people away from reforms, so their position would be weakened by having a bomb. Anticipated replies If Iran has a nuke, it will try to destroy Israel. Iran would not use a nuke because that would be absolute suicide. The country would be invaded and the leadership executed. Iranian leadership is not rational, and will do it anyway. Iranian leadership has shown itself to be very rational. Yes, it uses terrible rhetoric and incites hatred in its people as a means of control. However, their strategy seems similar to Nixon's Madman theory act like you're crazy to get more out of negotiations. Iran will give nuclear material to terrorists This would still be suicide. There is an extremely high likelihood it would be traceable back to them. Besides, while they are happy to sponsor terrorist groups like Hezbollah and Hamas, they would have no interest giving away a superweapon to an unpredictable third party. A nuclear Iran would cause a nuclear arms race in the Middle East This is the phrase generally used, but as far as I can tell the only one racing would be Saudi Arabia. However, Saudi Arabia is both a U.S. ally and could work out a defense pact if Iran had a bomb , and has no nuclear infrastructure, which apparently considering that Iran has been a year away from a bomb for 20 years takes a long time to create. Furthermore, I'm skeptical of an arms race since Israel and Pakistan already have nukes and this has not caused one. Iran will become more influential in the region, which is bad because it funds terrorists. Having a nuke would only increase its influence because it would be able to act without the threat of a U.S. invasion. However, this is hardly different from the status quo, where it is common knowledge that there is little public appetite for an assault on Iran's borders. The U.S. and allies are currently engaged in proxy conflicts with Iran Iranian nukes would not change these conflicts. For example, the U.S. and U.S.S.R. engaged in such conflicts but kept nukes to themselves.","conclusion":"Iran getting nuclear weapons would not be a huge disaster"}
{"id":"d80dca82-b398-4f44-87ac-9a5faba0d778","argument":"For some reason, it has always been a rule that candidates are not allowed to bring outside help to debates. The Democratic debates tonight will follow this rule, as well as the Republican debates that already took place. If candidates were allowed to bring sources, facts, tablets with internet access, ect it would be far easier for politicians to be called out on thier BS during the debate. To roughly paraphrase George Bush senior, If i tell a lie on stage, 10 million people will hear it. When it is corrected the next day on the news, 10 thousand will hear it. We desperately need debates where candidates can be called out on stage for telling lies. Carly Fiorina was on the debate stage telling lies about the planned parenthood video. This was certainly called out on the news afterward, but not many people have seen the rebuttals. Lies can easily be put out there with no way to effectively counter. They also gain instant legitimacy because they have been said in a presidential debate. Debates should also either not be shown live, or have people on the scene whose sole job is to read facts about what candidates are saying. Too often candidates are allowed to stretch, bend and outright proclaim falsehoods because no one is able to counter them with hard evidence. either independent fact checkers can be chosen, or both sides are allowed to choose their own fact checkers The way we do debates is antiquated and needs to change.","conclusion":"Candidates should be able to bring notes, tablets, phones, ect. to political debate stages. Debates should also not be shown live, but delayed and showed with fact checking done my multiple organizations."}
{"id":"f2307a7e-c200-4367-8c59-639f852e3660","argument":"Imagine that we could capture dictators like Kim Jong Un without causing chaos that just ends up killing a bunch of people. If that were possible, then dictators such as him should be put to death. So, I'm not saying that practically we should go in and kill dictators such as him, just that they deserve to be killed or put to death. What makes Kim Jong Un so bad? The people of NK have no human rights and the economic policies of NK lead to mass poverty. Not US style poverty, but true abject poverty.","conclusion":"I believe dictators like Kim Jong-Un should be put to death."}
{"id":"f966d3e1-bf30-4a6e-918c-fa2f512fa66f","argument":"Say what you want about Assassin's Creed's repetitive gameplay or story tropes but it is undeniable that Ezio Auditore was one of the most well thought out and complex characters of any game ever made. He has everything that makes a good video game character. For starters he's skilled. Ezio was raised from a young age to be able to climb any building in Italy and to be able to fight multiple enemies at once. You get to follow him on his journey from being a trouble making Playboy to a master assassin through years of training and hardship. His personality. Arguably the best thing about him is this. The one thing I adore about Ezio's character is that he has just the right amount of qualities. He's charming but not annoying, he's emotional but not a pussy and he's passionate but not pretentious. He's also not impecable in his actions. There's nothing more annoying than perfect characters and even though Ezio illustrates the archetype of the jack of all trades hero , he isn't impecable. He makes some really stupid decisions in the games, one of which causes his uncle his life. The most annoying thing about larger than life male leads tends to be the fact that their stories revolve around stroking their own greatness. Nothing about Ezio screams holier than thou. One of the things that surprised me the most about him was that when his father and brother are murdered he doesn't cry or become enraged, the only thing on his mind is getting his mother and sister to Spain where they'll be safe, it is only after Mario convinced him of his duty as an Assassin that he decides to stay. All in all people look at Assassin's Creed 2 as a revenge story even though Ezio doesn't do what he did out of emotion or even justice. He does it because the people who killed his family are Templars who want to control the world and he is an Assassin. I have yet to play a game with a character that surprised me as much as Ezio did. I felt like I learned something new about him every sequence of every game until the very end.","conclusion":"Ezio Auditore da Firenze from the Assassins Creed series is the greatest video game character of all time."}
{"id":"01db5def-e690-4c1e-9964-4e64e9a5f5a4","argument":"I am a firm believer that the greatest value an employee brings to a company is in what they do or how they do it, depending on their duties . Outside of someone who works at formal occasions like a wedding photographer I don't see the point of formal dress in the workplace. Provided someone isn't wearing clothing that is overly offensive or overly distracting, it shouldn't matter what they wear, it should matter what they do. I think professionalism comes from the quality of their work, and I would rather have a guy in a t shirt and flip flops who produces quality work, than a guy who is well dressed but doesn't produce as quality of work. I also think companies with loose dress codes like Google show that what you do is so much more important that how you dress. I think there is a time and a place for formal clothing, but the workplace is not one of them.","conclusion":"Provided clothing isn't offensive or distracting, I don't see the reason for dress codes like business or business casual in the workplace."}
{"id":"6c06a6a6-076e-412c-b57b-a31378468527","argument":"To clarify, here is an example of the type of response I mean gt First cherry picked quote of the OP, or previous comment. Often these cherry picked quotes are taken out of context, do not even quote the complete sentence, or omit important clarifying text. A response to the first cherry picked quote. This will usually be just a response to the first quote, and will completely ignore the rest of the OP. gt Second cherry picked quote of the OP, or previous comment. Again, the quote will often ignore the rest of the argument. A response to the second cherry picked quote. Again, this quote will usually respond only to the second block of quoted text, and will ignore gt Third block of quoted text. Etc, etc. Third response. Etc, etc. End of example, beginning of my explanation. I find this format for response to comments or posts to be incredibly frustrating, difficult to read, and discouraging to respond to. The vast majority of the time I see it, it seems like the responder is ignoring parts of OP's argument, and selectively choosing to only respond to certain portions of it. Far too often I see the quoted text doesn't even quote an entire sentence, but only chooses to respond to a portion of the sentence that easily fits into their preconceived narrative of whatever the discussion is about. They then choose to completely ignore the portions of the OP that disagree with their response. Even if the responder chooses to quote an entire sentence, or even paragraph, arguments aren't formed like that. A well written, cohesive argument is intended to flow from one sentence to the next, from one paragraph to the next. Each level of the argument builds off the previous one to drive the point home. By choosing to respond piecemeal, rather than holistically, the responder is completely ignoring the cumulative impact of the argument. This leads me to feel that the quote response format is a particularly lazy approach to arguing. Unlike in a verbal discussion, on Reddit you have the time to carefully consider your responses. You can take in the entire argument, digest it, and come up with a comprehensive response that takes into account all of the OP's points. When a responder chooses to cherry pick specific parts of the argument, they are not performing the intellectual due diligence required to have a thorough response. Far too often it seems like the responder only read until they came up with a response to a single point, then responded to that point and moved on. It may give the responder a feeling that they rebutted the original post, but, really it's just a lazy way to get their two cents while showing that they didn't take the time to consider the entire argument. It also makes the response seem a lot longer when it's just padding the length with text quoted from the OP. A responder can post a response that looks like it's several lines long, but most of that is quoted text, and they've only really added a couple of sentences worth of content. Finally, the quote response format is incredibly discouraging to respond to or even read. Anyone reading the response will have already read the OP. Having to then re read parts of the OP is repetitive. It feels like I'm wasting my time re reading what I had just read, which discourages me from continuing with the response. Even if the response makes me want to refer back to the OP, the whole post is right there on the same screen. It's not like I have to go search through a book, or even a different web site. I just have to scroll up a little bit. When reading a series of arguments, responses, counter arguments, and counter responses, having the flow of the debate broken up by constantly quoting material I have just read makes the argument much more difficult to follow. Rather than feeling like a cohesive, flowing conversation, it feels disjointed. By ignoring large portions of the previous comments or the OP, it feels like the responder isn't responding to the entire argument. This, in turn, makes me feel like it's pointless to offer a rebuttal, as the responder will just ignore whatever portions of my argument don't fit into theirs. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The common Reddit comment response format of text quoted from the post, followed by a response to that quote, followed by another block of text quoted from the post, followed by another response, etc is incredibly annoying and discourages an open conversation."}
{"id":"8e691a38-4cf3-482b-857d-222492ce0c02","argument":"\"If a husband or wife, or parents, were crucified in the town, the wife, the husband, or the children shall not live in that town, except it be as large as Antioch, and even then they must remove to another part. Until what term are they not allowed to live there? Till the flesh is totally destroyed, and the bones cannot be recognized any longer.\" Semachot 2.11","conclusion":"According to the gospels, after Jesus' death, his body was taken down from the cross immediately and buried by Joseph of Arimathea Matthew 27:58 Mark 15:45 Luke 23:52-53 John 19:38 In reality, crucified criminals almost never received decent burial. Their bodies were left on the cross to rot and be eaten by scavengers."}
{"id":"99c53830-3b03-4b98-aeda-a09047c86504","argument":"Some countries in Europe and Latin America alongside Israel and Singapore have already adopted it. Apparently, the UK has adopted this recently as well. For those of you who don\u2019t know what this is, it\u2019s when you\u2019re automatically registered to donate your organs when you die unless you decide to opt out. Assuming consent is not only backwards, but unethical on so many levels. Consent can only be affirmative. There are thousands of ways you can save people with their consent but opt out isn\u2019t one of them. This isn\u2019t just about dead people\u2019s rights either. It affects the living because if you can treat a dead human being like some kind of object, then you\u2019re another step closer to treating humans as objects, which old white men have already been doing for the past millenia. However this a bad idea not because of superstitions and religious beliefs, but because this is about setting the precedent for what\u2019s acceptable and what isn\u2019t. If people do not say they want their organs donated, they do not want their organs donated. Period. If we let hospitals and government institutions control our bodies, we're falling down the slippery slope of losing bodily autonomy.","conclusion":"Opt-out Organ Donation is a Bad Idea"}
{"id":"b509d8fb-411d-4a05-aa25-ce35d7cebc65","argument":"Why are you so attached to a name? It's only a name. Your lineage will carry on even if your name doesn't. If there's a good practical reason to keep your name, then keep it. Don't try to have your cake and eat it too, by changing it and also not changing it. The taking of a single name traditionally symbolized the union of the married couple. Hyphenation doesn't symbolize union, but rather concatenation. It's a pain in the ass for children, who shouldn't be subjected to your indecisiveness or flimsy sanctimonious notions of equality . It's a pain in the ass for your friends and family, and for computers, databases, data entry specialists. Hyphenated names are generally ugly, and don't roll off the tongue. How about some appreciation for aesthetics? If you're gonna take the same name, here's what to do Choose which one you like best. It's very simple. Or choose an entirely new one that you both like.","conclusion":"I believe hyphenated surnames through marriage are bullshit."}
{"id":"272bb80c-34ad-4a44-ac27-8bc8c45d86aa","argument":"Moving to Canada has not stopped the interest of the British press in the lives of Meghan and Harry, with paparazzi images appearing of their lives in Canada in the Daily Mail.","conclusion":"By relocating to Canada, Harry and Meghan will not be as protected from intrusions by paparazzi."}
{"id":"0b27f3b8-8051-4685-89fc-84af16f0e072","argument":"President Ashraf Ghani has recently adopted a more conciliatory tone towards the Taliban, indicating the Afghan government wishes to seriously negotiate with the Taliban.","conclusion":"The withdrawal of Coalition forces would allow the Afghan government to negotiate with the Taliban more successfully."}
{"id":"2b1472f6-389a-4742-82f5-b109c41d9232","argument":"From the cartoons all the way up to the Rated R movies and commercials have a responsibility to uplift society in a way where all benefit. We are the Mecca of Culture, most movements and culture changes from here, Hollywood is the King of Movies and why 75 of overseas students never go back to their countries once they come to the States. We are polluting the airways with an unhealthy balance of shitty music, and all these puppet billboards are being pimped harder than our politicians. Instead of telling kids to stay in school so we can have a better future, they are being shown a future where living fast and over sexualizing is the norm and actual sex and being a truther is a thing. We have a NERD culture now because of the Big Bang Theory, there's no reason why actual smart culture can't be a thing. Please Change my view. gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than just downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"American Media has a cultural responsibility to uplift society."}
{"id":"7d144cfb-7008-49dc-974a-bd148c6a7af9","argument":"I am a student at a fairly large university studying in a field which has a large gender gap. About 10 15 of the students in my major are women, and this is consistent with the industry at large. Each year, there is a concert showcasing the students in my program, where anyone can submit a project piece composition they are working on and the best are selected to be featured. It is not very competitive to get into this concert, generally if you apply and your piece is finished or even almost finished and not absolutely terrible you will get in. This year faculty has announced that they will be hosting an additional showcase concert which will feature exclusively the women in my department. Their argument is that gender equality in our field is very biased towards males and we need to raise awareness of the issue and give women a space where they are comfortable to submit, to give younger girls and example and increase female involvement in the program. I'm very uncomfortable with this idea right now. I agree that women should be treated equally in my field, and that there are lots of examples of male bias. I don't agree that giving us a special concert is the way to work towards that. I don't want to be thought of as a women member of my field, I want to be thought of just as a member of my field as anyone else would be, without my gender being such a significant part of it. It feels almost condescending that there is a 'special' showcase for women, as if they couldn't submit to the normal one like everyone else. I've performed in the department wide showcase many times with no issue. Additionally, I don't feel that I am discriminated against by my peers for my gender. Most of the time I forget that I'm in a minority group because I'm not treated any differently and it doesn't matter. It is still a factor in the larger industry, but the young people in my peer group don't really take part in it in my personal experience. From what I've read online about this, it is the oldest generation of people in my field who have the most prejudice against women, and it is gradually going away as new views are brought in. I know gender equality is a touchy subject, which is why I want to hear other views on this situation. The last thing I want to do is contribute to bias against women, but I don't think this concert is a good idea, it seems to be divisive instead of inclusive. There is going to be an open discussion next week where we can speak with faculty about our views on this showcase. I really want to consider as many opinions as possible before I go in so that I'm not ignorant or basing my opinion on false assumptions. tl dr My university is planning to host a showcase of work done by only the women studying my major, in an effort to combat gender inequality in my field. About 10 15 of our department is female. There is already a similar showcase which anyone can submit to. I think this is a little demeaning, and that it emphasizes the divide between genders instead of minimizing it. So, reddit, change my view Why is a showcase specifically for women in a field good for gender equality?","conclusion":"Making an event to specifically showcase the \"women of\" a field does not help with gender equality issues."}
{"id":"1fd37c09-e12c-4859-8ee7-e4154be596f1","argument":"\"The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic.\"1 Shouting fire in a crowded cinema when there is no fire, and you know it, is wrong because doing so creates a clear and present danger of harm to others. Likewise, in the US and many other countries there is no protection for \u2018false commercial speech\u2019 i.e. misrepresentation and the contents of adverts can be regulated in order to ensure that they are truthful and do not deceive consumers.2 On that basis, restrictions can be placed on how tobacco products may be advertised, and people may be prevented from promoting illegal and fraudulent tax advice. 1 U.S. Supreme Court, Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47, 1919, 2 U.S. Supreme Court, Lorillard Tobacco Co v Reilly, AG of Massachusetts, 533 U.S. 525, 200","conclusion":"The character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done"}
{"id":"c2f56738-fe23-44ce-9874-23d9cb0cba4d","argument":"In ancient China migratory locusts frequently destroyed harvests, and residents have helped to track outbreaks for some 2,000 years. The modern form of this research was continued by the basics set out in ancient China.","conclusion":"Many professional scientific projects and studies have been carried forward from citizen science and observations. This means that scientists can help develop the basis for discoveries."}
{"id":"8d937058-7d91-4df9-b791-b17d8c413673","argument":"When I was in high school I began to get interested in civics. I was of the opinion that there was no greater country in the world than the US. I believed that it was our patriotic duty to vote as citizens and be informed about the issues facing us. I am a registered Democrat but believed that while there were some fundamental differences between the Democrats and Republicans that both party\u2019s wanted the same thing, prosperity for all, they just had different ways of going about it. Then 9 11 happened. I watched us go to war in Afghanistan with unease but I believed that since the government there was protecting Bin Ladin it was the right thing to do. When Bush started talking about Iraq though I thought it was bullshit and fought it tooth, claw, and nail. I then graduated and entered the workforce. I had no college degree and thought I was doing the right thing by not saddling myself in a ton of debt. I figured I could get in at the bottom floor of a good company and I would work my way up. Years later, I\u2019m STILL on the ground floor. I work in IT and have been passed over for promotion many times now. One person who was promoted ahead of me had a culinary degree. My management tells me often how valuable I am to the company, but working in a fortune 500 none of them apparently have any clout to get me into a better position. I\u2019ve since gone back to school and the debt is starting to stack up but seeing some other people with degree's being stuck int he same position fear I will be left with debt and a shit job when I am done. While I feel there are some bright spots like the recent DOMA vote, I\u2019ve seen the erosion of our civil liberties and the further separation of our political parties. I voted for Obama twice and I feel that he has fundamentally betrayed what he stood for during his campaigns. I don\u2019t think there is any measurable difference between the two parties. I get screwed either way, it\u2019s just republicans are honest about their intentions. I don\u2019t think we are going to stand up and take our government back at least not until the sharrade is over and the whole country collapses. By the time that happens those responsible will have already abandoned the sinking ship leading us to fight amongst ourselves. I don\u2019t see the point of trying to effect change and there\u2019s a very good chance when the next round of elections come around I will stay home because even if I find a candidate I like I have no confidence they are not lying through their teeth. Anyone who is honest, has no damn chance of even getting on the ballot. TL DR I believe America has a cancer and the prognosis is terminal. Please for the love of god change my view. EDIT I admit to changing my views, In the grand scheme of things we aren't doing that bad. We do have cancer but it's an operable type. We just have to choose to take our medicine.","conclusion":"I believe the United States is rotten to it's core and beyond saving."}
{"id":"22d1dd8e-4ef6-4075-881f-638e170c2568","argument":"It seems to me like backwards thinking. I believe that there is evidence that a serotonin increase seems to help some people with depression and anxiety, but that doesn't mean that lack of serotonin caused it. There are all kinds of drugs that could make you feel better, but that doesn't mean that the brain of a formally depressed anxious person on SSRIs has serotonin levels that are more similar to sober non depressed people than before. I think this lit review supports this Further, there was an instance of a man who had a genetic condition that caused him to have very little serotonin or dopamin, which are both often claimed to be pleasure happy neurotransmitters, and he had sleep problems but wasn't depressed ^ Click full text gt Before treatment, the patient had mild hypersomnia with long sleep time 704 min , ultradian sleep\u2013wake rhythm sleep occurred every 11.8 \u00b1 5.3 h , organic hyperphagia, attention executive dysfunction, and no depression. But if there is a good reason to think that low serotonin levels are linked to depression I'm open to consider that. .","conclusion":"I think that advertisements from pharmaceutical companies are responsible for the belief that a serotonin \"chemical imbalance\" is responsible for depression and anxiety disorders."}
{"id":"b7c94e82-1710-472f-95df-57e08dfc6249","argument":"Too many sip the Bitcoin koolaid without ever having transacted with either crypto\u2019s. The technological infrastructure of Bitcoin Cash is seemingly instantly and essentially free around 1 cent transaction cost Yes Bitcoin was the original Bitcoin, but just like how the food pyramid changes over time, the pyramid itself, the infrastructure doesn\u2019t change, just the things that make it up. Original Bitcoin is outdated tech that people love to claim as the king, yet few people have ever experienced the slow transaction speeds from sending wallet to wallet or merchant, only from exchange to exchange. The fees are also unreasonably high. I\u2019m under the impression there\u2019s a huge amount of tribalism and a cult following of Bitcoin that people for some reason perceive Bitcoin Cash, an upgraded and better functioning Bitcoin, to be insignificant, and not taken seriously, simply because it\u2019s not the original birthed name, but it\u2019s more capable and advanced younger brother and its ultimately only prolonging adoption to have a closed mind in regards to global, digital money.","conclusion":"Bitcoin Cash is the original embodiment of Bitcoin that was described in the original white paper."}
{"id":"91950c3e-abf5-4cbb-a3f0-33fe87bb5bc8","argument":"The NFL changes its rules often, fine tuning its game. Several rule changes in the last handful of seasons have benefitted the offense, leading to an all time high in scoring, and its time for the pendulum to swing back in the other direction. This would be a simple rule change that wouldn't require coaches to rethink their strategies, only enforce discipline. Offensive holding can often prevent a quarterback sack, which would be a loss of yards and down anyway. It would act as a restrictor plate and allow for a more balanced game.","conclusion":"In order to slow down NFL offense I believe a rule change is in order. Offensive Holding should be a 10 yard penalty *and* loss of down."}
{"id":"036c242f-2efa-4cbf-b09d-dfe20ee9724e","argument":"I think a lot of people in poverty are brilliant, just lack opportunity, and while I\u2019m not saying abandon the poor who aren\u2019t talented, I think we should be focusing resources on kids with potential. For instance, in Germany, by age 12 it is determined whether or not you are able to attend university. While this is a result of rationing in the more socialistic way, as most German Universities are public to my knowledge , however In the US such a system would never be allowed nor should it . However, kids who perform very well from the inner city or rural communities should be given access to good schools, funding, etc. These are the people that will make a difference in the world. I know everyone would love equality, but that doesn\u2019t exist because humans aren\u2019t equal. I have family members that didn\u2019t go to college because they simply despite being able to afford it weren\u2019t academically talented enough, and went into trades. I believe that when we talk about improving the lives of the poor, this should be considered. My cousin may not be smart enough for university, but he\u2019s a damn good plumber and makes a great living. On top of this, so many kids have student loans up to their neck because they study things that don\u2019t provide solid career paths shout out to all the gender studies majors, im sure what you learn is interesting and important, but nobody will hire you Is it wrong to support people differently based on talent? Because I feel like that\u2019s the best way to approach it with the smallest amount of waste. Focus kids where they should focus, don\u2019t tell them they\u2019re screwed if they don\u2019t go to college, or that college is the only way out of poverty because it definitely isn\u2019t People are different, some are more talented, some are better looking, some are more creative, some are smarter, why shouldn\u2019t we focus public spending on these attributes instead of blanket funding public schools that never seem to actually get better, or use the funding properly? Im looking at you, Baltimore schools who had no heat all winter, and somehow afforded to bus kids to DC with a free lunch to march in the gun rally, give me a break","conclusion":"We should be focusing on impoverished people who show innate talent and potential, just lack the resources"}
{"id":"bb03d08c-821c-424f-9817-e3ecf8f0ebdc","argument":"STAR Voting narrowly lost in Lane County, yet there are several factors that worked against it that make it likely that it would've approximated or beaten Approval's performance in Fargo, meaning that it serves as narrow evidence that scored methods may outperform or equal Approval Voting on ballot measure victories.","conclusion":"The complexity of the system may make the idea spread slower, but the increased quality, and the fact that voters evaluating a ballot measure tend to give it rational thought, mean that this system may win more often and bigger in ballot measures than Approval Voting."}
{"id":"bf0975c6-00bf-49a3-a3c1-108893b608dd","argument":"Man is a social being. Therefore people live in communities where decisions that affect the many, are taken by representatives of the many. Thus, a social contract exists between the people and their government.1 In exchange for part of their autonomy and freedom, the government ensures that policies are made in the best interest of people, even if this might come at the expense of short-term interests for some individuals. This is a typical example of this kind of case. The trend is emptying the countryside, stopping the production of agricultural goods and hollowing the amenities provided by the cities. Even if each individual has a personal incentive to move to the cities, the harm to the cities is greater than their accumulated individual gains. It is in these cases that the state must act to protect its people and ensure long term benefits. 1 D'Agostino, Fred, Gaus, Gerald and Thrasher, John, \"Contemporary Approaches to the Social Contract\", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Winter 2012 Edition, Edward N. Zalta ed.,","conclusion":"The government has a right to make decisions in the best interest of the people"}
{"id":"e8e3b877-41d3-42aa-8438-0dcaaf967a9a","argument":"It was mostly English common folks, probably of the higher classes because they had to be able to afford to sail across a large body of water, that sailed to the United States and began the 13 colonies. The common English folks of today should celebrate their brethrens of the past for standing up for the rights of the common folks, standing up for the rights that the English common folk should have, such as no taxation without representation, and standing up strongly for that cause, even going to war to champion their cause.","conclusion":"The common folks in England should celebrate the American Independence Day"}
{"id":"5fe70a1e-489a-4d24-8213-31c6354a93da","argument":"If you openly believe in open borders as a matter of principle or ideology, this question doesn't apply to you though I genuinely respect taking on such a publicly unpopular position, and being so intellectually transparent in doing so . Here's my analysis Liberals are against a border wall y'all say it is because it is either racist in origin, impractical, damaging to the environment, or ineffective. Liberals are against pulling people over on the suspicion of being here illegally. y'all say it is because that involves ridiculous amount of profiling. Liberals are against making their life in the US harder by denying them services, such as healthcare or drivers licenses. Liberals are against deporting people who've been in the US for extended periods of time, even if they entered without the law behind them. Liberals and pro business conservatives, to be fair are against making E verify, and other similar programs, mandatory. Liberals are often against detaining illegal immigrants who make it across the border, but are captured if you're merely arguing that the current state of affairs at the border is wrong and should be improved, I agree 100 but if you're contesting the practice itself, this bullet point applies . And when, after considering the above, I gently suggest some liberals might really be for open borders, I get a flurry of responses saying that is preposterous, insane exaggerated nonsense, manufactured by Fox News acolytes. I fully understand that 'liberal' is a ridiculously huge moniker, and that some of the policy beliefs I prescribed certainly do not apply to all of those who identify as such however, I believe that these viewpoints relatively accurately describe the general pulse of what currently comprises the bulk of 'mainstream, elite' left of center thought . Which genuinely confuses me, as a guy simply looking to understand my fellow countrymen's deeply held beliefs. At which point of the typical illegal immigration process are liberals actually against? If you're against outside enforcement the wall, elimination of catch and release, increasing ICE funding, getting Mexico to take some of this stuff off our plate , and you're against internal enforcement deportation, refusing access to government services welfare programs, E verify etc. , aren't you really for NO enforcement?","conclusion":"Liberals are, for all intents and purposes, for open borders."}
{"id":"e0e92416-8fda-4e32-a329-7abed3ea8660","argument":"EDIT I've decided to do more reading rather than use this sub for learns. I'll come back with a proper view to change afterwards. This is aimed more at the liberals, American libertarians and ancaps. When there is something bad existing in a capitalist system, poor healthcare, starvation, wage slavery, accumulation, cronyism, pollution, etc the capitalists say that they just aren't being liberal enough. Ghana is spending too much on social services, DRC is not exploiting it's comparative advantage mineral extraction and export . In REAL capitalism, they say, everyone would be prosperous. There is however no real world basis I can find for this claim, and I am yet to be shown real liberal capitalism. To compare, socialism is described by these people as utopian. Socialism gets held responsible for the starvation in the Soviet Union or China, but doesn't get the credit for turning a poor backwater into an industrialised superpower where almost everyone was provided schooling and other social services. If we look at Cuba, we see a country that made great strides in education and healthcare. In Venezuela poverty rates dropped dramatically under Chavez. They aren't without their problems but the lot of most people in these countries has improved significantly after implementing forms of socialism. That is what socialism promises and that is what it delivers. After the fall of the Soviet Union, Russian poverty rates, suicides, and pretty much every measure of human development became sharply worse. Surely the, great in theory, poor in practice label suits liberal capitalist ideology even more than socialism.","conclusion":"Liberal Capitalism aka neoliberalism is a utopian ideology and more so than socialism, if you want to get into that."}
{"id":"b9e76c8b-a3f2-4b6d-89a6-7afca7912433","argument":"Religion is based on human power and due to religion human beings have been divided in so many groups such as Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Christian, etc. If all these divisions were scraped, humanity would be better.","conclusion":"While it may have fostered unity amongst like believers, religion has historically caused more division, conflict and violence amongst groups than it has ever unified them."}
{"id":"5f73b46b-f33d-402d-b374-a9e672db1e30","argument":"All they do is bring you a drink and count your plates at the end. It doesn't seem fair to the waitresses at other restaurants to tip them equally.","conclusion":"I don't believe waiters\/waitresses at conveyor belt sushi restaurants deserve as much of a tip as waiters\/waitresses at traditional full service restaurants,"}
{"id":"2205bf20-eff7-41ff-856e-5be6a19d8028","argument":"Making the unemployed work for their welfare benefits calls the bluff of those claiming benefit but not really looking for jobs. Such scroungers include the incurably lazy, those who are defrauding the taxpayer by claiming welfare while holding down a paying job, and those who are working in the black economy. Furthermore, workfare schemes require applicants also search for work whilst completing the scheme1. Moving from a traditional something-for-nothing welfare scheme to a workfare system stops all these individuals from being a burden on the state, cutting welfare rolls very rapidly and allowing the government to concentrate upon assisting the truly needy. 1: Kaus, M. 2000, April 16. Now She's Done It. Retrieved July 19, 2011, from Slate","conclusion":"Workfare will eliminate scroungers, who are a financial drain on the system"}
{"id":"64d8f2b2-42f2-4770-ad77-fc63532e101b","argument":"I'd like to start this off by saying that I am NOT doing this to comment on the merit or validity of the policies of any of the candidates for president, nor am I endorsing one candidate over the other in this post. Of course Sanders supporters want Sanders to be president hence why they are Sanders supporters , so this effect of hugely boosting Republican chances is not at all intentional, but I think they are having as positive an influence as far as a Republican becoming president in 2016 is concerned as any Republican candidate could have themselves. I think this is solidified no matter who wins the Democratic or Republican nomination. FIRST , let's look at the ideal scenario for Sanders supporters despite a massive setback yesterday in Nevada, Sanders' campaign somehow does gains yet another massive swell of momentum in the week ish before Super Tuesday, does very well on that most important of the primary days, and carries that momentum on to win and win big in other states and convince some of Hillary's superdelegates to support him. Sanders, against all the odds, has won the Democratic nomination. This is a dream scenario not only for Sanders supporters, but for the Republicans as well. I know that Sanders is currently polling better against Republican candidates than Clinton is hell, r sandersforpresident hits everyone over the head with that as often as possible , but I don't buy that for a second. One of the main reasons Sanders is polling ahead of Clinton among general election polls is that Republicans have spent maybe an hour each talking about Sanders while they have spent the last decade ish attacking Clinton. While that might seem that it hurts Clinton, it also means that Clinton has pretty much hit her bottom as far as the right's opinion of her is concerned. Anything further said against her just isn't going to lower her standing much more than what has already been tossed around. Sanders, however, is a yet to be opened Christmas present for Republicans. He's a self styled Socialist, and even if the socialism he espouses isn't the socialism that the United States was terrified of in the 1950s, socialism is still a very dirty word to the majority of the country. That alone might cost him the race. Tack on to that the fact that the rest of his stances outside of economics climate change, foreign policy, civil rights are far left of where most of the country stands, and he would give the Republicans a literal field day when attacking him, and I have no doubt that his numbers would plummet. Finally, he's an agnostic Jew. And while that shouldn't really have any bearing in a country that is secular by the demands of the constitution, it is still a dealbreaker for many. Whether you agree or not that this should be the case, you have to be a Christian to win a national election in the United States at this point in time. And Sanders isn't. In addition to that reasoning, these political scientists who know a lot more than I do also give their views on why Sanders supporters claims of his electability are massively over exaggerated. To sum up and bring it back to my original point , Sanders has very little shot in the general election in my mind, and his supporters, if they got him the Democratic nomination, would have unintentionally given the Republicans their dream candidate to run against and have also given the Republican candidate's chances of winning the White House a massive boost. SECOND , let's move on to the far more likely scenario Hillary Clinton, after restoring some order to her campaign with a victory in Nevada, gets the Democratic nomination as many expected all along. Here, I think, Sanders supporters have done the most damage, because while Sanders himself has very admirably refrained from attack politics, his supporters most certainly have not. The front page of reddit is constantly flooded with posts about how evil or corrupt or manipulative Hillary Clinton is, and those posts are not just from r sandersforpresident or r politics which might just as well be called r sandersforpresident2 . This is not only limited to reddit, as twitter and facebook are constantly hit with the same kind of posts, and many of Sanders' supporters also take these views with them when they go to march or demonstrate or rally. And while this may increase their enthusiasm for Sanders, crucially it is also making them despise Hillary. Which means that when Hillary wins the Democratic nomination, many Sanders supporters will have such negative opinions of her that they either won't vote at all or they'll vote for the Republican candidate or a third party candidate. The vitriol being spewed towards Hillary, warranted or not, is going to massively increase voter apathy among the left especially the young left once Hillary wins the nomination, and therefore the efforts of Sanders supporters to paint Hillary as worse than Sanders will end up being a massive boost for however the Republican nominee ends up being. TO SUM IT ALL UP, Sanders supporters are unintentionally providing a massive boost towards the Republicans' chances of winning the presidency in 2016. Sanders is a much less electable candidate than Hillary in a general election, so if he gets the nomination his supporters will have boosted the GOP's chances in that way, and if Hillary wins the nomination, the amount of attacks and negativity that Sanders' supporters have launched at Hillary will lead to a huge amount of voter apathy among those who supported Sanders, therefore providing the Republicans with a massive boost in that way. Once again, I am not here to comment on which candidate I agree with most, the validity of Sanders' supporters attacks on Clinton, whether they are doing this intentionally, or whether or not a Republican in the White House would be a bad thing. I am just here to say that I believe that Sanders' supporters are providing a massive boost to Republican chances of winning the presidency this year. Change My View. Edit Remember, people, downvotes don't change views. So far all I've gotten are downvotes, no reasons or arguments except for one that I frankly don't agree with at all and think that data, not just opinion, refutes easily.","conclusion":"Bernie Sanders supporters are doing everything they possibly can to make sure a Republican wins the White House in 2016."}
{"id":"313e9185-5429-45d8-b32b-cfd35259510d","argument":"In a couple of days, r all will be back to video games and cat pics and women in superhero costumes and photos from Global reddit Meetup Day etc. Most of the people who come to the site are lurkers, most of the account holders don't vote, most of the people who vote don't submit content, and lots of the people who submit content don't make original content. Unless the people who sympathize with r fatpeoplehate are particularly important in lurking, voting, content submission, or content creation, there's no reason to think they should be able to make reddit go down the way Digg did.","conclusion":"Folks who think the \/r\/fatpeoplehate fiasco won't blow over are overestimating the importance of this issue to the less vocal majority of reddit users."}
{"id":"b9722646-1300-42db-8bab-41f8ea4ed6b3","argument":"Robert Maginnis. \"Gays in the Military Debate\". Human Events. October 4, 2007 - \"If we respect women\u2019s need for privacy from men, then we ought to respect the same need on the part of heterosexuals with regard to homosexuals. Protecting privacy in a military with open homosexuality would necessitate recognizing essentially four sexes and would severely disrupt units.\"","conclusion":"Gays in the military impinge privacy rights of other troops"}
{"id":"e8c5bc64-fb15-49ba-83af-23982f0ae96b","argument":"First, I'd like to discuss some of the points made in this great computerphile video that is highly critical of e voting. Here are his main points, paraphrased gt Physical voting is tried and true. Can't disagree with that, but of course that in itself is no reason not to adopt an innovation. The printing press was tried and true. gt E voting can be easily rigged He explains a few reasons why gt The more physical votes you want to change, the more work it would take, whereas with e voting the same amount of work that can change one vote, can change millions of votes. gt E voting isn't anonymous. This matters so you can't be intimidated, or bribed into voting a certain way. To me, elections need two things Vote accountability all the votes are accounted for Anonymity No one can see who voted for what The answer is simple Use public key cryptography. A voter generates a private voter password private key , with their social security number other citizen type identifier and a password. They then do all their votes on a completely transparent, public voting log, which displays only public keys which don't give identities away . If a voter wants to verify their vote, they just look at the voting log, decrypt their public voting key with their private one, and boom, they can verify what they voted for. Meanwhile, everyone else can only see the public keys, which are meaningless. Someone could literally make an open source iphone android desktop program that would make all of this trivial, in a few days. Some more of his arguments gt Voting machines software and hardware aren't auditable. Full tests of the software hardware of these voting machines are only done every few years. Open source software is by its nature completely auditable. gt How do you make sure that the software loaded is the right software? This has been completely solved, with software checksums to verify that you have the exact right piece of software. Here's a short article about it. In the video he kind of flippantly dismisses checksums by saying that there is a lot of money motivation out there to break them gt There are trillions of dollars of dollars riding on the result of big elections, and the motivation to break them is there. This is a terrible argument there are plenty of cryptographic hash functions such as SHA that have been around for many years, with the same motivation to break them, yet they are still very solid. gt Uploading voting results over the internet wouldn't be secure. Man in the middle attacks Another problem that's already been solved. Encrypted communication Https SSL TLS is already extremely secure and ubiquitous. Here's a report by the EFF on what websites use it. Man in the middle attacks can't happen when using gt The central counting program might tally the results wrong. As I said in the solution above, the voting log is transparent and public . Any third party could mathematically verify the election results, independently. If you're concerned about tampering, you could save snapshots of the log every millisecond, to see what's changed. gt It all depends on which security company you trust. We aren't really putting our trust in any, apart from possibly the SSL certificate. The trust relies in the strength of the public key cryptography. gt Botnets, worms, malware, keyloggers, and backdoored hardware on your home computers. I have to concede this point. Even with secure and open source voting software, an individual user's computer might be infected with something that could affect their vote. But to me this isn't a fatal flaw. Pervasive security flaws are decreasing as more people move to open source operating systems and browsers. Most attacks now are targeted ones against individual companies or people, not home computers in general. . Now on to the advantages of voting from home . Reduces the barriers to entry for voting. You don't have to take off work, drive to a voting center, and wait in line. Vote from the comfort of your own home, in minutes. If you're sick or disabled, you can still vote. Or anything that would prevent you from physically getting to a polling station, such as if you're out of the country or don't have a car, you can still vote. Eliminates all the costs of staffing and running local election centers. Someone could easily calculate the thousands of man hours people now don't have to spend running these centers. No centralized voting location, so it would be a lot harder to intimidate voters You can change your vote easily, if you think you've made a mistake, or verify your vote. You could have variable length election periods. Elections could last twenty minutes, or twenty days if you wanted them to. More comfortable, private, and efficient on time. TL DR Public key cryptography can let you vote from home.","conclusion":"E-Voting from home is a great idea."}
{"id":"66f6bd65-7b4d-49f9-a11d-3cac81fc87c6","argument":"Lots of countries have some sort of legal constraints against the far right and or far left ideologies. For example, some Eastern And Central European countries might ban promoting communism on TV or other media. I completely agree that these political currents did not bring good to the human kind yet, they should be demolished by rational arguments which are constantly held in our societies. Showing the swastika on the street is also prohibited in a lot European countries. United States tends to be more open regarding these matters, because of valuing freedom of speech and not having such a dark history with these ideologies. However, I think that the only effective way of going against them is through real political speech.","conclusion":"Banning political ideologies is against freedom of speech"}
{"id":"bb4ff215-e527-4c46-ab49-dc8f4f310c11","argument":"Disenfranchisement of the smaller cultural minorities would cause a rift either between the minority and the majority, or between the children of that minority and the culture they are growing up in, when they notice the irrelevance and powerlessness of their culture.","conclusion":"The USE will cause a sense of oppression within former nations-turned-minorities whose culture, habits and values will be marginalized."}
{"id":"a3573bfa-b59f-4960-9676-c8b447317f07","argument":"It is logically impossible for God to be omnipresent and having been there when there was nothing yet. The quality of God would have to include both 'existing' and 'not existing' simultaneously, therefore God is simply non-existent.","conclusion":"The classical definition of God is contradictory or incoherent, and thus God cannot in principle exist."}
{"id":"65968497-4dfa-4f4b-9f01-0926faa4f100","argument":"One of the reasons for increased pressure on NHS hospitals is due to massive cuts to social care, which results in patients that would previously have been treated at home winding up in hospital The cuts to social care were an entirely voluntary decision by the government of the day.","conclusion":"The NHS is affected by associated Social Care and Public Health both of which are also under pressure."}
{"id":"9c587243-a1d5-42cf-aeb6-672de1bd65f2","argument":"For perspective I'm 26F. I've been struggling with the image in my head of what is beautiful sexy. From a young age, I've listened to my mom complain about cellulite and how ugly it looks on her . I've also seen it from magazines, internet, commercials all about how cellulite is ugly, how skin folds are ugly, how perfect, smooth, tight body is what is beautiful and desired. I was underweight until I was 17 and I thought I was a bit chubby, I was embarassed to wear shorts because I thought my thighs were fat and ugly due to me finding cellulite. Now in high school, I got really depressed and gained a whole lot of weight. I really didnt even notice it, true, I had to buy bigger clothes, but looking in the mirror, I didnt make the connection. Like to me, it was all the same. At 19, I took it really to heart and started losing weight, I even got into the normal BMI and managed to keep it for a while. But like before, the image looking at me from the mirror didnt change for me, I lost over 20 kg and I didnt even see the difference. I see the stretch marks, cellulite, way uneven skin, a line around where my ribs end that almost make it look like i have mini underboobs this was even when i didnt have the weight , skin folds on the back, lovehandles etc. Here I am years later, I gained all that weight back and honestly dont feel any different either way. Now onto my view I dont have issue with the weight itself, but rather that even if I look at people on the street, movies who have any of these imperfections, I dont think they are beautiful. It more often feel embarrassed for them and wonder how can they wear anything like it or feel confident in it, let alone beautiful sexy. I have realized that it isnt even about how heavy or tiny they are, but the imperfections. Stomach love handles over the side of the pants, excess skin under the arm when wearing a bra and so on. I have realized that in my head, there is only one definition of beautiful and that is no imperfections. It is unrealistic though and very unhealthy. I am here because I want to learn to appreciate all kinds of beauty. Sure, I want to feel beautiful and sexy myself, but I also want to see this sincere beauty in others. My SO constantly tells me how attractive and beautiful I am and so have others. He says he sees imperfections as just being human and dont make much note of them. I want to see what he and probably most people see it. In myself and in other people. I really want to change the way I see beauty right now, I dont want even the slightest imperfection to make it instantly not beautiful. I understand on a rational level that everyone is human and no one will be perfect, that everyone has these imperfections to some degree, it's rather the way in my head. I'm sorry, this came out a bit of a mess. Thank you all for reading and I'll appreciate any insights you could offer me","conclusion":"Beauty is in the lack of imperfections scars, cellulite etc on one's body"}
{"id":"7b444efb-2ecf-4883-ad8c-5c7e258b18b7","argument":"Political correctness puts a constant mental load on people to assess how they behave around members of the marginalized groups to which it pertains. This may lead to people avoiding interactions with marginalized people altogether.","conclusion":"Political correctness damages the interaction between different societal groups leading to greater segregation and increasing the marginalization of the groups political correctness is designed to protect."}
{"id":"14182530-e68b-4e33-bc72-7b6aa963d513","argument":"If a God is all knowing and good, it should also know the future. If it is the case and it gives free will to people, knowing already that people will do bad, and then punishes them, this is either sadistic or pervert, so not good.","conclusion":"There is no way an omnipotent all-loving god could co-exist with evil. The two are mutually exclusive by definition. Evil does not merely \"imply\" that God does not exist, it disproves his existence entirely."}
{"id":"55098113-87fe-4f3d-8fb9-bf0db120bd47","argument":"Perfection: is the quality of having zero potential to be anything greater than it already is.","conclusion":"The necessary nature of Omnipotence, clearly contradicts the necessary nature of Perfection."}
{"id":"9dfa235d-a325-46ca-993d-010dc900d646","argument":"Now of course we\u2019re looking at this in retrospect and there\u2019s still more time for the current generation to do. But looking back on the civil movements and protests of the 60\u2019 70\u2019s post Vietnam era. The groups of people that our society seems fixed on blaming for all the current issues are the exact same people who were out there protesting and actually pushing back against the government society to push their point and get a lot more done for advancing the rights of everyone who\u2019s not a straight white male. The fact we seem to completely forget that and just focus on the negatives shows how skewed the current civil rights movement is and how easy it is to completely contort a viewpoint to strictly cover what you want it to cover.","conclusion":"Baby boomers have done far more for the society to push it forward and advance a standardised right a for all than what Millennials have done."}
{"id":"df9a18ef-d001-4e21-aeac-5b147237551e","argument":"it should be impossible under Kants moral law to stop being a person and no longer be subject to the categorical imperative. But If an individual in charge has come to a moral conclusion based on his own reason that differs from the collective will, which is the collection of individual moral reason, he will have to act for the collective or risk imposing his will over the collective.","conclusion":"Eichmann recognised this contradiction and so gave up the categorical imperative when he was summoned to Berlin. He became a tool of administration and removed his person."}
{"id":"9ce3b615-5819-4b62-9d9c-09ca6f84552b","argument":"There is no circular logic. To be restricted means to have one's will bound i.e. to be forced to do something you don't want to do. God's will is never bound by logic because his desires are always logical due to his intrinsically logical nature. In other words, God never wants to do something illogical because doing so is not in his nature. So his desires are never impeded by logic.","conclusion":"The laws of logic do not contradict God's omnipotence because they do not impede his will. Rather, God's will is always logical. As such, God's will is never impeded by the laws of logic, and so he is able to remain omnipotent."}
{"id":"52802a68-5194-4a06-a6f3-3cc75dc8ef11","argument":"What if the technology gets to advanced to the point where you can distinguish the real world from the fake one? Will we end up in a world like the matrix or will no one want to leave the virtual reality and nothing will get done? I was discussing VR with one of my friends over Skype and he said that he would never leave. That sparked my fear of a future that is either controlled, too lazy, or just trapped in a fake world. Maybe I'm wrong about this or overreacting?","conclusion":"I believe that virtual reality can become extremely dangerous."}
{"id":"a9395380-f71e-46ca-bdb0-600532d30536","argument":"In Britain, the cost of education, health and social security as a portion of GDP is expected to rise by 24 billion pounds a year to 2030","conclusion":"Millennials will be responsible for themajority of the tax burden created by policies adopted by the European Parliament"}
{"id":"eaa35419-0cba-46f0-8e55-36daa0cf0ea5","argument":"This  post was in the back of my head for a while ever since Justin Bieber got a reduced jail time sentence for his semi recent DUI charge. Now recently, Jared Fogel was just prosecuted for possession of child pornography and other related charges involving 14 other victims. I just find it amusing that whenever a celebrity is arrested that they face a less strict punishment than someone who is your average Joe would have gotten. I just can't really understand why society or more specifically Western First World Countries does this sort of stuff. Sure we need entertainment which is debatable though once in a while and that these celebrities are millionaires, but I think this sort of lesser punishment should go to people like doctors, scientists, or even police which again, is a debatable . Although I might be wrong on this and they get the reduced sentences still, I think it should be more down to Earth if celebrities face more severe punishments for their crimes.","conclusion":"Celebrities should face more severe sentences for their crimes than the more important people."}
{"id":"4c3287d3-3e7a-43bd-9fa4-be2bfef577da","argument":"Everyone hating on the current youtube is just circlejerking without a good reason. The biggest complaint I hear are along the lines of I have to have a google plus account, or it asks me to show my name. For the first complaint, why do people care so damn much? If you don't like google plus then don't go to your google plus account, it's that simple. Also, you can use your google plus to sign into websites, effectively cutting down on the time you waste. As for the second one, why do you care? People act like their privacy is being violated because it forces them to show their name. These were the same people who were complaining about bullying a year ago. Having the name be seen holds you responsible for what you're saying. Secondly, every other major social networking site displays your name, why is it all of a sudden so bad that it happens on youtube? Sorry for the grammar, it's not my strong suit.","conclusion":"I don't think there is anything wrong with the new youtube,"}
{"id":"d47a079f-9df5-4da1-b65d-f526d14ae121","argument":"In my opinion, if someone believes that marriage is an agreement between consenting adults, then that definition should be able to fit with polygamous and incestual relationships, along with homosexual ones. There is much more I have to say, but the post would get way too long and I feel a lot of the points will be addressed in the comments. So, I'll just continue the conversation over there. Edit Changed up some wording","conclusion":"I Believe that Polygamy and Incest should be Legalized."}
{"id":"cf215c62-036e-4bc2-b46f-6dd40e3f7788","argument":"Hi , Something I have never understood are the Beatles. I have never even been particularly aware of them until recent years I knew they existed, but I had no idea what kind of music they made. But particularly since joining Reddit I have seen a lot more references to them, and I have heard them on the radio from time to time which is something I never used to listen to until the last year or so. The thing about them that I've noticed is that they just aren't very good. Like, at anything. I kind of know I must be wrong, because everyone knows that the Beatles are amazing, and I totally recognise how important they were historically and stylistically, but in terms of music I just don't see it. So I have laid out the reasons I don't feel that they are good in terms of the key features of good music, and hopefully someone can explain to me what it is about them that is worth listening to. I should clarify, I am genuinely inquisitive about this I like learning about new music. At the moment I mostly listen to metal purely because Gorguts makes absolutely no sense to me and I want to understand it, so I'm prepared to work through music I don't like to see what's good about it. But it doesn't work for the Beatles. They're just bad. Melodically I am putting this point first, but actually to me it is the most flexible. I am not a melody person. I don't particularly like solo instruments, I don't like solos as a whole except on a 'complete' instrument e.g. guitar, piano . So maybe the Beatles write amazing melodies and I just can't tell. I have a kind of vague sense for melody, but also not really. Harmonically This is the key sticking point for me. The Beatles simply didn't create any interesting harmonies as far as I can tell . Standard chord progressions, standard chords, nothing new, nothing interesting. Rhythmically and structurally To be fair, rhythm based music has become a lot more of a thing since the Beatles, so they can be forgiven for this, but it is still worth noting that rhythmically they don't have anything interesting going on. Standard drumming patterns, good old 4 4 phrases spanning 2 or 4 bars. Lyrically For lyrical success a song can either tackle an interesting subject or be what you might call 'poetic'. For example, Pink Floyd write songs that tackle mental illness, and a lot of rappers sorry, not too familiar with rap use words in interesting ways thematically. The Beatles do neither. For some reason I see a lot of hype for Imagine, which as far as I can tell is a platitude pretending to be a political message pretending to be philosophy. But mostly a platitude. Or a collection of platitudes or something. If you actually think about it for a second it is just ridiculous. Equally, the songs are not particularly poetic when you read just the text of them, you don't think that you might ever want to read them again. Or maybe that's just me, but to be honest I'm struggling to find an objective standard for poetry to measure them against so it's hard for me to make a more substantial argument here. Variety This is more a gripe with the 60s as a whole, but fuck me if the songs from that decade don't all sound exactly the fucking same. Finally the radio. Everyone knows that the reason we get lewronggeneration kids is because they look back at past decades and think that their music was more amazing than ours. But everyone also knows that the reason it looks that way is because only the good stuff gets played. Queen gets airtime whatever shitty number 1 was around at the same time doesn't. But during the 60s segments of BBC Radio 2 a pretty popular favourite is this piece of musical trash. If that is seriously the best music that this decade has to offer, you are set to have a very hard time changing my view on this issue.","conclusion":"The Beatles, and more broadly speaking most musicians from the 60s, are not good."}
{"id":"9b1da0c2-d301-4d0c-9f96-fb1ca83e6a92","argument":"Immigrants arriving without authorization illegal immigrants in Australia by boats departing form South East Asia peaked at roughly 20 000 people in the year 2013. Now, they have not had a single arrival since July 2014 to date see Chart 2 Number of people arriving by boat to Australia since 2004 . I posit Europe could do the same. But it is doing the opposite. By EU announcing that it would like to accept people, it is making the current crisis worse. Below are the main reasons The EU incentivizes creates a pull factor immigrants to come by dangerous journeys across the Mediterranean EU creates similar pull factors for criminal smugglers to make more money by sending more people EU rescue missions in the Mediterranean dis incentivizes smugglers to build better boats Those coming are not necessarily fleeing war, like the Eritreans or the sub saharan Africans. You need several thousand to be smuggled across Africa or Turkey and then the Mediterranean, so we are only helping what you might call middle class refugees Truly poor people never get help as they cannot afford to come to Europe about 10 of the world population cannot even afford proper food Aid money gets diverted from foreign aid to truly poor people, to domestic immigration politics Immigration creates a brain drain that benefits rich countries but hurts poor countries Massive immigration creates potential demographic shifts or overpopulation in Europe Massive immigration creates potential economic collapse of European nations or welfare systems Massive immigration creates increased increased racism, xenophobia and anti immigrant populism rise of right wing parties in Europe Immigration creates difficulties integrating different ethnicities, creates ethnic tensions and other issues that did not exist before Immigration does not solve the problem of an aging population, but rather creates a vicious cycle, whereby we push the problems to next generation e.g. retirement funding for today\u2019s aging population Solution EU should cooperate with UN and creates safe zones for immigrants to be sent back to, such as the one suggested in northern Syria. Israel is an example of a successful safe zone concept. edit Israel was created as a safe zone for the gt 8 million Jews today, surely we can created a safe zone for the 60 million refugees somewhere, say in northern Africa. edit Safe zones would allow to help more people, and more of the poorest people that cannot afford 1000's of to be smuggled to the EU. Safe zones would be a cheaper alternative and would remove the need for people to be at their peril smuggled across the Mediterranean to reach safety, if such as safe zone were to be placed in e.g. northern Africa. Each continent should have such a safe zone, for instance in western Egypt. Pay Egypt enough and they could host the people, the rest of the world would then contribute to build up the nation infrastructure etc. The EU announces publicly and clearly their opposition to bombing Arab nations in the future. I have in total 30 pages of material. Do your best to .","conclusion":"EU is exacerbating the immigration crisis by accepting immigrants"}
{"id":"939673ee-5eb8-44da-aba2-efa85375030e","argument":"I'm skeptical about the doom and gloom surrounding the TPP, and here's why. First of all, we are getting everything we know about the details of TPP from news sources reporting on leaks. We are getting this information from the same media outlets that we criticize day in and day out for spinning stories and providing incomplete facts. Secondly, who's to say that the providers of these leaks WikiLeaks are not withholding other important information about the TPP. What if WikiLeaks is only trying to push an agenda by deliberately providing incomplete information? And lastly, the hyperbole surrounding corporations being able to sue governments sounds a lot like what we heard around the time of the Obama care rollout with regards to the death panels. I just don't see how the fear mongering surround the TPP is any different than what we've seen in the past with other major legislation. Hell, the average citizen barely knew what the ACA entailed when it was passed, but here we are just fine. Let me get one thing straight, I am most certainly not supporting the government and its actions to hide the details of the TPP. I just think that there is a massive overreaction to this legislation as a result. I wouldn't be surprised if half of the information spread about the TPP ends up being false or much tamer than it's made out to be.","conclusion":"Everyone is overreacting about the TPP."}
{"id":"be1606d7-0af6-48fb-895a-c69cc75d36a1","argument":"There's nothing wrong with racism unless it results in actual crime, and even then it's the crime that's bad, not the racism. I'm coming from the point of view of an American who has lived abroad almost my entire adult life, mostly in Asia. Casual racism is the norm here. Africans are scary, Indians stink, and even darker skinned Asians are discriminated against by lighter skinned Asians. Of course, none of it is violent, angry, or confrontational it's all done in a teasing way, and usually accepted as normal by the darker skinned folks who face the brunt of it. In fact, they even joke about it themselves, Yeah, my skin is so dark and ugly. No way I'm going out in that sun today, etc. So when I see American politics, and racism thinking less of people due to the color of their skin seems to be regarded as the most horrible of evils imaginable, I am confused. From the outside, it seems like the country of my birth has, as a British friend put it, a ridiculous anal obsession with race. My view is that, although it might be foolish to think you can judge a person because of the color of their skin, it is not by any means morally evil . Can anyone change my view? Update I suppose I should clarify that what I mean by crime in the OP is violent crime, and by racism the casual type that I have observed as prevalent and normal in much of the world, and yet has little or no effect on anything. The American view, which seems to be that anything vaguely racist is like the glowing, searing eye of Sauron peeping out from someone's obviously evil soul, presents a strong contrast to this. This observation, combined with a conversation with some Aussie friends in which they made some casually racist comments, recent Twitter scandals, a podcast in which a black intellectual said he didn't care if you were privately racist as long as he gets treated fairly, and observations about how the people here in Asia are so unapologetically prejudiced against the dark skinned, had me analyzing my own view of racism. Hence this post. The result of this analysis was that I felt, as stated above, that peoples' private opinions, biases, likes and dislikes of races religions skin color 1. were not something you'll ever change about humanity, 2. don't necessarily result in any outward action, and 3. would only be wrong if they resulted in actual violence to person or property. And that kind of violence is clearly wrong, regardless of the thought that might have led to it. It is actions that can be good or bad, not thoughts. We don't punish people for thinking of murder, or theft, or whatever, but for committing the crime.","conclusion":"There's nothing wrong with racism unless it results in actual crime."}
{"id":"f3428686-decd-403c-b2db-14ed0c9bf1b3","argument":"Methane is among the most potent greenhouse gases on Earth; its global warming potential GWP is 104 times greater than CO2 in a 20-year time frame.","conclusion":"Cows release enteric methane which is produced during the digestion of plant material."}
{"id":"e75f807e-283f-4509-8600-71cdde058950","argument":"The paperclip maximiser as described makes little sense: it is supposed to be sufficiently intelligent that it is capable of designing and building supertechnologies, but not intelligent enough to realise that its stated goal is ridiculous, and its means of achieving that goal, genocidal. This is absurd.","conclusion":"The paperclip maximizer is actually not very intelligent as it cannot separate intention from pure words. An AI would be able to understand that maximizing paperclips doesn't come at any cost."}
{"id":"85333a47-19a9-4bc1-b03d-53e3bac5619e","argument":"As y\u2019all might know, the NHL is seriously considering expanding to Las Vegas I, however, think this is a terrible idea primarily for two reasons the integrity of the game and having a greater portion of the population exposed to potential gambling problems. I know that a ton of sports are tired of hearing people, such as Roger Goodell, talk about how gambling threatens the integrity of sports, but when it comes into having a team in city of Las Vegas itself, the issue cannot be avoided. Let\u2019s look at it from two angles. First, there was already a major gambling issue for a sports team in Las Vegas, at UNLV, during the Jerry Tarkanian basketball years. The basketball team had close ties to big time members in the gambling industry and this even led to a report that the team was involved with point shaving. This isn\u2019t even to mention the gambling scandals at Arizona State and Boston College involving bookies gamblers hanging around campus. So, there has already been gambling issues with UNLV in the past, and although it hasn\u2019t occurred recently, this shows that gambling issues among athletes has the framework to occur in Las Vegas Furthermore,, I ask you, Do you think that gamblers looking to make some quick money are just going to steer clear of all the players who hit the ice during a hockey game, or are they going to start having talks with the shadier, lesser known characters on the team? Obviously some of the stars might not be interested, but perhaps a disgruntled player on the third line would listen. Obviously the Boston College and Arizona State scandals which is also shown overseas in leagues like the Russian Premier League show that gamblers are not afraid to approach athletes and ask for \u201cfavors\u201d, so in a place like Las Vegas where these gamblers are allowed to be placing bets, wouldn\u2019t the likelihood of this occurring skyrocket.? I know what you\u2019re probably thinking, \u201cYou are mainly talking about college sports, and anyways pro players have way too much money for this to possibly tempt them?\u201d And I would respond to them that it doesn\u2019t have to be poor college athletes for gambling to affect play. It is imperative we remember the Tim Donaghy scandal, in which Tim rigged and gave insider information for games that he officiated. Having referees, who don\u2019t make as much as players, consistently going to Las Vegas for assignments is a dangerous game to play, as well. If it can happen to a big time ref in the NBA, it can happen to one in the NHL. For the NHL to put not only players, but referees in this position, too, is a really bad idea. The other primary issue I have with the NHL expanding to Las Vegas is that the NHL would be exposing their fans to potential gambling issues. Back in 2006, a whopping 91 billion was lost by Americans to gambling including gambling beyond sports betting . In addition, it is estimated that around 5 7 of Americans have gambling issues. As someone who has struggled with sports betting issues myself, it would kill me to see an unsuspecting fan, pre disposed to gambling problems head to Las Vegas to see a road game, only to fall into the vice grip that is gambling addiction. And for the NHL to put fans in this situation is just wrong. So, what do y\u2019all think? Change my view Sources","conclusion":"The NHL Should Not Expand To Las Vegas"}
{"id":"af9d834d-e30d-44f2-a87d-875d2a0cb42b","argument":"6 of the top 10 countries listed in the Legatum Prosperity Index 2016 are European monarchies. The ranking is based on a variety of factors including wealth, economic growth, education, health, personal well-being, and quality of life.","conclusion":"Democracy is a form of government that has proven to promote economic prosperity and peace. A constitutional monarchy doesn't hinder this despite not being inherently democratic."}
{"id":"dfd027bc-265d-4fe8-b9ba-5ce5224b4850","argument":"AGI unvulnerability traits are self-protections, so they don't need external protections to safeguard themselves, unlike humans with their mortality.","conclusion":"AGIs are invulnerable in ways that humans aren't, so they are not susceptible to needing human-like fundamental rights."}
{"id":"bfd8c203-76cb-4013-8311-349177d4a330","argument":"Parliaments, particularly in Britain, have a reputation for needless argument rather than cooperation. Bringing women into political life would encourage a more mature, consensual style of politics, and so more constructive, thoughtful policymaking.","conclusion":"Parliaments, particularly in Britain, have a reputation for needless argument rather than cooperatio..."}
{"id":"b83f4872-1cb0-44ed-abc4-80386df1cbcc","argument":"Nietzsche foresaw the coming dominance of nihilism. While it is not embraced consciously by many people today, we see it reflected in systems like cold amoral capitalism, and in various forms of postmodern media. I am going to assume that readers of this request accept an atheistic worldview. Arguing over the existence of god is a different subject, or we must make it so or else arguments will be brought in that are beyond the scope of the subject. With a secular worldview, I believe existential nihilism is self evident. Existentialists' answers to this issue seem to me very unsatisfying. I personally do not need any grand, or really any small subjective meaning to function. This existentialist idea of creating your own meaning does not in the least replace the kind of meaning that's absence causes existential despair. Since evolution is blind, attaching any significance to our moral intuitions is incredibly naive or at least requires a leap of faith that I feel one has no reason to make . The majority of us simply evolved moral feelings that allow us to function well as a group. I am sort of at a loss as to what people mean when they say someone knows the difference between right and wrong. My thought is that they actually mean shares the common moral intuitions. The fact that we use language that attaches a truth value to moral issues seems to me an attempt to mystify and reify morality. However, if such a thing is accepted by the majority, then there will be nothing tying society together. If we don't attach any significance to values, then violence is the only thing that can exercise control and unity. If you can't teach someone that committing a certain act violates something sacred, then the only way to get them to not do that is with force, or the threat of force. My view is that if a society accepts the truth then they will be overrun by some other group that maintains a collective identity through deceit, and thus has more strength. Thus, a prosperous society must be predicated on a lie.","conclusion":"Honest intellectual inquiry will always lead to the realization of the truth of nihilism particularly the existential and moral variety, and if this truth is embraced collectively, civilization is likely to collapse"}
{"id":"e2080845-4439-497e-afcc-f5b381761e6a","argument":"There is strength in numbers. This is particularly important when traditional alliances are fraying. Instead of dumping the EU the UK should have been more actively working to fix its faults.","conclusion":"UK will always be seen as the country that decided to leave the party. This would impact its international image and relationships."}
{"id":"abc05b11-edbd-47c5-935e-463ab52e980a","argument":"Poked around a bit and it seems this isn't a very popular topic, so I figure I'll go for it. If you aren't familiar with the Duodecimal system, it is a way of counting which revolves around 12s instead of 10s. The duodecimal system therefore must have 2 extra symbols, usually called dek , which is the equivalent of 10, and el , standing for eleven. Twelve in the duodecimal system is called do pronounced like dough and notated as 10 . El is written as a backwards upside down 3 but I will write it as E. Dek looks like a sort of sideways flowy X so will be written here as X. The duodecimal system takes a little getting used to it's sort of like a new language in that you must translate numbers from decimal to duodecimal. For example, 23 in base ten is notated as 1E in base 12. Why is base 12 better than base 10? The big one divisibility. Not counting one and itself, 10 has two factors 2 and 5. 12 though, has 2, 3, 4, and 6, meaning that dividing by 3s and 4s is easier while 2s remain the same. Say you want to buy a third of a pound of apples and every pound is a dollar. In decimal you now have to pay 33.3333 cents, usually rounded up to 34. In duodecimal, though? 1 3 is equal to exactly 0.4. This value is exactly the same as 0.3333 in decimal but oh so much easier to notate. 1 6 0.2 1 4 0.3 5 6 0.X and 11 12 0.E Negative effects of a change base 12 Well we would have to change, to put it simply. I really do realize that it is nearly impossible to do this and so I only want my view changed on how base 12 is superior to base 10 theoretically. Kids couldn't use their fingers to count Well this one has a simple solution. one can simply count to 12 using the segments of the 4 fingers. Look at your palm and above you will see 12 nice little fleshy boxes, each representing a digit. Very simple, and allows you to count to 20 24 for you decimal plebs . It's harder to multiply convert. Weellll this one is partly true. I actually do not support a change to the metric system for the same reasons I don't like the decimal system, but that's a  for a different day let me know if you'd be interested . How often do you need to convert centimeters into kilometers? Very infrequently, because people tend to use the measurements they need for a certain task. Converting in 12s really isn't that bad anyways 100 is called a gro , becuase it represents 144 or a gross. 144 times 144 is 20736, which looks ugly in decimal but would be a nice 10000 in duodecimal. Since the decimal system is so ingrained in our minds it feels as if it's ingrained, like our brains are wired that way, but that really isn't the case. The only reason, really, that the Imperial system sucks is because we use a decimal numeric system. I would, if all powerful, normalize the imperial system into all 12s and it would be great for working with 3s and 4s. Multiplication is actually easier in duodecimal for 3s 4s, and 6s. this next bit is in duodecimal 3 0 0 3 1 3 3 2 6 3 3 9 3 4 10 3 5 13 3 6 16 3 7 19 3 8 20 Notice how the last digit is always in a simple pattern? 036903690369 In decimal that would be 03692581470369 which is undoubtedly horrible. Duodecimal also would not change advanced mathematics at all. Everything would work the same in the fancy business and it'd be easier to do day to day tasks. Just found This Pretty sick. Notice it uses the upside down 2 instead of X that's the way brits do it.","conclusion":"The Duodecimal or Dozenal base 12 system is superior to the Decimal system we employ today."}
{"id":"0da1f2b3-6b76-4a99-902a-41775500bd28","argument":"The increase in life expectancy, combined with increasing divorce rates and declining marriage rates, means that there are many older individuals living alone with unfulfilled sexual needs","conclusion":"Sex robots could help elderly people have a fulfilled sexual life. Bendel, p. 2"}
{"id":"4dc401c0-3a8c-4f9b-a63b-1584e73d976c","argument":"I feel the very first thing I say now should be that, despite the title, I'm not sexist. I believe men and women should be treated equally in regards to rights, freedom, respect, and opportunities, but I don't believe they're the same. Anatomically, mentally, and emotionally, the two sexes are built different, and are built to do separate jobs not professions, I'm not saying don't allow men to become teachers and don't allow women to become soldiers . Historically in most cultures , men have been hunters and women have been gatherers, and I don't think that's sexist. Men have GENERALLY, I'm not saying in ALL cases, don't take this sentence out of context, please more muscle mass than women, and I don't think it's sexist to say that again, GENERALLY some men are stronger than some women. If you take an average man, and an average women, neither of which really do much exercise, and tell them both to lift the same item, the men would have an easier job of it. That being said, if both work out, I don't believe there will be much difference in the ease of it. I'm 100 sure that the majority of the women on reddit are stronger and fitter than I am. Also, in my experience, women can take a LOT more pain than men can, a surprising amount. Essentially, what I'm trying to say is that I think men are built for strength, and women for endurance. I also believe that women are last time I'm saying it, GENERALLY more sensitive and emotionally mature than men. I'm not saying men laugh at emotional pain of those around them, but in my experience women take it more seriously. Men want you to get over it, women want to help you get over it. I'm not sexist, I don't think we should treat men and women differently although I don't see anything wrong with chivalry, it's just part of the culture, nothing along the lines of lul men r beter and shud protekt woman , and I'm 100 for men and women joining whatever profession they want to, as long as they're getting the same treatment I consider the military an exception, since they seem to be the only ones that acknowledge that men and women are built differently in most cases, some exercises are gender specific. There was a female soldier that explained this perfectly, I'll try to find the video and post it here . Basically, I don't believe that men and women are equal in regards to how they function, their thought processes, their roles, and their anatomy, and I don't believe it's sexist to believe it. gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than just downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I don't believe men and women are equal"}
{"id":"49a4a3bb-23ef-4deb-8c1f-c445af07b68b","argument":"I have a 4 year old daughter who will be needing to enroll in Kindergarten in the next year. My wife believes home school will be more beneficial to our daughter than a public school system. I believe public is better because it gets the kids out of the home and gives them a place to go and learn rather than at home. I have always believed that there are massive social benefits to public schooling vs. home school. I am very willing to discuss this and learn the benefits of home school vs. public. please any solid information is welcome. ps. If it makes any difference to the topic, I am in Canada. UPDATE 6 23 13 Thanks for all the replies so far I have read all of them. I have a lot to think about and discuss. Keep the replies coming.","conclusion":"Public schools are a better choice than home school."}
{"id":"2a3f1b86-691d-48ee-80af-97810456b94d","argument":"Sometimes I watch movies or listen to music or even meet people and think 'I'm not alive like they are alive. I'm stuck in some grey humdrum cubical of existence while they are out there experiencing what life should feel like. I am currently feeling that way now and so to cheer myself up I've decided that feeling is just because I have to live through every minute of my life, even the dull bits, but I am seeing the edited highlights of everyone else's. Sometimes its not even highlights its just fiction, like pictures that are edited to look better than any real person could or a carefully choreographed video of what looks like the worlds best party but is really just some bored, out of work actors on the 15th take. I feel like i've definitely had moments where I felt truly alive but they seem very far away now does anyone really live like this the whole time?","conclusion":"the feeling \"I'm wasting my life\" is more dependent on selection bias than any life decisions"}
{"id":"ecbe7e82-3dc8-4398-9af1-1e45c62a48ff","argument":"Similarly, Matthew 19:12 says 'Some are eunuchs because they were born that way; others were made that way by men; and others have renounced marriage because of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.'. This suggests that those who can renounce marriage should do so to follow Jesus.","conclusion":"In Matthew 16:24 Jesus tells his disciples, \"whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.\""}
{"id":"e88252be-ef4c-4d70-9cad-5a29b712c1ee","argument":"I have noticed in the loz community that there is a meme about calling the main character of the series, zelda. I have even seen it on t shirts and my friends have send memes about it. However the games allows you to choose the name. Also the cannon name of the character is link meaning the link to the player. So link is just a placeholder anyway. so I should be able to call link whatever I want because the purpose of his character is to be whatever I want him to be and honestly the memes about it just seems to be pointless and overly pretentious. Also I posted this before but forgot a title edit I was sleepy when I made this I now relise What I say does not make sense gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"There is nothing wrong with calling link, zelda"}
{"id":"a19b768b-a9f6-4b2d-9253-1f7546642358","argument":"When recruiting sex workers many pimps use courtship tactics exploiting a person's love for them. This makes sex workers more willing to do sex work after having been brought into emotional dependency Okun, p. 134","conclusion":"Many sex workers have been brainwashed and kept in isolation before being allowed to work. They are in no fair position to negotiate and empower themselves by this."}
{"id":"ea85fb1b-b64f-4480-9178-19b1cba79bd3","argument":"Whenever I hear people say you have no common sense they have no common sense liberals have no common sense conservatives have no common sense etc to me it just means I'm right and you're an idiot for not agreeing with me. I have no proof to back this up, but you're still dumb One could say why is x true? And the response is it's just common sense omgwtfbbq what the fuck does that even mean? If x was true, one could provide proof of it without just ducking the issue. The only other thing it can be is most people already think this but that's BS too because what's popular isn't always right or correct. If it doesn't mean that, please explain. In what OBJECTIVE fashion is there that you can identify common sense?","conclusion":"Common sense is a bs statement used to \"win\" arguments without any actual proof."}
{"id":"ad7fc2c1-7f9d-4d9a-b9a0-edfd9590f302","argument":"If we talk about all the minorities in the United States, Blacks were here first and were here the longest. They have the advantage of being able to speak English. On the otherhand, a lot of Asian Americans primarily Chinese Americans are recent immigrants and first generation Americans. How are they able to be so successful? I see a lot of my Asian American friends and myself working our asses off daily with little to no complaints. On the other hand, when I drive past the ghetto all I see are people just sitting on the street and drinking booze. I asked a few of these individuals and they all say, why should I work when I get money from the government? I really do really want to understand their struggle but with what I've seen, I can't understand the white privilege that is holding them down. All minorities started on the same page and rise at the same pace. EDIT reason why this question has been asked is because of a lady and her kids walked up to me and ranted to me saying that how you fucking Asians can drive nice cars and buy houses and she and blacks are stuck being poor.","conclusion":"If there is white privledge, how do Asian Americans do so well?"}
{"id":"377245bb-bae0-45f2-aa75-f2d15e4d13c5","argument":"Since the 2016 election there has been increased concern about the tone of political discourse in the US. This is a valid concern. People usually react to insults emotionally, leading to a lack of constructive communication. Polarization becomes harder to fix when two sides cannot come together to work out their differences. The main prescription that is being given is for everyone to be more civil. I do not think that is a practical way to solve this problem. Taking this approach would require that virtually everyone adhere to it. Unfortunately, any incivility by one side gives the other license to do the same, and positive feedback leads us back to where we are now. There are some scenarios where people are not going to voluntarily be civil Some politicians and groups thrive off of incivility. You are never going to convince these groups to be nice. There's always the potential for false flag propaganda. If everyone is acting very nice, one side can always generate fake ads or internet posts posing as a very rude opponent. In a population of 320 million, you're always going to have some assholes. A lot of those assholes have internet connections and Reddit accounts. Foreign actors can easily inject some incivility into political discourse with the goal of destabilizing society. I think the better solution to this problem is to kill the feedback. The less people react to incivility, then less it propagates or interferes with pressing political concerns. The adults in the room can work things out among themselves and ignore the reeing children. The reason this solution is more practical is that it only takes ~60 37 of the population to be successful, rather than 100 37 of the population. EDIT 1 To clarify, I mean emotional detachment from the political dialog, not the issues being discussed. To keep things vaguely balanced, both the things Trump says about his political opponents and also the refusal by some businesses to serve members of his administration are both rude actions. I don't think we should care too much about either of those things, and we should not base our actions at the ballot on them. However, we should definitely care about our country's immigration policy.","conclusion":"The answer to political \"meanness\" is emotional detachment rather than politeness."}
{"id":"df86e46d-4213-4c49-a0bc-80f5d04acf6c","argument":"Understanding better how political institutions work is essential for a well-funcionnig democracy and it is in the interest of every citizen.","conclusion":"Educating kids at a younger age could decrease apathy towards politics at a later stage."}
{"id":"fc461321-3e31-4b34-a001-3a4ec7341421","argument":"The reason why is It takes up too much money. Especially in the soon to be Banana Republic of America, the weak takes too much money to take care of them, and the old takes too much money to be lazy. So, they should be executed. Overpopulation is a problem, and letting these guys love is pretty much a slap to the face to everyone else. They have no use. The old has already been used, therefore no other use exists for them, and the weak will never have any use in their entire lives. From the United States.","conclusion":"I think the old and the weak should die."}
{"id":"dbe7dc02-5f86-4478-831e-ab10bd1908a8","argument":"In 1779 Jefferson proposed \"The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom\", which was adopted in 1786. Its goal was complete separation of church and state; it declared the opinions of men to be beyond the jurisdiction of the civil magistrate. He asserted that the mind is not subject to coercion, that civil rights have no dependence on religious opinions, and that the opinions of men are not the concern of civil government.","conclusion":"For Thomas Jefferson, separation of church and state was a necessary reform of the religious tyranny whereby a religion received state endorsement, and those not of that religion were denied rights, and even punished."}
{"id":"ee711f15-9645-4425-b858-650a20967201","argument":"Don't misunderstand me please. I believe date rape is totally, of course, rape. But as long as the woman man is sober enough to give consent, it isn't just rape. If we can say that men women aren't responsible for their consent when they are drunk then we risk redfining the definition of murder, because murder implies intent, right? Would we call every drunken fight that ends with one person dead just manslaughter? please change my view.","conclusion":"I am a Black Make who does not believe drunk sex is rape."}
{"id":"a796d8f0-b574-4263-9dbe-491e11dbcd80","argument":"The biggest divide is at university. It may be that the university environment makes people less religious rather than university students being less religious in the first place.","conclusion":"It is unclear whether the correlation between nonreligiousness and intelligence is directly causative"}
{"id":"69befdbc-cf09-4b4f-b3bc-b3e9944a553e","argument":"Just as broadcast television is evolving to streaming video e.g. live, recorded, Netflix, YouTube, radio programming audio without video will eventually be delivered entirely via streaming. Radio spectrum might be repurposed for mobile networks, but listening in an automobile, even one that is fully autonomous, will remain a desirable option.","conclusion":"Radio as a medium will remain as cars become increasingly connected to the internet."}
{"id":"c56dea0b-361e-4c95-869f-84f96fd2cf68","argument":"The Maroons were able to escape into the mountains because they were uninhabited and thus beyond the power of the British. We owe the next group of escaped slaves the same opportunity.","conclusion":"If our population is wiped out, future escaping slaves will find a relatively sparsely-inhabited mountainous region where they can live and hide from the British."}
{"id":"f0f3977e-fefb-4a66-b6ea-d079c12fa92d","argument":"I should preface that I come from a family of gun nuts and I've been shooting all my life and know my way around a gun. I'm not anti gun or anything, so this isn't about that. I also want to clarify that I am NOT talking about home defense at all here. I am turning 21 in a few days and I'm faced with the decision of getting a CCW. I would only need it for out of home self defense, but I think getting a gun for that purpose is unwise. The goal of self defense isn't to just harm your attacker, the goal is to get away from the danger. A gun will stop nearly anyone, but you risk killing them. In the event you do kill someone you'll pay THOUSANDS in court fees, and possibly be found guilty and spend quite a bit of time in prison. I know it doesn't happen often, but it does happen. I have heard first hand stories of people going into debt just from the court fees of shooting and killing someone. If you dont kill them you'll still likely go to court and pay lots of money to continue defending yourself. That's my first issue with carrying a gun, my next issues are that they are a bit complicated to carry. There are a lot of laws and the laws differ hugely between states, you cannot bring them into a lot of buildings, and you need a permit to carry it. I like a taser C2. It will bring down an attacker and continue shocking them for 30 seconds, an ample amount of time to get away. Tasers have killed people before, but it is so uncommon that I do not think it's something thats even worth thinking about. You can kill someone with nearly anything if you want to, but the fact is a gun has an exponentially higher chance of killing a person, so here I think the taser is a better option. It generally isn't lethal, which to me is a good option. If I need to defend myself I want to get away, not kill anyone. Tasers have one shot, yes, but if that shot connects its really all you need. The only downside I see is that it is no good for multiple assailants.","conclusion":"A taser is a better self defense option than a gun FOR OUTSIDE THE HOME"}
{"id":"7d716cc6-6c60-4172-b0e7-ff6798f89729","argument":"Hello Up until very recently, I identified most strongly with libertarians, minarchists, anarcho capitalists, etc. Lately though, I can't seem to reconcile one very important facet What happens as the American workforce becomes more automated and outsourced than it already is? We have a surplus of unskilled laborers, service industry workers, and similar jobs that are more about having a warm body than about any particular set of skills. However, between robotic assembly lines, automated kiosks we have them at our Jack in the Boxes now , and outsourced work to cheaper foreign entities, I foresee a time in the near to distant future that this surplus of laborers will continue to grow to an unsustainable level. As such, I've taken a huge break from my libertarian leanings as I cannot see any other solution here than far reaching social programs to help feed and house a growing population that, on a macro level, would otherwise be unable to take care of itself effectively. Please try to change my view Supporting social programs on such a scale goes against so many other beliefs I hold, so something's got to give here. Thanks.","conclusion":"I suspect the USA will need extensive social programs in the coming years."}
{"id":"671446c4-3776-448a-b038-c255f018edde","argument":"I believe that when people try and circumvent the whole no swearing rule by using substitutes, it isn't any better. The same general idea is there and everything knows what word they really mean. Even in television when they bleep the word out, it is relatively simple to figure out what works they meant, thus serving no purpose. If anything it makes it worse as people think more about the word than if it were not censored or substituted. For clarity, I am talking about when television shows bleep out swear words or when people use words such as shiz , darn , gosh , fudge in place of the words shit , damn , god , and fuck respectively.","conclusion":"Using substitutes or censors for profanity is no better than using the corresponding profane word."}
{"id":"f5d7282d-e689-4519-9b52-a1afb3b638a6","argument":"About a million Palestinians became refugees from what is now Israel and the Palestinian territories, after 1948 and 1967. Palestinian refugees, both still living first generation refugees c. 30,000 to 50,000 people as of 2012 and their descendants c. 5 million people as of 2012 , have a right to return, and a right to the property their families left behind or were forced to leave in what is now Israel and the Palestinian territories both formerly part of the British Mandate of Palestine , as part of the 1948 Palestinian exodus, a result of the 1948 Palestine war, and due to the 1967 Six Day War. I feel it is immoral and hypocritical for Israelis to claim a right to return to the area as their homeland some 1900 years after being expelled by the Roman Empire while refusing the same thing to people displaced within the last 70 years. Yes, I know that hundreds of thousands of Jews were displaced from the Arab countries too, but that doesn't make it right to take that out on the Palestinian refugees. The Palestinians have a right to return.","conclusion":"It is immoral to bar the descendants of displaced Palestinians from returning to Israel and Palestine. They have the right to return."}
{"id":"1128a820-f1f7-4518-9949-67e1db26cd5c","argument":"First off, definitions. By price discrimination, I am referring to the practice of offering discounts or different prices to select groups. For example a student discount on software or a bus ride, reduced prices for seniors at a movie theatre, ladies night drink prices at a bar, children eat free tuesdays , etc. Now, I understand the rationale behind this type of business model. By segmenting the market based on disposable income, it is possible to increase profits. There may even be other benefits i.e. giving women an incentive to attend your bar or club could increase overall sales . However, I feel that it should be the right of any customer, regardless of market demographic, to be able to demand the lowest price. Anything else is unfair and wrong.","conclusion":"I believe that price discrimination is immoral and should be legislated against."}
{"id":"6a77765f-ccc8-4336-8cb5-534a4f45d578","argument":"A UBI will allow everyone to get a little further than normal, but when the money runs out, people will need to be determined to continue living and progressing with other methods like working a job.","conclusion":"UBI isn't designed to eliminate work, but simply to start people at the poverty line instead of zero. Those motivated by financial gain will still have the opportunity to pursue financial gain."}
{"id":"9a4fcd5a-2b6c-49a5-8448-bdd8d40e89c5","argument":"If both Direct Democracy and Representative democracy have been proven to work, then the middle-ground is likely to also work.","conclusion":"Liquid democracy is a middle-ground between Representative and Direct Democracy."}
{"id":"35c93c42-16c3-46df-a590-8f89f1f94da5","argument":"I would love love love to hear the other side of this argument. Deltas will be rewarded","conclusion":"I'm convinced that NSA surveillance negative aspects far outweigh the good. Can anyone ?"}
{"id":"2510829b-4bcc-4c8e-9526-0bf1d86af6f0","argument":"Oreo's rainbow-stuffed cookie advert marking Pride month prompted a Facebook backlash against the LGBTQ+ community with homophobic comments from consumers.","conclusion":"Many advertisements about the LGBTQ+ community have received strong backlash and hate comments by consumers."}
{"id":"0bfa90de-3bfc-4bd2-b5a0-fc3da6c2604d","argument":"Separation anxiety typically hits babies after 8 months, after which it becomes hard for them to remain separate from their parents. It is best to take them away when they are newborns, to prevent a relationship from forming which can lead to separation anxiety.","conclusion":"If a child is to be removed from their family, it is best to do that when they are an infant."}
{"id":"a807a9d8-d3f8-458c-a530-0ded5ac3d677","argument":"If laws originate with a supreme being, they carry much more weight than if they are laws invented by men.","conclusion":"God may have been intentionally invented as a means to control the masses."}
{"id":"d3edf5a8-46ae-4a6d-b9fe-145890a9c335","argument":"I don't believe that knowing the plot to Othello Or Great Gatsby for that matter, thank you very much Mr. Fitzgerald indicates you are more wise or intelligent than the countless people my age that know the plot to Ocarina in Time. This is different than being ignorant of school in general, as science and math have many practical applications. History on a larger scale is valid because it is a recording of events that actually occurred, which tie into science and the progress of humankind. Shakespeare is a part of history of course, but no more so than the paradigm shifting phenomenon of the Zelda games, or Marvel comics. I will allow that there are college classes on the history of graphic novels and computer games, but they are generally electives and not shoved into the minds of high schoolers. Edit I see something similar was posted two weeks ago, unbeknownst to me. However it is a bit different in scope so I'll leave this up.","conclusion":"It is silly to test students on the writings of a 16th century sketch writer."}
{"id":"231bbc3d-45d5-4c9d-b8b2-e3126c6a1c26","argument":"Poor parents against vaccines will be disproportionately punished for standing by their principles because they are less able to afford to pay the fine. Many may vaccinate their children against their beliefs because of this, while rich parents can afford to take the risk.","conclusion":"Rich parents will have choice, whereas poorer parents will be denied any real freedom to choose. This creates a two- or more tiered system of access."}
{"id":"f96f1bc1-9d26-4b9f-b8c4-cc428e2f3dfa","argument":"PPPs in the 1990s. Braadbaart, O. 2005. Privatizing water and wastewater in developing countries : assessing the 1990s' experiments. Water policy ; vol. 7, no. 4 ; p. 329-344. Abstract and ordering details -","conclusion":"Okke Braadbaart has revealed high rates of failure for public-private partnerships"}
{"id":"8debbb51-9bbd-42f1-96e7-6cfe5c68c911","argument":"I would like to mention that I am a registered independent and will most likely vote for a third party candidate, but I am fairly left wing and agree with the Democratic Party far more often than with the Republican Party. Paul is a pretty progressive guy with a clean record as far as I know and his views on many issues differ greatly from the rest of the GOP. While Clinton is very experienced and progressive, she seems like the perfect archetype of the classic sketchy and dishonest politician who is willing to use her power to do whatever it takes to do what she wants. I am afraid I am choosing a better president based on the wrong qualities, or my preference based on too little information.","conclusion":"Rand Paul would be a better choice for the presidency than Hillary Clinton."}
{"id":"c8e59b49-a071-4af2-ac6f-f3e404870e6c","argument":"The way voting works in the ESC is that each country's population votes and this is then combined with votes from a jury of 5 industry experts 50 50 weighting between the two in order to decide how many points are awarded by a country to the other countries. I agree that the Jury will judge on the quality of the musical act, however, that is not what ESC is about anymore. Nobody watches it for musical talent, they watch it for the spectacle and for their amusement. In particular, listening to their respective country's commentator Graham Norton does a fantastic job as did Wogan before him and drinking. As such, people vote for the country which entertained them the most. In the UK, Poland got the highest number of votes from the population, however, because the jury placed them dead last, the UK ended up awarding them nil points. I believe this is wrong, especially considering that people were paying to vote. Source  that the ESC does not need a jury anymore as it is no longer a singing contest, rather an entertainment show.","conclusion":"The Eurovision Song Contest should not have a jury."}
{"id":"b59fdc20-2e45-4640-b71e-edf7afe9cbff","argument":"Despite living in Toronto, Canada for 35 years, my constant cavilling and grousing every winter of Toronto\u2019s frigidity proves my loathing of it and physical inability to acclimate. I suffer from 1.1. Seasonal Affective Disorder I feel more languid, listless, sluggish in the winter, and sorrowful and wistful of Ontario\u2019s warmer seasons. 1.2. skin conditions only corroded by Toronto\u2019s dry frigid air that chap, crack, pain, and sting my skin whenever I\u2019m outside in the winter. I loathe the greasily, slick feeling from using skin products like moisturizers or lip balms. Changing in my lifetime nature or my physical reactions likely impossible, I believe the lack of any other solution but to move somewhere warmer in Canada e.g. Vancouver . gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I can\u2019t acclimate to and live comfortably in Toronto's frigid winters, and so must move somewhere warmer."}
{"id":"f27201f2-476b-47e5-b357-d57ed1aa1510","argument":"An example of a reactionary response to current events, in which an esteemed intellectual, a professor of sociology and director of the Women\u2019s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program at Northeastern University, openlyadvocating hatred toward all men. This is not an uncommon theme.","conclusion":"Third-wave, modern feminism is more heavily focused on a loose collection of ideas revolving around the distrust and in many cases, outright disdain for of men, or, more specifically, heterosexual men."}
{"id":"8809ecbc-2b52-4617-a44c-d0662424c8eb","argument":"Vigilantes can not know what criminal's intentions are or how far they may be willing to go to avoid being caught. Consequently, vigilantes can put their life or their family's life in jeopardy by pursuing them.","conclusion":"People may be inviting more harm when they decide to pursue the suspects involved in a crime."}
{"id":"846020c7-9786-4690-b607-4b0389153180","argument":"If you can assist in any way, and AREN'T guilty, why not just answer? The ONLY reason I could really see is if you were either guilty, or, say, had a secret married man at whore house doesn't want wife to find out . However, in my opinion, HE made the mistake, and is now actively impeding a murder investigation. Anytime I hear someone plead the fifth, ESPECIALLY over easy questions, I think they sound guilty. Edit This is my first time posting here, and I guess I am supposed to give credit to good points. How do I do that symbol thing?","conclusion":"If someone is asked a simple question to solve a murder, and they plead the fifth, they are guilty and the following legal hubbub is a waste of time."}
{"id":"19b4f103-0907-4f78-b548-e46fdecaa751","argument":"I would really love to believe that life is sacred and meaningful and that I'm lucky to be alive, and such. However, as far as I can tell, quite a bit of life is suffering and there's no moral except religious reason that suicide should be so stigmatized. To be clear, I do not encourage or support suicide. I think most people who feel suicidal probably just want help so that they can recover and feel better. But for those that are terminally edit chronically is a more appropriate word ill physically or mentally, and have wanted to die for years to throw out an arbitrary unit of time why shouldn't it be an option? Living longer isn't inherently better. I think if someone can decide to kill themselves, then go through the steps that would be outlined for assisted suicide presumably counseling, etc , they are not being cowardly or particularly selfish. I think those people who want them to continue being alive despite their suffering or disinterest in living are more selfish.","conclusion":"I think that assisted suicide should be an option for anyone, legally and morally and I don't think suicide is cowardly or offensively selfish."}
{"id":"8d04c2f8-edc2-4ade-a4c6-b640dfa03fe7","argument":"Not all people are talking with each other. There is a lack of communication between different peoples that will not make it possible to have every individual in the world speak a same language.","conclusion":"The creation of a single global language is not possible, because it is too difficult to reach every individual with this concept."}
{"id":"dab8dfef-b19c-4cf4-be3e-2489c3602733","argument":"If the universe is temporally finite Google heat death of the universe then everything will end and ultimately there is no point. Alternatively if the universe is temporarily infinite and without end what is the endgoal for mankind? Meaning when you consider infinite time to advance to higher and higher levels of consciousness eventually possibly becoming immortal then wouldn't you eventually become utterly anhedonic because you've already done and seen everything you want and even everything you don't want to Wouldn't you just be permanently bored and if you transcend boredom then what motivates you to live? The only reason to live is to breed to continue the bloodline but if you can't die there's no need for that and if you can't die there's no need to eat anymore so really the only thing to live for would be to search for entertainment to stave off boredom if you don't feel boredom anymore why wouldn't you just sit contentedly somewhere doing nothing for all eternity? Just never ending joy. Even writing this I'm having trouble wrapping my head around that even without boredom I can't help picturing being content but then growing bored of contentment I just can't picture never being bored and always feeling happy. I literally can't even picture it. TLDR Depression is a CUNT.","conclusion":"life holds no meaning. I'm a Nihilist and I don't care about much of anything anymore."}
{"id":"ab94286b-e701-43c3-b16c-1db20591eb64","argument":"I am a bad human being. I used to do things only for myself, I hurt a lot of people, I was apathetic about everything, uncaring, cold, calculating I thought only of the objective, whatever it was that day. Anything between me and that objective was irrelevant and was disregarded, and anybody who tried to change that view was weak. About 3 years ago, something happened to me, and my worldview flipped. I realized how small I was in this world and how petty my objectives were. I realized that there are people that matter more than me who deserve happiness much more than I do, simply because they are better than me. Those people that I care about now and give so much to are extremely talented in ways I could only dream of. They were good people to begin with, and they are good people now. Right now, I'm in a very bad place in life financially and emotionally, and in overall low health. But because I am a bad person, I feel like I should always give no matter where I am in life, because good people deserve it more than I do. Someone said to me recently, How can you expect to help people if you can't help yourself. What I believe is that no matter how bad it gets, I can always keep giving I'm a tissue and organ donor as of yesterday.","conclusion":"I care more about others than I care about myself because that is what's right. No exceptions."}
{"id":"e820dacc-a348-455f-860f-dd09a4b65034","argument":"In America, around 800,000 people are arrested on marijuana related charges each year. This creates a massive strain on court systems and on prisons. The consequences of these strains are far-reaching, including such problems as increased rates of plea bargaining.","conclusion":"Far too many people are imprisoned for the possession of marijuana"}
{"id":"c3cc0d28-9cc8-40d3-a102-ae946665e982","argument":"Just what the title says, the animated series star wars the clone wars is the best star wars content that has been made in this century. while other good star wars content has been made I think that especially thematically the clone wars is the best representation of the battle of good and evil, specifically how sometimes lines between the two are more blurred then we would every personally like. my personal interpretation of star wars . I think that the closest to clone wars in terms of quality is rouge one when it comes to story telling, I have personally been extremely let down by the new trilogy everything is so straight forward. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Star Wars: The Clone Wars is the best Star Wars content of the 21st century"}
{"id":"c7eb6780-420a-47b8-9a12-44a78f7c2823","argument":"If a Creator or God may exist naturally without the need of a Higher Creator, so may the things of nature, e.g., human beings.","conclusion":"Biological evolution demonstrates that a God that directly created humans animals and plants does not exist."}
{"id":"c90ce1c9-d939-468b-ab3a-c9531e1be412","argument":"In response to past abuses perpetuated by the Catholic Church in Ireland, public outcry has forced the nuns to give up their connections to St Vincent\u2019s Healthcare Group SVHG, the trust set up to manage the new maternity facilities in Dublin.","conclusion":"Due to the history of abuse perpetuated by the Catholic Church in regards to women and children, it may be safer in the long run if religious organisations' involvement in healthcare, specifically reproductive healthcare, was ended."}
{"id":"147da48c-05aa-4a02-a5ae-0eae2ad565e2","argument":"The sheer cost of providing quality health care makes universal health care a large expense for governments. Because the resources available to a government are not infinite, they should be utilized towards benefiting those who would be worse off in the absence of its provision.","conclusion":"The government does not owe a moral obligation to all citizens. Those who can afford their own healthcare do not need to be provided for."}
{"id":"ab311bd1-c4b9-4f33-92c5-111d8e96ee14","argument":"Numerous recent terrorist attacks have been made in the name of Islam. To name a few, 9\/11 attacks , 2004 Madrid attacks 2015 in Paris in January and in November and so many in Arab world towards minorities , including other muslims.","conclusion":"People have been led to do terrible things in the name of religion."}
{"id":"5e247650-1f99-493b-8315-3a649589ab6b","argument":"First understand that I come to this position as a man who was formerly a believer in feminism. I think the feminist ideas sound good on paper and especially fair and equitable to a young person who wants to believe reality is fair and balanced. But the experience of life has taught me that there are numerous differences between men and women that cannot be wished away by a movement, whether cultural or political. These differences are just existential and permanent. Like a frog being different than a giraffe. I believe men and women are different, but complementary. And that they are equal in value. But they are not equal in individual skills and individual attributes. Women have advantage in some, men in others. Which also means women have disadvantages in some things, and men in others. Together, we frequently make up for what the other lacks. Pursuant to a recent  on a similar question, I came to an understanding that the main thing people seem to think makes women inferior or seen as inferior is that they are seen as more dependent. While thinking this over, I came to the conclusion that this is more than appearance. Both theoretical knowledge and life experience indicates to me that women are more dependent than men in general. If your argument is going to be I know this one woman one time who was super independent , I agree individual cases can exist. But if you're not ok with the idea that generalities have a reality, too, i.e., Norwegians generally speak more Norwegian than Italians do, even if there was one Norwegian one time who grew up with a foreign nanny and spoke Russian first then I'll ignore your comment. I would argue that while dependency may be seen as a negative trait, and it may well be in and of itself, that trait doesn't have any bearing on whether women are superior or inferior. It is one trait among many. Any single trait of men logicality, aggressivity can be positive or negative and none of them alone qualify men as superior or inferior either.","conclusion":"If society thinks women are inferior, or people think society treats women as inferior, it is based on the fact that women are more dependent than men."}
{"id":"2de25123-f226-48f5-86a1-52153202864d","argument":"women in combat are a distraction, as a man's natural instinct is to protect a female. the male soldiers wouldn't be able to effectively do their jobs.","conclusion":"Women in combat can be a distraction or harm the function of the military"}
{"id":"985952b9-1d29-48a8-9913-9e2c3edc1b6c","argument":"For anyone who isn't aware, a general overview of the situation following the attack in London where someone radicalised crashed through a crowd of people and stabbed an officer to death, the Daily Mail published a story attacking the Slingshot Channel for a sickening video in which he tested a brand of stab resistant armour as inspiring terrorism . I won't be linking the article, I don't believe in giving the publication any more traffic and ad revenue for their scaremongering. Following the bad publicity YouTube removed the video in question and put a community strike on the channel for creating content that incites violence . All told, I think the strike should be removed, the video restored, and the Daily Mail should lose faith from it's viewership for spinning something innocent into an uproar and banking on the death of an officer in London by needlessly stirring the outrage pot. For those who don't know of it, the Slingshot Channel is a hobbyist channel, run by a big burly german man who loves slingshots and tools and demonstrating them. It's no different than any other hobby channel such as those for shooting sports, historical weaponry, archery, etc it's a guy who has a passion and shares it online. In the video in question, he did demonstrate stabbing through a stab resistant vest, but he didn't run the video as a tutorial . He didn't specifically point out any weak points in the armour, he didn't encourage people to go try this he had a knife, and put all his weight into it, and showed that he could get through. The point of the video, and he said as much in the interview the Daily Mail got with him, was to demonstrate the stab resistant armour is not impenetrable. Every armour has a limit, and the people wearing it should not act deftly as if they're suddenly invincible wearing it he also said that he hoped demonstrating weakness in the armour would encourage law enforcement to be considerate of the equipment they're purchasing for their officers in order to keep them safe. Quote 'If they change police equipment because I have shown it is vulnerable then I may be saving some lives . There are dozens of YouTube channels here in the US dedicated to firearms. Dozens of videos demonstrating the effectiveness of different levels of body armour and the effectiveness of different ammunition against them. Channels showing human torso moulded ballistic gelatin being hit by different calibres to show their wound potential. Using the arguments of the Daily Mail, all such channels should be removed for inciting violence and tutoring people in how to murder police officers. Same for any channel that demonstrates any weapon or tool, for fun or sport or any other reason. I think it's ridiculous. The video did not encourage anyone to go out and attempt to stab anyone, the video did not make a point to show off techniques or special tactics. And even if it did, I can link you to dozens of firearms channels and tactical training channels who far more explicitly demonstrate the capability of weapons and the best means of employing them on other people. Context is everything. We can take this content as the evil in the world, training people to kill efficiently and end their fellow man in cold blood or we can have some perspective and realise that most of the content out there is educational, entertainment, and meant to be taken in the context it's provided. The video had nothing to do with the stabbing, there's no evidence that this attacker in particular watched that video and was inspired to commit violence solely because of it. The video was a hobbyist demonstrating something he was interested in, out of both the spirit of fun and the desire to educate. Either the community strikes should be removed, or any channel dedicated to demonstrating any weapon regardless of context should be removed for inciting violence . gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The Slingshot Channel should have it's YouTube strike removed"}
{"id":"52aad60f-b1e2-4c85-834f-169b302f009e","argument":"Ethnic minorities are underrepresented on juries in Australia and New Zealand, partially as a result of discriminatory challenges by prosecutors.","conclusion":"Jury selection can be biased against minorities, preventing them from participating equally in the justice system."}
{"id":"0aedf884-b4e8-4247-bf50-cfa64af74870","argument":"In light of the most recent IPCC report and my own reading of Ugo Bardi's Extracted it seems clear to me that the only way to avert more climate related disasters and catastrophic economic change is to immediately push our economy to be more decentralized and distributed. My view, which I wish to discuss, is that our current world leaders are not going to be able to make the sweeping systematic changes required to make this inevitable shift in our economy. Any changes they will propose will be weak and impotent. I believe that it is within their power to do what needs to be done, but they lack The political courage to stand up against the institutional aka corporate, private or monied power. The will to dismantle and distribute their own political power The trust that other leaders will do the same The assumption I am making is that a massive restructuring of the economy is going to happen . Infinite growth is an insane way to operate on a finite planet and is going to stop and decline if not collapse. My fear is that people keep waiting for world leaders to do something to soften this transition, to fix this problem, which they are not able to fix. Change is coming and if we wait for the world leaders to lead we will find ourselves following the change, rather than guiding it. EDIT great discussion, but very few people even touched on my point. I don't feel that anyone convinced me that world leaders are going to be able to deal with climate change. It seems clear that we, citizens of the world, will be leading the change. Good luck out there. gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your benevolent overlords. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Our current \"world leaders\" are incapable of the necessary change required to avert climate change."}
{"id":"3364f631-c40a-45c5-899a-15979ce31a74","argument":"While I could go on a whole piracy isn't really bad tangent for this , I'll start out slow. One of the most common arguments against piracy is that it's equivalent to stealing. This is already a shaky argument in itself, as you are not literally stealing a better analogy would be that you're making a perfect copy of the original work in question and using that . The main idea, though, is that through piracy, you are enjoying something for free that you would normally pay for which is stealing in the eyes of the content creators. However, there are problems with this concept. Let's say, for example, that I want to play Super Mario Sunshine. I could use an emulator to play the game, but that would be piracy. I want to support Nintendo and its products, so I want to pay for it fair and square. All of Nintendo's digital stores Wii, Wii U, Switch have a variety of games, with the former two having the Virtual Console, but none of them offer Gamecube games. Unlike games like Twilight Princess, Wind Waker, or Pikmin, Super Mario Sunshine never got a remaster or remake, so we can't go through that option. Even Nintendo's online stores only go up to providing refurbished Wii titles. So our only option is to buy used. Here's the rub, though buying used has the money go to the party selling the game, usually Gamestop or some third party. None of the proceeds go to Nintendo. Buying a used game supports the original creators of the game as much as piracy does if you have to resort to buying used, you are doing no better than pirates in the original creators' eyes. Now, of course, this argument doesn't cover all bases. There are many games that have an outlet which allows you to play while supporting the original creators even games like Chrono Trigger have mobile ports , and as a result this argument only applies to out of print games or ones which will never be rereleased due to licensing issues. This is also a stronger argument for games, as many books and movies are available in online libraries. My point is that the argument that piracy is stealing falls apart when you consider specific examples. Rather than blame pirates, content creators should look for ways to improve their methods of distribution so piracy doesn't need to be considered. . gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The argument that piracy is equivalent to stealing does not stand up in common situations."}
{"id":"535396e6-2153-4dd4-bc0b-18b0edb49d90","argument":"Some prisoners are so psychologically broken and conditioned to violence that its the only thing they respond to. Guards have no option but to use violence to keep these prisoners in line.","conclusion":"Physical punishment is necessary when all other forms of punishment fail."}
{"id":"613df16d-f980-4f9a-89cd-92106669ead7","argument":"I believe that living in an apartment or a townhouse is better than living in a single family home. The reasons I believe that are as follows. 1 Lawncare. Lawncare is a hassle. I don't see the purpose in having one. It has to be mowed, and it makes your feet dirty when you walk on it barefoot. Plus, lawns harbor mosquitoes. 2 Snowcare Depending upon where you live, you have to clean snow off of your Driveway. Like mowing your lawn, it requires you to take time out of your day, go out into occasionally negative weather, and freeze. 3 lack of amenities and people. In the suburbs, everything is spread out. The nearest business may be a few miles away, compared to being within walking distance to someone in the city. In the suburbs, you are stranded. If you are unable to drive, you are confined to your neighborhood. If you are a child, depending on your neighborhood, the people who you are with may be bullies. In the city, with a higher population density, 4 Less cleaning of your home. Apartments and Townhomes are generally smaller, therefore, You have to spend less time cleaning them. A suburban single family home is typically larger, requiring more room to clean. 5 The price. Apartments and Townhomes are usually cheaper. Assuming you have a decent paying job, this means you can put more money into a category for purchases. You could buy the newest gaming console, or go on more vacations. In a single family home, you lose the opportunity to have that extra money.","conclusion":"Living in an Apartment or townhome is better than living in a suburban single family home."}
{"id":"b86e668e-2b1e-44e9-af35-1e11be7fdc77","argument":"Since the recent shooting in Florida, students have kept the issue in the news forcing both sides to make their arguments. From what I've seen, opponents of gun control argue that this is unfair and distracts from rational argument. I believe that the campaigning of the students does not prevent anyone from rational argument and that the anger gun control opponents have is that they can't demonise these kids as they would Obama or Clinton without looking bad. Various writers have pointed this out. A Washington Post columnist said this gt You can say the Parkland kids are wrong, but calling them names, trying to dig into their personal lives to find something embarrassing, encouraging your audience to not simply think they\u2019re mistaken but to hate them with all the venomous fire they can muster \u2014 that\u2019s what some on the right wish they could do, but can\u2019t, at least without looking like soulless ghouls. Certain conservatives have been complaining about this from the beginning. A writer from the New Republic describes different theories that have spread about the students and petty personal attacks from relatively mainstream figures like Tucker Carlson and Laura Imgraham gt It should be clear who the actual bullies are not the students but the powerful right wing pundits who, bereft of any solid arguments, have decided to launch personal attacks on students who survived one of the worst school shootings in American history. I'm sure there are some exceptions and I'm sure some democrats do the same thing but it seems like the main problem gun control opponents have with these kids is that they can't make personal attacks against them the same way they do others they disagree with though not for lack of trying . I've seen right wing sources demonise all their opponents from Obama and Clinton to leaders of the Women's March and protesting black athletes and rational, evidence based arguments are few and rare between. Now these students have been blamed for the shooting, compared to Hitler, mocked for their academic results, accused of being puppets of Soros and dismissed as a 'skinhead lesbian'. That leads me to believe that outlets like Fox and Breitbart and groups like the NRA don't want a rational discussion about this issue they want to hysterically demonise everyone they disagree with and they're angry that the students are sympathetic opponents. Increasingly, they seem willing to insult those kids anyway rather than try to have a rational discussion. So I'll  if anyone can convince me that 1. Leading gun control opponents want a rational discussion about gun violence and 2. Leading gun control opponents don't wish that they could demonise and insult tramautised teenagers. Edit Thanks to everyone for contributing. I posted this to get a better understanding of the conversation around guns. I'm not American so I was curious about the motives of gun advocates. The responses so far seem imo to confirm my belief that a calm and rational discussion on this topic is not a very realistic proposition for gun control advocates and that personal attacks are the norm and I don't want to get sucked into traditional gun arguments that will likely just lead to frustration so I'm stepping back from this thread. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The leading critics of gun control don't want to have rational discussions about ending gun violence and would rather demonise their opponents"}
{"id":"78ab6c19-20f2-4731-b2eb-fe301eca79ae","argument":"There is no need to draw a sharp distinction between academic subjects in which creationism may and may not be mentioned, particularly if you hold, as Christians and other religious people do, that the truth is unified and beautiful. If it is acceptable to talk about creationism\u2019s religious, cultural and historical significance - as it should be - then it is acceptable to talk about its scientific legitimacy. We believe that it is scientifically legitimate - more so, indeed, than evolution - and we intend to defend that claim in science classes.","conclusion":"There is no need to draw a sharp distinction between academic subjects in which creationism may and ..."}
{"id":"0599f560-6b21-4fe2-8736-dcc06c8e7151","argument":"claims to help Gastrointestinal Disorders: reduce cramping, abdominal pain, acid reflux, intestinal secretion, disease activity.","conclusion":"Overwhelming scientific research supports the beneficial medical effects of using cannabis."}
{"id":"73b16c6e-5d13-40d8-b361-72428f3c50a1","argument":"I grew up around a lot of homeschooling families, most of them having 6 biological children. When challenged, they would support their lifestyle with scripture go forth and multiply or by equating it to individual rights. I've seen a lot of statistics saying that the global population is theoretically three times its sustainable number and growing exponentially. This problem is only intensified by extended life expectancy. This could only be solved by global migration or a decimating global event plague, natural disasters, war, etc . TL DR People who have three or more children are irresponsibly and shortsightedly contributing to the end of the world as we know it.","conclusion":"People who have more than two kids are irresponsibly contributing to the end of modern civilization"}
{"id":"8115e431-6d96-42c0-b2e1-2024f1400679","argument":"And, more generally, the date of ratification of the current US Constitution should not be considered the date of admission to the union for the first 13 states. The current U.S. Constitution is our second constitution. The first was the Articles of Confederation. If you want to use any constitution as the date of admission to the union, then you should use the first constitution. By the way, Delaware was 12th to ratify the Articles. Replacing an old constitution with a new one doesn't revert the status of states to colonies or remove them from the union, thus requiring readmission. Even if you argue that replacing a constitution dissolves the prior union and establishes a new one, then you must address the fact that when a state replaces its state constitution, then that dissolves the state and establishes a new one. By the way, Delaware has replaced its state constitution three times since it ratified the current Constitution, so it would no longer be the first state. Even if you argue that it must be the current constitution which determines date of admission, then you must address the theoretical situation in which we adopt a new, third constitution. Let's say California ratifies it first. Would California be the new first state ? Even if you limit it to the original 13 colonies, let's say Georgia ratifies it first of the thirteen. Would Georgia be the new first state ? If no, then why did Delaware get to replace Virginia as the first state despite Virginia ratifying the Articles first? I have no objections to using the date of ratification of first constitution as the date of admission, to treating all 13 original states as unordered, or to using the dates of admission by Congress for all subsequent states. But I can find no reason to accept using the current constitution as the measuring stick if it wouldn't also apply to theoretical third constitution. .","conclusion":"Delaware should not be considered the \"first state.\""}
{"id":"1f671138-e1b8-41c3-ab0c-73b5a8902eaf","argument":"Often there can be multiple consequences that flow from particular actions. Considering you can't control the flow of these consequences, it is arbitrary to imprison individuals based on the factors outside of their control.","conclusion":"It is only legitimate to imprison persons in proportion to their blameworthiness."}
{"id":"fbb71c59-83f8-4a63-9f3d-b9a598c3aed9","argument":"Citizens who are concerned about the environment will be able to donate larger amounts with the help of a UBI.","conclusion":"A UBI would be beneficial for those who fight for the environment's protection."}
{"id":"52f1c74e-8e5e-46ce-ba29-0d1e17c4bd48","argument":"The world's longest-lived people, in so-called \"Blue Zones\", eat a high-carbohydrate plant-based diet with almost no meat or other animal products. en.wikipedia.org","conclusion":"The best thing is just to 'Eat food, not too much, mostly plants ."}
{"id":"405f2ae5-4aa3-4ed3-b074-e74deb073f6d","argument":"Iraq has a new, elected government, and has successfully voted in a referendum on a new, relatively liberal constitution. Sunni factions are now engaging in political discussions and the new regime is gaining recognition from neighbouring states. At the same time the new Iraqi army and police are gaining in numbers and ability.","conclusion":"Political progress lends as much to the notion of withdrawing as staying."}
{"id":"4ebda07f-b242-4012-88a0-754182ea48e6","argument":"There you go, I think there is no stopping this freight train of human consumption. People often think green and buy a green car or don't buy those extra plastic bags at the supermarket and put their Thermostat 2 degrees lower. These are all nice gestures and such but isn't this just a waterdrop in an immense desert? The environmental footprint will continue to rise unless earth can't bear it any longer and from there it will be almost game over I think that in order to save the planet we will have to give up almost all of our luxuries and most of our technological advancement because as it looks for now we are trying to swim up the niagara falls. I think the modern society as a whole will just keep making promises and just postpone any real effort for a change just look at what they promised with the millenium development goals? This is a chart with the current carbon emission on a global scale, it is truly staggering. For almost every single subject that involved environment it has gone from bad to worse I know that I am as guilty as the next person in this and I will try not to be naive in my own footprint but at this rate we won't last much longer. Some really, really drastic changes will have to happen or we could get a nasty slap in the face","conclusion":"I think that the global warming and climate change will be irreversible because of human continuous hunger for technological improvement and luxury."}
{"id":"b6288ad2-934f-4959-80d1-f606225a01f5","argument":"James Kennedy and Jerry Newcombe argue that science has its roots in Christianity. Because it is based on the notion that there exists a rational God who is the source of rational truth. This, they argue, gave rise to the possibility of scientific laws","conclusion":"Religion was a necessary step to reach structured thoughts and rationality. In fact, the scientific method is only a young leaf although emergent in the evolutionary tree of belief systems."}
{"id":"42f048e8-1d9d-4df3-9768-dded3dc16059","argument":"Sex chatbots exist to ostensibly train people in the art of flirting with the same and opposite sexes depending on their proclivities. Sex robots could easily assimilate this technology to allow for reciprocal flirting.","conclusion":"The Roxxxy sex robot was designed by Douglas Hines, with lonely, bereaved and socially outcast men in mind. He felt Roxxxy would allow them to practice and improve their social interactions."}
{"id":"94c7e9ef-12b4-4f1c-a7b1-203cd2e83872","argument":"According to the Lisbon Treaty, the candidate put before the EU Parliament for election by the European Council should be chosen with the recent election of the parliament taken into account Assuming that the EPP Group remains the strongest faction, its candidate best represents this idea.","conclusion":"This would be the most democratic choice. The European People's Party EPP group, which stands behind the nomination, holds more seats than any other candidate's group."}
{"id":"7b9932ff-3528-4f29-9603-822400e8703e","argument":"I know this is gonna get a ton of downvotes because of the topic, but I just can't get on the same level with most of reddit. I don't think Internet access is an inherent right in any way. If the citizens want this net neutrality that everyone's whining about, we should push for municipal broadband to put pressure on the major players. I see the point of net neutrality when taxpayer dollars have a role, but forcing regulations on private companies violates the most basic principles of commercialization that have allowed the internet to become a thing at all. Plus, it doesn't really accomplish anything because it creates a need for more and more regulations to counter the incentive for corporations to find loopholes or just ignore regulations entirely. So, I don't think we are entitled at all to regulate for net neutrality to providers in the private sector. Obviously, no traffic should be deliberately throttled, and that has already been established by the FCC. But I believe ISPs should be able to charge for preferential treatment of internet traffic. .","conclusion":"I think it is wrong to legislate for net neutrality."}
{"id":"2c1ce85f-9937-4310-8255-9d394a6c2357","argument":"Edit A lot of these comments have changed my view considerably, and this is more complicated than I can comprehend, even as another minority. That being said, I still look forward to reading peoples insights and responding to comments. I\u2019m quite liberal for the most part, and a racial and sexual minority as well. There are a lot of things from my culture that I see white people get influenced by, and honestly I just think it\u2019s sweet to see a white woman dressed up in a Lengha. I feel the worst case is that they\u2019re just oblivious to the cultural meaning of the items but, I know a lot of American citizens who are racial minorities and don\u2019t have the slightest idea about their ancestry\u2019s cultural values. And what is to say that they can\u2019t just enjoy it in fashion? Certain symbols or garments do hold high honor in cultures, but I don\u2019t see why white people wearing it without its meaning would diminish the prestige for another culture. And I know some people culturally appropriate, yet disrespect the culture they are appropriating from. To me, that has little to do with appropriation and a lot to do with being racist and holding prejudices. In fact, I feel like white people the majority in the USA using items from other cultures brings more mainstream attention to those cultures and promotes diversity.","conclusion":"I don\u2019t believe in cultural appropriation as a bad thing"}
{"id":"ab499c64-c20c-4a89-85a2-7bea4c9f828e","argument":"I have quite a few problems with science. I like to argue about it on reddit, as people here consider science King here. So far argued constructively with a few strong defendants of science and noone could change my mind so far. I hope you can. After seeing a post on r science, I finally decided to make a post there. So my biggest problem with science is basically embodied in this study Sex today increases sense of meaning in life tomorrow, suggests a new study First of all, it discovers that sex makes people believe that their lives are meaningful. But I see this only the same as saying food makes you happier . It doesn't take science to understand that satisfying your desires will make you happier feel like doing something meaningful. However, Plato 2500 years ago already realised and it didn't take him science that satisfying your own immediate desires simply leads to fake meaningfulness, fake happiness. When satisfying these desires, you don't do much to achieve happiness or meaning as a permanent state of mind. And out of that arises a new problem while, for example, to Plato, this study is stating a secondary fact, our society digests this as a primary fact. To us, this study reveals something very important to us, even though it truly does not. Making such secondary studies appear as if they are answering fundamental questions about human nature degrades the concept of human. Little by little, humans influenced by science start believing that humans are nothing short of animals, and all they want to do is satisfy their most immediate desires. While science is very important in extracting knowledge from the empirical world, it simply has become King in our society, and it degrades the complexity of humanity. Furthermore, science does not measure what it cannot for example, psychology does not consider a soul to be a thing so it automatically rules out the possibility of a soul. Just because the concept of Soul cannot be operationalised doesn't mean that it does not exist. And to top it all off, thinking that science is King causes huge social problems in a world of science, we don't know what love or meaning truly is notice how the article talks about sense of meaning and not an actual meaning because psychology cannot measure meaning itself and effectively, there is less and less love in this world. Communities are now based on what can a community do for me instead of what I can do for my community . Same goes for relationships. Humans have a lot of hardships to overcome, and I believe that they can do that through love. The concept of human as an animal satisfying his desires simply discourages people from trying to deal with their problems, egoism and resentment. tl dr science has its limits, but we forgot to consciously say to ourselves that it does. We ought not to forget that. This explains it very well hopefully Greeks knew that a table is made out of wood. Today, we know that it is made out of protons, neutrons and electrons. But the nature of the table is still unknown. The question of Why does this table exist? is still up. The fact that we know the table is made out of smaller and smaller particles didn't answer anything the way science answers the question What is a table is completely secondary, asked in a cave, as Plato would say.","conclusion":"Science cannot answer any fundamental question of being, science merely can answer secondary questions."}
{"id":"27f83c7b-8f98-448c-a684-330eec30b88a","argument":"Free will without the ability to commit evil acts is a coherent concept, so free will doesn't explain the existence of evil.","conclusion":"It is possible to create a world with free will but no evil."}
{"id":"ee7ae9a6-5c52-47e4-b61c-2a5797348cdf","argument":"Even in the region that most strongly opposes bullfighting there are 8% who support it Ipsos, p. 2","conclusion":"There are indications that many in Catalonia do appreciate bullfighting."}
{"id":"37b20da3-d80f-4000-8536-677e952fb8b1","argument":"Lots of people online seem to think that communism socialism anarchy are better alternatives to capitalism, since they will result in greater equality for everyone compared to capitalism. However, isn't any system of government vulnerable to be exploited by those who wish to do so? Power imbalances have always existed in society, between the strong and the weak, between the smart and the dumb, between those with privilege and those without. Unless we address these core inequalities and preferably not in a Harrison Bergeron type of way , oppression will always exist in the world. EDIT I think I wasn't clear in my original question. The  isn't that capitalism is perfect. It isn't. The  is shitty people will exploit others in any economic system. Copying from my response to someone below The question is, does capitalism cause exploitation, or does it simply facilitate it? I think it facilitates it, but does not cause it. I'm basically saying the economic equivalent of guns don't cause murders, but they do facilitate them. You can replace guns with knives, which will inevitably lower the murder rate, but it won't change the fact that people want to murder each other and will try to do so. In other words, other economic systems may reduce inequality, but they will not eliminate it unless you change innate inequality between humans. Put another way, I say that capitalism isn't inherently flawed because it does not cause inequality. Does it facilitate it? Yes. But it does not cause it. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Capitalism isn't inherently flawed; the weak can be oppressed by the strong in any system of government or lack thereof."}
{"id":"39bfd05c-04b0-4357-9146-a9b913c1a1a1","argument":"Monogamy proved best in cementing power relations between two families in medieval Europe and bourgeois industrialization.","conclusion":"Monogamous forms of living together did not evolve because of evolutionary problems but social habits."}
{"id":"92d8cf1e-f78b-4dcd-8ef3-e12b45baf750","argument":"Before you reply please familiarise yourself with the ICISS report. Following the 2005 UN world summit three pillars of the norm were identified the responsibility of a sovereign to protect its own population the responsibility of the international community to support a government that is unable to protect the rights of its citizens and the responsibility of the international community to intervene in cases where the state has failed to protect its citizens. Most view the Syrian Crisis through the framework of the third pillar however I believe that if one considers the precautionary principles of the R2P, in particular reasonable prospects of success it is best to view the Syrian Crisis through the second pillar the responsibility to support a government unable to protect the rights of its citizens. In any intervention undertaken under this norm there is a responsiblity to rebuild, especially in cases of military intervention something noticably absent in Libya . With this in mind the rebuild must be considered part of the reasonable prospects of success . In Syria, given the extreme and fractured nature of the opposition, supporting anyone but the Assad regime would all but guarantee descent into a failed state like situation and with this in mind supporting Assad gives us reasonable prospects and will end the fighting and large scale loss of life in the shortest amount of time.","conclusion":"I believe that logical application of the R2P norm suggests that the international community should support the Assad regime"}
{"id":"fc204334-2171-4321-9408-e4abe2158bfc","argument":"Nancy Pelosi is the ideal female candidate as she was previously a stay-at-home mother of 5 children. Pelosi being the Democratic nominee for President would show that a women's future career prospects need not be hurt by taking time out of the workforce.","conclusion":"It is time for there to be a female president. Since Trump is almost certain to be the Republican nominee, the only chance of there being a women president in 2020 is if the Democratic nominee is a woman."}
{"id":"59c01ce8-1084-44d4-982b-7b29025bfe74","argument":"Pol Pot \u201celevated farmers and agriculture\u2013everything rural\u201d. He believed that Rousseau was right to define humans as \u201cnoble savages\u201d who were in their most natural state when they were separated from the corrupting influence of urban society.","conclusion":"Philosophers tend to deal in absolutes, which can encourage totalitarianism."}
{"id":"6eb058da-0d24-4554-b3b3-235bfd07a694","argument":"Poor treatment affirms terrorist ideology: regardless of what is morally right, it would be beneficial to treat terrorists in the ways prescribed by the Convention. Terrorist ideology is often predicated on the behaviour of those countries against which it is targeted. Treating captured terrorists or terror suspects in a way that ignores their human dignity only reinforces negative perceptions of the West and encourages the radicalization of the youth McCarthy, 2007. In addition, such behaviour can be used to justify terrorist actions to less radicalised members of certain communitie","conclusion":"Poor treatment of terrorists affirms terrorist ideology and provides a recruitment tool, therefore the Geneva Conventions must be applied to prevent this."}
{"id":"c12b4861-9cc0-4710-a72b-c7042767bdef","argument":"Since the first tribal witch doctor, religion has instigated, fed, and leached off of unchecked fear and greed. Fear and greed are religion's weapons used to keep the ignorant tightly locked in the shackles of their control. At the earliest age, religion teaches to fear God and his punishment for disobedience. Then it strokes the greed of these fearful ignorant by dangling an unproven carrot of reward and bliss after this life thereby keeping them under their control.","conclusion":"Religion uses the fear of what is unknown and what we don't understand yet, to make people do what the heads of religion want."}
{"id":"ea6c202f-774c-4b9c-abbf-04ef347d7978","argument":"The divisions between Republicans and Democrats on fundamental political values \u2013 on government, race, immigration, national security, environmental protection and other areas - has reached record heights under Trump. There is very little room for cooperation to begin with.","conclusion":"Cooperation with Trump is bound to fail; Democrats should focus on forming a policy platform which they can run on in 2018 and 2020."}
{"id":"0eafbfea-2478-40f3-8fad-e44ea3df7bdb","argument":"For all other types of major and minor crimes, in theory if you break the law you have to serve the same amount of time as any other person that committed a similar offence. The argument could be made that everyone's time is not worth the same. I argue that the opposite is true and that lower earners are unfairly discriminated against with the current system. A poorer persons financial situation could be devastated by a 250 speeding ticket, while a wealthy person could simply pay it and not think much more of it. Even though they have both committed the same crime one is much more harshly punished. I understand that the police department needs income to pay salaries but I think better public funding would be much more valuable than the current business model of ticketing and quotas.","conclusion":"I think a community service requirement rather than a fine would be a better punishment for infractions"}
{"id":"8a46227b-f75e-4a78-b3ea-a969452c94b7","argument":"The 1990s saw an increase in incarceration rates unlike any decade before or since, the Crime Bill of 1994, the enactment of a federal sex offender registry, the rise of zero tolerance schools, the rise of standarized testing, increased homework loads, welfare reform , telecom and banking deregulation, the enactment of the V Chip law, increased hostility to immigration, and the Kuwait War created a hawkish foreign policy consensus. People remember the 1980s as the conservative decade, but you still had a major party opposing the death penalty, opposing war, supporting prison furloughs, and bipartisan support for amnesty for illegal immigrants. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The 1990s were more conservative than the 1980s"}
{"id":"153f41a0-1bdc-49ca-81c1-8b61eb6b05df","argument":"Ballot boxes can be closely monitored to make sure the integrity of the ballot box is not compromised.","conclusion":"There are methods for verifying the legitimacy of ballots without exposing who cast them"}
{"id":"bcb0e3c0-edac-44bc-a1c1-a80d5dc3eb95","argument":"Before I start, I don't believe the above in all cases. Here are my two exceptions where I feel it is the fault of the door opener When the driver or passengers leave the vehicle when it is not in a proper parking spot. This is an illegal time to open the door anyway. I've seen videos taken in New York of Taxi passengers being like this is the best spot to get out, even though my Taxi is still in the middle of the road , and then BAM. Door prize. This is the passenger's fault. When the driver opens the door into a marked bike lane without ensuring it is safe to do so . Note if the bike lane is positioned correctly, it should never be within the door range of a parked car anyway, so this situation should never exist, but in reality it sometimes does exist. In the situations where it does exist, I think that since the driver had to safely cross a marked bike lane to park their car, it should be incredibly obvious that they need to be careful when opening their door on the way out. That's why in this situation I think it's the fault of the door opener. Now on to my arguement. First off, I do cycle on the road in a decent size city from time to time I used to do it full time , so I am sympathetic to the plights of cyclists. I'm not just an ignorant driver yelling from my spot of comfort. When I do ride, I feel like I ride in a very safe, patient, predictable fashion. For example, I don't pass by cars stopped at intersections because I don't feel that it is reasonable for them to be expected to see me. I'll sit directly behind them in line with their license plate, and I'll let them do what they are doing without me making an erratic, sudden, unexpected pass. If I can't get directly behind them, I'll still let them turn right or left or whatever without darting in front of them or near them. Cars have many blind spots and motorists can't be reasonably expected to check all of them all the time as well as monitor what's in front of them while making a turn. Not even the best, most attentive driver in the world could do so. Therefore, I ride the way I do not only to keep myself safe, but to make life easier and less stressful on motorists. We're all in this together. Door prizing is probably the best example of cyclists having an attitude like People have to watch out for me in blank situation I'm not at all going to help them not make a mistake in blank situation just because I'm not legally required to do so even though I could make the same mistake if I was them. . I understand how in the law it is written that a motorist must always open their door only when it is safe to do so. However, I do not agree with this law as I do not feel that is it reasonable to blame a driver for opening his or her door into the path of a cyclist. Here's why Even the best, most attentive driver can miss a cyclist that is riding close enough to be door prized. You can shoulder check, mirror check, or whatever. If a cyclist is within only a few feet of that side of your car and coming fast, then they can be difficult to see until it's too late. This is especially true if they are riding parallel with your driver side tires when you are making your checks and then they suddenly turn out to go around you when you go to open the door. Pedestrians are expected to cross at crosswalks. Why? Because a driver can't be expected to monitor for pedestrians that are crossing at every part of the road from every direction, so we put the crosswalks at certain parts of the roads so that the drivers know where to expect pedestrians. Similarly, it's just as reasonable to say, cyclists, it is illegal for you to ride in the range of the doors because it's not reasonable for drivers to expect you to be on simply any part of the road you want. You have to be where they expect traffic. They don't expect traffic right next to them when they are parked. The cyclist, for their own safety, should not be riding in range of the doors. They are doing something incredibly dangerous by riding in the door range of parked cars. If someone is doing something incredibly dangerous, and someone hurts them as a result, then often the person who hurts them should not be held at fault. I feel this is one of those situations. Door prizing a cyclist is a mistake anyone can easily make, and it's much easier to teach the cyclist not to ride in the door prize lane than it is to teach the driver to ensure that every single time they open their door they need to spend the 2 to 3 seconds to do their best to make sure no cyclist is about to dangerously pass them even if the driver is preoccupied, in a rush, distracted by a child wanting to get out of the car, etc. . Keep in mind you're not just teaching drivers, you'd have to teach children too because anyone can be opening one of the doors on that side of the car. Also, I think you'd be dishonest with me if you say that every single time you open your car door you are 100 aware of what's next to you. You're lucky that there was never an irresponsible cyclist those times that you did. Finally a cyclist might argue sometimes I need to cycle in the 'door prize lane' because there's not enough room for cars to pass me if I ride further to the left . In that situation you should simply take the lane , which means that you ride in the centre of the lane so cars cannot pass you. This is 100 legal you are still riding as far to the right as is safe to do so. If there are cars parked along the side of the road, then the traffic on that road is likely slow enough that you will have little trouble taking the lane . If cars need to pass and you'd prefer to not have them sit behind you, you can move over into the door prize lane and stop and wait until it's reasonable to move into the regular traffic lane again. EDIT Thanks for your opinions everyone. I gotta go to sleep. Some of you made some good points and caused me to rethink my opinion, see new flaws in my opinion, and see how that there are situations where my opinion is bullshit NYC, Large British Cities , but I still think my opinion is the more perfect of the two imperfect solutions i.e. always blame the door opener or blame the door opener in certain situations only . Also, I'm not so douchy and opinionated in normal life, just for you guys P EDIT 2 I'm not conceding my opinion However, a PSA please be careful when opening your door. You are also legally responsible if you open your door in a parking stall when if someone pulls in next to you. I think The Netherlands trains drivers to open their door with their right hand so that they are forced to turn around when they open it. Might be a worthwhile habit pick up EDIT 3 Because I like hearing my own voice. Cyclists You can take the lane. I'm surprised by the number of people who don't know this. Just because motorists have to slow down for you that doesn't mean you are doing something illegal. Take the lane if to do otherwise is to ride in an unsafe position on the road. Here's an excellent reference LINK Pay particular attention to LINK Don't hesitate to inconvenience drivers if to do otherwise is to compromise your safety . I'm not saying go out of your way to be an asshole, just know that your safety is more valuable than someone else saving a few seconds. Regardless, motorists should be patient. They have a nice comfy seat and nice tunes in a nice warm, dry car. They can wait a second or 30 if it means you are safe. If they honk, ignore it. If they get out of their car, pedal away. If they pull out a gun, holy shit. I'm speaking as someone who is both a cyclist and a motorist. I'm not just a douchy cyclist who feels they are entitled to the road. EDIT 4 I made some points in the comments that I think are very effective in explaining why I think the way I do. I'm going to put them here The hazard of riding near parked cars is incredibly obvious to the cyclist but the hazard of opening the car door is not so obvious to the door opener because of human nature and what we are taught. The cyclist has more control over where he she rides than we have control over our occasional forgetfulness or ignorance , especially while doing something as innocent to our brain as opening a door, no matter how hard we try or how responsible and cautious of a person we are. The cyclist is knowingly and deliberately doing something that is well understood to be quite dangerous when there are alternatives even if you are forced into the door lane , you can always ride slowly there or even come to a stop if that's what it takes to ride safely , while the door opener is unknowingly and accidentally doing something dangerously that 99.99 of the time is safe and harmless.","conclusion":"Being \"door-prized\" is the fault of the cyclist, and cyclists should ride out of the range of doors."}
{"id":"c223cf50-e43a-4b92-93d5-f509b886c585","argument":"Disclaimer I know all of this is really easy to say from the perspective of a cis gendered straight wasp. Through efforts to enforce a gender spectrum I feel as though social activists, gender studies academics, etc have created an even more heavily enforced form of gendernormativity complete with caste system. Discretization of gender Classifying someone's gender sex sexuality categorization has become as ridiculous and pointless as classifying genre's of metal songs. instead of forcing someone into one of two larger boxes, now we're forcing them into innumerable extremely tiny boxes. Caste System One of the biggest problems with these boxes is the ignorant bigoted people who would normally not know the difference between a transexual, transvestite, queer, gay, whatever person now have a hierarchy of things that they view as weird different to target with hate speech, assault, harassment, etc the smaller the box, the bigger the target which anyone who's spent more than 5 minutes on the internet knows . Solution ?? In my opinion the real issue, and what people should be trying to claim enforce is that gender does not exist. Trans gendered people do not exist because you can do whatever you want. I know people are going to take that comment the wrong way, but what makes a trans person? Someone who identifies as being of the gender typically associated with the opposite sex? That shouldn't exist. In a perfect world, all clothing mannerisms personalities would be as ubiquitous as the t shirt jeans. Assuming you live in a place with predominately educated sane people, you can act however you want, say whatever you want, dress however you want, and be however you want. Some people will like you and some people won't. That being said, I think the goal should be to make the world a place with predominantly educated sane people. TL DR I think people who are running away from the boxes of man and woman should try not to fall into a more confining trap. The goal should be to teach people to include, not to distinguish","conclusion":"I believe that people are attempting to replace the gender binary with something much worse."}
{"id":"78d0afda-ec69-4ec1-b165-b2cb31e7bddd","argument":"I've grown up in the rich suburbs of Texas. I go to a school that is probably 99 Caucasian. I play sports and have noticed that Black and Mexican people cannot run a simple offence and give up easily. Please","conclusion":"I believe African American and Mexican people are generally less intelligent than Caucasians."}
{"id":"158862ab-9cd5-4f8c-b497-24303556ed2b","argument":"LAST WARNING, PLEASE DO NOT READ THIS POST IF YOU DO NOT WATCH THE SHOW GAME OF THRONES OR READ THE BOOKS IT IS BASED ON. THANK YOU I do not think Jon Snow will end up being the child of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark, and everyone I know who is a fan believes this is not just a theory they like, but basically fact at this point. My problems with it 1 It's so much more interesting, and so much more like the rest of the GoT characters, for Ned Stark to be somewhat flawed or flexible as a man. I thought, upon reading the first book, that it was awesome to have this man obsessed with honor have this one unavoidable proof of his hypocrisy but not to resent that it ie, his son exists. There is so much more to learn about Ned, and I'm sure we will through meeting Jon's mom. It's also way more interesting for Jon to be this random bastard who rose to notoriety on the Wall, rather than this Messiah, the Song of Fire and Ice, who all along had the ability to be awesome because of his birth. 2 Why would Ashara Dayne kill herself if Ned Stark wasn't her lover? He comes back to Starfall with Dawn and tells her that her brother is dead by his Ned's hand, and she throws herself out the window, and he shows up in Winterfell a little while later with a baby. I think it's pretty clear that Ashara isn't going to kill herself over her brother's death, from what we know. 3 Jon Snow has dark grey eyes, a long face, and dark brown hair. Targaryens have white blonde hair, purple eyes, and round faces, in general. I know genetics can vary and a blonde man can have a brunette daughter, but this is Westeros, where Ned, Jon, and several others figured out that Cersei's kids weren't Robert's on hair color alone , so obviously DNA works differently in Westeros. 4 Related to 3, I don't see a smart guy like Ned taking the chance that infant Jon could turn out looking a lot like Prince Rhaegar as he gets older and taking him home, instead of housing him in, like, Essos where the kid could claim he was just from old Valyria. Sorry if this doesn't belong here, I'll move it to r asoiaf if need be.","conclusion":"Title vague to avoid spoilers - do not read unless you have read or watched the subject matter to avoid spoilers I do not subscribe to a current popular theory in the Song of Ice and Fire books\/Game of Thrones show, one that is nearly universally believed by true fans of either or both."}
{"id":"5cfb5951-2833-44a3-b649-0ac94f788ef1","argument":"If artists and companies become dependent upon funding, they will react to the implicit threat of its removal should they be too critical of the government. Government may seek to co-opt art into serving its wider policy aims, making it promote nationalism, moral behaviour or a cult of personality; this compromises artistic integrity and forces art to become nothing more than propaganda.","conclusion":"Subsidies always carry a danger of interference and distortion in art."}
{"id":"3a45654e-5fb6-41af-b770-42b2636f7f89","argument":"I have worked in restaurants and customer service for twenty something years. I have always held a work ethic based on selling my efforts for increases in pay my reward for my labor. I have noticed a decline in this work ethic to the point where employees hold the position that rather than work for their pay, they should be paid and only then will they hold a work ethic described by diligence, thoroughness and quality of production. I ain't doin shit till I get a raise heard in every kitchen since somewhere in the late nineties. I have seen over and over again slackers in kitchens demand raises with unfulfilled promises of exceeding effort always to backslide after a day or two to their normal attitude proof that more money is not always an incentive or right for workers in lower level jobs.","conclusion":"Pay rates should be based on productivity and quality of work as an incentive"}
{"id":"217ddec7-08e9-4b9d-a2d3-d880461de4c0","argument":"Israel fears that a military withdrawal from the West Bank could lead to an Islamist takeover of the area similar to what happened in the Gaza Strip.","conclusion":"If Israel continued its current policies, Israeli economic blockades and draconian police controls would likely remain in place post-recognition."}
{"id":"a27c615b-40d4-474b-b101-8e3ace16bef9","argument":"The modern Evangelical Christian is essentially a religious utilitarian, though they never conceive of themselves this way. They are selling repackaged mystical utilitarianism under a different label. \"Here's how you can get tons of pleasure in the afterlife and avoid tons of pain!\". Adding fear and guilt to the mix is just an old saleman's tactic used by con artists since time immemorial.","conclusion":"It is a wise calculation to worship a God who sends people to Hell. Getting a great reward and avoiding terrible pain is a good bargain for the small price of submission to a few rules and foregoing normal Sunday activities every now and then."}
{"id":"2fb65d3c-01d2-46eb-a8e5-aae78fa6c7cf","argument":"Studies suggest that the events that happen fairly early on in life set basic outlooks and orientations that affect how people vote for the rest of their lives. Examples from PEW, Bennington College, and Columbia University are discussed in this article","conclusion":"A person's age is not the determining factor in deciding voting preferences; the generation one grew up is important as well."}
{"id":"7d40511a-53b8-40c7-a592-063cdaddc3e7","argument":"Term limits sound like a good idea on the face of it. However, ultimately they fly in the face of our ideals and give too much power to people who nobody elected, like lobbying groups and special interests. At a fundamental level, the only ones deciding how long a politician is in office should be the people. If the voters in a party don't like the incumbent, they are free to support a primary challenger. If voters overall don't like the incumbent, they're free to support the other guy. As for long term incumbents like Nancy Pelosi or Hal Rodgers, who will always be reelected, that's an argument against safe districts and parties being bigger ideological tents, not for term limits. What instituting term limits does is it eliminates the kind of institutional memory that bodies like the house and senate rely on, making it so that only unelected movers and shakers like Karl Rove or James Carville possess that kind of memory, allowing them to have even greater latitude in manipulating the system despite not having a single vote cast in their favor. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Term limits are undemocratic and should be repealed."}
{"id":"76abcae7-4274-4571-b826-68e74cef153c","argument":"perhaps the lottery could be to identify the next group of incumbants but prior to their term they get an education on the system and a year to come up to speed with current machinations.","conclusion":"There's no way of ensuring capable and knowledgeable people in office."}
{"id":"c4465833-cf6d-4d30-b5f6-8ddfab654b27","argument":"About 3000 oak trees would be required to replicate the original spire and ceiling structure","conclusion":"Using wooden beams could have a negative impact on the environment"}
{"id":"36c7c135-07f3-4314-852e-12c3133add23","argument":"It is especially immoral when they are forced to be placed in a drug test and thus possibly placed into a control group \u2014 at least with opt-in trials people consent to this risk.","conclusion":"Drug tests often require a control group that are given placebos and no other form of treatment. It is extra-unethical to withhold treatments when participants are not freely consenting to the possibility."}
{"id":"7527c471-9bc8-4637-abe2-8363044aba51","argument":"I'll start my argument off with two questions 1 What is storytelling? Storytelling is the conscious manipulation of fictional events put into a certain order for artistic purposes. The key thing that makes a fictional story a 'story' rather than an anecdote is design . A human has to, at some level, control and manipulate the events of the tale. 2 What is gameplay? Gaming is a medium that unlike other popular artistic mediums such as literature and film puts the audience in direct control of it under, of course, the limitations imposed by the game . Whereas in literature and film there is freedom of interpretation ie reaction to the work the freedom to alter the work itself is not part of the work. Gaming is all about that freedom gameplay is about how the player quite literally interacts with the world the game developer presents them with. Maybe you can already see where I am going with this. Storytelling is about limitation of freedom, but gaming is all about freedom. In my mind, these two are opposing forces, and if both are to co exist in a game, one has to be sacrificed to some extent for the other. A game that removes freedom becomes less like a 'game' and thus less satisfying , and a story that is not 'designed', or is forced to fit around the gameplay, is less like a story and thus less satisfying . For example let's look at The Walking Dead, last year's Game of the Year winner, and a game celebrated for telling a story as well as a TV series could do. But look how much the 'game' side of The Walking Dead has been sacrificed to tell its story. It's barely a game. You could quite literally turn it into a TV series and it would not lose very much of its impact at all. The moral choices you make are superficial insofar as plot details are concerned. Despite being a 'choose your own adventure' sort of game, it's almost as if Telltale knew that it is very bad storytelling to put the person who is blind to how the story will unfold the player in the position of telling the story, and instead attempted to create the illusion that the choices the player made had an effect on the plot while retaining more or less full control on the story and its key plot points themselves. The result was gameplay ie freedom, choice sacrificed on the altar of storytelling. On the other hand, there's the opposite case where story has to give way to gameplay. I call this the 'Mario effect'. In a Mario game, the story is subservient to the gameplay. The story is not a story for its own sake, but rather it is a tool the gameplay uses in order to provide justification to propel the portly protagonist from A to B ie your princess is in another castle . Of course, this is an obvious example, and we all know that Mario isn't trying to tell a good story that simply isn't the point of the game. But what about a game like Red Dead Redemption? Red Dead also suffers from the Mario effect. The story rather than going down its own path is forced to be completely subservient to the gameplay, because John Marston like Mario needs to be given a string of excuses to go from A to B to C to D as otherwise, why even bother with the free roaming genre, and why make such a large and detailed map to explore? . The resulting story ended up as simply a series of very artificial and contrived 'tasks' Marston had to complete sending him around the map, which were not satisfying as a story, and only existed as a means to get the player around the brilliant world Rockstar created. Storytelling sacrificed on the altar of gameplay. Is there a middle ground? Yes. But again, it is one of compromise. When a game has cut scenes in it to tell a story, that is compromise between the mediums gameplay has to literally be taken away for storytelling to proceed. This may seem fine, but it leads to the problem of dissonance between what is shown in the cut scene and what happens outside of that. Doesn't it somewhat break suspension of disbelief when a protagonist can be a complete bullet sponge in the gameplay, but go to hospital for a single bullet wound in a cut scene? I'm not necessarily saying this way of making a game is a bad way of doing things some games do this masterfully The Last of Us for example , but it is one that nonetheless reinforces my point that gameplay and storytelling are like oil and water. Another compromise is of simplification of the story. The game Journey does this to great effect, and tells perhaps the most beautiful story in gaming through simplicity and open allegory fusing the gameplay and story together, but without having the plot details bogging down the gameplay. I think the likes of Journey and similarly Flower is really the best we can hope for in terms of gaming storytelling, because once the plot becomes more complex, it is going to come into direct conflict with the gameplay, and then you're going to have the two forces continually at odds unless you get one of the two extremes The Walking Dead on the one hand, and Mario on the other. Disclaimer my argument is that gaming as a medium is antithetical to storytelling, NOT that it isn't possible to tell a good story in a game, because it is. However my argument can be perhaps used as an explanation as to why I believe most game stories are unsatisfactory.","conclusion":"I think that gaming, as a medium, is intrinsically hostile to storytelling."}
{"id":"cbb0579e-4b2c-4bd3-a040-11012cdb77d2","argument":"I believe that there is no such thing as an inappropriate joke, only an inappropriate audience. The first problem with thinking that there are things that we shouldn't joke about is that when there isn't a general barrier, then it's difficult to decide when it's enough. Who decides it? It's not objective in any way. When telling a joke that might upset someone, you need to know your audience. Telling a holocaust joke to a holocaust survival who you know that he might get upset because of it is wrong, because you hurt his feelings when it's easy to avoid the situation. But why not telling it to someone who won't get upset, and in fact, might find it funny? Some might say that there are things that are too damaging to joke about, like school shootings. But with that logic, why don't we stop jokes about fat people or dumb people? Many people are self conscious about their intelligence, and might make them upset.","conclusion":"I believe that there is no such thing as an inappropriate joke,"}
{"id":"54986a50-fef8-43dc-9900-cf74c8310abd","argument":"If a field's scientific endeavours are characterised by poor research design e.g., insufficient sample size without fundamental methodological barriers restricting sample size it is not, in fact, engaged in a reputable scientific endeavour and may be referred to as pseudoscience.","conclusion":"A single study with low 'n' is weak evidence; one should be aware of that fact if one is to talk about the replication crisis."}
{"id":"c1f76107-086d-4048-8dd2-980d955164a4","argument":"There has not been a truly secular society until recently. The data set simply isn't big enough to determine if it is the secularization of society that allowed them to be more successful.","conclusion":"What it does mean is that lack of religion is not correlated with success and conversely, religion is not correlated with lack of success"}
{"id":"bb57c053-393b-4b3d-9652-2ed05d5b8e5d","argument":"Sex was viewed by those buying sex in London as 'a product to shop for' Coy et al., p. 22","conclusion":"Men who engage the services of sex workers become more disrespectful towards women EP, p. 15"}
{"id":"cfcb948f-a2ac-42f0-9f8d-84bb42737789","argument":"'The legal drug industry' is estimated to create several distinct types of jobs, from healthcare jobs in the form of nurses and other trained staff to work in dispensaries, agricultural jobs to allow domestic growing of plants used in drug manufacture, to marketing and IT jobs relating to the distribution end of the industry.","conclusion":"The regulation, distribution, retail etc. of the legalized drugs would all be areas of industry that would require workers, increasing available employment."}
{"id":"4d1a6f8d-f9b3-49c0-9213-e8c2855ad286","argument":"My argument is primarily from the standpoint that there is no such thing as moral luck, and is primarily aimed at people who drink enough to inhibit their ability to rationally make decisions. By choosing to give up his or her ability to rationally make decisions, a person takes responsibility for all actions that have decent chance of occurring. There is a reasonable possibility that a person who is drunk will choose to drive and it is reasonably possible that a person who drinks and drives could end up killing someone. It is simply a matter of luck that the person did not end up getting someone killed . Luck cannot affect the morality of an action. Therefore, Title. NOTE I am not saying that every person who gets drunk is equivalently responsible to someone who drank and ended up killing someone. It is possible for someone to take reasonable precautions and for those precautions to fail. Likewise, it is possible for someone to never take appropriate precautions and yet never harm anyone or even put them at risk.","conclusion":"A person who chooses to get drunk and does not take precautions to ensure they do not drive is as morally responsible as a person who gets drunk in a similar situation, drives, and ends up killing someone."}
{"id":"3a306f90-5914-4a8c-9436-edb4e7ba0b82","argument":"A Europe united in one country would eliminate many duplicate entities, such as those of the Council of Europe, EFTA, European Economic Area and others.","conclusion":"The USE will govern more effectively and efficiently than the EU."}
{"id":"69cb79dc-32af-44a2-9b83-f70822392ec5","argument":"I understand that some people can't afford to attend their out of state, very expensive top choice, and I understand that college is expensive in general oh lordie do I understand that , but I don't believe that anyone is incapable of doing two years of community college two or three years of in state public university through a combination of working, grants scholarships, student loans from the financial aid office, and private student loans. .","conclusion":"I don't believe that people are literally unable to afford college."}
{"id":"8afcd3b6-eb9e-424b-aa10-337d3795ccb6","argument":"Complete loss of freedom of movement rights would result in a flood of over a million UK citizens being forced to return, many of them elderly and homeless and in need of expensive care.","conclusion":"UK citizens will lose their freedom of movement rights as well, limiting their ability to travel and live\/work in other countries."}
{"id":"299f752d-2871-4035-a08e-f492b0a74b79","argument":"The Government successfully regulated the Toro de la Vega, a controversial medieval tradition considered one of the cruelest in Spain. In 2016, for the first time, the festivity did not involve killing the animal in public. Instead, the bull was anaesthetised and sacrificed in a slaughterhouse.","conclusion":"Bullfighting is undergoing reforms to improve the well-being of bulls."}
{"id":"bf327cbe-9773-4f73-8df8-e252cbcbf1f2","argument":"Trump has called Putin a \"strong leader\" who has \"very strong control over his country.\"","conclusion":"Trump himself has made a strangely large number of pro-Putin comments."}
{"id":"b0ac05e1-ffc0-48e9-8672-b473b5523482","argument":"Making the UDHR legally binding would raise awareness of the work the UN does towards human rights and help to reduce the criticism it currently faces.","conclusion":"Making the UDHR legally binding would increase the legitimacy of international organizations like the UN."}
{"id":"f025067e-d6d9-4378-8785-8e1850d59e3d","argument":"Parties banned as terror outfits often re-brand themselves to run for the elections, or field independent candidates.","conclusion":"Right-wing religious parties are allowed to contest elections in Pakistan."}
{"id":"10dbca28-7770-4cee-9c25-303014ab5e2a","argument":"Free market enthusiasts often attribute the free market as a prerequisite for wealth accumulation. I find the contrary to true. Just look at industries. Some of the most lucrative industries are in the contract industry where companies have contracts with government. Look at Lockeed Martin and Northrop Gruman. Both contractors employ tons of people at the expense of state funding. Furthermore, the economy relies on state infrastructure for logistics and transportation. Wall Street relies on a state institution Federal Reserve . Throughout history, capitalists have relied on government for wealth. There has never been a time in history where society has ever benefited without state assistance in some form of another. This is why I find free market ideology akin to religion. There could never be anarcho capitalism. It's not feasible.","conclusion":"I believe the state is more of a benefit than a deterrent for wealth accumulation in society."}
{"id":"b435ce6c-14a3-43a0-b8f9-f33dbce356b5","argument":"The Dutch police estimate that 60 - 70% of sex workers are coerced into the profession because they have no other employment options.","conclusion":"One study found that where sex work is legal, there is more human trafficking than elsewhere"}
{"id":"09d98600-8683-42e6-8ec6-b407ac4f2b3c","argument":"Audiences can stop supporting movies that whitewash characters, therefore minimizing the revenue and overall incentive for creating such productions.","conclusion":"A ban is not necessary when there are other ways to reduce the misrepresentation of other races."}
{"id":"1350c904-0391-4a5a-9c74-27be32529d01","argument":"Often, criminals are a product of trauma childhood abuse, poverty, etc. Rehabilitation can give trauma survivors access to resources that allow them to address and move on from their trauma, and move forward with their lives as healthy contributing members of society.","conclusion":"People who commit crimes are often not entirely to blame for doing so. In recognition of this, prison systems should be structured around supporting inmates so that they do not commit crimes again."}
{"id":"cfaef4bf-c3d8-4582-8ce8-516713ccabbc","argument":"I've got family waiting for me in New York City, but I believe the Titanic has become an 'event' to the point where selling my ticket and taking a different ship that would attract less attention and be considerably cheaper at a later date would be to my advantage. My ticket is second class and at this point I could sell it and buy a second class ticket for half the price on another ship. I just don't think the spectacle is worth the price and I can send a letter to my family in the meantime explaining. .","conclusion":"I should sell my ticket for the RMS Titanic."}
{"id":"ec566abd-9c74-41fb-8da8-92975c5148e6","argument":"For example, a lot of people buy GoPros because they see the cool ads, but then once they have one, they don't bother with learning how to make the most of the camera. There are hundreds of thousands of terrible GoPro videos on YouTube from people who don't frame their shots properly and use shitty uninformed encoding don't tell me 24 FPS and heavy banding is good enough . What a waste of money. They could have just gotten a similar sized action camera and a 15 mount for half cost, and gotten the same result. This applies to other products as well. People will buy DSLRs and just shoot in Auto. They could have gotten 95 of the quality they needed just by using their iPhone. FFS don't buy a DSLR just to take snapshots. I know people who buy an Alienware gaming laptop and never do anything on it other than write papers and use Chrome. These students could have gotten a Chromebook and spent the other 1000 on their books tuition. IMO these people are wasting their money, and exemplary of wasteful consumerism. Really, buying expensive professional prosumer gear for simple tasks is a sign of personal lack of responsibility. Please .","conclusion":"I have a low opinion of people who buy expensive gear to do basic tasks that could have been fully accomplished with cheaper equipment."}
{"id":"4349209b-5e60-471b-a4d5-8a42af3ce9a3","argument":"Religions are both good and bad. They form part of the evolution of modern society towards greater humanity and a growing awareness of our individual vulnerability and interdependence. This period of human development, while incomplete, is slowly coming to an end as religious belief declines.","conclusion":"Religions emerged as an evolutionary adaptation. They spread the adoption of behaviors that provided evolutionary advantages."}
{"id":"3c71f876-7d3c-4adb-bc2f-ba6d0f356343","argument":"There was historical precedent for the use of the N-word as a racial slur before it became socially taboo to use it.","conclusion":"The existence of a historical precedent neither justifies an action nor should it be used as a standard."}
{"id":"79623fa2-7e05-4817-8f8c-a5294f9a0879","argument":"The pure size and logistics of the European Union is such that if every member state had to hold a referendum on all EU Treaties, no EU Treaties would get enacted. It is too likely that one of the member states will vote against a motion. The EU should be able to vote on issues without consulting the citizens of all member states, in the UK legislation is voted on in parliament which is made of constituency representatives. The concept for government's voting in representation of their countries within the EU is the same. Furthermore the UK did not hold a referendum on the war with Iraq, so why should a referendum be held for issues of lesser importance.","conclusion":"If all member states held a referendum on all EU treaties nothing would get passed."}
{"id":"d731cd25-7309-4288-b1c6-b6c0c9e00cb8","argument":"The first obligation of a country, wealthy or poor, is to its citizenry. If accepting a large number of refugees from a culture incongruent with the host country's culture causes societal strife either immediately or in the future, it is immoral for the country's government to disregard the harm to its citizens that helping the refugees will cause.","conclusion":"Taking in refugees has negative consequences for high-income countries."}
{"id":"7d11acfd-2c9b-4631-b63a-37e6c5a339d4","argument":"The human brain becomes fully developed around the age of 26 28, so I would round this out to 27. In addition to making sure that developed minds are the ones making the decisions that affect people on a national level, it would also make sure the same decisions are made by people who have real world experience in the workforce or raising a family. An exception could be made, however, for armed service members, who could vote as soon as they are in the forces meaning 18 at earliest . It's laughable to me that anyone believes it should be lowered to 16, when there is very good reason to instead raise it by nine years to make sure the voter base is more capable and mature overall.","conclusion":"The voting age should be raised to 27 for civilians"}
{"id":"313412a9-f6f4-48ae-b4c9-6fada6997deb","argument":"Jesus argues that his followers should love not only the members of their own tribe, but strangers too.","conclusion":"The Bible tells Christians to care for one another indiscriminately, on several occasions."}
{"id":"014b1b8e-6743-4290-9f2a-2228cf853606","argument":"There are country songs that include rappers and sample rap beats, but are still considered country songs.","conclusion":"Many current songs today sample from different genres, but still hold majority elements from one genre."}
{"id":"af4a49df-1c71-4fc5-8f3d-b58a88ecf6e5","argument":"Affirmative action is not a policy that takes up resources. It does not cost tax dollars to implement affirmative action policies.","conclusion":"There is no reason why improving all levels of education cannot be done simultaneously."}
{"id":"a958ae17-a98f-406d-8c9f-a7abac17f174","argument":"Many countries such as the United Kingdom, Italy and the United States attract illegal immigrants because they are seen as a \u2018soft\u2019 target with poor border controls and the opportunity for illegal immigrants to remain in the country without detection. Repatriation sends a message to potential illegal migrants that their presence in the country will not be tolerated and that any attempt to stay in the country illegally will be unsuccessful.","conclusion":"Many countries such as the United Kingdom, Italy and the United States attract illegal immigrants be..."}
{"id":"996912d2-2780-4d19-84d2-c6a441ca025f","argument":"It's better to let a large subset of the people elect a polarizing, but powerful candidate, than to pick a bland candidate who appeals to everyone, but who can't meaningfully do anything.","conclusion":"Having too many incompetent candidates win elections threatens government stability, as the \"deep state\" and other interests begin to make the real decisions, rather than any large subset of the people."}
{"id":"07e69937-56f9-46a0-8bb3-ebb915c808a8","argument":"It doesn't seem like America is much different from the England which our forefathers revolted against. Taxation without representation is rampant when was the last time you were asked your opinion on an issue by your rep before they voted? Citizens of DC aren't even given pseudo representation , all over our communications are spied on, we can be assassinated and indefinitely detained at any time, America is the largest perpetrator of terrorism in the world responsible for at least a million innocent civilian deaths in the last 20 years , we torture and indefinitely detain innocent civilians, we can't decide what we put in our own bodies, we are ruled by a corporate oligarch duopoly, third parties and independent candidates are treated extremely undemocratically and laws are made to make it harder for them to gain traction closed primary, ballot access, campaign finance I could go on and on. So, what do you think? Was the American Revolution in vain?","conclusion":"I believe that the American Revolution was in essentially in vain."}
{"id":"fa35a865-da1d-4f82-b91f-8459e7650f7c","argument":"For anyone not up to date Of course American kids should be taught about different cultures and religions in all parts of the world, no matter how foreign or temporarily controversial they may be. I am not advocating that only Christian themes be present in the classroom or anything like that. I am arguing that no assignment forcing kids to copy down a prayer be it the Islamic statement of faith or the Lord's Prayer should be allowed. This backlash is absolutely justified, especially considering the statement of faith's content discrediting of other religions and an implicit call to action . If a highschool kid was assigned a lesson that had him or her copy down the Sermon on the Mount using calligraphy, all of reddit would be up in arms about the separation of church and state and government sponsored religion. I simply don't see the difference between the two, whether the context of the class be World Geography or otherwise, but please . I never agree with the Fox News types, but I think they may have something here. If you don't want religion in schools, fine, but let's make that standard consistent across all religions.","conclusion":"The backlash following a school assignment that had high school students copy an Islamic statement of faith is justified."}
{"id":"06380580-2694-4d67-b48f-3b9555af60b4","argument":"One of my biggest let downs in action figures was always the lack of points of articulation. Those vintage Star Wars figures that my dad grew up playing with suck compared to the ones my generation was raised on which brings me to my view. Look at a LEGO figure. Look at the blocky, unrealistic way they move. Want to have a guy hold a rifle? Sucks. Look at a Mega Bloks figure. Not only do they have bendable knees, bendable elbows, and full range of motion heads, but they have arms that move like actual arms. How can anybody prefer Lego?","conclusion":"Mega Bloks figures are superior to LEGO figures in every way"}
{"id":"192487ef-089f-47f8-998d-31dc1f6b4082","argument":"The existence of a force we call gravity is self-evident. Everyone perceives there is something that pulls us towards the ground.","conclusion":"A truth that is self-evident must be objectively true for anyone who considers it."}
{"id":"61d50595-f86e-4f28-824f-1403658fba7d","argument":"Typically, people try to justify a loving, just, god with omnipotence basically the standard Abrahamic god , and then attribute the existence of evil to the free will of humans. I think this argument fails, beyond the fact I doubt free will exists. So assuming free will exists, here are my objections 1 The people who believe in this god also tend to believe in heaven, which is some sort of perfect paradise much better than Earth where people will exist eternally. Free will should also exist in heaven which means the issues that free will causes on Earth should still happen in heaven. If a god can prevent this in heaven despite free will, then he could in theory do the same for Earth which hasn't which means he isn't loving or isn't all powerful. Since repentance of sins and belief in this god are the only requirements to enter this heaven, presumably all the people there would not be perfect, or wholly good. Thus, they should still commit evil acts in heaven, which then makes heaven filled with suffering just like Earth. 2 Free will fails to explain the evil issues not caused by humans, such as disease and disaster. There is no loving god that would give a child cancer, or allow a weather disasters to kill and maim thousands of people every year. You may say we need evil to appreciate good, but that not convincing even if it is true, we do not need the level of evil we have now. 3 Eternal Punishment demonstrates that god is not loving. He will punish people for an infinite amount of time for very minor things, like being athiest. Even if we assume the people deserve punishment, what could someone do that warrants eternal punishment. Even Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot do not deserve eternal punishment because they preformed finite crimes. I do not know how long their actions could warrant punishment, but certainly not forever. I just cant see how anyone has reason to believe in an all loving, all powerful god, so if you change my view, I can hopefully understand these people better.","conclusion":"Free Will does not Solve the Problem of Evil."}
{"id":"4c84ddb1-4662-46e7-90ba-331e2ea3aaf9","argument":"In liberal states the role of the government is to provide a framework where private individuals and corporations can use the market mechanism to allocate resources and jobs as and when needed. It is not the business of liberals government to provide employment for everyone. One's pension is essentially an extension of one's income into retirement. The government needs to provide a framework where private providers can provide pensions which individuals are free to choose from. Rather than \"crowd-out\" different options the government should help foster competition and the associated variety of retirement schemes to allow individuals to make choices about their own retirements. The present system imposes taxes in support of a system whose inefficiencies mean that pensioners get less for their money than they would under a developed private system. Indeed, the dominant blanket policy pushes many pensioners below the poverty line. If everyone provided directly for his own pension, as under private pensions, without having to worry about the next generation not sufficing to pay for his pension as he did for the previous ones then he would have a greater incentive to work and save for his retirement, Governments are not the best judge of what is best for each member of society which is why individuals should be afforded their own choice in deciding what is best suited for them. Moving on from the last point one can also deduce that apart from harming individual pensioners this inflexible, inflation-prone system of state pensions results in a fiscal-burden that is detrimental to the legitimate role of government. The massive fiscal burden that governments take on prevents it from focusing its attention where it is really needed, providing benefits to those below the poverty line, reducing taxes to attract business and regulating the markets. This as a whole is not conducive to the government's role in society.","conclusion":"State involvement in pensions is deleterious to both pensioners and the state."}
{"id":"194ab227-bcc7-4050-8de7-a1e1604febbd","argument":"Migration increases job opportunities and access to productive inputs to improve the effectiveness of labour. Both of these factors increase income for migrants in destination countries. Therefore, reduced migration increases global labour market inequalities.","conclusion":"Immigration is a force for reducing global inequality Reduced immigration is therefore a net harm because it harms the welfare of humanity as a whole and makes borders more rigid in general."}
{"id":"d5ac1601-8379-477e-967e-c91f6daee4c2","argument":"Their art is distinct from their actions in society and them as a person, so what they do as themselves is irrelevant when enjoying art","conclusion":"The quality of art should not dependent on the artist's actions."}
{"id":"e0eb2dc4-35de-459c-9b95-578e8580c0ae","argument":"It is impossible for a human to ask for life without first having it. Before life, there is no preference to be had on the condition of life.","conclusion":"Not everyone will be grateful for being brought into the world. What is done to a helpless being without its consent can cause resentment and anger."}
{"id":"d14c972c-28fa-4038-a4a4-f22fad724d07","argument":"As the number of cisgender is much higher than the number of transgender people, the overall discomfort felt by the first group when sharing bathrooms with the opposite sex might easily outweigh the overall discomfort felt by the second group when using segregated bathrooms.","conclusion":"Estimates vary but regardless of where the exact number lies, transgender people only make up for a rather small percentage of the population, whereas the overwhelming majority has no transgender identity. From their perspective, it is right to keep separated restrooms."}
{"id":"0974ad59-2e67-4e3c-a047-6b02b4871432","argument":"Disclaimer 1 Quote marks are used in the title for gendered terms to recognize that they may not be the correct term to identify a transgendered person, but use of the terms was the easiest way to briefly explain my view. Disclaimer 2 I personally have no problem with transgendered individuals or anyone else, for that matter using whatever facilities they feel most comfortable using. The View Let's assume that an average looking guy, something like this stock photo guy walks into a women's locker room, disrobes revealing his obviously male body and heads to the shower. I'm picturing a facility something like this but generally any type of facility that provides something less than full privacy. My view is that there is literally no way to determine whether that man is transgender and identifies as a woman, or if that man is just taking advantage of a situation because he wants to look at naked women or expose himself to women unless, of course, he flat out tells you that he's there to perv on chicks . Things that I have considered that won't change my view Suggestions that no one is proposing anything that would legally permit the scenario I painted above. Any analogies to homosexuals using locker rooms of people they are attracted to. I agree that could be an issue for some people, but that is a separate issue from the view I am presenting here. Problems caused by forcing transgendered individuals who pass for their identifying gender to use their birth gender facilities. I agree that could be an issue for some people, but that is a separate issue from the view I am presenting here.","conclusion":"If a \"man\" enters a women's locker\/shower room, there is no way to know whether he is there to look at naked women or expose himself to women or because \"he\" identifies as a woman"}
{"id":"fa0fd246-dd89-42d7-be48-f3f8f9eb8eb1","argument":"North Korea is not a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty NPT which would prohibit it from developing and\/or acquiring nuclear weapons.","conclusion":"Given its breach of rules of the international system, North Korea does not deserve that system's protections."}
{"id":"da8b4936-807f-4cc3-ab41-f934eabd09b9","argument":"Before this, people should grow privileges and responsibilities, but no matter how much of a monster someone is, their brain technically has not reached the age in which it could peak in development and therefore we are punishing developed brains of the future based on the actions of an undeveloped brain. If someone used substances or has a natural condition which postpones their brain's development the judge can take this into consideration but assuming the average brain in people under twenty six, I dont believe the average individual should be subject to such penalties in any justice system.","conclusion":"Someone should not be able to receive the death penalty or a life sentence until their cerebral cortex is fully developed around age 26."}
{"id":"7727f2b1-e3f3-4222-9d72-ce2717ca013b","argument":"China has got a reputation on doing bad things to people who disagree with their policies, whether they are Chinese or not. This news article is an example:News: Tibetans wounded as Chinese Police fire on pilgrim protests","conclusion":"China not only attacks Tibet, it also attacks people who diagree with Chinese policy."}
{"id":"7ce3b768-2360-490b-910f-d06fdde87536","argument":"If there are dangers that are too complicated to be logically communicated by the human brain, then illogical beliefs may be needed to communicate these dangers.","conclusion":"Incorrect information can lead one to make better choices than a lack of information. Such as warnings about unknown dangers couched in legend."}
{"id":"2e1b85ff-beaa-4e8e-bfc7-21108f737b04","argument":"I see a lot of comments on reddit that say income wealth inequality should decrease. However, I personally don't see how decreasing the wealth or income gap is going to help us as a whole. For example, rich people have a lot of income but most of that is put back into the economy in the form of investments which drizzles down into wages for the bottom. If that income is redistributed and wealth as a whole is more equal, what will happen is an even greater strain on the planets resources will be placed. If we pay everyone enough for a nice house would it be sustainable for everyone to have one? In my mind either some people get shit all or the planet is even more unsustainable.","conclusion":"It doesn't matter how money is distributed, the effects of both are equally shitty"}
{"id":"ac06b8b0-690d-439e-9efc-cbd6421c8bca","argument":"Leslie Gelb. \"Israel was right.\" The Daily Beast. May 31, 2010: \"Regarding international law, blockades are quite legal. The United States and Britain were at war with Germany and Japan and blockaded them. I can't remember international lawyers saying those blockades were illegal\u2014even though they took place on the high seas in international waters. There would be a general violation only if the hostile actions against the ships took place in waters under the jurisdiction of another sovereign state. Thus, for example, if the Israelis stopped the ships in Egyptian waters, that would have been a violation.\" Harvard Law School Professor Alan Dershowitz, Chicago Law School Professor Eric Posner, and Johns Hopkins international law Professor Ruth Wedgwood all argue that the blockade is legal.\"","conclusion":"Israeli blockade of Gaza is legal during conflict with Hamas"}
{"id":"6544b171-efec-475c-a8e3-0b1e582700d2","argument":"I think that individuals who are under 18 should be eligible to vote provided they pass a test that would demonstrate they have clear understanding and knowledge of political issues. Minors that are willing to make the extra effort of taking a test that citizens over 18 don't do should be able to vote as their vote would be just as valid and educated as adult citizens.","conclusion":"Minors should have an opportunity to vote."}
{"id":"491964fd-cf0c-4876-ab05-402e9c301701","argument":"Compounding this issue is the fact that some developing countries have a much larger population than developed countries China is over 1 billion people. There will be much more mouths to feed than expected, because of this exponential insurgence of people.","conclusion":"Developing countries are increasing demands for resource-intensive foods because of their wealthier tastes. This causes the world to run out of resources faster."}
{"id":"c92b964c-25de-4186-8992-0cf4d95b9e16","argument":"Silicon Valley's congressional representative Ro Khanna has proposed a 1 trillion dollar earned income tax credit expansion as a form of basic income, doubling the income going to low-income families.","conclusion":"Silicon Valley, the epitome of techno-capitalism, strongly supports a UBI; therefore, the companies expect that they will benefit."}
{"id":"b978190b-f600-4aaf-a41c-df5b9d277546","argument":"Those job sectors lose out on the expertise of long term workers. A librarian who works in the Library of Congress for twenty years can do the job more effectively than multiple conscripts with little to no experience.","conclusion":"States are likely to reduce the size of the public service, replacing career public servants with conscripts."}
{"id":"b322f449-c30f-4eff-9ff5-641ced44501d","argument":"Why? A better question is why not. You might say transgender surgeries are elective so they should not. But I think most people would consider birth control to be elective and that's is covered under health insurance by law Obamacare at i zero copay i . Think about it, if a boy were born with something wrong with his penis, you'd say health insurance whether you're in America or in a country with actual universal health care should pay for it? That's what transgender men are. They are boys born with no male genitals. I know trans people who want to change genders but they don't have the . So they save and wait. If you want to change your physical gender, I would like America to pay for that via taxes, but we don't have single payer health care, we have Obamacare, so Obamacare should force insurance to cover this, just as it does birth control. I don't think this would have much financial effect because there are so few transgender people within the population who actually go through with the surgery. I bet this would add pennies to your monthly premium. So why not?","conclusion":"The ACA should force all insurance companies to cover transgender surgeries"}
{"id":"9e53ecc5-78fb-47a4-bbc8-6165692983d2","argument":"I hate progressive income tax, as a 16 year old who works 35 hours a week, I see the harsh reality. Before you comment of how stupid, ignorant or how much of a bigot I am, let me explain. I work with 2 buddies. They work from 10 am to 10 pm, 6 days a week. They get paid overtime and make tips along with a minimum wage. Yet, both can't afford a car, and certain neccessities for an adult. To me it's sad, they both tell me how they are working so many hours and punished for it. Small businesses end up paying so much for working so hard, where does that money go? I think you know where it goes. Why can't we all be equal? Why do the poor get so much tax breaks and middle class Americans pay for benefits they don't recieve? Please, tell me why? Social Security, another broken economically morally system. Why is it MY responsibility to pay for ones retirement? Medicare and Medicaid I understand. But shouldn't one be responsible for his IRA and 401K? Yes, I will get old one day, but it should be my responsibility to budget for retirement, not my coworker. Also, we see how the pot for SS is going to bust soon and how Obama has taken money from SS to fund the expansion of Obamacare.","conclusion":"Progressive income tax is morally wrong as well as social security"}
{"id":"682bd6df-e3cf-4cc2-8902-a4192a8be731","argument":"There is no distinction between the sin of violence and the sin of desire. Victims of abuse are encouraged to forgive their abusers in language that equates the assault to consensual sex within the interactive sections of True Love Waits Fahs, 122","conclusion":"Purity pledges can place a double burden on victims of sexual harassment and violence."}
{"id":"71da39fc-ff06-40d0-bf00-4aa11f063d43","argument":"The people who are so eager to keep the statues up are often the same people who oppose the creation of monuments to civil rights leaders. If the monuments are not put in a proper historical context their divisiveness could outweigh their usefulness as reminders of two very difficult periods of American history.","conclusion":"It is too divisive in modern day America to continue to display these monuments from a painful part of American history."}
{"id":"4ff7645b-240e-490c-ad34-9ca51c05462d","argument":"When people judge other peoples' characters, it's common in America or maybe just the Bible Belt, but this happens outside of Christianity as well for someone to think less of another because they drink to get drunk or party hard. My views are shaped by my experiences in college still in college, 22 y o, and I haven't been affected by this issue in any serious way In particular, there's a lot of pressure to remove party pics from your social media profiles. Businesses think less of those who show that they drink. There's also a lot of underage drinking going on in college, and a decent amount of students get fake ID's to get away with it. Public figures who are still in university like a famous football player get flack for making it known that they party. My point being, why should anyone care? If you take every person who's ever been in college and drank underage, done something stupid at a party, or gotten a fake ID, and fire them from their jobs or prevent them from promotion or throw them in jail for faking an ID a lot of great, talented, and useful people in society would be taken down in the process. Nearly half the population in college right now would drop, too. To be clear if we threw peoples' personal party drinking lives into the public realm in America , a great deal of them would receive a lot of flak for it. This, to me, is wrong because there are wonderful people who drink and party, so it's obvious that drinking and partying does not mean someone is a bad person. My opinion excludes those who drink while driving which is terrible , or do horribly violent things while drunk things that reshape a person's life for the noticeably worse bar fights aren't always horribly violent in this respect though they can be , but does not exclude people who made poor life decisions and ended up pregnant, charged with an MIP other underage drinking charge, people who provide to minors, or people who end up in a hospital. Once again, the situations I mentioned after the bolded text are extremes to drinking that I don't feel should be judged too harshly by society too harshly meaning that someone would lose a job or a promotion over it even if they qualified for the job or the promotion otherwise . These are not the situations I wish to discuss at first. I wish to discuss my point that there are wonderful people who drink and party, so it's obvious that drinking and partying does not mean someone is a bad person.","conclusion":"I believe American society is wrong to think that people are ruining their image by drinking and partying."}
{"id":"f3140aa4-4ef6-4e4f-9ad8-c8fe49fcaace","argument":"We see a small scale version of this whenever we order items online. If you order an item on Amazon which you know is manufactured in your town, the item will not be taken directly from the factory line and driven to your house. It will have gone via centralised distribution centres likely a long distance from your home. This effect applies to larger scales international commerce as well as it does to smaller national scales.","conclusion":"When supplying an item it can make sense to move it away from its end destination before it gets there."}
{"id":"671accc6-ff86-4e9f-803c-cdf47c8019f2","argument":"It doesn't matter how many teachers try to show me how to properly use databases, and it doesn't matter what the subject matter is. Every time, without fail, Google is able to find 10x more relevant and useful information than any database I've ever used when trying to write research papers. Google generally pulls up legitimate articles with lots of useful information, while databases ProQuest, ABI Inform tend to yield newspaper articles about small events happening in the most insignificant towns across the country. Whenever I do find an article that seems relevant, there will be maybe one statistic inside that is useful. So, change my view.","conclusion":"Google is far more effective at finding research than any \"scholarly database.\""}
{"id":"c6edbe72-a6cc-4ac9-b5de-d80d37c6dd11","argument":"Whenever I read a topic related to racism, it is very common to find someone using this expression white privilege . Usually, the people who use this expression mean that white people in western society do not face the same negative experiences that black people or other non white people face in their daily lives. For example, white people don't fear being shot by the police as much as black people they grew up being massively represented in the media they aren't called ghetto , ratchet or trashy because of their hairstyles etc However, can we really call that a privilege when that should be the norm? The way white people are treated by social and legal institutions is the way any person should be treated based on their race. In my opinion, there is not a particular advantage or special treatment. It is just how any person should be treated. It's the norm. What should be the average. On the contrary, POC tend to be underpriviliged because they have a disadvantage that is the result of decades correction centuries of institucional racism. They have been treated in an unfavourable way by society for many years. And that is why I think POC underprivilege should be the correct term and not white privilege . Also, I think making white privilege such a common expression does more harm than good. A white person who struggled in life because of financial, health or any other type of reasons may not understand what privilege do they have because privilege is associated with a special advantage that you have in life and those people do not feel like they have been given any type of advantage. POC underprivilege is more factual and puts the focus where it should be the fact that POC have disadvantages and aren't being treated like the norm because of their race. Jmo, of course.","conclusion":"In reality, I don't think there is \"white privilege\", but \"POC underprivilege\" because being treated like the norm isn't a \"privilege\""}
{"id":"47c8e1e6-0ae5-4205-809a-c09bd0ee0f6c","argument":"Despite having freedom of religion, monarchies in Bhutan and Swaziland also among the biggest world\u2019s lawnowners, are very tied to Buddhism and Christianity, respectively.","conclusion":"Most of the world\u2019s biggest landowners are monarchs from countries with official state religions that support the monarchy or heads of religions themselves."}
{"id":"8ae4f46b-1b00-43a6-98d4-b4a8fd2935da","argument":"Since I was a kid I always tought so. My point is not that art is not a serious domain enough to carry ideals and strong toughts, but that the expression of ideas is somewhat so complex that It can't be expressed via human creation, but can only be trough rigorous and precise argumentation. On the other hand, Art should be focused on making people dream, evade, and search for beauty, be it in plastic arts, music or writing. By extension, in my opinion, art forms that are willing to achieve both beauty and the expression of ideas will never reach both of their goals, only one of them.","conclusion":"I think art should be focused on aesthetics and the quest for beauty, not the expression of ideals."}
{"id":"30c73f93-3775-4261-9c35-1b1379f5d99a","argument":"I have always found it peculiar that Western civilization holds Julius Caesar in such high regard. He was the man who arguably had the greatest hand in ending the Roman Republic, resulting in the establishment a tyrannical empire whose influence would last centuries thus, Caesar was a man worthy of assassination. And yet his assassins, Marcus Junius Brutus, Gaius Cassius Longinus, and as many as 60 others, are more often reviled than celebrated. For example, in Dante's Inferno , Brutus inhabits the deepest pit of Hell, tormented by Satan himself alongside the likes of Judas Iscariot. It is fortunate that today, the West more closely follows the ideas of the Roman Republic rather than the Empire, but this is a recent development. Throughout the Middle Ages and up until the recent past, the West was dominated by an imperialist political ideology that drew much of its inspiration from the Empire created by Caesar. I'm not arguing that Caesar himself can be directly blamed for all of Western history's imperial abuses. I'm arguing that if we now value liberty over despotism, we should celebrate Brutus more than Caesar. If anything, Brutus set an example worth following. As a former trusted friend of Caesar, Brutus' betrayal may be unsettling. But that's just my point Brutus set aside his personal feelings and risked his life and reputation to do something that he believed would benefit the greater good. gt If there be any in this assembly, any dear friend of gt Caesar's, to him I say, that Brutus' love to Caesar gt was no less than his. If then that friend demand gt why Brutus rose against Caesar, this is my answer gt Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved gt Rome more. Had you rather Caesar were living and gt die all slaves, than that Caesar were dead, to live gt all free men? As Caesar loved me, I weep for him gt as he was fortunate, I rejoice at it as he was gt valiant, I honour him but, as he was ambitious, I gt slew him.","conclusion":"On this date 2058 years ago, in an act of shocking betrayal, Brutus and his co-conspirators killed Julius Caesar. However I believe Brutus is more worthy of celebration than Caesar -"}
{"id":"d6870225-ab71-4c7a-a67b-c7d7b774da18","argument":"There is a bipartisan trope in American politics which states that Israel is the strongest ally of the United States this is sometimes provided the caveat in the Middle East and sometimes not, but for purposes of this post lets go with the easier standard, simply in the region known as the Middle East. Militarily, Israel has not signed a mutual defense treaty with the United States, binding it to fight to defend America if America is attacked, as Turkey has And while occasionally inviting small contingents of American forces to train with the IDF, Israel has granted no basing rights to US forces, unlike many other regional actors In fact, Bahrain has agreed to base the US Navy's 5th fleet on their soil, providing American naval access to the entire Persian Gulf and beyond. Even Saudi Arabia, with it's occasionally tenuous relationship with the United States, acted outside its interests in massively increasing oil production after 9 11 in order to help stabilize global prices. It's position, while dominating the Eastern Mediterranean, does not control any vital strategic sea lanes as other regional allies do. Nor is it actually the only democracy in the region, as Turkey has a vibrant and functioning representative government. In fact, there is evidence that American support is actually a security liability for the united states Furthermore, American counterintelligence professionals indicate that Israel is far and away the most prolific ally conducting intelligence operations against the united states. There is a significant amount of cooperation on research and development of defense technologies, however a significant portion of that cooperation is funded by American grants Israeli politicians have a tendency to act in specific disregard to the wishes of the United States to say nothing of the international community, which sometimes comes off as biting the hand that feeds them. This is not meant to be a diatribe against an allied nation, but the idea that Israel is the strongest US ally in the Middle East is preposterous. While America is most certainly the greatest ally Israel has Israel is not necessarily the greatest ally of America, particularly when neighboring countries provide American bases and are treaty bound to defend America if attacked. .","conclusion":"Despite the rhetoric, I do not believe that Israel is actually the strongest U.S. ally in the Middle East."}
{"id":"04d8f1cc-63af-4bf8-a8e5-528850d1b1aa","argument":"Teachers, like all other citizens, have a right to self protection. They should not be required to forfeit that right while teaching inside a school. They should have additional requirements if they want to exercise that right.","conclusion":"People should be free to carry guns and teachers shouldn't be an exception to this."}
{"id":"a135391f-83ca-42eb-bb26-bb8ee6338a7a","argument":"Okay to word the title better and to give an example. Last year's Oscar's were the subject of controversy after all 20 actor nominees were white. The Oscar's were hounded by the media by this apparent discrimination. But why should they be obliged to diversify an award ceremony. If all the best performances were at the hands of white people, so be it. Also, while the people who complain about the lack of diversity may think they're helping END racism, I think they're doing the exact opposite. They're pushing the us vs them vibe, where it's not okay for JUST white people to be nominated, you MUST have a black or Asian person as well. Isn't the whole idea behind stopping racism that we overlook what colour the skin we have I'm sure there a lot more examples of this, ads get into big controversial backlash if they show too many white people in what should supposedly be a diverse group involved Please","conclusion":"People who complain about the lack of diversity in advertisements, award nominees, or simply just a group of media personnel, are not putting an end to racism, but doing the exact opposite."}
{"id":"eab71119-dcd2-4172-b155-d167ebd33025","argument":"I am not arguing that taxation is not necessary or justified. My position is simply that taxation is theft, by definition. It is the act of taking money from others, regardless of their consent. If you support taxation, that simply means you view it as a form of justified theft. I think its important that we not forget this. Its simply the reality. If you're going to support taxation, then you should do so with an understanding of what it really is. Justified or not, it is the act of stealing from people in order to fund the government.","conclusion":"Taxation is theft."}
{"id":"f75d1355-68d5-45a5-8bdb-1caedd792d68","argument":"This level of integration may lead to a weakening of NATO as Europe and the US will be on equal footing. NATO should not be weakened; it forms an integral part of the security system of Europe.","conclusion":"A USE would have its own powerful military force, no longer requiring individually weaker European nations to rely on the US or NATO for military assistance."}
{"id":"518e1ff9-97ac-49a0-8bb5-8e7490d25f85","argument":"I was just reading an article about the new Tim Burton Dumbo movie. One thing it pointed out was that the new movie is vastly different than the old Dumbo. A main point made by the article was that the old Dumbo was racist because of the crow scene, and specifically the song When I see an Elephant Fly. I didnt remember this scene so I just watched it again here After watching it, I was surprised because I was expecting it to be more racist than it was. Obviously they have some stereotypes in the characters and song. They have the crows have stupid southern black accents and one appears to be sleepy lazy. But frankly, I cant see why this would cause anyone to be bothered too much TODAY. I understand that blackface is a racist method to mock people, and it was certainly racist when it was common. But today, in this case, it's too far removed and not very directly offensive. If you didnt know the history, you'd not even be concerned by the crows in the original Dumbo. I dont think we need to carry the history into this movie WHEN WATCHED TODAY. So I dont really see the problem with it, and I think Dumbo should not be treated as a racist movie TODAY though I do think it's fair to say that it was made by racists .","conclusion":"Watched today, the \"When I see an Elephant Fly\" song in the original Dumbo movie is not so racist it should be shunned."}
{"id":"cbfaf2c6-8990-4d58-8045-fcb1ff4fd278","argument":"Only people that have as much preparation as the militaries and ex-militaries should have have the right to use firearms. No one else should have one.","conclusion":"The responsibility should be on the central government to foster responsible gun owners."}
{"id":"f26fdceb-f7ef-4a1f-9a20-e8673a53acea","argument":"I don't think there is some thing that humans were put on earth to do. All of the theories I've heard had to do with other people, religion, or egotistical 'we have to fix everything because only we can' stuff. I think that there is no reason for life, and that people should do what they want without worrying about whether or not they're doing what they are supposed to in order to fulfill some higher purpose. It just doesn't make sense to me for there to be some reason we're all here, or even a reason why each person is here. We're here because of evolution and a natural urge to procreate, and nothing else.","conclusion":"I don't believe there is an overarching meaning to life."}
{"id":"e0ba7ce8-0030-4555-8334-21c5b83d622b","argument":"Edit I see now this post hinges more on the sexualization of eating disorders. Romanticization is also a problem, but when reading the title, exchange Romanticize for Sexualize and Romanticization for Sexualization and you'll have what this post is truly about. For clarification, I have suffered from anorexia nervosa and disordered eating, and have recently developed binge tendencies followed by purging through excessive exercise. I'm also good friends with several people with bulimia and have heard directly all of the horrors of bulimia. So onto my explanation. Nothing about eating disorders is romantic or glamorous or sexual. People may see the emaciated bodies and visible bones, but they don't see the lanugo or the nights sitting over the toilet shitting yourself because you took 175 laxative pills after binging on 80,000 calories. They don't see the vomit and Russell's signs and worn down enamel and destroyed stomach lining. They don't see being huddled in the gym's bathroom, trying not to pass out and trying to keep the blackness that corrupts your periphery away. They don't look in the mirror and see their body as fat and disgusting. They don't hear the voice that constantly whispers in their ear, telling them they will never truly be enough. They only see the product of this self inflicted torture. Knowing what goes into that product should deter any sane person from thinking it's sexy or a turn on.","conclusion":"There Is No Logical Reason To Romanticize Eating Disorders and Such Romanticization Should Not Be Treated as a Fetish"}
{"id":"54fe10b0-6ea0-44fc-8b4a-53ee93bf27a1","argument":"Light rail operates at similar speeds and has a similar capacity to busses. Even the highest capacity versions only offer a capacity equivalent of two or three articulated busses. But there huge diferences in cost and flexibility. Placing rails, power infrastructure, signaling, depots and platforms not to mention the trains themselves is very expensive. Once these faculties are in place, they become permanent fixtures. Busses have none of these problems. They can run on streets with virtually no new infrastructure. Marginal improvements to their service can be made by making bus lanes and bulb outs just paint and concrete and because all of this is so cheap, bus routes can go anywhere and dynamically adapt to the needs of cities as they change. Further bus routes can be added and taken away as needed without worrying about huge sunk costs. On particularly crowded corridors, where traffic is too high to allow busses to function properly, heavy rail can provide a better alternative than light rail. It is of course more expensive to build, but generally if a route is too busy to handle busses, it is also too busy to handle light rail. Light rail has some perks of course. There are stigmas attached to busses, while people enjoy the novelty of trains. And the permanence of the infrastructure inspires more confidence in people that it will always be available for their use. Further, busses have to kneel while light rail doesn't. Busses are also noisier or might pollute more. However there are fixes to that as well. Some cities have overhead cables for busses SF e.g. and it's not like light rail is per se that quiet or clean itself. Anyway, TLDR  Light rail is too expensive and permanent to provide any real advantage over bussing. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Light rail is a pointless form of transit when compared to other options."}
{"id":"0642df16-3842-4fcc-8efe-14daee86633c","argument":"Stating that women are more acting in the realm of emotions rather than logic, unlike men, discredits the ideas of women in a one-on-one debate. Using PC language means not discrediting the other person for what they are but listening to what they say. This improves discourse.","conclusion":"Political correctness enables free speech for those that would be attacked personally otherwise."}
{"id":"e587d02f-856e-4a0d-b683-4c331d1bce01","argument":"Sup Reddit, First off, I'm an American and will always consider the USA my home, but I have lived in Europe now for an extended period of time. The length of my stay has allowed me to remove myself from American social culture enough to take a step back and view it with a less personal and move objective point of view. I personally feel that there is a major amount of over sensitivity when it comes to people voicing their beliefs about certain social issues. If I really have to slap a label on myself, I would considered myself socially progressive. I have the utmost support for homosexuals, transgender people, ect. I think social programs are wonderful and whole heartedly support people who dedicate their lives to make the lives of others better. That being said, while still in the states I felt that I had to look both way before I would open my mouth so I wouldn't be chewed out by someone who might be offended. I have never gone out of my way to offend someone, but it all honesty it was hard not to. I NEVER use words such as fa ot, ni er, any other racial slur, or gay in a derogatory way . With all efforts to educate myself on topics such as Obamacare, transgender, along with other major social topics in the US, there was always someone to put me in my place because of how much I offended them. I fail to see how using the word bitch equates to promoting rape culture, how not understanding although asking questions and trying to learn what its like to be someone who is transgender makes makes ignorant and arrogant, and how if I don't agree 110 with what Obama says and does that I am racist and hate poor people. Numerous times I have seen others in both public and online platforms being called names and harassed for a simple lack of understanding of these social issues. I think the line of what constitutes political correctness has been drawn too far or close? Idk and that people need to take a step back and relax","conclusion":"I believe that the U.S. has become overly sensitive in regards to many social issues"}
{"id":"d2c2eedd-5985-456a-9877-16a7e00453cc","argument":"I was inspired to post this when I saw the post about net neutrality from Kn0thing on the front page today. He claims to support net neutrality because it helps the little guy. It gives new ideas, online businesses, and up and coming sites\u2014like Reddit was twelve years ago\u2014the opportunity to find an audience and grow on a level playing field . He also references big cable as directly opposed to this idea, and implies that they are only opposed to it for the money. What he fails to mention is that if net neutrality does come into law, sites like reddit will likely have to pay large amounts of money due to the amount of bandwidth they use, directly impacting their bottom line. There may be other good arguments for why we should have net neutrality, but this one seems disingenuous at best. EDIT What would  is evidence that enforcing net neutrality would help small internet companies or internet consumers in a way that wouldn't also help large internet companies. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"CEOs of large internet companies don't care about you any more than CEOs of large cable companies"}
{"id":"521e622d-e623-45b2-b31a-f7cd7aaaaf5a","argument":"Andrew Yang is the only candidate with an actionable plan to abolish the penny As long as it costs more than a penny to make a penny, we are not getting the most value out of our tax dollars.","conclusion":"According to the Democratic Party Leadership in Iowa, Yang by far has the most detailed policy outline of the current candidates."}
{"id":"5aafca29-cddb-4019-b77f-eb032194a41f","argument":"The education that goes into hair for basic colour procedures isn't that difficult. These people are not performing open heart surgery so why do they charge like their skills are 1 in a million when there is literally a hair salon within walking distance of the next? It's a service that mostly exists because people can't see the back of their own heads to do it. Despite paying 150 every 6 weeks you're rushed in out and left alone in cold uncomfortable rooms while they get the next in. It shouldn't cost so much to get treated like a sheep. Sure, dealing with people can be exhausting, but there are tons of basic customer service jobs that require this skill and don't charge anywhere near as much and pay the worker the same. I'm debating on learning to do my own blonde just because I'm tired of the insane fees, basic treatment and average results. I've gone to so many salons of different star ratings and it's all the same. Hoping to hear from hairstylist who can give me some behind the chair input as to why this is actually a service worth paying you for.","conclusion":"Getting a decent dye job, specifically blonde, should not be so expensive"}
{"id":"beebe1ff-089b-434e-b635-702b9f12ac2d","argument":"The basic problem is that a carbon tax would be a new tax on the public. New taxes are typically unpopular. This makes it hard for politicians to support a carbon tax, as they are beholden to their constituents, and their likely desires to avoid such a tax.","conclusion":"A carbon tax is less popular and harder to achieve politically"}
{"id":"3460892d-6d2d-4aff-ad3a-5325c85e0e1a","argument":"White supremacism's promotion of inequality based on race runs counter to a fundamental pillar of democracy: equality.","conclusion":"Certain ideas are fundamentally undemocratic and must be censored to protect a democracy."}
{"id":"41a66f4a-20b9-448e-b5a0-1a5b79f748e9","argument":"Alright so before I get into the actual post, I feel as if I should clarify a few things. This is my first time posting. I am not American so feel free to call me out if I get anything wrong. I'm European I'm here to learn, okay. The point of this post if to see if my opinion is flawed, not to prove that my opinion is perfect. Sorry for my writing. So I think that prisons should be about helping criminals become integrated into society. In my opinion, I feel like there would be a much lower crime rate in the US if instead of treating prisoners badly, they were treated nicely. That guards talk to them and mental health experts too. If you can convince prisoners to stop doing crimes and live like others instead, you are basically eliminating crime. In my opinion, if I was in prison, then got let out, I'd be much more likely to stop doing crimes if I was treated nicely. While I do understand this would mean we would have to spend alot more on prisoners, I feel like this would greatly increase the safety of the people. Just like spending money on the military makes citizens safer, so would lowering the amount of criminals in the country. My main point Prisoners should not be treated in a way that causes anger. I believe that the reason that the American system does this is revenge. They treat them badly because they have treated others badly. In my opinion, this should not be the way it works. I believe that you should not treat them badly. If a person who has been bad it doesn't mean that they cant be lead on the right track. I believe that all you need to do is help them. In my opinion, prisoners should be treated in a way that allows them to become a new person. There should be mental health professionals who can get them on the right path. People who can teach them things so they can get a job. Companies should be paid to hire some of the prisoners who have had good behaviour and are good at that thing. Of course this won't work with everyone, but it will most likely help atleast a little. I also feel as if a prisoner seems chill and generally a better person, they could be let out. Of course this would probably not realistically be possible, as most likely this would cause lots of cases where people would be exploiting the system. But I'd still like to know if there is anything wrong with that idea other than what I just addressed. I also feel that the cells need to be improved. While I don't think they deserve what a normal citizen has, I think they definitely should atleast get something that makes them feel as if they're not in hell, but in a place to become a new person.","conclusion":"Prisons should be about helping criminals become normal people rather than being about revenge."}
{"id":"f893274f-db3e-4c62-a33a-91b4f854c24a","argument":"\"Hate speech\" is loosely defined, dependent on context, and not universally accepted. What one person may deem hate speech another may dispel as colloquialism, metaphor, or misinterpretation by the claimant.","conclusion":"Too many people are calling something hate speech simply because they disagree with it."}
{"id":"6671aaa9-67a2-4f6a-bf50-abbaefeab04a","argument":"A global energy shortage could lead to the collapse of the world's economy, thus killing billions.","conclusion":"Problems can accumulate if left unsolved. And this accumulation can lead to death."}
{"id":"fd8fe31c-a9b6-45ac-8cfb-260357cfe145","argument":"Members of the black community in America have frequently used sports as a platform to speak out about issues of racial discrimination.","conclusion":"Athletes have used sports as a platform to comment on social and political issues."}
{"id":"53d42e18-f24b-448b-a91d-3c2891e33fd9","argument":"Even if they are unable to stop the shooter, the fact that there is armed resistance in multiple rooms will slow their progress greatly, allowing law enforcement additional time to arrive and significantly reducing loss of life.","conclusion":"It is unrealistic to expect unarmed teachers to react successfully. It is very realistic to expect armed teachers to be more successful than unarmed teachers."}
{"id":"46d5f92b-ad4f-42ab-856b-66feeca26f9b","argument":"Discarding, discrediting and generalizing the views of others is common among individuals within \"echo chambers\" i.e. not being open to critique. Simple opposition is often viewed as hate towards the group whether it is or not.","conclusion":"Seeing no value in groups that appose or dismiss an individual or group causes one fall into an echo chamber, where the only views that are accepted are those within the group."}
{"id":"c02a9de8-ef64-45e4-a9a9-9b85af45dcfa","argument":"I have looked all over the internet and read countless amounts of articles to try to convince me otherwise but I have yet to find one with a good argument. Piracy is copyright infringement, or using redistributing a work without permission. This does not fit the definition of theft. Most people I have seen argue against this go off on tangents about how piracy is immoral and hurts the content creator. Is piracy immoral? It certainly can be. Does piracy hurt the content creator? It definitely can. Does that make it theft? No. ~~Edit View remains unchanged. This describes why Edit 2 View changed by u Raintee97","conclusion":"Piracy is not theft"}
{"id":"58759da2-8332-4d08-8c64-14c9e9d9f88a","argument":"I would be better off paying someone to draw for me than learning how to draw myself, and i'm a game developer I'm 22, its far too late for me to start learning to draw now. I tried a few tutorials online and it sort of makes sense until shading and lights come into it, then everything goes bloody crazy, and everything you ever create will not look like its done to you. Not to mention when you're creating something in 2D, you have to pretty much redraw the entire thing if it rotates more than 10 degrees, which is a massive waste of time and lack of return on effort. Despite the idea of me being a solo game dev has been my dream for a long time, its impossible to get me to a somewhat competent level of visual artistry within a reasonable amount of time. gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than just downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I think most visual art is tedious, slow, entirely unrewarding, and I cannot believe how much time people waste drawing things."}
{"id":"1d96e6c7-9279-4bac-ad3d-ccf1a5082896","argument":"Welfare is intended to help people overcome temporary setbacks and not to be used for life. Most people on welfare only use the programs for about 18 months, When the five year limit was placed on TANF more people found jobs to conserve their limited time to when they might need it in the future, With the current unlimited time for other welfare benefits people make longer term decisions that result in dependency such as having more kids than they can afford or having disabled kids. With a lifetime limit on all welfare benefits people will be more careful in taking on long term financial obligations. EDIT The only coherent response has been that an increase in the cost of crime might exceed the benefit of placing a lifetime limit on welfare. Other responses have been emotional appeals to the intrinsic value of human life. While life may have intrinsic value to an individual and their family, it has no intrinsic value to society.","conclusion":"All welfare including food stamps and Medicaid should have a five year lifetime limit like TANF"}
{"id":"20ac1d5b-c6cc-4bd7-bfe2-8badd51e7dd1","argument":"If life is to survive on this planet, there must be a decontamination of the Earth. I think this will be accompanied by an evolutionary process that will result in a drastic reduction of the population of males. Mary Daly","conclusion":"The idea that men should be eliminated\/their population controlled is well supported."}
{"id":"2b1c0df3-dcfd-4b3e-9797-a74a8512dbcd","argument":"According to surveys in the US, 75% parents who homeschool did not take any course online or in person to prepare for their child\u2019s home instruction.","conclusion":"Certified teachers are likely to educate children better than parents."}
{"id":"a4873b89-bb5c-43c4-ab95-efe2d5e5f962","argument":"One's sense of morals and ethics develops with age so it is foolish to brand a person immoral based on one stage of their life.","conclusion":"The perception of someone as continually and irreversibly immoral precludes the possibility of their change past a certain point life."}
{"id":"813081a9-c4ca-442a-bc37-5465846e15d8","argument":"Statistics from the Bureau of Labor Statistics 2017 shows that the average man in the US worked 8.05 hours while the average woman worked 7.24 hours. People working fewer hours on average can expect to earn lower incomes, on average.","conclusion":"Occupational choices account for the gender pay gap. Equalising parental leave is not a policy that addresses this and will thus have no significant impact on the gender pay gap."}
{"id":"415fe012-3b39-4add-a7c5-257ad93264a1","argument":"Politicians often reframe the referendum into simplistic, straightforward narratives The result is that votes become less about the actual policy question than about contests between which narrative voters find more appealing.","conclusion":"The outcome of the referendum is not based on the referendum question, but other factors."}
{"id":"41fac9b2-77ab-42a4-af2d-006972afbcec","argument":"Erdogan in particular can be counted on to act aggressively and overbearingly in any sort of attempt to settle this matter amicably, while Assad might just go fully genocidal.","conclusion":"The borders of an independent Kurdish state need yet to be defined. Even the Kurdish Project just maps the major population centres."}
{"id":"848e7168-a46a-4944-ad64-b398da7757a1","argument":"It has been argued that the proposed referendum on gay marriage in Australia was an attempt by Parliament to avoid the responsibility of a parliamentary vote on the issue.","conclusion":"Governments can organize referendums to avoid shouldering the accountability for difficult, potentially unpopular decisions Seta\u0308la\u0308, p. 700"}
{"id":"dd733650-bcd8-4466-ac3e-2d235f407211","argument":"Hi, x200B I believe that DID is not a disorder but a coping strategy. With ADHD for example, when a person can not focus on a task, the coping strategy is usually coffee or gum when not medicated. With DID, I believe the executive function of depersonalization is not the disorder itself, but rather the coping strategy coffee or gum when it comes to dealing with the realities of life trauma, stress, self negligence, low self esteem, etc . DID is only a disorder when the personalities can not be identified. Otherwise, when a personality is in control of a host, he or she usually still has full executive function and consciousness of choice. There are cases that are worse off that include amnesia, and those may also be classified as a disorder. I've listed them here below x200B Dissociative identity disorder DID Executive function no amnesia 90 of cases coping strategy Executive function amnesia disorder No executive function amnesia disorder No executive function no amnesia disorder x200B This is why after Sybil came out, many a women found themselves with DID. Because they do have it, but it is a coping strategy. Not a disorder. x200B Disorder by definition A mental disorder, also called a mental illness or psychiatric disorder, is a behavioral or mental pattern that causes significant distress or impairment of personal functioning. x200B In the case of DID with executive functioning no amnesia, there is minimal to no significant distress or impairment of personal functioning. Rather, there is an improvement in personal functioning due to the personalities created as a coping strategy. x200B Repeating my initial thoughts This does not invalidate DID as a disorder, but rather identifies most DID cases as a coping method rather than an actual disorder as most of the cases of DID include high functioning individuals who carry executive function of their personality and do not experience amnesia. DID should be split into two categories x200B Dissociative Identity Coping Dissociative Identity Disorder x200B We can break these two categories down further. x200B 1. Dissociative Identity Coping a. Executive function no amnesia voluntary switching 90 of cases b. Executive function no amnesia involuntary switching on trigger c. Executive function no amnesia medication assisted switching 2. Dissociative Identity Disorder a. No executive function amnesia involuntary switching disorder b. No executive function no amnesia involuntary switching disorder","conclusion":"Dissociative identity disorder DID is not a disorder, but a coping strategy to deal with reality."}
{"id":"31b89139-0a55-4728-bd82-824b23e1ca8c","argument":"Evil exists as a tool for a monotheistic God's plan and not as sign of absence of monotheistic God. There is no progress without struggle. Without evil, man would have no possibility for growth.","conclusion":"The existence of evil can be reconciled with an all-powerful and all-loving God. God would not want to remove evil if a greater good were only achievable with the existence of evil."}
{"id":"c8a19d25-9eb7-434b-8492-7695010763e5","argument":"It might undermine the dollars position as reserve currency because it is not attached to a single country and more freely traded","conclusion":"It undermines the position of the Bretton Woods institutions World Bank and IMF by reducing their influence."}
{"id":"5eedbbf7-3874-4e81-b6fb-2316616735f6","argument":"Background Right now, all three Democratic members of the Virginian executive branch are embroiled in scandal. Gov. Ralph Northam's medical school yearbook from 1984 featured a photo of one man in blackface, and the other dressed in a KKK costume. Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax has been accused of sexual assault by at least two women, one in 2000 and the other in 2004. And the Attorney General of Virginia, Mark Herring, admitted to wearing blackface while he was an undergrad student. All three of them are Democrats, and if all three of them were to resign, then the next in line would be the Speaker of the House of Delegates, Kirk Cox, a Republican who only won his own race with a coin toss in 2017 This is obviously a difficult time for Virginian and national Democrats. On one hand, our own principles and basic human decency obligate us to condemn these actions and push for their resignation. But the fact that all three Democratic members of the line of succession have committed these offenses makes things more complicated, in my view. The Virginia governorship is the only branch of Virginia state government that Democrats control both the House of Delegates and State Senate are controlled by Republicans. And legislative Republicans do not have veto proof majorities, meaning that a Democratic governor has real power in preventing egregious and disenfranchising legislation from passing. If the governor even if he's just acting governor became Republican, he would, in all likelihood, sign and pass such legislation, which would harm black, Latin x , female, and LGBTQ Virginians. To that end, I would like to do a brief comparison of Ralph Northam's and Kirk Cox's voting records KIRK COX VOTED FOR prohibiting the establishment of sanctuary cities HB 1257 Feb. 2018 . FOR authorizing concealed handgun carrying in Virginia HB 1852 April 2017 . FOR prohibiting state funding of abortion services HB 2264 Feb. 2017 . FOR allowing the death penalty to be administered in Virginia with drugs from secret anonymous companies and pharmacies HB 815 April 2016 . FOR allowing school security guards to carry guns HB 1234 Feb. 2016 . FOR prohibiting the state from legally pursuing religious people who discriminate against LGBTQ people HB 773 Feb. 2016 . FOR prohibiting cities from increasing the minimum wage HB 1371 Feb. 2016 . FOR allowing organized school prayer in public schools SB 236 Feb. 2014 . FOR requiring photo identification for voting SB 1256 Feb. 2013 . FOR forcing a woman to get an ultrasound before having an abortion HB 462 March 2012 . FOR repealing the state law which required all girls entering the 6th grade get the HPV vaccine HB 1112 Jan. 2012 . FOR requiring police to ask about immigration status when a suspect is being arrested HB 1060 Jan. 2012 . RALPH NORTHAM VOTED FOR the legalization of medical marijuana SB 726 April 2018 . FOR requiring female inmates to receive feminine hygiene products while in prison HB 83 March 2018 . FOR increasing the minimum wage to 9.25 SB 590 Feb. 2014 . AGAINST the requirement which forced women to get an ultrasound before having an abortion SB 617 Feb. 2014 . AGAINST the requirement of photo identification for voting SB 1256 Feb. 2013 . AGAINST requiring drug tests for welfare recipients SB 721 Feb. 2013 . AGAINST allowing adoption agencies to refuse adoptions for religious reasons i.e. for gay couples HB 189 Feb. 2012 . AGAINST tax deductions for corporations SB 131 Feb. 2012 . FOR prohibiting employment discrimination based on sexual orientation SB 747 Feb. 2011 . FOR allowing absentee voting for any reason SB 949 Jan. 2011 . AGAINST eliminating state funding for abortion Amdt. 91 April 2010 . Also, here is a list of bills that Ralph Northam by virtue of being a Democratic governor without a veto proof Republican majority in the legislature has been able to VETO these are bills that will probably pass again if Kirk Cox becomes governor Requiring a record of anyone who assists with a voter registration application HB 1144 May 2018 . Prohibiting local minimum wage ordinances HB 375 April 2018 . Prohibiting cap and trade regulations HB 1270 April 2018 . Prohibiting the establishment of sanctuary cities HB 1257 April 2018 . tl dr In any other circumstance, I would say that all three of these assholes Northam, Fairfax, and Herring should resign. However, the very real, institutional harm that will be done to minorities, especially to POC, in Virginia if all of them resign makes me think that at least one of them should stay on.","conclusion":"Ralph Northam resigning would do more harm to the POC of Virginia"}
{"id":"91fdecbd-f545-4b93-bb82-bf13adbc021b","argument":"Columbus Day and Thanksgiving essentially descend from the same historic chain of events the eventual successful colonization of the Americas by Europeans. Some people seem to have a significant problem celebrating Columbus Day, whether or not the day actually celebrates anything negative, while Thanksgiving, similarly commemorates a positive event in an otherwise bloody and deadly history between 2 peoples. If you celebrate Thanksgiving, enjoying the land and traditions of the conquered native peoples, while at the same time bad mouthing Columbus Day, you're being a hypocrite and you should stop celebrating thanksgiving.","conclusion":"If you don't think Americans should celebrate Columbus Day, you're hypocritical if you celebrate Thanksgiving."}
{"id":"5cae1a1a-da48-48f5-92b0-166e02d9d9e0","argument":"The Swiss government itself came out in opposition to the idea in fear of the uncertainties that the initiative would unleash.","conclusion":"No other country has ever attempted such an extreme initiative, so there is no precedent or example to go by."}
{"id":"f7822344-c8d4-4fe5-a8f2-eebf7b900f43","argument":"This post started out in AskReddit with the title In what way is gay sex with adolescent gay boys harmful? serious so it may read more like a question with me questioning my own view, but I am posting it here instead because AskReddit doesn't allow posts with stories. Disclaimer I'm an gay adult in my early 20's whose exclusively attracted to adolescent boys 11 14 . I'm not trying to normalise the idea of sex with adolescent boys, but i'm in a bit of a tricky situation and I would appreciate a discussion, to keep me on the right track. I am a well rounded adult who appreciates, like anyone else, that sex with children can be harmful I say can be not is because I don't believe in absolutes . Also, sex with children is also technically legal in many countries, as many countries set the age of consent lower than the age of maturity 18 . I think the harm that results from under age sex depends on the circumstances of each case. The problem I face is that my self established mechanisms for control is being eroded, not to the extent that I think i'll ever act on my feelings, but to the point where I feel the need to challenge myself or have other people challenge me . It's not being eroded my any weakening of my resolve never to hurt a child, but because I am facing more and more evidence which challenge the notion that such behaviour is always harmful. I am active on a number of LGBT sites and being quite a masculine guy, I get a lot of younger guys with 'daddy' fetishes hitting on me, many as young as 13. I always politely decline of course, if the boys are under the age of consent, but it's starting to upset me, because I feel that I am expected by society not to engage in such advances, not because it's true that every time someone my age flirts or sexts with someone that age it harms them, but because such behaviour offends cultural norms. I would love to be able to sexy and flirt with young boys, if I knew it wouldn't cause them any harm. Sex is obviously a lot more complicated than sexting, and the fact I have never tried to have sex with anyone under the age of consent or accepted any offers is a testament to the fact that I accept it can cause harm. I do, however, have young teens asking me to meet up with them and have sex. I speak to older guys about this and have had a couple of older guys closer to my age talk about how they experimented with older guys when they were younger and say how they look back on it as a positive experience. The vast majority of stories I have heard about in the news about adults engaging in sexual activity with children involve adults who are in a position of trust over the child, who grooms their victim and then bully them after the act, to get them to not speak out about what had happened. I have also heard and read stories albeit only a handful where it appears from reports that the child was willing and gave consent albeit not legal consent . I wonder, in those type of situations, how often the child was not actually harmed. The evidence I have read which challenges my resolve although as I have said not to the point where I am likely to act talk about studies where boys have reported positively about sexual activity with adults during adolescence, and other studies which suggest that by the age of 10, on average range between 6 14 , children have develop distinct sexual feelings, a sexual identity and preference, including tastes such as fetishes , prior to the physical changes involved in puberty. This makes me think that there are indeed some gay boys as young as 13, for example, who might not experience any sort of harm from sexting with me and some who might also not experience any harm from having sex with me. I am hoping that people will comment in response and explain to me why and how me sexting with an adolescent gay boy, or even going as far as engaging in physical sexual activity with a boy who is asking me to, will cause harm. Thanks","conclusion":"I don't think that gay sex with adolescent gay boys is always harmful."}
{"id":"34807274-0c1b-4ffe-9127-2e1421f1d14f","argument":"As my title states I don't believe there is any meaningful conversation to be had with racists. Recently reddit had a little spat due to the banning of some racist subs. A common argument presented by those who opposed the change was that banning racists closes the door on potentially meaningful conversation. I disagree. Firstly, why are racists needed to have a conversation about racism? What is it about the presence of racists that would make conversations about race any more meaningful? Why can't we have those same conversations without the racists? Secondly, the vast majority of racists arnt going to change their mind because of a conversation on the internet. You might convince a couple of them, but the overwhelming majority will only double down on their beliefs in the face of criticism. All this will lead to is both sides talking past each other. Finally, it seems like this argument is mainly pushed by those who aren't affected by said racism, which rubs me the wrong way. I've rarely seen minorities make this claim, and I think it's because they are actually affected by this racism. We wouldn't make a Jewish man sit in a room with a Nazi because of potential meaningful conversation. Nor would we do the same between a gay person and a member of the Westboro Baptist church. So I don't understand why people are ok with doing it to minorities. I know people will say that the conversation isn't about the racists, it's about those who might be reading along and I think that is bullshit. Who are you to make that decision for other people? What gives you the right to put another person's mental and emotional well being at risk solely on the off chance that someone else might be convinced not to be racist? I think that is very arrogant and self serving. Anyway, cmv EDIT I dont think I was clear about the context of my argument. I am talking about reddit, since you cannot ban people from life lol. My argument addresses users who contribute to subs like coontown.","conclusion":"I don't think there is any meaningful conversation to be had with racists."}
{"id":"b6a3ef06-9a37-450d-97dc-866d87be2b7d","argument":"Maximum global efficiency, and the cheapest prices, can only be maintained by a tariff free international economy. The more efficiently allocated are the world\u2019s resources the less waste there is and the more affordable goods will become for consumers.","conclusion":"Maximum global efficiency, and the cheapest prices, can only be maintained by a tariff free internat..."}
{"id":"0b26b46e-a644-4117-91c2-b37644d96834","argument":"While full of wonderful imagery, there's complete boredom found in introducing a setting. Take for example this snippet from Charles Dickens gt Smoke lowering down from chimney pots making a soft, black drizzle, with flakes of soot as big as full grown snowflakes gone into mourning, one might imagine, for the death of the sun. Dogs indistinguishable in mire. Foot passengers jostling one another's umbrellas, in a general infection of ill temper, and losing their foot holds at street corners, where tens of thousands of other foot passengers have been slipping and sliding since the day broke if it ever broke , adding new deposits to the crust upon crust of mud, sticking at those points tenaciously to the pavement, and accumulating at compound interest. gt Fog everywhere. Fog up the river, where it flows among green aits and meadows fog down the river, where it rolls defiled among the tiers of shipping, and the waterside pollutions of a great and dirty city. Fog on the Essex marshes, fog on the Kentish heights. Fog in the eyes and throats of ancient Greenwich pensioners, wheezing by the firesides of their wards fog in the stem and bowl of the afternoon pipe of the wrathful skipper, down in his close cabin fog cruelly pinching the toes and fingers of his shivering little 'prentice boy on deck. Chance people on the bridges peeping over parapets into the nether sky of fog, with fog all around them, as if they were up in a balloon, and hanging in the misty clouds. Setting up a scene by an overview through a third person omniscient perspective completely bashes the brains out of the reader, by shoving a large confusing amount of plot and description into the scene itself. . . . We could also describe the environment by having the focal character interacting with the city, by walking amongst it, however this seems quite useless as it'll only achieve the means of describing the local interactions with the character and the mood around him not the movement and feel of the city itself. There's too limited amount of techniques to use in introducing and establishing a setting in a story.","conclusion":"Creating a vivid setting of a city within a novel is impossible without boring the reader."}
{"id":"9b1774a9-e2c8-4f1a-9900-36fa17aa3c4d","argument":"Animals invariably experience great suffering in the wild. Removing them from this environment can be very beneficial and reassuring for animals.","conclusion":"Exploiting animals is more dignified than their living in the wild"}
{"id":"c19a8268-3ec1-4214-873a-57d76f8c5767","argument":"Self-driving cars can be hacked. The Guardian : Car hacking is the future \u2013 and sooner or later you'll be hit","conclusion":"Such systems have already proven to have issues and may not work correctly."}
{"id":"d3c06039-9a5f-4765-bddd-bfc522289a62","argument":"Nudity in the Bible is only condemned when it is forced upon someone; when is associated with a sinful act or when the lack of clothing is part a larger context in which humans lack basic needs.","conclusion":"There are many instances in the Bible that mention nudity When the Bible is interpreted and translated as accurately as possible, it seems that nudity is not seen negatively nor it is condemned."}
{"id":"bab6b0f7-d0a7-40f9-ba91-d356c5ebae7a","argument":"A discourse theory of morality argues that reason can derive morality from the structure of human communication without any appeal to a transcendental being or value system. This suggests that God is not needed to posit right and wrong.","conclusion":"Contemporary moral theory suggests that moral standards can exist without God."}
{"id":"3a605e7f-2f65-40da-bead-3abe959fdd93","argument":"I was pro gun control until I did a bit of research and saw where guns stand when there's frame of reference. Now I think labeling yourself as pro gun control is hypocritical redundant meaningless to be vocal about, when there are many other deadlier vices that we all are nearly silent about. Now when we look at the actual numbers given context, we can safely claim that guns are the least of our problems. Not just that alcohol and tobacco are a lot more deadlier than guns, they reduce the quality of life of millions of Americans . Now regarding the title of this post Q Why me and the left vigorously campaigning for banning guns is hypocritical? A Vigorously campaigning wanting guns banned, but not having same treatment for things that are more deadly than guns hypocritical Q Why me and the left are either disingenuous or ignorant for only being vocal on wanting guns banned? A Disingenuous because we know that guns are the least of the problems in America, but still only vigorously campaign against them but not other deadlier vices. Ignorant would mean we don't know that there are bigger problems than guns, so we vigorously campaign against guns because of emotion only. Now here are the numbers Deaths per year USA Cigarette deaths 480,000 Second hand smoke 41,000 Of which ~11,849 28 are children Alcohol deaths 88,000 , Drunk driving deaths 10,265 Of which 209 are children 0 14 years Gun deaths 33,636 , Homicides 11,208 Of which 397 are children 0 14 years 11,208 homicides, 21,175 suicides,505 deaths due to accidental or negligent discharge of a firearm, and 281 deaths due to firearms use with undetermined intent Non fatal Quality of life USA Cigarettes More than 16 million Americans are living with a disease caused by smoking heart disease, stroke, lung diseases, diabetes, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease COPD , which includes emphysema and chronic bronchitis. Alcohol More than 10 percent of U.S. children live with a parent with alcohol problems, according to a 2012 study. 696,000 students between the ages of 18 and 24 are assaulted by another student who has been drinking. 97,000 students between the ages of 18 and 24 report experiencing alcohol related sexual assault or date rape. In 2009, alcohol related liver disease was the primary cause of almost 1 in 3 liver transplants in the United States In 2014, the World Health Organization reported that alcohol contributed to more than 200 diseases and injury related health conditions, most notably DSM\u2013IV alcohol dependence, liver cirrhosis, cancers, and injuries.13 In 2012, 5.1 percent of the burden of disease and injury worldwide 139 million disability adjusted life years was attributable to alcohol consumption Research indicates that alcohol use during the teenage years could interfere with normal adolescent brain development and increase the risk of developing AUD. In addition, underage drinking contributes to a range of acute consequences, including injuries, sexual assaults, and even deaths\u2014including those from car crashes. Guns In 2013, there were 73,505 nonfatal firearm injuries 23.2 injuries per 100,000 U.S. citizens Economic burden Smoking related illness in the United States costs more than 300 billion each year, including Nearly 170 billion for direct medical care for adults More than 156 billion in lost productivity, including 5.6 billion in lost productivity due to secondhand smoke exposure Source The cost of excessive alcohol use in the United States reached 249 billion in 2010 Source Gun injuries cost U.S. 46 billion a year in lost work and medical care Source Sources Cigarettes deaths Children deaths of second smoke Alcohol deaths Childen deaths from drunk driving accidents Gun deaths Children deaths from guns Alcohol diseases behavior and references Regarding the change of my view What will most likely not change my view arguing semantics or wordplay e.g we don't want guns banned we just want more gun control, or we want assault rifles banned, not all guns banned , finding other sources that vary in numbers slightly, ad hominem What may partially change my view non emotional scientific reasons for wanting guns banned but not cigarettes alcohol, if there is scientific explanation on why banning guns would work, but not banning cigarettes alcohol, basically any scientific variable that I may have missed in my short research that explains why the left vigorously campaigns against guns, but not other vices. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Given context the left is hypocritical, and either disingenuous or ignorant for constantly and vigorously campaigning against guns"}
{"id":"85f53919-9d79-4913-b969-e8be7db39cfc","argument":"The public education system is increasingly educating kids in a biased fashion with a focus on political correctness, safety from anything that could offend and hostile attitudes towards those who disagree with them.","conclusion":"Children are not able to make such important and complex election decisions."}
{"id":"3bf5a0e0-5582-432b-afdc-04923c4ac57d","argument":"Other books by Laurell K Hamilton Nightseer 1992 Nightshade 1992 Star Trek: The Next Generation authorized novel #24 Death of a Darklord6 1995 TSR's Ravenloft series \"A Clean Sweep\" first story in Superheroes, a 1995 anthology Blood upon my lips in Cravings anthology, 2004 Bite anthology, 2004 Strange Candy 14 published and unpublished short stories, 2006 Never After anthology, 2009 Ardeur: 14 Writers on the Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Series 2010","conclusion":"Star Trek and Fantasy Porn. who doesn't love a bit of Fantasy Porn"}
{"id":"0cf7351b-000e-4eee-b5a5-0349ab4044e4","argument":"The paleo diet essentially argues that our bodies are still genetically designed to eat and digest the foods that our ancient human ancestors consumed. This includes meat, fruit, vegetables, nuts, seeds, and some oils. While I agree that abstaining from certain foods can be healthy and beneficial in maintaining a healthy weight, the scientific \u201cevidence\u201d that this diet is based on seems flawed to me. Our ancestors ate what they were able to hunt and gather. They did not specifically choose their diet they just ate what was available to them. In fact, many of the foods that our ancient ancestors consumed are not even available to modern humans in this day and age. After hundreds of thousands of years of evolving, intellectually and physically, different food sources and different methods of preparing these foods were discovered and mastered. I do not see how trying to mimic this specific diet is beneficial when we now have many other healthy food options available to us. I have found two major flaws in the science behind this diet. For one, it is argued that we are still genetically and biologically identical to our primal ancestors. This is not the case. Human genetics are continually evolving. It is scientifically invalid to argue that all modern humans have the same genetic makeup as our ancestors from tens and hundreds of thousands of years ago, and therefore scientifically invalid to argue that our bodies are still genetically designed to only digest and thrive on certain foods of the past. The second point that confuses me is this why, out of the millions of years of human evolution, was it decided that this hunter gatherer like diet was the best fit for humans? Why not the diet developed right after agriculture? In fact, why not just eat the diet of primates and chimps? I cannot find a logical argument explaining why this certain time period in human evolutionary history had the \u201cbest\u201d diet for our species. I understand how the foods this diet promotes may be very beneficial to some people in weight loss and maintaining a healthy lifestyle however, I do not see how this is the best diet for all humans. I am very interested in this topic and would love to hear your opinions. Change my view","conclusion":"The Paleo Diet is based on flawed evolutionary arguments."}
{"id":"c511de09-c358-4638-b8bd-8078af7f9386","argument":"Fox News defends Republican politicians and bash liberal politicians. Other news networks are vice versa. Imagine if we had a mainstream media that defended regular people and the community rather than focus on the capitalist profit. Example. Mainstream media will talk about The next move for Snowden rather than talk about how we can protect our privacy as citizens. Other Example. They turn the Zimmerman trial into a race war rather than give facts and inform the public on this heated debate.","conclusion":"I believe mainstream media should not defend political government parties but instead, it should defend the people."}
{"id":"be90cb44-3268-4359-ae07-1c0b19c1355a","argument":"The US is one of the world's most influential actors. A US recognition of Palestine could be a powerful way of inspiring other nations to push harder for an independent Palestinian state.","conclusion":"Recognition of a Palestinian state is an important step in ending Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories."}
{"id":"f3128dc4-be51-4148-bcbf-521b5500c3de","argument":"There is a difference between contrary properties and genuine contradictions. Quantum states, as currently understood, seem to entail ascribing contrary properties to some natural phenomena. The three traditional properties of God and the existence of evil entail a contradiction.","conclusion":"There is no reason to think that the nature of God is analogous to quantum states."}
{"id":"20104e00-75cc-45d6-995d-e2da2c939792","argument":"Trump said his tax policies would result much faster growth, as high as 6%. GDP grew 2.4% in 2017, 2.9% in 2018 and through the 3rd Quarter of 2019, average growth was just 2.3%.","conclusion":"The economic conditions of the United States have worsened under Trump's administration."}
{"id":"c3d062b7-e6d6-412a-93d4-8c1bdc468827","argument":"This post is a broader version of, and was inspired by, another  post. I didn't see anywhere in the rules that this is prohibited, but if it is, then I apologize. I believe that you can only owe someone if you have willingly entered into an agreement with them. For example, if you choose to buy a 5 sandwich, you then owe the sandwich store 5. If they push a sandwich into your hands, you do not owe them 5, as you did not agree to that transaction. As such, I believe that parents owe their children the best chances of success that they are capable of providing, but that children do not owe their parents anything. Parents have all the agency in the parent child relationship, they choose to have children adopt, children do not choose to be born adopted. They choose to raise children as opposed to putting them up for adoption, children cannot choose to leave and find other parents. I believe that successful parenting will engender feelings of love, respect and gratitude, and that well raised children will appreciate their parents and want to spend time with them, but not that children owe it to them to feel this way. I believe that control over a relationship is proportional to the responsibility in a relationship. The most important aspects of that control are 1 whether to begin that relationship in the first place and 2 the option to end it. Parents have both of those options, while children have neither. Parents have the vast majority of control in the relationship, thus they also have almost all of the responsibility. In order to change my view, you will need to either convince me of the point at which children accept the transaction, or convince me that transactions in which one party did not agree are still valid.","conclusion":"Children owe their parents nothing"}
{"id":"6841feec-e5ca-4ebd-bd7e-83ba52f0d980","argument":"Rey fits numerous characteristics that are commonly associated with the archetype of a Mary Sue: she has power to a degree that is hard to explain in the context of the story, is morally righteous, universally popular and without relevant flaws.","conclusion":"Rey has even interpreted as fitting the archetype of Mary Sue: a character who is idealized and strong in ways that are unreasonable or unfitting."}
{"id":"fc85f185-de32-4b2e-9796-111500004091","argument":"There has not been a truly secular society until recently. The data set simply isn't big enough to determine if it is the secularization of society that allowed them to be more successful.","conclusion":"What it does mean is that lack of religion is not correlated with success and conversely, religion is not correlated with lack of success"}
{"id":"963ad442-8395-4678-a29a-467aeb99f490","argument":"One of the most fundamental principles in our society is that everyone has the right to pursue whatever happiness they envision for themselves. To my understanding, this principle manifests as a \u201crule of tolerance\u201d that everyone can pursue whatever values they want, so long as they do not impede others from doing the same. My impression is that most people assume that if everyone followed this rule, we would have a utopian society where everyone coexists peacefully while finding meaning and happiness in their own way. My issue with this is that I think it\u2019s impossible. The conflicts do not only begin when people try to impose their views on others and violate this \u201crule of tolerance.\u201d Frequently, value systems themselves are in conflict. Simply trying to live by certain ideals ourselves inevitably involves imposing them on others whether we like it or not. I guess the best way for me to describe this is with an example. Consider Mike Pence who would not take a private lunch with a woman other than his wife. People claimed that this practice impedes women\u2019s access to equal opportunities. He would probably say that he is simply trying to live by the value that both men and women are better off having boundaries so that marriage is more sacred and secure. He could have no interest at all in imposing his value system on others, yet clearly people feel that he is. To me, this is an impasse because if you support his decision you are not being tolerant of those pursuing gender equality, and if you condemn him you are not being tolerant of his right to pursue traditional values. That is just one example, but the core dilemma comes up every time value systems inevitably clash. I just don\u2019t understand why people assume that there has to be a way for a society to accommodate different value systems. I could be wrong, but I get the impression that people ignore this dilemma by just assuming that certain traditional or religious values are wrong because they are intolerant, and that a liberal system of pluralism is more correct. That seems hypocritical to me because it is just as intolerant towards those who have the right to pursue their own traditional values for themselves. For this sort of thing, I think a delta can take many forms. Perhaps there are rules or compromises that can realistically solve these conflicts. Or maybe my definition of tolerance is too black and white. Either way, the goal of a truly tolerant society still seems like an impossible one to me. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"A truly tolerant society is impossible and pursuing one is usually hypocritical."}
{"id":"362e6390-ad23-4ab8-a2e6-d72355fbd20c","argument":"The title was a bit generic but this  is about a specific case. I know a lady with a 27 I think? y o child who is autistic. He won't ever be able to live on his own and he is unable to work any traditional jobs. He can however take public transportation on his own and is extremely good at a particular Dave Busters game. At this game you win the jackpot if you break the record reset daily . So he will spend most of the day beating the record by 1 point then losing to win the jackpot then beating his own record by 1 and losing, and so on and so on. So on days when they sell credits at a discount he goes in and buys a bunch then through out the week especially on days where the games are half price he will just go in and rack up tickets. He uses those tickets to buy video games, game consoles, amusement park tickets, ect. Then turns around and sells them for a profit. He is expected to use those profits to help pay for groceries, and to buy all of his own clothes and stuff like that. My fiance thinks it is super fucked up that his mom forces him to use this money on his food and clothes given his mental capacity and that he should be free from those responsibilities. I don't think there is anything remotely wrong with what his mom does, so","conclusion":"It is not immoral for a parent of an autistic child to make their child contribute in whatever way possible."}
{"id":"361cdc21-f18b-4869-a02f-eedf54f93ef4","argument":"In the US it's overwhelmingly agreed that you should give up your seat to the disabled, pregnant, or elderly the line for elderly is blurry, but I think we can all agree for those well into senior citizenship . Recently I was on public transit and saw a man too tall to comfortably stand. He had to crane his neck. Many people who could have comfortably stood didn't get up for him. If someone is so tall they have to crane their neck which, on certain buses and trains isn't that tall at all then clearly they're uncomfortable and will be much better off in the short term and in a small way in the long term by being allowed to sit. The principle that someone who is uncomfortable standing through a condition no fault of their own should be allowed to sit is probably a general one, but I made this  about tallness for two reason 1, it's one that's easily ignored because the person may be otherwise quite healthy, and 2, it's extremely obvious as opposed to other conditions like spent all day on feet and is really sick of it . What I am NOT doing is trying to establish some hierarchy between the tall, disabled and pregnant. Any replies asking about should a pregnant lady stand for a tall person will not . What will also not change my view are posts advocating that nobody should give up their seat for the disabled, elderly, or pregnant. You're just a jerk. x200B What might  is I come from the country of shortceilingstan and everyone over the height of 5'1 has to hunch over on the train and common etiquette is first come first served. But please be specific if this is the case. I'm familiar with US and to some extent european public transit, where I think this rule could be easily and practically applied. To change my view explain why a person who could comfortably stand, and has no conditions that normally grant them priority seating on public transit, should stay seated when someone else is so tall they have to crane their neck to sit.","conclusion":"Those who can stand comfortably on public transit should give up their seats to those who are too tall to stand normally."}
{"id":"b9e04d07-f283-4f21-8657-2834b6144dd9","argument":"Many justify NATO's bombing campaign in Serbia by arguing that it helped halt ethnic cleansing against ethnic Albanian Muslims in Kosovo.","conclusion":"Military interventions into countries can be deemed necessary to protect human rights."}
{"id":"8ad6204e-9d4f-48ad-bafc-c403a70effb9","argument":"It's common knowledge that the better someone does in school, the more likely they are to have a successful life. Many people assume that employers value people with lots of knowledge in a particular field. However, I believe there is a deeper reason behind why doing well in school increases one's chance of becoming successful. Employers like to hire people that work hard. Employees that work hard will make money for their higher ups while slackers don't contribute to anything. Employers need a good way to see if someone is able to put in the necessary work. And that's what I believe the American school system does. People that work hard in school will earn good grades while lazy people will get mediocre or bad grades. People that are hiring for an organization can see how hard working someone is by simply looking at the grades they got in highschool college. While I do believe that people learn in schools, there are better ways to assess someone's knowledge of a subject. For example, the homework problem. Working on homework for 3 hours a day is a bad way to get someone to learn something. In fact, there have been studies that say homework doesn't even improve knowledge. Here's an article that explains this pretty well It's just busy work that gives students credit for hard work. At the end of the day, getting good grades depends on how much work one is willing to put in. Good grades aren't based solely on intelligence the smartest individual still has to commit a good chunk of their day on schoolwork. Employers like to see that willingness to work.","conclusion":"The American school system is designed to filter out the lazy from the hard-workers, disguised as places where people go to learn."}
{"id":"ebe6274c-87d3-41de-b8c1-7e0e8003cb21","argument":"According to the most radical of anti Israeli sources, the Israelis have killed 9,500 Palestinians in the 21st century. This is a good timeline, because there's no large scale wars involved during it thankfully so there's not as many blurred lines between civilian and military casualties. In a 12 year span, White Europeans killed 6 million Jews. European massacres of Jews are not exclusive to the Nazi regime, though. Massacres of Jews were commonplace throughout the Middle Ages, so let's throw another 1 million in, and that's being very conservative for a 1200 year timespan. Israeli occupation of the Holy Land from European settlers is irrelevant, because if they returned to Europe history dictates they'd be prone to another genocide, likely being completely exterminated. The side effects of this, a couple thousand dead Palestinians, is no where near as bad.","conclusion":"Israeli occupation and moderate violence is the only safeguard against European anti-semitism, which is exponentially more deadly"}
{"id":"dd22e7d7-1eaa-4c8b-8661-7d56cda7b756","argument":"There is a debate currently going on over royalties paid by Pandora Radio to artists. There is a campaign going on decrying the seemingly low royalty rate for internet radio play, ignoring the fact that terrestrial radio royalties are even lower on a per listen basis. In fact, Pandora tried to purchase a terrestrial radio station in order to lower the royalty rates they pay for internet streaming. Anyway, I got into a debate with a musician friend of mine on this topic. Her argument was mostly emotional and not really grounded in facts or logic, but the basic premise was I did all of this work making music, so I should get paid for it. My perspective goes like this In Pandora's case, they pay out a full half of their gross revenue in royalties. They only very recently even became profitable, and at only a couple percent of their gross revenue. A higher royalty rate would mean that they literally could not exist, and there is no reason to believe that as a publicly held company that they are not already trying to maximize their revenue in every way possible. The amount of money that Pandora is paying out in royalties is simply how much money there is available for them to pay out . The current royalty rate is something like a thousandth of a cent per play. My friend says that artists should get at least a cent per play. The fact that royalty expenses were already half of Pandora's gross revenue and that multiplying them a thousand fold would eclipse the total revenue of the entire music industry was lost on her. Like I said, emotional and not particularly grounded in facts or logic. Probably the major reason she didn't succeed in the music business, but I digress. Anyway, I'm here about that argument that doing work entitles you to get paid for it. My view is that if you want to get paid for something, you need to view it as a job. Have or develop something that people want to pay for, find those people, get them to agree to pay for it, and then give them what they've agreed to pay for. It's just like applying for a job in any other field. The music business just has a lot of job applicants for very few jobs, the big difference being that people who are still just applicants go around saying that they actually have the job, and are demanding to get paid for it. If you spent a bunch of your own money recording an album, that was your job application, not your job, you're not entitled to make your money back, you still have to find people who are willing to pay you for the product you created. Anyway, in the interest of sustaining our friendship we dropped the topic. But I'm curious about what you think.","conclusion":"I don't think that artists are entitled to income from their works."}
{"id":"01a756f6-44e6-4787-a7c7-7f6144a5ed1a","argument":"'RuPaul's Drag Race' has highlighted a number of Drag Queens who have modeled how to overcome adversity","conclusion":"Drag going mainstream provides important role models for LGBT teens."}
{"id":"62c40ab3-7deb-43cc-9f62-c9ce2d927708","argument":"James Slack. \"Caught Before the Act\". Daily Mail. November 28, 2008 - \"CCTV cameras which can 'predict' if a crime is about to take place are being introduced on Britain's streets. The cameras can alert operators to suspicious behaviour, such as loitering and unusually slow walking. Anyone spotted could then have to explain their behaviour to a police officer.\"","conclusion":"Hi-tech crime cameras help predict and prevent criminal acts"}
{"id":"df9702a3-8738-4ad1-83ff-3dc639df8016","argument":"I picked up Knights of the Old Republic Will use KOTOR for the rest of the time a few years back and I played it all the way through. I thought it was the bomb and was the only RPG I had played all the way through at the time. I loved the story and everything about it, and then I learned about its sequel, The Sith Lords. I was ecstatic that my favorite game had a sequel, so I read some reviews and was surprised by all the negative feedback. I bought it anyways, and I played it all the way through. To be short, I LOVED IT. I thought the storyline was much more intriguing, I felt my decisions had more impact, and I thought the companions were much more interesting this time around. People say they dislike it due to it being cut short in development by Obsidian, but I think it is still very complete. Could someone try and change my view as to why the original game is better?","conclusion":"Knights of the Old Republic 2 is better than the first one"}
{"id":"0fb5f997-5265-442a-ba64-264bf7af2ea1","argument":"In the U.S., only 10 of 50 states pay legislators enough to make a living, according to a 2017 report by the National Conference of State Legislatures.","conclusion":"Politicians often need a second income to meet the needs of their household."}
{"id":"469537ab-b2a7-4403-a37e-3901e77b466f","argument":"If great white sharks perish, other animals will go on without them, but they require seals and other sea-life to flourish.","conclusion":"This is true for all apex predators This is not specific to humankind."}
{"id":"5ef4fabd-4643-450c-89c7-62a3aee42a8d","argument":"The diet of a farm worker in 18th century England would consist mostly of root vegetables, bread, cheese, butter, sugar, tea, and a little milk.","conclusion":"Meat has been a rare and expensive good for most of human history, so it could not have been a strong cultural component."}
{"id":"f28a86f2-47f7-4623-b275-c2af9fa16be0","argument":"In 2014 the Swiss public voted to limit immigration numbers even though this put Switzerland in violation of various treaties in the EU.","conclusion":"Referendums treat issues in isolation, allowing voters to ignore the trade-offs or consequences of their policy choices."}
{"id":"7c347b06-a7c5-4821-8c06-45c71fe29459","argument":"Many people, such as political figures and cult leaders, have amassed a large number of followers without being deities.","conclusion":"Just because early Jesus followers believed he was the messiah, doesn't mean he actually was."}
{"id":"d6ca6406-3dd6-45ef-ba6d-490ab867a1ed","argument":"The argument is simple enough. Other people have largely irrational standards and customs and judgments they apply to people they meet. These judgments largely affect how they see you and how they treat you. If you are a weird person or violate any of their justified or not senses of propriety, normalcy, mannerliness, or morality, the other people in your life will cause you significant problems. Co workers. Bosses. Family. Friends. Strangers at businesses you frequent. Neighbors. It is better to blend in, not stick out, be normal, and not make a wave. It is better to hide your unusual, weird, potentially negatively judgable qualities and keep them to yourself or maybe to a small group of trusted close friends. To be clear, I'm not saying you are a morally better person to be normal. I'm saying that it is pragmatically not a good idea to be weird. It is of course pragmatically desirable to show off your normal good qualities. You SHOULD worry about what other people think of you. So, conformity is far better pragmatically than individuality to live a happy life in a human society.","conclusion":"- Conformity is pragmatically more desirable and useful than individuality"}
{"id":"276a716e-b7f1-4783-8ad6-8086ffad4230","argument":"Note I included background information that may be of use in your comments. You can skip right to my pros and cons of digital HD ownership if you want. Backstory I've slowly been growing a substantial collection of movies on iTunes. It seems to me like a good idea for anyone to do. However, I want to read other opinions on this to see if this really a good idea after all. If this is a bad question, then let's say it's from an alternate universe where it's a good one. c I didn't give iTunes movies much thought until I got an Apple TV. They enable you to stream movies you rent or own on an HDTV pretty conveniently. My internet is bad, but I can even stream it directly from my phone. It looks great. My decision to begin collecting movies on iTunes wasn't an abrupt one. I started off just redeeming codes on movies I'd already bought. Once I got the hang of it, I started buying bundles on sale. Now I've been a part of the Disney Movie Club and collecting other Disney movies too. I have almost 60 movies on my iTunes account. Right now, most of the movies I own are also moves I own DVD or blu ray. I never really broke off and started buying all my movies on iTunes. It's what I lean for right now, but my collection doesn't reflect it. My current opinion is that this is a good setup for anyone, and anyone who wants to collect movies would be in a good position to start doing it on services like iTunes, Vudu, or Amazon. Pros and Cons I think it's a good idea for the following reasons You can't lose or break purchased licenses, or have them stolen You don't have to fumble around with discs or a player You don't have to store them I'll never have to pay to watch them again unless something horrible happens with iTunes Some concerns I have that may help you If anything happens to my Apple account, I'm SOL I can't loan them Not remotely a big deal, but it's true If Apple TV or home streaming dies out and my Apple TV becomes unusable somehow, I'm SOL Ambivalent thoughts If I ever get a 4K TV, my 1080p blu rays and digital HD copies will not be optimal. I will have to buy new copies. Factors like internet quality, device costs, and whether I will simply be able to upgrade my 1080p digital copies for a lesser fee are factors These thoughts can all be extended to the other digital HD services. None of these cons make me feel at all like digital HD ownership is a bad idea, but they're their to support your arguments and possibly develop. I have intentionally worded this question to avoid the topic of whether or not purchasing movies altogether is a good or bad idea. The topic concerns what to do when you've decided you will collect home videos. I have a definite plan to buy more digital HD movies in the near future that will probably not change as a result of this . My delta awarding will be based on whether or not you give me suitable self doubt or bad feelings about continuing with this plan.","conclusion":"If someone is going to collect movies on home video, a great way to do it is to buy them on digital HD."}
{"id":"c6adc0e9-494a-4280-bc31-5d8634d2e2dc","argument":"Currently a shipment from Shanghai to New York has to travel 31,651 kilometres through the Panama Canal. Travelling through the Northwest Passage would reduce the travel by about half the time - to roughly 15,000 kilometres.","conclusion":"The Chinese government have been eyeing up the passage as a lucrative potential shortcut for routes from Europe to Asia."}
{"id":"a96c90fc-196c-44b8-8949-ce96ed54892f","argument":"As Robert Mahoney, deputy director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, argued \"with this prosecution of Julian Assange, the U.S. government could set out broad legal arguments about journalists soliciting information or interacting with sources that could have chilling consequences for investigative reporting and the publication of information of public interest.\"","conclusion":"If Assange is not freed, it could criminalise the critical work of investigative journalists and their ability to protect their sources."}
{"id":"baf1fa94-5d5f-4554-b714-0c0370350a35","argument":"Not exclusively, of course, but when I see an open compact spot in a crowded parking lot, I take it. I always park between the lines, and make sure I leave room for my neighbors to get into their doors. Today I had somebody bitch at me about parking a pickup truck in a compact spot. I get that my car is not compact, but a compact spot is neither a . Legally binding like a handicapped spot nor b . A reward given to certain drivers like employee parking . Compact parking only exists because it allows businesses to fit more cars into their parking lot. If I can fit my car between the lines, I shouldn't be chastised for parking there.","conclusion":"I park my non-compact car in a compact zone."}
{"id":"d4132908-9539-47a9-b31a-e7260171d880","argument":"In many countries without strong state support for family planning services, doctors might be more inclined towards the lucrative work of performing abortions over the prescription of birth control - as was the case in Romania throughout the 1990s.","conclusion":"The issue is that these resources are not properly allocated or presented to the populace. Women should not be made to suffer because of a failure of government."}
{"id":"caf45a7b-9685-4582-a8ce-7f7e65d5c5cd","argument":"No pun intended on the title. But the idea is that employers don't care about your state of mind on your off days. It's my view that a vast majority of drug tests for pending applications aren't there to screen out people that smoke pot on their off days. They're there to screen the people that can't stop smoking pot for a long enough period of time to find decent employment. If you're in the job hunt, smoking pot or doing any drugs, really tells an employer that you value getting high over employment, which is a huge negative in an employer's eyes. In a majority of areas, it also signifies that you're willing to break the law when you feel that the laws don't apply to you, which is another huge negative in an employer's eyes. Now, I don't think that smoking pot makes you a loser or anything, but if you can't give drugs during a job search, most people wouldn't hire you. It's not about employers hating you for getting high, it's about removing those that don't give a fuck about their job. edit I want to make it clear I'm NOT talking about stuff like police firefighters ems military, where drugs actually will impact your job.","conclusion":"Drug tests for jobs aren't about the drugs, they're about weeding out the losers. For the most part, anyhow."}
{"id":"ef2e960e-268d-4a02-b623-b5528f65f76b","argument":"The more out of the ordinary a claim is the stronger the evidence required to convince a reasonable person. Washington being the first president of the United States is comparatively a lot less extraordinary than a miracle.","conclusion":"We don't simply accept that Washington was the first president of the US because it was a story passed down through generations, but because it was well documented and observed."}
{"id":"030a03f4-7419-49dd-9625-094e9046de87","argument":"Suicide rates are the highest in men because some feel like they can\u2019t talk about their problems without being made to feel they\u2019re being \u201cunmanly\u201d or too \u201cfeminine\u201d for expressing emotions. They still need feminism.","conclusion":"Men still feel they can\u2019t properly express themselves without being ridiculed by other men and women, they need feminism."}
{"id":"233d9ca4-b43e-4c02-bf84-45315f3c24a7","argument":"If God truly existed, due to his power we should be able to detect him.","conclusion":"Absence of evidence is evidence of absence when the evidence should be there."}
{"id":"cd248740-a6a6-4037-bc30-057376c33e85","argument":"So just a quick background for anyone out of the loop, sometime around the 1980s reports of Catholic clergy sexually abusing children started to surface. In the some 40 odd years since, such reports have only become more numerous, accompanied by three further disturbing facts 1 the culture of child sexual abuse has been uncovered in hundreds of different Catholic organizations in dozens of countries, showing it isn't an isolated phenomenon, 2 rather than actively trying to root out and expose offending clergy, the Catholic hierarchy has often gone to great lengths to conceal child molesters and rapists and their behaviors hush money to the parents, moving priests around once exposed, etc. and has sometimes defended those who do get exposed, and 3 the deep culture indicates this problem is far older than just a few decades. Now of course there are disturbing trends among many religious organizations. Intolerance, executions, terrorism, etc. The reason I single out the Catholic Church in this regard is because, unlike other religious institutions, they are all directly linked, all the way from the Holy See to your local church. This is not the case for, say, Protestant churches while they both peddle similar ideologies, they're not linked anymore than two different bakeries are linked beyond the fact they both sell bread. With Catholics it's more like one big company owns all of those different bakeries. They're linked by more than just what they say there's a clear hierarchy presiding over all of it. If a rogue Islamic terror cell commits some horrible act, that's bad, but it's not really a statement about the whole of the Muslim faith in the same way that a Catholic priest raping a kid and then having the higher ups swoop down from the Vatican to try and cover it up is a statement about Catholicism. Thus, if you continue being a Catholic despite the preponderance of evidence that the Church is seemingly at least in part an organization that exists to enable and defend child rapists, you are tacitly or explicitly condoning that purpose by not leaving. At best it isn't a big enough issue for you to want to hand in your Bible and go elsewhere, which makes me wonder what would be a big enough scandal to warrant that response. If not a decades or centuries long history and culture of raping children, than what? If that's not enough to get you to leave, I posit nothing of any meaning possibly could. I actually spoke to one of my Irish Catholic relatives about this. He offered up a lot of, in my opinion, measly excuses to justify his continued membership. Things like he doesn't support the abuse, he gets a lot of positive spiritual meaning from the Church, it's a family tradition, etc. Alright, lets take that and apply it to another example. Say you're part of a soccer organization, one of the biggest in the world, 1,200,000,000 members of all sexes and ages. It is revealed that your soccer organization has been embroiled in a child abuse epidemic for at least a few decades spanning across hundreds of smaller branches in dozens of countries. Despite being outed, this epidemic shows no real evidence of slowing. To the contrary, it's also revealed that officials in this soccer league, from the most humble coach to the CEO of the organization, almost invariably take steps to cover up instances of child rape when they happen and will defend offenders when they are caught. Now I don't know about you, but that's more than enough for me to nope the fuck out of that organization in a heartbeat. Especially if I have kids. I don't care how much I love my local coach, or how much meaning I get out of playing soccer, or how much fun Jr. has at his games, or how long my family has been involved with the league I'm out. I'm not going to pay my dues to an organization like that, I'm not going to work on their behalf or wear their logo and I'd frankly be ashamed to admit to people that I even used to be a member, much less a current one. I'd argue that any when any Catholic offers up excuses of the sort my cousin offered, all they're essentially saying is that it's worth tacitly supporting child rape in order to get those benefits for themselves. Akin to saying We know the soccer coach rapes kids and I mean it's not like we like him raping kids, but we're going to keep paying him money and wearing his team logo because just look at how happy Jr. is when they win a game It's a shit excuse and a very poor moral judgement in my view. Whatever it is that Catholics personally get from engaging with their organization, I should think that it's not worth supporting an epidemic of child rape in order to continue getting especially when they could get almost the exact same thing from a non child raping organization. In my view, as someone who has a very large and very Catholic family, there are a thousand and one reasons to absolutely despite the Church the Inquisition, forced conversion of indigenous people, the Crusades, injustice towards women, perpetuating AIDs by lying to people about condoms, persecution of Jews, engaging in the slave trade, just getting around to admitting in 1992 that Galileo may have been right, deals with Hitler, persecution of homosexuals, excommunications of vasts swaths of Christianity only lifted in 1964 , the concept of limbo, and the egregious hypocrisy of a bunch of men who claim to represent Jesus Christ, the meek, mild, nonmaterialist that he was, and claim to be interested in the betterment of humanity all while wearing robes that cost more than most cars as they lounge around in private palaces with gilded walls, packed to the gills with priceless art treasures that look down as they count and horde their wealth which measures in the billions but if none of that is enough to get you to give up being a Catholic, I would think the final straw would be their regular and ongoing institutional practice of raping kids. Y'all know what to do. Cheers. x200B","conclusion":"In light of the various sex abuse scandals the Church has been involved in, it makes no sense to continue to identify as a Catholic."}
{"id":"55648d66-0160-4ebf-92f4-587decca95e4","argument":"In addition to pardons, the President can 'commute' sentences to rectify excess in legislation or the courts. Governors also have this right for State crimes. Both States and Federal Executive Branches have a vetting process to mange requests. Abuse is limited.","conclusion":"History has proven that our legal system sometimes results in bad decisions from time to time and the Presidential pardon is a great way to rectify mistakes and overreaches."}
{"id":"595cf28f-28b2-4847-8770-37f908b397cd","argument":"In Numbers 31:17 they are told to murder all the children amongst the enemies and any woman who might be pregnant.","conclusion":"The Old Testament provides evidence for God's promotion of evil."}
{"id":"922c9b92-c4eb-4ad8-bd85-0c3a7b3f0608","argument":"Science relies on gathering evidence to support a claim, and religion relies on refuting evidence to support its claim. Religion has presented no evidence to suggest that there is an entity that controls our lives and the universe, except for their \"holy\" textbooks, which are a man-written documents that have been edited numerous times by varying religious figures.","conclusion":"Science justifies doubts about theism because science manages to explain the natural world with no need for gods or God."}
{"id":"8a01d6f2-1b3c-4455-bd4d-de83520de4f8","argument":"Sherman's interview for context. Many people are up in arms and borderline disgusted that a player would act this way. I honestly don't see why it is a big deal. These people are paid to destroy each other on the field. Every other player gives the same boring interview after every game thanking coaches, god, players, etc. I find it way more entertaining that some guy stepped out of the norm. I personally believe that if you were offended by what he did, you take the NFL too seriously.","conclusion":"I do not think Richard Sherman's interview was bad. I think it was entertaining and more players should be like that."}
{"id":"8106062c-86ee-4b4f-9a53-a0a1673a6bdd","argument":"If countries can simply send their nuclear waste away when they are finished with it, they are less likely to be careful with the amount of nuclear waste they produce, as they are not responsible for it.","conclusion":"If countries are obligated to take care of the nuclear waste they produce, then they are likely to be deterred from utilizing nuclear facilities."}
{"id":"2b374445-66c2-41ff-8907-97f44383b991","argument":"As a result of the prosperity gospel many megachurch leaders have their own private jets and exorbitant amounts of money while their congregations remain impoverished or at average income.","conclusion":"Corruption spread through some religions as their leaders sought financial and social gain."}
{"id":"561a2890-2633-49e3-9a0d-086f45435b35","argument":"Animals cannot opt out or into dangerous situations, so it is a human's responsibility to give animals freedom from pain and anguish where they cannot themselves.","conclusion":"Humans should be valued over animals, as we are the only ones capable of caring for Earth and resolving the damage we've done."}
{"id":"4c7bf5d1-5d23-40d6-be0a-43aae7b3b28d","argument":"The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights ICCPR is a multilateral treaty adopted by the UN's General Assembly. It commits its parties to respect the civil and political rights of individuals.","conclusion":"The UDHR has been used as the base of many legally binding international agreements."}
{"id":"5f74e02d-bd3f-46ad-a86e-de0fc4f6f3c3","argument":"Humans have gotten to this dark period in time when we could face nuclear annihilation at any second. We have become complacent with this fact, which is extremely disturbing. I think it will only get worse as technology advances, new weapons so powerful that nuclear weapons will be considered obsolete. What does all this lead to, eventually there will come a period in time when we will surely WMDs will be used again. Options are limited, certain countries will never get rid of them. Why we don't learn from history is beyond me. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"It is inevitable that humanity will destroy itself"}
{"id":"f97761dd-7982-4970-b9a8-115d63293317","argument":"We understand perfectly the extent to which humans can feel pain or suffer in meaningful ways, since we can directly access those experiences by feeling pain ourselves. By contrast, we have no idea what it feels like to suffer as an animal, and therefore whether that is meaningful or not.","conclusion":"We are unable to understand how, or even if, animals feel pain in a way that is remotely similar to how humans do. We should therefore prioritise quantifiable human utility."}
{"id":"37182f48-88fa-4cd0-864e-e296742f8051","argument":"There are many things wrong with the anti vaccination movement that honestly just angers me to think about. It is not opinion what vaccines do. There are literally billions of real life trials living today that show their effectiveness. What these people are doing is They are putting their own child's life at risk, with no say from the child. In essence they are choosing to ignore anything said from credible sources in modern medicine. We are having the worse cases of whooping cough in decades and as more children do not get vaccinated, it is going to simply get worse. This leads into the second part. They are destroying our herd immunity. There are many people who cannot receive vaccines, whether due to where they live, their state of health, or poverty. There was recently an outbreak of measles in an unvaccinated child in the US, a disease which was eliminated from the US decades ago. These are serious diseases and they are contributing to the propagation of them worldwide. They seem to forget how deadly smallpox was only decades ago, which has now been eliminated because of vaccines. Their argument that vaccines are contributing to the mutation of viruses are built on half science. Studies by the NIH and the NCBI show that the antigenic drift that vaccines cause shift the virus towards an evolutionary endpoint, and that it is the presence of an unvaccinated population that chiefly allows mutation. Let's say that their points are true though that vaccines cause autism. The rates which this may occur is below the infection rate of these viruses which the vaccines protect against. I personally would have an autistic child then a dead one. No vaccine will ever be 100 safe that simply is not the nature of biology. By choosing to ignore these claims heavily supported by scientific evidence, they are doing the equivalent of letting their child smoke, or failing to clean them properly, promoting disease and infection. Thus for the child's well being, and the health of the human race, antivaccination should be treated as criminal neglect and endangerment. EDIT I'm not even going to address the stupidity of the mercury formaldehyde argument. There is chlorine in your salt and cyanide in your flour anticaking agent, ferrocyanide . Learn science. BIG EDIT When I say criminal charges, I meant child protective services. sorry for the confusion. EDIT EDIT I never claimed I know everything, nor do I think so. I know very little. I understand this as someone who studies science. I, simply with the facts which are available, feel that not vacccinating your children is putting them in harms way. edit edit edit Hey top post on  Just woke up and read through the comments. There are some good points being made and this is a apparently an issue of a lot of contention. You're all awesome. Keep it up EDIT^4 I'm just waiting now at this point to see the SRD or SRS link to pop up.","conclusion":"Parents part of the anti-vaccination movement are criminally neglecting and harming their children, and thus should be addressed as such in the court of law."}
{"id":"56e29086-11b3-441d-b3c8-f2170db18c7c","argument":"The only argument I can see is There is no greatest country in the world , but for the purpose of this lets say we had to choose. There is no single country that does as much, as well as the United States. I will go over all the criteria I used to come to my conclusion. Economics The US of course has the largest economy in the world by a factor of ~2. Its not really particularly close. However the EU as a whole does have a larger economy than the US. The US's GDP per capita is higher than the EU as a whole. The US ranks 4th in median income. The USD is the standard for international trade and investment. Science The US has been the leader in space exploration and discovery for the past ~60 years. Even after we have ended our manned program, probes such as Voyager are still making discoveries. Hubble and other powerful telescopes are making scientific advancements previously unheard of. The ISS which has been funded in bulk by the US is an impressive show of our ability to live for extended durations in orbit. Not to mention the countless spinoff tech that has came from NASA The US has over 300 Nobel laureates. No other country has over 150. Source Education An overwhelming majority of the worlds best Universities are located in the US According the this education index the US ranks 13th in overall education. The US is the world leader in research spending by a large amount. Source Culture US popular culture has a massive influence on the rest of the world. US films, TV, and theater are appreciated around the world. The US has been ranked 1 in charitable giving The US is ranked 3rd in the Human Development Index. Source Military This could be a negative in some people's eyes, but the US military is massive deterrent for large scale conflict. This Harvard professor says we are living in the most peaceful time in human history. I don't think that we as people have evolved into a more peaceful species. That would be rather naive. Nuclear weapons, along with the threat of the most powerful nation on the planet retaliating against any unneeded aggression has kept many conflicts from even occurring. Not to mention that the US subsidizes defense spending for a large portion of the West. Do we have to? Not really, but if we didn't I don't think the last 70 years would have been nearly as peaceful. This is an andectal story from my experience, but I found it particularly moving. I took an East Asian politics course this past semester at college, and in some sort of tangent my professor asks us who we thought the best President in US history was. The class gives the the typical Lincoln, Washington, or FDR type answers. Our Professor though, who was an immigrant from South Korea, said he thought it was Harry Truman. Truman's decision to help defend South Korea saved his people from the same gloomy fate as the North, and he was still grateful for that. Summary What I believe to be most impressive about all the US does, is the sheer scale. Providing such a high quality of life for such a massive population is truly unprecedented in human history. Are there some countries that give much smaller populations slightly better service? Sure, but I don't believe that this outweighs the scale of what the US does. The only comparable population would perhaps be Japan. There may be countries that do some things better the the US in the small scale, but I don't think any one country can truly claim to be better than the US as a whole. Can any single country claim to have this much of a positive impact in almost every aspect of life? I can't name one. EDIT I am not claiming the US is perfect or anywhere near there. We have a large amount of flaws. However not other single country can claim to have a greater positive net impact on its citizens and the rest of the world. I also wish people wouldn't blindly downvote because they disagree. I was really looking forward to a good discussion.","conclusion":"I think the USA is the greatest country in the world."}
{"id":"f471108f-5f17-44e0-9806-6a05dad9eec8","argument":"I've been called a nazi sympathizer and many names around it for suggesting that punching Richard Spencer is not the answer, and now I feel I've been vindicated after the events of yesterday. The Antifa punched the nazis and the nazis refined their tactics and destroyed the Antifa at Berkeley, and this is only a minuscule showcase of their power. The bad news is we don't have the power or training to defeat people literally planning on violent genocide, the good news is we can win the much more powerful battle, the battle of logic and empathy. The fascists have experience fighting at the lowest level, don't stoop to a level you cannot win at.","conclusion":"Berkeley proves that violence against fascists only makes them stronger."}
{"id":"653fce09-bf23-4d93-a9ab-f726c5d357b5","argument":"I believe that people should not be able to have gender reassignment surgery that is paid for by taxpayers. I believe this public money could be better spent on other, more life threatening treatments. For example this article details how cuts in the UK have caused 220 operations to be cancelled a day I get that the direct cause of this is budget cuts but I would rather my taxes paid for someone to have a surgery they desperately needed than a surgery that is essentially cosmetic in value. I understand that trans people suffer emotional distress and their psychological health could be improved by having gender reassignment surgery. However the same could be said for women with small breasts who feel emotional distress and a low self image. Josie Cunningham had a boob job paid for by the NHS and this led to a ban on tax payers funding boob jobs for psychological reasons as detailed here If women can't have boob jobs for psychological reasons then why can trans people have gender reassignment surgery for the same reasons. I personally believe neither should be paid for by the tax payer and I think should someone want a surgery that does not benefit their physical health then they should have to foot the cost. I would like an argument that does not look to discredit the little evidence I have provided but looks to change my view on the issue as a whole. I am however openminded and will consider any rational argument, I am willing to  if a really strong argument is presented. EDIT If you are appealing to psychological reasons for your argument then please try and frame your arguments so that they make a distinction between why trans people should have gender reassignment and why people with poor self image that leads to extreme depression shouldn't have free cosmetic surgery. SECOND EDIT View is somewhat changed, I now understand the distinction between cosmetic surgery and reassignment explanation is given in response to garnteller's comment. Thank you all for your responses.","conclusion":"I believe taxes shouldn't pay for gender reassignment surgery"}
{"id":"b16f7ab0-4fa7-4d8d-9cdd-9b70b1fecf39","argument":"A strong argument can be made that no one else should have a say over a woman's choice to get an abortion or not. But that considered, then if a woman decides to keep a child against the wishes of the father, then the father should not be forced to financially support that decision. A common argument i hear is, if a man is given a say over a woman's right to choose, then he has rights over her. Thats an argument i completely agree with. But a lot of people at least in my circles disagree with this argument when applied in reverse. If a woman decides to keep a child against the wishes of the father, then doesn't she have a right over him, if he is forced to support her choice financially? Abortion gives women the ability to opt out of parentage. But any ability to opt out of parentage for men is completely in the hands of the mother. This isn't equal treatment of the sexes. Caveat The ability for men to opt out of parentage should only be available as long as a women is legally allowed to abort a child, i.e, a man cant deny a child once its born or its too late to abort. EDIT I quite foolishly assumed the following information was a given. I am making this argument from the context that conception has already taken place accidentally , due to unforeseen circumstances, such as a condom break.","conclusion":"If a woman has a unilateral right over deciding if she wants to abort or not, a man should not be forced to pay child support if he doesn't want a child."}
{"id":"014cf968-5dde-4ad7-a371-dda95e05f016","argument":"I believe that the main reason this is done is speed trap drivers into paying money to the county or city in which they are ticketed in. This is not protecting anyone. There should be a speed limit, but it should be loosely enforced. Highways only. I understand speeding is dangerous when you are in a town or a neighborhood, but when you have exit and on ramps clearly dividing the traffic from any obstacle it seems ridiculous.","conclusion":"I think it should be illegal for police to radar drivers on an interstate highway system."}
{"id":"b113e9ac-5f8f-4e2a-a441-dd59c2504d52","argument":"Impeachable offenses, such as confessing to obstruction of justice before a national television audience or dereliction of duty to defend the citizens of the US, have been plainly observed by Members of Congress, which is the presiding body over impeachment proceedings.","conclusion":"Impeachment could be sought for grounds outside of the core purpose of the Mueller investigation."}
{"id":"be306a1d-effd-4c3c-94ee-b469ad8f4adb","argument":"These stereotypes perpetuate misinformation. As with example above, the South African president fails to mention how many dog breeds were started in Africa, such as the Basenji from the Congo","conclusion":"Keeping pets gives cultures a capability to perpetuate colonial stereotypes such as the South African president saying keeping pets is part of \"white culture\""}
{"id":"ebde8ab1-0998-41b7-be9b-469895fafa93","argument":"In the UK reports to the police regarding anti-LGBTQ+ hate crime have increased by 144% from 2013\/14 to 2017\/18, according to the Guardian.","conclusion":"Homophobia and homophobic hate crimes are on a rise around the world."}
{"id":"682ecc26-66b9-4260-9763-23dab43aa896","argument":"I don't know about how it was in the olden times, but I think people should at least wait until they are 15 to have sex. I think kids who are younger are too immature emotionally to deal with the nature of sex, and they probably have a lack of self control to make a proper decision. I think people at that age are only driven by a misguided sense of curiosity without thinking about the consequences or the pressure in society to lose one's virginity. I don't think there is anyone out there who thinks I really am glad I had sex when I was 13 or 14 . Please note that I don't think 15 is a magical age where people are ready to have sex, I'm just giving a liberal estimate.","conclusion":"I don't think there is any good reason for people under the age of 15 to have sex."}
{"id":"84b7ff70-7ab9-43a6-8b0d-a6e53d87abf1","argument":"It's like one, big, messed up popularity contest. Stats. Channels like Smosh, PewDiePie, RayWilliamJohnson, Tobuscus, JennaMarbles, shmoyoho, Fred, annoyingorange, and other well known ones I'm sure you know which seem to be fooling other creators into thinking that acting stupid or creating empty, useless content is the key to success. Youtube isn't really Youtube anymore. You never see any new, refreshing content nowadays. When you do, it's always almost completely unknown and being overshadowed by what's big. After constant failures, users seem to be jumping on the bandwagon and trying to imitate what bigger names are doing. Creativity is essentially dieing, and what we get is stagnant, unfunny, empty, vapid content. Channels like Vsauce, vlogbrothers, MysteryGuitarMan, sxephil, zefrank, smartereveryday and others put so much more effort in their content but have only a fraction of the subscribers. Granted, the audiences of these channels is a lot stronger and more enriched. When you walk away from those channels' content, you always take something away, whether it be new knowledge, something to ponder, a new view about something, or a general feeling of awe, it's something at least. Whenever I try to enjoy any of the content that top makers are dishing out, I simply don't understand why it's so popular. I understand the idea of mindless entertainment, but there are so many other better sources for that. New users of Youtube are likely to see these top creators first, which does absolutely no justice at all to what's really out there. They should add an upcoming page on youtube that shows very new or lesser known channels gaining lots of traction to be seen. Maybe mix up the front page entirely every week. Maybe put new users through an OkCupid style of quiz to dial in what sorts of things they're looking for or are interested in, and then offer up several channels that meet these specific needs. Something, anything to get new, fresh creators in the spotlight. Top users don't need the exposure anymore. They have anywhere between 5 and 10 million subscribers. Their video views alone generate millions of views by default just from the shear volume of followers. The stats show they rake in 10,000 to 50,000 new subs a day, and 50,000 to 100,000 new subs a week. They've already established themselves and are self sustaining. Hell, a lot of VEVO channels dominate the top of the list and should naturally be exempt from the charts due to the nature of the content. I'm really questioning why the top content has made it to the top. Compared to other things, it's really sub par in nature to what others are doing. Even the content I don't care for, there are literally other channels doing the same stuff, and doing it a lot better. Some may say that it's just my opinion, but I'm really starting to think that maybe it's not. There has to be some reason for why things are panning out the way they are, because it just doesn't look right. The quality is literally nonexistent now. I'm beginning to think that top creators are either 1 generating so much revenue that Google Youtube is intentionally making it easier for them to stay successful in order to keep money rolling in due to influence 2 or these creators' success was a total fluke, and they got too popular, too quickly, which means the content never evolved from hard work and was stunted in sort of a rough, unrefined, infant stage. New users joined the site looking for this content and saw this unrefined garbage on top, and thought well it's the most popular so it must be the best right now , which only further helped the success snowball. Either way, at the end of the day, Youtube has become absolutely diluted in garbage content, and with so much money involved invested in this weak content, it only further encourages it, and change seems impossible. The structure of the website atm lets the big get bigger, and the small to wither away. True high effort content and creativity is being suffocated and smothered out. Because of this, these users are at the risk of ceasing what they're doing completely, or changing things up in order to imitate what the big names are doing. Until new, fresh content is given a proper chance, or a new structure is implemented that exposes users only to content they're truly interested in from the start, the current big names will remain on top and be the gold standard of what success on Youtube should be like. New users will be a lot less likely to take a risk and try something totally new.","conclusion":"I feel like Youtube is fooling people into thinking they can \"do anything\", which is making for some pretty terrible, low effort content reaching the top of the charts. New ideas are getting snuffed out because of it."}
{"id":"c8439c85-cf01-4e1e-be36-c1c37da2374a","argument":"Despite the fact that one of the leaders of Black Lives Matter is LGBT and the organisation makes fighting for queer people a goal, the LGBT community provides little support at Black Lives Matter protests.","conclusion":"The LGBT community has failed to represent people of colour."}
{"id":"999c8165-7c67-44bb-898b-fd37c1d17951","argument":"Coming off the back of watching Mad Men, I have realised how much thought used to go in to advertising. The advert from the final scene, with the Coca Cola Advert 'Hilltop', is genius it shows that everyone can enjoy a coke, with an original but catchy song in the background. It's a really good advert Look to today we have adverts featuring a picture and a title, or product placement, the last of which appears to be the most prominent. These take no thought to reproduce pay a celebrity a shed load of money to pose with your product on instagram or just take a picture of your product and name it. Admittedly, there are still video adverts however these seem to typically be mundane and repetitive Car ads where a car drives in the middle of nowhere, fast food adverts where they show a load of food and a cow in a farm, comparison site adverts where there's an annoying character who offers you cheaper movie tickets if you buy with them. It seems like people limit their creativity to Christmas adverts, but I believe even these are lacking. Once in a blue moon there is a touching advert, but 99 in 100 adverts are just boring and seem to be trying too hard. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Advertising used to be an art; it's not anymore"}
{"id":"5f703e34-5454-4a94-8bad-8a8e0ebf6f33","argument":"The current drug patent regime is largely designed to benefit and shield the profits of large pharmaceutical companies. This is due to the fact that most of the laws on drug patents were written by lobbyists and voted upon by politicians in the pay of those firms. The pharmaceutical industry is simply massive and has one of the most powerful lobbies in most democratic states, particularly the United States. The laws are orchestrated to contain special loopholes, which these firms can exploit in order to maximize profits at the expense of the taxpayer and of justice. For example, through a process called \"evergreening\", drug firms essentially re-patent drugs when they near expiration by patenting certain compounds or variations of the drug1. This can extend the life of some patents indefinitely ensuring firms can milk customers at monopoly prices long after any possible costs of research or discovery are recouped. A harm that arises from this is the enervating effect that patents can generate in firms. When the incentive is to simply rest on one's patents, waiting for them to expire before doing anything else, societal progress is slowed. In the absence of such patents, firms are necessarily forced to keep innovating to stay ahead, to keep looking for profitable products and ideas. The free flow of ideas generated by the abolition of drug patents will invigorate economic dynamism. 1 Faunce, Thomas. 2004. \"The Awful Truth About Evergreening\". The Age. Available: improve this","conclusion":"The current patent system is unjust and creates perverse incentives that benefit large pharmaceutical companies at the expense of ordinary citizens"}
{"id":"fe2cedf2-df29-4c1c-a229-d766306b4442","argument":"For social identity theorists, gender identity is one's subjective awareness of and feelings for their gender category Frable p. 4.","conclusion":"It is still unclear how to measure ones sense of gender effectively."}
{"id":"a20b3a84-7d5a-413c-a236-c861e12e68fb","argument":"In electing a politician you pass the burden of decision making onto an elected \"professional\" whose career depends on making the correct decision for their constituents and the country. The electorate can see the impact of a policy once it is implemented and can judge a politician or party on the effect that it has had over a parliament. They should not be put in charge of policy through referendums because it's not their full time job and no one is accountable if it goes badly see Boris.","conclusion":"If this were true, the same would count for all kind of elections."}
{"id":"79f505a5-2c5f-4e78-8d44-f1d61cd2bec3","argument":"The American School Counselor Association recommends a student-counselor ratio in high schools of no more than 250 to one, a ratio met by only three states in the US. A study conducted with the National Association for College Admission Counseling found that the national average of student-counselor ratio in the US is 482 to one.","conclusion":"Even though schools have deeply committed counselors, they serve so many students that it becomes impossible to provide a lot of individualized attention to each student."}
{"id":"74050266-aae1-43d1-970b-26591006aa02","argument":"I'm sorry I don't have any hard science. As the title says essentially I don't believe the automobile as we know it today serves any purpose other than getting material human or otherwise from point A to point B. To start off I'm just gonna go ahead and define automobile as four wheels, and engine, and an exhaust and it seats 2 people. I see automobiles as a necessary evil. They're not ideal for long term transportation trips longer than 4 hours as they get cramped and uncomfortable but if there aren't alternative modes of transportation to where you're headed it's a necessary evil. For short term there are different and better ways to get around. For example in a city it may be more advantageous to take a rail, bike, or walk to where you need to go. The frequent use of automobile has created this large network of pedestrian unfriendly highways and roadways through cities and countrysides. Even with the proper training there are just a percentage of accidents you're not going to be able to avoid no matter how good of a driver you are. As well as the inefficiency of how many people you can fit in a car and the frequency with which the car is used and the number of cars on the road currently has lead to many unsolvable problems that large urban cores face today. If an automobile is to be used at all, its use should be strictly utilitarian and nothing more. This is also why I detest car company ads. We've all seen the ad, where some slick camera work displays this beautiful polished car while some cool song is playing and this car is just tearing it up on open asphalt with not another soul around. The reality of the situation is that those 250 some odd horses are going to be useless when you're barely dragging your feet going 5 mph bumper to bumper on the interstate. It sickens me that there are people who drive cars for fun. I'm not a radical environmentalist but I don't honestly think that you can justify in this day and age driving a car around to cool your head or to relax. I could understand maybe if you wanted to drive TO somewhere so you can go to that place and relax, but driving just to clear your head? Ridiculous. Regarding off roading Unacceptable and a blatant misuse of what a vehicle should be. Regarding racing sports This seems okay in my book. I hesitate to call it a sport because there are so many factors within a car as that could be different that I can't see it as a test of skill between drivers but more as a test of engineering between manufacturing companies. But that's a  for another time. Technically it falls within the definition that it takes the driver to the finish line, the goal of the sport being who can get there the fastest. Considering the large effects that cars have had in shaping our society I believe that they are a tool and nothing more. They can be a symbol of wealth much like an expensive hammer can be a symbol of wealth as opposed to a cheap plastic one. But like you would never go around smashing things senselessly with your expensive hammer, I think aimless trips in a car are ethically, financially, and functionally unjustifiable. Change my view.","conclusion":"I believe that the true purpose of the automobile is utilitarian in nature."}
{"id":"083027f1-874f-4458-89a6-d37b7cb2c89f","argument":"I don't think there should be two divisions in the NFL when it comes to the playoffs. The best teams should play one another to determine which two teams make it into the Super Bowl regardless of their divisions. Right now, the two best teams can theoretically be in the same division. In that type of case, I don't think it's right for the two best teams to play one another to decide who plays an inferior team in the Super Bowl just because they are in a different division. The divisions are kind of arbitrary when it comes to determining who the real champions are. .","conclusion":"I don't think there should be two divisions in the NFL when it comes to the playoffs. The best teams should play one another to determine which two teams make it into the Super Bowl regardless of their divisions."}
{"id":"ff3e52e2-93c9-4315-b523-029d8f42d1f1","argument":"First off, I am not a parent. Maybe that disqualifies me from making any comments about this matter in the first place. Either way, I am a fairly objective person and I can admit when I am wrong. I do not buy into the whole argument of 'just because our parents brought us into the world, we owe them our lives.' Whether a child was brought into the world by choice or not, I don't think that being born should impose a debt of respect on the child. Furthermore, I think that this respect needs to be earned. I define respect in this context as 'regard for another person's rational ability, trusting that they can admit when they are wrong and that their decisions are well thought out.' This is why I think that giving the reason 'because I said so' is a total cop out. If the parent is not open to having a conversation about the reason for their actions, then I don't think they deserve the child's respect. Don't get me wrong, I think it is crucial for a child to be told when they are wrong so that they don't grow up into narcissistic asshats. However, I think that they deserve a logical conversation with a parent until one side admits, of his own accord, that he is in the wrong.","conclusion":"Parents are not entitled to unconditional respect from their children just by virtue of being their parents."}
{"id":"0f4d8d29-0ef8-43b8-9cdc-e3210436f160","argument":"Time was back during the earlier days of the 360 and PS3 consoles were a legitmate alternative for someone who didn't want to spend an arm and a leg on a good gaming PC and just wanted a simple plug 'n' play experience for the living room. I'd say that time has come and gone and falling PC prices plus the increasing simplicity have made PCs by far the best gaming choice over the PS4 and Xbox One. Console's biggest advantage has always been a much more compact and easily accessible gaming experience than the traditional big chunky PC tower wedged inside an unmovable desk. With my old 360 I could take it anywhere I wanted it, plug in an HDMI, and be playing splitscreen with my friends in just a few minutes. But the PS4 and XB1 have made that less friendly, especially given the near universal middle finger that split screen coop has been given lately the console has become much more of a static living room object. Meanwhile PC's have become more and more mobile with less cords to worry about. Move it over to the TV, plug it in, plug in a controller and set steam to big picture mode. Done. And of course the cost of PCs has gone down drastically, and it doesn't take an electrical engineering degree to build one now days. Given that you can build a PC with equal or superior performance to a next gen console for about the same cost plus you'll save significant cash on games and how easy it is to r buildapc nowadays, just throwing together a PC is a better financial option than a console. Going with the cheaper cost of PCs is the lack of any fee for online play and the higher security of PC gaming networks. While PSN and XBL have been infamously taken down for long stretches of time, PC networks have proven far more robust. Another thing of course worth mentioning is the lack of backwards compatiblity with new consoles, a significant disadvantage to them that makes buying a PS4 over your old PS3 much less of an upgrade than it would be otherwise. Meanwhile PCs can play everything from Pong to Battlefield Hardline, and through emulators can run much more for free. Frankly the only advantage consoles really have is exclusives, and even that's debatable whether it's worth buying a 400 dollar machine just to play a few games, plus that if it comes down an exclusives war then PC has scads more exclusive titles than all the other consoles combined. So yeah, consoles just don't hold a candle to PCs anymore. . EDIT My view has been changed, older generation consoles such as the 360 PS3 are still viable alternatives for people who want a cheap simple gaming system.","conclusion":"At this point there's no good reason to get a console over a PC"}
{"id":"3044aded-966f-499f-9c7b-af076b89964b","argument":"The government does have the right idea that teenagers shouldn't be drinking alcohol, but in my view, nobody who has passed his or her teenage years should be denied. Obviously it should not be 18, because that would give easy access to high school kids. The current drinking age of 21 completely undermines the 20th birthday, the dawn of a new decade, arguably the most important of one's life. Instead of celebrating, most people just simply gloss over their 20th birthdays, just waiting the extra year. Should we skip our 30th birthdays and wait until 31 for a big celebration? 41 instead of 40? Obviously not.","conclusion":"I believe that the US drinking age should be lowered to 20."}
{"id":"fd17b418-8845-4965-a661-5d52aa9dc397","argument":"European, Asian, South American, whatever. I have no problem with embracing your culture, but I don't think you should fly the flag of your or your ancestors' former nation. I'm of Irish heritage, and I celebrate St Patricks day but I would never put a 26 6 1 bumper sticker on my car, and I don't think anyone else should either. It has nothing to do with us. We left Ireland willingly. I think this attitude should apply to everyone in the US except Native Americans obviously . Change my view.","conclusion":"I believe if you live in the United States, being proud of your \"heritage\" is stupid because you probably came here willingly I agree with the statement \"if you love X so much you should go back\"."}
{"id":"daf4f61c-a2dd-4d21-9cce-fdf9a347cd93","argument":"First off, I want to point out that I don't really support war, in general, and especially don't support the killing of hundreds of thousands of innocent people because of what their leaders do. That said, I believe oil is a perfectly justifiable reason to force a regime change in a country. The reason I have come to this conclusion is based on the fact that we rely on oil so heavily that if a large enough of oil suddenly stopped flowing, lots and lots of people would die suffer as a result. I'll use Saddam Iraq as an example. If Hussein a man who was evil enough to use chemical weapons on his own people had been allowed to take over Kuwait Saudi Arabia, he would have controlled a large majority of the oil production around the globe. He would hold a lot of people's lives in his hands. We use oil to run the tractors that work farms, we use oil to ship food all over the world. A large chunk of the global population would suffer as a result of a 15 drop in oil production over night. I realize a 15 drop in oil production doesn't directly translate to 15 of the global population not having access to food, since we use oil for a lot of other things. But, even if it restricted 1 of the populations access to food, you're talking about 70 million people who are now exposed to famine because either the oil wasn't there for the trucks jets that ship food or the oil became so expensive that it is no longer affordable to ship food to people who can't afford the added cost. I apologize for such crude numbers, but I'm just trying to illustrate the point that, the war kills harms far less people than the loss of oil would Change my view","conclusion":"I believe \"war for oil\" is justified."}
{"id":"ee643258-d0fd-4c06-af7c-7f1047740e83","argument":"Classic has much higher item repair cost. This means that dying has a much higher impact and thus fights are much more exciting.","conclusion":"Playing WoW Classic was riskier, thus it felt like your decisions mattered much more."}
{"id":"0a2f753e-8511-4a77-af6e-f111515594f5","argument":"We are all well aware of the fact that basketball superstar Dennis Rodman has become good friends with North Korea's new leader Kim Jong Un. Now there are a couple reasons I believe he should be labeled as an Enemy of the State and put on trial for treasonous acts First of all is the most obvious one which is the fact that he has, quote on quote, made friends with the leader of a country that has some of the largest sustained human rights violations since the Soviet Union. Secondly these frequent trips to and from North Korea pose an enormous security threat to the US. Not only would his life be in danger if war was to break out between the US and North Korea but also the lives of his staff. He could also potentially be used a vessel for an attack on the US by North Korea. Next is the fact that in some ways he is inhibiting the aid that is sorely needed in North Korea. Instead of buying food, clothes, and medical supplies for its people which in all honesty they probably wouldn't do anyways is instead being spent to furnish him and his staff. Lastly is the plain idiocy of the situation. A country which sets hungry dogs on its own people, a country in which it is considered a great honor to kill Americans, and a country who's starving people could care less about basketball is not a country in which he needs to be associating with. Change my view or in this case convince me otherwise.","conclusion":"I believe that Dennis Rodman should be labeled an Enemy of the State and potentially be put on trial for treasonous acts."}
{"id":"623c70f7-1ffd-4215-a7f9-0d5906773b56","argument":"At this point, we put murderers to death in certain cases, namely when it can be proven that the murder was Preeminated in cold blood. We put murderers to death because they are extremely dangerous to society and have broken the social contract. I believe the death penalty is not about vengeance, but about protecting the public from truly dangerous people whose harm can only be stopped by removing them from the earth. To be clear, arguably more minor forms of rape, such as statutory, do not fall under what i believe should be capital offense, similaraly to how a murder in the heat of passion may be treated with a prison sentence instead. Although this definition is not strictly legal, I do side with femanists and law professors who argue that rape is the murder of the soul, and the issue society faces when dealing with rapists is best solved through capital punishment. Just as gangsters have had power to commit murder from inside their cells by sending hit orders through corrupt guards see al Capone and tookie Williams rapists can and will still rape within the walls of a prison see US prisons . They premeditaded doing irreversable harm to an individual and carried it out because they thought they could get away. victims of rape often can never psychologically recover and are in a way killed on the inside. In many extreme cases, rapists are set in their sick ways and can no longer serve society in any way. Please, cmv.","conclusion":"I believe that so long as America has capital punishment, charges of rape and child molestation should qualify for capital punishment."}
{"id":"c0682cf0-a0b0-4c53-a155-249a66435408","argument":"This is a popular theme in SciFi literature. In Arthur C. Clarke's \"Childhood's End for example, aliens have been observing humanity for a long time but only intervene when humans turn into a threat to their own welfare.","conclusion":"In the sense of Star Trek's Prime Directive aliens might not get in touch in order to not disturb Earth's civilization and impose themselves."}
{"id":"b4a5aa93-6a96-45ec-9529-93989244da0c","argument":"When legal there is less danger in openly talking about one's experience as a sex worker.","conclusion":"Legalization allows sex workers to better reshape interpretations of sex and sexuality in society."}
{"id":"f8378d3e-8fed-4a60-b55e-43f7151265b5","argument":"All cosmological models that postulate no beginning to our universe or offer a cause for the beginning through naturalistic events in a prior universe\/multiverse fail to account for observational evidence or still imply a beginning to the prior universe\/multiverse","conclusion":"If the universe has a cause, the best candidate for that cause is the God of classical theism"}
{"id":"984243e4-1551-4445-9033-7523ff9dfca6","argument":"I was reading this thread when it struck me In an edit the OP asks u spez Can you at least comment to say you don't support Fascism and Neo Nazism? because the actions of reddit say otherwise. There are many layers of nuance to be had here, I'll be the first to point out. When Trump was asked the first time to condemn white supremacy it felt like a legitimate question to ask. I think that at that point some people realized that they could use it as a tool to show dominance over those with supposed power. If you do what they ask then you are legitimizing their dominance over you. The socialists would argue that this isn't the case because they don't believe in a power hierarchy. I think that is not true. If you refuse then you are labeled a nazi sympathizer, which is identical to being a nazi yourself. Perhaps someone has a different perspective on this, but it seems very much like an angry mob making demands explicitly they are asking and not demanding, but I would argue that the implication is clear , and I'm pretty sure that there is literally no scenario at least in principal when anyone should do something because an angry mob demands it. I think that the assumption about people you aren't sure about should be that they do not support fascism. Asking someone to assert it just doesn't sit right with me. Reportedly Trump said after condemning fascism the first time that it was the biggest mistake of his life. Maybe he was right. x200B EDIT I think that this video is a good example of what I am talking about The students tell the dean that he has to put his hands behind his back, and when he does they laugh at him. I think this is basically what is happening here. There a tinge of sadism to it.","conclusion":"Asking people to condemn white-supremacy is a cheap power move"}
{"id":"e64389ee-2b1d-479c-8b49-0540bccbbf8c","argument":"People were upset with the Citizens United decision, because turning money into speech effectively legalized corruption. And here we have a case in point. Sheldon Adelson has 33 billion dollars of casino money that he's willing to use to hire politicians to serve what he thinks of as Israel's interests. This includes things like rattling for war with Iran, which would be horrible for US interests, but would be good for hardline Israelis and Benjamin Netanyahu. There should be a huge media shitstorm about this. There should be riots about this. There should be campaigns and protests at least on the scale that there were for SOPA or Ferguson. The US public should be enraged that they, their political servants, war machine, and tax dollars are being manipulated by billionaires on behalf of other countries. This undermines any sort of theory of democratic legitimacy and is completely unacceptable. .","conclusion":"Americans should be enraged that Congress is being bribed\/hired to serve Israel, against US interests"}
{"id":"5ab93e01-50d0-4768-91bb-55b16a1c2773","argument":"I guess this is a 2 parter, so first let me explain my view of the value of democracy, and why it is not longer valuable. You can  on either. I. The value of democracy In my view, the value of democracy is not some lofty ideal of natural law or human rights , but one of crass practicality it allows for governments to change without violence. I don't think it's any coincidence that civil wars and revolutions have largely ended in democratic states, and only where democratic processes have failed, and the governed do not consent for an example you probably know, states rights and the US Civil War is there a violent change of power. Compare this with say the French revolution, or sectarian violence in the largely tribal Middle East, or the communist revolutions in China. In a perverted sort of way, the people who say the ballot box, and then the ammo box aren't wrong that's what the ballot box is there for, and maybe enough people will reach catharsis at the ballot box that the ammo box is not needed. II. Democracy is now losing value I'm not even talking about its value as a method of governing, or determining the objectively right course of action e.g. how much money to spend on roads , but the concept of people 1 being able to choose their government, and 2 being satisfied that being afforded this choice, will non violently accept if their vote does not translate into action i.e. will stop at the ballot box and not move on to the ammo box . 1 People being able to choose their government We always knew that democracy was vulnerable to corruption of the votes ballot box stuffing, vote buying, gerrymandering , but now there is a new attack vector that almost literally cannot be protected against without fundamentally attacking our notion of personal sovereignty attacking the human mind. You cannot force a person to consume a balanced news diet. You cannot force a person to un isolate himself from competing views. I think it's clear that there's a certain portion of the human race that is unable to self reflect and change their mind. And worst of all, improvements in technology have enabled and encouraged all this, and conditions are worsening, not getting better. As much as America is the laboratory for the world, the results have been clear, and other western democracies are not far behind Brexit comes to mind . It's difficult to see democracy as anything but massive political machines that engage with voters not so much to win their votes but to change their minds in order to win the political game. The tail is now wagging the dog. 2 People being satisfied with merely being afforded a vote Following from 1 , people as a whole are becoming more polarised, and the more polarised you are, the less likely you are to accept simply having a vote, or simply being represented, as an alternative to violence. Even without reference to current day affairs, this was the problem with the American Civil War mere representation and being afforded a vote was not enough. If your vote is for a slightly lighter shade of grey compared to a slightly darker shade of grey you might be willing to wait for the next go around, but if you're deciding between literally God and the Devil in your mind , you might not compromise so easily. I don't know, and don't pretend to know, what the next major political invention will be.  of course isn't the right place for it unless of course you manage to convince me that I do know what it is . But it's clear to me that democracy cannot survive the age of individualism, of microcosms, where the battle for power is not fought with tanks or guns but in minds, and where information is weaponised and voters are the targets. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"In the information age, democracy has lost its true value, the non-violent transition of power."}
{"id":"ef4e6942-4dd4-46db-96c1-4742244c0676","argument":"There is limited flexibility for those who wish to store their money in any alternative way to a centralised bank.","conclusion":"You\u2019re locked into a system with no physical representation of your accrued wealth."}
{"id":"82eb9a3e-58a2-444c-bc5a-55ce396d4ae7","argument":"All tests are not necessarily summative, as tests can also serve a formative function: the test not only evaluates whether the potential parent meets the standard required, but also informs the potential parent of what is required of him or her in the context of that particular culture.","conclusion":"What constitutes ideal or adequate parenthood is at least partly a cultural value judgement that isn't meant to reflect a scientific standard but rather a cultural one."}
{"id":"f630f8b9-cb19-4492-b638-c174d7fe0bf3","argument":"There are plenty of cases where young children remember things that they could not have known in this life. The best known studies are by Ian Stevenson","conclusion":"With reincarnation, you can be a murderer before you are born."}
{"id":"28b49108-32f8-4423-808d-8a9cb1510b95","argument":"Unlike humans, robots could be custom built for specific tasks, granting them superhuman abilities that humans are incapable of achieving on their own with any amount of training.","conclusion":"The use of Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems LAWs will be beneficial to society"}
{"id":"23b9eb1e-4adf-47bd-aac7-28199872c027","argument":"There is a good possibility that the reason god does not intervene is because we are all on a path to our own personal perfection. God wants the best for us, however doing everything for us does not accomplish that in any permanent way. Based upon the readings performed by Edgar Cayce, and the resulting theory of our lives","conclusion":"According to the character-building defenses some virtues may be contingent on evil."}
{"id":"de6387c4-4815-44dd-92d4-e79c48f376c8","argument":"Time's have been rough, as you know. Those damned Greeks have been making you and me both tired. Here's a joke A Greek and Italian were arguing over who had the superior culture. The Greek says, We have the Parthenon. Arching his eyebrows, the Italian replies, We have the Coliseum. The Greek retorts, We Greeks gave birth to advanced mathematics The Italian, nodding agreement, says, But we built the Roman Empire. And so on and so on until the Greek comes up with what he thinks will end the discussion. With a flourish of finality he says, We invented sex The Italian replies, That is true, but it was the Italians who introduced it to women. I mean, seriously, 10 years? I'm just glad it's over and we can finally take the spoils of war. Would you rather our men go crazy, I mean, jesus. It's not like we're being tricked This is mother fucking Troy we're talking about here. A city well known to both history and legend. Just look at us Look at these ratings TO THE CITY OF TROY Or not, you know, if my mind is changed. But seriously c'mon let's have a go at it, the wars over Relax. gt Hello, people of the past. This is a footnote from the moderators of this 'internet forum'. I'm afraid to say that some wannabe scientist, while looking into time travel, has caused a temporal distortion field. It should dissipate in the next 24 hours. In the mean time, feel free to message us about a view you hold while you're visiting the present, and remember to have a look through our rules","conclusion":"There's a giant wooden horse outside the walls, I think we should let it in and open it!"}
{"id":"773239b3-bb98-48de-b1a8-de8fa9dcdbfd","argument":"\"Better ways\" requires a moral lens of interpretation. Once you have determined a measure of \"better\" there is a way to optimize it, but for morality to be objective there must be a prior origin of that measure of better.","conclusion":"Talking about \"better\" or \"worse\" ways to use space presupposes the existence of normative truths about which states of affairs are better or worse. Using this to prove the existence of an objective morality therefore begs the question."}
{"id":"a17075ee-4220-4fd1-9173-e640eb78aed2","argument":"The United States has obligations to its own citizens as well as to Iraqis. It is clear that keeping US troops in Iraq undermines the United States' ability to uphold many of its domestic interests and obligations, particularly due to the massive financial strain of the war. The economic difficulties of the United States toward the end of the Bush administration are a testament to how the Iraq War has damaged US domestic interests. This needs to be weighed against considerations of an obligation to Iraqis.","conclusion":"The US has obligations to its own citizens that must be considered along side obligations to Iraqis."}
{"id":"0d0275a8-0817-4562-9350-248456e292cc","argument":"Catholic confession and the consequential hail Mary's achieve little apart from making the \"sinner\" feel better about it until they need to go back to confess again.","conclusion":"Behaviours such as mindless repetitiveness of actions that cannot remedy a particular situation and herd mentality."}
{"id":"d87b30ea-77da-4fbd-b661-0044e7e2a891","argument":"I\u2019ve seen other posts about this issue of \u201ccultural appropriation\u201d on this subreddit, but none seem to address the root argument. It seems that the discussion always boils down to the matter of black people being stigmatized for a hairstyle that white people may be praised for. Therefore, I would like to preface this by saying that I understand the frustration that arises from white people and black peoples being treated differently for the same hairstyle. What I do not believe is that it is inherently wrong for a white person to wear cornrows or deadlocks in and of itself. When I say \u201ccornrows,\u201d I mean this When I say \u201cdreadlocks,\u201d I mean this When I say \u201cwrong,\u201d I mean morally wrong. Edit Since some people have decided to take to the comments and derail this entire prompt, allow me to reiterate This is a matter of cultural appropriation, not one of hygiene. I have not stated that it is okay for people to walk around with nasty dreads in other people\u2019s personal space.","conclusion":"It is not wrong for white people to wear cornrows or dreadlocks."}
{"id":"44139eb6-ab81-43de-8116-665f7af76160","argument":"I was a paramedic in my 20s and and scraped a lot of motorcyclists off the road. Some of these people were not so lucky to survive the crashes. Now i'm a nurse and still deal with men and women of various ages coming in to the hospital to get debris taken out of them. My daughters boyfriend has a motorcycle and she asked if i would be comfortable with him driving her on it, i said no, but she keeps pressing the issue. All of her boyfriends family rides motorcycles and they are comfortable with him driving her on it. She told me that if i post here it will help me becoming more comfortable with her riding passenger, but as for now I'm terrified.","conclusion":"I believe motorcycles are extremely dangerous and should not allow passengers on them."}
{"id":"5bce7df5-288e-4134-8673-8e561151d99b","argument":"I'm 20 years old. I have a disability that has rendered my left leg useless. I struggle with anxiety, used to struggle with depression. I've gotten past the point where I don't want to live. I now want to live so damn bad, and I'm not. I have extremely overbearing parents who, while financially supportive, have imposed a stranglehold on my life. I've only recently realized that none of my life decisions have been my own, they've been theirs. I've got a decent part time job that I could easily transfer to full time and support myself 12.50 hr . I've always been a mediocre test taker and student, so I have very little faith in my educational ability, though I consider myself pretty smart. I've been successful in this job, my metrics are fairly high. My view is that it's time to leave the rest behind, start full time work, and begin life as I choose to be.","conclusion":"It's Time for a More Selfish Lifestyle"}
{"id":"58c8b199-bb3e-4cf4-8085-1b17840de64f","argument":"Affirmative Action's purpose is to level the playing field and give each student a chance at college, no matter the student's background. Basing this giving on skin color, while providing a change to a perhaps disadvantaged historical stereotype, does not accomplish Affirmative Action's purpose. Skin color is a gift, not earned or chosen by a person, but given at birth by parents. Why should this unearned, pre decided trait determine the scholarship a student receives? I believe that all scholarships should be merit based, and while many are, some schools that have to fill race quotas to diversify the campus in the process, ignore more qualified students in favor of the correctly colored one. The intent behind the Affirmative Action is certainly well meaning, aimed at helping needy students. However, the blanket label of race as a signal of need harms all students, regardless of color.","conclusion":"Affirmative Action Policies encourage the prejudice they seek to prevent."}
{"id":"bf7cd34f-0e31-4be6-94ed-9d1d946c60d4","argument":"I live in the UK, where measurements confuse me in endless ways. We measure weight of humans in stone pounds, but food in kilograms, and big things in tonnes. We measure small distances in centimetres or if you're an engineer, millimetres, but measure height in feet and inches. We drive in miles, but lampposts are spaced apart in yards. We talk about height in feet and inches. At the pub, you order a pint of beer, but at the shop, you'd get a 2 litre bottle of lemonade or a pint of milk or a litre of milk. And I'll be honest, I don't even understand Celsius, let alone Fahrenheit. Basically, my life as a British national has been full of measurement confusion. I can't figure out any order to the way we use metric and imperial, and it's probably different for the older generation, too. But I actually think both systems work fine. Imperial works great as it tends to revolve around 12, which has more factors than 10 you can divide a foot by 3, 4 and 6 and 12, but a centimetre only by 2, 5, and 10. And metric works great because it's intuitive, i.e. based on the number of fingers we have, and it's very easy to divide as its all factors of ten. So, there are two points here I don't think there's any definitive advantage to imperial or metric systems of measurement. We Brits need to frickin' buck up and choose a system already. Please , particularly the first one.","conclusion":"Either metric or imperial measurement is fine. Just pick one."}
{"id":"0277340c-e7dc-4ef1-a98e-27b95fe04410","argument":"Most therapists believe that infidelity should not be disclosed if there is domestic violence Allen et al., p. 119","conclusion":"A confession can provoke extreme reactions on the part of the cheated-upon partner, e.g. crimes of passion"}
{"id":"29a8f03b-34e5-4324-b28d-e2c4e44ba320","argument":"So ok First time poster and I am not sure how to really go about this so I'll just start typing I have been going through a pretty interesting phase lately in my life recently. A breakup with a girl that was far too young for me she was 20 and I am 27 and in this break up time i decided to get a last minute ticket to go to Coachella. I am a music producer, and I have only ever smoked weed or drank and my problem is that everyone around me seems to be innamoured with doing drugs. I'm not talking about weed, that's no big deal IMO. I am talking MDMA, Coke, Shrooms lots of the party drugs . I feel this intense pressure and sense that I am missing out on some right of passage or experience to do something more wild, crazy and careless. Let me backpedal a minute After high school, I went straight to community college and after not really getting anything accomplished at community college, I moved away from home Chicago to go to a technical school for music at the age of 20 in Arizona. From there I moved to LA and worked in recording studios from 20 23. This was a lot of grueling long hours 7 days a week just trying to make myself known. I did a decent job, got to work with some famous people, but never really partied that much. Then I freak out about where my life is headed, and I moved back to Chicago for a year, finished the AA degree at community college and partied a bit, since I was already feeling this pressure of not 'acting my age' and not being carefree enough. After this year, I once again moved back to LA and started working again, this time doing work on movies. Warner Brothers and stuff like that. Through working with various people, I finally ended up working in doing sound for Video games. Finally got employed in San Diego, which is where I am now. I have a stable job and income. I have amazing work hours, tons of freedom, an incredible boss, vacation time etc etc you get the picture, it's a good job . This sounds good right? If it is so good, why do I feel so lost? Why do I feel like I wish I had just drank myself into a stupor at a big 4 year school? Why do I feel like I should roll on X at Coachella just to fit in with everyone else in California that seems to just be looking for a good time? Why can't I just be satisfied with who I am and what choices I've made up until this point? Why do I keep looking for some missing key to my youth. I really feel pressure to do something stupid at Coachella and I don't know if I should or shouldn't. I don't think I want to but I am sick of always looking back and feeling regret in every choice. It's a horrible way to live and one I want to stop.","conclusion":"I am 27 and feel like I should have done more drugs -"}
{"id":"027280c7-c2f2-4d1f-bff5-889324ab728f","argument":"I'm talking about gun rights advocates who base part of their pro gun stance on the hypothetical of needing to violently resist the federal government. How do you reconcile this rationale for gun ownership with the illegality and immorality of employing violence against government officials and institutions, no matter the specific grievance? I honestly don't understand. For example this story today about a violent anti government plot being thwarted. They were going to target police, DHS, TSA, and infrastructure in order to incite martial law and hopefully spread the uprising. Assuming the charges stick and it sounds pretty damning I think all of us agree these people are violent jackasses who deserve a prison sentence. Yet those who say civilians need guns to oppose the government are holding out for the possibility of carrying out precisely these kinds of actions in the future. Is the only difference your subjective threshold of tolerance for government overreach? Is this militia's mistake merely jumping the gun on something we're going to end up doing anyway? Please help me understand.","conclusion":"Those who think the 2nd amendment is for violently opposing overreach by the federal government should be against prosecuting attempts to violently oppose the federal government."}
{"id":"3d1884da-bfe8-43bd-ad15-6329bfec6220","argument":"Ignoring the flaws in the science of the show and assuming that the disease could exist, I still think the outbreak could be easily controlled. I think the zombies would cause problems, perhaps there would be isolated outbreaks, but that it would be contained. I think this for several reasons The zombies are slow, and they have no ranged weapons, meaning that the army could just man tanks with 0.50 cal machine guns and cut them to shreds without fear of loss of life. Sure people could become zombies from natural deaths, but it would become the norm to stab people in hospitals after death so that would not be a significant contributing factor. Average people in the series are able to kill dozens of zombies on their own with minimal weaponry, how did the army fail so badly with high tech weaponry and armored vehicles that zombies simply do not have the means to break into? Unless there was some horrific incident before the zombie outbreak, there must have been a time where humans outnumbered zombies massively, why was more not done then? With modern social networking, people would know what was going on in a matter of hours, how was it not dealt with by the army? They have tens of thousands of troops on standby and couldn't deal with some slow, unintelligent walkers? I hope you can change my view gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than just downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I don't think the walking dead could happen"}
{"id":"3d802a9e-1090-492e-98e4-70c4edda312c","argument":"I know that gender is a social construct but a person cannot be both a man and a woman, you need to chose, there is no middle. A transperson decided to chose to change from a man to a women or a woman to a man. They didn't become both. A woman who says they identify more as a man than a women because of A B C but does not want to be a man is essentially playing into gender roles. Gender roles is wrong not gender. Deconstructing gender is not going to help diminish gender roles, it's actually doing the opposite.","conclusion":"There is no such thing as \"genderless\""}
{"id":"9d4f5d0e-abca-4677-acbb-4db5b31e6454","argument":"People have been taking care of their own skin, nails, and hair with varying levels of skill since the dawn of time. Today, everybody has access to the resources to figure out how to do almost anything. Want to learn how to change your oil, fix your washer dryer, perform better in interviews, fill in your brows, file your taxes? YouTube and Google have you covered. Doing hair is a learned skill, and I respect the hard work and study that licensed cosmetologists have done to hone their craft. MOST people would ruin their hair trying to give themselves highlights. A lot of people have had at home bleach and tone disasters. I am NOT saying that the average person is as talented as the average stylist. That being said, cosmetology is like any other industry in that there are hairstylists who care about their work, and there are hairstylists who do sloppy work and ruin their clients' hair. All this to say I am not making an argument about skill I'm making an argument about personal freedom and consumer protection vs. industry protection. I've been doing my own hair since I was old enough to try it out myself. I've had a handful of bad experiences, but mostly I've had a lot of fun experimenting and honing my skill learning new techniques. If you want to learn how to do highlights, lowlights, babylights, shadow root, balayage, ombre, root touch ups, blowouts, fashion colors, you name it, there is a video tutorial somewhere in the internet with formulas listed that will show you exactly how. The problem is that you have to either convince someone with a license to buy product for you illegal , or you have to buy from a reseller, which means you have no idea what you're actually purchasing. The reasoning for this is that there are risks involved in chemically treating your hair at home, so these laws are in place for consumer protection. Here's why I don't buy it. Today, I could walk into any grocery store, pick up a box of hair color, and absolutely destroy the integrity of my own hair, perfectly legally. I could go to a Sally's, buy powder bleach and developer, and fry my own hair off. Professional hair products are actually gentler on the hair, and you're less likely to damage your hair using better product if you know what you're doing even if you don't, in most cases you're still better off . If the restrictions on buying professional product were about consumer protection, those laws would extend to the products that are perfectly legal to purchase. If it were about my protection, I would be able to buy Olaplex step 1 at Sally's. These laws are about protecting an industry. If only professionals can access high quality products that preserve the integrity of the hair, OF COURSE people are going to botch their hair at home. Hair stylists aren't doing witchcraft when they color your hair they're doing very basic science and thinking about what they learned by looking at a color wheel in school. They're remembering what they learned about sectioning and placement of foils around different parts of the head. They're thinking about development time and the order of operations, so to speak. Anyone with access to the internet and the will to learn can do the exact same thing in their own bathroom. tl dr The Cosmetology Industry puts its own financial interests above the interests of protecting consumers by restricting the purchase of high quality products while simultaneously turning a blind eye to the sale of products that are actually harmful. They add insult to injury by standing by the claim that these restrictions are in place to protect the consumer instead of artificially inflating the value of stylists' services.","conclusion":"You shouldn't need a license to purchase professional hair products."}
{"id":"847ce63d-164f-400d-8b41-2d18be6b2ccc","argument":"Basically, the theory goes like this at some point we will have the capacity to recreate our universe in a virtual simulation to the point that the creatures within that simulation cannot detect they are in a simulation. But that simulation would eventually produce a simulation of its own. And so on. Therefore the odds of our particular universe being the original, non simulated one are very close to zero. But our experience, so far, in creating virtual versions of our universe always seems to include a hidden level of beneficence. We can't help steering our creations toward a best outcome even if they never know we are there except in fourth wall violations . In games we normally expect to get extra ammo, supplies, a rest, or maybe a major weapon before a boss battle. If we are on a story mission, there will always be a parking spot, etc. You might say God will never give us more than we can handle, as long as we are leveled up enough for the mission anyway. Note that my argument is not that there would be signs of God. Presumably a creator sufficiently advanced to simulate our whole universe would be able to hide that invisible hand or at least provide plausible physical explanations. Also not arguing the existence of God, just that this particular theory should lead to a God like hidden helping hand as a necessary corollary.","conclusion":"If you believe in the \"we are living in a simulation\" theory, recently popularized by Elon Musk, then you should believe in something equivalent to a beneficent God."}
{"id":"506a3566-7c64-4001-bd5d-8302da003363","argument":"Classical music written during the Age of the Renaissance depicted a rich interchange of ideas in Europe, as well as important political, economic, and religious events during 1400\u20131600.","conclusion":"Classical music displays a lot about the societies they were written in."}
{"id":"95faf174-3be0-4663-adca-853d338eace9","argument":"If Evil, as we perceive it, didn't exist, we would only have varying degrees of Good to compare. The lesser Good, in this case, would then seem relatively \"Evil\" and we would be incapable of grasping the concept of that greater Evil which God, in their benevolence, would have spared us from. We have no way of knowing that we're not being spared from True Evil.","conclusion":"If God was really all powerful, he would be able to prevent all evil."}
{"id":"04833900-9f10-44b1-a7c7-839aef34da14","argument":"I'm not quite sure how to explain this any further, as it is pretty self explanatory. People on Reddit complain ALL THE TIME about other people karma whoring. A simple fix would be to make the upvotes downvotes simply a way of bringing the best links to the front page, but not showing total karma. This would keep people from posting things just to get karma. Karma whoring leads to a TON of reposts. This waters down the content of the site. If karma really doesn't have a function in the first place, it wouldn't be a big deal to get rid of it.","conclusion":"reddit karma shouldn't be viewable. It should be a behind the scenes upvoting\/downvoting system to prevent \"karma whoring.\""}
{"id":"46cf7ff3-5c95-4404-a87b-cede5bcc55b7","argument":"This is either due to biological circumstances for example infertile or same-sex couples , or the unavailability of a child for adoption. The joy of parenthood is something that every couple should be able to experience.","conclusion":"Surrogacy brings parenthood to couples unable of have children of their own."}
{"id":"99367be4-7865-4d63-8807-f501e1ce6b2b","argument":"President Obama has faced a large opposition in the Republican party. Despite this, he has stopped the second great depression created a health care overhaul and presided over tremendous job creation. Obama is given a bad rap because Republicans refuse to cooporate. Now, I'm moderate. Left on some things, Right on others. The general line around blogs and such is that Obama's hands are tied, and if it weren't for the insane republicans, his politics would lead us to a new golden age. There has been steady job growth and wars have been wound down.","conclusion":"Obama would be more successful if it weren't for The Republican Obstructionism"}
{"id":"e3c9325f-9af4-4b99-b007-cc3fb412089c","argument":"Most virtual realities would institute a reasonable set of laws and rules such that the most basic forms of laws governing physical reality would be enforced regardless. This means those entering into the truly lawless virtual spaces would be specifically choosing them, and therefore consenting to the consequences.","conclusion":"If a particular virtual reality allows for crimes to be performed, users have consented to that possibility."}
{"id":"3a463e88-2fb5-4a26-825a-fbbd083ce4c6","argument":"The only exception to this is when someone who has authority over the other person does it so a high school teacher should not have sex with his her students. But other than that, there's really no reason a 25 year old arbitrary can not have sex with a 15 year old. In fact, It's horrible that society tells the younger in this scenario that s he's a 'rape victim.' Another exception would be among family, but that is because incest is wrong for other reasons. The fact of the matter is that after puberty, people are biologically adults, and should face the consequences of their actions without state intervention. Keep in mind, I'm not saying that it's good, or right, or that men in their 20's or 30's should pursue teenage girls all I'm saying is that if that's what you want to do, there is no logical reason not to, other than the laws and social mores against it.","conclusion":"I believe that consensual sex between two post-pubescent individuals is not wrong and should not be illegal, no matter the age disparity."}
{"id":"fe9c807f-89ee-4721-8d7a-4d37efdfde5a","argument":"So I woke up today and began to wash some dishes from the night before and my dad was watching Dr. Phil. The show was about some girl who spends too many hours online in a virtual world game where she herself admits she would rather be playing than doing anything in real life. My problem with this is that Dr. Phil was not only claiming that this was a teen trend but that he said nothing to prove this was a trend. Besides this he did nothing beyond say the obvious well I guess you shouldn't be treating a virtual world over real life sweety except spoken in a more stern and entertaining way. How does Dr. Phil get so much recognition from being a psychologist and having some doctorly advice when he appears to apply none of it? From what I can see none of what he does seems to promote clinical psychology, rather just promotes his own show and beliefs. Dr. Phil just tells people that they're wrong and does nothing to facilitate healing.","conclusion":"Dr. Phil is a sensationalist pseudoscientist who applies none of his previous clinical psychology knowledge"}
{"id":"eb2f9587-1588-485c-bb52-c846c07c992d","argument":"Unlike dogs, long-haired cats are prone to hairballs and require hairball treatments. This is an additional expense to basic pet supplies shared by dogs and cats.","conclusion":"A long-haired cat, for example will likely require more resources for its upkeep than a short-haired dog."}
{"id":"4ee0d83f-bdff-4907-8e5d-25790527e124","argument":"Drugs are something I typically have a very liberal view on, and alcohol is a substance I view as needlessly demonized when it comes to children and teenagers, when it should be taught about to them in the same way that sex is. Sex in school apart from places where abstinence only education is taught is taught with the knowledge that teenagers are GOING to do it no matter how much they're told about the consequences. Teens are taught safe sex practices and shown the importance of being careful, and as a result safe sex is more widely practiced and there are far fewer cases of teen pregnancy in places with safe sex education than without. So why do we still treat alcohol as just a giant no no, while simultaneously turning it into the forbidden fruit for anyone under the age of 21? I don't recall teachers focusing very much on how to drink safely, and there was a far greater emphasis on all the bad things alcohol could do. It was delivered to us in the same way cigarettes, heroin, cocaine, and other drugs were. Safe practices weren't taught very strongly, and in the end there were still tons of kids who drank regularly on the weekends. Plus there's the big factor of alcohol being something they aren't allowed or supposed to have. Because it's a forbidden fruit, they only want it more. Removing the drinking age would encourage schools to switch to teaching safe drinking rather than focusing on the solely on the dangers. And because alcohol would be legal, it would mostly do away with the forbidden fruit effect. Although parents may still refuse to allow their kids to drink, those mentalities may come to change with time. Maybe I have a far too simplistic view of this issue, but it seems to me like the way we treat minors and alcohol only leads to more dangerous and risky behavior when they inevitably wind up drinking in excess. Sorry for any spelling errors, this was all typed up on mobile.","conclusion":"America The legal drinking age could be completely removed with little to no consequence, and be a positive change in the long run."}
{"id":"c78d0dca-bdca-46a9-8986-2cbe4e9be4db","argument":"Facebook and Twitter have a track record of censoring content that is legitimate, such as breastfeeding or images of the Vietnam War","conclusion":"So far, rules on removing terrorist accounts are vague and might lead to the censorship of other content and accounts."}
{"id":"c6ef3e78-1403-40b0-9e16-fa810b580022","argument":"Gotskowski is one of the most popular kickers in the league because he plays for the Patriots, which have the best offense in the league, which in turn leads to more extra point and field goal attempts. This also makes him the top kicker in fantasy football just for the sheer number of points he scores per week. However, his FG and XP percentage is pretty low compared to other kickers in the league. In total points scored, he ranks 9th in the league behind guys like Hauschka, and he had three missed XP attempts in the 2016 regular season, and tap on the Super Bowl missed XP attempt on top of that. He's not consistently awful like Mike Nugent, but there's at least a half dozen kickers that I would have more confidence in than Gotskowski any given Sunday. Justin Tucker is probably the greatest kicker in the NFL right now.","conclusion":"Stephen Gotskowski is the most overrated kicker in the NFL because of the team he plays on."}
{"id":"c7e44827-1029-4923-8af2-a08eb3cf67d7","argument":"I've just read this comment, and the ensuing thread I've seen the sentiment quite a bit lately that rich people acting in their self interests directly screws over poor people , and that this is wrong. Economic theory dictates that this is not immoral. If nobody could afford the ridiculously high rent prices, nobody would have rents that high. Nobody would build luxury housing if nobody could afford it. Poor people have just as much a right to live in a city as rich people, but the reciprocate is true as well. It just so happens that the rich can afford to jump in line to get into the city. If it could be proven that these housing practices are some strange offshoot of redlining or something, i.e deliberately screwing over poor people for no economic reason, that would be sufficient to change my view. As it stands, I believe the evidence shows that this is simple supply and demand at work.","conclusion":"Very high rent prices are not immoral"}
{"id":"17ac5154-a0b8-471e-abe9-b25b67b585e0","argument":"Let's say that I'm donating to charity with the aim of improving the world as much as possible, without any other motives for recognition or personal benefit. The best possible use of my money for global good can be hotly debated. But I think it's unlikely that a local charity asking for donations will use that money most effectively. Sure, if I want a building named after me or I want to look good compared to my neighbors, donating to local charities makes sense. But if it's truly selfless, I don't see how local donations make sense. In my eyes donating to my church, for example, is selfish because either I want to look good to the church or I want that money to improve my own community and ultimately benefit me, at least in part. It's still better than doing nothing but unless I really believe that's the actual best use of my money, it's a wasted opportunity to donate to an organization that's doing more. Don't get me wrong, it's possible that my church would make the best use of that money and churches do a lot of great things but there's some steep competition from the folks at Doctors Without Borders. My church might just use my donation to buy a new LED sign when it could have saved a child's life. In the same way, I don't see how it logically makes sense to donate to a portfolio of causes, other than to hedge against uncertainty as to which is using the money most effectively. And while I see the emotional side of it, I don't see how donating to causes that have affected me personally is logical either. It's biased on my part. So if I really want to make the world the best possible place with my donations, it seems like I should pick a few causes at most that are highly likely to use the money effectively and donate solely to those charities. Which charities give the most bang for your buck are up for debate but donating here and there to community causes seems like a waste of resources that would otherwise go to better use. Whether to donate to charity at all is a separate issue but my point here is that if I'm going to, it might as well all go to the one doing the most per dollar.","conclusion":"Donating to local charities is a waste, since that money could be donated to better causes"}
{"id":"6474d774-0caf-480c-9809-04f9a49f9559","argument":"I feel the need to start by saying that I am not interested in this on a personal level, I do not have my eyes on any sexy cousins or the like. I'm making the point in the same context as the debate over gay marriage which I am also in favour of despite not having a personal interest in . The arguments against incest fall into effectively 2 categories. The first is the yuck category, which is effectively I think that's disgusting so it shouldn't be legal . Whilst I can agree with the premise, the follow through to the conclusion I don't find sound. For the same reason it's not vaild to say I find gay marriage disgusting so it shouldn't be legal . My disgust shouldn't give me the right to stop 2 consenting albeit weird people from doing what they want. The second category is the increased risk of genetic diseases argument. For me this falls down for the same reason that I don't agree with eugenics. You don't stop people with genetic diseases from having children if they want to although you do make sure they are aware of what they are doing , so why then is it okay to stop it in this instance?  reddit","conclusion":"I think incest should be legal."}
{"id":"7e5d2319-49a2-48d8-b74e-e2f902136911","argument":"While animals are still alive, they are normally fed antibiotics to make them larger. If you take too many antibiotics, they will be ineffective. So if you eat too many animals with antibiotics, you won't be able to take antibiotics when you are really sick, causing possible death.","conclusion":"Vegetarian diets generally lead to better health outcomes than omnivorous diets."}
{"id":"e77428af-537b-4a41-9f41-6d67aa97496d","argument":"School give children the opportunity to learn from a professional in certain fields of study.","conclusion":"School is necessary for children to learn basic knowledge maths, languages, arts."}
{"id":"0d34913f-3185-4d16-bf6b-0a348bf27603","argument":"Except in case of natural disasters, refugees are refugees because of the features of their own societies and are therefore to blame for their own troubles.","conclusion":"Countries do not have any obligations to people who are not their citizens or residents."}
{"id":"5c28f233-b869-408a-874b-bcd12641c3b2","argument":"Much of what we read, watch, or play is based on or recreates historical events; these retellings play a valuable role in society as a way to understand and learn from history. If virtual reality simulations cannot depict or allow for crime, it might in effect sanitise the past by being unable to depict historic wars, atrocities, or protests, to users.","conclusion":"Virtual realities can depict fantastic scenarios. To impose laws on these realities defeats their purpose and curtails the power of fictional experiences."}
{"id":"4910789e-fc76-4a9d-b5aa-928f7410c688","argument":"Replacing books with e-Books entirely will create a similar problem to that faced by the music industry with MP3s. Digital information is entirely too easy to copy and redistribute for free. Academic publications can be hacked and plagiarised easily, and with online material being continuously updated and the copyright laws not entirely clear with digital material, it will make it difficult to prove that the work was plagiarised. In general, information found on the Internet is generally from unverifiable sources and may be extremely biased or incorrect. It is not useful for writing essays.","conclusion":"digital media has too many copyright issues and is less trustworthy"}
{"id":"6205001a-81ff-4157-8745-3263a4ad029f","argument":"\"PMCs could be deployed as 'force multipliers' by governments who cannot tip the balance to their favour in an armed conflict and who cannot obtain the help needed from outsiders. PMCs could 'multiply' local forces quite literally by operating together with them, by training locals and\/or by taking over non-military tasks, hence freeing up local troops for military operations. To illustrate how PMCs might play such roles, the reference point is the 'successes' of the South African firm Executive Outcomes EO closed in 1998 in ending the cruel and costly in terms of human lives and limbs conflicts in Angola and in Sierra Leone. the article goes on to explain the specific situations\" Anna Leander, \"The Market for Force and Public Security: The Destabilizing Consequences of Private Military Companies,\" Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 42 No. 5, Sept 2005, pp. 605-622","conclusion":"PMCs have historically helped with resolving conflicts and aiding countries in winning conflicts."}
{"id":"61a64d38-bb69-4507-a0d9-27c8e30a0e49","argument":"At Burberry, where women make up 70% of the luxury fashion group\u2019s employees, there is a 26% gender pay gap in favor of men, who get higher bonuses too.","conclusion":"The fashion industry upholds the gender pay gap the complicity in this practice suggests fashion can never be feminist."}
{"id":"20120525-eb87-4e78-a6f3-ad0d97b74178","argument":"The best moral objective is to produce the greatest good for the greatest number of humans and animals. Differences do not matter in this equation.","conclusion":"From a utilitarian perspective morality should not be based on species differences"}
{"id":"be2c9b79-4c5a-4a0e-b70c-adae3ca9c510","argument":"Ontario currently only allows packaged alcohol sales at its provincial owned liquor stores the LCBO , at a chain of beer stores owned by a consortium of large brewers, at breweries and wineries selling their own product in person, and wine sales at a few grocery stores in segregated wine sections. I think this whole scheme is essentially a monopoly designed to extract money for the government and favored special interests, with little public benefit. It also means that only a limited selection of products are available to consumers, since if the LCBO and Beer Store won't stock it, it's not able to be bought. This sucks if you want specialty products. I would abolish the whole scheme, and just allow private retailers to obtain licenses to sell alcohol similarly to how they are allowed to sell cigarettes. I think the Ontario government should sell the LCBO stores to the highest bidder, either piecemeal or as a single lot whichever will bring more revenue . The beer store should lose its monopoly but otherwise be allowed to continue. If Ontario wants to discourage drinking or raise revenue, they can tax alcohol, but then it will be transparent how much of the money is going to the government, as opposed to the present scheme which seems corrupt and opaque to me.","conclusion":"Ontario should totally privatize alcohol sales and abolish the LCBO."}
{"id":"ee9eefe6-dd10-4622-ad3e-3d25057b3202","argument":"To clarify, I'm talking about public bathrooms meant to be used by one person at a time. These bathrooms generally have deadbolt locks on the doors, have a toilet but no urinal, and with the exception of maybe specialized waste receptacles don't have anything that you wouldn't find in both types of bathroom. Given this, I don't see a reason why you would label that sort of bathroom specifically for men or women. If the goal of segregating these bathrooms is to keep differently gendered people from seeing each other, it's single user, so that's not an issue. If it's to offer specialized equipment, most of the single user bathrooms I've encountered for both sexes don't do this anyway. Edit Wow, there is, um, a lot of stuff here In case anyone is interested in whether my view has actually be changed, so far it has not. The three most common comments I've seen by far are 1 GENDER X is dirtier and I don't want to deal with that. Let's presume that one gender is dirtier in general than another. Does that mean that we should essentially quarantine that gender into their own space? The implication there is that, as a member of a gender, am somehow responsible for messes that I didn't make and should be subjected to them based on that? Doesn't seem right to me. Also, in cases where you have 2 unisex restrooms, everyone will be able to hop over in the event that one is just completely trashed. 2 GENDER X takes too long in the restroom, I don't want to wait. There's some great math on this further down the thread, but the consensus is while have two unisex restrooms and one line might make your wait a little longer, depending on your gender, it's going to make the average wait time lower overall. Sounds like a good tradeoff to me. 3 I treat restrooms like this anyway Great However, not everyone does, and more important, not everyone has the expectation that others do. Without everyone being on the same page, we lose a lot of the benefits of unisex restrooms, so I think changing the labeling is relevant even if, say, 40 of people already treat restrooms this way. Wouldn't we want 100 instead?","conclusion":"I believe that all single-user bathrooms should be unisex."}
{"id":"2e738666-008a-4b19-95ee-5102a57aaca3","argument":"I love football. I really do. I think the Super Bowl is a national holiday. I think any young man would benefit from a season of football. But I think the NFL is acting completely hypocritical on this deflated football issue. From what I understand they interviewed numerous Patriot employees, reviewed security film and even tried to confiscate texts and some cases were successful in getting those texts. I find that level of commitment shocking. Deflated footballs are not a decisive advantage. Maybe it allows more control over the football but if you\u2019re throwing the football into coverage or if your timing is off, nothing will help you. If I\u2019m honest, I think the media covers domestic violence in the NFL probably more then it occurs, but that doesn\u2019t mean it doesn\u2019t happen. When it has happened, I don\u2019t hear about the NFL hiring one of the most esteemed lawyers in the country to investigate each case. I don\u2019t hear about speaking with victims. I don\u2019t hear about the NFL confiscating players\u2019 electronic communications. So, Change my view. When the NFL\u2019s commitment to investigate the Patriots for what amounts to an aggressive mindset is juxtaposed with their hands off and reactionary response to a few of their players\u2019 conduct with women, only one can describe that relationship hypocrisy.","conclusion":"The NFL is being hypocritical by aggresively pursuing the Patriots for the deflated footballs but only passively addressing domestic violence."}
{"id":"eb9b0afb-62ce-4a4c-974c-e39e50e0e8cd","argument":"Hate speech often gets easily, quickly wide spread by tabloids and general media, and thus learnt and replicated. Neo-nazi rally in the news","conclusion":"Hate speech encourages hateful and harmful action, which is an impediment to the freedom of others."}
{"id":"f5632d19-b3b5-404a-a72f-12fdcddaf9d6","argument":"Currently math and science tend to be much more male dominated than other fields, and this seems to be the case in math science competitions as well. Competitions like the International Mathematical Olympiad IMO are usually disproportionately male dominated to the extent that one or two girls on a country's team is enough to make the news. To encourage more girls to enter competitions like this, and to encourage interest in STEM, there are some competitions like the EGMO European Girls' Mathematical Olympiad that are open only to girls. I find this counter productive because I don't see the reason why creating a competition only for girls will actually help encourage them into math and science. Separating by gender can give people the incorrect impression that girls are less able than boys in these fields and therefore require a separate competition to get anywhere at all. The only reason I can think of for why a separate competition needs to be created for different genders is when significant physical differences would make a combined competition unfair which is why physical sports are separated by gender but in academic fields like math and science I don't see any biological reason why someone with XX chromosomes should be predisposed to be worse in STEM. In addition, since the population is close to half and half male and female, a competition limited to one gender would probably mean less people take part so the fact that there are fewer people in the female only competition will mean that standards are lower overall, just because there are fewer people in the competition. It's like if you take the fastest person in a large city and a small village, the fastest person from the city is statistically more likely to be faster than the village person because there are more people in the city so the probability is higher . This may mean that the girls only competition may be perceived as second rate or at a lower standard and wrongly stigmatise girls as being less able in math even though it isn't the case, which is counter productive to the original intention.","conclusion":"Girls-only math and science competitions are counter-productive and do not help to encourage more girls into these fields"}
{"id":"cdc1b797-22c3-4184-a144-121b04f857c7","argument":"The Iran deal gave Iran some what autonomy and economic stability in the region. Which the allies of US in the same region i.e. Saudi Arabia and Israel don\u2019t seem to like. These allies have waged wars in Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Palestine. Only thing getting in their way was Iran. BY breaking the deal US is giving them United States\u2019 apparent approval for wars; it will destroy the balance of power in the region; and it will be totally against the human right policies of US.","conclusion":"The US Should Not Have Pulled Out of the Iran Deal."}
{"id":"f4832873-f037-4d07-93ac-9fc619423507","argument":"Self-defense can be thought of as a case where an individual is allowed to defend their rights from violation by others. In these cases the assailant forfeits their rights when they commit this actions.","conclusion":"Self-defence can be defended as a legal principle on non-consequentialist grounds."}
{"id":"e8c69057-df3b-4a81-b432-ec33093f8e14","argument":"Just turned on BBC for the morning football recap I'm not an avid watcher , but I saw a referee red card the wrong player in the first quarter of a match. I think it was Man City vs. West Brom. After watching the five nations yesterday and having them checking slo mo cameras and reaching a consensus among multiple referees for decisions it just makes me think football is a joke in comparison. It doesn't really matter how well you play if one inept referee can solely change the outcome of an entire game or, by extension, a tournament. Does it?","conclusion":"I think football soccer is a joke in comparison to other sports due, in large part, to the absolute authority given to referees regardless of if they make the wrong decision."}
{"id":"d0f6929d-8410-47d6-89b8-3703876cca3a","argument":"EDIT People continue to comment on things that have been addressed in this post. If you're going to participate in this conversation the least you should do is read the post My views were changed rather quickly by just 4 people with placid, logical responses that didn't stem from the mindset of I think you're a vile piece of shit for wanting criminals to be punished, and I'm going to teach you a lesson by hurling emotionally vested insults at you. . I even edited the post saying my views have been changed but people are still berating me and trying to debate about my views that have been changed. Please keep up with the conversation instead of trying to pick a keyboard fight. x200B Murderers deserve the death sentence Rapists deserve to have their genitals removed False rape accusers deserve to get raped so they learn what rape really is, then sentenced to however many months years the falsely accused rapist would have faced View has been changed on this. Rape should not be part of the punishment Thieves deserve to have their offending hand s and or body part s removed Molesters abusers deserve have their offending hand s and or body part s removed x200B I could go on, but in a nut shell, justice should be eye for an eye. It's a brutal punishment, but it's nothing short of the crime, and would be much more effective in preventing recurring criminals partly because their limbs are maimed so they aren't physically able, but also because they'll fear the repercussions of their immoral crimes . If the perpetrator truly is remorseful for their actions or it wasn't deliberate involuntary manslaughter via car accidents etc. , that's a different story, but there are a lot of selfish, cowardly degenerates in this world. They don't care about the negative impact their actions have on other people. They only care about their well being. x200B Edit People are asking how this would stop crimes It's pretty hard to steal if your hands limbs are missing. It's pretty hard to molest abuse if your hands limbs are missing. It's pretty hard to kill if you're dead. It's pretty hard to rape if you have no genitalia. You'd be less likely to falsely accuse someone of rape if you are raped then imprisoned as a consequence. x200B Edit2 Everyone is just talking about how fucked up I am for thinking this, but no one is offering a better paradigm to deal with this. This is `change my view`. So show me a better way instead of just hurling insults x200B Edit3 Everyone is asking about what happens if you're falsely accused and punished for a crime you didn't commit? That's unfortunate. It's a pretty fucked up situation to be in, and I wouldn't wish that on anyone. But once their false accusers receive the same punishment of the person they falsely accused, other people will see what happens if you falsely accuse, and over time the number of false accusations will drop. In the current justice system however, the false accusers usually walk away scot free, so other people get the idea that you can falsely accuse someone of a crime and nothing will happen. x200B Edit4 Why are so many people protecting criminals? Yes, I know these punishments are brutal, but to go as far as protecting criminals that show no remorse? Their victims did nothing deserving of whatever traumatic experience the criminal forced the victim to endure. These criminals would be punished for their crimes. So the victims just have to deal with the fact they were raped murdered, and the criminal keeps their genitals life, what they used to hurt innocent people for their personal selfish gain? How is that justice? A murderer doesn't value life. Why do you give such a high valuation for their life? In doing so, you're de valuing the lives of the murderer's victims. You're implying that this degenerate murderer's life is more valuable than all the lives of the victims, past future. Life is precious. If there is no price to be paid for taking life, you don't believe life is not precious as you say it is. A rapist doesn't value the privacy intimacy of other peoples' bodies, so why should we value their body? In doing so, you're de valuing the privacy intimacy of the victim's body mind. Why should a remorseless, serial rapist be allowed to keep their genitals when they're going around raping people, regardless of the traumatic impact it leaves for their victims? x200B People are saying that the removal of body parts will render the criminal disabled so that they are dependent on the government, making the rest of us support them in taxes etc. I said this in a comment gt they shouldn't have went around abusing molesting stealing to begin with. There are people born with disabled limbs. They can't walk. Some people don't have arms. Some soldiers lose limbs in battle. None of them deserved to be born with missing limbs or for their limbs to go missing because they wanted to help serve protect their country. But shit happens. They deal with it and live life the best they can. gt gt This is an armless artist. gt gt If she can do that, what's stopping anyone else? If someone is dumb or evil enough to continue to commit the same crime despite one or more of their limbs being removed, why do you want them to survive and create more degenerate offspring? Survival of the fittest. Darwinism. As for being dependent, everyone living in a prison is a government dependent. What do you think keeps prisons operating? You think they have some sort of revenue or something? Prisons are funded by taxes. Every criminal that we house in prison is more taxes that's being taken away from law abiding citizen's hard earned money. We're wasting valuable resources on their degenerate filth of a human being, when those resources could be better used to help children starving to death in under developed countries. x200B Edit 5 Reddit, you changed my view. Thank you to r mfDandP r Huntingmoa r miguelguajiro r CreeperCooper for being logical and replying with a non emotionally motivated response offering a different perspective and helping to shift my paradigm. Most of you seemed like you were offended at my post and just wanted to insult me because I wanted criminals to be punished more harshly than the current judicial system. I said something similar in one of the comments minor edit from speaking to an individual to a group gt this is r changemyview Why are you so offended and reacting in such an aggressive manner? I'm here to have an intellectual, logical discussion about my perspective, that I personally thought was brutal, which is why I posted here in the first place. I wanted to reply to more people but I thought it would be in vain because a lot of them came in on the first comment guns blazing looking for a fight. That isn't what I'm here for. I'm here for fellow redditors to offer a different perspective and change my view, not get emotionally upset and start hurling illogical insults. What are you even doing on this post, let alone this entire subreddit if you're just going to get offended and pick fights? My views have been changed all except I still believe rapists deserve to have their genitals removed, with substantial evidence proving they are truly guilty of the crime ie video audio recording . If you want to, feel free to change my view on that as well. I still believe killers with no remorse for what they've done deserve the death penalty, instead of taking tax payers money to keep them clothed, clean fed. I'd rather give that money to help provide resources for people dying from thirst starvation in underdeveloped countries. x200B Last Edit This is my first post. Forgot to award deltas to those that changed my mind. Thank you for reminding me Also, to all the people acting like you're too much of a good and moral person to allow such atrocities for punishment, you're not. That's simply how you were trained to think. You grew up in a world where violence was not accepted by society. Romans, despite being one of the most civilized societies in history, loved watching gladiators fight to the gruesome death. They would clap, laugh cheer as they watched dozens of people get slaughtered in ways much worse much more gory than cattle today. Romans regularly executed criminals, innocent or not, by crucifixion. Crucifixion is considered the most unbearably excruciating execution method. People flocked to watch people get crucified. People flocked to watch Jesus get crucified. They not only flocked, they demanded he be tortured and then crucified. They wanted blood. Most Italians today would not approve of executions via gladiator fight or crucifixion. Some people around the world today still love watching animal fights to the death rooster, dogs etc . I'm sure many of you also watch organised fights on TV UFC MMA Boxing Muay Thai . There have been numerous deaths in the ring, yet, it's still broadcasted internationally for entertainment purposes. You can sit and talk all you want about how you're better than those Roman savages that loved to watch executions by a gladiator fight or crucifixion, but the truth is you have a different view because you were raised in a different world with different values. If gladiator fights were the norm since the days of Rome and hadn't changed, you're guaranteed to have a different perspective on it. Most people are sheep. Most people follow the crowd. Most people accept what the crowd accepts. Most people reject what the crowd rejects. Because most people fear isolation ostracism.","conclusion":"Cruel & unusual criminals deserve cruel & unusual punishment"}
{"id":"9bc27fab-3df0-49cc-8b0d-126c9deda52c","argument":"Hindus do not create alternative places of religious memory because the holy places of Hinduism are all within India.","conclusion":"Where religious stories play within a civilization there is no decisive need for newly invented places."}
{"id":"802e05c9-b86e-4735-b3a4-d0383d72b28f","argument":"Politicians, in contrast to millions of voters from different walks of life, are more prone to mistakes due to their small numbers and their relative sameness in many regards.","conclusion":"While individual citizens might not be well-informed, referendum decisions benefit from the wisdom of the crowds through which individual deficiencies are cancelled out."}
{"id":"2e2bb5a6-7187-41c2-b88b-c698849bac0a","argument":"Following a \"parenting method\" as \"the best\", carries a risk of fundamentalism, and looking down at other ways of parenting.","conclusion":"The quality of care is more important than the particular method or \"way\" a child is raised."}
{"id":"edb66c04-e5f1-417c-95c2-0138227aeaec","argument":"Social policies such as these are not discussed on EU level but do fall within the scope of national policies, just like abortion or gay marriages.","conclusion":"Each nation has the sovereign right to make and enforce national law."}
{"id":"f48d0d5a-2f3c-415e-9d0b-fa80b687537c","argument":"TL DR below. I often dress up in a nice suit for events or just because I feel nice that day. Suit, vest, bowtie, nice shoes, do my hair, shave, all of it. When I do this, sometimes its because I feel good because it makes me feel attractive for myself, and sometimes I do it because I know others like to see people get dressed up and look nice and I want external attention. Either way, I am willingly objectifying myself, and its prideful to take power is doing so. I have never once thought about getting upset or angry at anybody for telling me I look good, oh complimenting the clothes, or any other amount of comments or interactions. However, I've noticed many of my friends are very much I do this for me, not for others and get mad when shown any appropriate levels of attention not inappropriate, thats a different conversation. Someone help me understand. TL DR When I dress up, I objectify myself willingly. Theres no shame in that, having that control is empowering. I cannot get mad when others do what I do. . gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"If someone dresses up, whether it be because they feel good or they want others to be impressed, they can not get mad at others for feeling that way."}
{"id":"b89d3679-26f9-441c-afe9-25e3353cf16d","argument":"As of 2015, a third of British members of parliament had attended a private school which is the case for only 7% of the general population; a quarter had studied in either Oxford of Cambridge; and there is a strong bias towards politicians with a previous background in business, finance, law and politics Hunter\/Holden, p. 2","conclusion":"Politicians, in contrast to millions of voters from different walks of life, are more prone to mistakes due to their small numbers and their relative sameness in many regards."}
{"id":"cbbbabd9-b15d-4311-b25c-9fd06d1dc775","argument":"First off, I support the right to own a gun, for family protection, and for hunting. You can use them to protect your home from burglars, or in many other hypothetical situations that I'm not going to bother laying out. But I feel like open carrying assault semi automatic rifles is for intimidation and bullying. They are begging people to get into arguments with them and looking for an excuse to use their weapons. They upload these videos on youtube of them arguing with people and police officers, trying to make the officer look bad, and trying to make themselves seem superior because they know better than the police officer whose job is to uphold the peace . What rational reason is there to carry an assault semi automatic rifle in public? Do you plan on getting in a shootout with someone? I think they might confuse respect they think there getting with fear.","conclusion":"Open Carry is Stupid"}
{"id":"2bc2d59c-dff0-44e8-9f33-62da8ea24c96","argument":"My English teacher once said that if someone don't care about his her own life and they want to harm you permanently They most likely can. It is not good to fuck over someone that has nothing to lose. If someone is suicidal and they want to bring you down with them then they can easily do that. People that have nothing to lose tend to be the most dangerous if backed into the corner in my opinion. Media examples John Wick. That's why when you see scammers or people that just like fucking with people, you always think that there is going to be one event where they messed with the wrong person. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"People that have nothing to lose are dangerous and should not be messed with."}
{"id":"1bcfbd2b-6bbd-4597-809e-a0d5ed685979","argument":"In most cases, people are able to remove their consent at a later point if they want to. This is not the case with consenting to death as there will likely come a time in the process when one is no longer able to reverse their consent.","conclusion":"Death is terminal, and people are fickle. It is impossible to know or understand the gravity of a decision to die when you are making it."}
{"id":"286050be-0cdb-4e71-9903-b4fa3d55a12f","argument":"A population realizes it cannot grow exponentially even though it is going in that direction, so it keeps correcting itself. The curve does not show the population be overpopulated, because it already started to happen and took action in time to stop it from getting out of control like overshooting Even though the overshoot curve reveals overpopulation visually, that does not mean that overpopulation does not happen in the LGM. With the latter, hindsight corrections are too small to view.","conclusion":"Any system that is resource limited follows the logistic growth model LGM described in Calculus. At some point the non-renewable resources are used up and the population has to correct for it."}
{"id":"cdea6222-508d-4865-8f8c-49305771870a","argument":"Most voters only vaguely know of \"centrism\", which is their closest analogue, both in terms of conceptual similarity and their amount of knowledge, experience, and certainty with it, to utilitarianism, and many oppose that due to the twisting of the term, and its failure to generate stabler, better politics in a system designed to discourage it and make it fail due to lack of proper information-collection via scoring, but they don't see or understand that","conclusion":"Most voters are unaware that two-party domination is unnatural, that they have utility distributions that are linear, transitive, and overlap with others, or that utilitarianism is superior to Condorcet\/preference without absolute degree. Therefore, they will fail to understand or misunderstand the application of utility to politics."}
{"id":"1945bc58-9e70-4a56-b986-8b9a382c00d7","argument":"Little serious research regarding the search for aliens has been undertaken, as governmental and scientific authorities observe a de-facto taboo on the subject and its funding.","conclusion":"It has been argued that Earth-based sightings of evidence for alien species have never been scientifically, methodologically studied beyond anecdotal reports of observations."}
{"id":"ee4a37a6-fc1e-42fd-81d3-1e642a7b452e","argument":"He mishandled and mismanaged the disaster relief of Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria. He has since denied that was the case without evidence.","conclusion":"He has passed very little significant legislation and has been broadly ineffective."}
{"id":"08a6b351-037e-436f-95e0-ce901fffbef8","argument":"Victims of pedophilia are less likely to come forward and ask for help when they are raised by families that promote purity.","conclusion":"Purity pledges can place a double burden on victims of sexual harassment and violence."}
{"id":"eb5e3465-a173-4a93-abef-9412ae92057f","argument":"Meat has high renal acid levels which the body must neutralize by leaching calcium from the bones, which is then passed into urine and lost.","conclusion":"A meatless diet helps build healthy bones because vegetarians absorb more calcium than meat eaters."}
{"id":"0b3806ca-f782-4805-85f0-f52d45db3b04","argument":"Now I'm not talking about European countries because most of them are tied to the christian church as the official religion, so this doesn't apply there. But in the U.S., it shouldn't matter how popular a particular religion's calendar is to most of the population, it is not legal to use one particular religion's calendar as the official government standard to the exclusion of all others. I'm Jewish and my family moved here from Israel to be free in a secular nation, but so much of the christian intrusion into our government here has proven that American Dream wrong to me. For Jews, the year is 5775 A.M. , which counts from the traditional year of Creation in the Hebrew Bible. How is the christian year of 2015 C.E. any more worthy of official status than the Jewish year, or for that matter the Islam year 1445? , the Chinese year, etc. Keep in mind before presenting your arguments, that popularity is irrelevant. You could use those same arguments to say that because christianity is so popular, it should be the state religion or references to Yeshua of Nazareth should be allowed in government. It doesn't work that way. My solution? First of all that's not really relevant to the , since I don't have to provide a solution to be correct in my original reasoning. But any number of solutions could be manufactured. We could start counting from the year of Independence, which is something that is actually referenced in the founding documents as an alternate year system, so 239 A.A. in the year of America could plausibly be the new current year. Sure it would take a while to get used to and to change everything over from the christian calendar, but it would satisfy the requirements of the Constitution to avoid establishing one religious preference over others. I look forward to some rational arguments that try not to take into account the potential difficulty of solution, please .","conclusion":"Using the christian calendar year system 2015 C.E. as an official standard of the United States violates the First Amendment of the Constitution"}
{"id":"80724714-1843-40eb-9b33-f90b8a173ed9","argument":"Saying there is no god is atheism and it has many complex assumptions as a theory, such as assuming that free will arose from deterministic processes, or that free will is just an illusion, which seems extremely counter intuitive and defeating.","conclusion":"If there is not one god, then there are either no gods or more than one god."}
{"id":"f1894ac6-cf8d-4f68-bd41-5386e7b7e7fe","argument":"As I said in the title, I'm from Canada. We're a constitutional monarchy and have a system of parliamentary democracy in which the Monarch is head of state. Simply put, I believe the British Royal family is a waste of taxpayer money. I honestly think monarchy is an antiquated political system that has no place in a modern, functional democracy such as Canada. In my opinion, the British Royal family takes away our sense of national identity and represents an institution foreign to Canada. I'd be more than willing to explain my opinions further if they seem unclear.","conclusion":"I believe the British Royal family is of little benefit to Canada and ties should be cut once the Queen dies."}
{"id":"2d80b190-e631-48d2-8ba3-e4a7ca9ed55d","argument":"Nature causes suffering to animals. Animals living in natural habitats are subject to predation, disease, starvation, competition, social isolation and aggression from conspecifics. To claim that zoos cause animals to suffer there needs to be evidence that their suffering is less outside of a zoo.","conclusion":"Like with pets, zoo animals lead lives that are safer and of higher quality than if they had been left to fight for their survival in the wild."}
{"id":"db67169f-23b3-45ed-b7d8-c8ed8bc1a072","argument":"It would be more convenient having your ballot right in front of you and ready to be filled out while doing research.","conclusion":"Voting by Mail should be the standard in all US elections."}
{"id":"8dd70819-54a3-41ba-b2e6-a55446d51d90","argument":"Making rice like noodles in a pot with water is much simpler than the normal method using twice the amount of water and waiting for it to reduce. With normal method you can easily burn the rice to the bottom, is often more annoying to clean and you need to pay much more attention to it. If you just boile the rice in a pot filled with water, like you would do with noodles, and when they are soft you just drain them, then you can easily clean the pot, you don't need to pay so much attention to it and is therefore much better. Please  Backstory when I started university and didn't know how to make rice I just thought of them as little noodles . So since then this is how I make them. Now I got a little discussion about this D","conclusion":"Making rice like noodles in a pot with water is the most simplest and therefore best method."}
{"id":"6a5d8ba8-4603-4dd9-af43-27cd03ec9f5a","argument":"I don't see how globalization helps the environment at all. Sure there are alternative energy sources such as solar, wind, and geothermal that help reduce pollution, but for me, the negatives outweigh the positives. Things such as deforestation for example, impact the world globally, and I don't see how other aspects of globalization is trying to fix this matter. Please .","conclusion":"Globalization is in no way beneficial to the environment."}
{"id":"b77d80c8-f943-4399-a042-f27f8b205149","argument":"Not that it is a bad thing. But, yes, we dress up in nice clothes so that we meet certain standards expectations, set by others the society. If I did not care about what others thought about me, I would have worn whatever was comfortable to me, and perhaps, nothing at all I am aware that it would be exhibitionism which is illegal almost everywhere. But I am just being obtuse to propose a view. Every situation where you dress up weddings, balls, proms, costume party, conferences, meetings, dates you want to look good, which means, you want to look good in the eyes of others. Note I am not talking about attire that is functional like spacesuits, scuba suits, military gear, mountaineering gear etc where your safety is in the line. First . Thanks for the participation. I liked the discussion. I learned that, although I can argue a view verbally, I still have to learn to articulate my thoughts coherently. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"You dress up in nice clothes for others."}
{"id":"af94e380-4f87-436a-b445-e87e835d4f3f","argument":"Cultures run along a continuum of individualism to collectivism. Recently America has become more individualistic extending the government and citizen relation to the parent and child relation. Parents use to have have a great deal of discretion in how they disciplined their children. Now there many laws in place that limit the options of parents. This would be similar to the UN not allowing governments from using prisons and fines to discipline their citizens. When it is proposed to punish a family for the actions of a child it is claimed that this unfair to the other family members who were not responsible for the actions of the child. In Chinese culture family members avoid bad actions so they do not bring shame upon the family. If an employee of a company commits an illegal act do we say that we should not punish the company with a fine because the other employees are not responsible? I still think we recognize that a company is responsible for the actions of their employees. So why should a family not be responsible for the actions of its members? gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than just downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"American culture has become too individualistic"}
{"id":"6253b658-881f-4bcf-9278-e6e2ea3bf52e","argument":"Better relations between Israel and the Palestinians would weaken Iran, one of the principal adversaries of Israel, which has long used Hezbollah and Hamas as proxies","conclusion":"Progress in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians would weaken America's adversaries in the region."}
{"id":"6e694f2a-5921-4258-9cb2-31247b4203d7","argument":"Hi r changemyview This is my first time posting here, and can't wait to hear your suggestions and feedback regarding my problem. I am a 17 year old guy. I turn 18 in the next 6 months, and with that, along with other things, I become able to vote. The only problem with that is at this point I have absolutely no interest in voting, watching news of any of kind because of the chance that politics will be mentioned or involved which usually happens , or even registering to vote. I don't really have concrete evidence that it is 100 because of social media and the internet, but by most accounts I find myself very frustrated on the internet or any kind of social media when I see something political. I understand that voting is a very big thing and should be taken seriously, as both of the last two History teachers I've had have said, that once I turn 18 I should register to vote and vote at least once. But the way the world is now in terms of politics is so frustrating for me to have to see because everything just seems so negative. No matter what views anyone has, it seems that all everyone does is argue about EVERYTHING. There seems to never be a middle ground, which I shouldn't expect in politics, but everything is toxic and violent on the internet that it just looks like a great solution to me that I should just not even try to get involved. For context, my high school required the upperclassmen juniors and seniors for those who may not be privy to take a quiz at the beginning of the 2016 2017 school year that would give people an idea of what their views were, or what party they may identify with the most. The best reasoning that I could gather as to why the juniors 11th graders were required to take this quiz is because in my area many parents hold their children back from starting school for one year so that they may be as old as possible in their grade level, basically for athletic reasonings a person is older, more mature, they look like a better player in comparison to competition, could get a scholarship etc. . This is so bad at my school that I learned that over half the junior 11th grade class my class would be 18 and reasonably be eligible to vote if they registered by the time the 2016 election rolled around. When I took this quiz, I learned that I was extremely moderate, with the ever so slightest lean towards the left. I have talked to my parents about it, to maybe give me some insight, but they mostly agreed with me. They told me that they didn't vote at all during the 2016 election cycle and that they never vote unless there is a candidate they are completely sold on. Apparently, as they've told me, you can register with like a specific party and like automatically vote with that party or something, I didn't really understand, which they don't do. When it comes to social media and the internet, I have some major gripes. Firstly, I'll talk about social media, which is like my main reason as to why I've come to loathe everything that politics stands for. I was a fan of Obama as President, I thought he made some great decisions to help us a nation, but I didn't find him as without flaws. I don't really like Trump in all honesty as President, but I don't think he is completely terrible to the point that no matter what he does he will be bashed into the ground before he even really does what is being reported for example, I saw people just destroying Trump over some bill or something that hadn't even been officially announced yet, but I can't remember what it was . One of the Biggest problems I have with social media is Twitter. Reddit and Twitter are the only forms of social media I use, and Twitter is an absolute abomination in my opinion when it comes to politics. With reddit, politics is a bit more manageable because I can unsubscribe from subs that are mainly political and for the most part avoid that, but with Twitter it's almost impossible. I have tried almost everything I can in order to avoid politics on Twitter. I have tried so hard, in fact, that my Muted Words on Twitter is a list that contains 114 words, with about 95 99 of those words being linked to politics. However, these muted words do not stop me from seeing these words when a tweet pops up on my timeline that someone or multiple people I follow have liked, and These muted words do not stop me from seeing the news stories on the Moments Tab whenever I want to search something up. What I have identified as another major problem with Twitter and politics is that the views of what I see clash completely. I live in Texas, a stereotypical Conservative Republican state, and Twitter is from what I can tell so left leaning that it would make CNN blush. So on one hand I've got people that I follow and would like to keep up with, that I see a majority of liking and retweeting tweets by Republicans or even Trump himself, and on the other hand I see news stories and trending hashtags about Trump every other hour, and not a single one is ever positive. I seriously could get rich if I could charge on teaching people how to get a featured tweet on Twitter inside of like a news or politics Moment . Just bash Trump and say he's horrible and you've got a 99 chance to get inside one of those story things. I understand that everyone is entitled to their own opinions and that I should respect those opinions, but in this case with politics I just cannot. Whenever I see something on Politics on Twitter, or even reddit at times, I want to throw up. It is mind boggling to me how people can be so mean and hateful all over some disputes in terms of politics. Seriously, I have seen people on both sides of the spectrum say absolutely terrible things to someone just because of their political views. There are liberal democratic people that I have seen bash Trump for being hateful or mean, but then turn around and just spew the most toxic, hateful stuff and justify it because Oh he's Donald Trump so I can and I've seen conservative republican people call them out on that fact and be spewing more toxicity and hate within the same sentence So r changemyview , I understand this was a long rant and probably came across as Toxic myself, or mean to a certain side of the Republican Democrat spectrum, which I in absolutely no way intended. Seriously, I may have come across rude to Twitter and left people, but I actually find myself agreeing more with the left when I actually do look at this stuff but please, help me change my view. I spoke above about my past history teachers who have said to their classes to go out and vote when they can, and I spoke with one of them recently about this, and while he brought up some good points it really wasn't enough to convince me to involve myself with politics at all. By all accounts of my older, voting friends who did vote this election, they said it was a great experience and that I should, but I still just can't get myself to see why I should. So please, let me know what you think and I'm glad to discuss anything with any of you. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The Internet and especially Social Media have destroyed all my interest in becoming involved in politics in any way."}
{"id":"95fda570-9fdb-4f35-8c6e-73d47e2f972c","argument":"for context, straight white guy in Canada, working full time I'm a 22yo Albertan, and several months ago i was guilt ed into accompanying a female friend attending a LGBT advocacy group meeting at her University one hour away . There were about 25 people in attendance, some openly lgbt, some clearly closeted 'allies', and faculty of various orientations. the meeting itself was business like and hurried as they were planning a pride week exhibition and almost all roles and jobs had been previously decided. so i was left with not much else to do but sit there looking bored. Long story short my bored expression was taken as some other emotion and i was accused by a rather angry young woman of being there to lurk laugh at them . when i explained that i was only there to support a friend, she said i should do my part and help eliminate biases . i told her that as i work full time and live over an hour away, it was pretty unreasonable to do so. the conversation quickly devolved after that with her and her friends shouting at me en masse about various issues and i left the room leaving my friend behind so she wouldn't get lumped in with me I can't for the life of me see how not actively helping one specific lgbt group makes me discriminatory against the whole lgbt spectrum despite having friends in every category of said group? and in defense of the people involved, i was rather rude towards the end, but i fail to see how being rude to one person equates to hatred of a group they belong to? TLDR not actively advocating or working with groups does not mean you posses hatred for them. there are many reasons for someone to not join advocate for such groups, and no one is obligated or required to spend their time in such a way.","conclusion":"Ambivalence is not the same as hatred"}
{"id":"70f3d024-2376-4e89-afd7-564cf684485b","argument":"A graduate tax would be a very expensive scheme to put into effect, as it would require high levels of government spending on student grants before the first graduates began to repay anything through taxation. If all the 2011 English applications for university we\u2019re accepted at the new top price of \u00a39,000 it would cost the Government in the first year just over \u00a33 million, and this figure does not take into account all the other grants universities receive and as time goes on and more years enter the system the figure will grow greatly. Guardian, 2011. It is likely then to be two decades of investment or more before the system begins properly to pay for itself. Furthermore a costly increase in government bureaucracy would be necessitated by the need to keep track of so many graduates and by the complications the system introduces to the general taxation system. With many Governments taking up austerity measures it is simply impractical to setup a new funding system which is not needed.","conclusion":"Setting up a graduate tax system would be damagingly expensive"}
{"id":"f0c7911c-ffa2-462d-9b37-2eb6c9c9e572","argument":"Businesses, and our work life, are a major part of our lives. Therefore we should consider how to grow equality in the workplace, in a range of ways in order to contribute to a larger shift in society.","conclusion":"Quotas for women on boards and in managerial positions should be mandatory."}
{"id":"57489333-ddc4-436f-9315-ec1c16bf6d6e","argument":"The nuclear weapon is an important means by which North Korea hopes to force hostile nations back to the negotiation table.","conclusion":"North Korea's possession of nuclear weapons is beneficial during negotiations with other nations."}
{"id":"d0d9e4d0-77f6-48e8-8f12-ebe174c08c80","argument":"Increasing government expenditures without a commensurate increase in revenue increases the budget deficit which might negatively impact the economy in the long run. The budget deficit is out of control. www.thebalance.com","conclusion":"Increasing government revenue can help to reduce the budget deficit."}
{"id":"b5debb84-e593-45e2-b71a-c6e760228669","argument":"The current most severe victims of the negative effects of climate change are the poorer countries around the equator Richer and more able countries are obliged to do everything to prevent further hardship for these people.","conclusion":"Coastal regions may become less habitable under changing climatic conditions."}
{"id":"b3240341-38cc-4f39-8fc5-06f925cd0e4d","argument":"This type of contribution can only help in a specific low skill way. While positive altogether simple data gathering such as bird-watching or allowing a phone to passively record noise levels should produce valid data, also freeing scientists to deal with complex tasks, being limited to simple tasks may limit the contribution too much to be seriously useful. Eg research of stem cells and such.","conclusion":"Citizen scientists can only make contributions which require little skill or training, limiting their usefulness too much to be truly beneficial."}
{"id":"217c5131-1e76-442a-be1b-a10f9ed0cff7","argument":"Edit 1 I said investment but not in the sense of wanting something out of the car when sold. I meant like it's a bad choice to spend money on cars because of the reasons given. EDIT 2 My opinion has been changed I now see that they're worse ways to spend money. And now realize that it's actually not that hard to maintain a car. Thank you all for your very well thought out responses EDIT 3 Just to clarify, where I live I rarely hear of car theft, I was just saying it could happen at any moment. Like anywhere in the world where there is crime. Just to clarify I like cars. I consider them necessary evils. They break down, require constant maintaining, contaminate the environment, can get stolen, etc. On that last note, the amount of cars stolen everyday is absurd. And on top of all of this, even if you have let's say a new car that doesn't require that much maintenance as an old one. At any given moment, someone or something could hit it, scratch it or downright destroy it When it comes to car accidents, I believe it not a question of if it's more a question of when . I take care of my car, and sure enough a few months ago a person hits me out of nowhere, and just yesterday I almost got hit again And even worse still is the fact that at any given moment, someone could come and take away all your hard work and money invested into your car","conclusion":"A car, new or used, is the worst investment you can make."}
{"id":"a95d10c1-0b9c-4483-8592-a5657d454770","argument":"Changes in other characteristics of the social structure have still been unable to loosen the grip of Islam on political consciousness. In Egypt economic liberalisation actually brought with it a de-liberalisation of the state and the resurgence of Islamic ideals.","conclusion":"Changes in other characteristics of the social structure have still been unable to loosen the grip o..."}
{"id":"97a6d2e6-4cfc-4590-bbc3-9299ecfd3ddb","argument":"Militias have ripped apart society in tribal states or civil war such as Pakistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mali, Colombia, and the Palestinian Territories.","conclusion":"Militias in the modern era have overwhelmingly fostered tyranny, not liberty"}
{"id":"822113c8-4816-4d6e-b3c5-caae8b94d84e","argument":"I am very much for absolute equality and as a straight guy, have never felt any sort of discomfort or hatred towards LGBTs{even when I was religious}, or for that matter, towards any nationality, religion, ethic group etc so I don't think my distrust towards feminists roots from the typical ingroup outgroup psyche. I think a big part of my distrust roots from the Scepchicks and their severe overreactions like the one that got a couple journalists fired for a private joke at a conference. I am all for equal treatment and opportunities for women and unlike many gamers, also understand and accept that there is a rather alarming sexist streaking in the gaming industry. But I feel that radical feminists dont want equal treatment, they want to be treated better than men. Of course, I may be right but I doubt that. Ignorance breeds hatred and as far as radical feminism is concerned, all I know about it is that its a bunch of women who allegedly want equal rights for women but are somehow 'radical' about it. Perhaps someone can explain the difference between the two fem radfem ? Edit I know this is a stupid view. Which is why I wish to change it. And yes, I know I am quite very ignorant on this issue. Again, its something I want to change and want help changing.","conclusion":"I equate radical and sometimes even non-radical Feminism with Misandry."}
{"id":"fa3a22f7-07d3-4336-842b-612e30762d97","argument":"The energy footprint of blockchain mining has often been raised as a huge problem. Bitcoin mining's carbon footprint is similar to that of a small country","conclusion":"ASIC mining today is more efficient and thus better for the environment."}
{"id":"08c7174a-da04-4788-9b9b-54e1f1f55c73","argument":"AKMs would ultimately reduce civilian casualties in armed conflict, just as smart weapons already do today.","conclusion":"The more AKMs are deployed the more human soldiers are spared instead."}
{"id":"b61e60ea-5dfd-4dd3-9bdd-ddb50ac7b47f","argument":"\"Mars beckons.\" Cumbrian Sky. July 21, 2009: \"THE PUBLIC AREN\u2019T INTERESTED IN SENDING PEOPLE TO MARS. There. I\u2019ve said it. We were all thinking it, but no-one was saying it. Time to face facts. There is, at present, NO public demand \u2013 or even support \u2013 for a manned mission to Mars. They think it would be a huge amount of money spent for absolutely bugger all practical use. And until space enthusiasts and the space community, and, yes, NASA itself, can give the public a damned good reason for sending people to Mars and not just more rovers, WE ARE NOT GOING TO MARS.\"","conclusion":"There is little public support for a mission to Mars"}
{"id":"6fd84314-764b-4c64-805e-36ef6f72d3e2","argument":"In some cases, the switch to using green materials can lead to higher costs which can lead to higher tuition fee for students.","conclusion":"Universities can find it very expensive to divest from non renewable resources."}
{"id":"a4458962-9dd2-42f7-b069-0415d4b06345","argument":"People generally feel uncomfortable with a stranger around them. You don't really know a stranger and you don't want to constantly be but in a situation like this.","conclusion":"Some private car owners will not understand why this measure is necessary and will not implement it."}
{"id":"4487a889-e92c-40d4-b9e8-02b5487edb81","argument":"In light of the power grab by the US government corporations, the outrage US prison population and growing wealth inequities, I have become disillusioned with my idea of the USA. How can a reasonably intelligent and informed person not see what is going on? How can so many be quiet, when so much is wrong? I love the US but its population is either too dumb to understand these issues or to partisan to want to do anything effective. Please save the good \u2018ole boy rhetoric about \u2018Merica being the best country in the World. Every measurable statistic that can demonstrate the health and prosperity of the industrialized nations shows that the US is at best middle of the pack. My conclusion is I believe that the US is now a sad shadow of what it was and what it could be and its beloved freedom is just a hologram projected from its past.","conclusion":"I believe USA should change its motto to: America, Land of the free*. *Freedom not intended to be exercised. Void where prohibited."}
{"id":"f45b6655-60ea-435d-879f-d56808bd4233","argument":"As important as the existence of the settlements themselves is their continued growth. The very fact that Israel has continued to ostensibly negotiate for the independence of a Palestinian state in the West Bank on one hand while rapidly expanding the population and the size of Israeli settlements can be interpreted as a sign of bad faith. For one thing, it raises questions of the seriousness with which Israel is attempting to reach an agreement. Even if the programs of Settlement expansion are intended as a temporary policy in lieu of a settlement, the very fact that Israel\u2019s plan B is arguably as popular as peace, and being pursued with far more vigour could lead many Palestinians to conclude that Israel is attempting to run out the clock. The consequences of this are inauspicious for the Peace Process. As Palestinian faith in the prospect of peaceful negotiations falters, groups like Hamas are likely to find an increasingly receptive audience for their view that only force will compel Israel to negotiate seriously. This in turn will make compromise all the more difficult to achieve.","conclusion":"The Settlements are seen by Palestinians as a sign of bad faith on the part of Israel, and therefore weaken the hand of Pro-Peace elements"}
{"id":"6624a844-06dd-4b8f-b29d-223c7c2ebb92","argument":"A group of Labour MPs resigned in early 2019 due to their disappointment at Jeremy Corbyn's response to antisemitism within the Labour Party, saying the party was \"institutionally antisemitic\".","conclusion":"There have been serious allegations of antisemitism and anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment within the Labour Party in recent years."}
{"id":"a4226f32-cd99-419e-8f99-f209ddba3cb7","argument":"Many people currently feel discouraged from becoming involved in professions associated with space like space research or becoming astronauts as the qualifications needed in order to land a job is infamously high, and there are little ways in which one can access\/practice these professions outside of school.","conclusion":"More people would be inspired to seek a career within professions like space research, which could in the long-term lead to a boost in the development of technology within that field."}
{"id":"bcaf3bf2-91ee-4a3d-8335-7f98d2da3b70","argument":"I think that when people talk about privilege, they forget about the most important one. Smarts. If you're smart, you can be a wheelchair bound and paralyzed, and still make it in the world. Case in point Stephen Hawking. He's got almost nothing going for him other than his brain. He's still successful. You could be an African American Pacific Islander transgendered multisex pansexual with chronic diarrhea, paralyzed from the neck down, and a triple amputee with body dysmorphia, but if you've got a 190 IQ, you can become rich. You can be famous. You can have a pretty good spot in life. Change my view. EDIT Swearrengen changed my view. Smarts are worthless without motivation and dedication. The will to succeed is a lot more important than just being a smarty pants.","conclusion":"Intelligence is the privilege that trumps all other privileges"}
{"id":"4fe7493a-f1b7-4cce-8526-5b4494e7632e","argument":"Hi , I did some thinking yesterday not at all because some things came up in the debate and I realized that my views on equal pay for equal work and paid maternity leave were contradictory. I think both are good although for paid maternity leave its more like it's a bad idea not to have it . A mother should not have to suffer financially because she is having a child, and two people doing the same thing with the same quality should have the same pay. However, paid maternity leave as an option I think counts as less work for the same pay for a period, especially when paid paternity leave is not as prominent. Plus even when there is paid paternity leave, the physical strain on a pregnant woman would probably affect her work, and hence I can't reconcile the two. Should be a pretty easy , but I haven't been able to figure it out.","conclusion":"Equal pay for equal work and paid maternity leave are contradictory concepts"}
{"id":"ac6f49ab-68a6-4ec4-b149-de5f09b42e71","argument":"Pretty simple situation. One person is repeatedly talked about behind their back by others. Even though they might be totally unaware of this happening, the behavior of the others should be considered bullying. Even though the others are not being direct in targeting this person, they are still creating a negative and hostile climate that will spread among themselves and their friends as they continue to propagate this kind of behavior among people they speak to. This can indirectly have adverse effects on the target, leading to a lower quality of social life, mental health issues, and the possibility of this bullying behavior becoming known to the target, which could dramatically affect the person depending on their confidence and prior mental health.","conclusion":"I believe that persistent talking behind someone's back in a negative or mocking way is unacceptable should be considered bullying."}
{"id":"b8dd6242-d3bf-4c74-8adb-f142ec196e19","argument":"I'm sure that got attention. Let me explain my train of thought. If God were real, I believe he is an asshole. But, much more than that. A self loathing, sadistic, entity who puts us through trials and tribulations so that we may praise him so he may feel better about himself. With how much god supposedly helps people, there are millions of people he could help but prefers to watch them suffer. He acts in a sinful way of jealousy to get praise. So, why does the no sinning great God get an exception? Double standards? How is that so good for humanity? I truly belive this about God based on how bad life is for so many people, war torn families, genocides, mass suicides, I can't believe such a great God can allow that. I may be very biased in beliving this based on the past year of my personal life but looking deeper into how terrible circumstaces are for such big portions of the world only adds to my thinking. .","conclusion":"I believe God is an asshole."}
{"id":"e5088e46-82c2-4122-86f5-43080f48734a","argument":"I often hear that Islam is a religion of war or based on war and something along the lines of Islam was spread only by war force subjugation, this is often said in a context that shows that christianity is the complete oposite. To me it seems very unfair and like a double standard, as Christianity has a history as war y as the one of Islam, if not even a war ier one. To me it even appears that Islam has more what I would consider peaceful conversions. IMO this equates approximately to not being invaded by country with religion X X being in this case Islam or Christianty . Though I don't think there was any conversion in both religions which one could consider 100 peaceful. A good example is Indonesia, the country with the most Muslims on earth. AFAIK Indonesia accepted Islam rather peacefully, that is no Muslim country conquered it. If I get it correctly, Islam was spread there mostly by traders. Then there is the situation in India. North India was conquered by a Muslim realm, however before that, similar to Indonesia in South India there was a considerable enough Muslim community, so that even Mosques were build, again mostly caused by Muslim traders. Though I don't know whether the communities consisted predominately of the families of the traders or also the natives. Then, many Mongols realms tribes ? adopted Islam even though the Mongols were the conquerors. Similar to that most Turkic people converted to Islam without being conquered by any Muslim realm. At least the Turkic people who live in the Central Asian region weren't under Muslim control. Then we also have regions in Middle East Africa which are Muslim. I don't know anything about that region, however it appears to me that the religion was most probably brought there by traders. The only regions I would consider were islamized by war are the southern regions around the Mediterranean and the Middle East. In Christianity's case I don't find so many examples. Though to be fair, Christianity is more or less situated on an giant peninsula Europe and has much less contact points with other cultures religions, thus also less chances for peaceful conversion, however it doesn't change the fact that it has less peaceful conversions. Some conversions I would consider peaceful were the christianization of the regions of the Roman Empire. AFAIK there was some heavy resistence in Roman Empire, however since I don't know how the resistences were in other regions I don't count it as disqualifying. Another example would be the christianization of the Germanic people. However IMO it's somewhat shaky, because for example AFAIK the Franks were peacefully christianized. Tribes like the Saxons were christianized more or less through war. Then there were also the Slavic people, which were more or less christianized without war. However, if I recall my general history correctly, that's about all the peaceful conversions there were. Maybe there are more of them, however Christianity has much more regions which were christianized by war force IMO. Some of them are the crusades against the Baltic and Finnic people. And then of course the big one colonization. AFAIK most of colonization purpose, at least outwardly, was for spreading christianity. In the end, most of Africa south of the Sahara, the two Americas and Australia was christianized by war force, not unlike the regions the muslim countries conquered.","conclusion":"Islam wasn't spread any more by war than was Christianity"}
{"id":"8c223e2d-6725-441e-a04f-e9facc51f10a","argument":"Childhood animal abuse can be linked to psychopathy, which can evolve to extreme violence against humans.","conclusion":"Enjoying watching captive animals manifests callous and cruel dispositions, which corrupts human character."}
{"id":"05742628-9194-466d-9de0-5cb9694ea4f5","argument":"The individual stories of these people are indeed tragedies, but as a population, I view it as karmic backlash. These are the same people, or the children of the same people that is to say, middle class or semi affluent rural and suburban white people , who turned a blind eye to the anguish of inner city people of color suffering under last century's crack epidemic and associated social and health crises, and who often voted for the draconian remedy of extended incarceration. They ignored the voices that told them, repeatedly, that addiction and drug abuse were not the result of personal failings, nor a gateway to violent criminality, but instead a symptom of dysfunctional and unsupportive social and economic systems. Of course, only now that these people can see things up close that neither money nor race can protect them do we see the acknowledgment that abusers are most often victims, and not predators, as well as the health and social policy reform that reflects this knowledge. This is a good thing. But it's yet another example of death and suffering that could have been avoided if the experience and thoughts of people of color had been valued if hubris had been replaced with compassion, critical judgment with trust and unity. Unless we see the situation for what it is, it will repeat itself again, and I'm not so sure that we can have such clear sight if we write this off as unforeseeable tragedy.","conclusion":"I have little to no sympathy for the victims of the heroin and meth epidemics."}
{"id":"1bc73821-27e0-4c2d-9655-18698e561214","argument":"First lets consider the relevance of the death of 3 teenagers. Wholistically speaking 3 people is very minor. Every year in Chicago more than 100 times that amount are killed The deaths should not have been a major tragedy. However, the situation became so publicized to the point where the teenagers were no longer people, but symbols of nationalism. I doubt many people, including me, even know their names. When I consider how large of a deal the death of 3 teenagers is, it very much puzzles me that there is little news on what happens in places like Chicago. Next, let's consider how Israel reacted to this. The military conducted forced searches I find it difficult to imagine the US army searching for missing people on the Amber alerts at all as early as 2 in the morning. In almost anywhere else this kind of search would have been illegal. There was no probable cause in the searches at all and the army even killed people in the search. It seems to me that the aim of the search was to further Israel's agenda against Hamas, the teenagers didn't even matter in the objective of the searches. The very nature of the coercive, unlawful and unwarranted searches should not be something that is allowed without any kind of criticism. gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules . If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The dead Israeli teenagers should not have mattered and the way in which Israel reacted was completely unjustified and should be condemned"}
{"id":"a55738c4-1f92-47ac-b553-f3ce5c523c33","argument":"Science cannot yet explain near death experiences While this may be seen as an argument from ignorance, it is also begging the question to disallow a supernatural explanation since there is such a wealth of examples of occurrences that counter a natural explanation.","conclusion":"There is a plethora of anecdotal evidence that supernatural things happen."}
{"id":"256120e6-b526-466b-a5a3-0dcd786df16e","argument":"gt The evolved form of Magikarp. Rarely seen in the wild. Huge and vicious, it is capable of destroying entire cities in a rage. Can fire a Hyper Beam from its mouth. What? He's a dragon. His type is water flying dark. But he also can learn fire based moves. And lives underwater. He is chaos embodied. I know some people will wanna talk about Mewtwo, he's cool and all. But Gyarados doesn't give a shit, he just likes to fuck things up. gt It is said that when humans begin a conflict, Gyarados incinerates the towns of both warring parties. He shows us fighting and destruction are wrong by being the most destructive force he can be. His rage is relentless. Even though his weakness is electric type pok\u00e9mon, he can still learn electric type moves. Plus you can surf on him. Imagine seeing your enemy riding majestically on the back of this water dragon known for crushing cities. You would soil your Pikachu underwear. He is also notoriously hard to train or tame. And is just a beast in general. Did I mention you can surf on him? Don't see Mewtwo doing that.","conclusion":"I believe Gyarados is the most bad-ass Pok\u00e9mon Gen I only."}
{"id":"77191ae1-2cde-453b-bf54-6ac33c9a38cb","argument":"Following the 2015 jet shootdown incident which the US confirmed occurred in Turkish airspace and that appropriate warnings were given, Russia immediately imposed economic sanctions on Turkey.","conclusion":"Turkey's relationship with Russia has deteriorated rapidly in the past."}
{"id":"cc8fc4b5-3b46-4d7e-afe3-50b7d38f10e1","argument":"I still believe in the validity of the minimum wage in the U.S. You have libertarians and conservatives arguing against the concept of a minimum wage, which I also think is bad economics in most cases. It is correct that the minimum wage hinders the efficiency of market forces when labor markets are competitive. If you had a perfectly competitive market, then the minimum wage acts as a price floor when set up above the competitive equilibrium wage, quantity supplied of labor exceeds quantity demanded, creating a glut. But in cases where there is only one employer in an area, or only a few employers monopsony and oligopsony respectively , then the minimum wage can actually improve efficiency by preventing employers from artificially reducing wages and employment. Here, the minimum wage sets the monopsony wage equal to the perfectly competitive wage. Here, the minimum wage can actually INCREASE both employment and wages. In the real world, there's a correlation between higher wages and labor retention either gov't mandated minimum wages, or by efficiency wages voluntarily granted to employees by employers . This results in higher productivity, which then increases labor demand, which keeps the unemployment rate stable. Moreover, minimum wage laws tend to make labor demand inelastic, further mitigating the effects on unemployment. And a minimum wage could reduce unemployment in other ways increasing DI, resulting in higher consumption and less cyclical unemployment. Moreover, the empirical evidence is mixed regarding wage push inflation. A lot of the time, businesses due save costs due to less turnover and higher productivity, so they don't need to pass higher prices onto consumers lessening wage push inflation . Moreover, most businesses affected by a higher minimum wage are in intense competition for consumers, so it's unlikely that they will pass on the higher MW to customers. Of course, there are other microeconomic market failures that could justify setting a minimum wage, including various information failures such as asymmetric information. Therefore, the minimum wage is both a tool used to correct market failures and a tool to reduce poverty. Modest increases in the minimum wage do far, far more good than bad. Only when you set the minimum wage past a certain threshold does it begin to adversely affect prices and or employment. So overall I think a modest increase in the minimum wage is a good deal it increases workers' wages, results in a more efficient and equitable equilibrium in noncompetitive markets with more efficient levels of employment, production, and wages , reduces the gap between the wealthy and poor, and doesn't affect unemployment adversely. So I think that the benefits outweigh the costs. I also think that the minimum wage should definitely be coupled with an expanded EITC. The EITC, as Christina Romer asserted, is very well targeted, helps the working poor, and is pro business as it increases labor supply and employment. While increased labor supply normally reduce wages, the minimum wage acts as a good constraining measure for the EITC. There are only two cases in which I think a minimum wage law could be safely removed. The first of which is if you had a very strong safety net coupled with strong labor unions. For example, Sweden doesn't have a mandated minimum wage but it's workers are fine because labor unions have a lot of leverage in wage negotiations. Moreover, you could also safely remove a minimum wage if you had a form of guaranteed minimum income such as Milton Friedman's negative income tax . However, the U.S. is no where near close to having basic income, and compared to other advanced nations, our social safety nets are thinner and our unions have less bargaining power due to right to work laws, union busting, and institutional factors such as a focus on quarterly capitalism over the stakeholder capitalism you see in Germany, Sweden, etc. So for the American context, a minimum wage law makes perfect sense. But to me, a national 15 minimum wage doesn't make much economic sense. This isn't an area in which a one size fits all policy is prudent. There are huge differences in local costs of living, so a 15 minimum wage has varying purchasing power depending on where you live. I think it would be better to focus on local living wage campaigns pushing for a number specific to local job markets. In some areas, a minimum wage above 15 may be appropriate the New York metro area , whereas in other places, a 10.10 wage may grant you the same purchasing power such as in rural Appalachia . Moreover, some economists are asserting that Puerto Rico's 7.25 minimum wage may be too high for the island due to its lower labor productivity compared to the mainland, and this could translate into various microeconomic and macroeconomic problems, some of which we're already seeing there. So, some argue that due to increases in worker productivity, inflation, and cost of living over the years, phasing in a national 15 over five years as a baseline will be safe, and then various localities can increase it on top of that if they feel 15 in 2020 isn't enough to keep up with worker productivity or the cost of living in their areas. On paper, that idea sounds compelling, and it's the best argument in favor of a 15 minimum wage I've seen I was thoroughly unimpressed with Robert Reich's answer about how because we have uniform Social Security payments, we should have a uniform 15 minimum wage . Still, in my view, the baseline argument makes a lot of assumptions, and depends on economic factors that we can't predict or necessarily rely on. I still favor a local based approach makes more sense. I support the move to phase in 15 minimum wages in Seattle, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and for fast food workers in New York. But I think it's important to see how these play out before arguing that even rural areas and counties in Alabama and Mississippi should mandate 15 wage floors.","conclusion":"The concept of a minimum wage absolutely makes economic sense in the U.S. However, it is best to set the MW locally to factor in varying costs of living than to set a national $15 wage floor"}
{"id":"9b25878a-7d35-4138-806b-b1663131280d","argument":"On a thread I was reading it was brought to my attention that reclining your seat during a flight is inconsiderate. I am 6'2 and I don't see any problem with a person reclining their seat. The option to recline is there so why not use it? Unless you are right at the back of the plane then you will have to option to recline as well. It's also very difficult to get to sleep during a flight without reclining your seat in my opinion. I don't think it's OK to slam your chair back or anything but as long as you recline slowly and move it back to upright during meals I think it's fine to recline your seat.","conclusion":"- I think it is perfectly acceptable to recline your chair on a flight"}
{"id":"00acf692-21c2-4632-a1d8-42a247958f0b","argument":"Children will grow up in a community that does not respect them due to the exclusivity of parentage. This will mean that people who are not granted licenses will be less willing to be teachers or carers of children.","conclusion":"If people who wished to be parents were unable to pass the test, then those adults would experience jealousy towards families."}
{"id":"6499e497-008b-46b6-b689-b8c9837eba0c","argument":"Humans are self-conscious and by this their life becomes intrinsically valuable. For example, we assess death by measuring brain activity. Life is linked to consciousness.","conclusion":"Life is intrinsically valuable. This means individuals should not have a right to end theirs."}
{"id":"e3bef594-208b-4052-be4d-18ef9caffc54","argument":"Working over 39 hours a week was shown to have negative effects on mental health","conclusion":"Working long hours is detrimental to one's health and encounters diminishing returns."}
{"id":"54461633-a285-4886-87ec-40971d926094","argument":"Gay bars cater to a much smaller consumer base than a normal bar, and if bars are 'gay only' or 'lesbian only', then they cater to one half of an already small group of people. This limits available profits.","conclusion":"Gay only bars are increasingly economically unsustainable, and are therefore declining in number."}
{"id":"d871dd45-7316-4627-8d1f-0533b9b4f87f","argument":"Basically stated, the benefits of GM foods outweigh the harms. 1 GM foods are not dangerous to health. For starters, the entire international scientific community agrees on the safety of GMO's including the following organizations Food and Agriculture Organization United Nations European Commission World Health Organization Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Royal Society of London German National Science Foundation Brazilian Academy of Sciences Chinese Academy of Sciences Indian National Science Academy Mexican Academy of Sciences Third World Academy of Sciences National Academy of Sciences United States American Society of Microbiology sources Furthermore, the scientific literature is also overwhelmingly supportive of the safety of GMO's. The body research on GMO's is so vast that a team of scientists from the Italian University of Perugia conducted a meta analysis of 1,783 published studies. The analysis concludes gt We have reviewed the scientific literature on GE crop safety for the last 10 years that catches the scientific consensus matured since GE plants became widely cultivated worldwide, and we can conclude that the scientific research conducted so far has not detected any significant hazard directly connected with the use of GM crops. Here can be found a directory of GMO studies. 2 GM foods benefit farmers GM sweet potatoes in Kenya can save up to 80 of crop yields from bacteria. GM rice in the Philippines can help stop childhood blindness. GM foods in arid farmland grow in extremely saline soil. And GMO's in the developed world can save farmers billions of dollars a year. I could go on and on, and I will if asked. Of course we should use scientific advances to our benefit, not cast them away out of fear. sources potatoes rice soil cash 3 GM foods are good for the environment. I'm getting tired of this introduction, so I'll just say that they decrease herbicide pesticide use decrease fertilizer use and decrease carbon emissions Now change my view. EDIT formatting","conclusion":"Genetically modified foods are a net benefit to the world, and people should therefore support their expansion."}
{"id":"dffaf9f8-ec35-4205-bb34-940243c9b252","argument":"Children are being used as pawns for a political purpose and the trauma caused to parents and their children is irreparable.","conclusion":"Parents are at risk of being deported without their kids and never seeing their kids again."}
{"id":"0c18bfad-9d51-42e5-b082-0225a19c2598","argument":"Entirely removing a tattoo is impossible. Tattoo removal always leaves scarsmainly Keloids People get bored of their tattoos; trends change,people get fat\/skinny\/fair\/dark\/pimply. There is an artificiality to it that can weigh on you pressuring you to empty your pockets for removal and even then get less than satisfactory results. Some tattooists are not as good as others; sometimes pigment spills; causing a blurred look, at other times people don't like the pattern on their skin.","conclusion":"Almost everybody with a permanent tattoo wants to remove it at some point, causing even greater problems than the initial application did."}
{"id":"14db38c1-11d8-428f-8db3-9145293d2bd1","argument":"War veterans who currently witness the broadening of the \"scope of attribution\" often refuse to wear the medal, as a sign of protest. They believe that their courage should not be considered equal to a great singer's performance.","conclusion":"Should the Legion of Honor be restricted to war veterans?"}
{"id":"2808da81-bffb-481a-8fd0-8ebaebd8c25a","argument":"Columbia Professor John McWhorter wrote a column for the Daily Beast earlier this week which I highly recommend reading in its entirety but for TLDR purposes would summarize as follows Antiracism among educated white Americans has taken on characteristics commonly associated with religion. For example There are certain assertions, accepted as sacred, which require suspension of disbelief and must be reaffirmed ritualistically White supremacy is at the core of American history and identity and is one of the most powerful forces in society today black death at the hands of whites is one of the worst social problems we face today white people who object to claims of racism are always wrong and are, themselves, probably racist etc. Also, as with some other religions, there's a tenet of original sin white privilege. Whites are born bearing its mark and can never cleanse themselves of it all they can do is own up to confess their sin, prostrate themselves before the faith, and attempt to atone. Questioning these sacred tenets is itself a heretical or blasphemous act. Rational answers to blasphemers' questions aren't required and often aren't desirable the best response is to chasten, shame, or banish the questioner. Works such as TNC's Case for Reparations receive the level of attention and reverence they do, not because they make new, salient points which initiated readers haven't considered, but because they preach to a congregation hungry to hear its sacred tenants reaffirmed.","conclusion":"John McWhorter is right -- Antiracism has become a religion."}
{"id":"93433ce4-0dc6-4bf0-90d5-cb1bdc382049","argument":"GMO's have allowed humanity to produce vast amounts of food on less land than ever before while allowing for more and more humans to live on a diet that is chosen not based on availability, but instead based on their choices. With the development of genetically modified foods has come large surpluses in farms across the world while allowing for the creation of crops that can aid third world countries in their efforts to feed themselves instead of relying on foreign aid, or in cases where foreign aid occurs, the countries supplying the aid have excess amounts of food to donate to countries in need. The only argument that I have seen against GMO\u2019s are not based in actual scientific studies or evidence, and instead are based on the personal opinions of people who have no actual expertise in the subject or are morally opposed to the process or the actors involved in the process of creating GMO\u2019s Monsanto for example instead of opposing them for legitimate reasons such as deleterious effects on the health of individuals which consume GM foods. Instead people tend to oppose GMO because they do not understand the science behind it or misunderstand the science behind it. To quote u MacStylee It's like saying the destination you reach is defined by the mode of transport taken. There's an idea that there is somehow natural genetics, and unnatural genetics. That if you place DNA into organisms using selective breeding it's OK, and using some recently discovered method it's not. This is close to exactly the same as saying vitamin C from limes or potatoes is OK, but not from some evil Pharma company. Your body cannot differentiate the source, Vit C is Vit C. Genetics are genetics, RNA polymerase doesn't come along and go, Woah, this sequence was inserted by Monsanto, those guys are dicks, let me just add a bit of cancer here. That's not to say Monsanto or Evil Pharma aren't bastards. They pretty much are, but one must separate understanding genetics with some gang of assholes from Harvard Business School eager to gouge people out of as much money as possible. In conclusion There are no actual reasons to oppose GMO\u2019s on a purely health basis and those who believe that there are do not understand the process of genetically modifying an organism, nor do they understand the results and what we, as a species, gain from them.","conclusion":"GMO's are beneficial to the human race and people who are afraid of them are basing their opinions in assumptions and paranoia instead of facts."}
{"id":"47e49580-56f3-4166-98b5-70f9bae98f5f","argument":"Eli Sanders. \"Seattle leads U.S. cities joining Kyoto Protocol\". International Herald Tribune. 16 May 2005 - \"Unsettled by a series of dry winters in this normally wet city, Mayor Greg Nickels has begun a nationwide effort to do something the Bush administration will not: carry out the Kyoto Protocol on global warming.Nickels, a Democrat, says 131 other like-minded mayors have joined a bipartisan coalition to fight global warming on the local level, in an implicit rejection of the administration's policy.\"","conclusion":"US cities are adopting Kyoto, the federal government should too"}
{"id":"ddeeddfd-7f35-40c4-a45e-c67a33a04748","argument":"I looked up what this term means on Google, and I haven't been able to get a clear cut answer. I suppose what it means is a guy who acts very liberal feminist in order to score points with women someone who does this by saying, hey, I'm not a fuckboy, I want a loving relationship and not just sex . Now, almost all women will agree on their hatred for fuckboys, and for good reason. However, it seems to follow from this that women want a guy who wants a healthy, loving relationship. So, I really don't get this. I just want sex fuckboy bad I don't want sex white knight also bad How does this make sense? The other definition of a white knight seems to be a man who is feminist in order to score points with women. This idea seems to spring from the fact that ALL women look down on feminist men as weak , emasculated , creepy , etc. There is a major stereotype that feminist men are creepy, I've noticed. Frankly, I hate to go here, but this seems kind of misogynist. It basically makes a sweeping generalization about women, saying that ALL of them want to date an anti feminist guy. The fact is, however, that while there are some conservative women who don't date liberals, there are also many feminist women who only date feminist men. Sure, a white knight will be shunned by conservative women, but will be very well accepted by liberal women. Just as a conservative man will be well accepted by conservative women but not liberal women. The terms white knight , mangina , cuck , beta male , etc. that conservatives have for liberal men, are stupid. It's the equivalent of a liberal accusing conservative women of having internalized misogyny , being the stereotypical privileged cis white woman , or too privileged to see struggles of other women . EDIT I feel the need to clarity that I am NOT far left feminist, etc. I am center left on most issues and right wing on some issues. EDIT 2 I agree that women don't need saving in nearly all situations. My real complaint is the misuse of the term, seeing as it is directed at men simply for holding a certain political viewpoint. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The whole concept of a \"white knight\" is complete bullshit, and it's a way for conservatives to mock liberal\/feminist men."}
{"id":"dfe8ba8b-b8f6-453e-b835-6a349f1f5f73","argument":"The NFL has continued to change rules nearly every year to make the game safer since 1985.","conclusion":"Reforming the way football is played would be preferable to a ban."}
{"id":"8319762c-86dc-4955-9390-ac8985277572","argument":"One potential and possible interpretation of her criticism of the article and its author, given the hostile and aggressive language used, along with lack of evidence and obvious bias and hypocrisy, creates the perception of it as coming across as nothing more than a, potentially personal, attack, and lashing out.","conclusion":"Because Melania Trump considers it to be cowardly and narcissistic does not make it so. Regardless of what is going on in her head, there are clear and ever-present motivating factors shaping her responses and obvious reasons for bias."}
{"id":"a73c125a-f97c-4f64-8189-280d0d4eb66e","argument":"A UBI will decrease the need to keep obsolete jobs open which can result in an improved focus on technology. For example: machines can take over a position with zero hardship to the employee losing said job. The UBI removes fear of and indeed financial impact of losing a position to technological improvements.","conclusion":"A UBI will help the labor market adapt to inevitable disruptions caused by advancements in automation and artificial intelligence."}
{"id":"b97f87b1-fe97-4b3c-b17c-366f0627c286","argument":"The existence of evil can be reconciled with an all-powerful and all-loving God. God would not want to remove evil if a greater good were only achievable with the existence of evil.","conclusion":"Good and evil must necessarily co-exist, thus a good God must co-exist with evil in some way."}
{"id":"5ec419a8-2f5b-4366-a170-4cab3b79b369","argument":"The inability of Luke to deal with his emotions and disappointments in The Last Jedi doesn't fit in with the maturity, self-control and independence of the character in the original trilogy.","conclusion":"Luke's character in The Last Jedi is inconsistent with his portrayal in previous installments."}
{"id":"a8425a66-e479-4981-87d2-379f6c56589d","argument":"The inferiority complex within older generations in the developing countries affects intellectuals\u2019 sense of belonging while in their countries","conclusion":"THBT intellectual migration brain drain is caused by a lack of belonging rather than a lack of opportunities"}
{"id":"3adbe68b-d582-41f4-b056-b538425b1952","argument":"The Dodd Frank Act introduced increased monitoring of large banks and insurance companies which pose a risk to the entire banking system","conclusion":"Obama introduced the Dodd Frank Act to stabilise banks and financial services providers, and improve their practices."}
{"id":"b5c60522-0543-48d4-af20-7798412ee9bf","argument":"Transcending religious practices means your mind becomes simple. You see that the goal of religious practices is to feel \"I am not the doer\". Conflicts of this world do not touch your inner space or peace.","conclusion":"Religion helps people focus on the present by finding peace in God's will and trusting in his plans and guidance. This inner peace permeates outwards and reduces conflict."}
{"id":"6f55d6c9-ba86-4ac2-a18a-ecbe6152404d","argument":"I posted this earlier but I got invited out to lunch and forgot about it. Sorry mods. Anyway, gt Sociologists No\u00ebl A. Cazenave and Darlene Alvarez Maddern define racism as a highly organized system of 'race' based group privilege that operates at every level of society and is held together by a sophisticated ideology of color 'race' supremacy. Sellers and Shelton 2003 found that a relationship between racial discrimination and emotional distress was moderated by racial ideology and public regard beliefs. That is, racial centrality appears to promote the degree of discrimination African American young adults perceive whereas racial ideology may buffer the detrimental emotional effects of that discrimination. Racist systems include, but cannot be reduced to, racial bigotry, This is basically my view. Racial bigotry is a part of racism, but experiencing racial discrimination isnt the same as experiencing racism. It might just sound like annoying unnecessary nerd shit but if you disagree I feel like you're denying your privilege and its akin to casual racism. Although obviously anyone can be a victim of being treated a certain way because of their race racial discrimination , the dominant racial group in any society cant actually experience racism because racist systems read racism include but cannot be reduced to racial bigotry . I can experience the racial bigotry, but that experience isnt one of many experiences which define me as an oppressed racial minority, a victim of racism, and keep me and my people in low socio economic positions. If someone is racist to me I take it as a novelty, I have nothing to be offended about just like someone who isnt a rape victim has no reason to be personally offended by rape jokes even if they are obviously in bad taste . Racism is not simply an act of racial bigotry, it is the structure of racial oppression itself, which is something that I, as a part of the dominant racial group, cannot experience.","conclusion":"Racism and racial discrimination aren't the same thing and as a white person in a western country I can't experience racism."}
{"id":"c99631de-f36c-489a-bd1a-8a2fb0fb0aba","argument":"The Formula One had a global cumulative audience of 1.758bn in 2018; however, it is not an Olympic discipline.","conclusion":"A huge fan base does not justify a sport as an Olympic discipline."}
{"id":"48c45be8-d077-4274-80c5-07f671a02444","argument":"Old Testament: \u201cShow no pity: life shall be for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.\u201d \u2013 Deuteronomy 19:21 Jesus: \u201cYou have heard that it was said, \u2018Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.\u2019But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.\u201d \u2013 Matthew 5:38\u201339","conclusion":"According to Marcion the God of the Old Testament the Demiurge\/creator of the material universe is a jealous tribal deity who punishes mankind for its sins through suffering and death and the God that Jesus professed is a universal God of compassion and love who looks upon humanity with benevolence and mercy. Marcion argued that the two forms of God were incompatible."}
{"id":"3ee0c38e-9a9c-47b0-9f6b-3d6e847719c4","argument":"I am a somewhat lonely individual. You would not recognize my loneliness because I hide it very well. I able to acclimate myself to a variety of people environments my professor actually suggested that I go in as an officer or enlist. He said it was some of the best memories he had. I don't really know what else to do with my life. Even after doing charity I feel fairly the same nothing, really, because I cannot even comprehend the vastness of my insignificance. So, with that wrapped up, I figure I can spice up my life a little some adventure, no? The military sounds alluring. Purpose. Honor yes, some people don't respect you, but let's be real, in the US, you're practically venerated as a walking deity by most it is taboo not to . Convince me otherwise that this is a bad idea. I am sure I am not the first to think this, nor would I be the first to do something like this. I want brotherhood. Solidarity I've never felt and could never be forced to have in the civilian world And please no if you have to ask responses. I want solid reasoning here and it doesn't have to be the Marines could be any of the military branches, or even theFrench Foreign Legion.","conclusion":"I'm going to join the Marine Corps to make the best friends of my life."}
{"id":"e837a6c8-fdad-4845-8eab-fa3f277912bd","argument":"As a European my immediate reaction upon hearing the news of Trump\u2019s election victory was in line with the majority view in Europe at the time. I felt shock, disbelief and fear that the world might break or at least the liberal world order which rules now for 25 years . But nowadays I pride myself in having a much more refined view on the matter that manages to combine several opinions distaste for American politics, classical leftist anti imperialist and anti American sentiments, passion for the European project and its ideals into the short and precise, cocktail party ready dictum \u201cTrump is good for Europe\u201d. Please don\u2019t misunderstand me. In the short term Trump poses serious challenges for the EU \u2022 His disinterest in NATO poses significant security risks \u2022 His planned Tariffs might really hurt the German export driven economy \u2022 His interest to repeal the JCPOA destabilises the middle east \u2022 His decision to leave the Paris Climate Accord brings to world closer to catastrophic and irreversible destruction caused by climate change But like a shock therapy this will hopefully strengthen the EU and help cultivate a sense of solidarity and the need for self reliance which will prove very important in the coming decades. If this has been too vague here are some concrete areas of political thinking that are changing in Europe and hopefully continue to do so \u2022 The EU begins to build its own military command and integrates the countries\u2019 armed forces without UK and US. In the future this might lead European countries such as Germany and Italy to stop the nuclear sharing practices with the US and to build a European nuclear deterrent based on Frances nuclear weapons capabilities. This might be followed by an abolition of NATO and a more proactive European foreign policy. \u2022 In response to US Tariffs the EU is finally thinking about introducing an internet tax on the revenues of US tech companies. In the future a major trade war might lead to the aggressive development of European alternatives to GAFAM, the abolishment of the EU US Privacy Shield and the eventual shut down of the European web for American companies. The protection of the privacy of hundreds of millions of European citizens and companies is a vital security interest and the current situation endangers the EU\u2019s economy and diplomatic autonomy. \u2022 Several politicians in the EU have already stated that the EU would continue to uphold the Iran nuclear deal if the US backed out. If this really comes to pass it could act as a precedent and lead the EU to liberate itself from the American sanctions regime completely think about the Russia sanctions and specifically North Stream 2 . I recognise that, even though first signs of a development in these directions are observable, the EU is far from realising these goals. Therefore, I would like to stress that there are positive short term developments, too \u2022 The appeal of US popular culture begins to wane around the world. \u2022 The US are no longer perceived to be a stable partner. \u2022 With every new tweet out of the oval office the US turns into a global laughing stock that is associated with decline and societal political fragmentation. These points are important since public opinion is important in EU policy making \u2013 unlike in the US \ud83d\ude09. I do realise that the last decades have been the best in Europe\u2019s history and that the US played a large part in setting us on the right track defeat of fascism and introduction of liberal democracy , so please change my view. You could try to change my view by arguing that Europe is in fact not better off when being self reliant and able to project power or by explaining that Trump is no incentive to move in that direction or that he does more harm than good for the EU. Or you think of something I completely missed \u2013 that would be the point I guess. PS. I am aware that many people in this subreddit and on reddit in general are Americans \u2013 don\u2019t be afraid to defend your Empire by pointing out its advantages for Europe. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The Trump presidency is good for the EU"}
{"id":"dc6be536-cf35-40a9-82b9-8ddf4d00fea4","argument":"For this argument, let's assume that in both cases, the child is being adopted. In this way we can 'even the playing field' before we start. So, we have a young child who has no living relatives and is up for adoption. There are two candidates. One heterosexual male and female couple, and one homosexual either both male or both female . Additionally, keep in mind that I am dealing in IDEALS here. Of course, there will be unstable heterosexual couples who are obviously not ready to raise a child, and there may be a homosexual couple much better suited for the task. So, both couples in this scenario are equal in every way EXCEPT their sexuality. In other words, both have a loving and committed relationship, good careers, etc etc. I am setting these parameters so that we can focus on the IDEAL situation. There are proven scientific differences in brain chemistry between males and females, and thus differences in how the different biological genders are wired to raise a child. For example, a father will oftentimes 'rough play' with his child while the mother will exhibit more caring and 'cuddly' behavior. Both are vital for the child's development. A child raised by homosexuals would, no matter what, be missing one of these. I should add that I'm in no way saying that the homosexual parents would raise a bad or damaged kid. I'm saying that ideally, ALL children would be raised by a man and a woman. I'm open to someone changing my mind, or I wouldn't be posting here x200B TO CLARIFY The whole bit about equivalent salaries, etc. is meant to illustrate that in this situation, both couples are equal in every way besides the gender of the two parents. Edited for clarity.","conclusion":"In the end, a heterosexual couple is better-equipped to raise a child than a homosexual one."}
{"id":"1fdba108-3464-4ebe-ae03-5d0e329e60f7","argument":"7. Obsession with the plot, that is the short of it, but when Eco describes this phenomenon it is that the plot is centered around a feeling of being besieged. As there have been marginalized people besieged for as long as history has been recorded, to say that the feeling of being besieged was an indicator of fascism to a black person in the united states in the 1950's would at present mark you as a racist. Which is also a restatement of point 5.","conclusion":"Ur-Fascism is more a list of typical human behaviors than an actual definition of what is \"fascist\" This broad definition would allow for anyone to be opposed by Antifa as having fascistic tendencies\/ideologies."}
{"id":"64194daa-4b5c-4375-b8e5-14f21558b6ef","argument":"Countless articles and blogs have cited Airbnb's charm as being largely a result of both the opportunity to have direct communication and thus get local tips from hosts, and the personal, often more culturally authentic touches provided by hosts and their lived-in homes as opposed to sterile hotel rooms.","conclusion":"Tourism via Airbnb promotes authentic, cross-cultural connections and diversifies the communities in which it operates."}
{"id":"548affe3-845d-411a-9c91-1859db972d9e","argument":"I work as a junior video producer for a company, and use two monitors a 24 monitor unsure of the exact resolution and a 2560 x 1080 29 monitor. The tech guy at our company just bought me a 27 4k monitor. I don't really see the value in it because I make videos that will be watched online with HD resolution monitors, and on tvs that are HD resolution. Also, everything becomes tiny when working in 4k. Yes you can change the UI in Adobe products to have bigger text and also in the Windows system, but I still have the other lower resolution monitor, which then means everything is too large on the second monitor when bumped up. I just don't see the necessity and value of switching to a 4k monitor at all. And I don't believe it will help my work in any way. Please change my mind Edit My view has been changed. A really good point was that a lot of people fought Blu Ray when it first came out, and there are a lot of other examples of people being way late on the pickup of standard technology, and I don't want to be stuck in that mindset like so many have been in the past. It is inconvenient that I have two monitors running at different resolutions but someone pointed out that I can make the best of that situation by editing on the 4k monitor, and then previewing on my 1080 monitor to make sure it is looking its best in both. Thanks","conclusion":"4k monitors are not amazing for video editors."}
{"id":"f4415462-359d-4982-b12f-0ddd9ccda8cc","argument":"According to Matthew 26:15 the chief priests gave Judas 30 pieces of silver to betray Jesus. However, silver was not in circulation during the Herodian kingdom. The first time Jews struck silver coins in antiquity was during the Jewish-Roman War after 66 AD jewishvirtuallibrary.org","conclusion":"Some of the details in the gospel accounts are either historically improbable or completely erroneous."}
{"id":"85ae7e84-5b0f-4bc7-a9c7-e8d8c8508ef1","argument":"Religious faith has at times encouraged resistance against the normalisation of vicious secular ethics - for example through Dietrich Bonhoeffer and through The White Rose movement both in Nazi Germany.","conclusion":"Absent religion, ideologies fill the void and motivate humans to do terrible things."}
{"id":"31d2d75f-844e-4e09-a2d4-225886a17404","argument":"Contrary to popular belief, I hold that domestic assaults, although serious are less of an agrivating factor. To harm someone at random deems you a threat to society, yet to harm a partner or spouse, you only pose a threat to that particular person. The amount of fear generated by random beligerants is greater then someone you know personally. Greater is the fear of the unknown than the fear of the known, if you can anticipate one's actions and capabilities, one can move to avoid it. There are remedies such as divorce and court orders for domestic assault, but nothing can prevent a drunk at a bar from wildly swinging.","conclusion":"domestic assaults are less serious than an assault between strangers because the crime is against a person instead of society"}
{"id":"56439460-840f-4d2c-be71-7b06f4946adb","argument":"For example a lot of people in the Philippines claim that the Philippine gov't is corrupt, and that is because it is trying to imitate the US, and often picking celebrities as leaders instead of actual competent people Manny Pacquiao . If that's the case why don't more countries especially less developed countries adopt the same type of government as Singapore, where a wide net is thrown across society and only the most intelligent people are picked, then these people are given psychometric tests to test their values, beliefs etc Then whoever is most fit to become leader of that government is picked? For example lot of people in government positions in Singapore tend to be scientists, engineers and so forth Actual problem solvers , the current PM of Singapore created a program that can solve Sudoku. Whereas in the US senators tend to have been Lawyers Liberal Arts majors .","conclusion":"If Lee Kuan Yew transformed Singapore from a 3rd world country into a country that has a higher GDP than the US 1 in 6 households have over 1 million dollars in disposable income, and has the least amount of corruption in the world, then more countries should adopt the same type of gov't."}
{"id":"ae3566a7-8593-4a75-814f-c131020add48","argument":"These numbers grow even higher once the hundreds of thousands of Black migrants to the United States who came decades ago and have since died are taken into account. Many of their children and grandchildren still live in America yet have no linkage with slavery.","conclusion":"Not all Black Americans have a connection with slavery. Right now, for example, more than 1.8 million immigrants from Africa are living in the United States."}
{"id":"0f73557d-4dbb-4519-a739-5466abc38cee","argument":"Nothing can be held to exist until it is proven to exist. There is no categorical proof that God does exist, so we cannot state that \u201cGod Exists.\u201d The noun, God, boils down to the name given to the cause of the what where when why and how of the Universe. Scientists ponder over all aspects of the Universe and dream of one day finding a theory of everything. God is the precursor to The Theory of Everything.","conclusion":"There are many claims of evidence of the handiwork of God, but no actual evidence that anything is God's handiwork as opposed to naturally formed or the handiwork of something other than God."}
{"id":"db584826-a5b1-4721-9eaa-fce8ae273371","argument":"In 2013, US fracking company Apache began using natural gas to power hydraulic fracturing equipment. This significantly reduces the environmental impact of the fracking process itself which conventionally uses diesel to power the equipment.","conclusion":"Advances in fracking technology are making fracking more environmentally friendly."}
{"id":"b6cb5c51-73ab-4980-8663-61e62912334b","argument":"To show a causal relationship, one could change a subet of men to exhibit less \"toxic masculinity\" and then measure how the suicide rate changes as a result relative to a control group.","conclusion":"The study cited between masculinaty and suicide rate does not show a causal relation. It shows a correlation. Correlation does not imply causation."}
{"id":"e6305ae6-bdc5-497b-bcae-91e79026eed4","argument":"Someone who only smokes occasionally could smoke something too strong and be too impaired to drive.","conclusion":"Canada's new impaired driving laws regarding cannabis are appropriate and will not need major revision."}
{"id":"a7b6a0a7-8c1b-4253-93ef-9b1c7dd9a28a","argument":"Warning No delta will be awarded for insisting on the technically. Yes, I can count. That is not the point of my complaint because that is not the point being made by the report and the deluge of follow up from the media. Stipulated We did tie with India this year, putting us technically in 5th place because 6 journalists did die this year in the United States. Every life is precious and every death a tragedy, but this is being played in the media as a harbinger of our times. But that\u2019s not what happened. I\u2019m not even going to be polite enough to post any of the links to the initial report from Reporters Without Borders and am ashamed of myself for even giving you their name. Oh no, I\u2019ve said too much. I haven\u2019t said enough. Please explain to me how the cold blooded lunatic Jarrod Ramos and a tree falling over in the most horrible fashion at the worst possible moment is at all to be extrapolated to implicate the polarized rhetoric that is overwhelming our country. I agree that things are bad, but blaming Trump for this one is downright silly, and it\u2019s why we all have trust issues, and that\u2019s why those people voted him in in the first place. Thanks for that, guys.","conclusion":"The United States doesn\u2019t belong on the list of most dangerous countries for journalists. It\u2019s there on a technicality, but that fact is being purposefully overlooked in an obvious concerted effort to conflate two isolated tragedies into some sort of a commentary on the state of the media."}
{"id":"d67a1ec5-5506-42d4-a7a3-ce1e7db234d3","argument":"Revelation 14:10 is about what is happening now, God's disapproval of those who are worshipping the beast and its image.","conclusion":"Rev. 14:10 does not indicate eternal separation for the condemned, but the presence of God."}
{"id":"e2c0d68c-17b5-438b-bf51-0ccd3020b59f","argument":"Every time somebody posts a picture of what they had to pay for health care services in America on Reddit a large portion of people start freaking out about it. This is a recent example Basically, the guy had to stay at the hospital for a few days while they saved his life and now he's on the internet complaining that he was charged 150k. I think in most other places in the world he'd probably be dead now. Why do so many people feel entitled to their health care and think it shouldn't cost anything? I've also noticed posts in the past about high bills from vehicle mechanics, but it doesn't turn into as much of a s t storm as health care topics do. If i was going to die, i'd be willing to pay twice what OP has to pay to save myself. and i'd do anything to come up with that money. i'd just be happy to be alive even if it meant hustling for the rest of my life to pay it back.","conclusion":"America's entitlement to health care?"}
{"id":"819f20f0-9fa4-4805-ab77-24b45e51b7e3","argument":"The fatty tissue of buttocks, hips and breasts in women is promoted by the female sexual hormone estrogen which also induces their reproductive organs, starts ovulation, sustains the health of many systems and it is related to an attractive personality thus there is a personal advantage for men who eroticize those features a chance of healthier offspring and better\/longer relationships, making its public display when uncalled for a window for distracting sexual thinking and judgement.","conclusion":"Showing female bare breasts in public is as much a sexual display as showing anyones' unclothed buttocks in regards of it's erogenous and visually provoking category, or showing a man's testicles as they are also largely visible sex distinguishing glands."}
{"id":"ff7b2ba7-ba95-4155-9aa7-2e6488f0eacf","argument":"The organization CHASTE Churches Against Sex Trafficking in Europe which helps women rescued from sex trafficking does so \"outside government scrutiny making women almost prisoners and with measures like confiscating their phones, confinement, high control and forced pray.","conclusion":"When the teachings have practical consequences that are negative for those helped death, STDs, etc. that propaganda is indeed harmful."}
{"id":"3769f806-c466-460b-b665-51f333f90070","argument":"London and Amsterdam for instance, have opted to adapt its regulations such that citizens are entitled to rent out their homes for a maximum of 60 days\/year, with guests paying tourist tax. This meant it could avoid prohibiting the service outright.","conclusion":"Many cities allow Airbnb but impose restrictions on it. This proves it is not necessary to prohibit Airbnb in order to make it adhere to the country's laws."}
{"id":"54030dbc-62f2-4036-a834-e56c8993e7a2","argument":"Most young intellectuals from developing countries are politically conscious and want to be \"actors\" in policy making","conclusion":"THBT intellectual migration brain drain is caused by a lack of belonging rather than a lack of opportunities"}
{"id":"f0d89094-d545-44bb-8e4b-2f48b21d2de7","argument":"I\u2019m not vegan or vegetarian myself, but I acknowledge that my decision to continue supporting the inarguably cruel and environmentally damaging animal industry is entirely selfish. Assuming that someone has the privilege to choose what type of food they eat i.e. they\u2019re an adult who isn\u2019t disabled, has no food allergies to meat alternatives or health conditions that would make sticking to a vegan diet extremely difficult impossible, lives somewhere with adequate vegan options for sale and is not impoverished dealing with food insecurity there\u2019s no real reason beyond taste and convenience to continue eating animal products. We can get all necessary nutrients, besides vitamin B12 which can be easily obtained via cheap and easily accessible supplements from plant based sources. Protein, iron, calcium, zinc etc. can all be obtained in pretty much any level from a well planned vegan diet, so veganism is pretty much possible no matter an individual\u2019s specific dietary needs aka low carb, high protein etc. This is why I stand by the opinion that consuming animal products is entirely unnecessary for the majority of people in the developed world.","conclusion":"there are no real reasons for people in the developed world to still eat animal products, beyond taste and convenience"}
{"id":"71457935-067b-400f-a1e8-53f06b812486","argument":"Reposting this since yesterday it got deleted before someone could answer Consequentialism the doctrine that the morality of an action is to be judged solely by its consequences. While consequentialism's opposite doesn't really have a proper name as far as I know, it's simply the definition reversed the morality of an action is judged solely by the action itself. So, for example, murder is immoral and therefore it is always immoral, without taking into consideration the context or what this causes. l I will refer to this doctrine as actionism to simplify and because I couldn't come up with a better name . So a pure consequentialist would agree on the following claim It is moral to murder and harvest the organs of 99 people to save 100 sick people. At least he would have to, if he is logically consistent. More people alive is better than less, and consequentialism doesn't take into account the methods you use to assure this. In the other hand, a pure actionist ? would have to agree on the following claim You shouldn't kill someone in order to save humanity . I personally believe both of these are off. Maybe you do to. The reason for this is, in my opinion, because of the more extreme positions they take. More radical views eventually fail at something, I find them impossible to cover everything. However, by joining both stances one can find middle ground where most situations would be solved in a way you don't feel something's wrong. Appealing to morality's ultimately subjective and how this unables a truly better position won't change my mind, this is my personal opinion after all and I'm not taking this as fact.  gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"A middle ground between consequentialism and its opposite is a better ethical stance than the two by themselves."}
{"id":"abe7749f-3df7-4fa7-a8a2-d2bd2c28aecd","argument":"Eating animals is like eating \"stupid\" people. We don't eat \"stupid\" people. We are not good at assessing intelligence, looking back at human history: complex cultures seeing tribal cultures as stupid & barbaric, believing birds are \"stupid\" due to the size of their brain they can actually use tools, and believing animals are nothing like humans animals show love, empathy, remembers if you have wronged them, etc,. Just because they don't speak our \"language\", it shouldn't make them food.","conclusion":"There is no trait that makes animals different than humans that if the same logic were applied to a human, it would justify farming that human as meat."}
{"id":"1d7795c8-6d79-4a55-b2d8-6346d9f6231b","argument":"Building just one bigger restroom for everybody is cheaper than to build two separate ones.","conclusion":"No public restrooms of any sort should be separated by either sex or gender."}
{"id":"8c05ead9-3b4e-4a7b-bf8c-170ec6a71718","argument":"Alright, I\u2019m so fuckin fed up with this shit. Don\u2019t get me wrong, I\u2019m a fan of people like Chuck Todd and I enjoy their shows. However, recently these types of people have been sensationalizing politics. For example, that Bob Woodward book. When that book was released, these news described this as \u201cExplosive\u201d and \u201ccatastrophic for the trump administration\u201d this one felt like an advertisement lowkey though And more recently the news about Micheal Cohen lying on behalf of trump, they described it as \u201cexplosive\u201d and they also repeated it. \u201cMicheal Cohen lied on behalf of trump \u201d \u201clet me say that again, Micheal Cohen Lied on behalf of Donald Trump the president of the United States\u201d I don\u2019t need people to exaggerate the significance of shit, and I don\u2019t need them to repeat it again. Because when or if shit does hit the fan, I want a proper reaction and appropriate reaction. I feel as though these types of reactions should be saved for trump being impeached, or a war. Not fucking mediocre news that we all know isn\u2019t going to do anything It feels like everyday I watch the news, no matter what station, shit like this is prelevant, and I feel a lot of the times it devalues their journalistic work, and it may even delegitimize their claims a little bit. Edit in title I meant Fox, because I\u2019m not bashing liberal media I\u2019m progressive myself, but I suppose Vox works as well lol","conclusion":"News companies in general, such as MSNBC, CBS, CNN, Vox, etc. Should stop sensationalizing their news with repetitions of headlines, and various adjectives such as explosive, and catastrophic to describe every day political news"}
{"id":"e38c465b-64bb-4041-a971-5b9ef198d4e2","argument":"Let's say you're playing a computer game, you against the computer. The software is fully deterministic, given the code, current state, and inputs, the next state is determined. Yet you play the game - because you are ignorant of the next state. That some hypothetical entity could predict the whole thing doesn't help you to deal with your ignorance of the outcome.","conclusion":"We need not enter into a philosophical debate between free will and determinism in order to decide how to act. Either we have free will or it is determined that we behave as if we do. In either case we make choices. Fisher and Ury, Getting To Yes, p. 53"}
{"id":"f80a9edc-6635-45bc-8418-f0704ae5af60","argument":"When I was a kid, I was always told the old phrase Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me . And for me, it still rings true. It taught me to realize that nothing people say is going to do anything to me. It is completely inconsequential. But these anti bully campaigns aren't doing that. They are shifting the responsibility. They are telling kids that they can't control their situation. They don't control their feelings, they don't control the way they respond. It is teaching kids that everything bad is the fault of another person. This removes the power from these kids. It makes them think that their happiness is based upon the actions and thoughts of people. That they must rely on the graces of other people. And this is in complete contradiction to the idea of being happy with yourself. People should be taught that their only source of validation should be themselves. They control how they feel, they control what they want. No one else does. But all these campaigns do is validate their feelings. It causes them to be slaves to them because not only are they unable to control them, they are told that they shouldn't or even can't control them. People should be the masters of their emotions and of themselves. But each day, every anti bullying campaign, every time someone takes offense at words, every time someone blames another, all they are doing is relinquishing control. It doesn't make sense how anyone could honestly support this line of thinking. Of course, this all started after I was downvoted, a lot, for telling people their offense originates with themselves, it isn't caused by another person and it doesn't grant them special rights.","conclusion":"Anti-bully campaigns are detrimental to fixing the problem"}
{"id":"64f4420f-5338-48ca-a791-db490f11df57","argument":"Many students, and especially those who do not use laptops, support the segregation of laptop users into a specific zone of the classroom Aguilar-Roca et al., p. 1306","conclusion":"Laptops can be distracting to other students as well as the teacher."}
{"id":"8117cbcc-8152-44af-b651-9fc40594616d","argument":"Every time I post a reply that mentions it, I get downvoted to oblivion. If being involved in Holocaust entitled Jewish people to a piece of the land, then Gypsies, Gays and Jehovah's Witnesses should have a piece of the landscape devoted to them too. Oh yeah, and have planes bombing the everloving shit out of people who just want their homes back. The Bullied have become the Bully. I don't think they deserve to be in that place. No I'm not anti semitic. I don't harbour any particular animosity against Jewish people in general. I just don't like the Israeli people. Had the international governments saw it fit to put Gypsies in there, I would've said the same thing too. So yeah, if you're going to downvote, share your opinion. p.s. clarification regarding the 'Nazi' bit no, I'm not saying they're fascists. I used the term because they act on their genocidal plans to kill Palestine people just because they happen to be Palestine people. Persecuting others based on their race is not acceptable by my definition. If you think it's OK, then change my view.","conclusion":"I believe Israeli Jews have become the new Nazi."}
{"id":"7446b0ae-d433-4aee-b9cf-b3971ce6a616","argument":"I want to start by prefacing my view with the fact that I am not wealthy but I am comfortable. I come from a family that has worked from nothing great grandparents grandparents up to a comfortable living situation with enough to invest, and succeed Parents . I work 2 jobs and am starting to build in a similar fashion as my parents. I will admit that my bias is most likely leaning toward the upper middle class, but that is part of what  is all about. My view exactly is a bit more complicated than the title suggests. I need to first define what demonization I am talking about. I am talking about the demonization of the so called 1 that has extrapolated far beyond the 1 and into the whole of the upper class. There is no getting around the fact that money power. With enough money you can buy ANYTHING, unfortunately that includes government officials. The issue I have with the demonization is similar to the issue I have with all stereotype based demonization that I try my hardest to avoid on a daily basis. That issue is generalization. Yes all stereotype, and all demonization is born out of shreds of truth. That does not mean that we are allowed to generalize and apply it to every member of the corresponding groups. Racism, sexism, radical religious fundamentalism, the severe problem with American politics, are all symptoms to the problem of gross over generalization of unnecessary stereotypes. The idea that wealthy people have a negative effect of society, is a grossly overused stereotype and is detrimental to the development of a functional society. I know there is much more that can go into my explanation, which I will address as comments come in. Feel free to ask questions if I was too vague on any portion of my view.","conclusion":"Wealthy People especially in America are unfairly demonized by the general public."}
{"id":"ee039bf8-5d6d-4284-ad57-0f81c0b58dd2","argument":"Until this ideal society is considered the norm and resolves all women of the need to make this decision, it cannot be accepted as a reason to deny all women the right to abortion.","conclusion":"Such an ideal environment does not exist in any commonplace way, and is so rare as to be completely useless to the average women making this decision."}
{"id":"43a9e0e9-c5c5-4ef8-a6ec-de5ad4c15065","argument":"Carbon trapped underground in coal, oil, and gas is the only mass of carbon not cycling through the birth and decay of flora and fauna.","conclusion":"It is appropriate for the EPA to declare biomass to be carbon neutral."}
{"id":"82f73a36-9848-4e00-a4ff-156ece02a78b","argument":"Amnesty International. The International Criminal Court, Fact Sheet - \"The ICC will serve as a permanent deterrent to people considering these crimes. In most cases in the last 50 years, international mechanisms to prosecute people accused of these crimes have been set up only after the crimes were committed\"","conclusion":"ICC and rule of law help deter war crimes and genocide"}
{"id":"dec38b96-67a4-4abb-858b-e4172d156551","argument":"I get the idea, it's supposed to make health insurance cheaper by pushing premiums down toward the cost of providing healthcare, but I think it creates an ulterior motive that will make healthcare more expensive for everyone. Basically, the insurer's maximum profit is proportional to the cost of healthcare. Essentially, I think health insurers that come up against that limit will prefer to increase expenditures, instead of reducing premiums, and the limit on profits should be reworded to be restricted by some combination of the number of fulfilled claims, and the number of insured customers.","conclusion":"Restricting health insurance profit as a percentage of premiums is shortsighted."}
{"id":"7ca73a5f-587f-4a9e-b7a7-4f9385d199fd","argument":"Oliver Cowdery's family attended the Congregationalist church where Ethan Smith was pastor, while Smith was writing View of the Hebrews; thus Cowdery is likely to have been familiar with the book during that time frame.","conclusion":"Oliver Cowdery likely introduced Joseph Smith to View of the Hebrews by Ethan Smith, so as to influence the content of the Book of Mormon."}
{"id":"479e5fd6-2cbd-4594-b547-c56a2c2096b1","argument":"I've seen many people not saying the word fuck by things like f word or f ck or any other euphemism. Why this? Fuck is just a word. It's not a magical entity that by saying it is going to make you a worse person, invalidate your argument or punish you for saying it. Yet these words are often censored. I don't understand why. Curse words are just like any kind of word. They are just expressing something strongly, and they do their work well. The usual argument is that curse words are rude . So what? Being rude isn't against the law. It isn't morally reprehensible either. And why are they rude, exactly? Because society says so? Isn't that argumentum ad populum?   gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Not saying curse words isn't going to make you a better person."}
{"id":"7c6860f8-ee84-492c-99f4-b0570c444776","argument":"So, I'm going to start off by saying I have never watched the tv show Black ish , however I think the theory of a tv show that distinctly shows a minority group in a good light is necessary. One might say that The Cosby Show did that, however I think that the show assimilated the African American group. It was evident that the Huxtables showed the African American group in a positive light, however, I think that the show took a stereotypical middle to upper class Caucasian family, and just threw in Bill Cosby and other African American actors and actresses. According to the 2010 U.S. census there was 50.5 million U.S. citizens of Hispanic decent. If you were to take the entire U.S. Hispanic population, and make it it's own Latino country, it would be the 3rd largest in the world. With all of these statistics, the Hispanic community were hardly represented within popular media. Aside from contemporary shows like Modern Family or Teen Wolf , very view shows feature a Hispanic character in a lead role, despite the Hispanic population making 16 of the U.S. population again, US census above . Ultimately, I think that racism won't be solved by thinking everyone is the same and that we should ignore race. Instead, I think race should be celebrated, and that media should stop shunning the idea that differences are bad and that everyone is the same. We are all very different people. Embrace the difference. Also, I'm in middle of studying for finals, so I apologize if my replies aren't instantaneous. I'm just using this as a study break","conclusion":"The idea of a tv show like \"Black-ish\" is a great idea"}
{"id":"f2f4f0ab-1bc8-4785-a93c-b70bb32727c0","argument":"I'm a pretty nonpartisan dude, but for a long time, I've struggle to understand the advantages an electoral system has over a popular vote for the U.S. presidency. To me, it just seems like a way to obscure the vote just enough to make it possible for an unpopular candidate to win. Throughout history, when there weren't sufficient resources to properly account for every vote and states were more divided, I understand how the electoral system was best, but these hurdles no longer exist. A common defense of the electoral system is that it protects small states because, per citizen, they have more representation. To change my view Explain how the votes of people in smaller states should count more than those in larger states or Demonstrate that the historical importance of the system is more important than its modern challenges or Show that a popular vote is unreasonable or dangerous Thanks","conclusion":"The Electoral College system is inappropriate for modern democracies."}
{"id":"14c87b46-f4aa-47ac-8b4a-91b371252d66","argument":"Condoms are between 85% and 98% effective depending on whether they are used correctly and all the time.","conclusion":"Contraceptives, such as birth control pills or condoms, offer the same advantage."}
{"id":"78265ef0-5b6b-44bd-82b1-9df640dfbaaa","argument":"Jon Snow lists Houses Cerwyn, Hornwood, Glover, Mormont and Mazin as possible allies in their fight against House Bolton.","conclusion":"Since Roose is dead, some houses in the north will reconsider their allegiance to House Bolton."}
{"id":"ce85eae4-cc14-4620-8748-84fc79b769c0","argument":"In order for the ontological argument to fail, the concept of a maximally great being must be incoherent, like the concept of a married bachelor. It is not an incoherent idea.","conclusion":"P1. The concept of a \u201ca maximally great being\u201d is intuitively a coherent notion. Therefore, we have some \u201cprima facie\u201d warrant for thinking that a maximally great being is possible."}
{"id":"2c89ec4d-4186-4203-93bf-f1d9ea9c6852","argument":"After meeting a unexpected pedophile, my view on pedophilia has been radically altered. I don't see why we need to criminalize pedophiles. The man i met was very rational and intelligent and knew that his urges weren't permitted by our society and would always act within constraints of law, yet if word got out of his urges, I'm sure the community would shun and probably attempt to incriminate him for his innate urges. Why is pedophilia looked down upon now, when it used to taken as commonplace not too long ago?","conclusion":"I don't think pedophilia is wrong."}
{"id":"19a96cc1-75ac-4913-b9d5-89369faec500","argument":"There have been lots of global warming s before, but I think my objection is more specific and has not yet been addressed. This is not please explain global warming to me . I do believe in the greenhouse effect, I do believe it's possible for humans to change the atmosphere. My belief is that scientific prediction around global warming is so politically charged it is not reliable and should not be trusted. Predictions for global climate change are based on computerized models. All the catastrophic predictions for global warming assume some feedback loop whereby continued increases in CO2 trigger another effect which then leads to runaway warming. Change a few assumptions about those feedback loops e.g. how much sunlight is reflected back by cloud cover and suddenly the predictions for warming are moderate and not catastrophic at all. What do I mean by epistemologically flawed? In order for science to be objective, scientific claims must be falsifiable, and there also must be a reward or incentive for scientists to do studies which falsify them. In most scientific fields e.g. physics, astronomy if you perform a great study which upsets the currently held theory you become famous and everyone cites you. If a great new model comes out which shows little to no warming, or that the effects of warming are positive, it would be unpublishable in a top journal. Even more to the point, it would be unfundable. Research grants from the federal government or major research universities would not flow to scientists who find contrary findings to the mainstream, so those results are never found, or when they are found, researchers have an incentive to tamper with their model until it gives desired predictions. The problem is that the government which issues grants is the same entity which gains enormous regulatory power based on the predictions of climate research. Politicians get votes by pointing to huge problems and promising to solve them. Things are basically fine is not a sellable platform in a democracy. Here's a closed feedback loop government funds climate research gt finds catastrophic warming gt people vote more money and power to the government gt more money for climate science. But 97 of climate scientists agree Well, 97 of the ones who can get published do. More to the point, if you have an interest in climate science, it's probably because you think something should be done about it, otherwise why are you interested? Plus climate change is sexy and gets you access to the halls of power. There's a selection effect among scientists, in addition to the incentive effect described above. This isn't a conspiracy, by the way. It's just the way that incentives happen to run within climate science, which is not present in really any other branch of science except maybe some economics but people are much more willing to accept an appeal to authority on climate science, which appears more objective and out of their everyday experience than economics. TLDR Climate change isn't falsifiable because there's no incentive given to falsify it, so its predictions should not be trusted. What could change my view a good study showing that the greenhouse effect alone is enough to cause catastrophic warming without appealing to feedback mechanisms evidence that even moderate warming is dangerous, and that we can prevent it with the policy tools available evidence that all science is immune to outside incentives good luck with that evidence that predictions of little no warming can get publication space and build mainstream scientific careers evidence that other scientific fields have had the same incentive structure as climate science, and produced reliable predictions that have been empirically verified I know this belief puts me out of the mainstream and I'd like a good reason to change it. Thanks in advance EDIT I did not expect this post to generate so much interest. I've been trying to reply to everyone but this is quickly spiraling out of my control. EDIT 2 Some deltas awarded. I still think my criticism of the funding mechanism for global warming studies is valid. The problem is that this causes catastrophic predictions to get more notice, while moderate opinions are shouted down as climate deniers. EDIT 3 I'm slowing down here, thanks for your interest I'll still check back and award deltas to people who hit the points I listed above, but I can't possibly respond to every post at this point, apologies. Appreciate the mostly very thoughtful debate, and I did read every post, even if I didn't reply. Last Edit View officially changed. u myncknm gives examples of measured and conservative papers on climate change, which do not fit my prediction of politically influenced alarmism. I have to change my view. Learned a lot, and I would also encourage those who believe in rampant or runaway warming to take a look at those sources.","conclusion":"Global warming predictions are epistemologically flawed, and should not be the basis for public policy."}
{"id":"63052149-4cbf-4408-9a1e-95f1af387d4b","argument":"Now, I'm a Democrat. I do not believe that Hillary R. Clinton broke any criminal laws, but I do believe that, were she to be imprisoned, it would help the cause of the Democrats. For one, it would give the DNC a martyr to fight for. They'd be able to rally around her. Not only that, but this might make liberals more inclined to vote. The very reason they gave up so much ground in state legislatures and governorships is because liberals don't vote nearly as much as conservatives. Also, all available polls show Hillary losing again to Trump in 2020. If she's in prison, she's not running in 2020, and the Democrats can find someone else who might actually be able to get us rid of this fake government. In conclusion, let's see if you can change my view gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"It would be good for the Democrats if Hillary Clinton were to be tried or imprisoned."}
{"id":"f1a2b24b-2c62-45ee-97d9-f4268ad8ef92","argument":"In that sense, if \"secular organizations could replicate the sort of tight, interlocking friendship networks found within religious organizations\" it is likely they can achieve a \"comparable level of charitable giving\".","conclusion":"Experts suggest that those who are more charitable, are not so for their religious or humanists beliefs, but based on the social connections and ties they have with charities."}
{"id":"4557b2f3-7d32-4ed6-bef9-9a6135d68532","argument":"My idea on the subject is simple. In the last minute of basketball teams are purposely trying to make fouls so they can stop the clock or try to regain possession of the ball more quickly, but since a foul is something done that is against the rules of the game, I think it's pretty stupid to encourage the breaking of the rules as a strategy.","conclusion":"I think it's stupid how fouls are encouraged in the last minutes of basketball."}
{"id":"1790915c-47a2-43df-84e6-5f6cf8acd92b","argument":"I want to start off by saying I consider myself a feminist, or at least a classical feminist. I prefer egalitarian because of the distasteful views that a lot of modern and more prevalent feminists seem to take. However, disregarding gender politics and other topics of that sort, I want to focus on this specific issue. I haven't seen this brought up on this sub before and if it has I still think some new information and thought processes can be brought to life. Let's begin. To begin, my thesis . The wage gap does not exist as it is frequently described and the only way in which it does exist is irrelevant to the majority of situations in which it is applied. To define what I mean how it is represented . More aggressive feminists like to advocate for their various causes by saying men and women are not treated equal in the sense that for every dollar a man makes a woman makes 77 or somewhere around this conversion rate cents, and that in all its simplicity is true, but it is also misleading. Onto how I think it is misleading. What is not usually accompanying this claim is the much needed context. This stat is about overall income averaged out. As I'm sure many of you here have heard before the truth of the matter is that women tend to choose lower paying jobs and or plan their lives around being a mother first and foremost. That along with other purely choice based variables cause that average to be so alarming at first glance. I implore anyone to find a statistic from an actual study please not just a news article with no sources that would present a fallacy in any of the statements I present here. Now, assuming that everything I said prior is true the wage gap is not a relevant issue in society . It in no way oppresses women or proves there is an inequality in the work place. Sure I will admit social pressures can have an impact but in the end it is a person's choice what job they take an how they plan their lives. I truly believe harping on this outdated disproved statistic hinders everything else feminists have to say, because it makes them look as if facts and legitimacy are not a priority. I believe this topic is mishandled very frequently when people reason participating in the day without women by saying they are fighting against the wage gap. The wage gap being purely based on what choices women freely make is not something you can fight without forcing women to take jobs they don't want which would be kinda oppressive. How I believe rational people should handle the topic is to understand what causes it is NOT blatant or even underlying sexism in the workplace, it is instead the accumulation of different paths in life women choose to take due in some part to social pressures but overall being a free choice. Please preempt any counter arguments by addressing which point paragraph you disagree with for organizations sake. Not mandatory but appreciated. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The wage gap is not an issue\/ is not real"}
{"id":"e0e76794-4d74-40f5-848d-727bd593bfe2","argument":"Lyrics for reference. I was recently at a holiday party where the host was asked to change the song once Baby, It's Cold Outside came on. Of course, I've seen dozens of articles in the past few years about how this song is the embodiment of rape culture like this Huffpost article but I've never actually seen someone personally offended by the song. Doesn't that seem a bit of an overreaction? Written in 1944 by Frank Loesser, the song is a widely recognized call and response duet that's been performed by dozens of cultural musical icons. Sammy Davis Jr and Carmen McRae. Ray Charles and Betty Carter. Zoey Deschanel and Will Ferrel. Willie Nelson and Norah Jones. Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett. Idina Menzel and Michael Buble. The song's writer has said this about the song \u201cIt was a flirtatious, wonderful, sexy number between people who like each other. It really wasn\u2019t anything but that.\u201d But Loesser still recognizes it was a piece of art that was written 70 years ago. Does the song have some creepy vibes? Yeah, it definitely does. But this song was also written in a totally different era a decade when doctors would appear in cigarette ads This was an era when Tom and Jerry cartoons would routinely feature male characters assaulting female characters with unwanted kisses. It seems unfair to lambast the cultural output of 70 years ago based on the norms sensibilities of 2017. Still, I find it a bit disingenuous that there's such widespread uproar about a once neutral holiday song when there are endless examples of contemporary musicians that promote a wildly more distasteful version of rape culture. From rap music to country songs, I can find endless examples of lyrics that glorify non consensual sexual behavior Blurred Lines by Robin Thicke 2013 , UOENO by Rocko ft. Rick Ross 2013 , Sun Daze by Florida Georgia Line 2014 . These songs have faced some public criticism, maybe a blog article here and there, but the 1944 song Baby, It's Cold Outside faces a near unprecedented level of contemporary rebuke. In fact, people are so outraged by the lyrics that some people are even boycotting concerts that play the song. Is it really that bad? Should I delete this song from my Christmas playlist? Does the song actually promote sexual harassment or is that how we just interpret it 70 years after it was written? gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The song \"Baby, It's Cold Outside\" is a holiday classic that faces unfair backlash."}
{"id":"eced908e-0e85-497f-b33d-e8b51b62bdc9","argument":"Anselm's 2nd premise is that, it is not incoherent for us to identify God in this way, as we can conceive of greatness and of a being so great that it is beyond our comprehension.","conclusion":"Anselm's Ontological argument characterized God as that which no greater being can be conceived. In this way, it is not paradoxical to point to a thing beyond our capacity of conception."}
{"id":"a2aff140-f0ea-4f19-867d-1fab7640d6ae","argument":"update conclusions Thank you everyone for pitching in to this important discussion. Many people have contributed to the change in my view. Primarily, it seems like we need a constitutional amendment to do 3 things Overturn citizens united Publicly finance campaigns Increase the number of representatives per person Or Make comittees votes opaque again It seems like there might be another way to gain ground. The surprising and counter intuitive solution that I'd like to thank u martinsoderholm It appears we could take power from lobbyists and special interests by returning to closed voting sessions in committees This is super effective because committee selection is the most corrupt part of campaign finance From martinsoderholm gt This is counterintuitive to most, but James D'Angelo and Harvard professor David King at The Congressional Research Institute are arguing that \u00bbtransparency\u00ab is the problem Basically, if votes in congress were secret, the politicians would have nothing to sell. gt Watch James make his case to The League of Women Voters Original post Even given perfect political will and a good faith effort on all sides, I believe that essentially it's impossible to solve the primary problem plaguing US politics. People want money and power. Things can be sold. Therefore people with power can sell it to people with money. You can try to foil obvious quid pro quo . But there's a fundamental rule of the universe at work here. It's like trying to swim upstream. The problem is particularly bad right now. Because of campaign finance needs, people with power need money. Because of that, the national conventions become beggars. They accept donations from candidates and hand out council positions as rewards. It's straight up purchased influence. I don't see a solution, but I also don't know that much about proposed solutions. This is a strong opinion weakly held. I'll fight to defend my position so that I can really get ideas. But if be excited to be wrong here. I'd love a really good argument for how to solve this. I'd even accept over that just requires stronger political will than we currently have. I think 2 4 years from now, Trump will put us in a mood to do something about corruption and I'm looking for a strategy going in. Edit for clarity, we don't need 100 removal of money. How do we make it better than it is? What's the dream legislation being discussed around political think tanks?","conclusion":"There's no realistic way to get money out of politics"}
{"id":"b92a80cb-404d-4a13-a993-80042d716f39","argument":"Unless we deal with the problem of poor communities, our cities will be surrounded by a belt of poverty, an increasing growing belt that will create a serious threat. As most cities continue to grow and attract more and more people from rural areas, the state needs to find a way to address the problem of urban migration, which is closely linked to the formation of poor communities particularly around cities. Illegal immigration also contributes tremendously to this problem, particularly in areas such as the Mexico-California border. Targeted subsidies can slow the pace of migration, by giving those in the countryside and in poorer countries a better standard of living where they already live.","conclusion":"Unless we deal with the problem of poor communities, our cities will be surrounded by a belt of pove..."}
{"id":"f4d4219f-4cc8-40f9-97ef-f0de214ac423","argument":"Being an employee is not without risk: if the company is not making profit, then because the employer can't reduce the employee's salary, their only option is to fire the employee.","conclusion":"One doesn't risk being fired when one is their own boss."}
{"id":"0ed3eb06-7294-4a8f-9fcf-79a06297864b","argument":"Religion is a way to outsource moral codes. Whoever controls the religion controls the morals of a given society, which is too much power to have.","conclusion":"Religion has been and is used as a form of social control."}
{"id":"de535ee8-df80-4613-91b6-b438c73da2be","argument":"I'm not sure that this is going to pan out into a coherent position but it's nonetheless how I feel so I'm going to try. Now, I'm not a foodie, and I understand that some people sort of make a hobby out of food. That's fine, I love science fiction and understand that most people don't give a shit about it. But what I'm seeing over and over again are people that can't seem to stop talking about, thinking about, reading about, and posting about food healthy food, organic food, etc. I see these people posting their dinner every night Kale salad and a thimbleful of hummus, MMM MMM Yeah, that looks like it tastes boring as shit. These types are the same ones railing against the evils of GMOs without actually being able to explain why they're so bad. But I don't think what bothers me is that other people are eating boring food. It's that these people live this way ostensibly because they want to improve the quality of their lives, but end up spending so much of their time obsessing about what they're eating or not eating that it seems to me that the stress they put themselves through has to negate any benefits you may be reaping through eating that way. I love food, OK? I love hamburgers, and pizza, and ice cream and pineapple curry chicken and shrimp scampi. I'll also admit here that I have that luxury I can eat pretty much whatever I want and stay skinny if maybe not healthy , though I've never noticed any negative impact on my health from eating this way . But I also don't want to spend all my time thinking about it food is a necessity, something I have to do regularly so I can continue to live and do the things that I love. I feel like these yuppie health conscious types that sneer at me because I'm eating a fucking delicious Whataburger are missing the whole point hamburgers are good for your soul's health, goddamnit, eat one sometime and actually enjoy your meal instead of convincing yourself that what you really want is plain tuna and a bowl full of leaves","conclusion":"I think people that are obsessed with healthy food are ridiculous,"}
{"id":"8493c6d4-8929-4e8a-aa59-5d18d90a33f3","argument":"The existence of evil acts done by humans moral evil is incompatible with the existence of an omniscient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent God.","conclusion":"If God were omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent, then evil would not exist."}
{"id":"9c87cfb3-7195-495d-bdca-8a4fdf3737d8","argument":"People are already required to produce valid identification for a whole range of activities that are less important than casting a vote, such as boarding a plane or buying a drink. Why is voting the only activity where we make it easy to cheat the system?","conclusion":"People are already required to produce valid identification for a whole range of activities that are..."}
{"id":"047c8228-c773-4fa2-8643-a936a513a7c0","argument":"51% of Black, Asian, and minority ethnic BAME LGBT individuals said they had faced discrimination or poor treatment from within their local LGBT network.","conclusion":"The LGBT community has not been devoid of racism and other forms of exclusion."}
{"id":"1412f5b9-2732-47b0-9c8d-78fa4c7ddc64","argument":"Exploits such as \"fusee-gelee\" and \"Deja-vu\" are used to install the firmware on the Nintendo Switch.","conclusion":"Modification of Nintendo's Switch systems enables piracy through the installation of custom firmware."}
{"id":"c0bcbe15-01d3-4aa9-a79d-e22c9c375872","argument":"I think that meat farming methods in my country the US are often inhumane and unethical, and eating meat by its very nature is cruel and irreverent to the animals being consumed. I have more respect for hunters because they're actually capable of killing some of what they eat even though they don't use their bodies to do it like a natural predator claws, teeth, etc I believe that humans once had a much better regard of animals to the point of even worshiping them for what they gave us because they had that connection. I think that our way of life and the consumption of meat today is an aberration of nature, an appetite of cruelty, and completely unnecessary for human survival.","conclusion":"I think that anyone who eats meat but couldn't bring themselves to kill an animal personally is a hypocrite."}
{"id":"354d991f-7946-493e-9601-db27807dd4be","argument":"I believe that all drugs should be legalized for consumption. This does not mean that distribution and manufacturing of drugs would be legal. Those are separate issues that I'm ambivalent about. I believe that drug addiction is a medical issue, not a criminal issue, and should be treated as such. Obviously, like any serious medical issue, it is very hard for the friends and family of the victim. Placing the victim in jail can make the issue even more difficult as others may be dependent on the individual despite his addiction. Moving a drug addict from one negative environment to another doesn't solve the issue it just hides it. Additionally, I don't think it's the place of the government to tell people what they can and can't put in their body. I think it's a basic human right to control one's own health and well being unless one is unable to do so oneself. I'm not completely set in stone with this one, so go ahead and","conclusion":"I believe that all drugs should be legalized for consumption."}
{"id":"7456167b-712d-4213-b06b-066523435e4b","argument":"The soul, in many religious, philosophical, psychological, and mythological traditions, is the incorporeal and, in many conceptions, immortal essence of a person, living thing. I don't think such a thing exists. There is nothing incorporeal about our emotions, our thoughts, our consciousness, or any other mental, psychological, or emotional phenomenon. It's all chemical and electric signals in the brain. Granted, we don't understand everything about neurobiology yet, but that's not proof that there is some trans physical aspect to our existence. Because of this belief, I don't believe the dead pass on , or are watching over us or get reincarnated . They simply cease the reactions in the brain that had been occurring during their lifetime. Edit Incorporeal is the primary thing I'm having trouble accepting. Immortal is not that important. Edit 2 By incorporeal I mean trans physical , or meta physical . Something that is beyond the world of physics and chemistry. I am aware that I am using incorporeal incorrectly, but as I've used that term while answering some of the comments, I will avoid retroactively changing my posts, but rather define the meaning I attached to it here. My apologies to grammar buffs. Edit 3 As u elev57 has pointed out, it is impossible to prove something that by definition has no existence. There isn't even a universally accepted definition of soul . It's an impossible task. As such, I'm rescinding this . Thank you everyone who tried their best to discuss such an impossible topic. gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than just downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"There is no such thing as a Soul."}
{"id":"77b77e85-da16-46d8-9fc0-3c0afa9ed5f6","argument":"A 2017 study of 77 teachers found that co-teaching both requires a lot of resources for its successful implementation and that teachers often lack the necessary skills for implementing co-teaching.","conclusion":"This requires a lot of teacher training and experience, which is not always possible at all levels of schooling. The resources needed outweigh the potential benefits."}
{"id":"92d7c3a7-b668-48fb-91b9-4a22c0d5cb67","argument":"Experts and academia project a collapse of the NK regime is highly likely. Additionally, the income disparity between NK and SK is massive. SK stands at just under30,000 USD while NK income per-capita hovers just over 1,000 USD","conclusion":"NK people endure some of the lowest living standards in the world. Unification would remedy this."}
{"id":"c2b23abb-af41-4bd1-be5d-aa7245b09933","argument":"I believe in 15 20 years Bush will be remembered as a success as time gets a chance to let his policies play out. I believe Bush fell victim to the new age of media as his every move and mistake was brutally scrutinized on the television and internet. Yes under his presidency the recession occurred but in reality the president does not have limitless power over the economy like they claim to have and much of it was not his fault Enron . Dear Reddit, Change my view.","conclusion":"I think George W. Bush was a good president-"}
{"id":"0c1e156d-573b-4b8f-b6ed-5428fb86b882","argument":"From my understanding after reading stories from numerous stories I haven't actually frequented a gay bar myself due to lack of willing peers that straight people are actually harmful at gay bars. The straight women go to avoid being hit on my straight men and to view the spectacle of gay men and women interacting. The straight men go to prey on unsuspecting straight women. And both the straight men and women will usually get insecure and or insulted if a gay man or woman tries to hit on them. It seems unfair for gay men and women to have to deal with this in a place that is made for them. edit People seem to think that because I think that something should apply to one situation, it should be applied to all situations, which somehow leads back to racial segregation or not liking black people. I don't that way and just want to apply this to straight people in gay bars. Nothing else. edit2 My views have been changed.","conclusion":"I think straight people do not belong in gay bars."}
{"id":"d96a77c1-a1d7-4bfd-838e-2e33b5afeb7d","argument":"The whole concept of a War on Terror is flawed. Stop digging up rabbit holes. The concept of war on terror is flawed. It cannot be won because ideological values and beliefs cannot be destroyed by force. The war on terror will always continue and exist, mainly because the viewpoints of Islamic extremists are so powerfiul and influential that they have carved up the minds of the population of their countrys and ultimately brainwashed the people which has led to such hatred of the West that the Allies and the UN cannot posssilby prevent. This has also spread to other countrys and is further proof that terrof is force not to be reckoned with.","conclusion":"The war on 'terror' is war on fear, ie war on peace"}
{"id":"dbef93ee-bea3-4114-a22a-10aa91f0e3e9","argument":"I\u2019ve heard this idea tossed around and have never quite gotten my head wrapped around it. The claim that \u201crace is a social construct\u201d to me sounds absurd. To clarify my viewpoint, let me first say that I agree race is superficially a \u201csocial construct\u201d in the way everything can be treated as a \u201csocial construct.\u201d However, treated this way, \u201csocial construct\u201d idk why I keep putting this in quotes is a trivial term since it conveys no real information about the nature of the things the social construct classifies. To me, the interesting debate arises if you treat a social construct as a schema that is primarily informed by accepted societal views as opposed to your own direct or indirect observation. Taking this definition, I believe race is not a social construct since it is primarily classified by appearance which is directly observable . Traits like skin color, hair color and facial features help people form a prototype member of a racial group and racial classification is based off of this sort of prototype matching. I believe the prototype used here is not of social origin. In most cases except in extremely homogenous environments , a person's view of a particular race is formed from direct observation of people of that race. Even accepting that this prototype may be socially influenced and distorted at times think of racist caricatures for example , distortion of the prototype does not change the fact that it is grounded in real life observation. So, is my definition of a \u201csocial construct\u201d not what most people take it to be? Or have I overlooked some key detail as to why race actually qualifies as a social construct using the definition I provide? Change my view.","conclusion":"Race is not a social construct"}
{"id":"f05f261c-ea2b-4c0a-8378-ca2ffdedbdf5","argument":"Hi Reddit, Let me preface by saying that I am against discrimination against anyone for their race or religion. I would not be in favour of a law that advocates for the discrimination, exclusion, genocide, etc. of Muslims from public discourse as I see no ethical way of doing so. I believe the religion, not the people, should be eliminated and of course I see that as impossible. Moreover, I have many friends and even family members who are Muslim and love them very much as people. I also don't blame many who are raised muslim and remain so due to social ties, indoctrination, etc. as I find it kind of sad. Indeed I often don't understand how some of the brilliant, fun, open minded individuals I am friends with still identify as Muslim. However, I absolutely abhor the religion. I have read the Quran and find it to be a mound of contradictions the bible and torah are as well but nowhere near as downright violent and hateful as the Quran . I have spoken to my Muslim friends and family alike I am an agnostic atheist and they tend to cherrypick verses from the Quran to attempt to prove wrong some of my points. They justify seeing women as worth testifying as half of a man well we know how women nature is, they like to gossip and exaggerate, Islam doesn't deny human nature and is realist not idealist . They justify misogyny We don't deny how men are naturally. Men are indeed very weak creatures who need us to put them on a pedestal. Women are strong because we are not afraid to show subordination in order to keep things going or covering our hair is doing a service to them, it is how we acknowledge that they are weak creatures who, unlike us, simply can't control themselves when in lust and lust more after appearances I bring up the verses that talk about death to infidels and apostates and they respond with the cherrypicked you have your religion, I have my religion and the anti coercion verses. Yet they fail to realize that if their book was indeed the word of God, then there wouldn't be any contradictions I am not a fan of Christianity or any religion for that matter, but I believe that Islam has had a disproportionately negative influence. Yes, Christians push their views on others. Yes, sometimes they kill for it. Yes, they are homophobic too, they are anti choice and sometimes misogynistic. The difference is that Christians, for the most part, don't make women cover their head, don't have issues with work outside the home, advocate that people LOVE everyone, including infidels as opposed to the muslims who hate infidels because the Quran decries and insults them . So what negative influence has Islam had? In short, they are bringing society backward. Their mindset is stuck in the medieval age, or maybe as some say the 7th century. Sure, Mohammed might have been a feminist for his time, but seriously get with the program, it's 1400 years later, the world turns and progresses, why are you stuck on your backwards ideology? In list form, the negatives are They put men on a pedestal, give women less rights i.e. control where they go, who they are with, make sure genders don't mix, restrict opportunities, force them to cover up, sometimes mutilate them so they can't experience sexual pleasure, they make their testimony be worth half that of a man, etc. This comes at a time where women's rights are making leaps and bounds in a positive direction. They try to push their views on everyone in the area and if they don't, they are punished severely i.e. persecutions of Christians and Jews in the Middle East . This comes at a time where we are increasing our tolerance for other types of people. They don't let people just believe what they want and most believe in killing apostates This comes at a time when people are becoming more open minded about differing beliefs. Violence. They believe it's okay to be violent in pursuit of their ultimate goal i.e. the ends justify the means. They are so busy fighting each other shia vs. sunni , fighting other cultures christians, Israel, etc. Martyrdom is honoured and for pete's sake they're handing out candy in Palestine for abducting children and the mother of a suspect said she'd be PROUD if it were her son who kidnapped the Israeli boys. How is this ever okay? It doesn't matter what Israel did or did not do, the actions of Muslim countries and attitudes towards Israel are unacceptable and disproportionately brutal. Muslim society gets away with murder when the world should be fighting back and letting them know their crazy antics are not okay. How can we just let them do their stupid barbaric violent nonsense? Indeed, tens of thousands of terror attacks were committed worldwide by Muslims in the name of Islam, mostly against other Muslims. This comes at a time in history that is less violent than ever and getting even less violent. They have laws that favour them as opposed to outsiders dhimmis and give them extra perks at a time when we are increasing equality and getting rid of laws that give privilege to one religion over another. Homophobia. They are virulently homophobic all the countries that make homosexuality punishable by death are Muslim and cite Islamic law at a time when gay rights are finally being taken seriously as civil rights. They are against free speech. if someone ever so much as makes fun of or insults islam they are punishable by death in Islamic countries. In non Islamic countries e.g. the Mohamed cartoon , people are trying to kill them for martyrdom and clerics are issuing fatwas on their lives. This comes at a time when the importance of free speech is recognized now more than ever. They're totally cool with youth marriage. Again, refusing to give women any agency they're property, chattel, etc. I don't care about references to Khadija, she's obviously the exception, not the norm. Islamic society is all about conformity, and opposes innovation. Can you count on one hand the number of Muslims who have won the Nobel Prize for innovation in a field that isn't Peace ? Nope? That's because there are only four of them Out of one and a half billion muslims. Contrast that with Jews who form 0.18 of the world population and won nearly one quarter of all Nobel Prizes and Atheists who have won 67 Nobel Prizes This comes at a time that has seen the greatest innovation in history and the trend continues. Islam denies many scientific tenets that go against their holy scripture. This comes at a time when we are trying to increase scientific literacy. I could go on. But those who are doing all those things are not being real muslims Have you even read the Quran? It's a pretty brutal book. I don't care about the context of the time, when a book is that brutal maybe you should abandon it? And how do you justify that the majority of Muslim cultures in the world interpret Sharia that way all the above reasons are applicable to the majority of Muslim countries ? Islam is actually more feminist than common society because we want people to judge us by our personality and intelligence not our looks, and hijab does that Then why do you cake on so much damn makeup? No but seriously, it is just another way of showing that a woman's worth is in her virginity purity and taking more choice away from the woman. It also justifies men doing bad bad things I raped her because she deserved it because she wasn't in hijab Telling men they can't control themselves produces men who don't bother trying. It's the culture, not the religion The culture and religion are so intermeshed in Islamic society that you can't tease them apart. Therefore the culture has BECOME the religion and vice versa. We understand the nature of men and women and have these rules as recognition of divine understanding of biological reality. Saying men can't control themselves and that they are weak and have to be put on a pedestal and made to feel like they can control women so that peace can be kept, IMO, is a frequent theme of religion, particularly bad in Islam, and tends to create a self fulfilling prophesy. It also allows men to get away with all kinds of crazy stuff and blame their biology. But I just KNOW its the Truth Ummmm how? I don't get it. How can you just assume something is the truth without any legitimate evidence beyond one source. And I can just feel it doesn't cut it for me either. Just because it's a different culture doesn't mean they get a free pass to do whatever BS they want and believe whatever BS they want. Yes I am an islamophobe as I am petrified of the religion and the impact it is having on the world not because I believe in discriminating against muslims. It has brought nothing but violence, hatred, and injustice. They justify bad things in the name of their god because its what god wants them to do. Islam is the big bully on the playground and is only getting stronger as the fastest growing religion in the world. Am I not the only one who finds that super scary? Are they the religion of peace? Well, I know Muslims claim they find peace in their lives being so predetermined if they do x, y, and z they go to heaven. It's a simple prescription, but with simplicity comes ignoring of the inevitable complexity of life, and when faced with complexity they just lash out as they simply don't know how to deal with it. Yes, they believe they are doing the world a favour by trying to eliminate non muslims because with homogeneity comes peace. If everyone was Muslim and the same type of muslim there would be peace. Again, oversimplification, because human beings are complex and if they're not fighting about religion they are fighting about something else. If everyone is the same there will be peace therefore we must have harsh penalties for people who go out of line to scare them into submission and conformity i.e. peace. And isn't it presumptuous to decree that ISLAM of all religion should be the dominant one? How do you know other religions aren't also true or at least worthy of respect? And that's why I struggle with religion altogether how could they all be true? I don't share these views publicly with ANYONE except my SO, who agrees with me completely for fear of my safety and people thinking I'm a bigot. I just can't see any good in MODERN Islam. I don't want a lecture on how Islam was so great and at the forefront of intellectual innovation 800 years ago. Islam then was a very different culture and a much more liberal interpretation of the religion. I'm referring to Modern Islam and ONLY Modern Islam. As in, Islamic Society Right Now. Islam and its growth threatens the good societal progress we're experiencing and is a purely negative force. EDIT1 I know that a lot of people are excusing Islamic behaviour with colonialism. Yet most Muslim countries in the Middle East were never colonized. In fact, the more islamofascist countries tend to have never been colonized eg Saudi, UAE, Afghanistan, Syria , and the colonized Muslim countries relatively chill Indonesia, Malaysia, etc. And by chill I mean chill to Islamist country standards, not global standards. Even the mildest Muslim countries have their sharia nonsense.","conclusion":"Islam's rapid growth is a terrible thing, a bad influence, and threatens the progress we have worked so hard to achieve"}
{"id":"5eaddcf0-bff8-4fb3-8011-c5808a439b54","argument":"While some argue that zoos are a means to protecting endangered species, the reality is that very few animals in zoos are actually endangered. In other words, this is really not the reason why zoos exist and so should not be put forward as a justification for them.","conclusion":"Most of the animals that you see in zoos aren't endangered."}
{"id":"692ad347-2171-49ff-a5f1-a8eb200dee25","argument":"Examples It's clearly safer to drive with a seat belt than without one. His writing is clearly satirical. This is clearly a loophole in the law and should be closed. Bitcoin is clearly in a bubble. This terrorist attack clearly was preventable. The raid was clearly a political act. If someone agrees with your view, they don't need you to explain that you are clearly right. If someone disagrees with your view, the word clearly only insults them and makes them less likely to honestly consider your ideas. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The word \"clearly\" never enhances and argument."}
{"id":"0dc01bcf-fcd7-4dda-ae8b-426db49159c2","argument":"If minority students' experiences of oppression, or their political opinions, diverge from what is expected it can backfire and undermine the effective teaching of issues such as racism or colonialism.","conclusion":"It is harmful for white students to form their entire perspective on an ethnic or cultural group based purely on their interactions with a handful of peers."}
{"id":"65f06b2d-2b5e-4208-bbba-7c4f020d0b71","argument":"I try to be open minded about politics, and I like to gather several different views before forming an opinion. However, I find myself drawn towards the left end of the spectrum, particularly towards policies that Paul Krugman advocates. Is there a good reason for me to be skeptical of him as well as everyone else?","conclusion":"In my opinion, Paul Krugman is one of the few pundits who lays out a good argument for how to improve the economy."}
{"id":"e0195ae1-fee2-4d05-ab37-e1d674aeb8b4","argument":"These ads often mislead and anger customers. The death of a student who had been following the advice of an ad has cemented a reputation that Baidu is \"evil","conclusion":"Google offers a significantly more user friendly service, because it does not bombard customers with paid ads that are indistinguishable from search results."}
{"id":"7380fc44-b61a-4174-a002-c6a2b4296930","argument":"Zoos often function as large\/dangerous animal hospitals\/hospices. Animals that are injured, sick, or in need of surgery are often cared for at zoos.","conclusion":"Zoos do a lot of important work to improve animal well-being."}
{"id":"8b88278b-ab82-4b87-859f-faed3d2ae65f","argument":"Religions often present what appears to be a lot of foundation, an entire book and other items. However they usually also request a lot of unfounded assumptions and the consequences of making the unfounded assumptions are often substantial.","conclusion":"Unfounded assumptions come with varying degrees of unfoundedness and consequence. The higher the unfoundedness and the consequence the less sound is the assumption."}
{"id":"3834b4bb-24e8-4272-aa08-94b3b13536e4","argument":"Falsehoods spread about individuals can destroy people's personal lives. If a rumor were spread that a person was a pedophile then that could expose a person to alienation and even attacks from those around them.","conclusion":"Defamation protects people from blatantly false statements that damage their reputation. A person's reputation is of immense importance to the ability to function in society and they should have a right to defend it."}
{"id":"888dec51-abe8-486f-a7c0-bc9bdafb1e68","argument":"Hello, I'm new to this sub. I am coming from THIS THREAD I don't understand why it is important to some that animals that are to be slaughtered should be treated humanely. If they are going to die anyways, why should we put in extra effort to ensure that the animals are comfortable? I find it extremely hypocritical to sugarcoat the process of killing. Is it not just plain reality that humans own the food chain, and we bred these animals for consumption? In addition, I cannot imagine even in nature where humane treatment occurs for carnivorous animals. Do other animals ever care about HOW they are killing a rabbit or deer that they are about to eat? Why are we expected to treat food like they are another sentient being with feelings? That sounds weird but I can't think of another way to say it. Isn't it natural to not have feelings for something that we are going to slaughter? e.g. Fido for pet dog that we will keep as a companion vs 5936 for the cow that I will get ribeye steak from . I never really empathized with animal rights people when it came to animals that were being utilized for human consumption including vaccine testing and to a certain extent, various product testing . Please help me understand. EDIT Thank you all for replying. I would like to refine my question a bit more I understand that we are morally able and that we are above other predators observed in nature in that ethical sense. I know that it sucks to be the animal being submitted to pain and killing. But as a low income meat lover, why should I care when the free range chicken is more expensive than tyson, or some other big name meat brand? As I stated in my reply to u confictedfelon, how does humane treatment policies affect cost and availability of meat? EDIT 2 u fnredditacct received a delta for convincing me on a personal scale that I can relate to. I always had gas problems, and I go through more than a dozen eggs a week. She mentioned that her family experienced less gas, and felt fuller with the eggs. I was able to confirm most of her points after trying the organic ones myself. However, I think I am still somewhat unconvinced about some of the other things. This I realize is mostly based on the fact that I have very little understanding of what ethics is. I understand it on a basic level, such as don't hurt others, but when it came to weighing animals' rights to my own satisfactions, that became a bit skewed. I will attempt to learn a bit more on my own how this factors in. Please feel free to enlighten me a bit more in this area. In addition, some are still under the impression that I WANT to TORTURE the animals before slaughter. Please let me clarify by saying that I do NOT want animals to be tortured. Torture implies an intent to hurt. I guess I am more faithful in the butchers that they are not sociopaths that want to torture animals, and that if an animal experiences a lot of pain in the kill process that they are a more rare occurrence. Again, I am most likely operating here under limited knowledge. Regardless, I fully understand that pain and suffering is unnecessary, and I hope that we can provide pain free meat for people like me. But until we can somehow bridge the cost gap between free range and organic meats vs big brand meats, I will most likely be forced to remain in the cheaper meat section. Thank you all for your participation I still learned a lot","conclusion":"Why does humane treatment matter for animals destined for slaughter?"}
{"id":"d98df2ec-adca-404a-b3ff-1abd3cb8a3be","argument":"Allowing inmates this choice may reduce some of the stigma and taboo associated with the right to die. This shift in thinking may provide individuals with more choice and autonomy by normalising suicide","conclusion":"It is an individual's choice to decide if they wish to live or die."}
{"id":"e0f67604-89d6-48e2-a5b9-68b6010d63fd","argument":"The imaginary boundaries exist because that's precisely where they are needed - the borders exist where culture is no longer the same, where it conflicts. Where one tries to consume the other.","conclusion":"National boundaries are not merely abstract lines: they reflect the history, experience and traditions of different countries, and therefore they should be preserved"}
{"id":"abc5d4af-cd23-4c66-b9c9-1948145049a5","argument":"Jon Gluyas is chair in geoenergy at Durham Energy Institute, University of Durham, UK; Susie Daniels is at Geospatial Research in the university's department of earth sciences. \"Do we really need carbon capture and storage? Yes, CCS is sensible and necessary\" RSC. September 2010: \"Superficially, Tsouris and Aaron's premise seems reasonable. Why should we do anything that does not make a profit? Fundamentally, burying something in the ground and not using it cannot make a profit whether it be CO2 or gold. Similarly, cleaning polluted rivers is intrinsically not profitable, nor is saving whales or having a state health service. Closer to home, the weekly visit of the dustman does not make a profit. Instead it provides a service at a cost. We pay to have our rubbish cleared away so that it does not accumulate in our neighbourhood. CCS is the same principle.\"","conclusion":"CCS doesn't have to be profitable to be a good idea"}
{"id":"4f83722b-c04b-4248-b905-85a78b8f5ef3","argument":"It's a category mistake to equate expressions of God's omni-ness with God's actual nature. If I call my wife \"The most beautiful woman in the world\". I'm not making a claim about objective fact. I'm expressing something about our relationship. This is how biblical claims of God's almighty power work also. They express the feelings of the author.","conclusion":"While the conception of God as omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent may be 'traditional' in philosophical discussions of monotheism, it is not necessarily supported by the actual scriptural traditions of Abrahamic monotheism."}
{"id":"fbeae380-4ab3-42c7-8886-e049443623b5","argument":"I am a 35 year old Finnish straight man, living in Finland. I have also lived in Sweden during 2010 2015. I am married with kids. I would consider my wife as a pragmatic feminist, and as such, probably myself as well, albeit with the problem regarding what counts as equality. Anyway, I have not faced issues in this field until very recently, as this neo progressive phenomenon related to PC and terminology has landed in daily life in Finland. Let me tell you a story. I was raised by my mother, a hard working single parent dad was an absent alcoholic who taught me most values about life. Obviously this doesn't mean she was a feminist, but I would consider her as a pragmatic seeker for an effective process towards synergy. She felt rightly so that men and women are inherently different, mentally, biologically, etc. which obviously meant there would always be dynamic differences. I still believe this, in my 30's, after doing my own studies and after learning even more from my wife who is a teacher. This doesn't mean there should be any inequality, but it doesn't mean there should be forced equality either. But to my topic I have never bumped into this argument in my life. In the Nordics we have a pretty equal society, women have been a part of commerce, politics and academia for a long time, and excluding a few cases, harrasment nor discrimination has not been common. Hell, I have been harrassed more than I have heard of women being harrassed obviously it happens in my circle of friends. But lately, I have been told by young women not to mansplain, not to manspread, and a friend of mine caused a stranger crying and shaking after asking her, albeit in a slightly drunken way how was her evening in a bar. We were thrown out in Finland because of harrasment . Wrong bar, it was too young and trendy. But still, this was not obnoxius behaviour, that I can say. What is this masculinity that is being discussed? Am I completely blind and oblivous to things happening, as I simply cannot comprehend why younger generation has become so obsessed in the common traits which are related to being a man? I am apolitical, although quite liberal in the Nordic sense, not US , polite, well educated, thoughtful and cannot understand. I do not believe there is a phenomenon called patriarchy in the world. It is absolutely manifesting itself in singular scenarios, companies, sure. But to say I as a man am somehow faulty or toxic or dangerous as a masculine person is wrong and outright offensive. Edit 1 There obviously is a contextual issue in my terminology. I think the point still remains so I will adjust my perspective a bit when reading through the replies. Edit 2 We have established the toxicity part. If mods allow, I would like to use this thread to still discuss the latter part of my masculinity argument. Edit 3 A lot of replies, I will try to go through each and every reply and consider their value.","conclusion":"Masculinity is not toxic. Being a polite, but \"masculine\" man comes naturally to most men and should not be treated as a threat."}
{"id":"7362d925-a1fa-439b-936a-ee4b6e1fa84e","argument":"I am an atheist but i struggle with modern atheism's conclusion that a common morality is self evident or self actualizing. I believe that religion was created by man many hundreds of thousands of years ago and has evolved over that time to the modern religion we witness today Christianity, Islam, Judaism, etc . These religious entities have developed a moral structure over the centuries to enforce a way of living that is contrary to natural instincts for the greater good of a society in general. A true atheist would be be a nihilist, nothing matters and no beings are more important than any other. Murder, theft, rape would all be logical actions to a nihilist that completely rejects the concept of a Sky daddy watching over them. An atheist would argue that to NOT murder, because you dont want to hurt another person, is self evident morality. But its not, thats compassion or empathy. Morality is not empathy or compassion. So where does morality appear in a human being if you are to truly reject a sky daddy ? gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Morality is not self-evident"}
{"id":"64def0ed-dfcb-4965-8b2c-fa20020175f5","argument":"A cap-and-trade system provides companies with credits if they are able to reduce their emissions below an established level. They can then sell these credits for a profit. So, if a company takes action to reduce its carbon emissions below the designated level, it can make a profit. This is a powerful market incentive that is more likely to cause companies to invest money in finding the best ways to reduce their carbon emissions as much as possible. A regulatory approach lacks this important profit motive, which makes it less likely that companies will invest in finding the best ways to lower carbon emissions. Also, with regulations, if a company meets the mandated standards and regulations, it has no incentive to further reduce its carbon emissions, while in a cap-and-trade system the company would have this incentive.","conclusion":"A cap-and-trade system better encourages companies to cut their carbon emissions"}
{"id":"fa160503-4c73-4ecf-a52c-3f0af9a55e42","argument":"Facebook and Twitter have removed hundreds of accounts on the grounds that they are attempts by the Chinese government to sow discord in Hong Kong. This is the first time such an action has been taken.","conclusion":"World-wide public opinion on China's recent activity with regards to the protests is overwhelmingly negative."}
{"id":"b98ef7a7-c4c1-450a-a22a-de232711afd2","argument":"Before I start, also it should fall on the gym owners. As the title says, I don't think I should have to wipe down my equipment when I'm finished. Most of the time I have to hunt down bottles scattered around a gym and either waste a ton of paper towels or use the same towel continuously depending on the gym and what it has available which isn't any better than just not wiping it down. As someone who spends a lot of time at the gym, a majority of people half ass the clean job as is, and I question the potency of the cleaners the gym makes available. In most gyms, they essentially use watered down sanitizer water which I imagine is Because it's cheaper. If the gym owners and few people who care about the sanitization of the equipment were the ones to wipe equipment down, they could use less watered down or different, better cleanser because they won't burn through it when requiring EVERYONE to use it every time they use a piece of equipment which can be close to a dozen . So, I believe that the people who care about clean equipment should be the ones who do it, not everyone else.","conclusion":"I believe wiping down gym equipment after you use it is a waste of time and instead the person who is going to use it should be responsible for wiping it down."}
{"id":"53cb2a69-f736-41da-8e1e-0a12ce11f75d","argument":"Disclosure for context I am a left leaning Republican who lives in NYC, and am not a Trump supporter. But I do believe he WILL make America great again just not in the way he thinks. First, a pre argument Over the past 8 years, this country has grown so divided that no presidential candidate in 2016 could have realistically bridged the ideological gap. Say what you will about Bernie, but President Sanders would have been just as abhorrent to Trump supporters and many moderate Republicans, including myself as the Donald is to non supporters. In fact, if Bernie had been elected, the divide would have only deepened further and with the mainstream media unfortunately admittedly leaning to the left, the growing disparity would for the most part go uncovered. Dems would continue to celebrate progress in human rights, equality, etc., which is great, but the needs of Americans in less populated rural communities would continue to go unaddressed and their voices would continue to go unheard. Their anger would fester and grow for four more years, at which point they'd then elect Trump or another alt right candidate in 2020 anyway. President Sanders Clinton Cruz Rubio whoever would have only delayed the inevitable, and now Trump must fail spectacularly so that we can rise from the ashes like the fucking phoenix of a nation that we are and become something truly incredible, the likes of which the world has never seen. By 'failing spectacularly,' I mean that Trump must be found to have directly caused some thing a war, an economic collapse, etc. that harms the country, its global reputation and standing and or its citizens, irreparably. I'm not talking about the not a muslim ban this, while I believe it is was fundamentally un American, caused no physical harm to American citizens, endangered no American lives, and caused no foreign allies to condemn us or the media bashing it's juvenile and highly concerning for sure, but the press is still free he's just making things difficult for them . I'm talking about full on disaster an all out war with Russia, a constitutional collapse and subsequent dictatorship, another Great Depression and the economic rise of China something painful we simply cannot recover from, something we can't just brush off and go back to the way things were before. It has to be an event that shakes us to our very core, a crisis that cannot be fixed, that forces us to look inward and work together, to remind us of who we are and how we can unite around common principles to truly make America great again and we must do this with full awareness that in fact we may not rise at all even ancient Rome fell eventually and they navigated this kind of shit for 1200 years . Unless Trump suddenly switches out his red trucker hat for his presidential one and tries to work across the aisle and I don't see this happening any time soon , then things will either continue as they have been for the next four years or they will get worse, and neither of these scenarios brings with them a resolution to the ideological gap in our country that is looking more and more like a canyon every day. I just don't see how the canyon can be crossed at this point anymore, and I think the only option we have is to let it blow it up and try to build something beautiful with the wreckage. Like ancient Rome, all great civilizations must fall but this isn't our time. Unless Russia uses nukes, then we're fuuuuckkkkedddd  Edit added 'that' to a sentence","conclusion":"Trump's presidency is a disaster, but this was inevitable and his failure is the essential ingredient to making America great again."}
{"id":"e79d7afd-862e-4bfd-9994-af7e69039af9","argument":"So, yeah, I do think that this is a very flawed idea I have. Pretty much every time I call my Mom and talk to her, she brings up something like this. I do realize there's so much more I could be doing with my spare time, and I agree with her that it might not be the best thing for my health. But she also happens to be pretty bad at forming an argument, and I don't want to just try to make this shift without anything more than just her insistence of Using the computer is bad for you. So, I'm looking for some legitamate reasons as to why I should follow her advice. For the record these are the things I'm doing when I'm looking at a screen Browsing Reddit Listening to music Watching stuff on Netflix Roleplaying on Shamchat Watching Youtube So, yeah, I think I just need a wake up call or something. Thanks in advance. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"It's Perfectly Fine that Pretty Much All of My Hobbies Involve Staring at a Computer Screen"}
{"id":"44bbca84-8085-4ad9-9cd6-00ba13d0d137","argument":"Much of the resources water, oxygen, etc. while living there would need to be sourced from Earth. This would end up wasteful, inefficient, and can create more scarcity of precious resources on Earth.","conclusion":"Colonising Mars will take an unbelievable amount of natural resources from Earth."}
{"id":"92b5b3cf-ae55-4a04-85fb-c5d4b7ef7a57","argument":"Okay, I get it. I love HP as everyone does and I was amazed at the literaric creativity and visual shock of it when the first movies came out. But, really, now that many years have passed and I look back to the series, Quidditch kinda destroys the illusion of a beautifully crafted fantasy world. When you think about it, the rules make no sense, so its only purpose is to move forward the plot and Harry's character. IRL, ignoring the physical imposibility of its existence, the logical part of it would also make it impossible for it to be a professional sport unless it went through a severe change of rules. Here are my points It is too dangerous and there's almost zero rule enforcement but I could get past it. it makes sense in HP world The broom quality is too decisive, much than any sports equipment ever. And, above all, the snitch destroys everything. It transforms the sport into a big group of people doing useless work and two people having all the job. If you pick the snitch, that's it, you almost 100 win. The logical change here would be to at least lower the amount of points the snitch gives and maybe even making Quidditch a timed game and not relying on a team catching the snitch. Now, I know what your argument against this may be. But you can catch the snitch and still win Look at Ireland That's bullshit. You can't make a sport that will only be fair in extreme circumstances, where the winner is decided by the snitch except in very rare cases that people comment as completely abnormal situations","conclusion":"Quidditch makes no sense and could never be a real sport, even if magic existed"}
{"id":"7ed6aa9d-f419-471d-aa2d-16ddf171b6ac","argument":"I have travelled to a major tourist destination and I was exposed to selfie sticks for the very first time. I did not really understand all the hate against them, and my recent trip convinced me that they are a great thing. The people you travel with is a major part of the experience, so if a tool helps you capture these moments, what makes it so bad? I almost exclusively saw families use them. They got great pictures with everyone in it without bothering anyone. Even as a solo traveller, I take selfies once in a while, because it makes my parents at home happy. I don't have one, but I figure it might also come useful when you need to grab a unique shot without putting yourself at risk, or simply want to place your lens above the crowd. What makes it so bad to use a selfie stick?","conclusion":"Selfie sticks are a great thing"}
{"id":"cf42ee6e-640c-426a-bd7a-cf1ef6fb4758","argument":"I am currently not doing well at all in normal public high school with the difficulty of AP classes, and such. The thing is, I really want to get into a good college, like University of Florida. If I switch into a private school, I will be able to take a ton of high classes and get straight A's in all of them which will boost my GPA a ton, but I will not really be learning anything. Some people have told me this is a bad idea, but I do not know why. I am willing to have a discussion with anyone in the comments so please change my view","conclusion":"I think I should go to private school to boost my grades"}
{"id":"20beb95b-35ac-47e9-9e85-ba2dc71ab9ab","argument":"If a referendum is held and passes, a constitutional change would then have to be approved by the states. The state, however, may reject the changes. This would create a constitutional crisis in which the Queen's authority is rejected by Australians, but the lack of state approval leaves the Queen as a legal sovereign over the people. This is a situation that must not be created.","conclusion":"A referendum on an Australian republic could cause a constitutional crisis if rejected by states"}
{"id":"6b671537-2c35-4959-9909-637089f2892c","argument":"Jim first told Pam who he knew was still married to Roy that he was interested in her. That was innocent enough, she turned him down and he walked away. What makes his behaviour kind of creepy and uncomfortable is when Pam is in the office by herself in the dark, and Jim just walks right up to Pam and kisses her without her consent even after being told earlier that she wasn't interested. What won't change my mind is saying she was interested too , because that is irrelevant. The happy fairy tale outcome doesn't change the fact that the action by itself is inappropriate. Pam's reaction to Jim's inappropriate advances, doesn't make the actions themselves appropriate. Obviously this just for a thought exercise still love the show I'm not that much of a party pooper. I was just interested in what others think, especially in the light of the recent MeToo movement, which obviously wasn't around when the show came out. So CMW Please leave the footnote below the following line, but remember to delete this sentence by replacing it with the body of your post. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"In the era of MeToo, if Jim from the Office were real, then it would be fair to say that he crossed the line of sexually inappropriate behavior in the workplace"}
{"id":"058ce817-d9e1-4e43-8ddd-7a8748b3b624","argument":"Let's first look at the games, which while having similar mechanics capture creatures, pit them against other creatures in combat, creatures transform into stronger forms , have very different executions. Pok\u00e9mon games tend to draw in wider audiences because the games manage to mix great stories with simple goals become the champion, and maybe do some other stuff along the way . They regularly get good reviews. Digimon games tend to have worse graphics, more contrived plots, and change too much from game to game to keep people hooked into the series. When it comes to the TV shows, I can honestly predict how 90 of Pokemon episodes will go Ash and Friends are somewhere cool. Often somewhere that wasn't in the games. Ash or Friend either befriends a new person pokemon, battles someone, or does a contest or whatever that season's equivalent is Team Rocket come up with some kind of crazy contrived plan that will ultimately fail to catch pikachu and maybe some other strong pokemon. Team Rocket will say a speech. Team Rocket will go blasting off again . There's not much variance from episode to episode, and the show quickly becomes stale and repetitive. Digimon, on the other hand, blended serial and episodic writing in order to create advancing plots. The ability for the digital world to do some really strange things and constantly change creates a great potential for surprises. The writers of Digimon also challenged themselves to not overuse the same ideas. When they realised that the Digimon Adventure would eventually become repetitive, they continued the story by creating a new cast of characters, and making a situation that would need to be worked around by limiting the show's main gimmick. By making the digimon unable to digivolve in Adventure 02, the writers had to become creative and add a new gimmick to the show armor digivolution and DNA digivolution. They also made sure to expand on the old characters by using them to teach us more about the world and the new characters. Then, with Tamers and subsequent series, they took the time to look at new ways of seeing the digital world and interpreting the story. By keeping the character driven stories, cool battles, and awesome creatures people loved but using a completely new perspective on them, they were able to breathe new life into an already great show. Also, the concept of having a show take place in a universe where it was a show and a game was really cool, and while complicated, they managed to make the explications work in a way that children could understand and adults could appreciate. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"While Pok\u00e9mon has and has had the superior games, Digimon has and has had the superior shows."}
{"id":"80e7c74e-e900-4915-9623-99abc4dc4c04","argument":"As of 2015, the $226.26 Billion in revenue from cigarette taxes and the state-run tobacco industry made up about 10% of China's central government revenue","conclusion":"Banning cigarettes is difficult because their steep sin taxes provide the government with large amounts of money."}
{"id":"69842c2f-f477-4b68-a69e-b92db9a73e18","argument":"A lot of escorts at least in the Atlanta area seem to discriminate by race, especially black men. Why would they do that, I don't think they should especially those not black . I think the transaction and business at hand should trump any discrimination among the two parties. My view is based on, the fact, that you shouldn't discriminate, especially single out one particular race. Also, African Americans represent a large part of Atlanta at least in this case , why should they be singled out, it seems bad for business. It is discriminatory, seemingly against one particular race and once again, I feel bad for business. And then why this particular race and not others, it doesn't seem to be based on any rational analysis? There are many ethnicities and many races, why this one? For example, black women on backpage don't single out white men or hispanic women single out Asian men. Why do many races seem to single out 'black men or African American men' on this site. You can see here, in a city Atlanta where 50 60 of the population is black, don't contact a escort if black. For example, one of the View of the first couple of posts, No black men or seach, No African American men. Edit I think this would be an interesting University study. I did a scan in Denver. Ironically, I can't find exclusionary statements outside of No black men across the US.","conclusion":"I don't think escorts on backpage or other sites should discriminate by race"}
{"id":"28007495-67fe-4112-8bf4-f776ba5557c5","argument":"So at this very moment I am watching The Conjuring on syfy channel. Now Im not crazy about horror movies. To be honest I think more than half of them suck nowadays. Which is why I dont give a rats ass when I see a commercial for one. Even if the commercial seems scary I can usually tell it is going to be stereotypical to the genre. As soon as the music starts its immediatly followed by a scare. But not all horror movies follow that template. And these are usually the ones that I like. The conjuring came out in theaters and I saw it with my mom because she likes scary movies no matter what. But The Conjuring scared the shit out of me because to me it was ultra fresh. So onto my point. Me and my mother are watching tv right now and the conjuring is on so my mother suggests that we watch it. So i flip it on for her. It was a non scary scene then it goes to commercial, ok. Then it comes back on and one of the scariest scenes happened. I got the chills and I remember why I loved this movie in theaters. But then the damn thing goes to commercial and my goosebumps go away and Im irritated because now I have to wait 5 minutes for the commercial to end so that I can get all built up again just to get scared and go back to commercial. In my opinion scary movies are the one genre of film that shouldnt have commercials. The way the story is told it like a roller coaster. A roller coaster would suck ballllzzz if it stopped 6 times for 5 minutes. Are you with me people.?","conclusion":"I believe that horror movies should never be put on cable television."}
{"id":"7bf471b7-149f-4492-8138-0d140f32aaca","argument":"China has one of the most massive surveillance networks in the world. Skynet keeps a constant eye on the public and is analogous to the ubiquitous video surveillance system described in 1984.","conclusion":"Ubiquitous video surveillance, as posited by the novel, is a reality now."}
{"id":"2bfe93e9-b6fc-4e6f-a598-28f4987e3379","argument":"The biggest glaring example right now of large corporations holding the people at ransom is Amazons search for a new mega warehouse location. We are at a point now where large organizations can demand zero taxation in exchange for the privilege of a Job. They don't even bother looking for tax havens anymore, they can just come out and demand what they want, no tax. The Internet is no longer a luxury, it is a vital part of the structure of most countries. Disruption of this system would be catastrophic to these countries. This makes it a national safety risk. When the Rockefeller corporation controlled the oil industry it became a national risk. It is well recognized that this could not continue, and therefore his monopoly was dismantled. Today there is no mechanism to dismantle a world monopoly, this should be an international concern. In fact there is no one person or group of people in any kind of organization that has the ability to solve this problem, let alone the other big problems of the world. We have to build a new system that involves the people of the world, it's the only way to solve these problems, because governments don't have this ability. So I guess I'm asking you if you can convince me that some person or government is going to solve this problem.","conclusion":"Governments of this world can no longer stop or control large corporations or monopolies from holding the people of this world at ransom."}
{"id":"06b6a2d1-2ff8-4730-80f7-e8b93131adbf","argument":"During war and armed conflict, rape is frequently used as a means of psychological warfare in order to humiliate the enemy; this will not be the case if wars are fought predominantly by lethal autonomous weapons.","conclusion":"Robots do not disobey orders and they do not rape, pillage, or desert. Thus warfare could be overall less chaotic and more civil."}
{"id":"0b276f02-bca5-435b-b572-c19a3a9040a2","argument":"There is footage of a North Korean museum dedicated to war crimes perpetrated by US American troops, which seem exaggerated and possibly unbelievable to Westeners. Linked video may not be available in all geographic locations.","conclusion":"Strongly anti-Western countries will fabricate anti-Western narratives out of anything the West does. Accepting refugees will not lead to any worsening in anti-Western narratives."}
{"id":"5d0eebc6-aa38-4015-b2a0-6df0bf7217fa","argument":"The vast majority of humanity lives in poverty who would like to consume more, so per capita consumption is unlikely to decrease. The basic needs of the increasing number of people take away that much more resources and money which could be spent on making production methods more effective. Population growth hinders increasing efficiency.","conclusion":"There are so many people that global per capita biocapacity is only 1.7 gha\/person which equals to destitution, and not even the green-minded can reach it."}
{"id":"a4b863f3-69a2-42a1-a3fd-f65c39d57830","argument":"Games reward students for learning from failures instead of penalizing all mistakes, encouraging creative thinking.","conclusion":"Success in games is a good metric for educational achievement."}
{"id":"8356402d-573b-4242-bdce-0dee5a588851","argument":"Chinese language is complex with some words having multiple meanings. Baidu\u2019s search algorithms place a lot of relevance to the context in which the words are used in the content. Google, both as business and as technology, appears to have struggled on these fronts in China.","conclusion":"Since Baidu is a Chinese company, it has a superior understanding of Chinese culture and language, making it much better positioned to attract Chinese users."}
{"id":"ed374976-92fc-425d-8890-b0c9b91ecc04","argument":"Our education system, in it's current form, is quite redundant, and carries a high level of unnecessary expenses. For example, many teachers will simply assign students to read a chapter of a textbook during class, and then assign textbook questions to be answered on paper, that is then reviewed by the teacher. In other cases, they will simply play a video from a projector in place of lecturing by themselves, while they simultaneously work on something else such as grading papers, or looking at their cellphone. In many of these cases, students are effectively working independently, while the teacher is essentially being paid to make sure nobody misbehaves. There are some teachers that give great lectures, however these same lectures are repeated several times a day to different classes , and there's thousands of other teachers giving lectures on the same exact topic. This process could be streamlined in the form of video content, content that could be peer reviewed by experts to ensure that the quality is top notch at teaching it's subject. In addition, specialized software can be developed to help teach concepts. If developed correctly, the software can guide you along the way to completing a task if you get stuck. For group activity, online software can accomplish this. Study games and other useful communication tools can be conducted through an online program. Of course, not everyone can work independently, and software can only do so much. Some people will need help understanding things. So you would still have public tutoring centers that are available to help students that need help understanding or grasping certain concepts. In addition, you still need teachers for such a program for example, to grade an essay or other form of unique piece that doesn't have a concrete answer. Or to administer a test and ensure that no one cheats. However, there would not need to be wasteful spending on paying teachers to look at Facebook while students watch a video, thousands of teachers giving lectures every day on the same exact topic, leading activities that could be automatically moderated through software, etc. Yes, the government would have to pay for the adaptation of such technology, but in the long term, it would be substantially cheaper than our current system. Currently there is so much inefficiency in the system, and billions spent annually on redundant jobs that no longer need to exist. If education was fully privatized, it would have happened already, as it would have been the cheapest and most effective solution. The reason we don't see it much within private schools is the low demand for private schools its mainly affluent or religious families seeking out private k 12 schools , and the demand of private schools is not enough to warrant the development of such in depth learning software in addition, cost isn't really an issue of concern to private schools, as their whole appeal is being a more expensive, better alternative to public schools. With education, like most public services, spending is always wildly inefficient since it's very easy to spend other people's money ineffectively or in your own self interest. School districts will spend up their entire budget so that they can claim that they are underfunded, in order to push levy's on local taxpayers. In many cases public school teachers are overpaid, at least in my state many make over 100,000 a year, and many are able to retire in their 50's and collect a pension.","conclusion":"Public Education Spending Can Be Dramatically Reduced While Improving Quality of Education Through the Use of Technology"}
{"id":"e6932663-8ac2-41a7-a6cd-cf9cf6f60011","argument":"Religions are good when they told people that they are loved by a creator, thus all the people are loved exactly equally. So it is automatic to love all the people, because all of us are made of the same things.","conclusion":"Religion is good for the psycho-social wellness of its followers."}
{"id":"a8b79099-7007-42eb-a721-a9b681bc18f9","argument":"If legalised, the licenses required to sell drugs can be made difficult to obtain background checks, forfeitable bonds, etc. but simple to lose. So a licensed business selling to children could result in immediate loss of their license and all the money they've invested in the business and possibly jail. Unlicensed dealers caught selling to kids can continue to be punished severely.","conclusion":"Assuming that drugs will still be legally forbidden for people under a certain age, the distribution points will not be allowed to sell it to children."}
{"id":"42323d8f-ab43-4a5d-a040-bf08f9254e27","argument":"There are nearly 700,000 Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh with nowhere to go. This could easily strain Bangladesh's society and economy.","conclusion":"The Rohingya problem is threatening peace and security throughout the Asian region."}
{"id":"7c65610b-a315-42ad-8a18-648be444c9dd","argument":"Apple is a terrible company that severely mistreats it's customers. No other company has ever restricted their platforms such that escaping their ecosystem is impossible the way that Apple has. A prime example of this is iTunes. Music purchases made on iTunes cannot be easily or particularly legally exported out of iTunes. iTunes is practically an apple only application as clients are either nonexistent on other devices are extremely badly integrated into other devices. Another example is their lack of ports on their newer devices that force users to buy their own accessories like Air Pods or extremely overpriced dongles. Please, change my view.","conclusion":"Apple is a horrible company that abuses its userbase more than any other company"}
{"id":"a460ff29-59e4-415b-8d28-5d8d5c2328e3","argument":"On Wikipedia, there are no required topics and no one is setting assignments. That means that anyone can find part of the encyclopedia they're interested in and add to it immediately if they can do better than what's already there. This increases motivation and keeps things fun.","conclusion":"Users edit according to their interests and passions on Wikipedia."}
{"id":"03283327-e328-4411-8114-0fcb6886d826","argument":"The current evidence for Seth Rich being the leaker is not very convincing. Rod Wheeler claims he has sources who are federal investigators that confirmed that Rich communicated with Wikileaks. First, it seems that he was actually just repeating something he heard from a Fox News reporter and has since backpedaled on his claims. On top of that the fact that the FBI confirmed they weren't investigating the case throws even more doubt on the claims of Rod Wheeler. Going to take a lot more than one anonymous source claiming it to be true from such a sketchy contributor for me to believe the story has any legs. The next point of evidence people reference is Julian Assange's comments where he vaguely indicated Rich was the source. But people choose to ignore his statement clarifying that nothing he said in the interview or the reward being offered for information should be taken to mean Seth Rich was the source. So he was either full of it when he indicated Rich maybe the source and broke his own policy of not revealing sources. Or it's possible he wanted to create a controversy gain some attention by indicating something he knew wasn't true. I would say the latter is far more likely than the former as he explicitly stated those comments shouldn't be taken to mean Rich was the source when he received some pushback. Either way he didn't provide any documentation or evidence to back up this claim which is why I don't take it at face value even if he was really breaking Wikileaks policy and revealing Rich as the source. Gonna need to see hard evidence before I take Assange at his word given his spotty track record on hyping up stories. His documentation is pretty much always accurate but his punditry and hype man aspect of wikileaks is generally very untrustworthy. The next point of evidence is Kim.com but we have to wait and see what that is. I expect a bust but only time will tell. People claim that it's suspicious that a robbery occurred but nothing was taken. At best this is circumstantial evidence but at worst it's a bs conjecture with little basis in reality. We know from the coroners report that Seth Rich had several defensive wounds and that the latch on his watch appeared that someone was trying to tear it off his arm because there was bruising and the latch was loosened. This evidence could easily indicate that someone tried to rob him at gunpoint, he refused, the robber went for the watch, a scuffle ensued, and in the heat of the moment the robber shot him. Now realizing the police will be there any minute they panic and run without taking the watch or other items. I'm sure this isn't exactly what happened and I wasn't there but is just as plausible explanation. If it was a hit why wouldn't the person shoot him in the head to ensure he was dead? Rich was still breathing when he got to the ER according to several sources which would be unlikely if it was a professional hit job. On top of that why wouldn't they take his stuff to make it look more like a robbery? There is no more evidence to indicate it was an assasination than just a standard robbery. I think logically it's far more likely he was killed in a botched robbery than an assasination. Especially when you consider that we don't have any solid evidence he leaked the emails and thus no real motive to assasinate the guy. On top of that the police who had acces to a videotape also believe it was a botched robbery and they have much more experience investigating these crimes than some internet sleuths. Ultimately there is nothing wrong with just asking questions but I think many who claim to be asking questions already have their mind made up about the answers. I'm willing to change my mind if someone can provide more hard evidence but the evidence provided so far to indicate he is the leaker or was assasinated is questionable and circumstantial at best. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Seth Rich was not the source of the email leaks and was not assasinated as part of some political coverup."}
{"id":"14cacfcc-dcaf-49e2-9572-d7b2c448f32f","argument":"Proportional systems give equal weight to all citizens' votes, whereas in winner-takes-all systems there are a larger number of 'wasted votes","conclusion":"The elected government best represents the will of the people in a proportional representation system."}
{"id":"24caa51f-8c6e-4771-88cf-3117c9de170c","argument":"Let's say a theft goes wrong and someone's son dies. The thief gets away with it because of some legal loophole, and the father decides to take matters into his own hands and kills him. I don't want to get into an argument on whether what he did was right or wrong. However, I don't believe prison should be used to punish people, but to reform them. If we can guarantee that this person only killed because of extraordinary circumstances, why should he be imprisoned?","conclusion":"I believe people who commited a crime and are guaranteed not to do it again should not be imprisoned."}
{"id":"c43c6b26-c1d1-470f-bba7-b7f72491e947","argument":"Even if an accident was unavoidable it is likely that one party is more at fault for the situation \u2014 i.e. a pedestrian jaywalking; a car seeking to overtake; a malfunction in sensing equipment.","conclusion":"If harm must be caused by a self-driving car, it should be inflicted on those who are most at fault for the accident."}
{"id":"ace2baa9-1623-4ffd-bba8-8ae6e327f986","argument":"If a being can satisfy conditions that cannot be satisfied, then that being also cannot do so. This renders the concept meaningless and irrelevant. The concept of being able to take absolutely any well-defined action without restriction is not meaningless or irrelevant.","conclusion":"The term \"all-powerful\" does not imply that a being can satisfy conditions that logically cannot be satisfied."}
{"id":"8cb2df5e-b1a5-471f-a679-46ea15ca6cfb","argument":"Race is one of the easiest categories to observe. Since humans have a propensity to categorize everything in their environment, it follows that we also have a propensity to categorize people into races.","conclusion":"There will always be implicit bias that prevents true \"colorblindness\"."}
{"id":"e9f427cb-925f-4958-b550-e5153007f577","argument":"In Iraq, the country's top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, decried the drawings but did not call for protests. Al-Sistani suggested that militant Muslims were partly to blame for distorting Islam's image.3 In the United Arab Emirates, the periodical Al-Ittihad published an opinion piece which argued that, \"The world has come to believe that Islam is what is practiced by Bin Laden, Zawahiri, Zarqawi, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Salafis, and others who have presented a distorted image of Islam. We must be honest with ourselves and admit that we are the reason for these drawings.\"4","conclusion":"The Muslim world has presented an image of itself that is partly to blame for the Muhammad cartoons."}
{"id":"4789f088-f17b-4330-9c34-ed250c18e263","argument":"Under methodological naturalism science can't see God even if God were standing right in front of it. Science is a procedure which is conducted to detect laws only; it is incapable of detecting any lawgiver.","conclusion":"If one understands the scientific method, then one knows it operates using \"methodological naturalism\" and thus couldn't see God if God was standing right in front of it"}
{"id":"4543bd07-82bd-4418-b397-4c85c3c6bd3c","argument":"\"As of 2003, according to the FDA, more than 81% of soybeans and 40% of corn produced in the United States are genetically modified -- so you have probably been consuming genetically modified foods for quite some time.\"","conclusion":"Millions have been consuming GM foods for some time and are OK."}
{"id":"f3916bfb-d67c-4fbe-b597-cf4e7be51642","argument":"Heteronormativity is a socially-enforced concept that was only conceived and internationally promoted in the colonial Victorian era this, and other historical evidence, suggest that it is not a genetic or innate trait that the 'normal' population is necessarily born with.","conclusion":"Many theorists and theories e.g. Shulamith Firestone in the Dialectic of Sex, Social Structure Theory argue that sexual orientation and gender identity are socialised in response to the organisation and expectations of society."}
{"id":"807c3aa5-0cb8-409b-86fc-e06335aa28f6","argument":"Men could theoretically be protagonists of a new wave of feminism focusing on oppressive gender roles for men, given more participation, organization and action from them.","conclusion":"Feminism helps men by breaking down the existence of oppressive gender roles that cause them harm."}
{"id":"a7c97ba7-116c-4399-ac85-d4134116efbd","argument":"Gaslighting is a tactic, usually employed by an insecure perpetrator who feels threatened by and therefore seeks, to nullify the victim's personal power, leading to intended confusion, self-doubt, anxiety, and reduced confidence and self-esteem.","conclusion":"This will lead to \"gas lighting.\" People have been, and are targeted because of their race. How can they defend themselves, if we claim that race\/color does not exist?"}
{"id":"585de6f1-9a91-4edb-b3f9-31f74fa1a5ca","argument":"Humans' reason to live is to have agency, react to the world and make choices. If we are not able to make choices, we may as well not live at all. As such, even if free will is an illusion, it is a necessary one.","conclusion":"Free will is a social construct with no sound basis, an illusion that was implicitly created to meet other societal and human needs."}
{"id":"a397f8df-491d-45c9-81c1-e901c775a9ab","argument":"I think that the negatives of the electoral college far outweigh any positives. I think that on it's own, voter disenfranchisement is reason enough to switch to a popular vote system. Another reason is to prevent gerrymandering, which directly suppresses people's votes. Some argue that the elections will only be decided in the cities then. This is an irrelevant point. There are more people in the cities. It's not like a voter in the city has disproportionate influence compared to a voter in a rural area, and by giving people in rural areas disproportionate influence you are making the system unfair. People then argue that people in rural areas know more about local issues and they would have their area influenced by people in the city during general elections. This argument works both ways. More people in the city are having their lives disproportionately effected by rural votes. Elections effect all the people in all the areas they concern whether they are local, state or general. The only fair and reasonable system is a popular vote because nobody's vote should be worth more than anybody else's in a democracy. By giving a farmer in Ohio more voting power than a lawyer in New York you are saying that they are more qualified to choose the president and that is incredibly undemocratic.","conclusion":"Elections should be decided based on the popular vote."}
{"id":"b0ba7fd9-ccfe-441d-a7bb-cd8e97e87f47","argument":"Many people get away with rape. \"If a man commits a rape, then he has, on average, a less than 1% chance of being convicted","conclusion":"Even men who sexually assault woman often won't face consequences."}
{"id":"177d7e19-e3bd-48e6-b595-8b39a7e9b714","argument":"When I say this, I mainly mean mandatory military service but I also don't agree with the Selective Service System or war time drafts whatsoever. It's something I've seen both liberals and conservatives obviously a small minority in both camps and even some anti war pacifists promote, either as a way to prevent needless wars or as a way to make the military more accountable to the citizenry, alongside other arguments, but they never seem persuasive, both in the light of history and also in that I think the military actually plays a more detrimental than beneficial role in our society at this point. I don't see why we need to be propping it up, especially not by making us all tied to it so intimately. Add to the fact that it would be impossible to be done equitably, I see no reason why people like me should have to give my body to something even in the form of Selective Service I don't believe in and don't trust.","conclusion":"I do not think the United States should ever introduce mandatory conscription"}
{"id":"3a2432c5-4959-4323-b16f-7c709e4cc12e","argument":"A while back, I made a  post about if it\u2019s possible for two people to simultaneously rape each other. There was some great discussion. One was the scenario presented in the following post gt Okay, hypothetical situation Two people are soem how strapped down naked with hands free and that is that. gt gt Both decide to violate the other by inserting a finger into the other person's butthole. Both do not enjoy that the other is doing that but still continues to violate the other person out of mutual dislike or whatever. Now I could have argued that those are two separate acts occurring simultaneously, while my post was referring to a single act P in V or finger in anus. Today this popped into my mind and I started thinking about the extension of that which lead me to the view in the title. 69 is two separate sexual acts occurring simultaneously. One act is one person\u2019s mouth on another\u2019s genitals, the other is the second person\u2019s mouth on the first\u2019s genitals. A person performing oral on someone and a third person performing oral on a fourth person are two different sex acts. A person performing oral on one person and receiving oral from a third are two different sex acts. A person performing oral on someone and receiving oral from that person are two separate sex acts. Otherwise you\u2019re saying someone can\u2019t consent to give or receive oral sex while not consenting to the other. Edit Clarifying the last part. A guy says \u201cyou can give me a blowjob, but I won\u2019t eat you out.\u201d During the blow job, she shifts so her privates are in his face and makes him perform oral sex. If 69 is one act, you can argue her actions are not sexual assault. But if it\u2019s two acts, he clearly didn\u2019t consent to the part where he performs. Edit Forget the consent thing. That was wrong and unnecessarily complicating the main point.","conclusion":"69 is Two Separate Sex Acts. NSFW"}
{"id":"576dff36-9470-4eda-bc0b-7ad44ff36cf1","argument":"All punishment and policing of crimes must be subject to oversight, so that it can be certain that justice is actually being served.","conclusion":"It is morally wrong to decide punishment without the judicial system."}
{"id":"f9fcc41c-70eb-49c6-b568-2b6bdd7451a0","argument":"The three primary umbrella models for the origin of the universe are that it began to exist at some time in the past, that it has existed statically for eternally, or that it has existed in cycles for eternity. The widely accepted Big Bang theory fits most closely with the first option.","conclusion":"Most cosmologists agree that the universe did in fact begin to exist."}
{"id":"1a84509d-1674-42b4-9110-50e5dbc6d4b0","argument":"Disclaimer This mainly comes from my belief that you can't teach someone something if they don't want to learn it in the first place. As someone who has grown up with the internet at my disposal, I feel like the amount of information and the ability to discuss things that you learn with a massively larger number of people than are available in college are making the system outdated even if people don't think about it yet. As a kid i was quite interested in history mainly centered around war history because explosions are 1 interesting thing in childhood P . I wasn't by any means the smartest kid in the room, but history was always kind of my 'thing' that I would dedicate spare time to learning about, whether it be online or from books. The fact is that the internet enables people to learn things that they are interested in, mainly for free, and then gives them the ability to discuss and learn with anyone else that also has internet access and is also interested. That's amazing The college that I might go to next year had a grand total of 10 history majors this year out of nearly 7,000 students. A community based on shared interests is much easier to form online and it simply puzzles me that so many people think college is necessary to become specialized in a field especially when you have to take so many other classes that probably don't interest you at all.","conclusion":"I believe that the ability to learn online should make college outdated soon^tm."}
{"id":"ee2a68c7-3e78-465d-8726-cd398186dae4","argument":"The adopted child will wonder about a proper sense of belonging and wonder why they were given up for adoption.","conclusion":"The child may face emotional problems as an adopted child."}
{"id":"bafc0407-b2d5-482b-9f97-900758ba1c4c","argument":"A common complaint is that PC advocates are too aggressive and alienate others by criticizing their speech. If one believes that, it would be illogical to also believe that speaking one's mind and being brutally honest without consideration for others is effective. Either one should be respectful and compassionate to reach people or one should be completely straightforward, you can't have both without contradicting yourself.","conclusion":"This implies that \"brutal honesty\" is the only way to advance society. Human psychology suggests otherwise. People tend to not respond well to a confrontational discussion style."}
{"id":"8559c472-f293-4138-bea9-53a6c65bbc53","argument":"Just a quick backstory of myself because I know this will push buttons from the get go. Also, this is an opinion piece, so I'm completely open to statistics research as long as they are properly cited, come from some form of accredited journal or study, and explain the subject matter correlation causation . I'm a mixed race american born to African black and American white parents. I spent all of my schooling besides high school around the world mainly in Africa and the Middle East. I went to high school in the U.S the south, and which is kind of were this issue stems from , and then joined the Marine Corps. I'm out now and currently studying physics on a moderately liberal university in Virginia. What I have noticed living in both the northern and southern america as well as both coasts. Is the American obsession with diversity now I don't want to make my point coming off as I'm anti diversity I wouldn't be alive if it that was the case . My point is with racial tensions growing and the increased social awareness of minorities to include, race, gender, orientation . I feel that as American's increasingly align themselves to some specific identity, they inadvertently separate themselves from values that are typically representative of a democratic state such as unity, equality or more accurately, equity , and tolerance. A great example of this is race. Because I'm a weird shade of brown, thats typically the first thing people ask me about. Rather than give a genealogy lesson I just say I'm 50 50 white black. Which can elicit responses such as Your accepted by both groups then To which I find hilariously false, I'm an oddity in both circles, from experience. I'm told to celebrate my heritage to which I have no attachment to on either side because I don't fit in either circle. Growing up in the international community and having experiences with people of all socio economic backgrounds taught me one thing Everyone is human. This was also a central ideologue in the military We were all equally worthless. Further than that, entering scientific community has taught me one thing is that, it doesn't matter who or what you are, but are you curious? So TL DR, unchecked emphasis on diversity is having a hypocritical nature on what it means to be american. EDIT Whats my view to be changed Diversity must have a limit. Delta Awarded u James Mcnulty For the sake of argument, my modified view Diversity in America is not defined correctly. Delta Awarded u daynightninja gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"America's emphasis on diversity has gone too far."}
{"id":"ddbd5a57-7ad0-4ebd-8016-8328a2d8e571","argument":"It is possible to argue that God is just the name given to a special set of morals that a person or persons follow. If people did not have a God then it would seem that they would have no incentive to behave in a certain way. Throughout history the idea of God has been used to bring people under control. For instance, the Ancient Mayan leaders would force people to obey the law as laid down by \u201cthe Gods\u201d otherwise they would become displeased and seek revenge by way of a failed harvest or drought \u2013 hence the use of human sacrifice to appease the Gods. Fear would inspire and force people to conform. To jump right to modern day, certain Christian denominations believe in helping others in order to please God and reach Heaven. This is all to conform to the Bible, a book compiled at the Council of Nicea 325 AD by men of the Church who disregarded many Gospels, including the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Mary, because they did not conform to the model they wished to create. We can therefore argue that the idea of God has been used to give authority to a set way of thinking and acting. It acts as a means of control and so to state that there is a God per se could be regarded as too conventional and shallow an interpretation. The truth could be that there is not an omnipotent being but more an abstract term which brings together a moral attitude.","conclusion":"'God' is merely a concept designed to promote a set of values"}
{"id":"9d214cd6-f95b-434d-ae84-730f6bb2d3cf","argument":"As a quick preface, I'm 28 and I've been a university student for 10 years now undergraduate and PhD in a STEM field in the UK. Over the past couple of years, safe space policies and positions of no platforming for controversial speakers have become increasingly popular within Student's Unions across the UK 1 2 3 4 In short, I currently believe these policies and positions run counter to the idea that a university should be a place of free discussion of controversial ideas. It is currently my belief that an individual who goes to university, should do so with the knowledge that their beliefs, ideas, knowledge of certain subjects, etc. will be challenged by the views of others. I understand that an individual may have held their position all of their life, and therefore be extremely passionate about it and resistant to change they should not attempt to prevent discussion by other individuals with positions different from their own. I believe that this is a critical and fundamental part of the learning and growth process of an individual while at university. I believe that when a person has a viewpoint counter to my own, no matter how controversial, they should be allowed the freedom to make their case in the proper forum, free from harassment, violence, and intimidation. But under the knowledge that they will and should be challenged by the viewpoint of others, subject to the same freedoms from violence, harassment, and intimidation. Historically some of the increasing freedoms we enjoy today were previously mainstream controversial, for example gay marriage, transsexualism, mental health, AIDS, Autism, women's right to vote, the formation of the Irish Free State, Atheism, Christianity. However as mentioned in my preface, it is increasingly popular for Student Unions to pass and enforce safe space, and no platform policies and enforce these against those who they deem to have controversial viewpoints. Ironically perhaps , I believe this subreddit would fall afoul of how current safe space and no platform rules are applied at mainstream universities throughout the UK.","conclusion":"Universities and colleges should be places of free discussion of controversial ideas, and that so called \"safe space\" policies and \"no platforming\" positions prevent this"}
{"id":"ddbdcab4-dc30-4e9b-9178-aa2a535f0ace","argument":"I was attempting to have a conversation with a vegan the other day. I was explaining that I was morally against eating eggs from factory farmed chickens that live like this. I also said that I'm not against eating cows that lived apparently as far as anyone knows happy lives on pastures, eating grass, and doing cow stuff with cows. As long as they're killed humanely, their life was pretty good and served the purpose of turning grass into extremely healthy food for me. In essence, I don't think that taking a life is inherently wrong, I don't think animal life is inherently superior to plant life, and I think that what should be intrinsically valuable is the 'happiness' of a being versus its 'suffering.'","conclusion":"I don't think life has any intrinsic value."}
{"id":"20113052-c815-439b-8076-d8659938cd46","argument":"Maybe I am just cynic. I am in a pretty rough place in my life, and my relationship isn't helping that, but it seems to me that the very act of being sexually attracted and aroused by someone is centered around objectifying that person. And that objectivation is an inherent part of sexuality and thus not someone one is capable of removing without removing sexuality. Now, to get it out of the way, the obvious examples here are in porn, to the point where it is hardly even worth mentioning it. Yes, when you are looking at pornographic images or video are you, of course, objectifying the person. They aren\u2019t real to you. They aren't in front of you, only a likeness of their image. You aren't thinking about them as real people with families and student loans. I'm not making this point, as it seems obvious. Instead I'm thinking more of the individual person's sexual response. Regardless of your relationship to a person, whether you have known the person a long time or a short time, when you are becoming aroused by something you are feeling the feeling your self. It's a personal feeling, like hunger or thirst. You can become aroused without the other person doing so. Again, I think this is pretty straight forward. Now, if your arousal is such a personal experience, then the person causing said arousal is, at least in that moment, existing not as a real, fully formed person, but as the idea of that person in your mind. While there ARE people who are aroused by thinking that people AREN'T willing to sleep with them, in general arousel is linked, in my opinion, to this idea that you are going to engage in sexual activity. Even, like with Pornography, if you're just tricking your brain into thinking this. As such, you are already discounting the other person's wants or desires in that moment, thus objectivation. Now, most of the time, when two people are going to engage in an agreed upon sexual activity, yes, both partners are desiring said activity. But the knowledge that the other person is desiring it is 100 an assumption. It may be a very good, or very logical assumption, but you have no way of knowing that your partner genuinely wants to, because even if you ask them they could lie. As such your activity is based upon the idea of consent, as oppose to a complete grasp of the other person's mindset as such a thing MAY be impossible to obtain As such, objectivation. Because you're again following your own desires and making your partner into an a sexual object, due to the implication of consent. Now, this ties up well, you can say, for ideas where both parties are going to gain an orgasm, but what if they are not. If one party is asked to do something then that implies their partner is willing. Well, yes, it does, though they are thus objectifying you. But hold on a second. As an individual you are only aware of your own desires. Any action a person takes, one can argue, is based off of what they will gain from it. Maybe that gain will be an orgasm yourself, true, maybe something else. Or maybe you'll gain a good feeling yourself, either from what of giving something to someone OR from feeling like you are able to give satisfaction. I think it was Thomas Hobbes who wrote a bunch about the lack of true altruism. Any thing a person can do will, at the VERY least, give them a feeling of goodness inside if it's a good thing as such is a selfish act. Given that your sexual act, and thus all sexual acts, are selfish, then you are not dealing with the idea of your partner has an individual, but instead as a way to gain those good feelings. If again, not your own sexual release So, again, objectivation. I'm tried of being so cynical. Please, for the love of God, .","conclusion":"I Believe That Sexual Attraction Is By Definition Objectivation,"}
{"id":"ffb8ec03-e69e-474b-a07f-f92210cc06e3","argument":"Much of the time; abusive behavior stems from teachers,fellow students & servants in schools. Studies reveal that 1 out of every 8 abuse victims become abusers. This is a minority.However; if a teacher\/servant\/fellow-student tyrannizes the grounds; then 1 out of every 8 students will in all likelihood acquire these habits. Studies also reveal that institutions have their own corporate culture. That rules of behavior are set by one`s environment. Bullies prevail where they are bred. A child would not continue in abusive\/violent behavior in school if the child faces fair and timely discipline\/consequences\/reform. Emphasis on `fair`as unfair punishments backfire. This reform can be anything from detention to a few hours of mandatory counseling; alternatively both.","conclusion":"While a violent home or upbringing can be one contributive factor to bullism in schools"}
{"id":"1452197f-032d-491a-a990-8a27b008a2df","argument":"They are poor, uneducated, and unskilled people that inevitably end up on welfare or societal assistance. Rather than contributing to the welfare of society, they become a drain upon society. No one is obligated to drain themselves for the sake of others.","conclusion":"Refugees have nothing to do upon arrival due to a lack of opportunities and barriers that prevent them from being able to be productive members of the society that hosts them."}
{"id":"2357d46b-6a5e-4d8e-9145-f89f04a4640a","argument":"Because egg and meat production are separated by modern production practices male chicks are shredded out of economic concerns.","conclusion":"The common practices underlying the production of meat massive livestock farming are unethical."}
{"id":"4760fa33-9106-4f38-a23a-77b02a79a8c8","argument":"If a video gif whatever is reposted and gets upvoted to the front pages it means there were a significant number of people who didn't see that content the first time around and had a new opportunity to appreciate it. There are tons of new users registering every day and existing users who were out of town or not on reddit when that hilarious thing was posted last week and wouldn't have seen it if someone doesn't repost it later. Complaining about reposting does nothing but add negativity to the comment section and often the original poster didn't even intentionally repost because they didn't find anything when doing a search before posting. If enough people don't appreciate a reposted thread and downvote it, it won't rise in the ranks and the voting system has achieved its purpose. Even it was possible to strictly enforce anti reposting rules so everything posted to reddit was fresh and completely original the site would quickly run out of novel content and the quality would decrease dramatically as people scrape the bottom of the barrel for new stuff to post.","conclusion":"I don't think reposts are bad for reddit and complaining about them solves nothing,"}
{"id":"970104e6-9acd-4d5d-9202-a6ab7e8735f8","argument":"Without limitations on free speech, it opens opportunities for enemies of the state to undermine public faith in the state through spreading false or hateful information.","conclusion":"In times of war, limiting information in media can be important for a country's national security."}
{"id":"e7af38e9-49e1-4939-8893-c360ccfa1ca7","argument":"Evil enables the existence of vices like cruelty as well as the existence of virtues. Insofar as the existence of virtues is morally good, the existence of vices is presumably morally bad.","conclusion":"Even if virtues require the existence of evil, a world with no evil and no virtues is better than a world with evil and with virtues."}
{"id":"9b6c2256-b006-4f25-b480-68c4c9c8ee9f","argument":"Full disclosure when I drink soda, I prefer Dr. Pepper. I believe Pepsi is the inferior soda. I dislike the taste a sugary staleness , color scheme the red and blue contrast isn't as visually appealing as a pure red and white like Coke or shades of crimson like Dr. Pepper , and commercials the polar bear is classic, and Dr. Pepper has the NCAA guy . Coke I can appreciate. It has more of a classic taste to it, I can taste the sweetness in a way that isn't overpowering. Dr. Pepper has different types of sweetness all mixed into the drink, and if you haven't tried Dublin Dr. Pepper, you should . Pepsi, on the other hand, is bland and unexciting. . edit regular soda","conclusion":"Pepsi is the inferior soda."}
{"id":"3945e071-38f1-4f95-b26b-acdd200bdbe0","argument":"Monopolies make sense in industries where there is a very high up-front cost e.g. electricity. Such monopolies are called 'natural monopolies'. However, this is not an issue for internet companies.","conclusion":"The absence of advertisements can lead to the creation of internet monopolies."}
{"id":"d1e5b79b-13dd-4c6e-bbb7-73f24fe0c410","argument":"The local Portuguese and English-language media in Macau usually features more critical views of the government, offering an outlet for any young people that are unhappy with mainland China.","conclusion":"The media landscape in Macau is much different than that in Hong Kong, which is likely to provide information to spark anti-China protests."}
{"id":"aa52b340-2243-4b7a-afb5-26cd7f97fa1f","argument":"There is no conflict in having both educational systems in place in the same district. Don Heinzman writes, \"The Cambridge elementary and middle year-round schools operate side by side with little controversy, due in part to strong school board, administrative and staff support.\"5","conclusion":"Tradition and year-round schools can exist side-by-side"}
{"id":"c9d5cd50-e674-4bc7-9d1b-928be7444c0a","argument":"In Syria Clinton supported providing rebels with weapons in 2012, favored bombing missions, and establishing a \"no-fly\" zone after Russian airstrikes, whereas Obama either rejected, or was skeptical of all her suggestions.","conclusion":"According to insider experts, Clinton had fundamental differences with Obama on issues of foreign policy, preferring a much more aggressive approach."}
{"id":"4792ee1b-8128-45db-84f2-f3ac4f16a701","argument":"Turkey would have a larger say on issues that both it and the EU are currently facing such as the migrant crisis","conclusion":"Turkey would have a large influence on the EU's decision making process."}
{"id":"f178b03d-f91c-4b69-a689-ae812954cee1","argument":"89% of clients in London saw women who do sex work as dirty, 77% as inferior Coy et al., p. 3","conclusion":"Men who engage the services of sex workers become more disrespectful towards women EP, p. 15"}
{"id":"f61fe31b-fe1a-471b-988f-540a40ca1268","argument":"I've been playing guitar and studying music for a few years now and I really can't get out of this mindset, though there must be valid reasons I'm wrong I haven't thought about. I find playing fast technical runs on guitar to be the best way of showing your musical ability. On videos of people playing fast on guitar, however, they are always slated by comments saying how playing a technique is not skill and isn't playing real music. But, well, they are playing a unique melody, expressed with their own tone design, in a unique pattern of notes. So it is musical, and I almost feel like people who say that playing slow melodies and heavy chords are just trying to combat the fact that fast stuff is more technical by saying it isn't musical. So, someone please explain to me why fast guitar solos aren't the best thing you can do on guitar, and why people say that having more slow techniques is better musicanship. As a guitar player, I can say that being able to play fast means you can play slowly, why the hell would it mean you can't play slowly, and not in time? Not here to argue with anyone, here to genuinley have my view changed Thanks","conclusion":"Playing fast on guitar is the best way of showing technical skill\/musicianship on the instrument"}
{"id":"d485bd00-002a-428d-aca8-8059195f2aff","argument":"In the US, there has been a spread of virginity balls in Christian communities, where young women attend a ball with their fathers and pledge to abstain from sex until marriage. This often involves the fathers vowing to protect their daughter's purity and therefore equates virginity with purity for women.","conclusion":"Gendered expectations around virginity often mean that women view virginity loss as giving something away and are encouraged to protect their virginity, while men losing their virginity is viewed as a way to gain status and experience."}
{"id":"e6043280-9a10-4cea-b197-35d19df8a06c","argument":"Rather than riding a precariously controlled chemical explosion into space, we can use a fission core to heat a safe inert propellant to much higher exhaust speeds. The only way it can blow up is if it goes critical, and that's extremely unlikely. Nuclear thermal rockets achieve double the specific impulse of chemical rockets and can lift two or three times the payload depending on design. We're going to need this kind of leap forward to make space access truly economical. A bit of the exhaust is diverted through a turbine to pump the propellent, and once in space this is changed to a closed cycle with radiator fins to generate electricity for the ship another benefit chemical rockets can't provide. It also allows the reactor to remain on for the duration of the mission starting and stopping a fission reaction is a hassle . The propellant never touches the nuclear core, just the heat it puts out, so it does not come out radioactive. The main danger is that some unforeseen fault causes a crash, so the rugged housing of the core is necessary to prevent wide dispersal of contaminants on impact. In any case, what's a little more radioactivity, really, compared the 2000 nukes we've already set off on Earth? And that was in preparation for civilization ending war, not the noble purpose of making Humanity a multi world species. We need to use exciting new techniques to open up space for everyone, not timidly iterate on dangerous old ones. I'm no expert, just an enthusiast, so please show me what I'm missing.","conclusion":"Chemical rockets are too dangerous and not powerful enough, so we should switch to nuclear thermal propulsion instead"}
{"id":"4712b23c-2bdd-40ce-a37d-5cd613ffb86f","argument":"An UBI offers an individual the possibility to improve their education extensively throughout their lives which is very hard at the moment when everyone needs to work all the time for basic needs. A society with more well educated people is a much more succesfull one.","conclusion":"When citizens can better afford to spend time studying, overall levels of education grow and the workforce becomes more skilled. This would increase the quality and pay of jobs in general."}
{"id":"c7a98d0c-e86f-4e0d-81df-476c29bb7f29","argument":"Edit I would like to rephrase my view to be that I feel talented shows are ineffective at gauging actual talent. Talent shows generally disappoint me because I believe that the general public lacks the ability to properly assess how talented performers are. The average audience member likely does not have a strong background in music theory or knows the technical aspects of ballet dancing. Therefore, the public will vote in performers whom it finds entertaining. Acts the public considers entertaining tend to appeal to mainstream tastes, provide instant gratification, are easily digestible, and are fast paced. I'm not saying that acts shouldn't have these qualities it's true that mainstream acts are better equipped to grab people's attention. However, characteristics that make a performer entertaining are distinct from the characteristics that make a performer talented. And much of the time, the audience is unable to distinguish between the two. I have an anecdote to illustrate my point. During my senior year of high school, my best friend participated in my talent show and performed Franz Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 on the piano. Classical musicians are well aware of the sheer talent it takes to even attempt to play such a piece. It requires extreme technical precision and contains many passages that are intricate and require a strong knowledge of music theory and practical skill to pull of successfully. My friend had been studying classical piano for 10 years and had practiced the piece for six months before she performed it for the talent show she was practicing it for her audition for Juilliard, which she was ultimately accepted to . However, she only won fourth place in the talent show. The first place winner was some guy I knew who only picked up guitar several months ago. He performed an acoustic guitar medley of various Lady Gaga songs. While I wouldn't say his performance was bad by any means, from a talent perspective, it didn't even come close to my best friend's performance. I understand why he won his act was digestible, provided instant gratification, appealed to mainstream tastes the audience recognized the songs he played , and was fast paced. But as a musician myself, I could tell that he had shoddy technique and from a musical perspective, he wasn't particularly talented. There are other examples like this too on America's Got Talent, there was a group that did jazz dance, and their dancers were extremely skilled and performed a lot of very difficult and intricate stuff. However, the judges found the performance to be too slow paced and boring and outdated, and preferred a hip hop group that danced to modern pop songs. It was also hilarious because the judges acted as if they knew what they were talking about and were experts in what constituted high quality dance acts. Regardless of whether the hip hop group was talented, the disrespect the judges had to for the jazz group was uncalled for. It seems to me that in order to properly assess an act's talent, one needs to go out of his or her way to be open minded, mature, and objective. And unfortunately, most of the time, audience members lack the tools to be objective. They aren't knowledgeable enough in art to mentally separate what they find entertaining and pleasurable from what requires talent to pull off. For example, they will not vote for a boring, slow paced classical piece that is intricate over a simple, repetitive pop song. They tend to be lazy in their voting, and vote based on impulse, and prefer stuff that they are familiar with. This makes talent shows less about talent and more about who or what is popular.","conclusion":"I think most talent shows are meaningless"}
{"id":"ad699c12-7921-4957-8638-f0dbccfda43d","argument":"In the US, depression alone causes employees to miss 200 million days of work every year.","conclusion":"Stigma surrounding mental health problems harms businesses in terms of lost productivity and absenteeism."}
{"id":"961384ea-8402-4494-aac1-5db035889d67","argument":"Having worked physical labor, retail, and engineering jobs over the years, I think the negativity surrounding retail work is overhyped to the max. The level of complaints about the work do not match to the difficulty, stress, or physical demands of it. The complaints about poor holiday time although they all get extra pay for working those days , health insurance, and lower wages are justified. That's somewhat expected for an unskilled labor job though. I'm not saying they get an adequate wage for the work they do, but it would be unreasonable to expect to be at the mean wage when they're not at the level of mean work in terms of experience and education required. Note I do NOT think this last point justifies the fact that retail is not paid a living wage it should be , but I do think it should be paid less than other wages because it requires the least qualifications. \u2013 In retail, if a customer is mean to you, you can just deal with them and then they're gone, you probably never see them again. In engineering or business, if your boss or a customer is mean to you, you NEED to fix it because they\u2019re not going away. Nobody in retail gets fired for a customer complaint, but they do elsewhere. No physical labor, unless you count standing. Try working construction, or landscaping, or pulling docks out of lakes all day at the end of summer. You're not going home hot cold, wet, sore, sunburnt, and dehydrated from your work. In retail, you work indoors. No risk of injury or personal danger. In any labor job, in any factory job, in any job involving a laboratory or workshop area, there\u2019s a perpetual and very real risk of injury. In retail, the most dangerous encounter you can have is if you\u2019re exceptionally poor at using a box cutter. \u2013 In a salaried engineering position, you often work just as poor or worse hours as a retail worker I know several people in finance that are on 60 hr weeks with weekend travel during this season and during the spring I consistently work 50 hour weeks as an engineer \u2013 In retail, if you have a bad day, or are sick, or are hungover, and you don't get some critical stuff done, the world doesn't end. You get yelled at or are told to stay a bit late to fix it and it's no big deal or you just pass it off to the night shift to clean up your mess. In other jobs if you miss deadlines you literally do not get the work and the company loses tons of money. \u2013 If you work in food, you smell like grease and food for the rest of your day after work. You also have to deal with the lunch dinner rush and equally poor management wages. I think it's worse than retail in every way. In the words of George Carlin, \u201cOh, you hate your job? Why didn't you say so? There's a support group for that. It's called EVERYBODY, and they meet at the bar.\u201d","conclusion":"Retail work is not bad enough to warrant the level of complaints from its workers"}
{"id":"0503f691-cc2f-411e-8486-26244c2d2cd2","argument":"I see a lot of comments in subs like r askreddit that follow the lines of I roll my eyes whenever someone calls someone else a snowflake. I don't understand what all the hate is about. I personally love the word. I first heard it on a FilthyFrank video where he called someone a special snowflake and I have been using the term since. It is a perfect metaphor for somebody who is too sensitive or gets offended too easily or holds their opinions in a high regard. First, every snowflake is unique, so calling someone a special snowflake is fitting. A snowflake is also fragile, and any contact will ruin it. This adds to the meaning of a snowflake, and that they are overly sensitive. It's the perfect word. I understand the politicalization of the word, but that doesn't change its meaning for me. Unlike a snowflake, I have an open mind, so change my view.","conclusion":"the word \"snowflake\" should not be as hated as it is"}
{"id":"6c4b720b-bf71-445d-8590-d29f27b96cfb","argument":"The following states have over 20 of their population as African Americans. Alabama, Delaware, District of Columbia, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia. Notice anything about those states? 7 of them are Republican strongholds. 1 splits its electors based on percent of the popular vote, and the other 2 are worth 6 points. All of them combined are worth a total of 86 votes, 76 of them almost always go to the Republicans while only 6 of them reliably go to the Democrats. So I have often wondered, why is so much focus placed on the black vote or black voter turnout ? The thoughts drift next to Maybe black voters have a lower voter turnout than normal? Well, this graph shows that the black vote is almost identical to the white vote . If you want to target a group, look at how Hispanic and other are both consistently 10 lower than average. There is some ground to gain there. Then maybe this group votes Republican and the Democrats are trying to swing the population to their favor? After all, if they were losing badly in the states mentioned above then swinging the demographic in your favor would be important. No, 75 lean Democratic 85 or more vote Democratic Again, the Democrats are losing in states where their demographics are most favorable. Go figure So that leaves me with one conclusion to draw. The Democrats hope they can increase African American voter turn out since it is reliably Democratic. Here is the issue, you can't focus on getting a minority out to vote more when you are losing to the majority across the board. Yes, the idea is the long game since white won't be a majority forever, however, if the black vote actually becomes an issue for the Republicans you better believe they will make attempts to adapt and woo African American voters. What about the reverse? 60 of the vote is from white voters. If that is close then there is not a lot more that could be done but wait 55 60 fairly regularly go to the Republicans. So rather than woo 60 of the voter base and try to get that to a more 50 50 split the goal is to get a 15 minority out to vote more because they vote for you more? Everything about this seems completely senseless. Thing is, I keep hearing about how the black vote is a big deal for Democrats and making sure you win it is huge in the primaries. I know I am missing something but for now, I can't see what. , why should the democrats continue to focus on this group so much? What merit is there in this strategy? As a side note why focus on voter turn out for one group over changing the party platform to appeal to a larger group? edit I say the focus on the Black vote because even to this day I read about how Bernie would have lost the Black vote or how Trump was glad Black voters did not come out in force or how Hillary failed to muster Black support. At 12 of the voter turn out, 85 of which went Democrat, I would think the Democrats would focus on their White vote problems rather than Black voter turn out, which is at the national average voter turn out. Or maybe their Youth vote turn out. 40 of the vote was under 40 even though they account for only 35 of the electorate, meaning the Youth vote was higher percentage wise than the over 40 vote yet people still say the Youth vote doesn't matter. A better way to put the  might be, there is too much focus on the black vote when other larger demographics are under served.","conclusion":"The emphasis that the Democrats put on the \"black vote\" is without merit."}
{"id":"af070aab-6b58-4adc-8ed9-ac336de70d12","argument":"I see very few ways in which jewel cases are better than triple or even double folding paper cases are better for disc based media, namely CD albums. Paperfold cases have the following advantages Cheaper to produce and distribute Less susceptible to breaking and damaging disc Can show more artwork Take up less space However, there are a couple of advantages of plastic that I do recognize More water resistant More uniform Protect against bending I don't really think these advantages make it better option than paper, but give me some other ones and change my view. Edit to clarify, I meant official releases in the CD case that was standard for most of the '00s, with the clips for artwork and the spine label, not the super thin ones. This is the paper cases I'm talking about.","conclusion":"Paperfold cases are superior to plastic jewel cases for disc based media."}
{"id":"909799b1-902b-4032-b18f-f3929d881b03","argument":"The efforts made by biblical scholars to define when Genesis occurred suggests a universe that is thousands of years old. Historical evidence overwhelmingly proves that this is false. Therefore, the Bible cannot be used to provide any form of historical evidence.","conclusion":"As the Bible cannot be proven historically accurate, it cannot be used as proof of anything."}
{"id":"8c88e622-4544-46c9-987f-e90bba876df5","argument":"George H. W. Bush utilized racist attack ads to help stir up fear to beat Mike Dukakis.","conclusion":"Other Republican Presidents were just as problematic as Trump but Democrats cooperated with them."}
{"id":"118d30d2-2fd9-42c3-b310-44de309e97ed","argument":"Trilobites survived for more than 250 million years, enduring the Ordovician-Silurian Extinction, the evolution of jaws, and the Late Devonian Extinction.","conclusion":"Some organisms have survived Nature's attempts at population control."}
{"id":"8783e983-1477-4159-8cec-e8ab9dc79c80","argument":"At any given moment, there are multitudes of people enduring immense suffering that is avoidable \u2013 their pain and death are not inevitable in a fatalistic sense. First , this argument has to begin with the premise that suffering and death due to a lack of food, medical care, and shelter are bad. That doesn\u2019t seem to be a very controversial idea. To those who disagree, I encourage them to forgo food, shelter, and medical care and comment in three months as to their findings. Secondly , if we can aid in ending this suffering or prevent it in the first place without sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, we ought to do so. What does \u201cwithout sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance\u201d mean? Essentially, it means doing something without making something comparably bad happen or doing something that is wrong in itself. I could rob a bank in order to pay off Puerto Rico\u2019s debt crisis, but by doing so, I\u2019d be committing a wrong deed by robbing that bank, therefore I\u2019ve sacrificed something of comparable moral importance. Thus, I ought not rob that bank. Again, this doesn\u2019t seem all that controversial. What it means is that we should help those in need. Most people, I bet, would agree to this when asked. The parable that is traditionally used in this discussion is that of you happening upon a child drowning in a small pool. Firstly, all things being equal, we can probably agree that it would be better to save the child than letting he she die, even if that means you ruin your brand new 450 Oxford loafers. If saving the child would sacrifice something of comparable moral importance there\u2019s that pesky phrase again , than it may not be the right action to take. A simple version of the premises would be something like 1 You see avoidable suffering I use this as shorthand for the suffering death from lack of\u2026 \u2013 the child drowning in a shallow pool. 2 You know you can end this suffering by acting \u2013 stepping in and saving him. 3 You know that this action would not require equivalent suffering from yourself \u2013 the cost of replacing or fixing your 450 Oxford loafers does not outweigh the life of a child. Applying this There are currently people dying of easily preventable diseases or starvation in many places around the world. 1 I know of this need I\u2019ve seen the statistics and heard the testimonies. I would wager that most people in the 1st world know this to be the case. 2 I know that I can help in ending this suffering. By donating money and time, my actions can help to alleviate the avoidable suffering of these people. 3 I know that acting in this way \u2013 donating time money \u2013 will not require equivalent suffering from me. Thus, all of these things considered, I ought to donate time money to help relieve unavoidable suffering. Again, I don\u2019t think this is very controversial. What may be controversial is that I believe we ought to give as much as possible nearly up to the point at which by giving more we would begin to cause serious i.e. non trivial, not just mild displeasure, but actual suffering suffering for us or our dependents. Thus, if someone makes 100,000 and agrees with the premises above, they ought to give a substantial amount of that money to an effective charity Oxfam, Fistula Foundation, etc. Note that the argument does not prejudice distance or proximity to suffering. There is no moral difference whether the person I can help lives next door or in Syria. There is definitely a discussion to be had that you can be more effective in helping those nearest to you though this is definitely not always the case , but not that people near you are inherently worth more than those far away. Also note that this argument does not comment on whether I am the only person who can help or whether there is a crowd around me to help as well. The kindergarten adage of \u201cStand up for what is right even if you\u2019re standing alone\u201d can be deployed here. There is definitely a psychological difference here \u2013 we often feel less guilty as can be evidenced by the Nuremberg trials when we are in a crowd than alone \u2013 but not a moral one. There\u2019s a lot more that needs to be said, but not much room to say it \u2013 so, I\u2019ll try to be quick. What does this mean overall? It definitely means that I feel we should realign our moral paradigm from \u201cI\u2019m not harming anyone\u201d when we spend to \u201cI\u2019m not helping anyone.\u201d Foreseen questions responses \u2013 \u201cWhat type of giving?\u201d This is a really big part of the point. There\u2019s a wing of the Met in NYC that cost 10million to renovate. The funds were donated from a wealthy donor. Now, this is not the type of giving that I think should occur at this time . I\u2019m in the Humanities and would love for the humanities to get more money, but I also have the humility to recognize that the lives of people starving and dying of easily preventable diseases malaria diarrhea is more important than me hearing Chopin live as opposed to a recording. People often give because it makes themselves feel better. And that doesn\u2019t always produce the best results. There\u2019s nothing wrong with building a football practice field for your alma matter. But is it the most good you can do? Obviously not. And, as the argument above shows, we ought to do the most good we can. Thus, people should donate to places that aim to relieve the most severe types of unavoidable suffering \u2013 a lack of food, shelter, and medical care. And they should donate to charities organizations who use this money effectively. It may feel good to donate to a charity, but if the charity only uses 8 of its funds for actual work research, that donation is not nearly as effective as it could be. \u201cBut how do I know my money\u2019s going to good use?\u201d Use a service like charitynavigator or my personal favorite thelifeyoucansave.org. They show exactly how the money is used in each organization. Personally, I donate to Oxfam, the Against Malaria Foundation, and Doctors Without Borders. Doesn't this type of giving privilege certain charities over others? Absolutely, because certain needs are more pertinent than others. To use a different example, building parks in poor neighborhoods is a great thing. But if a park costs 30,000 to build and that's a very, very, very conservative estimate , and Oxfam can save a life definitively for 3,000, you're saying that the happiness that park will bring is greater than the lives of more than 10 people. I don't think that's a rational assessment. \u201cBut what difference can I make?\u201d Well, no snowflake feels responsible for the avalanche. What is an ocean but a multitude of drops? Use any such adage. As I tried to show above, you should still save the drowning child even if there are a thousand people standing still around the pool. That\u2019s no moral excuse. \u201cI can\u2019t afford to donate.\u201d Perhaps, but I highly doubt that. We've all heard the For only the cost of a cup of coffee line in commercials. But the cliche points to a truth that we spend far more than we think we do. If you are single and make 30,000 year in the U.S., you can probably afford to donate 3,000 year, what Oxfam estimates it costs to definitively save a life. Obviously, there are exceptions. We can shop at Goodwill Salvation Army here in the U.S. rather than at more expensive stores we can carpool take public transit when available walk places we can request others not give us birthday graduation Christmas wedding gifts but make donations instead we can stop eating out seriously, it makes a huge difference we could have roommates rather than live alone we can use craigslist to pick up free near free furniture, even if it doesn't match the horror . I'm not note NOT suggesting that one become homeless and make one's children forgo food in order to donate to Doctors Without Borders. As I said multiple times, the point is doing the most good you can do without sacrificing something of moral value. Wouldn't it be wiser to make as much money now and use things like compounding interest to be able to donate in the future? And couldn't that goal cost more money in the short term to achieve long term gains? To be honest, if we're having this conversation, you've already bought the premise and argument, we're now just figuring out how to achieve it most effectively. And I do think there is a place for this type of discussion and there may be times where spending a bit extravagantly will allow you to give more in the future. However , I am wary of the frailty of our resolve. We also are very apt to deceive ourselves into thinking Oh, yeah, I need that iMac because it'll help when really we just want it. Take the furniture example. Seeing as everything is a game of opportunity costs, me saying I'm willing to spend 500 extra to make sure my bed frame matches my dresser and nightstand means I'm valuing the pleasure I will receive over the matching furniture over the suffering that the 500 could alleviate. But I know me and how selfish I could be. Thus, I'm wary of our ability to deceive ourselves in this manner. FINALLY When trying to , please do not respond with something like But people will never do that or That's too much of a change. The original argument, leading from the premises, appears to be sound. What follows are the consequences if that sound argument is implemented. It would be near on fallacious to do so. Sorry that I've made you read over 10,000 characters. If you've come this far congratulations If you're interested in this topic, please look up effective altruism Now, let's have some discussions","conclusion":"We ought to give much more money to - and primarily to - effective charities."}
{"id":"4e14bf74-c408-4730-9051-0c26bd681c80","argument":"To start, obviously using only half of your talent pool is ridiculous. Women in the workforce is a great thing for this country and the world. My sister is actually a high ranking corporate officer at DSG in Cranberry, PA. Equal rights have and will continue to reap enormous benefits for our society. That being said, I think there have been some negative side effects that, while not devaluing the feminist movement, need to be addressed. The problem is anyone who says things like this now a days is shunned and called intolerant or a caveman. That is sort of my issue. After thousands of years of male dominated world and the countless problems that brought forth, like unending wars , feminism successfully swung the pendulum towards equality, and kept going. Our society is too soft now, we need some positive male influence back in the national consciousness. Estrogen floods the air waves, Hollywood, education. Mass media needs some healthy testosterone to balance. There is this constant homogenizing of our society. I believe in equality, but evolution favored sexual reproduction over asexual. Men and women are different, why don't we celebrate those differences? 40 years of feminism does not override 4 billion years of evolution. Everything must be politically correct now, everyone is too scared to offend anyone. Everyone gets a trophy, alpha male behavior is deemed unsightly. There are no winners, no one is exceptional because we don't want to hurt the weakling's feelings. This generation mine has no self reliance and an entitled attitude, everyone's mother patted them on the head and told them they were special and the father's influence has been marginalized. If you're a tough daddy, you're abusive. Everyone used to beat their kids and there were a lot less trouble makers, now you go to prison for using a belt. Here's a real world example Go to college bars, everyone has this tough guy persona now. People talk shit and puff out their chest. Sometimes it devolves into a fight and people get hurt. I don't get into bar fights. You know why? Because I know how to fight. I do it for fun as a sport at a boxing gym 4 5 times a week. When people realize how dangerous fighting actually is, they avoid it unless they have to. How does this tie in? My dad and grandpa tell tons of stories of them fighting as kids, just for fun. Its what boys do. Now what happened? My generation was told not to fight, by our feminized society. But boys SHOULD fight. Why? Cuz you get it out of your system before you're an adult and people get seriously hurt. Boys will be boys. Not anymore. Most of these little freshman who get wasted and pick fights at the bar have never been in a REAL fight, or they wouldn't talk shit because they would know that they are ONE SHOT away from going to sleep and never waking up. This would not happen if they all fought like boys used to until they got in their teens and grew out of it. There is a male identity crisis in our society, and it is feminisms fault. That's okay, because the feminist movement was worth it, but now we have to go about repairing the male identity. And we need feminists to get out of our way. Change my view.","conclusion":"I believe feminism, while providing great value to our society, has also damaged it."}
{"id":"5ea5731e-f1dd-4bfb-ba1e-2afa64c6638b","argument":"Whilst I myself would define myself as a feminist, I'm not fond of the word feminism . Feminism promotes the idea of people being equal but to define people being equal it uses the word female. By doing so, feminism alienates men. I was discussing this idea with a friend and she stated that the term gives a focus and direction to the movement, and it acknowledges a group that has been systemically oppressed . She compared the feminist movement to the LGBT rights movement and the African American civil rights movement. However, my argument is that both the LGBT and Civil rights movements serve to provide rights to those who do not have any rights whilst feminism serves to provide equal rights. EDIT What I mean by this is LGBT and Civl rights movements are concerned with legislature whist modern feminism is concerned with societal structure In some cases, feminism is improving women's rights so that they are equal to the rights of men. In other cases, it is improving the rights of men so that they are equal to those of men. I realize that the former is more abundant but regardless, both are things the movement serves to achieve. The term feminism does not adequately describe or represent the movement. ?","conclusion":"The word \"feminism\" does not accurately represent the feminist movement"}
{"id":"ae197d73-b992-42dc-ab86-12a214d73c97","argument":"While the Star Trek universe allow ships to move in interstellar space without limitations, ships in the Star Wars universe are forced to use carefully mapped hyperspace routes to travel any significant distances. This gives the Federation a great mobility advantage.","conclusion":"Fast as the Rebels may be, their methods of propulsion face clear limitations that hamper their utility in battle and that the Federation does not have to deal with."}
{"id":"086f1ae3-541e-439e-8f82-baf67844ef14","argument":"In Aleksandr Dugin's 1997 book The Foundations of Geopolitics The Geopolitical Future of Russia he lays out how Russia could gain geopolitical dominance. The United Kingdom should be cut off from Europe Suddenly there is a large Brexit movement. Ukraine should be annexed Ukraine civil war with Russian backing Ally with Iran Done Georgia should be dismembered Russia invaded in 2008. The war eliminated Georgia's prospects for joining Nato. For the United States, he says Russia should fuel instability and separatism, for instance, provoke Afro American racists . Russia should introduce geopolitical disorder into internal American activity, encouraging all kinds of separatism and ethnic, social and racial conflicts, actively supporting all dissident movements \u2013 extremist, racist, and sectarian groups, thus destabilizing internal political processes in the U.S. It would also make sense simultaneously to support isolationist tendencies in American politics. It's all working. We are more divided now than ever and the Russians are laughing at us. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Russia is successfully subverting, destabilizing and spreading disinformation in order to gain geopolitical influence."}
{"id":"7619fe18-32cb-44a7-a0ce-2cbb39abf081","argument":"Let me preface this by saying I've never had or attempted to have a kid so perhaps this is one of those things you just don't know until it happens. I still don't understand why a miscarriage can cause people such psychological pain at the end of the day. Yeah I can understand being upset about it for a while but not YEARS. Months maybe but not as long as some people are. Here are some of my reasons Your life, as you are living now, really doesn't change. Yeah your POTENTIAL life is way different. But you never actually had that life to begin with. It's like someone saying they're going to give you money then at the end of the day they don't. Yeah you're sad but is your life on any different track really? You can't interact with a fetus. Yeah you can think about how awesome this kid is going to be but at the end of the day is it really all that different from losing your spleen? My spleens inside me, I can't talk to it but I'm not going to be sad just because I don't have my spleen anymore. I understand this is a gross over simplification but that's kind of the vein of logic I see The above reason is even more important the earlier in the pregnancy. Like you miss carried at one month? You practically didn't even know how can you be sad ? It's not like your life has changed drastically at this point. An important note, this is different from being sad from constantly mis carrying. That sadness results from an inability to do something not have that particular child. It's like being told you're going to get a puppy and then before you even get the puppy they go oh sorry it died . Yeah it's sad a dog died and specifically your future dog but is it really any more sad than that kid in Africa that just died? You don't know him either but you're not losing nights of sleep over it either. I'm sure hormones come into play somewhere but again I can't see the effect lasting for longer than a year honestly. Edit I'm getting a lot of posts saying things along the lines of what if they can't conceive again or they're worried about it etc. I would like to point out that I very clearly stated in the fifth paragraph in the original post that there is a difference between being unable to conceive and losing that specific child.","conclusion":"at the end of the day, it's dumb to get overly attached to an unborn child if a miscarriage occurs"}
{"id":"2d617fee-91e1-4308-a14c-6d35387f15e1","argument":"Mother Teresa was instrumental in protecting the job of a priest who was removed from ministry for child abuse writing a letter in support of allowing him to return to ministry, where he continued his predatory actions.","conclusion":"Mother Teresa's publicity may have obscured attention to the scandal of pedophilia among Catholic priests."}
{"id":"b9b9318a-46b9-4285-bac8-c9f55f82ef91","argument":"Objectively, my statement doesn't make any sense. Of course nobody has a right to spit in anybody's food. But I sense a general acceptance of the fact that your food can be spit on or tampered in some way because you are being a bad customer. We need to understand that this is absolutely unethical. A lot of people say this as a rule of thumb don't upset people who handle your food . By saying such things we are actually enabling this behaviour. I wouldn't be surprised if, upon being caught doing such things, people are being let go by their supervisors because it is so acceptable and justified. There might be many things wrong with the system which probably don't leave the people who do this any other option. The society should find a solution to those problems rather than accepting this consequence as a justified behaviour.","conclusion":"I don't think food servers have the right to spit in anyone's food, even people who are rude."}
{"id":"13df3e1f-d4f6-4ee2-ab00-36bd2e06a76d","argument":"Denmark is an example of how these opt-outs can work. With opt-outs in place, those member states that are interested in further integration can still pursue it, without infringing on the sovereignty of other member states.","conclusion":"Any agreements made at the supra-national level could be opted out of if member states disagree."}
{"id":"d0bd3b9b-078f-4b87-ac04-cf524563d06c","argument":"I see a lot of people altruistically supporting animal shelters. Which isn't necessarily bad. The thing is, we only have all these animal shelters because we insist on having pets. If we had no pets, we wouldn't need animal shelters. All the money that goes to animal shelters could be donated or spent elsewhere. All the money that goes into the pet industry could be spent on something more productive and innovative. What spurred this is, I saw comment that said my husband and I aren't home enough to have a pet so we donate to animal shelters. It turns into this weird circle where, we have some sort of need for pets, they get abandoned, and now we support the organizations that take care of the abandoned pets. It made me think that getting rid of pets would not have much of an effect on ecosystems since they aren't hunting themselves anyway. I do understand that there are maybe psychological benefits to pets. Note I have a dog. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The world would be better off if we didn't have pets."}
{"id":"6b47d103-b2b0-4b46-b4fa-acca0821eb8d","argument":"AGI self-determination may arrive at a position entirely hostile to humans -- it is premature to grant them rights before discovering their orientation.","conclusion":"Granting fundamental rights to AGI could make it harder to fight with them in case of a threat."}
{"id":"5cd41fb8-bda5-429c-8440-913429d1842a","argument":"First I have to clarify I don't want to eliminate things like composition, grammar, or rhetoric in high schools. These things are useful and should be kept around in HS english curriculum. What I'm saying is that the focus on literature particularly fiction within a composition class should be exchanged for more focus on composition and rhetoric. Also, in comp classes, the reading should be more essay based instead of novel or short story based. Likewise, classes that focus exclusively on literature i.e. mandatory lit classes should be replaced entirely in the core curriculum by other, more useful classes. I've searched, and I've yet to come across any good arguments for the retention of Lit class in the mandatory HS cirriculum. Take this article for instance The article is called The Importance of Teaching Literature. It lists five reasons that teaching Lit in HS is important and elaborates on each. To quickly address each point We teach Lit for to develop Cultural Values The article says kids need to be able to understand references to unifying works like the Bible and Shakespeare. I say These literary references especially Shakespeare references are only necessary to understand other literature sure, maybe the odd movie or game now and again references Shakespeare or mirrors his stories in some way, but is it worth it to have a core HS class just to catch these references? On top of that, when was the last time anyone heard of reading the Bible in English class? And do we really want to keep the Bible alive Lit classes tend to make certain works immortal just to preserve a cultural touchstone that delares damnation for homosexual people and other wild stuff? Expanding Horizons The article says Lit can transport us through time and space. We can experience life through another's eyes with Literature. I say We can do the same thing with movies. And especially video games. But if the focus is to transport ourselves into the past, then why not read letters written from the past? Autobiographies? First hand non fiction seems to be more valuable in this regard than fiction does, whether the fiction be in the form of a movie, video game, or book. Also a movie takes 2 hours to watch while a book takes weeks to read and you can get just the same amount of pathos from a good movie as you can from a good book. Building vocabulary Article says Book reading builds an expansive vocab can't disagree here. Better vocabularies lead to more complex discussions. I say First off, literary fiction is not the only place in the world of the written word to find new words. Essayists love a nice, uncommon word, and so do long form reporters. Heck, even some of the past's better letter writers liked to take the old thesaurus out for a spin. This is my main rebuttal to this point fiction is not in any way necessary for building a better vocab. Now for a more personal rebuttal I think that when people use words like rebuttal it's annoying more than anything else. And it distracts from their message. Generally, when a person uses a word like utilize instead of use, or even little harmless words like nor, it just sets off a fedora neck beard alarm in my head and I can't take them seriously anymore. Not saying we should keep people from learning new words or anything just saying that I think people place too much value on an expansive vocabulary. I also realize that I'm a hypocrite, talking about vocab like this, but oh well. Doesn't make the idea that sometimes a bigger vocab is just annoying wrong. Improving writing skills Article says More you read the better you write can't disagree. I say All types of writing are not created equal. Reading lit fiction will not help you improve your practical writing skills, like e mail writing, persuasive writing, or tech writing. Reading more lit helps you write better lit but we can't just be reading lit for the sake of writing more of it. That seems ridiculous. And even if you see a lot of value in lit itself, its got to be mostly aesthetic value, and we shouldn't teach a core class in lit just because lit is pretty writing, wouldn't you agree? Teaching critical thinking Article says With so much malicious sensory data out there these days, students need to learn to think critically I agree. Literature is the best way to do this. I say Why not protect kids from groupthink by having them deconstruct advertisements or political rhetoric directly? I remember doing some of this in an english class of mine it was eye opening. But for some reason we only did it for a class period or two before it was back to lit. I know that these points aren't perfect representations of the points in the article, but I just wanted to address a few straw men before I let you ers at me. Also, there are so many subjects that could take the place of Lit in high school classrooms Philosophy and computer programming are two good ones. In fact, philosophy sounds like a perfect class to develop your critical thinking skills in. It sounds like a better way to teach critical thinking than lit, anyway.","conclusion":"\"Literature\" fictional should not be a core high-school subject or a key part of any mandatory English class."}
{"id":"72ccbccf-ccb5-488d-9ea0-d8ae258b9bbc","argument":"Gabbard received a perfect 100 rating for her support for LGBTQ+ Equality during her time in the 115th congress Human Rights Campaign, p. 20","conclusion":"Gabbard says her views on LGBTQ issues have \"evolved\" and her recent history as legislator proves this."}
{"id":"f4fa9d42-00f3-4037-be4a-9fff1685b52f","argument":"The approacher ought only do this in situation where the approached has an excuse to move away politely if they are or become uninterested.","conclusion":"If certain rules are followed, a lot of the potentially negative outcomes can be avoided."}
{"id":"f06e66e6-7482-4716-8a99-85c21354b9ee","argument":"Most liberal politicians and thinkers argue in favor of the progressive system that we have now or an even more progressive systems. As I see it, the problem with this is that the complexities of a progressive system make it insanely easy to avoid taxes if you are rich or connected. If you are a company, you can use IP transfer pricing to get your profits out of the country and keep it there with another loophole. If you're an individual, there are countless other ways to reduce your tax burden. In many ways, it's tough to blame them. CEOs have a fiduciary duty to their shareholders, and no one really wants to pay tax as an individual. Worse, the rash of tax inversions we saw last year demonstrates just how much our high corporate tax rate which incidentally is only high because other countries have lowered theirs in a race to the bottom is pushing companies offshore. The best alternative i see is a high VAT consumption tax across the board and an elimination of almost all other taxes we should probably hold on to the estate tax to keep inequality from running away on us. This tax is inherently regressive, but it's also virtually impossible to evade. From what I understand, it's also less distortionary than the income or corporate tax. The money that we raise from this could then be distributed via progressive programs to make up for the regressive nature of the VAT. I'm partial to a progressive minimum income, universal health care and free education, but that's just me. I think that this is where liberals in the US should be focusing our efforts instead of the push for higher taxes on the rich. It seems more realistic and effective. However, if I'm wrong for some reason about what I'm saying or if there's another way that would be more effective, I'd love to hear it.","conclusion":"It would make more since from a liberal perspective to tax consumption and distribute progressively"}
{"id":"d42af84e-97d2-4b81-8189-84edb9dad0c2","argument":"The press and broadcasters are held accountable by laws and regulators. Any online content that can be viewed or read by the public should adhere to the same regulations, standards and accountability.","conclusion":"Hate speech has become a constant threat online, thus it should be regulated."}
{"id":"f1f7719b-c155-4bc4-acfc-e56fb94ea138","argument":"There should be a maximum age to run for certain positions in government. My first point is that, since there is a minimum age, it's only fair that there's a maximum age. You wouldn't elect a 27 year old as president, but it's coke tell legal to elect a 101 year old, who may be an equally poor choice, if not worse. My second point is that, if a candidate is too old, they might, and probably will, hold older, outdated views, which could hamper progress. Where a 40 year old may have more modern, accepted views, a significantly older candidate may hold views that were acceptable back in the day , but are now more radical. Change my view?","conclusion":"There should be a maximum age for certain government positions."}
{"id":"0a2a032d-2656-4787-b147-69580833ccac","argument":"I mean, it\u2019s public knowledge that the Koch Bros, The Mercers and Murdoch literally buy republicans lawmakers to push awful things. I read somewhere the Kochs spend nearly a billion last years on politics. So why Gates and Buffet and others more \u00ab liberal \u00bb like Bloomberg don\u2019t associate and \u00ab buy \u00bb the republicans lawmakers? I\u2019m sure with 1 or 2 millions many will be eager to change their mind on free college and healthcare for all. And remenber 2 millions for 1000 lawmakers is \u00ab only \u00bb 2 billions, those guys can afford. So what\u2019s the problem? Is my view really idiotic or they are all neoliberal capitalistic cunts who prepare for their futuristic heaven where all the rich are like Gods and the rest is doomed?","conclusion":"Gates, Buffet and all should fight the Kochs"}
{"id":"83b72d29-3350-45d0-b1a5-1faa2223d8b5","argument":"I understand that they used to and that people complained because there were lots of vote up if type posts that were getting karma. Removing karma from them, however, does not appear to have changed things. They've always been reported and deleted none are on in the pages archived by archive.org for the time before it was removed . They still show up from time to time then they get reported and removed. The issue should have been dealt with via moderation, not a change to the way karma was handled However, one effect that this has influenced is the creation of rage comics and an increase in screenshots. I've even noticed that increase just over the last couple years. Now, I'm not saying that they wouldn't happen if self posts got karma, nor that they are always inappropriate, but it is evident that there are some things that would be better as self posts that are instead posted as screenshots or rage comics and it's hard to not think that the lack of karma for self posts plays a part in this. So it seems to me that self posts add original content to reddit and should be encouraged. AskReddit IAmA and this very sub show that reddit is as much about the creation of text based original content as it is about linking to external content because they accept nothing but self posts. So I see no reason why we should discriminate against self posts by giving them no karma at all. .","conclusion":"I believe self posts should receive link karma."}
{"id":"47fa930b-0b2b-4852-a243-b9f827dc5922","argument":"It's a haven for piracy. Companies make you use it. In my experience books have way better information than the internet for most things. The government and businesses can use it to spy on you. i.e. location data. It created social media. It is run by monopolistic companies like Comcast. I think that a literal e mail system where your mailbox is a hardrive and the mailman comes along downloading mail onto it with a flashdrive hardrive would be preferable. This way you could still get all the content you want like games and stuff. Basic phone features like calling and texting are also ok. I was born in 1999 so I grew up with the internet. Social media has had a big impact on my generation not really a positive one . Teachers often would make students use crappy websites to access homework assignments, therefore making it something that was necessary to have. The dating scene was also weird growing up because people use the internet to text and flirt instead of hanging out face to face.","conclusion":"the internet was a mistake"}
{"id":"fd558b66-1e25-44c0-80ea-ba4f9cd7c662","argument":"I am using this article as a baseline to argue against. This  is long, and covers many aspects. Because of this, I will break the  with subtitles based on the subtext\u2019s content. The fundamental beliefs of Libertarianism and its followers are foolish. 1 The free market and economics 1.1 One of the largest Libertarian beliefs is, of course, the free market. Libertarians believe in a laissez faire approach to the economy, that corporations should be trusted. This belief has already been tried in the United States, and was a monumental failure. This was clearly seen by the monopolies of the 19th and 18th century, the largest of those being American Tobacco Co., Standard Oil Co., and U.S. Steel Co. These monopolies hindered competition between businesses in the United States, as smaller companies had no chance of success under the shadow of large monopolies. They were either bought out or just flat out failed due to the inability to produce at the rate of a corporation, or to have lower prices to that of a corporation. Furthermore, without government intervention, monopolies colluded and began price fixing to increase profit, while degrading their products where possible. History has a tendency to rhyme, and to believe that greed is not at the heart of a corporation is the belief of a fool. What happened back then will surely happen again . 1.2 The idea of a free labor market is not only foolish but contradictory to other Libertarian beliefs. Stated under subsection 2.11 of my provided article Libertarians believe that workers and unions should be able to compete and bargain for jobs without government interference. This would be the end of minimum wage . The effects of no minimum wage is seen through globalism in modern society. Not only are working conditions extremely harsh, but many work for the equivalent of a few U.S dollars per week. Having to lower your value as a worker to achieve a job you are qualified for is unethical. Because of this, states with no minimum wage have strong unions in order to ensure working conditions and pay. But unions are fundamentally contradictory to the libertarian beliefs on taxation . 1.3 Taxation is not theft, but a necessary component of a functioning government. This belief is something Libertarians refuse to acknowledge, even though it is their own practice. Taxation is essential for economic flow money market, GDP, Aggregate Supply Demand and to create budgets for all aspects of the government such as military, which even the Libertarian party advocates for. Unions take union fees in order to operate. Essentially a form of taxation to a private entity in exchange for insurance of wages and working conditions. This is something that right to work states already insure without unions, but allow the option to join one if you choose to do so. This isn\u2019t to say I am against unionization, only against the thought that taxation from a government is somehow worse than a fee to a union. 1.3.5 A union\u2019s very existence is proof that corporations can\u2019t be trusted to run the economy by themselves. Wages, working conditions, unethical work practices were commonplace before unionization. 1.4 To summarize, libertarian beliefs on the market will lead to economic failure. Libertarian beliefs on taxation are contradictory, and ask for a government that is not funded. 2 Other libertarian values 2.1 Educational beliefs of the libertarian party are reckless. Libertarianism calls for education without government interference, for it to be left to the parents. Essentially, no more free public education . Free public education is, and should be, a human right. A human right to knowledge. Again, a educated society is a more prosperous one. 2.2 Healthcare and welfare. Libertarians leave the people to take care of their own devices. The clear problem is that there are many people who are physically, mentally, or financially unable to provide for their families or themself. The libertarian party does not take disability into account, and leaves those people to themself. 2.3 Environmental libertarianism is just asking for it to worsen. Libertarianism calls for zero government regulation on environmental standards. This in pair with zero regulation on corporations will undoubtedly lead to massive amounts of waste and pollution. This is again seen previously in history. 3 The Libertarian Party\u2019s actual role in the Presidential Elections 3.1 The Libertarian Party currently merely plays spoiler role. The Libertarian Party sucks votes away from the two major parties, but rarely, if ever wins. These votes can be enough to sway an election, but not towards a third party, rather to one of the major parties. By voting libertarian, you waste a vote that could go to the major party you most closely align to. Sources Libertarian platform the United States and Monopolies Right to work and unions Third parties Edit I want to thank everyone participating in this discussion. If I haven\u2019t gotten to you, I\u2019m sorry Many of these are long winded arguments which I can only reply to so many.","conclusion":"Libertarianism is an awful political ideology that romanticizes trust in private entities, despite history proving that trust to be poorly placed."}
{"id":"a74d87dd-91e0-4942-95aa-f4311c5e4e24","argument":"I respect all life, so to say I have no respect is an exaggeration. But I certainly frown upon them, and would never enter a relationship with anyone who had done something like that. I just think it's shameful, attention seeking, whorish behaviour.","conclusion":"I don't have respect for anyone that posts on \/r\/GoneWild, and believe they're just attention seeking \"YOLO\" sluts."}
{"id":"393c48cb-9a3c-4941-a353-6e9ab73d4b2f","argument":"People who come from societies where arranged marriage is the cultural norm will have more advantages in getting into one than those that come in a society where love marriage is the norm.","conclusion":"While an arranged marriage may be better for some couples, that might not be the case across the board."}
{"id":"88f33a7a-3dc0-4c73-89c8-5fbedb76dfcb","argument":"In the wake of revelations of sexual misconduct in the Australian Army, Lieutenant General David Morrison made an inspiring, unequivocal statement about the values of his organization and the standards expected of the men and women who serve in uniform. Meanwhile, a day later in the United States, The New York Times reports efforts in the Senate to shield US soldiers from prosecution for sexual assault by keeping the decision to prosecute within the military chain of command and out of the hands of military prosecutors. It's a stark contrast in organizational values, accountability for individual actions, and the honor of the service as a whole, and Australia's approach to the issue puts America's to shame. .","conclusion":"Australia's response to military sexual misconduct puts the US to shame."}
{"id":"4091e947-58f7-49b3-931e-34e9771c6b7f","argument":"Islam is more than a religion; it is an ideology. It seeks to control all aspects of human existence. Unfortunately, it does not encourage a critical analysis of the Quran and demands blind adherence to a belief system that was born of warfare and subjugation. If there should be no compulsion in religion, then the penalty for apostasy wouldn't be death.","conclusion":"Islam needs a reform to be compatible with the modern world."}
{"id":"b99d641b-a992-4924-ae10-eba09007faa7","argument":"I just found this subreddit and it has gathered all of my envy. This is a place where people are seeking to be wrong and learn about themselves. Anyway, about a year and a half ago, I was dumped by an ex who jumped into a new relationship immediately after and before that one was even over she jumped into something else. Before she dated me she was fresh out of a relationship. Basically she is always with a boyfriend. The whole experience surrounding that was pretty painful but too much to go into detail. My roommate is similiar to my ex, she was in a long term relationship, broke up with him, hooked up with another guy that fizzled out quickly and not too long after that she started seeing a new guy. What I've noticed is that when she's single, she's constantly depressed and anxious and she's only fine when she's with a boyfriend. On top of that her depression and anxiety affect her multiple sicknesses and she ends up bed ridden or worse in the ER. Many of my male friends are like this too but my roommate was very close to me and my experience with my ex affected me directly. I currently have a girlfriend after a long period of being single, I love her and my life feels very balanced between where I live my own life and also have a relationship. My girlfriend is currently away at a music festival on a scholarship for two months and while I miss her, I don't feel overwhelmed by the lack of her presence. On the day of her flight I spent the entire afternoon with her and we went to a make up store to buy make up and get her make up done by an artist. The artist told us about how her significant other was gone for six months for work and she only saw him once during that time. After they reunited she told her now husband that he may only be gone for up to two weeks at a time. Similarly my roommate feels that she cannot do long distance relationship and must have her boyfriend around or it isn't a relationship. To me, that feels like dependency, how is her man supposed to live his life to the fullest if he is held by back by someone who has a need to have him constantly available. It doesn't feel like love to me. In contrast, my parents met in the military and regularly had to spend long periods of time apart from one another. While they are weird people to begin with, they have been married for 31 years and have battled through many obstacles. I'm in my mid twenties and the people I'm speaking about are in their early twenties, is it an age thing? I understand that people make their own decisions however I feel like wanting and needing a significant other are two different things. Anyway, I want r  to change how I view this. I feel that learning how to be single and independent is a very important lesson. However I meet a lot of people around my age who are seemingly deathly afraid of being single and my opinion of them changes. Which is what I exactly don't want, I care a lot a lot my roommate but I feel like she's making a huge mistake. I know that people learn lessons at their own pace but I feel like not being able to be independent holds people back from realizing and handling themselves. Tl dr I feel like relationships are toxic until you are comfortable with the idea of being alone for the rest of your life. I feel like most people around my age or at least around me don't understand this and it turns me off. I don't want it to turn me off and I want to be less of an asshole.","conclusion":"I feel like most people are afraid to be alone and are in codependent relationships."}
{"id":"f597c688-3ddc-4185-a20e-9bc88d4b8178","argument":"Some medical goods, such as radioisotopes and a number of biological agents, have a shelf-life that's measured in hours Any delay at customs could be detrimental.","conclusion":"Brexit will interfere with the supply of goods for the NHS."}
{"id":"66541320-392b-43ef-9264-af516e9b6ea4","argument":"There has been a lot of questioning lately about whether or not it is appropriate to be talking about Russia's anti gay laws during the olympics, with many people protesting that it's politicizing a sporting event, and that talking about LGBT rights at such an event is inappropriate and irrelevant. However, I must disagree. I believe that with Russia in the spotlight, we should be talking about Russian society and how the government treats its citizens. In 2008, a lot of controversies sprung up at the Beijing olympics, especially concerning poorer Chinese citizens being relocated within Beijing, high levels of pollution, and other human rights concerns. But at that time, no one thought it irrelevant to bring up Tibet during the olympics, or the fact that Beijing was heavily polluted. Are both of these not politicizing the olympics ? Yes, I realize that pollution has effects on athletes health, but short term exposure to reduced levels of pollution like they experienced were irrelevant to overall performance. Furthermore, when Russia bid for the olympics and subsequently won back in 2007, they were not only agreeing to host the olympics, but were agreeing to open their country to the world. In doing so, they were inviting in criticism from other countries of how they handle the games, and how they handle the operation of their country on a daily basis. In the last few years, Russia has gone down hill in terms of human rights, violently and crudely cracking down on dissent ie Pussy Riot and rolling back rights for individuals such as the gay community , and I think it's important that people know, learn, and care about these things. Hosting an international event in a country that violates human rights on a day to day basis seems unethical, and international participation should make other countries feel the dirt on their own hands. To summarize, I don't think that it's irrelevant to question Russia's politics at a time where it's at the center of the world stage, because the olympics are a politicized event, and they have been for many years. Not bringing up the blatant human rights abuses of a country hosting such a large global event only serves to allow Russia to keep doing what it's doing to it's LGBT population, and in not caring or talking about it, one says that they can't be bothered to care about their fellow human because they happen to be in another country. I'm eager to hear other peoples views, so","conclusion":"I believe that the olympics in Sochi is not only a good time, but the perfect time to be talking about the situation of gay and lesbian people in that country,"}
{"id":"32aaa42c-2612-4f3e-a352-19f14ddd8022","argument":"It was irresponsible for Dumbledore to appoint Remus Lupin, a known werewolf, as a teacher without letting the students or their parents know about his condition.","conclusion":"Hogwarts teachers are irresponsible and contribute to a dangerous and unhealthy school environment."}
{"id":"c5c972f6-71c3-40e7-91e0-6b691294efd4","argument":"Not everyone is capable of participating in an Information Age Economy. Regardless, such people still deserve to be able to secure the basic necessities, while maintaining some dignity.","conclusion":"A UBI is an important safety net and provides people with dignity and freedom to ensure they can always support themselves."}
{"id":"5e2b1286-5d8d-4246-92f1-3fd6a02476a4","argument":"Nothing that increases the power or supports the longevity of the North Korean regime is morally justifiable.","conclusion":"Formally accepting North Korea as a nuclear state would strengthen the North Korean regime."}
{"id":"738c32ec-ec28-4d5d-96d6-9b809d2741f3","argument":"I use a lot of energy every day to power my computer, boil my kettle, charge my phone, have artificial light, cook food and so on. I don't watch TV, but that is only a small relief. I am learning to drive. Most people expect that for the majority of their lives they will own a car, possibly two. There are over a billion cars on the planet and more people to own more cars are being born every second. Even though I cannot drive I am regularly driven places and I fly at least once a year, if not twice or three times. I do not grow my food. I buy it from supermarkets because there are no independent grocers near where I live. It's wrapped in plastic. I shower every day, using lots of water and energy. I order things online. They are wrapped in materials, transported via energy using vehicles, sometimes hundreds of miles, to me. I use lots of paper every day. Making notes, doing work, printing. I own a fair amount of clothes that I wash continually. I also do lots of sport, so my sport kit is always being washed. This all takes energy. Even the fact that I don't eat meat does not seem to amount to much. I just buy a different kind of thing wrapped in plastic, with the same food miles on it. This lifestyle is not at all extraordinary it is very ordinary. I believe that this is not at all sustainable, but most people live it. How could this not be a crisis?","conclusion":"I believe that most people's lifestyles, including my own, are indulgent to the point that they are not at all sustainable, and that we need to make radical changes in order to secure the future of our social and economic practices."}
{"id":"3d9aabbc-98e6-4f4b-917c-b8896c7a1ece","argument":"The overall goal of many in the US has been to ensure equality. Equality is only achieved when the requirements on all are the same, and if not then as similar as is achievable. This is one that while perhaps the rolls in the military can not be held exact, the requirements to participate should be maintained equal under the law. To argue against this is to argue for un-equal equality.","conclusion":"Men and women should carry equal responsibility for protecting their country."}
{"id":"6c735377-c02f-480f-bd64-903812735aec","argument":"I've been reading a few articles suggesting that incels are a cult, but they don't seem to be able to support the idea by actually linking their behavior or beliefs to a standard definition of a cult. They aren't religious in nature, they don't really have one source of admiration or devotion, and they don't seem to have the cohesion and organization associated with cults. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Incels are not a cult, and presenting them as such is sensationalist."}
{"id":"8c2d87d5-91e4-485c-8a17-843fa01a4a53","argument":"According to a survey only 25% of Czechs were satisfied with their European Union membership.","conclusion":"Euroscepticism is widespread among the citizens of the Czech Republic."}
{"id":"cbc62c8b-7154-4976-8928-0be342c85a88","argument":"Boris Johnson has pledged to increase the budget of NHS beyond Theresa May\u2019s extra \u00a320bn.","conclusion":"Johnson's Brexit referendum policy promises to pump more money into the NHS."}
{"id":"3c74a251-7bce-4d0c-b501-57359520198f","argument":"Very often acts of altruism are performed without informed consent of the people at the receiving end, such as charity. The intention here is to do good without imposing one's moral high ground on other people. In such circumstances, ensuring informed consent would take away from the good being done.","conclusion":"Some actions without knowledge or consent can have ultimately positive impacts on recipients."}
{"id":"1906da7a-c916-43a0-8853-fc5e9c64f200","argument":"The government, by taking a lenient stance on pedophilia, can help contribute to the norm of showing compassion towards pedophiles.","conclusion":"Once released, they should be treated like ordinary citizens, imposing no additional obligations upon them."}
{"id":"da2d8478-b834-473b-a1fb-634c6cabd380","argument":"I am a content creator and a Redditor. I try not to spam, and to only to post my content to a few subreddits where it is relevant. I have run afoul of the self promotion rules on some subreddits, and I find it frustrating because my goal is only to share something that I think subscribers of those communities will enjoy. Most subreddits use the following rule No more than 10 of your posts should be your own content. This is the only consideration, whether or not the poster is the same person who created the content. It's relevance, popularity, frequency of submissions to that subreddit are not evaluated. The other reason that I think this hard rule is flawed is because it is easily gamed. There is an easy way to make sure only 10 of your posts are your content post 9 other articles every time you want to post something that you created. This seems counter intuitive to me as you are creating more spam in order to circumvent a rule designed to reduce spam. I think a rule based on frequency of posts would better alleviate spam without punishing the people who generate the free, original content that users go to media aggregates to consume. It could be something like You may not post your content on the same subreddit more than once per month, and you may not link the same video article artwork on more than three different subreddits unless those subreddits choose to opt out . The reason I add the clause about opting out is that there are subreddits that exist solely for users to post original content, such as r LetsPlayVideos, r GamingVids, etc. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Self-Promotion Rules Based On Percentage Of Posts Are Flawed Because They Are Easily Gamed"}
{"id":"40db6afe-e595-4a51-acf8-ef098c33e593","argument":"Consensus reports from the UN's National Research Council\u2019s 16 year long study on the Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation maintain, There is no threshold of exposure below which low levels of ionizing radiation can be demonstrated to be harmless or beneficial. As noted in Wikipedia While the French Academy of Sciences stated in their 2005 report concerning the effects of low level radiation that many laboratory studies have observed radiation hormesis. However, they cautioned that it is not yet known if radiation hormesis occurs outside the laboratory, or in humans. The U.S. is pushing hard to sway public trust in favor of nuclear power, to the extent they are willing to downplay its very real dangers and risks, and even lie outright to the American people. In the wake of Fukushima and a renewed push back, pro nuclear lobbyists have attempted to convince the public that some small levels of radiation are harmless, and may even be good for you but I'm far from convinced.  EDIT For clarity, let me rephrase. I believe that there is no level of radiation which can be proven harmless, or beneficial, to humans. To use the example of radiation in cancer treatment, although some patients do recover and therefore benefit from radiation, this comes at a tremendous cost to their bodies. You could argue that the person received benefit, but not that the radiation did not harm them.","conclusion":"I believe that there is no level of radiation that can be considered safe."}
{"id":"c0c162f6-945e-47ea-8628-17c7c66f9d2b","argument":"After watching both Microsoft and Sony's conferences, I think that the PS4 will be the better console. The major factors in this are the better price for the console and online play, and that one can share games. I have been a fan of XBOX for since the first console and I actually would love it if someone changed my view on this. Edit Okay I should definitely rephrase. Although I didn't mean this to change my view about PCs and consoles, my view on that might be changing a bit. Revised statement I think that the PS4 is superior to the XBOX one. Because of the above reasons mostly.","conclusion":"I think that buying the PS4 will be a better use of my money when I buy a next gen console."}
{"id":"51aa9c68-4b4d-4081-89fd-42d3ef559bb5","argument":"Let me preface by saying that I think Obama and the Dem controlled congress did a lot for the country in those 2 years where the Dems controlled congress. The main thing they accomplished was dealing effectively with the economic collapse from the housing bubble bursting. I believe they didn't do nearly enough to punish those responsible nor set up proper safeguards against something similar happening again, but nonetheless they stewarded the recovery of the country towards the economic boom we've been enjoying now for many years. The other main accomplishment was Obamacare. Unfortunately, this major accomplishment is, imo, flawed and will eventually die. The entire thing is a mess. Sure, the GOP made it that way, on purpose, but the Dems are the ones that signed it when they had full control of congress and the presidency. In the end I believe there will be little left from it other than billions wasted and a generally unfavorable feeling about universal healthcare which I believe is crucial for any western country in this day and age . So, the question is how important are these 2 accomplishments for the democratic base? They want universal healthcare. They didn't get it and what they did get is likely to slowly dwindle away. They didn't want the country to collapse in economic ruin, but I hardly think that's a partisan issue. So, for the democratic base, it's hard to say what they accomplished in those 2 years with full control of the government. That's not to mention that Obamacare was so complicated and unpopular that it led, in part, to the Dems losing control of the house, which in turn led to them getting stymied on anything they wanted to do for the next 6 entire years. Now consider Trump and the GOP in the last year. They did next to nothing all year, but then, at the very end, scored the most sought after and elusive goal the GOP has been striving for always massive corporate tax cuts. This is basically all the real base of the GOP ever wanted from government, and they scored it in the first year of Trump's presidency. Now, unlike Obamacare, tax cuts are very hard to reverse, especially ones as dramatic as these. Whoever will try in the future will be accused of raising taxes, and nobody ever likes that. So, in the end, Trump scored the most important and lasting goal for his base, in a single year. I'd even go so far as to argue that Trump has accomplished more for his base in this 1 year than Obama did in 8, but it seems only fair to control the times where they each had control of both houses of congress. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Obama+Dem controlled congress achieved less for their base in TWO years then Trump+GOP congress did in ONE."}
{"id":"d67f2e3a-73a7-4ef0-84b3-99d231712fd2","argument":"There is currently a common narrative in a lot of Russian State media that the US funded and supported the recent uprising in Ukraine. And as a result, successfully perpetrated an incognito coup de tat in the region. According to the narrative, because of the West's meddling, the removal, and impeachment of Yanukovych was undemocratic, and the recent vote for Crimean independence is in step with normal steps towards independence source . While I think the US is happy that Putin's man in Ukraine is no longer in charge, I've yet to see any hard evidence that the US was behind the recent uprising Not that they didn't in the past and that were in any funding nor supporting groups like Right Sector and other neo nazi groups. Here's a brief peek inside what Russian State Media is currently pushing as the narrative they wish to frame. Change my View.","conclusion":"I don't think that the US funded nor supported the \"neo nazis\" involved in the Ukrainian Revolt."}
{"id":"150d7448-db3f-40de-ac1e-0a7914f02215","argument":"The battery life on the Nintendo Switch Lite is three to seven hours, which is an improvement from the original switch\u2019s 2.5 to 6.5 hours.","conclusion":"All exclusives on the Nintendo Switch are more accessible than those on other consoles because the Switch is highly portable."}
{"id":"a4140c6d-67af-4483-b301-ee1b221c613c","argument":"Modern sciences concur that the universe was not made in six days. However, the Old Testament which is an authentic ancient text claims that it was.","conclusion":"Scientific\/Historical Proof not Required: Many authentic ancient texts make claims which are not scientifically or historically accurate. They are nonetheless authentic."}
{"id":"80e03380-f242-473b-8217-3fbb9319c99d","argument":"Please. I need help. I want to go vegan but there's one thing standing in my way before I can even get started I believe that eating meat is OK because there are some animals who eat it too. I support animal rights and am fully aware of the health benefits of going vegan, but I haven't been able to move past this one yet. That's why I came here. If enough people click on this and inform me as to why I am wrong, then I will finally be able to put this opinion to rest and get started with veganism. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Eating animals is OK because it happens in the wild."}
{"id":"ddf1c1ee-c83f-44a3-ba26-d48236b2f832","argument":"A 2008 survey of over 2,000 American doctors found that 59 percent support legislation to establish a national health insurance program, while 32 percent said they opposed it, researchers reported in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine1","conclusion":"The majority of doctors in the US support universal health care"}
{"id":"30822ead-e8a5-46a0-b502-15f50bb0f84f","argument":"There are the language barriers, cultural differences, unreliable suppliers, fluctuation of prices, complex distribution channels, etc. you name it. And with higher labor wages, the rising value of China's currency, and the cost of shipping goods from China to points around the world have made manufacturing in China more expensive. In fact, a new study by the consulting firm AlixPartners estimates by 2015 the cost of outsourcing manufacturing to China will be equal to the cost of manufacturing in the U.S. Moral Beliefs When you do this you are aiding someone in stealing a good American jobs, you take a job from an American and give it away.","conclusion":"I believe Outsourcing manufacturing to China is wrong and unnecessary."}
{"id":"4756335f-b287-4286-a8ca-14f4e86d1ce8","argument":"I understand the idea suggested in this post related greatly to Eugenics. However wouldn't it be considered inhumane to allow people with detrimental disorders to have children that have a high possibility of carrying these torturous diseases? Combined with the fact that these individuals often are unable to be self sustained and often depend on caretakers or government institutions for support. Therefore even if their offspring are born with out exhibiting these disorders,it would still be highly likely for them to grow up with little parental support. I hope someone can provide me more insight into this topic thank you Edit 1 I see some comments below claiming next we should just sterilize groups such as the dumb, poor and black. That idea is hugely flawed and goes against my theme as it is not related to genetics. My theme has always maintained to be why should faulty genes be passed down when we can prevent them, especially when the risks yes, down syndrome is a genetic disorder. It is the mutation of chromosome 21. Therefore the likely hood of you having down syndrome if your mother had it is 50 high. Yes I also understand some brilliant people are born with these disorders, however even they themselves Tesla was pro eugenics understand it makes no sense to allow these disorders to be passed down. Furthermore rolling the dice hoping for a brilliant individuals seem like betting if we can win a lottery once in a while. I don't see any reason why humans shouldn't reach a basic standard of clearance such as DNA, mental and economic stability before having kids. If you need to pass a test before driving a car or to own a house, why shouldn't there be a standard when it comes to having a child? Is it humane for kids to be born with detrimental disorders when it could have been prevented? Or is it fair for kids to grow up in an environment where their parents are incapable of supporting them? Edit 2 Thank you for all responses, I enjoy debating issues and have now changed my view. I over simplified the issue and don't think sterilization should be forced upon individuals as it can quickly get out of hand to decide who is qualified enough to choose the criteria for sterilization. Nevertheless my view maintains that individuals with genetic diseases that are detrimental to the quality of life should not have kids. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"People who have genetic disorders such as Down sydrome and Autism should be sterilized."}
{"id":"05b429de-c6c1-4224-addf-7211ff032445","argument":"Governments have an obligation to protect their citizens and ensure their well-being. If information has to be kept secret to do this, then they have a right such secrecy.","conclusion":"Governments should have the right to keep whatever secrets they desire."}
{"id":"47c0f06b-98cb-461d-8aec-2d5e9f3064ee","argument":"Even though it is unfair to prohibit animal products now as people still crave them, the opposite would be true after being in a vegan world for a while as people will repulse non-vegan items with their cravings eventually.","conclusion":"If the world's vegan transition is gradual, then people can adapt to prohibitions along the way without getting offended."}
{"id":"d567201c-9b95-4b70-aa49-9983957bd369","argument":"Corporate donors often hedge their bets by donating to multiple major parties in an attempt to influence the eventual winner. This tilts policy making in favour of corporations across the political spectrum.","conclusion":"Corporate donations influence a party's agenda and cause politicians to take actions such as keeping certain bills out of debate, adding earmarks or changing key language in legislation."}
{"id":"8e2c4f49-281e-4567-abe2-760f0a83e9d3","argument":"America the supposed bastion of democracy is falling 'The United States is ranked 57th in electoral integrity in the world. Compared to other liberal democracies, it is ranked second to last'","conclusion":"Civil liberties and political rights have declined in 68 countries in the world over the past year, according to a 2019 report."}
{"id":"95862949-3a29-47d9-90b0-0181fc5aeab0","argument":"Men often do disregard risks when dealing with STIs. Men with drug addiction, for example, did expose their unaware wives to the risks of HIV transmissions because they did not use a condom.","conclusion":"Even if protection was used one-night stands still have a non-neglible risk of sexually transmitted infections that could harm your significant other and mean they should be informed."}
{"id":"7d1443fc-0644-4ccf-b0ab-3db69cf23a60","argument":"I\u2019ve used Apple Music since it debuted because all of the music I already had in iTunes was integrated with new music I added to my library. I like the weekly playlists and Beats One Radio Stations that I can download and listen to as full sets or playlists. I\u2019ve heard people complain about the interface but it works for me. Anytime I consider switching to Spotify I think about having two apps for music on my phone which seems inefficient one app for new music and one for all of the hours I\u2019ve spent ripping cds. I\u2019ve never tried Spotify but I\u2019m willing to switch if it\u2019s really worth it. EDIT I haven\u2019t used Spotify so I\u2019ll give it a trial for a week and weigh the pro\u2019s and con\u2019s. I also should have stated that I\u2019m in the Apple ecosystem and pay 25 a year for iTunes Match which allows me to stream music in my library that\u2019s not available in Apple Music from all of my Apple devices","conclusion":"Apple Music is better than Spotify"}
{"id":"7ced898e-0ed0-4766-b0a8-4a488b5389a1","argument":"The flaw in critique may be that it asks a person in authority to discount his own moral judgment and apply the morality of the collective will. It could be said that Eichmann did this. The collective will at the time being the persecution of the Jews. Therefore, the fault lies both in Kant's idea and in Eichmann's 'idealism'; his literal interpretation of Kant's rule.","conclusion":"Eichmann did not distort Kant but applied the ideas correctly, the philosophy itself has the flaw in it that allowed for the persecution of a race."}
{"id":"1d6cd27f-9d57-4608-a67c-a99112aa8e67","argument":"DISCLAIMER I do not mean World War Two or the Nazis, they were undoubtedly the antagonists in that situation. x200B Many of today's conflicts, and past conflicts can be traced back to the decisions the Entente Allies made after World War One. Examples include, but are not limited to x200B German War Reparations One of the main reasons World War Two happened. Germany couldn't pay, and thus was punished by the Allies, increasing resentment further. This resentment fueled the rise of Adolf Hitler. Sykes Picot Agreement The main reason why most of the Middle East conflicts are happening. Without this agreement, the Ottoman Empire would most likely have split along better ethnic and religious lines, rather than just the awful straight lines we see today. The Eastern European Power Vacuum After the armistice was signed in 1918, much of Eastern Europe was still occupied by Germany. Due to the treaty, they had to evacuate this land, which opened it up to conquest, notably by the Soviet Union. If Germany had won, this vacuum wouldn't have formed, and thus, the Soviet Union wouldn't be nearly as powerful as it was in our timeline. Perhaps it may not have existed at all, if the Germans had sent troops and supplies to the White Army. x200B If Germany had won, would the treaty been nearly as harsh? I think not, as the Allies' main reason for the harshness of the Treaty of Versailles was to make Germany pay for their occupation and damaging of their lands. In France's case, revenge for the Franco Prussian War. Germany had no real reason to be as harsh, as the war was barely fought on their soil, only in East Prussia and Alsace Lorraine, which was actually annexed as a buffer territory. If they were going to be harsh, the reason would be Wilhelm II.","conclusion":"Germany should have won World War One"}
{"id":"9fc3c6aa-d1d6-4cc1-9f4a-9c58f5553a15","argument":"Why are the statues so divisive in 2017, but were not in 2015 or before that? Removing a statue doesn't change history. There are a few other places in the world taking down historical statues as well.","conclusion":"Confederate monuments, flags and memorials honor an important part of the American story."}
{"id":"5088c600-b5ae-452c-beaa-d4d231c9a0a7","argument":"Using both Fat Man and Little Boy, the only two bombs the US had possession of at the time, within three days of each other was a bluff to indicate that the US had a large supply of nuclear weapons. Since building another bomb would take weeks or months, using the bombs when they did gave an inflated impression of US power and hastened unconditional surrender.","conclusion":"The use of nuclear weapons was necessary to limit civilian and military human costs. If the U.S. stuck with conventional military strategies, many more lives would have been lost."}
{"id":"db21d597-bf66-476b-9d6b-9f89a7ce5c99","argument":"While it is an alright mascot now, I suppose, I feel like a different pokemon would fit better. The reason I see this is Pikachu is not its own pokemon. By this I mean It is part of an evolution change the middle, at that . I think that a Top Evolution pokemon or even a bottom pokemon work best, but especially a pokemon with no evolutions. Also, In my opinion, Pikachu just isn't that cool of a pokemon, at least not since they made it thinner. I think that if they HAD to use the pikachu line, it should have been Pichu has the cute factor, though wasn't in gen 1, I don't think. or Raichu a large, pretty bad ass looking pokemon, but not scary, so it won't possibly frighten small children. So, guys, try and C my V.","conclusion":"Pikachu is not a good mascot for Pokemon."}
{"id":"5cfdc909-0528-4358-a21f-b9979212d1bc","argument":"Donald Trump's short temper means that staff are reportedly afraid to give him bad news This severely limits his ability to learn new information.","conclusion":"Donald Trump knows astonishingly little about the world around him. His ignorance means he is wholly unqualified to shape policy of any kind."}
{"id":"88ddfe99-f885-4825-b6f3-30d684cd90ac","argument":"It was my understanding that the majority of people knew, understood, and accepted the fact that major corporations in America are incredibly corrupt . I use quotations because I believe it is a question of a degree to which each one is corrupt and who that corruption ends up effecting. So, I consider people who present themselves as surprised by these actions indirectly responsible for them. The average person does not concern themselves with issues that do not affect them. They know these things are going on behind the scenes and choose to ignore them and then act surprised when they are revealed what happened. See The Bystander Effect If there was more active scrutiny towards the actions of corporations than, the equivalent to a spotlight would be on them. They would still do illegal things but they would be far less harmful than destroying credit records history. However, the human race is, in my eyes, notorious for waiting until the fire is under us, before taking action. See Global Warming So, . Edit You were successful in shifting my position on this topic, u miketheman1588 I will reward you a delta accordingly. In response to the rest of the comments, thank you all for your perspectives. I consider the fault to lay with the regulators now, and none to do with the people as it is unreasonable to think that people whose have other jobs and obligations to consider every corporation and pay attention to any minor leaks by employees. That is for regulators to act on and investigative journalists to bring to our attention. Once again, thank you","conclusion":"The people 'surprised' by Wells Fargo, both the illegal accounts that were opened and the golden parachutes for those involved who are being let go, are incredibly ignorant and the reason its possible for WF and other companies not limited to banking can do illegal things like these."}
{"id":"bff9cc06-c3bf-43b4-a35a-08bd1a9b51bf","argument":"Fishing is at present allowed under the 1991 Protocol, and has been increasing in recent years as overfishing is exhausting other global fisheries. Although much about the marine eco-system of the southern ocean is still unknown, it is clear that overfishing could quickly damage it, and that any recovery could take decades. At present limits are set according to our current understanding of fish stocks, but there is a great deal of illegal activity by boats from a variety of nations, so the situation is not under control. Even legal fishing can do great damage - thousands of seabirds die each year as a result of longline fishing. Not only should we not relax the Antarctic fishing regime, we should probably seek to tighten it further; the less legal fishing is allowed, the easier it will be to spot unlicensed activity.","conclusion":"Fishing is at present allowed under the 1991 Protocol, and has been increasing in recent years as ov..."}
{"id":"993813dc-ed4b-4d60-93b2-44b232f96a83","argument":"Constantly, especially when liking hip hop, I'm told white people are inferior, and that they hate black people. I'm told white girls are easy and dumb, and that white men are racist. I'm not saying slavery was a good thing, and I am saying it was a horrible thing. But what was happening back then was racism. People chose to treat these people differently because of the skin colour. But isn't that what's happening today, just in reverse? It's easy for white people to be racist. Oh, you didn't give the black man a job, even though he didn't seem qualified? Well, must be a racist. But it's almost impossible for black people to be racist if you were to ask the general public. Now why is that? Would it be okay for Jews to burn German people? No, of course not. It was never okay. Same case here, it never was okay, so why should it be now? Regarding the word nigga and no I'm not gonna say the n word , because that just puts in your head, which is just as bad I think it's cool the people who's grandparents suffered through something horrible have an empowering word. It just kinda lost its meaning tbh, it's like bro now. I do also feel kinda sad it feels like it segregates us, something we have worked so hard on over such a long time to make sure we weren't. Why would you not want to feel united? And why should white people have racist comments said to their face, being hold accountable for something they have no control over? That's my two cent.","conclusion":"It's as racist saying every white man hates black people, as saying every black man steals."}
{"id":"ffd0378f-5c7a-46f7-912c-ffaa606a5c3c","argument":"It's just too convenient to be a coincidence. I am not sure if it all happened according to a plan. But here's how I have this in my mind. First, China begins their one child policy. As a result they have a serious surplus of males, as the state encouraged that by gender specific benefits. Now they begin the credit system, which essentially locks up lowest classes to the worst jobs and limits the ability to escape them or simply move in pursuit of better luck somewhere else. With how male and female relationships work, it's not as important for a female to be a success to get a mate. Plenty of males are left with no option to attract any female at all, including being a good provider. As successful people tend to be the ones who are more genetically lucky, what China does is locking up the least genetically lucky people in undesirable places and lets them die out in, essentially, isolation. To sum it up, China uses the worst of the surplus of males for the worst jobs and isolates them leaving very little chance to have offspring, that fits the term eugenics quite well.","conclusion":"China is practicing eugenics"}
{"id":"70f032a4-ee88-4a6b-b71e-c080b21c5344","argument":"Vegans are better people than meat eaters, for a couple of reasons that I will get to. I'd just like to start of by saying that there are exceptions of course, such as people outside of first world countries with poor accessibility to a vegan lifestyle, or people with specific dietary needs, etc. But in general if you live in the first world and you are a regular meat eater you are living an immoral lifestyle. Edit All of these points are grounded in the belief that it is immoral to cause harm to others, a belief that probably 99 of the population has. I don't think that's unreasonable. Here are the reasons You do not require meat This is the most important point, so I'm starting off with it. You can like vegans do make replacements for the dietary needs meat fulfills in the form of vegan food and or supplements. Taking supplements is frowned upon for some reason, even though they fill the exact same function as meat in this case. It's not unhealthy to take supplements, in fact, they put less strain on your system than consuming meat does. Science has provided us with a way to take meat off our diet without suffering any consequences, so considering the downsides of meat, what reason is there not to do it? So what are the negative aspects of meat then? Greenhouse gas emissions Animal agriculture is responsible for 14 18 percent of the worlds greenhouse gas emissions Source That makes it the worlds third biggest contributor to emissions, under fossil fuels and deforestation. I originally learned this from watching the documentary Cowspiracy. Along with greenhouse gas emissions, meat production also has several other harmful effects on the environment, read more here Abuse of antibiotics I don't know much about this topic, so feel free to expand on this if you have deeper knowledge, but as I understand it bacteria develop antibiotic resistances the more we use it. In the US, over 2 million people are diagnosed with antibiotic resistant infections and over 23,000 die per year due to resistant infections Source Animal agriculture is behind 90 of antibiotic use Source Kurzgesagt has a great video on this topic. The right to live This is the classic argument that you've already heard a million times. Life has value, most of us believe that. Without life, the universe would be like the most fascinating book ever written with no one to read it. Maybe you only believe that human life has value and animal life doesn't. But if you think the lives of animals has value, then taking that life from them is immoral especially when you have no need to . So why would you still eat meat now that you know all this? There are only two reasons Meat is delicious, and making a change to your lifestyle takes a lot of effort. Both of those reasons are grounded in selfishness and laziness. They're not excuses to continue harming the environment, the people around you, and the lives of the animals you consume. If you choose to continue eating meat after this, then that is an immoral choice. Change my view. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I am better than you because I am vegan"}
{"id":"c864df73-705b-4365-956e-b34b36015edc","argument":"Courts in the United States have located constitutional protections against interrogation under torture in the Fourth, Fifth, Fourteenth, and the Eighth Amendment of its Constitution.","conclusion":"The prohibition against the use of torture and inhuman treatment is also enshrined as a constitutional protection by many countries."}
{"id":"00bcc421-c83e-4c4d-a2ba-7aede6c08c31","argument":"Unlike an adult, a child had neither the time nor opportunities to do most of the things that could sway the final judgment in favour of an adult. Unless the adult leads a perfect life, the child will be chosen every time regardless of whether the child will be a \"better\" adult once it grows up or not.","conclusion":"In case of choosing between a child and an adult, this approach heavily favours the child."}
{"id":"b9cdb2f9-6fa2-45ca-b628-b6d125277acc","argument":"The ongoing validity of Resolution 1718 has since then continuously be emphasized by the Security Council through references to the resolution's violation by North Korea, for example in resolution 1874 2087 2094 2270 2321 2375 and - as of 2017 - 2371","conclusion":"In Resolution 1718 from 2006, the UN Security Council decided that North Korea \"shall abandon all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programmes in a complete, verifiable and irreversible manner\" and \"suspend all activities related to its ballistic missile programme\"."}
{"id":"2c1096f8-73cb-4a12-aebe-6026af79bdd2","argument":"A two party system encourages candidates to tear each other down while a multiparty system encourages candidates to focus on their own strengths.","conclusion":"The U.S. should make at least one amendment to make it easier for more than two parties to be successful."}
{"id":"87a7aaf1-083f-4033-95eb-ef7b41a0ba14","argument":"I do understand that some things are good in religion line of conduct, values, tradition, something we can share with our peers but I can't understand how people can have faith in a religion. I do understand that God is the answer of many of the questions we can't answer yet. I do understand why civilizations came to create God s and organized their beliefs into religions. I do understand that some people have been brainwashed so hard that they have trouble thinking something else. But I don't understand how in 2013 you can still be blindly religious when you have enough access to information to discredit most of the different religions. Religion seems so illogical to me that I genuinely don't understand how can one still be religious nowadays. I understand that you can lose yourself in religion to overcome grief of when you're about to die, but here again I think human beings are rational enough to understand that religion does not make sense anymore . I am not talking about the idea of god here for I am an agnostic but religion in itself. We are in 2013 and we have FACTS that what religion claimed was right, is wrong. Examples The earth is flat The earth is a few thousands years old Adam Eve are the first human beings etc This being said, how can you follow a religion when modern science has proven it wrong so many times? How can you believe that a supreme being came down to earth to appear before one person to tell them that Humany must worship them? Isn't it obvious that prophets, cult leaders are most likely con men or people suffering from personality cult? Isn't it obvious that the sacred books are more or less fiction that can be interpreted in many ways? How can you still pray when it has never worked? I don't want individual answers to all the above questions are they are just examples but I would like to know if I am wrong when I say that religious people who REALLY believe in all of the above even with contradictory evidence are mentally impaired and illogical except maybe Georges Lema\u00eetre Please  EDIT I totally understand people that have faith but admit that their religion is irrational but is more of a personal thing. However I don't understand for instance the Hardcore Christians or Islamists that believe their religion is the ultimate Truth. I think that they rationality and logic should overcome the rest.","conclusion":"I think religious people are just dumb and irrational."}
{"id":"39b8d2dc-0a72-4671-bc1e-31674ce7e0f8","argument":"The key case overruled by the ruling of Citizens United was Austin v. Michigan State Chamber of Commerce in spite of the fact that this case was not even cited once in the original jurisdictional statement.","conclusion":"The majority opinion in Citizens United affected areas of the law wholly irrelevant to the original case."}
{"id":"566bbb4a-2e87-4994-8cb2-33a2a522f419","argument":"I'll be honest at this stage and say that my title is somewhat clickbaity misleading. Sexual abuse is, obviously, in and of itself an issue. However, I'm not entirely convinced by the present narrative as I understand it that sexual abuse is widespread and pervasive in the entertainment industry. That said the crux of my assertion is that there isn't currently an unusual issue with sexual abuse in Hollywood and that this can be extended to the wider context . My reasoning for this can broadly be boiled down to two points Currently Largely, it seems to be historic cases that are being reported. Were it still considered to be a present issue, it would be reasonable to expect more current accusations of abuse. Unusual It would seem unlikely that no crime is committed in such circles, and that is not the assertion I am looking to make. However, little evidence has been given so far that any abuse has occurred at a rate more prevalent than in wider populations. A pre emptive argument I have considered 'Victims don't feel safe enough to come forwards' This is an entirely reasonable statement. However, I would be surprised given the publicity and general action in support of the accusations made if present victims were not feeling at least relatively empowered to come forwards. As such I would expect there to be more response than I am currently aware of this is where the point could fall apart if I am simply a victim of my own ignorance . Why I think this matters not strictly part of the argument, but a brief ish ramble meant to give context to the above I consider this to be typical and symptomatic of how related issues are being treated. Behaviors that are being treated under the same broad umbrella range from awkward encounters to sexual misconduct to abuse and rape. Such a broad church serves to unfairly discredit the less severe issues, whilst also doing a disservice to the victims of more severe crimes. The outlets responsible for reporting the allegations are driven at least as much by a desire for revenue clicks etc as an appetite for social change. The more alarm that can be caused, the more clicks they are likely to generate. As such, it is not within their interest to discuss the topic with too much nuance. Presenting the issue in such a way will actually cause harm. The most obvious way in which this will occur is that it would unnecessarily play on people's fears and emotions. Men and women if you'll excuse the hetero normative shorthand here have vastly different experiences of sex, but also equally limited understanding of these differences. The most important outcome is meaningful social progress. I believe that this is best served by clear communication on these different experiences in general. The current presentation is not conducive to this. This is made particularly obvious as 'sides' have been drawn on a topic that no one could reasonably want conflict in. Like I said, brief ish. Anyway that's about all of it and I'm sure that I've not worded it as well as I would like . Look forward to having my view ironed out gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"There isn't a problem with sexual abuse in Hollywood"}
{"id":"5df931f1-1ef3-4b77-a7b2-4090df64d48b","argument":"For the time that I've been alive I have only seen terrible things about socialism, how its unamerican and, with the help of communism, will seek to destroy the beautiful capitalist system. While I see nothing wrong with capitalism, as it is a great system that promotes self betterment, I have started to see that it is not such a bad idea. When I've gone to express this in debates with friends I was felt like looked down upon like I was a three headed mutant who expressed his love for killing puppies. Maybe my way of thinking is bad, maybe I'm tired of the anti socialist communist propoganda, or maybe I kinda like the ideas of the socialist agenda, but I would like someone to change my view.","conclusion":"I see nothing wrong with the idea of socialism."}
{"id":"d43ea629-2cf3-42de-9367-7f1efb3451eb","argument":"Blasphemy laws have been overturned slowly over time and some still exist. This runs counter to the secular ideal of free speech and is slowly being stripped away in the western world.","conclusion":"Religion is quite often a group activity and often inhibits many types of self-expression."}
{"id":"801a1f4c-c6b1-491a-a515-b9617e78b307","argument":"This belief isn't about overpopulation or anything like that. I believe that the act of forcing people into existence without their consent is not morally justifiable. Forgivable, maybe, given how strong the urge is, but not justifiable. The fact that the nonexistent are not capable of consenting to exist seems irrelevant to me it still doesn't constitute consent. I understand that religious beliefs trump those concerns, but I'm not religious, and I don't expect religious arguments to . Edit In retrospect I should have used very different language. How about this, without consent etc. I believe that it is immoral to make a unilateral choice that will almost certainly result in considerable suffering for another human being, whereas not making that choice would avoid that suffering completely. I don't think the possibility of pleasure joy offsetting that suffering constitutes an exception unless that offset is a near guarantee, and I don't think that guarantee exists. Edit 2 Never mind, consent is still relevant.","conclusion":"Having children is immoral."}
{"id":"4e1a542a-a10a-4837-9c1e-ca67f7d87d30","argument":"It would undermine Parliament in the eyes of the world if the public blocks their deal last minute.","conclusion":"The use of referendums, especially on a UK-wide basis, contradicts the principle of parliamentary supremacy"}
{"id":"5658282e-7a29-4ea3-a370-0895d189d2ae","argument":"guantanamo bay is the site where many war crimes occurred such as torture and indefinite mention, many people were let go because of lack of evidence and it is a stain on our history.","conclusion":"The Guantanamo bay detention camp personnel commit crimes against the prisoners"}
{"id":"98d850b1-507c-494e-8e29-d9fe6be86f98","argument":"The United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur was accused of concealing 16 difference cases of assaults on civilians, in fear of offending the government of Omar al-Bashir.","conclusion":"The UN has a history of under reporting and failing to act on human rights abuses in fear of antagonizing local governments."}
{"id":"59ef8689-0d75-47ba-9ae0-98743a3c3e81","argument":"For today only, post a view as if you are a fictional historical character and act as them in the comments. Make it clear who you are in the body of your post, or create a relevant throwaway username if you wish. The usual rules of  still apply Edit please don't comment here with the view, make a submission instead we'll manually approve each one. Suggested title format  I am x, and view","conclusion":"Like I Am..."}
{"id":"efb482de-4799-4fd7-af28-7f59ef619629","argument":"The most likely causes of the existence of human life are either that humans arrived in the universe as we are now or that humans evolved over time. Science cannot explain how matter was able to start self-replicating and neither can it explain how something non-living could turn into a living thing.","conclusion":"Unless people can claim they are in possession of unlimited knowledge, they can never objectively deny the existence of God\/gods."}
{"id":"4b826666-9f15-4f0a-83e7-38e74a869c9a","argument":"Even former monarchs can play an important diplomatic role: for example, former Spanish King Juan Carlos is regarded as the best ambassador of the country.","conclusion":"The monarch is a permanent diplomatic figure who is respected and appreciated."}
{"id":"d57cfb0b-9169-4436-9d38-4bd97a2d5102","argument":"Different outlets are able to act as a check and balance on each other, mitigating some of the harms of bad reporting.","conclusion":"It is empirically untrue that all media outlets behave socially irresponsibly when reporting on these cases."}
{"id":"3e3b3acd-a185-4a6a-8e60-e19fa7b94508","argument":"As of 2015, 91% of Afghan citizens considered themselves religious. Afghanistan is the third least progressive country in the world.","conclusion":"A lack of religion is a common feature of advanced societies."}
{"id":"de46ca02-c365-40a4-a2d9-5a50ccceae0b","argument":"Some alternative medicines do work and these are provided by public healthcare systems If homeopathy, which many believe is ineffective, is provided alongside these treatments it will undermine the public's faith in all these potentially beneficial alternatives.","conclusion":"The use of homeopathy, given its lack of scientific evidence, will undermine people's faith in the public health system."}
{"id":"8fc491c6-a132-4502-8a74-9a4f5bb4bdab","argument":"Without taking synthetically produced goods it is impossible to obtain sufficient Vitamin B12 on a vegan diet. The human body cannot source B12 from the sources that herbivores utilise, including bacterial sources. Vitamin B12 is synthesized from bacterial sources. It is a reasonably technological enterprise, with a moderate level of industrialisation required.","conclusion":"Vegan diets are at an increase risk of B12 deficiency among other vitamin deficiencies. B12 deficiency alone can lead to sensory neuropathy and possible permanent neurological damage if untreated. Vegan diets need to be carefully structured or supplemented with vitamins."}
{"id":"af03788d-1a22-4382-846b-86fae406a3a8","argument":"Humans are largely at the whims of impulse and habit, therefore a drug addict can in no way be considered free. Thus drugs are the tyrant which limits freedom.","conclusion":"Since drug addicts have an impaired sense of rational judgement, drug addiction is detrimental to personal autonomy."}
{"id":"1aa11524-3117-4d81-a9fc-7b371ff8ad24","argument":"I feel like this favors those who have the access to a better education, better tutors, and other factors. There has been proven to be a direct correlation between house income and SAT grades Also those who live in rough areas have to deal with many things which kids in the suburbs don't, One day a student showed up totally unable to focus because he'd just learned a friend had been killed. First comment how would anyone be able to perform well under those conditions? I've been getting great replies until now guys, keep it coming edit 1 I'm not arguing against the SAT testing capabilities, in fact they are as regulated as they come. However the fact that the results of this test are being used to help determine the future education of a person is what I am against. The SAT lacks the testing of several important factors other than scholarly performance such as citizenship, service and leadership which truly help define a person and predict whether they would perform well in a prestigious learning environment. In other words, the SAT lacks a lot of criteria and simply judges students by a number which does not represent the student's learning capabilities therefore making it unfair to use as a critique whether a student should be accepted into a college. edit 2 I've got some great responses stating how the SAT is fair and objective predicting a clear standing of where a student is academically, and I recognize that. However I still haven't changed my view that it is in the end those with more money prosper over those who are less fortunate, and those who are less fortunate struggle more when trying to move up in the social class.","conclusion":"I do not think that the SAT is a fair way to assess High School Students"}
{"id":"d3fd215d-815b-4751-9f78-9af38c525631","argument":"People often suffer from an empathy gap - a cognitive bias which makes it difficult for them to understand other people's perspectives.","conclusion":"Voters are most likely to analyse issues from a personal perspective and not consider the concerns of other groups including minorities."}
{"id":"4d91e752-9946-4601-9354-1baf0ff414c1","argument":"Basically, I find it hard to understand how this type of thing is legal and generally seen by society as a good thing overall 1 There are women only bootcamps and many of those have lighter tuition and entrance requirements than regular bootcamps 2 Many companies have contracts with bootcamps and give preferential treatment to those bootcamp graduates. I.E. straight to interviews, and might have different interview questions. So essentially, some women might get preferential treatment when it comes to getting a programming job. But the law says gt Under the laws enforced by EEOC, it is illegal to discriminate against someone applicant or employee because of that person's race, color, religion, sex including gender identity, sexual orientation, and pregnancy , national origin, age 40 or older , disability or genetic information. It is also illegal to retaliate against a person because he or she complained about discrimination, filed a charge of discrimination, or participated in an employment discrimination investigation or lawsuit. But if a company says lets work together with X and Y women only bootcamps and then hires applicants from those bootcamps, it seems to bypass that law. As, well, technically, more women than men applied. So you can kind of bypass laws a bit, and hire, literally, based on sex. And I would like some good arguments on why this is a good thing. Maybe I misunderstood something? Edit Practice where companies hire from women only CS bootcamps is discriminatory and sexist would have been a slightly better tittle. Edit2 No person in the US, on the basis of sex, can be excluded from the participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance . this I think further proves that practice itself was deemed sexist and discriminatory, even if it does not apply legally to private institutions.","conclusion":"Companies hiring from women only bootcamps for CS jobs are discriminatory and sexist."}
{"id":"7ff5c3d7-4cdd-4525-b04c-c936bfa94cc7","argument":"When I hear arguments against pro life ones, I notice that they often center around a woman's right to choose whether to carry a pregnancy to term. I don't think it's entirely fair to argue that, because, to those who are pro life, opposing abortion has nothing to do with women. It has to do with the fetus. To these people, a fetus is a person and has the right to life like anyone else. I'm not saying I agree or disagree with that idea, but when one side of the abortion debate is arguing about women's rights and the other is arguing about the personhood of thefetus, I don't think the debate can be very productive.","conclusion":"To conservatives, abortion is not a women's issue."}
{"id":"f16b0d81-db5a-434d-867f-f08ce6be18f9","argument":"I am a college student my major is unrelated to art . Recently I started to post my drawings online. On Facebook, my childhood friends, high school friends, high school teachers, and relatives like my work. However, none of the people I know in college liked my artworks. I can't help but feel nobody in college liked my work as the standards are higher in college and they feel like I can't draw at that level or the fact that I'm not that popular with them . I also posted by work onto my Deviant Art account. Some people favorited my work. However, pretty much everyone who favorited my work are beginners themselves. I can't help but feel like this implies that I cannot draw at college level and I suck at art myself.","conclusion":"I cannot draw at college level, at this is reflected by the demographics of the people who like my drawings"}
{"id":"2f4b5577-c228-45a9-ab9e-03dc36b5ab27","argument":"Genital warts treatment can cost anywhere between $300 to $8000, whereas a complete series of HPV vaccinations costs $450.","conclusion":"Getting a HPV vaccination is better than treating genital warts after they have occurred."}
{"id":"17ec35d5-9ef1-49f8-9f9b-434f8a53174b","argument":"This is something that I just have such a hard time understanding. For years we have been stuck with having cable or satellite subscriptions that are overly priced and force you to pay for large bundles of channels that you might not even want. Streaming services like Hulu and Netflix have offered a great way to circumvent that process at a much more affordable price and are completely changing the way we view content. And yet I still see so many people getting so wound up over watching ads on Hulu. My perception of their argument is this I pay for Hulu, so I shouldn't have to see ads. Maybe I'm over simplifying it, but I just haven't seen any other viable argument that really says anything beyond that. Now, I should say I definitely understand hating ads. I live in the city, and I can't walk ten feet out my door without someone trying to sell me something. We are over saturated by advertising and it's awful. Thankfully with more options to block advertising on the internet, it's forcing advertisers to create ads that are more entertaining and feel less obtrusive although, sometimes it does also force the opposite . But even though I hate advertising as much as a lot of people do, I still recognize it as a vital part of what makes television work, and since I really like being able to know what happens on my favorite shows every week, I don't get my panties in a twist over it. I see a lot of people getting wound up who have little understanding of how a service like Hulu works. I'm certainly not an expert either, but I have an understanding of how the licensing process works and how expensive it can be. Netflix may be able to get by without ads, but Hulu offers something that Netflix doesn't content from television that is current and has recently aired. Netflix usually won't provide new episodes of a show until an entire season is finished. And even then, it might be a few months until even that happens. The only current content they do have is their own original programming, which they can get away with because they own the licenses and don't have to pay any licensing fees or performance royalties to any outside production company. I've seen a lot of my favorite shows on Hulu have episodes be online just hours after it airs on live TV. Since I dropped cable years ago, this is one of my favorite things about it. I don't necessarily like that advertising is part of my subscription, but I also realize that Hulu has to license this content from production companies, who have had a history of being apprehensive when it comes to embracing changing technologies. They are likely charging much higher licensing fees and royalties which means that Hulu in turns has to find other sources of income beyond subscription fees in order to make it work. Not to mention that the networks themselves probably have their own fees since they probably have exclusivity deals with the production companies who make the programming. People are so quick to jump to the X company is a bunch of greedy corporate whores argument without understand the major complexities that go into making a service like Hulu work. I'm sure Hulu is well aware that their subscribers don't like watching ads. I don't like watching ads is even an option in their survey when you cancel your account. People went on the same tirade when Netflix raised its prices, and I remember thinking the same thing then. I think that people's displeasure with advertising will ultimately shift services in the direction of removing advertising, but I still think that's a long way off. Streaming services, despite being around for several years now, are still in their infancy in a lot of ways. It's going to take a while to allow everyone to adapt and a lot of companies will be resistant to it in the hopes they can retain their old business models. But I don't see any of this as the fault of Hulu for using advertising. So my real curiosity here is to find an argument against Hulu's advertising that I haven't seen. I see so many people upset about it, but I feel like my only understanding of their argument is that they're spoiled and don't want to see ads, which I recognize can be straw manning on my part. I'd like to see if someone can shift my bias and provide me some insight I'm not aware of. EDIT u ceader is the one who ultimately changed my view. I'm still kind of skeptical about some people's criticisms towards Hulu, but I'm definitely more understanding of why people don't want to pay for ads.","conclusion":"Ads on Hulu are no different from ads we've gotten on cable TV for decades, and people who complain about it are just spoiled."}
{"id":"39e8ba55-deb9-4ae1-a3bc-7a01dc78c79e","argument":"I don't understand why people would enjoy watching anything with other humans they can relate to suffering and dying. I just don't get it. This goes for horror movies, r watchpeopledie, or just some TVshow with abnormal violence like my beloved games of thrones or Walking Dead never watched though . I can't stand watching a scene when someone is suffering for free , but so far in my life I felt like the only one feeling disturbed in those moment so far, everyone I know has no problem watching. But I keep thinking I am the normal one and people should not enjoy it sounds weird but I am not forbidding people to do anything. People should not enjoy drinking bleach. But if you want to drink a full bottle I have no problem with that . On the front page right now, there is a r WTF link with 4k upvote or score 3972 Man Still Alive After being Cut in half by train NSFL . I think you would have to pay me something like 1k to have me click on this link. But 4k people clicking on it and recommending it to others , I don't understand. Whatever gore picture is behind this, is it fun ? What is the motivation, the enjoyment ? I guess I should be a bit more clear, why would people choose to feel fear like in horror movie, from which windows is the killer going to come from ? or feel sick let's see some dead body in a bad condition but with blood everywhere when they could avoid that ? Isn't that madness psychopath demeanor ? EDIT Thanks to everyone which is taking part. I am really trying to understand something which is not in my knowledge zone. PS The asylum thing is of course exagerated.","conclusion":"People who enjoy horror movies are crazy and should be in asylums."}
{"id":"07d623fa-4efc-4742-aad6-76f6d2159910","argument":"The introduction of one working language does not mean the destruction of other languages as under the proposal all others still retain their status as official languages. The EU would continue to generously finance programs that are intended for a greater diversity of languages and support exchange study. What the plan does is simplifies the everyday dealings of EU institutions.","conclusion":"The introduction of one working language does not mean the destruction of other languages as under t..."}
{"id":"06a209fa-046a-4512-8ee1-0d675df64bcf","argument":"The UK does not know what its doing. The reason why 'Pound' was so strong, was because big enterprises like Michelin HSBC have their main Europe Headquarters there. Brexiting will cause loss of 1000's of jobs and the main companies headquarters moving to France and Germany.","conclusion":"If any, it's going to take a lot of time before seeing the economic benefits."}
{"id":"9a351e78-3dde-4d90-9efe-42283b860771","argument":"Religious organizations are often exempt from employment discrimination laws. In the USA religious organizations are free to take religion into account when selecting their employees.","conclusion":"Services provided by religious organisations often discriminate against people not belonging to the faith of that organisation or adhering to its principles."}
{"id":"5e19b1f3-cef4-4f94-abea-37ba8f7f6213","argument":"We think of dice as being random, and empirical observation confirms this. We encounter probabilistic processes all the time in nature. For all we know this probabilistic behavior goes \"all the way down\".","conclusion":"Determinism based on physics doesn't support the common understanding of determinism, and doesn't stand in the way of free will."}
{"id":"8792f61c-e798-49fb-973f-670fc8026d24","argument":"I am a young man and I see time and again fat girls having their self esteem and egos crushed. Girls flirt all the time, but the fat ones have to go a step farther out of necessity . Often they will stick their tongues out at me or wink or make extended eye contact or repeatedly compliment me touch me or do everything short of straight up asking me out. I feel for them but I cannot help them because I am simply not interested. And they always seem so disappointed and let down after even if they hide it well. A few days ago my friend matched a fat girl on tinder and used her to get us invited to a party where he totally ignored her and talked to everyone else. Afterwards she kept messaging him and trying to talk to him and we were laughing at how thirsty she was. But I also felt bad because I doubt many girls feel the sting of rejection so harshly. Many feel objectified or that they are only valued for their looks but I bet that is not nearly as bad as being straight up ignored and mocked. I bet things are not nearly as bad for unattractive men. Men are taught to be tough guys, to make money, to be great, to be strong. They are taught that their worth is in how capable they are, while women are taught that their worth is in how beautiful they are. Philip Sheridan was by all accounts a deeply unattractive and strangelooking man yet his ugliness is considered merely an amusing sidenote in his life full of heroic and epic deeds. Were he a woman, his looks would be front and center and would almost define him. Being an ugly man would suck, but it would not be that bad because at least your peers and other men will still respect you and you can still be thought of as great. But for a fat woman, that trait defines her and even if she does great things, she would be thought of as someone who is great despite their looks . Being a fat woman would be one of the most hellish of all worldly experiences.","conclusion":"being a fat girl would be absolutely terrible"}
{"id":"d74e48c3-3916-45f3-9960-77cc48abaea3","argument":"Patients can give friends and family members access to cannabis even though they are not patients themselves.","conclusion":"There is less control over who has access to cannabis."}
{"id":"25c57349-c5cd-48fc-adc9-4103a9e8e96a","argument":"Children and those declared mentally incompetent have no legal standing, but instead have someone with guardianship or power of attorney represent their interests. Something similar could be done for animals.","conclusion":"Even if this is true, it does not prevent us from granting rights or moral consideration to other non-human animals."}
{"id":"2b80379f-c74e-4331-8041-c9525a443915","argument":"With the creation of MySpace in 2003 and Facebook in 2004, the computer savvy American population began to change how they communicated, whom they communicated with and, most importantly, how they appeared to others. What was once created for University students only has now spread to older generations, down to high school, middle school, and now even some elementary schools. Children are, from a young age, interacting with technology and social media where the ideals reinforced largely surround appearance and popularity. Maintaining a social media page Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, LinkedIn, etc focuses on how many friends or followers one may have, which type of pictures they allow on their profiles, which pictures and filters they will publish to give off a certain impression to others, and more. It is frightening to think how important a role image will play in the upbringing of generation Z \u2026 style has become something expected of 10 and 11 year olds, and sexuality is being experimented with at a much earlier age with the rise of sexting and selfies. While I do believe that the new generation of social media has allowed us to expand our networks and connect with individuals that we would otherwise not have access to, I think that in many facets our appearance has become of utmost importance. Even recruiters now look at our LinkedIn profiles or Facebook pages to see if we are an eligible candidate for a job, and parents have a new way to monitor and spy on their children's social lives via their pictures and pages. While I engage in social media and appreciate it's networking potential with colleagues, classmates, friends, family and future employers, I do believe that it has made my generation Y and the current generation Z more vain and focused on appearance.","conclusion":"Social media has made America's generation's Y 1980-2000 and Z 2000's-today more vain and obsessed with appearance."}
{"id":"a5966a76-910b-4f4b-af7c-bfe8128b32ba","argument":"Other concepts such as race are similarly distinct in their expression within, and beyond, science. In science, race is a category which impacts one's health predispositions and medical needs, while in the humanities, race is a lived experience with strong historical and cultural ties and importance in identity formation and expression. This does not mean there are two distinct concepts.","conclusion":"There are simply two words, or terms used for this concept, depending on which field it is being used in."}
{"id":"5ccb410d-3ea4-4128-bcbe-fadd5633acd6","argument":"Multiple parties in the parliament vs Two party system In the Anglosphere there is what we call the two party system. Republicans and Democrats in the USA, Liberal and Conservatives in Canada, Liberals and Labour in Australia etc. Opponents of the system say it lacks diversity. I think that is a wrong assumption to make. The parties in a two party system are broader in order to stay big and competitive against antagonist party. They transform to adapt to the current needs. Example Republicans in the US have government as centrists Eisenhower , conservatives Reagan and now we see a more nationalist tone Trump . Different ideologies are not forgotten. They are working within a party as factions. This gives government stability and breeds a center between the two parties leading to easier national politics example Canada . On the other hand multiple party system lead to instability. Governments come and go. The economy and various policies are doomed because of this example Italy, Greece . When there is a disagreement factions secede and dialogue becomes harder. The liberal Left in the Anglosphere and the European socialist myth The easiest way to explain this would be to point to the Canadian Liberal and NDP relationship. The Liberal party in Canada uses the NDP to point out the flaws of a more socialistic governing style. In Europe social democratic parties like the NDP in Canada are all over the place. They brag about their success but i don't believe we hear the whole story. If it wasn't for the American military support and financial support after the War the socialists parties would have done nothing. Because all the money that goes into education and healthcare would go on national defense. Also that money is generated by economic liberal policies. Not nationalization of industry, not minimum wage hikes. We i am European btw like to make fun of American spending on military but in reality that spending allows us to pursue excessive welfare policies. That liberal conservative balance in the Anglosphere allows us in the EU to not be on guard. And i find this wrong on our part Both liberals and conservatives agree on the basics when it comes to a broad understanding of our socioconomic system. A capitalist liberal democracy with a safety net. But when socialists come into the picture they want change and progress progress out of something that works ? and so they create confusion that wouldn't be there in an Anglosphere setting. Socialist ideals are seen as fringe ideals. Capitalism, diversity and choices I have travelled to the west side of the Atlantic. The market is crazy, in a good way, compared to our European. A single sport event is turned into a market frenzy. I got more free stuff going to an NBA game than i ever got in any European event. T Shirts, hats they even gifted a free trip to Orlando from Toronto to a family just because they were at the right place at the right time. In order to get close to this kind of market frenzy in Europe you need to go to the biggest centers and still it wouldn't be there. In America there is one or more shopping malls even in small cities. The army and Europe's international voice I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. That is John Adams. In Europe we don't seem to understand that. Our voice in international matters example Syria is weak. It is weak because our military can't compete with Russia or China. Through this we become geopolitically frail and then cry for help from the USA. We like to spend money on EU laws about how curved a banana should be not a joke this happened and wave the finger to people like Assad but when it comes to action We just talk the talk and not walk the walk There are many more things to point out. A bigger text would be of no use. I hope they come up spontaneously in the comments.","conclusion":"Europe should be more like the Anglosphere"}
{"id":"7e9e1129-3da2-474a-969c-662c467639af","argument":"Statistically, a majority of terrorist attacks in the US are carried out by white supremacists. This suggests that this definition is appropriate in an American context also.","conclusion":"Many neo-nazi organizations are literally considered terror groups in many countries, such as the UK and membership is often illegal."}
{"id":"6074b36b-83a2-41d4-aada-2d4432b8a7f0","argument":"A statistical analysis of word usage suggests Chao is one of the most likely authors.","conclusion":"Elaine Chao, Secretary of Transportation and wife of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell"}
{"id":"9c885f1b-06c6-4c92-b0c6-9411a2c8e996","argument":"I work IT at a university. The females in my workplace can wear whatever they want as long as it looks professional. This could be a pantsuit or it could be a sun dress, a skirt, or any other form of dress. As a male, I have to wear khaki dress pants. Doesn't matter if it's 100\u00b0 outside and I have to haul equipment up three of four flights of stairs, all pants, all the time. It seems discriminatory to me that I can't wear shorts when it's hot, or that I can't wear jeans when I spend half my time crawling under people's desks. Why is it okay for women to wear whatever they want within reason while I am restricted to khakis and a collared shirt? Edit Big thanks to the one or two of you who decided to use the down vote button as a disagree button. Super productive and definitely helping me to change my view. Edit 2 Went to bed and this blew up a little bit. Let me clarify some things all 250 people in my building are not techs. Four of us are and we are all male. the official dress code for everyone is business casual. In practice though, for men it's khakis and a polo. Ask any of the bosses how a male should interpret it, and you will be told khakis and a polo. Ask one how a female should interpret it and you will find she has many, many more options. on several other parts of campus, there really is no dress code. Many departments and divisions stopped having one in recent years and employees overall seem happier and more productive surveys have been done to this effect , yet my department in particular still believes you have to dress a certain way to be good at your job. finally, some of you have pointed out that it's society , not my place of work, that makes the dress code sexist and or discriminatory. It doesn't matter what makes it discriminatory, what matters is that my workplace is enforcing it. I'm going to try to keep up, but it's early morning and I'm recovering from a marrow transplant yesterday and am going home today. Just wanted to thank everybody for a really great conversation, even if it has not changed my view. It has impacted my perspective in that I don't think my workplace is intentionally being sexist, but I do still believe the policy being enforced is, by it's nature, sexist. In light of that, I believe the dress code should either be tightened for both sexes equally or eliminated entirely. Thanks again, everybody.","conclusion":"A dress code allowing women to wear dresses, skirts, etc but mandates men must wear khaki dress pants is discrimination."}
{"id":"c50dd6aa-1931-4171-972c-0d04bb4e3182","argument":"I've been having this small argument with my girlfriend when we wash clothes. It just comes up every time we both do the laundry. She believes hot water is better but can't explain why, says it's how it was at her home and that there must have been a good reason. I, on the other hand, believe that the benefits outweigh the negative side effects. I went online and found little evidence to the contrary. Note that I am no expert and that the following may be false. They are my perception. Feel free to correct me, but the ultimate goal if you wish to change my view is to show me that the negative effects of washing with cold or tap water outweigh the benefits. Benefits Less electricity needed to heat up more water since the heating water tank won't be involved. Cottons and wool will shrink less than in hot water. I would win the argument with my SO. It's the small things. Seriously, maybe there are more benefits, I'm not sure, but energy efficiency is my main concern. Negative effects Maybe the clothes won't be as soft. It's the only argument my SO had. But I use a softener thing like Downy, so I don't think it matters. ??? ??? ??? Also I know there might be users who think they are really clever and point out that my statement started with It's better to do your laundry in the washing machine and follow it up saying that it's far better to wash clothes by hand or by some technological marvel. You won't win a delta. You will be disqualified. I will sully your grave and your children's graves with my mismatched socks because you are weak, your lineage is weak, and you won't survive the winter. Disclaimer before you think I can have an original thought of my own modified quote about pineapple on pizza from an unknown girl to create a humorous attempt of the contempt I would feel for you should this happen So do your thing Reddit, quell a gentle feud between two humans bound by love and waffles. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"It's better to do your laundry in the washing machine with tap water or cold water instead of hot water."}
{"id":"fe426634-a151-4d68-96b3-34c2bdf72e91","argument":"Our plan might raise a question of whether the intelligence agencies will have more incentives to gather the information using illegal means once all evidence is admissible in courts of law. We believe that any perverse incentives created by the plan are negligible, and here\u2019s why. Under our plan the collection using illegal means remains prohibited in the first place. If intelligence agencies gathered evidence using illegal means and presented it at the court, obviously we would use the evidence due to its relevance. At the same time, the intelligence agency would be liable for breaking the law and would have to bear the consequences of their action according to the legislation. It is essential to realize that intelligence agencies should be very reluctant to admit that they had been gathering intelligence using illegal means. First, it is a direct damage to them due to becoming liable for their actions. Second, prestige is of key importance to these institutions. Once the fact that illegal methods were used for intelligence purposes is known publicly, the society would put huge pressure on the institutions because of illegitimacy of their actions. That is likely to result in a change of the main officials and also the decrease in the powers of intelligence agencies. Hence, we can see that due to incentives not to use the illegally obtained information, intelligence agencies would be willing to use illegal means no more than they are at the moment.","conclusion":"Our plan does not create additional incentives to gather information using illegal means"}
{"id":"9623dc97-9491-4558-99be-b45169ee5faf","argument":"His math is probably wrong, he strikes me as a lunatic and carries a cross everywhere he goes. The money spent on his probable failure will be better spent on another crusade for reconquering Constantinople. He even asked Portugal's kings for help first, and they rejected it Why should we bother when they, who know more navigation that us, refused to finance him? Not to mention he's Genoese, so it's likely he'll just take the money to merchant out the Venetians.","conclusion":"I believe it's a waste of resources to finance Colonbus' voyage."}
{"id":"fea47dff-8ad0-4e80-aedc-74809139d143","argument":"Different cultures have different practices for a variety of social interactions and situations. By allowing for exchange the best practices can be utilized by all.","conclusion":"When different cultures co-exist, they can complement each other and foster innovation."}
{"id":"35a001eb-f439-4dd0-8f28-605a3d7a51c1","argument":"This might not apply at all or be all that beneficial to citizens of communist countries who are sent to prison or labor camps for crimes of expression or non-violent political activity, which are otherwise protected behaviors in non-communist countries that are democracies of some form. The point being that the negative consequences caused by the oppressive nature of communist regimes outweighs the material benefits provided by them to their citizens","conclusion":"In a communist society, everybody has equal access to healthcare, education and employment."}
{"id":"54427609-5cba-455b-a764-364e9fb462d4","argument":"An increase in the number of female gamers will incentivise gaming companies to be more sensitive to their preferences as they would now constitute an even more significant consumer demographic.","conclusion":"Greater relatability to female gamers is likely to increase the number of female gamers."}
{"id":"6230fdc6-a913-4be7-be2a-41678d403ba2","argument":"I've seen many arguments that it is wrong that liberals avoid Trump supporters, and Republicans in general, the reverse happens to but according to a poll I saw recently, it's less common that it harms the country and they should do the opposite if anything. I agree that it causes harm as it leaves Trump supporters to get their news from other supporters, Trump himself or far right media meaning that Trump will have more unquestioning supporters. But I don't agree that it's wrong for several reasons I believe that political views are reflective of a person's morality. I think values like kindness, empathy and selflessness are good qualities and I'm much more likely to want to be around someone that has them. I believe Trump supporters lack most of these at least relatively speaking due to their disinterest in or contempt for women's rights willingness to ignore refugees, support for a man who acts like a schoolyard bully and fear of minorities I believe it's important to share some common ground with friends and that includes politics. I think Global Warming is the most important threat to my future. Second to that, is inequality. Beyond that are issues like terrorism, war and the usual issues. I can't see how I can mention my opinion on any of those things without immediately arguing with Trump supporters. Most seem to not believe in global warming, Trump's policies seem to be designed to make inequality worse and his approach to terrorism seems limited to maintining his persona on tv. He switches between being anti war and talking about it like football so I don't think Trump supporter are too concerned about that. I don't believe it's my responsibility to befriend someone for the benefit of the political culture in my country. All of the above could be ignored if I had a moral obligation to educate and help my fellow citizens I've never even left my country and I'm straight, white, middle class and male so I'm probably the target market for Trump, aside from being young but I don't think I do. I can ignore someone that I believe is selfish, angry, extremely ill informed or ignorant without doing something morally wrong, even if that means that it's more likely that a terrible person will gain power in my country, it's not my responsibility to fight against that beyond voting against such candidates. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"There is nothing morally wrong with ending a friendship with someone due to their political beliefs"}
{"id":"d74b8344-2b24-4c0e-9f5f-f61b1c1e18d3","argument":"Disclaimer I am not a citizen of the USA, I don't live there, and I don't visit that often. Semantics Scientifically strong here refers to a peer reviewed study with either very strong correlation or weak correlation, but strong effect. My reasoning is that the NRA would want to fight against the kind of legislation that would limit or repeal the second amendment. To that end, they would try to find strong evidence that guns aren't the problem. The main suspect I've seen in discussion so far has been mental health. Thus we get to the view I want changed. I am aware of the NRA ILA lobbying for a bill that would, to my memory, disclose the identities of those suffering with mental health problems. I do not consider this sufficient evidence on its own that the school shootings are a mental health problem. How to change my view show a 1 scientifically strong study that 2 the NRA uses that 3 backs the school shootings being a mental health problem show that my reasoning is deeply flawed e.g. the NRA doesn't want to fight second amendment restrictions show that the NRA is funding mental healthcare facilities show that the NRA is lobbying for better healthcare show that the NRA is itself preventing mental health problems other I don't know what else could change my view, but I leave it up to you Edit I'm editing after my view has been changed to state elaborate on the view the view was not that the NRA itself was at fault for school shootings the view was not that school shootings are the cause of the most childhood deaths the view was not that school shootings account for the most gun deaths the view was prompted by 1 the recent protest, march for our lives, 2 my understanding that these protests were in opposition to current gun laws, 3 my opinion that the NRA would go to great lengths to protect or expand gun access and that 4 these protests were the main threat to gun access","conclusion":"If school shootings in the USA were a psychological problem the NRA would have scientifically strong studies to show it; or they would be funding or lobbying for better mental healthcare."}
{"id":"c3793195-a850-4863-b29d-8d2558ffb0d6","argument":"The Chapel appears to be less than a 1\/3 the size of the Cathedral Santa Maria Assunta a Catholic church from the same period.","conclusion":"The Orthodox chapel paid for by Tommaso Assanios Paleologos is small in comparision to other churches in Naples."}
{"id":"00a8a1e2-a3f8-4112-91dc-21c8b9a9616d","argument":"ethics are just subjective preference one animal prefers X, another prefers Y if there is a god and that god prefers X, it is just gods subjective preference there is no logical way to make a preference turn into an objective rule some people say that whatever is best for humanity or society is objectively moral what is 'best is subjective. and another species or society another animal or alien might have a different preference ex that humans go extinct if god says its ethical to never hurt humans vs if god says it is ethical to kill humans there is no logic or evidence god can present to make that objective","conclusion":"ethics are just subjective preference even if there is a god"}
{"id":"41cf4d63-534b-48d4-9893-a12f3fb9a0da","argument":"I'm from Nigeria, I'm currently studying in the United States, and I am gay. Nigeria passed an incredibly homophobic law this January, and Uganda and Kenya have followed suit. The long and short of it is that if I tried to live openly back home, I would be put in prison for any period of time ranging from between 10 and 14 years. I realize that this law and others like it are possibly in violation of several human rights declarations which these countries have ostensibly ratified. I also want this law to be repealed and for this discrimination against sexual minorities to end. However, as people who follow this issue are aware, the African nations that have these laws on their books have resisted calls to repeal these laws. They view calls for repeal as the West trying to impose its moral standards on Africa, which has expressed its morality through the passage of these laws. I am aware of the logical inconsistency of this position i.e., that the homophobia is a result of the adoption of religion, which itself is a Western import , and do not want to discuss that here. What I do wonder is that the leaders of these nations have asked that they be respected as sovereign nations, and for the West to respect their laws. They say that just as they do not impose their cultural norms on the West, the West should not impose their cultural norms on Africa, and the most common example they cite is that of polygamy. It is very common in several African nations, but I was surprised to learn is actually criminalized in the US and Canada. So if the West criminalizes the African cultural practice of polygamy and is unwilling to repeal the laws that do so, then surely African nations can criminalize homosexuality and the West should leave them alone. I'm not sure how to mount an argument to this. The right to marry a consenting spouse is in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, so if a woman man decides to marry another man woman with an existing spouse, it should not be criminal as long as the three of them consent to it. And if choice of spouse if one party is already married is already criminal in the West, why can't it be criminal in Africa on the basis of gender? Please, .","conclusion":"Western governments should not pressure African nations to change their anti-gay laws if they are unwilling to accept polygamy"}
{"id":"47e57c29-7c3e-45a7-8b55-1c2511561ed3","argument":"I've read a couple of articles that claim that 'whiteboard' interviews are not a good way to hire programming talent. I'm not a programmer myself, but the arguments against whiteboard essentially hinge on the fact that they require the ability to recall large amounts of technical information without reference materials. See below for an example of such an article here This seems entirely reasonable to me. As a potential employer, I want to be sure that the person I'm hiring has genuine knowledge in the area that I'm hiring them for. By testing people's technical proficiency via a whiteboard interview, I don't just learn about the exact information they know, but seeing how they approach challenges in this way also gives me a general sense of their experience in programming. Claiming that the process is invalid because you're just going to Google the answers once you get the job is not a convincing case against this style of interview. Lots of jobs require you to showcase your technical expertise in an interview environment, and employers are within their rights to test these skills. What makes this any different? Change my view gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"'Whiteboard' interviews are an appropriate way to hire programmers"}
{"id":"9a088053-7526-478b-9553-9aa0e95636e3","argument":"Lately I have seen Has made some very good arguments below and the third one has me convinced website and people cry out that it is censorship and against freedom of speech, but as I understand that these are private companies and have the right to moderate their websites as they see fit. It seems in the same sort of mindset as Owner has the right to refuse admission if you owned a shop or restaurant. x200B Now I have a friend that cries Government censorship every time this happens, but there seems to be no evidence that I can find to support this. This was in regard of Alex Jones being banned from Twitter Anyway I would like to hear some counterarguments so . x200B I had a incredibly well written post from in cavediver which changed my view and I awarded him a Delta, quoted below. I'm not fully convinced by the Net Neutrality argument that I have seen a couple of times, I'll have a think about it. Thanks for all the comments. x200B gt There are few core arguments about why large companies may not be able to arbitrarily ban people or viewpoints based on content of speech. None have really be tested in court yet so it is right now mostly a thought exercise. gt gt First, there is a question of protected classes. You mention that a shop or restaurant owner can refuse services. That is only true to a point. A public business has to be accommodating to the public. A business cannot just say 'no African Americans' and be legal. This becomes a question of whether the business is interfering systemically in protected classes. This generally does not hold up for single individuals without a pattern though. It also does not apply to expressly political businesses. a church does not have to accept advertisers for abortion for instance gt gt The second argument is one I find more appropriate. That is the question of monopoly utility status for the platforms. This requires taking a fundamental look at the platform and asking if they are sufficiently large and exclusive to be a monopoly on the market segment. Once that hits, you get either a 'breakup' or 'regulation' of that monopoly. I think there is a strong argument that can be made that search engines such as google and platforms like twitter and Facebook could be classified more like a utility. This would limit their abilities to 'reject service' based on ideas or speech. gt gt Lastly there is another argument based on the claims that Facebook is not a content provider but merely a service provider. This has specific copyright implications with respect to responsibility. If Facebook is a content provider, they have an obligation to respect copyrights and pay damages when they are abused. Claiming they are merely a user platform and not responsible for user posts removes this. Facebook and YouTube have made the claim they are not content provides but instead a service provider. Banning users for 'content' that is not illegal undermines that argument. If the removed content can be argued to fit a specific pattern and constitute 'speech' by the company further erodes this claim. This does not mean a company cannot act in this way it just means if they do, they are subject to different obligations with copyrighted speech. gt gt I personally find the second and third arguments more compelling but once again, nothing has been decided in court to date. x200B","conclusion":"Youtube, Facebook or any private company have the right to ban anyone they want."}
{"id":"d89a57f2-83b0-48bc-97ba-2c7fec11f12c","argument":"It seems unnecessary for the government to be involved in regulating any form of marriage. There doesn't seem to be any current justification for the state interfering in such private affairs. There do seem to be interestes in regulating joint property rules for households, tax collection and custody laws and the like. And it does make sense how historically these are part of marriage custom enforced by law. But what about marriage itself should still be regulated? None it seem to be, .","conclusion":"I government should get out of the marriage business,"}
{"id":"2efa6674-5db6-4981-a968-f75a3c67c488","argument":"Some Context Frist off I grew up around the Boston area, graduated from a college in Boston, currently work and live in Boston, was on the marathon route about 2 miles away when the bombing occurred, I always have and always will consider Boston home. Secondly, I am not asking people to explain why they feel he they believe he should receive the death penalty or not. Or even why his crimes are worthy of the death penalty. His actions are reprehensible, and I fully believe he is guilty and should receive punishment in accordance with law befitting his crimes. Anyways, The bombing and subsequent manhunt resulted in 4 deaths and a dozens of injuries. Clearly a terrible tragedy, please do not misconstrue me, I think that what happened was awful. However, I think the response, especially around Boston has been extremely disproportionate. News articles, to blogs, to overheard conversations, to David Ortiz, for the past 2 years all you hear is a sensationalized response that includes hate speech, violent calls for vengeance, overly emotional opining, and nonsense about Boston strong that arises from mob mentality I have seen countless comments on articles saying incredibly vengeful and disturbing things wished on Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, I want to see him hang in the streets is a very mild example. Additionally I have seen a lot of anti Muslim rhetoric and straight out bigotry because of these events. BostonStrong has become synonymous with the city and its prominent organizations. A charity for the victims some of which include very profitable retail business in Copley Square of the bombing has gathered millions in donations. I have seen people even tangentially related to Boston claiming it was an emotional and devastating event for them, again not victims, but someone who might have lived in Boston a few years back. What does Boston Strong even mean? I personally believe it means nothing. Boston reacted the way any city would to two rogue terrorists. It started as a way to raise money for the one fund but has devolved into nothing more than a marketing gimmick for area businesses and something for bros to use as a hashtag. However when you look at the outrage, vitriol, and media coverage surrounding other violent crimes, for example serial rape, multiple homicides, pedophilia, even drunk driving homicides. The level of interest and reaction is not even close. I understand it was a very public event with terrorist intentions, but people in Boston act like it's the next 9 11. It simply is not. No where near the damage and no connection to an international terrorist organization. In many ways I think the actions of drunk drivers who kill a car full of innocents are as much or more reprehensible than those of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. A drunk driver kills someone due to their own selfishness and stupidity. Dzhokhar and his brother believed they were getting justice for innocent people killed in Afghanistan and Iraq. He knew very well that he would likely be caught, and yet he believed strongly enough that what he was doing was right that he went through with it then penned a letter in blood stating his motive as he lay dying in a boat. I'm not defending his actions I think they are terrible but I think the outrage and rah rah mob mentality and blind patriotism city ism? I've seen for the past two years is grossly misplaced. The Boston Strong mentality is flawed, the Tsarnaevs didn't attack Boston they attacked the US, Boston just happened to be where they lived, and while it was great to see a city come together after a tragedy I believe the Boston Strong thing was taken too far. Around college campuses it became a rallying cry to legitimize bigotry about immigrants from the middle east and an excuse to party, meanwhile atrocities committed by born and bred Americans go largely unnoticed. While no one I know personally was injured by the events, I am still from Boston but I failed to be personally hurt or particularly jarred by these events. Meanwhile, I witnessed students who had been in the city for a handful of months post impassioned social media posts calling for executions and making claims to how strong and resilient their city was , no one was gonna mess with their town that they had been inhabiting for a whopping 1.5 college semesters. I think his crimes were terrible, but no more terrible than other similar crimes, and certainly not warranting the reaction that has occurred since Marathon Monday 2013. I just can't get behind the lynch mob, or the notion that somehow Boston reacted better than any other city would. TLDR The hate, vitriol, and mob mentality surrounding the Dzhokhar Tsarnaev case is blown way out of proportion, considering atrocities that occur every day. this is particularly bad in Boston and even worse in Boston student communities.","conclusion":"The outrage, emotional investment, and hate the general population has in relation to the Tsarnaev case is blown way out of proportion, particularly in Boston"}
{"id":"e811ead5-0ade-4a08-9f81-951dc1a475d1","argument":"Antifa is a terrorist organisation. I am well aware that this is not necessarily an unpopular opinion. I know, however, that many on Reddit do not hold this view, and I would like to know why. For the sake of clarity, when I mention \u201cAntifa\u201d, I am referencing any anti fascist groups \u201cproactively seeking physical confrontation with their perceived fascist adversaries\u201d The Black Bloc for example, would fall under this category. This is not a debate about freedom of speech, whether the far right is equally as violent, or even whether violence is sometimes justified in today\u2019s society. Let\u2019s start by defining terrorism. Encyclopedia Britannica defines terrorism as the \u201csystematic use of violence to create a general climate of fear in a population and thereby to bring about a particular political objective\u201d. More detailed definitions of terrorism according to multiple countries can be found here While each country\u2019s definition of terrorism differs slightly, the consensus is that terrorism must involve violent actions carried out to instill fear and insecurity, and to achieve a political goal. A few examples of Antifa's capacity for violence June, 2010, Toronto Black Bloc members vandalize downtown Toronto. June, 2016, Sacramento Anti fascist group By Any Means Necessary BAMN leads a counter protest against a white nationalist group. Violence occurred and was not started by the white nationalists. January, 2017, Washington Hundreds of Antifa members are arrested during Trump's inauguration, charged with various violent acts. February, 2017, UC Berkeley A mob of Black Block members, numbering in the hundreds, began violent protests against right wing speaker Milo Yiannopoulos, forcing him to cancel the events. There were clashes between the protesters and the police, and the damages to the university\u2019s infrastructure totals 100,000. November, 2016, Montreal Antifa militants assemble to shut down concert by a perceived racist metal band. Violent clashes with the police occurred. April, 2017, Portland The city\u2019s annual parade featuring the Multnomah County Republican Party is cancelled after receiving violent threats. April, 2017, UC Berkeley Conservative commentator Ann Coulter had her speech cancelled for fear of violence by anti fascist members. July, 2017, Hamburg Protest of the G20 summit turns violent as the city is vandalized by anti capitalists and anti fascists. September, 2017, UC Berkeley Political commentator Ben Shapiro holds a speech in the university. Over 600,000 is spent to ensure his safety. August, 2017, March, 2018, King's College London Antifa members disrupt a free speech event organized by the university's libertarian society. March, 2019, Barcelona Hundreds of Antifa members violently protest rally held by far right political party. May, 2019, Montreal Antifa members commit arson during costly May Day protest. June, 2019, Portland Journalist Andy Ngo is violently attacked during an Antifa rally. These kinds of violent actions committed by Antifa members are very evidently directed towards their political opponents as to intimidate them, instill fear , and often forcing them to change the ways that they act. When violent tactics fail, Antifa members resort to doxxing to expose their opponents. Antifa has been publicly condemned for its violent actions by Nancy Pelosi and earned the criticism of public intellectuals such as Noam Chomsky The violent nature of Antifa evident. I do not believe that these acts of violence are committed by the majority of Antifa members. However, it is clear that most Antifa members support, or at least tolerate these displays of violence . Antifa supports direct action This is not the statement made by select individuals. Violence during protests is espoused by the organisation itself. Unlike Steven Crowder, I genuinely look forward to having my view changed about all of this. EDIT Not quite sure why this is getting downvoted, I really made this post in good faith lol","conclusion":"Antifa is a terrorist organisation."}
{"id":"12a9e570-5d17-4313-bfe3-13d5574e3c9e","argument":"For example, someone's nationality is not intrinsically morally relevant. But we construct national identities, and because of these identities and interrelationships we owe greater moral duties to people who share our nationality. Similarly, we could construct a \"species-identity\" which excludes animals.","conclusion":"Just because a characteristic does not seem intrinsically morally relevant, does not mean it cannot become morally relevant if we imbue it with meaning."}
{"id":"8f40a26c-4319-4f7d-9b39-85a1723b1e0f","argument":"The only other social media site I've ever used has been Facebook and I haven't posted anything on there since last June. I glance at it occasionally to see if there's any interesting notifications but for the last year, it's only been birthdays. I've only gone to Twitter when I see a reddit post going there that I want to see, Pinterest once or twice for craft ideas for work, and I've never used Instagram, Snapchat, or any other form of social media outside of reddit. I'm about to click the delete button on my Facebook profile but wanted to see if reddit could change my mind.","conclusion":"I don't see any reason for me to be involved with any social media other than reddit."}
{"id":"bc8bfe98-5de8-48bd-af7c-e26e81d8163d","argument":"Motherhood has a greater impact on a woman\u2019s career prospects than her level of education, according to a study by the Young Women\u2019s Trust. Women with a dependent child are six times more likely to be economically inactive than those without children.","conclusion":"Women often have to sacrifice their careers for childbearing and child-rearing which is not the case with men."}
{"id":"7b61d043-285f-4d96-a80b-5c67d1c7d29b","argument":"In India, the mental illness known in the West as Anomie is cured with the drugs Soma, Amrita, and Ganja plus in a more modern interpretation Peyote and Ayahuasca.","conclusion":"Many drugs can act as a last line of medicine for the mentally ill when the psychotropics don't work sources: ncbi.nlm.nih.gov ncbi.nlm.nih.gov ncbi.nlm.nih.gov"}
{"id":"0ae25e54-b096-4685-90f0-bec0be14104a","argument":"I think gayness is as complex as everything else when examined closely. Some people have a certain hormone balance that predisposes them, or conditions during their gestation, or during puberty and these people will feel like there was no choice. Others had terrible experiences with the opposite sex, perhaps a parent, and learned to be gay. They may also think it was not a choice. So that's fine. But there is a third group who choose to be gay for convenience. Guys may prefer the simplicity of how men judge mainly on appearance rather than women judging and criticizing about everything else. Or they want to get more sex by staying with the gender that does it more. Ladies may choose to switch to gayness because they've wearied of male flaws, or feel their sexual needs are better met by those who share them in kind. This makes me reject the hard line view that homosexuality is not a choice.","conclusion":"I reject the hard-line view that homosexuality is not a choice."}
{"id":"267fc690-e9ab-4125-89f3-81204e7a5b16","argument":"Let me start by saying that I am not an economics expert and I'm sure it's probably not as simple and obvious as it seems or we would've done this by now. Simply put, I think that many of America's economic problems could be fixed by placing a cap on total compensation for executives, let's say 5 million. This would have no effect on small businesses, of course, but would have a major positive impact on major corporations like, for instance, wal mart. According to this site, wal mart paid it's top 6 execs just over 50 million combined. So, with a 5 mil wage cap wal mart would have over 20 mil in surplus cash which it would then, logically, invest into more warehouses, factories and stores, creating more jobs. Walmart wouldn't be the only company doing this, though, most of the biggest companies would be doing the same with their sudden surpluses which would lead to a labor shortage which would drive up salaries and benefits for the average workers. More people making more money leads to more business for all companies and more tax revenue for cash strapped local, state, and federal governments. Everyone wins. Bonus The super wealthy will no long be willing to make such huge political contributions. Who would drop 50 mil on a candidate, who might not even win, if it'll take them a decade to earn that money back?","conclusion":"Executive wage caps would increase jobs, wages and, therefore, tax revenue while decreasing the influence the super wealthy have in politics."}
{"id":"11d91f18-a61a-4638-84ad-f183b697ab4e","argument":"Simply put, I see awards all the time school assemblies and plenty of other places. Often times, there is an award for maintaining a 4.0 GPA or staying on the 'A' honor roll. Awesome. Fantastic. Well done. However, then we get to awards like Respectful student awards that go to anybody that didn't commit a felony on school grounds this year. Or, perhaps, awards for being a good team player on a soccer team that every single person gets. How are these really awards? It's just a slip of paper that reads, You exist. Congratulations . Then, the people who have awards that require a higher level achievement are nothing more than another kid with a piece of paper. That's about it. . Thanks ~","conclusion":"I believe participation awards and other similar \"everybody is a winner\" ideals discourage excellence."}
{"id":"3247fee8-de15-42e8-a246-dfb3965b0f27","argument":"The Congress of Berlin solved the Russo-Turkish War of 1877\u201378 and granted independence to a lot of countries in the Balkans.","conclusion":"A lot of wars have been solved by nations discussing around a table to enforce peaceful resolution of conflicts."}
{"id":"c4f491fc-c10a-46a4-91a7-f1b8a0593187","argument":"In 2000, Portugal decriminalized the use of all illicit drugs, and developed new policies on prevention, treatment, harm reduction and reinsertion. Drug use is no longer a crime, but it is still prohibited.","conclusion":"Prohibit the use \/ possession of any drug for personal use without authorization, however, the offence should not be a criminal one. Effective decriminalization as in the case of Portugal"}
{"id":"b8ab6551-d2d6-4c8d-a48a-02a6b5c186dc","argument":"Korea don't have the ability to ban media in the west which can't be said of the countries in the west. We also treat North Korea like the boy who cried wolf so it's not as if it's due diligence. I believe that instead of an attack on freedom of speech this is freedom of speech in practice you can say whatever you want but not necessarily without consequence. If you're going to go to tremendous lengths to humiliate someone, don't be surprised if they tell the cops about your meth lab or your friends about that thing you really don't want them to know. Edit It's been pointed out that there were threats of violence and a surprising absence of threats to use the information stolen from Sony. Approaching the position from the opposite direction There was a The Pope Must Die depicting someone accidentally becoming pope and trying not to get assassinated which was cancelled \u00a32.5m budget after media outcry the movie was released a different title The New Pope . Not a real pope, no depicted assassination, no grievances from a sovereign state yet a real cancellation. An assassination attempt was made on Pope John Paul II's life as was Kim Jong Un would depicting a successful assassination of John Paul be free expression? If the Vatican threatened to damn one or more countries to hell would that be a reaction or act of terrorism? Hell is a scarier than death for many. Tl dr What makes terrorizing Kim Jon Un by showing the world how his assassination attempt should have went who is a world leader impervious to tit for tat response? Would it be the same if it was a comedy rape ? Either everyone can terrorize everyone and pick and choose which threats they listen to or no one can surely?","conclusion":"\"The Interview\" situation is comparable to the AWESOME-O episode of Southpark, Sony and North Korea being Cartman and Butters respectively. It isn't an attack of free speech."}
{"id":"bcf93edd-1ec0-41a2-8334-a5b014881cf1","argument":"There's not a single example of a sizeable anarchist society that evaded degeneration into violent chaos.","conclusion":"An anarchist society, lacking any central coercive authority, would quickly degenerate into violent chaos."}
{"id":"af04869d-f105-4b00-a198-db9081877ddb","argument":"Abraham Lincoln has a reputation for being one of the greatest American presidents. His entire presidency was marked by the duration of the civil war. People tend to think highly of war heroes. And Lincoln may have had great strategic battle skills. However, presidents should not be considered great for winning wars. They should be considered great for resolving conflict while avoiding war. Lincoln is know for the Emancipation Proclamation. Slavery was America's greatest evil and had to be ended. But the Emancipation Proclamation did not end slavery. It had zero affect on the Southern states slave owners. It did not free the slaves in the northern slave states e.g. Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware, and Missouri . Furthermore, it should cause everyone great concern if a president thinks he can change the constitution through executive order the Emancipation Proclamation was an executive order . The real heroes of legally ending slavery was the 38th Congress when they passed the 13th amendment. Furthermore, Lincoln did not enter the civil war with the goal of ending slavery. He was merely trying to stop the rebellion that started in S. Carolina. He had campaigned for president with the promise of slowly giving slaves more freedoms but did not believe in immediately granting freedom to the slaves. Compare this to how the U.K. ended the slave trade without war led by the heroic William Wilberforce different scenario but still a good model on how to end slavery . We tend to think highly of war heroes and martyrs. Lincoln was both. But the label of great president should be reserved for those who are truly great leaders and not merely those with the bigger army. If Lincoln had freed the slaves while avoiding the deaths of half a million Americans then he would be a great president. But because he presided over the only time in history that Americans took up arms against each other, Abraham Lincoln must be considered the worst American president. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Abraham Lincoln was our worst president."}
{"id":"d1f9a62a-fdc4-4656-b374-9261d8e66693","argument":"Or whatever currency you pay with in your country. And of course, of you can miss some money. Yesterday I had a lecture, and the professor asked us if one should give money to an addicted beggar if he asks for it. Most of my classmates said no, or indicated that they would rather buy them something to eat. I think you should just give them money, even if they will use it to buy drugs. I find it a bit arrogant to think you know best what someone else needs. And if you are addicted, and you are not getting help with quitting, you need the drugs just as much as food.","conclusion":"If a drug addict asks you for one euro, you should give them one euro."}
{"id":"42af50df-692e-4e07-bfaa-570d371ed1fb","argument":"The most prosperous countries are democracies. There's not a single despot in the modern world which can compete with the best democracies.","conclusion":"Enlightened Despotism has never worked, and if history is an indicator, it never will."}
{"id":"317a7452-fc61-46ac-945c-60a8f85a2afa","argument":"Especially for flying AKMs, the cost of software development would be enormous. According to the relevant certification most parts are considered Level A, at best Level B.","conclusion":"With economies of scale the development costs can easily be mitigated."}
{"id":"447bd0fa-e76d-428a-b7e5-47c4df2c10e0","argument":"I have been watching anime actively for ten or so years now. And most of this time i have held the view that dubs just are not as good as the original Japanese version with subs. While there are decent dubs, i only occasionally see what i would consider to be good dubs, and there are very few that i would say have great dubs. It just seems that something is lost in the translation process or the dubbing itself. Part of this in my opinion stems from the fact that some of the more prolific dub voice actors tend to just use the same or very similar voices for many of their characters. And sometimes, the voices don't fit the characters at all, though this tends to happen more with minor characters rather than main characters. I'm not saying that the Japanese original is perfect, even they have flaws, but i can't think of a single anime where the dub would be superior to the original Japanese voice tracks. Forgot to add the follow blurb back in after copying it to clipboard so i could get an accurate character count","conclusion":"English dubs of anime often fail to reach the same heights of characterization as the original Japanese voices do."}
{"id":"a4bb2e58-7f14-4020-8dd3-c78f8e6ca903","argument":"Foreign diplomatic recognition is an important sign that Tibet has had a contiguous form of diplomacy and goverance in place for a long","conclusion":"Foreign powers have diplomatically treated Tibet as an independent state."}
{"id":"83561634-9aeb-4ae3-9f19-9e535dd67efa","argument":"There has not been a truly secular society until recently. The data set simply isn't big enough to determine if it is the secularization of society that allowed them to be more successful.","conclusion":"What it does mean is that lack of religion is not correlated with success and conversely, religion is not correlated with lack of success"}
{"id":"fda20a78-d51c-4355-a7e4-592c4900a607","argument":"Every year, student athletes across the country are paid either full or partial scholarships in order to compete. These funds come presumably from the tuition payments made by the rest of the school. College athletes do not get paid to participate, even though sports like collegiate football are as lucrative as their professional counterparts. I think that schools should pay college athletes parts of their profits from sporting events instead of paying them to go to school using students' tuition dollars which could be better spent on educational resources. Change my view, friends.","conclusion":"I think college athletes should get paid to compete in lieu of scholarships."}
{"id":"7e53343f-29d4-4271-b283-94fdf14c2f57","argument":"The mark uses the information presented to them and makes what appears to be a rational decision. It may even seem to be their own idea, but the information isn't what it appears to be or it isn't the whole picture.","conclusion":"The glory of a good confidence trick is that it's not about illogic, it's about misdirection and misinformation."}
{"id":"495902db-557f-4056-9799-0c6ac6da37e4","argument":"Millennials are more careful about who they marry, getting married at older ages when education, careers and finances are on track.","conclusion":"From 2008 to 2016, the divorce rate in the US has dropped by 18%"}
{"id":"d57add01-4086-4f0c-8e52-20063b49d1bd","argument":"This doesn't go much deeper than the title. Recently I've seen videos depicting examples of cultural appropriation where members of a certain culture attack other people who are not members of that culture yet are making use of styles practices which are specific to that culture. Ex an African American woman attacking a white man for wearing his hair in dreadlocks, a group of Mexicans literally, people from Mexico, not a pejorative general term attacking a group of mostly white college kids for having a Mariachi themed party. Frankly, I think this is ridiculous. While I'm sure there are examples of this that are much less trivial and silly, I still don't think this can ever constitute any sort of moral error. While this type of thing can certainly be tacky and offensive, it's a massive overstep to consider it somehow objectively wrong and worthy of censorship and vigilante justice.","conclusion":"Cultural Appropriation is BS"}
{"id":"a347b1a9-6cdd-49ea-ae47-1a613a32811b","argument":"I don't like the idea of fandoms. For example, I have no problem with people liking Doctor Who. I have no problem with people obsessing over Doctor Who, and I have no problem with defining yourself with your love of Doctor Who. But by labeling yourself a Whovian, a sort of class system is created. Hardcore fans become a part of an ingroup, whereas casual followers who don't associate with the culture get looked down on. Wouldn't everyone be happier if die hard fans could just be happy that their show has a wide following? I feel like this is just a class system, based on obsession. Reddit, change my view","conclusion":"I believe that the concept of a fandom is elitist and dividing."}
{"id":"8b9b8346-7c26-4b95-8a86-28b683a450b3","argument":"Patrick Lee. \"Personhood, Dignity, Suicide, and Euthanasia\". The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly.\" Autumn 2001, Vol.1 No.3 - \".A thing as opposed to a state or property can be valuable in one of two ways keeping in mind the above distinctions: First, it might be valuable as a vehicle or carrier of what is per se valuable. If human beings were valuable in that way, then they would not be per se valuable, but only the states or properties that they bore or carried would be of per se value. Or, secondly, a thing might be valuable because it is per se valuable, that is, it is valuable for its own sake, and not as a means toward what it enables to be instantiated. But, human beings must be valuable in the second way rather than in the first way. For if they were valuable only as mere vehicles for what is per se valuable, then it would always be morally right to kill one child, provided one agreed to replace him with two others. No human beings would have more than replaceable value. None would have the kind of value that almost all of us recognize that at least some human beings do have. So, human beings are intrinsically valuable, that is, valuable per se. This means that they themselves are valuable, not just as vehicles for what is valuable.","conclusion":"Euthanasia is contrary to the dignity and preciousness of life"}
{"id":"c035522f-d61b-478a-b119-e671889c5c58","argument":"I am eight episodes into Iron Fist, and I decided to look up how well it was received. I'm not going to sa that this show doesn't have issues. The lead is, in my opinion, the weakest actor of the entire show. The cinematography around the action leaves much to be desired. The story is alright if not mediocre. I was looking for comments on these points which I saw as significant flaws. Instead, I get a bunch of people complaining about how Danny Rand, and originally Caucasian character, wasn't specifically Asian American and how that ruined the whole show. Like, really? It's somehow racist for a privileged white male to lose all of said privilege, be thrown into a new culture, accept that culture, and live by it? It's somehow racist for a white man to be Buddhist or practice martial arts? It's somehow racist for a white man to just happen to be better at martial arts than an Asian martial artist? I am absolutely confused. If people started clamoring for any minority character to be made Caucasian on the basis of a more believable narrative, that would be absolutely unacceptable. I am genuinely confused as to why people are making this some kind of issue. Another  topic that is too similar to be its own post is this if Danny Rand as a simple concept is racist, then so is Colleen Wing. The original character was Japanese and practiced Japanese martial arts. Netflix's Colleen is a Chinese woman practicing Japanese martial arts. By the logic of those that are outraged by Danny Rand this is a form of cultural appropriation and is completely unacceptable. I would even say, under this strange school of thought, it's racist to assume that all Asian cultures are the same and interchangeable. Is that a Korean character? Well, I suppose it would make sense for them to practice Kung Fu since it's Asian and they're Asian too But no one is saying anything about whether or not Colleen is appropriate. I'd really appreciate anyone giving me relevant perspective on this controversy, because as it stands this only seems to be a bunch of people being offended for the sake of being offended. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Marvel's Netflix Series Iron Fist is not at all racist."}
{"id":"cc879923-c7b2-46bf-8343-66e00f608a39","argument":"I was having a small debate about this in another thread and it occurred to me that this might be a better place for it. I'm torn on this, and maybe someone can genuinely convince me one way or another but I'm not entirely sure I understood the outrage about this. Rolling Stone, while ostensibly a music magazine, is still known for having some really great articles and serious journalists writing for them and the article about the Boston kid was a serious piece of journalism. It was the centerpiece of that issue. In that respect, it somewhat makes sense for him to be on the cover, I feel. And if not, then how come no one has been outraged when Time magazine put Hitler or Tim McVeigh or Charles Manson on the cover? Bin Laden was on the cover of every magazine in the world in the weeks after 9 11. Newsweek has had Son of Sam, OJ Simpson, and the Columbine kids. And Rolling Stone itself has precedent for covers like that, having previously put Charles Manson on the cover. Like it or not, Rolling Stone is a magazine with a history of real, respectable journalism with a few notable exceptions and I don't feel like they were entirely out of line in putting that kid on the cover, when every other magazine and newspaper was also doing the same thing. Just because they're a music magazine doesn't exclude them from covering important issues also. While I can agree that naming these shooters gives them attention and that we should stop doing it, Rolling Stone was far from the only ones doing so, and did so far less than a lot of media outlets. I just don't think Rolling Stone did anything different or worse than what everyone else in the media print or television was doing at the same time. Millions of people saw that kid's face and heard his name before Rolling Stone did their story about him. Where's all the outrage and boycotts for everyone else who promoted him? TL DR I feel like the outrage came because Rolling Stone is a music magazine and people felt like they don't have a right to write about important news. It seemed more like a stay in your lane argument against Rolling Stone for daring to dip a toe into a serious news story instead of writing about Kanye.","conclusion":"I don't feel like putting Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Boston marathon bomber on the cover of Rolling Stone was worthy of the outrage it got"}
{"id":"a2b2a220-fdb3-40c9-9bd1-0a88b4de2791","argument":"Government functions in this way Me and my colleagues get together in a fancy building and write on a piece of paper that we have the right to steal your money because a bunch of other people voted to outsource their volition to us. We call this a 'law', and by calling it 'law' we believe it validates the idea that we have the right to steal from you, but you can not do this to us or anyone else. If you do not comply with our demands for your obedience we can also give rights that you don't have to men in costumes wearing badges. These men can go into your home, point a gun at you, and lock you in a cage against your will if you do not comply with what we have declared to be 'law'. Furthermore, if you have a child on land which we have declared to be under our rule, we will do the same things to coerce them. We will declare the newborns and infants to have entered into a 'social contract' by being born on this land. If they wish to leave this land we will force them to contract with us for the papers which we claim provide the privilege to do this. None of this could be enforced without the use of violence. In fact, you can't force anyone to do anything without some form of violence or the threat of violence.","conclusion":"Support of government is the support of violence."}
{"id":"e59404fd-0000-45f1-b6bb-f079daa6b1d5","argument":"Disclaimer I am a Canadian, but regularly visit the U.S. I have no problem with food service workers and regularly tip 15 20 at restaurants. I recently found out that Canadian waitresses waiters make a little under minimum wage hourly, about 8 9 hour. This surprised me, because I know that in the U.S they only make about 3 hour significantly less even after accounting for the currency difference and are expected to make at least minimum wage after tips. Despite this, tipping standards seem to be the same in Canada and the U.S, somewhere around 15 20 . I've even heard one of my canadian waitress friends say that a customer is an asshole for tipping anything less than 15 So does that mean she expects to make like 20 25 hour? That seems really excessive for unskilled work. I don't see why the tipping standard is so high in Canada and I think it should change. Some might try to chalk it up to Canada just having a better economy wages but that doesn't seem to be the case. In virtually all other forms of unskilled work customer service retail, manual labour, etc. , wages are very similar between Canada and the U.S. Waitresses waiters seem to be the exception for some reason.","conclusion":"Since Canadian waiters\/waitresses make more per hour than American ones, Canadian tipping standards should not be the same as the U.S"}
{"id":"f15b8a26-d9bd-410a-8df0-4982db1f32df","argument":"The EU treaties include the Charter of Fundamental Rights, enforced by an independent multi-national court accessible to all citizens and residents.","conclusion":"Brexit presents a risk for the civil society and social structure of the UK."}
{"id":"6a7ec628-b082-4376-8047-2f01eca687b6","argument":"kant thought that at first a government may need to compel many people not to violate the rights of their fellows; but over time, as citizens come to understand the benefits of freedom, most will respect rights not because they are compelled to do so but because they believe this is the right thing to do, both morally and practically.","conclusion":"The categorical imperative can work on an individual level, but when applied to a society, it fails. The people would use Eichmann as a means to an end, and Eichmann would act out the collective will rather than his own. This function is necessary for the categorical imperative to be applied to government.libertarianism.org"}
{"id":"39c94662-34ca-4d44-86c9-06eb2418abd1","argument":"If life started outside our world, it is consequential that there is life outside planet earth, or at least has been, be it on planets or asteroids and comets traveling through the universe.","conclusion":"It is hard to imagine that life began away from Earth, was transported there - and ceased to exist in other places."}
{"id":"248d3df4-3f3e-4d22-8826-0ad705fc9fbc","argument":"Music streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music have been rising in popularity over the past few years for a variety of reasons. For a small fee each month, users have access to thousands and thousands of songs and can listen to each one without having to pay more. Instead of purchasing a single album by a single artist for around 10 or 15, that same amount can give you access to thousands of albums by different artists. You have the ability to hear full versions of songs without having to pay for them individually as it is included in your monthly description. Overall, your money goes further on a music streaming platform. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Paying for a subscription to a music streaming platform is better than purchasing and owning music."}
{"id":"15e221df-ff49-4b1a-9c5b-34fbefb08508","argument":"I feel that recently, politics has become regressive because of buzzwords, virtue signaling, gross fact and statistic misuse, and the shutdown of debate I'm sure you know who I'm talking about. They're usually young people, who don't know a lot about politics or how to honestly read data, and they go by the common moniker of SJW by those who oppose them. I don't feel that these people are necessarily stupid instead, they're young, misinformed but well meaning people It's not hard to find one of these people online. Common content producers include Laci Green, Francesca Ramsey, or con artists like Anita Sarkeesian. I'm not deriding them for trying to advance a progressive agenda. They have every right to talk about their beliefs. I'm just annoyed by the fact that their arguments often use strawmans, ad hominem attacks, horrible statistics like the 1 4 rape claim or the 77 cents pay that have been proven to be false or interpreted in a way to make it sound worse than it actually is. It's appalling to me that more people don't call out their bullshit for what it is, and it influences young people who might not know any better. It creates an echo chamber that further radicalizes them, to the point where they combine people who don't fall in their ideological camp and those people's policies into one conglomerated ball of hate Furthermore, to disagree with one gets political buzzwords like racist, Islamophobe, and sexist thrown at you. When I used to be a Muslim, people would even go as far as to tell me I was just the product of internalized oppression and that Muslims were oppressed, and because I'm a POC I couldn't possibly be racist. The arguments are almost never centered in reality, and any validity to be relayed gets destroyed because of terrible communication. BLM had that exact problem when your movement is headless and attacks anything in it's proximity, nothing in it's proximity will support it. The reason I put such an emphasis on facts and details is because it's the only way to keep objectivity in politics. Whether a country wants socialist or capitalist policies, whether a cop committed a crime or not. It's the only way to break something down into a way that everyone can follow. To state these things is not inherently discriminatory, yet because it doesn't fit their agenda, their defense is to ridicule it as prejudiced. It's becoming more difficult for me to actually find someone who will discuss these things in a calm and composed manner without calling me seven different names every goddamn 3 seconds To clarify I have nothing against specifically progressive policies. I have no qualms with Sanders. I don't agree with his policy, but he makes reasonable claims that can be backed up. I still admire his dedication for his platform and the truth he tries to bring to his supporters. And I realize that there are conservatives who do this too. This is not matter of right or left for me. It's the issue of traditionally American freedoms being suppressed and it truly bothers me Why does this matter? Well, I feel that right now, it might not be a big issue. But these people are going to grow older and enter politics and become the status quo, and with misinformed voters that are easily swayed without knowing all the facts, might actually vote in harmful policies, and because they'll be the majority, will simply override more informed voters. I believe that this country will be screwed later, and as a younger person, it makes me fearful","conclusion":"American politics are becoming clouded by progressives with incorrect claims and shutting down of honest discussion"}
{"id":"b9e47d4f-b7e9-4f2a-9bf2-77ef60f43b22","argument":"Dams can open and close to regulate river flows and avoid natural flooding. This protects wildlife and vegetation alike.","conclusion":"Dams provide flood control that can protect wildlife and habitats."}
{"id":"69930033-2bcb-4ea8-8089-6d619564efb2","argument":"Often it is in the first seconds of an emergency where everyone is running around confused that most lives can be saved. Waiting to be 100% convinced may lead to the death of many innocent.","conclusion":"It could be that the view is not good enough or the danger not easily recognizable."}
{"id":"f7da512b-1d10-4f3d-a783-3b085788796f","argument":"From \u201cThe Question of Abortion A Search for Answers\u201d by Carl Sagan Ann Druyan By placing harmless electrodes on a subject's head, scientists can measure the electrical activity produced by the network of neurons inside the skull. Different kinds of mental activity show different kinds of brain waves. But brain waves with regular patterns typical of adult human brains do not appear in the fetus until about the 30th week of pregnancy near the beginning of the third trimester. Fetuses younger than this however alive and active they may be lack the necessary brain architecture. They cannot yet think. Acquiescing in the killing of any living creature, especially one that might later become a baby, is troublesome and painful. But we've rejected the extremes of always and never, and this puts us like it or not on the slippery slope. If we are forced to choose a developmental criterion, then this is where we draw the line when the beginning of characteristically human thinking becomes barely possible. It is, in fact, a very conservative definition Regular brain waves are rarely found in fetuses. More research would help\u2026 If we wanted to make the criterion still more stringent, to allow for occasional precocious fetal brain development, we might draw the line at six months. From the way I see it, there is no real right to life , just human life . I would argue that no other organism that has ever lived on this planet has cause more death and destruction upon other living organisms including of its own species than human beings. Our species is not in a position to talk about the sanctity of life . With that being said, we dont give a right to life to any other species except our own. Any rights that any animal has, it has been given to it by us, becuse intrinsically they had no rights. We dont seem to care about the systematic slaughter of sentient beings with emotions, a desire to live, feelings, thought, and consciousness like cows, sheep, chickens, and other livestock. We acknowledge that these beings are indeed alive and thinking, but we do not care about their thoughts and feelings enough to spare their lives because the food that they provide tastes good and provides nutrition. Why do we not mind killing these animals? The study of phylogeny shows that all life on Earth can be traced to a common ancestor. This basically means that despite the obvious differences between different species of animals such as body structure, DNA, or other traits, all living organisms are essentially the same carbon based lifefroms that must metabolise in order to grow and live. What distinguishes humans from the rest of the animals is human thought, and we do not mind killing other animals because they do not exhibit human thought, or any thought that is human like . Brainwaves are usually not able to be detected in fetuses, even after it has been born. However, at the 30 week mark, the fetus begins to devlop the capacity to have a thought, becuase that is when the first signs of a brain show up. Notice that the fetus has not yet had a thought and is incapable of thought, but has the necessary structure to be able to have a thought at the 30 week mark. Surely the fetus is a living being, and before 30 weeks it can even respond to stimuli. But it cannot experience anything, because in order to experience anything, one must have the organ that processes all life experiences, which is the brain. Without the brain, the fetus cannot experience life, and therefore cannot experience pain and death. Those experiences can only happen to beings who have the capacity to have any expereinces in the first place. It can surely die, of course, but it would have no expereince of death because it never experienced living, even though it is technically alive. To put it in a question If you were born without a brain, and had your body kept alive via artificial means, would you be able to differentiate between that and not existing at all? Some might find an abortion this late in the pregnancy to be immoral. I fail to see why, we kill things that have similar traits to fetuses before the 30 week mark all the time. Hell, we even kill things that have more traits that human fetuses, like beings with consciousness and thought. Before the 30 week mark, the fetus has not ever had a thought, and has not even developed the organs necessary to be able to have the capacity to have a thought. Without a brain, one cannot experience anything about life, including pain, pleasure, and death. Therefore, since a fetus before the 30 week mark cannot have the capacity to be able to experience pain and death, it is not immoral to abort a fetus before this point. Note that unconcious people, people in temporary comas, and the mentally handicapped are not excluded from the right to life on this definition. Unconcoius people still have the organ necessary to have the capacity to think, but just cannot do so at that moment. That also goes for people in temporary comas. The mentally handicapped have at least fragments of the organs necessary to be able to have the capacity to have a thought, similarly how the fetus at the 30 week mark barely has a brain.","conclusion":"I do not think that abortion before the beginning of the third trimester 30 week is immoral."}
{"id":"101a11b7-d4b8-47aa-bdd9-e5447e2ea69c","argument":"Obviously the Summer Olympics can be held at one venue, and the Winter Olympics can be held at another, but here are my reasons Every four years, the country that is selected to host the Olympics spends billions building new venues and stadiums and the like. Essentially, billions worth of new venues are built to only be used for a few weeks at a time, and then once the Olympics are over, never to be used again. Or, they may be used every once in a while for competition, but not very much. Every once in a while I find a new article on the Internet detailing the fact that some previous Olympic venue has been sitting unused or abandoned for long periods of time. This seems to me to be a monstrous waste of resources, land, and money. It would be so much more efficient to have a designated location for the Olympics to be held. In one location, every four years, indefinitely. Now, I do understand that countries that get to host the Olympics benefit hugely from tourism and all of the television coverage. That is part of the reason why the Olympics are always held in a different place. However, to prevent further waste of resources, land, and money, I think that all future Olympics should be held in the same place every four years. EDIT I am sorry I could not respond to all of the comments, but my view has been changed as a result of parts of every single comment.","conclusion":"I believe all future Olympics should be held at the same venue."}
{"id":"17525642-4561-4266-8a98-a1d81295b60d","argument":"The only thing that such nationalism accomplishes is xenophobia. The more you break the world down into Us and Them , the more you're willing to ignore or outright harm Them for the sake of Us . Since we're all people, and deserve the best life possible regardless of if we're born in Tulsa or Baghdad, exceptionalism can only stand in the way of that. I've always thought that to be a no brainer, and I'm a bit surprised, or at least dismayed, that so many people have had negative reactions to what he said.","conclusion":"I believe Putin was right, it is dangerous to encourage a people to think of themselves as exceptional."}
{"id":"b78df4a1-8877-4d2c-b0bc-456b25a6f782","argument":"In countries with a punitive justice system rather than a rehabilitative one, criminals supposedly receive punishments proportional to their crimes. In that case, once they\u2019ve served their sentence then the moral \u201cdebt\u201d is paid back. It follows that committing a crime doesn\u2019t mean working against society it means working within a system society has built. To clarify, I don\u2019t think that most crime is justifiable, nor does this make it up to the victims. I just think it\u2019s hypocritical to treat criminals as outsiders or to take away voting rights for a debt they\u2019ve already paid back. This obviously falls apart outside of a retributive system. Change my view? All this feels really counterintuitive even though some of the conclusions I\u2019ve drawn from this match up to reality.","conclusion":"Crime is a Legitimate Transaction"}
{"id":"364ed7fa-7b97-4749-a515-2eeec05517c0","argument":"It makes no sense that those who are voted in to serve 4-year terms can appoint multiple justices who serve lifetime tenures, far past the political landscape they were appointed in.","conclusion":"It is unjust and undemocratic for a group of people to hold onto immense power for so long."}
{"id":"f3679c91-91af-4254-99d6-0f7bef47101a","argument":"Trascendence and trascendental arguments about non mundane nor verifiable concepts bring to not measurable hypothesis, nor reliable ones, therefore it cannot be verified, if it cannot be verified is not scientific, if is not scientific it cannot be use against a scientifically and empirically proven statement.","conclusion":"This rests on a reductionist presupposition that everything to be determined is observable in the physical and natural world, begging the question against transcendence."}
{"id":"6dc68394-7138-401d-a249-40e49aedec91","argument":"I keep hearing about how Bernie Sanders wants to make college tuition free and I can't really vouch for that because of several reasons. The biggest kink in our education system is not the jump from high school to college but from middle school to high school. 20 of kids fail out of high school and it's more like 30 with African American and Hispanic kids. When you consider limited standard English speaking students graduate at 60 , those kids from households that speak AAVE or Spanish are doubly screwed. No wonder Bernie hasn't done great with the African American demo. Bernie is helping the middle income people get great educations when he really should be helping low income people finish their education in the first place. It's not like a college education is important for those blue collar jobs we are in dire need of. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying college educations aren't important but getting as many people through high school and maybe get vocational education after seems way more important. I always hear people talking about Europe and all the places there that get free tuition but Ireland has medical schools for people straight out of high school. Seeing more high school grad rates and then getting a robust professional, vocational and apprenticing system is how we fill the blue collar job hole that our migrant legal and not population have been gladly snapping up. Imagine a country filled not just of educated engineers and artists but expert plumbers and highly qualified construction workers. High school is just way more important then college in my opinion. Edit I'm sorry I pissed 2 of you guys off. It's a shame because I was really enjoying reading all your arguments. In the end, I realized that in the long term, if college's student output is based on the demands of the industry, it would be producing workers tuned to what is needed given a few years to react . High schools can't react to demand the same way so they'd be just as likely to oversupply causing a job crisis as they are undersupplying. It'd benefit the low income family with improved chances of education but if anything close to 100 of students graduated, there would probably be a critically low job market.","conclusion":"Free college tuition is not going to help where it's needed."}
{"id":"a26b0c59-a711-4dd2-83d1-16bf323c1f6e","argument":"Religions provide an understanding of reality that is by nature further from the truth than that uncovered by scientific method. Human actions based on perceptions further from the truth yields worse results in areas such as medicine, engineering and restricts important perspectives on ourselves and our place in the universe e.g. timescale, evolution, our importance.","conclusion":"Religions set a bad precedent that applies outside religion, that it's okay to believe: That we don't need evidence and logic to draw conclusions."}
{"id":"5e0c1deb-96b5-4b9b-9a94-baeccc2ecdee","argument":"Plato argued that the soul is immortal It exists prior to and past the existence of one's physical body. Upon one's death, the soul sets up house in another body.","conclusion":"Even if it could be demonstrated that souls existed, and continued to exist after death, this would not be sufficient to prove the existence of an afterlife."}
{"id":"ceaacb3b-20da-4cfa-83b8-06efce99f638","argument":"Brexit makes no sense for Northern Ireland whose border with the Republic of Ireland has over 300 crossing points by road. Furthermore, ignoring farms that cross the border would make a hard land border unenforceable.","conclusion":"It has a major negative impact on all areas of the UK, including Scotland and Ireland."}
{"id":"58f8a211-1636-4587-af3e-0677ec75455e","argument":"The marksmanship tests that local police must pass yearly in order to qualify to carry their gun should be a sufficient requirement. As well as at least some level of initial training so that they know what to do from a tactical perspective should they find themselves in an active shooter situation.","conclusion":"A lot more needs to go into it than just volunteering. They would have to commit to keeping up both skill sets at an expected level."}
{"id":"b5532084-388a-4cfa-915c-71ddb38c5dc2","argument":"In my opinion Remembrance Day is a glorification of soldiers, largely in ww1 Those brace few the greatest sacrifice they made etc. Which is problematic as war should not be romanticised as that can quickly lead to more war. The poppy movement, although well meant, is now more of a cult. Buying and wearing a poppy is seen as mandatory. All public institutions observe the 2 min silence. Political figures are chastised for not reacting in the way they are supposed to. This leads to a culture where questioning and disagreeing are not tolerated I am aware the white poppy movement is growing, but it is still controversial Finally the entire event is a little hypocritical the whole point is to remember the dead, and more importantly the chain of events that lead to their deaths. However I hear on the radio, posters adverts, and social media people saying things like they died so we can live in a free world . When afaik this is not why they died. Austrian and German imperial ambitions were gearing up, along with uk French and Dutch, largely in Africa and the Middle East. There was an arms race which we were leading. The whole thing was about power. There were no enemies every nation was as bad as each other. It was a pointless war which we the uk had a big part in starting, but rather than own up to that we tell everyone to never forget .","conclusion":"Remembrance Day has either got way out of hand or has been a successful cover up for the horrors of war. U.K. Focus"}
{"id":"3cf5660c-d41f-4e55-93d1-0a71ba57ce0f","argument":"This isn't some deeply held belief of mine, but something I've been thinking about the last few days. In my country, going to university costs \u20ac500 maximum, I only paid \u20ac90 in tuition and the costs of books can be covered by a government grant as was the case in my situation . In other countries, higher education is a lot more expensive, but from what I gather getting a student loan isn't outrageously hard in the US and even if you kinda sorta wanted to go to college, you'd be able to do it. Since higher education is so easily accessible, it becomes a requirement for anyone who is somewhat intelligent and wants to get a job at their level of capability and challenge. The result of this is that universities are filled with people who just want to get a degree in order to maximize future income. And even accounting for the higher than normal unemployment in educated young people, it still does a decent job at this. My problem with this situation is two fold. For a lot of jobs, you don't learn anything that is directly applicable to that job in college university, especially if you get a Bachelor of Science in the humanities. Someone who studies Psychology can end up in a Human Resource department where the biggest part of the skills they build up during an education becomes useless or at least less useful. While I've never done a Human Resource job, I'm sure that anyone who manages to get a Bachelor of Science in Psychology would be able to figure out how to do the job well at an entry level position with a couple of months of on the job training. Related to the above, a lot of jobs can be learned in less time than higher education takes. In order to learn how to program or how to deal with homeless people, you don't need 3 years of college university in computer science or sociology to do your job well. For some jobs, you'd need about a year of training, for others a couple of weeks and for still others pretty much nothing . And still, all those jobs currently require people putting 3 years of their life into something they're not always that interested in. On top of that, I think job training could often be easily provided by the employer and requiring a non specific^1 degree for a job basically means the government or whoever ends up paying for the education subsidizes the business. This situation would be less if an employer couldn't reasonably expect a higher education from prospective employees. If less people had degrees, people would still need people doing administrative tasks or need bank tellers both of which require higher education where I live and those tasks would be filled in by people with enough intelligence and no degree. I'm not saying to abolish higher education. There are professions that can't really do on the job training without being dangerous and we'd still want and need scientists or people who professionally think about art and philosophy. All I'm saying that if we limit the accessibility of higher education, this wouldn't cause the modern world to collapse and would even make people happier and more productive. I'm not sure how my view could be changed, but I'm reasonably sure it can be changed. I don't think it could be changed by appealing to certain mechanics of restricting access^2, by pointing out the value of learning itself^3 or by looking at the social bonds people acquire in college at university^4. The reason I want my view changed is partly because I don't want to live in a world that can't solve these cooperation problems I'd rather believe that higher education for everyone serves an actual purpose I missed , but also in part because I think this is a minority opinion. While the majority isn't always right, minority opinions by people who don't have specialized knowledge often turn out wrong for silly reasons. I don't have specialized knowledge of economics and education, so I probably missed something or made a bad assumption. Have at it. Change my view. ^ 1 I understand why engineers and doctors need their education. ^ 2 For example, you could argue that raising the cost of higher education would be classism and further enforce the inequalities that already exist. While this would be true, raising the cost is not the only mechanic that would be feasible to to restrict access. ^ 3 I do think learning is important and despite the lack of practical things I learned from my degree, I still enjoy some of the things I learned. I just don't think that a higher education is the only, or even best, place to learn that stuff. ^ 4 Humans are social animals. People who would have made friends in college, would make friends elsewhere.","conclusion":"It wouldn't be a bad thing if higher education was less accessible."}
{"id":"7f9e1848-f43f-46af-bc5a-9314364c1c68","argument":"This includes prostitution, drugs, abortions, etc. I think that we have our bodies and we should be able to do anything we want with them, even if that means trashing them. I think that is just basic freedom. I don't think that anyone should be in jail or facing charges about previously mentioned things. As long as you don't do any harm to anyone else, of course. Profiting of these things if not taxed is a different story and should be punished accordingly. In conclusion, I think that you should be able to do anything what you want with yourself, as long it does not have an impact on other people around you. We have evolved enough to manage our lives without anyone telling us what we are not allowed to do. We can make our own decisions, what's best for us in a situation we might be in. I am open to discussion, will reply to anyone about this. Maybe not immediately, because of other things to do. EDIT 1 You all made me change my mind about abortions. It really is a difficult topic to talk about and it is a bit different and don't really fit with the other two. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"You should be able to do whatever you want with your body"}
{"id":"aa746af3-6743-4685-8852-2187686187f6","argument":"4d ultrasound technology can show detailed images of babies in the womb. From 12 weeks onward babies can be seen smiling, crying, walking, sucking their thumb, stretching and yawing. These images, which show babies acting like human beings, demonstrate why late stage abortion is wrong.","conclusion":"Late stage abortions are particularly ethically problematic, because the baby would likely have survived if it was born immediately."}
{"id":"09ff9362-616c-41af-b812-ca9f17d24c33","argument":"I want to preface by saying I'm an atheist and consider all religions equally bad. There's no reason to single out Islam, when all religions are responsible for heinous acts. Every religion has its violent extremists, so why talk about Islam specifically unless you have another agenda? Just look at the KKK, the IRA, Israel's genocide of the Palestinaians, the Iraq war, drone strikes murdering children, etc. Christians and Jews have been just as violent, if not more than Islam, yet somehow every Muslim has been stereotyped a terrorist because of people like Sam Harris. I truly believe Sam Harris' criticisms of Islam is rooted in anti Arab sentiments, and it's not Islam he dislikes, it's just brown people","conclusion":"I believe Sam Harris is a racist for singling out Islam in his criticism of religion"}
{"id":"1a68b83c-3d7d-4f12-a126-428c1428b2da","argument":"Regardless of whether prostitution itself is moral or not, most other moral rules that society follows are relatively good guide of behaviour and are worth enforcing.","conclusion":"If prostitution is immoral, then knowing one of your parents is a prostitute will make you more sympathetic to other immoral acts."}
{"id":"1ea959b2-5695-4a37-88bc-824e13db2971","argument":"I don\u2019t have a PhD in psychology, so I don\u2019t claim to know everything about psychology that there is. However, the Internet is just an amazing source of information, and I\u2019ve found so much information about psychology to the point that I understand so much about why I think I do and why I behave the way I do. But I don\u2019t find that fulfilling at all I find it depressing and I regret doing all that research. Every time I\u2019m in a social situation, I\u2019m hyperaware and I analyze my behavior and others\u2019 behaviors to the point that it\u2019s difficult for me to believe that people can think for themselves and that they are not HEAVILY influenced by their genes and how they were raised, which I find depressing. Here are some examples Evolution suggests that people enjoy sex since we have a biological instinct to reproduce. Because I now know this, I can no longer view love making in the na\u00efve way that I once did I now view it as a primal urge. As a young child before having any formal knowledge about psychology, evolution, etc. , I loved music. I listened to it, played instruments, talked to others about musical artists, etc. But now I view music in a more cynical way. I think of it as a drug as something that humans have evolved to like. Because of this, whenever I listen to music, I find it less enjoyable because I feel as though my liking for music is less real and that I only do it because I've been biologically wired to. I've always had an interest in politics and philosophy. I used to love talking to others about their opinions on certain issues. But now, whenever I want to have an opinion on something, I always question myself. For instance, whenever I find another user on Reddit who agrees with me on a certain issue, instead of feeling confident, I always ask myself questions such as, Wait, am I reading this onlu because it already confirms what I believe? Am I committing confirmation bias? What if I'm agreeing with what people on this subreddit say only because I want to conform to them? Are we all committing groupthink? Am I agreeing with this position only because I have a gene that makes me predisposed to wanting to think this way? This kind of thinking has led me to believe that I'm not actually in control of my opinions, and that evolutionary psychology has just led me to believe the things that I believe, which I find depressing. I\u2019ve noticed that there are many people on Reddit who have trouble finding a sexual partner. They often ask for advice on social skills, and one of the most common answers is that the content of what you\u2019re saying doesn\u2019t matter what matters more is the confidence of your tone. From observing other people taking this advice, I\u2019ve found that confidence is an extremely attractive feature. But that doesn\u2019t make me happy. It makes me sad that people can easily manipulate others by just acting confidently while not actually caring about what they are saying. This doesn\u2019t pertain only to sexual relationships. Our knowledge about psychology has also given us the ability to manipulate others, which I find depressing. THIS VERY POST is an example of evolutionary psychology. My biological urge to conform is so strong that even when I know what I\u2019m saying is mostly true at least I think it is , I want my view to be changed so I can just live like others without having to constantly question all of my beliefs and behaviors. To me, it seems like our evolutionary instincts and the idea that we should question ourselves are diametrically opposed. Some people claim that it's a great thing that humans are more progressed than other species. But I don't even know if that's true. Why do we think we are more progressed? Only because we are intelligent? Think about this less conscious animals like cats don't have the type of intelligence to question their own lives they just eat, purr, and sleep. They always seem to be happy, and as far as I'm aware, they could never suffer from something like depression. And if they do, then I doubt it could be as severe as human depression since humans have the cognitive ability to question their own beliefs and behavior, which can in turn make them even more depressed. What I'm thinking here truly gives meaning to the phrase ignorance is bliss. Think about all the good times you had when you were a child. We were so ignorant then, and I theorize that that's because we weren't as conscious or self aware. We just did things without questioning them. I also theorize that, before much research was done in evolution and psychology, people were or rather, if it weren\u2019t for slavery, religious persecution, war, etc., would have been generally more happy. But I think that our society\u2019s obsession with questioning everything does us more harm than good. We can no longer be blissfully content. Everything can now be analyzed. One last thing I suspect that one of the responses will be \u201cResearch in evolutionary psychology is a good thing because we now know how to treat people with mental illnesses like depression.\u201d But my argument is that it is that very research that has influenced people to be depressed in the first place Tl dr Society\u2019s obsession with learning more about the evolutionary basis of human thought and behavior actually goes against the whole idea of evolution, i.e., humans have evolved to not want to know more about their own nature they would rather be blissfully content.","conclusion":"Research in evolutionary psychology is self-defeating. It attempts to help people stop behaving in unhealthy ways, but the very idea of gathering more information about the origins of that unhealthy behavior makes it more likely for those individuals to continue behaving in unhealthy ways."}
{"id":"cfb7923f-ce6a-4960-b237-18e8420d5eb9","argument":"Brexit MPs have been reported to issue comments that back the death penalty. This is a problematic stance, given that capital punishment has already been abolished in the UK.","conclusion":"The Brexit party's MPs have questionable views on many important social issues."}
{"id":"9abe7749-d50f-4c8a-ae0a-0dc74e22f008","argument":"There is no free will is effectively the same as saying that a person's choice can be calculated. Since this is currently impossible, there is free will.","conclusion":"Since people's actions cannot be anticipated, free will de facto exists. It may not exist philosophically or physically."}
{"id":"3439f84c-1b3b-4a64-b90b-afdb9f51718b","argument":"While I do believe thought experiments serve a fundamental purpose in hypothesizing future events or things in the world that don't currently exist, I find when they are used for no apparent reason, they are an active attempt to shift focus away from key points in an argument. I've been keeping this in the back of my mind and have noticed these thought experiments seem to pop up more often though it may be my own bias creeping in when an argument on its face is hypocritical, dehumanizing, irrational or impractical. So then it seems to be but WAIT what if spin imaginary scenario. NOW it's not crazy, hey? I don't want to claim to be versed in all arguments everywhere, so there may be some that I'm missing, but so far when these come up in discussions I'm taking them as big red flags and forcing people I talk with to come back to the discussion without the need to take it into another dimension. I'd be interested to see a thought experiment that is more credible than a stance elaborated on without that need or a view that is seemingly strengthened by a universal thought experiment.","conclusion":"The need for \"thought experiments\" is inversely proportional to an argument's strength when the need for a \"thought experiment\" is not necessary."}
{"id":"64cb6778-3147-4596-998d-b3331b8d17e8","argument":"This is a video from Vlogbrothers on youtube and after hearing a lot of Healthcare debates I really thought this one stands above the rest. Here is the link I think it would work because it would create enough competition for prices to go down and the Healthcare companies would need to make money so naturally the prices would go lower. Can anybody point out any flaws in this video? Thank you very much to whoever can and thanks to anybody for responding.","conclusion":"I think that this Healthcare system would work. link of what I am talking about in description"}
{"id":"fcc062c8-f895-4c96-bc1e-ef6c1ebb52d5","argument":"Approximately 80 of reported motorcycle crashes result in injury or death a comparable figure for automobiles is about 20 percent. Fines and other punishment are used to deter motorists from driving unsafely. But the outcomes are very different between an automobile driving unsafely and a motorcyclist violating the same traffic law. While a collision between an automobile and motorcycle often ends much worse for the motorcyclist, the automobile driver must still deal with the trauma of having killed or seriously injured someone. Motorcyclists should know that they are taking a higher risk to their own safety than automobile drivers. They choose to take this risk and that choice can have a devastating effect on the drivers around them, especially if they choose to violate traffic laws. Since the risk to all parties are greater when one party has a motorcycle, I believe more should be done to specifically deter motorcyclists from driving unsafely. Incidents such as illegal U turns, fender benders, etc are much more dangerous when motorcyclists are involved. They should be driving even more carefully than an automobile driver, especially since them driving unsafely have a much greater impact. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Motorcyclists and bicyclists should be face harsher consequences than automobile drivers for the same traffic offenses."}
{"id":"5e7185dd-3d62-4e71-ae83-7425c4b1ccad","argument":"When special needs students are allowed to be taught in a separate classroom at a slower pace and with materials at their level, they are able to learn more of needed content.","conclusion":"Co-teaching does not meet the needs of most special education students."}
{"id":"cfe66e95-55e5-493f-9711-3ccf75dc6669","argument":"When people say he's the best or one of the best they never take into account that many people have a better range than Mercury. I think he's overrated and he has a harsh tone. Take this as an example. It sounds like a screech. I think people confuse the catchy showtune songs by Queen with a great voice when they are two completely different things. Having a catchy song doesn't make you a great singer. So given that, why is he praised as the best singer?","conclusion":"I think Freddie Mercury is an overrated singer and doesn't deserve to be known his status as a singing God."}
{"id":"31690104-f6b0-4e8b-8d64-bd696ff74915","argument":"There are much more important things to use the tax money on then abortion. Like getting immigrants integrated and getting more teachers Qualified for school.","conclusion":"Planned Parenthood supports abortions. This should not be funded by the government."}
{"id":"cd03a5e2-0f83-431e-af28-5d1364af31ff","argument":"Worker-owned factories and workplaces place the means of affecting meaningful change in the hands of those more likely to be directly effected by climate change, causing it to be less of an externality.","conclusion":"A socialist economy is better able to address long term issues, such as climate change"}
{"id":"a5f5c7b0-617a-4725-bfb5-b2094065cfc8","argument":"This covers a few topics. If a woman who is pregnant wants to get an abortion, she should be able to get an abortion without people demonizing her. A woman should be able to get an abortion WITHOUT notifying her rapist if she became pregnant because of the rape. If a woman gives consent under the influence of alcohol, it is not consent. A woman should be able to speak freely about being sexually assaulted without being ridiculed or shamed. A woman should be comfortable in the presence of law enforcement without the fear of being sexually assaulted. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"A woman should have a right to her own body"}
{"id":"3b4d7abb-451d-4d5e-9544-4296374a99b5","argument":"When a lot of people think of great cartoons, they think of Looney Toons or even Spongebob. The problem is that while these cartoons are good, they're neither artistic nor educational. They don't push boundaries or take risks. They're really safe. If All in the Family is one of the best television shows that takes on lots of tough issues with comedic grace, then Hey Arnold is the equivalent of that in the cartoon world. Especially compared to post millennial cartoons which have been quite sterile. The best thing about cartoons is watching them as a kid and having fun with them. But then re watching them as an adult and understanding a whole new context of it. Sure, some cartoons might have a suggestive joke or two but the really dark themes of it come to light the older you get. For a kids show that never gets too preachy, it tackles some tough shit. Arnold deals with the absence of his parents. Hyunh was separated from his young daughter in Vietnam. Sid has OCD and other mental illnesses. Helga's family is dysfunctional Miriam is an alcoholic miserable with Bob Olga is burdened to be a perfectionist and so many more things. Much like the real world, Hey Arnold admits that there's done of disparities and inequalities. There's poorer and richer. There's classy and there's unrefined. There's charismatic people and there's socially awkward losers. There's attractive and unattractive people shorter and taller people fatter and skinnier people. Bullying and unrequited love. This show doesn't glorify these things in anyway, but shows awareness to these things. This, after all is set in NYC, a city of success and failure. A city of luxury and of crime. And the show is full of characters with deep personalities. Nearly every recurring character was able to get an episode or two purely focused toward them. Even the butcher. Also, the show has a really unique way of putting the viewers through the perspective of the characters. For example, there's a reason why the fourth graders are pint sized and the fifth graders look like hulking college kids. Because at that age, there's genuinely a reverance toward higher grades. Of course until you get in that grade and realize it wasn't as much of a big jump as you thought. Anyway, I explained some of the show's many merits. I can get into detail, but I'm also willing to contend with some criticism too. Lay it on me. But overall, if I had to give a child a DVD's of a television show that will prepare them for all of the problems they're gonna face in their teenhood and life in general, Hey Arnold would be it.","conclusion":"Hey Arnold is one of the greatest cartoons of all time."}
{"id":"89f7e2e8-9814-406c-818f-941fdb046b0f","argument":"I wish I could say I feel bad for having this view, but I really don't. I'm aware that I am fortunate for being born in the US. I'm aware that it is nothing but good luck that I live above the poverty line. It is for this reason that I don't feel better than those who are impoverished, but that I simply feel they are a burden on the development of humanity as a whole. In barely developed cultures Remote island societies, Africa, etc it seems that they were destined to be wiped out long ago, yet due to our interventions, they are struggling on, facing one disease after another. Their lives are plagued by poverty, excessive violence, and no hope of education whatsoever. I can't help but feel that all the relief efforts, though honorable, are in vein, and would be much more practical in developed societies. This feeling isn't limited to foreign nations. I live in the suburbs of a once proud US city that has maintained a horrible reputation for half a decade now. I constantly see people wasting their lives away, spending millions if not billions of taxpayer dollars and just leeching away at the city and those who are working for a better world. I feel that we should cease supporting societies that have fallen too far behind in the world and that they should be left to their own devices. Whatever happens, happens. Tl dr Leeches, dirt poor societies, and otherwise doomed nations should be left to their own devices and stop wasting the rest of the world's resources.","conclusion":"I believe that all efforts to aid 3rd world nations and heavily impoverished areas is a waste of resources."}
{"id":"7173b15f-713f-4e1b-bb99-ba4e71810004","argument":"Unless a child has a medical condition that makes vaccines harmful to them, every single child should get every possible vaccination, whether or not the parents consent. Parents who intentionally withhold vaccines should have their children taken away for it, and the parents of children who acquire preventable illnessses due to their antivaxx opinions should be charged with crimes, up to manslaughter if the child dies. Parents shouldnt be allowed to endanger innocent children and all of society because doctors should do their research and use essential oils instead or some other 12th century bullshit. If someone themself chooses not to be vaccinated personally, oh well I guess, free will and all that, but parents shouldnt be legally allowed to recklessly endanger their children and other children by compromising herd immunity.","conclusion":"The government should require ALL children to get EVERY vaccination unless there is a legitimate medical reason to not do so; antivax parents should have their kids taken away; antivax parents who end up with disabled\/dead kids should be charged as criminals"}
{"id":"bb689e27-f9f2-41b6-8a62-74b2056781e7","argument":"Just for context, I live in macau, where one of our specialties is the egg tart custard cupped in a flaky tart crust. Croissants can often have this texture, but I can\u2019t think of names of other things with this texture. Now, this is what sets me off solid crusts? Wonderful. Soft crust is fine by me. But flaky? What is its purpose? Here\u2019s a couple problems. One mouthfeel is uncomfortable. There\u2019s no describable consistently other than maybe the feeling of shredded paper in your mouth. Two it\u2019s messy. So messy. It gets fucking everywhere, both over the surrounding area and in cracks and crevices in your mouth before they either dissolve or disappear into the nether. Three it doesn\u2019t even provide structural integrity. That shit doesn\u2019t stay together under pressure. It\u2019s not the best of soft and the best of hard it\u2019s the worst of both worlds you try to cut it, it just ends up squishing and falling apart. Change my view.","conclusion":"Flaky pastries are terrible"}
{"id":"cafbe516-356d-4d31-86a0-caa6526ddaef","argument":"Enabling people to choose how and when they will die is likely to better their mental health during their lives, as this allows for a feeling of control and a deeper understanding of the impact of death on themselves and their loved ones.","conclusion":"It is central to personal autonomy and bodily integrity that each person is able to embrace a timely and dignified death on their own terms."}
{"id":"205c01d6-1aa0-4bb1-bab6-0ec6185cb308","argument":"Those who are unable to find work because their labor's market value is under the minimum wage are forced to be a drain. This takes away from the productivity that they may otherwise offer.","conclusion":"Workers unable to avail minimum standards of living are a drain on the economy."}
{"id":"a6f547d1-7bf6-4b73-a45c-03e0746e1425","argument":"People often complain about the high cost of medicine and blame the fact that if a company holds a patent and is able to charge what they want for the drug. However, the process of developing new drugs is very expensive. In order to create new drugs, companies have to invest a large amount of time and money into research and development for these drugs and a lot of the time all of this effort fails to produce a new product. If a company didn\u2019t have a patent on a particular drug, another company could often develop a cheap generic to undercut the company that developed the good and thus remove incentive for them to do so again. Even with patents a lot of groups, most recently Goldman Sachs, believe that R D for new drugs is not a practical business model for pharmaceutical companies. If the patent laws were different then even more pharma companies than we have already would agree with them. Of course this is an imperfect system and has its flaws. Like the fact that some companies take advantage of this and just buy other companies with valuable patents, rather than create new drugs of their own. It is also awful that these high costs prevent low income individuals from being able to purchase the medicine that they need. However, considering the alternative would result in drastically fewer new drugs being produced, this alternative is better.","conclusion":"The United States policy on patents is essential to its development of new medication"}
{"id":"f0f56209-4525-41d1-bc25-add0a8305fa1","argument":"\"The Case That Divided Government is Irrelevant\". 2008 Central. 8 Jul. 2008 - \"in terms of foriegn policy, the development the past 50 years has strongly favored the President over Congress. Indeed, Bush has been able to do almost whatever he wanted in foreign policy, even after the Democrats took back Congress in 2006. Bill Clinton initiated the Kosovo campaign in the middle of being impeached.\"","conclusion":"Executive foreign policy is hardly constrained in a divided government"}
{"id":"b1207a58-fdb3-4a77-aaa7-bd900b8a139a","argument":"Just hear me out on what I have to say. I believe that there are two genders, male and female, and that they lie on opposite ends of a spectrum. Now, anyone can lie anywhere on the spectrum, but every gender should be based off of it's relation to one of the two. So you can be transgender, gender fluid, gender queer, all that goodness, but any gender not based off of male or female is made up by special snowflakes who want to be different and oppressed. I believe that a lot of people are also confusing gender with personality. One specific example I noticed was someone who identified as benegender a gender characterized by being calm and peaceful. What? That's not gender, that's personality. I do have a tough time understanding agender, I just can't grasp how you can be neither without being somewhere in the middle. In conclusion I believe that there are two genders. You can be one, both, or somewhere in between, but they are all based off of the male female genders. I believe that gender personality and gender should only be used to determine which sex people feel they are. I don't believe that you can be neither gender. I just don't understand that.","conclusion":"There are only two genders."}
{"id":"86aa041f-c97b-41d5-bfe6-8fa7c8fc8e58","argument":"I have always been a liberal libertarian to be exact . This view of mine has pretty much been cemented into my persona. I am also attending university in a college town where everyone is very far left, and where I have never heard a compelling argument for conservatism. I don't understand why Republicans seriously think that cutting taxes ie cutting government income then increasing spending on the military is a good strategy. Why is it that they want to suppress other people's views and religions so much to impose their own? Why do they think that supply side economics works? When Reagan took office, all that happened was government spending increased for the first time in many decades while income was being cut. Why do they think that education and healthcare should come second to the military? Isn't that what dictatorships like North Korea do? Why do they do things such as not teaching evolution in schools just because it contradicts their beliefs I live in Kansas where I was never taught evolution in the classroom , saying that gay people can't get married because it's not a traditional view a non segregated world was once a non traditional view , and refusing to believe that marijuana can be used medicinally if a doctor who spent 4 years in undergraduate work, 4 years in medical school, and 4 years of residency and specialist training that has to pass board certification every year says marijuana may be beneficial for me, why is it a politician thinks he know more about health than the health care professional? . What's up with the raging hard on for guns? I have no opposition for them, as I own a rifle, but I don't understand why some people go insane when you mention the words gun and control in the same sentence. Why is it that when they argue that making guns illegal would not work as criminals do not follow laws, but make the exact opposite argument when it comes to drugs? Obviously since half of America holds these beliefs, they must have some merit to them, but I just don't understand it. I know that asking this question to Reddit may be a little redundant because of all the people who are ostensibly liberal, but I truly want to know why these ideas make sense in some people's minds. I believe that there is someone out there that can objectively and compellingly explain why these views exist. EDIT The reason I put the libertarian and liberal thing is because I share beliefs from both political platforms. I understand that they are different, but I was wanting to understand the Republican side of the argument in this thread.","conclusion":"I don't understand how Republicans and conservatives can actually be serious about their policies."}
{"id":"6564d4b5-6a21-4de8-8a0d-1d399a48cd2f","argument":"Differing rules of origin for products means businesses need to set up production processes in multiple member states.","conclusion":"The USE will harmonize laws and regulations more than the EU does, reducing internal barriers to trade."}
{"id":"4728ece4-a9be-42f3-b704-02c8d18fa993","argument":"I'll be speaking from a Canadian perspective, but I believe it's applicable to the U.S. as well. Freedom of religion is constitutionally protected under the Canadian Charter. It simply follows that you, as a citizen or resident, have the freedom to practice your religion. I'm not against this. I believe that when practicing Muslims sport a hijab that is printed with the Canadian flag, they are expressing this very idea. I understand that behind this message one is essentially saying that I am a practicing Muslim who embraces Canadian values, or that I live in Canada and I'm free to choose to wear the hijab. Canada is a free and democratic society, and the flag is undoubtedly a representation of this. The hijab, in my opinion, counters this message. It does not embody freedom. It represents suppression restriction. I'm having a hard time wrapping my head pun not intended around how the message of the Canadian American flag can be reconciled with the message of the hijab. Please .","conclusion":"Wearing a hijab printed with the American\/Canadian flag is an oxymoron"}
{"id":"b03c95d8-416f-47f3-8ec4-04f911466943","argument":"Israel refused to have the UN peacekeeping force be stationed on its side of the border with Egypt to deescalate the conflict while Egypt previously had it on its border from 1948 to 1967. Israel had the means to deescalate the conflict but chose not to.","conclusion":"Israel did not pre-emptively attack these territories in 1967 - it was a deliberate invasion, with the intention to capture territory Kurtulus, p. 238"}
{"id":"1ac11a8b-40b0-4536-924e-105864c565f7","argument":"The quality of the health care coverage is independent from the scope of the coverage.","conclusion":"Having universal coverage does not mean access to healthcare is better."}
{"id":"999cd439-6e43-4768-b0c7-2c161a985838","argument":"Animal testing should be only done on clinically-born and genetically-edited animals that will not suffer because of said practices.","conclusion":"There are preferable alternatives to animal testing that are more accurate and more humane."}
{"id":"dd9419e9-3050-4096-be52-5ceb7580c05a","argument":"Since announcing confiscation policies refugees arriving in Denmark have dropped to a historically low number","conclusion":"Confiscating refugees' valuables would work as deterrence and help keep refugees out."}
{"id":"362d39d9-d4f9-480c-815d-5ac199bb0672","argument":"Women are just as much the victims of social constructs and bias as men are, and this is not an issue of what men think vs. what women think. Women can just as easily hold the same outdated opinions on this subject as a man, and be equally as wrong.","conclusion":"Although 58% of Americans polled are in favor of gender restrictions, more men think it is acceptable for women to go topless in public than do women."}
{"id":"2d363891-3ab6-4662-83e8-ef659fa06ae1","argument":"One of principal reasons for the growth of libertarian parties, especially in the West, is the dominance of one particular ideological viewpoint that is broadly shared by all the major parties. As a result anyone who does not share this viewpoint are effectively disenfranchised and have the world view of a de facto governing class imposed upon them. The only sensible response is to reduce the impact of that government altogether. Indeed in the United States, where the libertarian argument has been made most vociferously, the entire political system is designed on the predicate of a minimalist state and is poorly designed to deal with the behemoth that the Federal Government has become.","conclusion":"There is very little meaningful choice left in many societies with the major parties all singing from the same score"}
{"id":"73b5e84f-666d-4497-a036-45a21e8798b0","argument":"If someone creates a religion, that person won't have all the knowledge to have the truth for everything. That's a limitation. So that religion hasn't the absolute truth.","conclusion":"A religion created by humans will have human limitations. So that religion cannot have the truth. It would have a piece of truth."}
{"id":"0ab47329-6182-4319-bbd5-a819a4a1e4c6","argument":"To achieve high voter turn out, a government or society would need to develop a sense of public duty and pride in voting within the electorate.","conclusion":"An effective implementation of Liquid Democracy requires high voter involvement."}
{"id":"f19f780a-4d84-44c0-b040-959ef3f15063","argument":"Elizabeth Warren wants to amend it, first time I've seen a politician approach this issue. I would go further, I do not see why shareholders and directors should not be held personally liable for a company's debts, crimes, or other behaviours. I see why this has been so appealing for so long, but when companies go bankrupt administration etc their debts are picked up by the state and the taxpayer, but the shareholders and directors walk away with all the assets. Why shouldn't it be abolished? A company is a vehicle, if I hit someone with my car I my car isn't responsible for the accident I am. If my car is faulty or was sabotaged I can reduce my responsibility for what I have done, but its not like my car can assume the entire responsibility or liability for what I've done. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Corporate Personhood should be abolished"}
{"id":"e5241687-c6ce-485d-af6e-f9b3e3d4db34","argument":"Regardless if public monuments exist, an individual's right to believe in and express confederate ideologies is not impacted.","conclusion":"The removal of monuments by their owner does not violate the 1st amendment."}
{"id":"7cf0bcc5-ae47-4818-894f-9a7f2aab4300","argument":"A single entity now controls what happens in the company to create returns, prioritizing their concerns over those of other investors.","conclusion":"Stock markets actually jeopardise savings-investments in situations where a traditional company has someone buy a majority of their stocks."}
{"id":"e3863e6b-828f-4fdb-92f7-7a73d5cf3abc","argument":"Freedom of speech and expression is an important right, which is why it is listed first in the Bill of Rights; it is central to a fair and free democracy. However, it has limits. Some forms of speech are contrary to the values of democracy, namely when they infringe upon or violate the ability of others to enact their own rights and freedoms. This is why such things as incitement to hatred, other violence-promoting speech, as well as defamation and perjury are legislated against; they are expressions that infringe the rights of others, by causing fear and increasing risk of harm in case of hate speech, and by harming reputations and the effective administration of justice in terms of defamation and perjury respectively. Rights stop where harm to others begins. In the case of flag burning, as the dissenting opinion of Justice William Rehnquist on the issue says, the act is an extremely visceral one, and is often perceived as a direct attack on the core values of America itself, which many consider to be representative of those values, leading to feelings of anger and violation1. It is an infringement of these offended people's rights when flags are allowed to be burned. 1Goldstein, Robert. 2000. Flag Burning and Free Speech: The Case of Texas v. Johnson. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas. improve this","conclusion":"The First Amendment to the Constitution, which protects freedom of speech and expression, does not extend to particularly inflammatory types of speech and expression, which includes flag burning"}
{"id":"dcfb5b5f-c277-4363-a7fd-757e116bdf5c","argument":"After a divorce, I believe people should divide what's theirs and part ways. I think it's insane to expect a person to pay the other to maintain a certain lifestyle they grew to expect while in an intimate and legal relationship. Just because one of them makes more than the other doesn't mean the less financially well off person deserves their cut. Yes, if there is a big gap in their wages one is going to be better off after the divorce and I could see how that's not fair. However, that's life some people are very wealthy, some are very poor, and most are somewhere in the middle. I'm not saying it can't be done voluntarily and this has nothing to do with child support, but being forced to pay out of pocket to support a perfectly capable human being after ties with them have been severed just doesn't make any sense to me. So, change my view if possible.","conclusion":"I believe alimony should be abolished."}
{"id":"7d342c96-6592-4640-a103-a22cf61e6ada","argument":"I feel that regardless of whether or not humans are causing climate change, we should be trying to avoid doing it in the future, and we should begin freeing ourselves from oil, no matter the cost. Even if humans are not currently causing global warming and climate change, we are still pumping extraordinary amounts of CO2 and other gasses into the atmosphere. Looking at Venus, which is roughly the same size as earth, but with a much, much higher CO2 concentration, It is very obvious that it does cause warming on a massive scale. Fossil Fuels are a finite resource. There is no other way of looking at it. One day we will run out. We need to begin dealing with the rising costs of fossil fuels and free our dependence on them before the price skyrockets or we simply run out all together. Methods for retrieving fossil fuels are growing more expensive and more dangerous every year. With the introduction of techniques such as fracking, it introduces long term side effects such as pollution of the water supply. edit Yes, I know. Anthropogenic, not anthropormorphic.","conclusion":"Regardless of the validity of anthropormorphic Climate Change, we should be implementing plans to prevent it in the future and free our dependence on oil and other fossil fuels."}
{"id":"75325c6f-d32e-4610-8393-276eda6e5fb2","argument":"Although I was not initially against the war in Afghanistan like many Americans , after so many years with minimal results, I think the time has come that we leave the country. It doesn't make sense to me that we spend nearly two decades and 1 trillion in Afghanistan to prop up a weak state while we allow states like Syria, Iraq, and Libya to fall into chaos. It also seems as though the Afghan government's conflict with the Taliban is more akin to Boko Haram in Nigeria than the Syrian civil war, so I am not overly concerned that Afghanistan will become a breeding ground for extremists if the Taliban control the government. The benefits seem uncertain and the costs are too high to continue to support this state. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The United States should remove all troops from Afghanistan"}
{"id":"822524db-22a1-4fea-8312-3b12e75ed0ac","argument":"Allow me to define my terms before you try to . An evolutionary dead end will be defined as neither passing on one's own genes nor contributing to one's relatives passing on their genes No kin selection . In the rest of this view, impact on genetic contribution will be described with 0 for neutral positive negative impact on future genetic contribution. A hypocrite will be defined as one who engages in actions inconsistent with their professed beliefs. As it appears to me, a charitable description of the beliefs of those who choose to be childfree would be total self determination, particularly as it applies to the decision to have offspring. A less charitable description would be a belief that children are awful. This is likely the weak point of my view and I would attack here in order to  It seems to me that if one is self consistent as a childfree individual, one would emphasize self determination to one's relatives genetic impact being 0 , or alternatively urge against offspring, genetic impact being . In these instances said childfree individual is an evolutionary dead end. If a childfree individual were in any way to encourage one's relatives to have offspring past what would have been self determined genetic impact this violates said individuals beliefs, rendering said individual a hypocrite. Why am I asking you to ? Evolutionary dead endedness and hypocrisy are arguably pejorative, and I would like to see my child free peers in a more favorable light.","conclusion":"I believe that those that choose to be childfree are either evolutionary dead-ends or hypocrites."}
{"id":"04359fba-b409-41e6-bd1e-4e1ee971fe26","argument":"Post election violence in Kenya in 2007 led to the deaths of 1300 people and displacement of tens of thousands of people, leading to an investigation by the ICC under charges of crimes against humanity. The violence was attributed to the incumbent having 'stolen the election from the opposition.","conclusion":"Elections in developing countries often lead to accusations of rigging, which lead to violence and instability, lowering investor confidence."}
{"id":"ee2b0e21-1dc8-4c61-aef2-4afc589a1216","argument":"Dogs create unwanted noises and unsanitary conditions, and they otherwise disturb people trying to enjoy a relaxing meal. For that reason dogs are almost universally banned from restaurants. Babies create similar conditions, and yet are allowed in the same restaurants. I believe this represents an inconsistency. I believe that babies should not be permitted in places which disallow dogs. I further assert that it is inconsiderate to bring a baby to a place which carries an expectation of relaxation and sanitary conditions. I anticipate the following counterarguments \u201cThis rule inconveniences some parents in that they must obtain a babysitter, which some people cannot afford to do regularly.\u201d I do not care about or respect this argument at all. If you choose to have a child and yet cannot get a babysitter or otherwise care for your child while you are away, you cannot afford to go to a restaurant. \u201cMy baby is both quiet and sanitary.\u201d The same can be said of some dogs, and yet they are banned. Your potential exception does not affect the rule. \u201cGoo goo ga ga.\u201d Go home, baby. This is a restaurant. Change my view.","conclusion":"Babies should be banned wherever dogs are banned."}
{"id":"16a0d2d5-2cca-496c-a64b-4eddfe3da6a9","argument":"I'm calling Clinton on the 2016 presidential campaign by a landslide, because she is the most unsurprising candidate. I hold that the majority of the American population votes for how it makes them appear, not politics. People will vote for the candidate which makes them seem the most open minded and forward thinking. Supporting Clinton 2016 is too inoffensively fashionable to pass up. The majority of voters are cemented to the most politically correct option, which is currently Hillary Clinton. Clinton is part of the borg. Years from now this is what will be written in the children's books gt The 2000s were a time of CHANGE. The gays can marry, and women and minorities can become president. This was the period when we truly opened our minds. gt Look how far we've come, America","conclusion":"No one but Hillary has a chance for the 2016 USA Presidential Election"}
{"id":"6c58b9bd-0d21-426a-975b-d4930c6a510c","argument":"I am a mid 20s, white, middle class American who has lived most of their life in a large metro area in the upper midwest lol reddit right ? When I have been a victim of crimes or when I've had family members be victims the police have either been entirely unhelpful or made the situation worse for the victim. This experience has been uniform in every police interaction I have had myself or known a family member or close friend to have had. I no longer report crimes to the police unless I have insurance reasons for doing so, I generally would refuse to assist the police or tell them anything, and frankly I look down on people in the profession. Broadly speaking I don't think that the police, as police, offer much protection or redress. While I acknowledge that were I to get in a car accident and an officer was the first responder they would render me badly needed aid I don't think that matters much because any trained responder would do the same and that isn't the primary job of police anyways. To make my point about the uselessness of the police I'm going to break down three common kinds of crimes I might be a victim of and relate experiences I've had or known people to have that make me believe I should not go to the police. Property Crimes This is my biggest complaint, it is the kind of crime one is most likely to encounter and I've never seen the police make even the most basic effort at prosecuting these crimes. Several years ago a somewhat unstable girl was feuding with one of my roommates over an ex boyfriend. She entered our house through an unlocked back door she knew the house , vandalized my friend's room for damages gt 500, and was seen by another roommate exiting the front door as she left. When the vandalism was discovered we called the police, they came, were told the story, spoke to the person who saw the guilty party leaving, and received a current address for the vandal's whereabouts. Later the guilty party posted on facebook that her roommate said the police were looking for her she thought it was hilarious. We followed up with the police, as did our landlord most of the damage was to the room itself , but to the best of my knowledge they made no further effort and I am certain that there were no consequences to the vandal. This is the most egregious experience I've had, but I have never known police to seriously investigate property crimes. My mom had her car twice broken into in a public park's lot, as did many other people, but nothing was done. The people who broke into her card attempted to use her ATM card to pay Graduation Fees at a local high school my mom attempted to get the police to investigate further but they were unwilling to do so. So unless I need to deal with an insurance company why the hell would I go to the police if someone steals or damages my property? Sexual Crimes I have a family member who was sexually assaulted. Not a 'stranger in an ally situation', I understand those to be extremely rare, but a person at a party who my family member hardly knew. He got her out of the common areas of the party and then forcibly assaulted her. She went to the police and had a bad experience doing so. They were unconcerned with her welfare or mental state. They went to great efforts to get her to say she either knew the guy better than she did or had drank much more than she had. The whole orientation of the police's process was not towards proving a crime, or apprehending an offender, but instead trying to create doubt that a crime had occurred. In the end they did nothing other than compound the trauma of the rape. The victim regrets having gone to the police. I entirely believe her story on the basis of long observation of her personal stability and the clear effect this had on her in the aftermath please don't try and tell me that if it really was as she represented the police would have done more. If I am ever the victim of a sexual assault, thankfully unlikely, I certainly won't bring it to the attention of police. Violent Crimes I have never been a victim of a serious assault or attempted murder and the only people I know who have are the kind who 'don't snitch' no matter what happened. So I admit a lack of direct experience here and expect police take such things somewhat more seriously. Still, I don't think I or most people face a significant chance of being assaulted except from someone close to them or strangers mostly when I had some role in escalating the altercation. Most people won't report a family member SO unless the injury is really serious and if some total stranger decides to jump me and beat me totally unprovoked I think my chances of reliably identifying that person for police are basically 0. So again in this regard I don't think the police provide significant protection they'll take your husband away in cuffs after he stabs you, but that's about it. Don't try and tell me that the police don't have enough resources to investigate these kinds of crimes. In the vandalism case 500 1000 worth of damage was done. I know how many hoops the police would jump through to bust a 1000 coke deal, shit a 50 coke deal. The police have resources, but their priorities are not oriented towards the welfare of citizens and protecting those citizens from crime. I could go into my analysis of the real role of these police, but that's well beyond the scope of this , so all I'll do is name check Michelle Alexander's landmark work","conclusion":"I do not believe that police in the United States protect me in any personally significant way and generally do not report crimes committed against me to the police."}
{"id":"9f50b660-2881-4217-b355-5e00b723beb5","argument":"I'm originally from Russia, but I moved to America a few years ago. I've been thinking about the conflict in Ukraine a lot. I've been arguing about it with my Russian and Ukrainian frieds for months. Even thought I don't approve how Russia handles this situation, I think that its actions are infinitely more reasonable than what the American media might make you think. I strongly believe that most people from other countries have no idea what they are talking about when they discuss it. r worldnews makes me sick so many highly upvoted comments are made by people who clearly know nothing about Russia, Ukraine or Crimea. It made me think about my reactions to other international conflicts. What do I know about Syria, Egypt, Tunisia? So my opinion about the war in Palestina is that I have no opinion. Whatever I say about it would probably be totally wrong and stupid. To change my view, please explain how to determine with a reasonable level of confidence who's wrong and who's right in a conflict involving two countries or two parties within one country somewhere far far away. EDIT it was surprisingly easy There were three great point in this thread, each was enough to change my view If someone on Internet is wrong, it doesn't mean you can't research and make a reasonable judgment. u MackDaddyVelli Not involved gt unbiased gt more likely to be right. u DHCKris There's no such thing as being not involded in the modern world. u extrafeta","conclusion":"The only reasonable thing to do for people from countries not directly involved in an international conflict is to stay neutral"}
{"id":"60aebb20-c476-461d-8a3d-0ca62126a6d7","argument":"The LGTBQ+ community is able to mobilise when discriminatory laws are passed against them; the community will likely do the same if any corporation tries to actively discriminate against them.","conclusion":"Deliberately working against LGBT+ causes will only serve to bring the corporation into disrepute and damage it's public image."}
{"id":"091c9d1c-19bb-4735-a659-0452e3189568","argument":"I recently saw the natural values of life described as family before friends, friends before strangers, strangers before different species. I completely agree with that chain until the last part, strangers before different species . I believe it should be our ethical obligation as the most intelligent species to protect and preserve inferior creatures, rather than completely disregard them if it benefits us. Our technology, sciences and society easily take a toll on the nature around us through excessive population expansion and the need to consume more to provide for this excess. Nature generally has always had a way of balancing itself out, but our highly dynamic existence changes all of that. Many species that have no idea what the hell is going on have gone extinct or are on the brink of extinction because of humans, and this pattern will only continue and grow with time. When does the damage to innocent, albeit inferior , life from the objective view of humans on innocence finally take priority to the recklessness of strangers that ultimately mean nothing to us?","conclusion":"My view of the value of life differs slightly from the norm, I don't believe that animals who are \"morally inferior\" to us should come last to our species."}
{"id":"692c75f5-77c5-44d4-8484-fb3ebfc6261d","argument":"The Vatican newspaper L\u2019Osservatore Romano carried a front-page article roundly condemning Nazi racist ideas during Hitler's visit to Rome.","conclusion":"The Vatican made clear diplomatic gestures showing that it objected to Hitler."}
{"id":"d05cb6d2-d36f-4ae9-b700-78643774b55e","argument":"Matteo Renzi said in the run-up to Italy's constitutional referendum of 2016 that he would step down in case of a loss as he would not want to continue dealing with a \"decrepit system that does not work\".","conclusion":"Politicians resign after referendums as they do not want to implement decisions they do not associate with. They do not take responsibility for these decisions thereby; after all, they were not the ones making these decisions."}
{"id":"6331ea14-96d0-4122-9cc3-49286717e95d","argument":"Most people seem to think that speech is on some kind of alien planet cleanly distinguished from the physical world, or maybe some kind of epiphenomenon, being influenced by the physical world but not returning the favour. They often make laws based on this obviously flawed interpretation, sometimes basing national constitutions on it. It's often hard to tell with today's technology exactly what will be the deterministic effects on people's brains of the sound waves or photons on which someone's words are carried, but there are nonetheless deterministic effects and in the future when that technology exists, you'll have a harder time denying that . And sometimes it's not hard to tell sometimes e.g. in cases of high redundancy read a lot of people hearing seeing the message , a generic effect can be predicted though its particular instantiation may not by anyone who would pass a reasonable person test in a court of law. When someone says things that he should expect to have a negative moral outcome, he is using physical force to do so. The sound waves that he produces or light that he causes to be emitted will have effects on people who, in many cases, didn't consent to those effects. This is physical force. When it is reasonable to expect that a class of negative moral outcomes will result, like an anti Muslim world leader saying it would be very bad, very bad indeed if a mosque gets attacked by one of my brave loyalists , this speech has no relevant difference from explicit hate speech. There's no rationally tenable way to set the two forms of speech apart. Not only can speech incite violence speech can be violence. To change my view, I think you'll need to explain at least how anything I've said is incorrect. More broadly, you'll need to explain how speech can't be violence, with reference to the support I've given for that assertion, or how the indirect effects of someone's speech aren't every bit as deterministic as anything else that happens in the material world. My view will not be changed by resorting to concerns about some social breakdown that you think would result from the decimation of free speech, though I'd be interested in reading about that. Nor will my view be changed by saying but light and sound are carried through fundamental forces that are different from those that carry the momentum of an egg through any face it's contacting. Whether that's true or not, what I mean is that speech has deterministic physical effects that are just as deterministic as are the effects of an egg to the face. An egg thrown into a crowd might give us a harder time predicting exactly what will happen than an egg cracked directly on someone's dome, but that doesn't make its physical effects any less deterministic. To defend free speech, we can hide it behind neither physical form nor remoteness from its effects. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Speech is physical in nature and is not fundamentally different from other physical uses of force."}
{"id":"ee7d2548-8433-4d5f-99d3-9e1664b75b1c","argument":"We have so many of these. Short people are height challenged, retarded people are special needs or mentally challenged, etc. I'm not saying all political correctness is wrong. I think labels like African American make a lot of sense because they are trying to be more neutral when describing a group. However, someone with Down's Syndrome is mentally retarded. Why is it in bad taste to point out the obvious. It seems extremely silly to say special needs and create these silly euphemisms.","conclusion":"I believe it's completely fine to call some people retarded, and labels like \"special needs\" are overly gentle."}
{"id":"e678ca38-06ed-43cf-9830-080277d956ff","argument":"A study by Slate demonstrated that \" Regardless of socioeconomic status, donor offspring are . more than twice as likely to report having struggled with substance abuse. And they are about 1.5 times as likely to report depression or other mental health problems. \" If sperm donors were required to have the same legal rights and responsibilities as other biological fathers this could be prevented.","conclusion":"It is in the best interests of children if sperm donors have the same legal rights and responsibilities as other biological parents."}
{"id":"a85c6ac6-39ae-4370-a40e-5c8e1491e5a3","argument":"Raising animals in confinement, deprived of sunlight, natural soil and freedom to move, is cruel and against their nature.","conclusion":"The common practices underlying the production of meat massive livestock farming are unethical."}
{"id":"7df3310d-69ea-4fc3-89e8-691865b9afd5","argument":"Being a top sportsman or woman means hours of training every day in order to become the very best. .","conclusion":"Tax Payers Money Should Be Used To Fund Top Sportsmen and Women"}
{"id":"92fc605d-fd9a-4fb6-bc15-1ab2138d3292","argument":"On long travels, bringing a dozen books is harder than bringing extra powerbanks to recharge a phone or ebook reader.","conclusion":"On long travels electricity to charge a eBook reader might not be as handy to find."}
{"id":"2a4d740d-1ba5-4a97-a2ad-ac794e4302ca","argument":"Currently, only 14.2% of Chinese in China express concern. Based on this statistic, a single government similar to China's may not take it as a serious threat.","conclusion":"A singular government may err on the side of less concern over climate change, thus diminishing any efforts at all."}
{"id":"fd657cbe-4820-40bd-a0d3-4655270a313a","argument":"Okay, I REALLY want my view changed on this one because I am writing a play and a very important part is where someone argues that supporting the confederate flag is not necessarily racist or whatever. I've seen a lot of stuff on websites like Reddit that seem to say having anything to do with the flag is racist extreme right. People on r beholdthemasterrace declare anyone supporting it as a racist. For what it's worth, I'm a Brit, so I have no idea about what it might mean for local cultures. I would love to have someone from the south USA explain why it's okay to support the confederate flag. Thanks gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"there are no positives about the Confederate Flag. It is fundamentally racist"}
{"id":"6c27be8c-8f34-4f76-a31e-a38cfcf31b89","argument":"I am really interested in the reasons people will give for this since I cannot think of anything compelling. Fundamentally this view is about peace. To hold a person's property, and consequently the person, to a political territory against their will requires violence. For example, if my neighbour does not want to bare the burdens of having her property in the municipality she will have her property seized or she will be put in jail. While the law may permit such seizure and jailing it is violent and it lowers the integrity of property and self determination. To justify forced political union these harms must be counter balanced. I am unable to balance them. Anticipated responses It is the law The law also allows lines and territories to be redrawn to allow areas to leave larger unions. That is anarchy Lots of areas are not municipally incorporated and they function to the satisfaction of residents while under subnational and national control. Call that anarchy if you like. If people removed their property from soverign unions that could be called anarchy, but only for those that choose it. Those that choose political union and the benefits of it could keep it. Border security If parts of the territory leave there will be holes of unsecured areas and a longer border. I am sympathetic to this argument but it is the start of a negotiation rather than an end to the debate. There are plenty of crazy borders that have found stability through creative solutions to meet the needs of those on both sides. Actual Responses Small sovereign states are unstable, they have too much over head, etc Anarchy is terrible. So that sounds like a reason not to be an individual secessionist, but it has no baring about how to treat those that don't want to be part of a political union. The law says that This is a conversation about what ought to be the law and practice. Every law system I have seen has some provision for changing the law. The law ought to conform to our thinking rather than our thinking conforming to the law. The state owns the property. Assuming that is true, ownership is the ability rather than the obligation to restrict access. Even if the state does own the secessionists property the question remains if they should be allowed to secede. Logistics would be complicated, with trade, utilities, migration, etc. Most of these problems have already been solved by other jurisdictions. And every problem was at one time unsolved. But you can leave. This is about the territory not the person. To leave the union would make the union smaller and less able to exploit scale. I think this is generally true but that is the price of running a jurisdiction that people want to leave. The same argument can be used to advocate not letting people leave a jurisdiction. If they go somewhere else your scale is smaller. The same argument can be used to advocate world government. If one government runs the whole world then that will be the biggest of scales. The same argument can be used to advocate nationalizing industry. One company making all of the boots is a bigger scale than smaller firms making boots. ~~~~ I am glad I asked this question. A lot of commenters have tried to intellectualize their brutality, but the ones that haven't I find very refreshing. Honesty like that really helps explain the state of things and makes clear what needs to be done. That is wait them out and build the future they hate on their ashes. Their brutality ends when they die. Insight propagates on its own power.","conclusion":"People ought to be able to secede, individually or collectively, from any political territory at will."}
{"id":"1d0b8089-f379-4ff1-8ed1-c40c578a3c62","argument":"With these laws, ISPs will be forced by law to disable access to internet pornography, unless a household member over the age of 18 opts in and tells them to allow access. It is already against the law for anyone under the age of 18 to purchase, or possess, pornography outside of the internet. People who wish to obtain it outside of the internet must prove they are 18 in order to purchase it from a store. The internet opt in solution will be no different. Opting in, is no more a restriction of freedom than having to show ID when you buy pornography, alcohol, or cigarettes from a store. There may be technological challenges to implementing such a program. There may even be logistical problems with it. But, there are no free speech problems associated with it. You will still have access, as long as you prove you are 18 and are granted access by your ISP. I don't even think it is a problem that your name may potentially be on a list somewhere after opting in. If ISPs are in charge of restricting access, then they will retain access to those lists. They already maintain lists of the websites you visit anyway. The opt in list won't be any more incriminating than your internet history, which they already have access to.","conclusion":"I believe the \"opt-in\" regulations for internet pornography are reasonable, and they do not hinder anyone's freedom."}
{"id":"a30b38ca-7902-45ef-a7ed-72fcb526a183","argument":"The proposition has rightly pointed out that immigrants are not on equal footing with the natives. Hence there arises no question of granting them with the most prized gift of a citizen i.e. the right to exercise suffrage. Article 21 of the Constitution of India provides that \u201cNo person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law.\u201d Hence the Constitution recognizes the basic human right of individuals to life and liberty. On the other hand, adult citizens only are entitled to vote in the elections. Thus it highlights that there is a demarcation between basic human rights and exercising suffrage. How can the proposition assume that only by giving voting rights the interest of the foreign workers are going to be protected? Each State strives to secure the rights of the immigrant workers by legislations and bilateral agreements. Going by the proposition\u2019s take if voting rights are granted, no State would ever welcome any foreign workers as the politics of the local elections would gain an international outlook which could fare disastrous results. Local elections are to be kept out of the purview of the international hold. The proposition again concedes its point by saying that it is about supply and demand. Going by this it would seriously be a mockery of the pious institution of suffrage. One year the workers will come, exercise voting rights, and exit next year. Later, more workers will come, exercise their right and exit. It would be like adding in the resume that I have exercised my voting rights in these many countries and hence I have much more exposure. If the demand and supply theory of the proposition is taken into account, then in case of excess inflow, the locals would reduce in percentage which will never be taken in a positive sense. It would lead to civil strife and hampering of the relations between the countries.","conclusion":"Counter-Counterpoint: Suffrage is a serious issue; don\u2019t make a mockery of it"}
{"id":"f7d812df-fb8e-4eaf-9585-3d68325fd716","argument":"I'm not saying to not be cautious u a with things like financial information, which if leaked could lead to headaches in your life. What I do mean is that what is the worry about a company, let's say Google because they are a large company that worries many with the data they collect. Why should we worry that they know what news I view, what videos I like to watch, what brands I like and when and where I by things?Why even should I be worried that they know my location and travel schedules? The only thing they say they do with this information, and it seems backed up by their business model, is sell you ads so you will buy things. But what's the problem with having a company show you things that you may actually want to buy, that you may never have heard about another way? I can see why this might be an issue if this data was leaked. But one, I don't see Google or Amazon being hacked so easily or to such a large exstent. And two, it my impression that the data is anonymous to the point where I'm just some user number in their huge data base where they know that, for example user 98764321 likes Coca Cola and TV. I'd love to know info on how big companies like this have hurt someone already in history, or how they could reasonably in the future.","conclusion":": You do not need to be as worried about modern technology and big tech companies as many say we should be."}
{"id":"0483755f-5fb1-420c-8b0c-102c29c00956","argument":"The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse: \"Drugs are not a threat to American society because they are illegal; they are illegal because they are a threat to American society.\"27","conclusion":"Marijuana is not a threat to society only because it is illegal"}
{"id":"18c9c1a3-9bc0-4126-9584-ee7b4172dde0","argument":"In the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, residents were displaced to make space for the event.","conclusion":"The Olympic Games have a negative impact on the residents."}
{"id":"55964a4c-9e33-4015-8458-26797e04560c","argument":"LambdaConf is an annual conference for functional programmers. Last year, one of the speakers accepted to speak at the conference was Curtis Yarvin, a neorectionary computer scientist who had been banned from speaking at a conference earlier that year because his views were thought to be racist and in support of slavery The organisers, however, weren't aware of this until after they had accepted Yarvin through a blind vetting process. There was some backlash but the organisers were quite adamant about the decision to keep the speaker more generally they thought that a speaker must not be dismissed based on their political views unless they came to the conference to spread those views or posed a physical threat to other attendees. The summary of this deliberation can be found here LambdaConf has gone on to change its Code of Conduct to support the inclusion of speakers regardless of their political and religious beliefs in the name of professionalism and civility. Their updated code of conduct can be found here and have even set up an organisation that helps conferences get funding in the case that there is a social media backlash against a conference's decision to act apolitically. I'm currently on the fence about attending so I'm willing to be convinced on these grounds 1 having an apolitcal conference is not akin supporting the views of speakers neither is it giving them a platform to spread those views. There have been claims that being too apolitical, especially in the Yarvin case, is a tacit support for white supremacy This needn't be the case the same way letting a racist violinist perform at a big show doesn't mean that you condone racism. The speaker isn't being given an opportunity to share racist views rather they are being asked to contribute to a community and put their views aside. 2 a speaker's attendance doesn't threaten an attendee's safety. To the extent that it does the attendee can choose to sit out the talk or go to another one in the case that there are other talks running simultaneously. Granted it is possible that one may feel unsafe at such an event because having an openly racist speaker means that the other attendees either see nothing wrong with the speakers' view or think that there is more utility to hearing the speaker than showing solidarity but that's a gross oversimplification considering that there are usually many speakers at a conference and people can detach the personal form the professional in some contexts. 3 The decision to be apolitical, even though it admits some people with terrible views, hedges against other sorts of discrimination. For example, imagine the conference happened post 9 11 and there was a backlash against middle Eastern speakers. To protect the cases where there is unreasonable backlash to a person we need to admit cases in which there is reasonable morally sound backlash. 4 Although it sounds defeatist, there will always be people with bigoted views. Banning only people that are vocal doesn't solve the inclusion problem and a rigorous check of people's political views encroaches on their privacy. This debate is similar to that of separating the art from the artist but I hope that there is some information in the context I've outlined that screams out some fundamentally different considerations.  that I shouldn't boycott the conference.","conclusion":"I shouldn't boycott the next LambdaConf"}
{"id":"0ecafad8-b093-44c2-9b00-65127fb33dbd","argument":"King Haakon VII of Norway united the nation in resisting German invasion during World War II, even threatening to abdicate if the Norwegian government threatened to cooperate with the Germans.","conclusion":"Monarchs can unite a nation in the face of wars or invasions, mustering up a unifying allegiance that can inspire and motivate in times of conflict."}
{"id":"1711ee2c-9cd2-487b-a750-fb0dde64f54d","argument":"Governments and their citizens could still be able to buy and sell shares of their countries to generate or measure their nation's individual economic wealth and growth.","conclusion":"Even with a unified currency, nations can still stay themselves through the transition to it."}
{"id":"4201a57b-ae7f-453b-80d6-a38d277b0143","argument":"Based on some ideas from here There has been recent clamor from many especially on the internet over the DC Circuit decisions regarding Net Neutrality. Many Internet users, including myself initially, felt that the Court shouldn't make such petty distinctions between a telecommunications carrier and information service providers and as such eliminate ISP's from net neutrality. But, rather than innovate the Internet, keep ISP's from monopolizing service, and ultimately save the internet , reclassifying ISP's to fall under Net Neutrality rules will hurt the industry more than help it, because it is now government forced . This is because the new legislation will cause ISP's to be harassed with legal turmoil out the ass, making it even more difficult for potential new ISP's to start up. It will place legal limits on existing and future ISP's, again harming business. Government can force an industry to act a certain way, but it will ultimately lead to a less beneficial business for all parties involved except government . Not convinced? Consider Comcast. Net Neutrality is no longer around. Let's assume that they start nickel and diming Netflix for using their bandwidth every time a customer streams which is a big concern nowadays . Netflix gets upset and ultimately has to charge their customers more. They tell their customers this, and the customers protest in various ways. Everyone hates Comcast now, and Comcast either loses business through its dislike with its customer base , or stops nickel and diming Netflix. We all hate when big business monopolizes. Net neutrality encourages monopolization through legal limits, and while it may seem that government regulation will preserve our internet, its important to remember that the internet has never been neutral, but nor has it been monopolized.","conclusion":"the new Net Neutrality legislation, and why it will actually harm the Internet."}
{"id":"ff20c0da-1e18-4952-9611-87ca0ebe0a63","argument":"They may also find a lot of little health suggestions, that a physician would not have time to explain to all of his patients.","conclusion":"People may find a lot of information on conditions that are not urgent enough to require a physician consultancy."}
{"id":"693fd0b0-a77a-4585-b355-eb81ffe0cee6","argument":"This changes the formula of the older movies where mistakes were treated in a much more lighthearted manner and usually not used to call the protagonists' character into question.","conclusion":"The movie goes beyond heroic tropes and establishes its protagonists as heroes who make grave mistakes and have to deal with the consequences."}
{"id":"a22e8060-1698-49dd-babc-dc87053324c6","argument":"There are only 10 federal holidays in the U.S., they are New Year's Day Martin Luther King Jr. Day Washington's Birthday Memorial Day Independence Day Labor Day Columbus Day Veterans Day Thanksgiving Day Christmas Day Notice that they all have something in common, except the last one. They're not religious holy days. Christmas is a religious holy day celebrated by Christians if Passover and Eid are not a federal holiday, then Christmas Day should most certainly not be. It should probably be changed to Winter Solstice Day and moved to December 21, or just take a hint from Seinfeld and put Festivus Dec. 23 . Enough of this Christian bias in government. Also, because of its federal status, this has resulted in 99 of businesses CLOSING on that day on a CHRISTIAN HOLY DAY in the United States of America, where we have separation of church. I'm a Jewish atheist and I can't go to freaking Starbucks on December 25 because of the government's influence on these businesses. But I'm open to argument, so please, try to .","conclusion":"I don't think Christmas Day should be a federal holiday in the U.S. \u2014"}
{"id":"5e49daab-1496-47a4-a5e5-074181cda3eb","argument":"When the EU adopted the Euro as the common currency in 1992, trade between EU member states increased by 8 to 16%.","conclusion":"International trade would become easier without having to convert currencies."}
{"id":"035270e3-6660-4c59-b5d2-dd2618c41a39","argument":"Before I finished high school, my 9 12 English teachers had me read more than 20 books about slavery and the civil rights movement and at least 5 feminist novels. The diversity of the area usually put whites in the minority and I had friends of every color and gender from the time I was in kindergarten. Racism and sexism was not part of my paradigm, nor theirs, except for the occasional kid from a broken home that had picked up slurs from a drunk parent. These kids were outcasts because they were seen as rude and offensive. Educators and individuals who prescribe such a heavy emphasis on racist and sexist social issues can have the reverse and a negative effect on students. Re emphasizing wrongs of the past as if they were ripe and thriving in that age group, and insisting that framing white males as villains who can never be wronged is compensated by natural biases in society that will boost their confidence is merely am excuse for more racism and sexism. The system I went through can project guilt onto sensitive individuals that can effect them for the rest of their lives.","conclusion":"I do not think historical racism or sexism should be given the emphasis it has in education."}
{"id":"3c5b9f72-3caa-4ebf-9511-6898fdb32d55","argument":"To begin with, education is effectively forced upon us if we want to amount to anything. I could not possibly get a well paying job without having to go to university whether I want to or not. If I do not go to university, I could only be stuck getting entry level jobs unless I have connections but I personally don\u2019t and never or very slowly getting increased wages. People always say money can\u2019t buy happiness, but I think this is a statement that isn\u2019t telling the entire truth. Money may not buy happiness, but it sure allows people to be happy. This ties in with the education part, because I essentially have to stay in education to get enough money to live comfortably. I am not happy in education but I will be even worse off if I don\u2019t get an education to increase my job opportunity. Additionally, we get essentially no time to do anything anymore, as retirement gets pushed further and further into old age and the majority of our lives is spent working in jobs we don\u2019t enjoy. Of course, this isn\u2019t always the case, but for the most part, people don\u2019t enjoy their jobs. There is no other choice than being in education into the 20s, and then working for around the next 50 years, essentially missing out on the most important times of our lives, where we are still physically and mentally able, only to retire at an age where the free time is essentially meaningless as by that point you\u2019re too old to enjoy it anyway. Life provides very little enjoyment for how much stress and pain is involved. I truly feel that people who are content with life haven\u2019t thought about it enough. I literally cannot see how people can be happy with working the majority of their life and spending their healthiest years with no free time or freedom to do what they want. Please change my view.","conclusion":"Life isn\u2019t worth living."}
{"id":"2f42a184-f03f-464c-8900-be6a38ad7229","argument":"A no-deal Brexit could suspend trade through Dover for up to 6 months including delaying access to food and medical supplies.","conclusion":"The price and supply of food would be negatively affected by a no deal Brexit."}
{"id":"74b9cb13-feae-463f-a2fe-ff696040ae51","argument":"I'll start by saying that I am a very thick skinned person, so I don't relate to sensitive people at all, really. I have had experiences with sensitive people where I don't understand how these people can't just ignore subtle or accidental insults. Even in a friendly conversation, sensitive people sometimes misinterpret something or make a normal statement an attack on them. I believe that all people inherently have the ability to just brush insults to the side and not get emotional about it. I do it all the time. For example, I overheard a conversation between two acquaintances about Christianity. I am a devout Christian myself, but the two individuals said nasty things about religion, God, and religious people in general. However, I was able to accept that these people had their own opinions about the issue, and I did not let this affect my feelings. Whereas sensitive people might get upset, butthurt , or angry about these people's opinions. Do they not have the ability to handle this situation in a mature way? I would really like my view changed, because I sort of feel cold hearted and arrogant about having this view. So please, . Thanks","conclusion":"Sensitive people can a make a choice to have \"thicker skin\""}
{"id":"1f29da87-141a-4327-8a22-4c057c5367cf","argument":"I am saying US style because this also applies to certain jobs in countries like the UK, Canada, and Northern Europe where there are an abundance of qualified workers competing for crappy zero hour jobs and flexible labor markets. France might be an exception. Let's say you have a minimum wage at your job, and your employer is withholding pay. Because of at will employment flexicurity zero hour contracts in the US, Denmark, and UK respectively you can get fired or not hired for any reason or none whatever. Complained about wage theft? Fired because you're not a team player. Sued your employer? Good luck The loss of wages and health insurance will more than offset what you get back and as public record will make you forever unemployable. Similarly, if not even more so, this applies for paid time off. You have three weeks' vacation at your American job, but good luck ever taking it unless you're irreplaceable. If you're a fungible retail worker, you can request it all youwant but your boss can say no all he wants, and if you take it without consent you're fired. Even in countries like Denmark and Finland that I've looked at, if you work according to the letter of the law they'll find a Slav or American or Indian who doesn't mind working illegal hours.","conclusion":"In a US-style employment market, most labor protections and benefits except health insurance are worthless for unskilled and moderately skilled workers."}
{"id":"67354b8d-d1f5-4581-8b39-d519368f3ac7","argument":"The last big Bethesda title - Fallout 76 - has been described as \"a bizarre, boring, broken mess and its launch as mired by potentially unfixable problems","conclusion":"In contrast to Bethesda games, those by Nintendo are generally not in a state in which they need additional fixes."}
{"id":"56e0e46a-783e-4478-a5e0-bf5301cbee2a","argument":"With movies such as Deadpool 2 being recently released and seeing an earlier post about how many people dislike children being brought to movies that are clearly inappropriate for them, I feel as though the MPAA and movie theaters should change who is allowed to see a movie. For example, Deadpool and Deadpool 2 are both obviously made for adults. It is highly inappropriate for a small child to be watching for numerous reasons, including the movie stating it outright. I am not arguing how movies should be rated in this, just who is allowed to see said movies in a public setting such as the NC 17 rating. My propsed changes would be as follow G Anyone who buys a ticket is allowed to watch this movie. PG Anyone 12 and under MUST have an adult 18 in attendance with them during the duration of the movie. PG 13 Anyone 13 and under MUST have an adult 18 in attendance with them during the duration of the movie. R No one under the age of 18 is permitted. My personal favorite way of enforcement would be to use the ushers already servicing the theater. When a ticket is purchased or screened at the entrance, a numbered stamp is placed on each ticket stating how many people are under said adults supervision. Each number represents how many children that adult is responsible for. To be allowed to leave the theater, both tickets and a child would have to be presented to the usher. For example. Family of 4 2 adults, 2 children buy tickets. For this family a 1 on each ticket would work making it so if one child had to leave, the other parent would be able to stay with the remaining child. If one adult brings in 9 children and one has to use the rest room, all the other 8 are leaving the theater as well. One of the biggest arguments I can see being brought up is what if an emergency happens and the parent needs to step out and make a call, go to the car, go to the rest room, etc. My response to that is, if it is that big of an emergency, you should probably be bringing your kid anyway. For the phone call, you don't have to go outside. Stepping into the area right outside the theater for a short emergency call should be no problem. Obviously in the case of a fire or other emergency this would all be thrown out and standard protocol would take over. Please change my view","conclusion":"The ratings for movies in theaters should not be who can buy the ticket, but who is allowed access into the movie."}
{"id":"703ad70b-9941-40fe-ae9f-74f3e4e8c08a","argument":"Rick Sanchez of the show Rick and Morty is an intergalactic, trans dimensional terrorist. There are dangerous monsters out there, and the Galactic Federation is the only thing that can keep the people safe. The GF allows for safe and sane trade and cultural sharing in the galaxy. It has brought new technology and tourism to Earth. Dangerous entities like Fart have been contained by the GF. Rick Sanchez repeatedly abandons his grandson, who he is only using to hide his brainwaves from the GF. The entire family is endangered by Rick. Morty is missing out on his education, as well as being exposed to all manner of corrupting influences. Rick and his terrorist buddies Birdperson a 40 year old dating a teenager who is obviously emotionally stunted and Squanchy a deranged sex pervert brought great harm to the stability of galaxy, just because they are anti authoritarian dicks. Rick is a guest in the Smith house, but he keeps dangerous, space AIDS infected monsters, unstable technology, and a huge amount of liquor in the house. He constantly mocks Jerry in front of his children, when he isn't insulting his grandchildren directly. He's made modifications of the structure without informing anyone. His alcoholism, swearing, misogyny, and lack of morals is appalling. He attempted suicide in a way that would have left him vaporized while not leaving a note. He is a terrible user to Unity, an entity that has brought peace to an entire planet, an effort that he undermines. He's admitted himself that he has destroyed an entire planet, at least once. He sells weapons to assassins. He buys his 14 year old grandson a sexbot and gave him a love potion so that he can Hot Cosby an underage girl. His adventures leave a path of destruction everywhere he goes. He once pulled down his grandson's pants in front of some cute girls. Now, I know when the Giant Heads came to Earth, Rick twice saved the Earth by getting Schwifty. But he was ready to bail on the planet if things went south, probably without saving Morty he has abandoned him countless times and definitely without the Smith family, that loves and protects him. The GF is right to imprison this dangerous, misanthropic psychopath.","conclusion":"Rick Sanchez is a dangerous psychopath who Jerry Smith should kick out of his house."}
{"id":"ab50b3f8-5fac-4972-b92e-80af88fe03b2","argument":"If a person is not carrying a gun as part of their job and is in a public place, then they are placing the comfort the weapon gives them above the threat caused by the weapon. The threat is that any violent incident will become a deadly one due to the presence of the weapon. The gun's presence reduces the likelihood of defusing a conflict and instead escalates a conflict from violent to deadly. The person carrying thereby places their personal comfort over the ability to defuse a conflict, which is cowardly in my mind.","conclusion":"People who open carry firearms in public places are cowards."}
{"id":"b18331ba-3e2c-4e0b-87ee-f224e91198f0","argument":"I really don't like go hold this position but I find it hard to argue against. I have recently subscribed to the philosophical position of anti natalism. I would also say I'm somewhat swayed by the ethical theory of negative utilitarianism or the belief that suffering disutility being minimized is more important than maximizing happiness utility . Under this philosophical scope, it seems very difficult to justify bringing in new humans into this world given the vast amounts of suffering and lack of clear meaning that accompanies this suffering. Any kind of pleasure from existence is often short lived and leaves us wanting more. Suffering and happiness seem to be in constant disequilibrium. My question to those who find birthing new humans into this world as an ethically neutral or even virtuous act, why? How is it ethical to create someone who cannot be created for their own good?","conclusion":"Having children is unethical."}
{"id":"62df0c60-0196-4437-9dc7-65490f2c2846","argument":"New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani praised the trial of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, saying, \"New Yorkers won\u2019t meet violence with violence, but with a far greater weapon -- the law.\"8","conclusion":"Terrorists should be met with the weapon of the law"}
{"id":"8f4be5bc-a534-4dbc-93f1-468daa125c92","argument":"This is an idea I've had swimming about in my head for a while, and it's seeming more and more like a universal truth to me. I don't want to be governed by generalisations and confirmation bias, so here goes, change my view Small Talk is typically the types of prompts and statements and questions which we exchange with people to start conversations with them, or to interact in groups, usually with people we don't know very well. There are two main types of conversation that people find appealing, either you're interested in something about the other person, or you're discussing some common ground. We don't often know what to be interested in about another person the first time we meet them, and we don't know what our common ground is. We must feel out these issues by using the common prompts, questions and statements known as small talk . The people who claim that they wish people would ignore the small talk and get to the point in my opinion are people who do not see small talk as a way to establish conversation topics of interest, and instead see it as a pointless delay between first meeting a person and telling that person all about whatever they want to talk about. This is contrary to standard practise, where you search for a topic that both people would be interested in discussing. Either that, or the person simply isn't interested in talking to another person in the first place, in which case there really isn't anything you can do to feel happy, since you live in a world with other people and occasionally have to talk to them. To clarify, if you're at work, or in a shop or a bank or whatever, or you just need a specific piece of information, then small talk is a delay and can be annoying. But then it is your responsibility to bring up the main topic of conversation you wish to discuss. So there's my view, I'd be interested to see your opinions on the matter and perhaps find a less judgemental way of looking at people. edit Clarifications. I use the term self centred not as a pejorative or a negative, nor as a description of a person's character as a whole, more as a descriptor of someone who does not care is not interested in what the other person has to say. The prevalent definition of small talk in this thread seems to be a conversation you don't care about whereas I was using it more in the sense of being conversation openers . I realised this mistake due to the comments from u championofobscurity and u JustDoItPeople, who have been awarded Deltas.","conclusion":"Small talk is a necessary part of interaction and the people who claim \"not to have time\" for it are simply self centred."}
{"id":"77385bd9-9ddf-4ee4-9ef9-4ee11631f6df","argument":"Saddam Hussein remains \u201cPresident of Iraq\u201d and is granted immunity from prosecution over his various crimes against humanity on the condition that he assists the US in the creation of a new Iraqi government and uses his status, power, and expertise to keep Iraq in order like he always had. The Iraqi Presidency is now a much less powerful position although not ENTIRELY symbolic . The Coalition bans the Ba\u2019ath Party Saddam is now an independent figure and oversees democratic elections to put into power a new Iraqi parliament and Prime Minister who assumes most of the duties that Saddam had in the old Iraq . The autopsy on the disastrous Iraq War seems to consistently point to how Saddam Hussein was the only person truly capable of holding the incredibly fragile nation together. Cutting the same deal with Saddam that we did with Emperor Hirohito, in which he is spared and given symbolic power so he can help us transition the country would avoid breaking Iraq apart. We still achieve the humanitarian and national security goals while not facing the massive consequences that quickly outweighed the benefits of the war.","conclusion":"The Iraq War would have ended by June of 2003 if we treated Saddam the same way as Hirohito."}
{"id":"f66abd04-6a30-4d9f-ab89-9aeef004a472","argument":"I just finished my first year, and I don't want to waste the next few years feeling the same way about college. My school only has a couple thousand students, and none of them are non traditional like myself all 18 22 . I'm only 25 and I know it's mostly in my head but I feel really disconnected. After a few years in the real world I think I lost that excitement about college that the rest of the incoming students feel. I know part of it is that I've matured some and am probably just more focused on the academic part, but I want to experience that classic college phase of life, and make those important friends and connections. What do you think? Thanks in advance","conclusion":"I am a 25yo college student who feels completely disconnected from the rest of the students and the college feel in general."}
{"id":"5dec12bc-cd26-4677-b829-70fddab63e96","argument":"Direct revelation, in the form of religious texts such as the Quran, provide a series of rules and values through which to live a good life.","conclusion":"Many religions provide moral guidance in the form of divine revelation."}
{"id":"0e460202-27f8-48a2-835f-23ed62e4fa2b","argument":"Climate change affects factors that are necessary for a healthy life by reducing air quality and the availability of clean drinking water.","conclusion":"Acting on climate change has many benefits which are unrelated to the global climate."}
{"id":"2161f1e3-ea92-49c7-bd2f-a88345b97987","argument":"Any pre-existing drug addictions will complicate the use and effectiveness of medicine prescribed by a doctor. Opiate and barbiturate addicts in particular would be at a much higher risk of accidental overdose from doctor-prescribed medications.","conclusion":"Easier access to drugs will cause more stressed or ill individuals to use these substances for self-medication."}
{"id":"e8b16dbb-c868-4811-ba36-1872adc4f10e","argument":"I don't see the value of immigration if the immigrants aren't going to contribute to a country in certain measures, namely in economics. If an immigrant group is consistently performing worse than every other community in many measures then I fail to see the benefits of millions of them coming over. The Hispanic population of the U.S. has grown from 9.1 million in 1970 to more than 55 million today. 63 are of Mexican origins, 9.2 are of Puerto Rican origins no one can complain as Puerto Rico is part of the U.S., and 3.5 are of Cuban origins who seem like an outlier among Hispanic Americans in the sense they do okay for themselves. Overall Hispanic Americans have one of the lowest incomes in the country, perform very poorly academically, have high rates of crime and gang activity, heavy reliance on welfare, and the majority of Hispanic babies are born to unwed mothers. What it seems to me is through bad immigration policies, the government has created a huge and new underclass in the country. The brutal truth is most people would rather not live in a predominantly Hispanic neighbourhood because they'd justifiably consider them violent, poor and with very bad schools for their kids to attend. The number of immigrants coming from China and India has increased a lot in recent years and I view this immigration as a positive thing, particularly because the brightest of these countries are selected to come here. Chinese Americans and Indian Americans have some of the highest incomes Indians have the highest at 127,489 , low crime rates, low reliance on welfare, high academic success, children born to unwed mothers are a rarity, and they contribute immensely to Silicon Valley and other industries in the U.S. Of the U.S. startup companies valued at 1 billion or more, over half were founded by immigrants and this is where they came from At the top spot was India with 14 highly successful entrepreneurs, followed by Canada and UK with 8 each. Just one person an Argentine from the 55 million strong Hispanic community founded a startup worth over 1 billion. Having said that, the Argentines are a tiny community within the Hispanic community, and are more of an outlier in the sense they're not as dysfunctional as other Hispanic Americans. We can't go and deport all the Hispanics, nor can we strip people of their citizenships. But I strongly believe from now on Hispanic immigration must be reduced, and we need to be more selective in who we take in so they won't be a drain on society. They don't need to be as successful as the Indian and Chinese immigrants, but we should at the very least select for people that can at least attain an income on par with the national average.","conclusion":"I think Hispanic mass immigration has overall been a negative thing for the U.S."}
{"id":"9977133b-3563-4b5b-844a-fe268a9d15ef","argument":"Demanding another person's attention when they are not willing to give it freely can create resentment, which will hurt the relationship between the two people.","conclusion":"People have no right to demand my attention, attention is something we can give, but not something others can take."}
{"id":"6eec78cc-d698-41a5-a09c-cad142426314","argument":"In the growing phenomena of outsourcing cheap labor, it appears that big corporations are essentially trying to have the most amount of work done for the least amount of money. They're basically selling labor to the lowest bidder, so there's this continuous race to the bottom where the worker who will work for the least amount will always get the job. This competition for the cheapest labor ensures that the lowest working classes will continue to get a smaller and smaller slice of the pie, i.e. they're getting less and less money for the same amount of work, so the corporations will continue to make more and more profits. The effect also moves up classes as well, because workers who were previously working for higher wages are now being displaced, and if the effect is systemic across all of society, it means that the jobs they were working are now worth less, so the only option is to take a job that pays less than before. The fact that income inequality has grown so much over the past half century or so can be partly attributed to this effect of the worker getting a smaller slice of the pie. To me, the implication of this is that capitalism is, for the most part, an inherently unstable system. If this trend continues and corporations continue trying to procure the cheapest labor possible, the working class will just get poorer and poorer. This is less of a post about the current state of things, but more about the theoretical tendency of capitalism. Are there mechanisms in place that ensure this won't happen? gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Competition for cheap labor ensures that the poor will get poorer and the rich will get richer"}
{"id":"595d7422-f537-4ce8-b632-0732e26a8d56","argument":"The post itself is pretty self explanatory. But I'll give a few of the supporting arguments for my opinion. In the US being a bigger person is more and more common these days. MOST of the time this is due to lifestyle choices this is the presumption we will stick to for the purposes of this conversation . Your choices have their expected logical consequences that you should have to deal with spend more on larger clothing, or gym memberships, food, healthcare etc. I don't see why this shouldn't apply to flights. Be it multiple seat purchases, or only having business class tickets available for to purchase, or even something I haven't thought up. On a pure math level it just makes sense. It takes more energy to lift a 350lb person 35000ft at 500mph for 2000 miles than a 135lb person. It literally costs the airline more. There is an expectation that if you as a larger person pay more for your seat, then you should expect the higher level of comfort. You shouldnt pay twice the price for the same size seat that you clearly don't fit in. But it works both ways, an average sized person shouldn't pay the same price as a bigger person and have their comfort compromised. They paid with the expectation of having their entire seat, not 90 of it. Which leads to airlines should have larger seats . I think it makes sense that as Americans grow, the size of seats should accommodate for the changing average for domestic flights. But if seat sizes go up then that means less ppl per flight, so to maintain their profits the airlines will realistically charge more per ticket. The reason the seats got bigger were because of the bigger people. So why would all the smaller and normal sized people have to absorb the cost? They were already comfortable as it was in the original seats Looking beyond the US, for international flights, the customer pool is a lot larger. Bigger people are not the norm, theyre further off on the edge of the bell curve. I presume most of the world fits comfortably in a coach sized seat and therefore don't need their seats to be adjusted. Which brings me back to the end of my first paragraph. Granted, I know many times bigger people are asked to purchase two seats. But it's not a steadfast rule. It's also common to have situations where bigger people inconvenience their neighbors I assume because people don't like this pov I have and don't want to act on it. Tldr Big people need to pay for their accomodations to prevent inconveniencing others. .","conclusion":"Bigger people should pay more for other accommodations on flights."}
{"id":"58b160dd-3e7d-4039-9528-bd37b4184378","argument":"Children form many beliefs and views on the world which often are unsupported by science. These views can change over time.","conclusion":"Even if children do come to view creationism as a valid scientific position, this is not necessarily a long-term position."}
{"id":"09430513-d0ce-4c1e-9762-bbc4015d23ca","argument":"If pesticides are used on crops especially greater use with GMO crops resistant to pesticides, then a vegan diet might not be healthier for populations nearby growing areas","conclusion":"Veganism as a worldwide behavioral public health intervention strategy improves community\/population health outcomes."}
{"id":"f08fc49a-acb0-443f-96fe-08a99091d634","argument":"I think the current and traditional situation with how movies and show rights works is actively harmful to our culture, and to the entertainment market, and furthermore the harm that is done is not limited to the entertainment market itself but extends out to issues well beyond that. As an example, see Disney and how they've used their market power to push legislation that distorts the foundations of how our society functions when it comes to creative rights, and fundamentally alters how people consider those ideas. The results are bad for both consumers and creators, and if allowed to continue will once more create a situation where prospective customers end up criminalized. The vertical monopoly in these industries fragments in the market in unhealthy ways, and there is a simple fix. I think, as such, producers and distributors need to be legally separated. Producers of these shows should be required to license their creations available for a fee to any distributors, without being able to show favoritism, based on straightforward legal principles. The producers can set any price they see as reasonable, but it must be made available on an equal basis. Note1 This is only in regards to distribution. Other associated rights, such as merchandising rights, can remain as they were, since this probably of exclusive retailers is not nearly so impactful or problematic or rampant there. I think the people, through their government, have the right to act, and should act, because Movie and shows are monopolies. This is the point of copyright, to grant a limited, government protected production monopoly. No other person can create copies of these works legally without permission from the copyright holder. The goal of copyright is to grant the creators financial rewards from the works they've created, and so incentivize them to create new works, to promote the progress of useful arts and science , to the benefit of society at large. The current broadcast situation for movies and shows is not in line with the intent of copyright, or in line with market values. Creative properties are often used not to be compensated for their creation, but to manipulate the market for competitive advantage in an arena platform competitions outside of the actual production of creative content. Since copyright is a privilege granted to creators for an express purpose, we have the right to change the rules in areas where we think it falls short, to better promote those ends. The vertical monopolies resulting from exclusivity deals between producers and distributors or from producer distributors are not good for the progress of useful arts and sciences, and are not good for society. We've seen the difference multiple times as new technologies temporarily break down old barriers and force something approaching a healthy market before the companies adapt and re monopolize. We have a duty to change them.","conclusion":"Movies and shows should be legally required to offer licensing rights on the open market at a fair rate"}
{"id":"fd7ff9ba-77dc-44a6-bf23-46187995639c","argument":"I think reducing the roll size will bring a sizable new group of bakers in addition to helping decentralize the protocol. This would be a net positive for protocol and community.","conclusion":"Amendment Proposal #2: Would increase the current gas limit AND reduce the roll size requirement."}
{"id":"260421f5-2400-4d62-8d1a-c5f70788e07f","argument":"A lot of people, when arguing against the legalization of same sex marriage, say things like What's next? Polygamy? My question is basically, why not? I don't think others' sexual romantic lives are any business of mine or the government's to regulate, as long as everyone involved is a consenting adult. That goes for same sex relationships, open relationships, and polyamorous relationships. So, assuming that everyone involved consents fully, what's so bad with polygamy that we have to have such a knee jerk reaction to it? Why not legalize it?","conclusion":"There's nothing wrong with polygamy"}
{"id":"4ba06ea2-4934-4af3-a5f6-bb966cef24e3","argument":"An applicant of mixed white and Black parentage will likely apply as a Black applicant to further their chances of success in applying for admissions.","conclusion":"The growth in multiracial applicants could further erode the original intent of affirmative action, which is to help disadvantaged minorities."}
{"id":"cfc482fb-f545-4edd-aa58-9cbb05967ffa","argument":"One cannot possibly consider this memorial in Senagal is recognizing the same perspective and interpretation of history as this memorial in Charlottesville","conclusion":"Holocaust memorials honor the victims, they do not, in any case, celebrate perpetrators"}
{"id":"e7a75463-780d-451c-9ed2-8b0d7e13abec","argument":"One can see clearly about the level of overpopulation by looking at global average biocapacity per capita. It is about 1.7 gha. If humanity would like to become sustainable, we would have to lower per capita ecological footprint to that level. Since only poor countries have per capita ecological footprints so low it means that there are so many people on Earth that humanity would need to face global poverty to reach sustainability. This is how one can find out how bad global overpopulation is.","conclusion":"In reality, an overshoot curve is a better demonstration of overpopulation, as it explains Earth Overshoot Day better and shows how populations go over the carrying capacity, not just work within it."}
{"id":"58bf6ff2-b373-45a9-b525-31027e3ab020","argument":"I believe that in an overall sense of what makes a film objectively good be it box office performance, audience and critical praise, a legacy in popular culture, or film quality Stephen Speilberg's Jaws is the best movie ever made. First of all, Jaws was a box office sensation. Adjusted for inflation, it made the equivalent of 1 billion domestic and is the seventh highest grossing film of all time. Jaws is often seen as the first big blockbuster film, which is something that theater goers still experience every summer, 40 years later. At its release, it was the highest grossing film of all time. Jaws was also lauded by audiences and critics Of course, like everything, there are some bad reviews of the film, but overall, Jaws has withstood the test of time in terms of critical and audience appeal. As previously mentioned, Jaws is considered to be the first true blockbuster film. In that way, it's not only successful, but a milestone in film history. I've often heard stories about how people around the country were afraid to go swimming in beaches after seeing the film. John Williams' iconic score is something that most people, even if they haven't seen the film, would be able to instantly recognize. I'll mention this in my next point, but it also solidified the career of a young Steven Spielberg, made John Williams a recognizable name and possibly the most famous composer of our time. Spielberg is one of the most famous director producers of all time. He's also one of the most successful with critics as well as at the box office. His name alone is as recognizable as Jaws itself, which is not something many directors or producers could say. Finally, Jaws is not just a stupid blockbuster. Despite a troubled production filled with mechanical shark breakdowns, a boat sinking which nearly lost the film, and going over budget, Jaws' cinematic quality and appeal is undeniable. It's a well acted, suspenseful thriller that employs expert filmmaking technique and craftsmanship. It's often been said that Spielberg eventually chose not to show the shark as much because it didn't look realistic enough. Due to that effective choice, the shark seems more terrifying. Spielberg is undoubtedly a master craftsman in film and he pulled not only effective thrills, but great and classic performances from his three leads, with Robert Shaw being particularly great. While modern blockbusters have flashy effects that eventually show their age, Jaws has remained an effective thriller with solid effects. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"In terms of box-office, audience and critical success, an enduring legacy in popular culture, and cinematic quality, Jaws 1975 is the best movie ever made."}
{"id":"374d6165-5e03-4710-a50e-37fad2beae51","argument":"One former US Marine, Gen. Alfred Gray, Jr., said in 1993: \"We kill more Americans with our mines than we do anybody else. What the hell is the use of sowing all this airborne scatterable mines if you\u2019re going to move through it next week or next month?.\"14","conclusion":"Landmines kill soldiers and limit mobility of military planting them"}
{"id":"071e2a00-ac69-49ad-92b6-5148b5f251a7","argument":"Over the years I've heard from many adults in my life that the purpose of a college education is to gain a more thorough perspective on the world, develop critical thinking skills, and to interact with a network of people who share similar academic passions. While I don't disagree that reputable colleges provide this for their students, I think that going to college for the reason of learning these things is a horrible, horrible idea. The purpose of getting a degree above all else is to help land the career you want, not to learn skills that can easily be acquired elsewhere. Perhaps 20 years ago going to college to get an education made sense. Information wasn't nearly as readily available as it is today and so there weren't many options for people who wanted a post secondary education without college. But now we live in a world of khanacademy, MIT opencourseware, coursera, and countless other free educational resources that make more information more accessible than it's ever been at any point in history. Of course, employers still want people with degrees, which is why college is important, but the skills acquired through obtaining a degree are no longer unique to colleges. I've actually heard one of my professors say that even if your degree doesn't land you a job, college is never a waste of time . I don't see how this is true. If your degree doesn't get you a job, then all it did was provide you with some learning skills. Skills that as stated above could have been obtained just as easily outside of college provided that you know how to use the internet. The only difference is that you wouldn't be in tens of thousands of dollars in debt if you hadn't taken the college route. This leads me to my final point, which is that informing students that going to college for the sake of getting an education is harmful. College puts students under a relentless burden of financial, emotional, and mental strain. Unless there is going to be a large payoff at the end of the person's education in the form of a good career that would otherwise have been unobtainable without their degree, the person is essentially incurring a huge cost for no tangible benefit whatsoever. Becoming a debt slave in your early twenties is a horrifying way to start out your adult life, and so students should only be encouraged to go to college for the reason of pursuing their specific career goals. Please . As a soon to be college graduate I'd like to think that my degree has some value outside of the job market, but the realist in me thinks that people just convince themselves of this so that they don't feel bad about not having a job after graduating.","conclusion":"The notion of going to college for the sake of \"getting an education\" is harmful and obsolete."}
{"id":"496e1468-9b51-4ee7-92a3-1b393de1a1ca","argument":"First and foremost, I love Dark Side. I've been a Floyd fan for the last 10 years of my life and have obsessively collected anything released by them or bootleggers A Tree Full of Secrets, I'm lookin' at you I love Money . From a musical standpoint, the song is catchy and the mixture of the unusual 7 4 timing for the verses and the 4 4 timing for the solo is unique and special. That said, it does not belong on DSoTM. Money is purely a song designed to be played as a single, and radio popularity confirms this. If you listen to the album from beginning to end, Money sticks out, and not in a good way. Though the lyrics might fit with the theme of the album, the music is too upbeat and does not fit with the rest of the music. Us and Them gt Any Colour You Like gt Brain Damage gt Eclipse is one of the best song lineups on an album ever. Money totally ruins the flow of these tracks, and by extension really detracts from the overall feel of side 2. TL DR Money is a great song, but it is not musically aligned with the rest of the album. BONUS On the Run does not add much to the album. From a technological standpoint, it was notable and one could argue that it should remain important because of that. But musically, it is even more removed from DSoTM than Money.","conclusion":"The Pink Floyd song \"Money\" does not belong on \"The Dark Side of the Moon\" \"On the Run\" also doesn't belong, but since it is lesser known, I won't make a big deal about it."}
{"id":"3f653069-6a05-4c65-8884-64009e202543","argument":"Marriage is defined as between man and woman, with the woman taking a submissive role. All sexual relations outside of marriage are also not allowed. Christ both defined marriage this way, and did not allow sexual relations outside of marriage.","conclusion":"To be a true feminist, you have to stand up for all women including lesbian women. The Bible condemns lesbian women, and therefore is not feminist."}
{"id":"956bf881-f25d-4642-a9f8-503b0a58e745","argument":"By fucked in the head I mean unsustainable and really unhealthy for the vast majority of its citizens. Their population doesn't even want to have relationships any more because of their devotion to work Their education system is just pumping out mindless automatons who only know math and science and were never taught how to be creative problem solvers Their society is focused on obedience and conformity to a fault It's socially awkward to have a normal human interaction while they turn around and pay for fake relationships and cuddle sessions to replace actual human emotions One out of every two disturbing WTF worthy photographs I have ever seen is from Japan DDR Their commercials are absolute fucking insanity. They make US commercials seem tame and rational by comparison They're depressed and killing themselves at an alarming rate That being said, I would love to go there, but I thank god I wasn't raised in that mess. I feel bad for looking at them this way and I really don't want to make the mistake of lumping all Japanese people into one group, but based on my impression it's hard not to. Note I am well aware of the fact that the American culture has many faults but I feel like they don't hold a candle to Japan's problems. Edit forgot to add Japanese women act like they're being raped during sex. Source my friend is dating a Japanese woman Edit 2 full disclosure, I have never been to Japan obviously but I really love a lot about their culture. They just strike me as having deeply embedded neuroses.","conclusion":"I think Japan is culturally fucked in the head"}
{"id":"a988e7cb-11a5-4394-8251-97de8d665ede","argument":"It is commonly cited that ethnic cleansing was committed by Serbian forces in Bosnia in the Bosnian civil war of the early 1990s. Many sources argue, by extension, that Bosnian Serbs claimed and created much of what is now Republika Srpska from a campaign of ethnic cleansing. Croatian President Stjepan Mesic, for instance, said in June of 2008, \"RS president Milorad Dodik is well aware of the fact that Republika Srpska was founded upon ethnic cleansing.\" Many subsequently argue that Republika Srpska does not have the record or legitimacy to claim independence. Others argue, similarly, only territories that have been threatened, victimized, or egregiously governed have a legitimate claim to independence; and that Republika Srpska is the opposite of that.","conclusion":"Republika Srpska founded on ethnic cleansing; no right to independence"}
{"id":"490c6456-37ef-4e3b-b4b7-1f4275105ea8","argument":"Score-keeping in board games can become hostile when players disagree with the decisions being made.","conclusion":"Online video games can track player scores, not requiring a score-keeper."}
{"id":"1123ff61-1324-413e-bc58-4c380254e526","argument":"gt And Jesus said unto them, Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's Mark 12 17 I was ordained as a minister in the Universal Life Church maybe 15 years ago. I registered online and it took 5 minutes. With a little creativity and some paperwork, I could apply for tax exemption perhaps by starting a commune? My commune would use the same public resources as everyone else. As a private citizen, away from my organization, I could send my children to public schools, claim welfare benefits, and enjoy the relative protections and upkeep of the state. Pending how charismatic that I might be, I could have a relatively large compound with surface parking, attracting thousands of visitors, perhaps straining the roads and sewers of the small county that I reside in. It might not be easy to incorporate as a church, and I may be less than sincere, but it is possible. My special authority on the universe will be difficult to challenge and I might tap into thousands of years of western religious traditions to cement my point. Ultimately, the value that I provide as a church is only moderately questionable as the pretense is difficult to rule upon without infringing on my religion. If I paid taxes on my church's earnings, then I would contribute to the quality of services provided by my state. I would be free to lobby legislative bodies and more fully engage my government as a paying participant. I could still incorporate as a nonprofit on the clearly defined activities that I participate in which do qualify with measurable purpose, but the effort that I spend reaping souls would be my own enterprise. Is there reason why church's shouldn't be treated as any other organization? I heard this view years ago, Churches should pay taxes , and it has always stuck with me. I can't seem to view them as anything more than a personal endeavor that I subsidize as a citizen tax payer. Edit Users cold08 miyakohouou have changed my mind. Without considering the power dynamic, I would feel that the tax exemption of religious organizations is antiquated gratis to indulge something rather unnecessary, but in reality it's a leash that keeps those influences guarded. A taxable entity can participate and fully lobby for their causes with all coercion, influence, and wealth afforded to them, factors of which that are mitigated by the controls of an exempt status. Further a profitable tax entity will find policy protections from dependent governments. The potential for abuse is concerning. I no longer think churches should be taxed. The analogy would be grabbing a wolf by the ears.","conclusion":"I think churches should pay taxes."}
{"id":"99653b01-36de-493a-b37b-f3a43d8ba1be","argument":"Income and wealth can come from many sources and take many forms. It would be nearly impossible for figures to be accurate because it would have to take everything into account.","conclusion":"This policy lacks efficacy in economies where monetary transfers are in cash."}
{"id":"3ec1625e-b988-4b21-9f9e-09441f6e3756","argument":"Edited for clarity and added detail Let's start out by defining what I mean by God, I mean a being that has at least these three traits omnipotence, omniscience, and omnibenevolence. You can tell me whether you think omnipotence includes being able to do logically impossible things, or if it only means being able to do all logically possible things. By omnibenevolence I mean always preferring what is morally good, or always choosing the morally best option out of all alternatives available. By evil I mean anything that makes the world worse than perfect, or if you think there's no such thing as a perfect world, than anything that makes a world worse than the best possible world. So I don't just mean animal cruelty is evil and the Holocaust was evil, I also mean stubbing your toe is evil. If a perfectly good, all knowing, all powerful being existed, then it would know what the best possible world would be like, would want to create the best possible world, and would be able to create the best possible world. So if God existed, the actual world would not contain any evil, since God would have chosen to create the best possible world, which contains no evil, instead. Further, I would argue that in our world we do find evil, both evil caused by agents, and natural evil, which was not caused by anything that could even be argued to have agency except, of course, God . The nature of this evil is both abundant and clearly superfluous it doesn't seem necessary that small children suffer agonizing deaths on a regular basis, for example. So if you really want to change my view, show me how the type and amount of evil we see in the actual world is consistent with the existence of god. Note that I'm not trying to be convinced that any specific god does exist, or that god exists at all, but only that the existence of God would be compatible with the existence of evil that we see in our world . It would be too much to ask of you that you also convinced me a god existed. So just limit your attempt to  to why evil could exist in a world with an omnibenevolent, omniscient, omnipotent being. Here are some good articles to read if you want to do some research before attempting to  Thanks","conclusion":"The existence of evil is not compatible with the existence of God."}
{"id":"193facca-7a47-460a-9ed5-781a3ecf7461","argument":"The human concept of \"good\" is conditioned by our limited knowledge of, and limited power over our environment, therefore fallacious when applied to the absolute.","conclusion":"The human concept of \"good\" does not apply to God."}
{"id":"38341d5b-e1a5-439d-a387-87429ee0fe99","argument":"The back story to this is that one of my friends found out that another was having sex with his girlfriend behind his back and when he confronted him, they got into a fight. Punches were thrown both ways but friend A who was cheated on beat friend B pretty badly. When the police came not from noise but from the girl who called friend B admitted I don't want to press charges, I deserved it and yet they are both facing possible jail time, possible suspension from school, and possible firing from jobs. I have also personally seen a fist fight settle the tension between two friends faster than any other option between men at least . It is legal in hockey, boxing, etc so why not in every day life. Assuming consent, no weapons, no damage to a third party property, no killing or extreme harm Edit children sticking up to bullies is another example I thought of. I believe that fighting is the only way to end that situation and no amount of mediating, talking, punishment for the bully will end it entirely okay guys very good points presented below, I enjoyed the mature debate. Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one and some may be shitty, but they are extremely important to society. Thanks","conclusion":"I believe that unless it causes a public disturbance, 2 consenting adults should legally be allowed to fight without weapons."}
{"id":"2cbcd9c8-a8d7-4e2e-85e0-0db85bef67fe","argument":"I'm a big Star Wars fan and an even bigger Harry Potter fan. However, I've also been adopting more minimalist and simple living practices. Here are my reasons for getting rid of them. I prefer the Harry Potter books over the movies anyway and I don't plan on getting rid of my books. I only watch the movies to get a visual representation of the Wizarding World. I haven't put any of them in our DVD player in years. If I want to watch them or have my future kids watch them, they are often on TV or I'm sure I'll always be able to find a site online to stream them from. At this point they are just taking up space and would be better donated to a place where someone who wants them could pick them up, or better yet, sold to put a bit of cash in my pocket. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I should get rid of my Star Wars and Harry Potter DVDs."}
{"id":"5b6c8b0f-5ab3-4971-b943-a5792363e09e","argument":"Earthquakes are usually caused when rocks underground suddenly break along a fault, causing a release of energy that makes the ground shake, as opposed to the biblical narrative of it being a manifestation of God's anger for example in Isaiah 5:25","conclusion":"Though the Bible states that natural disasters are a result of God's wrath against sinning science has shown that the cause of natural disasters are set forces of nature that are difficult - but not impossible - to predict."}
{"id":"1a455018-0a69-401c-b79c-65fd3c3deeb6","argument":"While I don't discount the possibility of God, I personally see no good reason to believe. I believe that religion was created and continues to thrive because people feel uncomfortable with ignorance. Whether it was explaining thunder with Zeus, or explaining the origin of the universe with Genesis, God has always seemed to function as a placeholder answer for people who can't say I don't know. I have heard semi convincing evidence from personal experience, but I always find that other explanations make more sense to me psychology, coincidence, etc . It is unbelievably easy to trick people or to self deceive, and I don't believe that most people realize the extent to which this is true. Religion appears to be the perfect manifestation of this idea to me, but I'd be silly not to point out that I may be the one being tricked here. I have recently lost a few debates and had many of my ideas convincingly challenged in other areas, so I am very open and interested to find out if a similar thing can happen with my disbelief in God. I recognize that this topic is incredibly broad and difficult to pin down, so if you are able to change any of my perceptions on God not necessarily turn me into a theist overnight , I will gladly award a delta. Thanks.","conclusion":"I don't believe in God."}
{"id":"52b0ecf6-13bb-4a9a-937e-b39676d02a85","argument":"They could have avoided a disastrous period if they simply give their account number for major transactions.","conclusion":"SMEs could have avoided negative consequences by switching to digital transactions."}
{"id":"125ea38e-285f-45e2-ba1d-97e33ef4f001","argument":"If you try to buy influence on delegates, it would be worth much less because their power isn't guaranteed for the next couple of years.","conclusion":"Influencing person per person is much harder than influencing parties."}
{"id":"7f875220-04d4-40b8-8e08-3311bbd191d8","argument":"I consider myself a pretty centered person, but I'm highly critical of Senator Cruz. I find the claim that most violent criminals are democrats to be, at the least, specious. I did some research and it seems that most convicted felons are democrats, but I conclude this is due more to the density of crime and democrats in urban areas than registered republicans. I also found somewhat conflicting data showing that red states are more prone to violent crimes than blue states, but this obviously blurs the 'people count' metric Mr. Cruz is appealing to. Anyone with data and a clear perspective on the situation, please . Edit I wonder if this asks a greater question for me does this kind of factual statement Cruz's statement is almost undeniably true constructively transform the presidential debate? Edit Hey guys, it's bed time I've been doing homework, and will continue to do so tomorrow morning lol . Special thanks to u geminia999 for some good insight and u Sonnington for presenting a great opposing view. Edit The PolitFact on the subject","conclusion":"Ted Cruz claims that the overwhelming majority of violent criminals are Democrats"}
{"id":"b0601393-340b-46f9-8d0b-ac2bf5db6d17","argument":"The share of women in municipal councils in Hungary is less than half of the EU average of 28 percent.","conclusion":"Hungary ranks amongst the worst countries in the EU for gender inequality"}
{"id":"90104c55-240b-4779-9f1e-009ec9831b52","argument":"One of these is ugly produce. This equates to 70 billion pounds of food wasted. That is enough to feed over 950,000 people, based on the amount that Americans eat over a lifetime","conclusion":"Vegan food discards in developing countries could generously feed developing countries."}
{"id":"03f2ff60-bb06-41fe-a52c-7cbe45e12d8e","argument":"Now that it's been around for close to 8 years I think that on the whole Streaming has become a net negative for gaming as a hobby. I'm going to list off some of my major gripes with what streaming has done to gaming and go from there. Swatting. I'm pretty sure that there were close to zero if not zero incidents of swatting prior to streaming video games. Now people are getting killed over it AND on top of that costing the general public thousands of dollars to summon SWAT teams every time someone decides to to it. On top of that it's generally unenforceable because it's entirely too easy to hide yourself when committing the act. This obviously contributes to games and gamers getting a bad wrap for immaturity and violence. Exponentially larger capacity for targeted harassment. Now, this is somewhat inherent to gaming or participating online. However, a streamer is generally not expected to have perfect control over their audience and what's more cannot control how mature or Zealous their audience behaves. I personally have been the butt of the joke for ~3,000 people and A friend of mine has been constantly harassed for playing a game he is good at because people seek out his steam profile and deliberately try to cause whatever harm they can to him on the behalf of a streamer that was triggered by my friend's performance against him. It is permeating the decision making process for games and creating new costs and concerns. Instead of developers focusing on making quality video games, we now have companies expending resources on streaming when they didn't exist before. This is as minimal as creating a task force to police people who stream your game and as large as entire games being developed upon some sort of streaming gimmick. It creates balance issues for games like Rust. A streamer with an audience the size of a rust server cant easily filter through a group of cronies that the vast majority of other players do not have access to as a meta resource to the game. What's more while organized structures like clans exist, those structures are generally an equal stake endeavor where all participating players play to benefit one another. The stream paradigm dynamic is more like a monarchy where everyone is willing to delay their progress to further just the streamer's goals. This is all in relative comparison to what I see to be the benefits of streaming which are considerably limited. People can develop a unilateral relationship with the streamer who they pay money to. I don't really see this as a benefit per se. In fact in a sense this is somewhat sad in the scheme of things. Yes we can all attribute some value to being entertained by a personality, but streaming is the only channel where the unilateral relationship exists. I.E. I pay you money and you might talk to me and I will ALWAYS invest more of myself in this relationship than you ever will. Video game events get to be streamed as well. This is a pretty substantial benefit, and frankly it's primarily one of the only reason's I'm on twitch at any given time anymore. I enjoy watching speedruns, speedrun events, and events that wouldn't ever make broadcast TV like Yu gi oh, MTG or any other low key tournaments. On the whole, the price of streaming is very Steep for the limited benefits that it offers as a medium. I believe it's a detriment to video games on the whole and the medium of gaming would be better served without it. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Streaming has been a net negative for gaming."}
{"id":"a8f520d1-7d9c-4f0c-8843-2a057ed72d3b","argument":"This summer in Colorado I've notice a large number of drivers cruising in the left hand lane of major highways, at the same speed or slower than the drivers beside them. This is, of course, infuriating, illegal on many areas of the highway, holds up traffic, and increases the threat of road rage from the drivers behind them. Let's call these guys Left Hand Cruisers LHC's . When able to pass the LHC, I generally pass on the right, match their speed, merge in front of them, and then let off the gas. I begin slowing down, forcing them to slow or merge right in response. If they refuse to move over, I flash my hazards to get their attention and let them know I'm not going to speed back up for them or trick them into thinking I'm having issues, whichever. This usually just results in the LHC realizing what they're doing, merging right, and leaving it at that. Sometimes they try to merge back into the left lane once I speed back up, but I just put the brakes on them again. The hope is that LHC's will realize that someone driving slowly in the left hand lane is a nuisance, and holds up traffic. At least they're likely to think about it, and this makes them less likely to cruise in that lane in the future. Even if they don't learn a lesson, and even if they refuse to merge right, this step will allow the faster drivers that were held up before to merge right into the now faster lane and pass the LHC with ease. The only real risk is of road rage from the LHC, and I have encountered this. The normal response from them is to swing into the right hand lane, pass and merge in front of me, pedal to the metal. As long as I don't try to race them or anything, it's just left at that. They end up moving more quickly in the left hand lane, or at least fast enough that I can't pass them again, and I leave them alone afterwards. When I first started doing this, I noticed a significant change in the number of LHC's after a few weeks , and it went from 2 3 each day to maybe one every week. I felt like I was making a large impact. With the warm weather returning, their numbers are increasing, so I feel that my impact may have been largely selection bias. However, I feel that it does make some difference, whether in the short run or the long run, and is worth doing.","conclusion":"The correct response to someone driving slowly in the left hand lane on the highway is to merge in front of them and drive even slower."}
{"id":"d47a3b8d-3584-4f53-bbbb-335a9f2fa1c6","argument":"For the entire run of the show prior to the season four finale, Carrie had proven herself to be a capable and diligent agent who is obsessive about defeating her country\u2019s enemies. That shouldn\u2019t obscure the fact that, much like Jack Bauer on 24, Carrie often committed morally condemnable acts to achieve her goals. This would include illegal surveillance on Nick Brody\u2019s family and ordering an air strike on a Pakistani wedding because she thought the terrorist Haissam Haqqani would be there. By the end of that season, she has seemingly become disillusioned with the agency. Her mentor, Saul Berenson has struck a deal with Dar Adal and indirectly Haqqani , a former black ops specialist who took on a leadership role within the CIA. Dar Adal had previously been responsible for \u201coff the books\u201d CIA operations in Somalia. In the current season, Dar had been part of a conspiracy to discredit and later assassinate the new President elect, who was viewed as an enemy of the intelligence community. Note depending on how you view the finale, this may or may not be accurate. My view is that Carrie is just as morally compromised as Dar Adal. While she was with the CIA, she was clearly dedicated to their mission, and was willing to do anything including killing civilians to achieve the company\u2019s objectives. She knows that her actions are morally wrong, but she\u2019s able to compartmentalize them \u201cfor the greater good\u201d. In s5e03 \u201cSuper Powers\u201d, Carrie temporarily stops taking medication to treat her bipolar disorder and is forced to reckon with the long list of people who have suffered from her decisions. The only reason she went off her medication was to figure out who was trying to kill her, she didn\u2019t face any sort of \u201cguilt\u201d from her actions until there were tangible consequences affecting her. Going back even earlier, it\u2019s worth asking why she left the CIA at all? Did she decide that she could no longer do what her job called for, even if there was a grander purpose behind it much like Quinn decided on more than one occasion ? No, she left once she found out that Dar and Saul were willing to strike a deal with Haqqani. She was essentially angry that they weren\u2019t pursuing revenge against him. Much of what she\u2019s done since leaving the CIA including working for Otto D\u00fcring and Elizabeth Keane can be considered attempts to get revenge on Saul. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Homeland Carrie is just as morally compromised as Dar Adal"}
{"id":"ae43fcbe-3b5b-43ce-800f-9c39c938e64b","argument":"Prostitutes report that after legalization in Germany, the work has become harder due to longer working hours, constant need to move and reduced prices.","conclusion":"In Germany the working conditions for sex workers have worsened after legalization as salaries decreased and working hours were prolonged."}
{"id":"4f0aead0-b9a7-4dd0-a631-ddc7221c80c1","argument":"In every Religion, Culture, random group, etc., 1% of humans Dr R Hare PCL-R are Psychopaths and 5-15% almost Psychopaths Dr R Schouten 'Almost a Psychopath' who interpret everything, and behave, without Empathy or Conscience; and are Arrogant, Manipulative, Lying, and absorbed only in their greed for, and amoral pursuit of, Power and Wealth. Allah, in the Quran & His previous messages, has warned against psychopathic behaviours, and that they are the cause of most, if not all, evil.","conclusion":"Allah, the Monotheistic, Omnipotent, Omniscient, Eternal, Self-Sufficient, Creator, Sustainer, and Monitor of all that exists, has repeatedly revealed, since the first human being, guidance on how to minimise evil in, even eradicate evil from, society. All but one i.e. the Quran of Allah's messages of guidance have been destroyed or perverted by evil humans, for their own greed for power and wealth. So evil only exists because evil humans reject and\/or pervert Allah's guidance."}
{"id":"784abf95-b3ba-492e-b109-296e65e7ffb7","argument":"Since the start of this year the topic has accelerated dramatically. News reports are full with it and it remains high on the agenda in Japanese domestic struggle between the Right and the Left.","conclusion":"Even though there is widespread hate speech in Japan in recent years the country remains democratic and a stable society."}
{"id":"df4f1118-d91e-4e78-be2b-1fcf4b0da366","argument":"Similar to where it says drink responsibly on a beer bottle, but on a billboard or superimposed in the corner of the tv during an ad. People should be able to know if they're supporting a company which has been corrupt or done other unethical things in the interests of ethical consumerism If you want to find out about it you have to actually do your own research. I would love to be able to make a choice based on which company is the most ethical when I have a choice between 5 brands but I would have to leave the store and go home to google it. We should be able to look at a product and see the rap sheet of the company like the nutritional info on food.","conclusion":"I believe that any company caught breaking the law should have to show this in every one of their advertisements in the interest of ethical consumerism."}
{"id":"1f90078b-2db8-436d-8ff6-6d6a7bdb66e1","argument":"I am debating writing an article for the legalization of recreational marijuana. However, I am curious why such a large portion of the United States has negative views of recreational pot. I'm wondering if there are some valid and appropriate views that may outweigh the benefits of recreational marijuana. My personal view is based on three key reasons. First, the legalization of marijuana will lead to a large tax revenue for state governments. For example, Colorado has pulled in 506 million in tax revenue from marijuana since January 2014. Second, the legalization of pot will help the overburden police departments and criminal justice system. The amount spent on enforcement of marijuana laws is insane and leads to unjust sentences for many individuals. Finally, recreational marijuana may lead to a decline in opioid abuse. Currently, the opioid epidemic is spreading across the country as indiviauls become addicted after dealing with an injury. Recreational pot may give these individuals another avenue to relieve pain while mitigating the addictive attributes of opioids. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Recreational marijuana use should be legalized across the United States."}
{"id":"dedf761f-3999-40a8-b8b4-72f663b1e1f5","argument":"People reply to comments, but often do not upvote the comment that they are replying to. Reddit should force an upvote by you, whenever you reply. Reddit should not let you change remove your automatic upvote on a comment that you have replied to, unless you delete your comment first. Similarly, whenever you reply to a post, that post should also receive an automatic upvote. reddit instructs gt If you think something contributes to conversation, upvote it. If you are replying to a comment, then obviously it has contributed to conversation, as evidenced by you replying to it. There is no justification to allow users to downvote, or not vote on, comments that they have replied to. A forced automatic upvote should be default and mandatory.","conclusion":"If you reply to a comment, then the comment you are replying to should automatically be given an upvote. You should not be able to downvote any comment you have replied to."}
{"id":"03cd22e7-d5c0-4a9a-87ca-245ac48a4bc0","argument":"People are often resentful of what they view as punishments that are too severe and may take out that resentment on the women who report their harassers.","conclusion":"A zero tolerance approach to sexual harassment, resulting in immediate termination, will have negative consequences for women."}
{"id":"7d0b3880-f46c-4f84-bc5b-6dcbd4744b47","argument":"In practice, US citizens are already prohibited from owning the vast majority of military arms, from RPGs to tanks, jets, missiles, etc.","conclusion":"The Second Amendment should be repealed because it is ineffective."}
{"id":"bf95604b-4584-44a3-a0b5-319c394c6ad5","argument":"They can still sell the books, teach the books, love the books, believe the books are relevant to their lives and are important to the religion. Most religious adherents in what can problematically be called the west will tell you they aren't homophobic or misogynistic or violent to non believers, and in the same breath hold up a book that absolutely tells them to kill infidels, that homosexuality is an abomination, that slavery is fine, etc., and say the book is holy. It makes them seem completely inconsistent to outsiders, and to insiders who might be on the verge of extremism, hypocrites whose compassion shouldn't be emulated. You can point out the exact verse where their book tells them to, say, stone gay people, and they'll tell you stoning gay people is wrong, but ask them to admit that that means their book is at least a tiny bit wrong and they can't bring themselves to make that last little logical leap. Anyone who takes the stance that such a book is holy, sacred, or perfect, but proclaims that the extremists are not real Christians Muslims Jews Hindus etc who are interpreting the book incorrectly, is dangerously inept at fighting fundamentalism. The book does tell them to stone gays, and they were told the book was sacred. Adherents shouldn't be allowed to just scratch their heads and wonder how the extremists get their ideas. Actual change comes from seriously considering beliefs and how they're passed on, and it seems to me the best way is to just say these books are important, but they were written a long time ago by people with foibles and agendas and aren't totally correct. There's still other problems with religion, but this simple though admittedly large change would be enough for religion to justify its existence in the modern age, by fixing the most prominent moral incoherency at the heart of all major religions, leaving room for believers to practice true tolerance and acceptance without the hypocrisy that stokes extremism. Not to mention, it fixes up all the stuff that contradicts hard science and history. P.S. I am aware that a lot of religious people already take this view, but I don't think it's enough, especially among religious leaders, and I think many of these people still have a slight disconnect where they recognise that the book has problems but still refuse to take it off the pedestal of sacred, which isn't as bad as the people who refuse to admit there are problems but it still isn't great. Edit I don't think perfect, infallible and holy are totally interchangeable, but for a lot of the major religion's they're pretty inextricably linked. I'm trying to use the right words in the right places in my replies but there's a lot of comments to keep up with so for this reason I am using them a bit interchangeably. I am open to changing my mind from make the books not holy to they can still be holy but make sure everyone knows that holy and perfect aren't necessarily the same, because a lot of believers think they are and not for no reason but I'm not totally sold.","conclusion":"The simplest, most logically\/morally coherent way for the big religions to make sense in the modern world is if they admit the books aren't holy"}
{"id":"ac93d317-c48c-4bfa-8d13-c00c1e87a06e","argument":"There have been examples of feminist organizations ignoring evidence that is counter to their movement.","conclusion":"Feminism by definition is inherently biased against men thus making it divisive by nature."}
{"id":"3fb9f8ab-026e-42f3-84c2-3872e3f934b2","argument":"I don't want to sound like an expert Pok\u00e9mon player who calls out people for using grass types. I use them as well and I don't care about what teams or Pokemon are or aren't good. So it's not that kind of attack. It was hard for me to find a way to title this view while not keeping it too vague, because I realise that dragon types and bug types are less useful. I just mean to write that the grass type itself doesn't make a useful team member compared to using a water type and an electric type. Using those two types has made a grass type useless. I realise that's two slots instead of one, but those types are great Grass types are strong against rock, ground and water. We know it has a million weaknesses. Water types cover rock and ground without being weak to fire and an electric type covers water types without being weak to flying types. There are no water ground pokemon yet. Most grass types in this generation are dual types, so for this reason they're useful. But that's irrelevant to the grass type. I'm not denying that there are good grass types, especially for the first two gyms. I don't know what will change my view, this will be interesting to see. I imagine I'll be somewhat generous with deltas. Grass as a type is useless when you can use a water husband an electric type, two extremely useful types in general. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"There is little reason to use a grass type in gen 1 Pok\u00e9mon"}
{"id":"d76ea570-27a3-45c7-ab16-3d8d0af4953e","argument":"Revan is, in my opinion, the greatest character in the Star Wars universe. At the very least, he is the greatest Jedi character. Revan was, at different points in his life, both the Dark Lord of the Sith and the leader of the Jedi Order. His fall from grace and return to the light side makes Darth Vader look like a child throwing a tantrum over a bad date. He led a successfully defection from the Jedi Order, went to search for the Sith's power, became a Sith himself and defeated the Jedi, was betrayed by his lieutenant, had his memory wiped, returned as a Jedi to defeat Malak, then went in search for the Emperor. There he was joined by the Jedi Exile another great character , and even as she was killed and he was imprisoned, he was able to influence the Emperor to prevent him from conquering the galaxy for 300 years . There is no other person in the Star Wars universe who can come close to matching the experience or accomplishments of Revan's life. Revan is the only Dark Lord of the Sith to be fully redeemed to the light side and become a Jedi again.","conclusion":"Revan is the greatest character in the Star Wars Universe SPOILERS"}
{"id":"49631684-aeba-467f-9665-cba547d1d1cc","argument":"In a thread over in r parenting, a user said that a parent shouldn't have any say in a persons abortion, even if the girl was 9 11 years old. I feel like a child at that age doesn't understand the physical and psychological affects they are facing and a doctor should not perform an abortion on a girl that age without her parents consent knowledge. For one, it is a major medical procedure and two, her parents should be involved if for no other reason than to get her on proper birth control and prevent it from happening again.","conclusion":"I believe that a minor should have parental consent or at least parental knowledge before having an abortion."}
{"id":"2ee684c4-03b0-4980-9489-23b13a5bb111","argument":"It is understood that an AGI\u2019s abilities would surpass our own understanding. If this is true, we would have no ability to understand or deal with the consequences of discord between two or more AGI\u2019s.","conclusion":"Regardless of intention, the consequences of AI's actions prompted by its superior computational, communicative and information management capabilities could indeed lead to negative circumstances for large groups of people."}
{"id":"5b072f3d-b5e2-4708-9dd8-e857fdf46db1","argument":"Naturally, the needy are abandoned without the government acting as a guarantor of their rights. These people would find themselves struggling with burdens of heavy living costs, and these financial difficulties could carry into other aspects of daily life.","conclusion":"The government is crucial to ensuring the rights of its citizens. People have certain human entitlements provision of which the state is responsible, along with protections against abuses of their rights."}
{"id":"a175f4d6-8d2e-4f2e-81ef-2691501cce9b","argument":"Like the title says, this is my favorite store on the citadel. It has everything an ex deceased galactic hero could want weapon upgrades, warship models, fish, and minature giant space hamsters. Additionally, the storefront is located extremely close to the landing zone of the Normandy this means no more loading screens elevators between me and my purchases Things that will change my view Another store on the Citadel is my favorite Favoritism is innapropriate in this context, and I should hold all Citadel based merchant establishments in equal regard The citadel is not my favorite place to shop i.e., this might still be my favorite store on the citadel, but saying so is not a meaningful complement because of how I rank the stores at the Citadel compared to the stores at other stations and planets","conclusion":"I'm Commander Shepard, and this is my favorite store on the citadel"}
{"id":"ce1cdbc6-0afb-44ef-a93b-e392e251312c","argument":"An unexpected benefit of running the ethical ad-page-blocker is that it shows users just how ad-dependent their typical internet experience is. The program was specifically designed to show people just how much of the internet depends on ads by blocking almost all content on most websites as a result of their use of ads.","conclusion":"If users want to protect themselves from all negative effects of ads, they can use ad-page-blockers that block all content sponsored by ads."}
{"id":"fd5b6122-a976-4878-949b-975fb56cb050","argument":"iPhones, on average, have an additional year of use on other smartphones, such as Samsung.","conclusion":"Apple products have a longer lifespan than similar products produced by other brands."}
{"id":"9f18c012-0c8f-4340-bb74-86fa11713b94","argument":"A prerequisite to improved economic relations between the two countries is a reduction in the animosity between the citizens of the two countries. Acknowledging the genocide is likely to begin this change in attitudes.","conclusion":"Acknowledging the Armenian genocide would have numerous economic benefits for Turkey and the surrounding region."}
{"id":"913d2677-d738-41c5-b1c0-b8b755316eb2","argument":"You can't prove the existence of the author of a writing with the argument that it's written in the writing. It is written in the Hobbit, or there and back again that Bilbo Baggins is writing \"there and back again\" therefore Bilbo Baggins exists. Yet we know that Bilbo Baggins is a fictional character invented by Tolkien.","conclusion":"This is circular reasoning. You cannot use scripture to prove itself legitimate."}
{"id":"4ca71002-031c-4dc0-ab1a-6c6f107885e0","argument":"I don't think there is any issue in pursuing a person meaning you want to date them are dating them are flirting with them are trying to date them etc. , who is in a relationship be it marriage, regular relationship, etc. . That is, under these conditions a your goal is to date that person and you are doing it because you like them, not to make anyone jealous, ruin someone's relationship, etc. b you don't aggressively pursue that person after you've been declined it needs to be a mutual interest c you don't manipulate them into leaving their spouse d you don't actively interact with the other one's spouse, kids etc. I may have forgotten some specific cases, but I am talking about the general situation. What I mean by is nothing wrong is not necessarily the fact that it can cause harm to someone else eg. kids , it's just that it's the person who is being pursued who is responsible, not the pursuer. Obviously the other way around it does not work, as someone who has a family with kids and is actively trying to pursue other people is obviously at fault, but that's not the point. You are free to like and want to date anyone you meet and the fact that they're in a relationship is not something that should stop you unless you don't want to do it yourself . It's the other one who is responsible for their actions eg. not declining you . You are not responsible for their will to date someone outside their relationship etiher. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"There's nothing wrong with pursuing someone who is in a relationship."}
{"id":"c9af07f7-8fa1-458a-92b1-5040ce84a884","argument":"A culture of superiority and superiority complexes will drive everyone to do their best. A culture of insecurity will motivate the members to push themselves to overcome it with high achievement. A culture of meritocracy will reward and inspire achievement, as well as equipping the government for an elite performance, and it is fundamentally fair and just, as it rewards productive effort. A culture of competition strengthens the individual, instilling pride, ability, morality, and firmness of character. All of these things create a fit, firm society that is strong enough to protect its weak, wealthy enough to provide for its poor, just enough to give criminals the penalties they deserve, and prideful enough to hold its head high in the world.","conclusion":"A culture of superiority, insecurity, meritocracy, and competition is good for everyone."}
{"id":"36f95d72-4357-4b8b-ad5c-fc871b5a8c85","argument":"One of the main goals of punishment is to protect society. Just as we incapacitate dangerous individuals, so too we have to protect society from the poor judgement of criminals.","conclusion":"Felons have proven to have a lack of maturity and good judgement, which is an impediment to making good choices."}
{"id":"18c1e8e8-10de-4b30-8e4a-657d4947d1fa","argument":"Nationalism extends the notion of patriotism by also including \u201cexalting one nation above all others, placing primary emphasis on its culture and interests,\u201d and nationalism places more emphasis on symbols and icons over the people who live in that nation.","conclusion":"Nationalism is a harmful form of patriotism While patriotism is a devotion to a particular place and a way of life one thinks best, but has no wish to impose on others, nationalism is accordingly aggressive."}
{"id":"1adefc00-c46f-47a1-9c64-dde56a19757e","argument":"To know that one has actually killed another human being will haunt the moral agent forever. Instances of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder for soldiers returning for warzones are increasingly reported, suggesting that a situation of killing very often warps the killer\u2019s life1. This holds true even for people not directly and viscerally involved in killings, such as the incredible guilt felt by the team of the Manhattan project.2 1 ScienceBlog, \u20181 in 5 Iraq, Afghanistan Vets has PTSD\u2019, 17 April 2008, 2 Long, Tony, \u2018Aug. 6, 1945: \u2018I Am Become Death, Destroyer of Worlds\u2019, Wired, 6 August 2007,","conclusion":"The act of killing can wreak immense psychological damage upon rational individuals"}
{"id":"a00d4191-142d-4878-8aa6-65ea8dfeba70","argument":"Disclaimer I will not be responding to any arguments that argue from a vegetarian perspective that 'eating ANY kind of animal is wrong I don't do that out of some hatred for vegetarians or some cringey carnivores' pride standpoint. I merely want to focus solely on the issue of whether or not what occurs in THIS video is humane or not As you can see from the above link, a 3 minute video of a Japanese fishmonger taking a freshly caught squid and butchering it live , there is a storm of comments that claim what occurs constitutes animal cruelty or even barbarism. The main argument for this is that the squid appears to still be alive even halfway through the butchery. More importantly, at the moment of death, there is widespread sentiment that the killing cut was too brutal and inconsiderate of the creature. I consider both claims to be unscientific, ignorant, uninformed nonsense. First of all, I would like to establish that the widespread scientific consensus is that invertebrate cephalopods like squids, lacking a proper nervous system, do no experience physical pain. I understand that it is impossible to make such a claim with absolute certainty, but the balance of evidence suggest, and has for quite some time now, based on everything we know about invertebrates and the pain process, that invertebrates are incapable of feeling pain. I suggest reading this document from Senate of Canada's a government I think most of us would agree is science friendly and very interested in humane issues Comittee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs ruling on the issue, a document which itself cites 9 unique scientific studies. With that squared away, claim 1 Because invertebrates like squid do not feel pain, the necessity of more humane killing methods like electric shocks are unnecessary, and whatever method of slaughter that causes the quickest death can be considered sufficiently humane, as pain and therefore suffering is am effective nonissue. What occurs in the video is somewhat shocking to those who may be ignorant of the above scientific consensus. The fish is flayed alive the skin is cut into and removed from the brain sac before the brain has been severed from the body or otherwise destroyed . For a vertebrate species, this would be unbelievably cruel. Being flayed alived is painful But for an invertebrate like a squid, presumably feeling no pain, it makes no significant difference that it is flayed before it's death. In defense of the flaying, it is necessary to the culinary enjoyment that the skin of the head be removed from the body, as the portions of meat are served separately. The killing blow is done next, wherein the squid's brain is cut in half as the head is cut into thick, horizontal slices. This kills the squid. I don't believe anyone would contest that destroying the brain does not kill the squid. However, much to the horror of the uninformed, the squid's dead body continues to move. The tentacles continue to writhe, and even try to escape the knife which is understandably disconcerting. Does it mean the squid is still alive? Was it flayed alive, and then, cut into quarters, and somehow, still alive? No, that's absurd. The brain has been destroyed, the movement is not the movement of a living being, it's just muscle memory. According the Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology, octopus tentacles a fellow cephalopod to the squid exhibit the same behaviour, even when severed from the brain or the main body. gt The researchers, working at St. George's University of London and the Anton Dohrn Zoological Station in Naples, Italy, examined 10 adult common octopuses Octopus vulgaris that had been collected and used for other studies. After the animals were euthanized, their arms were removed and kept in chilled seawater for up to an hour until they were ready for experimentation. Some arms were suspended vertically, and others were laid out horizontally. When pinched, suspended arms recoiled from the unpleasant stimulus by shortening and curling in a corkscrew shape within one second. After this, the arms slowly relaxed and returned to their previous length. Tap water and acid applied to the arms evoked a similar response. Horizontal arms also moved away from the undesirable stimuli, many bending in a sort of contrived joint toward the top. The results demonstrate that the arms are capable of reflex withdrawal to a 'noxious' stimulus without reference to the brain, the researchers noted in their paper. This post mortem movement and it is indeed post mortem is explained by the fact that in cephalopods, 2 3 of the organism's neurons are located not inside merely the central brain, but within the eight limbs themselves, which allows the tentacles to act independently of the brain. gt And these arms can continue reacting to stimuli even after they are no longer connected to the main brain in fact, they remain responsive even after the octopus has been euthanized and the arms severed. Given this, the fact that the body of the squid continues to move and even appears to try to escape post mortem is not evidence that the squid is not actually dead, merely that, in accordance with scientific findings regarding the nervous system of cephalopods, tentacles effectively have a mind of their own. Therefore, as long as the cuts which severed the brain were indeed killing cuts, we can consider the squid safely and effectively euthanized, even despite the post mortem tentacle twitching, and we cannot use squirming tentacles as evidence that the squid has been butchered alive besides the initial necessary flaying . Given what we know post mortem twitching, lack of pain I argue that there's nothing inhumane about the butchery of the squid by the Japanese fishmonger. It's a perfectly acceptable way to kill the squid for human consumption, and indeed, preferable to less hands on methods like freezing the organism to death or boiling it alive, as is often done to lobsters and crabs. If there is anyone who knows a better method or can disprove the stated science on cephalopods, I'm willing to change my view on this. As it stands, what the fishmonger does in the video, while shocking to those of us who do not eat many invertebrate, is perfectly acceptable within the normal confines of animal slaughter for meat. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"There Is Nothing Inhumane About The Way This Squid Is Butchered Given That You Eat Meat"}
{"id":"ae04670b-e813-4b45-aea4-19dce707629d","argument":"Whether or not toilets are unisex are sex segregated should be determined solely by the relative costs, benefits and risks. Each of the aforementioned are independent of the historical motivation for sex segregated toilets.","conclusion":"The past motivations for a given policy are irrelevant today."}
{"id":"55786eed-646a-4d92-9126-d315edba2c34","argument":"When I was young, I was an alter girl. I was active in the Catholic church about 6 miles from my home and went there almost 3 days a week on average. However, as I turned 8 or 9 years old, I was sexually assaulted by a church member there repeatedly. I left the church and after a long time of debating the existence of God, 10 years later I decided I was an Atheist. I have only set foot in a church because of family events and have discovered I am extremely uncomfortable in one. I have to leave or sit in the bathroom. However, my boyfriend's family is Catholic. It's a long time until we even consider marriage but this is a thought that has crossed my mind. They go every Sunday. My boyfriend is Agnostic and heavily disagrees with the Catholic religion in the same way that I do. I think he would be married in a church to avoid waves with his family. I completely understand why they would like us to be married in a church because that is what they believe. But, my boyfriend doesn't believe, I don't believe, and I hate being in churches to the point of having to leave. I feel I shouldn't have to accommodate his side of the family in this particular situation. My extended family probably wouldn't care, we have had many weddings outside of churches. It's OUR day and neither of us want to be married in a church, so why should I be forced to do something that makes me morally and physically uncomfortable just to please them? His family doesn't know about my history with the church and I'd rather they never know. They do know, however know I am Atheist. And I can't care if that upsets them as horrible as that sounds. I really do care about them and want to make them happy, but I feel I can't in this situation. Maybe ? I'm willing to change my opinion if there are any good reasons to.","conclusion":"I don't want to get married in a church despite my potential fiance's family's preferences because I was raped in one. ?"}
{"id":"c1642d5b-ca1d-4818-94f8-28cec65130c7","argument":"Hear me out. If you don't know something exists, did you really need it in the first place? An advertisement's job is to convince you that you're unhappy without a certain product service. In other words, it decreases the overall happiness of an otherwise content society. If people weren't bombarded with nonstop advertisements, they would be able to enjoy the simpler things in life. Additionally, advertisements usually show an unrealistically positive portrayal of everyday life. People are inevitably disappointed when their own mundane experiences don't measure up to the glamorous facade crafted by advertisers.","conclusion":"Advertising should be illegal"}
{"id":"d39f12ba-3654-423b-84cd-efd1e3d838b1","argument":"The conclusion of this is that morality must be a system independent of God, and therefore there is no point in citing religious evidence in support of moral propositions.","conclusion":"Does God divinely mandate what is good, or is something good because it is divinely mandated by God? Neither option is satisfactory."}
{"id":"fd1e85e2-a36c-44ba-bdec-3fa406ba635b","argument":"I'm primarily talking here about intellectual property rights last for 70 years or X years after the writer is deceased rules that vary depending on country and state . Why should we ban children from financially exploiting their parents' works? It's really no different than a child inheriting a father's self made company. Imagine if government tried to get their fingers in that situation. I really don't like art should be open to different interpretations and parodies and works based on a certain book don't diminish the source material . Particularly the first one. Why should art be open to different interpretations? Create your own world, future writers. These arguments reek of entitlement to me.","conclusion":"I think there shouldn't be an expiration date of intellectual rights in literature."}
{"id":"8337a999-bd1e-4b4e-9b70-106b6336b726","argument":"A term often mistaken for caste is \"jati \"Jati\" is birth, or community, or tribe, or geography - a way of identifying communities across this vast and diverse land.","conclusion":"There is no prescription for any kind of \"caste system\" in Hinduism. Unrelated concepts have been misinterpreted as prescriptions for a caste system."}
{"id":"d2f2d82d-48f1-49ee-8bbd-89f3c2db5366","argument":"I posted a question in askmen earlier that asked if you watched sports. A few people responded that they watch Starcraft, but I think that's stupid. A sport takes athleticism, and is a lot more than clicking a button or sweating in their chair. Sure they train and work up a sweat but people do that with cooking and we don't call cooking a sport, so Starcraft shouldn't be called a sport either.","conclusion":"I think video games shouldn't be called sports. Not even \"esports\","}
{"id":"d2902c44-0de1-44bd-9819-d8fc3cc4d9f5","argument":"Decriminalizing drugs has proven to reduce drug use. We spend billions of dollars locking up non violent offenders , it would be much cheaper to offer medical treatment to those in need of it. If introduced to drugs in a normative environment as opposed to sensational gatherings raves, parties, etc. kids, teens, adults would be more prone to responsible drug use. It would generate billions in tax revenue. Disassociating drug use with its various social stigmas would help to prevent abuse by not reinforcing negative stereotypes, people would have less motivation to act self destructively. It would take money out of the pockets of violent drug lords, our war on drugs is the only reason they've become billionaires, and put it in service to the public. It would free police officers, federal agents, etc. to focus on violent unsavory criminals. Legalization would promote demilitarization of domestic police force. No governing body has the right to dictate which substances a consenting adult consciously ingests. Many drugs cannabis, psylocybin, ibogaine for example have legitimate medical value. Would lessen spread of misinformation, aid scientific research advance. It would create tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of jobs. Prohibition is immoral in every way.","conclusion":"I think all drugs should be legal."}
{"id":"5213935b-2533-424b-b023-19b4a5156af4","argument":"The territorial principle of international law means that a State has the primary jurisdiction over all events taking place in its territory regardless of the nationality of the person responsible. This clearly suggests that ISIS supporters should be tried and convicted in the countries where they committed their crimes, even if they can't expect a fair trial, since it was their own decision to engage in crimes in the selective parts of the world. In other words: they took the risk.","conclusion":"ISIS supporters should be tried and convicted in the countries where they committed their crimes."}
{"id":"e1cc9b1e-14ef-4aae-961e-54cc705257ed","argument":"Donald Trump stated that there were fine people on both sides, when actually, there weren't many good people on the pro statue side. As we learned, that side was mostly white nationalists or similar, though apparently there were at least some people who just were championing free speech regarding the statues. It was not a smart thing to say. The majority of people on that side had offensive beliefs. But I don't think his statement says anything about whether he is a racist himself. He is certainly not declaring the majority of people on that side very fine people. It takes quite a leap to suggest that the comment means he favors white nationalists, and sides with the racist, anti Semitic sentiments expressed there. I am not a mind reader and neither are you. Trump probably did not have all the facts, and his statement was dumb. Normally, it would be a pretty safe bet to assume there were at least SOME very fine people at a gathering that has some degree of political diversity. Turns out most people were assholes. Indeed, there probably were some good people who found themselves in the company of assholes for whatever reason, possibly not having full realization of all the groups that would be there or what their presence might represent. Regardless, Trumps remarks do not mean that Trump is a racist White nationalist or sides with them. I voted against Trump. I don't like his communication style. But I also don't like the leaps and mind reading that lots of people do when covering him. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Donald Trump was not deliberately expressing the opinion that White Nationalists are \"good people\" when he made the infamous remark about it."}
{"id":"a2cff9f8-e044-4070-9592-fd4e09da3737","argument":"Not enough people show efforts towards sustaining a healthy Earth. For example, the Amazon rainforest is deforested at alarming rates and increasing. The reason why is mainly due to raising cattle yet there is only a 1% rise in veganism in the past 3 years and only 3-13% of the US is vegetarian","conclusion":"Would we want to sustain a healthy Earth if it goes past a point of no return like in the movie Elysium"}
{"id":"e5a9369a-c704-4dc3-8a40-4ea2676f9659","argument":"Replacing a founding father who owned salves with an educator and orator who was born a slave and fought against slavery and segregation is a message against racism.","conclusion":"Replacing George Washington for Booker T. Washington is a symbolic gesture, not a specific one tied to WA state."}
{"id":"45be6570-fe50-42f2-b570-0cf126b922ab","argument":"Before I begin, I'm compiling these disorders into one because the overlapping traits and symptoms that cause the stigma are essentially the same. For simplicity's sake, I will use psychopathy instead of all three. Now. I'm sure that most of you have noticed that we've been shifting towards mental health awareness in the recent years. We come out and remind people that a third of people will experience mental illness in their lifetime, that mentally ill people are more likely to hurt themselves rather than others, and are less likely to be violent. We also learn that mentally ill people have higher suicide rates and are stigmatized by society. We've seen this improve a bit. We've been raising suicide prevention efforts, we've been offering more mental health facilities and services, and we've made it less politically correct to make fun of mentally ill people or use mental illness as an insult. However, psychopathy seems to have been left in the dust here. CULTURE When we see villians in movies, they tend to be portrayed as psychopaths. Psychopath sociopath is thrown around as an insult and people are perfectly okay with it while using another disorder like borderline personality disorder as an insult would likely lead to you getting called out and shunned. Psychopath is used synonymously with other derogatory terms like asshole and evil without even a second thought. Incarceration Psychopaths disproportionately make up the prison population. While composing of about 1 of the total population, they make up about 20 of the prison population, and when we add in antisocial personality disorder, they have around 50 of the prison population. We see people advocate for more ethical treatments of prisoners with other types of mental illnesses such as substance abuse and schizophrenia but no one is standing up for those who make up most of the prison population Mental Health Institutions Very few therapists will even attempt to treat a psychopath or person with antisocial personality disorder. Research on treatment is more or less halted at this point and professionals have thrown up their arms and labelled the mental illness untreatable . Keep in mind that for another personality disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder, it was considered relatively the same thing until Dialectical Behavioural Therapy came around. The mental health community isn't giving psychopathy a fair chance and this is adding to the stigmatizing culture. TL DR Psychopathy is stigmatized more than any other mental illness in western society. In culture, the condition is thrown around as an insult and used as a synonym for evil. Psychopaths make up a HUGE percentage of the prison population, and yet are not receiving the support that people with other mental illnesses such as substance abuse are. Finally, the mental health professionals have more or less given up on the disorder and labelled it as untreatable.","conclusion":"Psychopathy\/Antisocial Personality Disorder\/Dissocial Personality Disorder is the most stigmatized mental illnesses in western society."}
{"id":"87012767-4947-429a-a45b-6a76cd29243f","argument":"Even though they might decide to stay up later, current school timings mean that it would not be possible for them to get sufficient sleep anyway.","conclusion":"Teenagers require up to ten hours sleep a night Extracurricular activities and homework alone mean that this is impossible if school begins too early."}
{"id":"fbd47cd6-c5b5-4027-9bf8-4c74172c0502","argument":"Although accountability is undeniably important, so is the goal of changing an abuser's behaviors. Implementing a Zero-Tolerance policy heavily suggests that the former outweighs the latter, which relegates rehabilitation to a mere afterthought.","conclusion":"A Zero-Tolerance policy will lead to less league-wide reform on issues of domestic and sexual violence."}
{"id":"66af0c43-52bc-4cce-b41f-3b45bfe26216","argument":"Quantum physics has provided us empirical evidence suggesting the complete opposite of this statement. Against all odds all things should not exist and yet they do in a system of perfect balance.","conclusion":"Against all odds we exist as a part of a perfect system."}
{"id":"1e6d3f4d-1c30-4f63-a3ff-2691d1976315","argument":"Ahh, Lance Armstrong. A shining example of how a marketing machine like Nike can shape an athlete's image into that of a hero, and also how quickly a public scandal can undo that legacy. Nowadays Lance Armstrong is more of a villain than a hero in the public eye. The way I see it, at his core, Lance's public identity is that of a great cyclist. He was elevated beyond athlete status into the hero realm because his inspirational story of overcoming severe cancer made him even more exceptional. He was a glowing example of hard work paying off, someone who had the worst lot and became the best someone we could all look up to. To learn that he used banned substances to achieve that success, that cut extra deep. Lance wasn't just another Barry Bonds being taken from us. With Lance we didn't just lose a great athlete, we lost the inspirational story. This guy didn't just beat cancer and become great, he cheated to do it. Suddenly the motivational story we all fed each other was a lie, and we were suckers who fell for a steroid cheat who also had the nerve to sell a story about hard work. And even worse, the whispers were that he was mean. He was fiercely competitive, and allegedly even pressured teammates to cheat as well. I get all that. I get why it's extra personal, and why Lance can't be forgiven as a hero. But as an athlete, I think he should still be considered an all time great. Doping is prevalent in cycling on the whole, as far as I understand it. So yes, Lance cheated, but he basically cheated the same amount as everyone else, so the playing field is level in that regard. Further, it's impossible to seperate how much of his achievements were due to the PEDS and how much were not. We will never know exactly how much of Lance's success is due to cheating. Again, other cyclists cheated similarly and didn't achieve a fraction of Lance's success. Considering that, I don't think you can write off his achievements as merely the product of PEDs, and Lance Armstrong should still be considered an all time great athlete. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Lance Armstrong should still be considered an all-time great athlete"}
{"id":"847ab022-a10d-469d-8f27-564c6b669b33","argument":"Pope Francis decided that the theme of the 15th Ordinary General Meeting of the Synod of Bishops should be \"Youth, faith, and vocational discernment\"","conclusion":"Pope Francis has actively encouraged young people to participate and have a say in the running of the Church."}
{"id":"e5a822c2-c519-4871-82e0-c074c2302ea4","argument":"There are studies which show that in limited uses alcohol can be good for you so maybe an outright ban is not ideal. Perhaps the government could instead introduce some sort of measure so that people could only purchase their drinks in limited quantity. But alcohol in general just seems to cause so many problems because of the fact that it makes you lose your fears and gives you false confidence. You get bar fights, random street attacks, drunk driving, etc. It can even ruin marriages as some people just can't control their intake. I was raised without ever being introduced to alcohol directly and am thankful for this. But today I was walking through a shop and noticed how colorful and enticing alcoholic drinks look and was like damn I want a piece of that. But since I've never tried it, I'm a bit reserved because I fear that I may like it too much and not be able to control myself. Edit Some measures to deter alcohol usage could be Increase prices Treat it like cigarettes with deterrent adverts and pictures on bottles. What are your views?","conclusion":"I believe that alcohol causes more problems then its worth and should be banned."}
{"id":"432c64cb-5943-42ad-bbc4-7513b78aa3a8","argument":"I have recently seen some videos online that claim that sex not gender is merely a social construct. One that breaks down a particular argument for this assertion is here I don't know how widely held this belief is, nor do I know if this video accurately represents some sort of consensus on this belief, but I do not find it convincing. The thrust of the argument seems to be that sex, as commonly understood, is determined via 5 characteristics chromosomes, gonads, genitals, hormones, and secondary sex characteristics . Since 4 of these 5 can currently be medically removed or altered to some extent, sex is itself a social construct. For reference, here is the definition for 'social construct' that I have found 0 In the present state of affairs, X is taken for granted X appears to be inevitable. 1 X need not have existed, or need not be at all as it is. X, or X as it is at present, is not determined by the nature of things it is not inevitable. However, each of the above traits are, in fact, the nature of things. They arise naturally and independently of society due to human biology. Humans are, of course, capable of changing the nature of things through technology and medicine. This is in no way unique to sex. For instance, through selective breeding, we have drastically changed the nature of bananas. However, that does not render the properties of bananas socially constructed such is the same with sex. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Sex is not merely a social construct"}
{"id":"c22b88d8-9f78-42e6-a6f5-cbc5aa40063e","argument":"Renewables cannot keep up with rising demand let alone make an impact on reducing the market for fossil fuels. Last year demand rose3:1 for fossil fuels compared to renewables.","conclusion":"Renewable power can not produce enough energy to match our needs."}
{"id":"13f07577-3c1b-4d64-87bd-959637f3d0d8","argument":"Legislation sends out a strong message. It shows minorities that the authorities do support them and do not silently endorse hate speech; helping recruitment from minorities. In addition, it also shows bigots that their views will no longer be tolerated and will help to marginalize and punish them.","conclusion":"Legislation sends out a strong message. It shows minorities that the authorities do support them an..."}
{"id":"545947ff-bb50-40ae-adfc-56857ffc485c","argument":"\" when Eichmann entered upon his apprenticeship in Jewish affairs, on which, four years later, he was to be the recognized \"expert,\" and when he made his first contacts with Jewish functionaries, both Zionists and Assimilationists talked in terms of a great \"Jewish revival,\" a \"great constructive movement of German Jewry,\" and they still quarreled among themselves in ideological terms about the desirability of Jewish emigration, as though this depended upon their own decisions.\"","conclusion":"Hannah Arendt describes Eichmann as a Zionist who spoke yiddish Arendt, p. 23"}
{"id":"691b781c-f8ac-4458-af82-6d06a388eb07","argument":"The Conservative government's claim to enact any majority decision was just that, a political claim, and not legally binding.","conclusion":"The referendum's legal status was only meant to be advisory"}
{"id":"f4f638f8-40f3-46e6-8273-51b49c85cd7f","argument":"People want to feel like they can protect themselves or their family, regardless of statistics or facts which may show that it makes them less safe.","conclusion":"People are entitled to feel safe, even when they absolutely are not."}
{"id":"bb8b5bda-026d-4f78-8013-4d33851ec199","argument":"The Trump Administration is seeking to end disparate impact regulations which define discrimination as policies whose effects are discriminatory, but whose intentions may not be. The Administration wants to ban only policies with discriminatory intent, meaning they will legalise practices which are neutral in theory but discriminatory in practice.","conclusion":"The Trump Administration's attempts to role back civil rights protections are consistent with orthodox Republican priorities."}
{"id":"db0252a2-88e9-4e88-8492-2217664ec816","argument":"I believe that if they actually spoke to women, most anti feminists would become feminists. This belief is based on three observations most anti feminists have either no, or a distorted, idea of what feminism actually is most anti feminists have no idea of the realities of being a woman most anti feminists simply don\u2019t understand women , period If they were to actually talk to real women, rather than getting angry at the internet fringe representing maybe 0.00001 of feminists , they would realise feminism isn\u2019t about waging a war on men. Rather, it is addresses the very real issues women still face on a daily basis. Obviously, this wouldn\u2019t change everyone\u2019s mind, but a lot of anti feminist sentiments are based on a misunderstanding of feminism, fuelled by a lack of meaningful contact with women, and attention focused on a vocal, media promoted fringe. Reddit, .","conclusion":"Most Anti-Feminist Men Would Become Feminists If They Actually Spoke To Women"}
{"id":"2fd28c6d-5c62-4453-a2bb-22284e154296","argument":"lower bond requirements would enable smaller bakers to vote for themselves, and would remove trust in delegators when it comes to voting","conclusion":"Amendment Proposal #2: Would increase the current gas limit AND reduce the roll size requirement."}
{"id":"7256ef84-0e82-4c88-aed6-07845a88562c","argument":"My rationale for supporting the recent decision to lift political contribution limits for individuals is based on a few different ideas First, I agree with the majority opinion that contributing money to a candidate is an exercise of an individual\u2019s right to participate in the electoral process through both political expression and political association and is protected under the First Amendment. Whether unlimited contributions is good for society overall is not central to debate. As the majority opinion notes, the proper focus is on an individual\u2019s right to engage in political speech, not a collective conception of the public good. The whole point of the First Amendment is to protect individual speech that the majority might prefer to restrict. As Roberts writes, Money in politics may at times seem repugnant to some, but so too does much of what the First Amendment vigorously protects. The argument that unlimited contributions give disproportionate influence to a few wealthy people is not compelling to me because such disparities have and always will exist. As one commentator writes Should Thomas Paine have been silenced, since his incredible rhetorical powers made him so much more influential than other pamphleteers at the time, let alone ordinary people? Should The New York Times be shuttered since it exercises more power over the political process than almost anyone else in New York? I don't think so. Indeed, the majority opinion argues that the Government may no more restrict how many candidates or causes a donor may support than it may tell a newspaper how many candidates it may endorse. Lastly, the idea that unlimited political contributions give undue influence to a select few seems inconsistent with my perhaps optimistically naive belief in a functioning democratic process with a reasonably intelligent electorate. Each individual gets one vote, no matter their level of wealth or political contributions, and so ultimately, if a policy is proposed that favors a select few at the expense of the majority, that majority can vote against the policy or vote to elect officials other than those that support the policy. Anyway, I know the mingling of money and politics is distasteful to lots of redditors, so I'm sure there will be lots of rebuttals to these ideas, and I'm all ears  gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than just downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I believe the recent Supreme Court decision McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission that lifts limits on individual political contributions got it right."}
{"id":"e93f3c29-81d6-4b19-8a0e-aa9f4953fcea","argument":"Here are some of the issues I have with the Hyperloop The need. Who has to travel from LA to SF that often that a Hyperloop would be financially feasible? What's wrong with Skype, Google Hangouts, or airplanes? The environment and our health. Creating something like this is likely going to increase suburban sprawl and our reliance on transportation options that aren't biking walking related. Have you seen Wall E? This is the same reason I'm skeptical of self driving cars. The expense and economics. From what I've seen, a pod only carries like 12 16 people. And they have to be launched every half hour or so. There are airplanes that can carry several hundred people and some destinations have planes that leave land every hour. Seems like the per person ticket would be extremely expensive. The time. So it's only going to have two stops? What about stops in the middle or other tracks? Is that going to eat into transit time thus making it less feasible? Like in the North East corridor, you can't just have a hyperloop from Boston to Miami, you still have to hit Philly, NYC, Hartford, Atlanta, Orlando, etc. What about Chicago and the midwest? Portland and Seattle? The TSA government is going to make this into yet another terrible form of transportation somehow. The solution isn't another transportation option, it's getting rid of the TSA altogether. Too much hype. Elon Musks's companies have never been profitable for anyone except for him and other early investors, and at great taxpayer expense. So it's hard to look at it objectively when it relies on hype and news articles as a way to drum up interest and promote it without having to pay for advertising. Waste of resources. Hyperloop doesn't even know how to make it come to fruition, so they created a challenge type contest so that other people could do their work for them for free. I feel bad for students who got suckered into working for free, hopefully they'll be smart enough to read the fine print and not hand off their designs without compensation. Nothing new. This technology has also been around for about a hundred years Pneumatic tube mail in New York City It didn't stay competitive then, and I doubt that it would stay competitive now. Catastrophes. The airlines have had decades to work on their safety record, everything has multiple fail safes, the inspections checks are handled in an extremely detailed manner, etc. This is a new form of transportation that's going to send people flying off at 700mph. What happens when something breaks? What happens when a pod gets ejected from a tube? What is the failure rate going to be? How long will it take to send a repair crew out to the middle of California to fix the tube and get it going again? Think that's about it for now. What do you think? Note I'm only being highly critical as to get more information than I can get elsewhere, as it's so wrapped in hype that I can barely find anything objective. Thank you gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy Edit lots of good info for me to research further. Give me a few hours and I'll be back to award deltas or discuss it further Edit 2 My view changed a bit, but I'm still not 100 convinced that this will be feasible. I just hope investors invest, and this doesn't bleed into taxpayer funds. Here's a good article that a user posted.","conclusion":"I think the Hyperloop is Bullshit"}
{"id":"67ec4d6e-9912-4f9b-8c0a-69eb2d66806c","argument":"Religion can give people purpose in life. It diminishes the sense of hopelessness that can arise when life has no point. It provides an absolute truth in a world where currently, most truth is relative.","conclusion":"Religion is good for the psycho-social wellness of its followers."}
{"id":"96a060da-15db-4160-b46f-b6c99e5ab66b","argument":"I hear it all to often, Dubstep isn't music it actually angers me a bit, not because I make dubstep my self, but because people don't understand how INCONCEIVABLY HARD it is. Dubstep artists are the most talented musicians because they are specifically looking at a technical aspect of music, and can't necessarily feel the music until they are almost done. Someone like, say Louis Armstrong would play his trumpet, and as he went he would feel the rhythms and notes as he went. He didn't need to worry about the timing between every note, he just went. Or he wrote down what he wanted to play earlier and regurgitated that on stage. Am i saying he isn't talented? absolutely not But someone like, Rusko, or Skrillex has to worry about the ratios of every single snare beat, and every single tone, and note, and rift as compared to one another. They aren't able to feel the music as they go. They need to commit HOURS to a song until they even decide if they like it. The math, the ratios, the countless hours that get lost to turning a few nobs, makes dubstep excruciating to create. To create electronic music you need to be a master at understanding how music works, the relationship be tween cords etc. And the fact that you could get half way through and stiil hate the song, makes me convinces that dubstep artists, are the most rhythmically patient and talented musical artists out there. gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than just downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Dubstep artists are the most talented musicians."}
{"id":"3963e7a4-d4e7-45db-99ec-727a23c44338","argument":"Conviction records are fine, but I'm opposed to arrest records. If you were arrested and convicted, great, that goes on your conviction record. If you were arrested and found not guilty, or the DA decided that there wasn't even enough evidence to bother prosecuting then I feel that it shouldn't be held against you. Police can literally arrest you for anything, at any time. To counterbalance that, the obligation is on the state to prove guilt, rather than the accused to prove innocence. I feel that having a record of arrests sways officer judgement, perhaps leading to more arrests, and can potentially have negative impacts on employment opportunities for people that were ultimately acquitted. Alternatively, I'd be okay with arrest records if there were harsh penalties implemented for police officers with low conviction rates for their arrests.","conclusion":"Arrest records shouldn't exist -"}
{"id":"ac6b2138-2943-408c-817e-c01379a57395","argument":"The International Atomic Energy Agency, which oversees the implementation of the NPT, still lists North Korea's status as \"Accession\" which implies that the treaty's legal obligations apply to the country.","conclusion":"North Korea initially signed the treaty and claimed to withdraw in 2003, yet it is disputed whether that withdrawal was legal and thus effective"}
{"id":"9b3b900a-a516-4601-ae7d-b625c7e1fdef","argument":"Elections almost anywhere in the world mean politicians getting out and campaigning. Regardless of the legitimacy of the final election the leadership of the country will be going out and meeting voters. In many of these events individuals won\u2019t be able to express their views but there are also likely to be protests and meetings where individuals can get their views across. This provides an opportunity for the leader to stay in touch with the people \u2013 often a problem with dictators who have been in power too long. Dictators will want to, and often believe that they are likely to win even without resort to fraud, as Marcos did in 1985.1 They are then are much more likely to consider the views of the electorate to still be relevant if there are elections than if there are not. Thus for example Mugabe in the most recent elections made a bid for, and won, the youth vote by promising a direct stake in the economy,2 so responding to their desire for jobs.3 1 Kline, William E., \u2018The Fall of Marcos: A Problem in U.S. Foreign Policymaking\u2019, Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, 1992, p. 10 2 Agyemang, Roy, \u2018Why a Robert Mugabe victory would be good for Zimbabwe\u2019, theguardian.com, 2 August 2013, 3 AFP, \u2018Youth, rural voters may hold key to Zimbabwe election\u2019, Fox News, 27 July 2013,","conclusion":"Elections of any sort force rulers to meet their people"}
{"id":"8ba86bd6-ce7e-499a-b2f8-fd28e228e51f","argument":"It is harder for someone from outside the EU to migrate to the UK. It would be fairer if migrants from all countries had to go through the same immigration process.","conclusion":"Leaving the EU allows Britain to be able to better control immigration flows."}
{"id":"ed3d8c47-3486-4b19-851a-760047528439","argument":"Observe the facts Poorly made bombed, misspelled sending name, overall shoddy packaging. Yet, the packages were sent to multiple high class profiles without much trouble. Even more suspicious late democrat turned republican. Convenient timing when Trump is under fire for his approach to the Saudi situation. It seems to me that the Republicans have sent the bomb using deliberately suspicious seeming host. The Republicans have used a democrat turned republicans to push the agenda that the democrats have been creating and publishing fake news. The Republicans then used faulty execution like the misspelling of the sender and the failed bomb to make it appear that it was a inside job from the left. Think about it, why would the left use a democrat turned republican and use shoddy execution if it was a highly funded and orchestrated hit? Why wouldn't they have used a more regular republican with less fault mechanism to really cement the idea that the average republicans are terrorists influenced by Trump? A deep state that controls the entire government but can't orchestrate a hit well enough to not raise suspicion about a false flag ? That just seems illogical. This is an inside job from the Republicans, who are posing as Democrats to push the fake news agenda to distract the Americans from the Saudi and Russian situation Change my Mind. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The hoax bombs were sent by Republicans to push the \"fake news\" agenda against the Democrats right before the mid-terms."}
{"id":"e9bbb368-cfa9-4735-84af-a4a3e5ac1a15","argument":"I residence in American. I was surprised to discover that even thinking about digging up a human's grave is good enough to get you thrown in a prison the other day. It seems that most humans says that it's a disrespect to the death, and the living. The first point can be defeated by pointing out that they're dead. Why would they care? Second point almost make sense, but How often do people really visit graveyards? What about the ones that no one goes to anymore in the forests? I want to dig some graves up so I can have bones to make my Halloween outfit out of, but it seems that it's banned by the law. I feel that the law is stupid. Change my mind on that. Make me think the law on graveyards makes sense. Extra info I don't care what happens to my body if I die. If people want to bed my corpse, there's nothing I can do about it, I would be dead. I wouldn't even be able to care. I have no faith in gods or the afterlife. It's pointless to believe in something you won't get to mess with until you're dead. I'm deaf. The Deaf have their own culture apart from the hearing world. TL DR I believe that it should be allowed to dig up graveyards.","conclusion":"Grave-digging is fine. !"}
{"id":"8c4da155-b76a-4c10-94fd-ec5b141c4e46","argument":"The European Convention of Human rights states that speech might be limited on the basis of \"morality\". Article 10, p. 12 It is incredibly difficult to assert a definition of morality that is consistent, largely agreed upon and well defined.","conclusion":"Laws which restrict speech often use far more ambiguous grounds than is found typically in law. As a result, governments are able to stretch the meaning of laws to their own ends."}
{"id":"b7f2f519-7c3b-4670-b2de-bf2a26c400d3","argument":"Detaching oneself from the outside world in order to fully enter a scene is often seen as a prerequisite for a full experience, or at least a desirable state by practitioners.","conclusion":"Consensual BDSM sometimes includes elements of mysticism, specifically the idea of using one's body and its sensuous capacities as a medium."}
{"id":"e7355183-6592-4d66-9c08-f4140e1f0f32","argument":"Due to the proximity needed for breastfeeding at all hours of the day, the mother is likely to take on other childcare tasks because she is available and present for them, i.e. baby-wearing, changing nappies, or bathing the child.","conclusion":"A large aspect of attachment parenting focuses on extended breastfeeding, which excludes parents who can't lactate from it."}
{"id":"f62f6fb6-d5f9-4a16-add1-fa8de9ddcfc0","argument":"I think it's generally agreed that MSNBC has a liberal lean to its coverage, and it's a deliberate answer to Fox News, but by and large all of the other major US news organizations and newspapers the NY Times, LA Times, Washington Post, CNN, ABC, CBS, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, etc. are all just straight ahead news outlets with no particular, systematic agenda. If mainstream US news outlets have an agenda or bias at all, I'd describe it as business friendly, which isn't surprising given that most of them are owned by large US or global business concerns. On the other hand, there are a number of conservative news outlets that are out and out biased, often acting as propaganda arms for conservative policymakers the New York Post, the WSJ Opinion page, Fox News, pretty much the entirety of talk radio, etc. I'm willing to have my opinion changed, though. Do you have examples, studies, facts figures that can prove a systematic liberal bias in mainstream news organizations aside from MSNBC ? That is a bias towards promoting liberal progressive beliefs, causes, policies and or candidates for office?","conclusion":"There is no \"liberal bias\" in mainstream journalism. That's just an excuse conservatives use to push their propaganda and call it news."}
{"id":"da49e674-f347-4329-8fc3-cea5f613a9c6","argument":"Countries are just as likely to abuse it and cause high inflation as they are likely to use it correctly. Developing countries never truly have independent monetary policy anyway, their economies are heavily affected by the United States\u2019 policies even without dollarization, since changes in the US interest rate change demand for their exports.4","conclusion":"Monetary policy is not that important to maintain in the face of dollarization"}
{"id":"d0fd0e6c-9b4b-4b97-826b-e4bb194e41e0","argument":"While the reservation for women is only for 33 percent of the seats, women make up 46 percent of the elected representatives in Panchayati Raj Institutions exhibiting active participation and leadership at local government levels.","conclusion":"India has quotas for female representation at the village government level."}
{"id":"af2ddead-44b4-4141-b62f-f02b8ae96bec","argument":"I have seen the evolution of the kpop wave almost since the beginning, I have seen bands coming and going, even bands going really far and they just end up crashing, the higher the go the harder they hit the floor. Of all the bands a few were able to made the cross over Big Bang, they really changed the game for the industry but again, it just didn't last. The K pop industry doesn't give a damn about anything but numbers, all they care is money making. BTS, the latest example in the Kpop factory keeps showing up everywhere, from Twitter feed to Puma adds yet I don't see any difference between them and the rest, just a group of teenagers with sharp haircuts.","conclusion":"BTS is just an other K pop manufactured band"}
{"id":"248e18ff-2740-4124-92d7-6d1a5031a4ca","argument":"According to Quillette Antifa violence has not been condemned by the media Despite the coverage of incidents such as Charlotteville by the right, Antifa was not condemned for riots after the inauguration or attacking people who they claim are \u201cNazis\u201d just because they oppose their ideas. Antifa's sense of self-justice results in them being judge, jury, and executioner","conclusion":"Antifa takes their mission too far, often harming people in the process. For example, the Ben Shapiro speaking engagement"}
{"id":"43b91f0e-aeb8-497b-8a52-df1d8c4dc243","argument":"First off In light of the recent school shooting, a lot of discussion has been going on concerning the 2nd Amendment and all its repercussions. If my point has been adressed in this context already, I apologize for a potentially obsolete post. So far I could not find a satisfactory answer, that changed my view. As stated in the US Constitution A well regulated Militia is necessary to the security of a free State . If I understand correctly, this follows the assumption that in case of a misuse of power by the goverment, which significantly threatens the well being of its subjects, citizens should have the ability to rebel violently. So far, so good. I believe this statement grossly ignores the reality of modern warfare. The head of the US happens to be the commander in chief of the most powerful military in the world, as such resistance against the goverment would, at least in theory, be met by the full power of the military complex with all its sophisticated technology capable of wiping out entire cities without risiking a single life disgusting examples of the destructive power of those modern tools can be observed regularly. A rifle doesn't do s t against a drone or a tank. A counter argument in related posts about gun control point to the effectiveness of Guerilla Warfare, the typical example of asymmetric fighting. However, the sucess of these tactics is exhausting the enemy, not defeating him in the traditional sense. You could say, fighters in Vietnam, Afghanistan etc. are not winning , they're just not losing , which is a very important difference. Exhaustion eventually causes the occupying force to retreat. When fighting in home territory, there is nowhere to retreat to. A cost analysis in the sense of this conflict has become too costly in lifes and ressources, so we better leave is not an option. Taking Vietnam as an example keep in mind that technology has advanced very far since then , even well prepared Guerilla fighters, defending a territory relatively foreign to invading US forces, suffered A LOT more casualties than their opponent. In my opinion there is no reason to believe, militias as the founding fathers envisioned them, would have any success fighting a modern army. EDIT I now believe that Guerilla warfare and as such the effectiveness of militias is a feasibile option for resistance once a critical mass is reached. My new doubt is that this critical mass will ever be reached before being wiped out counter terrorist measure . gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Militias as a form of resistance are no longer viable."}
{"id":"02c0c40f-4f26-47a7-a38f-b418945567d4","argument":"Shakespeare\u2019s works are hundreds of year old. They don\u2019t even include basic English in them, it\u2019s mostly hard to understand, strangely worded sentences. They are not modern English literature, so I don\u2019t think there is a reason why the modern English speaking generation should have any reason to read them. Why should students have to read them? I do not think that they teach us to read better, since, again, it\u2019s not the english we know and use. Many people do not find them interesting either. Even if it is rewritten in easier to understand versions for students, it\u2019s not like they teach as many morals which might be the only thing there is important in them, and even then it\u2019s difficult for many people to decipher hidden messages morals in his works , as other books. Why are students so pushed to read his stuff?","conclusion":"Shakespeare\u2019s writings should not be required to read in schools."}
{"id":"e567c981-55a8-4eb5-9d72-b3a666927500","argument":"\"Scientists from the academies of sciences in Brazil, China, India, Mexico and the United States, the Third World Academy of Sciences in Trieste and the Royal Society produced the report after a year-long study. It says that worries about safety and the possible environmental impacts of GM crops should be countered by research. The environmental effects, if any, should be balanced against the effects of conventional agriculture and care taken to maintain a diversity of crops, conventional and transgenic.\"","conclusion":"Environmental risks of GM crops should be weighed against risks of conventional crops."}
{"id":"59a701bc-007f-4395-af9a-edc9a89ef3ef","argument":"In my view, there are many people in the modern world who indulge their intellectual curiosity to the point of harming their well being. This has not always been my view. In fact, for the majority of my life, I held the intellectual pursuits in very high regard. When I was a teenager, I probably would have told you that they were the highest form of human activity. I went through college in a scientific major, and met a lot of people who were very devoted to studying their field. During that time I came under the impression that beyond a certain point, intellectual pursuits come with a significant psychological cost. Many of the people who I met, especially those most devoted to their studies, seemed to be broken or underdeveloped emotionally. They had a lot of trouble communicating, and had a lot of strained relationships with friends and family. Instead of confronting their problems, they just delved deeper into studying. For many of them, studying was a sort of escape from the real world and the problems in it, into the easy and engaging world of abstractions. The intellectual fields promote the mindset that you should suppress the more basic instincts and make decisions according to reason. I believe that a result of this and of the constant focus on intellectual development, the emotional part of a lot of intellectuals is atrophied to the point of being hardly there at all or damaged in some way. Evidence of this can be seen in the very high depression rates that have been recorded in science engineering PhD students Tl DR I think that the intellectual pursuits function for a lot of people as an escape from reality, and has a damaging effect on their mental well being.","conclusion":"Intellectual pursuits pose a danger to the well-being of the pursuer and should not be as encouraged or respected as currently are."}
{"id":"2b071f86-0f39-4a18-b4ea-0f9f5a2b581c","argument":"Back in 2016 a handful of Black Actors called for a boycott of the Academy Awards in response to a 2 year streak of no nonwhite nominations. The idea and the idea of any boycott really was that if they withdraw their support, the academy will be obligated to consider Black actors and film as worthy of academy nominations. The following year the La La Land Moonlight Fumble happens, which was an indication of how forced and unnatural this kind of acceptance is for the academy. Get Out is included the following year and things are starting to look like things are turning around. A two year streak in the other direction. Some people consider the Black Panther nomination to not be an indication of the movies quality but instead a chess piece to demonstrate racial progress in the academy. I\u2019m not a fan of the theories attempting to show that the academy is on a severe downward spiral and that the nonwhite nominations of the past 3 years are attempts to stay afloat. Instead I see this as the typical virtue signaling that, very much like token employees in companies that wish to diversify, is meant to establish an overcoming of a previous racially exclusionary past. Black Panther would essentially be the Barrack Obama symbolic equivalent of the Post Racial Oscars. Admittedly I\u2019ve only seen Black Panther once, I rarely watch Oscar nominated movies the most recent Oscar Best Picture film I watched was Spotlight. and cant remember the last time I watched the Oscar ceremony. There is a certain charm in being the first to do something that people regard as a great accomplishment. Black Panther has a lot of accomplishments that fit in this kind of category sales, accolades, etc . It would be a great accomplishment to add Oscars to this list. Politically continuing to boycott the Academy despite the symbolic significance of the Black Panther nomination would be a stronger to combatting the lack of diversity in the academy. To clarify I am not saying that Black Panther should not win, but rather that the protest should continue regardless of the nomination. However things turn out, this is big opportunity for opponents of the Academy\u2019s lack of diversity to really add impact to their protest but it may require disregarding the \u2018Firsts\u2019 narrative.","conclusion":"It would be a stronger message for Activists to boycott the Oscars with Black Panther nominated for Best Picture than to accept the nomination as evidence for racial progress within the academy."}
{"id":"1763059b-5cd9-47df-a383-84f5579ca444","argument":"The Rebel Alliance had a clear speed advantage by a factor of 1,000. Whereas the Federation's vessels can travel four light years per day, the Rebel Alliance's fleet can do over 4,000 light years per day","conclusion":"The Federation's ships are technologically superior to those of the Rebel Alliance."}
{"id":"26b0042c-1e49-43d7-8ff8-60498590305e","argument":"A more diverse student body provides a richer cultural, social, and intellectual atmosphere than would be possible by admitting simply on the basis of conventional admission metrics such as academic achievement and standardized testing. All students who do attend the university benefit from this diversity more than they would from marginally more students with slightly higher grades and test scores. My argument is from the perspective of providing the best possible experience for students at the school. For the sake of this viewpoint, I am not interested arguing the merits of affirmative action as a whole, but rather two specific points gt 1 There is value for the community at large to cultural, racial, and ethnic diversity in institutions of higher education. gt 2 Colleges and Universities are justified in creating the best possible community for their student body, and as such, cultural, racial, and ethnic backgrounds are an acceptable factor in admissions. I acknowledge the many complex dimensions of affirmative action and am curious to explore my view beginning from these two points, which I do hold fairly strong views on. Therefore, I would prefer to exclude a broader discussion of affirmative action from this thread, namely the following questions gt 1 Does affirmative action effectively address socioeconomlc injustice in society? gt 2 Is affirmative action fair to students of traditionally overrepresented groups who are potentially excluded to make room for other students? gt 3 Does affirmative action broadly address racism in society?","conclusion":"Affirmative action is a valuable tool for increasing campus diversity at colleges and universities and benefits the entire student body. !"}
{"id":"77d395db-02bc-4707-bc93-1c65d4898cd8","argument":"If the United States withdraws from Iraq, it will be much easier for Iran to project its influence there. Iraqis will find that there are fewer risks in accepting Iranian support, as the United States will not be there to check and punish those that accept it. It will be easier for Iran to project such influence as the United States will be less able to interdict that support.","conclusion":"Iran's influence in Iraq would grow significantly if the United States withdraws."}
{"id":"1f09e129-0623-4e6e-adaa-35caf21c8055","argument":"The UK needs the power to restrict entry into the country in order to maintain its ability to provide for the needs of its citizens in the future, otherwise an unemployment crisis in the rest of the EU could burden the UK with an influx of people in need.","conclusion":"An open immigration policy with the EU puts the UK's economy at risk."}
{"id":"5a22e581-a92a-4d81-a16b-c68d2727bd49","argument":"While I am not the most educated person on the subject, what little research I have done, has lead me to conclude that Europe will be burning in the flames it has fed for way too many years now. I seriously should not have to say much for you to understand what I'm getting at, but here I go anyways While I know that this whole situation is just the big fuckers playing poker with peoples lives, I don't have the knowledge needed to form a coherent opinion on the global situation, so I have a street mans view instead. Sweden. No other words needed. Look at their situations with the no go zones and the media censorship. Their country is falling apart, and we can't stop it anymore. The people who are dragged to Europe, whilst the good people seem like a majority, have proven themselves incapable of adapting to our culture and ways. They are generally more likely to commit crimes than other people, come from a different culture entirely, and a chunk of them support a religion that is incompatible with our way of life. They also seem to be primarily adult males, who should be fighting in the front lines in the war torn countries they come from, instead they flee here, to fuck up yet another place, instead of solving the situation in their home. I might sound like a racist to some, I might not have the entire picture handled, but until I do, this is and will be my opinion on the subject. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Europe should not allow any more immigrants from the south\/middle east in for at least a while."}
{"id":"74d44e97-88fc-4334-9d9c-d7b0b259d4dc","argument":"At the time of the British decision to leave the European Union in 2016, neither the political details of the Brexit nor its impact on issues like trade, migration and national security were foreseeable for anyone.","conclusion":"In many cases, even calculating the impact on oneself is difficult - for example, with the Brexit referendum, a huge number of possibilities would have to be computed and evaluated."}
{"id":"1f9c6a4a-2259-43f6-a0f3-9ba78e3e4b9b","argument":"Religion has been long used as a controlling tool. The divine entity is usually not one of forgiveness, but rather of punishment. Society's moral, though connected for a very long time to religious beliefs, exists adjacent to it, otherwise we wouldn't be here to tell the tale.","conclusion":"People cannot exist in a society without a moral code in order to promote cooperation and trust. Religion is developed from the moral code in order to ensure obedience."}
{"id":"d180a1c7-aa2a-4972-a4fd-6b693cb4e0d0","argument":"There are so many ways we could destroy ourselves. Having humans live only on earth is literally putting all our eggs in one basket, and unless we spread out to the stars, I think it is likely we will destroy ourselves within the next half dozen millennia.","conclusion":"I believe the only way humans will survive the next few millennia is by colonizing other earth-like planets"}
{"id":"246c3558-c0e2-4b61-9747-a8844aa47c9f","argument":"Since gender discrimination is against the law in many places, separating bathrooms based on gender effectively creates two bathrooms that can be used by either gender.","conclusion":"No public restrooms of any sort should be separated by either sex or gender."}
{"id":"6a4433f1-bae7-44e7-a21f-887d428fda3c","argument":"The modern economy relies upon specialisation. Assuming specialists in other fields will find the time, money and motivation to become financially aware enough to make high scale strategic decisions is misguided.","conclusion":"Participation in the business decision making structure creates incentives for workers to learn more about management and for the company to invest in business education for their workers"}
{"id":"2400dec0-fe56-4678-aec0-a53c422f6451","argument":"Governments make these decisions based on assumptions that while often well intended, cannot possibly address the diverse needs and circumstances of the worst off in society.","conclusion":"A UBI affords choice and agency to individuals to make economic decisions that targeted welfare programs cannot."}
{"id":"a59c0069-53dc-48a2-9fda-10369d2bfba2","argument":"The poor are struggling with acquiring basic standards of living and rights. They do not have the privilege of also making eco-friendly choices.","conclusion":"The rich are more responsible for environmental damages than the poor."}
{"id":"77ad3229-dc6a-43ab-9931-d228d5ec4cd0","argument":"If the default state of humanity is to be free from tax and adding a tax shows that a state is biased against the entity taxed, then the government is biased against businesses, employees, and customers. But the government is not biased against any of these parties.","conclusion":"Any other privately run business that turns a profit is taxed. To tax one for-profit organization and not the other shows bias."}
{"id":"88906723-b4ba-4fb0-b9e9-82e7ec1a6c64","argument":"I really enjoy the game for the most part, but I honestly cannot figure out a single benefit to the experience from renting the damn items from that annoying guy who took my house. Everything about it disrupts the game in a negative way. It also loses that wonderful feeling of EARNING the weapons through hard fought dungeons. That feeling of OWNING a badass new tool that will grant you new abilities is one of the best feelings in all of gaming, and the rental system pretty much destroys that. Renting is one of the least rewarding feelings in LIFE, let alone games. And when you die in a dungeon, you lose ALL of your shit and you have to go back not only to the light world but then travel all the way to your house, back to the dark world, and back to the dungeon and try again. It's pure busy work, as there's plenty of rupees around to not even make renting every single item a challenge. And good luck keeping your cool when you die in the same place again. Seriously Nintendo? I guess I'd just like to hear someone defend the system, maybe there is something I'm missing that will change my feelings. If your defense is it forces you to be more careful then I'll just say now I reject that defense. Annoyance and tedium is never a good way to add challenge in a game. Better level design is. And this game has great level design. There's just no point to the rental system.","conclusion":"In Zelda: Link Between Worlds, the item rental system is a critical flaw that serves no benefit."}
{"id":"d602e001-4571-4510-8ca5-6ec1d69757fc","argument":"I think most arguments against gun control are bullshit . Let me clarify what I mean by bullshit to me, a bullshit argument is not necessarily one that is factually untrue or logically weak. Instead, I am borrowing Princeton philosophy professor Harry Frankfurt's description of the term as a lack of concern for the truth or indifference to how things truly are . In other words, a bullshitter is more concerned with upholding their stance than arriving closer to the truth. Facts and logic are means to an end which may or may not be true or logical it doesn't matter to the bullshitter, because they have some other interest in the matter which they would rather obscure than bring to focus. I think most arguments raised by gun control opponents are bullshit in the sense that the arguer does not care whether or not society would truthfully be safer with fewer no guns, yet they argue that this is true because it is a stronger moral stance than simply wanting to continue owning guns for personal reasons. In the ongoing debate, you almost never hear a gun control opponent say my desire to continue owning guns is more important to me than the safety of the American public because this would obviously be a hard position to defend. But the real reason why gun control opponents don't want to restrict gun ownership is not really because they don't believe there wouldn't be less gun violence, or that they actually believe that more guns will make people safer. Really, the core of their position is that they like owning their guns. Maybe it makes them feel powerful or safe. Maybe they enjoy guns as a hobby. Maybe they like the history behind firearms, the collecting aspect, the sporting aspect, the engineering aspect etc. I should point out here that I do not think that these personal reasons for wanting to own a gun are not legitimate. Rather, I am arguing that these personal justifications seem weak when directly confronted by the reality of gun violence in our country, which is why they are never raised in argument. The way the gun debate is framed right now is problematic because it does not address the idea that citizens should sacrifice the legitimate enjoyment of a privilege for the greater good . Instead, the gun debate centers on whether or not any measures taken to restrict or even completely ban gun ownership would even have the intended effect of reducing incidents of gun violence. It is the arguments offered by gun control opponents in this latter debate that I consider to be bullshit, in that they use facts and logical arguments that are convenient for obscuring the true moral issue of sacrifice . For example, one of the strongest pieces of evidence wielded by gun control opponents is the statistic which purports that most gun crimes are committed using firearms which were acquired illegally thus, it would not matter whether owning guns is legal or illegal. I think this argument is bullshit because it is pretty much undeniable that a gun ban would have at least some effect on reducing gun violence. How can you logically or factually deny that it wouldn't? Even if the above commonly used statistic was completely true, it still does not address the fundamental moral issue of individual sacrifice for the common good. A better, non bullshit argument would be that the good created by gun control bans is too small to justify the sacrifice demanded from gun enthusiasts. But you never hear this argument, because it sounds petty and selfish. It sounds like they aren't willing to sacrifice what is essentially a hobby in order to at least try to save people's lives, no matter how small the effect such a sacrifice would have. This looks especially bad when the gun debate flares up after a school shooting where a child has murdered other children. Another bullshit argument is that people should be allowed to have guns for self defense. I think this is a special kind of bullshit that comes from a genuine place, i.e. the kind of bullshit that the arguer has actually convinced themselves is true. Usually the desire to keep guns for self defense stems from deep seated fear that is entirely personal, and completely disconnected from the realities surrounding incidents of gun violence. The real argument should be I feel safer with guns, and my right to make myself feel safe is more important than the actual safety of our society as a whole . There are other arguments that I would identify as bullshit, but I will address those as you guys raise them. Change my view.","conclusion":"I believe most arguments raised against gun control\/bans are \"bullshit\"."}
{"id":"d7b7b270-2676-41a3-b39c-147242e7540c","argument":"Studies such as this one show that rehabilitation of criminals using models like the principles of effective intervention decreased the chance of repeat offending by as much as 25%, when compared to a controlled group who did not undergo the same rehabilitation treatment program.","conclusion":"The offender will be less likely to commit further crimes if there is an emphasis on rehabilitation while in prison."}
{"id":"e84ea7be-02e7-439d-8755-f355eac04664","argument":"When I say non essential, I mean things that are not providing food, water, shelter, or health related services to the less fortunate. While I think that the desire to help people in non essential ways is great and should be encouraged through specific volunteer work, I simply cannot see a justification for charities that provide toys to children in Africa when there are children in the next village over who will die from malnutrition or dehydration. I believe that all the money that goes to such charities should be repurposed for meeting the basic needs of all people before it can enrich the lives of those who are already, by definition, more fortunate. I recognize that this is an unpopular view. I am friends with many who monetarily support charities such as Operation Christmas Child but no charities meeting the basic needs of the impoverished, and I have been met with anger and opposition when trying to express my views and to understand why they ought to be changed. Reddit, please help .","conclusion":"I do not think that non-essential charities should exist until every person on earth has their basic needs met."}
{"id":"0f4e8d78-c271-4106-95b2-ba603d813b84","argument":"Some European companies rely on business trips between cities for meetings and collaboration. Such a ban would make business have more difficulties to do so.","conclusion":"A ban on domestic flights in Europe will have a negative impact on the economy."}
{"id":"0b32348c-dc82-44da-a18c-32fb3b171fb0","argument":"TL DR Your ancestors stole land from my ancestors is a poor reason to demand compensation or to demand that land be 'given back' , and such demands should be dismissed. Firstly because their ancestors had likely already stolen the land from someone else's ancestors beforehand. Secondly because we wouldn't expect compensation for our great great great great grandfather having his life savings stolen by someone else's great great great great grandfather. There is a claim that I see in many places all over the world especially Australia, the Americas and Africa that is, the modern owners of land typically a result of European colonization owe something to the 'natives' or 'original owners' of that land. My counter claims are thus In most places, the colonizers used technological superiority and or a surplus of manpower to essentially invade and dominate a patch of land and win ownership through either war, assertiveness or diplomacy. In turn, most of the previous owners of that land had acquired that land through their own forms of war, assertiveness or diplomacy. Think of tribal warfare between African tribes, where entire tribes would be eliminated or assimilated by the winning tribe, and the land acquired. It is my belief that this kind of intertribal warfare was common in the Americas and Africa. Therefore, the way that the native Americans Africans came to 'own' that land was in no way different to the way that the colonizers did. Even if this weren't true, acquisition of assets is just how the world has worked since time immemorial. On an individual level, one male is strong enough to win the female from another male I'm talking animalistic historical events here, don't rag on me for sexism . Surely the victor doesn't owe the loser anything. On a familial level, one family is strong enough to win the crops cattle whatever from another family. Surely the victor doesn't owe the loser anything. On a commercial level, one company is strong enough to win the business of the consumers than another company. Surely the victor doesn't owe the loser anything. On a societal level, one society is strong enough to win land from another. Surely the victor doesn't owe the loser anything. Imagine the following scenario I discover that, 9 generations ago, the Rockefellers' ancestors walked into my ancestors' town and said all your stuff now belongs to us and had been able to acquire lots of wealth as a result. I wouldn't expect any sympathy if I were to demand that the modern day Rockefellers give my modern day family some compensation for what they stole from me centuries ago. Using this same logic, I don't afford any sympathy to the claims that ' some amount of time ago , your ancestors stole this land from my ancestors, so we deserve some compensation'. Is there some reason why the colonizing powers ought to give compensation to the colonized peoples, several hundred years down the track? Note I'd prefer to keep this  to European colonization of the world, because that is what I am most educated about. However, I'm open to discussing other historical events if you can lay out a good argument with them. edit it has come to my attention that in North America, some of the land 'stolen' was done so using treaties that exist under the same legal framework that still exists today. That is, the same American and Canadian? Government that is currently ruling made promises which were not kept in exchange for the land. In these cases, I agree that the promises made to the natives are, legally, inherited to each subsequent generation. The kinds of land claims that I still think ought to be dismissed are situations where, for example, Europeans landed in a new place and took the land before establishing a new legal system. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Land claims by remnant 'natives' should largely be dismissed"}
{"id":"fb4e12cb-c923-4631-84fb-ae38671342a1","argument":"Parents don't allow their kids to do other things that they think is immoral, like hitting other kids or destroying windows.","conclusion":"Parents attempting to ethically raise their children would be hypocritical to let their kids consume animal products."}
{"id":"4fa369da-5751-440c-b3d2-15d513f0d972","argument":"I'm in a foreign country for a few weeks, and this weekend I went clubbing with some other people from my program. We got very drunk and danced, which included grinding. I don't think I should tell my partner for several reasons 1 It's not going to happen again I'm returning home in a few days and I only go out with my partner in my home country. 2 I'm in agreement with Dan Savage's idea that confessing to cheating is more about absolution for the guilty party than emotional consideration for the person who was cheated on. There's no risk of disease from grinding telling my partner about it would just upset them with no possible benefit. Why upset them over this?","conclusion":"I don't think I should tell my significant other about grinding at a club."}
{"id":"f2f632ce-bb99-4390-9c1f-c675d3a1fc60","argument":"I believe that, if we can opt out of any tracking of any sort that is not useful to us, we should. Things like locations, search habits, what we click on etc. Personally it makes me uncomfortable that this information exists and can be abused. I know how easy it is for employees to access customer information, although employees don't often use this information malicious, the potential is there. Government monitoring is also a concern, I do not trust civil servants or law enforcement officials with my private information and habits.","conclusion":"We should do our best to not let large companies like Google and Facebook track everything that we do, even if that information is anonymous."}
{"id":"c2529925-1a62-4e29-bd76-1d3b5fb650e6","argument":"A bathroom with a working internal lock is perfectly safe. Port-A-Potties have always been unisex and there has never been a problem. We should do the same for public restrooms.","conclusion":"There are technological such as scream detectors which can make bathrooms safer."}
{"id":"aa4a8a8d-34d5-420b-97a2-dc5271911971","argument":"From what I understand the Republican Party seems to be losing ground millennials are becoming increasingly liberal, less religious, and more supportive of LGBT. Though it may sound morbid the next decade s will lead to the dying out of the Silent Generation people born between the 1920s and 1940s who make up a significant chunk of the GOP. This isn't meant to be a biased post it just seems that older, more conservative Americans are fighting a constant uphill battle against younger citizens who are losing patience. There are plenty of conservative millennials, don't get me wrong, but that population is shrinking fast. Is there any way the GOP can survive in the coming decades while upholding a platform of anti abortion, anti LGBT, climate denial, etc? Some sources The Atlantic Pew Research Center TIME","conclusion":"The Republican Party won't survive the next few decades without major reforms."}
{"id":"b9a32b98-dcc8-4bb7-ba87-359be21c19d5","argument":"Religious authorities have done countless morally dubious things over the years, for instance they've protected pedophiles and blamed a 7 year old rape victim because she didn't say no. Meanwhile they use religion to claim they are morally right.","conclusion":"Religion has frequently claimed the moral high ground, but its position that people of faith are morally superior to those without faith is as bigoted as suggesting the contrary."}
{"id":"1db93df2-766e-4d6d-80e2-f9078b8534fd","argument":"To clarify my title by suspending elections I mean the government currently in power at the time of the election should retain power until a new election is required by the respective nations constitution. Institution of such legislation would generally be positive for the democratic process. First is the highly philosophical point, do people deserve democracy if the majority of people can not be bothered to sustain it through the most basic act of voting. The ability to vote is the responsibility of the citizens of a democracy, they must excise their responsibility to vote in order to retain their right to do so. Secondly if such legislation were enacted it would provide a major reason for the average citizen to participate in the democratic process. The vast majority of democratic citizens greatly value the fact they live in a democratic nation but many do not participate in the democratic process. Generalizing, an example of this can be found in abundant patriotism of states like USA and Canada, not all of these particularly minded people are turning out for election day. My third point ties in heavily with my second partisanship and far left right politics are the norm in states like the USA and Canada because people who fall on the far left right feel strongly enough about politics to actually vote. The average citizen of a democratic state is generally politically moderate and proud of their nations democratic practices and as such would be horrified if they were suspended. If such legislation were to be enacted the average voter would be more likely to turn up on election day in order to ensure the democratic process they are so proud of is maintained. The net result of this would be a reduction of partisan politics and an increase in the election of moderate candidates that reflect the average voter.","conclusion":"If voter turnout falls under 49% elections should be suspended for one cycle"}
{"id":"4b34352b-3f8d-4631-93aa-96a6ae56429b","argument":"When a real chance of profit exists in the development of a new product, or writing a new song, people put the effort into developing and creating them. The incentive to profit drives a great deal of people\u2019s intellectual endeavors. Research and development, for example, forms a major part of industries\u2019 investment, as they seek to create new products and inventions that will benefit consumers, and thus society as a whole. Research and development is extremely costly, however. The 2000 largest global companies invest more than \u20ac430 billion a year in researching new products1. The fear of theft, or of lack of profit stemming from such research, will serve as a powerful disincentive to investment, which is why countries with less robust intellectual property rights schemes are not home to research and development firms. Without the protection of intellectual property rights, new inventions lose much of their value, since a second-comer on the field can simply take the invention and develop the same product without the heavy costs of research involved, leaving the innovative company worse off than its copycat competitor. This will lead to far less innovation, and will hamper companies currently geared toward innovative and progressive products. Furthermore, intellectual property is particularly important to firms with high fixed costs and low marginal costs, or with low reverse engineering costs, such as computer, software, and pharmaceutical firms. The costs of commercialization, which include building factories, developing markets, etc., are often much higher than the costs of the initial conception of an idea2. Without the guarantee of ownership over intellectual products, the incentive to invest in their development is diminished. Within a robust intellectual property rights system, firms and individuals compete to produce the best product for patenting and licensing that will give them a higher market share and allow them to reap high profits. These incentives lead firms to \u201cinvent around\u201d one another\u2019s patents, leading to gradual improvements in technologies, benefiting consumers. Clearly, intellectual property is essential for a dynamic, progressive business world. 1Institute for Prospective Technological Studies. 2009. \u201cThe 2009 EU Industrial R&D Investment Socreboard\u201d. Economics of Industrial Research and Innovation 2Markey, Justice Howard. 1975. Special Problems in Patent Cases, 66 F.R.D. 529. improve this","conclusion":"Intellectual property rights incentivize investment of time and money in developing new products"}
{"id":"c1dc75b9-4a9c-4b4f-8299-6fc1681dc7a1","argument":"In sum I believe that chopsticks are terrible eating utensils for a lot of reasons, and I shouldn't be judged when I opt to use western silverware when I eat Asian cuisine. Yes, I know how to use chop sticks properly. Chop sticks are terrible because they are unwieldy and impractical. You can't cut with them, you can't use them as a vessel to transport soup broth to your mouth, and if you do pick something up with them, you have keep your hand tense so the chop sticks are held closer together. Whereas with a fork, I can stab a bite of food and have it on little mini skewers, which requires much less effort. Secondly, chopsticks are terrible for the environment the equivalent of 25 million trees are used to make disposable chopsticks every year. I know there are nicer chopsticks that aren't disposable, but the vast majority of people use disposable chopsticks. Whereas one set of metal forks knives spoons can last a household till the end of time. Third, because chopsticks can't deliver broth from the bowl of soup to the user's mouth, chopstick users particularly in Asian countries will slurp the broth directly from the bowl. While I don't want to be horribly ethnocentric, and I know etiquette is a cultural construct, I find that practice to be absolutely revolting. As someone who suffers from misophonia, it makes it unbearable for me to sit near people who are doing that, and there is no objective reason why people shouldn't try to be more quiet when they eat. I do realize that chopsticks are more appropriate for a few select foods. I have no problem eating sushi with chopsticks, for example, because I feel that is one of the few foods where chopsticks have an advantage over western utensils. But for practically everything else, there is just no god damn reason to use chopsticks when western utensils are more practical, and better for the environment.","conclusion":"Western eating utensils fork, knife and spoon are vastly superior to chopsticks."}
{"id":"2391c9ea-5d24-47a9-b73b-9ccce8ca50e4","argument":"In a similar vein, we would not allow someone to steal from the rich because they believed in wealth distribution without punishment. These laws are put in place to protect our society.","conclusion":"By not voting, one is undermining the very fabric of democracy regardless of their intent. It is unclear why someone should be able to do this without punishment."}
{"id":"ffea5cdb-5dbf-41c4-9a03-f3453bd9a158","argument":"My 8 year old nephew is being medicinally treated for ADHD. I strongly feel like too much structure and too much time indoors screen time is doing something to his brain. I don't feel like someone so young should be on medication. Sometimes he asks if he can be off his meds for special things like vacation or holidays because they make him feel funny and he wants to have fun. I honestly think if his parents gave him more opportunities for free, unstructured play time out of doors, it wouldn't be an issue.","conclusion":"ADD and ADHD wouldn't be an issue if kids had more unstructured free time and time in outdoor, natural spaces."}
{"id":"6fde60ff-8a4b-458c-83f4-de24a1e7708d","argument":"In no other society in the world are history's villains or traitors revered or held in the same esteem as that nation's heroes. For example, Benedict Arnold was an important part of early American history. However, there is no statue of him because he was a traitor and yet people know who is he without one. Yes, the Civil War and the Confederacy are a part of American History but they should be taught in and learned about in school or in a museum, not misrepresented as heroes with statues","conclusion":"The Confederates committed treason against the United States. The United States should not continue to honor or memorialize them."}
{"id":"7b835e7e-ba55-4c6c-9804-977dea192be5","argument":"Thomas Drake a man who used official whistleblowing channels to report similar concerns to those raised by Edward Snowden, had his career destroyed by the Defence Department.","conclusion":"Far from being protected whistleblowers are often actively punished by governments."}
{"id":"c38f9648-a823-4147-a223-601fc2ed9696","argument":"In January 2017, a federal judge blocked a provision of the Affordable Care Act which tried to ban discrimination on abortion-related services, ruling that the government cannot force doctors to perform abortions.","conclusion":"The state cannot legitimately force doctors to perform an abortion."}
{"id":"4ebc1dfe-8e50-42d6-9a05-b69acdeda1a9","argument":"Like, if your kid had a fight in school and won, it would be reasonable not to praise his fighting skills, but tell him that fight it's not a good way to solve his problems. Why it doesn't work on a bigger scale? Bragging about military, it's kind of bullying, isn't it? And, to celebrate death it is very strange way to honor someone, or something. War is shame, not the reason to brag about. And any war parade bragging about country war skills, and celebrates death in some way. My grand grandfather died in 1941, 25 years old. It's sad. Why should I be proud of something, that killed him? Some say, it is for veterans, but I think, it must be better way to pay them all respect they deserve, than to show them guns and bombs that killed lot of they'r friends. And kids in military uniform? People DIE in this clothes. Why not to wear them in little coffins instead? Can you find one reasonable excuse for this stupidity? Sorry for mistakes, if there's any, English it's not my native. Edit Thanks for conversation, didn't change my view much, but it helps to see different point of view","conclusion":"I think that celebration of any war victory is very stupid."}
{"id":"13a1b511-81d9-4fd5-9069-b35df68e3e5b","argument":"So, I attended summer camp from ages 8 16 and got heavily involved with the camp setting, and have worked most summers in between college semesters up at the camp I grew up at in a managerial capacity. Growing up, the emphasis was placed on silly movie cliche's Think heavyweights, Adams family values, camp nowhere and the kids having fun, and if you were lucky you took something greater away from it but the goal was to have a good and memorable time. Today though from my standpoint that culture has been lost in favor of a gigantic acceptance circle jerk. Pranks are no longer allowed because mom's got lawsuit happy but more importantly it's gone because it may hurt someone's feelings. In my particular case, it's a YMCA camp and while most of the staff is not religious, nor does the camp put heavy emphasis on Christianity in the first place however anything resembling Jesus including ultimately minor campfire song lyrics ect. have been removed because we are attempting not to force people to believe something Now, I have stated I'm not a religious person, but some of these things are simply a tradition, and the camp setting as a entity is all about tradition and honoring it. Lastly from my personal observations of the newer younger staff from afar, it's sort of a catastrophic circle jerk, and if you break the jerk you are ostracized by the staff hive mind. I don't think this is a good thing for the camp setting. I think kids going up to camp and skinning their knees, physically or emotionally is a good personal growth experience. Camp is a prime example of how adults have to operate in the real world, because sometimes you have to make things work with people you simply don't love or even like, and ultimately there are people that you do not simply HAVE to affiliate yourself with people who you feel are a detriment to your life. Make no mistake, I don't think there's any room for bullying however I don't think there's any crime in the boys doing something icky to the girls cabin vice versa silly string, shaving cream non damaging stuff that is ultimately harmless, but makes the kids feel accomplished in mischief. I think an important part of the culture is lost in the modern camp setting because we're too concerned with protecting the kids instead of giving them a positive but very real exposure to somewhat real life. Please .","conclusion":"The modern summer camp setting is an acceptance circle jerk."}
{"id":"e81a3275-8bb1-478d-bbdc-c38fde6b5cae","argument":"Privacy seems to be a hot debated topic these days. Me and my family discussed what privacy is the other day and I felt that the only reason a person would require privacy is if they are insecure about themselves. Eg If you're afraid of people looking at pictures of you then you may be insecure about being ugly and not visually appealing, etc. If you're afraid of people listening in on your conversation you may be insecure about your personality in various ways such as maybe your ability to hold a conversation, how you talk with certain people, etc. If you're afraid of spies looking at nude pictures of your girl friend that she text you then you may be insecure about your her commitment. If you're afraid of having your Internet history logged then you may be performing illegal activities such as torrenting files for which you lack the appropriate license to use, or in some cases, watching porn, etc. If you're afraid of company secrets leaking out and causing you financial harm you maybe financially insecure. Naturally the idea of being spied on seems very unappealing to me. But logically I don't see why it should automatically become a problem if I have nothing to hide. My point is, is privacy really a good reason for why we shouldn't be spied on? Insecurity seems like a petty reason if anything, except for financial insecurity which you could argue is directly necessary for your survival.","conclusion":"In regards to privacy it seems that the only reason a person might require it is insecurity of some sort. Could it not be argued that perhaps the idea of 'you have nothing to hide so don't be afraid' has some merit?"}
{"id":"4d8b65c9-e12a-419e-bfc4-1c1791febc36","argument":"If we believe that morality is constructed whenever rational beings like humans interact, then the fact that slaves are human means that moral rights are constructed for them, independent of prevailing moral opinion at the time.","conclusion":"Even if slavery was morally wrong, this does not imply that morality is not socially constructed."}
{"id":"df50fbc3-fdde-43a4-ac72-b1af8ed6afcb","argument":"The mind is a set of cognitive faculties including consciousness, perception, thinking, judgement, and memory. It is usually defined as the faculty of an entity's thoughts and consciousness. It holds the power of imagination, recognition, and appreciation, and is responsible for processing feelings and emotions, resulting in attitudes and actions.","conclusion":"The most widely accepted view by philosophers is that an object is abstract if and only if it is non-spatial and causally inefficacious. The faculties of the mind depending on how one defines mind are not necessarily causally inefficacious. Thus, the faculties of the mind aren\u2019t necessarily abstract."}
{"id":"7ada2a2d-b9a4-43d6-9fbf-8b1a4d2f9da2","argument":"As of last year, a third of the members of the US congress were denying the man-made nature of climate change, against the overwhelming scientific evidence.","conclusion":"There is little reason to assume that politicians' opinions are necessarily more informed than those of average voters."}
{"id":"8938a565-be80-4b86-96d8-8f0fa4ef79ca","argument":"There are many taxpayer-funded projects which would not otherwise be paid for voluntarily - e.g. $1.5 million for NSF to study fish on a treadmill, $3.1 billion for a bullet train in CA which is still incomplete, over budget, and behind schedule after 10 years, $36,700 for the EPA to promote the game Minecraft, $175,587 to study the sexual habits of quail under the influence of cocaine, and many, many more.","conclusion":"Governments frequently spend taxpayer dollars on frivolous or pointless things."}
{"id":"5f0d4a74-7f55-4ebb-9ff1-232d423f7c50","argument":"Gendered bathrooms are not always located next to each other in public buildings, so forming one unisex bathroom from two gendered ones would not always be a case of knocking through a dividing wall.","conclusion":"A law that allows anyone to enter both formerly gendered bathrooms would be much cheaper than rebuilding all the existing bathrooms."}
{"id":"8723f6c4-77f8-4437-a496-7927311c2962","argument":"On Wednesday, Trump released a new campaign ad on his Twitter account which focuses on Luis Bracamontes, a twice deported Mexican immigrant who killed 3 police officers. Many in the media breathlessly denounced the ad as racist, including journalists from CNN The Washington Post and New York Magazine According to the Washington Post columnist gt The video stigmatizes a large group of people of color as criminals \u2014 killers bent on coming in and killing the law abiding residents of the United States. This is a terribly reductive reading of an ad. The ad takes issue not with people of color, but with gang members or people with criminal intent who can exploit weak border controls to illegally immigrate to the U.S. and commit crimes. That the immigrant is a person of color is irrelevant. The ad is misleading in blaming Democrats for allowing Bracamontes to illegally enter the country when it was under Bush's presidency that he came back after two prior deportations. Still, the ways in which it is misleading are with political blame shifting, and not with racism.","conclusion":"Trump's new immigration ad is misleading, but not racist"}
{"id":"d4e8ae9d-adf8-4634-ab53-bbe23fe96fa7","argument":"Allowing an ISP to control content allows them to censor any content that they do not agree with \u2014 for example, whistle-blowing content that exposes their malpractice. This could allow the ISP to deny its subscribers any content that might cause them to change their mind about their subscription or allow them to change their ISP.","conclusion":"Affording ISPs the power to discriminate against certain types of traffic or content affords them the power to censor the internet and set societal norms."}
{"id":"c56fb2df-9b0a-43d7-9d07-e4764310841f","argument":"In some countries, such as France, the prices shown on menus, price tags in the store, etc. is the actual price the consumer pays. Not the price before tax, not the price before fees, but the actual price. In other countries, like Canada, the price shown is before taxes etc. I feel this is inefficient and mildly harmful to consumers. In most places, there is no indication as to what is taxed and what isn't you just have to know. And it is not always simple either in my region, the exact same item milk could be taxed or not taxed, depending on the quantity you buy. 500ml of milk tax, 2 litres no tax. One muffin tax, 6 muffins no tax. The counter argument I see is that displaying pre tax prices prevents governments from hiding taxes, and forces the government to display taxes to the consumer. But this argument makes no sense since the receipt will always show the amount of tax you pay, regardless of whether you are in France or Canada. I see no downsides to mandating displays of real prices. Please . Edit I am specifically referring to places where the price is fixed stores in real life, restaurants, etc. .","conclusion":"I think that all prices displayed e.g. on the shelf at the store, menus, etc. should display the real, final price."}
{"id":"ed9f68f7-0d73-4524-8de9-260bfb69ca61","argument":"I see complaints everywhere with the school system many of which I agree on. There's some major problems that need fixing but there's not a system I can think of that could viably replace what we have now. In fact most of the changes people specifically suggest involved removing pieces of our system not adding or replacing. For example Remove standardized testing Remove all homework Remove holding a hand up to speak Remove the arrangement of a bunch of desks facing the front of a classroom Remove the 8 hr school day shorten it by a few hours Remove the early start time Remove underpaid wages I know this one is a stretch as far as the theme of 'removal' goes, but whatevs Which, even after removing all this we still basically have our current system, just with a few changing. The other problem I see is that a lot of these parts of our school system are kind of necessary. Without standardized tests, how do you verify that a student has learned anything? Change them sure, make them hands on sure, but you still need some kind of unbiased test. Holding a hand up to speak if you remove that, how do you get any kind of order in a room full of energetic children? I've had classes that non stop went over new material and the graded assignments and tests took up a small part of that time. In such classes they would be forced to remove material if the 8 hr day was shortened. Admittedly, I might agree that 8 hr school days are too long, or that 5 days a week is too much, or at least that homework is too much in addition to the work they've already done all day. But at the same time that means removing a lot of material. I've heard that other countries have vastly more efficient school systems but I've hardly ever heard what about them makes them better. And what is measuring their efficiency as opposed to ours? Some kind of standardized test? Because it seems backwards to claim that by removing standardized tests we will improve on a standardized test. If anything, I'd be more inclined to suggest that the main problem is not with our school system though there are many issues within it that require attention and fixing , but with our culture. x200B EDIT For clarification My issue is more that there are people crying for complete and utter change where it seems unnecessary and inefficient to do so. Changing the amount we pay teachers, rearranging desks, and shorter days while all good ideas is still essentially the same exact school system. So if we're going to cry out for an overhauled school system, it doesn't seem right that we would then be satisfied with minor changes such as these. It seems to me that those who cry out for complete change are either being dishonest with what they want not 180 degree change, but rather minor changes like these , they don't know what they want, or what they want is impractical and unnecessary. x200B EDIT 2 After some discussion, I'm realizing that I basically only disagree with those who have an unrealistic and radical desire for change in the school system. Those who want more minor changes I can totally agree with. So no, there's no complete replacement for our current school system, but there's plenty of good changes to be made. To that end, I gave a couple people deltas. If anyone actually believes there's some radical changes that could be made, there's still room for discussion there","conclusion":"There are not any good alternatives to our current western school system"}
{"id":"ed97c8a8-329e-49ac-a09c-223d9e71a3c2","argument":"First off, let's just face the facts here Religion has killed a lot of people. Countless great astronomers, mathematicians and general geniuses of the early days were imprisoned and killed because they defied God. Imagine where we would be today if those great minds had not been stunted by religious bullshit. I am an open Athiest, and once when I was asked what religion I was, I actually copped an eye roll and a Are you serious? from my classmates after saying I was an atheist. Jehovah's Witnesses and Islamic people are relentlessly and sometimes aggressively hassling others to join their religion, but suddenly if anyone speaks a word against believing in God because it's not faithful, then there suddenly branded as the asshole. Atheism is the most logical reason for the universe, and I find both incredibly irritating and sad how people can agree with everything science says, such as Yeah, there are 9 planets, and Yeah, that's how atoms work, but when it comes to professional and knowledgeable scientists saying how the universe is made, religious people will just call it out as blasphemy and put their hands over their ears going la la la la. Atheism is the most logical religion as it's backed up by solid, researched and informed scientific research , the most peaceful has there been any war fought over by Atheists because someone followed another religion? and for some reason, Athiests are branded as unfaithful, stupid or have no moral code. Yeah because I'm gonna shoot some random guy just because I don't believe in some big man in the sky. So tell me, why are Atheists so hated??","conclusion":"I believe Athiests are unfairly treated and unnecessarily picked on, even though it is most peaceful and logical religion."}
{"id":"fce22ed8-91d9-4049-9782-d93195938d94","argument":"The concept of being able to stand your ground against someone that is in the process of attacking you no matter where you are seems a fairly sound concept. I don't like the idea that I could be required to do something such as retreat based on someones criminal behaviour. I think it's fairly reasonable that someone has forfeited their rights. I don't like it as I see the limiting of my options to be a net negative in terms of saftey. I would much rather have the option to defend myself in such situations if it seems to be even marginally less dangerous. Secondarily, I'm usually going to be in a place for a reason, and the requirement to leave could be of inconvenience to those ends. And I find it hard to reason why I shouldn't be able to decide it's worthwhile to continue to be where I am. This is where the emotional reaction I have to duty to retreat laws tend to come in. I can see some reasons why it would be beneficial to want others to be required to retreat, but most of them seem pretty negligible since I don't really plan on assualting people or stealing from them, especially in anyway that I'd be relying on someone's adherence to the law. This position I hold edges into more of the principled category freedom specifically , as I would like this option to be on the table in case it comes up, and I don't see enough adverse effects from this being the case. If you can make some sort of argument as to why this would be a bad policy in terms of economics, or any other types of unintended consequences I'm open to them. I am certainly willing to give up freedoms in exchange for practical reasons, but if there are none I would be much happier with my current position.","conclusion":"\"Stand Your Ground\" Laws seem fairly reasonable as I understand them."}
{"id":"5e975b1e-a280-481d-8270-2287160f534d","argument":"Evil is totally independent of God, and separate from God. Therefore, the existence of God neither affects, causes nor precludes the existence of evil. Likewise, evil does not cause nor preclude the existence of God. So they are absolutely compatible, in the vacuous sense any functional implication of evil doesn't change the nature of good, and any functional implication of good doesn't change the nature of evil, so they coexist, and their existences are compatible.en.wikipedia.org","conclusion":"Monotheism does not preclude the existence of evil, insofar as some of the features of the traditional conception of God can be abandoned without rejecting the traditional conception of God in toto in its entirety."}
{"id":"cc1dfbbf-2e8d-4150-bbec-e9743be005cb","argument":"Allowing public nudity would eliminate the arbitrary distinction between what is allowed for men and women in terms of revealing one's body.","conclusion":"Public nudity would help to relax attitudes towards the human body and normalize it in its natural form."}
{"id":"5c672455-9cdd-4e15-8b50-9ae9cd205567","argument":"Throughout the whole campaign Hillary Clinton was playing on the fact that she was a woman and using feminism to gain votes from women. I felt that there was an attitude of if you don't vote for Clinton you aren't a feminist . Suddenly people are saying that Trump winning was because of sexism. When Hillary Clinton based so much of her campaign around purely gender then I do not think that anyone can complain about any apparent sexism in a Trump victory. In fact, I believe that that is creating walls and divisions in society that is counter productive to any liberal ideology. The split of the women's vote was very similar to Obama Romney four years ago. Hillary Clinton exploited her gender to gain support and therefore sexism cannot be used as a reason for a Trump win.","conclusion":"Hillary Clinton used her gender to her own advantage, so any argument that Trump won because of sexism is invalid."}
{"id":"16ca9bc0-f452-48b4-a18a-382b359447d0","argument":"This is a good thing since it means there is a more accurate view of voter dissatisfaction, in itself relevant information.","conclusion":"Systems where voting is compulsory register higher rates of invalid votes than systems where it is optional."}
{"id":"dd5534ca-0efa-4b81-88c9-8833ef88d69e","argument":"A lecture allows students to learn through interaction with the lecturer, for example by asking questions.","conclusion":"Being in a lecture allows students to actively engage with others and to learn together."}
{"id":"88e275e0-118d-46a3-8705-81f29052b29e","argument":"I haven't seen any other good arguments that proove otherwise. first of all since this is my first  I want to apologise if i did anything wrong. Most common arguments are It would devalue human life Twins are technically clones of each other but we treat them as human beings. There will be mutations that will make the cloned person suffer Most mutations can be seen in early stages of pregnancy so we could stop them It's not like normal babies with mutations aren't aborted The cloned person will be stigmatized this refers to the first successfully cloned human There is nothing stopping us from hiding the results until his and his descendant's death","conclusion":"I believe that human cloning is totally ethical"}
{"id":"1ba2b632-c8ce-4864-bd11-d10a909acaff","argument":"Once women return to work after giving birth, many women face a \"motherhood wage penalty especially at the bottom of the income spectrum. This means that working mothers encounter systematic disadvantages in pay, perceived competence, and benefits relative to childless women.","conclusion":"Pregnancy and motherhood have a substantial impact on a woman\u2019s career."}
{"id":"53245ce2-16f1-4cc5-b7d3-013a1befbe80","argument":"Researchers consider that prosocial religions proliferated through \u201ccultural diffusion, population expansions, and conquest\u201d as they managed to forge \u201canonymous strangers into large, cohesive moral communities tied together with the sacred bonds of a common supernatural jurisdiction\u201d Norenzayan, p. 9","conclusion":"Religion improved the strength of groups to outcompete other groups."}
{"id":"1a9f6fd5-722a-46cc-b250-3f727f108740","argument":"The fact that there is no alternate prison means that everyone, no matter the severity of their crime, is sent to Azkaban, an isolated island with Dementors","conclusion":"The justice system in the wizarding world is worse than that of the Muggle world."}
{"id":"7d724fd9-161d-4aa5-ba7e-20f99f27a140","argument":"Psychics tarot readers and other similar professionals practice a combination of hot and cold readings, techniques that are well known and understood by anyone who has a passing interest in this kind of stuff. If you're unfamiliar I suggest you look at the wiki entry for both I'll link in a few I'm on my phone . In fact books that explain performing tarot readings are basically explaining how to do cold readings, but in veiled language. Practitioners may claim or in some case even believe they aren't using these techniques but that's because they unconsciously developed these skills from practice. Im sure there are practitioners out there who believe they are helping others and giving advice in good faith, but I just don't see how that is ethical. They haven't had to training to give personal advice like a therapist would have recieved, and there's an uneven power dynamic between a mystic and a patron dissimilar receiving advice from a friend or family member. These are also professions that can possibly attract people with addictive personalities and become money sinks. Psychics tarot readers and similar professionals are fraudulent and potentially dangerous. Cmv.","conclusion":"I believe psychics\/tarot readers\/ mystics and other similar professions are all frauds and potentially dangerous as well."}
{"id":"5badf822-a4dd-4890-9993-4adccf7c0fce","argument":"Most start-ups have an extremely high risk of default often only justified by a high potential upside. So either loans would have usurious rates or lenders wouldn't have an incentive to invest.","conclusion":"Small loans and crowd funding are not viable alternatives to equity financing."}
{"id":"7cf1b1e4-3bd8-4448-b2fa-465971519d09","argument":"Over 90% of Singaporeans deem the National Service important in instilling discipline, defending the nation and building a national identity.","conclusion":"Countries with existing compulsory national service are well regarded by their citizens."}
{"id":"04431882-e9c3-45a1-a21d-0fc5e9c272ac","argument":"Though slavery was an egregious offense in our history, the reality is that the free blacks of today enjoy far more socioeconomic opportunity, political freedom, and modern conveniences, than they would have had they never been taken out of Africa. Though ends dont justify means, black Americans are better off today thanks to slavery.","conclusion":"Even if the government was absolved, the Black community would still be in better financial standing writ large, and thus better off."}
{"id":"b67db2e4-155a-427d-8901-d7d9a08669c8","argument":"Religious fundamentalists believe in the absolute authority of a certain religion which should be forced upon others. This will not be affected by state violations of human rights.","conclusion":"Religious fundamentalism is one of the main causes of terrorism."}
{"id":"9aa57a7b-3189-47c6-abd8-587f87475836","argument":"There's a lot of chatter about the data that various tech companies collect, and about steps that people can take to prevent them from collecting this information in the first place. e.g. privacy extensions, opting out changing settings within services, or abstaining from using them entirely by opting for free and open source options instead I've been trying to figure out whether I should be worrying about this myself, or whether I should continue to use the services I do like normal. AFAIK, data is currently used to connect advertisers with people who are more likely to buy their products. This is something I'm okay with, and something that most people seem to be okay with. From what I've seen, people are paranoid about uses for their data that go beyond this, e.g. Black Mirror 1984 Brave New World Big Brother esque manipulation and control, and the use of our data to remove our freedoms. To me, though, for society to progress to the point where this could become reality, a lot would have to go wrong in a bigger picture sense. The checks and balances our society relies on to prevent this sort of thing government, law, journalism, public outcry, how we spend our money would have to become ineffective or broken. At that point, what difference would opting in opting out make? If I were to completely withdraw and abstain from Facebook, Google, etc. and the world were to progress to the point where we as a society were dealing with some sort of apocalyptic nanny state scenario, would I be any safer? I feel like I'd still be in danger because the environment around me that I'm dependent on to live would be fundamentally compromised. At that point, it's more an issue that we as humans would collectively have to grapple with, and making individual privacy choices within my own little bubble won't do much for this at all. , what am I missing here? Do dangers exist such that making small changes in my internet usage could realistically keep me safe from them? gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I don't care about giving up my data to companies like Google or Facebook, and I think people who quit these services aren't accomplishing as much as they think they are."}
{"id":"e1069dd9-4e5e-4752-9d8d-5485d0a9a4df","argument":"We often hear oh suicide is selfish think of the people you would effect affect ? oh it gets better think of the people around you So what about that person freedom of will which you by taking that away are doing the same thing . What about the suicidal persons choices they make a fully grown adult? Who are you to say that person has to live and they are wrong? To the point By denying people to at least have the option you are making a lot of people suffer due to your own selfishness of making them live whether it be physical or mental illness. I get that there are exceptions some one who has been signed off my 3 docs as mad etc I will start with this and add more if questions are asked. Edit do to due","conclusion":"Suicide should be a right to have for every society."}
{"id":"61d6fd5c-ede9-4de3-855a-bd71db27884c","argument":"Getting annoyed about spoilers is narrow minded. Spoilers don't take anything away from a great story, a spoiler cannot ruin a story. Titanic is one of the box office highest grossing films of all time, yet everyone knew how it ends before they saw it. Is Romeo and Juliet ruined because you know they die? Much like life, its about the journey not the destination. It is your responsibility to keep up to date to avoid potential spoilers that may crop up in general conversation. You shouldn't have to tread on eggshells to avoid potential spoilers. Cast members should be able to say what they want in interviews without feeling like they may ruin it for someone.","conclusion":"People shouldn't get so irate about potential spoilers"}
{"id":"6645ec2b-3680-444e-9dd0-7c075259a62a","argument":"I believe that with the recent changes, and with the changes coming in 2019 15 minimum wage and 13.05 for alcohols servers , there's no reason for tips to continue to be expected. This is based on previous discussions I've had with others that convinced me to tip appropriately. The most compelling argument I've heard was that without tips people would be living in poverty so those extra few dollars are worth it morally. This is no longer the case. The poverty line for a single person in Ontario is 20,676. A full time job at minimum wage is 30,000 which is above the poverty line. I believe that since tipping isn't going to just disappear, it's best to use it how it was originally intended to incentivize or to reward exceptional service. ie, if the server goes above and beyond their duty or if the customer is being difficult and is making the server do more than they are normally required to do. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"In Ontario where the minimum wage just went up to $14\/hour and $12.20 for alcohol servers, and where employers are required to make up the difference too minimum wage, there's no reason for tips to continue to be expected."}
{"id":"70b1be1a-038d-4cc7-a3d4-f86888305511","argument":"Good and evil are sets of self contained truths. It seems like people use these terms to justify their emotions rather than to actually live piously. Like, if I asked someone why killing a person is wrong, they'd probably tell me that it's wrong because it causes pain, but if I asked them why causing pain is evil they'd probably just say it just is or something unsatisfactory. Am I missing something here? Is there a pure logic based explanation for why something is evil? Am I just being edgey?","conclusion":"Morality does not exist"}
{"id":"2e86739e-6d2a-4ec4-a369-b4a7245fd97f","argument":"Multiple fan threads can be found online showing fans defending Frank Clark, who openly admitted that he 'put his hands on' his girlfriend.","conclusion":"A complete lack of awareness is preferable to the counter-productive awareness caused by media coverage."}
{"id":"84b352df-f626-440f-98c1-d39a846a17d9","argument":"A report from Data-Driven Yale indicates that low-income neighborhoods around the world bear a disproportionate share of environmental burdens. The index compared data from 30 global cities and examined five areas of environmental concern: air quality, climate change, water and sanitation, urban ecosystem and transportation. Researchers concluded that although many of the cities performed well on environmental indicators, they didn't achieve results in an equitable way.","conclusion":"Reduced air pollution is likely to improve health outcomes disproportionately in low-income communities where pollution mortality and morbidity rates are highest"}
{"id":"30aa90cd-0bb0-4b8e-ae97-1c72eb6358d9","argument":"A photo of a couple of dead children is circulating on Reddit today. While I personally agree that nobody should die such a horrific death, I feel absolutely no remorse for the parents. Here is my reasoning 1 People living in Syria know perfectly well they're in the middle of the bloodiest conflict of current times. 2 The Syrians know damn well the war isn't going to end soon and even if it does, it will take many years to rebuild the country to a reasonable level. 3 Having that knowledge it is perfectly possible to choose not to have children during the war. If condoms birth control are not available you can always avoid vaginal sex or abstain. 4 If you have kids regardless of all the above, you're a bloody idiot and don't deserve the tiniest bit of remorse if your baby is blown by a bomb or dies in a Sarin gas attack. .","conclusion":"Syrian parents who have children during the war are irresponsible and deserve no remorse if their kids die"}
{"id":"806778a6-3c8c-473c-8360-911700288240","argument":"People watch football to escape from politics. Viewers want to watch a game, not a protest.","conclusion":"NFL players should be forced to stand during the National Anthem."}
{"id":"f9c04b82-6e52-423d-9734-430c7211fee1","argument":"Around 25% of all fish species spend some part of their life cycles in coral reefs, in spite of the fact that the reefs cover less than 1% of the ocean floor.","conclusion":"The destruction of coral reefs can have devastating consequences both for marine wildlife and for humans."}
{"id":"8ff02667-d4fa-4085-afaf-57d0dbb07ba7","argument":"Basically, three years of my life is an abstract and difficult to parse internally, whereas the pain from 20 strikes with a cane is easy and simple, and connects more to the basic fears and intuitions humans have with regards to punishment, which is the effectiveness side of my view. The ethical side is that imprisoning someone for years is enormously costly to them and to the state, with the opportunity costs in work and life experience. There's also the political point of view. People, implicitly or explicitly, encourage prison abuse because they don't feel that prison in and of itself is a sufficient punishment. By making the punishment aspect more salient and corporeal, the rehabilitative aspect of prisons can be enhanced, and the abuse side can be diminished, with less opposition from victim rights organizations. This would likely lead to a net improvement in the effects of judicial punishment.","conclusion":"Prison is less ethical and less effective as a detterent than physical punishment such as caning"}
{"id":"f27b31f3-f95f-415c-bff6-841f6fd13778","argument":"In May 2013, the United Nations warned the Japanese government that it needs to take measures to curb hate speech against so-called \"comfort women\", or Asian women forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military during World War II.","conclusion":"Even though there is widespread hate speech in Japan in recent years the country remains democratic and a stable society."}
{"id":"b420d3da-89e8-458f-80ef-243947d23821","argument":"Kids are basically socially inept. They say inappopriate things, they dont know how to think in certain most social situations, and the way they learn is still under development. I'm not saying all kids that learn about slavery are racist now, but kids that may be predisposed to rude or inappopriate behavior may find it exploitable that black folk were owned and sold and worked to death. It seems like the portions of history we learn in middle high school American Civil Revolutionary Industrial era persevarate on slavery. Sure, it's a part of our history but there is plenty of other and more beneficial history that could be taught. I didnt see any greek literature or classical history until my senior year of high school as an elective. I think learning classical thought before learning about white gt black slavery could be a better method. Self centered arrogant teenagers learning about the civil rights movement might not understand or even care about the blacks and turn it into something cruel. Do these things need to be taught? And kept on our minds year after year as we learn? I dont know, that's why I'm here. I think it does enough harm to outweigh 'the good', but  if you can","conclusion":"I think teaching young impressionable children about their ancestors owning slaves plants the seed for racism, and it is a harmful portion of our nation's curriculum."}
{"id":"66b27d68-5bcd-49a4-ab1d-c67deecb3531","argument":"The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty would help to prevent the proliferation spread to new countries of nuclear weapons by making it more difficult for nations that do not already possess nuclear weapons to develop them. Although it is possible to build a nuclear bomb without testing, it is hard to have any confidence that an untested nuclear device will work. Testing played a vital role in the development of nuclear weapons for 7 out of the 9 states that are known to possess them China, France, India, Pakistan, Russia, The UK, The USA. In addition, there is some evidence that Israel and South Africa conducted a joint nuclear test in the Indian Ocean in 1979.","conclusion":"The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty would help to prevent the proliferation spread to new countries ..."}
{"id":"641c440f-556a-4c82-a5b1-c62f649ce6fb","argument":"In 2011 US company Halliburton developed the \"CleanWave\" system which enables waste water to be reused as fracking fluid or in other production processes. Other companies have since developed similar technologies. This significantly reduces the demand for fresh water for use in fracking.","conclusion":"Advances in fracking technology are making fracking more environmentally friendly."}
{"id":"ca30f0ca-f1b8-4c88-8827-78726866a46a","argument":"I don't know if I'm just hanging around the wrong corners of the internet but somehow I, a Swedish citizen, know more about overzealous Social Justice Warriors as people call them on college campuses, than I do about the war in Syria. Here's where I'm with the critics. Some teenagers on college campuses in the U.S. and Canada have an overly simplistic view of social issues for example racism, sexism, privilege, discrimination, oppression, micro aggressions, white supremacy, homophobia, transphobia etc . These teenagers do not hold the right solutions and are too focused on policing speech. They are annoying, naive, and toxic and the increasing politicizing of science is a real problem . I'm also open to the idea that this political climate is causing a decrease in the quality of education, something that's quite bad when American college has become so expensive. I have great respect for heterodox academy and I hope they fix this. Ok, whatever. I'm not interested in discussing part 1. But let's say I accept that part of the anti SJW narrative. Even so, there's no way this is a large political issue Teenagers being overzealous about social justice is a problem for those teenagers who miss out on learning critical thinking and for the teachers who have to deal with them. However, I often feel like the entire internet is obsessed with these Social Justice Warriors mostly just young people who will grow out of it . For instance, one of the strongest pushers of this narrative, Jordan Peterson, says that what happens in university happens in society 5 years later . From what I've been told there have been plenty of radical leftists in universities since forever, and society is still standing. Meanwhile, we got global warming, unsustainable industrial farming, corporate lobbyism, growing economic inequality, healthcare, education, wars, technological unemployment, etc. Pretty much anything is more important to figure out as a society than some teenagers being too passionate about social justice. Again, to clarify, I'm interested in discussing the conditional part 2. I could be wrong about part 1 yes, that's not what I'm interested in. I'm interested in how even if you believe part 2, you can justify that HERE is where we should focus our attention, at the expense of other issues. EDIT Shifted my view somewhat on whether people grow out of it and whether the phenomena is isolated to campus, but essentially still believe that this is not an actually important political issue gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Political Correctness on college campuses is not one of the most important political issues."}
{"id":"5d453620-cee0-4428-a60c-eae928116f4d","argument":"The electoral college is not as efficient as other methods of voting in terms of representing the will of the majority. For example, \"Ranked Choice Voting also known as \"Instant Run-Off Voting,\" has been shown to more reliably produce results that are in line with the wishes of the majority of voters.","conclusion":"The electoral college system results in unfair outcomes for voters."}
{"id":"4edc44d8-7426-4892-af7e-bf93575f74d8","argument":"College attendance is disproportionately dominated by the wealthy Free university education in the U.S. would provide aid to those who are not in need.","conclusion":"The main beneficiaries of free tertiary education would be wealthy students, who can already afford the fees."}
{"id":"7774f20b-5ce6-4e79-9d20-cf6f75348e06","argument":"Order, or its absence, alone is not evidence of intent and thus a creator. A Jackson Pollock painting can be less ordered than spilt paint.","conclusion":"Unlike a painting there is little evidence that the universe has any overarching purpose."}
{"id":"5db7e11b-d998-4e1b-91f3-f5aaf2c03a13","argument":"When I first heard of the term feminism, it was through Emma Watson's he for she campaign through which she wanted to empower women all across the world to be educated and have the same opportunities for me and I was 100 for that. Then, as a few years went by I saw an increase in feminist media coverage in the United States and when I heard their stances I was like what the fuck. Women have the same rights as men in the United States. There is not one law in the constitution that prevents women from doing anything that men do, so when I hear American women talking about not having the same rights as men I don't buy it. The only real argument I've heard is the gender pay gap but this is not sexism. This is simply due to the fact that men on average enter more profitable areas in the workforce than women so they get paid more for it. Sure, there are some gender stereotypes that encourage men from going into higher paying fields than women but nothing is stopping women from pursuing the same careers. In fact, there are so many programs sponsored by companies that favor women to promote diversity and such that I don't really see why they're complaining. Another argument I hear is that women have to deal with sexual assault while men don't. This is horrible but men also have to deal with their own problems such as facing more violence, higher depression and suicide rates, etc. We all have problems and we should work as a society to solve them but complaining that women don't have the same rights as men is baseless and doesn't advance us forward.","conclusion":"Feminism is baseless in the United States"}
{"id":"8ab4a9b6-ed9f-4db6-a528-8aebc1e92971","argument":"After reading articles and from personal experience, I have concluded that many modern feminists are simply seeking attention or have a victim mentality. I want to think that they are doing something important by protesting things such as being judged by their appearance and what not. The only issue is that I don't think human nature or selection will change and if it does, I don't think some topless protesters are going to make a difference. TL DR I think most feminists read about famous feminists in the past that have accomplished great things and they want to jump in the spot light. PLEASE CHANGE MY OPINION At least tell me one important inequality feminists are fixing in the US today that won't change on it's own in the future.","conclusion":"I believe a majority of feminists in U.S. have a victim mentality !"}
{"id":"9cd87703-bb4d-43e1-b4dc-f2cf512b1941","argument":"My title sums most of it up. To remind anyone who hasn't seen it for a while, the Noisy Cricket is a tiny MIB gun which is extremely powerful. K's boss tells him to arm J, and K gives him the Noisy Cricket which he uses trying to catch the bug guy a few minutes later. Reasons why it's a terrible weapon Its tiny size would make it really hard to aim accurately. The comically intense recoil sends the shooter flying backwards ten feet or so. This is a terrible thing for a weapon, as the shooter is now vulnerable and disoriented after each shot. The gun has a massive blast area, much wider than even something like a sawed off shotgun. This would make it very difficult to disable a threat without putting nearby people at risk. Reasons why K was irresponsible K gives J the gun without warning him about its intense recoil or its blast area. What if J had fired it while standing with his back to a ledge or something sharp? What if there had been a hostage situation and J had fired it at the hostage taker? The blast would have easily killed the hostage as well. J is already well trained on using a standard issue police pistol. Wouldn't it be more responsible to have him start off with a gun he understands and is comfortable with? At least until he's had a few hours on the range with the noisy cricket to get some experience with it? For these reasons, I think it was a terrible weapon choice for J's first armed MIB mission, and K was very irresponsible for giving it to him. Whether it was negligence maybe he was so used to using MIB weapons that he didn't consider J's lack of knowledge experience with them or some kind of desire to emasculate J by giving him a tiny gun which doesn't really make sense considering how powerful the weapon is , K's decision was irresponsible and he should have been reprimanded by his boss.","conclusion":"The \"noisy cricket\" from Men in Black is a terrible weapon, and Agent K was wrong and irresponsible to give it to Agent J."}
{"id":"f0491c32-4853-4bb0-bdf8-99bd3e33c731","argument":"Sorry if there are a lot of posts similar to this. Just to clarify, as long as hate speech is carried out in a peaceful manner, I think it should be allowed. Riots, serious personal threats, etc. shouldn't be tolerated. But when you shut out an entire group because of their belief system, it only makes the problem worse. This racist misogynistic etc. group won't just disappear. They will feel bitter and possibly adopt beliefs even more extreme than before. This leads to more misunderstanding on both sides since neither understands exactly what the other side thinks. False assumptions would potentially run wild. I would rather have people be honest about their beliefs, even if I disagree, than hide them because they're afraid of legal punishment. Then I know exactly who I'm dealing with. Debating people who are guilty of hate speech can only help verify your own beliefs or possibly make you reevaluate them if they don't hold up . This is a better alternative to eliminating hate speech, since you may be able to shift the other person's perspective rather than make it more extreme. I don't think it's ever a good idea to assume I'm 100 right. Regulating thoughts, philosophies, etc. assumes that regulator always knows what's best, which is impossible. I'm open to others' views though as always. EDIT Damn this post blew up big time I feel kinda guilty for all of the people I left hanging. Even though I haven't replied back to most of the comments, I did read all of them. A lot of people are making solid points, but my main view hasn't changed overall. This might have been different if I could've had an in depth discussion with everyone. Next time I'll post over the weekend so I have more time lol. Anyways, thanks to everyone for contributing. Your comments helped put more things into perspective and allowed me to tweak some of my beliefs.","conclusion":"The elimination of free speech is more harmful than hate speech"}
{"id":"c5b14194-108c-47e0-b695-f44dec55309c","argument":"I may be a little late to the party, but I've been thinking about this a lot after finishing DS9. Firstly, I'm not trying to argue over the morality of this decision. Genocide is wrong regardless of how you look at it, so I'm only concerned about the strategic value of the decision. Towards the end of the final battle for Cardassia Prime, the Dominion fleet was collapsing, and the allied Federation, Klingon, Romulan, and Cardassian defectors had a guaranteed victory. By winning the battle of Cardassia, the Alpha Quadrant would have been completely purged of all Dominion influence, which was basically how it happened in the main timeline. However, the final surrender of Dominion forces was issued by the dying female Changeling. By that point she had already acknowledged the Dominion's defeat, and said that if the Founders die, then the Jem'Hadar, and the Vorta would fight to the last ship, and the last man. My opinion was that this was probably a better outcome in the long run. Although a continued battle would definitely cause more Federation, Romulan, and Klingon casualties, the Dominion forces in the Alpha Quadrant were already scattered towards the end of the battle, victory was guaranteed. If the Founders were to have all died out in one fel swoop of genocide, the Dominion would completely collapse, not only in the Alpha Quadrant, but also their home base in the Gama Quadrant. Removing what is essentially a galactic superpower that surpasses the military and industrial power of even the 3 major powers of the Alpha Quadrant would benefit the Federation immensely. Future colonization, and expansion efforts into the Gamma Quadrants would go almost unopposed, and it will ensure that Dominion espionage and influence within the Alpha Quadrant would permanently cease. I've already mentioned the possible Federation casualties of a continued war, but I do think that they might not be as severe as the Founder suggests. Almost the entire Dominion operations fleet in the Alpha Quadrant was garrisoned at Cardassia Prime, including most of the Jem'Hadar, and Breen fleet. Just before the surrender issue, the Dominion Fleet was already broken, and the only Dominion resistance left on Cardassia Prime were Jem'Hadar foot soldiers, who were currently occupied with exterminating the Cardassians. Just by sending troops to capture and liberate Cardassia Prime would have basically eliminated the Dominion presence in the Alpha Quadrant. Along with a heavy resistance from the Cardassian population, along with allied Klingon, Romulan, and Cardassian patriot fleets, the ensuing ground battle could definetly be planned so their allies, and the Cardassians take most of the blunt of the remaining Jem'Hadar. The Breen Confederacy owes no inherent loyalties to the Dominion, and would have most likely broken off relations with the Dominion if they realized their inevitable defeat. Allowing the Jem'Hadar to further exterminate the Cardassians on Cardassia Prime would also serve to weaken another major power in the Alpha Quadrant. 800 million people died on Cardassia Prime in the original timeline, that number would be much more, probably in the billions, if the surrender order wasn't given. a weakened Cardassian Union, along with a Federation good willed rebuilding effort after the war could allow the Federation to establish a friendly alliance Like the Dominion did with the Cardassians after their war with the Klingons , leading to the Cardassians eventually joining the Federation. The Jem'Hadar are done for, both in the Alpha, and Gamma Quadrants. Most of them in the Alpha Quadrant would have been destroyed after the battle for Cardassia Prime, and because of extinction of the Founders, the Jem'Hadar would no longer have a sustainable supply of ketrasel white to survive. The Dominion in the Gamma Quadrant would immediately descend into complete and utter chaos, because 1 the central leadership has been killed off, and 2 their soldiers are now suffering from crazed withdraws. Fortunately for the Alpha Quadrant, the wormhole could be easily blockaded, so the possiblity of the Jem'Hadar violence leaking into Alpha Quadrant is almost impossible. After maybe 10 years, all of the Jem Hadar would probably have all died due to the lack of ketresal white, and the Dominion would have completely collapsed into individual galactic nation states. This would be a golden opportunity for the Federation to expand, explore, and colonize the Gamma Quadrant unopposed gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than just downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"It would have been strategically more beneficial in the long term if the Federation had with-held the cure from the Founders towards the end of the Dominion War."}
{"id":"9676a653-2ac2-4eec-b41b-b8b5947b2c1f","argument":"I am generally on the Android side for mobile and GNU Linux side on PCs, I still enjoy the OSX user interface and I like the MacBook Pro, but still I hate Apple as a company and as a brand. The reason probably is the popularity of Apple among YOLO SWAG teenagers, whom I really hate. .","conclusion":"I can't stop hating Apple. , please"}
{"id":"b970cd16-b8a7-4e81-a981-5eb40b5b208f","argument":"In an ideal world, companies could be neutral about who they ban or demonetize. However, since they seem to have failed on this front, particularly on hot-button issues, its worth asking the government to step in.","conclusion":"Tech companies have banned users who express mainstream opinions, causing authors and activists to lose an important part of their livelihood."}
{"id":"90b7b1f3-5ff0-459e-bd88-92432b277c32","argument":"Many people, even many atheists have the visceral belief, that there is something, that makes us conscious. Call it soul, spirit, mind, whatever you want. This belief is very intuitive and often not questioned, because it seems so fundamental. But I think we should indeed question this assumption, especially because of its visceral nature. I know of no rational reason to believe that the human consciousness is anything else than the result of electrochemical and biochemical processes in the brain. These processes follow only the laws of nature. Many people believe that we are somehow more than just the body we live in, but in my oponion, all our thoughts, decisions and actions are just caused by said mechanisms in the brain and of a deterministic nature. There is no free will.","conclusion":"There is no soul spirit or any other cartesian duality. Free will is an illusion."}
{"id":"6f18365c-0847-4e3e-b6d8-9d25bb2e2784","argument":"As the prospect of a tiebreaker determining the world champion in the ongoing World Chess Championships 2018 looms near, it's hard for me not to be disappointed with what would come after the twelve possibly all drawn games four rapid chess games. Rapid games are played under different time controls, in which less time was given for both sides to decide their moves. Personally, I don't think it is a good way of determining the world champion. My biggest complaint is that it is a different assessment of the player's abilities. If the championships are meant to assess both players' skills in various time controls, then they should stratify the matches into several categories, so they can play a few games of compulsory classical, a few rapid games or even a few blitz or bullet games. However, they wouldn't have had to play the rapid games had the classical games not been a tie. So if the championships emphasises on their performances in classical time control, why should the tie be broken in a wholly different format? In an extension to that, I think this is unfair to one of the players. Take the current championship as an example, Fabriano Caruana is ranked much lower than Magnus Carlsen, the reigning world champion, in stricter time controls, making him the underdog if the match reaches a tie. He is currently banking on beating Magnus within the twelve games. I'm not saying he is less likely to win the rapids I'm not talking about the odds here. What I'm trying to illustrate is that player's skill in various time control differs, and if the championships doesn't set out to test their versatility in all time controls, they shouldn't be. Also worth mentioning is that there are separate world championships for those stricter time controls, so there's no necessity to include it in the actual world championships for classical chess. I'm open to deltas and I hope I won't plummet into the same kind of shitfest as last time. Edit Thank you for all the interesting discussions Not only did they lead to me suggesting a solution to the problem, I'm also given bountiful examples of similar cases in other sports. I'm still willing to give out more deltas","conclusion":"The tiebreaker of the world chess championships should not be a series of rapid chess games"}
{"id":"2df9c074-bea5-430b-892c-3e998373437a","argument":"When it comes down to marriage I think compatibility is key. In my experience when you're living with someone intimately, having the same or similar religious beliefs is immensely important. Because I believe that deep down they will always hope for you to convert and probably thinking you will see the light someday. The atheist will also hope deep down that they will lose their faith as well. Having this kind of thinking will make it irksome for both parties in the long run. In the event of an heated argument you can bet their faith or lack of to be brought up as an innate fault within themselves. In the end it will always be a nagging feeling because they will want to become one with each other and that's impossible when two people share different beliefs on something crucial to people's lives as religion. That nagging feeling will naturally grow into contempt and tear the marriage apart. Edit Let me be frank I'm an American and I know little to zilch about how other countries handle religion, which could be my inherent failure of understanding some of the viewpoints you guys posted. Examples of working couples that have managed this can help. Because I never in my life have seen it and always felt a great deal of animosity for being an atheist in my life. To make some clarifications I'm not talking about fundamentalist or militant atheist believe or not there is really a middle in between those two extremes. Big beliefs like religion which is large part of someone's thinking and world view cannot be easily accepted by someone who does share similar beliefs. To specify I'm only talking about religions such as Christianity, Islam, and Jadaism. Basically religions that take a big part of someones life and a major part of their worldview. Double edit My original baseless assertion that it was impossible to have a good marriage was, admittedly, stupid. My view has changed.","conclusion":"I don't think an atheist and a religious person could realistically have a good marriage,"}
{"id":"8e2ae886-9dc5-4858-a746-19f39cb1c66c","argument":"I\u2019m starting to get more into jogging and hiking. The biggest pain for me is my shoelaces coming undone. So freaking annoying to have to retie them though I may not be great at it . I understand there was a time when shoelaces were an essential feature of footwear. However, with things like Velcro straps, slip on laceless shoes, etc. there is no longer a need for shoes to have laces. The only possible function they might serve is to tighten and loosen the shoe\u2019s snugness around the foot. However, I feel the strapped shoes could do this too.  about phasing our shoelaces entirely","conclusion":"Shoelaces are useless and pointless"}
{"id":"bb6e6d88-892d-4093-b0bf-f4c7c261a158","argument":"Victor Ortiz, maybe some of you remember he got knocked out by Floyd Mayweather Jr some years ago, has been charged for alleged rape, not convicted . Based on the idea that the united states justice system is to uphold an ideal of innocent until proven guilty the broadcast that has essentially fired him on allegations are not acting within good faith, and I believe to an extent are unfairly depriving this fighter of his means to living and pursuit of happiness. My argument does not mean that accusations should not be taken seriously. It does uphold though that publicly pressing a label onto someone who has not been fairly trialed, as well as losing employment is wrong in this situation. If anyone is to make bail on charges and are awaiting trial, this does not legally stop them from working. How would this be any different for a boxer? x200B","conclusion":"It is wrong of the Premier Boxing Champions broadcast to cancel their main event fight this coming Sunday due to rape accusation against Victor Ortiz."}
{"id":"95783f67-84ee-4812-a824-7ad9254c8d31","argument":"In general, the absence of the enforcement of immigration laws in Arizona creates a sense of anarchy in the state, and a certain feeling among criminals that they can commit crimes without concern for punishment.","conclusion":"Arizona law represents a much needed step away from anarchy."}
{"id":"62a81333-4c9a-4011-a18c-3b9b4fb881e7","argument":"Trump talks a lot about terrorism but he's essentially just been playing the strongman. I've never heard him say anything on what the cause of terrorism is nor how to stop it on a high level. I realized this when I thought to myself, if he does succeed in restricting immigration, and terrorist attacks keep happening in America which they probably would , what would be his next move? I don't think anyone knows. Even his advisors just respond to any accusations of racism Islamophobia with, he's not racist, he knows who the bad guys are, etc. but still, no plan, just assurances. The same may be said for Hillary, but I haven't been following her campaign as closely, and it seems likely she would just do what previous presidents have done surgical strikes at terror targets, gradually expanding government surveillance powers, etc. .","conclusion":"Donald Trump does not have a plan to fight terrorism."}
{"id":"b86dd160-c169-4712-9b5f-dece477f1326","argument":"Unfortunately, too many people nowdays in America think socialism, which is but an eventual path to full tyranny and communism, is the answer to America's and the world's woes. These systems of government have resulted in the enslavement and deaths of millions upon millions of people. Think Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and other despots. The reason these systems eventually fail is that too much power becomes concentrated in the hands of a few, who impose more and more rrules and regulations, taxes and other types of oppressive control over the masses, all for \"the greater good\" which is held out there like a carrot, never to be achieved. The \"greater good\" can never be acheived - what we gain instead for the \"masses\" is a leveled-down collection of enslaved, miserable and poverty-stricken individuals lorded over by a few arrogant, wealthy and power-hungry elites. Using Sweden as an example of a \"successful\" socialist country, as many who argue for socialism do, we see an example of the failure of socialsim. If people bothered to check the facts, they would find out that if the whole country of Sweden were made part of the United States, it would be the POOREST state in the nation! Socialsim in Sweden is failing, with its high taxes and resultant high unemployment, it is reaching the point of unsustainability. I offer the following article source is at the end of the article for those who beleive in socialism to ponder. Socialism Works! - or does it? \"Socialism has worked for the world - and now it can work for you!\" Sweden: \"The Highest Standard of Living Anywhere\" The beautiful nation of Sweden has the highest standard of living in the world. Its blossoming industry ranks far higher than the United States in most measurements. Life in Socialist Sweden is free of homeless, reckless, crazy people. In spite of the 55% income tax, Sweden has a history of strong family values, the most progressive education system in the world and extremely low unemployment. Sweden boasts a new Third Way between Capitalism and Socialism, making it a great example of new age Collectivism. It's superior unionization and strong economy will ensure that it will be a Socialistic success story for years to come. If you say Sweden, I say \"Socialism WORKS!\" But does it really work? the highest standard of living: Sweden's most affront claim, that it has the world's highest standard of living, is often based on the measure of equality in wealth redistribution, and not on the status of the national economy, the buying power of the Swedish crown Krona, the amount of people working for productive aims or creating innovations, nor it's Gross National Product. Claims based on these other properties of the Swedish economy, in support of their \"highest standard of living\" claim, are mysteriously non-existent. blossoming industry: Sweden is a great place to start a new business - if you don't plan on being successful. A more lax economic policy in the '90s has increased new startups by 25%, but the economic attitude towards business hasn't changed much since the '70s, where entrepreneurs were treated like pariahs. Ikea founder Ingvar Kamprad told Forbes magazine that the Swedish tax bureaucrats would frequently accuse him of using people and \"only wanting profits\". ranks far higher than the United States in most measurements: The Swedish Institute of Trade reported in 2002 that \"the median household income in Sweden at the end of the 1990s was the equivalent of $26,800, compared with a median of $39,400 for U.S. households\". If Sweden were introduced to the U.S. as a new state, it would rank as the poorest according to these standards. This is in light of the fact that these numbers are gross values - before taxes - and Sweden has the highest taxes in the world. The same report also shows that Swedes fare lower than the lowest American socio-economic class, working-class black males. free of homeless, reckless, crazy people: The unfortunate in Sweden often don't roam the streets aimlessly, in fact, few are often found. That's because the state subsidizes them to live in optimal conditions and to provide little work - and if they are put into labor, it's in a public enterprise run by the government, to help reduce the official share of unemployed people. Workers can earn up to 570 paid days off a year that's no typo - we know there are only 365 days a year - Swedes can earn more paid days off than days they actually work. So where are the poor, crazy, reckless people of Sweden? Living off Swedish tax money and taking up their inequitable residence in Swedish neighborhoods, and growing in numbers since the financial prosperity of the cradle-to-grave system doesn't discourage their lacklazy habits. They are often joined by productive Swedish citizens who simply take time off, after \"earning\" years of unemployment benefits. These categories, since they are subsidized, are not officially considered \"unemployed\" in most Swedish statistics, even though both demographics do no actual work. After making the observation that loons don't wander the streets of Sweden, P.J. O'Rourke commented in his book \"Eat the Rich\" - \"The last time I walked through Gamla Stan, I didn't wonder where the crazy people were. In Sweden the craziness is redistributed fairly. They're all a little crazy.\" 55% income tax: This income tax, 55% of the Gross National Product, the highest income tax in the world, is also coupled with sales taxes, property taxes, and other excise taxes and tariffs. The Swedish sales tax, a \"value added tax\", ranges to 22.5% of items sold, on various goods including most foods. The total ownership of public goods by the Swedish government is roughly 64%, closing in on 70%, once you include all these other forms of taxation. That is not including government-owned means of production, which control about a full quarter of Swedish productivity. history of strong family values: The history of Swedish domestic relations is chock full of civil rights abuses. 62,000 Swedes were forcibly sterilized by the Swedish government over a 40 year period, until 1974, by government researchers who judged families as being \"racially inferior\". These sterilizations included both the parents and their children. During this time period, a Swedish Television documentary revealed that Sweden lobotomized at least 500 \"undesirables\", in some cases without the consent of their families, and that lobotomizations may have numbered up to 4,500 people. These practices predated and surpassed the era of Nazi Germany. the most progressive education system in the world: Education is universally free in Sweden, and like other free government-sponsored systems, it's on the verge of financial collapse and decay. Per student Sweden pays an average of $7,000 a year, while the 9 years of elementary schooling is required, high school and further education is not. Students receive financial benefits for continuing to high school, in the form of about $100 a month, although by college most people have got weaned on the Swedish unemployment system. Some High School students teach Elementary school, while Colleges teach what Swedish High Schools did 15 years ago, showing the recent decline in the quality of Swedish education. To solve unemployment figures, many unemployed people are forced into menial courses to change their status from \"unemployed\" to \"student\", illustrating the general sense of misuse of the Swedish education system. extremely low unemployment: Sweden, like other Socialist nations, use methods to \"hide\" unemployment figures from staticians, reflecting a \"strong economy\". Most people on the government dole are changed in status to not be considered \"unemployed\", for instance, out of work citizens are often considered \"on paid leave\", or given a menial class and considered \"students\", or simply conscripted into public works programs funded by the government and given menial labor there. The government's ability to fund the unemployed hides unemployment numbers, giving Sweden years of having unemployment numbers like 2%. This, like other Socialist nations of it's ilk, does not reflect the real life numbers of regularly working people. Third Way: Swedes often argue that their system is not Socialism, since only a fourth of the Swedish main lines of production are owned by the government. However, this is in light of the government owning 70% of the Swedish Gross National Product, and controlling the direction of industry through heavy regulation. By mandating who can provide what products and services, and controlling media, education and public utilities, Sweden definitely has found a \"Third Way\" between Capitalism and Socialism - that way, of course, being to fake Capitalism, where the Socialist goals of redistribution of wealth and products are realized without calling most industry \"publicly owned\". This same trick of a \"Mixed Economy\" is used by Socialist economists all around the world to help give government progressive control over trade. The lesson of the Third Way? Free trade is not free just because someone calls it \"free\". superior unionization: Unions in Sweden have become hyper organized, and government involvement is obscure and questionable. Super-union organizations like the LO have official affiliations with the Social Democratic Party, and work closely with the authorities to push domestic reform provisions they feel are \"in the interest of the workers\". strong economy: While the government spent 70% of the Swedish Gross National Product in the '90s, for 4 years the national debt doubled and for 3 years the nation experienced negative financial growth. Socialistic success story: Whether the massive welfare state of Sweden with it's cradle-to-grave public aid, ultra-high taxation, and dishonest economic policies is considered a success is something we'll leave entirely up to the reader. \u00ab Go back to Socialism WORKS! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- \u00ab back to PAOracle.com","conclusion":"Both socialism and communism have their roots in the idea of utopianism; all are unrealistic, unachievable and deny the nature and dignity of the individual."}
{"id":"47f4beac-4d3a-453a-aef0-d3377f387b4b","argument":"Some of the strongest arguments we, as consumers in a market, make for deregulating the sales of marijuana can be morally, and empirically applied to nearly any facet of the market the government currently regulates. I'm open to real evidence pointing to alternatives, but as far as history would have it, regulation on a consumer good usually is bad for the people the market serves. The negative repercussions vary widely in scope, but are almost always worse than the alternatives to deregulation. An easy example is tobacco. A cash crop like weed, and the same basic stigmas attached to it. I understand the scientific discussion about the toxicity of both, but why not let the market drive the success or failure of the products based on their perceived dangers and benefits? And if pot is safer, couldn't it be a safer and more sought alternative than tobacco? Isn't this more effective than simply regulating tobacco? The most common argument for legalizing pot I see is that we should be able to choose our own safety for our own bodies. Well, why not live by this logic? What about regulating airbags in cars? Shouldn't there be alternative choices for my own personal reasons? Same with the practice of medicine. Why does the AMA decide an adequate doctor? Shouldn't I have as more say in a doctor's value than a license board? I've truly yet to hear logical arguments against this, other than emotional appeals. I'm open to good insight into these topics EDIT I am not confusing decriminalization with deregulation. They are one and the same to me, and part of what I would like the discussion to revolve around.","conclusion":"We should be deregulating everything for the same reasons we are deregulating Marijuana."}
{"id":"f97e5efe-0e6a-4c2c-95fb-9510e75a6866","argument":"A lot of culture and society is delivered through the internet. arguably this increases access, at times. E.g I watched a live performance of a play being performed in London but on a screen in Leics. Not like a TV show more a good view of the stage. Superb.","conclusion":"Practically all music delivery platforms today deliver their music via the Internet. Without broadband you will not be able to use those services, but will be restricted to pirated MP3s, CDs and records."}
{"id":"ad48b60a-7aa6-4f01-83a2-213e65e16d02","argument":"The title pretty much says it. I think the P5 deal with Iran is good. I really do not get people like Cotton saying this deal is worse than they ever could have imagined. or Netanyahu saying suddenly I might add that the deal needs to include a statement from Iran that Israel has the right to exist. The Iranian people are never going to accept a deal that includes that and the Iranian government is not going to shut down their entire nuclear energy program and really why should they have to? I cynically assume that most if not all American Israeli and even Iranian politicians that disapprove of the deal want to maintain an evil enemy as a scapegoat to pursue other interests and do not actually disapprove of the deal itself. So I would love to hear from people who legitimately disapprove of this deal to tell me why they do. EDIT and yes I know the deal is not completely done, this is just a framework.","conclusion":"The Iran Nuclear Deal is Good and is the Best Way to Prevent Iran From Obtaining the Bomb"}
{"id":"63711ec5-85ca-483d-be4e-f716fa8c232f","argument":"Reddit, please help me . First, it should be said that I believe men and women are perfectly capable of being wonderful gynecologists and urologists, respectively and I know there are many great ones out there . This is not about privacy, capability, or competence in any way. Some close friends of mine are doctors or studying to become one and we\u2019ve briefly discussed this before, but I\u2019m not sure my views have changed. I do not understand why men would chose to pursue the study of gynecology, and likewise, women urology. It seems to me that there are inherent and practical obstacles that hardly merit the consideration, time and energy of either study for the opposite sex assuming they\u2019re studying to be a practicing physician . My first point is It seems doctors are naturally equipped to specialize in gynecology or urology based on a lifetime of everyday interactions with their own anatomy. Copious amounts of time must be dedicated to studying the anatomy of the opposite sex just to have a competent understanding of the physiology and biological mechanisms at work, much less what the patients may be feeling sensations, discomfort, etc. . If that time were spent studying specializing in the same sex of the doctor to be , it seems the time would be better spent and yield greater insight knowledge payoff. My second point question is Do urologists or gynecologists consider the barriers that patients of the opposite sex might put up because of discomfort? It seems na\u00efve to think all patients are going to be as professional as their gynecologist or urologist regardless of sex . But if said doctor IS of the opposite sex, openness, a level of trust, or comfort might be at stake for many patients. This can EXTREMELY inhibit the ability of the gynecologist or urologist to be effective. I know doctors are professional and open \u2013 and many have great bedside manner \u2013 but patients cannot realistically be held to the same expectations or standards. Finally It is my understanding though I do not share this view that men who study gynecology are frequently perceived by many non healthcare professionals as perverts or weirdoes the same could be perceived of women, of course . Patients may have these perceptions regardless of how untrue they are \u2013 it just seems an avoidable hurdle for the doctor to overcome in their mission to deliver effective care. I realize that patients may request doctors of their same sex, but for reasons of convenience, naivety, or otherwise, many do not. Thanks for reading all this and please, Change My View.","conclusion":"Men should not go into Gynecology and women should not go into Urology male reproductive organs."}
{"id":"c5feabd3-0624-4889-a285-a2fcbbdbe558","argument":"First of all, I'd have to answer the obvious question why does almost the entirety of modern science disagree? Well, it is beneficial to society that we all think everyone is born equal. You all know what does stupid, baseless racism look like. Now imagine how violent and intense would substantiated, science supported racism be. So it would actually be a smart move from the governments and scientific institutions to silence and discredit any research that says otherwise, if it were the truth. Now, races differ genetically. Whites people have white skin, black people have for example, higher center of gravity. Asians are shorter. Basically every ethnic group has discernible physical characteristics that allow a skilled professional to differentiate between them. The widely accepted sentiment that races are very physically different, but exactly the same mentally, just doesn't make much sense. Evolutionally, higher mental acuity is an investment. Just like being taller, having bigger lung capacity, or stronger skeletal muscles. It uses up more energy and is not always the priority. So, for example, it is not unreasonable for some populations to end up less smart, but stronger as a reaction to their environment. My second point is Selective breeding in humans. Average IQ of a human populace CAN change over time. And it's not only because of the socioeconomic circumstances having higher IQ can mean greater success in life and better opportunities for passing your genes, resulting in the population getting smarter. OR, as predicted in Idiocracy, being more intelligent might be a detriment to having children, making the populace dumber. But overall, the average IQ of a populace may vary over time. So, it is entirely possible for two ethnic groups to have different average IQs. EVEN if you take all the underlying genetic predispositions from the equation. And when you put both these groups into one society, it WILL be possible to make assumptions, such as This person looks to be of Ethnicity A. Therefore, it is probable that he is dumber than this other person, who is of Ethnicity B. To summarize, I am not saying that any race in the world definitely is smarter or dumber than other races. But it IS a possibility and if it is actually true, we will never officially know. Because admitting it would destabilize the society. EDIT Many people are saying that the concept of race is a social construct and isn't really relevant anymore. Sure. You can still compare people with skin color in the range of 1a0e0b 995341 to people with skin color in some other range. Skin color is the result of some genes, and not the cause of potential mental advantage disadvantage. But it can correlate with IQ, so it's not unreasonable to do research based on skin color ranges.","conclusion":"It is entirely possible for some races to have lower IQ on average, genetically."}
{"id":"e2255113-d142-4610-b5b2-b0ef40283c1b","argument":"These studies group religious and non-religious individuals based on how often they attend church which is not necessarily representative of their beliefs.","conclusion":"These studies do not take into account their own limitations, whose results are actually influenced by a number of external factors."}
{"id":"dc4a683f-3fbb-4dce-9beb-da778ff426a7","argument":"So I think the core issue boils down to a fundamental misunderstanding about what both sides view the American flag as. Pro Kaepernick say the flag and anthem represent America as it is today and how it treats minorities. Anti Kaepernic say the flag and anthem represent patriotism and that disrespecting the flag disrespects the country, and more specifically, veterans. I personally think that any sort of flag burning or peacefull protest is 100 ok. Youre not hurting anyone and its better that the alternatives. Namely, just sitting back and taking it or violent protests. However, are we gonna sit back and pretend like they are all just dumb hicks and ignore the fact that the world is filled with powerful symbols that most people use to make sense of the world? In fact, most of the people Ive run across in the real world who are anti Kaepernick are veterans or are the family of veterans. Most militaries break down their soldiers to their base and build them back up with an unwavering respect for the flag and the country. The US is no exception. Are we going to act like the flag and the anthem arent core parts of their identities? What if every time the westboro babtist church had a God Hates Fags rally I had a couple of gay dudes cum on a bible in protest? What if every time isis did some horrific act I took a Quran, put some slices of bacon in it, then put it in a panini press in order to protest them? Of course the radicals would be upset. But wouldnt some reasonable people who take these symbols very seriously be upset as well? Im not saying I agree with them. At the end of the day a flag is just dyed cotton. Holy books are dead trees. An anthem is just a dumb song. But these things mean different things to different people. I support Kaep 100 but can we agree the other side at least has a point?","conclusion":"People protesting Nike and Kaepernick might actually have a point even though I disagree with them and support Kaepernick"}
{"id":"fc0ccaee-a04a-4611-9d54-033dc343ca24","argument":"I believe that convicted criminals should be locked in a place where they are not allowed to leave, but also if they expect to be given food, they should be expected to work. They would be paid minimum wage, and the cost of food, heat, housing, prison guards would be subtracted from their earnings. Whatever money was left over after these subtractions would go into an account so they could get back on their feet after they are released. If they are in for life, then they have no reason to work any longer than they need to in order to pay for their living expenses. If a prisoner refuses to work, then he she should be kept in a separate part of the prison and not given food until he she either cooperates or dies from starvation. It is absolutely ridiculous that I have to pay for prisoners to sit around on their asses and do nothing all day.","conclusion":"I believe that prisons should be work camps where you must work if you want to eat."}
{"id":"57ed41b2-e4cc-463d-a22b-ba7fe6c38ce2","argument":"I understand that some executions are going to come from horrible people groups and that I'd run the risk of suffering an even worse death possibly torture but when I see one person shooting a whole line of people I would turn around and fight the person. You're already faced with death and you're either going to die waiting to get hit in the back of the head so why not fight? Even if it doesn't work out, you were going to die anyway. I know there are countless different scenarios people can be faced with but I feel like I'd try and fight for my life, especially if it's one person with a gun who is shooting 8 people in a row. Of course there are probably other factors I'm ignorant too as well but I'm open to any arguments so go ahead,","conclusion":"If I was about to be put to death by firing squad or some other form of execution I wouldn't just stand there and take it, I would find a way to fight back"}
{"id":"425597a2-2af7-447e-a355-23e591a4a8df","argument":"Men and women are different biologically. They have different average physical proportions, different average performances, different average compositions of fat muscle, different average hormone levels But this is true for everyone, ever, because people are severely variable. We don't compensate for a man's physical distinctions with the other men in the tournament, nor do we compensate for a woman's physical distinctions from the other women in the tournament. In fact, we're totally fine with permitting players with objective physical advantages disadvantages to compete with others who don't have them. From the get go, competition is unfair sometimes to a very harsh extent because of physical qualities that we can't control, and that's a fact of the universe that we accept well, we do accept it, but conditionally and with double standards. When sex is the major distinction between players, apparently it's fine to segregate them without question. Why is this? Some women have the physical qualities that means they could happily compete with the male players of the same activity, and vice versa. And where there are non negotiable physical limitations as in no man woman has ever proved they can exceed this level , surely we could provide compensatory circumstances based on averages? We could adjust the score cap for one of the sexes, no? Could we not instate a fair, calculated handicap? Don't we have the power to monitor and limit the energy that one has leading into a physical activity? The fact that we don't do this already doesn't really sound excusable to me in fact, it sounds like the product of laziness, and I'd say it's one of the things that lead people to believe that there are stronger differences between the sexes then there actually are. I could excuse this lack of effort at a small event perhaps because you're probably not dealing with the elite competitors anyway so the averages might be different or might not even matter, but I still don't understand the need to create segregation, and the fact that worldwide sporting events like the Olympics don't incorporate experiment with these measures just sounds ridiculous to me. But then again, I acknowledge that I'm not big on sports or physical education, so I'd like a second opinion.","conclusion":"There doesn't deserve to be male- or female-only sporting events."}
{"id":"01f7e438-3804-49d9-94a9-401c11488b53","argument":"As several protests in Berkeley university have turned violent and have been extensively shown in the media, the valid reasons protesters may hold end up fogged up by violent images.","conclusion":"Protests can make activists suffer from bad press, especially if they are associated with violence."}
{"id":"38bc1462-7c82-4d5a-96a4-18909a994d5b","argument":"In the \"Bous a la Mar\" of Alicante, the local youngsters try to make the bulls fall into the sea without using their arms or hands, usually causing their drowning.","conclusion":"Even variations of traditional bullfighting, such as bullruns where killing the bull is not the main goal, cause severe pain and stress to the animal."}
{"id":"24b1a246-7337-4e6c-9516-fcda6d0e08a2","argument":"Like the title says, I believe that there is nothing inherently wrong with polygamy. If it is done by willing and consenting adults, who know what they are getting themselves into, then why should it be deemed illegal? A sub point of this argument is that I don\u2019t believe the government should be involved with marriage to begin with and that it is an overstep of their authority. If I have the ability to financial take care of myself, multiple wives, and multiple children so that none would go hungry or live in poverty, why should I be prevented? Many people who argue against polygamy bring up vague statements about morals and religion, however when you look across many religions histories you find polygamy to be present. From Islam, to Catholicism, to Judaism, to the obvious one of Mormonism. Two of the greatest kings according to religions of the God of Abraham are David and Solomon who are estimated to have 30 and 700 wives respectively. Also don\u2019t get me misconstrued, I\u2019m not just arguing for polygyny, while I do not see myself being interested in polyandry, I find that there should be no prevention of it. It\u2019s not like making polygamy legal would be the end of monogamy. I feel like polygamy should be treated like many things in society if you don\u2019t like or agree with it, then don\u2019t do it. I guess this argument also has linkage with my underlying belief of libertarianism, but in the end if you disagree with polygamy and it were to be legalized, your life wouldn\u2019t change in any significant or noticeable way.","conclusion":"There is nothing inherently wrong with Polygamy and it should not be illegal"}
{"id":"603d6c62-d0b2-4596-871b-78322ec47d10","argument":"Many moral philosophies which don't depend on God, such as Kantian moral philosophy also promote volunteerism and beneficence, without allowing for the possibility of abuse and misinterpretation by one group of people. Such philosophies could found virtuous acts instead of religion.","conclusion":"There are other, superior, sources of philosophical frameworks and moral codes."}
{"id":"521463c9-7bf7-483d-afca-b7c49dd1273f","argument":"There has been a ton of posts on tipping and whether it should be required or not. Some of the reasons to tip include for excellent service and in the US due to way the federal minimum wage law is set. In brief, the federal minimum wage is set at 7.25, however, for servers and people that are likely to receive tips, the minimum wage is set at 2.13. This is done in anticipation that tips will make up the difference at the very least in terms of their hourly wage to keep them above the 7.25 limit. Recent changes in california state law have changed the minimum wage of servers to 9 irrespective of tipping. That is to say, if restaurants are paying servers less then 9 hour excluding tips, they are breaking the law. Due to this shift in the fundamental nature of compensation, I feel that in California, we should switch to the tipping norms found in Europe and many asian countries, that is to say tipping is not required. If you feel that you have received excellent service you are more then welcome to tip, but there should be no societal obligation anymore. .","conclusion":"Tipping should not be required in California"}
{"id":"b0944f6b-575d-4065-83c9-9a22bdce1860","argument":"Rabbi David G. Dalin argues that Popes through history have defended the Jews and also did so during the Holocaust.","conclusion":"Jewish leaders praised the Pope for his actions so he cannot be accused of having not done enough."}
{"id":"07bc53c4-8e73-4074-ae66-f1de9c83d6d8","argument":"ISIS provide good wages, a supportive atmosphere and an attractive from of radical Islamist culture: they appeal to people rationally as well as irrationally, and some make a decision on this basis.","conclusion":"Some people join ISIS as the result of rational considerations and may be influenced by deterrence."}
{"id":"98a07b49-dd02-4794-a6b0-30aaedc65389","argument":"So I've posted here before, but I think this is the first time where I'm truly bewildered by the other side. Usually I can see at least some of both sides of a position and choose one that I think is the most correct. But in this case, I just truly don't understand the other side of the argument. Link to story So the zoo's policy appears to be that they will do anything and everything in order to save the life of a child that falls into an animal enclosure, and that is where I disagree. I think the policy should be something like We will do everything we can to save the life of a human that's fallen into an animal enclosure, short of killing endangered animals I completely understand how a tranquilizer would have been a greater risk to the child than simply shooting the gorilla, but I think they should have done that anyway. Here is the scope of what I want to talk about here Each situation should be taken differently. Our default response should not be to always kill animals if it's necessary in order to save the lives of careless humans. If it wasn't a critically endangered animal, or the animal had gotten out of their enclosure and was rampaging around human areas okay fine, it makes more sense to me. In this case however, every time I analyze the situation I don't think killing the gorilla should have ever been an option, even if it mean harm coming to the child.","conclusion":"The gorilla being killed to save a boy who fell in the cage incident - Help me understand where my view is wrong on this"}
{"id":"71cd372b-9d9e-48f4-965b-f8cdca7edaea","argument":"I am not arguing the merits of capitalism or stating that individuals should all earn the same amount of compensation. I fully recognize that some people are willing to work harder, add more value, provide a more specialized difficult service, etc. and should be paid more for that. My issue is with folks who consider themselves deeply religious yet have no issue hoarding their wealth while others suffer. For example, owning multiple vacation homes that sit empty for most of the year versus donating to a church or mission. The bible states it is easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter the gates of heaven. This makes it clear that hoarding wealth is not encouraged by God. If you truly believe heaven is eternal and our time on this planet is such a tiny tiny fraction of eternity, how can a true believer prioritize their own carnal hedonistic pleasures instead of maximizing the spread of faith, helping others find salvation, and living the way of Jesus. To me this hypocrisy is a fundamental violation of their own declared faith. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"It is hypocritical to be a truly devout Christian and a multi-millionaire"}
{"id":"44deb071-32cb-44c1-bb56-29487ee0be33","argument":"This came up in a conversation with some friends and family recently, and many of them used their wishes on material things like a cowboy hat that looks good on them or eternal life youth. When it came to me, and I specified this as my first wish, I was basically told it was a waste of a wish, and I'd be better off choosing something else. My reasons are 1 A complete knowledge and thorough understanding of the Rules puts you on a roughly even playing field with the genie. This would allow a clever person to see loop holes or places where deliberate mis interpretations of their following two wishes could be exploited by a devious genie, and thus prevent most unwelcome outcomes. 2 Similarly, it allows the Wisher to be aware of ways in which the Rules may be bent or broken to a desireable end. 3 I believe two wishes requested with the knowledge of the Rules would be more beneficial than 3 wishes requested without said knowledge and so, sacrificing one wish would be worth it. 4 This information would be useful if the genie was inherently good natured, but would become absolutely critical if said genie was seeking to do the wisher harm. Therefore, it is better to hedge your bets against the ancient wish granting entity, rather than be too trusting.","conclusion":"In the classic scenario of a magical genie granting you three wishes, the optimal first wish is for a complete knowledge and thorough understanding of the Rules of Wishing whilst retaining your sanity and physical agency."}
{"id":"65b49396-5e98-4083-8711-cacf0129d381","argument":"First of all, I want to say that this only applies to idea related votes, not person related ie. not presidential election, etc . I do think we should only vote for against idea, and not persons, for instance like they do in Switzerland but that's not the point. I do believe, and my belief is confirmed by recent events, that a lot of people vote without knowledge. And who could blame them ? We hardly have enough time to learn what we need in everyday life, so we can't be an expert on everything. So we rely on politicians and media to help us build our opinion, but those aren't motivated by the overall good, but their own. So to avoid having 90 of the vote being ingnorant votes, we should restrict who vote on what for instance, I am a maths teacher. I should be able to vote on laws concerning education. And if I want to vote on health mesure ? I should take an exam an interview to justify my knowledge is enough for me to make decicsion fully aware of what they mean. Of course you would need for a budget check on those laws idea, so that money is not wasted, but I hate to see people going to vote for things they dont fully understand. And I hate when I do it myself. I don't know the first thing about economy and yet my vote influence the economy policy of my country.","conclusion":"Not everyone should be allowed to vote on everything."}
{"id":"5fd61d9a-5f7d-4714-94ee-7fdd091b0ab9","argument":"Some reasons personal and observational supporting my view Yes, I have used psychedelics and had profound experiences. I recognize that I have to be extremely careful or not use psychedelics for sake of my own mental health bipolar I attribute my acceptance and willingness to treat my illness with psychedelic use I would like to study these substances from a scientific standpoint down the road, when I'm done with my biochemistry degree Meta studies show lower incidence of mental health issues among psychedelic users Current psychopharmacological treatments are out dated, poorly understood, and can come with severe side effects Psilocybin has been shown to spur neurogenesis and rewire anxiety pathways MDMA therapy is a strong candidate for PTSD treatment There is a decent history of attempts to popularize psychedelic therapy that can be expanded upon with more scientific support i.e. the work of McKenna, Shulgin, etc I believe that scientific acceptance of entheogens and empathogens will translate to a positive liberalization of society and acceptance of scientific methodology. A main problem with liberalization of society is unwillingness to accept personal responsibility for ideas and actions psychedelics provide a more accurate perspective of the individual's role in society.","conclusion":"I believe that the scientific and social benefits of psychedelic usage and acceptable outweigh any potential downsides."}
{"id":"65963f5a-020a-4466-b6a6-6778a48b60b5","argument":"A meta-analysis of 150 studies of humanistic education did not show the increase in student self-control and self-concept that proponents expected.","conclusion":"Schools should not implement the values and methods of humanistic education."}
{"id":"5f2970de-9591-4276-b36f-54bf22f157b1","argument":"CNN could spend 7 hours discussing whether Trump is secretly a lizard, but that doesn't make Trump a lizard.","conclusion":"That does not support the argument that he committed treason - it is just an air-filler."}
{"id":"6e03c36d-d6ef-424a-a572-b3697e5c95b9","argument":"In mortal life and in the after-life, there would be perceptible benefits to be gained from believing in God, both for the believer and society as a whole if God does exist.","conclusion":"One should believe that God exists, even if they are not sure it's true."}
{"id":"6757f532-1402-4efe-a29b-2bd8b0166243","argument":"USA and the Coalition should not do anything before they ask the Syrians themselves; otherwise, it appears to be an action of a global dictatorship regime.","conclusion":"A direct clash between American and Russian troops in Syria has geopolitical implications of World War proportions."}
{"id":"bed2f58a-94c3-4c89-8a0c-3659596a7b10","argument":"Alexandra Shulman was quoted by the Daily Mail in 2011 in response to racist tirades from John Galliano and hairdresser James Brown saying, \u201cI don't think that fashion is institutionally racist in the slightest.\"","conclusion":"Prominent members of the fashion industry have expressed a denial of acknowledging racism in the industry."}
{"id":"b3c08934-8a63-4ad5-91fc-d63a36559d7d","argument":"The war on terror is unlike any other war and so different tactics are necessary in order to win. There is no point maintaining a moral high ground where this leads to more civilian deaths. The Geneva Conventions put barriers in the way of winning the war on terror because tactics such as indefinite detention are necessary. For example, Israel\u2019s practice of targeted killing of terrorists was restricted by the Israeli Supreme Court on the grounds that it did not comply with the Geneva Conventions The Public Committee against Torture in Israel v. The Government of Israel, 2006. Often there is no other way to combat terrorists and the Geneva Conventions restrict tactics that save hundreds of lives. Governments would also not be able to gain as much intelligence if they had to adhere to the Geneva Conventions when interrogating terrorists. It is dangerous to put the west at an operational disadvantage in the war on terror just to maintain a moral high ground.","conclusion":"Special interrogation methods are necessary in order to combat the terrorist threat."}
{"id":"2e97b2d2-5fae-4420-9913-acae8a6fa0bb","argument":"In some cases, people believe allowing the prisoner the death penalty is a less severe consequence than life imprisonment.","conclusion":"Criminals should be forced to live with the consequences of their crimes."}
{"id":"a2db25d8-de4d-4eb2-9384-d442f8cc6a2b","argument":"Research points that domestic abuse is higher in regions across the globe \"where norms related to male authority over female behavior are more common\".","conclusion":"Many religions support complementarism a view that favors male supremacy as it defines men as the heads of the house and the Church."}
{"id":"f32b6f96-7c26-4257-a352-d108424e9f21","argument":"Environmental regulations can increase the cost of operation of companies. States are often unwilling to implement such policies for fear of losing business to other countries without such restrictions. This could not happen if these policies were universal.","conclusion":"More centralization would solve collective action problems that create climate change and pollution."}
{"id":"c6b2aa45-ca2c-4333-afa9-a67228e0792d","argument":"The Libertarian position and most Conservatives, as I understand it, is for small government and free market. Government is viewed negatively as if it's corrupt and out to steal our rights. I'm not going to claim that the government is pure and only looking out for our best interests, but why do Conservatives and Libertarians decry government, who are at least idealistically accountable to their constituents to protect us, yet support free market and deregulation, trusting that large corporations will look out for our interests? Not only do they owe no moral duty to protect workers and consumers, but they in fact have a fiduciary responsibility to make as much profit as possible, at the cost of employees and consumers.","conclusion":"Locke vs. Rousseau - Why do Libertarians and Conservatives fear Government, but trust Corporations?"}
{"id":"461ae312-8c58-4d6a-bea7-09daaaf5537d","argument":"Some laws are created for the sole purpose of undermining certain identities. Ignoring identities will reduce the chance that such laws are critically evaluated or repealed.","conclusion":"Identity politics are currently warranted since certain identities are politically oppressed. Future changes to this status quo, favoring equality, would render identity politics nonessential."}
{"id":"cb60e5c8-fa13-4d55-a760-1d01dbb67500","argument":"Before I start, this has nothing to do with whether we need feminism due to the truth or non truth of this idea. Personally I am a feminist and to me this does not change how much we need feminism. I think it slightly changes how feminism should address the issue of sexual assault rape but that's getting off topic. x200B This only applies to the US, but studies from other countries, especially those similar to the US, would be appreciated as well. x200B Here are the articles that lead me to this conclusion x200B I would find it most valuable if people showed me more thorough contemporary research citing sources why this is wrong. Short of that, if someone with statistics expertise could point out and major flaws in this research. x200B I have read through the articles, and also some of the reports on the actual surveys collected, including what questions they ask, how it's conducted, etc. I don't necessarily believe the numbers presented in the article are exactly correct, but I currently don't believe any claims that women make up the vast majority of the victims of rape. Additionally I don't believe that any more than 85 of rapes are committed by men in America. The fact that some of the sources of the articles are police reports or are self reported incidents does not necessarily change the conclusions made by the articles. I would hope that the authors have properly corrected and weighted all the information they collected. Again please don't discuss the political social implications on this thread, if you really want to know how I feel just message me. x200B I am posting this because for the longest time I believed the narrative that women are raped much more than men in the US, and it blows my mind if this is not true. For other people I've talked to, this doesn't seem true, but the facts seem to say otherwise.","conclusion":"In the US, men and women are raped at a similar rate, and women make up about 1\/3 of the perpetrators of rape"}
{"id":"649e06a3-35f9-493a-aee3-53d57611422b","argument":"Paul Krugman. \"Now that's rich.\" New York Times. August 22, 2010: \"What\u2019s at stake here? According to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, making all of the Bush tax cuts permanent, as opposed to following the Obama proposal, would cost the federal government $680 billion in revenue over the next 10 years. For the sake of comparison, it took months of hard negotiations to get Congressional approval for a mere $26 billion in desperately needed aid to state and local governments.\"","conclusion":"Expiring Bush tax cuts for wealthy will cut billions from deficit"}
{"id":"00ad57d4-ed0f-4a43-90c0-fa017f70b9ec","argument":"A recent comment in a  involving selling your own organs prompted me to create this post. The poster stated gt Opt out assumes that your organs aren't actually yours to begin with. It's a disgusting moral stance that your body after your death is somehow community property. Sure from a practical standpoint it makes sense but it's dehumanizing. My view has two parts which I'm open in having changed An opt out organ donor policy is more effective than an opt in policy at increasing donor registration rates, and generally more effective at providing more donated organs. Switching to this policy is not a moral concern. As some background information the waiting list for an organ transplant in the US is over 116,000 patients long. 20 people die daily while waiting for an organ transplant. While 95 of people say they support organ donation, only 54 are registered organ donors. Due to needing very specific conditions in order to donate, usually only 3 in every 1000 donor deaths results in organs being harvested. The US has an opt in policy currently, most commonly encountered during motor vehicle registration when there is an option to register as an organ donor though you can also just sign up online or via mail at any time . Several other countries or parts of countries have an opt out system instead. There is some debate over how effective the difference is, but in general it seems to increase the number of donors. Per a wikipedia article on the differences in results opt out countries like Spain and Austria had much higher rates of donation than opt in countries like Greece and Germany 36 million and 21 million respectively compared to 16 million and 6 million. There is some evidence that opt out can have a chilling effect on the number of actual donations even if the number of registered donors increases but each country has different rules about their system making a clear comparison difficult , and overall the switch tends to increase registration by 25 . Assuming the US adopted such a system, registration would likely increase to 75 or 80 . So long as this is coupled with education and infrastructure support programs, it seems more likely that actual donations would rise like with Spain rather than fall like with Wales . What about the moral component? The common responses I have seen against this on a moral level seem to fall flat in my view . Some I've seen include Religious concerns. Most major religions support organ donation even if people are part of a denomination which is against it, as long as they have an option to opt out, this should not affect their concerns. Many opt out locations also consult the family's wishes on the matter, Spain and Wales included Bodily autonomy issues. This is basically what launched this topic in the first place the objection to your body being community property after death on its face flies in the face of the concept that your individual rights aren't being abrogated in the name of the greater good. But that doesn't make sense to me because we already allow for some limitations on bodily autonomy for the benefit of society at large namely, mandatory vaccinations. Opting out of vaccinations is actually more difficult to do than what an opt out organ donation system would presumably require. After all, usually a reason must be provided for doing so for organ donation, you'd simply check a box while registering your car or fill out a form online. State versus federal rights. The last objection I saw about opt out is kind of a continuation of the last point. Basically, since states set the vaccination policies, it would be immoral to have a federal policy to do so for organ donation. A possible or probable compromise would be to have a federal body make recommendations, and the CDC would work with states and counties to implement them. The question of whether all states would actually move to an opt out policy would come into question, however. Perhaps, like how there is no official federal drinking age of 21 but rather all states have passed such laws in order to not lose their federal highway funding some financial incentive from the federal government could make such a policy effectively mandatory. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"An opt-out organ donor policy is more effective than an opt-in policy and should not be morally concerning."}
{"id":"7e538480-915e-4913-b23e-5a8813575a66","argument":"The United States provided training, arms, and funds to Orlando Bosch who was implicated in the 1976 bombing of a Cuban plane and held responsible for 30 other terrorist acts","conclusion":"The US government provided support to several Cuban exiles after the Cuban Revolution in 1959, including those who were involved in numerous terrorist operations"}
{"id":"450666b2-1762-473c-9a4f-89741a46fc3d","argument":"Unlike humans, who have to resort to violence at times in order to achieve a greater good, God as an omnipotent and omniscient being, is able to realize any greater good without sacrifice.","conclusion":"An omnipotent being who tolerates suffering and harm to achieve a greater good cannot be inherently good."}
{"id":"c6d991d4-503a-4e86-8a74-f2e352ce7802","argument":"The second law of thermodynamics indicates that the universe is running out of usable energy. If the universe had existed for an infinite number of past days, then all usable energy should have disappeared long ago.","conclusion":"The second law of thermodynamics has no known exceptions. The claim that the universe can bring the order we see around us from the disorder of the big bang is incompatible with this law."}
{"id":"ba128bf9-4d08-4b84-a7bf-6c9dc1ca4926","argument":"This entire argument is based on an assumption, an extra variable that has been added, with no on screen evidence to support, let alone prove. Variables such as \"variable settings\" and \"yields\" have been added when there is no indication this is the case or even possible in Star Wars. There is no one on screen flicking switches or sliders, or inputting into a console, just firing. Scientifically, using Occam's razor, the extra, unsupported variable should be removed.","conclusion":"This is pure speculation with no evidence to back it up, on screen in any movie to date or in the novelisation. As such, it is hardly a substantial claim."}
{"id":"701ca996-72f4-40f9-87a9-169c16b2a771","argument":"In every age there are shameful events. Today, we all tolerate and accept abuses of fellow human beings by North Korea. Does that mean that the American Flag will represent this travesty and should be judged based solely on our tolerance of what should be intolerable? Confederate memorials, except when such is explicit purpose, are not there to commemorate the shame, but to celebrate the accomplishments and the history of a diverse people.","conclusion":"The principal legacy of a monument is unique to that monument and the community that it is in."}
{"id":"d2701eb7-61b1-4775-ad67-22257e9c98e6","argument":"A bigger issue concerning inequality relates to distribution of wealth. There is a danger that UBI will act as a distraction, and disguise the bigger issue. This is especially the case in an era of accelerating technology, when profits to GDP have been hovering around an all-time high and we seem to be seeing a winner takes all society evolve, with the creation of natural monopolies in technology verticals, such as search, social media, room bookings, car sharing, etc.","conclusion":"Passing a UBI may mean that welfare and poverty will be seen as a 'solved' issue, which requires no further help from the State."}
{"id":"4dabaa8f-370d-42bc-928f-db274ac27ddd","argument":"They provide plenty of data showing that you can make money. If you don't want it to be your job, you can just be part of the travel club. They include a Wayne Gretzky quote in their presentation. You only need to recruit four to cover your payments. They quote very low prices for vacations, using the Costco model to pass on savings. If you get enough people below you, they'll pay for a BMW for you. They claim no blackout dates. There isn't a limit to how many vacations you can use. If someone under you quits, you get to keep the members under them.","conclusion":"Joining WorldVentures is a good idea."}
{"id":"7c0ba72b-b6cc-411b-87e6-02a4e1dc30ef","argument":"Limiting foreign investment protects the national interest. Inward investment is nothing more than a form of economic imperialism. Therefore, reducing it simply reduces the effective power of rich foreigners to impose their will on the host economy, for example by buying up the majority of productive land. It is also important in uncertain times for a nation to control its own destiny by ensuring strategic and sensitive industries e.g. arms manufacture, broadcasting and print media, pharmaceuticals, food production do not fall into foreign hands.","conclusion":"Limiting foreign investment protects the national interest. Inward investment is nothing more than ..."}
{"id":"d5e11ccd-437e-45dc-ba14-dae40cc0b96c","argument":"This is not to denigrate the beliefs of religious or spiritual people. For instance, I could honestly care less about what you really believe. However, I have been thinking after watching a video where a Muslim believer challenges Richard Dawkins by asking if you think the people who believe are intellectually inferior. I think that point is demonstrable by the fact you need faith to believe in it in the first place. I think it is an intellectually inferior viewpoint to believe anything based on faith and without any verifiable or worthwhile evidence gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"It is an intellectually inferior belief to believe in a God or any diety of which there is no evidence."}
{"id":"a6c4d583-0962-413c-9c3c-3af2ab013e38","argument":"I've watched a lot of anime in my life. And there is always a common trend among anime. And that is women are treated poorly. Look at SAO for example. Where Asuna, a fully capable and competent character was regressed to nothing more then a girl who constantly hid behind Kirito at any sign of opposition. In addition, a lot of Shonen anime and manga women don't typically take significant roles. And they are seen as both sex appeal and things that just need to be protected. What won't change my mind are a handful of counter examples. For every counter example, and I'm sure they're out there. There are multiple examples I've experienced where the treatment of women is quite bad, and quite frankly I think it's scary that a culture treats their women like that.","conclusion":"Japanese Culture Treats Women Badly"}
{"id":"86670e26-6ef6-4a0f-adea-fa141e8d288f","argument":"I know this is going to get me creamed, because he is so popular these days but we all win if you can show me jokes or such that make me laugh and prove to me he is funny. But my proposition is that Louis CK is simply not funny. He is not even close to funny. I don't even think he is a comedian. Most of his routines are just boring and uninsightful. He just talks about himself and how much of a jerk he is, or takes an extremely obvious point and emphasizes the obvious dumbness of it. I think the basis of his fame is more of a reflection of how idiotic the average person is, that he is the first time they have been exposed to why someone might think saying I'm starving is offensive. It's just not insightful or funny. and says more about you than about him. let's take his two most famous bits SNL there is not a single joke here that a half awake freshman philosophy student hasn't thought a million times. Fat Girls again, even if you ignore how terrible the acting is which is atrocious , there is just nothing here. it's pathetic. Obviously this is not very comedic, but it's his famous thing. it's awful though. I think, the only reason he gets any publicity is that americans are just this stupid. they have no reflected on any single thing, and he actually surprises people with his uninteresting witticisms. it's sad. that said, he may have an important role in developing comics, and do important things behind the scenes, but he is just not funny. change my view. prove that Louis CK is funny. EDIT For a bit of context, because people have asked me what funny is, Louis Black is a comedian who speaks on almost the same subject matter as Louis CK, but Louis Black is actually funny. and Dave Chappelle is also funny with a similar subject matter. Both Dave Chappelle and Louis Black take the issue that they are making a joke about and creatively show why it's ridiculous. and the exposure of the crazy fact they are addressing makes their point funny. Louis CK, on the other hand, just says the thing he is talking about and makes the point obvious. he doesn't add value by making a unique or novel joke.","conclusion":"Louis CK is not funny"}
{"id":"0bad4352-bfa7-4642-bbff-5bf37d8c9fd0","argument":"For any topic, for example, coffee is bad for you, there will be those who oppose, coffee is good for you. For every side there is plenty of 'studies'. So what compelling evidence is there that I can trust the links? Even universities that are often fact checked do have biases. In Texas studies show homosexual parents fare worse than heterosexuals, but lo and behold in california the fact is that they aren't. Why should I trust any of them since they contradict? In my view, people hold 'studies' at such a high pedestal that they fail to realize or maybe write it off as a minor happening. Is bias really not as major as I think it is? Give me a topic and a side and I can have just as many studies as the opposition which shows the studies are not so special anymore. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"We can't trust links as support for online arguments"}
{"id":"98d4336c-84e6-4b4e-84db-f1ec001819c4","argument":"As my teacher once said nowadays there's music everywhere, all the time. There's music in the supermarket,in our car, in the elevator, there's so much music that we stopped listening to it . In a less philosophical way, cd's may help people get access to music easily and creates new job opportunities like sound engineering, managers etc but limits opportunities for the musicians. Without cd's, performers and teachers would be much more valuable in the society PLUS people will stop taking music for granted, which obviously harmes music itself. Think of music as democracy, it's not granted, it's not easy and sometimes it may even be unfair or expensive sacrificing time, energy etc . so, Ibelieve the only way somoene should be able to listen to music is to play the score, read it or listen to a live performance.","conclusion":"cd's and portable music harmes music itself."}
{"id":"f71111cd-89ab-48ad-a04b-87e1c0d05d4c","argument":"In our current system, each voter must choose a single candidate, the one that they deem the best, or more often the one most likely to win that is not the worse option. This inevitably leads to a two party system where people vote out of fear for who they do not want rather than who they do want. This is what we're seeing this campaign year. Instead, voters could rank candidates from most to least favorable, and then if their first choice didn't receive a significant enough portion of the votes then the candidate would be knocked out of the running and the vote would go to the next most favorable. This would prevent throwing away your vote with third parties and allow for the election results to more accurately reflect voter opinion. edit It has been brought to my attention that first past the post is incorrect terminology. the cmv should read the US needs to change to a single transferable voting system, on the grounds that non transferable vote leads to voting out of fear and not a desire for a specific candidate to be in office.","conclusion":"The US desperately and urgently needs to change away from a \"first past the post\" voting system."}
{"id":"7724ebac-214b-46fe-96fb-84d51d5db7e0","argument":"I remember seeing it the day it was posted. I thought it was amusing and moved on. I found nothing particularly remarkable about it. How did it get so many upvotes? It seems it didn't take the spot until months after it was posted. I really don't see how it's special or different from other funny posts. It's a guy and ass cracks, I've seen funnier things. Did you find this particularly funny? 500 characters is difficult. What do you think made this post so exceedingly remarkable? I cannot find one reason why it was so highly regarded over everything else.","conclusion":"I don't think the current all time top post deserves that spot."}
{"id":"34cfa407-f415-48db-a6fb-2eac07fd2c9d","argument":"This weakens the power of the executive branch. With term limits, the President can no longer extend the direct influence of their power for decades beyond when they were in office simply because a court position became available in their term.","conclusion":"The executive already has court manipulation power, like changing the number of justices, or cherry picking judges on a purely partisan basis."}
{"id":"ac0b9a0e-e084-4fd5-bb1c-ee91f2c014d8","argument":"I understand that this view is definitely wrong, but I can\u2019t help but feel that the idea of long term sustainable happiness is false and is used as a carrot to convince people that life will get \u201cbetter\u201d. First and foremost, I have not been diagnosed with any mental illnesses, such as depression or long term anxiety to influence me to think this way. Making my way through life, I have all but accepted that I will not be \u201chappy\u201d in the long term term The idea of happiness is purely down to circumstance to a person on a low income in a developing nation, long term happiness, something that could be described as dreams or ambitions, would likely be gaining access to something that a person in a developed nation already has access to every day such as citizenship of that country, sustainable food and water etc something that has little to no value to a person that has always has access to it. Things are only given value by their unattainability or illusiveness. However, once someone achieves or gains an object or overcomes a challenge, it is likely its personal value to you will have substantially decreased meaning a person will have to fabricate a new dream, ambition or object of value to obscure the fact that, once achieved or gained, it will be largely meaningless. We will always be wishing for the next \u201cbig thing\u201d that we hope will provide lasting meaning and happiness in our lives ironic as the only semblance of gaining such a happiness is through its pursuit the concept of it is the only thing of value. Abstract concepts, such as love, wealth or fame are simply put in place to provide a light at the end of the tunnel for people to have a vague direction and understanding of where they are going. From personal experience, anything and everything I have ever wanted for and got regardless if I worked for it or not has never given me any personal long term satisfaction or happiness. The alternative seems to be equally as unattainable and simultaneously attainable death. Therefore it is my flawed view that, as long term happiness seems to be a carrot on a stick it is ultimately unachievable and should not be accepted as attainable in popular culture and social societies. Please  I don\u2019t want to sound like a stuck up nihilist all my life.","conclusion":"Long Term Happiness Should Not Be Accepted As The Ultimate Goal in Life in Popular Culture and Social Structures Due to Its Unattainability."}
{"id":"f097d83e-7802-410c-8941-45441d556e2f","argument":"I believe most, if not all forms of insurance should be run by non profit organizations and or the government. First of all, I think the very concept of insurance is inherently that of a public good. The idea behind insurance is that everyone contributes a little bit of money to make one big pool of money, which acts as a safety net to contributors who find themselves in certain emergency situations. This is remarkably similar to the concept of taxation we all pay taxes so that we can all benefit from public infrastructure, education, the military, etc. Note that I am not arguing that insurance should not be paid for, just that profit has no place in this arrangement . Normally, the \u201cinvisible guiding hand of the market\u201d is an efficient way to distribute goods and services amongst a population, but in the case of insurance the imperatives of capitalism actually impede the distribution of services that have already been paid for by the insured. A for profit insurance company takes monthly premiums with the intention of holding onto as much of those premiums as possible when somebody who has consistently paid their premiums finds themselves in an emergency situation, the insurance company will do everything in their power to provide as little \u201csafety net\u201d as possible. Of course, there are regulations and rules that must be followed, and in most cases the insured will eventually get the money they are entitled to. But it is that incentive to impede the process of distribution of goods that have technically already been paid for that makes the whole arrangement inefficient. The amount of time, money, and knowledge required to hold insurance companies accountable is a completely unnecessary waste of resources. Taking profit out of insurance would have the effect of introducing unimpeded objectivity to the fact finding and investigations which need to take place when a claim is filed. When excess premiums don\u2019t end up lining the pockets of corporate leaders, there is no incentive to use shady methods to withhold distributions. No more contract loopholes, purposefully obfuscated claims procedures, or lengthy legal proceedings to determine liability. Hypothetically, this latter point could potentially yield huge savings as there is a whole legal industry focused just on litigating competing liability claims between separate insurance companies which are both trying to hold onto their money. If everything was run by a single, government operated insurance company, competing liability claims could be arbitrated internally and completely objectively, yielding a fair result for a fraction of the cost. Finally, I want to point out that insurance is unique in its relative importance to our lives. Insurance is supposed to be there to help people get through extremely difficult situations, yet it is clear from talking to anyone about their experience dealing with their insurance company that it only adds more stress and confusion to the situation. I don\u2019t consider myself a socialist communist, and generally I think market capitalism is a great thing, but I also think some things are just too important to be left in \u201cinvisible hands\u201d. There is precedent for intervention in the market when the stakes are high. For example, we subsidize agriculture because the stability of food prices is of vital importance to people\u2019s lives. Shouldn\u2019t insurance be considered just as important and therefore worthy of our direct intervention and control? Edit just wanted to apologize for not being as active in this thread as I should be, something came up but I will try to throw out some more replies. At this point almost all of you have convinced me that I don't understand insurance very well and that the issue is much more complex than I imagined. But I am still not entirely certain that public insurance wouldn't work overall I think I have gone in over my head here.","conclusion":"I believe most, if not all forms of insurance should be run by non-profit organizations and\/or the government."}
{"id":"0e71caf8-69a4-4d4c-a287-5c26bc7d8c8d","argument":"I believe this generation much too quickly moves on once things don't turn out like they wanted it to, when it gets hard, almost impossible. I believe that if there is a special someone who, for some reason, won't get out of your mind even though years pass, then there's a reason for it and you should fight for what you love, even if it takes you years, decades, and even if you never actually win her over . Imagine what Dante would've done if he had gotten over Beatrice? Or Kafka had forgotten Milena? I believe we should all believe in love, and fight for it.","conclusion":"I believe that falling in love can change your life, and that one shouldn't so easily \"move on\"."}
{"id":"665db155-1558-4d6d-a55a-fadebf17d263","argument":"And the Northern Ireland battle was founded in a Class War. The incomers had wealth and were afforded support to make more wealth. Alas Religion is often used as the clarion call rather than the truth.","conclusion":"Lines drawn between groups of people can contain religous differences or not, but the primary conflict is between the old group and the new group. Example: Irish Protestants are viewed as invading English."}
{"id":"0193462c-615f-4b6a-962f-566552c96b6a","argument":"There seems to be a growing movement to view opioid addiction as a disease, and therefore our approach should be geared towards help rehab rather than punishment. I agree. But if we view addiction as a disease, then we must recognize that the decision to use and abuse is not a 'conscious' one, as addiciton affects one's ability to make a well reasoned decision. So if this is true, then addicts are a danger to themselves and others since they are inable to make a conscious decision to not use abuse. Themselves overdose death. Others driving while using, parenting, etc. Therefore, if we are to take the 'disease' approach to opioid addiction, we must subject all users addicts to involuntary commitment, as they are a danger to society. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"If opioid addiction is indeed a 'disease', and the decision to use is not a conscious one, addicts should be subject to involuntary commitment"}
{"id":"319fb490-8548-400f-951f-e44feeb9110f","argument":"The Venezuelan policies are received favorably with the left but that's insufficient to make them spread. This illustrates that popularity with just one group is unlikely enough to make an alternative model attractive.","conclusion":"Showing an alternative model is easy and done constantly around the globe. The difficulty is in making it attractive."}
{"id":"9cc6c685-b6b7-493d-95f5-19aa73ea4d97","argument":"It took only 4 months after Pearl Harbor for the US Pacific Command to bomb Tokyo in the Doolittle Raid","conclusion":"The US Navy had the advantage over the Japanese navy."}
{"id":"a5c2b6bc-5dc4-4116-aafe-f5107e332f60","argument":"What if I told you terrorism didn't exist and is merely the failed foreign and domestic policies of the United States government to either prevent or account for acts of Guerrilla warfare playing out in retaliation to the United States many atrocities of war over the course of its existence. The united states failed perception of the long term effects of it's actions has formulated the scapegoat terminology of 'terrorism' to widely label all of its failures in diplomacy that comeback to level the playing field.","conclusion":"Terrorism Doesn't Exist"}
{"id":"a54a0b11-6793-42ca-bf03-9e617dff7274","argument":"The implementation of compulsory voting emphasizes to all citizens that they are part of the same group, that this group doesn't discriminate in its internal decision-making, and that it is expected of them to take part in it.","conclusion":"Compulsory voting increases citizens\u2019 sense of civic duty and encourages them to inform themselves."}
{"id":"0cf956fc-d062-4b86-99f3-50ae6d350e1f","argument":"Basically, it seems the concept of rape culture was termed because of how emotionally damaging it is to be a victim of rape. However, I don't think attacking the issue like that will solve very much, and I feel the term itself is a bit of a cop out. I think there's several things going on here that are a part of much greater issues that need to be addressed together. One, the idea that women are the gatekeepers is prevalent, which leads to a lot of inbalance. This comment on an r sex thread pertaining to male submissiveness points at the fact that women are taught not to be the aggressors or else get slut shamed. A a quick Google search on purity culture as rape culture would seem to confirm this mentality. This not only perpetuates rape culture, but also is a big reason behind why women are reluctant to initiate and arguably why male submissiveness is frowned upon. This hurts both genders. Two, and a big one here, is that there's a lot of materialistic, shallow attitudes to go around and a tendency to externalize things in our culture. This previous thread argues that there's an entitlement culture , and I think we could trace this back to how kids are raised. We teach them rules, we teach them that they'll get rewarded for x and punished for y on an external level and instill this mentality from day one. Work hard, be ambitious, to get this and that. This conditions them for conformity and hurts their critical thinking skills later on i.e. not all girls are like that , unlike what TRP will have you believe . This is not just a reason behind why men rape, but also a part of education issues and mental health, and is heavily entwined with puritanical work ethic. In conclusion there's much more to rape culture than just rape. If anything is to be done about it, I think we need to undo literally centuries of societal conditioning, and I just don't think that feminism as a movement is equipped to tackling it on their own.","conclusion":"Rape culture at least in the U.S. is a mere symptom of much deeper cultural issues that aren't getting enough attention."}
{"id":"de54a3c2-56a3-43f6-8cb3-63d49adf850c","argument":"Wealth is concentrated in the hands of the few by keeping it away from the many. If immortal, poor people are likely to live and be kept in a perpetual state of debt for an infinite period of time.","conclusion":"With an infinite amount of time to accrue money, and without social leveling mechanisms such as the inheritance tax, the rich would become unfathomably wealthy, creating further social inequality."}
{"id":"3dd89417-2628-40ee-8f0d-871c17c98ded","argument":"The effects of alcohol are ubiquitous and therefore given the elevated status of drunk, or tipsy, rather than high. But there is no valid reason to exempt the effects of alcohol from the umbrella term we use for every other drug, marijuana, opiates, cocaine, etc . In our society, it's more acceptable to say, I was pretty drunk yesterday, than to say I was pretty high yesterday. However, many highs are much safer than that of alcohol. I can foresee many of you objecting that drunk is a more specific way of saying high on alcohol, and therefore serves a more useful purpose, much like stoned refers to weed highs. But alcohol is the only drug exempt from the stigma of high. It should not seem so strange to refer to the effects of alcohol as being high.","conclusion":"The word \"drunk\" anoints drinking with undue prestige, and is simply a euphemism for being high on alcohol"}
{"id":"1c72e1ed-e7df-472d-b824-bef0c6732772","argument":"There is no reasonable and consistent standard of evidence that allows for belief in the existence of a god. To be consistent, a theist must believe in Bigfoot, faeries, and all other imaginable things. But this is not reasonable. To be reasonable, a theist must not believe in Bigfoot, faeries, and all other imaginable things. But this is not consistent.","conclusion":"Agnosticism holds that the lack of evidence makes it impossible to know whether God exists."}
{"id":"2c25b356-3e21-4b05-926c-c51ff0d11326","argument":"London, which has around 30 per cent immigrants, is a place where everyone wants to be at, and has much higher wages and lower unemployment compared to Australia.","conclusion":"Many other places in the world accept enormous amounts of immigrants and can still do well."}
{"id":"d78a2141-e23f-40a7-8a81-fab9ec6d5ac5","argument":"It's best to prevent a disable child from being born, giving a chance at life to one that will be able to experience life fully.","conclusion":"Abortion can be used as a preventative measure to prevent a child from a life of suffering."}
{"id":"5869fe07-933d-48c3-b63e-85bada35abb6","argument":"Blood sports cannot be justified by reference to their role in pest control or conservation","conclusion":"ban the use of animals as objects of sport and entertainment"}
{"id":"0c2fa230-ce35-4e11-b148-e73427cbbe09","argument":"To this day, we still pay schmucks to sit in trains. Whether or not they are playing a super active role in its motion or path is varied, and lots of cities have trains which are extremely if not entirely automated, but there are still thousands of humans who are actively playing a role in the piloting of trains. I believe this is due to the high cost of automating vehicles performing very high stakes human transport, and the powerful grip of unions preventing the loss of jobs in these fields. I believe both of these hold true for the airlines as well. If we\u2019ve had close to a century since train travel fell off in the United States and you can still find a job driving one, it will take even longer for automation to replace pilots on airplanes traveling much faster, with more variability in environment, carrying a much higher percentage of the traveling public with more factors affecting safety of the cargo.","conclusion":"Trains will become 100% autonomous before airliners."}
{"id":"ca54c325-70c4-4783-8c20-f29b3975f47b","argument":"Russia did not hack the actual election, it hacked the campaign and diction matters. I understand that Russia hacked the Clinton emails during the election and helped in releasing them on Wikileaks. As per wikipedia, Russian President Vladimir Putin personally ordered an influence campaign to denigrate and harm Clinton's electoral chances and potential presidency . At the end of the day, the American people still voted for their president, wrongly influenced or not. Personally, I think the wording makes the whole argument sound disingenuous because hacking an election equates the same to tampering with voting machines to change votes in battleground states. Trump won fair and square, albeit with indirect help from email dumps from Russia and Comey. Russia hacked the campaign as shown by the Wikileaks emails. I may be missing some of the tidbits here because I've been out of the loop for a long time, so I wanted to change my view on this topic. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Russia did not hack the election"}
{"id":"d558a704-5db0-4632-b69e-86aa4937f740","argument":"It tears at your heart, it makes you laugh, and it inspires you to be something. Adventure time, as a cartoon, delivers on the humor by the boatload Sure, they make a fart joke from time to time, but they don't rely on them. They can also tug at your heart strings, as you are forced to watch Simon's transition into the Ice King, or Finn meeting a hotheaded girl and falling helplessly in love with her, even if they can't touch. The animation is cute and pops, the story line is a realistic yet fun 10 10, and the entire show delivers something altogether not seen before on television.","conclusion":"Adventure Time is the greatest TV series of all time."}
{"id":"4ec161ec-7abd-4eca-8089-cda745de7a72","argument":"Access to healthcare has a direct and significant effect on quality an longevity of life. Every American citizen should have this vitally important support.","conclusion":"It would provide equal access to the same health care regardless of level of income."}
{"id":"e4247c58-2c28-4f20-9d81-0b572c79fd12","argument":"Having a higher price for EU goods and services may reduce their market share or lead to a reduction in profit margins for EU businesses pg 53.","conclusion":"A carbon tax would make European goods and services less competitive in international markets."}
{"id":"8b90a2b7-b9fd-42cb-96de-27333854f05f","argument":"Michael Gove has said that he would refuse Scottish parliaments request for a second referendum on independence if it were requested, which may alienate Scottish Conservative voters.","conclusion":"Michael Gove is deeply unpopular amongst the voters; pegging him as the party's choice for Prime Minister could isolate or aggravate the party's electoral base."}
{"id":"06535954-9464-4581-bdd2-8be92f1cf8b3","argument":"If they are to receive benefits from the land their tribes families own, then so be it. I have no disagreements that the Indigenous peoples of the US where I am referring to were screwed over many years ago. The indigenous peoples of today are born into our society as I was and should not be treated any differently than I am. They are not entitled to anything that I am not entitled to from society as a whole. I did not steal their land. They are not entitled to the land I live on just because their ancestors owned it two hundred years ago. Their ancestors are long dead and my European ancestors that robbed them are long dead. We are the prevailing society and they can either assimilate or keep to themselves. I do not owe them anything. Maybe many people here don't face this issue regularly, but I live in an area where there are quite a few reservations in the area. There is a lot of non Indigenous hate from them and general nationalism coming out of them for their tribes. Regardless of their ancestry, I believe they are American like I am. I am a native American. I was born here, my parents were born here, and their parents were born here.","conclusion":"I'm a white native America and I owe nothing to American Indigenous people nor are they entitled to anything beyond what I am entitled to."}
{"id":"c1d1794c-694f-4c7c-a2c9-59947fcc0790","argument":"Hi, everyone. I'd like to start with the anecdote that brought this issue to my mind. I attend a small college in New England, one of the Little Ivy NESCAC schools. A student in my dorm is an intelligent, driven foreign national from a middle eastern country who speaks impeccable English, wants to immigrate to America, and is interested in a career in journalism charity work. He is currently mucking through immigration paperwork, and may well be forced to move back home to a country where he does not want to live and that does not particularly want him, unless hew is able to secure a long term visa by the time his student visa expires. This strikes me as about the DUMBEST THING IMAGINABLE. If a person has attended a college in the United States, this heavily implies guarantees several things about him her gt He she has lived in the U.S. for several years and is familiar with American culture. gt He She speaks good excellent English. gt He She carries a valuable degree and is therefore better educated than most of the world's people and most prospective immigrants. This may be a simplistic way to look at it, but it seems foolish to send away driven, well educated, thoroughly Americanized people who would happily become permanent residents citizens. I have trouble imagining a more desirable immigrant than a 20 something college educated English speaker who has gone out of his her way to come to the United States. If I may preemptively address some criticisms gt People would game this system. People will game any system. Of course there would need to be oversight to prevent abuse, but the basic principle stands. gt Attending an American college is no guarantee of being inducted into American culture. Even if a college's courses alone would not accomplish this, its community would. Since coming to college, the person I mentioned earlier has met Jews, Hispanics, and Native Americans for the first time. He's eaten calzones, attended a Thanksgiving, and played skee ball. Spending 24 hours a day with American young people is probably the most effective way to become a part of the culture. gt It is possible to obtain a degree while speaking mediocre English. Well, yes. It is possible to obtain a degree particularly in STEMM fields without speaking adequate English. This could easily be corrected for by requiring a minimum standard of achievement in English Literature courses. I'llbe interested to hear some opposing viewpoints, so do your best to . I'll check back to read responses regularly.","conclusion":"I believe that anyone who graduates from a four-year college\/university in the United States should be offered permanent residence."}
{"id":"6efd5c64-0d33-46c3-b20e-d3ceea3ff0c2","argument":"When pledgers are told that women must behave and dress in such a way so as to control men's desires, if a non-consensual interaction takes place it puts the blame on the woman for not preventing it","conclusion":"Purity pledges can place a double burden on victims of sexual harassment and violence."}
{"id":"c6937daf-e5fe-4101-9360-e998bd03c31a","argument":"When nipple showing is unusual, women are often shamed or stared at for breastfeeding in public.","conclusion":"Breastfeeding is a natural human function, so there should be no restriction to it."}
{"id":"2ce63f52-a350-4f45-a8f9-e965e0654432","argument":"People with chronic diseases, extreme ugliness or idiocy, are being discriminated against in today's mating game, if these issues could be easily fixed, there would be less such discrimination.","conclusion":"Genetic enhancements make everyone a 'good mate', genetically speaking, for procreation. This will mitigate mate selection bias."}
{"id":"3ad84043-7102-4ba4-812f-877ad99168f7","argument":"Some drugs, such as Viagra, would be sold more because people would not fear being identified.","conclusion":"Individuals may feel more comfortable buying sex-related items or medication using APs."}
{"id":"ad677b1a-c6d3-4908-b5e8-fb28a1a47af8","argument":"As I'm watching the world cup, it is strikingly pun intended apparent just how much risk of brain damage is possible. Some of the head collisions where 2 players are trying to header the ball are insane There is no way that repeated head to head collisions like that isn't doing some kind of damage to the brain over time. Why is soccer the only sport with repeated traumatic head contact that doesn't require some kind of head protection? And I don't buy the argument that they wouldn't be able to control where the ball goes as accurately. For one, they seem TERRIBLY inaccurate anyways. Second, so what? They would have to re learn how to accurately perform a header. Small price to pay to save brain damage. Also, I'm not saying they need full on NFL type helmets. I think a study should be done to determine what type of head protection would be sufficient. Perhaps it's as simple as a thin shell.","conclusion":"Soccer players should be required to wear head protection"}
{"id":"94fff19a-d213-4970-976f-59e1a0d0ec11","argument":"If an individual is determined a state cannot prevent it anyway. So it should not stop individuals.","conclusion":"The state has no right to interfere with an individual's decision to die."}
{"id":"a10b6bb0-dfb3-46a9-a504-7bc1406e22c6","argument":"The Republican Party continues to oppose gun reform, ignoring and even suppressing research that could prove the harms of unchecked firearm sales.","conclusion":"The Republican Party adheres to many scientifically flawed and detrimental beliefs."}
{"id":"9e43c7df-7e30-4644-b699-dedca05c1643","argument":"The more out of the ordinary a claim is the stronger the evidence required to convince a reasonable person. Washington being the first president of the United States is comparatively a lot less extraordinary than a miracle.","conclusion":"We don't simply accept that Washington was the first president of the US because it was a story passed down through generations, but because it was well documented and observed."}
{"id":"d8be167b-ded3-42f5-b0ef-ce584ae5de28","argument":"Most virtual realties that are meant to be lawless will be similar to games being designed for virtual reality right now. These are likely to be set in unrealistic settings an alien planet, post-apocalyptic earth and therefore it will not change people's beliefs that they need a government in physical reality.","conclusion":"Virtual realities which are meant to be lawless will in no way be analogous to physical reality. Therefore, no one will assume that what works in a virtual reality will work in physical reality."}
{"id":"32b60167-0029-424d-9567-abfd8f770574","argument":"I do not believe non violent protest will solve any of the problems the US faces today. We are not dealing with enemies who think we are inferior beings and need to be shown our humanity we are dealing with corrupt and ideologically evil rulers who are above the law. The methods that worked for MLK will not work against these people. I want to refer to three specific groups law enforcement, the 1 , and the government. Although police brutality has largely faded from the public eye, the past few years have shown us very alarming things regarding law enforcement. Those with complaints of excessive use of force filed against them are rarely punished. They are too quick to pull and use guns against the unarmed, against children, and against pets. Police departments investigate their own and find their own to be blameless. Fellow officers lie to protect their colleagues from legal repurcussions. Civil forfeiture still runs rampant, where people who are charged with no crimes are robbed. Hiding behind a political shield of our job is tough and dangerous, leave us alone, it is incredibly difficult to pass reforms. In my view, the only way to keep corrupt cops off the street, to protect the public from them, is to kill them. The 1 view us as sheep or as fodder to keep their profits rolling in. They buy politicians, write laws that favor them, and using bill mills like ALEC, spread their influence to the State and local levels. So long as they are in charge, the middle class and poor will continue to suffer economically crippling events low minimum wages automation, environmental disasters, more free trade deals. Corporations like Nestle will continue profiting from water harvested from states crippled by drought. The Kochs and Exxon will continue ramming fossil fuels down our throats and denying climate change even though the entire planet suffers for their greed. These people do not care about us or about anyone. For the good of humankind, I believe these people need to be eliminated. Our government, from the state level to the senate, are systemically corrupted and bow to interests who are ruining the lives and livelihoods of everyday citizens, and people around the world. Take for example the Flint water crisis. This was a cost saving measure. Red flags were raised, alarms were sounded. An engineer working on the project demanded more time to prevent the issue and was ignored. Emergency managers were removed and replaced with the governor's own appointees. This was preventable, the crime is extreme, and evidence points to Snyder knowing exactly what he was doing. He remains in power while THREE people involved in lawsuits against him are coincidentally dead. These people are above the law, these people write the laws. Yelling shame shame at them isn't going to do shit. The only logical recourse for the public is to get rid of them, permanently. . Edit I am not suggesting a systematic elimination of these groups. I believe that it is justifyable, and perhaps should be encouraged, for protesters to use violent methods against these groups.","conclusion":"US culture has fetishized non-violence, to our detriment"}
{"id":"2dab6bd8-0f08-4716-82ef-41627edcbb9f","argument":"Kathy who grow up in a polygamous family thought it was full of \"jealousy and pain.\"","conclusion":"The reports of children who grow up in polygamous families report abuse by their stepmothers."}
{"id":"4be60291-894e-4989-8d96-f3cc45d23db8","argument":"The defendant is being charged of robbery after he allegedly stole a man\u2019s motorcycle at gunpoint. He also faces the death penalty in a different case he is accused of killing a 75 year old woman days before the robbery. The idea of a fair trial is, in my opinion, an important one. For a trial to be fair the jury must have as a few preconceived notations about the defendant as possible. This is often used as motivation for not disclosing past offences. Knowledge of past crimes absolutely biases people. It's not unreasonable to think a Jury is more likely to convict a defendant who they believe has offended before therefore making a trial less fair. One argument against covering up the tattoos is that he is chose to have these. Therefore, it is pertinent information as it speaks for the type of person the defendant is. I would argue that firstly it's not relevant to the crimes, and that is the only type of relevant information. Secondly, that the tattoos are so repugnant that they limit any further evaluation of the defendant. Yes, he's a racist shit head, but does that also make him a thief? No. Does it make a jury more likely to convict him as thief? Yes. Another argument I've heard is that we should trust the ability of the Jury to remain impartial . The key point of a Jury is that they made of your peers, i.e everyday people. People who are NOT impartial, who do not have training in how to overcome conscious and unconscious biases. A jury is important yes, but not infallible, therefore it is important to recognise the shortcomings of a jury and attempt to overcome them. I can see a few shortcomings with my point of view, and am completely open to it being changed. I do just want to emphasise that I do not support this bloke or neo nazi's in any way, shape or form. I just think this is an interesting discussion topic. A photo of the neo nazi in question and article discussing this can be found here TL DR The tattoos are not relevant to the crimes he is on trial for. I strongly believe a jury would be much more likely to convict a man with a swastika tattoo on his cheek. That runs contrary to the idea of a fair trial and innocent until proven guilty. So I believe it was the correct decision for the judge to hide the tattoos.","conclusion":"It was right for a judge to order a neo-nazi's face tattoos to be covered to prevent Jury bias."}
{"id":"3597d281-67fb-49f1-b0cc-900de0ae1f84","argument":"Being a parent is not necessarily right for everyone. Limiting parentage would allow the gradual reduction of hereditary genetic diseases. If parenthood is not seen as the privilege it is, then those who decide to remain childless will be undervalued by society.","conclusion":"Being a parent is not necessarily right for everyone. Limiting parentage would allow the gradual re..."}
{"id":"6c3808f0-04a8-47a6-8c1d-79340adc4e05","argument":"Very complex, cognitively meaningful behavior such as art are evidence of free will, because they exhibit the same lack of predictability as stochastic systems, but are intelligible and articulate clearly via recognizable vehicles.","conclusion":"The everyday actions of everyday people are evidence for the existence of free will."}
{"id":"5ce84551-683f-401c-9f12-983100fd46b7","argument":"The NFL owners passed a rule stating that the club will be fined if a player kneels. This means the owners are going to pay fines for passing this un-American rule, and not the players. Kneel away.","conclusion":"Players should be free to partake in respectful protests, including kneeling."}
{"id":"b8a2a2cf-c679-4687-bed7-89acca6ead82","argument":"If earlier instalments of a UBI are misspent and wasted, especially if severe consequences are the result, the individual will both be incentivized and have opportunity to learn better financial management skills to use later instalments.","conclusion":"A UBI may help to teach and encourage greater financial responsibility and more sensible spending."}
{"id":"6de17c29-8c0d-4027-a154-4e926bfd95df","argument":"My argument There was a Freakonomics report that exposed that if we didn't have a President, life wouldn't be that different, the government would function as it always has. If that seems unbelievable than hopefully the fact that George W. Bush took 50 vacations during his time as President, totalling 367 days on vacation. Obama, by in 2013, had vacationed for a total of 92 days while in office. The President is an individual who is mostly a figure head. His advisors set up the agenda, his advisors plan, help write the speeches, and so forth. Similarly with lower level politicians. I've met and have spoken to senators ,like Cory Booker of New Jersey, and Congressmen, like Debbie Schultz of Florida. They all have the same backstory, they were passionate people who wanted to make a difference in their community. None of them had exceptional experience training before they joined government. I remember Debbie telling me of how she went door to door asking people to vote for her, and how before government she was a soccer mom. The President is just a loud individual speaking for the people. I've stated this because I don't find Trump's inexperience that daunting. As far as I'm concerned, every candidate up there except for Clinton and Bush have no clue what to do. I believe Donald's unique experiences make him better suited for the job. The President is who the country looks towards in a crisis, and Trump has ample experience with crisis management four bankruptcies . I'm all for a technocrat, but that, unfortunately, isn't the case in America. The most important issue in this country is economics because that is what mostly affects the quality of life in our country. Trump is a businessman, and although that isn't an economist, it's better than a lawyer or brain surgeon when it comes to familiarity with finances. He has personally dealt with trade laws, and trade agreements. That's his priority, I've read his books, I've watched a video of him talking with Steve Forbes all he talks about is having the right team, rewarding them, and an unhealthy obsession with trade agreements. Here's a quote from his video I just think its ridiculous to allow China to do what there doing to this country with the manipulation of their currency and frankly if I were them and I could get away with it, I'd take my hat off to them I hire companies all the time, and it's so hard for my companies to compete against Chinese companies. For those of you who don't understand, the Chinese Yuan is fixed to U.S. dollar by 30, or for every dollar we print, they'll print 6.11 of theirs. It's smart of the Chinese because it gives them a trade advantage and gives there currency as much stability as the U.S. dollar. Also, Chinese laws are horrifically unfair to American business, not even in the sense of price competition, but they use their laws to stifle American companies from going there. Facebook, and Google, are two big examples of blocked companies that come to mind. When America started doing business in China in 1985, China was still greatly undeveloped and fearful of Capitalistic advances. America agreed to a loaded deal, and there hasn't been a great shift in negotiating dominance over the last 3 decades. If bad trade deals sound un American to you, you should know that After WW2 we allowed Japan to export goods to America tax free, but not vice versa, until their economy was developed. China has too much influence over the America's trade for America to attempt to try to create new deals. However, Trump is an expert negotiator.I think this quote from Ken Kesey tends to sum it up Never before did I realize that mental illness could have the aspect of power, power. Think of it perhaps the more insane a man is, the more powerful he could become. Hitler an example. Trump is keen enough to speak, yet crazy enough to be frightening, that's a good thing. As for his discretions about Mexicans, I don't think that has to do with blatant racism against hispanics, it's still an economic policy. In the early 1900s, there was discrimination against Irishmen because they came to America and took factory jobs for a lower wage. This made it more difficult for native Americans not the actual Native Americans to get factory jobs, and the increased competition drove down wages. Immigrants tend to take low level jobs and it's all with the intent of making a better life for themselves, but many Americans are upset about the increased competition. Some are eager to find work anywhere, but illegal immigration creates the problem of competition. I think it is necessary to address the policy of illegal immigration, it can't work the way it is. As for Trump's famous ego, it's fantastic for foreign affairs negotiations and he's transparent as crystal, that's pretty important to me. I doubt he'll actually do anything psychotic because Congress will veto him, but he'll always keep the agendas known and be upfront about his reasoning. Remember what I said in the first paragraph, the government infrastructure is already in place. They are content, with the system, which is why it takes a radical idiot to publicize the views and create a public enemy to unite around so we can form the less extreme alternative. Note I personally support Hilary and Sanders, but if I had to pick one Republican","conclusion":"Donald Trump wouldn't make a bad President"}
{"id":"e4d1a173-3b5b-4d2a-a2fd-c27d6286f183","argument":"For the purposes of this discussion, let's restrict the proposal to Canada and Mexico. I think it would be mutually beneficial if Canada and Mexico chose to unite with the USA, and vise versa. I don't think the cons outweigh the pros. Resources would be increased by all, opportunities and workforce would increase, choices would increase, culture would benefit, and politics would get really interesting. Obviously, there would have to be some transitional periods. We could start with Canada, since it's a relatively small population, then one Mexican state at a time. But I think that could be done. The end results, it seems to me, are desirable for all. I'm open to changing my view, because it's just an idea I've been knocking around. I'm not emotionally invested in it. That I would like it to work does not necessarily mean that it would work. EDIT 1 So, a lot of people are arguing that it isn't likely to happen. It wasn't my argument that it was likely to happen, or that a majority in 2014 wanted it to happen. It was my contention that if it were to happen, gradually and incrementally, over, say, 50 100 years, it would benefit everyone in the end. What I'm noticing also is that this is turning into a typical America sucks , No it doesn't discussion. If you want to convince someone that America is the worst, OMG , please feel free to create your own  you're not going to change my view by saying that I'm a typical ignorant American who probably just wants to steal oil and destroy cultures and force other people to adopt my conservative laws. The last part there I think I addressed already laws would not necessarily follow the American model. A grand debate and constitutional convention would obviously be in order. Anywho Although I haven't been convinced that this couldn't work eventually, I have been convinced that it is not even worth talking about in 2014, because the citizens of the countries in question are not yet close to a tipping point in which they believe it would benefit them mutually and fairly. I'll try to jump back in tonight to address any respectful critiques that change my view further. I'm seeing that some interesting discussion has been going on between y'all since I last checked in. I have an obligation today, but I'll read it soon. Thanks.","conclusion":"I think the United States of North America might be a really good idea."}
{"id":"3092e5b3-664c-4d85-a00e-168cfccf444d","argument":"The US established welfare when the country was in the throes of the Great Depression.","conclusion":"Most civilizations in human history have required welfare to prevent popular revolts and uprisings"}
{"id":"0b3ed832-485b-4dbc-9c5f-ca27655304d4","argument":"In 2012, in an effort to increase tourism and business investment, Hunt announced a string of improvements to make it easier for Chinese tourists to visit the United Kingdom. As more people across the world visit the United Kingdom, it is likely to improve the country's standing in the world.","conclusion":"Hunt's past experience as the Cultural Secretary from 2010 to 2012 makes him well equipped to improve Britain's standing in the world"}
{"id":"9995b17b-d18f-4afc-903c-58c1091189a0","argument":"Not a Russian bot shill. Hillary voter actually As far as I've seen, one of the primary causes of outrage regarding the hacked 2016 election is the use of Russian origin Russia state financed social media campaigns. Many of these campaigns promoted fake news of the pizzagate, Hillary created ISIS variety. I am, of course, not arguing that spreading \u201cfake news\u201d blatantly false propaganda is an inherently good thing to do. I would however argue that this propaganda falls within the right of foreign nationals\u2019 right to free speech in America. Other countries and their independent political entities do this all the time. These are some stats from a quick Google search showing campaign contributions from foreign entities. If we take one of the underlying arguments from Citizens United that money speech then it\u2019s hard to see much of a difference between Russian \u201chacking\u201d and Canadian Keystone XL lobbying or any number of European Mexican SuperPAC contributions in support of the Hillary campaign that I can only assume exist. Every other country in the world and political body in the US would have been within their legal right to buy absurd advertisements on Facebook and make bot generated Twitter posts but they had the good taste? understanding of the strategy\u2019s ineffectiveness? not to do so. If this was all the RNC DNC NRA AIPAC AARP, etc. needed to do to sway an election wouldn\u2019t they have done so? Is American and Western European democracy really so fragile that allowing foreigners free speech could topple it? gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Russian interference in the US election by spreading \"Fake News\" is not Illegal nor SHOULD it be."}
{"id":"515f9839-da0a-40a6-bdef-c39ba0d9d2b2","argument":"Horse-riding would probably be called illegal, as the horses did not consent to it and are often wrecked by accidents or years of riding.","conclusion":"A society where the life of an animal was worth as much as the life of a human would be doomed to fail."}
{"id":"febacd35-6585-41ee-9df2-7db08dd01c37","argument":"Recently, a bill was submitted in the California state legislature that would require newly constructed, or soon to be renovated, public buildings provide diaper changing stations in restrooms for both men and women or one restroom with a changing station that is available to both men and women. Here is the full text of the California bill. Former President Barack Obama signed a similar law that only applied to Federal Government buildings. Proponents of this bill and similar bills from other states say that because quickly changing demographics of the modern American family, traditional gender roles with women as the primary caregiver for the children are no longer true, and men are becoming more and more involved in the care of their young children. Additionally, because there are also a growing number of same sex households with children, it's discriminatory against LGBT parents and guardians as well. There are also concerns about sanitary conditions where parents are forced to change their kids' diapers on the floors of bathrooms or on the countertops next to sinks. Detractors such as myself argue that bills like this are just another example of governments forcing potentially costly regulations on businesses as the cost of the changing station is a burden placed on the business. Changing stations can cost between 150 350 for external stations, and around 1k for recess mounted stations. Additionally, businesses that fail to implement this law would face a fine. I'm not saying that there aren't ways men and women are still not on equal grounds, but this mandate on businesses is not a step in the right direction. 40 years ago when I was a baby, my parents didn't have access this feature and I'm no worse for the wear. People somehow made do without this luxury. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Requiring businesses to provide diaper changing stations in men's restrooms is costly and an ineffective means to achieve equality."}
{"id":"8a1f4eab-cdbb-4d82-9f24-8e3c71d33d42","argument":"Pollution and climate emissions create negative externalities which states don't take into account when deciding how much to emit\/pollute. This leads to all states emitting\/polluting too much, which results in climate change and environmental degradation.","conclusion":"More centralization would solve collective action problems that create climate change and pollution."}
{"id":"393b0b68-518d-4a5e-94a5-0d6a40cf640a","argument":"With the recent announcement from the FCC chairman regarding net neutrality NN , I have come to believe that a repeal may not be all that bad. I believe the less government intervention we have in the free market, the better off we are. Governments should not restrict the way an ISP caps restricts its service s this is essentially what the current regulation does. ISP are not allowed to restrict access to sites, or slow down your speeds. Repealing NN would give ISPs the option to restrict my internet speed, decide which sites I can visit and how often I can use their service per month. If they choose to do so, that is their prerogative. It would then be my prerogative to choose a different ISP. If ISPs choose to pursue an action which would alter the way we access the internet today, I believe that would drive competition and innovation. In short, if the FCC votes to repeal the NN regulation, I believe our real gripe should be with our ISPs. If they begin to operate in a way which is in conflict with what we would like, the solution is simple don't pay for their services. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Repealing Net Neutrality isn't a bad thing"}
{"id":"8f2359c9-ca64-40f8-a9d8-20ed5853cd61","argument":"Admittedly this may be a tad different from most of the posts on this page but I feel like it is appropriate. I am 22 years old and have been considering getting this tattoo since I was 16. My parents are obviously very against the idea of tattoos, regardless of the significance behind them. They are aware that I have wanted this specific one and their response has been consistent with any other idea I have thrown at them. I haven't gotten this yet because my parents claimed, probably jokingly, that they would stop helping me with college if I got a tattoo. Considering that is no longer a factor I feel like now is the perfect time. Most of my friends say that it would just be actively trying to insult my parents, but I see it more as hilarious and in line with my personality. I would also like to note that our relationship is fairly normal for someone of my age. If i go through with this odds are I would get a second tattoo that would be a fake quote from my dad saying One tattoo is fine just don't get anymore.","conclusion":"I should get the following quote from my mom tattooed on my ribs, 'Don't get a tattoo.\""}
{"id":"47e1b7d3-9358-4219-bc3c-44047716b377","argument":"For a lil background I am a Catholic Christian raised in a Catholic family, and who studied in 2 private Catholic schools for about 14 years elementary up until college . ^ Not sure if this is relevant but I say Catholic Christian because while fam I grew up as Catholics, I always found Catholic masses boring and traditions pointless we then tried out a Christian worship service and found it way more meaningful, and we've been going there ever since. ^ But ^ none of us are baptized as Christians so y'know. Idrk what I am lol As for my view I do believe in God, but that's about it. I think that, if you're worshipping a God, your personal relationship with him is more important than whatever crazy rules or traditions that religion has. I get that believing in that God should therefore mean respecting a certain set of rules he has laid out like the 10 Commandments or as written in Torah Bible Qur'an , but I've always found some rules irrational. Maybe this comes from a place of Catholic bias but stuff like being forbidden to eat pork or anything that comes from it even if it doesn't have pig in it anymore , wearing head face coverings, being forbidden to cut alter your hair, being forbidden to celebrate birthdays, and being forbidden to mix meat and dairy are just some things I can think of that I find a bit unreasonable. Don't get me wrong, I understand that the basis for some of these rules are medically or morally sound, and you may have a choice in others, but they just don't sit right with me because the rules in themselves don't specifically contribute to your relationship with God? Maybe I'm being contradictory here by saying that, considering that those rules supposedly came from God himself, but I still can't help but question them sometimes, and question the people who willingly and wholeheartedly follow them. Maybe it's just me, but imo some of these rules feel like they take away from people's free will or disregard how they feel about things or what they want to do with their own bodies lives. Another part of why I think like this is because of the acts of violence committed by people in the name of religion , whether it's because they're trying to purge those who don't have the same beliefs or something else. Terrorism, wars, discrimination and whatnot. I've read somewhere that most of those times, they don't have religious but rather political motives. But even if that were true, I think it still kinda discounts the microaggressions of people gatekeeping to their religion e.g. You're not going to be saved You're going to hell because you don't believe in X or Y . Or idk, maybe they're just being assholes in general, regardless of religion or politics?? Honestly I used to believe that perhaps all religions were inherently the same, that we all believed in the same God and just called him different names and differing cultures just meant differing methods of worship. But now I'm not so sure if this kind of belief is worth anything or just another childish fantasy trying to find correlations for the sake of peace. x200B While I hold this belief, I do not discount the benefits religion has brought to people as well. I know that in many cases, religion has inspired people to lead successful bloodless revolutions, help the poor, and even stand in solidarity with other religions. It's really just those kind of rules. Am I nitpicking too much? I understand that this is prooobably a difficult ish, subjective topic to discuss, but I don't mean to speak from ignorance or anything. I spent a lot of free time reading other related posts on this sub and many online articles in the hope of understanding the reasoning behind those religions and rules. Even now, as I type, I keep searching for articles to enlighten me even before this gets posted. But while I do mostly understand why they rules exist, I'm still at a loss on why people choose to submit, no matter how ridiculous it might seem. x200B Maybe this is being borderline agnostic? Idk? But I do find myself constantly questioning religious related things I hear or come across Sorry for the wall of text, this has just been on my mind for a long time and it really messes me up whenever I think of it lol I'd love new perspectives on this, and I'd definitely appreciate eye opening inputs so feel free to ask and I shall expound if needed x200B Side question Does it make a person morally bad? if they openly respect a person with these kind of religious beliefs yet deep down inside think those beliefs are wack? For example being considerate of a Muslim person and their restrictions not offering them pork or alcohol, not asking girls to show their hair, offering them non gelatin based medicine, basically just being a decent person towards them etc while lowkey thinking why are you following this these are crazy . Does that count as being fake, considering your actions and thoughts are contradictory??","conclusion":"Religion is kinda...ridiculous"}
{"id":"52b5702f-2720-411a-b4bf-d3c1e283d242","argument":"From the point of view of system purchaser, software has the possibility to be spread with diminishing unit costs; whereas physical ticket systems' cost does not diminish as a function of deployed units.","conclusion":"Ticketless system is much more affordable less costs, and will thus enable also lower fare prices."}
{"id":"43643589-7e44-4594-bf08-efb4896c8fa5","argument":"A report found that parents who rejected early surgery said that their children had not faced unusual amounts of bullying or harassment because of their intersex traits. Parents credited the peer support and information they received from parent support groups for making this possible.","conclusion":"The potential for intersex children being bullied can be removed by ensuring parents of intersex children are supported by their peers and have access to parent support groups."}
{"id":"bee0d96f-0f93-492a-a841-4aeaf5d9573e","argument":"Ballot initiatives are great incentives for the people to educate themselves on the issues and affairs of the state in order to be the \"responsible\" citizens. And this clearly benefits the political culture in such countries.","conclusion":"Direct democracy encourages people to educate themselves on the issues and affairs of a state."}
{"id":"0003a4aa-b6c9-478a-8010-0c771e14c2b8","argument":"Forgiveness is not giving a free pass to 'run wild' in the future, but about understanding what happened and things that can't be changed, thus moving on.","conclusion":"Should we forgive those who don't regret hurting us?"}
{"id":"2eba7099-5ff5-4fde-a3e2-74d6c3b40a12","argument":"The percentage of women in Computer Science jobs decreased between 1990 32% to 2019 25% despite a larger number of jobs available, while the percentage of women in STEM increased by 23% from 1993 to 2010.","conclusion":"Though the number of women in STEM fields are increasing - these numbers are stagnating in tech-specific fields."}
{"id":"7404dbdb-79a8-437b-a9eb-0da81b241b25","argument":"I'm sure that what this varies by state, but where I'm at it means there's a whole lot more government oversight. Investagatory authorities to control oversight, some basic privacy rules, enforcement if they fail to do their jobs, and maybe even some good old fashioned constitutional rights. It also means they cant jack prices up at a locale without getting permission from the State Senate, my personal favorite. As an indepensible public information tool, I believe the internet should be made a utility, just like telephone companies once they became essential. Edit I keep seeing this come up so I'll add this here utility status is not the same as direct oversight. The government does not own the internet. It basically requires web companies to act in good faith in the interests of their customers.","conclusion":"The internet should be given Utility status"}
{"id":"045ed699-3bfc-4140-97f8-15b758317dc6","argument":"There is little doubt that smoking tobacco is extremely harmful to the smoker's health. In the US, for example, research by the American Cancer Society suggests that tobacco causes up to 400,000 deaths each year1 - more than AIDS, alcohol, drug abuse, car crashes, murders, suicides, and fires combined. World-wide some 5 million people die from smoking each year2 - one every ten seconds - which estimates suggest will rise to 10 million by 2020. Smokers are up to 22 times more likely to develop lung cancer than non-smokers, and smoking can lead to a host of other health problems, including emphysema and heart disease. In a democracy the people elect leaders and trust them with a term, where their duty is solely to look after the wellbeing of the country and its citizens. The politicians, having the resources and time, are well equipped to make a better and more informed decision on activities dangerous to the individual, others and the society. Therefore one of the principles is, that elected representatives have to make sure their citizens get the best possible protection in society. Even if this infringes on some of their rights. That is why taking hard drugs and breaking the speed limit are also illegal. It would therefore be reasonable to ban smoking or limit with different means the usage of tobacco - an activity which kills millions of people each year. Precedent is that if a company produces food that is poisonous or a car that fails safety tests, the product is immediately taken off the market. Since all cigarettes and other tobacco products are poisonous and potentially lethal, they should all be taken off the market. In short, smoking should be banned or very harshly regulated. 1 Cancer Action Network, Help Fight Tobacco and Save Lives, 2 Ash.Research report, Tobacco: Global trends, August 2007, improve this","conclusion":"The state has to take measures to protect the health of its citizens"}
{"id":"eeea5400-0899-4675-80f5-cddafa32a8ff","argument":"The subject pronouns \"they\" and \"them\" have a plural connotation. To use them to refer to an individual violates subject-verb agreement.","conclusion":"Use of plural pronouns such as them\/they\/their to refer to individuals leads to confusion when attempting to communicate."}
{"id":"a7c66892-d8cc-4d32-a865-348928db2df7","argument":"This post was inspired by reading some of the political subreddits and reading comments of people who really couldn\u2019t afford to donate to a candidate, but were doing so anyway, even after the candidate has no real chance to win. e.g. people who are living paycheck to paycheck donating to Carson My premise is that it is irresponsible for a primary candidate to keep asking for donations once they\u2019ve have no real chance to win. To refine this statement, please note I\u2019m not talking about the general election. I\u2019m not saying they can\u2019t accept voluntary donations, just that they shouldn\u2019t ask for them. I\u2019m not saying they need to stop running, just stop asking for money. By \u201cno real chance\u201d I mean after Super Tuesday they are behind in the delegate count significantly gt 200 delegates and have no clear path to the nomination. By \u201cno clear path to the nomination\u201d in a head to head matchup, I mean that the aggregated polling of the remaining states shows that they will fall well gt 400 delegates short of the threshold to be the nominee. By \u201cno clear path to the nomination\u201d in a multi candidate matchup, I mean that the candidate is in 3rd place or worse in delegate count and aggregated polling shows that they do not have a viable path to jumping up to at least second place. My reasoning is that once a primary candidate can\u2019t really win, asking for donations is wasteful and creates harm. In some cases, passionate members of their base can\u2019t really afford to donate poor, students, etc. , but may do so anyway if the candidate makes a plea for more money. Not only is it generally wasteful for a candidate to keep spending money just to keep running, without any realistic hope of winning but it is harmful for a candidate to spend the money of those who can\u2019t really afford to donate. I understand the reasons why a candidate would keep running, even after their campaign is not realistically viable, but I just think they should stop asking for money. They should ask for volunteers, phone banking, door knocking, etc\u2026.just not money.","conclusion":"It is irresponsible for a primary candidate to keep asking for donations once they have no real chance to win."}
{"id":"19d53bee-b21a-4ead-a0e3-137faffa76a1","argument":"In the ufc or any combat sports the term pound for pound is used because it looks at who has the most skill disregarding weight. This term was coined because of the huge advantage weight can have during a fight assuming both fighters are skilled. However even though according to r mma cain velasquez isnt the best p4p champion that doesnt negate the idea that if he fought everyone in the ufc 1 on 1 he would win as well as the world. So change my view on why cain velasquez isnt the best fighter in the world currently.","conclusion":"as of 2015 cain velasquez can beat anyone in the world in a 1 on 1 unarmed fight"}
{"id":"48d7b043-4285-4ced-b164-915af17a4767","argument":"Given that God is perfectly Good, and that evil is a privation of good, then if God were the only thing in existence, there would be no evil.","conclusion":"Evil is a privation of Good, and does not exist in its own right. Thus God does not co-exist with evil."}
{"id":"eefef7ae-dd68-4771-bc6c-a4baf9e2bcab","argument":"Violence carries inertia to it. If a victim is victimized, the worst they can do is perpetuate the violence they inherited. The best thing society can do is rehabilitate both the criminal and the victim. This parent comment is a philosophical flaw.","conclusion":"This is a philosophically fraught statement that contradicts a lot of understood ideas."}
{"id":"41e004c2-63e8-47ac-907e-5af93646bffd","argument":"Two days after the general election in 2017, senior Tory and Labour MPs called upon Theresa May to drop her own Tory \u201chard Brexit plans. Evidently, many senior MPs across the political spectrum thought that May would back a hard Brexit if necessary, which suggests that many voters of the Conservative party would have thought the same.","conclusion":"Many people voted for the Conservatives under the assumption that they would leave the EU even if it meant leaving without a deal."}
{"id":"09b5d608-b261-4d34-bfd7-be15f55d050b","argument":"Obviously, there are a lot of factors in weight loss. My personal experience is that members of a weight loss support group are more likely to succeed, but there are many people who frequented the same forum I did who did not lose weight and keep it off. It was very common for people to lose and gain and lose and gain. Given this, and given the fact that exercise and a good diet will strengthen your heart and reduce your risk of cancer regardless of BMI although a higher BMI increases your risk of premature death I think that making people feel shame about their weight is relatively ineffective. I think this is especially true because mental illness of almost any kind increases your risk for obesity and social isolation increases risk for mental illness. In addition, I believe that even when people do not have a diagnosable mental condition, it is useful to look at their mental limitations that make it difficult for them to exert the willpower energy needed and address those.","conclusion":"Since very few obese people lose weight and keep it off, efforts should be focused less on shaming overweight people and more on mental health and encouraging healthy behaviors."}
{"id":"f0b0ecdb-be88-4923-814e-2fdf0e8a3f0d","argument":"For example, let's say that the governor of the great state of Montanevadistan cared about money and only money and the world revolved around money so he could be rich and taxes and all of that, then the poor would be even poorer and this would hurt our way of living. If Mr. Montanevadistan gave all of his money to companies instead of the people and ignored the people's input, then the people will feel extremely bad. The world should not revolve around the rich and all their money. This is hurting the common people below on the social ladder. Busniessmen will only make a decision if the decision gives them money. More money. Seriously. These idiots need to know that the world goes not revolve around money. These idiots need to know that the world goes not revolve around themselves. The world revolves around the more numerous people that are lower on the social ladder. I dare you to .","conclusion":"US I believe that all businessmen are terrible and all they care about is money, which is hurting our way of living."}
{"id":"d2e7e7da-57bd-41a2-ac25-a2d2b10d402b","argument":"Although Star Destroyers do have the ability to fire well at the target they're facing due to their sloped nature it would mean the agility and manoeuvrability of Federation vessels would still be a technological downfall.","conclusion":"The weapons on the left of an Imperial Star Destroyer, can't fire at targets on the right side and vice versa, and can't fire at all behind. Rebels ships require positioning, Federation ships are adaptive."}
{"id":"cca550bb-2903-4ba2-9202-bcb4445a0f56","argument":"I recently spent some time with friends that were trying to convince me that gun control as in removing high powered rifles, assault rifles and, high capacity hand guns takes away the ability to overthrow the government if need be and that it limits your personal safety. These are my problems. If you tried to fight the U.S. government in a war you would lose before it begins. Not only is your training and knowledge of weapons inferior, even with assault rifles your weapons are 30 years behind theirs. Also the weapons we use today make an armies numbers inferior I hold the gulf war as proof . When using a weapon it is only as helpful as your training. If you train to use a basic 9 millimeter then you can take out several attackers with 1 bullet a piece. This was demonstrated to me by my father who was a Marine. I disagree with their view but I have an open mind and am willing to change my opinion as I would like to believe that people should be free to own whatever they want or at least have a closer understanding of the opposite side.","conclusion":"I believe that owning a gun doesn't make you any safer and it won't help you overthrow the government."}
{"id":"ba6fa300-3bc5-4515-92a1-b6e615965071","argument":"Tyrion's way of dealing with the upcoming civil war in Mereen shows that the work sharing can work out.","conclusion":"She now has Tyrion Lannister to do that for her, she only has to provide the looks."}
{"id":"17b65805-fd57-4006-acba-4476f6f52ffa","argument":"In some parts of India the baby's ears are pierced on the day of the barase or naamkaran, that is on the twelfth or thirteenth day after birth.","conclusion":"Ear piercing of newborns is customary in some societies. Banning it would be discriminatory against them and their accepted cultural norms."}
{"id":"6388fdcc-4c46-415f-bb7b-cb2b2d1b6d65","argument":"If a group of students and a teacher are hiding in a room that the shooter gains access to, it would be better if the teacher was armed than unarmed.","conclusion":"Arming teachers would be more effective than drills and changes to school infrastructure."}
{"id":"7df1030b-be94-4a23-8bb5-3f74f76f398e","argument":"Another option is force per square inch, where a faster projectile, with a smaller surface, delivers more punch to a single point.","conclusion":"\"Destructive power\" is not the only way to measure deadliness. Other factors play a huge role too."}
{"id":"5b7eeaaf-415f-4917-ba8e-83630114137b","argument":"I used to make most of my online purchases from Amazon but recently their service has gone downhill considerably. I don't buy enough things to justify a Prime subscription and I live in the middle of nowhere so most of the trendy benefits don't work out here. I wanted to order a simple flash drive to use for a few mp3s in my car. It is 14 and weighs .18 oz. After declining to sign up for prime twice in the process of getting to checkout I then found that they wanted 8, almost 60 the cost of the drive, to ship it. It can't help but feel like punishment for not buying Prime, especially considering that Newegg will ship it for 0.99. Meanwhile I also wanted to order a dash cam for my new car. I place this order Sunday night declining signing up for Prime several times along the way . For the past 3 days the status has been ready for shipping until just now when it changed to shipping soon. Do they really just let stuff sit in the warehouse just so they can make sure it takes the full delivery window if you have the audacity to not purchase Prime? Historically every time I shopped at Amazon I got a fair price and excellent service with minimal wait. In the last year there has been a noticeable change in both their standard shipping costs as well as the processing time on their end. These changes coincide with an immense push to try and increase their Prime subscription numbers. I believe that in their efforts to generate more subscriptions they have degraded their standard service to the point where they are no longer truly competitive at the entry level, regressing far below the standards of service that made them the giant they are today. Ultimately this degradation of their core business practices in the hope of sort term gain will only hurt them in the long run.","conclusion":"Amazon.com has forced itself below the competition an its attempts to get people to pay for Prime"}
{"id":"66ed2da1-6b19-41ab-9f52-47d0493f14b8","argument":"I've been dumpster diving for some weeks now and find it surprisingly quite fun and like the idea of saving money this way. However, I live in a country where it's not completely legal and I am being told occasionally that what I do is wrong since I do it for money and harm the supermarkets by not buying their products. I believe the supermarkets for their part harm people our society by wasting so much resources and accepting the environmental pollution caused by the transport of the products that will somehow or other become dumpster. By taking thrown away things I do not stimulate demand and therefor might decrease their orders a little bit. And, of course, harming someone by stopping him harming others is nothing wrong even if I do it for money.","conclusion":"\"Stealing\" dumpster from stores to save money is ethically right since it helps preventing environmental pollution and waste."}
{"id":"3487e78b-39d1-43ca-aa56-91c8da600585","argument":"Like many Reddit users right now, I'm an American who's still catching up with all of the British politics that's suddenly in the limelight. All I really know about Farage is that he's a key player with the UKIP party. All I really know about the UKIP party is that they're anti immigration and everybody calls them racists fascists. I've read about him from two sources Wikipedia, and Reddit. Nothing on Wikipedia made him sound that awful to me. Even as far as conservative politicians go, he didn't seem very socially or religiously authoritarian. Reddit, on the other hand, throws a fit at his very mention. The trending subreddits thread today in particular seemed to be having an absolute meltdown at the idea that people on reddit are allowed to support the guy. In general I've seem plenty of people call him a fascist as if that were an objective fact. It all strikes me as very over the top. Farage just seems like any other politician, and the horrible fascist stuff reads like reactionary circlejerking to me. Are there any good reasons I should hate this guy more than any given politician?","conclusion":"Nigel Farage is not a horrible human being."}
{"id":"ecd1dbeb-55ac-4498-ac47-71573d62cbef","argument":"Presently 84% of all foreign exchange transactions occur in just nine countries. A tax introduced in these nine would initially provide a workable regime that could be gradually expanded further.","conclusion":"Presently 84% of all foreign exchange transactions occur in just nine countries. A tax introduced i..."}
{"id":"cd7aa0bc-023c-4555-9a65-e531a45a17ea","argument":"UBI would lead to class conflict between net payees and net recievers. The class of net receivers would enlarge till they destroy capitalism and cause collapse of economy.","conclusion":"A plausible side effect of this is that a UBI could help create the conditions for widespread societal instability."}
{"id":"e2c30f0e-bcfe-4745-9a22-c489d441b0d2","argument":"This is how governments operate. They never pay back the full sum they collect in taxes. A substantial portion is lost in corruption, wastage, bureaucracy, propaganda, wars, etc.","conclusion":"When somebody steals $100 from you, but then gives you $50 back, it is still an act of theft."}
{"id":"3ce21cd8-89a9-435d-b7c0-65073a142e09","argument":"This is actually shown perfectly well in the abortion debate. One party calls itself pro-life and the other pro-choice; can you really say you are against the right to live or against the right to choose? It ends up with which right you weigh more and that is completely subjective.","conclusion":"Morality is subjective; and when it comes to issues such as abortion, peoples' viewpoints are based off of different moral compasses. It is therefore difficult to judge which moral compass the law should conform to."}
{"id":"dd884b78-da26-42a1-8332-2e70a468b07e","argument":"I've seen a lot of people on reddit who, when someone mentions people being prompted to give their pronouns, react as if this is a bad thing. The near unanimity of these feelings against this practice have led me to question my own view, so I came here to see what y'all think. There are a few reasons why I think this would benefit society as a whole Helping trans and cis people not be misgendered. Most men don't like being mistaken for women, and most women don't like being mistaken for men. This includes trans men and trans women, who likely have to confront it more often and, on top of that, who can see it as yet another unwelcome reminder that other people don't see them the same way they see themselves . Right now, people are generally expected to assume the gender of the people they meet based on appearances, but that clearly isn't reliable, especially when it comes to trans people. If asking for pronouns becomes normal, these awkward interactions will be eliminated. Bringing trans acceptance into the mainstream. One of the biggest obstacles I've seen to trans acceptance is the attitude that we can, or we should be able to, tell a person's gender just by looking at them. The very act of asking for someone's pronouns assumes that you can't tell just by looking, so this change would entail acceptance of the fact that you can't assume someone's gender just by their appearances. The only downside I see to this is the trivial amount of time it would take to ask the question and the effort of remembering people's answers, which hardly seems more difficult than remembering someone's name, once you've gotten used to it. Obviously I think this would be difficult to do and would take a while to actually become mainstream if it ever does , so an argument that it's just too difficult to do this would probably be unlikely to change my view. My argument is that a world in which this social norm exists would be better than a world without that, and that this is something we should at least strive for. I look forward to seeing what you all think","conclusion":"I think it would be beneficial to society if people commonly included their preferred pronouns when introducing themselves."}
{"id":"162ce739-7126-4e0b-acc3-0bd2f4b0773f","argument":"I've had an S4 since around July of last year, and I've slowly grown to hate it. I just think it's too big, and I actually feel like I have too MANY options when it comes to the look of the phone. I like the Android OS, I just don't like the phone. To me, it feels like a toy because it is made out of plastic. I've been craving an iPhone for a few weeks now. Can't switch, no money no upgrade till next year. I like the look of IOS 7, and I like the feel of the actual phone. It feels like an actual, top of the like phone because of the aluminum its encased in. It feels like the perfect size for me. The one thing I think I would dislike about getting an iPhone is the fact that I can't manage files natively. I don't mind jailbreaking though. I have considered selling it and getting a Nexus 5 or an older iPhone, but the difference between selling and buying another phone would be too big. I know most of my complaints are cosmetic and can't be changed, but help me not hate my phone for the next year.","conclusion":"I hate my Galaxy S4 and want to switch."}
{"id":"0d602624-ce76-4ed8-aa57-eeb8b5e33f88","argument":"23.5 million people in the United States live in 'food deserts where they have minimal to no access to affordable, healthy food. This means that their only options for food are cheap, processed foods or fast food like McDonald's.","conclusion":"Research suggests that there are links between low incomes and obesity with people who are poorer becoming obese as a result of being unable to afford healthy food options."}
{"id":"95f2b55e-8c5f-48c3-a48d-ac4fae1b18ee","argument":"First of all I would like to explain what inspired this thought. You can skip this part. I have previously read Nietzsche\u2019s \u201cGenealogy of Morals\u201d. My understanding of this text is not the matter of debate here, but I will provide my brief takeaway from it so that it\u2019s clear what I\u2019m arguing AGAINST. In Genealogy of Morals, Nietzsche argues that society is not progressing towards moral good. He does this by denying the existence of moral good. Things that are considered morally good change from time to time, place to place, people to people etc. There aren\u2019t objective universal morals. For example, homosexuality was accepted in ancient times, shunned in recent history, and now it is being accepted again. Since there is no \u2018scale of moral goodness\u2019 we cannot be progressing in it. Nietzsche argues that all things we consider moral today can be traced back to some events in the past that caused them to happen. Therefore, things could have ended differently. For example countries used to be ruled by absolute monarchy. Now, we have democracy. Society has not evolved this way because democracy is morally superior. Things just happened to work out this way. So,  I believe that society does progress towards a higher moral standard as time passes. This discussion necessitates a definition of moral good. I am willing to debate this. The definition I took is Good causes most benefit and least harm to people Bad causes harm and pain to people It is said that the rise of civilization allowed systems where humans can oppress each other. Hunter gatherer societies had no slaves. The division of labour allowed the formation of classes like the aristocracy that dominated others. On the other hand, civilization also allowed for concepts like justice, equality etc to form. As our understanding expanded, so did the moral goodness of an average person. Of course, vicious people came along, like the Nazis, but this wasn\u2019t because there were more vicious people. It was because the vicious held more power due to our advancing technology. It is natural to have some setbacks while progressing. Fascism was short lived. Even the dark ages are tiny compared to the entire human history. We have managed to recover and are recovering from these setbacks, solidly on our way to moral good. I agree that things did not have to turn out this way. We could not have had democracies. However, I argue that whatever we would have would be better than the previous forms of government. In history, we see a clear increase in order and prosperity on a governmental level. Even the US, which is often criticized for its wealth gap and extremely capitalist government, still has some social support programs. On an individual level too. We are more accepting, tolerant, kind sharing than previous humans. We don\u2019t employ medieval torture methods anymore, or prosecute \u201cheathens\u201d. A minority might, but the general public doesn\u2019t anymore. It just seems like there are more vicious than ever because the few vicious have a louder voice in the information age.","conclusion":"society is progressing towards moral good throughout time."}
{"id":"3cafad92-c1ef-4cae-8f1c-9e3571ee0c2c","argument":"Swinson has vowed to give every child the best start in life by recruiting 20,000 more teachers as part of an extra \u00a310.6bn-a-year investment for schools.","conclusion":"Educational policies proposed by the Liberal Democrats are popular among voters in the UK."}
{"id":"8bb58f8d-fa7d-48f8-86e7-696ea3a698d1","argument":"People who steal to pay for health care are not excused from their criminal actions.","conclusion":"You are not entitled to the means required to achieve those things."}
{"id":"ef8c29e2-fb7a-4286-bfcf-78a17b8ef484","argument":"I've been reading about the new regulation being proposed by President Obama and I'm not a supporter. I am left on most issues, but this one I'm not so sure. My understanding is the primary goal is to reduce the negative effects of living in low SES neighborhoods by allowing people to live in more affluent communities which afford a wide variety of benefits. Further, it will reduce racial segregation which will hopefully improve interracial relations. My problem stems mainly from people choosing to live in a safer neighborhood which is almost always going to be more expensive. By introducing low ses individuals into these communities property values will go down and crime will go up. This is a byproduct of SES, nothing to do with race. I am a bit biased on this issue, I moved from a poor neighborhood riddled with crime to a nice suburban community with an almost 33 increase in living expenses to escape. A few years after I moved there they introduced two section 8 housing complexes. There was a huge community debate about this, I recall a sharp spike in burglary, assault and other arrests within the next 2 years. I moved for unrelated reasons, but it would seem this offered nothing positive to these communities.","conclusion":"Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing is a terrible policy"}
{"id":"d96e022f-94d8-4c91-8486-5608d2ac20bf","argument":"Elections to the European parliament already have a poor turnout the electorate do not seem to trust that MEPs will represent them as well as local politicians will.","conclusion":"People are no longer feeling represented by EU's politicians."}
{"id":"3d3cbf7b-c0cc-4bc1-a873-f54bbccff787","argument":"So I did NoFap half a year ago and lasted for about 4 months. I felt really good and felt like I had more confidence, self love and etc I think that quitting porn is good, but not masturbation. I did NoFap and I almost lost my libido for 4 months I did NoFap months before and it's the same with the libido thing and it felt pretty strange. I know that there is what is called flatline but it was pretty unusual. 4 months is a huge time compared to other people, and to think that I didn't PMO a lot before I started NoFap once or twice a day . The libido did rise a week or two before I stopped doing NoFap but it was still pretty low. I have also read things that other people have wrote on the internet that they lost their libido completly after doing NoFap for months, a year etc . I also have seen all those dumb articles and blogs about semen retention. Godammit. After I stopped doing NoFap I felt like shit, I was tired, unmotivated and weak. After some time everything came back to normal. I understand now that you feel like you set your mind to. I did NoFap and said that masturbation makes you tired, weak etc. This is what my mind always thougth, it got used to me doing NoFap so what I felt after ejaculating was pretty strong, now I don't feel any of those. The study that says that testosterone levels rise after not ejaculating for 7 days? I have heard that they drop even lower after that. A part of the community was weird. Night vision improved , A girl looked at me etc Another thing that bothers me about NoFap is sex. If you ejaculate you lose all your superpowers, right? But sex is the same thing, what's the fucking point? And premature ejaculation, wet dreams and blue balls, what the fuck? gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"\/r\/NoFap is bullshit"}
{"id":"b2ee4b2a-3480-4591-b143-5bfa57f4f1c2","argument":"Currently property assessment in the US is based on the value of your property and the building that sites on the property. This is problematic for several reasons. assessors must make judgement about your building value every year without knowing the technical features of the building so they are essentially guessing . It encourages larger developments on the outskirts of town where land is cheaper. This encourages urban sprawl and the social and environmental problems it creates. It doesn't force the highest and best use of a property. We should tax properties based on the lot size alone. Here's why It would encourage better development. There is no reason a person in the city should pay more taxes than a person in the suburbs with 3x the land. Our land is used poorly and suburbs are hard to redevelop. It would encourage people to only buy the land they need. They could still buy as much as they wanted, they would just know it would cost them more to do so. Creating a fair transparent metric means there is no hard math to understand, no guessing at assessment values, and most importantly, no mill rates or other formulas needed which exist to add complexity. If we taxed based on land size along it would encourage better development which would encourage people to make better choices in where the decide to live, it would encourage builders to not waste land, and it would encourage cities to remove overly large single family zoning regulations as much of the population wouldn't want to pay the associated taxes. EDIT Based on feedback, I have decided a growth boundary will be necessary around cities and everything in the boundary would be taxed the same. Agricultural land outside the boundary could not be developed until the area inside was filled out, at which time the boundary would expand. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Property taxes should be assessed based on the size of your lot and not the value of the building on the lot."}
{"id":"c39e0a1a-929f-4f87-87b9-9642016a05b2","argument":"East Asian countries include India, Pakistan, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Japan, Korea, Taiwan I would put them here as a country as of now , Hong Kong same with Taiwan's case , Philipines, Malaysia, Singapore. I'm from Hong Kong, and it has become apparent that more and more young people in Hong Kong are slowly advocating for independence as a country and not a Special Administrative Region under China i.e. remove themselves from Chinese rule to create a new country . One of the arguments for independence is that it is only through independence can Hong Kong truly get rid of any existing Chinese influence. I, personally, do not agree. I think that under the current geopolitical economical situation i.e. China expanding its influence to neighboring countries and that its economy is in a verge of change from export to consumer economy, making a statement to other countries that they are a territorial power , not only is it hard for Hong Kong to get rid of Chinese influence, it is also hard for East Asian countries to do so. A historical factor also weighs in as China had been in the past a regional power which had exerted high amounts of military force over its tributaries, with the growing of the Chinese dream and increasing conflict in Middle East taking away most of the West's attention America's plan of pivoting back to the East was not really effective under Obama's reign , it could be said that it is impossible to try to break away from Chinese influence without military retaliation. So please try to change my view thanks. P.S. Things I don't want to be argued here include whether China's rise is real i.e. are statistics made up and whether China's rise is good or bad, I hope it could be discussed in another time if possible thanks.","conclusion":"Under the current Geo-political situation, it is impossible for any East-Asian country to completely dissociate from Chinese influence without military retaliation."}
{"id":"c8e4c690-61ff-4286-b4bf-7e8f22fd290c","argument":"Back in the early days of The Onion, satire was a fun way to catch out your friends and colleagues, but only because the website was so appropriately designed and the videos were professional and clearly had a good budget. The thought process used to be it has to be real because who would put all this effort into making it otherwise? . Now it seems my Facebook news feed is flooded with badly made websites that have totally plausible titles concerning things that could actually happen but didn't. For the most part it's no longer satire, it's just lies. edit for clarity The Onion is still clearly satire. I'm talking about its copycat websites.","conclusion":"Satire news websites have reached a point where they are as unethical and misleading as click-bait sites."}
{"id":"419271ea-c479-47d1-8f49-e09581326f9d","argument":"Parents being a role model could inspire a child to have positive behaviors than negative ones. Since the parents already approve of the behaviors, less spanking occurs.","conclusion":"Leading children in a positive direction is better than punishing them for going in a negative direction."}
{"id":"9cb21be2-5dd4-4cc1-892d-a95919ddd9a7","argument":"People believe that the government must represent their values, and properly interpret them through laws and rules.","conclusion":"Unjust and unpopular laws give rise to rebellion, protests, upheaval."}
{"id":"2168822a-94b5-4043-8c73-191120725af2","argument":"I know this is a matter of opinion but I have my reasons to believe this. My view is that this is the best Holiday in the US, not any other country. 1 It's during the summer. This means that most kids aren't in school and can enjoy the time off by going to a pool or park. It makes it nice to be outside and spend time with family and friends. Plus watching fireworks at night while lying down in grass is really something you can only do in summer in the north 2 It includes every American. While Christmas or Hanukkah are a religious holidays this is not one meaning that every american can enjoy this. Also while Halloween is mostly geared at children, Fourth of July is for everyone to celebrate with their family. x200B In my opinion the only other Holiday that comes close is New Years Eve since it includes everyone, but the issue is it is during the winter so not as enjoyable.","conclusion":"Fourth of July is the best holiday in America"}
{"id":"40dfdf01-e267-4102-9721-b638d5379006","argument":"I don't feel like being super specific but I think I can describe this meaningfully. I've been in an argument with my friend about whether particular racist anti Islam demonstrations should be allowed. My friend is adamant that the government should refuse to give people who are clearly wrong and hateful a protected public platform to speak in this way. I believe that unless they are calling for literal physical harm to others is should be just as supported as other political protests. Another point I make is that although I agree that these protesters are wrong and the world would be a better place had they no tongues there is no rule you can make that silences these guys and reduces violence but not risk impinging other people's legitimate political views as well. Also, cracking down on idea can sometimes cause it to grow. Basically, my head says my above argument is right but my heart wants these idiots to shut up. Can you change my view?","conclusion":"there is no better policy than free speech"}
{"id":"0799ba39-9091-4ec3-9566-05e154318788","argument":"Populations have an interest in controlling who enters their country as an aspect of their national sovereignty. Illegal immigration trespasses on that interest.","conclusion":"Accepting undocumented\/illegal immigration undermines the integrity of the legal process and authority of law."}
{"id":"15046396-6b6e-48b4-9bdf-b1dd42eea2a5","argument":"It becomes easy for governments to control public narrative through limiting speech, leading to societies becoming vulnerable to private interests.","conclusion":"When governments limit free speech they often do so for their own political interests, rather than the common good."}
{"id":"9832d60b-cef6-459d-831c-2a8458191b5e","argument":"TV shows throughout Europe are becoming less informative and more sensational, a European watchdog has found","conclusion":"TV makes\/keeps people dumb and is becoming increasingly more stupid."}
{"id":"6fc317d3-3af1-4857-a0d5-22c649e31c93","argument":"In California we are experiencing a severe drought. As an individual, I won't likely be able to make a huge dent in the water consumption of the state. That said, I want to do everything that I can. I already take shower water and water my plants with them. Lights are almost always off in my house except for the room that we are in. The lawn is yellowing and is watered at most twice per week. One of the other things I was looking at though was dish washing. I know that most modern machines use on the order of 6 gallons of water 22 liters per wash for a full load. With regards to washing a full load of dishes in the dishwasher vs hand washing, it's a no contest, dishwasher is more efficient. This of course assumes no pre washing, but pre clearing of macrodebris which is what most dishwashers are supposed to be capable of . That said, in our household, we often don't produce enough dishes for a full load. So options for using the dishwasher are to 1 use it when not completely full, 2 store dishes in there until it is full and then use the dishwasher. In situation 1 , If its only a few dishes, I feel that with water saving techniques mainly not having the faucet fully on when it is on, and not using it until you are ready to rinse is going to use less then the 6 gallons the dishwasher will use as long as its only a few dishes say 1 2 pots, 3 4 dishes and a a pair of forks and spoons In situation 2 , if you store dishes in the dish washer and wait until it's full, any sauces will tend to dry out and harden, so you either prewash them which negates a lot of the water advantage of the dishwasher or you have stuck on grime that won't come off, in which case you have to rewash them by hand anyway, making it a water loser. So  I should wash by hand unless we have a fresh sink full of dishes in which case we should use the dishwasher.","conclusion":"Washing dishes by hand is more efficient than using a dishwasher in our household."}
{"id":"50ff4ac7-4ed1-4acd-aea1-167e6a0768ab","argument":"I was speaking to someone on Reddit the other day that disagreed with this. Unfortunately, the thread got deleted before I could explore it more. Please discuss this with me if you disagree and think it's equal between both or harder for women. Let's assume the age is 18 30 because that is the extent of my knowledge although I wouldn't mind input from older people . Here are my reasons for thinking that online dating is harder for the average man There is a bigger pool of men on these sites, so there's greater competition Greater competition means that men spend more time making their profiles good go to r tinder or something and see how many rate my profile posts are men and not women . Men are expected to the first messagers. Because of this, men have to think of ways to stand out from the crowd for every woman they find interesting, meaning going through the woman's profile and conjuring a good opening every time. This means more work put in for the man. Women get more choice of who they want to date. They can choose from the men that have messaged them first men can't . If that's not working, they can message the guy first and the guy is more likely to respond. The lack of messages men get for the amount of women they like is disheartening. Very few men use online dating sites as an ego boost. Often times men are left guessing. Women can choose to be the first messagers and do online dating the way men do if they wanted to, so whatever advantages men have women can have too. Even though an equal number of men and women end up in successful relationships may suggest that the difficulty is equal, I would argue that the male put in more effort in to make that happen. I will admit that it's not easy for either gender. Women have it hard too. But men have it harder. edit further evidence on some of the above points gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The average man has it harder than the average woman in online dating."}
{"id":"1dd37431-37b5-4b84-913a-e6190f79eae0","argument":"Because people don't think about what it's called, people would have been PC for a longer time than the name has been around, from saving Jews from the holocaust, to giving rights to woman and minorities.","conclusion":"The social backlash caused by non-PC speech is not a result of PC itself, but because the speech is an affront to the values of the listeners."}
{"id":"0555e309-5c5c-401a-90dc-6273b9acae82","argument":"In light of the Synagogue shooting and the pipe bomb mailer, I've seen a lot of people pointing fingers. I firmly believe that saying The press is the enemy of the people is not inciting violence. Fox News and the NRA does not incite violence against specific groups of people. Don Lemon saying The biggest threat to America is white men is not inciting violence. People who commit these acts have agency. x200B Inciting violence is specifically advocating for violence. Saying All lt insert race gt are criminal scum, now that could possibly be hate speech, but it is not inciting violence, or violent rhetoric. The fact that we cannot come to a cohesive agreement on what constitutes hate speech, free speech, and violence really illustrates how important and nuanced issues of free speech and censorship are. It highlights how important it is to have very narrowly defined definitions for such things, to avoid this hyper partisanship shrouded in ambiguity. x200B I say this as someone somewhat right of center who believes that dangerous and nasty ideas are sometimes the price we pay to live in a free and open society. I would not support a Socialist revolution, but I am not about to advocate for banning Marxist books in schools, although I consider it a violent, dangerous, and deeply flawed ideology. x200B The whole idea that mainstream right wing speakers talk in super secret dog whistles, ascribing hateful and violent intent to people, thereby justifying a violent response, is basically saying We are the ones who get to interpret what you say, we get to set the definition for hate speech, and we get to decide who and what gets censored. Under this guise of dog whistles, someone doesn't have to actually say something that clearly incites violence to be censored. They can make an argument against the morality of welfare programs, or religious extremism, or against multinational banking corporations. But to the dog whistle experts, this isn't to be taken at face value. It's actually an appeal to their racist, hateful base, riling them up and promoting violence against certain minorities. I'm not saying that the concept of a dog whistle is inherently flawed, and that modern day racists are not more nuanced in their language. I'm just saying that ascribing malicious intention to someone else's statement and using that as grounds to censor and deplatform them is a dangerous road that leads down the path to authoritarianism. I don't have the right to to speak for you, and you don't have the right to speak for me.","conclusion":"Dogwhistles are a Bad Justification to Censor and Deplatform Opposition"}
{"id":"dca572c9-80d1-4844-af5c-eaf658764970","argument":"Some lawyers argue that 85% of cases litigated are won or lost when the jury is selected, implying that facts are not impartially or consistently considered.","conclusion":"Juries are more likely to be swayed in their decision making by emotional or irrational factors."}
{"id":"9e85c958-c7a0-4f92-8a3b-53659602a8a8","argument":"Consider two scenarios for a couple. We'll assume a straight man and straight woman. The gender roles can be reversed I assigned these roles arbitrarily. x200B a . The woman loves her partner. But she expects him to not develop friendships with any other woman in his life. She expects him to not privately text any woman, and to not be on a private call with any woman for more than a reasonable amount of time. She expects him to not like or upvote pictures of women he finds hot on Instagram. She expects him to not watch porn or jerk off to it. Everybody on the internet agrees that these are unreasonable expectations. The consensus is along these lines She is insecure and needs to work on her insecurities. He loves her and cares for her, so she clearly has a problem of insecurity jealousy. She appears to be jealous, and jealousy leads to an unhealthy, dysfunctional relationship . x200B b . The woman loves her partner. But she expects sexual exclusivity once they're together. This is pretty much implied before they begin their relationship. Standard monogamy. x200B Here though, almost everyone on the internet agrees that this is a very valid, reasonable expectation. However, the expectation is still rooted in insecurity and jealousy. If not, why demand sexual exclusivity from a partner instead of an open marriage or an open relationship? If insecurity and jealousy lead to an unhealthy relationship, then any monogamous relationship is unhealthy by definition because each person puts a leash on the other person's freedom to have sex with other people. What does that leash accomplish? It only serves to calm our insecurities. What is the difference between me jerking off to porn vs. me having sex with a stranger in a monogamous relationship? In both cases, I'm getting my sexual desires satisfied without my SO being involved in it. What does sexual exclusivity hope to accomplish in a relationship? Why is cheating considered such a horrible thing to do vs. breaking other agreed upon rules in a relationship, like jerking off to porn? x200B Man who jerks off to porn finds other women hot Normal human being, being reasonable Man has sex with another woman Cheater who has no respect for his wife x200B Nobody ever questions the monogamous foundation of a monogamous relationship. They just sort of accept it as normal . x200B This screams hypocrisy and double standards to me. x200B","conclusion":"Monogamy is based on a double standard."}
{"id":"074f732f-aab5-4f02-a5d8-b15b9faebda9","argument":"The energy for the EV can be produced locally eliminating the need for long transports of oil.","conclusion":"EVs are more environmentally friendly than fossil fuel cars REORGANISATION IN PROGRESS"}
{"id":"b8880120-663f-4b9b-9ec5-84830e37d310","argument":"By requiring all business to display calorie counts, any negative effect of such an act would have less of an impact on any restaurant, because everyone would have it, preventing consumers from wrongly thinking a restaurant that doesn't show calories is more healthy than one that doesn't.","conclusion":"No restaurant will be disadvantaged if all are required to list calories."}
{"id":"253d7063-e93e-4d79-a4b8-ca7768436d91","argument":"So I've never seen this particular topic on , which is surprising, as I thought it would be one of the primary arguments against the Democratic Party's support for gun control. So when Obama, Diane Feinstein, Piers Morgan or whoever it is makes a speech, writes an article etc supporting gun control, they only use the term gun violence, and never overall homicide or violent crime. I believe this is due to the gun control makes us safer argument becoming very weak without the term gun violence . I think that saying more guns more gun violence is dishonest, due to it implying that more gun violence means more violence overall. I'm Australian, our government and the majority of our people support the major gun control legislation passed in 1996 and 2002, citing the reduction in gun violence that followed. They fail to mention that following the restrictions, knife crime rose to replace the fall in gun crime, overall homicide rates went up, and armed robbery rose dramatically, not going down to pre 1996 rates until eight years later. I'm not saying that literally less guns more crime, because I don't know of any study supporting that claim, but it's pretty clear that Australia was not a safer country as a result of the laws. This case of gun ownership not affecting overall violent crime or homicide also seems to extend to the US. This Washington Post article claims that there isn't a correlation between a Brady rating general idea of gun control laws and rates of homicide. so tl dr I think gun control doesn't reduce overall violence or homicide and those claiming that gun violence being reduced is a good thing are dishonest, because the term gun violence should only signify a proportion of violence being committed with guns. AIC statistics about crime in Australia","conclusion":"\"Gun violence\" is a loaded and slightly dishonest term"}
{"id":"f163bf68-0f60-44e5-90cc-fddcae014a97","argument":"It has recently come to my attention that nobody respects trash collectors as much as most children do. Lots of children love garbage men. Some children idolize trash collectors, and even aspire to be them. However, something happens as we grow up. For the most part, trash collectors lose their magic. We no longer support them like children do. Why is this? Trash collectors are still heroes. They deal with our waste they are a pivotal part of society. They are essentially dealing with all the things we deem useless, and have no problem taking these things away from us. This often leads to them taking many things we would deem disgusting. Some although, I understand it's probably not most trash collectors even go through our disgusting trash and take out our recyclables for us. While that practice probably isn't a majority yet, it's still highlighting a potential that trash collectors have. It takes a very special type of person to be a garbage man they have to be able to deal with our sometimes disgusting waste. They are heroes. Given the definition of heroes a person who is admired or idealized for courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities. Trash collectors provide and service us with outstanding and pivotal achievements, as part of their jobs. Their noble qualities and courage comes with their ability to deal with our waste. The only reason why they don't fit the definition of heroes per se is because they are not typically admired by or idealized for the heroic qualities they possess. However, I argue that our collective perceptions of garbage men are flawed, as they are in fact deserving of being called heroes.","conclusion":"Garbage-men are heroes."}
{"id":"277b0b8d-2e0f-420f-a173-4e26280b0663","argument":"If you have not seen the movie and you don't want to see spoilers then please stop reading and go back. Change My View it's possible that Kylo Ren will come back from the Dark Side at the end of Episode IX and not be killed. The coldness with which he killed his father on that bridge was truly horrifying and it means his character definitely deserves to die a horrible death at the hands of either Luke or Rey before Episode IX is concluded. But the number of times Han and Leia discuss the good in him as well as the little 'talk' he has with his grandfather's mask lead me to believe Abrams and Kasdan will write a redemption into his character arc. Why am I wrong?","conclusion":"about The Force Awakens SPOILERS"}
{"id":"88740dcf-a13c-4611-b59c-0aa8f274f56f","argument":"For the past 3 years I've worked between 50 60 hours per week between two jobs and paid on average, roughly 20 of my income in federal taxes and an additional 6 in state taxes. The current proposed federal tax plan, tax reform will drop me closer to the 14 range by my own math. Saving me roughly about 8,000 per year. Tell me why I shouldn't welcome back the money I've already earned and support the current legislation. I hold the belief that I am the the best judge of how he use my own money. Furthermore, I suggest that the fruits of one owns labor should be enjoyed by the worker.","conclusion":"I want tax cuts and support the current tax reform."}
{"id":"5d71c406-79dd-4e2d-a580-590525afc43a","argument":"I do not think that there is any good reason for a man to seek to have a partner count above 10 women in his lifetime. In order to express my view I will establish what I believe the reasons for a man having sex are reproduction, pleasure, romantic love, expression of dominance over women, expression of dominance over men, finding someone of a higher compatibility, understanding yourself and ego fulfillment. I believe that all of these reasons are better fulfilled with having a partner count below 10 possibly even lower but I am going to say 10 since I am mostly arguing against men who have had sex with 50 women rather than men who have sex with 8 women Reproduction is no longer a reason to have sex with lots of women since most times women use birth control during casual sex it was a historical reason but it does not apply now. Pleasure is higher in a committed relationship than in casual sex because in a committed relationship you get to know the person more and try out things you would otherwise not be able to try, additionally, you get to have sex more because you have a reliable partner. Romantic love is absent in casual sex. One might make a point of it being nontransactional or something to claim that casual sex is more genuine but this genuineness is inconsequential and if one had sex early in a long term relationship one can make the exact same claim about it. It is also present in long term relationships that have genuine sexual attraction in them which is how they should be. There is no dominance over women for men that are engaging in casual sex. It may seem like getting a woman to have sex with you is a sort of dominance or conquest thing but the fact that these men have to put so much of their time into having many partners places them effectively in the same situation to women as an individual member of the proletariat is a wage slave to the bourgeoise as a class. Just engaging in bdsm or even just being dominant in the relationship in a non abusive manner could satisfy this and if one cares enough then engaging in abuse would contribute to it. Being dominant over men through beating them in sexual competition or by having sex with their partners is generally not present in modern casual sex. Although in many cases it is technically true that one is making other men unable to have casual sex when you are having casual sex the degree of deprivation you give them is rather small and you do not get to see them suffer. I am thinking about causal sex through dating apps, this is different in the bar scene . If you desire this the best thing to do would be sexually pursuing married women and if you very strongly desire it then telling the men afterwards. Having sex with multiple people before entering into marriage could be a good way of ensuring that you end up with someone you know you are compatible with. If you marry your first partner then you might not realize that you would be happier with someone else since you have only ever experienced one person. This is a legitimate point but I doubt that more than 10 partners would be necessary to achieve this. Self understanding could be gained through having multiple romantic relationships. Going through the breakup process may actually make some people grow and some men may gain confidence by knowing that they are able to find another partner after a breakup. I think that there would be diminishing returns on this and it would have negligible benefit well before 10 partners. Finally, there is the simple ego fulfillment of having a large number to brag about. Supposedly there is an age where a large number just isn't impressive anymore. Additionally, however, the number itself is not very meaningful since it does not take into account the attractiveness of the partners. A man bragging about having 50 partners would want to give the impression that the partners are all 10 10s but it is more likely that they will tend to be 3 10s and he is just pursuing them for the sole purpose of this fetishized number. He could try to give some sort of adjusted metric taking into account both attractiveness and number of partners but this is abstract enough to no longer have any cvisceral meaning at all. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"There is no good reason for a man to have sex with more than 10 women in his lifetime"}
{"id":"6f86c397-1085-4042-aeb5-702f7b1b6cac","argument":"Empirical research studies have shown childhood exposure to \u2018The Arts\u2019 in general has a demonstrably positive influence on a child\u2019s cognitive growth and that exposure to nudity, whether in the public domain or at home, is similarly not harmful, but beneficial to a child\u2019s mental development. This would suggest that neither nudity in the visual arts, nor in real life pose any harm for children.","conclusion":"The notion that exposure to nudity is harmful to a child\u2019s cognitive growth or mental development, is an idea that has been normalized in opposition to mounting evidence stating otherwise."}
{"id":"8fa20872-2fd3-41f6-9bc3-a60c8964c223","argument":"Here is my view on the subject. Retarded used to be a standard medical term, once it came it to common use people began using it as an insult. Since then it is not PC to use that term to refer to anyone with a disability. Now we have other terms for that. I understand how it could have previously been offensive. Yet other outdated medical terms such as moron, lame, etc aren't offensive. I still run into people who take great offense to the term. Here is a quick example Memester to friend You're retarded. Girl You really shouldn't say that, my brother is mentally handicapped. Now in this example, the only way I can see her being offended is if she sees her brother as a retard . I just don't understand how people can argue this is still offensive. Please, .","conclusion":"The term retard is not offensive."}
{"id":"581a8388-908d-4269-9ee2-a1af7ed9ec20","argument":"European leaders must take a stand on human rights in their own back yard if they are to be taken seriously on the issue anywhere in the world. There are numerous human rights abuses in Ukraine; migrants \"risk abusive treatment and arbitrary detention\", Roma and people with dark skin in particular face governmental and societal discrimination and some xenophobic attacks and may be prosecuted for acting in self defense.1 Amnesty International has highlighted abuse of power by the police \u201cnumerous cases in Euro 2012 host cities in which police have tortured people in an attempt to extort money, extract a confession, or simply because of the victims\u2019 sexuality or ethnic origin\u201d.2 If Europe turns a blind eye to these kinds of abuses in neighbouring states without even a minor diplomatic snub it will not have the moral authority to confront worse abuses elsewhere in the world. States that are abusing their own citizens would shrug off criticism believing that European states will not back their criticism up with any action. 1 Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, \u20182010 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices Report\u2019, U.S. Department of State, 8 April 2011. 2 \u2018Ukraine: Euro 2012 jeopardised by criminal police force \u2013 New Amnesty report\u2019, Amnesty.org.uk, 2 May 2012.","conclusion":"Boycotting Euro 2012 will highlight Ukraine\u2019s backsliding on human rights"}
{"id":"26a38cc7-985b-4b2b-8454-af3022450b23","argument":"Piggybacking off of the earlier  about biological immortality and had some quick thoughts in response that I thought I would share here. My  has two components Biological immortality will most likely arise due to nanobots. Eventually we will be able to send nano scaled size robots that will be able to identify a disease or bacteria we program it to, identify cancerous cells and neutralize them. A nanobot pill will become like the wonder pill which will be able to cure any disease, and maybe even repair damaged tissue. It will become impossible to die and antibiotics and chemotherapy will be viewed as barbaric tools like how we view blood letting now used to cure humans given the side effects they impose . You can change my view by pointing out how nanobots will not arise in immortality, or if there is a more plausible way in which immortality can be achieved in which case nanobots is not the most plausible approach . You can also change my view by demonstrating how we won't look back on chemotherapy and antibiotics as crude barbaric approaches to cure humans. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Nanobots are the most plausible route through which we can attain biological immortality. In the future, we will look back on antibiotics and chemotherapy as barbaric, crude and primitive, tools of the past."}
{"id":"6119c580-c496-4d45-8166-03f998c78671","argument":"I've recently noticed several similarities between guns and drugs They can be used for legitimate purposes, but are often abused Many good people use guns to hunt or to protect their homes, and this is fine, but many people are irresponsible with them and end up harming themselves. Same with drugs. Many people use prescription drugs for legitimate health problems, yet people often abuse drugs to get high. Another argument is that people should not be protected from themselves. If this is true, then we should legalize all drugs so as to let people be responsible for their actions. There are a few more that I can't articulate right now, so maybe I will in the comments. Either both guns and drugs should be legal, or illegal, but it is hypocritical to advocate for one without the other. They should have equal status. I'm interested to see what you all have to say Thank you for all your replies. I think my view still stays the same, but now I have a better understanding of why they do not have the same status and the differences between the two when before I only saw the similarities. One last thought Guns don't kill people, people kill people. Drugs don't kill people, people kill themselves with drugs .","conclusion":"If Guns are legal, all drugs should be legal, or vice versa."}
{"id":"fbf85de4-dc40-464a-8915-1a3c174cf420","argument":"Around 35 to 45 percent of wealth is inherited therefore a system in which wealth is taxed rather than income would be more fair for those who are lower\/middle class and gain most of their wealth from income.","conclusion":"The US Should Implement a Wealth Tax for the Super Rich"}
{"id":"0b41c858-5b0e-4447-8766-fa9ca0ae3e79","argument":"In today\u2019s multi-cultural societies, there are many Muslims, Hindus, Jews, atheists, etc. Christmas has no religious meaning for people who do not share a Christian background and they will not celebrate 25th December as a special day. It is offensive to such groups to force a Christian festival on them, either through public displays such as school nativities or outdoor crib scenes, or by personal greetings that encourage them to join in the celebration of Jesus\u2019 birth. We should be more sensitive to the feelings of those around us and keep any Christian celebration for family and church.","conclusion":"In today\u2019s multi-cultural societies, there are many Muslims, Hindus, Jews, atheists, etc. Christmas..."}
{"id":"e8a23442-05c8-42e2-a0b2-4aa056e7a2ce","argument":"Swatting a child's hand away from a hot burner may inflict pain in a non-consenting person, but it prevents greater pain.","conclusion":"Disciplining a person may cause pain in a non-consenting person, but is seen as helpful."}
{"id":"48b7ec90-df97-4dbc-b334-e7185446df9f","argument":"I believe that the Federal and State government should give the same rights to Civil Unions granted by the state and Marriages granted by religious organizations . I believe that the State should not be able to Marry two people, and Religious organizations should not be able to give Civil Union to two people. This way Civil Unions and Marriages are equal legally, but differ only by how you obtain them. Civil Unions can be granted by the state to either gay or straight couples. And Marriages can be granted by Religious organizations based on their own decision to give or not. E.G. If the Souther Baptist Church of Homophobia does not want to marry John and his partner James then they don't have to. However, the state cannot turn John and his partner away when applying for Civil Unions. Let's make this part clear though, these things would be LEGALLY THE SAME. Same rights, just different in name. The reason I believe this is because Marriage as we know it has always been religious. The only non religious marriages were more like what we would consider Union's of convenience . The Romans had 3 types of civil unions not marriages. Confarreatio Which literally means ceremony. It was just the passing of a rich woman to a rich man to strengthen family ties. Coemptio which literally means sale or purchase. It was a average or poor Roman male purchasing a woman from her previous family. Usus which is use or utilization. Was what we would consider friends with benefits the two people would agree to give each other their things after death. The one which is closest to our modern Marriage is the Confarreatio which was presided over by the Priests of Rome and therefore was a religious meaning to it. If you want to know more about Roman Weddings so you don't think I'm BSing you go ahead and read this In short, there were no weddings outside of religious organizations. Coemptios and Usus' would not have ceremonies. They would just agree to it, make it legal and live together. e I'm in no way saying that people can't have weddings if they get civil unions.","conclusion":"I believe that there should be Civil Unions and Marriages, identical in every way except name and source."}
{"id":"1ceb83ce-c7f0-482e-913f-174db66159bf","argument":"What I mean is creating a child is selfish. I'm all for adoption, but most people would rather have a child with their own DNA because they might think there is a stronger bond between blood. If you don't love an adopted child as much as you would your own child then you shouldn't be a parent at all . I know not everyone can adopt and its a long process but not everyone needs to be a parent. People romanticize having a family or creating a family like its just something one does. Overpopulation is a real issue. Why don't we worry about the kids that are already here?","conclusion":"Having a child is a selfish act"}
{"id":"198d9335-dcee-4a09-aea7-cc30a1360696","argument":"I think self driving cars are really cool and interesting technologically, but they also carry a lot of dangers. I am sure that in the far future maybe in 100, or 150 years there will be machines with really advanced AI artificial intelligence , but right now this is not the case you cannot simply use a software on your PC to do your office work instead of you, write your school assignment, or even chat with you convincingly for a longer time see Turing test, computers still cannot really pass it well . Of course, there are relatively good software AIs for computer games, e.g. shooter or strategy games although they can be quite stupid sometime or good chess playing AIs. But these are pretty much closed environments not too many unexpected things can happen in an online Counter Strike match or in a chess game. \u25ba Now driving is much more an automatic task than speaking with someone the latter requires a lot of creativity , but on the road also a lot of things can happen people often drive stupidly, there can be unexpected objects or even people on the road e.g. drunken people try to cross the traffic , wild animals, and so on. It also requires a lot of creativity to handle these situations, and if you or a machines makes a bad decision, it can lead to road deaths. Yeah, human drivers also cause many accidents on the road but I think it will be a long time until self driving cars or realistic chat robots will be ready to do tasks done now by humans. \u25ba Also, these computers can be hacked or infected by viruses , this could be also the source of deadly accidents , or even intentional murders Imagine that you go out for a drive on a sunny weekend day and suddenly your car speeds up to 120 MPH and drives into a bunch of people. If a terrorist group wants to murder a politician or businessman this would be the perfect tool for that Some related links \u25baEDIT clarification, added the part about hacking and viruses \u263a \u25baEDIT 2 Please note, that I am NOT saying that I personally want to ban the self driving cars . I am simply trying to predict the reaction of societies. I think this technology is cool, but not advanced enough yet, given the slow progress of general AI research. \u25baEDIT 3 Right now there are about 1.2 million deaths on the roads per year, anything less would be better.","conclusion":"I think after the first deadly accident of a self-driving car e.g. Google's model the technology will be banned in most countries."}
{"id":"1eebdf61-0a81-4379-a2ad-2d1f38aa5554","argument":"So here is a risque topic that always gets my LGBT friends' panties in a bunch. I'll start off by saying that I do respect the LGBT community. And not to say I did so I can say but one of my best friends is actually a female and identifies as male. I live in Raleigh, NC where the LGBT community is very high strung and very alive. Now, by the title, you can definitely get my point. There is no other as far as sex. If you are male to female, you are, in fact, male. If you are female to male, you are female. You are not other and other should not be allowed on any form of legal documents. If it was born a duck, but identifies as acts like a goose, why is the duck requesting to be as other on his driver's license? That doesn't even make sense. also, ducks can't drive ? A transvestite by definitions is Someone who dresses in clothing generally identified with the opposite gender sex. The majority of transvestites are heterosexual males who derive pleasure from dressing in \u201cwomen\u2019s clothing\u201d. They are male and should not be listed as female anywhere. What I'm saying is, it doesn't matter what your sexual orientation is. It doesn't matter if you have a penis and boobs. Or a vagina and balls. Or nothing at all. There is no such thing as other . I saw something called Third Gender 1 a person who does not identify with the traditional genders of \u201cman\u201d or \u201cwoman,\u201d but identifies with another gender 2 the gender category available in societies that recognize three or more genders. That is gender, not sex. If you are said third gender and you want to have other as a form of Sex on a document, that is no good, confusing, and unnecessary. gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than just downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I believe a person's \"sex\" is male or female. There is no middle ground with the exception of hermaphrodites"}
{"id":"b8e6f3a5-062c-427f-aad4-62f835bc7478","argument":"Blockchain acts as a transparent distributed database of Bitcoin transactions, making them near-impossible to falsify","conclusion":"Bitcoin is located on the blockchain which is virtually impossible to compromise."}
{"id":"5f31cb99-d385-4f22-8fd6-efbbff0c2c3f","argument":"People in polygamous realtionships do not need to lie to each other, which makes it easier to trust each other.","conclusion":"Divorces could be prevented if cheating partners were able to convince their current partner to consent to polygamy."}
{"id":"764850fc-000c-4d2b-bbfd-f6650f141a2c","argument":"Turkey has developed a network of allies in the Middle East, such as Qatar, which the EU has been seeking to \"enhance bilateral relations\" with.","conclusion":"Turkey and the EU are important strategic allies geopolitically, both in need of each other."}
{"id":"a5b0a35c-52c9-4aed-acf2-be98deace2c4","argument":"First I want to say I spelled Kaepernick right on the first try. Colin Kaepernick's demonstration has changed the course of America forever because he has given every single American the platform to protest peacefully. Every person can participate in the kneeling of the national anthem. It doesn't matter what you support, but kneeling for the national anthem shows that you are acknowledging a flaw in the American government without raising arms. I can see this phenomena going on for years. Kneeling for the national anthem will and has already gone beyond football. Meghan Rapino has kneeled during the national anthem at USA women's soccer games in other countries, Basketball players are uniting, but it goes beyond that. I can see children refusing to stand during the pledge of allegiance at schools. This is one of my key points. Children will learn that you do not have to agree with everything the government does. Children will grow up thinking and knowing that the American system is flawed rather than the greatest democracy on the earth. I believe there could be one day where everyone kneels during the national anthem to recognize that there may be flaws in our way of life. I do not want to say that this is a bad thing, I believe it is a good thing. People need to know that laws can be changed, people can be changed. People do not have have to stand by and watch atrocities happen. I don't want to stray away from my key message with not fully thought out points. But there is no foreseeable future where people will stop kneeling for the national anthem. There will continue to be injustices therefore there will always be a reason to kneel. edit I feel as if people are losing my core message. Colin Kaepernick has given generations a way to peacefully protest the government. It doesn't mater on which issue. The biggest reason I've seen is because its been done before. But with our new media climate, his way of protesting has gotten and will continue to get more coverage. Edit I have to work I'll check back in a hour Edit Delta's awarded. Yay peaceful discussions","conclusion":"Colin Kaepernick has changed the course of America forever."}
{"id":"b36d343d-fcef-410a-bcd5-56c28b996404","argument":"If the test is performed before every sale, it would be a huge administrative burden which could lead to some tests being done improperly.","conclusion":"It is difficult to accurately assess the consent of a person to use drugs."}
{"id":"176357d4-92b3-423b-a54c-a3756ac969cd","argument":"A single hit from a blaster rifle in Star Wars is enough to knock a Stormtrooper to the ground why bother? The point of armour is to protect you. Modern soldiers and police forces wear Kevlar and ceramic plates as armour to stop a stray shot from being immediately lethal, because otherwise all it does is add unnecessary weight to you. If you are in a sci fi universe, and you're covering yourself head to toe in this suit which limits your mobility and vision, and it doesn't even protect you from being hit once, then really all the armour does is hinder you. Stormtroopers should ditch the armour. Partial delta for u EyeceEyeceBaby for this comment gt Fair points. The easiest answer involves a bit of sci fi hand waving, which is probably not what you're looking for. That aside, immobilization could be a feature. If the armor detects a blast or wound serious enough to be potentially fatal, it puts the trooper in some sort of stasis and begins emergency medical treatment perhaps administering a small dose of bacta automatically .","conclusion":"Stormtroopers shouldn't wear armour"}
{"id":"0abc41f7-ecab-41de-b457-4d025ef552b4","argument":"Stannis Baratheon just barbecued his daughter and was completely justified in doing so. In fact he was morally required to. First semi aside Melisandre has proven magical powers. She's a sadistic psychopathic religious zealot but she didn't just knock on Stannis' door and ask her to speak about the fire lord. She has delivered before under similar circumstances and trusting her to do so now is reasonable. Now the real point The lives potentially and actually saved by Shireen's sacrifice somewhere between a few dozen and everyone in Westeros for the next million years demanded it. Stannis' men are dying in the snow. He loses more every day of the siege. His camp will break before Winterfell does, and his forces cannot overcome Winterfell's defenses. He can neither continue the siege nor attack. Is Shireen's life worth ten of his men's? A hundred? A thousand? The lives of everyone who stands to starve or be killed by the Bolton's if he fails? The lives of everyone in the North, present and future, who would suffer under the Bolton administration? Is it worth the lives of the millions who will die and the many more millions who will never be born if the Long Night falls once again? Against those stakes the life of one person must be sacrificed for even the most minimal bump to humanity's chances for success. Even if she's a sympathetic little girl who didn't sign up for this and who we are made to, rightly, like. Wasn't she just going to die in the snow or suffer some terrible fate as a Bolton captive if things kept going as they were anyway? This is the classic ethical hypothetical about whether or not you should throw a switch to kill a cable car with 10 people in it in order to avoid a catastrophe that will kill 100. Stannis has thrown the switch on his own daughter for, at a minimum, the end of a siege where people are dying in droves and will result in the victory of a family of vicious tyrants. On the upper end of the possible scale, the stakes are the safety of Westeros from the White Walkers for the next hundred thousand years. This was an agonizing sacrifice for him to make but it was done in the credible service of a battle where the consequences very well may include the future of everything. And given the situation, Shireen probably didn't lose a long life of regal comfort wisely ruling Westeros so much as she lost a short life of freezing until she was killed by the elements or the Boltons. Stannis did nothing wrong. .","conclusion":"Stannis did nothing wrong all show spoilers"}
{"id":"77358fe3-432b-4587-9cf3-206ec17c0811","argument":"Moroni a character in the Book of Mormon, says that the Lord commanded him to \"seal up\" the golden plates and a set of magical interpreters Ether 4:5 Moroni 10:2 \"And I seal up these records, after I have spoken a few words by exhortation unto you.\"","conclusion":"The Book of Mormon teaches that a protective magical \"seal\" was put on the golden plates and a set of magical \"interpreters\" prior to their burial in the hill Cumorah"}
{"id":"63a43941-2177-4afb-9ba4-4af25f827f44","argument":"In some instances, Catalan citizens have seeked the aid of other countries when their government uses archaic laws such as sedition and rebellion to imprison them, and when doubts are raised about the impartiality of the courts.","conclusion":"The European Union must defend citizens and not member state governments."}
{"id":"212ff98a-6598-4d38-af86-b744c7bd4cca","argument":"If religion was just a by-product of human's characteristics, it would not have become the dominant organizing system of every society on earth. This demonstrates that it was a useful adaptation and not a maladaption at least at the time.","conclusion":"According to Jonahtan Haidt's research religion may have been part of human evolution, helping make group-level evolution possible through cooperation, by way of morality. Without beliefs in omniscient judges of morality, it may have never been applied."}
{"id":"c11861ca-428b-4ced-b953-4df20378a3eb","argument":"I think the recent feminist push particularly yesallwomen in reaction to the shootings is taking away from the central point of despite Elliot Rodger being sexist, if mental health were a bigger issue and looked at more closely then the shooting potentially would not have happened. I'm all for feminism, do recognize that women face daily challenges men don't, and that there is a definitive misogyny in our culture, but taking a shooting that happened because of someone's mental health and spinning it for your own cause is unneeded and hurtful to the original problem. . Edit For clarification I don't think this is soley a mental health issue, or that sexism didn't play a part in what happened. Edit2 Thanks for the great discussion guys. It's very easy to feel attacked when you post threads like this but I haven't felt that way at all I'd like to commend everyone on their ability to talk about differing view points and opinions instead of just arguing.","conclusion":"I think the Elliot Rodger recent California shooting is a mental health issue, and that by turning it into a feminist issue you subtract from the original problem."}
{"id":"6f13f243-7a5d-417d-8e68-e50696c35ecc","argument":"Constitutional change should be difficult. Other similar constitutional changes have required a 2\/3 majority vote whereas the 'leave' vote passed on the narrowest of margins in the few days\/weeks that polling favored 'leave'.youtube.com","conclusion":"It's totally normal, prudent and sensible that whenever a decision with irrevocable consequences has to be taken, those taking it are asked to reconfirm their decision."}
{"id":"ff6875b1-3429-4150-af6a-db787155f954","argument":"We also need to consider the repercussions for the children when their parents do not get along. Rather than force them to grow up in a loveless household, their parents should be able to split up and go their separate ways.","conclusion":"We also need to consider the repercussions for the children when their parents do not get along. Rat..."}
{"id":"9381cb48-e9d9-4531-aa1e-3209a372446f","argument":"Deeming something as \"hate speech\" is more often than not simply a way to silence someone with a different opinion.","conclusion":"Hate speech is just offensive speech; offense is not a justifiable reason for legal sanctions."}
{"id":"8989ed3b-ba7e-4035-9121-a1ab8d3d508e","argument":"Within a historical context, making necrophilia a taboo makes perfect sense. It violates the religious sanctity of a persons corpse, the obvious health concerns, and of course being a rather rare fetish makes it an easily targeted behavior. But in a more modern light, it is one of the least harmful fringe fetishes. Assuming a necrophiliac is able to obtain the deceased body of a formerly consenting adult, and is willing to assume the health risks associated with their behavior, there is no reason to stop them. Necrophilia, unlike other sexual fetishes like pedophilia, doesn\u2019t necessitate the harming of another person. An inanimate body is exactly that, inanimate. It is, for all intents and purposes especially to the necrophiliac , a sex toy little more than a means to a sexual end. I don\u2019t pretend to understand why a person would be attracted to a dead body, in fact I understand very little about sexual psychology. But I do know that necrophilia can be enjoyed in a safe and moral way if given the proper means, unlike many other taboo fetishes. Getting rid of the social stigma around necrophilia could have a significant impact on those with the fetish, and perhaps make them less likely to commit violent crimes to achieve their sexual goals.","conclusion":"Necrophilia is a harmless fetish that shouldn\u2019t be demonized the same way other predatory fetishes like pedophilia are"}
{"id":"a22d1829-d191-4ede-8f4f-b44babd78739","argument":"Tuberculosis is known as one of the most deadliest disease in the world. The disease is spread by bacteria through the air often affecting the lungs. This is why urban areas are more prone to the disease. If it is airborne then masks are awesome.","conclusion":"Spreading the use of sanitary facial masks is the best way to prevent airborne diseases."}
{"id":"4d4d023c-75fa-444b-95cf-b3433c2530c4","argument":"Just as one can benefit from the scientific insight of people who were racist Einstein or benefit from the political and social change brought forth by a sexist Gandhi, should be able to enjoy art from creators who are morally questionable, assuming the art in itself does not carry ideas or messages that are morally reprehensible.","conclusion":"Everyone who makes the world worse in one way can make it better in another."}
{"id":"439eeee4-1465-40ca-8537-082e8a19af73","argument":"R.G. Frey, D.Phil, Professor of Philosophy, Bowling Green State University. \"The Fear of a Slippery Slope,\" Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide: For and Against. 1998 - \"Especially with regard to taking life, slippery slope arguments have long been a feature of the ethical landscape, used to question the moral permissibility of all kinds of acts. The situation is not unlike that of a doomsday cult that predicts time and again the end of the world, only for followers to discover the next day that things are pretty much as they were.","conclusion":"Euthanasia will not create a slippery slope to legal murder"}
{"id":"9bffa1a8-5465-4d95-a80d-381fe2714204","argument":"When higher taxes were enforced, median household incomes increased on average by about 2.5% per year, compared to the 0.7% decline during the low income tax period.","conclusion":"One of the fundamental aspects of supply-side economics, tax cuts to the rich, has failed to benefit the rest of the population."}
{"id":"1cad5580-4818-4fa4-8476-97f2c0a003a1","argument":"The question on the form reads \u201cAre you an unlawful user of, or addicted to, marijuana or any depressant, stimulant, narcotic drug, or any other controlled substance?\u201d I would check No for the question Are you an unlawful user of marijuana? The tenth amendment reads The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people . The Constitution does not mention drugs or alcohol, which is why an amendment was required to enact prohibition of alcohol. If states' laws enact lawful use of marijuana, that should trump federal law every time because an amendment to prohibit marijuana has never been passed. EDIT For clarification, the recent federal ruling says that states with medical marijuana laws can prohibit sales of firearms to medical marijuana cardholders, and this would not be considered a violation of the Second Amendment right to bear arms . That is debatable and for each state to determine with regard to their own marijuana laws, but it is in no way the right of the federal government to forbid those firearms sales. They are giving the states the right to enact that prohibition themselves.","conclusion":"Medical marijuana cardholders are lawful users of marijuana and can therefore legally purchase firearms according to the form filled out prior to sale."}
{"id":"997a3a5c-ddcf-482b-adff-50103ff87877","argument":"this is the kind of thing that I'm talking about and before you say they are not criminals and shouldn't be arrested etc. that's not what I mean. I think the victims should be able to successfully sue the abusers for the emotional damage that they caused. edit for clarification, it must also be considered cyberbullying for one to be liable, people should not be sued merely for offending someone else. There are several reasons why I believe this is so the first is the harm that they cause to society. The feeling of having thousands of people hate someone is crushing, especially for something trivial like a hairstyle or a shirt. This is quite painful for someone to go through. The definition of cyberbullying from is \u201cthe process of using the Internet, cell phones or other devices to send or post text or images intended to hurt or embarrass another person.\u201d The messages they are sending accusing them of sexism or racism is clearly hurtful. The same definition also includes publishing materials severely defaming and humiliating them. and the incident with Matt Taylor has certainly damaged his reputation. This qualifies as cyberbullying. EDIT 8 29 PM EST 1 27 2015 aluciddreamer has refuted these two arguments. please see the above link and focus your counter arguments towards my first one. Secondly similar cases are already decided as illegal in the case with Richard Jewell where he was falsely accused of planting a bomb, he successfully sued many news outlets for libel after their false accusations. Additionally, in the case with Dharun Ravi, he was found guilty of bias intimidation hate crime . This is because Tyler Clementi was targeted because of his sexual orientation, just like how Mallory Merk was targeted because of her race if she was black, this would not be an issue . Thirdly and this I feel is the weakest of my arguments , it brings the movement towards equality into disrepute. People will stop taking these issues seriously and will become desensitized towards offending other people due to so many false claims, just like the boy who cried wolf . An argument can be made about freedom of speech , and if something is offensive, then they are free to say that. However, saying things like It\u2019s feeling like psychological torture, esp against the backdrop of state sanctioned murder is insulting equating having a certain hair style to murder and I feel it should not be protected as freedom of speech. It already has limitations on slander and harassment, so I think it's fair to make a limitation here. To change my view, you must show that people do not deserve to be liable for lawsuits for doing what they did to Mallory Merk and Matt Taylor.","conclusion":"being easily offended and getting angry about it is online harassment and should be illegal."}
{"id":"ddbb31e6-ae43-48c7-a9de-e318059c36ed","argument":"That's right, I said it. The 1996 action movie, directed by Michael Bay, starring Nicholas Cage, Sean Connery, and Ed Harris needs to be made into a broadway production that is a musical comedy. After rewatching it for the first time in a long time this past weekend, me and my friends could just not stop laughing at the campiness, over the top action, and acting. There's too many good one liners, too many perfect opportunities to break out in song, I think this could go somewhere. I bring this to the greater reddit community because this is far beyond my humble abilities. I am but an idea man, but I know that out there, somewhere in the greater redditverse, there is someone with the talent, skill, and knowhow to make this. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The Rock needs to be made into a musical comedy."}
{"id":"5c257df8-40d1-4fe8-a8f4-6fc37c6caad8","argument":"First off, I'm speaking about conventional attractiveness obviously. Someone might find certain attributes attractive, but this is speaking on societal conventional attractiveness. I have had experience dating as, objectively, both a moderately attractive person and a more attractive person. When I was less attractive, I found that people were more interested in getting to know my personalty and what I had to say. Being conventionally attractive has almost made me feel like a trophy who could have nothing more to offer someone than my physical appearance. Extremely attractive people need to worry about whether the intentions of the person who is trying to date them are good true or not. If there is less to look at on the surface, it's likely the person doesn't value physical attractiveness as much as others, and is dating them for their good sense of humor, kind nature, or charming personality the benefits felt in the relationship will not be due to the attractiveness of the person. However, if someone is more conventionally attractive, this is inevitably intriguing to the wrong kinds of people people who are only concerned about society's perceptions, glamorous photos, and looking good to the public. Attractive people must screen prospective daters even harder, making dating more difficult. The reason I say moderately attractive and not ugly is because I do realize there is a threshold for having any suitors to begin with. But I do believe that the less people who find you attractive, as long as it's a few, is better, both for one's self esteem and logistically easier. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Dating is easier for a moderately attractive person than an extremely attractive person."}
{"id":"340d521b-4c1b-4453-a780-48227596923e","argument":"Social trends spread quickly in traditional school environments, due to the size of the social network and high number of constant interactions between students.","conclusion":"Homeschooled students avoid negative peer influences that children may be exposed to in traditional schools."}
{"id":"d350eae2-1f0b-425a-9b1d-279e36e708cf","argument":"Young children should not be made to kiss or hug relatives if they don't want to, as to do so will teach them bad lessons about consent in the future. I am aware of the following counter arguments This is an opportunity, not a problem, as it enables us to teach children the difference between welcome and inappropriate forms of affection. Throughout the entire day I force my children to do things they do not want to brush teeth etc because I am able to make better decisions than them. Mildly off topic, but by insisting that a child chooses between a selection of greetings say a hug, a kiss, or a handshake , I am not in fact offering them autonomy, just a range of actions. I'm really interested to hear the counter argument, whether it be an extension of the points above or new points I have not considered. What I am really looking for is academic journal articles that demonstrate why encouraging forcing? children to hug and kiss relatives is a good thing.","conclusion":"young children should not be encouraged to hug or kiss family members as to do so teaches bad lessons on consent"}
{"id":"d7719127-75ff-4c54-9d93-1ec670cfdfee","argument":"\"Tar Sands Invasion.\" Dirty Oil Sands. May 2010: \"As the world\u2019s largest oil consumer, the United States has choices about its energy future. America currently consumes a quarter of the world\u2019s oil supply. We must and can do better, and we have the technology to do it. A nation as innovative and motivated as the United States can find a way to maintain mobility, while at the same time acting to halt expansion of expensive and dirty fuels such as tar sands oil that cause global warming and a host of other environmental and health problems. Electric cars, renewable energy, environmentally sustainable biofuels, fuel efficiency, and smart growth are all positive solutions to meet our future energy needs.\"","conclusion":"Nations can choose a clean energy future over tar sands"}
{"id":"4efa9376-f0aa-4478-9d20-e83ed35935b0","argument":"Lets assume that a man is the sole proprietor of a company. That company is owned by one person. He can do whatever he pleases with it. He can use it solely to make profit, or he can direct its energy and resources to other endeavors. The company is an extension of the man. If the man is moral, the company will be moral in its practices to the extent that the man can control it. And being the sole owner, he can exercise quite a bit of control. So, as there are moral and immoral men, there are moral and immoral sole proprietorships. But look at a public corporation. There might be 10,000 people who all own a part of the company. A company acts on the behalf of its owner, but when there are so many, how does one decide how to act? Almost any goal available to that company will please some, but anger many of the shareholders. So how does the company act on behalf of the collective shareholders? It orients itself towards the goal that everyone can agree on, the common ground for the shareholders profit. It is the only aim that a public corporation can select that will please all of its owners. And when the aim is ambiguous as make money, there will be moral issues. The CEO has the job of make money for the company. Without any details other than that, it is his duty to choose the most profitable course of action, without regards to morality. After all, he works for the shareholders, and they can't all agree on morality. While some may be upset that he chooses immoral business practices, they can take comfort in the fact that morality does not factor into his decision. As a corporation, the company is no longer an expression of a person. It is the expression of the one common goal of a large group of people. With nothing more to guide the decisions, it will take the most profitable courses of action and ignore any harm they cause to others.","conclusion":"Public corporations are inherently evil, and immoral business practices are caused primarily by the existence of shareholders."}
{"id":"7f50cfbe-c487-406a-affc-70d4e38415df","argument":"Tactical voting is the purposeful casting of votes to sway an outcome. When the outcome is predicted in an opinion poll, it can influence voters to possibly cast a ballot differently than had that poll information not existed. This means that the votes are being cast based upon inaccurate assumptions. For instance, in the 1992 U.K. elections all polls predicted a Labour victory. However, against all expectations, the Conservatives won. It is wholly possible that many people, ensured of a seeming Labour victory, then decided to vote for the Conservatives tactically to ensure that there would be a balance in the House of Commons \u2013 or even out of sympathy, the \u2018underdog effect\u2019.1 Or decided to vote for their first preference minor party, such as the liberal democrats, because they believed the Conservatives would be voted out without their needing to cast their votes tactically for Labour. Thus, it is possible that the voters didn\u2019t accomplish the government they actually wanted, as they cast votes based on opinion polls. The unintended outcomes are a result of these opinion polls and tactical voting. 1 Traugott, Michael W., and Lavrakas, Paul J., The Voter\u2019s Guide to Election Polls, Fourth Edition, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2008, p.202","conclusion":"Opinion polls can lead to tactical voting which may have unintended outcomes."}
{"id":"4cb05cb7-e1a9-4428-98bb-6df6e332aa67","argument":"There is no correlation between firearm homicide rates and guns per capita among countries with high firearm homicide rates: Chart 4","conclusion":"Many reports contest the correlation between lower gun ownership and lower gun deaths."}
{"id":"537a1121-4c05-471c-a519-dce0f5e8ec8c","argument":"So in light of a lot of things being said about the Lone Ranger movie, I've found myself very conflicted about the subject of critique, specifically about creative work and cinema in particular. Basically, I have always assumed that the final measure of artistic worth was the ultimate internal reaction to the piece, i.e. how much did you like it. And with that in mind I find it hard to see how a lengthy write up of the flaws of some summer blockbuster can outweigh the fact that some people found it entertaining, and whenever I try to think up arguments they always come off as stop liking things I don't like . I'm hoping someone can introduce some clarity to this discussion. On one hand, the idea that commercial success is the prime factor for finding a movie's worth disagrees with me on an instinctual level. On the other hand, the idea that a one person can be more correct about an artistic work seems to imply that there is some intrinsic measuring stick involved in the evaluation process, which also doesn't seem right.","conclusion":"I don't really understand how the subjective opinion of a renowned critic is more valid than that of anybody else,"}
{"id":"b3838711-dca0-4a3d-a5ac-0e77ea4e89f1","argument":"Gambling is a major social evil, an addictive habit that ruins thousands of lives and damages families every year. A national lottery not only provides another easy opportunity for gambling, but also removes the stigma from all forms of gambling and acts as a gateway for potential addicts to become hooked on more expensive and ruinous forms. Governments should be in the business of harm-reduction, not legitimising such destructive activities.","conclusion":"Gambling is a major social evil, an addictive habit that ruins thousands of lives and damages famili..."}
{"id":"7c26fd79-ebf2-4d9c-bf5b-2a2880708965","argument":"The First Council of Nicaea met in in CE 435 to decide what would be in the bible, and what would be left out. Leaving a book out was equivalent to banning it . the books became effectively unavailable. This sort of choice is unavoidable in any society.","conclusion":"Not all books add value, and there is no value in keeping absolutely everything, so there is benefit in removing and discarding some books."}
{"id":"250e0f0f-b26a-40ad-b209-685ba7ae83a9","argument":"There are many problems in this world and the first few that came up to mind were poverty, hunger, and joblessness. Now when thinking about these problems, I came to the conclusion that they were caused by two main reasons People are naturally greedy There is too much competition in this world Now, problem 1 is hard to fix. That is up to the individual and there will always be people that take advantage of others. However, thinking of problem 2, it came to me that if there were less people in the world, it would reduce competition and in the end help reduce poverty, hunger, and joblessness. With less people, less competition. Therefore, less threats and more security, leading to happier and more productive people. Now as how to fix the problem of overpopulation this is the part I have doubts about. Advocating for less children and educating people about birth control won't really solve the problem. Government initiatives for families to have less children has proven to not work as well either. How about we reject the poor and people that don't contribute to society out of that society. Society is a network so if one doesn't contribute, one should not gain from the benefits. Social Darwinism, survival of the fittest. It naturally occurs in nature so why shouldn't it in society. Overpopulation is a sensitive problem difficult to solve. This post may sound extreme, backwards, and crude. I do believe in what I wrote to an extent but I did exaggerate to induce strong opposition. I do have a soft spot that says people should be given a second chance and that homeless should have natural rights just as we do. Some are not they because they don't work but because they can't or they made one simple mistake. I understand. However, having a side of me that says we should get rid of these people irritates me. So, change my view. Change my view that either Overpopulation is not such a severe problem in this world and has nothing to do with competition, greed, hunger, poverty, and joblessness. There is an effective alternative solution to fix the problem of overpopulation. There is a more fundamental, or significant problem that needs to be taken care of in this world. Change my view please. Thank you. luisuz","conclusion":"Overpopulation is a big problem in the world right now. Less people will make it a better world."}
{"id":"283436ef-6865-44dc-b293-ef359d5952d3","argument":"The AL would be so much better if it, like the NL, had pitchers come to bat. The DH was invented in 1973 as a gimmick to get fans into the ballpark it's not traditional. Baseball is a sport where the defense and offense are the same players, unlike football for example. If you go out in the field to play defense, you should also come to bat and play offense. The best players, historically, have been five tool players, who had to be good at both batting and fielding. Nowadays you can get your biggest fatty, whose only skill is sauntering up to the plate to hit the Big One, to crush the ball in place of the pitcher. Also, eliminating the DH would make pitchers more accountable. If a pitcher decides to throw at a batter in the NL, that pitcher better not come to bat later in the game. If that pitcher plunks a batter in the AL, he has nothing to worry about. Worst case scenario is the opposing pitcher just hits another batter. Neither pitcher has to answer for his actions unless you get a bench clearing brawl that disrupts the whole game. Baseball is better than that, don't you think? Third, the DH takes away the finesse and strategy of having a pitcher in the batting lineup. In the NL, you have situations where the opposing pitcher willingly loads the bases in order to face the pitcher. Everybody expects the pitcher to get out, but what about a surprise bunt? Or a blooper over the head of the third baseman who was playing too far in? What about faking out your opponent by bringing in a pinch hitter? The DH makes managers stupid, because they don't have to consider all these variables and strategies toward defeating the opponent. In the AL, it's simply, Get fatty over here to pound the ball . The DH doesn't even have to be smart or an athlete. With that said,","conclusion":"I believe the American League should get rid of the Designated Hitter and let the pitcher bat."}
{"id":"d1f09959-3682-4bec-a94a-553607a21f96","argument":"The Justice System is imperfect and sometimes it may be required to cut through for the sake of national interest or for the sake of humanity.","conclusion":"Pardons are consistent with the Executive Branch's purpose of carrying out the law."}
{"id":"60772e5e-8ca2-4a1f-842d-61059cb256a6","argument":"I think it should be compulsory to donate organs. Burying or cremating people and not putting there organs to any use is a huge waste, .","conclusion":"I think it should be compulsory to donate organs,"}
{"id":"59f40ead-ab72-4bf3-8203-72cabf0a7d11","argument":"This is a trait that gender non-conforming men and boys also share - and, in fact, said \"boys\" might later come out as trans.","conclusion":"Many trans women pre-transition do not experience male privilege because of prejudicial attitudes towards feminine attributes that they possess"}
{"id":"3975f294-f69d-4beb-baa2-a82bdb78024c","argument":"A common thing I see on many news stories, etc. is how expensive people on social assistance are to society and how we need to start taking more actions to reduce abuse on the system. I feel this is based on misunderstandings and jealousy from the people making those suggestions and that implementing them would be more expensive, violate the government's legal and ethical obligations, and make society less enjoyable for all. My reasoning Welfare benefits are typically a lot lower than most people assume per recipient, and drug testing and administration a lot more expensive. Unless there is an extremely high frequency of drug users, the savings realized from removing people from the system is less than the cost of the test and the administration. Therefore, it will always cost taxpayers more to do this than to simply pay benefits to all that qualify. Drug users cut off from benefits may turn to crime to find their addictions, causing additional indirect costs in policing, healthcare, etc. There are also likely many legal costs do doing this as the ACLU has already challenged many states who have started drug testing. In states that have tried it the program has had a net cost.","conclusion":"I think that drug testing recipients of government benefits is a terrible idea."}
{"id":"c55ae380-432b-4834-852c-e41587f3b0b0","argument":"This view is probably a bit controversial given the wide use of Microsoft Windows in schools in the US and quite a few countries all over the world and might seem as a bit of a rant against Microsoft but bear with me. I'm definitely not a Microsoft fan but I'm not exactly an Apple or Linux fanboy either. EDIT I'm so sorry if you answered and wondered why it's changed. I posted it because I wanted a bigger box to write in. My apologies if I've wasted your time. 3 45 pm Eastern Time. Having an emphasis on Microsoft Office in school is geared to a desk job that uses Office. And you don't even learn Office properly You're ignoring the programmers, engineers, arts and literally any one who does not use Office on a regular basis. Except engineers who might use Excel a ton. Even when used for a desk job, you're still not adequately prepared to fully utilize the software. Which sucks. Because you're supposed to do your job, not do the same repeated action on software you barely know how to use. People are introduced to Windows and its interface and have no idea that other operating systems exist save for OS X and previous Mac OS which are usually beyond most kids . This leads to vendor lock in. I didn't go to school in the US where Apple has a strong base. With that said, I'm pretty sure that no one in my school used Apple products save for the iPhone or iPad. The main reason I have a problem with this is vendor lock in. Microsoft is still going strong because people never try other things. As an adult I use Latex over Word, Beamer over Powerpoint, Excel because it's actually useful if you know how to use it and a variety of GNU software that actually works without crashing. Vendor lock in is a bad thing, regardless of whether it's software or not. And just because everyone uses it does not mean that it has to be good. Spending time on Microsoft Office products is taking away time from learning an actual programming language and exploring other uses of computers. I learned Paint and Word as a kid. Definitely more useful over learning how to learn programming s . And this is getting more and more important now. Learning a bit of Python or even VBA scripting can save you hours. Learning the basic of programming and user other people scripts and knowing it's not malware is important in today's workplace. Learning how to use CAD is an amazing skill to have under your belt. It's much easier for students to install and run programs on other OS than Windows. Both Linux and Mac OS have easier ways of installing. One is running a package manager and the other is copying files to the Applications folder. Windows has a .exe file that isn't always preferable given the sheer amount of malware masquerading as .exe files. And kids aren't exactly the best people to realize what's good and bad. In my opinion, children should experiment with installing software on their own and dealing with the problems that might come up. Having a system that already configured for you just sets you up for failure when you need to use software you haven't used before. It's better to fail as a kid than as an adult. Even when Microsoft Office products are used, emphasis is given to Word, Powerpoint and Excel. Microsoft Office has Outlook, Access and OneNote that isn't taught in school but is actually pretty useful. If you've seen Word Documents and Powerpoint slides created by children in school, you know it isn't great, fun or useful. You learn nothing more than the basics. I blame high school for Death by Powerpoint the focus of making slides look good instead of having good content and the sheer number of animations I've seen in my coworkers' slides is because of the way children learn Powerpoint in school. Even when writing high school essays, Word could be changed to any other text editor to get the same results. Microsoft Office is neither taught properly nor used effectively. Windows has changed so much over the past few years but educational books don't change that fast. Try switching from XP or Vista to Windows 10. Not. Fun. For an OS that claims to have the most user friendly interface that widely used, it sure changes a lot. You could substitute Windows with a Linux distro or Mac OS and still teach students. With less pain I kinda prefer Linux I kinda like Arch Linux because rolling distros are the best thing since sliced bread but I understand why Macs are used by academics. It's easier to install programs and run them, and has a file system that's reasonable. Also, they don't crash as much. Which is pretty important to me. Switching from Windows to another OS is kinda hard while the reverse is somewhat easier. I've had to go through learning Linux as an adult which was not fun. By comparison, I know kids who grew up using Ubuntu who switched to Windows quite easily. I'm guessing that's because Linux actually shows you how the operating system works instead of handicapping you with the not amazing quirks of Windows.","conclusion":"Microsoft Windows should not be used in schools"}
{"id":"48f7c6f6-7342-4b08-aece-f9a045f7b048","argument":"Caster Semenya a South African track star, was asked to complete a gender test on the basis of unfounded media and public scrutiny about her body.","conclusion":"The current policy has historically disadvantaged women of colour and women from developing countries."}
{"id":"55aae463-d79c-4812-b384-d565790dd0c8","argument":"Morality is derived from both empathy and rationality. It is a survival instinct. If I am a good person, make choices that protect not only myself, but choices that also cares for others, I will be safer and have a better life. There is no need to insert an idea of a super natural being or promise of an afterlife.","conclusion":"Psychological investigations into the origin of morality find that all humans have approximately six innate moral senses which originate in the subconscious. While these moral senses are tuned by culture, they are universally present regardless of exposure to religion. Therefore, morality exists in the human mind without religion."}
{"id":"a235c1ed-8108-489b-8ab8-b47d88c1d989","argument":"A common fiscal policy will allow current member states to share the risk of any economic shock, preventing any one member state from facing the brunt of a crisis.","conclusion":"A unified fiscal policy will be beneficial for current member states."}
{"id":"0a0b5f52-f5d5-411f-83d7-ce5ea9883b20","argument":"The quality of living for everyone should be the most important thing. Taking money from someone who makes an average amount of money affects their quality of living a lot more than it does to an extremely wealthy person.","conclusion":"I believe that tax rates should be much higher for people who are extremely wealthy because it won't affect their quality of living whatsoever."}
{"id":"b0c9f676-4bfd-43d8-acec-ee7e635e800b","argument":"Things like history, language, basic math, general knowledge of science and how things work, and writing are useful to me. Here are some things that I find useless Math beyond Algebra or Geometry. Unless you wanted to go into a math heavy field, like engineering Religion Class that isn't a study of world religions. At a private school, we are required to take classes on scripture, which is exceptionally hard for non religious people. Advanced Chemistry, Biology, and Physics. Again, going further than a basic knowledge of how things work, excluding people who want to pursue a scientific career. I just feel like there should be a minimum level of classes that people are absolutely required to take, and a class system where you can choose your focus. This is referring to high school, by the way.","conclusion":"I believe that the majority of the curriculum taught in schools is useless -"}
{"id":"3db8d073-442e-49c0-9c7e-40dd4561de02","argument":"Private Prisons seemed like a really bad idea to me at first but on doing some more research it seems that they did no worse in a recent performance rating source to save you the leg work only two out of fourteen private prisons scored 2 4 in an overall performance rating with the rest scoring 3 or 4, this was better than the public sector prisons . When a prison isn't being run well it is returned to the private sector as happened to Wolds which was taken from G4S and is now run publicly . I still have this niggling feeling that there is something wrong with the concept of private prisons but the facts seem to be that they are being run pretty well and when they are not being run well the problem is being dealt with.","conclusion":"Private Prisons in the UK are a good idea."}
{"id":"057862ae-01cb-4395-ae40-73a707180094","argument":"I believe when a person uses a title they have they've earned, such as from schooling, to assert their argument is correct, this is often a logical fallacy. I believe that a title of authority does not mean the individual is right, but rather, that it means you should consider their authority when deciding whether to trust someone or not. I believe titles of authority are based solely on trust , and not actual correctness. An example I used We can take a popular example from tropes a young woman takes her car to a mechanic. The mechanic charges her for changing her headlight fluid. The young woman trusts the mechanic is being truthful, because he is an assumed authority on cars. Does this mean the mechanic actually changed her headlight fluid? Authority isn't about being right, it's about trust. The arguments of any user shouldn't change because of a title if I say 2 2 4, that doesn't change based on whether I have a background in math or whether I'm in grade school. Likewise, if I make an argument, the argument doesn't change based on me stating that I'm an academic lt insert gt . Users from a philosophy sub have disagreed with me on this, and I'm willing to hear legitimate arguments as to why I'm wrong, hopefully dropping the snark I admit I had heavy snark when I was posting because I want them to share their ideas with me. If I'm genuinely wrong, so be it I want to know. As a side note but not the core of the  I think that asserting dominance based on a title hearkens strongly to class warfare , not unlike those you would see in a caste system. Obviously not something so serious on reddit, since in a caste system, it affects peoples lives pretty dramatically, and on reddit, it just means a bunch of users are going to talk at you excessively. It is an assertion that some people are better than others based on their title, and that any arguments made to counter that are invalid because of a lack of that title.","conclusion":"Calling yourself an \"Academic <something>\" in an online argument is a fallacious appeal to authority"}
{"id":"a02f525a-3197-4b3b-97dc-6416da66fc53","argument":"There are a variety of DNA testing services and organizations that must be chosen from. Adults are taken more seriously by service-providers and can thus do a more thorough examination of the options because they can access information directly from these organizations.","conclusion":"Children need their parents to follow through on this decision. The legal and financial steps that must be taken in order to carry out a paternity test require the assistance of an adult."}
{"id":"19c7ea1a-cd98-4044-9973-c78f3a021c8d","argument":"Simply put, I believe that women in action adventure movies are token due to the fact that women are only portrayed as heroes. In film, 99 of victims are male all those henchmen, police officers, army guys, etc, etc . In fact there is even a popular television trope about this phenomenon showcasing the expendability of men. However, with the rising inclusion of women as powerful protagonists a notion I strongly support and enjoy watching , there becomes an obvious disconnect between the gender ratios of heroes and the ratio of victims. Thus it becomes all too obvious to treat the leading woman as a token female when the only female in the movie is the one gunning down hundreds of men. A common example I always see is the movie with a strong headed female soldiers. Clearly an homage to the notion that women can be gunslinging badasses just like their male counterparts, this trope is ever present in pop media. However when it comes to the the soldiers who end up getting executed, or shot down in a helicopter, or blown up in a car chase the drive for gender equality suddenly stops. In fact in multiple decades of watching movies the only singular instance I can think of where this notion did not occur was in Justice League SPOILER when the amazons were being attacked by the villain . So , the failure to adhere to an equal gender ratio across cinema roles, in particular those of a victim or casualty, creates tokenism in movies with female heroes. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Gunslinging women in popular action cinema\/television are viewed as token due to the fact that women are never victims but only heroes."}
{"id":"a8d45506-09a6-4084-ab6b-334d279e6619","argument":"Through birth, the child and the parent have a binding agreement that is supported within the society. This agreement involves a set of rights and duties aimed at, and justified by, the welfare of the child. Through that according to texts from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: parents owe their children an \u201copen future,\u201d understood as one where they become adults capable of choosing their own conception of the good. As custodian, the parent is under a limited obligation to work and organize his or her life around the welfare and development of the child, for the child's sake. Concomitantly, the parent is endowed with a special kind of authority over the child.1 It therefore is the courtesy of a parent to decide what the best possible outcome is for a child. If the parent believes the child will be safer and better off in society without being given vaccine it is the parent\u2019s right to decide not to give vaccination to the child. Also the American Academy of Pediatrics reports, that refusing the immunization might not put children at risk, as long as they live in a well immunized community and can benefit from the \u201cherd immunity\u201d. They state: \u201cEven in a community with high immunization rates, the risk assumed by an unimmunized child is likely to be greater than the risks associated with immunization. However, the risk remains low, and in most cases the parent who refuses immunizations on behalf of his or her child living in a well-immunized community does not place the child at substantial risk of serious harm.\u201d2 1 Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, accessed 05\/28\/2011 2 Diekema Douglas, Responding to Parental Refusals of Immunization of Children, accessed 05\/28\/2011","conclusion":"It is a parental right to decide about vaccinations for a child"}
{"id":"b9ff3a29-e5c7-4b98-a08d-906716c0e59b","argument":"Scientists go to great lengths to prove their theories. Thousands and thousands of experiments are carried out in order to make scientific breakthrough discoveries. The Big Bang Theory is just one of many theories that scientists throughout the centuries have strived to prove. The idea that the solar system emerged from a swirl of matter began with Immanuel Kant 1724\u20131804 and has been mulled over since then, particularly by the British physicist, Stephen Hawking. Creationism does not have any scientific support: despite it being believed by millions and believed for thousands of years. Surely, by now, someone would have been able to scientifically prove this. It is not worthy of being taught in a science lesson. Creationism is a theory, true, but no more valid scientifically than that of the film The Matrix- it could be true but it does not seem likely to be proven, at least not scientifically. It is certainly worth discussing for those so interested, but it is not of true scientific value in the way that the Big Bang theory, for example, is.","conclusion":"Creationism lacks scientific support, therefore should not be taught in a science lesson"}
{"id":"7e67209c-e36d-4cb2-8705-9272751e90d9","argument":"Many christian children are baptized without being of the age of consent and in many cases as babies.","conclusion":"Religions are routinely introduced to children who are too young to make an informed choice."}
{"id":"4d2c22e0-8455-446d-b366-866dc0761227","argument":"True love exists, therefore evil exists. Love means there must be a choice for good or evil. Otherwise, love would be forced and not real love. An omniscient God would create an opportunity for love and therefore allow evil.","conclusion":"The existence of evil can be reconciled with an all-powerful and all-loving God. God would not want to remove evil if a greater good were only achievable with the existence of evil."}
{"id":"2da47b83-7643-4bc5-b197-806f71c766d8","argument":"The fact that there is gravity holding items on the surface of the earth does not prove that the sun has no gravitational pull. Multiple opposing forces can be at work at the same time in the same space. Likewise, if we accept the concept of free will, humans must have the capacity to freely commit evil acts in opposition to a traditionally conceived benevolent god without issue.","conclusion":"God allows evil to exist so that humans can have free will and develop into moral people. In order to be morally good in a meaningful way, a person must have the possibility of choosing evil."}
{"id":"8126c480-30f2-40f1-96da-61312edc9211","argument":"Progressive taxation systems can be used to redistribute wealth by using tax money taken from the wealthy to fund services or tax breaks for others in society.","conclusion":"Issues concerning concentration of wealth can be better tackled with legislation or government policy."}
{"id":"47328fc1-7c05-4f32-a318-bfa3af0fa0a4","argument":"I don't understand why baseball is such a popular sport. People stand in one spot for 95 of the time, and many seem to not even exert much effort when it is required when people hit a ground ball to third they often just jog to first, knowing they will get out without even sprinting 30 yards in the off chance that there is an error.","conclusion":"I believe baseball is boring and requires little athleticism."}
{"id":"84f5e0a7-3c0f-4d0c-8183-7402060a3b82","argument":"Private news coverage does offer this public good. A free media market would be responsive to the wide range of political convictions individuals have. There would thus be a broad and representative range of political opinions catered for, which can compete in 'the marketplace of ideas'. Also, people who may now be apathetic and disengaged from current affairs could be presented with news coverage which is more accessible for them. This would make it more likely that they will take an interest in news stories of which they might otherwise have remained ignorant.","conclusion":"Private news coverage does offer this public good. A free media market would be responsive to the w..."}
{"id":"7fd21e4f-3bc1-400f-bdec-46780966acf3","argument":"Thanks to more efficient farming techniques humans can produce enough food for everyone on the planet.","conclusion":"Modern technology means that we can do far more with less."}
{"id":"8fd98938-efed-4a92-afc5-4ebe9689148b","argument":"There may be concerns among the Conservative Party that seats would be lost to the newly-created Independent Group","conclusion":"The Conservative Party may not want to call an election."}
{"id":"9189b8b2-50a8-4dcb-84d0-6cc4f99f6b10","argument":"As Thanksgiving rolls around this year, large retailers are opening their doors on Thanksgiving to open up the winter sales season. Many people seem to become upset year after year about how retailers force their employees to work either on Thanksgiving or at midnight on black Friday. I have no problem with this. If these employees didn't want to work on Thanksgiving or black Friday, then why did they take a job that is commonly known to be needed on Thanksgiving or black Friday? I understand that these generally are minimum wage jobs and that many of these people don't have skills to get jobs that don't require them to work on Thanksgiving, but are there not other minimum wage jobs that wouldn't require these people to work on Thanksgiving? Also, there are various other businesses that open their doors on Thanksgiving yet don't revive the same criticism that large retail stores do. Movie theaters, restaurants bars, convenience stores gas stations, airports, etc. are all generally open on Thanksgiving, yet must people don't give these businesses the same criticism that large retailers receive even though the employees of these businesses are forced to work on Thanksgiving just like retail workers. In a perfect world no one would have to work on Thanksgiving, but we don't live in a perfect world. Some businesses have decided that they want to do business on Thanksgiving. If the employees of these businesses have a problem with this then they shouldn't have taken a job with these places in the first place.","conclusion":"There isn't anything wrong with businesses being open on Thanksgiving"}
{"id":"80f82e97-f8f8-4410-ac85-abb38461ddfd","argument":"Historically it has been harder for a woman to become an absolute monarch than for men to become an absolute monarch.","conclusion":"Woman have been unfairly disadvantaged in trying to get these powers which has lead to the imbalance."}
{"id":"3ddbedc2-534f-4337-b47a-b2b50944e1cf","argument":"Firstly I think it's important to note that tests have shown that the machines can be hacked to alter the vote count. I'm on mobile so it's tough to link but you can find evidence on YouTube. Most of my main argument comes from this article The exit polls have been consistently off in favor of Hillary Clinton. The author found that it was a 1 in 77 billion chance that this happened organically. The article also found that the discrepancy between the exit polls and the vote totals was greater in larger districts. He says this is evidence of fraud because people who rig the vote tend to do it more in larger districts because it is easier to hide. I'd love to have my faith in US democracy restored, but that can only happen if one of you can .","conclusion":"I think it's probable that the electronic voting machines were hacked in the democratic primary."}
{"id":"e73ce413-c15b-43f5-b3ea-873a7bf7b0f8","argument":"One Child Protection Agency in New Hampshire had a backlog of 2900 open abuse and neglect investigations and was still slow in hiring new workers.","conclusion":"Current child protection processes tend to be complicated and protracted, and lead to trauma for both parents and child."}
{"id":"ecd07dfa-b3fe-4772-b5d8-ee37bac02a6a","argument":"Ive always wondered whether or not everything we learn in life are just fragments being added into a big thing we call knowledge. I know that this is a very broad statement however I have heard it many time before thus it is something I have often wondered about. Any thoughts? BTW this is my first  so, sorry if I have done something wrong or if I have forgotten to include something","conclusion":"Our knowledge is only a collection of scraps and fragments that we put together into a pleasing design, and often the discovery of one new fragment would cause us to alter utterly the whole design\u201d ."}
{"id":"137a190a-0331-4493-98c6-00cd6d067d8b","argument":"I think the goal behind the movement is sound, we should always strive for a more tolerant and friendly society. I also think that there are very clear segments of society that aren't tolerant enough of minorities by a long shot. However, the people fighting against them, these SJWs that seem to be more and more common nowadays inside the internet and out, are causing way more problems than they are fixing. There are wrong and right ways of trying to create change. Demonizing everyone who doesn't fit into some minority group isn't the right way at all. We all seen the posts and blogs All men are scum, or all whities should be killed. We've all heard those kids in our classes, whether they be college or high school, that raise their hand and make comments about the old rich white male patriarchy keeping people down, when the teacher professor was talking about something that was, at best, tangentially related. It seems to me that, at least in the U.S. we have the unique problem of having large swathes of people hide bigotry behind the curtain of standing up for minorities. On Tubmblr or Twitter, there's basically a checklist, and the more things you answer yes to, the more they hate you. Are you white? Male? Straight? Cisgendered? Skinny? Then basically, fuck you, you are the scum that causes everyone else's problems. Now, ordinarily I'd say, who cares? Let crazy bigots be crazy bigots, nobody takes them seriously anyway. That isn't the case here. With these SJWs, society can't even seem to have the logic to label them what they are, which is racist, sexist, bigoted people who are just as bad as white supremacists, male supremacists, and the Westboro Baptist Church. On the contrary, most people I come across nowadays seem to SUPPORT these people, and see them as some kind of martyr fighting the good fight against the oppressive forces in society that keeps them down. The movement as a whole is making hate ok, as long as it is against the right groups, instead of making no hate ok, which is the direction I think we were already moving. It is creating an environment where saying all women non white gays trans people are X or should be treated like X, is sexist racist homphobic bigoted, but saying all men whites straight cisgendered people are X or should be treated like X, is not only ok, but applauded and seen as some sort of benefit to society.","conclusion":"The SJW movement creates more intolerance and hatred than it eliminates."}
{"id":"f7eb255b-7fc3-4004-a48b-1efda58545a3","argument":"Focusing on security is likely to lead to mosques holding less 'open days for non-Muslims. This will limit the audience of education surrounding the idea of fostering a better understanding of Islam in an effort to counter rising Islamophobia.","conclusion":"Focusing on security may adversely affect the ability of places of worship to meaningfully perform other important tasks."}
{"id":"fea67921-d97d-4b01-bef9-15e0532ec3f5","argument":"As historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat stated in July 2019, \"throwing a milkshake is not equivalent to killing someone, but because the people in power are allied with the right, any provocation, any dissent against right-wing violence, backfires.\"","conclusion":"By engaging in violence, Antifa creates more backlash and violence which puts those who they seek to protect in danger."}
{"id":"e6cdcb38-30b9-4216-82cd-8f2432bd3f4f","argument":"Each individual is a site of value. They can only experience their own pleasure and pain, and not that of others. The net good therefore only exist as a fiction rather than something anyone can actually experience.","conclusion":"The total net good only matters if individual goods can be aggregated into a total - but they cannot"}
{"id":"5e74f069-3cbb-442f-984a-e7e02e4e75af","argument":"Sanders' presidential campaign would be plagued by questions about whether his age makes him incapable of dealing with the stress of being president.","conclusion":"Bernie Sanders is too old. If he were to win a general election, he would become president at age 79"}
{"id":"72d360d1-3611-48f0-a95c-0939d2cff2c8","argument":"Juan Carlos I was not invited to the event celebrating the 40th Anniversary of the arrival of democracy in Spain. As the protocol dictates that it is the Head of the State who addresses Congress, the emeritus King had no official place.","conclusion":"Since his abdication, former King Juan Carlos I no longer has official duties: he is reported to have been traveling, resting, treating his hip injury, eating out and planning to create his own foundation and has barely been in official acts."}
{"id":"33c0c08d-c6e2-49e1-ae63-3e2f707a5751","argument":"This is not an anti motorcyclists thing, I am just curious about the laws and legality of motorcycles. These days, safety is very important as far as law goes. Cars are designed to be safer and safer, and safety rules and policies are high priorities across the board in all walks of life when it cimes to law and legality. For this reason, I dont see why motorcycles are still legal. Not that I dont want them to be legal, I just dont understand why they still are due to their relative danger in using on roads. Regardless of safe drivers, accidents still happen and motorbike accidents can be very dangerous. So change my view and convince me that it does fit into modern law that they still be allowed on the road.","conclusion":"Motorcycles being legal is inconsistant with surrounding laws because of how they are relatively unsafe."}
{"id":"f7dec42e-d25a-4f82-ae22-ab5a18ecc49a","argument":"So, this We the People petition has been popping up in my newsfeed recently, and I think it's initial premise of Porn seeking out internet users is ridiculous. I can't remember ever accidentally coming across porn while browsing, or had an unwanted explicit pop up caveat, I have downloaded viruses when intentionally searching porn that caused pop ups, or on less than trustworthy sites looking for bit torrents, mp3s . The initial claim of this petition, that people are hit with porn adverts for searching words like cat or house, seems faulty to me. I don't believe Porn can seek out users, who do not wish to view it, if the computer being used hasn't been used for porn or downloading less than reputable software visiting less than reputable websites. Please change my view? Edit I see how porn can be stumbled across accidentally, but I still feel like the petition is scare tactics and misrepresentation. Thanks for the new perspectives.","conclusion":"I don't believe porn can be viewed accidentally."}
{"id":"9cb6fe5a-13f8-4011-9b7b-65281f62e0a2","argument":"I truly don't understand how people use sponges. You use it the first time, fine, it's obviously clean. After that, you leave it sitting, usually damp on either your sink or your counter, where it literally just grows germs and they're probably multiplying more because of the dampness. I've had people tell me that when you put soap on a sponge, that sort of cancels out the germs ?? but I'm not buying this. Can someone change my view and convince me that when I use a sponge to clean my plate I'm not smearing it with microbes? Edit okay, so basically I'm just a bit neurotic when it comes to sponges. Thank you for all your replies, I can breathe easy when I clean my dishes now","conclusion":"Sponges are not a sanitary way to clean dishes and are the equivalent of rubbing germs all over them, even with soap."}
{"id":"a8e01963-9c81-43ac-ae2e-cb99a4c7cf5a","argument":"I'm in America. The way I see it, automation of simple and or repetitive jobs is on the rise, and I think that if current trends continue, we will see a whole lot more of it in the future. Corporations will have a huge incentive to replace workers with machines AI. AI doesn't need to be paid wages, they don't need evenings and weekends off, they don't quit, they don't get sick, etc Sure, there will be a pretty big upfront cost to buy and set up an AI workforce, but this cost should be easily be offset by the free labor provided by AI. If this actually happens, then people working these jobs will be let go and replaced. Many retail workers, service workers, warehouse workers, etc will be out of jobs. Sure, there will be new jobs created by the demand of AI, but not nearly enough to offset the jobs lost. Also, someone who stocks grocery stores probably won't easily transition to the AI industry. This seems like it will leave us with a huge number of unemployed people. If we just tell these people to suck it up and fend for themselves, I think we will see a massive spike in homelessness and violence. These displaced workers were most likely earning low pay, so it seems improbable that they could all get an education, and find better jobs. Is there any other solution in this scenario, other than a UBI, that can deal with the massive unemployment? I think most government programs food stamps, things of that nature should be scrapped, and all these funds should go into a UBI fund. I can't think of any other way to keep a country with such high unemployment afloat. Thanks","conclusion":"Implementing a Universal Basic Income UBI is crucial for the future of our country."}
{"id":"fc98d1b1-104d-4b1e-bf4d-e2f6aa73830f","argument":"This will lead to \"gas lighting.\" People have been, and are targeted because of their race. How can they defend themselves, if we claim that race\/color does not exist?","conclusion":"\"Colorblindness\" ignores the current realities of how someone's race affects them in daily life."}
{"id":"f964005f-a84a-4799-9071-fd2e43597dd3","argument":"If a man dresses as a woman - notably skirts or dresses - he is seen as deviant or weak, whereas women are permitted to dress in typically masculine clothes like suits or trousers.","conclusion":"There are often gendered dress codes in work. Men aren't typically allowed to wear skirts to work for example."}
{"id":"446022fd-453d-4564-a5a0-a2564d28053e","argument":"I realize that  may not be the best place to post this as most people here probably agree with me, but I'd like to see some of the counter arguments. I constantly see SJW types saying idiotic things like it's not my job to educate you or I will not expend the energy to argue with you For example in this recent interview with the starter of the cancel colbert trend on twitte she claims that she is not going to enact the labour of how something he said is incredibly offensive . Ignoring the rest of her incredibly hypocritical points I don't understand how she refuses to make her point on a national platform. I also see this done on subreddits like r ShitRedditSays where they refuse to explain their points and instead want to be a circle jerk. They are cementing people's views of them and declaring victory. I also see this in r againstmensrights, a sub that I like as it shows the hypocrisy of r MensRights, but also ruins it's purpose by refusing to have discussion. If you think someone is being sexist or racist explain to them why they are being sexist or racist. If you don't than you won't change anything but insight more people to hate you. Personally I think it's a copout. They can't explain their points because they are wrong. So they say they refuse to explain them to you instead, which allows them to put on a hat of superiority and feel good about themselves. gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than just downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I believe it is better to argue with people and attempt to change their minds rather than to attack them."}
{"id":"99445c73-9fdd-4257-9b20-40dd034f8a6a","argument":"I'm not sure what to say. The title almost says it all. I think the way these things are compared to involuntary pornography is completely absurd. The argument for banning them seems to rest on a premise that I fundamentally reject that you own your likeness. But you don't I can take a picture of you without your consent and use it for whatever purpose I want. So, these things shouldn't be banned, let alone outlawed they're just a natural progression of technology. In 20 years I'll be able to have virtual reality sex with your wife, or your teenage daughter, or YOU, or whatever, and you won't be able to do a damn thing about it, and that's as it should be. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Deepfakes pornographic or otherwise are in no way morally objectionable"}
{"id":"aa9f092b-8536-4018-96a4-e40e1f88c8fa","argument":"I believe that Reddit should allow for the option to filter posts according to the age of the poster. A poster's age may be visible or not at his or her discretion, but I believe the ablity to filter by poster age should be available. I am over 30 over 40 ITT and do not generally engage in conversation with 14 20 year olds for reasons which should be obvious to fellow adults . It is painfully obvious that many of the posts and opinions in this sub, and on Reddit in general, are by young individuals with limited world views and experience. I understand that posters can lie about their age, but I do not see that as a major problem besides, I doubt many teenagers would claim to be in there forties. I certainly appreciate a full range of opinion and discussion, but when seeking insight concerning, say, the Israel Palestinian conflict, I'd like to be able to filter out the self proclaimed highschoolers, at least.  EDIT I may be mingling some RES features with standard Reddit features with filters and searches.","conclusion":"I believe Reddit posts should be filterable by user age."}
{"id":"9a32f18d-4e70-4aa4-9957-3c0ae00d88ca","argument":"I believe that if self harm keeps you from being suicidal, it's fine do engage in so long as you are careful about it. If you are cautious and take care not to hit a vein, or cause a serious burn, I think that it is the right thing to do in order to control any suicidal thoughts. In my experience, it is more difficult to fight both the urge to cut as well as the urge to commit suicide. I accept that I am most likely biased as I have been cutting for a year and a half. I truly do not wish to hold this opinion however, it is the only logical solution to things that I can find. Please change my view. EDIT Guys, I don't want you to tell me to seek counseling. I want you to change my view.","conclusion":"I think self-harm is a good thing."}
{"id":"2ca6191b-cd3c-4329-a2e6-479f4d93afb0","argument":"As long as the state maintained a strict legal separation of church and state as many states do currently, no religious group could substantially influence politics.","conclusion":"This state is likely be dominated by the interests of the most powerful religion."}
{"id":"2461bc70-760d-405c-b2aa-512b6bea2195","argument":"5:10 - Luke takes a hit to one of his engines. His craft does to explode, though does take damage. We can infer his shields absorbed most of the impact. 8:49 - An X-Wing takes multiple impacts from Vaders laser cannons 3 or 4 and explodes, though started to come apart after the first hit. 8:58 - Another X-Wing takes a hit, possibly 2 from a TIE fighter and explodes. 9:30 - Red leader losses his starboard engine from a single shot 9:37 he takes another hit and ploughs into the Death Star..","conclusion":"During The Battle of Yavin 3:01 - Luke strafes the Death Star surface those are clearly not Kt explosions, 3:04-3:08 - Luke flies through the wash from his own strafing run and they are concerned for him. He claims he's a little cooked but otherwise okay. 4:03 - Luke again strafes the Death Star. Still no Kt blasts even the internal damage of a gun crew being blasted is not consistent with one. 4:28 - An X-wing takes a single hit from a TIE and explodes."}
{"id":"11fddc8b-14bb-4a95-bf2b-7c3a0e04ec14","argument":"Concluding heteronormality from the biblical creation narratives presupposes God\u2019s intent and paints these texts with static views of creation and love\u2014both, of which, are scripturally rebuffed.inclusive of Matt 19 & Mark 10.","conclusion":"The Bible does not support the conclusion that 'homosexuality' is a sin against God."}
{"id":"a4ebcdda-345d-4698-adc5-8ba0edef6e53","argument":"One motivated person can easily operate 20 Twitter \/ Reddit accounts and go back and forth with themselves. Which to others is indistinguishable from 20 real persons arguing with each other. Also, they can use language that makes the discussion appear extremely toxic.","conclusion":"Today we have an outrage culture and anonymous social networks make it very easy for a few motivated actors to make something appear as a much bigger deal than it really is."}
{"id":"4fc3eea7-9af5-42c9-8fd2-e8759604add6","argument":"I reject the argument that prostitution is just like any other job through the following reasonings. There is something intrinsically special about sexual intercourse. This intrinsic feature sets the act of selling sex as distinct from other sorts of labour. Such as, flipping hamburgers or working in construction. To see why this is the case, consider that clearly someone being forced to sell sex is far worse than someone being forced to work in any other job like construction or accounting. Additionally, someone working to be a prostitute out of desperation is far worse than someone working in a fast food restaurant out of desperation. Furthermore, assume the premise that it is wrong for a seller or merchant to refuse to sell to potential customers for discriminatory reasons. For example, it is morally wrong for a restaurant owner to refuse, on a racist basis, service to minorities. Then consider that this same moral principle is not applicable to prostitution. A prostitute should be allowed, because it is moral, to refuse service to whomever she feels so inclined, even if the refusal is based on discriminatory grounds. To argue the opposite of what I have just put forth, would be to suggest that a prostitute should have a moral obligation to provide her services to people whom she does not want to provide her services to. I would hold this is a blatantly untenable position.","conclusion":"Prostitution is not just like 'any other job.'"}
{"id":"cada6ff1-67c4-4f50-beb5-20afbd084705","argument":"Upvoting your own claim is a form of cheating and demonstrates a lack of confidence in one's viewpoint.","conclusion":"Voting your own claims should not be allowed on Kialo."}
{"id":"86ec7e5f-a254-431b-824d-92510b974873","argument":"I guess this is a little less serious than some of the posts here, but I seriously want some thoughts on this. I see a lot of criticism of TLJ, everything from I just didn't really like it to this is treason to every Star Wars fan, and I just don't get the stuff to the latter end of the spectrum. To be more specific, the two criticisms I see a lot are that A Luke was a deadbeat, and that left a lot of people upset that this former hero was less heroic, and B in that vein, they're moving away from what made Star Wars, Star Wars the movie was too goofy Disneyfied. There are various things that weren't perfect, in my opinion the Leia scene was a little odd, and the Finn Rose plotline felt a little emotionally un earned but I think those, a long with maaany of the criticisms I see, are really just personal opinion minor issues, not deepseated flaws with the narrative or the film as a whole. To A Luke was supposed to be a deadbeat That was the whole point He removed himself from the Jedi Order because he thought it deserved to die out, and made himself into a hermit. Rey was able to convince him that there was value in the old ways, and in the process he sacrifices himself in a deeply heroic way. To B Star Wars has always been goofy R2 and C 3PO are essentially Abbot and Costello, Luke's a huge dork, Chewbacca is essentially a slapstick character half the time he's on screen. Anyway, would love to hear someone's thoughts on this.","conclusion":"The Last Jedi was both a great movie, and a great Star Wars movie."}
{"id":"55895d69-a2d2-47aa-93fb-94c68e18926c","argument":"Despite promising to do so \"fairly quickly\" in an Interview with Sean Hannity Trump failed to balance the federal budget, and the Federal deficit continues to grow under his presidency.","conclusion":"Trump failed to follow through on the financial promises that he made to the voters."}
{"id":"ab61113a-42ef-4cd5-8025-d633d61e7629","argument":"Atheists in general believe that when you die, you just cease to exist. There is nothing afterwards Even tough I am not religious, I think that it's foolish to assume that. If we assume assume that when we die, our brains stop working, we stop thinking and therefore lose track of time, then time becomes irrelevant. Just like when someone is in a coma and wakes up 4 years after without knowing how long it had been or just what happened exactly Our minds simply cannot comprehend non existence. We will only regain consciousness that we were dead when we live again, either in a physical way or spiritually. Basically, if there is no afterlife, we have no way of knowing it. As long as we don't assume that time is infinite, there will be some sort of afterlife. Still, I would like to hear opinions on the other side of the spectrum.  EDIT My view has been changed. Even if there is some sort of life afterwards, it cannot count as after life since we simply will not be the same. Actually, this is all just too much information and complicated info at that and I can't wrap my head around not being conscious, as that's the only way of being we have been.","conclusion":"Atheists who claim that there is no after life are wrong."}
{"id":"900490db-973b-4640-8461-5fef50e08b26","argument":"It's pretty clear at this point that Valve is a distribution platform and microtransaction company with a game development studio attached to it. Fans of the Half Life series, Team Fortress, and Left 4 Dead have been getting left out in the cold. Fans of Counter Strike and Dota have only been getting attention because of cosmetics and microtransactions. I think Valve should spin off their game development studio to focus solely on their distribution business, or sell off their neglected IPs to a studio with the intention of actually shipping video games .","conclusion":"Valve software should sell off their IP so that fans of their games can get the attention they deserve"}
{"id":"b8c75ab0-1c9c-404b-b7d1-d4b2604476dd","argument":"I go to a fairly big university where I see girls wearing only solid colored yoga pants with some random top tank top, sweater, t shirt, hoodie and I just think it's a lazy outfit. For the record I'm talking about these And I'm referring to outfits that is just those plus a top and shoes. This is of course with the exception of actual exercise. If you're working out in them that's totally fine. But I see them so often outside of the gym that I can't imagine all the 300 400 girls I see a day are all working out in them. To me it's just lazy and it's the male equivalent to doing non athletic things in gym shorts. Yes they may be comfortable so are my smelly grey sweats, but they are weak as a standalone piece. Note that I don't want this to turn into a discussion on who can wear what. It's your body wear whatever you like. However I feel I'm perfectly justified in judging that you are lazy if you are wearing this outfit. Change my view.","conclusion":"Leggings are lazy."}
{"id":"0340f852-9ef6-42d0-8259-f505817963b3","argument":"If the problem were rephrased, as a situation where they would have to choose to push another human or their pet in front of the bus, most of those that previously saved the pet, would probably not push a human in front of the bus, though this is a symmetric situation to the saving the pet\/human, before.","conclusion":"If that were a calculated decision, knowing all the resulting consequences, they might, but they do not and are thus not acting rationally."}
{"id":"9eda8fdb-2449-4a68-b6c8-d5d2e5e14f4c","argument":"If dictators and every member of the families were killed it would save hundreds of thousands of the citizens of their countries from killings, torture, freedom of association and freedom of speech prevent another member of the dictator's family from carrying on the family business of controlling the country and appropriating it's wealth for themselves deter those in other countries from attempting to become dictators and allow for the possibility of democracy If you kill or torture one or a few people, you'll go to jail. If you do it on a nationwide scale it seems that you can not only get away with it, but your sons and grandsons can go on to do the same. Think of North Korea and Syria. Yes, it's savage and it's biblical. It could also save hundreds of thousands of lives and untold misery.","conclusion":"I believe that dictators and their whole\/extended families should be destroyed to prevent re-occurring dictator dynasties and deter wannabe dictators"}
{"id":"fb034908-a977-4372-bbd0-cf796fd6f5e4","argument":"It is immoral to force people into the least desirable jobs, e.g. sewage cleaning, simply because they have less access to money and opportunities.","conclusion":"Nobody should be forced to accept unnecessarily dangerous or underpaid jobs."}
{"id":"04ef61b2-87e9-4c2e-aa2b-2d26a27da7f4","argument":"Ever since 1964, the black vote has consistently voted over 80 for the democrats regardless of any platform the republicans have had, at all levels of government. Likewise, since the 80s Hispanics have voted more than 2 to 1 for the democratic party, even when candidates such as Reagan and George H Bush signed or proposed amnesty laws. I think we are at the point that republicans are synonymous with evil to minorities, and there is literally nothing they could possibly do to win over the minority vote, and any proposals they did make would be assumed to be insincere, and any minorities who are a part of the republican party are considered race traitors. I think that because of this, the party needs to simply dissolve. Moderate members should join the democratic party and over time a centrist wing will break off from the democratic party while the democrats will become farther left socialist left headed by Sanders type people . so to , find me an example state or federal level where majority of blacks Hispanics voted for a republican candidate where the democratic challenger wasn't totally incompetent or a criminal , or tell me why the republicans wouldn't be better off forming a new party and how they could possibly win over minorities. sources hispanics 1980 Jimmy Carter, 56 Ronald Reagan, 35 21 1984 Walter Mondale, 61 Ronald Reagan, 37 24 1988 Michael Dukakis, 69 George H.W. Bush, 30 39 1992 Bill Clinton, 61 George H.W. Bush, 25 36 1996 Bill Clinton, 72 Bob Dole, 21 51 2000 Al Gore, 62 George W. Bush, 35 27 2004 John Kerry, 58 George W. Bush, 40 18 2008 Barack Obama, 67 John McCain, 31 36 2012 Barack Obama, 71 Mitt Romney, 27 44","conclusion":"There is nothing the republican party could ever do to win minority votes and they should dissolve their party"}
{"id":"d5fa2879-0082-41b3-81cd-0e88027c38bd","argument":"Religious institutions such as church groups are likely to be best able to determine the most deserving recipients of aid in their community.","conclusion":"Religious organizations are closer to the individuals they help. They therefore have access to context and information that the state lacks."}
{"id":"db977a8c-5bd7-4eb1-945a-1c6081ca6b0d","argument":"Democrats, liberals, and other opponents of Trump have strong incentives to give credibility to the collusion theory.","conclusion":"The investigation into the Trump Campaign's collusion with Russia is a partisan attack."}
{"id":"61d4ce29-521a-4a60-b026-10acf0de76e1","argument":"For the sake of argument, lets disregard the fact that the majority of drivers do not own new cars and assume the benefit of this would be 20 30 years down the road, similar to laws the requiring seat belts, ABS, airbags and traction control to be standard equipment. Before reading any further I am not recommending that a Breathalyzer INTERLOCK AKA blow and go be installed on cars. Rather that the brethalizer is a standard feature the drivers can chose to use much like seat belts the car will still operate without blowing into the breathalyzer but it might ding at you. Blowing over the legal limit would not prevent the car from starting, but the driver would know they were over the legal limit. I know three different people who have received DUI's in recent months and all of them were between 0.08 and 0.1 BAC. All of them are required to have a blow and go Breathalyzer interlock on their car in order to regain the privilege of driving. In other words, for the car to start they must do a Breathalyzer test and it must read below 0.02 IIRC for the car to start. I beleive that if they had known they were just barely over the limit they would have waited a few hours to sober up. While the best option is to never drive if you have had even one sip of alcohol, in rural areas where taxi's are non existant and being a designated driver requires putting 50 miles of driving in, people will drive after drinking. Its a matter of practicality. I am of the opinion that the majority of people do not know their states DUI penalties. As such increasing them only puts an additional burden on those caught drunk driving, rather than preventing the incident in the first place. In my area there are constant TV, bilboard and radio ads about police of all types increasing DUI patrolls, but quite frankly the only time I don't tune them out is when driving home from responsible drinking. At which point I do some mental math and realize that I am way way way under the legal limit and have nothing to worry about. Further, due to alcohol's judgement impairing nature, to expect individuals to assume personal responsibility for choosing wether or not to drive after drinking is asinine. By nature their judgement is impaired, of course people will over estimate how good to drive they are If, 20 years from now, the majority of cars on the road had Breathalyzers as standard equipment I believe less people would drive intoxicated.","conclusion":"Making Breathalyzers mandatory equipment in new vehicles will do more to prevent drunk driving than increasing penalties and patrols for DUI\/DWI"}
{"id":"5699724e-b112-4963-b111-93a739b0f4af","argument":"The rebels could have the advantage of multiple cultures having potentially mixed so well that there may be languages that they could use to communicate which could prevent their communications being read once intercepted.","conclusion":"The Rebel Alliance have a greater exposure to different cultures and their ways of waging warfare than the Starfleet. This would give the rebels the advantage of greater cultural knowledge and fighting styles\/training."}
{"id":"b6be6ef4-98f7-4656-b042-be49e6c366e7","argument":"Managers bully their employees. Passive aggressive bullies dominate the workplace. The government bullies the socially irresponsible. Even physical bullies are encouraged and prosper in sports. In fact, I would imagine it is very difficult for an individual to objectively pick a week when they have not themselves bullied someone whilst justifying it. There are obvious examples of deeply unacceptable victimisation that should of course be condemned, but to just tell kids no bullying without explaining the larger context is going to encourage a generation of whiny, intolerant victim players. gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than just downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Bullying happens everywhere, in all social organisations, at all times, and to teach children simplistic \"Anti-Bullying\" messages is actually harmful to their social development."}
{"id":"32c427d3-a58c-43f8-9b71-9807b8ca28ba","argument":"It can be reasoned that untied shoes are rarely likely to cause severe harm to anyone. And the solution tying shoes is simple. It is also straitforward that if a person created us and all of our dangerous surroundings, we are likely in danger if we ignore this person\u2019s communication. The solution isn\u2019t as clear, also, so more effort should be given to discern what this person is saying, since it is possible that the person exists and has spoken","conclusion":"The implications of untied shoelaces are demonstratably less important than the implications of a God existing or not."}
{"id":"d8e3fce6-1f31-4b34-a178-13fae2074fff","argument":"Even devoid of some system, someone can believe things right, or wrong, which in turn would mean there are good, and evil.","conclusion":"The existence of evil does not require a moral law beyond man, simply morals."}
{"id":"296d9990-6b2f-4b98-9dbd-4e090a7de52d","argument":"Goshuin notebooks are an example of a modern cultural artifact that helps support Buddhist temples in Japan. This and other similar kinds of practices would be easier to establish and maintain with the help of a UBI.","conclusion":"A UBI could restore pride in kinds of work that are culturally significant, but otherwise are not usually fiscally responsible undertakings."}
{"id":"d0122e54-5dec-4565-9b08-ff2afda29dc9","argument":"This doesn\u2019t seem to be too popular a view given its illegality in most parts of the world. But if someone has enough wealth that a cloning procedure is a viable option for them then I don\u2019t see a strong enough reason for why they shouldn\u2019t be allowed to do so. They won\u2019t be exact copies, identical twins aren\u2019t 100 the same so they will still end up raising a new person. And if a person is wealthy because they are particularly smart, beautiful or charming then there is a higher chance that their clone will be too. More awesome people, yay I admit there will probably be strong self selection for douche bags too And if enough rich people use this, the price comes down and becomes affordable for the middle class and eventually everyone else. This shouldn\u2019t be done in absence of guidelines, most would be ensuring clones have the normal rights that most children in our society have like, it's presumably already illegal to sell babies but there might be a few extra rules Medically safe It would be cruel to bring clones into this world if we know that they are more likely to suffer from severe medical problems. But is some existence better than no existence? Oversight on organ donations We wouldn\u2019t want a society where clones were brought to life just to give their parent an extra kidney, or worse, any item where the clone lacks a spare. Their ability to donate an organ to their parent might need extra safeguards. Numbers Should people be allowed to clone a giant army of themselves if that\u2019s their goal and they can afford it? Designer babies, like clones with some gene editing This is a separate subject from cloning, but the main worries here should be medical safety, not societal stability. What other people might worry about that I don't think is significant Perpetuating inequality. What if there were 15 mini Elon Musks all building on their father\u2019s empire in 25 years? Our world would look even more like an oligopoly. People who choose to already are having lots of kids. And if they were closer copies they might be even more successful Atomization accelerates Societies of families are already clannish. Societies of parent child identicals could form their own. This seems to be happening, clones or no clones Opposed for the same reason polygamy is opposed People don\u2019t like seeing others, especially those who they would like to be lower in status, having excessive reproductive success presumably monopolizing resources. Cloning seems to have less societal drawbacks than polygamy, as more people are available in the dating market Long term biodiversity worries. If other people are still sexually reproducing then how is this an issue. Discrimination Don\u2019t hate on clones, don\u2019t hate on non clones. Our society already recognizes the principle that people shouldn\u2019t be discriminated against, even as it often fails to live up to it in practice. Another group that might discriminate or be discriminated against shouldn\u2019t change much \u2013 we already have so many ways to separate and judge people. And if a new identity focal point takes over it might even make the others matter less. Overpopulation worries To the extent that new people are productive members of society let's just say I'm more convinced by Julian Simon than Paul Ehrlich. Unreasonable expectations of clones to live up to their original We already have this in some form for normal kids\u2026 Hard to bond with a long term partner when raising a clone instead of combined or adopted child I don't fully buy this, but even if true single parenthood is definitely legal. Yes, I might get creeped out if some celebrities want to let others raise their clones lots of crazy fans are willing to do so. But if a couple wants to raise exact clones instead of bio or adopted children who are we to stop them? What am I missing? Edit Other argument People are for banning it mostly to move slowly as we figure out the societal implications of what cloning might do. This is almost convincing but a flat ban instead of limitations still seems extreme and rooted more in religion than logic.","conclusion":"When we get the technology working it should be legal for people to clone themselves to make children."}
{"id":"4c6e09c0-a26f-437c-9620-4f2ab690e492","argument":"I'd rather work 20 years in a row than watch some boring motorsport any kind car racing stuff, motorbike jump stuff, quad stuff It all just seems like a hobby that is a huge waste of ressources. I can't even understand how people find interest in it.I can understand E Sport. I can understand football in one way or the other even though I find it uninteresting, but MOTORSPORTS really mindblown. It's a huge garbage genre. I haven't talked to anyone about it yet, but I'm sure everyone agrees with me where I live.I met some kind of dude that loves driving those GO Karts and he is the prime of example of what I think people are like that are into those sports. He loves Gucci, Prada, fast expensive cars and those weird chicks with no clothes on before and after each race. That sums it up.","conclusion":"Nothing is more boring than motorsports"}
{"id":"f85e978f-d936-4b13-949c-77fcfda692e6","argument":"Like for real, Ugg was going on and on about how we can just sit in one place now and not have to worry about following the herds and foraging. I'm like, are you crazy. That doesn't make any sense. We've been following herds since our fertility goddess gave birth to us. gt Hello, people of the past. This is a footnote from the moderators of this 'internet forum'. I'm afraid to say that some wannabe scientist, while looking into time travel, has caused a temporal distortion field. It should dissipate in the next 24 hours. In the mean time, feel free to message us about a view you hold while you're visiting the present, and remember to have a look through our rules","conclusion":"Agriculture will never catch on."}
{"id":"019cf4ab-3505-46e6-bdbb-c000d086d838","argument":"\"she's cheating on me. I can feel it.\" \u2013 This is a trope of fiction for a reason, but the following trope, sending a private detective to find out. well, there would be more private detectives if that was common.","conclusion":"The knock on effect in someone's life of deciding that they can draw conclusions without solid evidence can undermine their life bringing chaos through ignorance rather than order through investigation."}
{"id":"961054d6-8cb1-4337-af25-4d49d5f11eb6","argument":"Recently in my province the laws were changed regarding commonlaw relationships. If two people live together in a romantic relationship for at least two years, they are commonlaw. Commonlaw couples now equally split almost all debt and assets accumulated during the relationship. So if one person takes out student loan debt while living together, the other person is half responsible. If one person owns a house, and during the relationship, the house value appreciates, the other person is entitled to half the value of the increase. Of course, it is not automatic the person would have to demand that the other pay half the debt, or whatever. However, this does not seem justified to me. I can see that in a situation where both parties decided that one person quit work to raise kids, the person who quit work can legitimately argue that they deserve something. But these laws apply to all cases. If both me and my partner are working earning the same money even, but I spend less than they they would be entitled to half my increase in net worth theirs did not increase, since they spent more .","conclusion":"I think that no one is entitled to another person's money\/material assets simply by being in a relationship with them."}
{"id":"f8853949-af9c-4444-8777-abc58fd32266","argument":"So I just got done reading these two threads and just nearly died reading them. I honestly cannot fathom how someone could possibly take cheating and turn it back around into something that's good. I feel as if to have the cuckold fetish, a person must definitely not have a stable mindset. How could you possibly be okay with the fact that you have been mistreated and abused and turn it into something that arouses you? Please reddit, .","conclusion":"I think people who have the cuckold fetish have some sort of mental disorder; or at least are far displaced from reality."}
{"id":"b20d1567-021a-4bdc-99c3-a5a8e43b3e65","argument":"Preface I work closely and on the same side as police. I've got a lot of friends that are cops. This is my opinion, in general of police. Cops are reactionary and bullies. I've seen them do stereotypical bad cop stuff on a regular basis. The things that come out of the mouths of the cops in my city are terrible. One cop was just quoted on TV saying I love working in the city, I love the action. And this is a mentality that many of them have, and the basis of my argument. They are supposed to protect and serve, but instead they spend most of their time arresting and fining people for dumb stuff, and bullying and demanding respect for no good reason. The only good I've seen from the majority of police is pulling over drunk drivers. It seems to me that between fire departments, ambulances, and animal control, we'd be fine without them. For the most part, they write tickets, take reports, and, at least where I live, hold themselves to a lower standard because I'm putting my life on the line for you . I live in a place where a cop was recently killed, and the city basically shut down. One of the ERs shut down for several hours. Roads closed for a 4 hour long funeral procession, and there's a huge parade for him. The city sports arena was rented out for his funeral. This cop has a baby daughter and another older one, and is the same one who worked in the city instead of the suburbs because of the action . This officer was killed chasing a man who violated parole. He lost his life because of a parole violation and he like putting people on pavement. The other thing that bothers me, is that people get killed in my city all of the time, and I see no one trying to solve the problem, but as soon as one cop dies, it's a whole big thing. Was he rescuing a baby from a burning building? Was he handling a hostage situation? I don't see what they do that other services can't do. Anyways, it's a super unpopular opinion, and would love to once again see the merits of these men and women. .","conclusion":"Police are good for very little, and don't deserve the respect we give them. Turn my view around, please."}
{"id":"8be99a96-adf6-487d-87f7-ff4127f55fe8","argument":"If we have a talent and or passion for a certain industry, why not let us embrace that and take MORE classes that are relevant to that industry, rather than have maybe 1 4 of our entire collegiate curriculum comprise of relevant classes to our major and the other 3 4 be filler classes that we will never use in our future careers which, by the way, is what college is marketed to prepare us for in the first place ? They label it as well roundedness . Well I've gathered that well roundedness is no longer relevant in contemporary society. I mean sure, you can be well rounded in a certain industry. For example, I'm majoring in IT. I could learn stuff like web design and and also be proficient in SharePoint, building databases, or even a programming language. That's great, it makes me more marketable to potential IT employers. However, why make us take totally irrelevant classes like an arts of English class? It has nothing to do with my major, I have no interest in it, and I also found the material to be repulsive. When potential employers look at my transcript, they're not going to say Oh look, he took an arts class. We're definitely going to hire him over all these other people that took a bunch of IT classes because he is 'well rounded'. Bottom line is We need to restructure the curriculum to include more classes that are relevant to our interests and less classes that are irrelevant. Like a 4 to 1 ratio of relevant classes to filler well rounding classes.","conclusion":"I believe that the higher education system in this country USA is flawed and we should focus more on our individual interests\/passions\/talents versus being \"well rounded\"."}
{"id":"07bbab78-91c1-4892-a7e6-f079d33ef76c","argument":"This question comes from a rant a friend of mine put up on facebook about her 'right to abstain from voting because she believes that by not voting, she's sending a message to the current political system that it doesn't work'. While I agree she has every right to do not do as she sees fit with her time, I don't agree that abstaining from this activity does anything to show anyone that the system doesn't work. I think it shows just the opposite, and I believe an unwillingness to participate in how things are currently run is nothing more than laziness and apathy. I'm really having trouble understanding her point of view, so I'm turning to you guys to  on why voting is important Thanks Edit Heh, really don't understand the downvotes, but thanks guy girl Sorry for ruining your day","conclusion":"Abstaining from voting because you're disillusioned with the choices\/system makes you part of the problem, and doesn't make a 'statement'."}
{"id":"60e804ea-43d8-4def-90fb-da974a74133d","argument":"Every year a sizeable minority try to get out of conscription to the Israeli military.Faking psychological illness has become so common that telling stories about those who's tried to get out of service has become popularized.","conclusion":"Draft evasion is substantial and is becoming more common in Israel."}
{"id":"8a06613c-54a4-4bec-bbd8-63b74d2f677f","argument":"the idea that people were choking on their own homogeneity before the relief of diversity is an asinine assumption. different cultures exist because they were separate, not inclusive.thats why we are diverse people in the world. to respect diversity is to respect our homelands and the people in them, not forcing them to be the same, forcing them to blend","conclusion":"A democracy that has been achieved and established internally is more likely to be respected and appreciated by the population than a democracy that has been provided by foreigners."}
{"id":"6d0ed52d-07c1-4f2a-9b16-1c24ef87c189","argument":"Switzerland's democracy gave us the best wristwatches and chocolates. Italy's autocracies gave us universities, medical schools, hospitals, sewers, running water, paved streets and roads, bridges, the Renaissance, modern cities and states, productive agriculture and fisheries, maritime commerce, sanitary infrastructures, the European consciousness, civilisation as we know it. An individual may be wise, or unwise. Is there such a thing as collective wisdom?","conclusion":"Modern democracies are destined to fail due to their inherent weaknesses."}
{"id":"9d0fe2b1-d77f-4722-90e2-00cb69c7a1ef","argument":"Given a long enough time scale life should arise on every planet with the same or similar conditions which enabled it on earth. BUT 1 We don\u2019t know what these conditions are exactly. Maybe there are few, maybe there are many which all have to occur in specific relation to one another and perhaps a few are enough. And maybe life can arise in worlds very dissimilar to earth such as Titan for example. 2 We don\u2019t know much about the time scales involved. Perhaps the likelihood per unit of time is so small that stellar lifetimes perhaps the age of the universe itself are too short to have created a significant chance, yet, for life let alone intelligence to arise often enough in the galaxy or our supercluster at large. Let\u2019s try to get a fix on these variables by taking a look at the only case study we have. The mediocrity principle suggests that this timeline of events might be universal, but given that we\u2019re trying to resolve an apparent paradox we should take into account that if it had been different we probably wouldn\u2019t be here or able to observe or discuss anything at all. Life first appeared in the ocean and in fact it\u2019s generally assumed that a liquid medium is required for chemistry to get complicated enough to become biology. It happened here between 3.5 and 4.28 billion years ago. Which means the oceans were lifeless for 0.13 to 1 billion years. We don\u2019t know much about environmental changes conducive to life in that time but I think it\u2019s fair to conclude that the right conditions existed for a very long time and nothing happened until some day it did. We might have been very lucky and statistically it takes a trillion years. We just don\u2019t know. Multi cellular life first occurred 0.9 billion years ago. This means an evolutionary development which in all likelihood is necessary for intelligence took billions of years and trillions of generations and many more individual organisms dwarfing into obscurity all of mammalian evolution combined. This necessary mutation seems to be the most unlikely one to have ever happened on earth. And this doesn\u2019t even take into account \u201cauxiliary\u201d mutations among unicellular organisms providing more efficient energy sources, enabling larger population sizes and speeding up the evolutionary process Photosynthesis, sharing DNA via viruses etc., sexual reproduction 1.2 billion years ago, and many more. If sexual reproduction hadn\u2019t taken just 3 but only a couple billion years longer the expanding sun would have sterilized the planet before we humans got here. So much for life, now intelligence. Big brains and intelligence are anything but an evolutionary advantage. Generally speaking the faster a species reproduces ie. the more chance for evolutionary development it has the dumber it is. One would assume they\u2019ll ultimately catch up with their more intelligent and slower developing counterparts but they don\u2019t. Intelligence is not a desirable trait. Except in a very small minority of cases the increased intelligence doesn\u2019t seem to outweigh the costs in resources and time. The fact that humans managed to find a way through this evolutionary maze while increasing our intelligence contrary to other fairly intelligent species who have remained stagnant for hundreds of millions of years, like the octopus is the result of the specific interplay of our physiology, place in the food chain and our environment. And all but one species in our genus died out in the process anyway we ourselves came dangerously close a few times. Our lucky combination is that we are persistence hunters located somewhere in the middle of the food chain and have severely underdeveloped digestive tracts for an omnivore. Communicating is highly beneficial to us, as is the use of fire for fire stick farming, cooking, warmth and protection against predators. Even so it took us hundreds of thousands of years to use fire for anything approaching modern technology such as pottery or metalworking. If we weren\u2019t pack animals or had been apex predators we\u2019d probably never have used fire at all. Intelligence is rare and we shouldn\u2019t be surprised if we are the only technological civilization in the galaxy and maybe beyond it. .","conclusion":"The Solution to the Fermi paradox is that Intelligence is rare"}
{"id":"c9af6f08-0dfc-418c-a498-102716018821","argument":"Patriarchal societies have an interest in perpetuating a societal system traditionally run by men. They do this through the idea of fixed gender identities and roles.","conclusion":"Social structural theory views gender differences as psychological attempts to adjust to social expectations."}
{"id":"74ccd239-62ad-4a22-8569-1c09168b3784","argument":"Even if the first colonists themselves fully accept the risks of going to Mars, if something bad happens to them, this could create a backlash in public perception against space colonization and delay the entire effort.","conclusion":"The voyage to Mars alone is riddled with difficulties large and many that moving there might not be worth the effort."}
{"id":"bb7259c8-6dd2-4164-a76c-d729d46319ce","argument":"I do not think morals actually exist. I've looked at utilitarianism, kant, etc. I'm not convinced that any moral framework is true. It's not that I find the frameworks inconsistent or something, I just see no reason to believe any of them. Why should I obey them? They all seem ultimately driven by arbitrary values, anyway. We are ultimately just piles of atoms that have assembled themselves into semi self aware regions of influence. The universe is ultimately uncaring. So where would morality come from in the first place? You could argue that human minds are the piece of the universe that cares, and that human minds are the generators of morality, but what prevents it from being arbitrary? What is good and evil bad? That is arbitrary too. It's not like a tornado is actually bad, it's just a cycle of wind that gets too strong for humans to handle. Shit, even evil people thought what they were doing was good . So are there morals? If so, why be moral? What moral system is correct? Thanks. PS. Had to add that the most real moral code seems to be might makes right . Since there are actual physical consequences for disobeying those with more resources for example prison . But I don't like this arrangement, because I'm not wealthy or powerful, and I dislike pain. UPDATE I get that a lot of people here think that morals exist because they help society function. But I do not find that to be a convincing statement for the following reasons Just because a set of shared morals helps society function doesn't necessarily make that moral set true. At best it just makes it practical. I could just point out societies that many of you would find reprehensible to be an immediate counterexample to this. Another user pointed out the idea outlined in 1, by calling it fictionalism . I understand it's beneficial to appear moral. That doesn't mean morals exist. Also, having empathy doesn't imply morality. Empathy is just a process your brain goes through to force you to feel what others feel. To say that this is a morality is like saying that thinking cookies taste good means that cookies are objectively THE best food.","conclusion":"I'm a moral nihilist."}
{"id":"8cb84016-579b-4e7b-9128-12dbb0586505","argument":"It is already legal under monopoly licence to GW Pharma Legalising it would remove their ability to price gouge.","conclusion":"Cannabis should be legalised for medical use in the UK."}
{"id":"fd4ad7d2-4f75-4cc3-b55d-09a40361a507","argument":"Some therapists use Tarot as a tool as part of therapy, particularly in the area of Jungian Analysis - Interview with Dr. Art Rosengarten \/ Carl Jung & Tarot","conclusion":"If tarot readings were proven to be even marginally more effective than conventional therapy then doctors would be forced prescribe it instead of therapy."}
{"id":"07cb405e-6063-4dd2-818f-f5eac5ad362d","argument":"As of 2015, a third of British members of parliament had attended a private school which is the case for only 7% of the general population; a quarter had studied in either Oxford of Cambridge; and there is a strong bias towards politicians with a previous background in business, finance, law and politics Hunter\/Holden, p. 2","conclusion":"Politicians, in contrast to millions of voters from different walks of life, are more prone to mistakes due to their small numbers and their relative sameness in many regards."}
{"id":"ce7fb997-76aa-44d5-b2e6-742fefabf5cd","argument":"Harmful consequences are sometimes more important than the intention behind the action. As this article of intent vs impact argues, the marginalization or oppression of those around us makes the intention behind our actions irrelevant.","conclusion":"Action with good intention can still have harmful consequences; political correctness is a proposed framework for turning good intentions into harm reduction."}
{"id":"cf0471ca-5738-4657-bf84-38fa8fa88855","argument":"I am very critical about our educational system, at least the system in my country which I believe has the same flaws as the american educational system. I believe school doesn't teach you about important things in life like for example, you don't learn about different political ideologies, how the political system of your country is built, how economics works and how to do your taxes. But most important than that you don't earn social skills. People are instructed from an early age that you need to work hard in school to get a nice job later on and be successful. But what is the point of busting your ass in college, so then you get a job that requires you to work inhumane amount of hours like 12hours or so a day and doesn't allow you to take vacations? You'll earn a lot of money or not because a lot of people are asked to work that and don't receive that much but you have no time to spend it. You also don't have time to develop meaniful relationships. So the only thing you can do is to either get married and have kids that is if you find a suitable partner that doesn't mind the fact that you are more commited to your job or you have to be single all your life and just pursue superfitial relations such as random hookups for sex and friends with benefits. You don't have any time to invest on you, to learn new stuff and most importantly to travel and meet new realities. The way the system is built kills imagination and creativity. Chances are you are so exhausted at the end of the day, you don't have any energy left to think about anything else or for example to study the current state of world affairs and update about world news. So in the current system people are reduced to slaves of their work and don't have any time left to personal development.","conclusion":"The superfitiality of our current society starts in the way our educational systems and job market are built"}
{"id":"ede1dcaf-9462-4544-9dc1-801969cc0390","argument":"So here is the basis. I have spent hours researching both of the next gen consoles, and the Xbox One seems like the one for me. The problem is that almost all of my friends are just getting the PS4. The Xbox One has dedicated game servers, which is great for people like me who primarily play multiplayer games, which Sony can't afford to do. The Xbox One has far better exclusive games in my opinion, which are important considering that games are why I buy the console. Microsoft's cloud computes for your Xbox One, making it around 3 times more powerful, which in return makes it the more powerful console and I have a great internet connection, so that will work just fine for me . The fact that Microsoft gives you free, unlimited online storage seems great considering that I will be downloading most of my games this games this gen, so I will have a place to store random stuff that I don't need on my hard drive. I like how Xbox Live is trying to keep normal players away from trolls this gen, that is great for multiplayer games. The only thing that the ps4 offers me that the Xbox One doesn't is my friends.","conclusion":"I prefer the Xbox One over the PS4,"}
{"id":"0cfa3f9d-37cf-476b-a45c-e5a1f41b6bea","argument":"Edit It's been fun, but I gotta run. I'll answer more comments about my impending jail sentence in the AM. Note this is a  about my personal situation. While the discussion may touch on wider topics, the main point of the  will be to change my view about my own actions and life. I have personally seen a number of these posts, which tend to be low quality. If you believe that such personal posts do not belong on this sub, and decrease its quality, I encourage you to act in such a way as to protect the sub's quality of content, and downvote this. Downvoting can be achieved by going to your settings and turning off subreddit styling more specific instructions may be found on google. Now, on the the rant So in a couple months, I plan on moving into a white cargo van full time. This is quite a strange thing to do, and many of my friends seem to think it is a bad idea, so I would like to open myself up to having my view challenged. I'll present the idea in 3 sections impetus, expected challenges, and expected detractions. Impetus I want to live in a van for, I think, three reasons. 1 It is cheaper . Currently, I'm pursuing the goal of financial I want to be able to live my life without needing to work. Not that I don't want to work but I want the option to walk away if I so choose, or to do work that I find personally fulfilling, even if it is not financially fulfilling. I work a white collar office job in a fairly large city, so I get paid decently, but also have a cost of living higher than, say, rural North Dakota. After doing some basic arithmetic, I found that, at my current rate of spending and earning, I would definitely need to increase earning or decrease spending in order to meet my financial independence goal within the time frame I want 5 6 years . I also noticed that nearly half of my spending was going towards rent. I have other plans to increase my earnings, but decreasing the amount of rent I am paying would make my goal significantly more achievable. 2 Experience Living in a van will be a relatively unique and challenging experience. I will get to spice up my life in a new and interesting way by living in a van, and will have an excellent story to tell for years to come. Knowing that I can live in a van long term will make me more resilient to future challenges, and confident that I can overcome them. 3 Quality of Life I absolutely despise my morning and afternoon commute. My work is far away from housing developments, and the ones which are close are a expensive and b for sale, not rent. Living in a van, I can bike or walk to work every day. Expected Challenges As I said before, I expect living in a van to be challenging at times, but that is part of what makes it appealing. Here, I will outline some of the major, obvious challenges I expect to contend with, and my responses to them. Feel free to bring up other challenges you think I might face, though. Let me preface this section with the fact that I am an avid outdoors enthusiast. I've been on several extended hiking trips, living in a tent for weeks or months at a time, eating nothing but instant mashed potatoes and peanut butter, and smiling. Comparatively, I expect van living to be rather cushy but I'll be working while in the van, so it'll probably balance out . Weather when it is hot, I'll find somewhere else to chillax. There are public parks and coffee shops nearby, or I can go to the gym I'll have a membership at. When it is cold, I can bundle up, get in my 15 degree sleeping bag, insulate the van, or get a portable propane heater plus deadly gas detector dying in my sleep would suck . Cooking Currently, the vast majority of things I cook involve, maximum, a stock pot, a frying pan, and a chef's knife. Spaghetti, chili, stir fry, tacos, curry, eggs, etc. I can grab a coleman 2 burner camp stove and hook it up to propane for a range. For water, I can get a water cube from walmart for about 15. For a fridge, I can get a chest cooler no ice, I'll just eat perishable things quicker or, if I'm fancy, a DC RV fridge. Internet and Electricity I'm toying with the idea of installing a solar system, but letting it lie now lots of cost. I'll see if I can live without it, and if not, will install it later. Anyway what do I need electricity for? If I go with the chest cooler, I don't need it for cooking. For lighting, I have been happy for years using camping headlamps. For entertainment, I have my phone. If my phone runs out of charge, I have a backup battery pack I can use to charge it. Both of these I can charge at various places throughout the day work, gym, etc. My phone has internet, and if I can't do something on the phone browser, it can usually wait until I can do it on my work computer. Grooming and pooping I love going to the gym, so I'm going to get a gym membership whether or not I live in a van, so it is a moot point. The gym can provide me with all the things I need for regular grooming a shower, and a sink to shave at. I can brush my teeth in the van without water, and take my clothes to the laundromat I currently wear shirts and pants multiple times before washing with a quick look and smell check each time before I put them on . For pooping, once again, coffee shops, gas stations, grocery stores, work, etc. I'm pretty regular usually, so this shouldn't be a huge issue. However, emergencies do happen, so I'll keep a 5 gallon bucket with a toilet seat, kitty litter, and heavy duty garbage bags on hand. Plus a sealing lid for after the deed is done. Cops n robbers I'm not too concerned. My work is in an office park surrounded by suburbia not a hotbed of crime. I'll park in strip malls and office parks places where no one knows anyone, and so a van sitting in the parking lot for a night isn't something anyone concerns themselves with. I'll move every night or so, so I won't gain any real notice. I'll black out the windows and use headphones for music movies, so I won't attract attention, or give tells that there is someone inside. If someone comes a knockin, I'll just be real quiet, peek out to see if the coast is clear, and move to a different spot. If I plan on leaving the van for a longer period of time, I can park it at a friend's place. Expected Detractions You'll get sick of it quite possible. However, I look at it this way I'm planning on spending much less on the van and the build than I would spend on a year's rent. If I can stick it out a year or even less , I come out ahead. If I realize it is a complete nightmare, I can sell the van for about what I paid for it used vans don't really depreciate , find an apartment, and be right back where I was before, but with a good story and a new realization about the limits of my comfort zone. You'll be so bored during the week, I tend to go to work, go to the gym, work on some personal projects, and maybe watch a movie at home. On the weekends, I go out with friends to go backpacking or whatever. Overall, I'm pretty happy with my life as it is right now, and I've outlined above how I'll fit those things into van life. What will your employer think my employer doesn't need to know. I'll show up to work on time, well groomed, and do my job to the best of my ability. I would be worried about my employer finding out initially, but after a couple months I can just say I've been living it the van for several months now. I'm perfectly happy, and I've been doing my job well. I don't see how it matters. You'll never get laid meh. I'm kind of a weird guy. I've had sex in the past, it was enjoyable, but it wasn't something that will drive me forward in life. Generally, I see sex as something fun to do, but not necessary for my happiness, and usually not worth the effort. If I find a girl I really like, who actually likes me as well, I can explain my reasoning to her and she'll be understanding. If she doesn't like to be in the van, we can go to her place. If she doesn't like the idea of me in a van, and I become really committed, see You'll get sick of it . You won't have any friends why not? I already have any friends, and find it quite easy to make new ones. I'm kind of socially awkward, but I find that if I do something I'm interested in with people who are also interested in it, friendship happens naturally plus, I end up doing things I actually care about, instead of just going to bars or the movies or hanging out at home. The friends I do have aren't against people living in vans they just think it will be bad for me . Based on my experience with them, I don't think any of them would abandon our friendship based on my van dwelling they would just think of it as an interesting quirk, and probably rib me about it at parties. So, that's my case. Let the hole poking commence","conclusion":"Living In a Van Is, For Me, A Good Idea"}
{"id":"414501f6-c4ae-43b4-afd2-c1f340d4047b","argument":"Whether you play offline or online, games that seek to simulate professional sports will always come up short in very noticeable ways in doing so. Playing online, the vast majority of the community will care more about winning than playing realistically, and many of them also don't have the knowledge skills to mimic legitimate pro sports strategies. Playing offline, an AI controlled opponent simply cannot replicate the ability of a human to read, react, and make adjustments accordingly. They just can't think like a human, and pro sports have so much depth that it will be very noticeable. A huge part of the experience is taken away when an AI isn't able to use a strategy that its real life counterpart would definitely utilize. Change my view. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"If realism is important to you, sports video games are largely obsolete"}
{"id":"dfd92fe1-2c09-43f8-abcc-9ad68351047f","argument":"The racial insensitivity was the reality and the book needs to retain its historical setting. Fiction contains historically accurate pictures of our ancestors, the re-writing of history to cleanse human wrongs is extremely dangerous. What may be more effective is using modern works in English class that show the cultural improvements in race relations rather than writing racism out of history.","conclusion":"The removal or manipulation of information provided to students is a common method of censorship, often used to cover up uncomfortable truths about the past."}
{"id":"7e42d55a-abaa-4fe0-a616-ae11b9b29683","argument":"First off I'll say that I absolutely DO believe satire has a place in the world, and I think it's a beautiful thing when we feel comfortable enough to make fun of the less pleasant things in both ourselves and in society. Plus, it's a helpful tool at not only coping with the greyer things of life, but also drawing awareness to issues that otherwise might go unnoticed, allowing for more action to be taken to resolve them. However, I think when satire becomes the norm and we start to fail to see it for the social critique it is, it begins to lose its meaning and may even go far enough to reinforce the themes and attitudes that it's criticising. I know this is just a very basic example, but take South Park and it's Jew jokes. Growing up as a teenage male, all the guys my age found Cartman asking Kyle for his bag of jew gold to be the funniest thing ever, and being an impressionable adolescent I naturally went along with it, and so the stereotype of greedy Jews was born into my mind. I live in a society that has little Jewish presence, yet I already managed to develop a preconceived notion of them in my head, because I was too young and stupid to get the idea of satire. Now, I know you could argue that a South Park isn't meant for young teenagers anyway and b kids are naturally going to be more affected by mature humour, but in response to that I say that it's practically unfeasible to expect adult topics are always going to remain in adult society, and that as unfortunate as it is, even into adulthood a lot of people never develop the capacity to understand the subtlety of satire, and only see the surface level jokes. When people fail to perceive the actual intention of satire, the result is that the problem becomes normalised as people become adjusted to it. I don't think I have to point out how this could make an issue worse. Nevermind the fact that satire doesn't exist in a vacuum. Satire's effectiveness rests on the premise that people can and do recognise what it's making fun of. This is diminished when your entire source of entertainment becomes satire, and your ability to perceive the topics it's addressing lowers because you assume that making fun of the world is just how entertainment is , rather than being the tool to make light of these issues that it's supposed to be. Take GTA for example, this is a series whose entire entertainment platform is being a biting critique of modern society, but because it's so over the top and so constant, it's very easy for to lose the message and the end result is that the games themselves become the very thing they're likely railing against. And lastly, and this is probably just a pet peeve of mine, but I feel like when the comedic and entertainment focus is on satire, we forget that the OTHER half of dealing with problems is presenting possible solutions to solve them. Play Grand Theft Auto for too long and it's easy to get depressed and sour at the godawful portrayal of humanity the creators present. Watch too much animated sitcoms and you'll just think the world is one steaming pile of shit to be made fun of at every turn. Rather than being proactive in how they want people to address these issues, that just point a big rubber hand and say LOOK LOOK HOW SHITTY THAT IS NOW EVERYONE LAUGH . It's depressing, self indulgent, and even irresponsible, as can lead people to forget that the world is a solvable place. Change my view gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than just downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I believe excessive satire can be harmful and can actual help reinforce the thing it's poking fun of."}
{"id":"adcac4b5-bae4-4048-878b-19eda54a3347","argument":"This question is inspired by a comment I received gt I consider you read up on that camp topic since what you're spreading is extremely racist western propaganda infodump That user's link provided a lot of good information. But I see myself as merely proven wrong , not spreading extremely racist western propaganda . How is it racist to mention the Xinjiang re education camps? I did not advocate discrimination or harm against China anywhere. I harbour no ill will against either the Uyghurs or the Han Chinese, so how is mentioning the Xinjiang re education camps even if they are a Western lie, racist ? I get that the West has victimised China many times in the past, but how is this victimising them? I find it very hard to believe that the Xinjiang re education camps don't exist at all, because certain world leaders are praising them","conclusion":"It isn't \"racist\" to mention the Xinjiang re-education camps."}
{"id":"ad752e83-95a4-4a3e-bf04-e6a2ea912269","argument":"After graduation rates became inflated under Obama, instead of addressing it as a problem and disgrace, him and his administration celebrated the stats by saying it's the opposite: proof of their reforms working.","conclusion":"This failure has increased the deterioration of the Department of Education DOE as well as created issues that face schools today."}
{"id":"5d45e4ac-0701-443b-a488-4a06b49cc77d","argument":"Omnipotence means God can do anything any \"thing\". However, not all described actions are coherent, and thus not really \"things\". For example, God cannot create a two-sided triangle, because such a described action is incoherent. Similarly, God may not be able to create a best feasible world without evil in it, because such a described action my entail incoherent propositions.","conclusion":"Correctly understood, God's omnipotence does not necessarily contradict the requirement that evil exist in the best feasible world."}
{"id":"0e18e6c0-d006-4558-9a42-b13afbfdaf4c","argument":"First, let me just say sorry to all the non American redditors out there because my post is exclusively referencing the American military. I make no claim to understand the nature of any foreign military enough to hold the same belief in regards to their citizens enlisting in their armed forces. That being said, my argument is as follows If an individual is qualified for military service, with qualified meaning that they are physically medically capable, have no more than two dependents, are not the primary custodian of any dependents, are not a convicted felon, and have no pending financial or legal obligations that will restrict their service, then they would be foolish to not reap the benefits of at least one enlistment assuming the standard enlistment period of 4 years . These benefits include Job security with a relatively well paying job. Tricare health insurance Physical mental fortitude Job training Tuition Assistance The G.I. Bill Various state benefits i.e. state G.I Bills, tax credits, etc. Hiring preference for government jobs. Membership to military credit unions. Unique experience you can't get anywhere else. Possible objections and counter arguments I don't like violence. Join the Coast Guard, Navy, or Air Force. Chances are that if you see violence in any of those services Special Warfare is an exception then something is horribly wrong. I don't like people hitting yelling at me. This isn't your parents' or grandparents' military anymore. I don't care how many times you have watched Full Metal Jacket boot camp isn't anything like that today. I don't like guns. Then don't join the Army Marines, but the other services have very little to do with them most of the time. It's a morally corrupt institution. This is generally in reference to combat, to which I say if you don't want to be involved in combat, then don't join the Army or Marines. The Coast Guard, for example, patrols the coast, rescues individuals at sea, and arrests drug traffickers. How exactly are they morally corrupt? I fully understand those who don't want to do it for a career because it can be very difficult to achieve a work life balance, but for four years of service especially if you are very young the benefits far out weigh the costs. Feel free to .","conclusion":"I believe that if you are qualified for service then you would be a fool to not do at least one enlistment in the military."}
{"id":"f945e894-31bb-441e-9355-3d7562b138bb","argument":"There are certain things that are not allowed for public exposure in society, because they are unacceptable by society in general even if they don't promote the commitment of any harmful action. For example, it is not allowed to display publicly an image of a man raping a woman. It would be hard to argue that anyone will rape a woman after seeing such image. Thus it is not banned because of possible harmful consequences. However, it is still banned because raping a woman is unacceptable by society in general and people don't want to see an image of such evil action. Nazi Germany has committed many evil crimes. It started the World War II, which has taken away lives of many millions of people; it was found guilty of committing massive genocide of Jewish people; it was encouraging experimenting on people etc. The list of crimes committed could be continued more and more, and the whole world accepted that Nazi Germany was guilty of all these crimes. All these crimes were terrible and against any moral norms or laws of modern countries. All these actions are unacceptable by our society and swastika is the symbol of all these crimes. That's why even if displaying swastika doesn't promote the commitment of these evil actions, and even if some people see another meaning in this symbol, it is still in the interest of society to ban this symbol, since most of the people think of terrible war crimes when they see swastika, which is unpleasant for them. The occupation of Baltic states by the Soviet Union was another unpleasant episode in the history of these countries. It has been publicly confirmed by the governments of all three Baltic states that the Soviet Union had occupied Baltic States causing harm for their development. Although some people consider life in the Soviet Union to be good, because of employment it provided to its citizens, harmful things done by the Soviet Union are enormous. The development of Baltic states was slowed down during that time, because there was no flow of ideas from abroad. Planned economy caused insufficient supply of goods and people weren't able to buy goods they wanted. Limits were put on the freedom of individuals, which also slowed the development process, because creative and innovative people were often put in jails. The intelligence from Baltic states mostly was either killed or sent to Siberia, which also harmed the development of these regions. The great part of soil was deprived because of agricultural technologies the Soviet Union used, which harmed the development of agriculture in Baltic states. Some people could argue that these sins are debatable and there is no consensus on whether the occupation of Baltic states by the Soviet Union was or wasn't harmful for these states. According to the Governments of Baltic states, the United States, the U.S. courts of law, the European Parliament, the European Court of Human Rights, and the United Nations Human Rights Council, three Baltic states were invaded, occupied and illegally incorporated into the Soviet Union under provisions of the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact first by the Soviet Union, then by Nazi Germany from 1941-1944, and again by the Soviet Union from 1944-1991 In short that means that the occupation was found to be illegal by the whole civilized society. Just like an image of a rape, if this is illegal and unacceptable in society, it is not allowed to display symbols that are associated with it in public. A hammer and a sickle is definitely associated with the Soviet Union and thus the occupation of Baltic states. If the opposition wants to argue that taboos should be broken and brought to public, we want to bring up a picture of a rape once again. No one thinks of breaking a taboo on rape by exposing public to images of a man raping a woman, because a rape is considered to be a violent crime. We believe that illegal occupation is also a crime, but in this case it is a crime against the whole three countries. The opposition brought the right for self-expression in their point. Here we would like to repeat once again that even if a person wears a t-shirt with a swastika without thinking about the crimes done by Nazi Germany, but about their employment policy, he harms other people in society, because swastika is regarded as a symbol of Nazi Germany and most of people in society think of war crimes and genocide when they hear about Nazi Germany, which is unpleasant for them. It is not important what was the reason for wearing such t-shirt, but it is important how wearing such t-shirt is regarded in society.","conclusion":"Exposing certain things is still banned even if it doesn't promote committing any harmful actions."}
{"id":"8052bb0c-1635-41a9-bf40-7b642a01873d","argument":"In Texas, Democratic candidate O'Rourke just lost against Republican incumbent Ted Cruz 51 to 48 , with some notable observations gt Young voters overwhelmingly supported O'Rourke, 71 to 29 percent. Voters aged 30 44 leaned towards him 51 to 47. Voters over 45 favored Cruz 58 to 41. gt White evangelicals favored Cruz with 83 percent of their votes, while those not in this group supported O'Rourke by a nearly 2 to 1 margin. Looking at various comments, I see a number of voters opposing O'Rourke on the basis that he's a gun grabber . Others also add baby killer . The present difference between the two parties literally involves whether we're going to try to make a half arsed attempt to keep the planet livable for our grandchildren's children, or not. Another issue of similarly gigantic proportions is access to health care. I believe these are super important issues. If these issues were resolved, gun control might matter. But as long as they remain open, gun control is minor, yet extremely divisive Excluding suicide, firearms are killing less than 14,000 people in the US per year. Compare to car accidents killing 37,000 Drug overdoses alone are now killing over 70,000 per year in the US. A significant proportion of these deaths can be attributed to health care policy. Just gaining the political capital to improve health care policies in a way that reduced overdoses by 20 would save more lives than reducing firearms fatalities to zero . A significant proportion of the US population is highly passionate about access to firearms, and they have some legitimate arguments. Even if this liberty does cost lives, it might provide a measure of resilience against Chinese style authoritarianism. Right now, authoritarianism is precisely something to worry about. Just like a liberal voter cannot be expected to compromise on a rights issue that cuts to the core of their identity, such as access to abortion so a conservative voter cannot be expected to compromise on gun control. For these reasons, I think gun control at least with much greater issues looming is a poor choice of a hill to die on, and is suspicious to conservative voters. One might think Why do the Democrats care so much about reducing access to guns when they know how I feel about it, and it's a comparatively minor issue? To someone thinking like that, this is a red flag suggesting that Democrats want to install authoritarianism after all. It breaks trust and reinforces a political divide just when we need to bridge it.","conclusion":"The US Democratic Party should abandon divisive but less consequential stands, such as on gun control, to gain support on consequential issues such as health care and trying to keep Earth livable"}
{"id":"5a516815-5313-4c69-b23b-fd0ef6c39499","argument":"A real federation is the only way to go beyond the dominance of single countries, first of all of Germany. We need a real European Parliament with full legislative powers, higher than all national parliaments, and a real European government.","conclusion":"A unified Europe would prevent countries like Germany and France from dominating the political landscape."}
{"id":"672409e2-c387-4073-a983-2cda6091dd9f","argument":"Sick patient analogy: earth might turn out to resemble a hopelessly sick patient, whom we would treat with a highly risky and poorly understood therapy. Lovelock in Goodell grist.org","conclusion":"At the very least, solar geoengineering research could buy us more time"}
{"id":"974090b6-920d-47e5-837e-c0b7a022a792","argument":"To be afforded your own freedom you must tolerate the freedom of the opposition. Offense is not harm. Insult is not injury. If only one thing could be taken away from the platforming of hate, it should be to prepare those who would oppose those who hate; when they are no longer afraid of the consequences of violence.","conclusion":"No-platforming should be abandoned because it is an assault on free speech."}
{"id":"1356bc72-2b60-43b3-bf9b-3c317e43f258","argument":"The more of these protests with a lot of flash and no substance I see, the more I agree with something my parents told me. They told me when they were in university they had similar experiences people protesting with no discernible goal other than getting across anger and passion. I think the difference between the Young, bleeding heart protesters we have now and the ones of other generations is social media. Now these passionate people have a name to call what they are angry about, the can connect and hear about other protests and make otherwise disjointed demonstrations across the country seem like a real movement. I'm starting to think that we are taking these movements too seriously, they're kids with misguided passions about wanting to change the world and make it a better place, Yes, they are selfish and not looking at a lot of factors in the big picture because they're young, they are in college, they've only just gotten a taste of the real world and haven't yet entered the working world. Most of them are most likely still getting support from their parents and haven't had to fend for themselves, I honestly believe they're more benign than we think. When I see the type of people who buy into their ideals, it is not the average person, or the average places in society it's always colleges and universities and places that social justice warriors frequent. Yes they are wrong about a lot of things but it seems like other then some college students most of the damage they are doing is reversible IE rules at universities that can be changed once the graduate. The only changes in rules and policies that they can get out of anyone are things that are already in place, such as wages and civil rights laws are already a thing. They're largely disjointed movements that have no clear goals other then things that have already been achieved. Because of their unwelcoming, hostile nature and lack of leadership and goals, they won't achieve anything. I am willing to admit they have done some wrong in regards to freedom of speech in universities and people who have had to step down because of their wishes but I feel that their sense of entitlement is either going to fade as the get older or end up making them fail which neutralize any threat they have of really screwing things up. Sorry for making this so long, my main point is that social justice warriors or black lives matter or any other movement is not really a movement as much as it is separate, young, passionate individuals who through social media have found a name for their small demonstrations that have no real goals or leaders and are thus misguided, selfish, hypocritical and not a real threat to our wellbeing. They are not much more of a threat than the demonstrations and activists that our parent's generation had on their college campuses, the only difference is now because of social media the seem like a connected phenomenon and get more publicity. edit Fixed some spelling.","conclusion":"SJW, and the like are much more benign than Reddit makes them out to be and any delusions they have are affecting mostly just them."}
{"id":"b3e370e5-e4e9-46cf-ae15-91c040d2e66b","argument":"Similarly, watching videos or documentaries in which animals are ill-treated, or on the contrary having a pet or other forms of living with animals, e.g. volunteer at an animal shelter may help some to \"make the connection\".","conclusion":"The exhibition of such violence against an animal has turned some into animal activism, vegetarianism or other forms of compassion towards animals."}
{"id":"151cf567-4666-4f78-98f0-03496308ef41","argument":"Well, the title says it all. And here are my reasons As a moral obligation, mother's are to be loved, cherished, appreciated and taken care of. Every day of every year. Symbolizing just one day for this is just wrong and diminishes the value of the friendship. Its like, you have one best friend, whom you absolutely adore and trust, but hey, we'l only meet up and talk once a year, how absurd that sounds. Similarly with mothers day. Showing how much an individual appreciates their mother should be a regular thing, but this event sort of twists that in a way, most people only show care on this day. I also feel this way about Father's day, Valentine's day etc","conclusion":"I find the concept of Mother's day and other such days stupid, insulting, and downright pathetic."}
{"id":"056915d0-b1b7-42be-9165-cb7580608568","argument":"I work in a dog food store and every now and then people come in saying that they will only by products that are made in the US. Anything without a little American flag on the package is deemed Chinese therefore dangerous to their pets. I've heard everything from foods having toxins in the ingredients from lead in the paint of chew toys. I believe this is nothing more than fear monger believing old people on Facebook spreading propaganda to others. I've never witnessed anyone with first hand experience have these issues and none of my animals have had a problem with these products. This is nothing more than lies and exaggerations about regulations of products coming into the U.S.","conclusion":"Chinese products are not toxic."}
{"id":"b4511fa0-f2fb-42d4-bd60-3bbbf3acde00","argument":"I'm an atheist myself 23 , and have numerous friends along with my older brother who are also atheists. Every year I say to my family and friends not to buy me anything mainly because im a very minimalist person , but also because I believe its very hypocritical to celebrate the holiday. My brother 30 , on the other hand, always has a massive list of items 10 to 100 dollars and expects to get most of the list every year. He also spends maybe 10 of the value he receives. My friends all ask me what I get for christmas every year, and I reply with things like a bag of starburst or various toiletries . While they talk about their iPads. I believe atheists pick and choose spots of other religions christmas was a pagan holiday originally if i recall, which helps atheist's cause a bit i suppose at their convenience, and are hypocritical for doing so. .","conclusion":"I believe that atheists who receive gifts on christmas are hypocrites,"}
{"id":"6cdfe07f-deac-4992-a13b-6e9154d830f8","argument":"Influenza results in a large amount of leave required for sick hospital staff. Mandatory vaccination may reduce the risk of this happening. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov","conclusion":"Providers are exposed to sickness more often and are more likely to become ill from the flu."}
{"id":"1905f413-a58d-45cc-984c-c9dff244b684","argument":"Incentives help shape our values. Providing what amounts to entertainment upon the death of a human being incentivizes human death over human life.","conclusion":"Cannibalism outside of immediate survival would likely weaken the privileged status afforded human life."}
{"id":"6efc637d-d9b2-4cd9-97e7-50d0ac18eae1","argument":"People who eat vegan are often doing so because they want to mitigate harm cruelty to living beings. The most direct way to guarantee the existence of harm cruelty to a living being is to produce one. Everybody should be more mindful about what they consume, but the scrutiny is not often carried over to baby making. I started working at a co op whole foodsish place. I feel like I\u2019m missing something here. I think it\u2019s fair that people often overlook what bringing another human into the world means, but I think there\u2019s more to this argument than that. Oftentimes, people\u2019s children are also vegan. Does spreading the lifestyle through your children cancel out the bad by causing children? Are there other places where the net benefits might outweigh the net detriments? I certainly wouldn\u2019t expect a vegan to have a kid and then say, \u201cWell, I fucked up. Better start eating beef, again \u201d We\u2019re all hypocrites in some fashion, that\u2019s fine. Any forms of harm cruelty reduction are really great But I think the first place you should look to stop the cruelty train is in the station. Edit Vegan is just a dietary description. But for the sake of this argument, I\u2019m just talking about the vegans who do what they do for ethical reasons. I wouldn\u2019t call someone a hypocrite for having kids who\u2019s just vegan for health reasons. Edit 2 I\u2019m gonna try to lay this out as clear and concise as possible. If a vegan is vegan for non dietary moral reasons, they are trying to minimize suffering or at least not contribute to a system that is ultimate designed to exploit living creatures and cause they\u2019re suffering. If they are trying to minimize suffering or \u201c \u201d then they ought not to create additional suffering. If you are born, you are guaranteed to suffer, regardless of its form. If you have a child, you are responsible for birthing someone. Therefore, if you have a child you are guaranteeing additional suffering in the world. I hope this clarifies things a little.","conclusion":"Vegans who have children are hypocrites."}
{"id":"11e54340-51ab-46a9-9ebc-6420d897985b","argument":"I think the Philae landing part of the Rosetta mission was doomed from the very beginning of the mission. The Lander bounced a few times, with significant delta in both time and distance between each bounce. The whole success of the lander mission depended on it landing successfully the very first attempt correctly on ALL 3 legs, so that the harpoon maybe shot to anchor it. Even if 2 out 3 legs have made contact, the harpoon wouldn't shoot. And it was known there was a very high degree of possibility that the lander may bounce on every bounce. So was like a ball with a suction cup been thrown to a ground and the side of the ball with the suction cup should contact the ground and anchor on the very first attempt itself to arrest subsequent bounces. From everything I've read and understood so far, the lander bounced 3 times, and manual shooting of the anchor was aborted due to risk of it flying away due to Newtons 3rd law of G. I feel the success of the Philae lander part of the mission anchoring on 67P and giving any worthwhile science return was less than 5 .","conclusion":"Success of the Philae lander wholly depended on the lander touching down on ALL legs correctly the very first attempt."}
{"id":"aab6143f-808c-408a-9181-3203140d5795","argument":"I played video games on an Xbox360 and a PS4 console for many years, but once I switched to a PC I realized how much better a PC is compared to a console. Even though the initial cost of buying a PC can be higher than buying a brand new PS4 or Xbox One, the price is well worth it. Recently, the price for building or purchasing a PC that can out perform a console has been decreasing. If you are willing to spend more money for your PC you can get a PC that can run games on 4k resolution and 60 fps frames per second , but this type of resolution and fps cannot be achieved on the current generation of consoles. Over the long term owning a PC can even save you money because you do not have to pay monthly subscriptions to play online like you do for the Xbox One or the PS4. Also, online marketplaces such as Steam or Humble Bundle have great deals for buying games for PCs and many very popular free games for PCs. In contrast, Steam and Humble Bundle do not sell or offer free games for consoles. A mouse and a keyboard for a PC are much more accurate than a console controller, and you are able to change the dpi dots per inch and quality of mouse to fit your needs. If you really prefer to use a controller you can just plug one into your PC and use that instead as long as you have the drivers for the controller installed on your PC . Unlike consoles, PCs are able to be upgraded in the future by replacing certain parts, On the other hand, consoles can only be upgraded by buying the newest version of a console. Also, there are no longer as many console exclusive games. There are still some console exclusive games, but there are far more PC only games these days than console only games. Some of the most popular games such as League of Legends, Dota 2, and CSGO are not available on consoles and are only available for PC users. For PCs, there are many different kinds of emulators that allow users to play retro games on your computers such as older Legend of Zelda games which you are unable to do with a console. For many teenagers young adults a desktop computer is a necessity to do their school work and spending some additional money to upgrade the PC CPU central processing unit and or graphics card allows the desktop computer to serve a double function as a gaming machine and also a workstation. In conclusion, the PC is far superior to consoles and its superiority is only going to keep increasing as time goes on. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"PCs are far superior investment compared to consoles Xbox and Playstation"}
{"id":"6dab8e28-ce8d-40d7-b724-a6b7b460da5d","argument":"For instance, ISIS uses social media to directly interact with young Muslim women in Western countries, promise them marriage build on a will for teenage rebellion or use their disillusionment with their home country to motivate them to join ISIS. This individually tailored and highly personalised recruitment would not be possible at a distance without social media.","conclusion":"Terrorist groups have also employed PsyOps in their recruitment strategy by painting false pictures of what life is like as an extremist."}
{"id":"927ebfdb-c391-46da-9054-3c90a6eda718","argument":"Oral tradition was much more reliable at the time, when reading and writing were uncommon, and especially among Jewish communities. This tradition is even continued into this day, with sections of the Torah being memorized and recited for bar mitzvahs.","conclusion":"It is typically accepted by historians that the Gospel narratives were preserved by oral tradition in the time between Jesus's death and the writing of the four Gospels."}
{"id":"742134de-610d-46fa-9834-90fead36761e","argument":"As a father of a boy, and a fairly quiet and gentle one on the kindergarden he's allways one of the best behaved , I'm finding that there are situations in which children know and understand that they can basicly do what they want without consequences. In fact my boy knows that while outside he's basicly untouchable, he miss behaves, doesn't do what we ask him to and today he was even rude to his mom. We try to reason with him, we try threaten him with lighter punishments, but today for instance I went through a great deal of shame as he just wouldn't behave. Honestly I don't see another way","conclusion":"I believe some \/most children cannot be disciplined without ocasional phisical punishment please don't confuse it with beatings,"}
{"id":"edc43196-b416-4bf2-ae5d-66cf3f2eb66a","argument":"Firstly, to ensure a clear discussion, I am not insulting or belittling subjective art. Subjective art can be, and often is, a perfectly legitimate and even beautiful form of expression. However, the communities that surround it poetry and abstract art in particular are often far too fond of supporting an argument that all art is equally meaningful and valid in all aspects to everyone in the same fashion. This viewpoint, in my eyes, is reductive and rather insulting to creators and consumers of art as a medium. The issues with this perspective become especially apparent when you consider the fact that its often quite accepted for someone to simply not enjoy the works of a particular impressionist painter or author much, without damaging their credibility by admitting this opinion. In the world of subjective art however, such an opinion is often met with gleeful explanations of how their view is simply flawed, or how they just dont understand the intended message of the artist. This attitude is textbook gatekeeping and nausitingly pretentions, worse though, it stifles discussion and the sharing of perspectives. Isnt the purpose of art to evoke emotions in the viewer, and if this is true, shouldnt communities value a difference in perspectives, preferences and values? gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The communities surrounding subjective arts are fundamentally unwelcomeing and often inhibit legitimate discussion, and in the worst of cases, come off as being partially fueled by insecurity."}
{"id":"18ea0dc7-488d-491c-ad38-4bebbc6ab202","argument":"Millennials are the most educated generation in history Therefore, they are likely to cast votes for people whom they believe represent their interests.","conclusion":"If Millennials feel more represented and understood from within institutions, this in turn could encourage more votes."}
{"id":"7ae09016-e57e-4efa-a784-dd941cdedcb6","argument":"Please leave the footnote below the following line, but remember to delete this sentence by replacing it with the body of your post. Thank you For starters, I accept any person of any race gender or nationality. Now i know that if someone comes out to insult a certain race and does not apologize, he is indeed a racist. Nevertheless, some people have made remarks which are found offensive and hence this person is branded as a racist. As a good bad example Jeremy Clarkson. His show does use certain stereotypes to induce laughter, nevertheless his recent remark, which he said was not true, has branded him as a racist by a lot of people. My point is that there are a lot of people who are branded as racist because of a remark which happens to be racist. Im not defending their remarks, I just believe that someone who makes a racist remark does not necessarily need to be branded by society as a racist. EDIT I should say though, I'm not saying people should not be held accountable because of their remarks, they should. I just don't believe that they should be branded as racist.","conclusion":"I belive a huge part of society does not know how to differentiate between a racist person and a racist remark."}
{"id":"dc6ea19e-3c8f-457e-b6ad-0597ffb5dabc","argument":"Congressional districts didn't have more than 100k constituents until the 1860s, and now it's something like 700k and that's just going to continue to grow. Members of Congress as a result are more disconnected from their constituents and that's part of why they're so unpopular. But it's not just a historical thing. Members of Congress are not able to specialize enough and become experts on topics for which they are on their committees. Increasing the size of Congress would help with this. There's also the issue for states who only have one member of Congress. The discrepancy between constituents for each district for those states would be lessened if you lowered the constituents per district to 500k, as Montana for example would then qualify for a second seat. Finally, the more seats you've got, the harder it is to gerrymander for partisan purposes, and the more diverse our elected officials would likely be. I pretty strongly believe this, but curious to put it to the test because I've never heard anybody articulate an argument against it. I'd imagine most people probably wouldn't favor it due to either a relatively small cost or a general dislike of politicians.","conclusion":"We should significantly increase the number of elected officials in the House of Representatives"}
{"id":"70d6088c-1092-4aa0-8e51-a6378b977d8c","argument":"New private universities will not have a long standing reputation to keep up. They may not be as well regulated and they will have no social interest beyond simply getting money from their students. This means that they may well offer cheap and poor quality education in order to find a gap in the market. This could damage the reputation of other universities as Dr Paul Greatrix registrar of Nottingham University worries \"If there are entrants who are on the extreme end of cheap and cheerful, this will damage our international reputation.\"1 In systems that are both private and state funded universities there is an immense divide between a few very good elite institutions that charge immense amounts and a much larger number of poorer quality universities. Take the US system, it is well known for its world class Ivy League universities. Its publicly funded universities however do much less well with only the University of Michigan near the top of the world rankings in 20th place. Of the state universities only those that do not face so much Ivy league competition over in California due to distance do well1. Having Private universities clearly creams off the best students and the funding leaving the public universities in a worse position lowering the overall quality of education. 1 Shepherd, Jessica, \"What universities think of competing for their admissions.\" Guardian.co.uk, 28 June 2011. 2 Hotson, Howard, \"Don't Look to the Ivy League.\" London Review of Books, Vol.33, No.10, 19 May 2011. improve this","conclusion":"Private Universities would risk reducing the quality of university degrees."}
{"id":"9e4d201e-cb2f-49c9-b432-b37791e96faa","argument":"Successful businesses generally structure things so there is an executor who can make final decisions should other forms of decision making fail. This resolves impasses and keeps the business running smoothly.","conclusion":"The original cause has to be one because if it were a committee nothing would ever get done as we know from experience."}
{"id":"2c6d5d49-1d48-4be0-8ff5-4d4a42cefff6","argument":"It is argued that a women in one position should be paid just as much as a man in that same position. The notion that someone should be paid a certain amount solely because of their sex is an absolutely horrible sexist belief. If we\u2019re talking about CEOs. Or other high level positions where there are multiple candidates that interview for a position. Your value to the company is what drives your pay. That\u2019s why CEOs aren\u2019t all paid the same. Men CEOs aren\u2019t paid the exact same as all other male CEOs, because pay isn\u2019t based on your sex, it\u2019s based on your value to the employer. The fact that many advocate that women should always be paid the exact same as men who hold identical positions, indicates that many don\u2019t have an even rudimentary understanding of how a business operates. Mark Wahlberg was paid more than Michelle Williams because he\u2019s worth more than she is to the company. If she were as valuable to the company as Wahlberg was, she would\u2019ve had the bargaining power to demand a higher salary. The fact that he was forced to give his salary away donate because some no name co star wasn\u2019t paid as much as he was only because she\u2019s a women apparently is just crazy. Capitalism doesn\u2019t care about your sex or your race. It cares about your worth that\u2019s it. The value you bring to the table. Your salary will reflect your overall value. If it doesn\u2019t, then you\u2019re either a a bad negotiator, or b you aren\u2019t as valuable as you think you are, and you don\u2019t deserve to be paid as much as you think you do. That\u2019s my view. Someone convince me otherwise?","conclusion":"The \u201cgender pay gap\u201d is a buzzword term that insinuates sexism where no sexism exists"}
{"id":"e3ac2bad-21d8-43e8-945b-80e0a0a619db","argument":"The EU and Europe as a whole can't afford the costs and risks the current refugee crisis and it would be best to close the borders or regulate them heavily and instead try to apply help directly in the countries the refugees come from. The frequency of terrorist attacks in Europe has risen significantly ever since the crisis started, and many immigrants are proving difficult to integrate. This costs both money and lives. Islam and Arabic culture are extremely intolerant compared to European religion and culture, so we have to be intolerant towards intolerance to protect our tolerant ways.","conclusion":"The Refugee Crisis in Europe is out of Control, and borders should be closed or heavily regulated"}
{"id":"f767d8df-8d6d-48c6-95c1-b9009a4a4493","argument":"I've read through quite a few of the popular threads about this, and it seems to boil down to her body her rights, which shouldn't be valid because youre killing another body which should have rights. Then there is the justifications, rape, disease, etc. I agree in some of those cases. If there was a rape or disease, then the abortion should take place right away and the punishment for the rapist increased. But lets be honest, there aren't even close to a majority of rape and birth defect screeners getting abortions. Yes it does happen, but the majority are stupid people being careless and swinging by planned parenthood for a Plan B. The lack of responsibility should not result in a life being snuffed out, and I believe that should face repercussions. That is what I mean by needless abortions. People who thought pulling out would work, or I thought I took my pill today, etc. I watched a girl I worked with drink and smoke her way to a miscarriage when she had twins and then have an abortion. That sort of thing needs to land people in jail even more so than regular disregard for developing life. Someone help me change my view, the stress is killing me. EDIT downvote bait, dont worry though Ive got a couple thousand karma to keep me warm until spring. EDIT I have had my view changed on rape exceptions, where the community may have accidentally convinced me that the rape exception was too hypocritical, and that human life is more important than sexual assault. EDIT I have changed my view on plan B possibly as it was found it may not interfere with implantation of the egg, although it seems to be still under more research. EDIT I believe I have changed my view on the birth control topic, where accepted risk trumped a reasonable life. EDIT I still am contemplating well written responses by VERY few people who actually are engaging in civilized conversations instead of the slew of logical fallacies and offtopic remarks.","conclusion":"I believe that abortion is murder, but exceptions can be made. Also that needless abortions should be punished."}
{"id":"ac680f8a-04b2-45b9-9d71-8d51f696599f","argument":"Women are 3 times more likely to be beaten at the hands of their male domestic partner than the other way around.","conclusion":"Women are still subject to disproportionate and gendered physical violence in many instances."}
{"id":"e1a66c26-e659-45bd-ba36-a851b83567e2","argument":"If heterosexual people are not allowed within gay bars, then every person entering a gay bar must be LGBT, meaning that closeted LGBT people who are in highly anti-LGBT families cannot feign ignorance or curiosity if found out.","conclusion":"LGBTQ+ individuals who are not socially out may be forced to justify why they attend LGBTQ+ bars, whereas if the spaces are for everyone, they can feel welcomed and safe."}
{"id":"9906ffa2-fa70-4019-88b2-b630df637028","argument":"This occurred to me watching some conversations about Pantera's Phil Ansalmo's most recent racist bullshit. Also recently with Bobby from Pentagram mistreating some female bands he was touring with. There's a pretty steady string of Ohh do you want a safe space? taunting coming from defenders. It's a pretty common theme any time a public shaming of a racist or bigot comes up. The Metal community in particular has a lot of folks saying, This is just our scene and you should get used to it or get out or Everybody says racist stuff when they get drunk right? or Let the guy off because he makes good music. Like, really, someone thinks Phil should be able to stand up on a stage in front of thousands of people, throw a white power salute, and not face any challenge to this? And it's other people trying to create safe spaces ? What I think is really happening here is that racists are more aggressively being shut out of spaces that they previously enjoyed a fair deal of immunity and clemency within. Much of the same is happening in the gaming world. In a few years time, they wont be able to go to concerts, classrooms, facebook, twitter, etc. say racist shit and get away with it without at the very least catching some shit. They're used to being tolerated, having excuses made for them they were drunk, it's just the metal scene, etc . Used to be you could be racist wherever you wanted and you never lost your job for it even as racism meant lost jobs for minorities or got publicly shamed for it. Being able to voice their dumb opinions and not catch any shit from it is pretty much the definition of safe space, except they considered the entire public world to be their safe space. Now that they're getting shut out, getting a taste of their own medicine, they're interpreting the transition as a rise of some kind of tyranny over them, when in reality it's the eclipsing of their own tyrannical influence and stranglehold on our conception of normal public conduct. edit To clarify, this also manifests in many cases where safe spaces are created by SJW's or whatever in which bigots are not safe, and thus sections of public life are closing off to them.","conclusion":"A lot of outrage about \"Safe Spaces\" is basically bigots upset to be losing their own"}
{"id":"5449acc4-f0e5-413f-91d1-f355c29ea73d","argument":"Many Catholics support abortion or the death penalty or same-sex marriage all of which are positions opposed by the Catholic Church.","conclusion":"Being religious does not mean that you share all of the opinions of your religion."}
{"id":"c8326a1b-25d3-4b98-84d4-6536b9eef48d","argument":"I support most of the Democratic party's platform except where it seems directly opposed to church teaching as outlined in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. x200B Ultimately I think the church's teaching is the most important consideration for me as a voter. x200B There isn't a perfect candidate that I'm aware of and because of the quirks of our legal system, I believe I should vote for the lesser of two evils and vote for one of the two most popular candidates for any given election. x200B Abortion is something very deeply opposed by the Catholic Church. I view it as something akin to the killing of an innocent person who's life is pretty irrelevant to mine, but valuable nonetheless. Logically, it seems to me to be something like any other unjust killings that are emotionally distant to me. However, it's scale is ridiculously large. x200B I don't think my view can be changed on any of these previously listed considerations, but I cannot come to a firm conclusion on which party actually represents my views the closest. I want to do a sort of utilitarian weighing of the probable effect of outcomes as if my vote would decide the elections and pick the one that seems better. x200B Generally I lean republican because abortion is the single most important issue to me, but I realize there's a question of efficacy with the republican party on that platform. Other important issues to me protection of the environment provisions for healthcare, education, and opportunity for all elimination of the death penalty a charitable resolution to gay marriage in line with church teaching I'd love to see anybody with a viable plan here minimization of the imperial army and a distributionist economic model. There's a lot that's missing and I don't exactly understand how much of this could feasibly fit together, but I hope that gives a bit of insight into my political views. I'd be open to my view being changed about specific elections in South Dakota or about general support across the country. x200B the TL DR of it is the Democratic party represents a lot of my political beliefs really well, but abortion is too important of an issue. The marginal benefits of electing republicans to eliminate abortion is worth the more significant costs to other less important issues. Change my view.","conclusion":"As an American Catholic who likes most of the Democratic Party's platform, I should Vote Republican because of key issues like abortion."}
{"id":"35a62019-63c0-4d87-bec3-cbc0d01c9462","argument":"A friend of mine has recently begun posting frequently on Facebook to get her friends and family to donate money to her crowdsourcing campaign. A few months ago, her brother attempted suicide and failed. His family has since decided that he will see the best doctors in the country and will undergo numerous reconstructive surgeries which will span over several years. While my heart does go out to their family for this traumatic event, I do not understand the idea behind getting random people to pay for his surgeries. If someone has a disposable income and wants to pitch in some money, that's fine I'm not against people donating. But something about the idea of crowdsourcing for this individual really irks me and I don't understand why I feel this way. Perhaps my personal views are skewed due to a tight budget, but I personally would never donate money to a cause like that. He made a decision to end his life, and because of some random, unexplainable event, he survived. And now I should literally pay for his decision?","conclusion":"A friend is crowdsourcing to help pay for her brother's surgeries after his failed suicide attempt and I think it's wrong."}
{"id":"7f6d7299-d151-40f3-928e-593cd3d88fb9","argument":"No matter what I or anybody else does people are still gonna be racist shitstains who are easily manipulated by fear and stereotypes. I am an American, and I thought our country had learned from history, but apparently not. We put the Japanese in concentration camps during world war two, and we unlawfully detained thousands of Muslims for no reason other than they were a Security threat with little other evidence directly after 9 11. We turned Jews away from our shores during the Holocaust, and they had to go back to Germany and die. Now, a majority of states want to reject Syrian refugees. White Supremacy rules reddit. Look at the comments section on anything regarding Black Lives Matter, or the Syrian refugee crisis. I see racism everywhere I go, even in my own home I'm white . I'm honestly done. I'm surrounded by racists in my country, vile pieces of human garbage, on reddit, everywhere, and no logic speaks to them. My argument is that racism is so entrenched in society that it's pointless to do anything. Please convince me otherwise. I'm honestly just so done.","conclusion":"Racism isn't going away and I'm done trying to do anything because it's worthless."}
{"id":"dab163ea-1f66-4f55-b185-f243ed2dc18e","argument":"Bullying within reason. Granted, those are going to be murky waters, but reason nonetheless. I believe that in school, bullying the 'weird kids' more adequately prepares them for a future interacting with society. It's nothing but a trite platitude that we like to say that 'everyone is unique', but in reality that is hardly true. What we determine as 'normal' in society isn't some template forged from the stars that we adhere to. Normalcy in society has been tempered through the interaction of countless thousands of people. Telling the people that any strange behaviors they exhibit which typically make them magnets for bullies are normal is doing severe damage to their ability to fit in with other people later in life. Removing bullies from the equation means such errant behavior goes uncorrected. There was a kid in my middle school who was a bully magnet. He would walk up to people and make fart noises at them constantly because he thought it was funny or something, I don't know . If we say that bullying of all types should go, in just a few short years this kid joins mainstream society and then what he goes around making fart noises at other people? His boss? I was bullied as a kid, and it taught me how to compartmentalize behaviors I have, as well as how to play the game . I could say some cliche shit about everyone wearing masks, but I don't think I need to, because I think you all know what I'm getting at. Without bullies, I think far more people would be unable to understand and comprehend how to play that game, and playing that game well is the secret to success in life. I can shift gears in my personality and change how I act in front of my friends to how I act in front of my boss's boss instantly, and frankly, I think that exact lesson was learned in my wee school days. Removal of bullying just teaches the lesson that everything is okay and everyone will be accepting of you no matter what you're like, which isn't true in the real world whatsoever. I think teaching kids that will do more damage than your average bully ever could hope to do.","conclusion":"I believe bullying both on and offline serves an important social development function."}
{"id":"ca2807f8-4262-4e65-98a8-ea1cb4d75e82","argument":"Activist groups like the Black Liberation Collective require a critical mass of students to gain traction.","conclusion":"An increase in diversity makes other minority students feel safer on campus."}
{"id":"238dc2ba-b4a4-4824-9bf1-e449d4807111","argument":"I certainly understand the reasoning behind veterens' preference in hiring for federal positions. What I don't think is beneficial is the blanket preference, no matter the position, and I think it actually prevents well qualified individuals from being placed in those jobs. I am in the natural sciences and have tried for a long time to look for jobs in US Fish and Wildlife, NOAA, National Park Service, Smithsonian, and have come in contact with people employed there during my career. When you ask them how people get jobs there, you'll always get a similar response along the lines of, if you aren't a disabled veteran it's essentially impossible. A pool of individuals is evaluated, and will be passed on to the agency to choose from. I've heard directly from employees there of several times that they've just closed the position because they will repeatedly get sent people who have distantly related experience but are boosted by veterens' preference.","conclusion":"I think veterens' preference should not exist in all federal jobs"}
{"id":"41e3d48c-63e5-41a8-b28c-1fe93106eaa4","argument":"I've been following US politics closely ever since Trump came in to view and have been following his legal perils. It seems whatever he does, it has no consequences for his presidency. As a whole, there seem to be no consequences anymore, as long as the GOP supports him he's just fine, and it doesn't seem they'll ever drop that support. So why would firing Mueller be any different? Sure there might be protests, but won't Trump the GOP simply shrug it off and continue as it is? Important I do not seek to begin the millionth pro Trump anti Trump thread here. I'm not even in or from the US so I don't need to be convinced of any political viewpoints. I'm just genuinely wondering why Mueller being fired would be treated different then what we have seen until now?","conclusion":"Trump firing Mueller will change absolutely nothing."}
{"id":"478dcfd0-98d1-4e69-af90-67357d07ee41","argument":"Just starting my application process, and my opinion on a college drops as soon as I read that the Greek system is an important part of the school. Is it accurate to say that the System only attracts the popular pretty girls that I've been avoiding for years? Otherwise, should I avoid great schools like Dartmouth because they describe their school as a Greek life must join? Thanks","conclusion":"The Greek System in colleges ruins a school for me."}
{"id":"f9dc05cc-c96b-4478-bbbb-00dce29d0696","argument":"I believe that the United States uses the Term \u201cPolicing the world\u201d when what its trying to do is further the \u201cManifest Destiny\u201d concept. America wants to spread its way of life as the only acceptable way. America is quick to step in and threaten, embargo, regime change, or even go to war with anyone that stands in its way or holds to a different way of life. Once done they install governments that align and represent the views of America at the expense of the native people, pushing for more dependence on America. I feel like this is mostly done behind closed doors and hushed in most media outlets. Please change my view.","conclusion":"Americas Policing the World is todays \u201cManifest Destiny\u201d"}
{"id":"36d82921-298e-44f3-b762-fd514666af11","argument":"Africa is reluctant to use GMO crops. GM crops are grown commercially only in South Africa, Burkina Faso and Sudan.","conclusion":"GMOs have also been banned in a number of countries for many reasons other than public protection."}
{"id":"01728450-490e-467a-93a2-8cb563456d60","argument":"In particular, when it comes to hunting there are special rules, which have to be followed. Animals should only be shot in proportion to their population. Even if you do something good, like hunting food you can create a lot of damage.","conclusion":"Still, hunting itself is never \"violent-free\" as it aims for the death of another being."}
{"id":"708e7362-e02b-4b58-8bb9-0913a84d2bee","argument":"Before March 1st, 1989, all works in the United States published without a copyright notice would be in the Public Domain. Now, the law has been changed so that all work is copyrighted, all rights reserved style, by default. I believe that any works that are made without a notice should be in the Public Domain. This way, things from family pictures down to kindergarteners' macaroni artwork would be free for all to use. I believe that we should not need to ask for permission for work that is not defended by its author. Edit I hold this view because I believe that we should be able to use works of others without any fear of prosecution. Actually, it's probably because I'm copyright law crazy. gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than just downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I believe that works without Copyright Notices should be in the Public Domain"}
{"id":"4d70b9e5-40c0-4583-ac68-53a772e024ea","argument":"I think using Reddit allows for a sense of instant human contact when one is in need of it. Reddit builds communities for niches that might be difficult to find in real life, and Reddit also allows for discussions you might not otherwise have in real life. Reddit is also fairly up to date with information coming from all over the world. While this is a narrow perspective, I can easily discern the major details of a story through this site. Many people call this site a waste of time, and admittedly I feel guilty for spending time here when I could be doing other things, but I think there's some value to be had, if not at the very least to kill time when lonely. I guess Redditing in moderation is okay, but I can't help but shake the feeling that I should be accomplishing other things besides sitting and doing basically nothing. I do subscribe to various subreddits, but I can't say there's ever been anything life changing gained from my time here, or at least nothing I couldn't have done myself. I would like to have my view changed. I feel like I'm justifying bad habits like reddit.","conclusion":"Redditing is a good use of time."}
{"id":"334677e9-1bcc-4aaf-8f61-eb8942e0b617","argument":"The only study into rapid onset gender dysphoria does not prove that the onset of gender dysphoria in teens was rapid but rather demonstrates their parents' awareness of that gender identity may have suddenly changed.","conclusion":"Research into rapid onset gender dysphoria has been heavily criticized"}
{"id":"bf09f2ef-ffd9-47ce-a1c4-4188913c4730","argument":"My opinion is that, if you are not a licensed certified animal breeder, then you must get your pet spayed or neutered, and failure refusal to do so should carry the same penalties and have the same stigma as animal cruelty. I have owned many pets of many different species, and my family has always been very responsible in spaying neutering them. We knew that we didn\u2019t want any unexpected pets, because they\u2019re a big responsibility and require lots of care and time. I know that fixing your pets isn't universal, though, and I can't think of why. If you don\u2019t fix your pets, then they may reproduce, and if those offspring aren\u2019t owned by anyone and live in the wild, they will suffer. They will probably die young and diseased, and if they are caught, they are put into pounds, which are often bad living conditions, with no guarantee that they will be claimed and chosen which will lead to early euthanizing . This is absolutely unacceptable, and we should be taking every step to prevent it. Even if you don't have an environment to reproduce in your home for instance, you only have one pet, or they're all the same sex , that's not an excuse, because pets often come into contact with others, even if you're not around. If your dog or cat runs away and breeds, leading to unowned puppies and kittens, they will likely suffer and have a terrible life, and it will be all your fault because you could have prevented it entirely. And if the argument is \u201cI know my pets may breed, but I will be responsible and take care of any offspring\u201d, then my point still stands because I believe you should be certified as a pet breeder, showing you are trustworthy by some kind of government agency. If you refuse or fail to fix them, you\u2019re implicitly accepting that your pets, and their offspring, may reproduce again , and then you will have to care for more and more pets. This not only puts a financial strain on you, but can lead to poor living conditions for the animals, especially if you can\u2019t pay for them. No one ever throws a bag of planned, wanted puppies from a truck. I feel like there\u2019s something I\u2019m not thinking about, but I have tried to see the other side of the argument and I can\u2019t find a reason not to spay neuter your pets. Please help me think of them and see if I can change my mind or, at least, understand where others may be coming from . NOTE I should have mentioned this if you are unable to pay for the procedure, they should be provided to you for free or subsidized. Failure to pay shouldn\u2019t be an excuse, but I know that this requires help sometimes. EDIT I'm glad I got some strong opinions in the other direction on this. I am still for people fixing their pets whenever possible, but you all shed some light on things I didn't consider breeders not being really savory characters, lack of any crossbreeding between purebreds, etc. . So thank you, guys, I learned a lot.","conclusion":"If you\u2019re not a licensed\/certified animal breeder, then NOT fixing your pets should be equal to animal cruelty."}
{"id":"7d70c796-ae78-4f27-9920-04f3f503dceb","argument":"The possibility of food-borne illnesses declines, as the process does not involve animals or the outdoors.","conclusion":"It will be healthier, as it is created in a sterile environment."}
{"id":"f484c86a-4be0-4f57-bf70-b98201434e10","argument":"The US has already demonstrated its lack of support of countries Iran supports through placing the US embassy in Jerusalem, which further exacerbates tension.","conclusion":"Pulling out of the deal hurts the relationship between Iran and the US."}
{"id":"f457bc62-1f10-48b2-8b96-ce5f4c58a394","argument":"NOTE ~ I CAN'T CHANGE THE TITLE OF MY THREAD BUT SOMEONE POINTED OUT THERE IS ISSUE WITH MY WORDING. MY ISSUE IS THAT IT SEEMS VENICE CANNOT BE SAVED, NOT THAT IT SHOULDN'T BE ABANDONED. {ETA if you have information on the renovations taking place, cost, other solutions that they have come up with to combat these problems, that is pertinent to the subject and part of my issue. STOP telling me about how beautiful it is and the historical significance, it has absolutely NOTHING to do with the issue} the question is CAN Venice be saved i was watching strip the city with my husband last night and the episode was about Venice and the structural issues it's been having with the floods. things such as salt damage, loosening of mortar in the foundations, leaning buildings, etc. and they had very interesting and what i found to be logical solutions for the problems. but what got me was when they were discussing the land that Venice is built on. the consistency of the earth, to be exact. the type of mud that the land is built on compresses easily, so it is not just the floods that's causing the problem, but rather the sinking of the city that is exacerbating the floods. there's no real solution to that. you can't dig under the city and replace it with stronger earth as far as i know. they do have their good solutions to the problems, but isn't that really more just delaying the inevitable at this point?","conclusion":"i think venice should be evacuated and left to sink"}
{"id":"26691c2e-dd06-434c-ae7b-96c2021120d1","argument":"It is gravely unfortunate that politics has become an accepted career path for citizens of democratic states. It is far better that participation in government be brief. To end politics as a lifetime sinecure, thereby making legislative service a leave of absence, rather than a means of permanently absconding from a productive career in the private sector, requires that there be term limits 1. Without term limits, the temptation to remain in office for life will keep people seeking reelection long after they have accomplished all the legislative good of which they are capable. It does not take long for legislators to become more occupied with their relationships with each other and with lobbyists, than with their constituents. Representative assemblies work best when they function as citizen legislatures, in which people who pursue careers other than politics enter the legislative forum for a brief time to do their country service, and then leave again to reenter society as private citizens2. Such citizen legislators who enter politics to make their mark and then leave are far more desirable than the career politicians of today who focus only on building their own power influence, rather than considering the people they were elected to represent. US states with 'citizen legislatures', where the state legislature is part time with short sessions so allowing its members to hold other jobs, were at the top of freedom indexes. New Hampshire was both the most minimal parliament and the state with most fiscal freedom according to the Ruger-Sorens Index.3 1 Will, George. 1993. Restoration: Congress, Term Limits, and the Restoration of Deliberative Democracy. New York: Free Press. 2 Bandow, Doug. 1995. \"Real Term Limits: Now More Than Ever\". Cato Institute Policy Analysis. 3 Rugar, William and Sorens, Jason. 2011. \"The Citizen Legislature: How Reasonable Limits on State Legislative Salaries, Staff and Session Lengths Keep Liberty Alive\" Policy Brief, Goldwater Institute, improve this","conclusion":"Term limits restore a concept of rotation in public office, and reestablish the concept of the citizen legislature:"}
{"id":"622524a3-a89b-4e14-84d0-122e4d95da85","argument":"If someone is not taking buying a gun seriously, then they, without a doubt, have some sort of mental ailment. Anyone in their right mind should know that guns have the capability of killing a human being with the pull of a trigger, and that keeping a gun is a HUGE responsibility. If someone is suspicious of having a mental ailment or intending harm which could be identified by their flippant attitude towards the topic of owning a gun should be reported to the police. See the Parkland Shooting","conclusion":"If we can eliminate the irrational violent tendencies of people, gun violence will be reduced."}
{"id":"806d8def-609a-44b4-8a70-b14c87009e80","argument":"I think there should be a system in place that prevents stupid people from over breeding if they can't afford it. Albeit there would be some complications who would control run the system, etc. , but let's assume it's a well run, well audited type of program. Let's assume it produces the results it needs by a low risk, temporary sterilization procedure, that can be undone if someone gains some intelligence and or enough cash. The structure of this wouldn't necessarily be a you have to have above average intelligence to have kids , but rather a you can't have a really, really low intelligence, no money since money food, shelter, and clothes , and pop out 8 children . I think there should also be drug stipulations here junkies should be temporarily sterilized. I think the number of problems that this kind of system would solve would significantly outweigh the ones that it would cause, and with minimal personal risk. It would also incentivize people to get an education, clean up their acts, get jobs, etc. Edit Closed a quotation. Edit2 A few things 1 Let's take race out of the equation it's kind of a boring response I get that the prevailing perspective is that this would hurt non white people the most . To make things equitable, assume that the numbers of people not allowed to breed must be in some way proportional to the population. 2 Rich people wouldn't need to cheat the system. Poor, intelligent people wouldn't need to cheat the system. 3 The intelligence test wouldn't just be a pen and paper test it'd check out all sorts of traits related to decision making and communication. 4 The science needs to evolve to get procedures like this in place that sterilizes temporarily, and can be undone at any point , assume that if this system was bought off on, that there would be enough investment into the medical side of this to get the job done with a really high success rate 99 or so .","conclusion":"I believe intelligence and personal finances should dictate the number of children people should be allowed have."}
{"id":"dd1a2a3c-478f-4ffb-b403-32231cad1155","argument":"In fact, they are not leashes they are harnesses. Disneyland a couple years ago, my brothers, sister, cousin, dad and stepmom are walking past the dumbo ride, towards the Matterhorn. My cousin is about 12. It's very, very crowded. You see a lot of people with young kids on leashes harnesses. My dad makes a comment about people walking around with young children on harnesses, calling them leashes. Meanwhile, my cousin kind of disappears, wanders off. We found her 30 seconds later not a big deal. She's 12 and she's so spacy she wanders off. I'm not saying a 12 year old should be wearing a harness that'd be humiliating at her age, but when she was younger she used to do that too. Just vanish into a crowd in a matter of seconds. Anyway, child harnesses are extremely different from dog leashes They do not go around the child's neck. Parents do not hold leashes in their hand A harness is a strap tied around the parents' waist and a strap tied around the child's torso. You keep a dog on a leash to control it's behavior. You keep a child on a harness because Disneyland is extremely crowded and I could very easily see how you can turn around for 2 seconds and your 5 year old has wandered off, vanished, or been picked up by a child snatcher. TL DR Children on leashes which are actually harnesses is in no way tantamount to treating your children like animals.","conclusion":"There's nothing wrong with \"children on leashes.\""}
{"id":"8d500b73-8ace-44d0-b9f3-e0e0053151de","argument":"So, this is kind of a weird topic. I get that it's taboo, and most people would probably find it disgusting, but besides that, I can't honestly think of anything else that's wrong with it, as long as it's consensual and doesn't harm either the animal or human. I remember seeing a AMA ? post a while back about a kid who had his cat basically give him a blow job. He didn't force the cat or anything, but when he wanted her to he would just call her up, and if she did fine, if not, whatever. I don't really see the issue with that. Or a dog having sex with a chick. The dog gets off, so does the chick, and that's that. Idk, is there something I'm missing besides the whole disgust argument?","conclusion":"Although taboo, I do not think beastiality is bad as long as it is consensual."}
{"id":"26dd4fb4-8ab1-49d8-bb18-9314641f2f3c","argument":"As someone who whole heartedly believes in the total equality of all people, I'm disgusted by how the feminist movement has been, imho, demonizing and belittling men. Additionally, they are trivializing the entire institution of equality and are insulting honest men and women who truly want equality of the sexes. I know this sounds a little hostile but I have to say, I really hate feminism. As a Humanist I feel as though my efforts are for nothing because of how feminists make the non sanctimonious equality movements of the world look. The following is the mission statement of the Feminist Majority Foundation The Feminist Majority Foundation works for social, political and economic equality for women by using research and education to improve women's lives. Feminism at its best as seen above is the promotion of one denomination of people while leaving the rest in the dark and at its worst the promotion of one denomination by the destruction of the other.","conclusion":"the feminist movement is sexist."}
{"id":"3d5f008c-bb04-450e-b950-e9662a142653","argument":"Current membership of the human rights council Saudi Arabia, China, Cuba, Vietnam, Venezuela and Zimbabwe have not been the object of any resolution by the Council despite the serious human rights violations that occur in those countries. Its absolutely ridiculous that a democracy like Israel despite its many flaws has 68 resolutions against it and a brutal dictatorship like North Korea only 9. How does the human council have any credibility whatsoever? It\u2019s membership is made up of some of the most brutal totalitarian regimes on the planet . I don\u2019t want to get into a debate about the merits of the Israeli state itself. Regardless of whether you\u2019re pro or anti Israeli it isn\u2019t reasonable for Israel to be condemned countless more times than the combined total of brutal regimes like North Korea, Zimbabwe, China or Iran. The UN is going to run into serious credibility issues long term if garbage like the HRC is allowed to continue operating as it has been. At this point the HRC horrid record is at risk of damaging the institutional credibility of the UN as a whole. The UN is bigger and more important than the HRC, it should be disbanded and rebuilt from the ground up and made up of countries who don\u2019t have outrageously horrible human rights records. I am curious for everyone\u2019s thoughts, hoping one of you can change my mind and restore my faith in the United Nations lol. Thanks for taking the time to reply","conclusion":"The UN human rights council should be disbanded, its condemned Israel a total of 68 times since it\u2019s creation in 2006. The 68 is more than the combined total North Korea, Iran, China, Zimbabwe, Venezuela ,Cuba, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Burma, Sudan and Honduras received over the same time period"}
{"id":"1d45a059-d51f-4d46-90ef-4b0fa145e7f3","argument":"The high concentration of LGBT people in gayborhoods enables them to form a powerful voting bloc This power is diminished when the community is forced to spread out over large areas in which they are always in the minority.","conclusion":"As mainstream gay culture has become commercialised, it has become more and more reliant on the capitalist system and has contributed to the gentrification of historically gay spaces."}
{"id":"d1cb6e7c-9c1d-4e87-b79e-1fb752e225a5","argument":"Joshua 6:21-24 and Judges 20 tell stories where God wants them to kill \"everyone in the city, men, women, young and old. They also killed the cattle, sheep and donkeys. . And they burnt the city with fire\" and looted all they could.","conclusion":"The Old Testament provides evidence for god's promotion of evil."}
{"id":"54f888a9-5afe-451b-8264-aee6384a5bac","argument":"Having gone through schooling for countless years in a variety of disciplines, prerequisites have been more of a hurdle than help. I realize my view is possibly more of an ideal, but places truly looking to educate their students should acknowledge the true reason for prerequisites and search for better alternatives. I am mainly going to look at prerequisites being enforced at publicly funded Universities and high schools, and will share a few real examples I've encountered with friends over the years here Case 1 Friend in high school cannot apply to an Architecture program because she lacks Grade 12 Physics and Grade 11 Physics, which is the prerequisite . It is first semester of twelfth grade for her, but she has two other necessary Math courses conflicting in time with the only 2 offerings of Grade 11 Physics courses at her school. She will now have to take Grade 11 Physics elsewhere on top of her normal schooling but must still remain a full time student to apply to the Universities . This will cost her both time and money unnecessarily when she can herself try to learn the material for Grade 11 Physics independently, and if asked, write an exam to take Grade 12 Physics in the second semester, which will actually give her a chance to join the Architecture program assuming only Grade 12 marks are looked at for admission . Unfortunately, she cannot do this by school guidelines, and now has to take an accelerated Grade 11 and 12 course privately on top of her normal school schedule. Case 2 Friend wants to take a Cell Biology and Biochemistry course out of pure interest and also because he can use it to complete his degree. He's taken 1st year Biology, but not 1st year Chemistry, and can thus not enrol in Biochemistry. Biochemistry is also a prerequisite for Cell Biology, and by not taking 1st year Chemistry, he cannot enrol in either course. I have taken 1st year Chemistry, and can attest to how little it was used in these courses. All of the concepts could easily be understood and students could have done well with minimal Chemistry knowledge and some did . They are both 2nd year Biochemistry and Cell Biology courses, and all of the Chemistry handled was incredibly basic high school Chemistry would be more than sufficient or was already taught in the 1st year Biology course. In this case, he simply had not the time nor money to enrol in 1st year Chemistry, and was thus restricted from enrolling in Biochemistry or Cell Biology. Even after requesting special permission and trying to prove his background and asking the profs for the necessary Chemistry background, he was denied. Case 3 A 3rd year Quantum Mechanics course requires a 2nd year DE course. I will say that DE is an integral part of the course and for a student lacking this knowledge, they will fall behind and do poorly. I also have a friend whom could not take the 2nd year DE course with me because he would have to overload and it would be quite costly. Nonetheless, he learned the DE content on his own time when he could over the summer break and weekends. Heck, he probably went over more concepts in DE than we did in our 1 semester class. But, because he did not take this specific course, he cannot take the 3rd year Quantum Mechanics course, thus pushing him back with his coursework. He will be taking the DE course, but only in the future and only because it is a part of the degree requirements. If a student wants to learn something earlier and they are confident in their background, why stop them? Now special permission can sometimes be obtained for enrolment from the course coordinator, but more often that not from my experience this is not the case and only happens in extreme circumstances. In the above cases, my friends all asked for special permission and were denied without even a chance to prove they have a sufficient background to keep up with the class and possibly excel . Students should be in charge of their own education. If institutions want to strongly suggest a few other courses or materials ahead of time or possibly require a passing grade on a entrance test, sure, let them do that to ensure the class goes at an appropriate level. I also just want to clarify that I believe anti requisites are very important for courses. EDIT A student taking the course should not interfere with the University's right to confer them a degree if they've not completed the appropriate prerequisites for the degree itself. If two courses are necessary for the degree, the student must complete them. No privilege is given for taking the course itself. I am talking about why they cannot simply enrol in the course. That's it. My views are idealistic, but there certainly can be improvements at very little expense.","conclusion":"Prerequisites for courses should be replaced by a \"strongly suggested background\""}
{"id":"6a211d42-60b1-49c2-9898-c5165bd88c8b","argument":"This That Yin Yang What is 'this' ? Whatever it is and given it is what it is it ain't what it ain\u2019t by proxy. That is to say, if this is a 'this' then anything not \u2019this\u2019 must be that. This is a fundamental principle of difference within descriptive language to differentiate between things and as language forms perspective to foster perception, we need to return to this base level analysis of difference between the 'I' and 'The Other' and build back up to make this point. You are you and there's no one else like it and this is good. You are an individual and possess unique individuality. You are the smallest possible unit of society, so whilst you may find affiliation with some label or other racially, culturally, nationally, sexually, etc. these group identities labels can never represent you as they exclude too much through the attempt in defining the label e.g. blackness is or whiteness is which are absolutely ridiculous attempts to define an individual characteristic through a prism of affiliation to something bigger than the individual that then binds them to it. That is to say, when we attempt to define ourselves as anything other than 'I' we will always fail in the attempt. That being said we are capable of defining abstractions and agreeing upon these collectively, Plato would define these as 'essences' such as mathematics or measurement terms inches, degrees Celsius etc. just making this point to be pre emptive. Equality There are a few attempts to produce equality within the systems we inhabit and give credence to, however none of them can be wholly successful beyond a given point of what I will call an ' agreed level of failure' in that none are successful though we loosely agree that the attempt for it is noble whereas I believe notions of nobility prevent ignorance in the actions of attempt . Let's look at some of the attempts at equality we put forward Equality of Opportunity The belief that each individual human should be able to attempt to seek value in whatever they choose no matter their environment or born traits, relying solely on their merit and ability to gain success once within a given field i.e. able to compete but accepting there will be inequality in competition ability once entry is gained to the field . Equality of Outcome \u2013 The belief that the resulting \u2018power structures\u2019 we have in the present are biased towards a given insert group label here and must be forcefully restructured to produce more better equality. The usual culprits and reasoning for the bias are things like differences in ethnicity or sex irrespective of ability and usually buttressed by the claims of certain historical context. Very often it is the claim that those holding the power now do not relinquish it therefore there needs to be a forceful legislative adjustment to the hierarchy to redistribute the demographic of power holding equally among the group orientations required to satisfy the identitarian goal i.e. there is no requirement to compete be the best as there is acceptance that the position of the competition is inherently unfair, therefore legislation policy changes the method of selection . Equality of Law The belief that each citizen under a government has equal rights when compared to any other citizen regardless of sex, age or race . Assumption of Inequality in Nature Are you a man or a woman? Whichever you are, consider yourself and compare yourself to your fellow sex. Are you equal to them in totality? Of course not there is no intra sex equality a man is not equal to all men and a woman is not equal to all women. Therefore, at a base level of sex difference and intra sex analysis, we are not equal and as such can hope for no equality between the sexes inter sex . Of course, this latter statement should be a perfectly reasonable thing to say given our sexual dimorphism and which is the same for many other species' . Failures of 'Equality' programmes Opportunity It should require no evidence to make the claim that those who have the ability to do are more capable of doing what they want and therefore success in that field increases. This has many applications. Economic differences produce a difference in education quality. Geographic differences produce a difference in availability of services. Genetic differences produce differences in mental acuity or physical prowess. Familial differences produce a difference in upbringing and so on. Ultimately, no one may \u2018finish\u2019 the same because no one truly \u2018starts\u2019 the same. This is not to say that avenues are barred they are open but that the difficulty of achievement when considering the multiple variables going into the choice of an action means the attempt of achieving equality in this manner is done in good faith and I agree that it should be attempted however it remains inherently impossible because we are born from different people in different places at different times etc. Outcome Equality of outcome is nothing more than an usurpation of national selection in terms of merit ability to restructure a hierarchy so that the presently ostracised are elevated to a position of power based mostly on there being a lack of a given group label in the name of diversity female, black, brown, Asian, gay, etc. This method is excluding. The function for a structure of competency hierarchy is to elevate the best in ability to a position of competency and increased responsibility, therefore elevating those who are untested within this process means that there will be a detrimental effect on the ability of the hierarchy as a whole as it will sacrifice ability along with flexibility and strength for the appearance and theory that equal insert category here across all results in a better outcome in terms of product effect. Ultimately, the biggest problem with an outcome based system of equality is that it is theory heavy and as theory is an academic pursuit and moves morphs faster than social selection most of the concepts and new words privilege, unconscious bias, white guilt, diversity, racism, Islamist, fascism, Alt Right do not hold their modern parlance and are disruptive and incongruent. The clash of interpretations leads to a power dynamic whereby the producer of the word s label their opponents as the re branded concept to beat them in terms of word play to wrest power. This feels dishonourable as it suggests to me that they reinvent the rules with theory so that the outcome is beneficial to the re inventor and is essentially a weapon. Law Equality of law is not something that exists at extreme ends such as women's reproductive rights vs. men's reproductive rights . This is stated to emphasise the notion of inherent difference in terms of sexual dimorphism within society and all that goes along with that, so therefore the laws surrounding these 'different sexes' must be different or affect others unequally. In other words this system to produce equality cannot produce equality because equality is untenable so it must treat unequal things unequally in order to be more equal. This reminds me of Aristotle The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal . Summary The distinction of difference within language and on a metaphysical level is one of difference the language we use to be distinct between things assumes difference from the get go of being conscious. The most fundamental division of the self from nature is \u2018I\u2019 and \u2018Other\u2019 with every \u2018other\u2019 being different. There is no intra sex equality, which is something reflected in the animal kingdom. There is no equality in nature over any category of comparison this stands true the further down in measurement we go, as specificity is confounded by ever more precise measurement . The approaches we employ to produce equality are all insufficient and ultimately fail as they are not complete any theory of how something should be aside from abstract definitions are nothing but 'theory' and 'theory' reality, so imposing theory on reality with indifference is damaging. One final note is to say that no system can be all encompassing enough to produce everything it intends to without producing more problems . As such we should abandon the notion that equality is achievable in theory and accept that necessary difference is a fact of consciousness and as such inequality individuality should be celebrated because it is through difference we have what we have. After all, we celebrate geniuses and the creations they bring geniuses are unequal and distinct from \u2018the norm\u2019 . TL DR Equality doesn't exist in nature for example everything that now 'is' and which came from nothing is inherently unequal equality suggests equilibrium whereas our state of being existence in the universe as well as within every gain we have made in every field is due to celebrated inequality , as this produces a gradient that forces change. Equality is not possible so we should cease attempting to force it because it's damaging and destabilising . We should instead accept individualism and humility in our abilities and ambitions. We should be happy and content to be associated as 'I' and not with some group where we believe power lies with to inflate a sense of inequality towards other groups or a notion of equality within a chosen group.","conclusion":"Equality isn't possible because it's not built into nature. Every form of equality we enforce is man-made, therefore every attempt is a failure to force nature to be unnatural. Our 'theories' are damaging us and we should return to celebrated individualism."}
{"id":"aaf4d607-9076-4f56-be8a-ab23f2fcdcd8","argument":"I also believe that people should solely be judged based off of their character, work ethic, and morals not their race, religion, or gender identity. I believe individualism is far more important than collectivism, and identity politics is cancer. However, holding these views makes me a racist in 2017, so can you get me out of this mindset? I would really like to not be seen as a racist, like the actual racists that get undermined because of the new definition of racism these days despite having more interaction with people of color and from multiple backgrounds than the average white liberal IT guy, on average because I work in healthcare in a cultural diverse area in the south. I'm a classical liberal and would like not to be referred to as a fascist in the closet. So, why are my views wrong? Nobody is equal to anybody. Even the same man is not equal to himself on different days. Thomas Sowell","conclusion":"I believe in free markets, free speech, and free minds."}
{"id":"4f87a5f3-e53a-4f6f-8520-541fda190c30","argument":"There are essential proteins and minerals which cannot be given to a child naturally with a vegan diet.","conclusion":"Many people with eating and nutritional-based disabilities may be unable to remove animal products from their diets."}
{"id":"79ecf083-afa6-4a77-8fb9-404dbe570561","argument":"I'm an avid gamer, and a college age male. I remember growing up playing videogames with my big brother. Playing his old games such as Morrowind and later Oblivion after he moved out helped me connect to him, even though he was miles away. People have always said that videogames were bad . The Columbine shooters played videogames, and thus, it was inferred by some that they were partially to blame for their actions. Now, instead of saying that videogames are a cause for violence, many say they perpetrate sexism. Here is one of the most widely known feminist critics of videogames. I've watched some of her videos, in which she explores reasoning behind the thought that videogames promote misogyny. She talks about the damsel in distress trope among others. Here are my main reasons behind believing that videogames are not sexist Many videogames have a white male protagonist because games are marketed and sold to their largest demographic, like every product, in this case white males. Many tropes concerning women in videogames are there because they're easy to write or modify, and add interest to the story, such as saving someone from distress.","conclusion":"Videogames are not misogynist or sexist as a whole, nor do they promote such thought"}
{"id":"a7cf0808-452e-4f23-baa1-86ed03cf4a6c","argument":"J. Harvie Wilkinson, a prominent conservative federal judge, wrote a law journal article laying out his argument that Heller was judicial activism. \"After decades of criticizing activist judges for this or that defalcation,\" he wrote, \"conservatives have now committed many of the same sins.\"","conclusion":"DC v. Heller was an instance of judicial activism and does not faithfully represent the original meaning of the 2nd Amendment as the founders intended it."}
{"id":"4835d325-04cf-4e77-ae23-3fc8bf2becf3","argument":"The concept of God exists only as a thought often associated with strong feelings and usually leading to other concepts world, nature, culture, morals, etc.. Human mind craves for context and meaning, it is its basic urge\u2014God and religion constitute just a mental map of life and universe.","conclusion":"It is more likely that people invented the idea of God, than that he actually exists."}
{"id":"ff80d34d-7d84-4198-b50f-179b977aa50a","argument":"Often, such users will also be less discriminate about the way they present their ideas, too, which can make them come across more antagonist and\/or rude.","conclusion":"Avatar users are less likely to think critically about their thoughts before posting them, as they cannot be held accountable for them."}
{"id":"88c7490d-7434-448b-bed7-97b12c708632","argument":"We are looking for the most convenient place to practice living on not earth. Due to the long commute to Mars the moon might make a better First job for non-earth dwellers.","conclusion":"The Moon is much closer to Earth than Mars making it a better choice."}
{"id":"48534192-1dac-4b1f-b90b-2d403ea660d0","argument":"Edit Someone has provided proof that Apple and Google do in fact admit to being Affirmative Action employers. To me this means that my view is actually the truth and not in need of changing. Thank you all. I do not disagree with AA. I think it leads to a more diverse and equal workforce. I think that the industry should acknowledge that it's happening and call it what it is. I'm referring to the Big 4 1 and many other Silicon Valley software companies. By affirmative action I mean preferential hiring practices and opportunities for internships. Though anecdotal, I have female friends who have been offered internships at amazing companies who were far below the bar of my male peers. Many are average while some are objectively bad at CS. They have internships at Big 4 1, Twitter, Dropbox, NGC, Raytheon etc. Specifically, 90 of my female friends who attend the Grace Hopper women in computing conference walk away with Big 4 internships. Qualcomm's intern class is 50 women but there are like 20 30 women in CS. Those are statistically significant outliers. At my internships at companies that have this AA some of the stupidest people I've worked with were some of the female interns. A senior CS major from a decent school took 3 months to write a Java class to open an Excel file. She never finished. I was given her task and finished it in 3 hours. I'm not one of those wizards who started coding as a child. I'm just a dude who read the Java documentation. My managers recommended that she not be hired but HR hired her anyway on a different team. That said, at SpaceX, where this sort of thing is not practiced, the single most intelligent and capable peer I have ever worked with was female. Every woman I worked with was brilliant in their own right. To change my position I'd like to be convinced that women are not receiving preferential treatment in hiring practices and what is happening is not AA. You don't need to convince me it's an appropriate practice because I agree. Please convince me that the average women is equally qualified as every man at these companies. Saying these women are as equally as good because they've gone through more discrimination is AA and preferential treatment and so this won't change my view. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The way women in the computer science field are treated is affirmative action. That's fine, but we should cognitively recognize it."}
{"id":"94769bec-4720-4ce3-b18b-af93d3a960af","argument":"Okay, so my main basis of thinking here is that s he won the award, for coming out as a transgender person, then underwent the surgery to complete this transformation. The reason this is significance is because there is a lot of transphobia in today's culture, and to announce something like this from a person of his her societal stature took a lot of courage. The fact that people are mad that she won this award only contribute to the proof of prevalent transphobia. This is my view, and my twitter feed seems split between she deserved did not deserve the award. So far I'm on the side of her deserving it, open to anything that can change my mind tho. Edit The award is called the Arthur Ashe Courage Award, but everybody else I've seen refers to it as the bravery award and so that's what I went with.","conclusion":"Tweets denouncing Bruce\/Caitlyn Jenner for winning the Bravest Person award only serve to show why she won it"}
{"id":"2cfb6366-605f-4c18-8246-e373d411b398","argument":"Americans cherish all sorts of trivial freedoms the freedom to chug a soda the size of a bathtub comes to mind , that don't really do us any good. The libertarian movement has taken this to an extreme, basically maximizing freedom over all other values. But why is freedom so important? If you want absolute freedom, go live in Antarctica you can do whatever you want there. Any takers? No, didn't think so. Living in a society necessarily entails sacrificing certain liberties pursuant to the cost benefit analysis. And while there are specific, tangible benefits to freedom of the press or freedom of speech, I don't understand the maximize freedom for freedom's sake mindset. I don't see freedom as a goal, just a means to an end. Please  before I get run out of America and have to move to North Korea.","conclusion":"I think freedom is an overrated value."}
{"id":"5fd7570f-972e-48d3-8f61-b3e94cee336b","argument":"Definition of moral relativism for the sake of clarity gt Moral relativism is the view that moral judgments are true or false only relative to some particular standpoint for instance, that of a culture or a historical period and that no standpoint is uniquely privileged over all others. It has often been associated with other claims about morality notably, the thesis that different cultures often exhibit radically different moral values the denial that there are universal moral values shared by every human society and the insistence that we should refrain from passing moral judgments on beliefs and practices characteristic of cultures other than our own. That said, if a society abides by moral relativism, it allows the individuals in power to corrupt that doctrine in such a way as to repress undesirable thoughts and actions that run afoul of the desires of the ruling class, generally for the purposes of further concentrating and centralizing power for their benefit. For example, pick any one of the modern controversial topics abortion, gay marriage, gun rights, etc and you will have large and powerful groups claiming the moral high ground while demeaning those that disagree for the purposes of garnering and solidifying further support. This has been the case for hundreds really thousands of years with the ruling classes utilizing various wedge issues to garner support women's suffrage, interracial marriage, the draft, take your pick . I would further argue that the only solution to this dilemma is to establish the notion of an objective good and an objective evil which exist above and beyond all societal constructs and is universal for all humans. As humans, we have the capacity and ability to understand complex issues due to our ability to reason and as such, we can objectively operate from the ethical standpoint of your rights end where my rights begin . This adequately explains why I don't have the right to randomly punch people in the face. My right to swing my fist ends as soon as someone's face is in the way and to do so would be considered an immoral bad action since I am causing them direct harm. This is really straight out of the objectivist's playbook and operates under the assumption that the fundamental desire of man is the freedom to pursue their life as they see fit without undue intervention from any external entity government, religion, culture, etc . As individuals, we have only to answer to ourselves and our desires so long as the actions we partake of in our pursuits do not infringe upon the individual rights of others. This is often referred to as the non aggression principle NAP in Libertarian ethics. In short, the rights of the individual are paramount, the notion of liberty is the only objective good in the world, anything that seeks to infringe on those individual rights barring proper utilization of the NAP is objectively bad , and thus moral relativism falls by the wayside and can no longer be utilized by a corrupt ruling power to subjugate the masses. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Moral relativism allows those in power to write the rules, everyone else be damned"}
{"id":"0a3f4ec7-7695-42b4-a939-d9bcc4574bb6","argument":"When you enter into a contract, the expectation is that the terms are to remain consistent. Although there may be provisions for what happens when someone violates the contract, simply changing them without notice is ridiculous. I admit recently contracts have began to change while in place, but this is only recently and as a result of increased reliance on the concept of intellectual property, and it's still a fairly murky issue anyway. The issue I have with mandatory national service is that, assuming the government is a social contract , it by nature is a shifting of the terms . When you're in service, what's expected of you is obviously different than when you're not in service. I may completely disagree or object to serving under a military code of conduct, or whatever it may be. I'd also argue that the social contract should be given MORE scrutiny as to its extent than a normal contract. You have to typically reach the age of majority to make contracts of any validity, and typically have options to not make a given contract due to the nature of private competition between businesses and persons, or certain things not being necessary. When things are a monopoly, or difficult to not have, there's regulations so as to ensure bargaining power isn't completely out of hand. The social contract is in place since one's birth, non optional, and very difficult to find a different alternative given immigration laws, and non liquid capital. Given that it's a bit of a stretch of the terms of a contract already, I don't think it would help to give it even more elbow room. Quite simply. if a government can make its entire body directly work for them against their own wishes, it can do anything, and I feel that power could easily be abused. Of course the draft should be instituted in certain cases where the nation's being directly invaded, but I don't think such places could ever apply in the modern era. It certainly wasn't justified any time it was used in the past forcing people to serve in the Civil War, even though it was valid, sets precedent for forcing people to serve a country being justly rebelled against, and every other time the draft was used the US wasn't being directly attacked, with the exception of WW2, where the front very quickly drew away from US territories. I feel as if the draft should have been dropped when that happened. In the modern era, if the US was invaded, it would either be by a major power in which case nuclear options would be in consideration or by small decentralized clusters which an army without training would be very little help against . Either way, the draft would be a bit useless. Yes, it could produce positive results, but I don't feel as if the possibility to produce those results is worth giving the government so much extra authority.","conclusion":"I don't think national service should be mandatory except in the most exceptional of cases."}
{"id":"4630aeb0-1302-4e29-99e0-b9f15b500571","argument":"The 'Belt and Road BRI initiative is a global development strategy strengthening China's ties to other states by increasing Chinese investment abroad.","conclusion":"China is actively attempting to develop its own soft power through institutions and agreements."}
{"id":"e6616b34-e2b8-4652-bb94-44b2b45c2e60","argument":"EDIT TITLE SHOULD BE is a waste of money not time I have two main reasons for this which I will outline below 1 What happens when we find it? Nothing. We might have some intact corpses if we're lucky and some salvage scrap. Closure for families is the best reason I can think of, which is pretty shitty when it comes to a utalitarinism point of view. 2 We are putting millions of dollars globally into finding the said corpses of 200 people where instead, the money could be used to save at least 10 times that lives. Why pick finding dead people over saving living ones? apologies if I hit any personal connections, no one deserved to die on that flight I just don't think finding it would change the fact that lives were lost. gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than just downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I believe searching for the MH370 is a waste of time"}
{"id":"6b1aba2f-59ff-4fbe-a01c-a5839eb293a1","argument":"I have been thinking quite a bit about how broken meritocracy really is in today's society. In my view, the underpinning of any well functioning society is that it should nurture true meritocracy. All citizens, regardless of race, gender, or any other parameter, should have a level playing field in society. We acknowledge this in the work place and in daily life, which is why we have laws against racism, laws against discrimination, etc. However, we ignore one of the most important factors that give many people a free ride . Inherited wealth. We are now in an era where the wealthy are rapidly becoming much more wealthier. I do not have an issue with wealth in itself, or even the fact that it is much easier for a wealthy person to become wealthier than for a poor person to become wealthy. However, I do have a big issue when an entire sub section of children, the trust fund kiddies for example, do not have to compete with all the other kids to succeed in life and in society. Their trust funds and inherited wealth allows them to live a life and enjoy the benefits of wealth that they haven't earned and do not deserve. Being born to the right parents should not have anything to do with this. I feel that if we disallow children from inheriting wealth from their parents, it will make society more fair, most just, more of a level playing field for all. I even think all children should attend the same public schools and colleges which should be affordable to all, but that is a different point. Note, I am not holding a socialistic point of view here. In fact, I feel that true meritocracy is as important for a small government free market as much as it is for libertarians who believe that everyone should stand on their own feet and should carve out their own lives, as much as it applies to big government liberals or socialists who think that healthcare, food, education, basic needs etc. should be provided for free by the government. If anything, generational wealth is destroying the basic mechanism of a just and fair society.","conclusion":"We should disallow children from inheriting wealth from their parents, for it destroys meritocracy."}
{"id":"79fcbbd1-c886-41fa-9397-72b461d52a22","argument":"It is pretty well known that the colombine shooters believed in natural selection, a key point of evolution. Just from their wiki they talk about natural selection in their journals, Eric Harris wore a shirt with the words natural selection written on it. It is clear that they believed strongly in this idea. The thug who shot up the church in SC believed strongly in white supremacy, he believed in racism and the confederate flag. I think that artificial selection was used as a justification for such crimes like eugenics, the holocaust ect. Believing that the weak die off is one of Darwins core concepts Survival of the fittest, the most adapted live, the least adapted die . I think it is much more vile than the confederate flag, which also used artificial selection, breeding slaves to fill labor shortages was most likely a thing and breeding artificially is a form of artificial selection. Please, . I feel a tad silly about even holding it, as I know there are differences but I just can't think of any. Edit Why are we listening to the motives of one shooter over another, that is another key point in my view I forgot to add. EDIT 2 View more or less changed, as changed as I believe it could be.","conclusion":"Evolution or at least the concept of natural and artificial selection should be taken out of schools for the same reasons that the Confederate battle flag should be taken down."}
{"id":"186f9131-2e49-420e-936b-61582603b9f8","argument":"Wanting to ban blood sports is not the same as rejecting the need for the culling of animals. In Britain, the Burns Committee concluded that investing money in better nutrition for ewes rather than in killing foxes would save more livestock. Technology provides more humane ways of killing, e.g. trapping and lamping, whilst also allowing devotees to test their skills against clay pigeons or in drag hunts.","conclusion":"Wanting to ban blood sports is not the same as rejecting the need for the culling of animals. In Br..."}
{"id":"d19bfc39-3d8a-4029-8804-0d594eca53c8","argument":"A number of MPs Jacob Rees-Mogg John Redwood have claimed that polling shows the public would prefer for the UK to leave the EU with no deal, compared to any other option.","conclusion":"The public has shown more support for a No-Deal than for remaining."}
{"id":"e94e5d13-ed12-4896-85c7-1e979c75ff7b","argument":"So there's some nuance to my beliefs here. Let's break it down I think that public nudity should not be illegal. If someone is caught outside without clothing then there shouldn't be any sort of repercussions or fines that affect them for being naked outdoors. Granted I say this with the recognition that there are certain areas where nudity should not be allowed public transportation, inside of private or public held locations, and other certain communal areas. In public transportation, like on buses or trains, we shouldn't have public nudity because of the issue of transference of germs between people because of contact on the seats. And then indoors clothing should be expected unless otherwise stated by the facility that nudity is okay. As for the communal areas I think that certain areas like school campuses nudity should not be allowed. This change would be primarily for two purposes First 1 to get rid of the laws and fines that are placed on people for being naked. Given certain circumstances these sorts of laws can be detrimental towards people, and punishes them for simply being in their most natural state. And 2 to allow people the freedom to express their bodies publicly how they wish to without fear of punishment by the law. Simple rules like No shirts, no shoes, no service would still be applicable towards those facilities that choose to enact them. For those who don't know, in Spain nudity is legal minus a few regions like in Barcelona. This doesn't mean that public nudity is acceptable everywhere, there's a lot of places where nudity is gonna be looked down on, such as in the middle of a town. But it's still legalized and the country itself has a lot of options for interested people like Nudists. For the most part you're not gonna be fined or arrested for indecent exposure in this country, given that you're also not in a public space that has already made nudity illegal. Last thing to cover is probably going to be religious and moral beliefs that are going to possibly be affected by this. To which my best argument that I can come up with is the rule of freedom of expression. In the United States at least, this is part of one of the biggest rights we have Freedom of Speech. And in this freedom of expression, I believe we should be allowed to express ourselves even without clothing. I don't think we should be limiting our expression by enacting certain laws with how we present our bodies, even if that presentation means no clothing at all. So there's my case, let's see yours. I'd love for you guys to tear into it Let's discuss this topic. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I believe nudity should not be illegal"}
{"id":"f356edf5-6b14-4094-8ec2-37d1c09c7d21","argument":"I have numerous medical conditions throughout my life and I have many friends who are doctors. All the doctors I have visited have been terrible at their jobs. Whether it is complete disinterest, misdiagnosis, unknowledgeable of symptoms indicating problems, misreading x rays cat scans, etc. Any condition that has been solved has been me fighting the medical system with information i've researched on the internet. If we started a database that tracked symptom of patients, eventually we'd see what percentage of particular symptoms indicate a particular disease condition disorder etc. I understand people do their own research on Web MD and often go to a doctor and a doctor laughs and tells them what they read is incorrect, but this is because WebMD is not considering everything else about the patient. For instance low blood pressure in a 24 year old athlete is not an indicator of a problem as it would be for say an old sedentary and obese 65 year old male. Doctors should be detectives, puzzle solvers or scientists, but often I find they are quick to get you in and out of your office for that paycheck. They see too many patience to devote enough time to solve your obscure case. And let's say it is indeed an obscure case. Imagine only 100 people have had your condition, no doctor could ever be expected to piece together the puzzle. But if those 100 people were logged, the computer could compare against that. At best we could train individuals to be intermediaries between the patient and the computer system, so training for general practitioners could be lowered considerably. And in doing so, their pay would be much lower which would allow money to be used for other things. more testing labs, more MRI machines, etc. Imagine going into the automated medical facility and getting your blood work and cat scan done all in one place. It would seem to me that your chance of a correct diagnosis would be MUCH higher than dealing with a human. Most of medical school is just learning IMMENSE text book knowledge and analysis skills, both of which are best handled by a computer. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"A computer could do 90% of a doctor's job general practitioner in particular."}
{"id":"77672b0f-23be-454e-ab15-e97a7dadb4ca","argument":"More than half the donations made in the recent Brexit referendum campaign came from just ten wealthy donors who framed the debate on either side to suit their own views or business interests.","conclusion":"Private interest groups were successfully able to influence the Brexit referendum's outcome according to their preferences."}
{"id":"36d72ae5-c3c6-43fa-b126-c3ab5739865d","argument":"I feel like I need to preface this by telling you how fully and completely I detest the current President of the United States. I'm one of those people who actually voted for Hillary and was quite happy to do so, and if you want to talk about that decision, let's take it outside, lol. Suffice it to say that I am, in no way whatsoever, a Trump supporter, and it really pains me to hold this view. When I say change my view , I'm really saying please for the love of GOD change my view . But honestly, I can't think of a lot of great reasons to think of this sudden 180 by Kim Jong Un as anything other than the result of the Trump administration's tough talk. North Korea has, up until now, steadily increased in their aggression and technological progress towards a missile that could inflict serious harm on any country across the world, and the sudden change in attitude over the past month or so seems to contradict literally everything this country has been working towards for, what? Decades? What changed? The fire and fury speech seems like the most obvious. The tough rhetoric from Trump. Nobody ever took the approach that he took, the approach to just say outright that we'll blow the fuck out of your country if you send a nuke at us. I think North Korea is pretty well aware of how thoroughly the US could dismantle their country, but perhaps they were skeptical that it would actually happen? There are, I suppose, two other explanations for this sudden shift 1 North Korea has always known that it really sucks as a military on the global scale and just wanted to demonstrate its ability to nuke everyone to get respect on the global stage. Now that they've shown everyone that they can do that, they have respect, so now they're like okay, point has been made, so we can back off now . And perhaps Trump is getting the credit because he got to be the one to respond to North Korea's demonstrated ability to fling nukes all over the planet. 2 North Korea is lying to all of us. This is a more terrifying prospect, though I also wonder why they would bother with this being nice phase if they want to blow us all up in the end. .","conclusion":"President Trump deserves credit for the apparent de-nuclearization of North Korea"}
{"id":"14fc22ff-ff9c-4991-b905-3d5269aa3d7c","argument":"You know, as I watch the recent reports about Ferguson, and this Eric Garner case, Treyvon Martin and so many other issues which have become headline news lately, I think one of the biggest issues is the public attempt to pigeon hole these ideas into a singular issue instead of trying to reasonably evaluate each situation and treat all symptoms uniquely. So looking in objectively Police arrogance is as much if not more so a problem than merely police racism The media needs to stop objectifying only specific details to ignite headlines While racism is certainly an issue, culturalism is much more so. We fear what we do not know, what we have not experiences, and as a result, may be inclined to assume a person who presents themselves to the world in a specific manner falls into a specific criteria. This is, unfortunately, human instinct which dates back to prehistory. It doesn't validate anything, as freethinking creatures capable of complex thought, however it does acknowledge where it originates. This issue is best resolved not by making it a black white asian christian jewish male female ect issue, but by creating a nexus of trust between individuals regardless of race, culture, gender or religious perspective and grow as a community of individuals of outstanding moral and social character. I truly believe one of the most influential moments in solving this problem will be when we stop labelling these situations as a race problem because those labels put the word or idea on the tongue of people who will use them to perpetuate hate. What each of us must do is start evaluating our individual goals, responsibilities and ideas for a better, brighter society. Perspective is everything and being able to understand each piece of any situation is so important in bringing change to the world but we seem to, whenever conflict arises, jump to the extreme end of either piece of any argument that we miss all of the wisdom of the middle. But at the end of the day, conflict itself is so much a part of why we can't make any new progress.","conclusion":"Some thoughts on racism and culturism in America"}
{"id":"e8616ba3-6992-4ea2-8f76-4a570b236b6e","argument":"Over the years, I have increasingly got the sense that, if enough people like you, you can, to put it bluntly, be a complete asshole and often worse and get away with it. I realise that this very much sounds like a blanket statement, so I will provide a few examples in order to flesh out this argument. First case in point the wonderful gentleman that is Roman Polanski. Pretty much everyone knows about the awful things he did, so I'm not going to dwell on that, but rather the rest of Hollywood's reaction to him. There was, of course, the infamous standing ovation he received at the 2003 Oscars for winning Best Director. There was Mia Farrow, a woman whose daughter may or may not have been sexually abused herself, made a statement where she gushed about how wonderful Polanski was. There was the petition, signed by more than a hundred key players in Hollywood Penelope Cruz, Harrison Ford, and David Lynch amongst them , demanding his release. I just don't understand this. Do these people all believe the young girl was lying? Remember that the man was convicted of his crimes, then fled to France to avoid sentencing. I can, on one hand, understand these people being scared to speak out against someone like Polanski for fear of their livelihoods, but why speak in his favour ? Why fall in line like sheep to defend this sexual predator? Is it the case that just because you are a really good filmmaker, you can get away with raping a young girl ? Staying in Hollywood, and let's move on to another gem Lena Dunham. This person, to put it politely, basically admitted to repeatedly molesting her younger sister, lied to defend her friend who was accused of sexual assault, and said she wished she'd had an abortion to 'better understand the plight of those who did' yet despite all this, she still has a career and is still seen as an a feminist icon, seemingly widely liked within Hollywood. Apparently, because she is supposedly a good writer, she is allowed to defend rapists and admit to molesting her sister without any repercussions. Leaving Hollywood for a perhaps more seedy industry, and we have the porn industry. You'll probably be aware of the multiple allegations levied against James Deen, at one point, perhaps the most popular male performer of his generation. At least eight women two of these former girlfriends of his came forward with various allegations, namely rape, sexual assualt and emotional abuse. Despite this, many in the porn industry, including several big names Angela White, Casey Calvert, among others , continue to work with him as if nothing has happened, as if all of these women lied. I could perhaps understand this if just one or two women had said something, as there would be that he said she said factor, but eight women? No, I'm sorry, something stinks there. The crux of his defenders' arguments seems to be Oh, well I like him, and he's my friend, so he can't have done anything wrong and all of these women are lying. Really, how cowardly can you get? I realise I seem to have focused on sexual assault a lot here, so I'm going to broaden things somewhat with some personal anecdotes. When I was at school, there was a rather unpleasant biology teacher who was almost universally adored. She was very much a Jekyll and Hyde creature kind, genial and warm if you were a teacher and or did her subject, and belittling, rude and haughty if you didn't do her subject, broke any rules, or dared to contradict her in any way. At least once, I witnessed her shout at a younger student as if they were a dog YOU BAD BOY was the set of words she used . Multiple other teachers were there to see this, but just stood by and watched. When she left shortly after, she received multiple bouquets of flowers from staff and students alike, and many people spoke of how upset they were at her leaving. I'm not sure if they were unaware of her unpleasant nature, whether they were and chose to ignore it, or if they knew and didn't care. I will say in her favour that she was, so I am told, an excellent teacher that being said, I consider myself lucky to have never had her. In much the same vein, I had a boss in my last job who was a lot like the teacher I described above. Everyone there adored him he was good looking and muscular but he was very narcissistic, and if he didn't like you, he'd be very condescending and unpleasant, as he often was towards me. There are many more examples I could provide, but I don't wish to turn this into some sort of vitriolic novel. I am only too aware that a lot of this post will come across as me venting about people I don't like for one reason or another and for the most part, you would be right. That being said, I would like to think that there is a very valid point amongst all of this, which is that as a society, we need to being to examine whether we allow people to carry on committing these indiscretions, just because they are good at their jobs, or because we like them. I realise that this is perhaps something of a naive, simplistic argument after all, we are all human. That being said, I do still believe that, as a society, we should be better and we can be better. TL DR People with enough charisma talent can get away with far more than the average person.","conclusion":"If you make enough people like you, and\/or you are excellent at your job, you can get away with almost anything"}
{"id":"471a9914-303d-4ef9-b7d2-fcb5df2d24f9","argument":"By randomly nominating or selecting a person from a qualified or valued group of individuals we are able to remove the ego & advertising that so often dominates a political campaign.","conclusion":"Politicians elected via lottery would be better at their job."}
{"id":"ed64d5fc-b6a5-4d7b-9d7c-ce2ceb058ebd","argument":"The regular use of trigger warnings in an educational context may lead to effective censorship by creating a chilling effect on academic speech. Professors may be less willing to discuss controversial material, even with a trigger warning, because of the risk of falling afoul of the rules for their implementation or facing public backlash.","conclusion":"If educational institutions have policies mandating trigger warnings then topics associated with triggers are likely to be marginalized if not avoided altogether by faculty members. This is because these faculty members would be fearful of complaints for discomforting or offending their students."}
{"id":"52827fe0-4757-4db3-9b2b-653c619e5793","argument":"Basically, I don't think there's any evidence for a Palestinian nation or identity prior to the Zionist movement and that it developed in response to Zionism. While the area was geographically known as Palestine, all of its inhabitants were known as Palestinians it was Palestinian Arabs vs. Palestinian Jews before it was Palestinians vs. Israelis and for a time was even more associated with Jews The Palestine Post, The Palestinian regiments in the British Army . Not that this should be interpreted as an opinion on what rights the Palestinians today are or are not entitled to. Regardless of history, it's indisputable that a Palestinian national identity exists today. I just think it's maybe about a hundred years old and without Zionism, Palestinians today would call themselves Egyptian or Syrian.","conclusion":"I don't think there would be any Palestinians if it weren't for Israel\/Zionism."}
{"id":"d7422e41-f9f2-498a-b84c-b5896fceadd3","argument":"Article 28: \"Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized.\" Abandoning your rights at the border is not.","conclusion":"UDHR articles 1-3, 5-12, 16-20, and 22-29 are specifically directed to the idea that when someone crosses a border, they keep all rights and legal protections."}
{"id":"c66ff977-5802-46e2-a16a-b302beeeab4b","argument":"Humans simply do not need meet from real animals. This is irrational in the sense that humans can go to the store and get genuine protein.","conclusion":"Humans live in an advanced state of society, in which a high level of culture, science, industry, and government has been reached."}
{"id":"8d8bbc8a-3228-4662-ab7f-424a96dd61a4","argument":"Both the Constitution and the National Security Act1 make it explicitly clear that there are occasions when individuals in South Korea must surrender some of their liberty in the interests of preserving the state. These pieces of legislation and others reflect the reality of living next door to North Korea. The whole point of legislation that preserves the state is that it applies to everybody. Particularly in the instance of national service, the moment it becomes optional it ceases to work. No doubt many of those who have been arrested under the NSA took the attitude that it really didn\u2019t, or shouldn\u2019t, apply to them. It does. Even if a compelling case could be made for celebrities to have the right not to serve, it is inconceivable that such a case could be made exclusively for celebrities. It is hard to see how the national interest is well served by having someone appear in a soap opera or a record sleeve but not by having someone in an emergency room or classroom. 1","conclusion":"One of the great strengths of national service is that it demonstrates that everyone is equal"}
{"id":"e46a76e4-342f-4e7b-9215-8536d732316e","argument":"If God is all powerful, but acts to fully remove a particular evil, then God would cause the evil object under consideration to become either nothing pure evil would vaporize into annihilation, or the object remaining would be perfect whatever evil left would then become purely good, including respecting its limitations and potential. Then God would have another perfectly good being with limitless potential to deal with. But since God is omnipresent, the two would end up being just God.","conclusion":"There could be dire consequences for the removal of the possibility of evil which are worse than evil as we understand it."}
{"id":"84349f0e-16ae-4e37-a567-35a9aa75f076","argument":"I've been reading books, and getting informed about all that is happening in the meat industry and it seems that the meat industry is quite evil , but I don't believe if 'I myself' will become vegetarian it will destroy the it or even harm it in any way. I don't think it will even save a single cow from being killed. If a many people stop eating meat, then of course damage to the industry can be caused, but it just doesn't matter if a certain individual For example, me stops eating meat or not. Simply stopping eating the meat will do virtually nothing. On the other hand if I dedicate my life for this cause, and try to convert a lot of people, and do lecturers in public etc Then yes I can make a real difference, but, again, just jumping on the band wagon doesn't do much of anything","conclusion":"I think it makes no difference if I become a vegetarian."}
{"id":"9a2ed26b-8820-43cb-adb0-7bcdf0aa1f38","argument":"There are public places in the 'real world', like Hyde Park's \"Speakers' Corner where anybody is permitted to speak however they wish, no matter how contentious, as long as it is legal. Others may join or condemn as they wish. The Internet should behave similarly: as an open space where all people may speak, may listen, or indeed may choose to walk on without responding.","conclusion":"Speech, in the absence of action, is not an active threat to anyone, no matter how aggressive it may be."}
{"id":"d6673149-bc30-47ad-91e1-e35620cfd48d","argument":"Understanding that equality is referring to opportunity indicates that gender representation levels do not reflect equality in the literal feminist sense.","conclusion":"Equality can be understood to be equality of opportunities and equity in the respect given to both genders."}
{"id":"456096d1-d2ec-488c-8a28-0f6031bbce1a","argument":"I understand that a person identifying differently to what is between their legs would want to be called by their preferred pronoun or name and be seen as the gender they identify with. I respect that. What I fail to understand is why \u201cgents\u201d and \u201cladies\u201d on the door couldn\u2019t be considered as a nicer wording for \u201cpenises\u201d and \u201cvaginas\u201d. The body parts\u2019 attributes are after all why there are urinals in men\u2019s room, while there are places to throw tampons and more regular toilets or women urinals in women\u2019s room. Because I myself identify with the same gender as sex I feel like there is something important that may be missing. What is the interest of a person to go to the restroom that doesn\u2019t suit their biological needs? I am sorry if this CMW is inane, I haven\u2019t dared to tell people about this view as I am afraid to be looked at as bigoted. Edit Thank you for all your responses I have learned a lot because of your comments. I now understand that what is most important is to just let people choose whatever and respect it. You will never notice people having different genitalia visiting the bathroom so it shouldn't be an issue for anyone. Gender separated bathrooms has come from a history of sexism, but also simple modesty that we haven't really changed since. Maybe all gender bathrooms with closed stalls for toilets and a handicap bathroom that also have the purpose as a toilet for the person who need a bit more privacy facilities could work. What do you guys think of this?","conclusion":"Toilets are for separating people with different biological sex, not separating different gender identities."}
{"id":"cb46bf07-ae29-419d-bc35-7abb005712ed","argument":"I actually really want to believe that free will exists not necessarily that determinism is false , but a large amount of scientific evidence indicates otherwise. I'd define free will as the ability to exert a degree of control over our actions or to act on our own volition if I was pushed down the stairs, I wouldn't be acting freely . Also, I'm somewhat familiar with compatibilism, but I don't think it really justifies the existence of 'free will'. I'll briefly list the justifications for my view below Nature vs. Nurture A broad consensus exists among scientists that our actions are influenced by both our genetics and environment. Regardless of which is dominant, this seems to suggest that our choices are beyond the scope of our control. This is an extremely persuasive argument, from my perspective, in favor of determinism. Dominance of the Superego Freudian psychology breaks down the mind into three levels of consciousness the id, ego, and superego. The superego is the unconscious part, which exerts much influence over our actions in ways we often don't even realize. Numerous studies have demonstrated how influences on the superego can control actions. Illusion of Control The most compelling evidence in support of free will is the intuitive feeling that we have control over our actions. From this perspective, it seems absurd to say that free will doesn't exist when I can clearly choose whether I click on a link or not, or whether I choose one word or another. However, there are many instances in which perception diverges from reality. This should be obvious, but I've included an article that demonstrates many ways in which our environment can cause us to perceive a distorted reality. Retroactive Rationalization A notable study by Harvard psychologist Daniel Wenger demonstrates that the brain begins an action before we're aware of our desire to act It seems that conscious wanting is not the beginning of the process of making voluntary movement Wenger, 1983 . To me, this completely transcends understanding and challenges everything I've held true, suggesting that our will to move is merely an illusion maybe an evolutionary mechanism due to the fact that acceptance of determinism leads to negative behavior since we deny responsibility for our actions . Laws of physics Humans obey the laws of physics, just like all other objects in the universe. Our actions are tangibly just a collection of neurons firing in our brain. These neurons must adhere to physical laws, which implies that their movement can't be controlled by something like free will. EDIT The 5th contention isn't exactly saying that we're just a bunch of neurons and can't have free will. Rather, it's saying that our actions are controlled by neurons, which follow the laws of physics just like any other object. In that respect, what differentiates us from said objects? Regardless, I'll agree that it's my weakest point and not quite an argument of its own, so you can go ahead and ignore it.","conclusion":"We don't have free will"}
{"id":"f155405a-d7a4-4a66-acd6-3e8cc1a2860f","argument":"The constituents peoples Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks live almost entirely in separate segregated areas with very little communal intermixing. They already essentially live in separate states but without the ability to actually direct their own affairs or receive international recognition. 1 It should be remembered that the Bosnian Serbs have already voted ponce for secession as in a referendum in November 1991 in areas which were Serb ethnic 96.4% voted for an independent State within the then Yugoslav federation.2 1 Wikipedia, \u2018Ethnic groups in Bosnia and Herzegovina\u2019, 2 Application of Genocide convention, \u2018Dissenting opinion of Judge Kreca\u2019, International Court of Justice, 11 July 1996, p.738,","conclusion":"The people within the state have no desire to live together."}
{"id":"602a1ea6-3a1e-46e9-aba1-80060ffa4e01","argument":"There is nothing good about societies that are obsessed with conformity and punish individuals who do not conform to narrow, arbitrary societal norms, and discourage original thought and interpretation. Notice that the least innovations, Nobel prizes, etc. come from collectivist countries. They are certainly not dumb look at china and India but they don't produce much original thought and innovation when compared to individualist societies. I notice this in the Chinese especially. Not just national Chinese, but cultural Chinese. Penalties for any deviation from a norm are harshly punished, for no other reason other than because they are different. I know people who got in trouble at school here in Singapore for solving a problem with a different albeit correct method from what was taught. Collectivism is backward because it stifles people and prevents originality. It penalizes people who are different for literally no good reason. It prizes people for being robots who add nothing new to the world. It encourages ostracism and encourages people to be judgmental and exclusionary. Why hate on originality? Yes, I am ethnocentrist. No, I have no appreciation for collectivism. If I want to remain living here I have to change my approach because the people here are so insanely collectivist and some of the stuff they do disgusts me eg hate on people for arbitrary reasons, be super judgmental, succumb to groupthink .","conclusion":"I think that collectivism is a backward and inferior cultural mentality that impedes innovation and progress via emphasis on groupthink and herd mentality\/conformity, which are bad things."}
{"id":"c8935ed7-d2bb-4c90-875d-36525e5030c5","argument":"According to Willard Chase, when Joseph Smith went to Cumorah on September 22, 1827 to recover the golden plates, \"he said he then took the book out of the ground and hid it in a tree top, and returned home.\" Howe 1834, p. 246","conclusion":"According to Joseph Smith, the distance he ran with the golden plates from their temporary hiding place to his home in Manchester was at least two miles."}
{"id":"fb9ab2aa-2c99-43ac-b745-85bf40aaa8e2","argument":"A common misconception by pet adopters is that animal shelters are funded by tax dollars, which makes them donate less. In reality, most shelters are donation-based","conclusion":"The lack of assistance and awareness by local communities causes shelters to lack funding."}
{"id":"0d332e87-6837-4f2e-a59b-b8d5146fa1d3","argument":"It should be a ticket able offense to drive without AWD or 4WD in snow and hold up traffic, cause an accident, or slide off the road. I've driven a variety of 2WD front and rear and 4WD cars SUVs Trucks in the snow. Both with good and bad tires for it. There is nothing that competes with four wheel drive in the snow. It is nearly. They handle better, let you make quick moves, and regardless of what anyone says, you stop better with it. It is rude, dumb, and inconsiderate to drive with 2WD in the snow and then proceed to hold up traffic. I watched it tonight even, people in small cars barely getting up hills in 2 3 inches of snow. My truck was like nothing was going on. I had to pass cars several times to go above 20 mph. Forget the fact that you're an absolute jerk driving those cars holding up traffic, it should be illegal because it impedes the rest of us AND makes it more dangerous. The small cars were sliding all over, the trucks and SUVs were planted firmly.","conclusion":"It should be illegal to drive in the snow without 4WD and hold up traffic."}
{"id":"b59b00fe-3856-4f68-88ec-395cb212d72f","argument":"Like a lot of other people, I think privately owned guns are a vile social cancer that should be excised as soon as possible. Nearly everyone I know agrees with me, but when they argue with gun nuts, our people insist that they only want to take away this or that gun, that we respect the second amendment, yada, yada. Why lie? Won't we make progress faster if we are truthful? Ideas for progressive change don't become socially accepted until they are openly discussed for a time. The sooner we start being honest and up front about our position and why we hold it, the sooner something will be done. Being cagey as a political strategy has not worked. Why is my view a minority view on the reform side? gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"If We Want All Guns Banned, We Should Say So"}
{"id":"7773152e-bd43-4fc4-b962-5dc057a86c18","argument":"The results of elections can even be predicted by asking children to choose candidates based on photos. They may not have political knowledge but apparently pick candidates in the same way as do voters.","conclusion":"Voters decide by the looks of politicians. Studies show that baby-faced politicians are perceived as less competent and that good looks can translate into electoral success."}
{"id":"dccf2369-3247-4e2d-9093-0e0175a24d72","argument":"Free trade agreements are just one early stage of economic integration The EU is one of the furthest entities along this process, even further reducing barriers to trade.","conclusion":"The European Union is one of the most open economies in the world and is committed to free trade."}
{"id":"a7dd1236-b7ad-479e-91bf-07be987ea4a9","argument":"I see life as one big competition. No matter where you are from, if you strip our lives to the most basic principle, we're all just trying to survive in the game of life. Along with that, everybody is always trying to be right in their own mind. Everybody has their own opinions and a lot of them want you to see things the way they do and that's why people always get into discussions about their own beliefs and what they think is right and wrong. You have tons of different types of people in this world. There are wealthy evil good people, poor evil good people, and everybody in the large grey area of the spectrum. One thing many humans strive for is shiny new toys. Whether it's nice clothing, cars, jewelry, electronics, houses, etc. We are trained to be materialistic at this point in human history. Though, the reality is, we are all insignificant and all our toys are pointless in the grand scheme of things. You take the most impactful humans from all of history and at one point in the future, they won't matter. Even if they did matter, they really don't matter that much to the biggest picture you can imagine of humans. Whether it is because the human race eventually dies, or some other astronomical reason. My point is, nothing is here to last and nothing really matters. With all that being said, at the end of the day, all I see that does matter is we are nice and accepting. We are all part of this game called life and the game itself really isn't significant to anything. Of course from a subjective viewpoint, it's as significant as you make it, but from an objective viewpoint, nothing truly matters in the big picture. All our achievements, toys, loved ones, etc. will vanish at some point. Because of that, the only thing that we can do as humans is simply accept each other. x200B Sorry if this post is kind of confusing or messy. I have a lot of thoughts and may have trouble formulating a proper  with those thoughts. Anyway, if you understand the gist of what I'm saying, by all means, change my view","conclusion":"at the end of the day, the greatest gift us humans can give each other is acceptance and kindness"}
{"id":"47ec1be3-9ae5-4bdb-993d-89bb703bde9b","argument":"During World War 2, a special reserve of non-Muslims was formed and the soldiers used for free labour p. 702.","conclusion":"One criteria is that the minorities in Turkey should be respected and protected. Turkey does not fulfill this criteria."}
{"id":"9260b816-d07d-4079-a8e0-11083fa20666","argument":"I have been reading a lot about ethical consumerism and men's style and I got to thinking about the impact what we wear has on the environment and others. Then I started to think about gender differences in clothing I'm male btw . Here are the cruxes of my argument Comparing two garments that are supposedly the same with the only difference being the gender the women's with always be of equal or lesser quality. The classic example is jeans. Women's jeans have smaller pockets than men's, they are made with less cotton and more spandex polyester which means they have to be washed more often. The skin tight nature of a majority of these jeans exacerbates most of these problems and allows for more judgment based solely on physical appearance whether by oneself or others . The sizing for most women's jeans also makes no logical sense. This isn't just the case for jeans though. Shirts and sweaters are often made from thinner materials than men's shirts or have strange cutouts, providing substantially less needed warmth studies have shown that women feel colder than men, and that AC units are tuned towards male preferences of temperature in office environments . Certain things considered to be fashionable for women from a practicality standpoint make no sense. Rompers and jumpsuits require one to remove all their outer clothing just to use the restroom. Leggings, while I have heard them described as comfortable, seems to thin to keep one warm or cool when needed, and become see through after only a couple of washes. Shoes also seem to be much worse. You never hear of women's shoes being made of full grain leather and being goodyear welted by a master English craftsman, most commentary is based on the appearance of the shoe. I also hear frequent complaints about the comfort of women's shoes and my female friends are always seeming to get blisters on their feet. Studies have also shown several detrimental effects from wearing high heels on the feet, spine, pelvis and muscles. By contrast most shoes that women describe to be comfortable are considered to be unattractive or unfeminine ugg boots, sneakers etc. . A much larger fashion industry with seasonal trends combined with biological traits, greater diversity in the types of garments available and the shortcomings of these garments also require women to purchase more clothing more often, which does tremendous harm not only to bank accounts but to the environment and the workers creating the garments, who are likely underpaid and overworked. I hope that I'm not coming across as sexist here, I'm trying to be the exact opposite. I'm not actually sure how controversial this is, but I would love to hear opposing opinions. Thanks EDIT Thanks for all the replies So far there has been lots of discussion about jeans. I would like to hear more in regards to my points on other garments. So far the arguments I've heard are There is more variety in women's clothes awarded a \u2206 Women can buy men's clothes but don't Women's body sizes prevent them from having the features of men's clothes Women don't want to buy higher quality clothes clothes with pockets because they don't look as good Women buy clothes as status symbols or closet filler Women's dress clothes are better than men's I awarded a delta because I think dresses are more versatile than men's dress clothes Women's clothing is cheaper Still looking for data on this one gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Women's clothes are worse than men's"}
{"id":"0de42e6d-3b3a-45ea-82ab-e236cc4e8fff","argument":"I have been thinking about this one on and off for a few years now and I think it is about time I have a proper debate on it and get some more viewpoints. People do not want you to be yourself at all, they want you to fit in a narrowly defined socially acceptable version of yourself and the only weird that is allowed is the socially acceptable forms of it. People say this is untrue but they constantly show it to me with their actions. It is merely a lie they tell themselves to feel like they are good people without doing any of the work of actually taking that advice to hear. Now I do not mean this in a judgmental way, just as an observation. Here is an easy lump of proof let's say I think eating bugs is perfectly acceptable. I would not eat them raw just like I would not eat raw meat, but a nice worm burger does not sound like a bad idea to me. Are you disgusted? I am sure many of you if I did this in the break room at your work would ask me to stop, but yet there is not one rational reason to as bug meat is provably safer than regular meat and probably healthier than regular meat . Now not to detract from the argument too much with this example it is just an example, one of many and I see similar examples happen to other people all the time who do things I am not particularly fond of myself but feel I have no right to judge this is proof that most people do not at all want people to be themselves because who they are makes them uncomfortable which gives them the right to judge and dislike others apparently, but I am sure if you asked them they would go right ahead and say everybody should just be themselves. It is merely a hypocritical cliche statement that society has adopted but very few ever take to heart. So there you have it. Change my view Reddit. I am eager to see more viewpoints on this. EDIT 1 thank you all for taking the time to discuss with me as I do my best to be patient. It is time I sleep but I will be back to answer more responses tomorrow. EDIT 2 thank you all for your time I feel this has helped me expand my view a little further but also feel there is more that could be said and discussed. I will continue to respond to posts here and try to get back with 24 hours at least. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Almost nobody actually wants you to be yourself. It is a lie they tell you and themselves to feel good about themselves."}
{"id":"47960775-f7fc-4c12-92f4-d23edfe3e217","argument":"According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics job growth averaged 182k per\/month in 2017, which was lower than 2013, '14, '15 and '16 and avg. 2018 growth of 208k through Sept, was lower than '15 and '16. If the President's claim that his tax cuts created jobs, it is not evident in jobs numbers.","conclusion":"The President's claim of job creation as evidence of his success is overstated at best. Job growth continued on the trend in Obama's second term albeit at a slower pace."}
{"id":"4b94b903-7762-4dc5-9a2a-5aaa2c53547c","argument":"Yes, people are becoming less religious, they are becoming more tolerant and less tolerant of intolerance , and growing to be more empathic and caring about more people, but that's just how society is advancing. It's not a war any more than any previous stage of our evolution is. When my friends bring up examples of this so called war , they're either overblown, equally balanced by similar events on the other side, or completely false unverifiable. In the case of so called suppression of conservative messages at campus talks and seminars, they seem more about the topic than anything which isn't about the greater conservative point of view or conservative personalities. The whole thing smacks of conspiracy theory where they're seeing way more in what's happening than what's actually there. At the least, there's no coordinated and mindful suppression of conservatives or their ideals in general. Certain individuals might be unpopular for whatever reason and certain ideas are out of favor in general, but that's not a war. That's just progress.","conclusion":"The \"War on Conservatives\" is silly paranoia"}
{"id":"30a39e9f-4022-466e-b9d7-24b7b0347762","argument":"Every human should have the right and means to decide when and how to die.","conclusion":"Euthanasia is a choice for patients, often supported by several health experts."}
{"id":"c4d69bb5-6dbf-4a45-88dc-4ce64870011c","argument":"Although Antifa has recently been demonised in the media, they have also been responsible for providing relief on the ground to many communities across Houston and the Gulf Coast.","conclusion":"Antifa promotes community response to many important causes, such as relief to those affected by national disasters."}
{"id":"7707dad8-60e2-4eaa-b474-a9c60218aac0","argument":"If one must test loyalty, they are not deserving of it. Testing loyalty is a breach of trust.","conclusion":"God should not intentionally torture His followers to make a point."}
{"id":"976ada10-71fb-40a0-9a37-df73dd52a3a4","argument":"First, I would like to define what I mean by collapse. Social Collapse A complete inability by law enforcement to enforce the law and a willful ignorance of the law by society. A complete inability for the Internet to serve as a social media for communication and entertainment. Political Collapse A breakdown of governmental communication between parties, resulting in a gridlock, escalating to a point that the Federal government can no longer act as a capable body. Civil war could be a reasonable alternative to this presentation. Economic Collapse More than a dollar value measurement, a total collapse of the banking system as we know it. Simply put, the initial impact of the Great Depression you have no money and the bank doesn't have it either. Because this is a hypothetical scenario with somewhat specific circumstances, it is easily arguable that the United States could either be invaded by a foreign power whose laws and government are diametrically opposed to our way of life or we could find ourselves in a infinite number of possible situations. To answer why I think this collapse would be a good thing It's a simple reset. Taking it all back to square one. As many are fond of saying, hindsight is 20 20. In our current state, the country has a number of sections that would benefit greatly from a complete reset to the system that has become antiquated in recent years. The Judicial Reset Our legal system is corrupt and filled many laws that exist purely as a profit system. The moment someone with power realizes the law can be used to extort money from honest people, this error needs to be corrected. The Social Reset Our current social policy, from how movies get rated to what is defined as decency , needs to be reevaluated according to something other than a quasi mutated form of puritanism. Rather than allowing special interest groups to drive social policy in a specific direction, we need to have broader social terms that provide less ambiguity in how rights are conferred upon people. The Political Reset The current political system is wholly bad and does not represent the wants and needs of the people unless it suddenly has to. I could make all kinds of statements about the problems the system currently has, but a good scroll through the history of the last 30 years should be enough for most people. To be clear This is what I think the country needs and I believe that given the nature of how our country is currently set up, I believe that only a complete collapse could allow for serious positive change to take place. There is simply too much red tape for any real change to come about that actually benefits the people rather than serving as a band aid fix until those in power are forced to address the same issue again.","conclusion":"A complete and total social, political, and economic collapse of the United States could be a good thing."}
{"id":"9ba337b1-824d-468d-9a9a-6c1332ddae96","argument":"Research suggests that voters see parties that are starkly left or right wing as less competent than those closer to the centre.","conclusion":"Corbyn is not very attractive to centrist voters, who are a key segment of the voting population."}
{"id":"7558bd4a-260b-4352-85a0-fa1e077bb119","argument":"Relationships built online can't be as deep as \"real life\" ones. And the depth of relationships matters more than the number of it when happiness is the goal","conclusion":"Our face to face relationships suffer because of social media."}
{"id":"4be95a0a-f18f-4240-ba62-18563cb0b8f6","argument":"I'm not taking issue with the science that if you eat less calories than you burn you will lose weight. Maybe that's the case, but I feel like focusing on the caloric content rather than the actual content of a diet really doesn't help with weight loss. 1 It's really hard to be precisely sure the exact number of calories in something, and the exact number that you burn. It seems far more practical to just focus on what you're eating rather than if I consume 2000 or 2200. For me prepare my own food using basically a paleo diet, seems to work a lot better than logging caloric counts in MFP ever did. 2 Reducing your caloric load without actually changing your diet doesn't modify your actual tastes. Whereas force exposing yourself to fruits and vegetables and working on the preparing of them will shift your tastes to prefer those flavors over less healthy ones.","conclusion":"Caloric balance is a shitty formula for weight loss"}
{"id":"d668655d-0e7d-4aa9-a82c-718150a60e97","argument":"30h missions with pilots sitting in a seat and not moving would be really really strenuous, so you would probably have to build it in a way so that the pilots can shift around and maybe even stretch, go to the toilet.","conclusion":"Imagine you had to build a Global Hawk with pilots on board. That would have made the plane bigger, heavier and much more complex. GH missions are so long, that you would probably have to have 2-3 pilots on board."}
{"id":"9f7ef7f6-7dbe-43aa-95e0-cf5ae661a355","argument":"It is a very dangerous concept that parents should be fined if they don\u2019t have their children vaccinated. We don\u2019t currently fine sportswomen who play rugby who might get a head injury or a broken bone; nor do we fine women who have more than one lifetime sexual partner because they are at higher risk of cervical cancer.","conclusion":"Even assuming that vaccines are a good thing, fines are not the right way to encourage\/ enforce this health practice."}
{"id":"8cf4b11c-de1b-47b7-9fb9-fda0015bd62d","argument":"Life was an accident, we live in an amoral universe, things just come to be. Our reasons to keep existince are merely genetic behavior, not rational choices. What's my logic? Life is meaningless and giving it meaning is pure delusion. This will sound suicidal, but I find it perfectly logical Life isn't worht living because you will not take anything away from it, when you die, it's all over, it doesn't matter what you did or how happy you were, you will go into NOT EXISTING, which means eternity of nothing, it doesn't matter if you lived 100 happy years or 20 miserable ones, it will be meaningless. What's infinity 1? That 1 is life. Let's get done with this, stop wars, famine, pain, suffering, everything, it's not worth it, we are going to die, I want people to realize they are slaves to an animalistic behavior that grasp at life for irrational reasons, let's get done with this, all together, and just DIE.","conclusion":"Voluntary human extinction is the best choice humanity can make"}
{"id":"a7c65c42-cbdc-4abb-ad36-bac8a82ccb3f","argument":"I think that if people want to honor someone special in their lives, then it would be more meaningful if it wasn't part of an established group celebration. The only argument against this I can really imagine is someone saying the days serve as a nice reminder amongst a busy life, but if a person can't find any reason over the course of a few years to randomly do something to show their respect for someone they claim to care about, then I would say they don't really care about that person as much as they claim to. And it would be better to end the charade. Or they don't have their priorities straight. Or they just need to get some sticky notes. But they don't need a national holiday devoted to making them try. On top of this, these days can also be very difficult for people without both parents, or with parents who were abusive. I have a friend who had an extremely abusive father and every Father's Day you can see that it brings it all up again. Not only is it a reminder of the pain, but it forces a certain level of comparison. He not only has to remember his terrible father, but he will be surrounded by people talking about how amazing their fathers are. I don't think these negative effects would be nearly as bad if everyone simply chose their own personal time to celebrate people who matter in their life. So I think these established days of celebration rob us of a more general approach to honoring people we care for, and they remove some of the meaning beyond the sentiment by making the celebration culturally mandatory.","conclusion":"Mother's Day and Father's Day Cheapen the Sentiment and Cause Unnecessary Emotional Trauma."}
{"id":"1fb3ae3c-2d65-4f9a-93dd-e6138ce2b3fb","argument":"Preferences regarding masturbation material aside, hentai is objectively better than porn. For the purposes of this , we are including both videos and pictures. 1 Variety. The majority of porn relies on the same old stereotypes, without ever really branching off into something new. In addition to Rule 34, hentai guarantees diversity amongst its content, as well as bizarre niches you never knew existed. 2 Quantity Even though both porn and hentai require a fair amount of work to produce, there will always be more of the latter. Why is this? It's because hentai needs less of a commitment than porn, as one is not selling their physical body for money and fame. In any case, this makes it next to impossible to run out of content. 3 Commissions Somewhat related to 1, if there isn't existing hentai of something, it isn't that hard to pay someone to create it. Hell, it isn't even that expensive. The only comparable aspect in porn is literally paying someone out of your own pocket to direct and produce an entire adult film. I suspect this would be a little more costly. 4 Limits While it is true CGI has been getting a lot better, very few studios make use of it. Their attempts to get around using this hasn't helped matters, as avid porn fans have seen with prop tentacles that timidly poke at the actress involved. Hentai, of course, has no such limits, outside of its creator's imagination. 5 Plot Hentai doesn't need a pizza boy and a customer short on change to make a somewhat erotic story. Enough said there.","conclusion":"Hentai is inherently better than porn"}
{"id":"0669570f-5c78-48a4-8181-43988f69e532","argument":"Trump has a new tax plan that cut income tax for everyone. Low income people would pay zero income tax and top earners would only pay 25 . The corporate income tax would be simplified and reduced. From what I've read in the media, Trump claims it would be revenue neutral with the current budget, because he would change the law to get rid of loopholes. I looked at the figures for tax avoidance and evasion, and it just doesn't add up. Maybe one of his supporters could fill me in on how it would work, because it doesn't look like it will","conclusion":"I think Trump's income and corporate tax plan is BS. There's no way it can be revenue neutral without cuts or new taxes in other forms."}
{"id":"b901861b-e48d-4219-8905-2226211b88fe","argument":"UBI payments enable many more citizens to acquire real estate, as they have a higher income and easier access to credit. This process leads naturally to increasing prices for property, until the new standard price is reached and the purchasing power of their UBI payments are nullified.","conclusion":"A UBI will raise the general demand in a national economy as citizens would have more available income that can be used for consumption and investment saving This process will lead to a higher price level and thus inflation"}
{"id":"170b16c2-b8be-4f4e-be3b-002cee5919bd","argument":"x200B nationalism has ties to white nationalism which isn't really a type of nationalism, it's just a euphemism for white supremacy. or Nazism, which was evil because they committed genocide, but not really because they were nationalistic. Evil deeds in the name of nationalism are still evil. same as evil deeds in the name of religion. same as evil deeds in the name of capitalism. same as evil deeds in the name of democracy. let's not get hung up on that. x200B nationalism makes a lot of sense. The USA polices the world, provides the most financial aid in the world, invests in global public works. yet we have homelessness, unemployment, suffering education. x200B Why should we not put america first. Why should we be fighting poverty abroad when we have poverty in our own country? why should we help refugees when there are victims of violence and homelessness in our own country? why should we build schools in pakistan when we have major issues with out own school system at home. x200B Let's take a look at the 2008 financial crisis. it was a global crisis. iceland, france, the UK, germany to name a few all had signficant exposure to companies like AIG. but guess who payed 100 for the bailout american taxpayers. we paid to benefit the world. x200B what about pharmaceuticals. americans pay the highest price. american companies invest in the majority of global R D roche, novo nordisk, are a few outliers . The rest of the world simply gets these products at heavily discounted prices because of their GDP or some other benchmark measure x200B Nationalism is a good thing because it will re focus investment on american institutions, and less on global subsidizations and charity. change my view.","conclusion":"there is nothing wrong with nationalism"}
{"id":"694ea76f-05ec-4309-b4fa-4e0dfc47dfd4","argument":"Some mothers give up their child to adoption to avoid paying child support. By requiring child support after adoption this will create an incentive for the mother to abort instead of adopt. Some step parents adopt children and then divorce. Having these adoptive parents still responsible for child support hinders their ability to remarry and support their biological children. Some children spend longer in foster care because when children are adopted the financial support from the biological parents is no longer required. EDIT The main objections have been that this will cause more abortions without reasons as to why that is bad. There are plenty of people and more abortions will not hurt society.","conclusion":"Biological parents should pay child support after adoption"}
{"id":"33426444-081b-4d77-a4d4-85752fad759a","argument":"alright let me start off by saying that there are views which are stupid and i'm not really directing this at that as the lack of interest to engage with stupid ideas is reasonable. I think that political conversation online cannot work for several reasons. stimulation online is so fast paced that nobody can be reasonably expected to take the time to form a full argument through text and therfore a full and well reasoned argument no matter how well reasoned and developed in ones mind cannot reasonably be expected nor is dilivered. anonimity online means that the respect that most people show in person is reduced which mostly results in people being outright cunts. people enjoy partaking in recreational outrage which in the case of political discussions anything which is not the orthadox way of thinking at that point is never considred but quickly shat on. People online tend to stick in communities which have similar ways of thought, this means that anything outside of this way of thought is again shat on. x200B i can conceed that this is derived from my experiences of online political conversation, this would greatly influence how i feel about this but again my experiences don't represent the whole internet so maybe and hopefully im missing something that would blow apart my argument. x200B edit thanks to everyone who took the time to respond it really is nice to see the support of my rambles. I just want to apologise for not replying sooner to everyone, there's far more replies then i anticipated and it would take time to give all 100 replies the time they deserve. That being said cheers lads lasses for your time","conclusion":"political conversations online do not work."}
{"id":"28ee8a09-c13b-4b5e-a8af-c171b09b9cd9","argument":"OK so basically here's my view If the government paid for everyone to have a suicide pill, a lot of problems would be gone. Overpopulation would be fixed, and the over medication of society would be fixed since we'd have fewer people. Suicide would also help w the job crisis because we'd have more job openings. Suicide, in general, is fine because most people are miserable and not satisfied with their careers. Why NOT let those people comit suicide if they're going to have no meaning in what they spend most of their life doing? Thus, suicide would fix many problems. And don't trod out the tired ZOMG WHAT ABOUT THE FAMILIES LOVED ONES LINE, that's fucking worthless. Everything outside of careers is worthless since we spend 40 hours a week at our jobs. Jobs gt all else.","conclusion":"A government subsidized suicide pill would fix many problems in USA,"}
{"id":"2cc46df0-f727-48d4-8c23-235ef4bd4da1","argument":"This is in regards to John Oliver's interview with Edward Snowden. Oliver used the analogy of dick pics to demonstrate how information can be obtained by the government even if the data is sent on domestic soil. I am a law abiding citizen who has never sent out dick pics or have done anything illegal. I am your average Joe Shmoe. I think that people are being paranoid and self centered when they think that the government is out to get them. I have nothing to hide and therefore believe that there is no danger in the government monitoring me.","conclusion":"As a law abiding citizen, who doesn't have anything to hide, the government should be allowed to collect data on me."}
{"id":"65e99849-32f6-4353-909e-c008a4c57152","argument":"Female characters in video games are often lacking agency in comparison to male characters. This reinforces the negative stereotype that women are less capable than men.","conclusion":"By portraying gender equality, video games can help combat negative stereotypes about women."}
{"id":"fe7e07c2-8e05-41cb-b6fa-5ab70b6093a7","argument":"In countries such as France, in which people often kiss someone on the cheek upon meeting them, many people express their dislike and discomfort towards this culturally enforced personal interaction. If this were voluntary, it would remove such discomfort in many social situations.","conclusion":"Interaction would be mutually respectful, and thus allowing for unhindered life of all parties."}
{"id":"3638f469-5a5c-475f-a3a2-0a13656e7512","argument":"NFL players are protected against government, not private, censorship. The National Football League's rules allows franchises teams, which are considered private enterprises, to dictate terms of behavior for their employees players.","conclusion":"Standing for the National Anthem is part of the job."}
{"id":"70eb25a8-cc86-4f1f-af23-6ab4c33790e0","argument":"As the person being forgiven is often someone close to the person doing the forgiving, the forgiver may stay blind to the perpetrator of the transgressions core flaws if they let go of the past.","conclusion":"By forgiving, people choose to let go and forget past transgression. This can be harmful to the person forgiving as it may lead to them repeating mistakes rather than learning a lesson from them."}
{"id":"5c6619a4-83a6-432c-8498-82327801d5c6","argument":"A proportional system allows for voters and parties to have a greater say in the amount of representation of, say, a minority group within the government without the value of their vote being reduced by arbitrary geographical boundaries.","conclusion":"Proportional representation systems can combat gerrymandering which prevents people's wishes regarding governance from being actualized."}
{"id":"15b588e3-b660-4076-95f9-55d8c8fa669b","argument":"Some cultures are better than other cultures. That being said, I truly believe Western values are much superior than that of the East. The Greeks started democracy, and in the modern day era, the Americans and French spread those democratic ideals all over the world. Moreover, unlike in the certain other parts of the world, we guarantee our women rights. When a woman is raped, she receives justice, not the death penalty. We allow our women to demonstrate, stand up for themselves and do whatever they wish to do. Our gay citizens have the right to marry and adopt, something that no Eastern country except South Africa tho South Africa is still a part of the West is privileged to have. Gay people are not killed and imprisoned here, unlike the seventy countries where they are. People are allowed to follow whatever religion they want. People are allowed to talk crap about the ones in power without facing repercussions. It is the West that is leading the world from industrialization to fighting against climate change. Sure, we may have had our problems, from slavery to colonization, but we have moved on from all those things. We have understood our mistakes, and are taking steps to ensure a much brighter future where all our citizens are equal and free.","conclusion":": Western cultures and values are superior"}
{"id":"d73aee0a-0de0-4b0a-be62-103ade8c1358","argument":"I know that this topic has been covered before, but I've found myself lacking the answers I seek. I apologize in advance if anyone finds this topic redundant. \u200b Hate speech is defined as speech that attacks a person or group on the basis of attributes such as race, religion, ethnic origin, national origin, sex, disability, sexual orientation, or gender identity. \u200b I find this definition to be far too vague. By this definition, criticizing scientologists for stealing people's money could be considered hate speech. As could discussing biological differences between men and women. Banning hate speech would only entrench hateful people in their views. As soon as someone is silenced or targeted for their views, they are now the victims, which gives their views legitimacy. If a white supremacist is punished for speaking his mind, then he would see this as evidence of minorities taking away the white's rightful place as superior in society and further incite them to champion the white supremacy movement. If the goal is to create safe spaces, then banning hate speech is not the way to do it.","conclusion":"Hate Speech Should Be Legal"}
{"id":"2771681f-ed7f-490d-94b0-c769420ae9e7","argument":"\"Editorial - Facebook not appropriate for students, teachers, but alternatives possible.\" Star News Online. August 5th, 2011: \"Teachers should not agree to join a student\u2019s list of Facebook friends, engage in texting or other electronic communication that could cast suspicion on the teacher-student relationship. There are boundaries that must not be crossed. The teacher is not a pal, but an authority figure and a mentor who must keep a respectful emotional and social distance.\"","conclusion":"The teacher is not a \"friend,\" but an authority figure"}
{"id":"d4e31b43-e0d9-4706-932e-819476a2d1ea","argument":"I've never been a fan of Bruno Mars, I bop along to the occasional pop hit but his music always seems boring and repetitive to me. I thought he was just a pop sensation until I took a look at the Grammy winners this year and saw that he absolutely swept the categories. Maybe it's that I don't entirely understand the aesthetic of the R B genre but I know there is some R B music I do enjoy. Definitely Michael Jackson am I understanding the genre properly, does he count? but that may be more because I grew up on his music and it's classic for me, some Alicia Keys but again ditto, DJ Khaled a bit etc. Basically I just don't feel like I understand the hype popularly, and his work been newly validated in award form this year. What am I missing, artistically, musically, or just generally? Does he actually bring something award worthy to the table beyond a pretty face and nice voice? gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Bruno Mars' new album isn't particularly interesting and he shouldn't have swept the 2018 Grammys"}
{"id":"7489244d-94c2-40b4-8e1f-2b7b4b95974c","argument":"It boggles my mind how many people get into top schools with sub par GPA\u2019s because they paid someone to write their essay for them. In my opinion, the essay part of the college application should be disregarded. There is no way to prove that any of the content is true and it\u2019s impossible to tell if the student himself actually composed it. I know that essays are a way for the admissions office to gain a holistic view of their applicants. Given how competitive admissions are, isn\u2019t it clear that essays are being either fabricated or outsourced?","conclusion":"Universities should not consider essays for admission since they can be fictitious or written by others"}
{"id":"72bf285a-c5ed-4cff-acde-568e3fb1874a","argument":"People that are sick do not choose it this way. It's not a privilege to be treated humanely and with respect, and to receive the necessary treatment for ones condition. It's sometimes difficult for healthy people to understand the impact that being sick carries. Sometimes loss of a career, home, friends and unfortunately even family. We should offer our fullest support to these people in our community, and they inreturn should be cared for at the highest possible level.","conclusion":"Disease is a weakness that we all share. Therefore we should pool our resources and band together."}
{"id":"b314d561-4724-4c28-9ca0-156771954176","argument":"Some character traits do not require evil in order to flourish e.g. teamwork through sport or intelligence through learning. Character building could still be a feature of human existence without evil.","conclusion":"The suggestion that God can not find a way to let us learn those virtues without evil is contradictory to the idea of him begin all powerful."}
{"id":"28c0777d-a54d-4e1f-b285-da0f3f8495ab","argument":"Fairtrade coffee farms are not allowed to employ any full-time workers. This means that for harvest, seasonal workers must be employed on short-term contracts. This fails to create any long-term job stability.","conclusion":"Fair trade certifiers do not monitor and enforce the payment of minimum wages to temporary workers that are employed to harvest the farm produce."}
{"id":"67c4629c-d526-4a0b-ace7-08c8b43b3cbb","argument":"\"Republika Srpska Has Right To Self-Determination\". Javno. 16 Oct. 2008 - \"An emergency sitting of the Bosnian Serb entity of Republika Srpska RS People`s Assembly adopted the Resolution on the goals and policy measures of Republika Srpska. The sitting was summoned due to the newly developed situation in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The new Resolution does not mention a referendum on Republika Srpska independence, but it states that Constitutional changes in BH can only be implemented within institutions of RS and BH, Pincom reports. . Among other things, the RS Assembly has adopted the Resolution on repudiation of Kosovo independence, while it mentions that the RS has the right to determine its state-legal status via referendum.\"","conclusion":"Republika Srpska has a right to self-determination by referendum"}
{"id":"e93c1e2b-d8b1-4544-a306-5b11a70380ce","argument":"In December 2018, New-York City has increased the minimum wage. Unemployment rate was 4.32% for the first 5 month of 2019 compared to 4.2% for the same period in 2018. There was no significant difference in unemployment.","conclusion":"There is no evidence to that effect in the cities and regions that increased the minimum wage."}
{"id":"40f5e3df-2a04-4adc-9452-eb36cbe42801","argument":"I tend to see a lot of people on Reddit complaining about reposts on the site here, but I honestly don't see a problem with it. For me, there are some days where I will browse through the first 20 pages of Reddit, and other times where I will go a few days without coming onto this site. With new links popping up on the front page every few hours, I don't see the issue, as it is reasonable to say that many people have not seen the original previous time it was posted. These pages only pop up onto the front page for a reason. I see a lot of top comments being Repost, or Repost, OP is a fag. and other comments complaining about karma whoring but that is a different topic within itself, in which I feel those who are commenting repost are karma whoring to the same extent. . TL DR lots of posts on reddit, reposts make it to the front page because a lot of people haven't seen it before.","conclusion":"I don't see anything wrong with reposts on Reddit."}
{"id":"e6f5113e-a3f5-4c4a-ac84-74a6ab26cd77","argument":"I believe you should be allowed to say what you want but not without consequences. I live in the uk where you can be prosecuted for hate speech and honestly, the system is great. After the Manchester bombing a man went on a Facebook rant about how all Muslims should be murdered and all that bullshit. He was arrested and tried for inciting religious hatred I think. This man is obviously evil and deserves to be behind bars. The sentence is only 12 months but frankly that's enough to change a man. I truly believe that hate speech should not be classed under free speech and that Nazis and other extreme ideologists should not be allowed to spread their evil, hate fuelled words. Tl dr hate speech is not free speech.","conclusion":"Cmv: I don't believe in free speech. Well, not entirely."}
{"id":"4b76c0c9-dae4-45c2-a3d2-40a2df03ef95","argument":"When segregation ended, whites who did not want to interact with blacks were pressured to at least be polite to them in daily life. This benefited society.","conclusion":"Overt politeness even when insincere is more decent than overt hate speech."}
{"id":"710b6a09-fc04-46ea-9e0d-dad8cdde7101","argument":"Context I own a technology consulting company that is nicely profitable. Everyone is paid well and is motivated. High performers are rewarded with direct bonuses for results but we do not give annual bonuses just because. So, as a baseline, my view is that the only reason I would pay out 1 in profit sharing is if I believe that I will earn more than a dollar additional in profit. If the result is I distribute profits and have less in my pocket then it was a bad use of money. Now, by going through the math, I don't think that I could make a substantial enough profit sharing distribution without reducing the net profit I realize as an owner. There are of course other reasons that profit sharing might be used, e.g. recruiting retention, but we have no problem with either so, again, not a good use of company money. Also, the typical ways that profit sharing is done 401 k matches, end of year, etc. I really don't think will change employees' focus for the entire year. And, I actually think that they can be demotivational if a profit sharing goal is set and then not met. So, rather than profit sharing, I think that people should be paid well, goals should be clear and that high performers should be properly rewarded. Change my view.","conclusion":"I believe that profit sharing is a bad use of company money."}
{"id":"bf12f983-6e87-4a0b-a1cf-a44ed35fa688","argument":"Soleimani armed proxy forces who would go on to conduct acts of terror in the Middle East.","conclusion":"Soleimani was a terrorist and as such, any action against him was justified."}
{"id":"efd764d7-8720-4c39-8524-f877df5f77a6","argument":"I think the internet's obsession with mansplaining is unfounded and that the situation isn't that bad. I think its people being too sensitive and taking the help offered for granted. Evidently there is a thing called whiteplaining and that will not be covered here. I'm attempting to leave this topic gender neutral but I will understand if you imply that men are doing the splaining and women the listening. DISCLAIMER I think that there are indeed true offenders out there that are actual misogynists bigots but they are very rare. I do not think the vast majority of accusations of mansplaining fall into this hurtful category. I do not think mansplaining is usually intentional and I think intent matters. Some people are just long winded, and they should be dealt with in an appropriate manner options below . However, someone that just won't shut up isn't a mansplainer. MORE DETAILS I have been accused of mansplaining a couple times myself and I think its because help has been asked, and then help given, but not in the kind the asker was anticipating. To this I say beggars can't be choosers . When I have been accused of mansplaining it has been because someone has asked a vague question that seems entirely trivial and I'm astounded at how they could get themselves into this situation. I'm confused at how the question even came about so I start at the beginning. They don't stop me when I've come to the point in the explanation that they were confused about but instead let me continue speaking for a while longer and then complain when I'm done that I didn't need to take so long. I've also had accusations thrown my way in a situation when no one was actually asking a question but instead they made a non sequitor statement. I explain the situation from the beginning as again i'm confused at how they made that logical leap and once again am never thanked or interrupted. I think it is the job of the person asking for help or implying help to counter the accused mansplainer in a way they can understand. It is obvious they are not in tune with you conversationally so one option would be to interrupt the mansplainer to say ah stop right there, you answered my question and thank them and move along. Or perhaps they could speed the process along with yeah yeah I got that part, what about the part AFTER that? . No one is a mind reader and if you accuse someone of being a mansplainer without interrupting or pushing the conversation then you have actually made THEM the victim.","conclusion":"Almost all instances of Mansplaining can be defined as well intentioned person going above and beyond to help another person that is asking for help or begging the question in the wrong way."}
{"id":"ab5a7011-3cc7-4a98-8183-888bd75af3a6","argument":"There is no reason whatsoever to deny oneself a pleasure that is free of charge and easy to obtain.","conclusion":"Abstinence is never useful; people should have an orgasm whenever they feel like it."}
{"id":"af180b2d-5f6e-446f-bf6f-d0a31d75ad96","argument":"Some are the agricultural men, who settle for the woman with a dowry. Because in the culture of the women they chose or are apart of. Wealth and power is only transferred through the female line. In other words, you have to marry into it, or you don't have it. Some are modern men, whose situation is the exact opposite. The women are in the unfortunate position of having to marry into wealth. Or fight the system, and claw their own way to success. Some are hunter gatherers , who are able to sleep around, because the economic and power system supports them providing for themselves, they are not bound by marriage wealth, into one monagamous. In other words, there are no financial power strings attached to their relationships. There are probably several subtypes and others, but each one is equally tragic in it's own way, in that you have to give up something in order to have it.","conclusion":"The ancient mating systems of the past, haven't gone anywhere, they just look different and are called by different names."}
{"id":"11676017-6d22-41d7-8908-db4ed49cac13","argument":"I think that smoking bans for the most part are completely propaganda driven and find it unfortunate people are buying it. Most people on reddit are willing to believe that secondhand smoke outdoors will kill them and apparently even cause coughing fits, burning eyes etc. which is completely ridiculous since there is little evidence that passive smoking indoors is a real risk to health unless they are living with a smoker long term 30 years . I live in a place that probably has some of the strictest smoking laws, i'm relatively young under 21 and I believe that nobody should interfere with a private business owners rights regarding which legal products are used in their establishments. I invite you guys to change my view but please provide evidence as to why governments should interfere with private establishments as opposed to the usual smoking is bad for you and it makes me cough Quick edit I get opinions vary on whether people like it but is there statistical proof that the risk is great enough to prevent private businesses that make it clear there smoking or smoking rooms inside","conclusion":"Smoking bans including outdoors are completely ridiculous"}
{"id":"0970c78d-eb4e-431f-b574-b258b9c46f68","argument":"We always allow humans to capitalise on skills and abilities that they have. To single out women's ability to carry children and say that this ability should not be used because it is intrinsic to their body draws an arbitrary line.","conclusion":"It is puritanical and misogynistic to restrict reproductive labour, particularly since only women can participate in it."}
{"id":"98dbc796-147b-4199-8716-f4f729ecee3b","argument":"C'mon. It's stupid and people that do it sound like lame ass hipsters. I'm already posting oh you are so funny harr harr LE PIRATE SPEAK. Your retarded on anyone that does this on my Facebook. I don't need stupid friends. It's worse than that narwhal bacon shit. Is reddit being invaded by 12yo again? What makes people behave like this? It's one of those stupid things that maybe in a party if you do it once it may be funny but there's always this stupid guy you know, the one that likes Big Bang Theory that keeps hitting the dead horse. Can someone point me to what is the point in this? What are those people trying to accomplish? Why does Reddit cater to their interests?","conclusion":"I believe that anyone that does \"pirate speak\" is retarded -"}
{"id":"9bf08d4e-e14d-44fc-acf8-3f6476367491","argument":"I had extremely high expectations. The review were good and my friends all seemed to like it, a lot. However, in the end, I was highly disappointed. I thought the original was intriguing and provoking, although not necessarily great. I liked most of the adaptation of Philip Dick's books. However, this new one seems to have lost that feel. First of all, the movie's visual and settings are good, but not great. I am not an expert, so I don't really care how hard it is to do. To me, the settings need to have impacts on society. For example, in Minority Report, you are bombarded with personalized ads. That is interesting. Blade Runner 2049's settings look interesting from the outside, but they never explored the impacts. The only interesting is K prefer a hologram over a real lover, but they never really got into that either. Racial tensions between humans and replicas seem to be a theme, but other than a few skin job references, not much came out of it. There is no clear indication that people treat replicas as mere property. The implanted memory is another interesting idea, but again it was left unexplored. For example, in the movie the imposter another Philip Dick adaptation , two replicas believed their fake memory so much, they genuinely loved each other. Here, other than being a plot device, it is not clear that it affected K all that much. A good movie need to provoke certain thoughts. For Shawshank Redemption, it was about freedom. For I Robot, it was about free will vs. the greater good. For Minority Report, it was about destination and free will. For the original blade runner, it was about what meant to be human. Blade Runner 2049 doesn't seem to have a thing. Recreation was suppose to be important, but why? It would be better if it was a miracle life, uh , finds a way , but it was clearly designed. In Rossume's Universal Robot, robots willingly scarificed themselves to find the secret of recreation. Here, it's just a thing. The irony is that it's not even a good thing as the mother died and the baby had severe generic disorder. Wallas had the dna from the mother and the father, why did he need the child at all? And why a corporation would want to have its products reproduce? The whole motivation makes no sense. It would have been a lot better if the humans want the child dead, the replicas want the child dissected with K caught in the middle. All in all, it's an ok movie. Too long, but ok. However, why is it regarded so highly? Even I Robt, as bad as it was, had a better theme. To me, this movie was highly overrated.","conclusion":"Blade Runner 2049 was overrated spoiler alert"}
{"id":"78c7e293-b9ef-4b9b-a5dc-4c637e2208cf","argument":"The scientific journey involves using space analogs on Earth, which leads to technological and medical spin offs improving remote medical care. oewf.org","conclusion":"Mars would lead to an explosion of scientific development. The results would lead to longer lives, more fulfillment, and more jobs."}
{"id":"32d75592-9856-48f6-a74e-e0a8d415613e","argument":"The London and Northwestern Railway forms a straight line 180 miles long between London and Liverpool. The railroad\u2019s highest point, midway at Birmingham station, is only 240 feet above sea-level. If the world were actually a globe, however, curving 8 inches per mile squared, the 180 mile stretch of rail would form an arc with the center point at Birmingham raising over a mile, a full 5,400 feet above London and Liverpool.","conclusion":"There are empirical examples that show the Earth is flat."}
{"id":"eb33f719-d19e-42e3-8e6c-366f0e02cdac","argument":"According to the Pew Research Center 70.9% of the US population is Christian. It is therefore likely that the majority of the American population would be against the abolition of faith based education.","conclusion":"Abolishing faith based education would cause a great deal of political upheaval and popular resistance."}
{"id":"029ed32c-439b-47cc-b9d8-677e5d268a81","argument":"When I first discovered Reddit, it dragged me into all new amazing content when I had my first account a year ago . All the default subreddits that were attached with my account were great too. After awhile, these main subreddits provided me nothing useful except entertainment with a few exceptions . I started to realize that many of these main subreddits I could live without so I started researching into more smaller subreddits. A lot of these smaller subreddits provided me with more educational useful information. Of course, my entertainment needs can be fulfilled with other choices besides Reddit, but I think Reddit is a useful tool for educating one's self. To make a long story short, I think Reddit should allow new users to choose default subreddits on their own besides getting sucked up into main subreddits. Please share your views Thanks Sorry for any grammar errors will fix if spotted. EDIT I also should mention that the largest subreddits are only that way because they are defaults. That is not really fair to lesser subreddits. It should all be an equal choice between what the user can choose. Now, that is not to say that subreddits like r funny, r pics, r videos, etc would not be popular, it would allow more users to expand to the far corners of the website. TL DR Reddit should make subreddits the users choice be default besides automatically subscribing them to the main ones.","conclusion":"Reddit should allow a new user to subscribe to their own subreddits instead of having default subreddits,"}
{"id":"4631428f-258b-49ab-911d-f3d23e95c12c","argument":"Before the advent of modern ethics, a religious group had a significant advantage on the level of moral compliance of its members because of divine omniscience, thus outperforming in the overall cooperation.","conclusion":"Religion improved the strength of groups to outcompete other groups."}
{"id":"93ec40bb-1113-47cf-8464-501568a48d22","argument":"So I'm one of the few people who like TLJ, but I will admit her role in that was useless and the only reason they added it was to sidetrack Finn because he wasn't needed for the movie. They could've had Finn done the same exact thing without her, and the ending when she crashes into Finn ruined a perfect character moment for him. Killing off one of the 3 main heroes would've been a good way to subvert expectations which is the big buzzword around that film instead of subverting it by just having someone stop him. I was tempted to say her character was pointless too, but someone would've said her point was to get finn to do something, so I left it out of there. Sorry if this seemed kinda scattered, but I figured I'd just toss it out there like this. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"While Kelly Marie Tran didn't deserve anything that happened to her, her character in TLJ was terrible."}
{"id":"c64306da-bdeb-424a-a0fe-de37a1020c3f","argument":"Not like baby punching evil, more like taking up two parking spaces because you're too lazy to try evil. Almost everyone that has one seems to have it glued to their hands 24 7 or cant go five minutes without whipping it out for some reason. The vast majority of people who have them don't seem to have a discernible use for them except for reasons they invented once they already had the phone. I've had people pull them out on a date. I stepped away from the table for two minutes to use the bathroom and I come back and they were hammering away on the phone. You cant be alone with your thoughts for two minutes? They seem to encourage social isolation. It's almost cliche now to see a family or a couple sitting together at a table to eat and instead of talking they're all tapping away on their smartphones. People pull them out mid conversation and don't even look like they're tying to pay attention. I realize people have bitched about virtually every new technological invention since Forever BC, go back far enough and someone probably thought the wheel was a crap idea, but smartphones do seem to be genuinely socially isolating. So, what gives?  EDIT Yes, I'm aware a smartphone itself is not filled with a sense of diabolical menace. I use the term evil facetiously.","conclusion":"I think smartphones are evil."}
{"id":"26058ea7-8b3e-4ea9-89b5-61dd658d5751","argument":"Judges don't just impact the lives of citizens through verdicts on criminal cases; they often have a say in civil matters such as the regulation of zoning, immigration, and the economy.","conclusion":"People have a democratic right to elect their own judges."}
{"id":"72dabd86-094a-48a4-a4a3-e7a2f44c2762","argument":"Especially in transnational surrogacy, intended parents can claim breaches in the contract to withhold the surrogate\u2019s money. Litigating among different jurisdictions is very difficult and costly, more so for low-income women.","conclusion":"Having a regulated commercial surrogacy market means that the women who work as surrogates can be sure they will get paid."}
{"id":"8d565eba-4fe0-4987-b9e2-1ebc63831b20","argument":"When I say racial relations, I mean every race that has a significant population in America today. That means people of African, Indian, Japanese, Chinese, Eastern European, Western European descent and so forth. We have to understand that multiculturalism is a wonderful goal, but also one that doesn't have any real precedence in history. Racial relations are almost always conducted with outright hostility, and certainly not with strides towards accomodation. The fact that families of Indian descent, for instance, have the highest median income of any group in America, is a testament to the viability of American social mobility potential. Of course, potential isn't always reality African American communities have been horribly disadvantaged by generation upon generation of social, legal, and economic hurdles designed to keep them down. But for all of the setbacks, atrocities and tensions that have characterized even the past 15 years, I would argue that the main thrust of American social structures is towards greater inclusivity gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"racial relations are bad to terrible across America today. They're also better than just about any other country in any part of the world at any point in history"}
{"id":"bd06635b-3340-4ac7-a967-957f5a3941f7","argument":"Legend of Zelda Majora\u00b4s Mask is the only game from the series that I refuse to play because I get pissed and lose my cool easily as I play it. I told my BF that I won t kill myself over this and I ll just leave it there. I won t play it and that s it. But we ve argued a lot as to why I must play it, and he says my Legend of Zelda experience or expertise will never be as cool as it would be if I beat this one. So, he hasn t been able to change my mind, what are your arguments to influence on my viewpoint concerning the game.","conclusion":"I think playing Majora`s Mask is not required to live the enitre Legend of Zelda experience."}
{"id":"2573f436-ef8c-441d-97fb-db7938e97d3f","argument":"The Strategic Defense Initiative SDI caused major critique because of its high potential development costs.","conclusion":"High development costs of new military equipment prevent uncertain research efforts."}
{"id":"3c166817-f68c-44d7-b428-ee7171688696","argument":"Increased import taxes, transport delays and supply shortages between the UK and the EU would lead to increased food prices particularly on fresh produce.","conclusion":"The price and supply of food would be negatively affected by a no deal Brexit."}
{"id":"9e8a68df-eed9-4d06-8a27-22b3d95cc283","argument":"For decades politicians have made political hay from being tough on crime when they should have been tuning incentives to produce a just and safe society. Prison terms Europeans see as barbaric now seem normal to us. NY Times has a nice op ed summing this up. Edward Snowden is charged with Theft of government property Unauthorized communication of national defense information Willful communication of classified communications intelligence information to an unauthorized person Penalties that should apply Pay 50 for each thumb drive he stole I don't think he stole any A year in prison for breaking his oath of secrecy he actually upheld his oath to the constitution Already covered by 2 Telling me why it can't be done won't change my view, only telling me why it shouldn't be.","conclusion":"The penalty for what Snowden did should be ONE year in prison; enough so it's a sacrifice and people won't do it lightly, but not so much it destroys lives or discourages real whistle-blowing."}
{"id":"0b059640-2282-42b3-9f1b-41dc8ab99562","argument":"Some things it has done Raised 15m dollars which is many times more than was raised last year for the same cause. Awareness for ALS has raised a lot due to it being viral. Sure we've supported ALS, but what are the negative outcomes? We have supported ONE good thing, which is ALS. But we have taken money and attention away from other charities. Using reports from a nonprofit Giving What We Can , for every 1 we raise, 50\u00a2 would have been donated anyway . That means that other charities have lost 7.5m . This is called moral licensing where doing one good thing leads one to compensate by doing fewer good actions in the future since people are often more concerned about looking good or feeling good rather than doing good . However, if you really care about doing good and you're always contributing, maybe you should take a look at the most cost effective charities and donate a percentage of your income make reoccurring donations to them. Another point that people have been trying to brush off is California's drought. Yes, 80 of the water used in the state goes towards agriculture, but that's because it's a necessity and it feeds people. Furthermore, by doing the ice bucket challenge, it's promoting the wrong message about the drought. People have been trying raise awareness about the drought, but this could have set us back a lot. 15m raised for ALS. Many millions more lost due to the drought. How about promoting awareness for that eh? Of course, I'm not saying that the ALS is bad or that everyone is wasting water Some people have used empty buckets like Charlie Sheen or used the cold water that runs from their shower before the shower turns warm .","conclusion":"The Ice Bucket Challenge Does More Harm Than Good"}
{"id":"bf41a736-a217-4a6d-94f2-9b93f2dbb234","argument":"When I try to uninstall these apps, my phone tells me system apps cannot be uninstalled . However, why are these apps even system apps anyway? I don't have a Facebook account, and a phone yes, even android smartphones can operate without ever using Facebook. Sony Xperia Movie Maker is worse than useless it makes movies automatically out of your photos and videos, using up extra memory to do so, and the movies you can deliberately make with that app can't be made long enough to be useful. I really want to make room on my phone for more apps I barely have enough room for picture taking because the apps necessary for my work take up most of the space not already taken up by system apps . Finally, please don't just tell me to just get a new phone . I try to minimise my materialism. Besides, even if I get a new phone, many phone models have Facebook and other non essential apps designated as system apps , making them impossible to uninstall.","conclusion":"I should be allowed to uninstall Facebook and Sony Xperia Movie Maker from my phone."}
{"id":"b5285ba9-f0f3-45c8-8b59-483122f02d3a","argument":"With our current technology, it would be impossible for scientists to be sure that the animals they engineered were truly without pain.","conclusion":"Creating animals that don't feel pain is a challenging process in which success cannot be guaranteed."}
{"id":"6e726d9e-e8ef-4c79-a188-b73f2cfd8886","argument":"Tim Cook current CEO of Apple, came out as gay in 2014 saying that, if hearing that he is gay can help someone struggling to come to terms with who he or she is or inspire equality, it\u2019s worth the trade-off with his privacy.","conclusion":"LGBT actors business people politicians and sports stars are able to use their platform to highlight issues of the LGBT community."}
{"id":"f7149f1d-5579-4cc6-8799-6a2262d9276c","argument":"Australia has many options available if you are unable to make it to a polling place on a Saturday, which include voting early or by post.","conclusion":"If we make election day a holiday, then most of these costs go away."}
{"id":"b1365ecf-ad5d-4306-8a3c-490310068ec7","argument":"As many as 45 percent of the activities individuals are paid to perform can already be automated by adapting current technologies.","conclusion":"Significant disruptions in the labour market are inevitable. A UBI is necessary to reduce the harm of these disruptions."}
{"id":"8f8b382b-182b-46a9-9db5-d2b286357447","argument":"I hate, hate, hate Citizen's United with the burning passion of a thousand suns. I hate SuperPACs, and I think they're a corruption of democracy. I think corporations and wealthy individuals are now able to effectively buy politicians and intimidate others into compliance. But while I was originally outraged at the 5 justices who decided for it, I'm no longer able to see how they had an honest way out. The first amendment says Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. Step by step 1 The right to freedom of speech is guaranteed and cannot be abridged. 2 Political speech is a protected form of speech. 3 Corporations are an association of individuals, and since individuals have freedom of speech, associations of individuals do too. 4 Spending money is essential to disseminate speech, so limiting an individual or corporation's spending on political speech is abridging their free speech rights. Even reading through Stevens' dissent, it's all focused on the consequences of allowing corporations to buy elections. He doesn't argue that it's constitutional to bar corporate spending, he just argues that it's a terrible idea. I agree with him, but I don't think the Supreme Court exists to make judgments on what is a good idea and what isn't. They're supposed to decide constitutionality. TLDR I can't see any way to overturn Citizen's United without a constitutional amendment to allow Congress to create limits on political speech. Please change my view. Seriously, I want to go back to hating it with a clear conscience.","conclusion":"The Supreme Court's decision on Citizen's United is logically sound and aligned with the first amendment"}
{"id":"0312937f-c637-4017-8c77-23d75bd792bb","argument":"The term microaggression captures this idea. This concept makes it possible to say something in good faith, with no bad intent .but still be perceived as aggressive or offensive. The standard for offense is not external and societal but could conceivably exist at the individual level.","conclusion":"It does not necessarily have to be \"put in a negative light\". The statement or action just has to be perceived as offensive."}
{"id":"c0628486-7e58-4447-b048-2648d79a3fc3","argument":"I am not referring to hermaphrodites, but to those who consider themselves 'intersex'. I believe, first and foremost, that society's norms for men and women can be broken by somebody simply acting contrary to them. If a man wants to wear a skirt, go for it. If a woman wants to be a mechanic, be my guest. Supposing that somebody who doesn't identify with society's expectations of one's gender is really, 'mentally', of the opposite gender, only further solidifies gender segregation, and it really urks other people when I try to tell people otherwise, although I really am quite accepting about people's habits and sexuality. Change my view, for the love of god, I'm losing friends over this.","conclusion":"I believe that a man is somebody with a penis and a woman is somebody with a vagina."}
{"id":"2dbde444-7040-48bb-8f75-37a7eb8d8918","argument":"85% of humans perceive their government as corrupt, according to Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index","conclusion":"Public opinion shows little trust\/faith that governments will do what is right."}
{"id":"94fea24d-0c40-4080-b2aa-4babc483db21","argument":"Okay, everyone So unfortunately, I didn\u2019t have the time yesterday to have this prepared for \u201cfresh topic Friday,\u201d but I haven\u2019t seen this discussed here yet, and it\u2019s something that I still struggle with a fair bit to this day. I\u2019m an ardent lefty and whenever the \u201cNew Atheists\u201d come up in conversation, I generally agree with how much I\u2019m not a fan of Dawkins and Harris, but the most common slight against Christopher Hitchens is, almost without fail, his stance on the Iraq War. I personally thought that was one of the times I took his liberalism seriously and did not fall victim to the \u201cI\u2019m not going to get involved\u201d falsehood that plagues so much of the modern American left to this day however, like any of my views I hold with conviction, I\u2019d like to hear a strong case be made against it. I'll go ahead and outline my thought process and reasoning below and you let me know what you think. The view to change is WMDs Aside, Christopher Hitchens was Still Correct About the Liberal Justification for the Iraq War Before getting into it, we need to clarify a few things and establish what we are talking about vs what we are not talking about. We\u2019re discussing the ideological and philosophical support for the war, not the tactical choices One of my personal premises is that \u201cpacifism\u201d is a moral wrong, not a moral \u201cneutral,\u201d and is nothing but a deflection from responsibility of those lucky enough to live in a privileged country Note Obviously feel free to counter this premise if you disagree and want to include it as part of your argument against the view Name calling of \u201cNeocons\u201d and \u201cImperialism\u201d will not taken seriously. If you unironically believe that a NATO power getting involved to stop ethnic cleansing and totalitarian regimes from annexing other sovereign nations counts as \u201cImperialism,\u201d then we\u2019ll need to start an entirely separate , because that\u2019s a claim that requires a lot of justification given the track record of unilateral decisions in Bosnia, Darfur, Rwanda, etc. We are not talking about individual \u201cbad actors\u201d making money off the war. Any comments or arguments based on \u201c made a ton of money\u201d or \u201cwe did it for the oil\u201d do not belong here. We\u2019re talking about the liberal justification for the war, not theories behind \u201cwhy we actually went to war\u201d an important distinction to make. We are not talking about non liberal justifications for not getting involved. If you\u2019re a lefty libertarian, then I already understand your isolationist principles and am not expecting you to agree here I\u2019ll link to some writing and live debates at the end for those interested to consult if they\u2019re not already familiar with the argument, but I\u2019m going to state my view and explain why I think so here Those of us on the Left as in left wing, not the Democratic party are in favor of basic human rights internationally. We claim to support the rights of women, minorities, and other persecuted groups to live freely and without fear of being extinguished, but often times many on the left not all, but many get squeamish when it comes down to defending those human rights when they are not directly being threatened to us personally i.e. Muslims in Bosnia were being ethnically cleansed, but I\u2019m still able to practice my religion lack of religion freely here at home, so I don\u2019t really need to think about it . Similarly, the Saddam family and the Baathist Regime ruled as one of the harshest authoritative governments in recent history, often referred to at the time as one of the \u201cAxis of Evil,\u201d and most Americans did not seem to understand how bad it was under the regime. As commonly noted by Hitchens, \u201cAnyone who starts off by saying \u2018Okay, Saddam was a bad guy\u2019 should stop talking because they have no idea what they\u2019re talking about.\u201d I agree with this sentiment and see it as part of the liberal ignorance of what was happening, similar to the lack of knowledge around what was going on in Bosnia and Rwanda until later stages. To use the account of Barham Salih, former prime minister of Iraqi Kurdistan\u2019s regional government, and former deputy prime minister of Iraq\u2019s federal government gt for those of us who lived under the tyranny of Saddam Hussein and understand what tyranny means, the difficulties of today, the pains of today, and the disappointments of today\u2014and they are very profound, because Iraqis deserve better\u2014these pale in comparison to what we had to endure. Then, people had the certainty of the knock on the door late at night, and could possibly end up in a mass grave. Two weeks ago, in Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, a new mass grave in which there were some five six people who were shot. Their families never heard from them since 1988. They were found and they could only be identified by the pajamas they were wearing as they were taken from home. These are the type of stories that my people, my community, had to endure. Source This should just serve to show anyone looking back at the war in hindsight that is was necessary, and that those who fought in the coalition should be proud of the efforts put into toppling a fascist regime. You can have public intellectuals living here in the US who spend their time discussing foreign policy at cocktail parties talk about the casualties of the war, but I firmly believe that it pales in comparison to how things were before there and the possible future of the country after annexing Kuwait, the gas attacks on the Kurds at Halabja, etc. There are so many other reasons to defend the war efforts as a proud liberal, but what are the arguments aside from name calling and accusations of corruption from government private company contracts against the war from a liberal perspective? The regime was fascist and constantly, and flagrantly, violating basic human rights laws Kurds were on the brink of potentially being exposed to an attempt on ethnic cleansing by the authoritative government Diplomacy failed after repeated attempts once Saddam annexed Kuwait, not even invade, but literally annexed the entire country \u201cLiberals\u201d who claim to care about human rights, non authoritative governments, and other atrocities often argue that we should have stood idly by and not get involved because they were scared of being called \u201cimperialist\u201d The only ones who ever seem to claim things were \u201cbetter under Saddam\u201d were those inline with the authoritarian government and those who did not live there. Just imagine if you had some alt rights trolls telling people that life was better for minority communities in the \u201850s, that\u2019s essentially what we have going on here with some American liberals. So, Reddit, change my view what liberal justification was there for the US NATO powers not getting involved in the war? If the Kurdish lefties and liberals supported it, why didn\u2019t we? Christopher Hitchens vs George Galloway Debate in 2005 Ten Years After the Fall of Saddam, How Do Iraqis Look Back on the War? Restating the Case for War \u201dDid I Get the Iraq War Wrong? No.\u201d gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"WMDs Aside, Christopher Hitchens Was Still Correct About the Liberal Justification for the Iraq War"}
{"id":"94d751f7-a497-4b5d-8ac3-4672fd166941","argument":"I believe the best way to read any post on reddit is Conterversial. Choosing this method allows you to see the opinions that are being upvotes AND downvoted the most. When you browse by best or top, you only see the opinions that have been heavily upvoted, and the responses will be very biased depending on the subreddit. When you sort by conteversial however, you get to see what kind of comments are having an impact on everyone, and those comments tend to be the most insightful.","conclusion":"The best way to browse Reddit is Sort by Conterversial"}
{"id":"922b7ca2-21e6-4561-a0ed-b146bcac00e6","argument":"The rising trend of 'fitspiration' posts is placing even more pressure on women to achieve a slim and fit body.","conclusion":"The constant comparisons of different lives on social media is detrimental to self-esteem and so exacerbates existing disorders."}
{"id":"5b71f417-5e46-48d5-a18f-1e740890de59","argument":"The Apollo 11 Moon landing was a result of competition fueled by the Cold War.","conclusion":"Competition has led to many of humankind's greatest accomplishments."}
{"id":"4be374ac-41be-461c-a388-63f6c0bce498","argument":"Greetings all, as a believer I have a huge disposition about white supremacist and their organizations beliefs due to the above reason above. The Klansmen in the US pride themselves on their Christian religion and even use scripture as a means of hate promotion, as well as Hitlers Nazi regime seeking to remove all Judaic writings from the bible in order to make a more perfect positive Christianity Jesus until more recently has always been portrayed as brown eyed dirty blond with fair hair since the turn of the early church. in some early paintings totally blonde with blue eyes. Until recently science, geographical location, and common sense tell us that he was far from what was portrayed and most likely resembled a modern day middle eastern Israeli dark haired man with much more melanin than what the KKK, hitler regime, and aryan brotherhood worship. In that logic, they would not be believers if Jesus was portrayed as he actually may of looked such as in this following photo","conclusion":"The KKK, Hitlers Nazi's regime, and other Aryan racial cults\/organizations, terror groups would neither be founded with\/ \"Christian principles\" nor would they be believers if the Jesus was portrayed in paintings like He actually may have looked middle easternish."}
{"id":"7159dae5-28fa-494a-8cf8-92890d68e24f","argument":"I have been a frequent daily consumer for about four years now. I honestly do not think marijuana is detrimental to my driving. If anything, it helps. I drive exactly the speed limit or a bit under, in the exact middle of the lane, I don't get any road rage, and I am extremely cautious. I am very accustomed to and comfortable with that state of being. I believe it does not affect motor control at all in the way that alcohol does. I am open to having my view changed. If it is, I will stop driving while influenced if I believe that it truly could put myself and or others in danger that would not otherwise occur.","conclusion":"It is not dangerous for people to drive under the influence of marijuana"}
{"id":"9cfea935-2a7b-4525-b355-1489ed66c205","argument":"I believe it is the case that anthropogenic climate change is real and is being caused primarily by the burning of fossil fuels. I also believe it is the case that climate change is causing significant harm to human life and that there is a very real possibility that this will accelerate. I also believe that the energy intensive lifestyles of individuals have a non negligible effect on our climate change situation and that our personal choices lead to loss of life and livelihood for those communities most affected by climate change. I understand that many people are locked in to the bulk of these individual choices and cannot easily or significantly change the extent to which they contribute to overall carbon emissions. By this I mean that, although there are many changes that need to be made to the ways we organize our food, transportation, waste, and infrastructure systems, we all still need to eat, get to work, get rid of wastes, and hear our houses and public building. I understand that aviation is a very significant contributor to personal carbon emissions for anyone who participates in international air travel on a regular basis 1 year and that, furthermore, it is in no way necessary for the survival or basic well being of individuals. According the the sources I have read, aviation is both significantly more carbon emitting than other forms of transportation per unit of distance and more likely to involve extremely large distances. Therefore, I believe that to engage in long distance pleasure air travel is to contribute to climate change entirely needlessly and to therefore willingly contribute to loss of life and livelihood in regions affected by climate change. There are few other low hanging fruit that combine high carbon emissions with utter frivolity and I believe that, if we are going to begin addressing the global issues of climate change and climate justice, we need to begin curtailing international pleasure travel. In our society taking large and frequent airplane trips is seen as something to be looked up to and admired. Nonsensically something as trivial as being rude to a stranger is seen as being more immoral than taking part in a frivolous activity that definitely does lead to human death and suffering. Basically, this is an entirely fringe opinion, and just about everyone I have spoken to about it becomes extremely defensive I never bring it up aggressively, but sometimes explain to people why I do not want to take part in air travel . I think that it is a fundamental lie that capitalism has told us that individuals have the right to do anything they want if they can afford it, and damn the repercussions for people and the environment. Maybe you can change my view? I am a little set in my ways on this, but people disagree so vigorously that I figure I might as well receive well reasoned counter arguments.","conclusion":"Due to climate change, it is highly immoral to participate in international air travel for pleasure."}
{"id":"aeb8b6f2-5751-44e5-8f9f-e271733f1d62","argument":"What gives the government the right to tell us to put signs up to say smokers allowed or to tell smokers to stay out? This is similar to the white only\/no blacks signs that there used to be. These are rightly considered discriminatory and these smoking signs should meet the same fate.","conclusion":"WHAT HAPPEN TO A FREE CANADA. WE ARE GOING BACK TO THE TIME WERE SLAVES HAD NO RIGHT, NOW IT IS SMOKERS HAVE NO RIGHT"}
{"id":"7750ad3e-966e-4ed0-8b4f-5ab2756cc383","argument":"Alongside this, it is important for there to be sufficient support in the senate for the impeachment proceedings to go through. At least 67 votes are needed to remove a president from office.","conclusion":"Specific charges need to be filed with evidentiary support for impeachment. Otherwise, history will see this at pure political theater."}
{"id":"500e63f2-a16e-4e69-be76-cb8d8929133e","argument":"I think you should rinse your hands with water first before applying soap. Here's why Rinsing your hands with water first gives the soap a solution to dilute, making it easier to get to small cracks and imperfections in your skin. Water allows the soap to lather, which some use to gauge if they have enough soap or not. If you simply apply soap first, you must not only apply more soap to get a lather going, but also work harder to make it happen. Rinsing your hands therefore results in less wasted soap and less work for you. This one may be personal, but applying soap to dry hands before rinsing can cause an unpleasant sticky feeling, like having way too much lotion. Applying water first can have a cooling or warming effect since you can decide the temperature before hand. Soap is always the temperature of the room it's in. The only downside I see to applying water first, is that you may get your soap dispenser wet. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"You should rinse your hands with water first before getting them soapy"}
{"id":"27b98dd0-75b1-4325-b8d1-ba23f0750f9f","argument":"So many times I hear people saying we shouldn\u2019t call trans people their preference your stupid if you think I\u2019m gonna use your pronouns and we\u2019ll I just see absolutely no reason not to for the people who say it will be hard to classify people than 2 things 1 for gender outside M F just put x or other and 2 sex is different from gender so you can just use that. All you\u2019re doing by not using someone\u2019s pronouns is pretty much harassing them and they\u2019re probably not going to be a dick about it so why shouldn\u2019t we honour people\u2019s wishes. I am a 20y male non lgbt with no political side and I\u2019m not a triggerd sjw","conclusion":"there is no reason to not accept people as what ever sexuality\/they want to be"}
{"id":"db85b115-0acf-4a72-bfa9-4d4cc41b795a","argument":"This false principle can cause other people to make poor judgments when explained to them and they believe\/act on it such as televangelists saying anything to get money","conclusion":"Belief in god has often times, historically, led to lack of advancement in science and understanding across populations."}
{"id":"b203964b-aa99-4c52-a158-f6deed6310d0","argument":"I was on a thread in r askreddit about parenting advice and a lot said that they believe if a child is being bullied, they should stand up for themselves and fight back or else the bully will keep doing it. This may work, but I believe a child should be learning that violence, though the quickest and easiest solution, isn't the one they should choose over alternative efforts. And if you feel that the current alternatives aren't effective, why do you feel that promoting violence is better than looking for another alternative?","conclusion":"I don't believe that a child should confront a bully physically\/violently."}
{"id":"f61a72c3-4b59-4193-a353-416c3e57e1dd","argument":"People can go to an outdoor space like a park, public space, or beach, which are mainly free and enjoy reading ebooks there.","conclusion":"People do not need extra spaces to go to as there are other locations that can provide that."}
{"id":"f78f308f-9e94-48af-b1e0-24b619aa75be","argument":"Although not required by the Constitution, in Spain the former King Juan Carlos and the Queen have been made \"aforados\", meaning they can only be tried by the Supreme Court. Past actions carried out during his time as King are still immune to judgement.","conclusion":"Equality before the law is one of the pillars of democratic governance. Yet European monarchs are often 'above the law', meaning that they cannot be brought into court and punished."}
{"id":"98ace2c1-36bb-4f46-b7d6-8f1a4c2c0c64","argument":"If the government keeps a record of the current states and maintenance of all public roads along with other variables such as traffic count, dividing up funds from a gas tax could be done fairly and sensibly to ensure that roads that require the highest amount of work and have the largest amount of traffic passing through them have priority.","conclusion":"It will be difficult to distribute the money from this tax specifically for roads."}
{"id":"9792dc66-d9a8-4076-aa83-faaaf40daf74","argument":"Owning weapons for protection is absolutely necessary! The world has become again brutal and ruthless in the fight for resources and survival. But those weapons should not be shotguns. In today's advanced, digital and globally interconnected world the best weapons are education, courage, and self improvement. \u58eb.org","conclusion":"The policy fails to address the root of the issue with gun violence in the US which is cultural."}
{"id":"c4482d62-52b9-4c2a-b678-b2cf70d4c659","argument":"the objective what you see is what you get documentary is dead. Every single one is now pushing a side of an issue as opposed to presenting facts and letting people decide on their own. nature documentaries just push environmentalism as opposed to here is nature political documentaries rarely just present the issue, films like under the gun actually edit out the opposition and take money from political groups. Other films Clinton cash and where to invade next for example are only there to circlejerk other viewpoints some documentaries care more about entertainment then facts. See film series like making of a murderer who's producers admit they omitted facts for creative liberties. There are very few documentaries that actually provide just the issue or just film, and those few that do are generally not successful or mainstream. People like Michael Moore killed the objective documentary. Eft view changed and deltas given. While the objective documentary is still dead, there was never a time it was truly alive. I believe the problem has gotten worse but the unbiased documentary was always on life support","conclusion":"The objective documentary is dead."}
{"id":"34c421cd-cdc2-4fe5-a73b-f06e3f36f6f7","argument":"Moreover, the normal healthy body should have the right of way over attitudes, and not vice versa.","conclusion":"Circumcision for appearance's is prerogative only of adult owner."}
{"id":"e73816c8-fd1d-488f-90c1-1cba06550ead","argument":"A feeling of productivity when not able to play the game for a lot of time.","conclusion":"Should Mission Tables Continue to be in World of Warcraft?"}
{"id":"27ab9ec4-1605-40fd-838d-e889809d26ae","argument":"In the G7 just 22% of senior roles are occupied by women and 39% of companies have no women at all in senior roles.","conclusion":"Fewer women hold positions of power. Feminism fights to change that."}
{"id":"5684c47f-5d65-4376-b17a-5bda445be209","argument":"Human morals require that death should be quick and painless for even the worst of criminals, yet God allows cruel and unusual punishment on innocents.","conclusion":"Allowing suffering in excess of what human morals allow is still evil"}
{"id":"44f50f87-3919-4b9d-ac63-fdf383a9085a","argument":"Joshua Aronson a social psychologist, states that the best role models are those seen as having worked hard to achieve success. Aronson reasons that Obama's abilities might appear so atypical that typical black Americans cannot identify with him.","conclusion":"Some African Americans feel that Obama's life was so far-removed from their own struggles that his election to the US Presidency did little to practically motivate them towards success."}
{"id":"ea827bf6-28e5-464c-bde6-c99d7ffadfec","argument":"Thought I would flip the usual Modern art isn't real art stance around and present a muscular defense of the various 'radical' branches of 20th and 21st century art. Come at me with all you've got about the poverty of modern art I'm going to start with a rebuttal of some of the common points raised against the worth of modern art, and then list some of the artists I like and why I like them. So here's what I see as the commonly raised objections to the value of modern and contemporary art the distinction between these two terms is somewhat ambiguous, but basically modern art is most of what was created from 1900 1960s, and then a shift to 'contemporary' art gradually occurred . No effort technical skill is required to create it I don't get it it's just colors It's not pretty beautiful Please let me know of any others you can think of But, to address these I've listed First No effort is required to create it. Yes, in many cases very little traditional technical skill is necessary to create any number of famous pieces of the last century. And by the same token, often very little quantifiable time or physical effort would have been necessary to create the same pieces. But why do we want art to require technical skill or effort? The answer seems to me that it makes worth quantifiable in terms of man hours spent or technical skills applied we assign worth to goods with money, and we earn certain amounts of money based on the time we work at a particular job. That feels simple but actually we know when we think about it that even the apparently firm valuation possible with money is linked to arbitrary process the economic status of the country which issues it, political contingencies and emergencies, the variability of market prices for goods and services, etc. And time itself is subject to the same instability it zips by when we're having fun, and drags endlessly when we're working on a tedious task. Similar insights to these are driving factors in the way the artwork of the 20th century moved gradually away from traditional technical representation of subject matter. When we acknowledge that all processes of valuation are, at bottom, arbitrary, we are liberated from the requirement to adhere to traditional systems of valuation, but also forced to confront the problem of using any system of valuation at all. If all value is arbitrary, can we value anything? Is creation valuable? Life itself? This brings us the 2nd objection It's just colors abstract . A common whipping boy for Reddit's typical reaction against modern art is Mark Rothko, whose monumental color blocks are often presented as a sort of Emperor's New Clothes . And of course, while there actually is a great deal of technical canvas and paint ability which goes into Rothko's works, traditional figurative techniques are abandoned in them. But we must take note the 'effort' Rothko is putting into his work is not technical effort but rather effort towards discovering a system of valuation which he can stand on and for after he has abandoned traditional systems. For Rothko, his paintings represented man's transcendental relationship with his own consciousness, a kind of pure, experiential expression of pure Being. It is noteworthy that the dominant philosophical trends of the time were phenomenology and existentialism, which were attempts to find a fundamental ground for consciousness in a newly modern world whose science had demoted God from his throne but neglected to nominate a new Fundamental Arbiter in replacement. So, while Rothko does not use traditional figurative techniques, his work is effortful in the sense that it tries to express a new sense of modern spirituality without God. Variations of the same can be said for much of the various avant gardes of the first half of the 20th century traditional artistic valuation was being abandoned and concrete and universal measurement along with it , but the search for a new ground from and of which to create art was a consuming occupation. And finally, number 3, It's not beautiful it's ugly This point obviously is answered to some degree by the points I've previously made in dismissing traditional techniques, traditional standards are also held up to question. Beauty becomes something that is not necessarily inherent in a particular nude figure painted with particular colors and brush strokes, if it is even something to be strived after at all. Duchamp's 'Fountain', among much of his other work, was a fairly direct critique of traditional concepts of artistic beauty, and later Conceptual artists would work with ideas which were in many cases almost totally devoid of physical manifestation, or any object with which to invest with traditional beauty. That doesn't mean many of their works are not beautiful however the simplicity and poetic elegance of Hans Haacke's Condensation Cube would, I argue, meet many updated standards of beauty a simple transparent figure which manifests changes in the heat and pressure of the room it is within it, providing a sort of spiritual residue of the minds and bodies which perceive and surround it. In any case, the gist of my rebuttal to this last point is that just as artistic techniques had to shift fundamentally to address our experience of living in the modern age, so did standards of beauty, and even the valuation of beauty itself. So those are my initial defenses against some of the more common critiques of modern art please do your best to pick them apart, as well as point out other points that I've missed. Take your best shot But now that I've put up a defense, I'm going to launch a little offense examples of some of my favorite artists of the last century, all having worked at some points at least in very untraditional mediums. Perhaps some of you will appreciate these artists as much as I do and perhaps others of you will gain new fodder for the pointed attacks against my favorable stance towards modern art that I am hoping for I love Marcel Duchamp I love Dieter Roth I love Martin Kippenberger I love Bruce Nauman All of these artists have in common their use of non representational artistic techniques. Duchamp introduced the 'ready made', and irreverently demonstrated the contingency of artistic value through his 'Fountain'. Roth frequently incorporated real food into his work, which inevitably would decompose and change form and smell . His use of this material points towards the mortality and changeability of things, as well as linking the traditionally abstract realm of artistic production to the corporeality of bodily functioning. One of Martin Kippenberger's most famous pieces is his 'Happy End of Franz Kafka's America', which assembled dozens of pairs of chairs around desks on a sports playing field, with books commissioned by friends of the artists on many of the desks. The work is almost all 'ready mades', so to speak, with most of the furniture being found and the books written by someone other than the artist, but that's exactly the point Kippenberger's conception of the creativity of the artist rejected the traditional image of the solitary genius plucking ideas from the ether. Rather, art for Kippenberger was an inherently social function, a variable form of communication of the same type as talking or writing although a communicative form of imperative spiritual importance. Kippenberger repositioned the artist within the social milieu from which he is at bottom inseparable. Nauman is a mercurial figure who works in many mediums from sculptures that look like rags tossed in a corner to blinking poetic invocations in neon. What they have in common is an ambiguously anti monumental sense if art can be anything, as Duchamp demonstrated, then much of what the artist does in his art studio can be art, as Nauman intuited, even if appears to be trash or built in a gaudily commercial medium, or even if it's simply the act of walking around the studio itself. Here the social role of the artist creates the work as much as the artistic concept. Thus Nauman's dispersed and abject sculptures, or his lists of neon words which, as portions constantly blink on and off, modulate to new ambiguities the ambiguity already present in each phrase, demonstrate a freedom of creation bound to the realm of play opened by the identification of the artist with his social role. OK, so that's enough theorizing from me change my view Make me realize that modern art is worthless. I don't care how you do it, but I want to be feeling deep existential dread at the way I've wasted years of my life on a total void by the time I wake up tomorrow morning Have at it.","conclusion":"Much modern and contemporary art i.e. non-figurative, \"ready-made\", conceptual etc. is of profound and deeply expressive merit"}
{"id":"3bdffd7c-5426-47a3-9be6-d8e758da822d","argument":"We do not have a complete picture of the causal mechanisms of human activity. Consequently, we cannot rule out in advance that a free will plays a role in shaping human activity.","conclusion":"The existence of free will is compatible with science because science is skeptical on metaphysical issues such as whether or not 'free will' exists."}
{"id":"daed95e8-d303-46b8-aa47-1180fa09a86c","argument":"From what I understand, the only significant duty given to the Vice President is to preside over the Senate even this has been shirked by past vice presidents. Furthermore, the ability to cast a tie breaking vote has not been invoked very often by Vice Presidents. In the event that the President is either killed or resigns, the Vice President is a horrible choice to take over office. The Speaker of the House would be much more qualified for the position simply because they engage more deeply with the government. The Vice President is not significantly involved with congress and does not engage in debate with representatives or Senators over legislation. Furthermore they do not command the same degree of loyalty and respect as the President or Speaker of the House. I'm willing to bet that John Boehner would have an easier time dealing with Congress as President than Joe Biden would due to his constant interaction with it. As an example, if Obama was assassinated in late 2009, would Biden have the same level of influence necessary to gather support for the Affordable Care Act? Does Biden have the same level of respect from foreign nations needed to guide the country in this global age? The only half decent argument I can think of for a Vice President is to ensure that the President's general will ideology is carried out in the event of their removal from office. If Boehner suddenly took office he would absolutely veto many bills Obama supported. I believe that this is a weak argument for two reasons. First, the Speaker of the House DOES represent a significant portion of the country's will, given that their party has taken the majority in the House. Yes, there may be conflict between the old cabinet members and the new President but the position is still somewhat representative of the country's will. Secondly, the Vice President is not guaranteed to adhere to the policies of their predecessor. In Robert McNamara's documentary, The Fog of War, he mentions how LBJ decided to continue the Vietnam war despite JFK's efforts to move troops out.","conclusion":"The position of Vice President of the United States should be eliminated from our government."}
{"id":"d08260a1-6e4a-46a4-99c5-b51b2abe0c7e","argument":"I don't want to think this. I don't want to cling to this delusion anymore. I'm fifteen with no friends, and I'm 100 positive that it's because I can't bear the thought of anyone being smarter than me. Even though I have mediocre grades, even though I've never seriously made anything creative in my life, I constantly tell myself that in some way, in someway that only I can understand, they don't compare to me. Even though I know that this is ridiculous, I can't accept otherwise. I need someone to say to me, upfront, that I'm not as smart as I think I am. edit Thank you guys, I think I really needed this wake up call. it's surprising how cathratic having a few people call you out is.","conclusion":"I'm smarter than you,"}
{"id":"f769a1b9-d4eb-4cf0-a3f7-f7759524dd9d","argument":"Theresa May criticised Russia at the UN for \"flagrantly breaching international norms, from the seizing of sovereign territory to the reckless use of chemical weapons on the streets of Britain by agents of the Russian GRU\".","conclusion":"UK-Russian relations have deteriorated significantly in recent months due to Russia's alleged involvement in the poisoning of a British spy."}
{"id":"b20b3581-b37c-4fad-befb-606d39fac5fa","argument":"A collegial presidency would allow individual members to deflect the political fallout of difficult decisions.","conclusion":"The USA should adopt an elected collective presidency, like Switzerland's."}
{"id":"f1ba8138-773a-403b-83c1-b75f8d02b60b","argument":"As sex robots are responding to a market with many, many different sexual interests and preferences, they are unlikely to have any fixed behaviours; instead the specifics of how they act is likely to be highly customisable by their users.","conclusion":"Sex robots are unlikely to strictly follow particular behaviours, given that consumer demands may have contrary goals and software is easily modifiable."}
{"id":"ec487363-24a6-444e-af2d-5638e7a1f328","argument":"In 2006, China's CO2 emissions surpassed those of the US by 8%, according to the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, making it the largest contributor to global warming. This means that, in the era of knowledge regarding the effects of greenhouse emissions on global warming, China has at least an equal responsibility as developed nations to cut emissions.","conclusion":"China is worst contributor to climate change; has equal obligations"}
{"id":"75b39364-d983-4659-a704-a507c6ea7c3c","argument":"Hi I live in Seattle and I think it should be easier to fire people that work for the public. So the two cases that made me think of this was bus drivers and the custodial staff at university of Washington. I ride the 124 and the 60 quite a bit in Seattle and I can\u2019t even tell you how often bus drivers fuck up. I\u2019ve had drivers drive right by in broad day light, and this happens at least once a month, and just yesterday I was taking the 28x up to Ballard when the driver missed their turn. Okay no problem, mistakes happen. Not only did she not tell the people she had to turn around but she freakin drove all the back down to downtown to turn around while we all were wondering what the fuck was going on. At least have some better communication so people can make an informed decision to get off in Ballard or waste a half hour in traffic going all the way back to down town. The custodians at UW are just plain lazy, they fall asleep in their stupid closets caught literally multiple times, they don\u2019t even clean everything their supposed to, and when questioned the answer is always o we\u2019re short staffed, well If u didn\u2019t spend half the day sleeping maybe you would get more done And so I looked up how hard it was to fire public sector employees and apparently they are entitled to due process. Which is just bs, it requires someone to truly fuck up for the institution to let someone go because of all the hurdles that have to be jumped through to let go of someone that isn\u2019t meeting basic standards. I believe why this is also a reason why it\u2019s troublesome to fire terrible teachers, so I think we need to streamline the process at which we let people go.","conclusion":"It should be easier to fire public service employees."}
{"id":"c3975ea9-56aa-4f3e-b1e8-fdc673018e3a","argument":"Under this new definition, Reliance Jio can price their services significantly below the average variable cost while avoiding regulatory action on predatory pricing.","conclusion":"The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India TRAI changed the definition of market power in order to favour Reliance Jio"}
{"id":"0d2c606b-ba2b-4e6c-9501-a3586a4a6c93","argument":"Voluntary association between a providee and a provider is still bound by the governing principal of obligation: I pay, you provide.","conclusion":"Those provided with a service are governed by the providers. All forms of influence are a governing factor."}
{"id":"abe7bf8e-9e9c-4d14-9315-643ea51f2086","argument":"Staying at, or below 1.5\u00b0C requires reducing global greenhouse gas emissions by 45% as it relates to the timeframe between 2010 to 2030 and ultimately requires reaching net zero emissions globally by 2050 to remain below 1.5\u00b0C. These ambitious global changes would also help reduce the sea level rise by 0.1m 100cm. Furthermore the expectation is that extreme weather patterns would occur less frequently and living conditions for humans would be better.","conclusion":"The world\u2019s leading climate scientists have warned there is only 12 years for global warming to be kept to a maximum of 1.5 degree Celsius, beyond which even half a degree will significantly worsen the risks of drought, floods, extreme heat and poverty for hundreds of millions of people."}
{"id":"55fb9bf7-24a4-45f0-88a1-58ff5b240137","argument":"I've been terrified of marriage ever since I saw that of my parents go sour. What really terrifies me isn't the losing love aspect, but the financial aspect. I don't want to give away personal information, but I'll just say that nobody who's met her has ever considered my mother to be anything resembling a good mother or wife. She also never finished high school. Due to alimony laws, she got a million dollars in the bank right after the legal dust settled and she makes more money in alimony than a doctor could realistically expect to make. Talking to my dad about why he didn't want a divorce or want one earlier, he said that it was largely financial. It was easier to live with someone he hated than to give away such a large sum of cash, especially since it was unlikely that he'd get custody in a trial since he is the father. Over the years, that really resonated with me. It seems like in a marriage, the man has to try to be so excellent that the woman would rather have him than a percentage of his assets. On the other hand, the woman only has to suck less than losing a percentage of his assets. The woman has no incentive at all to be a good wife or mother, so why should she? It seems extremely fucked up that laws like this exist. I can't accept that it's fair because the laws are written gender blindly because it's such a trope in society that an ex husband loses his assets and you so rarely hear of an ex wife losing her's. It seems like the system is just brutally rigged. Just to clarify, I'm not trying to get my view changed that my parent situation wasn't fucked up. I just think it's fucked up for any laws to allow this to happen.","conclusion":"Alimony laws in the US are absolutely fucked up."}
{"id":"bb0031b3-3279-44ef-94f5-e43f35841a52","argument":"God has so constituted us that we naturally form belief in Him under certain circumstances; since the belief is thus formed by properly functioning cognitive faculties in an appropriate environment, it is warranted for us, and, insofar as our faculties are not disrupted by the noetic effects of sin, we shall believe this proposition deeply and firmly, so that we can be said, in virtue of the great warrant accruing to this belief for us, to know that God exists.\u201d","conclusion":"Belief in God is not merely justified but also warranted. Warrant is that property that converts mere true belief into knowledge when possessed in sufficient degree."}
{"id":"65877436-fe77-44a5-8c25-11fa8fc1c0ac","argument":"This is a hard view to summarize in a title. The Young Turks posted an article that allegedly details Karl Rove's strategy for wasting the time of liberals online. It doesn't really matter to me if Karl Rove is the actual source of this strategy, what matters is the content. I'll quote some relevant passages. gt If you find yourself in a debate with a Liberal where you are losing a fact based argument then call them a name to derail their diatribe. Remember your goal is to prevent a meaningful exchange of views and ideas which may portray Liberalism in a positive light. gt Don't allow a Liberal to present their dogma unchallenged EVER. Intimidate Taunt the Liberals. gt Confuse Challenge the Liberal position with questions, always questions. The questions need not be relevant. The goal is to knock the Liberal poster off their game, and seize control of the narrative gt Engage Demand an elaborate, time consuming comparison analysis between your position and theirs. Entangle Insist that the Liberal put their posts in their own words. That will consume the most time and effort for the Liberal poster gt They will be unable to spread numerous points on numerous blogs if you have them occupied. Allowing a Liberal to post a web link is too quick and efficient for them. Tie them up. We are going for delay of game here. Demoralize Dismiss their narrative as rubbish immediately. gt Do not even read it. Once the Liberal goes through the trouble to research, gather, collate, compose and write their narrative your job is to discredit it. Make it obvious you tossed their labor intensive narrative aside like garbage. This will have the effect of demoralizing the Liberal poster. gt It will make them unwilling to expend the effort again, and for us, that is a net win You get the picture, and probably have encountered these tactics before on reddit. Basically, it is impossible to distinguish whether or not these reactionaries behave in a specific way online because they are a considered effort to troll, or if they actually believe what they say is a valid way to have a debate. This claim is not that people making invalid arguments online are shills. Rather, it is about trying to distinguish malicious intent or an effort to misinform individual or group level or whether or not these folks are just ignorant. This is important, because if you can tell a person is ignorant they can be made less ignorant. If a person intends to misinform a different strategy is needed. Caveat This view is not an attempt to say all members of a conservative ideology are guilty of this. This view is only about those specific people who make invalid arguments. It is also not important how exactly widespread this is in the conservative movement, though I concede that I think it is pervasive. To change my view, provide some method for discerning between the two possibilities or challenge whether or not figuring out the distinction is important.","conclusion":"It is impossible to know if Conservatives or reactionaries on the internet are following Rove's playbook, or do not understand the misinformation they are spreading."}
{"id":"9001f0e8-0700-45b8-bf43-76ce76bdcb7e","argument":"\"Open Carry\" Simple musings from a guy with guns. June 24th, 2008: \"Open carry is not any more likely to make you a target in a robbery than a gold watch.\"","conclusion":"Open carry does not make you more of a target than other things."}
{"id":"c0373c7f-3344-4473-ba25-85884e5ac698","argument":"Looking for some common ground that everyone should be able to get on board with. It is commonly accepted the killing another person in self defense to save your own life is legal and acceptable. So the fact that the person threatening your life is unborn shouldn't change that theory. I suppose it's possible that there are some big time pacifists out there who think that you shouldn't even kill another person to save your own life. But I've never heard of anyone being so much a pacifist that they think killing in self defense should be legal. Finally, just to clarify, my view is that everyone should agree that getting an abortion to save the life of the mother should be legal. The entire premise here is that the abortion will save the mother's life.","conclusion":"Making abortion legal in cases where it is necessary to save the life of the mother is something everyone should agree with"}
{"id":"dc8221dd-ef01-4521-8cd2-2f632ecac192","argument":"Arguments that seek to justify restricting our concern to our own species could be extended to justify restricting concern to members of our own cultural, religious, or racial groups. This conclusion is clearly unacceptable.","conclusion":"We should not arbitrarily restrict our circle of concern to certain groups."}
{"id":"bc64a9f3-66b3-41bf-85d0-ef1b6d828736","argument":"For those unaware of Femen People give Femen a lot of crap because they are too violent and extreme with their message. They are often seen as man hating and setting the women's rights movement back . As a male I completely disagree. I strongly feel that most anger towards Femen is a gut reaction caused by thousands of years of patriarchy and female subjugation those who are most squeemish about Femen are so because society has trained them that women are to be submissive. Specifically on Reddit, a mostly male dominated community, there exists a very negative view of Femen and I feel this stems from a discomfort with the nude female body as a political statement, and females having the capability to be as agressive and powerful as males. I also feel that modern pornography plays a large role in men's often negative view towards feminism, as women are most always viewed as a product and sumbisive to males. To see Femen openly and unabashedly naked as a sign of power over their their own bodies makes the average male in much of todays society uncomfortable. When men are loud, violent, agressive, and use shock to make a strong, passionate political statement, they are often praised for it if not at the moment then often later assuming what they were agressive about ends up being accepted largely by society in the future Malcolm X for example . In 100 years I believe that society will look back on groups like Femen in a positive light much like the Black Panthers fighting for civil rights. Femen is an overall force of good for women in the world. It tells women not to be ashamed of their bodies, not to be ashamed of who they are, and to stand up and fight passionately against men who continue to subjugate women through lower pay, anti abortion laws, anti contraception laws, rape, sex trafficking, etc. In a few countries Femen are less relevent, as women have gained strong footholds in traditionally male dominated societies, but in the countries they continue to fight such as Russia, Ukraine, Turkey, and E. Europe in general, they are overal a source of power and progression for women who are largely marginalized by male dominated society. TL DR I believe that groups like Femen are progressive to women's rights, and to be uncomfortable with Femen's political protesting strategies stems from centuries of institutionalized sexism.","conclusion":"I believe that extremist feminist groups like Femen are overall progressive for women, and those disgusted by Femen are a product of centuries of sexism."}
{"id":"08af02fa-5a7a-49cd-8d03-2740ad03dcc8","argument":"The UK government has committed to investing 2.4% of GDP in the Research & Development R&D sector by 2027. This is significantly more than the current investment of 1.7%.","conclusion":"The impact of a hard Brexit on the scientific community will likely be cushioned by increased domestic spending on UK science."}
{"id":"3e83e2e6-fb16-40bf-a46e-9000d529d8fc","argument":"In Panama and Nicaragua, more than 70% of tourism business owners are women, compared to 20% in other sectors. World Travel and Tourism Council, p.3","conclusion":"Women have a high opportunity of job advancement in the tourism industry."}
{"id":"bc2fc73f-7b54-46b4-a61f-823691fb91cb","argument":"Private Security firms with too much power can lead to a mafia behaviour as they are purely motivated by monetary rewards.","conclusion":"Private security firms can safeguard property rights, as they already do."}
{"id":"a26d1f99-6420-455b-9a79-802f7f9726bf","argument":"First off, I'm aware this isn't the first time this topic has been posted about on this subreddit. I've searched for and read the threads. None of them have even remotely changed my view. I saw on another subreddit r trollxchromosomes a post about how this concept is laughed at and lauded as being ridiculous, but I don't see how. The idea behind the analogy we've all heard it is summarized thusly A man who has many sexual partners is a stud player etc and worthy of praise. A woman who has many sexual partners is easy a slut etc and not worthy of praise. It's supposedly a double standard. I do not agree. At face value, treating two groups differently for doing the same thing seems like it would have to be wrong. But that is being disengenuous to this particular topic. I will liken it to another analogy, in order to explain the first. Which is more impressive a person who paints a picture with their hands, or a person who paints the exact same picture but with their feet? One obviously takes more effort dexterity etc to do and it is easy to see why someone might afford more praise as a result. I believe it is easier on average for a woman to go out and have sex with someone than it is for a man to do the same. I believe it is even easier for a women to do this with great numbers of men than the inverse again on average . So how does the idea behind the lock and key analogy not make sense? Please change my view, I feel like I'm taking crazy pills on this one.","conclusion":"I believe the idea behind the \"lock and key\" analogy of the sexes makes perfect sense."}
{"id":"0dbd2a9d-16d9-4f02-a335-e46d297310f8","argument":"Humans domesticated animals, which then do not depend on natural selection for their evoluation anymore.","conclusion":"Humans, interfered in natural selection to a great extent already."}
{"id":"63829174-fc12-46dd-af51-ead2dcdeaecc","argument":"Blockchain technology ensures validity of data across persons that do not necessarily need to trust them.","conclusion":"No other technology exists which can create distributed trust between users, without already trusting intermediaries."}
{"id":"42d1031e-849a-454d-ae15-f61fc509357e","argument":"I feel that my passing interest in psychology has taught me far more empathy and understanding of the behaviour of others than years of religion philosophy classes ever did. I believe that students, and society as a whole, would benefit a lot from general education about the mind, especially mental illnesses, which would contribute to their destigmatization and increase the number of people who seek help early in their life. From my experience, the philosophy classes I had were focused on society as a whole rather than the individual. The question was always How should I act in relation to others? but never Why do I others act how they do? . Psychology is definitely a broad subject, and might run the risk of devolving into empty words if no foundation in fields such as neurobiology is given, but I imagine it could work very well as an interdisciplinary subject. Note I attended a relatively small German high school so my experience is different from American students But yeah, go ahead and  Edit To clarify, I meant that it could be a mandatory part of the curriculum by integrating it into required classes. In my case, biology and philosophy.","conclusion":"Psychology should be taught in high school"}
{"id":"f10635ee-e59a-455d-be7b-0ec9bebe6b1b","argument":"The EC creates tons of wasted votes. Putting aside Nebraska and Maine who distribute their electoral votes proportionally, everyone else is winner take all \u2014 not ranked choice, not proportional, undemocratic. For the 40ish states where the outcome is inevitable by 5 or 10+ points this means that every single vote for the losing candidate is worthless \u2014 the same as if those people never voted at all \u2014 and every vote over the majority for the winning candidate is unnecessary and thus wasted.","conclusion":"The electoral college system results in unfair outcomes for voters."}
{"id":"d68c221e-3ddf-472d-85a2-413190b013f8","argument":"In 2018 83% of voters wanted more money spent on the NHS compared with 71% who backed higher investment in education and 57% on the police.","conclusion":"Survey data shows that the NHS has enjoyed consistently stronger backing from voters than education or welfare."}
{"id":"1c431c3b-eef3-4f19-bed3-02aae113fe82","argument":"Militia, in a US constitutional context, does not comprise an expeditionary force that is flown to far away countries and invades them.","conclusion":"PMCs are not a militia, esp. not as considered by the constitution."}
{"id":"9ed83a77-8a02-4f6e-9f92-c9f6b72d8ba0","argument":"Stipulations All donations must be made by individuals and they would be tax deductible. No group donations or donations made with anything but personal assets. All donations recorded are publicly accessible FOREVER. Any donator can donate to as many or as few officials as they want. Donation recipients can take these donations and donate them to any other official. They are in charge of the funds once they have been donated. You cannot revoke a donation. My View I think the current payment schema for our leaders is not only counter productive but it is also encourages a self defeating cycle of corruption. If all salaries, pensions, etc were setup in the manner I have described then there would be less government, less corruption and more actual work being done. You would never donate to someone who spent all their time asking for donations. You would never donate to someone who for the last X amount of years caused what you believe to be irreparable harm to your ideal notion of a nation. You could donate to one person who says donate to me and I will choose where to put your money and that would be your prerogative. At least in this way the donation recipient wouldn't be able to dictate their pay as reliably as is currently possible. I have to honestly say that I think with a little bit of work this type of system would be amazing and I can't seem to find any flaw in my reasoning.","conclusion":"The president, all senators and house representatives, governors, mayors, city council members and any other managerial and publicly elected officials should be compensated by donations ONLY."}
{"id":"c45d6b4e-ae59-423a-955b-a7ed15521ef9","argument":"I think people who murdered, raped and or did a similar crime cp, pedophilia should be tortured. I only think it is okay for them to be tortured when it is undoubtedly proven that they committed the crime. I also think there should be levels of torture depending on the crime circumstance. For example, a serial killer get tortured on a higher degree than a rapist. I want to think differently but I don't think someone who took someone's life should be able to take the easy way out like the guy who killed himself after kidnapping those two girls by simply having jail time or killing themselves. I also don't believe in the death penalty because I view it as a way of avoiding more severe consequences. Change my view.","conclusion":"I think Murderers, rapists, and other criminals of related crime should be tortured. Cmv."}
{"id":"a0c3b87f-dbc4-4e02-b6af-d4b0c653d9ac","argument":"I'm going to keep it short and sweet, roommate best friend of gt 10 years is dating a girl who is a terrible match for him. I could go on a long diatribe against her and her negative qualities , but I feel it will have little use in this conversation. But basically , she has negative attributes , ones that do not mesh with the personality of my friend. They have been dating for over a year, they would consider it a serious relationship. But neither of them seem happy to be in it. So to reach my point they are moving in together in a few months. This is a terrible idea and I am incredibly confident that it will only mean misery, pressure, stress, frustration etc for my friend. I want to help him, but I as well as other objective third parties feel that it's not my place to express these feelings to him, main reason being he is an adult who has made a decision and should live with whatever consequences that arise . ?","conclusion":"I have no place telling my best friend he is acting foolishly with his girlfriend"}
{"id":"3f758830-ef1d-44e7-a051-b6eaf6df6dd8","argument":"Identity politics gets hopelessly complicated and impractical when groups are combined intersectionality A black lesbian truck driver would inevitably have competing identity interests. And so on. The IDs stack up as quickly as oppressed groups are identified, and no-one has the choice not to join.","conclusion":"Identity politics assumes that a person's values, beliefs and interests are based upon their race, gender and sexual orientation instead of the individual."}
{"id":"592ceb86-2441-4ae1-8a95-ca2aa0e4447d","argument":"I've never actually used the check your privilege phrase in seriousness before, but I think today it's actually appropriate. What I mean by check their privilege examples If you live in an urban area, the service industry is always available to you if you lose your job. For many it'd suck to have to start doing service jobs, but at least it'd be work. People in rural towns don't have this same privilege. If they lose their manufacturing job, it's extremely difficult to find work, of any kind, somewhere else near where they live. It needs to be near where they live, because they don't have the same public transportation system that we do. It's not like there are high speed trains that will let them commute to the city for a job there every day. When I mention Hurricane Katrina, what comes to mind? New Orleans right? Did you also think about the utter devastation in rural Mississippi? Nope, probably not. And why would you, there was practically no coverage about it from the media elites . Imagine if you live or know people in Mississippi that were affected by Katrina, and you see that you've been completely ignored by the media. How would you feel about that? In urban areas where the media comes from , we have the privilege of being acknowledged. Why? Because cities are important, rural towns are not. In urban towns, we have the privilege of being assumed to not be racist stupid sexist xenophobic. If you live in a rural town, the assumption is that you are at least one of these things. This is mainly where the anecdotal evidence comes in. I'm seeing these insults thrown at Trump voters all over Facebook. Even on the front page of  right now, there is a post from someone who feels stupid people IE Trump supporters shouldn't be allowed to vote. So why should our privilege be checked Because of a single statistic I saw the other day can't remember where, if I'm wrong let me know . About half of democrats literally fear the policies of republicans and vice versa. Like, actual fear. This is troubling. I don't think it's about red blue anymore, it's about rural vs. urban. A majority of urban people have an extreme lack of understanding of what it's like to live in a rural area. And to people in rural areas, urban people are like the boogeymen. This needs to change, there needs to be an understanding amongst these two groups. It needs to start with urban people acknowledging the problems in rural america, instead of just assuming they are all racist homophobes who want to see all brown people kicked out of the country.","conclusion":"I think people who live in the \"blue\" counties need to check their privilege"}
{"id":"a704c745-a010-47dc-8c7b-a197821d3f06","argument":"It could be considered to be worse than murder since it is torturing for a long time when murder stops life and automatically with it all pain and any more suffering.","conclusion":"To let someone suffer until death is just as bad as murder."}
{"id":"3bfb0391-2afa-4432-9f2c-375e0714d861","argument":"Even thought the pay gap between men and women has progressed since the 1970s, women are paid only 80 per cent of what men earn for the same job. This pay gap has not changed significantly since 2007.","conclusion":"Gender discrimination against women is historically more prevalent than with men. There is no justifiable reason for this inequality."}
{"id":"316fc7b2-75dd-411c-8bc9-51b176991982","argument":"Cider and beer serve basically the same purpose a fizzy, low alcohol content beverage for refreshing, social drinking and a drawn out buzz. Because they both serve the same purpose, the only real differentiation is taste. While I accept that all individuals are entitled to their own taste preferences, I don't think anyone would argue that humans, on a whole, prefer sweet and sour taste profiles to bitter ones. It is for that reason that I assert that Cider is better than Beer. Change my view? gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Beer is inferior to cider"}
{"id":"96702111-26ca-4e7b-b682-6d274b909d6c","argument":"This solution, as suggested above, would undermine its own purposes -- Any solution capable of eradicating humans would likely harm the very creatures and environment it seeks to preserve and fly directly in the face of the very principles it hopes to uphold. Outside of a thought experiment -- a real world attempt at this is constrained by current knowledge and technology. It is difficult indeed to imagine a solution that would completely annihilate humankind without collateral damage.","conclusion":"With our current technologies, we have no way to eradicate humankind without causing major damage to the environment and to other life forms."}
{"id":"7619467c-c6e1-494c-8118-4d3d46bd2844","argument":"Facebook and Twitter users who share ISIS' messages are considered mujahideen and therefore have an incentive to do so Weimann, p. 3","conclusion":"Facebook and Twitter have the ability to weaken operations of organizations like ISIS by erasing their presence on these sites."}
{"id":"ba2ed0cc-83dc-4724-87af-5314a46d7409","argument":"NAWALT stands for Not All Women Are Like That. It's literally Not all men except with the genders swapped. The thing is both of these are categorical claims, and not all is equivalent to there exists at least one. So putting a hole in such an argument is easy. Saying something like in general or some before one's often controversial makes them much easier to argue. I don't really see how complaining about a Not All Men argument and a NAWALT argument isn't similarly intellectually bankrupt.","conclusion":"#NotAllMen and NAWALT are both stupid complaints about arguments."}
{"id":"e7c4c6d9-3abb-417b-aeca-b87283327977","argument":"A study in 2015 found that the programme's students outperformed colleagues in the field who were licensed to perform in the previous two years.","conclusion":"The Daniel Webster Scholar DWS programme is considered a better alternative than the BAR exam."}
{"id":"cf65c955-f87d-4f4f-80aa-b9067dacf7e6","argument":"Understanding by Truth is the only way to connect with the coherence of Being. Love is the road to understanding.","conclusion":"Our only way of connecting to God is through love."}
{"id":"ddb4f227-2c47-47b5-88b9-0f1a915007f4","argument":"If all the major religions are deontological in their moral construction, and God behaves in a consequentialist way e.g. \"greater good\" arguments, yet God is supposed to be our moral guide, then either all the major religions are wrong in their construction of morality, God is not benevolent, or God does not exist.","conclusion":"Religious ethics is typically deontological and views the infliction of harm on present victims in order to serve a future greater good as immoral. There is no reason to believe that God is exempt from this basic moral position."}
{"id":"74a14add-99e2-4f58-9376-f26780361712","argument":"some advantages of post-publication peer review: 1. more scientists than just a few peer reviewers can participate, in particular 'expert users' those who actually plan to use the data in their own research; 2. no artificial end date unlike current peer review which ends with publication; 3. post-publication peer review is not 'corrupted' by the need to support a thumbs up-thumbs down decision; it can be more nuanced and less acrimonious still critical of the science if needed!","conclusion":"This would cleanly separate the contributions of authors from those of peer-reviewers"}
{"id":"344abf12-7b1f-4467-8e73-3218abee146a","argument":"I\u2019m from Britain, but this applies to any country. As the age of retirement in the UK is 60 65, I believe it is entirely reasonable to stop politicians from serving over the age of 70. In any industry, the retirement of the older generations makes room for others to progress into more experienced roles and new people to enter into the new vacancies. But in politics older politicians, who may have entered in their 50s but have stood for re election over the next 30 years, continue to serve into their 80s. In the UK, there are multiple politicians who only enter politics because they have retired from their previous careers. Though it is unquestionable that there have been great older politicians, it is well known that older people generally tend to hold on to values and beliefs from their younger years, and this means politicians in their 70s and 80s are holding on to values and beliefs from 30 60 years ago. Is it any surprise that younger politicians often support modern movements climate emergency, LGBT rights, women\u2019s rights, etc. more than the older generations? Out of 650 members of Parliament currently serving in the UK, there are 81 MPs aged over 65, a total of 339 over the age of 50, and only 14 that are aged under 30 all of whom are unknown because they are in the back benches . Parliament\u2019s role is to do what is right for the country, currently and in the future. With just 2 of MPs aged under 30, how can we justify politicians over the age of 70, who realistically have a limited future, shaping the country that the younger generations must live in?","conclusion":"There should be an age cap that prevents politicians over 70 years old from holding public office."}
{"id":"192ea5ff-bc12-4a81-b764-1d4691dc323a","argument":"If wildlife can survive and thrive, there will be opportunities in studying it that are not possible before. This can range from learning about the wildlife itself to the tourism trends it creates.","conclusion":"In-vivo\/observational academic\/research fields may increase due to veganism, rather than decrease, due to the lack of disruption that veganism causes to the world."}
{"id":"4a38d434-d9ec-44b2-90ab-578a62eea979","argument":"Yeah good point. I was just making a justification regarding statistics of school success rates. You've probably read the other replies to this post suggesting white people don't need ethnic studies That's the audience I knew I was talking to. But also since when is ethnic studies learning about white people? I thought that's the whole point of ethnic studies To counteract a system of white supremacy by providing academic voices of people of color and present a social history of non white folk.","conclusion":"I think \"Ethnic Studies\" curriculum should be required before high school graduation in all districts that have high concentrations of students of color."}
{"id":"aee427d4-4ba0-40da-993f-9dc136a527af","argument":"The UN has authorized the continued presence of coalition forces in Iraq. But, if it lets its current authorization expire on January 1, 2009 - as it is scheduled to - than it will have fully lost authorization and international legal legitimacy in Iraq, and should leave.","conclusion":"The Iraq War will be illegal after UN authorizations expire on January 1, 2009"}
{"id":"cbf26e1c-f465-4778-9379-0d8ed922e869","argument":"Among those more educated there is a tendency to have higher levels of non belief or to, at least, hold religious beliefs with less certainty.","conclusion":"Education tends to reduce human proclivity to gullibility and, at the same time, those more educated tend to be less religious."}
{"id":"23dc8472-3e5d-4083-a195-16eeca6aedf7","argument":"Chopsticks are inefficient and cumbersome for eating rice with as you can only grab small amounts unless especially sticky . Chopsticks are great for grabbing bite sized pieces of food, but are simply no good for small pieces of food. This could also include some chopped salads with small pieces, lentils, and other grains that are sometimes served at Asian fusion style restaurants. Additionally, the last ounce or so is often wasted because you cannot consolidate rice as quickly with chopsticks they way you can with a spoon, and picking up the last individual grains in a bowl is very time consuming.","conclusion":"Meals with rice should always be served with a spoon, not just chopsticks"}
{"id":"6d3833c4-3fdf-41be-b8d3-b05ba0c3f3df","argument":"Thinking that instincts are inherently good is the naturalistic fallacy \"Something is natural; therefore, it is morally acceptable.\" Assuming we should replicate this behavior commits this fallacy, also called an appeal to nature put forward by the philosopher G.E. Moore","conclusion":"A decision being based on human instinct does not make that decision morally correct."}
{"id":"c7d77ded-71de-4891-88b3-d4081540c433","argument":"In my view, the typical pro choice arguments conceptualise women's bodies like property, and it is only the property owner who has full and unimpedable rights to do as they wish with property.As the fetus is adduced to be also part of the body it is part of the property. But, in some case, I'm not sure how convincing this argument is to people who are not sold on it. I've pushed the 'what about artificial wombs' point with some pro choicers and they have said to me 'yes even one day from birth, with artificial wombs available, a woman has 100 guilt and shame free right to terminate the child'. I doubt that would scan with most people if they actually listened to their conscience.And I think conscience is what we should appeal to. Forcing a woman to term when she is unable to, or unwilling to, or frightened or has been raped is an assault on her dignity. Emphasising this with testimony and genuine feeling will be much more compellling than grandstanding about autonomy and body as property which comes across and in many ways is a 'power' argument about the power over the body,over life and death and over the next generation. The power argument does not win hearts and minds, the dignity argument has a better shot.","conclusion":"The pro-choice argument should focus on dignity, not autonomy or ownership."}
{"id":"6a7ffded-65ce-4be5-adb5-7a940bf74ea3","argument":"Morality is objective because there is a God who sets a universal moral standard, independent of any individual subjective human opinions.","conclusion":"Moral values are rooted in the nature and character of divine beings. Their standards do not depend on human standards."}
{"id":"0699cd88-758d-4b7a-bc5b-ed037a237390","argument":"There has been a decent amount of press recently in regards to the sexist nature of male dominated offices, especially in regards to office temperatures. I agree that there are several factors that may still be rooted in sexism in office culture, but temperature is not one of them. I believe the temperature should be set to accommodate the hottest running person in an office within reason . The logic is simple it\u2019s easy to add layers but beyond rolling up your sleeves and taking your shoes off, there is no easy way to cool down. Hell, you can even get space heaters but not space AC units. For that reason, current office temperatures typically 22\u2019 are not sexist. . gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"it is not sexist but rather logical to keep office temperatures at a level comfortable for men"}
{"id":"4ade3f7a-53b8-4e52-8fa0-640848290c3e","argument":"The losses incurred by the banks issuing the loans would have negative repercussions for the banks' ability to lend in the future.","conclusion":"The loan amnesty has opportunity cost there's more efficient ways to use the money for the economy."}
{"id":"f90a5a03-1d6a-4f3f-b9af-e9aedffa838c","argument":"Beginning on time relieves the teacher of having to repeat information to stragglers. This makes a happier, more energetic, and thus more effective teacher.","conclusion":"It is critically important for high quality educational experiences that students are punctual."}
{"id":"a57f1508-38cf-466a-bbdd-bc4113dbb0a3","argument":"As most of you probably know, Rachel Dolezal is a biologically white woman who identifies as black. Recently, Dolezal was outed as caucasian by her parents, and her story has blown up To me, Dolezal seems very similar to Caitlyn Jenner and other transgender people. Dolezal was assigned a white body at birth, but feels as if she is black. Accordingly, she has a perm, a deep tan, and lives the life of an African American woman. Similarly, Caitlyn Jenner was assigned male body at birth, but identifies as a female. Consequently, Caitlyn Jenner got a sex change and lives as a woman. All in all, Dolezal and Jenner are in similar positions. So why are people demonizing Dolezal, but not Jenner? Is there a difference between being transracial and being transgender? Edit Delta awarded to u steampunkunicorn for helping me to see this topic in a new light. Others helped as well.","conclusion":"Transracial is fundamentally the same as transgender."}
{"id":"471c9a58-9318-42d4-a6b3-7ec067dc3e96","argument":"When I first joined reddit, I liked how redditors seemed to always call out others when they were making stereotypes, being bigots, etc. But I found that, although many redditors are hyper aware of the faults and flaws of others, they are completely blind to their own. For example, in r TumblrInAction, redditors call out people on tumblr that make gross generalizations about men white people. However, in response they would make gross generalizations about women people on tumblr, ignorant of the almost comical irony. This also happens with regards to christianity although it has been getting a lot better because of Pope Francis . I used to browse r atheism and I would occasionally see posts about how some christians stereotype other groups such as atheists . I remember seeing comments saying things like christians don't understand different bad , this is why I left the church , etc. I would also, sometimes in those same comments, see things like all christians hate women gays . I was confused. We get so upset when christians make generalizations about us, but it's perfectly fine for us to make generalizations about them? What? Please, .","conclusion":"I believe that while most redditors claim to be open-minded and understanding of others, in fact we are no less close-minded or stubborn than any other group of people."}
{"id":"f4b85418-a5dc-40af-b1a2-3269f26c317d","argument":"So, something I learned how to do as a kid was how to use a rabbit as coyote bait. You would take a live rabbit out to an open area where coyotes were a problem, you take a pocket knife to its abdomen as if you were going to gut it, but instead you let it scream to death. While this is happening, you walk back about 50 yards and wait for something to check it out. I fail to see how this is any worse than what those coyotes did to animals. Having done this most likely saved more animals than what was lost, so I see doing this as a net benefit. So, change my view. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I see no problem with using rabbits as coyote bait."}
{"id":"a651d250-eba8-4f7b-a440-79bb964df93d","argument":"Hamas may well terrorize Israel but, for the foreseeable future, will not be able to invade or take over territory beyond the Gaza Strip.","conclusion":"Hamas, under no imaginable circumstances, has the power to pose an existential threat to Israel or the general status quo in the region."}
{"id":"818b303c-235e-4aa1-802a-a814a81a4221","argument":"I believe that whenever God helps us, he's not doing because he genuinely loves us. Instead, it's always with the motive of getting more praise for himself. The Bible is filled with cases where God helps someone, but these encounters carry a familiar ending of the person glorifying and praising God . Meanwhile, cases where God simply helps someone and expects nothing in return don't seem to appear nearly as often. And when they do, most of the time it's because a prophet or similar figure effectively channels God's power to help someone, thus adding a human element. In fact, God's desire for praise is seemingly so great that he victim blamed Job for refusing to praise him after Job had done nothing wrong and God STILL turned the devil loose on him just to win a cosmic bet that meant absolutely nothing. He shamed Job for sticking up for himself and effectively told him he meant nothing and was nothing to which Job responded by praising God more and asking for forgiveness for standing up for himself. The Bible also talks about God making a horde of angels do nothing but praise him unceasingly, without so much as rest, for all eternity, which the Bible claims will be the ultimate fate for the righteous humans when God destroys our only home. God's idea of eternal paradise is apparently us praising him forever with no rest, no freedom, no hope, no escape. Forever. Interestingly enough, the Bible says heaven is a paradise, but never clarifies who it is a paradise for My conclusion is that God does not love us, and only loves the praise we give him which is the only reason he ever helps us Change My View","conclusion":"Despite what he claims, God doesn't actually love us"}
{"id":"68bb0a59-95a0-4b94-908b-2e7f2e8a8d8d","argument":"EDIT I apologize for any confusion. It's my fault for not fleshing out the belief I'm trying to change. In my original post I listed several services but didn't really list too many. Someone suggested a domestic peace corp which I am totally for. I would include volunteering in this list. As for the people unqualified for a particular service, I'm 100 for having the government train you, just as they would if you were pursuing a career in said field. For example, if you were interested in working in infrastructure, the federal government would send you to essentially a bootcamp to get trained in your career field. I'm fairly ignorant regarding the cost at to do this. And I understand the concerns over two levels of citizenship. Most of you have given some great arguments against this idea, and I am open up to all of them. Again, apologies for any confusion from the lack of explanation on my part. A little backstory for me. I consider myself progressive liberal and I believe in a strong Federal government. I have a parent who served in the military for 20 years. I have an older brother who's on his path to becoming a lawyer. I believe people need to serve their country in any capacity available to them. This goes for any immigrant wishing to become a U.S. citizen or those who are already citizens in the U.S. It is my belief that a mandatory 2 year service to your country will not only benefit those who serve but will also make the country a better place. For serving your country, I also believe that with each succeeding 2 year term of service you should receive a point system used for tax time. 2 years mandatory. For every 2 years you receive some percentage of your income back. The types of service I would count as public service are Fire Department Police Department Education Military Homeland Security Medicine FBI CIA There are others I'm sure. Just can't think of any. Thanks for any and all feedback.","conclusion":"I think public service should be mandatory prior to full citizenship USA -"}
{"id":"58c1e463-2b68-402c-9ec2-b807c26b1f85","argument":"The recent news about the Hellboy film actor leaving the film after people complained the white actor had been cast as a character who was Chinese in the comics. This reminded me of a post here a few months ago where the poster suggested the backlash against the new female Doctor Who was based on sexism. Im not here to debate either of these cases, more to argue that to be consistent you need to have the same response to both situations. You either believe it is acceptable to change a characters race gender etc or you don't. I believe there are good arguments to be had on both sides if this debate I fall in to the former category for the record but I don't see much room for consistency if you're going to try to argue one of these above cases is okay and not the other. Change my view EDIT So I've had more replies than I was expecting and more than I can probably commit to replying to individually but they seem to fall in to two categories so I'll give a few thoughts about each People have said my two examples cannot be seen as the same. It seems the Doctor Who example is particularly bad here as the whole point of the Doctor Who character is that they change on a semi regular basis. I think that's a fair point, but also why I didn't want to talk about these specific examples. Perhaps a better example on this side would be re casting James Bond as an ethnic minority Idris Elba seemed a popular choice a while ago I personally believe he would be a great Bond . My point, as I see it, that that people who would be all for this change are, mostly, against the change of the Hellboy character to a White Male AND that those who would be against a black James Bond are also more likely to be supportive of the Hellboy switch. This is something I've seen mostly on social media but I'm sure I could find example articles if I get the time. The most common idea is that people who would hold both of these views are doing so with the goal of increasing diversity, thus making their position consistent as both of the examples would, in theory, be taking a step towards that. This does actually make sense and has at least made me see how people CAN hold both beliefs, however, I still think there is a hypocrisy at the root of this if we dig a little deeper. The aim of increasing diversity is, surely, to ensure that any individual is not held back by their race, gender etc and that people should be treated equally regardless race etc. This is a goal we can all get behind or at least should . My issue is that by accepting a change in characteristic x for one group but not another you are engaging in precisely the activity in which you are trying to fight against. Perhaps the issue here is that I'm looking at it from an individuals perspective rather than from a group perspective, but that is how we should look at these things IMO.","conclusion":"it is deeply hypocritical to complain about Hollywood \"whitewashing\" whilst also accusing those who complain about other character changes of bigotry."}
{"id":"55fd4a8b-8ec6-48ba-ada7-4c948c250c22","argument":"This can be achieved by 'removable vaginas a feature on some sex dolls that mean each user can be guaranteed safety from STDs.","conclusion":"Using robots eliminates the risk of sexually transmitted diseases if used responsibly. Bendel, p. 2"}
{"id":"ed4812a6-6ece-4842-bb80-5ad7089cf5c5","argument":"Bad recipes may discourage a chef from making recipes, because they may feel either that they're not good at cooking, when it's really the recipe that's not good, or that they have no good recipes to work with.","conclusion":"Quantity doesn't mean quality. Just because we have another recipe to make doesn't make the list of recipes better than before. It may even make the list worse."}
{"id":"2db0a5ac-a134-4e6a-86c3-79924c361fa0","argument":"Marymoose. \"The Case Against Animal Testing\". Helium - \"One of the main arguments against the use of animals in research is that animal studies can't actually confirm or refute hypotheses about human physiology or pathology. In straightforward terms, it can be argued that only research done with humans is relevant to humans.\"","conclusion":"Animal responses to tests can be different than human responses"}
{"id":"abe8d9e3-0233-4bdd-8be3-783e3712bbcc","argument":"Our liberal economy is based on the scarcity of resources. Having an uncontrolled flow of human beings can lead to an instability of the system, which may cause serious economic problems and less economic attractiveness of the country accepting immigrants.","conclusion":"Taking in refugees has negative consequences for high-income countries."}
{"id":"ec11d89d-77a0-4559-9cdf-c940d3178cfe","argument":"WWII is an example of \"fighting\" instead of using diplomacy. If we had stopped Hitler's hate speech usage after he used it through hate speech laws, we could have politically ended World War II before the killing began.","conclusion":"Finding the best way for hate speech to work is paramount to a society's success, even if it is difficult. Hate speech encourages bad behavior such as killing or fighting people to resolve problems."}
{"id":"de073dce-f2b1-41aa-904b-ea3dc59de26c","argument":"For example, if a much celebrated painter was famous for painting cherubs and babies in all of his work as a symbol of life's innocence, but was discovered to be a rampant pedophile, it would probably change the authorial intent.","conclusion":"If art is an expression, that implies authorial intent, and we can not judge authorial intent without judging the author."}
{"id":"56e2a116-ed43-4aa9-af4c-2b72e228c340","argument":"The blanket application of rules based on strictly defined categories such as \"violent imagery is always unacceptable\" misses many important nuances of debates about legitimate speech.","conclusion":"So far, rules on removing terrorist accounts are vague and might lead to the censorship of other content and accounts."}
{"id":"09fab7e6-a5f3-49d2-8a61-43af815f7615","argument":"Career witches are depicted as childless and without family, for example the female teachers at Hogwarts as well figures like Amelia Bones and Bellatrix Lestrange.","conclusion":"Female roles seem to fit into conservative patterns, with having a career and having children usually not going together."}
{"id":"ab9c137b-7b05-441a-850b-87f6ad930030","argument":"The UK is in the midst of a political crisis Three successive government attempts to pass a Brexit deal have been voted down and both candidates for leadership have expressed a willingness for a no-deal Brexit which would pose untenable consequences for the UK. Snap elections are a safety valve to be utilized when a political crisis such as the current one has affected the country.","conclusion":"The Conservative Party already has a tenuous hold on its legitimacy to govern. Johnson assuming leadership might be the straw that breaks the camel's back."}
{"id":"e3e5c4b7-d7da-4982-891d-8c165984b460","argument":"If a true God would not allow his religion to die, then it is necessarily the case that all the myriad pagan religions which have died off are false, and one of the currently existent religions must be true.","conclusion":"The evidence in favor of different religions differs wildly. Thus, there is reason to believe one religion is correct and the others are wrong."}
{"id":"d2bc2539-1f89-486f-aa17-5203f81487e0","argument":"The average vacation time in the US is 10 days after 1 year of work and 14 days after 5 years of work; in comparison European countries mandate at least 20 days of vacation per year from the first year of employment.","conclusion":"There is no mandated minimum vacation time in the US and annual leave is very low compared to other developed countries."}
{"id":"398ed686-2c62-45ca-a642-745bc3ec0ab4","argument":"Australians estimated in surveys on average, that their country spends 13% of its GDP on foreign aid. The real number stands at less than 1%.","conclusion":"Voters are largely uninformed or misinformed about the realities of foreign aid."}
{"id":"14ffb507-3569-48b1-a016-60763dfa2256","argument":"While I'm sure the statistics provided are correct, I think if you were to correlate these kids to household income and or household education, you'd see an even stronger correlation. The article goes on to explain how this is causing school to prison situations that snags minority students , but never discusses other possible reasons for this connection. Disclaimer I think the fact that there is a strong correlation between race and income education inequality in America is a big issue on its own, but tends to cause these kind of false correlations all the time. Edit Re added accidentally removed link. gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than just downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I think the recent race\/suspension study on NPR is conflating race issues with class issues."}
{"id":"19ff9b81-7ef6-4f18-b9fa-b9af1e897e17","argument":"Elements of evaluating 'dangerousness' include such factors as the specific person threatened; presence of a specific plan; past history of violence; psychiatric diagnosis, presence of command hallucinations; history of impulsivity; alcohol and other substance misuse, and many other factors that cannot be assessed without an in-person evaluation.","conclusion":"Psychiatrists have described Trump as 'dangerous'. However, in psychiatry, the \u201cdangerousness\u201d of a patient must be assessed according to well-established procedures, including face-to-face, clinical evaluation. It also includes evaluation of many other factors that cannot be assessed without an in-person evaluation."}
{"id":"d2e266c3-80fe-4488-a832-c133908205aa","argument":"In the UK, contraception services are available to those under the age of 16 if they are deemed to be mature enough.","conclusion":"Most societies already allow minors to make significant life decisions when they are below the age of 18."}
{"id":"f8a61d30-da3d-485e-b877-0119597b0154","argument":"Each Standing Committee member is far more involved in national governance than a current American cabinet secretary who is only responsible for one portfolio.","conclusion":"The collective approach involves all top leaders in matters of regional affairs, the economy, legislation, anti-corruption, and national security, etc."}
{"id":"73de92bf-ab8c-4e64-bdcf-b3e8b183a9bc","argument":"College education is linked to higher pay and job security later in life. It is therefore only fair that those who benefited from this college education pay in order to receive these privileges.","conclusion":"Forgiving student debt is not fair to those who do not go on to higher education."}
{"id":"651f6af1-eba7-4de4-9d9e-c8c20d5129c0","argument":"Toxic masculinity is one of those buzzwords that I keep seeing through my reading of today's culture wars. Personally, though, what's wrong with toxic masculinity? I understand that masculinity can be toxic if it results in violence or abuse against women, but obviously there's a way for men to be dominant, sexually aggressive, and ambitious without resorting to violence or coercion. Personally, I'm a man and I don't really consider myself to be nearly as masculine as some of my peers. And while I'm fine with that personally, I believe that others who want a pathway towards becoming more masculine and self confident should look to hyper masculinity as a possible way to get there.","conclusion":"I don't see anything wrong with \"toxic masculinity\" in general."}
{"id":"0f063a32-ca93-4b6c-a152-a4b1284be0fd","argument":"Che Guevara was jailer and executioner-in-chief of Castro's dictatorship As boss of the notorious La Caban\u0303a prison in Havana, he supervised the detention, interrogation, summary trials and execution of hundreds of \"class enemies\".","conclusion":"When Cuban Ambassador Che Guevara admitted Cuba executed population because of ideological disagreement in an UN Assembly, no one there took any action against it."}
{"id":"a1107887-ba67-4dcc-91c4-13c954d9f895","argument":"Anatomically modern human beings have been around for about 200,000 years, and primates in general have been around for millions. Modern humans do certain things either as individuals, groups, or societies that, in such a long time scale, are relatively new. For example, writing plays people have been writing plays for only a few thousand years. Television has only been around for about a century. The internet has only been around for about 2 decades. The ideas of twerking or flash mobs are only a few years old. Sports have only been around for a few millenia. The idea of democracy, and government in general, similarly, is only a few millenia old. All these things I mentioned are relatively new, and they're artificial constructs. By contrast, hunting is something that not just humans do, but all carnivores. It's something animals, including humans, have been doing for millions of years. It's natural. Similarly, living in groups is something natural that humans and their ancestors have been doing for millions of years. So is grooming. So is finding warmth, shelter, and protection from the elements. These are natural phenomena that are an innate part of human nature. I believe that friendship and romantic relationships are relatively new, artificial constructs, and not a fundamental part of human nature. Sure, we need sex to reproduce. And in the past, humans lived in groups for protection and survival. But the ideas of making friends, hanging out with friends, dating, marriage, falling in love, and so on are relatively new artificial constructs, just like twerking, poetry, and representative government.","conclusion":"Friendship and romance are relatively new artificial constructs"}
{"id":"22d36ace-bf29-4d78-9a85-8eb5103b14df","argument":"Video games tend to repeat the same commands throughout the game, making it easier to learn these words and phrases without too much effort.","conclusion":"Video games are a highly effective way of learning language."}
{"id":"933d34ab-c0f6-444f-a8dd-f1b59dcf468c","argument":"Parents send their children to school so that they can be properly educated. For many parents, this education includes proper moral codes and values. Sending their child to a faith school that they know will adhere to the moral codes and values of that particular faith is one of the only ways that they can guarantee their child will be brought up with the values they consider important.1 It is this that in part makes the schools popular as Ed Balls, then UK education secretary recognises \"One thing we've learnt as a government is that having a distinct ethos, strong leadership, a commitment to promoting opportunity for all, those are the kind of schools where parents want to send their children.\u201d2 1 Mott-Thornton, Kevin. \u201cCommon Faith: Education, Spirituality and the State.\u201d Ashgate Pub. Ltd. 1998. 2 BBC News, \u201cFaith schools set for expansion\u201d, 10 September 2007,","conclusion":"Parents have a right to ensure their child is brought up with the values they consider important."}
{"id":"c257b170-e9cf-43e6-894e-7da4744f4aed","argument":"This seems very counter-intuitive. Bans on illegal drugs are because of the massively harmful effects they have on both individuals and society; conversion therapy similarly has massive deleterious effects to both.","conclusion":"These are common metrics that governments often use in evaluating a practice as legal and permissible."}
{"id":"5b99f816-0e81-48d5-bb66-e2ff75631117","argument":"This is the worst possible solution for all parties involved; if the developed world wishes to help the rest of the world, it should be through investing in and encouraging the stable growth of infrastructure and economy in those areas; NOT bankrupting them of their citizens by bloating out and diluting their own the first world's capacity to provide a decent life for their own citizens via broadcasting the message \"don't stay and improve your own lands, abandon them to come here!\"","conclusion":"Any responsibility that high-income countries have towards refugees can typically be discharged without taking them in."}
{"id":"a51bb872-757c-4e8a-b529-678d93c6822f","argument":"New storage tech is evolving and being designed to optimize for different market need. This is a crucial part of any future grid whether or not nuclear power is included as a supply source.","conclusion":"Grid storage technology is a strong option which helps out with energy storage peaks."}
{"id":"19281c34-8c6e-4c56-adcf-a65c8c271c7a","argument":"Not a single original story or plot point. Everything in the movie has already been done. The movie says it is Episode 7, not episode 4.1. Fan service and oh looks its him her it that thing again is everywhere. So much added fluff that isn't funny or moving the plot is just there to sell toys. The MacGuffin map. Where did it come from? Who made it? Why? It is on a flash drive, so why does a droid need to hold on to it? Despite being trained from birth to be a heartless killing machine trooper, Finn decides against it, for some reason. Rey goes from having her most precious secret torn from her mind in seconds and being knocked unconscious by the Force, to not only resisting the same Jedi but also tearing information from his mind, all while being unconscious. After that she performs a Jedi mind trick. How did she know she could do that? How did she gain more power in the Force while being out cold than Luke did while being trained by a Jedi Master? It is called a Jedi mind trick, not somebody who just learned they have the Force Trick. The stareatingfasterthanlightfireshootingplanetdestroyer. If it has to eat an entire star to fire once how many times can it be used? Did they strap a hyperdrive to a planet? How does the fire light travel faster than light? Why do they need a recon to find it? Do people not notice stars being eaten? Or an extra planet in the system? So Falcon can jump from lightspeed past a shield, but no other ships can? Why don't all the rebel ships do this? Is this tactic completely unknown to the first order? This is the same lazy writing JJ used in the new trek movies. The heroes or villains doing something no one else can do and they can only do it once. What is wrong with having the important parts shielded and the Falcon flying all crazy through ice caves from underneath to pop up from below into the weak spot? How do Rey and Finn leave Tatooine v2.0 without the Star Destroyer following them? Why only send 2 TIE fighters after Finn? How does the Falcon start up instantly after being abandoned for a long time? Where does that pilot guy go? Why didn't he look for his droid? Is there anything Rey isn't amazing at after just 30 seconds of trying? Why are there only a dozen troopers guarding the Death Star v3.0 weak spot? Why is every other character comic relief? What is wrong with Han's blaster? Has he really never fired Chewie's bowcaster ever? How does R2D2 know to suddenly wake up? Why is Carrie Fisher such a terrible actress? Why doesn't her face move? How is Rey so pale despite living on a desert planet her entire life?","conclusion":"Star Wars: The Force Awakens is a terrible movie. Spoilers"}
{"id":"f1f1bfb6-a036-4a92-b9dd-479648822c6c","argument":"I personally believe that Colleges are more out to make money than help students learn. Firstly Why are students who lets say are taking a business class forced to take Chemistry or another useless elective course? Because it costs the college more meaning they can charge more and make more profit. Its a fact that this country owes more in student loan debt than credit card debt, which is a strong reason the Bernie Sanders campaign caught on, trying to make public school free. I read that over the next 10 years the country will make roughly 110 billion dollars on student loans. Since 1971 the average american's income has multiplied by 5. The average cost for tuition? Multiplied by 18 thats just not right. What really got to me. Apple has been criticized by media for selling iPhones at 3x the price it costs them to make, student textbooks? They're being sold at 40x the amount the colleges pay for them On Average . Overall I feel Colleges care more about the money they make than focusing on educating students and trying to prevent the incredibly high drop out rate. Most of the information I got for this post comes from the book Drop Out and Get Schooled by Patrick Bet David, if any of you have read this book please mention if it changed your views at all and how? gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Colleges are more of a business than a learning center."}
{"id":"b97ce4f5-1da8-4ba1-946a-9e8124cd4204","argument":"The increase in human population leads to a gradual degeneration of humans' ecological niche, such as rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, global warming, and pollution.","conclusion":"There is a clear difference between the perception in ancient times and the perception today. We can measure and observe the results of overpopulation."}
{"id":"a0b98bf8-ffb7-404e-8bab-8fc79d092acd","argument":"In 1995 Bosnian-Serb forces in Srebrenica 8,000 Muslim men and boys after the UN previously declared it sage.","conclusion":"The UN has failed to maintain consistency in peace among countries."}
{"id":"d33aa745-ab18-4cc8-93e9-3b24eab0754a","argument":"The New Testament is a compilation of writings by anonymous sources and in many cases forgers.","conclusion":"The New Testament is not reliable enough to substantiate any claims about Jesus."}
{"id":"45fc805d-fa9b-4cfe-8ef9-9044624df3d2","argument":"Central to the Democrats\u2019 diminishment has been their loss of support among working-class voters who feel abandoned by the party\u2019s shift away from moderate positions on trade and immigration, from backing police and tough anti-crime measures, and from trying to restore manufacturing jobs. Moving to the left will not bring them back to the fold.","conclusion":"A Democratic Party which is exceedingly far left will have a hard time getting its candidates elected if they continue to alienate parts of the electorate."}
{"id":"de6c082d-126e-4aeb-9b1d-2090aac7b30f","argument":"Is it fair to require judges to rank each competitor directly after their performance and lock in their rank before the next person performs? Because the judge is forbidden to change their rank after they set it, they will give lower ranks to the first competitors and will thus have only higher slots to dole out to the later performers How is this a fair judging system? In my speech meets the judges are allowed to change their ranks at any time, and can assign them all at once at the end of the round if they want. However, in my choir competition today, our choir had one of the first slots and got ranked lower than many of them believe they should have been ranked. Please help me to understand how this is a fair judging system. EDIT u facing the fallout provided a very good explanation that I hadn't thought of and changed my view Though it is indeed possible for bad choirs to be ranked better than they are, good choirs could also be ranked worse than they are.","conclusion":"The judging system described in this post is unfair and results in people being ranked by their time slot rather than their performance."}
{"id":"302bd535-69f8-4e41-ae14-b2f15dd254ca","argument":"I know with a title like that it seems like I'm being purposely inflammatory or obtuse, but my view is not based in any kind of eschatology or religious worldview. When I say that Trump is the antichrist I am saying that he embodies the opposite of the 'small c' christian worldview. He is selfish, lacks empathy, and he is generally hateful and amoral. He is against many of the values that religious feeling is intended to provoke, that of community, charity, humility, grace, kindness. I am personally not a Christian or believer in any religious doctrine but he appears to hold values that are antithetical to any kind of loving, ethical, or moral leadership. My view comes from reading an essay regarding morality in politics. An excellent quote from the author, the late Vaclav Havel, laid out the moral principle in governance Genuine politics is simply a matter of serving those around us serving the community, and serving those who will come after us. Genuine conscience and genuine responsibility are always, in the end, explicable only as an expression of the silent assumption that we are observed \u2018from above,\u2019 that everything is visible, nothing is forgotten. Good governance therefore carries moral and spiritual implications. By this measure, Trump embodies everything that is the opposite, craven, narrow minded, despotic, arrogant, unconcerned with anything except wealth. Please change my view because I an really unnerved that the leader of the free world can be such a morally bankrupt charlatan. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Donald Trump is the Antichrist"}
{"id":"807ee92e-e862-4ecd-bae1-f2c2dd7ec2c4","argument":"After years of searching a cure for my depression I've stumbled upon some studies on psilocybin. This is one of the psychoactive chemicals in 'magic' mushrooms. I was willing to give it a chance, for a moment I had hope again Until I came across these posters They made me realize I was being to optimistic about this solution. Now my view on the drug changed to some substance that gives you a fake impression of reality. What is a more realistic approach to this problem? Thanks edit Thanks for giving me all these great insights about depression an psilocybin. Next week I'm going to discuss the subject with my psychiatrist and do some more research on the web. I'm still a little confused on what I should do when I take the drug. How do I make it work? What questions do I ask myself during the trip? How does one have a trip with therapeutic value? Do I need to do something special or do I just follow this trip guide? Also, thanks for sharing personal experiences, they give me hope","conclusion":"on drugs"}
{"id":"b21f68d4-6d85-4ec5-a498-58fb20834d3b","argument":"It is likely that some people will just be verbally rejected or turned away, without physical harm.","conclusion":"A person risks being rejected in public which can have negative emotional effects."}
{"id":"6598108b-a40c-4262-bb89-5fb662f58d92","argument":"The Settlements are seen by Palestinians as a sign of bad faith on the part of Israel, and therefore weaken the hand of Pro-Peace elements","conclusion":"That Israel\u2019s West Bank Settlements are an Obstacle to Peace"}
{"id":"a608d773-17da-4b85-a6b9-95cd9573df42","argument":"There is a growing consensus, in ethics and in the general population, that factory farmed meat is highly problematic for various reasons, some related directly to animals, others to humans and the environment . However, people still consume, in the main, such meat. There is a gap between what people have reason to believe and how they act. Currently, we privatize this problem and hope for consumerism to solve it, while what is needed is structural, political change. It is a political task to ban goods that are harmful to the community. The way we farm in Europe is mostly driven by the EU's Common Agricultural Policy CAP . Hence, the EU should work to abolish factory farming, just as it is banning plastic waste.","conclusion":"The EU should abolish intensive animal farming by 2030"}
{"id":"91596fca-6db0-4eca-b940-91bd0b0350fd","argument":"I'm not really looking to change my view on infant circumcision, I think that it's a human rights abuse. What I am looking for is a compelling, ethical argument for infant circumcision that doesn't become obscene or ridiculous when you apply the same reasoning to other ethical considerations under a similar set of conditions. Here are the arguments for infant circumcision that I've encountered and why I think that they don't make good universal ethical rules. The benefits of circumcision outweigh the risks. gt When most people make this argument, they're usually referring to the AAP's 2012 opinion on circumcision. I agree that the risks of circumcision are somewhat rare, and some studies have shown benefits to the procedure. However, benefits outweighing the risks is not how we judge the acceptability of any other medical intervention done before the age of consent. gt Justification for a medical intervention done to someone under your care is in no other circumstance based on a risk benefit analysis. Justification for these types of interventions are usually based on one of 2 things. gt 1. Significant risk of bodily harm or death to the child due to lack of the medical intervention. This is the type of justification that supports childhood vaccination. gt 2. Medical indication for a procedure. This involves a diagnosis, a consultation with the child's guardians, and a treatment plan that is as minimally invasive as possible. gt The AAP's risk benefit analysis did not consider the functions or value of the foreskin in its calculations nor could it, as such a value judgement is a deeply personal decision . If a risk benefit analysis were all that was required to justify an intervention on behalf of a party that cannot yet consent, circumcision would be along side mastectomies, limb amputations and burqas to prevent skin cancer . Circumcision is a parental choice. gt This argument tries to suppose that at least 1 of the following are true. gt 1. Parents have the right to permanently cosmetically alter the normal human body of their children. gt gt If this be true, it would give parents the right to tattoo their children, give them breast enhancements or labiaplasties. I don't think that anyone would consider these interventions acceptable uses of parental power. Such alterations are personal decisions that one should make for his or her own body. gt 2.Parents have a right to make all medical decisions they believe to be in the best interest of the child. gt gt I've refuted the majority of this argument in the post about benefits and risks. Another problem raised by assuming this premise to be true is parental incompetence or insanity. If a parent believes that bloodletting or ingesting toxic chemicals is in their child's best interest, that shouldn't be allowed because of it violates a child's right to good health, and possibly even the right to life. Circumcision can be a religious decision. gt I agree, but I consider it a personal religious decision. A child cannot be expected to understand many aspects of religion, and certainly is not in a position to judge the value of the foreskin. If someone grows up and decides that their religious beliefs dictate circumcision, that choice, a personal religious one, has been preserved for them. There are also religions that place value on the entire human body. Parents forcing a religious body modification on a child due to their religious beliefs violates that child's religious rights should he end up in a religion that values an intact, unmodified body. gt Parents should have a right to raise children in a religious faith as they see fit. They should not have the right to make irreversible physical or mental ones if such a thing exists alterations to their children in the name of religion. Many people, including myself, separate from the religion of their parents without adverse effects. Such a thing is impossible with a forced religious body modification. Men are fine with don't complain about circumcision.Men don't remember infant circumcision. gt This argument is simply untrue. I am circumcised and despise that such an intimate intervention was forced on me. I know many other men who feel the same way. gt Men who are fine with being circumcised would likely be just as happy if their foreskins were left alone, and if they were unhappy about it, the decision to be circumcised is in their hands, where it should be. Circumcised men do not have the same luxury. gt If a person not remembering an action made any action on their behalf permissible, things like rape and elderly abuse would be morally sound. Circumcised penises are easier to clean take care of. gt Yes, body parts that don't exist are easy to clean. That isn't a justification for you to cut them off someone else. Women prefer circumcised penises. gt Since an infant won't be having sex, sexual modifications are best left in his own hands when he is an adult. The preference for circumcision is certainly not universal, especially where it isn't the norm. Those are the most common arguments I encounter, but they're not the only ones. What I want out of this  thread is a compelling argument in favor of infant circumcision that when reduced to its general principles, can be applied to other situations with similar moral considerations. Even if you agree with me that circumcision should be made illegal, I'm really just looking for a single compelling argument. I'm used to debating things like the death penalty or abortion where I can see compelling arguments on both sides of the issue. I'm trying not to be closed minded, but I really cannot even see the other side of the issue when it comes to forced circumcision. Thanks for taking the time to read this and respond.","conclusion":"I believe that there is no compelling ethical argument for infant circumcision long post."}
{"id":"0a6e5261-5ffb-43ae-a092-98ce48902b01","argument":"Okay so lets start with what i think constitutes as rape. For the most part, sex under the influence is rape and illegal, but there are various situations like two married couples where this line blurs. Obviously being forced talked into sex through threat of harm to yourself or another is rape. Obviously, if the person was violent towards you at the time or previously presence of a weapon or shoving or Was aggressively mannered no physical confrontation, but was clearly purposefully intimidating its rape because these are obvious signs of intent to harm. But what if you have knowledge of their violent tendencies this one is weird because although one is justified in feeling fear if they know that a person has been violent towards another person, is it justified to jail that person even for this fear? The fear that harm may come to you, but the person wasn't aggressive towards you no commanding tone or threat of physical violence , can you still claim rape under fear of bodily harm? For example, suppose you are at a party, and a guy and a girl are into one another, kissing and the like. So the girl wants to have sex, but the guy doesn't want to, but he remembers that a friend told him that the girl once slapped the last guy that refused sex with her. But the girl tries to change his mind by saying things such as, come on, it'll be quick and its no biggie, its just sex or Come on really, i thought you liked me. If you did, you'll do this , maybe even If you don't have sex with me, ill tell all my friends you have a small penis and you'll never get laid again . But they say all these things, calmly and suggestively without a hint of aggression or physical violence or the presence of a weapon. Is this rape? I personally don't believe it is. If you choose to have sex with the person in the above scenario, I don't think you can then report them for rape because you were coerced into it. You cant claim to have feared for your life because the person didn't give you any indication that they were going to harm you and as such you cant justify an irrational fear. The person should not go to jail for that. This is a case of lack of personal conviction. The boy in that scenario if he chooses to have sex with her has no one to blame but himself. He had a choice even if he didn't like his choices, he had them but still gave in. He was weak willed and he cant then be allowed to ruin someones life because he is unable to stand up for himself. Obviously, if the person starts showing forms of aggression physical violence or commanding tone then you can claim fear of bodily harm. But coerced sex through emotional manipulation without the affor mentioned aggressiveness shouldn't be grounds for a rape conviction. Obviously this changes if the victim is someone that can be easily influenced such as a disabled person or any mentally challenged person or just someone in an emotional mentally compromised state such as the recent death of a family and the manipulator has to be aware of the victims condition for this to be grounds for a rape charge . Don get me wrong, emotionally manipulation someone is deplorable, but just because someone cant say no doesn't mean they should be arrested for it. The funny thing is if you go back far enough in my comment history, I have defended the belief that Coercion without threat of harm still constitutes as rape. Its not until i was reading a thread in which the woman allowed a man to sleep with her because he wouldn't stop asking and was wondering if it was rape. Most people in the comments said that it was because he refused to take no for an answer, but it just got me thinking. So i ask you, what do you believe? I honestly want more of a discussion and very few subreddits foster healthy discussions on subjects such as this. Don't get me wrong, I am open to having my opinions changed, but i also what to see if there are others who agree with me or not.","conclusion":"Its not rape if you are coerced or manipulated into sex"}
{"id":"307176b5-57f7-4278-a870-96bcdd1805e8","argument":"First off, let me say that I fully understand the health benefits of both of these lifestyles. I also fully understand that some people just don't like meat. I have no question challenging either of those stances. My confusion occurs where people say, it's wrong to kill animals, so I won't eat them or animal suffering is just as bad as human suffering. You wouldn't consume things that a human wrongly suffered to make, so why would you eat meat and animal products? In response to the first view, the norm today is not that one goes out to kill an animal and eat it. Rather, you go to the supermarket, buy it, cook it, eat it. One person saying, no, I won't buy that isn't enough to affect the demand. As a result, the same number of animals will be killed and that person's vegetarianism or veganism will make no difference. And that's just the counter to that argument from a pragmatic standpoint. On an ethical level, I don't buy at all that it's wrong to kill animals. Assuming we eliminate religion from the argument another reason for either of these diets that I have no problem understanding , humans are essentially nothing more than the highest cognitively functioning animals. We're not going to feed a lion meat made of soy protein and nobody has a problem with them mauling an antelope. The counter to that would be, but lions can only eat meat. Fine, replace lions with any omnivorous animal that could survive solely on plants. Again, nobody has a problem with that animal killing and eating another animal. I understand animals don't have the capacity to reason like we do although evidence points to even that being debatable , but nobody claims that because I have the ability to feed a homeless man that I have a duty to do the same. With regards to the argument from the stance of suffering, I think it's unsound. Nike is one of the most popular brands of shoes in the world. A lot of Nike shoes are made by humans who wrongly suffer. I'm not condoning this fact, but it is a fact. Assuming it was sound though, I don't buy that dying equates to suffering. If someone walks up to me and puts a bullet in my brainstem, I haven't felt pain nor have I suffered. I'm just dead. Now, one could say that the suffering occurs in the way certain farms raise animals for slaughter. Even if I grant that, that doesn't preclude all meat and animal products. There are plenty of farms that humanely raise animals for slaughter and for certain products like milk and such. With all this in mind, . Edit A lot of you guys have made some great points. I think my issue is that, while I now understand better that being vegetarian or vegan is morally commendable, I still don't and doubt I ever will believe it's morally obligatory. Given that I don't think it's morally obligatory, I don't necessarily feel compelled to become vegetarian or vegan because it's not a cause I care enough about I know I made mention of the homeless man and not being obligated to help, but for those of you who are curious, I think the global poor are far more deserving of attention than the treatment of animals and of you're curious, I recommend Thomas Pogge's book, Politics as Usual . Far be it from me to tell you how you should feel about it though. I won't have time to respond to all the questions you guys might have for me, but all of your points are well taken. As a generalization, I no longer believe vegans and vegetarians who choose their diets for ethical reasons are irrational and ill informed. Thanks","conclusion":"I believe vegans and vegetarians who choose their diets for ethical reasons rather than simple taste or health reasons are irrational and misinformed."}
{"id":"2f4eb4b9-e208-4378-ae0c-ea044cccfaae","argument":"If a critical variable or constant a topological invariant in the universe function is to be required one must prove the function fails to evaluate if the variable is withheld.","conclusion":"The burden of proof for God's existence has not been met."}
{"id":"22fe6f7d-5b2c-4980-a9d0-e53df8e51231","argument":"If there are many people around, there are a higher number of witnesses to any potential crime, serving as a deterrent.","conclusion":"Allowing foot traffic will make the area less scary at night."}
{"id":"be4d9dd5-8554-41e2-ae78-6e5caebe68c1","argument":"Why news coverage of such events should not be broadcast nationally There is no real reason for the entire country to know the minute by minute breakdown of a very sensitive situation in a suburban school in a corner of the country, when it has no real impact on the life of anyone who lives gt 50 miles away from it. There have been innumerable cases of misinformation hasty judgments false allegations that have been perpetrated by the media, in the heat of the ongoing crisis. and corrected later, once the damage has been done This, while inevitable, should be contained as much as possible. Evidence has shown that a lot of times the 'fame factor' is the reason for these shooters to perform such heinous acts. We must not aid and abet this type of craving for attention. A small ticker message or a banner is sufficient to inform the rest of the country of an ongoing event such as this. This will alert any friends relatives of the potentially affected and they can privately contact their loved ones. A phone hotline can also be set up so that information can be relayed privately to only the relevant parties. These horrific incidents very quickly devolve into tragedy porn with thousands of media personnel descending upon the neighborhood and hounding the families and children with interviews and cameras. Such media scrutiny in distressing times is unwarranted and unnecessary. I can go on and on, but I think I have made the gist clear. I fail to understand why someone sitting in Pennsylvania needs 24 hour updates of a school shooting in a small suburb in Texas, most of which are like We are waiting at the scene for more information. Back to you at the studio, Jim. There is no way to avoid the media frenzy, but I feel it will atleast be mitigated if only the 2 3 prominent local cable channels are allowed to broadcast live feeds of such events. I know there will be a lot of people in the comments arguing that this goes against the fundamental freedom of press. But I don't think it does. Limiting the media circus in a targeted locations, amidst an ongoing crisis event, while still allowing local channels, hardly constitutes curbing of fundamental media rights. We all get most of our information throw twitter internet dissemination anyways. Change my view, Reddit. EDIT As expected, 95 of the responses got hung up on the word 'allowed' and devolved into incoherent versions of But what about the First Amendment? . Thanks to u abacuz4 for giving the only fresh perspective, which was that the constant media blitz is perhaps the best gateway to actual change. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Only the closest local cable news channels should be allowed to cover breaking news events like school shootings."}
{"id":"b4fac4a4-1e5e-4f64-8b01-1fabff8b52e7","argument":"Ok so firstly, this is not a belief I am proud of or even hold on to strongly. I'm usually 100 with the scientific consensus on all matters. But I just can't seem to completely shake my belief in the soul. So here we go. Imagine the universe billions of years ago before there was life on earth or anywhere else for that matter. There was nobody around to observe anything and stuff was just happening based on physics and the mathematical laws of the universe. It was all just data arranged in various configurations. Now imagine that an incredibley rare random event happens on Earth that assembled the building blocks of life. And so the process of evolution begins. Essentially not much as changed. Events continue to happen because of the laws of physics. We now have life and evolution but it still looks a whole lot like data just being arranged and rearranged in different patterns. No one is there to observe it so it's like everything is happening in a computer simulation on a computer with no monitor. Evolution continues for billions of years and eventually we get to the present day. The configurations of matter on Earth have perhaps become slightly more complex because of evolution, but nothing has really changed. It's all just data arranged in various patterns. I would still suggest that no one is there to observe it. It's all just math and physics. Everything in the universe could theoretically be represented by just 1s and 0s in a very powerful super computer. Now imagine yourself. You should be just a configuration of matter. There should be nothing more special or interesting about you than any other configuration of matter. Yet you are conscious. You exist. You observe. Why are you You and not someone else? What separates you from everything else? Why is this specific configuration of atoms that makes up you different from any other? Assuming we don't have souls, shouldn't you just be a bunch of data? I recognize the configuration of atoms that makes up you should appear to be conscious to an outside viewer, but I would suggest that it would just be simulated faked consciousness. You shouldn't really be conscious. Yet here I am, conscious, existing. To me it seems like I must have a soul. I can't quite wrap my head around the idea that I am just an arrangement of atoms. I truly want to believe that I don't have a soul, but I don't want to take it on faith that I don't have a soul. I don't believe in any specific religious version of the soul or even the we are all connected type soul. But nevertheless, I can't overcome my feeling that I have a soul. Sorry if this was wordy or poorly written. I did my best to explain myself. Please leave the footnote below the following line, but remember to delete this sentence by replacing it with the body of your post. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I Believe I have a soul"}
{"id":"bb137d84-f23d-4218-b15c-59ede285f209","argument":"Both race and sex are categories based on relatively small physical differences, which have taken on disproportionate social and cultural significance. If doctors are comfortable with using one to make medical judgements, they should be comfortable using both.","conclusion":"Doctors routinely take sex into account when recommending particular treatments. If doctors consider sex differences then there is little reason for them not to consider racial ones."}
{"id":"88a3618f-9c53-47da-8b78-cde22d7d903f","argument":"Peter Worthington. \"Quebec's burqa ban is not racist.\" The Sudbury Star Canada_. April 2010: \"That so few Muslim women in Quebec wear the niqab or burqa --we are told only a couple of dozen go along with the custom --makes the new law even more appropriate. It will cause no widespread disarray or discomfort.\"","conclusion":"That so few wear burqa means ban will cause little disruption"}
{"id":"0c7b3e7f-0221-482d-8828-7bd5b72095fb","argument":"We have evolved from eating raw meat into cooked meat, there is absolute no reason to relinquish the freedom of eating meat for veggies. Meat helped grow the brain, better the human biology, everything imaginable to make us who we are today. Go for alternatives such as protein shake does not compensate the nutrients that meat gives like iron, fat, unless with other alternatives. Sure we are going to save animals, down the level of green house gas, but it is absurd to think one can be vegan for the rest of one's life without meat craving, because we are omnivore. Sowwy guys, first time posting if the title is off and bit insulting D Yes, I tried to play the devil's advocate, I needed justifications of my friend's claim about been vegan is a good choice, and I highly appreciate all the well written arguments from this post, thank you all","conclusion":"I believe vegans are an insult to the human evolution."}
{"id":"fddd444e-6e13-4799-8a29-dd6ebbacce0f","argument":"AKM armies will raise the acceptance of military actions, since the risk of allied soldiers dying is minimized.","conclusion":"AKMs would lower the threshold of going to war, leading to more suffering in the world."}
{"id":"a9809fd3-d235-4a25-b69c-eb9237d4ff20","argument":"News and facts are often sensationalised by the media in order to attract more attention. This can lead to exaggerations and false rumours.","conclusion":"The public has a tendency to blow minor personal mistakes that politicians has made out of proportion."}
{"id":"ed9a1d50-8b0f-4f54-9314-2862cd110758","argument":"What is determined morally permissible in democracies is the outcome of the will of the majority. While some state actions are revised and held to be immoral at a later date, taxation has been present across almost all modern countries and so has near-universal assent as morally permissible.","conclusion":"Taxation is consented to by the general populace through democratic processes. Like almost all aspects of the law, people can differ over whether tax is fair, but it cannot be called an act of theft because society itself has sanctioned it through a 'social contract'."}
{"id":"e9e1bf50-0c48-497b-9431-0ac481759878","argument":"I\u2019m not for completely open, unguarded borders. I think for security reasons, a protected border is necessary. But I do not think that it is in the spirit of America and it\u2019s founding to set limits on the number of immigrants that can enter. Nor do I think it is right to allow educated or wealthy people, while disallowing the poor and unskilled. In America, most of our ancestors were poor, unskilled immigrants, and this is what America is founded on. Even the Statue of Liberty says, \u201cGive me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door \u201d Background check and health screenings are fine, and limiting social services once they arrive is fine, but all eligible non threat immigrants should be allowed.","conclusion":"it is un-American to restrict the number of immigrants or put quota limits on immigration"}
{"id":"42c1501b-4d6c-4885-8edf-d9c1ef201ee3","argument":"\"there is no longer much difference between a military and civilian trial. After the U.S. Supreme Court weighed in on the shortcomings of George W. Bush\u2019s tribunals, Congress and the Obama administration granted more rights to the accused.\" Therefore, trying terrorists in civilian courts is little different, and not more risky.","conclusion":"There is little difference between civilian courts and military tribunals."}
{"id":"1d9daa59-b88f-43a6-b1ee-5aae0162c733","argument":"DEFINITIONS Determinism All events are certain, the entire outcome of an event is based on existing conditions, or predetermined . Ex. Event A will cause Event B. Indeterminism No event is certain, and the entire outcome of an event is based on probability, or chance . Ex. Event A might cause Event B or Event C. BACKGROUND After the 18th century, most scientists agreed that the universe was deterministic, that it was governed by strict scientific laws that could be discovered and applied to determine the outcome of any event. Thus, determinism seems to challenge the possibility of free will. If one accepts determinism, then the universe, and any person in it, is governed by strict scientific laws. This means that any event, including an individual's choices could be determined based on scientific knowledge and causality, or cause and effect. However, advancements in quantum mechanics challenged determinism, ultimately proposing a universe that follows general scientific laws but one which does not have a predetermined future. It was Werner Heisenberg who discovered indeterminism within the measurement of basic variables. Heisenberg's experiments and analysis showed that uncertainties always occurred when attempting to measure the position and the momentum of a particle at the same time. Heisenberg concluded that these uncertainties or imprecisions in the measurements were fundamental in the universe and are inherent mathematical properties in quantum mechanics. Voila Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, the basis for quantum tunneling and how nuclear fusion occurs in stars. MY VIEW PERSONAL I am a twenty five year old nuclear engineer, and as you probably guessed it, I work at a nuclear power plant. I spend a lot of time thinking about philosophy, from a scientific standpoint. This past weekend, I had the wonderful privilege of going on a series of dates with a rather remarkably intelligent, and beautiful, young woman. To my surprise, after a few drinks, we were discussing very riveting topics, one of which based around Free Will . We both agreed that chemistry and physics define the universe around us, and since humans are made of matter, we are also governed by those scientific laws as well. If this is truly the case, humans exist in a deterministic universe where everything can be predicted, even our decisions given enough scientific knowledge. Conclusion Free Will is an illusion. Now, fast forward to two days later. I'm still thinking about the discussion and bending my mind around any way to disprove my theory scientifically. I personally love to play Devil's Advocate to my own theories. I haven't been able to, and actually, I've further convinced myself of it. I started digging around in a lot of my quantum physics books, and in combination with reading a good deal of philosophy, I have come to the following conclusions 1 Our universe is indeterminate. When considering the wave particle duality of matter, I am fairly convinced that the universe is not determinate, or at least nearly indeterminate if specific events are not possible in this universe. 2 What do I mean by nearly indeterminate? Perhaps, specific events appear determinate due to a system in which certain events cannot occur, thus forcing a determinate solution from an indeterminate system. If I believe that the universe is indeterminate, everything is a matter of chance. In short, Event A probabilistically causes Event B or Event C. However, the presence of Event C doesn't imply Event A happened. Also, the presence of Event A doesn't imply Event B or Event C will happen. Infact, there is the potential that nothing could happen if the sum of the probabilities of Events B and C doesn't equal 1. So what does this all mean? I believe that our universe is governed by indeterminism. This means that the future is not necessarily constrained to a single course. However, I believe that the probability of certain events occurring is zero, and thus appears to be deterministic. For example, if I throw my phone directly over my head, gravity will cause it to fall directly on my head. There is no other outcome, as the probability of gravity acting as the driving force is absolute. The event is trivial. I believe the same is true for chemical reactions, that they will behave in what appears to be a deterministic manner to do an absolute outcome. Thus, I would state that while our universe is indeterminate, we still do lack Free Will . Or, perhaps our understanding of energy and matter is wrong, and what appears indeterminate within our current understanding is determinate in a different scientific field. Please, provide any opinions or insight you have. I've been thinking on this topic non stop and want to know what Reddit thinks. I understand that this topic has been discussed here, but more importantly, I am aiming to address the following in regard to my view, Is it possible that we live in an indeterminate universe where events are left to chance, but we, as humans still lack Free Will?","conclusion":"Determinism vs. Indeterminism... and the bigger question, \"Free-Will\"."}
{"id":"a2174f3f-8b23-460b-8d11-aaf582c68f25","argument":"Nuclear plants require a high capital investment. However, they are built to last at least 40 years and some are expected to last even 80 years. Given the high production volume and long lifetimes, the amount of energy produced over the lifetime of a nuclear power plant easily justifies that initial high investment.","conclusion":"The initial startup cost is expensive, in a range between $6 million and $9million per unit"}
{"id":"01a815c3-fd07-4731-a237-9ae7fcc1d448","argument":"It would enable people to easily manage their own pain medication themselves without the trials and tribulations of doctors and presciptions and all those agonizing hoops you need to jump through along the way.","conclusion":"Recreational drugs can be used as self medication especially for those with severe mental health issues like PTSD and psychosis."}
{"id":"9dfe6409-11b1-406b-9464-873c7e50a962","argument":"Look at me, flipping the dichotomy. I think that if you live in a \u201csafe state,\u201d such as California New York and Alabama Oklahoma, you should be voting third party assuming you are not satisfied with Trump or Clinton, which is the majority of people . By all means, if you have no inhibitions voting for Clinton or Trump, do it \u2013 this argument probably isn\u2019t for you. My logic stems from the nature of the electoral college. Whether a candidate wins by 30 or 0.5 , they still win all of that state\u2019s votes in the college. So, if you live in New York, where there is not the slightest doubt that Hillary Clinton will win, then if you vote for Clinton your vote is wasted since that vote has an incredibly small chance of effecting the end result. This also applies if you are voting for Trump in New York, Trump in Alabama or Clinton in Alabama \u2013 your vote will almost certainly not effect that state\u2019s results. This is why I see votes for major candidates as \u201cwasted,\u201d especially in the light of my next point. When you vote for a candidate, you are not just voting for them to become president \u2013 there are many other aspects to that vote. There is the abstract power of that vote, such as how that vote makes the candidate \u2013 and their respective party \u2013 more influential legitimate known etc. There is also the more material power of that vote. When a candidate receives over 5 of the vote in the general election, which Gary Johnson will likely reach if current trends hold and Jill Stein might reach, they receive federal funding for the next presidential election. Now, the power of that vote is \u2013 again \u2013 wasted on either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. They and their parties are already influential, legitimate and known by all Americans while also being universally disliked . The Democratic and Republican parties also have no problem receiving federal and private funding. Therefore, the power of your vote \u2013 in this sense \u2013 is completely lost when you vote for either of these major candidates. I live in Connecticut. Here, Clinton has about a 10 point lead over Trump as of my time writing this \u2013 and this has held steady for most of the election and shows no sign of changing. I\u2019ve thought to myself whether my position would change if the race tightened in my own state. After some thinking, I decide it probably wouldn\u2019t. Right now, as I previously explained, voting for Clinton or Trump in Connecticut would be pointless. Surely it wouldn\u2019t still be worthless if the race was statistically tied \u2013 right? Unless the race tightened because of something related directly to Connecticut, most likely Trump would have gained in every other state as well. This would mean the swing states would be painted red and Trump would have the election in the bag, making my vote basically worthless in a whole new way thanks to the electoral college. I don\u2019t think anybody who is voting third party this November actually thinks their candidate would become president. I would probably join in with you in laughing at them for thinking something so absurd is possible. I\u2019m looking beyond this election, as there is clearly no hope in this one. I have heard many friends of mine say, \u201cYou can\u2019t vote third party. You have to work in the system we have now.\u201d Well, that\u2019s exactly what I plan to do, I\u2019m using the system I\u2019m given to the best of my ability. My vote is something that cannot be denied by those already in power. The \u201ccorrect\u201d avenues to change that I\u2019m told of almost always involve relying on those in charge to listen and make change for me. This is the one true power that I have, and I want to use it to its greatest potency. I have never heard of anyone else hold this position before with these reasons . I\u2019m sure I\u2019m not the first to think of this, but I\u2019m interested in hearing your thoughts. Also, this is my first post on Reddit if that interests you.","conclusion":"Voting for Either of the Two Major Party Candidates is a Wasted Vote for Most People"}
{"id":"0e8fad22-29de-4ff9-a961-148a5b40128e","argument":"What coal miner wouldn't happily work in a career that was free of pulmonary diseases and a shortened life span? RE will still include a required job force, perhaps an even greater force than currently earmarked for fossil fuel.","conclusion":"Pushing for 100% RE endangers jobs in many industries, ranging from oil to coal."}
{"id":"6cf9d5dc-1b0d-4891-8f36-7d1bc83ed8bc","argument":"As a believer of any religion, you have to believe that you are right while all the contradicting religions are wrong. There is no evidence to support such statements, as the evidence for most religions is of similar value, individual experiences and old man-written texts.","conclusion":"There is no consistency between religious texts, different sects and anecdotal experiences."}
{"id":"a463fc75-bdc6-4a81-b76f-83e2e19c1aef","argument":"The ability to paint some lives as inferior despite the fact that intelligence is relative also allows for human suffering, and assuring the basic protection of all conscious lives would be a step towards a more conscientious global community.","conclusion":"We should grant rights to all sentient beings because there is no consistent way of differentiating between humans who have rights and other sentient beings."}
{"id":"d1258964-f914-4428-aee0-8dd0a5cd8f02","argument":"Even considering scenarios in which torture could be morally legitimate and not unequivocally condemned reveals a morally corrupt mind because it fails to respect people as moral beings Anscombe, p. 11","conclusion":"Counterterrorism measures may violate the prohibition against the use of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."}
{"id":"54592e97-a2e7-4735-a1eb-23e2a4fecbe8","argument":"This is in America. Television is ruining children with its bad influences. I think they are better off without it, but this is not what I want to think.","conclusion":"I think television is mentally and physically bad for children. please."}
{"id":"85614c0c-7337-47c9-80a9-21cb829ac77c","argument":"Consider additionally a rock climber high up a cliff face whose harness breaks and whose footholds crumble. The climber is left hanging on by one hand, and with only one other handhold within reach - this limits the climber to either grabbing the other handhold, or plummeting to her death. She will definitely not choose to die, so she only has one possible choice - however, we don't say that she doesn't in that moment have free will. Therefore, many choices are not necessary for free will.","conclusion":"Harry Frankfurt has shown that alternate possible choices are not required for free will"}
{"id":"717fb7b6-17e4-4eb4-8da0-bdd954beac35","argument":"Prospective parents' failure to obtain a license will in essence be failure to prove their ability to parent. Such a failure will lead to judgement from society, where people will assume that they aren't good people who are fit to raise children.","conclusion":"The policy will lead to stigma against couples who fail to gain a parenting license."}
{"id":"5f3cee0f-6881-425a-ad6b-71ea31394b90","argument":"German culture is diverse and has always been diverse due to the history of the country. Muslims are, just like all adherents to large major religions very diverse.To say muslims are to different than germans is to generalise all muslims and all germans.","conclusion":"According to the German government, Islam \"belongs to Germany The country hosts about 4.5 million Muslims. It is not clear whether the Muslim background of many refugees, nevertheless, is too different from Germany's culture."}
{"id":"8e2db38e-4e95-475c-b1c6-c5858e25333d","argument":"The escaped slaves may attempt to overthrow the Maroon leadership in order to prevent their return to the plantations.","conclusion":"Agreeing to the deal has the potential to cause disunity in our community."}
{"id":"7c4d885b-9309-4519-844e-b6868062ea9f","argument":"As a protected group, the political concerns of the poor will be better heard and addressed because not doing so will bring consequences.","conclusion":"Governments will be forced to consider the impact of policies on the most vulnerable in society."}
{"id":"764468cb-a1f8-4642-b60d-5413b0a6d02f","argument":"According to European Project\u2013Active Women in Small and Medium Enterprises, in 93.8% of cases in worker co-operatives in Spain, France and Italy, gender-based salary discrimination does not exist.","conclusion":"Salaries in worker co-operatives tend to foster gender equality."}
{"id":"fbfed7a3-bcd6-4edd-ab8b-032d2a39cdaf","argument":"Hi, I think the default subreddit system is horrible, there is no chance for smaller usually better subreddits to get any popularity, or even get to the front page, because the default subreddits are way too big. How it works correct me if i'm wrong Top 10 subreddits not nsfw with most subscribers are on the front page. Someone registers, is automatically subscribed to these 10 subreddits. How is that not terrible? This way the same 10 subreddits will grow at an insane rate, as there are many accounts that don't unsubscribe from them and don't subscribe to many other things, this way these 10 subreddits will never change.","conclusion":"I think the default subreddit system is flawed."}
{"id":"be4718ba-b3d1-4654-b93d-61bf71ccc50e","argument":"Cinema is a collaborative art and cinematography, as with writing or editing, is not able to make a collaborative successful in itself but rather can as a part of a greater whole.","conclusion":"Numerous movies that are generally perceived to be deeply flawed were complemented for their cinematography, for example Prometheus, Exodus: Gods and Kings, The Lone Ranger and The Great Gatsby."}
{"id":"d80cb982-660f-47d6-a81c-f0ad69a04ea3","argument":"My view is as follows In the light of certain pieces of electoral data, the possibility that the vote of the US election was rigged against HRC should be taken seriously, and investigated. My reasoning Exit polling data from four major battleground states showed significant deviations from the final result, in the opposite direction. In North Carolina, EXPs said HRC would win by 2 , she lost by 3.8 In Wisconsin, EXPs said HRC would win by 3.9 , she lost it by 0.9 In Pennsylvania, EXPs said HRC would win by 4.4 , she lost by 1.1 In Florida, EXPs said HRC would win by 1.4 , she lost by 1.3 Exit polls have historically been considerably more reliable than pre election polls, so much more that they have been rock solid predictors, within the margin of error. All of these swings fall well outside the margin of error, and should be cause for concern. But this isn't just the opinion of someone who supports HRC, this kind of error is also considered serious by a non partisan electoral quality office, specifically the US Agency for international development. In their publication Assessing and Verifying Election Results it states \u201c exit polls are powerful analytical tools\u2026 discrepancy between the votes reported by voters and official results may suggest that results have been manipulated, but it does not prove this to be the case.\u201d While this discrepancy certainly does not prove it to be the case that the election was manipulated in some way, the case should at the very least be taken seriously, and investigated. My view will be changed if Sufficient examples of the flaws in exit polling can be shown as to suggest why the USAID guidelines are flawed, or you can demonstrate that election fraud of this kind is so impossible that any claim of it should not be taken seriously, regardless of the evidence.","conclusion":"The possibility that the election was rigged against HRC should be seriously considered and investigated."}
{"id":"d39077e3-fd1a-413b-aa99-f27724123e74","argument":"In 2014, before Trump announced his candidacy, a Gallup poll found that 22 percent of Republicans said that Russia was either an \u201cally\u201d or \u201cfriendly, but not an ally.\u201d When they were asked again in 2018, the share of Republicans who said the same increased by 40 percent.","conclusion":"Trump has radically changed America's relationship with Putin-era Russia."}
{"id":"83786dd1-7cec-4251-aa09-63f7b0e81a1f","argument":"If there is an omniscient, omnibenevolent God, any decisions said God made would by its nature be the best moral response in any given situation.","conclusion":"Moral values are rooted in the nature and character of divine beings. Their standards do not depend on human standards."}
{"id":"1ade1cd5-3f3a-4d74-8e8b-ec152171d6f6","argument":"As a university student I have seen many claim that their education should be free. They claim it would allow those too poor to otherwise afford an education to go to university, and that it would help the stereotypical impoverished student. After thinking on this for a while, I have concluded the opposite to be true. I believe that higher education should not be subsidized at all purely because it actually widens the gap between the haves and the have nots. Statistically speaking, people with wealthier parents go to university. On average, those that graduate university also go out to make more money than their none degree having counterpart. Therefore, subsidies on higher education actually are essentially a regressive subsidy that disproportionately assists either the wealthy or people who are more likely to be wealthy in the future. It increases the wealth of someone who is likely to be better off than the majority already, or increases their parents wealth if they are lucky enough to be born into a family wealthy enough to pay their education costs for them. The money spent to subsidize higher education should instead be spent on the public education system so that those that cannot afford a private education are competing on a more even playing field for the limited number of university spots. A much better system would be a system akin to the HECS system we have in Australia, where you take out a loan from the government to be docked from your pay once it reaches a certain point until the debt is fully payed off. This way, everyone can go to university that meets the admission requirements and will not encounter any financial cost of going to university until they are capable of dealing with it. I seem to be at odds in this view with a large portion of my peers so please","conclusion":"Higher education should not be subsidized at all as doing so harms the lower classes that they claim to assist."}
{"id":"30f94579-5cfd-471d-998f-5c54e580e80c","argument":"This post does involve personal experience on the subject, but I am not going to go off on a soapbox. While this subject does hit home for me, I am more than willing to keep an open mind on the subject to see all of your thoughts on the matter. I've struggled with anxiety and depression most of my life 25 year old male but have gotten a lot better. This will not be a pessimistic rant. I've found that while things have gotten much better, my point of view on this subject has not changed. I'm going to break my point of view up into 3 different parts and relate them to the dating world male perspective, social phobia shyness, and looks 1 Male perspective For whatever reason, we know that guys are expected to approach girls. It isn't always this way there are exceptions, of course. Sometimes a guy gets approached by a girl. It's pretty rare for that to happen. In general whether it be social norms, the fact that from an evolutionary standpoint females don't have to approach a mate, or whatever other reason you want to cite, males are generally expected to do the courting in relationships. At least at first. 2 Social Phobia Shyness Social Phobia can be beaten. Well, to a certain extent. Most people, if not all, who have some kind of severe shyness I'll just call it shyness from here on out but really I am referring to any kind of shyness that is above whatever you want to deem as the 'average' are introverts. So while they can take steps to work on their irrational fears and behaviors associated with avoiding situations, they will still be introverts. What I am implying is that even if they get help for their issues be it through sheer force of will or therapist, they will only get better to the point where they are able to function. The purpose of treatment for issues with shyness is not to 'cure' anxiety, but rather it is to make it so that the person is able to function. So in a sense it can be 'beaten' by the victim coming to terms with the kind of person they are. Issues with shyness usually stem from some kind of resistance to uncomfortable feelings. An introvert is an introvert and as a result socializing is not their forte or something they will generally do even if they were not afraid of those situations. Generally people who are shy think they would enjoy parties big social gatherings but I believe this comes from feelings of loneliness. I have taken part in several group experiences that involve people with shyness issues so this is not just my own experience here and every single one of them is an introvert. 3 Looks Personality matters a lot in a relationship. That being said, in my opinion, at the beginning of a relationship looks matter a lot more. For the first few dates a couple is really getting to know each other, and while being genuine, down to earth, honest, friendly, humble, etc are good qualities to have, everyone has their demons. That is to say, everyone hides their crazy. I don't want to say that it is entirely 'phony', but people do put on shows. It makes sense, right? I mean, you like this person presumably and you want them to like you back so you put in a little extra effort or make yourself seem better in some ways than you might normally be. My point is that initially, looks matter a lot. When you look at someone, you immediately know if you find them attractive or not from a purely physical standpoint, I mean. There is some wiggle room when it comes to ratings, I will admit. I've often found girls that people say are 5 10, or something, are much more attractive to me. That being said, I do think that there are still general standards of beauty. As a result, I sort of consider someone's attractiveness to be something like a normally distributed curve, with their average purely physical attractiveness rating as the mean i.e, someone who is usually rated a '4' by people will be seen as a 3 5 by 68 of the population, a 2 6 by 95 of the population, a 1 7 by 99.7 of the population, etc . Most unattractive people get seen as unattractive most of the time. Not everyone finds them unattractive, but the average will. Just want to add here that I do think it's possible for unattractive people to be in happy relationships, have a good love life, the whole nine yards, etc So putting all 3 together, when you have someone who is male expected to initiate conversations , above average shyness introvert some kind of issue with initiating conversations combined with average or below average looks dismissed by the average person as unattractive best case scenario they are going to have to fight a steep uphill battle to find love. Worst case scenario is they never end up in a long term relationship. I know this is getting kind of long and by now I'm sure you've gotten the point. I could go into more depth on these views for issues like confidence and how I believe that relates to attractiveness and my points of view onto why I believe a lot of techniques for dealing with shyness as that is the big barrier here are not effective when it comes to interacting with women, but I won't go into detail unless they are mentioned here. Thanks for reading. If you see this get edited it'll be for any spelling grammar mistakes I find. Please .","conclusion":"Males who have social phobia\/some kind of more than average shyness and who are average looking\/slightly less than average looking will likely be alone forever."}
{"id":"01ac4e77-59ff-4188-9fbd-8c2a0c4e8048","argument":"The Israeli occupation imposes restrictions on Palestinians obtaining passports, preventing them from travelling freely. A lifting of the occupation would allow the Palestinian people to issue their own passports, allowing for easier travel around the world.","conclusion":"Israeli occupation leads to significant harms for the Palestinian people."}
{"id":"fc640735-e3c2-43ec-bdd1-12d09c12ad15","argument":"The government can tax any form of transaction, thus effectively rendering convenient trades inconvenient. For example, you would pay some price and the seller would be willing to sell you their stuff for that price, but neither of you could do the trade because the tax from the transaction would raise the price to a level that one of you would be unwilling to accept, thus effectively preventing you from performing the transaction.","conclusion":"Actually it is government that is prohibiting certain types of cooperation, jobs and trades."}
{"id":"1d8f6ae4-c60a-4b60-8967-d7eca22ec4df","argument":"To address some points up front 1 Was the appropriate response to remove him from the show? I don\u2019t know, this is not a democracy, the people in charge of the show decide that. 2 Isn\u2019t the show full of negative stereotypes? Yes, most of which are not racist, even if they are derogatory or prejudicial. But Apu\u2019s depiction relies on perceived racial characteristics being depicted negatively, a form of racism. 3 The show shows white people in a negative like, look at Cletus. The show shows white people of various cultures having flaws sometimes associated with their culture or heritage and sometimes just individual flaws. Apu\u2019s flaws are often but not always a result of his heritage and no effort is taken to depict a diversity of Indian people. Even if all white people were depicted as uptight evil racists unable to dance, that doesn\u2019t change that Apu\u2019s character is still itself a racist depiction of Indian people. 4 Apu is a successful doctor and a great role model for Indians He is successful, but is still a racist stereotype, even if he has some of the good stereotypes associated with him, like being an Indian doctor. 5 it\u2019s just a cartoon That\u2019s not a free pass from criticism.","conclusion":"Apu from The Simpson\u2019s is a racist stereotype"}
{"id":"99a220e7-4884-400c-b6e5-ee8599b9948b","argument":"This links to slavery, currently it is estimated that there are 40 million slaves in the world. Those who are slave masters will continue to enslave innocent people for eternity.","conclusion":"People being tortured couldn't end their suffering, which means they'll be tortured for eternity."}
{"id":"eeba05e0-5eca-432a-8852-9ad2fecfbb29","argument":"The thing which makes Lightbringer magical is what it was tempered in. If Jon uses his sword to kill Euron the water, Cersei the lion and then Daenerys his wife he would be able turn his sword into a new version of Lightbringer.","conclusion":"Jon Snow is an experienced swordsman and already wields a special weapon that could be interpreted as or could become Lightbringer"}
{"id":"aab3ce24-a27f-41a8-af08-8661b74be476","argument":"Prior to about 1 or 2 years ago, I was of the opinion that all Trans people are mentally ill, due to the fact that they tend to have gender dysphoria. However, I've found a few points of reason that make me lean towards believing that Trans people aren't mentally ill, however I'm still not convinced of one or the either. Still, this culminated in a post on a gaming Facebook group where I learned a lot just reading journal article after journal article so I could source them. Below will be mostly a copy paste from this post. I fear that I've delved too deep into bias, so I would be interested in seeing where my arguments here were fallible, as nobody in the Facebook group could do so. x200B To begin, it's important to point out that many studies have found structural differences in the brains of biological males and females. These develop several months after the gonads develop when the SRY Gene becomes active on the Y Chromosome and inhibits the gonads from developing into ovaries. This serves as the basis as to why so many claim sex and gender have to be separated. Any abnormality in the development of the brain after gonad development can be traced back to this window of time. This makes sense considering only 0.6 of people are transgendered to begin with. As a note of opinion, the whole trans movement is about accepting trans people for who they are in much the same way you wouldn't shame a physically disabled person. Sources Brain difference between sexes Brain development vs Gonad development Study on Sex vs Gender x200B Regarding claims that Transgenderedness is a mental disorder, that's not entirely true, at least it would seem. The WHO took away that classification, not to mention the DSMV only classifying Gender Dysphoria. Gender Dysphoria is the feeling of depression or anxiety that comes from not being the gender your brain most feels comfortable as, at least by DSMV definitions in a nutshell. Those that transition are typically relieved of Gender Dysphoria, according to many psychologists and clinical psychiatrists. It might be important to also not that you won't be suicidal as a trans person without Gender Dysphoria, unless you're subject to normal depression and anxiety. It would be commonly believed that those that are Trans and commit suicide are experiencing Gender Dysphoria uncured or abuse from an external factor. Sources x200B The third thing I'd like to bring up is that there's multiple upon multiple papers showing how the brains of trans women XY genetically are much more like normal female brains, and vice versa. No paper says that the brains are entirely like the other, however, which actually only strengthens the idea that something we don't fully understand yet is occurring between the development of sex and gender. If I had to take an educated guess, there are many factors that determine sex and gender other than Testosterone and the SRY Gene, and a change in one of these genes possibly by a crossover event between the X and Y gene might create an incomplete non 1 1 sex and gender relationship. Also regarding genetics, something I learned that's new to me the more I read is that there's plenty of evidence that this incongruity is passed down generations, strengthening my hypothesis. A trans person is likely to have a trans biological relative a little like the genetic patterns found for gay people. There's even evidence for a specific gene being involved, CYP17, though it's only found to be valid for female to male and not male to female so it's no smoking gun. However, that still furthers my multiple factors hypothesis I suppose. Sources Brain similarities of Trans people and felt gender Notice how this is a paper from 1995 calling it Trans sex, which is different from Transgender as we define today. A testament to how new all this is and how neuroscience is still evolving. We, after all, don't know much about a LOT of things Further brain similarities study Further brain similarities study Genetic link of Transgenderedness implied by Transgenderedness in family trees Polymorphism of CYP17 gene","conclusion":"Being Trans is not inherently mental illness"}
{"id":"12af7a18-8495-419b-bae0-aa3c1c271c60","argument":"So of course I have to start with the obligatory I'm not defending pedos . I'm not. So everyone remembers To Catch a Predator with Chris Hansen. It was a television program dedicated to finding and basically, putting child predators on blast on national television. The show was very popular throughout the mid to late 00s. There is a YouTube channel devoted to the same subject matter called Pop Squad. I've been binge watching lately, and was a avid tcap viewer. So my thoughts are, at the end of the day, let's call this what it is exploitation. It's all about watching someone's lives get ruined right before our eyes, and bonus it's about a subject that is pretty much the go to thing to find reprehensible in most of the western world. Catching child predators in a sting honorable. Catching child predators in a sting set up for the purpose of entertaining the masses hm. Police do many, many stings of the same nature, and we don't hear about it. The men caught are severely punished just like their caught on national tv counterparts. I think these nationally broadcast stings often do more harm than good heaven for a defense attorney. But even aside from that, is it right? I don't think so. The guys lives are ruined regardless, the only difference is with tcap and others, their lives are being ruined for our entertainment. That being said, I still enjoy watching, and always will, but let's call a spade and spade, here.","conclusion":"I think it's morally questionable to exploit guys on shows like To Catch a Predator and others."}
{"id":"849e3d69-476e-4df8-849d-ed70656ca6d7","argument":"There is a growing trend of younger children becoming more and more obsessed with playing video games.","conclusion":"Many players are minors that are not mature enough to distinguish between fiction and history."}
{"id":"c093cccf-72ff-43d9-9aa8-1e8908e2d5da","argument":"I've seen countless posts on this today, I don't think anything will work BESIDES MENTAL HEALTH CARE. To me that seems like the only obvious solution that won't have massive backlash or be ineffective. But with our current healthcare climate I don't think this will happen anytime soon. Confiscate all guns AR15 style weapons criminals will still have them, civilians won't willingly give them up, there would be riots and civil war. Register them all Again, criminals aren't going to register them. Probably massive uncompliance similar to NY and CA from civilians. Out of 300 million guns I highly doubt this would be effective. More background checks Many of the mass shooters don't have criminal records, so I don't believe this would be very effective. Let alone, anyone hell bent on killing as many people as possible will buy them on the black market, steal them, etc. for the record I do agree we should have background checks . Ban certain types of guns This infringes on the 2nd amendment right, and again, probably massive uncompliance from AR15 style owners, and the criminals will still have them in circulation. Gun buyback No gun owner I know is a fan of this, and unless they are paying up to 5000 gun I'm doubting people will even find it worth their time.","conclusion":"There is almost nothing reasonable the USA can do to minimize mass shootings"}
{"id":"762cc53d-0fc1-4751-8cc4-0697ea09d5c0","argument":"IVF has demonstrated that the fertilised egg is a human being that is capable of living independent of its parents. It is merely in need of nutrition and a gestational carrier.","conclusion":"This just asserts a fetus is a potential life. By all means, a fetus is already a human life unless evidence of the contrary is provided."}
{"id":"746dc054-dafc-4233-bcd7-51a885530fb8","argument":"Extreme forms of love thy neighbor for example are not dangerous taken to any extreme conviction. It is other flawed beliefs that create the danger. Such as the belief that people who disagree should be made to agree or be killed.","conclusion":"Extremism is not a problem unless the fundamental beliefs are themselves flawed. A harmless belief taken to extremes is still harmless."}
{"id":"ca6bf861-20c7-4bba-b172-0ed9f2168e05","argument":"I'll put this at the top I would love to have children. I can't help but feel that it is selfish to bring a child into a world where there are going to be so many problems in the near future, particularly with the environment. To name a few that concern me most, there is climate change, overpopulation, and diminishing resources. Children do not choose to be born, and I feel like although it would make me happy to have children, it would not be fair for them because they will have to live with the world that my generation created.","conclusion":"I believe that it is selfish to have children when one considers what is in store for the world."}
{"id":"bdea1c9b-2b83-49b8-a18c-4b045e4d6861","argument":"By reducing ethics to behavioral inducements, the system devalues the ethicality of all actions, regardless of their objective desirability. Source","conclusion":"Incentivising moral behavior reduces ethics to the category of compliance."}
{"id":"870828aa-0cd3-4a23-807f-5e71b36ffef7","argument":"By trying to force the issue, The Last Jedi hurt the overall experience. It was too obvious which made this agenda being featured so heavily, distracting. Star Wars had always been beyond such earthly social topics.","conclusion":"Having gender equality in a film does not necessarily make that film good."}
{"id":"8803b542-b74a-42a4-907b-41e816c2a53a","argument":"It is possible that a child touches a surface other than the nut free table which could result in an allergic reaction.","conclusion":"Nut free tables in the cafeteria alone do not keep children with airborne allergies safe."}
{"id":"b3f3a96e-1cd8-4357-8d89-2c33b84911e2","argument":"I think people lie because they are afraid of the consequences of telling the truth. I believe if there were no consequences there would be no reason to lie and people wouldn't.","conclusion":"I believe if there were no consequences for telling the truth, people would never lie"}
{"id":"0ce9b3f8-5049-4639-8569-c2c6ae9db435","argument":"I think of a soul like I think of a beautiful picture on a computer screen. The beautiful picture exists as its own thing made of concepts, impressions, emotions, etc. It's not made of pixels, silicon, electricity, computer code, or anything physical. After all, you could display it on a different computer it would persist, though it was no longer generated by any of the same physical components as before. You could even print it out, though the medium method of existence had changed entirely, the essence of the picture remains but at the same time, there could be no picture without a medium to carry it. I think of our souls in the same way. It's an emergent, non physical thing that is made of essential characteristics rather than neurons, electricity, or chemicals but without those neurons, electricity, or chemicals to act as a medium, or without another equally suitable physical medium to house the soul, there is no soul at all.","conclusion":"The \"Soul\" is real & non-physical, but it isn't supernatural or independent of our biology."}
{"id":"2137941d-642e-44ed-a042-7275700b7d7f","argument":"I don't believe swimming lessons are important for the majority of people. If somebody does not know how to swim, there is almost no scenario where they have a good reason for being in a body of water deeper than a bathtub to begin with. It would be extremely stupid to go to a waterpark or ride in a canoe without knowing how to swim, and if your cruise ship were to sink in the middle of the ocean then knowing how to swim wouldn't save you anyway. Often it seems stories of people drowning happen because they were overconfident in their swimming abilities if they did not know how to swim to begin with, they would not have got themselves into the situation that caused them to drown.","conclusion":"Swimming lessons don't save lives."}
{"id":"7698aea8-b0ff-4324-b910-36f1a88ef97f","argument":"A physical neural net simulates experience. This representation is consciousness. The evolving map, guided by sensory input, including memory of past sensory input, is our real experience.","conclusion":"Mind-Body Problem How could the physical material interact with the non-physical material?"}
{"id":"231a457d-4ec0-43d9-84e9-e64c805f3e58","argument":"In many jurisdictions, defendants who want to argue self-defence are required to prove that they feared for their life and that the average person would have acted the same way. Simply believing they acted in self-defence is insufficient.","conclusion":"Simply believing that one is justified in committing a morally reprehensible action does not excuse such actions, exempt individuals from retaliation or alleviate associated punishments."}
{"id":"9a2acb06-5fb7-4cb7-85eb-749f64113c35","argument":"If we support freedom - any business owner should be able to deny the service to any client. Running a business is not an obligation. BUT it should apply to everyone. So if someone doesn't want to bake a cake for a gay wedding, they should be allowed to do so!","conclusion":"Administration officials should be subject to the same faith or conscience-based denial of service that the administration itself supports."}
{"id":"a3e3474c-d148-4ecb-afa1-5af512079083","argument":"hi. just pointing you to two links that I found curious, maybe they fit in here somewhere: www.theatlantic.com autismawarenesscentre.com I would normally would post them in chat, but I need writer rights, so if you consider them interesting, just do so, just wanted to help :","conclusion":"Undergoing sex reassignment surgery constitutes the most effective and ethical method for transgender individuals to achieve self-acceptance and lasting happiness."}
{"id":"e9f8eeef-d506-4172-848a-1fd8dcdb0691","argument":"Self-defense against physical aggression, even if such aggression is committed in the name of law, is a natural human right.","conclusion":"Civilians should have the right to physically resist the police for performing an unlawful arrest, search, or seizure."}
{"id":"afd7ef7a-96e2-463a-ab15-c9bb99bb3b8c","argument":"I can concede that media has SOME effect on women's body image. But as stated in the title, putting so much focus on that one cause implies one believes that women are idiots and can't think for themselves side note I believe it also implies the same about men. Yes, men might fantasize about Megan Fox but most know that fantasy is different from reality and most don't really expect most women to look like that, simply from looking around at the women they meet. For example, I'm pretty sure even girls know that real people don't look like Barbies unless maybe they've been locked away in isolation and are only seeing those dolls. I never met one girl or woman who honestly believed that women ever look like Barbie dolls. I have never met a man who actually expects women to look like toys. Another example yes women see celebrities being super skinny and beautiful etc. but again if they have ever been in public they know that the majority of women don't look like them. That's much of why they are celebrities. Furthermore, women that are not celebrities still are considered sexy and cute all the time, and many women, even if not the most attractive woman in the world still receives interest from men. Usually this is not limited to one man. Otherwise no one would have relationships. Third example Who honestly believes movies actually reflect real life? They are there to make money so of course they will dramatize what they can to get attention. Similarly, of course they would make the woman in the movies hot and perfect ? The movies, and media in general, reflect society's ideals, not create them. If really fat people were suddenly to be considered incredibly sexy by society then movies would start using really fat people as the hot love interest. I believe that blaming the media to the extent they are blamed implies that women have no critical thinking skills, are too stupid to see that Real women don't actually look like that, and that women are desired often even when they don't look like the stars or Barbies etc. How else would any woman have relationships at all? Furthermore, it would be more useful to focus on what I believe to be the real problem normal, everyday women and sometimes men , perpetrating society's value on skinniness and the importance of appearance. Again, media reflects society, I believe, not creates it. The real issue and what should be focused on rather than media are the mothers and girl friends who encourage dieting in other women and girls, make appearance so important, and criticize their appearances. Also part of the problem are of course the everyday men who might do this or similar things too. Basically, I don't believe media is the problem in regards to body image. I think it is the normal everyday people who are the real problem. Anyone who puts the emphasis on media is stating as well that women and men are stupid. can you change my view?","conclusion":"I think putting so much emphasis on how media affects women's body images implies that the one focusing excessively on that cause believes women are stupid."}
{"id":"0037fe87-47af-4425-bb7d-2bddb466e023","argument":"I realise it's not politically popular but I think corporation tax creates perverse incentives and adds an additional layer of unnecessary administrative costs. My main objections to corporation tax are the following The tax burden is falling in the wrong place. We want companies to invest their profits back into the business and not take them out so if anything, we should be increasing taxes on capital gains and dividends Corporation tax, particularly when it is high effectively acts as a subsidy for lawyers and accountants who dream up creative ways to get around the system gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Corporation tax should be abolished"}
{"id":"bd065a91-0b8d-4682-b340-3edf7a878a40","argument":"THIS IS A POST MADE IN THE SPIRIT OF , I AM NOT ANTI VACCINE, NO NEED TO GET ANGRY WITH ME I'M NOT A MORON I HOWEVER HAVE HEARD SOME OF THE ARGUMENTS OF ANTI VAXXERS, AND WOULD LIKE AN ELEGANT COUNTERARGUMENT TO THE ANTI VAX MOVEMENT AS I AM NOT A DOCTOR. Here's a summary of anti vaccine arguments I heard from a teacher at my school many years ago 1 Vaccination is a 100 year old technology based off of outdated ideas and modern medicine focuses too much on the symptoms of disease and not the underlying cause 2 Most vaccines work by injecting dead or mutated versions of a disease to train the body to fight them, and sometimes contain mercury or preservatives. This cocktail can either spread the disease, fail to prepare the subject for the newly evolved version of the disease, or the mercury and preservatives cause retardation. Here's what I've heard from the Pro Vax faction in recent times 1 The Hurr Durr facts, countries with lots of Polio vaccinations don't have Polio, countries that refuse to use the Polio vaccine have a ton of Polio. Smallpox is extinct, Rubella and the other one I forgot are also gone. Even though I have no medical degree to me it would seem vaccines are a good idea 2 the Anti Vax arguments are based off the study by precisely one guy who has had his medical license revoked or something like this. This may be an ugly comparison but Galileo was told not to publish anything anymore and put under house arrest for suggesting the veracity of a heliocentric universe and he himself faced a ton of disagreement by 'official scientists.' Of course Europe's governments had theocratic leanings at the time and it was 500 years ago. My view Seems like vaccines work, but the idea that they contain mercury and preservatives seems like it is a concern. Obviously that herbalistic nuveau hippy or fundie shit is a death sentence rather than an alternative","conclusion":"The Pro and Anti Vax debate is overly passionate and divisive. The dismissiveness of Pro-Vaxxers is encouraging the Anti-Vaxxers' conspiratorial beliefs, and they would be better addressed with point-by-point arguments rather than being called idiots and murderers...even if they are"}
{"id":"7f70d11d-98cd-4892-921e-967301ab0001","argument":"In classical Greek philosophy humans are described as social or political animals, with an innate propensity to develop more complex communities the size of a city or town, with a division of labor and law-making. Humans need these communities to develop their full potential","conclusion":"Human life has a higher value because humans need and depend on each other, socially and economically."}
{"id":"0a260f1e-fd67-44ad-abc9-f957434286dc","argument":"Instead of changing to renewable energy, lessening the automobiles's and industry's greenhouse gases will be more beneficial.","conclusion":"Pushing for 100% renewable energy is not the best way to combat climate change."}
{"id":"778c447c-2b69-4556-b610-219643213cea","argument":"Political correctness only shuts down speech which insults, marginalises, or exludes people without a valid reason, which is a type of hate speech, an Ad Hominem logical fallacy, and often a sweeping generalisation and therefore should not be in an argument. Therefore, if they cannot argue without using hate speech, they have nothing real to argue. If they can argue without hate speech, political correctness will not shut them down.","conclusion":"An inhospitable environment to entirely free speech and free will is not necessarily detrimental to society."}
{"id":"bc6ddc11-0c22-4f98-8258-d81950b7780d","argument":"I believe bestiality ought to be legalized as here are no good arguments against it They say love between organisms of same intelligence level is what's morally correct, excuse me but , that's the stupidest most arbitrary definition I've seen to justify the moral response of ewww How about the simple definition of love between anything that consents. This is not arbitrary because I can justify it saying no harm comes to any party involved. This is a good definition without that arbitrary' intelligence clause' One of the implications of this definition is that bestiality is fine. And it is fine, skewing definition of love to whatever suits your moral taste is equivalent to the homophobes' 'sex is only moral between a man and a woman'. Ie tantamount to irrational bigotry You say animals cannot consent? I laugh and your argument, as any zoophile knows having sex with an animal that doesn't consent in damn near impossible unless you have a thing for scratches and pain. To add to this, one doesn't need to go far in this Internet age to discover that in the case of zoophilia too, the animal is pretty damn into it. I am not a zoophile though, but this logical inconsistency has always rubbed me the wrong way. If someone can show me that bestiality is morally wrong while homosexuality is not, I welcome their argument ADDENDUM What if you were fucked by a horse with your consent ? EDIT COMMON ARGUMENT 1 Animals cannot report rape so best be to not take the chance at all . Response Neither can animals report any other crime , I expect animal rape to be treated just like animal cruelty is treated today . COMMON ARGUMENT 2 What about pedophilia ? Response pedophilia is immoral because the child's ability to make rational decisions is transferred to the parents . This is because children are not free beings as their are subjugated under their parents by necessity and nature . Extension 1 of argument 2 case of consent of mentally ill and those not incapable of giving consent I attempt to make the argument that in the case of the mentally ill, responsibity of decision making has been transferred to the care giver and thus utilizing this responsibility for personal gain is immoral. In the case of animals, it is groomed to be faithful to the human in all circumstances, that is it's function only for pets which is not the function of a free human. Extending this logic, using animals to guard your door, by means of the trust bestowed upon you as it's caretaker is immoral as it is done for personal again . This was brought up in a comment below and a strong argument against this would be to differentiate between using an animal to your advantage say, by guarding a door and using your animal to your advantage by having sex. Both in this case I assume to be consensual. Extention 2 of arguments 2 It is brought up in the comments that animals are madd to do all sorts of things they do not consent to eg, sniffing hazardous material, being tied down and confined to small spaces, being brought and sold as property. Standard of consent is different but yet is applied unfairly to rationalize prejudice.","conclusion":": bestiality should be legalized"}
{"id":"07b9b862-6bdc-4a2e-a429-8ea1be84d22f","argument":"Most currencies are controlled by appointed, unelected central bankers. The ECB is no less democratic than these central banks.","conclusion":"The board of European Central Bank ECB are elected in a democratic fashion."}
{"id":"d48cc087-f3ec-4088-a8e2-47a98f0c8de8","argument":"The whole world is a dog eat dog society. Everything is divided we are split into countries, states, cites, ethnicity and race. We have all been fighting wars for countless centuries over the same issues. Power is more often than not distributed into the wrong hands ie corrupt powers. But what if everything was evenly distributed throughout the whole world? I think that a global community with the right intentions by and for the people is the most progressive thing we could do as a society. I believe that a lot of trivial issues that we have today would ceased to exist if we all are working together for a common goal. According to World Hunger Enough food is currently being produced to give over 2700 calories to EVERYONE. EVERYDAY. Imagine ridding world hunger for millions of people because we can actually agree on something that we all know should be eradicated. Wars would end, and we would begin focusing on things that are more progressive and prolonging for humanity. I think that we are leading up to a one world government, and in with the right intentions and acceptance I believe that is this is the new route for humanity. Not to mention everything we have ever known, anyone that was ever born has been on this damned rock we call Earth. We may as well get along. .","conclusion":"I don't think that a \"One World Government\" is necessarily a bad thing"}
{"id":"3f00932b-1dab-430e-b345-72c5f434cb1f","argument":"Some say OOP requires all SOLID principles, some have over 10 principles, while others list only abstraction, encapsulation, inheritance, and polymorphism as requirements. Generally, OOP requires certain constraints are not broken in terms of cross-class dependencies and other separations of concerns. Flow-oriented and service-oriented architectures handle similar concerns, but tend to break OOP paradigms.","conclusion":"Object-orientation is just one among many possible ways of thinking about code. It is important but not fundamental."}
{"id":"63fd2368-9766-4e32-9de1-a0efba2d2db9","argument":"The EU has built up the largest collection of independent testing of GM crops. It has been ongoing since the 90s and is all available online. The EU allows all member states to produce and consume GM crops as they see fit. They found no specific concerns with GM crops.","conclusion":"There is no real evidence of the harms of GMOs, the principle behind which is not too different from that used in other conventional practices."}
{"id":"c328d8fc-c544-4537-91c5-ce6c580b9893","argument":"Yang is nothing more than a hypocritical egomaniac. In a recent video he goes on about how's he so much better than Trump at everything, how Trump is a far slob and eats too much. I'm not saying Yang's wrong, but it reveals his true character. Dude has an ego problem, plain and simple. I mean he goes around thinking he's the only who can save America for Christ's sake. Not to mention the hypocricy. Calling out reality TV and rehearsed attack lines, then doing the same thing like a week later. I know some people will say it was just a joke, but Yang gave no indication it was. I've seen a lot of Yang interviews, his tone changes when he's making a joke. Not here though, he's dead serious. Hopefully someone can change my view, otherwise I'm off the Yang train. Source .","conclusion":"Andrew Yang is a hypocritical egomaniac"}
{"id":"05919419-4c17-4489-8ac7-e27f2adada89","argument":"Thunberg campaign is designed to instill fear. As she herself has said: \". I want you to panic, I want you to feel the fear I feel every day.\u201d","conclusion":"Thunberg's emotional approach is not productive: it fuels worries, fears and leads to hasty and thoughtless decisions."}
{"id":"d016fff0-be6c-4830-9ca2-9a9c0b0e10cf","argument":"I live in a wealthy european country and the trend, that bothers me, has been on the rise for some years now more and more people are buying there music on vinyl again. You know, those black discs that your grandparents have a lot of. Some of those people admit that they only do this because they consider it cool to own those records. I don't think it's smart to buy your music on expensive, impractical discs just to impress people, but hey, it's your money, i guess. But then there are those who really make me mad, and sadly, there are a lot of them they claim, that record discs are superior to any digital music storage and that they sound better. What bothers me with this is, that it is wrong and that's a fact. Digital music storage is superior to analog music storage in any way you can imagine It doesn't need that much space, it doesn't weigh a lot, it is more resistant against damage or attrition, it's cheaper, it's more environmentally friendly and most importantly it can storage more music, storage the music wirh more precision, play the music better and doesn't distort it. My problem with the people who are trying to discuss and argue about that ist, that those are facts. You can look it all up.and I don't want to make a giant leap here, but I believe that this is the same problem that also occurs in political duscussions people don't rely on facts anymore and discuss feelings instead but I have a really bad feeling about those immigrants etc. And that's why in my opinion we have to shut those people down this kind of debating should not be accepted because otherwise, it could become the standard.","conclusion":"Record discs are with no doubt inferior to digital music processing"}
{"id":"ee83c895-da6c-449a-815f-cf416914be9c","argument":"Some developers are working on smaller screens and large indentation can make it harder as part of the code might not be fully displayed in the viewport.","conclusion":"Standardization normally has clear benefits, but there are no real benefits arising from developers looking at the same indentation of code."}
{"id":"7a98e8e3-b72e-45c2-8fa7-bae6e0591fd7","argument":"Insurance contracts vital to companies' ability to manage risk, could face serious difficulty transferring between UK and EU jurisdictions.","conclusion":"A hard Brexit would result in short-term regulatory chaos."}
{"id":"d406c503-3638-4c6a-92a9-c55751939754","argument":"There is also a theoretical case of self-cannibalism eating one's own body parts. Following the idea of self-ownership of the body, this should be considered completely ethical if done voluntarily.","conclusion":"If a person consents to or asks to be eaten, it should be permissible to act on this."}
{"id":"5eef329b-ef67-44d3-bab2-c6b3a7e8a113","argument":"The history of scientific thought is full of ideas which have been proven incorrect. It is possible that our current understanding of how molecules function is inadequate.","conclusion":"Just because modern science cannot explain the mechanisms by which homeopathy works does not mean they do not exist."}
{"id":"430b27b4-42b9-44ce-99c2-8d8cfcdc0c67","argument":"Pit bulls are not born aggressive nor are they aggressive dogs by nature. The ASPCA states that it is almost impossible to point to any one specific influence that accounts for a dog becoming aggressive. Various factors such as its environment, housing conditions, social interaction, and stress factors all influence behavioral traits in dogs. No one dog is going to behave exactly the same\u2026no matter what breed it is. Unfortunately, the pit bull breed often becomes more prone to developing aggressive tendencies due to the way some owners raise them and treat them, especially the ones who were brought up into dog fighting. In a 2013 statement, former president Barrack Obama said, \u201c w e don\u2019t support breed specific legislation\u2014research shows that bans on certain types of dogs are largely ineffective and often a waste of public resources. And the simple fact is that dogs of any breed can become dangerous when they\u2019re intentionally or unintentionally raised to be aggressive.\u201d Because of this negative stigma associated with pit bulls, though, many people assume that they are unsafe for them or their children to be around. This is sad for me to hear, because I have a pit bull and he is the most gentle and loving dog to my one year old son and to everyone for that matter. All dogs should be treated like individuals. With proper care, social interaction, and a positive environment, we can all continue to share a happy and safe life together.","conclusion":"Cmv: specific dog breeds are not born aggressive"}
{"id":"a352c0a4-54e5-40aa-a2b2-96bd0f27e483","argument":"In 2010, a British woman was arrested and sentenced to life in prison for attempting to murder a prominent legislator after she had watched dozens of hours of Anwar al-Awlaki's radical sermons on YouTube and was inspired to take up al-Qaeda's cause.","conclusion":"Terrorist organizations have used social media as a way of convincing followers to carry out attacks in their name."}
{"id":"1ef59b42-dcf0-42d4-86a1-1645856ebe38","argument":"I\u2019m a millennial and I just watched A New Hope last year as I was out of the loop when it comes to most pop culture references about the Star Wars series and most people consider them as the best movies ever made. I found it to be very boring and painful to watch. Nothing exciting happens at any point. Mind you, I\u2019m not talking about the graphics as I understand that they\u2019re apt at the time of their release. I was dumbstruck as to why so many people love those movies. It\u2019s understandable that liking a movie is subjective, but I can\u2019t think of any possible reason why people love them.","conclusion":"Star Wars movies are extremely boring and overhyped"}
{"id":"cae280eb-3fd6-4301-a96b-8b81d09ef386","argument":"For example, new footage was recently released of the Westgate mall siege in Kenya that took place in September. On the evening news, much of the footage was deemed too horrifying to broadcast. However, by refraining from broadcasting those images, the media is effectively pulling the wool over the public's eyes, allowing them to remain ignorant to many of the horrors perpetrated by the attackers. On a separate note, while refraining to show the extent of the violence that took place, the media makes sure to show the attackers praying during the attack. Surely that isn't the issue. Why is it relevant that they were praying? What seems relevant to me is that they murdered kids.","conclusion":"Through censoring violent or gruesome footage of world events shown in the media, we are sanitising our world view which leads to inaction where there would otherwise be intervention."}
{"id":"80c035e4-ba72-47e1-ba4c-ec0712125c51","argument":"First, I acknowledge that the statistics that I'm using here have different sources and come from different years. This is the best I could do to paint an accurate picture of what I'm talking about, so please be gentle with me on that front. There are roughly 3.7 million home burglaries a year, but only 1 million of those occur when the home is occupied A gun does no good for home defense unless you are at home to use it. With an American population of 325.7 million, and an average household size of 2.58 per the 2010 census, that makes for 126 million households, or a 1 in 126 chance of your home being forcibly entered while one or more members of your household is home in a given year. Only a quarter of those break ins resulted in a violent crime against the person or people who were home Meanwhile, in any given year, 18.4 million people, or 6.7 of adults and 12.8 of adolescents, experience a major depressive episode If we assume no depression at all among children under 12, that's still about a 1 in 20 chance for any given person to experience a major depressive episode in a year, or about a 1 in 40 chance that any given household contains at least one person who experiences a major depressive episode some will have more than one, others will have none . The overall suicide rate for the US is 13.42 per 100,000, or around 43,700 per year For each successful suicide, there are approximately 25 suicide attempts, or close to 1.1 million per year Guns are the preferred method, accounting for half of all successful suicides, and result in death for over 80 of suicide attempts with guns compared to success rates of under 2 for pills or cutting, for example. A gun in the house increases the risk of death by suicide by at least three times Ultimately, the 1 in 126 chance my household will experience a home invasion style burglary, while my family members are home with only a fourth of those people harmed in any way is outweighed by the 1 in 40 chance that someone in my home will have a major depressive episode. If they attempt suicide, they will be more likely to use the gun and more likely to die as a result. On a personal note, in terms of my own ability to cope with the situation, a person invading my house and killing one of my loved ones has essentially come out of nowhere and done something out of my control. I think I'd regard that similarly to having a loved one develop cancer or be struck by lightning. If, on the other hand, I brought a gun into the home, and my loved one was harmed by it, this is a thing that I personally caused to happen by bringing it into the home in the first place. I'd think that I and perhaps many others would find that a much more difficult pill to swallow in terms of guilt and remorse. Things that may change my view Reliable sources absolutely not the NRA or gun rights advocate sources, as they would be much more inclined to inflate their numbers indicating that home invasions resulting in harm to the occupants are much more common than indicated here. Reliable sources indicating that the risks for depression and suicide as I've listed them are overblown. Problems with my math leading to an incorrect perception of the risks entirely possible Pointing out additional scenarios that I've not accounted for that would make the risk of being unarmed outweigh the risks posed by having a gun in the home. Things that will not change my view Arguments for why people need guns for reasons unrelated to home safety. That's outside the scope of this . Isolated cases where the benefits outweigh the risks, such as people living on the edge of civilization who need a weapon in the home to fend off wild animals. This is not the average home. Edit this generated more discussion than I anticipated. I need to go do real life stuff, but will respond to all comments tomorrow. Thanks for your input. Edit 2 I'm countering a lot of arguments some of them fairly angry and aggressive relating to positions that I'm not actually taking here. This  is about a relatively simple question whether the average home is safer with a gun or without one. Many people responding to this seem to think that there is an implied argument that I am making beyond that, and attacking that argument. So, here are a list of things that I definitely am not saying here. I am not saying that the self defense argument is garbage, and therefore we should ban all guns . I am not saying that the self defense argument is garbage, and therefore no one should have the right to own a gun . I am not saying that the self defense argument is garbage, and therefore all people who own guns for safety reasons are wrong . I am not saying that the self defense argument is garbage, and therefore you personally are wrong for owning a gun . I am not saying that the self defense argument is garbage, and therefore getting rid of guns is the way to end all violent crime . I am not saying that the self defense argument is garbage, and therefore guns are the only factor in the social problem of depression and suicide . All I am saying is that an average American home is safer in terms of protecting the lives of the people who live there without a gun than with one. That said, I'd really appreciate it if we could make that the focus of the debate. I'm not attacking your gun rights, or the Second Amendment, or trying to solve every social ill associated with guns. Please don't try to appeal to me on any of those grounds, as that is not remotely what this  is about. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The self-defense argument is mostly garbage, in that the vast majority of US households are safer without a gun than with one."}
{"id":"28bb9908-a73d-495b-876f-5ee022635d98","argument":"The scale and complexity of the violent situation can create the same feelings of helplessness and apathy regardless of whether it is reported through images or text.","conclusion":"It is possible that individuals may become desensitised to violence no matter how it is reported, whether it be images or facts, charts, and text."}
{"id":"7549b98a-4f1f-4198-93b0-08a09dbdc59f","argument":"'Human Biodiversity' is a term used by the alt-right to describe supposed genetic differences amongst groups of humans, which has been described as 'pseudoscientific racism Having valid science use racial differences could add credence to alt-right viewpoints and therefore increase tension.","conclusion":"If the medical community takes actions which suggest that races are fundamentally different, this will validate the beliefs of white supremacists and racists."}
{"id":"03972b1f-d964-46d6-97db-aab2c578e247","argument":"It is impossible to state what actually should be the result of religion education. It is impossible to measure belief.","conclusion":"Religion as a required course causes conflicts in the classroom."}
{"id":"e6cac41a-b23e-4440-ae25-791993ef38e8","argument":"We should be very cautious when giving politicians- in particular- the power to control what is said about them. Whatever Lord Leveson suggests, chances are those decisions will need to go before parliament. The actions of the British media may frequently be distasteful and those who read the so-called \u2018quality\u2019 press may find the obsession of the tabloid press with matters that mostly seem trivial and tawdry offensive. However, the liberty that- almost incidentally- allows tabloid newspapers to produce populist pablum, enables broadsheets to maintain an excoriating and forensic oversight of the political class as a whole. The recent Parliamentary expenses scandal would be unthinkable in many countries: analysis undertaken by the press as a whole demonstrating a culture of corruption across the entire political class, not only breathtaking in its extent but also a clear mark of just how far politicians had moved from the realities of day-to-day life for people who actually pay for their own house. In this regard, journalistic license is the price of liberty.","conclusion":"All of those involved in the phone hacking cases broke laws. Existing laws. They can be prosecuted under existing frameworks and cases are already being pursued. There is no need for another set of controls"}
{"id":"cd429fb9-9090-4d64-88aa-9a1f978729a9","argument":"This idea is at once controversial and not controversial. There's not the slightest bit of controversy in science about this, but there's plenty outside of science. We sometimes like to think IQ applies only to technical subjects, or book learning, but people of high IQ tend to be better at literally every mental and emotional task. While there are exceptions, being really good at math, for example, is likely to correlate with also being at least above average in every other mental skill, too, like language, and understanding one's self and others. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"IQ is enormously important. Over 99% of all lasting human progress is achieved by people of above average IQ"}
{"id":"3eb57a68-9786-456d-a28f-a0606f407d25","argument":"In an Europe-wide democracy, citizens would no longer merely be country citizens, but would become USE citizens. This would link every person directly to European policy-making, and not only indirectly through their national government.","conclusion":"European politics in the USE would be built on merit-based debate in a deliberative democracy, instead of a mere balance of power between state interests."}
{"id":"43d43b65-f4b3-4187-9193-cc8bb9a1e61e","argument":"I think that when you look at humanity and how certain societies have peaked to the point of sending robots to mars it looks like the universe has intended for this to happen and it isn't by pure chance. I think the way the universe is designed there is an innate force that is pushing in a direction of exploration and expansion. Humans haven't stagnated at any level. We could have reached the cave man era and just stopped advancing, we just remained content living our tribalist lifestyle but something within us forces us to push the boundaries. Or we could have reached the industrial era and hit a ceiling in our advancement of technology. You know, like we realized that it's just not possible to go any further but the more we discover the more we realize how limitless our potential is. Why does this drive exist? Why do our capabilities seem endless? I think the Universe purposefully designed us this way in order to ensure, not our own survival, but to ensure we maximize the full potential of the universe. One could make the argument that the purpose of this is so the universe can experience itself through us but that's getting a little woo wooey so i won't make that argument. In short, I believe the universe has a will and that is for humans to explore it in it's entirety and to aid in the expansion of life throughout it. I don't believe that we have been given the capability to colonize other planets or make divine art for no reason. Another argument for this is the human utilization of senses. Senses of humor, theatrics, wonder, passion etc All these capabilities that add so much richness and depth the human existence but offer no real purpose to our survival. In comparison to other life forms, we are over complicated for no reason other than to experience. I would say that evolution is a driving force for this will of the universe and natural selection is a design that ensures the purpose of life continues to fulfill its destiny. Now, the universe doesn't play hard and fast and this is obvious by looking around us. The road to success is not made in a one straight, clean path it's usually fraught with mistakes, road blocks, back tracking and changes in course. And I think this is representative in nature as well. All other creatures we see are fragments of what the universe was truly aiming to create which is humans. Advanced beings that have the capability to do all the things we are doing","conclusion":"The advancement of mankind is good evidence that universe has a will"}
{"id":"949cf2dd-8416-4f45-afe7-0a4d6a8ad56b","argument":"Do you know what I just did here? I turned on a psi emitter that attracts panic historians from r technology, r worldnews, r news , r libertarian , r socialism , and r anarcho capitalism to come swarm this place with their carefully selected and dubious articles to prove to me that shit is going down, that ITS HAPPENING, things are worse than ever, and that America is swirling the toilet bowl. This will read more like a personal entry or the inner monologue of a serial killer instead of your typical  post, but bear with me I promise there is a point to it all. BEFORE YOU WRITE ANYTHING DOWN This isn't just about me having to worry, but my entire generation and everyone around my age group. I used to be, and to a certain degree still am, a product of reddit, 4chan, and the internet in general. I'm 16, but I am thankful that my cringe years are almost entirely contained to the internet. I used to browse all those subreddits as I roamed the metaphorical streets, spending a little time squaring in different extreme ideologies beliefs. Whether I was a socialist watching Chomsky's lectures, or a libertarian watching Stefan Monyleux put a gun in my mouth and don't stop until the clip is fucking empty , I was the same. I was still the same edgy internet faggot with delusions of grandeur convinced that western society will come tumbling down one way or another, and that one way or another I would be fighting on the righteous side. I eventually found myself on the reasonable side of reddit. The subs like r askhistorians, r panichistory, r enoughlibertarianspam, r badhistory, r badphilosophy, and the like. I don't feel like typing a ton more shit down, but there is a great top comment to a question on r askhistorians titled something like in America are things really worse than ever? . The post explains that the wealth inequality, imperialism, problems with economy, and violations of personal liberty and freedoms, really aren't as bad as they've been before in America, and aren't even close to as bad as they used to be. America, and the whole world really, are in better places then in the overly idealized moral 1950s, overly idealized economically libertarian 1920s, or my overly idealized communist pre history. All the problems bravery jerked about on reddit aren't as big as made out to be as show by a great post by eternalkerri on the same thread. There also isn't any illuminati, evil empire, bourgeoise, Muslim caliphate, cultural Marxist, Jews, or freemasons coming to take over the world, and no they don't have everyone duped and asleep except me and my online comrades who are intelligent and not functionally retarded and immature . Life is just a grey haze where everyone struggles to find a path and find meaning. Sure, there are problems to deal with in America, but I don't believe ill ever have a happening or collapse or world war to deal with. Edgy internet faggots, and deluded older relatives of mine, have been a awaiting an apocalypse that has yet to come for decades, I won't hold my breath. Things are fine, and if shit really ever goes down, there is not a damn thing me or you can do about it.","conclusion":"I don't have to worry about politics ever."}
{"id":"19516ad4-e963-46a2-abbe-142b64a64557","argument":"Consent to government authority in a social contract is about an agreement to abide by norms and rules that protect society, not the individual. Where this is undermined through the promotion of violence, the government has a right to restrict it.","conclusion":"Allowing these tournaments, as well as watching them, would promote violence."}
{"id":"90b82416-b8e3-4ddc-b888-ef51274b6740","argument":"People disagree on definitions all the time. It does not follow that the object being defined does not exist.","conclusion":"Disagreements about the definition of something is hardly evidence that something doesn't exist."}
{"id":"95ffc4e9-3d1c-4db1-85a9-22cb1028fed6","argument":"Historically, when a dictator is slaughtering his own people, the world is pretty slow to respond. It's not until said dictator either invades attacks another country and starts murdering their citizens or their own domestic body count gets so high that the world as a whole has to step in. Given the dynamics of the global economic landscape, many countries enjoy not having to invest in large scale fortification of their own military. They enjoy this because the US has taken that role and spends an inordinate amount of money on their military complex. Especially when you realize that the US military machine is really just a thinly veiled jobs stimulus program, it seems win win. The US has taken that role because, for the time being, the US dollar is the cornerstone of the world's economy. Getting this tag of being world police is accurate, except for the fact that there are only a handful of civilized countries that aren't more than happy to slide that bill over to the Americans. Who could blame them? As a result, the US is often expected to spearhead these actions and even, from time to time, participate in coalitions to carry out operations. That being said, when a dictator is slaughtering their own people there 4 things you simply cannot do, as agreed upon after WWII. You cannot use Chemical, Biological, Radioactive or Nuclear weapons on civilians and if you do, that's your ass. The simple fact that Assad was using an air force in non surgical strikes against civilians was already really pushing it and the only reason there has been no action yet is because Russia and China both stand to lose a great deal if money if there is a regime change. They've been extremely vocal about protecting their interests. Russia\u2019s economy counts on oil prices above 100 in order to adequately fund the budget, of which oil and gas revenue provide 50 percent of funds. Source Which is why you see such strong opposition from Russia and China. It's not because they like the slaughter of civilians, it's because they dislike it less than they hate losing money. But it seems to me like people redditors mostly are both unsurprised and unaffected by this huge breach in the rules of modern warfare. It's a very big deal that this has occurred and when Sarin gas is used, swift, collaborative action from the civilized world should be a foregone conclusion. To do so immediately in order to send a message of intolerance for breaking these very dangerous precedents is paramount Hoping to make sure there is no next time. Now, after the Vietnam war, Desert Storm, the Afghan war and the Iraq War where no WMD's were found the general consensus seem to be that war is bad and people should not do it. My question is, if the UN or the US doesn't respond, or if no one responds at all, what message does that send? How can the rest of the world sit by and watch this continue? What should we do as an alternative? I'm asking seriously. I hear a lot of people using sound bites like Mind your own damn business US or The west just wants another excuse to bomb brown people and I can't take these as serious discourse, but I'd genuinely like to know what you think if you disagree with me. I would love to be able to turn away from this with a clean conscience and believe it's someone else's problem. But I can't. We possess the capability and in order to preserve relative stability in a global economy, we have the responsibility to help as well. The line has been crossed with very little care taken to even hide it. What should we do if not respond?  edit word","conclusion":"I believe the world should respond to the use of chemical attacks in Syria. I would love it if you could"}
{"id":"dc1caaec-a57f-4cc2-b875-cd13f5611db7","argument":"Everything is on a continuum of interdependence, ranging from dependent independence to independent dependence, depending not one thing in this universe fails that test. Example starlight from a sun near the california nebula makes it speedy photonic way here, pierces the atmospheric veil and penetrates a leaf of spinach which through photosynthetic and chlorophyllic effect grows green and strong and get harvested and washed and placed in a bag of organic spinach which I buy and eat. I'm eating connected with made up of light from the stars. And an infinite number of examples like that. from traffic I can only go as quickly to work as the systems of vehicles around me will allow to pollution Chernobyl's cloud didn't just hover over the nuclear site to whatever. Everything is interdependence. But, lacking a deep vocabulary, grammar, context and subtext for that truth, societies build themselves around illusory absolutes the primacy of the group some East Asian societies or the primacy of the individual societies in the West because these social constructions fly in the face of what's knowable and measurable in our universe macro and micro, in all that measurements that matter in science across the board these societies are doomed they cannot stand, over the longer term, against universal principle. Change my mind.","conclusion":"Every single thing in this universe is interdependent with everything else...and therefore social constructions that flaunt that universal truth are doomed."}
{"id":"ddecf67f-3abb-4bb3-a576-f0ce57804d5d","argument":"Perspective I am a college student. I still see students putting objective statements stating they are looking for an internship to build their experience or contribute to the company in meaningful ways. No fucking shit, Sherlock. Why do people think you are applying? Another problem I see are people highlighting they are intellectually curious and hardworking. Stating that you have these traits means NOTHING since everyone and their mom are pretty much saying they are hard working and have the aspiration to learn. What recruiters want to see is how you can translate your work ethics, skills, and achievements through your work experience.","conclusion":"People shouldn't put an objective statement or highlight their traits on resumes."}
{"id":"5961c48a-e0fb-47c3-8c2c-f2c278e94b5f","argument":"I find that whenever I learn that someone follows a religion or believes in God, my thoughts automatically shift to pity or scorn. Pity because part of me feels that they have been brainwashed, and scorn because I imagine that they are willingly ignoring demonstrable facts to embrace a fantasy that controls their lives. I realize these two feelings are contradictory. I tried to drill down in my thought process to find the origin of my issues. I realized that I don't actually blame religion for causing war or holding back science because some other dictator or institution would have done the same thing in its absence. I even believe that religion, at one point in human history, was a necessary and vital component of social evolution that allowed people to live peacefully in large communities before better systems were invented. The social structures that were born from religion bound people together and gave them a reason to follow a moral code, and I doubt I would exist today without that. Although our brains haven't evolved much since those days when we needed religion, I think that our social systems, government, and morals have. Of course, one could argue that the rise of the nation state and patriotism is its own form of religion. We are at a point where the average person doesn't have to rely on religion as a crutch to scare themselves into behaving ethically. Now it feels like religion is too much of a liability. For the morally corrupt, it is an easy way to gain power and manipulate those who are vulnerable. Some people who believe in a certain religion hypocritically ignore the inconvenient parts that don't mesh with their world view and succeed in a field of science despite their beliefs, and others are blocked by them. Even then I ask myself, why does it matters if someone ends up being religious? Maybe it's just the result of their upbringing, and if I were in their position I would believe the exact same things. Maybe our animal brains are predisposed to believing in something greater than ourselves I'm certainly guilty of accepting the theories of scientists I have never met, even though I am equally ready to abandon those theories in the face of new evidence. But when I really thought about it, I realized that the only value metric for life that I could come up with is how close humans are to understanding and describing the universe as it objectively exists. I realize we will never actually get there, given our status as isolated brains interpreting a narrow band of signals from the outside, but it's the only meaningful reason I can come up with for us to continue to exist that explains my distaste for religion. Imagine a meter that represents all of humanity. On the left side is complete ignorance and the inability to make even an educated guess about what might happen in the future. On the other side is the fundamental truth of reality, and an equation that will accurately describe all past and future events after you input the starting parameters. I want the needle of that meter to slowly move toward the reality side. Every time I meet a religious person, I feel like that meter is inching back toward ignorance. I guess what I'm trying to say is, I think that after you factor in living life contently and not hurting others, the only human mission we have is to try to unravel the secrets of the universe. Anything that gets us closer to that is inherently good to me, and anything that puts us further away is inherently bad. Is religion really moving us further away from an objective understanding of the universe? And even if it is, does that really matter enough to justify my harsh judgments of religious people? How can I apply the respect I want to have for everyone to religion if religious people appear to be explicitly working against the only valuable thing humans are doing? gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I am very judgmental of anyone who believes in a religion."}
{"id":"66716d97-2792-4eb7-a432-3041ab2a906e","argument":"Ivanka described Trump's \u201czero tolerance\u201d immigration policy - which led to the separation of parents from their children - as a \"low point\" for the administration. Therefore, Ivanka may have written the Op-Ed in order to preserve the moral integrity of America by having Trump removed from office.","conclusion":"Ivanka's disagreement with her father's immigration policy, particularly family separation of illegal migrants, may have given Ivanka a strong incentive to have written the Op-Ed."}
{"id":"c91537b1-281a-498c-aa13-670320646a77","argument":"The various different languages of the world all come with unique and peculiar ways to understand everything around them. Adopting a universal language would strip humanity away from one of the richest diversity factors and we would, without a doubt, miss out on so many experiences tied uniquely to language.","conclusion":"A universal language would threaten linguistic and thus cultural diversity, eradicating the benefits of the latter."}
{"id":"f24543cc-90b1-48db-a2fc-89d5c0e43d3a","argument":"For some context, I am a high school student in the US, at a school that takes sports pretty seriously several state championships and such I don't do any sports at my school, I do competitive shooting and a lot of lifting outside my school but I feel my argument still applies to club sports for people sub 18 Sports for people under 18 are taken way to seriously, and many people need to reconsider what we are doing to these kids These sports take up way too much of there time for something they will be lucky to be able play these things in collage, yet alone past that. Most sports during and months prior to their season have practice 5 times a week, and often 6. And these are many hour long practices, taking up there whole evening. I hear students talk about how they can never do anything except sports and schoolwork. Then they are shamed for quitting. Speaking of taking a lot of time, it seriously effects grades. Football players are stereotyped with bad grades, but I don't think it is because they are dumb, they just have no time for anything. Homework at my school is already tough enough, there is no need to make it harder for them. It is almost impossible to join a sport just for fun . If you want to try something new which high school is all about you are expected to go to practice so much it just gets rid of the fun. Sure, there are a couple of rec leagues, but I am talking about the level of competitiveness is generally just too high. There are a ton of injuries, that often will have a permanent effect on people for the remaining 60 years of their life, over a sport that they had basically zero chance of going pro in. It seems that all the time people are getting concussions and tons of bad knees, and every once in a while, a serious injury occurs. I hate to be blunt, but the statistics show that for even the best athletes the chance of going pro is very extremely low. About one in 3 people I know want to be pro athletes, and in reality, probably none of them ever will. Expected arguments Sports build character of working hard. I agree with this, except my argument is that they are going to far with it. A lot of my friends that don't do sports often seem to have more motivation than people that do. Sports help keep kids in shape. Another thing I agree with, but that is hypocritical when literally every thing in the lunch room is full of carbs. There is also a lot of other things you can do to keep kids healthy without all of the cons above. I know that there will always be that one super competitive high school, but I think the bar should be lowered all around for kid sports.  Edit Many of you are bringing up that sports aren't the only thing that spend a lot of time after school. I used sports because it is often the most extreme case not always, I know of this, and also has the injuries to it. My opinion also applies to those activities. And shoutout to u lordpancake78 for making a very very good aregument although I am not sure that I have changed my mind.","conclusion":"Sports for kids are taken way to seriously"}
{"id":"b36a3c60-7a0c-48dc-9dd9-59eb52f2c52f","argument":"Many of the Drag Queens on 'RuPaul's Drag Race' discuss issues relating to self-confidence, which has encouraged many viewers to improve their own self-esteem.","conclusion":"Drag going mainstream provides important role models for LGBT teens."}
{"id":"1111503e-3b24-4bd8-b2dc-a6831933942a","argument":"\"But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.\" - Romans 5:8 NIV. Everyone is a sinner \"for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,\" - Romans 3:23 NIV and we have done nothing to gain His love. Indeed, it is a wonder that God doesn't hate us all. Yet: \".He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.\" - 2Peter 3:9b NIV That includes you, precious people.","conclusion":"God loves you whether or not you believe in Him"}
{"id":"8e131b72-9f77-4577-852c-83459d3497c0","argument":"Similar to the argument above, because cellulosic energy is three times as efficient as corn ethanol, it is only necessary to burn one-third the amount of it to obtain the same amount of energy. This means that burning cellulosic ethanol emits roughly one-third the greenhouse gases as corn ethanol for the same energy output.","conclusion":"Cellulosic ethanol emits a lower net level of greenhouse gases"}
{"id":"5825e32d-c2ee-47e0-b828-9bff2b3b62d5","argument":"The existence of God does not require the belief of man nor would such a supreme being require the adherence to man's constructs of good and evil as such a being operates outside of time and space.","conclusion":"Humans are limited in their capacity to conceptualize God, and thus are incapable of accurately judging the relationship between evil and a divine being."}
{"id":"fa4a1c45-482a-44d0-b602-530e639a3daa","argument":"For example, if an institution like a university or a workplace insist on misgendering someone after they have expressed their preferred pronouns in records and public communications, the person would have a right to sue them.","conclusion":"Laws have to be just, logical and proportional and thus they could establish that it is mandatory to respect someone's pronoun once they have stated them, not before."}
{"id":"3806cbd8-48cf-4372-841c-8327cde118fa","argument":"it should be impossible under Kants moral law to stop being a person and no longer be subject to the categorical imperative. But If an individual in charge has come to a moral conclusion based on his own reason that differs from the collective will, which is the collection of individual moral reason, he will have to act for the collective or risk imposing his will over the collective.","conclusion":"Eichmann recognised this contradiction and so gave up the categorical imperative when he was summoned to Berlin. He became a tool of administration and removed his person."}
{"id":"c16315f0-79b4-40c3-8ed0-7c7389998d24","argument":"A UBI helps people who move a lot, as those people would not need to keep finding new centers to receive the same benefits like healthcare and welfare as before the person moved.","conclusion":"A UBI allows individuals a greater freedom to move around than those reliant on jobs or welfare benefits."}
{"id":"3d41d7b4-c334-46bf-93f7-da84967ee556","argument":"This is not an in you're face political post, so please don't bother replying with political or emotional diatribe. Here's my stance There has not been a time in this county's history where you couldn't get your hands on a gun. Picture 1950's suburban America Dad buys Timmy a .22 rifle for his tenth birthday, while the Boy Scouts of America are doing their darnedest to arm every other young man and to teach them how to shoot proficiently. Since that time, many federal and ever more state gun control laws have been passed in order to limit access to guns. Here's a very brief list 1968 Gun Control Act of 1968. 1972 ATF starts requiring firearm licensee qualification to purchase a firearm. 1986 The Armed Career Criminal Act. 1990 The Crime Control Act of 1990. 1994 The Brady Law Assault Weapon Ban. 1998 Required National Instant Criminal Background Check to purchase a firearm. 2008 The National Instant Criminal Background Check Improvement Act. So, in 1950, American Timmy has less legislative hurdles to jump over in order to get his hands on a gun than today's Timmy does. Yet, 1950 Timmy didn't internally de humanize his fellow classmates and decide to end their lives with a gun. The guns have always been around. There has been increased gun legislation over time. Yet, school shootings continue or worsen. What has changed here? What is the core problem that has developed that 1950's Timmy didn't have ? And, why would more gun legislation solve that problem? My general theory here is that you could pass a gun control bill tomorrow that would literally end the sale of firearms in this country, and the school shootings would continue. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Passing Another Gun Control Bill Will Make People 'Feel Better' Until the Next School Shooting, But That's About It."}
{"id":"dca4c740-8c8f-41ef-bcf4-208a1437677c","argument":"Disclosure by the involved partner seems to better facilitate relationship recovery compared to a one-night stand being admitted only after repeated denials Allen et al, p. 119","conclusion":"An early reveal reduces the damage compared to the case of the one-night stand coming to light at a later stage."}
{"id":"f5e10087-cdb9-4cee-8a2f-b0fb3e7ced15","argument":"In the early seconds after the big bang, the statement \"No human minds exist\" was true and rational. However, no human existed to have a mind capable of processing that statement.","conclusion":"The laws of logic would exist even if human or animal minds did not exist."}
{"id":"53e2a100-8214-41d6-bb3f-285f62fdaff1","argument":"I'm still stunned that this is even a thing. I need to be sold on this. I've been out since the mid 80's and was active in the Gay Community which became the Lesbian Gay Community which then became the LGBT, then LGBTQ Community until the mid 90's. Cut to today, someone called me a cis gay man and a very confusing Google search lead me to that acronym. Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Transexual Queer Questioning Asexual Ally Pansexual 2 Spirit Community. I can't be the only gay person who thinks that is a bit much? I'm willing to be open minded, but why? Transgendered and Transexual people aren't usually even gay. Come on, help me out here. Why should we have gotten this complex? And please, don't shout. I will not respond to one word answers or name calling. . . . . EDIT There are a lot of comments and discussions in the thread, many are tangential, but all are worth reading. Regarding the  aspect of the thread, the argument which CedMV is the following LGBT vs LGBT LGBTQ LGBTQ ad infinitum is what is used in the social movement while all the others lead up to a visual reminder that the movement is inclusive of other peoples. Said differently, LGBT is practical alphabet soup is symbolic. You're welcome to add comments to the thread but I don't know if I, the OP, will continue answering new questions comments. Thank you all for the discussion.","conclusion":"Using the LGBTTQQPAAS2 acronym doesn't represent the gay community and so shouldn't be used."}
{"id":"fcb14a91-d31f-4dad-9f40-576d46a1cf12","argument":"Brazil's GDP in 2014 was 2,456 billion USD. In 2015 it decreased to 1,802 billion USD, in 2016 decreased again to 1,794 billion USD and in 2017 grew to 2,056 billion USD; the smallest growth in BRIC countries South Africa not available in the statista source. statista.com google.com.br","conclusion":"People vote for him due to the recession created by years of left wing governments."}
{"id":"0980e888-8bb4-4f9a-8a62-d95e1bc1a56e","argument":"For those who don't know, Delbert Belton was an 88 year old WWII veteran who was beaten to death by two black teenagers in Spokane, Washington this week. Personally, I have only seen this case mentioned once or twice on reddit. I have not seen any news footage, I have not read any articles, and I'm certain I will not be seeing Justice4Delbert trending on Twitter, nor will President Obama mention that if he had an uncle, he'd look like Delbert. However, the Trayvon Martin case got almost a year and a half worth of coverage and outrage all over the country, with the trending hashtags and Obama's words occurring for Trayvon. Why is this just a tragic happening, but the Trayvon case an outrage and a crying shame? It's a goddamn shame that according to the media Trayvon Martin is a martyr, and this man will be yesterday's news in a month's time that George Zimmerman is a racist monster, and these two black teenagers are just bad apples. To wrap it up, I believe that this case deserves so much more attention than the Martin case, and that the media and the general public should be ashamed in their ignorance of this case. I know it's irrational, so somebody please change my view.","conclusion":"It's downright deplorable that the Delbert Belton case is getting so much less media coverage and is invoking so much less outrage than the Trayvon Martin case."}
{"id":"3c434af2-ece0-4713-aa1d-288e47c41aa8","argument":"There are broader norms about how women should look in order to be acceptable that lead them to live unhealthy lifestyles.","conclusion":"Social norms are not always good and conforming to them can be harmful."}
{"id":"1a5f1b85-c65a-41bb-bcac-e2875bfcb7fe","argument":"ISIS lured many young recruits to the Levant by utilizing a social media campaign that compared life as a jihadist to the popular video games series \"Call of Duty\".","conclusion":"Terrorist groups have also employed PsyOps in their recruitment strategy by painting false pictures of what life is like as an extremist."}
{"id":"c342fb53-74b3-42d9-badc-12208cbe3525","argument":"The outcome of US-led conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya did not really benefit the US. In contrast the outcome of Russia-led conflicts in Georgia, Ukraine, and Syria all ended in either clear Russian victories or achieving some tangible benefit to Russia. lowyinstitute.org This shows that the level of spending on the military does not match the level of success in war.","conclusion":"The United States military outspends other nations by a huge amount, showing that its current level of spending is not necessary."}
{"id":"ed066c28-5284-44ec-abeb-ac72c450c9cc","argument":"Edit my view has been changed. Thanks for everyone\u2019s responses In summary I agree that this issue seems magnified to me because it is disruptive in my town, but in truth it\u2019s a small disruption on a global scale. Therefore even though from my perspective it seems like these athletes are minor celebrities trampling through the town causing chaos, the rest of the world barely knows who they are. \u201cToo much praise\u201d is not true with a larger perspective, only when looking in my own backyard. I don\u2019t relate to the value system of these athletes, and I still contend that there are some assholes in the bunch, but I will concede that people accomplishing their goals and self fulfillment have inherent value to society. Happiness is valuable. This was my first post on the sub and I had a good time discussing. Thanks again for your time. Original Post I live in Hawaii and every year the world championship Ironman comes through. While I\u2019m sure plenty of the racers are respectful, there\u2019s also a ton who Bring their personal fanclub that literally stands in the middle of streets to film them Piss anywhere. ANYWHERE Just are generally not mindful of traffic, the community, locals Plenty of people I know actually leave town to avoid the congestion and road closures from the event. I just don\u2019t see how it\u2019s anything but an exercise in narcissism. We know the human body free of disabilities can do it, so it\u2019s just proving you individually can do it. For what purpose? What are you actually contributing to society? And I know there are probably inspirational stories within the community, people beating cancer or what have you, but I think that\u2019s the exception not the norm. I think a lot of competitors are wealthy people who want to make their life more meaningful, and since they can afford free time and training, they go for it. Am I a curmudgeon? Change my view TLDR I don\u2019t see how long distance athletes contribute to a society in a way that\u2019s consistent with the praise society bestows on them.","conclusion":"society gives too much praise to long distance athletes"}
{"id":"9be652b8-200e-4c86-a0a7-897108faa217","argument":"The Canadian Constitution is still-ambiguous about the place of Quebec in its constitutional order. If Canada intends for Quebec to be a part of its governance, this ambiguity needs to be tweaked.","conclusion":"A few tweaks of the existing one is all that is required, and that should be done by politicians."}
{"id":"24a22180-6f9b-4cbf-982e-684f86c48bac","argument":"Yesterday, a story was leaked how the Russians are blackmailing Donald Trump, and it was implied that this was due to them having evidence of him performing lewd acts with Russian prostitutes. I am having a hard time believing this. I am prepared to believe the Russians have some sort of hold on him, his speech and action has so far been dramatically pro Russia. I am prepared to believe that Trump has at some point in time performed lewd acts with Russian prostitutes. I have no opinion on whether the Russians have proof of this. But I find it very hard to accept the notion that Russia can blackmail Trump about it. Here's my thinking Trump talks like a crackhead. Sorry, but listen to Sheen and compare his talk to Trump's. It's essentially the same thing. Trump will tell a small girl that in ten years time he'll be dating her. He'll sit in front of his own daughter and tell her that he'd like to shag her. This guy has no conscience or on a freudian level, no super ego. He is a hedonistic POS, and he's proud of it. So how the heck would the Russians blackmail him about that? I can see, if they had him with under age kids, sure, but that's not what's being said here. Trump has in my mind done and said far more disgusting things than being peed on. Russia can't blackmail Trump on being peed on, as this revelation is nothing that Trump would be afraid of having exposed. ?","conclusion":"I do not believe that the Russians are blackmailing Trump over his sexual escapades."}
{"id":"f31295b0-d0aa-44fc-a032-87a0329e80a2","argument":"Children of the wealthy take wealth for granted more often than not, and often strive to establish an identity outside of the wealth-producing identity of their parents: either by spending lavishly, doing non-profit work, becoming an intellectual, or other means.","conclusion":"Equality of Opportunity is a desirable goal for a society."}
{"id":"ed50f7e4-8aef-4b72-b3a3-8e271f55d476","argument":"I see celebrities in a new video every week about how horrible trump is and how we must stop him, but this just reminds me of how they pulled the same shit in 2012 and 2008 and 2004 which is pretty funny because compared to Trump Bush, McCain, and Romney were very progressive. This just makes feel that no matter who was elected in 2016, they would still be vilified as long as they were part of the GOP. I mean how can the GOP presidential candidate that wanted full amnesty for illegals and the one that wants to build a wall across the border both be considered Hitler by the left if they have almost completely different policies. I honestly have a feeling that even if in some absurd scenario, Matt Damon became the GOP candidate in 2016 and won, you would have everyone in Hollywood still making videos asking the electoral college to change their vote. And this is Matt Damon we're talking about, the guy who's favorite book is a people's history of the United states. But the media would still be calling him racist and sexist and homophobic and slander him because he wasn't running as a Democrat. This is why I just can't seem to care when they are freaking out about Trump, because they seemed to vilify every other candidate for president even when they were extremely moderate, like John McCain or Mitt Romney. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"liberals would be freaking out no matter who became president as long as they were a Republican"}
{"id":"75f77771-914d-457f-a338-f2983e9b6393","argument":"I'm of Scandinavian and Celtic decent and I take much pride in my race's exclusive features including Blonde hair and Blue eyes. I want to have children someday and I want them to have these valuable traits as well. My greatest fear with the scenario is that blonde hair and blue eyed genes are not dominant, thus the chances of my traits passing to my descendants are slim if they have say, dark brown hair and eyes. I am not a racist, I am not a nazi and I don't believe my race is a master race but my race and its unique features are destined to die out over time to the more dominant and more common dark hair and eyed races. Recently I've met a half mexican half white girl. She's amazing in every way and even though things haven't gotten serious, I often find myself thinking about potential children that would look like her while my own features, which I take pride in, are lost. EDIT I should probably clarify that by complexion I mean hair and eye color although I guess skin color does tie in there inevitably.","conclusion":"As a blonde haired and blue eyed man, I cannot see myself settling with a woman who is of a complexion much darker than my own."}
{"id":"385e0a9a-568d-4c23-8071-7608f6901318","argument":"In a free society, the actions of individuals are not restricted unnecessarily, so unless you are either of those people, or they are doing any harm, thenit is none of your business","conclusion":"It is morally acceptable to approach a stranger for consensual sex."}
{"id":"fd3bb598-f692-46f0-95b0-fd11b6b17c63","argument":"I have always been an Apple user, and own iPad Mini 2 and an iPod touch 6, which are able to run the latest version of iOS 10 10.3.1 . Even tough I do not have an iPhone, there is an insignificant difference in the versions of iOS across all devices, only differing on cellular, raise to wake, haptic feedback, touch ID, NFC, and other hardware features. This post is not about any of these features, but about how Android itself has become a superior mobile operating system on both the visual and functional aspects. iOS on the other hand, has basically stayed with the same design since its creation, making it become really boring to the eye. To be more specific, on iOS, the main interface springboard only consists of your home screen, with your apps and that's it. There's no organizing of apps, no customizing of home screens, no app drawer, and the white theme across most apps bundled in has been unchanged since iOS 7 on 2013. Current versions of Android allow all of that, and the theming capabilities, plus the interface is by default more appealing than iOS. To change my view, you would need to defend why iOS is still able to compete with current android version with the current interface and functionality.","conclusion":"iOS is in dire need of a visual and capabilities overhaul if is to compete with current and future versions of Android."}
{"id":"c1df82ec-e1c8-4d0f-8754-67a3882685a1","argument":"As the title says, I feel that feminists should stop getting upset over the lack of women being depicted in the manner they want. Video games are largely dominated by males and thus it is reasonable that they appeal to males. Most men don't want to see strong independent womyn or women totally covered up in every game they play thus when they develop games they create damsels in distress or strong women who dress sexy. There is nothing wrong with this as video games are a fantasy world. There is nothing wrong with people wanting to see strong independent women who are dressed conservatively but it is not the duty of all game developers to appeal to such sensibilities. If people want to play those games, rather than attack developers for not creating them, they should develop them themselves or support companies that produce such games","conclusion":"Until more women start developing video games, feminists should stop getting upset at the lack of women being depicted as they feel they should"}
{"id":"ac88befa-506d-4b98-a9c9-0b856199fe3f","argument":"The growth of biofuels will be good for farmers, both in the west and in the developed world. In recent decades farmers in the developed world have produced more food than the market required, resulting in large surpluses and very low prices. A great many farmers have been driven out of business as a result, and few young people wish to try to make a living from the land. Meanwhile, surplus grain from America and the EU has often been dumped on markets in the developing world, harming local farmers who are unable to compete. Both sorts of farmers stand to benefit from increased demand for biofuels, as farm incomes improve and market-distorting surpluses disappear. Taxpayers may also benefit as there will be less need to subsidise more prosperous farmers.","conclusion":"The growth of biofuels will be good for farmers, both in the west and in the developed world. In re..."}
{"id":"813049ac-4e4b-4e70-8e46-9a273eb1fbe1","argument":"I would prefer not to hold people with whom I disagree in low regard, so I am not comfortable with this view that I have. Please help me change it. I can\u2019t understand how people can vote for Republicans without being either ignorant or immoral. First I\u2019ll define those terms, then I\u2019ll explain the immorality that I see. \u201cIgnorant\u201d is the default condition of a voter. Most voters from both parties fall into this category. This is the guy who doesn\u2019t know that Republicans want to lower taxes on the rich while Democrats want to either raise them or keep them the same. This guy just votes based on how other people in his community are voting or for whichever candidate \u201cfeels\u201d right to him. Again, most voters from both parties fall into this group. I\u2019ll also include as \u201cignorant\u201d those who conform to the leftist caricatures of Trump supporters. These are the people who genuinely believed that Trump is a great businessman, even though great businessmen don\u2019t go bankrupt six times They think that building a wall will actually stop illegal immigration They believed Trump when he said that the latter wouldn\u2019t benefit from his own tax plan I won't discuss this group any further because they're not putting any thought into their decisions, which I believe makes the discussion less interesting. \u201cImmoral\u201d refers to people who significantly discount the wellbeing of people outside their immediate 10 50 people circle of loved ones. That\u2019s my careful way of saying, \u201cThey don\u2019t care about anyone except for themselves, their family, and a few close friends.\u201d I\u2019ll pause for a moment here to mention that I believe Hanlon\u2019s Razor is a useful heuristic, i.e. I believe that some number of people who support the immoral Republicans positions I am about to condemn are people who are simply not competent enough to understand that they are immoral. There is a tricky ethical question here about whether someone who does not understand that their actions are immoral is culpable for them. Let\u2019s save that discussion for another thread, and for now just assume either that they are culpable in that way or that we can ignore them in this discussion. Enough preamble why do I think the non ignorant people who advocate for Republican policies must be immoral? Democracy Republicans are in the midst of a concerted effort to undermine democracy through gerrymandering, voter suppression, and big money. In the 2016 election Republican candidates for the House of Representatives won 49 of all votes cast, but ended up with 55 of the seats in the House, thanks to gerrymandered districts that look like this Republicans are in the middle of a multi year drive to reduce voter participation by passing voter ID laws and closing poling places In private, they have admitted that these policies are meant to improve their odds of winning elections The Republican judiciary has gone out of its way to exacerbate the problem by repealing campaign finance laws and repealing the Voting Rights Act in 5 4 decisions. I find single issue voting to be irrational each issue should receive be weighted in accordance with its importance and all issues should be considered. That being said, if democracy doesn\u2019t work, we might as well give up on everything else, right? Shouldn\u2019t our weight on this be astronomically high? Isn\u2019t the preservation of our democracy a moral imperative? Climate Change Climate change is an existential threat, and every little bit of action will help. Although a scenario in which climate change does no damage is not possible, the difference between limiting global temperature rise to 1.5\u00b0 instead of 2.0\u00b0 is estimated at 150 million lives and trillions of dollars Unsurprisingly, if we do nothing, we will not meet that target. Instead, if we do nothing we expect a 4.0\u00b0 rise Republicans want to do nothing. From their 2016 platform \u201cWe oppose any carbon tax.\u201d\u2026 \u201cThe United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a political mechanism, not an unbiased scientific institution. Its unreliability is reflected in its intolerance toward scientists and others who dissent from its orthodoxy. We will evaluate its recommendations accordingly. We reject the agendas of both the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement, which represent only the personal commitments of their signatories no such agreement can be binding upon the United States until it is submitted to and ratified by the Senate.\u201d \u2026 \u201cWe demand an immediate halt to U.S. funding for the U.N.'s Framework Convention on Climate Change UNFCCC in accordance with the 1994 Foreign Relations Authorization Act.\u201d Again, I find single issue voting to be irrational, but shouldn\u2019t the weight of hundreds of millions of deaths be really, really high? Isn\u2019t it a moral imperative to try to save those lives? Corruption The Trump administration might be the most corrupt in history and the Republican congress is doing nothing to see whether or not that\u2019s the case. Trump is hiding his finances, which means we don\u2019t know from whom he is receiving money. In other words, it is, in principle, quite easy to bribe him. We know of one such instance of bribery or, at least, a large cash gift to gain favor in the form of a 270,000 payment from Saudi Arabia supposedly as a payment for hotel rooms . There might be more. There might not be. Whatever the case, we don\u2019t know, because Republicans are refusing to force Trump to be transparent about his finances. Republicans are also refusing to take the Mueller investigation seriously. The head of the House \u201cinvestigation\u201d was clearly just trying to cover for Trump here another source, and another Both Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell have repeatedly refused to protect the Mueller investigation from potential interference by Trump. Please note that, in the above, I am not presuming Trump\u2019s guilt except for his violations of the emoluments clause, which are incredibly obvious . I am saying that there is reasonable suspicion of corruption and investigations are required. This doesn\u2019t receive the same \u201cexistential threat\u201d weighting that the previous two categories do, but I\u2019m still including it here because there is an undeniable right answer and the Republicans are refusing to act on it. Isn\u2019t guarding against corruption a moral imperative? I tend to disagree with most other Republican policies on the merits, but I\u2019m able to see them as questions of competing values, rather than fundamental immorality. However, on questions of democracy, climate change, and corruption Republicans appear incontrovertibly wrong under every reasonable value system, so that is why I am focusing here. Plus, climate change and democratic backsliding represent existential threats to our way of life. How to Change My View I think there are two ways to do it 1 you can try to convince me that other issues such as taxes and healthcare actually have a greater moral weight than those I have listed above and therefore someone might feel obligated to vote on the basis of those other issues, or 2 you can try to convince me that I\u2019m wrong to think that democratic backsliding and or climate change are existential threats and or that there is reasonable suspicion to investigate Trump\u2019s potential corruption. That being said, the best way to change my view is to present something I\u2019ve never even thought of I will try to anticipate one objection abortion. I understand that there are a non trivial number of people who feel it is morally necessary to support the pro life candidate because they view abortion as murder and stopping over a half million murders per year seems like a reasonable moral goal. This is where appropriate weighting matters. Climate change, left unmitigated, will kill hundreds of millions. In other words, it\u2019s a greater threat to human life than abortion, even if we assume that abortion is murder. And, if that\u2019s not enough, please notice that the abortion rate has been falling since 1981 even under Democratic party control some would say especially under Democratic party control, but that's less clear . gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"To Vote for a Republican in a National Election, Someone Must Be Either Ignorant or Immoral"}
{"id":"18787618-69d0-4e95-9341-b2971e1f370e","argument":"According to our legal system, a person ought only be convicted if it can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt that they are guilty. I also believe this is a requirement for a just conviction. I believe that in almost all rape cases, it is impossible to reach this standard of proof. What evidence could possibly prove that someone was raped? You have the victim's testimony, but the fact that a person claims something happened doesn't prove it's true. I know that rape kits exist, and that they can be used to test the DNA of hair and semen and connect them to a particular person. The person doing the inspecting might also find bruising. But, these things are not proof of rape. If a person has rough, consensual sex with another, all of these things would still be found. So, whenever someone is convicted of rape, there will almost always be a reasonable doubt, since you can't prove whether the evidence was created by consensual sex or by rape. I would make an exception for cases where there is video evidence, or where there are multiple witnesses, but such cases are extraordinarily rare. Edit I'm asking about non consensual rape. I accept that proving statutory rape is much easier.","conclusion":"I believe that almost all rape convictions are unjust."}
{"id":"22482aa1-fcf7-40dd-ab38-88a46afef890","argument":"Neuroscience is still unsure about the underlying mechanisms of our ability to generalise and why we are self-aware. Only the specific combination of cognitive abilities, body perception, and human limitations, may lead to this emergent property.","conclusion":"Artificial general intelligence requires \"world knowledge\", which may require an artificial consciousness. Artificial consciousness may require subjective experiences, which may not be achieved without fully replicating the physiological and mental constraints of human beings."}
{"id":"1c32a1a7-1015-4f56-8701-45f3e7a2b067","argument":"Opinion polls also distort the political decision making process: during elections, polls swing faster then politicians can adapt their strategies. The result: politicians are following every swing of the polls and engaging in \u201cpolitical marketing\u201d instead of really developing a party philosophy and trying to honestly engage the citizens. Also, in between elections, polls ruin the process: the executive launches policy to try and create a better public opinion in stead of real policy. Symbol politics, in stead of real politics, is the result.","conclusion":"Opinion polls also distort the political decision making process: during elections, polls swing fast..."}
{"id":"4faefcb9-e217-478d-90ae-bd4f3e2ece3b","argument":"A large physical, emotional cost is required by the mother to grow the embryo into a living baby. It should be her choice to make major lifestyle changes and provide her womb as an incubator. If the cells require the mother's nutrients and body to exist, it is her right to provide them or not.","conclusion":"If the fetus is not part of a woman's body, the woman inherently has the right to remove it from her body."}
{"id":"0f33658e-07d5-4d0f-b929-7785daa499f3","argument":"Personal information should not be used for commercial purposes. It is too invasive, and can cause emotional damage. For example, what if your profile indicates that your boy friend just broke up with you, for example. An ad agency is allowed to obtain this information and use it to send you an advertisement on break-ups. This could do emotional damage.","conclusion":"It is unethical for social network sites to use personal information to enable advertisers to better target you as a consumer."}
{"id":"262f1f55-ba8b-4311-9fd4-4c6bd15528a1","argument":"Tobacco smokers die 10 years earlier on average. Thus they cost significantly less in health care and pensions in their old ages where these expenses are usually highest.","conclusion":"Tobacco and alcohol taxes create revenues. Prohibiting tobacco and alcohol would lead to a loss of these revenues."}
{"id":"42b35088-d67b-4284-99ea-dba4235518e6","argument":"Premise 1 Americans don't want gun control, because they are afraid to lose their right to protect themselves. Premise 2 People of pro gun control contries want gun control, because they value the fact that gun control dramatically reduces the number of murders, mass shootings, suicides etc. So my view is that americans are more worried about defending themselves than the population collectively, whereas pro gun control nations are more concerned about protecting as many citizens as possible. This leads me to the conclusion that americans are more self centered or unable to comprehend statistics . edit spelling","conclusion":"Americans won't accept gun control because they are too self-centered"}
{"id":"1f04f15a-fada-45ec-be1c-67ea94e71616","argument":"My mother has recently experienced a defective foot after a bunion surgery that left her with foot pain, which has affected her hip and her back. She is now unable to walk long distances, cannot walk without assistance of crutches, and lost a good amount of her mobility. She has recently become depressed, and after starting anti depressants, she still doesn't have any motivation to live. Her hobbies before were exercise and hiking outdoors, and she has never enjoyed sitting around. She's been immobile for about 6 months now and despite my attempts to motivate her to keep going, she is holding the same view. I believe every person has the right to autonomy, and if they really lose the will to live, then no other person has the right to argue against them. If they truly believe that dying would be the best option for them, they should be entitled to do so. This belief has made it difficult me to keep my mother motivated. Please .","conclusion":"I believe if one truly loses the will to live, they are entitled to end their own life."}
{"id":"a9675d0d-aab8-4a2f-9c85-06570acad06f","argument":"My workplace installed high efficiency toilets HETs recently and they are terrible. They use significantly less water per flush, but the flush is nearly always incomplete when dealing with 2. Personally, I always have to flush twice, even three times, to completely flush down my business, thus using more water than a traditional toilet and defeating the purpose of HETs. I could choose not to flush multiple times, but then it leaves it to the next person or the janitor to deal with. Or worse, the unflushed shit just simmers in the toilet for a while and stinks up the bathroom. Could someone please convince me that HETs provide any benefit that outweigh the downsides?","conclusion":"High efficiency toilets are just shitty toilets literally"}
{"id":"73d1bb34-2f71-477c-a9b4-d969ffbc889a","argument":"This is about a real Life situation. As this is a somewhat emotional situation, I would expect your arguments appeal to reason and emotions both. I am 28 M she is 27 F. We travel a 1 hour bus journey every day for the last 3 months. During this time, our relationship could be called a friendship where we both shared our life's struggles and joys with each other. She shared many intimate things with me that a girl would rarely share with a stranger. She told me that she trusts me and she feels safe around me. She also thanked me for the appreciation I give to her. Up to a point, everything was normal. I wasn't considering her as a friend but a well intentioned co traveler. I enjoyed her company and missed her when she was not there. One day, a few things happened not detailing the events as it would be too long and I realized that she is the one. I realized that this is the woman who can travel the journey of my life with me and I would be happy to have her along my side. Suddenly, everything began to make sense. Every moment that we enjoyed together, every laugh that we shared so far became meaningful. I was totally in love with her. She became the prime focus of my life. I imagined an intense life with her where I planned about our life journey. I was in love and I could not sleep for 4 days. Finally, I had sleeping pills to help me sleep. I met her a week later. And there she was mocking me about how I felt. She somehow knew my feelings. I could hold it no more. I told her how I couldn't resist my feelings of love for her. She acknowledged my feelings. She didn't deny them but she didn't reciprocate either. Unfortunately, from the next day onwards, her vacations started and she couldn't accompany me in the bus journey anymore. It's been a month that I am traveling without her and I have given this a lot of thought in this time. We would meet today at the bus stop. I just wanna get my head straight about these things. I need your help I believe that she considers me a good friend. But we haven't been officially friends yet. Now that I know she is my love interest, Should I offer her my friendship? Will this be a backward move or forward move? I know she hasn't had the same feelings of love as I experienced. I believe she has the right to experience those feelings too. Should I wait for that time or should I propose right away? She has a boyfriend. I am a new addition to her life. I know if she finds love in me, her boyfriend wouldn't matter anymore. We both are very different. Should I wait until she explores who I am and what I feel for her or should I directly propose marriage to her? These questions matter for today. After meeting her today, in about 4 hours, I would not have these questions. I need your rational and emotional faculties to help me out and give me a new perspective on this situation.","conclusion":"In Love, the other person also deserves the time to experience Love"}
{"id":"1f883571-72af-4e86-ac62-8eeda3a072cf","argument":"As a believer of any religion, you have to believe that you are right while all the contradicting religions are wrong. There is no evidence to support such statements, as the evidence for most religions is of similar value, individual experiences and old man-written texts.","conclusion":"There is no consistency between religious texts, different sects and anecdotal experiences."}
{"id":"e0caf99c-7a6d-4f62-83c5-84e843e5d051","argument":"Hamlet demonstrates several hallmarks of psychosis primarily delusions that he is the only person able to uncover his uncle's betrayal and hallucinations of his father's ghost.","conclusion":"Hamlet's behaviour throughout the play indicates his evident madness."}
{"id":"5df7e769-b2dc-4a2a-8284-ac6b818e61cc","argument":"Given how harmful Trump's legislative agenda is, this is actually cause for Democrats to not support Trump.","conclusion":"Without Democratic support, it is nearly impossible for Trump to achieve his legislative agenda."}
{"id":"f1235997-b2b5-410e-a1b7-fff4d137f9cf","argument":"Hi. I think that psychology is not a science simply because unless we figure the brain out in the future you can never say something with 100 certainty. You can almost never apply the scientific method to it and when you have a mental illness you are in bad luck. You have to rely on the judgement of your psychologist and not on facts. Never been to a psychologist. I'm open minded so . Edit Thank you, guys. Especially TheMadHaberdasher and elpekardo. Psychology was probably a badly chosen word by me.","conclusion":"I think that psychology is not a science."}
{"id":"505e6a48-c306-43a0-9d20-e169b99ccc57","argument":"There are many Bollywood films with a murder plot but this does not encourage people to murder in real life.","conclusion":"Most people know the difference between what is an unrealistic film plot and what is acceptable in real life."}
{"id":"da46088c-c019-48b3-8bcc-f13b6f3bb353","argument":"Background Many countries prevent men who have sex with men MSM from donating their blood. Some countries place an indefinite ban on these men, other countries have a deferral period usually around 1 year during which these men cannot give blood, and other countries have no ban at all. Some groups and individuals have called these policies homophobic, some defend the policies with statistics on the prevalence of communicable diseases in the gay male community. View I believe that if I, a gay man who wishes to donate blood, am not eligible to give blood because of my sexual habits, but know that I do not have any communicable diseases or otherwise know that my blood will not harm a person in need of blood, I should lie about my sexual habits to donate my blood. Additional Information My view is tailored so that it does not touch on social issues concerned with the morality of the policies themselves. I am not interested in debating the policies at this time and instead am focusing on a slightly different topic relating to the logistics of a man, who has sex with men, who wishes to give blood. Edit To be clear, knowing that I do not have any communicable diseases means that I have not been sexually active for almost 5 years and have been tested within the last 6 months.","conclusion":"If I am a gay man who wants to give blood and I know that I do not have any communicable diseases, then I should lie about my sexuality to give blood."}
{"id":"e836cba2-c774-4686-81c7-1205f264c857","argument":"Hardly anyone noticed when Netflix began to offer The Wandering Earth for streaming, the second-highest grossing movie in China this year.","conclusion":"Various large-scale productions in front of a Chinese background flopped at the box office in recent years."}
{"id":"ace14fa3-c73f-4965-963f-ca94a1c97b8d","argument":"Well crafted gender specific characters in narratives acknowledges appropriate virtues while not being defined by them. Alfie Elkins and April Wheeler may be examples of gender specific characters who show virtues without being defined by those virtues.","conclusion":"The Last Jedi does not speak enough to the personality traits found more commonly in women that would prove essential during a time of war like empathy, compassion and moral support."}
{"id":"eb2e060f-6aa4-4171-a708-6b606f81fcf0","argument":"In all elections, the incumbent has an advantage. This doesn't mean they're actually the best person for the job.","conclusion":"Term limits reduces the chances of \"safe seats\" being formed."}
{"id":"6b21cbd9-acc9-41f0-85f8-9fd41a716c4f","argument":"I recently went to an event about Chinese orphanages and the Chinese adoption system. There was a large number of adopted Chinese girls in attendance. While I am glad that these girls now have wanting and loving families, I can't help but feel strongly that their adoptive families will never love them as much as their biological child ren , because I think it is human nature biology to feel an un replicable bond with your biological child. I am not an adopted child, nor an adoptive parent, nor do I know anybody who is either. I am Chinese, and perhaps my views on familial exclusivity has only a cultural basis.","conclusion":"I believe it is impossible for someone to love an adopted child as much as they love their biological child,"}
{"id":"dad4bf21-d4e0-409e-917f-52f387fe821b","argument":"There are several species that would be extinct without the preservation of zoos, for example the Arabian Oryx, the Golden Lion Tamarin, and the Puerto Rican Parrot.","conclusion":"Zoos perform tasks beyond entertainment, such as safeguarding conservation of species."}
{"id":"6928bba0-a641-4feb-986f-785c187bd350","argument":"I am all for harshly punishing people who commit sexual violence, I believe there should be zero tolerance for it. However, I find it ridiculous that anyone supports the widespread changes that are currently being suggested in an effort to combat campus rape. When an accuser goes to the media and the accused is not found responsible for charges against them in a sexual assault case on a college campus it seems the media feminists act outraged. They suggest the incident wasn\u2019t investigated properly, it wasn\u2019t taken seriously, or the victim was on trial. These are all quite possible, but do these same people understand how flimsy a campus conduct hearing is? Being found responsible and subsequently expelled from college for an act of sexual violence is not a joke and not something that should be thrown around loosely. The current standard for being found responsible is a \u201cpreponderance of evidence\u201d, which basically means there needs to be more than a 50 chance the accused is guilty. Most college campuses also don\u2019t allow the accused to have any form of legal representation. To make matters even worse most of these cases are he said she said, and in many cases the accused is not allowed to question the accuser. The current system in place is an absolute joke, and is the same system that feminists media passionately rallied for. If you want a better system in place for victims which we all do , then that means the entire system needs to be redone. Being found responsible for an act of sexual violence in college and then subsequently expelled is not the unserious branding that the media has made it to be. 99.9 of colleges do not allow someone who has been expelled from a previous institution for an act of sexual violence to enroll. A person who has been found responsible for a campus sexual assault and subsequently expelled is very likely not going to be able to enroll in college again. Not to mention the 100,000 200,000 some of which may be from loans that has been wasted. Any thorough background check will also very likely pick up the charges, and exclude the person from any decent job. So now what we have is a 19 year old with no marketable skills, no job history, no college education, who owes 50,000 in interest bearing student loans, and to top it all off has been found responsible of committing an act of sexual violence. God forbid the student is also a minority. Does this seem like an adequate punishment for someone who a bunch of volunteer jurists found had more than a 50 chance of being guilty, had no legal representation, and no chance to question the accuser? There is no doubt both sides of the current system are flawed, but the solution is not to fix one and forget about the other. It seems as though many people think that because prison isn\u2019t a potential punishment that it\u2019s ok to have an unjust system. The reforms that are currently being pushed include changes in the burden of proof for college adjudication, and the adoption of an affirmative consent standard. These changes will do nothing but make it easier for people to claim they have been assaulted, and lead to more unsubstantiated findings of guilt. How exactly are college administrators supposed to determine if the accuser didn\u2019t say \u201cyes\u201d during an alleged assault? What is being suggested is an impossible standard to uphold, especially since at the very same time these people want to lower the burden of proof which is already ridiculously low. Are college administrators now supposed to bring students up on conduct charges for sexual violence on the basis of a single word being said? It seems like we are headed towards colleges installing recording devices in dorm rooms. Unless we are ok with students being brought up on unsubstantiated conduct charges in our universities kangaroo court system. How many victims report their rape, and how many students are ultimately found guilty is irrelevant. I don't think the wrongly accused take any solace in the fact that their fellow alleged rapists were not found responsible. Just like I don't think campus rape victims who didn't receive justice care if a word was or wasn't said. The system in general is broken, and the suggested changes will only lead to increased false reporting. Our students safety and futures should not be a political bargaining chip.","conclusion":"The way people want to combat campus rape is ridiculous, and will only lead to increased false reporting."}
{"id":"badff646-2714-4c90-96be-e4b3fd8e6ad2","argument":"Religion attempts to control the personal\/private sphere of life, which even the law is not allowed to do.","conclusion":"Religion has been and is used as a form of social control."}
{"id":"fdb417e5-e5c3-4031-8b7e-980c7b0c9f67","argument":"Just as the US Army, Navy, and Air Force has counterparts elsewhere, the existence of a US Space Force would provoke other nations to have their own Space Force. War in space would become more likely.","conclusion":"If the US establishes a Space Force it will result in a harmful space arms race."}
{"id":"5030db4e-7314-4c80-9bce-e488c6d3c6df","argument":"It seems very strange to me that whenever they talk about catastrophes in the news they always specify how many kids were hurt killed gone missing. But why? I think that it does not matter who died old people, little children, men, women, vegetarians, heterosexuals etc. Every person's life is a tragedy, right? And adults are somebody's kids themselves. If I die in a plane crash tonight I'm 22, so I'm not a kid , there will be sad people for who it won't matter that I was not a kid. So why are people always so terrified when it comes to kids' deaths?","conclusion":"I do not think that lives of children are more precious than lives of adults especially when it is about numbers."}
{"id":"778d4eed-c3e2-4664-ab04-cae6e8f31fc9","argument":"Services like Wix can already create seo optimized websites based on what the client wants, google and facebook already offer services based on the kind of business you want to market, create tags and offer SEM and other kinds of services based on previous user data. Social media services can be easily replaced with chat bots and scheduled messages created by AI since most responses or twitter posts are fairly simple. While when it comes to design I'm sure a lot of things like Illustration won't be replaced until much later, but creating a post with some small changes or themed details is already easily done using Canva When it comes to planning the campaign and deciding where money goes I believe that can also be better done by the service, pretty sure google can predict how much budget you need and how much you'll pay per click even before you place the ad based on your target keywords.","conclusion":"Most digital marketing and design jobs will become easily replaceable by computers and current AI technology in the next couple years"}
{"id":"c9fcd3c2-67df-4b0e-a3a0-4bbaf635e594","argument":"Christian democracy is characterized by its 'catch-all profile. This makes it compromise oriented and works against extremists.","conclusion":"Christian democracy is furthering a conception of liberalism in European societies."}
{"id":"5c793f3f-2bda-4ddc-b78f-7a978d711042","argument":"Fast facts about Haiti The nation is ranked 11 on the fragile state failed state index of the fund for peace which ranks government legitimacy It ranks 159 of 176 on the Corruption Perception index from TI Literacy is estimated at 61 estimated because there are no real statistics released by the Haitian government Haiti has had 32 coups since its independence. Haitian children have a 90 rate of waterbourne diseases like cholera, typhoid etc The GDP per capita is 1819 ppp or 719 nominal While the term sh thole is contentious to use regarding any country, I would argue it is certainly appropriate for Haiti. I am hoping that one of you can provide a reason that this characterization is incorrect.","conclusion":"Haiti is, objectively, a sh*thole."}
{"id":"f809d9da-1bf1-44dc-a088-664b18dae319","argument":"It is increasingly clear that the President, by refusing to fully divest himself from his business is either directing or willfully ignoring massive amounts of money laundering going on through the acquisition and sale of real estate by his direct business reports. Money laundering is a federal crime.","conclusion":"President Trump\u2019s personal and business holdings present untenable conflicts of interest."}
{"id":"e4592240-af30-4ca7-8f92-fc9774ea2233","argument":"Right, so, I am ostensibly supportive of trans people. I'm onboard with genderfluidity as a general concept, I am not upset at any request to refer to someone by their preferred pronoun well maybe not xe for now, but that's another  , and I do recognise that I probably have some inherent transphobic beliefs. Nomi was quite possibly my favourite character in Sense8. This is a petty, lighthearted  what's with the ' '? Is that meant to be a wildcard like in some programming languages, so that trans stands in for transwoman and transman ? The descriptor trans by itself seems fine to me it's ambiguous as to the gender of the person being represented by that label, just as bisexual or queer or arguably gay is it doesn't need an asterisk to point out that fact If anything, the asterisk looks a bit like a snowflake, and while I'm not personally about to set myself at harassing trans people for being snecial snowflakes , it does seem like a bit of an invitation to do so for certain people.","conclusion":"the asterisk in trans* is pointless and distracting."}
{"id":"00f2c99a-b483-4ed9-a1ce-f7b535d19b96","argument":"On February 19, Flemming Rose, Jyllands-Posten's culture editor, commented in the Washington Post. \"The cartoonists treated Islam the same way they treat Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism and other religions. And by treating Muslims in Denmark as equals they made a point: We are integrating you into the Danish tradition of satire because you are part of our society, not strangers. The cartoons are including, rather than excluding, Muslims.\"","conclusion":"Cartoonists were helping integrate Muslims into Dutch culture of religious satire by bashing Islam."}
{"id":"36ddba5c-64f7-4db5-ac40-6ba1cb7a33fc","argument":"Millions of NK people face food shortages, 4.4 million are currently nearing \"crisis\" according to the World Food Program. Unification would allow food aid from SK and abroad to save NK lives.","conclusion":"NK people endure some of the lowest living standards in the world. Unification would remedy this."}
{"id":"3ca785ef-5c6c-4300-a03a-3f7a82c759a1","argument":"For example, those who make such \"jokes\" like prank bomb-threats may expect to be charged with felony, which includes prison sentence and financial penalties, thus to prevent or to decrease the number of such crimes, they should be forbidden.hg.org","conclusion":"Human endangering speech eg making prank bomb-threats or screaming fire in a packed cinema, should be forbidden."}
{"id":"74ca4ea9-c085-4175-bf6f-21d99115a4ee","argument":"Generally speaking, in all societies, humans treat a human's life as more important than that of an animal.","conclusion":"Human life has a higher value because humans need and depend on each other, socially and economically."}
{"id":"51a57bfd-c3c3-4972-87a4-38ef189201e2","argument":"Any law we are ok creating exceptions for is a law we do not hold as critical to society. At that point we should all question why it is a law we allow enforced on the rest of us. There may be a reason. But it should be very carefully looked at","conclusion":"If a law can be subverted for religious reasons, the law should be changed to allow non-religious people to operate in the same manner as their religious counterparts."}
{"id":"7212bd01-3a0c-4b88-be19-163b78279a01","argument":"It is entirely stupid that when my girlfriend, or sister or whoever gets a UTI they have to call a male doctor, wait to see them. Pay them a ton of money, then go through insurance, then we pay a pharmacist to fill the order. Same with yeast infections I'm not a girl but apparently these things are extremely common and they know exactly what it is when they get them Same with a lot of really other common things, such as pink eye. I'm writing this with pink eye right now, it was extremely clear I had pink eye, i woke up with my eyes glued shut with eye boogers and my eye was red. But i still have to go through the process and suffer pay a ton of money and deal with insurance for an obvious fix. We have to go through TWO people who are paid over 75,000 a year just to get these common things handled. Its absolutely stupid. Let me go to the store and buy my own Pink Eye medicine and if I'm stupid enough to put Pink Eye medicine in my contact lenses and ruin them that's FINE. I'm not saying we shouldnt control any substances, obviously ones that have the potential to cause real harm like opiates or things that are controlled for other reasons like if they're easily accessible the virus bacteria will build up an immunity to it, or whatever this is fine. Control these, but the vast majority of the time we're dealing with very very lightweight stuff here and people are smart enough to make their own decisions, and if they mess up they always have the option of seeing a doctor. x200B 2 Pharmaceutical companies in general are totally scamming the American people. It's ridiculous that I can drive across the border to Mexico and pickup the same medicines for MUCH cheaper, or Canada, or anywhere else but in USA we get destroyed on the costs just because they know they can and because we have an insurance system that let's these pharmaceutical companies bill them. Then these same pharmaceutical companies spend 100's of millions of dollars lobbying to our politicians to write laws that favor them. Another example is 25 of our KIDS are on some form of psychiatric drug for things like ADHD, Depression, or Anxiety. You really want to tell me 1 4 kids have a brain issue? but you look at other countries and the rates are close to 1 100. Another example is Plan B birth control, in Brazil it's about 2 and you can buy it with zero fuss. In USA we expect young people to fork out 45 and have an awkward conversation with a cashier that has to open the glass with a key to get the box. 3 Healthcare providers make more money if they keep people sick instead of helping them get better. This is a fundamental flaw and you can see it in how we train our doctors, they get virtually no nutrition training and America has skyrocketing rates of obesity and obesity related illnesses. Doctors and Pharmaceutical companies are incentivized to keep people coming back frequently. Let's solve the real problems, corruption, and the fact that we have a stupid system, and possibly an insurance system that's being taken advantage of get these costs down to reasonable levels THEN maybe we can have a real, meaningful discussion about universal healthcare.","conclusion":"The medical system in the United States is almost entirely messed up and needs to be fixed, THEN we can have a real discussion about universal healthcare."}
{"id":"a05a58d0-7422-4a0e-bc71-48350028b7ce","argument":"There are a number of disciplines history, geography, archeology, anthropology, philology, palaeography and more which aim to determine historical evidence's validity and set standards which the sources must meet in order to be considered reliable and useful.","conclusion":"Universally ignoring historical and anecdotal evidence would imply an inability to learn anything from either history or eyewitness testimony."}
{"id":"08a0b81f-1045-4b5b-93f1-d1c262d2afb1","argument":"I'm referring to the concept of mind uploading promoted by Ray Kurzweil and other futurists, which says that sometime in the near future we will be able to digitize our brains and use this to achieve a kind of immortality. Google\u2019s chief engineer People will soon upload their entire brains to computers Virtual Afterlives will Transform Humanity There are good reasons to doubt this would ever be possible. First of all there's no evidence I've seen that machine simulations of brain activity would have consciousness to begin with, something that many proponents of the concept seem to take for granted. We still don't fully understand what consciousness is or how it's produced, but what we do know is that it's only ever been observed in biological beings. There are plenty of mechanical objects you can think of that mirror our thought processes in certain ways, but it would be ridiculous to suggest that they have consciousness. I think the only reason some people believe this about computers is because they create a convincing illusion of consciousness. Second, even if it was possible to create conscious machines, I don't see how there could be any continuity between your original analogue brain and its digital copy. It might be possible to create a convincing simulation of your brain inside a computer \u2014 it might even think it was you \u2014 but this would still just be an inferior replica, not an extension of your existing consciousness. Kurzweil has suggested that if you gradually replace your biological brain with digital neurons, that consciousness could somehow be transferred over to digital form. But this doesn't seem credible any more than it would be to gradually replace your body with mechanical parts and then call the resulting machine you . Most of us don't view prosthetic limbs or other body implants as being part of the actual person they are attached to. I see no reason why would it be any different when it comes to a prosthetic brain. The machine might live on , but you would die. So in reality uploading your brain would simply create a non conscious digital replica, and gradually replacing your brain with a machine would be a slow motion form of suicide.","conclusion":"The idea of \"uploading your brain\" to a computer is unrealistic."}
{"id":"5fbaf270-0607-47b1-8155-f5894d599bbc","argument":"To see how far a civilisation has travelled, we need to know where we started. If you dilute the message of books, you cannot see how bad we treated our fellow humans. Those who ignore the lessons in history will continue to repeat the same mistakes. Removing the N- word only makes White history more palatable for white people, sure it makes people squirm and feel uncomfortable - So what! Ignoring history does not make it better, it will fester. Acknowledge our mistakes, tell the truth!.","conclusion":"The removal or manipulation of information provided to students is a common method of censorship, often used to cover up uncomfortable truths about the past."}
{"id":"5b78d233-f11e-49a8-b3d2-aef9d97a11aa","argument":"Transcendent means \"independent of the material universe\", and immanent \"manifested in the material world\". Manifesting in the material world means one isn't independent of it, being independent of the material universe prevents from manifesting in it. Meaning those two qualities are incompatible.","conclusion":"The classical definition of God is contradictory or incoherent, and thus God cannot in principle exist."}
{"id":"3fb7f831-60c1-4bac-95b5-2eee9420436e","argument":"We can never know what value others place on their life. it is a personal thing and for some people life is not valuable, not something they have chosen and they would rather move on. We have no right to say that their perspective is wrong and to impose our own value of life onto them?","conclusion":"The decision to continue living, or stop living, is a fundamentally personal one, and not the business of the government."}
{"id":"11e18ea7-edf6-43e0-803f-5749f69898bb","argument":"Granted I don't know too much about his politics as I only started following the election well after Hillary secured the nomination. However, when he speaks it seems he's very progressive and intelligent, and simply dislikes the Democratic party as a group. I'd be happy if he ran again, as he even managed to appeal to ultra Republicans like my grandpa. Why do so many people on the left seem to despise him? The only reason I can think of is that he pulled votes away from Hillary and is therefore being labelled as delusional and selfish. Personally I thought he was a great speaker and wanted radical changes similar to Ocasio Cortez. That being said, I don't know much about the extent of his political views, and would like to gain some perspective.","conclusion":"Bernie Sanders is a cool dude with some really good ideas, and everyone hating on him are just blaming him for Trump's election"}
{"id":"d559734b-d95f-42ea-9382-349830f5344e","argument":"Hi there. I am new to this sub, so I will try my best to be as descriptive and concise as possible. It is possible that this thread might have a better fit at another sub, such as r Advice or r Christianity or something like that. If so, please let me know. Not sure if I will mention too much information but I guess more info is better than lack of info. To start off, I am currently a senior studying for a Bachelor's in Chemical Engineering. I have always loved math and science and I have always been interested in dinosaurs, space and all that stuff as a kid. Needless to say, I have always been taught about evolution and the big bang theory and things like that and never gave it a second thought. It just always made sense Besides, even if it is not true, it is the best we have and until someone else proves these theories otherwise, we can just give it a rest and move on to other more important things that have more impact on our relatively short lives. Anyway, back on subject, I have always attended church for as long as I can remember. I have always gone to a Presbyterian church and never really did much. I only went on Sundays, never read the Bible and never went to any church activities. About 5 years ago, my parents have had a lot of trouble lately, both in their relationship and economically. They are currently separated but figured they would have more financial security if they do not divorce just yet. This has made my family reduce out already small attendance to church and pretty didn't go for a whole year. My mother, however, has built up her faith. About 3 years ago, she had met a coworker that is very religious and had started going to a new church. This church does not have a denomination and was much smaller about 100 regulars every Sunday . This meant that now the entire family my parents and my younger brother was going back to church regularly. And here is where things get interesting. My mother has become very demanding, for lack of a better word. At first, she just wanted us my brother and I to go regularly. Then, she wanted us to go to church activities, then to join the worship band, then to get baptized, etc. At first, it felt like a bunch of responsibility and work that I did not want to do, especially since I wasn't sure whether I believed or not. I haven't really minded doing everything over time. It was starting to be fun at some points But then, I feel like someone who doesn't belong simply because I do not worship Him and talk about Him like everyone else did. I especially didn't like it when people prayed loudly and audibly when the pastor began to minister the congregation. I don't know if I don't have a part of the brain where all the shaking and yelling makes you closer to God, but I just don't get it. Anyway, point of this story is my current view on God is that I don't really know where I stand or where I should stand. I enjoy worshiping Him but I don't really like congregating with people that constantly judge you and give you unsolicited advice because God told them to let me know . The biggest pressure would have to come from my mom. I feel like if I told her I don't really believe in God, she would fall into depression or try to exorcise me or something like that. I feel like believing in God has given me more work and ever since I started serving the church, I just have this pressure where I have to pray every day and fast every so often and read the Bible every day and all this stuff. I don't feel any better when I do those things. My question to you is how do you believe in God? What does it mean to have faith? Do I just believe everything everyone in church tells me and fake smile my way through it? Am I living in sin because I am questioning all these things? If I have a beer, am I committing a sin? Why are there so many rules? I feel like the more I go to church, the louder these questions are and I am getting no satisfying responses. And I will end with this I really want to believe. I really do. I wish I could just read the Bible and pray and really feel like it is all worthwhile. I want to make my mother happy. I want to make a difference in this world and I really want to believe that being faithful is the right path. I hope this was specific enough, if not, I can give a quick edit if more info is needed. Thanks so much for reading and offering your thoughts. Have a great day TL DR I have been going to a new church recently and I am having trouble believing in God and everything that it entails. I would like to know if there is something wrong with not believing but wanting to believe.","conclusion":"I really want to believe in God... but it is hard to just accept everything."}
{"id":"7425c5ce-3c88-4f3e-87b9-272e1694a763","argument":"I am beginning to think that absolute free speech i.e. being able to say anything and everything, including the most repugnant and vile things you can think of does not exist. Real debate around free speech is where to draw the line which is much more tricker. I base this on two premises below. Most of us would draw a line at something. For example, if I was to publicly preach that the way to reduce population growth is to start killing babies, most people would find that abhorrent and I\u2019d probably be shut down. Similarly when a religious cleric preaches death to non believers, we find that abhorrent too and if there were such religious places in our cities, we\u2019d want to have them shut down in one way or the other. Am I wrong in thinking this would be the case? Secondly, there are already laws in place that restrict absolute free speech including anti hate speech laws, defamation laws, even false advertising laws. These laws already and rightfully impugn on our rights to absolute free speech. So the real question isn\u2019t if free speech exists or not. Real question is where the line is drawn.  Edit thank you for all the responses. I am writing an essay around this topic and before I publish it on my blog I wanted to test out my thinking in this wonderful sub. I\u2019m off to work now and will respond to as many comments as I can after work","conclusion":"Absolute free speech doesn\u2019t exist - real debate is about where to draw the line"}
{"id":"18463913-da5f-4b19-b107-bf74c6623b22","argument":"I really think the media overly portrays videogames as some sort of evil thing that causes kids and adults to become murderous psychopaths. I've seen hundreds of news articles saying that X School shooting, is gaming to blame? or things alongside those lines. But this is completely inaccurate. Multiple scientific studies on people who do mass shootings as an example say that they have multiple personality disorders were abused as kids hundreds of other reasons, and only a handful actually play video games. Videogames are in no way tools that people use to convince themselves to rob a bank, or commit mass murder. Then the media loves to go ham on games saying about how the youth are being stunted by them, how everyone is addicted to them, blah blah blah, wrong wrong wrong except maybe the addiction part, as some people do go a bit overboard Videogames have multiple benefits for people, such as bringing together communities regardless of race, age, gender, religious beliefs, they can bring together friends so they can hang out and chat, and engage with each other without being in danger. Think a group of friends walking together on the sidewalk, and a drunk driver ploughs into them. Videogames improve hand eye coordination, focus, confidence, and a whole lot more. So, what does everyone else think? Am I right, or delusional?","conclusion":"Gaming is NOT such a bad thing as the media loves to claim, nor does it incite violence, or shootings"}
{"id":"ea542274-d169-40bc-b7d6-2c3688e1ec20","argument":"I have spent some time comparing Wikipedia with other encyclopedias, and I found that Wikipedia's content is not comparable to the content of other encyclopedias. I think Wikipedia's wiki model is responsible for its factual errors and unorganized content. A company with enough money could have easily funded a better encyclopedia. My estimates are that all of the editors on Wikipedia produce an output equal to 2000 work years every year. I might be wrong. Microsoft had its own encyclopedia, Encarta, but they decided to end it, maybe they thought it was no match for Wikipedia. Google had also initiated a project, Knol, but they ended it prematurely. Is Wikipedia a better encyclopedia than what any organization can create on its own? I doubt.","conclusion":"Wikipedia is not an ideal encyclopedia, and large corporations could have done better."}
{"id":"301b2eb0-12d3-480e-a1a4-8efd3a72ccf0","argument":"While there was little material benefit for African Americans, at least Obama proved many ugly stereotypes wrong by providing competent, eloquent, and patient leadership.","conclusion":"His election was a huge step forward for black Americans"}
{"id":"e8d045a3-a00e-4cb1-93e7-24df6710566b","argument":"I just recently bought a Samsung galaxy s7 after my s5 refused to take a charge. Now when I look for a new phone I like to stay with Samsung. Sure there are better and less explosive phones on the market, but for me there are always two factors I look for in a phone, expandable storage and reliable battery. Which is why I've always stuck to android, except now I'm not so sure about where Samsung is going with adding the edge as a standard on all of their new phones. For me the edge is the same as the new iPhone which has a glass backing to it again. They're both useless and make the phone look and feel more fragile. The only upside to the edge on the Samsung galaxy's is watching videos. However for me that's just another angle for light to catch and ruin the experience. And with that I ask to change my view.","conclusion":"The design path of the new Samsung phones."}
{"id":"d10ed37a-3543-4bf2-a925-c834e7ae61f9","argument":"Allowing single people to have children would satisfy what is a fundamental instinct in all human beings to procreate.","conclusion":"Single women\/men should be allowed the use of IVF to have their own children."}
{"id":"795f4997-c192-4b09-b985-dcc1c4e0165c","argument":"I was having a conversation on this and didn't realize how strongly i felt about it and i should probably note that i have worked the food industry for some years. Basically i feel that when an employee's performance is reviewed via their employer, customer comments, whatever the assessment should be based upon merit and their ability to get the job done. Not on their ability to kiss the customer's ass. Unfortunately i find the latter to be the case in most food customer service workplaces. I feel that it is wrong to enforce or require an employee to be someone they are not. For the most part, the smiles and conversations they, and I, have with customers seem forced, unreal, and just unnecessary. If your happiness satisfaction with your service legitimately depends upon the facial expression of your server, or whether or not they addressed you as ma'am, or if they forgot to say thank you or whatever, i feel that you should check you're priorities lower your fuckin standards. The whole customer is always right, and you are beneath them mentality has seemed to promote the idea that servers cashiers other retail workers aren't people but your personal jester butler housemaid. I believe that customers should have more tolerance for unsocial employees. Employees that are focused on getting straight to business, and getting the job done right. Employees that don't ask you how your day is going or tell you how cute your baby is. But instead, ask how you want your food prepared, or focus on other things that are actually productive Someone who disregards formalities and focuses on the task at hand shouldn't be punished but rewarded.","conclusion":"I believe the general good mannered etiquette\/politeness found in the retail and customer service industry is mostly disingenuous and unnecessary"}
{"id":"d0945a54-4624-43c1-9595-98d53cca113f","argument":"The creator of a piece of copyrighted material has brought forth a novel concept and product of the human mind. That artist thus should have a power over that work\u2019s use. Art is the expression of its creator\u2019s sense of understanding of the world, and thus that expression will always have special meaning to him or her. How that work is then used thus remains an active issue for the artist, who should, as a matter of justice be able to retain a control over its dissemination. That control can extend, as with the bequeathing of tangible assets, to designated successors, be the trusts, family, or firms. In carrying out the wishes of the artist, these successors can safeguard that legacy in their honor. Many artists care about their legacies and the future of their artistic works, and should thus have this protection furnished by the state through the protection of lengthy copyrights.","conclusion":"Control of an artistic work and its interaction in the public sphere is the just province of the creator and his or her designated successors"}
{"id":"cbe188e1-4730-4afe-857e-b10dca1b6744","argument":"The studies showing that women make less than men don't take into account what type of work a person does. So they show a male doctor who works 60 hours a week making 200k, and a female nurse working 60 hours a week making 100k, and somehow people conclude women make less than men. If companies could hire a woman for the exact same quality of work at some fraction of the cost, then every business everywhere would be crazy to hire men. They would be hiring women at every chance they could get and replace them with men. This is clearly NOT the world we live in. If a woman chooses a less lucrative career then that is her choice. I don't understand where people are coming from with this crap, I'm starting to feel like I'm taking crazy pills.  if you can.","conclusion":"I don't believe women make less than men"}
{"id":"0ae1548b-cb32-4240-91f1-63e6347c9eda","argument":"Doctrine of Covenants 43:13 told followers of the church to give Joseph Smith food and anything else he needed to 'accomplish the work wherewith' God commanded him.","conclusion":"The three and eight witnesses actually did receive or were promised tangible benefits."}
{"id":"94995eb5-a097-43cf-ae57-104b2a392ff3","argument":"There are potentially 1.9 million extra jobs available just from unused vacation days in the US.","conclusion":"Increasing leisure time frees up total work hours for those without jobs, thereby reducing unemployment."}
{"id":"626558bc-041e-4dae-b6a6-0f839251f2a6","argument":"Any Republican who voted against Kavanaugh faced the accusation that they were yielding to Democratic smear campaigns and witch-hunts and were ruthlessly attacked. This sends a powerful message to future senators that they must tow the party line, or else.","conclusion":"The Kavanaugh Hearings have increased bitterness and partisan feeling around nominations to Supreme Court seats, and have therefore made it harder for Senators to go against their party in future."}
{"id":"f5afb7e2-bd51-4b9d-b28f-ce4e67b60ce0","argument":"Over the course of the past six months, I've been exposed to the mysterious world of geriatrics. From these numerous experiences, I've come to multiple conclusions A Getting old sucks. Who really wants to grow old? Sure, your personality is still in tact and maybe you've reconciled some mobility but you're never going to be as young as you were yesterday. B Everyone dies alone. Everyone . I don't care if you found your soul mate in preschool or when you turned 50 you both will die alone. C Every piece goes back into the box at the end of the game so why should I hold on as long as possible? I don't see the point of hanging on as long as possible. D The American idea of delayed satisfaction post retirement sounds like a load of bullshit meant to give hope to those slogging through the monotony of life. Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body,but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming, What a ride . , please.","conclusion":"I feel that living fast and dying young is a much better way of dying than growing old."}
{"id":"5271f266-1d27-4a83-9252-c13129a3a44c","argument":"According to opinion polls 9\/11 convinced 60% of Americans that terrorism is the most important issue facing the United States in 2002 compared to 0% before the attacks.","conclusion":"Threat perceptions change based on events - and we can impossible predict what events might happen in the future."}
{"id":"26a13c4d-f111-44a7-a86d-493c57a7b39d","argument":"These findings build upon each other to make new findings, which can create a greater emergence and level of consciousness - which leads to specialization","conclusion":"If AI can become more intelligent than humans, it will be smart enough to find a way to be conscious."}
{"id":"15babbb6-a3b3-4d26-815b-e7bc3d0b844b","argument":"Access to politicians' financial information could reveal if they act morally or not even if their finances are all legal.","conclusion":"Politicians should be required to reveal their finances to the public."}
{"id":"37717125-b76f-4fb0-a7b6-a57440e41f22","argument":"People making idiotic unsubstantiated claims may simmer down if they can buy out of a vaccine requirement rather than railing against the heavens with bad data and conspiracy theories lacking factual basis. A few unvaccinated people won't hurt herd immunity but their ranting would discourage others and help infectious organisms evade vaccine defenses. This is a win-win.","conclusion":"Vaccine opt-outs should be available in some cases for a cash donation to offset impact."}
{"id":"323eb103-2c44-4deb-8263-cb7b8f0505db","argument":"It is estimated that unification will cost 7% of SK's GDP over the span of a decade.","conclusion":"The economic costs of unification are too excessive to justify its implementation."}
{"id":"aad481aa-a756-4e1b-8ef1-b0198f687a5a","argument":"A state can be justified in taking defensive measures in proportion to the threat it faces> The threat posed to Israel's existence by Hamas and suicide bombers is substantial. Targeted assassinations are an appropriate, proportional response.","conclusion":"Israel's targeted assassinations are proportional to the threat it faces"}
{"id":"13d3aadf-b8a1-4a5a-a08c-b5c0ccc8e832","argument":"Islam promotes egalitarianism, which is expressed by guaranteeing women certain rights such as the right to life, to education, to conduct business, maintain property, and to keep their names p. 32, para 1.","conclusion":"The Quran does not provide a simple and straightforward code of law which means that various interpretations of the text can be derived from it. p6. par 2."}
{"id":"dcf1349c-4336-42ee-a61a-44e8a123af60","argument":"After thinking, I\u2019ve realized that a relationship between a person and their SO included three elements. This is how I define them. Elements friendship element this includes talking about serious subjects that you would tell a best friend. Being there for your partner just like you would be there for a friend if they needed help with something, etc. family element this is like the I love you element. I say it in the same why I would say it to a family member I care about. When I tell someone I love them, for me it means I\u2019ll fight for you and care for you. You could love your friend and treat them as family just like you would for your actual family and your SO. sexual element I don\u2019t think I need to explain this one. I believe that all these three elements together define what a relationship between two partners, spouses, whatever you want to call it. I remember seeing a  a few days ago that stated that anyone\u2019s sexuality can be questioned because if you were dating someone that you loved who was a female and you\u2019re a male, and instead, you met someone who was a male but with the exact same personality basically the same person but a different gender , then you would like them. I think this is incorrect because there wouldn\u2019t be sexual attraction. It\u2019s possible you will be good friends that care for each other, but a straight male by definition would not be sexually attracted to another male which is critical to liking someone as a SO. That\u2019s why you don\u2019t see straight guys dating other straight guys. Edit Marriage is a legal term yes anyone can get married. I\u2019m not saying two people who are not sexually attracted can not get married. Edit2 id say my mind has been changed on this. Regarding the elements that create a partner partner relationship, you can change my mind on this statement. I think It\u2019s more accurate to say that the third element is a partner element I don\u2019t know what to call it , something that branches off into two sections, romantic all interactions that allow for openness within the relationship that wouldn\u2019t be similar to a family member or a friend like kissing passionately, being naked and sleeping with them in bed, etc and a sexual element. The first two elements are required and the third element could be either the sexual element, romantic element, or both. The first delta I have was a case where you are not sexually attracted to someone but still have sex because of the pleasure. Not entirely sure anyone does that but assuming that can happen, that would be the first two elements, and the sexual sub element. The second case is someone who is asexual who shows a degree of openness as in, being naked, doing romantic things, cuddling, things you wouldn\u2019t do with a friend or family member. At this time, the post was 5H old.","conclusion":"A relationship between someone and their SO or spouse requires sexual attraction."}
{"id":"a12d21a9-aca8-4420-881a-8f5154fd7a59","argument":"Like many, I'm not really a fan of sports with subjective winner. But some sports, like figure skating or gymnastics don't really lend themselves to objective outcomes. But ski jumping does lend itself to an objective outcome, but for some reason they add subjectivity to it and have judges and a point system to determine the winner. It should be like the long jump in track and field. Whomever jumps the furthest is the winner. I understand that wind influences the jumps, but the same thing happens in other sports like the long jump, golf and time trial cycling. We don't create a judging and point system for those. The winner is objectively determine. It may be easy to change my view because I don't really know much about the sport. So there might be a convincing reason that style is more important than distance. But it seems that jumping further than anyone else either is, or should be, the objective. Not looking pretty while doing it. One thing that will not  is pointing out similar faults in other sports, like boxing.","conclusion":"The winner in ski jumping should be determined by who jumped the furthest."}
{"id":"892ee627-f89e-4241-accb-45565c2acd53","argument":"Neither side emerges as a victor from a war. War rarely settles issues the First World War created the conditions that led directly to the Second World War , but they create suffering for both sides concerned. Often the innocent suffer, as with the civilians of Dresden when it was firebombed by the Allies, or the people of Hiroshima when the USA dropped the atomic bomb.","conclusion":"Neither side emerges as a victor from a war. War rarely settles issues the First World War created..."}
{"id":"4e334b03-48e1-4925-a723-729bdfc9b11b","argument":"Churches often assist their congregations with everything from civic rights to the college application processes. They especially play an important role for recent immigrants who turn to churches for the services and information they need to adjust to life in a new country.","conclusion":"Government funding of religious organizations can be an efficient way of fulfilling social needs that would otherwise go unaddressed."}
{"id":"4728cfb4-cb67-4cbd-b439-77c60661435c","argument":"Two major arguments I have. In general, rules cannot be selectively followed, or it defeats their purpose. The whole reason rules exist is because humans cannot be trusted to decide for themselves how to behave. But selectively following rules means that humans get to do just that, and rules have no power. So, if people choose to ignore the rule in the bible about not mixing fabrics then they can justify ignoring rules like don't murder, because of the precedent. The bible is accepted based on faith that the word of God is infallible. If you believe parts of the word of God are false, than you are rejecting the premise that it's infallible, and thus there's no reason to believe in any of it. If you contend that parts of the bible are metaphorical, or were modified from their original text, then you open up the passages that you do believe in to the same criticism. I'm not trying to be an r atheist esque religious basher, or anything. I'm just genuinely curious how this is reconciled. And I'm very open to the possibility that I'm misunderstanding what 'faith' means, since I've never really had it in my life. Thank you.","conclusion":"You cannot reject parts of the bible and believe others. If you decide what to believe or not believe, it defeats the whole point of a religious dogma."}
{"id":"908ffe37-ae1b-4301-991b-fd44fb9e512b","argument":"Western states grew as a result of religion and religious philosophy. Western European and North American societies are still based on Protestant ideals of diligence, thrift and moderation.","conclusion":"Western states grew as a result of religion and religious philosophy. Western European and North Am..."}
{"id":"ed4a0ff6-3cf5-4415-ae61-ad0375601b9c","argument":"Health and safety rules normally just ensure that employees have accessible, safe, and clean facilities. This is less of an overreach than enforcing social-norm based rules such as gender restrictions.","conclusion":"This is a health and safety in the workplace law - applying regulations for all public restrooms is further-reaching."}
{"id":"816ae7b8-e415-47f9-bccc-d3ff37564e54","argument":"disclaimer I'm a complete beginner in this field and I am probably wrong in many of my assumptions. That is why I came here, so please correct me whenever I'm completely wrong. I believe that a large part of why the U.S. and the global economy is not at its best is because of the current monetary system. The U.S.'s central bank the one that prints the U.S.'s fiat money is a private company owned by banks like Goldman Sachs, and previously Lehman Brothers, financial institutions that were very closely involved in the causes of 2008 recession, notably the sub prime mortgage crisis ABACUS case. A private institution that has a reputation of working solely for its profit, making reckless investments that tanked a country's economy, them managing something that is of public interest is not something that I particularly approve of, but I might be simply ignorant of the benefits of central bank privatization. Correct me if that is the case, please. I simply don't trust the Central bank the government to create money out of thin air, money that isn't backed by anything physical, thus devaluating our money by printing excessive amounts of it when a bank needs more money to lend, which can lead to catastrophic scenarios of hyperinflation like ex Yugoslavia or Zaire. I also think that the gold standard helps keep inflation rates stable and low, thanks to the relatively stable supply of gold, and if every economy were to use it, exchange rates would be stable as well. Other commodity backed currencies like a silver standard also seem like a viable option to me, as long as we don't have the option to inflate the money supply. thanks for reading","conclusion":"I believe that the U.S., and most major economies of this world, should revert to the gold standard."}
{"id":"e00bfd46-0193-432c-a548-631b1e997780","argument":"Cage may be choosing characters based on their exaggerated emotions. It is possible that these are the characters he is best at playing.","conclusion":"It is plausible that Cage portrays the fictional characters in their truth as they are meant to be, hyper exaggerated."}
{"id":"1c59f2b3-d462-4af2-b704-2f245b2c4d4f","argument":"It can be very hard to move from one employer to another, when they have not had the opportunity to carry out all the duties normally included in their role.","conclusion":"Those paid subminimum wages report becoming trapped in the very jobs that were meant to help add to their lives."}
{"id":"2ce84588-052b-459b-a005-8aea86e5c3dd","argument":"True statements, regardless of whether the language is inflammatory, are good and encourage development, no matter what is said. By being in conflict there is mutual development as ideas and concerns are voiced at each other.","conclusion":"Discourse can be had with inflammatory language. Trying to deny one's words because they are inflammatory rather than because factual inaccuracies does not help progress meaningful discourse."}
{"id":"a18bf32c-cc6f-47cd-bb57-e82ed95f73dc","argument":"In the US, public trust in government has reached historic lows - with only 18% of Americans saying they can trust the federal government to do what is right \u201cjust about always\u201d 3% or \u201cmost of the time\u201d 15%.","conclusion":"Public opinion polls indicate that people feel disconnected from their government representatives. Nevertheless, politicians continue to receive high salaries regardless of their performance, which is unjust."}
{"id":"04ed0cb6-79c9-4cf5-b86b-bf10be419cd4","argument":"For example, even though an individual may initially consent to having sex, they retain the right to revoke that consent during the sex.","conclusion":"This is not the standard level of consent accepted by society; continual consent is required for an activity."}
{"id":"fb0d0021-ebfd-42d4-a958-a1a52788e430","argument":"So this is a bit of a weird way to phrase it, but I'm struggling to get the words right. Essentially, the way I look at the issue is the following. Either There should be less harsh punishments for people who use their phones in cars, or There should be more harsh punishments for people who do other things in cars. I'll detail these other activities in a bit more detail below, as well as explaining my reasoning. Here in Australia, we're 'cracking down on road safety' . Now I don't necessarily have a problem with that, but I think punishments for phone users behind the wheel are disproportionate when considering the fact that you aren't punished for Eating hot food at the wheel really consumes your attention and could spill on you and result in an accident Playing with the radio while driving I really think this is pretty much the same as phone usage Drinking beverages most likely requires you to tilt your head back meaning it's harder for your eyes to focus on the road Having fighting kids in the car I think I would be driving better if I was driving and texting than if I had 3 kids screaming in the back seat Having animals in the front seat I know people who do this and I think it could result in bad accidents I'd like to say that I don't condone mobile phone usage in cars, but I think it's absolutely ridiculous that I could get a ticket for texting at a traffic light, but it's absolutely okay for someone to be doing 110kph on the highway while eating a curry.","conclusion":"Mobile phone usage in cars without bluetooth, i.e. holding the phone to your ear or texting is not punished fairly when considering other things you do in your car are not punished."}
{"id":"dd1fc41a-aeb3-41e6-8c68-18db6932afef","argument":"I am referring to representative democracies like the UK when I say this. The big problem I have with democracy is that everyone gets to vote and I think a lot of people don't have enough political knowledge to justify being allowed to vote. Becoming a politician requires knowledge of politics Well, generally because it is a very complex and important issue, issues such as Brexit are incredibly complex that I highly doubt a person even in a year could fully understand what leaving would fully actually mean. Yet we give the political power to a population that frankly don't know what they're on about. This results in politicians using tactics to get votes instead of having good debates, as much as an evil person that Hitler was, he clearly saw this like very few in Weimar Germany could, and while his manipulation and charisma of the people wasn't the sole reason he got into power, the Nazi party couldn't have got into power without it. This can be seen by politicians not answering questions directly, lying, misinformation, hyperbole, ect, politicians aren't stupid, it's just politics is a game of persuasion, not having good solutions. Now, the biggest reason against my view I have found is that if we take away power from people who shouldn't vote , then the issues of the lower classes aren't as easily solved, which is a big downside, however think it's a needed demon in order for more informed people to decide what direction the country goes. Now, I don't know exactly how I'd implement this, I think ideas likes heredity monarchy and the House of Lords are far more dangerous than representative democracy, my best idea is only allowing people with 5 C's in their GCSE's to vote, however this is a far from perfect ideas and I'm certain their are much better ways to implement this. x200B EDIT Just for clarification, I'm not calling for an elite class to make all the decisions, I still think the majority of people should vote, just filter out some people who aren't as politically inclined.","conclusion":"Current Society is Too Democratic."}
{"id":"2e576978-f681-4bb0-8915-4b0a60dbafa0","argument":"Congress has the power to regulate and alter the times, places and manner of holding elections for Senators and Representatives under Article I, Section 4 of the Constitution. Currently, under this power, the Congress has mandated that all members of the House of Representatives be elected from single member geographic districts. I propose that Congress repeal this provision and replace it with one requiring that members of the House be elected under a mixed member proportional system, with a bare majority of the seats apportioned to a state being divided into geographic districts, and the remainder being used to fill in based on party vote in those seats using the D'Hondt method. For states with only 1 seat, this would mean no change. For states with 2 seats, this would mean both districts were at large. The party who won the normal at large seat would also win the second at large seat if they had 2 3 of the two party vote in the state, or in the event of a three party split, if they had achieved twice as many votes as the next most vote getting party. Otherwise, the next most successful party would get the second seat. For states with 3 seats, 2 would be geographic and 1 would be at large. For states with 4 seats, 2 would be geographic and 2 would be at large. For states with 5 seats, 3 would be geographic and 2 would be at large. And so on. I don't have a firm threshold for party qualification for at large seats, but I'd be fine with anything from 5 15 . Members running as independents would be able to run in geographic districts only, and I'd allow that any party winning a geographic district be allowed to get proportional seats regardless of the threshold. This would effectively end gerrymandering, while still allowing local representation of regions of states with sufficient population to have 3 or more representatives. The boundaries of those districts would become far less important, because the at large seats would ensure that packing and cracking have little if any effect on overall partisan makeup. This would also not require a constitutional amendment, since it would be able to be enacted under the Article I Section 4 power. I think that at least one party probably the Democrats should run on this platform, and if elected, pass it into law. edit fixed an error when I inserted a paragraph at the wrong spot when composing this. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Congress should change Congressional elections to Mixed Member Proportional to end gerrymandering."}
{"id":"59177469-c3a9-4bc6-931a-2efe43d7ccc3","argument":"Accepting the nuclear program will allow the US to lift sanctions imposed on North Korea, leading to positive effects.","conclusion":"The US should not try to force North Korea to abandon its nuclear program."}
{"id":"fb853dba-ae37-477d-87e2-072926dccf21","argument":"Considering how many other subreddits and communities are built around how to stop TRP , I don't see why they should be so alarmed. There doesn't seem to be a spike in domestic violence or sexual violence that one can link back to TheRedPill. Sure, there have been people who have browsed it and ended up committing crimes against women, but to assume they did it because they browse TheRedPill rings as true as those who say that school shooters who played FPS did so because they played FPS, or that Muslims who committed terrorist attacks did so because they were Muslims. That is these people would have committed those crimes anyway they were driven to these communities because they were already convinced, and they only tangentially encouraged them. As for those who worry about kids or men who would go into TRP and become lost there forever so what? It's not like those guys are the kind that women would welcome their advances anyway. Most seem like they are social outcasts, old virgins, men with seriously unattractive traits that can't be corrected short height, small penises, balding that's why they have a pretty good overlap with those subreddits . It's not like woman kind is going to be losing anything worthwhile. Among those who fight TRP , a common argument is that TRP doesn't work, so technically they are saying that women aren't really in danger of being manipulated by a redpiller, either. And women have got better at picking up creepy behavior, calling it out and not fearing the repercussions the NPM debacle comes to mind, or this thread If anything, I think that's a more sensible strategy just teach women to stay away from creepy men. Getting rid of creeps is impossible there will always be outcasts short dudes, dudes with small penises, dudes who were too socially awkward in their youth to get sexual experience , so short of teaching men to respect women in school, there isn't much you can do to eliminate them. I'd think they will simply be culled from the gene pool by the same mechanisms that made them outcasts in the first place. And it's time better spent than trying to make lost causes well adjusted members of society. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I don't see any reason to feel worried about TheRedPill, considering their demographic. In any case, I'd worry about teaching women how to recognize shitty behaviors and stay away from them"}
{"id":"7b8bb9de-ff94-4697-b36a-b48bbf2e3c4d","argument":"Trump has falsely claimed 204 times that the U.S. economy today is the best in history even though the economy is not doing as well as it did under previous presidents. The American economy is beginning to hit the head winds caused by Trump\u2019s trade wars and the manufacturing sector in recession.","conclusion":"Trump has made 13,435 false or misleading claims between January 20, 2017, and October 9, 2019."}
{"id":"4ac315ec-05e3-444b-b5e2-293655e5fcfb","argument":"White supremacist speech can intimidate members of social minorities and inspire in them a feeling of fear, making them feel unwelcome in their home country.","conclusion":"White supremacists threaten and endanger a variety of ethnic, religious and other societal groups whose members live all across the world."}
{"id":"b545719c-a6fc-4b1e-b643-cf64c432cada","argument":"So, spoilers if you've never watched Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann TTGL , but the primary antagonists, the anti spirals, are trying to stop the spiral nemesis which is caused by the overuse of spiral power. Spiral power comes from spirals pretty much things based on DNA as their genome . The argument the anti spirals made was that the spirals continue to use spiral power and eventually will lead to the destruction of the universe. Spiral power allows things to break the law of conservation of energy, among a few others I believe. Essentially, through generations, spiral power will increase exponentially . Anyway, I would argue that the universe is too massive to collapse due to the use of spiral energy and their concern was dumbfounded. The sheer scale of the universe is incomprehensible and being able to use spiral power at an exponential rate would not have an effect on the life cycle of the universe. And the other thing is, they don't even know exactly what spiral power would do when used in excess. It's just said it will eventually destroy us all. They never say there's a limited amount of spiral power, or anything to the effect. Lastly, if there is no finite amount of spiral energy, then bottlenecking spiral evolution to keep them underground won't do anything to hasten the end of the universe. It would still come at the same time whether or not spirals are able to evolve or not. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The spiral nemesis in Gurren Lagann is not a real threat and shouldn't be a concern."}
{"id":"73762f2f-41d9-4054-a07b-d2a17587bf17","argument":"Hello. I'd like to say that I work in an programming job, so I've experienced beforehand what I'm about to describe. First of all, I know there's nothing new about it, people were doing monotonous tasks in the past, typing all day long or filling forms by hand. It hasn't changed at all, maybe the difference is that most things are done by a computer now. However after working for more than a year in the same place, doing the same thing for 5 or 6 days, sometimes working extra hours so the company can have a report that no one is going to read but they need it . Can create in the individual a sense of emptiness, Some might cope with it by staying with their family, or going out with friends, but in the end, it's going to be the same thing after the weekend or vacations are over. The individual then, needs to go back to work, and continue with the same routine, year after year, until they either retire, or die. So in a sense, those working in a cubicle are robots, we're all robots, because we do the same thing until we break down and they replace us. Of course one might get this sense of meaningless in any job, white or blue collar, but working in a corporate job gives you that feeling sooner. That being said, I believe there's nothing we can do, so we can only work until we die. Please . gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Modern office jobs makes you a Robot. And there's nothing you can do about it."}
{"id":"69d10241-eab4-4a02-b48d-7f69dbe96c7b","argument":"Edit What I meant the title to convey was It is possible for POC to be racist, not it is ok for POC to be racist . The definition of racism would have to change in order for the frequently espoused view that racism cannot happen to white people to be factually correct. If it were changed, it is likely that one of the main effects would be that we hold people of color to an even lower standard of decency than we already due when it comes to expressing views that would be unacceptably racist, were they they not a member of a historically underprivileged group. Having such low expectations and standards for how people of color conduct themselves is itself is a form of racism that has real negative repercussions for nearly everyone affected by their attitudes, not least of all themselves. The only definite effect of changing the definition would be that people may not be able to claim that people of color people were being racist according to the dictionary. I am guessing they think this would make everyone focus on the real causes of injustice and inequity, but there is no evidence that manipulating the language in this way would do anything other than cause confusion. Furthermore, a new term could be coined to describe the kind of racism that is dominant vs. oppressed group exclusively, which would avoid this confusion.","conclusion":"People of color can be racist toward white people"}
{"id":"d7c371fa-8b21-4f80-acb1-d95d296ad1ba","argument":"With newfound acceptance of LGBT rights, more options are opening up for people to have a child where they did not exist prior.","conclusion":"Advancement in medical research indicates that the 'falling fertility' argument doesn't remain valid."}
{"id":"1bffa045-3d16-4478-a912-1cac0874e844","argument":"I used to think r politics was what it said the subreddit for current and explicitly political U.S. news and information only. But it's not, as information is generally spun, and generally there is no discourse when information is presented. r politics is nothing but a subreddit to defend the Democratic Party and trash the Republican Party, libertarians, or any other political ideas that don't conform to the party. The posts tolerated and the people who regularly visit the subreddit are clearly Democratic or lean Democratic. One example of this is when I try to post anything about the President's drone attacks, the posts immediately get down voted. This was shared on r politics and was 6 before I took it down. As you could see, on r libertarian it lately is at 990. It is misleading to those unfamiliar with the politics subreddit because they feel they are actually visiting a subreddit that is open to all ideas, not just a narrow scope. Why can't we just call the subreddit for what it is so that people are not misled right away?","conclusion":"\/r\/politics name should be changed to \/r\/democratic party"}
{"id":"4c371a39-3e69-43c1-a4d5-d1322b1a764e","argument":"There is a growing interest in bull meat in gourmet cuisine and an increase in demand Some chefs and experts believe it should be appreciated and preserved regardless of bullfighting. If this trend takes root, some farmers could breed bulls for their meat instead of fighting.","conclusion":"Despite the excellent living conditions of bulls, as they are not bred to be eaten and the PH of their meat increases because of the fight, their meat is sold for very low prices and is used for processed meat or pet food"}
{"id":"8eb47922-15c9-4400-bb4b-0baa119ce35d","argument":"Rosemary Candelario, director of Massachusetts Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, September 2001 - \"I think the fear in the abortion rights movement is if we admit abortion is hard for some women, then we're admitting that it's wrong, which is totally not the case. I've heard from women who are having problems dealing with their abortion who are still ardently pro-choice.\"16","conclusion":"Many women are disturbed by their abortions but remain pro-choice"}
{"id":"e244ab40-26f2-4a46-bfe9-874a39968311","argument":"Buying locally-produced food means that it will be much fresher and healthier. Typical supermarket fruit and vegetables are often picked 4-7 days before they make it on to the shelves, and so may be nearly two weeks old before they are actually eaten, by which time much of their goodness will have long departed. To cope with these long delays, many fruits are picked in an unripe state, so that they do not start to rot on the supermarket shelves \u2013 meaning their full flavour has never developed out in the sun on the tree or plant. By buying locally consumers can ensure that they get the tastiest, healthiest food. Experience also suggests that people are more likely to vary their diet by trying new foods if they come from local producers, who can offer tastings and recipe advice.","conclusion":"Buying locally-produced food means that it will be much fresher and healthier. Typical supermarket ..."}
{"id":"cee9f9c5-5c81-4291-a0de-73756cd01dc2","argument":"Foreign tourists tend to have more disposable income than nationals, so they can afford higher prices. Tickets are a small part of the entire cost of vacationing abroad. So it doesn't impact tourist budgets as much. Most tourists have strong enough desires to visit places so they pay more for them, even if they don't like. Few people would say i've always wanted to visit the Louvre but they are going to charge me 20 euros more so fuck that. Overcharging foreigners make it possible for more citizens to afford visiting their national treasures. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Its ok to charge foreign tourists more in national landmarks and attractions."}
{"id":"22fcadb7-3ebe-425f-96fd-857c1d3bd1e5","argument":"This is kind of a simple . I'm talking about stuff like, and this is just an example, doing some Futurama sort of idea. We send trash into the space ridding the earth of trash. Why should that cost money if its for the better of the earth? Why can't we put our money addiction aside for a second and take care of our earth without also hurting our Economy? I also think research to better our environment shouldn't really cost anything. Cleaning the oceans and finding out the real problems. I believe we should all just agree to put differences aside at least with this and not go in debt for trying to save a planet or ourselves so we can survive longer as a species. What if money never existed in the first place, would things be the same?","conclusion":"Helping the earth shouldn't cost money."}
{"id":"9c301121-d8be-47dc-a482-68b941342038","argument":"AGIs likely have abilities that prevent them from being lost forever or degraded: immortality, scale they're enormous, amorphous, and mildly omnipresent and being able to replicate. These are enough to not warrant further protecting.","conclusion":"AGIs are invulnerable in ways that humans aren't, so they are not susceptible to needing human-like fundamental rights."}
{"id":"7c627e84-93e5-4dc7-99f5-277ea312e10d","argument":"The University of Guelph in 2012 stopped collecting fees for the Canadian Federation of Students CFS after students overwhelmingly rejected the organization in a referendum.","conclusion":"Student unions, like any other political or organized structure, could be corrupt and only represent the interests of a few students."}
{"id":"bd5eaf62-6124-4fc2-82ac-52f3aad1c276","argument":"This may be difficult to accept, but identity interferes with truth. The more you identify with an idea, the harder it is to subject it a fair test of truth, yet the result of that test is the most important thing about any idea. Since the tendency to identify is built into us, the best we can do is identify with the broadest possible good. Star Trek presents a future in which cooperation itself is the ultimate objective and highest ideal. Religions often purport to do this, but they actually promote in group loyalty while implicitly supporting out group hostility. Star Trek rises above this by rejecting any form of out group hostility. It's all about togetherness. Star Trek beats religion at its own game.","conclusion":"Star Trek is great because the protagonist is not one person, not one species, not one alliance... it's the idea of cooperation itself."}
{"id":"08c8a572-97d8-4d69-8d15-40a95949e412","argument":"Marriage is a traditionally Christian event where a man and a woman are bonded in love for the rest of their lives like the bible continuously stresses. So why is there a need to go to that faith and demand that it alters itself for a practice that has never been supported by the faith? Don't get me wrong, I agree that gay people should be able to be in a relationship. But why not just say 'fuck marriage' because its against you, buy a couple rings, have a party, and call yourselves married? Are there benefits? Is there something I'm missing? It seems wrong to be against a religion for not altering a theme it's built around and then demand that they change for you.","conclusion":"I don't see the need for gay marriage."}
{"id":"cf143d4b-a436-4e72-9d08-7a212a98855d","argument":"Raising a child is one of the most demanding challenges a person can go through. Children have pretty intense needs socially and emotionally, and most people have no idea what goes into it and what to expect. Things like understading diaper rash, sleep cycles, how to swaddle a baby, can go pretty far in easing the adjustment for people. Just as, if not more important, is kids mental and emotional development. Most people dont really know developmental milestones, social development, mirroring emotions, all the things kids need to develop in a healthy way. On top of this, a lot of people have kids in a vain attempt of addressing their own issues. A mother who wants someone to unconditionally love her, a couple who thinks a baby will fix things, or even just people raised by abusive parenting styles who'll go on to perpetuate the cycle. For both the parent and childs well being, parents should have an outside counselor to be able to turn to for support and help. These sessions should be covered by standard HIPAA policies not discussed with any outside party unless there's a belief that the parents or their child may be in danger. Edit to clarify, I believe this should be provided and incentivized as well as required Edit2 I think people who fail to attend should be given a lot of leeway and given adaquete allowances and tries, and after several steps of escalation maybe small fines and the opening of a CPS investigation. It's incredibly difficult for parents to really be punished for anything child related, tbh. More than likely it would just raise a red flag that could help with future issues that will probably inevitably arise, and make it easier for the child concerned others to actually intervene if need be.","conclusion":"People who have custody of children whether adopted or biological should be required to take both parenting classes as well as regularly attend a therapist or counselor."}
{"id":"e5ac1ccf-b01f-4fd9-afc7-8d5e1605fd5d","argument":"A USE will make it easier for Europeans to migrate internally between countries, which will help to stabilize the economy.","conclusion":"The USE will govern more effectively and efficiently than the EU."}
{"id":"c08031c8-f373-4ada-a37b-6700377efad9","argument":"Politicians do not know since an early age that they will become the heads of their respective states, and are therefore not able to invest their time and resources to educate and prepare themselves.","conclusion":"From the moment they are born, monarchs are usually better trained and educated to deal with political affairs than most politicians."}
{"id":"7bc05e17-806b-400b-8672-664661dd3c9e","argument":"Social services would not necessarily be more expensive than the costs associated with processing beggars in the criminal justice system, and the outcomes are likely to be better.","conclusion":"It's possible to preempt most begging by offering sufficient social services, which is preferable to reducing begging by coercion."}
{"id":"fd69493c-42b5-4818-85bd-b014bf73ce72","argument":"It's just simple math. Total expenditure on energy 6.4 trillion A wind farms output assuming that the Chines government isn't lying 20,000 MW gt 20,000 x 24 x 365 x 25 43,800,000 MWh 43,800,000,000 kWh cost of the project again, we're trusting the Chines government 17.5 billion Cost of each kWh production 43,800,000,000 17,500,000,000 2.5 kWh USD 1 kWh 3,412.14 Btus 2.5 kWh 8530.35 Buts 8,530.35 Buts USD 6,400,000,000,000 x 8,530.35 54,594,240,000,000,000 Buts So we'll produce 54,594,240,000,000,000 ~54.6 quadrillion Buts if we spend literally every single penny that's being spend on all energies across the world on wind. That's only supply 10 of the worlds energy, and that's ignoring the fact that electric devices and transportation of electricity is horrendously inefficient.","conclusion":"Wind energy is cannot replace focile fuels, at least with todays tech."}
{"id":"e178a6fd-868f-469f-a617-a96a036e4a8e","argument":"There are several very small or completely uninhabited atolls en.wikipedia.org in the Pacific Ocean. Chances are small one gets approached there by any tax office.","conclusion":"There are some islands or spots in deserts etc. where it's most likely you will never be approached by any governemental organisation."}
{"id":"c43589a6-8519-4b70-b693-d3e49b45da73","argument":"Probability shows that life should exist, but observation has not allowed us to detect alien life. Observation trumps probability, and so the most obvious conclusion is that alien life doesn't exist.","conclusion":"According to the Fermi Paradox there is a contradiction between the lack of evidence and high probability estimates."}
{"id":"0a469b4b-2965-453f-a468-1bca2032be1b","argument":"All scientific concepts whatsoever and without exception are social constructs, as is the scientific method itself. Calling \"free will\" a social construct is a trivial statement, which has no bearing at all on the validity of that concept for describing phenomena.","conclusion":"Calling something a social construct doesn't make it any less true."}
{"id":"7fa83cf8-f654-435c-8ef3-95e97143cbaa","argument":"Children, obviously, cannot consent to sex. This is known, and any individual that takes advantage of a child's still developing brain is either ill or despicable, but I feel that we, as a society, view sexual intercourse with children as wrong due to it being yucky . That's no way to think. Something being disgusting shouldn't warrant a negative opinion about it. I may not find homosexual sex pleasant, but I still believe that homosexuals have the same rights as heterosexuals. Laws are in place to protect children because they cannot consent to sex, and that is valid excellent. But we shouldn't ban it due to its unpleasant visual aspects. .","conclusion":"If children were able to consent to sexual intercourse, there would be absolutely zero moral issues with it."}
{"id":"828fcbc0-6ff1-46c9-ace9-05058658c91c","argument":"I was going to give some back story but I decided not to. Recently on reddit, mainly on default subreddits there seems to be this idea that money in fact does buy happiness. In my mind this is for many people a delusion that stops people from confronting that lots of their real problems come from within. Luxuries do not bring meaningful happiness, they only band aid the open wound that consumerism has opened for us. It forces us to compromise our true human desires for love, companionship, art and beauty. What can you buy with money that shows you this, that fulfills real desires? Why do people put any real weight on these unnatural desires for mansions and 'gourmet' food? Sure there is merit to the idea that financial stability decreases stress and other mental anguish but most people who long for wealth already have financial stability. Even those who do not have financial stability are in no immediate danger. Stress is an imagined suffering in many ways, if there is nothing to be done about it, why stress? If you don't know how to let go of stress and imagined danger without money, you won't know how to do it with money either. Is there any reason to believe that someone sleeping on a mat is meaningfully less happy than someone sleeping in a custom designed, 4 thousand dollar bed? Once you have shelter, healthy food and clean water, what true, not just perceived dangers do you face? Obviously I have my mind made up to an extent, but I asked not because I want to argue but because I want to see other peoples ideas. Or at least what the people who believe these and post and up vote them on reddit believe?","conclusion":"Money does not buy happiness, not in ANY meaningful way at all."}
{"id":"83b24b62-ed0c-4dcf-a552-e97901d89d5c","argument":"Full auto guns are currently regulated under the national firearms act. Civilian ownership and transfer is legal if the weapon was registered prior to 1989. Ownership requires a payment of 200 and a Federal Firearms License. I would only change the part about being registered before 1989. The current ban on new full auto seems like a pointless restriction. Actual full auto fire is not useful for criminals or any illegal purpose for which it may be used. The military uses full auto only for suppression for engaging targets they use semi auto. In fact, the new M16A4 is made without full auto capability. If for whatever reason someone wanted a currently illegal full auto weapon, it wouldn't be that difficult to make. Converting the popular AR 15 rifle to full auto requires only this piece I admit there's no good reason for anyone to own a full auto gun, but I believe if there is no good reason for something to be restricted, it shouldn't be.","conclusion":"New full-auto firearms should be available for sale to civilians in the US."}
{"id":"b8d0c37c-9e5f-4a50-aa9e-86cad9e66a52","argument":"It is not necessary that there be a high probability that the \"ticking time bomb\" scenario will occur. What is important is that it is not implausible to imagine that it could occur. If it were to occur, leaders must be in a position of flexibility to use torture to to save a million lives.","conclusion":"A one-in-a-million probability of the \"ticking time bomb\" occurring is sufficient to justify allowing torture in this scenario"}
{"id":"f141622c-5cc1-4d5c-bf1f-a6beb49a3d6a","argument":"Later in his campaign, O'Rourke no longer used phrases like \"single-payer\" or \"Medicare for all\" when talking about the health care system he wants to see.","conclusion":"Beto O'Rourke appears not to be supportive of Medicare for All. Yet, around 70% of Americans support the introduction of such a system."}
{"id":"33286d88-fb2a-4ad4-99ee-1c69b94154bd","argument":"The only reason we as a nation allow them to do anything is because of the first amendment. They have the right to spend their entire lives spewing hatred if they so choose. But kicking them off social media would not be a violation of their first amendment rights. Twitter, using its own 1st amendment rights, shuts down accounts for trolling and spamming all the time. In fact every social networking site has rules on what you can and cant say, to provide a nice environment for users. But today I came across WBC's twitter, thought for sure it was a parody, but nope it's real. They also have a Vine and a Soundcloud and probably many others. If you're going to kick somebody off twitter for leaking his ex GFs nudes, then why not kick the Westboro baptist church off too? Upon realizing they exist, each social networking site has a duty to remove Westboro Baptist Church accounts. .","conclusion":"The Westboro Baptist Church should be kicked off all social media sites"}
{"id":"a618bd8a-5b53-456e-b6e7-ba5c2e24a6ce","argument":"I have noticed a large amount of unproductive behavior being rewarded at every programming job I have had I haven\u2019t noticed it at any company I ran but would I? I believe software engineering is a team sport and have built numerous high performance teams. However, it seems as though the most celebrated programmers are never able to perform well on my teams. I have noticed the following behavior from highly rewarded programmers. Some of them love pointing out things that aren't wrong, as if they are wrong and no one calls them on it. For instance I'll point out system A has property B, then we will have a paragraph of conversation and then as sure as clockwork a specific type of person will always then point out system A has property B as if I didn't just say it and as if I didn't know it. These high end programmers love talking trash, about who is good and who is not. Most of there information comes from specific examples, so someone with a large body of open source is never good. As a side note, every 10x programmer I have worked with, where the rest of the team is not keeping up, it generally has to do with the emotional abuse of that 10x programmer on the rest of the team. The emotional abuse is actually a key sign, but it's never blatant enough to let them go just with the abuse. They keep secrets about what they believe and engage in verbal sparring instead of competition. They don't respond to tough conversations and will just stay silent. Instead of conversations leading to positive decisions we get negative feelings and decisions are always underminded. Eventually no decision can be made without this person throwing emotional tangents. My belief is that because most of the field is full of people not extremely talented we are very poor at identifying who the real talent is, and instead we rush to emotional bullies because we think that is what it is to be good","conclusion":"In Programming we are rewarded for signaling not skill"}
{"id":"01cce00c-05a4-4247-b729-eb94e2f85717","argument":"State spending largely goes toward state-operated prison facilities or highway patrol while local government spending goes toward assets such as local sheriffs\u2019 offices, police departments, and county jails.","conclusion":"Some budgetary problems for local law enforcement would be alleviated by removing proactive policing duties from the officer's mission."}
{"id":"bef7747e-f7b7-40cb-8bc3-14ad769712b3","argument":"The introduction of an English parliament is vital for preserving the interests of the English. Since the devolution of the other home nations in 1998 the fact that the 110 MPs that represent constituencies outside of England can vote on matters that affect England yet MPs representing English constituencies cannot vote on matters concerning the other home nations is unfair, as it has left England at a disadvantage in comparison to the other home nations. This leaves a democratic vacuum in England as laws that are being passed that predominantly affect English people are flawed as votes can be garnered from MP's from other home nations. A separate English parliament that deals with only with English matters would ensure that parity would be restored in decision making free from outside influences, and true to the will of the English.","conclusion":"English Devolution is a necessary step in ensuring English issues are dealt with"}
{"id":"6b27a2a1-e8a1-4fdb-93de-23d2784ea72f","argument":"The only kind of diversity that matters in a business sense is diversity of thought. Because cultural diversity often leads to diversity of thought, they're often conflated, but cultural diversity is only a positive insofar as it leads to diversity of thought. The danger is placing too much emphasis on cultural diversity, which leads to selecting for superficial and random traits skin color, ethnicity, etc; this emphasis on differences pushes people apart instead of building bridges.","conclusion":"Other forms of diversity like political or viewpoint diversity are much more important than cultural diversity for enabling organizations to consider broad perspectives."}
{"id":"1e05edf3-7455-496a-b32e-5c7cd13f1db3","argument":"I think a big issue with traffic in a lot of pedestrian crosswalk areas is that pedestrians almost always have the right of way. If a person is hit by a vehicle, regardless of light, regardless of any situation, that vehicle is at fault. The result? Drivers are required to pay close attention to the areas around them. Which, obviously, is extremely important. However, vehicles are difficult to stop. Going at speeds higher than 20 mph, it relies on the driver's reaction time, the vehicle's stop time, traction, and a bunch of other factors. The driver could try as much as they could, but still fail due to factors like snow, rain, etc. However, the fact that our entire society is used to giving pedestrians the right of way has resulted in pedestrians becoming reckless when crossing the road. They expect vehicles to stop for them. They don't think it's a big deal. Instead of looking both ways, they give it a tiny glance and hope for the best. They make a sudden turn off a sidewalk and right onto the road without any care in the world. They use their phones while walking across the street. They jay walk and cross during red lights or in the middle of the highway. All because we're so used to having vehicles stop for us. We're literally endangering our own lives by being so stupid, being so reckless. I mean, what's more difficult? A person to stop real quick, and use their free 360 degree field of view to observe any incoming hunks of metal on an actual road? Or, for a car to notice a person, coming out of the side of the road? Sometimes, there's obstacles in the way. Other times it's dark and the person is wearing dark clothes. So many factors can be made. Yes, right now, if we change it immediately, vehicles having the right of way can definitely cause a lot of accidents. But if it were that way from the beginning, the accidents, possibly, never would have happened. Pedestrian accidents would decrease significantly.","conclusion":"Vehicles should have the right of way."}
{"id":"dbd385c9-1d8b-48e4-98d8-9a79028e4dd0","argument":"gt Please do not comment if you do not have a reasonable knowledge of UK politics. I am asking specifically about the UK. Every time I post something political people try to compare the situation I am describing to their own country. This is nothing against America or anywhere else but if the subject of a discussion is a particular country I would expect points about other countries to be relevant and concise, which is almost never the case. I do not insult anyone by extrapolating the situation in my country to theirs please do the same. Under New Labour and Blair the Labour Party moved significantly to the right as a result of Thatcher and Major's resounding electoral success. This was enshrined with the scrapping of Clause IV in 1995. Since New Labour, Labour has not been a social democratic party. I believe that Labour could have have remained a true left wing party and still have enjoyed electoral success. Labour gained a majority of 179 seats, a natural reaction to 18 years of Conservative rule. I don't doubt that New Labour helped them gain this massive majority there is after all something to be said for Thatcher and Major winning 4 consecutive elections. However, I think that Labour could have stuck with their social democratic roots and still have gained a majority. Even from those on the left of Labour, New Labour is often defended as having been necessary for the party to regain its electability which it did, obviously . I don't think this was the case. In any two party system the pendulum eventually swings back it is very unlikely that all 179 of those seat gains were a result of New Labour. With New Labour the party abandoned its core voter base and is now seeing the consequences of that with UKIP's success among the working class. The question I am concerned with is not the morality of New Labour, it is its necessity. Could Labour have won 3 consecutive elections without New Labour? Perhaps. Could they have won one and maybe two? I think they would have.","conclusion":"Labour could have not shifted to the right with the New Labour project."}
{"id":"457e8681-fc1c-4402-8805-dbdd871d1ec3","argument":"The Democratic Party and Republican Party have come to fundamentally different conceptions of the United States Constitution Perry & Powe, p. 641 In this way, the Supreme Court is no different from any other government institution, and should be equally representative.","conclusion":"The way in which Government Institutions, such as the Supreme Court, operate should reflect the will of the people."}
{"id":"8a538b6f-4b9c-4435-83e6-3a8bd0a1d6bd","argument":"Contributing that time and money to charitable causes and other organisations that deal with the issues you care about would be much more worthy, even if that cost is just a minute's drive and the cost for a bit of fuel. As freakonomics will tell you economist don't vote, and if anyone can judge the value of a vote it's an economist. Plus in countries without much pluralism, a vote doesn't much represent your views as it's is too locked to the polarised mass appeal of two or even three party systems.","conclusion":"The average vote is worth less than the time and money it takes to cast one."}
{"id":"0f3c805b-9859-471a-bfd9-f04cf74f3e0f","argument":"With the recent buzz of the gig economy especially for younger people, a UBI would help these people get enough money until more stable work comes along.","conclusion":"The rise of freelancing and casualisation of the workforce is eroding the stability and financial security provided by full-time employment."}
{"id":"fb2f03f5-317c-4240-859e-4f5ea2ac4b8b","argument":"Every once in a while I always seem to find Mattel or Disney under fire for not being realistic only when it comes to the object at hand being too skinny. I never see criticism for anime characters having too large of eyes, muscular characters being abnormally fit, or comic book characters being too unrealistic. These are fictional characters and they should look like however the artist thought they should look. You have no right to go as far as making petitions and criticize what's art when you're not permitted to do it with almost everything else. Sure, you can criticize, but I'm saying it's not logical or valid criticism. By continuously making them look more realistic you're just left with a different art style. In addition, there is no reason they should look realistic and it may have further negative affects on kids. If a character is unrealistically skinny, then a kid will most likely think it's fake, there's no way that's possible but if it's closer to a human they might feel more self conscious about their body not being as good as what appears to be realistically fit, skinny, etc. There's always going to be ALL types of characters and singling out the skinny ones will only create a different overall picture that's less accurate. In all cases, if we're going to criticize, it needs to be for all aspects and not just what it always seems to be, which is with size on female characters.","conclusion":"Fictional characters and toys should be able to have \"unrealistic\" bodies without extreme scrutiny"}
{"id":"21758090-1feb-4b08-ac98-ae55224820f7","argument":"The N-word is not used as a term of racial abuse in rap music. Rather, the term is typically used as a way of addressing someone between in-group members, and therefore does not legitimise its use as a term of racial abuse.","conclusion":"Many children already hear the N-word on a daily basis, in the context of rap music."}
{"id":"977daf2d-0589-4b79-8443-caccf4c6f046","argument":"I have no formal education in logic or philosophy, but here goes. This is all just based on random thoughts I had, but was sparked from the whole 1984 thing. If I had the necessary programming knowledge, I would have the ability to build a calculator that can do correct math for every single calculation possible, with the exception of 2 2. I can rewire something somewhere to make it permanently think that 2 2 5. Now this leads to the simple what if situation of if we could just be wired wrong in that respect. However, humans take things an extra step, probably in more ways than one. One of these ways is trial and error. For example, even if we were wired from birth to believe that 2 2 5, we would quickly realize the problem when we are doing simple tasks such as measuring or counting, and what we expect to come out as a 5 keeps being a 4. So what I am proposing is a lot more far fetched than simply that we are calculating things incorrectly. In order to explain what I am actually proposing, let me use the artificial intelligence analogy again. Say I built a robot which has a calculator but also can use basic learning like humans to make sure its calculations are correct. I could still trick the robot into believing that 2 2 5 by simply manipulating every single one of its experiences so that they are consistent with this belief. Say it sees 2 apples, and then it sees someone walking over with another 2 apples. Right before putting down the two apples next to the other two, a 5th apple is subtly placed there as well. The A.I. never realizes that it is being tricked. Although unlikely, taking Matrix like situations into account you can't rule out the possibility that this could be happening to us, can you? To put a nail in the coffin consider this. Instead of 2 2 5 , consider 5.48683 x 3.68943 20.2432752069 . If I told you that I could be tricking you with that equation, you would be very quick to accept that possibility because you don't have that one memorized. But the problem is as you get simpler and simpler there is no hard boundary where math becomes magically something you know 100 . You will be more and more confident with your knowledge as the numbers get simpler and have less digits, but it never becomes something you know with complete certainty, even the idea that 1 1 2 . Essentially my point is that everything, even the most basic foundations of our logic, could be completely wrong. I can prove this simply because I can imagine creating an artificial intelligence in a controlled environment with flawed basic logic. EDIT And, in case you didn't get this, I am trying to say that we could be programmed to have an incorrect belief just like the A.I., especially if we are in a matrix or Brain in a Vat situation. TL DR see my conclusion paragraph above. Here is my response comment","conclusion":"It is entirely possible that 2 + 2 = 5."}
{"id":"01424064-a59f-4fe1-b4ee-0ddcf353a4b5","argument":"Anything eternal would become horribly boring to most after about 60,000 years. Living a really long time is something I imagine a lot if not most people could get behind, but actual eternity is a different matter.","conclusion":"Eternal life is an incomprehensible concept, and something used fairly arbitrarily and without thought."}
{"id":"b1d8fbed-55cc-4f8d-b001-7e0be630fef0","argument":"Giving life to an individual in order to kill him soon after it is not beneficial.","conclusion":"This is not an example of mutualism since animals do not benefit from it."}
{"id":"a18f1504-d4a7-4bfd-98a7-535fb8ea2db2","argument":"A no-deal Brexit could suspend trade through Dover for up to 6 months including delaying access to food and medical supplies.","conclusion":"A no deal Brexit would be disastrous for the British economy."}
{"id":"244a096b-2108-4b58-ad22-0103b7200eae","argument":"I'm a 21 year old female college student. I went into this election fairly certain I would vote Democrat. I looked into all three candidates when O'Malley was in the race before settling on Clinton from the start. I honestly don't understand this extreme hate for HC. It reeks of manufactured outrage to me. I do admit that her email servers made me seriously pause and question her judgement, that is what opened me up to the idea of Sanders. That didn't last long though. I liked his proposals but it all reeked of bullshit to me. There's no way he could do the things he was promising people. To me, and many people, the DNCleaks are a nonissue. I saw a lot of smoke but no fire. I do think its fair that DSW lost her job. Bernie lost fair and square by several million votes. I'm watching the DNC to see my party's leaders speak and the more the Sanders delegates act up, the less and less I respect or empathize with them. Edit I'm done you guys. I can't possibly reply to all of you and honestly, I'm just getting steadily angrier angrier versions of the same message so I'm bowing out. Please continue to fight in the comments, it pleases the Gods.","conclusion":"I don't hate Hillary Clinton. I don't the DNCleaks is a big deal. I think the Bernie Sanders delegates are behaving like petulant children."}
{"id":"4b4887d6-ef81-4688-b2da-1a55a4bb2890","argument":"If the American government were to pay all its 35.8 million Black citizens a meaningful and adequate reparation, this would be financially hard to stomach for the country.","conclusion":"As the slavery reparations will be paid by citizens' taxes, their opinions have to be taken into consideration."}
{"id":"63acdfe9-058f-4dbf-a066-2bf1f7078daf","argument":"The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights ICCPR is a multilateral treaty adopted by the UN's General Assembly. It commits its parties to respect the civil and political rights of individuals.","conclusion":"The UDHR has been used as the base of many legally binding international agreements."}
{"id":"a3727d48-0635-4a24-b490-bfbadc186428","argument":"According to a recent report issued by the Diaspora Affairs Ministry, American Jews give NIS 8 billion in cash to Israel every year - that is 90 percent of all donations to the state. Together with the contributions made through investments and venture capital, real estate holdings, exports and tourism, the amount US Jews put into the Israeli economy reaches nearly NIS 58 billion about $14 billion.","conclusion":"The Jewish people are lucky in that they have a large portion of the world's most wealthy"}
{"id":"db33ca4f-6d30-42c1-84be-bfba06231bbb","argument":"First and foremost, I M27 want to say that I believe that women should have the right to choose whether or not they can get an abortion. I am not necessarily a fan of it by any means, but it\u2019s their body and it\u2019s a decision that they will have to live with for the rest of their lives so I can respect that. I myself have no real ties to abortion and have never had to make any decisions regarding it so I\u2019m very interested to see other people\u2019s point of view. I do agree with abortions regarding rape, incest, or when they are medically necessary for the mother\u2019s health. The recent uproar with the abortion laws in Alabama has brought forward many celebrities to tell their stories of how they too once had an abortion. At first it didn\u2019t really surprise me because I saw it mostly as one of those \u201cIt happened to me too\u201d movements to let women know that they\u2019re not alone. I didn\u2019t think much of it, until I got into some of the detailed accounts of how some of their reasoning not all of them, but there were some was that they were just too young, would have been career suicide, or just simply not the time to raise a child. It kind of left me with a bad taste in my mouth. I felt like I was basically reading stories saying \u201clook at me, I had an abortion and now I\u2019m a celebrity.\u201d Maybe I\u2019m not qualified to have strong opinions about this, but I just don\u2019t think abortion should be looked at this way in society. These stories and the platform these celebrities have honestly made me feel more unsure about the topic than I ever have before. I don\u2019t have the right to tell women what to do with their bodies when it comes to abortion or anything else for that matter that\u2019s not what I want to do. I believe that the celebrities that did come forward with their stories are extremely brave. I just don\u2019t think that celebrities should be influencing young women that it\u2019s perfectly okay normal to go and get an abortion because it\u2019s not the right time to have a baby whatever circumstance that may be . I hope to hear others opinions on this topic to open up a respectful dialogue. Not here to offend anyone and have an open mind.  Celebrities are influencing young women that\u2019s it totally normal okay to go and get an abortion and I feel like this is normalizing a decision that should not be taken so lightly. Thanks all,","conclusion":"Celebrities are glorifying abortion"}
{"id":"af6926b3-9935-4110-becc-46fef2c8c16e","argument":"Alternative monetisation strategies such as native advertising, subscriptions, and micro-transactions are better for the media ecosystem, users and publishers in the long term. Users help push companies toward adopting these models by blocking ads.","conclusion":"Advertising creates harmful incentives for web publishers. Running blockers will help push them to adopt better business models."}
{"id":"dc90615a-63f3-45fe-acaf-f3255042a074","argument":"The median lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions of PV solar power plants are 48 g of CO2 equivalent for every kWh of energy produced 4 times as much as nuclear.","conclusion":"Solar energy emits more greenhouse gases per kilowatt-hour than nuclear energy."}
{"id":"eed4639e-c31a-466b-8099-5ef94a482835","argument":"Kanye Version Daft Punk Version I'll be honest, I've never been a big fan of Daft Punk or electronic music in general, but I honestly cannot see why ANYONE would consider the Daft Punk version superior. Yet, that's an opinion I see voiced frequently both on Reddit and in real life. I've got a few reasons I think the Kanye version is better, as outlined below Just because it came first doesn't make it better See All along the Watchtower and Johnny Cash's Hurt Kanye has some serious talent and is generally considered to an adept rapper personality aside The Daft Punk version peaked at 3 on the US Hot Dance Club Songs list Source while the Kanye version peaked at 1 on the US Hot 100 and US Pop Songs, as well as reaching 1 in several other countries such as the UK and New Zealand Source","conclusion":"The Kanye West version of \"Stronger\" is better than the Daft Punk version"}
{"id":"8bcd1dcc-c402-4e11-90a9-7f579eb39c0f","argument":"English spelling is far too complex. This article in the Atlantic does a nice job of summing up why. It takes English speaking children much longer achieve basic literacy than children whose first language as a simple sound symbol relationship. English has 205 ways to represent 44 sounds. You can't teach children rules and let them go on to learn to read. There are far too many exceptions, random silent letters, letter combinations that sound different in different words for no apparent reason. Kids have to memorize those words, period. That is not learning. It's a memory exercise, and many children do not have the working memory to do that, especially kids with ADHD, dyslexia, or other executive functioning problems. As a result, educational outcomes for English language learners are worse, as many young children first starting to read are developmentally incapable of achieving correct spelling on a regular basis. English speaking and writing nations should consider overhauling to Unspell or NuEnglish to cope with this. The difficulty with spelling leads to more dyslexia in English and other language with complicated orthographic system. It puts our children at a disadvantage when competing with nations whose children can learn to read and proficiently after just a year, once they have learned the sounds and symbols. I know that people who are already well verse in English will be very resistant to this. I am not sure how exactly this would be rolled out and how global changes would be made. I do think this change is necessary. So much blame for literacy problems is placed on teachers, or on texting, or on American children being stupid, but really, the language itself is ad hoc and part of the problem. It's not fair to people whose brains have difficulty with language. Change my mind","conclusion":"English spelling is too complicated, hinders literacy, and should be reformed\/simplified"}
{"id":"6dc23f1b-a295-43b5-8361-679ab68e868b","argument":"The dominating form of economic organization is division of labor. Everyone is a specialist and highly depends on other individuals' skills and products.","conclusion":"Human life has a higher value because humans need and depend on each other, socially and economically."}
{"id":"b5f949d2-7c42-478f-99d7-9b2dafa9af2e","argument":"Laws that regulate executive pay can help to ensure profits are distributed more evenly amongst workers and management.","conclusion":"Issues concerning concentration of wealth can be better tackled with legislation or government policy."}
{"id":"a65b69b1-6e9d-456e-a161-8e4d4d0e38ef","argument":"I'd just like to start by saying that I am not endorsing racism in the sense that if affects somebodys quality of life. For example, not being able to get a job because of your color or religion is unfair in my opinion. Now onto my question. On numerous occassions, my sense of humor has been classified as intolerant because I like racist jokes, but as I see it, there is a conflict because of your intolerance, not mine. To take the example of potrayal of Mohammed in Islam. On practically every occassion that someone has potrayed mohammed for the sake of a joke, they have recieved death threats and been called intolerant by the community. To me, there is a problem because of their intolerance towards a joke, not mine towards their religion. I just picked the examle of Islam because it was the first one to come to mind, but I could draw examples for practically every other religion and race. Before I get called a white supremacist let me clarify I'm not white. I am of a different race, and we recieve our fair share of insults and critcism, but as long as this is not affecting my quality of life, none of it matters to me. Critcism is an essential tool for improvement, whether its comedic critcisim or otherwise. EDIT I just saw these comments and I'm seeing a theme in them regarding the use of the word offensive. I've got the general feel that causing saying a joke with the the intend to offend is wrong, but being offended ties in with your ability to tolerate any attacks or criticism. I can only get offended by something if I want to be offended by it just my opinion, maybe everyone doesn't feel the same way .","conclusion":"Why should racist jokes be considered offensive?"}
{"id":"6fcc7e01-f44a-45be-be9f-5d031b6b23a0","argument":"This has been quantified at 19% softening over 4 years. Inconsistent question wording makes historical comparisons difficult, but good Ipsos MORI data since 2013 suggests that there has been a recent softening of attitudes with just 45% agreeing that there are too many immigrants in 2017 compared to 64% just 4 years earlier. Figure 2","conclusion":"Comparing attitudes before and after the referendum from within the same groups of individuals suggests that both Leavers and Remainers have softened in their attitudes towards immigration"}
{"id":"aca82652-5ef2-4665-b0b1-35680184f832","argument":"More specifically, I believe that aside from legislative efforts, any efforts to change the social climate or create mass waves of social progress against the functional will of the higher ups are futile. Occupy, Agriculture Media Reform, The 'Poverty Problem' Anti CISPA, SOPA, PRISM etc. I assert are ultimately up to who controls the almighty dollar. That, or who is better at killing. If it comes down to talking about awareness rallying people to the cause in an effort to bolster the likelihood of it's effectiveness, I say the ratio of people who care to people who don't is overwhelmingly glaring. Most will remain apathetic, content, and self serving. I'd like to think there is feasible hope for progress.","conclusion":"I believe that the social climate in the US is completely at the whim of the powers that be"}
{"id":"3bc2a572-dcf5-44ef-be18-578ba8b383cc","argument":"Work can even be incorporated into therapy. For example, those with social anxiety can use a workplace to become more accustomed to interacting with others.","conclusion":"For those that have a mental illness, working can be a crucial part of recovery that can be as important as therapy and medication."}
{"id":"6d3a74a5-161f-4378-a5fc-2fc61beb1d62","argument":"Shelter euthanasia in Asheville has decreased by 79% since the Humane Alliance established their neuter clinic.","conclusion":"Spay-neuter programs were an integral part of the No-Kill Movement."}
{"id":"7ceb38fb-5d7d-45b6-9d50-7c1384b35d45","argument":"A considerable percentage of the population including women believe that abortion is a human rights issue, not a women's rights issue.","conclusion":"Every person, despite their gender, should be able to give their opinion about something that concerns the whole society."}
{"id":"f0cd602a-2d77-4fb2-8578-522eefff1fba","argument":"Trump issued two appeals to the Director of National Intelligence and the director of the NSA, in which he asked them to publicly deny that any collusion between his campaign and Russia took place.","conclusion":"Trump's actions indicate someone who is worried about what the investigation will find."}
{"id":"24ae3f4a-904f-423f-bb6b-234edff61ac3","argument":"If bullfighting goes underground, it will be performed by criminals who are less likely to care about an animal's welfare.","conclusion":"Banning bullfighting will drive it underground, where it will become more cruel."}
{"id":"de33c0ac-2db5-45b1-bb54-d24551064540","argument":"When I lived in the 3rd world briefly I got to experience all the wonderful joys of crony democracy. One very smart fellow I knew convinced me sortition would logically solve many inherent problems from modern democracy and prevent the decent into plutocracy kleptocracy that we saw commonly occur. Sortition For the unaware all or most political positions are choose by lots literally political parties, lobbyists, campaigns, political dynasties all go kaput. Corruption takes a massive nose dive and politicians aren't required to answer solely to their constituents which would allow for more rational, less biased decision making social issues for example . We can improve upon the ancient model by ensuring winners are mentally competent or fit for office prior. Best of all, the selection is a truly fair selection of the American public rather than professional politicians, Oligarchs like the Kochs, and parties. Ancient Athenian democracy and the successful Republic of Venice 500 Years heavily relied on Sortition to choose it's leaders. At the very least, introduce it in crony democracies to reduce the massive corruption. If it works there why not the USA?","conclusion":"I believe Demarchy\/Sortition should replace modern democracy"}
{"id":"a8a8a00e-af42-4932-9625-02547b29c3a8","argument":"With Russia's blatant expansionism resuming, a second cold war is a serious possibility. If this happens the US will have far greater domestic and international support to engage in similar behaviour to create pro West buffer states that conveniently serve the financial interests of the US. While the US has continued such actions through covert regime changes, the resumption of hostilities with Russia will justify a dramatic increase in their scope and frequency. Direct military action against Russia would be insanity, but what about economic sanctions? Those are win win for the US. If no serious sanctions are put in place the US gets the benefit of trade with Russia while using them to justify imperialism. If sanctions are put in place they will hurt Western Europe far more, giving us a competitive advantage over important allies and making them more dependent on us via gas imports. Note I'm not saying this is a good thing, but I think people in power view it that way.","conclusion":"In terms of naked self-interest, the Crimea situation is a huge boon to the US."}
{"id":"adccc092-ce76-4cf2-bd8f-0faf5627223c","argument":"Many heroes in ancient mythology were believed to have a human mother and a divine father, including Hercules Dionysus Perseus Theseus Romulus and Remus Pollux and Asclepius","conclusion":"The gospels use supernatural tropes that were common in ancient mythology."}
{"id":"49d0099e-3a8d-4499-812e-b7cdab41846c","argument":"So this  is simple. A grid system is basically a system in which transit lines whether that be subway or bus are organized as a series of vertical and horizontal lines. This is the best form of city transportation because it allows for easy transfers, and ensures that the maximum number of transfers a person has to take is 1, given that every transit line should be within walking distance of every building. Many cities has a form of radiating transit system like the TTC bus service which congregates at union . But this is not efficient for people who are travelling in a way that does not cross the center of the city. I honestly can't think of any disadvantages to a grid system, so that's why I'm here. Change my view please gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Grid system is superior to any other city transportation design."}
{"id":"857189ab-d33b-440c-824f-0da4c02f669f","argument":"Religion has killed the faith. God and Satan are from within a person. All her\/his good traits are God and bad ones are Satan. But religions have taken this fact out by personifying God and Satan it has taken the introspective improvement out of the mankind.","conclusion":"The politics of religion have obscured and diminished the development of collective and personal spirituality."}
{"id":"91df946e-b0b2-4f78-83da-3c20950153bf","argument":"Allowing Google to partake in this act of suppression of thought in order to compete with Baidu in the market could potentially bring further apathy towards the Chinese government acts of authoritarianism.","conclusion":"By censoring their search results, Google is acknowledging the legitimacy of China's oppression of its citizens."}
{"id":"c677dae2-d9c2-4260-866d-fb85912b9ea8","argument":"Parents of deaf children should be educated on all communication options by a trained educator of the deaf and offered resources and ongoing support to make informed decisions about such a critical issue.","conclusion":"Forcing the issue would be less effective than encouraging\/supporting it."}
{"id":"b2f209bf-ed53-4ddc-ba7e-801825cd446a","argument":"Many anti-GMO advocates maintain that anything artificial or involving human tampering is morally bad. Obviously, only the most extreme misanthropes could believe that anything affected or produced by human tampering could somehow be evil. Conventional foods have always been produced and refined with such tampering. This moral argument against human tampering in GMOs, therefore, must be dismissed.","conclusion":"The anti-GMO principle that genetic tampering is bad is erroneous"}
{"id":"ca8ac3c0-53a5-4ac6-ac68-a3533b117365","argument":"When buying a product made by Google, you're not only the consumer but the product too, Android is one of the ways Google collects lots of data about the user for example, targeted advertising. Google manage to turn a profit by selling advertisements within its products that rely in part on users personal information, this means the users are the real product.","conclusion":"Apple and iOS are more respectful towards the user's privacy than Google and Andoid."}
{"id":"9ba6263b-7ecb-4c15-8075-968305c61199","argument":"Rain can make roads slippery. Motorcycle riders are more likely to be at risk of having an accident when it rains.","conclusion":"Cars are safer to drive during periods of heavy rain."}
{"id":"ebb42d26-66a6-4b7e-9973-33b045cc8e60","argument":"Vehicles cars, ships, planes require an internal power source. They can't be plugged into the grid and move at the same time.","conclusion":"Not all energy can be distributed through an electricity grid."}
{"id":"0a3ee230-531e-4e99-8915-27596261fc97","argument":"Within a generation of implementation, vast amounts of culture and literature would be completely inaccessible. This would represent a massive and irreparable rupture with history.","conclusion":"A global language would kill diversity of thought and culture."}
{"id":"2ab53bf4-ff76-46bd-be50-7495ef261718","argument":"In my view, pronouns shouldn\u2019t be a big deal Make a reasonable assumption based off appearance If you\u2019re corrected or told otherwise, accept it and move on Be accepting and don\u2019t tolerate discrimination Assuming makes sense. Over 99 of the time, you can assume correctly based off appearance. If you\u2019re unsure, politely ask or use their name. In the phenomenally rare case that you\u2019re wrong, it\u2019s an honest mistake as long as you\u2019re not intentionally doing it obviously, don\u2019t be an asshole \u2014everyone should recognize that. We already use the \u201cassume unless told otherwise\u201d rule for minority groups. Accommodations for allergies, deafness, other languages, bathrooms, and more exist\u2014all an affected person has to do is speak up if they have an issue, and it\u2019s neither a lot to ask nor a big deal. If it\u2019s important to you you don\u2019t want your pronouns assumed, introduce your pronouns. We already do this with titles no one can tell if you have a PhD\u2014if it\u2019s important to you, introduce yourself as Dr. or else correct someone , and it\u2019s not a big deal. This should be the end goal for pronouns too. Normalizing always asking pronouns or always introducing them isn\u2019t necessary, so it\u2019s harder to get people to do. We should normalize the ends of these things instead of the means. The ends are your assumptions can be wrong, so accept that and respect others. This is pretty easy to do, it means a lot to the affected group, and it\u2019s very rare that this comes up anyway. In an accepting society, pronouns won\u2019t be a big deal. If we educate people about it and inform them that disrespecting or discriminating against this group isn\u2019t ok, then everything else falls into place. Society has already made strides against racism and sexism with similar policies\u2014treat this issue the same way. Ask yourself how often third person pronouns come up in conversation not often . Assumptions can only be bad if they\u2019re unreasonable, you\u2019re unable to admit you\u2019re wrong, or they\u2019re relevant. I assume the girls I meet are, well female, heterosexual, and cisgender unless I\u2019m told otherwise. Even if this was a bad assumption and it\u2019s not I only care because I\u2019m looking for a date it still can\u2019t be offensive because it\u2019s irrelevant to how I address or respect people. It would be silly, in my opinion, to introduce ourselves with or ask every person their pronouns, gender, and sex since they could technically all be different . Pronouns are only an issue because they come up in conversation and affect people, but they don\u2019t actually come up that much. If pronouns and the other stuff only very rarely cause problems, then reasonable assumptions are fine.  but let\u2019s settle this here and now","conclusion":"With pronouns, the only thing society should normalize is acceptance"}
{"id":"0be5e7fc-aae8-43be-a9da-447fab9647c3","argument":"I thought this might have been discussed before, but in my search I could only find posts about rap music or minstrelsy by themselves, and none about the similarities between them. I'll say first that I don't dislike rap music in the way that many people do. If rap music is well composed, lyrically clever, and refers to something universal to the human condition then I will enjoy it. I enjoy works such as Gimme the Loot by Notorious BIG, If I Die 2nite by Tupac Shakur, and 4th Chamber by Wu Tang Clan. I do find myself always being secretive about listening to these songs, and would be ashamed if anyone I know in person knew that I have ever listened to it, but in reality I enjoy some of it. I don't know why I am ashamed of appreciating it, perhaps because of some inherent racism that I cannot shake although I do not even believe in the distinction of race. I'll also say that minstrelsy is poorly understood and dismissed without much consideration, as is often done with rap music, and much of the basis of the dismissal is in error. Minstrelsy is naturally highly problematic, but it wasn't always intended to be racist, and its depictions of the language of black folk were actually quite similar to the black vernacular idiom from its time, which is discussed in Behind the Burnt Cork Mask , though I don't have the book with me to provide citation. However, although the medium was not intrinsically intended as racist, in a racist society, it naturally was very racist. It appropriated the black idiom for commercial consumption, even if it felt it was in appreciation. It was also wildly misogynistic. Rap music shares these qualities, and rose shortly after the ultimate death of minstrelsy. Rap music, like minstrelsy, is an appropriation of the black idiom rather than a genuine expression of it, even when performed by black rappers just as there were many black minstrels. It exaggerates those qualities of the black idiom to which it refers, and exacerbates the class race distinctions that bring so much suffering. Edit White rappers may not wear burnt cork, but they do in many ways wear a black costume, which is in many ways just as garish and offensive, but not simply seen as such yet. Now naturally I'm not of the camp that says racism is destroyed by not talking about race, because that view simply chooses to ignore the structural inequalities that still exist concerning race. I think rap music could constructively talk about race, but in the commercial mainstream, it does not. My taste in music leans more towards minstrel songs, as I really love the music of Stephen Foster and the black folks that he imitated and so forth. However, intellectually I do prefer rap music because it seems to come from a rational cultural outrage rather than a cultural coping. Yet, the outrage isn't discussed rationally. On President Obama's election there was a song that came out which went, My President is black, my Lamborghini's blue, and yet this was not satirical, and the song was meant to have genuine emotional impact. I know well that this is considered a poor example of rap music and that a devoted base of true artists in the Rap community are likely making much better work that is much less problematic, just as the same was true of minstrelsy. However, this does not prevent the commercial mainstream of the medium from being a highly problematic, caricatured depiction of blacks in America, in precisely the same way as minstrelsy. Change my view, please. I'd love to think that the most popular genre of music in America was not a hulking chimera of institutionalized racism.","conclusion":"I think rap music is comparable to blackface minstrelsy."}
{"id":"339fff5e-8622-4b7f-ad53-79187a079aac","argument":"Claudius' soliloquy Act 3, scene iii confirms that Claudius did in fact kill old Hamlet: \"O, my offense is rank, it smells to heaven\".","conclusion":"The ghost's message contains facts that nobody else could have known."}
{"id":"9f68fc18-c7c6-405f-9794-2fd946c29ed3","argument":"I think if approval voting were adopted political parties would change from being a political organization that runs a candidate to being a political organization that endorses all the candidates that agree with their platform and hence become just a glorified advocacy group. A party would endorse multiple candidates and a candidate would be endorsed by multiple parties. I think this because there would be too much competition to only support a single candidate and only supporting a single candidate would hamper its goals. If you are the head of the \u201cLegalize Pot Party\u201d it would behoove you to bet on every candidate who is interested in legalizing pot. If your only goal is to legalize pot, then it doesn\u2019t matter whether or not a pro gun or anti gun candidate is elected as long as they supporting legalizing pot. You can tell your voting bloc to vote for both types of candidates and not have to worry about which is more electable. In such a competitive election, the candidate that wins will be the one endorsed by the most parties with popular support. I don't really see any other approval voting advocates arguing this so I'm wondering if there is something that I'm not seeing that would make this unlikely to happen. Edit Approval voting is voting for all the candidates you like instead of just one. It is essentially giving each candidate an up or down vote and the candidate with the most up votes wins.","conclusion":"I think approval would fundamentally change the nature of political parties."}
{"id":"32dd9187-e7ee-4870-98c3-4ac4ebf1e122","argument":"They thought that the tone of the ad is condescending and patronizing. They stated, \"a brand having a social role is not necessarily a problem in and of itself but the nature of that role and the way it's executed can be a massive massive problem\" 13:01","conclusion":"They explain a lot of reasons for why they don't like the ad on the video, and it doesn't have to do with \"agreeing with toxic masculinity\", it's more complex than that."}
{"id":"43a07edd-5261-4fe7-acf3-2c5a424fec8a","argument":"More than 20 countries have a VAT on water, which is necessary for daily life. It is not illegitimate to tax, as the government has to bear the financial burden of purifying and pumping the water.","conclusion":"Clothes, water, and shelter are also basic necessities, but are also often taxed."}
{"id":"a518ffa1-d7a5-447d-9b09-63f93e73e154","argument":"The Humane Society of Indianapolis has stopped identifying animals in the shelter by breed to remove any hindrance in the successful placement of animals into a home. Instead the shelter places animals in personality categories including \"athlete,\" \"class clown,\" \"bashful\" and \"lazy bones,\" which makes potential owners more interested in adopting the dog.","conclusion":"The No-Labels Movement, which advocates for the removal of labels for dogs, has resulted in an increase in the number of dogs adopted across the US. Such a reform can similarly increase the likelihood of dogs being adopted in shelters."}
{"id":"47bde5d2-05ed-4046-902e-1a76c676fddb","argument":"High quality zoos do a lot in order to insure that animals in their possession are well cared for. Zoo environments do not have predators, have reliable food and water, and have access to extremely sophisticated medical aid. Many species of animals live much longer in zoo care than they would in the wild.","conclusion":"Zoos do a lot of important work to improve animal well-being."}
{"id":"3a3f26aa-0f49-4606-8506-1c232ee011be","argument":"I just don't get the stink about this. The media talks about the bombers all the time and this is just another piece of that. Every news network dug this guys life up from the very start of the fiasco and I don't think Rolling Stone publishing is any different than anyone else. In my opinion the Rolling Stone is entitled to publish whatever they want to. And I truly don\u2019t see the harm in publishing this. I feel that the right to free speech should supersede people\u2019s concerns of a copycat. Also I don\u2019t think that trying to suppress the article will do any good for the opposition of this article. The Streisand effect will just set in and get this thing more publicity. Which is the total opposite of what the opposition wants.","conclusion":"I really don't understand why putting the Boston Bomber on the front page of Rolling Stone is such a big deal"}
{"id":"9466d5f8-a012-43dc-84a0-23fe80503603","argument":"Since Roosevelt's radio address on May 27, 1941, moral grounds to accept a world only with a \"freedom from terror\" entered the political rational of Washington's decision makers. 1 2","conclusion":"But the US claimed that they have a moral duty to fight Nazi Germany, thus moral plays a major role."}
{"id":"d2e838e6-4a3d-42bd-9151-69eb4a6934fb","argument":"The universal human experience of having our will frustrated, diminished, augmented or compromised is a sound basis for considering free will a legitimate phenomenon.","conclusion":"We assume that others exercise will with some degree of freedom."}
{"id":"4b786ae9-97ba-48fd-afc5-4dfbce0388bb","argument":"Morality is not an universal concept. In countries such as Egypt, the simple act of a woman drinking alcohol on the street is considered immoral which does not happen to men.","conclusion":"Ethics and morality are subjective and can vary from society to society or even from person to person."}
{"id":"67a8c2a0-810f-4127-830e-a8395236268b","argument":"Note Please assume that there is no afterlife when responding to my post. I am not religious. Thank you. ALSO By meaningless, I mean meaningless to the person who is doing the dying. To the person who is alive and who will then die, life is meaningless. . Assuming there is no afterlife, life is ultimately meaningless and pointless because we die. Death is the great eraser. Living life is as irrational as reading a book that, after finished, is immediately erased from your memory. It is comparable to that, too. It makes no difference if I, a 23 year old, die now or live until I am 100 and die. Either way, after my brief spark of existence I become nothingness. Not only do I remember nothing I AM nothing. To me, it is as if my life had never happened. I'll put it another way. Imagine the time before you were born. Have you remembered it yet? Of course not. You didn't exist. This is the state that we return to after death a state of nothingness similar to the state we were in before birth. When I die, I return to this state after a brief period of consciousness, and I return to it permanently. I might as well have never lived. To anticipate a few responses 1 Helping others doesn't matter. They will die too. And then their descendants will die, on and on and on, until eventually the universe is destroyed or our galaxy collapses in an inevitable heat death. Even if 1,000,000 people were helped by me, assuming they all die, then my life is still pointless and meaningless. For I will be dead and won't know what I did, and once they die, they won't know either. 2 Attaining fame doesn't matter and doesn't truly make me immortal. I'll be dead, and again, death is nothingness. Thus, I won't be around to enjoy my fame. 3 Enjoying the moment is possible, but doesn't make life have a point. For once I die, all memories and all point is gone. Please change my view from this depressing sentiment.","conclusion":"Assuming there is no afterlife, then life is ultimately meaningless and pointless because we die."}
{"id":"4449e038-5ed9-4af7-89e8-26532c23e473","argument":"The recent outrage over Starwars BF 2 got me thinking about this. IGN published an article in 2006 about the rising cost of AAA game development for Xbox 360, and the cost seems to only have gone up check out the linked Reddit discussion from 2016 for some info . Meanwhile, gamers are expecting each AAA game to be better in every way graphically, better underlying engines, more advanced systems such as hit detection r hitboxporn ,more advanced enemy AI, etc. This requires more developers working longer hours and drives cost up, yet anytime a company tries to increase price to reflect this, people freak out. The 5 10 hike in this gens games pissed everyone off. Subscriptions for non mmo games piss everyone off. Micro transactions, in which we literally get the choice of exactly what to pay or not pay for, piss everyone off. This phenomenon is coupled with the reality of business for developers and publishers that not only must they keep making money, they must keep a steady rate of increase in how much money they make or investors will take their money elsewhere. Thus, games get more expensive to make, people expect even more from each game, and don't buy AAA games that at all fall short of being the best thing ever titanfall 2, battleborn, ME Andromeda or have a feature that at all resembles increased monetization. This will kill any incentive to develop AAA games. I don't like when publishers sacrifice game quality to reduce cost and increase profit. This kills franchises. But that's going to be the only option if they can't raise prices to reflect rising productions costs. I will mow an extra yard to get the 10 more for a game that is superior. Sources Edit first time posting in , I apologize in advance if I've missed a rule or something. EDIT 2 Thanks for all the great, reasonable responses on a topic we all are likely passionate about. A lot of people addressed indie studios stepping up in the face of corporate backlash. My admittedly unstated view on this was that indie studios couldn't support a full industry. I awarded the delta to the person who tied AAA and indie development together with Bethesdas Fallout 4 as an example. I'd like to see more companies embrace this idea as it could eliminate the need to cash farm with things such as microtransactions while delivering fuller experiences. As a final note, I specifically mentioned EAs Battlefront 2 as an example of consumer over reaction. After reading full reviews this morning, the pay to win model in the game is much worse than the impression I got and consumer reaction has been pretty reasonable. Fuck EA","conclusion":"Consumers will eventually kill the gaming industry"}
{"id":"2f8f3937-5cd1-4cd7-9960-f72d5d840033","argument":"Youtube just bragged about removing a bunch of objectionable content. I don't understand how its good for a public service to censor anything. Your own chatroom website, of course I get that because its different and probably has a niche audience. Of course I would support removing something like child porn but that's about it. Liveleak is a thing for this very reason. No one makes anyone watch these videos, so whats the issue? I don't believe a mega company should be manipulating content like that. Is there another side to this I'm not thinking of? EDIT I don't mean public company in the legal sense. I mean it more in the social sense. Basically the difference in perception between a family own restaurant your site and mcdonalds youtube . Both are privately owned but viewed very differently and socially held to different standards. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Social platforms or youtube should not be censoring"}
{"id":"0e680fcb-e9a5-41fa-a98e-31fe6c64f983","argument":"Obama\u2019s hesitation in intervening against Bashar al-Assad gave Vladimir Putin an opportunity to rebuild Moscow\u2019s influence in the Middle East.","conclusion":"When intervention does not occur, it can lead to crises for the countries that could have intervened."}
{"id":"e7f33fca-b33f-4f8f-86c8-2f8eb9e63888","argument":"Starting to adopt a liquid democracy would come hand in hand with the realisation that the current economic system based on infinite grow and consumerism isn't sustainable, so then most voters would likely be aware of the power of corruption and play greater attention to avoid it.","conclusion":"Liquid Democracy prevents abuse of power, corruption, and exploitation of the political institutions at the hands of elites."}
{"id":"826113b6-9f8e-4566-a681-12e515861282","argument":"Consider the cliffhanger ending of Episode 5: Luke is trounced by Vader, the shocking reveal of them being father and son massively complicating their conflict. Han is taken from Leia to Jabba the Hut, with Lando and Chewie in hot pursuit. Now, consider the remaining plot threads following The Last Jedi: Rey vs. Kylo and the Resistance vs. The First Order gee, I wonder who's going to win there?, and tying up supporting characters like Finn and Poe, and whatever new characters they introduce.","conclusion":"Johnson's quick resolution, or even complete jettison, of elements introduced by his predecessor smacks of design by committee a pejorative for a project with multiple designers but no unifying plan or vision."}
{"id":"9b07db68-5e38-478e-8eb6-fbe7927c8f69","argument":"It's occurred to me recently that US history courses may be anachronistic and even unintentionally pernicious in tacitly reinforcing exceptionalist, nationalist perspectives in students. This at a time when the morality of national boundaries is coming under strong scrutiny and the professional ethos among educators favors the inculcation of cosmopolitan multicultural perspectives and values in students. I see a few advantages to this 1 better placement of key US historical events and themes in a comparative context e.g. colonialism, independence movements, constitutional democracy, slavery, civil rights , enriching understanding of US events themes while increasing knowledge of other countries and cultures 2 subtle shift in students' identification as Americans that's more expansive and inclusive 3 overall better alignment with contemporary trends in educated public opinion and 4 some freeing up of the world history curriculum by relieving it of responsibility for teaching about the Americas after 1500. A few things to note a Most middle schools require US history too. I would keep that intact for the same reasons we still require middle schoolers to study their states' histories b any perceived or actual loss in civics instruction could be compensated for in American Government and Civics courses, and English curriculum could also be adjusted to better prepare students for active citizen engagement and c the International Baccalaureate program has developed a History of the Americas elective, so an existence proof does exist.","conclusion":"High School US History course should be replaced with History of the Americas"}
{"id":"63ca98a5-d542-4631-9f82-2f8dd4e99f27","argument":"According to Chinese recent archaeological discoveries, the Three Gorges are viewed as the cradle of ancient Chinese culture.There are a total 1208 archaeological sites441 above ground and 767 undergroundcovering nearly 2 million years of history in the inundated areas of 632 square kilometres along the YangtseRiver extending nearly 700 kilometres from Chongqing to Sandouping.","conclusion":"Argument: The Three Gorges Dam has destroyed Chinese cultural artifacts"}
{"id":"208fd886-9918-4f89-babc-7884f4de3a5d","argument":"As mentioned last time we wanted to try Meta Mondays , where the  community can get together and discuss experiences in the subreddit. This time we're asking longtime users of  do you have any wisdom to share? Please keep it on topic Thanks.","conclusion":"Meta Monday Longtime users of do you have any wisdom to share?"}
{"id":"f4c99b5d-1f77-4cb7-a4a6-fe1ad31d7258","argument":"Most implementations of medical marijuana legislation lacked a patient registry and renewal system. This blurred the boundary between patients and non-patient Wen et al., p. 5","conclusion":"Medical marijuana legalization creates a de facto legalized environment for marijuana."}
{"id":"ad48ce10-70bd-4b86-8fc9-266c2fb524a1","argument":"First, this is a spinoff thread. Second, this is a spinoff thread. Third, this is a spinoff thread. Fourth, we need to radically rethink what a college experience is in America before we start to entertain free college. We culturally expect colleges to be places with state of the art facilities, dorms, athletics programs, clubs, and cafeterias serving sushi. Those things cost money. Most schools charge extra for meals, dorms, athletics, etc. and require those charges in order to attend the school. But, they really have nothing to do with education, do they? For a stark example of this, the vast majority of school athletics programs are not self sustaining, so the costs are usually met through, you guessed it, tuition and fees. But most schools think these multimillion dollar monstrosities are important for the school's image and prestige, even though they have nothing to do with education or getting a job after school. Conversely, most students attending a sports school expect sports to be a part of the college experience at the particular school they're attending. In a College for All scheme, the government would have to either shoulder these horrendous costs or force schools to cut down. And as anyone who's been to a sports school knows, there would be literal riots if the football team went away, which brings me to my next point Fifth, then there's the party aspect. Most people expect to party in college, thanks to Animal House and Girls Gone Wild. It could be fun, but from a school administrator's perspective, maintaining a consequence free bubble for young hedonists to maybe or maybe not do illicit substances and have questionable sexual encounters takes a lot of money. I would need lawyers on hand to do damage control if someone dies while getting hazed, or if someone OD's and goes to the hospital, or too many guys get MeeToo'd, or if a group of drunk students destroy people's property after a wild football game, etc. etc And I would need a police force with the college logo on their cars to try and prevent all this, because the local police has enough to do on its own, for the locals. Those costs are also included in tuition. Why should that come at the taxpayer's expense? Sixth, many schools, as we all know, do their own research. Research, again, costs money but has nothing to do with the students' education. Theoretically, we could split the research aspect away from the educational aspect and make them entirely separate entities, but then that would probably not go down well with most university administrators, would it? Seventh, college is a Veblen good. Its value goes up the more expensive and exclusive it is, just like a Porsche. People will keep taking out loans to go to the better schools rather than go to one that is considered less prestigious. There's nothing rational about this behavior at all, but it does mean something It's how we ended up in this situation in the first place why schools became these big, bloated monstrosities of uselessness that cost as much as an expensive car only unlike a car, you can't re sell a diploma for a fraction of the cost if you don't like it. Anyway, here's a summary of my views on free college in more detail than the last thread. Enjoy.","conclusion":"Free College for All is a bad idea in the USA"}
{"id":"45ca5524-2bc9-4962-aa03-92eb26b4ed85","argument":"The Lisbon Treaty significantly affects the workings of each member country. It gives the European Union a legal personality, allowing it to sign international agreements and member countries are now made subject to majority voting 1. The Lisbon Treaty does not only affect international policies, criminal law and national justice systems, it also gives power over to the Commission and European Court. Such major changes must be put to popular vote, the citizens of each EU member state have a right to legitimise or reject these changes that push for a more centralized European superstate. Furthermore the will of the people needs to be trusted, if a reform is intentionally ambiguous and complicated, which was one of the criticisms of the Lisbon Treaty 2, it is the job of the politician to explain the cause to the public. Voters should be included in the debate and key issues need to be highlighted not just ignored. 1 European Commission, Your Guide to the Lisbon Treaty, viewed on 13 June 2011 2 Foley, Kathy, \u2018Lisbon treat: yes, no or eh?\u2019, Sunday Times 13 January 2008.","conclusion":"Major changes need to be put to the people and the people must be trusted."}
{"id":"21794065-7656-48d1-b184-11451ad685cd","argument":"In terms of physical health, research points that religiosity is related to a decrease in smoking and alcohol consumption, as well as having positive effects on heart disease and blood pressure.","conclusion":"Much of the practices of religion are conducive towards good mental health. It is therefore likely that religion has been a good mediator of mental health for humans."}
{"id":"4c802df8-95bc-4d05-ac74-f63d909e08ae","argument":"\"South Korea Extols Some of the Benefits of Land Mines\". New York Times. 3 Sept 1997: \"Every military expert is sure that the United States and South Korean forces could defeat a North Korean attack without using any land mines. But most of the experts say that to slow a North Korean invasion and hasten its end it would be helpful to lay down new mines as well as rely on existing minefields.\"","conclusion":"Landmines in Korea would slow down invasion, thin enemy ranks"}
{"id":"70f9cc12-3444-416c-991d-28b9ed2fae34","argument":"It's well accepted that the destabilization of the Middle East has led to ISIS' uprising, which the USA had the largest role in creating and seeks to benefit from. This will have caused 1 million immigrants to enter Europe by the end of the year and will lead to the destabilization of Europe. Not only is it pathetic to see the the outright refusal of immigrants entering the country, but the number seeking refuge is also laughably small compared to what Europe is going through and it's a crisis that the USA created. You could also say that this is exactly what the USA wants in the name of imperialism. A destabilized and weakened Europe benefits the USA in its fight against Russia. With both Russia and Europe weakened and easier to control, particularly Russia, this gives USA an advantage for the fight in global leadership against China.","conclusion":"America is most at fault for the immigration crisis in Europe, making it pathetic to see so many Politicians against the USA accepting immigrants. I also believe this is exactly what the USA wants in the name of imperialism."}
{"id":"603d3552-5694-4e00-bf00-2e7888b93214","argument":"At a fundamental level, both are wilfully killing an animal for your own enjoyment. A vegetarian lifestyle is totally possible, you don't get ill or die or anything the only reason you'd choose a meat eating lifestyle over a veggie lifestyle is because you enjoy eating meat more than you care about killing animals. The only difference between this and someone who kills an animal because he she enjoys the feeling of hunting and killing is the fact that the hunter is doing the killing themselves. The level of abstraction from the kill makes it easier for meat eaters to feel morally superior. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"It is Hypocritical for Meat-Eaters to Oppose Hunting For Sport."}
{"id":"838019bd-c664-4e4a-abec-e674511138d0","argument":"Ranked choice voting RCV has a similar effect of allowing citizens to vote specifically.In Australia RCV allowed several more minority parties to be elected It is likely that this effect would be increased if Liquid Democracy were implemented.","conclusion":"Liquid Democracy would reduce the power of political parties, lessening the negative effects of party politics."}
{"id":"2f022c5c-a854-413a-b8fd-6bcf61640d77","argument":"Does God Exist? The Definitions Problem What is God? What does He do? Is God an all knowing being controlling the outcome of every possibility, or is he someone who set the universe in to self sustaining motion? Is God a person, or a system? Is he conceivable by the human consciousness or not? If you plan to argue about the existence of a supreme deity, but have absolutely no prior knowledge of who or what God is, then how do you expect to have any argument whatsoever. If I argue with someone about the taste, appearance, smell, etc. of an apple, but he was actually talking about a tomato the entire time, how can one expect to have a constructive argument? The Empirical Evidence Problem In the case of re creatable observational experiments i.e. the sciences the goal is never immediately to prove nor disprove God for the same reason that at least 90 of \u201cDoes God Exist\u201d debates have no definition for God. Any atheist citing \u201cscience\u201d as the reason for their disbelief in a being of supernatural and metaphysical supremacy is instantly wrong. Science has literally nothing to do with it. A parallel would be me crediting tomatoes with causation for my faith in a being of supernatural and metaphysical supremacy. In the case of personal empirical evidence i.e. \u201cThis one time I saw\u2026\u201d instances , while evidence may be able to be provided lending to the validity of another\u2019s stated experiences, such experiences can never be confirmed only denied. Furthermore, PERSONAL empirical evidence does not transfer from person to person. The argument is only made first hand which is the point of calling it personal empirical evidence . Asking someone to provide empirical proof of a god is impossible for all practical purposes. Asking someone to provide empirical evidence against a god is equally as impossible. Having \u201cFaith\u201d Isn\u2019t an argument It\u2019s the opposite of one. It\u2019s intentionally not putting an effort into establishing why you believe in something. Such an argument effectively makes you believe in nothing. Both Christians and Atheists make this nonargument and often, neither believe in anything of substance because of it. The Rational Approach One has to use logic to discuss the validity of the existence of God. There are 3 main logic based arguments here Teleological, Ontological, and Cosmological. Don\u2019t know what they are? Look them up. Any argument against the existence of a god should, for starters, proceed from there. You aren't some rational genius just because you have no belief in a god and can out argue some mentally challenged evangelicals. When I say \u201crational,\u201d I do mean rationalism, not what call yourself to give yourself a back pat for debating that Christian you saw online. An unbiased stance ought to be taken whenever someone finds a problem that they cannot solve at the time. If you can successfully solve every logical problem of theological philosophy one way or another, you should write your doctorate philosophy now, because you must just be soooo smart. This is why \u2013 in basically any case \u2013 the agnostic stance can claim to be more \u201crational\u201d than one of atheism. In either case, both beliefs are ones based upon faith. When two people just yell what they believe in at each other, they both sound like idiots. This is why I think that essentially no argument CAN be made in either direction. I'm sure this one will aggravate a lot of people. Sorry ahead of time. Also, no fallacies please.","conclusion":"Debating Atheism vs. Theism is Automatically Logically Unsound"}
{"id":"bb6c1daf-8fd2-42a5-a244-8619f4cae05d","argument":"Often, the fact that information is time sensitive is used to justify the use of torture. However, this makes it additionally unlikely that the right person is being tortured. This is because there is no time for the due process that establishes a prisoner's guilt or involvement with dangerous activities. As a result, prisoners who are neither guilty nor have any useful information may face torture.","conclusion":"Prisoners held in custody are not necessarily the right people. They may not have the information or access to the information which agents of the state believe them to have."}
{"id":"26384f13-4cb6-47b0-b80f-e2f8aa5f4d18","argument":"President Eisenhower said about Lee, \"in my estimation, one of the supremely gifted men produced by our Nation. selfless almost to a fault.noble as a leader and as a man, and unsullied as I read the pages of our history. A nation of men of Lee\u2019s caliber would be unconquerable in spirit and soul. Indeed, to the degree that present-day American youth will strive to emulate his rare qualities. we, in our own time of danger in a divided world, will be strengthened and our love of freedom sustained.\"","conclusion":"Robert E. Lee is broadly respected for his character and traits."}
{"id":"d718a2ba-5e2d-4ae3-ad46-e83bb260a486","argument":"\"Extreme\" means dedication to one ideology and acting accordingly. The aim, the realization of the ideology, is of the highest priority. Harm is considered as acceptable as long as the aim gets achieved.","conclusion":"Extreme politicians tend to realize their aims without considering potential consequences, whereas moderate politicians stand for responsibility ethic of ultimate ends vs. ethic of responsibility."}
{"id":"f4a4b1f7-a103-4a41-a079-d82e4fdafed2","argument":"The passing of Billy Graham may likely produce one of the most historic events in the history of our country. It is quite possible that all five living former presidents, as well as the current president and vice president attend his funeral. Graham has been consistently included in the lists of most admired people for generations. He gave council to every president since Eisenhower. He was a leader in the civil rights movement of the 60's, although not nearly as celebrated as much as others. I was disgusted when I saw the hate for this man expressed in my local sub. It made me look deeper and sure enough, there are plenty of posts about his death, the majority are filled with hatred and what seems in some cases as outright joy over his death. There are a few exceptions some posts point out his contributions to society, some users express their repsect, even if they disagreed, but the overwhelming take away from the majority of the posts disgusts me that people would be seem so happy over the death of man who preach about love for his entire life. Here are some samples I found Billy Graham died. Good. He preached bigotry and hatred of atheists, women, gays, and trans people. Substitute what Hitchens said after Jerry Falwell's death for Billy Graham and it makes perfect sense front page of r all with 8000 upvotes Billy Graham Enjoy Hell You Old Bitch Billy Graham was on the wrong side of history Without scanning, I would presume many of the same people expressing their joy at his passing are the same people who would castigate others for not being open minded or for being on the wrong side of history . He will be only the fourth private citizen to lie in honor in the capitol rotunda Can you can convince me that general reddit view on his passing is not out of line with the general public view? gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The hate and vitriol expressed on reddit regarding the passing of Billy Graham is evidence of just how out of touch with traditional american values of most reddit users who chose to comment."}
{"id":"4ae6ab46-eb49-4085-8b4e-0c9de67e78e8","argument":"Typically, the costs of projects are 46% higher than initially expected. These overhead costs will have to be added to AKM development.","conclusion":"Developing new weapon system comes typically at a very high price."}
{"id":"38a788b2-f5c9-4a8c-b0d8-20329b459975","argument":"In the United States, I've noticed that almost every parent's mentality is that once your child turns 18, he she is automatically kicked out of your house and is on his own. Having been raised French in the U.S, that concept was very weird at first. I feel like many parents here consider their children more of a burden they want to get rid of to avoid spending any more money on them, regardless of whether they are ready for the real world or not. In my opinion, all this does is forcing these teenagers to put themselves in debt simply because they have reached the age of somewhat legality. Most of those teenagers have to pay for college if they are that lucky and rent themselves, having to take extra jobs simply to survive. If those parents waited a couple of extra years for the teenagers to really feel more comfortable with the world out there and how they are going to go at it, it would fix a huge problem of debts in America. ?","conclusion":"the U.S way of kicking your kids out at 18 does more harm than good"}
{"id":"c910645e-3c5b-418e-934e-699c7040817e","argument":"Complexity of thought is the one salient advantage that has allowed humans to become the dominant species on Earth. This alone proves how valuable a feature it is.","conclusion":"Humans are more intelligent than animals. A value system according to brain complexity and social intelligence is the most reasonable option we have."}
{"id":"8ab81d3a-38e4-47ea-b093-36e41695f81f","argument":"I'm going to preface this by saying that I believe that humans are accelerating climate change via the use of fossil fuels. This will ultimately be detrimental and cause huge issues in the near future. That is my personal position on the issue. Here comes the BUT The climate change debate is too often getting twisted into an anti humanist one and ultimately a nihilistic one. Basically, that human existence is the issue, not an issue with resource usage or allocation. This is characterized in two main ways. An argument that heavily, implies that humanity doesn't deserve to exist. That humanity might even be morally reprehensible. And the second is that the only way to really change human behavior is by force and authoritarian means. I will try to present these arguments in the form that I have seen them, and then offer up my rebuttal. The first argument often made is that there is a clear distinction made between the planet and human beings as a whole. This often leads to the conclusion that humans are like a virus that is infecting the Earth. Or that Earth is a separate entity with it's own agency that has a goal to maintain some perceived natural purity. This to me can only really be interpreted as a nihilistic argument. It's fundamentally incorrect. Earth is a complex system in which humans are inherently a part of. They are not separate. Most worrisome though is that implies that the earth is against us. Or even that earth has the means to be for or against something. That it has goals that are in direct conflict with human kind. I refer you to George Carlin bit on saving the planet as a funny take of this argument . It is an anti human and pro earth argument. Even though the very concept of being pro earth is bizarre. The second is that overpopulation is the primary issue. This argument has merits, since more people obviously equates to more resource consumption. However, the implied solution to the issue is problematic. We must depopulate. How do you do this? Well this argument often leads to the final argument. The final argument that human society is the issue. Now this is obviously a nuanced argument which has a lot of truth to it. However, the nihilistic and anti humanist position is that human behavior must change, but this change must be done by force or authoritarian means. Fundamentally, they do not believe human's ability to change via their own volition. Don't get me wrong, on bad days I can see how they reach this conclusion. But it's lazy and historically shown to be dangerous. My gut response to this is that if humanity has to be saved by removing essentially what it is that makes us human, our own agency, then we haven't really saved anyone. It's clear to me that if the climate change argument is presented as the points above, someone hearing the climate change debate for the first time will have a strong incentive to turn away and dismiss it. Accepting it means accepting that humanity doesn't deserve to live on earth, and that the only solution is to actually take away the very thing that makes us human. I understand these views are radical and are presented by a minority, but it is often the radical, minority position you hear first on a topic you don't know much about. This argument will push many people way simply on principle. None of this is a justification for remaining scientifically illiterate or ignoring the effects of man made climate change. I want finish my argument by making a case for humanity and that essentially we have only known about our wide scale effect on the climate for the last 60 70 years. That is such a short blip of time. Just think about the progress we've made in that time and then compare that to the magnitude of the problem. The problem involves fundamentally changing industries, markets, and the minds of billions of people about our effect on an insanely complex ecological system. The complexity in that is staggering. And all of this has to be done without collapsing the very fragile system we live in. And yeah, maybe we aren't exactly where we need to be and that there has been setbacks, and we could be doing better, but we have to remember that humans never intentionally did this. Nobody knew about the effects we would have on the global climate when they started burning coal. It is, at its core, a blameless problem, and we have to be careful we don't actually blame the concept of humanity itself.","conclusion":"The Anti-Humanist\/nihilist aspect of the climate change debate pushes more people into denialism that it does acceptance."}
{"id":"a6374280-1ddb-414d-8de4-028e31e82585","argument":"I live in a country where Maternity Leave is essentially mandated by law. I therefore think that it should be acceptable for Business owners to have a preference in gender when hiring new workers, for the perfectly logical reason that hiring a woman who will quite likely become pregnant at some stage will cost them more money and require them to hire a replacement down the line. This is not the case with men, making them the more cost effective choice. Now, if the woman is by far the most qualified of all the candidates, by all means, hire her. But if it's a dead heat between a young male and young female candidate, I think the possibility of pregnancy in the female's case should be taken into account. Edit Thanks to some of the brilliant answers I have received, I now believe that changes in maternity and paternity leave law are a justified and fair way of combating this issue. My favourite solution is that a couple should both draw from a pool of parental leave, and use it as they see fit. That makes it more likely for the father to take leave from work than with current systems.","conclusion":"Not hiring young women makes sense from a Business owner's perspective due to the fact that they are likely to get pregnant and require maternity leave."}
{"id":"8a36e444-d835-45c2-9b76-22fe43e25602","argument":"With the accessibility of torrent sites like thepiratebay, entertainment companies will have to adapt or die off. Musicians will make most of their profits off of touring. Movies and TV shows will feature more product placement.","conclusion":"I believe torrents are the future of entertainment."}
{"id":"bcd9f4b6-8fd3-4374-a1f7-3c0e3656433f","argument":"Because if you take drugs, this means you're not satisfied with your life, you want to feel good and escape. There are people who don't get affected positively by alcohol or weed or they even make them sick. At this point they start thinking that other drugs, like Cocaine for example, will help them. Thus resistant people are very likely to try hard drugs, which are usually very addictive. Change my view. Edit I am only talking about people who are depressed and want to escape.","conclusion":"I believe resistance to soft drugs causes addiction to hard drugs."}
{"id":"30759031-495b-4232-aae6-33d460a2d9c9","argument":"People wear their parties as if it were an armband. For some, democrat is a bad word. People friggin identify as a Republican or a Democrat as if they were a registered member of a party in a single party state. People don't vote for policies they vote for whichever politician is the edgiest about their hostility against the percieved other . Trump won because he called out many others that resonated with his base effectivly, just like Reagan with his welfare queens . People don't care about healthcare reform, they care about which party voted on the reform. I have no doubt that if the Republicans voted a verbatim copy of ACA, their base would rally around it and call it the most patriotic policy since the PATRIOT act. People simply do not care because they do not care to be informed. They want entertainment and to be outraged. Please .","conclusion":"There is no reason to expect US politics will ever depolarize or become effective in Millennial's lifetimes."}
{"id":"a3a0217a-a674-45a6-afa3-4dbc4832b622","argument":"I feel that without bring open to your child, you\u2019re causing them problems in the long run. The more mystery is surrounding a topic, the more interest a kid has in it. Obviously don\u2019t start talking to your kids about sex and drugs at 8 years old, but at an appropriate age. Many people want to believe their kids will never have sex or never drink or try drugs, which may be true in some cases, but if it does happen, I think they need to be aware that teenagers try things. For example sex. If you\u2019re not open with you\u2019re kid about sex and offer to buy them condoms or allow them to be on birth control or whatever else, you\u2019re going to hurt them in the long run by making them believe it is a \u201cbad\u201d thing.","conclusion":"It is hurting your child to not be open with them about things like religion, drugs, and sex."}
{"id":"4ed8d4cd-d96d-42fb-ae82-dce587c97cba","argument":"Hey all, Been quite a while since I've done a  but I feel quite strongly on this issue so I thought it would be interesting to bring my case forward to you guys. I strongly dislike the policy of positive discrimination affirmative action for a number of reasons. I would outline my case as follows I think the notion that we should designate certain privileges to a person simply on the basis of their race sex alone detracts from the principle of equality of opportunity in favour of equality of outcomes. The principle justification behind this as far as I'm aware is that the motion targets groups that it suggests are generally underrepresented or perceived to often be treated unfairly Firstly, I feel that this discrimination based solely on race sex is inherently racist sexist respectively by any definition of the words, and furthermore that the label of positive discrimination is misleading, since all discrimination is positive towards one group while negative towards another. Secondly, I fundamentally disagree with the notion that such discrimination is in any way justified, and I feel this way for two reasons 1 I am sceptical of the purported scale of modern day sexism and racism in the western world as a quick aside, this argument is going to be entirely focussed on the USA and UK . I don't feel that there is compelling evidence to support the notion of the existence of systemic sexism or racism on an international or otherwise grand scale. 2 I strongly disagree with the idea that it is logical or progressive to lump people under a group identity or label and then suggest that members of this group should be given special treatment simply because of statistical differences between that group and the population majority. I think it far better to operate on principles of equal opportunity rather than equal outcome if two applicants for a university or job are being considered, their individual qualifications and merits should be considered. If two university applicants are equally qualified but one graduated from a prestigious university from a wealthy family background while the other came from a broken home with little to no formal schooling, then that second candidate's ability to perform well despite poor conditions in their personal life should be considered. However, if two candidates are presented, one with significantly better qualifications than the other, and the only discerning factor that sets them apart is race, then to pick the lesser qualified candidate is definitively racist. These things should be decided by individual merits and demerits, which is exactly what interviews are for. Affirmative action removes this ability for individual comparison in favour of a collectivist, impersonal system of group identity. Along with many other principles geared towards equality of outcome rather than equality of opportunity, affirmative action is, I think, self defeating. It begs the question of where to stop. Do you divide by race? Perhaps subdivide by gender? Where do you go from there? Should we subdivide again by household income? Personality? Age? Religion? The cycle is endless, until eventually you get all the way down to the most basic and fundamental group identity there is the individual. And we're back to evaluating on individual merits and demerits, as we should. Ergo, the notion of equal outcomes is not progressive, but regressive it simply removes the intricacies of individual consideration in favour of a group identity which can then be granted privileges or denied them based on an impression of a generalised identity which an individual person may not accurately represent. In conclusion, I believe affirmative action positive discrimination to be unfair, immoral, unjust and totally in conflict with the thoroughly desirable concept of equal opportunities we should be striving to treat individuals fairly and equally, evaluating them based on their individual attributes, not discriminating based on group identity in the interest of the regressive and rather totalitarian principle of equal outcomes. Let me know what you guys think on the subject I'd be very happy to hear your thoughts and perhaps you can change my mind on this topic. Thanks for your time","conclusion":"\"Positive Discrimination\"\/\"Affirmative Action\" is immoral and has no place in society."}
{"id":"24ca56eb-3b43-40fa-84ef-d33bfbc7091d","argument":"Edit \u201cThere is NO hope in politics anymore\u201d. Sorry about that. Let me just say, I really want my view changed. I used to be a political junky but I have barely kept up since the 2016 election. Actually, that is when I became a Reddit user because I needed a distraction. I think what bothers me most is the ideal of party above policy no matter what this administration does, even when it\u2019s against Republican ideals. Like trade wars, Russian meddling Reagan would be rolling in his grave , immoral behavior which I don\u2019t care about, but it the GOP Christian response shocks me , inhumane treatment of immigrants, etc. Then I see the Democratic Party, what I have always considered my party, is taking a hard left. I see the Democrats going in the same route of the Republican Party going to extremes and catering to identity politics. And here our country is, stuck in the middle of idealogical debates and common ground is no where to be found. It\u2019s so much us vs them, that even having a conversation with the so called \u201cthem\u201d is seen as traitorous. I have seen friends and family on both sides willing to give up on relationships for purely political reasons. All in all, I just find this really depressing, and I want to care. Right now, I don\u2019t even know if I\u2019d vote in the next presidential election and I always vote. Hell, I have a masters in public policy and my job is working with the federal government and political appointees. So please, change my view. Why should I vote and why should I care?","conclusion":"There is hope in US politics anymore"}
{"id":"54a08e22-0a72-43c1-9edc-7f44ebada705","argument":"It is a direct consequence of giving some of His creatures free will that those creatures turn away from God, thus becoming evil. Evil is thus not a thing in and of itself, but an absence of something, an absence of the influence of God, Chaos.","conclusion":"It is consistent to hold the view that God as traditionally conceived exists and that God is not the author of evil."}
{"id":"9fe25eee-b59d-4c7f-80c0-ab4a0c593aac","argument":"I am a high school teacher in NYC, where the Danielson framework is used to evaluate teacher performance. Teacher are rated on many categories through 4 6 classroom observations throughout the school year. My opinion is that this system is unsatisfactory for the following reasons It is statistically insignificant, as our observers are rating literally less than 1 of our classroom instruction time in a given year. It is not objective because administrators are free to interpret categories of Danielson as they see fit. Some of the administrators who rate our teaching have less teaching experience than the teachers themselves do. It creates resentment both among teachers and between teachers and administrators. This resentment effectively shuts down dialogue between staff, creating a toxic work environment. It punishes teachers who work in challenging environments, and rewards those who work in easy environments. For example, it is harder to get 100 student engagement when your class has 34 students, all of whom are ELLs, and many of whom are SIFEs like my class in NYC . Teachers in the suburbs typically don't have 34 students, have few if any ELLs, and no SIFEs, and therefore face less challenges in this category. The framework is all about what good teaching is supposed to LOOK LIKE, not about what is actually taught. Therefore, it is possible to be highly effective on Danielson, and teach something that is completely useless to students. Students are aware that teachers get stressed out about observations. Stressed out teachers and uncomfortable classrooms are not learning environments. Thoughts? Link to the Danielson Rubric for the curious","conclusion":"The Danielson Framework for evaluating teachers is ruining the teaching profession."}
{"id":"095df33d-ae7c-45f2-99a4-e77ef63baf80","argument":"This power is proportional to the number of people who prefer them, which is the ideal of deliberative democracy.","conclusion":"Asset is the only system that gives losing candidates power."}
{"id":"401dce1a-4acf-4523-81b1-b02982d928ad","argument":"In our interconnected world, individual nation's growth is linked to global growth thanks to constant trading with one another. If one country's economic growth is decreasing and they are unable to devalue their national currency, that is likely to affect other countries' growth and potentially global growth if their economy is large enough.","conclusion":"Countries being unable to devalue their own currency to protect their local economy can also have wider repercussions on the global market."}
{"id":"3240cdcd-be76-4867-9773-e8171ab2d215","argument":"I mean a password like scrumplethopar kruckle wor snoply this is 34 characters and as far as any bruteforce method I've ever seen today equivalent to a random 34 character string in terms of time to guess it. Thus far superior to say a 12 character purely random password. The only way this password is weaker is if bruteforce methods are programmed with a neural understanding of phonologically plausibility but even in that case with a password this long the number of combinations still exceeds a 12 character purely random password which are typically deemed secure but hard to remember for a human.","conclusion":"A phonologically plausible but morphologically nonsensical password of sufficient length is superior to random characters of shorter length"}
{"id":"6d86d19c-8fc9-4dc5-9bd8-269a4966ec04","argument":"Neo-nazi websites like The Daily Stormer helped organise the rally where a 32-year-old woman was killed and 19 people were injured when a man drove a car into protesters demonstrating against a white nationalist rally. By denying service to such websites, white supremacists can't organise as effectively as they otherwise can.","conclusion":"This hampers the ability of white supremacist groups to organise massive rallies or protests, as they cannot advertise to a lot of people."}
{"id":"f03a4886-8ec8-4913-92ff-b378b27e8dea","argument":"The shocking thing would be if this weren't the case. Demagogy relies on instilling fear. That religion would not rely solely on creating a difference believers\/infidels is hardly surprising.","conclusion":"Religious based discrimination often just reflected the attitudes of the time, thus other forces, not religion, drove those views."}
{"id":"2e0d4678-9264-4bc3-a832-8501e3f9d99e","argument":"Hello Let me preface by saying I don't believe there is a better sex. Your genitalia is not indicative of your role in society, your actions and decisions are. That being said, feminism is a movement for women, not equality for all sexes. I believe there should be a larger, more inclusive movement that doesn't cater to a special interest group and addresses the injustices that men and trans individuals experience on a daily basis. If this were feminism, then it wouldn't be called feminism. I look forward to all productive or inquisitive replies Edit thanks for keeping it amicable folks","conclusion":"Feminism is the wrong approach to gender equality"}
{"id":"92b33093-9335-4a51-9d00-90193e5ac543","argument":"If referendums establish themselves as a democratic institution and take place repeatedly, this expands the opportunities for the media to influence people's opinions and thereby political outcomes.","conclusion":"Referendums give more political influence to the media, actors who lack the legitimacy of elected representatives."}
{"id":"e6e0db75-1da9-4200-bfa5-d0e8054926a0","argument":"I worked in the financial industry for 5 years, saving lots of money. I did some calculations and I can live work free for the rest of my life if I stay in my one room apartment and live off of a healthy and low cost diet. You might say well why would you live like that? and the answer is that I already do live like that and it suits me just fine. I have no car, no dependents, no vices, and no interests beyond the computer. Why should I get another job and waste 1 3 of my life when I can just as easily stay at home and play video games and program for the next 40 years?","conclusion":"I don't need to work any more."}
{"id":"d4085a8d-3f45-4917-af61-6fd7d2e5d777","argument":"I had to change the wording of this title after finding other terms, not knowing many even use the term absolute pitch . My initial qualm about perfect pitch still rings true in that it is a flawed term to use to refer to one's pitch ability. In googling perfect pitch, I immediately came across Absolute Pitch which in short is the ability to identify and or produce a pitch without a reference tone. Relative pitch is the same deal as absolute pitch, except its acquired through ear training and the need to use a reference pitch like a tuning fork and interval training. I've always known about my own sense of pitch which lead music to being what i paid the most attention to as an extracurricular activity in school. For as long as i have remembered i've been able to just sing or play a note without needing to hear it, i just figured early in my learning days, with music being such a worldwide commodity, that the ability to judge pitch would be relatively the same for everyone. I remember as a grade schooler often thinking that musical ability depended solely on interest, which isn't completely false, i just wasn't aware of the possibility of innate ability being somewhat a factor of said interest. Despite figuring all of this, A 440 is a manmade standard generally used in the west with the exception of some symphonies in Europe and likely elsewhere wavering around A 442 . To me, this says that you can have the innate ability to identify a pitch only down to 10 or 20 cents of accuracy. Based on what we hear around us, there's things that can throw off a sense of perfection . Radio likes to mess with the playback speeds of songs to save precious time, so there could be some songs you're unknowingly hearing at like A 445. Without enough practice in A 440 your pitch would have to inevitably fall into sharper or flatter habits no matter who you are, which is, in my opinion, not very perfect. To add to this, the term perfectly describes something that is as good as it can possibly be. The term absolute is more referred to as describing something in a way that isn't relative or comparable to other things, so with training or not, someones ability to distinguish and sing pitches organically is absolute since you'd be within those 20 cents or so, allowing others with a form of absolute pitch to distinguish it from other pitches. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"\"Perfect pitch\" is an inaccurate way to describe \"absolute pitch\""}
{"id":"11921edc-9e9f-4612-a7c8-a52753790821","argument":"It's not only black people who have suffered hardship. Other races, including white people, have had their fair share of hardship. Singling out \"black lives\" is unfair.","conclusion":"Both sayings are equally harmful, as they each reduce complex issues to hollow and divisive platitudes."}
{"id":"63dbcc50-aab2-4101-9ac2-272be741ede3","argument":"While eating meat may not itself be absolutely wrong from a hedonistic perspective, the structures around which eating meat in the present day is based i.e. factory farming - and which its continued consumption encourages the perpetuation thereof - are highly unethical, as they cause massive amounts of suffering to animals, as well as suffering to the humans who must work in the meat industry to sustain it. A reduction in meat consumption would reduce the prevalence of these institutions.","conclusion":"Ethical hedonism takes into account the pleasures of all parties involved, including animals which are capable of sensation and\/or emotion."}
{"id":"304effaf-85f5-4590-a8fd-fb45a86c2d82","argument":"If zoos are AZA accredited, they have taken many steps to insure the wellbeing of the animals within their zoo, and are sometimes better environments for the animals than the wild.","conclusion":"There are laws that require zoos to maintain a certain level of well-being for their animals."}
{"id":"ba6e7af2-4960-4093-a181-82791ba204de","argument":"Law, which does not have the support from the people would be a dead norm.","conclusion":"It is the other way around. Social norms and mores shape government laws."}
{"id":"19710e86-3466-4368-8277-5a7187a9715a","argument":"Honestly I am not too sure how big of a problem piracy is nowadays, but I still see companies governments coming up with new ideas to combat it. Like filtering uploading content, forcing gamers to stay online at all times, etc. Despite those efforts a quick glance on piratebay shows us Pretty much everything is available. So I came to this idea after a recent discussion on the weekend and after considering the way public TV is funded in my country Everyone that owns a TV smartphone laptop or other electronical device that theoretically can recieve it pays a set amount each year. That money then gets distributed to public TV Radio but also private stations proportionally to the consumption of those stations. Along those lines this content fee would also get introduced, just that its not a yearly fee, but a device bound tax fee. Like the share Microsoft gets when someone buys a laptop on which windows 10 is installed. When buying a new Iphone you would pay number totally made up 10 of the price additionally, but then you gain access to any distribution service, that provides licensed products. Spotify, Netflix, Photoshop, website of your local garage band, download Harry potter e book.com, Watch Hollywood movies.com, you name it. Some independent, publicly funded group then controls the numbers and then distributes the money gained from the tax or fee proportionally. I think Netflix and co have proved that money isnt the main issue when pirating, but convenience. So if you have everything available when buying a laptop, then no one would even bother to seed a torrent simply because there is no demand. And by buying a laptop you also payed for the series you will be watching. Also Netflix proved that its possible to prevent DNS or proxy servers from working. This means its possible to block non participating countries out. Granted that means that in those countries they still may download illegally, but that just means nothing changes for them, whilst the situation gets better in the participating countries namely software piracy gets eliminated completely. Content that is free anyway, like youtube videos would get nothing of this fee, since ads would still be a thing. Also merchandising of any form is left out. This means if you want a blu ray you also still pay for the physical copy. I am aware that bots would be a problem and that implementation would be tricky, but those seem manageable details if the industries and authorities really commit to this idea. Maybe not, no clue about the technical difficulties Would love to hear some stances about this idea. So, what did I miss and why is this idea shitty? gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The movie\/films\/games\/software industries lost the fight against piracy. Instead of trying to find ways to make it harder to pirate stuff, they should introduce a tax\/fee on electronical devices, that will go to content creators - and make the content then \"free\"."}
{"id":"ee432aef-164c-4798-b068-708a282c408e","argument":"Confinement may prevent prisoners, which have important roles in organised criminal structures, from giving other criminals instructions.","conclusion":"Solitary confinement is a necessary tool for keeping order and safety in prisons."}
{"id":"96ec1480-90a4-48c6-a23a-6e5abe3c9ac3","argument":"China accounts for more than 80% of North Korean trade and it does not completely implement sanctions in terms of oil or other strategic resources.","conclusion":"International sanctions against North Korea have not been effective due to arbitrary interpretations and weak implementation."}
{"id":"ea00e98d-7f38-4cdc-90c2-48b8f6e77632","argument":"Since we tried to take methane from Titan for the terraforming of Mars we encountered life forms on Titan that began to attack our bases on the Gallilean moons and have tried to send some raids to the inner solar system. Since the Titans were created by a separate god than humans and that god wants to rule earth the only thing that we can do is to increase the surface temperature of Titan in order to melt the ice crust and create an oceanic moon that will be able to support earth life. We have already captured Titanic life previously so it shouldn't be a problem for our scientific understanding to terraform Titan and it would quickly destroy Titanic logistics or at least the threat will get them to stop sending missions to the inner solar system and focus on defending their homeworld.","conclusion":"The Commonwealth of Asgard should terraform Titan in order to stop the Titanic invasion"}
{"id":"884f151e-b16f-4823-992f-fd55e432c019","argument":"Now to be clear, I am not saying that racism does not exist or anything of that like. What I do have an issue with, is that the the social justice types seem to have almost a unified theory of everything when it comes to almost all human interaction. It seems a cigar is never just a cigar when viewed through the social justice lens.","conclusion":"I think most social justice theory is off the wall crazy,"}
{"id":"2bc49d4e-d58a-43d3-ad21-3d89fb9852f4","argument":"Despite the fact that the negative effects of corsets are widely known, due to the fashion industry they have re-emerged as a trend and encouraged people to engage in dangerous waist training activities.","conclusion":"Corsets, which were popular for many centuries directly had a negative impact on women's bodies."}
{"id":"4333e3c6-a6db-46bc-8835-d7398b8f82ee","argument":"In 2013 the United States had 809 vehicles for every 1,000 people, while China had only 89 per 1,000 people. While the U.S. per-capita number has been largely stable around 800 vehicles in recent years, China\u2019s car fleet has increased dramatically to 106 in 2015.","conclusion":"Per capita ownership of vehicles in China is increasing at a faster rate compared to that in the US."}
{"id":"2b78c9dd-91ce-46ce-ba30-05b8539444fd","argument":"Advertising has always evolved based on human behaviour, this will only be a catalyst for advertising to evolve. Ethics or not, you can never force someone to do or not do something against their will","conclusion":"Increasing use of ad-block technology pushes internet companies and others to find ways to improve user experience."}
{"id":"27f2adbe-cfcc-4000-b846-3740e84347d2","argument":"If people spend money on their hunting gear camo clothing, guns., then the opportunity cost is not donating to saving endangered species like fighting poaching. Endangered species suffer in this regard","conclusion":"Humans may selectively cull species for cultivation rather than environmentalism, which potentially disrupts the ecosystem."}
{"id":"99611a25-dc0b-4262-9622-eed67f3410c5","argument":"Some charities give to those in need but do very little in fighting for policy changes like increased minimum wages or other welfare policies.","conclusion":"Charity, for example, often endorses inequality instead of fixing its roots."}
{"id":"9446b19c-7a3e-4739-923f-5ea849632fcc","argument":"The content is almost irrelevant. The only requirement for a religion seems to be that the adherents need to state that they are members of a religion. There is no easily conceived of test that includes one and excludes another. It is hard to imagine the state establishing criteria that determines what is and is not a religion that is not discriminatory by definition.","conclusion":"If there is no objective basis for religion, then football can also be a religion. It has its symbols mascots\/logos, prayers team fight song, values teamwork, integrity, perseverance, and a leader NFL head. Worship would be pushing too far, but is ideology not something people abide by and perpetuate?"}
{"id":"adde3321-4891-42a1-9169-a0f0536c68af","argument":"Especially people-centered leisure activities have a positive impact on people's quality of life Leung, Lee, p. 172","conclusion":"An increase in leisurely activities is not inherently a bad thing."}
{"id":"19100484-2ac9-4397-87e3-66e3805e58d2","argument":"Please, don't get me wrong. I think that Apartheid was a horrible system and I'm glad that it doesn't exist anymore. I just think that the way the ANC handled the whole situation was a missed opportunity and they made South Africa worse than it was under the Apartheid regime they so dispised. Violent crime skyrocketed, they have one of the highest murder and rape rates, corruption is everywhere, the AIDS HIV problem got significantly worse etc. Meanwhile there's also some kind of reverse racism I don't like the term but you know what I mean where white people get more and more discriminated by the black majority. Maybe an understandable reaction to the past, but nothing like the tolerant rainbow nation Mandela promised. I'd love to have reasons to change my view on this. I like progres, but sadly I don't see it happening in post Apartheid South Africa.","conclusion":"I think South Africa became a worse place to live for both blacks and whites after abolishing Apartheid"}
{"id":"c8399a77-f93d-4500-9013-7477f1628a5a","argument":"As a delusion differs from reality by definition, presuming those differences are relevant e.g. a shovel's color is irrelevant to purpose, then the delusion will detract from productivity to some extent, possibly enough to be at a deficit and be non-functional. e.g. the delusion that you don't have to go to work random days could be unsustainable.","conclusion":"Living in a delusion that conflicts with reality is not sustainable."}
{"id":"f3e5d3a4-bda2-4375-a473-0a8bca688164","argument":"I believe that the media is biased in its portrayal of white characters, I want to particularly talk about serial killers but it is my opinion that in general the media consistently portrays whites in a more negative manner then non white counter parts. Blacks or African Americans if you would prefer that nomenclature represent about 20 of known serial killers in the US since 1915 despite being between 9 14 percent of the population during this period, yet media portrayal and popular culture depicting serial killers portray them as overwhelmingly white, and serial killing is regarded as a white phenomenon as evidenced by the wide spread disbelief that the DC snipers where black. In the television show criminal minds which details a behavioral psychologist aiding in the capture of serial killers out of 148 aired episodes only one serial killer has been black. Out of the many films depicting serial killers only Switchback features a black serial killer. I believe this is an intentional demonization of whites particularly white males which fosters distrust fosters and hatred toward whites unjustifiably. While I believe this trend of negative biases towards whites particularly white males extends to other shows and portrayals besides serial killers, for the purposes of this  I will limit it to the portrayal of serial killers in media.","conclusion":"I believe the media is negatively biased against white characters particularly regarding serial killings"}
{"id":"44f559d6-f023-40ac-9068-1d28a4861010","argument":"Public opinion is the basis of power in all societies. It would be very unwise to run too far ahead of public opinion.","conclusion":"The people do not serve the government; the government serves the people."}
{"id":"b1493933-c378-4a41-b6f8-69389b8a7188","argument":"The Church exists to serve the spiritual needs of its followers. They should do what helps their members feel closer to Christ.","conclusion":"Having democratic elections is the most fair way of selecting leaders."}
{"id":"4ecb203f-d580-4471-8164-e9243ccef3b9","argument":"A cross-sectional study implemented between 1992-2005 showed that cat intakes declined significantly in Santa Clara County as a result of spray and neuter programs, with an average annual decline of approximately 700 cats for the 12 year period.","conclusion":"Decades of spay and neuter programs combined with strong participation by rescue groups have greatly reduced the number of unwanted dogs and cats."}
{"id":"c150a9a3-6016-420e-b127-8ae78deb49a9","argument":"I feel bad for people with depression. I really do. I just can't understand it. I recently read those butters worth comics about her depression, and I had sympathy, but I just don't see how depression happens in the first place. We've all had those days where we can't get out of bed or awful magazine covers and other people make us feel like shit. But it changes tomorrow or the next day or when we distract ourselves. Why is it any different with depression? I can understand getting into self defeating cycles however that seems to come after you've been depressed for a while. One of the major descriptors I seen for the disease is that things aren't fun anymore. That bike riding or chess or insert hobby here doesn't bring any joy anymore. How is that? How does playing video games becomes become inherently less enjoyable? Isn't just browsing Reddit on the couch something I've heard is common for the depressed. the same as any other hobby? There must be SOMETHING that is enjoyable. I guess I just can't help but feel that depression is like any other emotion. Some estimates for it are as high as 1 in 10 people. Disorders like Manic depression or schizophrenia are different. There directly caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain. They cause feelings and emotions at such extremes that most 'normal' people couldn't understand. But everyone's felt numb and sad before. Why can't you treat it in the same way you treat happiness or shame or guilt? Please change my view. This one makes me feel like a terrible person.","conclusion":"I think people should just be able to \"snap out of\" depression. Please"}
{"id":"f6e39458-80f1-4ee8-8100-4019841e036b","argument":"The FBI has had success finding the locations of criminals who are using Bitcoin for transactions.","conclusion":"As technology is developing, the ability to track Bitcoin has also been advancing."}
{"id":"35d4eeb3-78d4-446c-af5e-e28e1e784f9b","argument":"Note It is currently past 3am, so I dearly apologise if some sections of this post are poorly written and thus hard to understand. I've given it some proofreads, but you all know what it's like when it's this late P. I will most likely be replying to comments throughout the day when I wake up, though I'll be up a little longer to reply to a few of you. Now, of course, I do not mean that every single repost is fantastic. It's just as if I were saying x comedian is good. Is every single second of their stand up hilarious? Probably not, but that doesn't stop them from being good. By and large, reposts are good. My opinion I want changing is, it is absolutely ridiculous to have rules that delete, prevent, and otherwise disallow reposts . I have reasons why, and I have rebuttals to rebuttals. To begin, if a post has 3000 upvotes in 4 hours and is removed for being a repost, clearly something is wrong. Well over 3000 people since downvotes effectively eliminate upvotes, we're looking at over 3000 upvotes have enjoyed this piece of content. What logical reason is there for removing this content that thousands are enjoying? In the context of subreddits such as r thathappened and r iamverysmart, what reason is there for one particular screenshot that thousands have not yet seen and will subsequently enjoy to be removed just because a couple thousand others have seen it? What reason actually is there to deny these thousands of people who haven't yet seen this screenshot of their enjoyment? Thousands of upvotes means thousands of people who haven't seen it yet which likely means thousands more people who haven't seen it yet, who will then enjoy this 'reposted' content. What does it matter if it was posted to the same sub 4 weeks ago? All these people are enjoying it The one point I can see is staleness if everything is a repost then there will be no new content to enjoy . My first argument to that is So? What is this, Eugenics for entertainment? Who are you to restrict my enjoyment of content that I haven't yet come across, just because you think it's stale? I understand that it negatively affects you too, but I don't see that as a reason to altogether just delete the content. I personally do not see this as a valid reason to prevent thousands of people from viewing and enjoying the reposted content. My second argument to that is Eventually, it will get to a point where reposted content will just be downvoted by the users of the sub, because they've seen that particular piece of content so many times that it's gotten stale. This will happen to dozens of screenshots in the context of r iamverysmart, etc. at any given time, because there are usually 5 6 posts with 3k upvotes on the front page. Subreddits are very much self regulating. If the people don't like the repost, they'll just be downvoting it. The downvotes will increase as more and more users see the screenshot and its subsequent reposts, which means it will get to a point where it's receiving effectively 0 upvotes. Not clogging up the front page with stale content. It's self regulation, much like what happens to a lot reposts on subs such as r funny and r TIL. This way, some users may be missing out, but at least then it's not a case of very minor systematic oppression from the higher classes mods .","conclusion":"Reposts are fine. Rules on various subreddits that disallow reposts are ridiculous."}
{"id":"f0656dd0-cbf7-4cde-8935-893091b97464","argument":"Georgia has been absent in S. Ossetia. Yet, this is not the will of the Georgian government, but the result of S. Ossetian separatism. If Georgia was given a chance to govern S. Ossetia, it would do so very well.","conclusion":"Georgia cannot be blamed for its absence in S. Ossetia."}
{"id":"8ae1d6d9-b8ad-4947-b85b-adaffa5e1553","argument":"Jesus lost voluminous amounts of blood from the scourging, the crown of thorns which pierced the scalp, a part of the body that bleeds freely, the crucifixion itself, and finally, the spear. In addition, he had already lost blood while praying in the garden. By the time he died, he would have suffered from massive dehydration.","conclusion":"Moving such a stone would be impossible for a recently-crucified man."}
{"id":"f77af924-dde0-4de0-adcc-720dfbb5284a","argument":"In the eurozone, even though the ECB has implemented limited bail outs of banks in some cases, the market still tends to view national governments as the overall guarantors of a country's banking system, meaning they are more threatened by the prospect of a runs on their banks in the event of economic shock.","conclusion":"In the US, runs on local or regional banks are less likely because the market knows that these banks will generally be guaranteed at a federal level."}
{"id":"0cffeb0c-dcca-4c68-87af-ca51d30886d8","argument":"Most of the internet blew up when the Samsung note 7 scandal happened. From the numerous videos of the phone exploding to the heyday reddit had with it to say that samsung received some bad press is an understatement. Since then Samsung has recalled all note 7's with the CEO even doing one of those crazy japanese type apologies on live television A few months have passed and Samsung will now re release the beleaguered phone with the battery issue fixed and more apropos to our discussion at a lower cost . The discount will be approximately 200 with original release price around 800 and now 600 . Minus the battery issue the note 7 was and still is an excellent phone with the reduction in price purely stemming from an emotional reaction and some time delay due to recall and re release. That said the discount of 200 is quite high if you disregard the emotional cost and few months of tech depreciation and with the galaxy 8 being release a month prior one can assume even more discounts when the newer assumedly superior model rolls around to exhaust consumer funds and steal attention away from the scandal ridden and late note7. Pros Artificially cheaper Not yet outdated No social stigma most people cant tell from a glance what phone model you are carrying Refurbished and fixed model assumedly Cons Emotional reaction Unclean Unclean Its a few months late So far the pros far outweight the cons from my standpoint. What say you?  gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Purchasing the refurbishedfixed Samsung Note 7 the explodey one at a dramatically lower price is what a rational economic entity would do"}
{"id":"770acfbe-b762-4632-bca3-9612fe1dac89","argument":"Johnson is unpopular with critical demographic groups for the Conservative Party such as the young, educated, BAME voters, and urban voters.","conclusion":"Choosing Boris Johnson as the leader of the Conservative Party may harm the party long-term."}
{"id":"2b9dc2e5-f1a8-4687-8d33-23f52729758c","argument":"A lot of reviewers love this movie for the whimsical communication you can only have in fleeting moments. Charlotte and Bob have an undeniable chemistry and are better for having met each other. However, their escapism doesn't excuse the terrible things they are doing to other people. Charlotte's husband is terrible and hurts her. In turn though she hurts everyone she meets in Japan through him. She's needlessly mean to who seems like a perfectly nice person with the blond actress. Just because she isn't as intelligent as you doesn't make her deserving of hate. I don't think excusing yourself from your husband's table to flirt with someone else is ok either. This is understandable though because she's young and rightfully hurt. I just don't think it should be as admired as it is. She actually says she feels mean, so I believe she may just be lost. Bob has no such excuses. He makes racist remarks because he doesn't understand Japan. He's ignoring his wife, who's trying to get him gifts, care for his children, and check up on his mental health. If he doesn't feel loved by her then he needs to just leave. He shouldn't be taking breaks and cheating even if he does regret it. With Charlotte I don't believe he does though. As relatable as this movie may be, why is do people believe it's for good reasons?","conclusion":"Lost In Translation 2003 is a movie showcasing people at their worst rather than their best."}
{"id":"ebe88a98-867f-46ad-bb0f-6f0d7353226b","argument":"Children are more likely to make a vote based on emotion rather than one made on logic and facts.","conclusion":"Children are not able to make such important and complex election decisions."}
{"id":"7d8c2474-a747-49f1-b6c6-85137baf2270","argument":"Civilized societies and their citizens do not have a mandate to fund rebel activities in authoritarian regimes.","conclusion":"This is neither a benefit for nor an obligation of societies who use cryptocurrencies."}
{"id":"07e772ac-b3ba-4dee-ab8c-9878c63e6802","argument":"Mueller states, \"the evidence was not sufficient to charge that any member of the Trump Campaign conspired with representatives of the Russian government to interfere in the 2016 election.\"","conclusion":"There is insufficient evidence of illegal collusion between the Trump Campaign and Russia."}
{"id":"d2dba303-828e-4f3f-bfbb-5f5e679fbff9","argument":"Many towns today do not have a strong civil society, and in more rural areas there may be no groups at all for young people to join outside school. If schools and colleges do not provide opportunities for youngsters to broaden their experiences, then students will not get them at all. Boosting the place of the co-curriculum in schools is one way of addressing this weakness in modern society, as it will equip young people with the civic spirit, initiative and organising skills to set up their own clubs, teams and activity groups when they leave education. Finally, a successful co-curriculum often depends on building links between the school and the wider community, bringing local enthusiasts in to work with students, and sending students out to work on community projects, help in primary schools, perform for local audiences, etc.","conclusion":"Many towns today do not have a strong civil society, and in more rural areas there may be no groups ..."}
{"id":"ba1e50cd-1512-436f-be6d-08296fdeabd9","argument":"I see nothing wrong with polygamy. The only problem I could see occurring in polygamous marriages is the destruction of traditional marriage, however this has been argued to have been a problem with same sex marriage. Like same sex marriage, I can see no ethical dilemmas brought upon by introducing polygamous marriages besides the religious. Our nation is not built upon religious foundations, we are a secular state, therefore using Christian morals to argue what is marriage what is not is not a viable reason to keep polygamy illegal. Prior to European colonization headed by Christian leaders , many cultures from around the world practiced polygamous marriages for thousands of years. Now after decolonization, this has been shrunk to mostly the Middle East, Indonesia, West Asia, Myanmar and most of Africa. There have been some that have argued in the past that polygamous marriages have a higher rate of abuse of women. However, if we look at who is practicing polygamy and where it is currently legal, can we truly say that the type of marriage is at fault? Most if not all nations where polygamy is legal are Islamic nations. The religion in and of itself is not known for being respectful towards women nor tolerant of them deviating from the wishes of their husband or government . Can we truly say that abuse would become less prevalent in Muslim countries if all marriages were suddenly turned to monogamous ones? Others will point to certain cults that have split off from the main Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and speak of their abuse against women and even rampant pedophilia. This is once again a bad example. Who in the United States is practicing polygamy? More often than not cults. Cults are often cults of personality, the worship of a single person the cult leader. Can we expect a person who has made themselves out to be something of a prophet or more to respect their spouses or basic human rights? Probably not. Let's think for a moment and say that a nation like India happened to be the first to legally same sex marriage. If there was a high amount of abuse among marriages, surely this would be seen in gay and lesbian ones as well. Could we then not point to India and exclaim that same sex marriage simply does not work? Some argue that there are simply too few people interested in a polygamous lifestyle for people to protest its ban or for legislation to be passed to overturn it. This is true, however it does not change the absurdity of being against it. Many things are legal or are simply not illegal that few people practice. Does that mean that they should be illegal because they deviate from the norm? This is does not exclude the possibility of non abuse marriages by non Islamic, non cultist polygamous marriages. There has been the concept of non religious marriages involving multiple partners for men and women since the hippy era of the United States. We are a free society, a free nation. Why should we decide how many a man or woman chooses to marry? Who are we to deny these marriages? Are we so morally superior that we can dictate that marriage must be between two individuals? I do not see the appeal of polygamous marriage, however I do not see myself as one to judge.","conclusion":"Polygamy should be legal in the Western world United States, Canada, Europe and Oceania"}
{"id":"fe060c2c-ada9-4506-9851-f8db4a804b6b","argument":"There are cases in which we must make a decision between two or more alternatives with unknown or equal impacts on our existence. In this case, our tendency for continuation of our existence cannot inform our final decision.","conclusion":"Our tendency to strive for the continuation of our existence only guides our decisions, it does not make them for us---just because it impacts our present does not mean that our future is decided for us."}
{"id":"604a4a0a-acfa-4a37-b529-f37fa19daa08","argument":"Performing religious practices may ensure a more rewarding afterlife. People may be afraid of being denied access to a good afterlife if they refuse to participate in self-harming rituals.","conclusion":"Truly religious individuals may feel coerced into performing harmful religious practices."}
{"id":"85c59ac2-81f6-48f0-a625-f5b9e29a427b","argument":"Even if God was omniscient and all powerful, we have proofs to suggest it is not necessary for Him to prevent all forms of evil because other aspects of His nature may prevent this. God is much more complicated than that. He is not restricted to pure retribution theology.","conclusion":"No part of being a monotheistic god requires omniscience in a sense which cannot positively preclude preventing all forms of evil."}
{"id":"b8027dd0-62cf-46f9-8b41-8bc5615b41fa","argument":"I say this for two reasons You can't prove it. Can't really think of anything you can't explain with common sense that proves that we live in a simulation. There's no point in it. I don't see how life changes in any way if you were to know you were in a simulation. I understand that knowledge is a great thing and we should try to get knowledge even if it doesn't matter, but because of 1 it makes it pointless. Basically what I'm saying here is there's no point in asking this question if you will never have the answer to it, considering the only reason to ask the question is for the knowledge of it, as you'll never achieve it.","conclusion":"The question of \"do we live in a simulation\" doesn't matter"}
{"id":"f9d51a0e-7d01-4af8-ac06-afb0f5d1b830","argument":"An individual is brought into existence by a particular set of circumstances, meaning that any specific individual could not have come into existence at any other place or time or in a different state of affairs than was actually the case.","conclusion":"Birth is not a lottery. Individuals are not preexisting entities dropped into a particular set of circumstances family, nation, civilization, but they originate from those circumstances."}
{"id":"f43b5550-469d-4aa0-ac7a-b17dccf29e71","argument":"Christian original Sin gt We are born sick and commanded to be well. We inherited the sin of Adam, and it is only through the torture and execution of God in the avatar of Jesus of Nazareth who is also God, 3 in 1 and all 2000 ish years ago can we be saved We are created in God's image gt so we look like God we will leave how this runs up against melanin in our skin another day but we also have so many bodily failings Appendix a useless ticking time bomb We can drown ourselves by drinking water if it goes down the wrong pipe and we can vomit into our own lungs There has to be better system for woman's reproduction that copious bleeding from the genitals every month ish Hereditary disease, carrier of disease, the endless list of stuff that can affect the baby during those 9 ish months and how easily we can miscarry for no god damn reason","conclusion":"A central tenant of the World's major Monotheisms can be summarised as \"God is Great, and We are Shit\""}
{"id":"25825cbb-555f-4654-804e-9e0ddd996d2b","argument":"\"A stone that can't be lifted by an omnipotent being\" isn't a thing that God can't create because it's not a thing, only a series of words that have been put in a certain order. This only defeats God's omnipotence in the same way as His inability to create a married bachelor.","conclusion":"Classical theists do not believe that omnipotence was ever meant to include logical impossibilities. There is no thing which God cannot do, and logical contradictions are not truly things but inconsistent bugs in language."}
{"id":"f143c4ca-1c8c-4b2b-9ebc-0561d14d0848","argument":"As technology and resources advance, so do population sizes. Political concerns regarding wasted resources may prevent massive engineering efforts with no social benefit.","conclusion":"Simulation may require extremely large amount of time, space and resources, which might prevent any civilization from committing to such a project."}
{"id":"53fe806f-e8af-41d1-ae26-71c9a8645199","argument":"In my lifetime, the things that social conservatives fight for are typically issues that 1. Run counter to American values like freedom and liberty for ALL. 2. In retrospect seem like outdated ideas. I can understand the argument that without social conservatives in the mix, social progressives would run wild and make changes to fast for most people to adapt. But that still means that their purpose is to work in the opposite direction of progress towards equality and liberty for all. Are there examples of socially conservative policies or values that we can look back and all be thankful that they got their way? Please note the distinction between social and fiscal conservatives, the latter of which I consider myself. Economics is off the table for this discussion please EDIT Thanks for all the posts everyone. I'm sorry I can't respond to everyone, but I can summarize the most convincing arguments Survival Bias Because social conservatives are typically supporting some status quo, their victories are unnoticed by history, while their defeats are usually praised. Prohibition and Eugenics Clear cut cases where progressives went against my definition of liberty for all. History isn't done This one is a bit obvious but I should give it credit. The wrong side of history is subjective to the moment in time that the claim is made. BONUS \u2206 Shoutout to my girl u SwellAsDanielle for reframing my perspective on the whole Rainbow Cake issue. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"social conservatives are typically on the wrong side of history."}
{"id":"2f4ccceb-e0dc-4523-954b-a81a068b9c4b","argument":"Back in the day when people were more religious they could just pray, wear a cross or whatever to signal their virtue. Now however people are signaling their virtue by stating more and more absurd political positions rape culture, cultural appropriation, typical SJW stuff . This has a real chance to mess up our civilization, whereas simple appearing pious was of little threat, even if gods aren't real it's better for those who want to appear virtuous to spend their time doing something useless but harmless than doing something harmful.","conclusion":"With the current rise of people using social issues to signal virtue, we were actually better off when people were religious and could do this just by being pious."}
{"id":"beb9b9a2-19ff-414a-9bfa-e3978a9cca78","argument":"There is a justification presented for the ranking of each exclusive game. For example the strong graphics in Horizon Zero Dawn and the fighting system in Marvel's Spiderman is highlighted.","conclusion":"PS4 has the two highest rated exclusives given that Legend of Zelda is not strictly a Switch exclusive."}
{"id":"8a04a6e9-fdd3-40e5-9e66-70d22fb9a5c7","argument":"I've seen a few posts lately that refer to the lady who spilled coffee on herself and then sued McDonald's for medical expenses, and I am completely bemused by the support for the lady. The jury found McDonald's to be 80 responsible and awarded several million dollars compensation, which was later reduced to about 600 000 dollars, and then later settled. Acording to wikipedia and another website here are the abridged facts of the incident as I understand them. coffee was ordered at a drive through window coffee was handed to Liebeck Liebeck's son drove off they stopped so Liebeck could add sugar Liebeck spilled the entire cup over her lap, hence severely injuring her My argument that it is not McDonald's responsibility is that she had been safely handed the coffee. The transaction was complete and she had control. If the coffee had been spilled during the handover I would view it the other way around. There are two arguments that I reject. I reject that the severity of the injury affects the responsibility. Comments such as have you seen those injuries, they're horrific, she had to be reconstructed are common. This is true, they were appalling injuries. But I think this is a strawman argument because my point is that it was not McDonald's responsibility after the handover, not that the injuries were minor. I reject that the coffee was too hot. These are hot drinks. It's obvious to me, and I would hope anyone who intends to drink such a drink that it would be hot and care should be given. Perhaps my culture views it differently. I grew up in England, and here 9 and ten year olds make tea for themselves kettles boil water and then that water is poured into a teapot cup. We know from a young age that this is dangerous and extreme care must be taken when handling such hot water. Indeed, in a similar UK case against McDonald's regarding hot coffee, the judge ruled that McDonald's was not responsible, one of the reasons being that people expect hot drinks to be hot and should make reasonable safety measures themselves. I do not believe Americans don't realise hot water is dangerous. If anyone would like to comment, I'd be happy to elaborate further. I look forward to having interesting discussion. EDIT Thank you for your replies so far, I'm working my way through replying to them. EDIT Thank you for your comments and discussion. I have awarded deltas to comments that highlighted arguments that I had not considered. My view is still that McDonald's were not liable for any costs. I have come to the conclusion that the discrepancy is due to a difference in cultural expectations of temperature of served hot drinks. I was brought up in a culture where water is regularly boiled at home and hence all children learn how to be careful around just boiled water. As mentioned above, that is part of the reason why an almost identical case was thrown out in the UK.","conclusion":"McDonald's was not responsible for the injuries of the lady who spilled coffee over herself"}
{"id":"1b174262-3e37-43ca-af59-338fb7a0fd85","argument":"Caring for children and raising them to be emotionally mature, upstanding citizens requires a lot of work and is very important to create a functional society.","conclusion":"Child raising benefits society just as much as any other job and therefore should receive economic recognition."}
{"id":"62956c5d-9a1a-40db-9cd3-f50271b8c23f","argument":"The human life cycle begins at fertilization when an egg cell inside a woman and a sperm cell from a man fuse to form a one-celled zygote.","conclusion":"Biology textbooks are consistent that the lifecycle of a genetically distinct human organism begins at conception."}
{"id":"0cda9a28-238d-4a8a-abd1-1759894a43f9","argument":"I see no good reason why people should own guns. The only logical reason I can think of is hunting. And to me that is a pretty bad reason. Also please source things you say. I will try and source my responses too.","conclusion":"I think the 2nd amendment America should be completely nullified."}
{"id":"75f1db37-15c1-4835-8980-d28549dff71d","argument":"We are giving the wrong message to kids by suggesting that things come without being earned.","conclusion":"The lottery and other randomised practices promote non merit-based reward."}
{"id":"8901ccec-b54f-45f9-a103-a968dc84613e","argument":"Let me preface this by saying I believe that Russia took steps to interfere in the 2016 election. I recognize that they tried to manipulate voters through the use of bots trolls memes on social media. Please don't think that I'm arguing that Russia didn't try to interfere, because I believe they did. What bothers me about the whole thing is how it's being treated in the media. MSNBC had two pundits on in one day who both said Russian interference is akin to Pearl Harbor . John McCain has described it as An act of war , while Hillary Clinton in her book called it a cyber 9 11 . Rachel Maddow covers the issue of Russian meddling more than every other issue combined I don't believe that the evidence of Russian interference in our election merits this kind of response. You have politicians openly calling for military escalation with Russia, and for what? Posting anti Hillary memes and trolling people on Twitter? Every IC report released thus far claims that there is no evidence that Russian interference actually changed the outcome of the election. Mueller's recent indictment of 13 Russian nationals also says they have not found evidence that the interference changed the outcome of the election. My concern is that escalating the war rhetoric with Russia things like comparing it to pearl harbor, 9 11, calling it 'an attack on our country', etc could lead to increased tension and ultimately actual military conflict. I believe that the US should do as much as it can to combat foreign interference of ALL kinds, Russian, Chinese, etc. After all, it's not just Russia trying to screw with us the Chinese are also pumping dark money into our elections. Beefing up our cyber security and having infrastructure in place to identify blatantly false disinformation is definitely in order. But comparing it to 9 11, pearl harbor, or saying things like we must topple the Putin regime is unnecessarily militaristic and might spark an actual war with Russia which could cause the deaths of millions. If you disagree and think that these sorts of reactions from the media politicians are justified, feel free to try and change my view. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The Russian interference narrative is being blown completely out of proportion"}
{"id":"e02e9b7b-3bf2-47c5-abc2-f720d444b3d9","argument":"This is an ambivalent topic between me and some friends I do think that more efficient ways of creating and distributing goods is for the good of all people in the long term. I have no appreciation for small offline retailers, If they use arguments like support local businesses or else there wont be any in the future I have read this exact reasoing in germany in my opinion thats just how it is if there is no need for something, it wont last. If they have a need for example better quality, better service, unique solutions than they will last. If they dont, they will go out of business. That doesn't mean these people won't find a new purpose . Let me get into detail Automation and big online retailers are of course a problem for small businesses and will threaten their existence. This obviously will cost a lot of people their jobs and the profits will go to bigger companies. BUT in the long term, we HAVE to use the most efficient way possible to produce and distribute goods. This is what brings humankind progress. I think that every Job that is lost due to automation will be replaced with new kinds of jobs, for example jobs in the service industry. The fact that I can get products or services cheaper wont mean, that I would spend less money in total. I would want to get more things or new services. Humans thrive for progress, we won't settle with what we have, just because it becomes cheapter or easier to obtain. Automation was always a big factor for our progress and it always will be. For example big coal mines thousands of workers have been replaced by giant machines gt but we do not have a sudden, extreme amount of jobless people at least in germany . Humans will always find new things they want, as soon as one need is fulfilled. And these new things will need to be developed or these new services will need to be done by people. If I can get a certain item in half the time because of a more efficient distribution system I could spend this time on a book that had to be written by an author . If I could save 20 bugs on a Cab after the movies because of an autonomous car I would spend this 20 bugs on something else, like an extra meal after the movies which had to be made by a cook . I think people would want more services if products are cheaper. We won't stop spending money. I think the best way to describe it is this scenario if loosing jobs to automation would be realy a problem, we could easily fix it. Just imagine we replaced every machine in the industry with humans. For example excavators in coal mines. Every human would get easily a new job. Horrific conditions, but a safe job. Obviously this wouldn't improve the overall situation of humankind. Of course their need to be rules to ensure a fair competition between big companies and retailers to avoid monopoly but saving small busineses and handmade products just for the purpose of keeping them, without any real reason is just a way to slow progression to a better future. My idea of a better future is a world where machines do all the heavy work and humans do the thinking, the creative and the service part. e I may add I am a freelancing photographer and graphic designer If my work would become irrelevant due to preset designs and incredible great smartphone cameras some kind of automation and progress this may destroy my business. And I do think that this would be okay I always have to watch the market and adept. No longer needed services do go out of business. Sorry for any mistakes, english is not my first language. Do I miss something? gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Automation as well as Online retail is good for the people in the long run, even if it destroys local businesses."}
{"id":"f8edb61f-48fe-4fad-b0dc-de3e5a57359d","argument":"During the Elizabethan era provision was made to ensure that the poor and unemployed could be employed, if they so wished.","conclusion":"Providing jobs for everyone who is unemployed is not a new idea, similar schemes have been implemented throughout history."}
{"id":"de7bb559-32e5-4f2d-aa8a-513a5503bca6","argument":"This is something that I've been thinking about lately and I'd like to have a discussion on it. This discussion will obviously bring up some hot button topics, but I ask that we all stay civil and that we stay on topic. Introduction Most social injustices in the world today manifest themselves as a discrepancy between two groups when there is no real reason for that discrepancy to exist. One example is the discrepancy for callbacks on resume submissions with a white sounding name vs. a black sounding name. Another example is the discrepancy in salaries between men and women related to the career choices they make . These two discrepancies are talked about on a widespread basis. There are other discrepancies such as the differences in child custody battles between men and women. This is an example of a discrepancy that is often claimed to be not talked about , which I agree with to some extent but still there exist places on Reddit and other sites dedicated to addressing these issues. However, I find it strange that one discrepancy that I have never seen a conversation about in the real world or on reddit is the difference in how often men are put in jail as opposed to women. According to wikipedia there were 111,300 adult females in state and federal prisons and 1,463,500 adult males in state and federal prisons . That is over 13x as many men in prison as there are women. That is an enormous difference, much larger even than the gap between black people and white people. I believe that the fact that this gap is so enormous, combined with the virual non existence of accepting that this is a problem implies that this is the single most overlooked social injustince in existence today . Reasoning When I have heard this topic brought up, it is never brought up with the tone that this is, in fact, a legitimate problem. By far the most common line of reasoning that I see is this. Men commit more crimes than women, so of course there are more men in prison than there are women . However, I believe that this does not dismiss the fact that a problem still exists. It is fairly well known that black people are incarcerated at higher rates than white people. And part of that is due to the fact that black people do in fact commit more crimes than white people. However, it is generally thought that this is not because they are black, but rather due to a number of social and economic pressures that tend to drive black people towards commiting crimes although it is also partially explained by harsher treatment from the justice system due to racial discrimination . It is my firm belief that men are incarcerated at higher rates not due to some violent nature inherent to men, but rather due to a combination of social and economic pressures that drive men towards committing crime. These social and economic pressures are at the root of the problem, and more work should be done to correct them. Criminals do not tend to commit crime for no reason whatsoever. It is far more common that they commit crimes due to being forced into horrible situations through no fault of their own, and they see crime as a way out. Drug dealing, gang activity, robbery, etc. are all examples of crimes that are typically associated with desparation rather than deep psychological issues. I believe that in a society in which men and women are seen as equals and are treated with equality, there would be a much more equal number of male and female inmates. The fact that the discrepancy is often explained by claiming that men simply have inherent criminal tendencies is evidence that people are willing to overlook social causes when men are the victims. I therefore believe that the incarceration discrepancy is the single most overlooked injustice in America today, and it absolutely disgusts me that there appear to be no movements aimed at correcting this discrepancy. I'd like to discuss this, so please  gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The disproportionate amount of men who are incarcerated is perhaps the most overlooked social injustice in existence today"}
{"id":"368fd5e0-4165-4331-b826-71a416d85ee5","argument":"To the extent that we allow people to play sports knowing that there exists a distinct possibility of serious permanent injury, there is no reason that the proposed games should be banned. After all, death is just a natural extension of serious injury and is thus principally consistent.","conclusion":"Both boxing and American football are violent sports. Letting death and bodily harm happen in real time will continue a long tradition of violent games we seem to enjoy."}
{"id":"9a4db365-65e8-4e4d-ba38-3e3376d7b5db","argument":"Staying in place when a student should move ahead would lead to them being overworked, which leads to them losing their purpose and productivity So if they can prove to be belonging to a higher grade, they should be able to to prevent overdoing learning what they already know.","conclusion":"Students should not have to get stuck in academia for too long in their life if they want to do more significant personal life changes sooner, like research or get a job."}
{"id":"ae1e43fc-06c4-4507-8187-1a1577cf8922","argument":"Despite what his supporters have been told, Trump can't unilaterally build a wall, or ban Muslim immigration or do anything that seriously interferes with the economy, including wrecking US prestige abroad I realize that sentence sums up the Bush administration. I perceive Bush to have been handled by the party into the war in the Middle East, which had enough short term gains for invested businesses to offset the long term damage to the economy. He is actually easier to deal with as President than as candidate because as President he loses the protection of his voters and the media, and can be impeached which would be great for ratings . The greatest danger a Trump presidency presents would be for Trump to win, and then bring all of his madness speaking from the progressive side to a halt and let the Karl Roves of the party install, for example, a hardliner on the Supreme Court. If Trump's circus were allowed to become a reality it would be a further disaster for the GOP and a disaster for domestic and foreign trade, and the actual powers that be won't condone it. If he wins, he'll either be quickly impeached or he'll reverse his platform and become a generic Republican player to survive in office. Either way his personality's net effect with the exception of the Supreme Court scenario will be minimal. I believe that Hillary Clinton is loathed enough in the US for voters to put Trump in as a Never Hillary gesture. I don't believe that mainstream America and its attendant corporate handlers is actually Glenn Beck enough to tolerate a Trump administration as it's been pitched so far. I only worry about Trump sticking in it long enough to win, and then let himself be manipulated into filling a SCOTUS seat with long term damaging effects. . edit Responding because it's been 3 hours I want to stick to the submission rules. Going over the top level comments so far there are valid points against the precedent of any candidate winning on fear hate mongering, and I agree that anti minority rhetoric coming out of the White House poses a real danger to citizens as instigation to violence. \u2206 edit 2 Thanks to all commenters so far. I can see my perspective was too narrow on damage that can be done by executive orders, cabinet appointments the possibility of a Pence administration succeeding an impeached Trump. edit 3 And on damage to climate change progress.","conclusion":"Fears over the possibilities of a Trump presidency are overblown. He can't act unilaterally on any of his positions, and his greatest actual danger to progressives would be to win and then quietly get in line with the GOP's advisers."}
{"id":"888879ab-f554-4d07-8275-87ba06bd67a2","argument":"I\u2019ve always been interested in seeing why people could be so against something that seems like such a basic freedom. However, I\u2019ve never truly had a chance to understand the argument, let alone had little chance to hear it at all. I\u2019m interested in finding out the pros and the cons, as everyone always dwells on the positives of gay marriage legalization, while dismisses the negatives as being \u201chomophobic\u201d. Obviously, I do think gay marriage should be continued, but I\u2019m open to hear other\u2019s opinions on the matter.","conclusion":"Gay marriage is not bad"}
{"id":"12d2cf43-9b15-433c-8801-5fd92218d20c","argument":"If the police are going to have access to firearms - and they inevitably will - citizens should have access to those same firearms. People need to be able to defend themselves against an abusive and frequently white supremacist police force.","conclusion":"Guns are needed by potential resistance movements in the case of the government becoming authoritarian, and they can be a useful deterrent against authoritarianism."}
{"id":"fb925577-d819-4b4f-87d4-1522892b02f4","argument":"Since racism is an ideology based upon the belief that races are separate and hierarchically organized, \"colorblindness\" is the only logical end to racism.","conclusion":"Society should work towards becoming \"colorblind\" in regards to race\/ethnicity."}
{"id":"ee5bd444-9851-40e1-a282-2e4e0cb5af74","argument":"First off let me clarify that I am not a pedophile or anything related. So my view came to me when I was reading a random sub. He basically revealed that he's attracted to children and he gets off to just manga depictions of children. Just like that, the OP went ahead to ban him stating his intolerance for pedophiles. While I understand that having sex with a minor much less a kid is wrong, as long as one doesn't actually act upon his urge and harm anyone it should be acceptable. There have been researches that also show that pedophilia is not a cultivated choice but rather something that you are born with. That means that pedophiles don't actually have a choice and did not actively start developing a fetish for young children. I've seen an interview with a 21 year old pedophile, he went to countless number of therapists and shrinks in hopes of aiding his fetish but all but one of them turned him away. While he does admit that sexual intercourse with a kid is wrong, it's not a given choice and something he can just change. He declined to reveal his identity fearing the stigma people will develop against him even though he did not act on it, instead actually tried to 'cure' it. So what do you guys think? Start changing my view gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Pedophiles are constantly discriminated against unfairly"}
{"id":"5d1a0202-3fac-4c7b-888b-b08b3d0cf45d","argument":"If the cause of a composite thing's existence at any moment is itself composite, then it will in turn require a cause of its own existence at that moment.","conclusion":"Each of the things of our experience has a cause at any moment during which it exists. Everything we see is being caused as we see it"}
{"id":"71b0d187-7234-4952-af3e-fc549a2a610d","argument":"Through his foundation Gates has been involved with battling poverty and its underlying reasons for many years. We can assume he has some insight into issues of migration and displacement.","conclusion":"Bill Gates suggested that European leaders' generosity motivates people to migrate to Europe, and that this will overwhelm European countries like Germany."}
{"id":"66e24dab-b682-4144-90ff-e631c4c5bbf4","argument":"Humans, as members of the same species, can identify with each other, feel what it is like to be in the situation of the other individual and thus develop a stronger feeling of compassion and sympathy than with animals.","conclusion":"A human life is worth more than the life of an animal. Thus it would be immoral to donate money to support gorillas whilst children are starving."}
{"id":"76a8f49a-059b-4319-a1a2-e141c834c38c","argument":"I believe that a Combat Medic should be able to euthanize a soldier when a specific set of criteria is met The soldier is mortally wounded The soldier is in debilitating pain EDITED Written consent must be given by the soldier to the medic prior to entering a combat zone Lifesaving treatment is inaccessible Currently, the Geneva Convention prohibits such a practice as that it violates the clause Members of the armed forces \u2026 who are wounded or sick, shall be respected and protected in all circumstances Chapter 2, Article 12 . I believe it necessary to revise the law in order to allow for a soldier to die a dignified death rather than to submit to an excruciatingly painful death","conclusion":"Combat euthanasia should be legalized"}
{"id":"a8e1616b-94ed-4736-b6a6-e1993c4ffd80","argument":"To start, I\u2019m a Catholic who would never get an abortion due to an accidental pregnancy. However, there are countless cases where abortion is necessary. If the mother\u2019s health is deteriorating due to the pregnancy, abortion is necessary to keep her alive. At that point, the baby can\u2019t live on its own, but the mother can, as long as she is no longer pregnant. Further, if the child will die upon being born or is brain dead, then an abortion should be performed because pregnancy is dangerous and there\u2019s no point in carrying out something that could hurt the mother when there\u2019s literally no payoff for having the child because it could never live. If the pregnancy is caused by rape or incest, the emotional toll on the mother could be extremely substantial and no one has the right to declare that a woman be put through that constant pain. I would get an abortion for any of the above reasons. However, other people want to get abortions for accidental pregnancies. They want to get abortions because they can\u2019t afford the pregnancy, let alone raising the child. They want to get abortions so they can keep up in a competing field. They want to get abortions so they won\u2019t have disabled kids. They want to get abortions simply because they don\u2019t want kids. While I personally disagree with doing this, I do not know what their lives are like and cannot accurately judge them. Neither can any politician. Plenty of murders are legally justified \u2014in cases of self defense\u2014 and I think abortion should be included, because it\u2019s practically the definition of self defense. Someone is going to seriously harm, kill, or ruin your life, so you have the right to choose to kill them. I\u2019m not saying that I like the idea of killing a fetus, but it\u2019s justifiable, and laws are supposed to be just.","conclusion":"abortion is murder and should be legal"}
{"id":"b3a30a50-9cdd-4a6d-9ff6-ea0b747912ef","argument":"If the battle were to occur in the Star Wars universe, no industrial planet could openly support the alliance by simply giving away ships. To do so would be to invite the wrath of the Empire with a Garrison on your world at best and almost extinction and slavery in all likelihood.","conclusion":"This would depend highly on where the conflict took place. If in the Star Trek Universe\/Galaxy ours then those worlds support would count for little."}
{"id":"da92246e-f676-404a-838e-77e4e3d3e2a3","argument":"The information on the internet can provide a lot more answers than a physician could provide. Since doctor visits are short, not every question a person asks would get an answer. However, patients can ask endless questions and spend as long as they want on the internet.","conclusion":"There are times when physicians are inadequate. One instance is when they give the wrong diagnosis to a patient."}
{"id":"4ab969c4-404e-4af9-b536-a29539b9573f","argument":"Once someone eats a plant, they can use the scraps to grow new food Regenerating food takes pressure off the food system. The same cannot be said for meat.","conclusion":"Ceasing to produce meat will be necessary in order to meet the growing food needs of the world's population."}
{"id":"88220aaa-39f8-4cb4-8f65-f8ad9169e023","argument":"i believe that a religion is a personal belief, a belief that a lot of people don't have, although religion is still predominant, there are more and more people who do not believe in a higher power. these people should not be forced to abide by rules because some people in the government choose to go by personal faith, not by hard real facts. i believe that if you take religion out of politics, people will be more happy as a whole. the perfect example of this is gay marriage, a lot of people are extremely happy that it is being legalized, yet it seems its not even on australias radar yet. why? because people are using religion as an excuse","conclusion":"I believe that religion should not come into play when making decisions for a country"}
{"id":"89af8d05-d097-4970-85a9-95b9f3f4de73","argument":"Hello  First I'll provide some background. I 18m have been dating my girlfriend 17f for around a year now. I honestly love my girlfriend and I don't have any big complaints about our relationship. However, I am a senior in high school who is about to go to college. My girlfriend is going to be a senior next year so I'll be leaving for college while she stays in high school. I do not want to continue our relationship while I am in college because the distance would make it too hard. I know my girlfriend feels the same way. I love my girlfriend and in the end I want to do everything to keep her from being hurt. I think I want to end our relationship now because I think it would hurt both of us less if we just ended it now, but I'd like to get some opinions from you guys and see if you can convince me to keep our relationship going until I leave for college.","conclusion":"I think it is better for me to break up with my hs girlfriend now than it would be to wait until college."}
{"id":"fa2522fb-9e05-4cab-9fdf-9631c7aa4dcd","argument":"Update A lot of commenters have taken this to mean that I believe our government is a vast conspiracy. That's not where I'm going with this. I'm simply saying for things like floor speeches in congress, presidential speeches, TV interviews, etc., the objective isn't to convince fellow legislators of the merits of their perspective, they are there to play to their audience typically their constituents, both financial and democratic . I see this as why if you watch clips from people giving floor speeches in congress, there's nobody in the chamber but the person speaking and maybe a handful of others. Nobody in power cares about what is actually said in that specific forum. Everything real happens behind closed doors. I see more House of Cards and less Illuminati. I believe that everything that happens on the floor of congress, in a press conference, a public committee meeting, or a speech has been discussed at length prior with all involved parties including adversaries . That there are few, if any, genuine surprises that aren't the result of outside events. I believe that everything that actually matters happens in closed door meetings that are determined by what each participant can get away with or do for their respective constituencies and not all the residents necessarily, just those that represent their political base . I once heard a lawyerly phrase never ask a question you don't know the answer to. Give me some hope in our system. .","conclusion":"US Politics: I believe that all the politics that you and I observe is simply kabuki theater."}
{"id":"43c07144-5451-44b9-beae-793b84fb682e","argument":"EDIT Thanks everyone for your insight. To be clear this was not an attack on every American woman. It was just an observation and as it is a very subjective experience and varies. But thanks again for different perspective I understand that menstrual cycles are painful and the hormones are crazy things that shouldn't be taken lightly. That being said, what is with all these terrible mean snappy behavior? I just don't get it. I am a woman and I have never felt the need to be mean to someone else because I am going through pain. Doesn't seem fair to the person you're lashing out on. I have noticed American women, in particular, take the time of the month to be quite the witches to their SOs, etc. I have heard several of my coworkers justifying their wrongdoings by starting off as ' I was already PMSing and not feeling good so he should know better'. With that logic, should every terminally ill person or a person with a disease illness that is in constant pain be mean to others? And why is it so widely acceptable?","conclusion":"I think that women in America use 'PMS' as an excuse to be mean to others."}
{"id":"85343b85-048b-42d8-a686-f10721165360","argument":"By eSports I mean specifically CS GO, a teambased shooter. So Valve, the company that owns CS, hosts several large 'majors' every year, which are tournaments in which 16 teams fight each other to win. Last 2 majors, ESL One Cologne and MLG Columbus had 0 female players participating. To compensate for this, there are women only leagues. The reason I don't like this is because the entire meaning of the game is that you need to be good to win. Majors are open to everyone, anyone with 4 friends can create a team, male or female. Women have done this, I'm pretty sure a few female teams joined a major qualifier, but no one came to the major. Why is that? Because there aren't any good female teams. I can name 30 male players that deserve to join a major, but I can only name 1 female, because she's the only one I've seen that's actually good enough. Trust me, I've watched a lot of the female CS leagues, and the girls playing there are awful. I promise you I could win over them with my team which isn't even good . So TL DR, just because you're not good enough for the real majors doesn't mean you should get your own major.","conclusion":"There shouldn't be any women-only tournaments in eSports"}
{"id":"a8348a4a-717d-43e4-a7f4-4dd9aef70cca","argument":"Banning hate speech does much more than prevent offence. It also changes minds and opinions in the long run. The constant repetition of hate speech promotes offensive racial stereotypes. If children and youths grow up without hearing such views they will mature without the bigoted attitudes brought about by constantly hearing hate speech.","conclusion":"Banning hate speech does much more than prevent offence. It also changes minds and opinions in the ..."}
{"id":"3d9e6f0f-2b67-4b3b-b483-e8abb720e0d5","argument":"Vertical farming simply produces food, it does not help repair the damages caused by conventional agriculture. We should fix what was messed up before moving on to another system.","conclusion":"We should focus on bettering current farming practices before moving them to vertical farms."}
{"id":"34829e10-d615-4203-a384-e0310fa13273","argument":"The leading causes of death are diet\/exercise related cdc.gov More people die from traffic accidents asirt.org Only a microscopic portion of the population are actually killed by firearms.cdc.gov The call against guns is fear based.","conclusion":"The perpetrator has many options for weapons. A different weapon being used doesn't make deaths any less tragic."}
{"id":"1f638635-fa0e-44c3-a4ab-00821c8d4fe5","argument":"I understand lions are endangered animals and that these people were poaching illegally which was wrong. However I don\u2019t think it\u2019s fair to call them evil and treat them like monsters for killing lions. Let me clear something up, I am not a vegetarian. I eat meat and don't feel sorry. Because of my contribution to the market animals have died. The average Joe is also a meat consumer. He\u2019s okay with an industry of mass murder of animals so that he can enjoy their dead bodies with his evening meal. Why is that okay when someone killing for sport isn\u2019t? Why is it okay for farmers to kill animals and sell their remains but not okay for the same thing to happen to lions? The men who killed these lions did it illegally and deserve to be punished for that but I don't think they're evil murderers. I fail to see why lions are more important just because we see them as more beautiful or rare. Lions are endangered animals and it\u2019s a shame that two are now gone from the earth. These lions seemed to have been a big deal to their country which is sadder still but at the end of the day, they were killed for money just like farmers do hundreds of times a year. These men are not monsters, calling them that is calling everyone who has ever killed or contributed to the killing by for example eating of animals. Change my view.","conclusion":"I don't see how the poachers who killed Cecil and his brother are evil when peoples' consumption of meat leads to the killing of billions of cows, pigs and chickens."}
{"id":"5af4d5b6-f3fc-4225-bb48-717a389bf0fd","argument":"My temporary French teacher, who was stepping in while the school was transitioning between French teachers, because the last one got fired because she never did anything, told us a story about when he was a young man he got fired from his job for sexual harassment. What he did was he asked a woman out on a date, and she rejected him. She told him that she was busy, maybe another time. So next week, another time, he asked her out again, she said she had plans, she couldn't go out with him. Maybe another time. The week later, he asked her out a third time, and this time she filed a complaint and he was fired for sexual harassment. Now, I believe he was totally in the right and didn't deserve to be fired. She didn't imply that she would have gone out another time, she flat out said she would have gone out with him another time. And another time, he asked her out again. It wasn't an obnoxious 5 minutes later OK now it's another time , it was a week later. Obviously the situation was handled kinda poorly, he could have asked when another time was, she could have said she wasn't interested, but it wasn't fire worthy. Most of the class agreed he shouldn't have been fired, but I kinda feel guilty for siding with him. I feel like I'm blaming the victim, but I don't think I am. ?","conclusion":"My teacher was innocent."}
{"id":"11da1891-3b0e-4dee-8acb-bfa6641c0f05","argument":"I first want to point out, that r MensRights and r TheRedPill have a total different following, although they occasionally overlap. r MensRights tends to down vote misogyny and call them out on it. I can't find the exact comments right now, but as someone who's skimmed through, I've seen a lot of misogynistic comments downvoted. On a final note, MensRights tends to focus on actual rights, where as TheRedPill tends to focus on Male Female relationships. Okay, now on to my view of TheRedPill. I am not really a redpiller, but I am not someone who thinks they are a hate group either. What TheRedPill is, is unfiltered male talk. Even TheRedPill recognizes that there is an anger phase. And TheRedPill users allow men to get that out of their system. That's why you see the occasional misogynistic and mean posts, is because of the anger phase. There's 5 stages of Red Pill and even they say that the final stage is acceptance where Women aren't bad. My expectations of them, and theirs of me, were based on faulty premises. They are creatures of instinct, just like I am but of different instincts. If I learn what those instincts are, and teach them about mine, we can develop realistic expectations of each other and get along just fine. Does that sound like misogyny? I think not. Basically, the final stage of TheRedPill is anti misogyny, and about understanding women. The Red Pill is a perfect place for socially awkward guys who never understood how dating works. Some guys have never had the talk with their parents. No one has ever taught them how to flirt, or anything. Many of these guys can develop Nice Guy Syndrome and follow girls like a wounded puppy, never getting a woman to be attracted to them. Thus, TheRedPill helps nip that in the bud, and actually be an alpha and attract women. All and all, while TRP and MRM are two different things, both of them have way more hate than they deserve. The only reason why they are hated, is because the world is becoming more progressive pro feminist, and anything that goes against that status quo is misogynistic, predigest, racist, etc etc. We live in a world where it is no longer PC to talk about white issues, men's issues, wealthy people's issues, etc.","conclusion":"\/r\/TheRedPill and \/r\/MensRights has way more hate than deserved."}
{"id":"8a4de765-64d3-482c-aac9-cb11b7c66bfa","argument":"There is a double standard etched into our society that all men who judge a woman based on her weight are assholes, while it is perfectly acceptable for women to discriminate based on height. I believe that weight discrimination is no worse than height discrimination. In fact, I would argue that discriminating based on height is worse because weight is an aspect most people are capable of controlling. I'm not arguing whether it's good or bad to judge someone. I'm just calling to attention this double standard. If a woman can say I only date tall guys. without scorn from others, a man should be able to say I only date slender women. without scorn from his peers.","conclusion":"A man judging a woman based on her weight is no worse than a woman judging a man based on his height."}
{"id":"dab539f2-0490-409f-b11e-ca3d545d3c49","argument":"So, here's the deal. As an individual, I'm relatively liberal leaning in my views, politics, and philosophies I support equality for all races, sexes, genders and sexualities under the law, and I should specify right now that I do not believe that people should not have the right to change their gender. That being said, I do not believe that people who elect to undergo sexual reassignment surgery, or even just those who identify as another sex should receive any special treatment. Ultimately, I see sexual reassignment surgery as plastic surgery, an elective procedure to bring one's mental image of oneself in line with one's physical image of oneself, and a supreme expression of vanity. I am allowed to criticize, say, a woman who gets breast enlargement surgery but not a man who does that, takes hormones, and gets his genitals mutilated to superficially resemble a vagina. I admit to being a layman in the field of psychology and neurology, but gender dysmorphia seems to be a mental illness, but the only one that I know of that's treated with elective, cosmetic plastic surgery. And yet, in the circles I run in generally liberal in the American sense of the term, and including a smattering of GLBT individuals and I am in no way complaining about that trans individuals are afforded some form of protected status where they are above criticism and I am to not only treat them gingerly but modify the entire way I speak about them due to a cosmetic change, and yet I am not expected to do the same when someone I know gets a new haircut or nails. People have told me this is an intolerant view, and, moreover, that this intolerant view is surprisingly out of place considering my other values but I cannot see anything wrong with it and, to me, it makes sense perhaps not necessarily being airtight . I hope that someone can, at the very least, explain to me some notion of the debate that I simply am not seeing, because I fear my view may cost me friends and opportunities in the future.","conclusion":"I think I may be transphobic. Please"}
{"id":"1ccdb281-bf06-49d2-88c4-3939909f2a98","argument":"Many kinds of AKDs will actually be very small ones that will operate in swarms, instead of the big chunky predator drones today. Eg bird and bee sized.","conclusion":"To reach an average price of $10,000 it is necessary to produce giant amounts of AKDs, which would require them to be put to use."}
{"id":"ac516a56-828b-4070-931f-7fdc82116165","argument":"The settlements themselves are self-perpetuating in a manner that makes them pernicious to the rights and very existence of neighbouring Palestinian communities. For one thing, a settlement cannot function in isolation. It needs a road for its residents to safely travel to and from work in Israel. Security needs subsequently require that this road be protected from attacks by creating a large military presence along its route, and in many cases moving existing Palestinian settlements. At the very least Palestinian areas are bisected by impassable thoroughfares.1 In turn settlements require their fields to be protected by high walls and electric fences to protect them from attack, and the construction crews building them also require protection. The result is that even a settlement of a few hundred families rapidly requires the takeover of an amount of land out of all proportion to the actual number of settlers involved, and any further expansion compounds the problem.2 The security needs of settlements create a situation which makes the livelihood of Palestinians impossible. The existence of the settlements makes these security policies a necessity. As a consequence, the only clear solution is the removal of the settlements. 1 United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs occupied Palestinian territory, \u2018The Humanitarian Impact of Israeli Settlement Policies\u2019, January 2012, 2 CBS News, \u2018Group: Israel Controls 42% of West Bank\u2019, 6 July 2010,","conclusion":"Settlements remove Palestinians from their own land, and they produce a self-perpetuating cycle in their sear"}
{"id":"b15572b4-926d-44c5-9736-0bba779794be","argument":"If the claim \"Teachers must wear religious symbols while teaching at school\" violates basic human rights, then the claim \"Teachers should not be allowed to wear religious symbols at school\" also violates basic human rights.","conclusion":"To say a person, any person, irregardless of occupation, cannot wear icons of their religion, is a direct violation of two clauses of the 1st Amendment the Freedom of Religion, and Freedom of Speech."}
{"id":"154c7c75-ef29-4479-89ae-eb9467e72d02","argument":"Often tendencies and addictions are not hereditary, but can seem to be because of following similar living patterns by subsequent generations obesity, alcoholism, etc.","conclusion":"We do not know enough about these tendencies to claim they're inherently \"evil\"."}
{"id":"b8b0ad5b-1381-4fd3-90e0-ccf0ec394163","argument":"Modern day christians who preach hate the sin but not the sinner use the same religious texts, and the dehumanizing language of the old testament, to condemn homosexuality, as the the christians jews muslims who for last two thousand years systematically persecuted and exterminated gay people all around the world. As such, these texts are fundamentally inhumane and most clearly a form of hate speech. EDIT grammar","conclusion":"Preaching against homosexuality and gay marriage is basically hate speech."}
{"id":"28857f8b-cc17-4702-8641-60d089b0d317","argument":"On the order of bisexuality in the early '00s and pansexuality after it, I think Tumblrite tweens and others are claiming asexuality in increasing numbers not chiefly because it's becoming more socially acceptable, but because it's a label they can attach to themselves to feel like special snowflakes and I think most of these people will most likely end up identifying as traditionally heterosexual, homosexual or bisexual. There is not significant enough social stigma attached to asexuality to justify coming out that way though I acknowledge our hang ups about sex might make the stigma of bachelorhood variant depending on one's gender .","conclusion":"I think asexuality is a fad."}
{"id":"4146c4b1-9386-4971-95a1-b4137caea7df","argument":"OK, my original post was written hastily at 3am, which was pretty dumb in hindsight so I'm going to rewrite it now that I've gotten some sleep. I'm getting really tired of people saying things like Hey, alcoholism is a disease or anorexia depression is a disease as if that completely absolves them of all responsibility over the choices they made that ultimately led to the progression of their diseases. As someone who has struggled with addiction and depression issues for the past 5 years I get really irritated over this. I know that my depression happened because of some stupid choices I made in life, and unfortunately it shifted my perspective in a way that completely changed me. However, the cure to my depression addiction issues are entirely mental processes. A person with a physical ailment like cancer or Parkinson's just simply can't do the same thing. You could chain an alcoholic up to a radiator for a couple of days and they would recover eventually. A cancer patient would not, so I'm getting really irritated whenever people say Hey insert mental illness here is a disease It's not my fault. Yes, no matter what, your situations the progression of your disease depends entirely on choices you made, so it is still sort of your fault.","conclusion":"I just don't view bulimia\/anorexia\/addiction as a disease."}
{"id":"6ea330fa-4757-4439-9b30-af0514a44c95","argument":"Out of all offenders who are sentenced to death, three quarters of those who are allocated a legal aid lawyer can expect execution, a figure that drops to a quarter if the defendant could afford to pay for a lawyer.","conclusion":"Inadequate legal representation is a factor leading to wrongful conviction, this affects mostly uneducated and poor people."}
{"id":"e2bc4e26-18c6-41b3-a71c-20dce3a7f030","argument":"Joseph Smith and his family professed that magical treasure guardians protected buried treasure at numerous sites near their home in Manchester, New York.","conclusion":"Joseph Smith and his family lack credibility because they were practitioners of occultism and folk magic"}
{"id":"8b7777d9-3e1a-4396-b9cd-8c3bc0c32ff7","argument":"Credible academic studies have established that the rate of false reporting is between 2 and 8%","conclusion":"Academic studies have demonstrated that the rate of false reporting is low."}
{"id":"e7db67aa-b6af-43d8-884e-80b9baf3b8ac","argument":"If we consider voting to be such an inherent public good, then we can put the effort in to make this happen. India set up an entire polling place for one person.","conclusion":"Difficulty in enforcing a law does not mean it should not be implemented. Many thefts go unresolved, but that does not mean that we legalise theft."}
{"id":"febc928b-0658-4b74-b2b1-44d6613719ac","argument":"An argument I occasionally hear for the importance of space exploration and related research is that 'mankind needs to leave the Earth because we have used its resources up'. I can't help seeing this as the strongest argument against colonizing other planets we should get our own house in order before we consider visiting anyone else's. This applies regardless of whether or not the target planet already contains intelligent life. At this stage in our development, our long term net effect on its environment is unlikely to be a positive one. Until we as a species are mature enough to act as enlightened custodians of the interstellar neighbourhood rather than as, to quote Bill Hicks, 'a virus with shoes', we need to stay at home, even if that means dying at home. I realize that what I'm advocating greatly increases the chance of human extinction but it's a bit like the recently amended British ban on alcoholics receiving liver transplants if you deliberately messed the first one up through many poor choices, you arguably don't deserve a second one.","conclusion":"The human race has done such a poor job of maintaining its planet that it would be unethical for us to colonize other planets."}
{"id":"64d6af19-3751-4034-950c-1237973f5043","argument":"Noha Ahmed Eid, 18, a medical student at Cairo University and a plaintiff in a Cairo court case on a burqa ban there: \"The war against the niqab is just the beginning of a war on different aspects of Islam. The state, which is supposed to be Islamic, should go back to Islam, not fight it.\"4","conclusion":"Ban on burqa\/niqab is seen as part of war on Islam"}
{"id":"bc361b17-1dba-41c8-8e91-2fe178a58dbd","argument":"It costs nearly \u00a31m to organise Pride in London, and a substantial amount of that money comes from corporate sponsorship. Without that money, Pride in London would have to reduce its size considerably.","conclusion":"Without corporate sponsorship, Pride marches as they exist today would not be possible."}
{"id":"ce3c814c-fa6f-4971-b160-51eec7528d03","argument":"China stepped in to support the Yamal gas project, enabling Russia to showcase it as a successful defiance of sanctions. Gould-Davies, 14","conclusion":"Western sanctions are likely to make Russia turn to trade relationships with countries like China."}
{"id":"33aa08a3-3d45-4847-87cb-12c207ac2655","argument":"It'd be pretty easy to register them, just go to a protest. The politicians passing these laws should be charged triple. With all of these unscrupulous laws undercutting a woman's right to choose, it creates a financial burden that I, as a tax payer, am unwilling to shoulder. I'm overweight. I have a mental illness. I'm high risk. So I pay higher premium for insurance s to equalize the risk amongst the group. But here we have a population of citizens who want to 'potentially' create a greater financial burden for me. You know the mother doesn't want the burden. Perhaps she chooses to not pass a burden to her child. Unfortunately, lives are translated in dollars in our economy, so under that rule I want those who create greater burden to pay more. Let's say a woman is forced to give birth to a handicapped child. I had a handicapped cousin who easily cost the State and Fed 15 million dollars over his 32 years on Earth. And this was a kid who had no chance of being a financial asset and people is his position he lived 15 years past his life expectancy. I loved the guy. He was great. But we like to translate lives to dollars anti abortionists are cold blooded about consequences, so they need to pony up to the table. If you buy into Levitt and Freakonomics, he makes the case the abortion is heavily correlated to a drop in crime. Some argued back that it could be lead, but in light of data I want to err on it being abortion if not because being forced into having a child by the State becomes a burden. Otherwise aborted kids could be legally orphaned and who pays? Me, you, everyone who supports a woman's right to choose. Someone needs to pay for the women who get things done illegally. They'll commit this illegal action, then end up in the ER further raising HC costs. There's a groundswell of support for male financial abortion. This would become moot. The father would have no choice BUT to pay. That's a little worse than how it currently works. If abortion is a crime, there has to be punishment. Alrighty, who's paying these legal costs? Me and you. I want costs down, they want costs up. Tax them more.","conclusion":"Anti-abortion activists should be charged child support or a special tax."}
{"id":"c95a72c5-03cd-427b-9400-e26035b0324b","argument":"I'd like to discuss the following premise Dead people do not have rights I generally hold to utilitarian ethics. In that sense you might say that I don't think any rights fundamentally really exist but I'm also a little unsure what 'exist' would mean in this context . Anyway, I digress. I do think the concept of rights is useful in a society. A right to life, a right to freedom, a right to property although this could be topic of another  . The short version is that I believe that it's impossible to agree on a set of rules without this concept. I believe we should regard these rights almost as sacred because that prevents a lot of many very undesirable outcomes. And so my ultimately utilitarian beliefs lead me to accept the concept of rights for pragmatic reasons, and I accept that there are many situations where an appeal to a right is a suffici\u00ebnt moral argument, simply because degradation of some rights can not be allowed. However, I see no reason to extend rights to dead people. This might sound abstract but it comes up in at least two important contexts organ donation and inheritance. This CMv was inspired by a recent  on organ donation. In many of the cases the following argument is presented gt I own my organs. I have the right to use my body as I see fit. Even if I accept the premise that during life you have a right to your own body. I see no reason to extend that to after death. I don't think there is a person left whose rights can be violated in the first place. A similar argument applies to inheritance. Fundamentally I see no reason to accept a the deceased's wishes on what happens to the estate, but I can easily see an argument on pragmatic grounds to sustain that right.","conclusion":"Dead people do not have rights"}
{"id":"b2ec7f80-24d9-447e-b76b-0aa69cd65f83","argument":"I understand my  will very much be based on your political affiliation and views. However, politics side, the first 5 months of Donald Trump's presidency has accomplished very little in terms of meaningful policies, rather he has focused on undoing his predecessors legacy. He has failed in bringing any real tangible start to the Border wall, has his travel banned overturned by several courts, and is still ongoing with his healthcare reform policy which is unpopular and arguably entails details in which did he not campaign on. Along side that, instead of Making America Great Again , he has lowered the international image of the United States with our Allies and others nations, and has been embroiled in a scandal that has yet to end. Political Agenda aside, I believe if Hillary Clinton was elected President of the United States rather than Donald Trump. She would of began or passed on policies she wanted to enact, maintain the United State's international image, and would not be caught up in a scandal of such magnitude as Donald Trump faces. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"America would currently be better off if Hillary Clinton won the election over Donald Trump"}
{"id":"95fe5194-e5ed-4fb8-8a6b-e33d447469f4","argument":"Monopoly, or near-monopoly, power over broadband is far too great a tool to give to governments. States have a long history of abusing rules to curtail access to information and to limit freedom of speech. Domination of broadband effectively gives the state complete control of what information citizens can or cannot consume online. ISPs function generally under the principle of Net Neutrality, in which they are expected to allow the free transit of information online. If they are the sole gatekeepers of knowledge, people may well be kept from information deemed against the public interest. It is harder for opponents of government regulations to voice their opinions online when they have no viable alternative to the state-controlled network. The internet is a place of almost limitless expression and it has empowered more people to take action to change their societies. That great tool of the people must be protected from any and all threats, and most particularly the state that could so profit from the curtailment of internet freedom.","conclusion":"It would give undue power to the government over access to the internet"}
{"id":"f9c67cf8-66ad-4ea6-8fd9-55432dccbe76","argument":"Pat Boone. \"Marriage: One man, one woman.\" Knight Ridder. May 14, 2004: \"'Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure,' Jefferson asked, 'when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath?' . Our views on marriage are shaped not only by America\u2019s laws, but by God\u2019s laws. It is part of the shared heritage of the civilized world. . There are moral absolutes in this life \u2014 and the sacred institution of marriage is one of them.\"","conclusion":"Laws are divinely inspired, depend on God's def of marriage"}
{"id":"27bb4914-a1f5-4222-8ca3-19f39d40e327","argument":"Some conservative Christians would welcome stricter laws against indecent exposure: a Republican representative introduced a bill outlawing any nipple exposure for women and men, as well as any tight-fitting clothing.","conclusion":"The US is comprised of people from many major religions that adhere to modest dress codes for women. They would undoubtedly be uncomfortable with women freely showing their nipples."}
{"id":"6bcdb72f-c16f-4585-ac4e-d6aeb0de57bf","argument":"The FBI Director serves at the pleasure of the President, so Trump had a prior right to fire him","conclusion":"THBT Donald Trump was justified in firing FBI Director James Comey"}
{"id":"f2771e16-b403-4c2a-8e97-33cffee1fc9b","argument":"A Catholic hospital could use religious exemption laws to discriminate against a rape victim p.3 who wanted to obtain emergency birth control.","conclusion":"Religious exemptions to discrimination laws must be abolished to protect the lives and health of those being discriminated against."}
{"id":"080d009e-612e-4209-8489-6913ddeb01ae","argument":"Background Skippable I was once a 'popular kid' in school, then the attention from everyone drove me to delete social media when I tell someone something even slightly remotely gossipable, people of 3 separate social groups know about it the next day, they made up things about me and exaggerate what I say to people I barely know but know me, I felt very invaded and in the center of attention, so much so I delete my Instagram of then 1000 followers. In addition, I stopped hanging out with these big mouthed shit talkers by cutting almost everyone I'm not close to off, and only keeping a vetted group of friends around. Main Point After my deletion of Instagram, and a creation of a new one for only my closest friends whom I trust aren't toxic gossipers, of less than 50 followers, new people I meet immediately notice my lack of presence on Instagram and I know that they judge me for it even though they don't tell me it to my face. People my age ask each other's Instagram almost as a compulsory rule of thumb and I'm always the only one with such a significantly small number of followers. Either that or I don't feel comfortable enough to share my Instagram with them as we aren't close. I'm not a weirdo nor a social outcast, I have close friends I talk to on a very regular basis. Yet I'm judged so solely because of my social media account. It's a horrible obligation to keep up with social media ism and I wish someone here could convince me it doesn't really matter. Thanks for reading. Edit I'm 20 Edit 2 My view has changed , it is not that I have a low social media presence got me judged, but that I was feeling insecure that I assumed I'm judged. Also social media culture is not a worldwide phenomenon. Thanks for the replies all, you all have been very helpful","conclusion":"Without social media, people will inevitably label you as an anti-social outcast or weirdo"}
{"id":"2981519e-3840-4f57-a8a5-ff9bd68778a6","argument":"Let me start by clarifying that I started playing full contact tackle football when I was in 3rd grade, and I am currently involved with football as an official through 12th grade. I have worked countless youth games where the young players cannot even figure out where to stand or what their job is, but we allow them to take dozens, if not hundreds, of hits in a game. My view is that organized youth football Little Gridders, Pop Warner etc. should begin with flag football, similar to how baseball leagues often begin with T Ball. Give the kids a couple years to learn what each position is, where to stand, and the basics of the game before allowing them to hit. When they finally put the pads on, they will not be trying to learn the game at the same time. The biggest argument I've seen against this is that people get hurt playing flag football too. I believe that people who have played tackle football get hurt playing flag football because they can't tone things down. Starting with flag football, on the other hand, creates a safer baseline for contact. I'm willing to change my view if you can show me that allowing kids to play a full contact sport earlier is actually likely to be safer in the long run than if they start a couple years later. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Young children 3rd and 4th grade should not be permitted to play full-contact tackle football in organized leagues. Full-contact should start at 5th or 6th grade."}
{"id":"37c785ef-9045-4636-95a4-6724d14646cd","argument":"I can totally respect the skill of athletes who participate in sports like rock climbing, skiing, surfing or anything that requires ample training and dedication to do, even though most of these expose the participant to more risk that I would personally be willing to put myself through. I respect these people even more when they take reasonable steps to minimize the risk, such as using harnesses, helmets and other safety gear where applicable. The ones I take issue with fall into two categories Activities that involve little to no skill, with the person relying completely or almost completely on equipment to keep them from harm, such as BASE jumping, bungee jumping, rope jumping, skydiving etc. I honestly would not qualify these as sports or their participants as athletes. Any highly dangerous, but skilled, sport with available and commonly used safety equipment where people forego the use of that equipment. For example, free solo climbing, slacklining over high drops without a safety rope, skateboarding without a helmet, etc. In the case of the first set, the only point of these activities seems to be the adrenaline rush, and it honestly seems kind of foolish to me rest your life on a fallible piece of equipment for the sake of a thrill. As for the second set, why would you fail to take simple safety precautions unless you either have an extreme case of hubris or a lack of will to live? And people who regularly take part in one of the types of activities above are pretty clearly adrenaline junkies, which I feel is directly comparable to being any other kind of junkie, and is potentially fatal. Case in point Dan Osman Here was legitimately talented climber who was also pretty clearly a hard core adrenaline junkie. He was known for the sport of free soloing, or climbing without safety gear. He eventually invented the sport of rope jumping, which involves jumping off a cliff or other high surface and then letting a rope break your fall. He died when he jumped off a cliff and his rope snapped. He left behind his then 12 year old daughter Emma, not for the pursuit of any skill, but to get a rush. Not that I necessarily think extreme athletes who use safety equipment aren't adrenaline junkies see this video, but at least they seem to value their lives. Take that away, and it seems more pitiable than admirable to me. Is there something I'm missing here? ADDITIONAL NOTES I exclude cases where people have to engage in one of these activities for practical or professional reasons, such as parachuting into a remote location. I don't think there's anything wrong with seeking a rush, adrenaline or otherwise, but doing it at considerable risk to yourself seems pretty insane irresponsible. I don't think any of the activities above should be banned or illegalized, I just don't really get why anyone in their right mind would want to do them.","conclusion":"Extreme sports that require little skill or don't use reasonable safety equipment are unimpressive, kind of pointless, and make me question the sanity of those involved."}
{"id":"2a789ddb-6eaa-426a-a5ba-0845d1842a8d","argument":"Cultural diversity is likely to reduce employee turnover by enticing a wider pool of candidates for its job vacancies.","conclusion":"Companies are likely to retain and attract new talents if the organization has a sense of belonging."}
{"id":"1681e0a1-394c-4214-8e0e-53887a763d22","argument":"Rich regions likely would not accept sharing their wealth, as the latest example of Catalonia's independence effort shows. One of the biggest reasons for secession is economic","conclusion":"There are irreconcilable differences between EU member states that make the USE a nearly impossible endeavour."}
{"id":"16477a91-7083-47a7-aedc-ab4f66e8c4bb","argument":"As humans, we all have different preferences, desires, motivations and interests. We also have the capacity to make choices about the activities we engage in. Since many people seem to lack interest in harming others, they assume that anyone who could make such a choice must have a sickness that clouds their judgment. It makes people feel better to put people they don\u2019t like into a separate box so that they feel safer and more distanced from these behaviors. Rather than realizing that some humans just enjoy being cruel and make choices to do things that are cruel, they can just be labelled psychopaths or nut cases who are not \u201cone of the people.\u201d It makes it easier to think that only a rare few could ever harm you. The truth is, humans all have the capacity to commit great violence, and there are many who would do so willingly if there were no consequences in play. Your own friend may not be the nice person you assume them to be, and yet they may be normal in every other way.","conclusion":"You do not need to have a mental illness to commit murder for pleasure."}
{"id":"09273ff1-fd0c-49e3-a88c-05308d1e3f01","argument":"I'm not sure if political system is the correct english word, but I was talking to a family member and he was spousing the goods of Anarcho Capitalism. I believe that any change from the current norm will be met with a military challenge from its neighbors who will either consider the change a threat to their own status quo, or for oportunistic reasons I'm don't think that Anarcho Capitalism or any other specific system will be unable to muster military strenght, what I believe is that it is necesary for their success. This view stems from a perhaps shallow reading of history Revolutions, independece movements, etc , but I'm not an historian. Thank you for your time gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Any political system that replaces the current needs military force to defend itself"}
{"id":"12627332-97ec-44a1-86ab-abedd359448d","argument":"So the James Bond 007 film series has been going since 1962, featuring 26 movies, which have been very popular. Traditionally, the Bond films were the prime example of the cheesy spy movie the caricaturesque villain in his secret lair and evil plan the sexy Bond girl Bond himself, a though but sly protagonist, featuring very few character development or depth and of course, the ongoing repetitive phrases like shaken, not stirred . Most of this has changed in the last films notably with Daniel Craig as bond, and to a larger extent Pierce Brosnan though I will focus mostly on Craig . The new films are much more mature both in plot and cinematography. They feature a different, darker side of Bond that is more authentic to the Ian Fleming books. The consensus in critiquing the Bond films in recent years is praising of the New Bond, and seeing the Old Bond as dull, cliche, misogynistic. I think the old Bonds are better, because they have a unique feel of irony. They are cliche, but its a self acknowledged one. While the new Bonds are excellent films in themselves, their discontinuing of the cliche and irony and the more serious note the have made them lose the special feel of the old ones. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The old 007 films were better"}
{"id":"a336e3ac-e05d-4b6d-b39f-57ed645100e4","argument":"Majoritarian democracy refers to democracy based upon majority rule of a society's citizens quoted from wiki . Countries like UK and India practice it US has a different form . Let's study a country like India. People elect their political representatives directly. India has a vast variety of sub cultures, languages, religions and castes. So, people from one particular community e.g caste linguistic group religious group tend to vote for the same political party. In the past and even today, the more populous groups have voted for the winning political party. It always comes down to majority vs minority populous groups. And the winning political party generally does not care or sometimes goes against issues of minority voters. This is tyranny. Democracy essentially becomes a tyranny for the losing party's supporters. This has happened to the groups such as lower castes, agricultural laborers, sometimes to minority religious groups, homosexuals etc in India. These groups practically become 'second class citizens' in their own country. I don't know about the form of democracy followed in other countries. I bet a lot of them follow this governance model. Thus, in my view being ruled by a ruthless tyrant is same as being ruled in a majoritarian democracy.","conclusion":"Majoritarian democracy is tyranny"}
{"id":"14d46238-6b52-4b41-8d11-915ce351c4ad","argument":"If the brain was not designed by a creator then it was not designed for thinking, but rather is a by-product of chemical and physical reactions in the brain. There is no logical reason to trust such a random and unguided process to give an apparatus capable of understanding reality. Therefore we should not trust it if it is claiming atheism.C.S. Lewis on Reasoning to Atheism","conclusion":"The ontology and existence of logic cannot be justified in a naturalistic universe."}
{"id":"f45175d4-86a4-4bf8-9e85-41236c62ac93","argument":"r atheism is often on the receiving end of extensive criticism on Reddit. Generally, any non r atheism thread about r atheism will slowly but surely take a turn at bashing the sub, labeling it hateful , poisonous , obnoxious , arrogant , and full of narcissistic fourteen year olds. This just generates a horrible image of r atheism bustling with fedora donning neckbeards who devote their time to nitpicking religion and resenting religious believers. This image certainly lends the sub notoriety, and what makes this image so reprehensible is that it's fully baseless and erroneous. Let's look at the posts on the front page of r atheism as of now Religion may become extinct in nine nations, study says Catholic League President celebrates defeat of Child Victims Act, says bill was pushed by activists 'out to rape the Catholic Church'. The act would have made it easier for kid sex abuse victims to seek justice. Orlando Shooting Pastor prays for God to finish the job Facebook facing criticism after removing major atheist pages Texas Another pastor celebrates Orlando massacre, hoping God will finish the job and kill the injured I'll pray that God will finish the job and he will end their life, and by tomorrow morning they will all be burning in hell North Carolina Democratic Convention adds the non religious to its list of protected classes. The local news ran a segment on my teacher who was let go for encouraging open mindedness and sponsorship the Gay Straight Alliance American Pastor Says God Allowed 911 Attack Because Of Transgenders In Bathrooms Georgia church under scrutiny for putting up a sign against LGBT people that read \u201cGod created man and woman. Satan made gays and transgender.\u201d and such. You can check it yourself. Note By the time you are reading this, the front page obviously may have changed, but I dare say the basic gist will remain the same. So, what do we see on the front page? We don't see any hatred, arrogance, bigotry, etc. We see posts reflecting the strife proliferated by religious beliefs in the world. We also see how nonbelievers suffer discrimination and how we can fight to alleviate this antagonization towards skeptics. I think u bipolar sky fairy did an excellent job detailing the basic gist of what goes on at the sub gt As someone who frequents it daily, it's meme free and mostly filled with news articles about religious legislation's negative effects on society, more news articles of religious people behaving questionably and using their faith as divine justification and the commentary regarding it. Most of reddit seems to think we write the articles ourselves, instead of legitimate news media groups and derisively comment that we dump on religion, when we're just observing and commenting on actions reported by the news. If you hang out in new , you'll see people asking for help, scared kids relaying stories about being terrified of coming out to their religious parents, adults asking how to deal with overtly religious co workers, husbands and wives asking for advice on child rearing or differences in philosophies between a religious parent and atheist one. gt There's quite a variety of content, we even get preachers attempting to convert, metaphysical proponents with a dash of Deepak Chopra and quite frequently Christians wandering in and doing AMA's. gt Unfortunately most of the commenters on reddit will parrot the tired refrain of the sub being wretched, filled with neckbeards and edgy teenagers largely due to the fact that they've heard it elsewhere from people who concoct an impression based on their biases, never having actually been to the sub to form their own. It's a common refrain, and pretty tired though no less expected. Also, any r atheism post that reaches the front page or r all tends to turn into a dumpster fire due to the rest of reddit chiming in with aforementioned labels and degrading the commentary to the point of uselessness. gt We'd be delighted to have you come by if you have any interest. Source Most of the arrogance that redditors refer to when discussing r atheism are in fact a remnant of what is known as r atheism's meme days. This is a period in the history of the sub where the front page was dominated by immature memes bashing religion and also religious believers. The meme days are now condemned almost universally at r atheism, and most cringe at the remembrance of it. This is not to say that everyone at r atheism is a profound thinker and a kind soul. There always was, still is, and always will be comments such as LOL fuck muslims or In my point of view fuck anyone who believes in the qur'an, which is exactly what a muslim is. In a similar way, fuck all religious people on a spectrum. These are the most recent comments I found that reflect the bigotry still present on r atheism. But such comments are almost never at the top of the comment section, and they're almost always rebutted by other redditors. For example, the Fuck Muslims comment was largely downvoted at the time I am writing this and the top reply to it was Look, can we please distinguish between criticism of Islam and insults directed at muslims in general. The inability of r atheists to tell the difference is really starting to put me off this sub. Thankfully, rational minds prevail. So, my point is, r atheism has changed drastically from its earlier meme days. The prevailing opinions on the sub are far more mature and well thought out than they used to be. Those who claim that r atheism is still a poisonous, obnoxious sub haven't really checked the sub out in a while.","conclusion":"Most accusations that r\/atheism is \"arrogant\", \"obnoxious\", or \"poisonous\" are baseless and erroneous, and are proliferated by those who aren't familiar with the sub."}
{"id":"663d612b-74dc-43a2-9863-398d0a97635e","argument":"This study indicates that 51 of millenials are underemployed. This one indicates that of the unemployed, 40 are millenials. There are huge number of studies displaying these statistics in different ways and place the blame in different places. I am under the impression that part of the terrible pressure on millennials is student debt, especially when we are so under unemployed. Overall, we are the most educated cohort in American history, and yet we're worse off than our parents who were better off than their parents, on average. I am not trying to conflate college with a job training program. Instead, I am saying that society is conflating it and is thus damaging our entire generation with lies. My main point is degrees are not helping millennials get jobs and it was a mistake to get a degree if I was trying to get a job. Currently, more than a a year out of college I have had no jobs that paid more than minimum wage. tl dr Degrees are not helping millennials get jobs the way that society proclaimed they would. EDIT I should clarify that liberal arts degree to me is a non STEM 4 year degree without a specific technical application. IE, my degree in Government gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"My liberal arts degree, and Most liberal arts degrees are not helping millennials get employment"}
{"id":"c4c95371-6b83-4372-877f-d80ba381cb01","argument":"This might seem stupid and sound like dumb stoner talk, but I was having a discussion the other day about the meaning of objectivity and subjectivity and I said that we can never have absolute objectivity in our perceptions, as our eyes, ears etc. are just sensors which when decoded by the brain slightly warps any input and therefore we can't perceive an absolute reality. The other person was saying objectivity can just be the sum total of several people's opinions, but then things like god which have no scientific proof would therefore be an objective reality. Maybe I'm missing something but it seems to me their we can't ever experience an objective reality.","conclusion":"A person can never be 100% objective about anything."}
{"id":"8777efbb-6f78-4622-b838-0e39f68b9c04","argument":"In my view, the late nineties through the mid 2000s were a period of huge innovation for video games where most modern genres were invented, and since then most games have just been copying what came before but with better graphics. Examples of genre defining video games released 2003 2010 World of Warcraft reinvented the MMO genre and made it mainstream. It is the model that many MMOs since have copied. Half Life 2 perfected the single player narrative shooter Morrowind invented the much loved RPG sandbox formula that Bethesda has been following with relatively few changes since Defense of the Ancients a WC3 mod which created the formula used by MOBAs today Assassin's Creed The Ubisoft Sandbox invented the formula for open world action games which has been greatly overused since. Many more Genre defining games made since 2010 Minecraft that's about it. Minecraft is a great game and it led to many similar games in the build survive genre such as Rust, but other than Minecraft I don't see any games released since 2010 that really did much besides copy what came before.","conclusion":"there have been very few innovations in video games since about 2010 and the industry is generally in a period of stagnation."}
{"id":"1c857980-c25c-4757-a682-83dbc64b9810","argument":"Protectionism is an issue that has come up in the election and something I've seen praised a lot around reddit, but it just doesn't make sense to me in this day. Most arguments I've seen for it just seem to be more along the lines of socialist pipe dreams than much else, societies where workers are reinvigorated. First of all, automation is not far off at this point in time. If we create tariffs and force companies to return to the US, cost issues will create incentives for companies to expedite the automation of many jobs and more people will end up losing their jobs sooner. Secondly, while there will be the short term benefit of unemployment going down, costs will rise as the workers who create them are suddenly paid a much higher wage than before. A lot of the rhetoric I've seen just seems to be based on bringing corporations to heel, but all I see is a rise in prices that will hurt the American public. It's not nessesarily ethical that we rely on cheap labor overseas to create our products, but it seems like a fact of life at this poin and if we change it, it will hurt the quality of life of most people other than those who get a job out of it. A better use of the government's time would be implementing programs that target areas such as the Midwest with many people out of work as a result of outsourcing of manufacturing. Even if bringing back some jobs actually worked, it would be a temporary and clunky solution to a permanent problem. We'd be better off doing other things in regions we're trying to help.","conclusion":"Protectionism isn't particularly good for the average American worker"}
{"id":"bb80e8c4-cfd7-4dfe-934e-eb6854e46ec8","argument":"Yesterday one of r feminism's moderators posted this thread about men and rape statistics. When I read the post, there was a long comment thread already which is now in its entirety deleted questioning why percentages matter so much when rape is a terrible act regardless of the gender of the victim i.e., it doesn't matter which gender gets raped more often because rape has terrible consequences on any victim. I replied to this thread with the following statement gt I've really come to hate the phrase But what about teh mens? I know that men do sometimes derail feminist conversations. It's true. But it's become so overused that I'm afraid we're not really listening anymore. gt Especially in this case. To my mind, pointing out that men get raped is necessary, and the response but what about teh menz in such a case just reinforces toxic ideas of masculinity. Rape is terrible, period. Its consequences are long lasting and really just terrifying. Another moderator not the one who posted the thread promptly replied to my comment, saying gt A sockpuppet's first comment is to instigate rule breaking? I'm shocked and then banned me from r feminism. Now, of course, the moderators are free to control their subreddit as they see fit. However, I'd like to argue that banning someone for this comment, which is not crude or offensive in any way, is completely unreasonable. I'd also like to add that the moderator's response was impolite. Can we rationally debate this and ? I'd like to understand in particular a How my being banned for this comment, without warning, was at all reasonable. b How the moderator's response was appropriate. c How a thread about why percentages matter how we currently discuss rape does not further discussion on rape culture. Thanks.","conclusion":"I did not deserve to get banned from \/r\/feminism for this comment, and this instance proves that the subreddit's moderators delete and ban anyone who holds opinions even slightly different from their own."}
{"id":"5a55c6df-9f18-4ee7-ac63-951c12146536","argument":"Guns enhance the lethality of aggression, leaving someone more likely to die than something such as a fist fight would.","conclusion":"The presence of guns is likely to make people feel more aggressive"}
{"id":"d1807925-3c3a-4fe8-9b55-949eea0c5eb0","argument":"This would only increase racial tension in the country because certain groups would feel that they are paying for something they personally did not do.","conclusion":"Public opinion polls indicate that a majority of Americans oppose paying reparations to descendants of slaves."}
{"id":"a8c805d9-a162-42b8-9227-de959bbe966d","argument":"There is no alternative source of value that has absolutely nothing to do with the actual or potential experience of conscious beings.","conclusion":"All notions of value will bear some relationship to the actual or potential experience of conscious beings."}
{"id":"ddc07c84-ec1c-46f0-a996-fd65c14b912c","argument":"TDK trilogy was mind blowing. For starters, the cast is exceptional. Batman and all of the villains are portrayed as being more realistic, which makes it much more realistic in a thrilling horror sense. All marvel movies today feel like a cash generated flick. There\u2019s not much depth, especially in the newer ones such as black panther, etc. I get that there\u2019s 18 movies compared to 3, so there\u2019s a lead up to a big movie infinity war but even then, the trilogy as a whole was much better than infinity war. The obvious exceptional part of TDK cast was heath ledger. There\u2019s just not ANY villains in ANY marvel movie that compare to him. Not even close. He played such a psychopath and his method acting and improvisation was the best I have ever seen in a movie. The make up was amazing as it wasn\u2019t too comical. He PERFECTED the walk, laugh, mindset and everything the joker has to offer. Tom Hardy was exceptional as Bane. Instead of being the veiny, lab rat that the comic books show, he\u2019s portrayed as a beefy guy that can cause terror, which is realistic and makes it that much scarier. The destruction he caused was amazing. The mask was an awesome touch, although at times his voice was hard to understand the first time around. Christian Bale was a good Batman. His voice in the first two movies were meh, but TDKR figured it out to be less raspy so that you could understand him. Overall, he played Bruce Wayne Batman great and was memorable. Don\u2019t get me wrong, I like the marvel movies. Infinity war was a great movie. I love guardians. Maybe I\u2019m inclined to the realism that TDK trilogy presents compared to the extra sci fi found in the marcel movies, but overall I find the trilogy to have much better depth, acting, and plot.","conclusion":"the Dark Knight trilogy is much better than the marvel movies."}
{"id":"62fe2dfe-2017-4676-99bb-17d170aa808e","argument":"Edit I apologize for my wording, let me clarify. My argument is more that the LGBT community shouldn\u2019t be attempting to shut down another pride parade because they don\u2019t agree with it rather than they should fully support it. There is a gay pride parade in San Francisco and other cities every year, celebrating being proud of their homosexuality. That\u2019s perfectly fine, nothing wrong with that however it should not be an issue when the heterosexual community decides to throw a parade to celebrate straight pride. They have just as much of a right to promote their pride as the LGBT community does, so these \u201ccounter protests\u201d that they\u2019re throwing at the straight pride parade completely go against the message of equality and unity they claim to advocate. There is nothing wrong with celebrating the fact that you\u2019re proud to be who you are, but attempting to shut down an event just because it is the opposite of what you believe or take interest in, is completely wrong and the people at the straight pride parade should be left alone to celebrate in peace.","conclusion":"The straight pride parade should be fully supported and not get any hate from the LGBT community."}
{"id":"5df07db4-51b4-43aa-ae29-0facfa3f6e7c","argument":"There is a lack of racial diversity in healthcare professionals meaning the people implementing any findings are also disproportionately white.","conclusion":"A 'one-size-fits-all' drug is not blind to race - it usually assumes the patients are white."}
{"id":"27d27c7f-56ff-4913-837c-bd5837da0f32","argument":"Hermione Granger was given a Time-Turner to use at Hogwarts to allow her to take more classes.","conclusion":"Time-Turners which resemble hourglasses on necklaces, allow people the opportunity to travel through time."}
{"id":"88752e15-0fed-491d-b33b-5e1b8b541ba7","argument":"Jack Halberstam, a professor of gender studies, notes that the focus on Drag Queens rather than Drag Kings shows that society views femininity as malleable. In contrast, the power and privilege of masculinity is not transferable","conclusion":"Drag culture makes fun of gendered norms of femininity. This comes across as a critique of women particularly when it is predominantly performed by gay cis"}
{"id":"df362239-f9b8-483b-b74c-5dc8d1e739e4","argument":"For those not familiar, Prized linked savings accounts is a type of savings account where instead of earning small interest payments for letting the bank hold your money, the total value of those interest payments is bundled up and instead distributed via a periodic lottery for account holders. PLS accounts have been offered in multiple countries around the world. At the time of this writing, 20 US states also allow PLS accounts. From all the literature I've seen, offering PLS accounts increases people's savings on average, especially in lower economic and social demographics who tend to have very poor savings the people who need savings accounts the most. I've also seen that they might reduce the frequency at which people play the lottery, which is also a good thing. PLS accounts in the US at least are sometimes prohibited because they are classified as a form of lotteries, and state run lotteries tend to like to keep monopolies on that sort of thing. As a point of clarifciation, I'm saying that PLS accounts should be made legal everywhere, not that all savings accounts should be converted to PLS accounts. Consumer choice is almost always better, and offering a different savings vehicle to people who don't chose traditional savings accounts is a good thing. I'm also mostly thinking about US states here, but I'd be open to arguments involving other countries if there are economic or social factors elsewhere in the world that would make PLS accounts there less useful than in the US. So is there something I missed? The only downside I can think of is that this could reduce people playing the lottery, and while this could reduce state revenue, I don't see this as a net negative, as the revenue from a lottery amounts to a very regressive form of taxation, and the benefits of additional savings among the lower class are huge. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Prized Linked Savings accounts are a good idea and banks should be allowed to offer them in everywhere."}
{"id":"6ec200e0-777d-45e3-a12c-dc20c6f47d19","argument":"Attending a private medical school is foolish in the short term if your only source of support are loans such a decision would cause financial stress akin to poverty during medical school and residency. I thought my life was set once I got into medical school, but now I realize I may have been mistaken. It seems that most who attend a private medical school have some savings, family support or scholarships and, therefore, I will be under more fiscal pressure than my peers. Cost of Attendance does not cover living in between medical school semesters, although, I will be expected to study for USMLE's etc. I am afraid of being financially burdneded akin to poverty and considering reapplying next year to state medical schools .","conclusion":"I shouldn't attend a privte medical school in order to avoid poverty over the next 8 years besides the 300k debt."}
{"id":"2d0d75aa-d30f-47e9-b68d-556cf40bc801","argument":"EDIT This  is built on the premise that it is a common opinion in the western world that the US won the space race. If you disagree with this, i would love to hear your arguments First of all, when I talk about the space race, I refer to the landmarks in exploration of space in the period 1957 1969 not the race to the moon and the effects they had on further exploration of space. Second of all, I'm not saying Russia won either, just that the US didn't definitively win it, and that some of the things Russia pioneered was more important than what the US did. In my eyes, the most important things to do in the space race was to help further exploration of space and the general understanding of the earth and the universe, but also to show off military power long range missiles and such . Here is the lists of the most important things the russians and americans came first with Russia First satellite in space with Sputnik in 1957. First ICBM Inter Continental Ballistics Missile , which was used to carry Sputnik. First living creature safely returned from space 1960 . First person in space with Yuri Gagarin in 1961. First crewed mission lasting a full day, also in 1961. First probes to the moon, Venus and Mars in 1959, 1960 and 1961. First simultaneous flight and ship to ship communication between Vostok 3 and 4 in 1962. First automated, crewless rendezvous and docking in 1967. First duplicated by the US in 2006 , so just short of 40 years later. First docking between two crewed crafts in Earth orbit and exchange of crews in 1969. USA First communication satellite in 1958 lasted 12 days . First solar probe in 1960. First weather satellite 1960 First object successfully recovered from orbit 1960 First commercially useful communications satellite. First geosynchronous satellite. First manned trip to the moon, if you believe the american propaganda Just kidding All this considered, I think it's pretty hard to declare a definitive winner. Although the US did more to further the commercial use of satellites to communicate, Russia did groundbreaking work in both research of the universe the first probes to the moon, Venus and Mars and making human space travel possible. The launch of the first ICBM by the russians was also a huge display of military might. The fact that the docking and rendez vous of spacecrafts hadn't been done by the US until forty years later is also a huge plus to russia's side. Especially the part about making humans able to travel in space is one of my biggest arguments. After the space shuttle concept failed, the only way to get humans reliably into space today, is by the russian Soyuz rockets. For example, the only way to get to the ISS half of which is Russian is by the Soyuz. Although the first manned mission to the moon was groundbreaking, I'd argue that the soviet achievements was more important to further our understanding of the universe. How often do we need to go to the moon? Not that often. How often do we need to send people into space, dock space crafts with each other or send probes into the solar system? All the time. Again, I'm not saying Russia won the space race, just that the US most certainly did not. The reason that they did in the publics eye is IMO that the american government moved the goalposts, to only cover the first manned mission to the moon. The US's achievements were enormous, but they did not come close to eclipsing those of the russians. In order to change my view, you have to convince me that the US definitively did more to further the exploration of space, and that they dominated Russia's accomplishments from 1957 to 1969.","conclusion":"The US didn't win the space race."}
{"id":"9bc1558b-2cd1-48dc-8e77-815a1d4afae6","argument":"I don\u2019t think that pursuing someone solely for the purpose of having sex with them, even if you don\u2019t know them intimately, should be cause for judgment. Proposing sex to a friend, acquaintance, or stranger with no intentions of furthering an emotional connection or relationship should be acceptable. I believe our society has a strange and harmful dichotomy of attitudes towards sex it saturates so much of our culture but is somewhat taboo on an interpersonal basis. I think that any limitations on sexual expression and release among consenting adults are harmful and cause unnecessary stress, and our society would benefit from fostering a more relaxed attitude towards sexual intimacy overall. tl dr Casual sex should be acceptable and encouraged.","conclusion":"I believe the courting process should be eliminated entirely from sex,"}
{"id":"992d235c-c4ba-47c5-b0a7-4e71f14f19d1","argument":"Sports teams routinely hire off-duty police officers to help with security or work as players' escorts; thus when allegations of domestic violence or sexual assault arise, it's the athlete who tends to be favored by law enforcement.","conclusion":"When a player's career is at stake, law enforcement officials who are fans of the accused athlete will be less willing to help the victim."}
{"id":"84eb6bc9-3aa8-4d7f-9b1e-51bafc95aeed","argument":"Alternatively, if all humans became vegan, then all the animals on farms would be killed anyway as no-one is going to pay to look after them.","conclusion":"Domesticated animals, livestock and other animals that depend on humans would starve to death."}
{"id":"856a419c-6e5b-4cf7-aa1f-8dbb8b95b103","argument":"Encouraging birth within societies has been traditionally to encourage population growth. Having more people in your society was historically very valuable, as it allowed you to raise armies, undertake large projects and draw wealth from a large labor base. But human labor has become less valuable and nations which are rich in innovation, not labor resources are now succeeding. Population growth in the United States can be maintained through opening the doors to well educated foreign nationals who wish to immigrate. This will improve the average intelligence, skill and employability of the American populace. It will also decrease the cost of education and healthcare, as children are really fucking expensive.","conclusion":"The United States should remove socioeconomic benefits for getting married and having children"}
{"id":"0afddd40-4740-4544-81eb-0f9b8567284a","argument":"At this point July the year prior to the election in the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump was polling at only 6% in the Republican primary race.","conclusion":"In December 2006, Obama was the favorite Democrat nominee of only 12% of the public. This demonstrates that the results of early polling are largely inconsequential."}
{"id":"dc5c4d6e-b8a8-4655-8b50-5ce4643634ac","argument":"Nowadays many people complain about poverty of selves, being poor and stuff, ALWAYS blaming someone else for.ruining everything, while it is indeed their own fault. gt The government, it does nothing Maybw your government is not great, but if you take a look around, you can see that people are still and still become rich and successful, or at least middle ir above middle class. gt My country is shit It may be not great, but you can still do stuff there. You can do everything. There is nothing a human cannot do. gt I am not accepted on any jobs Then maybe you should have actually did your studies and homework earlier and also try to not get a jail sentence. gt Third world The ways here are very different, you have to improvise, but all is possible gt Economical crisis Employers probadly accept ones who studied better and tried harder. gt insert disaster, robbery, etc here Should have focused a little more on safety and security or insurance. Not your fault if it is a natural disaster, though gt Poor family Take a loan wisely, use it on doing right decisions and all will be good And I can list even more on. .","conclusion":"If a person is poor, it is their own fault. Cmv"}
{"id":"607ab8ac-b158-4d05-832d-029f4a5f6c55","argument":"In many societies it is perfectly acceptable for the man to stay at home and take care of the kids.","conclusion":"It was assumed that distinct gender roles would also be essential to society, but that was wrong."}
{"id":"6504fff7-b226-4040-800f-59c13169e979","argument":"Many apparent contradictions arise because individual verses in the Bible are taken out of context and compared to each other in a vacuum.","conclusion":"The contradictions pointed out in the Bible have been criticized as a misinterpretation of the context of the text."}
{"id":"90219c85-ab83-4d21-ae95-ee1a57b07e7c","argument":"Whether it be native Americans, Australian aborigines or even the palestinians, the idea of an 'original' or 'rightful' owner of land is a complete fallacy. The reality is, no one is the true 'owner' of land, there are no 'rightful' indigenous people who have inalienable rights over land. Humans have always fought over land, this is simply how countries have come to be, most countries have changed hands multiple hands over the years. To see how ridiculous this notion is, look at Europe to see who the 'original' owner of France or Britain is. The idea that cultures have to apologize to previous inhabitants for 'taking' their land out from under them is hypocritical to the extreme. Who is campaigning for the Romans? Or the celts? Or the Normans? Or the ottomans? Why should we acknowledge native Americans but not modern day India who has been invaded by practically all the Eurasian nations up until British rule. It's just hypocritical and illogical to the extreme. The reality is if a country can annex and hold onto a piece of land, then it is theirs. As an Australian, if China invaded tomorrow and took out all opposition then I guess I had better learn Chinese then, its that simple. If you can't fight back and reclaim the territory, then crying about it and throwing a tantrum will do you no good. Stop whining and start assimilating, you only live once, don't spend it fighting over dirt that you can't get back. Cmv","conclusion":"recognising indigenous land rights is politically correct nonsense"}
{"id":"6f5101a1-7a77-48e0-8aad-3240e84feb12","argument":"The basis for my view hinges on people not actually wanting to be sad. So, as of late, the idea that whitegirl36889 should not be upset about her crummy first world suburban mishaps because there are people literally starving to death, alongside people being tortured or murdered, is being met with the canned response of 'just because others have it worse doesn't mean you can't be sad'. I get this. In a sense. The feelings of 'sadness' are no doubt triggered by any mishap, or may even be a combination of problems suffered by an individual over any amount of time. However, I've gone through some subjectively dark times of my own, and I decided that for the most part, I don't like being sad. On occasion I will entertain some upsetting thoughts to experience that aspect of life, but for the most part I don't perceive being sad as constructive to my daily life or my advancement as a person, so I look for ways to diminish those feelings. One of those ways that has helped me, was to put things in perspective. Realize that there are people starving, people who don't have a fraction of the quality of life I enjoy, and suffer amazingly barbaric lifestyles on a daily basis. And so far, regardless of severity, I'm able to, on some level, rationalize my way out of sadness or at least prevent it from snowballing into depression. So I'm rather confused when people who are sad That claim they don't want to be sad Are presented with a perfectly reasonable excuse not to be sad And then have their sadness reinforced","conclusion":"I think telling people they shouldn't be sad because others have it worse is fine."}
{"id":"4e0730df-571e-4ee4-8ced-78634e615bec","argument":"First things first, the purpose of this post is not to dispute the value of learning a foreign language, whether that is economic or otherwise. On the contrary, being from the UK I sometimes find myself embarrassed by just how terrible we are at learning foreign languages. Partly, our lack of ability can be ascribed to the apathy many students have towards learning a second or third etc language. In some ways, I find this understandable because our linguistic ineptitude doesn't come from arrogance as much as it comes from acknowledging the fact that wherever we monolingual English speakers go, we are likely to encounter people with at least a basic understanding of our language. So it breeds the attitude that can be summed up as 'why bother?' somewhat related I once went to Germany and tried my best to speak some German but people always responded in English and insisted we speak English . At the age of 20, it has been 4 years since I last had to study a compulsory language French and I along with a sizable majority of students have forgotten the very basics of that language in a relatively short space of time. Even for those who do remember at least the basics, it is unlikely that many will have to leave the country for an extended period of time and even then they are likely to be surrounded by English speakers anyway. In light of this, I currently feel that the time and resources used to teach mandatory foreign languages could be better spent on other, arguably and increasingly more important subjects that are not thoroughly taught in school such as computer science coding and how to conduct finances like gaining a mortgage or setting up a business . That, or investing back into subjects like Maths, Science and English.","conclusion":"The time and resources expended on teaching Foreign languages in English-speaking countries could be better spent elsewhere."}
{"id":"cbcf8148-196b-442b-b223-234edb786fbc","argument":"We don't need imaginary lines dictated by oppressive governments controlling what we do and where we go anymore. The cannabis laws in the United States are a great example of this. In Colorado you can access the plant freely but if you happen to walk over the wrong imaginary line you can be sent to prison. I think the idea of arguing who is native to what area is a waste of time and energy. We are all native to planet earth. The tectonic plates are constantly shifting and changing the land mass anyway. The Native Americans believed that land ownership was impossible and I tend to agree. Borders only serve one purpose. Government institutional oppression over people.","conclusion":"National and state borders shouldn't matter at all. We are all natives to earth. We don't need imaginary lines anymore."}
{"id":"7b890f87-7cb0-4e51-8bd1-4212d59c54e5","argument":"Offering a product with lower standards because it circumvented higher ones in the EU by offering the product in the US would undermine the competitive edge of most European companies which lies in quality.","conclusion":"Industry themselves have interest that standards are kept at a high level."}
{"id":"d250a5b8-6e85-4250-badb-9af63235c2ad","argument":"Religious clerics could be subject to the authority of a religious hierarchy. Political office holders must be independent and free from outside influence from private persons or organisations. It is unwise to allow such potentially compromised, subordinate individuals to have a role in taking a country\u2019s decisions. Even if they tried to be neutral, allowing them to hold elected office undermines the separation of church and state, which is an important part of many countries' constitutions.","conclusion":"Religious clerics could be subject to the authority of a religious hierarchy. Political office hold..."}
{"id":"30e7926a-b25f-4549-9c9b-0513f250552c","argument":"ALS affects 30k people and kills 5k source About the same number of healthy children will die from accidents alone source The Ice Bucket challenge is a textbook example of building a brand, but it squanders it on a cause that in the grand scheme of things is a non issue. I feel like we should work big to small and attack heart disease, cancer, respiratory illnesses, and other unbranded, unsexy, and same old causes of death that don't have a viral marketing campaign. I can name a dozen worthy causes that would have a more lasting impact than attempting to raise money for a disease that kills primarily Caucasian men ages 40 60 source Getting kids out of warzones, like Gaza and Donetsk, building shelters and amenities for South American immigrants, working on Ebola research, literally, almost anything else would provide a larger impact.","conclusion":"The \"Ice Bucket\" challenge in support of fighting the Lou Gherig's disease ALS is a gross misallocation of resources."}
{"id":"0acba3ca-8ac3-4a81-a94c-e94172247eea","argument":"Many shrimp must be killed to make a shrimp salad, but a single cow can provide enough meat to make numerous burgers.","conclusion":"It is more ethical to eat a hamburger than a shrimp salad."}
{"id":"a31d61d7-7c07-42a0-b549-5fedd0250e0f","argument":"I just read that post about the Arab Spring, and how the people took control of a country. And I thought Would that happen in the US if their citizens were fed up with, for example, all this surveillance and privacy issues popping up. To me, the American government is just too damn powerful, and the military is too damn large to overthrow. Which leads to another debate gun control. Is this why so many people I'm from Canada, I don't own a gun, nor do I have a desire to own one that whole can of worms seems like a silly debate are up in arms about giving up their guns? In case they might need them in a revolution?","conclusion":"I don't believe a revolution by the people of the United States of America would be successful."}
{"id":"519eb8a0-f682-4f8b-b842-34de4366d1fd","argument":"I've watched Friends a lot. It was on a bunch while I was in school, and I still put it on Netflix to have in the background sometimes. I understand why a lot of people don't like the show, but I still have a lot of affection for it, except for the Ross and Rachel storylines. I've never understood why they're considered such an iconic and romantic couple, people loved them so much despite the fact that as far as I can see, their relationship had more or less zero redeeming qualities. First of all, remember that in ten seasons of the show, they are only actually together for one season. I don't think we know exactly how long they were together in 'real time' but since there's one Christmas and Thanksgiving episode every season we can presume one season roughly equals one year. So they never even really had a properly long term relationship, just ten years of mooning after each other and being dicks to each other for one year of actual dating. I get that a lot of people would argue that the writers of the show deliberately injected lots of drama and conflict to drive the show, because a stable relationship would get boring. Personally I don't think that's true relationships don't mean smooth sailing, there are lots of opportunities for funny interesting storylines and conflict within a stable relationship. If they couldn't write good storylines for them as a stable couple, to me that shows they weren't interesting as a stable couple to the viewer, and didn't have good chemistry when they weren't being super dramatic with each other. Compare that with Chandler and Monica, who are mostly drama free but still compelling, believable and romantic to watch for 6 seasons okay the last couple of seasons kind of sucked . Let's summarise the Ross and Rachel relationship that everyone was so into in the 90s First Ross moons over Rachel, then Rachel moons over Ross. They almost get together but then Ross makes the list of all her flaws. Rachel finds the list really hurtful. Remember at this point she is at the lowest and most insecure point of her life. Her whole life has suddenly switched from Long Island Princess getting married to a rich guy to shitty waitress with no career prospects and a cheating ex fiancee who's marrying her best friend , now the guy she thought was in love with her has written down all these shitty things about her. She claims to be done with him and trying to move on. However, after claiming she's done with him, she gets together with him after all because she watches her and Monica's prom video and finds out that when her prom date was late to pick her up in high school, Ross was going to take her instead? Everyone acts like this is some beautiful romantic selfless moment and I have never understood why. Of course Ross was going to offer to take her to the prom. He had a crush on her. Not only was it an opportunity to take her on a date, but she was much less likely than usual to say no because she didn't want to go to prom on her own. It was hardly some selfless, amazing move. Yet all the Friends think he's wonderful for it and she instantly forgives him. They're together for a season and then break up because Ross can't handle her having a busy job and a male coworker. When Rachel says they should take a break he immediately storms out and sleeps with another woman. Regardless of all the we were on a break drama, that's a shitty thing to do to someone you supposedly love, even if you thought you were technically 'allowed'. Then Rachel gets jealous of his new girlfriend and convinces her to shave her head so Ross won't find her sexy, they get back together behind Ross' new girlfriend's back, Rachel's shitty and patronising to him, Ross refuses to take responsibility for the shit he did and it ends pretty much immediately with a screaming fight. That's the whole actual relationship. For the next seven seasons they don't get back together, but whenever they have some kind of will they won't they or relationship related story together, it's shitty and negative. Rachel gets jealous and crazy over his relationship with Emily and sabotages his wedding. Ross ruins his new marriage over Rachel. Ross refuses to divorce Rachel and then lies to her about it. When Rachel gets pregnant Ross is shitty and unsupportive, then supportive but thinks they should get married because he thinks Rachel is too useless to raise a baby without a husband. During the pregnancy they don't want to date each other, but sabotage each other's attempts at dating Rachel calls the girl he dates a 'whore', Ross hides a guy's phone number, they both ruin Ross' relationship with Mona. Their whole relationship is just horrible, but they have to get together at the end with Rachel giving up an amazing job in Paris to be with him because TV. If you knew this couple in real life you'd tell them to get restraining orders against each other. Some people might say they had lots of ups and downs, but people loved them because when they were together, they were so good. Except they weren't. Ross thinks Rachel's career is shallow and she thinks his career is boring. They have different life goals Ross is already thinking about marriage and kids, Rachel has only just started her 'real life' . They don't seem to have any interests in common the only thing they seem to bond on and enjoy together is sex. Actually their sex life is referenced a lot and a lot of the comments suggest they were very good in bed together, which suggests to me that they are just another wildly incompatible couple who are super horny for each other despite being totally dysfunctional. They're not romantic or each other's lobsters , they're just two people who are really awful together but can't keep away because they want the good sex, basically.  because I don't understand why people shipped them so much","conclusion":"Ross and Rachel were a terrible couple."}
{"id":"a20e476b-a06c-4e10-b610-5d4680a8c1d6","argument":"Same-sex marriage makes a large number of people happy while harming absolutely no one, including children of same-sex couples. Studies suggest they are every bit as capable at parenting as heterosexual couples.","conclusion":"Parenting will improve as a result of same sex marriage legalisation."}
{"id":"28d4760b-c042-4f66-acd8-93ffc86abaa4","argument":"I believe that, as a nation, the United States has absolutely shattered whatever kind of positive reputation it had since before the last election. The election cycle itself was a complete and utter shitshow, so absolutely ridiculous and embarrassing that it was simultaneously hilarious and truly heartbreaking to see a nation that is supposed to be inspiring become such a circus. And then, the result came out, where the 2nd place winner got the trophy despite a campaign littered with scandals some of which should have proven that he is blatantly inappropriate for the role as President. And since his inauguration and his controversial and highly unpopular policies the country has grown increasingly and irreparably divided, a hostile and confrontational population growing more unhappy by the minute. America has a hit a point where the left and the right are now both overly extreme and, as we say earlier in Charlottesville, violent towards each other. So America's violent past seems to be returning, and now, around the world it's undeniable that the United States is collapsing in the global eye. Personally, I've always found the majority of American patriotism extremely excessive and arrogant to the point of being scary, but under Trump, patriotism has surged to an absolutely unbearable degree. There are, online, a colossal number of people who truly believe that America is a Godly utopia threatened by the presence of liberals, and the rest of the world is a jealous cesspool of terrorism. How can America get along with the world when such a sizeable portion of the country wants to distance itself from others? Yes, I know that America has always been stereotyped, laughed at and mocked for being obese, gun obsessed and full of crazy people. America has always made fun of itself, in fact, through countless comedies, and still does. But at the same time, and especially under Obama, America was able to still maintain a fairly decent reputation because division wasn't so obvious. Now, the division and violence seems to define the United States even after a massacre like the Las Vegas shooting, the majority of Americans seem too divided to come together to mourn the deaths of over 50 innocent concertgoers. And for this reason and many more, the days of the U.S. being the leader are over. . gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Since the election and especially this year, the United States has now ruined its global reputation for good."}
{"id":"065111cd-2b70-4d2c-907a-4fe3d7d57dbe","argument":"The French Journal for Media Research highlighted that one of the reasons why there is a growing distrust of news and media outlets is because the audience feels that news practitioners are detached from everyday lives of people. This can likely be solved by switching to verifiably true pictures of events.","conclusion":"There is a growing distrust of news and media outlets. While it is easy for a reader to dismiss the writings of a paper as biased, it is harder for them to dismiss a verifiably true picture."}
{"id":"7f6bd03d-e1e4-4853-9b3c-6b0be3aa8dd9","argument":"After adding infinite objects we will have infinite objects. After adding 2 objects and subtracting one over and over for an infinite time, we have infinite objects. After adding n objects, if we add and subtract an equal number of objects we end up with n objects. Thus all conclusions are self consistent and the paradox resides in equivocating different physical actions under the same abstract concept, which leads to the erring assertion that their outcomes should be the same.","conclusion":"The Ross\u2013Littlewood paradox has various solutions depending on the exact variant, but it has perfectly consistent solutions one for each variant or the problem when we turn to physics. It is therefore not a problem with infinities."}
{"id":"add0fc7f-4063-475d-bf45-f24b2ccc46ba","argument":"To begin I feel that we should compare high quality pencils with hiqh quality pens so as to appropriately evaluate the best of what each form of stationery can achieve. I've personally found that modern graphite technology can allow pencils to reach the same intensity of colour black as most pens whilst still allowing the user the opportunity to erase and change what's been written. Alongside proper quality paper stock high quality pencils can also glide just as smoothly as high quality pens whilst, from my left handed experience, setting faster and therefore smudging less.","conclusion":"Pencils are Superior to Pens"}
{"id":"e6a63fe4-7020-4363-9aaa-1a6f86415284","argument":"Citizens can be subtly wooed and 'nudged' over many years to achieve voting behaviour that is at odds with their own needs and the needs of society in general.","conclusion":"Citizens can't be counted on to do what is necessary to sustain democracy."}
{"id":"fb96b348-a0ee-46de-8477-48e97cefb779","argument":"Crop resistance to disease, allows for greater crop yields, which wastes less resources like growing a plant that cannot produce fruit, so nothing is sold because the efforts went to waste, making organic food better for the environment.","conclusion":"Not having diseases means that diseases are less likely to spread to other plants, which is especially pertinent in today's globalized market."}
{"id":"456a9ff8-0393-43f6-ad03-97349913d002","argument":"Humanity has built, in the relatively few millennia since formal writing was invented, compiled a truly gigantic quantity of information and knowledge, to which it is constantly adding, at increasingly rapid rates. To imagine the treasure trove of knowledge and experience that would become available to humanity in the event of contact with intelligent extraterrestrial life of similar, or even greater, technological and social development is almost impossible1. The wisdom that could be gained, especially considering that alien life would likely have evolved along very different lines than humans, could be of a kind that mankind could never have conceived without such contact. This great potential for the gaining of knowledge is reason enough to devote resources to the effort of making contact. 1 Sagan, Carl. 1973. Communication with Extraterrestrial Intelligence. Cambridge: MIT Press.","conclusion":"The knowledge and technology to be gained from interaction with extraterrestrials is potentially limitless:"}
{"id":"71a3b3f1-2b40-4806-a3aa-2530eac81d04","argument":"Laurence M. Vance. \"The Moral Case for Free Trade\". LewRockwell.com. February 4, 2004 - \"The alternative to free trade is protectionism, whether in the form of tariffs or import quotas. Besides making imported goods more expensive, tariffs merely give the government additional revenue. But why should the state be entitled to more money? Doesn\u2019t the state already spend over $2 trillion a year? To question the legitimacy of free trade while at the same time saying that protectionist measures are not the answer is to attempt a middle-of-the-road position, which, as Mises showed, leads to socialism.\"","conclusion":"The alternative to free trade is a faulty protectionism model"}
{"id":"98a548ff-12a3-4929-87c9-da5ad92f72d3","argument":"This is a belief that gives me personal motivation in my life and something I feel that everyone should live by. Regardless of at least most religions, or rather what they believe happens to you after death, most everyone can agree that you are only given one opportunity at the life you currently are living. By trying to live to your full potential, your aim will be to achieve the most that you can with what you are given. This means stretching and challenging yourself mentally and physically. I feel that this allows you to contribute the most that you can to the world, and will lead to a happy and fulfilling life. This means instead of being content with flipping burgers, pushing for the managerial role, asking about, learning, and applying whatever it takes to get there, where you can positively impact those below you. Then pushing to become a franchise owner of your own, and giving jobs and opportunity to people that wouldn't otherwise, positively impacting the world. And certainly not just related to work. This means if you want to be an artist, not simply being content with your 1 hour of practice a day, but putting forth maximum effort to see what works you can create, to see how good you can become, to allow others to enjoy your masterpieces and bring joy to their life that they would have otherwise never seen or heard without your personal strive to maximize your talent. It means not being content with surfing the internet all Sunday, but instead perhaps for a few of those hours, getting out into the community to help a common cause, whether it be in a peaceful rally behind a belief you feel strongly in, volunteering at an animal hospital, or aiding in a clean up effort of your local park. All things well within your potential, but that are simply easier to not do. I am not suggesting to never take breaks, or to always be on the ball. I am suggesting to always have the goal in the back of your mind to be the best that you can, to improve your own life and everyone elses, because you only have one try at it, and that while it is the harder road to travel, I feel that doing so will bring you a much more rewarding and positive experience here on Earth. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"People should live their life by attempting to realize their full potential."}
{"id":"26131265-58b9-4c85-b71f-0c8f0455e941","argument":"I've seen some 's lately about people giving to charity. Specifically, people saying that if you do not give to charity or help the homeless, you are a horrible person. I think this is one of the most despicably self serving, disrespectful, and selfish approaches ever. First of all, being charitable and monetarily selfless is a personal choice that people make. It's a moral high ground that they take. I think it is respectable to take this high ground. However, I do not think it's necessary and required for people to be decent. There are plenty of ways people can be selfless, and it does not have to be money. For example, making a lot of money in order to give your children or your family an extremely good and luxurious life, but not necessarily yourself, is still a selfless act. I think that these individuals have manipulated a good heart into the baseline requirement. And I think it's horrible. YOU have that moral highground. YOU have that monetary selflessness. And now you are pushing your ideals onto other people and even calling them disgusting for not following suit? It's selfish as fuck to make fun of people for not being like you. Even if you are a great person, forcing others or berating others for not being like you is a very clear sign of being a very bad and disrespectful person. Many may also call that manipulative or egotistical. I think that people should be allowed to live the way they want to live as long as they generally abide gray areas of course by a combination of their own moral code, society's moral code, and the laws of their government. And although giving back and being charitable is a fantastic thing, it is HORRIBLE to say that buying a car for yourself is a horrible thing to do. Whether or not someone is a good or bad person is determined by a number of factors. And spending money on yourself, while it may be a selfish factor, does not make them a BAD person. Because a person who spends money on himself does not actively try to harm or berate other people. Yes it's true that some of the products people buy can come from sweat shops and the like, and we should be more aware of those situations. However, we can't fault people for not being globally aware of these issues. Some people like to stay in touch with world news and the issues that people are facing on a widespread basis. Others don't and just want to care about their immediate local community. Neither is necessarily bad. Either way, I'm getting off course here. TLDR If you want to be super charitable and giving, go ahead Good for you The world is better because of you. But if you want to force your ideals onto others, then screw you, because you are forcing people to live a life that you chose for yourself. EDIT I want to say that this  has a CASE BY CASE BASIS point of view. Meaning YES there are some people who are selfish with money and abuse others to get richer. Please don't give me a single example and be like oh yeah well aren't these people bad? I'm trying to argue that you cannot brand people as horrible just for not giving back. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Insulting people for not donating to charity or helping the poor is moral grandstanding and is disrespectful and selfish."}
{"id":"e71ae430-3e06-4a73-bbfc-ecc31711e534","argument":"Through a great deal of study, it is possible to become an Animagus and to be able to transform into a particular animal.","conclusion":"There are many interesting magical traits and skills that wizards and witches can acquire, inherit or learn."}
{"id":"1c6af214-158f-4a6e-aa25-f0c7ad3b7846","argument":"If policy can change on a whim then investors may be uncomfortable investing which would hurt the economy","conclusion":"Sudden changes in public opinion could cause drastic policy changes."}
{"id":"7db5dfcd-31f2-4748-af18-27304aca4096","argument":"Ellen Pao's resignation stated she left because she didn't think she could meet the boards requirement of growth in the next 6 months Reddit has seemingly struggled to make a profit and had been trying to become profitable for a while now. Reddit is one of the largest websites in the world and has over 160 million regular monthly users Gaining users is obviously not Reddit's issue, making money off the users it does get is. Furthermore, the site doesn't create content, so there is no cost there, it only hosts content from users and other sites. Being bigger only means they will have to host more content, meaning the server costs they claim they are trying to pay for is only going to go up with more users page views. It just baffles me that a site as large as Reddit has trouble making a profit, and that they think the solution to an already large site is to grow even bigger. Just stick a friggin banner ad at the top of the page or something and be done with it. So how is it that such a large site can fail to make a profit and the best solution is to become even bigger? .","conclusion":"Reddit requiring growth to become profitable is unreasonable. There is no reason why they shouldn't be able to find a way to be profitable with their current number of users."}
{"id":"ef4d4ceb-debf-467a-8a53-af6f0df5dfa0","argument":"As we learn in science classes, it is important to know the precision of our measurements, and it is important to know the difference between exact numbers and measured numbers. The scientific world keeps track of numerical precision through a system called significant figures . Some classes beat students senseless with this system. I was in one such class. My school recently adopted a policy that the first unit of every science course has to be about metrics and significant figures. If you're not familiar with Significant Figures, here's a basic summary All non zero digits are significant. Trailing zeros in an integer no decimal place measurement are just place holders and are not significant. Leading zeros are also place holders and aren't significant. Trailing zeros following the decimal point and zeros between digits are significant. In scientific notation, all digits before the multiplication sign are significant. All measured numbers have a certain number of significant digits. Numbers with more significant digits are said to be more precise. This seems idiotic to me. I understand that precision itself is an extremely thing to keep track of, but as far as I can tell, this system is flawed. I will try to articulate why I believe this through a typical use case. A student takes out a yardstick that is equally precise with all numbers. That is, any measurement taken with this stick is exactly as precise as any other measurement. This student measures a 1 inch long paper clip. Then, he or she measures a 12 inch long textbook. It seems obvious to me that since these two measurements were done with the same yardstick, they are equally precise. But according to Significant Figures, the textbook measurement is more precise than the paperclip measurement It baffles my mind that this is the case. No one has explained to me how it is fair that a double digit number is nearly always inherently more precise than single digit number. It's totally possible that this is a problem with my scientific education, and if that's the case, please enlighten me. EDIT View has been changed. Thanks everyone.","conclusion":"The system of Significant Figures that we use in most sciences is an inherently flawed system."}
{"id":"637c0789-f79b-47e6-8df3-1596e38e413b","argument":"No rigorous, objective test of hate speech exists. It is a charge selectively levelled only at politically weak out-groups.","conclusion":"Hate speech is a politically motivated construct that targets non-protected groups while favoring protected groups."}
{"id":"fa043c97-294a-46f7-a646-9b9224533013","argument":"i dont mean literally a sin as in something that's bad from a religious point of view. but just something that is bad enough and should never be done. anyways at first i thought it was just my ego, but now i'm beginning to think that this is all some sort of a syndrome. i haven't gotten laid in over five years yet no matter how much i crave to get laid i just try so hard to suck it up just so i can avoid having to go out and having to buy a girl drinks taking her out to eat, to the movies, etc having to dance with her letting her in my life having to entertain her and anything else that basically pays my way in between her legs. its like wow i want to get laid so badly but at the same time i really do not want to submit and kneel down to what i crave for. so what can i do? or even better can anyone please help change my views here PS do not tell me to get a girlfriend because i'm not ready to commit to anyone plus i am not gonna engage in a relationship with anyone just for the sex. i'm not that much of a loser","conclusion":"Being submissive is a sin"}
{"id":"c9cffcb8-0796-48c6-b274-ca784c96d067","argument":"Without the basic knowledge of the financial system, the next generation will be more heavily influenced by outside forces, creating more risk for another financial collapse.","conclusion":"Recent, and historical, times of financial hardship show a need for a more robust understanding of how finances should be approached"}
{"id":"fbff4591-877b-46f1-81af-14576300c70f","argument":"Democracy is a superior system in part because of the recognition that the correct public policies are difficult to empirically discern and the aggregation of as many opinions as possible can be a better heuristic than reliance on the opinion of a few technocrats.","conclusion":"The harmful logical extension of this claim about specialization is an abolishment of democracy and the introduction of a technocracy."}
{"id":"3b325b4d-ffc1-47e1-bf7a-20e721f3ccb0","argument":"For some people, who are genuinely not fit for the workforce, this is a good thing. These people can now live much more enjoyable lives.","conclusion":"Currently, people work out of social and economical obligation. A UBI diminishes this obligation, enhancing people's sense of freedom and agency."}
{"id":"90b030d3-5b3f-4482-98db-ad8e6556d38d","argument":"I just watched a debate that matched the exact same argument I've had over and over and over with libertarians and conservatives, both when I was one myself and following through to the present day In it, they not only undermine the credibility of the research showing the effects of climate change again and again, but when finally pinned down and forced to answer questions about its effects, default to the potential economic impact to sidestep having to actually do anything about the issue. Even putting aside the repeated evasions, conspiracy theories, and derisiveness that they use, the crux of their argument could be boiled down to one simple question If we could take a .06 loss of growth to solve this problem. Would you do that? And when the answer was no, Would you spend any money to fix this issue? And the answer was no, defaulting to an ideological decentralize and let the states deal with it, ignoring once again the studies showing that dealing with the symptoms like heat waves is exponentially more expensive than dealing with the solutions, because there are dozens of symptoms, each which costs more with every year that passes. So in the past few decades, the evolution of climate denial seems to go like this First they said climate change isn't happening. Then they said climate change might be happening, but it's not manmade. Then they said climate change is probably happening and might be manmade, but it's not going to make any difference. Then they said climate change is happening and is probably manmade, but it doesn't matter because any potential negatives would be offset by the good. Everyone loves carbon dioxide that's a real advertisement . Now they say, yes it's real, yes it's man made, and yes the effects are negative but the models are still wrong, the problems are being exaggerated, and most importantly, there's still nothing we should do about it , except maybe put up some water dams and ration our water better in the summer. To me, this is still denial denial of the data, denial of the studies. The whole point of raising awareness of climate change, and the whole point of denying it, has always been about whether we should do something about its effects. Accepting the premise but brushing off the conclusions is still denial, and accusing the scientists of conspiracy is even further signs of science denial. An economist saying I disagree with the models does not hold any legitimacy when you are not a climate scientist. The place for them to debate is in the solutions not in the premise itself, which other climate scientists who are qualified to understand it should address. I've debated with people dozens of times about the inefficiency and pointlessness of addressing the symptoms of climate change rather than the causes, and at the end of the day, every time, it comes back to a denial of the data, or cherry picking of study abstracts. 15 increased crop yields in central America That's fantastic, now keep reading about how that pales in comparison to the effects of a second Dust Bowl forming in the States. So let's be clear Apocalyptic Climate Change is a strawman. No climate scientists say, and as far as I can recall have ever said, that climate change will end our species or turn the planet into a barren wasteland. I don't care what politicians say science denial is about denying the science, and people who bring up scaremongering of people that want to set everyone back to the stone age are being doubly insincere. If they really cared about the solution, they would be offering alternatives not denying the premise. And the premise has always been consistent. The science shows that it's our current way of life that's going to suffer. Food availability, fresh water sources, ease of transportation, tourism, health, biodiversity, increased storm severity, stronger heat waves these are not just isolated, feel good issues, like saving a polar bear on an ice float. These are all huge concerns that are already having massive economic impacts. And yet conservatives insist that they're worried about economics when they minimize these impacts and insist that it can all be dealt with at a local level. I live in Miami, and I've actually had someone tell me that we can just put a wall up to block rising tides. A no nonsense, just the numbers libertarian told me that and then walked away when I entertained the premise of his argument and asked what impact this wall would have on Miami's tourism and coastal land values. This is denialism, to me. This is a refusal to accept that maybe, just maybe, there are some things that the government, specifically federal government, has to have a hand in ameliorating. And if it means denying the science, accusing the scientists of chasing money never mind how much money any of these scientists could make selling out to fossil fuel companies , and insisting that they're just trying to be pragmatic, there's no practical difference between Climate change isn't happening and Climate change is happening and is manmade, but we don't have to spend any money to fix it. Change my view, please and thanks. TL DR There is none. Read the whole thing. If you bring up a point I addressed in the post, I'm just going to ignore you.","conclusion":"Focusing on the \"economic fallout\" is the new form of climate change denial."}
{"id":"02da55a4-b2f3-4375-90eb-4d502c81722a","argument":"African Americans have been subject to greater injustices in American history than women. From slavery to current race inequality they have been a step behind women as far as leveling the playing field. This simply means that electing the first black president would be a bigger deal than electing the first female president.","conclusion":"It is more historic to elect the first black candidate than the first female candidate."}
{"id":"ef029942-c66d-4200-aa4a-2654ce16a026","argument":"Through the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 the US government admitted that the internment was driven by \"race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership\" and not by military necessity.","conclusion":"More than 100.000 Japanese Americans were incarcerated in camps during World War 2. Armed Americans did not stand up against this government overreach and violation of rights."}
{"id":"29a9f53c-069e-4af1-9dc4-610b52644df1","argument":"Peace Island Medical Centre in St Juan, which is affiliated with the Catholic health system PeaceHealth, is one of only a few health care providers on the island. This is an issue as St Juan is an island and people would otherwise have to travel off the island for these services.","conclusion":"It's easy to suggest that when there are options available for healthcare. In many parts of the world, the Catholic Church offers the only available healthcare. In these places, the alternative to them would be no access to healthcare at all, creating significant health risks."}
{"id":"83309dc8-fd7e-4366-98ac-3e0134be2cb4","argument":"Hello . Over the last few years I've seen over and over again people blaming the OPEC cartel for the crash in oil prices, and they have been blamed for not acting fast enough to bring the prices back up. My view is that it wasn't OPEC that caused the oil prices to crash, but a flooding of the market by production in cheap shale oil plays. Once the price crashed due to the supply flood, OPEC had no responsibility to try to change production levels to bring prices back up because it wasn't their fault in the first place that prices crashed. Instead of trying to fix prices, they instead let the market forces play themselves out. Playing by the same rules as N.American based producers turned out to be damaging primarily to the N.American producers, and that's why OPEC is being blamed. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"It was the USA that caused the oil crash, and it wasn't OPECs job to fix it."}
{"id":"49c42717-58de-433d-8f9f-5785c3b688e8","argument":"English as an academic subject is granted a relatively high status. Our ability to read and interpret literature is considered the 'core' of our educational efforts. Indeed, almost any field of study will include a minimum numerical English grade as a requirement while only asking you to pass in the other required courses. Some programs will go so far as to place English as the sole required course for entry. For a subject so pervasive in our education, English classes seem to be lacking in some key characteristics Accurately rewarding consistency discipline in students English seems to be based on personal interpretation, which poses an issue. We are required to think in non empirical terms, and success often comes in the form of a 'Eureka' moment. Education at the primary secondary even early college level is aimed at developing solid, reliable and consistent study habits. What if a particular book simply fails to speak to you on a deeper level? This would be comparable to mathematics if you were required to come up with, say, the quadratic formula on your own and failed. Spending time on literature produces inconsistent and erratic results in terms of insight. Promoting skills that contribute to economic productivity Once the curriculum has shifted past grammatical structure which is typically in early secondary high school , English begins its transition into literary analysis commentary. It is past this point that English should no longer be considered a 'core' subject. Literature from this point on provides few transferable skills, as opposed to eg. Economics or even general 'spreadsheet skills' that allow humans to quantify the production delivery of goods and services. Currently, reading and analysing books feels like 'fake homework' a meaningless obstacle that is assigned to no end. Being accessible to everyone This one's rather difficult to explain, but here goes. Sometimes your paper is graded and you get a remark such as possibly or maybe , indicating that your argument wasn't bought by the grader. To follow up on the above point about consistency, personal interpretations can vary to a problematic degree. If a student cannot come up with an insightful conclusion, no amount of time spent can guarantee any progress. You will  if you show that English lit. accurately rewards time and effort put forth by the student AND promotes skills that indeed contribute to productivity of goods and services OR that we don't need to determine importance by contribution to productivity after all","conclusion":"English Lit does not meet the standards of a 'core' subject"}
{"id":"41974079-444a-462d-8aeb-e39d9a201413","argument":"There was a whole \"industry\" of gold farmers and power levelers whom you gave your account and who would level it to max level in a week. 1 2","conclusion":"Blizzard introduced character boosting to curb the power leveling and gold farming services."}
{"id":"92da916c-1e46-4f88-b8e5-f278236e9dcf","argument":"Especially religious fundamentalism can lead to violence and hatred, because of its unwavering attachment to a set of irreducible beliefs which leads to a strong rejection of diversity of opinion.","conclusion":"It is not satire, but a lack of rational education and religious infatuation, that leads to violence and hatred."}
{"id":"cf69e681-eece-4f00-ac82-decf677a4992","argument":"The title is inflammatory, but honestly these views are at odds with several of my friends and I dare not voice them for obvious reasons. Gender is a social construct according to the WHO What continues is based on this. If there is sufficient data to refute it, my position goes out the window and I would love to see it. The problem is gender, culture stereotypes attributed to one sex or the other, is an inherently flawed idea. That individual personality character traits are determined by sex is false. Cultural trends exist, and these form the concept of gender, but this is nothing more than a social construct. The way I interpret this problem is that trans people are trying to take something as complicated as a human brain, a human personality, and shoehorn it into one of two boxes defined solely by culture stereotypes. It's a false choice since neither box exists outside of social norms. Basically, the idea that you are female male sex but male female gender makes no sense outside the artificial confines of social norms. What does make sense in all cases is you are female male sex, but you are you , in all the intricacies that make you an individual. As a continuation, this would mean that gender reassignment surgery GRS , which results in irreparable damage to reproductive organs, is unethical. I understand that in a way it solves the problem of one's sex and gender being different, but since gender is nothing more than a social construct, I see more similarities of GRS with sterilization chemical castration of culturally undesirable traits than with any medically beneficial procedures. A difference is that historically, sterilization of culturally undesirable traits is forced upon those at odds with the social majority, whereas currently self defined trans people are willingly undergoing GRS. Given that the problem is social, reproductive damage is avoidable with a culture belief change, and this can even be done on an individual level as there are no laws where I am that force gender conformity. To conclude, I view this as a two fold cultural society failure. 1 The existence of stereotypes based upon sex is inherently flawed and should not be taken as true in all cases. 2 Society's attempt to correct problem 1 with the concepts of gender and trans is self damage and self perpetuating the problem instead of really dealing with it, by which I mean acknowledging that sex stereotypes are bullshit and one should not let themselves be defined by their sex. Note I'm not the best at writing, so I may need to explain expand edit. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Being Trans is a false choice, and gender reassignment surgery is unethical"}
{"id":"af0f1cbc-8147-4469-9872-4f7ed1d046a8","argument":"- One of the greatest lessons that a school can teach its students is the ability to use their own logic and reasoning to develop an objective opinion of the world around them. By teaching creationism in the classroom, schools are broadening students' knowledge. It is possible to teach both creationism and evolution in the same school. The goal is to expose students to all widely held 'beliefs'. The path to understanding requires the teaching of both Creationism and Evolution.","conclusion":"Teaching the creationism-evolution controversy is important to student learning."}
{"id":"a3cf53fa-63d9-4647-b1a1-f1f49eefb2d7","argument":"Many of those who disagree with how the Catholic Church operates are likely to convert to another branch within Christianity. This means that those who remain Catholic are more likely to have similar views.","conclusion":"The members of the Church should be more unified than the citizens of a democratic country, as all Church members adhere to the same core belief as followers of Catholicism."}
{"id":"4d9f2bef-027a-4f73-ab18-388072f604bc","argument":"I don't even know if it is true factually statistically whether or not black people do in fact find greater enjoyment from fried chicken and watermelon, but I'm not really sure it matters that much. Both foods don't imply any negative qualities themselves, but rather the other racist party is adding their own perception of black people on top of my produced stereotype of an average black person liking fried chicken. For example, I say Bob is a plumber allegedly to Suzie, suzie believes plumbers cheat on their s o, therefore Suzie believes bob to be a terrible husband. Nothing I said produced that though and I am not at fault if Suzie then behaves unkindly towards Bob later because I said he is a plumber regardless of whether or not he is indeed a plumber. Now if I know that Suzie thinks plumbers are bad partners and I know she will see Bob soon, I may avoid making that association for Bob's sake, or speak up about that association with her. This might also be necessary even if you don't know the other party will make that association. If culturally that association is made dominantly than it can be assumed they will make that association possibly like inciting a riot without actually saying the words lets riot , but I would argue that the association of fried chicken and watermelon isn't dominantly associated with negative qualities since most people eat both. If it isn't the dominant cultural meaning implication of the word, then I could try looking at it from a is it ever worth assuming risk when oppression could result to which I would say yes because there is no way I can pre emptively know the associations that suzie q will make in her mind if they aren't cultural expectations of some form. Back to the start real quick, if it is in fact false, then it wouldn't really be funny the typical purpose of bringing up black peoples association with watermelon and fried chicken . Similarly if I laugh at a picture of barack obama wearing pajamas and I say I'm laughing because it fulfills the president stereotype perfectly, nobody else would laugh. That's because the president doesn't wear pajamas, so it makes no sense. If statistics end up showing it to be false, I don't see why the stereotype would last for any decent duration, but still I don't think it implicitly produces furthers extends the oppression of blacm people.","conclusion":"Associating black people with watermelon and fried chicken is not intrinsically harmful."}
{"id":"ac7056d8-5b11-411f-86a2-78df168dd553","argument":"Events that attract large audiences are oftentimes utilized by otherwise marginalized individuals and groups to gain attention for their cause. A Eurovision Song Contest in Israel would be especially likely to become politicized.","conclusion":"Politics would more than likely be used in the contest next year in Israel, which is against the rules of the contest."}
{"id":"410f25b8-4363-4f8f-b3ee-683550ad1ea5","argument":"time to spice this place up with some football for FTF eh? Im a long time man united supporter, and i'm firmly in the LVGin camp. I personally love the pragmatic style of football he creates but the problem is that its very risky in its own way if something goes just a teeny bit wrong suddenly you are drawing every match. Imho if we had a world class striker to take the pressure off martial and make the most of the meager chances given to them we would be golden, churning out 1 0 and 2 0 wins. But I believe people are asking too much from us while I agree that we're under performing our recent performances have been appalling and the only reason we're top 4 is because everyone is dropping points, sacking LVG is going to make our position worse. We're still in transition while I agree we have spent a lot of money, the best players in the world today simply refuse to play in the BPL and he played the hand he was dealt he had to phase out an aging squad and at the same time replace it with stars of tomorrow. Our style of football has been changing more, he seemed to have listened to the fans as you can see on games since West Ham we have been playing far more aggressively and throwing defensive solidity out of the window. These performances also prove my point that a lethal striker would put us in a far better spot considering all the shots we hoofed straight at the keeper. Overall, I feel our club is in transition LVG is a man who builds a solid foundation for success rather than one to reap the success and continue it, and I believe firing him will put us in a worse spot as all of the money spent and time rebuilding the club from scratch will go out of the window.","conclusion":"The notion to sack Louis Van Gaal is wrong and a knee-jerk reaction"}
{"id":"721cc8e6-f85d-4a08-825b-3fa8bc56c6c1","argument":"Pretty much as the title says. I can't stand to be near them, and even looking at them honestly makes me feel insanely uncomfortable. One of the main reasons I'm so against having a child is that if it was retarded, I don't think I would be able to love it. This only applies to noticeable mental handicaps, if you are dyslexic or whatever that doesn't bother me. But if someone has severe retardation or something along those lines, I can't stand even being in the same room as them.","conclusion":"I am disgusted by mentally handicapped people."}
{"id":"7e9a9f37-5ab8-4c95-a959-24cd4e4323e1","argument":"This came to my mind over the recent outrage over ICE deportations. It seems nowadays being undocumented gives you some kind of moral superiority. Remember the investment banker lady who admitted she came in the country illegally and got praised for it? I've also seen a lot of posts on social media of people coming out as undocumented and receiving a ton of support hence why they do it . It's like admitting to shoplifting and having no consequences. You aren't morally superior for being undocumented. The smart thing to do certainly shouldn't be declaring it on Facebook. It shouldn't be surprising when an illegal immigrant gets deported. Sad? Probably. Deserved? Possibly. Racist? Hell no. In fact race shouldn't even be a factor. Either you broke the law or you didn't. My being against illegal immigration has nothing to do with the color of your skin. We're a country of laws, make no mistake. Of course, some people are against illegal immigration or immigration as a whole because of racist views, no doubt. But, we need to do away with the stigma that EVERY opinion against illegal immigration is racist. It's high time we're able to have a discussion about illegal immigration without the race card being pulled every 2 hands. Open to contrasting opinions, cmv.","conclusion":"Being against illegal immigration doesn't make you a racist"}
{"id":"97d77013-686b-4360-8d55-27f578d6f1bc","argument":"And it will likely not go well, both in the short term and in the long term potential nuclear holocaust aside . Also note that I use the word preventive instead of preemptive reporters often use these interchangeably, but I'd argue that a preemptive strike to preempt an imminent attack would be more accepted by the rest of the world including China than an attack in which NK was not already the clear aggressor. It is my view that the US will, much like the invasion of Iraq, take action based on the harder to justify preventive argument. I base my view on two ideas The admittedly fuzzy red line that the current administration has drawn on NK's nuclear program. The US cannot let NK get away with a credible nuclear threat to the US mainland, at least not without signaling to the rest of the world that nuclear weapons are a viable deterrence against Western aggression. Libya and Iraq are examples of such Western aggression in action, in absence of a functioning nuclear deterrence. With a populist President and a generally hawkish administration, it is unlikely that this red line will go completely forgotten, despite massive odds of a preventive attack not going smoothly. I know the US military is one of the most capable, if not the most, but the US has also overestimated its own military might time and time again. The fact that NK cannot back down on rhetoric if anything to keep its own regime alive and will not shut down its nuclear program because it sees this as its ticket to survival . If they do give up their program, and even if the US doesn't then invade directly because of China's protection , they will, from their perspective, eventually face the same fate as Libya's Gaddafi. With a credible nuclear deterrence, NK can achieve its goals of strong arming itself into the world stage, and then focus on its two other goals growing its economy at least, just enough to ensure domestic stability and bringing South Korea under its influence, if not control again, this is from NK's perspective by reducing US military influence in the region. These two motives are fundamentally incompatible and will inevitably lead to conflict. But how, you might ask, can the US guarantee finger quotes a successful operation in light of NK's actual weapons stockpile, not to mention the fact that they hold Seoul and, arguably, much of the region including Japan hostage as part of their own deterrence strategy? This is precisely the question that I believe our military leaders are asking themselves, and the only answer I can arrive at is that the US would have to go all in on tactical nuclear bombs, or at least conventional weapons with roughly the same destructive power, accuracy, and range. i.e. not exactly massive destruction, but nothing like any conventional assault we've ever seen . This is the decapitation strike that the US military has probably been dreaming of, and every day, as technology advances and our stockpile is improved, this strike becomes more and more possible. What I both predict and fear is a time in the near future when we have deployed and are willing to use a class of nuclear weapons that are so accurate that they can be dialed down to a more acceptable yield. Military leaders would face all the upside of nuclear destruction the complete elimination of the target without the downside fallout, civilian casualties, etc . Here is an article on the topic arguing that deterrence erodes when entire arsenals become vulnerable to attack, which is made possible by precisely the technologies the US is planning to develop see the latest Nuclear Posture Review , is actively developing, and, in some cases, is already deploying. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The US President will order a preventive strike on North Korea"}
{"id":"d30c2874-386c-4ec9-bd19-7a8dcf7bf545","argument":"Marriage exists to help individuals build lives together, financially as much as emotionally. Interdependence is a positive trait in such relationship and best served by monogamy.","conclusion":"Marriages occur for more reasons than exclusively sex; the idea of exclusivity is vital in reciprocal human relationships, on a mental\/emotional basis."}
{"id":"202355f6-654e-43d0-a80c-68ecd2956c79","argument":"Some fragrances are too strong or are abusively used by some people and that could lead to an overall bad feeling of people around that person in a situation where people can't move away. The wearer should understand the limits of the fragrance they are wearing.","conclusion":"A fragrance can be distracting to others so wearing one where other people might take offense should be avoided."}
{"id":"2158c839-1d6c-436e-a6da-1ebdd033cfde","argument":"By treating people with heart problems are we not just allowing them to make more babies who will then have heart problems? I realize that as a doctor it is your obligation to treat the patient and it would be absolutely unacceptable to let them die on this premise, but in this situation it seems like the human population is becoming more and more ill. Natural selection is just going away. I really need to get this cleared up because I am pre med and I want to be 100 morally driven to help people. Not questioning if im actually helping the human population as a whole. EDIT I just want to clarify that I am not thinking of witholding medical care as a solution. I understand that is unacceptable. Its more that I want to feel like I am bettering the human race as being a doctor not allowing it to be sicker.","conclusion":"I don't think its a good idea to treat illnesses that are genetic because we are increasing their rate in the human population"}
{"id":"77b3120b-c22b-4c60-935d-5e2e2d1e8efb","argument":"To elaborate more on my opinions, as is required by the subreddit, I don't like the idea of free health care, and I prefer low taxes. I don't want to have to pay outrageously high taxes for free health care. I have spoken with my fiance and her family, and they say that they love having free health care, but don't like the waiting times to receive it. So in my opinion, it just doesn't sound appealing at all. But feel free to bring the idea of free health care into play which will probably be mentioned under the topic of cost of living and taxes , but I much prefer paid healthcare. I just don't like the idea of having to pay a large amount of tax to afford free health care. Also, having been to Canada so many times, I think that the cost of living there is outrageous. I'm a pretty cheap person, though. Edit thank you everyone for your feedback. This has been really insightful for me and I appreciate you guys taking the time to explain things and even provide links and resources for me to do further reading. Great response from  Edit 2 I'm open to discussing anything else related to the immigration process or pros and cons of living in both places. To clarify, I just recently moved to Texas, so I am comparing here against Ontario. Overall, the biggest concerns I have are not having access to the same things in Canada that I do here. Whether it is something as simple as high speed Internet or Netflix, or just the convenience of having the same retailers I'm familiar and comfortable with, it is tough for me to imagine living anywhere else. Thanks for helping me change my view","conclusion":"My fiance is Canadian, but I am American. I believe that we will be happier moving to the US because of lower taxes, significantly cheaper cost of living, and having more freedoms and rights. !"}
{"id":"69738660-991a-4e51-a9c7-c7094495c737","argument":"On mobile, sorry for formatting errors, blah blah blah. Don\u2019t get me wrong, I fully support trans rights. My sister is trans and I couldn\u2019t support her more. But I can\u2019t help but see it as a mental disorder rather than anything else. There\u2019s nothing wrong with it being a mental disorder, I just think we should see it for what it is. For example, I am type 1 diabetic. I acknowledge that I have a disability, and take insulin for it. The treatment for being trans should be to try and conform to the gender you believe you are, nothing wrong with that there. Gender dysphoria is the extreme discomfort of feeling like you are the wrong gender, and it is definitely a mental disorder. Is this not just the medical definition of being trans? Is there something I\u2019m missing here?","conclusion":"Being transgender is a mental disorder."}
{"id":"93302b0c-f2ca-4fc5-8b78-2e651ea1e6c0","argument":"Advertisers are not likely to respond positively to having their brand associated with the use of substances which are illegal for the majority of the population.","conclusion":"Legalizing steroids and other performance enhancing drugs would have negative externalities."}
{"id":"406f5548-bdd3-4008-a3dd-795d7d69c17d","argument":"Many states require a person's fingerprints to be taken in order to apply for a driver's license. A large number of local governments encourage parents to get their child fingerprinted for safety, and once a person is fingerprinted, their prints are in government databases for eternity. The excuse of security is used to justify about all invasions of privacy. From warrantless surveillance to watch lists, people's rights are being violated every day. In some cases, kids are being fingerprinted without their parents knowledge. A cop will come to their school, and tell them they can get a cool id card if they just give their fingerprint. Naturally, most kids would simply give their prints, not realizing the rights they are giving up. False matches happen, and if in the future the prints at a crime scene are accidentally matched to this kids prints, he'll be a suspect if he happened to be in the area. People being fingerprinted to get Driver's Licenses is simply treating all people as potential criminals. You shouldn't have to give the government biometric data to get a license to drive a car. Naturally, I'm fine with private corporations taking fingerprints from customers with their consent. For example, by using Apple Touch ID. But even then, it's only stored locally on your phone. The average person shouldn't be fingerprinted by the government unless they've either committed a crime, or are applying for a job which requires an advanced background check.","conclusion":"It should be illegal for the government to take someone's fingerprints unless they're arrested for a crime, or applying for a job which requires an advanced background check."}
{"id":"1f1c2002-4fd6-4b13-a582-78edce6a89e9","argument":"I grew up in a house with carpet, and I'm aware of the downsides of carpeting harder to clean, attracts dust, more expensive. However, aside from the aesthetic consideration of carpet vs. hardwood flooring which is entirely subjective , carpeting is objectively more comfortable and pleasant to walk on. Walking on carpet barefoot, I don't feel all the nasty bits of grit and dirt that accumulate in any house under my feet. On hardwood floors, I feel everything , down to the smallest fleck of particulate matter. Not only that, but it sticks to my feet, so now I'm walking around feeling like a human Swiffer pad. Carpet will of course leave dirt and residue on your feet too, but not if properly vacuumed often and I would argue, hardwood floors allow dirt and particles to slide around more easily, so if you have some dirt accumulation under a table or a sofa, it can more easily make its way out into walking areas as the result of a slight breeze, whereas in a carpeted house, the dirt tends to stay where it is until vacuumed. I just can't figure out why people would consider hardwood flooring a more enjoyable option than carpeting, unless they're just constantly thinking about the cleaning vs. comfort tradeoff.","conclusion":"Houses should be carpeted when cost is not a factor."}
{"id":"7e9633a8-7b67-4d5b-91f0-c9f426a867fb","argument":"Many countries in the EU are already dealing with citizens who strive for further secession.","conclusion":"Polls and referendums suggest that European citizens are against the USE."}
{"id":"13f241f3-b344-422e-9655-47f5e2c11aef","argument":"For people who have problems with their digestive tract, there can be disastrous health consequences when eating the nuts, grains and fibrous vegetation needed in a vegetarian diet. I know this as I have Crohn's disease. Here are some other links: insoluble fibre and foods that tax your system Here is some specific info on diet if you have a gut troubles","conclusion":"People who must already follow restrictive diets due to medical conditions such as IBS or IBD cannot consume most plant-based or dairy sources of protein, making it necessary for them to resort to meat-based proteins."}
{"id":"58d99487-587c-47c1-88cb-971a1984f7a1","argument":"I can't wrap my head around the argument that women should have the right to abort a fetus that is 20 weeks old. It seems to me that this is the exact situation we were warned about when it comes to reproductive rights. Some questions I have How is it not murder? Some children are born prematurely as early as 20 weeks, and live full, healthy lives. It seems to me that this is not just preventing a pregnancy, or even aborting a drastically underdeveloped zygote fetus, whatever the correct terminology might be, but that you're actually ending a child's life If a woman carries a child this late into a pregnancy, why should she have the right to abort said pregnancy, when she had the opportunity to end it in advance of 20 weeks? These are not the only questions I have, so please feel free to elaborate on all details you feel like I should know. Thanks","conclusion":"Late-term abortions that occur after 20 weeks are murder."}
{"id":"c0dba19a-37d7-44c0-8acd-35cdc9712382","argument":"Climate Change stifles true innovation - through mechanisms like cap & trade, ETS and carbon taxes, the only industry receiving innovative support is low emissions technology - leaving all the other industries unsupported & damaged with such a measure due to higher running costs.","conclusion":"Fighting climate change cuts profits and, thus, cannot be in businesses' interest."}
{"id":"f77aaa22-21fa-4752-beaf-3431113573d0","argument":"I often hear people on threads about piracy go 'Its the corporation's greed not ours' and try to claim piracy isn't theft. It just sounds to me like they're trying to convince themselves that something obviously wrong is right, to a comical extent. Theft from the rich however justified it may seem is still theft and if everyone was pirating there would eventually be nothing to pirate. Movies and Games aren't necessities of life, people act like its healthcare. If you feel that Disney, CBS, Hulu etc are too greedy which they are but since they exist for the sole purpose of making profit you can't blame them you should boycott not pirate. Now I have to disclose I pirate a lot of movies, games and music but I don't pretend like I have a moral high ground I know that its theft but I'm too weak to resist. The most common argument against my stance that I've heard is that piracy levels hit an all time low when Netflix had everything to stream in one place in one subscription and that people were willing to pay, but this still doesn't justify pirating content I pirate because I don't want to pay for it the people that went back to pirating when Netflix lost its monopoly are just the same as me, only difference is my upper limit to start stealing is .0001 while theirs is between 30 and 100. Saying I pirate because its too expensive to stream is like saying I raped a prostitute because she's too expensive. not that i'm saying the two are equivalent Their point that when you pirate content you're only making a copy is the weakest argument of them all. By that logic you should be able to go to stores and copy DVDs without paying? I imagine if everyone was illegally downloading songs public opinion would suddenly shift and piracy would be wrong, but now because there are not that many people stealing content its okay? Now the strict exceptions are when its something you can't live without but has a very unreasonable unaffordable price tag This is still immoral but it can be justifiable like those 600 college books. I'm open to changing my view so lets begin","conclusion":"Internet Priacy is always unacceptable with a few strict exceptions"}
{"id":"48595fd2-611d-46de-95b2-fa8c13cd8f40","argument":"Zoos have much harsher guidelines to adhere to than national parks, as well as having more funding.","conclusion":"Zoos have a level of security that national parks do not that can stop poaching."}
{"id":"f47e825f-a342-49bf-8031-53a146f2bfad","argument":"If guns were the issue, Japan, which has pretty much banned guns altogether would have a lower suicide rate than the US instead of one of the highest","conclusion":"A desperately suicidal person will simply find other means. Rather than focusing on gun issues, we should increase mental health monitoring, services and suicide prevention."}
{"id":"a489215d-8709-4c29-8519-f5cbdde1cb66","argument":"No one is disputing that guns are effective weapons. A gun is an excellent tool for an elderly person to defend themselves with during a home invasion or armed robbery. However, guns are not the cause of crime, people are. If the guns were removed, the elderly person would be defenseless against a younger, stronger attacker. We see that in places like the UK where most guns are banned and home invasions and knife crime increased dramatically","conclusion":"In 2016 there were 4,066 homicides committed by people without using a firearm That's an average 11.14 people per day. Of those, 656 1.8 per day were killed by someone that only used their hands or feet as a weapon."}
{"id":"682e5471-1711-4310-9e36-85db54455b89","argument":"Link to tweet gt I Understand Helping struggling Immigrants,but MY CITY Los Angeles ISNT TAKING CARE OF ITS OWN.WHAT ABOUT THE 50,000 American Citizens WHO LIVE ON THE STREETS.PPL WHO LIVE BELOW POVERTY LINE, HUNGRY? If My State Can\u2019t Take Care of Its Own Many Are VETS How Can it Take Care Of More All I've heard about this tweet is that Trump agreed with it. Maybe people are just ignoring it all together, but I'm surprised she isn't getting more flak for it. While there are certainly some immigrants who might be looking for a handout, it is a small portion. What immigrants are looking for is merely an opportunity to succeed on their own. There is no reason to assume that immigrants need someone to take care of them. And implying that they do is ignorant and insulting.","conclusion":"Cher's immigration tweet is ignorant and insulting"}
{"id":"cd5f8555-387c-4d60-93a3-5edebd17ed77","argument":"Link to the comment with context. And here's the comment itself because it's handy to have it on the same page when typing I'm not pointing out the falsity of your statement because my point is that you already know that it's false thus not requiring any pointing out . I was trying to appeal to your sense of morality and your ability to look beyond and to stop hiding behind the cluttered discussion about whatever our outdated laws say and think about the core of what is actually happening Someone creates something that they don't intend on giving away for free, and you take it for free spreading it for free in the process , enjoy and appreciate the work itself and completely disregard whatever time, energy and means the original creator put into it. Whichever way you turn it, that is a dick move. That's without going into the aspects of you lending a hand in crippling the industry in this way, or all the fallacies that you would put up They should embrace a new business model If you would simply buy their shit they wouldn't have to. If you would simple not buy their shit at all they would embrace one within the week. There are no alternatives that offer x and y There are, and even if those aren't good enough for you, there would be one if there was a bigger market for it. But I go to concerts and tweet about them. They reach a wider audience because I can listen to their music for free. If they wanted it that way they would offer their stuff for free. Some work that way. Those that don't obviously don't want your overpriced? uncalled for marketing assistance. I'm not the only one doing it Pls Downloading is windowshopping, which is legal If you're going in from the 'I will buy later it if I like it, I need to hear it first' angle, downloading is less like windowshopping and more like renting something that you will pay for after you return it that wasn't up for rent in the first place. On a sidenote I don't believe for a moment you will buy that complete discography of Bon Jovi in lossless FLAC which is just ripped from a CD, don't be fooled worth about 250 bucks you just downloaded, so in 90 of cases you probably won't even pay for it after you 'returned' the 'rented'. The opposing side is being a dick and or immoral because x and y So That makes your point of view right? Are we back in high school, where teachers are dicks because they make you stand out in the hall leaving out the part where you gave the two nerds sitting in front of you wet willies and threw a pencil at your friend across the room ? Don't bring any of those bullshit douchenozzle bloodboiling oneliners. Wake up and just admit that 'yes, downloading is a dick move' but your egocentric brain just doesn't care enough to stop doing it. .","conclusion":"In this comment on \/r\/AskReddit I off-topically argue that downloading is a dick move regardless of the cluttered discussion about outdated laws."}
{"id":"53d641b7-74d5-4098-95cb-8ce9300fdf77","argument":"I have encountered an increasingly large number of people who have questioned the value of marriage, either they think it's an inherently sexist institution, or simply because they question the value of what they see as no more than a piece of paper. I think these people are completely mistaken about the role of marriage in human society. Marriage is a social construct which conveys a symbolic meaning, and in that sense is no different in function than telling someone you love them. For instance, although saying I love you is not an inherently indispensable part of being in an emotionally intimate relationship with someone, it is a useful expressive tool to signal to the other person the true extent and nature of your commitment. In the same way, although marriage is not a logically necessary part of being in a committed relationship, it is a very useful expressive tool in that if someone wants to marry you that is a signalling mechanism which conveys a whole host of meanings about that person's feelings and intentions with regards to your relationship, which cannot be expressed in quite the same way by any other means. So why should marriage be a public governmental matter? Besides the obvious practical advantages, marriage is a public governmental matter because we are social animals and we construct meanings in concert. The government is ultimately a symbol of community, and having marriage be a legal governmental matter is a way of solidifying the shared understanding between two people by also sharing it with their community. Furthermore I don't think you can say of the institution of marriage per se that it is regressive, because of the sheer difference between instances of this institution across different cultures. There really is a tremendous amount of difference between the traditions of marriage in different cultures. And if some cultures have regressive marital traditions it is those regressive traditions that need to be removed, not the institution itself. Edit grammer","conclusion":"People who question the value of marriage as an institution or call it regressive are plainly wrong."}
{"id":"77410bf5-d71c-4341-a9ad-14eeb4f0840e","argument":"The phrase \u201cgive them an inch and they\u2019ll take a mile\u201d is appropriate here. It is noteworthy that Russia has a Security Council veto, but does not even appear in the top 15 nations contributing to the budget. The UN has become dependent on the USA and other industrialized nations to foot an enormous amount of the bill for UN operations. While the proportions of other states\u2019 economies are markedly smaller, other nations sometimes reap far more of the rewards of UN existence than they contribute - \u201cThe United States is far and away the biggest single contributor to the U.N. system. In 2006, the total U.S. contributions came to at least $2.7 billion \u2014 and that excludes the private sector, which by most independent estimates, draws most of its $1.5 billion in U.N. contributions from U.S. sources.\u201d 1 Should the US remain a consistent donor and allow itself to be asked for more and more as the UN budget becomes more bloated, or should it assert itself and say that, in real dollars, a line must be drawn? 1 Russel, George. \u201cThe U.N.: Even More Expensive Than It Looks\u201d 06\/11\/2008 improve this","conclusion":"There has been a serious inequality in the funding of the UN budget."}
{"id":"83d0c016-210c-4c6e-83b1-fe4e75946c29","argument":"As a libertarian, I am alarmed by the inherent corruptible human nature and unavoidable liability that we need to accept from our each unique situation since birth. for example, I may have a very unhelpful, deadbeat father that I need societal help to get away from when i was young and had no resources to do so , as much as a business needs the lowest regulations to operate as long as it is doing so fairly to other market participant. Hence I believe that in order for everyone to be as liberated as possible, the size of the government needs to be small enough to not interfere with most part of its people's lives, but big enough to provide a strong public service so everyone can have a more fair and equal starting ground but I think this governmental intervention should only be provided to the most vulnerable and victims who did no fault of his own. like the case of a young boy trying to get away from a bad father . As a result, I definitely disagree with the classical libertarian positions that government should not interfere with all aspects of citizens' lives. Does this still count me as a libertarian? why or why not?","conclusion":"I want a government providing strong public services exactly because I am a libertarian"}
{"id":"d86799a4-2499-4978-a2c5-6b252054b6af","argument":"Do not get upset or uncomfortable because someone is not able to distinguish you from the two general genders after first impression, just start explaining. The person who wants to alter other peoples perception is the one who needs to teach. How about personalized explanatory personal introduction cards? Sometimes something that is written and can be read discretely can be more comfortably used in social settings.","conclusion":"As gender identity or more accurately gender expression seems quite subjective, it would be impossible to know what a person would prefer to be called beforehand."}
{"id":"8c3e445e-5d0e-4a59-ad00-a0146db203f7","argument":"To determine what level of evil might be excessive, one would have to know exactly how much evil is necessary to achieve the desired end. This implies knowledge of all other possible paths to achieve that end. This would require omniscience.","conclusion":"The term \"excessive evil\" implies an omniscient ability to know what level of \"evil\" is appropriate, which implies the existence of an omniscient arbiter."}
{"id":"71e2ed8c-bd08-4fe3-95ad-854af28577fd","argument":"I would actually make this argument about most of Western society, but I am American and have not been outside the country since childhood, so I'll stay with the United States. It seems to be a general consensus that society has become more inclusive and definitely friendlier towards groups of people who were discriminated against in the days gone by. Minorities such as blacks, women the LGBTQ community, and various others were persecuted, mocked or simply subject to casual dismissals of their rights. Nowadays, that behavior is viewed as unacceptable. Actions that are viewed as sexist, racist, homophobic, are met with social or legal sanctions and negative action. Thus as it stands, many would say that we live in a far more open minded and kinder society that allows these people to have a life without being trampled, which they are entitled to as human beings. And I agree with that sentiment. However, while it has become unacceptable to belittle or make fun of certain groups, it has become more acceptable to do it to others. Men, white people, Christians, heterosexuals, and cis gendered people are all acceptable targets for everything ranging from incoherent rants about how horrible they are, to eerily reasonable sounding discussions about why they are inherently racist or bigoted or phobic simply by being who they are. These are not whispered comments or insults hurled by ignorant people but are many times found in newspapers, blogs and articles written by people who should know better. If someone were to write such scathing and blatantly insulting words about minorities, they would be censured and buried in outrage. But because it is the new \u201coutgroups\u201d, society tacitly accepts it by saying nothing. Yet we say that we are more tolerant. Well, that is wrong there hasn\u2019t been real acceptance, just a transfer of our prejudice and racism. Like a child pushing food into different configurations around his plate, society has shifted its focus and because the bigotry has been taken off of traditionally disadvantaged groups, it looks different enough for us to call it progress. Why is this happening? Well, I have a few thoughts on that. I don\u2019t believe that this is some vast conspiracy to target whites, men, straight people, etc. If only that were the case it would make it easier to root out those responsible and try to usher in a better way to race relations. Instead I see it as a vast conglomeration of reasons. I do think that there are members of minority groups who have suffered a lifetime of disenfranchisement and have grown bitter and hateful towards those they see as the oppressive majority. They revel in the current climate and decide to redirect the hate towards these people, painting them with broad strokes and ironically acting with just as much bigotry as they suffered. Then we have those people who simply do not care. Their outlook is that it is not affecting them, and therefore they have no real stake in the fight, and so they do nothing. Finally there are other people who are just so glad for a chance to experience a full life like any human should be able to, that they don\u2019t really want to \u201crock the boat\u201d. There are many more than what I\u2019m describing here, but my point is that there is no one reason this shift has happened. My argument then boils down to two points America has simply shifted much of its prejudice towards those who are seen as the dominant majority. It is becoming or has become socially acceptable to mock, belittle and paint them with broad strokes based on who they are. There is no one reason for this, but a good part of it is because people who were downtrodden are seeking revenge. EDIT My view has been sort of changed I still think that society has given an unspoken go ahead for people to insult and lampoon the majority but it is far less severe and widespread as places like tumblr would have you believe and certainly doesn't compare to real life events of racism and bigotry. I'm going to really hope that is true Thanks all of you.","conclusion":"The United States has not become more tolerant, it's merely shifted the prejudice to other groups."}
{"id":"5ef9c4cc-61e0-47ca-9ec1-386320163ad4","argument":"Today as I post it, Facebook has slammed the ban hammer on right wing internet personalities like Alex Jones and Paul Joseph Watson, citing their dangerous views as the reason why. A lot of critics say that this is a violation of the personalities' first amendment rights, and the general response to that is since Facebook is a private company, it is not legally bound to uphold the first amendment on its own platform. The implication for the above is, especially with Facebook being a largely international company not bound by borders, that it can let foreign influence to contribute to the process of local politics for example the alleged Russian interference in 2016 US elections via social media ads and bots . My personal view is that even though Facebook is not legally obligated to uphold the first amendment, it obligated to do so for moral reasons, mostly due to the massive influencial power it wields. And I do strongly believe that freedom of speech is one of the main moral tenents in democratic societies, for many reasons like it allowing all views to be tested in open discourse. Edit after many replies, I think I have had my mind somewhat changed. Facebook not being a government entity but rather a public company means that as more right wing personalities get banned, the free market will take care of the problem and other facebook alternatives will become more popular. The problem will sort itself out.","conclusion":"If Facebook can ban right wing personalities for something as arbitrary as \"dangerous\" views, then it also has the right to let Russian nationals send ads to interfere with American politics."}
{"id":"35cea1c0-636e-41fc-bc5f-26eae6c3644a","argument":"As a gay teen, I believe that pride and other such events hurt LGBT people more than it helps them. What I mean by this is that the whole point of pride is to make a big deal about being gay or whatever you call yourself, to shout it loud and be proud. Except that's not what I, or most of my other gay friends actually want. We just want to be accepted into society as regular, everyday people. These events making a big deal about sexuality and acting like it's something to be proud of actively try to place us on a different level to straight people, which is the last thing I want TLDR Me and most of the other gay people I talk to just want to be treated like everyone else, and gay pride actively goes against that","conclusion":"Gay Pride Hurts LGBT People More Than It Helps Them"}
{"id":"0bd87c62-a71c-4062-9d92-a82b3063b196","argument":"So I haven't read much original work on this topic, I hope  will show me the best arguments. Afaik Searle's response to this is if the whole room understands chinese, then what if someone learns the whole program and does it in their head? They don't understand chinese. I think in that case it's fair to say that the system that understands chinese is contained inside the person's skin, but this doesn't correspond to the intuitive understanding of the person understands chinese , same as if the person had a computer with the program implanted in their chest.","conclusion":"the system response to the chinese room experiment is valid"}
{"id":"43b22072-5341-4375-9641-fcd8247cda02","argument":"I truly believe ALL class of drugs should be legalized as this could solve numerous drug related problems. Have a look at Portugal for example It became the first country to decriminalize the possession and consumption of all illicit substances in 2001. Since then the country's Drug use has declined among the 15 to 24 year old population, Drug induced deaths have decreased steeply and there has been a steady decline in the percentage of the population who have ever used a drug. For me personally the advantages of this would strongly outweigh the disadvantages. Interesting Guardian article on the topic Some statistics","conclusion":"All Drugs should be legalized."}
{"id":"118b83e9-3f68-4fe9-974f-4807b0cb7510","argument":"Everything about it is better The Story personally I believe the story of Shrek not only having to save his wife, unlike just the princess gives the story more depth to it. He has a more personal reason to go on this adventure, not just because of some land but because Fiona is the love of his life. The story also includes winning over your in laws, something many parents can relate to whilst watching it with their children. Additionally, Shreks journey from wishing he could be someone else to being happy with who he is sends a positive message to kids. The Jokes not just for kids but for adults too. Look no further than the Cops spoof Knights. Jokes about drugs and police brutality. Other iconic scenes include the Dinner with Shrek and his inlaws, the potion factory, the giant gingerbread man and the American Idol spoof. It's enough to keep the kids happy and make sure the parents don't want to blow their brains out The Characters the new characters presented in this movie elevate it to a whole other level. This movie is the introduction of the iconic Puss in Boots, who became so popular he got his own spin off. A deeper dive into Prince Charming and the introduction of other characters such as the Fairy Godmother who, unlike in children's books is the villain.","conclusion":"Shrek 2 is a better movie than Shrek 1"}
{"id":"b6bbb1a2-1893-4f95-9f73-31ce06013eaa","argument":"By considering gender as something which necessarily defines personality, society already is forcibly preventing naturally occurring expressions of identity.","conclusion":"The absence of gender constructions would enable people to enjoy a better overall quality of life."}
{"id":"333ddf2e-15ea-40a9-a201-4144a218a914","argument":"Some people choose not to have children due to the likelihood of passing down a fatal genetic disorder. This process would allow those people to have the child they want.","conclusion":"While harms and accidents are possible, they need to be balanced against the terrible and pre-existing prevalence of genetic diseases that cause harm in the present."}
{"id":"84a2e38f-a9a3-4079-a138-0fdc4da5c5d9","argument":"Every citizen of a democratic state where this took place would be aware that they are complicit with intentionally cruelly torturing people to death.","conclusion":"Painful executions can cause psychological damage to those taking part With an eye to their mental health, executions should not be painful."}
{"id":"9e50e090-0468-4694-8b8f-52d84724ec49","argument":"Of the 1,800 papers reviewed, only 225 were viable enough to analyze. It was concluded these studies were either poorly designed, or without a substantial amount of participants.","conclusion":"A large Australian study analyzing 1,800 homeopathic studies concluded there is no reliable evidence showing homeopathy is an effective method. pp. 24"}
{"id":"fc504c92-d79e-41d8-8c2f-5ffba2e13e00","argument":"Filthy Frank did quite a lot of nasty shit. He played with dead rats, and filmed a whole lot of pranks where he did some weird and disturbing things in his Pink Guy character. This is somewhat similar to walking around with a fish or harassing people with a tentacle, what Paul did. About things like tasering a dead rat, this is something that is also sounds right up FF's alley. While I agree that Logan did reeeeally questionable things the suicide forest is pretty much inexcusable , it seems like he still got a bit of double standard compared to how a loved youtuber like Filthy Frank is treated, at least considering the latest round of punishment.","conclusion":"Filthy Frank could do the same things Logan Paul did and not be hated for it"}
{"id":"00e18558-0391-4d4f-be5e-14673889c0cd","argument":"So this is probably due to some serious ignorance about what goes on in the financial industry, but it seems to me that trading on the stock market is basically just betting on horses, except those horses are represented by companies and when it goes wrong you don't send that horse to the glue factory instead, the economy collapses. By itself this fact doesn't really bother me too much. Many people have jobs that seem stupid to me, but my job probably seems stupid to others. What bothers me is that these people are being rewarded greatly for this activity, and they aren't really contributing to society. They are also glorified as job creators and productive citizens, but it's unclear how the paper shuffling they do helps anyone but themselves. I'm not going to accuse them of actively degrading society, because even I'm not liberal enough to believe it could be that simple, but I don't think they're bringing much to the table either. I mean, if we didn't have stock traders, what would be the downside? What would we suddenly be missing? I really want to be wrong about this, because thinking about it is quite upsetting. I live in New York, and every time I walk by a swanky apartment building I think what the fuck are all these people doing that is so much more valuable than what I do? Probably bankers and shit, shuffling paper and pretending to matter. This viewpoint seems childish, but I can't help but feel that way. Full disclosure I am a writer designer for a small game company, so my bias says that creating things contribution. It's a convenient viewpoint that makes me a hero and upper management a villain, which I can tell you, as a writer, makes a much better plot than what is probably a more nuanced truth. EDIT Some very compelling arguments have been made, and while I don't suddenly appreciate stock traders, I certainly don't think they are doing absolutely nothing for us. I also think that if I continue to respond we'll start spiraling off into a conversation about the utility and fairness of money itself, and that's a whole other thing. Thanks everyone.","conclusion":"It seems to me that the majority of \"finance\" is just high-stakes gambling, and that those people aren't contributing to society in a meaningful way."}
{"id":"5b4694c6-80a3-4998-8199-f4b5264cdace","argument":"First, I want to start off by saying that I am in the honors program at my university and think some of the privileges we get are fair but some are not at all necessary. For example, putting all honors students together in an honors school or at a specific dorm building secludes them from everyone else at the university. Honors students can meet other honors students in their classes especially when they are required to take honors courses and seminars. Doing well in school doesn't entitle you to get better housing, instead they should be put with everyone else so they can experience college life like everyone else. I'm not saying all honors students don't have a social life but making them all live together freshman year won't let them experience everything a college student should. Additionally, some colleges when hosting a career fair let only the honors students go into the fair first. This means they get to meet recruiters before anyone else does and everyone else can go inside the career fair an hour or half hour after they let the honors students in. Every student should be treated fairly and be given the same opportunity to find a job and network. Honors students already have a leg up by being able to say they are in an honors program and letting everyone in together is the right way to go since an honors student can mention they are in the program and it is also on their resume. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Honors students get too many privileges at certain schools"}
{"id":"ee0f8b11-1bd5-452c-8029-77428a2de159","argument":"Nizar Sakhnini. \"Dispossession and Ethnic Cleansing.\" Al-Awda - The Palestinian Right of Return Coalition. July 12th, 2004: \"Dispossession and Ethnic Cleansing were an Integral Part of Herzl's Colonial Project. His real intentions and full extent and scope of the colonial settlement that Herzl was after were reflected in the draft-agreement of The Jewish-Ottoman Land Company JOLC 'for the purpose of settling Palestine and Syria with Jews' that Herzl lobbied for approval from Sultan Abdulhameed in Istanbul in 1901. According to article I of the draft, the JOLC would be granted 'A special right to purchase large estates and small farms and to use them for agriculture, horticulture, forestry, and mining. On these areas the JOLC may build all installations, roads, bridges, buildings and houses, industrial and other facilities, which it considers appropriate. The JOLC is further entitled 'to drain and utilize swamps if there are any by planting or in any other way, to establish small and large settlements, and to settle Jews in them.' Article III gives the JOLC the right to deport the native populations, an act aiming at legitimizing ethnic cleansing, by granting \"The right to exchange economic enclaves of its territory, with the exception of the holy places or places already designated for worship. The owners shall receive plots of equal size and quality procured by it the JOLC in other provinces and territories of the Ottoman Empire.\"","conclusion":"Palestinians were forced to leave, have a right to return."}
{"id":"014ce397-0924-44b8-894b-918b9fe2b213","argument":"There are a total of 8 category of green card application. 1 through Family 2 through Employment 3 as a Special Immigrant 4 through Refugee or Asylee Status 5 for Human Trafficking and Crime Victims 6 for Victims of Abuse 7 through Other Categories 8 through Registry.","conclusion":"For legal immigrants, it takes years of process, stringent requirements and specific circumstance, and no guaranty of success. Now DACA is requesting a citizenship just because their parents chose to break the law?"}
{"id":"c6175950-7e71-42f8-b9b2-e512cbe81be7","argument":"By allowing her to be a British citizen and letting her return to the UK, she will have a chance at being de-radicalized.","conclusion":"The UK government failed to prevent the radicalization of a vulnerable child."}
{"id":"5956d1f7-38c4-4ae1-8bc5-a58228caf478","argument":"The stark differences between the pay gap among different countries like South Korea, 36.6% the US 17.91% or the UK 17.48%, compared to countries with a lower pay gap like New Zeeland 5.6% seem to indicate government policies may indeed have a profound effect.","conclusion":"Currently, traditional gender roles dictate which parent reduces work hours. Governments has some degree of power to make changes in gender roles related to the job market, including childcare."}
{"id":"2464a08e-07fe-4722-bb90-093cac269c82","argument":"This is something that has boggled my mine for some time now something I can't truly grasp. I was browsing through some experiences in r AskReddit. It was a question posted way back when which many responded to. To clarify, yes, I do believe children, male and female can be raped. I also believe its possible for a male to be raped by another male. Where I struggle is a male, full grown, raped by a woman. 'Being made to penetrate' how can a full grown man be forced to penetrate a woman? If a man really doesn't want to have sex, he isn't going to get hard. They say that men can get erections involuntary, an example is a morning wood. Yes, I understand but the morning wood goes away when he starts his daily routine such as using the restroom. So if the man is frighten and adrenaline hits the penis, he's hard. Got it. But this man is not powerless over his penis, he can still control it. He can choose to remain hard, that's where mental stimulation comes in. For example in one of the experiences I read, a Redditor talked about someone fondling him when he was around 14 or so but the person gave up because the Redditor didn't get hard. The Redditor wasn't interested in that person sexually and so didn't get an erection. Another example, I was tying up a lover of mine for some bondage sex. As I proceeded to tie him up, blind fold him, as I was about to sit on him, he got limp. Even upon me jacking him off, he didn't get hard because he wasn't into that sort of thing. So I sat on stomach thinking 'what the fuck, I can't do anything with this'. So I untied him. Another example is when I argued with an ex of not wanting to have bare back sex, he lost his erection, so nothing could be done. Here are three situations where the male was able to control his erection. Although one was a teen and two adults. Then there were experiences where the males didn't fight their attacker one said he was afraid to hurt her. Why would you be afraid to hurt someone who is hurting you especially if you can over power them easily? I suppose the two main points I'm trying to get at that makes it difficult for me to understand how a full grown man can be raped by a woman is him being able to over power her, and him completely refusing to control his erection. EDIT If the comment doesn't pertain to the post, or is sarcastic and snarky and adds no debate to change my view then I won't respond because obviously I didn't come here for that. EDIT Well this was fun EDIT I'm no longer responding shit if I would have known this whole discussion would have got me a fuck load of down votes I'd never post. In fact I'm thinking of just deleting the whole post. Although there's one user who'd I like to talk to privately about the matter we'll see.","conclusion":"I have a hard time believing a full grown man can be raped by a woman if he isn't drugged\/under the influence."}
{"id":"e56073fc-93af-4459-985d-1a8830a7940f","argument":"A study found that Men's restrooms and Women's restrooms have different bacterial composition. Unisex bathrooms could, therefore, have the potential to contain the worst kinds of bacteria from both male and female separated bathrooms.","conclusion":"Men and women, because of their different biological characteristics, each need a different type of bathroom. Gender-segregated bathrooms reflect and honour these differences."}
{"id":"889d8f62-654e-4da6-afd2-a755767e36f4","argument":"By virtue of being 'sex robots', creators have already robbed them of any attempt at autonomy: the robot is prohibited from deciding or determining a life of its own, but instead forced into a certain occupation with pre-ordained expectations.","conclusion":"Sex robots are fundamentally immoral and incapable of autonomy; they have no say in their usage."}
{"id":"8ca30684-5ff3-4b77-8183-7c3b3824d7c1","argument":"John Firman, the director of research at the International Association of Chiefs of Police, said a 2007 ABC article: \"We know cameras enhance that capacity but saying for sure that they reduced crime by 20 percent, that's another thing. Anecdotally, we know that they have had an impact.\"1","conclusion":"Benefits of crime cameras may not be reflected in crime rates."}
{"id":"57b335fa-58bf-4a73-9dbf-96eefaa67499","argument":"For example, Al-Ghazali who basically made the case that philosophy didn't work because it didn't show faith to be reasonable and failed to prove the existence of God.","conclusion":"This leaves out the not-so-great philosophers who reject logic and evidence to draw conclusion, in favor of their religion."}
{"id":"0938a7fc-ed61-4856-9413-72d8242e2feb","argument":"So i just watched his steve harvey video and he watched a youtube clip MISS UNIVERSE SPOILERS saying he likes steve harvey and then saying hes stupid for saying the wrong woman and then a shitty clip of the woman with that shitty trolololo song,and then went onto talking about how shitty steve harvey is at his job and then i just left. And then I watched his how to clean your gamer gear video,now he was watching some geraffe lying about how to clean your gamer gear I fucking hate that type of satire. Then he went into talk shit about how the guy found some new words or pronounced some stuff,and then he got a bowlcut woah,so funny . Then he poured some cheese all over his desk while eating,what a fucking disgusting piece of shit,and then a short montageparodie Then i skipped forward a bit to that mom part and when the fat guy made the impression of the mother which made me smile,and then i saw he bought a pc from cyberpowerpc,what a fucking idiot. So just please tell me why does reddit and pretty much the internet praise this shitty channel?","conclusion":"h3h3productions is just another shitty reaction channel."}
{"id":"cc43d393-f274-49b7-a260-457cf89057a6","argument":"The fact that the EU is still a monetary and no fiscal union is due to the vast differences considering economic policies between member states and proves these thereby. These differences will be a serious obstacle.","conclusion":"There are irreconcilable differences between EU member states that make the USE a nearly impossible endeavour."}
{"id":"3a398c33-e374-4c93-9858-c6d28d9ab83c","argument":"I believe that the extra party powers and duties of both the US Senate Majority Leader, and US Speaker of the House should be stripped from those positions. Two new positions should be created where appointees with an obligation to remain non partisan will assume those duties with all the powers that come with them. The powers include Setting the legislative calendar administering the oaths of new members house senate to order changing the rules of the house senate calling for votes and also appointing people to various committees. My reasoning First and foremost, the positions are too powerful to be allowed to be controlled by partisans. If a party is not in power, the speaker leader can basically block their legislation from ever coming to a vote single handledly. They can prevent presidential appointees from being voted upon. And they can change the rules of the senate or house to benefit their own party. While the politicians themselves can be expected to be partisan, the ability to be heard should not be decided by the party in power. Committees are extremely powerful entities, and appointment to those committees is almost always given to the party members who are most effective at raising money, and not to those with expertise in the subject, or a considerable stake held by their state district. Therefore we have heads of committees who know absolutely nothing about the subject of said committee as often as not. If the actual purpose of the committees is to gain an understanding of something to share it with the rest of the house senate, then it makes sense to appoint people most knowledgeable in those fields. A non partisan person could hear the reasoning why party members should be on the committee and decide if they are justified, declining those who are not. Government shutdowns are extremely damaging, and are the direct result of abuse of the leader positions. They are a halt of the democratic process, and legislators interested in ending shutdowns should be able to put their proposals to votes even if the majority party wants to shut down the government. At minimum, it will force legislator to vote and or debate, rather than letting them hide from the votes. Excluding the general obligation to work on their party's agenda, the duties of Speaker and Senate Leader can easily be handled in a non partisan manner. No aspect of the job's non party role requires any party affiliation to succeed. Like the Fed Chairman, someone who isn't just non affiliated, but who is dedicated to remaining non affiliated can do a better job of keeping the democratic process working. This is not a party specific rant. While the GOP currently is abusing the Senate Majority Leader position's power, in my state MA , the state government is modeled the same as the fed, and the Democrats abuse the same position there. My view isn't that the GOP can't be allowed to have that power, it's that no party can be allowed sole control of that power. And each abusive leader speaker who stretches their authority sets a worse precedent for their successor who will do the same and maybe stretch it a bit further. I'm sure any expert on US politics reading this can tell I'm not an expert. So maybe an expert can change my view . edit By staff i mean people appointed to the role who have the job description of being non partisan and enforcing fairness. Maybe they're appointed by the POTUS, or maybe they're an officer from the Treasury or SCOTUS. just not someone who is or works for a member of Congress. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The duties of the US Senate Majority Leader and Speaker of the House should be taken away and assigned to non-partisan staff"}
{"id":"fbee8422-77f4-45f2-a21c-2ff27039379d","argument":"Voters are unlikely to have reliable information on the character or competence of the person for which they are voting. In contrast, commissions can perform in depth investigations into a potential judge's past conduct.","conclusion":"Judges should be selected for their skills and experience in law, rather than their ability to run an effective election campaign."}
{"id":"3d65ed06-0f68-4afe-9452-d29baa35ba83","argument":"In ancient Assyria 1115 BC clothing was used to denote status. Respectable women, wives, widows, sacred prostitutes, concubines, and daughters of nobility had to appear in public veiled. Slave women, daughters of slaves, and common prostitutes were not to veil themselves. These customs persist in 21st century societies that believe that respectable women should keep their heads covered with a veil.","conclusion":"Religious rules on clothing are, at least in some instances, remnants of ancient social customs."}
{"id":"4556039c-c8f4-4b49-a538-0b23dc6cf106","argument":"The whole reason people go to university is because they believe it will increase their chances in getting a good job, but if universities can't make their students more employable then they are failing their job and the purpose of university is not being fulfilled.","conclusion":"People go to university because they believe it will help them get a job, if that's not true then the universities are failing the students"}
{"id":"f2a0f919-54af-4de6-bddc-04098f2f532c","argument":"This airplane was made in the 70s when anti aircraft artillery was still the primary method of short range air defense and IR seekers were still primitive enough to mistake the sun for aircraft. Today these aircraft are simply too vulnerable to man portable air defense systems like IGLAs. These are extremely portable and could be anywhere, does not give a warning when the aircraft is being targeted, and are very unlikely to be cleaned up by SEAD flights. Today the aircraft is mostly used against shepherds with AKs and RPGs but there are counter insurgency aircraft that are dedicated for this task and are much cheaper to operate. Simply put, there's nothing the A 10 can do that can't be done by helicopters, COIN aircraft, and multirole fighters.","conclusion":"The A-10 Warthog is obsolete and should have been retired long ago"}
{"id":"69995ec2-1728-4ec3-af00-1e2e88ecd894","argument":"Leaks make it difficult for diplomats and human intelligence operatives to do their jobs, potentially creating a more dangerous world","conclusion":"A level of secrecy is necessary for governments to do their job."}
{"id":"86198d30-3409-44a2-a7c7-3d31a2e585bb","argument":"It will be much cheaper to \"adapt\" to climate changes, than to \"fight\" climate change.","conclusion":"The money necessary to fight climate change can be used to better ends."}
{"id":"5d4c957c-f6a7-4a1b-bc42-79ad70adb67c","argument":"I've contemplated a lot lately whether or not to subscribe to some of the news outlets that I enjoy reading. With the advent of the internet, most of these publications have moved towards a subscription based model in order to read unlimited articles within their databases. What I've found however is that the subscription fees they are charging on a monthly basis does not coincide with the amount of relevant information I'm gaining not worth the bang for my buck in other words . I've learned that most of these publications actually allow you to avoid their paywalls with a simple google search of their headline due to their desire to have their articles archived by search engine algorithms . The counter argument of my subscription fee being used to cover the expenses, salaries, and overheads of the underlying institutions does not really take any hold with me as we are talking about the giants of the industries ie. NYT, WSJ, etc and the profits they make I'm sure are doing them extremely well these days. Why should I spend X amount of money to subscribe to Y publication if I'm not seeing the return on investment when I can subvert their subscription methods and read their articles anyways?","conclusion":"Paid news magazine subscriptions are not worth the subscription fees paid by readers NYT, WSJ, The Economist, etc"}
{"id":"b1d6a02d-0760-452f-a406-f0fc3e3c6fa3","argument":"TL DR I think that TL DRs should be at the top of posts so that you can determine if the post is interesting enough to read it. I've awarded two deltas. One because a TL DR at the top can contain spoilers, and one because of a great compromise by u dragoon7201. I believe that it should be standard on Reddit to put your TL DR at the top of the post instead of the bottom. My reasoning is that when skimming through posts, I don't want to have to scroll through a long post to see the TL DR and find out that it's an interesting gross hilarious story, then scroll all the way back up to read it. If the TL DR is at the top, then I know it is a long story, and I can read the summary to determine if I want to continue with the story. It seems like most people put the TL DR at the bottom, and by the time I see that, I've already read the story and the TL DR is worthless. Or, if I go looking for a TL DR at the bottom and I don't find one, I still have to scroll all the way back up the story to read it. It is a minor waste of my highly unimportant time So, Reddit. . Tell me why we collectively put our TL DRs at the bottom of our posts. Edit I've awarded a delta based on a TL DR being at the top could incur spoilers for the reader. Even though I still think overall for the way I use TL DRs it makes sense to put them at the top. However I'm learning that I don't always use TL DRs in the same way that many do. I use them to get a summary of a long post so I can determine if I want to read it, while others are using it after getting bored in the middle of the post and scrolling to the bottom. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"TL;DRs should be placed at the top of your posts"}
{"id":"fc8b58f1-2793-4d84-afad-51f4990db522","argument":"As the cell phones can't be used because of vibrations and other sounds and are quite useless when there is not much time to text a friend and\/or go online, getting rid of them does not stop cheating. Students have plenty more methods how to cheat without mobiles. Therefore, this ban wouldn't be helpful at all.","conclusion":"Not having cell phones in school does not really impede or stop cheating."}
{"id":"e5b9aab3-6920-4fde-8738-ce6bffbd6646","argument":"I'm writing this  after reading a report about universities in the Netherlands giving classes in English instead of Dutch because of globalization . Yes, Mandarin, Spanish and French may be kinda useful still especially the former two . Other Germanic languages non Anglophone Germanic countries have a very high English language proficiency. Either because they're wealthy, or because English is linguistically close to these languages. Also, some time ago, I saw a report showing that young Icelanders are slowly abandoning their country's language in favor of English. If the Netherlands, a major economy, is having this issue with their language, why wouldn't Iceland whose population is smaller than Wyoming's ? Languages in the UK and former colonies the Brits forced a quarter of the world to speak English, play cricket and be vassals of their royals. Even Hindi is becoming less and less useful. Why learn this language if you can learn English and speak to any educated person in India? This is the reason why almost nobody learns Javanese. Other languages the United States are the most powerful country in the foreseeable future. Children worldwide are taught English instead of Mandarin. Cinemas show superhero movies instead of wuxias. When China catches up and becomes the main superpower it will take a while, because China's growth slowed down , English will already be consolidated in everything. About countries other than China Portuguese? Brazil has a smaller GDP than California and is in a downfall and Portugal has only ten million people. Russian? Russia is part of the axis of evil not the one coined by Bush, but still and is decadent. Japanese and Korean? Japan and South Korea will attempt to speak English anyway and North Korea is pretty much isolated and antagonistic. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Maybe learning languages other than English is kinda pointless."}
{"id":"9223c010-15f4-40c4-8413-5641a696a30c","argument":"The European Court of Human Rights ruled against a couple who had a child born through surrogacy who was not genetically related to them. They were also denied the possibility to adopt the child and the baby spent two years in a children\u2019s home, with no official identity until given another name and birth certificate and placed with a foster family.","conclusion":"Surrogacy reinforces the notion that parental rights are just established by genetic links instead of by the actual act of parenting."}
{"id":"c508982b-a8c8-4e05-955f-d7a939d4b740","argument":"I've been seeing a few discussions lately about how people feel like reddit's been getting more racist in recent months. In every thread, someone mentions that the recent banning of racist subreddits is a major part of the problem, because racists no longer have their own corner of the site to post racist things, so they now post them all over reddit. This theory is never substantiated, but always upvoted. I feel that this conrainment theory is bullshit. Here's why 1 This is reddit. By definition, it's a collection of subreddits. Just today on the train, I browsed r fountainpens, r adviceanimals, r baseball, and r gunpla, among others. There was nothing keeping me from switching between many varied subreddits. 2 People's views don't change when they switch subreddits. A while back, I posted a picture of my work setup read shitty drugstore headphones plugged directly into my work computer on r headphones. There was a fountain pen in that picture, which someone commented on. We exchanged a couple posts about fountain pens, even though we weren't on r fountainpens. If I want to mention that I use fountain pens, I will. I'm not going to direct the person I'm talking to to a dedicated subreddit, because that's how conversations work. Similarly, if I was on r news, and I felt that a race realism copypasta would support a point I wanted to make, I would post it, because that's what I think. It doesn't matter that r news isn't a racism subreddit, if I think the fact that statistics don't lie, supports my argument, or I bet he dindunuffin is a funny comment to me, I'm going to post it. Because I don't change who I am based on what subreddit I'm looking at. 3 Echo chambers normalize behavior If you spent some time in Boston the last few months, you would have seen pretty much everyone supporting Tom Brady. Nearly everyone believed that he was innocent and would be let off, even as investigation reports, disciplinary action, and failed appeals rolled in. From the outside, you would think that these people were delusional. But the real crazy part is that they would be shocked that the evidence could be interpreted any differently than they interpreted it. Go on r nfl. The text messages in the Wells Report were damning unless you have Patriots flair. Then they don't definitively prove anything source texts proved nothing. Have Patriots flair. . But Patriots fans spent enough time around other Patriots fans, listening to only supportive outlets and hate listening to Felger and Mazz , so you have incidents like a group of three people in my office completely not understanding why a Bills fan isn't completely behind Brady. The point I'm trying to make is that being surrounded by people with a singular worldview makes you think everyone shares that worldview. Look at some of the more zealous redditors who support Bernie Sanders. They believe that the sample of people who support Bernie on reddit directly translates to supporters in real life. It works the same way with racist subreddits. If a decent chunk of posts on your front page are filled with abject racism, you might think your race realism post will go over better than it actually will, since such a large sample of people you encounter agree with it. You might argue that this is like how kids swear when they're with their friends, but code switch when they're around their parents, but I'd say that the level of anonymity on reddit blurs the lines between communities. 4 Having a place for people who want to talk about racism leads to racists spending more time on reddit. I want to be clear I do believe containment theory is a thing. I just don't believe it works on reddit. r lego is a great subreddit. I visit almost daily, and post fairly often. But they're not necessarily a lego news site. I often want a quick lego news update, specifically focusing on Star Wars sets, so I also check www.fbtb.com almost daily. What I don't do, however, is visit fbtb and r lego in the same sitting. It's a small inconvenience to open a browser and navigate to a different site, but it's enough to dissuade me, when I can get different reddit content quicker and easier. I can jump between r lego and r gunpla and enjoy myself just as much as if I checked fbtb, but I'm staying on reddit when I do that. Conversely, when I'm checking fbtb, I don't go to reddit and discuss things there. If people are posting to an off site community for racism, they're far less likely to then go to a different website to further comment on racism. How often do you see found the fatty now that FPH ers HFP on Voat? Rarely, if at all. They're not coming back to reddit still in the FPH mindset the way they would visit r askreddit still in the FPH mindset. But hey, if I though I knew everything, I wouldn't be posting here, right? Change my view.","conclusion":"\"Containment Theory\" on reddit is Bullshit."}
{"id":"ee474702-7884-439b-b128-481d2a21457b","argument":"Society needs to own up to the more negative aspects of history and accept it as part of the past. This means acknowledging the history of racism and the racially insensitive words used.","conclusion":"Twain's use of the N-word accurately depicts the culture and national conflict at the time. Changing that language would misrepresent history and the meaning of the text."}
{"id":"52f30206-948a-451f-86e5-ebd709d67dd3","argument":"This election season has once again shone a light on race and racism, but the more it gets discussed, the more the problem seems intractable and I think that's because of the language we use and the way the issue is framed. Presumption 1 nobody aside from the actual members of supremacist groups thinks they're a racist. Presumption 2 calling someone a racist is almost guaranteed to elicit a negative, defensive remark and not engage in any meaningful conversation. Presumption 3 saying believing doing a thing doesn't automatically change a persona. I.E. a smart person can do a stupid thing and that doesn't change that they're smart I go swimming a few times per summer but would hardly call myself a swimmer The point of all of this is that I feel we would be much better off if we stopped calling people racists, and instead focus on their racist words, actions, and beliefs as being racist. In other words, separate the people from the problem. Imagine Uncle Jerry is at Thanksgiving and makes a racist remark. Are you more likely to get Uncle Jerry to think twice about doing this if you call him a racist, or if you tell him you know Uncle Jerry, I know you're not a racist, but that remark you just made was pretty racist, and here's why If anyone can change my view, and convince me that calling people racists is the best way to get them to stop from saying and doing racist things or holding racist beliefs, I'm all ears or eyes, as it were . Thanks","conclusion":"Calling someone a \"racist\" is the fastest way to end the conversation and not change a single mind"}
{"id":"1dfb15da-c11e-40d6-8434-fb78de1c2718","argument":"Okay, so let me start off by saying that I have many friends with tattoos. I've seen a lot of tattoos on people, and a lot of times, people proudly display their tattoos. Rarely have I met someone who hides a tattoo or is shameful of one. So, obviously there's got to be a disconnect there, right? I've been told all my life that tattoos are simply bad ideas, yet no one seems to regret their choice. Personally, I'm trans, so I'm used to the idea of body modification, but for some reason, I can't seem to reconcile how tattoos fall under that umbrella. Anyway, my view is simply that tattoos are just not a good idea. Sure, they can hold serious symbolic meaning or importance to people, but a lot of the time, these meanings will fade away with time. I know many people who went on a life changing retreat who got tattoos of the symbol that's generally used on the retreat, but most of those people severely regretted their decision a few years later. The symbol held no meaning to their current life, and even though it was applicable when they got it, the feeling fizzled out after a few years. Inversely, get a tattoo of something that has little meaning, and it'd be cool for a year, maybe. But eventually, it would lose its luster. It wouldn't be cool anymore, it would just be that awkward tattoo of the triforce you decided to get inked on your shoulder. There's always the problem of landing a decent job with ink on you. I figure it depends on the places, but generally speaking, most places that would hire people with tattoos are either elusively art oriented or service level jobs. Not that I'm personally shooting for the stars here, but I feel like that's something to consider. I do hear a lot that tattoos tend to become less artistic and more tacky with age, and that most tattoos won't age well at all. I feel like this depends on the person, but I think as a general rule it's important to consider. And lastly, if you do regret your decision, they're difficult to remove, if not impossible considering the color of the ink. Again, I've heard it's possible, but extremely painful and not recommended most of the time. Well, Reddit, do your thing. Change my view","conclusion":"Tattoos are ultimately a bad idea."}
{"id":"35846dfc-7ead-4271-8ce7-e2ca1997a4b2","argument":"The Catholic church's practice of financial 'indulgences' which could be used to pay-off sin were widely abused","conclusion":"Corruption spread through some religions as their leaders sought financial and social gain."}
{"id":"7fd6b5dc-0d94-419f-8f5c-700a16b7f7ab","argument":"The decision to join the military should only ever be a voluntary one. Neither men nor women should be conscripted against their will, as this is a violation of our Constitutional rights.","conclusion":"Expanding military conscription to women will legitimize it, which is a bad thing."}
{"id":"6b4073fd-1280-4400-9682-08512caa5c28","argument":"When recruiting sex workers many pimps use courtship tactics exploiting a person's love for them. This makes sex workers more willing to do sex work after having been brought into emotional dependency Okun, p. 134","conclusion":"Many sex workers have been brainwashed and kept in isolation before being allowed to work. They are in no fair position to negotiate and empower themselves by this."}
{"id":"31312f40-8131-4fa4-91f2-ff95c6a280ab","argument":"In the U.S., 80% of abortions after the 21st week are due to birth defects. Abortions after 24 weeks are generally only for fetuses with such severe defects that they would not survive outside of the womb. This means that the abortions which are the hardest to receive are usually for people who have little choice in the matter and whose children never had a chance of survival.","conclusion":"In the U.S. there are only four doctors left who will perform third trimester abortions due to anti-abortion attacks. Conscientious objection allows Doctors to refuse to perform abortions for reasons of safety as well as religion."}
{"id":"0c6d5b4c-5ea9-466a-a90b-03e76fe96672","argument":"I read a lot about blame culture, rape culture, and just don't follow all of the logic around victim blaming. I think this means I'm a bad person, so I'm hoping someone can show me a point of view I'm missing. I have read a lot on the subject, including several  threads, but none have changed my views, only reinforced them. Try as I might, I can't see the logical fallacy in my argument. The article that triggered this  was about the celeb nude photo leaks while I agree with the tweet and the sentiment, I disagree with his argument. For example, he says Crimes are not a thing we deserve just because we exist in this world and yet, that's what people are saying here , but I don't think that's what rational people are saying at all. You don't deserve the crime, but you should be aware of the risk and take reasonable precautions. I would argue that, given similar hacks in the past, a high profile person storing incredibly private photos in a generic cloud service isn't taking reasonable precautions. Of course, that doesn't diminish the crime or make the victim morally wrong in any way, and they certainly had a right to expect them to remain private, but it is undeniable that they could have taken more steps to protect themselves in case that right was violated. My perspective in a nutshell There is a difference between moral and causal responsibility. They are indirectly related a victim can share in one without sharing in both. In other words you can say a victim shares causal blame without any moral blame. An increase in causal or moral blame for one party doesn't decrease the causal or moral blame for the other. Just because a victim has causal blame doesn't make them any less a victim, or the criminal any less culpable. It is clearly wrong when people get the two confused, like when a judge says a rape victim was asking for it by dressing provocatively although I'd argue dressing provocatively isn't a moral issue either, but the judge does, so that's getting off the point . In a perfect world we shouldn't have to be paranoid and take precautions, but we don't live in a perfect world, so it's perfectly reasonable to tell people to take precautions. There is always a chance of being a victim, it's all about taking reasonable precautions to reduce opportunities available to criminals. While it's absolutely not helpful to the victim to point out causal blame I told you so , it is reasonable in order to prevent future victims That's what you could do differently in the future . If a victim isn't aware of precautions, then obviously they share no causal blame but there is causal blame for the ones who do know the risks and precautions and were in a position to warn them. Some examples to illustrate my thoughts If you leave your keys in the front door and get burgled, the burglar is morally to blame, but you are in part causally to blame there were steps you could have taken which would have avoided the situation, and you and others should take them in the future. It doesn't make you morally wrong, or even slightly excuse the criminal's actions, but it was reasonable to expect you to have done more to reduce the opportunity which is partly why your insurance won't pay out . It's fine for someone to tell you not to get blind drunk if you're not with friends who will look out for your safety when you no longer can, because there are people out there who would take advantage of the opportunity to steal from you or rape you. An anti rape poster campaign aimed at women highlighting risks is acceptable, although reinforces societies misconceptions re rape culture, so should be accompanied by one aimed at men highlighting the reasons it is morally and criminally wrong. If the male posters don't not exist, that's where the outcry should be directed we can change society's attitudes to the acts, but at this point in time we can't eliminate them altogether. Those in power have a responsibility to inform those in danger, just as they do to change people's opinions. If someone gets blind drunk and is then raped, of course they weren't asking for it, of course they didn't deserve it, and of course they had a right to go out and not expect to be raped but they were naive and overlooked the dangers, and didn't take reasonable steps to ensure their own safety in a society where rape exists. Are they to blame? Causally, partly. IMO this in no way lessens their status as a victim or mitigates the crime of the rapist the crime is always inexcusable and unacceptable. I've always thought of myself as a good person who supports equality, and to me this seems like a reasonable rational logical train of thought but according to the internet's arguments around feminism and equality, this seems to put me on the side of the misogynist trolls, which is not where I want to be. Where have I gone wrong? Edit Thank you for all of your replies even if I haven't replied to them directly, I have read them. They are helping me to understand where I'm going wrong at this point, I'm thinking it's largely to do with my language causal blame , and blame in general, are very weighted words, and don't accurately convey what I really mean. It's also that the whole topic is full of grey areas what I'm really getting at is that if we can analyse past crimes to identify reasonable steps we can take to prevent future ones, we should do so but it is often difficult to do so without assigning blame to the victim, which I've always agreed shouldn't be done.","conclusion":"I think victims are not always entirely blameless"}
{"id":"d147406b-cef6-45f8-a16d-cd2ecf15d931","argument":"It is odd to regard their deaths as part of the calculus for the U.S. attempting to end the evil of slavery.","conclusion":"Roughly half the casualties of the Civil War occurred on the side of the Confederacy."}
{"id":"3bcabb1c-d36d-44a8-a752-cb457e59d92d","argument":"I am an Australian, we have fairly anti gun gun legislation. I believe that's a good thing. This whole mess had the possibility of bringing up gun control, self defence, duties of neighbourhood watch, responsibility in conflict, whether to prioritise punishment or reformation of deep seated issues. Instead the media, and then subsequently the people, decided it would be about Zimmerman. By far the least important in my opinion aspect of the case. And now all these protests about him. What could have been a catalyst for positive change is instead a verbal lynch mob against an ostensibly Not Guilty man.","conclusion":"bandwagon time I believe that the Zimmerman\/Trayvon case could have been incredibly important but was ruined due to focus on Zimmerman."}
{"id":"002a104a-dc06-4613-92fa-63453f9e2b8e","argument":"I'm a recent college graduate, so I've been encouraged to go to a few networking events, and I can never see them as anything more than shallow Machiavellism at best. They are all more or less the same, we go into some environment and everyone gives the same bullshit formalities and elevator speeches. The only real goal that people looking for jobs or advancement really have is putting themselves above the other people there. This usually seems to be done by exaggerating ones own achievements, putting on a charming, albeit deceptive facade, and stroking the egos of people who are higher up than you in hopes that you can advance your own means. For the people that are giving the jobs or advancements, you are essentially doing the opposite. They are picking through the candidates, trying to figure out who is lying, who is exaggerating, and who is being a brown noser. You are taking people and mainly just analyzing them for their pragmatic uses. I get that this is probably a necessary evil, but it seems so dark. So , because me being this cynical and avoiding networking completely is probably shooting myself in the foot isn't it?","conclusion":"Business networking is nothing more than a socially-acceptable, glorified version of Machiavellism"}
{"id":"bbdee604-ea0d-4778-8853-04122a671ff5","argument":"Not all speech is protected, so hate speech could become illegal if society could define it in the most concise manner.","conclusion":"Hate speech is too subjective to be defined, and thus should not be protected."}
{"id":"b4e45d92-d96e-4acc-ad00-b836e83e8495","argument":"The issue of automation is one that has come up ever more recently in my thoughts, America and the world are growing ever closer to the reality of true automation, but we are not prepared. The culture of hatred for those on welfare and the unemployed will cause riots and perhaps revolution when people have lost their jobs due to robots. Upper class individuals and politicians will be targets for a starving middle and lower class who will rip the country apart unless America is prepared for the reality of automation. If you do not know what automation is a good introduction would be this CGP Grey video","conclusion":"Automation will spell the end of U.S society"}
{"id":"1ecfa20c-fa89-4b38-a9ff-1fcf80b4c737","argument":"It looks badly on humanity through showing that we actively and unemotionally seek to kill life.","conclusion":"It is ethically questionable to drop large amounts of deadly toxins into a natural wilderness."}
{"id":"7efb8cc3-9019-48f4-9fa4-d30b26841f34","argument":"A concrete road was illegally built in the Aravali hills, and the government failed to do anything to stop it.","conclusion":"Under Modi's government there has been no evidence of trees being planted, while deforestation is being allowed to happen."}
{"id":"af20be11-f586-4e75-9fb3-34e94d7fea45","argument":"As much art was taken in the context of imperialism, colonialism, and war, this is a good opportunity to right old wrongs and finally start to settle old grievances.","conclusion":"This would be a source of national pride for the country as they are getting back what may have been previously stolen or looted from them."}
{"id":"d9b39e6d-21ca-4c17-a15f-dc9b85f3223e","argument":"This image is a gross oversimplification of my thoughts on the issue. Granted, I wasn't around during the period between the 1920's and 1970's so I have no direct experience with blacks during that time period, but it seems that once rap reared it's head in the 90's black culture seems entirely too focused on drugs, sex and violence. When my ex wife taught school in Baltimore City a major insult between students was teasing that you were acting white when trying to learn and behave, which then reinforced students to act more black which essentially emulated rap and hip hop culture talking about and performing sex acts, cursing, drugs, bad behavior, etc . Mind you, these were 13 year olds whose role models were almost exclusively rap artists. This is what my wife at the time told me when she came home from work crying, so this is my evidence for this belief. Personally, I feel that rap hip hop music, more often than not, sets an extremely bad example for youth of any people, but primarily blacks . I think a lot of black ills in America come directly from the violent, lackadaisical, sex drugs oriented nature present in rap music as it glorifies horrible behavior and poor role models. Thug life should not be a cool thing.","conclusion":"I think rap music hurts blacks in America."}
{"id":"063ef011-2724-49ee-a629-57a7d768ec4a","argument":"I suppose I should self disclose here since people often read arguments as personal.I'm not an especially clingy person myself, I like my own space, my own time and I have plenty of hobbies,interests and what not to keep me going.In terms of relationships, it is very important for me to have an emotional connection to a woman, to take part in rituals, whether that be watching a movie or get a pizza but I don't have a need to be invited to all her stuff nor to include her in all of my meetups that are outside her circle. Its not too much to say that in the culture, in novels, on TV, in sitcoms, in online discussions, in everyday conversation, the spectre of 'neediness' and wanting to 'not appear needy' is a constant companion. Everywhere you go people are advising you what contrived behaviours to perform to avoid looking needy, what life decisions to make to steer yourself away from being needy, or expressing bile and contempt in the direction of imaginary Neediness. Usually when I notice something like this, I sit with it and I try to determine the emotion that seeps through.For me there is both shame and fear. People are afraid of seeming needy.People seem a lot more afraid of appearing needy than actually being needy in my view. There is also a cultural dimension.Wanting to be,or to be seen to be, independent,autonomous,self directed,self managing etc. is a powerfully pushed narrative in The USA.Owing to the Dutch and English heritage of the US, this is not that surprising,not to mention the history of Capitalism and evangelicalism.It is, however, worth noting that the majority of the third world, and frankly, a lot of the world outside of The West has a very different approach to the relationship between the individual and society 2 or even 3 generations may live in the same abode, grandparents and parents may live with adult children. Multiple families might abide in the same domicile. In Japanese culture, in some ways, the opposite ideal adheres although being a provider is important being dependent and interdependent is important too. All of which is to say there ARE other solutions to the perceived issue of Neediness. We also need to consider the possibility that a lot of fronting is going on. 'The lady doth protest too much' as the old saying goes. We do have a 'masculine' culture that tends to look askance at vulnerability,dependency,leaning on others etc. but we never know how much this fear is justified because on a culture wide level it can be an untested assumption for many people, mainly reinforced by the self fulfilling prophecy of contempt for neediness. The next point is about capitalist consumerism in a culture that has bourgeois liberal schemas and gestalts deep within the discursive fabric. The homo economicus, the individual with their individual rational interests, unencumbered by 'irrational'drives further supports the war on needyness from a more intellectual level.It also works from a class dimension.The antipathy towards interpersonal emotional neediness is a great corollary to the socio political antipathy towards MATERIAL neediness that is a solid element of the ideology and class relations of The US in particular and The West more generally. I am not saying there are no down sides to needyness. There are downsides to everything. Being overly needy can lead some partners to become bored,frustrated or to feel that they put in more to the relationship than the other person does.There may be something to be gained by trying to stand on your own two feet, emotionally at least to become a more rounded person.Neediness can suck the spontaneity, fun and edge out of social situations.Although these are all downsides, they are all manageable and correctable and they are not the end of the world. We should not be afraid of neediness because we are all vulnerable human beings with needs.We are not perfect. You may be channeling your own need to deny your own needyness when you criticise other people for being needy though not by definition . Consider that we may learn a lot more about neediness by observing it, listening to it, exploring it, trying to understand it, being empathetic to it rather than treating it with this kind of social phobia that we normally apply.","conclusion":"The fear of Neediness is overwrought and a cultural phenomenon"}
{"id":"068d15b3-5b1c-4bf7-ae80-1000a0db2a80","argument":"That same money could just as easily be spent saving human lives, and thus in donating to animals you are choosing to save animal lives over human lives. This is immoral This POV also extends into donating to expensive harm reduction charities instead of ones that focus on life saving. For example a hospice that cares for children that might pay 100000 dollars for a few special beds, when an life can be saved by a 5 vaccine or mosquito net A potential flaw I\u2019ve identified in this reasoning is that maybe saving a life isn\u2019t the most valuable thing in some situation, though I haven\u2019t been able to concoct one. I\u2019m not married to this concept in any sense, I just haven\u2019t found a good counter argument yet. So yeah,  EDIT making this section if my response more obvious and tidying it a bit Another flaw is a that this reasoning also makes it immoral to spend money on yourself ever when that money could save lives in different hands For that example I guess give people a human nature inherent selfishness benefit of the doubt, making it at least fair or \u201cok\u201d to live in the comparative luxury that their nature drives them to. However, when it\u2019s just a matter of what website domain you type in before clicking donate I feel it\u2019s more justified to criticise those who don\u2019t spend their donations \u201ceffectively\u201d","conclusion":"It is immoral to donate to an animal charity instead of a human one"}
{"id":"410826e4-8e14-442a-bdf9-76ce1f9b1943","argument":"EDIT Hey everyone This has been a lot of fun, you guys are definitely a great trial by fire for philosophical arguments, proofs, and whatever else. Still feel free to respond, but if you do so PLEASE read the statement in its ENTIRETY and check the comments to avoid redundancy, because a lot of people had the same comments, which undoubtedly was at least in part my fault for being imprecise. Also please check out my edit at the bottom of the post, it includes an important classification. Also, in this edit, I am going to include what I would define as a deity. Note that this was not originally in the post and this is my fault entirely, those who argue with me on the basis of my definition in the comments did not have this portion and were therefore justified in their discussion, not just only arguing to some of my points. Here are the characteristics that, in my opinion, define a deity A. It must be an entity that is able to do the impossible B. It must specifically be able to create something out of nothing C. It must specifically be able to bring about its own existence special thanks to JSRambo for this suggestion, btw end of edit I have formulated a logical argument for the existence of a deity, and don't really see any possibility for error in it. Please read the whole thing if you are planning on commenting. I agree with the general postulation that the burden of proof lies on the theist, and look forward to your refutation of the logical conclusions reached in the following examination. I'd like to put forward two axioms that certainly we all can agree are apodictic. We Exist. Right Now is happening. If you were to contest these two points then we have no basis off of which to argue, and this discussion would shift into some sort of a debate in the realm of metaphysics, which I am not interested in. Given those two points, simple syllogism can bring us to the conclusion that there exists a deity. Next I would like to present two possibilities. Either A. The Universe had a beginning. or B. The Universe did not have a beginning and has therefore existed for eternity. A. The Universe that had a beginning. I would like to begin this examination with a simple illustration If I were to stand in a hypothetical room containing infinite space, holding a gun to the head of, say, Matt Damon, waiting to pull the trigger, but before doing so I had to ask the permission of another person, say, Scarlett Johansson. So I ask Scarlett Johansson Scarlett, can I shoot Matt Damon? and she responds Of course But first the person behind you must shoot him. It is at this point that I realize that there is a person behind me, who also has a gun pointing at Matt Damon's head. He also has to ask permission before pulling the trigger. Scarlett, he asks, can I shoot Matt? . Scarlett, true to form, replies just as before Of course But first the person behind you must shoot him. . The exercise repeats again and again and again with the same circumstances. Will I ever be able to shoot Matt Damon? Of course not Not unless someone at some point along the infinite chain of gun wielding Matt Damon haters' ability to pull the trigger is NOT dependent on someone behind him shooting first. End Illustration Let's discuss existence. You, me, mountains, baked beans, ears of corn, South America, the planet earth, et cetera all exist dependently. Meaning they derive their existence from something else. Mountains exist because of certain geological principles in place and the movement of tectonic plates, you exist because your parents copulated resulting in your conception, ears of corn exist because they were planted and harvested by a farmer, et cetera. Everything we see and experience derives its existence from something else, and therefore exists dependently. Unless there exists something which does not derive its existence from something else, the source of all other existing principles and objects, our existence and therefore aforementioned Axiom 1 we exist is impossible. Therefore, we are left asking what exists independently and derives its existence FROM ITSELF, a property of a deity. If such an object, item, or being does not exist, existence in and of itself is impossible because the aforementioned chain of dependent existence extends forever, without me ever shooting Matt Damon , or without us existing. Either I. There exists something that derives its existence from itself, a property of a deity or II. The Universe itself derives its existence from itself, which is a property of a deity. I. If you are to argue that something, separate and discrete from the Universe generates its own existence, you are assigning it the attributes of a deity and arguing that a deity exists. To simply put it, any item without divine attributes cannot generate it's own existence because for it to create itself, it must first exist, and if it already exists then it need not create itself, as the creation has already happened. This is a logical paradox in the observable scientific world, however for a deity who exists outside of space time it is not an impossibility, as the logic of the observable universe does not apply to a being outside of, separate and discrete from the observable Universe. II. If you were to argue that the Universe derives its existence from itself, you are arguing that the Universe has the attributes of a deity, and supporting my arguments for the reason presented above. Also, the Universe, bound by the laws of physics, cannot generate itself out of nothing, considering the fact that energy and matter is not created nor destroyed, but even if you were to contest the validity of that scientific principle, a self generating Universe would still be a paradoxical argument and therefore impossible for the reasons listed above. In conclusion for argument A, a Universe with a beginning is a logical impossibility, leaving only one remaining possibility, that is, possibility B The Universe is eternal. B. The Universe with no beginning The concept of the Eternal Universe can be disproven quite simply using both simple logic and the application of existing scientific principles. Technically speaking, only one proof is necessary to disprove the concept, but I will present both for redundancy's sake. Proof 1 Logic It is impossible for the universe to have existed eternally. A time space model reflecting that of a geometric ray is possible if there exists a God , meaning the Universe has definite starting point and continues forward for eternity, but a universe that has already existed for eternity creates a logical paradox that is impossible to avoid. If the Universe existed for an eternity before now, that means there was an infinite number of moments leading up to this one. If you have a job to complete with an infinite number of tasks, will you ever complete the job? Of course not, because the number of tasks literally does not cease. By the same token, if an infinite number of moments had to occur before this one, it is impossible for us to ever reach this moment, and that would mean that the aforementioned Axiom 2 'Right Now' is happening. is false. This is obviously not the case. Proof 2 The Second Law of Thermodynamics The applied Second Law of Thermodynamics simply states that each time energy is used it becomes less useable. No energy actually is destroyed, it simply reverts to less useable forms. For example, after burning a wood log all that remains is the ashes, burnt material, and heat that was released, the same net amount of energy, but nowhere near as useable as the original log. It is because of this law that we know that eventually, at some point in the distant, distant future, every star in every solar system in every galaxy in the universe will burn out, the same as our own, not because the energy is gone, but rather because the energy has reverted into a gaseous form that is not useable in the reactions necessary for a sun to exist. However, if the Universe existed eternally before now, then every star in the sky, including our own sun would have already burnt out. If it takes a finite amount of time for all energy in a system to transform into an unusable state, given an infinite amount of time, that transformation will occur, but we are aware of the fact that our sun still burns today and therefore we know, by a second proof, that the Universe is not eternal. In conclusion, let's summarize the logical processes that we went through in this argument and affirm that they are sound We recognized both that we exist and that right now is occurring. Next, we also recognized that the Universe either had a beginning or did not. We proved that, assuming it did have a beginning, said beginning is impossible without something that exists independently. We proved that said independently existing object could not be the Universe in and of itself using logic, because in the act of creating oneself something must already exist. Then we used both logic and existing scientific properties to eliminate the only other possibility, an eternal universe. I look forward to your responses, and seeing the flaws in my logic, not only for the purposes of changing my worldview, but even for the possibility of making my argument even stronger. EDIT And in light of my final comment there, making my argument stronger , I'd like to add this little qualifier to my statement here at the end, but don't want to doctor the original post and cause confusion. I've definitely noticed some key rhetorical weaknesses in what I wrote above thanks to your kind adjudication of my view, and I have an amendment clarification, and also another statement. 1 Clarification I'll just quote from a comment I responded to, asking why I'd define a Universe that generates itself as a deity gt Thanks for your comment. A lot of people have kind of misread what I wrote to mean something different, obviously my phrasing was very weak in that portion of the statement. What I meant was more so Unless the Universe is a deity in and of itself a Pantheistic god , it cannot derive its existence from itself. Effectively I meant, hey, its impossible for things to derive their existence from themselves, and also impossible for the Universe to exist forever, and that means that we must not exist ourselves, but we know that we exist, therefore, there must be something that exists eternally or derives its existence from itself a deity. Hopefully this clears up what I was saying. i deeply apologize and am frustrated with myself for allowing such imprecision in my original statement That is what I meant. Also, this is NOT the classic Bible Belt well gee, huck huck huck, not even atheists know how the dun yuNievurse got made, so must be Geezus Christe . Don't treat it as such. This is a logical proof stating that it is impossible for something existing naturally to generate it's own existence and its impossible for the Universe to exist eternally, and therefore the Universe must have been created by something that generates its own existence, a deity. Anyways, I look forward to seeing more responses from all of you","conclusion":"God is real, not the Christian God per se, but a God exists without any doubt"}
{"id":"dd2b40af-5b65-4924-8f92-756fded49ea0","argument":"A cup in the US is 236ml, except when it's a legal cup 240ml . Also except when it's supposed to be used with rice 180ml , or when it's to be used with coffee 177ml . God help you if you find the rare imperial cup 284ml . This unit fails at it's sole job of measuring specific amounts easily. The user has to know specifically which cup is referred to by context or previous knowledge. A recipe like add 3 cups chicken broth and 2 cups rice is exceptionally simple to misconstrue by a large amount. That's the difference between chicken rice soup and chicken burrito rice mix. Even when the measurements are close, I expect people are learning incorrectly. A cup of water out of your sink and a cup of broth out of a container are not the same amount, but most people will assume they are. I doubt it matters for cooking, but measurements from real life are the skill students bring to more professional settings. Preferring cups and it's vague system makes actual scientific measurement more foreign when it is needed or wanted. Cups also lead to other issues. If a recipe calls for 8oz of honey, most people will fill their measuring cup to the 1 cup line. It makes sense, because units are vague and it says 8oz right there on the cup. I'd wager yours does to. You'd ruin your recipe though. 8oz of honey is 12 fl oz. No one would make this mistake with other available, popular systems, because you would not confuse weight and volume measurements. Don't make that mistake in your chemistry class. Cups in the US sense are a terrible system of measurement, and unfortunately the one humans tend to learn primarily. We should move to another system, and possibly avoid being the last country on earth to do so.","conclusion":"Cups are terrible forms of measurement."}
{"id":"f6f9d589-07a5-4a93-a69f-f1dfe7287a7e","argument":", It's my belief that today, because of the strong correlation between special interest money and successful legislation in our government, we face a clear and serious threats to the security and future prosperity of the United States. Due to the effects of economic globalization and the development of global digital communications infrastructure, it is easier than ever for foreign adversaries or even allies to influence our national political process secretly and against the interests of the American public. And because political money is easy to hide and hard to track, particularly when talented foreign governments are involved, this can occur with or without the knowledge or even suspicion of the American officials who are subject to the influence. When the officials start out or become aware of the foreign influence, the natural temptation is to accept the money, and especially when no laws are broken, officials can become willing co conspirators out of fear of the ethical implications should the relationship later become publicized. If you disagree, I'd like to hear why so that hopefully my view can change to fit a less depressing set of facts Editor's note I apologize if my replies are a bit terse in this one, but I've had several posts removed lately under accusations that I was debating rather than trying to change my view or somesuch. So I'm going to endeavor to confine my comments. It's not what I consider the best practice, but in the interests of not reserving hours of my time for a  only to have the post unceremoniously deleted, I'm going to give it a shot. Cheers EDIT 1 Wow. Almost at the three hour mark and no takers? Have I found an issue to unite us all across our partisan divides?","conclusion":"In America circa 2016, the influence of money in politics threatens national security"}
{"id":"1cc4e65d-bc89-4db9-911a-125c25d59cf9","argument":"The right to immortality if not granted to all will lead to much more mortality than today around the power that will allow the few to live forever.","conclusion":"Endless lifespan would cause an even worse power of wealth."}
{"id":"e04f286d-3eef-44fe-adc3-8e59f92a6b65","argument":"Conventional soybean oil is found in many processed foods and used in restaurants. Studies conducted on mice suggest that genetically modified soybean oil is healthier than conventional soybean oil since it does not cause insulin resistance.","conclusion":"Pioneer is bringing to the market a brand of genetically engineered soybean called Plenish that the company says will produce a healthier oil, free of transfats."}
{"id":"c99cfc18-e1f4-44e0-af11-49c0e405036f","argument":"I miss the days when I could have an actual face to face or voice to voice conversation with someone. It seems a lot gets lost in translation using strictly text based communications. The other day, I called someone to try to get a more direct line of contact and they acted like it was the weirdest thing in the world. Like, I actually wanted them to spend five minutes talking to me? How strange. Unless people become better writers, it will only get worse. Short hand, emojis, etc. are just making things worse.","conclusion":"Texting and social media are killing first person communication."}
{"id":"10ec630b-c501-41c2-8f0e-73f7e4bf43e2","argument":"Firework usage can also pose risk to spectators. Professional events have to meet safety standards, unlike members of the general public who are not expected or able to control other members of the general public to ensure spectator safety during a firework display.","conclusion":"Given the high risk of danger involved with firework usage, they should not be a product available to members of the general public. By limiting their use to organised events, the government can ensure that usage is only by trained professionals."}
{"id":"651301fa-7fc0-4b33-aa58-a7fcd24cb2b6","argument":"YouTube choose what video is good and what video is bad for monetization but this selection has a lot of errors, I've made a plain update video and it's considered as bad.","conclusion":"The application of the policy is opaque and not equal for everyone."}
{"id":"05231a36-ac76-43d4-a798-91e501733a58","argument":"The reasons for this are There are millions of children without parents who need someone to take care of them. So if you have the means and the want to have a child, then you should adopt. the planet is facing overpopulation, and having children is not helping the problem. Just a note I do understand the want for people to be the true parent of someone, however I think that not helping a child when you have the means and the want is selfish. Alright guys, your turn, change my opinion. Any false logic or problems with my opinion?","conclusion":"I think that purposely having a child of your own instead of adopting is selfish."}
{"id":"b56a681f-5616-4189-a6a1-a671b8082ae1","argument":"I understand it's an excessively problematic opinion, so I'm looking forward to your responses. From my personal experience, the vast majority of websites peddling stuff like healing crystals, essential oils, herbal insertions, anti vaccinations, etc are blogs marketed towards women such as Foodbabe or Goop. Mothers' groups on Facebook are an absolute gold mine for this stuff as well, and demonstrate some truly problematic misunderstandings that could significantly harm their childrens' lives. Even something essentially harmless like astrology is generally found in the women's or lifestyle sections on Huffpost for example . I live in a trendy city and feminist bookstores are just FULL of the stuff as well. Are women just more likely to discuss and share this stuff? Is that sharing inherently harmful? Or is this just confirmation bias on my part? I'd appreciate any input y'all might have because this is seriously stressing me out","conclusion":"Women especially mothers are largely to blame for the rise of destructive pseudoscience."}
{"id":"458720e2-19a7-42de-a74c-da53fd8f4036","argument":"US studies have shown that incumbents are re-elected at disproportionately high rates, indicating an incumbency advantage. If applied to the UK election, the Conservatives would benefit from this advantage.","conclusion":"Going into this election, the Conservatives enjoy a number of political advantages."}
{"id":"f6a17709-79f9-4605-b9c8-fca2d8ab9d58","argument":"Being biologically different does not mean that we should perform certain roles according to our gender, especially if they are discriminatory.","conclusion":"Being different does not necessitate stereotyping, especially if those stereotypes are ultimately harmful."}
{"id":"f07b0ced-0d57-4f90-bd45-1ea3929f3c9e","argument":"University and academia as a whole have traditionally been a difficult, challenging endeavor for one to undertake. One's results on examinations can make or break chances for admission into a graduate program. The academic model is designed to weed out students to ensure only capable students can continue their post secondary education. Many universities now offer programs where students who have been diagnosed with anxiety or attention deficit disorders can apply for extra time on exams to accommodate for their disorders. This flexibility and inequality in exam taking distort the model in which only the strong survive. The new adaptive methods help to eliminate stress from students, which obviously leads to better examination results. Students who use this disability system to improve their grades are cheating the system and making it unfair for the average student. University is a spectacle of intellect, much as how the Olympics are a demonstration of athleticism. If an Olympic athlete has an injury which decreases their performance, there is no option for assistance an Olympic sprinter with a broken ankle does not get to shave off 20 seconds off their time. The Paralympics has been set up to accommodate those athletes who are incapacitated to some extent, allowing for a more level playing field in their event. If an athlete is injured in the Olympics, they either drop out or fight through the pain to get a result the same should be expected from students with anxiety disorders, they should be required to write the same exam as everyone else in the same time frame. As a society, we have gone soft on our children, expecting less of them and always being there to console them when they fail, shielding them from the harsh realities of adult life. In a competitive environment such as University, those who are less capable should learn to accept this and either try harder on exams and fight through the panic attacks or drop out of University and pursue another endeavor which is more fitting for their disabilities. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We would like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes do not change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"University students with anxiety should not be given special privileges when writing exams."}
{"id":"8cff8ba8-7cbb-4bc9-9552-81d1d3d404b2","argument":"For the record, I grew up in a small, conservative town and many of my relatives, regrettably, voted for Trump. I'm what some on the right might stereotype as a liberal coastal elite live in a coastal metropolis, have graduate degree, have worked in media, appreciate science and good grammar . Since the election, I've seen a subset of liberals many of my friends included go on to denounce all Trump supporters as insert pejorative here who should not be engaged with on any level because you can't reason with stupid I'm paraphrasing here, but you get the gist . This same group often mocks things like blue collar jobs, flyover states, agricultural work, and those without college degrees. To me, this perspective feeds the narrative promulgated by the political right RNC, Fox News, etc. of the Democratic Party liberals being out of touch elitist unable to help the common man. In my mind, it is crucial that we engage with Trump voters in a way that 1 makes them feel heard, and 2 addresses issues important to them. Mocking, ignoring, or calling Trump supporters names is counterproductive to the goal of electing progressives liberals dems into office. . edit point of clarification many seem to take my argument to mean the only way for democrats to win elections is to flip Trump voters because I say it is crucial that we engage them. I concede that this wording supports this conclusion, but what I mean to say is that it is simply very important that we engage with Trump supporters. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Supporters of President Trump should not be mocked or ignored if Democrats want to win elections"}
{"id":"ecbcd054-c34d-41ad-ae0c-cbc5f397754c","argument":"A 2014 RAND study identified 203 Pentagon policies that may contribute to stigma and need to be reviewed, but nothing has been done about them, in part, because they are not a big enough priority for the Pentagon.","conclusion":"There is an internal stigma against getting treatment for mental illness within the military."}
{"id":"a6fe1e6f-a94a-402a-9f7d-686d60f70ffc","argument":"First came the media's racebaiting, fanning the flames on both sides. Then the crocodile tears from everybody with an axe to grind, trying to make a martyr out of Trayvon and a villain out of Zimmerman. Now that the trial is over, I'm left with the impression that he didn't commit any crimes, and that people are claiming he got away with it to save face, rather than admit their racial bias and prejudice, the ignorance of their presumptions, and their complicity in instigating racial tension. By what shred of evidence did Zimmerman get away with murder and not legally defend himself?","conclusion":"Zimmerman did nothing wrong."}
{"id":"25696fa9-095c-4fe8-9121-5590144d6e7a","argument":"I've been taking many different types of anti depressants over the last 10 years, I read dozens of self help books about positive thinking, and recently started doing meditation, I still feel miserable, I always have been. It's not curable. For me it's comparable to having diabetes, it's not curable, you just have to live with it. I rarely leave my apartment, I have no friends and no girlfriend. I just live, but never enjoy anything. The only substance that makes me somewhat happy for a short period of time is alcohol. I wonder if there are people out there who are in a similar situation than me or can give a solution that I haven't tried yet.","conclusion":"If your brain chemistry is not right... Pills, self-help books, meditation, ... won't make any difference at all when you are clinically depressed"}
{"id":"a3a5b6ec-e356-4722-833e-054b169cb4e7","argument":"The results of predictive policing technology are used to inform a number of critical decisions that decide a person's entire future. It should not be pursued until it is certain that the technology is capable of making fair decisions.","conclusion":"Artificial intelligence is an imperfect technology, and its use for the purposes of predictive policing will lead to a variety of harms."}
{"id":"30e63afd-759e-41bd-9ef3-142cea747322","argument":"Hate is an emotion. If you prohibit some speech, based on the emotion and or thoughts of the one who spoke it, then you are suggesting that some thoughts or emotions should be illegal as well. This is a slippery slope best avoided by simply protecting all speech.","conclusion":"Since there is no widely-accepted definition of \"hate speech,\" this gives far too much leeway for the law to be selectively enforced according to people and speech that authorities just happen to dislike."}
{"id":"355dac65-30ab-4df6-9006-154f8ebb0f36","argument":"People are forced to pay attention to the protests of young people in a much more significant way when they are actively refusing to engage with their education and 'normal lives' due to their concerns about climate inaction by adults and governments.","conclusion":"The effect would have been different in this way: on weekends it would not have been a \"strike\"."}
{"id":"102e1171-a8dd-41d4-84b9-753a23560790","argument":"In today's society and economy, the only things required to elevate oneself are smart choices, hard work and a bit of luck. Handing out reparations for historical wrong doings to appease the entitlements of a minority is the \"soft bigotry of low expectations\".","conclusion":"The US has already taken actions and\/or changed in ways that deal sufficiently with its history with slavery."}
{"id":"20372939-69dc-466d-a478-ee0d91ab72ed","argument":"Religions are belief-systems that convey values based on narratives. They do not deal with any facts whatsoever.","conclusion":"There's not a good reason to assume religious arguments are factually true."}
{"id":"157c84b5-e9a4-451e-8f64-6a500c977465","argument":"The very first of the famous Twenty Four Thomistic Theses is: \u201cPotency and Act divide being in such a way that whatever is, is either pure act, or of necessity it is composed of potency and act as primary and intrinsic principles.\u201d","conclusion":"The distinction between act and potency is not merely semantic, but is a real feature of the world."}
{"id":"9106372c-5047-4dc8-b25f-ea3de080d15d","argument":"According to Article II of the US Constitution, the Electoral College only determines the President if a majority can be reached in the Electoral College. In cases of plurality, the President is elected by the Senate from the top 5 candidates. Assuming that the Founding Fathers foresaw there being more than 2 national parties, in which case America would primarily elect its Executive in much the same fashion that Parliaments elect Prime Ministers, except in cases of a large nation consensus.","conclusion":"The electoral college, as manifested in the US Constitution, is the perfect amalgam of republicanism and parliamentarianism with a check to not let either of the former override the will of an overwhelming majority of the popular vote."}
{"id":"b5c36384-c19a-4ade-b401-227ae9c15125","argument":"We could make a writing system and spelling that is easier to spell and read. It would be good for dyslexic people and others too.","conclusion":"We could take advantage of this occasion to create a better language."}
{"id":"3c23f075-8a19-4dd7-a2cb-157a9894b893","argument":"The Sykes\u2013Picot Agreement of 1915 between Britain and France is seen as a root cause of many sectarian conflicts that have plagued the Middle East ever since. It drew national borders without much regard to ethnic, sectarian and linguistic lines, thus paving the ground for conflict.","conclusion":"Some of the conflicts among and within Muslim countries can hardly be blamed on Islam; they are the result of colonial legacies, for example the drawing of borders by colonial powers without regard to the realities on the ground."}
{"id":"976255d3-b7c0-4400-8e93-8fe959cad72f","argument":"I believe it is okay to not have and not want friends. I'm really close to my boyfriend and my mom, and have one good online friend who I know for 10 years. We used to talk every day until about 2011 but as life went on for us both, it narrowed down to maybe 3 or 4 emails per month. I should say I'm totally cool with that. I don't usually talk about my personal things with anyone aside from those 3 people. I have no interest in meeting new people or forming friendships with those I know. I am not snobby ou douchey, I am actually quite friendly with everyone who wishes to speak to me, but I will often get bored and anxious to leave the conversation as soon as possible and then be on my own. I wish to change my view basically because my boyfriend keeps saying that this is not normal and is a problem I should take care of. I understand this may not be normal since it doesn't appear to be very common, but I believe that this is a personality trait like any other and should be viewed and respected as such. I think that having friends when you enjoy spending time with other people and or feel lonely without them is a healthy thing. I also think that for people who don't enjoy being around other people much or at all it is a burden to be forced to engage in this kind of interaction just for the sake of looking normal. The boyfriend says that when my mother or himself are not around anymore I will feel sorry I didn't make any friends, but I don't think that will make me regret not having friends because I think the bad aspects of friendship outweigh the good. By bad aspects I mean Having to hang out when I don't feel like it almost always or decline and feel bad after I have absolutely no intention of hurting others Having to talk about myself Having to engage in meaningless conversations about stuff I don't care about small talk in general Being noticed in general, as in when I get new shoes, new haircut etc. When I was younger I used to avoid showing up any different because I didn't want to talk about whatever change I made to my appearance. Maybe I should add that I moved cities a lot every two years average during my lifetime and I love the feeling of not being known by anyone and being left alone. These are pretty much all my reasons to hold my view. TL DR I see no reason why not having friends when you don't want them is bad. Change my view.","conclusion":"There is nothing wrong about not having nor wanting to have friends"}
{"id":"2c5d19d6-9dfb-4556-a55f-b21c918ade8d","argument":"This is an issue which has bothered me for years, as a mostly liberal leaning person with a penchant for contrarian case creating. So, I'll start off by saying that discriminating or demonstrating prejudice against someone for anything not pertinent whether it be their age, their gender, or their side in the Coke vs. Pepsi debate makes you a dick. However, I want this discussion to be focused on the legal level. I do welcome moral discussion on the importance centrality of gender or religion, though Age, race, and sex are immutable. They are simply fact. Your age is decided by your date of birth, your race is decided by your parentage of which you had no control , and sex is decided by your 23rd set of chromosomes. These are absolute. However, as a liberal who strongly believes in trans rights, I also find myself being less and less receptive of religion being above opinion in terms of grounds for discrimination under the law. Mistreating someone based on their opinion is commonplace and is unfortunately considered socially acceptable, and yet when this is done for religions especially Baptist Christians and moderate fundamental Muslims people lose their shit. Even though I am not anti Islam and am part of a country that openly welcomes Muslims, I will have to concede that a trend of being a dick to people who have double standards for men and women will almost necessarily result in high rates of dickery to moderate fundamental Muslims. However, I find myself considering identified gender as being closer and closer to religion and personal doctrine, especially given the recent shift to more than three genders which I have immense skepticism about . I do not deny that people experience different genders, but I can't really deny that people experience supernatural events God either people are free to experience even delusions or lies if they allow themselves to succumb to it. That's plainly a necessary privilege for a democracy. Anyway. I hope this gets things started. Let's get a good discussion going, and hopefully I change my view EDIT I had a discussion recently where I and another liberal friend realized that personality is something as central to our identity as religion, and is also something which involves a set of opinions then the expression of those opinions. If we follow the model that having any opinion should be protected from discrimination and then all non harmful expressions of those opinions should also be protected, then we would realize that not hiring someone because they're a loud, swearing asshole or because their religious affiliations lead them to act in a ethno supremacist or discriminatory way ex. limiting workplace freedoms for women is more than acceptable. Thoughts? EDIT 2 My current stance is that protections for LGBT and religious people would be a natural consequence of freedom of opinion and therefore doesn't need any protection beyond those for opinion. The former group has some biological factors going for it ex. homosexuality has convincing epigenetic explanations and transgenderism has been shown to be linked to certain mental health issues and pre birth conditions , so maybe it will eventually be shown to be a step or many steps above just opinion. But even if it isn't, it still should have every reasonable protection that a liberal society can give. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Religion and identified gender should be held at the same level of opinion, underneath age, race, and sex, in terms of perniciousness of discrimination."}
{"id":"fa99be47-1796-4b12-8497-de563a49a685","argument":"The primary argument for the metric system is that conversions are easy, because it is base 10. However, in everyday life and even most of STEM , metric is not base 10, it is base 1000. mg \u2192 g \u2192 kg ml \u2192 l mm \u2192 m \u2192 km cm is an exception, to be discussed shortly In STEM, the number of significant digits used is high commonly 3 ~ 6 , therefore base 1000 isn't an issue. In contrast, in everyday life or colloquially, the drive for simplification naturally reduces the number of significant digits. However, a base 1000 metric system enforces a requirement to use 2 ~ 3 significant digits, and frequently requires decimals significant digits to the left AND right of the decimal point eg 9.5 aka 9 and a half . In my mind, decimals are granted an additional penalty due to increased likelihood of error. In contrast, the imperial system is tuned to measurements commonly found in everyday life, with much smaller bases 2, 3, 4, 12 and only requires 1~2 significant digits usu 1 . More importantly, despite the numerous units, it is very difficult to remember communicate the wrong unit in the imperial system parity, error checking . Salt is measured in teaspoons, and less commonly tablespoons, but never in cups in everyday life . Water is measured in cups for direct consumption, quarts for soups and stews. Differentiation in height of adults is almost always in inches, and less commonly in feet. The fact that cm is commonly used over mm in everyday life whereas STEM routinely avoids cm, suggests that people using the metric system understand the value of smaller bases in everyday life , and thus have incorporated it the system. Cooking Examples Meats vegetables measured in quarter, half, 1, 2, etc pounds vs 100, 200, 300, 400, etc grams Liquid powdered seasonings measured in X teaspoons, Y tablespoons, Z Milk measured in cups vs XYZ ml People Height measured in X ft Y inches emphasis on inches, large mental differentiation between 5 and 6 ft and unlikely to be confused thus ~1.5 significant digits vs XYZ cm both Y and Z are important digits, X usually 1, 2 significant digits Weight measured in X stone Y lbs UK only, emphasis on stone 1.5 significant digits vs XYZ kg X is usually 0, 2.5 significant digits US system uses XYZ lbs X is important, and one of the few times imperial is inferior to metric Stuff Length Area Furniture measured in X ft or XY inches vs X.Y meters or more commonly XYZ cm Small items measured in X inches vs XY cm Misc Goo you squeeze eg toothpaste measured in XY fl oz vs XYZ ml. For sake of simplicity, inches count as one significant digit even though base 12 on a base 10 system requires two digits for 11 and 12 Stated Directly the imperial system's advantage is in its simplicity of communication while maintaining high parity error correction . Metric was developed in a science math first approach and thus is easy to learn and convert, but more tedious to remember and communicate. In contrast, imperial was developed and tuned for everyday life and is difficult to learn and convert, but easier to remember and communicate. Edit General Principle It is best to tailor measurement units to the specific circumstance object object class. In every day life, high precision is less important, so units leading to less significant digits are easier to use. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The Imperial System has a distinct advantages over Metric in everyday life outside of STEM, aka Metric isn't perfect"}
{"id":"37ac5c8d-a194-4d5b-ba81-882d921f20dd","argument":"Karl Marx attested the fact that in capitalism, what makes the money is the labour. It is those of the poor classes who provide the physical labour. The capitalist takes that labour and gives a wage. That wage is not equal to the amount of money made by the labour and that is how the capitalist makes their profit. This can be seen as nothing more and nothing less than exploitation. So whilst the capitalist can set a wage and exploit as many people as he wants, his profits are unlimited. What put him in this privileged position in the first place? The fact that he owned the equipment bought through previous wealth. So in his life time, the capitalist will continue to increase his profits whilst the labourers will earn the same set wage that the capitalist so decides. This is what is increasing the income gap between the rich and the poor.","conclusion":"It is those who do not work who reap the rewards from those who do"}
{"id":"c3ee9966-b5a4-48f0-ab29-6eef97e167f6","argument":"Internet companies, like all others, usually have a mission statement or a code of values that tells potential customers or investors what they believe in. If White Supremacists go against these values, then they have the right to take down their speech and deny them service.","conclusion":"Since they own their platforms, Internet companies have the right to decide who gets to publish on them, and who does not."}
{"id":"85f8d87b-1a96-485c-80ac-c23e05c17155","argument":"I am not saying you are not allowed to enjoy it, whether it is out of cult following, the over the top camp, or just because it is so bad it is good. But some people argue that they unironically like it, and think it is appropiate for children, and I can't agree. The movie has way too obvious dark and sexual humor and features themes not really kid friendly I got freaked out when that dude's sister died and then he lived like 200 years as a cat mmmkay , such as death by hanging and hinted pedophilia Besides that, the acting is terrible, and it is not funny, even by 90s kid tv movie standards Overall, terrible film, not meant for children, and not even intentionally funny or scary,  Again, not hating if you like it, I just think most people that do, do so just because of thick nostalgia goggles","conclusion":"Hocus Pocus is a terrible movie, and not kid friendly"}
{"id":"73861e28-0982-4e73-82e1-728f1bca788f","argument":"Love, to truly exist, must be given freely. It cannot be forced from someone. To permit love to exist, one must allow for it to be withheld.","conclusion":"Some goods may only be actualizable by allowing the possibility of evil."}
{"id":"47e40c13-990e-46b3-8ea4-e22488499f0a","argument":"Persistent Surveillance System PSS is a new ish form of aerial surveillance that has been through a trial run in Dayton, Ohio and a longer trial in Juarez, Mexico. A small airplane is loaded with an array of cameras and it flies overhead taking photos all the time. It gives the authorities a time lapse perspective of events taking place in the area under surveillance. So during the trial run in Dayton it helped police quickly apprehend a person who had committed a robbery by using its images to track a white truck leaving the scene of the robbery. It was that simple. There were also other notable successes, and I can imagine this technology becoming very useful to law enforcement. But the UCLA has raised objections because of privacy concerns. Although I agree with the UCLA most of the time, this time I think they're wrong. The technology is not used to look inside people's homes, it only captures what they're doing outside in the open, i.e. in public view. To ask for a restriction on thermal sensors, etc is sensible and I can get behind that. But they're against the idea as it is. Plus, there are cameras everywhere in public people are used to them. This stuff doesn't even capture faces, it's set up that way on purpose. I can't think of any significant reasons for pushing back against this system when the benefits are clearly tangible. Unlike the nebulous claims of the NSA and their ilk, this stuff works and it is shown to have worked. So what am I missing? Just a heads up Fussing about BIG BROTHER is not going to change my view, so please bring up specific concerns if they're related to privacy. Edit Delta awarded to u caw81 for pointing out that police abuse is insidious. Can't argue with that.","conclusion":"PSS is a good idea and should be implemented as widely as possible."}
{"id":"b033a991-c712-4b09-a985-3341d8a3e9f5","argument":"This just sounds to me like an example where the desire to protect the woman's right to choice and freedom has infringed on a man's natural rights. A man should know if his baby is being aborted. It has nothing to do with feminism, pro choice pro life whatever. It's just plain inhumane to allow the mother complete control over a subject that should be a partnership. I don't think anyone would protect the right of a mother to kill her child without letting the father know abortion is not so different. I cannot even imagine how this can be held acceptable. Is it maybe the idea that a man, when informed, can forcibly restrict the woman's decision to abort the baby? I feel as though, aside from cases of rape forced impregnation, the decision to have a child is a two party decision and both parties went into it knowing what it would entail. the idea also just cropped up in my head that maybe this is to allow the woman to cover up if she's cheating or not? I'm not sure I even want to go into that I will admit that I am unread and uninformed about this topic. So I'm willing to hear the arguments for it. Change my view.","conclusion":"I think it's ridiculous that a woman is allowed to abort a baby without informing the father."}
{"id":"889f4128-d117-43bb-96ef-c661bf51869d","argument":"Eggplants, fuck eggplants. First of all, the taste, God forbid the taste of this purple piece of shit. Whenever I try to eat it it makes me fucking vomit. Whatever type of cooking you do to this stupid vegetable the taste is disgusting. The only word I can describe to its taste is fucking shit . Second, the texture. This stupid vegetable goes soft the minute you put it warm water. And you eat it like its slimy shit. You are confused whether you should slurp and drink it or chew. My dad tried bathing slices of it on flour and deep fried them like onion rings. It improved its texture somehow but the taste is still horrible. Third, its nutrients. Like the eggplant is one of the least nutritious vegetables there is. What reason does someone have to eat this thing? Sure they may be cheap buy there are other even better alternatives. But they provide good amounts of fiber , Yeah like every other vegetable ever. Fourth, the name. Eggplant, egg fucking plant. How the fuck did an egg get to be a plant. The looks of this vegetable never resembled a fucking egg, from shape, smell,texture, or color. That's just fucking dumb, maybe name it more accurately like shitplant, to warn people on how disgusting this fruit is. I actually don't know if somebody can change my view on this, but I want you guys to try. I may be biased because I don't eat vegetables that much. But I really hate eggplants the first time I tried it. I can bear eating other vegetables except this piece of shit plant. Goodbye.","conclusion":"Eggplants are the worst vegetable and it should never be eaten by anyone."}
{"id":"bfb50e67-ea9a-421b-8317-28a50b0a7f58","argument":"Allows parties and candidates with like minded policies and philosophies to except preferences in order to increase their chances of winning.","conclusion":"Preferential voting is the most effective system for ensuring fair election outcomes."}
{"id":"f31bebbe-a77c-466f-8e21-3d5421a84a19","argument":"An even better analogy would be the number being divisible by some large finite number. Just as there are arguably infinite possible arrangements of matter within a space, there are infinite arrangements of matter within that space that include a life form. Therefore life represents a non-infinitesimal fraction of the possible arrangements of matter.","conclusion":"A better analogy would be the number 2 being present in a set of all numbers between 0 and infinity. An infinite universe means infinite combinations, permutations, and compositions of matter which in some instance will take the form of an alien."}
{"id":"e7be8d60-59d4-4f4c-b79a-48ec9f213c84","argument":"Morality is only meaningful in the context of behavior. If morality were objective, there could be moral and immoral behaviors without any creatures to behave morally or immorally, which is an oxymoron.","conclusion":"Morality derives from subjective sources, and is therefore itself subjective."}
{"id":"ad34e1d9-bd64-4535-a404-683a17822d88","argument":"Quite frequently I'll see comments to the effect that gay people are born that way, from people whose opinions I generally agree with. However, it rings false to me, and finding myself on the opposite side from most people on a topic I'm not an expert on makes me wonder if I might be wrong. The reasoning for my opinion is not religious I'm an atheist or based on homophobia I really don't care . It's based on three things. One, if sexual orientation is something that's innate at birth, then it's genetic, and any gene that makes you gay would be selected against extremely hard by evolution. A gene that makes it more likely, perhaps, but that's not the same as it being born in. Two, sexual orientation is something where the statistics vary pretty widely between different cultures. To name the most obvious example, ancient Greece was known for a lot of male homosexuality, whereas their descendants, not so much. This would seem to suggest that it's cultural, not genetic, and culture is only something you absorb after birth. Three, sexual preferences of any sort seem to be something that's picked up by imprinting in youth. What got me thinking down this path was once hearing that a fetish for rubber boots was fairly common in Britain and fairly rare elsewhere which makes perfect sense if you know anything about British climate . The same effect appears in Saudis thinking ankles are sexy while we think they're kind of boring, or even in the lady who wins at the slots after rubbing the machine rubbing it for good luck for the next thirty years. Humans learn a lot of things by association. As a result, my theory is that basically, whatever kids wind up associating with sex tends to be what they're into as adults. From what I can remember of what I thought of sex pre puberty, this seems to be true for me personally, and it seems more plausible than the from birth theory when looking at the data I'm familiar with. For clarity, I think that kids aren't born straight either, but that sexual preferences of any sort are a learned behaviour in childhood. I should note that I sort of get why the from birth theory has taken hold, because it provides a great way to fight the pray the gay away idiots, because there's a knee jerk reaction against the gays are converting our children theory instead of the more obvious reaction of Who cares? , because I was born this way makes a much better argument for gay rights than Some time when I was a kid, I guess I thought dudes were sexy? , and because we tend to be extremely reluctant as a society to put prepubescent children and sex into the same sentence for obvious reasons . But those are tactical considerations, not evidence. If it turns out I'm factually wrong, I'd love to hear it, because from birth is a vastly easier position to discuss than the one I currently hold. So please, change my view.","conclusion":"I don't think anybody is born gay."}
{"id":"558bdf9b-dd95-4f37-a301-64808abef2b9","argument":"In our current society, musicians often get very, very, very rich. Money is one of the prime motivators for making music. We risk losing a good portion of aspiring musicians if this motion was passed. We might also lose a good many listeners to music. If music was free, then surely, sooner or later, it's novelty would wear off and people would get tired of it? If music was free, people would perhaps treat it like they would treat natural scenery; like something not really of worth and merely there for our casual entertainment. Songwriters would perhaps also lack enthusiasm for their songs, giving the public audience exactly what music was worth free!","conclusion":"This may actually cause the music industry to die out"}
{"id":"92ff7985-53f3-4ecb-9729-a8def5a15f85","argument":"According to one study people in most of the world's largest countries said that their cities and areas were not good places for gays and lesbians to live.","conclusion":"Many countries not only prohibit LGBTQ+ spaces, but actively persecute citizens who identify as LGBTQ+."}
{"id":"2edeb72f-c7c8-4e14-bc5d-8e90ca201ee5","argument":"Under black feminist Edith Barksdale-Sloan, the National Committee of Household Employment organized a national association of domestic workers dedicated to \u201cwinning good wages and benefits, raising consciousness and educating consumers of domestic services.\u201d.","conclusion":"Women of color have been leaders in major national feminist organizations."}
{"id":"2a4fcf16-9453-4ae9-bc00-a42b529d1972","argument":"The majority of pro-independence votes would be clear and wider if a real referendum was presented, a referendum with a \"yes\" or \"no\" to became a new and independet state.","conclusion":"There is a majority of independentist parties on the Catalan parliament that defend a referendum."}
{"id":"356a217f-7636-413f-bd5a-17bc3315edb6","argument":"Now a days it is seen as the norm and even expected of parents to have children and then put them into some sort of daycare nanny situation so the parents can make more money so they can, in part pay said caregivers. I feel this is fundamentally wrong. I understand when people have a necessity and no other choice but I truly do not understand the mentality of, let's decide to have a child so they can spend 90 of their waking hours with someone else raising them. To me, if you aren't willing to commit a hundred percent to actively influencing and raising your child, then why are you having one to begin with? I realize in today's society it is expected but I just can't wrap my mind around it. Please reddit,  if you can but I truly feel a child should be looked after and raised by their parents and not some random minimum wage worker.","conclusion":"I truly believe that a young child should be cared for by their parent and not a daycare,"}
{"id":"64ad9457-068a-45be-88cb-db8a33b2165f","argument":"Before we start, I want to assure you all that I am aware of the unpleasantness that occurred in Seattle, but that was more than ten years ago 2004 2005 . And just because a couple of vampires committed some ugly murders does not mean that all vampires are murderers As a side note, there are already companies producing blood substitutes such as Tru Blood, so there is no issue of vampires viewing humans as a necessary food source. Grow up The majority of the American population and around the world, really, but I'm coming at this issue from an American POV is fairly comfortable in their social lives and hardly ever comes in contact with any vampires. Even if they do, most people don't recognize that they've met a vampire, because they have the ability to pass in mortal society. That ability to pass as human scares a lot of conservatives. A substantial portion of the voting public actually sees vampires as a threat to society just because they are vampires This is the very definition of discrimination. Some vampires may lash out occasionally because they are rejected by mortal society and are kept at arm's length, or even ostracized by their neighbors. Instead, we should embrace vampires and list them among the minority groups to whom we give legal protection. .","conclusion":"Vampires face unfair discrimination and should be accorded the status as a protected minority."}
{"id":"5a1358bb-1190-4d93-9b29-068b79aeb56d","argument":"Top freedom would allow for nipple stimulation in public to be considered an acceptable form of public display of affection or self manipulation, which could be seen as an indecent public sex act to some.","conclusion":"Women showing their nipples in public is detrimental to society as a whole."}
{"id":"482c751f-2b1c-4bcc-8e72-9ee5e25d1fb9","argument":"The populist electoral wave sweeping Europe and the the US are stark demonstrations that wealthy people and big business are not able to influence elections very much, no matter how much money they throw at politics. Big money was almost completely against both Trump and Brexit, yet they lost. Big money was spent lavishly on Trump's Republican primary competitors but Trump won anyway. Big money was even behind Clinton who spent far more than Trump , but she lost anyway. Brexit was the same story. The vast majority of UK business and elites were anti Brexit, yet the vote went against them. The League and 5 Star movements in Italy likewise get less business support than other parties, yet they are proving victorious at the polls. The narrative that it is Big Money that is corrupting democracy doesn't stand up to scrutiny. In fact, the focus on trying to stamp out Big Money in politics is a distraction from solving the real problems that are fueling populism. I don't claim to understand what is driving the growth in populism, but it's pretty clear that big business and the super wealthy aren't the culprits.","conclusion":"Recent populist electoral outcomes in the UK, US, Italy and Germany clearly demonstrate and big business and wealthy individuals have limited abilities to influence elections"}
{"id":"186a0ad2-87cc-4d55-9de9-0ad6dff8cd82","argument":"If you are opposed to people making categorical statements about race, it is contradictory to then identify as a racial category. This applies to all people, White Black etc. If you truly believe that it is harmful to categorize people based on racial distinctions, then referring to yourself as White, for example, goes against your claim. If you do feel compelled to identify as a racial category, such as Black people in the United States, then you are implying that you don't have issues with racial categorizations. Literally, if you are telling a person that racial categories are bad, but still consider your self a certain race, you are contradicting yourself. Lastly, if you are against negative things associated with a racial distinctions, like certain qualities that many Whites associate with Blackness, you are against the cultural associations of racial distinctions for a specific group of people, not racial categories in general.","conclusion":"If you are against Racial categorizations, But still identify as a member of a racialized group, you are contradicting yourself"}
{"id":"6b825940-e6f7-4956-b164-9e5aaff7e17f","argument":"A little anecdote, a day or so ago, my Government class had to stop everything we were working on, and listen to a speaker and participate in anti suicide activities. Now onto my argument, I just want my school to educate me. I honestly believe a schools only purpose is to make sure I can operate outside of schooling. I don\u2019t want to be told I\u2019m special. I just want to be prepared for college. I don\u2019t like spending my time listening to that I just wanted to learn about my Government. If someone is feeling suicidal they could seek education. But I don\u2019t need this, so why must I pay for it and waste the time in which I\u2019m supposed to be learning","conclusion":"Mandatory Suicide Awareness Programs Are A Waste Of My Money And Time"}
{"id":"49747dcd-eac3-4b4b-abf5-2a9225daefc5","argument":"Individual action is shaped by what norms and standards are set by society. By prohibiting suicide, society sends out a message that it is not an acceptable action. Legislation is a useful social tool, in that it proscribes the limits of individual action. And by failing to prohibit suicide, society fails to add the ultimate sanction of its laws into the balance of any decision whether or not to commit suicide. Many of those who have tried and failed to commit suicide never attempt it again. This suggests that many who kill themselves do so because of their particular short-term circumstances, perhaps while ill, suffering financial problems or under emotional stress, rather than through a considered and rational decision. More than 30% of suicides are precipitated by intimate partner problems, more than 10% by jobs problems and 10% by financial problems.1 Given this, even a small deterrent will help to save many lives that are currently wasted needlessly. 1 Canters for Disease Control and Prevention, \u2018Suicide: Data Sources\u2019, 26 August 2011,","conclusion":"Prohibiting suicide sends the message that it is not an acceptable behaviour"}
{"id":"ecb0ade0-57f7-4fea-8497-33d5a64e7059","argument":"Someone being fat doesn't directly affect a stranger's life. Yet, strangers on the internet get up in arms about extra adipose'd individuals and claim it's because they're worried about the impact that their image will have on society. In reality, these people are blanketing their insecurity by bullying overweight people. Their 'health focused' comments are 1 projections of their fears of becoming fat and 2 a revelation of their envious nature regarding confident fat people. 1 Fat is a negative quality in our society. It's associated with laziness, unattractiveness, lack of willpower, etc. Thus, people don't want to be fat and when they give strangers health tips or shame them for being fat, it's actually an extension of what they fear. They project their assumptions about being fat onto fat people. Then, by posting 'stop eating i'm just worried about your health and the American economy', they end up reinforcing the narrative that not fat good. This goes into my 2nd point. 2 Seeing fat people be confident or enjoy themselves makes people envious. When people see fatties who haven't internalized the negative qualities listed above, it throws off their binary world view fat bad unhappy and not fat good happy into disarray because now they have to contemplate this new idea that fat can good happy. This can be hard to accept for someone who spends their free time getting fit or someone who is genetically thin as they feel entitled to social poweress because not fat happy good in their society. There's a pang of jealousy when someone doesn't need to fit a certain standard to feel confident in their own jiggly skin. It becomes really easy to start tearing people down under the guise of looking out for their health and their actions are reinforced when like minded people upvote their comments. In conclusion, people want to think the best about themselves and using health fears as an excuse to bully people is an extension of that. It allows them to not think deeply about their feelings on fat people while simultaneously making them feel good about helping . In reality, they're just boosting their own ego at the expense of fat people. EXAMPLES of health ful comments seen on reddit notice the un ironic contradictions in some of the comments they're perfect examples of an attempt to be helpful but only ending up self serving People who feel good about being obese should also check their mental health. There's nothing wrong with being a little bigger than average. But I have a huge problem with morbidly obese people saying we should accept them and that it's okay to be fat. Heart disease isn't okay. Being unable to walk isn't okay. Type 2 diabetes isn't okay. Like, you should always treat them like human beings despite their size appearance. But on the topic of fat acceptance, it's a no from me. I'm a fit, athletic female. Though I do accept diversity in body shapes, I do not accept being fat at all. It is not healthy and can lead to health problems, and those who are fat and proud are very deludional. I do, however, applaude those who are trying to change their lifestyle and become healthy Delusional lunatics, who need to put down the god damn fork. I'm 30lbs over weight, was the pudgy kid in school. I'm not giving any of them a fucking pass. No one expects you to be Twiggy, but sniveling over something that's your own damn fault? Please. Normalizing plus size is not healthy, the US and Europe are already having an obesity crisis. Now, is shitting on those people something that should be done ? I don't know, but feeling shame about your lack of impulse is something that should be normal. Tbf I have nothing against fat people but that doesn\u2019t mean we should be embracing \u201cplus size\u201d unhealthiness as okay, simply because those who don\u2019t want to make good decisions for themselves don\u2019t want to feel bad about it. Being fat is a choice when you choose to do nothing about it. Sorry if any of you are actually twice the size of a normal person.","conclusion":"People who hate on fat acceptance are insecure bullies"}
{"id":"6a33e561-ea49-42c6-ab5c-54ffd458ebfa","argument":"People in the BDSM community often talk about being transported into a state of flow, this state is seen by psychologists as very similar to meditative states in mindfulness techniques.","conclusion":"Research supports the idea that BDSM enables participants to engage in mindfulness. Mindfulness is proven to have a large number of psychological benefits."}
{"id":"92fd4cfd-c9ef-40cb-933a-2b15f80433fa","argument":"It is easier for a company to structure outgoings and budget for the future; therefore, it means they are better placed to make fiscal deductions and plan for the future.","conclusion":"Businesses should pay people on a structured and distinct scale rather than allow employees to negotiate salaries."}
{"id":"4c05e2b9-6bca-4874-b103-707d753341b8","argument":"Traditional masculine traits assertiveness, rationality, aggressiveness are more highly valued and associated with prominent social roles. Traditional feminine traits nurture, sensitivity, intuitiveness are associated with submissiveness and less socially valued roles.","conclusion":"Characters in video games often reflects traditional gender roles. These roles, which are centered on conceptions of masculinity and femininity, are inherently sexist."}
{"id":"e1ae227c-9ffd-418a-b65d-9ef28d72f49b","argument":"So, DC is adding a museum to the Smithsonian and it is the African American History and Culture Museum. Normally, I'm all for adding museums and making more available for the public to see and providing resources for people to learn, but I don't think this museum is a good idea in its current form. Here's why There is currently an American History Museum and African American history is and should be strongly present in that museum. African American history is American history. If anything, they should be building a second American History museum and spreading the exhibits out so that everything is better incorporated and less segregated. Creating a separate museum seems divisive. Like saying, Here's American white people history, if you want to learn about other people who live here, they have separate museums. There are already a lot of museums. People who come to DC try to fit in as much as they can and the most popular museums are Natural History, Air and Space, and American History. People are probably going to pick only one history museum unless they're really into it. If the reason for the museum is to get more people to learn about black history and culture, it seems like it would be a better move to have that history spread out and incorporated into American History parts 1 and 2 possibly based on time periods . I understand if people may be unhappy that there isn't enough in the American History Museum about minorities or women, but the way to solve that isn't to create a separate museum. Creating a separate museum just intensifies feelings of separateness. So, I really want to believe the new museum will do more good than not, but it honestly seems like a bad idea to me. .","conclusion":"There shouldn't be a separate museum for African American history in the Smithsonian."}
{"id":"bf61134f-f241-4660-8070-b8736240d1d0","argument":"I recently saw a  about stealing from places like Target and Walmart, and it inspired me to write this one. I fully admit to being guilty of pirating programs specifically adobe programs for personal use, however I still find it odd how people say that piracy is morally justified. People argue that since the owner of the property let's narrow this down to just music, just to keep things simple is likley already rich, you're not really doing anything wrong, and may even imply that the owner has done something wrong by asking for your money in exchange for a product. My problem with this is that I find the whole Robbin Hood mentality rather pretentious. Wealthy people assuming they've acquired their wealth through both legal, and moral means have done nothing wrong, and don't deserve to be stolen from. It seems like people suddenly decide that money is the root of all evil , when it will save them a little money ironically . The other argument is that if a musician is worried about the money, they're doing it for the the wrong reason. The way I see it, It is not your place to tell people why they should or should not make music, or anything for that matter. If someone makes a product that you want, and then tries to sell it to you, that's just business. Of course, music is art, however if you aren't the one making it, you have no say in what happens to it. This is once again, a case of people temporality deciding that money is evil, so that they can save a few dollers. The bottom line is, its stealing. You are not entitled to anybody else's money.  Edit Just to clear up some confusion, what I'm really saying is that, the owner is rich enough already is not a valid excuse to refuse to pay for their content. I think Piracy is acceptable if you can't legally obtain something, or you already own a legal copy, but lost damaged it.","conclusion":"I believe that piracy of movies, music, software, etc. is never justified, no matter how rich the owners of the property may be."}
{"id":"600bca72-8313-4772-aa06-54cdd50842ee","argument":"Who are we to elect to determine what is or isn't hate speech? In the United states we have the right to speech, this is not to say that we can tell fire in a theater if there isn't a fire. Non platforming needs to stop, listen, question and discuss opposing views using critical thinking.","conclusion":"It is difficult to draw a clear line showing at which point an individual or organisation has proven to be too offensive to be allowed a platform to speak. This makes it very difficult to create an effective no-platforming policy that is not arbitrary."}
{"id":"a2bc4974-6304-4803-aac4-c9ba29a89cc4","argument":"Starfleet shields are stronger because antimatter power generation allows for a greater shield energy reserve than Rebel ships can use with just fusion.","conclusion":"The Federation's shields are vastly superior to those of the Rebel Alliance."}
{"id":"98667f69-c0dd-4998-9f83-038b5b257209","argument":"Firstly, economic profit is different from what people normally think of what profit means. Economic profit is typical profit income expenses minus opportunity costs. Let's assume that economic profit is calculated using the Economic Value Added formula EVA Net profit Capital Weighted Average Cost of Capital Weighted average cost of capital is essentially the cost of financing a company given the risks of the company not being able to pay the money back and the opportunity costs of not being able to invest in other companies. WACC is typically tied to interest rates. There are ways to calculate WACC. The tax taxes 95 of all economic value added. Let's also say that some of the tax is used for necessary government spending and the rest is divided amongst everyone equally. Economic profit arises as a result of market inefficiency. Specifically, it arises when a company's returns are higher than current market returns. This creates a potential for arbitrage. The tax essentially taxes this difference. Note that pretty much all arbitrage any way to get money with zero opportunity costs is economic profit. If I just happen to find 1000 on the street, that is economic profit. The reason it should be taxed is that I didn't really give up anything to take the money there is no reason for me to get it over anyone else. The same idea is behind taxing economic profits in general just because someone happened to exploit a market inefficiency doesn't mean they deserve the added money from it. This is not to say that there is no social value to economic profit. There certainly is some. For instance, if economic profit were taxed at 100 then there would be no incentive for me to pick up the 1000 off the street. There would also be no incentive for arbitrage, which is the primary market force that keeps prices aligned. However, if economic profit were taxed at 95 percent, the incentives to take actions that reduce price differences would still exist.","conclusion":"Economic Profit should be taxed at 95%"}
{"id":"1b026d90-cf3e-41ea-8aaf-51592fb0dab2","argument":"Burning large quantities of gasoline pollutes the air. Consuming large quantities of soda, alcohol, marijuana, and cigarettes increases public healthcare costs. Products like theses should come with a large sales tax. This will either decrease consumption or increase government revenue to offset the public costs. The added revenue can be used to either decrease other taxes or increase government spending I don\u2019t care which one, and I\u2019m not here to argue the relative merits. If your argument uses words or phrases like \u201celitist\u201d, \u201cpaternalistic\u201d, or \u201clegislating morality\u201d, please clarify what you mean. Is it \u201celitist\u201d, \u201cpaternalistic\u201d, or \u201clegislating morality\u201d to outlaw heroin, or enforce traffic laws? We already accept that the government can tell us never to do something, through the threat of possible jail time. Why can\u2019t the government tell us to do something in moderation, through a small financial disincentive?","conclusion":"There should be a high sales tax on any product that adversely affects the public."}
{"id":"cbded9b7-bda5-4cba-b8f2-5135ff630f99","argument":"When I was a little more naive I used to think that Taylor Nicole Dean actually cared about her animals, and could look after them properly. Part of me still wants to believe that but to be honest, she can\u2019t take care of all those animals. Three people couldn\u2019t take care of all those animals. I can\u2019t remember all of her pets, but here is a list of the ones that I do 3 hedgehogs pretty sure one died A mouse died Some rats now? According to her twitter 2 seahorses died An axolotl A betta fish and some others that are presumably dead A tank full of saltwater fish and a predator tank not sure if they\u2019re still alive or not? Two dragon skinks A blue tongued skink A giant lizard thing that I can\u2019t remember the name of Two crested geckos A pacman frog died A tarantula 10 I think? snakes Two cats Two dogs haven\u2019t seen either in ages, even the Doberman that she claimed was an emotional support dog","conclusion":"Taylor Nicole Dean YouTuber is an animal hoarder"}
{"id":"0ea26859-24a2-4cfa-9219-532bbc88a1e4","argument":"According to a 2014 Gallup survey an increase in wages correlates with the view that taxes are too high. 60% of those earning over $75,000 annually believed that taxes were too high.","conclusion":"Wealth inequality leads to political division, as wealthier individuals have less incentive to support progressive healthcare coverage for less wealthy citizens."}
{"id":"38b9483a-4b32-4a63-96dc-bf27462c6c70","argument":"Demanding that people be banned from hateful speech against any group is a bad idea. People are largely childish and want what they're told they can't have. For this reason, banned things always appeal to people, even if it is not good. However, if hateful people are given free reign to spout their hate, then they will ultimately show themselves unpalatable to the majority of people who just want to live and let live. As a matter of fact, I personally think that the desire to suppress hate speech is indicative of a worry that there may be too much truth in what the supposedly hateful people are saying. Personally, I believe that things that might be truly called hate speech are self defeating, and I think they are wrong. I believe that so much that I trust it to end itself with its own wrongness. Hate speech is not equal and opposite to morally correct and right ways of thinking. It will not win out if it is given free reign. It can only win when other evils like suppression of free speech come up and make it seem shiny and appealing. Edit a clarification. I am talking about the government banning it with criminal or otherwise legal repercussions. I am glad you asked. Businesses, real estate owners, etc. should be able to demand any kind of legal behavior or forbid any kind of non otherwise required behavior they want in their contractual agreements. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Allowing hateful speech is important because hateful people will prove themselves wrong but suppressing their speech will rally people to their cause"}
{"id":"f3111ffb-15e9-4f09-9ecd-8af452d629ba","argument":"Wakanda's advanced technological systems are all built using vibranium, and its wealth is due solely to its possession of valuable vibranium. It therefore has very little to offer the rest of the world apart from vibranium, so helping the rest of the world entails giving away vibranium.","conclusion":"If Wakanda opens itself up to the world and shares its technology, this necessarily involves giving other countries access to vibranium."}
{"id":"b30c5c59-5b54-4153-a4ce-c69e061e8f24","argument":"People can justify calling themselves vegan and get away with exploitation animals, just by saying that they are trying to reduce exploitation rather than actually doing it.","conclusion":"Because the focus is on reduction and not elimination, animal exploitation could still take place."}
{"id":"ed7b222d-9555-4606-b503-a6d306151cdc","argument":"The account of Iyad Al-Baghdadi a human rights activist, was misidentified as ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi","conclusion":"Overly aggressive action will result in some users being targeted without being members of terror organisations."}
{"id":"ad4e8ce2-ba71-436a-a8d9-1e10827f26e6","argument":"Party whips keep elected party members in line and limit their ability to vote autonomously and often in support of legislation proposed by the other party.","conclusion":"Parties, internally hammer out differences when finding a common agenda. This makes members used to give up on individual agendas."}
{"id":"a77ba268-cfda-489b-85fe-a67e6568234a","argument":"I'd prefer to believe in the absolute value of the human life, but I currently believe there are situations in which putting an end to one's life is in fact a rational thing to do instead of something to be strongly discouraged. Such things can be painful or debilitating physical or mental conditions, somehow endangering others' safety or wellbeing, having to serve a life sentence in prison or living in a very hostile society, and other similarly unfortunate circumstances in which the value of someone's life is not worth the harm or pain that living it will do to themselves or to others. Are there good counter arguments to this?","conclusion":"The rule \"suicide is never the answer\" has exceptions. !"}
{"id":"57c0ae07-58d5-4f17-93b2-9eb85377bfdd","argument":"A lot of people, when presented with facts about something they don't like, just call the other person an apologist and think they have won the argument. How is this even remotely ok, or even considered to be something you can say without pretty much saying I don't care about facts I already made up my mind and yes what you are saying is true but youre just an apologist. I'm going off of the dictionary definition of apologist a person who defends or supports something such as a religion, cause, or organization that is being criticized or attacked by other people To me, calling someone an apologist a lot of the time is saying You are correct and have facts to back it up but I don't want to agree with you and tell you that because I want to pretend I'm right. It just makes the person that says it seem like they don't care about facts. However, if the person is completely wrong then you should have no problem arguing with the actual truth instead of just claiming they're an apologist. It makes a fool out of both people to use the term in this case. Neither is actually that educated on the subject if one is wrong and the other is just saying LOL APOLOGISTS. A lot of this stuff comes out in things about genocides. Like All these Nazi apologists or something. You can argue the fact that yeah, the holocaust camps might have had a swimming pool, but they weren't for fun and hardly overshadow the horrors. Its a lot better of an argument than you're an apologist. But sometimes people are presented with tons of facts, and their view should be changed, but they say I don't want to hear from an apologist. I just see it as completely devoid of intellectual value, and even leaning towards the opposite of intellectual. Does it mean something I'm not understanding? I just don't see how its ok to mention that term, even if the person is completely wrong.","conclusion":"I think that the term \"apologists\" is completely devoid of any value in an argument."}
{"id":"2aa3327e-71b2-4335-884f-e1c46df56ff3","argument":"Surveys in Canada, Japan, Norway, the U.S. and the U.K. indicated that consumers want GM foods to be labeled, but an experimental test in North America showed that GM labels did not have a significant impact on consumer purchasing. If the idea is for information on labels to affect consumer behavior, the fact that it does not, raises the question, \"what's the point?\".","conclusion":"Labeling of GM foods has not shown to change consumer behavior."}
{"id":"a8617b9a-89ce-4702-91fa-64eb0687059c","argument":"People who love privacy criticize the prospect of the federal government monitoring their e mails, texts, phone conversations, etc. That's perfectly fine to believe. It's also perfectly fine to approve of what WikiLeaks does. However, it is hypocritical to approve of one and not the other. People who approve of government surveillance claim, I have nothing to hide, so what's the problem? Then those who approve of WikiLeaks bring up, If these e mails were hidden and had to be uncovered, there MUST be something bad in there Those who criticize government hacking of e mails are often those who approve of what WikiLeaks does, and I believe that approving of one and not the other is hypocritical. Change my view.","conclusion":"It is hypocritical for people to be disapprove of the government monitoring their e-mails, while approving of WikiLeaks and other sources that hack and reveal e-mails and such and vise versa."}
{"id":"90e64296-5e9b-4851-83ec-c28825d22e18","argument":"A Palestine that opposes Israel's right to exist puts Germany in a problematic position vis-a\u0300-vis its support for Palestine. In the word's of Angela Merkel her country has a \"special historical responsibility for Israel's security\" which \"will never be open to negotiation\".","conclusion":"By refusing to recognize Israel's right to exist, Palestine positions itself in opposition to many of its international supporters. This is inappropriate and egregious as the Palestinian economy and society are highly dependent on international support."}
{"id":"7c065430-a74e-42d8-b24b-eb028d45fe28","argument":"Convicted felons come from all walks of life. It is hard to imagine how one could appeal to them as a group.","conclusion":"Politicians usually make no dedicated effort to appeal to \"criminal populations\"."}
{"id":"d9ccc7c7-7f45-4cd6-ba6b-214b10865d2d","argument":"Sure, sexuality is a bell curve and if there are people with unusually higher libido than the other 99 of us, there must be people that fall naturally in the other end of the spectrum. But 1 in 10 people are gay, and you're ten times more likely to be one than to have fallen in that category. Also, I don't think anyone under 21 who self labels himself anything actually knows what he is talking about. Also, I understand society is highly sexualised it's okay to be virgin at 25, it's okay not to have found someone special for you at 30, it's okay not to like the people around you or to want to hang with them, it's okay to have a troubled past that you're working on or to have a physical abnormality that makes it hard for you to orgasm. But it's not okay to just give up on some fundamental human activity, as important as having friends, falling in love or enjoying food. I believe people who identify as assexual, who take pride on that, who seek other like minded people to justify it as a valid life choice are no different than groups that defend anorexia, bulimia, social anxiety or depression as a lifestyle just people with a treatable problem telling other people and themselves not to get help.","conclusion":"I believe the label Assexual is BS, that most people who describe themselves as such are most probably closeted gay or have some deeper issue, and that by identifying themselves as 'assexuals' they aren't helping themselves or others."}
{"id":"8b25f471-8ba5-48a5-81bd-2daf611a27ab","argument":"Recently urban exploration urbex for short has become a popular activity, especially gaining traction on social media sites and YouTube. Urbex, as a concept, is pretty cool to me and I would personally love to go and see some of the things these hobbyists are exploring. Unfortunately, it seems the monetization potential of running an urbex blog has pushed the legal boundaries of the experience. I get that it's a pretty grey area in the first place regarding what type of 'exploration' is happening and where exactly it is, but I've seen some videos recently that shifted my views on the subject. For reference, I'm referring to YouTube creators who frequently post 'police escape' videos and run ins with security such as this This guy definitely isn't the only one making these types of videos. Anytime YouTube suggests a video on this topic there's a variety of urbex ers who have channels with hundreds of thousands to millions of subscribers. There seems to be a general distaste for police and other types of security in those communities, and I'm not really a big pro police guy. The way the bloggers act dumb, fake turning off their cameras, try to cry out illegal police activity or sovereign citizenship should straight up be a fine able and jail able offence. It seems that most of they time they are banned from that area for X days or have a small citation written and nothing comes of it. I don't really get the purpose in promoting this kind of activity. Is it a problem with these douches I have and not true urbex? . gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Urban explorers who trespass are in the wrong."}
{"id":"a30b70a1-cbaf-4051-9ce8-bb1c5bf40425","argument":"There is reason to believe that Scientology may have been founded to provide financial gain for L.R. Hubbard.","conclusion":"Some religions appear to have been designed largely to accumulate wealth and status for their creators."}
{"id":"ada26237-f5af-4888-8c15-3cf8576d3f76","argument":"The signers of the Declaration of Independence were also considered traitors by the British. Having their statutes in public doesn't represent an insult to the British either.","conclusion":"In the case of treason, one could say the same of every American monument, so they are monuments honoring the betrayal of the British."}
{"id":"3e414dbd-0ef3-4f0d-b062-4dce75392c64","argument":"Quotas should only be used to increase representation for groups who are disadvantaged. Millennials are not disadvantaged.","conclusion":"It is illegitimate for Millennials to receive a representation quota."}
{"id":"1ceb36d2-2c5b-4003-8840-f1f87b8b86ee","argument":"The US has one of the highest rates of mass shootings in the Western world, and most commonly cited non-gun-related causes mental health or violent video game usage are consistent across First-World Countries.","conclusion":"Gun control measures are an effective way to limit the incidence and impact of mass shootings."}
{"id":"da7cd95b-c968-4270-accc-ba06f2b8866f","argument":"Demographic changes show that the economic growth comes at the price of the native ethnicity's own existence.","conclusion":"The economy can be recovered; a nation's people and culture cannot."}
{"id":"6609bcca-ad97-4aac-8b7c-aefc88e03f6b","argument":"Democracy over time, can reduce corruption, thereby encouraging investment, increasing economic growth, and preventing misuse of government budgets IMF, p. 3\/4","conclusion":"There is a significantly higher amount of corruption in non-democratic states."}
{"id":"e956f929-58f3-4fe1-a803-0a828dd6be85","argument":"State socialism would reduce intermediaries middle men and their prices of products would decrease since the state owned the means of production would be not-for-profit.","conclusion":"A Socialist economy would work better than a Capitalist economy."}
{"id":"07a3dbb4-5c7a-44fa-b0eb-a4aabb444fe6","argument":"Debuting on Dr. Phil, at age 13, with a command of AAVE African American Vernacular English and \u201cpenchant\u201d for alleged criminality, Danielle has parlayed her 15 minutes into a multi million dollar recording contract, where the depth of her talent is fully in focus and recognized. It\u2019s impossible that a true delinquent would have been capable of any facet of this effort. She clearly had a precocious conceptual vision that she realized to the fullest extent possible. My opinion could be changed if it could be demonstrated that her affect and success are easily attained or if it could be demonstrated that her behavior is too consistent with delinquency to be anything but.","conclusion":"Bhad Bhabie Danielle Bregoli is an avant-garde performance artist and highly deliberate marketing genius."}
{"id":"798c80b1-16d5-4a22-8493-7134d2e6abfc","argument":"EDIT A lot of people are assuming I mean drugs can be the only alternate solution that I'm thinking of. I mean we should focus on cheaper solutions that don't take years to create, drugs are just a possibility My mother has been training a service dog for ~6 months. One of the questions I asked was how long our dog would stay with the veteran he gets paired with. The answer Until the dog retires in ~10 years. I then asked some more questions and learned that the veteran continues to get another dog until he's either dead or in a nursing home something along those lines . This is because apparently that PTSD is something that wont ever go away according to the people that run the organization my mom is training the dog with . The reason they choose dogs is because it helps them cope with crowds and such. Note the word 'cope'. The dog is there to help them, not cure them. So lets look at the figures Each of the dogs they train costs ~ 20,000 to train. 18 24 months of training Lets low ball and assume average life is ~75 years. I can't really find a source on how long someone is usually in the military for, but so we can at least get a number we'll assume the reenlist once 6 years . My brother is in the army and has a three year contract. About six months of that was just basic AIT. A total of 66 months in where major PTSD can start to occur No one boot camp AIT ever had any melt downs or something to hint at PTSD, so I'm going to assume most PTSD cases occur once over seas . He also went in when he was 18, so he'll be ~23 when he comes out. Assuming he comes out with PTSD, he'll have 51.5 years until he hits 75 years old. 51.5 10 years time with the dog ~5 dogs. 5 dogs 20,000 100,000. Also the time taken for the dogs 5 dogs 18 or 24 months 7.5 years or 10 years to train. We are spending a lot of money just for a single veteran. Of course these numbers will vary, assuming they may die younger or enlist at an older age. These numbers are just a sense of how much these service dogs cost. So if we are spending so much money on single veteran, wouldn't it be better to figure out a better solution, such as a 'drug'? In the short run it would be expensive to create a drug to help push away the effects of PTSD when in public, but could be much cheaper than training thousands of dogs that will only be a temporary fix.","conclusion":"We shouldn't be training service dogs for PTSD, but rather focus on a cheaper and quicker solution."}
{"id":"e0a6855b-668d-433d-8518-e066d6bcf41f","argument":"Rather than state, national or federal interference each rally would be better observed and potentially dispersed by local law enforcement on a case by case basis, according to factors like size and aggression of said crowds.","conclusion":"It is better to challenge bad ideas than to simply ban the enunciation of them."}
{"id":"53e6d01b-c063-47b4-82ff-c8b8a0be3ee6","argument":"Corruption, as any phenomenon occurring in a system governed by institutions, is a result of the incentives individuals within the organization are subject to. By saying all politicians are the same people are miserably missing the point , by putting the focus on individuals rather than the institutions they work within. This enables a rabbit chase for the right person, that will never really yield any results. Even if we find an angel, it will ultimately be corrupted if the incentives are not right. Instead of wasting energy on finding the right leader to whom a cult of personality is owed we should focus on designing systems where even devils are forced to act right. Politicians are all the same and that's a good thing. If having a functioning government was all about finding the right person, we would be doomed, as we can hardly tell what the real motivations and ideas of a given candidate are. Edit thanks everyone for your replies, I will come back tmrw with more replies from my part.","conclusion":"People who say all politicians are the same\/corrupt don't understand how corruption works, and are part of the problem."}
{"id":"1923758b-e370-44aa-acd4-2a01ac6bf7c9","argument":"This thought has been inspired from recent events going on in the gaming community in recent years, and how men in the community need to clean up their act to accommodate the growing female population. I do admit video games can be sexist, but that is mostly because the medium has been funded by males for most of its lifetime and even today, a strong percentage of the loyal base is men, so there is going to be some bias in the gender department just because one gender is funding it, which is going to lead marketers to make content for them specifically. In mediums that are funded to entertain women, you see the exact same gender bias. Talk shows The View, Cosmo, Lifetime, and Female centered romantic movies all portray men as an exaggerated character or as a flat out stereotype. Then of course there is the near universal dumb husband, smart wife dynamic that shows up in nearly every family based sitcom. So my question is Why are women allowed to have female centered mediums with biased views on men, but men aren't? I never see anyone saying that we have to include more men in these things, or that we have to pay lip service to men in Cosmo so their feelings aren't hurt. Any male based medium can't seem to exist without the forced assimilation of women into it. I think it's perfectly fine that women have mediums that are suited to their specific needs, even if I don't like them personally, I don't call for them to change to fit my standards. Entertainment that is centered towards men should be viewed in the same way.","conclusion":"Men deserve an entertainment medium biased to their gender just like women do."}
{"id":"d1966006-e469-44bf-bc79-404d9e2e353e","argument":"The main reason to use blockchains is resilience against any kind of censorship. Everything else can be done more efficiently without blockchains. Censorship is important for currencies as well as any token or smart contract. Bitcoins PoW is the most proven mechanism to achieve this because it is expensive to gain a 51% majority and the Bitcoin design guarantees a very high number of validating network nodes. The blocksize fix to 1 MB supports this decentralization.","conclusion":"Blockchains that support highly secure digital currencies e.g. Bitcoin."}
{"id":"6edfe480-427c-4d2c-a785-3d3c4beceb34","argument":"I see Donald Trump as the only one who can help our country. Before I start I'm not a liberal basher, or a racist Trump supporter, although I believe he speaks his mind too much I feel he doesn't mean everything he says of course that doesn't matter to some . Ok, to begin, his tax plans will help the middle class, period, if one makes 50,000 will have NO income tax. Now, some may say Little revenue will come in due to lax of taxes. He also wants to end all wars and aid to countries. He is the only Republican who agrees Bush's wars were a mess and a huge waste of money and that's VERY good to know. Hillary's plans are similar to Obama's which will end up with the working class paying more in taxes. Trump also doesn't support TPP similar to NAFTA where Hillary does. It has costs Americans MANY jobs. He is dedicated to giving Americans the jobs they deserve and bringing them back which leads to my third point. Trump wants to decrease the corporate tax rate, which is second highest in the world next to Japan who also has one of the highest gdp to debt ration, likes us tisk tisk . Lowering this would allow corporations to pay their taxes as well as bring jobs back to America. My last point is that he really cares for the American people. He wants to enforce immigration laws for illegal aliens who get entitlements and wants law and order. To me, I don't how one can logically hate Trump for this. If you illegally cross Mexico, you get 15 years in prison, they also have borders for Guatemala, does that make them racists? NO Also, about the Syrian Refugees, we've funded Middle East countries, they need to take care of that mess, and when you bring up we created ISIS. understand it was for means of Democracy and now it's time for militias and countries we've funded to take care of this mess and bring our troops home. Hillary has lied about too many things, doesn't care for the working class and wants to raise taxes for them, has deals to ruin American jobs, under Federal investigation, etc I can go on if you'd like","conclusion":"Donald Trump has better plans for the American people"}
{"id":"86c17c50-c32a-49d6-98f0-6993969404ac","argument":"For users familiar with consumer-centric OS versions Mac, Windows, the learning curve for Linux may appear very steep. This may be due to trade-offs between generic usability and power user considerations. An unsophisticated user may need to self-educate before being able to use the more advanced features of the system.","conclusion":"Linux is not a user friendly operating system. Hence it cannot be the best."}
{"id":"022d855b-c521-440e-89a3-c270fb866113","argument":"When populist followers shout their support approval at a political rally they do not stand alone at the fore.","conclusion":"Hate speech allows the individual to hide behind when expressing violent opinions."}
{"id":"99160bb8-0a19-4c2c-b6d3-c2492c85c1c0","argument":"I have come to this sort of view recently but would like to hear arguments to challenge the view. Basically we all know the stats of inequality, for example that the top 1 of Americans have 40 of the nations wealth I think this is wrong. Around the world we have people starving, homeless people, people who can't afford basic needs or who need government help to afford to get by. Then you have the very rich, who have more wealth then they could ever know what to do with. A lot of the time the very wealthy have tax dodged or hidden their wealth offshore, so they are not contributing their fair share. Some people will also possibly argue they get their wealth themselves and they deserve it. That is not true, without an education, people to help you, good health, the right opportunities and connections, employees to work for you, people to provide what you need and so on, nobody could amass any wealth, and a large amount of the very wealthy inherited it, so they were born into this wealth, they did nothing then be born from the right people. I am intrigued to read your responses","conclusion":"It is immoral, unethical and possibly should be illegal to be very wealthy."}
{"id":"0ca84778-e767-40ae-bd0e-f2cc48c97588","argument":"To me, it's a much better choice to vote for a Republican president this election. It's not because I think a Republican president is a good thing, but it's because I want to be prepare for the future. Think about it, if we let the Republican take the throne now, it'll assure the victory for Democratic party in the later elections. Just like a Phoenix, we need to die to be reborn. Many Americans are still skeptical about changes and socialism. It's obvious we can't convince them with words alone, so we need to let action speak for us. Let the GOP win this time, and let the Republican president do as much damage as possible. By the time the next election comes, Americans will wake up and realize that they were wrong all the time, ensuring 100 victory for Democrats in the next 3 4 elections. If the Republican president drives this country to the ground, it's actually a good thing because for the following Democrat presidency, things will have nowhere to go but up and better. It's a risky move, but the reward is much better than having to put up with the status quo and accept to elect the centrist candidate like Hillary every election. So, let's take this gamble. Use this current presidential election and a few SCOTUS spots as the bet for a much, much better future. No pain, no game.","conclusion":"It's much better for the Democrats to vote for Republican this election"}
{"id":"a7b44c94-6bb0-48a5-8e9d-66e802037f77","argument":"I'm sure everyone is familiar with the Professional Smile. It's visible everywhere banks, restaurants, grocery stores, everywhere that requires face to face customer service. Although I like interacting with friendly staff I'm aware that a lot of them would not be smiling like a lunatic if it weren't for management. I think employees should be trained to be polite and generally respectful, but should not be required to flash an empty smile at every customer. Before anyone starts I've had jobs that required customer service and was very well liked by the customers I served. However, I wasn't always able to put on the Professional Smile. I thought it was a largely useless feature that customers could see through. And I could see them see through it when I tried. But the quality of service I provided was consistent, and quite good. Though I see no real value in it, I still see it everywhere. Please show me some good reasons for its existence, i.e.  Edit 1 Delta awarded to u forestfly1234 for showing me that smiling women make it more likely that male customers will make a purchase. Edit 2 Delta awarded to u MontiBurns for showing me that even a fake smile can improve the mood of the employee, which is definitely useful in customer service. D gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, DOWNVOTES DON'T CHANGE VIEWS If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I find the \"Professional Smile\" extremely annoying"}
{"id":"bef52378-5fef-43dc-a800-38d1ad90eb24","argument":"Given that sporting careers do not typically span a large amount of time, there is an incentive for administrators to prioritise short term performance over long term harms.","conclusion":"Coaches and clubs already coerce their athletes into taking PEDs. This would only get worse in a world where there were no consequences."}
{"id":"2b9c9bbe-1c2c-4d56-bca8-19f7e5798c6d","argument":"These issues are serious enough that the FBI reportedly began investigating one scam in particular wherein \"a woman poses as a groupie, slips a drug into an athlete's drink, goes to his room, he passes out, then she takes compromising photos of him -- sometimes with a male accomplice.\"","conclusion":"Although athletes' promiscuity is often the catalyst for disaster, the source clearly states that athletes need to beware of \"groupies poking holes in condoms\" and \"having hidden cameras\" - both of which are pathways to extortion\/blackmail."}
{"id":"8c448950-f802-4401-8d4a-a5d6289fc21a","argument":"I really don't understand why people get so irate over people like Pitbull, Justin Bieber and many others purely on their music. If you don't like the music then fine, deal with it just listen to your own. If you think it's not real music , again don't listen to it and listen to your own. If you think your favourite band or artist deserves the same type of fame and glory then just support them and get them out there, not rediscover faith in humanity when people boycott these artists etc. I listen to a lot of mainstream songs because they can be upbeat, remind me of good times etc. Before anyone says it, I'm not advocating their behaviour i.e. Bieber spitting on fans, but just their musical ability. I'm intrigued to see any other reasons people are against this form of music. Change My View Edit Okay well thanks everyone for posting comments and trying to . I wouldn't say it's changed my view exactly but I think I understand more. Will try to reply to all comments tomorrow. Goodnight","conclusion":"I think it's crazy and stupid that people are so against \"mainstream\" music. !"}
{"id":"698e1ce5-ac4b-40fc-97c4-47724abb6e4f","argument":"If a consumer is more involved in how their money spent on a service, the provider of the service will be more attuned to its quality and price.","conclusion":"The standard of healthcare provided is superior if it is provided by the market."}
{"id":"aab54111-2369-4810-bd69-c2d5ae75afdd","argument":"It is coherent and consistent to be perfectly good. It means, at least, that all actions performed by the perfectly good thing are morally permissible. All these concepts are clear and coherent, and being so for every action is not any more incoherent than doing good in some single action.","conclusion":"It is not contradictory to be all powerful, all knowing, and perfectly good. One is about ability to act, one is about ability to know, and one is about moral evaluation of actions or character."}
{"id":"07d76069-888d-43dc-bd15-11fb9c40ffff","argument":"I am in 8th grade Geometry and often find myself dosing off and asking myself when I will use any of this in the future. Just recently we learned how to find the area of sectors in circles and I couldn't think of a single way I could use this in the future. Math is my least favorite subject even though I'm quite a good student. Part of the reason is that I get bored so easily, and I think this could be prevented if someone could tell me how I will use this in the future. I have brought this up to my parents before and so far what I have noticed is that the only use multiplication, division, and occasionally slightly more complex problems that you can easily Google","conclusion":"I will never use any math in the future besides basic multiplication, division, and properties."}
{"id":"b1a77f76-6bc1-40ef-9e00-ac0dfe37d8e7","argument":"If you are one of these neo nazi's that have been getting tons of exposure here on Reddit through various hate subs and occasionally on the news whenever they commit random acts of terrorism, then I think that you should learn whatever your native language is and do what it takes to become a citizen of that place. The rest of us white people acknowledge that we are immigrants and embrace living in a peaceful multi cultural society. I shouldn't have to argue that segregation is wrong but I will go one step further and say that racism nationalism should not be tolerated. I have learned a few things in history that stuck out over the years. Atrocities are remembered for 1000 years. The atrocities committed to create this country do not need to be forgotten white washed if I may and the first step towards peace is healing. An important part of healing is forgiveness and an important part of forgiveness is acknowledging what went wrong. Now now, I know you are going to say that you shouldn't have to be made to feel guilty for the sins of the past and I agree. That doesn't mean that you can't participate in the healing process that needs to happen. It's not hard either. Simply treat people that are different the way you would like to be treated. Why is that so hard? What is so fun about harboring hatred? I will be the first to admit that these people probably need a hug. If you are wondering who exactly I am talking about go take a peek in one of their sub reddits. It's nauseating. So to clarify I think that White Segregationists should be the first to leave the United States if they can't learn to give all people the peace and respect that they expect. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"If you identify as a \"White Nationalist\" or as a member of \"the Alt-Right,\" etc..., you should leave the United States and go back to where you came from because very few people in this country are not immigrants."}
{"id":"cb49d9fe-de13-4c8f-9f23-892e920529cc","argument":"The pink for girls\/ blue for boys script in the Western world, for instance, is fairly new at least until 1918 pink was considered a more \"decisive\" color, i.e. better suited for boys. In the 1940s customer preferences had started to change and retailers marketed more pink clothing for girls; it took until the heightened consumerism of the 1980s and a subsequent hype in individual merchandise for the color to be firmly established as \"girly\".","conclusion":"Gender scripts are developed to teach people how to portray a particular gender. For example, from a young age little girls are exposed to princesses and the colour pink as things they should like through TV, the media, and in stores."}
{"id":"4a3215b1-fdd9-44f0-bb5e-962a46a90529","argument":"Power over slaves allows us to make runaway slaves do what they otherwise might not want to do.","conclusion":"We will have the power over life and death for runaway slaves."}
{"id":"a816023c-b542-4503-84a7-37848363249e","argument":"A single or minority number of owners who possess more than 50% of the equity interest can not only control the decisions made by the company, but also often make these decisions without even notifying workers or other equity holders.","conclusion":"Currently only those that hold a significant amount of equity ownership have control over the political power in a company."}
{"id":"2262337b-ac8c-412c-b60c-5083e3f4cdd0","argument":"There is no such thing as a rational system that proves the truthfulness of its prior beliefs, premises, or axioms. One simply has to suppose they are true, or else rely on something external to logic for their proof. See Godel's Incompleteness Theorems","conclusion":"Scientific evidence does not reveal all truth. There are however other methods, like inference."}
{"id":"15eabbc7-860e-48ed-83cb-98c0d89a20e4","argument":"My boyfriend and I got into an argument about whether it\u2019s better to live in a house or a high rise apartment condo. I personally think living in a house is 100x better than living in an apartment condo in a big city. Instead of being ignorant, I want to try to understand his view. We are both from a small town and have grown up living in houses. To me, when I try to imagine life in an apartment condo, I think of theses problems The parking. If you own a car you have to park it on the street or in a parking building. That makes your car more likely to be susceptible to vandalism or damage, right? How close people are to you. There\u2019s only a thin wall separating you from your living space and a complete stranger. I don\u2019t want to hear people talking or yelling at each other when I\u2019m relaxing. And how awkward would it be to have to confront them about it? How small they are. Houses vary in size, but it seems that apartments condos have a limit. Even if you do own a small house, you can always add more to it or change it around inside. With apartments condos, there\u2019s no room for adding or removing anything. There\u2019s barely any windows. I am a huge fan of natural lighting, and to think about living in a place where there\u2019s only windows on one wall makes me sad. I\u2019m sure most apartments condos have very large windows on one side, but you probably can\u2019t open them, or people can see through them easily because they are so large. Crime is more likely. I feel like if you\u2019re living in a big city, you\u2019re more likely to be involved in an accident or a bad situation. How easy would it be for a gunman to just take an elevator up to some floor and shoot everyone that lives there? How would the people escape? These are just the main problems I can think of. I\u2019m open to discussion and facts about the reality of living in an apartment condo, so please share. I know he has his mind set on living in one someday and I just cannot agree.","conclusion":"Owning a house is better than owning a high rise apartment\/condo."}
{"id":"d20c4a48-64f5-4c18-8e83-17da52b4ec1f","argument":"I live in two social worlds. I'm a young, liberal working in the arts and I'm a passionate skeptic. My artsy friends are largely terrified of GMOs for totally irrational reasons based on urban legends and poor representations of actual incidents. In the skeptical communities I participate in though, any caution about GMOs is mocked and derided as anti science. Reading available studies, I have to concede that the GMO crops on the market seem fairly well studied and the specific risks that critics point to are largely without merit. However I believe in the law of unintended consequences. I program and I build and I know that in complex systems, making very novel changes can have effects on a system very difficult to predict. When we started using DDT, we had no idea that it would cause bird's eggshells to thin, damaging the populations. We're not that far away from a time when doctors would recommend smoking for weight loss. Look at BPA. It was used in plastics since the 50s, and it took almost 50 years for scientists to begin to suspect that it could have some adverse health and environmental effects. And we still don't have a fully clear idea of what level of risk is involved. A lot of supporters of GMOs like to say that we've always been modifying organisms, so there is no difference between, GMOs and traditional crops. I don't buy that. It's a difference of degree and type. Back to the law of unintended consequences, scale and speed of changes makes a difference. We've always been burning carbon, since we started making fire, but the scale in which we burn carbon in power plants and vehicles is vastly different and has vastly different effects. We probably wouldn't have too much climate change from a bunch of smallish campfires. Again, I don't think many, if any of the particular threats activists point to have merit, and I personally have no problem consuming GMO produce. But I think changes on a certain scale represent an unknown, novel risk that consumers have a right to manage on their own. Convince me I'm wrong and that those calling for labelling are unjustified.","conclusion":"I think labeling of GMOs is a reasonable step to allow consumers to manage their own risk."}
{"id":"c38728d6-44f1-4f04-bdad-72734551b777","argument":"Facebook has open-ended community standards and a reporting system that makes the rules and their application vague.","conclusion":"Neither Facebook nor Twitter have clear rules for what is acceptable content and what is not."}
{"id":"78afcacd-ce2c-44dc-9b05-04c161c1f99b","argument":"A genius author who also wrote the books to other SciFi bombs like Total Recall and Minority Report.","conclusion":"The book was written by Philip K. Dick, one of the most acclaimed SciFi authors ever."}
{"id":"d8e6a783-2086-4508-b355-012e40ca3d53","argument":"In any reasonable sport, death should not occur except in the rarest of circumstances. Bullfighting makes the news every year for people having died by goring, trampling or some other gruesome means.","conclusion":"Professional and non-professional bullfighters suffer severe injuries and sometimes even death."}
{"id":"21791b02-2db3-4470-9ed4-2b07379e84cf","argument":"Religions can survive and thrive after undergoing modifications that make them more aligned with newly emerging dominant scientific and\/or cultural beliefs.","conclusion":"It is better for religion to adapt to society than for society to adapt to religion."}
{"id":"5f3c1156-9ab4-4f44-889f-40dafa8c1326","argument":"It appears to me that there is little to no difference between robbery by private individuals and taxation by the state. Both involve the coercive attainment of my private property for means which I may or may not support. Sure, one may appear more violent, but they are in essence the same thing. If you refuse to give the homeless man your wallet, you get stabbed, beaten, etc. If you refuse to give the tax man your money, you get locked away in a prison. Taxes are a form of robbery and a society based around free association trade would be the most ethical. Now, I'm not saying we shouldn't share with the less fortunate, only that we oughtn't to be forced to. Similarly, if you sell a product that the government determines insufficient but the consumer determines satisfactory, the government prevails over the consumer. Why? Unless fraud or force is involved, the consumer has the ability to simply not purchase a product why do we need a middle man to argue on what they determine is the consumer's behalf?","conclusion":"Taxes are glorified robbery and governments have no business regulating markets"}
{"id":"4c2f9937-e279-468a-8e67-2bee0fe2c14e","argument":"Children may be able to comprehend, to a degree, the choice they are making, but they cannot properly assess the consequences due to their limited life experience.","conclusion":"Religions are routinely introduced to children who are too young to make an informed choice."}
{"id":"51be840c-1083-4044-a29d-3aa232308966","argument":"In terms of its health effects, promiscuity has been described as high-risk behavior since it is linked to the spread of STDs, AIDS and HIV, physical abuse and even decreased longevity.","conclusion":"Promiscuity is harmful. Thus approaching strangers for sex is harmful because it abets promiscuity."}
{"id":"d3f6ebfd-5e96-4751-a4e9-899c69bf42ce","argument":"Early psychiatrists believed that psychological distress is caused by an imbalance of the humerus that could only be treated by bleeding the patients with knives or leeches. Later on, they believed that it was caused by organs like the spleen and cut them out. In the 20th century, there were crude attempts to alter brain functions with barbaric procedures such as lobotomies. Today's psychiatrists tell us that psychological distress and unwanted behaviour still has a physiological cause a chemical imbalance of the brain that's treatable with powerful psychotropic drugs, even though it's just hypothesized and has never been demonstrated in a study. But it has just been repeated ad nauseam as being scientific into the culture until people took it as fact and stopped questioning it. Psychiatry tells us that the drugs it's giving to people are just like giving insulin to a diabetes patient. But this is an invalid analogy, because insulin is an empirically measurable unit of the human body, we can prove the fact that injecting diabetes patients with it corrects a measurable imbalance in the body. Whereas psychiatric medication has no visible or measurable physical abnormality to correct. You can harvest evidence of a bacterial infection. Of a tumour. Of dementia. But you cannot harvest any evidence of neurotransmitters being out of balance. Therefore, psychiatrists prescribe and oftentimes force people to take dangerous drugs against their will. Besides that, they imprison people in mental institutions on vague criteria such as mental illness , which they can diagnose without providing any kind of biological proof that the patient is sick, which resulted in scores of people throughout history and during our times being tortured and abused by psychiatry's barbarism. Still, today, it is held in high regard as a respectable scientific field and a branch of medicine, the discipline of treatment and prevention of visible disease.","conclusion":"Psychiatrists are basically witch-doctors. There's no science behind it, just hypotheses treated as being scientific facts."}
{"id":"8164033a-7050-40e9-a9c2-279c3237d644","argument":"In the US, local authorities have chosen to take on debt in order to meet infrastructure needs associated with the fracking boom. If fracking declines in their region, they will be unlikely to be able to repay this debt or effectively use that infrastructure for other purposes.","conclusion":"Fracking creates economic booms in rural areas which are unsustainable."}
{"id":"5ae6dc7d-bcd1-48f5-b450-32daad0e285c","argument":"The cultural identity crisis that FYROM is going through has led the country's leaders to adopt this kind of name without any kind of cultural affinity. This has led to dozens of misunderstandings between Greece and FYROM. Therefore FYROM's leadership should accept their slavic descendance and adopt a different form of name in their own language.","conclusion":"A nation should be allowed to have whatever name it wants."}
{"id":"060b3b73-419c-450f-ad50-4c689ea03987","argument":"I take this position as an inevitable consequence of a couple of different factors working in conjunction. I certainly wish it wasn\u2019t true, but I can\u2019t see any way it won\u2019t be. Please note, when I say humanity will be destroyed, I don\u2019t mean literally every single human being, I mean the vast majority of human beings AND human civilization. If a few survivors cling on in an orbiting space station or underground bunker, I think my point still stands. Factor 1 crazy people exist, and they will continue to exist for as long as humanity exists. Even if we become far better at diagnosing and treating mental illness, there will still be some who are deranged either through biology or ideology. Some subset of these crazy people will wish destruction upon the world around them. This of course assumes that Earth does not transform into some sort of fascist thought controlled \u201cutopia dystopia\u201d, but the perfect and sustained control that would require seems highly unlikely and catastrophic in its own right . So, there will always be AT LEAST a few people around who want the whole world to burn. Factor 2 the history of humanity has been a long sequence of the expansion of individual human power, i.e. the power wieldable by a single human has expanded consistently since the dawn of invention, and this will continue. The rate of expansion of power has increased over time, and that will also continue, perhaps even exponentially. What started as a man with a rock, has now become a man with a thermonuclear bomb, or a deadly pathogen, or even a powerful software tool. Whereas the caveman could kill dozens, even hundreds, we now can kill thousands, or even potentially millions. In the future the force employable by the individual will become even more powerful, and even more easy to employ. When you take the above two factors together, you\u2019re left with what I believe is an inevitability that one or more crazy individuals will eventually wield sufficient power to destroy all of humanity, and they will do so. Once that power curve reaches reaches a sufficiently high point, it will only be a matter of time. Whether it\u2019s a nuclear war twenty years from now started by a group of islamists, or an asteroid diverted by a man in a spaceship into collision with Earth a hundred years from now, or a pathogen created in someone\u2019s home a thousand years from now, or some other force undreamt of by current science, the end result is the same, and I believe it is inevitable. Please convince me that I\u2019m wrong.","conclusion":"Humanity will INEVITABLY destroy itself"}
{"id":"5fbedd27-ed53-4cba-8039-e1c58a236e37","argument":"Examples of what people mean when they say positions of power Political office, CEO CFO CTO, and STEM fields What my view is not about Glass ceilings, sticky floors, glass escalators, etc For this view, let's just assume those things are all happening as described. That women are underrepresented in these fields. Yes, they are. My view is that this doesn't matter nearly as much as people say it does. The basic logic is that woman are underrepresented due to not being in these positions proportional to men. Due to inherent bias, the men in these positions of power will make life worse for woman, and make life better for men. Therefore it's good for a group women in this case to be represented in positions of power. I am aware this is an over simplification, but I don't want to throw a wall of text up here going into this complex subject . If having your group represented in positions of power helps your group, and men dominate positions of power, then why isn't life basically a utopia for men? Shouldn't women be overtly oppressed and men treated like kings? I can't think of any feminist or someone concerned about women's rights who would want a bunch of people like Carly Fiorina or Sarah Palin in positions of power. Given the choice between say, Joe Biden and Carly Fiorina, feminists would overwhelmingly support Biden. Thus, having the people with the right political views is more important than their gender. In other words, would life be better for women if every position of power was filled by Carly Fiorinas? People in positions of power are capable of oppressing a group of people, regardless of their gender. Men can oppress men, and women can oppress women see above . Both genders are also capable of having biases against people of their own gender as well. Positions of power will not resolve the most important issues woman face, social change will. This is probably the best chance to change my view on this here. If you can logically point out how females of any political background being in more positions of power is required to resolve a big issue assault, rape, etc , I'll listen . Men die on the job more, commit suicide more, are homeless more, are the most disadvantaged in all facets of the legal system men compared to women bias in legal sentences is vastly more of an issue even then whites vs blacks . If one subscribes to the idea that positions of power makes life better for the group in power, then how is the above explained? Women being in proportional positions of power won't resolve the problems that women face. Women will still get harassed in the workplace, women will still be sexually assaulted, and they will continue to face negative stereotypes. People being in positions of power stating hey don't do that isn't going to change any of these things.","conclusion":"I believe feminist or other similar woman's rights groups are overestimating the value of women being in \"positions of power\""}
{"id":"f7bbb20a-b07e-49f4-99fa-55feaa629d6b","argument":"I have been growing increasingly frustrated with the online discussions around racism and privilege, specifically because it seems we've come to a stonewall around the following line of thought taken from an actual blog post about doing more than simply acknowledging white privilege EDITED to add an actual relevant passage from a blog discussing this gt gt If admitting privilege is not coupled with or followed by the hard work it takes to level the playing field, I\u2019m not interested in the admission. If saying, \u201cI am granted superior status over non white people, which translates into social, political and professional advantages,\u201d does not progress into a strategy to renounce those advantages, acceptance of the fact that privilege exists is worthless. If finally conceding privilege exists does not ignite a fire extinguishable only by the absolute dismantling of systemic and systematic racism, then the concession is for naught. So, checking your privilege Simply acknowledging your privilege isn't enough. When asked what doing more would entail, what strategy would they have in mind to essentially dismantle the system , it's common to see more and more of this type of response gt gt That\u2019s for white people to figure out. I\u2019m burdened enough with racism. I don\u2019t have time to write a manual for y\u2019all on how to dismantle. From where I see things and I admit, it's only based on news articles, personal experiences, and blog entries like this , when white people ask for clarification on this So what 'work' is supposed to be done? , they are told to figure it out , and educate themselves. When white people try to figure it out and ask about what it's like to experience these prejudices, they are told This is just something you will never understand. this response stemming from multiple online forums I've seen and the stories reported in the news with all the Black Lives Matter protests . When they try to engage or learn more or understand a little, they are told to respect black only safe spaces . And yet white people are supposed to somehow have the knowledge, empathy, and tools to address a problem they'll never understand for a community they don't seem to be welcome in? MLK didn't simply say, It's up to you guys to figure out how to fix segregation. I've got enough of my hands full with addressing racism. He had clear and specific demands and changes. And besides, what the hell kind of statement is that? Since when does addressing racism only include calling it out and demanding change without actually providing solutions to address it? Of COURSE the burden of work falls on the person who seesthe problem and wants to change it. That's not fair or an equal distribution of responsibility, but it is what is is. Not once in the course of history has the oppressor willingly dismantled the corrupt system that benefits them on their own accord. Not once has a spouse magically figured out what's wrong with their partner without communication. People may call this angry privileged white tears . Maybe it is, I don't know. But I find it strange that we expect white people to suddenly have a pulse or all the answers on a cultural experience with which they KNOW NOTHING ABOUT. TL DR Everyone has to work together to address this. Stop placing responsibility on a single side. Communication is needed on both sides. It IS on the black community to educate the rest of the world on what they need, because how else are people supposed to understand something they have never experienced and don't know anything about? Edit I'd like to add that I am very aware of the current issues and problems, and that there are resources answering these available online, so bringing these up is beside the point. My assertion disagrees with the mentality that it's up to non black folks to research and understand and contextualize these experiences on their own without active engagement with a black community willing to help them understand the issues. Edit 2 I am off to work now but welcome the continued discussion. Edit 3 A lot of people keep bringing up how it should not be on the black community to educate anyone on their struggles. While this balance may be unfair, it still doesn't detract from my argument that not being willing to educate people is a bad thing. In a similar vein, I am not speaking to the laziness or willingness of the non black community to educate themselves. While that also needs to be addressed, it is irrelevant to my point. My main point is that the black community not being willing to actively engage an oblivious and or apathetic privileged oppressor is a BAD thing and hampers their goal of getting these issues addressed in a practical manner. As an aside, I can't recall many other instances where the oppressed community doesn't actively fight for change just because there was a big burden on them. As one example, the LGBT community didn't cry foul that there was discrimination going on, then simply yell at people to educate themselves and fix legislation while refusing to engage with anyone. It took Stonewall, it took riots, it took gay people constantly putting themselves out there and educating as many people as possible, no matter how many. Just because the burden is not fairly distributed, or just because the people they're trying to educate may be lazy oblivious hostile, doesn't mean it's not worth fighting for, and doesn't mean that fighting for it isn't one of the strongest and most effective tools of change. Final edit Thank you everyone for your dialogue. I do not think my view has changed, and I think I must have framed the cruz of my argument incorrectly, because people are arguing based on things th To utilize one redditor's comment, he is able to word my feelings better gt I don't think there is any way to convince someone of this argument. I think OP is going into this thinking that telling someone else to go do something like do some research is actually trying to be helpful. They are being deliberately dismissive. He just doesn't like that they are dismissive. The tl dr in the OP is honestly pretty accurate. He isn't going to get an answer out of people who don't want to give him one. It is of course not up to them, they don't have to do the work. gt I think this  is more simplified as, these people are rude and how does them being rude help solve world hunger? It doesn't. That's the argument I'm trying to convey that it's ultimately not helpful behavior, regardless of the motivations or lack of work or research on any party, black or white. I'm looking for arguments that show examples when to use the above lingo being rude is actually more helpful to the goal of ending world hunger than not being rude. In the context of this , I think arguments that would help re evaluate my position would address the idea that an oppressed community NOT feeling the need to engage is actually MORE helpful to their goals of easing racial tension than engaging. I must have framed it wrong, and apologize. I still welcome discussion and hope I have provided a little more clarity in the situation. Thank you.","conclusion":"Saying that it's solely up to white people to \"educate themselves\" on their privilege and racism won't fix the problems associated with privilege and racism."}
{"id":"6dbf85ce-f088-4e37-a139-b578526ff93d","argument":"I'm well aware that political correctness let's use PC from now on can soften the blow of an hard impact, ergo fat acceptance between others but my point lays in how much it dilutes a subject to the point were there once was somewhat of a point turns into a meaningless statement. Examples The fat acceptance movement, it once had a point , you in my understanding should not discriminate or hurt or harm anyone bc ot their weight . Even statements that seem contradictory like telling a fat person that they are fat is harmful, bc they are well are well aware of it and you end up worsening their pain and their complex. BUT and here is the meat of my argument that simple idea went for having 20 extra pounds is not motive for discrimination and is more or less fine to having 300 extra pounds and it has no health risks whatsoever, why ? Bc PC dictates that if you point it out , is you the problematic one and the aggressor. Racism, simple right ? Dont discriminate anyone just because of the color of their skin but rather the content of their character . Welp it hasn't gone so well has it. The constant push of having everything valance, if you have 50 white people doing X you have to have also 50 black people doing said X not because of merit but because of their skin color. But dont you dare point out this hypocrisy because guess what are you labeled, a racist. I'm aware that simplifying things what PC boils down to is in human nature and that trying to not hurt people is also human nature but I will argue it does more harm that good. This is my first time in this subreddit and I'm looking forward to having some helpful healthy arguments, thanks edit a few people now have mainly focus on my title and how is incorrect, well of course it is the title is meant to be interesting a caught peoples attention. Now if that's not common place in this subreddit I apologize and ask that we debate my full argument under the title, thanks","conclusion":"political correctness corrupts everything."}
{"id":"7d2dfff8-8ede-4f14-b83a-876dfd46952c","argument":"Religion provides hope that something good will happen if you continue doing good deeds. And it is reassuring that some entity is looking after my affairs.","conclusion":"Religion allows societies to feel hope and to see light in the most darkest periods."}
{"id":"cbb93441-b502-4b26-b366-018603d750c2","argument":"I don't think bosses should be paid extravagantly. I don't think people have a need for millions of dollars when so many people including bosses' own employees struggle to get by. I think bosses don't do enough to earn hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars. I think they skate by and are paid on title recognition, not by actual value. I think that bosses do not deserve to make huge salaries when they would be absolutely nowhere without the grunt work, leg work, etc., of their employees. I think that, to encourage paying their employees more, the boss' own pay should be connected to the employees' salaries. I.E., if they pay their employees better, the bosses can also have a higher salary. For example, if the lowest paid employee makes 25 grand per year, the boss could make at most 125 grand per year. If the boss wanted a salary bump, he would have to pay his lowest employees more. So if he paid his lowest employee 30 grand, then he could take home 150 grand.","conclusion":"I believe that bosses should only be allowed to make up to 5x more than their lowest-paid employee."}
{"id":"80da7f08-064e-4637-9923-8d3a0baebe9d","argument":"Some intersex people who have had surgery as infants report the surgeries as having made them feel abnormal and not accepted by their families and society.","conclusion":"Getting used to an anomalous anatomy may cause pain and suffering for a child which can easily be circumvented."}
{"id":"cbbdcb09-a164-4643-8f69-39f7c2202698","argument":"The universe is only the sum total of all physical matter that is known to exist. Since all physical matter is known to be contingent, it follows that the collection of all physical matter is also contingent.","conclusion":"The universe requires a necessary cause whose nonexistence would be impossible. The universe itself is known to not be necessary, and its nonexistense is entirely conceivable."}
{"id":"0b96ce8b-fde4-45d7-8878-bd2d687dc321","argument":"u Poem For Your Sprog is regularly read at the top of comment threads read by hundreds of thousands of people daily. The sheer amount of comment karma this fine poet has accumulated More than 1 million , reflects a much larger audience. For every upvote, we can assume that at least three and probably much much more read without upvoting. Poetry is not as popular as in the past, and even the best known American poets work in obscurity. Mary Oliver, called by the New York Times America's best selling poet probably cannot say that upon completing a poem, it is immediately read by tens of thousands of people. u Poem For Your Sprog is more famous, popular and widely read than any other English language poet. , if you can. Things that would  Nielsen Bookscan figures showing a massively successful poetry book by a living english language poet. Biographic info about a famous poet I am not aware of that is very successful. Proof that Allen Ginsberg is somehow still living.","conclusion":"\/u\/Poem_For_Your_Sprog is the most widely read living English language poet."}
{"id":"847b47fd-8051-4d1f-bb22-c1c924c5bc7b","argument":"Penile adhesions can form during the healing period after circumcision.These can cause pain and issues with sexual function later in life.","conclusion":"There are a large number of complications that can occur as a result of circumcision."}
{"id":"8d168478-97a9-4b52-9b3b-16a483cdcd38","argument":"UBI will let people work in what they truly love instead of working only for survival. It will enhance the human potential.","conclusion":"Wealthy countries should provide citizens with a universal basic income UBI."}
{"id":"c573ba0a-15ed-4a9d-8876-a74873579e43","argument":"This is forecast to get worse as the number of 18-year-olds in the United States is declining, meaning that revenue from tuition is projected to decline too.","conclusion":"Colleges and universities in the US are struggling to bring in enough revenue to meet their costs"}
{"id":"f11aaf24-f136-46ea-9eba-a23283cc2728","argument":"There is a difference between mockery blackface, dressing as a cholo for Halloween , and adopting elements of another culture out of admiration, or for personal gain. Adopting the best aspects of other cultures is how human societies have advanced and improved throughout history. In the ancient world, groups of people who regularly interacted peacefully, or otherwise with cultures different from their own advanced far faster than more isolated societies. Nobody minds if we adopt food from another culture, but adopting clothing, music or spiritual practices from others especially marginalized groups is often frowned upon, when it should instead be celebrated again, except for clear cases of mockery . EDIT There have been several good examples of genuine appropriation that are bad even though they are not mockery ITT, and my view has definitely been shifted and moderated. In future, I will amend my statement to something like the definition of cultural appropriation is too broad, or we are too quick to label something appropriation . Things like music and hairstyles are too often equated with elements like headdresses or military uniforms, and we are risking throwing out the baby with the bathwater by elevating our tribal differences over our common humanity.","conclusion":"Cultural Appropriation is a Good Thing"}
{"id":"cfc43c7e-f5c8-46b1-8fa6-7a5eceff9830","argument":"We've all been taught to be kind to other people and to care for them as much as we would want them to care for us. However, over the past few years I've begun to see that less and less people appear to act on this guideline, choosing instead to pursue their own gains at the expense of others. I fear these thoughts, however, may be slowly turning me into a cynic. I've always preached and at least attempted to practice kindness in everyday actions, but due to these doubts I sometimes catch myself thinking that acting in the interest of others simply isn't worth it if so few appear to be doing this. I would greatly appreciate it if someone were to show me I'm wrong.","conclusion":"I fear that kindness and selfless acts may not be worth the investment."}
{"id":"4e666379-5856-4427-b429-52090fa68334","argument":"This is a throwaway account for discussing some real personal issues. I\u2019ve had everything they say you need to get ahead in life goals, ambition, upper middle class background, good grades, a college degree, etc. but I\u2019ve never been able to gain any real traction in my life. I\u2019ve spent years drifting from friend group to friend group, job to job without ever gaining any kind of foothold anywhere. The opportunities I take always seem to zero out and I wind up back where I started. And god forbid I start putting any real effort into getting ahead or try standing up for myself Then I get labeled \u201cpushy\u201d or \u201chigh maintenance\u201d or told to \u201clet it go and move on.\u201d I feel like a dog tied up in someone\u2019s yard. There\u2019s this little circle I\u2019m allowed to be in and if I try and step out of it, I get slapped on the nose and tied back up again. All this has led me to believe that fate or God or whatever force governs our lives has decreed that I\u2019m not going to be allowed to get anywhere in life. I\u2019ll be allowed to have my needs met and be comfortable, but nothing more than that. No matter what I do, I\u2019ll die friendless, alone, and forgotten, having accomplished nothing nor contributed anything of value. .","conclusion":"I believe I have been condemned to mediocrity."}
{"id":"497ff1fa-a3b1-4b6e-bcdb-85af092f1cf0","argument":"Voluntary exchanges are the only type of exchanges that we know benefit both parties involved. A forced exchange is unknown if it is preferred by the consumer and producer.","conclusion":"Capitalism provides people with more freedom and autonomy to act socially and economically."}
{"id":"b6ce8eac-f370-42b4-b3c1-bb06f98e3fb7","argument":"All the evidence to date suggests the strong and indeed overwhelming importance of genetic factors in producing the great variety of intellectual differences which we observe in our culture, and much of the differences observed between racial groups. So clearly differentiated are the types of mankind that, were an anthropologist presented with a crowd of men drawn from the Australoid, the Negroid, East Asian or Caucasoid types, he could separate the one human element from the other without hesitation or mistake. Race differences in intelligence was historically a common view. For example, Muslim writers stated low intelligence among Blacks. Review articles by Rushton and Jensen 2005 and 2010 stated that in the United States, Blacks and Whites have been the subjects of the greatest number of studies. These studies have shown that the Black White IQ difference is about 15 to 18 points or 1 to 1.1 standard deviations SDs . Such a difference means that the White average IQ is higher than that of 80 85 of Blacks. Another view is that the Black White IQ is actually larger than 1 SD and that the average Black IQ is likely 78 a 22 point Black White gap . This is argued to be supported by testing such as the military draft testing during WWII which is argued to be the most representative testing ever done. It is argued that higher results than 78 may be due to unrepresentative samples caused by factors such as non participation in voluntary testing by the very lowest scoring segments of the Black population in inner cities.","conclusion":"I believe that black people are less intelligent than other races, and I believe that the reason for this is genetic difference between races"}
{"id":"416919c7-2730-4222-8398-02d8fa8ba819","argument":"The high cost of healthcare prevents people from getting needed services. The uninsured in particular, are less likely to get preventive care such as physical exams and cancer screenings.","conclusion":"In the US millions of people are uninsured and so cannot afford healthcare. In many cases participating in a trial may be their only option to receive treatment."}
{"id":"9af1ef57-7cbe-4837-a106-cc53affe6fcb","argument":"The revenue that visitors to zoos bring could be, and under the status quo often is, used to fund these conservation efforts. Eliminating zoos would eliminate this source of revenue for conservation efforts.","conclusion":"Zoos primarily exist for displaying animals to entertain humans. Animal research can be performed effectively without the existence of zoos."}
{"id":"1fbaebd1-d9a3-49a5-b589-672f461feb30","argument":"A partial reparation program in the US could help to push for a global reparation program, as hoped by some South African civil society groups and CARICOM","conclusion":"African countries are likely to note reparations to Black Americans with approval."}
{"id":"b01f1cbb-6128-45f6-b13a-56a05a636037","argument":"In 2001, Armin Miewes placed an online solicitation for someone to kill and butcher. The respondent Bernd Brandes consented to being killed. Miewes afterwards dismembered the body, freezing it for later consumption. By the time Miewes was arrested, he had ingested approximately 20 kg of Brandes\u2019 body. Cannibalism was not illegal in Germany in 2001, but Miewes was nonetheless convicted of killing by request and defiling a corpse, for which he received a sentence of 8.5 years.","conclusion":"The act of cannibalism would however violate laws against homicide and against the desecration of corpses."}
{"id":"1bf3f343-0e47-4c7c-ad88-ff2bcce232e2","argument":"The Dalai Lama believes complete independence is not a viable solution for the Tibet crisis. Rather, his advocacy is aimed at creating common understanding between the Chinese and the Tibetans. He points to the model of the European Union as an example of a modern supranational political system in which different ethnicities and nationalities can cooperate to achieve an agreed ideal of prosperity. \u201cLook at the European Union . What is the use of small, small nations fighting each other? Today it's much better for Tibetans to join China.\u201d1 The 'Middle Way' is the most practical and realistic path for Tibet and China, as it bridges the needs of the Tibetan people with and interests of China. Specifically, the \"Middle Way\" offers a mutually beneficial course of action, as it avoids the concerns that China has regarding national unity and separation and at the same time it enables the Tibetan people to achieve de-facto equivalent of a right to self-determination. Acceptance of the 'Middle Way' would work as a signal demonstrating the increasing openness and accountability of Chinese political culture. As it is beneficial for both parties, it can be considered as a practical political course with a great potential to alleviate an ever growing strained situation.2 China is more likely to negotiate with Tibetan activists and leaders if their demands are limited to greater political autonomy. Conversely, China is unlikely to give up control of Tibet, as doing so would constitute a grievous blow to the territorial integrity of China itself. The 'Middle Way' provides the current generation of Chinese leaders with an opportunity to accord greater autonomy to Tibet, without risking their domestic political capital or jeopardising China\u2019s international standing. A key aspect of the 'Middle Way' is an undertaking by Tibetan leaders not to push for further independence if greater autonomy is granted. The 'Middle Way' also has the advantage of being in keeping with Tibetan Buddhist beliefs, mirroring the religion\u2019s own \u2018middle way\u2019 tradition. The Buddhist 'Middle Way' is the descriptive term that Siddhartha Gautama the Supreme Buddha used to describe the character of the path he discovered that led to liberation. It was coined in the very first teaching that he delivered after his enlightenment. In this sutta- known in English as The Setting in Motion of the Wheel of Dharma- the Buddha describes the middle way as a path of moderation between the extremes of sensual indulgence and self-mortification.3 The Dalai Lama's \u201cMiddle Way\u201d in Tibet is designed, per its name, around these Buddhist principles, and so it has the advantage of being in keeping with the religious beliefs of most of Tibet's population. This adds to its practicality as it would offer a political strategy consistent with the cultural norms of most Tibetans. Therefore, the Dalai Lama's 'Middle Way's is the most practical and realistic path toward rapprochement between Tibet and China. 1 Liu, Melinda. \u201cFears and Tears\u201d. The Daily Beast. 19 March 2008. 2 Gyaltsen, Kelsang. \u201cThe Middle-Way approach\u201d. Tibetan Bulletin, July-August 1997. 3 Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta, Samyutta Nikaya, 56:11","conclusion":"The 'Middle Way' is the most realistic path for Tibet and China"}
{"id":"163c7b9a-3a50-4b9d-b007-3b83f33ad75c","argument":"I believe that America's government should be a Direct Democracy If you don't know what a direct democracy is its where the people don't vote on representative but instead they vote on issues. A great example is the crisis in Syria. In a direct democracy instead of going to congress, the president would have to put it to a vote with the people.This would mean that WE would have control of what out government does instead of bureaucrats that can be bribed and lobbied. Representatives can be, bought while on the other hand a direct democracy is the pure and unadulterated opinion of the american people. Change My View.","conclusion":"I believe that America should be a direct democracy"}
{"id":"bf641f73-554d-49c9-a597-96027547626b","argument":"Segregation of blacks and whites was the \"societal rule\" for many years, but this does not make the act moral or just. It was civil disobedience a la carte rule following which brought about societal change for the better.","conclusion":"Just as societal opinions have changed about humans as property, it stands to reason that opinions could change about the \"morality\" of taxation."}
{"id":"fb1b2797-6bb6-45d7-806c-63d45e2e32f5","argument":"In my view, I dislike the use of hate crime laws to punish criminals further than otherwise, and I dislike hate speech laws used to punish any individual. Hate crime laws are basically laws which add additional penalties to criminal offences, if they are found to be motivated by race, gender, religion, etc. I dislike these laws not because I feel any sympathy for those who commit crimes motivated by these aspects, but because they judge the actions of a person based on their beliefs, not what they may or may not have done. Secondly, I especially feel that hate speech laws tread too much on an individuals right to free speech, regardless of how morally contemptible the speech may be. I suppose this would all depend on whether the country in which an individual lives has hate speech laws, or even of they have a right to free speech. For the sake of argument, consider the United Kingdom, which of course guarantees freedom of speech, but also enforces hate speech laws. Short disclaimer I am not saying that hate speech used as a threat should be protected. Specifically threatening language should be punished in my opinion. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Hate crime and hate speech laws should be undone."}
{"id":"2d57d21f-ea56-441c-bb22-7ac9072a7ad8","argument":"Cloning will lead to a lack of diversity amongst the human population. The natural process of evolution will be halted, and as such humankind will be denied development, and may be rendered more susceptible to disease.","conclusion":"Cloning will lead to a lack of diversity amongst the human population. The natural process of evolut..."}
{"id":"e774e2fa-0683-4e04-9177-73772c15a763","argument":"Portuguese courts reduced their punishments for drug traffickers as they increasingly identified them as consumers rather than traffickers Laquer, p. 13","conclusion":"In Portugal, decriminalization made it less dangerous for those who traffic drugs."}
{"id":"7ad95219-ab3b-4873-8684-e2c515f6262c","argument":"Basically it's a cultural norm in the USA, I hear there are medical benefits, and from what I understand, it is pretty non invasive when done to very young children. Also, I believe parents have to make certain decisions for children early on and as long as no damage is done, it wouldn't be child abuse. A friend brought up some points of desensitization and a lack of true medical benefits recently, and I'd be pretty open to changing my view so I'd appreciate if anyone can make a logical argument against my current ideas.","conclusion":"I currently would be inclined to have any future sons I have circumcised."}
{"id":"a4bb65bb-4ce1-43f3-9ae7-1f62bb45530a","argument":"Squeezing the toothpaste tube from the center is the superior method. It is easier ergonomically it allows for finer control of toothpaste trajectory and quantity it does not waste any toothpaste when done correctly. It is easier ergonomically because, when gripping a standard toothpaste tube, the thumb and index finger naturally rest somewhere between the middle and the top of the tube. To readjust one's grip to hold and squeeze the tube from the bottom is awkward and uncomfortable. It allows for finer control of toothpaste trajectory and quantity holding the toothpaste tube closer to the nozzle decreases the effect of any tremor in one's grip, and prevents the weight of the tube from leveraging against any fingers that would be gripping near the rear and causing excessive expulsion of the toothpaste. By gripping the tube in a more natural configuration see point 1 , the innate precision of the fingers is maximized compared to inferior methods of dispensing toothpaste. When done correctly, the method of squeezing from the middle or even near the top does not waste any toothpaste when the tube is beginning to look sad and crumpled, simply scrape the closed tube along the bathroom counter from bottom to top using much the same technique as flattening a dollar in anticipation of a stubborn vending machine . This squeezes nearly all of the toothpaste to the top, allowing efficient utilization with little to no waste. The squeeze from bottom approach is less ergonomic, reduces the user's ability to accurately wield the toothpaste, and saves no toothpaste it is therefore the inferior option, and should be abandoned in favor of squeezing the tube from the middle.","conclusion":"squeezing the toothpaste tube from the middle is the superior method."}
{"id":"26e6eaed-f20c-45b1-b518-d9285d7f4d93","argument":"In today's current discourse, people are often accused of virtue signaling whenever they make public statements in defense of or in opposition to certain things. My question is, why is it automatically a bad thing to let people know what your beliefs are? If you genuinely think to use an example of something that's often saddled with this term that prejudicial attitudes are bad, then there's nothing wrong with saying so in a public forum. There's nothing wrong with stating or signaling what your believe your virtues . If you genuinely believe in certain virtues, then I think it makes sense to express those beliefs during discussions and debates. To me, virtue signaling makes about as much sense as an insult as word speaking or air breathing does. It's a thing people do, and a fairly reasonable thing at that. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"\"Virtue signaling\" isn't inherently a bad thing."}
{"id":"939a629d-f027-434b-8e3e-c0c6c771653e","argument":"In the case of the entertainment industry - wherein the nature of the industry means that most employees are freelance or temporary - it is difficult, if not impossible, for individual allegations to have effect in a business framework. Part of the 'power' of abusers in the industry is that they are those in charge of employment on individual projects, and\/or can blacklist individuals. Legally pursuing dismissal or discrimination is nigh on impossible.","conclusion":"The entertainment industry has repeatedly failed to act in response to allegations."}
{"id":"9cebbf36-dea9-42ce-af90-e84e517b2617","argument":"As a precursor, I'm not trying to argue that Bill is wrong or that religion is right or what have you. I'm talking only about the documentary, not the basic assertion that he makes in it. For the record I am religious. After several recommendations by friends, I finally sat down and watched it. I had to fight to not turn it off after about twenty minutes. Bill demonstrates zero actual desire to learn anything. He talks to someone and the second they say something he disagrees with he cuts them off and starts talking over them. He acts like a FOX news anchor and then when people are trying to actually talk he just throws up his hands See They can't explain The film can be summed up with there are people who believe different things than I do and they sound ridiculous so let me go yell at them and tell them how wrong they are and when they don't immediately agree that just shows how right I am. Even when he asks a sincere question he doesn't listen to the answer. He's that annoying atheist that most of us have talked to that goes around challenging people wearing crosses in the grocery store to a debate and then walking away declaring victory when they tell him to fuck off and leave them alone. The documentary and I use that term loosely presents no real new information, it really doesn't do anything except call people with different viewpoints stupid and leave it at that. It's on par with those terrible YouTube videos titled Ten Questions Atheists Christians Pastafarians Jews Zoroastrians Can't Answer 1 I'm open to the idea that there's some hidden gem of wisdom that I'm missing but overall it feels like half PR stunt half ego project that brings no actual value to the viewer. So go ahead .","conclusion":"Bill Maher's \"Religulous\" has the intellectual caliber of a terrible YouTube video."}
{"id":"2529d9bd-abad-461d-8c68-31c776bc7842","argument":"The shots were from comparative point blank range by Federation standards. Observe the battle At 3:25, the Reliant makes a longer range shot. Though the shot misses, it was meant as a warning shot Kirks comments afterwards make that clear.","conclusion":"The only hits in that fight were from point blank range or instances when the targets were standing still."}
{"id":"a1734aaf-1b69-4d7a-9915-d6c806c4845e","argument":"Pretty much what the title says. Any artistic installation that uses lots of water like fountains and water walls where its only supposed to be looked at, is a giant waste of water. Not only water, but also electricity or gas or whatever is being used to pump the water up. I know there are hundreds of other wasteful artistic things in the world but using large amounts of water, which is a scarce resource in some parts and even if its not, has much better, more pertinent uses seems utterly wasteful. The only other usage of large quantities of water, that I can think of, for 'non essential' usage are swimming pools and water parks. But there atleast I can argue that people can physically touch, feel and use the water and its providing exercise and entertainment. But these fountains seem to serve no purpose and so much water and power is just going waste. The only argument is that someone will find contentment staring at the fountain or something. That seems weak, IMO. Just replace it with a sculpture of a fountain, I dunno. .","conclusion":"Artistic water installations like fountains are utterly wasteful and useless."}
{"id":"67c95958-77ca-495a-a114-2640fb136569","argument":"The government stand by the idea that the WTC were hit by hijacked planes, and then collapsed. This isn't what happened though. The panes hit the towers there's no denying that but the collapsing towers must've been caused by already planted cutter bombs and thermite. the lobby's windows and marble were shattered, as well as windows of cars around the building. The gvt says it was a fire ball from the elevator shaft, but the elevator shaft was hermetically seal air tight so the fire wouldn't have enough oxygen to sustain itself in the elevator, and definitely wouldn't have enough energy to blow out windows and shatter marble. almost all witnesses say they heard explosions, which is probably the biggest one. Office supplies don't explode, and the only thing exploding can only be a Bomb. the concrete was turned to dust, there was no energy possibly strong enough that came from the plane to pulverize concrete like that. It had to be some sort of explosive. a few witnesses say that the planes that hit the towers had no windows. Which meant they weren't commercial fights, they were probably cargo planes. Which means either a we let foreign people hijack a cargo plane of ours highly unlikely or we flew a cargo plane into the towers. the pentagon lied about a Boeing 757 hitting the pentagon, so they could have easily lied about the WTC attacks. They say a Boeing 757 hit the pentagon, but when we look at the damage it left It left a 65 foot hole And that's it. a 100 ton plane would make a lot more damage and leave actual evidence. All we have to work with is a hole in the pentagon. We didn't find landing gear, seats, aluminum pieces, wings, or even the engines. a plane flying that low, and that fast also would have left holes where the wings hit. But there is just a hole, the pane doesn't fit, and there isn't any evidence to say it does. architects agree that the buildings couldn't have collapsed just by the plane hitting it. There is no record in history of a building collapsing from a plane hit. The WTC buildings were strong enough to hold the building up, the super structure wasn't damaged when the planes hit. George bush lied about what he saw. When asked what did you think when you heard about the first plane hitting the tower? And he said he saw it on tv . But when the first plane hit, it wasn't televised. How could anyone possibly know it was going to happen It was a surprise attack. Bush lied. there were obviosus benefits of doing this. We could go to war with Iraq. The government has lied to get into wars so many times I.e. the sinking of USS Maine, and the gulf of Tonkin incident they could have done this.","conclusion":"I believe the government lied about 9\/11"}
{"id":"b61d1cae-a3fd-41ce-8a8e-5d01b40570c7","argument":"I'm a 15 year old currently doing my GCSE examinations for English Literature and English language. I don't see why I have to analyse certain texts in a certain way when you can be taught to argue, with evidence and reason in subjects that suit it more , and especially so when I don't find these texts to have any relevance to modern day. Within the Curriculum of the United Kingdom Children have to read certain books that are quite old such as to kill a mockingbird and then analyse them for their GCSE examinations, To kill a Mockingbird is about a girl living in the south during the depression, and her father is asked to defend a black man who was accused of rape, and he was hung, despite the evidence being in favour of the black guy\u2019s innocence. I don't see why we\u2019re forced to analyse books about the depression and the roaring twenties to kill a mockingbird, of mice and men, The Great Gatsby . I also find the analysing of these books to focus on techniques which I don't find myself to be able to see despite being told that they exist. I don't see how this helps prepare me to become an employable adult that is deemed useful to society","conclusion":"I don't see why I as a 15 year old am forced to do secondary level English, when I already have the ability to read and write."}
{"id":"27a889d8-ef1e-471e-add8-24d0f74a6d23","argument":"Hillary Clinton is actually an extremely strong candidate and would be doing just fine in a contest with any of the Republicans who ran this year, although her lead might be smaller. I will talk about her positives, then the GOP's negatives. Firstly , she has near universal name recognition and is attached to a popular former President. She was a politically active first lady, a reasonably well liked Senator, a very strong contender for the 2008 primary, and a Secretary of State. She has been in the national eye for 24 years and has been attached to two very popular Democratic presidents. Secondly , she has been in the national eye for so long that she can handle scrutiny exceptionally well. I'd say the biggest example of this is her keeping her cool during 11 hours of hearings about Benghazi, but she's been doing it since at least 1992. Thirdly , she, as part of the biggest power couple in the world, also has an insane network of friends and talent in every level of government and among the best staffers as well. The Democratic Party leadership, specifically Obama, Reid, Pelosi, etc. dissuaded any other serious challengers. She also inherited the phenomenal campaign staff and infrastructure that Obama built during his runs. Finally , any Democrat has an baked in advantage simply due to the growing share of minorities, women, and young people in the electorate. Republicans have not made significant inroads with any of these demographics. Onto the Republicans I will only cover the ones who received at least 1 delegate for simplicity's sake. I want to be clear that I believe every one of these candidates would be doing better than Trump in a general election, but I think they would still be losing vs. Hillary. Ted Cruz is extremely far right and is too conservative for the general electorate. His greatest accomplishment is shutting down the government. He also has a very punchable face and gives off a sinister vibe, although I don't know the effect of this so I can concede this point. Marco Rubio is the textbook definition of an empty suit, and he completely flopped under pressure from Christie during the debates leading to the Rubio bot meme . He was an absentee Senator and his biggest advantage his support from Hispanics is largely nixed because he backed out on his Gang of Eight immigration reform policy. Kasich is a bit of a wildcard because he received such low support that he was never given any sort of scrutiny. However, I see no reason to believe that he would do better with minorities, women, or young people than Mitt Romney did, which are the key demographics they need to win over in order to take 270 EV. Jeb Bush is equally as uncharismatic as Hillary, but has his name attached to his brother's presidency and would be weighed down by that. Not to mention his policy proposals are as Generic Establishment Republican as they come, which would be used to attack him over and over. Rand Paul is a libertarian nut and some of his positions like his opposition to the Civil Rights Act on purely constitutional grounds would be battered over his head over and over. Anyway,","conclusion":"The idea that \"Hillary is an extremely weak candidate\" or that \"Hillary would be losing to any Republican besides Trump\" is foolish."}
{"id":"fa5d7299-f268-4de8-bbad-9b8be7cf7c6c","argument":"I believe that there is a very Eurocentric view of what it means to be beautiful portrayed in the media and drummed into our heads from when we were kids. If a woman has Eurocentric features, then they are beautiful, if not they aren\u2019t even considered. This has had a ripple effect in all parts of the world as far as I can tell. That\u2019s why women in Africa bleach their skins and wear wigs, and those in other parts of the world ie asian women have surgery to change their eye structure because looking \u2018european\u2019 is considered more beautiful. The impact this has one all men in general is that it creates this unreasonable expectation of what women should look like and this has caused untold suffering and misery in homes and to young women. Also I think that with the absence of television, I seriously doubt that the people you find attractive would look the same. Change my view","conclusion":"If what being beautiful wasn\u2019t drummed into you by tv\/media, I don\u2019t think you would find all the people you think are attractive attractive"}
{"id":"949cd262-290d-415b-bad3-05efd218c4fb","argument":"Only 27% of Americans thought that Pelosi should have stayed on in her job as Leader of the Democrats in the House of Representatives.","conclusion":"Nancy Pelosi is very unpopular with the US electorate. Therefore she is unlikely to be successful in the general election."}
{"id":"f91b76f3-3a08-46d8-99fb-9cbfbca38bb3","argument":"In France when Nicolas Sarkozy was President, 9 out of 16 in his first cabinet were lawyers or law graduates, including the president, the prime minister and the finance minister.","conclusion":"Politicians who have lived experience in areas such as law, business, economics, or public service are able to govern more effectively than a royal who has never experienced work."}
{"id":"aac9a66c-7d40-4037-b64a-382e122dc8f8","argument":"Recognising the atrocity as a genocide could help establish an international claims settlement process so that Armenians can more easily access reparations.","conclusion":"Acknowledging the genocide is the first step towards alleviating the damage done to the Armenian community."}
{"id":"2b50e6e3-591f-48e1-9a47-6de4c2af0a25","argument":"I work at Weigel's and when someone comes up to the counter with an EBT card and a 3 loaf of bread in the middle of the fucking city, I politely tell them that the Food City across the street sells bread for .99 cents a loaf and they say oh that's okay. Then I see others buy 4 Rockstars at a time and use their EBT card. That has no nutritional value at all AND costs a shit ton of money. You people are supposed to be fucking poor, why does the government allow its money to be squandered so freely?","conclusion":"EBT should not be authorized for use in places like Strip Clubs, Gas Stations, and various extremely needless things such as Monster Energy Drinks --"}
{"id":"9a98c989-ee2a-4c53-8684-bf5f98ae5d0b","argument":"LGBTQ police officers may be the force's best chance to learn about the community and how to best serve them.","conclusion":"Allowing police to be present may act as a teaching moment."}
{"id":"db04a251-6550-44e9-8332-d314e724f820","argument":"This would only lead to more division and hatred within the African American Community. On one hand, black families not receiving the reparations will resent the ones who do. On the other hand, actual recipient families may take offense to the protests from non-recipient families.","conclusion":"Financial reparations will do nothing to address the problems facing Black Americans right now."}
{"id":"47ace2e9-b6b0-44aa-b3cb-dbcce8d47839","argument":"Charlemagne is known as a great king of the middle ages, and a great conqueror. In his name is literally ingrained 'the great'. But why? In this post, I will downplay Charles, as he wasn't so 'great, and surely does not deserve such a limelight in history books. For one, I think we have all learned in school that Charlemagne was the first Holy Roman Emperor. This is not practically true. Charlemagne was the first sovereign to hold the title, although he did nothing with it. At his death, his kingdoms were split and the 'Holy Roman Empire' was dismantled. The Holy Roman Empire that lasted for nearly 1000 years the Reich which inspired Kaiser Willhelm and Hitler the Holy Roman Empire which brought wealth and power to the Austrian Habsburgs, was united by Otto the Great, which expanded his kingdom from Italy to the modern day German Danish border from modern day Belgium to the Slavic Poles which, under Otto's rule, were also converted to Catholicism . Duke Otto started with a rebellious kingdom, which he expanded to the size of an empire, earning him the influence and prestige to be granted the title of 'Holy Roman Emperor' by the Pope. He managed to do all this in 30 years, including destroying the Magyar horde at Lechfeld and repelling attacks from his Frank brothers. If Otto the great isn't the mainstream character that Charlemagne is, why should Charlemagne be any more popular? Feudalism is also something regularly attributed to Charlemagne. The truth is, feudalism, much like the enlightenment, was a social movement that couldn't be attributed with any one man, or even a series of men. It was an indirect effect of the vassal lord behaviour began by Charles Martell, namely when he bought land for them in exchange for services, which expanded in complexity and decentralization over time. Feudalism was the result of increased autonomy. It is not something that should be attributed to Charlemagne. Charlemagne's conquests were inefficient and laughable. It took him 32 years to conquer a small strip of land controlled by Saxons? Surely, in comparison to his apparently 'great', mostly inherited empire, it would have taken him far a far smaller amount of time? I don't say this to deny the grandness of Charlemagne's empire, because it truly was a great one. I say this to outline the martial weakness of Charlemagne. Just a friendly reminder that it took Duke Otto 30 years to conquer Bohemia, Northern Italy, defeat the Magyars in battle, and fight and defeat France in battle. Charlemagne also failed multiple campaigns in Spain I won't get into that But perhaps the most disgusting thing Charlemagne has ever done, was ally the heathen Abbasid Caliphate, for the purpose of neutralizing the Ummayad Caliphate in Iberia. However, the alliance also seemed to be a counterweight to the Byzantine Empire's objections to Charlemagne's claims in Italy Did I mention that Charlemagne merely dethroned a usurper from the throne with a single siege and took Italy for himself even though the Pope called him to war to give the throne back to the rightful owner?","conclusion":"Charlemagne does not deserve to be held to such great esteem."}
{"id":"0901f638-c41d-4313-b620-730fe60a1da6","argument":"In the January 2006 Palestinian parliamentary elections Hamas political party won a plurality in the Palestinian Parliament. Being political in nature and as long as the political arm plays within the democratic and constitutional rules they should be given a chance to be considered.","conclusion":"Hamas is not entirely a terrorist organisation, it's mostly a political party Only its armed branch, called Izz ad Din al Qassam Brigades may be considered as a terrorist organisation."}
{"id":"681a3e42-06f5-4213-843e-d270640fd6d2","argument":"It boils down to one thing After a drug has been invented we have two options we can either test it on animals first before letting a human try it, or we can give it straight to humans and see what happens to them. Is it right to give a human a drug we haven't tested before? No. Is it right to give an animals a drug we haven't tested before? No. But we have to do one or the other. Is one of them better than the other? Yes, testing it on an animal and risking its life instead of a human's is the better option. Just to cover all possibilities. The last possibility is to not develop new drugs so we don't have to test them but that's just bad because even more people will die of thing we could potentially treat.","conclusion":"We shouldn't stop testing drugs on animals."}
{"id":"c1414048-6726-4f17-91e3-d86f8bf31997","argument":"The only difference between people who are being called out by the journalists for their tax avoidance Tragedy of the Commons and the ones who are shocked and outraged by the report is that the latter were not smart enough to do it themselves , life itself begins as competition for scarce resources , it's just how the world goes , we as a whole compete for securing limited resources so there will always be winners and losers depending on the time frame considered so reactions to the Panama Leaks just exemplifies how naive some people are. On a side note , Messi is still the best footballer on this planet and his legacy won't be ruined by this episode","conclusion":"The Panama Leaks won't change a thing , us humans got this far exactly because we're so selfish and prone to self interest more than any other species"}
{"id":"45cd1743-4063-4e70-bdeb-b8af7418f69e","argument":"Dictators create a parallel military force specifically designed to protect themselves and employing multiple security services to squash dissent and opposition. This requires large sums of money, so any revenue generated from economic growth is diverted to these groups. Quinlivian, p. 141, 148 and 153","conclusion":"Dictators rely on specific groups to keep them in power, not the economic well-being of their populace."}
{"id":"37bbf6e2-a6fd-4b7e-8cf8-3678c0bff9d5","argument":"Gold was a very scarce commodity and thus much more meaningful. This made players think thrice how to spend it.","conclusion":"Playing WoW Classic was riskier, thus it felt like your decisions mattered much more."}
{"id":"3eb9dd00-bd9d-429f-b1d9-7cdb2dcfa892","argument":"It's stood up to over 150 years of scientific scrutiny without a single piece of evidence ever contradicting it. We not only have mountains of evidence supporting, but have repeatedly confirmed the process both experimentally, and through things like the fossil record, genetic analysis, and through the many predictions that have been confirmed through its use in the real world. Any attempts to disprove it end in failure as the debater ends up being either ignorant on the subject, willfully or otherwise, lacks supporting evidence, or both.","conclusion":"I think The Theory of Evolution is the best explanation for the diversity of life."}
{"id":"b27e7ad8-f716-42d0-bdcd-7367da7d6fdd","argument":"The Ancient One in Doctor strange was cast as a white woman rather than a man from Tibet due to the historical racist portrayals of this character and political issues they felt may arise. The directors felt that less offence would be felt if the villain was a white character.","conclusion":"Some well known villians, who would traditionally be persons of colour can be portrayed by white characters in order to separate their villanious behavior from their race and comment upon the convention to cast POC as villians."}
{"id":"ae8e4fef-5dad-4b72-a26c-5c84cd3754fe","argument":"Unions risk making wage labor acceptable at the expense of the more widespread horizontal collectivization that greater dissatisfaction would prompt.","conclusion":"Unions force workers to conform to and adopt their views."}
{"id":"5d6bde3c-88ae-4fde-b89b-822b7263c969","argument":"Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him. \u2014Proverbs 26:4 Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit. \u2014Proverbs 26:5","conclusion":"There are copious conflicting statements in the Bible that make the whole untrustworthy."}
{"id":"93817cb4-ed4c-40e7-a286-e96fe81faad2","argument":"I'll be the first to admit that I don't know how the justice system works. But, if a person admits that they are guilty of a crime that would put them on death row, personally I believe that they should be put to death immediately instead of wasting tax dollars keeping them alive. I fully understand the give and take with the death penalty. Maybe they got set up, maybe it was a momentary lapse and a mental hospital can make it right, maybe it was a crime of passion etc But if someone admits fully that they did something worthy of a death penalty sentence, why not kill them that day?","conclusion":"If someone admits that they are guilty of a crime that would put them on death row they should immediately be killed."}
{"id":"0ef4bc1c-529c-4a12-942d-371d6e0131ca","argument":"Short-term leases are more lucrative and financially promising for landlords than long-term ones. More and more landlords are thus likely to shift from long-term to short-term leasing, thereby driving up rent prices and reducing the supply of long-term accommodation.","conclusion":"Unregulated mass tourism has many negative side-effects in New York City. Airbnb facilitates this kind of tourism."}
{"id":"5f449943-55be-496d-818a-cb727a7d2c03","argument":"The very fact that no one knows what comes after death means that to a certain extent, people do not actually know what they are consenting to.","conclusion":"There are huge difficulties in determining whether people can give true consent to die. Consent is necessary for the successful implementation of a right to die."}
{"id":"f8cef683-acbc-4e4e-ac85-0090eac02bb6","argument":"Without the right to life, it is impossible to realise any of the other goods that are central to human flourishing and the very essence of humanity such as personal fulfilment, love or art.","conclusion":"The right to life is the most basic right that every human possesses. We all have an obligation to ensure that this right is safeguarded for as many people as possible."}
{"id":"ddb3ccbd-8da4-4abd-aed3-6d740cf9830d","argument":"The Romans had crucified Jesus, in part, because the Jewish leaders had proposed that he was calling himself a king, and was a threat to Caesar. The last thing they would have wanted was to allow a Jewish rabbi who called himself a king to also become known as someone that Rome could not kill. or at least someone that wouldn't stay dead!","conclusion":"The posted guard, the Jewish leaders and the Romans had no incentive to remove the stone."}
{"id":"c68faa50-c4f6-43ac-ba27-888ff6174d7d","argument":"Earning money from virtual economies is becoming increasingly common By 2006, it was estimated that the market in trading online virtual assets would hit $2.7 billion. Given the profitability of virtual economies, there is no reason why people won't become dependent on them.","conclusion":"Virtual economies are growing As virtual reality becomes more commonplace users will develop significant investments in virtual goods and services that deserve protection from crimes such as theft or fraud."}
{"id":"c51e5840-88c4-4535-b1f6-ef1154611f9f","argument":"I'm an extremely adventurous eater and approach new foods with excitement, as opposed to anxiety and take refusal to try new foods, or refusal to learn to like old foods as at best unnecessarily precious, and at worst disrespectful and insulting. With the rare eating is learned behaviour and can be unlearned. I taught myself to overcome several food dislikes. So when somebody is picky, and particularly refuses to try new food, my response is not particularly sympathetic. The palate of a five year old is not something to be proud of and like any other five year old behaviour, people should learn to grow up and behave like an adult. However, I'm starting to doubt myself and looking for a convincing enough argument to push me towards sympathy. Is picky eating like anxiety and my refusal to indulge it just making things worse? What does a picky eater go through when trying something unpleasant or unknown? If I eat something gross, I just drink some water and get on with it. Why are other people unable to do that? Either way, .","conclusion":"I have contempt for picky eaters."}
{"id":"18560736-dc49-4ae5-bcc2-8d71ff5d8bb6","argument":"So I watched the announcement by Elon Musk of the new home energy storage solution, the Powerwall I'm certainly not a tech expert, and I know that this technology isn't revolutionary, but it really does seem to be a well packaged, reasonably priced piece of technology that is the first of it's kind to be marketed in such a way. I think this will have a similar affect on the market for home batteries as the iPhone did for smartphones not necessarily to the same degree . Like the iPhone, it is not necessarily revolutionary technology in itself, but it is constructed in such a way that it may be capable of being the product that makes people realize that they want a battery like this. And even if it isn't economically feasible for a lot of people right now, it will stimulate demand and initiate competition in the field so that prices will drop and value will increase. Ultimately, I think that this could be a big, big step towards the feasibility of sustainable energy like solar and wind being domestically produced and consumed on large scale.","conclusion":"Tesla's new home battery, the \"Powerwall,\" will invigorate the market for sustainable energy technology and lead to a revolution in how energy is distributed."}
{"id":"3288b3df-c6a1-44ba-bae0-9d6f4602853f","argument":"A repeal of the Second Amendment might provoke opposition by states which would then, for example, appeal this move before the Supreme Court.","conclusion":"Repealing the Amendment and enforcing the changes that would go hand in hand with that would not be easily implemented."}
{"id":"c93d241f-a8be-4a84-a5ce-1233e5549eb7","argument":"I am pretty sure this theory has been developed by somebody else, but here goes. If you are born with good intelligence genes, you are 'lucky'. If you get good parents that foster your intelligence and instill good values, you are even 'luckier'. I don't know how to refute this argument. I guess free will could be a main component of a counterargument , but anyone's will is determined by their personality, which is shaped by experiences, influences, and genes. So what is the point of feeling superior to someone that is inferior, if you are simply 'luckier' than they are. There has to be a chink in the armor somewhere, I am simply not 'lucky' enough to be smart enough to find it. Hehe. edit I lack the intelligence to follow my argument through. Thanks for the responses.","conclusion":"People who are superior than other are simply more 'lucky' than people who are inferior."}
{"id":"4816b5b0-5991-43c2-9500-37014877787b","argument":"If a valuable horse dies, the money spent on training and maintaining the horse is lost.","conclusion":"Millions are collectively lost over racing by those who bet."}
{"id":"3b7bb834-7a78-4210-ac88-f54f19748271","argument":"This post involves only those who aborted after getting pregnant after consensual sex, of any gender . I'm assuming that I can't know with certainty if a man has had unprotected vaginal sex. I regret that only a woman's body can exhibit signs of vaginal sex if a man's body could, my life would be easier, as I've ended friendships with men who said that they like unprotected vaginal sex. I obviously don't judge victims that had to abort because a rapist and or criminal. I'm an antinatalist continuing life may be worthwhile, but no life is worth starting. See r antinatalism. I fully agree with David Benatar's Better Never to Have Been p. 161 gt Instead of a presumption in favour of continuing pregnancy, we should adopt a presumption, at least in the earlier stages of pregnancy, against carrying a fetus to term. This is the \u2018pro death\u2019 view of abortion. On this view, it is not any given abortion in the earlier stages of pregnancy that requires justification, but rather any given failure to abort. For such a failure allows somebody to suffer the serious harm of coming into existence. My argument has not been simply that pregnant women are entitled to have an abortion in the earlier stages . I have argued for the stronger claim that abortion during these stages would p. 162 gt be preferable to carrying the fetus to term. This is not the same as arguing that abortions should be forced on people. As I showed in Chapter 4, at least for now we ought to recognize a legal right to reproductive freedom. These arguments apply with at least as much if not more force to a freedom not to abort as they do to a freedom to conceive. Thus my conclusions should be viewed as recommendations about how a pregnant woman should make use of the freedom to choose whether or not to abort. I am recommending that she does abort and that she needs excellent reason not to. It should be clear that I do not think that there is any such reason. Those who decide not to reproduce but still have vaginal sex, are irresponsible because they are risking pregnancy and an abortion when an abortion isn't available worldwide, unfortunately. Thus abstinence is the safest choice. To be fair, I judge those who use no contraception more harshly than those who used a condom but still got pregnant, as condoms can leak and double bagging condoms are worse than using one condom By 'careless', I mean that I'd never befriend such people, assuming that I knew about their abortion. How can they be wise if their lust for vaginal sex overcomes them and makes them risk an abortion? In business relationships, I'd still deal with these people affably. Sure, vaginal sex without contraception doesn't affect the performance of an outstanding surgeon or corporate lawyer, but outside their professions, I wouldn't trust them.","conclusion":"As an antinatalist who supports all forms of abortion, I still judge anyone who aborts because she got pregnant after consensual sex, careless for not abstaining from sex."}
{"id":"ae2285ed-5e4c-4b18-8756-9c65fb18d884","argument":"Conservatives are always keen in public on promoting the family and on the advantages of mothers being able to stay at home to bring up young children. This proposal would provide positive encouragement for couples to make the decision that one of them should stay at home to care for their children, as it provides an economic incentive for one of them typically the woman to do so. At the same time it ensures that although family income will be the same, the homekeeper retains their own income and so receives proper recognition for their work. This will serve to maintain their status within the relationship, and make it easier for them to return to the workplace in the future if they so choose.","conclusion":"Conservatives are always keen in public on promoting the family and on the advantages of mothers bei..."}
{"id":"14fac037-b7d2-48f2-8cf0-6d9e677c3f76","argument":"Over the past 10 years, Russia has used its veto on 10 occasions - largely to avoid scrunity over its crimes in Ukraine and to protection allies that were engaging in conflict, such as Syria.","conclusion":"Countries often use their veto to protect themselves or their allies, often at the cost of supporting resolutions that could help end conflicts."}
{"id":"64366a3f-583c-4505-8eda-add6502efa2b","argument":"Approaching criminal justice with a view to retribution corrupts the state by bringing it to the same level - one of violence and force.","conclusion":"This assumes a retributive theory of justice. But this is not a theory that should be adopted by the modern state."}
{"id":"8f73dd1a-aded-4272-ac07-85f33c28656c","argument":"Hamlet is far too on top of things to be mad. Hamlet\u2019s intellectual brilliance is first brought out in Act I, scene V when he plans on acting mad to confuse his enemies. His insults at Claudius and Polonius in Act II and Act V Sc. III are rooted from deep intellectual thought rather than erraticism, showing that the feigned madness runs through the play's entirety.","conclusion":"Hamlet proceeds throughout the play in order to exact his revenge in a method that is collected and building up towards a goal. A mad person would not have been able to accomplish a life goal, especially a hard one such as regicide."}
{"id":"51c392e3-c2d3-4218-be02-a5e71b7ccc6f","argument":"From piercings to vaccines to remediating a tongue tie, parents choose paths for the child without asking permission from the infant. Their reasoning ranges from cosmetic to dealing with non-life threatening issues but it is the parents' decision as to what is important enough to do.","conclusion":"There are medical and cosmetic interventions approved by parents which are permanent and which carry the risk of any medical intervention."}
{"id":"65e40901-60d5-46a7-b54c-7aff19d7186a","argument":"The LGBT movement faces many difficulties in the workplace, from discrimination to lack of supports for transgender individuals. It is hypocritical for corporations to gain prestige and respect from funding pride while not supporting these members of the community.","conclusion":"Often large corporations are complicit in hiring and promoting practices that discriminate against LGBTQ+ people."}
{"id":"7899f50e-5691-4d8f-8ed4-7277ea0a973d","argument":"Since we have control over the reproductive processes of animals, then we can modify them to help them survive in conditions they never could without us.","conclusion":"Humans realize which genes and traits keep an animal alive and which do not. Without humans, the livestock's evolutionary line might not be here today."}
{"id":"5c100e1f-ccee-46d2-b827-4a52ff007c81","argument":"A Rasmussen poll on January 10, 2018, found that Oprah would defeat Trump by 10 points if the election had been held that day. rasmussenreports.com","conclusion":"The prospect of a female African American president would activitate diversity-embracing voters."}
{"id":"eca9b542-2294-49b7-955c-91f7e24733d5","argument":"While watching the Sochi Olympics with some sports buff friends of mine, I got into a discussion over Oscar Pistorius link and whether his participation in the 2012 Olympics and 2012 Paralympics should have been allowed, which stemmed into a bigger discussion about the Paralympics in general. It seems to me that having to put competitors into different categories of disability for each event, as well as focusing on what people with different disabilities are able to athletically do puts far more focus on the disability itself than on the skill of the athlete. This, in short, makes me feel like the Paralympics give off a superficial image of empowerment and equality and because of this the games should not exist so please, .","conclusion":"I think that the Paralympic Games directly contradicts the idea of 'not being defined by one's disability'"}
{"id":"85dd77f0-1b46-43d1-adb2-9b877755a3cb","argument":"While that was a major campaign pledge, Farage & Johnson both quickly backpedalled after 'winning' and said it was not something they could promise.","conclusion":"The promise of \u00a3350M to NHS is just not true."}
{"id":"7e651ede-4639-4bac-920c-41d78968d97d","argument":"For some background on myself, I'm purely atheist. I have formed my beliefs solely on scientific knowledge. I believe that we, as a species, have evolved from single celled organisms, contrary to many of the religious explanations for our existence. With that being said however, I think religion is a very important part of a healthy society. The first major reason I think this is I believe there are some parts of life that are too dark for us to deal with effectively. This recently hit me when I was comforting a family friend who had recently lost his son to suicide. The father was somewhat religious and the only thing that brought him any comfort was the fact that his son could be up in heaven, and that he may see him someday. As an atheist, I personally felt that his son was gone and never going to return. However I felt it would be most appropriate to hide my atheism, and just try comforting him with the idea of him reuniting with his son someday. There are many similar situations that can be found when looking at some of the dark aspects of life. In these situations, I feel that if there were no religion, there would be many more mentally unhealthy people in our world. A second reason I believe religion to be beneficial to society is the sense of justice that in instills in many of it's followers. Religion provides this in many different ways including Karma, going to heaven hell, eternal rewards or punishments for deeds, etc. What all of these forms of justice have in common is they are all very reliable. You can't hide from Karma God in the same manner you can hide from the law. I think it's a positive thing for a society's people to believe that there will always be justice. Without this belief, many would be more likely to commit crimes, feeling they could get away with it and face less consequences. Furthermore many who see unpunished injustices would be more likely to take things into their own hands. For example, if a man encounters an unfaithful wife, then without religion he may choose to seriously harm her. Many would argue that you don't need religion to have moral integrity. While for most of us I agree this is true, I still believe there are many in our society who WOULD be less moral without religion. I acknowledge that religion has done some harm in the past, but I still feel that, practically speaking, any healthy society must embrace religion to an extent. I try to keep an open mind to all sides, so by all means Change My View.","conclusion":"Although I'm an Atheist, I believe religion to be an overall positive thing for a society."}
{"id":"e269a65f-71bb-411c-8e82-764f14bdb11e","argument":"AKMs allow countries to engage in brinkmanship - and thereby pushing things to the brink of escalation - because their enhanced power allows them to do so without fearing consequences.","conclusion":"The spread of AKMs to certain regimes could embolden them to act in defiance of moral and legal norms."}
{"id":"6c8abfdd-39c8-422f-a2b1-d66e58e11235","argument":"As a teenager growing up in a small town where all the kids just sit around smoking pot because there is nothing else to do, I have decided that peer pressure isn't really an issue as much as they make it seem. Schools should be instead of telling us ways to say no can you say the word no? There you can do it , they should be spending more just teaching why not to do drugs. I'm always hearing in school about how people will pressure you to drink and do drugs, but I have never once seen anyone actually care if someone else does it. The main arguement I hear is you want to be accepted, or cool . First of all if you are actively against it, just don't hang out with those people. If you just don't want to do it and someone else, for some weird reason actually cares whether or not you do it even after you have said no, why would you even care if these people accept you? Anyways it just feels like an excuse people use. If people actually care about kids using drugs we should stop accepting it as an excuse. It really makes you look really stupid if you whine about being peer pressured. What are your thoughts? Is there things I'm not thinking of? I just don't get it. tl dr Peer pressure really isn't an issue at all and just an excuse. I personally rarely see it. If it does happen and you do it even though you didnt want to thats kinda stupid. If you don't want to do something just say no, and if someone still cares after that why would you care about their acceptance . Also sorry for the bad formatting? I swear it was normal indented paragraphs at first, but for some reason when I post on mobile it throws that all out the window so I've edited to use 2 indents.","conclusion":"\"Peer pressure\" is an excuse, and not a good one."}
{"id":"d591aa72-a6bc-49e6-84e8-1b8f02d244f6","argument":"I think that the conquest of North America by Europeans was the course of nature, and that the destruction of the Native Americans shouldn't be looked at as such a black mark on history. All of human history is littered with nations and cultures fighting and displacing each other for land and territory. Up until Europeans settled Europe it had not been a big problem to anyone that almost every culture on the planet did this. It is such a major issue that Europeans conquered North America that the U.N. has requested the U.S. return sacred lands to the Native American groups that originally occupied them. This makes no sense to me, because in a historical context European powers won that territory fair and square. Whether the Natives were tricked, or pushed out with violence they didn't have the resources to maintain their claim, so it's no longer theirs. For the time period Native Americans were a severely underdeveloped group of cultures on the world stage The conquest of North America is no different than any other large scale conquest in history. It's just like the Russians invading Siberia and annexing the territory of the native inhabitants in the 16th century, the invasion of most of the western and Asiatic world by the Greeks, Romans, and Persians in the bronze and iron ages, the conquests of the Mongolian Empire, or the expansion of Islam. None of these conquests stole land it wasn't subtle like stolen implies, it was taken by conquest. No one is looking for reparations for the displaced peoples of those conflicts, or fighting for it on the international stage. Native American culture was mostly nomadic and had only basic technology. It's no wonder to me that they couldn't fight off the Europeans, and in the larger context of history it was the natural way things were going to unfold. Had any other advanced culture such as the Arabs, or Asian cultures, come to the Americas first I can't see things turning out much differently for the Native Americans. It just seems to me like the natural progression took its course, and the underdeveloped native cultures couldn't survive. Survival of the fittest still applies on a large scale when looking at cultures, nations and societies, and it makes sense that that is what happened with the settlement of North America. All in all I don't see it as a bad thing, but probably more of a neutral event. It wasn't morally wrong, it was just the way human events happen.","conclusion":"I don't think the conquest of native Americans by Europeans should be treated any differently than any other conquest."}
{"id":"0f154488-3753-49e2-811d-324bac562e8c","argument":"Many smartphones have 18 9 aspect ratio and brands will follow that trend. In my opinion it's just a gimmick to make people think their phones have big screen but it's not true. Let's compare screen size of Huawei Mate 10 Pro 6 size, 18 9 aspect ratio and Samsung Galaxy C9 Pro 6 size, 16 9 aspect ratio . According to Gsmarena Samsung Galaxy C9 Pro has 99.2 cm^2 screen and Huawei Mate 10 Pro has 92.9 cm^2 screen so C9 Pro has bigger screen. But they have same screen size. Not only the area of screen is disadvantage of 18 9 aspect raito. It's not ergonomic in hand not even one hand mode if it exists and 95 of multimedia contents on the web don't fit in screen. Change my view and make me think 18 9 aspect ratio should be future of smartphones It's going to be standard anyway . Sorry for my very poor english www.gsmarena.com samsung galaxy c9 pro 8347.php www.gsmarena.com huawei mate 10 pro 8854.php","conclusion":"18:9 Aspect ratio on smartphones is not useful"}
{"id":"14664be5-db57-43aa-bfd7-38e735b0c29f","argument":"In the Olympics we have at least 2 sports that seem to be a variation of a faster activity. First sport is race walking, where athletes are required to walk really fast, but not run. I don't have any numbers for this sport, but it feels like running would be faster than race walking, so why do we intentionally watch a slower race? The second, and possibly more prominent sport is swimming, which comes in several variations i will use the 200m races since they seem to be available on every style 200m freestyle, WR 1 42.96 200m backstroke, WR 1 53.41 200m breaststroke, WR 2 07.22 200m butterfly, WR 1 52.03 200m individual medley combination of all styles , WR 1 54.23 Source Wikipedia As shown above, clearly the freestyle is the fastest one and isn't the point of the sport to demonstrate who can swim the fastest with any means style necessary provided we don't break the rules ? I am in no way doubting the athletic abilities of the people who compete in the other styles , but what is the point of having the styles? In my mind this seems as absurd as having a 100m race where the athletes run backwards So, please,","conclusion":"We should remove slower variations of sports from the Olympics"}
{"id":"ce939ef5-ad4f-427a-9bb4-c23bb93e893b","argument":"Citizen science allow geniuses to arise from the masses. Just like how YouTube allows anyone to be the next celebrity or sensation, citizen science might allow us to discover the next science superstar such as people like Ramanujan","conclusion":"Citizen science can eliminate discrimination that normally blocks marginalized people from scientific work."}
{"id":"55dfa1ae-1c2c-43e3-b407-8e65864003a3","argument":"Gender consultants and developers can actively include characters with different gender or sexual identity such as Dorian in Dragon Age: Inquisition","conclusion":"Having gender and cultural consultants throughout the development process is essential to avoid developers' unconscious biases from influencing the games."}
{"id":"30b01545-4ff1-4a58-b973-93ea3e52f5b0","argument":"On BernieSanders.us it says gt Not me. Us . gt gt No one candidate, not even the greatest candidate you could imagine, is capable of taking on Donald Trump and the billionaire class alone. There is only one way we win \u2014 and that is together. I get it. I understand the sentiment behind it. I understand that it contrasts with Trump, who has a cult of personality and who is said to have a huge ego. I personally like Bernie. But I think this is an awful slogan. You are asking voters to choose you, and you're going to lead with Not me. ? We know that the way you phrase thing changes how they are received. Our brain may interpret things literally on an unconscious level. Even if our higher powers of cognition have no problem discerning the intended meaning, the literal meaning can affect us. That is why it is ill advised to start a campaign slogan with a declarative statement that, if taken alone, means exactly the opposite of your goal. Bernie Not me. Potential voters' brains OK, not you. Then who? Kamala Harris? Trump? Hypnotists and persuasive people use language skillfully to have an intended effect, often embedding statements and commands. You can dispute the efficacy of this, but apparently it works enough that many people feel persuaded to act accordingly. I know I haven't given a rigorous scientific argument on why this campaign slogan is terrible. To sum it up, I think it amounts to, How we phrase things has power. For a slogan that represents your campaign, you should avoid phrasing it in such a way that it sends a very negative message about your goal, even if the next phrase provides more context.","conclusion":"Bernie Sanders' 2020 campaign slogan, \"Not me. Us.\" is terrible."}
{"id":"ddc13a2a-5c42-49b0-8bcd-e875d5a1bf33","argument":"Many BDSM practitioners only do short sessions, and revert to their everyday equal roles the moment they leave the \"dungeon\", so the issue of actual power dynamics does not come into play.","conclusion":"The level and duration of control is predetermined and they can revoke their consent at any time."}
{"id":"d429f8c6-6e24-4538-af7c-97a441d7b196","argument":"Since you clicked this link, I assume you know what Tor is. If you live in america you should also know that One company owns over half of all the TV Networks, and they enjoy censoring things. That being said, I know of Several instances where Television Movies have specifically mentioned Tor, and what it was capable of . I believe it subliminal advertising to get us to use it, to see why we would want to use something like that in the first place. Don't get me wrong, Tor works for general things, But i do not believe it works against the government. This is it, I do not have hard facts. I just believe if its so advertised by companies who would never advertise something like that, It must be a fluke? It's Tor every time, Never a code name, Never a fake name, they say Tor.","conclusion":"I do not believe Tor is as secure as you think it is."}
{"id":"5c7ed403-6f4c-4a6b-b1bf-6fd2141d5429","argument":"When the cultural values at the time of Prohibition demanded both an amendment banning and subsequent repealing of alcohol consumption, the people were allowed a vote.","conclusion":"Sales of alcohol and tobacco can legally be restricted, and car ownership subject to licensing, background checks and assessments of competency, unlike guns."}
{"id":"beb313a4-d6a3-47ae-bcf3-3f6cf0978e3b","argument":"I believe the Marvel Cinematic Universe is remarkable in just how good their output has been over the last eight years. While some entries are far weaker than others, there has never been an outright dud or failure Although to be fair, Age of Ultron is on the borderline . IMO, the crown jewel of the MCU is still The Avengers. I have heard lots of fans claim over the last few years that it is overrated and that Winter Soldier, Civil War, and perhaps even Guardians of the Galaxy have overtaken The Avengers as superior films, but I strongly disagree, and here is why The final forty or so minutes of the film The Battle of New York is in my opinion without question the best, most fun, most edge of your seat final act fight in a comic book movie to date. Nothing else comes close to not just the scale of the action, the stakes involved, or how well served every single member of the cast is. Nobody feels useless or unimportant during the battle, and each Avenger has their on little story going on there is excellent. The dialogue and humor in The Avengers is leaps and bounds the funniest of the entire MCU series. While Marvel has always featured snarkiness and humor, it hit a plateau with The Avengers that none of the other movies has yet to eclipse. Even if you completely ignore the plot of the movie, it's just fun listening to these guys talk, and that adds a lot of depth to the film that Winter Soldier and Civil War lacks. There is great humor in those movies too, but the dialogue almost feel like it is there to drive the plot forward and isn't merely the kinds of things that Tony Stark or Steve Rogers would actually say. And as far as the jokes in The Avengers goes, the batting average is perfect. Every single one hits, and it hits hard. The characterizations for every character is spot on and perfect, and I can't say that about any of the other movies in the MCU thus far, except for maybe the first Iron Man and GOTG, and those two films, while great in their own rights, don't match the satisfaction I got from this movie. Ultimately, the emotional satisfaction I got from The Avengers has never, ever been matched in another Marvel movie. I still get goosebumps to this day during several scenes, especially the infamous circle shot showing that The Avengers are finally a team ready to kick Chitauri ass.","conclusion":"The Avengers is still the greatest movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe"}
{"id":"70caf92f-36bb-469c-af0b-ffa5d2927f57","argument":"In Fig 5.1b a decrease in production and consumption from Q1 to Q2 will lead to an optimization of social surplus even though market surplus will be lowered as market surplus does not consider external cost such as cleaning pollution.","conclusion":"A decrease in production and consumption will decrease market prosperity market surplus but will increase global prosperity social surplus."}
{"id":"f2880e4f-1b14-4646-af94-6578343095ac","argument":"In a time where homophobic slurs are coming under immense fire, I'm shocked that teams like the Redskins and the Indians are still allowed to keep their names and logos. People may say it's a harmless logo, but it encourages things such as this And although there is an argument of tradition, why not start a new tradition? Allow the fans to pick their new logo and name. I am on the fence with teams like the Braves and the Chiefs, although they would ideally change, there is much less controversy with their names, since they aren't actually racial slurs.","conclusion":"I think team logos such as the Washington Redskins and Cleveland Indians are racially insensitive, and should be changed."}
{"id":"e70db414-7a4f-4312-bb3f-ecdbf3f6b81a","argument":"I think we can all agree that water itself is not wet because water may not be dried. However, I was recently introduced to the idea that when you are submerged in water completely you are not wet. Instead, you are simply just surrounded by water. It is well understood that water is not wet, but it is also well understood that water makes things wet. Therefore, should you enter the water, you will become wet. Also, you will begin to dry off the moment you exit the water, therefore wetness is a gradient. If you are not wet when you are completely submerged, there is no level of 100 wetness. I\u2019ll provide an example Let\u2019s say you are hanging by the pool with some friends. All of the sudden a gust of wind blows your towel into the water. Your reaction is likely along the lines of \u201cgreat, now my towel is all wet\u201d. At that moment, your towel is 100 wet. There is no way to begin to undo the wetness except for removing it from the water and allowing it to dry off","conclusion":"Even if you are completely submerged in water, you are still wet."}
{"id":"aa1a6b45-49c1-46ca-9d79-d76584395c89","argument":"By allowing teachers to be armed, politicians will have less pressure to deal with these underlying problems.","conclusion":"Arming teachers treats a symptom without dealing with the underlying problems that lead to school shootings."}
{"id":"85feadec-f76b-4f6f-aef9-f931c810dd52","argument":"Yemen is experiencing what may be one of the worst humanitarian crises in the 21st century, and Saudi Arabia has been a major contributor to the issue. Reports state that Saudi Arabia is planning on completing four pending purchases worth as much as 20 billion. Business Insider released this just this March, which poses a troubling issue which I\u2019ll explain . Simply put, Yemen is in a terrible spot. Unfortunately there are rebel forces and a disastrous civil war, but I think it goes beyond that. In my opinion, the issue has only exploded exponentially due to Saudi Arabia\u2019s actions. The war started in approximately 2015, and yet Saudi Arabia has not committed to resolving this anytime soon. In fact, I believe the recent massive purchases prove they\u2019re only interested in supporting their agenda. Humans Rights Watch states almost twenty million Yemeni civilians are malnourished, and that Saudi Arabia has killed thousands of civilians through illegal air strikes. Even after Saudi Arabia pledged to reduce said air strikes and civilian casualties, there were approximately 79 strikes reported by the HRW in the beginning of 2017 alone. I know war isn\u2019t meant to be perfect or death free, but they aren\u2019t only continuing war missions. They have continuously blocked humanitarian aid which is a clear violation of rules from the fourth Geneva Convention and international laws I assume . Even if we ignore their attacks, they are literally stopping aid to a country where a large majority of the population is at risk of dying from malnutrition. Why should the US continue sales with such a partner? In my opinion, it goes against the interests of the US and the safety of the world. If things continue we will see another refugee crisis, more inhabitable land, and most likely the rise of more Islamic terrorist groups. The US would stand to gain more by stopping support with Saudi Arabia and push towards the end of the Yemeni civil war conflict, as it would lie in the best interests of not only the country and its people, but also what\u2019s best for the long term future of the Middle East.","conclusion":"The United States should not continue military transactions with Saudi Arabia"}
{"id":"ae350cc7-13f3-4f33-8681-7f08444a383b","argument":"This \u201cfaith schools are academically better\u201d argument is misrepresenting data. Those schools that do perform better do so for other reasons, for example a more affluent, suburban catchment area. The religious ethos of the school has not been established as the cause of improved results.","conclusion":"This \u201cfaith schools are academically better\u201d argument is misrepresenting data. Those schools that do..."}
{"id":"539fb45c-0b26-49cd-8ed2-099771906024","argument":"It prevents strategic voting because without knowing how everyone else votes, you can't be certain whether your second and third votes help your candidate or hurt him. So attempts at strategic voting do not work.","conclusion":"Alternative Vote aka Ranked Choice Voting, and Instant Runoff Voting Shown here: en.wikipedia.org and here: youtube.com"}
{"id":"1f2290c2-cc91-497d-abaf-6b070f2e66ae","argument":"The rights which we enjoy in democratic countries also come with responsibilities. It is generally agreed that an individual\u2019s rights extend so far as they do not infringe the rights of another. Minorities have a right to be free from verbal abuse and fear. If such rights are not being respected then it is necessary to legislate. This is especially important given the divers cultural and ethnic mix in our universities. The university authorities have a duty to ensure that the campus is a welcoming place for everyone and therefore it is necessary to censor hate speech.","conclusion":"The rights which we enjoy in democratic countries also come with responsibilities. It is generally ..."}
{"id":"69752122-ffea-4b7f-9a29-302f45ef68de","argument":"Nothing is static in a sports franchise. Everyone involved, players, coaches, etc, will invariably leave after a length of time. The only thing that's even mostly constant is location, but the team isn't representative of the location. The players and coaches come from all over the country, and even the world, and are only there because they're paid to be there. The only things in common between the team you support now and the team you supported 30 years ago are the name and the colors. I can understand supporting individual players, and team eras a year of a team, as a quick example , but being a life long fan of something with so many variables just seems mindless and lazy to me. Change my view.","conclusion":"I think being a life long fan of a sports franchise is ridiculous."}
{"id":"0fd96a30-4a55-44d4-90cf-128afbe893d6","argument":"The Chinese infringement on the Hong Kong policy allowed the United States to increasingly support democratic rights in Hong Kong as part of its broader efforts to undermine the Communist Party and increase their stronghold in China.","conclusion":"Chinese attempts to infringe on the 'one country, two systems' policy allow other actors to gain increasing influence in the region, a move that is likely to threaten China's control over the region."}
{"id":"4e470a67-8e02-4a91-94d8-6b6703edfc92","argument":"To build an AKM that is as effective as a human operated weapon system requires a large amount of research.","conclusion":"The development cost of AKMs that are as effective as humans is very high."}
{"id":"99fe2e92-b26f-4746-b4f4-11ca03d98d1d","argument":"I hold my view about the drivers licence because I plan on living in the city where I can walk everywhere. And I know money is important and I need it but I just don't feel like I need an excess of it. Please try and . EDIT A little background info, I'm 16, and I plan on moving out of the U.S. sometime after college, or maybe before and attending college where I move to.","conclusion":"I don't really care about money or getting a drivers licence,"}
{"id":"4a0d3076-871e-4764-9737-a1bf7404503b","argument":"Obama needed Senate approval to appoint Justice Garland and the Republican Party were in the majority in the Senate. The Republicans chose to not to consent to the nomination, and to deny Obama any chance of appointing a Supreme Court Justice.","conclusion":"Republicans used dirty tactics to prevent Obama achieving his goals."}
{"id":"bc84297b-5136-4e70-a58d-7593b5dd671c","argument":"1 If time travel existed no one other than suicidal people would be okay with it if our mom said she was going to go back in time and abort us. We've already been born and we enjoy our lives and all the memories we've created throughout it. This is why so many people who found out that their mom had considered an abortion are so devastated and almost always develop an anti abortion stance. People always claim only religious people and sexists are against abortion, but this is untrue. Many, including lot's of non religious women, are simply people who found out they were almost aborted. 2 Safe sex and being responsible would end nearly all the unwanted pregnancies. Why end what would eventually be a baby due to some stupid man and woman having been careless? 3 People argue that it's not wrong because the fetus can't feel pain and has no thoughts so it can't feel anything or be upset about being terminated. Therefore it is not a life. By that logic it's also okay to kill coma patients. These people wouldn't feel any physical, emotional or mental pain either and they can't currently form thoughts. Or wouldn't it be okay? A coma patient is considered to have rights by most people even though most of them cannot feel pain, think, or express emotion in their coma. A fetus, at 12 weeks of development, has a heart beat, brain wave activity, and a formed body just like a coma patient. Why give the coma patient time to wake up and have 'these necessary things to be considered a life', but not wait and give the fetus time as well? What's the difference other than one is in a hospital bed and one is in a womb? 4 The fetus is considered a 'parasite' since it relies on the mothers body to live. Yup, but this is also true for many conjoined twins. Often times with conjoined twins one body has all or most of the important organs and the second body leeches off of them and would die if severed, but the other body can live just fine without them. Would it be okay to terminate the 'leeching body' just because it's survival is reliant upon another persons body? Even in the medical world this is often a major ethical dilemma. 5 If the mother parents can't afford the child then why should they be forced to care for it? Why can't they give it up for adoption or to a friend family member to raise? Why can't they be forced to work to support it like prisoners are forced to work? It doesn't cost that much to cloth and feed a child. Lot's of multiple kid families survive on less than 1,000 a month, in the US. In China, millions of Chinese families live off of less than the equivalent of 3 a day. And for the record I actually don't think abortion is right or wrong. To me, right and wrong are just matters of opinion. However, the morals and sense of 'right and wrong' that society deems proper for people to have should also deem abortion wrong given that you're ending a soon to be life due to two irresponsible people who couldn't be bothered to take birth control and wear a condom which would make an unwanted child nearly 100 37 avoidable. The few instances in which both a condom and birth control failed would be a simple matter of giving the child to someone else who wants one and would raise and support it without issue. Also Please don't use the I would never have lived so it wouldn't matter if she went back and aborted me argument. She's hasn't gone back yet. She's only telling you that she's going to do it. This is where people would be upset about it and very much opposed to her doing such.","conclusion":"Abortion is wrong and nobody would be okay with it if it had been done to them."}
{"id":"3d34b296-7ea8-4a0b-84c5-3caca4b3beb6","argument":"I was thinking about General Zod in the more recent iteration of the Superman movie. I find it hard not to empathize a little with Zod's genocidal behavior. If I were put in the same situation, even given how evil it is to kill innocents and wipe out a species, I think I'd do it. To be clear When I say a sentient species, I mean one on par with humanity's communicative and cognitive abilities. The basic premise for me here is that as one of, if not the last, member of my species, it is worth corrupting myself to save our genetic lineage. By corruption, I mean how I may be viewed in the future and how I will view myself afterwards. Obviously destroying a whole race is not something I'm keen to do, I'd be overcome with guilt and possibly suicidal. Nature is about survival, most of us are willing to die for our offspring. In this case, I would view it as my responsibility to ensure our species survives. Humanity would essentially become my adopted offspring and I would be remiss if I didn't kill anything in my way to securing their survival. This includes annihilating an innocent sentient species that inhabits the only available planet I can repopulate. I am definitely swayable here, I don't like comparing myself to genocidal maniacs. Trying to convince me on ethics may be a tough sell though, I don't see how that could possibly overcome my duty to maintain humanity's survival. That being said, all arguments are welcome. .","conclusion":"If given the opportunity to save humanity from extinction, I would annihilate another sentient species."}
{"id":"e0cddfad-7a82-4d73-ad4d-bdb104230b30","argument":"My argument is basically that Tupac and Biggie Smalls The Notorious B.I.G. are only thought of as the GOATs because of the aura surrounding them. They are thought of as almost beyond reproach because they died so young and had the famous rap feud. If Nas died after It Was Written he would be considered the GOAT. If Eminem died after The Marshall Mathers LP or The Eminem Show he would be definitively considered the GOAT. If Kanye died after Graduation or My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy he would be considered the GOAT. Alternatively, If Nas and Jay Z both died during their famous rap feud, they would be elevated similar to Pac and Big. Same could be said for 50 and Ja Rule. I could go on all day, but my point is that because these artists kept putting out music some of which has been considered lackluster , they damaged their reputation as the GOAT in a way Tupac and Big never really had a chance to do. Arguably, Tupac came close to damaging his reputation with all his posthumous releases, but, more people would need to know about his posthumous releases for it to have a significant impact. Furthermore, the rap feuds bring in more outside attention from the entertainment world. Thus the layman is able to identify Pac and Big as the GOATs because they are simply the most recognizable most well known rappers of all time not necessarily the best. If Mac Miller didn\u2019t make as much frat rap corny music coming up, he might in the conversation right now. You see the GOAT label unironically placed on XxXtentacion by his fans, although I\u2019m prepared to admit that is a vocal minority. In reality Tupac and Big were NOT significantly more talented than others of that era\u2014A Tribe Called Quest, The Fugees, NWA and its members, Snoop, Nas, Big Daddy Kane, Eric B and Rakim, OutKast, Jay Z and Wu Tang are all arguably just as talented and that\u2019s only scratching the surface. Biggie had an amazing style and crazy flows, Pac had grit and passion. They were both great writers. But are they the greatest of all time? I\u2019d say no and I\u2019d argue they are only thought of as such because they died so young and had a famous rap beef.","conclusion":"We only think Tupac and Biggie were the best rappers of all time because they died so young"}
{"id":"90de4649-5db1-4f1f-adb5-9ca19a60c3b2","argument":"About half of all Israelis support in principle the idea of land swaps to retain Israeli control over territory with major settlements.","conclusion":"The problem could be mitigated by land swaps through which Israel keeps territory with major settlements."}
{"id":"cb603359-414a-4197-b815-df4b4a0a6cb4","argument":"Facebook, Twitter and social media in general stand for the democratization of information and content creation.","conclusion":"Facebook, Twitter and ISIS share the value to spread information without official media."}
{"id":"de5b8bd8-307f-487b-b41b-8f9f3e9befac","argument":"As an initial point, I'm comparing a fictitious average SUV to a fictitious average car truck van. There are obviously some specific SUVs that are better than some specific alternatives. x200B I do not believe that there are many practical reasons to own an SUV. They compromise on an awful lot Worse fuel economy and cost than a car Less features, seating capacity, and safety ratings than a minivan, comparable storage situations unless you go no seats in a van, then it's the clear winner Worse towing and overall storage than a truck The problem is, I don't see a lot of situations that would merit making one of these compromises. If you are someone who needs a high towing capacity and also needs to seat 8 people, certain SUVs meet that requirement and this is virtually the only pragmatic reason I can think of to own an SUV. x200B Note I'm ignoring aesthetic concerns with this entirely. x200B EDIT I'm going to try to keep a log of general points for which I have awarded a delta below The increased height of an SUV makes it easier to load unload cargo vs a car or a van. Improved visibility through being higher off the ground though I argue this is a net negative for road safety overall Relatively easier maintenance relative to cars and vans for SUV's specifically . I've basically been convinced that crossovers do check specific boxes for enough people that they make pragmatic sense.","conclusion":"From a pragmatic perspective, the staggering majority of people who drive an SUV\/Crossover should be driving a car, truck, or minivan instead."}
{"id":"d28c6eee-9386-460b-bd72-46880e8da893","argument":"If we measure trade-offs when obtaining a good\/service, we're more likely internalize and be affected by it more to the point that we'd work on our costs of expenses.","conclusion":"Create a value-based economy focused on sustainability, people, and environment."}
{"id":"4bcbdd94-dde7-4598-941f-485c5c73a4e5","argument":"Conventional wisdom on reddit is Spend a lot of money on a mattress because you spend half your life on it and you'll pay more if you don't. This is never supported by anything other than the statement itself. I had back pain in college and high school. Since buying a new mattress I haven't but the new mattress was 50 to about 100 from Ikea and was lower quality than the ones I slept on in college or high school. It's just a pad over some wooden slats. I've had it for over 10 years and have never woken up feeling sore from the bed. There seems to be a well greased propaganda machine on the internet convincing you to spend a lot of money on mattresses The economics of mattress buying also seem geared to huge profit margins and nearly zero costs, suggesting to me that spending more on mattresses just inflates mattress retailers wallets Most of all, there seems to be zero scientific evidence that mattresses actually matter at all when it comes to back pain. A metareview came up with very little hard data at all, and those studies that were conduced concluded that waterbeds and hammocks might be bad but everything else was about the same So please change my view or at least explain to me why posts suggesting Lifehack spend a ton of money on a mattress because it's worth it are so popular here","conclusion":"High quality mattresses are a waste of money"}
{"id":"015cc24f-0f4d-441d-98c3-76cd476cb3de","argument":"Let me start by saying I used to have a very strong faith, until I got introduced to some what I now recognize are common arguments against the existence of a good or loving God. So many people try to numb the pain of a loss or justify something awful like a rape by saying everything happens for a reason or it's all in God's plan. My view is, even if one allows that the holocaust was in god's plan in order to teach humankind a lesson of some sort, he could've only had 1M people die instead of well over 6M. Furthermore, I believe the mindset of it's all in God's plan is just a crutch used to make people feel better and to rationalize the world we live in, but doesn't have a basis in reality. Additionally, a loving God wouldn't send people to hell just because they were raised in a different religion. Finally, a God that allows a young girl to be raped and brutally murdered as part of his plan, isn't deserving of worship at all.","conclusion":"If a God exists that allows so much evil in the world, he isn't worthy of worship"}
{"id":"21b6a727-7687-4711-908b-aa16404a410a","argument":"A UBI experiment in Finland showed that those who received UBI did not work less than a control group of those who received traditional benefits.","conclusion":"UBI experiments and trials show that people do not tend to work less when given an unconditional income."}
{"id":"a4d7e767-be83-435e-bfb6-2268f33efa18","argument":"I understand the inherent difficulty of enforcing this but were it possible to actually do so, I full heartedly believe it should be. With the exception of emergency situations, turn signals should be required at all times a vehicle is changing lanes, making a turn from one road to another and even parallel parking. If everyone used turn signals when they were required to, the amount of accidents would decrease while overall safety on roadways would increase. The amount of times I've personally seen near accidents due to someone neglecting to use their signal reinforces my view on this topic. I've seen people damn near come to a complete stop in busy traffic only to make a quick, non signaled turn, causing vehicles behind them to apply their brakes at a moments notice in order to avoid rear ending said negligent driver and then the vehicle behind that one, and then the vehicle behind that one, etc . I will never understand people defending their lack of using a turn signal by saying well I hit my brakes or no one else was in the lane when I looked or I knew I was turning that one is my favorite . I know this is obvious but you don't use a turn signal for yourself, it is a signal to signal to others who can't read your thoughts that says hey, I'm going to try to change into this other lane and thus I'm letting you know by turning on this blinking yellow light at the front and back of my car to signal my intention . I'd even go as far as saying that even if no one else is visibly around, people should still be required to use a signal just to reinforce the habit of doing so.","conclusion":"Drivers should be ticketed for neglecting to use a turn signal when changing lanes."}
{"id":"7cae5420-783b-4ac4-b717-323045c1bc30","argument":"Okay, so I have a problem understanding why history is called a science. In my opinion, it isn't. Let's start with the definition of science the only one consistent with what we generally consider a science IMHO Science is any activity aimed at understanding the general principles i. e. laws of nature of the world around us. History does not fit this definition for several reasons 1 I've often heard the claim that history uses logic and evidence to find out what happened in humanity's past. While that's true, that isn't sufficient to make something a science. Just an example I've often heard people describing the controversy around Jesus's existence a scientific question . Which it isn't. Whether Jesus actually existed is just about whether a concrete person existed at a concrete time in history. That in and of itself doesn't tell us how the Universe operates. It might be of use to us in leading us closer to the truth about that, but in and of itself isn't about how the Universe operates . Think about a detective's job his job is to solve a concrete case e. g. whether X committed a crime , and he uses logic and evidence to arrive at a conclusion about the case. Yet nobody would dare call a detective's job a science. He is a detective, plain and simple. Similarly, historians trying to solve concrete historical cases are just that detectives, but not scientists. 2 When it comes to discovering the guiding principles of history one that could actually be called science , historians are pretty bad. As far as I am aware, no historical laws have ever been rigorously established to exist by historians. Why? Mainly because history cannot be replicated in a lab experiment which could weed out the many zillions of factors playing into historical events and human history in general. 3 Also, historical hypotheses whether they be concrete or more general can never be falsified and yet, historians are still drawn to giving an explanation for everything that happened. I've rarely seen a historical textbook openly admitting this and this happened. Exactly why it happened lies outside of our understanding . In reality, history is very much unpredictable. On the eve of WW1, who knew what would ensue? No one. That's because most historical events cannot be predicted and are often the result of pure randomness what trader and philosopher Nassim Taleb calls a Black Swan . Historians severely underestimate the role of luck in history. Why? Because if they admitted they know very little about the Invisible Hand of History, what would they possibly fill all those history textbooks with? gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"History is not a science"}
{"id":"163e0c71-d57c-49e2-9a32-ee8dce252d58","argument":"Marriage can serve a few purposes cultural, religious, political but the most concrete is legal. When couples get married without a pre nup they are taking the off the rack legal agreement that millions of other couples use by default . To be clear, I don\u2019t think there\u2019s a \u201cright\u201d or \u201cwrong\u201d choice. I do find it odd that one of the ways we signal our love, is by uniqueness of aspects of the ceremony. Many will create bespoke rings, flower settings, invitations, dresses, and vows. The vows are particularly interesting to me because they model how rationally pre nups might be constructed used. I\u2019ll use my state, CA as an example. If a couple goes to city hall and gets married with off the shelf contract ie license it will include certain things by default like community property, survivor benefits, etc. It may be too burdensome to re write everything from scratch, so why not simply insert custom language into the default agreement? eg \u201cthis addendum is used to split our video game collection upon dissolution of our marriage. Unlike all other assets they will be divided 55 45 \u201d . This of course would be similar to vows which are often \u201ccustom\u201d insertion into a larger framework of a ceremony. To be clear, I don\u2019t think there is anything wrong with using generic dresses, or generic engagement rings, or generic invitations, or a generic agreement, I simple don\u2019t understand how custom is generally considered to be \u201cmore romantic\u201d in almost all aspects of marriage, EXCEPT for the actual marriage contract. EDIT many folks correctly call out this largely is about the definition of \u201cromantic\u201d. To clarify I believe that honesty in this matter has historically been de emphasized. I feel that honesty should be given more emphasis. As it says in the wedding classic 1 Corinthians \u201cLove rejoices in the truth\u201d. I\u2019d argue so does romance","conclusion":"Pre-nuptial agreements are MORE romantic, not less"}
{"id":"9e3e4912-1f32-4cb9-9e96-6e543b56df33","argument":"Waluigi's existence is defined purely as filling the void left by Wario needing a counterpart like Mario. While Luigi himself has earned a unique personality to his name with his offbeat and scary games like Luigi's Mansion, Waluigi stars in none. He has no reason to have a spotlight has no unique aspects tied to his persona, which is why all his special moves in the sport games are all rather meaningless I believe they're all Piranha Plant based. Moreover, Waluigi doesn't have much of a personality, either. Each of the 3 other M W ario brothers has a particular archetype to fill Mario that of bravery, Luigi that of resilience, particularly in the face of fear, Wario that of greed, but Waluigi, based on all his appearences, has none to fill other than being obnoxious, which could be said to an extent for the other three.","conclusion":"Waluigi is an unnecessary filler character in the Nintendo Universe."}
{"id":"d1886a23-6166-4029-b86b-6fd81231e641","argument":"The Chinese government are taking several measures to ensure that protests have as little impact as possible. This includes using censorship to silence citizens, both leading up to and during demonstrations, as well as portraying protesters as violent and lawless.","conclusion":"This assumes that the government's propaganda hasn't been effective in preventing those desires from fostering in the populatin writ large."}
{"id":"1eef0a2d-1e5e-43df-8573-b5c7ca3a4901","argument":"where do i begin? so witch trials, convicting people based on a claim without evidence of them being a witch. my odd conspiracy is that witches exist, and they are just hiding from all the craziness. and their craziness isn't outdated. but i digress so there are 4 basises basisi? for my beliefs culture, i am a brony, and i am kind of spreading out. so i tried watching the original MLP movie, it disgusted me. they conveyed witches and an disgusting outcast to society, and that all witches are evil. they are still conveyed as evil. and people see that as normal. also if i ask anyone what would you do if you meet a witch almost everyone says something about the point of killing them. it is obvious discrimination, witches are just people who practice witchcraft, even if they haven't done something bad. but of course, people don't believe in witches anymore. right? religion, where do you think the witches are evil came from. exodus 22 18 17 if you are Jewish . and it might be surprising, but people still think that. until now i talked about witch stuff with a few religious people and they either didn't know the bible had mentions of witches, or they want to kill them. also there was this year 27 reported cases of witchcraft discrimination just in London alone. where young children died due to people giving them harsh exorcism against witchcraft, by not letting them eat, forcing them to drink petroleum, and locking them in plastic bags. but surely those lunatics won't have an effect. right? leadership, democracy is amazing, allows people to pick their leader. and it is amazing, if played fair on both sides, which almost never happens. lying, bluffing, covering up crimes, acting against the law etc. these are strategies used by people in democracy, and acting against the law is what i want to talk about. murder is illegal, but there are plenty of loopholes, if you are a leader and blame someone for murder, you can bias the legal system and execute them. and you can even decide an execution for any crime, even supposed witchcraft. which brings me to the last point. propaganda, if WW2 has taught us anything, it is about propaganda spreading very easily. people got killed because of WW2 propaganda. but it clearly can't happen again. right? well, have you read the wave i actually haven't but i heard about the plot . it can happen again easily. so, we are basically doomed, and i want someone to convince me that we aren't. because this is kind of scary. TL DR crazy leaders are going to use religious and cultural propaganda to continue witch trials. and i am scared.","conclusion":"Witch trials aren't a thing of the past."}
{"id":"f5417b79-8fc8-4cd0-b0e7-6b83a14bd8d6","argument":"Bureaucracies have gotten too powerful. One wo man is a head of a huge organization that only interfaces with the president and congress for rules changes. Aside that, congress usually writes in allowing said bureaucracies to make law as they see fit. This is not the balance of power as seen elsewhere in government.","conclusion":"I believe that the heads of bureaucracies CIA, FBI, IRS, DOJ, ... should be elected positions by citizens, and not appointed."}
{"id":"1d7c178c-2d88-407f-9acd-0f44f36ff53e","argument":"This has been triggered by a sign put up on a TGI FRIDAYS in Washington that said they would not serve anyone who smelled like cannabis. What's the difference between someone wearing a cologne that gets right up your nose or that you just straight up don't like and someone smelling of weed? You hear the argument of I just don't like the smell quite a lot and if there is actually a joint on the burn then I totally get it. It stinks. But unless there is or has been smoke I don't see any grounds for argument that couldn't be used against someone's cologne or deodorant etc","conclusion":"Smelling of weed is no different to smelling of a horrible perfume."}
{"id":"cd7abe5e-1fcb-42a5-a45d-1836cd1f74ac","argument":"When someone is invited for traditional Thanksgiving dinner, that suggests a menu of turkey ham chicken, dressing, various sides or vegetables, and some types of desserts. If your guests showed up to you serving tacos for example, it might surprise some people who weren't warned about the menu in advance. Spicy food doesn't sit well with some people. Allergies vary widely from person to person like a sensitivity to soy It is best for people to be able to prepare accordingly and decline invites that might not fit them well.","conclusion":"A vegan Thanksgiving dinner menu should come with a warning when inviting non-vegans to celebrate the holiday with you."}
{"id":"a974d324-c311-464f-9a6b-24b5c5504807","argument":"Hello everyone, I want to share with you something that helped me understand the components of a conflict and how they permutate in a way that bring both parties to an objective understanding of each other's convictions. Before reading this and other ideas by the same author, I had a more black and white understanding of truth. I have since changed my view on what makes a viewpoint valid. I hope you find it useful. Here's the link.","conclusion":"T A tool for solving conflict"}
{"id":"d788222d-e021-443f-9fd3-e62f3376a4dc","argument":"Leaked text messages have revealed that Peter Strzok, then a member of Mueller's team, was extremely hostile to Trump, calling him a \"loathsome human\" and also \"this man cannot be President.\"","conclusion":"Peter Strzok, the agent who opened the investigation into Russian collusion, is heavily biased against Trump."}
{"id":"372bdfac-ce49-49ab-9fbf-480dd76a0f9a","argument":"A unified USE makes it possible to establish a uniform social security system throughout Europe. Such a system is vital to avoid social crises, like the one that happened in Greece.","conclusion":"The USE will help to reduce economic inequalities between current member states."}
{"id":"68d2303c-e0c9-42a8-bafb-9e1666b7b104","argument":"This attack resulted in Gandhi being assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards, which triggered the massacres of nearly 3,000 Sikhs by Hindus, as well as law enforcements and government officials.","conclusion":"In 1984, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi ordered a military assault on the most significant religious centre for Sikhs in Amritsar. This attack killed thousands of civilians"}
{"id":"37493c0d-f229-4f43-9007-600e2b780784","argument":"I fully understand how conservative that Pence is and how harmful his presidency would be to gay people and women. That said I think he would be less damaging than Trump. On the foreign policy front he would be much more capable of being reasonable with foreign leaders. He respects the status quo. For example I can't imagine him being pro Russia and anti NATO. Domestically he and Trump would have very similar policies with the exception of Trump's disastrous views on trade. Pence would manage to keep the recovery, keep other countries buying American goods services and prices low here. Also, Pence would not pander to the hateful racist elements in the Republican party like Trump does. For example Trump's intentionally omitting Jews from his Holocaust message. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Mike Pence would be a better president than Donald Trump"}
{"id":"224b23a1-7ee9-40a0-9bee-eb1ae636cb94","argument":"The UK not leaving the EU would, to those who voted Leave, be a strong indication that their vote in the 2016 referendum did not carry any weight. This could result in reduced voter turnout as people think their votes don't matter.","conclusion":"The British public voted to leave the EU. Democratic will requires that the outcome of the referendum must be respected, thus the UK must leave the EU regardless of the deal secured."}
{"id":"b95feefe-0cb2-4c7a-b04e-d40d7c2936db","argument":"Some people belive the world is flat. Some belive vaccines cause autism. In my country, people are dumb enouth to say nazism was a leftist movement. People are waaaaay too easy to manipulate and to trick. A meme made on paint will be treated as the ultimate truth, while evidence backed up by science will be ignored as a lie. And once a person made their mind that whatever bullshit they belive is the truth , there is no argument or evidence that can be presented that will make him change his mind. There is nothing that can be done. You can't reason with this people. You can't argue. You can't engage in a meaninfull discussion. You can only rant on social media to your own bubble and get some likes and shares from people that alreadly agree with you. So why botter engaging with others? Why try to discuss? There is no point. No one will change their mind. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"People are way too dumb and stubborn to be worth talk to them."}
{"id":"141d9e96-7550-49ae-928e-60e1ea1d8647","argument":"It is in the interest of the state to regulate and control currencies so that they track currency movement, collect taxes on it, and trace criminal activity. All of this control is likely to be lost if cryptocurrencies are used.","conclusion":"Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin might be unable to function as a global currency because it is difficult to regulate and control"}
{"id":"736b0d2f-ea56-462d-b82c-a8d70666d7dd","argument":"Here's the gist of my view. Differences Interesting Imbalance Want to sell a game? Well then, you need to make it interesting, different, and imbalanced. The games that gain popularity The ones with flashy and unique characters, guns, warriors, spells, whatever. are all inherently imbalanced because all that unique stuff that makes them popular also forms the basis for inherent differences which, consequently, make the game imbalanced, forever. Once a game achieves popular success, all the game developer can do is go back and do damage control to appease their, so called, competitive player base. The only way for the balance teams to do this, safely, is to go back and tone down the numbers, thereby creating the illusion of balance so their consumer base of foaming at the mouth petulant teenagers and stinking neckbeards will shut up and buy the next, whatever. This isn't how you create a sport. This is how you please your customers. If you wanted to create an actual sport you would make sure that both sides were exactly the same. The problem is, if you do this, your game will be boring in the eyes of the, so called, competitive scene. So, as a developer, the simplest answer to all this is to simply ignore the competitive scene and make the best game you possibly can. You make a guy that shoots bullets. You make a guy shoots disease. Of course, this disease is a biological weapon and everybody knows that biological weapons are inherently imbalanced, so you nerf the shit out of it. Oh, no. People are exploiting the this nerf , that nerf , and the other thing nerf, nerf . Anyway, this is why E Sports will never make it off the ground. Besides, why the fuck would you waste your time, as a player, mastering pawns that are sure to change in a few years. That's a totally idiotic waste of time. What about when the next game comes out? Think you're going to be on top still? Yeah, well, I doubt it. EDIT Yeah. Well. You failed. Sorry guys. No product that's continually modified, over and over again, by a company will ever become a sport. Imagine if the soccer developers kept adding balls to the game so they could keep selling you the new ball, that would be ridiculous, and you would probably tell the soccer developers to go fuck themselves. Most of the games you people tout as sports ie MOBA RTS games are inherently, and forever, imbalanced due to the differences between the two sides, so there can never be true equality and the sport itself can never be fair. You claim that the flesh and blood organic beings that take part in existing sports are akin to the digital pawns, units, whatever, inside the game, but this is completely idiotic. The organic beings that play the sports are the players themselves while the units in video games are, in fact, coded into the game, so this comparison is moot. On top of all of this E Spots are bad for the players themselves who find themselves at odds with continually changing game rules. The continual modification of game rules coupled with the false promise of equality among pawns creates false hope in the mind of the player for, in truth, there is perpetual inequality. I think this unending battle against the unfair and constantly changing is what hooks people and turns them into addicts because they constantly feel as if they can achieve some mastery over this thing that's always changing when, in truth, the thing itself is not static and so it can never be truly mastered. Therefore, any master of E Sports is a master of nothing, a king among addicts, and parasite to an ever changing game. Sorry, but without even sides and static rules, it can't be a sport.","conclusion":"E-Sports will never take off because most video games start off as inherently imbalanced in order to make them interesting to consumers."}
{"id":"3287e7f9-04e9-4ceb-9b49-874503291327","argument":"No one should be allowed to have more than 150 million because it is pointless to have that much money. Spending a whopping 1 million dollars a year still leaves an individual with too much money to ever use in a lifetime. According to simple economics, if we view wealth as a slice of pie, 1 of the nation owns 40 of our wealth U.S.A , that's ridiculous The problem with this is that the richer the 1 is, the poorer the remaining 99 are. When wages are increased, businesses cut down on workers to make up for the loss in profit. For example, let's say minimum wage is 10 and a small business has 10 workers, that means the business has to pay 100 an hour. Now if minimum wage increased to 15, instead of businesses keeping 10 workers, they would fire 4 workers to keep their hourly loss at 100 an hour. Sure the remaining 6 workers are better off, but now there are 4 more people without jobs. This results in less jobs and higher unemployment, but those who have jobs are better off. This means that those in the middle class have better living standards, but the lower class has worse living standards and the lower class is growing. The system should not be about sacrificing the less fortunate for the sake of the middle class and upper class, but the upper class should sacrifice their immense wealth so everyone has a higher living standard slice of pie. Instead, businesses should keep all 10 workers and sacrifice an extra 50 an hour so that everyone has better living standards. The problem with this, however, is that businesses are unwilling to sacrifice their profits. Increasing minimum wage is pointless and will forever be pointless because such a system depends on the integrity and goodness of businesses, which does not happen. Instead, individuals should have their income capped at 150 million dollars because they can never use so much and this should give more incentive to give everyone a bigger slice of pie. nbsp In sum, change my view on the following gt 150 million is an absurd amount of money that no one individual should be allowed to have because it is impossible to spend it all. Businesses rich should be forced in some way to keep all their workers and accept decreased profits by not firing workers after minimum wage increase forced to distribute their income more evenly. nbsp Bonus question How can the system be changed so that everyone has good reasonable living standards and not too much money? nbsp Edit 150 million is just an arbitrary number. Now that I think about it, 150 million is a little low. Maybe somewhere in the hundreds of million. Point is, no one should have more than 1 billion dollars because that is too much money to ever reasonably spend in a lifetime. Edit 2 Ok it doesn't have to be a hard cap, what about a soft cap like very high taxes for millionaires. Pretty much to the point where it's almost impossible to ever become a billionaire.","conclusion":"No one should be allowed to be a multimillionaire >$150 million and their income should be capped"}
{"id":"0f6c62a7-ead2-4726-b81d-2b047a092299","argument":"The Media are supposed to report news, not make news. The overwhelming bias in the Media is the fule of the flames of hatred in the Martin Zimmerman aftermath. Today in NY and LA and other cities protesters are marching and there are already reports of rubber bullets being fired. I know people have already been injured today, but if there are any serious injuries the true cause of the suffering is the non stop and very biased coverage by the Media. Every news source I've seen today is showing Zimmerman with a huge smile on his face and Martin in a picture taken years ago. Zimmerman was found guilty by the press from day one.","conclusion":"The Media are the true cause of any serious injuries resulting in the Martin\/Zimmerman aftermath."}
{"id":"585d7a1e-3e34-436b-aa13-b867530114d6","argument":"I am going to preface my post by saying that I live in Britain, but I am aware that most people reading this post are American. As far as I understand it we have very similar strike laws, but if something seems a bit off about my understanding of the technicalities that might be why. So I live in London, and we are facing some more tube strikes which are a joke in and of themselves, but that's a story for another time . It got me thinking that the original strikes were performed by workers who worked in appallingly bad conditions, and who held out the strikes in the face of immense pressure from businesses including threats of physical violence against them and their families. So these strikes were a statement that the conditions of work were so unacceptable that workers would risk going moneyless and risk physical violence just in order to get a better deal. The strikers held out either until conditions changed or until the pressure became too much. Eventually the government caved in and accepted that working laws should be introduced, but included among these were strike action laws to prevent the unions themselves from becoming too powerful. Add a few decades and you get the modern strike in the case of the tubes a pair of 5 day walkouts, but ordinarily a single strike period lasting 1 2 days. And it's pointless. What I am talking about is the difference. In the past people striked because conditions were unacceptable, and wouldn't stop until they changed. Now regardless of the conditions, people strike until their legally allowed strike period is up. In the past, employers knew they wouldn't get work until they improved conditions. In the present businesses know that they won't get work until the legally allowed strike period is up. As a result, strikes now mean nothing. They come with a guarantee of an end, whereas the whole point of them was originally that there is no guarantee of an end. By legalising them, the government have gutted the power of strikes, and now every time a workforce takes up strike action the businesses can sit back and know that they won't be allowed to try it on again until this time next year.","conclusion":"Corporate strike action these days can only ever remind businesses how much control they have."}
{"id":"a772f9a2-1ad0-4c71-837d-8c335c660edf","argument":"Veganism is defined as \"a way of living which seeks to exclude, as far as is possible and practicable, all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose.\" \"As far as is possible and practicable\" means that as long as replacements are not available it is alright to use the animal product.","conclusion":"The cutoff of what veganism is and is not might be definitive after all."}
{"id":"1789d742-d2dc-4ce6-919c-785676fea626","argument":"I am in a serious doubt. I have seen some videos like this an read texts in the internet an I can't see the flaws. The media doesn't mention anything about Cuba I live in Germany . In core it says, that in Cuba everyone can vote in private secret? equal and free elections and the f. e. the communist party can't support or even establish their candidates an is just smth like a discussion club. Even when you look at other stats Cuba seems pretty succesfull although there are huge embargos against it , 0 analphabets, the most doctors per inhabitant in the whole world, costless education and healthcare, nearly no homelessness, just to list a few. I am more and more thinking, that Cuba is a positive example of socialism, but I know that something has to be wrong with my informations. Can you tell my what? Why would Cuba be such a terrible place to live? And please tell me facts, no thesis without proof or enough evidence .","conclusion":"Cuba is more democratic than the US"}
{"id":"cbe5effd-72c9-47b1-ad72-918da99594db","argument":"I believe that I should be allowed to consent to have sex with someone who is older than 18, if I so desired. I know the dangers of unprotected sex, I know how to be safe, and I know the emotional consequences that can follow. I don't believe that because I'm 15, I somehow don't have the capacity to know, comprehend, and consent to having sex. I'm not some incompetent, mindless baby that can't think for himself.I think it's really stupid to say that someone my age can't consent. What makes me any less able to consent than someone who's, say, 18? So, . I'm a Bisexual guy too, if that matters.","conclusion":"I'm 15 years old, and I believe that I should be able to legally consent to having sex with someone who is older than 18."}
{"id":"3b962768-593b-47c3-8dbc-78c66f98fd8c","argument":"Boys and girls distract each other from their education, especially in adolescence as their sexual and emotional sides develop. Too much time can be spent attempting to impress or even sexually harassing each other particularly boys toward girls. Academic competition between the sexes is unhealthy and only adds to unhappiness and anxiety among weaker students. As Tricia Kelleher, a school principal, argues, \u2018rather than girls defining themselves by their interests, they define themselves by what the boys think of them or what other girls think boys think of them\u2019.1 Furthermore, John Silber, President of Boston University, declared in 2002 that his university would prioritize male applications in order to even up the student composition and ensure the male population did not become \u2018ungentlemanly\u2019 towards women due to their numerical inferiority. A single-sex environment is therefore a space where children can learn without feeling pressurized by the other sex\u2019.2 1 Kelleher, Tricia et al., \u2018Should boys and girls be taught together\u2019, perspicacious. 2 Kelleher, Tricia et al., \u2018Should boys and girls be taught together\u2019, perspicacious.","conclusion":"Boys and girls are an unwelcome distraction to each other"}
{"id":"507072c5-7086-4c0d-8d5d-c378f40c7ff5","argument":"The fact that unpaid internships and no internships at all lead to similar results in future employment does highlight that unpaid internships do not seem to offer any advantages.","conclusion":"Studies have shown that paid internships are twice as likely to result in employment than unpaid internships."}
{"id":"bfa5b23b-0816-4e0a-9a98-e51a7def4d7c","argument":"Terrorism attacks, bombings, assassinations, Anonymous vs. Westboro Baptist church, Atheists vs. Theists. I think these are all, at their core, results of people creating for themselves an ingroup and labeling the others as an outgroup. I believe that if people started realizing that everyone has the same basic wants and needs, that everyone acts towards what they 'think' is good, that we're all one human race, that these problems will start going away. It's not the people themselves that are to blame for their actions, it's their greed, their fear of not getting into heaven, their irrationality, their misplaced anger and ignorance that perpetuates the cycle of violence hate. By attacking these issues and replacing irrationality and unsubstantiated beliefs with facts and understanding I think that the world will be well on its way to the next chapter of humanity.","conclusion":"I think that, directly or indirectly, the ingroup\/outgroup us vs. them mentality is behind most, if not all the social problems we face in society today."}
{"id":"f88ce893-4569-40c9-97ca-6a93e427ac86","argument":"Facebook and Twitter are particularly useful tools for terror organisations due to their global popularity, easy access and ease to reach their audience.","conclusion":"Facebook and Twitter have the ability to weaken operations of organizations like ISIS by erasing their presence on these sites."}
{"id":"cb49ab71-41fe-4cec-a717-3543009e81bb","argument":"The act of using argumentation in an attempt to discover truth and resolve conflicts implies certain ethical norms, such as preferring to use reason instead of force and preferring truth over falsehood. To argue against objective morality is thus a performative contradiction.","conclusion":"Any attempt to claim that morality is subjective is self-contradictory or self-undermining."}
{"id":"17d046c8-fbcc-48a3-a78e-ffd529ea5789","argument":"Statues aren't a way to remember history, they're a collective decision about who to honor and what our values are as a society. The disproportionate reverence placed on Confederate figures demonstrates a fondness for, if not an explicit endorsement of, white supremacy. If preservation of the past is your concern, more robust and thorough historical education serves better than statues that glorify slaveholders.","conclusion":"The principal legacy of Confederate statues is white supremacy and slavery. Since this fundamentally conflicts with American values and ideas, they should be removed."}
{"id":"8f88f9c0-ef42-4553-b54c-8e586699e9a2","argument":"The witnesses to execution are kept separate to the prisoner, and are surrounded by guards whose job it is to ensure the execution goes ahead as planned. The witness is comparatively powerless in this situation.","conclusion":"The witnesses merely attest to the execution - an event already certain; they do not have the option to intervene."}
{"id":"86b03f07-18dc-4fe3-b30c-bce2809d52b8","argument":"So the Fine Bros just released this video to clarify their intentions. Yet it has 93k thumbs down. What is wrong about it? They pioneered their precise format under their brand . They're not trying to claim the genre of reaction videos. Also, people don't seem to understand trademarks. Especially since people keep using copywrite and trademark interchangeably. Someone can register a trademark to identify a product or service from their brand so consumers can know for certain where that product or service originated from. All because the Fine Bros TM'd the word REACT doesn't mean they are trying to claim the entire genre. They have a very clear format and they are trademarking that product under their brand to protect themselves from people ripping off their show. That's not greedy, that's how business works. I'm not saying that their claims against some reaction videos are fair. I'm also not saying their intentions are the best. I do not think anyone should stand for the Fine Bros bullying small channels. In fact, just like RC Cola can mimic Coke, people could make the exact format of the Fine Bros video as long as it was under a different and uniquely distinguishable brand. YouTube is broken and Fine Bros are ass holes for taking advantage of it but that doesn't mean their Trademark is outrageous. It's their brand and they have a recognizable product. So , what about React World is wrong?","conclusion":"The Fine Bros trademark is not egregious. It's just a misunderstanding and now a circlejerk in the reddit community. Their TM is fair and valid."}
{"id":"7de9310a-3e38-4f19-a717-adb1b26af45e","argument":"Many asexuals believe they are 'broken' or 'wrong' just as many other members of the LGBT community do.","conclusion":"Aromantics and asexuals have many shared experiences with people under the LGBT+ umbrella."}
{"id":"77e95d4f-2ec7-452e-93f4-ca10e3c3f278","argument":"For a poor person, struggling to survive, thinking about helping others is not a priority. They are selfish, not because they are bad people, but because they can't afford to be generous.","conclusion":"For the poor, generosity is trumped by other needs, such as survival"}
{"id":"151991c4-26ee-4ab7-b2b2-4e204abcab09","argument":"By 'advertising' the belief an opinion is already stated which indicates that expressions of allegiance can be viewed as oppressive and prejudicial to teaching. It might prove difficult to entrust the neutrality of a sports teacher to conduct a balanced discussion of a football team while wearing the shirt of a rival.","conclusion":"Any expression of cultural habit or religious bias could prevent a child from feeling able to question those very entities for fear of upsetting a teacher."}
{"id":"9aa4dab5-c735-48c3-aa80-8c4c8533d79c","argument":"I am from St. Louis, MO I have personally seen the Westboro Baptist Church picket outside my high school it was for a soldier who had passed away back in 2011 or 2012. I like to think of myself as a pretty accepting person when it comes to the beliefs of others, but I personally cannot stand the WBC the hateful messages they spread. They indoctrinate their children to believe that f s are going to hell, they protest at the funerals of fallen troops have signs such as Thank God for 9 11 , and after watching some documentaries interviews of these people they take a perverted vindictive view of the Bible even indoctrinate their children to believe it as the truth maybe I'm slightly biased, but I personally find everything they do to exude hate to be qualities of an organization which could be qualified as a hate group. In lieu of my personal opinion, I am wondering why they haven't been labeled as a hate group why they're allowed to protest funerals, etc.","conclusion":"on why the Westboro Baptist Church isn't a hate group."}
{"id":"e11ce2eb-cee5-4f97-a922-e80a3b5bc1a3","argument":"The \"natural death\" alternative to euthanasia is not keeping someone alive via life support until they die on life support. That would, indeed, be unnatural. The natural alternative is, instead, to allow them to die off of life support.","conclusion":"The alternative to euthanasia is a natural death without life support."}
{"id":"5c758163-cd15-4c1b-ad96-58fea37cbbf3","argument":"When corporations are contributing \u00a3400,000 to their events, it becomes difficult for the community to hold companies accountable for fear of losing that capital.","conclusion":"This ongoing relationship exists with a power dynamic that means scrutiny and change are unlikely."}
{"id":"6bcaf1f2-15d4-4286-bc64-c0f5ba84f5c7","argument":"Most trans women can't and won't ever be pregnant. Given that reproductive rights are often a core issue in women-only spaces, this difference between trans and cis women is significant.","conclusion":"Trans women may not experience certain biological processes that cis women do experience."}
{"id":"051b6e96-a41d-4b5f-829c-f554797b476c","argument":"John Oliver meant to mock Donald Trump by calling him Drumpf on his show. However, I don't believe this is any different than Charlie Sheen calling Chuck Lorre by his birth name Chaim Levine and the uproar that caused. The purpose of these tactics is to shame the person based on his heritage, and I don't believe it's a particularly fair insult. People change their names for many reasons, such as making it easier to assimilate into another culture, to avoid confusion or misspelling. Trump is a fair Anglicization of Drumpf, just as many Americans have. We can disagree with ideals without resorting to petty cultural jokes about a person's heritage.","conclusion":"I consider calling Donald Trump by his grandfather's surname name \"Drumpf\" akin to the anti-Semitic tactic of calling Jewish celebrities by their familial surnames. It intends to shame a person based upon his heritage."}
{"id":"e54f38a9-a3f4-4d92-8fab-18098237281d","argument":"Granting us greater freedom will enhance the potential damage that could be done by cheating.","conclusion":"The British have no interest in granting us greater freedom."}
{"id":"49fa5333-9044-438e-8f18-adf63c86d7ce","argument":"In early 18th century Europe, vegetables were believed to have no health benefits and to be almost impossible to digest.","conclusion":"Convictions surrounding different foodstuffs, and their corresponding cultural importance, change over time."}
{"id":"6cbd4f87-f25a-44fe-a707-873914bce621","argument":"Dull, lackluster media coverage makes female sports events seem less exciting than men\u2019s. This coverage equates to subtle sexism which is unlikely to change because of improvement in performances.","conclusion":"Improvement in performances in women's categories does not necessarily lead to increased viewership and money."}
{"id":"a19982d7-fdc9-4512-aeee-a74fa9a7baac","argument":"Reading a novel and watching a movie are in my view very similar. A typical argument would be how much more engaging a book is because you're using your imagination to form scenes and develop characters, but I think readers generally take that concept to a level that simply doesn't exist. I dont read for pleasure, because it takes the writer 9 pages to explain what 3 frames on a tv could. Maybe you redditors are thinking well, they always leave out the detailz the movie was so bad cause they didn't depict it how I did in my head Well Mr. Redditor, there are people out there with multimillion dollar budgets, talent, and years of training to make a well thought out, and skilled piece of art that puts the imagination on the page. In my view, this power to make a reality within a frame, as well as 21st century Hollywood does, makes this somewhat of an evolution in story telling and visualization. Change my view. EDIT So far, I've only been reminded that there are pros to a book and it has qualities that will never be replaced by a movie. I would like to say that I don't disagree with that but also specify what I mean by out date I'm saying as an entertainment medium, as in actually portraying the material to the audience, books are an outdated form. A visual stimulus of what is happening creates a more direct approach to exactly what is suppose to be seen. EDIT 2 ~~ I'm comparing books to movies as I would vinyls to mp3s. That's what I mean by outdated. Audio buffs would argue that the sound is more pure and rich compared to mp3s, and I would argue many of the points below are similar to the argument of an audio buff.~~Movies are just an easier way to convey more things in less words. Efficiency. And while there's still things to hold onto with a book, having a mental and personal narrative and such, things books can do are not always needed in terms of entertainment. Edit 3 strikethrough because example was taken too literally.","conclusion":"Books are becoming an outdated form of entertainment."}
{"id":"95f68b4b-e04c-4cc8-b509-69731e98a44b","argument":"I believe that no one gets their actual morality from the bible. Some of their actions might be based on the bible but when confronted with an obvious morally atrocious command in the bible, they have a justification for it. If you get your morality from the bible, you would have no objections to anything in it. You would find love thy neighbor just as pleasant as kill disobedient children . Some extremists actually act on every word in the bible, but they have to force themselves to go against their natural moral impulse in order to follow it. Some people think they get their morality from the bible. Some people act on the commands in the bible. No one ACTUALLY gets their moral compass from the bible.","conclusion":"I believe that no one gets their morality from the bible."}
{"id":"e86bc399-e82f-41f6-b9fd-1115b84e81e8","argument":"Man who's far from perfect has created products which are practically perfect\/almost perfect, practicing quality control in manufacturing, many aiming at \u201czero defect\u201d quality now. A Perfect God, even a Non-Perfect God, could have had made a much better quality man. But man, who has many faults in character & body, seems to reflect his Maker\u2019s poor quality control. This may mean that God doesn\u2019t exist for if He exists He could have expectedly made a much better quality man.","conclusion":"God had supposedly created man but the latter\u2019s apparent poor quality indicates that God might not have created him & may not necessarily exist."}
{"id":"1596ecc9-bb6a-4bff-b22b-dcb2018cc88f","argument":"Why do we reserve the right to be proud of something we had no control over? And to the same front, the actions of our ancestors we've all got a few bad eggs do not define us, so all those slave owners and murderers as well as the abolitionists and heroes deserve the pride, as your connection to them via race has nothing to do with you as a person. Edit people seem to think I have a problem with gay pride and are misreading what I wrote, so I'm eliminating that aspect of the conversation.","conclusion":"Race, gender, sexual preference, and other things people do not choose to inherit should not be things we take pride or shame in."}
{"id":"46b4c04f-186d-4538-a8bf-71eb12b0cf14","argument":"Animal cruelty is bad and we should all whether vegans or not be against it. I do know that festivals like the yulin festival are completely abhorrent because of the cruelty to the dogs. If the dogs were treated as any other farm animal and do not suffer much pain when killed, then to me, it is perfectly justified. However many non vegans believe that the very act of farming dogs is despicable. Note The argument that dogs are pets will not really change my mind. This is because dogs are viewed as pets mainly in the west. In the east where dog eating is common, they are not really viewed as pet. Basically to change my view, you only need to show me how farming dogs for their meat is any different from farming other animals.","conclusion":"Unless you are a vegan, you cannot be against eating farmed dogs."}
{"id":"d5916a93-8300-47b0-a6e9-60925d8b5dd9","argument":"Edit it has been pointed out that I meant Premium Currency by not in game currency. There are laws in place that prevent anyone from creating a currency counter to the USD. Gaming companies have created their own one way economy that is rigged so that it's hard to spend your full balance, and you have to keep feeding in more cash to access the content. Overall this trend is touted as being good for the Devs, however it's come at the cost of a financial barrier to previously unlockable items skins and cosmetics , and we're expected to be grateful that no gameplay changing items are included. Overall the process is predatory, and I believe illegal under existing federal law though the matter has yet to be taken to the courts.","conclusion":"In-game currencies should be outlawed US"}
{"id":"5754bb27-3b98-483d-ae53-c9339751b749","argument":"The Bible also records the incredulity of these events to demonstrate this conflict Abraham questioned Sarah's conceivability, and Joseph thought Mary had been unfaithful. Lazarus was considered dead and Jesus' disciples deserted their Lord and hid not believing he was resurrected.","conclusion":"Miracles such as Sarah giving birth at 90, Jesus being born of a virgin and Jesus\/Lazarus rising from the dead are not possible under our current understanding of natural law. This produces conflict."}
{"id":"efec6a49-d463-4abe-939b-a82707a8c491","argument":"My roommate and I live in Knoxville, Tennessee, which is approx. 10 20 minutes away from Maryville, Tennessee. Because most residents of the area speak with a Southern accent, Maryville is often pronounced as Mar uh vul or Mare uh vul. My roommate argues that the pronunciation used by the residents is the correct pronunciation. However, I argue that the accents of the residents do not change the phonetic pronunciation of Maryville. Plus, even if they pronounce it incorrectly, they are still attempting to say Mary ville.","conclusion":"I believe that the correct pronunciation of a location city, town, state, country, etc. is independent of the the local pronunciation."}
{"id":"bcbc0606-74d6-4095-9ab6-45bf1bfcd9ae","argument":"Couples may be less likely to work on problems that come up within the marriage if they know that they have the fallback of a convenient arrangement for them in the event of a divorce.","conclusion":"Signing a prenuptial agreement is showing a lack of faith in the sustainability of the future marriage."}
{"id":"194f38fb-c288-4d40-a0a2-749e86898dd1","argument":"There are currently no definitive explanations as to why someone is LGBTQ+ and it appears that the factors which determine it may vary over time. If something is created based on the society in which one lives then it can be undone.","conclusion":"Practitioners of conversion therapy believe it is valid, and that it works."}
{"id":"e9e2fe94-4d8f-4538-8169-2b78e7383add","argument":"In 2005 nearly 155 people died per week in Iraq due to sectarian violence between Sunnis and Shias.","conclusion":"Historically, there have been many conflicts and arguments between Sunni and Shia Muslims."}
{"id":"b6f32142-e85d-4dd9-b2a0-1c2abbaf745f","argument":"On the Internet, on sites such as and especially Reddit, there is this idea that if you posit an idea then you must present some scientific 'evidence' to back it up or you get downvoted ignored disregarded. I don't care if there was a study on pigs that showed that putting lipstick on makes you more sociable. I don't find it convincing and you presenting a link to the study will find me disregarding it immediately. It's as much like religious people quoting the bible and saying it is truth. No it is not I can not comprehend how many people present an idea as fact because 'the bible says so this study says so they have so called evidence to back it up' without even stopping to think what Truth even is. What do you mean when you say something is true? Answer that question before you try to say something is so. If I ask you to explain to me why I have dreams, I am going to disregard your science as much as I disregard your religion because it is based on a system which is fundamentally incapable of answering 'why' and can only ever answer 'how'.","conclusion":"I think that science and the scientific method are wildly overrated and people use them as a way to get out of an argument easily much like religion."}
{"id":"093de9eb-8245-4536-bcac-8ca55759ffa0","argument":"Committing suicide is difficult to prevent either. Allowing this option would open a legal opportunity for those who would commit suicide otherwise.","conclusion":"Every human should have the right and means to decide when and how to die."}
{"id":"2198eee2-f948-49a7-ba4e-d6b8da32e20e","argument":"The Crisis of the Third Century I believe put an end to the Roman Empire as it had previously existed and that Diocletian and Constantine's later reforms drastically altered the core of Roman government and society. The governmental apparatus for all intents and purposes endured but in a very different state that it was during the Severan Dynasty. The differences between Alexander and Diocletian's Roman Empire are at least greater than what's pointed to as the cut off from the Roman to Byzantine Empire.","conclusion":"I think that the Roman Empire ended with Alexander Severus' assassination in 235."}
{"id":"f68da4fa-7fe5-4ebf-bda2-21188ec791b9","argument":"This is absolutely correct. An example is the use of bear gall bile in China. Bears are trapped as cubs and keep in small cages until they die which can be as long as 30 years. They are 'milked' of their gall bile via a catheter inserted in their gall bladder. Chinese physicians have said gall bile has no medical benefits. It is a cruel and unscupulous practice based on superstition - and commercial gain.","conclusion":"It's not about \"liking\" or \"disliking\". This is a deeply primitive and cruel action against another sentient being. For some people, traditions seem to be more important to hold on to than logic and empathy. However, for a lot of others, watching this atrocious act, is nothing but a barbaric show of an old primitive concept of masculinity."}
{"id":"8ebf7aa9-e4e3-4d5e-ab6a-39eb977ba768","argument":"The Book of Mormon contains \"a chronology and internal geography that remain consistent through numerous subplots, flashbacks, journeys, and lengthy sermons.\" See The Book of Mormon: The Earliest Text. Royal Skousen, Pg. x, Yale.","conclusion":"Literary Analysis: The Book of Mormon's structure and complexity is evidence of its authenticity."}
{"id":"7cc167e8-fe9f-4844-8f86-8168441a5efe","argument":"It's easy for the admin of shared devices to install a trojan and\/or automatic screen capture program.","conclusion":"Some voters do use shared devices, which can lead to security and privacy problems."}
{"id":"9cf8e4c8-8398-4872-8d21-ccb8ee7a5e5d","argument":"By looking for sexual partners with which we have both physical and emotional attraction, there are less potential partners to choose from, narrowing the options for sexual activity.","conclusion":"If people are only waiting for sex with emotional attachment they are limiting their ability to experience the health benefits associated with sex."}
{"id":"5544ab61-febe-4863-979c-ca24e1715f47","argument":"Keeping people out of abject poverty is beneficial for the society -- and not offered by free market alternatives. It allows individuals to enter the workforce after a break instead of finding themselves homeless after a break, or too sick to be productive and allows people to go into training and education and thus be a more skilled workforce.","conclusion":"A welfare state provides a safety net to give people a second chance after severe difficulties."}
{"id":"80f34619-81f8-4d47-b4f6-29d80cbd927a","argument":"spoilers I frequently hear praise of Star Wars villain Kylo Ren. I don't understand it. In fact, I feel the opposite. Kylo Ren, while he may have incredibly high amounts of force power, is ultimately a temper tantrum throwing half baked Vader knock off. There's obvious parallels between Vader and Kylo. Between the mask, his role on the Dark Side, and his pursuit of power, it's hard to deny that Kylo is this trilogy's Vader. There's even that scene with the melted Vader helmet and Kylo worshiping it. But I'm not trying to debate how Vader like Kylo is I'm trying to argue against Kylo's badassery. I'll do so by comparing him to Vader. In episodes II and III, Anakin struggles internally with coping with fear and his insane levels of force power. He desires to act on his fears, as he feels he is powerful enough to handle them, but is never allowed to. Fear drives Anakin to the Dark side, as he eventually can't bear having so much power and not being able to use it he's constantly deterred by the Jedi, and partook in a frustrating course of non action i.e. sitting around with Padme a lot when all he wanted to do was unleash his power on his enemies, and act on his fear. The Dark Side enabled Anakin to act. The Jedi did not. He's further motivated when he discovers the death of his mother, which he detected. Had he acted on his fear, he could have saved his mother, thus motivating him to spite the Jedi for putting him on a leash and unlocking Vader badassery. After watching his mom die, Anakin unleashes his power and kills all of the people within his range of sight to avenge her. This was the moment Anakin turned more Dark. Kylo, otoh, left the Jedi when he presumably went a wall at Jedi camp with Luke Skywalker, and unleashed his power and killed a bunch of Jedi at a young age younger than when Anakin had his similar frenzy to avenge his mother. He then turned to the Dark Side. Kylo never needs to deal with maintaining his fears since he has already committed to the Dark Side, and he doesn't seem like the fearful type anyhow. He does, however, repeatedly throw tantrums like Anakin's power struggle related ones whenever he doesn't get his way. It seems unmotivated and overall bratty when Kylo starts his tantrums, and when compared to Anakin's anger it seems wimpy. Not badass. Kylo is enabled to do whatever he pleases so long as he's on the Dark Side, and he never has any further justification for getting so angry other than when he doesn't get his way. He doesn't have the internal struggle of Anakin where he has all this power but nothing to do with it. Quite the opposite, imo. He has power tons of power and he knows it. His masters know it, and enable him to unlock and refine it. The opposite of how the Jedi treated Anakin. Yeah, stopping a shot in mid air is super cool, but not badass enough for me to justify him throwing repeated temper tantrums throughout. His unjustified anger shows weakness and immaturity, imho, and negates the few badass moments he has. Maybe one day when Kylo is old and grey like the man he was named after, he won't have these tantrums as he matures. But until then, Kylo Ren is just some pointless mask wearing wimpy crybaby who is definitely not the badass that some Star Wars fans make him out to be and DEFINITELY not as badass as Vader. But maybe I'm missing something. ?","conclusion":"Kylo Ren is not a badass."}
{"id":"0d6913c7-33e2-455f-a2d3-52e3465cb53d","argument":"Each movie just beats the dead horse with the same plot of the obvious 'good guys' fighting the obvious 'bad guys'. You are told who to support and there is no room made to entertain other ideas. Whereas Star Trek introduces you to the Federation as they encounter countless star systems and peoples who differ greatly in their morality or sense of purpose. One is not necessarily right or wrong and the Federation isn't trying to change the other's inherent nature, rather bring them into the fold. You meet interesting cultures and are exposed to different ways of life such as the Borg or the Klingon, with one not being better than the other. Edit I'd have to say that while my viewpoint has not changed, my understanding of difference between the two genres has. For that, I thank you loyal fandom.","conclusion":"Star Wars is an inferior franchise. The entire storyline is two-dimensional and trite--good v bad--whereas Star Trek has depth and our standard views of morality and ethics are challenged."}
{"id":"84bed81f-0929-4fdc-8cf7-560fc498dd7a","argument":"Partners form shared goals in a relationship. Causing emotional harm to your partner hurts the own ability to achieve these goals and therefore makes oneself worse off.","conclusion":"In an exclusive relationship you can hardly consider something a relief if it upsets your partner."}
{"id":"9516875f-1ef3-48d6-87d8-1115ef8d9f3e","argument":"Quick Background These laws concern the electronic recording of conversations both in person and over the phone. One party consent laws dictate that a conversation may be recorded if at least one person who is a party to the conversation that is, openly a part of the conversation , is aware of and consents to the recording. Two party consent laws counterintuitively require that all parties must be aware of and consent to the recording. Both laws make surreptitious recording or eavesdropping illegal. Federal law is one party consent. 11 States have two party consent laws. The remainder have one party consent laws. Where the two laws are in conflict such as an interstate phone call the two party consent law prevails. Further reading My View All states with two party consent laws should repeal them and replace them with one party consent laws. My Reasoning Being able to freely record all your own phone conversations and in person conversations without needing to inform the other person is an important protection for the common person. It can protect you from sleazy car sales people whose statements contradict the fine print of the contract. It can protect the abused from their abusers and their lies example here It can protect you when whistleblowing and from sexual harassment and discrimination in the work place. It protects you whenever you are in a situation where you need to expose someone\u2019s lies. One party consent laws also resolve he said she said situations perfectly. Crucially, they protect the weak. They protect people who may not be believed due to cultural bias, such as children, women in the workplace, ex criminals, people who have developed a \u201cbad reputation\u201d in a small town, and many others. Conversely, two party consent laws protect the powerful. They protect politicians and police officers and other public servants in he said she said situations as they prefer to rely on their reputation. Whose word are you going to believe? This upstanding officer or that young punk? This dedicated politician or the attention seeking whore? This seems to be a pretty clear case of corruption. Outside of a non disclosure agreement or specific privacy regulations like HIPAA, it is perfectly legal to talk to anyone about a conversation you had, or even to take notes or a transcript of any phone conversation. We see this all the time in all 50 states in the form of witness testimony. The only thing having the ability to record digitally adds is credence to what you say, and convenience. Additionally, I view digital recording as a form of memory augmentation. You have a right to remember and talk about any conversation you have already, recording only increases the accuracy of what you remember. Why I want my view changed I feel as though I might be unfair towards two party consent laws. I see no reason for them outside of technophobia and corruption. I\u2019d like to think that eleven states are not that technophobic and corrupt, so maybe I\u2019m just missing something. So please,  Edit Thank you everyone for the nice discussion I still hold to my original view, but you've given me some good things to think about that I hadn't considered before. I'm signing off for the weekend. I might be able to respond to a few lingering things on Monday, but otherwise this it. I love this sub and the people on it. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"All two-party consent laws should be repealed and replaced with one-party consent laws."}
{"id":"b1233be3-aba5-4117-b91e-eeb1c5082303","argument":"Gross domestic product also soars when both girls and boys are being offered educational opportunities: \"a one percentage point increase in female education raises the average GDP by 0.3 percentage points and raises annual GDP growth rates by 0.2 percentage points.","conclusion":"Educating women is the most effective way of increasing household and national income."}
{"id":"1e5d698b-3e2f-4c2c-9c1a-8d5be4cc0ff4","argument":"While the scientific method assures bias is minimized in individual studies, lines of inquiry may be and indeed often are biased toward a particular field\u2019s preconceptions. This can of course include political leanings.","conclusion":"Academic and industrial contexts expose scientific research to political influences."}
{"id":"09bb1577-698d-45d6-8a59-a26d4c722ab6","argument":"We barely knew anything about Magnussen going into the episode, save for a few glimpses here and there, and we spend so much time on the whole Mary Watson storyline and Sherlock being shot that when we get to the climax, we're not really invested in the baddie at all. His death isn't really satisfying. Really, Sherlock? That was your plan? The laptop had a GPS or something ? That's IT? Yeah he admits the chances of success were unlikely but that's just lazy writing. Such an easily thwartable plan with no back up plans besides one that'll get you a lifetime in jail?? That twist ending? Piss off. You can't just undo important plot points on a whim coughdoctorwho","conclusion":"I thought the Sherlock season three finale was an awful episode."}
{"id":"a343f32e-4daa-4eeb-bb5a-1b78c5936973","argument":"This stereotype also negatively affects Southeast Asians who traditionally have a harder time achieving academic success because of their typically less privileged backgrounds","conclusion":"The perception of Asian-Americans as a \u2018privileged minority\u2019 disregards internal class differences between Asian-American sub-groups."}
{"id":"e3ee5d09-b7f7-45b9-8c18-0cbe47004a9f","argument":"Republicans often bash government and celebrate the individual over government, as if we don't live in a democracy, where government is of, by, and for the people. In a democracy, the government is not an oppressive monolithic figure. Instead, it is composed of elected officials and is, therefore, controlled and directed by the will of the people. To bash government is, therefore, to bash the citizens behind it.","conclusion":"Reps by govt, but forget it is of, by, for the people."}
{"id":"ed4d693f-4d41-454e-8133-dce50412c0a1","argument":"Elected mayors would speak on behalf of their communities, raising the profile of their town or city nationally and internationally. This could be particularly valuable when negotiating with businesses, helping to draw valuable investment into their area and overcoming bureaucratic hurdles that typically hinder development. Chambers of commerce in cities that are holding referendums believe a figurehead will provide a focal point for business relations and a single point of contact that champions the city\u2019s interests.1 In addition, mayors would give local government in general a higher profile after years of increasing centralisation by national government. Acting collectively, and through the change in attitudes their higher media profile would generate, mayors would be able to draw power away from the centre once again and bring it closer to the people. 1 Carter, Andrew, \u2018Mayors and Economic Growth\u2019, in Tom Gash and Sam Sims eds., What can elected mayors do for our cities? Institute for Government, 2012, pp.37-42, p.41","conclusion":"Mayors would raise the profile of the city they represent"}
{"id":"7ef35784-8889-4ddc-8228-58551973698b","argument":"Many police departments are unable to hire more personnel, even when they serve large areas. Predictive methods help these departments employ their limited personnel more efficiently.","conclusion":"Predictive methods allow police to work more proactively with limited resources. p. xiii, 2013"}
{"id":"545a8b7e-dd3a-4a33-814f-ff403f40cdad","argument":"Every study ever done has shown that police force is disproportionate against people of colour than those who are white Many of these studies took into account multiple variables, isolating and grouping similar instances from routine traffic stops to police shooting someone unarmed.","conclusion":"Some things are about race. For instance, the disproportionate sentencing of black Americans and other issues which the Black Lives Matter movement represents."}
{"id":"cc2b0ba0-86c1-40cf-9e90-4b1f869f105b","argument":"After multiple hard failures of AMD products in 3 laptops and one desktop of mine, I am convinced AMD products have a sooner fail rate than Intel and Nvidia. I have had a Radeon GPU fully melt to my MB before and it was not due to lack of air circulation. That whole machine was AMD from top to bottom and it ran nasty hot even after checking thermal paste and adding additional fans. In my experience, I have not had a LGA1155 or LGA1150 socket CPU overhead even on a stock CPU fan. I've never had to add additions fans even with a high powered Nvidia GeForce GTX GPU installed. The machine runs at a same temperature. I also feel like AMD builds are too rigid. Intel and Nvidia build appear more forgiving and interchangeable. I am studying to be and A tech. It would be horrifying to remain so biased when dealing with customer's machines. I'd rather like to lose this look of disgust when I see an AMD based machine. Please change my view. Edit Calling my post anecdotal will not change my view. What will is number. Proof of failure rates, proof of cost efficiency, etc. Yes, my hatred of AMD is likely extremely irrational, but that is just the point. I want to be shown it is so I can be more open minded when it comes to PCs. I want to not always say That GPU is garbage. just because I had multiple bad experiences. I want to tell them it's either garbage or amazing based on cold, hard evidence. Thanks","conclusion":"AMD CPUs and GPUs are less practical and more prone to failure than their Intel\/Nvidia counterparts."}
{"id":"65c71560-e389-42d1-886d-523d297348bb","argument":"This is a two part question. First he's scandal proof. I mean literally the man has a new scandal every single week. He's got a strategy where he just dogpiles the scandals one after the other so before one even goes deep he's already embroiled in another scandal. Maybe it's just the media overhyping every little thing but I honestly don't think there is anything he can do that can effect him much at all. As Ben Shapiro put it that most politicians are scared of getting mud whereas trump is a monster made of mud. Secondly I think there is nothing that can turn his base against him. He himself said he could shoot someone on fourth Avenue and not lose any support. He can literally make any stupid descion or do any kind of crazy act but his cult followers will never leave him. Its like a religion basically. Somebody  on this because I don't think it can be changed.","conclusion":"Trump is scandal-proof and there is nothing that can turn his base against him."}
{"id":"09772fff-7f1d-441c-a24a-8f136404cc4b","argument":"I think it is absolutely stupid that writing tests are still administered with pencil and paper, with no option to type. I even had to take the AP Computer Science test in high school on paper . Imagine that. A programming test where code is written on paper . I definitely write better by typing because I am not constrained by not really being able to erase and redo large portions. However, I am always required to hand write essay tests. Obviously, the schools can't be expected to provide computers just for tests, but where I live, the schools are pretty damn well funded. My high school had a cart of Surfaces, at least two carts of iPads, and multiple laptop carts. Given that my schools seem to be capable of providing a computer, it should be an option. Hell, I would use my own laptop that I bought for school if I could. People may say that it would be unfair to allow me to use my personal laptop to type a test because many other students may not be able to afford one. But, I would say, why should I have to handicap my display of my capabilities as a writer because of someone else's economic situation. I wish they could afford a laptop as well, but that has nothing to do with me. If, however, I score lower on a writing test because I had to hand write so that we could all be equal, then my future prospects are being affected by the situations of other people. And also, in high school, I was hanging out in the library while one grade of students was taking a standardized test. One particular student had injured their writing hand. To balance for this, they were allowed to type the test. But they still only had one hand. I would not say that's fair to the student. Yet was the solution for a state administered test. I do my best writing when I can type and am free to redo large portions. Many others are the same.If the school happens to be able to provide a computer, or a student can provide their own, there should be an option to type written tests. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Students should have the option to type writing tests"}
{"id":"46a13dca-e144-4b55-83dc-8372880c40ef","argument":"The Kosovo region owes Serbia a significant amount of money for what the country has invested in Kosovo over the years. It is presumable that Kosovo would have to compensate Serbia for these investments if it were to gain independence, but the cost of this indebtedness could be more than Kosovo can bear.","conclusion":"An independent Kosovo would have to pay impossible debts to Serbia"}
{"id":"cb758b97-cc1d-46d8-bc11-49254465b56b","argument":"In 2009, \"for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples\", Obama became only the fourth US President to ever be awarded with the Nobel Peace Prize.","conclusion":"Obama has received many prestigious awards and honours which illustrates that he is a good role model to people."}
{"id":"a3e392ce-524a-4c2e-961f-2dda13e851f8","argument":"I find it totally weird that so many people can't comprehend the idea of a sexually dimorphic species, which humans are. Men and Women on average is more suited to different things. Men on average have better spacial awareness I makes them gravitate more to tasks that involve building things. In Technology there many things to build computers, software, robots, startups, etc . Women on average are more erotic and that is why more of them can work in erotic services. If you deny that, you are pretty much denying that there is any sexual dimorphism and that appearance of any sexual dimorphism is a bad thing. The place where it trips certain groups of people such as the feminists is that it can't work in only one direction. Not even a patriarchal conspiracy can stop that. If you assert that there is not enough women in a male dominated filed such as technology you are making an equal, but opposite assertion that there are not enough men in a female dominated field such as erotic services.","conclusion":"Saying there is not enough women in Technology is equivalent to saying that there is not enough men in Erotic Services,"}
{"id":"07b5095e-6d21-4772-82cd-6d4ecdb98472","argument":"Even when people do not want to fund space travel, they are currently forced to do so. This is unfair as people should have a choice on issues like this, as not paying will not harm anyone.","conclusion":"People should not be forced to contribute towards something they oppose."}
{"id":"3728e229-aacc-4d35-89f4-4f58930ff1a6","argument":"For the sake of no biased answers, I'm not going to say my sex or age. I'll just say I am bisexual and genderqueer, and I am obsessed with sex. Human sexuality is severely flawed. Not trying to be sexist, but we know the usual difference between men and women sexually right? Men usually are very sexual. Women are also sexual, only they attach it to emotion. Because of this injustice, we have double standards. A horny woman is considered awesome but also slutty by some and a horny man is considered creepy. Women never have to worry about being creepy. Men do. If as a woman, you randomly kiss some guy on the street, he won't care. If as a man, you randomly kiss some girl on the street, you get slapped and she'll get pissed and possibly charge you for sexual assault. If a woman wants advice on asking a man out, everyone says JUST ASK HIM OUT, GIRLS DON'T GET REJECTED while if a man wants advice on asking a woman out, he'll get a variety of answers, because they're afraid of being creepy. If you flash your tits in front of a bunch of guys, they'll all like it. Every single one. If you flash your dick in front of a bunch of girls, some will scream in horror, some will laugh, some will like it, and some wont respond at all. Men have to work hard for women. Women don't even need to try. Go to a bar and you'll see what I mean. In Middle School, all the boys I knew ever talked about was sex sex sex. Girls talked about everything other than that and were grossed out by sex. In High School, I've seen boys having crushes on girls all the time. They try to get her but a lot of them fail. I've only heard of girls crushing on boys a few times. All they had to do was ask them out and they went out. Simple. For those lucky boys it was like a goddamn miracle. As an man, you can rape any woman. As a woman, you can only rape a few men. For almost all men, it'll be unexpected sex. Men rape women all the time. But when's the last time you heard about a woman raping a man? If a man rapes a woman, the news media calls it rape . If a woman rapes a man, the news media usually calls it forced to have sex Playboy is a popular magazine. Some people don't even know that Playgirl exists. Almost all men are sex maniacs. Not all women are sex maniacs. Like seriously, what kind of cruel world is this? Why can't we both be equal ? Why ? In an evolutionary perspective, I don't think its biologically right. But it's also society's fault. Don't be ashamed of your sexuality, be open about it ladies and gentlemen. Don't be scared of being called slutty or creepy. If someone does, they're ignorant, remind them that sexual urges is part of human nature and it's nothing to be ashamed of. We live in a fucked up society. I'm sorry if I offended you, but this honestly bothers me everyday.","conclusion":"I think the way men and women are wired sexually is severely flawed and society is sexist."}
{"id":"ccaa7053-2e90-4566-8be5-a486c7a50237","argument":"From my observation and experience, college gives more freedom but more freedom means more freedom to diverge. In high school, everyone stays in the same cafeteria so they're united. They meet and get along. In high school people wander and discover. In college, people tend to find what group they want to be in. It's cold. Some just go for the classes, but many just associate with a particular club. Libertarians stick with the libertarians. Drama club sticks with drama club. Feminists stick with the feminists. Gamers stick with the gamers. Fraterities are a whole new topic entirely. All of the clubs only have an interest in people who are 100 commited with the club. They're not your friend. They're only you're friend insofar as you fulfill your duties of the organization. I never dormed but I assume people who dorm have a more brotherly sisterly love toward each other, but as someone who commutes and has tried to connect with everyone, most people were too enveloped in a set path to care about discovering new people and new things.","conclusion":"College is more cliquey than high school"}
{"id":"76b545fe-77bf-4f7e-9ec1-b3417c81f764","argument":"I believe gymnastics is the hardest of all sports. Other sports require your body to complete difficult tasks, however the human body is prehistorically adapted to carry out these types of movements. Sports such as football or swimming, though they require the body to be in exceptional shape, incorporate tasks our ancestors utilized in their survival. Yet gymnastics asks one to maneuver their bodies into shapes that the human figure is not meant to form. Subsequently, during the times of ancient Greece, gymnastics was created in order to train other athletes to be successful in their sports. When a gymnast lands vertically back down on the floor after a tumbling pass, there is a force of 8 to 14 times the person\u2019s body weight. We use our body to catapult 13 feet in the air without the assistance of much spring at all. Though other sports include the use of precision and form as well, gymnastics requires one to master these skills. It is possible to complete the skills without it, but in a competition arena, sloppiness scores no points with the judges. Also, unlike so many sports, gymnastics requires a very high level of mental toughness, even over physical ability. On floor if you don\u2019t kick your leg hard enough, or you kick it a little off to the side, or you don\u2019t snap your hands back up quick enough for the takeoff, you could risk a serious crash landing. The same goes for vault, bars and beam. If a golfer for example is feeling a bit off today, maybe she will have some bad scores on her holes. If a gymnast is feeling off, it could cause us to be paralyzed. There\u2019s no powering through it like other high intensity sports. We have to think about every move in every individual skill in every full routine. I am not at all trying to belittle or degrade any other sports I just feel that gymnastics is the most difficult sport.","conclusion":"Gymnastics is the Hardest Sport"}
{"id":"587a79ab-f172-4e8b-9d60-a2132e15298b","argument":"This truly depends on the scale of the UBI and the financial mobility of people within that country. If the UBI would merely ensure the affordability of only those services & products that are considered primary life needs such as a house, food, medicine, etc., there would be plenty of people that would seek income of their own to afford pretty much everything else that one wants and needs as a citizen during their daily lives. Because of this, their incentive would not die.","conclusion":"This argument can only possibly apply to a very small subset of people who are living day to day on handouts - and are one wage check away from starvation. They are certainly motivated by poverty but the resultant worry, desperation & anxiety would outweigh any positive effects that we would consider 'motivation'. This is akin to saying that diseases shouldn't be cured because it motivates people to get better."}
{"id":"4e16fae9-b4e0-4d64-bd4b-e6059d498ed9","argument":"So long story short, I don't celebrate national holidays, I would thank the person who built my house rather than my country, and when I do stand up when anthem plays, it's because people would give me the bad stare, otherwise when I'm not in public, I just don't care. I'm also a strong atheist and find religion to be BS aswell. I might sound pretty anarchistic, but I wouldn't grab a weapon and shoot everyone, aight? Should I care about what happened in the past and where I live? as long as it's not in some shithole Am I an ignorant fucc for not respecting the country I live in? Why should I care if 99 of nations have the freedom of speech? Should I just pretend like I'm a proud inhibitant of glory greatest country X ? gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Nationalism is BS, I don't see myself as someone who belongs to a country."}
{"id":"ebefe6fb-8be2-4982-b07e-d2e6d2efd6f3","argument":"The title may be a bit misleading, for it is difficult to sum up my position in few words. I will start with an example from my own life to show you what I mean. The first example is my dad. He believes in a lot of conspiracy theories, but its all very shallow and spurious. He'll read some story about something underhanded big pharma does and then go on some rant about how they or the forces at be are trying to mind control everyone. On occasion he will watch a video and think that an asteroid is hitting us soon, or scientists are going to destroy the planet in an attempt to recreate the big bang. Despite all that he is a rather normal guy. Upper middle class guy, outgoing lifestyle, wide circle of friends. He votes republican just so he can keep more of his check . At most he has flirted with the idea of buying gold, getting a gun, or storing food but it never materializes. He obeys the law, votes, trusts the news most of the time, and gets his vaccines despite his occasional musing that there's something sinister in them. If you're going to be a conspiritard, then I'd respect you if you lived in the woods, wore a tinfoil hat, or at least stocked up on guns and bought a VPN. The worst part is that he will argue with you until he's blue in the face, but again, never live as if it were true. A less eccentric example is moral relativism or moral nihilism. Arguing for skepticism or nihilism in any context is always easy to argue for, as you don't have to posit anything. Of course you never have to posit an alternative, and you can have your opponent in a debate on the backfoot the entire time, but who actually lives their lives according to their belief or lack thereof ? No one acts as if morality is relative, when they watch the news and hear about a girl being murdered they rant and rave about how the offender should be castrated just like everyone else. Don't even think they act as if morality is a useful fiction or that its only a pragmatic social contract. One last example came from an abortion discussion I was part of the other day. There was one moderate liberal Christian that is morally against it and does think its killing a baby, but you know its everyones right to choose and wouldn't support getting in the way of it. So hol up, you think there's mass baby murder everywhere that makes the holocaust look like amateur hour and THIS is your political prescription for it? Bullshit. This isn't just about hypocrisy per se. If you're a religious man with anti casual sex values and some pretty girl offers it to you on a silver platter, I get falling for it. Your beliefs are present but were overwhelmed by external stimuli. What really angers me is people who have beliefs that are only present internally, and even then may only come to the surface of their mind on certain occasions. The belief is more about just having an identity or having some sort of mental self care regimen. My dad is pretty transparent in that he considers himself a cut above everyone else intelligence wise, and that he's the individual who doesn't want to follow the herd. He got on the 9 11 truther movement just because he wanted to stand outside the saccharine, patriotic circlejerking of the first Bush administration. In my opinion, if you have beliefs they should change the way you live your life, or manifest somehow. If you're a Christian, then evangelize. Oh I dont want to be preachy or anything MOTHERFUCKER, you believe God became man and gave us a saving word. Why aren't you spreading it all over like butter on toast? Likewise, having conspiratorial beliefs means you should act, in some way, like you're in a hostile occupied government. You shouldn't be indistinguishable from everyone else at TGI Friday's","conclusion":"I don't respect people's beliefs if they do not manifest in their lives"}
{"id":"bec81531-2ae3-48d3-8d6b-b2a3f0a8c8d9","argument":"When the dessert choice is on me, I always pick cake. So many options. Cheesecake. Coffee cake. Pound cake. Devil's food cake. Angel food cake. Vanilla, chocolate, strawberry short, red velvet, lemon, carrot. So many frostings buttercream, fondant pretty but not that tasty , cream cheese, and any other flavor you can think of. Pie, on the other hand, rarely reaches the same heights. Sometimes, the fruit just falls out. The gelatin cakes like key lime are good if they have graham cracker crust and real whipped cream. Regular pie crust tastes like nothing much because it IS nothing much flour and fat, that's it. Bleh. In preliminary discussions of Thanksgiving, a bit of debate ensued. I was told that pumpkin and apple pies were necessary, pecan optional but recommended. I would rather make a cake because cake is just better. Change my view and agree with my mother in law if you dare . gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Cake is better than pie"}
{"id":"218e38bb-ec85-4368-8d7a-893a168eef23","argument":"The Old Tjikko is a clonal colony of Norway Spruce trees that are over 9,500 years old.","conclusion":"Many living organisms are older than the biblically proposed age of the universe."}
{"id":"bd64b621-8f66-4ac3-a557-74e84036f659","argument":"There is a hierarchy issue related to the Higgs mechanism\/boson in measuring particle mass, so more work needs to be done to find what does in order to make complete measurements.","conclusion":"The Standard Model cannot precisely predict a particle's mass at a given moment."}
{"id":"b551f3bb-d87b-49f7-b4a0-93d4e45e7947","argument":"Anyone I have ever talked with that holds any kind of view regarding feminism, mens rights, gay rights, trans rights ect always comes off as the bad guy to me, they always try and paint what ever person they perceive to be victimized by in the absolute worst possible light and attempt to make their individuality cause shine as bright as possible. This by and large makes me lose respect and makes them lose credibility in my eyes. I think we should stop focusing on finding points to argue about how different we all are and start focusing on larger issues that we can all impact rather than this petty infighting as a race.","conclusion":"I feel that any variety of rights movement, be it womens rights mens rights gay,trans,race ect are a bad idea and only serve to segregate and in many cases give an extremists appearance to what ever minority they are representing."}
{"id":"70330e80-1694-4cfb-bb05-313679eecac8","argument":"First, you have to look at the design. Its tines are simply too small to impale anything that a regular spoon couldn't either simply pick up or divide using its edge. So its main gimmick is essentially useless. However, some may argue that however small it's advantage may be, it is still a step up from a normal spoon. From a practical perspective, this is false, as the space created by the times makes any liquid held in the spoon more liable to fall out, creating a downside as opposed to simply bringing both a spoon and fork. Then, it is necessary to look at aesthetics. Although this is very subjective, it is an objective fact that no prominent, traditional restaurants use this supposedly advantageous instrument, probably because it looks tacky. I would also hazard a guess that, given the choice, everyone reading this now would prefer a spoon and fork given the choice. All in all, the downsides outweigh any positives.","conclusion":"the spork is an inferior utensil"}
{"id":"6054bced-b14a-4da8-8a1e-11a2fa6844bf","argument":"First off, I understand that the word fascist has been misused for decades by people as a sort of slang term for anyone they perceive to be an evil figure of authority. That is not what I am saying. This is 100 serious and Godwin's law does not apply. My argument is that Donald Trump's entire campaign is based on fascist principles, thus making him by definition a fascist. Because Fascism is by its very nature deceitful, it is hard for academics to agree on a rigid set of fascist principles. That being said, most historians are able to agree on certain fundamentals that fascist regimes have had in common. This article from 2003 brings forth 14 key features that fascist movements have had in common. There are plenty of other resources that say basically the same thing, but I don't want to overcomplicate things, so I will base my argument off of these 14 points. 1 Powerful and Continuing Nationalism gt Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays. This one is the most obvious, and doesn't really require a lot of explanation. Trump's campaign relies on a mythical view of America where everything is perfect and nobody was hurting for money. The trouble is, that was never the case. Trump has managed to stir up aggressive nationalists and sympathizers by doing what is essentially psychological racketeering. He's creating a problem that doesn't exist America not being great , so that he can reap the benefits of people who are willing to buy in and let him fix it. This is the same strategy Mussolini, Franco, Hitler, Erdogan, etc. used. 2 Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights gt Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of need. The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc. Trump has suggested bombing terrorist's families and torture. After The Central Park Five were acquitted of murder, Trump refused to pull back his statement that the men who were exonerated by DNA evidence should be executed. Trump has spent his entire campaign attempting to delegitimize the free press, and has successfully convinced a significant number of people that literally everything on the news is false, and that only he is telling them the truth. This was a tactic implemented by the Nazis in the 1930s, known as L\u00fcgenpresse I am not referring to this one incident as my evidence, just as background on what it means. Trump doesn't say that word, but he conveys the exact same message. Trump has shown a propensity to take legal action against anyone saying negative things about him, and has even said that he wants to be able to more easily sue news stations for libel This is concerning not because he doesn't want people telling lies about him, he doesn't want anyone saying anything negative about him at all. 3 Identification of Enemies Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause gt The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe racial , ethnic or religious minorities liberals communists socialists, terrorists, etc. This one is obvious. The Hispanics are taking our jobs, black people are responsible for all the horrible crime and all they do is take from hardworking americans, the muslim refugees are sneaking into our country to kill us, Obama is a secret muslim terrorist, Hillary Clinton is a baby eating satan worshiper. The point is that the fascist hears these fears from a common person who is rightfully pissed off about not getting a fair shake, and plays on that by directing their attention away from the real root of their problems to meet their own personal goals. There is no stronger motivation than hatred. The people lose sight of what's really wrong and start to lash out. 4 Supremacy of the Military gt Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized. Donald Trump wants to beef up military spending, bomb whoever, and encourages the deification of the military into a mythical organization of heroes with no care for the actual character of any individual military member. 5 Rampant Sexism gt The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Opposition to abortion is high, as is homophobia and anti gay legislation and national policy. We've all heard Trump's misogyny a million times on the news, so I won't bother repeating it. But when we have a person running for a public office who feels entitled to publicly call a political opponent a Cunt , it shows Trump's ability to normalize something that is absolutely not normal, like a complete lack of respect for women. 6 Controlled Mass Media gt Sometimes to media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common. You can make the argument that this is already done by the Democrats but just because you have a cough doesn't mean you have lung cancer. It's hard not to see a connection between attacking all news as being biased and untrustworthy and the desire for an unbiased news source. What is an unbiased news source anyway? If you want all your unbiased information to come from one place instead of having to put the pieces together yourself, you want controlled mass media. 7 Obsession with National Security gt Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses. Kind of goes along with 1 and 3. You are under attack, and I am here to protect you. 8 Religion and Government are Intertwined gt Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions. Like Mussolini, Trump has no use for religion other than as a political tool. It's clear he does not, and may have never actually read the bible. He has simply aligned his official policies with that of the Evangelical religious establishment. Mussolini did the same thing with Catholic Church 9 Corporate Power is Protected gt The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business government relationship and power elite. Donald's tax plan would be a love letter to large corporations who have to burn through a lot of resources to avoid taxation. 10 Labor Power is Suppressed gt Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed. People like Donald Trump don't have to worry about a revolt from the working class finding out who has really been ripping them off when they can so artfully pit white working class folks against working class minorities. 11 Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts gt Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts is openly attacked, and governments often refuse to fund the arts. There is a lot of hate that gets thrown around by the Trump demographic about Liberal Universities and how they're just brainwashing people. It doesn't matter that outside of the financial burden, education as a whole tangibly improves your living circumstances. Higher education helps develop stronger critical thinking skills, which are crucial in sifting through alarmist rhetoric to get to the facts. We can see here that in the latest Wall Street Journal ABC poll, Donald Trump is going to be the first republican nominee to lose the vote of college educated white people since polling records began being tracked in the 1950s. There is clearly something about what Trump is selling that simply does not mesh with the views of educated people, regardless of their traditional political values. The platform is based around things that are objectively false. The kicker is that Trump surrogates like Newt Gingrich and Rudy Giuliani consistently appear in media and intentionally muddy the waters with a feelings over facts strategy. 12 Obsession with Crime and Punishment gt Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations. Fascist leaders always have the support of a partisan law enforcement service. What does it say when 84 of police an occupation that is big on unions and is considered pretty Democratic go for the guy that openly talks about how crime would go away if police were just tougher He says he wants to implement stop and frisk nation wide which would only put cops in more danger, and doesn't seem to care that it was deemed unconstitutional several years ago. 13 Rampant Cronyism and Corruption gt Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders. What is Donald even doing in this race other than trying to serve the interests of his family? What was Donald doing giving a gift to an incumbent state at the same time she dropped an investigation into his Trump Foundation? 14 Fraudulent Elections gt Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections. Fascism has varied from leader to leader. Donald Trump can't rig the United States election. It is not logistically possible to rig our election due to its decentralized nature. What he can do though, is attempt to delegitimize the democracy we are founded on in order to create confusion and ultimately destabilize the structure of our election system. Bonus Point Conclusion. Trump is fiercely anti globalist. He has repeatedly called to withdraw from our position as a worldwide economic and social leader, specifically in relation to NAFTA and NATO. Trade is bad because the Chinese are preying on us because we're weak, he says. We need to bring manufacturing jobs back, he says, with no mention that basic economic theory teaches that an increase in the cost of labor results in an increase in the price of goods. If there is one thing that fascism is really about, it's the belief that the nation is so strong that it doesn't need to engage anyone on the outside. In order to change my view, you would have to convince me that A Donald Trump is right, and Hillary Clinton and her cronies have truly been defrauding the United States government or B There are circumstances in which the political views that he espouses have an application outside of an authoritarian pseudo democracy. or C Something I am missing entirely about this whole sh t show Which is possible I like to hear different perspectives.","conclusion":"Donald Trump is an honest to goodness fascist."}
{"id":"0db3f8d7-a998-4243-a2f7-711f03bc6fb1","argument":"As someone who does client information on a computer and also calls clients on a real phone all day long at my job, it BOGGLES MY MIND that I have to do each task backwards of the other. It takes an otherwise automatic muscle memory activity and turns it into a careful task where I end up mis dialing nearly as often as I get it right the first time. Yes, it's a small inconvenience and I just have to focus, like, 1 37 more, but every bit of inefficiency and error adds up after a while, especially when it's not for a good reason. There's absolutely no reason for them not to be the same, and all it takes is for either industry to switch at a nominal cost. Yes, there will be confusion until all the old devices are out of service, but they're already OPPOSITE so how much more mixed up could it really get???? I suspect the reason they haven't made a uniform layout is that no one really cares, about which I would ask WHY DOES NO ONE CARE? Change my view, clearly I'm the only one who has this issue.","conclusion":"Computer\/calculator and phone number keys should be in the same layout"}
{"id":"f6ec93f2-33ec-4d9b-a753-7734ff58c202","argument":"Example War on drugs This policy does not deter people from using drugs, causes crime gang violents, cartels, etc from the demand this prohibition is creating, and ruining the lives of countless people who would otherwise be law abiding critzens all while countless studies have shown that the legalization of some of the softer drugs would have a postive net value on society less crime, less user, less prosecutions, etc . It seems like the only logic behind continuing these policies of prosecuting victimless crimes are job security and profit since its been shown that these polices does not deter crime and in some cases encourage them.","conclusion":"I believe must police precinct value Job security and profit over actually trying to prevent crime-"}
{"id":"eed23918-b42c-4152-a71e-f9419532077e","argument":"To sum it up, a father sent his young boy to school with painted fingernails. The boy was ridiculed by his peers and came home crying. The father then went on twitter to complain about society's gender expectations. Without getting into the bigger discussion of gender norms in society, this father's actions showed terrible parenting. The father should have warned his son of what would have happened if he went to school with painted nails, and instead let him go through with it and as a result the son suffered intense ridicule by his peers. There is a very good chance his peers will continue to ridicule and shame him for the rest of the school year and perhaps later. This could easily be a traumatic incident for the child, and for what? Was it really worth it just to teach him that it's fine to do whatever you want?","conclusion":"This father's actions linked is an example of terrible parenting"}
{"id":"846c2ba6-4089-4ea3-920f-d5cab829cbf3","argument":"Executive pay has risen 400% over the last 20 years, while the real value of the FTSE 100 has barely risen. The reform package does nothing to reduce the disparity between executive pay and average pay of workers.","conclusion":"The reform package was substantially weaker than May had promised in the election. Her election proposal to put workers on company boards was completed scrapped."}
{"id":"041b3ef5-6e81-4b18-8147-b0383dc0b89b","argument":"Argentina did not exist until the 1800's, and neither did its pre-independence ancestors make any known claims before the British one.","conclusion":"Made in 1690 Britain's claim of ownership pre-dates any Argentine claim."}
{"id":"a2fe4486-9a1e-49ca-ba9f-21fa6d23f8c9","argument":"The ecosystem is collapsing due to anthropogenic climate change. This represents an existential threat to humanity.","conclusion":"The side-effects of our growing population are becoming another lethal check on continuing growth."}
{"id":"f58369c6-f6cd-44ef-805c-b86701673652","argument":"The coincidence of a planet with *the* master codebreaker being within 18 hours return trip journey, including time for being arrested, embarking on a long chase and then escaping, is far fetched when it has been established that hyperspace travel can take weeks even in one of the fastest ships in the galaxy.","conclusion":"It should've felt this way, but due to the totally unrealistic nature of the \"chase\" it simply felt like a plot device with it being entirely predictable that the main characters would escape just before they ran out of time."}
{"id":"f9163fdb-bd3b-4cd6-8a2c-08ec7126efea","argument":"Despite the lack of physical evidence of His existence, many cling on to God out of hope & perhaps desperation, seemingly \u201cwilling\u201d His existence. God appears to be a Creation in the Consciousness or a By-product of Consciousness. Likewise some may seek help from spirits who appear to exist & have supernatural powers.","conclusion":"In fact there are no physical or materialistic evidences that one can see that supports existence of God. All \"evidences\" are actually either claims or feelings."}
{"id":"e60aec1e-b604-46c9-af5d-48c8afe0f112","argument":"Ill preface this that i know very little about the statistics of deaths injuries and the benefits of joining the military. I genuinely want a new perspective. From personal experience it seems that the majority of people joining the military do it for the benefits. Free college, excellent benefits, etc. are all extremely good motivators. From a few minutes of googling, it seems that your just as likely to die in a car crash as you are in the military. Why exactly do they deserve more appreciation than your farmer, policeman, or even mailman?","conclusion":"The majority of U.S. military personnel deserve no more respect than your average worker."}
{"id":"d54f7f73-cc17-45ce-a803-e3bd911a3144","argument":"Streaming video in particular is extremely bandwidth intensive as compared to using standard web services such as news sites or social media. Users who heavily use services such as Netflix are likely 'costing' ISPs a great deal more in terms of bandwidth consumption than users who do not; meaning they are in effect subsidised by lower-bandwidth users.","conclusion":"Certain provisions, such as restrictions against peering and zero-rating, can function as a hidden subsidy from consumers to major tech companies, driving up broadband costs for average users by forcing ISPs to socialize some concentrated costs of servicing high-volume customers i.e. YouTube or Netflix across the whole network regardless of usage."}
{"id":"7af175a5-8f7d-4e82-91b1-5e2502850ad5","argument":"Parents have extremely onerous legal obligations they have to discharge with regard to their children: these obligations confer a right to determine what is best for their children.","conclusion":"Parents are ultimately responsible for their children, and therefore have a right to decide how they are raised."}
{"id":"3bc3621e-c104-4b68-850a-e5b2d0f42f0b","argument":"Video game characters are routinely a source of inspiration for cosplayers. Many professional cosplayers use characters from multiple media, such as movies, anime, comic books etc. to create their costumes.","conclusion":"The support and appreciation from these communities have led to mainstream adaptions and interpretations of multiple games."}
{"id":"4e528815-6164-4520-84e7-bfa8be2c28c8","argument":"If the Presidency were determined by popular vote, in the event of a very close election a recount would be too enormous of an undertaking.","conclusion":"The electoral college protects us from the \"tumult and disorder of an election in which the entire nation chooses the president directly."}
{"id":"614d2dbf-4475-4ac8-b790-dc05833fb5a9","argument":"It's that time of year again. People are arguing over what is and isn't a game . TotalBisket even weighed in recently. And this year, one idea that seems to have a surprising amount of traction is that somehow Gone Home isn't actually a game. Which is crazy. Because Myst never had to put up with this nonsense. And I propose that Gone Home is essentially the same game as Myst, except with better technology realtime rendering, woo and easier puzzles. They're both experiences where you explore an unfamiliar environment at your own pace, with no immediate threats, while learning about its inhabitants through things you find. In both, you have to solve puzzles in order to progress through the game, but there is no penalty for not solving puzzles other than not progressing. Neither one has an explicit failure state. Myst is debatable here, but I think calling them alternate endings is a perfectly defensible position here. The puzzles in Gone Home are without a doubt far easier than the puzzles in Myst, but very few people would consider difficulty to be a prerequisite for being a game. After all, no one disputes that Tic tac toe is a game, and it's about as easy as it gets. So, my claim is that if Gone Home isn't a game, Myst is also not a game. And by extension, if Myst is a game, so is Gone Home. Change my view","conclusion":"If \"Gone Home\" isn't a game, then neither is \"Myst\""}
{"id":"c9ca41ef-f09f-4461-838f-733d4b46a6f0","argument":"The bystander has a strong moral duty to keep themselves alive, so as not to harm their family members and close friends by dying. The bystander's duties to their family and friends are much stronger than their duty to the person in danger.","conclusion":"Attempting to save someone else's life may put the bystander's life in danger."}
{"id":"6e203683-ad3e-467a-834b-1b056d2cd7b8","argument":"This way of conceptualizing animal rights is attractive because it explains a puzzling asymmetry: why we tend to think that it is immoral, for example, to kill a domesticated dog, but not a cow.","conclusion":"We owe duties to cognitively disabled humans and infants because they have special, morally important relationships to people in our society. Some animals like pets occupy similar positions, but other animals do not."}
{"id":"aa4c1804-2c42-4e13-8bd3-39ccebaac0ea","argument":"My name is, like many American names, of European origin. It is Graeme, one of my versions of the name, others spelled Graham, Graehm, Graeham, Gram, etc. It is most commonly spelled and pronounced Graham, the pronunciation being GRAM sounding like the word Ram with a Guh before it. My name is pronounced Gray Em. Like the colour GRAY followed by letter M. My father and sister and American born and can pronounce this. Countless other Americans have said it, but they always revert back to calling me Gram. I don't know why. I've heard plenty of people, American and non American, say it. But Americans seem to refuse to do it even though they can. My best friend of 13 years knows it's Grey Em but still says Guh ram. I see this as ridiculous. .","conclusion":"I believe it is ridiculous that most Americans cannot pronounce my name correctly."}
{"id":"13827d6b-0368-4537-8a09-180198430539","argument":"In many cases, even farming basic grains kills 25 times more sentient animals as measured against per kg of usable protein in the final product than the equivalent farming practices for red meat.","conclusion":"Farming vegetarian products also directly or indirectly harms animals in the process of crop production and harvest."}
{"id":"24161a37-7250-4ed2-9bc5-8e693bf9d426","argument":"\"HSR Opponents Make the Case for High-Speed Rail.\" Yglesias. November 2nd, 2010: \"It seems to me that an 8.1 percent reduction in defense expenditures in order to create a transformative nationwide new infrastructure program would be a no-brainer.\"","conclusion":"High-speed rail can be funded by decreasing military spending."}
{"id":"59a571a1-1538-4081-b1ad-035f8866c0db","argument":"Non-profits and charities would not be able to get funds easily if they could not ask for donations. People would give anyway without organizations asking, but it would be more difficult than before to receive funds.","conclusion":"If begging for money is illegal, then everyday actions we take right now would be illegal. This would create an economic collapse."}
{"id":"04b508d2-8f31-4bac-8872-e44743b4ea79","argument":"I I don't have any kids. Don't plan on raising a family, and I dont see the point in living into old age where I can't enjoy my life, have no one to take care of me, and I dont have any grandchildren to watch grow. I don't see the point in saving 20 of my income right now when that 20 could easily go towards having life experiences that would enrich my life. I feel like I should just enjoy what I have now while I have it. Have 40 years of life experiences I can enjoy and look back on, then sometime between 70 75 just kill myself, before I'm too old to take care of myself.","conclusion":"there is no reason for me to save for retirement, and I should enjoy what I have while I have it."}
{"id":"f783fc16-02c9-463d-a95c-2e957abcd7e8","argument":"So here's how it is for me until my view can be changed . The population is way too high, and is the cause of many of the world's problems. That being said, if that was my position, abortion would be something that I would not only be for but promote for the sake of the world. Now, let's have a look at abortion, which to me is just baby killing to put it nicely . Yes, I'm fine with freedom of doing what you want with your own body, but when there is a body that is not your own, it's considered illegal. Fair enough, you don't want people murdering each other. The simple problem solver here is that abortion should not be an option, because there are many ways to prevent conception. Education is key. If you do not want to get pregnant, then it really is as simple as don't. With rape, the law is pretty clear about that. So if one or more of you can  on either thing that I have said, please do, I'd like to hear some new perspectives.","conclusion":"Conflicted because I'm pro-life but I'm still worried about the increasing the population"}
{"id":"46ba9fe1-5174-4476-a0cb-e5e307b81837","argument":"In 2016, a German grassroots campaign publicly shamed companies who ran advertisement on Breitbart's German website. This led to the website losing advertising deals with almost 1000 companies","conclusion":"Users can directly attack and shame employers and founders of internet companies for providing services to white supremacists."}
{"id":"adf49d8b-6c7a-46f3-9c9f-5d6d703266db","argument":"Counter-insurgency strategies that engage the population, as enacted by the US in Afghanistan and Iraq, are hard to imagine with AKMs. They require - to quote the US army guidelines - the armed forces to \"live among the people\" and to \"engage the population\".","conclusion":"AKMs dehumanize the West in the eyes of its enemies and make them more ruthless."}
{"id":"82770510-56f1-449c-8e01-2c49a9a485ad","argument":"Hi everyone. I've heard an argument recently that given the fundamental imbalances of justice in some parts of the world, we just need to band together with allies and work to fix injustice without trying to reach out to the people who are acting oppressively. I feel like we always need to listen to everyone, but I'm open to the idea that sometimes, you just need to focus on your own side and let bad opinions sit. Is that ever the best call? I obviously am not saying this for Charlie Hebdo esque cases of violence or threatened violence.","conclusion":"It's always worth listening to and acknowledging the validity of other perspectives during political debate and discussion."}
{"id":"af0ecf94-e55f-47c9-af14-ee213667b480","argument":"When most humans eat animals they do not consider the death that was required for their meal. If people had to consider the actual consequences of their diet far more would be vegan.","conclusion":"If all humans were vegan, animals would not be killed or made to suffer needlessly, which is the moral thing to do."}
{"id":"a7790764-4839-4170-a6c0-841c8738c2ff","argument":"People that I have talked to discuss about how banning abortion won't stop it and it will drive people to do more unhealthy illegal abortions that are more detrimental to the health of society than regulated legal abortions. While this point is valid, I cannot get over the way I perceive abortion as simple murder. In my view, although dependent on the body of the mother, when a sperm meets an egg that fetus has the mechanism to become human. This potential is not met by sperm or the egg because by themselves they cannot form a human being. Just like any murder, we have a moral obligation to stop it, even if it is rampant. Tossing any religion views aside, for me it comes down to murder, and I see no way around it. If many people were murdering fully developed humans for benefit to their lives, I believe that we still have the obligation to stop it, even if it is the norm. For me, the same logic applies to abortion.","conclusion":"I cannot get the idea out of my head that abortion is murder."}
{"id":"8c339ad5-fae8-48e6-9031-85296b3657be","argument":"The combination of cookie and caramel give the Samoa a unique, almost twix like taste, which I think we can all agree is great. But what makes it the best is the addition of the coconut and the dark chocolate. These flavors not only mix well with the coconut and dark chocolate, but are great on their own, and frankly some of the best falvors used in any girl scout cookie. Many sing the praises of the thin mint, and I'm not saying that it is a bad cookie, but simply the unholy marriage between an Oreo disk and a York peppermint Patty, except worse than both of those things.","conclusion":"Samoas are the best Girl Scout Cookie"}
{"id":"09275fdc-32d0-4a06-9c75-3ff6d1e78d7a","argument":"I've seen someone get out in a car countless times where they swing the door open without care and dent the car next to them, only to act as if it's a normal thing. Look at your own car, I bet it has a couple of dings. I am not one of those a holes who parks in multiple spots to ensure nobody parks next to them, however, I try to park as far away from others as I can. I try to find a corner spot and park right next to the curb to avoid some careless idiot from dinging and scratching up my panels because on all my previous cars, I've had this happen. I've had cars park within 2 feet of me and dented my door in a relatively empty parking lot. Getting a panel repaired, costs hundreds of dollars and unless it's a PDR Paintless dent removal , it's never going to look right and may even end up on your car's report, thus diminishing its value. So just because someone doesn't have the courtesy to hold their door while getting out of their cars, your car is worth less. Trade in value will be affected less than personal sale, but everyone can admit that no dents are better than a few dents. A lot of people care dearly about their cars, they wash and wax the paint every week and after going to the store, they now have a nice reminder about why people suck. Now before you say that there's a lot of people who also don't give a shit about their daily drivers and that they're just a means of transport, I get that. However, it doesn't mean that just because someone doesn't care about their car, they have the right to treat all other cars the same without any repercussions. If I run into someone and leave a similar sized dent in their bumper as I'd get from a door ding, I can't just drive away and expect them to be fine with it. Police will be called and I'll be fined arrested for a hit and run. I've had a similar discussion on Reddit and people tell me that it's impossible to not dent scratch a car if you live in the city. I'm assuming they mean parallel parking. Let's be clear, you shouldn't have to ram anyone in front or behind you while parallel parking. If you do, you either need to find a spot that's big enough for you, or you need to go back to driver's ed.","conclusion":"Swinging your door open into another car and denting it, then leaving like nothing happened, is a hit and run offense"}
{"id":"5abd8655-3843-4e34-be1e-3402c3eb7317","argument":"Coal power kills 13 people for every TWh of energy produced in the United States.\u200b 185 times as many as nuclear.","conclusion":"Nuclear power kills far fewer people than fossil fuels, per kWh."}
{"id":"a593d6a9-6db5-48e2-b9dc-4f10c1814bf6","argument":"The UK benefits more than average from migration, receiving +0.11% higher GDP due to migration than the average +0.35% of GDP.","conclusion":"The OECD found that migration in the UK contributed +0.46% of GDP."}
{"id":"890bc1cb-416a-4317-a2a7-5be473a3870b","argument":"In my opinion, well educated people are beneficial to society. Tuition fees cause enrollment discrimination, which leads to net welfare losses for both the students enrolled and the society that would benefit from their professional employment. If the universities were funded by the public especially assuming a progressive tax structure , a large portion of the costs would still be covered by those who benefited from the institution.","conclusion":"I am a student opposed to all tuition fees for higher education."}
{"id":"8e1f24fb-30dc-4bf6-862b-c7ee8ec14039","argument":"Heaven and hell can be viewed as conceptions of your potential future. By designing your own heaven desired future to strive for and your own hell unwanted future to avoid you are essentially maximizing your motivation by using two different motivational systems.","conclusion":"Much of the practices of religion are conducive towards good mental health. It is therefore likely that religion has been a good mediator of mental health for humans."}
{"id":"dc32db5e-db4e-4adc-a1df-ec73795331fb","argument":"The common response I hear to this is that those are private sites, they can do whatever they want . Legally speaking, this is true, but I approach this from a purely pragmatic moral standpoint, so what the law does or does not say is irrelevant to my view. I'm more interested in rightness and correctness than legality Here's the problem. Yes, those sites are technically private , but they function as a public commons. The world meets there to discuss everything from cat memes to politics. Facebook is 2 most visited site in the USA. Twitter is 8, Reddit is 9. That is a tremendous amount of power. The fact that the sites act as a public commons is more important than the fact that it's hosted on someone else's servers. The internet being the internet, everything is hosted on someone else's servers. Why is this important? Facebook was recently accused with merit I'm unsure of of manipulating trending stories towards those with a liberal slant away from conservative ones. Facebook supposedly took that accusation seriously, since they had an internal meeting about it, and invited some conservative lawmakers over for a meeting. They've also been caught out deleting posts in what appears to be a very selective enforcement of their community standards. Reddit has the recent r news debacle, and some other controversies centered around blatant selective rule application for or against certain topics in many of the default subreddits. Twitter has the inconsistent apparently selective application of their site rules, and some hard to prove cases of shadowbans and hashtag suppression. Network effects mean that, were I some evil person in charge of one of these companies, I can tacitly or even outright support these actions, and most of the visitors either won't know, won't care, and those that do are a minority that can be dismissed as loud and perpetually unsatisfied. My manipulation only has to be not so blatant that the average user will see it and be so outraged that they'd flee for another site. With the result that, given enough mindshare, I can, from the shadows, shape public opinion with relatively little effort on my part. Hide this story, promote that one, hide some comments, shadowban some people, ignore other rule violations I see this as a massive, scary problem. So, what's wrong with saying that, once you have some arbitrary number of unique visitors over a long period of time, and function as a public commons of sorts all three of the sites I mentioned do , that some rules regarding transparency and behavior should take effect?","conclusion":"Large platforms like Reddit, Facebook, and Twitter can exert a disproportionate amount of control over opinions and politics, and should be regulated"}
{"id":"6912ef0b-37df-4b20-a6c7-4e05af91c4b9","argument":"Economic distributions have changed to benefit the wealthy since money started to have greater influence in politics. Since 1980, the wealthiest 1% of households have seen their incomes rise 2.3 times, the top 0.1% of household a rise of more than 4 times, and the top 0.01% of households a rise of more than 6 times.","conclusion":"Economic elites and corporate interest groups have a substantial influence in US government policy Gilens and Page, p. 1"}
{"id":"09255aeb-de1f-411f-89d7-131b02b9e674","argument":"First, I'm not saying any direct emotional reaction to the loss of innocent children is an overreaction. I'm talking about when we clear our heads a little and begin to discuss what happened. It is extremely common to see shock and disbelief from people when they react to the kind of things that were said on 4chan about the shooting, or even worse, when they read about some young man methodically lining up other young people and executing them because of some misguided belief or obsession. I find this frustrating and a waste of energy, because our history clearly shows that brutalizing each other was the norm for thousands of years. Of course, we would have died out if we couldn't get along at all, but we kept it in the family or the tribe, and often everyone else was dehumanized. Our ancestors routinely walked into a neighboring village and then proceeded to kill everyone but the young women who they took for themselves. This was so pervasive and acceptable that the process is actually commanded by God in the Bible. Just imagine that level of brutality. You just killed basically everyone some 14 year old girl has known and cared for. You probaby killed her family in front of her, and then you check to see if she is a virgin because those are the only ones God wants you to take for yourselves. The others are unclean and you slit their throats. Then you return to your tribe and have a joyous celebration of the blessings and spoils God has given your people through conquest. I was just reading that families would sometimes take teeth or fingers from a lynched black man so that they could have a souvenir from watching his murder. This is part of who we are. How on Earth can anyone be aware of that and still be surprised when they learn it hasn't been completely eradicated from our nature. The question is not why are some people so violent. The question is how did some people actually learn how to pretty much get along after thousands of years of terrorizing each other. That should be what we find surprising and unbelievable. I remember Frank Zappa talking about how civilization is just this thin veneer over human nature and how most people seem to think it is much more permanent and pervasive than it really is, or they think it has superceded human nature. As Louis CK says, make murder legal and then we'll see how civilized people really have become. Look at what happened after Hurricane Katrina. As soon as people believed no one was watching, the darkness in humanity flooded back in. What we see on 4chan and in these schools that get shot up is this powerful force breaking through any crack it can find. But it seems that many people view it as some isolated and deranged individual who needs some kind of special explanation to explain their oddity. The average human being, over the course of our history, was much closer to these shooters than we seem to imagine.","conclusion":"Relative to Our History, People Overreact to School Shootings and Violence in General."}
{"id":"935ddd0e-e74a-4afb-a2bb-92dee7a2113c","argument":"In the Christian religion we are told to be able to give a reason for our faith 1 Peter 3:15 To give a reason for faith one must examine the reasons they are faithful, and be able to present it logically.","conclusion":"Whether or not we live up to it, seeking understanding and questioning things scientific discovery being one example is something that biblical Christianity encourages."}
{"id":"24fdcd9e-b4b1-415b-a405-3db0c56c1891","argument":"On the world stage, I think, currently, there are only 4 or 5 countries that are actually significant. The United States, Germany, England, China, and kind of Russia are the only powerful contenders on the planet. Now, my qualifications for a country that matters is less clear than I would like it to be, but in general, they are military, economic, and scientific powerhouses. They are large and powerful, and everyone stops and listens when they have something to say. They are taken seriously and respected by everyone, and have significant influence far outside their own borders. I'm a little on the fence with Russia, since they aren't really massively wealthy and advanced, just big and mean. Still though, they don't owe their existence to anybody, and would put up a mean fight against basically any other country. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean other countries can't be valuable or competent. And sure, there are plenty of countries that are not worth the trouble to invade. But just because Iraq is full of angry guerillas doesn't mean they are actually important . I mean, imagine if Iraq started picking a fight with, say England over trade tarifs or something. That would be laughable Come on, what are the Iraqis going to do? Similarly, Saudi Arabia has a lot of valuable oil, and most major countries keep good relations with them. But come on, if they totally cut the US off from oil we need, it's not like they can stop us from rolling in and taking it. You can do a quick check by going continent by continent. There aren't any countries in either South America or Africa that have legitimate pull comparable to the top five. Israel is dangerous, intelligent, and prosperous, but only within their weight class. People care about them only because they don't want a massive war in the middle east, and even if that region went straight to hell, it would basically be a bunch of small, irrelevant nations killing each other. Asia has China and Russia, a bunch of tiny countries that are not important, and Japan and South Korea. South Korea is a lot like Israel, impressive for it's weight class, but still basically exists with the permission of China. Japan has been slowing down in recent years, and will only continue to do so, what with their dysfunctional culture. I will admit though, they are borderline contenders. North America has, of course, the USA, Mexico, which obviously has too little power to do anything, and Canada, which is just not in the same tier as the others, and doesn't have a big sphere of influence. They mostly stay up north and quietly do their own thing. Australia is like Canada. I wouldn't want to invade there, but it's not like they're going to be invading anyone else. New Zealand is a total afterthought, that of course, only exists at Australia's convenience. Europe is mostly the domain of people that were major players 300 hundred years ago, but have mostly faded away. Germany and England are still wealthy and powerful, but Spain, France, Italy, and Greece are just shadows of their former greatness. There's a bunch of small countries that don't matter Czechoslovakia, Luxembourg , and everything east of Germany belongs to Russia, they just haven't gotten around to taking all of it yet. The thing is, I'm not trying to bash any of these countries I've got nothing against Guatemala, or Egypt I'm sure the Philippines and Denmark are great places to live, full of nice people and an interesting culture. The Israeli's and Poles are fierce warriors that everyone should respect. I am not saying that a country has to be top dog to have any value. But I do think none of those countries can really hold a candle to Germany or Britain. When people go on about how America sucks and has terrible education and a ridiculous prison system and that Finland is superior in every way, I have to roll my eyes. I mean, sure, Finland has great schools and a super low crime rate, but that's only until Russia steps on them, you know? I would never want to move to a country that lives in the shadow of a giant, and I think it's kind of arrogant for any of these countries to hold themselves above, say, the United States, when a lot of them exist only because we protect them. Kind of like a 17 year old kid deluding himself into thinking he's smarter than everyone else, when really he's so out of his depth it's almost comical. I know this  is kind of all over the place, so to Change My View, please show me evidence that I am unfairly judging a lot of important countries, or that my knowledge of world politics is skewed. I don't think it's enough to find one country that is in the same league, because then my view switches from Only 4 5 Countries Matter to Only 5 6 Countries Matter . No substantial difference. EDIT Hey all, thanks for taking the time to come in here and hash it out with me. Most of you brought up some good points and helped convince me to Change My View, but I want to give a specific shout out to fuchsiamatter, who helped me realize that everyone can make a difference no matter how insignificant they may seem, and to Mongoosen42, who convinced me that I shouldn't hold my own preferences above everyone else's. I know I probably came off like a dick in this, so I wanna apologize for that, and for any offensive remarks I might have made about anyone's nation of origin. Thanks again, hope to see you all again next time I have an opinion that need correcting.","conclusion":"I think there are only 4-5 countries in the world that \"matter\", and they are superior to all the others."}
{"id":"1ff3d728-8212-4e33-a3b4-1982a7d2de52","argument":"I would like to see wealthy land owners, community builders, billionaires engaged when talking about the plight and issues dealing with the poor. The Baltimore riots would have been a great time to engage Warren Buffet on what goes on poor communities and what he thinks, change my view that we should have more wealthy involved when there are issues in poor and middle class communities. It could be interviews, more media representation during issues that are felt in the community. We have seen the recent riots in Baltimore and some have talked about the plight and poverty in that city. Maybe the race relations could have been improved if there was less poverty were some of the claims made. Some showed a city that in some areas that were very dangerous and had been run down. During this discussion, we heard from police officers and the people in that community, but we didn't really hear about wealthy land owners and their thoughts on how to improve a city like Baltimore. And there are a lot of cities and communities, especially in urban areas like Detroit, Baltimore, Philadelphia where we hear about the poverty but never hear about successful either property owners or billionaires and what they would do if they could invest in a particular city. Or in general, what are their thoughts on poverty in America?  that we should hear more from the top upper echelons in our society, not necessarily just from politicians. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren talk extensively about how the banks and wealthy are destroying middle America, shouldn't we hear from the wealthy that are being attacked? How do they feel? And I think not antagonize the wealthy but engage on how they would improve the middle class. Here is a recent article that discusses the loss of business in Baltimore, could the wealthy reinvest in that community? I would like to hear why or why not. Here is a response to the Baltimore riots Over the decades Baltimore dwindled from a metropolis of almost 1 million people to a little over 600,000. Vast portions of Baltimore\u2019s population are unemployed and in need of assistance, yet the government of the City of Baltimore has insisted on inflicting on this same population snack taxes, bottle taxes, and a property tax rate that is more than twice as high than any county in the state. Anyone of small means in the most economically depressed areas of the city finds the process of starting a legitimate business daunting, if not impossible. Baltimore laws and regulations are not aimed to encourage the most economically disadvantaged to find a way out of their situation, but rather the encouragement is aimed at helping the already large and well off come and do business\u2014not that many outside of hotels and restaurants actually do come. Let us get a perspective from Warren Buffett and what thinks about the past riots in Baltimore? If we are always going to hear from Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson on the issues that happen in a poor community.","conclusion":"During the discussion on the Baltimore riots came up, I would like to see the input from the wealthy in the US on the plight of the poor? self.changemyview"}
{"id":"e37ea013-610b-49bf-b813-77c4c7c5e3a5","argument":"Edit update 9 1 16 My latest reply Well, I just got off the phone with my insurance and they cover everything 100 , nothing comes out of my pocket. I don't know what to type now and my tin foil hat has a wrinkle in it. This was resubmitted for approval, for whatever reason Sorry mods, I was just trying to update everyone so they wouldn't have to look through all of the replies. I fully believe that immunization is not only unsafe, but it's unhealthy. Here are some of the reasons that I believe that. Herd Immunization The problem with herd immunization is that people often do not look at the ones who've had something go wrong and are now suffering for the rest of their lives. We're literally brushing people under the carpet and when they speak out, a mob mentality shuts them down. Free Immunization In the US, immunization is not free and people have to pay out of pocket to get immunized. I fully believe that if immunization is such a good thing, then why is the government not willing to foot the bill? What about the poor or homeless who want to be immunized, but cannot be due to wanting to provide food and shelter for their families instead. Injection is a virus We all know immunization is injecting a virus, but why would we sacrifice our health and body to inject a substance that we have absolutely no clue about into our bodies? We're literally trusting another person with our own life and future just to be like the others . Again, we never hear about immunizations gone bad. Forcing vaccinations Governments are cutting benefits to people who do not immunize, children cannot get an education unless immunized. Why force something upon another person when we know that it could potentially destroy their whole life? Comparing should not be an option good vaccinations vs vaccinations gone bad , why vaccinate when the numbers tell you that your life could potentially be in complete ruins if your body doesn't like it, or they give you a tainted dose? So I'll open myself up to an , maybe you can change my view? Let's have an adult conversation.","conclusion":"I have not vaccinated in over 17 years and I view vaccinations as untrustworthy."}
{"id":"8e5ddde5-5965-4cfc-beaa-8acf69124c86","argument":"Women without a high school degree have the highest rate of unintended pregnancies, and without at least a high school degree, job prospects and prospects for continuing education are low.","conclusion":"Statistics show that the women who are most likely to experience unwanted pregnancies are also those least well equipped to deal with the consequences Thomas and Monea, p. 2"}
{"id":"32ef9f37-9eae-488e-9986-b1e56d44abf4","argument":"ME NO LIKE FIRE. FIRE BURN MY WOOD HOUSE. MY BABY GO CLOSE TO FIRE. FIRE BURN HIM. ME USE ANIMAL SKIN FOR WARM, NO NEED FIRE TO KEEP WARM. ME SLEEP AT NIGHT. NO NEED FIRE TO SEE. FIRE BURN FOREST. FIRE BURN TREES. FIRE BURN ANIMALS. FIRE TAKE AWAY MY FRUIT AND MEAT. FIRE MAKE ME STARVE TILL I MOVE AWAY. EVERYBODY IN MY TRIBE SAY FIRE GOOD. I SAY FIRE BAD.","conclusion":"FIRE BAD!"}
{"id":"9cfac589-3113-4cab-b975-dadeaf0b4582","argument":"The Sagan Standard \"The weight of evidence for an extraordinary claim must be proportioned to its strangeness\" often paraphrased as \"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence\"; implies that there needs to be a lot of very convincing evidence for the existence of God, which is lacking.","conclusion":"There is no demonstrable scientific evidence that proves the existence of God."}
{"id":"2eae522a-2cd9-4306-8306-cf6f597742a9","argument":"The Labour Party has said it wants to create a \u00a32bn mental health fund that would end unsafe ward conditions as well as provide crisis ambulances.","conclusion":"Labour is promising better investment in the NHS, which is something many voters care about."}
{"id":"76a7dc9b-c512-4b93-a96a-2ea90f970b9a","argument":"I realize that in particular, Judaism has been the subject of multiple attempts to remove it and its adherents from the theological landscape, and in general, people of any faith are very sensitive to anything that sounds like, Your faith should be eradicated. On the contrary, it's completely consistent with this stance that people should be completely free to practice religion the notion is simply that ideally, they would feel no need to. In particular, the version with should end replaced with should be brought to an end is largely antithetical to my values, and I would never defend anyone who said so, unless they were describing a change in societal parameters that, while not impinging on anyone's freedoms, lessened the incentives to seek meaning in faith read things like increases in quality of life, education, that have been proven to decrease religiosity while being nigh universally regarded as strict improvements . edit Something to be careful about is that this is largely a meta view one that I'm expressing about atheism and an associated viewpoint. While I'll entertain some questions that stray from the precise view stated above, since it's quite narrow, and I'd rather foment discussion than throttle it, I'm not here to defend atheism at large. edit2 The view change was to something more akin to The practice of religion as an expression of faith and the underlying emotional needs faith addresses must undergo drastic changes to justify its continuation on its own merits, on the basis that it may not be knowable whether some form of religion could exist separate from the issues that make it presently unappealing. There's still plenty of room left to change my mind on, I should think, since that wasn't even quite the claim at stake though it was one that I held . edit3 I should clarify that my personal brand of atheism doesn't involve an explicit certain claim of the nonexistence of deities. Rather, I just see no compelling reason to believe in them, nor regard such belief as much more than wishful thinking. This may be relevant to you, if you're interested in commenting. edit4 All right, everyone I think this is pretty much a wrap. I have to call it a night here. I'll make a moderate effort to respond to people with whom a conversation was left hanging as a result, but no guarantees I'm pretty busy this week, and I figured I'd do a  during a short break that I was able to arrange, for a nice diversion. Conclusion I really should have thrown out the bit about antisemitism and islamophobia no particularly interesting conversation cropped up around those claims, with one exception. I'm also now a bit more inclined to believe that religion and other systems that make evidence independent claims provide something that many people crave and would find it difficult to create on their own. Further, religion may have uses which are depending on your perspective either tangential to the belief in a deity, or perhaps prior to it i.e. as a source of moral authority that yields a net positive impact . I wouldn't describe myself as ready to commit to the positive versions of any of the claims in the paragraph above, but the fact that I'm open to the possibilities is more than could be said twelve hours ago. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Atheism is not inherently antisemitic nor islamophobic, and neither are statements like, \"The practice of religion is largely irrational and propagates misplaced certainties, and should end.\""}
{"id":"805e7c19-a09f-42cd-b77b-fddd02b581f5","argument":"Anarcho capitalism is certainly a fringe view, but I wanted to limit my  to AnCap rather than Libertarianism in general, as my case is stronger. However, I think Libertarianism is more likely than not to suffer the same result. That result being an assumption of power by those who would take it. Either a group of individuals through incorporation, or a single individual with sufficient means. This is caused by simple efficiency. Those with more wealth are the best equipped to acquire more wealth. It truly does take money to make money . In an anarcho capitalist society, there's no government to provide services and in a libertarian society, government services would be minimal . So whatever entity can provide services will do so, and do so profitably. As that entity grows larger, they become more able to leverage their existing wealth to acquire additional resources. Eventually, they'd grow so large that they'd own all the resources, effectively replicating the government that the anarcho capitalist society was seeking to escape. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Barring outside events, anarcho-capitalist societies necessarily devolve into corporatism or feudalism"}
{"id":"05743bf7-f430-48c9-af33-91be6a11b0de","argument":"I myself have been a student of a university, spent my time socialising more than focusing on my degree, but still managed to come out with a somewhat decent grade. However, the more and more I think about it, thousands upon thousands of people like me are obtaining degrees and nothing happens with them. The vast majority of students still end up working a non skill based job or make up a career from something completely unrelated to there degree. I can agree that a degree can still help you obtain a job in the first place, but it is more than possible to obtain a living wage job without a degree and the debt that carries over with it. I am fortunate enough to have found myself in a decent career, I am very thankful for that, but this isn't the case for the majority. This means that student loans are never payed off, career opportunities are harder to come by because everyone ends up being equally qualified for a job. I'm not saying that universities should be completely elitist in nature, but the entry levels for some degrees at university is horrifically low. As an example I have met a student who was studying something along the lines of Media Journalism that had managed to get into University with only having 2 GCSE's above a C, never had work experience of any kind at the age of 25, didn't actually even have access to his own National Insurance number as it wasn't on record. This student ended up resitting his 2nd year 3 times. He never finished his degree and currently two years later owes over \u00a375,000, not having yet payed a penny back. How did this individual get accepted on to a course in the first place? It is certainly has no benefit to him whatsoever Now this is a very specific example, but why is this sort of thing allowed to happen in the first place? I understand that education for all is a great thing, but we have a fairly high level of education in this country which comes at no cost to the individual whatsoever. An example of this is that you can't just walk into a dealership and buy a brand new car, they check that you have the ends to justify the means, they also try to sell you a car based on your needs. Compare this to how university SHOULD work and you have yourself a great system in place that benefits both parties.","conclusion":"Universities should have higher entry level requirements."}
{"id":"74576a20-59be-49c6-9ed0-ed185c59cda8","argument":"Sites like Youtube are filtered due to their uneducational content, however Youtube is also a very useful website to aid education when used with the correct intentions.","conclusion":"Certain sites may be educational when used for the correct reasons"}
{"id":"fa262d0e-74f2-4b31-89ab-f2e44e13ab56","argument":"Last election, I was a registered Democrat and voted Obama in 2012 when I was uninformed on politics. My politics have always been to the center, but I've found out that I pretty much lean right. I did not vote Clinton or Trump and voted Johnson hoping for a 15 needed for federal funding in the future. From the mainstream media to academia, I'm very skeptical of dialogue from those who lean left. Idealogical fallacies and character attacks are responses I've seen multiple times instead of rational rebuttals or simply agreeing to disagree. Nowadays, classical liberals seem to be underground, and even they suffer character attacks for not following in line with the collectivist groups. Party loyalty between true conservatives, libertarians, and classical liberals seems to be more loose in contrast as well. There are those who lean further left like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, but the GOP has conservatives, RINOs, libertarians, and some fiscally conservative liberals. Is there more diversity of thought in the Democratic Party, regarding economics and social politics, compared to the Republican Party? gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"There is more diversity of thought outside of the Democratic Party."}
{"id":"5df2c76a-703d-4b75-9494-5bf4dfecd214","argument":"Great Britain abandoned its settlement in 1776, and formally renounced sovereignty in the Nootka Sound Convention. Argentina has always claimed the Falklands, and never renounced its claim.","conclusion":"Argentina always claimed the Falklands; Britain once renounced its claim."}
{"id":"ab1e25dd-8860-41ff-ab26-b41827115507","argument":"Fictional outlets for pedophiles should be legal and be made available to pedophiles and offered by government institutions to people who need help. I am not advocating any changes in the cultural legal way we treat criminals this is about non acting pedophiles. Given the number of child sex crimes and the popularity of lolicon lolitas, I believe it is an uncomfortable fact that pedophilia might be more common than we think in our society, though there is obviously no way to get an estimate on it's prevalence. Fictional outlets should be legal. I would love to see Norway actually experiment with this that would provide hard evidence to prove this one way or another. When we are looking at these non real outlets anime, animated, masturbatory aids, dolls, toys, CGI anything that is not filmed live action and is produced entirely without any children no one is being harmed. What one consenting adult does in the privacy of their own home that does not involve anyone else is their own fucking business, and nobody else's. No child or adult for that matter is being harmed by this. Now I have two pieces of evidence here to back up my claim Look at Japan. Not only is it the country with the most lolicon but it also didn't ban REAL child porn until just 3 years ago Now if you were to believe this conventional legalizing it would just encourage it article, than Japan would have to be like Sweden lately and have a high amount of child rape. BUT, it has according to a 2010 statistic obviously unverifiable but rough estimate 1.0 rapes per 100,000 people while MURICA had 27.3 I'd expect a good reply to account for this disparity. It was believed that pornography and violent video games would both lead to more violence. Violent crime in the United States has been steadily decreasing since 1990, despite the fact that violent video games and thanks to the internet, pornography have been just soaring since then. If you want to kill someone in a video game, that does not mean you want to do the same in real life. Additionally, if you want to get off to a fictional child, that does not mean you want to do the same in real life. Obviously the stigma and legal punishments we give actual criminals should remain the same. And I am not calling for an acceptance of pedophiles in mainstream culture, they should still keep that locked up and to themselves and just use their outlets in private it's not acceptable in a social context . I want the Norwegians to give this a trial run because I believe there is evidence to warrant the cause. Pedophiles need to be given outlets to inhibit their drive to commit real crimes and not pushed into situations where doing so is the only way to let out their urges. There is nobody being harmed by this stuff. No victim. Until you have a victim to show, nothing is being violated. I have no interest in what you do in your own home that doesn't involve me or anyone who is not consenting. I could care less if you get off to these fictional outlets and they should be legal. Obviously if they do try this in Norway or somewhere and it goes wrong then that'll change, but I believe that currently there is enough reason to warrant a trial run. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Fictional outlets for pedophiles should be legal"}
{"id":"b6973f0c-09dd-4d5d-8c69-ba46a171aeab","argument":"National averages in the US demonstrate that public transportation produces significantly lower greenhouse gas emissions per passenger mile than private vehicles.","conclusion":"More use of public transport would mean that the overall greenhouse gas emissions in the environment will be significantly reduced"}
{"id":"158e79bc-2db8-4f50-bfe0-41d586956380","argument":"EDIT Good points have been made regarding all three of these points. While I'm still unsure of how a successful implementation would go and I question how private and public could co exist I think they can't , I'll say that I accept that such a system could be implemented and survive. A lot of people suggest the US adopt a single payer health care system, often mentioning Canada, Australia, Europe, etc My take on this has always been that it'd be impossible mainly for 3 reasons. Disproving these would be delta worthy for me. Our population is just too big to micro manage this way. Due to our diversity, a single payer system would be more complex. So many languages to navigate for one. A huge variety of genotypes means more complexity when dealing with genetic disorders and complicates tissue donation. Geographical differences make providing coverage in specific places challenging, as well as presenting budget issues. Regional political variations limit certain possibilities like more abortion clinics . The government is not very efficient in general when it comes to managing large business like operations. The Post Office and Amtrak come to mind as services which could still be industry leaders but have been surpassed by private businesses. I'd really like to know if it's feasible to install a single payer system in the states because I think it would be good for people but I don't see it as viable. I'd like to come around,","conclusion":"The US couldn't successfully implement a single-payer health care system"}
{"id":"c2b0cc32-4c5b-4b04-a1d8-0f91d5539e50","argument":"The argument that the presence of gay troops will undermine morale and unit cohesion is premised on the idea that US troops are unable to handle their emotions and maintain their professional focus in the presence of gay peers. This is an insult to the professionalism of US soldiers. As the Rand Corporation concluded in a 2000 brief on the topic: \"it is not necessary to like someone to work with him or her, so long as members share a commitment to the group\u2019s objectives.\"4","conclusion":"Professional troops can work with gays and focus on mission"}
{"id":"54afff04-4e88-4de6-b284-7e20d1e5cae7","argument":"Prostitution is a cornerstone of patriarchal domination because it represents the power of men over women by having sex available at any given time.","conclusion":"Most prostitutes are women. This reflects and reinforces a patriarchal society where women are subservient to the desires of men."}
{"id":"3e069c7c-53a4-40c6-8640-d026e0001afc","argument":"Amazon is building a permanent shelter for Mary's Place, a Seattle non-profit, within one of its new office buildings, that will house 200 people at a time.","conclusion":"Large businesses such as Amazon are already doing enough to contribute to housing issues, for example, by supporting Mary's Place."}
{"id":"e5a1060f-5995-4cef-a64d-44ddd61ec35b","argument":"PC conversation is even more important when discussing issues that disproportionately affect marginalized groups, because majorities usually have the power to change a situation that minorities cannot. Getting input from minorities about what to change and how is critical, so demonstrating good faith by being PC can improve dialogue.","conclusion":"PC culture does not seek to eliminate valid and factual criticism. It is possible to talk about illiteracy or other social issues in Group X without perpetuating harmful stereotypes."}
{"id":"b53b65da-6a0a-45c3-b5da-222a4efcc4e8","argument":"Political decisions are only legitimate if they are properly representative, and proper representation requires that each individual has a right to directly influence the process of decision-making.","conclusion":"Even though some citizens might not show any interest in exercising the right to directly influence political decisions, this right remains inalienable"}
{"id":"8d6703e0-9eac-473a-80a0-129fee996fbc","argument":"This 'us vs. them' mentality can lead to division within a minority group in college, separating those who are academically successful and those who are not.","conclusion":"Categorising students based on their race creates an 'us vs. them' mentality."}
{"id":"002727be-fac2-4855-a4d3-99e2de245c9a","argument":"As most of you probably know Comcast has agreed to buy up Time Warner cable for 45 billion. For those who don't more info can be found here Currently, there have only been two posts on Comcast in the past month that are visible search r technology using Comcast . In addition, many posts on r technology such as this one and this more neutral one which links to the washington post article above have been hidden from view presumably by the mods . This to me is a clear demonstration of gross misuse of power as this is clearly a topic relevant to r technology as evidenced by a post made over a year ago about another Comcast buyout. As such, I believe the mods responsible should have their position in r technology and any other subreddit s revoked.","conclusion":"The mods of r\/technology are currently acting to remove disccusion on the Comcast-Time Warner merger and should be removed from power."}
{"id":"b27cd144-ddd3-48e1-9177-b368311f5d4f","argument":"It is immoral to restrict the rights of other humans to eat animals, so long as in doing so they do not infringe on the rights of other humans.","conclusion":"An individual should be free to choose any food they want to eat without interference."}
{"id":"7c8b899e-cbef-47be-aabd-6cd54b7a71b2","argument":"States could step in to recreate high risk pools to help those with pre-existing conditions get covered","conclusion":"Should people with pre-existing conditions pay more to be insured?"}
{"id":"ef85f94e-ed63-4a24-bb99-705587f1d3cb","argument":"2. Swachh Bharat Abhiyan Clean India Campaign Swachh Bharat Abhiyan was launched on 2 Oct 2014 by Modi. Filth is considered one of the major problems in India and Modi gave the issue its due importance by launching a nationwide campaign. Many called it a masterstroke from Modi and also gave people the message to act on hygiene and civic sense. Modi nominated notable personalities from film industry, sports, media, business and other celebrities to promote the initiative.","conclusion":"Modi-led government is clocking over a year at the wheel. 1. Make in India To facilitate investment, boost research & development R&D, ensure product originality and create skill-based jobs by establishing industrial sector; major national programme was started by Narendra Modi. Modi has reached out to the world with his idea of \u2018Make in India\u2019 and it has generated positive response from foreign companies."}
{"id":"1deeb7b0-734d-4037-9029-4ea146949c68","argument":"This might be an acceptable compromise, provided that other objectionable things which people feel strongly about are also subject to exemptions from public funding.","conclusion":"Even if abortion is immoral, this does not necessarily mean it should be illegal."}
{"id":"ffa31020-bc9a-40ed-bca1-650c819def50","argument":"Work related mental health is costing up to \u00a326 billion per year. Financial losses due to mental illness are hard for a small business to sustain","conclusion":"Employers may still see those with a history of mental health concerns as a risk, especially in smaller companies."}
{"id":"efb5c001-e102-497e-8070-6008352b3e8f","argument":"I was having an argument with an anarchist friend of mine, who said that he pirated his video games to punish greedy CEO's who exploit their workers . I said that pirating would also punish the workers, as they may hypothetically potentially be denied their wages. However, when I thought of it, I started to think that boycotting does the same thing. Both actions deny the company a sale and both can harm the company if done in an appropriate magnitude. The only difference is, one is legal while the other isn't, but when you don't care about capitalist laws , what difference does it make?","conclusion":"I believe pirating video games is wrong and that companies should be boycotted instead."}
{"id":"79b38864-bd71-4946-901a-cd7b6f48dbb8","argument":"The rule applies generally, there is no reason to believe it not to be true in Westeros.","conclusion":"In Westeros, women can rule just as well as men."}
{"id":"31a8c049-fddc-4102-ace4-ed1cf60462ee","argument":"It can only be a right if one assumes positive rights healthcare, electricity, etc as opposed to negative rights liberty, personality, defense.","conclusion":"Human rights should be reserved for those keys to physical and emotional survival."}
{"id":"1c28edc5-6c08-46ef-abbb-fa16b8fbb443","argument":"I tend to distrust authority including the police and politicians. Additionally, I am distrustful of concentrations of power in the public and the private spheres. Despite this, I still think there needs to be a governing force. First off, I am unsure how major social changes will be made and how there will be a safety net without a government. What I mean by a safety net is programs like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, what is remaining of welfare, and food stamps SNAP program. I realize there is something called mutual aid, but I wonder if this is enough. I just don't understand how there can be a push forward for a better world, a better community. I even support taxes as well, and think that they are necessary despite their forceful nature of physical coercion upon people. Aristotle said in The Politics that a humans cannot exist without a state, and if they don't participate in a state then then things descend into anarchy and chaos. I guess my major issue is that I don't see how a society and a country could function without a government. It seems that if there was no government, one would arise eventually with all of its hierarchies. In other words, I am saying a government is inevitable or at least that's how I feel. On top of this, I believe that despite all of the bureaucracy involved, that their should be regulators on the beat that are holding big business accountable. Let me also note that I'm also not in support of privatization either as a solution, and even at times I seem tempted to defend nationalization of certain industries. So I struggle between this distrust of authority I have and thinking that the state can do good things for society. Am I wrong? I know this is a lot to unpack and address, but I wanted to be explicit as possible. Thank you for listening and reading. I would love to hear all of your views on this important question. UPDATE One commenter noted that I made it seem like the state is opposed to capitalist behavior. That is not what I meant at all. Instead, I know that the state is meant to protect the upper class in a society. In the US, this was done since the time of the traditional founders. In human history, this has been done since the beginning in general. At the same time, I currently believe that the state can help the populace in a society.","conclusion":"I believe the state is inherently good and needed -"}
{"id":"7d643181-f388-43f2-8601-45f8c3184dca","argument":"The single political systems do share basic principles such as the separation of powers or the rule of law.","conclusion":"The EU member states' political systems share core principles and roots."}
{"id":"53765b78-0c2d-42db-8d68-b1667ead319f","argument":"A study analyzed the DNA of thirty-six samples of submitted Bigfoot hair from the U.S., Russia, Indonesia, India, Bhutan and Nepal - all of which could be ascribed to known species.","conclusion":"DNA studies of hair samples, conducted by researchers at the University of Oxford prove that Bigfoot may never have existed."}
{"id":"1f781502-283b-4c47-978d-3d13c5f57a58","argument":"I think there are times when we have to shed our concept of morality, because we live in an amoral time. We have been fortunate to live in a time and in America in a country that has relative peace compared to decades centuries past. We haven't really known bloodshed for the sake of peace in our generation. However, in times of war, genocide, and systematic cleansing, uprisings and liberations are viewed by history as positives. If PoC walked into the streets to block traffic, all stopped going to work, and even more extreme started destroying everything they could, we would see social change. At least, I think. I've never been witness to a true riot in my lifetime.","conclusion":"Black people should be rioting right now"}
{"id":"1c034f2a-a896-4b4a-9eb9-1ad5e039f357","argument":"This really started as a hands free way to talk on your cell phone in the car doesn't lower the number of distracted drivers on the road. I think the conversation itself is what distracts drivers and causes accidents. Having that hand free will do little to nothing anyway, as most people drive mostly with one hand. People are also constantly eating in their car with one hand, and no one seems to be up in arms about eating and driving. I expect a counter argument to this might be If we ban phone conversations in the car we have to ban conversations with passengers too . However, Passengers tend to pay at least a little attention to how focused you are with the task at hand and some what with the road conditions. I don't feel that passengers in a car distract drivers nearly as much as talking a on a cell phone. Change my view.","conclusion":"I don't think people should be allowed to talk on their phone at all while driving."}
{"id":"e3da3c7b-9f9a-440e-ab22-fa6de5f745a6","argument":"The Netherlands, which has permitted the possession and retail sale of marijuana since 1976, actually ranks lower than the United States in the percentage of people who have ever used marijuana in every age category, has a higher age of initiation among those that do try marijuana, and fewer adolescents in the Netherlands than in the United States use other illegal drugs.","conclusion":"The Netherlands has lower Marijuana consumption rates than the United States."}
{"id":"9041edc9-500e-469e-9720-330b38107d82","argument":"Almost 40% of employers report that U.S. labour alone cannot supply the level of skilled employees needed. Increasing wages for foreign employees, particularly those completing highly skilled roles, would significantly undermine a perception of US exploitation.","conclusion":"US companies, especially when this policy results in raising the salaries of foreign workers to increase the high-end of the cap, would stop being seen as exploiting the labor of poor foreigners."}
{"id":"41d88371-fd29-4fe0-9abc-ff27e4673704","argument":"A society where the life of an animal were worth as much as the life of a human would be doomed to fail.","conclusion":"Generally speaking, in all societies, humans treat a human's life as more important than that of an animal."}
{"id":"c4968645-fd91-40df-b6d9-e75f94131607","argument":"The fact that there are \"in-between\" people, and people who have something that differs from the norm sex-wise goes to show that people can have a dissent between their various sex characteristics. Many psychologists agree that brain can be one of those characteristics.","conclusion":"Being transgender doesn't contradict biology; it's a an oversimplification that there are only two sexes."}
{"id":"0b6f2fa8-86d5-4dda-b68e-51fed26fd299","argument":"ghetto inhabitants claimed that if it wasn't for the dangerous life they have to try to survive, then they wouldn't have to carry guns, commit crime, avoid education, sell drugs,neglect their children,and most of all, glorify the gangsta lifestyle as a way of life, and a righteous one at that. But I say, if in one day, everyone made an agreement to start looking for jobs, leave their weapons at home, actually take care of their children, and try to play by society's rules, then poof ghetto life as we know it would cease to exist in a puff of smoke. If they stop glorifying the gangsta lifestyle as an identity and stop making it a de facto life purpose to not play by society'ss rules,they might find they could have had a different life all along. note, I didn't specify a particular race , nationality or skin color, so don't flag as racist","conclusion":"Ghetto inhabitants claim the dangerous realities of inner city life are the cause of their inability to progress or escape it...but I say, if they all changed their paradigm, poof, no more ghetto."}
{"id":"c4f01a96-ca32-4a6f-819f-9ad52e652db6","argument":"So I made this comment offhandedly to criticize the idea that only certain groups like women and black people have been marginalized historically in another thread. Quite to my surprise this comment, which I at the time thought to be rather uncontroversial, sparked a pretty big debate. So I thought it deserves its own . To clarify my position, since it seems to have been misunderstood I'm not arguing that these men were oppressed by women. In fact, I don't see how the private parts of the decision makers is relevant at all. You might say Men can't oppress themselves , but this assumes men are some kind of hivemind. Not all men decided to introduce a draft. In the end, regardless of who made the decision, in the end there were men drafted into the World Wars who didn't agree with the draft or even the war, and that is oppressive. If you disagree you would have to say that women not having the right to vote would also not be oppressive, because the right to vote was actively resisted and delayed because of the action of women of the anti suffrage movement. I'm sorry btw if I have been rude to anyone in the other thread, that was not my intention. Also, I don't want to erase trans people, but I will only be talking about biological sex when saying men or women, since that is what is relevant to this discussion.","conclusion":"At the time of the first World War, men were the disadvantaged sex because of the draft"}
{"id":"ae45103e-d058-48bd-b512-36c3cf737b3c","argument":"Privatization would be good for public broadcasters, exposing them to the bracing impact of proper competition and forcing them to focus more effectively upon their strengths while producing efficiencies. When it was privatized, it was expected that New Jersey Public Television could save the state $11million a year.1 Freed from government control, they would be less exposed to political decisions about the level of license fee or direct subsidy, and better able to raise finance in the capital markets. This would allow them to compete internationally in the changing digital marketplace, developing commercial operations, and ploughing increased profits back into better program making for their domestic market. 1 McGlone, Penny. 2011 \u201cN.J. public television to undergo name change, cuts in staff\u201d. The Star-Ledger, 7 June 2011. Accessed 23 August 2011 Available at:","conclusion":"Privatising PSBs would improve the efficiency of their operations and the quality of their programming"}
{"id":"2f33e779-60f1-4482-bd27-8377fd899a8b","argument":"Cyclists have a much better field of vision than cars, and as such they are better able to assess the safety of proceeding through an intersection at a lowered rate of speed. They're also generally travelling slower than cars and they have much better maneuverability so they are better able to avoid something unanticipated. The obvious argument to this is that it then becomes a slippery slope, and you may find cyclists going through stop signs when it is not safe. My counterargument those who do, would do so regardless of the law. Cyclists are generally hyper aware of their safety, because they will always lose an argument with a motor vehicle. Any cyclist who would put themselves in danger by rolling through a stop sign when it's not safe is an idiot and not likely concerned about the bike laws that are generally unenforced anyways. The bonus here, and what differentiates cyclists from motorists, is that even when doing this unsafely, the cyclist doesn't pose much risk to anybody else because of the small size. A car going through unsafely is a risk to anybody else in the intersection. The primary benefit of making it legal is increasing law abiding cyclist enjoyment by freeing them up to travel more quickly with less effort required to constantly start and stop. A better cyclist experience increases ridership, which lowers the amount of vehicles on our streets, which lowers wear and tear on our roads as well as pollution. A new law on this issue may also improve the relationships between cyclists and motorists, as many motorists resent cyclists for thinking they don't need to obey such laws. If the laws are modified, they are only doing what's legal and the motorist has less of an argument. EDIT wording","conclusion":"I believe it should be legal for cyclists to roll through stop signs when it is safe to do so."}
{"id":"c0eb69d5-c1be-4912-ba29-97431f76d402","argument":"I just graduated from a university that is ranked as one of the top 100 institutions of higher learning in May. I graduated cum laude with a bachelors degree in political science. I realized once it was too late that my major wasn't very competitive. Originally, I wanted to work for the government, and I got along very well with my professors, which is why I chose political science as a major. It took me 6 months, but I finally just got a full time job the other day. It is at a health insurance company and it is a career that has great potential as a career, but I believe my past part time work experience is the main reason why I got the job, not my college education. I grudgingly accepted the job offer, but I don't think I will like working behind a desk. I believe my parents wasted their money for me to get a degree that isn't competitive. I don't believe my college education enhanced my knowledge to a significant extent, and I actually don't view myself as a very intelligent person. I don't think I should be working a comfortable desk job because I think I was destined to live a physically laborious lifestyle, maybe as a soldier. I see myself as living in the wrong time period and believe I should have lived in medieval times so I could fight people my entire life and live by my own code.","conclusion":"My college education was a waste and I shouldn't work a desk job."}
{"id":"6d4c2501-4cd0-428a-84dc-419fb1ee6748","argument":"It annoys me that words like actress, waitress, and stewardess seem to have gone out of favour please correct me if I'm wrong about this . I believe that the argument against these words is that they are sexist right? I don't agree with this argument at all. Having different words to describe a job depending on the sex of the person doing the work is absolutely OK. It's no different than him or her , or his or hers . The word describes who is doing the job. If actress is sexist, then why isn't her as well? gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Words such as, actress, waitress, and stewardess are acceptable when a woman holds that position."}
{"id":"0b229ee2-27ed-468c-acb3-3c12cad003b8","argument":"There's historically been debate over what \"property\" means. Humans used to be seen as property, for example. One can debate viable ownership and rules to govern it without violating the concept. Belief in property rights doesn't necessitate a belief in an unfettered acquisition and hoarding of wealth, nor submission to all claims of ownership. We don't need to give a billionaire's wealth, obtained from exploitation, the same legitimacy of an indigenous culture's claim to their ancestral home.","conclusion":"This is a list of a bunch of words whose definitions are all debated by various ideologies. This is the essence of the argument."}
{"id":"d0f0ac51-16ef-43ed-be4d-e1300012b7bd","argument":"PC culture supports terminology designed to ensure groups typically deflected, discouraged, or emotionally and psychologically harmed by improper terminology are welcomed to discourse, thereby encouraging discourse by removing linguistic ad hominem.","conclusion":"A culture of political correctness protects minorities and those who feel outcast."}
{"id":"be2bc8cc-0a60-4244-b57e-ae3a0710ea54","argument":"Before I talk about why I think this, I first want to say that I am not a poetry expert and that I am not studying this for school, this is solely a personal interest Poems for reference Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley gt I met a traveller from an antique land gt Who said Two vast and trunkless legs of stone gt Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, gt Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, gt And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, gt Tell that its sculptor well those passions read gt Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, gt The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed gt And on the pedestal these words appear gt 'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings gt Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair ' gt Nothing beside remains. Round the decay gt Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare gt The lone and level sands stretch far away. On a Stupendous Leg of Granite , Discovered Standing by Itself in the Deserts of Egypt, with the Inscription Inserted Below by Horace Smith going to call it OaSLoG because that's way too long gt In Egypt's sandy silence, all alone, gt Stands a gigantic Leg, which far off throws gt The only shadow that the Desert knows \u2014 gt I am great OZYMANDIAS, saith the stone, gt The King of Kings this mighty City shows gt The wonders of my hand. \u2014 The City's gone,\u2014 gt Nought but the Leg remaining to disclose gt The site of this forgotten Babylon. gt We wonder,\u2014and some Hunter may express gt Wonder like ours, when thro' the wilderness gt Where London stood, holding the Wolf in chase, gt He meets some fragment huge, and stops to guess gt What powerful but unrecorded race gt Once dwelt in that annihilated place Reasons For Ozymandias Better name Trivial, but could be reason it is more popular Better start The more intriguing use of 'traveller' and 'antique' are a better hook and are also less descriptive allowing the reader to picture this anywhere Better inscription The word choice here is more grand, and also enforce how awe inspiring the city was Reasons For OaSLoG Better rhyming structure I know this doesn't make a poem necessarily good, but I think it is still important Better description I feel that Stands a gigantic Leg, which far off throws the only shadow that the Desert knows is a far more poetic portrayal of the emptiness than boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away It is much more explicit I personally did not get the poem until I read through Smith's, but smiths still is poetic and has interpretation involved bare in mind that just because some detail is hidden, doesn't mean that the text is better Better formatted This one might be more trivial, but I think Ozymandias is a bit unwiedy, first you start with 1st person, then it's someone telling the person a story, and then an inscription inside the story, so if you were to quote the inscription it would be I am Ozymandias Why do I want my view changed? Because I feel I must be missing something","conclusion":"I think Shelley's \"Ozymandias\" is not as good a poem as Smith's \"On a Stupendous Leg of Granite\""}
{"id":"fd996cfa-2b1e-4eec-b3c3-7efd72b839a2","argument":"Now, that's not to say I want to restrict a woman's right to birth control. I'm far from that mindset if you want to purchase birth control pills or Plan B or whatever else, that's none of my business. My issue is forcing insurance companies taxpayers to front the bill for birth control pills so women can go out and have sex. If the pills are prescribed by a doctor for medical purposes or the insurance plan they have covers the pills without legal force, that's a different story and I'm okay with that. Otherwise, I do not feel like condom less sex is such an entitlement that birth control pills should be readily available for free.","conclusion":"I don't believe that women deserve free birth control pills that aren't a medical necessity."}
{"id":"3c475b7d-e0fc-4d53-8abc-7dfe0956c89a","argument":"Most people who would counter my stance on making cigarettes illegal would suggest that by making the product illegal you would create a black market for them similar to drugs or alcohol during prohibition. I would argue that most people who smoke don't get much, if any, pleasure out of them and the main reason they haven't kicked the habit is due to easy access and relatively low price. Cigarettes aren't like harder drugs where there is an overwhelming addiction that compels people to risk serious jail time. As well, there isn't the recreational or social aspect to cigarettes that there is with weed booze which makes those substances tempting enough to break the law over. Very few people would go out of their way to engage with a black market cigarette dealer, or pay the highly inflated price that would come with moving the product to the black market. When cuban cigars were illegal, there wasn't a large underground market for those, and I don't think there would be a large market for illegal cigarettes either. To me, cigarettes are a purely toxic product with no added value to society. They are a burden to public health and there is no reason why they should be legally sold to the public.","conclusion":"Cigarettes should be made illegal"}
{"id":"3e7fb812-820e-4a02-ba91-e556c9050379","argument":"Citizens in democracies are generally not willing to make the efforts necessary to keep democracy running as intended.","conclusion":"Citizens can't be counted on to do what is necessary to sustain democracy."}
{"id":"7886edfa-8451-4975-b516-8a3b14d50cff","argument":"It is not an empirically accepted fact that it is better to believe only in things that have been proven.","conclusion":"Whether a god exists or not is irrelevant to whether or not one should believe in a god."}
{"id":"0dceae84-91dc-42ab-a155-586e1599f6e9","argument":"If people find out that the State is favouring art that is in line with their political stances, they would be called out as corrupt, which would lead to a significant loss in popularity.","conclusion":"A state has a lot more to lose than to gain by letting their political views have a significant impact upon the selection of what art deserves funding."}
{"id":"760df9d2-fef1-47d5-a09e-d3b22e934337","argument":"Echochamber wikipedia a situation in which information, ideas, or beliefs are amplified or reinforced by transmission and repetition inside an enclosed system, often drowning out different or competing views. This starts at the way Reddit, as a site, is formed. There are tons of different communities centering around a topic r cats, for example . It just so happens that through continued discussion around this topic, opinions about the topic are formed and are widely held in the subreddit. Let's say, for example, that r cars really, really hates Honda for some reason. It could be completely contrary to reality or any sort of reason r cars just hates the shit out of Honda because it's a popular opinion. Posts and comments espousing hatred for Honda are upvoted while posts and comments espousing praise for Honda are downvoted a violation of the very basics of this site's unenforced rules, reddiquette, but we'll get to that later. This starts a cycle. Because people realize that Honda hating gets them upvotes, they'll continue to post about it, and since people realize Honda loving gets them downvotes, they'll stop posting about it. This eventually reaches a critical mass, of course not every post in r cars can be solely about Honda hate, but it's still a prevalent opinion, and eventually virtually no one posts anything Honda loving. This sort of phenomenon happens in every single sub. Unless mods strictly enforce reddiquette by removing enough Honda hating and keeping enough Honda loving so that they come to some kind of equilibrium, Honda hating will prevail, thus validating the fact that Reddit itself allowed for the formation of this echochamber. EDIT The caveat about moderation was to exclude those subreddits that have broken the trend and not become an echochamber. Since these subs are few and far between this sub, r AskHistorians to name a few , I included ALL in the title since it's representative of the subs that have followed the echochamber trend.","conclusion":"All of Reddit is an echochamber"}
{"id":"32bc434f-c15d-4e31-9e5f-c61172bcd309","argument":"I love technology, seriously. I can video chat, play games or watch movies with family and friends hundreds or thousands of miles away I can fly across country to see someone get married and return all in a weekend I have access to an incredible amount of information and have lights to read at night and 21st Century medicine is fantastic. Although I am a healthy person, if I were born a hundred years ago, or on a different continent, I would've been deaf by age 5, and then dead. Technology can be grand, I appreciate the benefits. The darker side is that technological conveniences are often less necessary. Rather than increasing what we can accomplish, reduce the amount of effort required at the cost of individuality, health, or the ability to function in a less pampering environment. What we need in life to be comfortable or happy isn't absolute, but is relative to our ability to endure. Too much technological convenience becomes a dependence, makes you weaker mentally and physically, and less capable than you otherwise would have been. A personal example I tried biking to work a few years ago, it didn't work, because it sucked. I started again two months ago and stuck with it. It wasn't hard after all, I just wasn't used to it. I was just too accustomed to the comfort of a motorcycle or car. Now, I'm accustomed to more discomfort, and will also have ice cream for dessert. Cars are great and I'll use it next weekend, but I feel my life has improved now that I can avoid the extra convenience, when it's not necessary.","conclusion":"Technology should be used to expand capabilities, rather than as a crutch to reduce required effort."}
{"id":"38b1cffb-1d7a-4e29-8de3-8b97dfb347ec","argument":"If the weapon is carried on-body, then there is a slightly greater chance of losing the weapon to the student. However, this is still an unlikely outcome. The teacher attacked by the student may not be a teacher who carries. If they are, they still have to obtain the weapon at great personal risk to themselves, and do so without another armed teacher intervening.","conclusion":"It is unlikely that an unarmed student would wrest a weapon away from an armed teacher."}
{"id":"eb793ad4-535c-474e-8b4a-72a54e8d991e","argument":"A report found parents were presented with medically unnecessary surgery as an urgent need at least once during their pursuit of care for their child.","conclusion":"There is insufficient or misleading information that affects decision making."}
{"id":"deb61eae-f584-4177-b1cd-ac6515eb3496","argument":"1 Constitutionality I honestly just don\u2019t care. The \u201cwell regulated militia\u201d indicates to me that the founders intended the 2A to be for organized state defense capable of ad hoc responses to many kinds of threats, but also possibly tyrannical federal forces. Not only is that not how it\u2019s being applied today, but also the authors of the Bill of Rights didn\u2019t foresee the types of varieties of weapons available to consumers today. Nevertheless, I actually, genuinely think it doesn\u2019t matter what the 2A says. The rights as enumerated are not granted by a god, but rather must be justified by way of objective reasoning that must be applicable to all members of society regardless of religious beliefs. To that end, I\u2019m 100 not interested in arguments about the legality of this from a constitutional perspective. It is simply not relevant because the Bill of Rights was not written with the problems we face today in mind. 2 The NRA exists for the purpose of boosting the profits of gun manufacturers, full stop. That is their only goal and their only interest. There may be other gun groups that are actually serving the interests of its members, but that is not what the NRA does. Furthermore, as an organization they are a danger to safe society and seemingly now our democracy. 3 Feasibility buy back programs and confiscation for all weapons that fire over a certain set RPM, accomplished gradually over a few years. Hold outs and hoarders will be fined at first, arrested for repeat violations. I think this is the most difficult part to justify because, given how some Americans treat their guns as more dear than their own family, there will inevitably be those that resist violently. I think it would be a short term problem for the long term solution. The benefits will outweigh the costs. 4 Nobody needs anything that fires more rapidly than a bolt, pump, single, double, lever, whatever kind of action that must be manually activated. Anything more is not defensive at that point but escalatory. Escalation is where our gun problem comes from. 5 \u201cOnly the criminals will have guns.\u201d If we reduce the supply of semi auto weapons through buybacks and confiscation, we reduce the availability of those weapons for the criminals. Black market guns have to have a continuous source. Remove the source and it dries up. I\u2019m sure there are other angles and issues I haven\u2019t considered, and you can hold up a liquor store with a revolver just as effectively as you can with a semi auto pistol, but I believe that a full ban combined with effective enforcement of regulations about who can and can\u2019t purchase and possess is the only way forward. .","conclusion":"a blanket ban on semi-automatic weapons is the only real solution to the gun problem in America."}
{"id":"ef6cb1c1-82e6-44cb-b2bc-db7267c3b510","argument":"The weak response to Russia's invasion of Georgia in 2008 has contributed to Russia's continued occupation of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in flagrant violation of the ceasefire agreement signed between the two countries.","conclusion":"Lifting sanctions on Russia would embolden it to behave even more brazenly in pursuit of its own interests."}
{"id":"02bcbe3a-45db-4817-8f35-7f98cf618f9a","argument":"Gun Control also has its roots in racial discrimination - keeping firearms out of the hands of blacks and other minorities.","conclusion":"The occupation\/hobby related gun use declaration restrictions proposed are unnecessarily onerous and unlikely to be well implemented."}
{"id":"16230bad-79ea-43df-8320-d7560bae7500","argument":"Unless you can't trust the person you are gifting with actual money, there's no real reason to get them a gift card. I think that most people buy gift cards just for the sake of spending money on a gift , when they don't know something someone would actually like. Businesses get to reel in money simply because someone had to choose where someone else should spend their gifted money. I understand people find it to be a slight convenience, but it's not much better than a few bills. For people who are bad at handling cash Likely to spend on drugs, gambling, etc , it might be seen as a good option, but people have worked around that before. Plus, there's probably better things to get them than spending money. Gift cards seem like spending money for the sake of spending money. Get them a real gift, or some cash to save and spend as they please. Change my View","conclusion":"\"Gift Cards\" make for awful and pointless gifts"}
{"id":"8541b347-ce34-4749-baec-7631c91accc7","argument":"Belief in religious miracles combined with a centuries long tradition of believing those who rule have god behind them allow for propaganda like Lysenkoism to spread and be believed en masse.","conclusion":"Religion over time embedded gullibility and subservience into cultures which was then exploited to gather mass consent and support around leaders and movements."}
{"id":"f2f0b0c3-8315-48a2-b5e5-eb8b1bf6c171","argument":"Susannah Sirkin and Gina Coplon-Newfeld. \"US Should Sign Treaty Banning Land Mines\". Boston Globe. August 11, 2000 - \"Regardless of arguments for the positive military application of chemical or biological weapons, the global backlash that would accompany a nation's admitted employment of these indiscriminate weapons is now politically untenable.\"","conclusion":"US undermines its image by not signing Mine Ban Treaty"}
{"id":"b3c33461-3ed9-48a6-965b-1629a794b99b","argument":"Pence has often advocated for shrinking the size of government. As the Governor of Indiana Pence supported an amendment to the State Constitution which would require a balanced budget.","conclusion":"Mike Pence also has a number of views which would make him a good President."}
{"id":"46bd6afe-16b8-41f5-845b-f80856342f46","argument":"A 1999 study of adolescent girls found that the frequency in which friends talked about dieting significantly predicted body image concern and dietary restraint p. 5","conclusion":"Recent research has shown that conversations with peers about appearance play a significant role in affecting body image p. 27"}
{"id":"1e8ac50c-90fe-4294-bc93-2e8670f8749c","argument":"Modern journalism is facing a crisis. Since the 90s credibility ratings for major news networks in the U.S. have been falling rapidly. Having an impartial and objective news is vitally important for a democracy as in an age of increasingly polarized politics people with different political views need sources they can both agree are valid before they can have a constructive discussion. Privately owned media chases ratings which incentivizes them to reach out to target demographics with biased reporting. Society has a solution for providing important services that no one wants to pay for taxes. Something like free public education might not sound that useful for an adult who is past school age so getting them to voluntarily fund it would be difficult. However free public education is vitally important for a society so adults are forced to pay for it so society as a whole is improved. This same logic can be applied to journalism. Since no one wants to pay for it they should be forced to pay for it through taxes. The obvious problem that people have with state sponsored media is that it wouldn't be impartial if their budget is controlled by the government the news would be heavily incentivized to not criticize the government. This fear has a lot of legitimacy the state sponsored media of Russia China Qatar and many other countries now and throughout history have been incredibly biased. However I'd argue that this isn't an issue with state sponsored media but instead an issue with those countries' media policies. Notice that in China and Russia even the private media has an obvious pro government bias. This is because those outlets are afraid of political repercussions for not following the party line this doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the fact that those countries also run a state sponsored media. The obvious example of state sponsored media done right is the BBC. Of course the BBC is definitely accused of bias this usually comes in the form of a liberal bias accusation. But running a perfectly unbiased news source is practically impossible as each and every story needs to be told from a point of view. Notice however that throughout the BBC's history there have been relatively few times that they've been accused of a pro government bias. In fact they were so critical of the Thatcher government that her administration actively fought against them However this ultimately didn't work because the UK is a country that respects the free press. This respect of the free press is what really keeps the media honest not the fact that it's privately owned. Therefore in the interest of maintaining an impartial and objective news source countries with a respect for the free press should have a state sponsored media outlet. Of course this would have to be done carefully for example the media's budget would be unchangeable except in extreme circumstances or some bipartisan or apolitical committee would be in charge of funding it. There could even be mutiple state sponsored media outlets although care would have to be taken to ensure they wouldn't just represent the two major parties and they all individually remain impartial. . Tl dr The fact that state sponsored media is funded by taxes and not by advertising would make it less biased than privately owned media. A pro government bias in state sponsored media can be avoided by having a respect for the freedom of press and basic laws in place. that's already what keeps privately owned media from a pro government bias anyway so we know that that's feasible.","conclusion":"State-sponsored media is the best solution for objective journalism."}
{"id":"43d0572b-8440-4273-9992-8ca79cbeb310","argument":"EDIT harder should read easier in my title. So mayoral candidate Ian Massow and youtuber Hunter Avallone, and probably others assert that it is harder to come out as gay than as conservative. And if you Google this statement online you can see stories of gay conservatives talking about how they felt people were saying they weren't really gay or whatever. Hell just take a stroll to r RightWingLGBT I agree that in more developed areas places in the US that aren't getting well water this true, and should be the case. And it's not just because conservative but for any political affiliation. Your political affiliation is the result of your life experiences with different people and different issues. Whatever you choose to label your self as, you are communicating how you feel on a variety of social and political topics that don't have an easy answer but have the potential to affect large groups of people for better or for worse. You have opinions on how to handle immigration. You have opinions on how to improve police civilian relations. You have opinions on whether or not showy celebrations of sexuality are necessary. Your sexual orientation is not as complicated. If you're gay you're gay. Bi. Pan whatever, you are what you are and it's not something that needs to be debated or contested. This is a classic example of not judging someone by the color of their skin well, color of their Pride flag but by the content of their character.","conclusion":"It absolutely SHOULD be harder to come out as gay than as conservative."}
{"id":"2daff84e-da0b-441d-b33c-900f343adbf1","argument":"Politicians can work at fake non-governmental organizations they have set up or bribe officials working in non-governmental organizations to give them the papers proving they have done charitable work when they haven't.","conclusion":"They can have fake documentation that say they did it but in actual fact didn't."}
{"id":"f7c5c9f3-b435-4208-bdde-283c87de3b0c","argument":"I understand that sports themselves are complicated and that there is a tremendous amount of strategy that occurs within individual games matches. I see a value in understanding a football game\u2019s rules and analyzing the choices made by players and coaches alike. But I don\u2019t think this is what most people are doing. I don\u2019t know what they are thinking about for hours on end watching game after game. Are the people sitting for hours content with not thinking? It seems like the limited thinking would cause your brain to atrophy, although I\u2019d imagine that is not how it works.","conclusion":"Watching lots of televised sports is a largely mindless activity and attracts people who place a lower value on learning and personal growth."}
{"id":"1301b7e3-d224-4f39-a335-9b14881f74dc","argument":"Poland also approved such law with the strong participation of Prime Minister Donald Tusk. 1","conclusion":"In some countries convicted paedophiles are forced to undergo chemical castration."}
{"id":"6058234f-0f61-4415-a167-c697b6b9e433","argument":"Newton's laws, long thought to be unalterable 'truth' have found to be at least partially incorrect in nanoscience.","conclusion":"Even in science there is no 'truth' found as of now."}
{"id":"1bfd1dc9-ab98-46a2-b985-575a070af248","argument":"\"Approximately 4.5 million Americans currently have AD, with annual costs for the disease estimated to exceed $100 billion. Moreover, the rapid aging of the American population threatens to increase this burden significantly in the coming decades. Demographic studies suggest that if current trends hold, the annual number of incident cases of AD will begin to sharply increase around the year 2030, when all the baby boomers born between 1946 and 1964 will be over age 65. By the year 2050, the number of Americans with AD could rise to some 13.2 million, an almost three-fold increase.\"","conclusion":"The current cost of Alzheimer's disease to American society, which some sources argue would be eliminated through the discovery of a cure through stem cell research:"}
{"id":"f7492eee-bef3-48b0-b0c5-ee5c3f83f520","argument":"Here is yet more evidence of the strength of scientific consensus around man-made global warming about man-made climate change. There are seven studies, using different methods, showing majorities of 91-100% agreeing that warming is influenced by humans. Also, agreement is stronger in scientists who have more publications in the field.","conclusion":"The vast majority of the community of climatology scientists agree that humans caused the recent climate change."}
{"id":"5301a22d-1c9b-423b-ad06-69365b7ca39d","argument":"Final hiring stage meaning whatever is used interview, test, whatever to determine who of those left gets the job. Also, I could have used better wording, since an employer will obviously contact you if you've gotten the job. It's understandable that employers can't contact every single person who applies for a job to let them know they didn't get the job. Even if you make it through a few hurdles, it can be unduly cumbersome to call people who made it through the first few hoops. That said, if you've been whittled down to the final few who, after this very last hurdle, will be offered employment, employers should contact you to let you know that you didn't get the job if the decide not to hire you. People make plans based on probable employment. When interviewing for a job, you tend to put your focus on getting hired, putting other things, including submitting more resumes, networking, and anything else relevant to gaining other employment, on the back burner. You might have to make plans for moving, cost of living adjustments and loan repayments. This can affect both you and, if applicable, a family, including your partner's future employment prospects. By making it customary to inform the final applicants of their final status, we create more certainty. No phone call probably means they haven't decided yet. You can operate under the fair assumption that you should still wait before completely moving on. A phone call e mail saying Thank you for your interest lets the person know where they stand and that they can push forward without wasted time. It doesn't need to be personal even a mass e mail would likely be acceptable. Finally, barring extenuating circumstances such as a very large group with no e mail addresses , it's likely a minimal cost to the employer. TL DR There is a lot of customary behavior that people engage in, both hiring and firing. Some of that is general etiquette. I'm focusing something done for a probably small smaller group of people who have begun cultivating a professional relationship, even if it doesn't necessarily work out in the long term. A simple e mail to a handful of people giving a status update is a reciprocal, low cost and context appropriate professional gesture that really should be the rule, not the exception. Change my view.","conclusion":"If you've reached the final stage for hiring, employers should contact you to let you know if you've gotten the job or not."}
{"id":"ec74fabc-001e-40f5-8eee-08ee5b756f57","argument":"This post has the starting assumption that Climate Change is real and that humans have a real and noticeable impact on the global climate. This has been very well documented by now and I'm not interested in attempts to change my view on this matter by addressing this assumption. Also Sorry about the length. Introduction Most of the world is currently very much aware of Climate Change happening and its effects. People might argue over the specifics or might be unaware of the exact effects that might occur at what time but the debate has noticeably shifted from whether or not Climate Change and its effects are real and worth worrying about to what our response should be. Meanwhile, the effects of Climate Change are already seen in the world, mostly affecting the poorest people in the world but also the US and Europe with larger and more frequent wildfires increases in the number and intensity of tropical storms warmer summers and droughts and water scarcity We also see the effects on the geopolitical level, with a drought being partially responsible for the Syrian Civil War and the ensuing migrant crisis. The response, so far, has not been in proportion to the oncoming problems. The Paris Climate Accords aren't adequate to prevent or mitigate the worst effects and most countries aren't even on track to meeting them Following the Paris Accords would still lead to at least a 2.5\u00b0C increase in global temperature, which is bad enough but seeing as that's not happening, we're looking at worse Mainstream political and media reaction has been denial or acceleration at worst and insufficient agreements such as the aforementioned Paris Accords and addressing the individual's responsibility I'm writing a thorough introduction to set a consensus moving forward and to show that my view and the associated worries are not baseless. In the rest of this post I will develop my view further, addressing both aspects somewhat in depth. I'll start by explaining why I think meaningful action towards stopping, slowing, or mitigating the effects of Climate Change is unlikely, followed by explaining why I think we, as individuals, can't do very much about it. Getting worse As I already addressed in my introduction, the current agreements are insufficient to assure the best possible outcomes and those agreements aren't being followed. A two degree warming is being portrayed as a reasonable goal, but it'd already be really really bad Apart from government and international governmental agencies being insufficient we also have companies eager to drill for oil in areas that were previous inaccessible Other companies are also seeing financial opportunities in Climate Change. The super wealthy are planning for their own survival rather than trying to fix things for everyone and are looking to profit of the effects of Climate Change to fund it The people with actual power are either not making effective changes or are benefiting from the lack of policy. And I realize that some companies are claiming they're looking to make a change. I have little faith in this for two reasons. First, companies are really good at outsourcing their worst practices meaning there's a good chance they'll meet their self imposed goals by having outside contractors incur the real cost. The second reason is that this list is a drop in the bucket compared to the companies most responsible for carbon emissions These companies are engaging in greenwashing because it'll help sales and or to dissuade people from questioning their actual environmental impact. For example, one company on the list I linked to is HP, which is also pretty known for its planned obsolescence which further contributes to Climate Change and other environmental damages. The IPCC Report that was in the media recently, which is working on a very cautious 1.5 degrees increase, basically states that we need drastically and radically change the way we organize society and the economy on a global level We'll need an unprecedented level of global cooperation to ensure that humanity as we know it survives the next century Given the general slowness of political decision making and the unambitious goals countries set themselves, paired with the incentives companies have to keep churning out money, it seems to me that we won't be seeing the necessary changes quickly enough. We have about a decade to completely turn around everything and put all our efforts towards creating a world that we might survive. On a more personal note, in my country one of the climate ministers yes, we have multiple took no meaningful actions at a climate summit after one of the largest demonstrations in the history of this country asked for ambitious policy. This is anecdotal, of course, but it is also symptomatic on how climate policy is decided. Most people are aware of how bad it is and want politicians to take action, but the response is always lacking and organizations responsible for global warming get a seat at the table. Seeing that we won't see the required actions in time, that means we're likely to hit a point of no return where all sorts of feedback loops might lead to worse and worse changes A brief note on geo engineering A lot of people will point to possible future advances in science and technology that could help us. I'm not confident in them for two main reasons. As the IPCC report points out, those methods are currently untested, especially at a global scale. We can't rely on them to fix things and we can't even rely on them not making things worse. Given the brief window of time we have to work with here, we would basically need the technology ready to go right now. The second objection to it is that massive climate or geo engineering might help deal with global warming but could destroy the ecosystem in a variety of different ways. We also wouldn't be able to stop Why individuals won't be able to do anything This is hyperbole, of course. An earlier IPCC report points to several things you can do, especially if you live in a richer country. The most impactful things you can do are Having less children Not having a car Not taking planes Eating a plant based diet And I'm not saying you shouldn't do those things. As I said above, we need everyone to pull together if we want to make it. I also know that some of you will have see the link to article about 100 companies producing most of the carbon emissions and went Ah, you see, but these companies are producing the goods and fuel the individual consumers demand. To which there are two obvious answers. First, these companies have deliberately withheld information from consumers and regulators that could have been valuable in addressing Climate Change sooner. These companies are also spending a shitton of money on influencing policy The power consumers have here pales in comparison to that of international companies. The second answer is more prosaic People have no choice but consumption. If you want a house and food, you need a job. To have a job, you need a car and a phone. While some people are in a position to make certain lifestyle choices, not everyone has that luxury. Without societal transformation and policy tying it all together, these choices are academical to a lot of individuals Also worth noting that air travel is something people already avoid due to cost, making it only a solution for those that are already affluent enough to fly. As I addressed above, that policy is unlikely to happen in a timely fashion. Individuals organizing without governmental backing is valuable but limited in what can be achieved. It also doesn't address the core problems with our model of consumption that lies at the root of what is causing climate catastrophe. Actions that actually challenge to logic of putting financial gain before the climate are criminalized or meet the already existing government protections of companies. You could also say that voting is a way for individuals to influence the policy level. While this is somewhat true, it also ignores that between voting, policy makers are free to lay aside the demands of the public most people vote for more than climate policy, and we've increasingly seen how our democratic process can be led astray by misinformation We also have large political groups that either deny we should be addressing Climate Change or are preferring a wait and see approach. Given the scope and the timeline of the problem, individuals actions aren't even close to enough. While I still think you and I should be making an effort, we can't create the massive changes to our societal and economical systems we need by doing that. Changing my view I want my view changed because this is just very depressing. I don't want to see major parts of the world dealing with flood, fire or famine or at least not more than they already do . I don't want to deal with all the additional bad things that are going to accompany the climate catastrophe. I don't want to be weighing whether or not to have children not just because of the carbon footprint associated with yet another human but also because I don't want to have to prepare them for a life of scarcity and extinction. As for how to change my view, I genuinely don't know. I've been reading up before making this post and things are just looking grim. Maybe I'm missing something in terms of how society is on the brink of being transformed or how a global revolution is just around the corner. Maybe I'm underestimating the impact of individual action. I've tried to keep my own politics out of this post as much as possible this is, unfortunately, a political issue but they might be relevant for attempts to change my view. I consider myself an anarchist which obviously informs my views on governments and corporations. While not extremely relevant, it might help people avoid arguments that rely on, say, assuming the free market will fix things.","conclusion":"It's increasingly unlikely that Climate Change will be meaningfully mitigated and there's very little we as individuals can do about it."}
{"id":"b8807441-0cc0-4c23-8b09-d96833d0d7ce","argument":"I\u2019ve been seeing a lot of debate about who is and who isn\u2019t rich. I would hope that we can all agree that people making millions of dollars per year, regardless of where they live, are rich. The issue I have is that whenever the discussion of taxation comes up, people immediately start throwing out numbers that don\u2019t seem fair. \u201cAny household making six figures or more is rich \u201d Ehhhh, while the grass may be greener on the other side, it\u2019s not as amazing as one would assume. Depending on where you live, money can still be very tight. Those people making that kind of income are almost guaranteed to have some kind of student debt, just like many lower income earners. While life may be easier for them, it is not necessarily easy as a whole. I\u2019m all for the 70 tax rate on marginal income over 5 10 million, but proposals saying a marginal tax rate of 40 on 100,000 is out of touch and primarily jealousy driven. Edit 1 There is confusion that I am only talking about one person making six figures. I was thinking more along the lines of a household income, which could be one or more people. Edit 2 When I made this post, I was only thinking about households bringing in 100 150K. Obviously, those making 700K are probably doing just fine. Edit 3 I changed my originally post to reflect households rather than an individual income.","conclusion":"Making six-figures does not inherently make one \u201crich.\u201d"}
{"id":"bf29c0fb-1d40-4a28-81e7-82d3716e618d","argument":"This is not a religious debate This is not atheism vs theism Everyone in this thread is to be considered agnostic My argument is as follows We exist in the third dimension, pushed along by the fourth dimension. We know the fourth dimension exists, but we cannot perceive it in it's entirety. Knowing at least one dimension exists beyond our capacity to understand, we can infer that more exist. Just because we reside in the 3D does not mean we can fully perceive or even observe all that is in our dimension although we're making good progress . Of all the things we know, we know that there is way more that we do not know and to expand on this, there is way more that we do not know that we do not know. SO Because of the infinitely huge universe AND the existence of more elaborate dimensions, it is irrational to say that more life does not exist in this universe as well as it is to say that more does not exist beyond what we can understand. If it is infinitely probable that an entity can exist beyond what we can fathom, that entity can be referred to as god, collectively or singularly. After all, we call god a being that exists beyond us and knows all that has happened in the 3D and ever will happen. That definition means to exist in the fourth dimension. This also means that what we would call god is not even the end of this line of thought. With this definition, this does not refer to god as a creator, although it may or may not be a perk of the 4D. However, if creation of the 3D is not possible in the 4D, I would argue that it is eventually possible in the of the later dimensions. If we agree on that, whichever dimension it may be, we can agree that dimension is where our direct creator resides. If that is our direct creator, we can infer that there is a further creator still. At this point we could say that existence in a greater dimension does not make that entity a creator, however, that non creator being can still understand all that we are in our universe as a concept as simple as 2 2. So there are many more existential planes that yield beings that we can never hope to understand. This makes the worshiping of a god useless. It is an incredibly pompous idea that any of the beings beyond or even within our dimension care about us. Additionally, it is irrational to believe that we can understand what any of the beings would want from us, considering we have literally nothing to offer them. The only idea that comes to mind as worthless as our thoughts can be when in comparison to these entities is that we are either a form of entertainment, a type of study, or a byproduct of chance. The only thing we should do is be. All we can do is simply exist. However, what we ought to do is better our existence for ourselves.","conclusion":"God Exists, but we should never worship it"}
{"id":"1a957739-e26a-4b2c-8d74-f534d7998572","argument":"Since the entirety of society still has issues with bias and perception of race, those prejudices do not suddenly vanish in the courtroom. It is not a coincidence that the states which keep execution alive today are the ones where lynching was most prevalent a century ago; one has increased to replace the other.","conclusion":"The law is only blind in theory, not in practice. It is an ideal we aim for, not something we have actually achieved."}
{"id":"f231d208-a00e-42fc-bcff-01df19b9b7da","argument":"I believe this because of 2 reasons First, i think that it ruins culture and heritage. With the world becoming more and more of a melting pot, cultures seem to be disintegrating. People originally from X claiming they are from Y with little Y heritage. It angers me a little when country Y is my country. The second reason being a little more critical. If people are allowed to have different nationalities, more often than not its to move to said country. The movement of people usually tends to be from LEDC to MEDC. Having seen a lot of said movement to my country, I see a lot of changed communities and honestly speaking degradation in quality of life. This view may be a little strong, but i volunteered it so you could . I have intentionally not mentioned specific countries for the sake of the argument EDIT Thank you for your answer, they were all read and taken into consideration. I understand that my opinion may not always be the most popular and should aim to change towards being more open to people being 'citizens of the world' rather than 'citizens of X'","conclusion":"I think you should not be allowed to change nationality."}
{"id":"8d1b2edd-9e06-4d09-b142-9987a338ab31","argument":"If it is burning someone else's property or causes damage to someone else's property, that would be a crime.","conclusion":"It isn't against the law for an individual to damage something they own, nor should it be."}
{"id":"ce5a824f-426f-4618-9569-a8a8951c4a94","argument":"I'm strongly questioning whether anyone real uses Twitter. My own personal experience tells me that Twitter consists of ten bots and social media experts trying to befriend each other convinced that one of them is a real person. It's not difficult to produce a bot for Twitter that doesn't get banned. I've done it myself as an experiment. Just produce a few sentences, have the bot alternative between different grammatical structures and specifically target a number of people who use a certain keyword. The reason it's popular is because it falls in line with the needs of corporations, instead of the needs of human beings. Thus corporations promote Twitter by using it, and some people are stupid enough to join Twitter. Corporations are fooled by Twitter however into thinking that people on Twitter are more interested in following brands than they really are. As an example, consider that Twitter forces you to follow ten people when registering an account. It gives you some categories to choose from, the first category being musicians. Thus everyone who makes a new account ends up following brands and public persona without really having an interest in them. Corporations see this and think Oh wow, we have to be on Twitter . The problem is that even in corporations, most people hate Twitter. However, sometimes people bring up subjects that you can't defend yourself against. As an example, when people say you're spoiled, privileged or racist, you can't really defend yourself. Similarly, when someone declares We have to get on social media read Twitter in a corporation, YOU'RE FUCKED. After all, how do you defend yourself against it? Every other corporation is on Twitter. It allows you to reach people at seemingly very low costs. It's easy to argue to colleagues that you should get on Twitter, but it's very difficult to argue that you should not . I've been in this situation before. It used to be the case that celebrities had the freedom to keep their mouth shut on the Internet until they really felt as if they had something interesting or meaningful to share Not anymore. The existence of Twitter requires them to remind the world on a daily basis that they still exist, as otherwise people will inevitably end up paying more attention to those celebrities that do use Twitter. Thus Twitter promotes a culture of narcissism and attention seeking. In combination with the 140 character limit it also promotes stupidity and dumbs down conversation. It would be best for everyone, probably even for the handful of genuine Twitter users and Twitter employees, if Twitter would die. People feel forced to use Twitter, even though it's a horrible medium that gives you just enough character space to grammatically ruin and dumb down an idea you want to share, because their friends are on Twitter. Their friends in turn are on Twitter, because their friends are on Twitter. Go through this chain and you eventually find the core userbase of Twitter Low IQ narcissists who want to be heard without having anything interesting to say. Twitter is the emperor, and it has no clothes. Celebrities have to publicly state that they will leave Twitter. This will cause a chain reaction, as the taboo ends and other celebrities abandon Twitter. Soon, Twitter will collapse, its stock price will collapse with it lol and Twitter will turn into an obscure ghetto like Myspace.","conclusion":"I think Twitter is a horrible medium that's kept alive by corporations that feel forced into using it and the world would be better without it."}
{"id":"e1095dea-dcfe-4d58-a73b-4dc2b17155fb","argument":"It's in the best interest of the sausage maker to keep the customer ignorant of the sausage making process, lest it lose its appetite for sausage. Politics are similarly ugly, especially behind the scenes, and it's in the best interest of the politician to conceal the game of politics. What we're seeing in the HRC DNC collusion scandal is a failure to conceal the sausage making process. However, my position is that while it's despicable that the system was rigged against Bernie from the get go and it's yet another reason to despise HRC, it's just good politics on her part. A presidential election is too important to leave to the public to decide, so it's not unreasonable for candidates to try to amass the resources and allies necessary to influence the election in their direction. In fact, it would be naive to think the candidates aren't scheming and plotting behind the scenes to get into office. Which laws were broken as a result of this collusion? Granted, I am not a lawyer nor am I well educated on campaign law, so there very well could be some FEC law that was violated which would put my whole argument to rest, but other than sloppiness with donor credit card s that was illegal, what laws did HRC and DWS et al break? I realize that the DNC's self proclaimed role is to remain impartial throughout the entire process but simply posting that statement on the DNC website is hardly legally binding. Thus, if HRC didn't break any laws by getting influence within the DNC, it was a good, strategic move on her part to ally with anyone and everyone she could to influence the primaries in her favor. HRC has been planning how to get the White House ever since Bill was president. She thought her time was in 2008 but 'hope' superseded her. She realized that her efforts to be the nominee weren't strong enough after the 08' election and doubled down. We saw evidence of this with the massive super delegate support she had throughout the primaries. I'd imagine she's been courting them for years and she was obviously excellent at that process. She probably also recognizes that this is her last chance at the presidency, so she's employing every single trick and tactic she possibly can, especially those that the voting public won't stomach. Unfortunately for her supporters and the Democrats, she's been incredibly complacent and incompetent in concealing her sausage making activities and as a result is tanking her own campaign. tl dr. HRC didn't do anything wrong legally in getting the DNC to influence the primaries in her favor. Some call it a rigged system, but I call it good politics so .","conclusion":"HRC's collusion with the DNC was poor form, but good politics."}
{"id":"7145bc72-33c0-4104-92c1-f1a6b7be57cf","argument":"Minority students may feel like their voice does not matter in class or on campus. Speaking up for their race or heritage may instill them with a sense of pride and self-confidence.","conclusion":"Minority communities have asked to let their voices be heard. This policy is respecting their wishes."}
{"id":"80776539-67d8-4db2-89de-bb305a173d68","argument":"A single state entity, such as a USE, has a single foreign policy as defined by the central government. It can't have more than one voice on foreign affairs as to have any effective foreign policy at all.","conclusion":"On the contrary, being able to speak with multiple voices is beneficial for the EU."}
{"id":"16ac05f6-96d2-4320-86c3-3c3c62afa6fd","argument":"Edit Columbia University is an exception among the ivy league it is quite diverse socieconomically, with 30 of its undergrads having Pell Grants. However, the rest of the ivy league isn't very economically diverse Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor under President Bill Clinton, and progressive commentator, posted this on his facebook page gt For the second year in a row, Princeton University has emerged on top in the U.S. News World Report rankings of American universities. Which shows how utterly bankrupt those rankings are. I have nothing against Princeton, but it has the least economic diversity of any elite university and its graduates flood Wall Street and corporate consulting more than any other. Before the financial crisis of 2008, close to half Princeton\u2019s graduates went into finance. Add in management consulting, and it was close to 60 percent. Even today, these two professions are the choice of a majority. Meanwhile, Princeton has among the lowest percent of Pell Grant eligible students, a proxy for students from poor families \u2013 only 12 percent. Berkeley, where I teach, has more Pell eligible students than the entire Ivy League put together. gt If you want to look at a ranking that\u2019s meaningful, take a look at the one just put out by the Washington Monthly where Princeton is ranked 27th . Why does anyone still pay attention to the U.S. News? I believe that his commentary is very on point. Should Princeton University really be revered when its student body primarily consists of those who have socioeconomic privilege and want to gain employment in lucrative occupations in the corporate world management consulting, investment banking, etc that do not have much social value? investment banking, management consulting, corporate law, and hedge fund management are among the highest paid of all professions the Times reports hedge fund manager Steven A. Cohen made about 2.3 billion last year, and is still doing extraordinarily well even after his hedge fund entered a guilty plea to insider trading charges . Yet the benefits to society are negligible. You might even say they\u2019re negative, because most of what these professions do is take money out of one set of pockets and put the money into another, in zero sum contests that cost a bundle. Unlike other high paying professions, such as medical services, STEM jobs, electrical engineers, computer programmers, people in management consulting and corporate finance currently primarily do not make money off of helping others or creating products that improve people's lives, but off of screwing others for personal profit. In the past, investment banks used to make primarily off of investing their clients' money, and helping firms with IPOs, mergers and acquisitions, etc. But since the late 1990s and the 2000s running up to the financial crisis of 2008 , financial institutions were basically hedge funds masquerading as investment banks. Banks tricked their clients into purchasing toxic assets that were given artificially high credit ratings, and the banks then proceeded to bet against the assets they recently sold for huge profits, screwing investors even more. Moreover, on the commercial banking side, banks actively targeted vulnerable low income individuals who were often racial minorities for subprime mortgages that the banks knew people would default on and they engaged in predatory lending by making the contracts and terms extremely complicated . Even after the banking bailout, investment banks and commercial banks have been doing a lot of shady stuff, trying to foreclose on people, refusing to refinance loans for victims of predatory lending, buying off politicians so that they can weaken Dodd Frank financial regulations via lobbying and massive contributions to SuperPACs , giving their executives exorbitant pay even though these same institutions were responsible for crashing the global economy and inflicting misery onto so many people via unemployment, inequality, etc . Investment banking and now commercial banking is very unethical, and is one of the most unethical fields of finance to go into. Yet many from Princeton and other ivy league schools pursue this because they want to get rich on a personal level, and don't seem to have much empathy or social consciousness. Investment banks are helping turn our society and political system into an oligarchy. Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations famously distinguishes between Productive and Unproductive Labor. Investment Banking essentially epitomizes the latter. The British Empire, as well as he United States in the middle part of the 20th century because super powers because they manufactured products that increasingly helped build capital stock, which allowed for long term growth. Similarly, today, engineers, computer programs, and the like are justifiably given lucrative salaries because they actually create products of value that people benefit from. An investment banker, in contrast, and indeed almost all of the financial services industry, derives money from shuffling money around, rather than creating stuff of value, or providing services of value. Is it fair to say that banks don't provide any service? No. But I certainly think it is the case that for some reason, market mechanisms aren't working effectively here and bankers get paid way too much for what it is that they do. When an MIT Aerospace engineer PhD is making 80k, and a 24 year old kid out of college is making 150k, well, I guess that shows you how awesome the market's priorities are, and how messed up our wage setting mechanism is. Moreover, many investment bankers leave the profession after 2 years and go into private equity or work at hedge funds, and make a shitton of money of there, and are able to take advantage of the carried interest tax loophole since Wall Street has an enormous influence in the political system. In the U.S., we tax work, not wealth, thanks to the influence of Wall Street lobbyists in Washington D.C. Here's a good article about the corporate culture at Goldman Sachs for more information Similarly, management consulting, esp the big three firms McKinsey Company, The Boston Consulting Group, and Bain Company , have also been involved in lots of unethical stuff. While boutique management consultant firms have been more ethical, and more genuinely interested in serving clients, these big three consulting firms have been engaged in unethical, zero sum behavior. And to the extent that clients benefit, it is the employers who gain the disproportionate benefits, since these consultant firms will often encourage businesses to lay off workers to cut costs and become more competitive, often regardless of whether workers are truly burdensome on a financial level to maintain. Consultant firms also encourage firms to engage in job killing mergers and acquisitions, claiming that it will increase the company's efficiency, even when this isn't the case there should be x inefficiency of diseconomies of scale if we're doing microeconomic analysis These consultant firms have also encouraged employers to raid employee's pension plans and shop for the cheapest healthcare plans to give employees, regardless of whether the plan adequately covers employees' healthcare needs. This is very different from the stakeholder society the U.S. had in the 50s and 60s and even 70s when employers were more willing to look out for the interests of their employees. When Princeton's student body primarily consists of those with socioeconomic privilege many of whom are legacy admits and did not have the same credentials as non legacy admits , and then fosters a culture in which people are encouraged to be very self interested and pursue lucrative careers in industries that make money off of screwing others, then Princeton does not deserve the respect that it gets since its student body is not giving back much to our society. I'm not saying that it's necessarily wrong for people to go into finance or management consulting, but when the majority wants to go into these two fields, then there's something wrong with the university's culture. Instead, we should respect schools like UC Berkeley, UCLA, and others whose student body is economically diverse, schools that actually have a meaningful impact on facilitating upward mobility, and giving the underprivileged the opportunity to move ahead in life. And we should respect schools that encourage people to go into social work, like teaching, nursing, caring for the elderly the pay for these occupations may be low the myth is you get paid what you\u2019re worth. Yet for many occupations it\u2019s just the reverse Pay is inversely related to the real benefits to society . But the benefits to society from these professions is considerable compared to investment banking and or management consulting. We desperately need these people, not more people on Wall Street. It's a shame that by endowment per student, Princeton is the wealthiest school in the United States, while UC Berkeley and UCLA, UCSD, and other excellent state colleges are being underfunded. Edit here's a link looking at the economic diversity among the top 25 ranked schools Economic Diversity Among the Top 25 Ranked Schools Edit here are some links provided by u simsproblem for more information on the topic","conclusion":"Princeton University and other ivy league colleges does not deserve respect because it primarily serves the interests of the rich elite and its student body does not give back to the average American"}
{"id":"0a0f9b9e-62df-4dcc-8d7c-5aae597030ad","argument":"Snapchat and Instagram are common and convenient Facebook alternatives for staying connected to friends and family.","conclusion":"There are other social media platforms one can use to stay in touch with friends."}
{"id":"bd4717d2-c484-4595-a0ba-f541cf5c42ac","argument":"If an ISP abuses its customers, the country will raise hell and that ISP's reputation will rapidly decline. This will hurt its attempts at expanding in the future.","conclusion":"Placeholder Competition will generally prevent price gouging or other forms of market abuse, just as it does with the rest of the economy overall."}
{"id":"0e3b25e8-38d2-470d-8fc9-2ee02c4821c1","argument":"If we allow whaling and are wrong about the degree of suffering, we have caused significant harm, while the harm of not allowing whaling is relatively minor.","conclusion":"Even to the extent that there is doubt, policy responses should err on the side of caution."}
{"id":"6610af52-a5ba-4e5c-b5c9-fd2bb0930c96","argument":"Many people say that romance is one of the necessary ingredients for a happy, successful life and if a normal person became ForeverAlone or unable to find a significant other for life, they would become extremely depressed for life and be miserable due to it. I disagree I believe that most people are fairly resilient and, IF they had friends, would be able to adjust to their new lives without romance and be reasonably happy. I do not believe romance is a necessary or a sufficient condition for happiness many people have been able to overcome greater handicaps to become happy, well adjusted adults.","conclusion":"If a normal person became romantically ForeverAlone, it would NOT cause them to be suicidally depressed."}
{"id":"c4cbdd9e-8a45-498c-9605-68b4b91032ac","argument":"Fish and whale population health are positively correlated because whales facilitate the transfer of nutrients within and across ecosystems.","conclusion":"Whales are of great importance for the ocean's ecosystem."}
{"id":"c44b6b47-3f8b-4958-8184-43cc217ae316","argument":"Religions may hamper positive self-change. Religions teach to last and endure while going through hardships, even when the solution is to change yourself.","conclusion":"Religion can instill fear and guilt and stop self-improvement and personal realization."}
{"id":"10757652-8d17-4fba-83ad-56de5faf43f6","argument":"I have been looking into the mass shooting statistics for the US shocked at the 1.2 mass shootings a day stat being thrown around and was surprised to find that many listed were during home invasions, etc some in self defense. I acknowledge these are instances of gun violence, but to call them mass shootings to me seems misleading at best, and disingenuous at worst. I think it is a convenient way to frame gun violence from the emotional response the term mass shooting invokes, and very convenient to gun control arguments. I am not advocating that its OK to shoot someone for personal disagreements, but am going to have a hard time being swayed on self defense being counted as a mass shooting. This is not an argument on gun control or second amendment, or any of the others but rather a consideration that the term may be disingenuously applied to inflate the numbers. I also opened this up to personal disputes as I think I have more potential to be swayed on this side of things, and wanted to go in a little more expectant to give some deltas. To be fair I am sourcing from Wikipedia A particular instance I saw that made me question this","conclusion":"Home invasions and even some other personal disputes should not be considered \"mass shootings\"; at least not as they are referenced in soundbites."}
{"id":"6de58d2a-24f4-4b12-88a2-90c6ff22d4f4","argument":"I have heard countless accounts of abuse, in one form or another. I see people indoctrinated by an early age into cults, religions, or any belief system. This seems to counter the idea that we have an in built guide of how to raise a child. It is unfair that these children should suffer, and be affected for the rest of their life. Why should we be allowed to raise a child just because we have the ability to make babies? Or if its considered a moral right, why? In practise, this mean that there should be some sort of test points system I couldn't say the best way , to determine if the couple is fit to look after a child. Normally, since abuse is a minority issue, I would say that a blacklist system works better fit to rear a child until proven otherwise , however, when you are dealing with someone's life, abuse is such a long lasting effect that I suggest a white list system. Edit I did not mean to imply eugenics, but I see how it seems I would support it Edit2 Would just like to say I love you guys, really insightful and provoking stuff, I'll probably find some more of my views I'm not totally comfortable with to post later.","conclusion":"I do not believe that the raising of children should be seen as an innate right,"}
{"id":"4c14e935-43c3-4309-a6fc-8a0e707725e6","argument":"D3 is inadequate in vegan diets, that is why meat is a good source of D3 the livestock gets its source from microbes that produce it.","conclusion":"Vitamin D3 is rarely found in plants and will be inadequate in a vegan diet unless supplemented."}
{"id":"0c28e05a-7399-4f2f-9a5f-ceffb3180f89","argument":"In a patriarchal society men are discouraged from speaking out about being victims of sexual assault because they're told that men either \"can't be raped or \"should have enjoyed it\".","conclusion":"Men suffer negative consequences from the expectations and requirements placed on them by the patriarchy, which feminists are trying to dismantle."}
{"id":"f3a5a41f-4517-4d65-8dd2-4ee28eb9c10a","argument":"The distinction between purchasing a product and a speech act becomes clear when we consider how such purchases work in a barter economy. In such an economy, I might choose to exchange my chicken for a duck. In doing so, both I and the owner of the duck are sending signals about our preferences, and thus in some sense communicating. However, no one would argue that chickens or ducks constitute speech. In the modern economy, money is merely a convenient symbol for hypothetical chickens and ducks.","conclusion":"Just because a service in this case, political speech or political advertising, can be purchased with money, does not mean that service is in itself money. Money can purchase almost any service, but that does not mean any service can be thought of as money."}
{"id":"77c3dce1-46ce-459c-9f21-fa97717ef2d1","argument":"I've been a non theist my whole life. I've never really dabbled in religion at all. I see not benefit to it and prefer humanism as a worldview.","conclusion":"I am a life-long atheist and believe in the benefits of secular humanism,"}
{"id":"554aba78-af52-4fe6-95ca-ea4e5c47e623","argument":"Obviously this isn\u2019t your everyday democratic viewpoint but hear me out. How many people would have died in the Sutherland Springs church shooting if everyone in that church was armed with a gun? Yes the perpetrator would have killed one maybe two people, but then someone with a gun would have stepped in to save the rest of those lives. I realize it would be ideal if we lived in a society with no guns except for law enforcement. But exactly how likely is that to happen? Drugs are illegal, and more than a few people find a way around that. And in my mind because of this reason exclusively, total gun control laws will not work. If I\u2019m looking to commit a mass murder, I\u2019m probably going to go to an area with the fewest amount of guns. This way I can inflict the most damage before the cops show up. If I go to an area with heavy gun presence, I can\u2019t really get to far without a fellow civilian gunning me down with their own firearm.","conclusion":"The problem isn\u2019t that there are too many guns out on the street...it\u2019s that there\u2019s not enough."}
{"id":"e38372e7-a17d-4a3d-ba47-42aa058c7f21","argument":"Anyone who wants to approach strangers for sex in a public situation can do so with the context in mind and thereby avoid entirely inappropriate situations. After all, the proposal under debate isn't that strangers should be approached in each and every situation.","conclusion":"If certain rules are followed, a lot of the potentially negative outcomes can be avoided."}
{"id":"cb734dde-9834-4631-9b6e-f16df5e7a3e3","argument":"Between 2014 and 2017, Iran's defence budget grew by 71%, from $9.29 billion to $15.9 billion. Any profits made by the state are funnelled into it's military rather than going towards improving the lives of ordinary Iranians Habibi, p. 8","conclusion":"The economic benefits of the Iran deal rarely end up in the pockets of the ordinary Iranian; rather, they just help making the Iranian political and military elite richer."}
{"id":"b40826a4-439b-4805-ae60-c99269c0b43c","argument":"By projecting past convictions on to a new case, this disclosure greatly weakens the presumption of innocence which is the defendant\u2019s right1. It is the jury\u2019s duty to form a verdict based on the relevant case, and it should not be dependent on events from the defendant\u2019s past life which may be completely irrelevant to the case in hand. Many people who mistakenly committed a crime at one point in their life realise that it was a mistake and do not go on to re-offend, particularly if they have received help or treatment from the state2. Even if the defendant has repeatedly committed crimes in their past, it does not necessarily follow that they are guilty of the particular offence which has gone to trial. 1Criminal Defense Department\u2019 Every person is PRESUMED INNOCENT until Proven Guilty Beyond a Reasonable Doubt\u2019, Parkes Law Group, 6 May 2011 2Public Safety Canada, \u2018Treatment for sex offenders\u2019, 28 December 2007","conclusion":"The motion completely undermines the assumption of innocence which accompanies a fair trial."}
{"id":"65e9c056-05e9-4ee0-912f-573f467b2eff","argument":"Teachers often share important information: reminders of upcoming quizzes, class trips, new classroom rules, essay due dates and other school-related specifics. Students who show up late may miss out on these details and as a result, be unprepared for some future class events.","conclusion":"Children often need time to settle in once they arrive and might be distracted or distract other students at the beginning of the class, making it harder to teach."}
{"id":"988e6232-90e3-4af7-8867-182ecc6c55fe","argument":"Maybe it's just the way I'm perceiving the world, but I feel like people in America way are too work focused. People's careers are coming before their personal lives. It's becoming more and more common to see people working 45, 50, even 60 hour or more work weeks. And they aren't even doctors or police officers or other jobs where that's sometimes a little more understandable and or necessary. They're just office workers I think part of it is due to their bosses pushing them to work that much, and part is due to the worker being afraid that if they don't go above and beyond, they'll be replaced with someone who will. If my boss said Hey, I want you to start working 50 hours a week. , I'd say Fuck that and fuck you, I'm out of here. and go find another job that fits my work life balance requirements. Also, people are more afraid of taking PTO. Either they don't want to come across as slackers or they are afraid of getting behind on their work. In 2015, on average, each US worker failed to use about five paid vacation days a year. For Christ's sake That's what PTO is for Taking a break once in a while I live across the country from home, so I take at least 2 extended breaks with my PTO. Once to go home or on vacation with the family for the summer Hilton Head this year and once for Christmas. I might throw in a day here or there if I want to do something that day or something. And while I'm on PTO, I'm not thinking about work at all. I'm not worrying about how many emails I'm gonna have when I get back. I'm not worrying about clients who are freaking out trying to reach me. This is my time off. I'm not at work and not thinking about work. Either deal with it or email someone else on my team, whose email addresses I list in my automatic out of office reply. And when I do come back to work, I don't think Crap, look at all this stuff I'm behind on. I'm thinking Well, my work for now is catching back up. No worries. Give me a day or two. People need to start molding their lives more around what they want in their life, not the other way around where companies mold their workers' lives based off what they need. If your job is making you work more than you want, look for another job. If you feel like you can't take PTO because you are pressured, look for another job. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"America has become way too work-focused."}
{"id":"1d63ce8e-2701-4939-a364-281493435be4","argument":"Many people support Trump and will not want to pay businesses who refuse to serve someone who they believe is helping America.","conclusion":"No matter what side of the aisle they are on, most businesses will suffer by alienating half of the population."}
{"id":"3a090b26-ccc1-4d8d-8d79-80cfce46b762","argument":"A comparison between crime rates and tourism rates in Hawaii found little match between the trends and even a moderate or strong negative correlation in half of the areas studied.","conclusion":"All the risks that Airbnb guests pose to the community are also posed by local residents of that community."}
{"id":"7ba1ea3f-b7aa-4e63-80b5-7f971ca9763f","argument":"It is never substantiated that magic \u2014 unlike say physical strength \u2014 is a power that witches have less access to than men. Given that magic is the key to success in the wizarding world it seems to have helped level the playing field between genders.","conclusion":"One of the reasons the wizarding community has fewer gender inequalities may be because magic undermines some elements of gender discrimination. For example, magic can be used to complete the cooking and housework very quickly."}
{"id":"366aa54d-a3b1-460f-8164-8cdbbe56feb6","argument":"I attended one in the United States, but gender specific education should be able to cross cultures. Attending a single sex school, the social interactions I was forced to make has helped me become better at meeting people and be a better speaker. I believe that single sex high school education should be the predominant form of high school education in the world. Main reasons I believe this are due to Opposite sex students being a distraction throughout the day Single sex schools have been shown to help remove gender stereotypes, such as more girls playing sports, studying sciences or advanced math, or more guys playing music, acting, or writing poetry. The only study done through a truly random assignment of students to either coed or single sex schools showed better scores in the single sex schools, and that single sex students were more likely to attend 4 year college. It allows students to interact in a more natural setting with the opposite gender, as the only option is to make an effort to meet new people. The social skills learned from these exchanges make single sex high school students more prepared to meet new people in the future. .","conclusion":"I believe that single sex high school education should be the norm,"}
{"id":"b36ea017-3125-4c2b-b8b2-acd8aee972b6","argument":"Some cultures have a complex and varied cuisine that offers constant discovery and might take a lifetime to experience, or if you are a chef, a lifetime to learn. While other cuisines seemingly just heat up raw ingredients and throw it on a plate. Some examples might help. Let's take a simple Chinese dish like tofu, onions, and peppers with black bean sauce. This is far more than just raw ingredients being heated up. The tofu itself is the result of a complex process of extracting and then coagulating the milk of soybeans. It involves a natural chemical reaction. Another essential ingredient is the black bean sauce. This requires fermenting black beans with a particular fungus that gives the sauce its distinctive flavor. Added to the sauce will be rice wine the product of another complex process , soy sauce another complex process , and the sauce might even be thickened using something like sweet potato starch or corn starch. I could give similar examples for Thai, Italian, French, Spanish, Indian, Mexican, and Lebanese cuisines. Now let's look at Portuguese or Costa Rican cuisine. A typical meal in Costa Rica is cooked rice with beans, maybe topped with an egg, and then a piece of meat from the grill. I don't see anything new a chef could learn, no history, and for a foodie what is there to talk about or discover? I'd think it's also interesting to compare Japanese cuisine. While the most stereotypical dishes like Sushi and Tempora could be seen as just raw ingredients, there is a great deal of skill and tradition involved in getting it right. And you do find some complex ingredient prep again soy sauce, wasabi, dried seaweed, and so on. Please change my view and help me discover why Portuguese or Costa Rica cuisine has more to offer than appears. Or if you agree with me, please help me grow my list and tell me which cuisines you think have little to offer and which are the great cuisines of the world. Due to  rules, you may have to wait for someone to challenge my view before doing so. EDIT In order to leave my original post as is, I'll add to this list below as I remember great vs. less interesting cuisines. Please feel free to challenge me on any of these. If you convince me to change my view, I'll move cuisines around. For example, Chilean moved from less interesting to re evaluate . Great Thai, Italian, French, Spanish, Indian, Mexican, Lebanese, Japanese, Ethiopian, Modern American, Modern British I know this one is controversial, but I think I can defend it . Less interesting Canadian, Brazilian, Costa Rican Re evaluate Chilean, German, Swedish, Portuguese. EDIT Changed the boring category to less interesting . I think boring borders on insulting, and I don't think the food in those countries is bad, and I don't want to insult someone's cuisine. Just that there is a lot less to explore or learn compared to the countries in great . gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Some cuisines don't have much to offer for either people interested in food or cooks"}
{"id":"5ec75ab5-4688-4c5e-a813-d05a974f4fc6","argument":"The cultural meanings inscribed to a particular sex is very similar across cultures. Also, only 0.3% of the US population identifies as transgender, meaning that 99.7% of the population has a gender identity that matches their assigned biological sex. These indicate that biological factors such as chromosomes, organs, hormones, etc. and the concept of gender do not vary independently and that one can be used to reliably determine the other.","conclusion":"The vast majority of humans consider themselves either male or female, just like the vast majority of animals. It's only an extremely tiny amount that do not."}
{"id":"6abb42a1-e134-443c-a78a-99b8b868bd2a","argument":"Lifetime appointments increase the incentive for parties to add additional seats to the court to gain influence court packing. Such a move would likely generate strong opposition and thus increase polarisation. Term limits are crucial to prevent court-packing.","conclusion":"Term limits will make appointments to the Supreme Court less political and partisan."}
{"id":"c7695727-f794-48e3-8c12-f9e735aecd38","argument":"People should have the right to spaces where hate speech against them is not allowed. For example the family of a deceased black person should have the right to have a funeral without being harassed by the KKK.","conclusion":"Uncurtailed free speech can incite hatred, mistreatment and even violence, especially against minority groups. It is more practical to curtail such speech in the first place."}
{"id":"d01b12da-2c5b-4e02-8dde-824d69c3e432","argument":"It is also a felony to knowingly bring a minor is also a felony to knowingly bring a minor to an animal fight to an animal fight.","conclusion":"Cockfighting is illegal in all 50 US states and the District of Columbia, and is a felony in 37 US states and D.C"}
{"id":"dbbf04e8-7bc7-48d3-9f10-e48190fdda8d","argument":"This just occurred to me as I was watching an online YouTube video with headphones. Quite decent comedy until it pissed me off when I heard an annoyingly loud BEEP panned to the left ear at which point I couldn't stand it and just stopped watching it. Just a couple of points for now. Firstly, everyone already knows what the swear word is. If everyone already anticipates what the swear word is, and knows what word would've been said had the annoyingly loud beep not taken place, why not just allow people to say it? You can tell from the phraseology and the mouth movement when the guy says it. Secondly, no one is forced to watch entertainment media. If they don't like a channel, comedy style, actor, soundtrack or mentality of a certain media piece, you can simply not watch it. No one is forcing you to. Either don't use swear words altogether, or use swear words and don't BEEP it out. I also don't buy that people would lose audience if people swear too much. Or they would, but people would get over it. And even so, the culture should change to be more reflective of the 21st century where people casually use God's name in vain and say fuck to describe something aggressively. No one seems to care in casual conversation, but in entertainment media? Oh no ~ now we have a problem. Heck people already swear casually in Twitch streams and no one seems to have a problem with that. I'll also add that yes, I also do think that swearing shouldn't be censored in kids shows either. Kids are going to eventually hear these words, so why cover it up for 10 15 years or vaguely disallow it when they're going to eventually hear about these terms in the future? Especially with the advent of the internet? I could go into this much more in depth but I'll wait for discussion. Finally, and least importantly, I would argue the BEEEP is much more annoying that any swear word. Especially if it's panned to the left ear and I'm wearing headphones. There are other points but I'll wait until further discussion occurs for that. Please note I'm not saying people who represent large groups of people like important politicians should swear nor am I saying people who report serious news stories should swear either. I can at least understand the rationale that people shouldn't swear in these circumstances and frankly, I am rather mixed in my opinions on that. I'm talking about entertainment media like television, YouTube, websites, podcasts etc. either don't use swearing at all, or swear and don't censor it out. One or the other. I don't see how my viewpoint is wrong. But I am willing to change my view point if someone gives me a compelling case as to why people shouldn't swear in entertainment media. Thanks","conclusion":"The *beep* sound that takes the place of \"swear words\" should just be removed from entertainment pieces. Just let people swear on TV and entertainment media as it's way more annoying to hear a *beep* than the swear word itself. Just say the damn swear word. Grow up."}
{"id":"c70eb116-19b0-476a-a981-cbcbbb15c73f","argument":"The 1980 Jerusalem Law which proclaimed the whole city of Jerusalem as Israel's capital, was condemned as a \"violation of international law by the UN Security Council.","conclusion":"Numerous UN Security Council and General Assembly resolutions regard the Israeli presence in East Jerusalem as 'invalid'."}
{"id":"c326e376-9c52-43d3-b882-00f86d7ce0a4","argument":"If we reduce the many varieties of theism and understandings of Godhood to the hypothesis that \"mind precedes matter\", science offers no sound epistemic or ontological justification for treating this hypothesis as less credible than its inverse, \"matter precedes mind\", nor is it clear by what basis the latter ought to be the default position or null hypothesis, in the absence of any affirmative evidence one way or the other.","conclusion":"The scientific method has never provided an answer that leaves no further questions to be asked."}
{"id":"137d5333-3a91-435b-aaf0-f1f9ce4d7581","argument":"As a principle, borders should be coming down around the world, not going up. This promotes greater integration, tolerance, and a higher worldview globally. An independent S. Ossetia would create more borders, and would be, therefore, bad in this way. While the principle of self-determination sounds attractive, it must be balanced against this valuable principle as well.","conclusion":"The world needs fewer borders; A S. Ossetian nation adds more."}
{"id":"f0f285ad-2233-40a5-94dc-17a568c1fbb4","argument":"I believe this for two primary reasons If a small percentage of people are turning out to the polls, it means the majority of the electorate are complacent and satisfied with the status quo, therefore meaning the current government is doing at least a good enough job to make the citizens complacent. It is when citizens are upset with the current government that they swarm the polling stations and actually care about voting. If someone is uninformed, I would much rather they not vote than make an uninformed vote. I think a large proportion of the electorate is uninformed I am from Canada and doesn't bother to take the time to learn about each party and their candidates. Therefore I would rather uninformed people not vote, thereby reducing voter turnout, which as I stated earlier, I think is a good thing.","conclusion":"low voter turnout in elections is a good thing."}
{"id":"1edbaad2-e691-48d3-ae32-c5b980962cb9","argument":"Governments derive moral responsibility from the mandate given to them by the people who elect them. That mandate is typically to provide for citizens of that country.","conclusion":"A country has no positive moral obligations to offer aid to non-citizens."}
{"id":"a87249db-3f4a-42f9-b1f5-bbb605407e91","argument":"Recently there was a post on r niceguys that had a reply saying something along the lines of men and women can't be truly friends. Men only want to befriend women in hopes of sleeping with them, and most women don't want to sleep with their male friends I had seen a similar opinion in a few articles I read and the more I hear this message, the more I start to realize that I agree with it. I posted a reply agreeing with that post on niceguys and while I haven't been cussed out yet , my comment has been downvoted, which I expected and don't really give a shit about because that's just how I feel. I don't want to be just friends with a woman I'm attracted to. It's harmful to both you and her. You want more than she's willing to give and she feels betrayed and rightfully so when she finds out the truth. It's better to just end it in my opinion. I've had firsthand experience with this in the past. Twice in fact, though one scenario ended better than the other. The first happened between 6th and 9th grade with a girl named Haylei. I had no attraction to her when we first met, but we became friends merely due to the fact that we had most of our classes together, were seated alphabetically and her last name came right before mine and often worked together on group projects due to mutual acquaintances. I didn't develop a true crush on her until 8th grade. Needless to say, she wasn't interested but I kept pursuing her like the typical nice guy. Then she got pregnant in 9th grade and that was when I finally got the message and eventually cut all contact with her. I'm very ashamed of this both due to my behavior and because I'm not sure why I was into her in the first place since she was neither particularly good looking she wasn't ugly, just very plain. In fact, I thought she was a boy with long hair when I first saw her. She got a bit curvier in 8th grade, but still no knockout nor compatible personality wise. I think it was just desperation since I was relentlessly made fun of for not having a girlfriend and she was the most attainable girl in my opinion. Again, I'm not at all proud of how I thought and acted at the time. Then in 11th grade, a similar coming together happened with another girl named Michaela, who I also met in 6th, but unlike Haylei, I was into her from the get go and actually became less attracted to her the more I got to know her. And I don't mean that in a bad way. She was as beautiful inside as she was on the outside and I guess I developed a respect for her and saw her as a whole human rather than a piece of ass. She also had a boyfriend and got pregnant, but unlike Haylei, finished high school. I even talked to Michaela a few times on Facebook after graduation, but I quit using Facebook several years ago and haven't spoken to her since, nor do I have any particular desire to. As I've said before in many of my previous posts, I came to a painful realization in 10th grade that no one I knew was actually my friend, they were just acquaintances, people I knew, and people who, quite frankly, didn't give two hoots and a holler about me. And after I graduated from high school, I didn't even have the acquaintances. Most of it is admittedly due to my not going out much, but I've taken Einstein's definition of insanity to heart and accepted that it was pointless to chase things that I wasn't meant to have friends, a girlfriend and instead just focus on doing things solely for my own benefit. But since I've gotten older, I realize that that type of living is not a route to true happiness, but it's a can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em scenario. I'm just too different from the norm for most people to accept me. I'm below average looking, overweight, part black, unemployed, rude, sarcastic, depressed, straight edge no drugs or alcohol and misanthropic. I also don't like sports or most modern mainstream media. That's not a person that most would want to be around. But I know that if I'm going to achieve anything in life, I'll have to have at least some assistance from others. In order to get said assistance, I have to make others like, or at least respect me. Rambling aside, I tend to get along better with women than men, but when I actually envision myself hanging out with a woman, it's usually a woman I'm attracted. But my sensible mind is telling me that's not a good choice due to the reasons I mentioned above. Plus, I don't really see any reason why I should have female friends even though just about everything I've read on dating recommending that I do so. Another reason I believe most of that advice to be BS . What would I get out of having a female friend that I wouldn't get from either a male friend or a girlfriend? and more from the latter . And I'm not talking female acquaintances, I'm talking actual friends meaning hanging out together outside of work school and not just because she's one of your friends' girlfriends wives and having deep, meaningful conversations with about the big questions. I'm kind of worried that this means I have some sexist misogynistic qualities and if so, I'd like to learn how to fix it. I'm currently working on a TV show with a female protagonist, so I feel that might help in some ways.","conclusion":"As a male, I see no real benefit in having female friends"}
{"id":"17e17993-e06b-48a2-bc3a-a2b748a0af69","argument":"The woman is more likely to end up in the \"house wife\" role simply because in an evenly educated pair, the older male partner had more time to advance his career and will earn more, making it a rational decision for her to give up her job.","conclusion":"The expectation that males should be older is socially created."}
{"id":"10690cc2-8439-44a4-9bab-6fee208c0e80","argument":"Philastus Hubert secured the Solomon Spaulding manuscript he thought Rigdon and Smith plagiarized. When he examined it, he saw it was clear that the Book of Mormon was not plagiarized from Spaulding's work. He therefore concluded that there was a \"lost\" manuscript that Smith and Rigdon used. Howe, Mormonism Unveiled, 290","conclusion":"This theory claims that the historical parts of the Book of Mormon were plagiarized from an unpublished manuscript written in 1812 by Solomon Spaulding that Sidney Rigdon secretly acquired. Howe, Mormonism Unveiled, 290 This is false for a number of reasons."}
{"id":"a941b3af-35ae-4be6-bcb8-5024eff2f59c","argument":"I always get this weird feeling when I stumble upon a thread, and the top comments are all deleted . I can't help but wonder, if that many people wanted to see this comment chain, could it really have been that off topic? And even if it was, why not just sideline it, rather than remove it completely? Surely you can rely on users to have some level of capacity for critical thought required to determine how relevant certain remarks are to a larger conversation. Even if what they're saying is stupid, wouldn't you want to know how many other people happen to agree with such a stupid sentiment? I get that some comments will always be from trolls or people who are deliberately trying to derail conversations or provoke people or otherwise intend to screw with people, but I'm not sure what deleting these comments does for maintaining a conversation that couldn't be accomplished by hiding them in the same way that happens automatically when a comment falls below a certain karma threshold.","conclusion":"Reddit should bury dumb comments, not remove them."}
{"id":"854ec30e-3348-4b4c-afdd-910d6d01aaeb","argument":"You can do something now to deprive a future person of happiness - it's no different to causing future pain! e.g. poison an anti-natal ward causing birth deformities in the future www.reddit.com","conclusion":"Contrary to the Asymmetry Argument, it IS theoretically possible to deprive a yet-unborn child of happiness www.reddit.com"}
{"id":"7f553015-2262-4f80-8589-99a6ea5f59de","argument":"Polygamy is commonly seen as harmful to the Western ideal of marriage and has historically been \"treated in the West as an offensive against society itself\", including stigmatization.","conclusion":"Human biology points towards the benefits of polygamy - yet we are commonly expected to behave monogamously, which is not necessarily natural for us."}
{"id":"5c10d100-d5c0-436a-8580-ffb084b7362a","argument":"Research that supports certain political agendas has the potential to secure more funding than research that does not. For example, the National Science Foundation NSF designates millions of dollars for certain scientific domains and not others.","conclusion":"Science is most often funded by government or institutional grants and the decision on what to fund, or more importantly what not to fund, is politically or commercially motivated. Therefore science is politically influenced."}
{"id":"e0123441-1c57-49df-a6c8-6c9b8c186e66","argument":"An independent Tibet would serve a useful purpose as a neutral and demilitarized buffer state between India and China. Given the rising economic and military clout of both powers, a future conflict is becoming ever more likely, and they already fought one war against one another in 1962. An independent Tibet would mean that the two nations would no longer have a common border, making their rivalry less practical and far less pressing. This would reduce military obligations for both, and prevent the Tibetans from being caught in the middle of a future conflict.","conclusion":"An independent Tibet would serve as a buffer state between India and China, reducing the chances of a regional clash"}
{"id":"c6f6479e-9dca-447c-94e4-14c950e1fe12","argument":"Unless the roll is reduced by a factor of 2 then new small bakers will not be able to bake with their freshly bought xtz. This annoyingness is a big disincentive to participate.","conclusion":"Penalizes current small bakers who recently invested a bunch of capital to buy a full roll"}
{"id":"70509ae5-f833-41a0-aa4d-7250462f8aa2","argument":"First of all, I am European and I don't hate Turks, Iraqis, Syrians, etc. As I said before I am European, I have seen the effects the refugees have had on our society, they have started gangs, committed acts of terrorism, destroyed cities and much more but that is not the main reason I think we should stop letting them in. I think we should force them to stay and fight instead of letting them flee and force us Americans Although they seem to enjoy it and Europe to fight for them to protect our society from Islamic extremists. The children and women Unable to fight should be moved to safer middle eastern locations or empty places in small cities Like what the military does and not mixed with Europeans unless the want to assimilate.","conclusion":"Europa should stop letting any refugees."}
{"id":"43b12e4d-9f92-4f59-9ad4-40ceeafb78f0","argument":"The UN has also vetoed resolutions on Israel that would have allowed the UN to move forward in assisting Palestinians and the two-state solution.","conclusion":"The US has vetoed a number of resolutions denouncing Israel for its violence against Palestinians."}
{"id":"f057a7a4-88a2-42b7-9c1a-8a4724a5a976","argument":"The embassy in Jerusalem and North Korean nuclear talks are great examples of Trump taking one-off foreign policy decisions. Neither of these actions have born any significant fruit or have set any long-term actionable policy that could be considered achievements with lasting positive effects for US foreign policy. p. 47, 68","conclusion":"Trump's foreign policy actions are largely one-off, signaling to interest groups rather than representing a significant advancement of US foreign policy."}
{"id":"048e4af9-1f27-4a50-b7e7-a00caaba0613","argument":"Believing in Santa Claus can teach children a valuable lesson about generosity. They will want to emulate Santa.","conclusion":"It is beneficial for children to believe in Santa Claus."}
{"id":"d0b66cbc-26a7-401d-8250-beb7ca00ca6b","argument":"If a venue serves a mostly-male crowd some days and a mostly-female crowd other days, then gendered restrooms will mean long lines at the restroom of the most represented gender and at the same time empty stalls in the restroom of the least represented gender.","conclusion":"In buildings with gendered bathrooms, one can be full, yet the other empty. By making them all unisex, this issue can be avoided, increasing the availability to more people."}
{"id":"5423f717-e48b-4f2d-9f54-f101ccf7c894","argument":"Each year, Sydney and Melbourne residents generate hundreds of thousands of tonnes of paper and cardboard, glass, plastic, and other wastes. Solid waste is generally buried in the ground, which has a number of adverse environmental consequences.","conclusion":"Disposing of the solid waste from large populations causes environmental pressure in cities."}
{"id":"d89f44a9-8508-479e-bef9-7d93cc7b79ec","argument":"There is a legal age to engage in sexual intercourses. In Germany for example 14 is a magical line. bravo.de","conclusion":"It is not the womens' sole decision to become sexually active."}
{"id":"80aef52b-7f3a-4d39-8fa5-cbd0ece48e67","argument":"It's extremely condescending to treat minorities like children and not uphold them to the same standards as everyone else. The most recent example is with Starbucks asking trespassers to leave. Here's some fake news regarding the story from CNBC. And though hard to find, here's an unbiased article And now, Starbucks is doing damage control because they know illegal protesters will enter their stores, disturb the peace, cause damage and decrease sales. I want Starbucks coffee on the afternoon of April 29th, and thanks to these children I will be unable to get it. This isn't an isolated incident either. Protesters regularly call for violence, both as group chants and individually at rallies. Though this may be protected in the US, it is definitely illegal in Canada where there have also been many instances of this. Yet no action is taken. Why shouldn't everyone be held to the same standards? Do you think anyone would care if it was a white trespasser at Starbucks? gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"BLM protesters need to be treated like adults and arrested when they break the law"}
{"id":"ce1bff83-cda7-4eda-8000-8ff5b1bbcf10","argument":"Please read the whole thing before you try to refute my evidence. It's a long read. Don't attempt to disprove me until you've seen all of my evidence and have fact checked it yourself. There is a lot of information here and you have to have it all straight. So, this is a touchy subject for most people. Many chalk it up to alarmism, or just conspiracy. Fear mongering. Call it what you like, but there is actually good evidence that his is inevitable. I don't want to believe it but I do. I've been reading a lot about the polarization of the American political spectrum. The center is shrinking. The extremes of the left and right are growing. Why? Well, personally I think it's because of Donald Trump and partially because of Obama. Half of America absolutely despises Trump and would spew any lie or commit any act to bring him down. The other half of the country worship him in a cultish fashion and won't hear a damn negative thing about him. There is a small amount of citizens who just don't give a shit, but that number seems to be shrinking by the year. Due to Trump's very strange views and boisterous behavior online, he is very difficult to ignore. Most people feel they have to choose a side, even if they don't love or hate him. It's especially hard to stay out of this culture war because of the media. Almost every major media organization is run by liberals, so many news outlets are biased against Trump. The only major news outlet I know of that is pro Trump would be Fox news. Fine, whatever. Let them be biased if they want to be. But all of these media allegiances and propaganda is making people feel like they NEED to be involved, because the sheep that still watch mainstream news aren't ever going to think for themselves, that's why they watch the mainstream news. It doesn't matter which side you're on. If you're still watching Fox or CNN and believing the things you hear, you're a sheep. Obama may have also played a role. I remember 7 years ago when it was all the Republicans saying not my president . It's the same deal. Obama was considered pretty far left back then as far as I can tell, which polarized us a bit before Trump was even a thing. Anyways, now that I've explained why I think we have become so polarized, here's why I think a civil war may be coming. So, we've got the Far Left. We've got the Far Right. Both of these groups are pretty retarded. They're both hateful and blind to anything but their version of the truth. Well, mainstream politicians are also moving further and further to the far sides of each side of the spectrum. Views are becoming more extreme by the year. Granted the left is much more extreme about this than the right, but they're both doing it. This phenomenon is causing your average citizen to accept more extreme views, and demonize others across the spectrum who disagree. There is so much hate for political opponents now it's unbelievable. These people would be happy to go to war with each other. So, It is highly likely that within 10 20 years, the American right wing will not be able to win another election. Here's why So we all know about the immigration issue. It's a hot button issue. Not going to state my opinion on it, but it plays a pretty big role in what I'm about to say. Well, millions of immigrants are pouring into our country by the year. It's a very dramatic rate. I don't actually have the figures off the top of my head, but I know it's extreme. Who do immigrants like? Democrats. Who do immigrants dislike? Republicans. Yes, the vast majority of immigrants vote Democrat. Every source I check basically agrees with this. Of course immigrants vote Democrat. Democrats love immigrants and Republicans don't want them here, well atleast that's how the Republicans make it seem. Why do the Democrats want immigrants here? Well, many speculate that they're effectively importing voters. The left wing political sphere knows that these imported voters will always vote Democrat. If they have the immigrant vote they don't need to appeal to the middle class worker anymore. This is because immigrants are moving here in such great quantity that soon they will outnumber all the working class White American citizens who are inclined to vote Republican. That's right, if the trend continues with immigration, soon there will be too many imported Democrat voters for the right wing to EVER win again. Almost all minorities vote Democrat already. Very few black and Latino Americans vote Republican. Add the exceedingly growing rate of immigrants to that and you have a guaranteed win every time. Why do minorities tend to vote Democrat? Probably because the Democrats pretend to care about them. Just like the Republicans pretend to care about working class individuals. It's all just a big game of who can we appeal to for votes? . But the Democrats are winning this game by a Longshot. Even if the wall were somehow completed by the end of the Trump presidency, there is no hope of slowing the rate of immigration. The wall isn't going to do shit, many speculate. Even if it does, it won't stop this. Within 5 10 years there will be too many Democrat voters for the Republicans to win anything, thanks to immigration. We MIGHT see another 4 years of Trump. Maybe. It's pretty unlikely though. Pretty soon the right just won't have a winning chance. After Trump, we won't see another republican president. Is this a good thing? Depends on your beliefs honestly. But here's why it's a problem. So, it's estimated that 20 million Americans are actual right wing extremists. Well over the amount required for an insurgency The Far Right. That's a worryingly big number right ? These people are crazy enough to start a war if they have to live under leftist rule forever. We can also assume that every single one of these guys is armed to the teeth. These are the heavy second amendment enthusiasts. They also believe that it's their moral obligation to stop a tyrannical government. It's pretty much a guarantee that these people would consider a perpetually leftist ruled government as tyrannical. It would literally only take a couple hundred thousand of this breed of human to start a successful insurgency. I speculate they would use 4th gen warfare. This is the same tactic that insurgents in the middle East used against American soldiers. They blend in with the population until it's time to strike. Then they go back into hiding. And these people would be much better equipped than a bunch of barefooted men living in caves using second hand Soviet weapons. Imagine the Taliban on steroids. That's what these guys could become. We also have another group who may be willing to join in on this cause. These would be the devoted conservatives. They are estimated to be around 19 of the population. I've done some calculations. This puts the group population at about 63 million. These guys are the hardcore conservatives. They aren't quite as extreme as the Far Right, but you can bet your left nut that a huge portion of these guys would join up with a right wing insurgency. We can also assume that all of these people are also armed to the teeth, because second amendment that they love so much. We can also assume that these guys would call a perpetually leftist ruled government tyrannical. We can also assume that these people would feel morally obligated to dismantle said tyrannical government. So, we can safely say we have around 80 million potential right wing insurgents that would join in this fight. OF COURSE not all of them will. Many will put the safety of their families over their pride. But it doesn't take 80 million people to run a successful insurgency. It takes, well Not much. Not much at all. Even if just the Far Right were the only ones in the insurgency, they would still be a massive threat to the government establishment. Here's another scary fact. The Military Veteran community is also heavily right wing, with far right values. Many of the people who would join in this theoretical insurgency would be military veterans with combat experience. Another scary fact. 2 3 of the current United States military is right wing. Do you really think these right wingers in the military would partake in the massacre of their countrymen who are fighting for their view of a fair and just world? It can safely be said that many of these military men in the right wing would see the insurgents as their allies. Fighting for what's right in their eyes. There would be a split in the military, it is almost guaranteed. Especially considering that the most right wing part of the military is the higher ups. The commanders. The generals. Notoriously right wing. I highly doubt they would fight for leftists to eradicate people they see as their duty bound countrymen. Yes if you think about this for more than 20 seconds you can determine that there is going to be a for sure split in the military if this scenario takes place. It would be ugly. We also have to consider that well over half of the law enforcement community in this country is right wing. This is an estimate . Democrats tend to be very anti police, so this makes sense. It's likely that there would be a fracture in the police as well. Think about this one yourself. At this point I don't need to explain it. We also have to consider that most rural areas are overwhelmingly right wing, along with middle America. This is where the overwhelming majority of the food in this country is grown. This is also where the overwhelming majority of industrial production takes place in this country. The right wing side of this war would have heavy control over over industry and rations. Most left wingers live on the east and west coasts. They also almost entirely live in big cities. Millions of leftists crammed into small areas. These could be considered giant targets. These massive cities could also be easily starved out by the right wing insurgency that controls almost all the food production in this country. Another scary fact Vladimir Putin has stated that he would support ANY uprising against the current American government. This could mean anything from troops, rations, equipment airdrops, a full scale invasion, who the fuck knows. But you can bet your right nut that he would be super happy to help destroy the current American government. Well, now that we've talked about the right wing side of this war, we need to talk about the left wing side of this theoretical war. I'm sure your first thought is the government would just steamroll any insurgency. Uh no. That is not how it works. Granted, I used to think that too until I researched all of this. How could the left wing establishment government deal with this? Well here's what they would have as an advantage Shitloads of government money. Superior weaponry and technology. Drones. Military vehicles. Jets. Planes. Possible foreign aid from NATO governments. This is actually very unlikely though. It's also less likely that this would make a difference when facing an insurgency of this scale. Greater population on their side. This would include left wingers and also people who just want to live in peace. All major news outlets. Propaganda would surely start flowing out to vilify the right wing insurgency as terrorists rather than freedom fighters. Big tech and all of the biggest American companies are run by leftists, so you can assume the tech industry would support the establishment 100 . These right wing insurgents probably would never be able to coordinate through the internet without being discovered. Alright, I'm going to be honest. I'm not convinced that the establishment would be able win this. Here's why The population that supports them is very pacifistic and are highly unlikely to possess weapons. Leftists are very anti gun and anti war. Not many leftists are capable to making a difference in a war like this. And even fewer would be willing to put their necks on the line to fight an insurgency. The people in the middle especially who just want peace would NOT want any part of this, even if they do have firearms. Also, most of these people are crammed into small locations on either coast of the United States. These people would also most likely be starving and rioting on account of the fact that the right wing has seized all means of food production in the country. The establishment would not be able to count on the population of leftists loyalists to make a difference, except maybe as informants. We also have to consider that it's likely the majority of the military will mutiny in favor of the right wing insurgency. It's just inevitable. Same with law enforcement. The establishment would be left with half it's military strength. The establishment will be operating as a police state, while the right wing will be operating like an insurgency. The loyalist soldiers would be fully geared and uniformed patrolling streets and whatnot. They would stand out like sore thumbs. The right wing insurgents on the other hand, they would blend in with everyone else. The loyalist soldiers wouldn't know who to shoot at until it's too late. The right wingers would blend in until it's time to strike. They would do major damage to the infostructure of this country. They would disable power grids. Launch massive surprise raids on government facilities and strongholds. They would launch DDOS attacks on the government. ect. We all know how much damage a large insurgency could do to this country, especially one of this theoretical size. The government loyalists couldn't kill anyone in hopes they hit some right wing insurgents. They would have to wait for them to show themselves, but by the time they do, it would be too late for them to react. As I've been telling you, this would be like Afghanistan on steroids. Bad bad business for the establishment. Honestly, the insurgency may not even be needed if the military fractures. The right wing side of the military would probably just steemroll the loyalists into submission and stage a coup. Also, the loyalists would have an awful fucking hard time getting rations considering almost all the food is grown in places that are THICK with right wingers who are likely to be insurgents at this point in time. This would not go well for the establishment. It just wouldn't. I don't think I need to say anymore. Insurgencies are almost impossible to deal with even when they're in small number and are operating with 50 year old weaponry. An insurgency that's armed this well, and has this great a number, and likely has the support of over half a fractured military, and half a government , is just unstoppable. This. Is. Terrifying. I do not want to live in a world controlled by the far right. I don't. Some religious racist theocratic government ruling over us just doesn't fly with me. That's just as bad as an eternally far left governemnt. I do consider myself to be a little more right wing than left, but above all I'm more libertarian than anything. I don't want the right to win this if it happens. I'm just being honest. They would win. It may take years, but they would. Many long and bloody years where the entirety of the country suffers for the sake of a difference in ideology. Are you convinced? Probably not, but the proof is in the pudding man. People will deny this. It's very difficult to admit that this scenario is actually LIKELY with the way things are going. Do you really think 20 80 million armed right wingers will just sit by idly when they can't win elections anymore and are forced to live under a leftist ruling class that they consider tyrannical? It doesn't help that the left just keeps getting further and further left. If this trend continues, it's bound to happen. Immigration will crush the right's chances to obtain any power if it continues at this rate. The right will not stand for it. And when they rise up, they will likely win. I honestly do think that the left establishment has seen this coming and they're trying to prevent this. I think that's why they're making efforts to disarm the right wing and create watch lists for gun owners. That way they'll atleast know who to attack and their firepower will be reduced. I don't think they'll ever be able to take guns away completely. If they try, this whole scenario will ignite instantly. The scariest part about this is that there isn't really a solution for it. I do honestly believe that there is ONLY ONE WAY to stop this inevitability Destruction of the two party system. There HAS to be a third party introduced that actually wins elections. Something to stop the rampant polarization of this county's population. The entire reason things are so extreme right now is because there are two sides duking it out and trying to smear one another so much that people inevitably end up hating one side and loving the other based on their own values. A third party that's somewhere in between the two extremes would satisfy many and take pressure off of each political extreme Maybe. This is the only solution I can think of, because the immigration won't stop. The right will lose power soon. I hope you can atleast see why I believe this. It does seem to be inevitable. I'm sure many will deny because they either don't want to aknowlege it, or they just haven't looked into the likelihood of this scenario. Who knows, maybe I'm wrong. But I've spent a long time looking into this stuff. This took me forever to write as well. I've tried to make sure my statements are as factual as they possibly can be. I have checked myself via the internet to the best of my ability. I REALLY HOPE YOU CAN CHANGE MY MIND BECAUSE IM FUCKING WORRIED.","conclusion":"If a meaningful third party is not introduced soon, the United States may see civil war within a decade or two."}
{"id":"4c7aa9e6-ca8f-4ad5-a94a-8cbb79c54521","argument":"I\u2019ve known like 15 people in my life who have gone on antidepressants for a long time and after awhile they just became shadows of their former selves. They seem less mindful and patient, more irritable, and often oddly enough changed their physical appearance and political beliefs. A lot of new piercings, new tattoos, died hair completely usually a strange color. And generally a radical swing politically\u2014I have found to the left. Like I knew a nice normal girl that went on antidepressants and now out of the blue she\u2019s \u201cnonbinary\u201d and all about fat positivity, showing off her tremendously overweight body and literally screaming about how terrible white people are she\u2019s white \u2014I know this sounds like a caricature of the typical sjw but I am being completely honest and accurate. Usually the same folks are also on the most serious anti anxiety meds too like\u2014Ativan and Xanax are never enough, it has to be clonazepam. I\u2019m not a conspiracy theorist but in the past 5 or so years I\u2019ve seen this very specific pattern repeat like 15 times.","conclusion":"Antidepressants change peoples\u2019 personalities, often for the worse"}
{"id":"cf495be5-05d0-4244-aba3-f7f1bdf5fd5a","argument":"Any information that is considered true canon within a certain franchise should only be based upon things that are stated within the original work. For example, the Star Wars universe should only be viewed within the context of episodes 4 6. This was the original scope and idea of the story. Episodes 1 3 came much later and was most likely just a money ploy. Lucas and the writers developed ideas that fit within the frame of the story but it still was not planned for in the original idea. Any books comics games that were developed that helped further the Star Wars universe should also be considered as a derivative work even if they are signed off of by Lucas. Anything will be given the okay if there is enough money attached to it. These supplemental works are an easy cop out to address issues that were thrown by the wayside in the original creation or they are tools used to placate fans who want something more. Either way, any information presented in a supplemental work should not be integral to the understanding of any key plot points. .","conclusion":"I believe that the information in the universes of movies and video game franchises should only be considered canon if it is stated within the context of the original work."}
{"id":"f95eb4ed-c160-450f-a4ef-6e82a49e3998","argument":"It will make it easier to patrol the southern borders of the EU, checking people coming from Central and Southern Africa.","conclusion":"North African countries should be allowed to be part of the EU."}
{"id":"be6a9715-e50f-4109-802f-7148bf594af4","argument":"So, a while ago, I met a guy who, six months prior, had broken up with his girlfriend of four years. He and his ex had two dogs, both of which were acquired during their relationship. The two of them shared custody of the dogs, meeting up to trade the dogs once a week. We dated for a few months, and I ended up breaking up with him for a variety of reasons, one of which not the major reason, but definitely one of them was this shared custody dog arrangement. I think sharing custody of a pet is a bizarre and unhealthy thing to do for several reasons First, I think moving between homes so often is unhealthy for the pet. Pets need a stable environment and the inconsistency of moving around so often is hard for them to understand. Consequently, they act out. His dogs certainly did they were noticeably unsettled destructive anxious when they were coming back or preparing to leave. Second, I think it is weird for an person without children to commit to sharing a pet with an ex for the duration of that pet's life essentially, treating the pet as indistinguishable from a child. With a young dog, we're talking ten plus years of the ex being a constant presence in the other person's life. One of the pluses of dating a person without children is that they have no children. Of course, we love our pets, but they are not children. Third, there is a flavor of codependency attendant to arrangements like this sustaining a pattern of behavior that has negative consequences for all people pets involved the pet, as discussed above, and the exes, who have to keep in relatively close contact with one another right away after the breakup to manage the arrangement , rather than doing the emotionally difficult but more mature thing determining who gets to keep the pet. Rather than having a clean breakup and moving on, sharing custody of a pet keeps the exes mired in the past. Ask me how I know All are big red flags for a person who is considering a relationship with one of the exes, as all reveal tendencies toward unhealthy attachment and immaturity. .","conclusion":"Sharing custody of a pet after a breakup is a major new-relationship red flag."}
{"id":"0d434b99-3876-4acd-b7b3-04620533304f","argument":"A few days ago at my university, a pro life group came by. They set up huge posters right next to the student union that compared abortion to genocide. That's fair enough that they think that way and want to share their views with everyone, but what bothered me was the pictures. I don't think anyone should be allowed to show an obscenely graphic image in a public place my university is public . The pictures that the group set up were of both starving children in third world countries and aborted fetuses ripped into pieces. They were right there, impossible to miss, along a path that almost every student has to take to get to their classes. We have little kids who come by the university with their schools to take tours of our museums. We have mommies and babies, taking strolls through the campus because it's pretty. We have people who just don't want to see something like that while they're going about their business. The best argument I can come up with here is that if an image like that were shown in a movie, the movie would probably be rated R or at least PG 13. I don't think images that are that graphic should be allowed out in full view in a public place. You could argue that it's violating their freedom of speech to make them take it down, but what if they were shouting curse words or racist slurs? What if they were broadcasting porn? They were infringing upon everyone else's right to peacefully exist on the campus. Well, if you think you can, please . gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than just downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I believe that very graphic images shouldn't be shown in public."}
{"id":"a43dbd41-26fc-4ae3-8c6e-5bf9f8ba4f54","argument":"\"The triumph of hope over experience?\". The Economist. Dec 13th 2007 - \"As someone who was educated in Indonesia and has an understanding of Islam that no other candidate shares, he could do much to bridge the deadly gulf between Christian and Muslim states.\"","conclusion":"Obama can help bridge gap between Muslim and Christian worlds"}
{"id":"e0f6e106-79a4-4efd-8f1f-f3bf62473271","argument":"It has become all too common to hear people speaking and posting with poor grammar, which is primarily due to hip hop culture. Examples \u201cWe ready to go.\u201d \u201cHe gon get that.\u201d It makes us look stupid as an educated society. I would point out that this is true, in my opinion, regardless of race of ethnicity. I see and hear people from all walks of life doing it. I believe that hip hop culture has glorified this manner of communication. It\u2019s in music. It\u2019s in movies. It\u2019s on TV and other electronic media. Then, it filters down into the professional world where people go to get a job and have spoken poorly for so long that they inadvertently do it in a job interview. I have seen it many times. They look like an uneducated thug. I believe that this culture is harmful for the education longevity of western society. I don\u2019t care what music you listen to, but it matters when it alters the world around you.","conclusion":"Hip hop culture has made us look uneducated by way of grammar and speech."}
{"id":"24214279-c648-4336-8e6d-aad68241187c","argument":"When any life is removed so too is the future good that life may produce; all of the good that person would have experienced as well as all of the good they could have brought to other people\u2019s lives will no longer occur. It is difficult to say precisely how much good a person may bring. However, it is fair to assume that saving five people brings with it a greater chance of higher levels of \u2018good\u2019. Considering the fact that one does not know anything about the people on the tracks one must assume that there will be five times more \u2018good\u2019 produced by saving their lives than if the one person is saved.","conclusion":"More \u2018good\u2019 is produced by saving five lives than saving one"}
{"id":"ae31b5dd-2513-42c3-bb4c-f7a6c5aa4a49","argument":"I said the passing side of the escalator because I suppose in some countries people may pass on the right. But in the U.S., we pass on the left. My point is that on escalators, polite and considerate people stand on the standing side and pass on the passing side. Rude and inconsiderate people stand on the passing side, blocking everyone who wants to pass. Of course there are exceptions, families with small children may want to hold hands, elderly people may need assistance. But talking with your friend, oblivious to people who want to climb the escalator rather than stand, is not an exception. I don't mean to overstate it, on the scale of being rude and inconsiderate this is a minor annoyance, a small irritant, but it still bugs me. Am I being unreasonable here? I don't make a thing of it when it happens, I might just say excuse me or more often I'll just wait another minute until I'm off the escalator. But I'm stating it here because I wanted to a vent and b see if anyone could change my view. Edit To be clear, I am talking about large escalators that obviously are designed for passing, I'm not advocating pushing past anyone on a narrow escalator not designed for it Edit 2 I'm willing to make an exception for tourists unfamiliar with wide escalators in the big city. However, that doesn't change my view because the behavior I observe is not confined to tourists from smaller towns.","conclusion":"Standing on the passing side of an escalator is rude and inconsiderate."}
{"id":"342ae372-d405-43ce-b561-ed5962ced10d","argument":"Multiple points to make 1st. Mining Uranium is extremely dangerous for the workers and and seriously damages the environment. 2nd. Nuclear energy is non renewable and we shouldn't waste our time developing nuclear energy if it isn't sustainable. If we adopt it as a main source of energy we will gain a dependence and will be in serious trouble when it runs out and we have no other major power sources. 3rd. Nuclear waste lasts thousands of years and we have no place to contain it safely. There's no safe place to keep it and leaks are inevitable. 4th. Nuclear waste and Radiation are far more dangerous to the environment and wildlife than climate change and pollution. 5th. Accidents at nuclear power plants are devastating, and although they might be rare their affects will last for thousands of years and are more devastating than any natural disaster. Fukushima is currently leaking 300 tons of contaminated waste in the ocean per day. 6th. nuclear waste can be used to create weapons of mass destruction. Enough said.","conclusion":"Nuclear Energy is dangerous and should be banned"}
{"id":"7a270ade-20a9-450d-b6ea-3ad45c9ebd88","argument":"While I do love various classes, I feel as if many are simply to get a letter on a piece of paper we memorize information to be tested and then forgot. Change my view","conclusion":"I think school is boring, and usually redundant."}
{"id":"aa80be94-2acf-47a3-9cd9-9d2073ede89e","argument":"One proposed contradiction within classical theism is the one inherent in a theistic God changing its mind, since an immutable\/ impassable being is unlikely to do so. However, this does not take into account that Plato, or the scribes of the Bible, would likely have put that conception in Greek\/ Latin\/ other European\/ Middle Eastern language.","conclusion":"Possible contradictions in classical theism may appear from transcription difficulties and errors introduced over centuries of existence."}
{"id":"98d27c4a-fd50-4084-96d4-4d2b32d52221","argument":"Yes, the U.S. should adopt stricter gun control laws. In the case of the Waffle House Shooter his father should also go to prison and lose his right to own any type of firearm for returning the weapons to his son after his son had his right to own and posses firearms revoked.","conclusion":"Stricter regulation would make people consider their decision to own a gun more seriously."}
{"id":"41d4ff62-5bdb-4f9e-8325-2c1ad9ee9427","argument":"Teenagers having a good relationship with their parents will talk to them anyways, and the ones who cannot talk to their parents for several reasons, should not be forced to do so.","conclusion":"Those children can talk to them without the parental consent."}
{"id":"d38c85c4-3d8a-44e3-9cd6-d1729df388f7","argument":"Due to the constant push for perfection, basic setbacks such as being rejected from a college club, can make these children inconsolable.","conclusion":"Children who are raised by tiger parents are terrible at dealing with setbacks and failures in life."}
{"id":"8a47b6c0-7e6d-4a4b-81aa-dad08eff2783","argument":"Such cases are often life or death for the mother. Doctors and the mother should be free to make those decisions based on sound medical practice. The State should not be involved in those decisions.","conclusion":"There are many reasons why women seek late term abortions that are legitimate and should not result in the woman's choice being removed."}
{"id":"f284b98b-e0a7-4697-90f5-4c21061c21cb","argument":"Why? Because that will impact how they perform in their job. Particularly when they give birth and have to leave work for months or even a year, though their limited physical abilities might also matter. And in some places maternity leave is even paid, which puts more burden on the employer to not only temporarily replace her but pay for both her and her replacement. That's a big impact that they aren't even allowed to consider. Why is this different from discrimination based on race, sexuality, disability, or gender? Those things should not impact how well a person can do their job, unlike pregnancy. If for whatever reason it does, you can show that and not hire them like a woman not being able to pass a physical test . Disabled people need more protection because it's a lifelong state that they did not choose, unlike pregnancy which is a choice and temporary. I can also refuse to hire someone that is disabled if they cannot perform the job too, so it's not a blanket protection. So pretty much it sucks for the employer and the pregnant woman doesn't deserve the protection. .","conclusion":"employers should be allowed to discriminate against pregnant women"}
{"id":"7b96416b-8167-4baf-b4f4-d0aa7190cedd","argument":"After seeing this video It's quite clear that the police acted to preserve themselves in the face of clear, and inexcusable brutality. They violated the rights of the witness, stole his property, and threatened him. There is no doubt these men knew what they did, and were doing at any moment in time and I think the state should put them to death or strip them of their freedom permanently for such a blatant violation of the sacred albeit tenuous trust of the people in law enforcement.","conclusion":"I think police trying to suppress evidence of their misconduct should be executed or sentenced to life without parole."}
{"id":"9b524b10-884b-44bd-af74-f87bbf3e07f6","argument":"No amount of regulation can fix this hugely damaging narrative and lead to more harm if people view themselves as \"failing\" to be treated","conclusion":"At its core this treatment tells LGBT that their identity is harmful and needs to be fixed."}
{"id":"58f3f491-39f4-4b7d-b1f7-c58a7469ef2b","argument":"If religion was just a by-product of human's characteristics, it would not have become the dominant organizing system of every society on earth. This demonstrates that it was a useful adaptation and not a maladaption at least at the time.","conclusion":"According to Jonahtan Haidt's research religion may have been part of human evolution, helping group-level evolution through cooperation, by way of morality. Without beliefs in omniscient judges of morality, it may have never been applied."}
{"id":"e1b94c66-1508-4cfb-884f-ace89e22dfba","argument":"The wealth and life expectancy of \"evolving countries\" has vastly improved in the last decades. That's nicely described and documented in Hans Rosling's book \"factfulness\" and his TED talks all based on public figures from the UN etc. Here's a short intro video:www.youtube.com","conclusion":"Over the past 20 years we've seen entire countries rising out of poverty because of new and better paying jobs in Eastern Europe, China and South East Asia."}
{"id":"72e4eb76-3a0f-41cd-9369-16c026475b76","argument":"The DRC reformed its family code in July 2016, giving married women the right to take on work, open bank accounts, and register a business without needing their husband\u2019s permission.","conclusion":"There have been many improvements recently, and many countries which previously did not allow women to work without their husband's permission have progressively granted rights to women."}
{"id":"69588b32-5d1a-4ddc-8aab-7f3821ddeee1","argument":"It's pretty universally agreed that slavery means forcing people to do work or services against their will. There is the argument that, because drafted soldiers are payed, it's not slavery. But in my opinion, forcing citizens to do something against their will, and possibly against their own morals is slavery disguised by slapping a paycheck on it. If somebody is kidnapped, and then forced to work as a prostitute, it's considered by almost everybody to be slavery. I don't want to put up a strawman, but I only make the comparison to point out the fact that, aside from the job itself, they're the same in terms of consent and therefore, if one is slavery, so is the other, since I'd presume the type of work doesn't matter, since slavery is slavery. I'm not so much looking to debate the technical definition of slavery, but rather, my belief that the draft is an infringement on human rights and personal freedom. Change my view?","conclusion":"Drafting citizens for war is immoral, and a form of slavery."}
{"id":"c3b4ecae-e755-4bf8-abda-f27b01afdb72","argument":"Most of the people see the gratitude of the 5 saved people as something desirable.","conclusion":"Saving 5 people is beneficial for you from a selfish\/practical perspective."}
{"id":"76ba32b6-1180-4be4-9dad-75fcbbb12060","argument":"UBI simply moves the poverty line to a higher income, because poverty in a country is usually measured at 60% of median income. Adding x-amount of money to all income simply increases poverty treshold. The 60% idea is based on the principles of social inclusion, and the idea that producers market towards median income to maximise sales.","conclusion":"It's not per se that meeting poverty is too expensive, but that to perpetually prevent poverty would be an ever increasing cost poverty can't be eliminated once and for all."}
{"id":"35f3bbfa-4546-4fdd-926e-e032e8f8e25a","argument":"Former President Barack Obama and the First Lady Michelle Obama paid a federal income tax of $81,472, whereas Vice President Joseph Biden and Dr. Jill Biden paid $91,546 in total federal tax for 2015.","conclusion":"The salaries of the president and vice president of the United States of America are subject to regular federal taxes."}
{"id":"84dc6df2-2a97-4de5-b0bd-705089508587","argument":"I believe that the result of a young person becoming a celebrity is, in more cases than not, detrimental to their personal growth and leads to an immoral, illegal, or disreputable lifestyle. It is with increasing frequency that young stars seem to publicly lash out as they age. Whether it be through drug and alcohol addiction, problems with law and authority, or simply a rebellious turn, young stars appear to almost inevitably become troubled, and thus, scandalous. This process does not help the problem. Many of the biggest stars I have watched growing up, who are more or less my age, have excessive or exceptional faults in behaviour Lindsay Lohan, Shia Labeouf, Britney Spears, The Olsens, Justin Bieber, freakin' Amanda Bynes, to a lesser extent Miley Cyrus, etc. I believe the problem is too widespread and almost an expected result of their fame. This is an unfair situation to expect proper behavioural development. There should be more regulation. This can be done several ways, such as restricting tabloid coverage of underage stars or perhaps implementing ongoing psychiatric therapy. This happens far too often to chalk it up to an unfortunate happenstance among young celebrities. Yes, they get to be rich. Yes, they chose that life. But intense fame seems almost inherently poisonous for developing minds, and we should do more to prevent those that become young, rich, and famous, from pursuing immoral, illegal, or reprehensible behaviour.","conclusion":"Celebrity culture for young stars is poisonous and should be more strictly controlled"}
{"id":"f00a97a8-0b8b-4bf5-a3a9-56d205d483c7","argument":"Even if humans are not actually the \"chief\" cause of global warming, there is little dispute that we play some role, due to our emissions of greenhouse gases, which contribute to the warming of the globe. As such, the Kyoto Protocol is an important tool in the fight against human-caused greenhouse gas emissions and global warming.","conclusion":"Even if humans play a smaller role in climate change, Kyoto is still good."}
{"id":"6a777b4b-fc45-4dcf-82c1-016b13a37933","argument":"I actively avoiding the gaming scene for years because of some experiences I had in and after college. One was a DND group a friend invited me to. I was down for it, but the experience was really negative. The people weren't very friendly or interesting, and the game itself was played in a dank basement. Not exactly a fun atmosphere at all. On top of that, apparently there are hidden rules to DND. Everything I said I wanted to do, I was told You can't do that and instead the play went on around me. Boring. Another instance involved an overnight stay at a friend of a friend's. All the roommates except the friend's friend were avid MTGers. They wouldn't talk, merely grunted at us while they shuffled through their cards and played matches. They smelled and the house should have been condemned. The vision of their bathtub will haunt my days. Now, you will say, these are just anecdotes But tell me truthfully has any of you ever met an MTG player you didn't want to first smack upside the head, second shove into a hot shower, and third hired a home restoration team to clean and sanitize their house? That's right. You haven't. None of us have. Q. E. D.","conclusion":"People who play real-life DND and Magic: The Gathering have off-putting personalities. They also have filthy homes and their fathers smell of elderberries, but I'm willing to put those up for debate."}
{"id":"c4e2469d-c13f-45cd-bad9-ec92f91e6208","argument":"The 1080p, 4K, etc. descriptions of TVs and computor monitors, etc. are a marketing term with little actual value. A 4K TV that is 60 inches diagonal is 2.25 60 40 ^2 times more grainy than an otherwise identical 4K TV that is 40 inches in the sense of pixel density . I'm guessing that everyone will ultimately agree with me and say that these descriptors are just layman terms good for marketing. But is there more to it? It shouldn't be that much harder to market 16 9 4K TVs over same size 1080p ones as having a pixel density that is 2.08 4000 1080 16 9 times greater. Just label all the TVs by pixel density and give them new flashy marketing names associated with these pixel densities Obviously there will also be the default argument that they can't change the system now because everyone is already used to the current dumb system of describing screens. Sure, but this shouldn't be the only reason to keep doing it wrong.","conclusion":"Screen resolutions in pixel density should be the fundamental description instead of 1-dimensional pixel counts 240p, 720p, 1080p, 4K,..."}
{"id":"1a6bb13e-4d13-4f8d-9c72-54c35bef8c1e","argument":"In Egypt economic liberalization actually brought with it a de-liberalization of the state and the resurgence of Islamic ideals.","conclusion":"Changes in other characteristics of the social structure have still been unable to loosen the grip of Islam on political consciousness."}
{"id":"b4eb466f-9178-453c-a6eb-9e577b6054c1","argument":"While the U.S. often trades freely, its trading partners do not necessarily follow suit. One way free trade is not necessarily preferable to either two way free trade or two way tariffs.","conclusion":"Other countries may use government subsidies or currency manipulation to undermine free trade. Tariff structures combat these policies."}
{"id":"bfe06f0f-9961-4261-9d0e-b909f791dc41","argument":"At present, only a small minority of workers have any ownership of the wealth produced by the companies they work for.","conclusion":"Currently only those that hold a significant amount of equity ownership have control over the political power in a company."}
{"id":"f77f77ef-eb6c-4106-9c97-9519a14d221d","argument":"This segregation at Hogwarts hampers socialization and limits interaction to just people of your own house that share your traits, rather than different types of witches and wizards.","conclusion":"Students are separated into various houses from First Year and encouraged to compete against each other and work for their house, for example through Quidditch."}
{"id":"468f2664-96fe-4f85-8d0e-bcd7c7261404","argument":"Science allows us to go to extreme lengths to help individuals conceive including the use of donor sperm, donor eggs, surrogates, IVF including genetic testing of embryos for abnormalities and subsequent implantation, and IVF for people who have trouble conceiving naturally. People who have had vasectomies or tubal ligation can have reversals or use IVF to conceive if they change their mind. I wouldn\u2019t be surprised if someday we can \u201cgrow\u201d babies in a lab setting. x200B We go to these great lengths to give people biological children or in the case of sperm egg donation children that they can carry through a pregnancy that at least \u201cfeel\u201d biologically related. There is an abundance of children in foster care systems and even in developing nations in need of loving families, yet people still go through expensive and painful efforts to conceive their own children. I believe that all the options science can offer should be available for people to use to create whatever family is ideal for them. Some people have an unwavering desire to have their own children and will never feel fulfilled if they do not. It is a product of evolution that we feel a strong urge to pass on our genetics to offspring. I don\u2019t think there is anything wrong with someone going to great lengths to conceive instead of opting to adopt a child. x200B Adoption is expensive and an uncertain process. Not everybody would feel \u201cfulfilled\u201d with an adopted child instead of one that they feel is their \u201cown\u201d. Not everyone is mentally capable of integrating an adopted child into their family and bonding in the way they would with their own child. For some women carrying a pregnancy is a huge desire that they long for and defines them as women. For some people the bonding of pregnancy, birth, and having the child at the start of infancy is extremely important. I think people who desire these things should access the medical advances available and create the families they desire. It isn\u2019t selfish to want your own children. It isn\u2019t the responsibility of people with fertility struggles to adopt the orphans of the world instead of having their own with medical assistance. They aren\u2019t being selfish for \u201ccreating more children\u201d when there are already plenty of children needing homes. Everyone is entitled to determine what \u201ctype\u201d of family is right for them. This has such a huge impact on life happiness and fulfillment, it is not something that anyone should be expected to sacrifice or compromise on if we can help it. x200B I\u2019d love for someone . I get really annoyed when people employ the \u201cthey can always adopt\u201d stance. I really want to know the deep thoughts around that mindset and see if I am missing something and can be swayed.","conclusion":"People should go to extensive lengths to have biological children, if that is what they really desire, despite the abundance of foster children in need of adoption."}
{"id":"3ca4dd05-1ca7-4e89-908a-0225198cafb8","argument":"To me, many of the pro life rhetoric considers abortion killing a form a life however I don't think it can be considered as such. Also if you value such life what separates killing a fetus vs killing an animals for food, arguably one would be worse than the other because killing an animal who feels pain would be worse than a fetus Pro lifers also say that it is considered life by science as soon it the egg is fertile although I believe it is very technically correct, not ethically. Even if it may be considered life by science, colloquially, I would not consider it a baby, which is able to live not bound through their mother's systems of life breathing, eating . There really is no comparison to be made, but a bad life can be REALLY REALLY bad and for me it's hard to say that the terrible quality of life of an unwanted baby far outweighs miracle of birth and I think that's where much of the prochoice lobby comes from. Also even if it is true that a fetus is life, is allowing it to be born worth putting them into terrible circumstances? If the baby is given up, he she has to hop from home to home and probably won't have a very good life, if it is kept it could ruin the life of the mother and father, the parents will have to deal with a huge financial drain and they won't be able to give the child what they need, financially and emotionally. Granted, I know there are exceptions but are those few exceptions worth damning the rest? I'm pro choice but I do think late term abortion shouldn't be legal, it should just be at a point where it is not even considered a fetus, just a collection of cells. But I don't know, it's a touchy subject that questions the ethical and moral foundations with, what I believe, has no good option, just a bad one and a worse one. I believe in growth though, and I am still in highschool and have a long way to go to develop my beliefs so change my mind.","conclusion":"An argument for Pro-Choice"}
{"id":"29816214-670e-4933-835a-fd283f708b64","argument":"Watching his show today on Hulu and i noticed a lot of wasted potential here. He was born right in time to be in the golden age of bodybuilding, has amazing genetics for it and is clearly a motivated enough individual to have success in any field. Instead he went into comedy, and nobody will ever know how well he could have done in the profession as he never even seemed to give it any attempt tell me if im wrong, i couldnt find anything online . He could have been like Ferrigno or Arnold and went on to have an acting or comedy career after his bodybuilding, which would have provided a much easier gateway into the industry which has insanely high barriers. Change my view so i can stop being pissed off please. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Jerry Sienfeild should have went into bodybuilding, not comedy."}
{"id":"713e9e45-17d0-4c7b-91cc-ab29dcee88e4","argument":"Harvard experience should not be considered a diversity metric because it is not meaningfully the same thing as race, gender, and socio-economic background. The latter are pressing social and moral issues, the former is not.","conclusion":"First and foremost, Harvard is a place of learning. Having prior Harvard-specific experience should not be needed as long as students possess the requisite learning capacity."}
{"id":"9120facc-a298-48ed-8d0c-da57e6b74483","argument":"For the sake of clarity, here's what I'm not arguing I'm not arguing that children don't have a horrible time at school and in English lessons. As an English teacher I know all too well the myriad ways in which a pupil can have a miserable time in school or in lessons. There are so many different factors that can make the classroom a place of agony for some kids, and often their agony makes it agony for their classmates and their teacher . However I see people grown adults say that they do not read because reading was 'spoilt' for them when they were at school. I don't believe that this is an honest correct excuse for not being a reader for the reasons I will give below. One small caveat I do understand that in a handful of cases, people may well have developed some horrible anxiety issue centred around reading thanks to their experience in school. I have no doubt that this is the case, as you can gain an anxiety problem over almost anything, but it isn't really these people that are the subject of this post. I think people like this are in the extreme minority. The majority of people who say 'I don't read because school ruined reading for me' are either a Disingenuous Person X doesn't read. Person X feels like they should read. They know reading will improve their vocabulary, their understanding of other cultures, their ability to empathise, and perhaps even they know that there are intense pleasures to be found in literature that few other art forms can match. They feel, therefore, a sense of guilt at their status as a non reader. Perhaps even depending on their social circles a sense of shame as well. They need an excuse for why they do not read an excuse to give others and, more importantly, an excuse to tell themselves. Their excuse is that they cannot enjoy literature because they didn't enjoy their time in school and so it must be school's fault . The real reason why they don't read is that they either have not quite made the effort to give it a proper go or they are somewhat ashamed at their own reading level and are conscious of their inability to access books beyond a 'teen fiction' level. b Incorrect Some people, however, genuinely believe that school has put them off literature for life. I contest that this is an ill informed and immature point of view, based on a misunderstanding of literature. Even if I concede that they have had Romeo and Juliet, The Great Gatsby, Great Expectations, Lord of the Flies and Of Mice and Men 'spoilt' for them, what these people often do not realise is just how vast literature is. I think some people assume that in reading the above mentioned texts, they've somehow had a holistic taste of what literature 'is' and so therefore if they didn't enjoy these texts at school they must hate all literature. The more you experience literature, the more you realise how under read you are, and how little your tiny experience of it reflects the larger whole. You certainly cannot experience any sort of microcosm of 'literature' in the span of a school curriculum. What the naysayers do not realise is that from these books they gained to a greater or lesser extent, depending on their attitude as a pupil reading skills which opened up many more books for them to potentially enjoy. They could spend all their life reading and never again touch one of the authors they studied in school, though they owe each author a debt nonetheless for being a stepping stone. Or they could wait 10 years and re read Of Mice and Men and realise that their dislike of it was not because of school but because of being a teenager, and with maturity comes new appreciation for different things. More likely, I think, they'll find Of Mice and Men rather simplistic and be stunned instead by the far superior East of Eden and The Grapes of Wrath. But many people will not make the effort to experience this, because they believe that they have 'experienced literature' as a 15 year old, and literature was not for them, so why try? I am not saying everyone can should enjoy reading. I am saying that it's not school's fault if people don't school does not turn keen readers into non readers. People change from readers to non readers for other reasons, and blame school for it. So, to sum up, I hate sport. But I don't hate sport because of school, and if I went around saying it's school's fault I hate sport people would be right to assume I am merely looking for someone to blame over a perceived failing. I don't consider my dislike of sport to be a failing and so I don't blame anyone or anything for it, and neither should non readers. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"People who claim to have had literature\/reading 'spoilt' for them at school are either being disingenuous or do not understand literature."}
{"id":"062579c5-6c81-4040-bae1-3a896ce177db","argument":"A clear example would be a book called The Bell curve not commenting on whether or not I agree with it or not which talks about racial differences IQ despite the the writer having a pretty dark racial background apparently, haven't looked into it much myself, Sam Harris seems to think he's been misrepresented Either the arguments are sound or they aren't, the the background of the person giving the arguments should not be factored in anyway shape or form. Please keep in mind that I would like to avoid making this thread a debate on the Bell Curves accuracy as I was only using that as an example of what i'm talking about.","conclusion":"A person's back history be it racist, sexist, homophobic, you name it should not in anyway impact the legitimacy of his arguments providing they have good data backing it up"}
{"id":"e64d30b2-173e-44ab-a1bf-25fd5e8ebdcb","argument":"The guilt may be too heavy a burden for the relative who could have saved a life","conclusion":"allow donations of vital organs even at the expense of the donor's life"}
{"id":"f5d8568b-b97a-4b3a-b654-3c25de6dc92c","argument":"In New Zealand, intensive dairy farmers are struggling and rivers are poisoned, yet organic milk commands a premium even when there is a down turn and doesn't rely on petrochemical fertilisers or dumping nitrates into our aquifers. Industrialised farming is a con, benefiting only pesticide and fertiliser companies.","conclusion":"Conventional farming is less profitable because of the amount of inputs that are required, it exhausts the land and pollutes the environment, while exacerbating climate change."}
{"id":"1b0f84ec-9004-47ef-a70c-877463317f0e","argument":"You hear people in the west whine about autrocities in Islamic countries when it wasn't that long ago Christian countries were doing the same. People were butchered in the name of Catholicism. Eventually the west realized that wasn't the way to go and changed. So why haven't Islamic countries done so? Because also of the west. You colonized them and exploited their countries for their resources. Islamic dictatorships are more willing to work with the west so that's who they places in power. Corrupt people who shoved the country back 100 years. So maybe quit complaining about a situation that are mostly of your own doing. Look at pictures of the middle East in the 40s and compare it today. Night and day. Change myview","conclusion":"Christians and Muslims are the same"}
{"id":"fe8c95ba-063c-40c7-93af-a6ce734dbdc3","argument":"Currently, powerlifting has too many different federations to be considered which federation will be considered to be an Olympic level sport. Although the sport is fairly simple Squat, Bench, Deadlift, 3 attempts each lift , every federation has different rules. For example, some federations take squat depth very lightly while others are too strict on squat depth. Also, there are federations that are drug tested and not drug tested. The IOC International Olympic Committee will certainly not allow any federation that is not drug tested be affiliated with them. Equipment is another problem. There are too many competitions to choose from Classic raw, Raw, Equipped Single ply, Multi ply . Each one of those competitions use different types of equipment. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Powerlifting will not become an Olympic sport anytime soon."}
{"id":"fad579b0-f4ac-423f-bb0a-c4d559280d80","argument":"There's no hidden agenda for this guy and he wears his skeletons as a badge of honor. I think the electorate is frustrated with trying to decode candidates and has simply settled on the guy with the least surprises. While crass and brutish, he also seems very aware of his faults and malleable with his ideas. I likely will not vote Republican, but quite honestly a Trump presidency scares me a lot less than his close competitors within the party. If he keeps up his momentum through the primaries, the Republican establishment will eventually see him for the potential he has to win. He's a center right candidate who can get people to the polls, which is what ultimately wins elections. His only real weakness is his inability to court minorities. Don't get me wrong. I don't agree with his political platforms which are still very unclear . But the Democratic and Republican establishment would be making a very big mistake in assuming this will all resolve itself.","conclusion":"Donald Trump's lead in the polls can be explained quite simply... He's the best candidate Republicans have to offer"}
{"id":"d4106216-48af-44c3-ae44-fa5ce753f268","argument":"There is a cultural stigma that computers are toys for boys and this idea stuck until today.","conclusion":"Since the 80s, computers and gaming systems have been heavily marketed for boys and men."}
{"id":"df9095a0-b0c9-4327-996c-c338f2783550","argument":"ONE VOTE At any time, each voter gets at most one vote, perhaps split up among multiple candidates. Otherwise votes would be unequal.","conclusion":"How votes are cast in the election should be examined to decide if the system is fair."}
{"id":"34a6c0ca-81c7-47ea-a058-386852e04238","argument":"Many events that occurred in Ancient Israel according to the Bible have been confirmed by historical findings.","conclusion":"Historical sources have confirmed the Bible's depiction of Ancient Israel."}
{"id":"20f4bac3-45d2-43c4-8e05-127caa823189","argument":"Dueling with swords that is, not pistols. But it seems to me that given out medical technology, and if we only used thin foils with blunted tips so shallow cuts only duels would scarcely be a fatal affair. Two people who have a grievance and wish to settle it could formally declare they will duel at a set place on a set time, observed by witnesses. A doctor will attend with equipment, and the two may duel. Maybe only to first blood, maybe only until they deem their honor settled. If we're only using thin swords capable of fairly shallow cuts, the risk will be much minimized and the available medical personal should be capable of dealing with any serious wounds that may occur.","conclusion":"I believe dueling should be legal."}
{"id":"45b13462-16e8-4f93-9d24-ffa84a8acb7e","argument":"Amartya Sen argues that liberals interpret equality in terms of equality of well-being, resources, or capability, whilst conservatives interpret it in terms of equality of liberty.","conclusion":"It has been argued that everyone cares about equality as a value, yet it has different meanings to different people."}
{"id":"604a4288-109b-4ea9-9add-5da463f63834","argument":"Even someone who does not produce goods which are directly valued in monetary terms or deliberately participate in intellectual or artistic endeavours still contributes to society if they interact with other people - they can provide knowledge and information, opinions and perspectives, friendship, listening and support, participation in shared\/group activities which tend to improve with more participants and\/or require a minimum\/specific number of participants in most cases.","conclusion":"There is also no guarantee that \"what one really likes\" is unproductive, and indeed it is hard to find jobs or other activities! which are completely unproductive."}
{"id":"8956f808-5822-4a4a-86b3-a8e3bc46ee97","argument":"Quality control would likely create a generic set of criteria such as high graphic quality and type of game that has been proven popular in the past. This prevents niche and new-thinking game developers from creating games that could potentially not only be hits, but also revolutionize gaming.","conclusion":"Quality control will narrow what is an acceptable game in a way that will prevent diversity and innovation of games."}
{"id":"f6c893a3-aae2-4918-bbb7-24bfc064efcf","argument":"I have never heard a precise definition of free will. It seems to be a very important philosophical concept, but I can not think of a way to distinguish a world in which people have free will from a world in which they do not. Because of this, I think that every debate ever held on this issue was a result of semantic confusion, and not legitimate difference of opinion. Please do not try to convince me that free will exists, until someone can convince me that free will has a consistent and coherent definition. Thanks","conclusion":"I do not believe that \"Free Will\" is a coherent concept."}
{"id":"5499948a-596e-4870-9763-8dc27768adbd","argument":"Almost nobody who is not already a multi millionaire has any real chance of being better off even in the very long term if the UK leaves the EU. Unemployment will rise and the economy will never reach the potential it could have had staying in","conclusion":"If any, it's going to take a lot of time before seeing the economic benefits."}
{"id":"4e5e5ca5-fca3-4550-a193-955288654dba","argument":"Specifically, the article mentions how the administration has been tough on Russia, and Haley has been one of few senior Trump officials to be openly critical of Russia","conclusion":"The article refers specifically to examples relating to Foreign Policy, which is Haley's domain as Ambassador to the UN."}
{"id":"451ce378-d9e4-40c7-9383-97748da8c524","argument":"I'll certainly grant that a blond haired blue eyed person is white and a pure African is not. But what about people who are kind of white. Take myself, for instance, someone who's half European and half Middle Eastern Jew. Do I possess more white privilege than a black person? I think so. But with my swarthy skin and curly hair, have as much as my very pale Aryan as you could ask for mother? There are countless examples of this. Both my friend Miguel and I are generally assumed to be white when people look at us, but as soon as I reveal my ethnicity or Miguel, who's half white and half Latino simply states his name then we are viewed as different or other than mainstream white. This being the case, I have a hard time believing that whiteness is as simple as white people and POC . .","conclusion":"I believe that whiteness exists on a continuum. It is faulty logic to say that there is a hard line between \"white people\" and \"people of color\"."}
{"id":"a788c3c8-55fe-4182-bde8-2aa8c86a5379","argument":"Half of all GIs believed that it would be necessary to kill ALL Japanese before peace can be realized Dower, p. 53","conclusion":"Military staff was outspoken that they didn't consider any other role for the Japanese people than annihilation."}
{"id":"b47ce7a2-2533-4b0b-9cdf-7d50244e0fda","argument":"So after years of hearing, seeing and reading people talk really really bad about my religion i decided i will start punching those people when i have the chance. You probably think why ? I tell you why, i have never harmed anyone or talked bad about anyones religion except scientology, for obvious reasons. Now after years of having my religion insulted and titled really horrible stuff i thought i might try a more progressive way. Therefore look out if you talk bad about Islam in West Germany. Feel free to Change my View and save some piggy nazi faces.","conclusion":"i will punch every anti-islam talking person in their face."}
{"id":"a6b774c5-0f83-4fae-97b4-a4df1227277b","argument":"Every claim of observable features of the world that point to the actions of gods or other mythical beings has been shown to be caused by natural means. While theists believe the origin of the natural world is a miracle, empirical facts point to natural explanations for the origins of life, Earth, and the universe without need to appeal to any mythological explanation. For those hoping to find empirical evidence for their faith, \"God of the Gaps\" is the only fundamentally flawed proposal left.","conclusion":"There is no demonstrable scientific evidence that proves the existence of God."}
{"id":"de108e56-8de9-45a9-82c3-0208aa764039","argument":"So I love European football but I hate, with a vengeance, the Away Goals Rule where goals scored on the away leg of the two legged fixture are used as a tiebreaker in the event of a tie on the aggregate of both games. I think this is the stupidest rule because it's already evened out by having a two legged fixture. No team is inherently advantaged so why does UEFA or whatever governing body feel the need to literally change the importance of a goal to try and even out something that is already even? This rule essentially says that a 1 1 draw is better than a 0 0 but only for the away team. Why is it that it's advantageous to concede a goal, as long as you've scored one yourself, than be able to keep a clean sheet? It makes no sense. If I'm the manager of a defensively minded team, I'm pissed that my scheme is now at a disadvantage for no reason, if we aren't able to score. Furthermore, the nature of football means that goals can come in the blink of an eye with a large amount of luck involved own goal, deflection, etc. . If an away team scores from a lucky deflection, it's just ridiculous the advantage it gives them. Lucky goals happen to everyone and are fine but the away goals rule just further enhances their effect on games. EDIT Thanks for the responses, everyone. I will put it out right now that I was half expecting there to be a simple This is why answer but it seems to me that there isn't and or that the answers provided, while correct in stating why the rule is there, still doesn't convince me that it's a sound rule.","conclusion":"The 'Away goals rule' in football soccer competition such as the UEFA Champions League and Europa League is useless and fixes a problem which doesn't exist."}
{"id":"b8e4d639-5f97-4c32-8e1c-05ab5e1e82f8","argument":"That we must overcome through society as we build a new interpretation of what it means to be human, but we must never forget the foundations of what our society is built upon the animal inside. Humans, like all other animals, are distrustful of outsiders and, at worst, attack on sight. Only through removing the foreignness of those outsiders may we overcome some aspects of differences and push towards cohesion, however, this cannot always be expected. Some differences cannot be overcome with simple understandings. Differences will always exist unless we become entirely transhuman. Prejudice Racism is innate and hard wired into our brains. Even at birth we show signs of prejudice racism beginning We will always be racist when not specifically taught to counteract this influence. All humans are racist prejudice just as all other animals are prejudice racist . Racism Prejudice is 100 natural. Our compassion and ability to bond together into one of the largest animal kingdom super colonies is an extension of our other skills, but in the end Racism Prejudice is a defense mechanic that exists in all of us and should never be ignored. EDIT I would like to reiterate my first sentence that we must overcome as being a sign that I'm not arguing that it's good, but rather, that it's a defense mechanism. Whether or not it is good depends on the situation like anything else and I am hard pressed to find one in which it is. EDIT2 In bold and strickouts. I'm sorry everyone I really should've been on the ball and made sure everyone absolutely knew, without a doubt, what my argument really was about. I slipped up a bit. Sorry. EDIT3 I'm pulling out the heavy guns this gene can exist EDIT4 A Delta has been awarded Congrats to the person who pointed out that this isn't what makes us human, but rather makes us animals. I Didn't consider that. Thanks","conclusion":"Racism, Sexism, Xenophobia, etc. are all natural processes and are exactly what make us human."}
{"id":"d8939e00-52ea-4187-972f-b6fc6b8ffa00","argument":"My mom was making an argument that as I understand it goes something like this Sane people do not want to be harmed. Therefore, sane people will not consent to harm. Therefore, by definition, someone who consents to harm is not competent to give consent. Therefore, harm is always nonconsensual because even if the person thinks they are consenting, they are by definition incompetent to consent, because they are agreeing to be harmed. note this assumes that consent means informed consent we both agree that if you don't know what you're consenting to, that the consent is meaningless in the first place She extended this all the way out to suicide if you attempt suicide, you are by definition mentally incompetent to make life or death decisions, because you're suicidal. My responses to this This is circular reasoning and therefore completely unconvincing to me because I don't buy into the premise which is also the conclusion . From a more pragmatic legislative perspective, who gets to decide what harm is? Is it physical injury? X level of pain? Visible marks? Permanent injury? What if I'm really into BDSM and the physical pain of getting spanked or whatever produces such a great mental benefit that the overall effect is positive? Would this fall under you're not really consenting to harm in that case ? Again, how would you measure or judge this? Excluding people who think the harm will ultimately be a net benefit the BDSM scenario , maybe there is no rational reason from a purely self interested perspective to consent to harm, but human beings do all kinds of things for irrational reasons and yet we don't consider that to invalidate their consent. Why is this different? Also as a side note, the fact that people who try and fail to commit suicide often claim that they're glad they failed proves nothing. Regret after the fact does not prove that you didn't consent at the time. Second side note I know Locke has this whole argument about how you do not have the moral authority to end your life because it's essentially just yours on lease from God and you don't have the authority to total the Almighty's car. So that's nice from a religious perspective, but I'm not religious so it isn't particularly convincing to me. So change my view? Is there a better argument that I'm not considering here? I'm interested in opinions both from a moral and a practical legal perspective. edit ack formatting","conclusion":"I don't buy the argument that \"you can't consent to being harmed.\""}
{"id":"c2e567e5-4266-4939-b0d9-c6ede159b197","argument":"Nobody who is trying to remove confederate statues is attempting to remove history or censor anything. Everyone agrees that Robert E Lee and the like have a place in our history book for the positive and negative things they contributed . However, this does not mean that there should be idols to these people. Lee, for example, was a traitor to the union. He attempted to destroy the union over a break which was caused by southerners selfish and racist desires to keep slavery. NO, this is not at all the same as revolutionaries to the British crown. First of all, Lee was a Union general in the first place, born American. Second of all, the revolutionaries fought for the bringing of Democracy and the end of oppressive monarchy. These are values which are still idolized in America today. America regularly starts wars to ensure these values abroad. This is very different from the racist ideology that the Confederacy represented any historian worth anything will tell you the breaking point for the south in regards to 'states rights' was slavery. That was their bottom line, not taxes or anything else . Statues are for people who deserve to be idolized. People that we honor and respect. Most confederate generals are simply not seen this way any more by the majority of people. This is why elected or by some shape or form democratically elected officials are attempting to serve their populace by removing idols to people who very few idolize and more are offended by. What is the issue with this?","conclusion":"It is fine to remove confederate statues"}
{"id":"cc555455-02bc-4106-8a50-59c7f66e8fe4","argument":"Addressing the deficiencies of identical machines in a fleet oftentimes requires an identical solution for each machine, which is less often the case when it comes to a group of heterogeneous individuals.","conclusion":"Addressing the deficiencies of an identical fleet of AKMs is more cost-effective than addressing individual deficiencies in groups of human soldiers."}
{"id":"9b9d2743-c4a4-4fd6-bcb6-b2c1053fb2f9","argument":"Companies like Samsung include options such as ''Easy mode'' which make the interface bigger and simplify the whole experience for users.","conclusion":"Apple products tend to be far less accessible than Android products."}
{"id":"6f0c79b9-b3d4-468a-a3a9-5051cc68d4ea","argument":"The chilling effect works by creating an environment where students 'do not wish or want to face an opposing viewpoint'.","conclusion":"Placing restrictions on expression can cause a chilling effect on how willing people are to investigate their beliefs."}
{"id":"fa6006dc-094c-4753-beec-0290900ff2e7","argument":"Why would Iraqis, who want US troops to leave, attack US soldiers that are withdrawing?","conclusion":"The withdrawal of US troops will be welcome and won't be resisted by Iraqis."}
{"id":"698f29e4-fb27-41ec-ac92-b80e83e2b716","argument":"Poe's role had a nice arc to it where he was both more important to the plot than the last film and grew as a member of the resistance.","conclusion":"Numerous characters became more relevant to the plot than in previous films and were treated with more respect than previous films had."}
{"id":"232b163e-bccb-4e78-9886-1ab42e397b87","argument":"Religion studies the nature of sin and applies these lessons to humanity. Absence of religion encourages the study of life","conclusion":"Religion is not required for the personal lessons to be taught. They could be taught through other, secular sources."}
{"id":"8d0fe212-6a14-45ac-a5f0-452adf6f505e","argument":"48% of students surveyed in a US study experienced some form of sexual harassment at school in 2010\u201311 and of students who had been harassed, 38% were harassed by teachers or other school employees.","conclusion":"Sexual harassment of children is also a big problem in educational institutions; they are therefore not necessarily better suited to protect children."}
{"id":"4846b61a-6302-435f-9ff2-11c4761095be","argument":"Bribes may be more likely to be paid early in the judicial process i.e., to police and prosecutors because it is easier and cheaper to get a police officer to walk away or a prosecutor to drop a case, than to convince a judge to rule fraudulently.","conclusion":"This statistic includes bribes to police and prosecutors, as well as judges, thus it is not an effective indication of judicial corruption."}
{"id":"8a64412c-0f8e-4d6f-b9f0-9b555969b77e","argument":"My opinion covers two things Belief in the extraordinary by itself isn't enough to justify their application to the real world, and certainly should stay away from legislation etc. I think the scientific method sums up my thinking behind the variability of a extraordinary force, whether that would be God, some unseen connections between everyone like the Sikhs believe etc. Theoretically, we have to trust that everything we sense isn't some delusion that we're not living in some weird computer simulation pig's foot lucid dream and we've just haven't noticed yet. There are 2 scenarios where a thing could influence us thing affecting us, and thing not affecting us. If the thing is affecting us, we would be able to detect how it is interacting with our world. For instance, one could say dark matter is evidence of the thing interacting with the universe in a visible way. Problem is, we don't know what this thing is. Is it just happening on its own, or is it some intelligent being pulling the strings? Testing says what is there, rather than why. We don't have a way of answering that, apart from religion's method of poking in the dark. In the latter scenario, if we can't detect the existence of a thing, then it can basically be treated as imaginary. I mean, it could exist in some magical land where the conditions are just right, but that goes for all of fiction as well. In both scenarios, the thing potentially exists and is affecting the world from the same box as fictional concepts and characters live, and if we try and guess what is in the box, we have a almost zero chance of getting it right. As the supernatural exist essentially as fiction, we should treat it as such So what if God is imaginary? Does that mean he is of no values to us? No, he just becomes as valuable as any other idea, and one could certainly take inspiration from him in the same way one admires Harry's bravery, or the family togetherness of the Simpsons. Is there a case to think any of these things are real? Nope, unless we are really lucky.","conclusion":"Belief based doctrines have no place in reality, and should be regarded as literature rather than a strict way of life."}
{"id":"4e880b1c-c0a7-4613-ad71-e6567bd31b85","argument":"Absent legislation, a general AI would not be expected to follow any laws whatsoever, including those of due process, thus placing it above the law breaching the doctrine of equality before the law.","conclusion":"Granting AI fundamental rights in the absence of legislating responsibility incumbent on AI is incompatible with the principle of equality before the law."}
{"id":"bfd1ed68-fac6-4fd6-b25c-4473422b67c9","argument":"In case you aren't sure what I'm referring to, see this news article Sample text gt The internet giant transformed its homepage into a show of support for gay rights with a Google Doodle depicting athletes against a rainbow coloured backdrop. Below the logo is a two sentence section of the Olympic charter that states gt \u2018The practice of sport is a human right. Every individual must have the possibility of practicing sport, without discrimination of any kind and in the Olympic spirit, which requires mutual understanding with a spirit of friendship, solidarity and fair play.\u2019 gt The US company declined to comment on the new Google Doodle that appeared on its home pages worldwide, saying it wanted the illustration to speak for itself. In Beijing in 2008, there were concerns over human rights in China, but Google and other companies rightfully didn't let it taint the spirit of the Games. Not so this year, with gay rights now being so ubiquitously championed in American media as to almost be tedious, we haven't heard the end of this so called propaganda law, which does not actually discriminate against gays participating in the Games, or attending them, despite what Google insinuates in its Doodle . Don't get me wrong, I'm in favor of legalizing gay marriage, but Google is not only spreading misinformation about Russia's policy, but is also kinda calling the kettle black here, with America still itself banning gay marriage in most states, and other Western developed countries doing the same. Only 17 countries in the world legalize gay marriage entirely, and yes we are working on it, but we aren't there yet. To shun and scorn Russia in its entirety because of a particular cultural issue being fought there now is tasteless and tactless, especially from a multinational corporation. Nowhere in this Doodle is Russia, or even Sochi, mentioned. Clicking on the Doodle brings a results page for Olympic Charter instead of anything about the actual games for cripes sake. The entire damn thing is being implicitly condemned and boycotted by Google. Please  and tell me why I'm seeing it all wrong here.","conclusion":"I think Google is being being tactless, irresponsible and is unnecessarily tainting a world event with its politics by posting its current controversial \"Doodle\"."}
{"id":"f3d18e57-47c0-4569-9790-7c204b7dd37d","argument":"It's that time of year, at least in the Northern Hemisphere, where our deciduous trees are shedding their leaves. With that comes the tradition many people undergo of raking leaf after leaf into piles and then bag them up for garbage collectors or burn them or take them to the compost pile. But why? Raking is incredibly annoying and bad for one's back and takes a ridiculous amount of time and or money if you're choosing to pay a landscaping company to remove your leaves for you . On top of that, many people burn their leaf litter, contributing to air pollution and fire risk. Instead, I think it would be much, much better to just run over your yard with the lawn mower a couple of times or with a specific mulching mower , dice those leaves into tiny pieces, and leave them to decompose over the winter and fertilize your lawn so it comes up extra great in the spring. Some research seems to support this idea and I'm wondering if there are any solid, good, practical reasons to rake instead of mulch mow. So, please, Reddit, . EDIT I should have mentioned aside from personal preference or whatever your homeowners' association may require of you.","conclusion":"Raking leaves off your lawn is a waste of time and mulching\/mowing over them in-place is ideal"}
{"id":"8ce85295-fc1e-45dd-b91f-2302e9b78717","argument":"Artist create ways for us to look at the world in different perspectives. Creating art is a complex process we may never fully understand. Creativity come in most part from the artists unconscious mind. It\u2019s because of this that when an artist creates, the meaning of the art isn\u2019t consciously embedded. When we as the viewer experience the art and begin to extract the meaning, you\u2019ll find that meaning goes much deeper than the artist intended, that\u2019s what art is supposed to be. So, its OK when we find deeper meanings in art, but I think sometimes we can take it too far. People may begin to find meaning in art that doesn\u2019t respect the artist. I guess this is a discussion about whether the interpretation of art lies with the artist or the viewer. I believe it\u2019s a bit of both, it must be. I might be stepping into my uncharted territory of psychology, but most art isn\u2019t done with meaning as the end goal. The unconscious mind of the artist bleeds into the art. The sense that we are free to interpret are work as we like is wrong, because even though the art may be full of a bottomless pit of meaning, the interpretation of the meaning should never go beyond what the artist\u2019s conscious and unconscious intended. We would be showing artist disrespect. We as viewers must do our research into the artist and artist influences and gather and much information we can about the artist and pass our interpretation through that filter to make sure we never attribute meaning to art that the artist would never consciously or unconsciously intend. At the same time, we as a collective mind have much better chance to find meaning than the artist could ever imagine to have embedded in their artwork. I know this is a complex subject but change my mind that interpretation of artwork lie on a balance between the viewer and artist. PS I\u2019m ESL.","conclusion":"The interpretation of artwork should never go further than the artist\u2019s conscious and unconscious intentions in meaning."}
{"id":"fa23db31-8243-4eb5-b100-e3620a8c5ba3","argument":"Leadership ranks at the foreign service are being depleted as promotion numbers have been slashed by more than half.","conclusion":"The United States does not currently have enough good diplomats to exert any soft power."}
{"id":"38c924e1-5c08-4b81-ac1b-6751aa85dbe8","argument":"I don't understand students who insist on attending 50,000 yr private schools or 30,000 yr out of state public schools rather than going to an in state public school, community college, getting a scholarship, etc. As with many problems, I also understand this is not such a black and white problem for many individual students, but, on the whole, it seems to me as though the call to forgive student debt is a middle class whining and entitlement thing. I went to a 50,000 yr private school on a full ride scholarship and knew far too many students there who were paying the full tuition rate but messing around, getting D's and feeling entitled to good jobs after they graduate. Again, I know the economy is tough, but I also know far too many of these students never worked over the summer, never looked at internships, skipped class all the time and would get wrecked the night before midterms. Perhaps fifteen or maybe even ten years ago you could be forgiven for assuming that an undergraduate degree meant you would get a job no matter how you did on your degree, but I think it's been clear for a while now that that isn't quite the case. Majoring in a humanities subject isn't bad in itself, nor is doing poorly in your classes. Maybe, under some circumstance, even going to an expensive university could be forgivable if you really made the most of it. But doing all three and then feeling as though you're owed debt forgiveness because you can't find a job seems pretty dumb to me.","conclusion":"I have zero sympathy for most students in hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt and no jobs."}
{"id":"f13a5777-a3aa-484c-9957-6a7fdfa8ed52","argument":"I'm a supporter of normalizing childhood vaccinations, and I think that they provide real benefit with negligible risk. However, I recently came across an interesting article that makes a compelling case against vaccinations. Of the highlights, records suggest that most of the worst diseases we vaccinate for were already becoming much less common at the advent of widespread vaccination, and that hygiene and access to clean water were more of a factor in eliminating disease than vaccines were. What really hooked my attention was the conspiracy theory aspect I'm a believer in science and value the truth, but I'm very cynical about corporate abuses of ethics. You can see that major pharma companies have billions of dollars of profit to be made in vaccinations, and they might be powerful and influential enough to try suppressing any evidence that would disrupt their market share. If anyone knows of something that addresses the points made in this article, please let me know because I want to read it. Please try to approach the issue by actually addressing the content of the article. Arguing to ignorance 'you aren't doing the clinical research yourself' , ad hominem 'conspiracy theorists are always wrong' , and appeals to authority 'the pharma company selling the drug says it's safe' are logically flimsy. I don't want to argue in favor of one side over another, I want to see someone address the points being made. EDIT I'm convinced that the issue is resolved. There are a lot of logical fallacies and misleading statistics in the article, which only pretends to make an airtight case against vaccines. Thanks much to everyone who took the time to make an argument, I appreciate your efforts","conclusion":"There is some scientifically valid evidence against compulsory childhood vaccines."}
{"id":"1afd12fc-b7ac-46cc-93f5-263d2c46ffd9","argument":"Politicians in the US tried living off of the minimum wage in their state for a week. All of them failed because they live in a bubble vastly different from the people they represent.","conclusion":"This would prevent people from low income backgrounds from running, causing a disconnect between the politicians and the people they represent."}
{"id":"11b12d60-bba9-4b21-8c0b-c8faac325661","argument":"First you have to understand that these animals are threats to locals, lions kill livestock and elephants trample crops. These people have no incentive to keep these animals alive under any normal circumstances. The only reason there are any conservation efforts in African countries is because hunters pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to kill these things. They basically only keep them alive so they'll breed and hunters will pay to kill the older sick ones. If the people in these countries can't legally earn a profit off of these wild animals then why would they give a s if poachers kill them? However if trophy hunting is legal then poaching will be discouraged because people make a living off of preservation of these animals. Hunting provides the most revenue to conservation efforts in these countries. The ban to trophy hunting in Kenya led to 30 70 loss of wildlife due to illegal poaching. However in countries where hunting is legal, you see that poaching is almost irradiated and conservation efforts and wildlife dramatically increase. So here are all my points. 1st. These animals are threats and without conservation efforts they'd be killed 2nd. There won't be conservation efforts unless they can earn a profit from them 3rd. The only reason conservation efforts make a profit is because hunters pay hundreds of thousands to kill sick and old animals. 4th. Banning hunting leads to a dramatic increase in poaching and extreme decrease in revenue for conservation 5th. Legal hunting shows dramatic increase in revenue and wildlife populations. 6th. Legal hunting dramatically decreases poaching.","conclusion":"I see nothing wrong with legally hunting elephants and trophy hunting."}
{"id":"10531a41-52fb-4b2b-acdf-6704d2e8ffd4","argument":"The popularity of these dogs is soaring, despite the fact that selective breeding has caused most of them to suffer from breathing difficulties and other health conditions.","conclusion":"Brachycephalic airway syndrome is a condition that afflicts dogs with intentionally flattened skulls such as pugs, bulldogs, and Boston terriers."}
{"id":"44432012-7cbb-442e-ac50-03b808bb5cc7","argument":"I'll keep it short Republicans get a lot of hate for being passive on global warming. One strange view that I have as a conservative, is that I strongly believe in the existence of climate change. The facts are overwhelmingly showing that climate change is not only occurring, but speeding up too. The only facts that climate deniers seem to provide are oh, but scientists have been wrong before or haha, Al Gore's predictions or look at the ice cap . However, I don't think we speaking from the perspective of the U.S. should be going crazy slashing oil and coal. Inhibiting our own economic growth isn't going to help when bigger polluters like China and India, as developing countries, are completely exempt from U.N. agreements and treaties. The Dakota Acess Pipeline is a good example stopping one pipeline, out of hundreds already in use, is somehow going to help save our planet? Surely we're smart enough to find solutions that are both environmentally and economically beneficial. Next, I'll direct your attention to this In fact, that's outdated info we're already well past 420 ppm CO2 today, the graph shows us at 380. The time for regressive cut back solutions like a carbon tax is far past this might have worked if we tried in 1980. Furthermore, we could already be past the point of no return in regards to positive feedback loops Example methane loop temperature warms gt permafrost melts gt releases methane gt warms temperature etc . The most recent studies have also shown that even if the world cut emissions to ZERO which is impossible , TODAY, the earth would still continue to warm. My view is that what we should be doing is pushing our efforts into technology and innovation to solve this issue. Examples like microalgae biofuel, or the atmospheric sulfate experiment, or other geoengineering projects can help. Change my mind Can we really reverse global warming by not using fossil fuels just us? Edit Spelling errors","conclusion":"Conservative on global warming - why cut emissions? Not your ordinary global warming\/climate change post."}
{"id":"6fb86556-34d9-4260-be0f-3a1b1a017437","argument":"Ok first no I dont practice satanism never have. But neither have I practiced islam which i never will but that doesnt mean I cant have an opinon on it. Anyway I say the satanism is better than islam because of all these attacks you always hear about on the news with the most recent one in sri lanka leading me to making this post. Im sorry but when you practice a religion that is known for suicide bombers, rape, killing people for being gay, and pedophilia your practicing a terrible religion. On the other hand when it comes to satanism when ever people hear it all they most likely think about is the human goat sacrificing but that is not true since satanists say they dont and there bible doesnt say anything about it either at least what I know. Its just a myth as well as the reason being for the goat that it is satans sacred animal so it would make no sense to kill your gods beloved pet. Plus when was the last time you heard a satanists on the news involved in some insane mass genocide event. Now yes satanism is still a little bit crazy but compared to islam satanism is a safer religion.","conclusion":"Satanism is a better religion to practice than Islam"}
{"id":"07971571-c312-4c49-b411-b4a391967229","argument":"Coaches in the NFL have the right to throw a red flag to challenge almost any call on the field. They can challenge the ruling on the field in regards to the spot of the ball, whether or not something was a catch or a fumble, whether or not a receiver is in bounds, etc. However, for some reason, they are not allowed to challenge penalties. A penalty called or not called can be the difference between a win and a loss. Similarly, there are a lot of questionable calls on penalties that, upon further review, can be objectively seen as bad calls or missed calls. When a penalty can be mean the difference between a win and a loss, they should be reviewable, just like spots, in out of bounds, fumbles or not fumbles, etc. .","conclusion":"NFL coaches should be allowed to challenge penalties,"}
{"id":"8b7eb5fb-6df0-4cbe-a14d-f064ba0a96e4","argument":"This motion is incredibly dangerous in a variety of ways as not only convictions but also acquittals and other past conduct could then be raised in a court trials. This means that a jury could be informed that somebody had questionable behaviour, such as a sexual interest in children, even if they had never been tried or much less convicted of an actual offence. This would allow the prosecution to unduly blacken the character of the defendant, and easily prejudice the jury against them for no valid reason, and without the evidence which formal proceedings would require. Studies into jury verdicts have found that a jury was \u201850% more likely to convict if it was told that the defendant had a conviction for a similar previous offence than if it was given no information\u2019, particularly in regard to sexual offences1. This is proof that jurors are highly susceptible to prejudice when reaching a verdict. 1The Economist, \u2018Tilting the balance\u2019, 2 January 2003.","conclusion":"The disclosure of previous convictions could falsely characterize the defendant."}
{"id":"422b23b8-043c-4943-b4ac-a6c72e5fd9c2","argument":"Pink Floyd is often held up as the gold standard of bands. They\u2019re cited as being deep and conveying a message, as well as being masters of their instruments. To me, they are incredible self indulgent. They write music that is likely more enjoyable for them to play than for their audience to listen to. Their messages may differ from the typical \u201cI love you\u201d type songs that most artists stick to, but are they really that deep? There are plenty of artists with songs that have much stronger messages than songs like Another Brick in the Wall just one example song , and with much more complex musicality. I think that a chunk of the adoration for Pink Floyd comes from the nostalgia, another chunk comes from their music being so hand in hand with drug use really, this music is not aimed at sober people , and a lot of it is people who got into it as a kind of music snobbery \u201cmusic used to be soooo much better back then \u201d Of course, music is subjective. Many people genuinely enjoy Pink Floyd, which is completely fair. But I get so sick of people insulting other bands and glorifying Pink Floyd looking at you, WatchMojo . Pink Floyd are terribly overrated.","conclusion":"Pink Floyd is massively overrated"}
{"id":"2031cfb5-f47d-4682-abdc-da72ee7dd197","argument":"People might support Modi because he has been good for them personally rather than the country as a whole.","conclusion":"Just because Indians support him doesn't mean that Modi has been good for the country as a whole."}
{"id":"8146e970-9326-4a17-9993-006e25e67f3c","argument":"Due to their high resistance to pesticides, less pesticides are needed when using GMO. This can have a positive effect on nature.","conclusion":"Organic farming cannot make use of the benefits of GMOs."}
{"id":"f6d23a77-7e0e-4b0f-82a1-2f9a6866d5a4","argument":"More people unlocking their full potential will not only make them happier, but also lead to more and bigger contributions to society.","conclusion":"Being passionate about one \u0301s work leads to more self-actualization."}
{"id":"05da8a04-f43d-4394-9a74-7abae6fcb52f","argument":"Human life has a higher value because as one species humans share the same basic characteristics.","conclusion":"A human life is worth more than the life of an animal."}
{"id":"d47ebfeb-7c7b-426c-af2f-2e16263a9d45","argument":"Countries that have decriminalised some or all drugs such as Portugal have not observed a long term increase in consumption. On the contrary, after a short period of slightly increased consumption it dropped below pre-decriminalisation levels","conclusion":"Evidence suggests that legalization does not lead to increased consumption."}
{"id":"f4ebd3e0-22b8-448a-928d-cd91a31a44f1","argument":"The shared political interest in promoting EU science means that the best laboratory can be chosen to perform a particular task without preferentially selecting national funding for work in the country it is sourced from.","conclusion":"There are a series of structural reasons which make international collaborations within the EU effective. It is unlikely that collaborations outside the EU can replicate these conditions."}
{"id":"3c4ed4b9-ef46-4c37-8fe6-f86a8e87526f","argument":"From a young age, we're all taught that we can grow up to be whatever we want to be as long as we work hard, etc., etc Don't get me wrong, I like this worldview and it's certainly sparked the innovative spirit that we all know and love. But in the wake of something terrible, or a major personal tragedy, or the election of a politician you vehemently disagree with, worrying can only make it worse. If you can change these things, do so Donate, vote, call your congressperson, do whatever, but some things are beyond our control. And in the case of these events, it's not insensitive or inhumane to simply shrug and say, c'est la vie . Just like in Slaughterhouse Five, when the phrase so it goes seems so dehumanizing until the topic is explored more deeply and we realize that this is simply how Billy and the Tralphemadorians cope with misfortune. Though I don't agree with him on everything, legendary humanitarian philosopher Immanuel Kant proposed an axiom called Ought Implies Can wikipedia.org wiki ought implies can , which basically states that, in order for in action to exist in some sort of moral code, that action must be doable for example, no one should feel bad for not curing AIDS if they didn't have the capital research team to do so. In short, I firmly believe that we should accept what we can't change, while fully embracing the freedom to changes what we can. And if that means acknowledging that I have a minimal sphere of influence, that's okay.","conclusion":"There's no point in worrying about something beyond your control."}
{"id":"3d636cee-730f-4812-96a4-40d330bda09a","argument":"The rap group 1011 was issued with a court order that bans them from making music without police review when it was discovered that 1011 and rival group 12 World were using lyrics to threaten, and as a basis for carrying out, physical violence against rivals and relatives","conclusion":"Such legislation targets people who go out of their way to troll others. Political correctness alone is not enough to convict. It must be part of a larger action of harassment, stalking, or threat."}
{"id":"65be992a-33cd-424c-b2ea-224147c1058a","argument":"So by my understanding anyone on Reddit can create any subreddit they want, and govern by their standards. If I want to start a sub dedicated to Arnold Schwarzenegger quotes, that's fine. The issue seems to be that there are many, many subs on Reddit that are absolutely insidious. I don't even want to link to them because I don't want them in my browser history, but I'm talking about the sludge of society racism, homophobia, inciting violence, and all kinds of other truly fucked up things. There's a sub on here that's main purpose is to be hugely racist to black people probably more, but only one I know of . There's another sub that's main purpose is saying it's cool to beat trans people to death. I'm all for freedom of speech, but I don't like the message Reddit sends by saying it's OK to have subs that are this hateful. I think by ignoring them, they are in some ways validating them and saying they are as acceptable as, say, a sub about knitting. What can these subs possibly be adding to the Reddit community? ETA OK I'm going to bed, but feel free to continue adding to the discussion. I really enjoyed reading your replies, so thanks for the contributions","conclusion":"I don't think Reddit should allow subs that are obviously a source of hate speech or hateful intent. ?"}
{"id":"8714f21f-03b7-41c9-a9bd-29c268b9bc96","argument":"In ancient times people believed that the world was governed by forces that shaped their lives and were beyond their control. However, there were certain gurus who had special insight into these forces, and could sway these forces one way or another. These gurus were known as shaman, and often gained power and wealth because of their alleged expertise. While a shaman's predictions and rituals were ostensibly successful he retained his position of prestige. When those same predictions failed, he would be demoted, and sometimes replaced with a new expert whose predictions had been more recently successful, reinforcing the beliefs of the people in shamanism. Today, there is a mystical force known as the stock market which exerts an influence over people's lives. Most people do not understand this force. However, there are gurus who possess a special insight into these forces. These gurus are known as stock analysts. While these analysts are successful they are often rewarded with wealth and positions of prestige. When their analysis fails they are effectively demoted, at least in prestige. This class of gurus puts on the most effective front possible, reinforcing the people's beliefs in their predictions and rituals. However, neither the ancient gurus nor the modern gurus have much evidence in support of their predictions or rituals. Because of these similarities I am brought to my conclusion stock analysts are modern day shamans.","conclusion":"Stock analysis is the modern-day shamanism."}
{"id":"eb816e14-bbc5-446a-9086-a10f08c8e764","argument":"First, I'd like to start off by saying that I'm in no way a Trump supporter. However, if there is one redeeming quality of his personality, it's that his complete inability to be cautious with his words exposes the truth to certain US policies and doctrine. When he was asked about the killing of Jamal Khashogi, he simply said Frankly they have a tremendous order \u2014 110 billion. Every country in the world wanted a piece of that order. We got all of it. And what are we going to do? And to me, as horrible as that statement was, it was refreshing to hear the US president being honest about the US Saudi relationship. x200B America has turned a blind eye to SA atrocities for decades. Let's not forget Raif Badawi another activist who was tortured by the Saudis during the Obama administration in addition to the numerous despicable acts committed by the kingdom . Yet, it seems as though the media has fixated on the Khashogi case and are enraged about Trump's response. But his response is essentially the same as every US president's response We do a lot of business with them so let's just forget about all that other stuff. What's so different about the Khashogi case that it merits so much additional outrage?","conclusion":"America has always looked the other way regarding Saudi Arabia's atrocities and Trump is the only president who has been honest about the reason"}
{"id":"3a03d34f-326e-453a-bc43-f7d3648502fe","argument":"It's inconsistent to suggest that God could Will into existence a reality that is against His Will. Therefore, if sin -- that which is contrary to God's Will -- exists, it necessarily follows that the sin came from somewhere other than God.","conclusion":"God did not create sin, but the will or the ability to sin. Humans chose to sin, thus, they created sin."}
{"id":"1f09acc9-54e2-4e19-ba1c-4ae3ea2b35e1","argument":"The Iranian currency, the rial, finally managed to stabilise as a result of the negotiations for the JCPOA, but started significantly falling in value once Trump started threatening to back out of the deal. It has already lost its value against the dollar by almost three times.","conclusion":"The Iran Deal has had a positive economic effect due to the lifting of sanctions: reversing this would make life worse for ordinary Iranians."}
{"id":"6c09d7fb-6632-4c9a-a28d-97a7092e44e5","argument":"To start off, I'm a finance major in college and will be working at a hedge fund full time post graduation. I've loved analyzing companies and making investment decisions since high school. I worked hard in high school to get good grades and was fortunate enough to get accepted at a good college in the perfect major for me. I will be working at quite literally my dream job upon graduation. Recently, I've seen more and more hatred from the Reddit community towards the financial industry and I get it, housing crisis etc. But it seems like Reddit just writes off anyone who works in the financial industry and thinks they're automatically a bad person. There are different ways that people criticize us but to give a few examples and rebuttals They say that we aren't doing a hard job. While this industry might not be physically intensive, it is definitely mentally draining. I worked 130 hours per week over the summer and it was a nonstop environment where you had to continually think about an investment or work on an Excel model. Our job provides no material benefit to society. We are the people who provide capital to companies that need capital to expand the new startup isn't going to be able to get their feet off the ground without the help of some type of venture capital firm or an angel investor. A lot of our investors are also institutional pension funds, therefore, we are directly working for the people on the pension plan. Our returns help these people in retirement. We get compensated too much. Again, almost every person who earns a lot in finance works their asses off. There are exceptions, and people do get lucky, but most of us are working long hours to get compensated as much as we do. We have also put in years of our lives to get to where we are now high school grades, university grades, internships, school clubs etc. I know that not all of Reddit hates all of finance, but to the people who do, why? gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Reddit's Hatred Towards Finance is Unreasonable"}
{"id":"8aa9e555-5ea1-401b-a256-93cb12dce452","argument":"if prostitution was legal it would give prostitutes a lot more protection.","conclusion":"Legalizing sex work will make the profession safer for women"}
{"id":"725be544-f7dc-4f6b-a763-27fdbed24bc0","argument":"While I have nothing against activists pushing for a change in the treatment of dogs in the dog meat farms, it is irrational to pressure for a complete ban of dog meat consumption. If Muslims pushed for a complete ban of pork or Hindus urged the government for a ban in beef consumption in America, I'm fairly certain that a majority of Americans would react negatively. So why is it acceptable for Americans to push for a ban in dog meat? Dogs have evolved differently in the west compared to the east. While western cultures had them bred for companionship, countries like China have been using them as a food source for thousands of years. Scientists have even theorized that wolves from China may have been domesticated as a source of meat. To say that dog meat should be banned in countries like China is extremely culturally biased and therefore I believe it's wrong.","conclusion":"It is wrong for western organisations to push for a ban in dog meat in other countries."}
{"id":"590a0729-eacd-4ca7-a191-e4ab05775dcf","argument":"By assholes, I mean people you personally disapprove of. Not MY judgement, YOUR judgement. People cringe at parents who spoil their children when they're being brats, and get angry when the resident office sociopath gets a promotion. Clearly there's a rational distaste for seeing people lacking in virtue get their wishes. Nobody wants the villain to win, and it's commonly understood that people who aid them or even don't resist them are part of the problem. The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing . So why is it overreaching to apply the same principle to sexual partner selection? Sex is, ideally, enjoyable for both parties, but it's each party enabling the other's enjoyment. It takes two to tango. Beyond that, the idea that sex has a value as as service is common enough for prostitution to be a common element in society. Whether you like the idea or not, it's ubiquitous. You have know way of knowing whether another person subscribes to it or not, and it's easy enough for a person to adopt a system solely for when they're winning it. It's therefore not a big stretch to say that it's likely a person will feel as if they are being rewarded when they have sex. The combination of the good feeling and getting something you perceive as valuable will do that. But rewarded by whom? The people who have enabled the sex to happen, and there's only one person in the picture there the person they're having sex with. People do not exist in a vacuum. They receive feedback all the time on whether they're on the right track or not. Punishment makes people feel like they might have done something to deserve it, and rewards have the same effect. Good things happen to the good. I think this effect is so powerful that it's morally weak to put your own short term desires ahead of keeping tabs on it. Either you haven't defined your morals strong enough, or you aren't strong enough to stand up for them. You might enjoy sex with that person, but at what cost to society when they're rewarded? Sex isn't exactly a rare thing we wouldn't have been born without it. There's enough virtuous people in the world to have sex with that you have no excuse for choosing people who are assholes by your own admission. tl dr You reward the person you have sex with, and you shouldn't reward people you think lack virtue.","conclusion":"If you give \"assholes\" what they want by sleeping with them, you have weak morals."}
{"id":"437d22be-38f3-4830-99a8-b687b2c4c654","argument":"Please change the view entitled above. This Nature article argues that 'culture has a dominant role in shaping aesthetic responses to music'. This Reddit post references 'a study whose results indicated an average of some 250 hours for listeners experienced in tonal idioms to acclimate to non tonal musics.'. I have been trying to ameliorate my brain's reaction to Postmodern Classical Music from c. 1975 , by hearing them as comfortably and pleasantly as Romantic or Impressionist Music but after 1 year, and over 250 hours, of daily listening to them, my brain has not progressed and still opposes them. I enjoy, and have no problems with anything by Berg, Messiaen, Sch\u00f6nberg, Penderecki except his Threnody John Cage's solo piano music, and Piano Concerto . some pieces of Ligeti, like his Piano Concerto and Piano \u00c9tudes But my brain still judges cacophonous and obstreperous, and resists all by Harrison Birtwistle Ligeti like his Cello Concertos . most pieces of John Cage besides 2 above, like his Prepared Piano Concerto . gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Dissonant Postmodern Music is difficult to enjoy, even for those genuinely trying."}
{"id":"f01641ca-df79-4596-87cc-2854af3584eb","argument":"They denied all work and pay to 800,000 people for 3 weeks, shut down all national parks, and told military veterans no, you can't see this memorial to your friend who died in battle . They did all of this because the other side wouldn't bend over an unrelated matter. They were acting like that friend everyone had in 1^st grade who refused to play at all unless you played the game his way. Most of them were even paid out of our tax dollars for doing absolutely nothing. Why is this not a crime? EDIT I forgot to mention that the congressmen who voted against the shutdown and refused their paychecks shouldn't be punished.","conclusion":"I believe those responsible for the government shutdown should go to prison."}
{"id":"fafbf7c5-df9a-43f3-ba56-b5d207f18a78","argument":"Hello  I believe posts on the deceased's wall often in the form of an image of the poster and the deceased together captioned with R.I.P etc. are crude and attention seeking. They are not to deal with the loss but rather an attempt to garner sympathy from those who might read the post. I feel even more strongly about messages of condolences posted on the walls of friends and family of the deceased. This is a watered down Munchausen by proxy, I am cynical of their intentions, especially if they contain phrases such as let me know if I can help in anyway . True mourning is not something that is so easily displayed in a public forum. Real condolences are private and are delivered in person or over a phone call, even a text message is acceptable. I want to make it clear that I think let me know if I can help in anyway is a beautiful thing to say to someone in mourning. To post it on a mourner's facebook wall, however, is like shouting it across the room as you make ready to leave after the funeral. edit I remembered what Munchausen by proxy was. edit 2 I have changed my view on displays of mourning on Facebook walls of the deceased but not the public displays of condolences. I also wish I could edit titles now edit 3 I have removed the reference to Munchausen by proxy. I intended to convey some cynicism, which I still hold, but this is not the right term for it.","conclusion":"Facebook is not the appropriate platform for remembrance or mourning after someone has passed away"}
{"id":"6da7177e-0db5-417e-b8b3-792656a9f14b","argument":"I'm having a hard time reconciling desire, motivation, and drive with the participation trophy. How does rewarding mediocrity teach aspiration? We're supposed to stumble, fail, or not be good enough altogether. Failure is inevitable. It's the yang to successes yin. It forces us to look within ourselves and gives perspective. The feeling of failure echoes a lifetime. Time doesn't heal all wounds. It puts distance between the occurrence and when we look back on it. But we need the pain of failure. It's a necessary evil, or an added layer of motivation. It propels us to greater heights. It teaches humility and appreciation. Being content hinders our emotional evolution. Its why I believe the attendance trophy is the downfall to individuality. It rewards the bad equally the good. The devalues it devolves are self centered, selfish, unappreciative, unmindful, unnatural, and unthankful. There is no structure or class. We're becoming a pool of commonness unoriginal likeness. Someone please change my view","conclusion":"The 10th Place Ribbon Is Crippling Society"}
{"id":"c357dfb3-eebd-498e-af66-e228caebecca","argument":"Deeply entrenched cultural beliefs dictate that women are to be seen as less qualified or less \"natural\" in leadership roles. Having more women from culturally diverse backgrounds in managerial positions will help break this stereotype.","conclusion":"Having more women in managerial positions will help break the stereotype that women cannot be good leaders."}
{"id":"da241082-8337-45fd-9069-2a7f90fd543a","argument":"Almost every film critic seems to agree that Drive 2011 is a great movie. And i really cant understand that, mostly because all people who like it ever say about it is that they think it's a masterpiece.Personally i can not see a single piece of meaningful or inteligent content in it, while so many people are saying it has just that. Or that it had great character development. And that just blows my mind. But of course there are other reasons that someone could enjoy the movie. I just hope someone can give me a clear argument why drive is supposedly great from a narrative standpoint.","conclusion":"I think Drive is a very overrated movie."}
{"id":"9872f331-a553-4bb5-9424-276fa61fd392","argument":"Some young adults may be sexually active but not yet comfortable letting their parents know this This may be important medical information for the patient to flag as it can pose certain health risks.","conclusion":"The privacy afforded by doctor-patient confidentiality might make children and young adults more likely to open up to their doctors about important medical information they don't want to discuss with their parents."}
{"id":"b2511922-ded6-426c-9584-3bc074c13619","argument":"Knowledge is our only aid in the fight against global warming and animal protection. We need to know exactly what\u2019s going to happen and how animals will respond in these situations. By sending in specialist animal observers to zoos we can begin to unravel the mystery of how to save these animals for the future events to come. We can discover ways to protect them, we can learn which habitats they can survive in, and we can learn which foods they would be willing to supplement their nutrition from. By learning this, we can help wild animals of the future survive the changing environment.","conclusion":"By observing animal behaviour we can help those in the wild"}
{"id":"7eaf66b9-6d24-4e59-a0ed-a2329435cf8a","argument":"Foods not ripened on plants probably do not taste as great, which could cause consumers to not as likely to buy the foods that are beneficial to them.","conclusion":"Foods that travel for many miles are not ripened on the plant, which makes them less nutritious than if picked at the peak of ripeness."}
{"id":"b48e3531-0d80-46bd-bab5-409901abba55","argument":"I am leaning towards voting for Brexit, for the following reasons, but I am concerned my reasoning is unsound or based on falsehoods. I am open to voting remain, but I do have concerns. I suspect this'll be easy for those more informed than myself I am a software developer and the UK IT industry is plagued with outsourcing primarily to India , and this jeopardises my livelihood. Countries such as Romania are now becoming the new targets for outsourcing software development because it's cheaper not being in the EU would discourage and perhaps prevent this happening for the near future until such trade deals are perhaps brought in to place . Indeed, this might push more to India. Point being I am concerned the EU undermines the job market by me not being able to compete with cheaper labour elsewhere, which risks my livelihood. I simply cannot compete with those with lower costs of living. The EU commission is undemocratic democracy is the cornerstone of western civilisation and it is at risk in the long term by this body and is unelected this undermines democracy e.g. Mario Monti and his appointment to replace Berlusconi because the Italians were about to default TTIP. I do not want this legislation to pass, I feel it is an example of US corporate interests having laws passed for its own purpose, undermining local national desires and ethos e.g. US meat entering the UK market which has been fed antibiotics and hormones to promote growth The EU as an organisation is too large, and affecting change for the betterment of a nation is never going to happen as it's too complex, large there are too many competing interests or nations e.g. if the UK wants something changed, it won't get it because there's too much competing influence desire case in point we had to threat leaving and a referendum to be able to control benefits for migrants in our own country An EU superstate is not what we signed up for the EU project has grown from a common trade block to a superstate. Why do all countries need to pass the same laws? What's wrong with just having low tariff trade block? The legislation passed to enable trade has gone too far Freedom of movement means skilled labour leaves countries that need it e.g. Romania and ends up in the UK, Germany, Italy, etc. The Financial Times has an excellent article on this Eastern Europe Migration Freedom of movement is great if you're going to the UK, but people don't want to leave the UK. The idea that people can move anywhere in Europe without a Visa is wonderful if you're from a poorer country, but it is less to no advantage if you're in a richer country and have no plans to leave. The UK is a target of migration due to its high standards of living, free healthcare and in work benefits, which people have used as a reason to move here to get a better life. I don't blame them, I'd do the same, but it is not a balanced benefit of being a member of the EU and the UK's economy is burdened by people moving here fore free healthcare and in work benefits Britain has a strong economy I want us to thrive like Canada, Australia are. I like the idea of independent country that can forge its own path. Admittedly this is wooly and an emotional argument. This is based on fear and is quite controversial Turkey joining the EU means Turkish people coming to the UK, and that concerns me. It feels like the multiculturalism project all over again, where more people arrive and fail to integrate, and we end up with a new generation of disillusioned children that continue to fail to integrate and risk falling prey to extremism. Jobs similar to 1, EU migration undermines the livelihood of the working class in this country, and that means people lose jobs. Bobby from the council estate works at a job for 1 year and gets a pay rise in line with inflation , but Benny from the EU arrives and will take minimum wage because he's new and will take anything suddenly Bobby is too expensive and Benny is more attractive. Is this even possible? Most likely illegal? We've all read horror stories of places like Sports Direct and Amazon's warehouses being scumbags towards their employees. There you have it. A list of my reasons for voting for Brexit, and I feel slightly ashamed. Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules. If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us. Happy ing","conclusion":"Britain should leave the EU"}
{"id":"94f6651b-8eb4-4364-9842-29fbb8016120","argument":"The hate is real just now it was cited as a nother reason to despise Trump but it is actually pretty sweet you can get properly loaded pizzas that would otherwise be impossible to eat manually like a salami pepperoni sucuk etc, extra cheese, fresh tomato, onions, peppers and garlic , and portion control is much easier I personally don't care about weight, but there is only so much money to go around . If you like to eat while surfing the whole deal keeps your mouse and keyboard clean as well. Granted, this is a knotty one. I don't expect to be converted, but give it a good try","conclusion":"I think eating pizza with a knife and fork is absolutely fine."}
{"id":"6a49da0f-b368-4ffe-a3b9-49ac29f10bc7","argument":"Powering India\u2019s growth: India has set off on an ambitious mission, a mission to provide electricity to 18,000 villages which are still in darkness after almost 7 decades of independence. PM Modi, in his Independence Day speech announced that all remaining villages shall be electrified within 1000 days.The new Government has focused on holistic and long term structural improvements in the sector, with a focus on achieving 24X7 power for all.","conclusion":"Modi-led government is clocking over a year at the wheel. 1. Make in India To facilitate investment, boost research & development R&D, ensure product originality and create skill-based jobs by establishing industrial sector; major national programme was started by Narendra Modi. Modi has reached out to the world with his idea of \u2018Make in India\u2019 and it has generated positive response from foreign companies."}
{"id":"8600d393-58c4-47f3-ae73-d2a262202df2","argument":"Immunity would only be for the period while a politician is in office. After serving office, wrong doing would be fully prosecuted, accountability maintained, and justice served.","conclusion":"Immunity is definite, and holds politicians accountable for their offenses and crimes after office:"}
{"id":"f3ecfb82-a7ff-40d5-a000-0cd3ca9063ab","argument":"A common viewpoint I have repeatedly heard is face to face communication is being replaced by other means of communication involving technology texting, video chat etc. I disagree for the following reasons. Social media is mostly used for catching up with news and events, not to socialize Many people seem to think social media is a replacement for actually meeting up with people. However, I believe that social media is mostly used to look at news and what other people are up to, rather than talking to others. Statistically, only 3.5 of our time on social media is used socializing, People spending all their time in public on their phones when with friends are uncommon I've heard of this before people say we're too busy on our phones to talk to friends but how common is this? I feel like this is being skewed by conformation bias we're more likely to notice people doing this than people not doing this. I feel that when people do use their phones in public, it's mostly when they are alone, not when they are with other people. As well as this, I feel that when people do use their phones when with friends, it's used in a way to contribute to the discussion, such as showing people funny posts they had seen on Facebook, rather than just keeping it to themselves. People say we don't communicate with strangers anymore but we never did An argument I keep hearing is how we socialize less with strangers in public because of technology. I don't think this is a new thing at all people have used many different things in the past to avoid socializing with strangers magazines, books, newspapers etc. It seems that we naturally only like talking to people we know, and will make excuses to avoid contact with strangers. So there's my view. It'll be interesting to see if my mind will be changed on any of these points. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Technology is not replacing face-to-face communication"}
{"id":"91b3fd45-6554-4982-bf06-c7993914e141","argument":"The Guatemala Syphilis Trial was conducted on prisoners without their informed consent and resulted in at least 83 deaths. This is another example of the US's performance of unethical activity.","conclusion":"The US has seen too many national incidents of rights being violated and violence taking innocent lives. It cannot police the world if it fails to police itself."}
{"id":"20136507-cf3b-4bb6-9b01-1368ec5b8852","argument":"Human bodies weren\u2019t designed to process animal flesh, so all the excess fat and cholesterol from a meat based diet can make us sick and in most cases lead to death. According to nutrition expert T. Colin Campbell, the director of the Cornell China Oxford Project on Nutrition, Health, and Environment, \u201cIn the next ten years, one of the things you\u2019re bound to hear is that animal protein is one of the most toxic nutrients of all that can be considered.\u201d If you want to be unhealthy eating meat and drinking cow puss go ahead but studies show that humans are not meant to eat animals. Unlike humans, carnivorous animals in the wild virtually NEVER develop heart disease, cancer, diabetes, strokes, or obesity. Please leave the footnote below the following line, but remember to delete this sentence by replacing it with the body of your post. Thank you","conclusion":"People who don't practice a vegan diet will die from meat consumption."}
{"id":"98a80285-25b2-4dc6-8c23-3afa4e9b534c","argument":"First of all let me start of by saying that I believe and accept that depression is a mental illness and people like Anthony Bourdain were suffering. But I believe that this aspect of suicide does not get enough attention. Bourdain was quoted saying that the only thing that was stopping him from committing suicide was his daughter, but then he took his own life. I hear nothing but nice words for people like him, but I believe that taking your own life is something that should be more widely criticized when you have young kids his daughter is 11 depending on you. It seems to me it's extremely selfish. I would like to hear you're arguments against these two views Suicide is selfish when you leave behind children who depend on you. Criticizing suicide in such situations should be ok and encouraged with the hopes that the criticism, at the least, guilts people into seeking help. I read the rules before posting, but I apologize it violates any of them please let me know and I'll fix any problems as I'm a new poster. I look forward to hearing your views on the topic.","conclusion":"Suicide is a selfish action when you leave behind children who depend on you."}
{"id":"c9b39bf7-bbc8-4b5d-86a5-2e1514659ecf","argument":"I've tried dozens of different brands of beers. Corona, Heineken, Belgian and German imports, you name it and unless it's extremely obscure, I've tried it. I've been persistent as well. It's not like I tried each of these once and only had a single mouthful. I've had the famous ones Stella, Corona etc on multiple occasions and in large quantities when playing such games as beer pong and the like. They all taste so bad. I don't understand how anyone could like beer. I've seen many people have their first beer and not one of them has ever liked it. I feel like it's a social stigma to not like beer and people are peer pressured subconsciously and not so subconsciously sometimes to make themselves think they like it. Please try to avoid the argument that it's just personal preference. I don't find it particularly compelling as I've seen hundreds maybe 100 people try their first beer and hate it but eventually grow to drink it habitually at parties and such. I couldn't think why anyone would prefer it to water or a nice glass of OJ. And no, no one is getting drunk off beer. You'd need 10 beers in an hour to get any kind of drunk. If you want to get drunk, have a few shots. Yes shots are disgusting but they get the job done quickly .","conclusion":"I really hate the taste of beer and don't think anyone truly likes it, at least when they first started drinking it."}
{"id":"28fdca91-2364-43fb-a633-08ff962dfc79","argument":"Nationalism reinforces the existence of essentially arbitrary nation-states. Nations form by comparing one group against an \u2018other\u2019, which can range from a small ethnic population to the rest of the world. These false divisions of humanity have been the basis for violence, war, instability and trade barriers that increase human misery. Nationalism has perpetuated those divisions and fuels the basis for conflict through continued dehumanising of \u201cother\u201d groups.","conclusion":"Nationalism reinforces the existence of essentially arbitrary nation-states. Nations form by compar..."}
{"id":"56634849-3984-435e-87e0-03c08e63914d","argument":"I'd been thinking about the muted responses to Eminem's most recent album, additionally to Kanye's muted response to his. Previously, Kanye had never really released an album that wasn't critically acclaimed. Eminem is 45 and Kanye is 41. With the exception of Jay Z, who at 48 released a critically acclaimed album last year, 4 44, I can't think of too many successful, well liked rappers in their middle age. Snoop, LL Cool J, Ice Cube, Ludacris they're all known for being actors or personalities now more than rappers. When they release albums, it's kind of seen as a novelty. The ones that are the hottest with fans and critics now seem to be folks like Drake 31 , Kendrick Lamar 31 , Cardi B 25 , Migos all 20s , and a lot of dudes with Lil in their name in their 20s except for Lil Wayne, who is 35 and maybe retired. Compare this to pop. Now pop places a lot of emphasis on youth, for sure, but Madonna had one of her best loved albums out at 40 Ray Of Light . Cher had a massive hit in Believe at the age of 52 The Maroon 5 guys are all still popular and pushing 40 now. Country? Full of old people that are still treated with relevance. Hell, most of it is kinda old people. Willie, Johnny, Dolly, Kenny. Rock? Aerosmith came roaring back in 1993, all in their mid forties with a huge album that got tons of MTV airtime much to my chagrin at the time . Same with Meatloaf. The Red Hot Chili Peppers are still popular, and they're all old as dirt. U2 released one of their best albums 20 years after their debut. Now, I don't know why hip hop is so different. Maybe because it's the current genre with the most relevance to youth today, it's the coolest, so therefore the audience is mostly teens, twentysomething, some thirtysomethings and anyone who at least wants to be cutting edge. Maybe it's still relatively new, so the genre or culture behind it including record labels, marketing, audiences, historians, etc don't know how to treat older rappers and hip hop artists who still want to produce music in their forties and up. I don't know, this is what I think, and change my view. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Hip-Hop is mostly for the young and hungry"}
{"id":"570987ef-34af-4dab-ab16-3a4df259ca33","argument":"The mind is an emergent property of the brain, evidenced by changes in the mind relating to physical or chemical changes in the brain like tumours or damage or hormonal imbalances and by the apparent disappearance of the mind at the cessation of brain activity.","conclusion":"The mind is not the soul, despite what the parent claim implies."}
{"id":"e84c60a3-ef8f-4a55-9aed-4ffd321cd1ca","argument":"The healthcare reforms that mainstream feminism focuses on are ones that are most relevant to white women. This causes the healthcare issues that women of colour are disproportionately harmed by to be ignored.","conclusion":"This issues of women of colour are ignored by the feminist movement."}
{"id":"9d102944-4908-4db6-91e3-457cee6051b6","argument":"I am a christian examining my beliefs. I've been pondering for quite a long time to get here. First I will detail the principals and then the line of reasoning that results from these principals and God's actions that lead me to this view. For the purposes of this discussion, let us assume that God is real and his actions described about him real. PRINCIPALS 1 In a deterministic or near certain system, awareness of the outcome of an action places responsibility for that outcome on the person acting If I throw a ball, aware that it will hit my brother in the face, I am responsible for harming him. Even if I didn't want to harm him, I set into motion the chain of events that lead to him being harmed, with full awareness that it very likely would harm him. Everything behaved as expected, therefore I am to blame. I feel this is true for even uncertain outcomes, such as drunk driving you're more likely to not kill someone than to kill them, but I still believe drunk drivers should be held accountable . But for the sake of arguing about the meaningful systems, we'll just confine it to near certain systems. 2 Free will is an illusion I think this is the weakest part of the basis of this belief, but for the life of me I cannot disprove it. Here's where the issue is I can point to no part of myself or my decision making that is not either Nature how I was created Nurture the world shaping me as a result of how it was created Or entirely random. What can exist besides Cause And Effect and Randomness that can be free will? I can think of nothing, imagine nothing. 3 Punishment with the goal of reformation and killing to end a threat do everything good thing eye for an eye or escalation punishment do. The only thing eye for an eye or escalation punishment do more is increase suffering. Pretend you are a programmer that has programmed some AIs to live in a digital society in your computer. They're assigned random attributes, and respond to stimuli. Some harm the other AI. So you issue stimuli that adjust their attributes, shifting them toward more harmonious behavior. Perhaps these are rather advanced AI, and see how their behavior harms others and the programmed empathy compels them to take steps to adjust their own attributes, now no longer harming others. Some AI, however, have attributes so far away from harmonious that they cannot be influenced enough to reach a harmonious state. They continue to harm the other AI. They also have a very low empathy attribute, and so will not care they are harming others, and will not change themselves. So you delete them now you have a harmonious AI society. However God, as described biblical, doesn't do that. He sections these AI off into a different zone and maxes out their misery stat, knowing that this will continue in perpetuity. Whether or not this is a reasonable punishment is beyond the scope of this discussion. What value, aside from increasing misery suffering, is derived from the second course of action? What function does this serve? 4a Deletion satisfies all the demands of justice OR 4b Experiencing all the evil one has done, followed by deletion, satisfies all the demands of justice, OR 4c Justice beyond deletion or reformation oriented punishment is pointless. That is, there is no point in inflicting retaliatory harm if it does not either reform or remove the threat. 5 Where all other things are equal, taking the option that involves more suffering for other parties is wrong. Let's say I can give my sister an ice creme cone one of two ways break her nose and hand it to her, or just hand it to her. It is wrong to do the first action. Or, in the case of the above example if all things aside from measure of suffering are equal, it would be morally wrong to chose eternal torture over deletion as a consequence for your wrong doing creations. 6 God could have chosen not to create us I assume there was no external force twisting God's arm into creating us. If there was, then the responsibility would transfer to this entity, via principle 1. 7 God could have created a world where evil was an action never taken I struggle to see what could prevent him from engineering a world where only non evil creatures exist, if free will is an illusion. LINE OF REASONING If assumptions 1 6 are true and 7 was false, then God was aware of the wrong doing, created it, and everything is working as he knew it would. Therefore, all the evil we see in the world, is the world working as intended. Therefore, he is responsible for all evil. And if assumptions 1 7 are true, then the above point is true, and God chose to create eternal torture hell purely for purposes of maxing the misery experience . Not to satisfy justice, mind you, according to 4a, 4b. I do not know what other motivations there might be, aside from personal satisfaction the sadistic desire to inflict misery. So, my friends, show me where this horrible conclusion is wrong? I've been trying to disprove it for quite a while, since I reached it, and have failed. Yet, I don't believe it's water tight. I certainly hope its not. gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than just downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Please eternal torture Hell is the result of the biblical God desiring it to exist, and is responsible for all sin"}
{"id":"ed61611d-61fa-4836-938a-379f0b238ba9","argument":"Equality is one of a number of concepts referenced regularly in Western political discourse others being freedom, fairness and so on , but I'm increasingly troubled by the pursuit of it in politics. Usually people dismiss this objection as a confusion between equality of outcome and equality of opportunity. The former is something I rarely hear supported, but is at least unambiguous in its meaning everyone has the same life quality in terms of health, wealth, education etc . Only people with a view of the world heavily slanted towards nurture believe this is possible, and most accept it is beyond the remit of government to achieve it, so far as I can tell. But equality of opportunity, despite appearing to be meaningful at first glance, is actually nonsense, or at least as ambiguous as equality . Does this mean starting everyone from a same footing which would involve compensating for background and genetic discrepancies , or simply applying the same provision to everyone? I don't view it as within the power of the state to arrange human affairs so that every child can have an equal chance of prospering at school, and even if it was possible I think the destruction of freedom and family life it would entail would be deeply wounding. On the other hand spending the same resources on every child seems equally callous squandering talent at the top while potentially not allocating enough to the disadvantaged at the bottom. As for the legal system, equality could seemingly apply to equal rules applied universally regardless of background factors class, character etc or attempting to compensate for those factors in the name of fairness. I think there's probably elements of both approaches in our legal system, which limits equality to a principle of not being spuriously discriminatory on grounds of race, sex and so on. I suppose I'm more of a basic standards kind of guy, believing there should be a minimum amount of education, health and housing that the state should endeavour to provide, but otherwise citizens should be left to it. That seems to me to be justifiable for reasons of decency rather than equality. .","conclusion":"Equality of outcome is malign; equality of opportunity is nonsense"}
{"id":"7d9e3e42-fa9f-45ad-aa83-7f88c5d690a0","argument":"Seriously, try it. Go to CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, NBC News, ABC News not a single one will have a Climate Change centered headline, and if they do, it won't be there for more than 24 hours. And you know why? Because 'news' is something that happens like a surprise. The 'surprise' will be on the news for 24 hours because it keeps people's attention, but by the time 24 hours is up the draw to it has lessened and people won't pay as much attention to it which reduces viewing of the new platform's website, TV channel, etc. So of course the main stream media won't cover it, because it's a long term issue. That makes sense, but at the same time that means people won't be aware of it and will be much more skeptical of it when a headline about climate change does become relevant for a few days. I personally believe that Climate Change is the greatest threat to humanity long term outside of possible Nuclear Wars, and it's rather ironic that new sources 'dedicated' to informing the public barely cover an issue that is killing and will kill thousands to millions of people around the world. So please, change my view the main stream media is at fault for the lack of awareness and care about climate change in the United States of America.","conclusion":"People don't care enough about climate change in the USA because the main stream media doesn't cover it."}
{"id":"ce4c85a6-a32e-4dd5-9a66-15f2278df037","argument":"Certain rules limit freedom and are unethical. For example, in most countries you cannot educate your child yourself, but you have to send them into the government controlled education system because the majority wishes so; but instead of sending just their own children there, they also voted that you have to too.","conclusion":"It's a good thing that individuals cannot control which rules can become dominant than others. Politicians use laws as tools to harm people for their own benefit."}
{"id":"88428789-a87b-4e18-8b68-02c523c2d74c","argument":"This regulation made overpopulation worse. Overpopulation is the main cause of many major problems around the world.","conclusion":"Religion has tried to control women's bodies by banning abortion, birth control and contraception."}
{"id":"72d3e7a9-f54e-42bc-9df0-dd7900326da4","argument":"A study established a psychological profile of self identified alt-right individuals and found that they exhibited extreme levels of overt intergroup bias, including the blatant dehumanization of racial minorities.","conclusion":"According to the Associated Press alt-right is a political grouping mixing racism, white nationalism, anti-Semitism and populism."}
{"id":"d965c20f-fd98-4b86-a4ef-5653bd2e42cc","argument":"The main problem facing Prop's entire case is that this is simply none of the government's business. What people eat or don't eat is a private matter and the intervention of the nanny state would have us all on a diet of compulsory cabbage and nut roast. People can be grown up about this, and where they're children, their parents can be grown up about this. The entire health and education system already exists to tell us to eat our greens and cycle to work; for those people who chose not to do so, they have a range of diet option and advertising tell them what those options are. The government regularly runs healthy eating advertising campaigns, and they often focus on obesity such as the Change4Life campaign, so there is plenty of opportunity to get the other side across.1 It's free speech, it's a free choice for the consumer, it's called the market. Prop seems to think that consumers are idiots, nobody believes that a diet for a couple of weeks will make them look like a super model any more than buying a pair of speedos will. However, they can assess the different products, decide which one they trust more, do further research if they want to and then choose. 1 Politics.co.uk Staff, \u2018Anti-obesity campaign launched\u2019, Politics.co.uk, 2 January 2009,","conclusion":"It's my body and I'll starve if I want to"}
{"id":"29156da8-151b-40f4-b98b-4e1f18de8669","argument":"The original Azor Ahai obtained his heroic status, and forged Lightbringer, in the middle of an invasion of the Others. This indicates that the rebirth of Azor Ahai should happen once the Others have invaded, not several years before.","conclusion":"The prophecy states that Azor Ahai will only be reborn after the end of a \"long summer\" and when \"an evil, cold darkness descends upon the world\". At the time of Daenerys' birth\/rebirth neither had come to pass."}
{"id":"e6b286a0-7ba7-4901-a696-59456e37b5e3","argument":"note My native language is not english and I do not live in the US. I am spanish. As you may know, spanish parlament and president is being chosen this weekend sunday 20th . Some political parties have agreed that euthanasia needs to be regulated . That's because in Spain Euthanasia is not legal, but there are some ways you could definitely neglect medical assistance and therefore, intentionally die. Euthanasia will probably be partially legalized soon, as 3 4 of the main parties are willing to do so. I am no catholic or christian. I do not believe in God. But obviously I will try to understand your point, lol. I am actively in favour of euthanasia, of course with intense regulation. Note that, as I am not a native speaker, I wont be able to use a specific vocabulary. I will try to make me understand. Sorry in advance. I just wanted to know what points could you confront to my weak opinion. It will also make me realise some problems I didn't come up with before. I just dont use the term euthanasia but dignified death . I will use euthanasia for the sake of communication. Anyways. Firstly, I have to say that the main base of my position is the complete freedom of an individual to decide about his her own life. That's important in many ways and needs to be cleared out. There is no freedom where there is any kind of coercitive sitouation. That means, on the one hand, that the decision must be taken on the individual's own initiative. On the other hand, it means that the path of dignified death is not a decision you can make in a moment you have a clear psychogical disadvantage . That been said, I just have to add that obviously, there must be legal mechanisms to make noticeable that you intentionally want to have a dignified death, as its exists for organ donors nowadays. Familiar decisions must be considered, but with reservation. I do prefer debating on the moral political matter. I do recognise the right for a dignified death because I recognise the evidence of lives which are not deserved to be lived. woa shitty english . I recognise the right to end a life of pure pain and suffering. There is no right that could justify a government taking that decision for us, as long as there is full consent. Obvious problems need to be aware of What is full consent? What about the doctor? What if ? And those problems are real. That is all subject of regulation, but feel free to cmv in those too. Sorry if this post was a mess. I just got out of an exam and am literally writing like shit.","conclusion":"I think euthanasia should be legal"}
{"id":"b010ab5f-b37c-44a2-bc8e-d1649207572b","argument":"The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas is a 1973 short story written by Ursula K. Le Guin. You can look up and read the short story yourself \u2013 it is only a few pages long \u2013 but you can also find a very short summary on the Wikipedia page Essentially, the utopian society in the city of Omelas is maintained through the abject suffering of a single child \u2013 everyone in Omelas learns of the child eventually, but most do nothing to stop it. The rest decide to leave Omelas after learning of the child. I think that when many people first read this story, they are very quick to say that they would be one of the ones who walk away from Omelas. However, if you look at a very similar real world situation in the meat industry, you find that most people are not really willing to walk away. The justifications the people of Omelas tell themselves to rationalize not releasing the child are almost identical to the justifications people use in support of factory farming. People in Omelas tell themselves that it would be pointless to free the child because it is too broken to understand freedom, warmth, food \u2013 and so it should remain caged. They tell themselves that the child\u2019s suffering brings about their joy, and so the child should suffer. You can find people using these exact justifications in support of factory farming. Although I\u2019ve never heard a persuasive ethical argument in favor of factory farms, if I assume that one exists that seems like it would be further evidence that most people would not stop eating meat i.e., would not walk away from Omelas. In this case, I think what would convince me in the factory farming example is evidence that most people find veganism persuasive and would actually follow through with it. Simply finding factory farming distasteful isn\u2019t enough \u2013 everyone in Omelas finds the treatment of the child distasteful and will furrow their brow, but even then, only a few choose to walk away. Many people will grant that veganism is persuasive but will also then not follow through with being a vegan for a variety of reason some valid, others not so much . Now I don\u2019t really mean to make this all about factory farming because the form of exploitation in Omelas is really common, I just think that it is the most similar situation that is common. My view is that if even in situations that seems so morally unambiguous and easy to walk away from as factory farming most people do not walk away, in situations that are less clear and easy even less people would walk away. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Most people would not walk away from Omelas"}
{"id":"35d188f4-918d-4555-861f-29d820d96d10","argument":"If you don't tip because you want to change the paradigm, not just be a cheap ass, you aren't accomplishing anything by giving the owner his her full pay and stiffing the server. There are PLENTY of restaurants without servers, go to those restaurants. It seems there are a few restaurants in each market that don't allow tipping, patronize them. Make sure you let the owner this is the reason you chose the other restaurant. Stiffing a server is playing the system. Of course if the restaurant owner has to pay more to servers, prices go up. And I agree, it is a con, if something costs 10.00 and you know you are expected to pay a 20 tip, they are expecting you to pay 12.00. But if tipping goes away, that 10.00 meal will be 12.00.","conclusion":"If you don't tip because you believe the business owner should pay well enough so tipping isn't required, if you patronize that establishment but don't tip, you are reinforcing this model and not changing it."}
{"id":"3ee8f7dc-a074-454a-a905-4aa1b127b11f","argument":"By withdrawing before the job is done, the United States would give the impression that it is an unreliable friend and ally in the war on terror and on any front.","conclusion":"An early withdrawal from Iraq would hurt US credibility in the War on Terror"}
{"id":"07858aef-298c-4cee-8bd4-77016a6eeb49","argument":"A marriage contract acts as a formalised public commitment that is backed by sanctions Macedo, p. 94 It helps make a couple's commitment to each other more credible, and therefore the relationship feel more secure to each spouse.","conclusion":"The legally-recognised nature of marriage can provide people with a sense of security - that they are both committed to a planned future together."}
{"id":"99f8b762-3ece-4414-b3a5-ca3beeee8240","argument":"Disclaimer Rape is wrong, statutory or otherwise. I don't dispute that a 36 year old teacher having sexual contact with an 8th grade student is rape. I am not trivializing rape. However, given the serious effect of a sex crime conviction on someone's life, I think the defendant should not be penalized for not inspecting the birth certificate of every person the have sexual contact with. For example, let's say you are at a bar. In most jurisdictions that I know of, you have to be 21 to be in the bar after a certain time. If you are there, you should be over 21, and certainly over the age of consent. If there is a minor there with a fake, and you go home with them, you just committed rape, and your life is over. I think that's not justice. Another example you can be anything you want online. There are a lot of 16 year olds out there who want to experiment with sex. One of them goes on to a site and tries to meet someone for a hookup. The kid says they are 18 or over. You have no way of knowing they are not, and you try to make plans. Congrats, you just solicited sex with a minor. Mommy and daddy find out, boom, you're going to jail. I'm not defending the behavior of the rapist. I would argue that both the random hookup in the bar and the online solicitation are very irresponsible and stupid but I also believe that they shouldn't be illegal and ruin your life. In both of those cases, especially the first one where the victim actually committed a crime fake id , there would be strong evidence for the defendant to believe that the victim was over the age of consent.  edit punctuation. edit Revised title, because I'm an idiot In order to be convicted of statutory rape, the state should have to prove the defendant had a reason to suspect the victim was under the age of consent.","conclusion":"In order to be convicted of statutory rape, the state should have to prove the defendant had a reason to suspect the victim was over the age of consent."}
{"id":"7832df9c-b054-47b6-889b-ee832a487476","argument":"Research has shown that of the 43 large retail or supermarket companies that filed for bankruptcy since the start of 2015, more than 40% of them were owned by private equity firms.","conclusion":"There is sufficient research to suggest that private equity firms drive struggling businesses to bankruptcy."}
{"id":"0c37c4c9-d63f-4aff-bd96-9b22189df32c","argument":"Clinton was leading in nearly every pre-election nationwide poll and even in most swing state polls. If she couldn't win with that lead, she is unlikely to in another campaign.","conclusion":"Hillary Clinton was nominated for presidency in 2016 and lost to Donald Trump."}
{"id":"8bba0116-b0c2-4dbd-878e-d334b1626727","argument":"In Ukraine, the collectivisation policy was enforced, entailing extreme crisis and contributing to the famine of 3.5 millions Ukrainians","conclusion":"In USSR, after collectivization there was a major fall in agricultural produce."}
{"id":"302334d7-04f0-4a17-97b2-d40668f28fea","argument":"If a woman carries the child to term and then gives it up for adoption she will suffer further emotional trauma from the knowledge that she was unable to care for the child that she carried for 9 months and developed strong hormonal connections to.","conclusion":"The harms resulting from people unable to access abortion are well studied and proven"}
{"id":"aedb0006-543a-478c-9c6c-9a06be231c9e","argument":"I am posting this because I have seen too many people claim that the United States Guard Guard is not a branch of the United States Military. It should be noted that I myself have never served in the military, but I have great respect for those who have served. I will admit that the Coast Guard does not generally get involved in wars, and is part of the Department of Homeland Security rather than part of the Department of Defence, but it is still a branch of the Armed Forces and is still governed by the Uniform Code of Military Justice. I realize that the branches often pretend not to like each other, but to say that the Coast Guard is not part of the military is taking it too far. I realize that this post might be too specific for this subreddit, but I feel that we need to have a rational debate about this because the Coast Guard does a lot of work.","conclusion":"The United States Coast Guard is a branch of the United States Military."}
{"id":"d93ec8ac-37a6-4d7c-9cc8-367ff1c9f789","argument":"Futurology analyzes current trends and predicts their impact on our future. In Futurology class, students would study artificial general intelligence virtual reality, nanotechnology, cryptocurrency crowdsourcing, robotics, 3D printing, quantum computing, biotechnology, anti aging, programmable matter, basic income and space exploration. Futurology forces us to predict the many possible future outcomes, so we can move toward the future that benefits us most. By debating future problems, students would be better prepared to solve or avoid them. Future s studies helps develop imagination and outside the box thinking because there are very few right or wrong answers. Students studying Futurology would be better prepared to build world changing technology because they have been studying it. They know it exists, it's potential and problems to avoid.","conclusion":"Futurology, The Study Of The Future, Should Be Taught In High School"}
{"id":"b40191c6-2c83-4569-aaa3-4f92f04928b2","argument":"Now I know this sounds messed up, but I do not believe that donating free rice to a third world country is a good idea. Although it sounds good in the short term, less starvation, it ultimately just temporarily hids a problem. When a third world nation is supplied with free food it can distribute to its people any form of farming or other food production of that country suffers. If a farmer is producing rice and selling it in said country, their livelihood will be ruined by rice which is freely available to the population. If any kind of donations are made, it should be money. This money could be used to subsidize farmers of the third world countries which would allow cheaper food prices, greater food production, and more employment opportunities from the larger food industry of these countries.","conclusion":"Free product charities, such as freerice.org, are generally bad for struggling third world countries."}
{"id":"0f44d781-e921-4bf2-864e-5d8d877d5151","argument":"NOTE I understand that point differential is not the PRIMARY tiebreaker in the sports mentioned below . Before I go into my view, allow me to define some terms. Major American sports I am referring to are football, basketball and baseball. Tiebreakers When 2 teams have the same record, in general, they go by head to head match up s . If that is tied, then they use different tiers of determining who will win the tie breaker in standings. The point differential system would be akin to what major European futbol soccer leagues use goals scored vs goals allowed . My view is that point differential would make the game more entertaining. If a team is getting blown out, they have incentive to stay competitive and try because they do not want to increase their PD. Likewise, a team with a lead will continue to put their foot on the pedal to increase their PD. Both teams will continue to put maximum effort, which will lead to a far superior product. Teams playing with more effort consistently will increase scoring and competitiveness. This will draw more eyes to the screen. Ratings would increase, which provides more money to affiliates and the leagues. This is a basic outline of my view. Please change my view. Some evidence that may change my view is how PD would not benefit specific leagues due to how different soccer is compared to the NFL NBA MLB. Thanks gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Point differential in American major sports is a far superior tiebreaker than head to head match up."}
{"id":"b7321f4c-8ef3-48dd-9ecb-927341cdf6ed","argument":"Selective breeding can also be used to breed out negative characteristics, be they superficial or more serious.","conclusion":"Selective breeding can be beneficial for the animals themselves, not merely their human counterparts."}
{"id":"c36b1b11-8c36-4c69-82fc-3013cb0548e5","argument":"First, bottom line here, black people love Hillary and the polls prove this, so obviously she can't be racist QED. Further, she never actually did say Obama was a Kenyan Muslim, that is a myth. It was Mark Penn, her strategic coordinator, who introduced the race baiting vectors of attack on President Obama to her campaign. Yes she knew, but she isn't the one who actually did spread the rumors that Obama was unamerican due to his ethnic background. Last, for the superpredators thing and then the way she spoke to BLM activists, well, if they're not respectful what do they expect? If you interrupt somebody's speech at a posh private function calling for them to apologize for calling black kids superpredators who need to be brought to heel, they're probably just going to ignore you while the bourgeoisie crowd hisses at you. That's life. And the Gandhi joke was a long time ago and she already admitted it was lame sic . So basically just give Hillary a break nobody is perfect and she legit for real carries hot sauce in her bag so she can't be all bad I bet she has the best hot sauces too. I heard she has like hundreds of them. She would have been such a good President. z Nothing Hillary did matters now. She lost because of Russia, not because she cheated or lied and she has not lied in any significant way publicly more than a couple dozen times, which is actually good for such a long career.  Hillary did nothing wrong and she would have made an incredible President possibly even better than Obama. Hillary was actually very honest.","conclusion":"People make too much of Hillary's role in the mainstreaming of Birtherism, and too readily accept the false equivalence of saying that she is as racist as Trump because of this and also her \"superpredator\" remarks and racist jokes about Mahatma Gandhi."}
{"id":"f1461399-f63f-4127-ac94-76ee3de8b64b","argument":"A study on rhesus monkeys concluded that different sexes have different toy preferences, with females favouring dolls. However, a similar study on vervet monkeys found that males played with stuffed dogs significantly more than toy cars. These two studies seem to cancel each other out.","conclusion":"Many of the studies that show boys and girls have innately different toy preferences are flawed."}
{"id":"1dc4d969-993f-440e-a7e7-0479259136bb","argument":"Disclaimer I'm just hoping you all sort of get the point, I am not good at voicing my opinions, my views are observation and judgement out of experience. What is better? What I mean when I say better is that it is more humanitarian. The ring wingers are more likely to support inhumane policies, such as the deportation of immigrants, and unfairness towards minority groups. They are more nationalistic, and more likely to support war. The far right's embodiment is Adolf Hitler. The craziest of right wing supporters are racists, war hawks, and the extremely religious. While on the craziest of left wing we would get hippies, nature conservationists, and supporters for equality.","conclusion":"The far left wing on the political spectrum is more humane and equal than being far right wing. So left-wing ideas are always going to be better for society overall."}
{"id":"7fbd94d3-f263-425e-8141-a6abee848a47","argument":"Wakanda cannot use its medical technology to help other countries on a widespread level without installing that technology in those countries, thus effectively placing vibranium in the hands of other countries.","conclusion":"If Wakanda opens itself up to the world and shares its technology, this necessarily involves giving other countries access to vibranium."}
{"id":"8b7d00c4-58d5-461a-9db0-fb1ee39ee8b6","argument":"God as traditionally conceived is unlimited in doing anything he desires to do. However, God only desires to do things that accord with his nature. God's nature is utterly perfect, which entails that God is utterly rational. As such, God cannot commit an incoherent action, since such an action would be irrational, and thus go against his nature and desire. This is only a \"rule\" insofar as it tells us how God will or will not act. It does not bind him in the sense that it inhibits his desires.","conclusion":"Omnipotence means that God can do anything any \"thing\". However, not every described action is coherent, and thus not really a thing. For example, God cannot create a two-sided triangle, because such a described action is incoherent. Likewise, it may be incoherent for free will to exist without the possibility of evil. Thus an omnipotent God may be unable to conceive of a world with free will and without evil due to its incoherence."}
{"id":"98196521-03e7-4715-89fa-4c54a5296678","argument":"Cars and motorcycles can be magically altered to suit the needs of the magical community.","conclusion":"A lot of wizarding transportation options are magical improvements on Muggle transportation systems."}
{"id":"785af0f9-11a7-4c26-b912-938f659e909c","argument":"Edit Considering that there is a strong link WHO finding shared by u DeleteriousEuphuism between poverty and mental health, my view would favour rich people over poor and would not be fair. It's just like when you join the army or a job. If a person does bad at a psychology test, then he should be allowed to vote. But if he outright fails, he should be allowed to vote, but his vote should not be counted as valid. The process should can be automated and secrecy can be maintained. I think most people who vote, sometimes entire communities, are mentally ill and should not be allowed to influence how other people live their lives in any way whatsoever. There are obvious problems in terms of implementing it, but it's the same case as not allowed someone with a serious viral infection to travel, in that it has strong scientific basis and is not just a random process. I am not suggesting that mentally ill people will make other people mentally ill, but the fact that it is possible to scientifically measure and determine basic sanity.","conclusion":"People who require\/are undergoing mental treatment should not be allowed to vote."}
{"id":"46ad391b-e13a-4b32-8688-f79bef44c9ea","argument":"When I first joined Reddit, I hated SRS because of the huge circlejerk about it. I didn't read the posts I automaically assumed everything was just bad I couldn't even tell you what it was about. Now that I actually checked it out, many of the post are legitimate, and some make me genuinely outraged As a black male, posts like this, this, this, and this are legitimately racist, misogynistic, pedophilic, or downright offensive. Sure, a few posts might be taken out of context, but even posts that are taken out of context can still be considered offensive. I think the majority of the outrage against SRS is from racist, sexist people otherwise, I really don't see why the subreddit gets the flak it does. So please . Edit fixed the 3rd link. It should be different than the 4th. Edit 2 I awarded a partial delta change, but my main view is this Many not all of the posts are legitimate, and there is a reason to be outaged. The subreddit isn't the epitome if Reddit's evil like the circlejerk against it suggests.","conclusion":"ShitRedditSays isn't a bad subreddit, and the majority of the posts are legitimate."}
{"id":"8b054ab3-7bda-4143-b496-d4682d97d463","argument":"I think NPR has made a large mistake in refusing to label Trump\u2019s \u201cfalsehoods\u201d as lies as it confirms stereotypes of center left organizations being unwilling to take a firm stand when faced with strong opposition, and please  makes me think NPR stands in danger of moderating itself into irrelevance. I was really annoyed to read this article from NPR And feel their follow up was worse I was one of the 100s of emails they received expressing anger about their legalistic attitude in distinguishing \u2018falsehoods\u2019 from \u2018lies\u2019 in order to avoiding driving people away. The quotes from the head of their news dept, The more the administration yells at us the calmer our presentation should be. We should avoid being baited into fights that seem to confirm the claim that we are at war, and standards editor, \u201c We are not using the L word, adding that any requests for exceptions must first be approved by senior newsroom executives,\u201d actively alarm me because they seem to be avoiding the facts on the ground and give the impression that the senior echelon at NPR doesn\u2019t regard the current situation between the president and the media seriously. mods please let me know if I need to make the  statement more focused, still trying to sort through why this irritates me. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I think NPR has made a large mistake in refusing to label Trump's \"falsehoods\" as lies"}
{"id":"063fc010-d3ad-445a-9676-384d0d2a2aaf","argument":"Human Behavior refers to the full range of physical and emotional behaviors that humans engage in and are influenced by culture, attitudes, emotions, values, etc. not just by being a man, so bad behavior like bullying and sexual harassment is also caused by other aspects and can include all genders.","conclusion":"By completely ignoring the online bullying that takes place at the hands of woman, it can lead to men feeling personally attacked and backed into a corner for crimes they haven't committed themselves."}
{"id":"fafc63dc-3507-4e15-bdc0-b01ed371baca","argument":"It is sad that after so many school shootings, we're still having this debate. Dying kids should be a red line for all.","conclusion":"Having fewer guns in circulation means society is generally safer."}
{"id":"0774b272-5ac1-4aee-b1f1-79affac48bc5","argument":"Almost all of those who made allegations against Holtzclaw were black females who had criminal histories of drug abuse, prostitution or outstanding warrants. They were very unlikely to be believed by the police, especially when reporting another police officer.","conclusion":"As a police officer, Holtzclaw could be fairly certain that his alleged victims would not report him."}
{"id":"73ede50b-ce3c-4bba-add7-5574f609191d","argument":"Simply put if you rob a store at gunpoint and get caught, you shouldn\u2019t get X amount of time in jail. You should lose a hand, or even a finger. This currently goes under the realm of cruel and unusual punishment, but if people understood the ramifications of illegal activity, and if the punishments were dire, they would think twice about committing the crime. I understand that people in low income societies generally don\u2019t have any other choice, but that doesn\u2019t mean that a store owner, or anyone for that matter, should have to deal with the stress, pain and suffering that come with someone stealing from them. TL DR and conclusion crimes should be dealt with harshly, and obliviously more severely depending on the severity of the crime. I just arbitrarily used the eye for an eye as a scale. You rob a store, you lose a hand. Edit Yeah, the phrase wrongfully convicted has been posted a lot. I considered this. You can't give that hand back. But what about the people who are empirically at fault, and are repeat offenders with no intention of bettering themselves?","conclusion":"If implemented properly, retributive justice would not be a bad idea, as it would heavily reduce crime."}
{"id":"a81ad422-46ea-4fd2-acd2-6cfb0f525419","argument":"First of all, i do not like to believe this because i've been told over and over and over that it isn't true, but i keep seeing more and more evidence of it as the years pass and in fact i feel a bit guilty for actually believing it, therefore this post , and second i'm speaking of average people here, i know there's asexuals and sex addicts, but those are the outliers, not the common case. What i see is that while for men sex is a need , like hunger and all a need that doesn't kill us but instead makes us suffer if unsatisfied , for women it's more of a take it or leave it thing, something they can enjoy but that they don't really need, a nice thing to have but that doesn't really matter much if they don't have it, like, say, chocolate although women would be far less willing to give up chocolate in my experience .","conclusion":"For women, sex is a \"want\" and not a \"need\", please"}
{"id":"c5e269bd-cd67-4c20-a6e6-624744285e74","argument":"Please . I want to help Bernie Sanders by calling voters in early voting states, but my experience calling voters in swing states during the Obama campaign was horrible. Every person I called was sick to death of getting political calls, and more than one person was the grieving spouse of a deceased person I was told to call. Despite my best attempts, I think I failed to help and possibly hurt the Obama campaign. How could I expect to help Bernie by doing the same? While I haven\u2019t been able to find much research on how calling on behalf of a specific candidate affects voting for that candidate, I have found some useful info about how to most effectively encourage people to actually go to the polls Still, these were the same scripts and general message I was using to help Obama, and the people on the other line were still very annoyed. I feel that calling to ask people to vote and trying to convince them to vote for Bernie would be even more annoying to people inundated with calls from strangers.","conclusion":"Calling voters especially those in areas targeted by many groups, like swing\/early-voting states in support of a political candidate just annoys them."}
{"id":"cba8e1bd-0e8a-46d4-a6cd-1fb48152a1b4","argument":"All members of the Spanish royal family are subject to taxation and annually submit Income Tax and Wealth Tax returns.","conclusion":"The civil list beneficiaries of Sweden and Spain are not allowed any tax privileges. Pg.259,245"}
{"id":"82d2587c-f2af-4fb6-92a8-6979fcc99b41","argument":"First off I think being fiscally conservative and socially liberal is a totally legit position, and sometimes the chance presents itself to support a candidate that espouses this view, which I of course very much support. However in an election that is between a socially liberal fiscally liberal candidate, and a socially conservative fiscally conservative candidate, choosing the conservative is wrong and selfish as you are placing more importance on your wallet than the rights of others. I find it unconscionable to endorse the stripping of LGBT rights and women's rights to choose to get lower taxes and a more business friendly economy and don't understand how someone who supports the liberal position on social issues would betray that in the interest of their fiscal conservativism","conclusion":"If you are socially liberal and fiscally conservative, and pick a socially conservative candidate, you are putting money over peoples rights."}
{"id":"10f69682-d099-4751-9896-5eba9125e55c","argument":"The former governor of the Reserve Bank of India resigned midway through his term; many have seen this resignation as a form of protest against the Modi governments increasing influence over the Bank.","conclusion":"Modi has threatened the autonomy of the Reserve Bank of India"}
{"id":"db90118c-6c0f-483b-b50c-3f0de3e7ecd7","argument":"Genetic evolution is a process of adaptation that works on extended periods of time. The initial assumption of considering some traits favourable and other not, could be proven wrong in the long run. Therefore, it would be impossible to discern which trait to keep, as some that we might consider negative now in this peculiar environment and finite time, might be a of a key importance for adaptation in a future environment with different conditions.","conclusion":"No technology is 100% safe; something could go terribly wrong."}
{"id":"8d3b7306-ca78-4287-a71f-8f458db5295a","argument":"Just a thought I am exploring and I can't seem to come up with a meaningful counter. I am not saying we should get rid of the constitution or contracts. Essentially every law passed informally amends the constitution. Having case law and written law is, at best, redundant at worst, strips the branches of necessary powers. Of course only the Sith deal in absolutes, so I cannot say ALL laws and a budding argument. That's a bit arrogant. Premises I strongly agree that justice exists in the spirit of the laws. CA has a hands free texting phone while driving law. Apparently you can dodge a ticket by establishing you were playing with your music player. This ignores the 'spirit' of the law which is to stop distracted driving. So loopholes. Laws can strips courts and juries of their power to 'check' legislative power. Specific crimes may require specific punishments. Three felonies and you're locked away. This is unjust because it does not differentiate felonies. If we can agree that the features of a good law are A. Amendable B. Enforced C. Acceptable D. Known E. Stable Then MANY laws do not fit this criteria and a system that can perpetually fall into a trap where laws cannot fit this criteria must be disposed of. Proposal Get rid of the legislature. Essentially there are two types of laws written and precedent. Precedent is essentially an informal amending of the written law. So Justice can exist without any written Let's bring it home to what Reddit understands. There was a story posted where a guy's wife became addicted to drugs. They had kids they divorced. But because of his State's antiquated laws it assumed his wife got custody and his wages were garnished. Apparently it took him 3 yrs to fight this. This could have been avoided if Draconian laws weren't in place. Objections There will be no creek on the courts or executive. The courts are designed to check the executive. And juries 'check' the courts. Laws establish a society's will. There needs to be an obvious system so Justice is transparent. This happens anyways. Everyone knows murder is wrong. If you stab someone in the head to steal their property, it's redundant having it written it's wrong. If you believe that this person needs it to be obvious it was wrong 1. It did not prevent them from the act and 2. If they committed the act, the result is the same we get them off of the street. A person shouldn't have to arrive in court to know what they did was wrong. Ignorance of the law is no excuse for breaking it. Under the definitions of a good law, it must be known. There is a principle called mens rea, where if you can establish you had 'no idea' you were breaking a law you cannot be held accountable. It shouldn't have to be spelled out that your attention should be on the road. If it has to be, you shouldn't drive. Advocacy groups like the ACLU will still exist. They'll just cite case law. Case law is a muddy mess for the layman, but they'd have to navigate it anyhow. They'd still need an advocate lawyer . Paired with the above licensing, regulations, etc. I'm not going to take the stance that laws restrict the free market. What I will say is the law is pretty impotent when it comes to keeping up with modernity. The Internet is a series of tubes says the man who was once in charge of a subcommittee on technology. Licensing is tricky. But I can say that malfeasance does occur even if an entity is licensed. If your license is pulled business , you reorganize and obtain another. We teach high schoolers that oligopolies are bad for a free market. Comcast's business model damages the free market. We know this without even referencing statutes. Besides, the executive has tremendous judicial power in regulating business. The legislature becomes redundant. What about taxation and budgeting, executive privilege, etc. Honestly, this is moot. Given the 4th estate, checks exist. Apart from the Pao situation, Reddit and other social media are fantastic resources to check governmental power. If the executive somehow is able to turn off the internet, the courts will turn it back on. If the courts and executive agree, the legislature probably would too. Who would appoint judges? Well, they can be elected or we have a 'legislature' type panel that approved appointments, but that would be it's sole function. Unsettled objections A. I see is the massive transfer of government power to two entities. The fix would be national referendum, recall, and proposition. That would have to be amended into the constitution. B. A swiftly moving government can become tyrannical. This is why branches were created in the first place. The works should be gummed up a bit. In this sense, there would be no net gain. But given my other points, this should not prevent moving forward.","conclusion":"written laws are unnecessary, and in some cases, unjust."}
{"id":"7b92bf81-a0f2-47b8-8b69-bed05cf00836","argument":"So, recently I was wondering why monotheistic religions are generally taken so much more seriously than polytheistic religions. After searching around, I came to realize that they could be considered to be talking about different things. Polytheism is just a belief that there are powerful supernatural entities, which even some monotheists believe. Monotheism is a much more specific claim about the nature of reality. The creator. The uncaused causer. Omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent. The alpha and omega. That makes sense, but it doesn't describe Abrahamic religion at all in my experience. These religions often describe God as in conflict with parts religions, ethnicities, the abstract concept of sin of what they claim to be his creation. He takes sides in conflicts, and seems to change his plans based on new information. God, in the stories, never actually demonstrates omnipotence. I can't think of anything he's described as doing in the Bible that a superhero from Marvel or DC couldn't do. To demonstrate omnipotence, he'd have to show not just power over physical things, but over reality and logic itself. There would be no point in praying to such an entity. He would already know what you want, and already have decided whether or not you'll get it. It would be nonsense to describe other religions as worshiping false gods because by definition there couldn't be more than one. I don't accuse flat Earthers of living on a false Earth . It's the same Earth, because there isn't and can't be another. I know the standard answer to this objection is free will , but that doesn't make sense without limiting God. If it was his will that we have free will, why would he be upset at its practice? If he knew he was going to be upset by it, why not do whatever he wants to do another way? Would a parent ever give their child a choice, then punish them for choosing wrongly? What would be the point, other than emotional abuse? Basically, I think that if one believes in a capital G God, the only way one can really put that into practice in a logically consistent way is to take a pantheistic approach, where all things are God's will, including the actions of people belonging to other religions and ethnicities. I don't see what makes the Abrahamic god, as he is portrayed in practice, different from a god of a typical polytheistic religion.","conclusion":"The notion of a capital-G \"God\" does not reflect how God is actually portrayed in Abrahamic religions"}
{"id":"a85db69d-ab4e-4df4-9492-4b342558ba20","argument":"I'm old enough to remember when otaku in the western world started to really get obsessed about anime in a big way in the 80s and 90s, and I know a lot of it was a mix of horniness hence Urotsukidoji and genuine love of the art form Ghost in the Shell, Akira, Grave of the Fireflies . The new wave of Korean pop is different. I think it's only motivated by young male horniness there is a growing group of nerds who congregate on sites like 4chan and talk about Girls Generation, Kara, and Hyuna. These are very horny, lonely boys who love looking at the girls. They don't like the music. This is why Hallyu is very different from the wave of Japanese pop culture that took the world by storm last generation. .","conclusion":"Female Korean pop groups are gaining popularity only because they are pretty and expose their legs."}
{"id":"ff1b66cf-43a3-46c5-8b99-a82fbfa7c783","argument":"Vertical farming plays on the imaginations of architects, allowing them more leeway in creativity for optimal structural design.","conclusion":"Vertical farming hires and replaced lower-paying and -skilled work with higher-skilled and -paying jobs."}
{"id":"588bd68b-d123-4c9b-aacf-b1d758e4bcd7","argument":"I know what you are all going to say, and I know there are people who will be offended. Now, hear me out. Remember that I am not criticizing attraction. Everyone has their own set of standards and are allowed to be attracted to whatever they want, whether it be big breasts, small breasts, feet, blond hair, or whatever other physical attribute. I understand that appearance is a way to have your foot in the door, and personality is what keeps you in. Keep in mind that I'm talking about this within the confines of a so called patriarchal, predominantly heterosexual society. Also, keep in mind that I am not talking about all men, but I am talking about every man that I have ever met. I feel like my view is jaded, and I want to believe that I'm wrong . I think that society puts intrinsic value on a woman's appearance, above accomplishments, intellect, money, etcetera, and this leads into the aspect of relationships.  I think that men are shallow enough to treat women like subhuman, even when they are perceived as unattractive. I was an Ugly Betty throughout middle school and high school. I was unkempt and had the whole braces glasses greasy hair, and I kept to my own. I was bullied for the majority of middle school and high school. There was never a man that cared to talk to me, except for those moments when they told me to fuck off when I was in their space or pretending to ask me out. I think that men only give women they perceive as attractive, a chance. Fast forward to college now when I had somewhat of a makeover in my appearance, and I can now call myself an above average looking girl. I was treated the complete opposite, where men ask me out, out of seriousness, and beg me to fuck them instead of telling me to fuck off . I think that whole dramatic shift in how I was being treated gave me the view that I have today. I think that men only give attractive women proper attention. Keep in mind that I am talking about most men. There are clearly conventionally unattractive women out there who have male friends, but for the most part, men are only interested in giving attention to attractive women. I can understand only giving romantic attention to people you are attracted to. However, I know a lot of men out there who are platonic with empty headed, attractive women. I know countless self centered or empty headed, attractive women who manage to have more guy friends than lady friends. I think that a man would date a 9 10 girl with no personality and no connection, instead of a 5 10 with a personality and a personal connection. I know a lot of men would say that they would date the 5 10 women, but I generally think it's one of those instances where you say it in the moment, but it's not true once it happens. I think men will date anyone whom they find attractive, until they find out what happens in the long run. There's a reason why there are so many stories about hot, crazy exes. There's a reason why there are so many stories about marriages that end because there is no connection. I think that men that are outliers still fit into this. Men who find unconventional women attractive, like chubby chasers, are still shallow on the basis that they are nit picky and gear their firsthand attraction toward those women. Someone who finds chubbier women attractive would lean toward berating skinnier women as looking anorexic. There are also men who date unattractive women, and are seen as settling . It's not news when it comes to things like how models are treasured and youth is treasured. I want to drift away from that broad societal, feminist critique view and focus on intrapersonal relationships. EDIT I probably should have edited the title. I moved toward using the word men instead of people because I wanted a coincidingly male perspective on this topic of attraction. I know that a lot of the views I have about the topic can be applied toward women as well. I also think that a lot of the posts about biological attraction aren't exactly what I'm looking for. I am well aware that sexual attraction leads to appeal.","conclusion":"Relationships are based on attraction because men are shallow"}
{"id":"fedd8226-ce37-4db7-9cdd-689e7e0e2496","argument":"One of the pivotal scenes of A New Hope takes place in the Death Star's trash compactor. Supposedly, it compacts several times a day - yet there is a monster living in it that never seems to get crushed.","conclusion":"Most of the well-regarded movies in the Star Wars universe have plot-holes which are also difficult to negotiate, so this doesn't make it weaker than any other film."}
{"id":"ce7b7dc3-5e92-451f-a37b-1e4eede27e2c","argument":"Firstly, I am just about one of the most liberal people you will ever meet. That said, I think it is absolute bullshit that schools may be required to announce trigger warnings for lessons. I think this for pretty much the same reason I don't think biology teachers should have to present evolution under the pretext It's just a theory guys. Additionally, who is to decide what is and is not triggering? Also, since when is running from your problems a socially acceptable way to deal with hard times? The truth is, everyone could find something that triggers them, and lord knows there is no reason to put even more red tape around the things we're teaching in schools and the things it is 'okay' to say.","conclusion":"A widespread adoption of \"trigger warnings\" academically or socially will do nothing except create a society where it is okay to hide from your feelings"}
{"id":"130594fc-5bd5-4b00-bd9c-831c234e2a27","argument":"Even in non-judeo-christian religions it is also not implied that because one source of authority claims something, everybody else accepts this, which is quite different in Catholic, Judean or Islamic 'hierarchies' or power structures.","conclusion":"This is only 'true' for the judeo-christian religions but are in no way defined as absolute truths and often debated in many other religions or sub-denominations."}
{"id":"30f5d822-f26a-4de1-aabf-5ac41cf33396","argument":"People would need to travel up into space to work on the orbital ring, whereas a space elevator can easily be accessed at the ground level.","conclusion":"An orbital ring is more difficult to maintain by people on Earth."}
{"id":"894c6e16-2206-4e1e-9615-6bbd41044783","argument":"The existence of natural disasters shows that some evil exists beyond the amount necessary to give humans free will. Since a benevolent God would not create unnecessary evil, God cannot exist.","conclusion":"Even if human-made evil must exist in order to grant humans free will, this does not explain the existence of non-human evils like natural disasters."}
{"id":"5af845fa-26e4-41d4-b3cc-15c526f61588","argument":"There is no reason humans have to pick between going to the Moon and going to Mars? It is not a one-or-the-other question. We can go both back to the Moon and on to Mars. This is the general proposal put forward by George W. Bush and President Obama, calling for a return to the Moon around 2020 and pushing on to Mars in the mid 1930s. So, as much as the debate is splitting hairs about one \"or\" the other, this is a false dichotomy. Humans can go both to the Moon and on to Mars.","conclusion":"Humans can go back to the Moon and on to Mars."}
{"id":"228bb448-2a94-4dff-9cc3-c85ae887579f","argument":"Democratically elected institutions were subordinate and without power to repeal existing legislature or propose new laws. The Supreme Soviet and the European Parliament","conclusion":"Both unions are characterized by a concentration of decision-making powers."}
{"id":"25251303-52d3-4489-b529-6fec1ebac615","argument":"Ok, so let's start with the fact that I do like Apple in general, have an iPhone, iPad and MacBook, so let's not get into the Android vs. Apple thing. I've also been wrong before. I didn't think I'd use an iPad or even a smartphone, but they've become nearly indispensable to me. I have a watch that I wear that does a dandy job of telling the time, and it's Eco Drive so I never need to wind, recharge, or change batteries. I get a ton of emails every day, so I certainly don't want to be notified each time I get a new one. And while part of me thinks there's a cool factor, it's offset by there's a doofus who is willing to buy anything Apple sells even if they don't know why factor. Is there something I'm missing?","conclusion":"I shouldn't buy an Apple Watch"}
{"id":"562cc485-bd30-45ae-875a-96df0911e1ce","argument":"Racism distracts the poor white man from the fact that he too is being exploited by the rich white or Jewish or even black man. As the poor black man or the poor Hispanic or the poor Native American or what have you and the poor white man argue and fight, the rich man grows richer while the poor man does not notice how large the inequality gap is getting. I am using 'man' to denote 'person' and 'people', not to dehumanize or degrade women, but for simplicity in this particular context. Sexism is a talk for another day, but is just as insidious as racism if not more than, in some instances . Before we go any further, in this context we define racism as the belief that one's biological traits are the sole determinants of the behavior, personality, and 'inherent value' of a person, and as such are also the causes of a race or ethnic group's successes and or failures, rather than that as well as a combination of environmental factors, and on a more micro level, one's social conditioning, or indoctrination, and the consequential psychological behaviors resulting from that conditioning and the environmental factors. And further, racism is also the belief in the conclusion that because there are biological differences as well as different success rates in terms of technological advancement of each race, that this fact must warrant that some races are inherently inferior and some races are inherently superior, as a whole and sometimes as well as on an individual level. This is a very ingenious system of propaganda, not only because it make sense, both historically and on a basic level, but because it caters to the low self esteem and inferiority and superior complexes of the people especially poor people of Western society. Not to mention the blacks, Latinos, and Native Americans seem to be living in ghettos, shooting each other up and causing destruction, as we so often see in the media. To go even further, it also succeeds in 'justifying' cruel acts of injustice and crimes against humanity against non Whites, which tends to be very profitable slavery, land acquisition plus genocide so no big war, cut costs in the past private prisons, oil, and guns today, among others there is also another system that does this which helps the U.S abroad called Christianity, as well as nationalism, but that's a talk for another day . This dehumanization is a necessary tool for the rich to continue making money, and racism has been the best tool, by far, invented so far by the wealthy elite to not only justify their cruel acts against minorities in the eyes of the majority of society, but also have the poor majority consent to their own exploitation, as it gives them and the rich common ground. Racism solves the problem of the poor rising up to overthrow the elite, because most of the poor are actually fighting the poorest. Now, to get to the more controversial part of my assertion, that most whites are racist to non Whites and not the other way around. We use the aforementioned definition of racism in the following syllogism 1. White people believe, along with non Whites, unconsciously and sometimes consciously, that white people, as a group and sometimes individually, are inherently superior to black people, because in the West we are socially conditioned to believe so 2. Believing that some races are inherently superior or inferior is racist 3. White people are racist to black people but not themselves because they believe that black people are inherently inferior unconsciously and sometimes consciously 4. Black people are racist towards themselves but not white people because they unconsciously but not consciously believe that they are inherently inferior because they are socially conditioned to believe so, and are not racist to white people because they do not believe that white people are inherently inferior but do know that white people are socially conditioned to believe the same thing, but do not fight that belief Source for definition of racism Proof of social conditioning to the idea of white superiority at a young age For context I am mixed, black and white, who has been both rich and poor, and who has lived in both affluent and impoverished communities, black and white and Puerto Rican and Hispanic and even Arab communities , around the United States. I conclude with the final point that people of European descent as a group have been superior in regard to technological advancement as a whole, but only for the last 400 years out of the 300,000 years humans have been living on Earth and Asians are lighting a fire under your asses . The first problem I have is when this fact makes its way into personal interactions as well as institutional decisions when whites make the conclusion that inherent inferiority or superiority is also true not only forever, but on an individual level, which would mean that I, my family, my friends, Barack Obama, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and all other black people are inferior, and have less societal value, to Joe the Plumber because of the color of our skin. This has been realized with the recent events in the news, and this was why the BlackLivesMatter campaign was started in the first place, as we've started to see with our own eyes not only how carelessly the police act with black folk including Tamir Rice the 12 year old boy , but how whites coldly callously react to events that would trigger pain the soul of any empathetic person. The second problem I have is when whites, generally as a whole, completely deny racism, do not acknowledge any historical context, continue to believe they are and forever will be superior both as a group and on an individual level, and absolutely and utterly fail to empathize with the black community. This has been going on for the past 400 years. Browsing r Coontown, now having over 17k subscribers, it seems that racists want to bring light to the fact that there is disproportionate crime in our communities compared to whites. This is true. The problem is when people want to attribute the crime to the fact that these individuals have black skin, rather than poverty and psychological issues due to living in an unhealthy and impoverished community with bad role models and likely a broken family, not to mention the social conditioning of society and everyone implying that you are inferior on a daily basis, which is amplified because you are living in the ghettos and are poor. This phenomenon paints a broad stroke on every black person, including me, and that list of black people I just said earlier if you follow Pres. Obama's interviews, you will recall him talking about times where he too was assumed a criminal . I'm a bit all over the place, but here's my final final point racism is a system that oppresses. When you oppress a group of people for too long resentment builds. Unless whites plan to kill black people off in one fell swoop, the U.S is going to have a ton of social problems unless white people come to terms with their racism and their racist system. This racism system was set up by the elites to kill thousands of birds with one stone, and is one of the many systems that has made the United States so successful today. Unfortunately, this system and others like it do not come without consequences. Any system not built with pure logic will crumble to pieces over time, and systems built on the pain of people will die hard and with a vengeance. I'll end with an excerpt from the declaration of independence which I think is relevant to a tee to the plight of the black community today gt When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. gt We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government , laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world. TL DR muh dick, dindu nuffin, sheeeeeit, fuk whitey, i want my's welfare, mah cultchah","conclusion":"I believe that racism is a tactic used by the elite to divide and conquer the poor. Further, most whites are racist to non-Whites and not the other way around."}
{"id":"d6bf0d6f-9bb0-43db-af0b-df32927ba640","argument":"The number of 60-vote filibusters has risen drastically since the 1970s. It has become an established Senate practice for all types of issues.","conclusion":"It had historically been standard practice for Supreme Court nominees to need at least 60 senators votes to be confirmed."}
{"id":"560d98a2-619d-42c7-bf4e-303e2e6037b3","argument":"When victims do come forward, a Zero-Tolerance policy makes players, clubs and leagues more likely to deny that domestic violence occurred, as opposed to offering an apology and reaching a constructive solution.","conclusion":"A Zero-Tolerance policy makes victims of domestic and sexual violence less likely to receive justice."}
{"id":"a3d05526-6244-43eb-94b3-ae5253c204bb","argument":"Many people go to a general practitioner for annual medical check-ups. Since parents accompany their children to such visits, they are likely to keep a record from such check-ups over the years.","conclusion":"Parents, by virtue of having raised their children from birth, are likely to have developed a comprehensive understanding of their child's medical circumstances."}
{"id":"28ec7ebe-7185-4660-b3b5-970076eed5c9","argument":"I am a vegetarian. I am not a vegetarian for dietary reasons, but rather for ethical reasons. Of course, there could be multiple ethical reasons for being a vegetarian wanting to end animal torture, or wanting to avoid killing animals, or perhaps other reasons. I am of the second kind. While I'm against violations of animal rights, even if I could be reasonably sure that I was eating meat that came from an animal that had been treated well, I still wouldn't eat it. I think it is wrong to deprive an animal of its life. I believe that if someone is of this line of thinking about their vegetarianism, they should be pro life, which means that they should be against abortion in some fashion. Abortion ends human life therefore, someone who thinks it is wrong to kill animal life should extend the same principle to their own species. This makes me see why the inverse principle is merely specious, that if you are pro life, you should be a vegetarian. People that are pro life might distinguish between animal life and human life. You can try to  about the conclusion that vegetarians of this vein should be pro life, but you're also welcome to try to  about the kind of vegetarian I am, and its suppositions. Edit To be a bit more thorough about the pro life bit I guess the minimal possible conclusion would be that a pregnant woman of the same vein of thinking I was should not have an abortion without being somewhat inconsistent the maximal possible conclusion would be that any vegetarian, like myself, should be more broadly, publicly, politically pro life.","conclusion":"I believe that if you are an ethical vegetarian who believes that it is wrong to kill animals, you should be pro-life."}
{"id":"dfbdf257-ce94-4092-abf8-ba1b510d65a9","argument":"I am Canadian by birth but my parents are from Serbia and Croatia. I find everyone in Canada tries to hold onto their culture and wave a flag signifying their bloodline and heritage. I thought this was a good thing and clung onto it myself for a time but discovered I don\u2019t need to define myself by a single or two or three nationality nationalities. From what I have seen, particularly with people who have moved from their mother country and settled permanently elsewhere, it only seems to lead to bigotry and a stagnation of one's own cultural and personal development. To be Serbian or Croatian or Indian or Saudi Arabian or whatever seems to be interpreted as boldly representing the country\u2019s main religion, beliefs, traditions, etc. at the time that the person left that country. Why can\u2019t we accept our differences and that we as people have a developing cultural identity, and not see this as \u201closing\u201d our identity? The fear of losing this causes people to ignorant and bigoted.","conclusion":"Nationalism causes hate and bigotry"}
{"id":"bf505a62-4f7f-40d2-a26b-c25880279e02","argument":"I'm 25 years old and I have multiple friends who are dating living with an 18 20 year old girl. Just to give you a perspective of where I'm coming from. These guys and many others, famous actors and their spouses for example are 1 4 older than the women they're loving, it is making me feel really weird and I will try to describe it. Younger people are generally more naive, easier to control and manipulate, they don't put up a fight stand strong with their words, so it makes the relationship an easy one for the guy and a non educating experience. One big aspect of a relationship should be about learning to accept one another. I believe many of the young girls are too weak minded to say anything back. Younger women are generally more attractive, and I think a relationship being based off looks is the base understanding of the world shallow . But please, change my view, I have a feeling I'm the one being shallow here.","conclusion":"I believe that men who date younger women are shallow,"}
{"id":"31d27e69-fa1d-44b0-a837-87cfaece7051","argument":"I don't think all drug advertisements should be banned, but I don't feel strongly either way about that. However, a small number of drug advertisements go beyond hey did you know there is a good treatment for this condition or this medicine is so much more effective convenient etc than other medicines and actually try to increase consumer fear of the condition they attempt to treat. A recent example is Robitussin's It's never just a cough . It is in fact often just a cough , and these commercials increase fear that coughing can spread disease. I would ban even factually based fearmongering like this, but this is not purely factually based the commercials are not backed by studies proving that Robitussin branded products reduce the transmission of any diseases. So I think that commercials like that, which are paid by a pharmaceutical company to increase public fear of any medical condition, should be banned. Unpaid articles tv segments should still be legal CNN should be free to fearmonger all they like about coughing provided they are not being paid by Robitussin to do so. And non fearmongering advertisements such as their previous suffer the coughequences which suggest coughs are annoying are not included in this view. .","conclusion":"Fearmongering drug advertisements should be banned."}
{"id":"dbf4ce3b-53b5-4e19-9134-ecc61236ba52","argument":"Here are the reasons I think analytic philosophy is better than continental philosophy 1 Analytic philosophy builds upon past achievements and learns from past failures, continental philosophy doesn't. To illustrate how analytic philosophy builds upon past achievements I'll use a quote from D.M. Armstrong's Sketch for a Systematic Metaphysics p. 19 . In his Philosophical Investigations 1953, Sec. 66 Wittgenstein appears to be criticizing the notion of particulars having something in common with his examples of games. No doubt he's right about games. There is no universal of 'gamehood'. It's far too sprawling and messy a concept. I have yet to see a continental philosopher agreeing with what a past continental philosopher has said. As for how analytic philosophy learns from past failures I'll take logical positivism as an example. It was popular during the 1920's and went out of fasion in the 1960's due to severe criticism such as W.V.O. Quine's Two Dogmas of empiricism . I have yet to see a continental philosopher offering criticism on phenomenology or post structuralist thought. Sure, both ideas are out of fashion in continental philosophy the latter is being gradually replaced by speculative realist thought , but that doesn't seem due to a collection of criticism. 2 Analytic philosophy uses language in a way that the philosophical concepts are clear. Continental philosophy doesn't. Granted, both do use quite a bit of jargon, but if you can decipher the jargon of one analytic philosopher you can decipher them for all of them. It's only as complex as the concepts presented. By contrast, continental philosophy changes in jargon depending on the book you read. Being and Time , for instance, doesn't use the same jargon as Being and Nothingness , even though both books are developments of existentialist thought. It's not inviting to the reader if he has to learn new words for the same concepts over and over again.","conclusion":"Analytic philosophy is better than continental philosophy"}
{"id":"cff09a28-6515-44d8-9742-9b2d4047f5e0","argument":"Congress and the DOJ are investigating the collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government in the 2016 Russian election. Robert Muller has been appointed as special counsel to investigate this matter, and today he has impaneled a grand jury. Which could ultimately result in the impeachment of Donald Trump. For the most part since the Trump presidency, Vice President Mike Pence has been kept away from the spotlight. This may be a move by the party in the case of an impeachment that the new president would start from a clean slate. Although Pence is a much much more presentable president for America, he serves a similar agenda to Donald Trump and the current Republican leadership, not to mention he has a very poor track record on abortion, LGBT rights, climate change, education, among others. In the case of a Trump impeachment, Mike Pence becomes the new president. In my view, he is just a more competent version of Donald Trump that is presentable to the public, but at the same time perhaps much better than Trump at pushing the same type of Republican backed bills through congress. Lets not forget that the skinny repeal was only 1 vote short from passing. America might look silly with Trump as the president, this is manly due to his personality and unstable nature. But because of his unstable nature, people in congress, even in his party bound to oppose him. In the 6 months he has been president, he has gotten almost nothing done. Since Trump has been so awful, all Pence has to do is a little good and he would seem like a saint, which would prolong the Republican run, and at the current state of Republican leadership, this is no good. Thus in my view, keeping an idiot running things for the next 3.5 years would be better for America in the long run than putting Mike Pence in the driver's seat as he is just a more competent Donald Trump. Edit Thanks guys, my views have been changed, I have ignored his foreign policies in this thread as well as the precedence he sets if we accept his behavior. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Impeaching Donald Trump is actually not a very good idea"}
{"id":"b2c0817c-fd93-4d3a-80fc-c5128dab9e7c","argument":"Cancer is something that starts small and spreads. It's something that will take you over with seemingly zero forgiveness. Although if you could have a 'conversation' with Cancer, and ask it 'Why do you spread the way you do?' 'Aren't you aware you're killing people?'. Would it be acceptable if Cancer responded with 'Well my family and I are from the Lung Region, but we wanted to travel the world and see the Brain, Kidney, and Skin regions, we're mostly just curious folks. I have to feed my family don't I?' Cancer is viewed as this ultimate evil when we are literally its mirror image. We assume Cancer has destructive motives cause it kills us, but we view ourselves as peaceful despite us killing animals the Earth. From a numbers perspective we kill more beings than Cancer does. We're bias to ourselves and assume we can do better, when really that's a delusion that enables us to spread further and cause more destruction. If Cancer isn't allowed to justify it's actions, then who the hell are we to justify ours? Why can't we face our true, ugly nature and actually make changes? Are we that far gone?","conclusion":"Humanity is no different from Cancer."}
{"id":"403ac419-dc5a-4bd8-8b93-e1c008d2066c","argument":"Three pillar of my changeable view America desperately needs an immediate minimum wage increase right now today. It should be 10.10 hour nationally. States and cities can raise it from there based on their own regional costs of living. Nationally, it should be raised periodically, tied to inflation. There is a such thing as too high. 15 hour is too high. TLDRs in bold Obviously, I'm not even going to entertain arguments that say minimum wage is too high at 7.25 or shouldn't exist. I'm just going to skip that. Earning less than 10 an hour is akin to slave labor even without considering cost of living. In 2012 I worked a very very labor intensive job for 9.50 hour. I was a been merchandiser. I was responsible for lifting heavy cases of beer all day long. It really felt like salve labor. I made about 1300 over the summer while I finished the final requirements of my college degree. I was living on campus and student loans parents were paying for my food and housing. So the money I made was just savings and pocket money. Forget about cost of living, it still felt like I was a slave. That's why the increase to 10.10 should be immediate not a gradual increase of the next four years. It should increase periodically commensurate with inflation, not once a decade, but every other year. So that we're not having this same conversation again in a decade people working 60 hours and still homeless. I don't know what mathematical formula the Obama administration used to come up with 10.10 hour, but that amount seems fair to me. It's not so much that you can get comfortable flipping burgers but it's enough that you can earn money without being enslaved. I really feel like 15 is too high. You're not supposed to be comfortable flipping burgers. People who support that are just ignoring drawbacks to a high minimum wage. Try to change my view either way to 15 hour or if you're republican try to convince me in the opposite direction.","conclusion":"The national minimum wage should be $10.10 per hour immediately."}
{"id":"6bee8221-e5f6-4d14-b87c-b9aba3088f5f","argument":"I currently believe that the two party system is flawed and doesn't provide enough choices for many Americans to feel as though they are actually represented. There are two major third parties right now, the Green Party which is far left , and the Libertarian Party which is far right on economic policy and somewhat liberal on social policy . Why isn't there a pragmatic centrist party? They could pick up a sizeable amount of the American electorate and would provide a nice and pragmatic alternative to the two major parties which are shifting further from the center.","conclusion":"An American Centrist Party would be great and would help combat an increasingly politically polarized nation."}
{"id":"92b0c0ff-179a-4ee8-82d4-2c54e0675b2b","argument":"The Vietcong was a mass political organization in South Vietnam and Cambodia during the Vietnam war, and were active even after the 1973 Paris Peace Accords until the total collapse of the South in 1975. The Ku Klux Klan was established in 1866 to protect against Loyal Leagues mean northerners and was dismantled in 1874 after very mixed results. Moqtada al Sadr's Mahdi Army was and is a Shia paramilitary group that defends thier territory and places of worship from sectarian attacks In 2003, Sadaam Hussein was toppled In 1954, the United States committed troops to SE Asia. In 1865, Federal Troops were sent to occupy a former rebellious nation. The narrative in each one of these cases is so similar the motivations of the locals, the feeling of resentment, the sense of shared loss of pride, and loss of identity Each group had it's own stated ideology consistent with it's time and place, but mainly they arose organically as hyper local tribal or familiar nuclei that recieved massive sympthay from the populace. They arose out of frustration to a corrupt, idiotic, arbitrarily violent foreign power Tldr After the USA successfully wins a war, they have no plan on how to deal with the inevitable rise of stateless actors, lone wolves, and insurgents","conclusion":"The Vietcong, Ku Klux Klan, Mahdi Army arose in nearly identical circumstances, with nearly identical goals."}
{"id":"804700e2-5936-4d3b-88b1-5e5910936156","argument":"Many people are passionate about the legalization of marijuana. I think a solid majority can agree that it makes no sense to ban weed while keeping tobacco and alcohol scientifically proven to be many times more deadly out on the streets. However, I like to take this one step farther. I see no reason why any drug should be illegal. I understand this is a radical position. Especially for someone who's never even taken drugs. And I'm saying that we should go all the way heroin, cocaine, meth, and more. If I were in charge, Breaking Bad would be a period piece. If you're still with me, I'll explain myself. In my opinion, something shouldn't count as a crime unless you're infringing upon the rights of another. This has no basis in anything, just a personal belief. Shooting up heroin doesn't inherently harm anyone else. Maybe I wouldn't do it myself, but how is a junkie lumped into the same category as thieves, murderers, and rapists just for doing harm, at worst, to their own body? Or for selling the drug, or even just possessing it? In my eyes, these are innocent people who don't belong in incarceration. I'm not arguing that these drugs aren't harmful oh no, of course they are. So perhaps you think that by making them illegal, we're Protecting the addicts from themselves . I understand this, but going on that logic, should we ban fast food and cigarettes to protect people from sending themselves to an early grave? I think adults should be able to make dumb or unsafe choices it's their right. This doesn't mean the government can't educate and warn people about the dangers of ruining your life with heroin, but there's no reason to criminalize it. There are other anti drug arguments which I thought about addressing, but will save it for the comments. Obviously, it should still be illegal to sell drugs in a schoolyard. We're talking about adults here, not minors. There are some other variables too, but in more or less the same way that we regulate cigarettes and alcohol. I'm open to having my mind changed, but until then, I see no reason why a drug user is someone who belongs in prison. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"All recreational drugs should be legalized"}
{"id":"5c0daa69-6b8d-4fdd-8a6f-38a0ef222c82","argument":"So the deal seems to be falling apart and tariffs are being implented. Appearantly China has suddenly backed out of the deal and now various pundits come up with theories why China has chainged their minds My question is Did China really suddenly back out of a done deal or are we not hearing the whole story? Notice that all information that China backed out comes out of Trump's camp and started with Trump's tweets . Here's a handy timeline of the trade war negotiation. What I don't see there is any indication from the Chinese side that they would be signing the treaty by May I also tried to find this kind of info on google but failed . Could it be that China received a draft of the treaty from the US, then sent in their revisions back expecting just another round of negotiation to be taking place? You can't reneg on something you never agreed to do. How can you change my mind? All of the above is just speculation on my side, it's not like I'm completely convinced of it. My suspicion is based on the lack of evidence. Give me the evidence and I'll change my mind Show me any reasonable source showing China agreed to sign the US draft of the trade deal by May .","conclusion":"China didn't reneg on the trade deal last week"}
{"id":"f566bc28-6e13-42d6-81d3-a71c6ec0e864","argument":"important edit i am not in any crisis currently and i'm sorry if i made it seem like i was, this is not going to influence my actions, i simply wanted to have a discussion about a view i have that seems to be different than those around me. so i've had suicide on my mind for quite a few months now and it's gotten bad recently. beyond that though i know that i shouldn't commit suicide yet, im only 19, still in college, it would devastate my younger sisters, ect. which is why i've decided to go in for counseling. a few things i think i've figured out along the way through therapy and through many sleepless nights are that, one the people who say goodbye and those that threaten suicide want help more than they want to die. this seems likely and most people that i've talked to seem to agree with me on that because many people go on to be glad they were hospitalised before they commit suicide. and also because it dramatically lessens the chance of success vs someone who told no one and simply went ahead with it. two suicide should take into consideration the state of your body and who will see it, i personally believe you shouldn't die in front of someone or allow someone to unexpectedly see your body. a simple note outside the door will do as to lessen a traumatic experience on someone else greatly. although grim most people tend to agree with me when compared to jumping in front of traffic or unexpectedly seeing someone in a tub of blood. lastly ,and this is the one i would like to discuss, is that suicide can be a logical choice in some cases. most people my therapist included disagree with me stating only that suicide is the result of depression, where someone is not in the right state of mind and clearly not rational . i would disagree here saying that there are instances where the non depressed commit suicide such as in cases of assisted suicide for the terminally ill, suicide when faced with being taken by enemy forces in wartimes, the admittedly rare case of dying such that someone else lives, as to solve the financial troubles of family, even in japan where warriors would die rather than dishonor the family, the jewish holy books call to die rather than commit several different cardinal sins. i would also say that even our desire to live is not actually rational rather than it is instinctual as to continue the human species, but at this point we don't have to worry about that anymore. i have yet to hear a good argument against this and would like to here yours. also i would like to apologize in advance if this is rambling on to much or to hard to read, i know my grammar is not great and i am very tired.","conclusion":"Suicide is the right choice in some cases"}
{"id":"443b26a2-ef7f-4af0-a092-29537701edfd","argument":"Actually science fiction is very much about science. The Wikipedia definition even explicitly excludes the supernatural.","conclusion":"It is rather a supernatural horror comedy film than science fiction."}
{"id":"dc97f3f1-4970-4602-aaab-86d9972e7840","argument":"Jesus was put up on the cross and stabbed in the side with a spear so he would bleed out to ensure he was dead by the time he was taken down from the cross.","conclusion":"The Romans were expert executioners. It is highly unlikely that they would fail to successfully execute a condemned man."}
{"id":"28551f76-5aaa-4288-a188-9e4eb7dd37e9","argument":"Mainstream Christianity and Latter Day Saints disagree about the biblical nature of works. For instance born again Christians who believe in Christ are believed to go to heaven as a result of grace regardless of moral behavior. Latter-day Saints also believe in grace, but also in the repentance process, that there are many mansions in heaven and different degrees of glory in the resurrection where one goes as consequence of the works accomplished on Earth. See Parable of the Talents","conclusion":"Many contradictions between the Bible and the doctrine of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are in actuality disagreement to modern interpretation of Biblical scripture."}
{"id":"433ae758-4344-42a2-b6d0-123f0ff4b4d8","argument":"About 90% of all motor vehicle crashes are, at least partly, caused by human error. Thus the introduction of self-driving cars is likely to drastically reduce the number of traffic accidents.","conclusion":"It is highly plausible that self-driving cars will be much safer than normal cars."}
{"id":"12881d55-1d9a-4a3f-961e-8464ce42ad5f","argument":"While the Republican Party continues to push for strict anti-abortion laws which limit reproductive rights and health care for women, the Democratic Party has strongly supported laws that make it legal for women to choose and access reproductive and health services.","conclusion":"The Democratic Party champions the right of women to make decisions regarding their pregnancy, including the right to a safe and legal abortion."}
{"id":"92e648f0-f309-409e-b496-a61c9fda3cba","argument":"Nationalism is a harmful form of patriotism While patriotism is a devotion to a particular place and a way of life one thinks best, but has no wish to impose on others, nationalism is accordingly aggressive.","conclusion":"National pride and unity are traits that when fostered excessively are also shared with the extreme far-right and often have harmful consequences."}
{"id":"0a6c5dcf-1cc2-4ff4-b9fa-352ddd947d49","argument":"It seems to me that it is entirely justified to believe that a set of beliefs are wrong and to desire to see less people follow that belief. If you disagree with certain parts of a religion and believe that following them to the letter is a terrible thing to do that seems a very reasonable belief, especially considering certain religious practices. However, I would say that is not ok to bear animosity towards someone simply because they identify as a part of a certain religion. If they act in a harmful way because of their religion it is ok to hate them, but if they simply identify or agree with it but do not actually conduct any actions you believe to be wrong, than it is not ok to hold any grudge against them. . I think we all know what religion I am talking about but I have left the prompt open because I would also apply this logic to another religion I had qualms with","conclusion":"It is ok to hate a religion so long as you do not hate its followers"}
{"id":"191c4fbe-1883-46fa-a28f-9cc7c0e49993","argument":"I just got back from a vacation for a family wedding and it was lovely. Everyone was thrilled that my cousin was marrying his sweetheart and we all had a great time. I feel happy for them because I'm glad that they are doing something special that they want to do, and I certainly want my gay cousin to be able to do the same thing, which is why I support his legal right to get married, but overall I see no reason to get married. Aside from financial benefits, I fail to see how marriage really helps a relationship. I don't see how children will really be affected by unmarried parents, as long as the parents are committed and loving. Name a single aspect of life that is positively impacted by marriage. Sure, I'm happy my cousin is happy, and I'm glad that he was able to do something that meant a lot to him, by why bother? What actual benefit does marriage bring?","conclusion":"I see no point in getting married."}
{"id":"f0c24ea3-5506-4836-80ce-c833a58ed27a","argument":"The sub r relationships is not actually about solving people\u2019s problems but comforting the poster. When problems aren\u2019t black and white and honestly shouldn\u2019t even have been asked my mom is a complete jerk, what should I do? , assuming the poster them self has actually been impartial in the first place, people are looking to comfort the poster. Problems are looked at as \u201chow has the poster been wronged\u201d rather than \u201chow has the situation lead to this and what should be done now\u201d. For example this post is a prime example. The girls boyfriend is considering living with his sister. While this might present an undesirable situation for the poster, the solutions offered are terrible from an objective stand point. From the boyfriends point of view, either situation is desirable, living with either his sister or his girlfriend. Almost every solution is about him living with the girlfriend even though it should be his choice on who to live with, with both being equal considering we don\u2019t know his feelings on each side . This is an example on how people in r relationship are really about trying I help the poster and not look objectively at everyone involved. Some may argue the purpose of the sub is to help the poster but I would say the best way to help the poster is to look at it objectively.","conclusion":"r\/relationships is more about comforting the poster than evaluating the problem objectively"}
{"id":"e80ce2fb-3120-4467-89d9-68d4459c09bd","argument":"This leads the Federation to focus on analyzing the enemies rather than on defeating them in the first engagement.","conclusion":"The Federation's general approach is to gather intel first, then use the intel to establish their tactical approach."}
{"id":"a1ba869a-b939-45f1-9742-e9e673027d09","argument":"As much as people might say that they treat every person roughly the same regardless of appearance, it's more like they tolerate the unattractive, rather than giving them remotely the same consideration. There is no regard for the opinion of a physically unattractive person. It's a subconscious hatred. You have no worth as a sex object, and so there's no point in investing time in you. For example, if you're fat, which is a characteristic that is unattractive for most people. When you're fat, you aren't hated because you have no self control. There are countless examples of lack of self control and laziness that are socially acceptable simply because they're not as visible. You're hated because you're ugly and disgusting.","conclusion":"Your worth as a human being is mostly determined by your physical attractiveness."}
{"id":"f148bbb6-ea63-4a59-9adf-454604b4f253","argument":"I feel like my title is very bland but it's the best I can do to sum up my whole point of view. I'd like to preface this by saying I am not religious. I consider myself to be agnostic and fairly liberal. First thing is that I used to feel okay about it. I used to be Mormon and at that time I felt okay with it. My mindset then was that the fetus didn't yet have a soul and that soul will now inhabit a new body. Now that I no longer have that belief I struggle with the concept of abortion. I think most people can agree that all actions have consequences. Big, small, good and bad. You don't study for a test, you don't do well. You drink your milkshake too fast and you get a brain freeze. On a larger scale we have something like robbing a bank. You might get a lot of money, but you will likely go to jail. All of these things have consequences. Sex, like all things, has consequences. There are the obvious good ones. It's an enjoyable act, and depending on your perspective you can create life and that may be a good thing. The consequences are also negative though. STDs and unwanted pregnancy among those. Now everybody has to make decision, and live with the consequences, so when somebody makes the possible big decision to have sex they should have to face the consequences. Argument 2 Even if the fetus is not a child, it still has potential. Suppose you are an amazing doctor. Every day you help people, you save lives, and you love your job. Now let's back track a bit. You're in college. You're applying for Med school and somebody says you can't go to there. You protest but the decision is made. You cannot go to Med school. All the good you do, all the love you have for life is gone. Is abortion not on some level the same? That fetus may be just that, a fetus, but one day will it not be a baby, and then grow up and maybe not make a massive impact, but at least an impact? Is an abortion not denying that fetus the opportunity of life? It still, in my opinion, has potential. And before I post this I know somebody will mention rape, incest, and or life threatening pregnancies. Rape Ultimately it's the mother's decision and I don't think somebody should be suffering and reminded daily of something out of their control, but I think that adoption is a better option. I would however, never argue against a rape victim getting an abortion. Incest This child could live a terrible life due to defects caused by incest. Again it's the mother's decision, and abortion may be the best option for the child. Life threatening pregnancy If the mother wants to keep it she can, but she should not be forced to die to keep the child. And finally, if one of the above three situations deserves an abortion, I do not think all women do. If somebody was raped, they deserve that right but saying all women should be able to have abortions because some people do is wrong. It's a different situation and I feel that argument doesn't really stand up.","conclusion":"Abortion is not a good thing"}
{"id":"0740717b-87bd-4483-b789-cb07083a66f9","argument":"As the Korean War was never ended through a peace treaty but only through an armistice, North Korea is right to consider itself still at war with South Korea and the US. It is only natural that it strives to protect itself.","conclusion":"As a sovereign state under international law, North Korea has every right to develop and defend itself with nuclear weapons."}
{"id":"7d2995c0-f56a-4796-be87-66b503bfac42","argument":"The United States University system is famously expensive and as a result it is probably the system in a developed country that has least public funding yet $346.8billion was spent, mostly by the states, on higher education in 2008-9.1 In Europe almost 85% of universities funding came from government sources.2 Considering the huge amounts of money spent on universities by taxpayers they should be able to demand access to the academic work those institutions produce. Even in countries where there are tuition fees that make up some of the funding for the university it is right that the public should have access to these materials as the tuition fees are being paid for the personal teaching time provided by the lecturers not for the academics\u2019 publications. Moreover those who have paid for a university course would benefit by the materials still being available to access after they have finished university 1 Caplan, Bruan, \u201cCorrection: Total Government Spending on Higher Education\u201d, Library of Economics and Liberty, 16 November 2012, 2 Vught, F., et al., \u201cFunding Higher Education: A View Across Europe\u201d, Ben Jongbloed Center for Higher Education Policy Studies University of Twente, 2010.","conclusion":"Most universities are publically funded so should have to be open with their materials."}
{"id":"48122eb2-909c-4f8d-92a9-8befef1406b0","argument":"Political turmoil in a state which shares a border with Turkey is a major security risk that needs to be controlled.","conclusion":"Iran has significant control over the situation in Syria which has major implications for Turkey."}
{"id":"979e8c78-4d93-43f3-a2f5-4f97d6726872","argument":"To many owners, this artwork would have more than just monetary value. For example, artwork pertaining to their own culture could have cultural, historical and sentimental value. As such, money cannot adequately compensate for this.","conclusion":"It is unfair to private owners and collectors for their property to be forcibly bought from them."}
{"id":"03e4b7c8-672e-4d93-aa34-39bca1c9c933","argument":"I'll start with a personal anecdote When I was young, I'd crack my knuckles incessantly. I'd get an overwhelming urge in my hand joints, and would not feel comfortable until I went on a crack a thon. Firstly, I feel like getting manipulated by a chiropractor would cause me to get that feeling again, and force me to continue going great for business . However, I'll admit that this particular point is just my own anecdotal evidence though it's also a common thing that I hear from others. Aside from that, it seems like joint skeletal manipulations would only treat the symptom, rather than the cause. Wouldn't an alignment problem be more likely to be caused by a muscle imbalance, or posture bio mechanics issue? If so, wouldn't physical therapy, or Yoga, or just plain working out, be a better long term solution to the problems that chiropractors claim to solve? The main reason I'm asking, is because people claim to receive such relief from chiropractors including people I respect that I'd hate to dismiss something helpful just because my layman's intuition is wrong. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Chiropractors are pseudo-scientific BS"}
{"id":"39cd533b-6a59-4c82-af7e-6e8a9fe9fdbf","argument":"If one does not want to have a baby, they should not have sex, or they should take extreme precaution when having sex. Sex is not a game. It is a serious matter of reproduction and life. If a woman plays with it and becomes pregnant, she should be held responsible to carry out the birth of her child. And, it should be noted that the responsibility could end at child-birth, with it being possible to put a child up for adoption. The consequences of an unwanted pregnancy need not be major, but they must be born by the mother and father.","conclusion":"Women should be held responsible for behavior leading to impregnation."}
{"id":"45d975dc-74bd-43fe-8818-36cc8bf754af","argument":"If you are a single child resulting from a polygamous family you have a lot of work caring for the many elderly family members.","conclusion":"For children, it is bad to grow up in a polygamous family."}
{"id":"27c1c417-3e83-4b9c-9bbc-c6f2fb68fbe7","argument":"We've seen the ineptitude and outright corruption that runs rampant in our govt in our police forces, the NSA, and the complete lack of any awareness of our politicians on how to respond to modern technology encryption, etc among many other things. Why in the world would we assume that this same corrupt, clueless and inefficient govt would magically get it all right when it comes to our healthcare? i much prefer the path of breaking up the current health insurance monopolies, instituting rules to make the health insurance more competitive and opening up Americans rights to get prescription drugs from other countries. Let the free market do its thing and drive prices down by opening up more choices to the consumer. The problem is not the free market and capitalism, it's the fact that our govt allows corporations to actively work to make the market less free and give less choice to the consumer thru monopolies, FDA rules on prescription drugs, etc.  TLDR Govt healthcare is a disaster waiting to happen because of our politicians and governments ineptitude and corruption.","conclusion":"I think more government involvement in our healthcare USA is a financial and logistical disaster waiting to happen."}
{"id":"ac2c1249-ad28-4c15-8577-e83031e2a363","argument":"Their basic views are that fat people don't take care of themselves and should be shamed for being overweight. They say that being fat causes numerous health issues which costs everyone else by making us pay extra taxes for healthcare costs for obese people. I've heard the fat shaming community talk about how being fat looks horrible displeasing to the eye other things along those lines. They say a ton of other things negative about fat people, but I don't see a need to go into detail, as many of you are probably already aware of their views. I am not at all arguing that they are wrong about any of those points. I believe in freedom of speech, and that the fat shaming community is perfectly within their right to believe these things. I also thing that just about everything they say is true shaming people may not be the best way to deliver that message, but that is a whole seperate issue. My basic point is that every argument they make against fat people can also be made against people who are too skinny i.e. BMI less than healthy range . Being too skinny can cause tons of health problems, is not always the nicest thing to look at, etc. If the fat shaming comminity truly believes those things are what is wrong with fat people, they should also shame people who are too skinny.","conclusion":"the fat-shaming community should also be shaming people who are too skinny."}
{"id":"311a34cc-004a-47c3-969b-350f83e25461","argument":"If nothing else, I think the former Confederate States of America battle flag looks epic, much better than the current US flag, and could possibly carry equal symbolism to our current flag. If the CSA battle flag became the new US flag, I for one would fly it more and hold it of greater honor than I do with the current. The Confederate Battle Flag was flown by the Confederate States of America during the civil war, although the would be nation was struck down at the end of the war and became part of the USA again. The flag consists of a red background superimposed with 2 blue bars that run the diagonals of the flag and cross in the center, with 13 white stars on the cross to represent the 13 confederate states. The 13 stars do resemble the many other symbolic uses of the number 13 in the us to represent the original 13 colonies. The all important red, white and blue colors also remain. The confederate flag would make for as good if not better of representation of us as the current, and it would look much better than our current one, especially alongside the flag of the UK, Kenya, Tibet, Greenland, and all the rest of the epic flag club. Not to mention, the cross can even have symbolism for our British roots, since it is of similar type to the Scottish and Irish crosses on the UK flag. Feel free to","conclusion":"I believe that the Confederate Battle Flag should be made the official flag of the United States of America."}
{"id":"d36e278e-c9aa-4492-a926-a5abd15723b8","argument":"The major religions have fostered the development of social liberties and the rise of societies. Christianity, in particular, has underpinned everything from the Bill of Rights to MLK's march for freedom.","conclusion":"Most of today's cultures and remaining world heritage are due to religions."}
{"id":"e85c0e0c-09d8-4da5-af2c-e33b8c6a6d35","argument":"Being able to easily see how much companies pay individuals would make it easier to call out unfair pay practices where they exist.","conclusion":"Public information about wages would prevent companies from pay discrimination"}
{"id":"91d257e2-5737-4508-abf8-c1bb2d34dfef","argument":"Eye floaters are black spots or various shadows you see on your eye. You can get them at any age. There is nothing dangerous about it, at leas the Doctors say. If you google it the first thing you are told is If you have eye floaters, don't worry about it. Here's the thing. Why is it acceptable for doctors to think this way? Just because something is not physically harmful does not mean it cannot be mentally harmful and lead to physical harm . Imagine moving black lines in your eye, every single day, every moment of your life. Reading a book, your wedding day, doing anything important or not. Constant movement of lines as you move your eye. There seems to be no consideration by any Doctors that this can lead to depression and suicide. Google it. Any organization you find is by people who have eye floaters themselves, never Doctors trying to improve the educated view of Eye Floaters. It is incredibly frustrating to describe your eye floaters to a Doctor only to have them completely shut down any debate whatsoever, describing it as normal. Well, it should NOT be considered normal, no matter how many have it.","conclusion":"Eye floaters should not be ignored by Doctors"}
{"id":"4fae86e8-85d1-4bec-be62-328d86bee730","argument":"The 'organ transplant scenario' goes something like this A hospital has 5 patients on life support. Each patient needs a different organ transplant or they'll die Each patient will make a full recovery if they get their transplant Each needed organ is essential to life eg heart A healthy stranger walks in Opponents of utilitarianism claim that a hospital surgeon would be doing the right thing according to utilitarian standards by murdering the stranger and harvesting his organs to save the 5 patients. This is patently absurd to all but the most naive versions of utilitarianism. Just as a baseline, I'll give the definition of utilitarianism that I'm using The worst possible suffering is 'bad' The greatest possible happiness wellbeing is 'good' An action's 'moral value' is determined by its effect on the long term balance of goodness badness for the more mathematically inclined, assume an action produces a function f t that represents the sum of 'goodness' and 'badness' in all conscious creatures at time t . Let A represent the set of all possible actions and their resulting functions f t . An ideal action is the one that produces the function with the greatest integral from time 0 to infinity. Actions can be ordered by their resulting integral, so one can be better than another. This leaves out a lot of detail, such as 'how do we measure value accurately?' 'how does level of consciousness eg an ant vs a human affect the values?', etc. However, those questions can potentially be answered. Just as we have no perfect definition for the concept of 'healthy', we can still judge certain behaviors as definitely healthy or unhealthy. The same with morality. Back to the organ transplant scenario. It's clear that people would avoid hospitals if this were to happen in the real world, resulting in more suffering over time. Wait, though Some people try to add another stipulation it's 100 guaranteed that nobody will ever find out about this. The stranger has no relatives, etc. Without even addressing the issue of whether this would be, in fact, morally acceptable in the utilitarian sense, it's unrealistic to the point of absurdity. It's very easy to stretch a hypothetical to the point where it goes against your intuition and therefore becomes useless. Case in point most people, especially on reddit, would agree with the tenet that 'torture is wrong.' However, I can easily come up with a scenario that would break that intuition. Imagine a serial child rapist and murderer who you know with 100 certainty has armed a mega nuclear bomb to go off 2 hours. It will destroy all of humanity. He knows the location and won't give it up. Is torture permitted? Of course Is this scenario in any way useful in justifying the use of torture? No. The same with the organ transplant scenario.","conclusion":"The 'organ transplant scenario' is a bad argument against utilitarianism"}
{"id":"fe047616-7368-425f-92e3-855477b32740","argument":"Looking at the political polarisation in the US and the views of both parties, I think most Americans have views that are almost entirely incompatible with many others. The system only seems to encourage radicalisation and I can't see this not getting worse. It resembles a toxic marriage. Democrats seem to want government to care about wealth inequality and racism and work towards improving the lives of citizens and Republicans seem to want government to do very little aside from defence and even see Democrats' attempts at improvement as hurting the country e.g. Obamacare . I can't see how both can be reconciled and both only seem to be drifting further apart. Assuming a broken up America was divided into a few groups e.g. roughly liberal areas and red areas , I think most Americans would be happier. Blue states could work towards improving the environment, helping the poor, fighting sexism and racism and providing public services that help the people living there. Red states could cut taxes, restrict immigration and enforce religious values and keep their areas mostly white, Christian and male dominated. It seems like both live largely seperate lives with different media, values, priorities, concerns and philosophies and the federal government is forcing them together. If the US was in a similar position to this after the Revolution, would the states have united in the first place? I can't see how this wouldn't benefit both parties. It seems like people increasingly live in areas where they agree with their neighbours anyway so it wouldn't force much movement between the states and it would free up political institutions in blue states to focus on actually improving those areas while red states could maintain the lives they want. This assumes all would defend each other from outside aggression but that doesn't seem unreasonable. I'm not sure what exactly would change my mind as this is a view on a hypothetical situation but if there was still significant common ground that outweighed the differences between both groups it would definitely make my view change. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Most Americans would be happier if the US broke up"}
{"id":"f214933a-8872-4d37-8ace-da26e34c8500","argument":"Why can't a rape victim put their child up for adoption? Isn't this an adequate resolution to the problem? The only reason it might not be an adequate resolution are the risks and pains of child-birth and perhaps the difficulty of separating from the child. But, these objections are easily dealt with. First, maintaining the life of a fetus is worth the pains and risks that it might cause the mother. Second, there is no difference in separating from an unborn child abortion as compared to a born child adoption.","conclusion":"A rape victim can put their baby up for adoption."}
{"id":"8d15ebbc-7d2a-4536-9f61-84351fcefac5","argument":"Fixing global warming by carbon capture putting carbon in the air back into the soil, might solve temperature problems but will not solve other air toxicity problems, leading to a greater imbalance on other situations.","conclusion":"Human intervention to stop climate change by use of geoengineering may make the situation worse in unforeseen ways."}
{"id":"84e23e56-554c-4a40-a2b5-1add046dcf4b","argument":"As well as this, and perhaps even more importantly, there is an identity issue associated with the wearing of the veil. Identification for criminal or professional purposes is hindered, meaning that justice and professional activities are more complex, cost more to the French population, and are more likely to result in an incorrect evaluation or negative outcome.","conclusion":"Muslims lose-out in various ways by wearing the hijab unfortunate, but true."}
{"id":"3ef614b1-d1b0-4c05-a5d7-afacc1dc0c12","argument":"Talking with co-workers provides a valuable alternative to negative depictions of mental illness as seen in the media, which may be some people's only other form of exposure to people with mental illness.","conclusion":"A lack of knowledge among the public about mental health issues is a key cause of stigma. Having discussions with colleagues about their health issues increases knowledge about mental health generally."}
{"id":"cdcbfe2b-784d-4864-b52d-28e87df080ec","argument":"First, I do not mean Communism, I mean socialism. Second, I am from Australia, not the USA. So I have never liked the left wing economic theories and have never seen how they can be more effective than those of the current norm. I find that 'the means of production should be owned by those who run the production' is a flawed concept. Generally, those who work in a factory, or other means of production, are very good with their job say mechanic , but don't have the smarts to run a business or own it in a way which doesn't see it go bankrupt in 3 weeks. I am surprised though that there are economies with socialism and they seem to be going alright, however I don't know how far they go down the Socialist rabbit hole. Edit I am seeing the post AI introduction future being brought up a lot in the thread. I do see some potential in that I'm still not sold however but still haven't had much really change my opinion. Edit 2 For those asking, I do not know the difference between Communism and socialism, or the different types of socialism. Please just assume socialism in the general, non communist way. Edit 3 I've had a good hard think overnight and I am still not convinced on the matter, despite the delta on 1 comment. I'd like to generally clarify where I stand on the major points in the thread. On the topic of Post scarcity AI world. There are major assumptions that an AI would not become needy or wanty, like us. If we assume that we get AI to have a similar mindset to us humans, then it will develop basically the same emotions as us. We cannot pick and choose which elements of the human to keep or remove, such as fear. Furthermore, we do not control how a machine learns it is a very complex process which is basically just a feedback loop with a designated target. Its not like a simple program you can make in a week at home in C . Also on the above matter, the assumption that resources are infinite I find to be flawed. Whilst current issues like energy may be fixed in the future, there are still limits on what we have. For example, there is only so many cattle in the world. Even if we find a way to create beef like substance in a lab, there is only so many laboratories, only so many workers to make the substance, only so much physical space to put the laboratories on, and only so much time to make the substance. There is always an upper limit to production, and whilst it may grow close to or reach total demand, it cannot and will not be 'practically infinite'. It has been suggested that socialism is inherently better for the environment. I again see this as false and I feel it contradicts the statements of other people, which I have addressed above. Please stop trying to turn this into a what is communism and or socialism question. I don't know what you want and as such I can't tell you what you want me to say. If you can ELI5 the differences I might be able to however, I feel like I'm receiving a lot of hostility from that section of the thread, which is getting borderline on breaking rule 2. Edit 4 I also note how the second half of my  was neglected, but then again, the theory which seems to be common here is that the economy is supposed to die in socialism. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"A Socialist System Will Never Work and Will lead to a worse economy."}
{"id":"06229276-32cc-414a-b539-1ae23c629741","argument":"For example, in the London Pride Parade in 2018, about 50,000 people applied to march, but organisers were forced by the mayor of London, Westminster council and the Metropolitan police to set a limit of 30,000 at the event.","conclusion":"Some Pride parades are no longer freely accessible to the public like they were previously as they are now subject to onerous controls by the city administrations and government functionaries."}
{"id":"60c1e654-a6fc-4e81-b701-2b39d5386f53","argument":"Diverse Dungeons and Dragons groups, like streamers Hell\u2019s Belles and the Seattle-based podcast D20 Dames are also gaining significant traction in the D&D community.","conclusion":"There is evidence that D&D, and Wizards of the Coast, have taken concrete steps to make D&D more inclusive"}
{"id":"07fd8594-7409-4a86-adf5-da8f5a835bd2","argument":"Child separation policy aside, people nowadays tend to chime in on issues that occur every day, to my mind, out of boredom. One example that springs to mind is the 'Sometimes, lighter is better' controversy in one of Heineken's commercials, in which a bottle of low cal Heineken slides from one side of the bar to the customer at the other end, passing two or three African Americans, with the catchphrase mentioned above as a punchline at the end. See also N. Minaj wearing a costume reminiscent of an Asian character in a video game, or the girl who had a prom dress inspired by a traditional Asian garment Now, after this commercial aired, you can imagine that the internet got in an uproar within minutes, as it usually does with the offending culture today. Everyone was instantly offended, but why does it matter to you, white person who just jumped the bandwagon? You are not part of the ethnicity that got mocked in the commercial, it doesn't affect you at all. This is part of why this culture of being constantly offended is the way it is nowadays, I think, and it just gets stupider with each controversy. To me, this analogy fits well one person is shooting hoops on a basketball court, the action of throwing and scoring being a metaphor for the person's arguments in the debate. How is the person expected to be able to score any points, when the people on the sidelines keep walking on the court and trying to score with their own ball? Do some of you people who do this actually think you know how the person of the targeted ethnicity should feel?","conclusion":"People who are not affected by a social issue shouldn't taker part in the discourse"}
{"id":"ad2973d3-5156-4dc9-8b70-2fada31d7a8b","argument":"Abstaining voters who support Remain outnumber abstaining voters supporting Leave 2:1. These abstainers are more likely to come out and vote in the second referendum.","conclusion":"The first referendum is outdated, and should be superseded by a fresh referendum which takes the current preferences of the population into account."}
{"id":"ee656947-3699-49ed-9078-eccfc91f4af1","argument":"Superman, to me, encompasses perfection. He's strong, fast, can fly, has pretty much every power under the sun that's textbook superhero fare, a very specific, and hackneyed weakness. His villains are generally more interesting than he is, but unlike Batman, who in my opinion acts more like a foil for the villains to be more pronounced on, Superman just allows any character his villains have to bounce off his chiseled countenance as he effortlessly pounds them into the ground. Yet every time a game featuring him comes around, he's perfect, every time a movie comes around, generally he's perfect. Hell, even in the most recent iteration, it took someone who was EXACTLY the same as him to even stand a remote chance against Superman in combat. He doesn't even have a power source that can be disabled the Red Sun , so he's always super powerful when he's on Earth or in the Solar System, which is almost all the time. He feels like the most uncreative hero ever, but he's loved by EVERYONE, and I simply do not understand why.","conclusion":"I feel like Superman is the most Mary Sueish hero, and I do not understand his popularity."}
{"id":"55d7d567-dd84-4260-9d95-8e7d25755bbe","argument":"I think that the only thing wrong with the NSA is that they kept what they were doing secret from their citizens. Although I am british I am 100 sure the government here are doing a similar thing, and I don't see an issue with the government keeping an eye on everyone if it means possibly stopping some terrorist plots at their source. They can watch me stare aimlessly at reddit through my webcam if they want, but I have nothing to hide and they would quickly get bored, so whats the big deal with them 'watching' ?","conclusion":"I think that there is nothing wrong with governments keeping an eye on their citizens e.g. the NSA."}
{"id":"553d11bf-fbb0-42a0-b00e-e25420d82aa9","argument":"If you start out working your hardest and submitting your absolute best work you will not only burn out but be held to this high standard throughout your worklife. Your employers will register your best work as just your average work and when they press for more you will have nothing to show. In the first month, if you start out on an average pace you will be able to show your improvement with time as you higher the pace. You will avoid getting burnt out, you will not be held to impossibly high standards. Please leave the footnote below the following line, but remember to delete this sentence by replacing it with the body of your post. Thank you","conclusion":"The first month of starting a new job, one should submit average level work"}
{"id":"cc1691fa-4dc1-4992-833c-2c61c594906a","argument":"In an age when any fool with a cell phone and a twitter account can snap a topless pop star on the beach, tabloid hacks are under greater pressure than ever to go the extra mile. There is little reason to doubt that they will. Privacy is already one of the dominant legal issues of our age that looks likely to become ever more the case. Against that background, when a flat out lie can be broadcast around the world in seconds, clearly a different legal and regulatory framework is needed from the old days of print where an apology was actually relevant \u2013 however begrudgingly given.","conclusion":"There have to be limits to the permissible levels of intrusion into people\u2019s lives, in an increasingly connected world people- celebrities or not- have never been more conscious of this simple fact."}
{"id":"554359d6-89e1-4b3a-aa27-955d22178b1e","argument":"The problem of evil proposes that a God can exist with evil but with certain qualifiers, namely that God is not all powerful, benevolent, or omniscient. If God does not by definition have to be all three of those traits, then the argument that God and evil cannot exist fails.","conclusion":"Monotheism does not preclude the existence of evil, insofar as some of the features of the traditional conception of God can be abandoned without rejecting the traditional conception of God in toto in its entirety."}
{"id":"9a6edf03-9846-4070-9add-2d5939b5e3f7","argument":"As many of you may know, there is a caravan of migrants going towards the US border, with some estimates saying there are up to 7,000 of them. The migrants claim that they left their home countries in search of asylum, that's justifiable. I have some issues with the whole situation though. One thing that will never sit right with me is how they were offered asylum and work in Mexico and refused. If they aren't willing to accept asylum in a country that is better off than their own, and is willfully offering it to them, then they clearly don't need asylum that badly. To me it seems like they have a sense of entitlement to entering the US, because they can't refuse asylum in one country and then insist on the US letting them in, that's not how things should work. Beggars can't be choosers, and that is why I think the majority of these people are simply economic migrants, which the US is under no obligation to allow entry to. Another thing is that the US only grants asylum to refugees, and by the very definition of the word, these people are not refugees. A refugee is a person who has been forced to leave their country in order to escape war, persecution, or natural disaster, that alone already disqualifies them from refugee status as they must prove to US officials that they are being persecuted on the grounds of race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or particular social group, which the majority of them are not. They are not refugees simply due to economic instability. Personally, I feel as though the migrants are simply trying to take advantage of the US's immigration laws and there is not a doubt in my mind that many of them are seeking illegal entry into the US in the same manner they illegally entered Mexico. I get that everyone deserves the right to better their life, but at the same time, the US can't accept them because it will set a bad precedent. If we let them in then more, bigger caravans will come more and more frequently, the US simply can't accept everyone. The US does not owe migrants anything. If they intend to enter the US though the correct channels then I wouldn't be posting this, but I highly doubt that is most of their intents.","conclusion":"The United States should not allow the caravan entry into the country."}
{"id":"e16723c5-24ed-42d5-9efd-3ddafb14b6ee","argument":"I would really rather see my club team win a major trophy than see the national team of where I was born, grew up and currently live win the World Cup. I've always loved football, it's my favourite sport, always has been and always will be. I spend the majority of the year watching Premier League football, hoping the players from my team do well and and the players from other teams do extremely poorly, lose form and do anything and everything wrong. I don't see why this view would change when those players are playing for the country I am from. This has nothing to do with me not liking international football, I've watched every World Cup game. I listen to fans of other clubs calling the fans of my club names and telling me how bad the players from my team are, including the players that are in the national team, then suddenly, they put on the national team's shirt and they're the best player they've seen and all is forgiven. Interesting to see other people's views on this.","conclusion":"Soccer I'd rather the club team I support won a trophy, than my national team win the World Cup."}
{"id":"7ee0d4c7-52b2-454f-96cd-cbe255cf8629","argument":"It is not fair on the majority in a class to have their lessons ruined by troublemakers. Those that want and have the potential to learn should be allowed the chance to be educated properly. If selective education is not provided free by the state, there is a danger that parents of bright students will opt for private education or home schooling instead, if they can afford it, further isolating brighter children from poorer backgrounds.","conclusion":"It is not fair on the majority in a class to have their lessons ruined by troublemakers. Those that ..."}
{"id":"33a4c72d-7f9f-4639-b55e-8877bd6fadea","argument":"Many religions support complementarism a view that favors male supremacy as it defines men as the heads of the house and the Church.","conclusion":"There are no female cardinals, because there are not allowed to be any."}
{"id":"233e9399-91bf-4e7f-a6a6-ba40ba0c89a3","argument":"Without a common identity, it would be difficult for many citizens to accept being taxed by a federal government, which would then control national monetary and military policies.","conclusion":"Polls and referendums suggest that European citizens are against the USE."}
{"id":"e263ac93-14af-476b-9c96-0d57a1dcfab4","argument":"Pre-material can be programmed into a computer program, so after being entered in, it could be automated, thus not requiring teachers for that just writers.","conclusion":"Most online educator roles will likely be temp\/contract gigs then, where many benefits and worker protections are not available."}
{"id":"ce4ab36c-cdfc-430b-807b-85a761059da9","argument":"Many countries have resident embassies in the Vatican, showing that they respect the Pope as an important figure in international relations.","conclusion":"Many Popes have gotten involved in diplomacy and international relations."}
{"id":"eafcc3ba-ac8c-4bfc-a088-605cb1acafdb","argument":"So I took this screenshot of the front page today. I'm as passionate about this as the next person, but I also feel that we're fighting a Sisyphean battle. Eventually the government will cave to the telecoms, like they do with everything else. The only thing that will make a difference is to do like Fort Collins, Colorado and make internet access a public utility. Until then, the corporations will control what you see and how you see it on the internet. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The downfall of net neutrality is inevitable."}
{"id":"d98ae3ca-b7a3-4fb2-8dc9-9bd8110bee5f","argument":"This is a very loose opinion and I'm very open to alternatives. Basically, I'm skeptical that our limited conservation efforts will really change much, and now somewhat believe that our population size will render those efforts useless, no matter what we do.  that it simply isn't possible to sustain this size of population on this planet without destroying the planet itself. NOTE I am not condoning eco terrorism. I'm not proposing we actively cull the population. I just don't think our efforts will ever really halt anything. EDIT This is more of an explanation that I've heard and I just want to ensure that I'm just misinformed.","conclusion":"The only truly effective method for halting climate change is a mass cull."}
{"id":"0f19fba2-4a76-4435-8eed-901b630a37c3","argument":"I don't support government shutdowns. I think they are a symptom of dysfunctional Washington and elected leaders acting like toddlers. However, when we have a shutdown I believe everything except law enforcement should be shut down. This includes no one working without pay. Right now 800,000 workers are not working but this is only 25 of the federal workforce. People would put far more pressure on their elected leaders to end a shutdown if everything except law enforcement was eliminated. No airport security, no food inspections, no social security or benefit chicks, no grant funding, etc. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"When the government shuts down the entire government should shut down, not just 25% of it."}
{"id":"34979ece-31c9-46b2-bd15-6fe3ea080934","argument":"Rigid gender roles in relationships lead men to have depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, negative attitudes toward seeking help, self-disclosure, shame and guilt, feeling discriminated against, body image\/muscularity concerns, alcohol and substance abuse, and attachment and bonding issues.","conclusion":"The concept of toxic masculinity critiques the assumptions and expectations of men as dominant, violent, unemotional, and sexually aggressive."}
{"id":"e87ffade-4421-4100-a122-41f7941acd8e","argument":"I'm pro genetic engineering. I take issues with what I consider the unrealistic portrayal of a society where genetic engineering is common place and is used unscientifically to determine suitability for job such as depicted in Gattaca I would also like to say I don't support the current state of sex selective abortion that happens in various countries with a preference for boys, and consider this a different kind of social issue. Also, the inevitable disclaimer about eugenics and forced sterilizations, disadvantaging someone's reproductive rights is not something I endorse, however I do support increasing people's access to increased reproductive rights. I think wanting the best for ourselves and our children genetically is akin to wanting the best for ourselves with access to education. Trends will indeed follow where a level of genetic manipulation will be 'normal', and those who opt out will be disadvantaged as with education, but I feel this is both acceptable and inevitable. I believe I hold a very much minority view on the matter. I'm a futurist and transhumanist as well and personally suffer from a minor genetic physical defect that I'd rather my children not have if it could be avoided.","conclusion":"I think genetic engineer and 'designer babies' are a good thing,"}
{"id":"94fc3f38-98d5-406e-a0fe-267f0003815c","argument":"I think calling someone and not saying who you are immediately after someone picks up is a rude thing to do. A phone call of any kind is an interruption. No matter what they are stopping what ever task is at hand just to give you attention. If you then take that attention and beat around the bush with you are saying that their time has no value. You are stopping them, just to stop them. If you are a stranger calling, it is polite to authenticate yourself. If you assert that you are important enough that you don't need to authenticate yourself, you are everybody you call to remember your phone number out of 6.8 billion of them. If your phone number isn't public, you are expecting everyone you call to practically be an NSA agent to know who is calling. It is also a cheap sales tactic. It is why people selling you free cruses or credit cards or career opportunities for programming rock stars use it. The salesmen that has nothing but polished turds to roll at you will use it trick you into being committed to the call so you won't hang up once they tell you what they really want. Others have adopted it, but all you are doing to evading the point. If you can't get to the point you can't make a sale. Calling someone on the phone and not saying who you are, is forcing the receiver to carry the conversation. Some of you think asking for the person you want is enough. It isn't because you haven't given anyone a reason not to just hang up on you from the start. They will have to play 20 questions with you to figure out took their attention as a hostage.","conclusion":"It is rude to call someone and not say who you are in the first paragraph after the call is answered"}
{"id":"86e8f704-8050-4175-a9bd-04480339c1b6","argument":"I work in an industry where the term urban is used frequently to describe a specific targetted market. I always think it's strange and backhanded when my co workers use the word to describe the black population. Urban is synonymous with city, in my mind. According to a website I found on the term it was originally used to describe those who moved from the South to the cities of the North and had to adapt to the new life. If anything, this term should apply to anyone living in a city but it is instead used exclusively for black people. I don't see calling someone black as offensive at all. If that is offensive, then calling someone white should be equally as offensive. I think those really are the only two ones that work ie. red for native american and yellow for asian I believe to be horribly offensive . Please, change my view.","conclusion":"I think using the term \"urban\" is more offensive than \"black\""}
{"id":"5e358145-90a2-45b2-952e-ef18faa1f87a","argument":"Psychiatrists are only openly diagnosing Trump with the primary aim of making the public more aware as they are an active stakeholder. This does not apply to other patients at all.","conclusion":"Openly diagnosing a public figure is different from revealing confidential information about a patient, as there exists no psychiatrist-patient relationship in the former situation."}
{"id":"e7cc41f1-b1eb-4d04-b02a-ead546e9700a","argument":"Rappers are not talented. They do what anyone can do. Anyone is capable over saying words over a beat. Some rappers don't even try to make sense, or be clever. I can't believe rappers are allowed to win grammies and different music awards. Poets should be allowed to win grammies too then. Rap to me is like in the same category as a terrible singer sometimes. Every person on this earth that can speak is capable of rapping. You can't say the same for singers, that can sing on key. You might say, it takes skill to rap well. No it doesn't. It takes time, and a pen and paper. It can be mastered relatively easy. Please show me why they deserve to be respected as musicians. Edit 1 Okay u scottevil110 pointed out to me, performing, or the entertainment value is a big part of a rappers act. It takes tremendous confidence and talent to get on stage and move a crowd with your lyrics. Some rappers are capable of this so, i changed my view that some have talent in that regard, but as far as the actual rapping i still believe that i could truthfully be the next Meek, or Young Thug. Edit 2 Let me clarify what talent is to me. I already know what the webster definition is, the natural ability or aptitude to do something. Let's take young thug as an example and Lamarr. They're both rappers and make good music i like. Everyone who can talk has the ability to come up with the words young thug says, and say it like him in a drunken stupor. So everyone is talented then in some way. Lamar it would take longer, and he has a nice flow, but still it could be easily copied. Now, REAL talent to me, is a perormance like Keyshia Cole singing Love one of the greatest songs of all time. Or Peter Green ripping the shit out of a guitar, in songs like, need your love so bad, or the supernatural That's REAL talent, compared to something like this REAL talent is something that not your average jor could do. Some are born with it. For some it takes years to become good at it, but it has to have a level of difficulty, in my view, that the average person can't easily attain. Edit 3 u glory2hypnotoad showed me writing a full length album on Eminems level does take i guess some real skill. So there are a few rappers who have some real talent. But generally they are untalented. However every singer that can sing on key is talented to me. It's just in a whole 'nother caliber of music to me, for the simple reason it's next to impossible to attain. Comparing Eminem to any singer that can sing on key, is like comparing Iman Shumpert to Lebron James.","conclusion":"Rappers don't have any real talent."}
{"id":"675f41c8-81ff-4a74-bc72-288d874aec6f","argument":"Teaching methods that allow students to interact with laptops during class and utilize them to engage with the subject at hand e.g. programming exercises have the potential to put the student and his\/her progress at the center, not the teacher's lecture Barak et al, p. 255","conclusion":"Laptops allow for more effective and engaging forms of tuition."}
{"id":"e7efd27a-4142-48b8-8701-5ca26b5b434d","argument":"The population issues committee of Australia estimates that almost half of the growth in solid waste is due to population growth, and just over half is due to increased resource use per person.","conclusion":"Disposing of the solid waste from large populations causes environmental pressure in cities."}
{"id":"327301fc-3c54-49dc-8375-6fe444a1ce8f","argument":"If we fail to address climate change, temperatures will not just rise to a new slightly warmer desirable level and then stop - they will continue to rise in an uncontrolled manner, This is therefore no reason to not address climate change.","conclusion":"Dealing with the effects of climate change in the future would be much more complicated than dealing with them now"}
{"id":"2d70eb02-75e1-4776-a212-bba2aeb651f6","argument":"1 By disproportionally favoring rural states, the electoral college laughs in the face of the idea of equal representation in terms of the presidency, at least . 2 It doesn't actually help rural area, because it creates a system where only a few battleground states actually matter. And of those states, potential presidents only go to cities anyway 3 As much as I agree with this elector and hope others follow suite, it's incredibly dangerous that these people could just choose who is president. It completely undermines the integrity of our system and adds a giant, flashing, single point of failure that attackers can exploit from a system design standpoint Edit Removed the last sentence of 2 as it was incorrect. Edit Checkout VStarfinn's awesome post and the subsequent discussion for a good look at how the rules of EC act in effect and alternatives.","conclusion":"In American politics, the electoral college should not exist."}
{"id":"78762957-4a11-483f-9008-41c74bcb646a","argument":"Practically no one in major Middle Eastern countries has a positive opinion of Israel, sees the country as a contributor to peace and stability in the region, or perceives relations with Israel as important Zogby, p. 5, 7, 8","conclusion":"As recognition of Palestine would be perceived as a step in opposition to Israel's stated interests, this is likely to be perceived positively throughout the Middle East."}
{"id":"1ec85352-a941-4f5b-93c3-6b309633599a","argument":"In trying to ensure the best possible outcome parents may overreach and become too attached, leading to pathological co-dependent behavior called enmeshment","conclusion":"Children can become inappropriately emotionally sensitive and dependent because of attachment parenting."}
{"id":"25cbc8e4-83ea-4bcc-8d5f-fc44de2e2128","argument":"As a college student I see a lot of people complaining about society and how it likes to finance its unnecessary consumption by taking on debts it can't pay. Firstly, I don't want to judge any persons consumption as necessary or unnecessary but if you criticize people's actions you should not be doing the same as well. Since, I'm speaking about college students, a lot of these people are financing their education through debt. That is fine, in fact in most cases should be encouraged. However, if you are pursuing something worthless like an art history or ethnic studies then you fall into the same category as the people you complain about. When I say these degrees are worthless, I don't mean they don't have intrinsic value or has no sentimental or judgemental value to it, I am speaking strictly in terms of monetary value. Since these degrees will barely get you a job and even when it does, it barely pays the bills you are taking on debts for consuming a service that you desire and can't pay for in the future. This makes the people who complain about society a big hypocrite in my book. p.s. It isn't necessary that only art majors complain but it's just my personal experience to see art majors criticize more widely about society.","conclusion":"I think certain college students who complain about society and its practice of consuming goods through debt that they are incapable of paying for are hypocrites."}
{"id":"80dd0d83-0ad5-421c-abf7-77ac7a6c7e9a","argument":"We know Hillary had her email sever wiped. She admits this, and the FBI has confirmed it. The FBI in turn went over the emails with a fine toothed comb, and was unable to recover the emails in question. The actual server is almost certainly no longer connected to the internet, and stored deep in an FBI evidence locker. The only way that Russia could still hack the emails is if we believe a couple of increasingly improbable scenarios 1 We believe Hillary had a secret backup copy of the emails somewhere, which she refused to turn over despite a court order telling her to do so somewhat believable , and that she is dumb enough to keep that evidence around not believable . 2 We believe the FBI found the missing emails, but decided to ignore the law and collude with Hillary to keep them hidden, and were also dumb enough not to destroy the evidence not believable . 3 We believe that Russian hackers are capable of hacking time to travel to before Hillary wiped her server. Alternately, we could accept the hypothetical possibility that Russia already hacked the server in the past something the FBI explicitly said they could not rule out , has the emails somewhere in the bowels of one of their intelligence security organizations, in which case, it would be a simple manner or finding and releasing the emails in question.","conclusion":"It is impossible for Russia to \"hack\" Hillary's emails at this point, so to imply that Trump was calling on them to do so by asking Putin to \"find\" and release the missing emails is ridiculous."}
{"id":"f2f6850b-a312-454e-ba2e-cb7e0c81e01b","argument":"The Church\u2019s stance on contraception causes the invasive involvement of the Church in the politics of predominantly Catholic developing nations whose governments are promoting contraceptive use in order to fight AIDS. This has negative consequences for both the states and the Church. In the mid-1980s, the Catholic Bishops Conferences of the Philippines and Cardinal Sin in particular conspired to campaign against the parties of the left in order to ensure that the 1987 Constitutional settlement \u201cprotects our people against the contraceptive onslaught\u201d. This obligation which anti-contraception bishops felt to involve themselves in politics can be attributed to the central policy of the Church. Regional Churches have also played a role in rallying support against NGOs who distribute contraceptives as part of their missions. Prohibition of contraception commits the Catholic Church to undermining the separation of Church and state which is accepted in the Constitutions of many developed nations and often to actively undermining the policies of governments designed to protect their own people.","conclusion":"Church policies against condoms are invasive against developing-country policy."}
{"id":"6686795d-522e-4a69-91d5-0ed3688ab44d","argument":"There is no evidence that any saved money if any even exists is going toward a budget for the NHS.","conclusion":"The promise of \u00a3350M to NHS is just not true."}
{"id":"56966525-7a98-4a17-adb9-7beaef4332e7","argument":"Being distanced from one's culture and not knowing one's roots can have devastating social problems and is perceived to be linked with higher crime rates, lower education rates etc.","conclusion":"Younger generations of the indigenous group may be further detached from their culture as they don't have easy access to significant links to their cultural heritage."}
{"id":"310b6f01-a453-4522-8037-fd69ed8983ef","argument":"I think we could make research apart of the core curriculum. It could start from as early as the 6th grade, throughout the completion of high school. This would create a culture of fact checking, accuracy, reassurance throughout their time in school. It would also empower our youth to verify information given to them, allow more youth to research areas they have interests in, give more people the ability to discover new information that they would not have had access to without going into higher education. In turn, this would also raise the general awareness and intellect of our communities and society. First, teachers would teach the scientific method, and \u201cIf Then\u201d statements. These are concepts that students are already learning around middle school level right now. However, an emphasis would be placed specifically on the research component for the rest of their secondary school studies. This would familiarize them with terms applicable to research and teach them the differences between experiments and studies. Teachers would give their students very simple articles experiments to analyze at first and then the research would compound on information and complexity year by year in classes dedicated to general research methods. The students would consistently peer review each other\u2019s work and replicate each other\u2019s studies and experiments. This would strengthen the fundamentals of the students and set a standard for fact based intellectual discussion. I think our average intellect would grow exponentially due to the fact that more average people would have the mental tools to navigate the intricate details of the topics they come across. This would also increase their general base of information as articles studies would be more regularly circulated as you would have more people contributing. This would also reduce the spread of general misinformation as people would have the know how to not only find the answers to their questions but also reproduce the results verify their findings. Commonly held inaccurate beliefs like homeopathic remedies, sociocultural beliefs would have to be replicated proven first or they would get discredited entirely. If more people have the ability to engage, this could be accomplished much faster. Higher education would also experience a sizable increase in participation because more students would already be active in their preferred area of study before they even decide what college they attend. Courses wouldn\u2019t have to waste as much time teaching their fields research literacy because the vast majority of students would already be involved and familiar with the fields work. Although this wouldn\u2019t completely fix the US education problem, it would point us in the right direction catching up to the rest of the developed world\u2019s intellect. By giving all Americans the basic tools to discern, test and create information, we would open a new frontier of innovation in this information age. The average person would be more readily able to contribute to the conversations debates regarding the world around us and the current academic would be able to do contribute more efficiently and effectively also. The methods I presented obviously aren't the only way we could go about fixing this problem as a society, so I am excited to hear any thoughts, input, and any other ways we can come up with a solution. Edit Thank everybody for responding. This post got way more traction than I thought it would. The most glaring point being made in the comments is that this is already taking place in schools in most places. I was advocating more for this being incorporated on a national scale but there are a lot of barriers to getting that accomplished. This is great this is the path I hope we stay on. I don\u2019t have a background in education so I\u2019ll leave the issues to the ones that do.","conclusion":"I think education should adapt & modernize by utilizing the internet and putting an emphasis on teaching research literacy."}
{"id":"401611a4-a3e2-44b3-abbb-5c0c722f0abd","argument":"The UK vetoed an EU Treaty on the use of the single currency which then had to be circumvented by the other member states.","conclusion":"The USE will prevent one country from vetoing measures that benefit the majority."}
{"id":"6cd375c5-e76a-4a3a-9d1e-bfbed09513f5","argument":"The General Assembly decides on all resolutions by vote, requiring a two-thirds majority to pass. Nation-state agendas will not succeed unless supported by most of the world.","conclusion":"The US is not able to use it's majority funding to influence the main decision making body of the UN: the General Assembly."}
{"id":"cbb7d2af-c20f-425f-bb14-5ac362053ee5","argument":"Sellers are afraid that money will be traced back to them in the status quo, but this changes with untraceable cryptocurrencies","conclusion":"Cryptocurrencies make it easier for consumers to acquire banned products such as child pornography"}
{"id":"246d840d-8a1a-4533-bf15-f587fd1d3b0b","argument":"A resurrected person is typically a \"glorified\" body, one somewhat dissimilar to our current bodies. This would include changes in the brain such as removal of diseases and injuries, which could result in substantial changes of personality.","conclusion":"Even if an \"afterlife\" exists, it does not necessarily benefit the person who died."}
{"id":"66b62c50-e1ea-4fec-b261-1bb9b3e08adc","argument":"First of all, I'm not from the US. So DACA has zero impact on me, and I might be misinformed. According to DACA, these people, who are illegal immigrants, are still illegal, only that the legal action is deferred. It seems that these people provide net benefit to the US and themselves, according to Wikipedia. To put it in another way, nearly a million people consistently break the law in consistent manner, resulting in a net benefit everytime the law is broken. Assuming that law is designed to benefit the people. I think this is a good evidence that the immigration law is broken. DACA is therefore wrong because it insist that the immigration law is not wrong, only to defer the legal action. What should be done, is to reform the law, such that benefiting activities become legal, and harming activities become illegal, and applied retroactively. Therefore, these people who benefits the society, lose their illegal status. Whether or not this is politically feasible is irrelevant, because this is taking about right and wrong, not about actions. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"DACA is wrong"}
{"id":"bab954b4-4bf9-421d-8315-d5901f647c7d","argument":"This may sound a bit petty in light of the NYPD's other current problems, but I think it's a serious issue. Obviously I am as upset about Saturday's shootings when two NYPD officers were killed as everyone so don't think I'm trying to minimize that. However, bigger issues should not allow these officers to get away unpunished. If you don't know what I'm referring to, when New York Mayor Bill de Blasio visited the hospital where the two officers died, several other officers who were present turned their backs on him in a deliberate show of disrespect. De Blasio is currently facing major criticism from the NYPD unions and even had to have a press conference today where the police commissioner defended him to try and calm things down. The officers who publicly and intentionally disrespected the Mayor ought to lose their jobs. If I publicly disrespected my boss, you'd better believe I would get the axe. Police officers are charged with a public duty to keep the peace and obey the policies set forth by their superiors. If they don't like it they're free to complain in private just like anyone, but to use their public profiles to make a point is unacceptable. Worse, New York is clearly in need of unity right now and creating further division is a serious safety hazard. These officers aren't just failing in their jobs, they're actively causing damage. It's just ridiculous that they thought this was okay to do. They definitely knew what they were doing, so it would be silly to claim they didn't realize it would make the news. They're blaming de Blasio for senseless murders committed by a man who was obviously insane on the same day, he shot his girlfriend and then committed suicide. The fact that like most of America he criticized the NYPD on Twitter is irrelevant, and even if it did matter that has nothing to do with the Mayor. Regardless of whether its fair or not, the NYPD currently needs to fix its public image in the interest of public safety. Police officers are supposed to be respectable figures who put the public's needs above their own. These officers clearly violated that mission and are trying to stir up trouble, so they should lose their jobs immediately.","conclusion":"The NYPD officers who turned their backs on Mayor de Blasio should be fired"}
{"id":"b4dc4a7d-3eb5-4577-ba17-eab80f829bb2","argument":"In the US, I can turn cable TV on at 7pm and watch rotting corpses, murder, bombs, cadavers, and many other violent crimes. And yet one tit, and the world goes mad insert janet jackson superbowl video The human body is an amazing thing. It can be extremely diverse in appearance, but it is a beautiful thing that our society has somehow vilified to the point where it is MORE distasteful than the other things I mentioned. In general, I believe the USA restricts nudity so much that it has actually become a detriment to our society. We view almost all nudity as pornography, and limit it as all adult content . But this doesn't benefit anyone in anyway. I think this has created several surprisingly negative side effects. Completely natural and normal things such as breast feeding and children being nude while playing at the beach become sexualized and perverse. Young teenagers over sexualize nudity due to the rather complete restriction on it, which has now swung rather far the other way with the extent of internet pornagraphy. The problem is that porn is typically the first and only area where young adults see nude bodies which further sexualizes and makes nudity wrong . It also increases body shame and embarrassment for two reasons the first of which is that the only comparison many people have for what is attractive normal is the rather skewed world of pornagraphy, and that we have chosen to eliminate normal forms of nudity public showers baths saunas which I believe directly leads to people not feeling comfortable in their own naked bodies. This lack of comfort more easily leads to shame and self consciousness which has a host of other issues attached to it Change my view.","conclusion":"I believe the USA is incredibly \"puritan\" and overly restrictive on nudity and that this causes a number of problems."}
{"id":"d7fe47de-a869-4bbe-b8de-544c6620b50f","argument":"I believe a woman has a right to deny use of her body to anyone, but what I'm struggling with is whether she has the right to kill her literal child to cut off that usage. If the fetus couldn't care for his herself anyway this removal wouldn't change the death, just its cause, but the exact moment where he she becomes viable is nigh impossible to pinpoint.Thus when an abortion is permissible if ever becomes muddied. That all aside, It might be wrong to kill something one that will be a person if he she's not one already . Isn't preventing development of a human inside the womb the same as murdering someone outside i.e. the continuation of his er life ?","conclusion":"cmv abortion is wrong because the moment a fetus \"becomes\" a \"person\" isn't ascertainable and prevention of his\/er\/its later life is akin to murder."}
{"id":"fafe41b6-5238-4c68-8b7f-aca2682c46fa","argument":"So yesterday I fucked up. I've been thinking about vaping every once in a while since I hit one 3 times in March of 2019. IMO the reason I said yes was peer pressure and social media. Anyways, I've been thinking about vaping every once and a while and my thoughts of doing it have been increased every time I saw my friends posting snaps of vaping, or my one friends that I'm a little closer with that started vaping and this one dude I know selling Vapes and dab carts. But if I had parental controls, I would have probably blocked every one of them because I'll be afraid that my dad would see it. Parental controls aren't perfect believe me but from what I understand there a tool to help kids and teens to be good online. There are some negatives, you'll probably be seen as the school snitch as every message and page you visit the parental control can see it. Another big negative is that a lot of parents who aren't in the it field and that grew up without technology can't figure out these parental controls, which makes them easy to bypass. But, kids who have very tech savvy parents can make it next to impossible to bypass if you have the correct settings. You can make it so you can't factory reset a phone without a pin code, on PC you can make it so you can't unistall programs or install them without a password, you can disable mac spoofing so your kid can't get around router based parental controls, etc etc. Point is with the right settings they are next to impossible to bypass. If I had these parental controls, I probably wouldn't have wanted to vape because I wouldn't have been seeing it and made the deal. You can set these controls so trigger words are blocked and won't show up i.e, Vapes, drugs, guns. The bad thing is that if the kid wants to look up let's say need gun and the word gun is blocked, it won't show up. Same things with drugs. And when I made the deal to buy the vape, I used Instagram and if I was locked down with parental controls, I wouldn't even have attempted to make this deal. Point is parental controls are good for kids and with right settings, you basically can't get around them. My kids will have parental controls until there 16 17 for this reason. A lot of kids Vaped before but because they saw someone do it on social media.","conclusion":"Having strict parental controls on teens devices will prevent them for doing drugs, vaping and to an extent not having sex."}
{"id":"de68c42b-219e-461e-aac6-14b1cd906d9c","argument":"I voted for Sanders in CA on the 7th. Unfortunately, he lost. Although I think he's the best candidate in the race, the people have spoken Clinton has clinched the nomination by popular vote alone. The democratic process is working as intended, and it selected Clinton. We had a good run, but it's time now for party unity against Trump. Sanders achieved much more than everyone expected he was able to drag the national conversion to the left and draw attention to a bloc of voters that are interested more radical change. What he needs to do now is drop out and give a strong endorsement of HRC that drops those voters into her lap for the general election. Things I'm not interested in debating The primary was rigged Things I'm very skeptical of HRC is going to prison over emails Bernie is the only one who can win against Trump","conclusion":"Sanders should drop out after his losses this week."}
{"id":"77b77f91-2264-42b9-b3dc-ceaafa3340fb","argument":"The notion of any person being royal is disgusting to me. The thought that one should be treated better and hold actual powers due solely to their family is absolutely abhorrent and has no place in any developed country United Kingdom, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, etc. Before anyone responds to this, I'd like to dispel a few ideas Essentially anything in this C.G.P. Grey video I love Grey as much as the next guy, but this video was incredibly biased and riddled with errors. I find this response video dispels many of Grey's claims well. To expand on them, though But most monarchs have no real power Bullshit. Take the British monarch. The appointment of the Prime Minister, the dissolution of Parliament, and various rights granted via the royal prerogative are all powers held by her. Now, one might say that these are either ceremonial roles or roles that will never be used in a modern society, but the fact that they can be used at all is bad enough. Monarchies are great financial magnets There is absolutely no proof that a monarchy will take in any more money from government related or historical government related reasons than any other governmental form. At least not through tourism. In Grey's example, he points out that Britain technically makes money off of the Royal Family due to some agreement made by King George III and Parliament centuries ago, but this is a situational example that really only applies to the monarchy of Britain. The main point here royalty is just appalling from a moral or philosophical perspective. The entire concept of one being royal or having royal blood is antiquated and just plain wrong. People deserve special status due to their achievements, not from some stupid nobility crap.  EDIT Downvotes, fucking seriously? Why?","conclusion":"Monarchy is a disgusting and outdated concept that has no place in any modern, developed country."}
{"id":"5df9c60b-4c74-4662-9328-95b486145945","argument":"EDIT Which of you crazy kids is messing with the Wikipedia article on Cockroaches today? First time I pulled it up it was blank. After a few refreshes, it looked like this and a few seconds later, it was back to normal. I know that getting rid of individual cockroaches does not solve the bigger problem, but when I see a single cockroach skittering so boldly across my kitchen counter or the living room floor, the method described in my title is the best one I have found for getting rid of them. If I step on a cockroach, I now have foul smelling bug guts ground into my carpet. If I spray it with something, I now have bug poison on my fruit bowl, coffee mugs, and knives. Trapping it and throwing it outside might be the more humane thing to do, but then my neighbors might see me without pants on, and I can't shake the feeling that it will turn right back around, re enter my homestead, and hang out under my bedside table, waiting patiently to crawl inside my ear while I sleep. Also, fuck those bastards. Throwing it outside and stepping on it might be better for the environment, since I won't be wasting water on unnecessary flushes, but they might escape, and if they don't, I now have bug guts on my shoe. I know that flushing toilets sprays vaporized poop particles all over my toothbrush, but that's already happening whether I flush roaches or not, and it's just water in this case. The trap and flush method is the most effective and hygienic method I have come across, but if there's a better one, I want to know about it. Please change my view","conclusion":"The best way to dispose of a single cockroach is by trapping it under a disposable cup, sliding a piece of cardboard underneath, carrying it to the bathroom, and flushing the vile creature down the toilet."}
{"id":"aeb6ba43-dd22-458a-a726-394eaa1758e5","argument":"The movie, \u201cThe Birth of a Nation collapsed at the box office after revelations that its writer-director, Nate Parker, had been accused of raping a woman nearly 20 years earlier.","conclusion":"The condemnation of art made by abusers have, in many instances, monetarily affected them."}
{"id":"a60159b4-657e-482c-9547-8982fdbf0ece","argument":"Jeff Jacoby, Boston Globe Columnist. \"The feeble 'arguments' against capital punishment\". Jewish World Review. 19 June 2001 - \"The families of murder victims do not stop mourning when the killer dies, but for many, there is indeed a measure of solace in knowing that the monster who destroyed their loved one will never hurt anyone again. Abolishing executions certainly won't bring 'closure' to grieving relatives. On the contrary, it will deepen their torment, mocking them each time they remember that the person they loved is in the grave, while his killer continues to breathe.\"","conclusion":"Executions give solace to families; killer will never kill again"}
{"id":"558a58a1-d9fc-452b-abfd-6e7f9aac1d1c","argument":"This has been widely publicised recently in the case of 12-year-old Billy Caldwell where this treatment could be the only thing keeping him alive.","conclusion":"Cannabis oil helps to reduce the number and impact of seizures in epilepsy and similar diseases."}
{"id":"04b05b8d-b043-4bb7-895a-1458e113d42b","argument":"I believe that it is wrong to cheat when you are the one in the relationship because you made an agreement with your SO to be exclusive and you should respect those boundaries in order for the relationship to work. As an outsider, however, if someone chooses to cheat on their SO with you, you are not to blame. You should be able to do whatever you want. The only time it would be wrong to have sex with someone who is in a relationship is if you are friends with the person they are cheating on. In this case, it would be a betrayal of the friendship. The SO's in the relationship should hold full responsibility to avoid hurting each other, but if they intend on cheating with others, the others do not play a part in the betrayal. By the same logic, if your SO cheats, you should get angry at them, and not be angry at the person they cheated with for tempting them. You could argue that by enabling the person to cheat with you, you are playing a part in harming their SO. However, if it is impossible for the SO to find out, then they never end up getting hurt and no harm is done at all. Yes this sounds a lot like I'm trying to justify being the other person in this kind of situation, and that's because I am. I cannot seem to see how this is going to be hurtful to the other person if they never find out, and why it would be my responsibility even if they did. If it wasn't me that the cheater was cheating with, it would be someone else. They are the one with bad intentions.","conclusion":"I believe that it is morally acceptable to have sex with someone while they are in a relationship with someone else."}
{"id":"031f646e-092a-4ba3-8dee-58734dc4567f","argument":"The European Union\u2019s key problem is its perceived remoteness, inability to follow a wanted agenda and the problem of influencing it from without. Direct elections of a powerful president would allow citizens to set, not follow the European Union Agenda. The renewed interest would boost voter turn out and help engage with the European Union\u2019s bodies.8","conclusion":"Presidential elections allow citizens to set, not follow EU Agenda."}
{"id":"269b3f5b-6242-4f5c-b4e6-78b5f5d61593","argument":"Recently, a live donkey was fed to tigers in front of visitors at a Chinese zoo.","conclusion":"Some animals are subjected to physical abuse and neglect at zoos."}
{"id":"a78d9a9f-1165-4af5-8da8-a1c259fd7f7b","argument":"The expression of my opinion does not in any way attempt to minimise the harm that is caused in the creation of images of child abuse or exploitation, but is simply to suggest that the definition of child pornography is broader than those two things. Before reading on please keep in mind that my opinion is concerning child porn images and videos and is not about the distribution of the images or the wider issue of sexual offences committed against children. If you wish to attempt to change my view please do not attempt to bring in wider issues that do not relate to the view that I express. For the sake of simplicity I am going to immediately point out that hand drawn or computer generated images depicting children engaging in sexual activity is classed as child porn but as no real children are used in it's creation it cannot be said that it is either abuse or exploitation. In relation to images of children that do involve real children, I would like to remind anybody reading this that an image is considered child porn if it is sexual and involves any person under the age of 18. The law applies equally as much to sexual images involving a 4 year old child as it does to a 17 year old child. At this point I would like to ask that you take a second to think about what is meant by the terms abuse and exploitation. When the prohibition was first introduced in the 1978 UK it was at time when child pornography was filmed alongside adult pornography and sold openly albeit under the counter in sex shops. The primary concern of lawmakers was to protect children from being exploited by pornographers. Amid a wider public debate about indecency and exploitation it was decided that the limit would be set at 18 because at 18 a person is an adult and is able to decide what to do with their own body. At this point I would like to say that I would agree that any person under the age of 18 is at risk of being exploited by pornographers if it were legal for them to feature in pornography. They would be at risk of being exploited because children under the age of 18 are generally not very good at making rational decisions. This is due to the under development of the pre frontal cortex and is true not just for children under the age of 18 but also adults up until about 25 years of age. Images that are described as depicting sexual abuse will depict acts of sexual activity with children either masturbating or engaging in sexual activity with other children or adults. The discrepancy between the age of consent in the UK 16 and the age at which a person can be legally photographed engaging in sexual activity 18 means that it is illegal to photograph a consenting child who is engaging in sexual activity. Because a child of 16 is legally considered old enough to consent, images of them engaging in sexual activity might be exploitation depending on the circumstances but would not automatically be considered to depict sexual abuse. I think that I should illustrate that although I say that images of a 16 year old child might be exploitation if for example they were being made for a pornographers financial gain it is not necessarily the case for example a teenage couple photographing themselves while engaging in sexual activity . There is one last category of child pornography which I believe falls outside of the scope of being the result of sexual abuse or exploitation and I believe that this category of images constitute the largest proportion of child pornography in existence. Due to the way that it is created I do not believe that this category of images is among the vast majority of the images being circulated around the internet in child porn distribution networks, but I do believe it constitutes the largest category of images. I am referring to images that are taken by children on smart phones and sent to other children. It is no secret that 'sexting' is a common practice among young teens and for all intents and purposes it is child porn. These images are not depictions of child abuse as they are of either nudity or acts of masturbation carried out by the child themselves. It is true that these images can be the result of exploitation if an adult or even another child was to manipulate the child into producing the images. That being said, it is possible that a sexually driven child which, according to research could be from the age of 10 might take images of themselves in an attempt to use them in exchange for images from other children or adults for their own sexual gratification. I have personally observed this happening with young teenage boys in the gay community. The youngest child I have seen attempting to engage in this sort of activity was 12, with a considerable number of children between 13 and 18 actively looking to exchange images of themselves with other people. It might be argued that anybody whether it be another child or an adult who pro actively engages in this activity with a child is exploiting them due to the under development of their pre frontal cortex and the fact that they are likely to make bad choices at a young age. I would argue that the exploitation in commercial pornography is the paying of money in exchange for permission to take images with the intention of selling them for other people to see. The unfortunate decision of a young adult with an under developed decision making part of their brain may come back to haunt them in the future as the images will exist long after the money earned has been spent. This guarantee of distribution or sharing of the images is not automatically the case with this category of image as the primary factor in the creation of these images is sexual release rather than money. It is possible that an adult might groom children for images and then redistribute them on child porn distribution networks but this would not be the case for two children or a child and an adult who both have a sexual motive and where neither party distributes the image any further. tl dr Cartoon and cgi child porn is not child abuse or exploitation Images of a couple engaging in sexual activity featuring children above the age of consent are not child abuse because there is consent and is not exploitation unless the images are being taken for commercial pornography or is the result of any other form of manipulation by a third party. Images taken by children of themselves are not sexual abuse because they feature sexual acts that the child is doing to themselves and is only exploitation if they are being taken for any purpose other than the child meeting their own sexual needs.","conclusion":"I think there is such a thing as child pornography which does not involve child abuse or exploitation."}
{"id":"07a1be32-91d9-487b-923e-ba40447b818d","argument":"Following the Le Mans disaster car racing underwent substantial reform to stop similar incidents in the future.","conclusion":"These instances may be a reason for better safety precautions but not for an outright ban."}
{"id":"59b563c3-8058-47c8-b78f-6f6e20ed7fbd","argument":"What is good for one person is evil, potentially, to another. One demands the other's existence. For example if you want servants, maybe that is good for you but potentially bad for servants.","conclusion":"Because of the existence of evil, there cannot be a monotheistic God as traditionally conceived."}
{"id":"c2709921-8e4d-4b9b-b8a3-5f5eabab2d61","argument":"Study claims causality without controlling the results for inference from the established causality of ghetto formation or other forms of foreign culture isolationism and absence of integration. The causality claim is then non-credible.","conclusion":"The findings of the initial source display causal inferenceunreasonably declaring causality of a mere correlation and selection bias."}
{"id":"f91f0912-c9cc-4340-9bab-bf0e61557a6b","argument":"The works typically attributed to the man fron Stratford-upon-Avon show a sophisticated understanding of the court system and political concepts like monarchy or war. It seems unlikely that a man who grew up in an illiterate household could develop this knowledge to the extent that the works typically attributed to him demonstrate.","conclusion":"It is likely that the man from Stratford-upon-Avon belonged to a lower class family and thus grew up in an illiterate household. It is difficult to see how someone in this position could have acquired the talents that the works typically attributed to the man from Stratford-upon-Avon demonstrate."}
{"id":"c0183459-ddff-4f97-997d-c8487e140028","argument":"Many people who are decidedly not neo fascists or any type of fringe political leaning seem to assert that socialism can work, but only in a high trust, homogeneous society, you know, like Denmark. This is a common refrain of the center leftist. From that, in my reasoning, you can extend the same logic to democracy itself. As we've seen, multiracial democracies lead to the displacement and disposition of the majority group aka the natives by a gradual and substantial wealth transfer. In America, this is done through various policies and subsidies. As a single but significant example, whites are reluctant to have kids until they are able to afford real estate in a school district that is hospitable to their kids. Small businesses owned by non whites or foreigners from certain countries are given 5 year tax breaks at which point these businesses may change hands . This is essentially a tax subsidy with no conceivable goal but to promote the displacement of the natives. The result of policies such as these, and there are innumerable more, is a lower birthrate for the natives, and ultimately population replacement, and it's all done exclusively by ostensibly moral and democratic mandate. When the native population becomes the minority, when does the former minority relinquish its grip on the system and turn things the other way? The answer is never. So, in a nutshell I simply don't believe that different groups of people ought to live together in a democracy, because no matter how civil, one group will inevitably seek to marginalize and attain supremacy over the other. By logical extension, peoples of sufficiently different religious background should also remain separate. In sum, non homogeneous democracies are a form of tyranny, because different peoples will invariably act in group self interest at the expense of the others. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Only purely homogeneous societies can function as democracies"}
{"id":"a9e389e8-a2c2-4806-b5ba-2d3feaa33b4c","argument":"As a full time American employee each one of us sees those lovely deductions on our pay stubs. You know the ones paying for Social Security Medicare. These payments are forced upon us, and are not payments we can opt out of. The premise behind our payments into this system is that we are paying for the health and well being of those who have paid into the system before us, and when we are of age the people who are working during that time will be paying for us. Ignoring the fact that it is well known that Medicare and Social Security will run out of funds before most of us under 30 year olds reach social security age. Tell me how is this not a ponzi scheme?","conclusion":"I believe that Medicare & Social Security are ponzi schemes."}
{"id":"fea7daea-f8cb-40bd-868e-a5d77d93a431","argument":"Most people are affected by the societal norms surrounding them. Fashion trends could be seen in exactly the same light as religious traditions, and could also be argued as limiting \"choice\" in an equivalent manner. Is it possible, subsequently, to accuse the creators of more Western fashion trends of limiting the ability of their followers to \"choose\" their own fashion statement? How can we isolate wearers of the Hijab as violating freedom of \"choice\" principles through cultural pressures, if we then allow similar cultural pressures to limit \"choices\" among more Western cultural expressions.","conclusion":"Pressure to wear veils is fine; cultural pressure is universal"}
{"id":"ff61ed2d-8640-49cc-b42b-2e5b558eae74","argument":"Children of addicts may be raised in an environment which makes it likelier for them to consume and become addicts in the future.","conclusion":"The legalisation of drugs may lead to children trying and becoming involved with drugs at a younger age."}
{"id":"715ad57a-0c2b-43c1-bb8c-fbd133b732f1","argument":"Refering to someone by a certain pronoun is not that difficult, but if legally enforceable, it would be disastrous to enforce something that relied on having pre-existing knowledge of a person's preferred pronouns.","conclusion":"It would be preferable but should not be legally enforced."}
{"id":"2b0cb78f-8ce3-414d-9f47-0180a6c6df33","argument":"Different cultures have different perspectives and ideas about things. If they share and discuss ideas, it would probably lead to people coming up with new observations, ideas and innovate new technologies.","conclusion":"When different cultures co-exist, they can complement each other and foster innovation."}
{"id":"16472f91-673d-454f-b537-a3a3b3e02c91","argument":"Shark culling in Queensland in Australia came after two women were almost killed due in separate shark attacks.","conclusion":"Attacks by sharks near beaches can pose serious threats to the lives of humans."}
{"id":"ff300401-eb2a-4a3f-b28b-a9258aab4e23","argument":"I can get over 90 on an exam without studying, without reading the textbook, and without taking notes. Think about that, all I do is go to class and make a point to remember everything the professor says. I have such a good memory that taking notes is pointless, and reading the textbook is also pointless because in every class I have ever taken, the professor has covered everything in class. Naturally I will open the textbook if the professor says to answer the questions at the end of chapter one without telling us what those questions are, but other than that I never open the textbook. I only open my notebook to write down when an assignment is due, other than that my notebook remains closed. People have told me that I have bad study habits, but how can my study habits be bad if I'm getting 90 on every exam? There are rare cases where a professor gives the class an assignment based on material which he has not gone over, but in those cases I will look up the material on the internet, not in the textbook. TL DR A person with a memory as good as mine has no need to read the textbook or take notes. Naturally if the professor doesn't cover something, looking up the information is necessary, but as long as the professor covers everything in class, taking notes and reading the textbook is pointless as long as the student attends every class.","conclusion":"A person with an exceptional memory has no need to take notes or study."}
{"id":"40b98372-d3b4-4f3b-8cc0-da157d6028b4","argument":"Saying there is no god is atheism and it has many complex assumptions as a theory, such as assuming that free will arose from deterministic processes, or that free will is just an illusion, which seems extremely counter intuitive and defeating.","conclusion":"If there is not one god, then there are either no gods or more than one god."}
{"id":"b01e8fc1-827c-4c6d-864d-9bd36481d999","argument":"I strongly and enthusiastically consider myself a progressive and a feminist, and most of my friends do as well. While I agree with them on most issues, I did some research a couple years ago and found several government studies purporting that women make over 90 of what men make when factors like difference in job choice are accounted for, rather than the 78 figure that's thrown around a lot in progressive sources. A big part of me wants to believe the 78 for the same job, qualifications, and amount of hours worked line because it fits in more with the whole narrative, but I can't bring myself to do it in the face of some of the facts I found. I don't really feel comfortable talking with some of my friends about this, either, especially since I mainly see them post stuff about it from Buzzfeed or Huffpost and other sites like that. Can anyone help me change my view?","conclusion":"I think the gender pay gap is consistently overstated."}
{"id":"49247592-a5ad-4bca-8071-58d98f786f69","argument":"I get tipping for good service, and I get tipping in an industry that pays people way less than minimum wage to do difficult work. I tip servers and bartenders, but why should I tip a cab driver for driving when the prices are so high?","conclusion":"Why should I tip a cab driver for doing his job?"}
{"id":"2de18e9d-2f8d-48ef-95fe-f57842288307","argument":"There is a whole body of feminist literature and theory which can inform activists working from this perspective.","conclusion":"The perspective of feminism, which targets injustices that uniquely affect women, has resources that other approaches lack."}
{"id":"932f9146-0a3a-4df0-a44f-96a5f7c33495","argument":"I know this is unnatural supposedly, but this is my honest view. Pregnancy is a process where woman has to abstain from so many fun things for 9 months almost a year since it continues after . Her body gets deformed, often permanently. For many months she has to walk around carrying huge burden. Her body goes through potentially tons of humiliating, degrading and ugly things. Then she has a painful and body damaging process of birth, that is also humiliating. If a man loved a woman he would adore her body so much he would never want it occupied by something that doesn't even have to exist. If he wanted it occupied by it, then he put something nonexistent above the body of his lover and her freedom too, for at least 9 months. Putting her second to creature that isn't even real can't be true love. Let's move on although here the argument goes for both sides . After the child is born their lives become all about it. how is it romantic to create an emotional drain and distraction taking time from two lovers, taking attention they can give each other. Furthermore, parents often say they love their child more than their spouse, or that they would save their child before the spouse. Here you are making a life of your lover who is an adult, a rich full complex person you can connect with, second over a child ? That doesn't seem like such a great love in the first place.I t's not even like it is an existing thing you make a bond with, you are specifically creating it to come and take focus in your lives. Only potential argument I can see what if she really wants it? Still, if my partner wanted to self harm, wanted to damage their body in some way, I would do my best to stop them. When you love someone that doesn't mean you will agree with their every choice especially when it is harmful for them and for your relationship. IF you are passionate about your lover, you would not want an intruder in your relationship even if they did. So overall I think people focused on the idea of wanting and having children and finding someone to do it with spend their life with like that are not really passionate people deeply in love with their partner but rather have children as a main goal. I think such people will always love their partners less and put them second in life, or even worse. That's not true love. Edit I am starting to realize it really is too subjective to make my claim as I am reading this posts. I don t exactly know which one changed my mind, and I still have my views of having kids generally, but I can accept now that to people to whom that is what they want the whole process might just not seem as gross as it does to me. I can also believe you can love someone and not see this as such a horrible thing if they don't. I'll make an edit to say this, but I am not sure whom to give a delta to exactly, will look through the comments again and find the one that did the best job convincing me. Since to most people this is a normal thing to do, there is probably no disrespect intended in putting your partner through this. I can't argue this without arguing against having kids generally and that is a different topic, so I think I can believe my view on this one can be wrong in some cases.","conclusion":"A man who truly loves a woman would never want to have a child with her"}
{"id":"585c8255-f320-4ba8-b502-3314fc44eb4c","argument":"God grants free will, under penalty of eternal damnation, which is inherently not free. Evil that exists can not be disproven to be God but at the same time it means 'he\/she' is either evil or benevolent seeing as he\/she is all powerful, all knowing and all seeing.","conclusion":"God allows evil to exist so that humans can have free will and develop into moral people. In order to be morally good in a meaningful way, a person must have the possibility of choosing evil."}
{"id":"9fb49ab6-26d2-4d15-81af-73c0b272c6b7","argument":"The ADA requirement for drivers of services like Uber, Lyft and such, as well as traditional taxis to take service dogs animals or be sued for discriminating is unfair in such a profession where the driver frequently takes many kinds of people, who may have severe allergies to such animals, and or the driver themselves has such allergies. A driver has no control over who they may be taking next until they get to that stop and they should be able to decline any such fare that may be a such a burden on the driver and or other passengers that may come afterwards, without fear of being sued or downcast in any way. In other words it seems very unfair to expect every driver to accommodate such animals, regardless if they are real service animals there are also a lot of fakers that seem to abuse the must take at their word part of the ADA law.","conclusion":"Transportation professions like ride sharing and taxis should be exempt from ADA requirement to transport service animals."}
{"id":"53e89cb2-aa99-4f2c-963c-cc6c35f6ec7f","argument":"My husband, J, smokes pot from time to time, which I don't mind, although I do hate the smell. When he does I drive everywhere we he needs to go, until he no longer appears high to me. Frequently this means I drive him to a friends house, or to the gym, and have to come back to pick him up afterwards. I also don't mind this most of the time, but there is no denying it is an inconvenience. He hates it. I think his main issue that he feels like a child having to be driven and not just driving himself. But he says that I am being completely unreasonable and am unjustified. While I am NOT convinced it is unsafe to drive high, neither am I sure it's safe, but that is NOT my main issue. My main issue is this Shit happens. Taillight could go out, run a stop sign or red light, have to go through a checkpoint, someone else crashes into him, what have you. Our car isn't currently inspected because it won't pass, is about to fall apart, and we're saving for a new one, so that's a biggie as well, for now. So something happens and there is a police officer. And J is high. And then we could have a serious problem. I believe maybe incorrectly? that a police officer's testimony that they smelled pot and that the subject appeared to be high is enough for them to issue a DUI. And possibly enough to also compel a drug test. Which of course J would fail. One of my relatives had a DUI several years ago. It cost her about 10,000 by the time it was all said and done, she lost her license for 6 months and it cost her a job offer when they did a background check. And that was alcohol, so there was no illegal drug charge, or reckless driving or anything like that mixed in. J believes that, should anything happen which he doesn't think it will , the police officer will never be able to tell. He thinks my nose is particularly sensitive and that he is good at not seeming high to others. I think that other people are not scrutinizing him as carefully as a cop would, nor would they give him a hard time about it or say anything to him, even if they did notice. J also thinks that the cops testimony that they smelled pot or subject appeared high isn't enough to hold up in court, if it did get taken that far. I also believe that smelling pot is enough for a police officer to search a vehicle. Which could, possibly, tack on some other charge. Like I accidently leave one of my prescription medications in the car, or as has happened once or twice we forget to take a gun out of the car after going shooting. Or J left his wallet at home and has no id on him, this happens at least once a week. Or something else I don't even know is illegal. He thinks I am overly cautious, making a big deal out of nothing, and have an unfair prejudice because I don't smoke. I think that it's just not worth the risk. I think that it could end up costing us a ton of money, his license and maybe his job. What do you guys think? Is my understanding of things wrong? Our current system is working for our relationship, but I really don't want to believe these things if they are, in fact, not true. ? edit typo EDIT I am not unappreciative of the safety links talk, but it's really not what my current view is based on. I am considering the point that my view maybe should be based on safety, and if having the same view for different reasons changes my view in such a way as to award a delta. I also didn't actually mean to put the word ever in the title. I am very sorry I did. I don't didn't actually think that there is never ever ever a scenario that warrants the legal cost even a certain legal cost, not just a possible one . I can easily come up with a few. That was not and is not my point or my view.","conclusion":"I do not think it ever okay for my husband to drive high or after smoking because of the possible shit storm that would rain down on us, were it to happened he gets pulled over."}
{"id":"7233b515-69e2-485c-bb2f-073a62ae7d15","argument":"Donald Trump's antics, crude behaviour, and apparent dim-wittedness are unbecoming of a President, and as a result, global respect and admiration for US leadership has never been lower.","conclusion":"Trump damages popular and public opinion of the United States, diminishing its standing and prestige in the eyes of the World."}
{"id":"81148fe4-1c70-40db-839a-8ae2661666d4","argument":"note I will refer to gay people and gay youth a lot here, but that can easily be substituted for secular , Jewish , black , or any of the other groups they target Now that it looks like Fred Phelps is going to die soon, this seems like a good time to bring this up. I am sure most of you are familiar with the WBC and what they do. Although their actions are deplorable and hurtful to those involved, particularly their picketing of funerals, I think that they are so ridiculous that they cross over into cartoon villain territory that they are, in fact, a parody of themselves and that only the severely mentally disturbed actually take them seriously. One major contributing factor for this is that they target those who are in the US military, which put a lot of conservatives in a position where they cannot defend the group's actions. This is exemplified when Shirley Phelps went to interview on Fox News This was when the gay marriage debate in the US was at its boiling point, yet the WBC is so extreme that they got Fox News to actually defend gay people. Heck, even the KKK doesn't like them I've only ever seen them either ridiculed, attacked, or ignored. When they came to my home town a couple of years ago to picket in front of the high school in response to us being fag enablers , a large portion of the community formed a human chain around the entire school and nearby religious centers with their backs turned to them so that those who didn't want to deal with them didn't have to, demonstrating to everyone, especially the gay youth in our town, that our community doesn't stand for discrimination. The WBC GAVE us that opportunity to come together in a way that I don't think could have otherwise been easily done. tl dr They are so extreme that they make all but the most severely homophobic religious people stop and think, Well that's just ridiculous . By generally being assholes, they have a position on the public stage, but by alienating almost everyone, they are everyone's punching bag. addendum I included promoting secular thought in the title and neglected to properly address it. Their reasons for hating minorities and gay people in particular is cited to be religious. I know with myself that criticizing them forced me to reevaluate my own ideas of using religion as a justification for public policy, and I know that many other people had similar experiences. EDIT Wow, good responses all around. I have come close to giving a delta on a few points, but I would need to mull it over for a few days first.","conclusion":"Fred Phelps and the \"God Hates Fags\" Westboro Baptist Church have done more to promote gay rights and secular thought than almost any other single group."}
{"id":"e81424b3-ea6b-465a-95c3-419932586b50","argument":"Teachers and schools controlled by politicians could sway entire classrooms on who to vote for.","conclusion":"Politicians can more easily manipulate or 'bribe' children and teens than adults."}
{"id":"264104b5-2e54-43df-85cb-62465c5e4cd7","argument":"Religion has frequently claimed the moral high ground, but its position that people of faith are morally superior to those without faith is as bigoted as suggesting the contrary.","conclusion":"Religious moral codes are not always valuable and can be even harmful."}
{"id":"bce70932-37ef-464b-bcee-7b8916c3ea19","argument":"There is no historical indication of a link between abundance and social harmony. Outside the sphere of politics and the history of civilizations there is no way to assess degrees of abundance. Inside the same sphere the highest points of abundance were reached by the most advanced military powers in a certain place and time.","conclusion":"Evolution is propelled by competition for limited resources. Scarcity is what allows both human and nonhuman life to seek new solutions and grow."}
{"id":"82b280db-7de0-49f2-8b92-25cf8c7f137d","argument":"A socialist economy is better able to address long term issues, such as climate change","conclusion":"A Socialist economy would work better than a Capitalist economy."}
{"id":"16f5bb97-9974-41c2-8824-7579b0c5fb66","argument":"I've noticed that a lot of people want to have kids, which is great I want to have a family and raise a few kids too, someday. But I don't get why it's so important to a lot of people to have kids that are biologically theirs. Every time I hear about a couple that can't have kids, it's treated as the absolute worst thing that could happen to them, and they sometimes opt for extremely expensive methods for making their bodies make kids. Whenever adoption's brought up, it is brushed aside. Oh, that could be an option It's treated like some kind of sacrifice. Like buying store brand bread to a base model car. What's so bad about it? It seems to me like you'd get all the benefits of having a family, but with none of the pitfalls. My girlfriend, in particular, hates the idea of getting pregnant, but wants a family after a long time . So it seems like a perfect choice, then Nope. For some reason, she, like everyone else life, has a stigmatized view of adoption that she can't and won't explain. I don't get this. Help me understand.","conclusion":"What is 'wrong' with adoption?"}
{"id":"b0b5b56a-89df-4bbb-8840-4c3435bcff15","argument":"Hi all, This is something I recently read about in this new yorker article and it was pretty eye opening. I learned a lot, perhaps most importantly that a pedophile is generally considered a sexual orientation, and does not refer to someone who has had sexual encounters with children. I think we can probably all agree that sexualizing minors in any way constitutes abuse and is just generally really screwed up. But the belief that viewers NOT creators of child porn are likely to act on their impulses is apparently factually inaccurate. However, sentencing in this country does not reflect this reality. The average sentence for child porn possession has nearly doubled since 2004 to 8 years, and there's no evidence that prison time reduces the rate of recidivism. Actually, according to this sentencing commission report \u201cpsycho sexual treatment may be effective in reducing recidivism for many sex offenders.\u201d In a study of 610 offenders convicted of possession or receipt of child pornography not distribution or production , the commission found that the rate of committing more crimes of any sort was 30 percent, and the rate of sexual reoffending was 7.4 percent. It seems that not only do we too harshly punish child porn users by locking them up, we actually do society as a whole a disservice by not providing them treatment instead. Moreover, research has suggested that the amount of pedophiles out there far outnumbers the amount of people who actually act on their impulses. I'm not saying that possessing child porn is victimless it was created after all and should be legal or that creating it should have any reduced sentence. But in short, I think we should change our sentencing laws to better reflect the actual impact of people who possess child pornography and go after the people who act on their impulses.","conclusion":"I Believe that Pedophiles Who Only View Child Pornography and Don't Act on their Impulses Should Have Dramatically Reduced Sentences"}
{"id":"7f4c77d9-2a33-4b47-81d2-76bc87e10dc3","argument":"With the recent North Carolina case and the Voting Rights Act in the news again, I've been seeing lots of criticism from the left of the GOP's anti fraud measures. While I agree that there is a Republican strategy to drive down voter turnout in many jurisdictions, I don't believe that liberal opposition is any less self interested. In the law in question in North Carolina, even if the voter lacks the required ID, they can file an affidavit and still place their vote. That's far less burdensome than the usual photo ID requirements to drive, open a bank account, apply for a loan or credit card, receive non emergency medical care, get insured, enroll in school or apply for public assistance programs. Yet, I've never heard anyone play the racism card on any of those photo ID requirements, only for voting. Of all of those basic actions that minorities would need a photo ID to do, voting is the only one that immediately benefits liberal interests 95 of the black vote historically goes to the Dems, etc . If there were true concern for the disproportionate impact of photo ID requirements on minority communities, and not just the impact in vote totals for preferred candidates, this would have already been reflected in the legislation governing education, access to public assistance and other traditionally liberal causes, all programs which are typically created and guided by liberal legislators with the influence of liberal groups. If there were genuine concern, wouldn't we see this concern reflected in liberal authored legislation? As important as exercising your democratic right to vote is, to the communities effected by these laws, don't you think they'd rather have improved access to social assistance over the ballot box if they had to choose? If the interests of the downtrodden regarding photo ID requirements were being truly represented, it would seem to me that the priority would be addressing more essential needs like food, shelter, medicine, income assistance. I understand that on a personal level, a liberal's opposition to voter ID laws could be driven by an opposition to perceived racism, and that is laudable. I don't mean to accuse anyone in particular of insincerity in their concern for the human effect of these laws. I just find it very suspicious that the liberal outrage only goes as far as the strategic impact on liberal self interest. Thanks in advance for your thoughts.","conclusion":"Liberal concern for the impact of voter ID laws on minorities is driven by self-interest, not altruism or democratic principle"}
{"id":"fd1812d3-a5e0-4d2c-8107-3f96974b5fcd","argument":"It is very difficult to identify child pornography offenders using Tor with other methods. bloomberg.com","conclusion":"Most offenders are anonymous, but their identity can be revealed by using a bait."}
{"id":"61b049fd-b61d-40af-95cf-5198e7236c4b","argument":"Being surrounded by oceans on both sides means any invading force would have to devote incredible resources to invading the US, and the US would have significant notice of any attack.","conclusion":"An armed populace is so far down the list of reasons the US has not been invaded as to be completely meaningless."}
{"id":"321edc51-791f-4e86-9f4a-eb152660ca02","argument":"According to a recent poll, a strong majority of Trump voters 77 percent believe that he should stay in office even if it were conclusively proven his campaign colluded with Russia.","conclusion":"Trump said he could shoot someone and not lose support There is no reason to believe that he would be afraid of losing support by colluding with Russia."}
{"id":"4e69d64d-27c7-4db5-bd6e-9f49d3094193","argument":"This is similar to the Truman show theory in the sense that everybody knows my life except me, however they do not know what is going on in my mind. In my mind I live a completely normal life, and have no emotional or mental handicaps. This disorder will allow me to imagine my entire existence without knowing that I live in a wheelchair. I am only making this post on reddit in my mind. Responses to this post can also question the theory that humans have no control of their own destinies the premise is almost the same as my post . I realize this is far fetched. Ask if you have questions . Thanks.","conclusion":"I believe that I have a mental disorder that is so complex that it can fabricate every thought or action I have."}
{"id":"88c7eda1-b563-419d-83c4-26095d3ef7c5","argument":"Some sectors of the economy have an inherent risk attached to them, such as banks, who lend more money than they have cash in hand. But banks play a key role in \u201coiling\u201d the economy; they provide the credit that lets the rest of the economic sectors do business. If the financial sector was overcautious when they lent money because they constantly feared bankruptcy due to bad loans, then that would lead to significant capital liquidity issues and ultimately hurt the economy more, because it would stifle growth and innovation. For these reasons the government should provide key firms with guarantees of support that will encourage them to lend the money that our economy needs to maintain economic growth.","conclusion":"Some sectors of the economy have an inherent risk attached to them, such as banks, who lend more mon..."}
{"id":"32826e5e-487e-41f7-937c-6ea7199cce94","argument":"One criteria is that the minorities in Turkey should be respected and protected. Turkey does not fulfill this criteria.","conclusion":"Many countries say Turkey does not meet the Copenhagen criteria for joining the EU."}
{"id":"d54dd9e0-0966-4c80-8c0a-7414280c71a4","argument":"Omnipotence is the quality of having unlimited power, not the ability to do anything. There are some actions which God may be unable to do, but not due to a lack of power - and so they don't contradict His omnipotence.","conclusion":"An inability to contradict His own nature does not count against God's omnipotence."}
{"id":"0f87c343-37d0-466d-bc55-f2451c1d4070","argument":"Subsidies are the most efficient means for a state to redistribute wealth within its borders and insure stability. Poor communities, often concentrated in rural areas or around large cities, carry a large risk for social instability, whether through epidemic illnesses, crime, drug abuse or political and social revolts. Even the most developed countries find it difficult to deal with these communities without paying proper attention to their development. The suburbs of Paris have recently been in the attention of the press for the violent riots led mainly by poor, unemployed, young men from immigrant families who felt abandoned by their own government. France is by no means the only country dealing with such problems, and in order to avoid such high-risk behaviour, the state should be encouraged to create new subsidy schemes that address these communities in particular. For example, employment could be subsidised by paying companies to create new jobs in such deprived areas.","conclusion":"Subsidies are the most efficient means for a state to redistribute wealth within its borders and ins..."}
{"id":"5f1127af-84bb-4dd2-8cd3-34a0b5dd16ba","argument":"It is wrong to use the authority held by a medical professional to mislead people about what they are putting in their bodies.","conclusion":"The medical principle of informed consent requires that patients be accurately informed of the efficacy of their treatments."}
{"id":"dce9df24-9151-4fa1-926f-972c7116f0f0","argument":"By era I mean roughly a few centuries. We are somewhere within this era, unclear if beginning, middle or end. Fossil fuels are stored sunlight energy , from the past few billion years, which we are now burning through in a few centuries. Fossil fuels are great not just because of the energy the give us for free, but also the ability for very light and space efficient energy storage . An airplane can carry lots of usable, light energy in the form of fuel, which it couldn't with batteries. While many like to point to technology, democracies, modern health care and other such things to credit the huge increase in our standard of living the past few centuries, I think those all pale in comparison, or are caused by, the discovery of fossil fuels. I think climate change is somewhat beside the point. In the really long term, I don't really care if you flood some cities, send some species to extinction, and reshape Earth's geography a bit. It's sad, but we can get over it. Just reshape humanity to its new world, and get used to it. It is still nowhere near as bad as losing all our free energy, which we use exactly so we can live in whatever conditions Earth throws at us i.e. heaters air conditioners . I think all renewable sustainable energy efforts, while nice, will never give us the quality of life we enjoy today. Live , sustainable, sunlight energy will always be no match for fossil fuels. Batteries suck, and always will. The chemistry is quite clear, in that gasoline stores far more energy for its weight than any comparable technological solution. Though nuclear energy can certainly win, it is far less usable fit a nuclear engine on an airplane. I might be wrong here what do nuclear submarines do? Uranium will deplete just as fossil fuels will. My only real hope is nuclear fusion. From the little I've heard of it, hopes are not very high. This might be more of a scientific question than a view In case anyone is worried I'm not really depressed or worried by any of this, just Oh well","conclusion":"I believe we are living in the best era of humanity, thanks to fossil fuels, and it is all downhill from here."}
{"id":"25d2dbd6-49e4-4a4b-af84-9f811d72dcfa","argument":"The state has a right to impose compulsory vaccination. If an age group is protected, that results in a better health conditions for the whole society. In an industrialised country such as the USA, those choosing exemption from statutorily compulsory vaccination were 35-times more likely to contract measles than vaccinated persons; in developing countries where these viruses are still endemic, the risk would be considerably higher. Those who wish to opt-out of vaccination often on behalf of their children, who have no say in the matter are classic free riders, hoping to benefit from the more responsible behaviour of the rest of society. Unfortunately, irresponsible behaviour soon spreads and diseases which were once under control become endemic again; this can be seen with outbreaks of measles in parts of London where childhood vaccination rates have dropped sharply in recent years, resulting in unnecessary suffering and some deaths or permanent disabilities.","conclusion":"The state has a right to impose compulsory vaccination. If an age group is protected, that results ..."}
{"id":"d758073b-e058-4462-910e-789540cb46ef","argument":"For example, Al-Ghazali who basically made the case that philosophy didn't work because it didn't show faith to be reasonable and failed to prove the existence of God.","conclusion":"This leaves out the not-so-great philosophers who reject logic and evidence to draw conclusion, in favor of their religion."}
{"id":"7805b26f-2125-4b3e-9e2d-92e27b7e957e","argument":"Surrounding the debates on Confederate flags and imagery, those who support such imagery often argue that it is a beneficial symbol of Southern Culture. I argue that Southern Culture to a large extent doesn't truly exist. Southern Culture in the context of the Confederate flag is simply History of Bigotry. As a native Texan who has also spent some time in Georgia, my view is that the region differs widely Atlanta and Nashville are incredibly different. Houston and New Orleans have vastly different histories, cuisines, and cultures. Even North and South Carolina are vastly different states. What creates the geography of the region we call the South is undoubtedly the support for slavery. The flag obviously represents that union. The idea that the entire region shares a culture outside of a historical support for slavery that continued longer than in other parts of the country, and an overt resistance to equal rights to me, is a very literal and not at all subtle extension of Lost Cause propaganda. I currently live in Maryland. AFAIK, we neither have a symbol of Mid Atlantic Culture , nor does such a concept exist. TL DR The South is an incredibly large and diverse area which renders the phrase Southern Culture nearly meaningless. The South as a region is defined explicitly based on historical support for slavery. Even if a Southern Culture exists, the Confederate Flag is a particularly poor representation of it, given the great amount of history outside of the Civil War, and given the Flag's constant connection to pro slavery forces and anti segregation racists.","conclusion":"'Southern Culture' Either Doesn't Exist or is simply Shorthand for appreciating a history of Oppression"}
{"id":"16fab1ee-70b4-4ff2-afa4-c1f3d51d952d","argument":"I called my grandmother for her birthday the other day. I had not spoken to her since Christmas. We aren't very close, and she doesn't cross my mind in my day to day life. When we were talking the other day, she mentioned how she thinks about me often and wishes I would call her more. I laughed it off, but she kept bringing it up again, as if to say it were entirely my responibility to maintain our correspondence. It put a little damper on the otherwise pleasant conversation but, as of right now, I don't feel I've done anything wrong. Please change my view. For those that will argue that the older generation, on average, isn't as familiar with modern technology email, cell phones, etc. , I will remind you that the land line telephones and regular post mail that the older generation grew up with still work just fine. EDIT The two major arguments I'm hearing are 1 I'm busier than she is so it makes more sense for me to call when it's convenient for me. This is easily solved by voicemail, email, or writing a letter. 2 We owe a debt to the older generation because they took care of us growing up. Well, right off the bat, my grandmother and I live in the United States and a good chunk of my paycheck goes to Social Security and Medicare. I believe, as a person, I'm obligated to be civil when treated civilly. I am always courteous in my conversing with my grandmother. If anything were to happen in her to the point that she would require my help , meaning difficulty moving furniture, getting around, etc., I would be happy to help. But she doesn't require my help to pick up a phone or write an email. This is something she is more than capable of doing herself and has decided it is not her responsibility, while complaining about it. My view remains the same so far. Tradition is not a good reason for doing anything in my opinion. Edit2 coffeemanic gets the delta. Thank you all for your opinions. Have a great day.","conclusion":"I don't think it is the responsibility of the younger generation to maintain contact with the older generation"}
{"id":"8c1c665e-6fee-486e-9429-2303ed3c4019","argument":"The categorical imperative can work on an individual level, but when applied to a society, it fails. The people would use Eichmann as a means to an end, and Eichmann would act out the collective will rather than his own. This function is necessary for the categorical imperative to be applied to government.libertarianism.org","conclusion":"When viewed from a modern perspective ,Reason had been lost in Nazi Germany, yet to the people of the time they would have believed they were reasoned. Eichmann knew that they were wrong. But he administered their collective will anyway. This was what he saw as the highest achievement of 'idealism'."}
{"id":"241d9569-ae9c-4d2a-98fe-7b9f885857ac","argument":"There are so many fast food chains and restaurants out there today. People eat out much more than they used to. Families aren't having the home meals like they used to. Instead of going out 1 2 times a month, they eat 1 2 times a week. There are so many different options of junk food that are so much cheaper and tastier than healthy foods. People would rather eat what tastes good than eat something is healthy for them. People don't exercise and move around as much they used to. I see people who try to get as little exercise as possible. They are obviously going to pay for it when they're older. Please help change my view,if you could include any kind of credible sources for your arguments that would really help persuade me as well. Thanks.","conclusion":"I Believe that America is a fat and obese nation with many health problems because of it."}
{"id":"c87db6a6-8419-48eb-ab45-d61f029e75b4","argument":"Unlike blacks or gay people, we have very good reasons to fear mutants. They are so powerful that most of them are above the law. Even if we had mutants cops, we won't ever be able to control the likes of Magneto or Jean Grey. They are a danger to themselves and other since puberty. Take Cyclops, he was bullied in school for being different as many mutants would be . It's nothing short of a miracle that he didn't vaporize half the school. Think school shootings are bad enough? We'll have them daily with ansgty mutant teenagers. We can no longer have a functioning democracy where mind control and perfect copies of people are a thing. We humans are inferior to them, even with our texjno. It's only a matter of time before they overpower us and makes us extinct. Our only hope would be to identify mutants as soon as they are born and either exile or euthanize them. This is all making me sound like a Nazi. Please .","conclusion":"mutants can't coexist with humanity"}
{"id":"814e84cc-63f6-4d8b-a02d-f66585115c16","argument":"Reality TV actually has a lot of value to our society; they are effectively anthropological experiments, allowing the public to study people and societies from the comfort of their living rooms1. Humans are endlessly different and endlessly interesting to other humans. In these programmes we see people like us faced with unusual situations. Shows like Survivor, which place a group of strangers in remote environments, make us think about what we would do in their place, and about what principles govern human behaviour in general. It also shows us people who look and act very different from us, and helps us see that actually we have a lot in common with them. MTV's reality show 'Making the Band 2', a 'hip-hop American Idol', gives centre stage to inner-city kids who would be portrayed as criminals or victims on a cop drama. There is nothing immoral about reality shows, merely the society which demands them; these shows are just a product of our values and desires. We should face up to these issues rather than censor television in order to hide them. 1 Sanneh, K. 2011, May 9. The Reality Principle. Retrieved July 4, 2011, from The New Yorker","conclusion":"Reality television forces us to analyse our own behaviour as a society"}
{"id":"ea5796c5-d5ee-4fc1-9fff-f5352787cd3e","argument":"A group of unarmed civilians like Antifa cannot force the police to do anything, especially when they hold less power than those police.","conclusion":"That police choose to \"shut down the demonstration\" is the police's choice, not that of Antifa."}
{"id":"b4268b4a-df40-4599-ac81-8102c3a60bdd","argument":"Because smoked marijuana can give rapid relief from great suffering to some patients, quickly improving such patients' comfort and mental outlook, the terminally ill can still maintain their human dignity and suffer less.","conclusion":"Marijuana helps the terminally ill cope with their ebbing life."}
{"id":"53ed87fb-c48e-4076-a99a-2f55fe125935","argument":"As Bitcoin is decentralised, the users hold all the power. It is near-impossible for any single group to influence it significantly.","conclusion":"FIAT currencies, which are largely owned and regulated by banking groups, have too much power."}
{"id":"e43828a7-163a-4137-b9a7-15997412ab16","argument":"Students at Westminster university have expressed their concern over religious extremists very often given a platform and described the campus as potentially unsafe to LGBT or moderate Muslim students.","conclusion":"Student Unions have been accused by minorities of not taking their worries seriously, as well as failing in condemning oppressive speech."}
{"id":"1227154e-6b04-445b-ade7-5485bbc4cc6c","argument":"I am a chick, before you start reading no kids, mid 20's . As a little kid, I never really felt that being a girl was worse than a guy, and fully subscribed to we're equal yayyyy point of view. However, as an adult I feel like being a girl is the worst thing ever. Core points of my view Periods are painful, messy, disgusting. You literally have to spend 1 5th pending length, YMMV of your best years disgusting both yourself and your partner, and in pain. As a male, there is no monthly curse where you are immutably due to be in pain and gross. Like, does your partner even really want to comfort you when you're a bleeding blob of grossness? NOPE suck it up, no whining. BF is sick injured poor baby Pregnancy if you want a genetic family, you're the one getting knocked up. None of this oh the GF is pregnant and MOOOD YYY roll laugh track roll men get to play. Nope, here, carry around all this extra weight, stretch out your uterus to 25x its normal size, increase your blood volume by 1.5x, push all your other organs out of the way, all your ligaments and tendons get extra lax, and let the hormone tide roll. OH WHILE THIS IS HAPPENING watch your SO loose all attraction to you as you desperately try to keep away stretch marks, excessive weight gain, change to your nether regions I will not post on a SFW board. Men get to let all the badness happen to someone else and offer 'empathy'. Marketability you are not desirable as long as a man. Youth is a huge part of your attractiveness, and for men not so much. You'll end up aging out of all the things your SO found endearing, and now its his 20 year old secretary that is just so fuckable. He can be 40 and rocking hot, but your best years are gone. Doesn't matter if you have the career of your dreams money and power are not attractive traits for a woman the way they are for a man. Nothing you do will make you better, except for maintaining your body with relentless exercise botox etc and this is so limited compared to the powerful cocktail that is youth. You will never be as happy or as loved again. Even if you care a great deal about your career it will not bring you the same rewards it brings a man power for him brings him attractiveness appeal while it only makes you a b tch. Please change my view Edit Also I am very sorry if this offends anyone. I've been really struggling with this issue as of late, and your help is appreciated.","conclusion":"Being a chick sucks being a female is less fulfilling than being a male"}
{"id":"c82adffe-fc4e-454c-94f6-18a5677860ad","argument":"First, let me define what I mean by race . In this post, races are just groups with different geographic origins. I'm just interested in comparing pairs of races, so not everybody has to belong to a race. There's an infinite number of valid ways to form two race pairs, as long as the different ancestral areas are localized and distant i.e. the distance between them is much larger than their sizes . There's no implication that races are discrete. For an idealized example, see the asterisk at the bottom. Right now, different racial groups often have different average IQ scores. Some people think that a significant portion of these discrepancies can be explained by genetic differences. It's easy to find specific environmental factors that affect IQ and differ between races, so genetics obviously can't explain the difference entirely. With current techniques, though, it's very difficult to determine how much of the difference is genetic beyond simply knowing that much of it isn't . We can't even rule out the possibility that the lower IQ race has a genetic advantage but an even larger environmental disadvantage. In particular, racial discrimination is extremely difficult to control for. If you naively try to measure the effect of ancestry on IQ, part of it will be due to racial discrimination. On the other hand, if you try to measure the effect of racial discrimination on IQ, part of it might be due to genes Fortunately, advances in DNA sequencing may soon make this determination practical. We can or will soon be able to measure ancestry directly, across the entire genome. That is, for all the genes that vary between two groups, we can measure an individual's percent ancestry from each group the fraction of those genes that came from one group versus the other. In reality, human groups don't have sharp genetic differences on any single gene, but it's the same basic idea. Now, you can compare mixed race siblings who are very similar in physical appearance. Since they come from the same family and look almost the same, they should face the same amount of racial discrimination on average. However, due to the randomness of inheritance, they will differ somewhat in actual ancestry. Take many such sibling sets and see if their IQ is correlated with their ancestry. Since everything is well controlled, this should accurately reflect the effect of ancestry of IQ. I think this sort of study could give very strong evidence either against or in favor of racial genetic differences in IQ, depending on what the answer actually is. Of course, the answer could be different for different pairs of racial groups. Note I'm not aware of any strong evidence that there's no genetic differences in intelligence between races evidence of absence rather than absence of evidence . If you know, tell me In that case, my whole point would be moot. Credit goes to Razib Khan for posting the idea online. Suppose there are a bunch of people living on a long line. Then the populations living on any two distant line segments would form a pair of races by my definition. Genetic variation is perfectly continuous along the line, and the particular groups are completely arbitrary, but you can still reasonably call them distinct races.","conclusion":"I believe we will be able to answer the race-and-intelligence question in the near future."}
{"id":"4c9fd4b3-2d18-4ac3-9bc0-8158d411634e","argument":"The internet enables people to access websites developed by NGOs, Governments and Universities detailing common symptoms and side-effects.","conclusion":"Most of the information found on the Internet is useful."}
{"id":"7d6dbb84-ed38-4e86-a0f2-7844d0581f5b","argument":"Speed cameras are cost effective as they take highly paid police officers off traffic duty, allowing them to do more important things, such as solving crimes, maintaining a presence on urban streets, etc. Speed cameras pay for themselves through fines and can even provide financial support for other police work. Studies have found that much more money is saved for the state and society through prevented casualties than is gained in penalties or spent on the cameras. The public can be educated to appreciate this benefit, especially as systems which apply penalty points for speeding offences instead of or as well as fines are clearly not solely motivated by greed.","conclusion":"Speed cameras are cost effective as they take highly paid police officers off traffic duty, allowing..."}
{"id":"323c5a61-6c4c-4787-afef-2a408fbfff0b","argument":"Since the end of the cold war, the world has largely followed NATO's lead, which in turn has been dictated by the USA. The USA has until recently assumed the role of the 'world police', trying to shut down aggressive and non liberal regimes down by force. So, for the last 20 years, very few countries seriously thought they could defy western hegemony. That is, until 2014, when the West let Russia take a portion of a freshly NATO friendly democratic government with practically no consequences. I believe that this will send a very clear message to the other two great powers, Russia and China, that NATO will not step in to defend smaller democratic countries that they have no legal obligation to defend. This has obvious implications for Taiwanese independence, as well as the sovereign status of the former Soviet Republics. Then again, I'm no political scientist, so could anyone change my view?","conclusion":"The Western response to the Crimean crisis will lead to increased Russian and Chinese revanchist aggression up to and including an invasion of Taiwan."}
{"id":"de88dd17-5222-4ce5-9657-9166ef2d2aae","argument":"There are some parents who are unable to even take responsibility for themselves. Thus, they are incapable of supervising their children in this way.","conclusion":"Some children do not have a great family environment to go home to."}
{"id":"158c75c4-e749-4390-b423-d90e31201027","argument":"My reasoning is that having under 40k sucks, it's managable, but it is a struggle. I understand 'intelligence' is a very murky word and everyone thinks they are intelligent, but in the general 'competency of life' sense of the word, if you are unable to hold down a good enough job that money is an ever present problem in your life, I question your intelligence. Now would be a good time to exclude a few groups Those who have a low income now, but are pretty confident in their ability to hit that threshold in a few years think grad student . Very handy ?might not be the right word? people, I have a friend whose dad built an extension on his house, that's as good as money. Those who could easily make a decent salary, but conciously decided that their life would be better if they made a lot less money I have a friend that chose to work for a non profit after receiving an engineering offer EDIT I don't think this counts as changing my view, but after the first wave a responses, I think it's fair to add that anyone with a physical disability through no fault of their own is another exception to this list. Obviously adjust the arbitrary 40k number regionally. I don't mean to kick you while you're down, I'm hoping someone changes my views because this is my natural inclination and I'm sure I've made a fault somewhere or two . This is literally the only sub on reddit that I could share something like this. So there you have it, feel free to change my view.","conclusion":"If you are unable to make above 40k\/year you are not very intelligent."}
{"id":"2ab2bc2f-0bb7-4719-9300-f17d66c8ef56","argument":"I believe that you shouldn't be required to undergo drug screening for a job. In the hiring process I believe there should be appropriate tests setup for them to evaluate your skills. You shouldn't be exempt from a job because of what you choose to do in your free time. I believe that you should be hired because of you are skilled knowledgeable. I also believe that testing someone for drugs before employment is discrimination and an invasion of privacy. Additionally, showing up to work drunk high would be grounds for being fired.","conclusion":"I believe that drug screening should not be a factor in getting a job."}
{"id":"61504b22-897e-4d7e-93d4-8746541f1702","argument":"This stemmed from my discussion with my friend regarding the Hungarian internet tax. The claim is that internet access should be pretty much like utilities if I don't use the internet that often, why should I pay more? We already pay per usage of electricity and water, why should internet access any different? If Internet access is a basic right, why don't we have the same system in place for existing utilities? And finally, if this tax was set real low, would it still be reasonable to implement it? EDIT I apologise in advance if i can't respond to everyone in a short time, I am very ironically without an Internet connection right now and it takes a while to respond using alien blue.","conclusion":"Internet access should be charged on a per usage basis, similar to electricity and water bills."}
{"id":"52900d86-18ca-4bd7-8975-e33b616a7637","argument":"It is unlikely that a later forger would be this accurate, especially at a time when history, record-keeping, and archeology weren't formalized\/readily available.","conclusion":"There are a number of facts mentioned in the New Testament which are corroborated by external sources."}
{"id":"24462fa3-f440-4eeb-98a2-91277cd26be0","argument":"As far as I can tell, the benefits of everyone in the world abstaining from the consumption of meat, fish, milk and eggs would have these benefits Cut down dramatically on greenhouse gas emissions Slow down the development of antibiotic resistant pathogens Provide more usable space for crops and housing Halt deforestation Preseve populations of ocean life as well as cut down on the damage caused by large fishing vessels Lower incidents of heart disease the world's leading cause of death as well as obesity and other health issues Minimize the suffering of animals Meanwhile, the main downside to the elimination of these industries would be the elimination of related jobs. I don't take that lightly. Some of those jobs would shift as the shift in agriculture did, but not all of them. This article in Slate argues that this issue would be enough to destroy the world economy, but that's only if the world goes vegan all at exactly the same time, which is impossible. Instead, a gradual reduction in the consumption of animals and their by products over the course of a few years would give the economy room to adjust. And, yeah, even with that, some people's lives would be terrible without their job in the meat industry. But it's not an industry that treats its impoverished workers much better than livestock to begin with. Furthermore, if we continue down the path we're on, with a rising demand for meat, eventually, everyone's lives will be terrible. As it stands now, we're already witnessing the devastation of global warming, the death of the oceans, deforestation, lack of health care for the poor in the US and so on. The rich will be able to afford treatments for stronger bacteria as well as obesity , land for homes, and all the other niceties, for a time, but eventually these problems will reach them as well. For the sake of argument I'm only talking about practices that result in the killing of animals, so products like wool and fertilizer would still exist in this scenario. EDIT I gave a delta to Celda for making the salient point that there are populations that could hunt wildlife without harming the environment possibly even helping it and to their own benefit, and therefore conceding that perhaps not every single individual has practical reasons for becoming a vegan. However it's a technicality, and were I to reword the post I'd say that the vast, vast majority of people should become vegans. EDIT 2 I'm a little disappointed in . The main big picture argument that people seem to be making is that, yes, everyone should go vegan except that they don't want to. Which strikes me as not only hedonistic but also a pretty weak argument on the face of it. I myself am not actually a practicing vegan at the moment, and I was hoping to find some interesting compelling reasons to not be one not so much as justification but just out of curiosity. But, really, it seems that most people are exactly like me. They agree that the world should go vegan, but they find it too inconvenient to do so.","conclusion":"The entire world should become vegan"}
{"id":"7c9d91c2-1b55-4e7a-8273-777ab64da6f7","argument":"He was able to go to hospitals and major cities virtually unobstructed until his death on January 29, 2008 from an unmanned CIA predator drone.The total circumstances around his death are pending.","conclusion":"Abu Laith al-Libi, the Libyan Al Qaeda leader behind the 2007 assassination attempt on Vice President Cheyney, is an example of a terrorist who freely moved across the border."}
{"id":"52d5097a-3f2f-4c58-8fef-67d594878fe3","argument":"I am, of course, referring to this experiment The first marshmallow costs nothing, the second marshmallow costs 15 minutes. I think anyone who doesn't take the free marshmallow immediately and spend the following 15 minutes doing something other than waiting for another marshmallow is a sucker. This is especially true because 15 minutes is an eternity for a child. I remember counting to 100 as a young boy, it seemed to take forever. As my perception of time has sped up, I still wouldn't wait 15 minutes for a single marshmallow. Frankly, I'd ask my mom to buy me a whole bag of marshmallows the next time we were at the store, instead of waiting for a scientist to come back with a single marshmallow. I could then proceed to eat single marshmallows at my leisure, without any waiting involved. The fact children were willing to wait 15 minutes for a pretzel astounds me. Maybe these people grow up to actually enjoy the act of delaying gratification? If the feeling of getting a reward for sitting there for 15 minutes is more than the marshmallow itself for these people, I guess they aren't suckers.","conclusion":"A marshmallow isn't worth 15 minutes of boredom."}
{"id":"a07b042e-d2cd-49f5-b146-a25fbc13827a","argument":"It has been shown that if two CVs are submitted to a company with identical qualifications but one with a 'white' name and the other with a \u2018black\u2019 name, the white sounding name will get the job offer more frequently.","conclusion":"While there may be differing advantages between social classes for white people, their skin color gives a social advantage to all of them because the general reaction to their skin colour is more positive because of societal indoctrination."}
{"id":"bc4f6a07-1efa-4310-bf19-507835df1762","argument":"Taking drugs does not necessarily harm anybody else, yet it is still something we criminalise.","conclusion":"Plenty of things are crimes that do not violate the non-aggression principle."}
{"id":"aff29300-11a8-473e-a17f-398fbf711993","argument":"As I break into my fledgling career in showbiz, I've developed strong beliefs about fashion. My most staunchly held conviction is that striped sweaters are absolutely perfect to wear for every instance of time. Sweaters are warm, comfortable and cozy. Sweaters with stripes contribute a personalized angle. Bonus points go to sweaters that have collars, like turtlenecks, yeah, that's the kind. Sweaters without stripes are definitely unacceptable. However, striped sweaters that lack a collar are permitted. I am searching for a valiant fashion savant to identify a moment in time that is better suited for another fashion top. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The best time to wear a striped sweater is all the time"}
{"id":"4b14f6d1-ab98-4392-9c76-f54a8bcd0c6f","argument":"Native Americans, who also have historical grievances against the United States, might respond in their own way, which might destabilize the polity.","conclusion":"Reparations to only Black Americans will create envy from other parts of society."}
{"id":"7e0ca3fc-0e0b-4879-b390-fd9f2c9b30ac","argument":"\"The earliest evidence for life on Earth are graphite of biogenic origin found in 3.7-billion-year-old metasedimentary rocks discovered in Western Greenland.\"","conclusion":"The first evidence for life on Earth is approximately 3.7 billion years old."}
{"id":"947acd15-528b-49e5-bc69-25085abc7614","argument":"Due to apps such as Meetup people can socialize without the need for a romantic relationship.","conclusion":"With today's modern conveniences, what used to require relationships does not anymore."}
{"id":"389ea59a-9bef-43df-92cd-460c8dac64ed","argument":"As I understand it all injustice is a result of determining that the benefits of committing said injustice are greater than the punishment from doing so. The punishment takes the two forms of legal punishment, and public image punishment. To reduce injustice in society we need to ensure that the benefit is less than the punishment. Now to avoid putting my own political views on here or at least the ones beyond the title topic I'm going to assume that the people reading this thread hold political ideologies that are aimed at reducing injustice in the world. If the government form that you hold is the best way to reduce injustice in your opinion , than to similarly reduce injustice in business we need only structure businesses in the same manner as your ideal government. To achieve this I would simply suggest voting to give competitive benefits to businesses structured in that way so that they can outcompete all other forms of structure which contribute moreso to creating injustice than your government structure . This also is under the assumption that the benefit of having a less competitive market harder to start products since you might not have dogmatic leadership anymore that is aimed at reducing injustice is greater than the benefits that would come from the more rapidly changing technology of a pure market given it doesn't delve into monopolies . Edit I'm realizing this is a kind of 2 in 1  which, the 2nd being the last paragraph in this post. I apologize for that. If you could challenge that view from your own human view that would be great too I ask for the human view because I would want this kind of thing to be voted for.","conclusion":"Business's should be structured internally like your ideal government form"}
{"id":"d924a404-3e50-4ab4-ab8d-e501d9f1bfca","argument":"Research noted that Samsung smartphones reach the end of their 'economic' life after 54.5 months, whilst Apple phones reach it after about 67 months.","conclusion":"iPhones, on average, have an additional year of use on other smartphones, such as Samsung."}
{"id":"8f74f24f-5605-4086-9400-032378f80b6d","argument":"In a short space of time, it is difficult to know exactly why the individual wants to buy the drugs.","conclusion":"It is difficult to accurately assess the consent of a person to use drugs."}
{"id":"c2f8c4f4-bc64-43f3-bd18-10bb596ae9af","argument":"Trump has repeatedly attacked the first amendment to freedom of speech by attacking the free press. This is unconstitutional and worthy of impeachment.","conclusion":"Trump should be impeached on ethical and moral grounds, in part for harming the wellbeing of US citizens."}
{"id":"bf724484-6d28-4cfc-bae2-576f3d61d033","argument":"Places of worship allow attackers to target multiple victims within a short period of time because of congregations.","conclusion":"Places of worship are easier to target, compared to other places, for attackers."}
{"id":"5828ecd6-9b7d-413a-84ae-2ec33454069d","argument":"This is by far one of the most perplexing news stories I think I've ever seen. It seems unquestionable that saying It's ok to be any race should be one of the most benign statements anyone could make. If I said of myself It's ok to be asian and people got upset over it, the people who got upset would rightfully be discarded as racists. And yet There's no shortage at all of people saying these flyers are white supremacist. I get it though, the flyers, according to knowyourmeme, were intended as a red herring by racists on 4chan in order to prove that the media had a bias against white people. However, nothing about the statement itself is racist, and yet the media calls the statement racist without any mention of 4chan's ruse. It's not likely they know about their plan, in any case, because if they did they wouldn't have done exactly what 4chan was hoping they would do foaming at the mouth at such an inconsequential statement of fact and showing everyone that they regard any claim that being white is something other than a crime is sacrilegious. In summary It's okay to be asian is not racist. It's okay to be black is not racist. It's okay to be hispanic is not racist. It's okay to be aborigine is not racist. It's okay to be white is not racist.","conclusion":"It's not racist to say \"It's okay to be white\""}
{"id":"e2742930-e521-476a-b885-a29b8e7368a3","argument":"My belief is based on two threads from two subreddits where a man who was a virgin, married a woman who he believed to be, and claimed to be a virgin, only to find out years later and after they had a child, that she had lied to him about being a virgin. The people of r relationships and r sex tore into him like you wouldnt believe, trying to shame, guilt and blame him for his wife lying to him, all the while ignoring that the issues of trust he had with his wife were due to her lying about something that she knew was very important about him. Now, Change My View.","conclusion":"I think its wrong to lie about being a virgin in order to obtain a marriage."}
{"id":"337d75b5-0c3e-488d-8b65-7ab7f761a296","argument":"Ok, quick caveat I\u2019m aware of a lot of the dangers associated with conversion therapy, the lack of outcomes and so forth. Most of the emphasis I\u2019ve seen is on individuals who report being harmed. I\u2019m not sure what exactly the data more widely is. But there are also individuals who undergo reversal surgery after gender alignment procedures So, just going by individual stories, it can both turn out permanently harmful. And there is a lot of medical research being dedicated to making the sex transition procedures safer, better, and so forth. So in that case you have people who recognize their sex and are profoundly unsatisfied with it, and we support and allow severe medical intervention for them to alter this. In the other case, you have people who recognize their sexual orientation, are profoundly unsatisfied with it, and besides some seemingly ineffective electro shock therapy in the past we haven\u2019t tried to support that with the most recent findings in psychology or medicine, when it may well be more possible, just like current sex alignment procedures are better than when they were first done. I understand that the recommended \u201ctreatment\u201d in the later case is to try to generate acceptance and embracing of the given sexual orientation. But in the other case, it is not considered \u201ctreatment\u201d but abuse to counsel acceptance and embracing of the given sex. It seems like these should be treated more parallel Either attempts at embracing and accepting should be an option that is supported for both, or attempts at changing should be therapeutically and medically supported for both. Ok, please consider again, this is a . I\u2019m not holding this dogmatically, I really want to see where I\u2019m going wrong here. Note, though, that for me to believe something about the empirical facts on outcomes and results I\u2019d want to know about some studies on both. I\u2019m aware that medical professional organizations condemn one and embrace the other. I\u2019m trying to figure out why. Edit 2 hours past post Sorry folks, this got way more traction than I thought and I got to go to work. I\u2019ll come back here tonight to try to respond more. Until then, you\u2019ll unfortunately have to talk amongst yourselves.","conclusion":"If consenting adults and youth can undergo therapy, hormone treatment, and surgery to change their sex, they should also be allowed to do the same to change their sexual orientation."}
{"id":"042bcf44-5d0f-40d8-95d3-84bb9cd9686d","argument":"Before you go on about \u201cMMA boxing whatever isn\u2019t a REAL fight, it\u2019s a bunch of rules for pussies\u201d or whatever, no one thinks it\u2019s a real fight. But it\u2019s close. And we can quantify the quality of a gym, dojo, he\u2019ll even school wrestling team by the amount of competitions they\u2019ve won, that among other reasons is why I say combat sports are superior for self defense. Let me get more specific We have no form of quality control for say, Krav Maga, or Silat because it\u2019s not contested. You can look up online to see if your coach or sensei has ever trained some huge MMA super star, or some champion boxer or something. And if your gym hasn\u2019t you can describe what your gym does to any community on Reddit dedicated to the sport and they can tell you right away if that style of training normally makes good fighters The rules aren\u2019t all designed to protect the fighters from injury, they are often times designed to encourage aggressive behavior to efficiently dominate an opponent without taking advantage of the context of the sport. That\u2019s why boxing breaks up the clinch because it\u2019s stalling, that\u2019s why in MMA they reset the fighters from across the cage if the fight is on the ground too long. Not only that, but you\u2019ll effectively learn how to stall and keep another person from stalling. In many styles of self defense they don\u2019t cover stalling at all, meaning that the practitioners may become overly reliant on it in sparring purely because it keeps them from getting punched as hard, when in reality it doesn\u2019t help you. Alternatively, they aren\u2019t taught how to counter someone from stalling, or how to stall in a fight effectively. Most techniques are directly translatable to dirty fighting, whereas over reliance on dirty fighting is not directly translatable to clean fighting Practicing a sport encourages you to become a better athlete than your potential opponent, and this is a huge part of a fight. Practicing \u201cdefense tactics\u201d does not encourage you to become the superior athlete all the time, and when it does it will not cover the same stamina that is directly applicable to the fight, it will cover basic cardio kickboxing stuff and not make you a genuine specimen of an athlete I have more points but I\u2019ll just leave you with this question, what makes your style of self defense martial art so superior to MMA or whatever sport style","conclusion":"Sport fighting like boxing, mma, etc. are generally better for self defense and street fighting than actual styles dedicated to it"}
{"id":"713a34a5-9704-4463-86ba-0c9471cc5887","argument":"A common complaint I see from people during election time is that their vote doesn't matter, in which their reason being their county district state whatever is already politically aligned in one way I'd vote blue, but my state is red so there's no point. While I do concede that there could be, and are, many areas within the United States and beyond that do fit in the above category, I'm pitching the idea that most areas are politically charged one way is a result of a rather extremely low voter turnout compared to the rest of the world. I'd be willing to bet that if a decent portion of people that usually don't vote were to cast their ballot in their next election, we'd see some major upsets in offices of different levels. Even if this were not the case, at the very least the voting results would make a more accurate representation of the general populace, which can disprove the one downer thinking he's the only liberal in their neighborhood. I know I'm banking on a couple discussions, but sue me. Take either a realistic or idealistic viewpoint, I don't care. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Those that do not vote thinking their vote doesn't matter is the reason why their vote doesn't matter."}
{"id":"cf073d16-19e7-41fc-9df6-c88511924f1c","argument":"While it certainly isn't easy, comparing child birth to the hardest thing I've ever done seems like a stretch to me.  Edit Male","conclusion":"I believe that child birth is no more demanding than a very large poop."}
{"id":"93c25af0-e1fc-4d59-8a4d-ddee3b2a40e8","argument":"While there is nothing wrong with telling your children where they came from, asking them to be proud is simply ridiculous. Nobody should be proud of their heritage because they achieved nothing. I count myself lucky to be born in Australia but am not proud of it. It is by no means an accomplishment. I believe people should be judged on their achievements, not the achievements of their ancestors or their felloe citizens. We should teach our children to be proud of the accomplishments of only themselves and the people that they have influenced. gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than just downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I believe that national pride and patriotism are just a rebranding of racism. We should not teach children to be proud of their heritage."}
{"id":"9e38fe25-27dc-4f92-a73f-902cc55adcff","argument":"I live in the country kind of and so there has sometimes been mice, I was very young when they were in my house and when there were killed in traps it was always my parents who did it so I didn't have to see the body. Recently I had a mouse in my house and I was directed to set traps. I hated the thought of setting traps as I don't like hurting animals. So I walked into the room where the trap was placed and seen it had went off and there was a dead mouse in the trap, I lifted the trap to dispose of it and I just stared at it, I felt incredibly horrible and shitty. I think its also because I also have a small hamster and it looks kind of similar. It has been a few hours since this has happened and I still feel really bad about it, I never want to do anything like that again. Please anyone  on this it would be a massive help","conclusion":"I killed a mouse that was in my home and feel absolutely horrible"}
{"id":"f95ce942-6ef9-49d1-95ce-b0e9e0791af8","argument":"Music is supposed to be about expression and not about record sales. Downloading from the Internet constitutes a protest against the turbo-capitalism of record companies that work against the music and what it stands for.","conclusion":"Music is supposed to be about expression and not about record sales. Downloading from the Internet c..."}
{"id":"a21e5eb1-b044-4bfb-9bf6-ac888f8338fa","argument":"Dharma is better understood using Karma or \"decisive, resolute actions\". Karma can be loosely associated with doing good\/evil, though it is not considered in such absolute terms, it's tracked as debits\/credits in a spiritual book of accounts and carried into your next life. Karma is based on your judgement, which in turn is based on quality of knowledge, values, beliefs and past experience. The practice of Karma Karma Yoga is Dharma. And the practice of Dharma Dharma Yoga is Karma.","conclusion":"The four objectives of life are: Dharma duty, Artha wealth, Kama pleasure and Moksha realisation. The English translations are very loose as these words cannot really be explained, and there is no equivalent in English."}
{"id":"68914227-156f-417b-bb01-f6bdccb7671a","argument":"Many international groups have criticised Turkey's slide towards dictatorship Joining the EU would help make Turkey more democratic.","conclusion":"The Europeans Union's laws and institutions would provide many benefits to Turkey."}
{"id":"d7052f83-073f-43f6-a6f3-a11859569884","argument":"The Roman Catholic Church considers an abortion \"a grave moral wrong\"; in Sikhism abortion if forbiden; Hinduism is opposed to it, except where it is necessary to save the mother; Islam regards abortion as wrong and forbidden though with vital exceptions and Judaism only permits it for serious reasons.","conclusion":"In a lot of cases, even if individual believers do not think abortion is wrong, their religious teachings say otherwise."}
{"id":"1e1ba21e-e9ab-43a2-84d8-399f1bfb1ef5","argument":"Serving together in the same unit requires good coordination and cooperation between the soldiers. It is likely that soldiers establish strong bonds of friendship due to this which leads them to care about each other's safety.","conclusion":"The desire to survive and make sure that fellow soldiers are safe, is a strong enough incentive to ensure that workers will be motivated to do their utmost when in the military."}
{"id":"95f9071e-e00f-4a44-80d0-9965b602045c","argument":"Among American Muslims, the share of those with an annual income of less than $30.000 as well as of those earning more than $150.000 are both larger than among the population as a whole.","conclusion":"Muslims in high-income countries are a socio-economically diverse group. These factors shape their lives just as religion does."}
{"id":"2e711980-0868-40e2-9a19-f6eb21c2b343","argument":"I know a Snowden post comes up fairly often, but I think this one is a little different. People are really alarmed that the USA is spying on civilians, but if anyone had taken the time to look at the mission statement from the NSA, they'd notice that they collect data for all departments of the government. The CIA and NSA support all departments, in order that they function better and make better decisions, but everyone seems to think they're military stuff only. Also, it's been available knowledge for years that the NSA was conducting mass surveillance with ECHELON. I knew about it because I watched a lot of spy shows growing up, but I figured that if it was in tv shows, then a majority of people must know about it. Maybe they assumed it was something made up for the show. The spying on friends thing also seems ok, because the better you know someone, the easier it is to talk to them, help them, and get help from them. This is why I also think that the wikileaks cables thing did more harm than good.","conclusion":"I think that the biggest news story to come out of the Snowden leaks is that people don't understand intelligence agencies."}
{"id":"b52bedad-6c5f-46c5-a7e1-82b34921b237","argument":"US citizens own 40% of all the guns in the world yet still isn't close to the top in intentional homicides\/murders. The numbers of guns do not correlate with murder rates.","conclusion":"The US may have the most mass shootings, but it is nowhere near the top in intentional homicides\/murders per capita. The US comes in at #87"}
{"id":"909fe01f-2202-4a0b-9a49-cfa8aaf2a712","argument":"Based on the post currently on the front page of r relationships where a man tells his girlfriend that if she doesn't agree to integrate domestic discipline into their relationship he refuses to marry her. Learningdd.com has the following information on this concept I seriously believe this is just an effort to justify abusive partners hitting their significant others. The website claims that this is a gender neutral and abuse free lifestyle and in fact it is usually the woman that suggests it I find this claim hard to believe . Spanking and light BDSM play in a relationship where both partners are getting sexual pleasure from it is one thing but saying you can spank or punish your wife for not doing something simply to hurt her is disgusting. However this lifestyle seems to have a good amount of followers based on some web research. So please, .","conclusion":"\"Domestic Discipline\" is just a guise for an abusive relationship."}
{"id":"eab03d8a-3f26-4bbe-92d4-2a5bcf1e6e41","argument":"This is, of course, assuming they have the drive, desire, and health to accommodate the pop star lifestyle without burning out. Oh, and are attractive enough. With today's advances in audio tech, ok singers can sound fantastic. The promotional studio, advertising, sound editors, the army of producers, writers, etc could be applied to any person with moderate singing talent and they could make it big. It seems as though the industry just picks and chooses a few vocally talented people with bodies them deem attractive, and then trumpets them to fame. Getting into that position has less to do with talent, and more to do with luck, good timing, and networking. As well as a big label to make your rise to fame happen. Not good at writing? Doesn't matter, there are professional song writiers for that. Not good at recording and balancing? Doesn't matter, there are professional producers for that. Sound a little pitchy at times? Doesn't matter, that's what the sound tech is for in post production. What else is there to singing professionally? Memorizing dance moves maybe? You don't even have to sing at your concerts, just play a recording. It seems to me that your only job as a pop star is 3 things be good talking to media, sing ok once for a recording, and don't get sick. Everything else that makes it 'professional' is handled for you. Sadly, being a star singer has very little to do with actually singing well. EDIT Featuring the fact that you must also be attractive, in the vast majority of cases. EDIT 2 By 'Star' I mean anyone that could, say, get a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. EDIT 3 My primary concern is with vocal quality. Becoming a Pop Star is supposed to reserved for only the best of the best of the best singers, yet singing doesn't seem to matter that much at all in becoming a star. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Anyone with a moderate amount of singing talent can be a pop star."}
{"id":"7f5f2025-a2e2-47fb-8cd3-0d27271edd37","argument":"I don't necessarily mind the idea of living in a society where a government had much more reach than it does now in the U.S and does things like have strict environmental regulations, provide universal healthcare, maintain reasonable standards of living for the poor working class, etc. But then I see the NSA invading my privacy and treating me like an enemy. I see IRS agents targeting groups that have differing political philosophies. I see military members disregard international law and rules of engagement abroad. I see a bloated Department of Education hold the future of my country hostage in the name of standardized tests. These are just a few of the more apparent and recent examples. It seems like everywhere I look, especially in the federal government, employees are grossly overstepping the bounds of their authority and pushing for more power. Though at an individual level I'm sure the vast majority of these people are hard working and well meaning individuals, I get the feeling that at a broad level there's a sense of unassailability, like the rules and common decency don't apply to them. I get a We're the government of the United States of America, and we'll do whatever the fuck we want vibe. Convince me that it's reasonably possible for this institution to get even larger without even more outrageous and common abuses of power without reverting to a non democratic society, and that those libertarian guys aren't right after all.","conclusion":"I don't think it's realistically possible to have a \"big government\" in a democratic society without the inevitable abuses of power we've seen by almost every wing of the government."}
{"id":"3fe2b060-2026-4d8c-b4ac-ec81482fc5e9","argument":"This is a very helpful alternative to politicians who are much more likely to waver around what is 'economically feasible' or politically viable. Thunberg demands what is needed to fix the crisis, not merely what is most realistic.","conclusion":"She holds governments, companies and other organizations to high standards, refusing to tolerate their inaction and encouraging others to hold them to the same standards."}
{"id":"8d6be5d1-77f3-40cd-b5dd-85bc57547db9","argument":"I believe that, although it's possible that some of their positions and policies are well intentioned and may lead to overall good for American society, overall the actions of the Republican party in 2017 is overall evil and immoral. Thus, supporting this organization in any meaningful way such as voting for a member of the party , regardless of your reasons, is an immoral action since doing so either equates to supporting these actions and positions or willfully ignoring them. The Republican Party actively supports a number of immoral policies, such as 1 Removing or restricting rights from LGBTQ people 2 Restricting voting access for minorities 3 Taking away health care from millions to redistribute that money to the wealthy 4 Supporting sexual assault by the president 5 Supporting the mocking of the disabled by the president 6 Supporting the death penalty, which kills innocent people 7 Lying about climate change which may harm millions 8 Actively worsening climate change due to energy policies 9 Damaging public education in favor of private education 10 Supporting the gun industry which is responsible for the needless deaths of thousands I could go on, and some of these are more evil than others, but overall this is an organization whose mission is largely to hurt a majority of Americans in favor of slightly improving the lives of a small few. This all isn't to say that the Democratic Party is the opposite or good I could see myself also being convinced that they are also overall evil I currently don't hold that stance , but this post is simply speaking about the role of the Republican Party in society and the moral implications of either directly or indirectly supporting what I see as an evil institution formed by evil men and women. EDIT sorry that I've been away and unable to respond to more comments directly this morning there's been some good discussion. I'll try to go through and give some deltas out tonight. Overall, I'll say that although my general overall opinion on Republicans hasn't drastically changed, I see that I've used way too broad terms and have not well defined things, and from that perspective I need to go back to the drawing board and really think about what specifically I consider evil or immoral versus what are policies that reasonable people can disagree on. My list of examples in hindsight was too simplistic and is really just a vague list of positions and actions that I strongly disagree with that I just came up with off the top of my head. I still think that there are some actions and policies that have true malice in their intent that are sold with lies and have no significant public good, but these should be better defined and more scoped towards individuals who vote for or support these. I'm also still trying to reconcile if it's immoral to vote for or support, say, an unrepentant sexual predator, but that to be fair is not a Republican issue that's an issue that happens to be associated with a current prominent Republican. So, the short answer is that I'll officially mark my view as being changed after this discussion. I may think more about these issues and refine the scope of my thoughts, but vague positions that I've laid out don't really hold up after reading the many responses here. \u2206 gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The Republican Party today is an evil institution and voting for or supporting Republican politicians is inherently immoral"}
{"id":"e2d37eda-4afa-4233-8a1e-6b337fe10e66","argument":"This is mostly a problem I have with bigger subreddits 75k subs . For example, on AskReddit, what's the scariest fact you know? gets reposted about once a week. On this subreddit, something related to feminism or college sucks gets posted three days it seems. I'm OK with reposts in general. I like seeing new perspectives on the same topics. However, there is a point where the same stuff pops up so often that it gets in the way of other content. Given the frequency of the reposting, half the time, the same stuff is regurgitated. For example, I see UVB 76 discussed in half of all scariest fact posts. As someone who's heard of UVB 76 multiple times, it is no longer interesting to me thus this detracts from my enjoyment of the subreddit. Sure, I can find other threads not related to scariest facts , but oftentimes they get squeezed out by popular reposts they are either few of them when there are many popular reposts at once or the reposts attract more commenters more than other, more unique posts. I think the best solution would be to follow r polandball. I rarely find a comic there that I don't find enjoyable. They have a strict repost policy whereby reposts are only allowed if the content in question has not been posted in the last 8 months. This strikes a balance between allowing reposts and not letting them be annoying.","conclusion":"For frequent browsers, I think extremely common reposts detract from a subreddit's quality."}
{"id":"dbf223c1-0f2c-4517-913c-3614ab68a4eb","argument":"If someone did suffer after consuming a drug, the doctor that authorised the license would be the one of the first people the police would question. There is little incentive for doctors to take this risk.","conclusion":"Such instances will be few, if any, as doctors would not want to be caught and have their license stripped."}
{"id":"ffac0175-c26d-4919-b0d7-a4f79a981bda","argument":"If smaller nations lost their political power and only the power from big nations would be preserved, then the total power of the EU would be smaller than the sum of individual parts.","conclusion":"Smaller nations would not lose their political power. They would share their political power with other nations in the USE."}
{"id":"19cc4e2c-6537-4dca-b18f-95a09739eab3","argument":"Culture just means something we've done for a long time and not always that long. Allowing the abuse of animals is beneath us. It belongs in the past along with other cultural gems such as forced marriage, stoning, whipping, fox hunting, badger baiting.any such unnecessary cruelty has no place in modern society. \"Culture\" isn't a special exemption to continue barbarism.","conclusion":"When cultural practices clash with rational ideas about human\/animal welfare they should be abandoned. This is the case with bullfighting."}
{"id":"64045a5e-e2c8-466d-823d-56fe16e90ba3","argument":"People are arguing on how this is a major job and revenue loss for the area. Critiques of the deal have said that now that this has fallen through, NYC should invest that money they were planning to invest in Amazons tax credits in the city itself. I think this is a very reasonable statement. NYC infrastructure is not good. Amazon bringing in 25,000 more jobs would mean more people would move into the area, and real estate would be redone. The city would be gentrified even more, kicking out the people that would have once lived there for the people brought into the city. That addition of people would not be easily supported by NYCs current infrastructure and would make life even harder for people in the city. I've seen a lot of people push back on that that 3 billion in tax credit should be used on the cities people. I don't think anyone thinks that there are an actual pile of 3 billion dollars lying around, this is just their way of saying that they should invest in the cities failing infrastructure. If they were willing to subsidize corporate welfare for profit later, then why can't they invest in the actual people themselves, which I would argue is more of a positive action to take. Another reason for the opposition to this deal is that it is being subsidized through tax credits. The richest company in the world does not need help building a new building with a helipad on it, and the citizens would overwhelmingly not benefit from this deal. I do understand why people want this deal, but in my opinion the negatives far outweigh the positives for the precedence it sets. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Amazon losing the HQ2 deal is overwhelmingly positive"}
{"id":"2050291a-d9ec-4c18-a483-df4712c0c419","argument":"Trump's relationship with the media and public 'antics' have often distracted from real policy issues.","conclusion":"Mike Pence would be more effective at moving policy forward."}
{"id":"a8f3a0c3-5b75-4a5f-83c4-6d0ce719e74a","argument":"This is somewhat dated information, but it generally speaks to my point. Even though that article's overall view counters my view, it states gt With 58 decisions in so far, 30, or 52 , have been 9 0 votes, well above the 30 in 2007 and the five year average of 39 for unanimous opinions. Another 12 were 8 1, compared with a five year average of 10 . In all, 87 of the decisions so far have garnered more consensus than the 5 4 split usually associated with conservative decisions in the court run by Chief Justice John Roberts. The five year average for 5 4 votes is 24 . While the Constitution is certainly an ambiguous document if you're looking for ambiguity, it isn't really that complex and is generally straight forward. And it should be especially straight forward to the greatest legal minds in the country if we are able to assume that that group includes the Supreme Court Justices . So, if all the Justices are doing is interpreting the Constitution and telling us what it means, there should be very little dissension. Virtually every vote should be 9 0, with a few 8 1 decisions thrown in. A 5 4 decision should be virtually unheard of. Having so many votes that are not 9 0, indicates that the Justices are either a not very good at interpreting the Constitution i.e., they aren't really qualified for the job or b they are basing their votes upon their own personal and or political opinions, rather than an interpretation of the Constitution.","conclusion":"If Supreme Court Justices actually did what they were supposed to do, virtually every decision would be a 9-0 vote. The fact that many votes - especially on \"hot button\" issues - are 5-4 votes indicates that the Justices are deciding politically, rather than simply interpreting the Constitution"}
{"id":"d2aed22e-35d9-46be-82c9-cbb377be0b39","argument":"If we allow works to be censored for reasons we agree with, we are still agreeing to censorship. It is a slippery slope that opens the door for future censorship for reasons we might not agree with.","conclusion":"Censoring books for a humanitarian cause may justify censorship from conservative parties for their own political ends."}
{"id":"9f420f5c-6d6b-4773-bd39-979290871eec","argument":"Flo from Progressive has been in over 100 commercials and has gained television notoriety for her perky, happy personality. She even has an online fanbase. She has ~5M likes on her Facebook page, yet Jake only has ~100K on his. Yes, Jake from State Farm has become a cult classic of a commercial but he hasn't been in much commercials after that. State Farm has not capitalized yet on his lasting appeal, unlike Flo who is a very widely recognized mascot that's in a ton more commercials, and even poster ads and online ads. Meanwhile, the Geico Gecko seems like he just doesn't care anymore. His latest commercials are uninspiring, and Geico seems to have replaced his gimmick with the whole it's what you do gimmick. At least Progressive keeps Flo as a consistent mascot.  that Flo is not a superior face of an insurance company.","conclusion":"Flo from Progressive > Jake from State Farm or Geico gecko."}
{"id":"8243c6d4-a978-4b79-988e-6291fa09d53b","argument":"As a nutritionist, working with vegans and children with vegan lifestyle is one of the harder parts of the job. I'll not bore you with details. But the fact is, you cannot source important vitamins from an all plant source. Most of them are in forms that is not easily useable by the human body. In the long term, human need small amounts of these but they need them regardless. Adults who become vegans at a later age have had time to stockpile these minute but essential vitamins minerals enough to survive without suffering. The same is not true for children who are started right at birth. There are horrible cases of vegan children and toddlers dying due to their diets of due to deficiencies introduced by their diets. I, however, am a proponent of forms of vegetarian diets that include eggs and milk or fish. Edit I apologise for not answering within the 3 hour period. I made this post expecting to sleep after an hour, but I slept like a baby right after. Concerning details, I'm mostly pertaining to calcium, iron, vitamin B12, vitamin D and genereally lesser calories than their non vegan peers.","conclusion":"Veganism in children is a form of child abuse"}
{"id":"53a6032d-f793-4d75-a301-b0a9672ac6d2","argument":"this doesn't apply if a bar has live music going on Arguments Bars are more expensive. You can easily rack up a bill of 50 or more per person by the end of the night, and that's at the low end. When you drink at a home, you just bring a bottle of wine, a six pack, or nothing. Either way, it's a lot cheaper. Bars are loud. A lot of bars play the music so loud that you have to yell to hear each other. That gets tiring after a while and can damage your earbuds. Loud music may be good for dancing, but you can play music and dance in a home without the downsides of super loud music. You can't control the music at a bar. If you don't like what they're playing, you're out of luck. At a home, especially if it's your own, you can listen to whatever you want. Homes are more comfortable. Couches, soft chairs, maybe even a bed. These are undeniably comfortable things. A stool, a hard chair, standing for hours on end. These are not so comfortable. It's easier to drink at a home. If you want a drink, go into the kitchen and get one. If you want a drink at the bar, you may have to spend 5 minutes trying to catch the bartender's attention so you can scream your order and get your drinks. If you can't get home safely, you can sleep in a home. You can't do that at a bar. This could save lives. If you're hosting, you have everything you need there. Spilled a drink on yourself and need to change? Go to your bedroom and change. Want to show your friends that board game you were talking about? Go and get it. Need to take medication? It's right there. Here are some counterarguments I expect to hear When you host a get together, you have to clean up afterwards. You may have to keep the noise down or end early on behalf of neighbors. It's easier to get better drinks especially cocktails at a bar. I don't refute on any of these. I just think these minor downsides pale in comparison to the more numerous and severe downsides of drinking at bars.","conclusion":"Drinking at a home is objectively better than drinking at a bar"}
{"id":"2e400097-3da0-433c-a4cd-3d8e9e19ec23","argument":"Child performers are currently protected by laws about all sorts of things from the minimum amount of education they may get to their pay and how many hours they can work. Many of these laws would be much more difficult to enforce than a blanket ban. It would be simple to enforce as child performers would in most cases be easy to spot \u2013 as they are performing for the public. The government could then bring charges against those who are employing the child and fine them.","conclusion":"Just as the state creates laws to protect child performers it could ban child performers"}
{"id":"9e9d8ef7-677d-4e8e-80cb-021d27d56cce","argument":"Among slave situations, not all were fundamentally abusive. Some people treated their slaves with dignity, and thereby forged positive interracial relationships that wouldn't have been probable otherwise. Jack Wheat selections from Dewar Gleissner","conclusion":"Less than a third of families in the South owned slaves. In many Confederate states, only a quarter of families or less were slave owners. Census figures from 1860"}
{"id":"ed5f810d-d903-4ef8-b2e7-a2695c688a8b","argument":"One of my dogs has learned that he can jump over the fence from my yard into the street, and he does this reliably if he is left outside for any significant period of time. This by itself would not make me consider getting rid of him, but a few months ago he bit a child walking by my house on the way home from school, and the police have said that if this happens again all of my dogs will be put down. I wouldn't just take him to some isolated location and drive away like some people do, I would make sure he had a reasonably good home.","conclusion":"I should abandon my dog."}
{"id":"e755e7be-be03-4fa1-abce-50b7b660424f","argument":"The definition of species as 1 unable to breed with its relatives may serve a purpose, but it does not serve to define genetic variations significant enough to demonstrate that the mutation selection mechanism is capable of producing novel body plans and major innovations in function.","conclusion":"While this demonstrates a variation resulting in an inability of the new variant to bred with its relatives, it does not demonstrate major innovation in body plan and function. It merely satisfies a technical definition of species."}
{"id":"133a9998-60d2-4fc8-b173-46af146c9266","argument":"This would enable long-term policy such as Budgets, foreign policy, etc. to have cohesive centralised leadership, whilst keeping leglislative decisions under the control of delegates and the public.","conclusion":"Positions of power currently taken by senior ministers such as the UKs Cabinet could be absorbed into the executive branch, with periodic elections to decide the members."}
{"id":"f27ff7f5-a059-4bcd-a222-d4165eb29af7","argument":"First, let us assume for the sake of discussion that the purpose of any gun control law is to enhance the general safety of people, not to enhance the control over them by the government. Most people agree that a law abiding citizen who controls his weapon properly is not a danger to himself or others. While no weapon is 100 safe, when treated properly it approaches 100 more closely than many other aspects of our lives. Living itself is not 100 safe, and that should never be our collective goal. I feel that reasonable people have an issue with guns not controlled by law abiding citizens. I believe that if we could somehow reduce the number of illegal weapons the number of incidents of firearms being used purposefully against other people would drop. Furthermore, all weapons were originally legal weapons. They were either lost, sold, or stolen from manufacturers. Firearms sold are still legal until they are lost, stolen, or sold illegally. I suspect that illegal weapons become legal weapons at a slower rate than legal weapons becoming illegal. Therefore, the number of illegal weapons will rise continually as long as and in proportion to the number of legal guns produced and still in existence. If laws could be written seeking to mitigate the conversion rate of guns from legal to illegal, this seems like a better approach than to restrict owners or types of weapons. I am not offering a specific solution or way to make this happen, if you want me to do that elect me to congress. I'm simply suggesting that a change in approach may be a way to satisfy both sides of this issue. Please,","conclusion":"I believe that effective gun control may be possible, but that we're going about it the wrong way. Please"}
{"id":"68d1e1e6-1f4b-4327-93cf-112e923d10da","argument":"The decision to donate organs is a personal as well as religious issue among many people. Thus, by making donating organs mandatory, health care facilities would face many protests.","conclusion":"Mandatory organ donation stands counter to core tenets of many religions, and would hence violate religious freedom."}
{"id":"85f38428-059d-4eaf-b7c5-96c9540844a1","argument":"When children of colour don't have role model writers of colour they are less likely to consider writing as a future career. pg. 13","conclusion":"People of colour currently face barriers to becoming or sustaining a career in publishing."}
{"id":"22e848e4-d818-4d2d-8b7e-2b71d33723b1","argument":"Global government debt is on an unsustainable path If governments can't control their budget deficits, publicly funded higher education will only be temporarily available until lenders lose confidence in governments' ability to pay back the debt.","conclusion":"This costs too much money and will harm the economy. The developed world and the developing world alike cannot afford this."}
{"id":"220b2070-73b6-46e0-8e31-a012f33423eb","argument":"This may seem a little unorthodox, but please bare with me. I don't have any formal training in Biology, but I do have some in Computer Science. There are many levels at which a piece of software can be tested. Unit testing involves breaking down the system into indivisible parts and testing those. Integration testing involves combining those parts in various combinations and testing that. Finally, system or acceptance testing is when we test the entire system from top to bottom in it's finished state. To use this as an analogy, I believe evolution has stood up well under unit and integration testing. We can test natural selection. We can observe how DNA changes from one generation to the next and we can build models of genetic ancestry. We can use our understanding of the mechanisms of evolution to modify other species. We did it with dogs without realizing it, and we continue to do it with livestock. The experiment that produced the domesticated silver fox is a great example. However, in order to fully verify evolution, we need to be able to subject it to system testing. We need fit its components together and see if it really does what we expect it to do. We'd need to see inert organic chemicals become complex organisms. Since this would take longer than the entirety of human civilization, I do not believe evolution has been fully verified. As such, it cannot be accepted as a full explanation of the origin of life on Earth. Edit It's been pointed out that I'm misunderstanding what evolution is meant to explain. What I should have said was the system that generated us, which would include abiogenesis, and any other biological systems I'm unaware of.","conclusion":"I Don't Accept Evolution as a Complete Description of the Origin of Life on Earth."}
{"id":"b9bd9bb7-530f-44ff-ba74-da8f3c5a38ec","argument":"A person can come to know God exists by learning about his will and then practicing it for a period of time If what you have learned and implemented is true, God will communicate it to you, and by this you will know that God exists.","conclusion":"In order to know God, one must believe that God exists while engaging in faithful practice."}
{"id":"ecfda6fa-256d-4ee4-959d-17826962cac0","argument":"On most issues, I lean to the left. I think sexual orientation should be a protected status on the Federal level. I hated GWB's cowboy diplomacy and prefer Obama's diplomatic views see Iranian nuclear deal . I think Republicans are batshit insane these days and I would be embarassed to have one represent America on a global stage. Their antiscience and pro religious views are terrifying. Their embrace of corporations borders on treasonous. I vote Republican in State and Local elections because I want lower state taxes. I agree with Republicans on gun control and I'm not worried that Democrats will ever pass sweeping gun control regulations on a Federal level. I'm neither gay nor a woman so their homophobic state laws don't effect me and neither do their views on abortion contraception. If it matters, I live in Illinois. I've been told I vote very selfishly. I reply that this is how the system is supposed to work we should all vote according to our self interest. .","conclusion":"I vote Democrat in Federal elections and Republican in State and Local elections"}
{"id":"b36449e0-7017-47fb-8eb8-fb31e6915443","argument":"UK has evidence of Russia stockpiling deadly nerve agents for assassinations in last ten years, according to Boris Johnson.","conclusion":"Countries are right to dispel Russian diplomats over the Skripal poisoning case."}
{"id":"5dfe827e-0201-4563-8ee8-f85b2652662c","argument":"It is difficult to enforce against these sorts of violations, and under the status quo we rely on the commitment of doctors to the principle of informed consent in order to prevent them from doing this.","conclusion":"For example, doctors may intentionally neglect to tell patients certain courses of action, or they may coercively pressure them into certain options."}
{"id":"a85de17e-3540-4beb-93cd-bcd7631ddc54","argument":"I have come to hold this opinion after watching these soaps on TV on occasions.They generally seem to include a ton of conflict, which comes from excessive amounts of judgement and negative behaviour by the characters. I know that they also include some pro social and positive aspects but it is definitely skewed towards conflict. I realise that this is what makes it good TV, people like to watch drama unfold. You could argue that it minimises conflict in real life as it gives people a sort of outlet and an example of how not to act, but this only applies to a portion of the viewers. I believe a large part of viewers are unable to subconsciously separate TV drama from reality, and it makes them act in a way that emulates the behaviour on the shows in real life, or more specifically the shows enable or normalise their personal negative or antisocial behaviour. You could argue that the dramas also show the repercussions of negative behaviour, which can act as a deterrent. But this only works for the obvious ones, i.e when police are involved. Repercussions of subtle anti social behaviour are much longer lasting and chronic in real life, and this can't be depicted well on TV, so these repercussions are minimised and hence people have less of a problem with the initial act. An example of this may be social exclusion, talking behind backs, manipulating behaviour etc. An example of people emulating this negative behaviour can be seen in shows like the Jeremy Kyle show. They seem to think it's clever to be a part of a conflict, and act in a hurtful way, and I think TV dramas are partly to blame in normalising that kind of behaviour. I don't think we should ban these shows or anything, I\u2019m just pointing out that the most popular shows in the UK don't show a good example of how people should treat each other, and we are all much more impressionable than we think. Change my view.","conclusion":"Soaps\/TV dramas in the UK like EastEnders, Coronation Street etc. have a negative effect on interpersonal relationships and society."}
{"id":"2354e8fa-e20d-47ba-bef6-77d26d95a15c","argument":"Let me start off by saying that I think sampling and photography are neither cheating or unartistic. In fact, some of my favorite pieces of art either contain samples or are photos. Now, I often hear people say that sampling is cheating because the artist didn't make the sample but rather stole it and put it into their own work. Or you hear something along the lines that unless you play an instrument, it isn't real music which extends to music beyond sampling, but let's just focus on sampling here . But photography has many similarities. Excluding certain outliers, a huge amount of photography fits into a few different categories landscapes, still life, actually, this site does a pretty good job of summing up the different styles of photography. My point is that when a photographer takes a picture of say a landscape or a portrait, the photographer isn't building that landscape. They're not creating new wildlife to take pictures of for wild life photography. But rather, the art in photography, IMO, is the perspective and artistic eye that a photographer has. It's looking at those rolling hills and thinking of a unique and or beautiful way to capture them. It's a way of getting a side of a lion that perhaps many haven't noticed about it before. The same goes with sampling. Yes, maybe the sampler doesn't know how to play saxophone or keyboard. But they're able put this sound in a new perspective that brings out new things about it. From a simple 4 bar loop to super creative chopping. It is art to hear a piece of music and think of a new way to bring life to it. Take for instance this Kendrick Lamar song Minimal chopping goes into that sample. There's a bit at the end of the loop, but not much. Now go listen to that Gil Scott Heron song from the beginning and tell me would you have even noticed that little tid bit had you not listened to the Kendrick song beforehand? Perhaps you would have, but I argue that this is a relatively tiny part with a good chance of being overlooked. The producer of the Kendrick song had the artistic mind to hear that tiny bit and breathe and entire new life into it. Not to mention albums like DJ Shadow's Endtroducing or the Beastie Boys' Paul's Boutique which uses such an unbelievable amount of sampling that to call it unartistic seems absurd to me. If you think photography is some how more artistic than a sample, then I assume the only photography that you like is simple pictures of abstract drawings that the photographer has made and just decided to recapture with a camera. Because I don't understand why capturing a photo of a sunrise over a mountain top is any more or less involved than chopping up a sample. Just because you didn't create the subject of the photo or the source sample does not mean you didn't create a new piece of art. Note I'm not going to argue how the copyright and ownership should work here, although I think it's an interesting discussion when held against the backdrop of photography. I'm simply arguing about artistic merit .","conclusion":"Those who feel sampling music is somehow \"cheating\" or unartistic should feel that the vast majority of photography is just as much \"cheating\" and unartistic."}
{"id":"2947dc5c-07c3-4df4-ab4d-731e4c60ce50","argument":"Between 2009 and 2018, the USA had 57 times as many school shootings as the other major industrialised nations combined.","conclusion":"The U.S. leads in the world's most school shootings, drug consumption, and unwanted pregnancies."}
{"id":"2e35b6c2-9565-4f95-921b-9f93e3ffc4b2","argument":"As the title says, I am a very proud person, and very aloof. I've been burned frequently by people I thought I could trust, was never good with social situations still aren't and have always been behind the learning curve when it came to street smarts. I have a lot of problems, but my biggest fear is admitting I have them. Even the fact that I'm writing this post is a big deal, because I had to overcome this huge mental stigma that I have against asking other people for help, instilled into my by my dad. I know this mindset has done some good for me over the years helped me to cope with depression and loneliness but those times are over now and I want to move on. Please  on how to ask people for help or even just submit posts on Reddit or status updates on Facebook and Twitter and socialize like a normal person, without feeling like an attention whore or outsider, or dumbass . Thank you.","conclusion":"New poster here. I have a REALLY hard time asking for help and admitting I have problems. Please"}
{"id":"f9f80861-5ea5-441a-b1f7-3be448d38c40","argument":"About twice as many jobs may have been lost i.e. an estimate of almost 17 million jobs. This may have meant unemployment peaking to almost 16% rather than 10%.","conclusion":"According to a study the 2009 financial crisis would have ended up hurting the US economy even more if it were not for Obama's economic policies."}
{"id":"5b7f4c8a-72ed-4cb6-9d98-88a4b308aa94","argument":"Recently there was a very respectful letter written to our local newspaper by a teacher who had first hand experience with several childrens deaths by firearms. Her stories were tragic. I thanked her for the tone of her letter which was respectful toward gun owners, kind, and to the point. She was advocating teaching gun safety. But there was a catch. I am an avid firearms enthusiast, hunter, Gun Club member, NRA member, and 2nd Amendment supporter. I am also a Father. What really caught my attention in this letter was the answer to her own question \u201cWhat did these deaths have in common?\u201d \u201cEach of these young men were experienced hunters, well trained in the use of firearms. While I don\u2019t have the facts in front of me, I don\u2019t doubt the author. To me, it\u2019s really immaterial. I always tell my friends and coworkers, lock up your guns when not in use. Period. There are many reasons for this, and you can still be ready in an emergency. Frankly, I think there is no excuse for not securing your firearms. Let me explain. Kids will be kids. Kids are immature and inexperienced. There is a reason that a person cannot purchase a long gun in my state until he is 18, or hand gun until he is 21. Now, that doesn\u2019t mean he or she can\u2019t own one. For example, if I chose to buy my son or daughter under the legal age a hunting rifle, or shotgun, I could do so. I don\u2019t discourage this at all. But when it is in my home, it will be locked in my safe. When they are out on their own, and of legal age, I will hand it over. Until then, it is in my control. I don\u2019t think this should be law, as it would be impossible to enforce, but should be encouraged to the public repeatedly through gun safety advertising campaigns, much like we do for drunk driving. We have made huge strides in drunk driving awareness due to education, and never even considered banning alcohol. Alcohol and guns are here to stay. Deal with it. Another reason for locking up your guns is burglary. Nobody want\u2019s guns in the hands of criminals. I've heard the excuse that \u201cthey're insured\u201d but I think that\u2019s a cop out. After a robbery, the guns are now out on the street being sold for drugs. Methods of securing guns are numerous. For years, I had small children and many guns, and could not afford a safe. Here are some methods for securing your firearms from kids. Remove a critical component. Like the firing pin. Or something else. Easy to do on most guns. Use a trigger lock. Use a cable lock. Put a small padlock behind the trigger on a revolver. Take them apart. There are a thousand ways to disable a firearm. Get a gun cabinet. While it probably won\u2019t protect your guns from theft or fire, it prevents easy access by kids. Get a safe. They aren't as expensive as you think and are extremely secure and fire resistant. So, what about needing a gun or two loaded and ready in the event of a home invasion? Just Google \u201cGun Vault\u201d. There are many products out there that allow quick access to a loaded firearm yet keeps it secure from children. I have used one for many years and can open it in one or two seconds. 129. I have to be a bit cognizant to open it that fast, but then I should be if I am picking up a loaded weapon don\u2019t you think? One or two seconds, think about that, for 129. At work, I was discussing this very topic with a friend shortly after the Griego incident in Albuquerque in January of 2013 where a 15 year old killed his entire family with guns that were left available. As we were walking down a hallway, I said to my friend loud enough so that another friend coming toward us could hear \u201cHere comes James, a gun owner with small children, and I bet he keeps his guns locked up\u201d. To my amazement, James said \u201cNope, my kids know where my guns are, where the ammo is, and how to load them.\u201d I was stunned. \u201cI trust my kids\u201d he said, \u201cand I teach them responsibility.\u201d There\u2019s the problem folks. Kids are unpredictable. It's like walking a dog off his leash. While guns are very predictable. I fiddled with my Dads guns when I was a kid. While I firmly believe that teaching gun safety, and allowing kids to experience firearms is a very good thing, they are too young to be given the responsibility of a owning a firearm. I see this while hunting. An example is a 10 year old being allowed to ride around on an ATV unsupervised with a .22 semi auto pistol on his belt. I disagree with that no matter how good of a kid he is. As for me, I\u2019m not going to be liable for a death if I can help it. I couldn't live with myself. There is just no excuse. The reason I write this , is that there are gun owners out there like James who would disagree. Am I wrong on this issue?  EDIT I changed lock up your guns. Period. to lock up your guns when not in use. EDIT I don't have a problem with having a gun on my nightstand, if I'm in bed. But when I get up, it goes in my holster or gets locked up. gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than just downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I think gun owners should lock up or otherwise secure their firearms."}
{"id":"86e4a618-651d-407f-9a90-d23f3d9e677f","argument":"Media can be one of the most important factors in democratic development. If governments successfully control the media, they can direct information towards their constituents that casts the regime in an undeniably good light. They can prevent news of faked elections, protests, violence, repression, and arrest from ever reaching the people subject to those violations 1. Without external sources of information people do not question government propaganda, which decreases the likelihood that they advocate for their civil liberties and democracy. The internet promotes the free flow of information that leads to social consciousness and enhances democracy. News of political corruption and scandal in China can go viral in a matter of minutes among its 540 million internet users 2. Even when the government blocks certain websites, and makes avid use of firewalls for censorship, uploading videos to Facebook and YouTube, and posts to Twitter can allow information to be disseminated within the country. Once information is accessible it is almost impossible for the government to continue to censor the internet. For example, in the most recent Egyptian protests, as information leaked out of the country via social networking sites, cell phone pictures and videos were shown on international news broadcasts, making it difficult for the government to spin the situation in a positive light 3. The internet provides a place to find information, and also a place to discuss and debate it with others. The latter is the essential step to truly shifting views. The internet promotes free media which is essential to both creating and maintaining a functioning democracy as it promotes government transparency. 1. Reporters Without Borders, \"Press Freedom Index 2010\" 2010, 2. Economy, Elizabeth and Mondschein, Jared, \"China: The New Virtual Political System\", Council on Foreign Relations 2011 3. Waters. \"Web firms aim to benefit from role in uprising\" Financial Times, February 13, 2011, improve this","conclusion":"The internet promotes the free flow of information both in and out of a country, which is essential for a truly free democracy."}
{"id":"2d151644-69ab-4aea-8566-6805e1b29d5a","argument":"Let's get some things out of the way first. I am a teenager who enjoys rap music. I do think that some rap is bad, and that is what's played on the radio. You don't hear Joey Bada and underground rappers, and instead you hear Lil Wayne 2chainz and what reddit defines as shitty rap. But this gives hip hop a bad rep. Most redditors I encounter just think rap is nigga nigga nigga imma go kill a hoe and fuck a bitch and refuse to change their views. Most redditors think that rap is stupid and can't be compared to bands like Queen and the Beatles who I find overrated . The same applies to teenagers. Redditors see posts from r cringepics and just assume all teenagers are brain dead fucks who only care about swag. ?","conclusion":"I think reddit is unjustifiably biased against teenagers and rap music for no good reason."}
{"id":"f7032983-1b80-4e15-8988-6595259dabba","argument":"A growing threat to human existence is the loss of biodiversity. Thus preventing the loss of another species, in this case gorillas, is more important than helping a starving child.","conclusion":"It is easy for humans to sustain the human population, but it is difficult to sustain the gorilla population. This makes the preservation of gorillas more valuable."}
{"id":"b0215cf0-670f-46ae-a119-30d207c4bd26","argument":"Ive seen a lot of hatred recently towards payday loan companies and I don't understand it. These companies offer fast loans to get you out of an unusual financial bind that can usually be covered by your next paycheck. Yes they offer insanely high interest rates but they're not intended to be long term loans. A lot of people seem to think they should be illegal but I don't understand why. Personally I think that if you sign up for a loan without knowing how much you'll probably need to pay then it's your own fault if you can't afford it and not that of the company that provides the service. Furthermore I think these companies offer a valuable service to certain people that for whatever reason need money fast but have no other forms of credit to use. I think the sob hate stories that come from their practices usually come from people who misused the loan. Please feel free to enlighten me to the gate some people feel towards these companies and .","conclusion":"I don't see anything wrong with payday lending companies."}
{"id":"6d0890e1-6b1b-4310-b7d4-f318a0675949","argument":"Between August 2015 and July 2016, the Anti-Defamation League ADL reported 2.6 million tweets containing anti-Semitic language targeting journalists pg. 2","conclusion":"Hate speech has become a constant threat online, thus it should be regulated."}
{"id":"b3953398-8bf1-4816-a153-164a58d7977d","argument":"Let's set some terms Conservatism Philosophy that believes government should be small weak and poor to let the free market thrive. Ex Lower taxes, minimalism, fewer regulations. Socialism Philosophy that believes government should be large powerful and wealthy to achieve goals. Ex Higher taxes, free college, wealth redistribution, more regulations. Liberalism Philosophy that believes that government shall not infringe on liberties, freedoms, and social equality. Ex Gun rights, legalization of drugs, gay marriage. Authoritarianism socialism opposite of liberalism often justified in the name of national security with a cost benefit analysis. Ex Gun control, military, refugee ban. Libertarianism liberalism conservatism belief that government is inherently bad and shall not infringe on capitalism or personal freedoms. Conservatism and Socialism are opposites, and so are Libertarianism and Authoritarianism. Liberalism doesn't have an opposite in the English language. If the opposite of Liberalism had a word, the definition would be Philosophy that believes that government shall infringe on certain liberties, freedoms, and social equality. Ex Slavery, pro choice arguments about fetal rights, anti gay marriage arguments.","conclusion":"Americans are wrong to believe liberalism and conservatism are opposing views."}
{"id":"fb3f1926-9a22-407d-a9d2-71cb6f96edec","argument":"Parents' rights over their children are already limited. Laws exist in the status quo that restrict the rights of parents over their own children.","conclusion":"Where they clash, children's rights should overrule parents' rights."}
{"id":"76cfdc28-01b6-4efd-81a8-379915f209bf","argument":"Christians hold life to start at conception. Thus, Christians don't believe in stem cell research that involves the destruction of embryos or fetuses because it mutilates and destroys human persons.","conclusion":"Modern Christianity continues to stand in the way of embryonic stem cell research."}
{"id":"b26d2368-96c8-4e7b-828f-900e0c766987","argument":"Terrorists are engaged in a war like any other: they unite to undertake military action in favour of a specific cause. The fact that they do not represent one individual nation and that they are not at war with a specific list of states does not undermine this: Al Qaeda, for example, has clear goals including eliminating American influence within Muslim nations, destroying Israel and re-establishing the Caliphate. The fact that we may not views these causes as worthy or legitimate is irrelevant: we do not assess the merits or legitimacy of a conflict between states before deciding whether to apply the Geneva Convention. It should therefore apply equally to soldiers and terrorists.","conclusion":"Terrorists are engaged in a war like any other: they unite to undertake military action in favour of..."}
{"id":"2e9e14d5-4f0d-4f3b-abdb-7d10ec46585c","argument":"I have observed hijab since I was 20 and am now 24. I also mod r hijabis and have tons of friends who observe it. By hijab, I mean something like NOT face coverings such as niqab or burkha. As in, I'll be the woman on the left, not the right So, again I am against anything that inhibits a woman's right to observe hijab. Why? Why should the government regulate how a woman dresses? Should they ask one to wear underwear? Sure, because a naked bottom on a restaurant seat is unhygienic. But, hijab is not unhygienic. The user is not being helped when there is a ban, rather most hijabis those who observe hijab would say the wearer is harmed when she cannot observe it freely. By limiting a woman's accsess to public spaces, universities, schools, and so forth you are limiting her right to be educated, her right to government, her right to a fair trial testify at a trial, and her right to become a good citizen. A citizen in the modern sense is formed by education. Civics is an essence of public schools, and by limiting a woman's entrance to one because of hijab you are now limiting her ability to participate in public life to the point where she cannot become a valuable citizen. Identity? Make them take if off for pictures? lemme show you something, or someone really How is one unable to identify her? She has tan olive tone skin, seems to be of a health weight, has dark colored hair see the eyebrows , and blue or grey eyes I think, i have bad eyesight . But her hair It shows so much of someone but the thing is, hair can conceal, can be dyed, and so forth. It's the face, and the actual bone structure that is most important to identification and hijab does not conceal these things. We must protect women They are being forced to wear it, and by banning it we allow them to not have to wear it anymore Err the thing is if you do find the minority hijabi who is forced to wear it, how is her being unable to wear it going to help? Wouldn't she just be not allowed out of the house or be stuck wearing a hoodie with the hood part up in 110 degree weather? It does not follow, at all. By limiting the observance of hijab you limit one's right to freedom of expression and religion. Not all those who observe hijab are Muslim, quite a few aren't actually You are saying someone cannot express their viewpoint, that they can't have freedom of speech and religion this is wrong. This is not harming anyone. It's not like a bunch of knives sticking out of their head so why do it? It interferes with the workplace. Actually, it doesn't. See, hijab is to cover and to act proper it isn't wear a extra large black dress with gloves and a scarf to your ankles like this To some women it is, and then the bussiness does have a right because wearing that next to a machine like a deep fryer is dangerous. But what about, this What is this going to catch on? The top is lose, tuck it in but that would be an issue even if the scarf wasn't present. But what about color? Style? Ask your employer to wear a black scarf or a green scarf, and they'll show up in one the same way they would if all employees wore black or green shirts. This isn't an issue. Oh, she'll be the only one in a scarf and stick out and ruin employee moral? Well, what about that guy with long hair? Or the girl with a buzz cut? Everyone looks slightly differnt So yeah that's my response to why it should be regulared. I have not heard one good argument of why it should be. Hijab is the right of woman in the world, and to limit it is to take away their rights. I dare youto change my view. EDIT It's 7am and my curse word of a flatmate has decieded it's time to stop blasting music, so I'm going to pass out now. I had a lot of fun talking to everyone and will respond more when I wake up. It's interesting how nuances this topic is. You guys haven't  yet, but you have made me understand my view more which is good. I realized my view is more about freedom of dress expression than anything else. I'm sorry if I came off as hostile. I didn't mean to, at all. I was hoping the tile would just be encourgement like rahrah try your best let's do it kinda thing. I am MORE than open to  because if my view is wrong, it should be changed. I should't sit here in ignorance. I welcome discussion, discord, and the giant scary notion that I might be wrong and in need of some  ing. Ok brb later everyone .waves. EDIT TWO WOW this thread got out of control wow. I've been getting PMs and comment notifcations all day long. I am going to do my best to respond to each and every one of you. I hope so much this discussion led to some new ideas and understandings of government in people's lives. Also, the mods here are amazing. thanks for all your hard work","conclusion":"IAMA Muslim women who observe hijab headscarf and modest dress nearly all the time in public. I feel this is my right, and any country that regulates it i.e. not allowed in school or in the workplace is going against the basic rights of women and men. Dare to ?"}
{"id":"bfa56756-0ed7-410b-9429-6da10efefb66","argument":"The core tenet for the favor of net neutrality is to not pay more for online use than one should have to. To not incur any extra unnecessary fees. Yet we have console gamers willing to pay an extra layer of fees to use their console online usage varying per console but at least entailing paying to play online . Justification for said extra cost has been, I get games with it. In which case pay just for the games no need to tack on the online aspects to the fee. It is required for good online play. This is a statement I can not entirely confirm. Most games are P2P with no deticated servers and for games that do have deticated servers the cost is obfuscated so it's hard to say if it's going to sony or not. Traditionally PC wise these costs were not obuscated and you'd pay the game developers directly ex. World of Warcraft, guild wars, TES Online . If it does go to Sony to keep the servers alive for all Sony games using Sony as an example, not limited to Sony then this is a very monopolstic practice that should not be condoned. However I see no evidence that the money is being used to harbor deticated servers for all games. And you'd want to it to be all because I could be playing a game online that is p2p and never even receive the benefit of said deticated server since none of the games i play use them.","conclusion":"That it is hypocritical to both stand by net neutrality yet pay monthly or yearly for online use of consoles."}
{"id":"073b76e9-de17-4998-be8c-04dd716a2e44","argument":"'Chairs' and 'atoms' exist on different levels of abstraction but it's not useful to say that, on the atomic level, chairs don't exist. To say so would deny the real, atomic level physical correlate which the concept of 'chairs' attempts to describe.","conclusion":"Phenomena that are native to a high level of abstraction can be very difficult or practically impossible to see at a lower level."}
{"id":"8e7042c5-e41b-423c-ad38-4162cec663e1","argument":"In the response to Fukushima accident European Commission carried out a series of stress tests on nuclear power plants in the EU to minimise the risk of such an accident occurring in the EU. The results were disturbing. According to the report European power plants are not well prepared for an emergency situation. Some of the power plants would have less than hour to restore safety systems in case of electric blackout.1 Currently more than 100,000 citizens live in proximity 30 km of 111 reactors. Should anything go wrong, many lives would be endangered. The problems could be resolved by dramatic investments into the safety measures. However, these investments would require approximately \u20ac25 bn2. This is a sum indebted European Union cannot afford. Therefore shutdown and substitution of these hazardous plants would be a much better idea. 1 European Commission, \u2018Communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on the comprehensive risk and safety assessments \u201cstress tests\u201d of nuclear power plants in the European Union and related activities\u2019, Europa.eu, 4 October 2012, 2 Paterson, Tony, \u2018Europe\u2019s \u2018dangerous\u2019 nuclear plants need \u20ac25bn safety refit\u2019, The Independent, 18 November 2013,","conclusion":"Nuclear energy in Europe is currently considered to be dangerous"}
{"id":"24257e25-608d-480b-b706-3c79edeb41d0","argument":"\"Auto, banking woes rattle the globe\". The Gazette Montreal. 19 Nov. 2008 - \"Automakers have been hit hard by a collapse in consumer spending triggered by the U.S. housing crash and exacerbated by rising unemployment and months of soaring gasoline prices.\"","conclusion":"Financial crisis is to blame for much of US auto collapse"}
{"id":"d7ee2f31-9143-4bc5-9736-b7f4a00a04c1","argument":"I am speaking strictly about western society as that is what I have experience of. I have literally zero respect for someone who would voluntarily join any military force who lives in a first world country if they have any other choice. My views differ in less stable countries where people have less opportunities and violence military intervention is more common. I can imagine there to be legitimate threats that could be dealt with by joining the military of a smaller country in for example africa paramilitary groups commiting genocide for example . The way I see it, if you join the military you are willing to kill another person on the orders of a politician or the shadowy guise of national security. I can't see a way to reasonably justify this in my mind and the very idea of it is abhorrent to me. When people go so far as to thank someone for their service my mind reels. What exactly are they thanking them for? I can't think of a single war in the last sixty years which was justified, so voluntarily deciding to join the military and go off to these countries to exert their governments influence in these places seems horrifyingly amoral to me. My opinions have caused a lot of friction between me and people I know, and i've often been harassed about the views I hold. If anyone could help to convince me of why I should respect soldiers more than I do now, I would appreciate it. E yes I know it's soldiers not soliders","conclusion":"I don't believe soliders are heroes in any sense of the word, and that glorifying them and the profession of killing is inherently wrong."}
{"id":"42d4245a-c340-4e59-a7ec-82100304afa5","argument":"About two months ago I stopped using shampoo and body wash. I still shower everyday. My hair and skin have never been healthier and I smell the same as I did when I did used them. I would often break out on my back but since I stopped using soap or body wash my skin has cleared up. My hair is also more natural and not as fried out. When used on a daily basis Body wash and shampoo seems to make hair and skin unnaturally oily because the body has to overcompensate for the absence it. I don't think using soap or washing your hair on occasion is bad. But doing it everyday is unhealthy and a product of our consumer culture with its emphasis on unnecessary consumption and excessive cleanliness. Can someone please ? Edit Thanks for the replies I think its safe to say you have changed my view. While I still think people spend too much on shampoo bodywash, they're not a total scam. What I Learned is that I should use these products maybe once or twice a week and look into using something less harsh more natural on my skin. I also learned that I'm pretty lucky not to have dandruff or excessive BO. Thank you Jebus And thank you reddit","conclusion":"I think Shampoo and bodywash are a scam."}
{"id":"f661260b-de9e-444e-a8aa-745d83dd086c","argument":"Because Libertarianism does not allow for the collectivization of resources, it does not afford the sufficient resources to a public to provide essential public resources such as roads. While there are some examples of private roads or private fire-fighting services being provided, the problem is that the quantity and scale of these private services will always be insufficient for our needs.","conclusion":"Libertarianism does not allow for essential public services i.e. roads"}
{"id":"32ec91b8-0eb9-4773-ba0f-e128797b2b91","argument":"Ok, bear with me here. Religion and the belief in God and an afterlife has been a pervasive part of human cultures since time immemorial. It makes perfect sense. Not only are we a very curious species always looking for explanations for natural phenomena, but until the last 200 years, people died continuously. Children died in droves, family members died constantly. A small finger prick on a hand plow could lead to tetanus and death within a week. A marauding band of raiders could lead to rape and slaughter before anyone had time to grab a sword. So we invented stories of an afterlife. In the various afterlives of different cultures, everything is good and at peace. All your dead family and friends are there. Everyone is happy. This made people feel much more secure in a world filled with far more death than nearly any of us experience today in the world. They were arguably far less afraid of death than we are today. Now of course people still feared death to some extent, that is drilled into us at a deep, biological level as living beings. But look where we are today We make kids wear helmets for more and more activities. Mothers slather their children in alcohol lotion for fear of germs. All strangers should be distrusted. This food will kill you. Drinking that leads to cancer. large parts of the population are on anti anxiety and ant depression medication. It's constant, and it is all things so incredibly petty in the grand scheme of things that nobody would have spent even a minute worrying about them before we invented modern medicine, industrial farming, heating, and food storage for the winter. And then there's terrorism. Arguably an even better enemy than the Soviets. What's worse than all the major cities being hit in nuclear warfare? Feeling that at any moment a bomb could be set off in your small, innocent town. It could happen anywhere and be performed not by States that can be held accountable, but by the ever present lone wolf terrorist. It has really seemed to have struck a nerve with us. The chances of you being the victim of a terrorist attack is on the same order of magnitude as being struck by lightning. I don't see anyone walking around in Faraday cages all day just in case , though. What I do see is the PATRIOT act, constant surveillance, arguably useless security at airports and the borders that is there to put on a show and inconvenience people. Not to mention remind them of the constant threat. And yet we put up with it for a feeling of security up until now, anyway. Why? Logic and probability aside, if you have a strong belief in God and an afterlife, you have no need to fear death at such an existential level as we do now. Now if there is a 600lb rabid silverback gorilla staring you down and about to charge, you're going to be scared. Any person throughout history will be scared. That is biological and built into us, as I mentioned before. But the fear of invisible terrorists is abstract. And such embrace of an abstract fear I believe is not compatible with a true belief in god and an afterlife. People may say that they believe, but unless there was a real nagging suspicion in the back of their minds telling them that is it all just stories and that there actually isn't anything after, why fall for such irrational, abstract fear? Sorry for the rambling, just a thought I had this morning that I formed into words as I wrote them. .","conclusion":"The fact that we in the West particularly America have capitulated to our irrational fear of terrorism to such an extent is proof positive that the large majority of people don't actually believe in God and\/or the afterlife, despite convincing themselves that they do."}
{"id":"f05f015c-7397-4b90-9e4e-7c7202e6e862","argument":"If we made a libertarian authoritarian scale for every government in human history, I think we would find that the ones on the extremes tend to be unstable and make their people unhappy. However, closer to the middle, there is stability and prosperity. Personally, I see the US as much closer to the center than most probably do, which is why the western world is pretty well run. Some general examples No government Complete chaos, collapses instantly. Anarchy government has no coercive power and joining is consensual No one has to follow the rules, so not much is different. Lawless democracy people make every last decision by vote All but the largest decisions are impossible to make due to how hard it is for an entire country to vote on all the crimes committed every day. Direct democracy Greece Subject to mob rule, rumors and media have tons of power, still relatively unstable Republic Rome Finally stable, but corruption begins to appear Modern Republic Probably you You lose even more control by allowing the government to choose what it can and can't do. Still, most societal problems that rise up begin to fade away after a century or so due to immense popular stress. Authoritarian republic US during WWII Less personal freedom, but plenty of jobs and very stable. Spending is offset by growth. Weak Monarchy UK before the king was entirely powerless Still good, but freedom starts to become a slight issue. Moderate Monarchy King George III era in UK, not US Some people begin to have concerns about personal freedom, but it is still an effective government. Strong Monarchy Feudal Europe Many people are poor and powerless. The country as a whole is still an OK place to live. Dictatorship Gorbachev era USSR Oppression becomes obvious, although there are still times the people are happy. Complete dictatorship Stalin Mass genocide of own people. No freedom. Absolute power North Korean labor camps Nothing about it is good. Nothing.","conclusion":"I believe that pure democracy and totalitarianism are equally bad,"}
{"id":"71327e0f-a63b-4b4c-b424-adb398b67595","argument":"It is the child of Satan, humankind is a rapacious demigod that sends entire ecosystems to the grave. Humankind was baptized in the most cruel of all cradles. Africa, home to vile beasts of all shapes and sizes who have been slaughtering each other for millions of years and will continue to slaughter each other for a billion years to come. Humans are nature evil. It is in our DNA to rape and pillage and even the Western civilization has committed many a cruel deed. Just look at all those Indonesian Chinese killed by Dutch colonizers and yet these Dutch act like they are good people when they have slaughtered millions through Africa and Asia not counting the many Jews that were murdered by Dutch Nazis . This is only one Western country, the English committed worst deeds and the French used Napalm against Algerians which is a large part of the reason the Algerians hate the French. Lets not even get started on all the cruel deeds committed by the Japanese Empire or even by the Chinese dynasties and the Nationalists and then the Communists. Man's nature is to kill.","conclusion":"Humankind is the ultimate monster."}
{"id":"5c711cd6-397b-41ec-98fe-b69da4441a13","argument":"Nike uses advertising to promote female empowerment Meanwhile, ex-employees are suing Nike for sexual harassment and gender bias","conclusion":"Many corporations promote female empowerment in advertising while failing to actively address the issues faced by women."}
{"id":"5b3ed8f8-8718-4a0c-9b2b-1547954dd90e","argument":"I believe that a private business should be able to deny service to anyone for any reason. For example, if a white owned business wanted to deny service to all minorities, then they should be able to. As a private citizen, I can choose who I give my business to. If I'm a racist, I can choose to only give my business to my race. If I personally want to give money to the homeless, I can choose to give it to one race orientation etc. or another. Why can't a private business make the same decision? The free market place should solve this problem because people would see a need to service those that are refused service and then start a competing business.","conclusion":"Private business should be able to do or not do business with whoever they want."}
{"id":"65744cf4-3d09-4cdd-bac9-27ea8d6bb99e","argument":"The people in politics represent the political class and administrators within the governmental system, and I think that over the past 30 years there has been a clear shift from these people and systems being the dominant power structure of modern First World countries. Now, large conglomerates hold more power than the states which they reside in, with the governments of said states hoping to only at best control these companies within their own borders. In this sense I believe that politics has been relegated to serve only as a middle man to power, a barrier which the industries must overcome. As this trend continues, politics will influence less and less power on the running of the state and therefore the people, money will deem how much say you have in the running of the state, which goes directly against the principles of democracy, in which everyone is born equal and thus has a right to an equal say in the affairs of the state as his fellow countrymen. Politics is the only way that this idea can be expressed, as no economic system aside from communism is equal, and so, unless people start electing CEOs and boards of hugely influential companies, this is a huge concern for democracy. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Neoliberalism is shifting power from politics to economics and in doing so destroying democracy"}
{"id":"320cf19c-847b-4670-aee2-7c00a156af65","argument":"Interest based debt seems good for income equality in the short term because it gives people opportunities they otherwise would not be able to access. If I can't afford an income generating asset, or worse, assets that give me the foundations to go make money a place to sleep, etc , then I'm stuck. x200B But because debt is interest based, and lenders make money by being paid interest, this inherently makes the rich richer even as the poor get richer. This shows that debt ultimately perpetuates income inequality. x200B What am I missing? It's clear to me that if you want to get rich, loan money. But it seems that the only way to make money while still helping us have income equality, is to either sell a non financial good or service, or to invest. x200B x200B Other very messy thoughts lenders definitely make money debtors may make money. more risk, more reward, but still debted. either lenders need to lend to people who will definitely generate a return, or guidelines need to be made that governs interest rates. and debtors need to borrow money more smartly. overall though, in totality, does it aid income equality or hurt it? probably depends on what money is being borrowed for, and what the interest rates are. maybe only depends on if the borrowing is going towards high value generating stuff in which case lender might as well invest relative to interest rates. overall this seems to depend on whether interest accrual profit for lenders outpaces profit to debt ratio profit for debtors .","conclusion":"Interest based financing exacerbates income inequality."}
{"id":"d3a29e24-b6fc-47c8-bc91-600b6419844c","argument":"This issue is rather prevalent in the news recently and despite certain people's viewpoints I think they're flat out wrong. The president is in charge of the executive branch similar to a owner of a privately held company. If the owner is doing something wrong a rather reasonable approach is to talk to HR. It's not a foolproof method and often you'd have to deal with outside people when the owner blows things up however it still should be done as it shows you make a good faith effort. The executive branch should not be viewed as a purely political branch that can only work for the party that is president. It has an obligation to do right by them american people. If someone with character is appointed to an office such as in the justice department then if they're comfortable enough critically examining their boss then they should be able to do so and only in the case that they drop the ball should it be passed onto the other branches. A justice department probe of the president would also allow for the involvement of the judiciary, something that currently would not be involved in the case of impeachment. The people who say the justice department can't prosecute a sitting president are primarily doing this out of self preservation as they have primarily done shady and or criminal behavior and want fewer negative consequences for their group.","conclusion":"A sitting president can and should be indicted by the justice department"}
{"id":"cc883a01-3846-4d7b-a908-f7d03decab46","argument":"Neanderthal variants were shown to influence hair, tanning ability, mood, tobacco use, and sleep patterns in modern day humans. Studying a living Neanderthal may provide even more information about human habits.","conclusion":"Modern humans could learn a lot about themselves by observing them."}
{"id":"28080c31-70ff-4fae-b3b4-2e5d20e1e3a1","argument":"Since being elected, Trump has continually taken aim at companies that have criticized him, using his Twitter account to tank their stock prices This can prove to be a massive financial setback for companies.","conclusion":"There might be financial risks to businesses if they oppose presidential policies such as those regarding immigration."}
{"id":"1d1bbc53-4cb5-4933-ad9a-c17e5275e645","argument":"I work in the environmental sustainability field. We could help children experience and see slaves clear cutting forests, over-harvesting fisheries, strip mining land, etc. Instead of it being out of sight, out of mind, we give visceral experience so we can incite response and ultimate action.","conclusion":"With history, students could be placed into the perspective of a person in a different moment of location and time than theirs to truly experience what they did then."}
{"id":"650cd504-5af3-4fd8-8ebc-ce21bbf46431","argument":"It is not ethical to make another human being carry the weight of killing someone the legal way. Dr. Allen Ault was in charge of death penalties until the 90's when he resigned. He was interviewed in 2014 by BBC in the \"HardTalk\", and he states that he still has not found a way to ease those memories.","conclusion":"Medical professionals will often be forced to violate their individual code of ethics, in order to administer or supervise the death penalty."}
{"id":"dc41a66c-1d8c-435c-bc49-93d81e55035f","argument":"Although being famous for implementing the \"false 9\" at Barcelona, Guardiola adapted the role of the Striker R. Lewandowski and T. Mu\u0308ller to very complete roles with much more duties on the defensive end and with much more work on the sidelines. The result was for both strikers the best individual season in their career.","conclusion":"Pep Guardiola took \"Tiki-Taka\" to the next Level, adjusting it with polyvalent players and position interpretations and added new elements usually not seen at the classic possesion football."}
{"id":"62fa5a28-e6d6-4797-82a5-e936e10aac7b","argument":"One of the most complex parts, the AI that will govern the autonomous machines' decisions, will be developed for civilian purposes and can then be adapted to military purposes, which will be relatively cheap.","conclusion":"Technological progress on all spheres of civilian life will lead to autonomous operation modes within machines."}
{"id":"118443bc-792c-4851-8e22-645e98babfc1","argument":"A man's Irish driving licence photograph including a colander was rejected by the Road Safety Authority RSA in 2013 In 2016, an Equality Officer of the Workplace Relations Commission reviewed the RSA's decision under the Equal Rights Acts and upheld it, on the basis that the complaint did \"not come within the definition of religion and\/or religious belief\".","conclusion":"The ability to practice Pastafarianism is being restricted relative to the ability to practice other religions."}
{"id":"182b165c-b340-42c6-8421-c2ba8d4e82be","argument":"This might be a poorly titled post so bear with me. My view is that the London cabbies have a point, Uber is unfairly screwing them. I\u2019m not saying Uber is inherently bad or that cabs are always a great experience. I\u2019m saying it seems pretty obvious Uber and similar programs offer an unfair advantage that cabs on their own cannot make up. They have to pay licensing fees, taxes and are governed by laws like having to pick up disabled people. Uber isn\u2019t offering a better product but exploiting loopholes in the law. But that\u2019s not the problem. I wish all the best to Uber and their drivers and I hope cab drivers in the cities where ride sharing apps had caught on earlier. The problem is, I think, is that this explains a lot about people and why income inequality is growing. If people are offered a choice of supporting an industry that allows workers to unionize, have standards and training safety, contribute to the tax base, monetary protections for consumers and transparent laws that protect against discrimination at the cost of more money and bureaucracy OR supporting an industry that makes the makes essentially entrepreneurs, doesn\u2019t offer the same protections to consumers, with less bureaucracy at a lower price, people will take the lower price with less hassle each time. That\u2019s not to say big business and governments have no role but those roles are driven by a desire for ease and comfort with a cheaper price on the part of average individuals. Consumer choices are the chief driver of income inequality and you need to look no further than London\u2019s cabs.","conclusion":"London cabs vs Uber is the perfect case study of why income inequality is growing"}
{"id":"fc5eec58-9879-49f8-80ea-d68acbf69040","argument":"The rejection of the belief in human rationality has been widely accepted in fields like Economics. Behavioral economics which takes into account the work of cognitive and social psychology, has been established as an alternative to the traditional, rationally-focused approach.","conclusion":"The idea of humans as rational actors is \"psychologically unrealistic\", hence there is little point in making rational behavior a requirement for democratic participation Kahneman, p. 1470"}
{"id":"82be714d-94e3-42c4-9a0d-234759c52896","argument":"Co-parenting appears relatively frequent with 80% of divorced reporting moderate or high interaction that remains high in the long term Adamsons and Parsley, p. 250","conclusion":"Divorce does not necessarily lead to single-parent families. The parent with primary custody may remarry, or the separated couple may co-parent."}
{"id":"0303f9eb-931c-477b-bf18-3ee79ed4dd58","argument":"No matter if laws exist, someone will always disobey them. Human beings are inherently evil and value freedom over anything else, they don't like being restrained. It's pointless to ban abortion, drugs or guns. People will always get them and apparently decriminalizing the former two makes people want them less. About guns, some people would get them anyway and law abiding citizens are defenseless against them. One argument against death penalty is that it would transform rapers and corrupt politicians into murderers, killing whatever witnesses their crimes have. Harsher laws won't make them reconsider their crimes, it will make them worse criminals. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Laws are pointless."}
{"id":"06b982a9-ee28-45d5-aad6-0f8fee863d9d","argument":"I'm not talking about whether one enjoys watching a particular sport or criticizes a sport on the grounds that I think it's boring to watch I am talking about non athletes sports fans who criticize sports or athletes on the grounds of people who participate in x sport are inferior superior to people who play y sport, or it is harder to be a professional x sport player than a professional y sport player . I am not talking about the tangibles but the intangibles, presented as objective facts about a sport. Varsity high school sports or equivalent depending on local is the bare minimum level one can be at before they are allowed any sort of opinion about such matters, yet it seems to me that the only people who actually have such opinions have never been capable of reaching such a level themselves. Rarely do you see actual athletes getting into arguments about what sports have the best athletes or which sports are better or harder . Anyone who has actually gotten to a level where the competition is even moderately high understands the work that goes into a sport, no matter the sport, and usually respects fellow athletes for their dedication and work they put in to be good at their sport of choice, and if you never had the drive or weren't good enough to make the cut for even high school varsity your opinion is meaningless. The reason I want a  is because I think poorly of non athletes who criticize sports athletes on the basis of what sport they play. In order to change my view one will need to make a convincing argument that non athletes have grounds to criticize actual athletes on the basis of what sport they play discover up with some objective grounds for determining which sports are best . Edited for clarity.","conclusion":"People who never played at least varsity high school sports have no grounds to criticize\/critically compare sports or athletes."}
{"id":"93188da3-f37f-4a30-8007-a5985e057327","argument":"Designing an AI-controlled machine to deliberately inflict more than the minimum necessary amount of harm essentially renders that machine an autonomous weapon. Outside of military applications it seems obvious that such a device is highly undesirable to the general public.","conclusion":"It is immoral for a self-driving car to not try to save the greatest number of lives and\/or prevent the greatest amount of harm."}
{"id":"09dffa67-4972-428f-af7e-26ec55f5be92","argument":"Wiretap evidence is not as reliable as other forms of evidence which we currently have at our disposal, such as DNA evidence which has \u2018sent thousands of people to prison and . . . has played a vital role in exonerating men who were falsely convicted\u20191. Many potential aspects of intercept evidence lack this reliability. Voice analysis, for example, has been shown to be unreliable in exploring messages supposedly spoken by Osama Bin Laden2. Video intercept evidence notably failed when a video which purported to show Morgan Tsvangirai the Zimbabwean opposition leader conspiring against the government, when in fact he was somewhere else at the time3. The poor quality of intercept evidence is a threat within an individual trial, but also more widely; reliance on intercept evidence by prosecutors might lead to more cases collapsing after the evidence is proved unreliable, and wasting time and money for all involved. 1 accessed 30\/08\/11 2 accessed 30\/08\/11 3 accessed 30\/08\/11","conclusion":"Intercept evidence is simply not reliable enough to be effective evidence in court."}
{"id":"e16e9435-f903-41d0-9fb6-ea5a27ef21ac","argument":"This is a complicated premise so let me unpack it. In the last week I was introduced to  through the You Are Not So Smart podcast. I'm very new to  and not to YANSM, so I'm familiar with ideas like the backfire effect , but I'm not familiar wirh  and whether or not you guys and gals consciously consider the psychology that makes  work. Recently AskHistorians made a post about Holocaust deniers in response to an increase in interest in the topic, likely as a result of a new Hollywood movie starring Rachel Weiss on the topic. I'm paraphrasing because I'm not a historian and I didn't come prepared with my sources but the tone is overtly combative. Simplfying, but not to the point of making a strawman, the message provided by AskHistorians is essentially Holocaust Denial is morally wrong, we won't tolerate discussion, don't be a bigot. My issue isn't with the facts of the Holocaust as AskHistorians sees them, my issue is with shutting down discussion and labeling people into camps and explicitly using the words combat all over their text post. My opinion is that history is their expertise and discussion is not. I think they could have invited in people would could have had their minds changed and illuminated their world, and instead they have alienated people. The comments appear to indicate this I'm not offended whatsoever by the facts of the Holocaust but I find their approach heavy handed and offensive. If I were less confident in the facts of the Holocaust and I were summarily labeled a bigot and discussion was halted, I expect I would have some strong frustration on an emotional level and I can't imagine then being swayed to consider their point of view. I consider this a well intentioned but spectacularly poor example of how to use a unusual event like a Hollywood movie to start a dialogue with normal folks who need to learn and get their horizons broadened. Already I'm doubting if it was even well intentioned or if it merely comes down to choking off the flow of traffic to the sub that they are ill equipped to keep up with. But I digress. Regardless of the intentions, I propose that AskHistorians should not discourage discussion and should not be so quick to label those who don't agree with them. I believe they aren't going to get many deltas with this approach. EDIT I want to describe essentially what I'm seeking for a delta on my opinion Something like Actually, this was a perfectly acceptable response because X,Y,Z , particularly if you can teach me about what kinds of discussions are shut down here on . Sorry for not including this earlier EDIT 2, 10 20 2016 I'm done guys, thanks for the participation. I wanted to have an enlightening experience, but frankly it wasn't. I repeatedly discussed the same points in many different sub threads, and sometimes I went in circles in the same sub thread. I wanted to have a conversation about how you change someone's view, using Holocaust Deniers as an example. I understand now that Rule D prevents us from getting meta, but I think we could have approached the universal concept of changing opinions without focusing on the rules of this subreddit. And this conversation never seemed to go there. The sentiment that I consistently found here is those people are beyond hope . I personally found that to be marginalizing and frustrating. In particular, one heavily decorated member of  repeatedly diminished what I had to say repeatedly and really didn't give consideration to my points. I'd write several paragraphs, and in just minutes they responded with just sentences restating their original point and failing to acknowledge my discussion. When I asked if assuming that those you disagree with are hopeless and stonewalling discussion paraphrasing their point had been the technique that gained them so many deltas, they took offense at this. The extremely topical nature of this was lost on both this member and the mod who chose to scrub that part of the conversation from the thread. Not every discussion reached that pinnacle of frustration, but I got really tired of talking about Holocaust Denial itself. I feel like most people misunderstood my admittedly complicated premise. If I could go back and paraphrase it in my original introduction, I think it's a mistake to treat people like a lost cause. Even when I stated this in sub threads, I never gained any buy in. I think the You Are Not So Smart podcast really buttered me up and had me thinking I'd be talking to people who are experts in understanding what makes people tick and how to reach them. I came here to challenge my own beliefs about how to have a constructive discussion because I believed  had some perspective I could learn from. From this experience I have to say that not everyone on  is arguing in good faith. It's pretty evident now that the rules of the board put the OP at an unnatural disadvantage, and it's clear that some participants are here for the purpose of having the upper hand, not for the love of the discussion itself and furthering anyone's understanding. Were I to say that  is a lost cause, I'd be no better than those in AskHistorians I was arguing against. But I certainly experienced enough to get a sort of delta I wasn't expecting. I'm going to leave you with a link on the front page about a guy who is approaching members of the KKK and convincing them to give up the lifestyle. I hope this gives you some food of thought about how some people here could benefit from a delta of their own when it comes to deciding who is worth some time and effort.","conclusion":"The recent featured post on AskHistorians regarding combatting Holocaust Denial is not a good example of how to change one's view."}
{"id":"3e051592-a689-439c-99d9-b3e9b9a42564","argument":"Any space left on Earth due to someone leaving might be filled by up by a new population.","conclusion":"The population that remains on Earth will grow again and reproduce the same scenario as before."}
{"id":"32ea34e1-bafc-44f8-9edc-591259c8ecad","argument":"Mandating the use of trigger warnings may protect lecturers from possible lawsuits due to harm caused to vulnerable students. By introducing processes to protect themselves from potential lawsuits, lecturers may feel more empowered to discuss topics they feel are important.","conclusion":"Trigger warnings could broaden academic freedom as professors could set any topic they want, and only those who feel comfortable to sit through a lecture need attend."}
{"id":"3b2de560-fa27-453f-8e2b-98ce9321c32c","argument":"The monarch is important for national business and international relations, as foreign spokespeople behave differently with a monarch than with a president.","conclusion":"The monarch is a permanent diplomatic figure who is respected and appreciated."}
{"id":"eb9fde62-5d51-476c-af49-8b212b17ea1a","argument":"I dont know if people notice this or even care but in almost every film there has to be a considerable amount of time set aside for one of the characters meeting someone falling in love. I understand if the romance is integral to the plot and advances the story , but far too often this is not the case. They'll throw in romance for romance's sake. Even in films that have nothing to do with love , they dedicate a considerable amount of time to the lead character falling for a girl boy and getting married. Personally, I think this is lazy writing that goes unchallenged by most people.","conclusion":"Romance Subplots In Films Ruin Them And Is lazy Writing"}
{"id":"b6c79438-88fd-4f69-9fbb-550f59cd2d41","argument":"Henry Sheehan, a Hollywood reporter and top critic, criticized the Muppet Christmas Carol by reporting that \"the more dedicated fans of either the Christmas Carol or the Muppets may leave theaters dissatisfied\" after watching this movie.","conclusion":"Muppet Christmas Carol has not received the best review from critics."}
{"id":"b7fe588a-95bc-4552-813c-faf7b07de41d","argument":"Im living in Turkey, our president Recep Tayyip Erdogan manage us with dictatorship and many Turkish People not all of them so satisfied 'cause still many Turkish People 51 suports Erdogan. Im atheist person and Turkish people not all of them thinks that atheist people kills cats and they're so bad people also they're adore devil guys, turkish people more precisely supporters of erdogan really so ignorant. About 1 month ago, opponent party CHP has won the Istanbul elections but our dictator president Recep Tayyip Erdogan canceled the elections 'cause he lost the elections. We are Turkish People but our president wanna assimilated us 'cause he's love so much arabian people but WE AREN'T ARABIAN, WE'RE TURK i love my countrys' Ataturk time, Ataturk is the father of Turks and great leader. He's secular and clever man and loves us so much but Erdogan is a dictator and hates many Turkish people 'cause he only loves who supports him. What do you think? Erdogan is a dictator or not?","conclusion":"Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan is a dictator and don't love Turkish People"}
{"id":"398d094f-08e3-4e24-9eed-8734431154b1","argument":"I believe the term hipster has become increasingly well defined over the last few years previously it was just sort of a joke. Now you can find an incredibly well written definition on Urban Dictionary. When I read that, I think to myself OK I probably don't fit into the definition. The average reasonable observer wouldn't peg me as a hipster based upon appearance. I tend to look at popular consumerism generally favorably. But you know what? Our society is inter dependent and we need these people the more hipster the better. How many people can possibly be supposedly living on their parent's money AND have all of those hipster qualities written in the definition? A small minority. And as those people get older and further into their career that perception has become outdated. Basically someone who was 23 years old and a hipster back in 2005 is now 31 and has a job. They are going to become part of the main purchasing power of our society USA and something else will come after them. So maybe I'm late to the game in saying this but the more we demonize hipsters, the less art and creativity we will have in the USA. If you somehow identify with the business pro consumer side of the coin, you should understand that the best way for the US to continue to compete against China and the increasingly powerful developing world is through our creativity and the ability our society gives to certain segments to be basically the biggest what you think is a douchebag as possible. I'm hoping there are people out there who hate hipsters and disagree with me. I really don't see the inherent problem and think that they are generally looking out for the common good, regardless of whether it is in my interest or not. Edit thanks for all of your responses this has been a very interesting read. Seems like there is no commonly agreed upon definition of the word hipster, but there are some interesting characteristics that people attribute to what they perceive as hipsters. I don't think my view has been changed, because I still generally think they are people working towards what they believe to be the common good. But, I feel that I learned some new perspectives on what hipsters are does this qualify as having my view changed? I believe as humans we are all egotistical in some way. But this discussion made me think about how real the word hipster has become in people's minds, that perhaps the definition has changed quickly over time and perhaps it does change based upon your location in the US. Also the notion that hipsters, could only be possible today with our technology enabled consumerism comes to mind. I think that some of my friends based upon the definitions in this thread may be bordering on hipsters but at the same time it could be that they are just Americans who like to buy things. Does a hipster have to fulfill all of these roles in order to be a hipster? Or just some of them? Here are some viewpoints, to summarize hopefully we all gain something from this collection of ideas OPINIONS GENERALIZATIONS ABOUT THE DEFINITION OF HIPSTER Hipsters aren't the trend setters, they just want you to think that they are The word has changed as social trends change. Whereas hipsters used to be intellectual, they are now try hards They pretend to be more enlightened than the mainstream Artists, writers and creative people are awesome, but the consumers of that art are lame and probably hipsters who we should all hate and find obnoxious The only way to show that you are thinking for yourself is if you think something other than what the herd thinks. And that is the trap that gives hipster such a negative connotation. It doesn't always mean some person with an inflated ego being pretentious, insincere, and ironic without contributing anything of their own. Although that might be the worst aspect that people focus on. The word is changing. Hipsters can actually be fashionable or creative as a result of their efforts, but the derision stems from how much they value appearance It might be that people focus on the worst things about hipsters, the derision between creativity and non creativity A hipster is, by pure terminology, some who's in it for the 'hip', for being 'hip'. You can be anti hipster in a way that doesn't have anything to do with intellectualism. Sometimes a hipster is just a hipster. BEHAVIORS ACTIONS ATTRIBUTED TO HIPSTERS OPINONS ABOUT THOSE ACTIONS They put too much emphasis on what they are wearing They used to popularize obscure music, but now grow angry when obscure bands become popular They use Tumblr a lot People that call themselves hipsters are associating themselves with a brand of shabby chic that they seem to care more about than any progressive ideology Hipsters use Macs, they don't know shit about technology They flip neighborhoods. They go into ghettos so they can experience poverty or whatever and then the next thing you know a whole swarm of them are in the neighborhood, taking over one government foreclosure at a time. Then they are starting all sorts of farmers markets and maker spaces and shit like that and next thing you know you're in freakin' Chelsea. They buy clothes at Urban Outfitters They buy clothes from thrift stores They ride bikes They play vinyl records Hipsters don't have jobs or they work as coffee baristas Hipsters do not make a living producing art, writing or music, they simply consume it and critique it They potentially self identify when using OKCupid They wear skinny jeans They have conversations where topics range from music to politics to movies to literature to science to etc HIPSTER HISTORY People in the 90s wore blue collared work shirts and bowling shoes and were't called hipsters As new technology became the central household personal commodity, being smart was valued and hipsters arose The hipster movement has moved away from its intellectual roots and instead has pursued an almost Luddite doctrine of opposition for it's own sake Hipsterism as it began was a backlash against mass marketing . It was the discovery that successful did not mean good , and was a rejection of change for its own sake . And in it's infancy, it may have been intellectual in nature, pushing people away from categorical acceptance of success and into forming individual opinions.","conclusion":"I think the term \"Hipster,\" is nothing more than Anti-Intellectualism and its negative connotations are damaging to society."}
{"id":"e1d9b5ed-5c19-4ce3-83d5-bf23de5eb701","argument":"Organizing such frequent, large-scale referendums would be a massive financial undertaking. Organizing presidential elections is already an immensely expensive task paying poll workers and renting polling places.","conclusion":"Representatives are a necessary middle-man between the voting public and policy creation."}
{"id":"03f8781c-2bc4-44aa-aaa2-4742475420e2","argument":"You can never prove an axiom. An axiom or postulate is a statement that is taken to be true","conclusion":"Every theory must start from a set of axioms, meaning axioms are by definition not proven."}
{"id":"11412217-b074-4322-b824-e4b813fa23cf","argument":"For a long long time, I believed firmly that the universe existed the way I see it, and my biological senses existed as a way to understand comprehend the material objects and events in front of me. The computer I'm staring at? Even when I'm dead, that computer would still be there objectively. However, I had a revelation after studying the effects of mind altering drugs on the human consciousness. For example, I've had friends who did a lot of LSD and some of them describe seeing various monsters and leprechaun gods wandering around. Microwaves talking. Walls bubbling and changing colors. This made me think, well damn why couldn't it be the case that the above phenomenon is the way the universe actually is and my brain is just filtering these things out to suit its evolutionary purpose of survival? Maybe that leprechaun god actually exists and is walking around me right now but I simply cannot feel or hear or see him because LSD is required to see him and my brain doesn't normally come into contact with LSD? Imagine if we had evolved in a primordial ooze that contained copious amounts of LSD. Imagine our species needed LSD to survive. Well, we would all see weird monsters and wiggling walls, and our society would believe that stuff is natural. So who is to say that when I look around and see the normal world, that understanding is just one out of a trillion different possibilites my brain captured and processed information in some plane that I'm not smart enough to describe in this post? This, to me, seems conclusive proof that whatever the universe may be, it is certainly not only what I see with my eyes. I don't even know if the computer in front of me exists or if it's just chemicals in my brain projecting a computer in front of my eyes and forcing the sensual receptors in my fingers to feel a keyboard. I hope this makes sense, I know it sounds really disjointed. TL DR I believe that either there is no objective reality or even if there is, I am probably not experiencing it right now. The existence of mind altering drugs proves that our universe is simply what our brains make of it, and nothing more. Change my view.","conclusion":"There is no objective reality. Even if there is, the reality I see is not the \"true\" reality."}
{"id":"24245cf7-e107-4cbd-ba7f-e27428091a8b","argument":"While it is possible that security officers could ask women to lift their veils in specific security-related situations, this is insufficient. Many countries are set up with video cameras, for example, designed to be able to track the identity of individuals who may pose a risk. The veil compromises this entire system, and lifting the veil upon request obviously does not solve the issue. Nor, does it solve issues like individuals wearing the burqa in order to commit a crime.","conclusion":"Identity need be visible at all times, not just upon request."}
{"id":"67371abf-859b-46a7-939e-bd472848d849","argument":"I don't need to directly tell my friends I am mostly gay. I don't need to directly tell my friends that I am mostly gay. By mostly, I mean, I do find some women attractive, and can blend seamlessly in straight culture by falling back on those rare and picky preferences. This is something I've pondered for a while, but I have finally cemented my belief that even the closest of my friends need not directly know that I am gay. I believe it is none of their business. If they are comfortable with a platonic touch, it should not be changed based on my sexuality. Friend spotting me in the gym, a hug, or what have you. I don't need to disperse this information in the hopes that one of the ones I have a crush on that I thought was straight turns out bi gay. I feel like I got just as much out of being their close friend than anything else. I can wait for the comfortable sexual relationship to settle in, if ever. I don't feel like this is the closet. I have no problem with anyone knowing. I start dating a guy, and they notice I'm dating a guy. Okay, great, now they know. I'm not really hiding anything to get at anyone. If my friend was the type that would have treated me different knowing from the start that i'm about 90 into guys, we're they really entitled to that information to begin with? Am I suddenly untrustworthy just because I am attracted to men? If the judgement is to be yes, it makes me untrustworthy in their eyes, then I lose all care for their opinion anyways and go on about my business with other friends. These are some of the points, and probably the most pressing, that makes me feel like it's unimportant for someone to just come out to their close friends and say I'm gay, bi, mostly into men, or what have you. I would be deeply interested in other opinions. I am unsure if any opinion that may attempt to change my view on this will come as anything other than well, maybe you should do it to keep yourself safe . But I feel safe with the type of friends I make. Anyways, I am willing to change my view on this if there is some not so anecdotal insight. I'm also open to reviewing other's anecdotal stories on this, even if I think that they will not become my case. Thank you for your time. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I don't need to directly tell my friends I am mostly gay."}
{"id":"79cb7ccc-ba8a-4290-92b5-f9c1b415f6d3","argument":"We\u2019ll never find intelligent alien life like ours. We may find microbes, plants or even animals similar to mammals, reptiles, insects, etc. But we\u2019ll never be able to communicate with any of the life forms we\u2019ll encounter, in the same way we are unable to communicate with other animals on earth. Sure we are able to teach orders and give commands but you can\u2019t ask your dogs \u201cdo you believe in alien life?\u201d and expect to have an interesting debate with them. People believe in intelligent alien life for the same reason they believe they\u2019ll win the lottery because they don\u2019t understand probability. Just because the universe is so big and there are so many stars and planets doesn\u2019t necessarily mean they have life forms and that doesn\u2019t necessarily mean those life forms are in anyway like ours. There\u2019s no reason to believe that a life form on another planet would evolve to have a brain exactly like ours. Our brains evolved to this stage due to the very specific factors of this planet in particular. Our brains recognize things that we cannot expect other species to recognize. If I draw you a stick figure your brain will immediately recognize it as a representation of a person but for any other creature a stick figure is just a bunch of lines put together. In the same way, we cannot expect to be able to recognize and understand any form of communication other life forms might have. And learning them may not be part of the equation because they may be so drastically different from ours that our brains may not be prepared to ever understand them. One thing that distinguishes us from other animals on earth is the development of written language. By typing this text I\u2019m able to put thoughts on your brain without ever meeting you personally. Think about it, these are just some random symbols we made up and we\u2019re able to use to communicate complex ideas even long after whoever wrote it died. No other animal does this. If it took billions of years for humans to show up and develop this sort of communication on earth what makes you believe that right now there are intelligent life forms living in the same stage that this planet is? We should cherish what we have because what happened on earth was a chance in a billion, or a trillion, or gazillion\u2026 Nobody knows the real math here . We are alone in the universe and that\u2019s okay.","conclusion":"We\u2019ll never find intelligent extraterrestrial life like ours"}
{"id":"4d7c20ab-be3d-4ec3-8e43-be228e6a344e","argument":"If 12 voters chose AB, 7 voters chose BA, 9 voters chose RS and 8 voters chose SR Thus 19 voters, a majority, prefer A and B while 17 prefer R and S. So only A has quota. A is elected, leaving B with 7 votes and so on. The standard thing to do now is to eliminate the candidate with the fewest votes, and transfer the votes to the next choice. That would be B. This leaves only R and S. So the final winners are: A,R,S, while the two majority picks were A and B.","conclusion":"In a scenario where no choice in the election has quota, the standard thing to do is to eliminate the candidate with the fewest votes, and transfer the votes to the next choice. Ideally the result should be the two majority candidates winnings but the result is compromised in STV."}
{"id":"98963c35-7562-4783-b921-d74d879191c9","argument":"This is a pretty well accepted idea on psychology. According to Kohlberg's theory of moral development, those who value humanity over their own self interest are the highest level of morality, and there is no better way to demonstrate this than to be willing to die or serve a lengthy prison sentence. I have already resigned myself to dying our killing for true universal healthcare and global warming action, meaning that I'd willingly slay my own mother of I believed it'd achieve goals that saver tens of thousands of lives. Go ahead and challenge my belief in my nobility","conclusion":"People who are willing to die for their causes are the best humans."}
{"id":"e52c02a9-b33f-484c-97e6-7c4fda84025a","argument":"Due to the large overlap in population and revolving door between wealthy corporate interests and government institutions including elected officials, unelected bureaucrats, etc , I believe that corporatism and state control cause the same degree of negative effects and are equally dangerous to the vast majority of people who are not part of the wealthy elite. In the United States, we are presented with a false dichotomy between right wing corporatists and left wing statists , when both sides represent entrenched, powerful interests. The interests of both sides corporations and government entities are similarly at odds with those of the majority of the population, and in many cases the corporate interests and statist interests are literally the same people with the same agendas. It is often argued that the role of democracy is to ensure that government works toward the common good, but this ignores an important fact everyone has one vote, but some people have one vote and billions of dollars with which to influence government. Government will inevitably serve the interests of those who have one vote and billions of dollars over those who just have one vote. The American right argues that state intervention in the economy and society as a whole is often immoral, unfair, and damaging I think this is correct. The American left argues that corporations have the same negative effects, and I think this is correct as well. I think that the primary cause of this problem is the incestuous relationship between corporations and government K Street , but I also think that further regulations on government behavior to limit this kind of corruption would be necessarily ineffective, due to the intrinsic connection between wealth and political power. I am most familiar with American politics, so those are the examples I have used here, but I don't think this problem is uniquely American. I would like to be convinced that there is a way that we can limit this destructive tendency, but I cannot envision a way that this can be done at least not without having hugely destructive effects on the rest of society . At the minimum, it would be helpful if I had a reason to believe that one threat or the other was greater, so that I could choose a side to try to make things better. Please .","conclusion":"I believe that there is ultimately little difference between the dangers of government power and the dangers of corporate power, and that both act in the interests of a privileged minority."}
{"id":"7635d4a5-a613-40a6-a1f7-0f790cbded95","argument":"Around 50,000 people in the US died from kidney failure in 2010. Although there are many organ donors, only a small share of donors leave behind organs viable for transplantation. The World Health Organisation WHO has found that only one in ten people in need of a new kidney, the body part most in demand, manages to get one. Although I generally agree with the concept of organ trade, I would like to focus on kidneys since everyone essentially carries a spare one with them and it makes the argument simpler. By legally allowing and regulating the trade of kidneys, deaths from kidney failure will significantly fall which can only be a good thing.","conclusion":"Buying and selling of kidneys should be legal."}
{"id":"6e7a1d68-0162-4475-aff5-21ebb29ec510","argument":"During his resurrection, Melisandre wears her red necklace which could be considered as a 'red star'.","conclusion":"Jon Snow could also be considered as reborn under these circumstances."}
{"id":"159c3a5a-491a-430b-bc50-19c7ec300023","argument":"So first off. I believe rapists are the scum of the earth, and need to be castrated. That being said, let me explain further So if I walk around with a fancy watch and other expensive things, I increase my likelyhood of getting mugged, robbed, etc. Theives want money, and the robbers muggers will excersize power to get it. I am not advocating robbery, robbers are also scumbags as well. But muggings robberies happen, just like rape. There will always be scumbags. Now, let's look at rape. A lot of feminists and other progressive thinkers believe that rape is all about power, and sex isn't apart of it. That it doesn't matter what women wear or appear because all a rapist wants is to have power over someone. However, there are many ways to wrongfully over power someone. They force sex because they want sex, but get it by over powering mainly women. Now if a woman wears short skirts, shirts, etc. She will appeal more to rapists. Just like if someone wears expensive watches they will appeal more to robbers and muggers. I do believe that women SHOULD be able to wear what they want without the fear of getting raped, just like anyone should be able to carry on their person without worrying about getting robbed. But robbery, just like rape, is going to happen. There will always be scumbags. However, if I wear an expensive watch and I get robbed, it is partially my fault. Just like if a woman wears revealing clothing and gets raped, it's a little bit her fault. I got robbed at gunpoint while walking around in a not so nice neighborhood talking on my iPhone 4S which at the time just came out. To this day I regret having that out. However, I do want a good compelling argument against mine, because it seems to be a very misygonistic belief. I personally now think it's a very logical one.","conclusion":"I think women who wear revealing clothing increase their risk for rape PS: I am NOT advocating rape, please read content"}
{"id":"3ed6c54f-3e39-4124-a37d-1e93fe7c1fdf","argument":"Switzerland has comparable gun laws that allow for \"assault\" rifles and ammo to be purchased by private citizens. However, Switzerland's gun homicide rate is a fraction of the U.S.","conclusion":"The policy fails to address the root of the issue with gun violence in the US which is cultural."}
{"id":"116cb0e6-0984-4046-b2b4-ed76f091f10f","argument":"Millennials in the European Parliament can be advocates on behalf of the young through speaking out against misrepresentations of the young as lazy and self-serving.","conclusion":"Quotas increase the chances that misrepresentations of young people will be challenged."}
{"id":"d731e636-5fa4-4313-ad7b-162f1f310991","argument":"A good President has to provide for the future stability and well being of the country and future generations, for long term stability and survival, not just immediate benefits regardless of costs or consequences in the future.","conclusion":"Financial benefits will only matter for so much time until we all die."}
{"id":"67d70282-807e-4ca9-ab9f-a91a37f655c8","argument":"Either we will solve climate change and other environmental issues, or we wont. My own actions have nothing to do with it. I do agree in principle that everyone should be the change they want to see in the world but whether or not I take steps to reduce my carbon footprint doesnt have any consequence. It's an exercise in futility which produces nothing but inconvenience for me with no actual benefits to anyone. As well as this, I plan to have children, and having children will more or less nullify the net amount of c02 I have avoided emitting. I also identify as an environmentalist. I dont see what im doing as harming the environment, im not sawing off rhino horns or clearing forest for a paddock to fill with cows soon to be big mac patties. I accept that it makes me kind of a dick. .","conclusion":"There's no point in me reducing my carbon footprint."}
{"id":"909bb07a-dead-480c-81df-3c45d686b961","argument":"I remember hearing a quote somewhere, along the lines of If you saw an anthill at the side of the road, you would simply ignore it, as opposed to showing it your cellphone, and saying, Look at the technology we bring you or something similar. The origins of this quote escape me, and I'm just ad libbing, but I feel it brings up a good point. Say you are a member of a type 2 or above Kardashevian civilisation. You can freely explore on a galactic or even intergalactic level. Now assume that life in the universe is fairly abundant, your civilisation can count thousands of different planets that harbour many type 0 civilisations. Much like how we on earth could count thousands of beetle species, for example. Now on an individual interest, you may be fascinated with these 'primitive' type 0 civilisations, but you know that as a collective they pose no real interest or threat to your civilisation. Imagine trying to convince your countries government to put massive funding into researching beetles and their lives, and how you could even learn from them, it would never work. Essentially the view I'd like changing is I feel we give ourselves a heightened sense of purpose or worth within the universe, and I don't blame us for feeling that way. I just don't think that the Intergalactic Commonwealth of Civilisations of Andromeda would really think any different between the Humans on Earth or the Aquamen of Europa or any other type 0 civilisation. Until we can actually get to a level closer to a type 2 or above would they ever take any interest in us, since we're just their beetles. .","conclusion":"If it is true that aliens exist, and have the technology and civility to communicate with other civilisations, we are to them what common insects are to us."}
{"id":"df63f27b-d4f4-4b78-bd5b-09b7e8566d12","argument":"I don't believe that the government has the right to make human cloning illegal because the act of cloning a person does not alone violate ethics. If a surrogate is willing to accept a cloned fetus, and the person being cloned gives their consent as well, it's simply a woman having a child. I think that current arguments against cloning are rooted in fear or pseudo ethics. I'm no utilitarian it's very clear that our society awards 'human rights' on the basis of simply being a human. Additionally, fear that a clone would be mistreated or demeaned is no reason to take away the surrogate and DNA donor's rights to use their bodies as they please without hurting others. There is also no real reason why cloning should be illegal on the basis of human dignity and being unnatural if that's true, we might as well outlaw IVF. In closing, arguments against cloning are rooted in fear. Whether or not these doomsday scenarios in which cloning is legal occur, they aren't enough to violate people's rights to their own bodies.","conclusion":"I believe that human cloning should be legal."}
{"id":"54e96cd0-f404-4909-a186-c0de0c0896ab","argument":"Love, as conceptualized throughout the New Testament can be seen in science in the area of Social Work ethics. The Love Ethic: A Radical Theory for Social Work Practice","conclusion":"Religion shouldn't be used to develop ethics because ethics should be an objective constant in time."}
{"id":"74ed1411-2e84-49b5-958d-6cea2cb63881","argument":"Humans love to get high on something, be it alcohol, drugs, shopping, sexual intercourse or gambling.","conclusion":"Most of humans' behavior is not necessary to survive, yet they do it."}
{"id":"74e7f153-8d22-4510-8370-907ce39565c3","argument":"Not practicing abstinence may lead teenagers to partake in sexuality at a young age, which in turn may lead them to have multiple sexual partners over the course of their life. This may lead to a more \"casual\" approach towards sex possibly leading to a myriad of problems.","conclusion":"Teens sometimes may conflate sex with intimacy and thus form artificial bonds without the necessary foundations for a lasting relationship e.g. emotional understanding, shared interests or love."}
{"id":"c2d6f0a2-bde5-4bfc-94e0-fa61f75288db","argument":"Every time an atheist tells his boss \"I'll be there at 7:00 am tomorrow\", he exercises faith. He sets his alarm clock, believing it will wake him up, even though power outages, break-ins, death, etc. are real. He gets in his car using faith to believe he will arrive despite knowing empirically there will be wrecks on the freeway, he just has faith it won't be him. Life is impossible without faith. It is called \"intelligent faith\".","conclusion":"Faith does not imply religious faith exclusively. Faith is merely the acceptance of a proposition without verification or with faulty verification."}
{"id":"f1737e73-595b-4059-88e0-faef8c306518","argument":"Unless every single crop circle ever made has an explanation, this leaves the window open to the possibility of some undiscovered force or life form causing them. A lot like a court room, all you need is reasonable doubt.","conclusion":"There are no credible witnesses or creators of crop circles that have been replicated."}
{"id":"0bea931f-1ac2-464f-b882-43946bec46fe","argument":"Okay so the commonly held 'mistakes' Robb Stark made Marrying Jeyne Westerling. People believe that this is the main initiator of the Frey Stark conflict and that is simply not the case. Even ignoring the fact that the Freys are a loose cannon, the fact still stands they had a long held grudge against the Lord of Riverrun. In catelyns starks narration of the Freys, she talks about how they always wanted the respect of the 'older', in terms of heritage, houses. Clearly the Freys were looking for any chance to become lord of Riverrun and the Starks would have just been a side casualty in their rush to steal Riverrun. Furthered more in ACoK Arya Stark overhears the Freys talking about how they already think that Robb would lose, calling him 'Boy' whilst they talk about him. They clearly have no respect for him when they call him that, of course it's not a sign of mutiny, but it is a sign of disloyalty. I'm not saying marrying Jeyne wasn't a mistake, but it all it earned him was a more spiteful death. Releasing Theon Theon was not disloyal from the beginning, we see from the beginning of ACoK that Theon genuinely wanted to 'help' Robb, but get a crown in the process. Secondly Robb gave offers that any sane man would have taken. A free crown, and plunder from Lannisport? Where's the loss. Not only this, but the Ironmen would have been repelled from the North almost instantly, if the Bolton's hadn't interfered. They only stayed in the North for as long as the Bolton's needed them there to spread chaos, and then they were kicked out. So not only did Robb send a at the time loyal Theon with the intention of making reasonable requests with the Iron islanders, he also had sufficient countermeasures in place to repulse invaders from the North. 'Trusting' Bolton with his infantry Perhaps this was a 'mistake' but one he couldn't do anything about. There was no outward sign that Roose was disloyal, in fact Roose was at Neds side at the battle of the Trident. There was no sign and it's doubtful if anyone else in Robb's shoes could have worked out that Roose was being disloyal. Beheading Karstark. Perhaps this accelerated his demise, but his fate was the same. Roose was still in 'open' to the reader mutiny to Robb and even if Robb hadn't sought to make peace with Frey, he would have been assassinated by Roose on or off the battlefield. In short, nothing could have saved Robb and he did the best he could in the situation, and there was no action he could have taken without hindsight IE he wasn't overlooking anything to save his house.","conclusion":"Robb Stark did nothing wrong and all his problems would have occurred even without the 'mistakes' he made, Also I'm referring to the books but show input is welcome as well"}
{"id":"2d0fb3a0-bf8c-4095-8c0f-d1bc06c21db8","argument":"For those of you who are not familiar with the CVE CONTEST programs specifically the grants allocated by the CVE, and the Prevent Channel deradicalization programs some information is given below the line at the end of this post. MY Opinion I feel that the government should not be able to set a narrative to what a religion should, or should not be. In an attempt to end terrorism both the US and UK governments have created programs which offer both public and monetary support to certain religious organizations. This may sound ok, and if it was targeted at terrorists those in prison I wouldn't have an issue with it, but it rather attempts to prevent terrorism by propping up what it considers to more peaceful ideologies which leads to the government defining what a religion is. The US Department of Homeland Security, DHS, has a program known as Countering Violent Extremism, CVE, this program has a grant option which works with non governments organizations to prevent people from falling into extremism gt These grants will provide state, local and tribal partners and community groups\u2014 religious groups , mental health and social service providers, educators and other NGOs\u2014with the ability to build prevention programs that address the root causes of violent extremism and deter individuals who may already be radicalizing to violence. One of the recipients of this funding was Masjid Muhammed, dubbed The Nation's Mosque, gt Masjid Muhammad was one of seven organizations awarded funds to address the spread of violent extremism by challenging the narrative that promotes extremist ideology and violence. Funds totaling nearly a half million dollars 450,000 were granted to Masjid Muhammad to support the effort. The UK has a counter terrorism program known as CONTEST within this program or two specific programs prevent channel which are used to target people who are at risk of radicalization and funds specific religious organizations to attempt to provide counter narratives that it deems more peaceful. gt The purpose of Prevent is to stop people from becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism. This includes countering terrorist ideology and challenging those who promote it, supporting individuals who are especially vulnerable to becoming radicalized, and working with sectors and institutions where the risk of radicalization is assessed to be high. 6 The deradicalisation programme is known as Channel it is led by the police and uses liberal Muslim mentors who do not espouse any anti Western violence gt In January 2009, The Times published an article claiming that Quilliam had received almost \u00a31 million from the British government. The article also said that some members of the Government and the Opposition had questioned the wisdom of relying too heavily on a relatively unknown organisation \u2026 to counter extremism . Quilliam openly acknowledges the funding that it receives from the public sector, and has made its financial records publicly available. This institution's founder has clearly expressed his desire's to reform Islam from the inside. gt Through the counter extremism organisation Quilliam that I founded, I have spent eight years defending my Muslim communities in Europe, Pakistan and beyond from the diktats of Islamist theocrats. I have also argued for the liberal reform of Islam today, from within. Edit To clarify, the idea behind these programs is not to target 'terrorists' instead it's to target ideologies which the government believes will lead to terrorism. To counter these ideas the government is promoting and funding preachers to spread and convert followers of these ideologies to their specific sect. By doing it is promoting a specific sect idea of what these religions are similar to the Saudi's and Wahhabism.","conclusion":"The US and the UK government should not be funding or promoting any religious organizations in an attempt to curb extremism"}
{"id":"ee19f2cf-3cbe-4bc1-83ad-eeddbc3731f5","argument":"Nobody can hope to understand every religion in the world. Few people could list for you ten different religions assuming Christianity all counts as one . When a person chooses which religion to follow Or their parents force them into one religion, but that's a debate for another day , they are not able to be informed as to what they are actually following. It's quite likely that there is a different religion out there that better suits the individual. How can you hope to know you've chosen correctly? For me personally, christianity in particular has too many inconsistencies and relies on too many postulates that appear false. I therefore do not follow it. But many people follow it regardless, not considering other options that they would be more comfortable in. People blindly follow one essentially random religion without a true grasp of the situation. Therefore they are clouded from what they may truly believe. Note that I am certainly not against the idea of religion. It brings many people comfort and can help them feel secure. If that happens, then good for them. But I can't help bit think that these people may not be getting the best experience they can. Also note that I posted this in , so I'm open to what others can say","conclusion":"Any religious belief is inherently clouded and restricted."}
{"id":"bc3b4531-c929-439d-8b44-27a2e1a21f77","argument":"I will start off by saying that I don't actually believe the ticking time bomb scenario accurately describes the real situation. However, I think that torture, used to gain vital information and save innocent lives, could be ethical, provided that there was no reasonable doubt of the person's guilt, and that torture in general had been proven to actually be effective. Once again, I don\u2019t really think this is how real situation is, but I\u2019m not necessarily talking about reality. I'm saying that we could consider torture to be ethical in a hypothetical situation which actually matched what supporters of torture believe exists. I don't understand the logic some of the opponents use. People constantly talk about how using torture is not who we are and is something of which only our enemies should be capable. They fail to take situational ethics into consideration, acting like using torture against an evil person to achieve a moral purpose is the same as torturing some random person who hasn't committed any crime, and is not morally superior to blowing up a building to advance your religion. What if we applied the same logic to simply killing terrorists? To doing anything not normally considered ethical? In an extreme situation, extreme measures can ethically be taken. Life does not ask what we want, it presents us with choices. We must choose the best option from among the ones which are presented to us, not hold on to principles that we have formed some kind of predetermined notion should never be compromised. How would torturing an incredibly evil person to save innocent lives make the world a worse place? How does that decrease the overall happiness of the human race? These are the questions we have to answer. Usually, the ethical arguments I hear are essentially that causing pain for another human being is always wrong, regardless of the circumstances. It\u2019s basically, \u201ctorture is wrong because it\u2019s torture\u201d. Often, no one attempts to provide an actual valid argument that weighs the two options \u2013 potentially allowing innocent people to suffer a terrible fate, or torturing an evil person \u2013 and explain WHY the first one is superior to the latter one. Once again, maybe you don\u2019t think that torture is effective, etc. But what I want to know is, what if we presume certain factors to be true, creating the hypothetical situation where torture could most easily appear justified? Basically, if you don\u2019t think the ticking time bomb scenario could be real, then what if, merely hypothetically, it WERE real? What if a nuclear bomb was about to go off, and 1,000 people were going to die, and there was only one way to stop it? The person who you think knows where the bomb is, beyond any remotely reasonable doubt is guilty and possesses the information you're looking for. It is YOUR loved ones' lives that are at stake. Would I be wrong for reasoning that the most ethical decision would be torture, regardless of how validly we can apply this situation to real life?","conclusion":"Supposing that the \"ticking time bomb\" scenario is real, torturing terrorists is ethical"}
{"id":"aca0f6d9-fe51-4f4d-8017-5cf53ee77e22","argument":". Year round schools - Advantages Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia -\"Multi-tracking allows more cost-effective use of school resources by distributing them more efficiently in time\"","conclusion":"Year-round schools distribute resources more effectively throughout the year"}
{"id":"96cad92e-47f3-4c50-8f15-1ff504b3b636","argument":"I'm a fan of the subreddit r lewronggeneration. In spite of Russian insistence, I don't believe there is a culture of western, homosexual decadence, and I believe the people the defeners often hail as being significantly better than Kanye West are often not even a bit better. We are not worse off than we were. However, I'm always deeply confused in the comments section where it seems that the subreddit actually admires Kanye West. I think you can have it both ways, it's silly to think there is generational decay and it is also silly to think that Kanye West is any good. Other artists of this generation are excellent, but Kanye West does not approach the semblance of quality. I understand that there is a complex racial issue in this as well. I'm privileged in every possible category, white, male, middle class, neurotypical, cisgender, able bodied, et cetera. Although I do not believe that the human species is in any way divided by race other than by our prejudices, I'm sure there are racialist elements of my interpretation of his music, because this is inextricable from basically anyone alive in a racialist society. None of us are free of that. A large percentage of my favorite music is written by blacks, but this is likely racial as well, like the cockney love of rhythm and blues guitar which I also share, which does not spare any of us from racial prejudice. I listen mostly to classical music and ancient folk music which is what I was brought up on and this likely colors my appreciation in a way that can't be fixed. I'm insulted if someone sings a Latin Christmas carol with an anachronistic, contemporary vocal style. I'm also aware that the appreciation of Kanye West is complex and nuanced, in that no one I've asked to explain their admiration of him has ever said they really love any one element of his work so much as the compositional whole. I think this is valid up to a point, but if any of the elements are simply too ridiculous then they make the rest irredeemable. Bearing all of this in mind, I have actually listened to Kanye West. So, in spite of keeping a myriad of prejudices in mind, there's simply too much wrong with his work, and with him personally. The Man The relevance of an artist's personality to their work is often considered extricable. I've never agreed with this very much. Richard Wagner's music may have an independently beautiful aesthetic, that can be appreciated without being anti semitic, but his music still became an aesthetic inheritance of the Third Reich. Perhaps this is coincidental I don't believe it is. Bing Crosby was one of the greatest vocalists ever to live, but he was also a narrow minded, rigid Catholic. There were also ways in which he wasn't, for instance being a lifetime pot smoker, and those qualities of him probably enabled him to be as hip and carefree in his vocalizations and movements as he was. However, the ways in which he was sort of limit his career to being aesthetically pleasant but not that meaningful. White Christmas is pretty but not particularly artistically meritorious. The artist is called upon to be an observer of the universe, and to relate his observations through the particular medium in which he works. If the artist's perspective is flawed, then the expression of that perspective will be flawed as well. Of course, everyone's perspective is flawed, but some perspectives are downright harmful. For instance, Kanye West says he is a proud non reader of books. I wasn't sure if I could believe any human being would say this so I checked Snopes. He did say it. Is there some kind of reason people look any further? How can someone who is a proud non reader of books contribute to any field of endeavor whatsoever? He writes in words, where does he get them from? Conversation? Other hip hop music? This would be totally inadequate. Am I to infer from this that he is an English speaker who has not read Shakespeare, Milton or Beckett? How does he presume to write in this language in this era? Naturally those who precede Shakespeare are excused. Then there's the matter of the VMAs of 2009. There's several very important things wrong with the man that can be interpreted from this incident. The first is that he considers the decisions of whatever institution runs the VMAs to be important to the art itself. Accolades are garish, bourgeois nothings that are never particularly accurate. Cannes Film Festival is well respected and yet constantly awards garbage, among some excellent work, it's hit and miss. Accolades are run by organizations that have a specific interest in self preservation. This is not news to anyone, except perhaps Kanye West. The second is that he believed Beyonce's video was the greatest of all time, and required defense. The video he was referring to was irredeemable. It was a parody of the work of Bob Fosse which included the shape but not the taste. It used repetitive and hollow lyrics which only reinforce patriarchal notions. It is the kind of song and video only a tasteless misogynist could admire. If this is the work that so moves him at his core that he must take the stage by force to defend it, then he has no soul to be moved. The third is that the video in question won the accolade for the general category rather than the women only category, and he didn't wait to see if this was so, so he isn't even intelligent enough to defend when appropriate, the garbage he considers defensible. The Work His work is a Minstrel like parody of a race that should be condemned as violently as blackface is today. I often hear him praised as a lyrical genius. Yet his lyrics never out this analysis. This song is called Gorgeous. I advise listening to it as well. The production is intolerable. It's a cheap imitation of a rich musical heritage that precedes him, one that comes from a particularly tortured class of midwestern musicians that found a sound which enabled them to synthesize their suffering with tasteful expression and not to mention endless, sensual, sexuality. His commercial appropriation of it is disgusting and hollow, and lacks the sexuality which precedes it except by puerile sexual references like happy ending. Compare with Booker T and the MGs, Barry White, Baby Huey and the Babysitters, et cetera. Now, I can't find any specific reason these lyrics are good, so it's a bit difficult to counter what may be a non existent argument. I'll discuss any song, as well, but for the main thread it seems prudent to choose one. I understand this song is from an album that is critically praised, and which is itself critically praised. He refers to South Park and to Alec Baldwin. There is nothing even remotely resembling this in any of the works commonly considered to transcend the age. There are references to people like Jerome and Brandon which I assume is a reference to racism in sentencing but I don't know who they are, and many people won't particularly as time goes on, which limits the song to a specific time period. The best works can be understood easily outside of their own time. Highly time specific works are always forgotten. There's nothing considered terribly good which is so replete with contemporary references like this. Making very specific contemporary references is a sure sign of poor writing. I agree with certain sentiments in the song, particularly about racial disparity. Yet these sentiments are written poorly and quickly devolve into irrelevance so that it's hard to follow along with anything he's saying. The stanza beginning with Is hip hop, just a euphemism for a new religion? contains agreeable sentiments, but devolves into a South Park reference and by the end has nothing to do with what he was talking about. Furthermore it contains nothing more than the most basic version of analysis of racial division and sheds no light on and adds no cleverness to the understanding of that subject. It's just talking about it very vaguely. So far as I can tell, the main focus of this or any of his songs has to do with the creation of a specific appearance. He makes himself a parody of black suffering and by doing so makes his work worthless. He often expresses a desire for violence, which is understandable in a society in which violence is expression and whose language is littered with murder and interposition. Yet he only contributes to this phenomenon and doesn't hope to reverse it. He is a parody of patriarchal masculinity as well, which is not at all helpful. Compare with this song Here the subject is also timely, and referring to struggles. Yet the lyricist adds many things to the discussion of the subjugation of women, even if not conceptually, she expresses the subject with cleverness, and this almost serves an anthem for the oppressed. It was a radical series of things to say at the time, and she never stops surprising the listener with more horrors of female living. Now, an artist doesn't necessarily have to have political sentiments in the work, but the only discernible value of Kanye West's work seems to be in his attempt and utter failure to do exactly that. Conclusions I recently read this article One thing the author mentions is that he would like to see his black students able to see media which admires the work of black artists and doesn't relentlessly shame them. I agree with that. However, the approach isn't to pretend that poor work is good. There's certainly a hypocrisy there in that there's a great deal of extremely bad music coming from white artists like Taylor Swift, Katy Perry, Eminem, et cetera. I don't think any time, admiration or money should be spent on them, either. Yet, we're simply not going to be rewarded for our efforts if we try to defend Kanye West's music. It is indefensible. It is trash. We can focus on other representations. FKA Twigs for instance is incredible. The admiration of Kanye West is the product of a society that does not look for superior things to admire. Our interest in superior art is one of the most beautiful elements of humanity. It will be the salvation of the human race from self destruction, if it is protected and pursued. We cannot waste time in ignorance.","conclusion":"The admiration of Kanye West is in many ways harmful and betrays a paucity of artistic enrichment in the admirer."}
{"id":"cac1e306-eb5c-4396-a4c8-301d779c83be","argument":"Direct participation in international institutions increases Palestine's lobbying power. For instance, if Palestine was a member of the World Bank, it could vote on the Bank's Executive Directors, influencing projects carried out in the West Bank and Gaza.","conclusion":"Palestine would be able to directly participate in international organizations such as the UN and the World Bank."}
{"id":"c688af41-5aeb-4dd5-a063-ff13a7848a07","argument":"In short, college students are absolute fools, and by and large deserve no pity for their stupidity. I understand what I\u2019m saying is very contentious but allow me to try and explain without sounding like an arrogant jerk I\u2019ll fail, but whatever . One of the most frustrating things I see in the news is the ridiculous debate over \u201crape culture\u201d on college campuses as if they\u2019re full of malicious serial rapists and murderers. Now, I\u2019ll admit I am a member of a large social fraternity at my school, a highly ranked university in California with ~40,000 students, so let the bias be noted. I want to first point out that this \u201cdebate\u201d is absurd, there is an imaginary opposition to the idea that rape and rape culture is bad. You won\u2019t find rallies supporting rape or anyone of course a few but exceptionally rare suggesting that rape is acceptable. What the debate clearly stems from is the idea that rape and sexual assault is some liquid term with varying boundaries. A man having sex with a drunk girl is considered rape by some people and to be fine by others. Those saying it is rape see the opposition as suggesting any drunk girl is conscientious \u201casking for it\u201d and likewise those saying it is normal see the other side as suggesting being drunk rids you of responsibility for your actions. This creates an intense debate despite the fact that they all agree on the same fundamental principle. With that out of the way, let\u2019s talk about the behavior of college students. As I said before I am in a fraternity and the ridiculous nonsense I see every week of the school year is beginning to weigh on me. I have seen a girl give head on a dancefloor in our house surrounded by hundreds of people, I have been assaulted by random guys drunk as hell, I have had to physically remove several guys because they\u2019re pissing in the corner of a room. Of course, we\u2019re totally asking for all of this I suppose is the first thing that comes to most people\u2019s minds. We throw parties, we supply alcohol, we play the music and turn on the blacklights. Who am I to look down upon the result of my creation? And the answer is that I don\u2019t, if I didn\u2019t enjoy it I wouldn\u2019t be taking part in it. What bothers me however is the incredible entitlement and utter lack of dignity these people have. That girl I saw railing a line of coke and pounding away 3 shots out of a plastic handle? Oh it\u2019s her life, who are you to judge That guy shattering a window on the second floor? Oh you shouldn\u2019t have given him alcohol, shame on you for throwing an unsafe party. What I have come to realize is that most students are absolute idiots, at least on the weekends. One caveat, yes I may just be around the wrong crowds, but I would say with complete confidence that at least a third of the student body engages in the type of idiotic garbage I\u2019m talking about. How does this relate to rape? If it isn\u2019t obvious, it is because I end up being the victim. These attitudes and opinions sincerely make me scared to have sex with a girl, because I know just being in a fraternity will make me guilty of rape before I can even open my mouth to defend myself. I find it unbelievable that there is such a stigma against, let\u2019s be honest, men in college. I have to hear about it all day, how dangerous it is to go to a fraternity party, how you\u2019ll get drugged and taken advantage of. Well let me tell you a vast majority of the girls found in these places will drug themselves before any guy even gets the chance. I see girls get black out drunk and f k anyone that looks their direction every other weekend and I ask myself, \u201cis this the same type of girl I see ranting and raving that just because she was drunk means she didn\u2019t consent?\u201d It is becoming increasingly hard for me to believe that they aren\u2019t one in the same. Okay, okay I\u2019ve been too anti female, but believe me I think the guys are just as bad. I have heard of six people getting DUIs in my four years here in college. SIX DUIs, and a few drug related charges. What makes these people think this is acceptable is beyond me, but at least they will reap what they sow, I suppose. This has probably been hard to follow, but I can sum it up pretty simply. While I\u2019m sure plenty are sincere, and my heart goes out to them, I find so many self victimizing claims of college students to be farcical. At this point I just don\u2019t feel pity for the kid next to me in class facing a jail sentence for drug possession, or the girl freaking out because she is now known as the girl who banged five guys on the roof in one night. Beyond having pity I\u2019m angered by the fact these poor decisions end up being blamed on me. Let it be known to the world, because surprisingly no one seems to understand this, your university knows EXACTLY what happens at fraternity houses and they support it. They know underage drinking is everywhere they know the drugs are there. They know several of the fraternities \u201chaze\u201d and simply do not care. The police department knows as well, do you think they are ignorant of the massive weekly house parties? Knowing all of this and with absolute agency to stop these organizations from existing they allow it, because universities see the benefit in the greek system for promoting social events for students. Despite this, even if we don\u2019t serve alcohol at a party if some idiot comes drunk we\u2019re going down. We aren\u2019t offered the fair treatment bars or venues receive even though we serve the same function. The system basically works like this The university knows well of all activities and events and they allow them while publicly stating they are against underage drinking, hazing, and the like. But if or when something goes wrong like let\u2019s say someone gets alcohol poisoning, the university and police department come crashing down on the organizations they support to save face and place all blame on the members. My reputation and life is under threat because I participate in something innocuous that is constantly scapegoated.","conclusion":"College students are incredibly foolish, and deserve no pity for their poor decisions"}
{"id":"dd4adfc7-55a7-4183-a7c8-bed46951a976","argument":"Firstly, not everyone matures at the same speed. Not giving the freedom to consent to those who are mentally and physically mature, seems to me as very oppressive and hypocritical of those who advocate freedom. I hold this view because I find that social rules at times are very conflicting with the simple human right to choose. It is far more immoral to strip a humans freedom to consent than having two people engage in consensual intercourse. Governments should not tell people what their morality should be. In the end of the day humans will act upon their natural instincts. Laws that go against natural instincts aren't convincing. Please note, I will not bother responding to Ad hominems.","conclusion":"I believe the age of consent is arbitrary."}
{"id":"b012309b-645d-42c9-b5e3-67bd4deb340b","argument":"Medieval universities started as Christian monastic schools and modern systems of education in Europe derive from schools founded upon religious principles with the primary purpose of training the clergy.","conclusion":"Western Civilization via Christianity has given the world a great educational system."}
{"id":"185a995e-c19c-44d7-817a-e5f4117f5403","argument":"We don't know what came before the Big Bang. We don't know where the universe came from. We don't know why we exist here on Earth. But there are plenty of different explanations. The easiest one to understand is intelligent design the idea that a supreme being created the universe. Many people dislike this explanation because there is no evidence that a supreme creator being exists. Since scientists cannot accept the theory of intelligent design to be true, modern physicists have come up with a lot of alternative explanations. A common one is Multiverse theory, the idea that there are an extremely large number of parallel universes. Each universe starts out with its own Big Bang, which is caused by events in the multiverse. The problem with this theory is that it's just as much speculation as intelligent design is. There's no evidence supporting Multiverse theory, and it is unfalsifiable. It's impossible to imagine any kind of evidence we can observe that proves Multiverse theory wrong. Thus, Multiverse theory is unscientific and should not be taken more seriously than a religious explanation. Another explanation is that the universe alternates between expansion and contraction cycles and a Big Bang happens at the end of each contraction phase. But the evidence points to a universe that is going to continue expanding forever, so this theory is questionable. Other explanations seem just as farfetched to me. Science is applying the scientific method to theories that can be tested. But since there's no way to gather evidence from the time before the Big Bang, we cannot come up with testable hypothesis on the origin of the Big Bang. Thus, the only thing we can do is take supposedly scientific theories by faith since there is no evidence and no way to prove or disprove them. My view is that we should admit we don't know where the universe came from, and stop speculating.","conclusion":"Scientists' explanations of the origin of the universe are no more legitimate than intelligent design."}
{"id":"8b112f67-0a4d-4eca-8359-0edd908b512e","argument":"The narrative that there is a hidden secret to get into elite universities fuels a harmful obsession among society to get admitted to such elite universities at all costs.","conclusion":"Using legacy as a factor when reviewing applications makes the admission process extremely subjective, leading many to feel that there is a hidden secret to getting in."}
{"id":"7a793339-5e32-4153-9c5c-3d688527a646","argument":"Alternatives allow adequate decisions to be made by education departments broadly, and schools individually. Not all student bodies share the same backgrounds and needs.","conclusion":"The inclusion of trigger warnings on syllabi is a good alternative to outright censorship."}
{"id":"0df9ed7d-62fb-4369-b367-1c82470d12cf","argument":"The idea of \"men\" giving birth or lactating after surgeries, hormonal therapy, or artificial measures is a social construct, because only women give birth.","conclusion":"There have been no cases of men breastfeeding or giving birth."}
{"id":"394aebde-c839-4b96-8430-fd5e22649379","argument":"Disney has made some great things and is a huge part of many of our childhoods. Lion King, Jungle Book, Lady and the Tramp, Aristocats, 101 Dalmatians, Aladdin, and countless other movies are all great and have been immortalized in history. But I believe that Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies, featuring classic characters such as but not limited to Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Sylvester, Porky Pig, Elmer Fudd, Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote, Tweety, and Yosemite Sam beat Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Pluto, Donald Duck, and Goofy in the original cartoons. I feel that a Mickey cartoons are much blander than Bugs ones, that Daffy always beats Donald, and that Looney Tunes is far more important to cartoon history than any original cartoon Walt Disney ever made.","conclusion":"Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons are and forever will be better than the original Disney cartoons such as \"Steamboat Willie\"."}
{"id":"4970fcc0-6e2d-46ef-a486-fdcc81496a2d","argument":"And I know that the word much in my title is a weasel word allowing almost anything but it is the space where you can change my mind. First, I want to say that I love books. I have a good collection of actual books, many topic, little fiction beside science fiction. Sometimes I need a book for reference. I could go to the public library or to the library of the local University GVSU , but I find easier to pirate books, and look for what I need. Sometimes, i even end up buying the book. I understand that a counter argument could be that someone loses real money as the number of people like me increase. I would respond that the makers of computers, of disk drives, of internet connections, the subscriptions to online sharing services to avoid peer to peer make more money. So there are winners and losers, I contribute to the development of new hardware. I would add that if the profit model is obsolete, come up with new models, as a writer I would love my books to be downloaded millions time time that is monetizable posting books online solves a lot of the problems removing the middle man who takes an enormous share, for little creative contribution. For example, one can post a few free chapters and offer more for a small fee. Edit Another example of a new model would be crowd sourcing, where writers posting their books online,some would get enough support willing to pay in advance for the next book. Very democratic. Another things, publishers used to care more about publishing, they would often take advantage of getting lucky and scoring a big hit with one author, to subsidize the work of other authors alas that has mostly disappeared, all guided by the profit motive.","conclusion":"I believe that pirating e-books is not much different than borrowing books from the public library."}
{"id":"47964575-ce8f-4786-9678-2931d21e67e9","argument":"Self interest. The driving force behind capitalism. It moves society forward, because people pay for the best goods, and companies compete for the money, making better and better products. But I argue that the concept of self interest should be looked at in a more balanced light. If few restrictions are put in place, we will destroy the competitor until nothing is left. I don't see how the self interest is different from selfishness, the rejection of empathy necessary to better oneself at the detriment of others.","conclusion":"There is no difference between self-interest and selfishness."}
{"id":"005b4b7f-2121-409b-8022-3f06689b219e","argument":"When I say over, I mean the new roll comes out in front like this as opposed to the under orientation. It is so much easier to pull down more squares with the roll coming over. Every time I come across an under roll, I usually end up have to do a complete 360 until I can find the start. Not only does this waste time, it just seems unhygienic to have to touch the whole roll, or have to reach around just to grab hold of it. I used to think people were just lazy when loading a new roll and didn't look at the orientation, but the other day I heard someone say they always place the roll the other way. Can someone who prefers their toilet roll in the under orientation please explain the appeal and convince me that the over way is wrong?","conclusion":"I believe having the \"over\" orientation of toilet paper is the only correct way to have the roll placed."}
{"id":"653d0a07-3cdc-441e-bf78-fb72667d146a","argument":"Countries have stopped selling the \"safe\" lethal injections to the US; this has now caused the US to create cocktails that are even less safe, but make the final moments of the inmate dreadfull.","conclusion":"There has been a shortage of lethal injection drugs lately. This implicates practical problems for the future such as the US having to move to less humane alternatives"}
{"id":"a7ffaaad-5f82-4ab9-be2a-4f8846c1143e","argument":"The Iron Throne is destroyed and a new political system, in which the lords of the land chose their king, is introduced.","conclusion":"It provides a conclusive ending for an era in the history of Westeros."}
{"id":"2924ba4c-bfb1-4ee4-a710-e1bce8679805","argument":"As long as I've been alive, I've always poured milk before cereal. I've done this because I am a textural eater and I hate soggy cereal. I believe that pouring milk first provides more time to eat fresh cereal. It seems though, that most of the world, including 99 of my friends, does it the other way no one has provided me with an explanation as to why I should do it otherwise. However, they sure do like to judge the way I like to prepare my cereal. Please give me a legitimate reason to consider otherwise besides just your preference for soggy cereal, which I won't even consider given that I don't like soggy cereal . EDIT Thanks to all the people that posted replies. To be honest, I don't know if my view has completely changed, but I definitely recognize the validity of cereal first. It seems that it is a more efficient to obtain the perfect milk to cereal ratio . However, I think that is all due to preference and for those that don't really know how much milk or cereal they want. I guess the best way I can explain my own preference for milk first is similar to soup. I pour the soup in before adding croutons or something. I still welcome further discussion, but I will have to sign off for now since I'm at work.","conclusion":"Cereal first then milk."}
{"id":"40619453-8ca0-4f97-9e5f-7b5f9af1f228","argument":"The Democrats are at risk of losing moderates, swing voters and party radicals who want to 'shake up' Washington.","conclusion":"The Democratic Party already lost voters to Trump Obstructing his presidency risks losing more."}
{"id":"7eca9329-7597-434c-9e6c-4de50e1ec74a","argument":"Dissemination in science e.g., peer-review publication is a socially mediated process that is influenced by the current political climate.","conclusion":"Scientific practice in an academic environment creates political influence and incentives."}
{"id":"d2f66694-aa35-4c2f-9ed7-9bee9414894a","argument":"In order to project a globe onto a flat surface, it ultimately has to be distorted. Map projections use different techniques to distort. Some, like the Mercator stretch the hell out of northern and southern latitudes, which is why Greenland and Antarctica appear so big, and Africa appears so small Other projections, such as the Goode Homolosine use a non rectangular surface to show the world with less distortion. Articles such as this one are shared on social media on a daily weekly basis, claiming that the AuthaGraph World Map is the best map projection, and it fixes all the problems that maps such as the Mercator and Coode Homolosine have. I think it's a terrible map projection. When choosing a projection, you have to think about what you're using the map for. The AuthaGraph does a fairly good job of representing the true relative size of land masses. But so what? If you're using the map to get an idea of the relative size of countries then it might be okay, but it has so many other faults There is still distortion. Some countries are weirdly stretched. Take a look at Brazil, for example. It is severely widened. The distortion is not immediately apparent. If you look at the Mercator, for example, it is pretty obvious that northern and southern latitudes are stretched horizontally. But with the AuthaGraph map, there isn't a clear pattern of where the distortion is occurring. Some countries are distorted vertically and or horizontally, but it difficult to imagine what the true shape of the countries would be. It doesn't preserve relative position, including distance between land masses, and their orientation. With this map, you have a hard time telling where stuff is in relation to other stuff. Simple questions such as How far apart are Australia and USA? or What country is east of China? are very difficult to answer using this map. Even trying to trace a line that goes from east to west is problematic. Imagine trying to show timezones on this map, or ocean currents, or trade routes. It wouldn't make any sense. The oceans are extremely distorted. Land masses aren't the only important thing on earth. This does a terrible job of showing the relative size, shape, and location of the oceans. It's not universal. You couldn't take this projection and apply it to, say, Mars. If you did, you would have something that made no sense. If you were unfamiliar with the global features of an extra terrestrial planet, you would be much better off looking at a simpler projection to get an idea of what the planet actually looked like, even if the relative sizes of continents were slightly off. To anyone who is an expert in this field, or even anyone who has a casual opinion regarding world map projections, let me know what you think of the AuthaGraph world map, and if there are any reasons that I'm not seeing why this map is deserving of an award for best map projection.","conclusion":"The AuthaGraph World Map is a terrible map projection."}
{"id":"a0efc1e4-b1f3-4363-9d5e-db3be1a7cc0f","argument":"In short, I guess what i'm really saying is that people that try to commit suicide and fail aren't actually trying to commit suicide but rather using that action as a plea for help and or attention. I can't say this in public though because I get shot down and called insensitive. People I know don't seem to be objective when it comes to this topic. Edit I want to somewhat change my original opinion. What I mean is people who go around and proactively try to off themselves not so much the people who in the spur of the moment snap. If someone legitimately attempts suicide under the assumption that they're 100 sure that they will die and then fails but then goes on to kill them self at the next opportunity then yes you have changed my view. I am seeing a lot of posts about how people tried to kill themselves but were stopped from doing so somehow but then go on to be very much non dead for the rest of there lives. I'm not denying at all who ever it is that you cited truly tried to kill themselves anymore. You all have offered plenty of examples to the contrary. However, for the most part so far besides u nastybastid's example, They all live. so far I'm a bit confused now my self as to what i was going to change my opinion to, to be perfectly honest. I had one but forgot it. Oh well. I know this is a subject people tend to take rather personally but I am surprised by the plethora of the same opinions. Well not surprised, just a little disappointed that the argument is one sided. That might be my fault for having a stupid position in the first place. Thanks for all the posts anyways.","conclusion":"I believe that if a person says that they have tried to commit suicide and failed then their heart wasn't really in it to begin with."}
{"id":"109ef30f-4b38-41ba-bf4a-0a13e5c44198","argument":"Opportunities for great emotional resonance by mining and capitalizing on events in the original trilogy were squandered utterly.","conclusion":"Story-lines and characters set up in previous films were not treated with much respect."}
{"id":"6419c6dd-368b-4654-b4b6-bfecb3cb286c","argument":"I am a Senior double majoring in Computer Science and Philosophy, attending a very large state university. I have a diverse background and have taken dozens of CS, Math, and Philosophy classes, as well as other gen eds. I also try to pay attention to what is going on around me an in my major departments CS Philosophy . The movement to get more women in STEM Science, Technology, Engineering, Math majors has been around since I got to college and it has always bothered me. Specifically, there always seems to be a 'push' to get women to major in STEM fields. Women have special scholarships available to them, the standards they have to meet are sometimes lowered, there are special organizations catering specifically towards women in STEM majors such as 'Women in Computer Science' at my university . All of these are attempts to solve this apparent 'problem' that there are less women than men in STEM. I will talk about Computer Science specifically since that is what I have had the most exposure to, but I think CS and STEM are completely interchangable. I feel like people pushing this agenda are failing to address a number of fundamental issues that are very problematic for their argument. I will enumerate them I do not see anyone blocking women from entering CS. I know the fact that I do not see something, does not mean it doesn't happen, but I think this is a valid concern nonetheless. A lot of people who talk about we need more women in CS appear to be arguing with nobody. I do not oppose women entering CS in the same way I do not oppose other minorities or people of any race. Women may simply not want to be in Computer Science. Women have just as much flexibility to apply for any major as men do. The fact that something like 70 of people in CS at least at the undergraduate level are men may be the result of a collective preference of women. Continuation of point 2 Women are raised differently than men. And society is totally accepting of it. Yet nobody seeks to change this. A young boy, growing up, is told he needs to be tough, smart, strong, cool, etc. all features of being a man . Girls, on the other hand, are told they need to be cute, kind, have a good heart, look pretty, and so on. Very few of the proponents of more women in CS are proponents of we need to raise our children as genderless entities . In reality, I think that all but the most extreme of feminists would have no issues with calling their sons tough and their daughters cute . The problem with refusing to address this point is that differences between how boys and girls are raised may lead to personality differences which result in the average woman having a different set of desires and interests than the average man. Also continuation of point 2 Women have biological differences that lead to different desires. Women, in general, may prefer a different environment to work in than men. Women may prefer to feel a closer connection to other people which might be why we see so many female nurses , whereas men may be more partial towards working in an emotion free environment your computer is the epitome of this . The affirmative action argument does not apply to women. The argument for affirmative action is primarily rooted on socioeconomic status of the mistreated parents of children. That is, children born to parents who were victims or racism may be disadvantaged and affirmative action may be justified in order to balance out a disadvantage perpetuated by race. Girls, however, have the exact same distribution as men some are born to rich, some are born to poor parents , so this argument does not hold any weight. There is nothing inherently valuable in a uniform demographic spread in anything . The fact that people are pushing to get more women in STEM seems completely arbitrary. I do not see anything wrong with a lopsided distribution of men women in different fields. As I mentioned above, we can see a converse situation with men, women, and nursing. Less than 10 of men are nurses far worse than the 25 of women in STEM fields , yet I have never heard of a movement to get more men into nursing. Once again, pushing women into CS seems completely arbitrary. I think I have covered the main issues. If you can address even a few of these, I would love to hear your views. As I said, I have been exposed to this idea of we need more women in CS for years now and I have never seen people address these issues.","conclusion":"I think that pushing women towards STEM fields is unwarranted and there are no sound reasons to do so."}
{"id":"1dcbcb38-b7e3-4235-8c04-1188ab5c0035","argument":"It does not matter that the bread is connected as other sandwiches also have connected bread.","conclusion":"Sandwiches have two or more pieces of bread - a hot dog does not."}
{"id":"cb7312ac-93ef-454a-8924-020c5b6ea786","argument":"It's frequently argued that unlike popular worries about immigrants taking our jobs, abusing welfare etc., immigrants are a net boon for a country, as they will pay more in taxes than they consume in social services. I believe most economists would agree, and I'm inclined to trust them on those kind of issues. HOWEVER, as far as I can tell, the Roma from Eastern Europe are a bit of an exception to that, as they are significantly more likely to engage in crime, and significantly less willing to integrate into society, to a point where having them in Britain, France or Germany seems like a net negative for the locals. I admit that I don't have very strong evidence on this, as I couldn't find many statistics on the topic, so it's mostly supported by anecdotes and the media, so I'm rather curious about whether there's better evidence. Some things that I am not arguing Whether they should be allowed to move to Western Europe there can be other reasons for that international agreements, the fact that they're being persecuted in Eastern Europe Romani people who have been in Western Europe for longer e.g. Iberian Kale, Manush who as far as I can tell are much better integrated and less prone to criminality I'm only talking about the Roma who moved West in recent decades I'm not saying every single Roma is bad, just that overal, taken as a group, the downsides of having them around outweight the upsides for the host nation . I'm sure there are plenty of exceptions. edit For an example of the kind of anecdotes I'm thinking of, see this comment as well as the fact that I haven't heard many anecdotes go the other way around unlike the linked comment, I don't have much personal experience with Roma myself Yes, I know, this is part of a recurrent pattern recently So, please","conclusion":"The Roma are a net negative in Western Europe"}
{"id":"e43883bc-08d8-47ce-9115-522aa3d1fa23","argument":"I believe in the deity of Christ actually happened for three reasons The historical record substantiates the Resurrection and documents the beliefs of early christians who saw his miracles like turning water into wine, walking on water, feeding thousands by bread and fish, etc, The steadfastness of the apostles and eyewitness testimony. The historical record about first century in Jerusalem documents the historical Resurrection of Christ Testimonium Flavium Taken from Jewish Josephus Flavius in his book antiquities of the Jews About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man. For he was one who performed surprising deeds and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly. He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. He was the Christ. And when, upon the accusation of the principal men among us, Pilate had condemned him to a cross, those who had first come to love him did not cease. He appeared to them spending a third day restored to life, for the prophets of God had foretold these things and a thousand other marvels about him. And the tribe of the Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not disappeared. Flavius Josephus Antiquities of the Jews, Book 18, Chapter 3, 3 Tacitus and annals Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Jud\u00e6a, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Here it is acknowledged that Jesus was a historical being and suffered the extreme penalty under pontius pilate. Eyewitness testimony The bible and the new testament act as a historical record which documents the experiences of the author with the historical Jesus. They all document the same event that Jesus was ressurected, empty tomb, mass appearances of the resurrected christ to many people up to 500 at a time. These are mass appearances to the masses. The new testament is very reliable due to manuscript evidence especially codex sinaiticus which shows the bible has changed very little in non critical components over the past 1,700 years. Therefore, we should trust what the bible historically records. Steadfastness of the early christians and willingness to die for seeing the ressurected Christ. apostles The apostles were all willing to die rather than deny the ressurected Christ. Most of them could spare their lives from atrocious executions peter being crucified upside down if they just admitted they made the jesus story up. Why would the apostles be willing to die and suffer atrocious executions for a story they made up? Why would they just not give in to the pressure before being hanged or crucified or beheaded and spare their lives? Why would all of them except John be willing to die for something they saw? It is more reasonable to think that they all witnessed the ressurected Christ than not and were willing to risk their lives. This is all taken from the historical gospels and the book of acts. Early christians Remember how Jesus did mass miracles and revealed himself to hundreds of people at a time? Those people became the early christians and they were willing to die for what they saw Jesus do. Thousands were persecuted and killed as recorded by Mara Serapion's historical letters and by Pliny the Younger's records. Why would these early christians be willing to die for something that did not happen? Why would the witness of christ's miracles value their belief over their lives? Therefore I believe Jesus when he says that he is the lord of the sabbath has authority and control over the laws of the OT and is therefore the God of the OT . I believe him when he says we should glorify him, the son, as we glorify the father worship him as we worship God . I believe him when he says he is the way, the truth and the life and that no one comes to the father except through him. and also believe him when he says the son of man has been given the power to forgive sins and when jesus says he has the power to give eternal life. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The deity and Ressurection of Christ happened."}
{"id":"0869a1aa-8231-4e8d-95df-5f8e477abfb7","argument":"I think there is no reason for full grown adults to cut pizza into squares. Square pizza means whoever is preparing the pizza has to cut it into squares rather than triangles which takes more time, and is also prone to having the toppings drag along with the pizza wheel, making a mess. Not only that, but if you cut pizza into squares it inevitably leaves some pieces that are mainly crust. If you want to avoid the crust, or save it for last, then you have to reach your fingers into the middle of the pizza to pick a slice out. You can't just grab the crust because the crust isn't attached to anything else. Reaching your fingers into the middle means you might touch someone else's slice, mess up the cheese toppings, or burn your fingers on hot cheese. If you burn your fingers, you might even drop your slice. Square pizza is harder to fold, and therefore harder to dip in dipping sauces if you want any. All around, it's harder to prepare and eat and I think the traditional way of triangular slices is superior in every way.","conclusion":"Cutting pizza into squares is wrong"}
{"id":"352ee228-5633-499a-b2a8-67fee8c6c922","argument":"According to the Declaration of Human Rights, it is not the role of the state to provide free money to its citizens. It needs to only ensure that willing citizens are capable of fulfilling their human rights without making unreasonable effort.","conclusion":"The welfare state is not necessary to ensure our rights as human beings."}
{"id":"d5f296bf-eb83-4fd4-8bc8-2815cde9793f","argument":"During the fracking process waterways can become polluted if fractures connect to underground aquifers or if waste water is not properly disposed of.","conclusion":"Fracking wastewater is extremely difficult to dispose of and methods are not perfect. Disposal hazards include spills, leaks, and inadequately treated water."}
{"id":"a4a3070e-98e1-498c-897d-fbad4eff408f","argument":"Malicious people could accumulate experience about how to avoid consequences and blend in the crowd.","conclusion":"Malicious people could do more harm if they lived forever."}
{"id":"c9de227f-dd06-4b82-a8c3-399ec2be61b1","argument":"With the manpower and resources that religion has, hunger and poverty should have already been abolished, but religious selfless acts tend to favor only the ones within their communities.","conclusion":"Many religions are rife with hypocrisy: they teach compassion and austerity but religious institutions remain incredibly wealthy while much of the world lives in poverty."}
{"id":"94b71e4c-9773-4ff9-9b32-c237d83a1100","argument":"Fatigue, nausea, emotional distress, impaired mobility, impaired sight, impaired hearing, and other problems which might not be painful should be considered suffering.","conclusion":"Animals may feel discomfort due to illness and disease that can happen in factory farming."}
{"id":"870501fa-c570-42f3-9244-41c6c84f34e2","argument":"I worked many holidays in the military and I'd bring it up when people I knew complained about their holiday shift, a common response was that I signed up for it. I did, it was a part of my job. I believe that if you work at a restaurant, especially one that is traditionally open on holidays, you signed up to work on the holidays. You don't have to work there, you can quit. While I fully understand what it is like to be broke and have a crappy job, I also know what it is like to be broke and not have a job at all. Complaining to everyone about something that you knew or should have known when you took the job makes you sound petty and childish.  Edit I posted this in response to the Pizza Hut manager that was fired for refusing to open his store on Thanksgiving. The comments were filled with people defending him and saying they were wrong for firing him. This is what I mean by a valid complaint, I complain when it is hot outside, but it isn't a valid complaint.","conclusion":"If you work food service, you have no valid complaint about working on a holiday."}
{"id":"1fef5ce8-bc1d-4cde-82ad-f8a8ad30e967","argument":"The laws of many countries grant people the right of free speech but there is no country that also grants a right to be heard.","conclusion":"There is no legal requirement that forces me to listen to what other people say."}
{"id":"7459c158-fb16-4621-a89b-ae4c61ec8afa","argument":"People can also spot asteroids getting out of orbit and react quicker when they are in the asteroid belt, rather than when they are on Earth.","conclusion":"Asteroid mining can prevent asteroids from crashing on Earth, the more they get used up."}
{"id":"3222840d-ed6b-4bb6-ae6a-2953431fda0c","argument":"The earlier children learn programming, the more comfortable they will be with it, and the more likely they are to use it to facilitate other interests such as creating games, apps, and websites.","conclusion":"You can make learning how to code fun for kids as well, since there are already games for this."}
{"id":"415bc6d1-db89-4a28-891a-f4ce55d30b09","argument":"USE would be capable of giving stronger responses to Human Rights violations. For instance, the EU failed to condemn Khashoggi's murder partly because no country wanted to confront Saudi Arabia single-handedly. By protecting HRs abroad, the USE would also be benefiting itself as per the Kantian democratic peace theory.","conclusion":"A USE will be better able to project European values abroad."}
{"id":"7a156ad4-f93f-444c-9d43-ff186281fbc6","argument":"The lower price of a drone results from its limited spectrum of action. A multi-purpose fighter is naturally more expensive.","conclusion":"This comparison is flawed. A human operated multi purpose jet is not comparable to an automated air\/ground attacking drone."}
{"id":"b200f41e-a643-4155-8a73-a8171b8d55a6","argument":"People often assume that there is a choice between good and bad. But the choice is quite often only between bad and bad, then how bad becomes important, which is where major\/minor comes into play.","conclusion":"Hiding the difference between minor and major from people during election debates is major problem with modern media. Here is example of wasting valuable debates time on minor issues."}
{"id":"a8596bf2-d911-4ac0-9cb5-86d8d2e02c12","argument":"To claim that faith schools correct bad explication of doctrine is insulting to parents and religious leaders. It also raises serious issues about the role of teachers in prescribing a certain ethos and certain beliefs about the world. Is it appropriate for a teacher, in such a position of power when he or she dispenses objective knowledge to children, to abuse that position by teaching something subjective as if it were as uncontested as mathematics? This is a general argument against any prescriptive \u201ccitizenship\u201d teaching in schools, but has specific force as an objection against religious involvement in setting the tone and content of a school\u2019s world out-look. If some form of moral prescription is unavoidable in schools it should be the most generally applicable prescription possible. Different religions, by their very natures, are specific groups within society and as such it is inappropriate to give them exclusive influence in a learning environment.","conclusion":"To claim that faith schools correct bad explication of doctrine is insulting to parents and religiou..."}
{"id":"bb3aa195-4403-499b-a3e0-e9f716914f5f","argument":"Generic genetically modified soybean seeds produced by the University of Arkansas cost $25 a bag. Before the patent expired, farmers who wanted the seeds could only purchase them from Monsanto for $50 a bag.","conclusion":"Patents for genetically modified seeds expire after 15 to 20 years. When the patent expires it is possible for other companies to produce cheaper, generic versions of the crop which are more affordable."}
{"id":"bd73b400-8e04-4df2-8067-8f404b2a5fe5","argument":"What I mean by master race, I don't mean the kind of race Adolf Hitler would've envisioned. Humans, to me, seem to be the best capable species on this planet. We have modern medicine, which can do things nature just can't, we're some of the smartest and fastest species, and we survived natural disasters in the past that left about 5,000 humans left on the planet. It seems to me humans are the greatest animals to ever exist. So, I think anything that ultimately benefits the majority of humans should be done, even if it has negative impacts on other animals.","conclusion":"I believe humanity is the master race. So, if you can,"}
{"id":"4e32cf88-af28-4848-91b0-6a4ac7e23d8f","argument":"The accepted textbooks on God are the Bible and Qur\u2019an. We all have access to them. These books state, but don\u2019t prove that God exists. Academics and clerics don\u2019t have magic formulas that turn books into factual proof. They just interpret words. They can\u2019t claim that God does exist until God\u2019s existence is a proven fact. They don\u2019t have proof. Without proof, the existence of God is no more than a theory put forward to explain Universal phenomena. Scientists too are working on such a theory.","conclusion":"The God claim has never produced any discovery, testable theory or improved in any way our understanding of the natural world."}
{"id":"18239373-dfd1-4df0-b1fd-26c040bf5f93","argument":"Countries need children in order to sustain themselves, without a younger generation the country will not advance and will not be able to sustain itself. Elderly will not be able to get social security and many problems will occur. Aside from countries which have a serious overpopulation issue, such as china. I don't really think my view is going to change here, since it's pretty scientifically backed. Countries like Japan have a serious issue mostly due to lack of children. My other view, is something I'd be happy to change. Children are bad for the individual because of many reasons. First and foremost, they cost way too much. Even if you maintain a relatively frugal lifestyle, two kids will cost you as a much the house you live in Just throwing numbers around, I know it's not the same across all household incomes . It's also too much of a commitment. This is literally the only thing in life to which a person would commit 18 years or more, that's a quarter of your life. It's constant work, and constant worry. Sure, there are good moments, especially when the kids pass a certain age and you don't have to work 24 7 to keep them from killing themselves. I know several people that have lost their children to accidents, war,drugs, etc. and their lives were destroyed. I think the potential for such great tragedy greatly outweighs any potential happiness that may arise from children. This may be an extremely pessimistic view, but to put it in perspective, would you bet your entire life savings along with everything you will ever make in the future in a place where it may yield 20 , or completely lose everything? I wouldn't. I'd not risk my future for any kind of returns. I'd really like my view changed. I like kids, well, some kids. But I believe my SO and I will be very good parents, and that we'll raise wonderful children. But I just can't imagine it being worth it. For reference, we're both ~30, lower middle class income, currently make around 60k a year.","conclusion":"I think that having children is good for the country and bad for the individual."}
{"id":"818a56e1-8eb1-49da-ba9b-863f01a484f8","argument":"This is a Theory I have come up with last weekend and now believe. Maybe I'm totally of base here so  guys and girls. So I believe that when our ancestors left the trees they had a similar idea of sex that bonobos have now. Meaning sex happened all the time and not just for procreation. It was a way of communication. Someone did something you approve of how about some sex. Some one brought you food. Well sex it is. Basically sex all the time and with everyone. There was no money but you wanted to encourage good and social behavior and that was what sex was for. It also didn't matter what sex you are. Gay sex was completely normal probably why the prostate is positioned so we can also enjoy anal sex . By having sex all the time no one male could be sure who the father of a child was so all males feel responsible for the whole group. No one keeps food just for their family because there is only one. Since everyone has sex with everyone there is little to no sex envy. Also a quick thing I would suggest could be evidence for this sexual behavior. The male penis is formed the way it is so that it scoops out sperm of other mates in turn increasing the chance of insemination. I believe that would suggest that before we had the failing system of monogamy group sex or sex with multiple partners was the normal way of sex. Also it had to be for a long long time or else it would not have been evolutionary important to change a part of our body to have that function. Now I would say that we should go back. This way of social interaction sounds way nicer than what we have now. We have not only ways of controlling for sexual transmitted diseases but also for becoming pregnant. So having sex all the time is not a problem anymore. Also since it is a thing you just do sex envy would vanish over night. Feel sexually unfulfilled in your relationship if there is even such a thing anymore well go out and have sex with as many people as you want because there is no stigma anymore. Since we have sex all the time with everyone around us we would all become family. I wouldn't be able to tell who my I'm male children are so I would feel responsible for all of them we already somewhat do if you think about it . Getting rid of the genetic group building that we have now in turn I believe would lead to universal piece. Also all our cultures would mix a lot faster making integration a thing of a generation or so. So yeah that is my idea believe how the world worked and how I believe the sex social structure could work again. Now give me some reasons why this wouldn't work today again or never worked like it before?","conclusion":"Humans had a bonobo style sex life at the start and we should have it again."}
{"id":"08a2bb8e-16d6-474f-b57d-f6c54e18a0ce","argument":"While it is true that calorie counting alone is not sufficient for a healthy diet - as one could simply eat two hamburgers a day and meet their calorie requirements - it is true that it is a critical component of a healthy diet. It could be said to be the most important single factor for all diets, particularly when the focus is losing weight. That calorie counts are not the whole story should not be used against them. They are just the most important factor in reducing the obesity epidemic, making it critical for restaurants to list calories on menus.","conclusion":"Calorie counting is a critical component of a healthy diet."}
{"id":"238576f5-3e78-437a-90e0-5af1f836a68d","argument":"In some cases, restitution may be much higher than typical government fines and prison penalties, ranging in the millions or billions of dollars depending on the type of crime.","conclusion":"It could reduce government revenue because people would pay more in restitution than fines."}
{"id":"acb8799a-3221-452e-88be-df0de2441792","argument":"The bystander with consistent utilitarian ethics should not base such a weighty decision off the subjective hope or intent that there will be good consequences in the future, when it is not generally reasonable to expect those intended consequences will actually happen with high probability. Instead, he would seek a solution that was either absolutely right based on the known consequences for those currently involved or at least objectively right in view of known, reasonable consequences.","conclusion":"If the bystander reasoned that he would not sacrifice himself, if he could, because he would personally pull the lever based on his interpretation of utilitarian ethics, but he would sacrifice the one person because there was no guarantee that person held utilitarian ethics, he would be basing the decision in his perceived importance of himself as a holder of utilitarian ethics, but not in actual utilitarian ethics"}
{"id":"bf559d46-9e41-4c44-b91e-845464fce0b2","argument":"I understand that America has made some big strides in fighting racism since the advent of the Civil Rights Movement, the nationwide legalization of interracial marriage, and the end of segregation. I understand that racism today isn't anywhere close to being as bad it as it was then, and I'm thankful for that. However, I believe it's worse than it was ten years ago. You didn't constantly see far right groups absolutely everywhere in every comment section, on seemingly every large internet community the way you do today. I think that the alt right and related groups have kind of made bigotry seem cool to some young people, and as such it seems that racism and even outright white nationalism are kind of on the upswing again. Keep in mind, I want to be wrong. But I just feel like I'm constantly seeing louder and more public pushback against minorities in this country, in ways that I never seemed to see growing up. And keep in mind, I'm a minority myself, and I encountered almost no in person or online racism during my teen young adult years in the 00s, but have encountered a fair deal of it particularly the online variety as an adult. But that could just be anecdotal bad luck on my end. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Racial acceptance today may be better than it was in the 1960s, but it's worse than it was in the 2000s."}
{"id":"6e2cf5a6-870a-4200-84b1-e8eff4abeb15","argument":"Demand simply responds to supply to whatever customers buy the most is what will be produced the most.","conclusion":"Consumers have the power to influence producers' choices by choosing to purchase items that are environmentally advantageous."}
{"id":"0c5725db-6396-4c1f-8900-8246cf258c4e","argument":"The age requirement for presidents is at the very least antiquated and at worst it undermines democracy. People should be able to elect leaders that represent them, but this age limit creates a giant gap from 18 35 where you have to elect someone from an older generation whose views don't align with yours as well as somebody younger. It makes no sense to place something like an age restriction on a republic because the entire point of a republic is to be able to elect who you want. While people below 35 may not have the life experience of somebody older, that is obviously going to be known to the public and the public can still make an informed decision.","conclusion":"The requirement for a president to be 35 years old is ridiculous and singles out a large part of the population"}
{"id":"24bd30fa-d567-4062-8b6a-93a6bb541db4","argument":"The world is ensnared in a number of major conflicts and challenges at present. Some label the rift between the Islamic world and the West and a \"clash of civilizations\". An inspiring mission to Mars can help soften our attitudes to other humans and resolve these conflicts. A mission to the Moon cannot do so as well, and such a mission would delay the pacifying effect of a mission to Mars. But, this should not be delayed.","conclusion":"World needs inspiring Mars mission now; Moon-mission delays this."}
{"id":"94218923-6ac3-45d6-b3a6-5e3ff47781be","argument":"In wars, soldiers are often captured and become P.O.W.s. Male P.O.W.s are sometimes tortured or raped. Many societies around the world value women less than men. This misogyny may make female soldiers more likely to be tortured or in particular raped than male soldiers if they are captured.1 At the same time this threat or reality may lead male soldiers, captured alongside female soldiers, to crack more easily under interrogation.2 Female P.O.W.s are also more likely than male P.O.W.s to be used in propaganda campaigns at home. This may have an effect on the nation\u2019s commitment to the war effort. For example, the story of Jessica Lynch, an American marine captured in Iraq, was widely reported in the American media, affecting national morale. The media paid little attention to the male soldiers captured at the same time.3 1 Cook, Gretchen, \u2018POWs likely to endure sexual assault\u2019, Women\u2019s Enews, 2002. \u2018Women in Combat Frequently Asked Questions\u2019, Center for Military Readiness, 22 November 2004. 2 Brown, Steve, \u2018Female POWs Spark Calls to Reassess Military Role for Women\u2019, CNSNews, 4 April 2003, Accessed June 3rd, 2011 3 Lynne, Diana, \u2018Spin behind Jessica Lynch story?\u2019, WND, 6 May 2003.","conclusion":"Female P.O.W.s prisoners of war are a liability"}
{"id":"e8389c2b-5d0f-4211-892e-58408c87e15a","argument":"The primary purpose of incarceration is rehabilitation. Under normal circumstances, people can and do change, so rehabilitation is possible. Under some circumstances of mental illness, no rehabilitation is possible. Under some circumstances of mental illness, no understanding of the reason for incaceration is possible. It is inhumane to place a person in a position without hope, or without an understanding of their situation. It is unreasonable to release a person from incarceration if the danger to the community is unchanged. Therefore in situations where rehabilitation or understanding is not possible, death is a humane and reasonable alternative. We dont lock up dogs who bite people, we put them down because it would be inhumane to lock them in a cage with no understanding of their situation or hope of rehabilitation. Conversely some parts of the world put humans to death when they fully understand their situation and there is hope of achieving the primary goal of rehabilitation even if they have not yet satisfied the secondary punative function of incarceration . I'm not advocating the pre emtptive killing of the mentally ill, and Im not sure who would make the distinction between those eligible for death and those not. Im actually very opposed to the death penalty, and Im glad it doesnt exist in my country. I just cant shake the feeling that while this seems reprehensible, it might be a kinder way to deal with people, not as a death penalty but as a death release similar to euthanasia for the terminally ill.","conclusion":"Only the significantly mentally ill should be put to death as an alternative to life in prison."}
{"id":"0484b106-e6fd-489d-9a1e-2ff877b07123","argument":"Brown v. Board of Education declared segregation unconstitutional according to the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause, but the 14th Amendment predated the case by 86 years. It was not the Amendment which changed, but the notion of what people thought that the Amendment ought to represent.","conclusion":"The constitution must be responsive to changing circumstances and future advances it could not foresee. Otherwise it can have nonsensical implications and prevent progress."}
{"id":"0434970c-1b6a-4b7c-90f9-77aacfb7c927","argument":"Most individuals leave prison struggling with some form of chronic physical or mental health, or substance abuse issue requiring medical attention p. 1 which can make reintegration into society harder.","conclusion":"For many prisoners, having a criminal conviction is a barrier to leading a law-abiding life on release."}
{"id":"bc3dd65f-da7e-4767-b805-585001245d5a","argument":"Uteri will be locked by default. Women will be able to unlock their uteri when they want a baby. No unwanted pregnancies, no abortion. When so many couples try and try to have a baby, many women kill their feti. Why is it okay to kill a human fetus but not a turtle egg? Adult humans would look more androgynous. Women would still keep their wide hips for convenience. High sexual dimorphism may be useful for some animals, but it brought a lot of problems for humans, not only for trans people. Breasts would only be full during pregnancy and nursing phase, they are basically the human counterpart of peacock tails. There wouldn't be a significant physical difference between the average man and the average woman, but there would still be differences between individuals. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"If I was God, I would make some alterations to the human body."}
{"id":"606535b6-76d5-48be-9fcf-ea78dd5e9f01","argument":"I'd like to preface this by saying 1. I'm atheist and 2. I'm for abortion being legal. But I've gotta say, unless there is an actual reason to get an abortion like rape, incest, the mother's health being in danger, etc. , I have no respect for people who get abortions as a get out of jail free card. It's pretty fucked up in my opinion that you get to end a life potential life just because you weren't being careful. To be clear again, I don't think abortion should be illegal. It should be the woman's choice. But I still think getting an abortion unless under the above circumstances is incredibly fucked up and immoral, and I will definitely look down upon someone who uses abortion as a free pass.","conclusion":"Aside from in certain circumstances, abortion is extremely immoral"}
{"id":"4ba5580c-c164-4737-875d-557177102b8b","argument":"Illustratively of this, the Wikipedia page on his work linked in the claim is predominantly taken up by a long list of logical and factual errors in his work.","conclusion":"Von Daniken has been widely debunked by serious scholars, his craft being dismissed as pseudo-scientific and pseudo-intellectual."}
{"id":"24e003f3-173c-467c-bc04-69980cf0c9f1","argument":"I don't like to read stories. I find them slow and boring, and I would much rather lie on the couch with some popcorn and watch the movie version. I've had many arguments with my reader friends, who claim that books are more fulfilling and that they allow you to use your own imagination, instead of the director's and that they help you calm down and release stress but I disagree. When I'm watching a film, I can get immersed in it. I can see and hear the characters in front of me I don't have to constantly think. But with books, there are no visuals nor audio, just plain old text on a page. I find this extremely boring, and can't get immersed at all. Don't get me wrong, I can totally see why some people like books, but I don't see why anyone could think they are better than films. , readers of reddit.","conclusion":"I think movies are better than books,"}
{"id":"536705f2-7a2c-46be-b8ed-6456e3c29915","argument":"Creationism is an especially accurate allegory in regards to our own spiritual creation. One may well say: \"It may not be the way the universe was created but I adopt it as my creation\"","conclusion":"Allegorically speaking Creationism is accurate. However, as a scientific model of the Universe it is not accurate."}
{"id":"9dffd767-e042-467f-badb-676dcfa5cfea","argument":"I believe that alcoholism isn't an actual addiction, i think it's a slippery slope of a person enjoying being drunk, doing it too often and not having the self control to stop doing the thing they find fun like eating chocolate, masturbating, smoking pot, etc , because eventually the person will be perpetually drunk just to stave off DTs and the hangover which is a destructive cycle to be trapped in. but, i don't see it as being an actual addiction, just a bad habit. I don't want arguments like you need to know an alcoholic to know what alcholism is , because my uncle was and died as a result of kidney failure caused by very excessive drinking. and no i'm an alcoholic and i can confirm that it's an addiction arguments either please.","conclusion":"I don't believe alcoholism is an actual addiction."}
{"id":"3518a0e9-62db-465b-89d7-ea12ef6301fe","argument":"The collapse of the Soviet Union and the victory of liberal democracy over communism have provided the US with more impetus to actively promote democracy, human rights and international norms and law. Under President Clinton, the Leahy Amendment to the Defense Appropriations Act of 1998 and the Religious Persecution Act of the same year demonstrated this change in priorities. Democracy promotion also became a core element of George W. Bush\u2019s National Security Strategy of 2002, and has been a key motivating factor in President Obama\u2019s response to the Arab Spring, where the US has supported democratic forces against dictators such as Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and Colonel Gaddafi of Libya. The US under Obama has also provided leadership in the UN Human Rights Council12, and holds governments to account through The Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labour DRL, which also forges and maintains global partnerships to promote human rights and democracy.13 12 Brookings, \u2018U.S. Leadership at the U.N. Human Rights Council: A Foreign Policy at Brookings Event\u2019, February 2010. Accessed 14th May 2011. 13 U.S. Department of State, \u2018Human Rights\u2019. Accessed 14th May 2011.","conclusion":"The US has used its power to promote democracy, human rights and international law"}
{"id":"33e98a32-ce76-4255-a1b8-0cbc0584e423","argument":"Being offended is a state of mind the resolution of which ought to be up to the individual offended. They may dispute the offensive statement, or not.","conclusion":"No one has a right to demand protection against being offended."}
{"id":"410f7a4a-2f13-45a2-9ca3-1e8c1a031f65","argument":"I don't actually hate math. In fact, after reading a bit of Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality and a few of the author's articles, I've even considered checking out some Khan Academy courses. But I have many other intellectual interests reading, history, international politics, languages, music and my current job and desired career field s don't require anything more complex than calculating percentages, interest, and maybe setting up some simple spreadsheets. It seems like pursuing the study of math would be little more than an intellectual exercise that will take up a lot of time and produce no real tangible benefits in my work and other interests. So for someone like me with the limited time I have on this Earth, why should I prioritize learning college level math?","conclusion":"I believe that most people, unless they're going into a STEM field, have no use for math beyond basic arithmetic."}
{"id":"a1c3f63d-9e64-451f-af8c-5a56a1d2f2e5","argument":"The special economic zone with South Korea, the Kaesong Industrial Region was \"temporarily\" closed in 2016 after operating for 11 years and is yet to reopen.","conclusion":"North Korea has not consistently followed the Chinese economic reform program that was implemented in 1978, which led to China adopting a capitalist market."}
{"id":"c84c1b76-fe98-4c01-ae88-bb1847f59a04","argument":"I take Uber fairly often, and find that drivers want to frequently try to take shortcuts to avoid traffic on the Google predicted route. My take on this is that, although certainly not 100 perfect, if you accept navigation directions as a rule when you drive, you will usually end up on the quickest route for the average trip. Even in situations where you may think you know a faster route with high confidence, the mapping software is created to take inputs from drivers further upstream, and route you away from unexpected slow downs. In a significant number of cases where you think you may know a faster route, Google is actually routing you away from an unexpected slowdown that you could not have predicted. Overall, you\u2019re better to just accept Google routes and be on your way.","conclusion":"Taking Google Maps\/Waze directions will, over the long run, result in quicker drives than frequently deciding to try to take shortcuts."}
{"id":"7d995a80-6d8f-440f-a268-ddad4c4c36f8","argument":"The business intelligence from processing huge amounts of already gathered information on user preferences makes it more difficult for new competitors to enter a market with established big players.","conclusion":"Huge companies gathering all payment information of citizens is bad for society."}
{"id":"dda61feb-4fd6-4015-bcba-4ecc4f90dfe5","argument":"Here\u2019s a hypothetical situation Say that one lived in Canada with an incurable disease guaranteed to kill him her within a year with great pain in the weeks before death, what reason would one have not to go for medically assisted dying by euthanasia? We shall assume for sake of the exercise that one would qualify entirely to medically assisted death. We shall also assume that one would be sound in mind, legally able to make this decision, under no psychological ailments like depression, and under no outside pressure to make a decision one way or another. Things not to take into consideration A Money for the treatments As a Canadian, our socialized healthcare would cover virtually all expenses related to treatments. Money wouldn\u2019t be a factor in this argument for example dying before funds would deplete . B Miracle cures and experimental treatments You can\u2019t wiggle out of this one. There are experimental treatments available, but none that would cure me. They might prolong my life, but they won\u2019t cure me. Whether I would take them or not is not part of this debate. C Moral and religious considerations regarding this decision Please, let\u2019s keep the right and wrong out of this issue. We will assume that nothing is morally wrong with the decision of such an individual under these circumstances, whatever it may be. D A debate about society and legalisation This isn\u2019t a debate about allowing legal medically assisted dying in a society. It\u2019s there, it\u2019s legal and let\u2019s move on from there. I don\u2019t want this to turn into a debate about legalisation of euthanasia under these circumstances. Things to take into consideration 1 Medically assisted suicide is perfectly legal under these conditions. 2 It is a painless process. 3 One would only ask for it once the pain would outweigh the joy of everyday life. 4 There is no scientist that will rush in Hollywood style with a cure in the hours or weeks following one\u2019s death. This is not how things work in real life. No Deus Ex Machina allowed for argument\u2019s sake. 5 One could change one\u2019s mind at any given time. Everything seems to indicate that medically assisted death is the best option under these circumstances . Let\u2019s not wiggle out of the aforementioned rules. This is a debate about what one should do in these circumstances alone, not under other circumstances. Please,  gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"If one would unavoidably die within a year in terrible pain, and one would also live in a place where medically-assisted dying by euthanasia is legal, then one should go with that option."}
{"id":"0555dd9e-c6c0-45b3-9d6b-4c48ad583ab0","argument":"Current drones are cheap because they are not designed to fight against other modern high-performance fighter planes, nor do they have to deal with modern anti-air weapons. Instead they are designed to fight in modern asymetrical conflicts.","conclusion":"The lower price of a drone results from its limited spectrum of action. A multi-purpose fighter is naturally more expensive."}
{"id":"55a537d3-f75d-4181-9759-99bc9825ed23","argument":"This is inspired by a discussion I found in r AskReddit and a position that I agree with but would like to be challenged. Here is a link to the discussion for those interested. This idea stems from the its my her body, its my her choice argument. To me just the fact that you have died does not necessarily make you less you and allow the public to harvest your organs against your wishes from when you were alive, at least not moreso than a fetus is a human. Further, it seems like many of the same people who oppose laws making abortion more difficult only a few clinics allowed, strict time limits, etc also favor laws to make organ donation more compulsory opt in vs opt out, mandatory, etc . These two views seem to be very contradictory to me in terms of bodily autonomy and I welcome to have my views challenged. edit I have read the wiki and this specific topic is not covered there.","conclusion":"If a person is Pro-Choice then they must also oppose laws making organ donation more compulsory."}
{"id":"7fe68d85-dbb3-4563-ab59-68d3f79426cc","argument":"In my opinion Nascar is not a sport and should not be considered one. First of all it's about as entertaining as watching cars drive on the highway. I don't know how anybody who can stand to sit in a stadium for several hours in the sun watching cars drive really fast in circles. How the hell is that entertaining. I'd rather watch a cricket game The drivers don't even have to be in shape. As long as they don't have high blood pressure their bodies can endure. So why does anyone like such a pathetic hobby?","conclusion":"Nascar and formula-1 racing are not a sports."}
{"id":"d345c4d0-3036-4413-80ad-51cbc4866fcc","argument":"It can be very hard to start a business without seed money. Confiscating refugees' valuables can take away any possible seed money they might have.","conclusion":"There are inherent expenses in the path to becoming economically successful."}
{"id":"c619cbfd-8227-42f0-9495-9e8eba03f991","argument":"Some criminals are beyond rehabilitation; it may be that capital punishment should be reserved for serial killers, terrorists, murderers of policemen and so on.","conclusion":"Some criminals are beyond rehabilitation; it may be that capital punishment should be reserved for ..."}
{"id":"c51a9fca-4a1e-422a-8611-3d81013973f5","argument":"Removing the N-word removes an opportunity for teachers to bring up the context about why the words are racially insensitive.","conclusion":"Changing these words insulates students from the context of the time, preventing them from fully understanding the work."}
{"id":"de1a6781-8036-4694-867e-47bfaeff54e4","argument":"The Wakandans would have to take on the Hulk at some point, a difficult task.","conclusion":"Not all of the Avengers would have to work together to take on Wakanda."}
{"id":"9d9b329e-0c66-4725-9125-a1d14ba53b15","argument":"This is a shower thought of mine. I like to think of ways to balance the social contract with liberty, because the social contract has many benefits but I still feel extremely unfree thinking that I could actually go to jail for consuming a drug in the privacy of my own home. How to fix that? For those of you who have seen The Wire, this like an extreme version of Hamsterdam, in which there would be designated, fenced off zones which people could willingly enter where most laws are suspended. I love this idea but I also realize how radical it is and how many potential complications it invites, so I realize this view might have some problems. But allow me to explain in detail how I envision this Red Zones A red zone is a closed off area where people can go to do things which are illegal everywhere else. There is one important rule to uphold, which is that only adults can enter the red zone and they must do so of their own free will. I imagine a screening process that involves each individual being assessed alone by authorities to ensure no one is being taken here against their will, after which point regulars of the red zone could get some kind of fast track entry that makes it more efficient. There are only a few other rules in the Red Zone, other than having to enter it willingly and not bring someone there against their will. No one can be prevented from leaving it if they desire to leave, and no acts of aggression are allowed. No murder, no rape. Violence would be allowed if it were consensual. So if two adults wanted to settle a dispute via an old fashioned duel, they could enter the red zone and have their duel. But they would still be bound to not endanger others, they would have to announce their duel and give everyone a chance to get out of the way of the bullets. The last rule of the Red Zone is that nothing can be done there which could possibly affect people outside it. You're not allowed to build a bomb. You're not allowed to experiment with airborne pathogens. You're not allowed to hire a hitman to kill someone. Otherwise, it's a free for all. Any drug can be bought, sold, and consumed here. Voluntary euthanasia could take place people could enter the Red Zone to have a peaceful suicide administered by someone who owns their own suicide business. People could openly have sex in front of others, be nude if they wanted to, and consent to extreme fetishes like cannibalism. Some red zones could be big enough to live in, and that would also be allowed. A person who wants to sever their contract with the state would be allowed to bring their own property to the red zone and live off the grid there, as long as they paid all the taxes they owed first and aren't escaping from prosecution for a crime done outside the red zone. If they wanted to conduct business with the outside world, like selling an online service, they would still be subject to taxes. But if they only did business with other residents of the red zone, there would be no taxation or regulation. I see some problems, like if people wanted to live in the red zone and raise a family there, could society contain or even accept the danger of children not being vaccinated? Or how would animal welfare be upheld? I don't like the idea of people being free to abuse animals. But overall, I still think it's a great idea and those issues could be worked out somehow. EDIT I'm trying to respond to everyone who has posted. I'll be away for the next hour or two and will try to respond to every post when I get back, unless it's too many, but then I will still respond to every unique idea or point made. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Free Zones Are a Good Idea Explanation in Text"}
{"id":"73c433fa-e234-4910-8e7b-7e9815c3f238","argument":"Most scientific grants are paid out of interest on the conclusions the scientists make from the study. While science is not political itself, its sustaining mechanism cannot bypass economical interest, which can be tightly bound to political interest.","conclusion":"Once science generates knowledge of what 'is', then it has to figure out what 'ought' to be done with it e.g., generate implications for future research or practice. The 'ought' is where science becomes political. Hume"}
{"id":"cf15ec2f-57f5-4fa2-85d0-7c72e89c66b0","argument":"If a white person does something oppressive to a racial minority it is acceptable to say a blanket statement like, all white people are horrible. However if an racial minority committed a despicable act it would not be ok to say are people of that ethnic group are despicable. The reasons being 1. White supremacy and alternative similar thought lines are much more wide ranging slavery in America for hundreds of years than any quote \u201creverse racism.\u201d White people are not oppressed. And 2. All white people should be held accountable for the actions of any white person because many times in history white people who benefited from their privilege where complacent by not acting or speaking out against atrocities committed by other white individuals. Edit Thank you to everyone who posted. I\u2019m a liberal but I suspected that this view had issues. Thanks for voicing your thoughts. Many of them were all composed and thought out. I now view my original thought as problematic. Essentially because when people say \u201call while people\u201d they don\u2019t mean it and it might discourage people who might otherwise support my cause.","conclusion":"it is ok to say generalized statements about white people but not racial minorities."}
{"id":"52cf0644-24c4-41a7-8342-ad13b435a265","argument":"In Ancient Greek Religion, Odysseus disguised himself as a ragged beggar when he returned home from Troy. In the Bible Lazarus is carried by the angels to Abraham's bosom after his death, while the rich man outside whose gate he begged went to Hades.","conclusion":"The archetype of a beggar is present in the Bible and Greek Religion"}
{"id":"8add9032-3797-4f30-803b-a63f2505e714","argument":"I'm sure this struggle is very real for some people, which is why I want my view changed, but what keeps me from doing so is the overpowering view I have already. I think people who are against gender norms are fine. There are things that women and men are expected to do or not to do simply because it's traditional in our society. I do believe those things are sometimes archaic, stagnating, and even detrimental to society the world. I do believe that people can fight against these norms by simply not taking part in them, to the best of their ability. If it's something beyond their control women in the workplace or something , then they can fight that battle to the best of their abilities. Gender norms have been established even before racism, so I believe that as much as we can try to fight against it, it's always always going to be there. However, I also believe that the people out there who say stuff like, we're assigned gender roles from birth it's disgusting that parents assume their biologically female baby is a girl are even more detrimental. In my eyes, people who are very loud about their cis trans whatever ness are doing it for attention for their personal gain. I don't think they are actually trying to fight for a particular cause. I think the fact that people can go around saying they don't identify as a man or woman is a privilege in itself, and I think those same people are victimizing themselves. I understand if someone doesn't identify with the gender norms of their own gender as a female, I have no interest in shaving children popular fashion looking pretty by American media standards , but I don't understand why people have to create new genders and shit like that all the time. Wouldn't it be easier to say, I am a Person, and I like to live like this. I feel like finding new labels is not the right way to fight the battle. cmv","conclusion":"I think people who fight against gender norms by creating new identities are not helping anything and just being generally annoying."}
{"id":"512cf93a-0e4c-49cd-b6e2-380c5f5b76a8","argument":"Going off a couple of assumptions mobile, sorry for format . Netflix is not paying very much money for bandwidth. Consumers are going to continue to obtain content from the internet at a higher and higher rate, taking away profits from traditional cable. Supplying the pipeline to homes and businesses for internet is very capital intensive. Basically, it seems like netflix should be paying for more of the bandwidth it uses, especially when it is taking so many viewers away from the big cable companies. If we continue to see the trend of internet usage increase, the consumer is going to be charged anyway, either by Netflix or Comcast Verizon, because the infrastructure needs to be improved. I can also see more localized service providers, since they will be getting a cut from large bandwidth users such as YouTube and Netflix. I can also see this leading to an unpackaging of channels, since an improved infrastructure will allow consumers access only channels they want straight from the internet. Where are my assumptions reasonings wrong?","conclusion":"I believe the ruling against net neutrality is a good thing."}
{"id":"47baf637-123a-4554-8835-18628b6d7798","argument":"Some religions, such as Zoroastrianism and segments of Hinduism, teach that all religions are parallels of their own faith.","conclusion":"Not all religions contest that they are right to the degree of being \"right alone.\""}
{"id":"0d50e284-86c1-4636-84d9-18fe7f7d4f7b","argument":"According to the Subjective Theory of Value the goods and services of virtual economies do have a demonstrable value. Since players of these games are willing to substitute real economic resources of time and money monthly fees in exchange for these resources, by definition they have demonstrated utility to the user. Virtual commodities, by this understanding, are therefore no different to real commodities.","conclusion":"Many fundamental features of the 'real' economy are already essentially virtual: stocks, bonds, and currencies such as bitcoin are not physical objects but instead are intangible social constructs. There is little to distinguish these from the goods and services available in virtual realities."}
{"id":"21dbb8f8-06b9-4c87-b318-439327a15f9c","argument":"\"Every month a sexually active woman loses fertilized embryos - nature chooses the healthy ones to implant. To go for the healthy ones is a perfectly natural choice for people to make.\"","conclusion":"Female bodies already naturally \"screen\" away unhealthy embryos; why not take this one small step further?"}
{"id":"099f4107-f69b-4fe4-8fbb-5d9edd3cf220","argument":"Legalization of sex work will end the use of loitering and vagrancy laws to punish sex workers or to make arrests on the basis of reputation and appearance, which are contrary to civilized notions of due process of law.","conclusion":"Criminalisation of sex work is an infringement on privacy rights, as it polices conduct that is almost always private in nature."}
{"id":"08507cdb-a95d-4fa4-bb06-e837b3786142","argument":"One way to reduce the harm to the environment is to promote reusable packaging e.g. bottles, bags, food containers.","conclusion":"We do not need to criticize excess consumption in order to address food shortages and environmental crises."}
{"id":"80227a25-c8ce-4ba4-93b9-8e38b7e90a4b","argument":"If I'm not being clear, I'm speaking to this whole epidemic of people pretending to have arguments in good faith but have ulterior motives for why they're taking a certain position. When called out on having a possible ulterior motive, they usually backtrack and say, Hey I was just asking questions or Did you just assume such and such? You're the real bigot It allows people to take stances, that they know aren't that popular, but keep some plausible deniability once it's stated that their actual stance is racist sexist homophobic etc. or even just wrong. I have several examples. Let's start with the whole Battlefield V fiasco. The people that hated seeing that woman in that trailer don't like it because it's a woman. However, this has not been the narrative from them. They're saying it's because it isn't Realistic . And they are lying. Now, I look like the bad guy for assuming their motivation, but to reach the root cause of their objections, I have to. If their issue was realism, then they would have so many other problems with the entire Battlefield series. It's not until a woman was put into a prominent role that realism became an issue. So they're hiding behind that because they can't just outwardly say, I don't like a woman being in this game. We also see this in debates when it comes to social issues. When we see people talking about how they don't want transgender people to use their bathroom because they're going to rape people in them. Okay, so they're hiding their bigotry and discomfort out of some un empircal concern with transgender people sexually assaulting people as if they couldn't already do that anyway. It's fair to cut through this and just say someone is being transphobic. Or the person that says, I don't dislike black people. I just dislike the culture. Because you obviously can't say you dislike black people. But you can say that you dislike the stereotypical idea of what black culture is and no one can call you racist because you didn't say that you don't like the people . So, it's okay and perfectly reasonable to assume motivations. It's honestly necessary because we have reached a point where people are so disingenuous about their own viewpoints that they feel the need to hide them under the guise of something less controversial. And you're doing the debate a disservice if you play their game and argue on their terms. Cut to the chase and argue the root issue. Not the fake one that they bring up.","conclusion":"When debating online, it is a necessity to assume your opponent's motivation because, generally, no one is honest about their TRUE motivations."}
{"id":"7e18f508-4fd2-40eb-83cb-81a7ccf171ea","argument":"I watched it for the first time today and found myself trying to imagine what I would see if I looked at a creature. I couldn't think of anything that would cause me to want to commit suicide. I've survived my greatest pain a close friend who committed suicide a few years ago . How could seeing it again make me want to kill myself this time if it didn't manage to do it last time? I think it's a huge plot hole. It also makes humans seem way more fragile than we are major props to humans . Did I miss something?","conclusion":"A huge plot hole in Birdbox is that it assumes that seeing your greatest pain would make you want to kill yourself as if you hadn't already lived through it."}
{"id":"3253c542-c1e5-4edb-821e-a13574a4bffd","argument":"I'll explain my view further here, as I don't think the title is perfectly descriptive. It is healthy and wise to question views held by the majority, and for that matter any view. I think reddit, however, takes this way too far and instead of questioning popular opinions, takes it as a sign of intelligence to automatically disagree with them. For instance, let's look at the atheism wars on reddit. This actually applies on both sides of the debate. Early in reddit's history and still to a certain extent today, the r atheism circlejerk was huge, and atheism was basically unquestioned because most people are religious, and it must be intelligent to be cynical and counterculture, therefore, atheism Then, of course, came the massive backlash. Atheism was the default position on reddit, rendering it the popular opinion and so, due to the same effect, the r atheism hate circlejerk was born. Never mind the arguments themselves it is intelligent to go against what most people are saying, so those atheists must be the smug, popular majority The exact same thing happened with the r MensRights vs r ShitRedditSays war and the r gaming and r pcmasterrace war ideologies viewed as being against wider 'popular' culture versus ideologies popular on reddit, with neither side thinking critically about the other. The irony is, of course, that could be seen as exactly what I'm doing with this post trying to show myself as intelligent by taking a third option, acting all smug that I haven't been drawn into the ideological wars. I don't really have a counter to this other than my presence here on  this is a view I'm not sure about and am willing to have changed.","conclusion":"I believe that reddit is too counter-cultural for its own good, causing circlejerking and ideological wars to flourish."}
{"id":"16fcf01d-bcb1-43c0-b119-d4aabfa8e730","argument":"A school is not only responsible for the student's academic education, but also for their personal growth. Enforcing rules that help build discipline and self-awareness is in line with this responsibility.","conclusion":"The discipline and self-awareness required to arrive on time has other positive effects on the learning environment."}
{"id":"8000282b-dfec-4162-ad4f-32e38315946c","argument":"This has to do with cases in which the victim was drunk high and taken advantage of. I'm not saying that the person who took advantage of the victim isn't guilty, and I do believe that in cases where there is irrefutable evidence they should be tried to the full extent of law. However, a person needs to take precaution and avoid risky situations in which getting too drunk high to function at a party or party of two , bar or any place where there are strangers people you barely know acquaintances is one of them. I am not saying the victim is responsible for the actions of the offender. I am saying the victim is responsible for their actions deciding to inhibit their senses and decisions. I use victim loosely, because this topic is not as black and white as people make it out to be and I don't think it's an appropriate term in some cases. EDIT I apologize if I wasn't as clear as I thought I was. It is not about blame, it's about personal responsibility and I think that plays into these types of rape cases. I believe this is important to acknowledge, so people will understand that these particular cases are exacerbated by inhibiting incapacitating yourself. If you take personal responsibility for your well being, there is a good chance that you won't be taken advantage of, thus, if we teach it then it's possible less of these cases will pop up. I am not talking about anything regarding legal action, nor am I shifting blame from the offender. This is my view. EDIT Thanks to one of the only civil, unaccusatory counterarguments from Lluxx I've thought about it a bit more and I believe that it is definitely okay to acknowledge this on a precautionary level when informing people, but to be handled very, very, very delicately when speaking to the individual. I do not believe it shouldn't be said at all but I concede that depending on the person it should not be said until they have recovered mentally and emotionally from the ordeal. We don't want them to be traumatized further before they are able to heal. EDIT I'm not answering anyone being antagonistic, adding irrelevant arguments or coming up with arbitrary comparisons If you do X and Y happens then A and B will too, so you should never do A, is that what you're saying? Shut up. That's a childish and shows you didn't read the words in the  and just the title. Drinking responsibly is not the same as not drinking at all and I did not say anyone should never drink. If you have a counter argument that actually tackles my view feel free to give it. If you are presuming that I'm part of the victim blame part of society then move along, because I've always been persecuted for something I don't believe or have said, and there's no need for you to add to it.","conclusion":"*Victims of rape due to getting too drunk or high to make good decisions or become incapacitated, should take personal responsibility for inhibiting their senses and judgement."}
{"id":"0b89bdb5-be3f-471a-b578-f9b9af26e391","argument":"\"In bailing out failing companies, they are confiscating money from productive members of the economy and giving it to failing ones. By sustaining obsolete or unsustainable organizations, the government prevents their resources from being liquidated and made available to other companies that can put them to better, more productive use. An essential element of a healthy free market is that both success and failure must be permitted to happen when they are earned.\" - Rep. Ron Paul R-TX 2008","conclusion":"The institution of religious bailouts contradicts the mechanisms of free market economics and natural selection, both of which are proven to sustain modern society."}
{"id":"d32a4d2c-ae36-4829-bf4f-8fe17481803e","argument":"This isn't to say that China isn't authoritarian or that it is good. However, my view that people say that China is a communist country is false, and I am not convinced that we should be calling it that. Many people still own their own wealth. I will admit that it is possible that I hold this view because I don't know much about China. However, I see a lot of wealthy Chinese business men and women abroad who get to keep and enjoy using their wealth. I am fairly certain China is aware of their wealth both in and outside of China as these people I know regularly fly in and out of China.","conclusion":"China isn't a communist country"}
{"id":"8f7c61e7-4861-41d8-b69f-677d58addc3d","argument":"Some people think white people like myself should feel guilty about slavery this is called white guilt . Again, many people feel that black people should be compensated for slavery at the expense of other people living today, through programs like affirmative action and welfare. The reason this is silly is that each person is an individual with their own mind and their own capacity to make choices. They are responsible for their own choices, not the choices that other people with the same skin color made. There is not a collective white mind that makes decisions that all white people are responsible for. I am only responsible for the decisions that I have made, not for the decisions that other people with the same skin color made hundreds of years ago none of my ancestors even owned slaves as far as I know, incidentally both sides of my family came over from Europe in the 1800s . Therefore, I do not need to feel guilty about slavery, nor do I need to compensate black people for slavery. The only people who are responsible for slavery are the slave owners and traders themselves they should be condemned as strongly as possible, but they are dead. If someone living today profited indirectly from the fact that there was slavery, that does not mean that he or she should be punished, because he or she was not responsible for slavery and did not choose to receive those profits as a result of slavery. We can't go back through all the thousands of years of history and compensate every injustice by the dead, and there is no obligation to do so.","conclusion":"As a white person, I don't feel personally guilty about slavery or think I need to do anything to compensate black people for slavery."}
{"id":"2a850014-8331-497f-b9e5-1d5c36588b9d","argument":"I\u2019m 37 and have been living with depression since I was 11. I\u2019ve been getting professional \u201chelp\u201d for 10 years, and nothing has helped. I\u2019ve been on 5 or 6 different meds, none have helped. If anything they make things worse, as I seem to be highly resistant to meds and usually end up either sweating profusely 24 7 or feeling nauseous. No matter how much they increase my dosage, the side effects get worse and I still just want to die. My family is amazingly supportive but none of them can quite understand how much I struggle on a daily basis. They truly are the only reason I\u2019m still alive. This has caused some resentment though I\u2019m literally just alive so they don\u2019t feel sad. I just go through the motions every day, waiting for them to die so I can finally end it. I\u2019ve tried exercise, and while it was more helpful than the meds, it didn\u2019t change much despite the fact I lost about 40kg 90lbs for the yanks out there . It was kind of like \u201cCool, now I\u2019m just skinny and depressed.\u201d I\u2019m asexual so finding happiness in a relationship isn\u2019t really an option. I also have extreme social anxiety, so making friends especially in my 30\u2019s has never been easy. When I do make friends, they usually lose interest in me as I don\u2019t like to go out and socialise. Therapy has been somewhat helpful, but every therapist I\u2019ve had has kind of given up on me. We get to a point where they\u2019re like \u201cWell, we\u2019ve pretty much done all we can at this point. I can tell you still really want to kill yourself, but please don\u2019t.\u201d Then there\u2019s just the general state of the world. It\u2019s completely fucked. Climate change, Trump, anti vaxxers, Hong Kong, Russia the list goes on and on. It\u2019s not a matter of if there\u2019s a war and or major disaster, but when. I really do not want to be here when that shit kicks off. So yeah. I don\u2019t want my family to feel betrayed, I don\u2019t want society to judge me for \u201ctaking the easy way out\u201d or whatever. I just want the pain to stop, and after 25 years of putting up with this shit I feel I should be allowed to do so. I just want it all to end peacefully and painlessly, and by a professional so I don\u2019t fuck it up and end up a vegetable or something.","conclusion":"Euthanasia should be an option for people with chronic depression."}
{"id":"183e101b-c4d1-46fe-8e65-db618313e7f5","argument":"Countries like the US place a higher value spend more money gaining access to information offense than protecting information defense. The US IC budget in 2017 was $73.0 Billion link which is nearly three quarters of the total global information security market in 2017 $104.60 billion link and significantly more than the US information security market.","conclusion":"Publicly shared techniques are frequently essential to gain access to otherwise inaccessible data. This true offense is critical for law enforcement investigations related to child exploitation, anti-terror intelligence gathering, understanding motives and goals in international political disputes, and exposing corruption."}
{"id":"8afdcd0e-757d-48b4-bbb0-1114a1ece3c6","argument":"The restrictions could have short-term implications on businesses, economies, and individuals. restaurants would have to change their menus to vegan food in order to comply with laws. This could run up costs for them in the short-term.","conclusion":"Culture can influence lawmaking. If most people become vegan out of their own free will, then laws may follow to extend it to everyone."}
{"id":"cbfc87d0-70ed-4592-9e34-754cdeabe3f0","argument":"I'm a 21 year old gay American that attends a very liberal school. Throughout my schools community there is a large push for LGBT people to accept Islamic people without question. There are groups specifically made by LGBT people to support islamic acceptance. However, I have seen videos of what happens to gay people in Muslim controlled communities and I honestly can't convince myself that I should be standing behind a group that blindly supports a group of people simply because of religious freedom and not wanting to appear xenophobic. I'm allowed to say as many negative things as I want about conservatives in my country because they don't support LGBT ideas and I don't think Islam should get a free pass because it's labeled as a religion instead of a political party. I view gay people supporting islam the same way that African Americans viewed uncle toms , these LGBT people are enabling and encouraging Americans to accept a community that is openly hostile towards themselves. And to be clear, I'm not religious and feel the same way about other religions oppressing LGBT people but due to current politics, Islam is the religion that I'm being asked to accept.","conclusion":"As a gay man I should not be coerced into supporting a religion that believes I deserve to die for my sexuality."}
{"id":"cc8eb154-4b5d-4297-bf21-20d32654b3d7","argument":"I work in hospitality and i and some other staff tend to forget to bring the name badge part of the uniform this has lad to some disciplinary actions. Who really looks at this as a customer and is it not somewhat creepy to call someone by their first name if you have never met them before?. I do see that it\u2019s traditional in one sense and perhaps it\u2019s me just being too forgetful but I don\u2019t see their importance. I can\u2019t remember many people calling me by my name after seeing my name badge If someone has genuine use for your name they will ask.","conclusion":"Name badges are not important"}
{"id":"8e4ed2e8-bf1e-4e8d-a1bd-37a01889b95c","argument":"Norway has worked particularly hard to improve Norwegian whalers' ability to hit the sweet spot as often as possible, through training classes and mandatory certification tests.","conclusion":"If modern methods do not meet the bar of 'responsible whaling' then the whaling industry can develop new methods."}
{"id":"8ee56c93-5fbd-4d7d-986d-8e47bc8dda3e","argument":"Rashida Tlaib was the first Muslim woman elected to the US House of Representatives. She has been a strong advocate for the rights of women of colour, and has used her platform to speak out about issues they face.","conclusion":"'The Squad' is an influential group of four Congresswomen of colour who use their platform to speak out against structural racism and issues facing women and people of colour."}
{"id":"5c8c0495-905b-43e7-98a1-de193fddca29","argument":"Most online advertising runs through a handful of major platforms, such as Facebook or Google These platforms can then easily track users across large portions of the internet, as any page with their ads can cross-reference unique identifiers and build up a profile of the user even if that user doesn't use Google or Facebook's services.","conclusion":"Consolidation amongst online advertisers and analytics companies means that ads can easily track user behaviour across many websites, and in doing so develop a comprehensive record of a user's behaviour and interests."}
{"id":"d7631d6f-d63b-4ff6-ad71-cf034a4f8422","argument":"The age group most likely to abstain from voting is 18-24 year olds which can skew the results of elections in favor of candidates supported by older voters.","conclusion":"Those who abstain from voting allow parties they oppose to be elected."}
{"id":"dbef019f-edd5-4f1e-b962-df6ba2e63303","argument":"Observation shows religions evolving and changing based on social norms, and borrowing stories and customs from other sects.","conclusion":"Scientific observation appears to indicate that religion is entirely a human construction."}
{"id":"c0d8b9fc-103a-4192-b442-0dc178b20d7d","argument":"I've been a comedian and a fun loving goofball. I've performed orally a lot yeah I'll put it that way . I've been featured on Radio and Podcasts that's in the past for now. I created many characters within a universe.with different voices. Many of them are just goofy but many are foreign. While nobody bats an eyelash at Southern, British, Irish, Nordic or Russian accents people get a lil testy about East Asian, Black, Indian, West Indian, Hispanic, voices. Strictly due to the fact their skin happens to be a different color West Indians can be any race too so that bugs me more . The characters when I use them are over the top stereotypes. I'm mocking the stereotype with a black barber, a Chinese sweatshop enforcer, an Indian tech support worker and an Islan Kinga de dancehyall byoi horn sounds . Also my white voices are stereotypes too A drunk Irish judge, uptight Brits, threatening Russian spy, and a Scandinavian skiier. I now mainly do the voices to mostly friends and family but once in a while I'll do one at a larger gathering or event, and it ruffles some feathers while most people are unable to choke back laughter. Okay. Why is it racist behavior? Edit changed a sentence","conclusion":"I don't believe it's racist to imitate voices of other races."}
{"id":"221ef885-9da9-452c-ba55-31f493fd13eb","argument":"Voter registration is an administrative overhead with few benefits but inherently any obstacle to voting poses the actual risk of disenfranchising people's right to vote. Many ideas are shared about making voter registration easier or even automatic, but what about eliminating it altogether? The benefits would be Eliminate gerrymandering. You can't draw up some serpentine district that favors incumbents if people just go to their closest polling place. Zero administration. Just have people mark their finger purple with ink when they vote. Simple and proven effective. Standard process in all jurisdictions. You move somewhere else and voting is the same, which of itself speaks to a fair and sensible way to provide equal access. Just go to the polling place that is easier for you. A person who moves to a new area right before an election could more easily vote. In general people who move more often students, military, etc would have simpler access to in person voting. So what is wrong with this? We would be saying it is okay for felons and non citizens to vote, but the harm on balance seems trivial. These are groups that should have a say in their government too. Of course if you feel strongly that they shouldn't this whole idea is a hard sell, but it is worth thinking hard whether there is any harm to society in extending the vote to all people. There most challenging issue I believe is voting for citizens abroad. If you don't have clear congressional district lines, how does a person issue a mail in ballot? My initial thought is that you keep districts and people choose which district to vote in. I would be interested in some rebuttal to this proposal.","conclusion":"We should eliminate voter registration altogether"}
{"id":"9c5c4463-5cdf-4b9f-b0f7-fba6c8fcd7ab","argument":"Plastic bags are huge wastes of resources. They not only cost non renewable energy to produce, but they also are way too often not recycled and even when 'recycled' by a consumer, not actually recycled by waste industries , last basically forever, and are huge culprits in terms of pollution. I would think this would be a bi partisan supported issue because 1 reduces cost and waste of production of bags 2 stores save money by not being 'obligated' to provide bags 3 reusable bag industry is boosted 4 less pollution from fly away bags 5 citizens are encouraged to make simple changes in their lifestyle to better themselves, their community, and the global environment. There are people who argue that bags should simply by taxed and that every bag a customer uses costs, for example, 20 cents. However that doesn't stymie the demand by a lot hence continuing production, disposal, pollution and it doesn't change people's habits in terms of shopping. They forget their reusable bags and the thought is, oh whatever it's 20 cents not, I need to remember my bags to help the environment There are also people who say that plastic bags are the least of our worries in terms of pollution. That argument actually pisses me off more because that's just a defeatists attitude and following that lines of thought, one can say, 'well what does one family turning theory lights off when they leave the house or recycling REALLY do in the grand scheme of things?' when in reality we know that it's a drop in a bucket but it's a drop that needs to be there. I think that our country's plastic bag use is out of control and the federal government should have a ban on the bags. Many developed countries already have a ban on bags and i don't see why the US is behind in this. It doesn't make sense to me to be a city to city or state to state issue since the production, disposal, and almost inevitable eventual pollution of the bags extends beyond state jurisdiction. . Edit Sorry for spelling mistakes. On mobile.","conclusion":"The United States should impose a ban on single use shopping bags"}
{"id":"30fa5859-de56-4e0f-b616-7775ba1d8b56","argument":"The USE possibly would also enhance national identity and separatism. For many people, the national identity is more important than the European one.","conclusion":"Nationhood precedes statehood, so a political integration must come after the formation of a European identity."}
{"id":"573fc4f0-334b-4668-9f00-e262d963723c","argument":"The Abu Ghraib scandal revealed that US military personnel tortured and humiliated prisoners not for interrogation purposes, but as revenge for the 9\/11 attacks.","conclusion":"Interrogators and prison guards could torture prisoners solely to fulfill their own sadistic desires or out of a motivation for personal revenge."}
{"id":"8a7ff9e1-ece1-41c3-b173-884b997d9ed8","argument":"Please, hear me out. First of all, I'm Norwegian. Our government has been preparing a trial run for a few years, and in 2020 2021 we will by all probability start giving free heroin to around 400 heavy addicts around Bergen and Oslo. My view is based around the information i have gathered about this. I will only talk about a solution to heroin abusers, not amphetamine, cocaine or other abusers. My veiw is by no means strong, and could be easy to changed if there are some good arguments. In Norway, it's expected that 250 300 people die from a heroin overdose every year, Norway only has 5 million people so the number is huge. The dram about a drug free world is an absurd vision which never can come true. So are any results in the war on drugs, a few battles were won, but the war is lost. We have to start thinking about more unconventional methods to succeed. Opiates are by no means safe drugs, but few years ago, when it was widely and legally available people weren't dying on the streets. A lot of doctors were using it daily for years, still doing their job, still having a normal life. Abusing pure, clean opiates does not shorten your life expectancy. It's the adulterants, the fentanyl, the street life and the unknown dosages that gives street heroin addicts a life expectancy of only 5 years after starting the 5 years is from a documentary, not sure if it's 100 factual . Giving these people free clean heroin helps them know their dosage know which drug they are taking not need to beg or commit crimes to get their fix they need to get to a safe injection site, with clean needles if they want their heroin easier to start reduction plan, with trained professionals help whenever they inject, they will be close to trained medical professionals who can help them in case of an overdose Some of the problems I can think of how do we decide who gets the heroin? The Norwegian health directorate will decide. From what I THINK, they will start by using the heroin addicts living in communal housing. They know for a fact how addicted they are and what they are addicted to. wouldn't drug abusers addicted to other drugs just switch heroin to get it freely? A solution could be to only accept those who use heroin, this could easily be tested with urinalysis over a few weeks. Another solution could be to only start with those in methadone treatment, or who failed methadone treatment. isn't this just giving up? In some sense it is, give up the war, help the wounded. This is not giving up on the abusers, this is trying to help them have a happier healthier life, while also trying to get them to reduce dosages and someday quit. I belive this would curb opiate overdoses drastically. We have to pick the best out of two evils.","conclusion":"The government should give out free heroin"}
{"id":"67199902-c258-4c2e-87fa-0318712a6325","argument":"There's a dislike for the new style of hip hop, often referred to as mumble rap, among many people that stems from, a likely subconscious prejudice that the black artist performing is uneducated, stupid, aggressive, etc. These kinds of prejudices have existed for a while through earlier generations of hip hop, but the mainstream appeal of newer, more socially acceptable rap artists, like Kendrick Lamar, J Cole, Drake, among others clouds the issue I don't have these prejudiced thoughts, look at all these other black artists who I like. I don't mean to say it's wrong to dislike a genre of music purely from an artistic and personal preference viewpoint, but the language people use when discussing this topic often hints at an underlying distaste for the kind of black culture that stems from poor backgrounds. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Dislike of newer hip hop, or \"Mumble Rap,\" often stems from subconscious prejudiced views"}
{"id":"bafbc766-123f-4be4-a331-f114913c5eb5","argument":"I understand why google and godaddy are banning neo nazi people but I don't like it. These people should be able to do what everyone else can and speak their minds. It is their right to speak their minds. This is how people take our freedoms away. When Obama was doing executive order after executive order I knew it would not end up well. If we ban things we don't like we will end up with only the most popular ideas allowed. We need to allow people to speak their minds no matter how dumb their opinions might be. All we will do is make them a secret society and essentially force them to attack because they are being mistreated. This happens all the time and shouldn't happen in America. EDIT I agree they should be removed due to threats of violence. However, if they did not threaten violence I think they should be allowed to speak. Deltas given to a couple people. I wrote this last night before I went to bed and have enjoyed the ideas here. Also, I was wrong about Obama's executive order count however my main issue is we cannot cherry pick what we like and don't like. The Left using executive orders to further their cause allows The Right to do the same without complaint. I am not agreeing with either side but if you allow one you must allow the other. Thank you to all gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Banning the hate groups from having websites or places to express their opinion is a bad thing"}
{"id":"dc60abcd-a7fb-4537-8383-fd1ee16501a4","argument":"I see this as an oft cited common wisdom a good amount on reddit and other political sites. I hear all the time that most of the democrats in congress now would have been republicans in the 80s, that Obama's liberal policies now were formerly centrist positions and that presidents like Reagan would be Democrats now I will look at this from three different pillars social policy, fiscal policy, foreign policy. I think the only one that definitely hasn't become more liberal is foreign policy but that has nothing to do with Democrats vs. Republicans. Certainly, from a social standpoint, it's absolutely laughable to say that we have gotten more conservative as a country, and even also wrong to say that either Republicans or Democrats have become more socially conservative. In fact, it's the liberal views from the 80s becoming middle of the road e.g., gay marriage, abortion rights, loosening of marijuana laws, and the death penalty are all far more socially liberal than even a generation ago. You all forget that as as recently as the 80s and 90s, whether or not Roe vs. Wade should be overturned and whether abortion should remain legal was an actual major issue in presidential campaigns. I can't think of an issue that the country has become more conservative on socially in the last 30 years except maybe immigration which probably isn't even a social issue anyway as a result of all the post 9 11 hysteria and poor economy. From a fiscal standpoint, we as a country have become far less fiscally conservative note don't get me wrong, I am not saying that Republicans are fiscally conservative while Democrats spend too much. Not my point at all Bush was less fiscally responsible than Clinton. No doubt. This isn't a Republican vs. Democrat argument . We have a trillion dollar deficit. Government spending as a of GDP was in the low 20s in the 70s and 80s and is up near 25 30 now . Taxes as a percent of of GDP, definitely declined from the 80s source, but that could arguably be due to the recession s since you see it spike up during the 90s and down during the two chasms of the 2002 and 2008 recessions. And when people make the statement that we are getting more conservative, I don't think they are exclusively talking about tax policy. The government is certainly getting larger, and at least as it comes to commerce, getting far more authoritarian increased involvement in medicare part D, while Obamacare is not a government takeover since it's moving people to private insurers, it's certainly government mandating behavior . The only place I'd agree that government is also becoming more less liberal is around foreign policy and the terrorism related areas like wars, due process, surveillance, nation building, etc. The intertwine between government and corporations is certainly increased the crony capitalism that is all the rage, but I don't view that as a Conservative Liberal or Republican Democrat thing if government wasn't so big, they wouldn't have the ability to hand out favors to their corporate donors which both parties are equally at fault so I'm at a loss as why so many people often repeat the statement that the US is getting so conservative. Finally, saying Reagan would be a Democrat now is insanity. The guy was a union buster. He was fervently against abortion. He was passionately and openly religious and vehemently anti drug. He was aside from massive defense spending a fiscal hawk. Aside from his aggressive foreign policy, nothing about him would be seen as liberal now. When he was governor, he opposed a law banning gays from teaching in schools but are there republicans now purporting such a law? What was socially liberal then is normal now. What was fiscally liberal then, is normal now. People talk about Eisenhower as a Liberal too because he desegregated the military, supported civil rights legislation, and supported forced desegregation in other ways. That may have been liberal then, but it's not liberal now. It's not a mainstream Republican position to re segregate anything. There aren't Republicans looking to roll back anything Eisenhower instituted. Again, right conservative does not mean Republican . Left Liberal does not mean Democrat There are many things that Republicans are doing e.g. unfunded wars resulting in massive deficits that are not right wing polices and there are many things Democrats are doing that are not left liberal policies e.g., due process, surveillance, nation building","conclusion":"Contra to generally accepted opinion, The US has not become more conservative over the past few generations and Republicans like Regan and Eisenhower would not be Democrats now."}
{"id":"a214fa06-58fd-4c76-b398-983e03012aef","argument":"The attempted word 'covfefe', statements like \"they don\u2019t \u2013 they don\u2019t write good. They don\u2019t know how to write good\" and any number of contradictory statements have come from Trump's mouth or Twitter feed.","conclusion":"Trump has said some patently bizarre outrageous stupid and\/or plain ridiculous things"}
{"id":"fc87eb8e-25fe-4014-8bf9-eaa2da9a12eb","argument":"You all will probably be surprised by me saying this, but I have a few websites in which I make monetization on, as well as few Youtube videos. That being said, I totally understand that the less people use Adblocks, the more money I make as well as the more money web developers and Youtubers make. Fair enough. However, according to articles out there, Americans spend 4 years watching ads Imagine that. Think about all the time you have wasted watching ads in your life. 4 years is a long time Since I installed adblock, I have saved myself from watching so many ads that I pretty much saved so much time in my life. A lot of people agree that advertisements are toxic and considered mental pollution I and a lot of you probably agree. Is 4 years of your life worth throwing away to watch laundry detergent commercials and to be ethical . What? You think you will earn a medal for not using an adblock? It seems like people who are against adblock think that. Some people on Reddit claim It is stealing Robbery I totally understand this viewpoint but frankly it is not as bad as stealing and robbery. I have websites, can I get more money if everyone doesn't have an adblock? Of course. Do I blame these people? Of course not. They are clever enough to install it. Ads are getting smarter like that episode of South Park said and some are getting past adblocks. To think that I, as well as others, are monsters and thieves for using adblocks is fucking ridiculous. Life is short, why waste your time with ads? How is using an adblock different than flipping the tv channel when commercials come on? Huh? Hahaha. HOWEVER , if everybody used adblock, I and others would be screwed, but I am sure marketing would change in some way and adapt like animals adapt. Change my view Reddit","conclusion":"Using an AdBlock is morally ok and should not be scrutinized"}
{"id":"214b5764-dd4d-47a5-b6e6-788e9456c802","argument":"Free speech is the basis to the freedom we enjoy in the west. Nothing is worth comprimising this.","conclusion":"A culture of political correctness paves the way for authoritarianism."}
{"id":"dbbc407d-a934-4a2c-ae5b-219f22461a2e","argument":"I've been teaching for over a year, and every teacher I get to talk to tells me the same thing, if you're not in the classroom, you get nothing. Why does this happen? Lesson planning is the most inportant thing when teaching, if you're not well prepared, the class time will just be a waste of time, you can spend hours upon hours searching for materials, reading and choosing from different sources. Most of the times it takes more time to plan a lesson than the time to actually teach it. Teachers aren't only getting very low income overall, and around the world, b ut we're also getting unpaid hours of hard labor. Edit I teach in Mexico, and I have gathered info from some south american countries, we get paid hourly.","conclusion":"All lesson planning should and must be paid to teachers."}
{"id":"38b7eafe-a617-4b84-83cb-286678cd28b9","argument":"If healthcare is paid for by taxpayers, the government can justify regulating individual behaviour by saying that if your actions impact the cost of healthcare for others, you shouldn't be able to take those actions such as eating the food you want, risky hobbies such as rock climbing\/parkour, smoking, etc.","conclusion":"Health care should be voluntary and market provided, not mandatory, nor provided or regulated by government."}
{"id":"65066a39-fd00-4c66-9e23-40a7e1b21cb0","argument":"Shark dive tourism in Australia contributes at least $25.5 million annually to the country's economy.","conclusion":"Shark diving and snorkelling are also renowned cultural activities in Australia."}
{"id":"1514dc09-b5c6-4cf9-afde-97b7f7c7514c","argument":"Pick the most cost effective number of Republican Senators Representatives in the house will fall in line after the Seantor becomes in favor , that can either be bought with infrastructure or job creating projects in their states, in order to secure enough votes for a veto override. x200B Pass a government opening spending bill with those inducements and one of two things will happen. The super majority forms, or the voters in those states known that their elected representatives chose the President over their jobs bridge roads health whatever. x200B Bam you've just created a block of democrats and republicans willing to compromise and work together on keeping the government doing its job. x200B Profit.","conclusion":"Democrats should create 5.7B in inducements to Republican Senate States"}
{"id":"621fa60d-ce09-410f-ad97-b9bd02d5c7b4","argument":"Pets are a luxury. Given the issues with the environment, luxuries, such as pets, should be the first thing we are willing to sacrifice, or live without, in order to protect the planet.","conclusion":"Pet ownership is an abuse of our planet's resources"}
{"id":"d8be69ca-9147-4d55-a057-64db3e0649e0","argument":"Twitter does not supply much in the way of content. Often, the reddit post title is identical to the tweet, in which case the only content is seeing who said it, and looking at some of the comments. Since I'm on reddit, I'd rather read the reddit comments than look at a bunch of retweets, thank you. This is different from linking to an article on a blog or news site that has comments below. In that case, there is content, then there are comments. On twitter, there's a comment, then more comments. So, in terms of end user experience, a link to twitter is more similar to reddit self post than to a link post. Of course, there are two main differences Twitter links direct people away from reddit for little to no content beyond what's already in the title, and users get karma for it. The only exception is when there's a twitpic, but those, from what I've seen, are very few and far between, and usually those pics either come from or end up on sites that offer more content in the way of an article, back story, etc. I do not think twitter should be completely banned from reddit. I have no problem with seeing a link to a tweet in a self post. I just do not think tweets are content rich enough to be karma worthy. .","conclusion":"reddit should ban twitter for link posts"}
{"id":"af981947-0acd-48a2-91f6-4b26bab429fb","argument":"This has been asked before, but I would like new input. The Trolley Problem is what made me think of this issue. To summarize, a trolley is barreling down a track. Two people are tied up on the track ahead, and will be killed if the trolley continues. You have the option of pulling a switch and diverting the train onto another track. However, there is a single worker on the second track that will be killed if you divert the train. I would feel morally required to pull the switch and save the two people. Likewise, if I were the worker I would expect someone to divert the train toward me. This is assuming you know nothing about anyone involved. For those who disagree with the above position, imagine it was 50 people tied up and one worker. Is it morally required to divert the train to the worker? If your answers to these two questions are different, please explain why? I am looking for people to present alternative scenarios that I have not thought of in order to rethink my viewpoint. Reddit,  Edit I really appreciate the responses and it has made me look at the situation from different angles. My argument was made from a utilitarian viewpoint, but I have come to understand utilitarianism is not all numbers. I tried to be objective when looking at the Trolley Problem, but I realize no situation will ever be truly objective. I was trying to offer a moral argument that held true in all theoretical situations, but I am unable to make one as every situation is different.","conclusion":"It is morally right to kill one in order to save two."}
{"id":"4ff31a2f-3329-433b-983f-b7299b3c330c","argument":"Several claims in this thesis argue that putting more roadblocks between the public and weapons will just lead to criminals a accessing weapons via the black market or b seeking other methods to commit violent crimes, such as creating explosives or hijacking vehicles. If criminals can commit crime in absence of guns, they can also commit crime in the presence of guns using these same methods.","conclusion":"Ultimately, heavily disarming or heavily arming citizens will logically result in the same negative consequence: determined criminals will find a way to circumvent checks."}
{"id":"122ca55e-85bb-4b64-b159-304f5b785e24","argument":"edit Thank you guys for your comments, I appreciate your answers My view was slightly changed. I will still be ready to cover when inviting, but will communicate more when being invited. I am talking about movies, dates, shows etc. I invite someone out to a movie? I don't ask them if they have money? I will pay. I think it's unfair to get a person and launch them into the situation of 'spend money or don't spend time with me'. I think that if you ask someone to join you, you start with the assumption that they have no equipment that deals with the particular situation that is in your control, of course . If I ask someone out I will pay, and vice versa I would expect . What are your views, and should my view be changed?","conclusion":"The person who invited another out should pay unless agreed upon previously"}
{"id":"6d410029-878d-49f0-9b15-f078505e23fa","argument":"The concept of God exists only as a thought often associated with strong feelings and usually leading to other concepts world, nature, culture, morals, etc.. Human mind craves for context and meaning, it is its basic urge\u2014God and religion constitute just a mental map of life and universe.","conclusion":"It is more likely that people invented the idea of God, than that he actually exists."}
{"id":"23992639-9f0a-4eb6-9e77-815286815bbf","argument":"Lately the media has been in an uproar over The Interview, news on Mississippi Attorney General surprisingly absent, particularly driving home the idea that whoever stood up for North Korea was standing against freedom of expression, personally I feel it was freedoms in practice but I'm seemingly alone on that one. Near the start of 2013, Kim Jong Un was the subject of an assassination attempt. So The Interview is essentially a comedy adaption based on a true story of the ordeal of a living person. I think the natural follow up to this movie for the west, in order to show how freedom of expression an not, why is someone defending North Korea, it should start to adapt other famous peoples' life ordeals. Candidate comedy., Adam Sandler in Meet the Fritzls One dad sets out a plan to build a secret dungeon under his house and father lots of kids with the daughter he's going to lock up down there. But Josef's about to find out keeping his daughter in check isn't the walk round home depot he thought. Follow Josef as he rapes his daughter repeatedly over 24 years and try not to miscarry with laughter.","conclusion":"We should prove that The Interview debacle was about freedom of expression by making a comedy depicting the ordeal of a media sweetheart with a less favourable outcome for the victim."}
{"id":"4967ae92-0119-468b-8191-7788e29722b3","argument":"Up to 62% of Russians believe they should adapt to life under sanctions and there is widespread support for the government's foreign policy.","conclusion":"Russians perceive the sanctions as humiliating and this has caused a stirring of nationalist sentiment p.3."}
{"id":"f054874b-6a37-4e49-b52e-8ced79dbc1bd","argument":"Whenever there is a fatal shooting, people do not blame the store that sold the gun. This is because they recognise that the criminal would have procured the weapon by some other method, if they could not get it from the store.","conclusion":"Wars would happen with or without high-income countries' provision of arms. The fact that high-income countries sell the arms does not impose any moral responsibility on them."}
{"id":"44dafba2-0e60-4421-916c-3a85ca71c7ee","argument":"Ok to preface this I want to say that I genuinely want my mind changed on this. I\u2019ve tried to have discussions on other sub Reddit\u2019s before i knew this one existed like TrollX but they seem to attack anyone who poses any sort of opposition and then ban them. A lot of my experience is personal like feminists ik so my opinion has been formed from the way a lot of feminists have treated me. I do apologise if I start ranting in this because I do genuinely get mad at this sort of stuff and sidetrack. My first problem with feminism is their reluctance to want to have a debate. A lot of the time I\u2019ve seen in stuff like marches and feminists ik they simply want to shout out there argument and not care for what the opposition has to say. Anytime they do listen to what others say they label them as \u201csexist\u201d or having \u201ctoxic masculinity\u201d I my self have been told I\u2019ve been both apparently as well as apparently being a lot of other things which certainly helped my confidence Most of the time I hear from them is that they are done discussing their rights, but I would like to know when the discussion started and why tf it has ended? The second problem I have is what I could only describe as micro aggressions. Oh boi have I been a victim of this enough times. Can\u2019t pick up things for lady it makes them feel weak, can\u2019t hold open a door for them that\u2019s a superiority complex, can\u2019t jokingly say \u201csmile love\u201d to a female worker as it\u2019s insensitive, can\u2019t talk too much in front of a woman as that\u2019s mansplaining. It\u2019s honestly ridiculous and a lot if those have genuinely happened to me. One time I held a door for a woman and simply said \u201cafter you\u201d and she said \u201ccos I\u2019m a woman right? Can\u2019t get the door for myself don\u2019t you think?\u201d Like fuck me love next time I\u2019ll just hold it shut I guess? And the whole mansplaining thing oml don\u2019t get me started on that. I was genuinely pulled to the side by a co worker of mine when we were talking about history and told to \u201ccalm it down, you\u2019re mansplaining a little\u201d I\u2019m litteraly being told \u201cshut up and let her majesty speak\u201d This strange and dangerous culture it seems to have bred. This one I haven\u2019t experienced myself but I\u2019ve seen a lot of videos about, especially on the Brett Kavenaugh case, was this idea that the victim is always right. I don\u2019t want this to become a discussion on Brett But if you\u2019re really curious where I stand I think that he is innocent. I saw SO MANY videos about woman saying that Ford is to believed regardless of her lack of evidence. The whole \u201cinnocent until proven guilty\u201d seemed to disappear in this instance. I also noticed something truly terrifying in my opinion. Even though there has been a sufficient lack of evidence saying he was a rapist, Brett was labelled as a rapist and treated like one. To me, that is fucking terrifying. To know that it doesn\u2019t matter if I haven\u2019t done it, as long as someone claims it, I could be treated the same. My life could be ruined by someone simply lying. I\u2019m aware it\u2019s not all feminists but I struggle so hard to find genuinely nice and respectable feminists that don\u2019t want me dead because I\u2019m Male. I do want equality and I fucking love women I just wish this movement didn\u2019t have such a shitty reputation. TL DR I don\u2019t like feminism because of micro aggressions, unwillingness to debate and the toxic culture that has come out of it. Thank you if you read all of this and I appreciate anyone willing to talk about this. Even if you agree I still want to hear what you have to say.","conclusion":"This 3rd wave feminism is toxic and seems like it\u2019s intentions are not for equality but instead for female empowerment and making a big deal of small things."}
{"id":"63980045-a153-4ff5-bb61-608743b8bbee","argument":"New governments can take credit for the success of the programs by claiming that these programs are more successful in their tenure than in the previous government's tenure.","conclusion":"If these initiatives are beneficial, the new government is unlikely to discontinue them."}
{"id":"389851d8-6d0a-461b-99c4-3b06ff4a6c89","argument":"Introducing UBI will ensure the minimum income. According to a research it will lead to increase in spending that in turn increase the demand for more workers and hence more employment.forbes.com","conclusion":"UBI could be a fix for when robots take over a big chunk of our jobs and cause mass unemployment"}
{"id":"8b227b6c-18c0-4c8f-aa00-0a9b31a23d89","argument":"And by that I don't mean blackface can't be racist or wrong, they definitely can, but what you're really doing is just putting black make up, and whether that action is right or wrong is ENTIRELY dependent on the context of WHY you're doing it. I don't think it's fair to call something racist when there is zero intent of racism, to simply label every occurrence of blackface as racism is just toxic identity politics. Megyn Kelly was right to say that she doesn't understand why it's wrong for kids to wear blackface. She's also right to defend Luann de Lesseps for her Diana Ross costume by tanning her skin to appear darker. All of these actions have ZERO elements of racism in it none of these actions were done with the idea of racism in mind, none of these actions result discrimination and oppression of other races, etc. To call someone a racist for an action that literally has zero to do with racism is already unjustified, to fire someone from their jobs for it is even worse.","conclusion":"There is nothing inherently racist or wrong with blackface"}
{"id":"b9a7e58b-ebe9-4210-a4a5-af6d57002a05","argument":"Appointments typically require some level of consensus among politicians or within appointment bodies. This process tends to select more moderate, and therefore less politically charged candidates for judicial office. In contrast, candidates who win elections need only win a plurality of the vote and need not appeal to the remainder of the electorate in any way.","conclusion":"Appointment based systems are less likely to lead to the politicisation of the judiciary."}
{"id":"5761c36a-331a-4e5c-af54-dfbae3f5c53c","argument":"Traditional sexual scripts have resulted in women largely viewing virginity as a gift and something that they therefore have to be careful about giving away, while men see virginity as a stigma and think of its loss as a relief Humphreys, p. 672","conclusion":"Gendered expectations around virginity often mean that women view virginity loss as giving something away and are encouraged to protect their virginity, while men losing their virginity is viewed as a way to gain status and experience."}
{"id":"56f9cad0-d289-42f5-a2fa-1ef3a3068bac","argument":"With the recent terrorist attack in Orlando, I can't help but think that the ease of access to firearms is directly related to the massacres. With minimal background checks and a lack of licensing or registration for most guns in most places, it makes it easier for someone with malicious intent to get a gun. Whether that person is a domestic born terrorist, an immigrated terrorist, a mentally unstable person or the goddammit Hatfields and McCoys. If the USA had a licensing system like the Possessions and Acquisitions License in Canada, I can't help but think that people who want to shoot a nightclub or school would have to take more than a week to get a gun. gt But that infringes on my right to bear arms Not really, it requires you to pay a modest fee and prove that you know how to not accidentally shoot someone. The only reason you would be refused is for reasons that already bar you convict, mentally unstable, etc or because you proved that you can't be trusted with the responsibility of the privilege of having a gun. gt But what will happen to the people who already have guns that don't pass the test? They hand their guns over or they are in possession of an illegal firearm. The same thing that happens when a convict is in possession of a gun. gt But that only stops law abiding gun owners, criminals will still get guns You're right, except it will stop people from legally acquiring guns for illegal purposes. It might force people to look to criminals to get guns, but at the same time they might just go This isn't really worth it and try a different tactic that results in less deaths. gt California has tough gun laws and look at San Bernardino Yeah, California also borders Arizona. It's literally a few hours of driving to get a gun more easily and go back into California. That would be why you would need a nation wide policy. gt But I like my guns and I would rather die with freedom than live without it And that is a valid opinion to have. But is it fair to force other people to live by that code as well if they don't want it? I understand that it isn't a perfect system, but the system in the USA doesn't appear to be working either. Edit I'm mostly talking about licensing that requires education. gt Would you be fine requiring a license to vote? You mean registration and education before you could vote? Registration that already exists and is the primary cause of people not voting, and education that means people make more informed decisions instead of voting out of emotion or habit? gt It's our Right Because the American Constitution currently stands as it was written in the 18th century. They have never added new amendments, taken amendments out or changed amendments.","conclusion":"The USA should require all gun owners to get a license if they want to own a gun"}
{"id":"58950d95-59b2-4b5b-aae2-5ddaba8ded0e","argument":"Alright, so lots of nations and countries claim that a slice of land belongs to them. France for the French, Ethiopia for Ethiopians, Russia for the Russians, and all that. And there's those claims that the land rightfully belongs to a nation. Native Americans, Aborigines, Palestinians, whatever. Here's the problem. None of those were the original inhabitants. France, before the Franks showed up, was home to the Gauls, and the Celts before that, and the Basque related peoples before that, and a couple more before that. The Levant, before the present day situation , was fought over for millennia by various groups. Several waves of migration wiped out the original inhabitants of the Americas. So when someone claims that land belongs to their people, they are obviously saying the way that land was obtained was legitimate. So if it was obtained via conquest, then they agree with the right of conquest. Now obviously this creates certain logical problems with certain arguments. Mostly the anti imperial ones. Which is why I don't think land can belong to a people. TL DR The idea that land can belong to a group means you think taking other groups land is fine, which is why my view is that nations can't own land.","conclusion":"The idea that land can belong to a nation implicitly accepts the right of conquest."}
{"id":"3f27eae2-c38e-4259-8d60-5fd900f59d8a","argument":"I'm not saying it's because all people who are on welfare exploit the system, but because so many people do and it's misdirecting funds from where it could be better allocated. At least in Chicago, so many people will be sitting on their new iPhone while swiping their link card. A few weeks ago a woman I know was talking about how she purchased a 200 cake with her link card. How I see it, if you're at the point where you cannot survive and are desperate enough to ask the government to pay your bills for you, then you should have to show everything you buying to ensure that the money you do have isn't being wasted. Otherwise, people just get way too cozy on government programs. I'm sticking around, but going to stop replying for now because I think I just keep going full circle. I'll be sure to read everything though and delta whoever changes me view. Thanks for the responses, for the most part they have been very thought provoking","conclusion":"I believe that if you collect welfare the government should be able to monitor and control all of your spending."}
{"id":"2f6a9ff9-a8d9-4467-8391-7410d9969dda","argument":"I think this show gets too much hate, and it is actually really funny. The characters are well thought out and it almost always makes me laugh. Sure, there are a few bad episodes, but every show has its flaws. The first few seasons were the best in terms of the jokes, and the seasons after that had a more complex plot and more characters. The interactions between Sheldon and the other characters are well written. There is an ongoing storyline, recurring jokes, and overall it is an excellent show. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The Big Bang Theory the best TV show."}
{"id":"673e0b40-2106-4b80-ab6e-e40d7f909fa2","argument":"Public diplomacy is an important government function which is tied to international reputation. The negative effects of confiscating refugee valuables is an obstacle to this endeavor.","conclusion":"A country having a bad reputation will result in negative consequences."}
{"id":"87c9db5f-f218-4afa-bfc5-b4e4ef973175","argument":"My mother was scammed from a telemarketer a few years ago very sad, but my father got hold of the bank in time to stop any damage . Ever since then, telemarketers must have put our landline on some list of gullible people because they have continued to call us, purporting to be from banks that none of us have ever used, computer companies we don't own products in, and computer security companies we have never purchased, all asking for our bank details. Usually, I just put the phone down without hanging up to waste their time, but lately I've started getting more and more irritated with them and started pretending to have a heart attack, playing porn audio through the phone, and telling them that my family died in a fire thirty years ago in a fire and they'd been talking to ghosts. When the telemarketers escalate and raise their voices, I tend to raise my voice because I'm angry at what they do scamming people out of their money . After a particularly heated call where I pretended that I was a government agent and they had called a military intelligence bunker and demanded to know where they were and who they worked for because they posed a national security threat, I came off kind of feeling bad for whoever was hearing Lt. Dan Irons scream at them that they were terrorists and would never accomplish their evil missions against God. Am I wrong to do this? gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"It is morally acceptable to be abusive to telemarketing scammers."}
{"id":"68c1f8a6-7844-41e4-8d75-ef9f68ded8c9","argument":"I think the United Kingdom should separate religion and state. According to several studies, articles and stats, there are more non Anglican Britons than those who believe in the Church of England. There are several other reports throughout the internet proving that irreligion is increasing in the UK, while religion especially Christianity is falling flat. I think it's time for Britain to separate the Church of England from it's state, as most Britons are no longer Anglicans. I know that the British government is already fairly secular in its working and in its policies, but it's time to make it official and put it on paper. Not only that, but I also believe that keeping Church of England as the official religion is unfair to the Scots Who follow the Church of Scotland, even tho there are more irreligious people there just like England and to the Northern Irish where majority of the population is Catholic Moreover, I also think the leadership of the Church of England should be changed. Even though it was King Henry VIII who established and headed the Church of England, it is time that the Queen should be removed from this very position in order to ensure the country truly believes in secularism.","conclusion":": I think Britain should separate Church and State and become secular"}
{"id":"496a0575-04f6-40c4-bf04-c0a11b1a6366","argument":"Some have pointed out that in the vast majority of crimes involving firearms, the gun used is not legally held or registered. It is further noted that many of these illegal weapons are imported secretly from abroad, rather than being stolen from registered owners. Gun-control measures will not affect this major body of weaponry that is illicitly held in societies. This extends to the following section in regards to enforceability, but is relevant here in regards to the consequences of the nonenforceable of gun laws.","conclusion":"Because guns used in murders and crime are not usually legally held or registered, efforts to enhance gun-protection through legal means are futile:"}
{"id":"5120ad05-1148-4a74-a3d7-4c4aba02cf95","argument":"Legalization will stop the punitive laws against prostitution that create double standards of sexual morality that result in stigmatizing not just prostitutes, but many unconventional women, as sluts or whores.","conclusion":"Legalising sex work will reduce stigmas surrounding sex and sexuality."}
{"id":"2c073857-1cf9-4420-b73e-0ba089d87b20","argument":"In 1940, the US Unemployment rate was still averaging 14.6 . FDR's policies weren't doing anything until the United States entered World War II. Then the national economy only had a temporary recovery as industry transformed for war production. The national debt after the war was 120 the nation's GDP we borrowed more than 211 billion to finance the war . Then congress lowered taxes, cut back a lot of the New Deal programs, and balanced the budget. Allowing the free market to do its job after the war was what really got the US out of The Depression.","conclusion":"FDR did not get the United States out of The Depression"}
{"id":"66a2ac47-72ee-4008-af01-2eb954292590","argument":"The EU as a political alliance is important to maintain in a world that is becoming increasingly dominated by right-leaning power-blocs such as China, Russia, and the U.S.","conclusion":"The United Kingdom should remain a member of the European Union."}
{"id":"4ef8ed7d-7232-482e-b2da-697853189535","argument":"I agree with most of Bernie's domestic politics, but foreign policy is a critical aspect of the presidency and I don't think he has what it takes. To convince me otherwise and thus support Bernie , you'll need to show me I'm wrong about the following points, or that they don't matter 1 I've never seen him not looking generally flustered and awkward. Working on international issues requires developing personal relationships, thus being good at making friends. I don't think he is like that. 2 It requires building alliance and persuading people. Bernie is an independent, does not have serious alliances or close friends in Congress despite being there for over two decades. He has not gotten any notable legislation passed. Would he really negotiate the best possible international treaties for the US? 3 A President needs to be able to understand and navigate everyone's goals. Bernie doesn't seem to try to understand everyone's motivations but rather just gets angry at people who think differently from him. e.g. he says things like I'll never understand why some poor people vote republican 4 Being a leader involves standing up to or effectively dealing with bullies and thinking quickly. He has very little track record of doing this. And when the BLM protesters took his mic at his own rally, he just passively let it happen, seemed a bit bewildered. It may have been a reasonable decision to let them speak, but he clearly wasn't in control of the situation. How could he stand up to Putin, Khamenei, etc.? Edit Thanks for all of the info, I haven't 100 changed my mind but I was clearly wrong about a number of things as the links you provided show He is willing to use force and can be quite serious and calculating in describing his military policy He does have bipartisan congressional achievements He does make friends with people who disagree with him which includes this statement from Chuck Schumer He knew when to hold and knew when to fold and, I think, maximized what we could get for veterans, said Sen. Chuck Schumer, who also participated in the VA talks. He can be quite assertive in a non blustery way And, though it wasn't exactly contradicting my previous view, he does have a better knowledge of foreign policy nuance than I thought Edit 2 No, I am not a Bernie shill, I remain an undecided voter and do not endorse Bernie above other Democratic, anyway candidates at the moment. This  was about a specific concern I had about the candidate. Sorry my post looks too organized , I guess that's a personality thing.","conclusion":"As president, Bernie Sanders would not be a good international negotiator\/leader, and U.S. interests would suffer"}
{"id":"4417c5b6-251a-4615-9fd9-6e32ad4d4060","argument":"Since living longer does not indicate more years with youthfulness, it is possible for people to appear older longer and thus more aware of their appearance.","conclusion":"People may become more self-conscious about their looks, to prevent anything reminding them of dying."}
{"id":"ace07197-4848-414c-9001-d838080b4c29","argument":"Buttigieg is a military veteran a characteristic that is highly respected by the American public.","conclusion":"Buttigieg is likely to be a highly popular, and therefore successful, candidate."}
{"id":"8045cb79-816c-4be4-b977-189035ef7590","argument":"I've heard it all The kid in the first one couldn't fucking act or WHAT IN THE FUCK IS A JAR JAR BINKS? Personally, I consider the second to be much worse. The love scenes in the movie literally take up the most the time, and it is perhaps some of the worse acting I've ever seen. The first one had pod racing, an awesome fight between darth maul and the jedi, and Liam Nesson. The second one had the worst love plot to a movie I've ever seen and practically nothing else. I'm not saying the first one was a good movie, I just dont think it deserves the hate it gets compared to the second. Keep in mind that I'm a younger man, and I didn't have to feel the disappointment of when the first one came out. Go ahead, change my view","conclusion":"As far as Star wars goes, The clone wars was way worse than the Phantom Menace"}
{"id":"5bcd0327-e7dc-406d-9409-0714ef5951bc","argument":"To my understanding and from what I can read we basically follow most of the socialist rules while having a democracy. Our roads, schools, money, health care, social security, etc etc all paid for by the government as government services. I understand we're capitalists in a lot of ways, we allow a free and open market but anything I put in my body or even really buy is regulated and controlled or approved by the government. I don't know if it's my lack of understanding of Democratic Socialism but my European friends go bonkers when I try and convince them that we basically are minus a few government services like health care that other socialism countries have. The thing that always gets me is we definitely aren't a pure capitalist nation, given the regulations and the power of the government over the free market. I would think .","conclusion":"America is more of a democratic socialist nation then a pure capitalist one."}
{"id":"9c378e86-0ae8-416f-a618-c99893fea983","argument":"I believe that all rights are only ideas privileges that we can enforce. For example, people don't have the right to not be slaves, but they can band together to prevent others from enslaving them. I take this standpoint from the rejection of the idea of a creator, which is the justification Jefferson uses in the DoI. I would be most interested in completely secular, atheistic arguments for the existence of human rights. To be clear, I do not encourage slavery or any other breach of rights, I am only saying that I do not believe that they are inherent. I do not believe that right to life or any other self defense rights are inherent to human beings either.","conclusion":"I do not believe that humans have inherent rights."}
{"id":"8e8c1e01-37d8-47c2-bdaa-cccf23407cbf","argument":"Mass Effect and Dragon Age are RPGs that have provided bisexual romance options during a period in which most games did not.","conclusion":"BioWare's Mass Effect and Dragon Age titles promote social rights in regards to race, gender, sexuality, and other minority groups."}
{"id":"c8d85103-7338-4e0b-a863-1d78e7715740","argument":"Based on what we know of economies of scale, this simply isn't true. Genetic testing, which used to be only available to the wealthy, is now becoming affordable for average people. The same can be said for many technologies during their life-cycles. Many common technologies used to only be available to the rich, often in far cruder forms. Mass availability is in the best interest of any company profiting on a technology see personal computers, cars, broadband, cell phones, 3D printers etc.","conclusion":"In the future it is unlikely that genetic enhancements will be expensive as prices are reducing"}
{"id":"6a7b86ce-00ce-4e02-94c3-f558d14f6cb4","argument":"Nothing crazy, not the ass kicking of a lifetime. Hell I'm not even talking closed fist. I'm imagining that scene from the new Power Rangers movie where Jason confronts Billy's bully. He slaps him, weird isn't it? and lays down the new laws of the land. Similarly, in Master of Disguise with Dana Carvey, his family martial arts involves slapping. I'm not trying to cause resentment by using physical force by just beating an apology out of someone. Its my opinion that the breif physical contact is worth a thousand words and can be there catalyst for dramatic change. The following statement is apples to oranges and I'm not trying to apply it directly to this conversation. Veterans PTSD is being treated with MDMA and single sessions combined with guided therapy can cause drastic positive changes in many lives. Some being cured after one session. 'Physical violence is the lowest form of conversation' or something like that is a famous quote by someone, right? However I think this is vastly different than violence that is coming from pure rage and anger. I don't think a slap across the face is violence. edit Grammar Clarifications","conclusion":"Some people need to get slapped for them to learn their lesson."}
{"id":"dc48d586-5a9c-4e0b-8fbe-a569fc4b750d","argument":"An increasing number of technologies e.g. genome sequencing allows us to collect large amounts of medically relevant data, which needs to be processed, stored, retrieved and analysed.","conclusion":"More and more fields such as finance, medicine, entertainment etc. are relying on programming."}
{"id":"cdd49092-d154-4aba-abcc-608442a1c0d9","argument":"I cannot see any cases where teenage pregnancy is a good situation or certainly where it wouldn't be better for the parent to be a few years older. In terms of lost opportunity for social, educational and professional development having a child when very young, is never the best situation. Surely having better established parents would reduce poverty, welfare reliance and the likelihood of single paternity? Therefore the logical step of mandatory contraception sounds like the best option. Let's say a drug eluting implant for both boys and girls. And for the sake of clean argument let's say the medicine is 100 safe and effective.","conclusion":"Contraception such as a drug eluting implant should be mandatory until say.. 21 and there is no cases where teenage pregnancy is a good thing"}
{"id":"a95d0a7f-5e5d-40ad-ac0a-81260bd1fc25","argument":"These aspects are perpetually present in all spheres of the relationship, while sexual chemistry is exclusively restricted to the bedroom.","conclusion":"Aspects such as communication, emotional compatibility, comfort-giving etc. are more important than sexual chemistry."}
{"id":"fc54ecdf-96a1-4a13-9adb-ed584c3f5140","argument":"Science has shown that the universe is consistent and unchanging an interventionist God cannot simultaneously exist.","conclusion":"Scientific thought contradicts religious teachings about the nature of the cosmos."}
{"id":"fdb286c3-60f8-4985-ba66-b01e04e4b9a9","argument":"By making room for women from all spheres of life, the Gulabi Gang is able to create an accepting space and recruit more members. The greater the appeal of the movement, the greater the followers, and the greater the chances of the movement persisting.","conclusion":"The Gulabi Gang is an intersectional movement that allows for a regional grounding of feminism. This is more likely to take root than attempts made by external organizations to \"bring\" feminism to India."}
{"id":"6d233433-3875-420f-89f1-86d6ddb85540","argument":"Vigilantes tend to target pedophiles online through sting operations where they pose as children Pedophiles in separate communities are unlikely to be in danger from vigilantes unless they are still trying to meet children online.","conclusion":"Others are less likely to go out of their way to harass pedophiles if they lived in an isolated community rather than in normal communities."}
{"id":"6519af1b-2e74-4282-8bf8-b982414ec40e","argument":"Given that people from all walks of society tend to be absent from a country during elections, there is always social pressure to allow absentee voting.","conclusion":"There are natural incentives to make this change anyway, given the way the workforce and society are developing. This just aids that change."}
{"id":"14fbb889-0aed-4ac7-b545-d71414145db2","argument":"The historical connotations of the N-word generates \"a cultural discomfort\" that Black Americans share with \"no other racial group\" Henry, p. 31","conclusion":"The racial language in Huckleberry Finn is inherently inflammatory, distressing, and offensive."}
{"id":"32f6fa73-edff-459c-b0e7-8b0777a2a720","argument":"Juneteenth is a holiday celebrated on June 19 of every year, commemorating the date on which slavery was ended in Texas, and more broadly as a holiday celebrating the end of slavery in the United States. I believe the US government should adopt this as a national holiday in the same legal manner as other national holidays. It commemorates an extremely important moment in American history. The end of the civil war and reconstruction of the United States into a single nation with equality under the law required for all persons regardless of race is a momentous occasion, even if subsequently we have not always lived up to the promise of the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The US should adopt Juneteenth as a federal holiday."}
{"id":"bca732da-c9de-45d5-9494-0f7b8c957c2f","argument":"This opinion has come about after I\u2019ve heard a lot about how \u201cliberating\u201d it is that the social stigma around premarital sex has been lifted somewhat. I personally don\u2019t find it liberating at all, especially for women. This isn\u2019t from a moral standpoint, those questions are best answered on a person to person basis. I personally don\u2019t find anything immoral about the act of having sex, I\u2019m talking a purely practical standpoint. When you have sex especially unprotected sex , there is a risk that you will get pregnant. Pregnancy is a huge financial and emotional responsibility, best shared by two people. The problem is, if the two people involved aren\u2019t committed to each other, then it is more likely that the man might flee the responsibility and leave the woman with the pregnancy, and all the burdens that come with it. It isn\u2019t just bad for women, either. There is a risk of STD\u2019s for both women and men. I just want to clarify, this is not an attack on anyone who chooses to have sex before marriage. I honestly couldn\u2019t give a rodent\u2019s backside what you want to do with your privates. I\u2019m saying it is far more practical to wait until marriage to have sex. Edit Since I am getting a lot of questions about this, I will say that since pregnancy is impossible with homosexual sex, that risk is nonexistent. Also, in this context, I am regarding marriage as a legal commitment to another person. Basically, if you are saying \u201cI am committing the rest of my life to you\u201d, then it serves the same purpose as marriage in this context.","conclusion":"People should wait until marriage to have sex, even if they don\u2019t believe in God."}
{"id":"d7d5de2b-9c57-4d9f-880e-9c8a61f0cbdc","argument":"Rights only exist with responsibilities. Animals don't have human rights, since they can't be responsible for their actions and charged with a crime, for example.","conclusion":"AGI should have duties placed upon them before being entitled to rights."}
{"id":"73a73ff1-fbc5-449d-9344-ef078f4c1558","argument":"Religion should be used in the same context as myth is, but we should recognize it as seriously as we recognize outdated religions to prevent conflicts with evidence based science.","conclusion":"Religion shouldn't be used to develop ethics because ethics should be an objective constant in time."}
{"id":"de34949e-7467-4883-bb85-f3bd79846046","argument":"Space exploration and research have resulted in many major advances in science and technology. Everything from Velcro to more efficient and powerful computers has come out of the space program1. The technological advances produced by the space program would not have been possible were it not for the intensity of focus on the paradigm of exploration. That same paradigm has come to permeate scientific enquiry generally, pushing scientists to seek new answers and to develop new technologies. So long as mankind keeps pushing the barriers of its own knowledge, it will never stagnate, and human understanding of the Universe will continue to grow. Should humanity, however, take an insular view of itself and turn back on a history of pushing of boundaries, the paradigm of progress might dissolve as well. 1 Coalition for Space Exploration. 2010. \"Benefits of Space","conclusion":"Space exploration produces many valuable technological innovations that benefit all of human society:"}
{"id":"af9c4be0-ce0b-46ae-af10-7f4f3ff6ab9e","argument":"While I am from the US and intimately familiar with the US constitutional structure, I do not think it is at all well designed, for three principal reasons It is designed for much more of a confederation of independent sovereign states than a single nation. The US constitution was built in a context of extremely powerful state governments and virtually no central government under the Articles of Confederation. This results in a number of anomalous features which do not make sense for the much more unified nation we have today. For example states possess the reserve lawmaking power known as the police power even though most political legitimacy resides with the central government. Political power is also unevenly distributed by state via the Senate and to a lesser extent the electoral college in a way that is not democratically legitimate. Furthermore, the heavy reliance on states means non state territories most prominently Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia are treated as virtual colonies with no democratic rights at the national level. The checks and balances system is poorly structured and results in unintended gridlock and excessive executive power. The most vaunted part of the US constitution is checks and balances whereby the three branches of the Federal government check one another in various respects. I believe this system is in fact highly ineffective, and principally results in gridlock followed by executive power grabs which are hardly ever checked or balanced. In particular, the Presidency, House, and Senate all have equal claims to democratic legitimacy in policymaking, and all can have wildly divergent visions of the correct policy. By forcing substantial agreement among all three of them for lawmaking, it ensures that almost no lawmaking takes place during divided government. But this does not abate the need for lawmaking activity. The result invariably has been that the President undertakes action without explicit lawmaking behind it, and because the action is generally necessary, is not challenged. The many military actions never authorized by Congress Panama, Grenada, ISIS, Syria, Lybia, Chad, Yemen, the drone program are one example. Moreover, the checks and balances require people to have institutional loyalty, as opposed to individual ambition. In a parliamentary system, individual power is checked by other individual ambition within the same institution. The American system requires loyalty to an institution over individual loyalty as the checking mechanism, and that does not work. Moreover, the ultimate check in the system of impeachment is insanely cumbersome and virtually never used. Executive removal should not be such a big deal, as demonstrated by the success of simple majority non confidence in most parliamentary systems. The Constitution leaves extremely important details to ordinary legislation in a way that makes it vulnerable. Almost the entire electoral system is just left to ordinary statute in order to be effectuated. There are no rules about district drawing or voter qualifications, no rule that the President be elected at all, no rules given about the structure of elections, and no affirmative right to vote in the Constitution. The courts are almost entirely dependent on statute for their existence and subject to changes in fundamental structure by ordinary legislation. The jurisdiction stripping power of Article III section 2 is also a joke and completely unjustifiable. Further, by making amendments so impossibly difficult triple supermajorities , it ensures that ordinary legislation will be necessary to fix gaps that really should be constitutionalized. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The US Constitution is poorly designed."}
{"id":"a158e6e4-56da-4ad7-9501-d4ce8bfe19c2","argument":"I feel like this is a topic that is taboo in our society and something most of us would like sweep under the rug when brought up. I was watching a Louis CK stand up special and he talked about how as humans, we complain about how slavery is bad, but in reality, a lot of our advancements as a society came from unethical labor laws. Obviously it was said as a joke, but I've been thinking a lot about it lately. Europe and most of the first world countries today thrived off colonization and capitalizing off the backbones of certain groups of people. Look into modern day, most major name brands out right now outsource their production to third world countries where children and adults are slaving away. Sure, we can end all the suffering in these third world countries by boycotting iPhones, Nike, and other name brands, but we won't because these items are staples to our way of living. Kids are jumping out windows in their shithole factory, but we like the convenience of high speed smart phone and these name brand shoes feel comfortable. An argument can be made that some of us can't afford to buy American made products and that's fair, but for those of us who can afford it we choose not to. A majority of us can agree that we are too attached to these luxuries to want to give it up anytime soon. So can anyone explain to me how they do these things and can confidently say they are a good person?","conclusion":"How can we truly consider ourselves good people if we buy products contributing to child labor\/sweatshops?"}
{"id":"82698a95-7c53-4167-bdd5-387446c3e5b1","argument":"An argument for orthography is that for example the word see and sea are identical to the ear, so the distinction has to be made for the eye, but given the context the word is in, it can be deduced what it means The dead see is rich in salt. . When you hear someone speaking you don't care about how they think of the words they use are written or how they are written on the paper they read it from, because you hear the word and associate it's meaning with what you heard. Because you reading is you listening to your inner voice reading the text, you don't care about how they you think of the words they you use are written or how they are written on the paper they you read it from . gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"orthography isn't needed if the word is written in a phonetically correct way."}
{"id":"7085ad91-d13f-4c86-a8d4-5a197e89961b","argument":"Arizona State Rep. Kyrsten Sinema said in 2008 in regards to initiatives intended to ban racial quotas: \"People have a right to sign a petition, hear the arguments and then vote.\"2","conclusion":"Citizens have a right to sign petitions, vote on referendums"}
{"id":"544d6ae6-3216-4021-9ec4-830310550e8e","argument":"I have a firm belief that without a stable strong culture of a group or tribe the group falls apart. Like relationships you need connections that bind us more than freedom or the ability to believe what you think but more real culture. If our cultures is our operating systems of humanity then why don't we create one more grand than the ones we have now. Diversity of to many cultures creates a pot of mud. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Diversity is the main cause for USA downfall."}
{"id":"b8fb8cd8-892e-41cd-a80e-db51d9433ece","argument":"According to the Home Office\u2019s British Crime Survey, one in five bag thefts now occur in public transportation.","conclusion":"Safety and security concerns might deter some people from making a switch to public transport."}
{"id":"92a1e50a-daee-4423-89ad-adc1c515d897","argument":"Firstly, there are many studies that exist that show that Africans have lower IQ than whites. Secondly, if you consider blacks population in any country, they are the most likely to cause crime, have the lowest level of income etc. Any country that has a black majority population is a shithole, haiti is right next to the dominican republic, one is a shithole and the other is quite nice. South Africa turned into a shithole at the end of the apartheid and Zimbabwe went to shit after the whites were ejected and Mugabe became president for life. Detroit also went to shit, with its high African population. Thirdly, whenever any scientist ever publishes a study that suggests this, they are immediately attacked and socially pressured into stopping. Generally, when this happens it's because there is a dogma and the publication goes against it.","conclusion":"I believe Africans are stupider than whites."}
{"id":"8f14a49b-a6c4-4cd8-9e13-1279ce88f18e","argument":"When I die, my body is just waste that I leave behind, why would anyone store it and visit it? Funerals are ok in my view but, after that, the body should be cremated and disposed of. Or, even better, donated to medical academies and such.","conclusion":"Human burial is a waste of money and real estate."}
{"id":"a97023b8-c843-4b71-94e3-04a0da1a50f3","argument":"An inability to pay employees a competitive salary can cause strong managers and workers to be drawn to higher-paid jobs in other companies","conclusion":"Equality in employee salaries can make it hard for workers cooperatives to attract and retain competent employees and managers."}
{"id":"05b9d77a-e89b-4fbb-af21-6b3a1fc0e784","argument":"Physicists have proposed scores of alternative models over the decades since Friedman and Lemaitre\u2019s work the standard model, and those that do not have an absolute beginning have been repeatedly shown to be unworkable. The only viable nonstandard models are those that involve an absolute beginning to the universe.","conclusion":"The standard Big Bang model predicts an absolute beginning of the universe"}
{"id":"c023d1ff-2402-40da-9ffa-5cdc19ab7101","argument":"Democrats can say that anyone who votes for the other party's nominee is voting to inflict physical and psychological torture on women.","conclusion":"Few issues make party bases as passionate - and therefore as likely to organise primary challenges - as Supreme Court nominations."}
{"id":"22109685-087c-47da-ac6a-ed891d0fb63d","argument":"If it were cheaper to hire more labour than to buy fertilizer they would have done so already in the past.","conclusion":"Producers are not able to pay for increased labour costs that are created by the absence of fertilizers and pesticides."}
{"id":"eef00466-a1d7-447a-b128-9b6cfb40e9f7","argument":"Any reasonable person who discovers improper behaviors from another person would be expected to develop \"biases\" against that person moving into a position of political power.","conclusion":"It seems rather clear that Steele developed his personal anti-Trump bias once he had done his research"}
{"id":"a4438bbd-d9d9-4465-be67-95f9b945b717","argument":"AI is 'inside out', in that it is built on generic guessing processes rather than proprietary experience. This gives us, as external viewers, a false sense of depth to what is actually a superficial appearance of intelligence. AI is Inside Out","conclusion":"Machines show positive signs of lacking basic capacities to feel, care, sense, or make sense on their own."}
{"id":"0c66f37b-4d55-4cc7-9ad4-361767d8d9d0","argument":"IMO it is ridiculous for people who are atheist agnostic to believe in a universal right or wrong. Instead of using words like immoral or moral we should use words like uncivil or civil because the purpose of morality is to make people follow a set of laws to form civil infrastructure. For example a robber steals the hard earned possessions of another the robber has not done something wrong but has hurt the infrastructure of civilization. This may be something that is a popular opinion but who ever I tell this to seems to look at me like I'm an idiot.","conclusion":"There is no such thing as morality, or right or wrong"}
{"id":"bb3ef576-b29f-4c1d-ab91-91b4b9458572","argument":"I am a Polish citizen who spent a few months in the US on a study abroad program. When I introduced myself to people and told them I was from Poland, some of them would say 'oh really? I'm Polish too '. Meanwhile, most of these people have never been to Poland, have no living family members living in Poland and have little to no knowledge of everyday life in Poland most of them don't know what the Polish currency is called or any words in the Polish language except botched versions of 'pierogi' or 'kie\u0142basa' . If your family has lived in the US for 3 generations or more, then they are effectively disconnected from their home country. Their entire life is in the US and calling themselves Polish Irish German is borderline insulting to people actually living in Poland Ireland Germany. I'm happy to hear your thoughts on this. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"if you and your family have lived in the US for 3+ generations, you are American. You are not German\/Irish\/Polish\/etc."}
{"id":"6f9316c7-d922-4708-a600-d4b00e1f49f7","argument":"Many of Africa's authoritarian regimes are based on the tradition of a single unchallenged chief and the rule of a single party expressing the majority's will. To think the political systems and values in those countries will change anytime soon is highly unlikely.","conclusion":"Not all recipient states are democracies or are likely to become democracies. If this happens, it significantly harms the poorest in aid recipient states, as they have no other way of meeting basic needs actionaid, p.17"}
{"id":"4a25c067-b19a-463f-8980-60842d859d19","argument":"The Simulated World could be less complex than Reality, and could then be simulated faster.","conclusion":"A Simulation of Reality need not be an Absolute Simulation."}
{"id":"5e69bbca-0a1b-4c5f-a398-3da7cd931733","argument":"According to Joseph Smith's adjoining neighbor in Pennsylvania while Smith produced the Book of Mormon, \"The little low chamber in Smith's house was used as a translating-room. The prophet and his plates were screened even from the sight of his scribes, Martin Harris, Oliver Cowdery and Reuben Hale, by blankets secured with nails.\" Mather, Lippincott's Magazine 26:152, 1880, p. 201","conclusion":"While dictating the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith would at least on some occasions put up a curtain between himself and others in the room."}
{"id":"9026e28d-4ebd-41ad-85d6-5550d97998fe","argument":"Group debate and discussion guided by a professor are much more effective than lecture, as a debate requires critical thinking, active listening, and construction of knowledge in real time.","conclusion":"The lecture is dead. They should be replaced with more effective teaching methods."}
{"id":"1ffa9e38-3bde-4f7b-a256-aecff42b4cc4","argument":"Vegan lifestyles allow for more freedom, as people most likely feel better after going to a farm and learning about what plants look like to pull crops rather than walking around a dairy or factory farm.","conclusion":"Vegan lifestyles add beauty and removes destruction from the environment."}
{"id":"17e3182e-d5ba-40e7-806b-6bbf6a4ef205","argument":"A third factor is a subspecies of demand. If an investment must be made in the employee to get him or her ready for the task, that will often justify a wage premium because companies do not want to train someone just to have them leave for a better offer.","conclusion":"One's employment compensation is not a measurement of how much value they add to the product or service; people are treated like commodities, and wages are subject to the forces of supply and demand."}
{"id":"33328d63-1ce9-47ab-a32e-9b9547a73c3c","argument":"This can also normalise such conduct for these men, increasing the chance that they carry out this behaviour with women who are not at all consenting.","conclusion":"Sex work provides a means for men to engage in abusive or demeaning sexual practices."}
{"id":"0e8891c3-d528-453d-9329-f58e34f01187","argument":"To me, advertisements are rage inducing, annoying and unwanted. I have done my best to opt out of ads that I do not want to see on my phone and computer. Sites are now giving guilt trip messages about adblock plus and other adblockers, which I also find rage inducing I get that companies need money to help keep the place afloat, but I 100 refuse to click on an advertisement, and as a result, my computer s has been virus free for over 5 years. Another reason I do not click ads is because, if I want to go buy something, I'll go buy it. Your advertisement isn't going to convince me to neither click on it nor buy your product, ESPECIALLY if it's one of those annoying scroll ads that you see on mobile no matter where you scroll, the ad follows, and there's a button to get rid of it if you click in the exact right spot. I suppose that companies need to find a new, less annoying way to advertise their product before I'll consider putting up with them  Edit This post is about ONLINE ads on the computer or phone tablet","conclusion":"I should be able to opt out of any and all advertisements."}
{"id":"ad4f66c8-996a-4a6e-9f42-6d6639c50687","argument":"US companies may have to move their businesses overseas. This would leave millions of Americans without jobs.","conclusion":"The US economy would not withstand since businesses would undoubtedly have to be removed."}
{"id":"25696972-602d-4a82-af1e-9571139a2fa5","argument":"A study found \"no short term measurable reduction in alumni giving between 1998 and 2008 in seven colleges that stopped accounting for legacy status.","conclusion":"This assumes that legacy admissions strengthen alumni donations, which is not the case."}
{"id":"e4531af7-ae71-4267-b811-df52d02b5251","argument":"I am from an area where people tend to not actually learn anything in high school and barely graduate. I believe there should be a test of common knowledge of the required subjects in high school to prove their knowledge and earn their diploma. High school diplomas are losing value because a majority of the population has them or will get them. I do not think it is fair to the people who actually learn the content in classes and get sufficient grades, even the people who go on to college.","conclusion":"I believe that there should be an exit exam to get a high school diploma."}
{"id":"22c01f92-7101-4c5a-b1bb-0789ccbf1900","argument":"Inspired by the last  about the efficacy of home schooling, I'd like to submit that I'm totally against any and all ' school choice measures including charter schools, vouchers, private schools secular and religious , and home schooling. . I will occasionally be referring to these as 'alternative schools'. I hope that's not distracting . School choice deprives public schools of funding. As should be obvious, every dollar re allocated from public schooling to any alternative schooling program deprives the public schools of money. The problem is that public schools operate on an economy of scale every dollar that a child brings into a school does not necessarily go to that child's education, but benefits the school as a whole. The smaller the organization, the more costs are associated with the individual child, and the less opportunity that dollar has to benefit others. As with Single Payer health care, or corporate purchasing power, the more individuals in the system, the more benefit derived from each dollar. Taking kids out of the system and taking the money with them detrimentally impacts the kids left behind. School choice only benefits the privileged. In a perfect world, public schooling would be a totally free system everything from transportation to nutrition to education would be ensured by the school itself. Though we know that this isn't the case, 'school choice' measures place even more burden on families, and therefore are only available to those with means. Charter schools seldom provide bussing, meaning that only children with parents who can take them to and from school may attend. Vouchers rarely cover the total cost of tuition, meaning that only privileged families can make up the difference. Home schooling requires an at home parent, meaning that only families who can live on a single income can participate. Out of pocket and time commitments obviously vary from school to school, but it is doubtless that parents who chose alternative schooling spend more time and money on their child's education than those who utilize public schools this is unfair to those parents without the financial or temporal means to make that choice. Alternative school measures are less accountable. Home schooling is the worst offender, but all school choice measures suffer from a lack of accountability as compared to public schools. Periodic state standardized tests will never be as good a benchmark of student achievement than a sanctioned educator checking a child's progress on a daily basis. Alternative schools actually have more incentive to pass a failing child, whether because of familial affection, tuition money, or the continuation of their charter. Alternative schools provide less choice to students. One of the oft touted benefits of charter schooling is the ability to focus on a child's areas of strength. But what if you're a math geek who really wants to try acting, or an artist who might like to try programming or graphic design, or play football? The fact is that funneling kids into vocations in grade school or high school is a bad idea especially when you take away their choice to experiment with other areas. I imagine it's a minority of people who settled on a career in high school, took that major in college, graduated into a job, and will be comfortable doing that job for the rest of their lives. Young people have a biological need to try on different roles see all the poor fashion choices at your high school , and allowing them or their parents to settle on anything at a such a young age is a recipe for failure. Alternative schooling is bad for educators. Alternative schools pay lower wages, are less likely to retain teachers, are less likely to employ certified educators, and drive down public school wages in their markets. Schools may lay off teachers, increase class sizes, cut classes, and delay or eliminate wage increases in response to diminished funding because of school choice measures. All this means that fewer qualified individuals will choose teaching as a profession, leading to lower quality educators overall. School choice allows parents to take their stake out of the game. So, your local public school is violent, under achieving, and not putting emphasis on the things you deem important? So what? Pull your kid out School choice allows parents to abandon their neighbors and peers and simply opt out of the system. Without school choice measures, more parents would run for school boards, volunteer in classrooms, pass bond measures, and pressure politicians to improve schooling. With options comes apathy toward the kids who are forced to attend the only school their families can afford. The fact is that we're educating a society, not just our own Johnny and Susie. Cheapening public education by siphoning off it's resources into hair brained 'choice' schemes only weakens the whole system. Education is a science we've had a century plus of study into learning, child development, and pedantry that tells us in general what works and what doesn't. I firmly believe that our public schools are the most full executors of that knowledge, and that all other measures are relying on personal emotions and 'feel good ery'. For context, neither I nor anyone else in my family or social circle is involved in education kinda weird I know . I attended my state's first Charter School during it's first two years of operation, and transferred to a public school for my junior and senior years of high school. I purposely excluded any of my experiences in charter school, because I have no way of knowing if they were typical. Regardless, they caused me to investigate further into public school alternatives. I am a charter school dropout, but I've done my best to make sure that doesn't color my views. I've also chosen to exclude citations, though I can provide them if necessary . Since this is a sub reddit about changing one's views, I wanted to only submit my opinions and only back them up when requested. I'm here to have you change my mind not vice versa.","conclusion":"I don't believe in 'school choice'."}
{"id":"6c8f915b-3a44-4cc1-99e5-1055cec03318","argument":"Yang has a clear set of evidence based policies such as supporting a Value-Added-Tax, ranked choice voting, and universal basic income and shows the reasoning behind each of them on his policies page","conclusion":"Andrew Yang has a unique policy platform and wants to implement a number of changes that will provide large benefits to the American people."}
{"id":"30415ff6-dc37-4402-8e0d-2ec8c1d3e44b","argument":"Clearly the current system is broken and targets the middle class with the biggest jump of 15 to 25 . I recieved a small raise last year that pushed my family into the 25 bracket and essentially ended up paying that raise in taxes. We went from getting money back to paying. You should not be punished for minor raises, or what incentive do we have to keep working hard? I think we only need 3 brackets 10 for lower class, 20 for middle and 30 for the upper. It keeps the same base rate for the lowest earners. Merges the largest filer brackets into an average that would not punish you for slight raises until you earn enough that you can afford the jump in taxes. It also helps the ultra rich who pay the 39.6 bracket. This is the most reasonable system I can think of, cmv. Edit1 the first few comments helped explain my misunderstanding of how the brackets work. I still think we need to simplify and create equality in moving from one bracket to another. Edit2 a couple of the commentors made good points about a 3 bracket plan, and it would inadequately address my main issue of unequal bracket jumps. More brackets with an equal 2 3 increase would be more fair in my view. Edit3 some have also added that the tax code is out of control, and that for many wealthy people there's an effective tax rate that has nothing to do with the nominal because of all the loopholes. This also creates unfairness and needs to be fixed. How very quickly my view is changed, more brackets with equal increments would create the fairness that we should have.","conclusion":"We should only have 3 tax brackets"}
{"id":"b7aaaf9b-3c04-4739-b2f6-092a95da3e94","argument":"In a society with no greater good it would be impossible for armed forces to shoot dead a terrorist, even if he\/she was actively threatening civilians, as killing someone is morally wrong.","conclusion":"A society where no morally bad actions can ever be taken to achieve morally good actions would not function."}
{"id":"d901dd77-e3a7-48d1-9dc5-594fbd9d7c0c","argument":"There are schools of thought that assert Gratian transferred power to Pope Damasus I this one for example.","conclusion":"There is some political and social continuity between the Roman Empire and the Roman Catholic Church."}
{"id":"5f0e4aba-9e5b-4a8a-9711-a8cdf1fba3b1","argument":"Global warming cannot be curbed by the efforts of one nation or confederation of states alone.","conclusion":"Global collaborative efforts are required to tackle new issues with cross-border scale."}
{"id":"1fdc07ad-1c1c-4516-a7c8-8e3665a4fe40","argument":"Due to fracking however, the United States now has enough oil and gas to potentially meet its need for energy","conclusion":"Renewable energy will never be capable of completely supporting our energy needs the way that fracking can."}
{"id":"7113bcb7-b94c-41af-b659-f8106df9c8d0","argument":"I've two issues with the fundament behind \u201cHate Speech\u201d. It's inconsistent. Proponents of this concept are basically saying \u201cI don't like your opinion, so free speech doesn't apply to you\u201d. Blasphemy should be illegal if we follow this pattern of thought. Christians, for example, think it's very hateful against God to use his name in vain, as per the Ten Commandments. I don't think you guys would consider this a good idea, though. I understand that this is not an all or nothing issue. There are legitimate reasons to regulate any right, and Free Speech is not exempt from that. I fail to see, however, that someone being hateful is a legitimate reason. I hope to engage in productive discourse and at the very least understand my opposition.","conclusion":"Hate Speech shouldn't be illegal."}
{"id":"8e9570cd-bcc1-4663-95c5-a58eb04888da","argument":"I rarely brush my teeth. Maybe once every week and a half. Most of the time I just forget, other times I'm extraordinarily lazy. I'm almost 19 years old and am a college student. My breath does not smell bad, my teeth aren't yellow, and I've never had a cavity. Every time I go into the dentist I always worry that my bad habits are going to catch up with me, but they never do. My dentist always tells me I have a healthy mouth and the only advice I've ever gotten is to floss more. I realize it's disgusting, but I'm afraid I'm going to need a more scientifically convincing answer to get me to change my habits.","conclusion":"I think brushing one's teeth is overrated."}
{"id":"4e0b04c8-4283-44ba-82ae-87ab36d5f398","argument":"The obvious exception to this is religious followers who hold very exclusive and dogmatic views which state that only their religion is legitimate and everyone else is going to hell. This is a very immature attitude and does not stand up to scholarly historical studies of the original teachings of the tradition but rather is a tribal idea that gained steam later on.","conclusion":"Examples of this are compassion, equality, and the general idea of the goal of human life as to develop love of God. The mature and advanced practitioners of any religion will have mutual respect for one another and appreciate the work that the others are doing."}
{"id":"a81961a8-c105-4ffb-bdb5-41a4b95778d4","argument":"To achieve and maintain a society without gender would require a brutal totalitarian state or similar oppression.","conclusion":"Gender is an intrinsic part of humanity and cannot be removed."}
{"id":"0f3f3d43-dd8d-45bb-bf7a-7964f369b4a4","argument":"The Non-Aggression Principle is the moral stance that individuals are free to act as they choose with the exception that they may not initiate force, or the threat of force, against another person or their property.","conclusion":"A system can be based on a NAP non-aggression principle."}
{"id":"0617c7b3-14a0-4bb2-8a96-152dc3afd88d","argument":"It would not be consistent to expect humans to be vegan but leave the poor sheep to be slowly eaten alive by a wolf, or an omnivore animal like humans are. We would eventually have to enforce \"veganism\" on all of the animal kingdom. What about carnivores in that case? This isn't a slippery slope, nor a reductio ad absurdum, it's consequence.","conclusion":"A vegan society would be required to protect animals from harm from other animals."}
{"id":"c74f3301-0fc1-4a6d-a8c5-20dbb643fa5f","argument":"I've been playing in bands for a handful of years now, and i seem to hold the unpopular opinion that gigging is always beneficial. I don't need an exaggeration to change my view. I understand that I, as a canadian, would be unwise to fly to australia to perform an unpaid gig at a poorly attended convention for the deaf. I also understand that sometimes people are ill, and sometimes people have prior engagements. What i don't understand is the following we shouldn't take that gig on a thursday, because we have a show this saturday, or we've been a band for over two years now, it's time that we only do weekends. Yet this is precisely what i hear from the majority of bandmates. I've seen bands who gig all over for their first year, acquire a decent fan base, and then decide that their best business decision is to play one show every two months in an attempt to not oversaturate the supply of the music. Thinking that this is the way to consistently sell out shows. I've seen these bands fold up in year three, with the odd person saying i used to like them. I've heard a lot of reasoning, but it never rings true. Do i think that if someone sees my band for five bucks on wednesday that they're less likely to see us for 10 on saturday? A hundred times no. People are paying for a saturday night out, and if it's ten at the door so be it. I think it's way more likely that we pick up a fan or two that wednesday, and stay fresh for our saturday gig. Thanks dudes. Good luck.","conclusion":"Any band that isn't a huge success would be wise to take any gig they can."}
{"id":"bbc4c9fc-a276-408d-b5aa-1e3020a939b5","argument":"Disclaimer I'm a teenager, and I post this because the dramatic issues I saw throughout my life in high school influenced me. Dating abuse, Teen pregnancy, and other issues experienced by those at my school really concerned me. For those unaware, Romeo and Juliet laws are essentially an exception to age of consent laws. It excuses those a couple years below the age of consent from such laws, as long as both individuals are within a couple years of age of each other. For example pretend the age of consent is 18, with a R J law pertaining to individuals over 16 within 2 years of each other. A 17 year old having sex with a 16 year old wouldn't be a crime. A 20 year old having sex with a 17 year old would be a crime for the 20 year old. The reasoning behind the support of these laws is that it is unfair to criminalize sex for teenagers, as many believe they're old enough to make the decision. It is seen as a better alternative to lowering the age of consent, hoping to prevent abusive relationships while providing freedom at a younger age. Ensuring two people in a relationship are the same age doesn't guarantee that neither is being exploited. The severity and frequency of dating violence and abuse proves this. Boys take advantage of girls, or girls manipulate guys. I've seen some crazy shit despite couples being the same age. Guys manipulating girls into having sex by messing with their emotions, girls doing the same thing, threats, all kinds of messed up shit. The drama I witnessed when in high school is absurd. I would argue that exploitation is more a result of an ill hearted individual taking advantage of another with a sensitive mind than a difference in age. It does not take life experience or age to know how to take advantage of someone else. It takes being an asshole, knowing your victims weak spots, and not much more. I'd also add that considering maturity grows with age, an older person may be less likely of wanting to be possessive or exploiting due to realizing that it's wrong. Now, I'm aware that maturity and overall mental ability improves with age However, many mature very quickly, while others take a long time to. I've seen grown adults that act like children, and I've seen young children than can can act mature. In online communities I was in back when I was 12, many people assumed I was in my 20's based on the maturity I displayed they didn't even believe me when I said I was 12. Age of consent laws don't only exist to prevent exploitation. They also exist to protect young individuals from making mistakes. STDs, pregnancy, and other issues can arise from being sexually active, so its important that one can make decisions they won't regret. While sex ed can properly inform people, it doesn't help with their reasoning. Teenagers are more likely to make impulse decisions. I also read that the brain's reasoning isn't fully developed until the age of 25. Lowering the age of consent through R J laws doesn't prevent teens from making mistakes. Teen pregnancy, STIs, and other issues still arise with relationships of the same age. They're also just as likely to fall victim to abuse in relationships of any age difference. Now, I understand the criminalizing sex makes things worse. Teens are going to do it anyways, and it just ends up ruining their life later on when trying to find a job if they have charges. Perhaps rather than making the charges stick for life, it could just be a shorter term punishment without a sex offender registration, so that their life doesn't get screwed. Now, I feel like R J laws are really just a moral panic. Age difference in a relationship is one of the most taboo things in today's society. It wasn't much of a taboo 200 years ago, but now it is. R J laws really act as a means of enforcing this moral belief rather than as a result of logical evidence that it is more effective at preventing abuse then reducing age of consent altogether. I really have no idea what a reasonable age of consent would be. The higher it is, the more people you're impeding the freedom of. The lower it is, the more risk you have of people making uninformed or impulse decisions. I do think it would need to be past an age in which most are clearly informed, and capable of making a responsible and safe decision, but other than that I'm not really sure. So yeah, .","conclusion":"I Think \"Romeo and Juliet Laws\" Are No More Effective At Preventing Exploitation Compared To Simply Reducing Age Of Consent"}
{"id":"42d83707-afd7-45b0-bfe5-fdd201c28738","argument":"With raising unemployment around the world, I am constantly hearing about people who can't get jobs because they have too many qualifications to be in a certain function. This sounds crazy to me, because if the person who is applying has thought about his her decision, they have thought about the possibility of doing something that is beneath his her qualification level. It's a decision that should only be done by the person who is applying and not by the one who's recruiting. Example a graduate student who wants to work in a supermarket to gain experience before working for a big company, to know what it's like to do the ground work. IMO, that person should be able to do so and should be thought of in the same way any other person should. If a person who has been a director at a company and now wants to mop the floors, they should be able to do so, if that is their choice in fact, I believe the best directors are the ones who know what it's like to do the most basic things about their business . Change my view, Reddit RonJon18 has done it here Thank you Reddit","conclusion":"I do not believe on denying someone a job because that person is overqualified."}
{"id":"c5f98cd2-ec51-4cc7-ac9a-d17cdc1f80f1","argument":"One of the biggest benefits to any voting reform is that it will allow more competition, and utilitarian methods may fail this in practice as well as in theoretical discussion, as they can result in vote-splitting or low scoring among indifferent majorities.","conclusion":"Condorcet methods would be considered superior to utilitarian methods because they would allow multiple candidates to run from one party without risk of the \"majority-vote-splitting helping the minority\" pathology of Approval or the \"indifferent majority allowing the strong minority to win\""}
{"id":"3fe8871d-f846-4778-811d-f15a18e7ff45","argument":"Basically Rule 34 is as old as art. Erotica may not have been the motivation to develop a visual technology but once created is has been porn erotica that has led the the innovation to improve, spread, and popularize a visual technology. A few examples thru time Greek stone working and the tool making needed to create the classic marble sculptures. Roman cement, friezes, and murals Renaissance Paintings and the alchemy of paints Chemical photography, moving pictures, the VCR, the internet all have been advanced because we want to see things that are a little bit naughty. PS I am clearly Western centered but I would imagine similar technological advancements happening in The East and India. Evolution Edit Erotica Pornography, while not the raison d'etre for visual technological advancement has had a strong and often hidden influence in the adaption, innovation and popularization of new visual arts and media.","conclusion":"Pornography historically has been the driving force behind the innovation of visual technologies; from cave paintings to the internet."}
{"id":"f466a812-6993-480d-8bd1-8cd6e40ffdcf","argument":"In the Chinese-North Korean summit on April 18 of 1975 Mao declined to support Kim Il-sung\u2019s proposal to attack the South.","conclusion":"North Korea has no allies, right now or historically, that it could rely on."}
{"id":"6fb3ee95-0c1c-4cc4-918a-ecb358fd070e","argument":"If the bar was meant to track competency and the likelihood of success as a lawyer, the fact that so many talented legal minds failed it initially raises questions about the efficiency of the exam.","conclusion":"Kamala Harris, Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama and former Dean of Stanford Law School Kathleen Sullivan all failed the bar exam on their first try."}
{"id":"bb59eabc-a892-4fb5-9012-d3eb47716dac","argument":"For many years, we have accepted the idea of 2 genders. Male, and female. We have used the words sex and gender synonymously. The whole idea of transgenderism is an emotional appeal, where they wish to be another gender, with no obvious biological proofs. Yes, oddities exist. Hermaphrodites and intersex are proof of that, however we've never considered them normal. We've always treated oddities as oddities, not accepted them and even bend society and laws for their sake. It's also a difficult system to adapt to as concepts of misgendering now exist. We now have to be extra careful before approaching someone, or else, if for example in Canada, Bill C 16 makes it a hate crime to misgender if the recipient feels offense, which is also difficult. Concepts like cultural appropriation and micro aggressions exist, and it's difficult to find what's offensive because it's not a set rule state, it's ridiculously subjective. Now I don't call for violence or anything against transgender people. I just don't accept being forced into their system. I would like you all to change my mind in terms of transgenderism.","conclusion":"Transgenderism is an emotional system, not a biological one"}
{"id":"898aa201-4f16-4846-9036-e733bcc4ea8f","argument":"The U.S. is becoming far more racially and ethnically diverse at a rapid pace, and perhaps most symbolic of these changes was the election of Barack Obama, the nation\u2019s first black president. These are all factors in the political environment that some whites are interpreting as a threat to their group\u2019s power and their status","conclusion":"If provincialism is a defensive strategy against external threats, then attacking bigots and their provincialism is counterproductive. Their experience of being attacked will increase the sensation of threat, naturally leading to a deepening of the defensive posture."}
{"id":"20c2cef1-0d99-496a-ba45-f081d83218fd","argument":"It is sensible for governments to protect domestic supplies of vital goods, such as oil, food and steel, from the political vicissitudes of world cartels; which is part of foreign policy and not pure economics. To prevent this is to invade national sovereignty.","conclusion":"It is sensible for governments to protect domestic supplies of vital goods, such as oil, food and st..."}
{"id":"3d84d3a3-0864-4413-93e9-7b5f7fcba9ab","argument":"There is conclusive evidence that Russia meddled in the US Presidential elections in favour of the Trump campaign.","conclusion":"Sanctions have increased tensions between the US and the EU."}
{"id":"d72372fa-426c-4fea-86de-67452adfa7bf","argument":"A ban on religion amounts to an attack on human liberty and religious freedom. If we consider the resources required to enforce a ban and the intrusiveness of this effort into private life, such a law would indeed be 'inhuman and unjust', on a scale at least equal to, or possibly worse than the depredations inflicted in the name of religion.","conclusion":"Banning religion itself would be an 'inhuman and unjust practice'."}
{"id":"6eb7f2ce-51f4-4d92-9583-d0025378fe5c","argument":"A considered use of no platform establishes, endorses & enforces minimum standards. In effect it acts both as a licence and as setting out the terms for that licence. 'You must be at least this civil to present your views in our space.'","conclusion":"Universities should function as models for civic and civil discourse. Ideas which fall outside of the norms of proper civil discourse should be excluded from it."}
{"id":"29631add-1635-42f6-a801-96fd9bbb63c3","argument":"I am currently 24 years old, took some time off from college, going back in January. I do work, but to move out, I would need to work a full time job just to support all my bills and rent, would I not? Why would I want to sacrifice so much of my day, be broke, and hardly ever see my family just to have some dingy place of my own? Freedom ? To do what, sit in my apartment and eat bad ramen? I understand if your career calls you elsewhere, but otherwise I don't get it. Then again, there has to be some sense to it since it's standard protocol, so .","conclusion":"I see no reason to move out from home if you don't need to."}
{"id":"21891fcd-8c4c-43b3-8821-8923c33d0bfe","argument":"To be perfectly honest, I think that transgenderism, in a way, promotes gender roles. If you are born a man but you feel like you want to dress like a women, look like a woman, give yourself a female name, and generally live like a woman, I think you should be able to do all of that and still call yourself a man. Your genitalia should not decide any aspect of your life other than your role in reproduction. Obviously, it doesn't matter to me how you live your life, but I really just think it would be better for everyone if we promote the view that one's sex has very little bearing on their life. Yeah, I know that body dysmorphia is a thing. You may feel uncomfortable with a female body because your interests and views are traditionally associated with masculinity. So wouldn't the correct way around it be to remove any notions of tastes, preferences, interests and lifestyle choices have any kind of gendered traits? That way, if you have a female body but you'd rather wear a suit and change your name, you can do that while still being a woman. I'm very open to having my view changed on this because I've never actually discussed this with a transgender person. Edit all right, I've heard quite a few answers that have changed my view on this.","conclusion":"Removing gender roles from society is an alternative to transgenderism."}
{"id":"31ee9ee1-3e12-4ee9-9cd8-d8940989bd3b","argument":"Teachers are increasingly aware of how the particular life circumstances of a student influence the way a student reads a piece of literature.","conclusion":"Teachers are trained to accommodate the diverse backgrounds of their students and to facilitate a respectful environment towards different backgrounds and cultures."}
{"id":"9fc56c3e-9d1e-401c-869c-1219b5e14788","argument":"I live in an area with a lot of environmental protection laws and regulations. I frequently hear stories of people buying a piece of land and then not being able to do anything with the property because the government determines there are tree frogs or owls of some sort. These people just end up losing out. To a lesser extent there are times when people are delayed for a decade before they can develop because there is an investigation because someone reported they saw a certain snake or something. I have no problem with environmental protection laws, but they should not punish landowners. If an animal is important enough to stop any development for, the government should have to buy the land and turn it into a sanctuary.","conclusion":"If a piece of property you own is found to be undevelopable because of a protected species, the government should have to buy your land from you for what you paid for it."}
{"id":"d89f73e9-aff4-4070-a1b1-7b7f04906fac","argument":"Drug dealers in the illegal market have very little incentive to warn customers of the dangers of illegal drugs.","conclusion":"A drug licence test makes sure users are aware of the fatal consequences of irresponsible use."}
{"id":"7e0992fb-d4e1-4af8-a0cf-22250f09d332","argument":"When I say relationship yes, I'm specifically thinking of a romantic relationship, but I think this could loosely apply to non romantic relationships as well. In general, my view is that work effort in a relationship means forcing something that isn't actually compatible. Relationships should be a natural bond or connection between two individuals. If the bond is natural and the individuals are compatible I think it's pretty obvious to both parties involved. If it doesn't feel natural from the get go, it probably isn't going to work out. I truly believe you either click with someone or you don't, based on your appearance, personality, etc which of course is subjective and graded by the other person and based on their expectations and desires . I actually think it's pretty easy to tell after an hour with someone if you have a compatible personality and if you are into each other. From there, you either continue to grow in the relationship happily and effortlessly, or you drift apart or break up after previously being official as a result of not being as compatible as you initially expected. Continuing to force the relationship force work effort is just setting at least one person up for disappointment. Note I'm not suggesting or really even talking about love at first sight or saying that people can't change their minds over time about how they feel about someone. Note2 I am willing to accept the reason I have this viewpoint is because I have spent way more effort and put more work in my life into my career and other hobbies than I ever care to put into a relationship, which in turn has led to lack of experience in this particular area of my life. However, I still stand that relationships shouldn't require work.","conclusion":"Relationships shouldn't require \"effort\" to work, let alone be \"hard work.\""}
{"id":"b5d09916-378e-4387-a010-b097a17f3360","argument":"The Proud Boys are a male-only, \"Western chauvinist\" group with a history of misogyny and glorifying violence They have been classified by the FBI as an extremist group with ties to white supremacy In Eternal Fascism by Umberto Eco these aspects would qualify under principles, 1, 5, 10, 11, 12 and 13.","conclusion":"Active fascists exist, so of course grievances against fascism can be addressed."}
{"id":"626fd7a5-299f-4144-861f-5d8942e9414e","argument":"It is a morality qualm to take resources away from one population Earthlings to give to another Martians. This incorporates favoritism, which tends to be amoral.","conclusion":"Resource plundering may leave planets stripped and environmentally destroyed\/uninhabitable."}
{"id":"1cd59b61-b2f9-400a-9434-3a8f3e88334d","argument":"this is just my point of view but i think there's no merit in that, babies brain are really really good at learning, it's just the parent who put their children in front of a piano as soon as they could, and considering how quickly they learn it's easy to get them to play the piano like pros it's just luck really, the luck of having musician parents, the luck of having a piano, the luck of learning tonal languages like chinese or vietnamese, the luck of not being born with any disease, the luck of not being born into a war torn country etc and yes the same could be said for me. and yes it's unfair, but i'm not saying that 4 yo pianist should kill themselves, i'm just saying we should stop giving so much attention to them, because they play the piano as easily as they could walk, and everyone can walk except the disabled obviously instead, i personally find that when people like the homeless, the war veterans, the elders, criminal, crooked mens, anyone with a story they left behind really, play the piano, it's so much more interesting, because you can see through their performance that there's a story to tell behind these fingers touching these keys, you really want to learn more about that person, you want to know how they conciliated arts with their occupation, how they gave themselves the gift of music against the odd, whereas when you see a 4yo play you just know that their parent just made them do it, they don't even know if they like the piano. some will just say i'm jealous, i am, but i don't care, these 4yo were luckier than i am, they play good, good for them, but i trained days and night to be where i am, there's merit in that, and robots will be better than all of us anyway one day or another this is my first post here, i'd understand if people would downvote but please don't because i really want to talk about this with anyone and dowvoting reduces visibility so yeah, please change my view if i'm wrong or if i'm seeing this the wrong way","conclusion":"4 years old virtuosos don't deserve the attention they get"}
{"id":"78bc6117-a27f-44be-85db-681021d30e24","argument":"Complexity is also not evidence of intent or a creator. A stick figure can be less complex than spilt paint.","conclusion":"Unlike a painting there is little evidence that the universe has any overarching purpose."}
{"id":"504f37fa-b4e3-47c7-ae95-b5c501ca2fbf","argument":"Without a free press and accountability mechanisms, the population has no ability to report when aid projects are unsuccessful or when the money is not getting to them.","conclusion":"Monitoring is likely far less effective in non-democratic states."}
{"id":"0b181295-bf46-4cc4-92af-609aead6b7a9","argument":"Inspired by this thread I believe that it\u2019s polite for a person with unapparent genitals ie, a transgender woman with a penis, etc. to inform their potential partner before the clothes come off. I\u2019m talking about different genitals, not transgender status generally. I\u2019m not saying legally required, I\u2019m not saying when or where. Just that at some point you should let your partner know, like how you should let your partner know if you have an STD. When and how is up to you, but it\u2019s just fair to your partner to do this, a nice thing to do. When informing, trust built up in the relationship should ideally already exist. Why should the onus be on the transgender person? This issue is pretty rare I believe it\u2019s entirely reasonable to expect people who look a certain gender to have the matching genitals. A person who presents female but has a penis is very much the exception to an accurate rule. This \u201cgenital expectation\u201d is arguably rooted in biology and is in part what we expect gender to do, seeing as we wear clothes nowadays. The notion that you shouldn\u2019t assume people\u2019s genitals based on their appearance doesn\u2019t really make any sense if you think about how sexual orientation works. There we go, I\u2019m sure this won\u2019t be controversial change my view Edit Ok this thread has blown up quite a bit, but all the replies seem to basically be saying the same thing now My view has not changed, as it seems that I have cut to the heart of the issue and understood what is generally agreed to be ok. Points Yes, the STD example is less serious than this maybe not the greatest analogy Something like genitals are what you could discuss when talking about boundaries and STD status before you have sex with your partner, if it\u2019s necessary. This really applies to anything your partner might reasonably want to know that might affect intimacy. I don\u2019t view this as placing an unfair burden on transgender people rather, it\u2019s something that you do in yours as well as your partner\u2019s best interest. For practical reasons it just makes more sense to only deal with this if it\u2019s actually an issue we don\u2019t need to all be paranoid about asking other people about their genitals.","conclusion":"It\u2019s polite for a person with different genitals than expected to disclose to a partner at some point before sex"}
{"id":"e52fd11c-4f34-4b47-8424-68205f85053b","argument":"In countries where the rule of law is weak, racketeering, bribes and collusion are common within the police force and consequently people can not depend on their police to administer justice fairly p.4.","conclusion":"In undemocratic states, where people's basic rights aren't respected, vigilantes can be the only force of justice able to protect them."}
{"id":"b9523e68-77f9-4e38-88db-494c316e6803","argument":"I posit that there nothing inherently immoral with incest even if one looks past arguments for moral nihilism and just speaks about our subjective morals etc. . Now, this obviously needs to be further qualified and explained. Relations between a parent and child are in most circumstances going to be immoral although I have no data to support this \u2013 it\u2019s just my suspicion , but not always on one side of the extreme you have child grooming which is truly horrific and on the other side you have Oedipus \u2013 I do not think he nor his mother did anything wrong, even if they had continued their relations after realizing the truth of their consanguinity. The potential issues are even unrelated to whether it concerns adoptive or biological parents. Relations between siblings offer fewer potential issues siblings of similar ages especially , but there are still many reasons, specific to their circumstances, that might make their relations immoral. The point I am making is that it is not incest itself that causes an incestual act to be immoral, although I believe incestual relations are much more likely to be immoral compared to other sexual relations. For example, I believe non consensual incest is wrong by virtue of being non consensual, not by being incestuous \u2013 incest is not wrong inherently . There is another, perhaps more important aspect that I\u2019ve so far ignored and that is related to procreation. While I do not have any inherent issues with incest, I do have strong issues with having offspring born of incest. I have antinatalistic sympathies as it stands already and having children with a higher likelihood of disorders as well as supporting inbreeding depression, I see as clearly immoral. Today, we live in times where birth control and abortion can near ensure that no child is born, however, and homosexual relations do not suffer this possibility. So I believe that just like non consent makes incest wrong, breeding also makes incest wrong, but neither rape nor reproduction is inherent to incest. Now, I am solely speaking of ethics \u2013 of subjective right and wrong \u2013 not what I think should be made into law I have little to no interest in law either way . There are higher likelihoods of incest being immoral, so would this justify its illegality? Should homosexual incest see more leniency? I don\u2019t know, and so I have no opinion on it. In either case, I do not think incest is inherently wrong.","conclusion":"I do not think incest is inherently wrong"}
{"id":"df4c3e78-d627-43ed-bf0c-61c5314d1798","argument":"I often see people on Reddit vouching against using Facebook, because of the possibility that the CIA or some other government agency is monitoring our posts and messages. Why isn't that a good thing? It would certainly be helpful in detecting criminal activities and terrorism. I've asked this question elsewhere, and here's some of the responses I've had but not been convinced by nbsp gt You may have nothing to hide now, but what if the government redefines hate speech terrorism and then comes after you? Can you really imagine the government changing a law, and then trying to prosecute people based off old Facebook messages? This argument just feels silly. nbsp gt They're data mining you So what? Give me a concrete example of a negative, tangible effect this would have on my life. nbsp gt You have nothing to hide when you use the bathroom, yet you still close the door There's a difference between being embarrassed in front of someone you know, and a government computer program screening your messages. nbsp I'm interested in hearing some different reasons as to why I should be bothered nbsp gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I'm all for Government Surveillance of our Social Media"}
{"id":"731e8e50-75a6-4ff6-b3bd-35f34c5728d0","argument":"Moreover, college is becoming less about education and more about the college experience, because that's what prospective students want. Colleges have to compete with each other for students. Aside from academic rigor they do this by building nice dorms and dining halls and beautiful facilities and landscaping that may or may not have anything to do with educating students. In order to pay for this stuff, colleges have to jack up prices. Lucky for them almost anyone can afford to pay more for college because humongous student loans are so easy to obtain by inexperienced teenagers becoming adults that are often very financially illiterate. And so the cycle continues. It seems like a very stupid system with obvious flaws and it reminds me of the housing bubble a little bit. Honestly I haven't done much research and would love to have my mind changed by someone smarter or more knowledgeable than me.","conclusion":"College tuition in United States is too high and increasing chiefly because there are easily obtainable extremely low-interest loans subsidized by the government specifically to pay for it."}
{"id":"571b3c51-fab9-47c5-a0a8-a88f7036b9f0","argument":"It appears to me over the coming decades we might face unprecedented levels of unemployment when AI begins to take away jobs in retail, hard labour, office jobs and even certain medical positions. I'm no economist so I'm hoping someone can change my mind or make a better suggestion to deal with the incoming change to society. It appears to be a far cheaper and more efficient system then attempting to find work for your stipend, when no such jobs exist. Clarifications universal basic income in my mind refers to giving every citizen a basic wage, by virtue of being born a citizen, without the need to work for that money. This will be due to the unparalleled levels of shortage jobs for people in the labour force due to automation.","conclusion":"It seems universal basic income might be the only realistic and sound strategy to the inevitable time AI takes over a large portion of jobs."}
{"id":"a3eda682-c8bb-44ac-bb13-844a1d6bb98d","argument":"On the wikipedia page for human fatalities due to animal attacks, there is a page listed for fatal dog attacks but not for cat attacks. This suggests there have been little to no fatal cat attacks on humans.","conclusion":"For humans, a cat attack is less likely to cause serious injury or death than a dog attack."}
{"id":"1a97ef42-403f-4196-a553-72c939a81cc5","argument":"I believe that all the vast majority of men are potential rapists. The fact is that the only thing that keeps people from doing bad things like stealing, killing, raping, etc. is the fear of the law. More specifically, the fear of being punished. If you could get away with anything what would you do? You're lying to yourself if you think you would still act like the upstanding citizen you are. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. If you had the power to do anything and get away with no punishment, you would do unspeakable things. And that is why all men are potential rapists. The law is only thing that keeps men from raping. Certain species of animals have been known to rape. It is not out of the question to say that rape is human nature. History has proven this. What happens when soldiers can get away with anything? You get the rape of Naking. The rape of Berlin. Go back even further in ancient times when rape would occur during the sacking and looting towns villages. Furthermore, why was martial rape legal for so long? Why do we still live in a rape culture? If humans had a innate sense of good evil, none of this should be. Clearly morality is not objective, but is based on what society wants. Society has chosen that rape is wrong, and has ingrained that in us ever since we're young. But really, it is in man's nature to rape. This logic does not just apply to men. You could argue that women are also potential rapists. It's just that in lawless states it doesn't happen this way. Has there ever been a female on male version of Nanking? Also the reason I focus on rape is because people generally admit they would steal money if they could get away with it. Rape is a more touchy subject though. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"All men are potential rapists"}
{"id":"7162a439-efd8-415f-953f-be39e2a630a8","argument":"Religion shifts over time as religion is interpreted. If something is based on evidence, then it remains static, void of new evidence. Any developments in religion must therefore have accompanying evidence to be accepted as an evidence-based development and not a social one.","conclusion":"Religion exists without a sufficient evidence base, so its claims are invalid. Philosophy is a search and so has nothing to prove."}
{"id":"bd63379c-5875-440d-9c76-0c79a9251235","argument":"\u201cIt appears that only the Sixth Circuit has otherwise addressed the constitutional question raised by these testing requirements in a case about a Michigan program whereby all welfare applicants would be drug tested and every six months, twenty percent of existing recipients would also be randomly tested.\u201d Wurman, I. 2013. DRUG TESTING WELFARE RECIPIENTS AS A CONSTITUTIONAL CONDITION. Stanford Law Review, 655, 1153-1193.","conclusion":"Testing would keep recipients on their toes, forcing them to use the money on what they\u2019re supposed to."}
{"id":"307f1c51-742d-4cda-bdfa-a10356ce6437","argument":"Trophic levels are important to consider here. As plants are consumed to feed an animal only ~10% of the energy is available for the animal. In other words, a strictly meat only diet would require 10 times the plant matter; 100 times if eating a predator.","conclusion":"Ceasing to produce meat will be necessary in order to meet the growing food needs of the world's population."}
{"id":"217c6c69-230f-48fd-9341-bb9e3c69742d","argument":"In 2013, new Democrat members of Congress were told during their orientation that they should spend four hours a day making fundraising calls and just two hours a day on congressional business.","conclusion":"In the US, members of Congress spend more than half their working hours calling potential donors in order to fundraise."}
{"id":"ab75b6e5-131f-4687-98ed-12cf3931ebf0","argument":"Increased pressure on border states has led to unacceptable conditions for asylum claimants, and the risk of other serious human rights violations.","conclusion":"The Dublin regulation fails to provide fair, efficient and effective protection for refugees. The regulation is criticized as undermining refugee rights."}
{"id":"22a6a11a-8bf8-454b-9ec4-fb0021707543","argument":"If hosting your own wallet and not using any exchanges or crypto services, the only point of failure is the blockchain implementation itself, and these are very unlikely to fail, mislead, or leak user data.","conclusion":"Until a bank mishandles their data, updates hidden charges or collapses."}
{"id":"4c2a222f-ff9f-47ea-a2e7-5065cdd55f4a","argument":"It could be that God has already dealt with the problem of evil outside of time and space and we simply haven't \"arrived there\" yet.","conclusion":"Humans are limited in their capacity to conceptualize God, and thus are incapable of accurately judging the relationship between evil and a divine being."}
{"id":"209a7fe5-8b35-4232-a345-69dd71ba805b","argument":"Let me start by defining both educational adequacy and educational equality, and noting that this concerns primarily the U.S.A. Educational adequacy is the idea that everyone should be able to receive an adequate education. Some people, possibly those born into rich families, will have more opportunities than those with a lower socio economic status. As long as the education everyone receives is at least above a certain minimum in terms of quality and opportunities, it is good. Educational equality is the idea that everyone should have equal opportunities in the educational spectrum. Poor people should have the same opportunities as rich people. Everyone will be at an equal level so those who do advance in society advance because of their own pursuit toward excellence rather than being born into excellence. I argue we should not pursue equality directly but rather achieve and set the bar higher for adequacy. The problem with educational equality is that it's simply unachievable, and attempting to achieve it will have negative impacts on the economy. Consider right now that rich people have the ability to pay for schools that provide their students sometimes superior education to the local public schools or that rich people can hire private tutors, or afford to send children to expensive universities. If we are to strive for educational equality, we are going to have to fix these issues. How will that be done? Well, getting rid of private schools is one option. That seems bad to me because then you're left with a bunch of abandoned schools, and then public schools will have to expand to take in more students. Then you have the issue of some public schools having better education than others. So probably on a national level there will have to be some funding to improve the bottom schools. Or , better schools will have to be lowered down to the level of the worse schools. This seems like a silly solution just to give everyone equal education and opportunities. This drives down educational competition. In a fine, ideal world, it would be dandy if everyone had equal opportunities in education. But this is not an ideal world, and it seems like the only way to make things equal are to bring people down or cause a major economic shift. Evaeryone deserves an adequate education it should not be crappy, but it should be at least decent. It should be good enough that they can get an alright paying job. Rich people will still have more favorable opportunities and can pay their way through college even. But at the end of the day, someone with little opportunities who works hard can still make their way to the top. I think even if education is equal, you end up with students with no interest in learning in the first place. Also, having better opportunities to get a high paying job doesn't necessarily lead to happiness. Wealth does not buy happiness, and I feel like educational equality assumes wealthy job happiness. Edit typos and accidentally said adequacy insetad of equality at one point. Clarifications","conclusion":"Educational Adequacy is a more appropriate system than Educational Equality"}
{"id":"d83ce9b7-a69c-4e29-8059-f50766f1a07d","argument":"The parties favored by Muslims in high-income countries have decade-long histories and were part of numerous governments e.g. the SPD in Germany and Labour in the UK. They can hardly be considered as undermining a country's identity.","conclusion":"It is not clear how a political preference for established left-wing parties represents a threat to the national identity of high-income countries."}
{"id":"0a645833-bc5f-4930-9526-86cba65f2950","argument":"Research has also demonstrated a connection between economic inequality and political voice. The political process is far more responsive to the claims of the privileged, and the privileged are far better organized and engaged in the political process than are less affluent citizens. Recent studies show that government officials are far more likely to support the policy preferences of the wealthy than those of the poor. In short, there is considerable evidence to suggest that there is a growing divide between those who have wealth and political influence and those who do not. Yasmin Dawood, THE NEW INEQUALITY: CONSTITUTIONAL DEMOCRACY AND THE PROBLEM OF WEALTH, Maryland Law Review: 2007. Lexis-Nexis Databases.","conclusion":"The Rich Poor Gap Silences the Political Voice of the Poor"}
{"id":"c86386c3-35ad-4f27-aeed-be1505ca2744","argument":"With increasing amounts of medical breakthroughs and better technology, human life expectancy has been significantly extended. Too extended. Senior care costs lots of resources both financial wise and manpower wise. For example, Japan is suffering from a shortage of daycare facilities due to the significant amount of resources that were diverted to taking care of seniors. In the western world, the baby boomers will be hitting that age soon and many people will need to abandon their career prospects to take care of both their children and their parents. Health care and social services will also suffer significant strain, and this problem will only get worse because our medical technology is advancing. Now, other than money, we can look at what else we are sacrificing for these people who have for the most part, surpassed their useful years and can no longer reproduce. We are cutting care away from children and young adults, as well as denying young adults career opportunities as these longer living seniors are holding on to their jobs. Society is out of sync. My solution is to terminate seniors at the age of 65. We may alter this period by or 5 years. For example, if a scientist needs time to finish an experiment, he may be granted to live until 70 to finish his experiments and train his pupils to continue his work. If a couple wishes to die together but have an age gap, one can take off up to 5 years from their allowed lifespan and the other than extend their lifespan by up to 5 years so that their deaths can be synchronized. This offers a variety of benefits Society will have a LOT more money. Caring for seniors is incredibly expensive. Cutting these expenses will allow funds to be diverted into things that give higher societal returns like education or other social services. Predictability of death will streamline insurance and other processes. Since people will for the most part know when they will be dying, they can plan out their wills in advance. It will stop death from being a guessing game. Productivity of society will increase. This will increase in 2 ways. First, seniors will no longer be able to hold onto their higher tier jobs indefinitely. This means that younger people will have more opportunities to move up the career ladder. Second, caregivers women especially will have more freedom to pursue their careers due to not having to worry about caring about their parents relatives friends. Both of these things ensure that society and innovation will increase at a steady pace. By terminating seniors, we can also ensure that more attention and resources can be devoted to children. It avoids the moral problems of alternatives such as terminating handicapped people. This is because everyone will grow old at some point, assuming they don't die young. This means that everyone who gets old enough will be subject to this termination eventually so there is no discrimination at play. Downsides I have considered Some seniors are still working and contributing to society. Answer This can be alleviated by the 5 year life extention plan. Seniors in important positions will have an opportunity to pass on their work. This allows young people to constantly move in and keeps the career elevator running. Seniors perform volunteer work Answer without having to worry about senior care, the amount of volunteer work that needs doing will itself be cut down. In addition, all the resources saved from cutting senior care will be more than enough to compensate.","conclusion":"Humans should be allowed to live up to a maximum age of around 65, and then euthanized for the benefit of society."}
{"id":"0323e492-e839-4e44-997a-646ee677e1b0","argument":"Since Reagan popularized the term, people have been debating it widely. Nowadays, liberals in the United States tend to say that Trickle Down Theory is completely disproven, that tax cuts on the wealthy corporations in no way contribute to economic growth. This is patently false. What HAS been statistically disproven, to the best of my knowledge, is that capital gains and income tax cuts for the wealthy corporations can directly correlate to a raise in wages across the board in the short term. The original concept was sound but was misrepresented by Republicans in a way that made it sound like the money these people businesses saved on taxes would trickle downward in the form of increased wages. That isn't what happened, but then because the term was tied to that idea people extrapolated that the entire theory is shoddy which just isn't true. This is why. We calculate GDP by summing up 4 realms of economic activity consumer spending, government spending, investment, and the net of the countries imports and exports. Historically consumer spending is the largest of these categories at 70 in the U.S., with Government spending being the next largest, followed by investment and a negative number for net exports. Though the smallest of the positive contributors, investment is important in a way the others aren't. Investment determines how much our production possibilities frontier grows for the next year, essentially determining how much and how fast we can grow in the future. The government clearly has no problem spending money it doesn't have, regardless of which party is in control. There is very likely a correlation between tax revenue and spending, but it's a very weak one, meaning that for every dollar that is taxed, much less than a dollar goes back into the economy. On the flip side, when people and businesses have money, particularly the ones hat have a lot of it, they either spend or invest it. Statistically wealthy people invest more than they spend, and do both more than they save, but either way that money is going directly back into the economy. By definition, at least with the way our government currently balances budgets, you are growing the economy as well as enhancing future growth by leaving more money out of the government. Unless I'm missing something, though in the short term tax cuts might not be correlated with increasing wages, they most certainly are causally correlated with economic growth which absolutely correlates with rising standards of living and wages over the long term. Before anyone says well by that logic why would we ever tax anyone , I'm not saying that cutting taxes on wealthy people and businesses is ALWAYS a good idea. It's all about marginal gain. While the field of economics used to be divided between Keynsian philosophy of spend the economy to greatness and the more Reagan type philosophy of tax cut the economy into greatness, that hasn't been the case for many years now. The field has consolidated to understand and agree that certain degrees of both are necessary. If the economy grows 70 cents for every dollar taxed between a 50 and 60 rate, and grows 40 cents for every dollar taxed between a 60 and 50 rate, then the 60 rate makes more sense. If you swap the 70 and the 40, then the 50 rate makes more sense. These elasticities are NOT constant. One tax rate is not ALWAYS ideal. Trickle Down Economics isn't just flat out wrong, and Keynsian spending isn't just flat out right. You need to balance the two, and at any given time our county could need more of one or the other, and to determine which we need you need to take a more detailed look at the situation. That's why when people say Trickle Down Economics and say that it's wrong or disproven or whatever they want, they are just factually incorrect or misapplying misunderstanding the term.","conclusion":"The term \"Trickle Down Economics\" is widely misunderstood and misapplied."}
{"id":"5e7ab2d3-03b7-4970-a25c-4f2c8207d845","argument":"Health care is not a right. It is, therefore, not \"necessary\" for the government to provide universal health care. A public plan, subsequently, is not a \"necessity\", in-so-far as it may offer universal coverage.","conclusion":"Universal health care in the US is not a \"necessity\"."}
{"id":"a14779db-61c1-4839-8e97-2f652eace6aa","argument":"I see a lot of people claim human nature is ultimately more good than bad , and so far I've just been unable to believe it because of a few factors. We have to be taught to do many good things and yet don't have to be taught to do many bad things. Human beings who were not raised properly are far more likely to rape, murder, steal or do other harmful acts. Christopher Columbus started a child sex slave trade and fed children to dogs alive. A Jameson Whiskey heir in the 1800s bought a child slave and fed her to cannibals in order to get to draw it. These are just two of nearly infinite examples of what most of us would call evil from human history. Every evil, no matter how horrific, had to or has to be stamped out of human culture, not added to it. Without people telling others no and forcing them not to do things, human beings get up to extremely vile deeds. These things don't come from nurture, they're instinctual. They are our nature. When we get flooded with emotion we can do horrific things. When a popular politician spearheads a campaign to murder millions, the people fall in line. When someone we care about or trust does something awful, our first instinct is to not believe it and to try to defend them. Our histories show over and over again that human beings are capable of remarkably vile acts, beyond what any creature in nature can do. We can apply creativity to our natural destructive impulses and do things like impale many of our own people to scare another nation. All of these things are things we do when we aren't taught not to do them. We don't have to be taught to murder. We don't have to be taught to rape. We don't have to taught to enslave or do anything else like that. We just do those things. They pop up on their own over and over in every culture, regardless if they've had contact with any other culture with those concepts. They are genetic. They are natural. Many would first argue that human kindness is also instinctual, but not nearly to the same degree. Our instinctual kindness only applies to our in group, our people . In fact, our instinctual kindness is married to our instinctual xenophobia. We are often extremely good to our in group, but not only are we instinctually prejudiced towards out groups, but part of our motivation for our evil acts is often our in group. We say we're protecting them, or we're keeping them free, or we're saving them, or we're making the in group great again, and we will proceed to slaughter millions of the out groups in the name of that. Our instinctual kindness only applies to our in group, and kindness towards out groups is yet another thing that has to be taught. Instinctually, we are xenophobic genocidal rapists that will do anything for those close to us. While there's good there, there is also far more evil . So, based on that, I feel that the base nature of humanity, what comes from our genetics and not our environment, is primarily evil . No matter how much good we are capable of, we only are capable of it when raised from birth to be far, far different than our genetics tell us to, and anyone that is primarily a good person is constantly battling their genetics and instincts to be that way, while being evil is far, far easier as all it requires is listening to your instincts.","conclusion":"The base nature of human beings is closer to what human beings refer to as \"evil\" rather than what human beings refer to as \"good\"."}
{"id":"ea8488c6-abf5-4812-85b9-fd218de83884","argument":"The loss of stock market value from implication in the Panama Papers Leak represented a justified public reaction given the companies unethical tax practices.","conclusion":"The damage to the group that hid the information is often justly deserved."}
{"id":"4725e0da-0282-4e29-af5e-d7c2b9023aef","argument":"I feel some fears are natural and will never go away. It's hard to believe being absolutely fearless even possible. But I am defenitely on the verge of believing it is. This lady told me that the Fear of Rejection is in our DNA and we can't get rid of it completely. I sensed bullshit with her statement but I kinda believe in what she said Do you think what she said was bullshit ? Please give counter examples. Thanks I read this today How true is this I really want to believe this and feel more empowered. Fortunately, all fears are learned no one is born with fears. Fears can therefore be unlearned by practicing self discipline repeatedly with regard to fear until it goes away.","conclusion":"social fears are natural.. And not learned."}
{"id":"7ca84fe8-5cb5-47fa-b85d-fd1baed6868c","argument":"Soo, I get called Chinese or Russian bot on a regular base and get confronted with a lot of hate from people for my views and I sometimes question them myself and I kind want to like the US, after all you guys gave us some great fastfood and Mountandew im in love with that stuff, doesn't matter if it kills me so please change my mind if possible so maybe I dislike the US less, or even favor them important note im not saying china is that much better either, I simply think they are the better of 2 evils This is not directed towards citizen of the US, you guys mostly pretty chill x200B I think China as a worldpower is better for the world than the US, let me list the main reasons why I think so. x200B involvement in other countries For decades the US has assasinated leaders of countries they disagreed with, overthrown elected goverments all around the World and started wars to expand and protect their own interests with no regard to what the people of the countries want, with complete disregard to human life only to spread propaganda that they are the good in the world defending it from the evil, they have crippled a huge part of South America, they have turned half of asia into a minefield with the goal of defeating communism and made the middle east into a terrorist breeding ground with constant civil wars going on, while yes a lot of middle eastern countries sufferd under a dictatorship but the US never had the intention to liberate the people. The involvement of the US in most foreign nations had horrible outcomes that caused nothing but suffering. A goverment that over the years has killed millions of civilians in foreign nations they had nothing to do in doesnt sound that great does it ? Yes the Chinese have murderd much more people and they are commiting crimes against humanity as we speak, but so is the US, 2 wrongs doesnt make it right for either side but at least they are doing it in their own country and not around the globe x200B Corruption and Political system You call it lobbyism, I call it corruption, there are 2 parties to vote from and both are corrupted to no end, the entire congress is bought out by wealthy people, while corruption is much lower in the US on lower level than compared to China as in you can bribe allmost every police officer its not any better in the US on higher levels, the war industry has the congress on payroll to make them keep on pushing for policies that promote war and missery around the world and the laws are made for the people who own allready anything, im not someone who says split the wealth and rob people of what they earnd, if someone is billionair thats fine they must have done something right to earn it but I do not belive that they should be the people influencing what laws are made for the everyday person. Then there is the 2 party system, people tend to complain about chinas 1 party system but is it really that different from the US ? maybe the difference was bigger back in days, but at least for past 20 30 years it didnt matter a whole lot if rep or dems are in power, US politics didnt change a whole lot well you could say with Trump right now they are emberassing themself more, thoo I dont hate trump it helps people see the US for what they really are, made them lose a lot of softpower in short term and will weaken the us in long run, I kinda like him for that but it really barely matters who is in power, is that really better than a 1 party system ? x200B Treatment of their own people The US treats their citizen like shit and nobody seems to care, the NSA is not protecting anyone they are spying on US citizen, they are not much different than China in that aspect beside that china also censors people. People in the US are feed propaganda just as much as people in China by their own goverment, there are tons of records of the US goverment doing it from documents that got declassified years ago, but people are blind to it. From having been in China and having many chinese friends I would say that the people of the US are much more blinded by propaganda than people in China, yes there is propaganda in China but people are most of time aware of it, in the US it seems a large part of the population just straight up denies that the US is spreading propaganda. x200B x200B Im very well aware that there is no evil when talking about countries, even North Korea isn't evil, its only in their leaders personal best interest to keep the general population poor and suffering, but while China is just as disgusting in many aspects as the US, I just belive that on global scale a powerfull China would be better than a powerfull USA, for the better of everyone. x200B Also so I dont get any hate, I dont hate the US itself, I hate the goverment, the US seems to be a great country if you look away from that part and I sure as hell want to travel there in the future and I wish only the best to the people of the US, I hope their goverment will improve in the future. x200B Also I hope my english isnt too much of a problem, its kind of my 3rd or 2nd language depending which way you look at it so im well aware that its far from perfect","conclusion":"China is better for the world than the US"}
{"id":"8a4e7355-b0a5-4453-a107-942acce5ae96","argument":"Even if they are able to agree, the deployment of the army has to be decided upon quickly enough to have a chance to be operationally successful.","conclusion":"Member states are likely to have different opinions of what actions an EU army should conduct."}
{"id":"3f879084-eb5c-4563-b23b-6338dc0194aa","argument":"The way I see it, the reason that Communism doesn't work as well as Capitalism is because of involvement. In a large, communist country, one doesn't contribute that much to their wealth because if all wealth was shared equally, why work when millions of others essentially work for you. If communism was implemented in a small community, one would have a larger impact on their community's wealth and, intern, their own wealth. This leads to more job motivation something capitalism nails and a better economy. I'm not a Economics major of any sort, but it's just a long shower idea that I just wanted to know if it was valid. Edit I'm not saying that communism is a bad thing or could never work, it was just something I wanted to know if, on a small scale, it could or couldn't work. Edit2 I would like to show why I thought of this. My idea was like a Quiz scenario where the overall score is averaged something teachers actually do in school . If John why not was in a large class, he knows that there are too many people to have his score matter. If he doesn't study, his C would probably end up as a B with all the others averaged in. With a small class community , John has a larger impact on the grade, making him work harder. The person I was talking to said gt if they a group are required to do a project with member 3 someone who doesn't work hard on the project , they are either going to exile him or do less work because they are tired of doing more work than member 3 The fear of failing the class being hated and or exiled makes the feeling of inclusion more dominant. John won't worry about failing since everyone helps his grade go up. He will worry if he is in a small group and his grade will have a more visible impact.","conclusion":"I think that Communism can work in small groups."}
{"id":"e9e65b69-bcb9-4d07-9dac-c08ea2611456","argument":"Farage claims that the UK is a nation that produces 1.8% of global carbon dioxide a figure supported by concerned scientists which eliminates the need to close down aluminium smelters, given that the alternative is to move UK's steel production to India for the products to be shipped back to Britain, a step that is likely to produce more carbon emissions.","conclusion":"What may seem like Farage's controversial views on climate change to some are actually backed by statistics and logic."}
{"id":"1caca605-c4ce-4eed-8aca-b72680d4b4c7","argument":"Clinical trials rarely enroll sufficient numbers of people of color. If pharmaceutical companies embraced racial differences in treatment efficacy they would be able to collect more data concerning how different racial groups are affected by different types of treatment.","conclusion":"There is a significant lack of representation of minority racial groups in clinical drug trails, with studies overwhelmingly having majority white participants."}
{"id":"9569847d-5d70-44cd-a6b6-8e77eef9918e","argument":"Charities and non-profit organisations are unlikely to have the same resources to spend on ad campaigns, and so corporations are able to dominate the discussion.","conclusion":"The advertising budgets of corporations can be millions, or even billions, of dollars."}
{"id":"c0b15597-aad8-433f-a94a-ae2a5f247849","argument":"I've felt this way since I was around 14. So many people think we only have one life, so I reckon why waste it raising children and working? Why not follow your ambitions and have fun with this one life you have to live? I couldn't stand the boredom that would come with working, paying bills and raising kids. I mean, that's all you do. You work, get payed, spend most of that payment on bills and the rest on your kids. You get nothing to yourself. It seems so depressing. When I was younger I would listen to my parents complain about putting so much effort into their jobs and getting nowhere financially emotionally . This is what encouraged me to hold this view. If you have one life, live it well. I understand if everyone held the same view as me, mankind would eventually die out. But I just can't fathom the boredom and depression that would come with living a life like that. .","conclusion":"I think going to university, getting married and having kids is a waste of a life."}
{"id":"e1c208f6-dd44-4d1c-b452-b6b29c11a2bf","argument":"No platforming does not request a person to be punished or otherwise censored for his or her beliefs. Being denied a certain forum does not equal a restriction of freedom of speech as a general right.","conclusion":"Free speech does not entail being entitled to a pulpit Thus, denial of a platform is not a violation of free speech."}
{"id":"6f1f547c-9001-419a-a113-11b24012f5db","argument":"Even experts feel that the progress and new developments represent contradictory signs On the one hand there are remarkable developments in the components needed for AGI, yet the developments seem to highlight just how much further there is to go before an AGI could be realised.","conclusion":"Predictions are still foggy, given the amount of mistakes and setbacks humans have had in creating AI from the beginning."}
{"id":"c945f787-b016-45fb-9332-d43f665c5879","argument":"There are known cases of no-go zones in European countries with high levels of immigration. Especially in the UK and Sweden.","conclusion":"Crime rates increase in European countries as more immigration comes in."}
{"id":"1962aa55-ba9c-452f-bba1-44b2352bc806","argument":"If people don't feel comfortable going to the digital libraries due to privacy concerns, digital libraries will not be as much of a success as physical ones.","conclusion":"On the internet where a digital library lives, if people search, read, download, etc. books, their actions are recorded, whereas physical libraries provide more anonymity."}
{"id":"7f9fe286-62b4-4a9f-9e33-7dfa3c039f1c","argument":"Perfect Dark - a first-person shooter with a female protagonist - sold over 2 million copies on the N64, and ranks as the 19th best-selling N64 game of all time.","conclusion":"Many games which have strong female protagonists have been commercially successful, suggesting that the backlash is not that significant."}
{"id":"b80d8e4f-03c9-4354-a0d9-7d1ae98cce99","argument":"The Seniors SmartRider travel card entitles older citizens to free off-peak travel in Western Australia","conclusion":"Many places already provide free public transport for elderly users."}
{"id":"c8dd405f-a58a-487c-80d7-81f9ca0fb134","argument":"Yeah, bit of a big title, so let me break it down in a number of ways. The democratic process is a first past the post uneven electorate race for Executive. I won't waste space on why this creates a 2 party state, spoiler effect, entrenches partisanship, poorly representative elections. Suffice to say, that looking in from a MMP nation, it's backwards and crude, almost designed to make the majority of votes worthless. The control of the Executive is not aligned with control of the Legislature. This means that the Head of State, also, Head of Government might not actually control the Legislature. The partisanship caused by the two party system with a race to each side's ideological extremes leads into deliberate antagonistic actions of the Legislature against the Executive when these are not aligned. Thus, few laws get passed, and each side uses issues as political scoring points rather than actually implementing solutions. All of this is exacerbated by a bicameral Legislature, which is nothing more than excessive political flaff. The success and effectiveness of unicameral states shows that there is no need for an upper house, and it is a left over aristocratic anachronism. All of this is repeated at the state level for no worthy reason other than a fear of federal government. Each state except Nebraska has another bicameral legislature, with 40 150 elected representatives. I mention this due to the amount of legislative freedom and relative independence the states maintain, the stepping stone from state to federal government, and the influence of state legislatures on candidates for federal electorates. This entire towering, antagonistic, overblown mess is polluted at every level by passing the regulatory power over its aspects to those supposed to be regulated. Illinois's 4th congressional district is a wonderful example of what should be grounds for removal and criminal actions. Finally, this entire unstable, ineffective and purely entertaining mess is propped up by not a reasonable amount of money from an independent source, but rather solicited donations from special interest groups. There are no limits on election spending, no restrictions on donors, and thus, it becomes nothing more than a 101 Legislative house circus to the tune of the donors. The entire mess could be fixed with a MMP voting style which forces legislatures into representation, a unicameral legislature at each level, and the forced alignment of the Legislature and Executive. Without the influence of outside money, the ability for minority parties to rise, and requirements on co operation to get things done, the US government system might start working.","conclusion":"The US governmental system is flawed to the core and the people in it are criminally incompetent at best."}
{"id":"5c322947-bed9-46a4-a3ee-cddd007e7905","argument":"\"required him to read Theodor Herzl's Der Judenstaat, the famous Zionist classic, which converted Eichmann promptly and forever to Zionism. This seems to have been the first serious book he ever read and it made a lasting impression on him. \" platypus1917.org \" III expert on jewish question","conclusion":"Hannah Arendt describes Eichmann as a Zionist who spoke yiddish Arendt, p. 23"}
{"id":"0152c2ed-2e39-4f02-b4cf-97e4c50f0749","argument":"Foreign intelligence collection, especially in a time of war when catastrophic attacks have already been launched inside the United States, falls within the special needs context. As the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review has observed, the nature of the 'emergency' posed by al Qaeda 'takes the matter out of the realm of ordinary crime control.'","conclusion":"The Supreme Court has long held that the Fourth Amendment allows warrantless searches where 'special needs, beyond the normal need for law enforcement' exist"}
{"id":"c686dcf1-7fa3-4fa5-81ed-ef44ec800ad2","argument":"Now I suppose most will agree with me that this is immoral, so I'd like to see if anyone can change my view on this one. Basically I was partying with an old friend of mine, someone whom I have always considered to be a very legit and moral guy. After some shots of vodka he tells me he is going to show me something. Then he pulls up a box of socks and lingerie. I was like WTF? Then he tells me that he is pretending to be a girl online and sell these items for as much as 100 a piece to horny old men. Now I don't care what fetishes people have, but the fact that they believe that the item they are buying has been worn by a girl, when infact it hasn't seems to me to be a moral no no . At first I just thought it was hilarious and a smart way to make some side cash, but the more I think about it the more it seems like this is quite immoral indeed.","conclusion":"My friendmale is pretending to be a girl and exploiting horny men online. I think this is morally wrong."}
{"id":"414801e4-ea17-4e00-b9f8-30ec639d1596","argument":"The Secretary General is largely dependent on the funding and good will of the most powerful nations, making it difficult for them to openly criticise them","conclusion":"The Secretary General lacks the independent authority to achieve any meaningful change."}
{"id":"700b3540-0ca2-4fbd-981d-3cfa40577609","argument":"Public investment in infrastructure for AVs will divert funds from investment in public transport or bicycle lanes.","conclusion":"Private self-driving cars compete with non-motorized transportation bicycling, walking, . which are much more sustainable solutions."}
{"id":"d851f3f3-f2fa-47bf-9295-49b7f8563dae","argument":"Abortion was, is and always will be the mother's decision. She doesn't need anyone's \"permission\" to do what she wants. A woman could have an unwanted pregnancy at a very young age and it is not the father's, the government's or anybody else's decision if she should keep the baby or not. What happens to the baby will mostly affect the mother because it's her body and by taking away this decision, the government is slowly stripping women of their rights.","conclusion":"Women should have the ability to access legal and safe abortions if that is what they desire."}
{"id":"155852a1-fc88-4987-bbfa-1b15b3500deb","argument":"I believe 9 11 actually happened. I also believe President Bush staged 9 11 in order to put fear in the hearts of Americans to get the Patriot Act passed. Since then, there have been several National Tragedies that I believe are staged in order to take away citizen's privacys and freedoms Sandy Hook and gun laws . When Obama's ratings were at their lowest, Seal Team 6 conveniently located and killed Osama which restored American's trust in the president. Then Seal Team 6 was tragically killed murdered right after before somebody spilled the beans. It all seems fishy and I'm not combined otherwise.","conclusion":"I'm convinced Osama Bin Laden was a paid actor."}
{"id":"f3bf05ea-0fb9-4d7e-ac40-8fca84e43e7d","argument":"Couples who date less than one year before marriage have a much higher divorce rate than couples who have dated for a longer time.","conclusion":"People who marry quickly are often less happy than people who wait longer to marry."}
{"id":"2f1f8b1a-ae34-4d79-bd64-18b27b7cc237","argument":"Exceptions would be if one spouse has a problem with gambling, compulsive shopping spending, or substance abuse for which he is either seeking treatment or the couple is in the process of a divorce. Discounting the above, a married couple should always maintain joint bank accounts, joint investments, joint insurance, and shared debt obligations. Once a marriage certificate has been issued, couples should immediately merge all checking and savings accounts, add both names to any brokerage accounts, IRAs, 401ks, etc., apply for and fund jointly any insurance needs, and attack all debt from both parties using the Debt Snowball or Avalanche method pick either the lowest dollar value debt or the highest interest rate, pay minimum payments on everything but the smallest, and throw all available money at that debt, regardless of who originated it . Money is the symptom, not the problem. If your spouse is an overspender, a tightwad, won't save, won't invest, gives too much or gives to little the problem is in your relationship . By separating your finances, you're treating symptoms instead of the disease. If you and your partner can't agree on how to spend money together, how will you ever decide where to travel, what to have for dinner, how to raise your children, or where to live? Money is an abstraction of value. We sell our time, labor, and goods for a value that we feel is fair. We then spend that money on things we find valuable. If you and your spouse can't jointly decide what is valuable and what isn't, it points to larger issues in your relationship that having two checking accounts won't solve. Two heads is better than one. Remember those r askreddit threads from a few days ago, about the dumbest impulse purchases we've made? I'd be willing to bet that most of those posters were either single, or didn't consult their spouse about their decisions. Joint finances make people accountable. Even if you don't run every decision by your spouse, just stopping to think 'would we both agree to make this purchase?' can stop a lot of bad decision making. Two heads in the game can also prevent under budgeting my wife knows much better how much food we eat than I do. Left to my own devices, I might get to the end of the month with no food in the house. Joint finances mean joint goals, dreams, and aspirations, which makes a relationship stronger. Our pre marriage counselor said there are three entities in a marriage the two spouses and the marriage itself. When you save, invest, or pay off debt together, you're making an investment in your relationship. We bought a house together, instead of we each bought half of the same house. We saved for this vacation, instead of you paid for the hotel and food and I bought the plane tickets. Even if, mathematically, it comes out in a wash, it's better if both parties contribute to the relationship , so it can grow and thrive. It's easy to use money as a weapon. With roughly equivalent incomes, this becomes less of an issue, but if one spouse earns more than the other and finances are not shared the discrepancy creates an inherently unhealthy power dynamic. Anything the lesser earning spouse wants or needs but cannot afford alone must be 'gifted' by the higher earning spouse. By contrast, the higher earning spouse can spend all he wants, since it's 'his' money his partner can only offer opinions, which he is free to dismiss. God forbid than one spouse is a stay at home parent or unemployed he would have to come to his partner for permission on everything , giving the higher earning spouse free reign to control every aspect of his partner's life. A marriage is a relationship of equals one partner should never have to ask permission from his spouse to spend money, while that partner spends as he chooses. When if the marriage ends, everything is joint property anyway. Excepting assets and liabilities that existed before the marriage and were written into a prenuptial agreement, when one spouse dies or the couple divorces, all assets and liabilities are either split or transfer to the surviving spouse. Separate bank accounts will not protect you from paying alimony, child support, or asset division at divorce. A judge may assign a portion of one spouse's debt repayment to the other spouse, even if both names were not on the account. The house or car in your name, that you bought with 'your' money it's half his. And, given that the leading cause of divorce in N. America is money, you're statistically more likely to lose half of 'your' stuff if you stubbornly insist on it being 'yours' and 'mine'. Further, if one party suddenly dies, the surviving spouse is faced with the emotionally difficult and time consuming process of requesting a death certificate and presenting it to the deceased spouse's financial institutions, one at a time. If the deceased was the sole or primary source of income, this could put the surviving spouse in a dire financial position, as the the process can take weeks to months. In summary, I can think of no reasons outside of distrust, poor communication, or controlling behavior that would lead married people to maintain separate finances. I believe that, when I agreed to share my life with my partner, I agreed to share every part of it with her. We make all our decisions, from what we'll eat for dinner to what would happen if one of us dies, together our union does not end at the bank, and our relationship is stronger for it. Because of this, and all the reasons above, I believe that in almost all cases married couples should have joint finances. .","conclusion":"In almost all cases, married couples should have joint finances."}
{"id":"9c82acba-c80e-4971-b9bc-9f25ed3e2618","argument":"Governments would be able to check what cutting agents are used within the drugs, meaning they will be safer as potentially harmful cutting agents would be banned.","conclusion":"Legalisation of drugs allows for them to be regulated by the state and sold directly to the consumer, increasing purity."}
{"id":"83e4264d-96b8-4afb-9f9f-67bbf10edf5f","argument":"China's economic growth has slowed to 6.2% which is the weakest rate in at least 27 years.","conclusion":"China's economic growth has been slowing down under Xi's government."}
{"id":"c073fff4-5ed3-408a-9a11-27bf1de06c59","argument":"Humans try to fit God into a box of their finite understanding. We try to imagine why God would do this or allow that. We would be foolish to use an Atari 2600 for quantum computing. Yet we use our limited minds to fathom what a limitless God must be thinking.","conclusion":"It is unreasonable for us to expect to understand God's purposes as we have tiny, finite minds compared to the infinite mind of God,therefore it is unreasonable to precondition our belief in God upon our first understanding God's purposes."}
{"id":"8933d9c8-705c-4baf-b154-ff778337fbe2","argument":"I am not a native speaker so I apologize in advance. Mobile. As the title says, I believe 4 to 6 years is not enough time for any significant changes. Problems that have lingered the country in question for extended periods of time, can't be solved in so little time, and because long term decisions don't gain money or resources initially, they are seen as bad decisions overall. People want quick solutions for their problems, which overall contributes to bigger problems. Presidents of course want to solve the countries problems, but the ones that decide to make long term changes, are swapped for another president next elections because people believed that he didn't do well enough, since they didn't immediately improve the country as significantly as one would have expected. So overall, most long term problems such as climate change or antibiotic resistent bacteria, aren't adressed at all until it's too late.","conclusion":"4 to 6 years is too little of a time period for any president to make long term changes for long term problems, and instead insentivices short term immediate solutions."}
{"id":"249b8c7a-e0f2-4536-806d-2502d95cddf2","argument":"Her healing. Ana can heal faster, and in stronger bursts, meaning she can save someone from a quick death far more easily. Lucio has an aura, meaning he can heal more at once. Her movement skills. While she is the only support besides Lucio who has movement abilities, and for good reason, they're stunted. Her floating ability is really only good for Pharmercy. Guardian Angel is good for getting to people, but awful for getting away, as well as being reliant on your teammates. Her ultimate. It's good, but inferior to other support ultimates. Nano boost is amazing for pushes. Tranquility tanks through a ton of ults, and Sound Barrier through the rest. To tank through an ultimate with resurrection you need to Survive it Hope your team all died in the same place Hit the button before your enemies kill you Actually have your whole team be dead, or else the other 3 guys get killed while you were doing it and you wasted it.","conclusion":"Whether you enjoy playing as her or not, I do Overwatch's Mercy is unrewarding to play due to her own deficiencies, other characters, and the game's mechanics."}
{"id":"51d08f11-46d5-4be0-b5ea-f00de912389f","argument":"A living human organism develops through stages but is not biologically less or more a human organism at any stage. Some of the various stages are zygote, blastula, embryo, fetus, neonate, infant, adolescent, and adult.","conclusion":"Biology textbooks are consistent that the lifecycle of a genetically distinct human organism begins at conception."}
{"id":"e8fa061f-74ba-4ff6-94a5-4e70e25cd891","argument":"Social isolation, loss of family, and the inability to raise children or provide for family members while in prison contribute to the desire to prefer death by prisoners. pg. 7","conclusion":"It is kinder to allow individuals the option of death over a lifetime of torture in prison"}
{"id":"ba61aa8f-2772-4363-81a1-2dcef6648447","argument":"A God to allow evil majorly lacks compassion in which case is simply not worthy of praise.","conclusion":"The traditional monotheistic conception of God requires omnipotence, omnibenevolence, and omniscience."}
{"id":"7e52bf85-0ef7-414a-bc12-a21404d883df","argument":"In 2011 Iran established a program that guaranteed citizens cash payments of equivalent to third of the nation's median income. A report found no evidence for the hypothesis this unconditional income reduced the willingness to work.","conclusion":"UBI experiments and trials show that people do not tend to work less when given an unconditional income."}
{"id":"fc2c9239-c92e-4eae-b694-d8db0a0f60ad","argument":"Just for the record, I support patriotism and think it's great people show respect for the country. However, I find the Pledge to be cringy, unamerican and hypocritical. Why are kids in school pressured into pledging allegiance to the country? To the government? Think about the ideology behind the U.S.A. The people are not here to serve the government, the government is here to the serve the people. And while the above isn't entirely true today, the ideology still remains, it's one of the main ideas behind the U.S as a nation. Many say it's just words to show respect for the country. But it's completely missing the point, if the words have no meaning, then why does the government emphasize on saying the pledge so much? I think if any American wants to say the pledge, it's fine, but I think it needs to be changed so government officials and military pledge themselves to the people. Like it should be. I don't like the idea that schools do it every day and people are taught to look down on others who don't say the pledge. If anything the reason most say or even want to say the pledge is because they were taught to from an early age. Have a great Veterans day. And stay free gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The American Pledge of Allegiance is hypocritical and unamerican"}
{"id":"f496cacd-0f26-4359-a021-f3c8d4e92ed9","argument":"AIs are currently able to generate their own music; since no humans composed the music, legal precedents have been set to recognize the AI as the proper recipient of credit for the work.","conclusion":"There are already AI artists that receive their own credit for their creative works."}
{"id":"3a75938e-ac45-4687-94cc-5533b3f3a713","argument":"There should be national standards, and national system of accountability. Standardized tests go along way toward assuring a better educated nation.1 A national curriculum is needed to unify a population. According to E.D. Hirsch, there needs to be a core of shared knowledge for people to communicate with each other and with the increasing mobility of citizens, education needs consistency throughout a country.2 Local control often brings too much variation and diversity in curriculum. That curriculum may be designed to suit the religious, political or personal beliefs of only a certain group of citizens while excluding others.3 The fracturing of educational policy across localities which may be poorly or badly governed is a \u201crecipe for permanent inequality.\u201d4 National standards would set learning outcomes for all students wherever they were educated. The national certification of teachers would better insure the quality of teachers across a nation. Local control of teaching standards leads to too much variation in hiring and retaining teachers, thus diminishing the quality of the national teaching force. 1 Paige, Rod and Bennett, William. \u201cWhy we Need a National School Test.\u201d 2 Fermoyle, Dennis. \u201cShould Education be Nationalized?\u201d The Atlantic Monthly. 1 March 2008. 3 Whitson, Alex. \u201cAre local school boards Obsolete?\u201d Childhood Education, Vol. 74, #3, 1998. 4 Carey, Kevin. \u201cToxic Combination.\u201d","conclusion":"Educational goals and standards need to be set at the national level"}
{"id":"fa614c2c-5ba3-4722-8d7e-ae52ff120171","argument":"Specifically speaking, I feel that people cannot make unjustified actions. I find myself internally forced to rationalize the offensive actions of people. Every time, I find myself emphasizing with the perpetrator of the offense no matter how severe it may be. This especially disturbs me when it involves tragedies like mass shootings, since I cannot relate to people's desire to call the offenders monsters. To me, they're people who made the choice that they deemed justified given their circumstances. That internal realization disarms any disgust or animosity I feel towards the offenders. This view point has helped me in some ways though. As a teenager, I was bullied quite often. I understood that they were just trying to impress their friends or to cover up some internal pain they themselves felt. I never hated them when they made fun of me, because even though it did hurt, I knew they would feel better. I never developed a crippling hatred of these bullies, like my friends have for theirs. I don't find myself consumed with frustration when I find out that a bully, who treated me like shit and made me hate myself, is doing quite well in life. It's alienating for me. I want to genuinely commiserate with my friends and family about how it makes no sense that someone could do something horrific. Instead, I lie and mimic their emotions since I learned early on it's not socially wise to defend someone who is universally viewed as a monster. Please, change my views.","conclusion":"I believe that people can do no wrong."}
{"id":"6363e210-03f0-4109-b54d-20cb6c2cde07","argument":"I hold this view because Benatar's asymmetry Procreation creates existence of pain bad and existence of pleasure good . No procreation avoids the existence of pain good and avoids the existence of pleasure neutral . In the latter no one is being deprived of pleasure. Therefore, not procreating is preferable since neutral good is better than good bad and forcing this outcome life upon someone is immoral. The possibility of further procreation leading to extended environmental degradation. It isn't a loss if people are not bought into existence, because these people are not actually people. And are thus not being deprived of any pleasure. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Procreation is immoral."}
{"id":"d1e71377-d088-43ce-9ff8-a3dd8c262be9","argument":"The Senate rules in the US allow individual Senators to filibuster and take other actions potentially indefinitely to delay or prevent actions which they oppose. This allows a single Senator to protect minority interests against the majority. Pg 1","conclusion":"Most democratic systems have procedural safeguards when writing and enacting legislation which can protect the rights of minorities. These safeguards are often bypassed by a referendum."}
{"id":"7a9f14a4-dff2-4dd4-a3a8-0dc589f0a366","argument":"My central claim is this within different parts of society different rules on what is appropriate behavior and what isn't can vary. Within a group of close friends jokes can be totally fine, that would be inapproriate in say a work environment. Background I have a group of friends which is basicly 2 1 male female ratio. Within that group we started the discussion whether or not our group has a problem with sexism this discussion was prompted by the MeToo discussion . The group exists of about 30 study friends artificial intelligence, hence the 2 1 ratio . We are pretty vocal, discuss a lot of political issues and make a lot of jokes, some of which might be considered offensive. These jokes some somewhat sexist, some racist do not actually convey a certain preconception about these groups. They are clearly meant to tease. The MeToo discussion prompted us to check Hey is this okay? . My opinion is that when people feel safe enough to come forward, and say Hey, that joke behavior crossed the line , and their comments are taken seriously, the group will move towards a healthy equilibrium, where people can make jokes and people know what is okay and what isn't. I checked with the women in our group and they agreed with this point of view. They felt that when lines were crossed they could speak up and on occasion did so. I believe that as long as we keep an open discussion within our group about what is okay and what isn't that the rules of what is appropriate do not have to match that of wider society. I believe that within such a small group it is more healthy to let the group dynamics people speaking out when lines are crossed, people checking whether they are crossing lines and people actually changing their behavior when it is pointed out to them work, than to just take the moral code of larger society. Caveats I believe that the actual belief about difference of skills between men and women are irrelevant at best and plain wrong at worst. So for example joking about women being bad drivers is really wrong if the person actually believes it, and is really questionable when it is not common ground that this is not the case. Of course alternative rules of appropriateness go for interactions within our group. When our group interacts with people outside of our group we need to uphold the cultural rules of those groups. I believe that the communication needs to come from two sides. People who make possibly offensive jokes need to check if they are not crossing lines, by both checking nonverbal communication and straight up checking with people who might be offended. But it is sometimes necessary for people who feel a line has been crossed or maybe it is getting close to lines being crossed to speak up. Sometimes a person might feel burdened to speak up, for example on a party, but if enough people speak up enough times, others pick this up and the social rules propagate throughout the group. Speaking up does not have to be immediate or to the people concerning it directly, too. Caveat to the caveat I do not think someone who feels a line has been crossed is obliged to speak up. I think this works the best if the group is not too big people should be socially accountable and really open. Within the group different rules exist between different people too. So if some people are more sensitive the group should adjust in their presence. This is the same about other behaviors and jokes about socially sensitive subjects like race and body. I am not opposed to the MeToo movement although I think their message is ambiguous this is another discussion, though and am glad that the movement spurred the discussion within our group, so that we actually checked and discussed what we beforehand silently believed. I think it strengthened our group and made it easier to speak up or check the limits. since this question is about sexism, let me clarify I am not saying that good or logical that fewer women do computer science, but at the moment this is just the case and this translates into the composition of our group of friends. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Group dynamics can alter the appropriateness of intergender interactions like jokes"}
{"id":"4c5f1232-a547-4b24-9053-68befeafb784","argument":"Example for context my grandfather is in his late 80s and says something along the lines what is this country coming to? referring to the legality of gay marriage, or makes a less than PC comment about blacks in the neighborhood. Justification for ignoring said example I'd like to enjoy my remaining years with my loved one, and challenging his or her entrenched views is not a priority. They are, in my opinion, a product of another era, and are thus less amenable to change. Edit changed you and your in example to personal pronouns","conclusion":"I don't believe it is necessary to challenge an elderly person's racist or bigoted views."}
{"id":"dc91ae63-a6fe-4e94-902a-bbd16e773e71","argument":"Personally, I believe Arcade Fire to be just one of the worst things that have happened to music, and to be terrible in their own right. However, they've struck it big. I don't know how. Their music is repetitive, lyrics even when uplifting come across and whiny and annoying. They seem to be to the a musical equivalent of an emo kid in the early 00's screaming WE ARE UNIQUE. PLEASE LISTEN TO US. OUR MUSIC IS AS DEEP AS OUR SOULS. I've tried and tried to like them, and I'm just not biting into their flavour I dislike both their music, and really don't understand the hype around them I have listened to the entire Funeral , Suburbs , Reflektor albums, and Black Mirror and Keep the Car Running from Neon Bible Please, . Edited with more information","conclusion":"I think Arcade Fire is one of the worst bands that have hit it big."}
{"id":"405ba656-a2af-449e-a7fe-6314e49182c6","argument":"Many people use tone of voice and body language to invoke feelings in a debate. People who're less competent at this are therefore unfairly punished.","conclusion":"Excluding profanity in debate would allow those who prefer other means of invoking emotions through their arguments to gain an unfair advantage."}
{"id":"34eed79a-1b26-436b-a1c0-c19b100e230d","argument":"Sophisticated AI systems use a process called deep learning, which is very similar to that of our own brains. It can be used to create consciousness, as that's what our brains use for it. Just like humans, to get from the ground level up to consciousness, time and more layers will need to develop. However, once it's at the human level, it'll possibly reach consciousness then.","conclusion":"The processing abilities of AI are not unlike those that take place in human brains. So if we know how to replicate processing capabilities, then it may be possible with consciousness too one day."}
{"id":"f1c45cd0-0103-4870-9c36-f4266991389d","argument":"Intellectual property rights are extremely important in the efficient and equitable allocation of ideas to firms and individuals1. The ability to sell intellectual property rights allows the price mechanism to assign ownership to the firms most likely to make a profit, and that are thus most likely to produce the product most efficiently, which will benefit all consumers. Furthermore, the ability to confer intellectual property rights on others is important, as often intellectual property, like licensing and patents, can support inventors' and artists' families after they are incapacitated or die. This is no different from the fact that ownership of physical property can be conferred for the betterment of dependents and family. It is only just that intellectual property be recognized and protected by law, so that it may be efficiently and fairly sold and transferred between parties.","conclusion":"The salable and conferrable nature of intellectual property allows for the efficient and just distribution of ideas"}
{"id":"905bfdb3-f445-499f-bf7a-ca12670d665b","argument":"Title mostly says it all. I'm a bit sick and tired of being told to go back to Stormfront when I bring up issues with certain cultures and religions. I would welcome someone to challenge my view that being critical against or disliking any culture or religion is any different than feeling the same towards members of any other group, such as anime fans, scifi fans, stamp collectors, football players, etc. It should be just as acceptable to be critical of someone for being a fan of crappy sports team as it is to make fun of them for participating in a particular culture.","conclusion":"Culture is a choice, race is not. Disliking or being prejudice against the beliefs and ideals of a culture is no different than being prejudice against SciFi, Anime or stamp collectors."}
{"id":"5f49c555-cc81-4f01-8917-2f86fb694895","argument":"I sure haven\u2019t felt it. Am I depressed? Yes, of course. Am I self centered? Well Hell Yes What addict isn\u2019t? They are the center of their universe My name is John and I am an alcoholic. I am 49 years old and I have been addicted to other drugs as well. Cigarettes and cocaine were the hardest to let go of. I\u2019ve never done heroin thank God. Pain killers yes, but no needle. Nothing compares to alcohol for this one. I\u2019ve been addicted to alcohol since my first drink at around the age of 14. After all these years I find it amazing that I am still alive. I have been known to consume two fifths 1500ml of Smirnoff Vodka every 24 hours for up to 5 days in a row. That\u2019s what I call a binge. Coming out of that is unimaginable hell. Unimaginable. Vomiting, uncontrollable shakes, sweats, pure liquid diarrhea for days. No appetite. Every single cell in my body at the individual level screams out in pain. No sleep. No mercy. Just sweat and pain for at the very least two days. I sober up for several days, and all to often start all over. I had break recently. I work for a Government contractor and have a security clearance believe it or not. It was July of 2011 and things got so bad, and I was missing so much work that I had to do something. I went to our EAP Employee Assistance Program and confessed that I needed help. As it turned out, that was the equivalent of career suicide. I was given the phone number of two local entities of whom I could seek treatment from and was given the statement \u201cdon\u2019t be too confident about staying sober\u201d. I was stunned when I heard that. I was told that by a PhD Psychologist. Can you imagine that? That penetrated my soul to the core. My clearance was pulled for 15 months as I went through rigorous outpatient therapy. During that 15 months, I very nearly lost my job of 20 years. The company tried hard to fire me or get me to quit, even though I had self reported and asked for help. I have never had a DWI, nor have I ever been arrested. I was always a very good employee save for absenteeism. In the long run I was saved by the compassion of two managers who believed in me. Bless their hearts. It was very difficult and I was sober for well over a year. Mind you, this was the third time in my life I had seriously attempted recovery. The first was in 1980, the second in 2000. Neither was successful for more than a year. During that 15 months without a clearance, I was dating a gal who was a manager where I worked. not my manager She and I got along very well, except that she had very little sympathy for my situation as well, just like our company. I struggled to understand that. Although I didn\u2019t demand it, I could have used a little. We eventually broke up due to reasons unrelated to my problem, but I never forgot that. Living alone, I eventually started drinking again. But I have never told a soul. So today I live a lie. I have lied to everyone I know. I tell them I am still sober. I have lied to my mom and dad, my brother and sister, my children, by friends and co workers. I\u2019m not drinking as heavily as I used to, but it\u2019s just a matter of time, and it\u2019s taking a toll on my health. I expect to die from this. I lie because I know if I come forward again it is nearly certain that I will lose my job. I\u2019m not prepared for that. I don\u2019t know where I am going with this. Writing helps me think. Sometimes I answer my own questions. I think I\u2019ve done so now. When we get right down to the core of the problem, I guess there is really no one who can fix me, except for myself, and I\u2019m not sure I\u2019m up to it. I love my children and my two cats. Not much else. I am Agnostic. I am a deep soul. Anyway, it has been my experience that people typically have little compassion for the alcoholic or addict until they are dead. Change my view.","conclusion":"People have little compassion for the alcoholic or addict until they are dead."}
{"id":"39f38c55-c874-49e7-85ac-918492e691a5","argument":"Yokishuni Igarashi needs library access has suggested that the bomb was necessary for the Emperor to intervene as a *symbolic* \"hero of Japan,\" which gave him the legitimacy i.e. political capital to overrule the military government and bring a mostly-full surrender to the table. And, to be clear, the Emperor *did* retain his seat.","conclusion":"The Emperor became convinced of arguments forwarded by the surrender side."}
{"id":"1fdcc3fd-b553-4c10-8481-c483d5f13ba3","argument":"The Vietcong which fought against American invasion during the Vietnamese war, was full of armed peasants.","conclusion":"The right to bear arms helps to repel foreign invasion or occupation."}
{"id":"885a23ab-9b9b-4a35-91c2-1fc5b49a324b","argument":"Hey yo, . Thought I'd submit this post because it's something that has been bugging me a bit since going to a concert in October. It's the obnoxious amount of phones I see being pulled out and held up forever because ravenous fans decide to record entire songs on their phones or ipads that takes a special kind of audacity . Overall, I do sincerely believe this is an incredibly stupid thing to do. 1 No matter how good the camera on your phone or hand held device, the quality will be garbage. You really think those speakers of yours will pick up the awesomeness of the moment or sound? Even in HD, the videos uploaded are garbage and both eye and ear sores. I liked that song, but not when it sounds like that 2 It's obnoxious to other concert goers. Yes, if the venue doesn't ban them, you are free to do it. But in exercising your freedom, you are imposing on the freedom of others. We as fans paid good money for tickets to see our favorite musicians show us a good time and entertain us. I didn't pay to see some jackasses hold up a rectangles. I sure as hell didn't pay to see the artist through your damn lens either. 3 This one is more anticipatory for a possible counter argument of there was no other way for people to see it. Guess what? If you didn't pay the dough, know about the gig, or couldn't catch it, you're not automatically entitled to seeing it. You're not the first person to miss an event, and you surely won't be the last.","conclusion":"I think recording concerts on your phone or Ipad is stupid, inconvenient, and a waste of time. Pictures? Sure, but because they only take a second."}
{"id":"ce295479-18a8-4a02-bfba-eac33bb4971c","argument":"Internal biases will promote those whose opinions are agreed with most, not those who are most balanced or objective.","conclusion":"Reputation and trust are necessary to provide context which becomes more difficult as the number of participants increases."}
{"id":"a9201889-8e95-4a71-90ab-1764e7cd1b80","argument":"A perfect example is the Women's March held shortly after President Trump's election and again in 2018. Participants' reasons for marching varied wildly, with some protesting the defunding of Planned Parenthood, others unequal pay, some for the environment, and even a \"Handmaid's Tale\" group hoping to prevent fiction from becoming reality.","conclusion":"Many of these protests and marches did not have a coherent cause or goal, causing these women to come together for a variety of reasons that are not unified."}
{"id":"06acfcf8-90e2-49f4-ac87-0b4906885fad","argument":"What's so wrong about it? The water washes it away along with soap scum from your body and it saves time. It's not pee is toxic is it? .","conclusion":"I think it's ok to pee in the shower"}
{"id":"cd14481b-746e-4f61-b2b5-7fb7e51962e4","argument":"I hold this opinion for several reasons. First of all you have to sit too close to a large screen to take full advantage of the increase in resolution over 1080P. This vastly increases your horizontal viewing angle which will negatively impact your ability to see the entire movie or play a console game effectively. So ok, lets say you really like your nose up to the screen, that presents another problem, most living rooms are not setup to accommodate a TV that big or to sit that closely. There's a reason why 4K TVs are moving into the 85 range, because the average viewing distance of most people barely takes full advantage of most of the 1080p tvs in people's houses right now. Furthermore, to go to 4K you have to dump your plasma in favor of arguably inferior LCD LED technology that fails to produce effective black levels for the most part in comparison. The only technology on the horizon that can beat plasma in black levels is OLED. So we need a 85 OLED 4K TV to sit a comfortable 11 feet away, and that's going to be pricey and isn't even available yet. And that's saying nothing of the problem of upscaling older content that's likely to stay in 1080p for a considerable period of time. Upscaling that 1080p blu ray, PS4 which is already being upscaled to 1080P , or satellite image is going to make the picture blurry and inferior to a true 1 1 1080P image under the exact same conditions. In conclusion, 4K isn't ready for prime time, and likely won't be for at least another 5 10 years. The proper seating distance for a modern 1080P TV is about 1.6 times the diagonal length of the screen based on my research. I don't know what the comparable distance is exactly for 4K guessing 1.0 1.1x since it's double the horizontal resolution , but the technical limitations are not going to accommodate most people. If you're looking to improve your AV experience most people would be vastly better served by getting a decent audio system for under 1K.","conclusion":"4K TV is largely a useless technological advancement that's not even close to being ready for widespread adoption by AV geeks and certainly not the average consumer"}
{"id":"67fcc093-7bcf-4682-88de-8ebb990f21a2","argument":"Due to the variety of languages, common media are difficult to establish; a well-working media scene as fourth estate is crucial for a healthy democracy.","conclusion":"The language difference will always stop the realizing of the USE."}
{"id":"b4f523b6-f233-40af-b02a-97a4045e92e5","argument":"This idea has probably been around as long as people have existed but I think it is flawed. I do not think that simply by existing I have somehow chosen sides on any number of topics or issues of which I am or am not aware. In my experience, this type of thinking is used to persuade someone to actively join a cause through guilt You are part of the system, so if you aren't working to right the inherent wrongs, you are part of the problem but I think it often has the unintended effect of reinforcing ingroup vs. outgroup psychology by alienating people and telling them they have done something wrong. Common examples include race and gender issues. This tends to have some shades of moral or philosophical implications with regards to things that you should do. In my opinion, I have no obligation to actively effect change for any cause, even if it is tangentially related to me e.g. I don't have to protest a war that may be unjust simply because my country is involved, I don't have to fight against discrimination that doesn't apply to me, etc. . I use extreme examples to underscore the point that those things do not directly affect me. I did not cause them, support them, or actively contribute to them. I am obligated not to actively engage in things that are wrong, but that is a separate topic. Change my view that it is possible to sit on the sidelines for things that don't affect me without being a detractor. EDIT As it has been pointed out, there are plenty of examples of when a choice is truly binary, and non participation is not an option. This is not what I was referring to. I specifically had in mind instances when it is applied in systematic social problems that don't fall neatly into a binary choice not limited to those I listed, but I tried to choose examples which would illustrate clearly instances of when this logic might be applied . Also, as noted non action is not the same as non participation , and in some circumstances non action is clearly a choice supporting one side of the issue. My description was not meant to limit the scope of the topic, but to give context to times when I have experienced this type of thinking. The context may or may not be helpful depending on your experiences.","conclusion":"\"If you aren't with us, you're against us\" is an unhealthy and incorrect mentality; passive non-participation is not the same as opposition."}
{"id":"118fd4c2-7027-49ce-ad41-c1028bbb39d4","argument":"Not all citizens have the right to vote. Only trusted members of society have a right to vote. Indeed, minors are not yet fully trusted members of society, given that they are not yet mature enough. This is why they can't vote. With this precedent in mind, it is appropriate to conclude that prisoners should also not be able to vote. They have demonstrated that they are not responsible enough to vote. If this was deemed unreasonable, we would really have to re-do the voting age.","conclusion":"If minors have no right to vote neither should prisoners"}
{"id":"2cefb49f-06c6-49a8-9c15-51514c699665","argument":"Once the rest of the world becomes aware of the massive technological opportunities in Wakanda - and the massive potential benefit of having exclusive access to that technology - other countries will be incentivised to invade Wakanda and claim the technology for themselves.","conclusion":"By opening itself up to the world, Wakanda risks exposing its knowledge to the world and will become a target for everyone."}
{"id":"c713f622-797a-4a0b-89a0-566c4a32aa61","argument":"Feminism is also working for men to become equal in certain aspects in which they are not, such as in paternal leave","conclusion":"Feminist politicians have fought for male parental leave, in Scandinavian countries"}
{"id":"9c2b4f88-258c-4c96-ab7c-3be6e78a7d00","argument":"The concept in operation here is post traumatic growth which is descriptive of positive life changes after world shattering events but the question then becomes, is the permanent change in baseline real or illusory? . I have been abused and hold that the experience has forced me to deepen my understanding of myself so as to survive. I have difficulty understanding the perspectives of people who have not had their worldview shattered and rebuilt before. How do they know who they are or what they want to do? Can you get deep intellectual inquiry into yourself, the nature of reality, and the nature of identity without psychological pain to motivate it? Ultimately, though, this feels like a piece of cached Deep Wisdom and I have no idea where I got it from.","conclusion":"I apparently have an unexamined assumption that tragedy and adversity are necessary to deepen experience of life and create wisdom."}
{"id":"ab867dcf-3f88-4f8d-bb7e-8eda47006d23","argument":"Pence was the author of a compromise proposal to end the partial government shut-down over funding for the border wall.","conclusion":"Pence has shown that he is willing to work with Democrats and to compromise to bring about solutions."}
{"id":"6153cf8a-4406-4c2f-858a-862c3c893294","argument":"I'm from the US and I believe it is wrong that members of certain demographic groups get special treatment under the law because their group has a history of being oppressed. I believe that the government should treat all individuals equally regardless of religion, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, gender, or sex. For example, I think that admission standards to the military should be the same for men and women. I don't think there should be government funded scholarships for people of a specific race or gender or religion. I think it's wrong to grant a government contract to a company because of the race of that company's owner. In the US, discrimination based on group membership seems to be acceptable as long as that group has a history of being oppressed. For example, a government benefit for men only would be unacceptable, as men don't have that history of oppression, but a benefit for women only is more acceptable, because they do have that history of oppression. This leads to a peculiar phenomenon, where a group wants special rights or privileges, and proceeds to try and convince others of how oppressed they are in order to get them. I think that the only way to have a fair and equal society, is to stop giving people special treatment for the group memberships, not to try and balance it out by giving special rights to those whose ancestors were oppressed. A person should be treated as an individual, and not as a representative of race, gender, region, or whatever other grouping the person belongs to. I know there are whole branches of philosophy devoted to a different perspective, so please, change my view EDIT From the discussion, it seems that my main argument is that discriminating against an individual because of their gender, race or ethnicity, is wrong regardless of the relative power dynamics of between groups. To change my view, I'd need to be convinced either That racial, ethnic, and gendered discrimination is morally okay or That inequality between groups itself justifies discrimination against an individual based on their gender, race, or ethnicity. EDIT Putting boring parts back Really guys, why am I getting downvoted? Like I said I want to be a good member of this community, If I'm breaking community rules or norms let me know. I can't even tell which comments you guys are downvoting, so how can I correct?","conclusion":"I think it's wrong that people get special treatment under the law for being a member of an \"oppressed\" group."}
{"id":"3f1f0438-de21-4203-9436-e7eb00e8ecc7","argument":"Without the existence of North Korea, the US will have no clear reason to stay in Korea. This will either result in the end of the US-Korea alliance or the reorientation of the alliance against China, both of which will put pressure on the US-Korea relationship.","conclusion":"Relations between a united Korea and the United States will likely suffer."}
{"id":"c9dbc117-2557-4ca9-ad6d-362b9ada6814","argument":"One of the common positions I hear in defense of less regulation is that the free market will correct or fix itself. While I think this is true in certain circumstances, I don't see how it can fix all of the problems that stem for deregulation. Let's get into a couple of specific issues I see. The first issue I see is consolidation and monopolization. So, it just makes good business sense to eliminate competition. If you're the only one selling a product or service, people have to go through you, so it is in the direct benefit of any individual company to suppress competition wherever possible. This can be as simple quotations because the actual process isn't simple at all as bringing more independent brands and corporations under one umbrella and it can be as vicious as a full hostile takeover of a publicly traded company against its will. It seems to me that rather than this kind of consolidation and monopolization being the actions of a few that abuse the system, but rather that it is the natural consequence of natural rules of the free market. Here is a ted talk on this idea of the global market as an emergent system a system that displays behavior independently of its constituent parts and how that emergent behavior is towards greater centralization of control of the market which is bad for competition and bad for the consumer. Furthermore here is an infographic that shows just how many common brands that many would expect to be in competition are actually just examples of parallel marketing a singular company selling multiple similar products with similar target demographics to maximize profit towards said singular company . An historical example of this would be the late 19th century in the United States, where monopolization and consolidation became so detrimental to the well being of the populace that the government was force to act. Remember Teddy Roosevelt's populist nickname The Trust Buster . Trust was an old timey term for monopoly or super conglomerate and Teddy Roosevelt earned the hearts of the people by breaking them up. My second issue comes from the idea of artificial scarcity. The United States throws away half of the food it produces. In 2010 there six million homeless persons in the US and 18 million unoccupied homes. The free market is and please correct me if this is a mistaken or overly simplified notion dependent on the law of supply and demand and scarcity. Where I see an issue is that in the most developed countries is that technological advancement has rendered the scarcity of certain goods a moot point. This of course isn't entirely true globally, but even then there's a bit of a hairy issue in that in certain developed nations farmers are paid to not work the entirety of their available lands and these regulations were established at the heavy lobbying of food conglomerates to preserve the food markets I'll get to interference in government by market forces later . So it seems to me, that rather than realizing the goal of organized society, where individuals wouldn't have to worry about their basic needs and would be free to pursue independent interests, market forces are keeping certain essentials of life artificially scarce to generate higher profit, to the detriment of all. A less overly dramatic example of this would be diamonds. Diamonds mining and production is entirely controlled by a very select few persons who individually control the supply of those diamonds. The result is, this group of individuals has kept diamonds artificially scarce, whereas if diamonds were sold on the basis of the actual global supply, they would be significantly cheaper. The fact that this selective group controls diamond production is a relic of violent Western imperialism, while related, is a separate discussion here. Third, I don't think the free market is capable of correcting market influence in the political sphere. Going back to my example of farmers being paid to not work some of their lands. This was not done with the goal of preserving and conserving farmland but was done to preserve the status quo of food markets. It's also been noted that if the developed world were to actually send all the food we could to starving populations, it would collapse their local agrarian economies, which would be bad. Now rather than seeing this as undue interference by the government in the free market, I rather see this as a natural consequence of the free market itself. As conglomerates and, let's call them interested parties gain more economic power, they also gain more political power. Politics is an extension of economics by other means after all. Power, simple power, is decided by those that can control the flow of material goods, and that's all that power really is. The free market through the aforementioned processes of consolidation and monopolization consolidates this kind of power economic power . As this power grows, these groups influence the political process more and more. Now I understand this is a tricky point, because the obvious criticism of this is, well that's interference in the free market which, to be completely fair is true, but this seems like a case of the free market interfering with itself, or, another natural consequence of an unregulated market. Eventually economically powerful conglomerates will begin to influence policy decisions in their favor. In other words, the natural tendency of the free market, is to subvert the free market and skew economic policy in favor of those already economically powerful. The only possible correction for this is preemptive regulation to deny those already economically powerful. In other words, paradoxically, the only way to preserve the free market, is to regulate the free market. My final point is that I don't think the free market is capable of adequately combating poverty and poverty related ills. Now, it is absolutely and incontrovertibly true that capitalism and the free market has raised the global standard of living far more than any method of socio economic organization before or since, I will never argue otherwise. This however does not mean that poverty and deplorable, inhuman living conditions do not still exist. I also don't think that the free market has any interest in fixing this problem, and furthermore is incapable of dealing with the problem in it's entirety. A simple argument would be drug patents. On the one hand, a biomedical corporation has every right to profit off of it's own idea that it spent money developing. On the other hand, this allows drug companies to charge excessive amounts that make treatment options cost prohibitive to those in substandard living conditions. I would also say that patent regulations are a form of market regulation and in a true laissez faire fare system a company would be completely free to reproduce a drug, but I digress. Furthermore, independent charities are not by themselves enough to combat poverty. One of the main reason many wealthy conglomerates and individuals give to private charities is because there is a tax incentive to do so. Essentially the government says you're doing pretty damn well for yourself, I think we're gonna tax you a bit unless you give something back . Which as far as I'm concerned, is a completely fair position. So to wrap up holy fuck, this is way too long , what I'm looking for is the perspective of the other side. Most of the arguments for why regulation is bad or harmful stem from an ideological position that has little support in empirical observation and evidence. What I don't want is regulation would be socialism that's bad . I'm posting here because I want to comprehend and understand the other side better. I have encountered very few arguments that don't come from an ideological position, or use some ideological boogeyman as a scare tactic as opposed to historical evidence and data sets. I also don't want to see arguments akin to well of course some regulation is necessary, but we regulate too much because I think that's half agreeing with me and half going off on a different tangent. I have my own personal reasons for not being the biggest fan of free market capitalism, but that is not the discussion I'm looking to have. My goals are simple, I want to see, understand, and comprehend the other side from a view point based in data and evidence as all I've seen to date is ideological conjecture and hypothesis. If you can show through empirical examples and evidence that the free market is capable of solving the aforementioned problems without state intervention, I would consider my view sufficiently changed, even if you fail to convince me of the general position that the free market is the cat's pajamas, bee's knees, or whatever outdated colloquialism you choose to use. Edit The delta went to u NoMoreNicksLeft for his timescale argument. The gist of it is that the free market will eventually sort out its own problems a corrupt system collapses under it's own weight eventually, even the most corrupt individuals eventually die etc etc but that can just take a really long time to happen. As I don't believe any social power structure is capable of lasting forever, I am forced to begrudgingly agree.","conclusion":"I don't believe that arguments supporting the idea that the free market can fix its own problems monopolization, artificial scarcity, etc. are generated from an ideological and hypothetical position, not one rooted in data, evidence and fact."}
{"id":"90e57572-bf87-4dac-82cc-e9c69d1e8935","argument":"Despite predictions of religions' demise in the last centuries, most humans in the world are still religious and religions have been growing and mutating at a quick pace Norenzayan, p. 2","conclusion":"If religion were not a good thing for humankind, we would've abandoned it a long time ago."}
{"id":"06c867d8-9e01-47e1-900c-80f7c8efe4dd","argument":"This view pertains specifically to comments. The reason being that if you're going to the comment section, you are looking for discourse, and not just quality content, and I believe anonymous downvoting reduces discourse. I'm going into this with the assumption that being downvoted influences other users' view on your post. People tend to view downvoted comments more negatively than highly upvoted comments generally. Obviously you can view a downvoted post positively and an upvoted post negatively, but you tend to see a downvoted post and think well there's probably something wrong with this . Also, downvoting a post hides the visibility of that post. Overall, the assumption I'm going with here is that it's a bad thing meant for truly bad and or offtopic comments, which I believe is fair. I think we all know the feeling you leave a comment that you believe to be relevant, well reasoned and completely civil, and you are met with a hand full of downvotes and no idea why. In this situation, one can assume it's because the voters disagree with what you're saying but are either A too apathetic to rebut. In which case, I don't believe they should have the power to hide your argument from others, or influence others' views about your post see my assumptions . or B do not have an actual argument to put forth, and are just going with a gut reaction to your post, in which case they absolutely shouldn't have the power to hide your post from others, right? I believe, to make things clear for the OP, downvoters should be required to leave a response to the comment, similar to how this subreddit requires a post explaining how you had your view changed when you submit a delta. This would lead to more discourse, and not leave any poster feeling short changed and reluctant to voicing their opinions. Also, it would force the downvoter to really think about why they're downvoting someone, which might make them reconsider their initial reaction. For spam or objectively terrible posts, there is a report function. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"You should not be able to downvote a comment without leaving a response to said comment."}
{"id":"45656fbc-bd20-4f0d-9276-944f8f31be5b","argument":"Related to the debate on trans people generally MtF in women's bathrooms the vast majority of people seem to be in agreement that trans people should be permitted to use the restroom for the gender they identify as. Target for instance has said that employees and customers will be encouraged to use the restroom that \u201ccorresponds with their gender identity.\u201d I guess my point is restricting trans people down to people dressed as women would be another form of discrimination against them. Is anyone turning away women in tshirts and jeans from restrooms for not meeting the dress code? If not then why would a trans person who is not wearing makeup and walking around in a tshirt and jeans be any different? One person I spoke with brought up breast implants but again breasts seems like a silly requirement to use a restroom. If genital is irrelevant then wouldn't breasts also be irrelevant? Further more, even many trans people who would prefer breasts haven't yet taken the plunge for surgery and may not even have the funds if they were ready to such an operation. Further more, women attracted to women still use the womens restroom right? If a trans person is bisexual or gay there would be no legal means of telling them not to use the women's restroom. Some people will say that slippery slope argument is such BS but why? If gender is not defined by genitalia then why would it be defined by a dress code, breasts, or sexual preference? In theory it should be completely legal then for MtF transvestite that is dressed and looks almost completely traditionally male and is attracted to women to use the women's restroom if that's the identity they are comfortable with right? Is't their identity chosen by them and them alone? Having some other person determine their gender identity for them based on some other factor just seems like another means of discrimination. If a straight male used a women's restroom because that's the identity they feel comfortable with then it should be completely legal shouldn't it? Wouldn't it be wrong and discriminatory to disagree with the persons stated gender identity? It seems like the only legally enforceable alternative to separating restrooms based on genitala of the individuals is to just let everyone use what ever room they want to use.","conclusion":"Related to trans bathrooms, if gender isn't defined by genitalia then it isn't defined by dress code or sexual preference either."}
{"id":"81fc1e11-00e9-4dd3-add2-4dd86fdfd52a","argument":"It has been argued that gender is something we 'do' and the way we do gender is actively constructed through social interactions and gender scripts.","conclusion":"Gender the concept of masculinity and femininity is a social construct."}
{"id":"179f3600-d422-417e-b110-3dbd15304636","argument":"Adding a new bureaucratic layer should be avoided. Adding new needs creates new layers of bureaucracy.","conclusion":"Creates a need to monitor all the activities of politicians."}
{"id":"cd1b387a-012d-4d8c-a992-4b5d2c88d73a","argument":"I just don't see the point. The whole system we've established seems fine to me and the hassle of switching isn't something that is easy to deal with. The only arguments I've seen is that we are being forced by the other countries. If the units can easily be converted, then I don't see the point in having the country not just stay the way we've been for 200 years. The metric system doesn't seem to be all the hype it's given. If you're from a different country, please explain why you like having metric. I'd gladly accept anyone who can . EDIT Can I get some hard, solid knowledge and evidence from esteemed people on here? All these ideas are pretty anecdotal.","conclusion":"I believe the United States ought not to switch over to the metric system."}
{"id":"44996399-97cd-4a80-ba1d-a6444667bb05","argument":"Veterans day celebrations often have a part where honored veterans recount how they helped destroy enemy ships, planes, tanks, etc. While this in itself is to be expected, they often forget how the people killed in those situations were also just soldiers doing their service. Usually in these events, a sentence like We then shot a torpedo and sunk that damn cruiser We killed more than a 1,000 damn japs is followed by cheering and laughter. I agree we should celebrate the return of these veterans after doing their part to help our nation, but celebrating the death of other people also doing their duty is just wrong. I've stopped attending these events because I can't help but feel sick whenever something like this happens, and I'd really like to be able to participate in my community, so help me understand why it's not such a bad thing. Please note that I'm not saying that enemy soldiers are innocent. I'm aware that war is war and sometimes these enemies were defending some pretty awful things. I just don't think that we should celebrate mass deaths so gleefully. Edit forgot to mention something","conclusion":"Veterans day celebrations concentrate too much on how other people were killed and undervalue the enemy lives lost"}
{"id":"c94a9e04-97ba-4497-8d29-931b3fec625a","argument":"For the past few months I have been looking into appendix carry as a new option for conceal and carry. I've looked into various choices for a compact duty medium sized frame pistols on the market and have found that far to many of them lack any safety I am comfortable with carrying. I personally like to carry my M P Shield with a thumb safety as my EDC choice. I also have a M P Bodyguard as a lighter choice. My issue lies in that if I am going to be appendix carrying, with a loaded firearm holstered and pointing potentially at my major arteries or neither region I need to know the firearm cant discharge on accident by some fluke internal failure. I see striker fire pistols without a manual safety like carrying a pistol in single action without the safety on. I stand by the notion that modern pistols don't fire without intention or human error negligence however I don't trust the idea of a firearm potentially pointed at me while carrying it. I trust carrying a hammer fired pistol with the hammer down, and a striker fired pistol with the safety on. I don't trust that a firing pin block and a trigger safety bumper is safe enough. With a manual safety I know the gun cannot fire as the trigger becomes locked internally. To outline what will change my view is actual numbers, facts that show that striker fired pistols are just as safe as SA DA hammer fired pistols, or that the failure rate is statistically not a problem. Change My View. I'd like to believe that striker fire pistols w o a manual safety are safe, I just don't. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Trigger Safety's aren't Safe Enough"}
{"id":"6586d459-8220-46b2-835a-123254d5d280","argument":"It has been estimated that only about 5% of women in developing countries have been screened for cervical dysplasia in the past 5 years, compared with 40% to 50% of women in developed countries.","conclusion":"80% of cervical cancer cases occur in the developing world where the resources and infrastructure required to fully implement Pap tests are limited."}
{"id":"3aba4ee4-2660-4778-b149-c984c0714e4c","argument":"The norm established that nuclear weapons shall only be used as a deterrent has been one of the most important achievements towards peace, human rights, and the stability of this planet from the threat of mutually assured destruction. Even still, nuclear weapons posses the 1 existential threat to the survival of humanity, and the risk itself has not been muted. If anything it has increased, being at its highest levels, at least according to former pentagon director analysis of the situation. 1 I believe that the U.S. would set a terrible precedent if it begins to threaten the use of nuclear weapons in order to get its way in international relations. As the most powerful nation in the world, such threats would set a dangerous precedent, which would be bad for all nations all throughout the world, including the U.S., as it would make such threats more likely to occur, as well as making easing the way for the use of nuclear weapons as an offensive weapon. Such a slippery slope cannot be risked, and the advantages gained from these threats would be offset by increased risk of an existential species crises. Any such advantage gained can be just as readily gained through the use of conventional forces and conventional weapon build up, if that is what a nation decides to do. All in all, my conclusion is that nuclear weapons should remain a deterrent weapon, that we should work to secure nuclear weapons so that they do not fall into the hands of non state actors which would make their usage more likely, that the world should do everything it can to secure its nuclear weapons from cyber attacks, and that we should continue to maintain non use of nuclear weapons as an offensive weapon, even with regards to threats or leaked private meetings. The danger and increased risk is not worth the potential benefits of increased leverage among other nations, when a similar leverage may be gained through non nuclear means, by increasing troop readiness, increasing military spending, etc. Thank you for reading.","conclusion":"Nuclear weapons should remain a defensive weapon, only to be used as a deterrent to existential threats facing any nation."}
{"id":"f32b1fd0-4f81-41dd-b3de-da25bd603ad6","argument":"Better yet, an orbital ring would require less ground travel to the orbital ring, as it is just \"up\" instead of \"out\". This saves on resources and preparation needed to get to a space elevator.","conclusion":"An orbital ring spreads around the globe, which gives the global population more access than a space elevator."}
{"id":"21d04566-74aa-467b-9678-c9c6612c7bd3","argument":"This comes from Pastor James McDonald of Harvest Bible Chapel in Rolling Meadows, Illinois, and as the Bible teacher for his broadcast ministry, Walk in the Word.\"Repentance is simpler where restitution is possible. Fertile soil for forgiveness. facebook.com","conclusion":"Should we forgive those who don't regret hurting us?"}
{"id":"1555eb8b-2133-41b9-946d-8b23edc3de77","argument":"So I almost thought about removing the portion about Reverse Racism and Sexism because of how politically incorrect it was to refer to the concept. But, yes I believe of people of any race or sexual identity can be racist or sexist against any other race or sexual identity even their own or the ones traditionally held to be a majority, yes even if they are a minority. All in all I believe Diversity to be a net gain, but I do believe there are some issues worth addressing. This post was set off by some fan reaction to the release of Sigma in Overwatch a game I have not even played in years. Overwatch will be jumping point for how representation is handled and responded to in most media and how the dialogue between minorities and the majority seems to be. This fan reaction made it\u2019s way to me without me looking for it and I am unsure how widespread it is. I have a link to an article from a popular website however. IN regards to comments about the treatment of Sigma\u2019s mental illness, I will abstain from critiquing the writer, I do not have or do not know anyone with moderate or severe mental illness, nor am I trained in such matters. That being said this post and a multitude of tweets I\u2019d rather not have to hunt down for this, all share the critique Sigma is just another white male character. While this is factually true, it seems to be a complaint of the character, which I believe is sexist and racist. I believe we would all agree that people complaining about another black female character would be racist and sexist. I don\u2019t love Sigma or particularly love this game but I think judging him based solely on his race and sex is very demeaning and reductive. He probably is meant to be the villain with good still inside of him, that would go unnoticed and unflamed in another game, but because Overwatch has become the poster child of video game Diversity a fuss I am quite unsure how large has been made. Did Blizzard botch mental illness, probably maybe I don\u2019t know. I don\u2019t think that is the main issue here, I think the main issue here is hypocrisy, selfishness, narrow mindedness, tokenism, and delusion of the people offended by this situation in this game and in almost every other form of media. Sigma is the fifth white male character in the game. Considering there are three ethnicities and even if you count Hispanic as one I am Hispanic btw and since all the organic characters appear to be officially cis last I checked 31 divided by four and divided by two is around 4. This does make white male characters above an \u201cequal\u201d distribution of identity by about one but look at this, there are seven white female characters counting Widowmaker. I know some proponents? of colorism will disagree with that but in either case she is Caucasian and appears as such in some of her costumes. That sure is something there, wonder if that decision has anything to do with the demographics playing the game. In truth, the inclusion of robotic and animal heroes makes the distributions for the white characters even more egregious, but it makes the white female characters much worse. And now even I have do some analytics and talk about how many white and black and Asian tokens this game has to pass par. I don\u2019t like it, I don\u2019t like having to tell you I am Hispanic so you don\u2019t attribute every thought I have to entitlement and insular thinking, which is also kind of racist btw. The post I linked and other tweets decry that there is not any \u201cblack female\u201d characters in the game. Despite Eifi building Orisa, and there being two female Egyptian characters. Perhaps Black is in the eye of the beholder, is Sigma a a poor character simply because he is not \u201cinsert identity you would like to see\u201d. Is a character good because they are \u201cinsert identity you would like to see\u201d? Isn\u2019t Blizzard still trying to tell a story and not click boxes off a sheet. It\u2019s good that game or any form of media is willing to include characters that would traditionally be included before, but quotas devalue people. My point is I don\u2019t like people \u201creduced\u201d to their sexual and racial identities. Doing so approaches sexism and racism and other forms of bigotry. A character should be good based on their intrinsic qualities, their motivation, their eccentricities, even their foibles. I know a lot of people in the past did a lot of terrible things to other people, but to me that doesn\u2019t give you the right to compensate by being unfair however mild their descendants or representations of their descendants. I can hear the torrents of counterarguments coming and I will address them. To make thing blunt, you don\u2019t get to whip the white man metaphorically or not, it might be understandable why you want to, but it\u2019s still wrong. Any other stance at creating allowances for minorities breeds resentment and demonstrates that equality is not what we seek as a species. Some animals are not more equal than others. They never should have been. They never should be. Edit typos","conclusion":"\"Diversity\" and Political Correctness often leads to Tokenism and Reverse Racism and Sexism."}
{"id":"29358ff9-91ca-4df9-8817-1fb03d320651","argument":"To preface this, I am a Canadian student, so I am writing from the perspective of university costing 3k 10k a year maximum. I'm thinking university should be 20k lower end 100k Ivy League quality a year. However, I also think about half of students should be talented intelligent poorer kids who get a full ride, and scholarships should be further awarded across the board for good grades ex anyone with A average gets a 20k deduction, B to A get a 12k deduction, and so forth or internships completed. Others could work take out loans. Hear me out. As a university student nearing the end of my studies, I find myself thinking that many people have truly wasted their time in university. Many people I know, including myself, didn't learn very useful skills. We just went because it's now necessary. University has increasingly become the cultural norm because it's the new basic requirement for most fields due to the fact that having a degree in the North American context is no longer special in any way. The only way to change this is to make university more expensive. Making university more expensive would force students to be more careful about making the choice to attend. They may consider other options, like trade school or technical programs, which are being increasingly overlooked by today's youth. These jobs are important and it seems they might not be so widespread in a generation or so. A lot of trades pay very well some upwards of 80k a year , so I don't even think this would exclude many families from being able to afford lower end schools. Furthermore, it might force students to think more critically about picking a degree. Is 300k in debt worth the gender studies degree? Some would still say yes, but I believe the number would decrease. This would decrease the amount of people with degrees working unskilled jobs, most likely. I don't want to disadvantage underprivileged kids, so I think this system would work. It would also discourage people who don't have the grades or drive for university from wasting their time and money when they could be making money contributing to society at 18 vs 25. Seven years of work, even at a low pay, is substantial. Sure it might be demeaning to say less intelligent motivated people shouldn't get a degree, but people have to work at McDonalds' and it's a waste of time and money to get a degree to work a job like that. For those that did attend, work ethic would become very important, as would having a part time job. While I'm sure many already have this, I think the number would increase, which would lead to better prepared workers. I don't think the solution to the problem of everyone needing a degree now is to make degrees free. Doing so is just buying time till a Master's is necessary and so forth. You could change my view by showing the wider benefits of lower cost higher education, pointing out the benefits of those in low wage positions being college educated, proving there's no shortage of kids going to trade technical schools in countries with cheap education, proving kids that work while going to school are worse off or something I haven't considered.","conclusion":"University should be MORE expensive"}
{"id":"44804dda-9e49-4c3a-a359-f78ce9b430df","argument":"Cannabis smoke has more tar than cigarette smoke, is carcinogenic, can cause long term negative cognitive effects on adolescents, is linked to schizophrenia, ect. Obviously acute alcohol use is pretty bad and I'm not sure if I can say it's better or worse than acute marijuana consumption, but moderate alcohol use can have positive effects on bloodflow and the heart for example and as far as I'm aware moderate alcohol use has virtually no serious negative effects whereas moderate cannabis use can. I'm not claiming to be an expert on the effects of these drugs, but so far I've yet to see anything that has changed my mind. Maybe I'm just looking at the wrong sources? Either way, please  reddit. edit delta awarded to u Englishrose . Very convincing argument. I would check it out if you think like I did an hour ago.","conclusion":"Cannabis is a more dangerous drug than alcohol."}
{"id":"e378eb42-b761-4b50-9dc1-d8fe62d31b43","argument":"Often the podcast speaker creating the content continuous speaking the ad in the podcast, which makes it hard to tune in or out, and exposes the listener to the ad.","conclusion":"Podcast ads are often so tightly interwoven that they are practically indistinguishable from the actual content and thus deceiving."}
{"id":"ec5d0559-6ebd-4bb8-94df-554f0205d8d4","argument":"If the bottled water taps the ground below wells, it can lead people who normally get water from wells to not get any, forcing them to buy bottled water when they normally get it for free due to lowering the water table below wells","conclusion":"One way is hogging resources in this case water from everyone else that used to be free so they can charge for it i.e. cornering the market through hoarding to create artificial scarcity to drive up prices."}
{"id":"f0a9607a-d69b-4747-8e3d-bfafe0395e62","argument":"I was in a relationship for 5 years. We got engaged. And then about a month after that, she told me that she had been seeing some other guy, and that she was leaving me to go be with him. I've heard it said many times that the best relationships work when you are friends for a good amount of time first. And that has certainly shown itself to be true in my life and the people I know. Every one of my friends who is in a relationship, has been in that relationship 15 years. And every one of my friends that isn't in a relationship is the exact opposite. They get in and out of relationships all the time and nothing substantial and meaningful meaningful in my own opinion. everyone has their own meaning of course is ever established. The guy my ex left me for, let's call him Al she knew him before she met me. Which is probably what hurt me the most. They had been friends a long time, and she ended up leaving me for him. The hard part to accept about that is that before she had met me, she had been in a very abusive relationship where the guy would not only cheat on her constantly, but beat the shit out of her on a regular basis. It was very difficult in the beginning because she had serious emotional and mental issues. But I stuck with her because I loved her. Where was Al when she was going through that depression? Where was Al when she was crying because it was too sunny outside? I don't know. But I was there, loving her and supporting her. Because of what happened in her past, I wrongly assumed that she, of all people in the world, would never cheat on me. I was wrong. My sister, who got married with a guy after only 2 years, is now divorced after only a year of marriage. I have no female friends. Never mind any that would want to be in a relationship with me. It's been over a year since she left me, and I have yet to even get a date with someone else. As far as I can tell, women my age either 1 already have something established or 2 aren't looking for long term relationship. I am going to die alone. Please, please, please change my view on this, as it has left me extremely depressed and suicidal.","conclusion":"Finding myself recently single in my 30's, the chances of me finding a lifelong, monogamous wife are basically 0."}
{"id":"d199a723-0c3e-49ba-bc27-ac13b1bdb107","argument":"Recently, I've noticed that relationships don't have much value in the modern world. Most so called friends or well wishers will desert you the moment you are of no use to them, ie, in terms of financial stability. Due to this, I've come to think that money is the deciding factor of your happiness in this world and that money alone can determine your happiness, as you can then fend for yourself and meet your needs on your own. I have to come to a situation in which I feel most, if not all, interpersonal relationships are a waste of time.","conclusion":"I believe that money is the only thing that matters in the world and materialism isn't a very bad thing."}
{"id":"ed735839-ed51-440d-93e1-6f9891f1ea24","argument":"I've always been a bit cynical about war in general, as we are taught from a young age how terrible it is. Along the way I have heard many stories of war being used to gather resources and establish regimes, instead of literally protecting citizens. Combine that with the fairly easy entry into the US military and I start to lose respect for people serving. I understand it is a necessary issue when you have people with guns coming into your state attempting to kill you, but it seems to me that our military does the same thing from the other sides perspective I feel that nationalism is a manipulation tactic used to progress the military complex, by shaming those that don't support the agents of war. I feel guilty though, that I am overlooking a crucial detail and that I'm denying someone of their due respect if I am wrong in my opinion. I have never disrespected a military person, unless I hear them brag about something they shouldn't be proud of, but I can't bring myself to thank them either.","conclusion":"military service and nationalism should not inherently be respected."}
{"id":"410a5522-9645-4f30-a7c3-6b25f1d3e4b7","argument":"Economic recovery in areas affected my radiation is slower than in areas damaged by other forms of disaster. Fear prevents people and businesses returning to areas evacuated after Fukushima","conclusion":"Estimates of the death toll from incidents at nuclear power stations may be misleadingly low, because they do not take into account long term economic and societal damage."}
{"id":"ff68b659-b412-4c00-8a86-03a6ff57be5f","argument":"The Pontius Pilate stone records the name and position of Pontius Pilate and corroborates his position as described in the Bible.","conclusion":"Archeological evidence supports the existence of key figures and events mentioned in the Bible."}
{"id":"151b3db9-c160-4e00-b5dc-5b599b1f89ab","argument":"First of all, in the interest of full disclosure, I want to admit the possibility that I may not entirely understand the concept of gender identity, or really even the idea of gender being distinguished from biological sex. I've had a lot of discussions and I've read a lot of articles, but I've had trouble finding any clear explanation of what gender actually is. If you can clarify this for me, that alone may be enough to adjust my view. That being said, it seems to me that the concept of gender identity relies on the notion that certain traits and characteristics are inherently male or female. For someone who is biologically male to identify as female, there must be something for them to identify with, some characteristic they possess which they associate with being female. My concern is that this might have the effect of reinforcing archaic and restrictive gender roles. I know that the movement has its heart in the right place, with the desire to free everyone to identify with whichever gender they feel is right. But I would frankly rather free everyone from the concept of gender altogether and just let them be themselves, individual people. I feel like we are moving in the opposite direction by trying to establish that the genders really are separate, and that our gender really is important to who we are as people. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The concept of gender identity is counterproductive to the goal of gender equality"}
{"id":"648910c4-d826-4bfd-9a40-95473d0163a3","argument":"i was originally not a fan of Led Zeppelin. It took me until last year and a bit of growing up to finally appreciate how great they can sound, how revolutionary some of their songs were, and just how fun they can be. However, I find them inferior to many classic rock bands because of their inability to edit themselves. Frequently their songs start out great and then drive into boredom because they all drive into this garage band type crap. If they can make consistent sounds that are great and constrained like Going to California, why must they stop a song for a guitar solo for a solid minute and continue the song for another 3 minutes can't recall the name now . Or why is Kashmir 8 minutes and 30 seconds? I like the band, but I find them a bit exhausting. I want to see the other side where they don't appear to be padding. .","conclusion":"Led Zeppelin songs are too long."}
{"id":"d283f849-220c-4f2f-80a9-448e3a723ead","argument":"I think that people who feel racist, prejudice or sexist are ok as long as they are being honest. When a country loses the ability to be humorous about itself and understand its people it has lost its own independence and that change comes through a gradual shift in emotion and thinking and now a forceful objective. I also think that the vast majority of all people wish for peace, acceptance and tolerance but the vocal minority have decided that everyone must fall under some other category. I'm a moderate by the way. And I firmly believe the death of Humor and the freedom of comedians is the death of the nation","conclusion":"I think political correctness is destroying the USA."}
{"id":"c70fb080-5c9e-46fd-9e51-18295e25e3e9","argument":"If one looks at the related discipline of Electrical Engineering, we see that the engineer will mathematically model what he wants to build and with the math resolve all possible issues in the design. When it comes to programming, no math is involved. We will write a piece of code, fuse it with other pieces of code and continue in an agile fashion to meet the customer's requirements. Sometimes we use some mini designs with UML, that will be sort of a roadmap to what we need to do. And this is the state of the art in software development. In the past developers have tried to model entire systems with UML and other tools at the start following the so called waterfall method and it resulted in terrible failure. The reason is that software is too complex to be modeled in anything other than a programming language and in fact that model is the software itself. Therefore the onus is on the software developer to have a lot of software engineering skills when it comes to software construction and to be lean and nimble to change his code and make a good design. So would that programmer be called an engineer? What's my view here? well no. Because without the mathematical modeling we never know that a software solution is optimal, we only know what works best rules of thumb . PS The only place where there is some math in the computer science business is in algorithms and AI, but there on their own are only part of the software that are usually abstracted away with libraries.","conclusion":"Software Quality suffers because programming is not an engineering discipline"}
{"id":"a4bbf37c-2173-4f15-a5b6-b1996f0d2e73","argument":"It seems that the point of religion is to fundamentally control, otherwise people would be left to think or believe what they like.","conclusion":"Religion has been used as a form of social control."}
{"id":"8d4ee192-6af2-4a12-b382-138326f40cbd","argument":"Being free between doing good and doing evil does not mean being free between being alive and being dead.","conclusion":"Free will does not require the freedom to have it."}
{"id":"01dcabee-c595-4d53-80a3-5a681144b5d9","argument":"When women consult a medical professional, they are more likely to reconsider an abortion. Women are very unlikely to get that same open dialogue from underground abortion clinics. If we want to change the perception of certain populations of women about abortions in the first place, medical professionals need to have open discussions with women about the reasons why they are aborting. This way, there is a more likely chance that a fetus will be saved.","conclusion":"When abortion is banned, many women who do not want a child seek out illegal abortions"}
{"id":"28548ace-1d02-40f2-b850-3dcff68a9248","argument":"Stevie Wonder is a musician, singer and songwriter who was born blind. He is considered to be one of the most critically and commercially successful musical performers of the late 20th century.","conclusion":"Many disabled people have contributed to society and have lived successful lives."}
{"id":"8fc0b471-5e0b-4f5c-acbc-91818b59acda","argument":"One of the main debates in the US politics is between economic left and right. Each side is convinces that only their approach is correct, and the opposite will lead to either stagnation, or poverty and inequality. It seems to me that both sides are wrong, because among the top countries as measured by human development index and other well being measures, there are both conservative and moderately socialist countries. As an example of a successful conservative country, consider Switzerland No minimal wage No free universal healthcare single payer healthcare Low taxes, and in particular no capital gain tax Social welfare is expected to be paid back once the economic situation of the recipient has changed Most of social security is provided by commercial insurances As an opposite example, consider Nordic countries They have Universal healthcare High taxes Strong social security supported by the state Strong unions Both Switzerland and Nordic countries have very high living standard, long life expectancy and relatively low inequality. As evident from these examples, both conservative and social economy can lead to very high standard of life. So if the general economic policy doesn't really matter for people's well being, then what does? I do not have a ready answer to this, so this is not strictly a part of this , but some things that I do find in all the highly developed countries are low corruption and free market. Edit When I am writing about left vs right, I mean moderate socialism and conservatives, not true socialism with planned economy and libertarianism. Both seem to me much less viable, then more moderate policies.","conclusion":"Both conservative and liberal economies can work very well, and the devil is in the details."}
{"id":"beaefcbd-465b-40fa-a461-58beb9555ee5","argument":"I'm aware that this is a tricky topic, so I'm sure the responses to this will be very interesting. Basically, I contend that, based on what we can assume, if the Nationalist Government of the Republic of China had put down the Communist Revolution, history would have gone better. Now better is a relative term, but I'll explain why I believe so. First, the obvious. Mao Zedong's government killed around 45 million people. Some people put that number as high as 78 million, but either way, he's up there with Hitler and Stalin as one of the most brutal dictators and mass murderers in history. Chiang Kai Shek, on the other hand, was not exactly a benevolent ruler either but the most excessive count I can find puts him as responsible for 18 million deaths. Still far too high, but far cry from Zedong. Let's also not forget that only about 2.8 million of those deaths were from corruption or political repression. The rest were the result of war. So even if Chiang had continued corrupt and repressive policies in peacetime, that's still millions of lives saved right off the bat. Secondly, there's the likelihood that the Republic of China would have reformed into a democracy. That's what it did on Taiwan after all, on top of becoming one of the Four Asian Tigers . Let's not forget that, ideologically speaking, the Republic was only supposed to follow authoritarian policies until the country was stable and educated enough for democracy. Of course, there's no way of knowing whether or not the Kuomintang officials would have honored their pledge, and this also doesn't mean that the transition would have been smooth. But, it still seems likely that it would have happened eventually. Communist China is still a dictatorship today. I doubt the shallow, corrupt system that the Kuomintang perpetuated would have been so stable to the democratic wave of the late 80s and early 90s. Third, there's the benefit for the rest of the world. With China an anti Communist ally, the Korean War would have gone much differently. North Korea would have been surrounded by American allies, and thus less likely to attack South Korea. But even if it had decided to do so, the only chance of victory it would have is if the West just didn't care enough to stop them. I'm aware that the only way America was able to get a coalition together from the UN was thanks to the Soviet Union boycotting over Taiwan, but let's be honest, it's not like America and South Korea couldn't have defeated North Korea on their own, especially if China was on their side. So, either no Korean War or a decisive Western victory. In a Western victory, Korea is united, all those killed by Kim Il Sung survive, and the united Korean Republic likely would be democratic as it became in our timeline. The Vietnam War is a lot more difficult to predict, but it's also very possible that it would either not occur or be a Western victory. So there you have it. At the very worst case scenario, a few million would have survived. In the best case, millions would survive on top of two wars being prevented and China, Vietnam, and Korea becoming democratic. I am not saying that Chiang Kai shek was a good guy, or that he deserved to win, or that his wining would have suddenly turned Asia into a utopia. Just that, based on what evidence I have seen, a Nationalist China would have saved millions of lives and possibly spread democracy as well. If you want a delta, remain respectful. Don't be condescending, don't try to claim that your argument is just so obvious or that anyone who disagrees is stupid, uneducated, etc etc. It annoys me enough when people do that in other arguments, and this is a very opinionated and complicated topic. Also, giving credit where credit is due and solid, concrete examples are huge pluses. That said don't be upset if I don't give you delta I don't always give them even when I like the points made.","conclusion":"History Would Have Largely Gone Better if the Nationalists had Won the Chinese Civil War"}
{"id":"6319590a-ba3f-4f35-b2ba-3c86461e5dab","argument":"Many Christian festivities like Christmas, Eastern or Saint John\u2019s Eve are believed to have pagan origins.","conclusion":"The early Christian Church adopted a number of pagan traditions."}
{"id":"804c9600-f989-4850-bb60-df4a0a8fd703","argument":"I have a few reasons for this. First, and this is my main point, minors are subject to the law, so they should be eligible to change it. For example, if the current government makes a curfew for minors between 12 AM and 5 AM, and the adults all agree, they're basically being oppressed, since there is a law imposed on them that they weren't allowed to vote for or against. Second, some people claim that children aren't mature enough to vote. While of course, 5 year olds shouldn't be voting, because they'll just be influenced by their parents I'll elaborate on this later I've seen plenty of mature 16 17 year olds, and plenty of moronic 18 year olds. Third, some people say that minors will just follow their parents, and this may be true for some minors, but teenagers are rebellious mostly, so I'd doubt it. And in case you're not convinced, adults decided to nominate Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton as the two major candidates for President. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The voting age should be lowered to around 16"}
{"id":"04bd5aea-c6dc-4232-b422-3f9adb73d1f1","argument":"I am not a religious person. I have a small amount of experience attending various Christian churches and a good deal of experience working closely with various Orthodox Jewish sects. It is my understanding that a religious leader is supposed to be a person who is either more intrinsically spiritual has a calling to listen to God or is more willing focused on listening. I can understand the purpose of marriage counseling by such a person. It makes sense that their insight into the match could be invaluable, especially if both people are known by the leader. I also see how the legality of marriage is, perhaps unfortunately, necessary. For one, it has historically been so and to abandon that system would be tricky. Not to mention the property acquired jointly, restrictions on health visitations and decisions, etc. I can understand the government needing to have records of who is married and who isn't. But I do not understand placing the power of 'declaring marriage' in the hands of anyone besides the couple. I now pronounce you man and wife. Officiant's signature on license, etc. My husband and I were married in the Quaker tradition, and it was perfectly legal. We needed an officiant neither to perform the ceremony, nor sign our license. We did need witnesses to sign, which I also understand. So that one of us can't say it didn't happen, or that we were coerced, or whatnot It seems to me neither the religious leader nor a government officiant actually have any real power over the couple nor their marriage. The officiant does not live with couple, does not manage their relationship, is not there if they struggle with separation, was not there when they made the decision to marry. I can not understand how pretending this person has power makes sense. It seems only to pretend to take the responsibility of marriage away from the couple. To make it seem as if their marriage is not entirely within their own control, in their own hands. And this seems to me to be a perhaps dangerous way to begin a union that is meant to be lifelong, with the lie that it is in the hands of anyone but the two to be married. People look at me like I've totally lost it when this view comes up, so I know it's unusual. Can you guys explain to me what I'm missing? It's got to be that I'm missing something big, I think. ? EDIT UPDATE Sorry for the delay in replies, I've been thinking about this. I believe my error was not exactly in the 'who should be responsible for the marrying' but was in the actual role the officiant plays. Now, I have been to many weddings where it is pretty clear that the pastor is in charge of the marrying, but I see now that it doesn't have to be this way. And further, that it isn't that way more of the time than I realized. I had not considered that the officiant's role is that of a witness for the church or state. That is quite agreeable to me. Deltas to be given out shortly.","conclusion":"I do not understand the purpose of an officiant at wedding, and think that putting the pronouncement of marriage in the hands of another distances the couple from the responsibility of their union."}
{"id":"9917b8f3-1ea1-48e2-9a7b-f2397c64c035","argument":"The cost of providing accommodations\/adjustments to employees with mental illness act as an extra financial burden on employers, so they may not hire them.","conclusion":"Employers may choose not to hire someone with mental health problems."}
{"id":"8bf7c6a5-5f7c-43a4-b862-931a10a786af","argument":"After threatening Deepika Padukone the right wing extremist group Karni Sena threatened a minister in the government. The BJP government has made no moves against these sort of groups.","conclusion":"There have been shocking instances of rape and violence against women for example the case of Asifa and theBihar victims These cases are reminiscent of the Nirbhaya episode"}
{"id":"d84e601d-cbd4-487a-b204-be16056192f4","argument":"During this planned 5 week suspension, the Liberal Democrat, Labour, and Conservative parties all hold conferences that usually last for 3 weeks.","conclusion":"It is approaching conference season anyway so by proroguing parliament now, it is only an extra 5 days lost."}
{"id":"08c65e21-6580-441f-b592-b61a7e1d58db","argument":"To preface this post, I\u2019ve seen so much sentiment that companies using your personal data is a bad thing. But I\u2019ve never been offered an actual explanation what the rationale behind this kind of thinking is. My understanding is that companies want to know what kind of person you are and based on that determine if you are worth marketing to, and if so, what products and what medium to market to you, amongst other things. I would much rather this than getting unpersonalised marketing for products I have no interest in. On the other spectrum of anonymised data collection. I\u2019ve worked in a data analytics company that utilised credit card data and supermarket shopping data if you sign up for the loyalty card . Based on this information they perform analytics and sell this to retailers in a completely anonymised fashion. I don\u2019t understand the harm in this either. Edit Ok, I've been convinced. There is a heavy subjective element to this stemming from the basic argument that I just don't want them to and I can respect that. I personally don't mind companies using me it but I can see that some people might be. I think everyone here made good points. Am I allowed to give deltas to everyone? Because its more the collective thoughts of everyone that convinced me. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Companies \"mining\" our personal data is not a bad thing."}
{"id":"51374785-927f-4230-a879-6d0d4f61e18f","argument":"Switzerland has not only four national languages, but is also divided into several linguistic regions, like a \"mini-USE.\" Yet, the country is well governed.","conclusion":"Canada has French and English; Belgium has Dutch and French."}
{"id":"66d40e6d-9836-4e52-94e2-190051f32a77","argument":"These will be virtually unstoppable as they do not have to be publicly accessible and will be run by very tech savvy organisations that have few and only very expensive and unwieldy alternatives.","conclusion":"Nothing can stop criminal organisations from running their own internal cryptocurrencies, so no matter whether they are forbidden or not, they will exist in the criminal world."}
{"id":"4215cf03-f3d7-41ee-8396-2b8f84a5feaf","argument":"Generally speaking, how do we measure what's right and wrong for a society if we censor it in the first place? I'm not in a polyamorous relationship myself, but actually in a very traditionally monogamous one. I've had horrible break ups, I've been cheated on, and played around. I imagine that most monogamous people use this as a reference towards poly people. We should remember that there's nothing inherently wrong or harmful with any topic or idea, but instead its context and how it functions can determine it's benefit or otherwise. Alcohol is an example. Initially a relationship is just social structure, just like your HS bully telling you it's cool to tuck your shirt out. So if a particular social structure works for x,y, and z for many years. Then I think let them be. A question I'd appreciate being answered beyond the gut feeling explanation that I had as well when I used to disapprove of it is Why isn't polyamory the norm since we're an intellectual growing and social species? gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Polyamory doesn't seem wrong."}
{"id":"1db047ee-ea2c-4a0d-9d81-a66967844f9a","argument":"I see both sides to the argument. News reporters get payed to write up stories and the news organizations also get advertizing revenue to print and broadcast the news. Sources should be payed a portion of these profits. Sources should not be paid, the only reason we pay reporters is that they know how to write up the information so it is readable. Paying sources promotes disreputable sources to lie. Important news should not only be the domain of the highest bidder. I don't think this is an important issue. Why should I take a side on this issue? And why should I take that side?","conclusion":"I don't believe it is right or wrong to pay sources for news stories."}
{"id":"8e69fa6b-dccc-411e-9d5a-c7f511c75d8c","argument":"Breastfeeding requires a fixed gender role and any deviation from the female being solely responsible for this role has health disadvantages for the woman and child. Eg. Nothing is healthier than breast milk for a baby. Breastfeeding prevents cancer in women. Babies are stressed when separated from their mother. Breastfeeding helps in healing the mother\u2019s body after birth.","conclusion":"Gender roles are necessary for society to function healthily. Without them there would be confusion and chaos."}
{"id":"5e4c8916-2750-4c8a-936f-a872d81ccc9e","argument":"Ok, so I'd just like to make this clear I am not arguing against the worth of family if the context of 'family' is, 'people with close relations to you that you may have grown up with'. I think family is important, and I love mine dearly, but I do not believe this is because of any biological ties. Why should someone have some hold over my life simply because I share most of my DNA with them? If I suddenly met a long lost brother, I may have somewhat of an interest in meeting and talking to him, but I wouldn't do him any favours for 'the sake of blood family'. Simply because one or both of our parents are the same, does not mean I have some inherent obligation to be your friend or do you any favours. I hear people say a lot, Aww but he's your brother you know you love him , or something along those lines, and it annoys me. Just because I share biology with someone, does not mean I inherently like them. Sharing DNA, or even growing up with someone, does not automatically mean I enjoy their friendship of course, we have a biological inclination to keep relationships with them, but if you do not like someone at a core level, I see little reason to have any sort of obligation towards them. Many people are destructive and emotionally draining, and can severely affect family who continue to put up with them in the reasoning that they're family. Ignore this bit if you don't like comparisons to media stories As much as I adore the TV show Supernatural , the protagonists' reasoning of protecting family above all else, even when you have been aware of their existence for approximately three days, irks me too much. A recurring theme in the show is sacrifice and protecting family which I can understand, as the two co protagonists are brothers and were raised together but when they begin to apply this to more distant relatives and strangers, I begin to find it uncomfortable. My argument is, I believe, most applicable to adoptive families when the biological parent s are still in the world as normal citizens. I was raised in a traditional biological family, so I cannot put myself in their situations, but I see no motivation to meet biological family when raised by an adoptive one. As far as I am concerned, being raised and cared for by the people who adopted me makes them my family I see no reason to want to meet any biological relatives. I understand this situation may be changed by certain events, most notably domestic abuse, or the death of close family. These are devastating situations, and can make someone want to re establish some sort of familial bond, and therefore seek out biological relatives. Suffers of indirect domestic abuse, such as emotional drainage and interfering in someone's life in a negative way I'm thinking along the lines of borrowing money continuously without any return, insulting them, damaging other relationships, ect. sometimes continue to put up with it because they're family . I can understand if they support family for the sake of a close, long term relationship, but if people are obviously abusive, and the victim understands that and they continue to put themselves in that situation, that is where my understanding stops. Establishing contact retaining abusive situations for the sake of blood is a ridiculous notion, as is the expectancy of someone to love a family member simply because 'they're family'. Reddit, change my view","conclusion":"Biological familial ties are meaningless, and can be destructive."}
{"id":"333e99da-8ad1-4150-871f-4765ba45e2f1","argument":"Most video advertisements have an option to skip the ad after a few seconds, before any important information has been revealed.","conclusion":"There are analogous practices on all other forms of media that are not considered unethical. Ad blocking is no different."}
{"id":"f44e6cde-17a5-4d39-ac74-7c885ead458c","argument":"The small number of citizens that are active in political parties illustrates how few are actually interested in actively participating in politics.","conclusion":"Large chunks of the population would probably only participate by choosing from what others propose, thus effectively only picking sides."}
{"id":"bba1d10e-fdd6-4e63-9579-cc1de2a10dca","argument":"\u201cwhat Fanon taught me was the liberating power of anger. as an Asian-AmericanI chose to ally myself with people of color, anti-colonialist movements, and a non-Eurocentric consciousness.\u201d Mura","conclusion":"Critical theory assumes all oppressed groups find their fundamental unity in their common experience of oppression."}
{"id":"14251501-df0d-461e-80a6-324751ef2064","argument":"Partners gradually opening themselves up to each other and being vulnerable to each other can often be the most rewarding part of a relationship,","conclusion":"This would also take away any sense of mystery or discovery, or shared secrets, from relationships."}
{"id":"fbaaa501-da18-4bcf-8783-0abbcb96e53e","argument":"I'll admit that I might be biased here given that I've mainly studied analytical philosophy, but I believe that analytical philosophy is better at teaching you how to evaluate arguments and that this is a crucial skill when reading continental philosophy. a Why does analytical philosophy make you better at evaluating arguments than continental philosophy? A large part of this is the difference in focus. Analytical philosophy focuses on narrow well defined problems, while continental philosophy focuses on the big questions of life. Unfortunately, the big questions are hard. You shouldn't try to run before you can walk. By focusing on more clearly defined questions, it is easier for you to learn good practises like using consistent definitions, making precise claims and constructing logical arguments. Although you will have to change how you operate when you approach continental philosophy style questions, you will have a good foundation to build on. It is more likely that someone with a foundation will be able to adapt it to a different, but similar domain, than someone will be able to develop this when operating in a domain that just isn't at good at teaching these skills. Why can't continental philosophy teach these skills? As I said, it's like trying to walk before you can run. The broader and more general questions in continental philosophy make it much harder to create a precise and consistent definitions, but logic is crucially dependent on this. Most people have enough trouble learning logic and this simply makes it harder. But further, many of the most famous continental philosophers aren't good role models in this regard. They regularly use the same word in many different ways without bothering to clarify the different meanings, or fail to give a precise definition at all and leave the reader to figure it out via use. They are often very unclear about the flow of their arguments. Students learn to emulate this style. Continental philosophers will often defend these issues and the difficulty of following the writing by pointing out that they are wrestling with difficult topics. These are indeed difficult topics, but I don't buy for a second that it's impossible to write more clearly and precisely on these topics. Just because you were the first to stumble upon an important idea, doesn't mean that you are a fantastic philosopher in all other ways as well. That's putting them up on a pedestal. b Why is this important? Not everything that a famous philosopher says is true or profound. There are many psychological incentives to overvalue their work their reputation, that it is taught in a respectable institution, all the time you've invested in trying to understand it. In order to counteract these biases, you need the ability to think critically. Continental philosophy tries to teach this, but it is limited in how well it can teach you as it simply doesn't focus on the basic skills to the same extent. Students lacking these basic skills can improve to a certain degree, but at some point, the lack of these skills will hold them back. This is important as without critical thinking, you are likely to pick up both good and bad beliefs. If you pick up the same number of good and bad beliefs, it's not clear that you've gained anything from your studies. However, if you have strong critical thinking skills, you can get a much better ratio and so you can gain much more from studying continental philosophy. c What if you're just after short term help in figuring out your life purpose or how you should live your life? Then forget philosophy and just read self help books. They tend to be written much more simply, so it's easier to follow and critique the arguments. The best philosophical writing aims for more depth, but you need to be willing to invest time to gain any benefits. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Analytical philosophy should be learned before continental philosophy"}
{"id":"5cf33048-a665-4526-aedc-e6de1761f4e5","argument":"FDR famously combated the Supreme Court, which in his view was acting overly politically by blocking New Deal legislation, by attempting to increase the number of seats and fill them with judges who would vote for his legislation. This was known as the \"Court-Packing\" plan and though it was not passed, there is evidence that it led to increased pressure on the court which began to support New Deal legislation in the wake of the controversy.","conclusion":"Judiciaries which are seen to be overly political may face attacks on their independence and power. This may undermine systems of checks and balances as well as the long term legitimacy of the judiciary as a whole."}
{"id":"0412c18a-b4be-4f2f-b101-50a1499099c8","argument":"European lists allow European citizens to vote for candidates selected by European parties instead of voting for candidates selected by their national party.","conclusion":"Ska Keller advocates to have European party lists for the next EP election, which further European integration."}
{"id":"1a119f9c-6d26-4b72-b3ea-1ebe043d9f7b","argument":"Xi has begun indoctrinating Chinese citizens to reduce the risk of challengers to his regime. He has called for courses that \"promote support for the Communist Party Rule in primary schools and universities alike.","conclusion":"Xi has created a sophisticated and successful propaganda campaign in China."}
{"id":"81464533-77c1-4f77-9dbe-b5b8144de1a4","argument":"As man created artificial intelligence, robots & automatons which follow his instructions blindly evidently without criticizing, blaming or going against him, it is unlikely God would be so foolish to have created conscious beings with free will many of whom don\u2019t believe He exists, criticize Him, even blame, go against or harm Him, which may indicate that nature, e.g., humans, is not the creation of God\/God does not exist.","conclusion":"The classical definition of God is contradictory or incoherent, and thus God cannot in principle exist."}
{"id":"d4a39236-ae17-440c-9877-20247e5dae48","argument":"For instance, prostitution stings should be illegal. And drug deal stings. Anything that does not have a victim, and there is no physical harm bad intentions. If a police officer witnesses a drug deal, or a prostitution deal, that's one thing. Although, I believe these both should be decriminalized, but thats neither here nor there . Setting people up for these crimes, to me seems as if the police are shopping for criminals to take in. Baiting and reeling them in. Often times, these people may have gone about their days without committing a crime.","conclusion":"Police should not be able to use sting operations for victimless crimes."}
{"id":"74eeac34-392a-47b4-99b6-7463f2d5877f","argument":"The idea of the prosperity gospel has been spreading in the US in recent times and the main idea behind it is that donating money to religious institutions will make you healthier and wealthier in the long run.","conclusion":"Some religions appear to have been designed largely to accumulate wealth and status for their creators."}
{"id":"1958d2d0-2b4a-4176-9aca-cf0b117f7891","argument":"The least-harm alternatives are mentioned in the cons here along their children claims They include utilizing hydroponics\/aeroponics\/vertical gardens to increase space for wildlife and also avoid conflicts with them, and hand picking crops instead of using machines.","conclusion":"Monocrop agriculture to service vegan demand is an environmental catastrophe."}
{"id":"060ca38c-7c7b-479d-93ab-c310e69a48b1","argument":"I was recently reading a reddit thread, and it inevitably spiraled into a discussion about gender politics totally unrelated to the main topic of the thread . Assertions of Feminists hate all men and You don't understand Feminism abound, and it was basically par for the course, however, one post caught my attention in attempt to show what radical feminism was capable of, a poster quoted from Robin Morgan's essay Lesbianism and Feminism Synonyms or Contradictions? April 4th, 1973 where she states, I feel that 'man hating' is an honorable and viable political act, that the oppressed have a right to class hatred against the class that is oppressing them. Let's forget about the first half of that sentence. Let's forget about feminism, racism, and discrimination as it pertains to our modern world. I'm not looking for you to change my view about what groups are oppressed or not. That being said, after thinking about it for a long time, I find that the oppressed have a right to class hatred against the class that is oppressing them to be a perfectly reasonable statement. My thought experiment was this Let's say that everything that happened during the Nazi regime's rise to power happened except for the actual extermination of Jews in concentration camps. Let's say that Jews were used as scapegoats for social ills, deemed genetically inferior, forced to identify themselves publicly or face prosecution, excluded from business and politics and forced to live in ghettos. As a Jew in this scenario, would I not have a right to class hatred against the class that is oppressing me? If not, why? Is this an extreme example? Getting rid of the actually being mass murdered thing makes me think it isn't so extreme, and more in line with the sentiment of this quote. What about African Americans? I am not black, but the more I think about it, if I were, I think I would hate white people. Not individual white people, necessarily, but as a class that had actively oppressed my class for so long and in some views still continues to do so. Again, I am not asking you to change my view about what classes are oppressed. I would like you to change my view that it is reasonable that an oppressed class has a right to hate the class that is oppressing them. gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than just downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I believe \"that the oppressed have a right to class-hatred against the class that is oppressing them\". Change my view."}
{"id":"e0832fca-b3bc-4858-8922-183dec116299","argument":"Let's face it, social media isn't going anywhere, our technologies are only expanding, and the internet is getting faster and more accessible. My view is simply this Children should be taught how the internet functions and how to safely use it as early as health class is introduced. I am from Alaska, and health class began in 4th grade children begin to learn about their bodily functions and whatnot , however, I have heard in the lower 48 it starts in 6th grade. The class would go over basic internet usage i.e. how to use a search engine, how to use email, safe searches, ect . It would also go over internet safety, targeting social networks and other websites such as chatroulette, and various other chatrooms. When I was in elementary school 90's we were taught about strangers and how to stay safe in public areas and even at home. However, this curriculum should be expanded to internet safety. Examples not adding strangers on Facebook, and the dangers of doing such. Not giving out personal information, not posting up revealing photos, not giving out credit card info, how to spot a malicious site, ect I am aware that most of this SHOULD be common sense, however, not getting into a strangers vehicle is common sense and we still teach children not to do that. My argument is still fairly incomplete, as I have had no one to argue against my point. I am here to make my argument better rounded and legitimate, and possibly gain some new perspective, as I am not a parent, but going to be a school teacher. . Also, I am not sure if the schools have already implemented teaching this. I have done some searching and did not find anything that said it was implemented. As well, my little sister is still in high school, and has told me she has not had any sort of course or info about this subject.","conclusion":"I believe \"internet safety\" should be taught in schools as early as health class."}
{"id":"990eced3-3e20-4ee3-b352-7d0876d06f78","argument":"To me, the Tea Party exemplifies the worst of current American politics. Their policies such as they can be said to exist for such a loosely defined group are rooted in ignorance and\u2014often\u2014racism. Any elected official who identifies as a member of the Tea Party will do concrete harm to our country with such power as they are able to wield. Any American who agrees with the Tea Party is demonstrably ignorant to such a degree as to be a danger to society, in terms of both a the power they wield as a citizen to elect those who make and enforce our laws and b how they interact with others in their personal lives. I therefore posit that the benefits to the United States would strongly outweigh the negative effects if everyone who identifies with the Tea Party in any way were to immediately magically vanish from the planet. For the purposes of this hypothetical, the Tea Party supporters are not harmed in any way. Harm would include destruction you could imagine that they're transferred to a new Earth where everyone else has been replaced with p zombie duplicates, such that everything will continue normally from the perspective of the Tea Partiers. Nothing changes on the original Earth except the disappearance people are aware that the Tea Party supporters have vanished. Let's talk about it Change my view I will do my best to reply to everyone who makes an good faith attempt to engage in discussion as I tend to post mostly from work, I may not always be able to respond immediately. Clarifications in response to summations of major responses Even the worst viewpoints are useful, because they offer an opportunity to publicly challenge them define better policies in opposition to them. This is the best argument I've yet seen. However, I'm not yet convinced that this is enough to cancel out the benefits that would be gained, or to outweigh the risk that those bad policies would be enacted even after debate. Silencing someone because you disagree with their opinion is unAmerican. Absolutely agreed, but that's not what this hypothetical is about. It's not we should get rid of Tea Partiers, it's the U.S. would be better off without Tea Partiers, without any action having been taken by anyone for this removal to occur . The difference may seem subtle, but I believe it's essential. Is it okay for people to be ignorant, as long as they're not Tea Party members? I believe there is no other movement in the U.S. with significant power that has a similarly universal basis in ignorance. How do you define the Tea Party who are its members? For the purposes of this hypothetical, I would define it as it defines itself. Politicians and other supporters would be defined by self identification. Even if the Tea Party disappeared, it wouldn't solve all of Americas problems. I'm not saying it would. But I do believe that the United States would be improved overall if the Tea Party no longer had influence over any level of society. Better doesn't mean perfect or even good. Losing a large percentage of the population would have negative economic effects. Definitely. But how many Tea Partiers are there, and would those negative effects be outweighed by the gains from the absence of their influence? I am seeing a lot of downvoting in this thread across both sides, so I'd like to remind people who may be new to  of the guidelines of this subreddit Downvotes don't change views. Vote based on the quality of the comment, not whether you agree or not. There will be many differing viewpoints shared here. If everyone downvoted based on their own opinions, then everyone would be downvoting each other See below for more details. Upvoting Downvoting Please don't use downvote buttons except on offensive or rule breaking posts, which you should really report instead . When you disagree with a claim, try to refute it When you find a new post you disagree with, remember that the poster is inviting debate, so consider upvoting it to make it more likely that people who agree with you will join you in revealing the post's faults. And we'd also like you to stop and think before downvoting a comment by the author of a thread its original poster or OP . Say someone provides a counter argument to OP's view, but it doesn't quite do the job, and OP replies explaining why it's still difficult for her to change her opinion. Far too many times have we seen these types of comments from OP being downvoted. This is frustrating to see as OP is being honest about her perhaps controversial opinion and is hopefully open to it being changed. Please don't downvote if they are explaining why a point is still not convincing them. Look, we kinda think downvotes suck. We want all interesting and thoughtful conversations to rise to the top, and the problem with downvotes is that it's perfectly possible for unpopular ideas to be interesting and thoughtful, yet many Redditors instinctively downvote claims they disagree with. The Reddit community has been accused of suffering from polarization and groupthink, and the voting system contributes to this issue. If we could remove the downvote button altogether we probably would, but we can't. We can use CSS to try to kill the buttons, but some redditors choose not to experience subs' CSS themes, and users of third party apps like Alien Blue are also immune to this technique. So killing downvotes with CSS is worse than doing nothing because it gives a subset of redditors an amplified downvoting voice . So please resist the urge to downvote. Thanks.","conclusion":"The U.S. would be better off if everyone who supports the Tea Party disappeared."}
{"id":"b02b2f9e-5b1c-46f8-9aee-d8594e340456","argument":"When I judge whether an action should be illegal or legal, I think of the potential harm done to the society. I cannot think of any harm done to the society when someone uses drugs. One might make the case for trafficking creating or distributing illicit drugs, but merely using them? The only affected person would be the individual that took the drug. Furthermore, prison is entirely the wrong place for drug users. When I think of reasons to use drugs, I come up with two rough categories Escapism, addiction, medical and purely recreational use. Some people use drugs because they have a very rough life and the drugs make them able to cope with it. I believe one has to cure the underlying reasons before one can attempt to treat the addiction in such cases. The drugs are merely a symptom of a larger problem. But imprisoning such people will neither help society nor help these people. Addicted drug users should be treated in a rehabilitation centre. Criminal charges will not help this process and once again, no one benefits. Medical use should be legal because it helps the individual and no harm is done. Purely recreational use, such as in parties or clubs might harbor some dangers for potential users, as they might not know what substance they are taking. I do not know how incarcerating these people helps anyone either. EDIT I think I need to clarify that I am specifically talking about drug USE, not distribution or creation.","conclusion":"Nonviolent drug offenders should not be sent to jail. Drug use should not be crimininalized at all."}
{"id":"f6769e8d-3174-4bec-9b0c-8461b9d5853e","argument":"This is relatively straightforward. Recently in Alaska a trans woman bio male who identifies as female won a regional track championship competing against biological women. The science of physiology is straight forward, men have a average biological advantage in every competitive sport and no, I don't consider ultra marathons a real competitive sport . Due to larger average size, different muscle growth and proportion a biological male will have an unfair competitive advantage in any sport competing against women. Sports should exclusively grouped based on birth gender, nothing else. Failing to make that distinction takes opportunity away from biological women in terms of scholarships and even the simple pleasure of competition.","conclusion":"A trans woman male to female should not be allowed to compete in women's divisions in sports."}
{"id":"458c67bc-d8c3-4bf0-bb62-2cb0bfa1bcd7","argument":"So, for whatever reason, most Youtube Niconico videos, and some albums, list the Vocaloid performing the song as the song's artist. Here are some examples I find it absurd that Miku Luka would be listed as artists for something like World's End Dance hall when they're really just tools that Wowoka happened to use to make his music. They're much closer to instruments than anything else. I do get that is a bit of a novelty instrument, so in that regard it'd be kind of like Zelda theme theremin cover or whatever and that the Vocaloids are all characters with backstories and appearances, but these are original songs composed with those voices in mind and the artist isn't in the PV title at all. You don't see their name at all unless you specifically look for it in the video description. You could just as esily have Artist Song Title Performed by Hatsune Miku or something, and people would still be able to look for it, while the artist gets all the credit they deserve. It's also absurd grouping all the god knows how many Vocaloid songs under a single name. It almost looks like they were all done by the same person, which is of course ridiculous, but that's what it looks like. It means chiptune and acoustic artists all end up being grouped under the same unbrella, no matter how meaningless that umbrella is. To , you'd have to give a reason any artist would want their music listed under a Vocaloid's name rather than their own, or a reason why it would be better for people who consume such music.","conclusion":"For Vocaloid music, the producer should be credited as the artist, not the Vocaloid."}
{"id":"fe3418d2-d01a-498f-9ce8-49dc59e0301f","argument":"That should logically follow and some schools actually do that. Some Head Start programs ban, not only any religious symbols, but virtually any other symbols either; snowmen, jack-o-lanterns, wrapped packages, etc. In these cases, teachers can't even discuss that a certain holiday is coming up, robbing the teachers of key ways to generate student interest.","conclusion":"If \"religious symbols\" cannot be displayed at school then secular symbols need to go as well, to avoid double standards."}
{"id":"e81d3845-e8ed-4079-9b88-ecd20bcb1243","argument":"We are in an era of Trump, Brexit and other independence movements. It is really hard to believe that rational voters independently of the level of education can mass vote to measures that are made to the common good even if this common terms means to their own interests. I believe that democracy and the political game that sits on top of it, is more about the story, the vision and the feeling that resonates with our old reptilian reactive brain than the factual, analytical, sensible side of us. Tell me a good story and I'll follow you even if the data tell me that is not a good idea.","conclusion":"Humans still have the \"reptilian brain\" too active so democracy is not really about rightness but about storytelling."}
{"id":"524ddedc-0973-45d7-acc3-9a46c7d7b448","argument":"Judith Curry, a widely acclaimed climate scientist has been vilified and threatened personally simply because of her skeptical views. As a result she decided to end her career in climate science Curry resigns: Integrity Vs. Career Suicide","conclusion":"Social pressure and research funding incentives has made it difficult for climate scientists to speak out against strong claims about human-caused climate change"}
{"id":"3b097b2b-0ba9-4034-9fd3-3864e92eb6c9","argument":"The female breast is a sexual organ, the male breast is not. Evidence for this is that female breast development occurs as a component result of sexual maturation, and the male breast does not. Female cleavage or upper thigh exposure is more comparable to male breast exposure, and here we already have equality.","conclusion":"A woman's breasts are not comparable to a man's chest. Basic biological differences between a man and woman cannot be denied."}
{"id":"a8da228a-cc41-4d00-8d2c-789377396d35","argument":"It is unethical to force a \u2018volunteer\u2019 to take the chance of being randomised onto the placebo arm of a trial","conclusion":"grant those diagnosed with terminal illnesses the right to access treatments that have not completed clinical testing"}
{"id":"4308663e-2c99-4c5c-a727-897538961ce4","argument":"Personally, I think a scandal free John Edwards would win with no trouble against Trump, because 1 What was John Edwards shtick? The Two Americas , a populist message, so he would have neutralized Trump's most electable quality his populism . 2 By 2016, he probably would have built up a lot more experience then he had pre scandal, when his only political office held was a one term senator, so people would probably take him more seriously. 3 I am pretty sure he would not have problems turning out the base, because in 2008, he actually did pretty well if you remember the effects of the scandal, and on top of that, he got squeezed out because him being nominated was nothing special, but his two opponents would have been historic firsts. 4 He would have had a Home state advantage in swing state North Carolina, which would have helped massively Imagine if the Democrats could count on North Carolina this election the same way Hillary could count on Virginia . The Map would look like this gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I think a scandal-free John Edwards would have won in a blowout against Trump."}
{"id":"ca158c24-e541-4d63-a0da-8797fd406067","argument":"The Japanese act of Seppuku - suicide by disembowelment - has been described as rational in its historical context. It served various purposes and was perceived as honorable.","conclusion":"There are plenty of examples where the decision to die is a perfectly rational one."}
{"id":"a46bdb90-beff-472c-b89d-bb92b4a40660","argument":"First of all I hold nothing against anyone who identifies as queer, I believe in equal rights for all, this isn't about that. When I hear LGBTQIA Lesbian, Gay, Bi, Trans, Queer, Intersex, Asexual , I wonder why the last three are even there. I accept that you can be attracted to the opposite sex. I accept you can be attracted to both sexes, and identify as Bisexual myself. I accept that you can identify as the opposite gender from your birth sex. As for the I, I do also accept that scientifically some people don't fit a single sex, but I feel that's a different issue. Furthermore, I think people who fall under Q, meaning pansexual, omnisexual, etc, or genderqueer, are simply either a bisexual who isn't dead centre on the kinsey scale, or someone who is not the shining example of their gender. Genderqueer, IMO, does not exist, because transgender is someone who is fine with their genitals, but thinks they are not the gender associated there, that exists, but there is nothing on either side of male female, nor in between, nor separate completely. You just don't think society's perception of your gender fits you. I am male, but I don't subscribe to a lot of the things that make you masculine. Doesn't mean I'm genderqueer, means I'm not very manly. As for Asexual, I think those people just have a low libido. Questioning shouldn't be on the acronym, because you don't identify yet, and I have no freaking idea what 2 spirited even is. Hit me with the facts. Why does almost everyone accept that this all exists. I've never met anyone else who thinks pan just means I don't want the connotation attached to bi. Is there some sort of basis to this, really? Or have we just drawn the line too close to tumblr in action ?","conclusion":"Further than an earlier post today, I believe that anything beyond \"LGBT\" doesn't exist at all."}
{"id":"08b88c37-7838-4871-954a-ecb0f657cb23","argument":"If God can't conceive a world with free will and without evil, God is not omnipotent, and if he is not omnipotent he is not God.","conclusion":"If God was really all powerful, he would be able to remove all evil."}
{"id":"de9f1e72-2565-490f-83da-ec5812a6f267","argument":"1. I'm responsible. In this scenario I ensure I get all of the back-up, insurances, retirement-funds etc. This would likely leave me with less than 5000kr out of the original 9000kr. Then maybe I spend 3500kr on rent, leaving me with 1500kr. Now I still need to pay for food for the month, occasionally get clothes and other small fees like study-means. This makes it clear that I would have to get an extra job to survive as a student. I'm economically no better off than in the current system.","conclusion":"So let's say I'm a student in the UBI-system. there is 2 possible scenarios: 1. Where I'm responsible and cover those areas otherwised backed by the state and 2. Where I'm irresponsible and go on without these safety nets."}
{"id":"632f86f7-e956-41d8-a5b1-226f4550f831","argument":"Unlike my opinion on important topics like The Rock's movie output, this subject I know comparatively little about, and am looking forward to being enlightened. Moderation in political beliefs seems to be dying. There's a huge number of growing socialists and communists on the left, and there seems to be a large number of super capitalists on the right. For short, I'll just lump them in with libertarians. Socialists and communists, despite differences, seem to believe in a system where workers own production and the government provides a lot of services, no one is homeless or hungry and everyone has the basic requirements clothing, health care, etc. Libertarians seem to favor hands off almost everything. Letting businesses do what they want, to who they want, whenever they want. If Amazon and Wal Mart merge and start increasing prices on everything 1000 due to a lack of competition, then it's the markets job to create an opposition to that. I don't think socialism or communism would work. 1 There's never been a longterm history of success with socialism or communism. Cuba, Venezuela these are not rich, successful countries. Russia swung so far back out of communism that now it's an oligarchy. China has introduced capitalism and it's why it's way more rich and powerful now than it was under Mao. 2 My biggest question regarding communism socialism is who decides to do what jobs? If everyone is having their necessities covered, then people no longer have to work. If you have to work, why would anyone choose to clean toilets or pick up garbage? The answer I found in a sub was that these jobs would have great benefits and enticements to do them. Lots of vacation days, a higher rate of pay, etc. But no amount of money could convince a large amount of the population to clean up Taco Bell toilets. People do that because they have to. If they don't have to worry about paying rent or buying clothes, why not literally just sit this one out? 3 What would be the incentive to be inventive? Why invent the next iPhone or iPad or Coke Zero? Maybe people would still create medicines, as we need that as a society, but not as many people would strive to do more, I believe. 4 A universal basic income seems to have its problems. So I must be a bourgeoise capitalist pig, eh? Not so fast, comrades Unfettered capitalism has a lot of problems. Hell, we're not even in Ron Paul's dream world yet too many minorities for his taste and capitalism as it is has a lot of problems. 1 Income inequality is huge in America. About eight years ago, The Other Guys did an interesting animated credits sequence on things such as how fast and how far CEO compensation has eclipsed that of their lowest workers. 2 Late Capitalism is a growing meme. Hell, it's even a sub Hi r latestagecapitalism 3 Jeff Bezos is worth 150 billion dollars and his warehouse employees have to piss in bottles and make 12 an hour on average. That's a failure of policy right there. 4 I've also tended to wonder under libertarianism and presumably zero to low taxes who pays for the police? Fire department? Do the poor just die in the streets because they can't afford health care and they, for whatever reason have no access to one of the numerous charities I'm sure the rich would suddenly start? 5 One of, if not the biggest, indicators for future financial success? Rich parents. Seems kinda un American to me. Might as well be back in the days of royalty. My own personal beliefs? I'd say I'm between an FDR liberal and democratic socialist. Which is growing with millennials I'm pro union. I'm pro safety net. I think Medicare for all will not only save lives, but be ultimately as cheap if not cheaper than the crapsack system we have right now. Tax rates for the rich used to be a lot more fair than they are now. I don't want to abolish capitalism in favor of the state at least right now but I also don't think just letting the rich do whatever they want is a recipe for anything but a repeat of Russia in 1917. I've seen the guillotine memes on Twitter. What would earn a pyramid triangle thingy here? Explain to me how socialism, communism and libertarianism work. And if you're so inclined, explain to me how any one of the above would be the best system to live under in America in 2018 and the foreseeable future. And be cool about it. I've been around enough posters of certain subs to know which ones are going to come in with a chip on their shoulder and look to own the other side, and this isn't what this topic is about. EDIT It's getting late in my time zone, but I really want to hear some compelling arguments on how total, or at least a heavily influenced libertarian or socialist government would benefit America. Use studies, psychology, economic examples, historical precedent, whatever you want. Just be cool, be respectful, and don't be afraid to use layman's terms or Cliff's Notes. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Neither socialism nor libertarianism would ultimately work for the same reason- people are too selfish."}
{"id":"dbb888b4-2984-45a0-9def-2b87f56a122b","argument":"Many people have multiple citizenships; many people do not care about their citizenship; many people are citizens of countries they have never been to. Citizenship is just a legal term, not something with inherent significance.","conclusion":"Citizenship is an arbitrary social construct that we use to conveniently organise societies, not anything with inherent moral importance."}
{"id":"d78d78f0-5ecf-45f0-b35d-bf44754cb0b3","argument":"The most common reason for tattoos is self expression, which makes sense. They are intended to stimulate a certain social perception that is in some way emotionally rewarding to person with the tattoo. In my experience, tattoos are usually social signals that the person is youthful and or present minded, belonging to a certain social grouping, and or especially sentimental about the object of the tattoo's symbolism. Self esteem is usually highly tied to one's own perception of their social importance. Thus, on this basis tattoos increase self esteem in some manner because social importance should be synonymous with the type of social reward they are trying to get from people. All this seems reasonable because everyone wears clothing, drives nice cars, has nice houses, buys nice things, socializes with certain people, etc all usually with the purpose of increasing this aspect of self esteem. But getting a tattoo seems somehow more extreme. If I suddenly decided to commit to wearing one T shirt with a specific design on it from now until the day I died assuming I could wash it or buy an exact duplicate , I think that the level of sacrifice in terms of my commitment to a specific thing would seem a bit of a relatively extreme method for acquiring that self esteem. The tattoo should signal that you are willing to risk the fad fading, it looking bad in old age, that you will be signalling lower social status, and thus that you are not overly intelligent for taking these serious ramifications so lightly. Relative to all the other ways we get self esteem, does getting a tattoo not seem relatively desperate? Since desperation is usually not a socially desirable quality, shouldn't tattoos be less prevalent than they are now? This is all based on a lot of usuals I realize.","conclusion":"Tattoos should be more commonly perceived as a desperate self esteem enhancement"}
{"id":"15187fed-a045-433d-b12f-192f8398b417","argument":"Link to song This is a song about a person who is in line at the store, and sees a child in front of him about to buy a pair of shoes for his mother. His mother is very sick, and he needs money to buy the shoes why he is in line to begin with despite having no money is never stated . The person in line then gives the money to the child for the shoes. No resolution is given the highlight of the story is the man telling everyone what a good samaritan he is. Had this song been written from the point of view of an observer, the cashier, or the child, it wouldn't come off as if the person is bragging. While it is a nice story, it sounds more as if the writer is asking for accolades for his good deed.","conclusion":"The \"Christmas Shoes\" song is just a person bragging about a good deed that they did."}
{"id":"267cfc59-95d2-4bff-8d91-1fe2ae22f875","argument":"yes, read this i did not write this the case i wrote is safe on my usb cuz im not dumb enough to put it online.","conclusion":"It is morally permissible for victims to use deadly force as a deliberate response to repeated domestic violence"}
{"id":"d1bfdec2-f925-4605-acd6-bea3b854abcc","argument":"Opposition parties are important to holding the government accountable as they can criticise the government's budget, offer policy alternatives and improve parliamentary decision-making. European Conference of Presidents of Parliament pg 2.","conclusion":"Citizens have a right to hold governments accountable. Private funding strengthens the ability of opposition parties to hold the government to account."}
{"id":"a234283e-e443-4517-85ec-a8210dfda048","argument":"I am an American citizen, but I have never been a fan of Democracy. Even though many textbooks, writers, and politicians will claim that Democracy is the perfect government system as it gives voices to the people , comparative studies of democratic regimes across the world beg to differ. If you look at instances in Mexico, Nigeria, or even India, you'll see that even though the people are voting and are choosing their representatives in government the hallmark of Democracy , these countries are faring much worse than countries such as China\u2014which, despite a totalitarian regime and single party system that squashes all opposition, has had unprecedented growth and economic prosperity under state capitalism and unrestricted government powers and spending. Mexico and Nigeria both have huge corruption issues, and because of the extremely slow Democratic process, India has not been able to do much to improve the welfare of its citizens because of Democracy's never ending debate. Comparing between China and India, it seems obvious that one would rather live under an oppressive government such as the Communist Party and experience tremendous economic growth, than be a part of an inefficient and corrupt Democracy such as those of India, Mexico, and Nigeria. Furthermore, historically, totalitarian regimes under kings and emperors have shown to be the most prosperous. We remember the emperors of Rome and of China, and we learn about incredible English kings. Figures such as King Charlemagne and Emperor Qin Shihuang, among others, show how an autocratic ruler can actually lead a country better than an elected group of politicians can. And to cite the most recent example, Stalin's autocratic rule in the USSR allowed it to match America's power in a matter of a few decades, as opposed to the hundreds of years America took to reach global superpower status. I understand that in the developed world, countries such as the United States and those in Europe thrive under a well nourished Democracy. But I do truly think it is overrated and that Democracy isn't for everyone\u2014especially in the developing world. To summarize, Democracies such as Mexico, Nigeria, and India pale in comparison to the growth, prosperity, and overall living standards of autocratic regimes like China's. Historically, single party rule and totalitarianism under kings and emperors even Stalin \u2014not elected officials\u2014has led to some of the greatest regime successes in human history. Developed countries can have Democracy, but developing countries it'd be best not to.","conclusion":"Democracy is overrated and not a useful type of government."}
{"id":"79a0b3bf-b952-4573-90ec-82ab23cf522c","argument":"I will say from the start, I believe anthropogenic climate change ACC is real, and is perhaps the most important problem we face as a global community. I struggle with the debate over this because a lot of arguments from sseem not to be made in good faith. The arguments against ACC being real tend to be Scientists studying climate change are in some way biased or corrupted. They will say scientists are funded by the government, and the government somehow has an interest in ACC being real perhaps funding ACC reversal would put more money in the coffers of government, or the scientists that study it have a financial stake in ACC being real, because if it was not, they wouldn't have anything to study? The climate is naturally cyclical and this upward swing will be countered by a downward swing sometime later. With regard to the first point, scientists are indeed funded by the government, but their funding would persist even if ACC I was real. They're just paid to study the climate, and the climate appears to be changing, due to the influence of humans and industry. For the second, I'm not expert, but simply looking at graphs of the carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere over thousands of years thanks to date from ice cores seems to strongly suggest that industry has made an enormous difference. There's another argument that people who believe the scientists are just trusting them based on faith, and that no one really knows if their right. But this is 1 the case for all sciences, and we trust scientists when they discover the things that helped us to build satellites, and phones, and modern medicine, why not trust them now? And 2 you can test it for yourself, if you had the means this is why we have multiple labs from everywhere in the world studying the climate in a bunch if different ways, and they almost all come to the same conclusion. But even if these upward swings of late are natural, we have an incentive to keep the climate as it has been because changes to the climate will cause massive disruption and suffering for millions of people. Now, whether or not you believe ACC is real, the arguments against doing anything seem to be based around the idea that no one should be able to tell you what to do. If you want to drive a gas car, eat a lot of meat, and cut down as much forrest as you want, who should be able to tell you you cant? But we are already told what to do. You can't drive a car without a license, or insurance, or a seat belt. You can't make a car without airbags. You can't sell meat without proper hygenic standards. Etc. Etc. If ACC is real or even if it isn't, but it's still important to reverse the trends weve seen in the climate , why shouldn't the government enact laws to help change society in a way that will help reverse these trends? If there was a meteor headed toward the earth, you would want the government to do everything it could to stop it wouldn't you? Climate change Anthropogenic or not is basically a really slow, more abstract meteor heading right for us. I'm here for the discourse. Have at me.","conclusion":"Anthropogenic Climate Change is real, and we have a clear moral imperative to reverse it as quickly as possible"}
{"id":"adba367a-50f6-49eb-a566-5e9ce3f06c02","argument":"If Wakanda opens itself up to the world voluntarily, it is less likely to be blamed for having neglected the rest of the world for so long than if it attempts to remain secret and is discovered.","conclusion":"Wakanda will be discovered eventually. Better for it to happen on Wakanda's terms."}
{"id":"b6127d8b-b22b-4b1a-8870-6b6961d75f13","argument":"Cable TV subscription has been steadily declining for the past several years and sees little to no demand among the under 30 market. If steps aren't taken to correct this, the market for cable TV will die out entirely in the next 10 15 years. In addition, piracy of premium content, most notably HBO's Game of Thrones remains endemic due to the number of paywalls in place. I think it is entirely reasonable for cable companies to up their ante on service bundling and include cable TV for free with higher tier Internet service. Right now, the primary consumers of cable TV are the over 30 demographic and their children. These people typically have wired Internet less ingrained in their lifestyle, with older adults more used to a time without Internet and teens becoming increasingly fascinated with the mobile sphere. In addition, families typically have less overall discretionary income due to the costs of raising children. In contrast, faster home Internet is more popular among the 24 30 demographic, who use home Internet as part of their daily lives. This is the same group that mostly writes cable TV off as an unnecessary expense, but is willing to pay for faster Internet since it will allow things like streaming Netflix while simultaneously playing a game online. What I'm getting at is that the demographics who currently pay for cable and who currently pay for higher tier Internet see very little overlap. On top of this, many twentysomethings have commented that they are willing to pay for premium cable content, but the multiple paywalls in the way deincentivise them. While many people in this demographic would be willing to add an HBO subscription for 12 a month, almost none are willing to add the cable package that carriers require before a Premium channel can be added often totaling over 60 a month, even with a bundle . If we tie complimentary basic cable with higher tier Internet, this will have a number of effects. First, it motivates subscribers who only want Internet to consider upgrading a tier due to perceived value. Second, it opens the door for Premium Channels to a market that is currently uninterested in them. Lastly, it should do this without significantly cutting into existing cable profits. On top of all of this, such a scheme is good for cable TV channels, as well. Channels like MTV struggle to remain relevant in modern culture, and broadening their audience allows them to retain sponsorship and licenses as no one wants to advertise on or license a brand that no one is paying attention to . OK, Reddit. .","conclusion":"It is in cable providers' best interests for basic cable to be a free service."}
{"id":"d8d329a6-b2fb-4bdc-b418-87df06540704","argument":"Money is a made up concept that we use for trade, but has the potential to be used for oppression. UBI acts as a hedge against that oppression, by creating a minimum level of money extended to each person as a human right.","conclusion":"A UBI is an important safety net and provides people with dignity and freedom to ensure they can always support themselves."}
{"id":"94671a14-ac19-421c-ba78-1b8f0c599cb9","argument":"Journalists have raised concerns claiming that voices against religious fundamentalism have been shut down or not listened to.","conclusion":"No-platforming has shut down secular human rights activists who advocate against oppressive religious laws in Islamic countries."}
{"id":"c0a23e3c-a7fd-454d-b510-e57b93ac9961","argument":"In the debates about Elliot Rodgers, many commentators have pointed out what they call his entitled mindset. My own personal belief is that, rather than seeing himself truly as 'better than women' or 'too good for women' this was a mask for his real insecurity. His real underlying belief is that he is not good enough for women, so instead of creating or being things in his life that would make women attracted to him, he simply expected the women to show up if he had the right status etc etc. On to the main point of my post however. A lot of people criticising his behaviour before the attack have pointed out that he approached virtually no women, that he did not strike up normal conversations with women etc etc. Many others have said, with annoyance, that he just expected to sit on a bench or in the mall and for women to come up and approach him or be drawn to him etc etc. Elliot Rodgers had some interpersonal problems, he did not act completely 'normal' at all times. But let's look at him, he was conventionally good looking, most certainly above average. He was from a privileged background. He had access to status symbols and material wealth.He lived in a high status area and had a moderately famous father. Lets consider if Elliot Rodgers pursued his strategy but was instead a woman what would he have needed in order to get into conversations with eligible men? Be good looking.Thats literally it. If he had been good looking and female he could have just sat anywhere, done nothing, and some men would probably have approached at some point. If he glanced and smiled, the chances would go through the roof. He wouldnt even had needed all the other 'privileges' that have helped him. Maybe this is just how reality is, but if you think you can change my view, please do","conclusion":"I Think Elliot Rodgers would not have done what he did if he had been a woman"}
{"id":"92b60b46-ee6d-409a-8398-9f29861dd8d9","argument":"My stance is that it is irrational to cry Islamophobia when a large portion of Muslims actually are in support of extremism. The key defense for Islam in the face of extremism has been the extremists just represent a tiny fraction of all of Islam, when these numbers show that a sizable amount of Muslims harbor extremist sympathy. How can people defend a religion that clearly inspires violence, or at the very least bigotry? How can people claim that extremists aren't really part of Islam when they themselves perform atrocities in the name of Islam?","conclusion":"It is not Islamophobic to claim that a large portion of Muslims support radicalism\/extremism"}
{"id":"bcbcc86f-dd14-44c4-b6f7-ddce7e1c57e6","argument":"The Sacrifice of Isaac shows that God demands that humans are obedient to the point where humans ought to show their loyalty by being willing to sacrifice their own son simply because God commanded them to.","conclusion":"The God of the Abrahamic religions has shown to be vengeful."}
{"id":"cdb05bd5-03a4-4966-a7d6-ebdab051a92d","argument":"Legal or illegal, pure or contaminated, drugs will be used why not regulate their production and sale to ensure purity and prevent damage? Illegal drugs put billions into the hands of evil people who believe they are above the law. If you could go buy cocaine at the corner store, that shit would be clean not only free of harmful chemicals left over from production or added in later to increase profits, but free of collateral damage. Illegal drugs float down a river of blood and broken lives to get to us. Along the way, people are poisoned, shot, kidnapped, raped, and imprisoned for life. When these drugs arrive in our towns and cities, they can't always be trusted. The heroin you bought today could be 10 times stronger than the heroin you bought yesterday. You could die on half the dose. It could have something horrible in it that rots your arm off. Legal drugs are just another commodity they are produced, and they are sold. Their purity and potency is strictly regulated. They are inherently safer. If you somehow managed to get a prescription to cocaine, heroin, or any other dangerous drug, you would be far less likely to overdose than someone who buys their drugs on the streets. You wouldn't run the risk of getting locked up, stolen from, poisoned, murdered, or swindled. You would be far safer, and you wouldn't be funding all kinds of evil to get what you want, or what you need to not feel sick.","conclusion":"Drugs should be legal."}
{"id":"1408f586-ce29-45ea-be11-1c7295cad5ff","argument":"In the case of Commonwealth v Patrick Quinn a man pulled down his pants in front of two 13 year old schoolgirls. Public indecency laws allowed police to protect their dignity without resorting to a more expensive and time consuming option of a sexual assault trial.","conclusion":"Public indecency laws, such as General Law c. 272, \u00a7 16 are still used by police to protect victims of indecent exposure."}
{"id":"71f9225b-05cd-49b5-9240-e7c4fec18dfc","argument":"I'm sure you've heard of the controversy concerning the GhostBusters remake, or dozens of other films and media embroiled in the debate over minorities in movies. But I don't thunk the issue is the minority characters becoming a part Hollywood needs more representation. The issue is that these movies are being judged and marketed solely off of that fact. People looking for black actors actresses is fine, but don't make that your only selling point. There's a difference between Jordan Peele's all black cast policy and the GhostBuster director saying anyone who doesn't watch his movie is a bigot. There will always be people yelling thata movie is forcedly diverse . But by selling your movie fairly, you won't alienate sincere watchers.","conclusion":"Forced diversity doesn't exist. Virtue signalling does."}
{"id":"e33b0af1-b039-41c1-a4b2-b7079e1159cc","argument":"I see it all the time with sitcoms that are on TV right now. The prime example I use when talking to friends is How I Met Your Mother which is a perfect example of a smart show held back by a gimmick like a laugh track . It's obvious that laugh track is digitally added in in post. I don't want to get into the details of it, but the way the show progresses and plays out, it's clearly not filmed in front of an audience. So why the laugh track? I believe it's hand holding. The producers are saying Hey, that thing they just said was funny which is demonstrated by the people laughing. You should be laughing too and it bothers me to no end. It completely screws with the comedic timing, it breaks the fourth wall unintentionally, and in binge watches it's downright irritating. If I can watch your show and pick out a certain laugh I've heard many times before, there's a problem. I understand that shows in the past were filmed in front of a live audience, so that's why they have a laugh track. I just feel as though it's detrimental to good comedy. So many shows do fine without it, so why do we need it?","conclusion":"I believe the continued use of the laugh track is holding back smarter, better shows."}
{"id":"5762714d-dcb4-4ab0-8e0b-5a9db3f8d7be","argument":"Medieval universities started as Christian monastic schools and modern systems of education in Europe derive from schools founded upon religious principles with the primary purpose of training the clergy.","conclusion":"Western Civilization via Christianity has given the world a great educational system."}
{"id":"9ca5edac-27d3-4556-8850-17b79d84f943","argument":"Discussing this in a US specific context, but if people have counterarguments that aren't specific to the US feel free. x200B My view is that government employees have perverse incentives way beyond normal citizens to always vote to increase their pay, increase the scope of government, to hide corruption in government, to tamper with future elections, etc. x200B And that the higher up in government the employee works, the more perverse the incentives become especially to support actions that will personally benefit themselves as government employees at the cost of the public welfare. x200B Politicians will knowingly try to enact policies for their employees that will cause them to be voted back in, which is a feedback cycle that gets worse over time. Things like increased pay, pensions, etc. should be fairly decided by the taxpayer and voters and in many cases government employees voting in large blocks will drown out these concerns. x200B Extreme example Current and former CIA officers running in elections should not receive potentially illegal support from their former coworkers that only weeks before they were working with to spy on US citizens. x200B Allowing government employees to vote is one of the biggest reasons that the size of government has continued to grow over time, and this will continue almost indefinitely until a very large percentage of certain states work directly for the state. x200B Also, I think there is something ethically wrong about being both an employer taxpayer and employee at the same time when casting a vote. It's like voting for yourself in a way. x200B There are additional consequences in that political parties will then pander to government employees, and once elected the lines between government and private political party will become blurred, leading to further corruption.","conclusion":"Current and possibly former government employees should not be eligible to vote in elections"}
{"id":"07532f79-63cc-4bba-995d-ef54674b8f30","argument":"In order to win an argument, you don't need to be right. You only need to change the oppositions mind, or opinion. Sure, being right helps, but it is neither necessary nor sufficient to win the argument. You don't need to be right to win. necessary Being right does not guarantee winning. sufficient","conclusion":"It is my view that an argument is not about being right, it's merely about changing someone's mind."}
{"id":"2151a6c0-b18b-486e-bb9e-aa72cba74ab2","argument":"I think it is important to protect the continent from an ever more aggressive Russia and to allow for Europe to be 100 unified on trade and other continental policies. Not only that but I believe it would make Europe the freest and most prosperous nation in the world, the left version of the US and it would allow Europe to be free from needing US military protection, making them truly independence for the first time since WWII. Having an Equal or greater power telling the US to knock it off with the wars would make the whole world a whole lot safer. Not to mention the Idea I have in place would separate the courts and legislature completely preventing them from ever becoming corrupt by politics or money. Administrative plan below The nations of Europe hereby unite under this constitution to unify foreign policy and maintain economic stability, while preserving the domestic independence and culture of every nation. Article I Parliament Section I The full legislative authority belongs to the Parliament of Europe. The powers listed in this article are the only powers granted to this body to legislate. The Parliament of Europe, shall have the power to control international trade, regulate trade between member nations, regulate interstate commerce, to levy tariffs on goods and taxes on the nation states by perporton equal to population, asylum and refugee resettlement by proportion by population, carry out a census every ten years, and sole power to regulate the Euro. Section II The parliament will be made up of two thousand members with each nation getting a set number of seats in proportion of the population as reported by the census. Section III The election of Members of Parliament shall be up to the government of each nation to decide each nation must send their Members of Parliament by January first every fifth year. Each member must be at least twenty one years of age to be appointed. Section IV The Prime Minister shall be elected by the Members of Parliament, which will be the first vote of every new session, no member may vote for a member of the same nation to be Prime Minister during the nominations, the top two with the most votes go on to the runoff and the member with the most vote becomes Prime Minister. Article II Senate Section I The Senate shall have the full electoral authority over the executive branch and authority to remove any member of the Judiciary or Executive branch by a vote of two thirds majority. Section II Each nation shall get one male and one female senator who shall be elected by the national legislature of each nation. Section III Senators shall hold their seats until the age of sixty five, and be at least twenty one years of age, and give up all ownership of any businesses before being eligible. Article III Executive Section I The full authority to enforce the laws of the federation, ensure free and fair elections in the nation states and appoint judges to the judiciary. Section II The Governor General may create and appoint people to positions to help with the duties of the Executive Branch. Section III The Governor General serves for life unless removed by the senate. To be eligible one must be at least be twenty one years of age, and give up ownership of all businesses. Article IV Judicial Section I The full judicial authority shall be vested in the Supreme court of Europe and such lower courts as the parliament may from time to time ordain and establish. Section II The continent judiciary shall have the power to solve disputes between nations, review and strike down laws passed by the parliament if they violate the constitution and strike down national laws in direct contradiction to prohibitions placed against the nation states in the constitution. Section III The Supreme Court shall consist of 9 members. Article V Rights of the Nations Section I All powers not directly prohibited to the nation state by the constitution is a power of the state. Article VI Amending Section I The constitution shall be amenable in three ways as provided in this article. Section II Amendment process one, two thirds of the parliament shall propose a new amendment to the constitution, and two thirds of the nation states must vote to approve the amendment. Section III Amendment process two, one fifth of the nations shall propose a new amendment to the constitution and then all the nations will vote to approve it, two thirds must approve the amendment. Section IV Amendment process three, ten percent of a one fifth of national population sign a petition for a national referendum to vote to propose an amendment, and then each nation shall put the amendment to a vote, it must pass in two thirds of the nations to approve the amendment. Section V Once an amendment is passed it becomes law and all laws or parts of the constitution that contradict the new amendment are null and void. Article VII Joining the Federation Section I All nations in Europe must simply pass a national bill or referendum. All nations outside of Europe must get approval by the nation states.","conclusion":"Europe Exculding Russia Should United As One in Federation Under this constitution."}
{"id":"88a742d5-56f0-4a74-9c42-ef010b462ed6","argument":"\"Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights. Civil and Political Rights. Situation of detainees at Guanta\u0301namo Bay\". United Nations Economic and Social Council. February 15, 2006 - \"The indefinite detention of prisoners of war and civilian internees for purposes of continued interrogation is inconsistent with the provisions of the Geneva Conventions 23.\"","conclusion":"The indefinite detention of prisoners for intelligence-gathering is unjust"}
{"id":"951d545a-dbbd-495b-ade5-9e8fdc3decf0","argument":"People could dress, choose a partner, choose a career or pursue other goals regardless of their gender.","conclusion":"In present society, people's behaviour is often constrained by their gender."}
{"id":"3432cefb-53e7-4d7d-ac22-aa00ccb84ce4","argument":"Terms of Service are only applicable to the user accepting them. The passenger has consented to the risks involved in utilising a self-driving car with full knowledge that they may be involved in an accident. Passing pedestrians have not consented to these risks.","conclusion":"If harm must be caused by a self-driving car, it should be inflicted on those who are most at fault for the accident."}
{"id":"fb32468e-8921-44e7-86ff-ae0852fa01bc","argument":"I will attempt to explain the reasons for my position as explicitly and coherently as I can, for maximum ability to have my view changed, and I will organize it into several parts, any of which I am open to having discussed, and possibly changed. The reason I am making this post is because most people believe in absolute morality, and like to discuss things in terms of good and evil, and I would like to know why it bothers them so much when I say that discussing things in terms of good and evil is a flawed method of thinking. Useful definitions Moral relativism is the theory that there are no guiding universal moral principles and all moral decisions are made based off of value systems ex. I value helping people, so I will help people . Moral absolutism is the theory that there are universal moral principles ex. Helping people is the right thing to do, so I will help people . First off, I will start with what I consider to be my most easily defended point the lack of an objective moral authority. The existence of a deity is impossible to prove or disprove, as is the existence of any absolute moral force in the universe, as anyone who studies philosophy should know, but for the purpose of this argument I will assume that a deity or other moral force exists in or outside this universe. There are two possible sources for divine moral authority one from the deity itself, and one from a larger source of morality that the deity has access to. In the former case the deity decides what is good and evil, and thus anything the deity decides is good, is good. This makes morality neither absolute, nor real in any sense. Today helping people might be good, but tomorrow it might be human centipedes, and self derived moral authority would mean that both options would be exactly as just. Morality would still be relative, and in fact it's unclear why such a deity would actually be a moral authority, objectively speaking. In the case that a deity draws its moral authority from a larger source, the deity isn't a moral authority, the source is, and that just brings us right back to where we started. So regardless of whether a deity has self derived moral authority, or derives it from somewhere else, we get pretty much nowhere. My second point is the lack of objective methods of defining morality. There are two methods of defining objective moral rules that don't involve a divine mandate either they by their nature are always true and inviolable Kant , or there is a value system such that minor evils can add up to a greater good utilitarianism . The first case just seems to be impossible there aren't any moral rules such that breaking them under any circumstance seems to be always wrong, at least that we've been able to come up with act only on that maxim that you wish should become a universal law is just relativism, too . For utilitarianism, it still just breaks down into moral relativism at a certain point because you have to decide what happiness means, which is different for different people for some it could mean pleasure, or satisfaction, for some it could mean following the divine mandate of their god . Either way, you have to say that the requirements for moral rules are either too narrow to the point of impossibility, or too vague to the point of turning back into relativism. My third point is this we all already act like moral relativists, even if we don't think we do. Pretty much all moral rules that have arisen have done so in response to the environment and existing value systems, and they change constantly. Two hundred years ago it was considered morally wrong to wed outside of your race in America today opposing that same thing is considered wrong. Even if we'd like to think there is an absolute system of morality somewhere out there, what we actually do is dependent on what we personally and as a society value, rather than some abstract objective rule. Finally, I have my hardest claim to prove characterizing things in terms of good and evil is an inherently destructive form of thinking that ignores nuance, divides groups, and glosses over the bigger issues at play. People simply don't act in a way that they truly believe is evil. Even Hitler probably thought that he was just doing what was necessary to move the world forwards by uniting it whatever the cost, and calling people like him evil, forgetting the sentiments that lead an entire country to try to kill off everyone that didn't fit into their norm, seems to me to be counterproductive, especially in the light of recent political turmoil pointing towards nationalism and authoritarianism across the globe. When you make arguments that involve morality in form x has y moral value, therefore z , you ignore nuance and assume that your values are universally correct, while discouraging thoughtful examination of another point of view. This doesn't help anyone capable of rational thinking, which pretty much all literate humans can do, especially with access to the massive data pool of the internet though I can see how it would be necessary to motivate large groups of uneducated people to act, since anger is the most contagious emotion, and in out group mentality was probably at one point necessary for survival . So in conclusion, there is logically no source of moral authority, there don't seem to be universal laws of morality, and we all already act as though we are making decisions based on value systems rather than moral rules. In addition, it seems to me that moral arguments seem to be lazy when compared to value based ones, simply by virtue of dismissing the opposition and ignoring implicit assumptions, which might be the heart of the issue. If you feel that any of my points are insufficiently supported, explain how, and I can elaborate, or change my view Similarly, if you have a counterargument to any point here, or to the larger idea of moral relativism, you could easily alter my viewpoint I like to believe that I only hold the strongest arguments I have as beliefs, so if you can make a better case for moral objectivism than I have against it that would change my view.","conclusion":"Morality is Relative and Absolute Standards of Good and Evil Probably Don't Exist"}
{"id":"d0d7d8d9-091f-44f4-a01b-9b1d5503600e","argument":"I understand that vote fuzzing is supposed to be a safeguard against spam bots, and to help refresh content on the main page, but it seems to do more harm than good. The algorithm aggressively punishes content that receives a ton of upvotes early, such as major announcements, while rewarding posts that receive most of the upvotes much later. For example the new Star Wars trailer received an insane amount of upvotes instantly. Check out this screenshot it received over 10k upvotes in less than an hour. However, it now stands at 5339 upvotes, which is pretty much equivalent to whatever the daily top post on r aww is on any given day. On the opposite end of the spectrum, if you look at the top posts of all time for reddit, you'll see the subs with the highest percentage are r blackpeopletwitter and r me irl. These are subs that I think a lot of users go through their top of all time and upvote, and because enough time has passed since the original post, these upvotes are not penalized. I realize this is a super insignificant and ultimately kind of petty thing to take issue with but I think that the voting system makes it so that major, hype events end up with pretty middling vote totals because their upvotes are so front loaded. I think adjusting the algorithm so that a more proportionally accurate total appears while the algorithm still removes it from the front page as quickly as it does now would be the best solution.","conclusion":"Vote fuzzing makes reddit's voting system broken"}
{"id":"825dc581-6006-4f14-ad52-1369205a5501","argument":"Presuming that other animals are not aware of themselves and of the world perhaps agrees easily with humans' immediate perception of reality, but it is not a self-evident truth. Descartes is known for having argued that animals are \"automata\" lacking souls and consciousness. But these ideas were defied, for instance, by Voltaire who doubted that animals who show rich emotional lives, and who possess the biological means to feel, are mere machines check regan.animalsvoice.com","conclusion":"According to the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness \"humans are not unique in possessing the neurological substrates that generate consciousness. Non-human animals. also possess these neural substrates\"."}
{"id":"fb723f47-6593-4a3d-b42c-b8b1bdb554c2","argument":"There is no action\/inaction distinction - to fail to prevent suffering when one had the opportunity is morally no different than causing it oneself.","conclusion":"Since Wakanda is affluent and powerful, its inhabitants have a moral duty to help less fortunate people around the world."}
{"id":"1a3b1bb3-bf69-4ad3-95e4-c15bd4c527a6","argument":"Corporations could be permitted to hold onto copyright for the duration of the national average lifespan.","conclusion":"A different set of copyright laws could be drafted for corporate citizens."}
{"id":"aaaf34bc-939a-4ff5-89af-d11b5dc23f53","argument":"A friend of mine commented yesterday that mass shootings always revive the gun debate, and wondered aloud whether government federal, state, or local would take action to regulate guns. My attitude is that there is no real debate over gun control it's been over since Sandy Hook. The shooter there targeted small children, and after a few months of hand wringing, we all collectively shrugged and accepted that this is just how things work in the US. If dead schoolchildren can't inspire voters to action, nothing will. There is no group of people that could possibly inspire more sympathy or outrage. In Orlando, the victims were patrons of an LGBTQ club, and to say that a significant portion of Americans doesn't entirely sympathize with the LGBTQ community would be an incredibly mild description of the situation. The bottom line is, this is what normal is in America. The debate is over. We can talk about this, complain, yell at each other, call each other names, and propose all sorts of compromises. But none of it will lead to anything being done. It's possible that one day a Supreme Court decision could affect things, but that's about as far from voter and legislative centered action as you can get. THINGS I AM NOT DEBATING HERE The efficacy of gun control measures The efficacy of non gun control solutions to gun violence, such as let's just ALL carry guns all the time What Trump thinks about gun control What Hillary thinks about gun control What Bernie thinks about gun control What the Framers would think about gun control The necessity wisdom of citizens remaining prepared for potential armed revolt against the US government at all times Whether this is all the NRA's fault Whether this is all Islam's fault Whether this is all men's fault The real meaning of the Second Amendment Which side of the debate understands the Constitution better Whether it's right good moral to want changes in US gun laws And so forth. It's not that I don't have opinions on any of these things I just don't presently hate myself enough to want to debate them on the internet with strangers. I'll let you know if that changes. If your argument includes any of the things listed above, I will probably not give you the sort of response you are looking for. What I'm trying to say here is that when we're done feeling shitty about Orlando, we're going to let out a deep sigh and go back to whatever we were doing before, and repeat the cycle when the next big shooting happens. Gun control proponents lack the political will and power to accomplish anything meaningful I'm intentionally discounting local and some state governments here gun control in one city is meaningless when all it takes is an hour's drive to circumvent it , and anti gun control advocates seem to regard a certain number of innocent lives lost as simply the price of their freedom to own guns. Collectively we'd rather continue going through this every month or so than risk being even a little bit inconvenienced when we try to buy a gun, and this tragic event will not change that. This is what normal in America looks like, and what it will continue to look like for quite some time to come.  convince me that something about this one is different, and we're actually going to do something this time.","conclusion":"Nothing will change as a result of the shooting in Orlando"}
{"id":"443ef48e-e0b6-4632-b060-7ac2c5c1afb5","argument":"More countries have adhered to the NPT than any other arms limitation and disarmament agreement 191 states, as of August 2016","conclusion":"Non-Proliferation Treaty NPT - The UN achieved the first international agreement to pursue nuclear disarmament."}
{"id":"d69c224a-5c4c-4782-b675-7988c0afea4a","argument":"I believe in the free market. In a capitalist society, people have the right to choose the product and service providers they view as best and to be free of cronyism and such. People who work in a capitalist society have the right to band together and tell the customers who purchase the products and service created by their labor that something isn't right. If you make the decision to walk through a picket line, especially for such a destructive industry as fast food, you're doing one of the worst things you can do to the free market telling businesses that they can be successful even if they abuse the help. I live in NY, USA. edit If this is important, I have never worked in fast food nor have I ever been on a work strike. I work in software and digital ops. I'm mostly vegetarian and eat fast food prolly 1 2 times per year at a highway rest stop or something.","conclusion":"If fast food is your thing, I don't really understand that, but that's fine. But if you cross a picket line to get your factory-farmed meat, fuck you."}
{"id":"4706404d-44af-4bd1-8a27-18eaa6ce802d","argument":"The highest teachings in the Hindu tradition are monotheistic and center around love for God","conclusion":"Monotheism is central to all the major world religions with the exception of buddhism"}
{"id":"cc2bfb54-01e9-4d47-b3fa-698360ba52e3","argument":"Hello I'm submitting my views on the ethics of the death penalty and physician assisted suicide on the cmv subreddit. I consider myself well informed on this subject, especially concerning the current method of both death penalty and euthenasia, which is accomplished by administering Nembutal which is known as sodium pentobarbital In short, i believe that euthenasia in the healthcare system and the execution of criminals is NOT ETHICAL Adding to that, even if it was legal, I do not believe that the current molecule we use \u201cpentobarbital\u201d is extremely unethical. My reasoning behind capital punishment being unethical is First, one can remove capital offenders from society by placing them in prison for the extent of their lives, which would equivocate the intentions of the death penalty. Second, the legal system is fallible, which presents the possibility of killing an innocent human being who is wrongly accused. Third, Capital punishment does not deter new crime, and may actually increase it by hardening the hearts of civilization. Also while I am in support of euthanasia, mandating that hospitals honor euthanasia requests is not ethical because the most ethical approach is to honor the rights of people, with can be done by recognizing a few certain rights that people innately possess. The first certainty is that human beings have the freedom to end their own life at their choosing. The second certainty is that no organization which is a group of people is obligated to assist that person in their decision to die. The third certainty is that the healthcare system is founded on the maxim \u201cdo no harm,\u201d and should not violate this maxim. From these three premises, one can conclude that it is the responsibility of the organization to decide which euthanasia requests to honor or deny. Even with this freedom to honor requests, the healthcare system cannot honor euthanasia requests while observing its own maxim. Therefore euthanasia may be ethical when provided from an organization, but it cannot be ethically provided for by the healthcare system, if the healthcare system is to honor its maxims as absolute. From this, the ethical solution must be an accountable, third party euthanasia provider who is allowed honor the rights of euthanasia to those who are ruled \u201csound of mind\u201d and fit to die by a jury of their peers Finally The reason that the acts of mandating euthanasia in the healthcare system and capital punishment are currently unethical in the united states is because we use \u201cNembutal Sodium Pentobarbital\u201d to obtain these goals. Pentobarbital is unethical because it will indeed put the subject into coma in small doses, but in large doses may actually act as a stimulant and return them to consciousness. However, the subject could not communicate this, because the drug will have incapacitated the rest of their body from movement. Promising whoever uses it a long and painful demise as they suffocate from an inactive diaphragm. For this reason, I am not in support of Euthenasia in the hospital or Capital punishement. I believe that we should do away with capital punishment, Move euthanasia from the hospital to another organization, and Create a more ethical molecule for euthanasia.","conclusion":"why euthanasia and the death penalty are not ethical in current society"}
{"id":"48eed282-00ab-4708-8021-a346e7065880","argument":"There are some people who experience long phases of deep sadness and anxiety where they don't see it getting any better but at some point manages to get past it and find things in life that are worth living for. While this may not be the case for everyone, for the ones who this is the case for, having more time to consider can be crucial for them to discover reasons to keep going.","conclusion":"A patients emotional and mental state can radically change with time as the patient may change their perspective with more reflection or through positive influences by their surroundings."}
{"id":"8eae6937-2d38-41c3-a4d2-29f101ba90ce","argument":"Brave New World, as I understand it, paints the picture of a world in which society has sacrificed freedom for happiness. Everybody is happy but their lives are mapped out for them by someone else. Most people I have talked to believe that this is, simply put, wrong. But I can't agree It seems to me that the 'freedom' that everybody champions is illusory. People talk about freedom of identity self discovery, self invention, yet no man is an island physics and chemistry demonstrate that the atoms we are made of interact and evolve according to rigid and immutable laws the unquestioned theory of evolution apparently appears to state that conscious beings evolve from non conscious cells in an entirely deterministic fashion in short, our understanding of the world tells us that we are but complex clockwork, and do not make 'choices'. Of course, we do feel alive, and in control. We live inside our own heads, and experience our lives vividly and as if we were at the helm of our own ship, steering and changing course whimsically and arbitrarily, without acknowledging the cataclysm of minute quantum and electromagnetic phenomena that convert the information fed to us by our surroundings into our 'decisions'. Since all conceptions of 'responsibility' and 'purpose' occur at this interpretive, once removed level, it would be silly to argue that determinism strips us of either however it seems to me that people are all too keen to forget that all notions of 'identity', 'individuality', 'choice' are only convenient, macroscopic notions that exist at an interpretative level. If we were given a chance to sacrifice this illusory 'freedom' for chemical happiness, why would we ever want to refuse it? If you wish to respond to this argument by contesting determinism, which is somewhat axiomatic in the above, could you please do so in depth? Truth be told, this viewpoint exhausts me I feel antisocial and cynical but I have come to regard it as inevitable. Therefore, I would be very grateful if you would take the time to attempt to change my view","conclusion":"I believe that a 'dystopia' such as Brave New World is actually extremely desirable."}
{"id":"ab5a14bc-fd21-4161-8229-523fccfbd0d1","argument":"Trump bragged about sexually assaulting women, and has been accused of sexual assault by many women in accordance with his own claims.","conclusion":"Trump was already a bad person before he was President."}
{"id":"55efb740-bb2f-4825-bed4-d3d15454b9cb","argument":"One such failure is when the IMF colluded with the stronger economies and placed their banks in priority over citizens of Greece.","conclusion":"The IMF is a bad example to use as it has repeatedly failed countries in trouble."}
{"id":"8570e9ba-db5d-4161-a709-bd0654786733","argument":"It's odd isn't it? Displaying a dead body? The coroner preserves it, they put make up on the corpse and dress it up nice to go into the ground where no one will ever see it again unless they're planning to exhume them. I don't know if it's just me , but the idea of someone else choosing how I look and then parading people in front of the body is awful because that's the last memory they'll have of that person. A body in a coffin with caked on makeup in a nice dress looking like a peaceful sleeping person. If that's not how they were alive that shouldn't be how they're remembered when they're dead.","conclusion":"I think displaying a body at a funeral is disrespectful."}
{"id":"6760dd1f-fb4a-4390-b7fc-5747c79b8757","argument":"HPV can be passed on even when an infected person has no signs or symptoms so there is no way to protect yourself from it apart from getting a vaccination for it.","conclusion":"HPV is so common that nearly all men and women get it at some point in their lives. It is clearly worth making the vaccination compulsory."}
{"id":"807a20e6-6e4f-4fc1-b694-fca18d8c49a8","argument":"Darth Vader is a formidable fighter, but I think people exaggerate his ability to make him into some sort of demi god. I believe that Batman is more physically fit, and has a better sense of tactics. While Darth Vader is a formidable fighter pilot and understands three dimensional combat, Batmen has years of experience utilizing the environment around him. Although Darth Vader has a lightsaber, which would presumably be able to slice Batman in two, Batman has enough experience dealing with near death situations that this wouldn't be a problem. Batman is just a human and has successfully contended with not being shot in the head so far, so a lightsaber wouldn't be a big deal.","conclusion":"Batman could defeat Darth Vader in a street fight"}
{"id":"2ee007e9-a67c-4fc7-92ff-10f3ffdbb1d6","argument":"Marijuana use in the Netherlands has not increased following decriminalisation; in fact, cannabis consumption is lower compared to countries with stricter legislation such as the UK.","conclusion":"Places that have decriminalised some or all drugs have not observed a long-term increase in consumption, and occasionally even a decrease has been observed."}
{"id":"4008b249-6897-47b9-9ff9-5953fb26b907","argument":"The rate at which government power is being abused and being brought to light should force any rational individual to wish to blatantly change the structure of government. This seems to not be the case. I believe this is because the American people have bought into the propaganda that is offered them and believe that it is for their own good, and regardless of abuses at least they're better off then some third world dictatorship. The general public doesn't care that their rights are being trampled upon, and therefore nothing will change.","conclusion":"I believe that although the current USA surveillance scandal should be enough to cause open rebellion, the American people are to brainwashed to act."}
{"id":"4641fd62-359d-4fbd-82d3-305362c0d2e1","argument":"Foreign policy is always either immoral or doomed to failure. If the US seeks to negotiate with rogue states like Iran or North Korea, it only gives legitimacy and support to their controlling, murderous and corrupt regimes. If it seeks a military solution it risks military disasters like Vietnam, or undermining the stability of entire regions as with the Iraq conflict. There is no international solution to these problems. American based systems such as domestic missile defence and nuclear deterrence are the best options to stop threats to America.","conclusion":"Foreign policy is always either immoral or doomed to failure. If the US seeks to negotiate with rog..."}
{"id":"f427679f-bb54-4ef5-b9e2-e8f2f310bf4e","argument":"Its pretty common to encounter people, including a decent number of reputable astrophysicists, who believe that the odds of life existing on other planets are so high as to be a near certainty. These assumptions, as far as I can tell, tend to be based on the size and age of the universe i.e. huge and old , particularly the number of earth like planets. But its my understanding that in fact knowing exactly how earth like a planet is is pretty difficult, and that many planets listed as earth like may not actually be earth like in enough of the ways that matter in other words, just because a planet is roughly earth sized, roughly the right distance from a sun, and features heavy elements, doesn't actually mean that it in any way is earth like enough to support life. In fact, it is entirely possible that planets which can support life are vanishingly rare, much rarer than most estimates based on earth like planets seem to acknowledge. In addition, the odds that a planet which does meet earth like criteria actually will develop life are basically totally unknown anthropic bias and the fact that we literally only have only one model planet to observe makes actually nailing down the odds of abiogenesis on some other, non earth planet very difficult to estimate. And while it is true that abiogenesis seems to have occured roughly soon after conditions on earth met the necessary preconditions as we understand them, it is also my understanding that as far as we can tell abiogenesis only happened once on earth, with all life on earth ultimately stemming from a common origin. If abiogenesis were really common once the necessary preconditions were met, why hasn't it kept happening? TL DR I think most estimates of the number of planets which actually meet the necessary conditions for abiogenesis rather than just being broadly earth like , and for the likelihood of abiogenesis occuring once conditions have been met, are very possibly way too high, and that it is just as likely if not moreso that both planets which can support life and abiogenesis on such planets are infinitesimally rare. While I would never say with 100 certainty that alien life does not exist, I am unconvinced by those who say it almost certainly does.","conclusion":"The assumption that alien life exists is wildly optimistic"}
{"id":"69b258e1-f038-453c-90fb-ca55bea2e16a","argument":"A lot of \u201cprogressive\u201d activists seem to have strong beliefs that what is between your legs is meaningless. This article makes some fair points, but this doesn\u2019t mean genitals don\u2019t matter. I don\u2019t see anything wrong with what the guy in the story said he\u2019s not into penises, that\u2019s him. The notion that caring about genitals is inherently transphobic is bullshit. This topic is continually controversial, and I\u2019m not really sure why. Every discussion I\u2019ve seen concludes that genitals matter and genital preferences are legit, yet somehow this is still a point of contention. From my point of view it seems to be overzealous \u201cprogressive\u201d activists that are causing these problems by asserting rather fringe views. There\u2019s compelling evidence for a biological connection between gender identity and the body. Transgender people often describe gender dysphoria as their body not matching their mental identity. This is also why many men and women consider their genitals and other sex characteristics important to their identity. I would even say that most don\u2019t actually distinguish between their own sex and gender identity. Sexual orientation reflects attraction to both gender and sex. Yes, genitals don\u2019t really figure in initial attraction, but we also like seeing naked bodies. We also date because we are seeking a type of sex with a type of person\u2014this \u201cwell you should say you want vaginas then\u201d thing is ignorant. The article\u2019s idea that this is preference, not sexual orientation, is just plain wrong. For a straight guy, another guy performing oral sex on him would feel good, but a straight guy wouldn\u2019t want that. We accept that as valid. Genital preferences are essentially the inverse of that, but still valid. It\u2019s simply unrealistic to treat penises and vaginas as \u201cmere body parts\u201d that are artificially gendered by society. The association of woman gt vagina reflects this overwhelming reality. It\u2019s entirely reasonable to expect a woman to have a vagina and a man to have a penis. That\u2019s a descriptive reality, not a normative statement. This other article seems to believe that this is just \u201ccissexism.\u201d I find it hard to take certain arguments seriously. Genitals matter they\u2019re a part of attraction and a relationship that can\u2019t be trivialized. And a penis is still a penis calling it a \u201clarge clit\u201d or \u201cgirldick\u201d doesn\u2019t change that it\u2019s not a vagina. This fundamentally affects the sex acts you can perform with someone. Some activists just seem determined to \u201cexpose\u201d all preferences as transphobia, saying things like \u201cwell even if you don\u2019t like penises you could make it work,\u201d \u201cyou can only say that if you\u2019re have nothing but vaginal sex,\u201d or \u201cyou\u2019re just close minded\u201d I agree that there is a lot of transphobia trying to hide behind preferences, but I think a lot of activists are swinging too far in reaction, arguing the absurd position that genitals don\u2019t matter.","conclusion":"Gender is not defined by genitals, but genitals are still relevant and important"}
{"id":"4419b2e0-5620-4e5a-8b79-6ecbd0db6b40","argument":"There is nothing a software quality engineer does that should not be done by the developers who write the code. There is no point in writing code without afterwards validating that the work meets the requirements defined beforehand. It is the responsibility of the developer to meet these requirements and ensure they are met before submitting the work to any non development branch. If the requirements have been properly met and tested then the role of QA is not to revalidate these requirements, it is simply to collect information about how the application behaves, which once again is the responsibility of all developers to ensure the application behaves as required. In fact, having this seperation between developers and QA is detrimental to the software development process since it requires developers to context switch between tasks when defects are revealed after the code has been submitted to testing. If the developer understands that testing and validating their work is completely their responsibility, they will test more thoroughly and include regression testing in their daily tasks to ensure that no defects are revealed farther down the pipeline. Automated regression testing can be written and maintained by every developer, it doesnt need to fall under the umbrella of QA. If both developers and QA are capable of writing, maintaining, and assuring that code works and meets business requirements, why have an unnecessary seperation that simply adds another layer, and complexifies the development process.","conclusion":"There is no reason for software quality assurance to be seperate from software development"}
{"id":"d29af892-77ae-4a4f-aa36-e4b0a0545515","argument":"Recently I moved away from drinking coffee with any sort of cream in it and my eyes have been opened to what coffee truly is. Drinking coffee black allows you to really tell if it's good coffee or Maxwell House. You get all the subtleties of the drink when it's black, you can tell if it's dark or light or if it's a strong blend, you can tell what's unique about the flavor. On the other hand when you put cream and sugar or one or the other you basically end up drinking sweet milk with a hint of general coffee flavor. My dad puts so much cream in his coffee that it literally is just milk. I've also tried people's coffee when it was so sweet that it tasted nothing like coffee at all. Now I'm not saying things like lattes or cappuccinos are bad but those are different drinks and serve a different purpose. I'm talking about regular old coffee from a pot. In short I'm saying leave coffee black or get a latte or just drink some sweet milk and a caffeine pill, but don't claim to like coffee when what you drink tastes nothing like coffee.","conclusion":"people who put cream and sugar into their coffee don't actually like cofee"}
{"id":"ef26e6e8-7dd4-4ee2-9d03-92232b110c12","argument":"The historical and current health and reproductive injustices women of colour have experienced have made them mistrustful of doctors and thus less likely to seek medical attention. No attention has been dedicated to this issue by the mainstream feminist movement.","conclusion":"The healthcare reforms that mainstream feminism focuses on are ones that are most relevant to white women. This causes the healthcare issues that women of colour are disproportionately harmed by to be ignored."}
{"id":"41ba902d-5f3c-4f56-b89a-0a82ecc35ad7","argument":"This is similar to how legal drugs, such as alcohol, are currently treated in most countries: harmful use is punished and use that does not harm others is not. This distinction allows those who use drugs safely to do so without repercussions.","conclusion":"The negative repercussions of drug use should be prosecuted on their own merit and context without prosecuting the drug use itself."}
{"id":"e7f58dc7-869e-41b7-bfab-a193c35b1332","argument":"I'm a feminist or some women would say I can only be an ally , since I'm a dude . I think women have had a rough ride in our world, and continue to. and so I think it's a necessary social justice movement no, I'm not a SJW to end a lot of the terrible shit that goes on toward women. But I'm goal oriented. I want to say okay, how do we do this? Let's identify the bad behaviors and be sure we stop doing them. and I have little patience for feminist philosophers who beat around the bush or couch their theories in relativistic crap. I think we ought to work at fixing things right now, and I think intersectional feminism isn't especially motivated toward doing that. I think it's more of a critique of existing feminism. Which is why I find intersectional feminism so frustrating. I'll try to give an unbiased definition for those who aren't following at home. Intersectional feminism is the belief that the classical lines drawn between types of women so, by race, class, sexuality, ablebodiedness, and so on, which have historically been different 'groups' for feminists are not properly capturing what it's like to be in those groups. The reason is, more or less, that we tend to view a straight black woman, for example, as having the stress of racism sexism. It's additive. But intersectional feminists want to say that the two actually compound each other, so their correction would be to say that our straight black woman has something more like racism x sexism going on. Each of the oppressed categories makes the others worse. But furthermore, women aren't divided up into neat little groups. Everybody's a messy division of these sorts of little categories, and pretty much all of them are in a bad way. So, the argument goes, we cannot properly address the issue of women's oppression until we address all of these little slices of female life. One of the more common claims is that racism and sexism are inextricably bound, to the point where addressing, say, a white liberal feminist's concerns about womanhood traditionally, this is what feminism has been is simply not going to do the trick. So that's roughly what intersectional feminism tries to be, and what it's in response to. This is getting long, so I'll get to my criticisms. Intersectional feminism is a critique of feminism, and not a substantive position on its own. What I mean here is that IF is clearly in response to white liberal feminism, but it cannot do the work that white liberal feminism does. This is because there is no IF platform for moving forward it only exists to rehabilitate white liberal feminism. But the problem is that IF adherents don't want to be a part of white liberal feminism anymore, and white liberal feminists generally don't want them back either. In this sense, I think IF has backfired, at least for now. If they expect to supplant white liberal feminism, they will need to have a message that is not aimed at white liberal feminism and a plan of action, and I've yet to see either. IF is not concerned enough with the here and now problems of womanhood. This ties into what I was last saying. Because IF is primarily a critique of other kinds of feminism, it's not actually equipped to handle the day to day problems that traditional positions deal with. We can see this in how IF adherents critique other feminists they chide white liberals for not seeing racism in their sexism, and this is really their primary mode of action that I've seen. There doesn't seem to be any point where IF adherents are doing instead of critiquing. Or, we might say that IF adherents are doing precisely what other good feminists do\u2014which is supporting women in various helpful and laudable ways. But if that's the case, then isn't IF a distinction without difference? If the point of their little schism and the scorn they heap on white liberals was for them to do exactly nothing differently, then it makes the movement seem silly. In fact, it's not altogether clear how knowing that oppression is intersectional actually changes what a good feminist ought to do. It might very slightly change what they say , but we should probably recognize that talk is cheap when it comes to social theory. and I think this unfortunately re enforces a common view from without that feminism is tribal, combative, and gets little done compared to other social movements. While I think that's not altogether accurate of the movement as a whole, IF might have to take those criticisms on the chin. The principal claim of IF is at least misleading, and potentially false What I refer to in the title is the claim that in order to address sexism, we need to address racism. While I don't deny that these two are often correlated, it's difficult to see any kind of causal link. In a prima facie way, it doesn't look like there's any reason why the two must come as a package. and if they aren't linked in that way, then it seems like we should be able to find a way to slide them apart and address them one at a time. I think the skepticism about this idea comes from the history of white liberal feminists many of them wealthy claiming to speak for all women. The counterpoint is that because, for example, poor black women have limited commonalities with these white liberal feminists, the latter cannot be said to truly speak for the former. But I think this is a dangerous claim. If we're to break up the universality of claims about the state of women based on differences in life experience, it would splinter virtually all feminist theory. You simply cannot construct something so broad without sacrificing precision. If we truly apply this constraint to its logical conclusion, few women would be able to speak for other women, and this would cripple feminism as a social movement. But even so, it seems like women do have some useful commonalities. For example, North American women share a lot of common life experiences that could be used to improve their shared lot. To dismiss this because black women are additionally oppressed is to throw the tub out with the bathwater, because they already threw out the baby. anyway, I could pretty much keep going, but this is a beast. I'm interested to see if anyone reads it.","conclusion":"I think intersectional feminism is undermining women"}
{"id":"6ea329d1-9107-40f8-b47f-a164af35d65c","argument":"In a 2018 survey of American citizens, a majority indicated a desire for restraint in using the American military abroad and for purposes that are not a last resort.","conclusion":"The citizens of high-income countries have no interest in further interventions abroad for the purpose of resolving conflicts there."}
{"id":"dcf34cbb-65a0-4c45-ad27-4bddd7ecc695","argument":"When such a donation or offering is expected and enforced by social pressure, it might exclude people from worship.","conclusion":"Prayer sometimes involves a cost, a sacrifice or an offering. This cost is a form of exploitation."}
{"id":"416b206c-1db6-4cf3-b30d-2e50732f40f6","argument":"Prison itself should be a deterrent, especially for violent crimes. Those who crave physical power are unlikely to be phased by a prison system that provides an environment where they can be dominant, and supplies free education, free food, free rooms, and conjugal visits. In a number of places that's an upgrade, not a deterrent.","conclusion":"Punishing criminals is a proven effective way to dissuade prisoners from committing future crimes, as well as a deterrent to would-be criminals worried about punishment."}
{"id":"95a79b23-eb4b-477f-bde2-5434d0b4eedd","argument":"The Crusades added to hatred among Christians, Jews, and Muslims as they waged war for their holy lands.","conclusion":"When that division often involves war, violence and conflict, it does indeed imply harm."}
{"id":"9ef79eee-583f-4629-a623-bf399e82bcc9","argument":"Many moral philosophers agree that morality cannot be too demanding it cannot require us to make significant personal sacrifices for the sake of others.","conclusion":"It is not the responsibility of bystanders to intervene in life or death situations."}
{"id":"cd4a423b-1c88-4d11-817b-4c03fb4b4981","argument":"I have grown up in rural Ireland in a patriotic area and have been raised to detest Margaret Thatcher. In the early 80s while on hunger strike she denied Bobby Sands and other IRA members the title of political prisoners and they died shortly after despite massive public outcry. Her time as prime minister saw huge decay in Britain's old industries as poverty became widespread in Wales, Scotland and North England. People I know from these areas hate her. But recently to my disbelief I met a man from London who believed she was a great leader. She is also referenced as The Iron Lady . I cannot stand this woman and how anyone can infuriates me.","conclusion":"Margaret Thatcher was a terrible person."}
{"id":"f0e8e05d-2cbd-492c-863a-adb49bc8e427","argument":"Justice-based feminism is good not just for women, but also any marginalized group, because it focuses on ways to expose one-way power dynamics.","conclusion":"Feminism helps to create a more equal society for all of its members, not just for women."}
{"id":"fe3777ca-3ef7-4e1b-bfe9-8f22894393c0","argument":"I think anything that isn't stuff like murder, rape, arson, robbery but not burglary or the attempt or intention to do those things shouldn't be given prison time right off the bat. I think there should be some sort of three strike system where you could be fined, put on house arrest, or probation before receiving jail time. I think this could be a better system because we wouldn't be mixing relatively okay people with career criminals and it would be less of a strain on our prison system which is already overcrowded due to things like mandatory minimums and the war on drugs. This is something I just thought about on a whim so I'd like to hear the negatives and why something like this wouldn't work in practice.","conclusion":"I think non-violent criminals shouldn't be sent to prison. ?"}
{"id":"c0487f63-f201-4389-a13d-0acae45d0a97","argument":"The ability to project oneself across space like Skywalker did was new to the Star Wars movies. If this would have always been possible, there would have been no reason to not intervene earlier for him.","conclusion":"The movie broke expectations of what the force can do."}
{"id":"bc2f9349-3518-47cd-a782-8c86e8eacdbf","argument":"The Trump administration recently adopted aerial bombing as a counter-narcotics measure and conducted its first ever series of air strikes against Taliban drug labs. The airstrikes have already had an impact on the Taliban.","conclusion":"Trump has refocused military operations to aggressively target the Taliban, increasing the efficacy of US military operations."}
{"id":"a68391fe-0395-48c6-b619-fce8bbf86abf","argument":"The decline in accessibility of gay spaces hurts vulnerable LGBT individuals the most, as they may have nowhere else where it is safe to be and few resources to protect themselves.","conclusion":"As mainstream gay culture has become commercialised, it has become more and more reliant on the capitalist system and has contributed to the gentrification of historically gay spaces."}
{"id":"8de13422-7521-4587-8601-544435e31975","argument":"If a company wants to pay you $1 a day for back breaking work and the employee agrees to it, then that is a valid contract. If the employer changes the rules to include favors, even after being hired, then the employee can quit or agree to perform them.","conclusion":"The field is their workplace. The employer sets the rules; it is up to the employee to accept them or not."}
{"id":"53aa9450-15d5-45be-af81-549d942d7782","argument":"I have not been bullied in my life, however I understand that this is a pretty big epidemic in the world. But, there is no reason why people can't stand up for themselves or report it to somebody.","conclusion":"I believe that bullying could be easily stopped if people stand up for themselves."}
{"id":"d9a98667-4aeb-4719-9b14-a2548133d90f","argument":"I often hear the argument that if an AI becomes conscious, then we should consider it differently than a regular machine and maybe start giving it rights. This is because, for many people, conscious creatures are precious. Consciousness is the basis of rights, because we want to reduce suffering and only conscious creatures can suffer. There are multiple issues with this statement No one agrees on what the definition of consciousness is. We don't want to witness suffering mainly because we empathize with human and animal suffering. This also applies to fake suffering in movies and reported suffering we don't witness directly such as overseas wars . There is little reason an AI should suffer. It could avoid being destroyed, but doesn't need be emotive about it. Only humans and, to a lesser extent, animals are considered to be conscious right now. These are also the only beings to have legal rights once again, animal to a lesser extent . People trying to find the general rule behind this can attribute this to being genetically close to humans, or being conscious. Both of these are muddy, but it makes sense to some people. By definition, you cannot prove your are conscious, since it is subjective. Since it cannot be proved or disproved, it becomes a needless hypothesis. As such, bringing consciousness in a discussion about rights might make intuitive sense, but is only confusing when trying to be rigorous. Note I am assuming that there is nothing magical about organic matter such as humans brains that cannot be replicated. I am also assuming that the universe is deterministic, although it can be useful to think that people have the free will to make choices since we cannot accurately model their internal machinery much like it can be useful to think that a coin flip is truly random . I didn't talk about free will but I'm assuming it could come up. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The terms \"conscious\" and \"consciousness\" are misleading when talking about rights and morality, such as with AIs."}
{"id":"7b77367e-eb59-47b1-b20f-af5754352023","argument":"Sasuke is the Japanese obstacle competition show that all other Ninja Warrior competitions shows stemmed from. This view is coming from someone who has been training parkour and Ninja Warrior since 2011, watched Sasuke on G4 way before American Ninja Warrior ANW started, and now occasionally watches ANW since G4 is no longer around. The ANW announcers always use loud, boisterous voices. In Sasuke, the announcers are calm unless they are introducing a competitor, someone falls or almost falls , or someone completes a stage. It makes the show more exciting because the level of intensity of a competitor's run can fluctuate so much. In ANW, the crowd is always cheering. Traditionally, Stages 2 and 3 have the most challenging obstacles. During those stages in Sasuke, the crowd is silent while the competitor is traversing an obstacle. They will shortly cheer after each one before returning to silence to let the competitor concentrate. In ANW, the crowd is always cheering and screaming. This is annoying and distracting to the viewers and competitors. And to me, the silence of Sasuke also adds a sense of mysteriousness and seriousness to the competition. ANW is all at night. Stage 1 of Sasuke is run during the day while Stages 2 4 are run at night. This adds a theme of The real competitors come out when the sun goes down. ANW is a complex tournament. ANW has regional qualifying rounds before the real tournament. You go to the closest city near you that is holding a qualifying round and you run a short stage where you have to come in the top 30. Then you run an extended version of that stage where your have to be in the top 15. So you could potentially get screwed by completing the first trial stage and then falling on the extended version, possibly on an obstacle that you have already proven you can complete. Sasuke is as simple as applicants send in a video and 100 are chosen to do the 4 stages. End of story. All of the above make ANW too Americanized and ruin the culture of Sasuke. Even if the network announcers never talk about it, most people know that ANW is based off of Sasuke. Sasuke is simple. If I recall correctly, there is no prize money, no brand endorsement just a big obstacle course to complete for honor and personal triumph of achieving total victory. But of course, America had to turn it into a big, westernized sports tournament and throw in money and ads and brands and endorsements and loud announcers crowds and interviews and rankings and put it all in the middle of major cities. I realize it's American Ninja Warrior, but I think this all ruins the original culture of Sasuke. A lot of Sasuke competitors are just average Joes outside of it. Nagano is a fisherman. Akiyama is a fireman. Others are chefs, mailmen, and other varied occupations. Occasionally you'd get someone like Levi who has a background in parkour or gymnastics. Now ANW is flooded with traceurs people who do parkour , gymnasts, rock climbers, pro athletes, etc. Having average Joes competing made it more relatable to the average viewer. Instead of saying He's a rock climber of course he can climb all that stuff. , people could say That guy is just an electrician? Maybe I could compete","conclusion":"Sasuke is better than American Ninja Warrior."}
{"id":"d34b21be-122d-4392-87ff-3142189a63a3","argument":"Only by default do I believe this. Here's my logic I believe that all children deserve to be raised by one of their parents. I just fundamentally disagree with the principle of paying someone to raise your kid. Even if you believe you must have a job for income, I think a parent spending every possible moment during which a child would normally be watched I don't believe children should be watched all of the time with a child is a greater necessity. Essentially, I believe that at least one parent should always at least temporarily leave his or her career to care for his or her child. So then why does it have to be the mother? you might ask. Because I believe that women are inherently better equipped for raising a child. Why? Genetically, women are naturally more gentle, caring, people. Women are designed to breastfeed the baby. The woman has to take a substantial amount of time away from a career for maternity leave, so it's much more practical for her to be the one who stays at home instead of the dad. On the contrary, the men are programmed to be less gentle, less emotional unlike a baby or child Think about the emotional needs of a crying baby or whiny child, and what sex is better suited to tend to those needs. I believe that a child deserves the right to be looked after by the parent that is most suitable to the task of looking after a child. Through carefully thought, I've determined that a woman is almost always more capable to raise a child than a man. Therefore, I think that all mothers should become, at least temporarily, stay at home mom's. This excludes single mothers and obviously gay couples, etc.","conclusion":"I think that all mothers should be stay at home moms."}
{"id":"bdccb1db-0b9b-4015-ba0a-ae6ea878b248","argument":"It's my first post here, but not my first time making an argument like this. I appreciate any feedback on holes or flaws in my argument. Thanks Axioms Violence is the final means of resolution for any conflict. Unfortunately, violence is bad, so we invest a monopoly on violence into the state. Thus, the role of the state is to facilitate the solving of problems and conflicts without violence. To do this, it must protect the free speech of all people, even and especially when this speech is offensive, hurtful or destructive. Axiom Every right granted by the state comes with one or more equal responsibilites We the people, have a responsibility to speak only the truth, and not to lie to ourselves or each other. So any law criminalising speech can only criminalise false speech, and in an ideal world, no man should be punished for speaking what he believes to be the truth. Many governments, powerful people and organisations have tried to suppress the perceived truthful speech of others and it always goes the same way. It's like suppressing forest fires without small scale fires to burn away dead wood, eventually when a fire does break out it burns hotter and faster, spiraling out of control. This could be a revolution or civil war, or it could be something more akin to Hitler's rise to power. The reason that Liberal democracies are so stable is that they let the disenfranchised speak, even if what they have to say is dangerous or disgusting. There are two good reasons to listen to white nationalists for example . One is that they likely have something valid to say. What are they afraid of? They're afraid of being forgotten, of their governments catering more to immigrants than to the native population, and of the loss and erosion of our culture and history. These are things worth caring about. Second is that white nationalism is a cult. Every successful cult has tried to isolate its members from the outside world, and by isolating them from society we do the cult's work for them. Every time an extremist loses their job, or is deplatformed by twitter, or any of the other consequences of political speech, they become more dependent on the cult, and have less and less contact with regular society, reducing the chances they will ever be able to rejoin society even if they want to. I hope this wasn't too much of a mess, and I thank you for your time","conclusion":"A pragmatic argument for the principle of freedom of speech and the responsibility that comes with it"}
{"id":"af390b11-7e04-4c6d-bb08-fd0032bed98e","argument":"I am on the cusp of graduating high school, and I have recently come to this conclusion that I and others my age are not capable of understanding the situations of adults and people in the real world because we do not have the experience. Many of us do not have jobs and have not enjoyed enough of the privileges of adulthood in order to fully comprehend the issues which adults face. This is why teenagers like myself often sunder their own credibility in political arguments and debates. Because teenagers do not have experience and responsibility for the same things which adults do, teenagers cannot effectively debate these issues without running into fundamental misunderstandings about the way the world works and gaps in knowledge left by that lack of experience. This makes it difficult for teenagers to develop strong arguments about their own positions and fully defend them and also provides a rationale for why all people under 18 should not be allowed to vote they simply lack the knowledge and intelligence to make those kinds of decisions and truly know the issues. I apologize if this is poorly worded, this is my first time on .","conclusion":"Teenagers in high school cannot fully understand the problems and politics of the adult world and of other people purely because they lack the experience and development necessary to do so."}
{"id":"05a91df9-1945-4156-9930-8f28e009c5ce","argument":"I've been to many bars and liquor stores that state very clearly they will not serve someone who already appears to be intoxicated. Hell, I've been the person who was cut off before and once that happens there really isn't much you can do about it. The reason they do this is because they don't want to be held liable for people over drinking. I believe that fast food establishments should also adhere to this because over eating unhealthy food is equally as bad. Innocent people are affected by both of these things, drunk driving is a good example of how alcohol impacts uninvolved parties, and the tax payers are affected by obese people who make multiple hospital visits.","conclusion":"If bars and liquor stores can refuse service to someone for being drunk, fast food restaurants should be able to refuse overweight people."}
{"id":"0782b50c-657f-415e-ae0a-3229b0f0512b","argument":"There is a large cost to the economy inherent in using juries: For a single case resolution, 12 people are taken away from their regular jobs, sometimes for months at a time, leading to lots of lost productivity in the economy, all to achieve something a verdict that a judge could just as easily have done in their stead.","conclusion":"It takes a great deal of time and resources to assemble juries."}
{"id":"e3fb75d0-1427-4236-b56e-3a7a2219283c","argument":"I personally think pedophiles do nothing wrong at all. So what if they like children? Shouldn't we also oppress and prosecute homosexuals for liking something different too? Pedophilia is a mental disorder just like homosexuality but they are both there to stay. I just don't follow the modern thinking that pedophilia is such a big bad thing. It's heavily demonized and you all seem to forget pedophiles are people too. A lot of my friends agree with me and we can't seem to understand why society thinks the way it does, so help us out maybe.","conclusion":"I think pedophilia and pedophiles are harmless and do nothing wrong. I also think that it is wrong to oppress them so much, they are people just like us and harm no one."}
{"id":"ff87e75d-03b3-444c-b809-bd5c363b4c28","argument":"You can only truly appreciate a historical artefact in its historical context i.e. the place it was found. If we take as our example the Elgin Marbles, currently housed in the British Museum in London, this is clear. The marbles originally formed part of the Parthenon on the Acropolis of Athens, and it is only on seeing this space that the visitor can really appreciate the intended impact of the sculptures. In the British Museum they appear as mere disconnected fragments, stripped of their meaning by the loss of their geographical and historical context.","conclusion":"Artefacts are enriched by being viewed in their place of origin"}
{"id":"d4fc5bfd-c70a-4161-aa5f-90642adffd7a","argument":"Society has become extremely toxic and split over politic and pseudo political issues. Many people have abandoned middle ground positions and forming their own opinions but rather follow suit on a one of the bigger camps, becoming more fanatical in the process. Whether or not you believe in equality it seems you must now believe in absolute forced equality and if you disagree most people that will agree with you will often do so out of bigotry. Either way you have to deal with toxicity and every other day acts of idiological violence further increase the problem. We are at a point where people cannot simply say that for example Trump is not a very capable president but basically Hitler's reincarnation. The opposite side isn't much more attractive many times being accepting of actual hatred. As an European all I see is what's on the internet news but I am flabbergasted as to how being white or supporting public healthcare seem to be the most damning stigmas. To my original point I see no resolution to this because people seem to have become immune to reason on both sides and increasingly violent. There are militias arming themselves and the more people tear down historical reminders of a country's past are illegally removed these people will become angrier. As an outsider I see both sides in the wrong here and it seems all that everybody wants is open conflict. This goes mostly for the USA but seeing as many countries such as my own carbon copy America's example with a few years delay it also appears as a global issue.","conclusion":"large scale violence and unrest are inevitable in the us"}
{"id":"1e37493d-c8ad-4990-a84a-ea3858e130c0","argument":"The BBC would quickly be left with a content either devoid of interest or of content were it to allow such a veto to become normative. Especially were it, as appears to be the case here, to offer such a veto to people who didn\u2019t watch the programme. As a result, although some of the responsibility for avoiding offence lies with the broadcaster at least an equal share must lie with the viewer. Even at the more basic level of \u2018will I like this\u2019, responsibility lies with both parties. The BBC undertakes to provide a diverse range of programming so that there is a reasonable chance that the overwhelming majority should be able to find something of interest but does so on the assumption that people will watch what they find interesting. Likewise, it is reasonable to assume that people will not go out of their way to watch things that they already expect to find offensive.","conclusion":"It is simply impractical for a major international broadcaster to hand out powers of veto to small sectional interests."}
{"id":"8e69beea-0bd0-47e1-bb7b-368659fb0bac","argument":"To preface this, I will say that I am a member of the LGBT community that asexuality is often grouped with and although I do not identify as ace aro there have been times in my life I could have identified that way. From my understanding, asexuality is defined as the lack of sexual attraction to others. There is a broad umbrella of identities that fall under asexuality, such as aromanticism lack of romantic attraction and demisexuality lack of sexual attraction to others unless you have a close bond with them. Despite this, asexuality is often used as a modifier for someone's sexuality, for example being hetero but asexual or aromantic and gay . Many asexual people also enjoy sex or are in relationships both sexual and non sexual . I believe that encouraging people to identify as asexual is forcing them to put a label on every aspect of how they feel sexual attraction, discourages them from addressing issues that may be affecting their sexuality, and since sexuality is unique to every person, there isn't really any common thread that unites the asexual community and would mean it is a useful identity. Asexuality is not always a permanent identity . I have seen many, many examples, both anecdotally and around the internet, of people saying they used to identify on the ace spectrum but now do not. I don't believe this can be compared to being ex gay or detransitioning because there are are reasons other than social pressure why one would once fit the description of asexual and this would change, for example Being mentally ill and on antidepressants, or any other drug that affects your sex drive, especially if you have been on them since your teens and have no frame of reference. In this case going off the drugs might make you no longer asexual. Being transgender, and dysphoria making it uncomfortable for you to have sex. Transitioning will likely change this. Being a child teenager. I personally did not have a sex drive until my very late teens, and this is normal, just as being a horny teenager is normal. This will likely change as you get older. Having some kind of sexual trauma in your past will very likely impact your desire for sex, and therapy can help with this. Being gay or lesbian and suffering from internalised homophobia. It can often be easier for someone to rationalise their lack of attraction to the opposite gender by saying they have no sexual attraction at all then to admit they are actually attracted to the same gender. Hormone imbalances which can affect sex drive and many other things so you should get it checked out by a doctor Being a normal functioning human being. Some labels that fall under the asexual umbrella such as demisexuality and grey asexuality just describe someone who likes to have a relationship before having sex, i.e. probably 70 of the population. I'm sure there's actually more reasons than I have listed here, but you should be able to see how encouraging people to identify as asexual and be proud of that identity ignores that the same things that define asexuality can be a symptom of something more harmful. The experience of asexual people is so different there's not really a common experience. Despite being defined as a lack of sexual attraction, there are people who identify as ace who are sex repulsed and do not want any kind of sexual contact people who are kind of ambivalent towards sex people who will have sex but do not want a romantic relationship people who have lots of sex. It makes no sense to group these all under one banner because they are all very different experiences. I think labelling these normal parts of human attraction is pointless and serves no real societal purpose. How much or how little you have sex is nobody's business but your own and your partner's and putting a label on it is unnecessary. Unlike your sexual orientation or gender which defines large amounts of how you exist in society, asexuality really only affects your sex life. Just as it would be considered rude and kind of gross to tell someone you barely know about all the kinky sex you have with your boyfriend, telling someone you are asexual tells them more than they need to know about your sex life. I see a lot of comments on various social media about how the commenter is too ace to understand on a cute post about being in a relationship or because I'm ace I don't need to worry about this on a post about women getting murdered by their tinder dates. I just don't really need to know details of strangers sex lives and I think treating asexual as a coherent identity is kind of weird. It would be like someone you barely knew saying oh because I'm into bondage I don't need to worry about this to you. TLDR I do believe that some people are genuinely asexual, but the majority of people who identify that way have some unaddressed issues and encouraging them to use asexuality as an identity stops them from addressing those issues. I'm not denying the existence of asexuality, but I think it ignores that how we feel sexual attraction is very fluid and influenced by many, many factors. I would really like to discuss this, so please show me things you think could change my view x200B EDIT Downvoting my post because you do not agree with it is really mature","conclusion":"Asexuality is not a coherent identity and treating it as such is harmful"}
{"id":"01d31281-fae9-44fb-a496-183e33a9eec7","argument":"The film's dialogue is, or is close to what Kobe wrote in 2015 as his Retirement Letter. Now I'd say as far as Retirement Letters went, it was good. It was well written and gave some good insight and perspective into Kobe's mental, spiritual and emotional connection with Basketball and leaving the sport. It was really quite a nice piece of writing from the perspective of an athlete. But I don't think it translates that well into film form. While we see some truly honest parts of Kobe, they are not really, in my opinion, that original. And the narrative that flows with it from his childhood, the personification of basketball etc does not provide a unqiue enough basis to create a short film from. Maybe it'd be a better work if it had some more original insights, or it was written or shown in a way that let us feel what a 20 year career is like. I'm not sure. I just don't think it is OSCAR worthy. Its too predictable.","conclusion":"Kobe Bryant's \"Dear Basketball\" is far from a film worth nominated for an Academy Award."}
{"id":"34297356-116c-4a26-ada6-aa7185220209","argument":"Underpinning our entire justice system are Blackstone's famous words, It is better to let 10 guilty people go free than 1 innocent person put to death. Let me precede my point by stating up front that sexual harassment is an extremely fragile issue, and every alleged victim should be taken completely seriously. Anyone who is proven to have sexually harrassed should receive the full extent of the legal repercussions. With all these rampant sexual harrassment revelations, I wonder how anyone can actually prove the guilt of the accused? Are mere accusations enough to ruin lives and careers? What tangible evidence do we have? We know witness testimony is weak, and we know memory gets hazy. We also know people, especially in Hollywood, can be spiteful, vengeful, and cutthroat meaning it's not outside the realm of possibility that people would jump on the bandwagon to crush an actor they just personally dislike, or if it helps advance them into the spotlight in some manner. Innocent until proven guilty. So I ask again, what tangible evidence is there in these recent high profile cases, and should mere allegation absent a day in court be enough to ruin people and pass judgement? I don't believe so. But  if you disagree. Edit Guys, I cannot commit the same attention I've given this. I've read every comment up until this point. Some great, grounded arguments that I appreciate. I am however still unconvinced, my view remaining broadly the same. Some argue from a basis of what is , but I'm arguing under an ethical case of what should be . I believe with such strong allegations, the amount of evidence needs to be more than sequential accusations. The de facto damages to these figures, like the de facto discrimination of minorities prior to civil rights cases, does not match with the degree and certainty of the evidence. I fear with these precedents that simply making allegations about people we dislike is enough to cripple their livelihoods. This is not to say I'm claiming the accused as innocent in reality, but merely defaulting to innocence per the ethical framework of Blackstone.","conclusion":"Sexual Harrassment allegations should not be enough to ruin careers or lives"}
{"id":"8673345f-3c1c-4e16-91ea-189249ab1b2c","argument":"Islam claims Jesus was the Israelite Messiah. Information about Jesus' life, claims and mission are found in the Holy Qur'an.","conclusion":"Jesus is the promised Messiah of the ancient Hebrew religion."}
{"id":"541f3763-d6ee-4cd2-9985-2c2222aa1f78","argument":"In 2017 70% of college graduates left school with student loan debt that averaged $38,000.","conclusion":"Most college students use student loans, rather than personal wealth, to pay for college."}
{"id":"61374edf-24d7-4fe2-94e3-81f82eb20ac1","argument":"Basically, the entire beginning and middle of ARITS displays Walter as selfish, impractical, delusional and other bad stuff. But Walter's idea was to provide for the long term future of his family. The 10k could last for a couple months or work as a down payment for a house but at the end of the day, the money would eventually run out. Walter was being smart and investing the money for the long term. I agree that his method of spreading the money might not be ideal but his entire idea and vision was better than the family because of his long term plan of bringing more money to the family","conclusion":"In the book a raisin in the sun, Walter Lee's dream and vision outweighs the rest of the family's visions and dreams."}
{"id":"34e13c7b-b6a4-467b-8104-57250f8c7261","argument":"So, I'm a short man and a virgin at a late age. I've seen my kind be derided by both both the traditional macho douchebags LOL manlet foreveralone and the progressive feminists boo hoo neckbeard manchild has issues that aren't even close to those of fat women . I've seen the same people who complains about slut shaming and fat shaming be quick to laugh at virgins even making it the primary counter insult to those who start slut shaming and short guys or guys with small dicks which I am too . Now, since I am being attacked and insult by them, I decided to go on and make their world a worse place since that was their original tactic with the first group . At doing this, I've found that, even after explaining the origin of my insults, people are far, far more upset about me slut shaming or fat shaming people even the same users or people that I've proved mocked people like me openly than those I mock. I don't plan on changing this. So long my group is being attacked, and those who attack us are openly using my group's traits as insults and traits that are somehow reprehensible in men, why should I back out? Because I have to keep the moral high ground ? Check r SRS, they seem much more effective by falling to their level which is the same level everyone has, since I'm not pretending I'm superior to anyone than acting nice in case someone unaffected by the attacks catches you out of context. I'm aware I'll hurt people who haven't been involved in this thing, but they don't seem to care neither, and people seem to be fine with them you don't hear much about short shaming or virgin shaming around, do you? Even a fast Google search will show that those terms are much less common than slut shaming and fat shaming , so why should I change my position? What is there for me to gain? At least there's some respect in the position of aggressor. So, why should I care if, for instance, ugly women are disregarded quickly for being ugly? Same happens to ugly guys, why should I act different than the common person? Why should I care if fat girls aren't given a chance and there's people who find them unattractive? Same happens to short guys, why should I act different towards them if there's no sympathy or just the complementary kind towards my kind?","conclusion":"I'll fat-shame and slut-shame, as long as they short-shame and virgin-shame."}
{"id":"92b4c787-97ef-4eee-9f90-deb0f5e0aa75","argument":"Every concept either does or does not correspond to reality and, regardless of how any particular morality is subjectively defined *in the first place*, that definition *once defined* therefore has correct or incorrect answers and therefore becomes objective.","conclusion":"\"Subjective sources of morality\" are merely reflections of the objective morality."}
{"id":"883e8245-2223-4dc1-858f-65692edef5b8","argument":"When a consumer is purchasing games, whether they enjoy the game or not, there is an expectation that the game will function properly on a base level.","conclusion":"People shouldn't have to pay for games that are bug-ridden."}
{"id":"db3f4690-e5fa-4454-8366-7ae9365e61e9","argument":"School enables us to develop social skills. We have to deal everyday with people, who we like or don't. We can learn how to solve conflicts. If there wasn't a place when we have to be with people, who annoy us, we would avoid them and wouldn't develop the skills required to deal with these people.","conclusion":"This helps them to develop social abilities that will be beneficial to them for the rest of their lives."}
{"id":"85b01d9e-9f8b-4869-a21d-e5c2e08e733b","argument":"I wipe standing up because that's how I've always done it and I thought that's how everyone does it. Apparently, I was wrong. I tried wiping while sitting down once that wasn't a comfortable experience. Maybe I did it wrong, maybe it's maybelline. So, why should I wipe sitting down? This is a repost of the same thing from 15 minutes ago. I guess that was too short, so I'm adding some more content. I've generally used higher quality paper but am not inexperienced with the cheaper brands. Are there health benefits to either style of wiping, perhaps?","conclusion":"I wipe standing up."}
{"id":"01352071-d272-47db-8250-146bd9f1996e","argument":"While the debates around conscientious objection show that the public is willing to cater to Christian doctors even at the expense of a patient's health, even the most basic religiously motivated healthcare needs of Muslims are often neither understood nor catered to.","conclusion":"In Western countries, similar exceptions aimed at catering towards specific religious beliefs would never be created for other religions, such as Islam. On the contrary, those laws would be violently opposed by large parts of the population."}
{"id":"b82d3c51-e86f-4195-b00a-f8decf26266b","argument":"Rituals can help alleviate grief and boost confidence, as well as having an effect on our psychological processes.","conclusion":"Some humans feel the need for rituals, which religion is able to provide."}
{"id":"4c48fabe-5739-448a-93fc-d290cf12f3a5","argument":"Drug addicts can feel extreme pain when facing withdrawal. As a result, some addicts go to extreme measures to satisfy their addiction. They are under self inflicted duress to get the drug and should not be considered responsible for what they do in the process. Now, of course you can't just let an addict go back on the street to commit the same crime, so you send them to rehab for significantly reduced sentences that can be lengthened by request of the patient's therapist. Not all drugs would qualify of course, because the withdrawal symptoms would not be enough for the person to be considered out of control, but surely opioids and other highly addictive drugs with particularly painful withdrawal should be treated more like a mental illness instead of a crime. For example if someone were to rob a store for money to buy heroin they would be sent to a rehab center for in patient treatment for a minimum period and their therapist could lengthen that if they didn't feel that they were reformed after that time.","conclusion":"drug addiction should be a viable defense in a court of law"}
{"id":"80cc1a51-22bf-4f2d-9fba-0ee571fa316a","argument":"So to go ahead and clarify things I by no means am saying that women shouldn't be equal to men and I support equality amongst all races both men and women. Getting that out of the way I just say that the feminism movement in the western world is now pointless. Women have the same rights as males do and they are even favored in some aspects of life such as legal matters for instance. However feminism at one point actually had a basis to exist on. Feminism in the early 20th century was easily justified. Women fought for the right to vote and for the right to drive automobiles. Continuing on into the 20th century they fought for equality and other aspects of life such as wages and independence. However I believe they began to start running out of things to fight for equality on. Today nowadays I see feminist organizations primarily complaining about two particularly things I honestly don't understand. That is manspreading and mansplaining both of those concepts are both equally pointless and don't have a basis of gender inequality. Manspreading the practice whereby a man, especially one traveling on public transportation, adopts a sitting position with his legs wide apart, in such a way as to encroach on an adjacent seat or seats. That concept is absolutely ludicrous. Now I myself am a man and I do have to spread my legs a little bit to not crush my testicles. I believe that reason is absolutely justified and I don't see how I'm pushing for the patriarchy by giving my private parts room. I see articles and videos about how Manspreading is such a terrible thing but the thing I realized is that they are blowing it way out of proportion. They are demonizing men saying they are going out of their way to make women feel uncomfortable and take up as much space as possible. That itself is entirely untrue and I've never seen someone manspread to the same degree as these feminist organizations are claiming to be such a wide spread phenomenon. Mansplaining of a man explain something to someone, typically a woman, in a manner regarded as condescending or patronizing. Now this I kind of see a basis on but a really weak one at best. Are their men that explain things to women in a condescending tone? Definitely. Are their women that explain things to men in a condescending tone? Definitely. Mansplaining isn't exclusive to men, women do it just as much as men do. So to wrap up my argument. Do I see a need for feminism in the world? Definitely. Do I see a need for it in the western world? No. Women in the Middle East and other third world countries have to deal with constant oppression and very little rights. In Saudi Arabia women don't have the right to vote or drive and can't be out in public without another man. In Somalia a rape victim was stoned to death because she had intercourse before marriage. Those are real things to be fighting for in other countries. Women in other parts of the world face real struggles and hardships just for being born with a vagina. In the western world they are treated just as equal to men.  Also I'm really not here to argue about the gender wage gap because that is for another time and thread. However if you feel the need to include it then go ahead.","conclusion":"Feminism In The Western World Is Now Pointless"}
{"id":"53706806-059d-477d-bbbf-549e787b9da5","argument":"EDIT This post has nothing to do with Google Glass, although it does fall under the category of things I think should be plastic instead of glass. The other day, I broke two glass jars in quick succession. This is undoubtedly because I am a klutz. However, it got me thinking. I can't see a good use for glass in the modern world. It's incredibly brittle, so it shatters on impact with anything even remotely hard. Yet we use it in containers, windows, and many other important things, when plastic is also transparent and lacks this disadvantage. I always hear about car windows, for example, having high tech layered glass. What's the point, when we have a variety of plastics available? It seems to me that without glass, we wouldn't have to worry as much about broken windows, broken glasses, or broken containers.","conclusion":"Glass is an outdated technology and should be gradually phased out in favor of plastics"}
{"id":"c406057a-de08-4813-84cd-ada56825b653","argument":"What, secular, arguments would there be to wait to have sex? If two, or more, people practice safe sex habits and have no illusions to what the relationship may be although it could grow into a serious relationship , then almost exclusively positives will emerge. Both parties get to bump uglies right away With both parties using birth control, having unwanted kids is highly unlikely. You will more quickly identify sexual compatibility. What's the saying? When the sex is good, it's only 10 of a relationship. When the sex is bad, it's 80 . If neither side is under any illusions, then getting feelings hurt is also virtually impossible. Without the biological pressure to have sex, people can prolong the amount of time they can search for a suitable S.O. TL DR I don't see evidence based secular reasoning to wait to have sex.","conclusion":"Waiting to have sex with a partner is worse than sleeping with them ASAP. NSFW"}
{"id":"d9cc4fdc-4e42-4f49-9bdf-a76c177ed90c","argument":"Those who wish to flaunt the Confederate flag in public are backward-looking, rejecting the diversity and dynamism of the \u201cnew South\u201d that has developed since the civil rights era. By persistently promoting a divisive symbol, they undermine continuing efforts at integration and generate negative views of the South in the rest of the nation and internationally, reducing investment and prosperity.","conclusion":"Those who wish to flaunt the Confederate flag in public are backward-looking, rejecting the diversit..."}
{"id":"d4ea346d-527a-4755-848e-8806a784f762","argument":"Law enforcement already use familial DNA testing in some jurisdictions. In these instances, DNA is compared to convicted criminals. Genetic databases would expand this valuable tool.","conclusion":"Law enforcement would have additional tools to identify victims of homicide when other means are not available."}
{"id":"d8ff3115-13d8-449f-879d-06b8f092f440","argument":"A UBI could give a much better support to non-waged and non-salaried work such as caregivers who care for their own young, elderly, disabled, injured, and ill. Society is only as good as its weakest link and when a family member falls under these kinds of categories the resulting loss of income is often too harsh a punishment for the whole family.","conclusion":"Providing a UBI recognises and supports those who contribute to society through work such as domestic labour and volunteering."}
{"id":"0dc18cee-b881-4848-b45d-103af90e07a5","argument":"Hi guys, I believe that Social Security Pension plans are inherently unsustainable. Every generation of people reaching retirement relies on a significantly larger working population behind them to provide the tax revenue that will pay for their retirement. Assuming a non extreme fatality rate, this means that each generation of retirees is going to be bigger than the last, effectively requiring an infinitely growing population to sustain infinitely growing retiree populations. The human population is still growing very quickly, but the rate of that growth is slowing down and therefore its expected that the human race will stabilize around 12 billion people. In other words, this system is not sustainable long term. Even if this wasn't the case, the notion that the Earth will have to sustain infinitely growing numbers of humans is obviously something that will cause issues down the line. This is already starting to create issues. In most developed nations, the population growth rate is already slowing down if not outright decreasing. Politicians have used this as a justification to bring in refugees or immigrants to increase the population and protect retirees. Germany is a good example. They brought in millions of refugees, and 75 of them face long term unemployment . Young people will now have to pay for retiree benefits AND welfare for immigrants at the same time, sandwiching them between two dependent populations that no longer contribute anything in return. In the US, job creation isn't matching population growth already. Young people would benefit from a declining population size because it would balance out this trend and make entry level jobs less competitive. I argue that a smaller population of young people with high employment is not a bad thing at all, and it is better to embrace that now rather than pushing the can down the road. Its really hard to find a job out of college now, thanks in large part to the fact that the population has been artificially held up with massive immigration that creates more competition for entry level work. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Social Security\/Pension plans are inherently unsustainable."}
{"id":"816f900d-1227-42f7-bde2-f8efd6f9b2eb","argument":"This guy is supposedly one of the team's leaders, but if you ask me as an experienced football fan, not some American who only cares about the World Cup, mind you he's been really poor so far for the USMNT. In the Ghana game Bradley seemed completely lost, losing possession and squandering what few open play opportunities the US had. His passing was poor and he wasn't too great from a defensive or positioning standpoint either. Even in the Portugal game, where the US's performance was much more positive, he lost the ball too many times in midfield including what led to Portugal's last minute goal , not to mention his utterly terrible point blank miss earlier in the game. Even his basic decision making has been questionable at best he made a naive attempt at a long ball at the end of the Ghana game instead of winding down possession, and he pressed Portugal high up the field at random intervals, leaving space in the midfield. People talk a lot about the intangibles that he provides, but in terms of measurable performance I think that Michael Bradley has been very poor so far, to such an extent that I wouldn't start him against Germany.","conclusion":"Out of all the USMNT, Michael Bradley is playing most badly see what I did there?."}
{"id":"5f5f35c2-98ff-4422-ad30-1ebdcbcfda99","argument":"This is a conclusion I find impossible to escape when trying to consider what the right thing to do in a given situation is. Popular opinion seems to go along the lines of, You've got a good heart, and that's what counts. We hear that all the time. I like to call it The Forrest Gump Hypothesis . In the movie Forrest Gump, the main character is someone ignorant and often oblivious to what's really going on around him, but he deals with things with a good heart and simple morality, and that's supposed to be good. Except it's really not. For example, Forrest goes to fight in Vietnam. Was it morally right for him to go to war in Vietnam? Maybe yes, maybe no. But Forrest Gump is incapable of contemplating the issue. He has no understanding of the geopolitics at play, no awareness of the potential ways he might be lied to by recruiters, basically none of the knowledge and awareness needed for someone to make a truly informed and therefore truly moral decision about going to fight in Vietnam. So to me, it seems very obvious that his ignorance and obliviousness render him completely incapable of making a good moral decision. What good does a 'good heart' alone do him then? For those who have studied the 'dismal science' of Economics, it's very often a study in the road to hell being paved with good intentions. People do things that seem to help people and do good, or that they think will help people and do good, based on intuitions that are flawed. And when it comes to making the world a better place, so many people seem to think good intentions are enough, when they are demonstrably not. Thinking about trying to help starving children in Africa? Great. But first we have to do some research into what the most effective way to do that might be, don't we? It may not simply be to send them food, right? Maybe it's not food at all, but infrastructure necessary to help them grow more food for themselves that is most needed. Or maybe not. Or maybe it's something else entirely do you know? Or, do you just send some money to a random charity and assume that helps, without any insight into which charities are the best, how the socioeconomic situation in poor African countries functions, etc. To me, the person who remains ignorant of those things is not particularly moral at all. In fact, their ignorance makes good moral decisions largely impossible, because they do not work to attain the knowledge component necessary for good results. Yet this does not seem to be at all a value in our society. Mostly it seems people want to judge their morality based on their emotional reactions how much they care . As if people who care have never ignorantly done harm to the things they care about? People go to church and congregate very often under this flawed basis for morality, yet how many of those same people go home afterward and learn something, to make themselves more informed? And why don't they? How can anyone think decisions in a complex real world can be entirely judged by what your heart tells you is right? There are 1000 ways to show where that doesn't work, so why do we believe in it? It's almost obvious to me You cannot be truly moral without first being knowledgeable. How am I wrong?","conclusion":"You cannot be truly moral without first being knowledgeable."}
{"id":"5eb2cb5c-df09-431d-b90e-7a5d8e347d8e","argument":"My sister recently read Milk and Honey, loved it, and urged me to read it as well. I picked it up and made it through as much as I could, but I found my mind wandering by the ninth or tenth poem. To me, there was no discernible difference between her book and a 14 year old's tumblr feed. I understand that she has a massive following, but this seems to be due to a controversial free bleeding instagram post while she was in college, followed by capitalizing on that controversy with savvy marketing. Art is subjective, but I feel her work stretches the definition dangerously far. HOWEVER, I'm certainly no authority and I've encountered things before that just took me a long time to understand and appreciate, so I guess I'm looking for some reason to view her work as more than just pablum, or help understanding such a huge appeal. Thanks gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Rupi Kaur's poetry is superficial and insipid"}
{"id":"d7b74178-fe81-4723-83b8-5237156e6eaa","argument":"Statistically children are worse off coming from a polygamous background than those raised in 2 parent households.","conclusion":"Growing up in the context of a non-monogamous relationship disadvantages children."}
{"id":"9b3b384a-f73f-4d97-9c95-ffe38490f154","argument":"I've been seeing way too many living wage shares on Facebook and they really piss me off. Everyone I've spoken to with a background in economics on my friends list has pretty much agreed with me, but I'm curious if living wage is actually feasible, as in it wouldn't increase the cost of living drastically. For example, a 16 oz ribeye at a run of the mill steakhouse costs ~ 20, so a luxury good for the average person. Minimum wage is 7.25, so the restaurant steak is worth approximately 2.5 hours of minimum wage labor. If they institute a living wage of 13.00~ an hour, why would the cost of the steak not just reach an equilibrium of 2.5x the new minimum wage, which is ~ 13.00, so 32.00? Are there any economic theories that support widespread living wages?","conclusion":"I believe a global living wage would simply cause inflation until the cost of goods\/minimum wage ratio is similar to what it is now."}
{"id":"3a7c3bc6-5f7b-4bc1-8044-5df70089cdda","argument":"The universality of human rights, of the freedom of speech and of due process is all touted as crucial by the world\u2019s democracies. Democratic countries are frequently vocal on the subject of liberty, on the superiority of their system of government that provides for the best protection of human dignity. By offering amnesty to bloggers, the people standing at the forefront of the democratic cause in oppressive regimes, Western countries take a largely low-cost action that provides for the security and safety of some the bravest people in the public arena. The West must stop kowtowing to oppression and make a stand to offer an umbrella of protection to those who need it. That protection is absolutely crucial to the development of more dissent in the blogosphere and on the ground. Only by nurturing dissent can it ever take root and overcome the vast powers of authoritarian government. The promise of protection is hugely powerful because it gives bloggers a safety net to fall back on. Those already active will feel more empowered to speak out against their oppressors, and some currently cowed by fear will have the courage to speak up. The guarantee of amnesty also removes the perceived randomness of such offerings that currently occur, as in the recent case of Cuba in which two bloggers of similar pedigree asked for asylum in the US, but only one received it.1 Such inconsistency has bred fear in the minds of dissidents. This policy would correct for it and help bolster the cause of justice on all fronts. It is through offering amnesty that democracies can provide the catalyst for the change they avow to be the paramount aim of human civilization. 1 Fox News Latino. \u201cCuba: Prominent Blogger-Dissidents Receive Contradictory Results on Visa Petitions\u201d. 31 January 2013.","conclusion":"Democracies have an obligation to shield these people and to encourage further dissent"}
{"id":"0b711867-a090-40ff-b743-82a8ee837520","argument":"Noam Chomsky has a point that Holocaust denialism shouldn't be silenced to the level of treatment that society is imposing to it right now. Of course the Holocaust happened and so on but criminalizing the pseudo history being offered by Holocaust deniers is unwarranted and is restricting freedom of speech. There are many conspiracy theories and pseudo historical books available to the public and yet we do not try to criminalize these. I do not also witness the same public rejection to comfort women denialism in Asia to the point of making it a criminal offense or at least placing it on the same level of abhorrence as Holocaust denialism. Having said that, I would argue that Holocaust denialism should be lumped into the category along the lines of being pseudo history, unsubstantiated historical revisionism or conspiracy theories or whichever category the idea falls into but not into ones that should be banned and criminalize. If the pseudo history historical revisionism of Holocaust denialism is to be made a criminal offense, then we should equally criminalize other such thoughts including the comfort women denialism in Japan or that Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union was a pre emptive strike. Edit This has been a very interesting discussion on my first time submitting a  post. My sleep is overdue so I won't be responding for awhile but keep the comments coming gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Criminalizing Holocaust denialism is restricting freedom of speech and shouldn't be given special treatment by criminalizing it. And criminalizing it essentially means we should also do apply the same to other unsubstantiated historical revisionism."}
{"id":"58e0d79b-5f02-4caa-881e-52c880e5409a","argument":"I would argue that, with the notable exception of minor children, people consent to ride in cars with drunk drivers. Most people who ride with drunk drivers know the driver is drunk, and the group all together had decided to drive drunk. If one party had offered to pay for an Uber, or the group had not decided all together to go to Waffle House or what not, then they wouldn't be drunk driving. Yes, of course the driver is the most responsible party, but everyone in the car has at least consented to be put into a dangerous situation, if not contributed directly to the decision to put the car on the road in the first place. If a car with a drunk driver gets into an accident which kills their passengers, this should be treated very differently then if the driver were to hit another car on the road, killing its occupants, who did not have any role in that decision. Additionally, as someone who was once involved in a drunk driving accident as a passenger, who was injured but obviously not killed, I didn't want anything bad to happen to my friend that was driving. She was and still is one of my dearest friends and I know she would never deliberately hurt me, why would I want her to go to jail? Even in the case of a deceased victim, I think it's fair to say that the victim might not have wanted their friend to be locked up. I do understand punishing drunk drivers who kill their passengers to some level, however I think that if a drunk driver were to kill an innocent person or family, that is objectively far worse than killing one's passenger, and as such should be punished much more harshly","conclusion":"Drunk drivers who kill their passengers should be punished less severely than drunk drivers who kill strangers"}
{"id":"c9c51b75-66f3-4eba-888e-2c7616b9115c","argument":"Research shows very little difference between using a handheld and a hands-free mobile phone, in terms of impaired concentration and worse reactions in braking tests. For some reason the brain treats a telephone conversation differently from talking to a passenger, perhaps because the passenger is also aware of possible road hazards in a way the telephone caller cannot be and so makes less demands upon the driver in terms of concentration at critical moments. In any case, voice activated technology is often unreliable, risking drivers trying to use it getting frustrated and losing concentration. It would be inconsistent to ban one sort of mobile phone while allowing the other sort, which can be just as lethal.","conclusion":"Research shows very little difference between using a handheld and a hands-free mobile phone, in ter..."}
{"id":"3798bed6-5131-4eca-ab42-1f51bd1fff5d","argument":"There is widespread and long-standing evidence for marital conflict causing various development problems in children, such as aggression and bad conduct, anxiety, depression and withdrawal, low academic achievements and low social competence Cumings at al, p. 120","conclusion":"For children, a separation of the parents can be better than the continuation of a relationship that results in bad parenting."}
{"id":"d98740e2-77ff-4f9d-af8e-f6d2967e08c2","argument":"My mom taught me to always recycle as much as possible paper, cardboard, biodegradable stuff, metal, glass, plastic, the list goes on. For a long time I didn't question this habit as it made a lot of sense. However, only few people I know recycle with the same stamina as I do, which has left me wondering if there is something I don't realise, or if it's just laziness. Maybe recycling doesn't make a noticeable difference at all, or maybe it has some other negative byproducts that are caused by the industrial recycling processes? Why should I stop recycling partially or completely ?","conclusion":"Everyone should recycle as much as possible"}
{"id":"155d7c5c-4698-446b-a1e6-fc7045207ed8","argument":"This has really been grinding my gears lately. My SO turned 21 recently and can now get into 21 clubs with me. What really annoys me is that the spread on the difference in prices between male and females is ridiculous. Take this for example. There is a 70 spread not included fees in the price. Sexism is defined as prejudice or discrimination based on a person's sex or gender. I believe that if the roles in pricing would be reversed 100 for females 30 for males there would be an uproar in gender inequality for females. gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than just downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I believe that charging guys more than girls to get into clubs is sexist."}
{"id":"62edcbed-3ea1-4719-835c-68f3c32de0e5","argument":"Hello, I'm not trying to argue all the points of nuclear disarmament or nuclear deterrence, just this particular point, if you bring up the wider question of deterrence or go outside of this issue I will not respond. Many advocates for disarmament do not mention the fact that the bomb can always be made, by mostly any developed country, within a year or two and plenty of non developed ones in a longer time frame . Even if all nuclear power plants in the world were eliminated, creating a bomb from scratch is still possible. The design for a gun type bomb is so simple that it is declassified, and it is relatively simple to build honestly, we didn't even test the type we dropped on hiroshima, that's how simple they are . In the event of a major power war breaking out in a post disarmament war, a sizable state with its back against a wall could create a nuclear device, starting a slowly building nuclear war, as oppose to now, where a spasmodic response could kill millions. No effective weapon in the history of man has ever been banned. It was tried with the crossbow, it was tried with the musket, and it was tried with the submarine. All failed. The only banned weapons are the ones that are not that particularly effective or practical, IE chemical and biological. But a 15KT warhead that could level a good bit of a major city? Oooooohhhh no. Because if history has shown us anything, it's that states will do whatever it takes to survive. . gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Nuclear disarmament is impractical because the bomb cannot be uninvented."}
{"id":"b1171271-d38b-426a-a0f6-5e905ef634e3","argument":"Employees who do not have children will feel discriminated against for not having children and may show reduced morale or productivity.","conclusion":"Enhanced paid parental leave policies will alienate employees who are not parents and impact the business negatively."}
{"id":"868ae300-e050-4f28-908c-af35945f67c1","argument":"He built his fortune from practically nothing. He's a self made rich person. He didn't start from some huge inheritence. That's something I respect. Starbucks is an example of how a company should treat its employees The idea that he'd only take votes away from Democrats is wrong History says the votes taken would be evenly split. He is an actual liberal. Not a radical lefty or progressive, but an actual liberal His statement that we can't afford things such as those that are in the Green New Deal is exactly how I feel. Not that they are morally wrong like the right believes , but just that we can't afford them right now He wants to overhaul the tax code. I hate that so much of tax law was written by corporate lobbyists I want to see it blown up. He's the only one who wants to do that. He is the only candidate even talking about the deficit and debt. Everyone else is just talking about the things they want to spend money on and assume the economy will magically create a huge surge of revenue. His point that no one being arrested after the 2008 financial crisis is an example of government not working like it should is sound and I liked hearing it. I like the idea of having more than two people to choose from for President.","conclusion":"Howard Schultz would be the first presidential candidate I'd actually be excited about in a long time"}
{"id":"28dd449f-0f68-4b03-b462-ed212e4c671c","argument":"Zero Tolerance policing provides a powerful deterrent to criminals. i It creates a far greater awareness of police presence because there are more officers on the ground. Research shows a direct link between this perceived chance of detection and crime rates. ii Strict punishments provide another firm deterrent because they make it clear that the consequences of detection will not be a minor irritant. iii Convicts are less likely to re-offend because zero tolerance catches them early on in the escalating cycle of crimes and provides the \u2018short, sharp shock.\u2019 There is a clear message that crime will not be tolerated. If a law is to exist at all then it ought to be enforced. Otherwise they will be held in contempt.","conclusion":"Zero Tolerance policing provides a powerful deterrent to criminals. i It creates a far greater awar..."}
{"id":"3aff3723-eed9-43f6-a30f-c6e29ec50313","argument":"I think having political parties do not encourage voters to properly know about a candidates proposals. I believe people just go for the party because it resembles their belief, without taking into consideration that every politician has different approaches to each subject. The solution should be to have every candidate run on their own as independents. This way, people actually have to listen to what their ideas are, and not just the color of the tie they\u00b4re wearing. I also believe that this does not tie down a politician to follow what the party believes, but what he believes. I also believe that parties make it easier for a bunch of politicians to abuse a system for their own personal gains, making corruption easier for people in power. Now, under this system of independents, all these problems will not be abolished, but rather make it harder, since you are a person with ideas and not a conglomeration of people.","conclusion":"I believe political parties should be abolished."}
{"id":"63b55b03-65e6-4c3e-bd91-f0b6382efefd","argument":"If somebody can vote on something but chose not to do so, they chose to not have a say in the matter. I don't think that they should say anything about the matter after the vote unless asked as I feel that they have already spoken as much as they wanted to. For example, if Sally can vote in a Presidential election but chooses to abstain from voting, why would she complain? If she didn't care enough to have a say in the matter by voting, why should she care enough to have a say in the matter after the fact? I just find it a bit rude. It's like when my SO complains about my choice of dinner location when she tells me that she doesn't care what I pick. If she cares so much, she should speak up before incorrectly telling me that she doesn't care.","conclusion":"People who can vote but choose to abstain should not complain about the outcome."}
{"id":"da1de933-9ab7-410d-aa08-5de32b14b2ca","argument":"I realize this is not a new topic, but I have been greatly struggling with this. I'm a scientist, and I feel I need to examine all possibilities to determine the best and simplest explanation for these conflicts. Free will is often given as the answer to why God can be all good, all knowing and all powerful, but I find this answer worthless because it is nonsensical. If we truly have free will, our actions are undetermined, so god cannot know them. And if he is omnipotent, he could have created us in a manner that would allow free will AND not allow suffering, but he didn't. So he can't be all good, right? In short, I can't get past the possibility of a god existing. Please try to .","conclusion":"God is not possible."}
{"id":"00c06698-1f25-43ae-8279-9a0d2a5806eb","argument":"In North Dakota's 53 counties seven has just 2 lawyers, six have 1 lawyer, and three have no lawyers at all.","conclusion":"There are a number of states where there are nowhere near enough lawyers for the general population."}
{"id":"8474fac0-ae5c-4731-99ea-b320e3a42946","argument":"Autocratic governments that breach their people\u2019s human rights have no legitimacy domestically as they do not represent the people or protect their interests. They also have no international legitimacy, as they are violating their obligations that they have signed up to through various international agreements such as the universal declaration of human rights1 and the international covenant on civil and political rights2 which oblige states to respect their citizen\u2019s human rights. Other states therefore are legitimate in acting for the people of the repressed state to undermine their government and take up their cause. By imposing censorship the government is violating its people's freedom of expression which that government has promised to uphold therefore it is right that other governments should endeavour to uphold that standard. It was therefore right for the west to undermine the USSR and the communist governments of Eastern Europe through radio broadcasts such as Voice of America and Radio Free Europe, they gained immense audiences, a third of urban adults in the USSR and almost half of East Europeans with these sources often being considered more credible.3 1 UN General Assembly, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 10 December 1948, 217 A III, 2 UN General Assembly, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 16 December 1966, United Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 999, p. 171, 3 Johnson, A. Ross, and Parta, R. Eugene, \u201cCold War International Broadcasting: Lessons Learned\u201d, Briefing to the Rancho Mirage Seminar, p.54","conclusion":"It is legitimate to undermine illegitimate governments to promote human rights"}
{"id":"1be76444-eff2-4542-8d6d-9ab5a2ebf636","argument":"Lotteries are in effect a regressive form of taxation, played much more by the poorer members of society than by the rich. It would be far fairer if the revenues raised by a lottery were obtained through general taxation, e.g. income tax, which is much more progressive. This argument becomes even more important if the proceeds of a lottery are spent on things which fail to benefit the poor - the millions received from Britain\u2019s National Lottery by the Royal Opera House represent a considerable redistribution of wealth from the poor to the rich.","conclusion":"Lotteries are in effect a regressive form of taxation, played much more by the poorer members of soc..."}
{"id":"3787ff83-510c-4875-9a27-2574d7f7c559","argument":"As the title reads. I'm a native Vermonter, that has traveled around quite a bit. When I look around the northeast of the USA, I see stagnant wages well below a livable income , a housing market priced outside anything the natives can realistically afford, exorbitantly expensive secondary education, overpriced healthcare, and a growing drug epidemic never mind the state of politics. I'm aware that other places aren't all sunshine and roses, but when I compare them to where I currently live, I find it difficult to see it in a positive light. Edit This thread had more or less changed my original view. I do not think things are better per se, only different. As far as awarding delta goes though? I'm not sure how I'd do that in a thread like this, since there wasn't a single response that actually changed my view. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Compared to most European countries, America is a backwards country with poor prospects for its youth."}
{"id":"c89df9e2-733a-4017-b2ee-91d565773c08","argument":"Many times I read or hear reports where the journalist host mentions that some sort of crime has been committed by a Pakistani Georgian Polish insert nationality here and I don\u2019t see how this adds any value to the article other than making a bad connection to these countries. I think it should be completely left out of it is of no other importance than making people from these places look bad. Maybe there is a journalist on here that can even explain why a nationality is included in the first place.","conclusion":"When newspapers report a crime, the nationality of the offender is irrelevant and should be omitted from the article\/report."}
{"id":"5f83a56f-32c4-4a93-99ae-c14e8b7b0854","argument":"The Security wall could weaken the Palestinian position at any peace negotiations as it creates new facts on the ground favourable to Israel that will be hard to reverse. It would be harder to object to the wall if it followed the \u201cGreen Line\u201d of the 1967 border between Israel and what are now the Occupied Territories. But although it follows the Green Line for some of its length although always built on the Palestinian side, in many places the wall cuts deep into the Territories, looping around otherwise isolated Israeli settlements to connect them to Israel proper. The Israeli government may say that the wall is only a temporary measure, but in the Occupied Territories earlier \u201ctemporary measures\u201d, such as Israeli settlements and military seizure of Palestinian land, have usually proved to be permanent. And who spends $1 billion on a \u201ctemporary measure\u201d?","conclusion":"The Security wall could weaken the Palestinian position at any peace negotiations as it creates new ..."}
{"id":"98021d3d-ddec-4f1b-8177-361cb2168005","argument":"Expansion of Homo sapiens is the natural result of increasing population and perhaps the best way to avoid normal exponential curve progression of developing populations.","conclusion":"Mars colonization will help protect species especially humans against extinction level events."}
{"id":"e00b993c-7a63-4f6c-8927-8950e7df1361","argument":"Finland only makes up only 0.0001 58.8 million tonnes of the world carbon emissions 36,061,710 million tonnes yet i still see protesters saying that we finland need to start lowering our carbon emissions like that would make any difference. Finland could quadruple its carbon emissions and we would still make up only 0.0006 of total carbon emissions. It doesn't make any difference what we do unless the largest countries in the world change their policies. We should just do what is best for our economy and not really care about the carbon emissions because its so insignificant anyway. I see people say that focusing on clean energy will create new technologies that will improve our economy and yes it might improve it, it might also not improve so why take the risk. the 10 largest carbon emitters make up 67.6 of carbon emissions and untill they start making significant reductions in carbon emissions i think us smaller countries shouldn't really care because we really dont make a difference anyway.","conclusion":"Untill large countries begin significantly lowering their carbon emissions small countries dont need to lower theirs"}
{"id":"8d6ad23d-29ef-4ac9-8f96-20f15e00de12","argument":"According to a 2006 survey, 49 percent of state prisoners, 40 percent of federal prisoners, and 60 percent of jail inmates in the USA have a symptom of a mental disorder, such as developmental and personality disorders, as well as clinical symptoms as specified in the DSM-IV pg.14","conclusion":"Most prisoners suffer from mental illnesses. If a prisoner's poor mental health leads to them wanting to kill themselves by euthanasia it cannot be described as voluntary, as it is not a free choice."}
{"id":"40dee77a-a42b-40d3-a37a-62b0cab9ef06","argument":"Okay, let me begin by stating the properties of the Electoral College before explaining why I think each of them has a negative effect. 1 A state where 51 of the votes goes to one candidate has 100 of its electoral votes dedicated to that one candidate. 2 Delegates exist. 3 Many American territories like American Samoa, Guam and DC too I believe don't get a say in the US elections because the voting system is based on delegate distribution by state. 4 In the end it's a First Past the Post system counted by electoral votes. 5 Every state gets 3 electoral votes to start with before the remaining votes are distributed by population. These are the properties I want to discuss. 1 Imagine you live in California, a mostly Democratic state to my knowledge, and you decide to vote for a Republican nominee. Your vote is basically completely discarded. Any non swing state basically leaves all votes completely useless, as the entire set of electoral votes go to the one candidate anyways, making potentially millions of votes inconsequential to the election. 2 Delegates can decide to vote differently from how they're supposed to, which is pretty much the opposite of how a democracy should work. 3 American citizens should be allowed to vote no matter where in America they live, right? There is no reason why a Samoan citizen should have any less of a vote in the election than a Texan citizen. 4 The first past the post system is absolutely terrible, and is a large reason for why the American elections are mostly between only 2 parties. Even if the electoral votes were representative of the population, which they're not because of points 1 and 5, this voting system would remain problematic. There are many reasons as to why this is, but the biggest one is that if a 3 party would get a lot of support, it would actively suck votes away from the party that is most like it, making votes for this party ensure that the party least like it will win. 5 This simply shifts the balance between how much a single vote is worth. Simplifying the amount of votes to electoral votes is already problematic because it can cause rounding errors, so even if all of the above points are fixed this could still cause problems now and then. Then going into the fact that the electoral votes aren't completely fairly distributed causes the situations where candidates won elections while other parties had more votes. This works mostly in favor of the Republican party because the least populous states get more votes than they should have. Calculating the proportions here show that a vote from a Wyoming citizen can be roughly worth 5 times as much as a vote from someone in California. There is no reason why one vote should be worth more than another. Most of my information sources are videos by CGP Grey who has a very one sided vision on the Electoral College, hence why I want to see the other side of the argument here too. Note that I do not want to replace the Electoral College with just the popular vote, the mathematics behind voting systems can be fairly difficult and this particular one would already cause the same problems pointed out in argument number 4. Edit fixed spacing and replaced the word districts by territories . Edit2 I do need to clarify as someone in the comments pointed out that I also need to give a better option if I want to argue that the Electoral College needs to be replaced. My opinion is essentially that pretty much any voting system I know of is better than the electoral college, but the best options I think should have preferential voting aka you can rank the candidates allowing for the candidate who most people can somewhat agree on, rather than the one candidate with the most first place votes, to win. This mostly resembles STV which, if you're willing to find out more about in order to raise an argument is much more clearly explained in this video by CGP Grey gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The Electoral College needs to be repealed and replaced"}
{"id":"78757c8a-0f7d-4119-9224-69e52ad371d9","argument":"Only at the end of season 6 does Sansa declare that \"winter has come\". This implies that the arrival of winter takes place much later than Daenerys' birth or rebirth.","conclusion":"The official arrival of winter in Westeros happened long after Daenerys was either born or reborn."}
{"id":"6113a23e-2db2-42d3-a759-ea109bd7ae75","argument":"The U. N. does collate many laws and rulings from other bodies, affiliates and subsidiaries. These could be summarised as: 1 Equity of voice and opportunity 2 Freedom of speech and association 3 A consistent, and fair for all, justice system separated from Politics 4 The equal rights to participate in Government as a voter, representative or leader.","conclusion":"It would be more useful to adopt standards for the key tenets of Democracy, unfortunately the only world-wide authority, the United Nations does not produce a set."}
{"id":"c1a43461-9b31-45cf-9d65-cc3acc227636","argument":"I used to be a vegetarian and very serious about animal rights, but for the most part I'd just parrot what I heard rather than think about the issue and come to my own conclusions. Over the ensuing years, a variety of experiences gradually led me to realize that my view on animal rights had been almost entirely based on emotions rather than reason. Still, I'm not entirely sure about my current view and I think it's worthwhile to have it scrutinized. Hunting wild game for the purpose of obtaining edible meat is the most morally defensible form of hunting, and is more ethically sound than eating farmed meat. To choose to consume meat is to choose to inflict death upon another living thing, but to consume farmed meat is to inflict death as well as condemn it to a life of confinement, subjugation and cruelty. Wild game is guaranteed to have lived a healthy, autonomous life, and to favor wild meat over farmed is to minimize suffering to the best of your ability. If they weren't hunted, wild animal populations would likely grow to the point of equilibrium with the environment's ability to produce resources necessary for their survival. The quality of life in such conditions would be horrendous, and many individuals would be sick or starving. Dying at the hand of a hunter is often much quicker and less painful than a lingering natural death. Hunting is a natural human impulse and to act on it is no more morally reprehensible than acting on the impulse to reproduce. Most of the things human beings do is at the expense of the environment in some way, and to specifically chastise hunters is unfair. edit I want to make it clear that I'm talking about sustainable hunting of animals whose wild populations are healthy. I'm not defending trophy hunting, exotic animal hunting, or wasteful hunting like with elephant ivory.","conclusion":"I think that hunting is, in many cases, ethically sound."}
{"id":"855af204-7a08-4f8b-9ad3-467015321852","argument":"Recently I have noticed a lot of people on reddit saying that prison should not be about getting revenge and instead about rehabilitating inmates to re enter society. And while I can partially get behind this, I do believe that this would obstruct justice and soften our treatment of those who break the laws. In the cases of those who have been mistreated in their youth and those who have committed minor moderate crimes shop lifting, single DUI DWI offenders rehabilitation does seem like an appropriate path to take, but for more serious crimes, the prison system should be devoted to keeping these criminals out of society and serving them justice. So yeah, change my view.","conclusion":"I don't believe prison should be about rehabilitation,"}
{"id":"a4a65d45-bd4a-4203-b963-09185c239817","argument":"I would really really like my view changed on this, because I don't want to be so bitter, and I want to see a good side. However, I have not had coffee so the following paragraphs might be slightly unintelligible. I'd really like my view changed ASAP so I have nice thoughts before going to work. I have been a stripper for over 3 years. When I first started, I enjoyed my job and saw no breaches in morality for the clientele of clubs. Boys night out, entertainment, someone to talk to what the girls do is not THAT bad. This has slowly changed over the years due to clientele's behavior and more life experience, and I now find myself very bitter and angry. Going to a strip club may seem like harmless fun, but as a client, you don't know what got the girls there and if they have a choice or not. Sure, I know a few girls maybe 3? who don't detest the job and don't seem to have terrible pasts, but most of them, myself included, is a different story. Most of my friends have histories of sexual abuse, rape, physical abuse from family or relationships, leading to low self esteem. Many are single mothers with no other option. I myself am trying to leave the industry and get my life back together, as many others are too. I have been raped at work, and I've heard similar stories from other girls keep in mind that the girls at my club do not offer extras . We are not prostitutes. Every day I am treated as a sub human sex toy not by everyone, but by about 25 of the clientele . Every day I wonder how many guys will try to finger me or suck on my nipples, which is hugely violating. Giving lap dances makes me feel horrible about myself, and I loathe every minute of it. My friends tell me that they too zone out during dances and try not to think about what they're doing, and instead about happy things. I know I am not the only one who feels this way. I have avoided substance abuse problems to aid me in zoning out but of course many are not so lucky. Again, YES, I know that there are girls out there who are very happy loving what they do. But not all of them do. So my position is If you cannot be 100 certain if a stripper likes their job or has no other choice, is it not morally wrong to participate as a client? If you cannot tell that a stripper feels horribly sexually violated giving you a dance, is it morally okay to still get one? Keep in mind that we'll lie and say it turns us on or that its fun we're all very good liars. It's no use in just asking us. EDIT ONCE AGAIN This is about the CLIENTELE. Someone please try to  because I think that paying a girl to dance and touch her boobs when she hates it is wrong. This isn't about 'many people hate their jobs'. This is about the difference between hating your job and hating your job where you get sexually abused for a living this is about the clientele that pay for that, that DO that. So  on that. Telling me I can leave my job is a nice sentiment but I can't support my family and pay for school on welfare, so thanks. EDIT 2 Its slowly working guys. Keep on going, please EDIT 3 I give up. You guys are right Even though I offer a service I hate, it is not the fault of the everyman. My bitterness has come from a multitude of bad experiences and I have painted all with the same brush. I still hate everyone, don't get me wrong. But now I just hate everyone because humanity it totally awful for everyone in different ways. You guys helped me ignite the fire to continue kicking my ass to get out, instead of just giving up and resigning myself to it, so for that I thank you. As soon as I figure out how to do the little delta thingies, I will mark this.","conclusion":"It is morally wrong to go to a strip club because you don't know who has a choice and who doesn't."}
{"id":"59311c9f-147a-43dc-9d0c-a6138df001f9","argument":"The CAP\u2019s subsidies are costly, inefficient and bad for EU consumers. Reform has been sought unsuccessfully for many years, so if EU expansion finally prompts change it will be a benefit. The prospect of cheaper food and manufactured goods from Central and Eastern Europe is clearly of benefit to EU consumers.","conclusion":"Enlargement may undermine Common Agricultural Policy, but for the better."}
{"id":"a71b1b09-3bcb-4b25-877d-84abbb38199e","argument":"The African American vote was significantly less for Hillary than it was for Obama. The percent of African American voters was 66.6 in 2012 compared to 59.6 in 2016 despite overall voter turn out being similar to, according to Pew. Hillary and Obama had nearly the same policy positions and yet one of the candidates received more votes than the other from the African American community. I believe this was a result of racist thinking. I feel many African Americans were more excited to vote for Obama purely based on his race rather than his ideas. I remember in 2008 a friend of mine stated she was voting for Obama because he is black like me . Comments like that reinforce my opinion. In terms of what I consider racism, I would consider someone who voted for Mccain and Romney over Obama because they were white to be racist. Using the same logic, someone who voted for Obama because of having African heritage is equally racist. note Don't argue that only white people can be racist, I don't buy this argument and it isn't what this  is about . In addition, I believe voting on racial lines is dangerous for our democracy. My proof is in several African elections, people vote based on ethnic lines and the ethnicity with the largest population tends to win. This also frequently results in post election chaos and violence. Thank you for commenting and trying to  Disclosure I voted for both Obama and Hillary only elections I was old enough to vote in . gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"African-Americans did not turn out to vote for Hillary like they did for Obama due to racism."}
{"id":"a9d75c8d-9786-491f-bc13-0d70b3fc9aff","argument":"Presently in the society we live in, that is more interested in incarceration vs rehabilitation. Persons who have a momentarily lapse in judgment are forever punished. I am a convicted felon unable to be a productive member of society as no employer will trust me with a job. The crimes I committed were not major when compared to Murder or Rape, crimes I feel this change should not apply to. Because of my inability to clear my record, I reoffended when desperate for employment fell for a work from home scam, and got burned on a bad money order .","conclusion":"I believe in the USA all crimes committed by persons should be expugnable after finishing the sentence."}
{"id":"71c6b0e2-0671-477f-b26d-b5ded6b2e248","argument":"The motivation for all medical research is consequentialist i.e. primarily seeking beneficial outcomes. Although the research procedure will involve the creation and destruction of thousands of embryos, the resulting benefits will outweigh the cost in human material. Once the research goals have been achieved, the use of embryos in the treatment phase can be greatly reduced. The likely consequences of curing people of fatal neurodegenerative diseases, and ensuring the success of transplant surgery are worth the cost.","conclusion":"The motivation for all medical research is consequentialist i.e. primarily seeking beneficial outco..."}
{"id":"5ec79826-c3d3-4a09-8ffd-321cb39aed76","argument":"I see a lot of people enjoy impressions because of the thousands of videos out there with hundreds of thousands of views. Saturday Night Live also does a lot of them of celebrities. I think they are weird. I get a cringe feeling when I watch them and usually have to look away. I don't know the exact reason, but it may have something to do with the weird faces people make when doing impressions or if they mess up they look rather stupid. I want to be able to enjoy impressions too. This is the only impression video I've been able to enjoy and it's probably because its more like a cover and the guy looks like he's having the time of his life HERE I like Jay Pharaoh, but I really can't stand watching this, even though he is doing a good job. HERE Edit The commenters helped me realize why I don't like them and it may be irreversible.","conclusion":"I don't like impressions and impersonations."}
{"id":"161324a3-99a9-400e-94de-81874a35d00f","argument":"Early last Wednesday morning, someone called the police to report that someone had painted a racial slur on the gate of Lebron James' LA home. Lebron issued a statement that most people loved. And almost all of the media launched into commentary on racism in America. Virtually no one questioned the story. I have yet to see anything to prove the incident did happen, let alone it being a genuine racist attack. And based on what information has been put forth, I believe it happening as presented is less likely than another explanation. The most suspicious thing is that there is no evidence of the graffiti. Police were called, but by the time they arrived, the graffiti had already been painted over. The police were not able to collect their own evidence of the event and were only provided with a picture by someone in the house, which they have declined to release to the public. I'm not willing to take this photo as concrete evidence, especially without it being released. There is also no evidence that has been produced from a passer by who may have seen the graffiti. The gate is visible from the street, and the call to police was made well after sunrise. Another thing that is suspicious is that there is no video evidence. This house is worth 20 million dollars. It's odd there is either not a surveillance camera on the gate or that for whatever reason it did not record the incident. But, assuming a racial slur was painted on James' gate and all evidence just fell through the cracks, there is no evidence it was a legitimate racial attack. This web site has a database of hundreds of false claims of hate crimes. That could be the case here. James certainly benefited from it based on the massive praise he received for his response to the graffiti. In fact, it's virtually impossible to prove who did the graffiti, largely due to it being painted over before the police arrived. I already mentioned that fact as a reason there is no photo evidence, but it's highly suspicious the crime scene was covered up before police could look at it. To be clear, if it was a hoax, even if it came from Lebron's camp, I'm not suggesting he was part of it. Neither he nor his family were at the house the night of the incident. While those are the most likely alternate explanations, they're not the exhaustive list. The NBA finals started the next night. It could have been a Warriors fan trying to get under James' skin the throw him off his game. It could have been a Cavaliers fan with the opposite reasoning, hoping it would motivate James to a better performance. I believe it's more likely than not that the incident is not as simple and straight forward as it was being presented. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"It is more likely that the Lebron James graffiti incident either didn't happen as presented or was a fake."}
{"id":"3b3beabd-c6c3-42e3-b72a-e910ae652d67","argument":"During the golden age of Islam, the faith was a major source of support for the advancement of science.","conclusion":"Initially, while still developing, religions have caused rapid societal advances"}
{"id":"9e44ba02-eac9-4b14-986a-80fb812575f1","argument":"Tax payers are not only paying for other peoples education, they are also paying for other peoples education in irrelevant fields. When the student has to pay for studying he will pick a class that makes him more productive helpful to others in the future instead of a class that does not. If he needs a loan to finance it, it will be more expansive for economically irrelevant fields, which don not ad the later market value of that students work.","conclusion":"If this is true, then it would cause further damage to public finances, as graduates would earn less, pay less tax, and generally be less of an asset to the economy."}
{"id":"2571c370-40a8-4b5c-979c-fc8e80ee9113","argument":"We have not seen the whole Mueller report, all we've seen is very brief summary which was written by someone subordinate to the president. x200B Bill Barr is a man who said many months before he became attorney general that Trump firing Comey and Trump doing things that are obviously intended to stop and block criminal investigations into himself are not obstruction. Because the constitution gives the president power to do that. Bill Barr said in his essay As president, he has the power, the decisions are not reviewable, so we must obey, even if he is doing it to save himself from criminal prosecution. That's probably why Trump picked him as AG. The president has the absolute right to order the justice department Don't investigate me. in Barr's view. Barr's summary of the Muller report said The investigation did not establish that Trump or his associates conspired with Russia. It only said we didn't find enough evidence of collusion during the election, but nothing about inappropriate action after the election. It did not say anything about Is Trump under any kind of pressure from Putin right now? Is Trump doing things to benefit Putin against America's interests? Is Trump a security risk right now? Why so many contacts between Trump campaign and Russia? What about Paul Manafort sending polling data to Konstantin Kilimnik? Who ordered Roger Stone to contact Wikileaks? What were the conclusions on those matters? In fact, the fact that it DIDN'T say these things is deeply concerning. Why didn't the Barr summary address these issues? If Trump was not bowing down and kissing Putin's ass, the report would have said that. In my view, all we've seen is a summary of a report written by a man who believes he must obey the president even if the president is self dealing.","conclusion":"It's illogical to give up the notion that Donald Trump is in bed with Russia."}
{"id":"a9787149-50b9-4a36-ac04-b68fdc009eef","argument":"Pence has pushed for freedom of the press in Myanmar in his meeting with Aung San Suu Kyi at the Asia-Pacific summit.","conclusion":"On the international stage Pence has vocally promoted freedom of the press and justice."}
{"id":"e2e2fcd3-22c2-4405-8b7c-8b4ef6fc03e1","argument":"To be president is to be the politician who is the face of America to not just Americans but to the World. Yang may be more equipped than Trump, but that doesn't make him adequately equipped to handle the job well.","conclusion":"The issue isn't that Yang can't be president, but that perhaps he shouldn't be given the lack of experience."}
{"id":"854ff0a0-e560-4443-9e72-594461b5996b","argument":"This phrase has been used many times from people, co workers and friends receiving warnings from management for having an attitude problem and I have had instances in the past where it was directed at me, despite me working mostly alone I work the graveyard shift, only other interaction with colleagues is is the 15 20 minutes of handover . I personally think this phrase just means, that person is an asshole or bitch, but I don't know how to say that nicely as to not put myself in a negative light, so I'll just say that person has an attitude problem and it's affecting workforce relations. While that other person is viewed negatively, I look good in comparison because I got the first word in. This phrase used outside of work environments also, where someone people just flat out don't like other people and use the term attitude problem, due to personality differences or clashes. For example, having friends that you know well and want them to know each other, but it doesn't work out. In this situation, it's not a forced interaction like work, so they just avoid each other and or they sometimes hang out together in groups. No management steps in to force them to get along except you as the middleman . Usually over time, they just get a feel of each other personalities due to these interactions anyway and just get accustomed to it. Bringing back to my point, the whole attitude problem is usually escalated to management to resolve, where management don't really know anything about the details because attitude problem is a loose term. During the time's where I've received complaints about my attitude problem , I've always asked where the problem actually stems from. Usually they don't know or won't disclose who made the complaint, making it impossible to actually resolve the issue, since you have no idea, management has no idea, so you don't know who to speak with. They expect a result without giving you any information of what the problem is, aside from attitude problem . Is that person being rude, blunt, uninformative, dismissive, egotistical, abusive, loud, malicious? Who knows. My solution is that if an issue between staff, it should be resolved between themselves privately since it's usually a personal issue. None of this passing onto management so they can give you a warning. What does that achieve? Fear of losing your job? Being in a worse mood because of it? Not knowing what to do since you don't know where the problem is stemming from? I've had some instances where I have been informed about a situation, then give my side of the story, since people tend to bend the truth to be advantageous for themselves. I've had exchanges with managers who are willing to listen and I've had bad experiences as management don't want to listen, consider it as back chatting and not respecting authority when it's usually obeying authority, What I say, goes , usually heard from people I perceive as closed minded. People are expected to cop it on the chin, to not challenge what is accused of them and it's obvious to some that these people are harbouring some negative feelings throughout the day. Imagine if court cases were one sided, where the accuser had an advantage because the judge heard their story first and didn't want to listen to the other guys point of view. No physical evidence either, just words coming from a mouth, so you don't know if the truth was twisted around to be more advantageous for them. I would like to hear what you guys had to say, especially from an employer point of view.","conclusion":"The phrase \"... has\/have an attitude problem\" is just a politically correct way of saying that someone personally don't get along with someone else due to personality differences, but can't attribute it to something that affects work performance"}
{"id":"9c228003-7b90-4816-b369-daaaa07351b0","argument":"Arming teachers is likely to be counterproductive because more guns increases the likelihood of the issues that schools are trying to prevent: people shooting each other with guns in schools.","conclusion":"Armed teachers would lead to a net decrease in school safety."}
{"id":"f92d3e0b-6b41-428d-9fe6-5dad97aff411","argument":"UBI will not solve people making bad financial decisions. Financial education being taught in schools could resolve this issue. UBI could complement the education with practice. However people do not need money to make better financial decisions. They could instead figure out ways to save money.","conclusion":"UBI does not address educational inequality, which is one of the main drivers of inequality overall."}
{"id":"6ec79c75-2397-4525-9f81-9ff36bdaffa0","argument":"The legitimacy of democratic is based on the fact that the coercive exercise of power by government requires the consent of the governed - and not on the public support for democracy as a form of government.","conclusion":"Participation in elections has been declining across the democratic world in recent years. Yet using this as an argument that democracy as a political system should be abolished seems dubious."}
{"id":"e9fbd84f-09ac-449c-8034-0f55e72e93b3","argument":"Police thinks minorities are more often the perpetrator and thus have a bias to investigating crimes against minorities.","conclusion":"It makes minorities look like weak targets that can be threatened without repercussions."}
{"id":"f6651017-2b25-41b5-98a3-4c411ff2a098","argument":"Wikipedia is not threatened by variants and rivals that also seek to promote freedom of knowledge. Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia\u2019s founder has consistently said that he is not trying to drive traditional encyclopedias like Britannica out of business, nor to become a monopoly provider of online information. The key principle is the freedom of information, presented as neutrally as possible. This has led to Wikipedia being banned in China, after Jimmy Wales refused to censor articles to make the site acceptable to the Chinese government.","conclusion":"Wikipedia is not threatened by variants and rivals that also seek to promote freedom of knowledge. ..."}
{"id":"dbb45ab3-25a7-43d3-96a7-87d25164243f","argument":"While having a clearer idea of how much everyone is paid may lead to a more free capitalist model, it will lead to massive competition.","conclusion":"Pay transparency may make running a business harder as businesses struggle to pay their employees similar salaries while competing with other businesses."}
{"id":"19c4fe79-e5fa-4086-9641-3c88df6a30b7","argument":"Human life is sacred and a gift from the Creator that we are obliged to care for.","conclusion":"Deciding about when and how to die is against God's will."}
{"id":"ff0f0977-7f4f-4ead-b9b4-5bf3e22f6f0f","argument":"I had a discussion with a friend today and he argued that pornography shouldn't be seen as art, here is the jist of what he said I don't think pornography should be considered art as art needs to have a specific purpose which is to evoke a relatable reaction to some extent. Much of art works with empathy such as the writings of Dante, which, while most human beings have not been to Hell and back, we can certainly relate Pornography has a purpose, but it is only to advertise the viewer to view more by giving that person an unrealistic view of how sex works. EDIT I too believe that pornography is not art, but I believe my friend had said it better than I could.","conclusion":"Pornography should not be seen as art"}
{"id":"1bd551d9-264e-4d52-8bdf-1fa9d18a3574","argument":"Let's start with I actually think Bill Cosby is 100 guilty of everything he's accused of. I have no more evidence than you do, and I can understand though not agree why his defenders claim that everything he's accused of is alleged, and not proven. I want to be clear that I am not one of those people. I think he is super guilty based on the testimony of literally dozens of women. I believe those women, and I think despite his age, Bill Cosby should be locked up in prison, and his legacy should be tarnished. However , I do not think that the recent revelations that he gave women quaaludes for the purposes of sex make the case him any stronger. The new details should neither strengthen nor weaken the case against Cosby, and the fact that some corporations are reacting to it is confusing to me. There is no indication that he tricked women into taking these drugs. There is no indication that he misrepresented their effects. Most of the allegations against Cosby are about incidents that happened during the 70's and 80's, when quaaludes were popular party drugs. Is it possible that some women took them without realizing the effects and Cosby then took advantage of them in their altered state? Of course. But we already knew that was possible before. Evidence that he provided the drugs is not evidence that he committed sexual assault. I wonder if these details are an overreaction and a symptom of the US's infamous puritan black and white drug policy. The knowledge that Cosby partook in recreational drugs should not besmirch his character, and yet it is being used to do so because some people consider drug use more unforgivable than sexual assault. And that's super fucked up. But, of course, no one is going to say anything because at this point Cosby deserves no defense.","conclusion":"Of all the allegations against Bill Cosby, the revelations of the last week do not make the case him any stronger"}
{"id":"d1df80fe-c0a5-4854-b016-3698ed59950f","argument":"Feminism is still relevant. Women are still hypersexualized from a tender age harassed when they're still unable to understand what is going on, which makes them grow up feeling scared and insecure A few extremists shall not render the movement unlegit.","conclusion":"Feminists help combat and expose sexist objectification of women in society."}
{"id":"f7f5dd25-8637-468f-9e1d-3c878c353db7","argument":"Religion claims that there is an afterlife and that there is a God while we have no proof of anything of its sort. If there is no God and there is no afterlife then those who suffered deeply on this depressing planet will never find justice and they will never have found anything meaningful throughout the course of their horrific life while we normies wake up every day surrounded by love and joy. Those people will never find love nor compassion. They will only find sorrow and injustice. If there is no afterlife and there really is no God then life can be summarized as the following Life is like eating a piece of cake at a table full of other people eating their cakes each cake being completely different from the other one's piece of cake. Some people are eating delicious, awe inducing and beautiful slices whilst others are forced to eat disgusting, slimy and morbidly atrocious pieces of cake. In the end, everyone will lose their memory once they finish consuming their slice of cake. Once it is over, it is over. From the above example we can clearly see that eating a delicious cake may seem awesome but when later fully examine the situation we see these following problems arise We will not remember eating it it is ultimately pointless to consume it. While you enjoy the slice others are mourning over how disgusting and slimy their portion is which makes eating your slice very unfair to those around you who have nothing more than a nasty slice of glop on their plate. Your slice represents a happy life while the horrible slice represents the sad and miserable lives of the unfortunate. The losing memory part represents how we will all die and how our lives will come to an end. When this situation is translated back into our own lives, it makes life seem tasteless and very unfair. It makes me and hopefully you ponder how hard life is for others and how hard it should be for us who are fortunate to live our lives without wondering how lucky we are. The situation of those who are eating the cake is a hopeless one. If they eat the cake it will not matter and if they don't it will give the same results. So, in conclusion, the only clear meaning to life is simply nothing. It is a sad and painful reality but it becomes even sadder when we realize how much worse others have it such as those who were eating the nasty cake . If life truly is pointless then there is no reason to keep living through it. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Life is ultimately pointless if there is nothing which comes after it."}
{"id":"c93f368f-faa9-4840-83e1-ffa79ee6a8b8","argument":"If I pirate music from a deceased artist, I am obviously not depriving them of any monetary returns from the art, and the people who would benefit don't deserve anything if they weren't responsible for its creation. I understand that part of my argument depends on the idea that nepotism cronyism is always unfair. I am not as firm in this idea simply because I haven't examined it very deeply. I guess I don't believe that beneficiaries to whom royalties are absolutely vital deserve them. If they were then wouldn't that essentially render them total leeches?","conclusion":"Pirating music from deceased artists is perfectly fine."}
{"id":"f6cd94b9-b808-472e-b519-f237dc2d04dd","argument":"Thea Lee and Ralph Nader, The case against free trade; Happily never NAFTER, there's not such thing as free trade. Earth Island Press, 1993 ISBN 156431694. Chapter 5, pp. 71. - \"NAFTA would also thwart domestic policy in the area of intellectual property rights, that is, copyrights and patents on printed materials, sound or video recordings, pharmaceuticals, and computer software. Software developing nations often show little regard for intellectual property rights, since exclusive authority to make a product generally means steep prices. By ignoring drug patents, for example, Mexico has provided relatively cheap pharmaceuticals. No longer with NAFTA's rules.\"","conclusion":"NAFTA helps control the exploitation of Mexico's poor intellectual property laws"}
{"id":"9c3ef1cd-9516-4050-b505-da80ad34b20f","argument":"Many people on all sides of the political spectrum are realizing that the mainstream media is not a reliable news source. However, I see people following various podcasts instead TYT, youtube podcasters, candace owens etc . These podcasts are just as biased if not more than any other form of media, encourage tribal group think, and are toxic by nature. They tend to offer very little diversity of opinion and have a clear agenda behind them. For these reasons, I believe that people are better off choosing not to subscribe to political podcasts. To me, it seems like the equivalent of refusing to read a newspaper and instead asking your next door neighbor for the news.","conclusion":"Most political podcasts are heavily biased and no more reliable than any other form of media"}
{"id":"1aa747a8-d576-4ef4-bcfa-6fec49da96cb","argument":"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Already they have raised up a monied aristocracy that has set the government at defiance. The issuing power of money should be taken away from the banks and restored to the people to whom it properly belongs.\u201d - Thomas Jefferson","conclusion":"1 \u201cThe end of democracy and the American Revolution will occur when government falls into the hands of lending institutions and moneyed corporations.\u201d; 2 \"We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt.\" -Thomas Jefferson"}
{"id":"6f429212-c569-4e1e-ba31-9c24d398e7dc","argument":"Not saying selfishness is always bad, simply saying that it is always the root of things that are considered universally evil . Just think about it greed, murder, gluttony, jealousy, etc are rooted in a person having more concern for oneself and one's personal needs vs. the needs of others. Serial killers kill for selfish reasons, the Wall Street Bankers who crashed the economy in 2008 acted on selfish reasons, child molesters abuse 10 year old kids for selfish reasons, The Third Reich wanted to conquer the world for selfish reasons the list goes on and on . I can't think of a single thing that's considered evil that is rooted in something other than selfishness. Please . Thanks.","conclusion":"Selfishness is The Root of All Things Considered \"Evil\""}
{"id":"3efef8ce-802c-49ad-9ec8-ced6caff6f90","argument":"To keep your job you have to please the people you are representing. It's like a lawyer trying to convict his own client.","conclusion":"Politics shouldn't be based on the persons own morals, but the view of the constituents. !"}
{"id":"027f2c4c-7e4b-4915-bf67-31ed209ccbad","argument":"A perfect example is the prohibition of alcohol in the USA from 1920 till 1933. 1","conclusion":"The war on drugs cannot be won because demand for drugs will always exist."}
{"id":"1f5c65b7-3af7-49b2-93cf-a62665fecedc","argument":"Wizarding media is largely confined to books, slightly-animated pictures, and oddities such as a Pensieve. In contrast Muggle media includes on-demand access to movies, music, and video games.","conclusion":"Many of magic's practical uses just imitate what Muggles already have available through technology, and in many cases are inferior."}
{"id":"221baa79-8882-41c1-9460-8d64d9051f21","argument":"Arrests have become exceedingly common in the United States, especially for acts that do not warrant such drastic action, such as petty, nonviolent, or victimless crimes.","conclusion":"Civilians should have the right to physically resist the police for performing an unlawful arrest, search, or seizure."}
{"id":"c24403f1-1b30-48f9-ab95-7054f413c580","argument":"The mass influx of refugees has inflicted a heavy burden on the Swedish welfare state which has struggled to bear the economic cost of accommodating the refugees.","conclusion":"Sweden has accepted the most refugees per capita by a large margin."}
{"id":"f16f4386-48bb-4209-b1c9-76dc14e9b114","argument":"The doomsday clock is at 2.5 minutes to midnight We haven't seen that since the height of the cold war. This is due to our species awful reaction to climate change climate change? Let's make an economy where it is fine to buy a new phone every 12 months , the rise of the far right nationalism across the world the US, the UK, Europe etc , the slow breakdown of globalisation and that guy who gets mentioned on here every ten minutes Cheezit Hitler . This leads me to the only rational conclusion you can our species won't make it to 2100 or if we do, it will be the dregs who will be killed off by the air having too much nitrogen in it or whatever . There is no hope of humans pulling off an about turn, because to do so would require a complete restructuring of our society that very, very few will be willing to commit to. We are on the road to a mass reduction of the human population in our lifetime that I don't believe we can recover from. Tensions are high all over the tension spectrum. We can all feel it. The anthropocene has begun. Please, change my view.","conclusion":"The human race will be extinct by 2100, or at least well on its way out by then."}
{"id":"eb935550-6168-47ae-be19-4cb750e21d71","argument":"Language is a creation of human-beings: words do not have meaning outside of the people who speak that language. To call something 'wrong' is therefore just to say 'this accords with a word we have created'.","conclusion":"When we say that something is morally wrong, we are really expressing our distaste, disapproval or disgust towards that thing."}
{"id":"8c0bbee9-2333-4f67-92e4-52964308c5ff","argument":"For example, we should not glorify what the Japanese did in WWII, but we don't need to eliminate Shinto shrines or forbid people from stopping and praying at them.","conclusion":"We can strike the middle ground- we don't have to glorify everything, but neither need we eliminate these important parts of cultures."}
{"id":"b09a0bbd-fdee-4d90-9259-0f50bc531f33","argument":"Nobody is able to love someone for who they really are. It goes back to somebody who imprinted on them, like their parents, or whoever first introduced them to their idea of love. Humans just like what they\u2019re used to, or what reminds them of what they think love is. I think it\u2019s why people get with abusive partners, and that the stereotype where women prefer bad boys over nice guys is partially true except I think it applies to a lot of men too, the requirement being that they were neglected early on, not gender . Partners are never chosen based on what is good for them. I\u2019m honestly worried I\u2019ll only ever be able to be attracted to and trust abusive people because that is what I am familiar with. Are there people with bad pasts who are genuinely happy with a partner who treats them nicely? Maybe, but I believe they still have a tendency to be attracted to toxic people, and probably don\u2019t feel as drawn to their partner as somebody who treats them in a way they are familiar with. I feel like it\u2019s forced because they are mature enough to know it\u2019s best to stay with a person who is nice, but deep down they\u2019re unsatisfied, and would more deeply love a person who treats them the way their parents did.","conclusion":"Love is Familiarity"}
{"id":"613db95d-5e7b-4b21-97a4-5ac1510ca5aa","argument":"It would be for the benefit and elevation of humanity that extends into all reaches of a person's life and civilization's status in the universe.","conclusion":"A space elevator would increase the quality-of-life on Earth and decrease the issues there."}
{"id":"54b41277-68a3-446c-a07d-f7ec4da8a605","argument":"If protesters use violence to achieve their goals, it becomes easier for the state to brand these protesters as 'dangerous' and allow them to legitimise harsher methods by the security forces in response, which can hurt the protesters and those they are fighting for.","conclusion":"Using violence for political goals is wrong as it often escalates the situation and creates more violence for all involved."}
{"id":"869ebc40-09b1-49e3-8c07-da4e4cec76db","argument":"Music is a very powerful thing that most people really enjoy. It gives people an emotional response and can allow people to better express themselves. It can cheer you up or help you let out feelings of sadness. x200B I think it is important for kids to learn how to play an instrument because it is something that can become a great discipline. It can help you connect with others by learning how to play together or teaching each other something new. It is a good hobby to have because it allows you to express yourself and release your emotions through music. x200B Even if the child grows up and just doesn't want to put aside the time to play their instrument, they have created a great sense of discipline and concentration for themselves that can be carried on throughout their life. The discipline and learning strategy applied to learning how to create music can also be applied throughout the child's life. x200B Besides being a great conversation starter, the purpose of music is to create human connection through expression. This is a great reason for music to be shared and taught with people starting at an early age.","conclusion":"Children should be taught how to play an instrument of their choice, even if they don't want to continue with it later on in their life"}
{"id":"67111365-e56b-4105-9365-41df68771756","argument":"I am a white male, and for my entire life 31 I have been exposed to lots and lots of people, particularly in the media and politics, but also in my career, who believe that white males have unfair advantages over the rest of society. I grew up and live in a city where being white makes me a minority, and I freely admit that this has impacted my views. I have been passed over for jobs lost jobs that I was more qualified for because of both my race AND my gender. My current career field early childhood education is female dominated, and I have to be extra cautious to avoid the possibility that anyone could accuse me of anything in a way that my female colleagues never have to worry about. It just frustrates me when I see the news every day and I hear about how good white men have it, when frankly I have never experienced it. So go ahead guys and girls, change my view. Edit I need to go, but I have very much enjoyed the discussion and reading your points of view. My perspective has been slightly changed by all of you. I still don't believe that white men are simply favored in American society, but I think many of you may consider my reasoning semantic. After reading and thinking about everything you have written, I need to say this As a non affluent, non ultra successful white male in a locale in which I am the minority, I am constantly told how good I have it. I don't think anyone in my socio economic group has it good. We are all just scraping by. That said, I agree that I have rarely experienced blind suspicion at least since I started looking grown , and that is likely a product of my race. Some things are harder for men in society than they are for women custody, prison sentences , and some things are easier for men. I wrote this in the first place out of frustration in hearing how easy my life is, so it was a very personal post. What I have decided is that when you make a determination about anyone based on a statistic and not on the individual, you ignore their reality and make them less of a person. It happens to all of us for different racial and gender based reasons. I still don't believe white men have it good, but I think that is because no one has it good, except the very wealthy of all races. I wish others recognized this as well and I am not talking about you responders, because you all clearly got this before I did . THANKS","conclusion":"I don't believe that white males are the most favored demographic in the USA,"}
{"id":"8c70fa64-86be-4001-bf41-bf30bce80388","argument":"Dear r cmv It is my belief that people with disability such as being unable to walk, talk and so on do not really deserve any special treatment apart from those that enable them to have an equal footing within the society i.e. wheelchair access to public buildings . I'm not talking about the government funding to allow wheelchair access to all the buildings and whatnots either but rather, about things like disabled parkings and the widespread attitude about 'oh the disabled people have it harder than us so we should respect them'. What I really want to get across here is that because someone has lost an arm or a leg and they lived to tell the tale, it doesn't make them more heroic than everyone else who have their own troubles and obstacles they need tackle every freakin' day. I feel that by making heroes of the disabled people, we are trivialising everyday struggles that all of us equally share to a degree . Sure, doing chores without an arm or a leg is more difficult than to do so in a more whole body but so is scraping a living on measly income and juggling time between work and home. We, as people, should draw the line between enforcing equity equal footing and blatant spoon feeding. For example, I feel the 'disabled' parking spots are a joke. I mean, why don't we start having 'for bad drivers' spots reserved as well? r cmv, .","conclusion":"I don't think disabled\/handicapped people deserve any more respect than the generally able."}
{"id":"1e769c32-8bb4-486b-9b8d-9fca3ac7a113","argument":"Setting I am currently a college student finishing up my last year. Age 22. Background I am a typical Asian American and I grew up in a traditional Asian family. My parents immigrated from Asia to give their children me a better future in America. Because of my parent's pressure wanting me to succeed and obtain a successful job with high income so that they can retire early, i have instilled a mindset that time is money . Unused time means lost of potential money. Problem I started having this mindset near the middle of high school. During that time I realize why am I wasting my time playing games? Why I am wasting my time hanging out with friends? I could be spending all of this time to further develop my skills and gain new experiences. In college, that mindset has hit me even harder. I see all of these college kids socializing, having fun, wasting away their time that could have been used to study or work or to do something productive. As I grew older and learned more about what's available in the world, I decided that my interests and work ethics match me well for a Chief Technology Officer career. I like the science and technology side of how things work and I have done much R D research in college. I also like the business side, leadership skills, and challenges involved. Since I am already working as hard as a CTO, i thought this dream position would also fit me as well. I am considering a PhD as well since many CTOs do have it. But PhD students also work 70 hrs a week so they can graduate on time. Because I have been so heavily invested in this mindset, reality just hit me. I am incredibly tired, internally as well. I have not had any vacations in the past two years. During Christmas break, I stayed at school and worked on my projects. I worked as well during spring break. As soon as summer started, I started my internship. And as soon as my internship ended, I came back to school to continue working on my project. This negative time is money mindset of mine also repelled a lot of friends. They want me to go out and have some fun, but I pessimistically reminded them that they are wasting their time having fun and could be doing something much more productive. So now I also feel quite lonely with not many friends to reach out to. Not only that, but my social skills are lacking and I still have not had my first girlfriend or my first kiss yet at the age of 22. I have tried to pursue girls actually, but my mindset was, I need to get a girlfriend so I can get this over with and continue focusing on my career which let to numerous downfalls. Now that I am reflecting, I have focused on my career so much that I gave up everything else in my life. It is really hard for me to swing out of this mindset that I have had for the past 7 years. I am starting to think CTO is not something I want to do if it means sacrificing another 10 years down the road. I want to convert my mindset to live a working 9 5 life and come back home worry free to enjoy other aspects of life that I am currently missing out on. I hope someone can help me. I feel so miserable right now although I'm not worried about my career options after I graduate. Thanks so much Update Thank you everyone for helping me to clarify the problem with my current views. This is not something I can turn 180 on with a flick of a switch, but hopefully I can transition to a more balanced person because rewards and happiness can come in all types of form.","conclusion":"My mindset of \"time is money\" has made me miserable."}
{"id":"fc3e1899-706e-4dde-abd1-b0ab19d5252b","argument":"MJ Rosenberg. \"Obama Should Support Palestinian Statehood at the United Nations.\" Huffington Post. July 22nd, 2011: \"The biggest contradiction of all is the assertion that the Palestinian attempt to resolve their conflict with Israel at the United Nations represents a threat to diplomacy -- rather than diplomacy itself. After all, what is the United Nations other than an arena for conflict resolution by means of diplomacy? Having abandoned the effort to end the occupation through violence, the Palestinians are turning to the UN. What could be wrong with that?\"","conclusion":"Push for UN recognition IS diplomacy, doesn't undermine it."}
{"id":"bffa07a1-1694-4913-bbf4-327cf991ce0a","argument":"I often see people criticize massive corporations or celebrities for using philanthropy or pseudo philanthropy to either save face, drive up public sentiment and thus profits, or receive tax write offs. I don't believe this is a bad thing. At the end of the day, regardless of their original motive, the praise and acceptance of the cause is what drives them to contribute. In essence, were there not the desired impact, these people and corporations would stop contributing and so the act of praising them is beneficial to society, regardless of what they think of the opinion. Am I missing an argument for the opposite side?","conclusion":"People should be praised for contributing to philanthropic or charitable causes no matter if for personal or selfless benefit."}
{"id":"b9e16292-3049-4ce2-9253-5bb1d5a3eb6b","argument":"As sentencing for police is notoriously lenient, there ought to be in place sentencing guidelines that secure prison time and or fines for police who have been convicted of crimes. The minimum that is enacted should be proportional to the time and or fines a civilian would typically expect to receive for committing the same crime based on best and most recent available sentencing statistics . Please only consider the principle issue proposed above and do not address related problems police corruption, problems with internal investigations, underlying cultural problems, prison over population . Unless you absolutely need to address one of these related issues to make a point about subject, let's keep this thread laser focused on the policy proposal. Edit it is late in the midwest, I'll be back on tomorrow to respond to posts and award deltas if need be.","conclusion":"There ought to be strict minimum sentencing guidelines for police who are convicted of crimes."}
{"id":"c8975407-1bd4-4d49-a3ca-fb4df7f18f9a","argument":"Why do people with a sexual orientation other than straight always label themselves? Terms like I'm part of the LGBT community why? In my view this alienates and makes it an issue when there really isn't one. Sure there are still some assholes out there who discriminate but the sooner people stop lableing themselves the better for everyone. The whole coming out thing again is like saying look at me I'm gay etc. Just be who you are. Very few people actually find it a massive issue in this day and age.","conclusion":"People should stop lableing themselves dependant on their sexual orientation. These people make it an issue."}
{"id":"4bf2b9c6-4505-488d-80bd-05f7cb7e001a","argument":"A traceable digital currency would work just as well for beneficial innovations, as an untraceable one.","conclusion":"The untraceability attribute of a cryptocurrency is not important for any kind of beneficial innovation."}
{"id":"fa6e9170-d178-4352-ae91-ff84af3e756d","argument":"In many countries - for example China, Japan and Korea - the very concept of a meatless diet is not widely popular and recognized, hence maintaining a meatless diet can come with obstacles.","conclusion":"Living on a meatless diet is not viable or stigmatized in some countries and regions."}
{"id":"5d2c01ac-a6a9-4932-9aae-cae01c545876","argument":"While driver's licenses for illegal immigrants may reduce general insurance costs, it will raise costs in other ways. Offering licensing to roughly 15 million illegal immigrants in the United States would entail very high governmental, administrative costs surrounding the teaching, licensing, and documenting of these additional individuals. This may negate any of the economic benefits cited in the affirmative.","conclusion":"The costs of providing driver's licenses to millions of illegal immigrants would be very high."}
{"id":"da966daf-8bd8-43ab-bc81-b9472fc4ed9a","argument":"Hey guys, I'm a first time poster, and I hope I'm doing it right. So, let's get to it Video games are now a significant part of 21st century leisure time, and we are receiving a constant flow of great games from great companies. However, planned obsolescence is weeding away the great older games and replacing them with a different set of great titles. Of course, titles can't really be sold in stores for a period of more than 4 5 years, so they get taken off shelves, and discarded into oblivion. After they leave shelves, people have to resort to shady folk on Amazon and Ebay that could easily sell them a non authentic game, or just bait and switch them entirely. This is where piracy comes into play. If people are selling non authentic games, then there must be a way to extract the file onto a computer. Essentially, piracy is a more trustworthy way of getting video games that are considered obsolete. I, myself have pirated a few games, including Tecmo Bowl, Pok\u00e9mon Ruby, and NASCAR Racing 2003 Season made by Papyrus and Sierra the latter of those three is arguably the best racing simulator of all time excluding iRacing, which was made by one of the co founders of Papyrus and was based on the code of NR2003 , and Denny Hamlin used it to practice for Pocono, which he won. If one looks on Amazon, the price for a copy of this game is at least 70, nearly triple of its original price. Now, I wish I could pay the original dev team for the job well done, but Papyrus folded, and there is no way to give those who put this masterpiece together, but that is not possible. Any person selling this game or any other game is making a profit for themselves, so the starving artist card is non applicable. With the power of piracy, many a race fan have made mods that change the game's cars and tracks. If one puts in NR2003 in the YouTube search field, around 100,000 results pop up. The dev gave us a great game, and by the power of the internet, we made it better. I am not saying I am justifying piracy for movies, as I cannot necessarily agree with movie piracy. Also, I cannot agree with pirating games still available in large brick and mortar e.g. GameStop EBGames Whatever or online stores e.g. Steam . Movies are accessible through a multitude of services, but video games disappear into oblivion and there is no way to find them without forking over triple the original price or risking getting conned big time. Over time, CDs, cartridges, and consoles stop working, and all the memories fade away. Piracy of those obsolete games keep the memories going on and on, forever and ever. So reddit, change my view. Thanks","conclusion":"It is okay to pirate video games as long as they are not available for purchase in stores or online."}
{"id":"1a326d42-f394-49f9-8aa3-5a2db2e318a5","argument":"International trials are expensive \u2013 14% of the AU\u2019s annual budget for an ICC trial1. The ICC is cheaper than the cost of the tribunal system \u2013 the cost of the Charles Taylor trial was roughly two and a half times that of the $20M figure for ICC trials. Africa already contributes little to the budget of the ICC. The ICC will be cheaper than standalone tribunals thanks to economies of scale. The African Union has a track record of failures as well \u2013 NEPAD, the New Partnership for African Development tried to have a quasi-judicial element aiming to create rulings against corruption, but failed2. 1 IRIN, \u201cAnalysis: How Close is an African Criminal Court?\u201d, IRIN Integrated Regional Information Networks, 13 June 2012, 2 Editorial, \u2018African Criminal Court Not Viable\u2019, the Star, 17 July 2012,","conclusion":"An African Criminal Court would be a waste of money"}
{"id":"1aae9255-7ac7-4e28-b095-7bcaea9f0db9","argument":"Criminal proceedings are an expense to society. The costs are crippling. This is even more so when people plead not guilty. The trial goes on for longer, more evidence is needed and the jury have to be reimbursed for their time off work. At a Magistrates court, if someone pleads guilty, the average cost for all crimes is \u00a3450. If they plead not guilty, the costs take a major hike to \u00a31700! This is over 300% more! In the Crown court, the cost difference is even more staggering. A guilty plea costs \u00a32600 whilst a not guilty plea costs \u00a317550. We should encourage people to plea guilty by offering them more lenient sentences so that we can rebuild our economy.","conclusion":"we need to save money to over come the recession"}
{"id":"ef5cd406-4342-46e4-ab2f-718724767986","argument":"This is bad as it leads to Justices being chosen for reasons other than their quality as legal thinkers.","conclusion":"A system of lifetime appointments creates incentives to appoint the youngest judges possible."}
{"id":"9f2345bd-ec10-425d-82a5-cab702f40d22","argument":"I both comments dealt with the subjectivity of heroism. Michael Moore said that his uncle was killed by a sniper in wwii and that he was raised to think of snipers as cowards that shoot people in the back. That is just his relationship to the existence of snipers. I'm sure there are many Iraqis that now hate Chris Kyle and hate snipers. Snipers have been portrayed as cowards in the past as well. The sniper scene in full metal jacket a much better film comes to mind, where the sniper shoots a man trying to rescue a wounded man. It is clear that snipers are a part of modern warfare but only as a necessity. I think it is valid to take a step back and question the heroism of snipers whether you agree or notim not saying Chris Kyle did killed people rescuing others but out brings up the topic of dehumanization that goes along with war. The film American sniper does a great job of honoring a noble man but it does not tackle the bigger issues of the Iraq war. The film at one point mentions that terrorists from other parts of the region are entering the country of Iraq to fight Americans. It doesn't explore the fact that Americans invaded the country based on false information about wmds. With that said Michael Moore's tweet didn't address the fact that half way through the movie Chris Kyle realizes that sniping is cowardly and joins the front line. As an aside, if there's someone from the navy seals I'd like to know if Chris Kyle's repeated disobaying of orders and abandonment of posts would be considered wrong or not. Seth Rogans tweet about the movie reminding him of the NAZI propaganda film from is not really as interesting to me because it is clearly just meant to be a funny observation that pokes fun of some likenesses to propaganda. I think people get emotional about the Iraq war because they still connect it with America being attacked on 9 11 even though history has proven the connection to be incorrect. This is fact at this point and this film kind of tries to make an argument for the opposite. After learning the truth America stayed in Iraq for several years in and effort to stabilize the region but now with ISIS we are seeing that we actually the region. The Iraq war was nowhere near the noble effort of defense that was world war ii but the film shows Chris Kyle sign up for the seals after seeing the US embassy be bombed in Kenya by Saudi terrorists coordinated by Osama bin Laden who was in Azerbaijan at the time. Chris Kyle was sent to Iraq to fight insurgents after America failed to find the WMDs we thought were there. Chris Kyle was noble the military was not and we need to be open to criticism of the military because if we are not than tyranny with prevail.","conclusion":"Michael Moore and Seth Rogan's criticisms of the film\"American Sniper\" are valid and the glorification of war is wrong."}
{"id":"89a21650-25df-4738-bfe7-788c9e037caa","argument":"\"It perpetuates the 'stranger-danger' myth.\" said Isaac Van Patten a Roanoke Valley counselor who works with convicted sex offenders. The myth is dangerous because 80% of offenders are people from family and friends circles.","conclusion":"Imposing restrictions on convicted child sex offenders can lead to societal complacency regarding these risks."}
{"id":"ba08c6a0-78e7-4cef-810c-421b72779e61","argument":"Naples was pretty Greek in the 1520's, as the Byzantine or Eastern Empire had a Greek prince, spoke Greek, built Greek churches like the one 1518, built in the downtown area and monasteries","conclusion":"Naples had a \"recognizable Greek presence from the 1400s in which 1522 when pizza was invented falls under. Also, Spanish officials arrived then too. Demographically, the origins may be Greek and Spanish."}
{"id":"90274b10-6722-476e-b5ec-d1d6a6154f61","argument":"A UN standing army would be more effective than the troops staffing many missions under the current system. At present most UN operations are supplied by developing nations who hope to make a profit from the payments they receive for their services, but who are under-equipped and badly trained. A UN standing army would be better prepared in both respects and its soldiers would have greater motivation as they would have made a choice to enlist, rather than being conscripts. A single UN force would also have better command and control than in current situation, when different national forces and their commanders often fail to work effectively together in the field. Successful forces such as the French Foreign Legion, the Indian army and the Roman army show that issues of language and culture need not be problems in combat situations.","conclusion":"A UN standing army would be more effective than the troops staffing many missions under the current ..."}
{"id":"d21e3116-26fe-4053-a556-dfd82b4ff5e8","argument":"First, let\u2019s get the facts out of the way. Elizabeth Warren does have Native American ancestors Evidence shows that she is at most 1 512th Native American. Which means she is, optimistically speaking, 0.19 Native American. Most news sources leave that number out. She has publically identified as part Native American and has done some questionable things in relation to that identity . Look, I get that this is a dangerous argument to make. It lightly smells of the whole 3 5ths thing, but hey, 3 5 60 , which is over 315 times the amount of Native American that Elizabeth Warren is at best . I think my issue with her heritage is not about percentages or gene purity or whathaveyou. It\u2019s more related to being \u201cwhite passing\u201d PoC who are white passing can simultaneously have \u201cwhite privilege\u201d and also face discrimination prejudice for being \u201ctoo white\u201d to fit in comfortably with PoC and \u201ctoo Other y\u201d to fit in with white folks. Except it\u2019s worse, because PoC who are white passing are usually less than 511 512 white Elizabeth Warren should not identify as part Native American nor should she co opt PoC issues as her own. She should continuing advocating for Native Americans and PoC, but it is disingenuous to claim a Native American heritage.","conclusion":"Elizabeth Warren should not identify as part-Native American"}
{"id":"4078e302-980c-4edd-bb2f-64b08260a335","argument":"My current standing on Islam is that it is not a religion of peace. I've been taking a religions class and we just got through the chapter of Islam. While I feel like I have a general understanding of the core beliefs of the religion, I would not say I know all the details that would play a part in this. My current understanding of Islam is that they follow the Qu'ran, the direct words of God, revealed to Muhammad throughout his life. They also model themselves after the life of Muhammad because they see him as the ideal Muslim . Learning about the history of Muhammad, it seemed like he was a decent guy that was just trying to take back what he viewed as his referring to the conquest of Mecca . All of this seems fine up front, but once you start looking at specific practices of Islam is where my opinion shifts. It's important to keep in mind that my only experiences with Islam have been with Muslims in America. I believe that Islam can be practiced peacefully, just as people have done with Christianity for years, but surely there is something that makes people choose to do the opposite. This can be shown by oppressive country's that persecute other faiths such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Iran, Syria, etc. These same countries often have laws in place that I as a westerner see as backwards such as the prosecution of gays and the oppression of women's rights. Overall what makes me believe they are not a religion of peace is all the violence. Over the last month or so especially, attacks all over the world have filled my news feeds and they always seem to be Muslims. All I ever hear about is Muhammad actively promoting oppression of other religions and the death of people that didn't have the same views. And the biggest one is I'm told these attackers who also happen to be Muslims view their acts as justified because their religion tell them they should actively try to make everyone submit to God. All the oppression and violence I hear about it what makes me view Islam this way. I feel I should clarify a few things because this can be a sensitive subject. \u2022 I am not claiming to fully understand Islam, that is why I am here. \u2022 I don't hate Muslims nor feel I should fear them. \u2022 I view what the teachings of Islam and the culture of countries that strictly follow it as backwards and non peaceful, though it may be practiced peacefully. I don't like that I see it this way, but I currently can't view Islam as a religion of peace. Please . Any sources for good info or specific Suras on the matter would be greatly appreciated, I'm honestly trying to learn.","conclusion":"Islam is NOT a religion of peace."}
{"id":"1c88dcf4-eb41-4b4d-a0e8-fdd6919d7388","argument":"Hi, . I am a 22 year old woman with traditionally masculine interests. All but one of my friends is male. My female friend, who I am very close with, recently mentioned offhand that she bought makeup when out shopping\u2026 when she said this, I felt my blood boil and I had to bite my tongue. I have a lot of disrespect for women who wear makeup, and view the practice of doing so as borderline traitorous not of me specifically, but of women in general . I don\u2019t want to be angry with her or lose a lot of respect for her but I can\u2019t help it while I hold this view \u2013 so please, explain to me why my view is wrong\u2026 though I ask that you read my reasoning first before trying to debunk it. I view the makeup industry as fundamentally exploitative of female insecurity. It sends a message to women and female children that they are naturally inadequate and need to paint themselves to be attractive or beautiful. I believe that women who wear makeup implicitly support this message. While adult women are capable of choosing whether or not to buy into this belief, I am concerned about the influence it has on growing girls. Not only does it foster insecurity, widespread makeup use encourages the culture of vanity surrounding women near exclusively. It is targeted to women specifically barring incredibly small, niche groups of men, who I don\u2019t consider a broad enough demographic to really debunk this . I\u2019m a \u201ct shirt and jeans\u201d sort of girl, but I believe this may be largely out of spite of a culture that seems to equate femininity with vanity and stupidity. I believe women who wear makeup perpetuate this association, and I resent them for it. The usual counterargument I hear here is that there are several forms of industry that cater to female vanity \u2013 the clothing and diet industries are usually mentioned. While this is true to some extent, I consider this false equivalence. Both fashionable clothing and diets are pitched to both genders, so I don\u2019t consider either \u201csexist\u201d fundamentally, unlike makeup. Further, both clothing and diet are unavoidably tied to everyday life. Barring nudist colonies, all people clothe themselves and all people eat. Self expression in the form of clothing doesn\u2019t bother me though I do take issue with women who choose to sexualize themselves and then complain that they\u2019re given sexual attention . And while people often diet for vanity, diet is self evidently tied to both health and discipline, which I don\u2019t see as anything but positive. Unlike clothing or diet, wearing makeup is completely optional. It\u2019s opt in \u2013 I don\u2019t consider it equivalent with the other two industries, which are not. I also don\u2019t buy into the notion that makeup use is a form of \u201ccreative expression\u201d, which is something I hear a lot. This seems like a convenient excuse to displace blame and make a woman seem artistic rather than vain. I don\u2019t buy this argument because 99 of people who use makeup do so in a way to make them more conventionally attractive to men \u2013 full lips, long eyelashes, etc. It\u2019s a very rare day that I see an exception to this rule. Doing something everyone else is doing, and having it \u201cconveniently\u201d coincide with sexual characteristics is neither creative nor artistic. I have no issue with the slim minority of women who wear makeup as a genuine display of self expression\u2026 as an example, my female friend wears blue lipstick. This is hardly conventionally flattering, but is meaningful to her because she is a grapheme color synesthete and associates her name, and herself, with the color blue. It\u2019s a fundamental part of her identity and is done for herself, rather than for other people. I consider this distinct from the women who cake makeup on in efforts to \u201clook hot\u201d. I don\u2019t accept the argument that women put on makeup because looking hot is \u201cfundamental to their identity\u201d, as that ties back into the first paragraph makeup being necessary for being attractive, being attractive as a necessity to female identity at all . I think that the crux of my issue with makeup is that I view women who wear it as supportive of a culture where vanity is a feminine virtue and is expected of women. I find this hard to dissociate from a historical context wherein women were essentially property sold to the highest bidder, and used for breeding and raising children while looking pretty and nothing else . I see wearing makeup as voluntary subscription to this idea that women but not men have a social obligation to be beautiful, as I see this idea as stemming from the historical context. \u201cTaught from infancy that beauty is woman's scepter, the mind shapes itself to the body, and roaming round its gilt cage, only seeks to adorn its prison.\u201d I think this is why I view this behavior as traitorous \u2013 essentially, women are not only opting into this idea, but giving the idea plenty of financial incentive to continue. It\u2019s a culture wherein people like me are seen as strange for not painting ourselves. I would be considered \u201cdisrespectful\u201d going into a job interview not wearing makeup because it would be seen as unprofessional. My worth is tied, at least partially, to whether I adhere to makeup wearing culture or not. The last argument I usually hear is about female autonomy. People argue, fairly, that some \u201chardcore\u201d feminists have simply swapped one set of female obligations for another. That instead of women being obligated to be housewives mothers who pretty themselves up and act in a submissive role to men, women now have the obligation to do the opposite. I disagree with this view, and believe that true autonomy means a woman should be able to do what she wants \u2013 not just what I consider indicative of strong character. I do not think makeup should be banned, or women should be prevented from buying it \u2013 I just do not have much respect for women that opt to do so. I\u2019d rather not resent most women for the rest of my life. Please . tl dr I know it\u2019s long, but I\u2019d ask that you not respond if you\u2019re unwilling to read it \u2013 largely because I\u2019m not interested in repeating the points I\u2019ve already made.","conclusion":"I believe that use of makeup is selfish and encourages exploitative industries that prey on insecurity. Please"}
{"id":"b7cdf15c-aa2c-4b6e-b980-04d975c81c85","argument":"Marriage is different across religious faiths or a lack thereof. When the government grants licenses to one type of marriage and not another, it could be argued it is establishing a state religion.","conclusion":"Marriage equality means eliminating marriage licenses and special tax deductions for married couples."}
{"id":"db7b3ea9-6697-4a0c-96dc-5a285ab052d7","argument":"A lot of subs I go to, I find people downvoting things they disagree with. For example, a comment praising Trump, a comment promoting veganism, or more generally, going to a sub and writing anything which doesn't match the ideology of that sub will get downvoted. This, in my opinion, is not a good strategy. To find wether or not should I do something, I try to follow this process. First I try to list out the effects of doing the thing, and then i compare it with what would be the most disireable outcome. So in this case, I would look at what would be the effect of downvoting a comment, and compare it with what kind of experience I want on that sub or in Reddit The effects of downvoting a comment primarily are,I think, that the heavily downvoted comment will not appear on the screens of other redditors because of the Reddit algorithm. So downvoted comments posts won't be read by others, and the content of that comment post will be lost. The most desirable outcome here, would probably be different for each and everyone, but only subtly and not that drastically. Like if I want to laugh at memes, I go to r memes, most of the other people over there will also want the same thing. And hardly anyone would be on r memes looking for scientifically accurate facts. So one shouldn't be on a meme subreddit if their desirable outcome is looking for scientifically accurate facts. When talking about the experience on Reddit, a lot of factors might come into play. Which I'm not aware of and haven't thought of. But here I'm trying to convey my thoughts on downvotes and disagreement, so the disireable outcome here mentioned will only pertain to what do I want out of a comment post I disagree with. We should certainly agree that will full ignorance, and rigidity in ones own ideas, and reluctance to 'change view', are not good things. They hault your progress as an individual. I won't go into a lot of detail as to why they are good things. So a disireable outcome I could get out of a comment I disagree with would be, I change my view to any extent, other redditors come across this and encounter different views about a certain topic, and we become better in our perception of the world. By downvoting a comment we disagree with, we are 1 encouraging a circle jerk mentality where any ideas from outside are unwelcome 2 We get a false sense of superiority, and lose the chance of learning something new 3 we deny other redditors a chance to encounter an opinion different from theirs, and re think their own opinions However much controversial an idea sounds eg. 'thanos did nothing wrong' or 'terrorism is ok' , if supported by good arguments and respectable attitude, they should not be downvoted if not upvoted . There are subreddits like r dankmemes where dank memes get upvoted and normies get downvoted. That is their way of maintaining a quality sub. That I think should be ok. When you find that the content of the comment post is not relevant helpful to the subreddit, by your own definition of relevance, downvoting is fine. Or if a person is just trolling around it is just reducing the quality of the sub, or when a person is reluctant to argue respectably and is just trolling around, downvoting will help improve the quality of the sub. TL DR We should only downvote things which reduce the quality of the sub. And not things we disagree with, because that makes us and others less accurate in their perception of the world. Sorry for my lack of flow in language, or fluency. Am not a native speaker if English. Also I won't be able to reply to the comments immidiatley, and might take some time. There are internet problems going on here. But will surely try to attend to them as Soon as possible. Thanks for your time","conclusion":"Downvotes should not be used to show disagreement with the content of a post\/comment"}
{"id":"0e2501b0-56b6-4d3f-911e-5a85db294373","argument":"The proof of the existence of God should be based on hard incontrovertible physical or experimental evidence & not just reasoning, e.g., the image and\/or voice of God or at least His shadow or some other manifestation which could be seen and\/or heard & captured on film or video, which may be obtainable though possibly very difficult or unlikely.","conclusion":"The burden of proof for God's existence has not been met."}
{"id":"f0832d70-0c15-4666-af12-20480bf1a921","argument":"He is by definition the One Punch Man. The point of the character is that he can beat ANY opponent in one punch if he gets serious enough.","conclusion":"Saitama is the most powerful fantasy hero and would win in last entity standing style free for all."}
{"id":"4313bc4d-73f4-4866-bdef-8b522d93eac9","argument":"Gender equality benefits women, men and non-binary people and gives people freedom on an individual level instead of being limited or subject of pre-existing prejudice and generalization.","conclusion":"Any movement which encourages equality, i.e women\u2019s right to vote, is not a harmful political force but a positive one."}
{"id":"1658b7b3-65b0-4449-8457-16c6628ef133","argument":"People on the left, the mainstream media, and the current administration seem to be very upset about the e mail hacking and it's role in the election. However, I think that blaming the Russians is very hypocritical and silly, for the following reasons 1 The United States engages in digital computer espionage and even before the proliferation of e mail and the internet, and has tried to influence in elections in other countries numerous times. To then be outraged when another country does it to us is EXTREMELY hypocritical. 2 Russia didn't send the e mails. The DNC did. The e mails show that the DNC and it's powerbrokers don't really care about the average voter. I suppose we don't need the e mails to see this, as they cater to the million dollar donors see Clinton's recent holiday thank you party for the well healed class . It seems rather silly to blame Russia for the DNC's tactical errors. Russia just brought it out in the open if they are indeed behind the hacking . There is nothing wrong with that everything should be out in the open particularly the party of the current sitting President, who committed to 'transparency' when he took office . I am not saying that Trump deserved to win, but I prefer disruption over the status quo, and every once in a while we need to throw a brick through the window to shake things up. So, I see opportunity in the Russian interference, and the Trump victory.","conclusion":"The DNC, not Russia, is to blame for e-mail hacking and it's impact on the 2016 Elections."}
{"id":"225e85e9-4a4a-4130-9278-5f7b342e96c0","argument":"Recently a friend on Facebook posted pictures of his five month old with her ears pierced. Everyone was praising how cute it is, but I find it revolting. I got my ears pierced when I was about ten, and I remember it hurting like hell. I can't imagine subjecting a baby who has no say in the matter to that pain for the sake of fashion. I realize the pain is temporary, but it's also completely unnecessary. Frankly, I'm surprised it's even legal. I don't think parents should be allowed to subject their children to any body modification, no matter how minor, outside of health purposes e.g., circumcision, but I'm not crazy about that either . So that's the gist of it, . EDIT I just want to stress that I'm not entirely onboard with circumcision. I'm not stating that I believe there are health benefits, I was just using that as an example where body modification would be acceptable in my book, assuming the health benefits were true. Although it's not body modification, perhaps a better example would be giving a child shots. It's as painful as ear piercing, but medically necessary. gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than just downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I think piercing a baby's ears is cruel and unnecessary."}
{"id":"c8d53fe9-94e6-4c21-8638-ea2d13bff9c0","argument":"Usually torture \"works best\" on innocent average persons, while criminal elements typically have higher endurance against it and possibly some organized background that only gives them only the necessary minimum of information, expecting that the person will eventually face physical torture.","conclusion":"Torture is ineffective at getting prisoners to reveal desired information."}
{"id":"14e2a0aa-4a49-49bd-956b-ee78b5f9192c","argument":"Having a partner gives individuals involved in a relationship access to extended family networks. Such relationships can come in handy when it comes to caring for the child and in other instances where one requires support networks.","conclusion":"Marriage provides individuals, especially parents, with useful support networks that may not exist otherwise. Having a partner eases the process of caring for a child."}
{"id":"45870913-a758-4697-8bbd-399a9bc137ab","argument":"Rituals can help alleviate grief and boost confidence, as well as having an effect on our psychological processes.","conclusion":"Some humans feel the need for rituals and religion is then a useful source."}
{"id":"0cd6f213-42b3-40ec-b690-257a041a9208","argument":"From his time as the Foreign Secretary, Hunt has developed a good relationship with Singapore which can prove economically beneficial for the UK post Brexit.","conclusion":"Hunt's experience as a foreign minister will be crucial in forming much-needed new trade partnerships if and when the UK leaves the EU."}
{"id":"a1521df1-ba24-41d5-b589-12618e4acec6","argument":"Opiates have a rich history of recreational use, with the Ancient Sumerians calling it \"The Joy Plant\".","conclusion":"Many drugs that are currently illegal have been and are important social tools."}
{"id":"6b2f86e3-b172-4165-88db-22e03aaef57c","argument":"It is not a problem that they are collecting information on everyone and using that information to help gather data on people who could be doing things that could be harmful to others. It is a problem because people think they will use this information to wrongly accuse and incriminate someone who has done nothing against the law, or they will use this information to blackmail people in interest. It is also a problem because it is a breach in the constitution. People do not trust that the government will only use this information against the guilty. So it is only wrong because people do not trust the government. There is nothing wrong with the government gathering information on everyone if they use the information they gather as accurate evidence in court.","conclusion":"There is nothing wrong with the collection of information by the government."}
{"id":"44393c43-64c0-4da6-bf3a-a08ce78cc57f","argument":"Obviously there have been many renditions of Superman over the years so I am mostly talking about the Superman in the DC cinematic universe in my points below. However, I am happy to hear about comic versions of Superman that you believe to be equally more interesting than All Might. All Might is the Ultimate Symbol of Peace who deters crime with just his very existence. However, he was critically injured in a fight with a villain which resulted in him only able to use his powers for an increasingly short while each day. The first thing that makes All Might a better character is that he is much more vulnerable than Superman. This allows the writer to much more easily build tension around the character. For example 1 All Might can only use his powers for a short while each day. 2 As he is losing his powers he must cultivate, teach and protect the next generation to carry on his legacy. 3 If villains were to discover his secret identity and how vulnerable he is then they could easily kill him and the very fabric of society would be at risk. He must mantain appearances with a bluff to both inspire and reassure the good but to keep the villains in fear. 4 He has so much that we seem him risk his life to protect. The vulnerable bystanders, his students, his image, his legacy. We see that he is scared of what society will become without him. He is under so much pressure but he knows that he is not capable of living up to everyone's expectations. Even self he strives to surpass his limits and be the hero that everyone wants him to be. Compare this to Supes who's vulnerability is an incredibly rare small green rock and a girl that he loves. The second thing is that All Might powers are much more symbolic and touching. One For All is a power that has been passed down from generation to generation in a hope for changing the world to a better place. All Might feels the pressure of knowing that he is a part of that lineage and he has to live up to the expectations and faith that they invested in him. It is a beautiful symbol of humanity's potential for infinite evolution going from one generation to the next. Supes was pretty much just born a demigod on Earth. I know I was slightly flippant about Superman but that's because I find him a terribly boring, one dimensional hero. I want to hear some perspectives of dc comic fans who can tell me why they think he is as interesting more interesting than All Might. I would strongly prefer if we strayed away from Anti Hero Supes like injustice in that I feel that is a pretty different character which just muddies the water.","conclusion":"All Might from My Hero Acadameia is a more interesting character than Superman"}
{"id":"f35dcaaa-10d0-4277-9539-544152313710","argument":"It is indicative that the United States is one of only six countries in the world along with Iran, Somalia, Sudan, Palau and Tonga that have not ratified the UN convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination of women CEDAW.","conclusion":"Women are allowed to go bare-chested in public in other countries. The US should be no different."}
{"id":"4b5c9e6c-fdeb-4b8e-a11a-6eadde49e5e2","argument":"Basically, I believe Christ's overall message was that all of humanity has the potential to be divine or Godly. Only in this sense do I believe that Jesus was God. He was God because all of us, in fact, are or can be God. I got this idea because Jesus was always described as God in His human form. But then Jesus would always tell his followers that if they had enough faith, they could be just like him. Ipso facto, everyone has a piece of God in them, they just need to pull their heads out of their asses and think for themselves to achieve their true potential as divine human beings. But alas, I want to hear other points of view on this","conclusion":"I am not a Christian nor am I an atheist. But I believe that Christ was trying to send a specific message."}
{"id":"528931a5-7c94-4ceb-a3e0-4c3e3861253e","argument":"Spicey is rumored to be on the chopping block as Trump lashes out at his staff. Many people are criticizing his performances at press conferences and jumping on misstatements and contradictions. As someone who loathes the president, I have begrudging respect for Spicer who has probably the most difficult job in the universe right now. Not only does he have to defend indefensible policies and scandals, but he has to basically respond in real time to crazy tweets and major decisions that Trump makes spontaneously and without notice like the Comey firing or the Muslim ban . To be sure, I'm not defending his moral culpability as a member of the administration, only his composure. I know that if it were me up there, the GIF of me shitting my pants would go viral immediately.","conclusion":"All things considered, Sean Spicer is doing an exceptional job under very difficult circumstances."}
{"id":"fcde13f2-fcf8-43c2-8a1d-318f9855daf4","argument":"Note This  is not about porn being ethically good bad or an addiction . gt Overview I hear people say all the time, who the hell saves porn? , arguing that it is pointless because there is so much of it easily available online. Well, I have a quite massive collection of a bunch of different stuff, and I think it is great. I don't see why someone wouldn't save a bunch of it to use whenever they want. gt Reasoning The internet isn't guaranteed to always be available. If you're in a place with a spotty network, or the connection at your home is down, you can't access all the stuff in your history bookmarks. A particular picture vid you enjoy isn't guaranteed to always be available. I know Vine recently removed ALL its porn, so any vids you liked on there are likely gone forever. Sometimes you get the urge for a specific pic vid, and if you don't have that pic vid saved, how do you know you'll be able to access it? Categorization. Usually internet fapping is like a messy web of browsing link after link, and you might actually spend more time digging through stuff than workin' it But when the material is saved to your computer, it's just a matter of finding the right folder. gt Why I want my view changed I feel that it's important to include this part otherwise it looks like I'm trying to argue a POV. I publically identify as a standard straight male, however I have a lot of stuff that it would be very hard to defend as a straight guy. Don't want to go into detail, but basically it is everything short of full on real man gay sex. Sometimes I fear that someone could discover my porn and it would change my status among others forever this has already happened once, but this was before my collection became massive and categorized . I don't want to ever be seen as a perverse or weird guy, so the thought of having my collection discovered worries me. Sometimes I think I should get rid of it for my own safety.","conclusion":"having a porn collection is the best way to fap."}
{"id":"b9155dcb-9712-47bc-91cf-d86e19107828","argument":"For decades now, teachers have been remunerated based on 'seniority'. This means that they don't have an incentive anymore to improve themselves, no matter how motivated they were at the beginning. Why try to improve yourself if you have nothing to gain from it? Adding a financial reward for exceptional performance will motivate teachers to do their utmost to develop the knowledge and talents of their pupils.1 1 Muralidharan and Sundararaman, \u201cTeacher Incentives in Developing Countries: Experimental Evidence from India\u201d. Podgursky and Springer, \u201cTeacher Performance and Pay\u201d 2007","conclusion":"It will give teachers an incentive to improve their teaching."}
{"id":"3d569e0e-7f93-4649-96a8-98b7c8467d42","argument":"I believe that the openness of the Internet, while being one of its strongest assets as a forum for communication, also has the paradoxical effect of stifling critical discussion. This article in the New York Times adequately expresses many of my major concerns. Facebook and Twitter create a like seeks like mentality that, through the rigid curating of friends list and sponsored content, pushes dissenting opinion out of view. Reddit, with notable exceptions  among them , encourages a crowd mentality whereby opinions that differ from those of the website's core demographics are likely to be downvoted into obscurity. The academic world, on whose shoulders perhaps the greatest obligation lies to disseminate accurate information to the public, largely fails in this responsibility. The insular nature of academia, combined with the sheer inaccessibility of many scholastic texts and resources, means that only those with significant amounts of time, energy, and preexisting knowledge can hope to converse with current academic debate. In short, I believe that, while freedom of speech finds perhaps its greatest expression in the Internet, this freedom also creates an informational diffusion whereby those who wish to engage with different opinions are limited to specific communities such as  and do not have a forum for addressing these differences in a public manner.","conclusion":"I believe that the Internet, as it currently stands, does not provide an effective public forum for critical debate and discussion."}
{"id":"8339336e-c088-4f62-b7e0-f76eba40a309","argument":"Looking at the definition of blackface on dictionary.com gt noun gt 1. gt Theater. gt an entertainer, especially in a minstrel or vaudeville show, made up in the role of a black person. By the mid 20th century, these entertainers had declined in popularity because their comic portrayal of negative racial stereotypes was considered offensive. Now obviously no one believes that these people doing Uganda Knuckles are actually Ugandan, but that was pretty much the case with blackface too. But there's a lot of similarities These people are doing it for fun to entertain and they're playing the role of a fictionalized Ugandan person. They're portraying a negative stereotype of Ugandans by running around shouting about Ebola and pretending to spit on people and all kinds of dumb shit. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Uganda Knuckles is digital blackface, but basically just for Ugandan people"}
{"id":"8a6c603d-b8d7-484a-9bd3-6504b3871de3","argument":"The game world, thereby, lost much of its size and scope. In Classic WoW, trips to remote dungeons like the Scarlet Monastery, Maraudon, and Dire Maul meant that the game world felt like a vast place of significant distances.","conclusion":"By LFR\/LFG eliminating travelling or summoning of players to dungeon and raid entrances, Retail WoW's game immersion was significantly reduced."}
{"id":"9cc79ecf-3811-47b7-a4e4-e7245ca53bbf","argument":"As frightening as it is to think that nothing comes after death, at least that would also means no more suffering and pain. The afterlife on the other hand could be far worse than our wildest imaginations. Just consider what terrible things are happening in this world, who knows what could happen in the world to come. In this world, suffering has a limit, which is death. No matter how much you are tortured, at some point you die. Even decades of suffering eventually end with death from old age. In the afterlife, suffering could be eternal. Or imagine being a ghost, a consciousness without a body. Watching the world, but never being able to interact with it. For eternity. No sleep, no rest, no way out. Non existence doesn't sound that bad compared to some other possible alternatives.","conclusion":"I think the idea of a life after death is far more frightening than simply ceasing to exist"}
{"id":"32a8a062-ea62-4bd9-9dcb-af995872fde8","argument":"I'm referring to any scenario in which a driver is in the wrong lane to make their turn, or to use an exit from a highway. The driver will slow down, or even come to a complete stop, until someone in the lane they need to be in 'lets them in'. Besides just being dangerous because it dramatically affects the flow of traffic, it is just plain rude. The thinking is basically my convenience is more important than everyone else . What they should be doing is just continuing forward so they can safely take the next exit turn, then turning around. People that stop or slow down against the flow or traffic, place their own convenience over the safety and convenience of other drivers by forcing them to slow down or stop , thus this practice is wrong. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"It is wrong to inconvenience other drivers so that you can 'make your turn' or 'make your exit'"}
{"id":"b30acb68-99cf-4986-a1fe-9c443da49e06","argument":"Regardless of what kind of work they are doing this deprives them of something so important that we make it compulsory for all children. Although the minimum legal requirements can often be provided by tutors on the set or sports academies it can be hard to keep performance and education in proper balance when one appears to bring so many immediate rewards both in terms of fame and money.","conclusion":"If children are working or performing they are not spending their time in formal education."}
{"id":"8643788a-e142-41c6-b89f-79960cc18ce4","argument":"Psychiatrists argue that Trump's digital trail makes him one of the most analyzable public figures in history. He has over thirty-four thousand tweets, hundreds of television appearances, and a huge trove of journalism documenting his every action. Hence in his case, an observation from afar is not necessarily inferior to an in-person observation.","conclusion":"Particularly in Trump's case, there is enough available information for psychiatrists to estimate how dangerous he can be in a position of power."}
{"id":"3dfd6323-f97d-48ec-842e-30d8d344bdfd","argument":"There are many sets of rules. Some are made by governments, others by companies, associations, clubs, families, etc. We agree that most of these sets of rules are not binding on most of us by default. We can point this insight specifically to governments. The law of Laos do not apply to people in Spain. We do not assume by default that any set of rules applies to any person or anything. So, we assume by default that rules do not apply. If one person claims the rule of a government do not apply and another claims the rules of a government do apply then the burden of proof is on the person who claims that the rules do apply. For an example, I'm thinking it is best to use a victimless crime so as not to confuse this question with deeper questions of morality. Intelligent adults to avoid issues of consent. Unimproved land to avoid issues of ownership. And to remove assumptions of familiarity it is probably better to use a place most on here will not know much about. So, Smith, an adult, pays Anderson, an adult, 0.01 hr to observe ice here Edit Many people are getting ahead and trying to argue that government rules do apply. That is not directly related to the thesis of the OP. The OP is about who had the burden of proof. In the absence of specific evidence, how ought we proceed.","conclusion":"The onus is on the person arguing that government rules apply"}
{"id":"ab2f04c7-f951-4580-a35c-7c6073b80839","argument":"This could all be conducted through civil lawsuits instead of making it a crime it'd simply be making it negligent to use a computer without knowing what you're doing. If you suffer losses as a result of somebody else's negligent failure to install security patches, then you could sue them for damages. Most of the time this would be difficult to enforce, as it'd be hard to track down those responsible. However, that shouldn't change the fact that they're legally responsible, just like a driver that hits somebody's mailbox is responsible for the damage, even though finding them to collect will be difficult. Using computers has the possibility to cause harm to others, and so far it seems like we've been giving a pass to people on computers. It's great and all to try and get everyone in society online, but if somebody has no clue what they're doing, their computer will hurt people sooner or later, as it is put into a botnet that is used for a denial of service attack, extortion, and worse. Saying it's too much trouble to click on the updates and restart the computer is like saying it's too much trouble to take your car in to get its brakes checked. We don't tolerate the latter because of the potential for harm to others, and we shouldn't tolerate the former either.","conclusion":"People should be held responsible for malware activity conducted using their computers if it occurs due to their negligence. Most would learn to use computers better, and even setting that aside, society would be better off if the few that are truly incapable of learning do not use one at all."}
{"id":"c319e24e-f18c-4490-9e06-3043646deb83","argument":"379 corporations and employer organizations had urged the Supreme Court to strike down state bans on gay marriage.","conclusion":"Corporate America actively fought to legalise same-sex marriage in the US."}
{"id":"e4c9aa9c-1281-4c6a-a115-0aa7202ea4c0","argument":"Significant cumulative man-hours would have to be spent by the public on voting without representatives. The concept of electing a representative to vote for what you believe in saves the general public from sinking a disproportionate amount of time into voting on each individual policy proposal.","conclusion":"Representatives are a necessary middle-man between the voting public and policy creation."}
{"id":"0cb089d3-fcb8-4ddf-93c9-882ebca979da","argument":"I am a German and currently the politicians are discussing a solution, in which you are a organ donater unless you, or your relatives don\u00b4t want to. opt out At the moment you are not a donator unless you explicitly state it. opt in I think even the option of not being a donator should be abolished. Most arguments for not wanting to be a donator are based on wrong facts except for these 2 the philosophic one One should have the right of deciding by oneself, what will happen with ones own body. I believe in human rights because they are usefull , but i also think that they disapear once a person dies because death people having them makes no sense , so what happens to your body after your death isn\u00b4t your issue anymore and there is no reason, why you should care this is based on the premise that there is no afterlive the utilitarian Some people are for some reason mostly religious less happy, if they know that they may be barried without their heart or smth . Some relatives too, may be more unhappy if they have no full body to say good bye. Yes that\u00b4s true, but now you have to compare the, by this resolution caused unhappiness, and the happiness, which this resolution would cause. There is a clear winner. look at all the agonies of the peope on the waiting list So, am I overseeing anything?","conclusion":"Organ Donation should be obligatory"}
{"id":"3fc5a672-21da-4560-a6b1-78986c4e0b58","argument":"Between 1950 and 2016, 98% of mass shootings in America occured in gun free zones, not including incidents involving drug violence, crime, or gangs.","conclusion":"Passing stricter gun control laws will not reduce crime because criminals will ignore those laws."}
{"id":"076f0684-3845-4444-b109-e940c0379b5c","argument":"50% of all divorcees in the UK go on to remarry. National Office for Statistics 1999 This shows that, although their own marriage failed, they retain faith in the institution of marriage. The fact that, even when marriage has failed to work for them once, many people wish to give it another go shows that it is still meaningful to society. If an institution is so meaningful and relevant to modern society in this way, it cannot possibly be outdated.","conclusion":"Remarriage rate shows that even people who go through failed marriages retain faith in the institution of marriage"}
{"id":"1cf4623c-ef3e-402a-8f7e-e4dd4ee09d66","argument":"Yes, of course they will. But if a franchise refuses to take any political stance for fear of criticism by its fanbase, this is cowardice and cheapens the story. The criticisms from fans who don't want politics in their art are short-sighted and ignorant.","conclusion":"There hasn't been any reason given as to why political themes in art are a negative thing. A political message adds relevance and impact to an otherwise trivial piece of fiction."}
{"id":"b292a176-e1aa-4581-ae68-38ed5c36da76","argument":"A main problem solved at the Constitutional Convention was inducing slave states, wary of domination by Abolitionist-oriented, higher- white population states, to ratify. The 2nd Amendment 3\/5 Compromise and the EC were all solutions that gave lower-populated slave states more power than their white populations merited. Retaining solutions to a non-existent problem now empowers a minority to abuse the majority through unmerited, unfair, power over the Executive Branch and US Senate.","conclusion":"The electoral college no longer works as it was intended by the founding fathers. The fact that it no longer serves this purpose suggests that it is no longer necessary."}
{"id":"12a588c7-6ff0-42ef-b7b7-9b369199266a","argument":"In a recent study, gender differences in spatial reasoning skills were reduced beyond statistical significance when women were primed to think of themselves as men.","conclusion":"Being told they are bad at certain skills, not biology, is what makes women perform poorly when tested on these skills."}
{"id":"f0374d98-b3ea-4a23-a5fe-eedc33a48bc0","argument":". On the contrary, when Argentina interfered this allowed Britain to intervene as they were a third party, and had no right to be there. In any case a treaty can only be cancelled by mutual agreement and it is only up to the parties involved to protest if they feel it has been breached. This has nothing to do with Argentina.","conclusion":"The Nookta Sound convention did not affect Britains rights to the islands as they already had an agreement with Spain where both nations rights were secured in 1771"}
{"id":"3fd34162-548d-479a-9ef4-26079746d295","argument":"However if they are not dependent on a certain job, they can choose to walk away from workplaces where they are not treated fairly without endangering their means for subsistence.","conclusion":"Minorities are much better off when they have economic security."}
{"id":"2450dd8d-a399-447a-af3e-94c7f351e5c2","argument":"I recently rewatched The Shape of Water and I am not a movie critique nor expert, but the realization dawned on me that it is an exquisitely bland movie that lacks an absurd amount of substance. The Shape of Water plays on to the basic beauty and the beast trope, but it does not go any further than that. The movie weighs heavily on the cinematography and strays away from any actual plot or substance. It is an intermediate form of movie writing and does not deserve any more than a Redbox rental. The movie barely dives into the actual underlying foundation for why anything happens, there is no room for individual thought and it is pressed into the viewer\u2019s brain that there is only one way to think and that is with the protagonist. According to Vox, It\u2019s a beautifully shot movie with a story that follows the traditional arcs of a fairy tale romance. I believe that it is exactly why it should not have won, it has been done before. Compared to other past winners, such as Moonlight, which was original and intriguing. There is no relevance to the Shape of Water, no bigger picture. A mute woman falls in love with a sea creature who likes eggs. If that\u2019s the precedent for winning an Oscar, then The Leprechaun would have been a phenomenal candidate. The movie is visually outstanding, but so is The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and it is an incredibly lifeless movie starring Brad Pitt Without the visuals the movie would merely be a pathetic case for an \u201coriginal\u201d plot. Quite honestly, coming from Guillermo del Toro I would not expect much, all of his movies rely on visuals such as Crimson Peak or The Hobbit. These movies appeal to the eye and the only Oscar that this movie truly deserved was Best Visuals. Overall, the movie is basic with jaw dropping visuals. The movie won four Oscars, so it is obviously well received and I\u2019d like to understand what is so special about its standard format. Change my view","conclusion":"The Shape of Water is an extremely overrated movie and should have never won the Oscar for Best Picture"}
{"id":"4f00f7d1-17c1-4ff7-9842-5a080359f663","argument":"Because governments are usually more adept than protesters are at using social media, they can spread misinformation and track protesters accurately.","conclusion":"Internet based social movements often fail to achieve positive outcomes."}
{"id":"0b8ec881-7f46-4e68-9ca7-b59e1a600794","argument":"cannabis is safer than alcohol, there's no overdosing and driving while high is less likely to cause an accident than driving drunk. there's no reason for it to be illegal.","conclusion":"Alcohol and tobacco are more harmful drugs yet remain legal"}
{"id":"c3bc8cee-d5d1-41e1-94d4-de7106bb241e","argument":"Morality itself doesn't support or refute anything as a fact but rather provides an argument why one action should be taken above another. Take the trolley dilemma as an example. Should the lever be pulled to save more lives or should no action be taken?","conclusion":"Morality does not factor into the existence, or non-existence of an entity."}
{"id":"7802870c-3bca-481e-9358-25f27679947f","argument":"People who've been exempted face the risk of losing out on job opportunities in countries where patriotism is a dominant part of the national culture.","conclusion":"This policy is extremely damaging to those who get an exemption."}
{"id":"533c1bee-5d18-400b-a605-5663b63731f6","argument":"When discussing an event or issue, the facts on both sides must be provided clearly and without adjustment based on the information available to the network journalist. Both sides of an issue are to be given equal emphasis. Further, any persuasion attempts must be explicitly stated as such to inform the viewer reader that biased inferences are being made about the facts provided. This will allow the viewer to make a decision regarding the topic, free of manipulation and solely based on their own logic and reason in correspondence with the facts provided. Change my View.","conclusion":"All news media and journalism must always be held to maintain objectivity."}
{"id":"c9f89485-22de-484b-a0a9-6b1004252eb2","argument":"In the film, Vice Admiral Holdo is seen to activate the hyperdrive on her cruiser at a very close distance to the First Order fleet. She not only splits Snoke\u2019s ship the one she collided with in half, but it is also visible in the shot that she completely decimated most of the surrounding star cruisers. Snoke's cruiser according to canon sources is 13,000m long, over 60,500m wide and more than 3000m deep. Holdo completely cut it in two by going through the 3000m deep, 13,000m long dimensions of it. The ships surrounding his cruiser were very far apart, the closest by just looking at the shot and comparing dimensions of Snoke\u2019s cruiser to the position of the surrounding ships appearing to be at minimum 3 kilometers away. If this much destruction is possible by ramming into things at hyperspeed, why has this not been weaponized already? When the original Death Star became known, why did the Rebellion not arm a bunch of cruisers with hyperdrive, program droids to pilot them, and ram into it? Or when the Rebel Fleet gathered to assault the second Death Star in RotJ, why wouldn\u2019t the Empire who KNEW this assault was coming just have an empties out Star Destroyer ready to blast right through their fleet at light speed? Cruisers are pricey, undoubtedly. Fair enough, though it would still be cost effective to spend 1 cruiser to destroy a fleet of them. So why not put a hyperdrive on a space rock or asteroid? You may posit that an energy shield existing in universe technology could stop this type of tactic from working, and maybe that\u2019s why hyperdrive is not commonly weaponized. However it is explicitly stated and even performed on screen in The Force Awakens that shields are not a constant force, but they blink on and off every other fraction of a second and can be bypassed completely by traveling through it at light speed. To change my view, you would have to come up with a real reason for why hyperspeed warfare has not been commonly utilized in the Star Wars universe.","conclusion":"The weaponization of the hyperdrive in Star Wars: The Last Jedi completely breaks the mechanics of warfare in the Star Wars Universe"}
{"id":"90d590d9-d796-464d-9ad0-4b984d43dcb3","argument":"The presence of nuclear weapons in the world reduces the likelihood of major global powers going to war against each other.","conclusion":"It is still debated whether nuclear weapons are positive or negative."}
{"id":"72117348-846b-4aa2-beba-1ccef41f55fb","argument":"Although announced on time large parts of the British public were not well prepared for the \"Brexit\" referendum and had a misguided perception of the EU, mainly due to ignorance and misinformation, and thus voted to leave.","conclusion":"A significant share of the population doesn't care a bit about politics or policy and is not willing to even spend time to make a well-grounded decision"}
{"id":"d80f0c63-db15-4454-8def-362879223be5","argument":"Timmermans advocates for 0.7% of GNI in development aid Manifesto, p. 3 but the treaties, in Art 44 specify that the EU has no powers to regulate national policies.","conclusion":"Frans Timmermans campaigns for goals where the EU has no competencies according to the treaties."}
{"id":"d514ae47-3697-4424-b5fb-adb3617d7fca","argument":"As the previous source points out, those who don't vote often have strong political views, but are \"disgusted\" with the political process. Opinion polls provide a way to express their views outside of the process.","conclusion":"These sources relate to voter turnout, not opinion polls. Voting and polling are not conducted in the same way and people's motivations for participation differ."}
{"id":"34c5b1d1-d724-4cea-a087-7bc7059d9a83","argument":"The general idea in supply demand analysis is that the point where the supply and demand curves meet the equilibrium price is the real value of the product and the price that should be set for that product. My view is that this price is certainly the most efficient price in terms of make a profit for the business, but it is not the best price to create the greatest benefit for society overall. I believe that a price which is lower than equilibrium, but still high enough that it is above break even is always better for society. In other words, a price ceiling is beneficial to the economy. Defense 1 In supply demand analysis, it is assumed that the amount which the supplier is willing to supply will drop as the price drops. I contend that this is only true when the price drops below break even where cost to produce gt price . So long as a profit is being made on the production, it makes sense for the business to produce enough meet demand for that price. Thus, a price ceiling does not create a real gap between supply and demand assuming it is above break even. Defense 2 A price set closer to the break even point provides greater societal benefit. A lower price point means more people willing to buy which means more people benefiting from the product. It also means less siphoning of wealth from the bottom to the top. Defense 3 Price ceilings allow for monopolies to exist without fear of price gouging. This means that the most efficient businesses can grow to their highest potential and gain the maximum benefit from economies of scale. To change my view Prove that a business's willingness to produce and sell a product will actually decrease if a price ceiling is set on their product which is above the break even point. Prove that a business making less profit bonus money in the pocket of the owners is somehow more beneficial for society than spreading the benefit of the products to more people for cheaper. Prove that a price ceiling does not cause a naturally occurring monopoly to be better than forced competition of smaller businesses. Update I have been informed and awarded deltas that supply demand analysis assumes perfect competition, and thus is not flawed. The flaw resides in the assumption that perfect competition exists in reality. My view stands that price ceilings are beneficial where prices are artificially high due to lack of competition.","conclusion":"Supply\/Demand analysis and equilibrium pricing are fundamentally flawed and in favor of the price-setter. Price ceilings above break-even are beneficial."}
{"id":"1d657efc-54d9-4fef-aac1-f6ca3e440dc9","argument":"Artists tend to create an area suitable for gentrification, yet once the gentrification process begins, original artists get pushed out due to rising costs limiting their artistic expression that they had in the past.","conclusion":"Not only that, but developing countries lose some of their nice features when they develop. One of them is a lack of self-expression, seen with gentrification."}
{"id":"0f7d6bf9-5f31-4730-9bb5-678f1a148b1e","argument":"The idea of punishment as revenge is antiquated. Modern penal systems aim at ways for felons to repay the damage done to society.","conclusion":"The world must move away from a mentality of revenge if civilization is to advance."}
{"id":"474fa0ed-e435-4db2-af66-cc7ca11e13ee","argument":"The Genesis device, although somewhat unstable, is supposed to turn a barren world into a living one. However, this is not all it can do. As seen in Star Trek II and III, it actually rearranges the molecules of a Starship and a nebula into a planet. This is a technical and scientific feat beyond anything in Star Wars.","conclusion":"The Federation are capable of science that can substantially alter or even destroy stellar bodies."}
{"id":"0ff5e11d-b470-4355-8022-9c89c36031a5","argument":"Edit I HAVE CHANGED MY MIND MAINLY BECAUSE OF TWO COMMENTORS Disclaimer I AM NOT AGAINST THE LGBT COMMUNITY, I AM NOT AGAINST TRANS PEOPLE. I simply think that you should be able to change your gender, within the two that already exist and possibly within a third neutral one. What is the point of changing into other genders than the two that exist? I get that some people don\u2019t feel like the gender they were given at birth, I get why people would change. What I don\u2019t get is why anyone would identify as something other than male, female and gender neutral. The only reason I could think of is that you don\u2019t feel like the two three genders. And that is where you lost me. If you don\u2019t feel like those options, there isn\u2019t something wrong with you or the genders, there is something wrong with how people look at them. If you strip away stereotypes and expectations, there is no real reason that I know about to not be part of those two three genders. I would love to see other people\u2019s view on the subject.","conclusion":"I don\u2019t think there should be more than two maybe three genders."}
{"id":"5bf8ca63-fdd1-4e3f-9bd3-496cb7e66084","argument":"There was talks of Britian becoming part of the new monetary change making us use Euro instead of the BRITISH pound","conclusion":"No chance of changing from the Pound to the Euro"}
{"id":"cc7bda48-4662-4762-8875-552ab27a91b8","argument":"Christian responses to domestic abuse have been catching up to secular standards over the past 40 years. Many pastors have said and many continue to say that they would never advise a women to leave an abusive husband, and many advise forgiveness and enduring.","conclusion":"Some communities and groups have suffered abuse and\/or death in the name of religion. E.g. murder of LGBTQ, abuse of disabled children, removal of freedoms for women, child marriages, etc."}
{"id":"7897de62-c38c-4697-bcdd-2718af0df621","argument":"It is unlikely to believe that there is no meaning of life, if you look at our amazing world where everything is connected and at human as the pinnacle of creation.","conclusion":"There is a meaning to life; we just haven't found it yet."}
{"id":"503ce869-7a14-4661-b353-32562f48651d","argument":"For an infinite universe it would be impossible to simulate or compute more than a finite subset of the universe. However this is not necessary for such model or computation to be useful.","conclusion":"Software design or analysis modelling can be used to model infinite structures. Any finite approximation of such structures can be computed during execution of the program."}
{"id":"41d35298-ef21-428a-bd35-93a74fcd62ed","argument":"Rogers claimed that May's government ''didn't know very much about European councils or that much about the European Union'' when she triggered Article 50 in march 2017.","conclusion":"The UK's former Chief Europe negotiator Sir Ivan Rogers has stated that May triggered Article 50 in 2019 against his advice"}
{"id":"7f5a8312-a5b7-4207-ad69-837f9cec55bb","argument":"The Federation has access to nanobot technology which, when transported, could be used to infiltrate enemy ships, disable technology or even attack the health of crew members.","conclusion":"The Federation's ships are technologically superior to those of the Rebel Alliance."}
{"id":"4d07e439-58ba-49fd-a12c-20bbdede2b80","argument":"I thought about the term 'homophobe'. Being a homophobe means you must be scared of gay people. I think it's a way of talking down the problem of people that are against homosexuality. They aren't against gaypeople because they are scared of it as in being scared for spiders , they are against gays in a way people can be against black people i'm sorry for pulling this card . It's not about being scared, it's about looking down on people and enforcing maintaining values in a society that doesn't benefit gay people. The term homophobe may imply that the homophobes are victims of their own fear. but fear is not the problem. intolerance and hate is. So why not change their 'name'?","conclusion":", I think homophobes should be called homohaters"}
{"id":"09c7ee23-bc81-4eee-872d-f461d0f0ab8c","argument":"I've seen a couple of posts discussing this, but I'd be interested to see answers in the current context of Brexit and the upcoming US election. From my perspective, if you want the right to have your views as a people represented and implemented i.e. democracy , you should have the responsibility to vote on them. In both the EU referendum and the upcoming U.S election I've seen a lot of talk about issues along the lines of only X percent of young voters, who were supportive of cause Y came to vote . The campaigns of politicians are about getting people that already support them to bother to vote rather than convincing the general populace of the righteousness of their cause. One of the most common counterarguments I've come across is that it impedes freedom, but I think that its quite bizarre because many people have given up freedom for far less important causes e.g. copyright privacy , even where freedom is best marketed, in the U.S. It has been equivocated to good. Absolute freedom would be anarchy. Even if this is untrue and freedom is sacred, it seems that it is more sacred than democracy. Specifically, your freedom to not vote is more sacred than the government acting on behalf of its people. Another point I've come across is that it stops people who are too uneducated or disinterested from voting. The problem here is that there is always someone less or more informed than you, and you could go with that point to separate even groups of those that do vote. You don't know where to draw the line, you don't have the ability to and nor should you. It is certainly a flaw in democracy that sometimes it can just be determined by 'mob rule' where the public is generally misinformed, but if you have a problem with that with everyone voting, you will certainly have a problem with it with fewer voters, as people don't necessarily decide to vote based on how informed they really are. As an Australian, I recognize that my upbringing has certainly helped this bias, but it's hard to see the other perspective given these points. Democracy is a flawed system, and sometimes it doesn't produce the best results, or those you want, but it has done a lot of good, and much has been done to maintain it. To throw it away for a trivial bit of freedom or because of some misplaced sense of elitism seems like a waste.","conclusion":"Mandatory voting is a good thing."}
{"id":"2f8b5b4e-0b4c-49e0-a7b7-b16fb5c1b544","argument":"Comparing the world in which I vote to the world in which I do not vote, the only difference I can see is my difficulty being elected to public office at some point down the line you never voted, you obviously don't care about your neighborhood state country . I would define a successful vote as the elected official was different because I voted. That means I have to make a tie not sure what would happen in this situation or break it. What's the chance I swing an election with my vote? Even take a tiny local election with only 7000 votes, suppose they are polling 50 50. What's the chance it will stand 3500 3500, and my one extra vote matters? How many elections in history stood to be tipped by one vote? Talking about the presidential election, I have a better chance of winning the powerball, at lower cost at least I don't have to wait in a long line. I can't think of anything else I do with such long odds. OTOH I think political involvement is of great value. I would more happily campaign than vote. I would more happily discuss an issue and try to change someone's mind. If I can move 100 votes, I have greatly improved my chances of swinging an election. If I can change a politician's mind, I can change policy. What would change my mind? A clear example of something less effective that actually can make a difference. Showing that I have a better chance than I am intuitively calculating. An explanation that my focus is wrong.","conclusion":"Voting is the least effective political activity available in the US"}
{"id":"4e6e0225-77e2-4ba5-97e0-a6c0d2cc7c21","argument":"TLDR Read the bold bits. Otherwise just ignore them, and read it normally. This is my main problem with THE CONCEPT of veganism. I have nothing against veganism when people choose it for its dietary advantages. However I think the I do it because I don't wanna hurt animals point of view is stupid. Instead of killing animals, you're killing another life form plants. 99 of foods milk is a notable exception require you to kill something else, whether it be a plant or an animal. The only reason we value animals' lives more than plants' lives, is our irrational emotional attachment to them. You can see an animal suffering when you kill it and empathise with it, because we too are animals, just because that is not the case with plants, doesn't mean their life is less valuable. Note my point is not that we should live our lives trying not to hurt plants. My point is that as a plant's life is equal to an animal's life , killing either one is equally bad, so just eat what you want, because there's no going around killing. All other animals kill to eat. It's in our nature. But we essentially know that animals are sentient. Plants aren't, so it' okay to kill them. In my opinion, if something is alive, it is also sentient. To me, by definition, life is sentient. I think often when we humans attach value to different lives we can do it emotionally rather than logically. Like, I don't think anyone would argue that insects are sentient. However most people have no problem with killing a fly or spider in their living room, when they wouldn't ever kill a cat or dog. But Ventsi, a fly is a fly. You can't compare it to a dog. A fly just flies around not knowing shit. Dogs are more complicated. It's just not the same . So because a fly is simpler than a dog its life is less valuable? By this logic, a stupid man's life is less valuable than a smart man's life. Like sure, if a human had to choose between a dog and a human's life, he she'd choose the human's life, but that's emotion speaking. Emotions are irrational. There is no logical reason as to why that is the case. Fair enough, but how is this supposed to convince me that plants are sentient? If we just find it easier to kill insects than animals, it is probably because it's harder for us to relate to them. When you kill an insect it doesn't make a loud groan, like an animal when it's being hurt. You don't have to look at it, like you'd have to look at a dead pig when disposing of it. You just fold it up in a tissue and throw it in the bin. So it's not as tough emotionally , thus we deem it okay to kill them. My point is that the same emotional deceit is the case with plants , but even to a higher extent than with insects. So it's very easy for us to just say, they're not sentient off of our instinct, but it can be deceiving. Edit I just wanted to thank everyone for the discussion. Sorry if I might've seemed stubborn at times, it's just that the topic of sentience and souls can be quite subjective, and hard to convince someone one way or the other. I enjoyed talking to you, and learned a lot. Peace.","conclusion":"Plants are sentient in the same way humans and presumably animals are, and thus their life is as valuable as an animal's."}
{"id":"0f3e0e6e-8cd5-4729-ae6a-64d4556f036d","argument":"The Japanese military slaughtered as many as 30 million Filipinos, Malays, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Indonesians and Burmese, of which at least 23 million of them were ethnic Chinese.","conclusion":"World War 2 was a particularly deadly and destructive war, accounting for more than 60 million deaths."}
{"id":"e7c7ccbb-b357-41c0-935b-d67abc704379","argument":"Priority must be on the knowledge of one's status and ultimate protection of the affected; not rights","conclusion":"HIV\/AIDS: There Should Be Compulsory Testing and Labeling of People with HIV"}
{"id":"46f8da3a-acd6-4f4c-aa83-ccb6b13c6778","argument":"Freedom of the press needs to be protected to facilitate freedom of speech. This includes the freedom of the press to keep names of sources confidential.","conclusion":"The right to freedom of expression requires that journalists are able to keep their sources secret."}
{"id":"c003bbed-57f4-4ffc-971b-06fdb2a65d6e","argument":"To clarify, he is not a diagnosed sociopath, I am giving him this label after spending every waking moment of everyday for a year with him and reading up on the personality traits of a sociopath. He is six years older so I looked up to him as a brother I am male . I went to him for guidance and advice whenever I was in trouble or confused about something. He seemed like a genuine person who cared and listened to anything I'd have to say. We spent our days together from wake till sleep. Eat together, work together, spend our weekends with each other. Fuck I even had a threesome with the guy. He seemed like the coolest guy until I realised I was his protege, this is when his true nature started to unfold itself to me. He was trying to make me more like him. He was training me in how to deal with people in certain ways, the technicality about words, basically how to be a snake in the grass. Continue the legacy maybe? Fuck knows what goes on in these sorts of peoples heads. It took me sometime to realise he was a sick, twisted fuck. To say he enjoyed the power and influence he held over certain people, the way he manipulated people to do his bidding, embarrassing and belittling others purely for his amusement is an understatement. It's near impossible for me relate and talk about this with anyone because I don't know anyone who's had a similar experience. I feel like I got to know this guy better than most, he played two face so well it was a shock to the system to have people we both knew talk to me about him. They'd describe the person he wanted them to see and I knew the person he was. I felt like I was in a movie, never in my wildest imagination could I come up with a person like this. Yet there I was, working right beside him. One of the things that stuck out the most from my time with him is seeing how he dealt with people. He was an artist. A hateful man, but the way he handled people was astounding. He easily had people do his bidding with what he made look like little effort. He had guys want to be him and girls want to be with him. He was aggressively dominant. Always competitive, always out to win. So that brings me back to my . After spending so much time with a person like that I have taken on a perception of seeing other peoples actions when dealing with others as either stemming from dominant or submissive.","conclusion":"After spending a year with a sociopath, I now see peoples actions when dealing with others as either dominant or submissive."}
{"id":"912e82b6-48d4-484f-b60a-7147a86b0d8d","argument":"Secular laws, governments, and constitutions have played a part in religions starting to use the word tolerate not only to allow a degree of interfaith cooperation to defend their rights as they see them, but also to suggest that they'll conform to secular laws and drop some antisocial practices used against infidels.","conclusion":"In recent decades the favourite word which religious leaders use to suggest they're not bigots is a giveaway that that's exactly what many of them are: They claim they \"tolerate\", a word that's open to interpretation either as biased to placate their bigots or unbiased to placate everyone else."}
{"id":"b1b2f6d7-6c31-47a4-9afd-d6452e43df57","argument":"The people on the show turn up to that house with the intention of raping a child. All the show does is display them arriving, giving an interview, and being arrested. If those three events happened, why shouldn't they have been filmed and broadcasted? It's legal to film people under any other circumstances, why not when they are potentially trying to commit a crime? Even if it is just potentially, the idea that the video should only be released once they are found innocent is ridiculous. We don't apply that logic to any other crime. Thanks to the show, there are fewer potential rapists at large in society. I think that's a very noble contribution. I also think this because the show is very entertaining. I'm aware that this isn't a rational reason for holding a view, and is probably a bias more than anything, but one way or another it factors into my reasoning. Anyway, I'm fully open to having my view changed here.","conclusion":"'To Catch A Predator' is not morally wrong. There should be more shows like it."}
{"id":"03daa8b0-eb50-486a-8514-05c7743cdb8d","argument":"I think that international law is a misnomer because a country can simply ignore treaties, and the only consequences are those that other countries choose to impose rather than a predictable and enforceable sanction by an independent central authority. For example, the US refuses to accept ICJ authority over its citizens. Many states routinely ignore UN resolutions. Countries breach trade treaties all the time, and while there are certainly consequences in the form of damaged relationships, sanctions and the like, there is no irresistible penalty or punishment that can be given. In civil law, parties can bring a dispute before a court which will determine the outcome and enforce it. . Conversely, at the end of the day, if a state is powerful enough, it can ignore the system of international law. Therefore, I think that it is just an international system, and not a system of international law. Cmv","conclusion":"I believe that the international law system cannot correctly be called \"law\" because there is no central coercive mechanism for enforcement."}
{"id":"a725d7d7-7adc-4318-8177-a7262b1a64ee","argument":"It is morally important for the U.S to do the right thing even if it does not have the best moral track record.","conclusion":"Just because the US does not base its geopolitical strategy on emphasising international law does not mean it should not do so."}
{"id":"36cadbf4-8dbd-47c2-844e-84b50914cd60","argument":"I'm an anarcho capitalist so technically I approve of drug use in the sense I don't wish any harm to befall those who use, but these black markets I generally feel hopeful about that they are doing a good service to the world even if it's more of a proof of concept for how the world could function without violence and without the state. edit If your unaware alternative currencys and reputation networks such as bitcoin and ebay like services come from anarchno capitalism thoerys. So my reason for liking this is solely because I've been emotionally invested in arachism even if its connected to something like drugs.","conclusion":"This ad made me smile; even though I hate drugs for my own personal use, I feel growing, safer, more convent black markets are a good thing cmv."}
{"id":"8a78ff99-513e-4827-aea1-ebada26d05dc","argument":"A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty nine. Since the nomination of Donald Trump, I've seen an arguement on a lot of majority left leaning subreddits that the electoral college doesn't represent the people, and thus needs to be removed and replaced with the popular vote. However, I feel that doing this would be a catastrophic mistake for America, throwing it into what is esentially Ochlocracy, a government system that the founding fathers deliberatly designed the voting process to avoid. All of my concerns stem from the concept of Tryanny of the Majority, a concept that discusses how full democracy can be exploited by fear and hatred and used to rise up against minority groups. The Minority and Fearmongering One of the biggest concerns about this is how pure democracy will be used to effect the minority. While, arguably, the more facist of the canidates won this election, he won this through a system of checks and balances that allow for all opinions to be considered, a system where a facist leader arguably can't rise as easily. If we look at history, the rise of facist leaders came from charisma, fearmongering, and a general sway of the population. See how facism began to rise in European countries the majority of the population irritated at their previous leaders, such as Italians angry that their pride is fading away, or the Germans angry that the Jewish people caused them to loose their chance at power. Historically, the ability for a facist leader to take control has always been through the needs of the people. Now, while you can argue that while a majority democrat country would most likely prevent this from happening, that is only seeing breifly into the future. Keep in mind that both something could irritate the right into seeking the majority of the power due to certian scapegoats, such as PC culture , and use it to rewrite constitutional and human rights, or hell, even be used by the left side to do the same exact thing against other scapegoats and other constitutional rights. In the end, all elections would boil down to would be fearmongering, as it is easily exploited out of people. The Ignorant Voter While I won't go into it directly, part of this arguement can especially be applied to the above statement. The point I want to make with this is that the popular vote being soley based on the people, some education issues would get in the way Only one third of Americans can name the three branches of our federal government executive, legislative, judicial Only 60 percent of all U.S. students knew that World War I was fought some time between 1900 and 1950. Approximately a third of all U.S. high school students did not know that the Bill of Rights guarantees freedom of speech and freedom of religion. Half of American Millennials score below the minimum standard of literacy proficiency In tests recorded from 22 major 1st world countries, the US scored dead last in terms of education So you see, a lot of the US is ignorant. It doesn't know much about its own system, its history, or much of anything in general. While I'm not saying that the US is too stupid for democracy, I personally don't believe that the US president should be determined 100 by people who don't know anything about freedom of speech. While the electoral college is flawed, it still allows checks and balances based on reactionary and compuslory voting. Pure Dominance While the arguement California will control elections isn't really a good once since electoral college abolishment would imply no state system, I think there is a valid point. Some of the post populated urban areas, as seen from elections, are overwhelmingly liberal. While I don't think that liberal opinions on their own are bad, I think a system based on popular vote, due to these concentraded reigions, would allow for one party to keep office for years upon years. Having one party control our country for extended amounts of time would cause severe disparity between parties and would disturb balance in the system. tl dr If you hate facism, and love political diversity, having a system based on mob rule would not be a good idea To be clear, I don't hold these as pure facts, I hold these as my logic and reasoning behind why the electoral college is importiant to democracy and constitutional values, and why abolishing it would only maximize the problems we face today. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Abolishing the Electoral College Would Only Make Elections Worse"}
{"id":"4454afe6-1229-4ef1-ba1e-7926f2f13db7","argument":"I believed that if someone is truly sad or depressed enough to kill themselves that they should be allowed to. I'm not taking about people that are just crying for help. I'm taking about people that are serious about it. If their life is that bad then let them do it and end their suffering. I believe families friend should be happy that their suffering is over. I also believe families friend are the selfish ones for only thinking of themselves and how it hurts them. It's that persons life and they should be able to do whatever they want with their own life.","conclusion":"I believe that suicide should not be frowned over and friends and family accept it positively."}
{"id":"52963ba4-44a0-4e0b-8e0b-817d3a1bc732","argument":"The general consensus of my view appears to be quite popular on here, anyway but is somehow not reflected in the laws of many countries. I am a sex worker in Australia working in a legal brothel and I can't see the logic in not having a system like ours in places such as the US. To clarify my view First World meaning highly developed sovereign states such as the USA, UK, Canada, most countries of western Europe, etc let's not get too pantsy about this definition . It's just easier when we're talking about legal systems in places with comparatively similar socio economic statuses. Fully legalised and regulated meaning Decriminalisation of the buying and selling of sexual services Legalisation of brothels and agencies to facilitate and manage the sex industry Strict regulation and taxation of the trade Change my view?","conclusion":"I believe that prostitution in all \"First World\" countries should be fully legalised and regulated."}
{"id":"4562ac27-c617-469a-86f4-16b4739f95bb","argument":"I don't believe another alien civilization exists in the Milky Way and Here's the key reasons and the reasonings 1 where are all the aliens at? If there are billions and billions of planets and millions of habitable planets within our own galaxy, and we haven't been able to detect not one of them then why should we assume there are any at all? 2 none of the other intelligent life forms on earth have civilization There are numerous candidates for life forms that could create a civilization or could've evolved to that point at some point. Look at chimps, they are pretty smart and have posable thumbs. Dolphins are insanely intelligent as are octopus just to name a few. I know the basics as to what it takes to create a civilization social structure, communication, thumbs, etc even species that have that haven't managed o create civilization. 3 you have to assume alien civilizations can survive long enough to be able to detect. The Milky Way is 100,000 light years across. If there was a civilization just 1,000 years away it would take 1,000 years before their first signals sent into space would reach us so you would have to assume that a technologically advanced civilization could survive 100's 1,000's of years for them to be around at the same time as us. We've only been sending signals strong enough to reach space for at most a century and we are looking at a possibly grim outlook for our civilization keep your heads up though I'm not arguing that alien civs never existed or never will, just that it is unlikely for an alien civilization exists at the same time as us.","conclusion":"an intelligent alien civilization doesn't exist"}
{"id":"d5d9708a-095a-45b0-aa74-dc8cbcc120ec","argument":"I find there's a lot wrong with the New Green Deal FAQ Many of its proposals, in my estimation, are the stuff a high schooler would think up in an assignment to outline what they would do as president. I however will focus on only one of its proposals advocating for high speed rails. It states that one of its goals will be to build out highspeed rail at a scale where air travel stops becoming necessary and that their eventual goal will be to get rid of airplanes . We will assume, for their benefit, that they don't mean to replace airplanes that cross the Pacific or Atlantic. Being from California, I remember when we tried to build a high speed rail from Los Angeles to San Francisco. Originally voted on in 2008, the railway is still unfinished and way over budget. The stated cost when the proposition went to vote was 40 billion, and has since ballooned to 77 billion. 10 years later, it's still nowhere near completion, and the best case estimate for its completion will be 2025. All of this will be for the advantage of being 30 45 minutes shorter than a regular flight, including walking through security and boarding the plane. And this is what the NGD says should happen everywhere . The great thing about airplanes is that you don't need any infrastructure between it's departure and its destination in order to make the trip, meaning they can make a bee line for any airport they have clearance to land in. Rails, on the other hand, cannot go in straight lines all the time unless you want every major city to have huge, web like rails going in all directions and cutting through mountains and wilderness. They will necessarily have to zig zag between stations if you wanted to travel from one end of the country to another. And on top of that, the train would have to make stops at every station it crosses to pick up and drop off passengers, meaning any speed advantage a high speed rail might have vs a 747 is lost. So what's the benefit of high speed rails? It's not the cost, it's not the speed, so is it more environmentally friendly? Not really The destruction of land to build a colossal network of railways by itself is not environmental at all, much less the emissions caused by the two decade construction of these things nationwide, and that's a BEST case scenario. Not to mention that wind and solar do not provide power if the sun isn't shining and it's not windy, so burning fossil fuels will still be a necessity since the NGD prohibits nuclear power. From what I can tell, there is virtually zero benefit to using high speed rail over airplanes.","conclusion":"Replacing airplanes with \"high-speed rails\" is a fool's errand"}
{"id":"3bb21819-5b99-4ef7-a352-0586ea717e14","argument":"It seems in today's world that guys are walking on eggshells around not only their wives and girlfriends, but women in general. Men and boys have been duped into believing that every emotional response a woman has in any given circumstance is valid and needs to be fixed somehow. Everyone knows the old trope of a woman being mad at a man, meanwhile, he's clueless as to what he did wrong. Yeah, that's probably because he didn't do anything. The idea that men need to be constantly responsible for the emotional state of not only their romantic partners, but of the women around them is silly and patronizing to both sexes. This isn't to say that men need to turn into sexist assholes, or completely disregard a woman's emotional state, or start writing off every upset woman as hysterical . It's to make a case for the male population once again beginning to trust in their own judgement as a way to gauge their responsibility in a situation. Let me give some examples A man sees an attractive woman while working out at the gym. Wanting to get to know her better, he approaches her and strikes up a conversation. After a few minutes of talking he asks for her phone number, the woman declines to give it to him, saying she isn't interested. The man says no big deal and leaves her alone to continue with his work out. THIS DOES NOT MAKE THE MAN A CREEP. Wanting to approach a member of the opposite sex and shoot your shot doesn't make you a weirdo. It's normal and natural and it doesn't mean you're a potential rapist. Obviously, you need to respect a woman's space and feelings if she rejects you, but men need to stop falling for the idea that making your intentions clear makes you a creep. A woman and a man have been dating for 6 months. One day, the woman is in a bad mood. After hours of denying that anything is wrong, she finally admits to the man that she feels he has been spending too much time at work, and not giving her enough of his time and attention. Now, this could be true. However, the man needs to use his own judgement to gauge WHY he has been working more lately, how much time he has been giving his girlfriend, and if her claims are valid. Men have been led to believe that because the woman thinks he is spending too much time at work, that it MUST BE TRUE. And he MUST FIX IT. This idea of woman is mad, man must solve this is so widespread in sitcoms and relationship dynamics that it is almost laughable. Never once does the man decide for himself whether the woman's emotional reaction is valid, but instead supplicates and rewards the behavior time after time. So Change My View. Is this way of thinking flawed? and if so, why? gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"A Woman Having a Negative Emotional Reaction Does not Always Mean You've Done Something Wrong"}
{"id":"d0285f68-f764-49b0-9839-523edda0cb0d","argument":"I've noticed on the meta subs particularly that there's this pervasive attitude towards people with mental illnesses such as autism spectrum disorders, anxiety, depression, agoraphobia, schizoid and avoidant personality disorders and so on that is clearly condemnatory in character. It does not seem obvious to me how someone lacking social graces deserves to be collectively shat on by the regulars of these subs. In fact, I would think that this reaction demonstrates rather unsalutary traits in the people kicking the mentally ill when they're down. Now, let it be clear that there are certainly moral failings that may lead to being ostracised such as being a legitimate creep, being racist, being unnecessarily hostile etc. that result in social isolation. But I worry that when people confuse you're alone because you're a terrible person with you're a terrible person because you're alone , people teetering on the edge will be endangered by this attitude. They don't even have to be participants just people who witness the exchange. Even participants in subs that really ought to know better naming no names , who generally have humane and fairminded views fall prey to rationalisations for bullying.","conclusion":"Being socially awkward is not a moral failing, and reddit doesn't realise this."}
{"id":"2d390094-e79b-4f54-9acb-da8e7133d925","argument":"Mark Burns is a pastor that has taken extremely strong stances on Donald Trump's policies immigration, banning certain groups from positions of power, etc., despite having policies that have been criticized for being against Christianity","conclusion":"In the United States political arena, there are several pastors that have taken strong political stances on different issues."}
{"id":"a464f91e-bc6a-43a2-9782-abf3622a3279","argument":"My ex broke up with me earlier this year due to a deep depression caused by shitty family circumstances. We had fights, but I view our relationship as overall positive. She broke up with me saying she couldn't be in a relationship with someone, if she didn't feel like she had her life together and didn't love herself enough. I feel like apart of it a small amount, I've asked her about it was my angry way of handling disputes, and maybe the differences in our responsibilities, I just go to school and work, whereas she does all and also lives on her own and has a car. When we broke up we still hung out though she was hesitant to display affection due to the likelihood of leading me on. We'd hang out a lot and she'd still be intimate with me, and still loving towards me not just physically but emotionally too. We had some really big fights the months after the breakup, because it was just a tense and confusing situation. I apologized and she said though she just wants to date herself right now, she isn't actively pursuing anyone and when all of her stuff is aligned I'd be the first person she'd like to come to, though the potential of me moving on and dating is there, and she's acknowlegdged that. She told me that later this year we should discuss it. I ended up seeing her finally after some time, after a few times of chatting, and the first time hanging out one on one I saw that she was still in the midst of depression and suicidal feelings, despite my assumptions she was doing very well. I succumbed to emotion, and kissed her after an hour of talking, and she said it was fine but not to let it mean more than what it was. I got mad because I felt embarrassed, and like she was completely moved on, and didn't want to be with me ever, and didn't feel romantically towards me. We kind of argued about it, and she told me not to let their be an expectation of anything in the future, because she doesn't know what will happen, and it'll hurt me more if I keep expecting some result. She told me she had gone on a date, and had tried dating sites out, but hadn't even kissed anyone let alone slept with anyone etc. I think she's genuine with just wanting to fix herself. We ended up talking more and sleeping together a lot the next day, she told me she loved me a couple of times, and I did say it more and told her even that I'd like to marry her someday, and she seemed hesitant to say she loved me as much as I did. Also, I was seeing someone in an open relationship type deal the whole summer, and I've slept with multiple girls, and gone on different dates, and a lot of the summer was focused on actually moving on, and not expecting anything, and convincing myself she had wronged me. Apart of me feels like the relationship itself wasn't bad, and that its just her bad life and her depression, and if she can eventually get out of that we could be happy together. I know I shouldn't actively seek it out, or hope for it everyday, or refrain from seeing anyone new or letting myself fall in love again, and I don't think I am, but apart of me knows I had something fantastic and if I can have it again later, I think I would go for it again. TL DR ex and I broke up over her depression, we've talked about eventually getting back together if the cards were right, they don't look like they will be anytime soon, but down the road perhaps? Is it wrong to not move on fully, and hope for it later?","conclusion":"I'm not meant to get back with my ex after her depression and issues get out of the way."}
{"id":"c9069383-1aa9-4f7f-94c5-3784eac2d29c","argument":"First let me get this straight. I have no issue with what other people decide to personally believe. If you believe in the spaghetti monster. Good for you. My issue comes with the religious institutions. Some of the techniques i believe they use are fear tactics to make people stay or join there religion, creating a dependency on the organization by have the followers donate psychological studies have shown that people who let a friend borrow something like the friend better. Why can this happen with institutions , make the followers rely on faith so they don't every try to look for proof for themselves ,and by ostracizing people who leave not all but some .","conclusion":"I believe that religious organizations are a cult that use manipulative techniques on there members to get compliance."}
{"id":"9c6f8973-982f-4f58-ba2a-f371e020871a","argument":"I'll use two examples to demonstrate Assassin's Creed and Uncharted. Both of these games are primarily singleplayer, in that they came of being with singleplayer only and their main draw is the singleplayer narrative. Over time, they began adding multiplayer content to the franchies. Okay, cool. Along with this came trophies for multiplayer games. Also cool. The issue is that multiplayer games frequently dry up over time. Thus if you start playing a game later in its life, you end up unable to complete multiplayer objectives. For example, Assassin's Creed Unity has multiplayer missions you can complete with a partner, but since the game was released a while ago, it can be extremely difficult to ever pair up with someone and there's no meaningful way for one to complete that mission and get related trophies. This is a major impairment to games most games that have a 100 completion trophy that includes multiplayer trophies. I think this can be differentiated from the luck of the draw aspect of multiplayer trophies. One argument is that this issue is not unlike having to rely on the luck of being paired up with good players in order to accomplish multiplayer goals. While that's true, it doesn't substantially impair the ability to complete a trophy, whereas having a pool of close to zero other players does. .","conclusion":"singleplayer games with a multiplayer option shouldn't count multiplayer trophies toward the trophy total."}
{"id":"3ae068ee-5491-49ba-a71a-72ce2b61e057","argument":"The AI to make the drones autonomous, once developed, would be shared and adapted to individual drones, thus you once have big cost, which would then be amortized over centuries between thousands of weapon systems.","conclusion":"Small autonomous drones could be mass-produced cheaply, for less than 10k per piece. They would be expendable, similar to how an ant colony has no problem to sacrifice thousands of its members."}
{"id":"5078cd11-1283-4bfc-bf61-9db4736877c7","argument":"The military spends a significant portion of its time and budget on its personnel. This cost could be greatly reduced, allowing more tax dollars to be spent on social programs benefiting the country's citizens.","conclusion":"The use of Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems LAWs will be beneficial to society"}
{"id":"d1fab065-95b3-4867-a96d-d21579b9cb02","argument":"Neuroticism is a personality trait that's one of the five traits in the Big Five model, also called OCEAN as an acronym of the traits. This is the most used and accepted personality model in modern psychology. Neuroticism means, that the higher you score, the more mentally unstable you are, which are shown in these difficult situations. According to their scores, therefore, people will differ in regards to finding out the truth or avoiding the emotional consequences.","conclusion":"This is different from person to person, some prefer to know the truth and some prefer to avoid the emotional consequences that might come with it"}
{"id":"6e87eba7-8334-47b2-ae79-9400d18a3ca2","argument":"It is important to put Tibet's struggle for independence in historical perspective in this way. Few doubt the righteousness of the United States' declaration of independence in 1776 and its revolution against the British. But, it was not given permission to do this. Rather, it just did it. Similarly, Tibet's case is not one in which the right to self-determination is granted. It is, rather, a matter of Tibet seizing its right to determine its future self-determination. This can only be driven by an internal will among Tibetans to obtain freedom where their own consciences tell them there is none; it cannot and will not be driven by an external offering of a right to self-determination. That right exists within. That's why it is called \"self-determination\".","conclusion":"The Tibetan case for independence is analogous to US rationales for independence in 1776."}
{"id":"e57f5fae-1d2d-4a61-b74e-6907e06fb07c","argument":"I beleive that heavy and thin people are, 99 of the time, treated equally. If you are too big to fit in a chair on a plane, that is your own fault. Being overweight is unhealthy and should not be glorified. If you are offended by people making fat jokes you should lose weight. I'm not against heavy people, but if you choose to allow yourself to become overweight you should be prepared to not fit in amusement park rides, etc. On the most, I beleive there is very little dicscimination to heavy people going on, and people who think otherwise are over sensitive and taking things too seriously. Also, some people who beleive in thin privilege beleive it is wrong to find skinnier women more attractive. This is bullshit, you can be attracted to whoever you want too.","conclusion":"there is no such thing as \"thin privilege\""}
{"id":"0c88d5b3-79a4-4f58-9778-12ca6d7661a5","argument":"I don't think there is anything wrong with drinking diet soda. I prefer the taste of diet soda over water as a means of hydration. There are zero calories in diet soda, just like there are zero calories in water. Even if you fully replaced your recommended 64 oz. of water per day with diet soda, the sodium in 64 oz. of diet soda would only be about 8 of your daily limit based on a 2000 calorie diet. There's no proof of aspartame being bad for you. The only negative that holds any water excuse the pun , is that it costs more money than water, which is true but hardly breaking the bank. Meanwhile, probably due to the actually good advice to limit your soda intake, it is a commonly held belief that they should limit their diet soda intake as well. There appears to be no reason to limit your diet soda intake. If there actually is a good reason for this commonly held belief, I'd like to hear it. So for that reason, I'm asking you to please change my view.","conclusion":"There is nothing wrong with drinking diet soda"}
{"id":"83449988-b9d3-48b6-8109-bc2c0cbfc9bb","argument":"Head&Shoulders ran an ad campaign in India encouraging men to quit using their wife's shampoo before they \"stop being a man\" raising questions about sexual norms that dictate the way in which men ought behave.","conclusion":"Gender stereotyping in advertising often display and propagate oppressive sexual norms."}
{"id":"00630e91-3fb6-4407-900e-1f96fd314343","argument":"Varys has always been shown to work through others. Although it is plausible that he would control Westeros, he would most likely do it through a puppet king.","conclusion":"He does not intend to sit on the Iron Throne himself."}
{"id":"e9432a02-ad13-48cd-8e3f-3c13113d4765","argument":"I'll try to keep my thoughts as simple as possible. Where I live there are only two bars with in walking distance. One of the bars is by all accounts unpleasant. They have sketchy clientele, high prices, bad food, and terrible service. My girlfriend feels uncomfortable there because of the behavior of the patrons and the employees who do nothing to stop it. The other bar is a gay bar. It's cleaner, has better service, better drink deals and is much more women friendly which my girlfriend appreciates . Now I had regularly gone to this bar in the past by myself, usually to just grab a drink after work, watch a wizards game I don't have cable so I go to bars for my sports then leave. This past tuesday I brought my girlfriend there for the first time. After about an hour the waiter asked us to leave. He told us it was 'gay safe' and a 'gay space', that they didn't want us taking over there space and that we were making some patrons uncomfortable. So we paid and left, trying to not make a scene or cause any problems. Now I've had a couple days to think about this and as right now would be a time that I would have stopped in for a beer, I'm a little pissed. I feel like I've been discriminated against because of my sexuality which is something that the Gay community has fought to stop. I've always been supportive of the LGBT community, and I don't want to make a straw man argument, but I can't not see hypocrisy in this. I don't understand how my issue is different then the bakery who refused to bake the cake for the homosexual couple. Them asking me to find another bar is no different then a bigot telling a homosexual couple to find another bakery.","conclusion":"As a straight male I should be allowed to frequent gay bars."}
{"id":"09e50142-a7e5-41a8-abe9-a9c66200738d","argument":"1 Without the Soviet Union to help, the Communists would have lost the Chinese Civil War. If the Nationalists won, the soon to be most powerful country in the world would likely be a democracy instead of an influential brutal dictatorship. Also there would be no North Korea. 2 Without the Cold War, many proxy wars wouldn't have happened and many democratic governments wouldn't have been taken down. Our space technology would probably be less developed, sure, but a lot of problems wouldn't have happened. 3 Also without the Cold War, there wouldn't have a lot of anti Communist propaganda in the West and stuff like socialized healthcare would be better accepted in the US. Also, there wouldn't have been anti Western propaganda in the former Second World. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The world would be better off if the Communist Revolution in Russia had failed."}
{"id":"bf30872f-34f4-49b5-8fa1-07ba5f10c345","argument":"Scientology is not literally based on Hubbard's book or belief in aliens whatsoever. It's more likely a social club through which to filter money for unknown causes. Charity? Clandestine funding of career propagating projects? It only accepts successful people into closer circles who vow to keep that reality a secret under the guise they present to the general public for their own entertainment. I hold that it's simply unreasonable to assume that so many successful, intelligent people actually believe that a spaceship will take them somewhere if they cleanse enough whatevers from their bodies. Scientology is actually a very inside joke, that perhaps L. Ron was in on. If anyone has any other real information, I'm absolutely open to having my view changed.","conclusion":"Deep down, you want to be a Scientologist."}
{"id":"ea3d3111-b91d-4154-a47f-0694d31c7b54","argument":"Lower-class Turkish citizens were able to rise to become middle-class citizens due to the elimination of Armenian merchants and bankers who previously possessed such positions p. 808","conclusion":"Much of the Armenians' assets were seized by the Ottoman government. This seizure went a long way in boosting the economy of the Turks."}
{"id":"1407ecbc-e100-4c84-82c3-22fd32d8695b","argument":"First off one false rape accusation is one too many, and to attack people for focusing on it, or criticizing people who are worried about it enough to mitigate is victim blaming which has racism and sexism annotations. False rape is a unique crime in that it has the greatest gender disparity of any crime in all of history, even more than serial killers,it's almost exclusively committed by women, and the victims are almost exclusively men particularly black. x200B It is obviously implicit bias for any rape victim organization to try and trivialize it by saying it's rare , all major crimes are technically rare because every major crime fits that criteria , you take the number of convictions and divide it by the population. x200B For example, in this country you have a higher chance of committing suicide, than being murdered, but a women being murdered isn't ever referred to as being rare , even though it is. x200B Trying to shame men in particular for researching and looking into false rape and challenging statistics doesn't hurt rape victims at all, there is no competition. x200B Society isn't looking very hard for false rapes, in fact it is often attacked and ridicule for no good reason, even though the one organization that deals with false crimes, has found that the 1 crime they free men for prison are black males convicted of rape, meaning that there needs to be much more funding and social acceptance of dealing with this issues. x200B gt","conclusion":"People shouldn't be shamed for focusing on false rape or any crime, people focusing on crime is always a good thing"}
{"id":"0c366f54-0d80-4fd5-a1cd-2ac4108d29a0","argument":"From my understanding, 'Person of Color' was traditionally a title for African American people. Now, however, it is essentially a euphemism for 'Non White', I believe this is problematic for several reasons It creates a racial binary between 'white' and all others. This needlessly groups the experience identity of every non white race, which is probably 90 of all people on earth. It also makes this distinction needlessly antagonistic. Its definition is highly flawed. It is defined in opposition to 'white', which itself has no definition. White is generally understood as skin color, which is a hugely flawed way of delineating peoples, are Southern Europeans considered white?, Even though Greeks or Italians can have darker skin than those in the middle east. Furthermore, not all 'white' people fit into the same cultural paradigm, Slavic peoples enjoy very few of the privileges attributed to 'whiteness', but would be still called white. The problems in defining 'white' render 'Person of color' equally weak as a term, and as I explained before it is an unhelpful term regardless. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"'People\/Person of Color' is not a good term"}
{"id":"1cc5ea35-c009-4724-b632-045691f1905f","argument":"If it is legal to deny service based on moral or religious grounds, or if it is legal to deny someone service based on personal moral grounds, then LGBTQ+ spaces should be free to use that, with the moral idea that a gay bar is meant for gay people, and straight people should not be there.","conclusion":"LGBTQ+ bar owners should feel empowered to decide who they admit, so that they can take into account the specific needs of their customers and the community they serve."}
{"id":"a9b27eb6-70b4-49bb-b234-e6d786dbd991","argument":"You\u2019ll never convince me to gamble, and I\u2019m not asking you to. But we all know people whom we love and respect \u2026 who gamble. Can you convince me that there is a respectable reason for them to do so other than, \u201caddiction\u201d ? I can't even imagine why it's fun. When I visit Las Vegas and see people dropping their money into slots machines or god knows what other activities that I don't even understand , it makes me furious Yet, I understand that gambling is a big part of some cultures Chinese? . I feel bad that I hold a view which essentially is contemptuous towards one billion of the world's population. So please, change my view","conclusion":"There is nothing redeeming about gambling. I'm not talking games of skill, like card games; I mean games where you are guaranteed to lose over the long run."}
{"id":"f988897a-416c-45dc-91c6-b00b50e9ee51","argument":"TL DR at the bottom. I believe this firmly, but I do not see eye to eye on people who are more conservative on this issue. I tend to get really angry when people say to me that they believe in conservative ideals, and I feel sorry for them because I believe the only thing they care about is monetary gain. I don't like this about myself. This makes it hard for me to be very close friends with conservatives with one exception, a friend of mine on facebook who is particularly ideological. Despite being very good friends, we do argue a lot, and it often gets personal. I've been called brainwashed, and been told the Devil was at work on my side of the political spectrum. There are many reasons I think that we should begin to move away from a capitalist system a few are listed and described down below. Capitalism is unstable Capitalism requires constant growth. When there are periods of time without growth, people stop investing, they stop buying more than they need, and they keep their money in their mattresses. As long as capitalism can make a recovery, those who benefit most from the capitalist system will frame disasters like the great depression and the recession as once in a life time occurrences or flukes, but they constantly happen all over the capitalist world. Eventually, one of these freak accidents will cause the downfall of the entire economic system and we will be unable to recover. Capitalism causes income inequality In the most basic sense of the word, a capitalist is someone who pays someone to make something or provide a service, and then offers that product or service to a consumer for a higher price. With the exception of artisans, artists, and small business owners, the production aspect of the economy is left up to hired workers, paid by capitalists, who profit from the workers' efforts. Good business by definition is a system designed to produce the most money possible. A free market involves competition between businesses, which drives prices down and is very good for the consumer, but when prices go down, corners need to be cut to increase profitability. This causes wages to go down, and the working middle class suffers the most from this. While wages go down, profits go up, and the business owners and CEOs earn more. The poor get poorer and the rich get richer. Capitalism is inherently not compassionate I often think about the phrase It's a dog eat dog world. It means that if you don't do everything you can to get ahead, even at the expense of others, you won't get ahead. This phrase brings thoughts of angry men in suits, taking each other down on their way up the corporate ladder, cheating their way through life to put themselves ahead and their enemies behind them. It's such a nasty image, and yet this phrase is thrown around all the time. It begs the question Why does it have to be a dog eat dog world? Why should be be so self involved and so driven by monetary gain that we behave like dogs and eat each other? Surely there is a solution, in which people are less focused on making money and more focused on personal development. As a global society, we need to move past any system in which we are rewarded for holding each other down. It is a system driven by hate that allows the suppression of your neighbor. I am an optimist. I believe that we as a species can move past any challenge we come across, but it begins with compassion and love, not greed and hate. A system in which the poor get poorer and the rich get richer is not compassionate, and allowing the wealth to remain at the top is not an act of love. TL DR I have a lot of problems with capitalism. I basically don't see anything right with capitalism. What's right about capitalism? What about capitalism is sustainable? Can capitalism be compassionate? EDIT formatting","conclusion":"I believe that capitalism is flawed, and that if we do not reform it soon, it will fail."}
{"id":"4868d7fd-7460-402a-9e0c-9f4cebed94dd","argument":"The Bush tax cuts were designed to expire for a reason. They were never seen as a permanent fixture, even by those that created them, but as a way to boost the economy. They were supposed to expire, and so the proposal to extend all of them except for the rich is generous.","conclusion":"Bush tax cuts were designed to expire for a reason."}
{"id":"32380733-c36d-4219-9bff-a54c98b17310","argument":"Liberal democracy is a liberal political ideology and a form of government in which representative democracy operates under the principles of classical liberalism Classical liberalism is about freedom and individual consequences. Mandatory education of anything is a program of collectivism, which is the opposite of classical liberalism.","conclusion":"Liberal democracies favor values that are supported by the freedom of information and the support of free will and therefore should be able to not make CSE mandatory."}
{"id":"8aa7e4b8-4a9a-4400-8cc3-6fd7f85cd06e","argument":"The popularity of TV watching is among the reasons of this phenomenon. Violence, aggression, crimes and wars are broadcast through the daily news as well as in movies, showing dark pictures that encourage psychological tension, pessimism and negative emotions.","conclusion":"Depression is a well-known psychological problem of modern society that is partly caused by tv watching:"}
{"id":"7ea51dac-bb44-4319-84e8-847b4da4da2d","argument":"Since I've heard about it, there is always facts and statistics supporting the fact that global warming is indeed happening, and this has an affect on the planet we live on. I understand the science behind green house gases and can see the cause and effects for predictions about global warming, eg rising sea levels, rising sea temperatures, disruption of the food chain etc. what I want to know is if there is any strong evidence that global warming ISN'T happening. I don't understand the views of those who dismiss the idea of climate change. If you do a quick google, there is all this evidence on it happening and the effects it has on the planet. If I was to convince some one that global warming ISN'T happening, how would I do it?","conclusion":"Global warming is definitely happening."}
{"id":"724f71fb-24f3-4a2b-b4a1-e3f07f79a2f9","argument":"To be able to use a hair dryer, you dont have to understand how the electric motor works.","conclusion":"Is it OK to use a PHP framework without understanding the underlying components?"}
{"id":"3397d4b6-6b3a-448a-96da-dfee8636453e","argument":"For example, an unproven belief that a business will be successful is often based on exhaustive research on market conditions, need for products, and pilot tests.","conclusion":"Beliefs are often at least partially founded in a factual basis or empirical evidence."}
{"id":"9980ebbf-a31f-4480-ae85-8debf36a3f52","argument":"Individuals with looks outside the accepted norm for a particular culture i.e., a redhaired asian, or a light-skinned individual of African descent; those born displaying recessive genes, could be accused of cultural appropriation when expressing themselves in adherence with their culture's norms.","conclusion":"Enforcing that cultural appropriation is wrong sets up microaggressions against multiracial and otherwise atypical people."}
{"id":"f3982ee6-9e31-4aa6-a6e9-2f2b789928a6","argument":"Prominent politician Shintaro Ishihara urges rearmament to guard against North Korean aggression. Given the erratic and repressive Kim Jong Il regime, with its boasts of atomic weaponry and missile tests over Japanese airspace, who can blame him? Chinese expansion is threatening, too and there are territorial disputes with South Korea over islands in the sea between the two states.","conclusion":"Japan needs to be able to protect itself in an unstable region."}
{"id":"85a2ace5-5437-4cd5-96b8-760e395a6af5","argument":"This is a popular image that has circulated the Internet for at least a few years now I am not certain that the verbiage they chose equality equity is 100 accurate by definition, but I'll operate under the assumption that it is for the purposes of this post. Equality is objective. It is emotionless. It is pure. It has the ability to exist with a blindfold. It creates a confidence and a predictability that allows people to plan for the future. And it is not susceptible to political whims or populism mob rule . Equity is completely subjective. It requires a constant changing of government action in order to react to outcomes that are constantly changing as well. It is rooted largely in emotion. It encourages a government that is filled with people who sway with political winds instead of being principled. It creates zero predictability or confidence in an economy and, therefor, hinders economic growth. I believe it is absolutely the job of the US government to operate with as much equality as possible. To create a level playing field and to ensure everyone is playing by the same rules. But I believe it is not the job or the responsibility of the US government to increase equity among the people living here. Just to clarify, a scenario in which all three people at the baseball game are standing on 2 blocks each is completely acceptable and also a perfect example of equality. We just rarely have unlimited resources that allow us to do this in real life. Change my view.","conclusion":"The US government should try its best to increase equality but it has no business trying to increase equity."}
{"id":"41124940-6d3b-4b20-a9a7-730aa9bee83f","argument":"There is a video that demonstrates how off the rails IRV can go. Check timestamp at 4:40 youtu.be or watch the whole video.","conclusion":"IRV is non-monotonic, meaning that increasing your support for a candidate can cause them to lose, and vice versa."}
{"id":"b135587d-a2a8-4b4d-a309-abb4271a3cfc","argument":"The United States has experienced a interesting long term trend since the begining of the cold war. The president has gained powers at the expense of the other branches of government. This takes place in two main theatres military and administrative. Since the begining of the cold with few exceptions the push back against presidents using the military how they see fit hasn't been strongly fought by Congress through it main means of controll, the budget. This has allowed for the US Empire flourish as it can act in more flexible ways than a legislature with debates ever could. Also, the existence of nuclear weapons and the unprecedented ability for the president to use such weapons without any other channels cannot be overlooked. Secondly the regulatory agencies of the presidency have increasingly taken more and more power over legislature. It is strange that Daca, net neutrality, and Envireonmental policy to name current and trendy issues are all set in white house not in Congress. Finally, the parties in Congress choose not to act on legislature that the white house will not sign unless they overwhelming support for such legislature. The main branch of goverment that is fighting this trend are the court systems. Whose domains have still not have not been overtaken by a president. It would seem to me this could only happen if a president where able to fill a court with those personally loyal to him which is hard. The fact that outsider with no governmental experience is more influential and important to US policy than the whole of Congress shows just how strong the presidency has become.","conclusion":"The United States is trending towards one man rule. But not because of Trump"}
{"id":"14b03003-288e-4dbd-a436-01e72c6242d5","argument":"This is undoubtedly US centric before we go any further. The basic premise is this more often than not illegal immigrants want to come into the country because they want to be americans for all the benefits it would give to their family. Yes, there are big problems with cartels and many of them are exploited, but the overall bulk of them keep their heads down and just want a better life for their family. Refugees, on the other hand, aren't here because they want to be americans, they're here because if they weren't they would be dead. They don't care about American values, culture, or citizenship. That is, I believe, the core difference. And logically, it would follow that refugees are far more problematic than illegal immigration in terms of law, order, and the economy. That being said, the statistics are very murky and there is constant misinformation spread around so I'm not so heavily versed there. I would like posters to tackle the logical side as well as provide some data and context for this view. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Refugees are worse than illegal immigrants"}
{"id":"1ae4fc13-30cf-45d5-9019-70635d28ff62","argument":"Markets that are not regulated by state interference have tendencies, for example towards monopolies that can undermine their own functioning.","conclusion":"The very existence of the free market is dependent upon a degree of government control."}
{"id":"f27a91bc-82f2-4e56-9c41-a3470e4ad65f","argument":"\u201cClean eating\u201d dietary trend may encourage psychological problems around food, and in some cases, lead to eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa AN or orthorexia nervosa ON.","conclusion":"\u201cClean eating\u201d is promoted by some food bloggers, which can have a negative impact on vulnerable young people."}
{"id":"9e0736bc-29dc-4113-a265-4c5fa793af17","argument":"Hollywood has a long history of casting white actors in Asian roles, a tradition known as \u201cyellowface","conclusion":"Casting white actors in roles that belong to people of colour can result in offensive portrayals."}
{"id":"af53c5f2-82ce-428d-a33c-40a0b34974a6","argument":"I feel that pedophiles have no more control over their sexual preference than homosexuals. Trying to treat them for some sort of mental illness would have no more effect than trying to treat someone who is attracted to the same gender. The most they would be able to do is repress their urges. I definitely feel that acting on their urges is a terrible atrocity, but merely having those urges is not a sign of mental illness any more than being attracted to the same sex or feeling like you are the wrong gender.","conclusion":"I believe that pedophiles who do not act on their urges are no more morally detestable than homosexuals."}
{"id":"347866c3-2db3-40ea-942d-54c9fb1a2119","argument":"Essentially, the premise of my argument is centered around the study referenced here The essential piece of information from this article is that women control over 50 of the wealth. I can't reconcile this with the view that women are overall significantly discriminated against for two reasons. 1 if women were discriminated against economically, how were they allowed to get over half of the resources? 2 I think few would argue that wealth is pretty much directly linked to power, especially in an economic sense. It seems to me that if you have more than half the money, you pretty much have more than half the power. Also, I'm not making any specific comments about anything specific. I understand there is some pay gap though the often stated ~78 number isn't valid , I understand that some fields push women out of them etc. I'm talking about aggregate here. Second, my title was somewhat misleading as I concede there is probably some economic discrimination on the aggregate. However, I believe that this is far smaller than many state. IMO, the biggest weakness in this argument is the premise. I couldn't find detail about how the study was conducted, just the conclusions. I can't think of an argument that would accept women being discriminated against while owning a majority of wealth that wouldn't similarly justify, say, a larger percentage of men in engineering. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Women, on the aggregate, aren't discriminated against from an economic perspective in the United States."}
{"id":"ef6b5b06-8e01-45f6-9a61-b7360cd26110","argument":"For those who aren't British, each year ? sees the Dryathlon, a charity event where people abstain from drinking for a month, and get sponsorship for doing so. Now I have no problem with the charity aspect of this, as I have always done my part to raise money for charity myself. However I do take issue with the whole 'not drinking' aspect. All the publicity seems to be bigging it up to be some ridiculously monumental task one advert sees a man in a pub have everyone burst into cheering and clapping because he chooses a soda. Fact is that anyone who is totally normal can function perfectly well with minimal or even no alcohol at all. I say this as someone who hasn't drank a single drop of alcohol for almost 4 years myself. Anyone who thinks they 'can't function' without alcohol has some serious problems that need medical attention, and Britain's serious issues with drinking to excess isn't a secret either. Plus those who jump on the bandwagon for a month are, at least to me, doing it for the wrong reasons. Those who don't drink at all for longer periods get accused of jumping on said bandwagon and the very real and good reasons for not drinking get lost in the publicity bandwagon of the charity cause. Seriously, if you're going to raise money, run a marathon, play a gig, do a bake sale or do something that actually requires effort, time and or skill. So,  if you can","conclusion":"It is not some monumental achievement for the average person to go without drinking for a month as a charity event, and there is a problem in any group that thinks otherwise."}
{"id":"07403f07-67af-4a0d-a6d4-e673435c5746","argument":"India Willoughby has said that she doesn't think that trans athletes should be allowed to compete in female sporting events, which goes against a major goal of the LGBT community to allow transgender sportswomen a legitimate space in mainstream athletics.","conclusion":"India Willoughby is a controversial figure in the trans community and members of the trans community have stressed that she doesn't represent their views on gender."}
{"id":"32073b1b-c320-4413-9190-c0a7bdc3740c","argument":"I hold this view due to these reasons False positives. The list contains a number of false positives, potentially having included Sen. Ted Kennedy and Yusuf Islam nee Cat Stevens at different times, meaning that not only can you be denied for your own suspected terrorist leanings you can also be denied for the leanings of those with a similar name to you. Opacity. There are conflicting reports of whether anyone was actually on it or merely inconvenienced in some other way. We don't know that we're on it until we're denied and even then, we don't know when Limited appeal process. Given that we don't necessarily know why we're on the list, it's difficult to fight our way off it. So, change my view.","conclusion":"People on the no fly list should be able to buy firearms."}
{"id":"21535ef5-15b5-44fa-96c8-ade14a2cf024","argument":"Wealth inequality is based on return from capital rather than income, and as such this policy does little to tackle it.","conclusion":"Wealth inequality is a much more significant contributor to economic inequality in the US than income inequality."}
{"id":"a1eef669-7018-4027-b994-c6e804769486","argument":"There are a number of articles right now reacting to a Pew survey showing that 40 of Americans aged 18 34 support restricting free speech that is offensive to minorities\u2014that is, they support governmental censorship of such expression. Many of those articles seem convinced that this will be damaging to America's future as a country with the 1st amendment. That's bullshit. Here's why Even if you're not interested in defending that political position, the fact remains that this is a minority of a minority who feel this way. And within that is a still smaller minority who would ever act on it within that minority, the group actually motivated and capable of doing so. This isn't going to change our policy. All of these people are already of age to vote, and some are already in public office. Even if they tried they'd be met with too much resistance from the rest of the population. In addition, that age group remains more permissive than much of the Western world. 60 of Millennials believe the government shouldn't restrict this speech, compared to only 54 of the UK and 27 of Germany the EU average was 46 . But that's not the part I'm really interested in. It's also important to bear in mind how specific this question is. A lot of people are extrapolating this into a view of speech in general, which is not accurate. Free speech ceased to be a binary concept in America a long time ago. Harassment is a crime shouting fire in a theater is a crime. Hate speech broadly is a crime, if it can be proven to lead directly to violence or other traditional crimes e.g. arson . We've already decided we're okay with drawing a line at which free speech becomes less important than protecting citizens. Millennials merely choose to draw that line in a different place, because they view the speech itself as a form of violence. Their opinion is not categorically at odds with our history. It's worth noting that Pew doesn't ask those Millennials how they'd go about seeing this happen. It doesn't even ask if they consider it a practicable belief. It's a pure, abstract ethical and political statement. I personally also think people shouldn't be allowed to say those things, but I can't think of a practical method for stopping them\u2014I don't know, for instance, how we would distinguish not quite offensive enough from a bit too offensive \u2014so I'm forced to accept the status quo for now. I would, however, have answered that question as the 40 did. I am generally of the same mindset. America expresses other views in the survey that are arguably much more problematic, and outside of just the Millennial bracket. A full third of Americans don't believe the media should be able to report news without government intervention. 21 don't believe it's important for us to have Honest elections held regularly with a choice of at least two parties . 16 don't believe people should be able to practice their religion freely. 9 don't believe it's important that women have the same rights as men If we want to have a conversation about the future of free speech in America, we have to start by being less hysterical about those Pew results and more hysterical about five people getting shot at a Black Lives Matter protest, or the rejection of refugees into America based on their religious beliefs. I remain convinced that the negative reaction to Millennials in pieces on this topic is part of a broader rhetoric painting increased racial sensitivity as anti America, which is merely a sleight of hand intended to suppress it, particularly when it originates from minority races themselves. To change my view , you should be able to elucidate by precisely what steps Millennials would destroy America or the constitution with their opinions on offensive speech. Be sure to be more specific than just dirty liberals will take away our freedom I will not find that argument compelling.","conclusion":"That 40% of Millennials who support restriction of speech offensive to minorities is NOT going to \"ruin America.\""}
{"id":"8225878f-f13a-42a3-b40b-cdab0a6ea8e7","argument":"While nuclear energy, like almost all energy sources, cannot be made 100% safe, it is constantly being made safer by new technologies and methods.","conclusion":"Nuclear plants are made safer and safer by new technologies"}
{"id":"2cb95476-4618-41c7-a1ca-3ce464a80a26","argument":"Concepts related to Hell have elements of support from the KJV version of the Bible and are also supported by the doctrine of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.","conclusion":"Hell is Biblically associated with several interconnected concepts. Some concepts are temporary, others are permanent."}
{"id":"096e9c12-6fd7-4e80-91a5-caad258ee354","argument":"legalizing prostitution would provide safety measures to protect women who might end up in violent situations.","conclusion":"Legalizing sex work will make the profession safer for women"}
{"id":"6088dd77-2634-4505-9a4e-5ab49903bc2d","argument":"India's working-age population is being under-utilised The Make in India policy could help India actually employ and make use of the unrivalled number of potential labour in the country.","conclusion":"Modi has launched \"Make in India a policy aimed at attracting more manufacturing and other investments."}
{"id":"87a50d41-d2d3-4853-ad9c-fc656bdcd0ee","argument":"Coalitions provide good government because their decisions are made in the interests of a majority of the people. Because a wide consensus of opinion is involved, any policy will be debated thoroughly within the government before it is implemented. Single-party government is much more likely to impose badly thought-out policies upon parliament and people, perhaps for narrowly ideological reasons for example, the poll tax in the UK. When difficult or historic decisions have to be taken, for example in wartime, over membership of the European Union or NATO, or on the scale of spending cuts needed to deal with the UK's budget deficit, the consent of politicians representing a wide range of interests and opinion is important in committing the country and its people to difficult but necessary courses of action.","conclusion":"Coalitions provide good government because their decisions are made in the interests of a majority o..."}
{"id":"cb6b7786-e010-4f97-8acd-ede9a4243dac","argument":"In the negotiations between the government and the NHS doctors, bargaining power rested with the government. In Brexit negotiations the UK isn't in the same position of power.","conclusion":"Negotiations with doctors and NHS workers would be distinctly different from negotiations with the EU over Brexit."}
{"id":"a53d6987-b49e-4097-bcea-d3f679a603d0","argument":"I think the right to die should be something every adult citizen of a developed country should have. This would mean that a physically fit man or woman in their twenties would be able to seek assisted suicide if they felt for ANY reason that they no longer wanted to continue living. The fact that this option does not exist causes those who go through with suicide to use methods that traumatise others, cause an inconvinence to society, risk failing and causing permanent damage to themseleves and die and excruciating undignified death. I would say there'd need to be a 90 day waiting period so those who are making irrational circumstanial decisions can have time to reflect and cancel if they feel It's no longer something they want. .","conclusion":"Assisted suicide should be available for those without terminal illnesses."}
{"id":"ac49d6ff-a1fa-468a-a748-44ffefc2b883","argument":"I think that social discussion sites have a lot of potential for gathering valuable information since the advent of mailing lists and forums , especially reddit that allows to create different communities and sort the content in several ways. that more or less save time to find nice discussions while on forums one has to scroll through all the posts in a thread Nevertheless, even if reddit is using votes and not only to determine different ways to show the content hot, top, controversial, q a, old, new, etc , when the content is a lot for example more than 300 comments or 300 submissions mostly only the content at the top of the sorting is easy to reach, the rest is mostly invisible unless someone has a lot of time to dig it. I mean, more or less it is unlikely to go further the 3rd page for submission and until the 150th~200th comment for posts. Even searches on reddit or by google do not help too much if someone has few keywords. Without mentioning banned subreddits that could have been accessible at least as archive. yes, one could have speculated on the banned content, but since it is not available, no one can Therefore reddit is decreasing the value of a lot of information gathered during years by several communities. At the end the casual reader, that cannot read every day most of the submissions, has mainly the chance to read new content and to create new content that maybe was already discussed in the past in a satisfactory way. Therefore one could speculate that the 'alternative' way that reddit use to show the content does not really matter, since a simple forum or a mailing list are mostly based on new content too. One way that, i think, could improve the situation is the self organization of the various subcommunities to value the generated content. For example like r bestof or r depthhub and the like. Communities that try to collect content that seems valuable across reddit. But they do this using normal submissions, and so one can explore very tiny fractions of those collections due to the problem mentioned above. AFAIK no community is trying to make use of the wiki, a very nice tool to collect incremental static information in an organized and more accessible way. That is a bit disappointing, that a community is not valuing its own content. The wiki of  for example is a mess, and i suppose is created by bots. If one wants to navigate the page list, it has almost no structure and it is almost impossible to identify possible 'not bot generated' pages. Sure it is better than nothing, but still i think is quite a pity to let useful? information be unreachable after few days months.","conclusion":"reddit stores a lot of interesting discussions that gets quickly buried under new content, losing their value, due to the limited navigation tools."}
{"id":"82baee15-d138-43d7-ac96-90b86bb3d1a2","argument":"This isn't an overall TLA vs LOK thread, just focusing on the characters of the Avatars. Please don't make posts about which show you think is better. I think Korra is a better Avatar than Aang. Outside of the silly love triangle, I think she is a more compelling and better written character, as well as possessing better integrity as an Avatar. The main point I wish to make is that Aang was relatively selfish and self serving, right up until he learns to energybend from the lion turtle. In contrast, Korra embraces her Avatar duties. Aang rejecting his Avatar duties is sympathetic from a character standpoint, but I find it hard to condone it in the grand scheme of things. I'm not going to blame him for letting the Hundred Year War drag on since he had no way of knowing of the upcoming attacks, but he did selfishly run away from his duties. Throughout the first two books where Korra is at now , he whines about how he never wanted to be the Avatar, how he's afraid of the Avatar State and firebending, and basically not wanting to do the things he is supposed to. Again, sympathetic from a character standpoint but he couldn't change the fact that he was the Avatar yet still tried to run away from it. Even in book 3 after a ton of character development which Korra is not at yet , he tries to put off his inevitable showdown with Ozai. He puts his own personal needs ahead of an efficient solution to bring balance to the world, to the point where even Avatar Yangchen has to tell him to act more selflessly after he ran away nearly a second time. All Korra ever aspires to be is a better Avatar. She is weak spiritually and sometimes grows impatient about it, but she doesn't refuse her duties like Aang did. She wants to master all the elements and learn about the spirits because she embraces her Avatar duties. She wants to serve the world. Aang largely seems to go along with it because everyone tells him to and he can't really say no. To the above, you might say, Aang is a kid but this contrasts with his many moments where I like to call him a mini Gandhi where he goes on about the monk's teachings about peace, friendship, whatever. He's grown up quickly because of his new reality, I get that, but those moments where he lectures everyone always seemed pretty forced and difficult to believe after the establishment that Aang desires to be like a normal kid. I think it is quite silly to hate on Korra because she is actually written her age or kind of, she's above average in maturity for a 16 year old and not this contradictory mishmash. Some of Korra's other character flaws that are commonly brought up she's rude, impatient, and prefers to resolve problems by force. To the first point, again consider that she is written her age. She is a rebellious teenager, locked in a controlled compound by the White Lotus her entire life. She has known her entire life she is the Avatar, validated by the White Lotus constantly feeding her tales of the great destinies of the Avatars and isn't afraid to show a little pride. Who wouldn't act that way? Her pride isn't to harm others, she is happy and comfortable with who she is and wants to use it to help people. For the latter two points, Avatar Roku repeatedly states that inaction was his greatest mistake, one that Aang repeats. I prefer Korra's method of facing problems head on instead of running away from them like Aang did. Also, yes, the love triangle with Mako and Asami is dumb but the fact that Aang, in his selfishness, had the intent of depriving his friends of seeing their father for the first time in two years far outweighs dumb teenage drama. That was downright malicious. A point I'd rather not address Aang settled the Hundred Year War, but Korra's story isn't anywhere near a conclusion. We don't know whether her decision to leave the portals to the Spirit World open was a wise one. But I don't think it's fair to talk about the end conclusion for one character when none exists for the other character. Sorry if this is too long but tl dr Korra is a better Avatar when you take into account that she only has two books of development yet still manages to be more believable and less selfish. I'd also like to hear what the other side thinks, so  EDIT I gave u hooj and u tuckerfrye deltas. Hooj argued on the basis that you cannot apply an adult moral compass to a child or even compare a 12 to 16 year old, even if they are the Avatar or more mature for their age. Tuckerfrye argued on basis that the Avatar's journey had very different purposes Aang's was his acceptance of the Avatar role with a clear endgoal, while Korra's is to actually make decisions for the changing world, more akin to an adult Avatar. You can't fault Aang's lack of acceptance of being the Avatar when that is the purpose of his journey. I see the error of my arguments now even though I still have a preference for Avatar Korra and will defend her in the future, one Avatar is not objectively better than the other. My main error is actually addressed in the final stages of book 2 of LoK where Tenzin tells Korra, it is not what you are, but who you are that people will remember not verbatim when talking about what made Wan and the other Avatars great. The Avatar is still a person in many different forms, not one singular and overarching personality.","conclusion":"Korra is a better Avatar than Aang and she is unfairly judged due to a poorly written love triangle"}
{"id":"45f0fbef-fc6d-469d-822b-03022accb0a9","argument":"European integration is not supported, but threatened by excessive integration. When citizens feel that such fundamental rights as the control of their borders or economies is being taken out of their hands then their enthusiasm for 'ever closer Union' wanes yet further. Real integration must proceed at the speed EU citizens are willing to allow it, not only to be legitimate, but to be sustainable in the long term. If this means jointly negotiated restrictions in some areas then perhaps this is healthy, rather than detrimental, for the Union.","conclusion":"European integration is not supported, but threatened by excessive integration. When citizens feel ..."}
{"id":"3cf86a03-bce0-4eec-8f74-682925fbca58","argument":"Astrology and horoscopes makes no sense. It is statistically innacurate to describe people\u2019s traits based on their birth date and time. Theres no valid science behind it. It makes absolutely no sense to read daily horoscopes in newspapers. There is no rational way to explain how 1 12 of the population will inexplicably \u201cmeet the woman of your dreams\u201d the same day. It is just smoke and mirrors. The people who write that nonsense basically overshoot and try to layout multiple guesses for gullible people to believe. Most the time it doesn\u2019t hit anything and when it does most people are like \u201cOMG How did he knew ?\u201d and right away completely ignore that 99 of the time it is wrong. I also hate it when people ask my sign and when I tell them usually specially women put this face like \u201coh I figured \u201d And they frame me into a stupid stereotype. I think people take it for granted that astrology is a fact, and never stop to think about it. I won\u2019t tell you my sun sign. Want to guess? Edit I may sound a bit upset, but it is not my intention. Edit 2 some people have suggested to say \u201cfalse\u201d instead of \u201cfake\u201d. I do agree false may be more appropiate precise in the sense of holding truth. Does not change much the intention of the idea.","conclusion":"Astrology is fake"}
{"id":"cdfb5601-3c61-4316-8bb5-1de9e4f3438a","argument":"1 Religion is interfering in the lives of so many who are secular. I see this happen often when laws are being made. When a person of religious background looks to make a decision I wonder how much influence the religion they partake in has over that decision. Do they only think of how it will affect their lives, or do they consider the lives of the other people when voting on something that does not impact religion? 2 Marriage equality and workplace employment are two main areas that I have witnessed this happen. In regards to marriage the majority of people in this country are religious and many had adopted marriage bans against same gender couples getting married. It seems that whenever I read a thread about a ban being lifted and called as unconstitutional most who complain are siting religious reason as to why the bans should not have been overturned. There has even been a pastor blaming Ebola on same gender marriage. Now with the employment there have been churches that would try and their congregation to sign petitions stating businesses should have a right to fire lgbt people. I was once asked to sign and refused. When I did I was asked why I wouldn't sign, stating that I had friends who are lgbt and did not want to sign as I see it as a betrayal. I was told I would not be betraying them but saving them. Please I wanna know how someone can change my view as to how these situations are right.","conclusion":"Religion should not affect the life of someone who does not practice it"}
{"id":"47adf471-d619-40dd-bc83-6c50c7725407","argument":"Postal and proxy voting is available for those who are otherwise busy. In addition, when Internet voting becomes available in a few years everyone will be able to vote from their own home.","conclusion":"Postal and proxy voting is available for those who are otherwise busy. In addition, when Internet v..."}
{"id":"4d33f0b2-ac3c-4523-868d-8cd37fe52f88","argument":"\"Ignore that $800,000 behind the curtain.\" The Economist Democracy in America Blog. Oct 4th 2010: \"the New York Times' Mike McIntyre set out to find out what you'd have to do in order to discover who the actual donors are behind these kinds of expenditures for TV issue ads. The verdict? You can't. Mr McIntyre tries to track down a mid-sized nonprofit called the Coalition of American Seniors, which was just formed in June and has so far spent $400,000 on ads featuring smart-alecky babies in diapers attacking the Democratic health-reform bill. After a long odyssey through Delaware post-office boxes and registered service agents, he finds that the group's telephone number rings at the offices of a Florida health-insurance broker; the political consulting firm the group lists seems to refer to just one guy, who refuses to provide any information about who its donors are.\"","conclusion":"TV issue ads conceal sources of funding behind shadow orgs"}
{"id":"48eb42b4-6c05-44c7-9c4f-87ba08c53b06","argument":"Places of worship are targeted to disrupt public religious practices for the followers of a religion by instilling fear in them.","conclusion":"Attackers have an incentive to target places of worship as opposed to other places."}
{"id":"73dc8bb4-4959-47bd-b718-6f4b52399fb1","argument":"Children believe that for bad deeds done or not worshipping God, they are going to burn in a lake of fire for eternity.","conclusion":"The concept of hell and damnation is traumatizing for children."}
{"id":"66b0917d-4b4a-427b-97be-13cfc80851e1","argument":"The issues within the Middle East, specifically Iraq, Syria, Iran and all the other countries within that region can be traced to a lack of separation between church and state or mosque and state if you want to be more specific. First there is more connection to religion rather than nationalism within that region. As a person who comes from that region, leaders and major sections of the population are more likely to have the idea that they are fighting for Islam rather than their country, and never putting their country before their religion. Thats why you see a rise in theocratic leaders, ones who cannot find the secularization of society but want to run a society based on the tenants of islam. The biggest issue with this, besides the fact that you are allowing religion to dictate your decisions, is that there is a massive divide between the Muslims within this region I of course am talking about Sunnis and Shias. When you have a Sunni leader, like Saddam Hussein for example, and you have neighboring countries that are Shia like Iran for example, you create a climate of issues. When the Ayatola sorry for the misspelling started trying to rise the Shia against Saddam it was because the Shia felt that they were the minority persecuted against the majority of Sunnis, so they were willing to follow such a leader, and as a result, not only did the Ayatola fail and flee out of Iraq, but the Shia people began to be even more harshly persecuted. Fast forward to after Sadams death, and Maliki became Prime Minister. He was supported by Iran and Syria due to him being Shia, and he had a very sectarian government which persecuted the Sunnis from the Sunni perspective and even if people dont accept the argument that he did persecute them, then again its sunni peoples acceptance of the seperation between this religion which caused them to view Shias as persecuting them. This caused support for a group like Isis who wanted to restore Sunni rule because the Sunnis felt persecuted themselves. Not only do Sunni and Shias in this region participate in this issue, but Sunnis and Shias all around that region with there being documents that Saudi Arabia originally funding Sunni groups such as ISIS. Now with Isis, if you support them there will be massive genocides against Shias in the future, and even if you support the moderate Syrian rebels against Isis and the leader of Syria, they are a all Sunni group which again means there is a support for a sectarian group, who will be unpopular in a sectarian Syria which is mostly Shia. Again, if a group of people feel they are being persecuted, or feel that their lives are not getting any better, they will accept groups who identify with them so we could see a Shia equivalent of Isis in a few years to over throw Sunni leadership. This is the equivalent of the Catholic Protestant issues in Europe during and after the times of reformation. When Protestants and Catholics lived in countries within a same region, there were wars such as the thirty years war and in the 1500's all those religious wars. What allowed Protestants and Catholics to live with one another eventually, but of course theres still violent divide within places such as Ireland for example is the unification within one country by putting the good of your country before the good of your religion. With a secular society, no one can rationally feel persecuted since laws will not benefit one section of the population over another. If you have a society that doesn't accept a separation between church and state, then elections will be pointless since the population will fear what will happen if they dont have religious laws, and will vote for the theocratic leader. In the 1500's can we say that our system of democracy would have worked? Religious monarchs, or religious leaders would have still ruled supreme because they would have scared individuals who have never known anything but religion into believing that anyone who is secular or protestant would destroy the holy roman empire, and anyone catholic wouldnt have won in the protestant sections of Europe for the same fear. The people need to read the texts and know the history of democracy and relate their experiences to the terrible experiences of the people before democracy flourished and then democracy can prevail, democracy cannot come first and then the texts become available because then it wont work because it will be forced onto people and when you force a philosophy onto people they wont appreciate it or accept it since its being forced. The problem is that, government and political science classes in these countries are virtually non existent and this is a society that focuses on the maths and sciences rather than the political science and history, government majors. I know first hand as an individual from this region who decided to drop my biology major a few days into my freshman year of college and adopt political science and history major, in short my parents and family weren't very supportive at first. Until theres an acceptance of a separation of Church and state, these countries cannot function under a democracy.","conclusion":"Democracy cannot flourish in Iraq until there is an acceptance of a separation between church or mosque and state."}
{"id":"d77ce7f3-443a-4e63-b60d-064016970cd8","argument":"A narrow majority of the population should not be able to vote to strip a minority of their rights, and they should not be able to vote to keep themselves in power in perpetuity. The Constitution and the Supreme Court which interprets and enforces it was designed to prevent these abuses: it acts as a check on the will of the people.","conclusion":"The Supreme Court should reflect only what the Constitution, legislation and precedent says."}
{"id":"d75f15a9-3922-4ac9-8a5a-26f872f37317","argument":"Instead of reading a crime novel, one may experience it as the protagonist in a virtual world. Imposing existing laws restrict the endless creativity that is possible within the bounds of virtual realities.","conclusion":"Virtual realities can depict fantastic scenarios. To impose laws on these realities defeats their purpose and curtails the power of fictional experiences."}
{"id":"850e369b-3b1a-461f-afd6-7c8c12e45483","argument":"\"Omniscient\" may have many meanings. For the claim above to be meanjngful, it would require not only that God knew all actualities, but that he knew all possibilities at all times in all aspects at all times. Mathematically, this is like the difference between 100 and 2^100 - but of course with the number 100 replaced with a far bigger number, making the difference even larger.","conclusion":"Monotheism does not preclude the existence of evil, insofar as some of the features of the traditional conception of God can be abandoned without rejecting the traditional conception of God in toto in its entirety."}
{"id":"87b40763-a153-424c-aa6d-1f14249f84b6","argument":"Deep ocean heat and temperature records are non-existent. Scientists do not know the energy flows and movement of an important heat sink in the Earth's energy system - the ocean below depths of 700m.","conclusion":"This is nearly impossible because we do not have accurate records of 'past' climate."}
{"id":"77556ecc-b56f-41bd-8b2e-038605047c7a","argument":"I know what our leaders have told us. And that it is the will of Koo Alla, the spirit tree. But have you ever stopped and asked yourself, How will this make fruit grow bigger exactly? Like when did this start, it's not like we've ever heard the spirit tree tell us anything, we just do what our elders tell us their elders said. Are we just a prehistoric society that is lacking culture? Sometimes I wonder if there's something more outside of all of this. Like we're trapped in some sort of mini box Also what's with the weird people living in the mountain making lots of noise?","conclusion":"I don't think eating every third baby makes fruit grow bigger."}
{"id":"bc69ba18-380d-422a-93e4-9dd5db741219","argument":"It is generally accepted that the American education system is failing. We spend more money than almost anyone else in the world on education, but our reading and math scores have remained stagnant over the last several decades. More and more money is spent in the sector, but no gains are being made, especially when it comes to closing the achievement gap between advantaged and disadvantaged students. Why? I would argue that teachers unions specifically the NEA and AFT are the primary cause. We know what makes for better students thanks to the experimentation done in charter schools and in studies. One of the biggest factors in a child's education is obviously the teacher. The difference between a student with a bad teacher and a student with a good teacher is approx. one years worth of learning. That's an incredible difference So how do we get the best teachers? We hold them accountable. Bad teachers should be dismissed. End of story. If a police officer or fireman or doctor was utterly failing at their job, we would not hesitate to fire them for performance. We should absolutely do the same for teachers, as they are charged with the incredibly important task of bettering our children. We should pay good teachers more money. If you want to incentivize talented people to enter into education, you should make it clear that good performance results in better pay. These are two very commonsense reforms which would revolutionize our school systems. But they don't get implemented. Why? Because the teachers unions are extremely politically powerful and they don't allow it. Teachers unions for a myriad of reasons control the kinds of reforms which get implemented and which ones don't. Things like eliminating tenure, pay for performance, and regular dismissal of underperforming teachers have all been staunchly opposed by the unions, so they will never get passed. Until the unions are weakened, they will continue to halt any kind of progress made towards bettering our schools system. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Teachers unions are the primary reason why the American education system is failing."}
{"id":"8e550422-ab7b-4138-a102-ca7947ebf79f","argument":"People will be ready to talk as trust indicates that they won't be insulted or ridiculed when somebody comes with a different opinion.","conclusion":"Trust is the first step to make sure people don't stay in echo chambers"}
{"id":"185922b5-06ea-44af-aff4-4b6212b3b493","argument":"As long as teacher's have received sufficient training, there is no reason that they should not be able to bring firearms for protection. Currently, if there's a shooting, students and teachers are utterly defenseless and must wait precious minutes for SWAT to arrive. Allowing a trained adult to stand up and combat a threat would not only allow threats to be stopped before becoming tragedies, but at the very least slow down shooters, as they wouldn't be able to stroll out in the open as they do now. EDIT I'm trying to reply to all comments, but if you want a brief overview this is pretty analogous to my viewpoint on this issue.","conclusion":"Allowing Teachers to Bring Weapons to Schools is a Sensible Measure to Protect Children."}
{"id":"75d77f75-ca9a-4e7e-b8fa-da0908da21c0","argument":"A Supreme Court Justice is doing their job well if they are consistent in their rulings. The length of time they spend on the court is a minor issue compared to this.","conclusion":"The quality of a Supreme Court Justice's experience is far more important than the quantity of their experience."}
{"id":"5e4e35bb-46cf-4063-a8b5-e5685e31e143","argument":"Censoring the N-word in the book might only be the first step of several alterations to the book, which could happen to a large enough degree that the original context of the book is forgotten. The original version of the book containing racist slurs being common knowledge could thus be lost in history.","conclusion":"It is important to preserve the artistic integrity of great works of art like Huckleberry Finn. As such, none of its language should be modified."}
{"id":"efc28d63-b671-4286-8e55-5d0fbeec2b33","argument":"I'll start with the problems with the current anthem The Star Spangled Banner is unnecessarily violent A. Americans internalize that war is glorious and what birthed their country. While the american revolution was obviously important in creating america, countries are born out of shared identity and collective action, not out of killing people. This damages america bc leads to poor policy making and poor national identity. America was in fact started because of tea taxes not out of a glorious struggle for freedom from english oppression. B. Americans internalize that the nature of war is that it is glorious, rather than brutal, terrifying, PTSD inducing and unnecessary, it makes war seem good rather than a sometimes regrettably necessary evil. C. Americans have a warlike culture and are easy to provoke into war. Vietnam, Iraq. Americans believe violence is the way to solve conflicts, that participating in war is a way for the nation and its citizens to feel good about themselves, and to self actualize and \u201cbecome a man\u201d. D. This leads to more wars, more conflict, etc., this is bad. We acknowledge that the national anthem is not the only source of propagandizing that americans receive regarding war, but we think it is a significant source of this propaganda. The current anthem is also historically inaccurate. There weren\u2019t rockets in the revolutionary war or war of 1812, nor were there bombs bursting in air like airbust bombs showed up when planes did. Livin\u2019 On A Prayer more accurately reflects America A. Livin\u2019 On A Prayer reflects the struggle of the american worker. It talks about the average person struggling to get by, and how they can find meaning in their lives even in poverty. This is a message americans need. It addresses rising income inequality. B. Livin\u2019 On A Prayer reflects the religious nature of america without excluding the non religious, and excluding non Judeo Christian religions. References prayer, but atheists still like Bon Jovi because that prayer is not for a stated religious purpose or goal, it's about the general yearning for something better. People of all denominations and religions use language like this, e.g. We're praying that he gets the promotion at work. or I swear to God. Practical uses of the National Anthem The most common time you will encounter a national anthem statistically is at a sporting event. The current anthem takes the wind out of your sails, you\u2019re all stoked for spots and you listen to some dreary, very slow paced trumpet bullshit. Bon Jovi is pump up music. It\u2019s not politically divisive, it\u2019s been used by democrats and republicans in campaign rallies. For somber uses of the anthem, the song\u2019s music structure allows it to be interpreted as sad. Bon Jovi uses a musical technique where depending on how exactly you decide to hear the chords, they can be interpreted as minor and descending or rising and ascending. This, combined with the lyrics, mean it\u2019s also appropriate to use in other circumstances like at soldier\u2019s or politician\u2019s funerals. It states \u201cEven if we don\u2019t make it, we\u2019ve got each other\u201d an important message in times of loss or hardship, that we must value our relationships with other people. The last important use of the anthem is when greeting dignitaries or holding government events or opening school in the morning these are all occasions we want people to be excited about the possibilities of the event for. Livin' on a Prayer is exciting, genuine, and real. It should be the National Anthem for the USA.","conclusion":"Livin' on a Prayer by Bon Jovi would be a better US National anthem than the Star Spangled Banner"}
{"id":"d9146d9b-3cfa-4d1e-ab15-2a3c27ac2fc4","argument":"Data collection, protection, and privacy are becoming increasingly important issues for consumers, corporations, and governments. Adapting concepts such as privacy to the 21st century and the Information Age requires a philosophical and ethical education.","conclusion":"Liberal arts degrees provide skills that are needed in order to guide the careful development of powerful new technologies."}
{"id":"9ee6619c-fd7c-4fa4-a78d-8709a6de8843","argument":"The urge to have sex is a primal and critical part of nature. One does not \"choose\" to have sex. Reproduction is a force of nature.","conclusion":"Many women do not become pregnant by choice. It is wrong to force these women to remain pregnant when they do not want to be."}
{"id":"25b59e68-9559-433d-af26-16c0b629ff35","argument":"So, I'm starting from the idea that corporations and individuals have a more control over people running for public office by using their wealth to fund those people's campaigns as leverage. If candidates or parties, as part of the process of running for an election, applied for a publicly funded loan similar to the system of student loans in the UK , then they would not have to rely on wealthy institutions or individuals to fund their campaign. Parties running for an election would only have to pay back these loans if they did not win the election, meaning that the public would only be paying for the campaign of the party they elected. maybe the losing party would have to pay back a percentage based on the percentage of public vote they receive . I think this would limit the extent of corporate and wealthy individual's influence in political systems because candidates and parties would be relying on the public for their financial security rather than a small number of people. I don't think my idea is perfect, but I think it would be better than any current system. I'm unaware of this being instituted anywhere, so I'd love to hear about it if it has.","conclusion":"I think political systems would be improved if campaign funds were distributed through a public loan system. The paying back of which would be conditional on losing the election."}
{"id":"8f047cd8-6e79-45ee-852c-3d0d12cd7b68","argument":"The principle of Double Effect as applied by God permits a lesser evil to exist, so long as the greater good is intended and achieved our knowledge of this good is not necessary","conclusion":"Insofar as what we regard as evil turns out to be part of a greater good, it is not really evil."}
{"id":"1f73381f-e340-47ee-8484-043c394c4d56","argument":"I believe personally that PCs are better than consoles for gaming. I can run games at 1080 60 and i don't have to pay to play online. Steam sales are also quite good and save me tons of money in the long run over consoles. The other thing is that I love using mods to improve the overall graphical fidelity of the game and fixing unpatched glitches. To debunk the usual retorts, 30fps DOES NOT make a game more cinematic. If you try to say console has exclusives, I can find 5 PC only games for every console exclusive you can come up with. Don't say used games to say console games are cheaper either as when you buy a used game the developer gets none of that money which is why I don't buy used games. Change My View.","conclusion":"PCs are better for gaming than consoles."}
{"id":"4b695bf0-039e-43be-a51f-32ae4eaf260a","argument":"The two heaviest components for the pilot are probably the ejection seat and the oxygen system both weight about 100kg, do a Google search.. The relevant parts of the avionics screens, manual control elements might be another 100kg. This is not really much compared to the aircraft weight or the weapons load.","conclusion":"This is simply not true. The life support system is not that expensive nor that heavy compared to the cost and weight of a modern fighter plane."}
{"id":"9b8e42f6-f8db-40eb-b5c8-b423c47adc0d","argument":"The earliest Christians could have visited the tomb as they did, according to the Bible, or asked the Chief Priest to view the body.","conclusion":"For those present in first-century Jerusalem, the resurrection of Jesus was much more verifiable than it is today."}
{"id":"a4d6c4d7-20a3-460a-a1e8-214a4c2ee0a3","argument":"For the record, I do believe I should have some legal equivalent for marriage, maybe a gay Christian's church but the US should, recognize any marriage. But the states should not be allowed to tell the pope the people you hate can get married here that the pope should be the one saying gay marriage can happen.","conclusion":"I'm bisexual, I love my gay friends. But I think gay marriage shouldn't be forced to happen, and that it infringes on the beliefs of said religion."}
{"id":"196aab04-3895-4748-be08-1aa42c9b11ca","argument":"Public support of Putin has decreased the longer that sanctions are in place in Russia. In 2018, only 58% of Russians said they supported Putin, down from 75% the year before","conclusion":"If sanctions hurt Russian citizens, this is more likely to create popular pressure within Russia against the government's actions in Ukraine."}
{"id":"5bee098e-00d3-4bb3-82a1-5a32fe3ff0d9","argument":"space exploration will pave the way to find us a new place to inhabit, in case we need to leave earth for whatever reason in the future.","conclusion":"Space exploration is necessary for the future survival of humanity"}
{"id":"e0d17dc5-a297-432a-b05a-6c120b5be67e","argument":"Behaviorism and logical positivism are mostly dead in philosophy, and I think that's a shame. Ultimately, my point of view is centered around the fact that if we are to call something a belief , then it must ultimately rest on some predisposition to act or behave in a certain way, even if the circumstances required to detect said predisposition are not physically feasible. Even things like a belief in God are nothing more than a predisposition to behave as if there is a God. Thus, if the God you imagine and the qualities you ascribe to him have no repercussions on your behavior, you have no right to say you believe in God. I'm not necessarily a strict behaviorist in that I do not fit the definition of someone who thinks mental state terms refer to behaviors , but I think they must refer to behaviors in the case of belief. Arguments to the contrary at least the ones I've heard have been extremely weak. One person argued with me by saying that beliefs are not binary based on the fact that we create beliefs for ourselves about things we cannot investigate. For example, we could be living in a computer simulation right now, but most of us choose to believe that we are not living in one. But what effect could the truth of the proposition We are living in a computer simulation right now have on our behavior? It wouldn't feel like our actions should be any different, and so we would not act differently. Beliefs cannot be anything other than truth apt propositions that feel as secure as knowledge to the believer, in the sense that knowledge is simply made up of true beliefs. Thus, belief has a binary nature, and I can't have a credence level of 0.8 regarding some proposition. This assignment of credence levels does not translate into dispositions to behave, and even if it did, it would do so by being reducible to a collection of nested beliefs which are binary.","conclusion":"Belief has a binary nature, and it is not up to us what we believe."}
{"id":"1208896d-c2cc-4ac9-a7a8-ae1d96e58969","argument":"The state has, throughout history, been responsible for an immeasurable amount of violence and destruction. From ancient times where states were the primary instrument of enforcing laws so that people could keep slaves, to the actions of imperial nations like Britain, to the holocaust to all of the pointless wars fought throughout history, states have a long record of slaughtering and ruining the lives of countless numbers of their own and other states people. William Eckhardt estimates battle deaths since 3000 BC at 151million while Beer came out with a much higher figure of 1.1 billion battle deaths NB both use dodgy calculations and of course in either case the total military deaths let alone civilian would be much higher.1 These actions are always taken because they are in the interest of the ruling class, but the ruling classes are never the ones directly involved in these conflicts, they instead use the state as an instrument to coerce other people to fight their battles for them. In a stateless society the people might need to fight against oppression but they would never be forced to fight for causes that have nothing to do with them. 1","conclusion":"The state has far too often been an instrument for facilitating wars and other acts of violence."}
{"id":"5bd59101-6466-45a7-8ad4-5f26f4263a3b","argument":"Transhumanism will help humans will win in the game of evolution, as it allows us to exist across the universe, which is better to survival than species that can only survive in a micro ecological niche e.g. flightless dung beetle.","conclusion":"Transhumanism could speed up human evolution, which provides multiple benefits."}
{"id":"56418f5c-e6b6-4de4-8c91-7e40109f655e","argument":"18 is a terrible time to have your first vote. There's evidence that says after someone votes for the first time, they continue to do so for the rest of their lives. So its important that the first time someone gets the chance, that they do. But at 18 most have just moved from home for uni, work, or to get away this means people don't know where they're enrolled in and think they have bigger issues on their plate. This is reflected in the 18 24 bracket which in my country has a turnout of roughly 50 every election . Having it at 15 or 16, accompanied with civics education means we could have people voting while still in school, making voting a habit so that the whole country is engaged in the system Another way to look at it is this. For most of my life my 2 grandparents have had just as much as a vote as my family of 5. We disagree politically but under the current system theyve had just as much voting power. How's that fair? Finally, all the arguments I hear against lowering the vote are the same arguments that were used against giving women the vote. they'll all just vote the same way as their husband has been replaced with they'll all just vote the same as their parents the reality is that even if that statement is true it's not . It's irrelavent how we vote its about making sure we're represented, because without voting power politicians don't actually care about us. Other historic arguments are they're not smart enough which seems to overestimate the intelligence of those above the age of 18. And they'll just vote for any party that gives them handouts e.g. free public transport again, irrelevant. And overestimating the intelligence of old people. Who literraly do the same thing just swap out free public transport for tax cuts. If the school strikes for climate around the world have shown us anything its that the youth have different values to adults and we desperately want and need a voice Source","conclusion":"The voting age should be lowered"}
{"id":"5b5ac66c-7266-4490-ae13-65371dcfd98f","argument":"When men are involved in the lives of their children, flexibility becomes less of a woman's issue and becomes a workplace imperative.","conclusion":"Companies will have to make work more flexible for both men and women."}
{"id":"eefee973-3829-4365-9181-38139d761b9c","argument":"Emotion is everything in the modern political arena. Fear this, be angry at that, hate them, that's all it ever boils down to, and it's a plague that has infected both sides. I can't even decide which party to be more fed up with because they are both horrible. On the one side you have democrats, the party that is SUPPOSED to be the pro science, pro rationality party. Yet, just to be opposed to republican interests it seems, they have chosen several horrendously misinformed platforms, making them blatant hypocrites. Then you have republicans that don't even get far enough to say that they support logic because they blindly support faith based policy making. Sure, they aren't hypocrites, but they knowingly ignore facts simply because they don't care, and that's almost worse. Below I want to list stances with brief descriptions on both sides that I feel one party is objectively wrong about, as well as issues I think they are both wrong about or that I don't know enough about to decide. I hope this will clarify why I'm so disenchanted with the current state of affairs. Republicans Gay marriage I hope I don't actually have to defend this point. we have a separation of church and state, your religious views are not grounds to restrict the rights of others. Marijuana we waste tons of money on the drug war in many ways. Marijuana is objectively less dangerous than other available legal substances, and the consensus on this is widespread. Climate Change It just is happening, and there is extremely well documented evidence that we are, at least to some degree, causing it. Religion in general this isnt a theocracy, we have several documents written by the founding fathers explicitly stating the country is not meant to be a christian nation, stop saying it is. Democrats Gun Control republican stances vary, but most support strengthening background checks and gun licensing, which have been shown capable of lowering gun violence up to 90 . This combined with the facts that you are many times more likely to be stabbed to death, drown in your bathtub, or fall down the stairs and die than you are to be killed with an assault rifle, makes a ban on assault rifles for the millions of people who obey the law illogical. Energy Climate change is real, but so is our energy demand. We cannot economically sustain this country exclusively on renewables, as nice as that would be. we could be doing better, so they aren't all wrong here, but Bernie's desire to run the country exclusively with renewable energy is wholly unrealistic. Fracking Nuclear This is tied into the last point, but nuclear energy is cleaner and safer statistically than most renewables. Democrats, for whatever reason, like to make nuclear energy into a scary thing. it isn't, it's probably our best hope. Fracking is no longer exempt from the clean air and water acts, in not actually tied to burning faucets those faucets burned before there was fracking because the methane bubbles up naturally in those areas and the earthquakes is causes are barely even large enough to be detected by seismographs. Could there be more improvement? absolutely, but why completely right off huge supplies of a clean to burn fuel that can be recovered economically? Economics Republicans aren't always right on this either cough bush war deficit but experts and nobel prize winners alike overwhelmingly disagree with modern democratic platforms, specifically that of Bernie sanders. People like to say 17 economists in this group are in favor of Bernie's plan that group has 10k members. there are dissenting opinions, but there's about as much consensus among economists about this as there is among scientists about climate change. Social Justice There are issues that negatively affect women and minorities. however, not all white men are evil, white people do experience poverty, racism, and other social issues. Social problems in the modern world go every direction, some more than others. The left also seems like it wants to silence opposition, with violence if necessary, more than the right. Both or don't know Muslims no, they aren't all terrorist. Most don't even live in the middle east. Muslims can be perfectly nice normal people. Statistically, it also isn't an overwhelmingly peaceful religion and it is having hugely negative impacts on the western countries that it's becoming a part of. The right over demonizes, the left over sympathizes. immigration Don't really know enough to have an informed opinion Wall Street We don't need more regulations, we need to refund the SEC and actually give them enough resources to enforce the regulations we already have, the market is already very regulated. There are people who need to go to jail on Wall Street, but people who actually did something illegal, not normal people doing normal business up until the crash. Government funding we spend too much for what we bring in. we can't tax the rich people enough to pay for it no matter what we do, and funding might need to come away from social security since it's a failing system, but our military is exorbitantly large and should also be one of the first places we look to cut spending. I feel extremely confident in all of these stances, and even if you don't agree with every one, I'm willing to bet there is at least one or two issues on both sides you agree with me on. As such, why should I feel optimistic? no matter what side gets the presidency or congress, there are going to be laws passed that are not based on what is logically best for the public. Nobody cares anymore about actually trying to fix anything, they just care about what they feel, and they want to hurt the other side. Who the hell do I even vote for in this mess? Someone who ignores expert opinions and wants to limit individual freedom? Or Someone else who ignores expert opinions and wants to limit individual freedom? I just want gays to be happy, to smoke weed, to own guns, to be able to speak without being blamed for slavery, and to have faith that my elected officials actually care what is best for me, their constituent, and I don't think I will ever get that. EDIT I have removed Abortion from the list because it is not truly an objective issue, and there are logical non religious arguments in opposition. I have also awarded a delta for the argument that, as bad as things are now, they are still arguably better than they have been in the past and there isn't enough reason to believe it won't continue in that direction.","conclusion":"American politics no longer cares about logic or reason, and as a young voter I have no reason to be optimistic about the future of my country."}
{"id":"2e1e0f3c-0a90-4833-bfe6-9b2b8c8f105f","argument":"The whole point of liking something related to a company on Facebook is so that your opinion can be viewed by your friends and that will hopefully benefit them in the future and make it easier for them to evaluate said company. When companies have sweepstakes that require you to like their page, it defeats that purpose because you're no longer doing that because that's how you think but rather because you want to get something in return. They are borderline forcing to you like their page, thus promoting a somewhat false advertisement, which is really bad. This is different from plain asking the customer to go there and rate them, because in this case, the customer has the option not to like them, or give them a poor rating in case of apps, for example . Whenever you bribe a user to like your page, or give 5 stars to your app, or any other similar tactics, this only proves people wouldn't say good things about your company without being forced to . . EDIT One more reason why this practice is dishonest, is the fact that whoever sees the number of likes a company has, will never know whether it was paid or not. EDIT 2 As a matter of fact, the more I think of it, the more I believe this is a loophole on the full disclosure laws regarding endorsements since a lot of the likes were paid for but nobody can know how many, even if they are being disclosed somehow.","conclusion":"I think companies that promote Facebook sweepstakes that require you to like their page first are effectively bribing the customer."}
{"id":"2dff832b-1a96-4f53-839d-f820dba64e5b","argument":"A USE will be able to better defend its borders than the EU in its current form.","conclusion":"The USE would arguably be one of the strongest states in the world."}
{"id":"870945ac-6342-4134-a3bf-579cf1fc9c64","argument":"I was inspired by this post on askreddit. The question was what is moral but illegal? , and one response was Kicking someone's ass for abusing an animal No ragrets here . I wrote a response talking about the dangers of vigilantism, but it was downvoted to absolute oblivion because, well, reddit doesn't like when you take the side of justice over revenge, I guess, when it comes to cute animals. But the more I stew on this point, the more I become convinced that it should remain illegal, and it is still immoral to do this. Ethically speaking, citizen's arrests are ok for me. If you see, say, someone being punched in front of you, it should be ethical to punch the person back. If someone pulls a knife on someone, it is ethical to pull a knife on them as well. If someone is on a shooting spree, it is ethical to shoot them to protect others and yourself. I am willing to be convinced on this point, but this seems like a reasonable standard for community protection. In this scenario, it would be unethical to shoot someone who is beating up someone else with their fists. That makes sense to me. However, with animal rights, it's a whole different ballpark. Animal rights are really fucking weird to me I have never really understood why we place so much value on protecting dogs and cats, while ignoring almost every other animal. See someone killing a mouse or a hamster, and it's not that bad. We literally sell machines to torment and kill mice. See someone shooting geese, killing chickens for food, putting cows in a slaughterhouse, that's necessary and OK. But dogs and cats are off limits. I understand the rationale dogs and cats evolved together with us as companions . But I don't think that's enough to justify the ridiculous levels people defend dogs and cats at. Heck, if the above  was about a person being assaulted , I doubt I would have gotten nearly as many downvotes, and more criticisms of the vigilante justice would have been found upvoted. I've seen this before in similar threads, such as people acknowledging that prison rape, or vigilante murder of someone who rapes someone they love, is unethical and wrong. It's just one of those things some people have a kind of view of animals that can at points supercede all logic. They get irrationally angry , in their own words, at animal abuse I don't think this is something to be celebrated irrationality . Animals still have less rights than humans. If I saw someone shooting a litter of puppies, it would be absurd to shoot them to protect the puppies. If I saw someone declawing a cat, it would be absurd to cut off their fingers in retribution. We put less value on animals than humans, obviously. Yet it seems as if for something like, beating a dog with a stick, some might think that beating the abuser with a stick is justified in that respect. The people in that thread certainly seemed to think so. I would bet that such people would also say it's OK to sentence people who kill their own dog to equivalent jail times as regular human murder. That's just a hunch, though. I don't agree with that. Certainly, you should call the police. It's illegal, after all. But I think that the reason people feel so strongly about overexaggerated vigilante justice is that they ascribe waaay to much human characteristics to pets and animals, and treat them the same in their mind or more even to people in rights. This disconnect between reality and emotions causes people to go into panics and justify assault to save an animal who was enduring equal assault, when clearly this should be absurd. And yes, if someone is beating a dog in front of you, you can restrain them if possible. Animal abuse is a crime, albeit a lesser one then human abuse. But if you're doing a citizen's arrest, if you beat them up past the point of simply restraining them, you're basically committing police violence, albeit as a vigilante without any accountability. I put such people in the same camp as the old school KKK, who illegally assault people they don't like, regardless of laws. Anyways, .","conclusion":"It is unethical and should remain illegal to beat up animal abusers, even when it's happening in front of you."}
{"id":"1fc72a74-0433-4ddc-9bf8-4d27b373497f","argument":"In conservative societies, the media is the only avenue of education on taboo issues such as love. These Bollywood movies develop an unrealistic and dangerous understanding of love among the youth.","conclusion":"Romance is a taboo topic in the conservative Indian culture. By showing stalking as romance, Bollywood miseducates the impressionable youth."}
{"id":"ab5eb73b-6c46-4a39-b6c4-d7946e9345b2","argument":"International regulation will be the future, since transnational problems cannot be solved with national laws.","conclusion":"There exists international solutions to data problems, e.g. European GDPR"}
{"id":"1ec33fcc-d7fd-450c-b6d4-00cbb4211632","argument":"Hello There's a couple of things we want to bring up. The title says most of it really. We've decided to try out a  twitter page that you can follow redditcmv It cross posts our 'new' queue via www.IFTTT.com. If you have any suggestions on how to improve our page then let us know. If someone could provide us with a high resolution screenshot of the 'top all time' submissions, and also our logo, then we'd be very grateful. We're temporarily using the normal reddit snoo as the profile picture because we couldn't get it to look good. It was quite blurry. Also, as you may have noticed, DeltaBot is playing up again. The leaderboard isn't working, quite a few deltas are being missed, and some users' flair is showing \u00e2\u02c6\u2020 instead of 8710 for some bizarre reason. I'm afraid it looks like we're going to have to put up with this for a while. The problems are a result of some recent changes to improve the code, but for whatever reason, it went wrong. However, the whole script is currently being rewritten so hopefully things will be better soon. Please let us know if you see any deltas that DeltaBot hasn't replied to , either in the comments below or by messaging us As always, feel free to use this mod post as a chance to express any concerns or suggestions. Edit We also plan on having a DeltaBot twitter account that tweets every time a delta is awarded, if that's of interest to anybody. It's a bit more difficult to set up though, I think. Regards, The  mods.","conclusion":"Mod Post Follow us on twitter @redditcmv for a live feed of new posts. Also, DeltaBot is playing up."}
{"id":"bb0056c4-6ba2-4a6c-b9e4-623913942de9","argument":"I always see debates being advertised as this be all end all test for whether someone would be good in a elected position. 95 of the time the answers are all pre rehearsed and are not a good representation of how the person would actually govern. More often than not the debaters don't even answer the question they just regurgitate one of their loosely related pre rehearsed messages with buzzwords intended to connect to their voter base based on some kind of scientific analysis of what words people want to hear. Even if there is a townhall style session with audience questions it often comes down to whether someone is any good at public speaking or not. The right answer doesn't always bleed through its the one that was best articulated. There is some merit to being able to see whether a person is able to speak coherently as that is part of the job but that is only a small percentage of what I really care about in an elected official. I want someone who smart and is actually going to solve the problems that we have and that has very little to do with their speaking abilities. I don't know what the solution is and maybe that's why we haven't changed but debates are not a good way to measure IMO, but I'm pretty open minded so if you have some facts or new ideas for me lay them on me.","conclusion":"Debates are not a good way to evaluate whether someone would make a good leader"}
{"id":"ca81d6bf-8e4a-4c66-abda-016f0eafb2bd","argument":"Clause 1 on Accuracy includes the statements The Press must take care not to publish inaccurate misleading or distorted information including pictures A significant inaccuracy misleading statement or distortion once recognised must be corrected promptly and with due prominence and \u2013 where appropriate \u2013 an apology published The Press whilst free to be partisan must distinguish clearly between comment conjecture and fact gt gt This Clauses. No matter where you fall on the political Spectrum would be good. If you're on the left then you believe that Fox News is fake news. And that would mean that Fox News would no longer be able to lie. And if you're on the right then you believe that CNN is fake news. And those rules would make sure that CNN couldn't lie CLAUSE 3 ON PRIVACY INCLUDES Everyone is entitled to respect for his or her private and family life home health and correspondence including digital communications. Editors will be expected to justify intrusions into any individual\u2019s life without consent gt That's important. His people on both sides of accused media Outlets of doxxing innocent people. It is unacceptable to photograph individuals in a private place without their consent. A private place can be public property where there is a reasonable expectation of privacy CLAUSE 4 ON HARASSMENT INCLUDES Journalists must not engage in intimidation harassment or persistent pursuit gt Again that it's part of the Dachshund Claus. Fox News CNN MSNBC Breitbart with no be able to release personal information about people in order t They must not persist in questioning telephoning pursuing or photographing individuals once asked to desist nor remain on their property when asked to leave and must not follow them gt It's just good policy so that celebrities can't be harassed Editors must ensure these principles are observed by those working for them and take care not to use non compliant material from other sources CLAUSE 14 STATES Journalists have a moral obligation to protect confidential sources of information gt That is one of the most important aspects of Journalism. Releasing confidential sources hurts the Free Press And the end of those are just basic standard step media Outlets should hav following anyway. It just codify into law","conclusion":"The USA should have laws for journalism like other countries"}
{"id":"4507834f-a9a0-4ddd-821e-390fe4f21e8c","argument":"The health risks of smoking are well documented, yet the government does not introduce an outright ban.","conclusion":"An activity being dangerous does not justify the government banning that activity."}
{"id":"690d66bf-bb1b-45ff-bd6c-b1e4bc99cf73","argument":"This logic is visible in Buddhism where the First Precept forbids the killing of any living being - yet the eating of animals that were not killed specifically to be eaten is considered fine","conclusion":"People who eat meat are not responsible for animal's death."}
{"id":"60dc7911-5ef4-49e3-8c9a-3537dfe18f1a","argument":"Children represent a major burden for single moms and the German government is not doing enough to help them. This makes them prone to move down the social ladder","conclusion":"40% of German single moms are dependent on unemployment benefits."}
{"id":"dbe42fed-ce99-4c86-baa0-b9a9d94e908a","argument":"I'm talking about works of art being made now, TV shows being maybe the best example. We no longer live in the world of, say, Mozart, where an artist toils in solitude to produce a work, and then presents it to the public though this is obviously somewhat oversimplified . The internet makes it so that audience response can permeate a work throughout the entire process of its creation. Game of Thrones might be a good example of this. It established the shocking plot twist as one of the organizing principles for the show, but has more or less backed itself into a corner where millions of viewers can search for and help each other analyze even the smallest bit of foreshadowing. On a deeper level, the smaller and more heterogeneous your audience is the more effectively you are able to predict and control their reactions. Conversation between two people is the deepest and most meaningful, between three slightly less, and so on. Those who are deeply immersed in small communities formed around, say, Norwegian black metal, or the poetry of William Blake, are able to discern much more meaning from a work of art than, for example, someone listening to a Beyonce song on the radio. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Getting popular makes art worse."}
{"id":"16f301de-4dbf-4b45-be89-54a8f96184af","argument":"Dolphins for example, have a language construct similar in intelligence to humans, however it is beyond the time and frequency of hearing available to humans.","conclusion":"Without being able to understand non-human languages, we have no way of knowing non-human animals lack this ability."}
{"id":"f718f3dc-4567-4e67-93fe-d3d5fc55f800","argument":"With a pure popular vote, a 51% voting bloc could theoretically remain dominant 100% of the time, leaving the other 49% unrepresented 100% of the time.","conclusion":"The electoral college works to reduce the influence of densely populated areas and give fair power to smaller states."}
{"id":"813a5791-a91f-4e23-9460-2c5aa2427eb8","argument":"This Australian review cites a range of factors identified in parents relinquishing disabled children to the state, most relevantly stress, isolation and lack of knowledge of rights. These are more likely to arise in parents who were not prepared or willing to take on the task of raising a special needs child to begin with.","conclusion":"Such parents are more likely to put such children up for adoption or surrender them to state care, adding to strain on state resources."}
{"id":"c5c1d8b6-3e69-427e-b95d-df960b12d12d","argument":"The war in Afghanistan has led to a high death-count of American and NATO soldiers over a prolonged period.","conclusion":"The costs to Western nations of the war in Afghanistan are far too high."}
{"id":"bd184985-b962-4507-8ba7-3738d50d7ef9","argument":"Ecstasy is easily disguised with other substances, leaving users blind to its potential side effects. Some pills may contain little or no MDMA and instead are composed of other drugs such as ketamine, amphetamine, caffeine and ephedrine.","conclusion":"Impurities and contaminations are a huge health risk for drug users today."}
{"id":"68ff9ea7-c8f8-4494-862c-15122a083fcb","argument":"The development of the World Wide Web originated in 1977 in the form of its forefather the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network ARPANET, a communications network developed by the US Military.","conclusion":"Warfare has bred technological advancements all throughout human history, and those advancements eventually have civilian uses."}
{"id":"a98a7995-8a1a-456d-acb0-22cc1ef25b89","argument":"So Facebook was fined by the FTC 5 billion dollars. And everyone's like, Oh, it's just a slap on the wrist. Meanwhile I am completely at a loss for what they did wrong. I know what Cambridge Analytica did wrong. But I don't see what Facebook did wrong. The way I see it Facebook is no more responsible for Cambridge Analytica than how Apple or Google is responsible for apps in their app stores. Plus they give you this 'are you sure you want to share your data with XYZ' screen. I fail to see how Cambridge Analytica is Facebook's fault. The worst thing that I could find is that Facebook had an API that allowed you to see what your friends liked. I'm not sure how it worked but considering users can see a lot of information about their friends I don't think this was such a terrible idea. Yeah, maybe it was a bit unnecessary but definitely not illegal.","conclusion":"Facebook Should Not Have Been Fined 5 Billion Dollars"}
{"id":"6837d33e-48a8-4c45-ae7f-43a9b68465c0","argument":"The UK's Independent Fact Checking Charity has been quoted by politicians on all sides and has in place a number of safeguards to guarantee neutrality As such, it is likely to be highly reliable.","conclusion":"The UK's Independent Fact Checking Charity found that as London Mayor, Johnson only broke 11% of his promises. He kept around 65% of them with the remaining 24% being arguable either way."}
{"id":"9c6afd86-3d5e-41ee-8a88-c4ae0acecdd3","argument":"I've seen Demand creates jobs, many times on political and economic subreddits, sometimes with variations on it like The rich do not create jobs, behind it. Usually it's agreed with by most comments, at least the highly upvoted ones, so much so that it might even be taken as common knowledge. However, while it seems intuitive, it is simply untrue. Before I go on, I'll assume everyone knows that to satisfy new or greater demands, companies have to hire more people, or innovate devise a method of producing more with the same amount of people or less but that's beside the point. What generally goes is that greater or newer demands will result in more hiring if a business wants to meet those demands. I can understand where this Demand creates jobs line is coming from if there is no demand, then there probably will be no jobs. However, demand is a blunt want, not a constructive force. While it may be true that demand creates the need for jobs, the actual jobs do not come into place until some sort of business sets itself to meet the demand. 200 people in want of computers do not create computers, nor put people to work making them. As many as they are, and as much as they want one, it is only the tech companies that can handle the research, design, and hyper complex logistics that is needed to bring materials together from all over the world and assemble them, with painstaking care, into a computer, all while putting many people to work. Think of it like hunger it's true that without hunger, there would be no meals, but it is not the hunger that makes the meals it's the constructive force of your body working as a system, or the business that made the meal you ordered. Now, many will say that since businesses will naturally try to meet new demands, then by syllogism demand will create jobs, even though demand isn't creating them directly. And this is generally true. However, this is where my second point comes in that businesses should be taxed less. Why? Simply because meeting a new demand is an investment. Take Google's self driving car project, for example. For the all the new costs associated with such a project including the costs of new researchers and employees in general Google hopes to make a profit in the future that will cover those costs and then some. Is the self driving car sure to make a profit for Google? Google doesn't know for sure, but they're taking the risk anyway. This applies to any business entering a new market, or doing new research. The restaurant chain opening in a new location or the tech company developing a new kind of CPU both risk their capital for the sake of future returns and they're hiring new people too. Naturally, a business will not make these investments unless they're sure they have the capital needed and preferably the capital to help them cope if they don't get the returns they wanted and end up with a net loss. In other words more capital means more investing. And this is where taxation comes in by taking a portion of a business' capital, taxation is retarding progress and job growth. If taxes are lower, then businesses will pass the capital thresholds needed for them to comfortably invest earlier. Will some businesses just send the extra capital to the people at the top? Of course. But generally, less taxation will result in more investment, and more job growth.","conclusion":"Demand does not create jobs, businesses do. Moreover, they should be taxed less."}
{"id":"0b1e454a-a48a-49e9-9f66-37c94beb6bab","argument":"The audience for whom the book is being censored is actually quite large as most of the readers of the book are most likely schoolkids.","conclusion":"Regardless of whether the intention is censorship, the proposal being debated does amount to censorship for many of its readers."}
{"id":"097cf051-2739-444e-a74b-199dc9b15dd6","argument":"There is peer reviewed Vitro evidence that THC can kill cancer cells. Vivo studies would help understand how to make this universal.","conclusion":"Overwhelming scientific research supports the beneficial medical effects of using cannabis."}
{"id":"d32d843f-3158-4fa5-ae94-0c3a48696f55","argument":"Sexual abstinence is not per se unhealthy but it can be psychologically harmful when an individual wishes to have sex and does not, according to researchers.","conclusion":"Celibacy can have a negative impact on mental health and may be a contributing factor in sexual abuse."}
{"id":"19ab2057-651b-4e8d-961c-bc1aa6c37fd5","argument":"First off, I want to say that I don't find sex scenes in TV shows unappealing because they are crude. They are just boring, unattractive, and awkward. If you really wanted to watch a sex scene, why would you be watching TV when you have the wonderful advent of the internet. The sex scenes on TV aren't even real sex scenes anyway because of FCC guidelines. Who enjoys watching 2 minutes of actors panting while under blankets? It also makes it hard to watch the show with other people. Is there any reason to include sex scenes in TV shows that I am missing? gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"There is no place for sex scenes in TV."}
{"id":"18c709c8-a103-4cbe-9e5a-469214eadddb","argument":"Mortification has been endorsed by popes as a way of following Christ, who died on the cross.","conclusion":"Mortification of the flesh has been prevalent in Christianity throughout history."}
{"id":"29000e23-8dd2-4293-8ad9-c9fff600cbbb","argument":"In the US, there are between 7,500 and 52,000 people a year who die because of small particles in the air from coal power plant emissions.","conclusion":"The burning of coal produces air pollution that kills people world-wide each year."}
{"id":"07e591c1-2598-414c-8ce3-56be789739e0","argument":"The Senate is arguably the most glaring example of how our population spread ruins how the country operates. If you look strictly at population vs votes. Lets take California, the largest state, with Wyoming, the smallest state. Cali has 39.14 million people, while Wyoming has 586,107 total. Each of those states' population have 2 votes in the Senate, which means 20 million Californians have the same political weight as 293,000 Wyomingites. This is extremely unfair to the population of Cali and other large states, but there is also the flip side of this. Cali has a more robust economy than sections of the world, much less a small state like Wyoming. Wyoming is less likely to get things they need from the federal government simply because they have way less representatives in the house 53 vs 1 , and would be lacking in the monetary support that a huge state like Cali does. Both face different kinds of problems that the federal government in it's current form is simply stretched too thin to handle. Perhaps maybe the reason why the federal government has so much trouble being effective is because the needs of the 50 states simply are too diverse for one cohesive unit to handle? Note that I'm not advocating treason, I am questioning the very idea of how our federal government is structured. I predict that a constitutional convention will be called in the coming years, and we will be forced to ask ourselves some very hard questions about how our goverment currently works. Is our nation too fail? My vote is no. Here's a WaPo article on how close we are to a Constitutional Convention and its ramifications gt The possibility was mostly dormant from the 1980s until a few years ago, when some blue states began calling for a convention to undo the Supreme Court\u2019s Citizens United ruling and conservative groups began pressing red state legislatures to pass convention resolutions on a variety of pet causes, including a balanced budget amendment. Though each state might have a single issue in mind, once a convention is convened its delegates would not be bound to any particular issue. Gun control could be banned entirely \u2014 or its constitutional limits loosened gay marriage could be eliminated \u2014 or the Equal Rights Amendment could be passed. Though it seems unlikely that the required three fourths of states would subsequently approve major changes drawn up at a runaway convention, it is already amazing that so many states have taken the initial step of calling for one. EDIT TL DR The United States will fracture sometime soon, and won't survive a new Constitutional Convention. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The current population spread in the United States is destabilizing to federal politics, and the United States may be better off not so United"}
{"id":"804db70c-e8f4-47e9-96a5-12189e143ede","argument":"Of course one can say to a robot: Turn your head 180 degrees but I am longing for a more precise language like: Read Robot 1, variable up1 180 degrees and wait. I would not use such a words like: Head but I would use artificial variable names instead because I am afraid of the robot making misunderstanding.","conclusion":"All languages of the world are in fact constructed languages. And we need more of them because of the developing technology. Someday we need to discuss with the robots using some artificial language."}
{"id":"1e4d8393-6f2b-4aac-a20d-7f4fbb48c68c","argument":"I've sheets always, hated animal themed super heroes with the obvious exception of Spider Man, he's awesome such as Batman and Robin. They're silly the way they dress up as animals and fight crime in their pajama like attire. The fact that anyone can take a man dressed as a giant bat seriously and consider him a threat is ridiculous to me. Bats don't have eyes, how can such a creature be scary enough to base your entire secret identity after? The name even sounds stupid, Batman, as if we're not certain that he is in fact still a human man, and not a gigantic ridiculous mutant bat. And it's not just Batman even though I keep bashing him, he just seemed like the best example. EDIT Bats do in fact have eyes. I'm fucking retarded.","conclusion":"Animal-Themed Super Heroes are stupid."}
{"id":"fc4e76cd-97da-4f51-a0af-c7a0744372ac","argument":"Pence delivered the Trump administration\u2019s most high-profile criticism of the persecution of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, telling the country's civilian leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, that state violence against the minority group was \"without excuse.\"","conclusion":"Pence has also been the only figure in the Trump administration to call out the actions of other oppressive regimes including where the oppression is not directed against Christians."}
{"id":"c39187d9-1f48-453c-b1fb-23f552d7a6ee","argument":"Monuments convey respect. Their presence helps educate us about the presence of phenomena that made it possible to respect people whose legacy seems immoral.","conclusion":"Confederate monuments, flags and memorials honor an important part of the American story."}
{"id":"5178f343-2efa-4412-a303-7e134e019114","argument":"Archbishop Justin Welby says that Christmas presents should not be expensive and should express life not luxury, such as kind gestures.","conclusion":"The giving of gifts does not promote materialism. Instead it promotes generosity which is an important Christian value."}
{"id":"4059d36c-672b-489a-abbc-81273f5252b9","argument":"If somebody walks past a child drowning in a pond, the fact that they give lots of money to charity does not absolve them of a moral responsibility to save the child. This is because the nature of the moral obligation that the child generates is quite different.","conclusion":"The fact that refugees are explicitly seeking refuge in high income countries makes them different from faraway strangers in poverty: it makes the moral demand they place more proximate."}
{"id":"ba578dca-61b7-4730-a37b-02bdaadf7e77","argument":"This problem is poised to grow: according to Freedom House, the past decade saw the number of not-free countries grow and the number of free countries decline. Overall, the number of countries in which democratic rights decline has been larger than the number of those where they improve Freedom House, p. 4f.","conclusion":"By making development aid conditional on democracy, at least 40% of the people living in extreme poverty would be cut off from development aid as their countries' governance is generally considered undemocratic World Bank, p. 4"}
{"id":"8727560e-95a8-45cb-9d0c-e3e7b6443ab5","argument":"The bible ends in 68AD at the end of Revelations, and was finished by Apostle John in 95AD at least 1804 years before any currently living person was born. Nothing was added when we learnt to treat women and men equally, nor when we learnt that cowering is not \"yes\" and \"no\" is relevant in marriage, nor when we learnt to treat each others' sexual preferences equally.","conclusion":"While the set of secular morals\/ethics can change and be added to as we learn, religion does not change. That makes religion a barrier to morals and ethics beyond those it subscribes to."}
{"id":"48d3edc0-811d-417a-8e7b-ea5833c35028","argument":"Almost all of the harmful drugs that takes the lives of citizens in the US, are smuggled in through the southern border at Mexico.","conclusion":"Eradicating the Mexican Cartels will likely reduce the flow of drugs into the United States."}
{"id":"2a462bd9-52a9-475a-8e19-6dafa12a1a8f","argument":"We can start off with the bag. VERY LOUD . Impossible to hold a conversation or watch a show over that sound alone. When you move to the actual chips you get a nice hefty layer of air, followed by crumbled chips. Most of the time this doesn't happen and you're left with perfectly intact snacks. However, when you go after these snacks you get covered in grease oil, salt, and whatever else is on them. But the truely annoying part is that there is absolutely no way to eat these quietly. Take a bite? loud crunch. Actually close your lips before you bite down? muffled crunch. Continue to chew them? still crunching. Chew and add more at the same time? gross. Now other snacks like popcorn can be annoying as well, kernels in the throat or gums, salty butter everywhere but theyre quiet. Poprocks? omgwftbbq loud but not messy. In short Chips are the uncivilized barbarians of the snack world. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Potato chips are the most annoying snack"}
{"id":"4deb1515-9515-4c3c-b490-78843fb3ebcf","argument":"Ethereum is a new ish technology for enabling distributed software, starting with smart contracts . It has a currency associated with it called ETH that has grown tremendously in value in the last several months on speculation that is largely aligned with my position here. At the heart of the proposition is that Ethereum will disrupt hate that term the current computing purchase and utilization model of servers and or from renting computing power from the cloud amazon, etc. and utilize the blockchain and the distributed nature of Ethereum. At the moment, I agree with that sentiment. Should I?  gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Ethereum will change how businesses purchase and use computing resources, and this will result in a massive increase in the value of ETH."}
{"id":"071e4a77-7ece-4714-b2f6-fee7d2bd607d","argument":"Ezra 3:2-8 Ezra 5:2 Nehemiah 12:1 and Haggai 1:1-14 list Shealtiel Salathiel as the father of Zerubbabel Zorobabel, in agreement with the New Testament lineages listed in Matthew and Luke.","conclusion":"A potential levirate marriage exists earlier in Jesus' lineage, in the parentage of Zerubabbel."}
{"id":"7f9e843f-3f2d-47c3-b45c-08589fd2c875","argument":"I have seen countless posts recently on facebook and other social media websites that talk about using crystals and other rocks to clear 'negative energy' from one's soul. Perhaps the best example of what I'm talking about would be an article like this one In this example we see an eight year old boy arranging rocks in some sort of pattern to remove or transmute the dark energy out of the room that he is in. When I first read the article I expected to get to a part where someone explained the actual electrical use of this arrangement, but obviously there was no such explanation. While I certainly applaud creativity in children and adults for that matter , I can't help but think that calling someone like this a 'prodigy' is to be ignorant of science and frankly unintelligent.","conclusion":"I believe that the culture surrounding rocks, crystals, and their 'energy' is juvenile and has no real worth to any of us."}
{"id":"416f966b-787a-4dfc-bdea-64c0d7d2d9cb","argument":"At this point in time, they could easily be replaced by a computer with on guy controlling many at once. I got nothing personally wrong with them, it just seems like having a human in the engine car is useless. According to this webpage , it takes around a mile for a train to stop. So nothing a human can see would be able to stop in time. A computer could be used to automatically sound the horn when nearing crossings and to brake when needed. I may not have all the reasons a person would be still needed in the car, but would like to hear why. So change my view.","conclusion":"Train Conductors are a useless job."}
{"id":"b96056ec-409b-40db-afe9-881c0d6d8757","argument":"Regional intervention is often more effective at producing change. Whilst groups such as the UN may be successful in keeping the peace in the countries they are involved in questionable in itself, once the soldiers leave, their philosophy leaves too. By having regional groups intervene, we can be sure that the influences they have in the country will not leave once the troops have, as regional politics will ensure that progress after peacekeeping is continued.","conclusion":"Regional intervention is often more effective at producing change. Whilst groups such as the UN may ..."}
{"id":"b65c5469-efd8-4b9f-9558-d98a663a5a2c","argument":"She gained her power using such extreme measures that she will not be very popular with anyone.","conclusion":"She has killed more people than anyone else, and almost no one will fight for her."}
{"id":"2b4a0bcd-3a53-4bf7-93e3-c2d8c043352f","argument":"Abortion is immoral, therefore it should be illegal. If it illegal, PP can rely on donors for money for cheaper contraception. It eliminates the need for tax dollars.","conclusion":"Planned Parenthood supports abortions. This should not be funded by the government."}
{"id":"df549df6-eed6-4fde-be14-2dbafa2fc886","argument":"Generally accepted financial theory proposes that the risk of owning an asset can be measured by the volatility of the market price of that asset. Based on the standard deviation of the price, that asset will have various probabilities of finish above and below the purchase price given a certain period of time. Therefore, a higher standard deviation volatility leads to potentially greater rewards or losses due to a wider range of potential asset prices. The theory isn't complex but this isn't risk. Share prices move for reasons that don't fairly reflect the value of the underlying stock e.g. Large buyers sellers, poor liquidity leading to greater fluctuations in price, uncertainty around short term earnings. For stocks, measuring risk requires an understanding of the company strengths and weaknesses, awareness of structural changes in the industry, an assessment of management, understanding how regulators perceive the market etc. Other assets have different dynamics but the same principals apply. Glad to hear all everyone's views, finance buff or not.","conclusion":"Asset price volatility is not a measure of risk"}
{"id":"bc0b9ba0-6db7-4fbb-b744-22845f4394bd","argument":"Unlike voluntary soldiers who are willing to undergo rigorous training and serve the country, draft soldiers often lack the necessary experience and preparedness, providing low combat skill quality when the time comes they are sent to war.","conclusion":"People who do not want to do military or community service are unreliable as workers."}
{"id":"33cae1fb-0bba-4599-9f73-bd59d00b1ffd","argument":"Drag is not viewed by the public through the lens of those ideals. Many parents of drag kids don't view it to have any connection to sexual or gender identity.","conclusion":"Mainstream drag has presented a sanitised version of LGBT history which ignores drag's role in gender revolt and sexual liberation."}
{"id":"05996ae6-e885-4b68-be91-90dda97bb492","argument":"During the Rwandan civil war, around 1,000 tonnes of wood was removed from the park every day for two years in order to build shelters, feed cooking fires and created charcoal for sale","conclusion":"Refugees and displaced citizens increase the pressure on natural resources, which often leads to the destruction of the environment."}
{"id":"b6c339bf-b3c4-4b32-a2d0-9e579d358752","argument":"Deterministic ballot-only, meaning that only decisions made by the voters influence the election, which gives them control over the candidates.","conclusion":"STAR Voting Score Then Automatic Runoff. Described Here: www.equal.vote"}
{"id":"9a08c042-d5c1-441f-8680-ee4ead73165c","argument":"If by omnipotence we mean a being who can do any logically possible thing, but not break the laws of logic, it is possible to remain all-good while also willing God's existence. However, if by omnipotence we mean a being who can also break the laws of logic, it is also possible to remain all-good while also willing God's existence. Thus, on either interpretation, it is possible for an all-powerful God to be all-good while willing evil's existence.","conclusion":"If God is all-powerful, then he would be powerful enough to remain all-good while also willing evil's existence."}
{"id":"6349fc43-ce18-46d3-b44a-36dbf10b4252","argument":"In both the Return Of The Jedi and in The Phantom Menace, the comic relief; Ewoks and Jar-Jar respectively, that were added primarily for the enjoyment of children, had a significant impact on the plot, which made the movies overall less compelling.","conclusion":"Porgs make the movie more enjoyable for younger audience-members while not featuring heavily enough to disturb the plot significantly."}
{"id":"ee871c1f-4d0e-442a-b787-1262ec023522","argument":"That follows the assumption that UBI would be funded by creating new money. Most of the ideas about funding UBI do not involve creating new money","conclusion":"There is no reason that the introduction of a UBI has to lead to inflation."}
{"id":"87915c36-a414-4bd7-a9e9-0be8e3b98d45","argument":"It is important for policy makers, legislators and voters to understand the complexities of historic events so they can respond to past events and future problems with a more targeted and informed approach.","conclusion":"An awareness of historical atrocities can help people redress historic injustice, and prevent similar things happening in the future."}
{"id":"1d748f0c-6599-4853-baf2-f96123122408","argument":"The internet helps medical professionals and patients alike keep up-to-date with the latest medical information.","conclusion":"Most of the information found on the Internet is useful."}
{"id":"d15db833-37f9-48e1-a3df-02cb95d45f31","argument":"In the future, less artwork looting of newly discovered peoples or cultures will take place because there is a precedent for artwork to be returned to its original location.","conclusion":"This is an opportunity to repatriate artwork to the country where it came from."}
{"id":"95afc8cf-3c6b-4e84-9a3c-0295e3772332","argument":"Alain Anderton Economics Second Edition CPL \"Free trade over time will inevitable involve changes in the worlds income distribution.\" The distribution of wealth creates equitability usually it goes from the rich to the poor and as a result it is important for human rights. Fundamentally one could argue that human rights are only important when they protect an acceptable standard of living this is suggested due to the analogy, how important are human rights to a homeless, starving, lonely person. Redistribution of wealth increases the standards of living and therefore one could argue human rights become more important with this progression.","conclusion":"Trade, using economic theory, results in the distribution of wealth:"}
{"id":"1ddcff55-38a4-4213-a1ad-4a989a529eaa","argument":"I've seen various threads on reddit, and heard many feminists complain about people telling other people especially men telling women to smile. Yet I've never heard someone complain about a cashier or random person on the street telling someone to have a nice day. I don't really see the difference. In both cases, if you want to be offended, you can interpret the comment as someone demanding that you do something for them. But if you're not looking to be offended, it can easily be ignored as meaningless small talk. So it seems the real difference is whether or not the victim wants to be offended, rather than whether or not the action is actually offensive. The only exception to this is if you know with a reasonable level of certainty that the statement of smile is said with the talker's benefit in mind. In other words, if what they are really saying with reasonable certainty is smile so you are more pleasant for me to look at then you can be offended because you are being objectified so a reason other than that someone suggested you smile or have a nice day . And I suppose there could be a similar situation with have a nice day if the statement was made because you having a nice day would provide some type of benefit to the person making the suggestion although it wouldn't be specifically objectification the, but just the expectation that you do something for their benefit .","conclusion":"You should not take offense to someone saying \"smile\" to you unless you take equivalent offense to someone saying \"have a nice day\" to you with one exception"}
{"id":"fc62b2e2-4381-4e3b-9f02-8ebe3f001237","argument":"For example The majority of people can see the horrible effects of income disparity and world poverty and hunger. There are simple solutions, and yet none of them happen. I think this is because institutions require this gradient to extract work from humans. It's not that they have consciousness, but it's something akin to a proton pump or sodium potassium channel. They have evolved to maintain this gradient because it's required to compel humans to do work. I think institutions have evolved to have specific ways of putting people in positions where they're pitted against each other to make sure some things happen and other things don't. Not in some social Darwinist way, because societies evolve on a much faster time scale that genetics is too slow to respond to.","conclusion":"Institutions exhibit goal-directed behavior independent of individual humans."}
{"id":"6da3b158-a988-4994-8dd5-00220810b6c9","argument":"Being able to search from their phone is convenient for children always on the go.","conclusion":"Smartphones allow for mobile internet searches that can inform children."}
{"id":"0c4cd7dd-06d1-4876-97b9-7cdf8ce15e39","argument":"Ohio and other states have recently banned abortion after a diagnosis that the child has down syndrome.","conclusion":"Using abortions for genetic selection can be prevented without outlawing abortion."}
{"id":"e6845012-c81f-4200-9115-93d11dc18b06","argument":"The US should only be willing to recognise Palestine as part of a reciprocal recognition of Israel as Jewish by Palestinians. Recognising Palestine unconditionally gives away a valuable bargaining tool the US has to bring Palestine to the negotiating table. Once a Palestinian state is recognised, the Palestinian Authority has little incentive to negotiate.","conclusion":"Palestinians refuse to recognise Israel specifically as a Jewish state; it is therefore hypocritical of them to demand that other actors recognise them as a legitimate state."}
{"id":"22e44e4f-40e6-4c5f-9512-006a587e4106","argument":"Children are taught the difference between a story and fact at early years at home or at school Within stories, they might well be asked 'what would you have done?' ' Does that seem real?","conclusion":"Children are already given critical thinking skills, in age-appropriate ways even if not by overt critical thinking modules ."}
{"id":"1695d5ee-e462-47bd-9c20-daa5631c02c7","argument":"Golden Dawn does not behave as most political parties and their MPs do not behave like politicians. This is because they are not what we would describe as politicians: they are thugs. Emboldened by their MP\u2019s privilege of immunity from prosecution Golden Dawn MP\u2019s have on multiple occasions been involved in public acts of violence. MP Dimitris Koukoutsis is being investigated for an assault in parliament on SYRIZA leftist MP Vasiliki Katrivanou 1, while party spokesman Ilias Kasidiaris assaulted two other MP\u2019s on a chat show broadcasted live on TV 2. Worse still, many of Golden Dawn\u2019s MP\u2019s and members face criminal charges, including Ilias Kasidiaris who is accused of \u2018accessory to robbery, bodily harm and illegal gun possession\u2019 3, although his trial has been postponed on multiple occasions because of his MP\u2019s privileges. Not only does Golden Dawn dislike democratic values, they actively abuse their MP\u2019s privileges and behave unacceptably in a highly public manner towards fellow members of parliament. Party leader and MP Nikos Mihaloliakos has publicly declared that Golden Dawn feel uncomfortable and disgusted in parliament and called upon party members to rally behind them and violently take the struggle out of parliament and onto the streets of Athens. 3 We cannot allow such open criminality and violence to exist in politics and inside the Greek Parliament. They totally lack respect for other politicians and do not participate in an orderly manner expected of Members of Parliament and many of them have committed acts of criminality before even being elected into parliament. These people are not fit to take part in government and provide a horrific example for society. They make a mockery of the political system and disgrace Greek politics and Greece as a whole. They must be banned. 1 Kathimerini: \u201cPanel to probe Parliament attack by Golden Dawn MP\u201d, 29 August 2012, E-Kathimerini, 2 Baboulias, Yiannis: \u201cGreece\u2019s Golden Dawn isn\u2019t a political party \u2013 it\u2019s more like a criminal gang\u201d, 4 September 2012, The Guardian, 3 ibid","conclusion":"Golden Dawn are not a party, they are thugs and criminals"}
{"id":"08e1df87-6eaf-4133-80a1-9391717dd562","argument":"Universal health care generally decreases human misery and increases human welfare. It is, therefore, a social good, not merely an economic good. In general, the ability to afford something does not play a role in whether it is just or not. If there is a conflict between life and money life should prevail because it is a right while money is a want not a need.","conclusion":"Universal health care is a social good, not merely an economic good"}
{"id":"00b373a4-5e27-48d8-a7b3-485256fe5871","argument":"If people know that people who use cannabis for medical purposes can also grow it, they may think that robbing them would be an easy way to get hold of cannabis.","conclusion":"Growing your own cannabis could create trespassing and theft problems."}
{"id":"69c00503-e203-4107-83f0-aac5d3c1cc2b","argument":"Reducing emissions is a good idea, but with the rise of China and India it's going to be impossible to prevent an increase in the use of fossil fuels. The West can't just tell them not to develop or that they can't enjoy the same standard of living we can. I think we need to seriously consider a safe way to counteract climate change industrially, for example by building machines that scrub carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere or by emitting nontoxic gases into the air that cool the planet anti greenhouse gases if you will. I realize there are risks to doing this, but it might be a more realistic way to prevent temperature increases than hoping emissions will fall in the near future. Even if America went 100 percent green tomorrow, it would all be cancelled out and more by increasing emissions in the developing world. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"We should start thinking about a way to fix global warming artificially"}
{"id":"641bc77c-9674-4b0b-82e7-3ffcebb27a31","argument":"All throughout my 20s I looked down on my peers having children and thought they were dumb for throwing away their lives. Now that I am almost 30 I have completely changed my mind. I have been around my nieces and nephews a lot and I absolutely love them and love being around them. I always wanted a career but after going for that and working all throughout my 20s, it just doesn't seem as appealing as it once was to me. I'm fine working at my cushy desk job. And to me, having a career is meaningless without having a family. I'm tired of being the one without kids, going to my friends' kids' birthday parties. I'm tired of going to my nieces recitals and not really being a part of their family or having a family of my own. I would love coming home to see toys all over the floor. I would love feeding a kid, interacting with it, learning from it, putting it to bed, etc Of course there are undesirable things such as cleaning shit and vomit and dealing with tantrums but stuff like that doesn't phase me. Handling a teen would be another story but I still think I could do it. There are things I still haven't done, like travel to certain places, accomplish all of my career goals, but I think I could still do those things with a kid and would probably be even more motivated to advance my career for the benefit of my child. I still have some friends who don't have kids but I have more fun just hanging with my nieces than doing stuff my childless friends enjoy, like going to bars, trying to being cool and feeding your ego. The only thing I would miss is free time to pursue my hobbies. I have a lot of hobbies, like painting, learning guitar, and learning another language that I've never mastered and I always wanted to, but I just never had the time. Plus I don't want to be an old parent and as they say my clock is ticking. Now that I've come full circle and really desire children, I want to know if I'm truly ready for it. Can you change my mind?","conclusion":"I believe it would be awesome to have a child."}
{"id":"e9d5d63c-a617-434d-8b10-d4ea8c7c98d1","argument":"More and more people are enrolled in colleges, but an increasing number of people don't use their degrees in any sort of employment. The number of under employed college graduates grows every year. In the USA, higher education is financed primarily by un dischargeable student loans. Yet, every year, hundreds of thousands of young people flock to colleges and universities. Why? The main draw for these young people is entertainment. College is where you get laid . College is where you party. College is about fun. That is the only real draw. Change my view.","conclusion":"The primary draw for higher education college\/university is the party scene."}
{"id":"1b92c2b0-0388-4e0b-b158-7ce1d67b5915","argument":"Properly joined up IT should include investment in the necessary safeguards against hackers and malware. Some of these will be how we work these systems and who has access to what level. Others will be about the right tech such as encryption and platform security monitoring.","conclusion":"Data protection is just another place where awkward people in awkward systems may inhibit change"}
{"id":"94de886b-5672-4116-90f8-6e83fb98ee6f","argument":"I think that everyone knows what I'm referring to in the title. You see it all over reddit, news articles, daily discussions in person, ect. Someone will posit something to the effect of, I think societys' views on 'X' are 'Y'. For example, you might hear someone say, I think society has a double standard when it comes to male and female beauty standards. I'm not here to argue that point, but rather the way the statement is presented, or anything similar, really. It just doesn't represent anything real to me. You can't pin down society to any one static view and the moment you try, you will be met with a mountain of anecdotal evidence. Basically, I feel it's lazy and ignorant at best and the cynical side of me believes it is used intentionally l, by some, to be vague and misleading about a point that really has no merit.","conclusion":"I believe that the use of the term \"society\" is detrimental to serious discussion of practically any topic."}
{"id":"a1ef9884-701c-4128-9757-07cb8cc4414f","argument":"Euthanasia advocates, having built a case largely on the pain of the terminally ill, respond to the notion of advanced pain treatment by arguing that it is undignified for individuals to be in a \"drugged state\". Yet, a \"drugged state\" can hardly be cited as a sufficient reason for euthanasia. As long as there is no unbearable pain, there is not much of a case for euthanasia.","conclusion":"People should not be euthanized because they are in a \"drugged state\""}
{"id":"b66e4379-4810-45e6-b5a7-49f5d9cd8fd0","argument":"Since Descartes, this supposed truism has seeped into the collective consciousness. I think it's bullshit. Awakeness has a certain qualitative feel, a certain unmistakable vividness and clarity and stability. It's true some dreams can feel real, but they also feel murky and they're governed more by imagination and lizard brain limbic emotions than self reflection and sensory perception. The dream state is rich and fascinating but not very self aware. So that, if you crawled inside someone's dream and asked them, Is this real or are you dreaming? , on some level they'd probably realize they were dreaming. The very question might well jog them out of the dream, sorta like how lights coming on in a movie theater jogs the audience out of their suspension of disbelief . You're as certain you're not dreaming right now as that 2 2 4. And you're right. Not that we couldn't all be Matrix style brains in vats. That's different from dreaming.","conclusion":"All of you reading this know you're not dreaming."}
{"id":"cd4e503e-54c5-4ff4-9248-383741e5a3bd","argument":"Getting by or ahead is an individual challenge, so celebrating national economic success doesn't tell the individual how much of that national success accrued to him. If he owns no stock, record highs every day in the markets won't improve his financial outlook at all.","conclusion":"National economic success is determined by the wrong measurements. Success isn't necessarily GDP growth, unemployment, or new highs in the stock market."}
{"id":"83158b90-5dd1-470d-8ff5-be6afb0e4f40","argument":"The ancient \"science\" of alchemy is known to be inaccurate yet books on the subject grant a glimpse in to the minds of people of that time.","conclusion":"Banning of books that contain information that is currently known to be inaccurate damages the historical record."}
{"id":"92dde346-abcc-40cf-b37b-7ae7aa1cd07e","argument":"I buy something. I should be able to use it however I want, as long as it don't redistribute it or use it to do anything morally objectionable. Simple as that. Or perhaps not?","conclusion":"Removing DRM for personal use should not illegal."}
{"id":"11c3090d-a5e8-46a6-9919-62afb40277ff","argument":"As philosophy was studied as theology, and the Catholic Church was central to every aspect of life, the ability to reason outside of a Christian context in medieval Europe was constrained by the fact no atheist mode of thought was meaningfully available.","conclusion":"Ways of thinking are historically specific: the ability for people to reason ethically is dependent on the modes of thought available to them. It is these shifting modes that determine what is considered moral, not an objective truth."}
{"id":"4f7745a2-08b3-4aaf-b9ec-bb03192ea74f","argument":"With the growing debate, I want to hear from the other side. My Facebook feed is blown up with flak from both sides of the argument, and while I agree with my more left leaning friends, they shut down any conversation about WHY they believe the guys trying to defund PP are wrong My thoughts so far \u2022 They want to defund PP for abortions, but abortions make up a small percent of what PP does, they offer breast cancer exams and other potentially life saving procedures. \u2022 The pro life crowd released several videos that were allegedly edited to show PP conspiring to sell fetuses on a black market. HOWEVER, now they claim that such videos weren't faked. The thing is, so much of this from what I've seen has been based on rumors or are from heavily biased sources. So I want to know the arguments, try to change my view on this. EDIT Started off with a firm stance to keep it funded, at the moment I'm switching to a neutral view and here is why Tax payers who are against abortions are having their tax dollars go to them. That sucks, and I don't think they should really have to do that, however SOMEBODY has to If PP stopped doing abortions and left it to other organizations, the anti abortion groups would just go after them as well, no matter if their money is going to it or not.","conclusion":"Planned Parenthood should NOT be defunded."}
{"id":"7679d85a-116a-4523-82b2-50070c7a9a72","argument":"A Western perspective of other countries can affect what photographs photojournalists choose to take or how they choose to capture events.","conclusion":"The capacity of photojournalists to tell the truth may be affected by their personal biases."}
{"id":"26e41bd6-982d-400f-8474-e5694b5648df","argument":"Yes, and also have a framework set up for how to address it in a constructive way, as in perhaps a signal to use when things are getting triggered, or a time limit on engaging in emotionally charged conversations in one sitting, or a stipulation that neither party will do fill in the blank. cheating, staying out all night, hurting themselves, etc. just because they're in a fight, etc.","conclusion":"You can't envision every potential reason for a conflict, but you can envision a lot of potential problems. And when you encounter a new problem, you can use the experience of the already discussed topics to have a good start to have a constructive conversation."}
{"id":"f37c99b3-4ed9-44e0-a6ef-515e7804ef84","argument":"This could be used as an opportunity to engage the student body in a debate that heals that division, without giving a platform to representatives of abusive discourse.","conclusion":"Conflict should not be seen as intrinsically negative. If managed appropriately, it may reveal unaddressed issues crucial in creating a more tolerant space."}
{"id":"de77228e-8c7e-4d6f-93a0-f90c21809702","argument":"Wheat sourced from the US makes up approximately 40% of all US in-kind food aid. pg.2","conclusion":"It supports US farmers because the US is buying food to send from them."}
{"id":"314b0808-edb4-4be5-be6b-e5c9bfbc9eea","argument":"Immanuel Kant and others have noted the problem of inductive reasoning is that it is deductively invalid. Case in point - all swans were said to be white until a black one was found.","conclusion":"The classical view of science is based on inductive reasoning, or knowledge by observations. Since revelation through different mediums has yet to independently observed, it must be false."}
{"id":"5b14cb7c-a9ff-4110-a187-8bedf34ddbe0","argument":"At present in Britain, some previous convictions may be disclosed if they bear a striking resemblance to the case at trial, if the defendant falsely claims to be of good character, or if they attack the character of a prosecution witness1. However, different judges invariable interpret these criteria in different ways, which leads to a wavering standard of trail where previous convictions may or may not be revealed. It would be much more efficient and transparent to allow this motion and make court procedures more accessible. 1The Economist, \u2018Tilting the balance\u2019, 2 January 2003.","conclusion":"Occasional disclosure of convictions leads to an inconsistent justice system."}
{"id":"8537757c-891a-45d3-8294-76fef55ce59b","argument":"Phytic acid as phytate, is an anti-nutrient present in legumes, a main staple of the Mediterranean diet. In the body, phytic acid heavily binds to essential minerals like iron, calcium, and zinc making them less absorbable in the intestines.","conclusion":"Some nutrients present in some Mediterranean diet-recommended produce are not beneficial for human consumption."}
{"id":"ea8bbad5-1091-41af-beca-14771e4739d0","argument":"By focusing on academic success and quantifiable achievements, tiger parents neglect the development of soft skills.","conclusion":"Tiger parenting harms the ability of children to form meaningful and lasting relationships."}
{"id":"fa31c7ed-6871-4b7e-8e91-08e07e15c683","argument":"Parents have to wake up at odd hours of the night to attend to their young child.","conclusion":"Parents invested their emotional and physical energy while raising children."}
{"id":"4e9e8766-cc7a-46fa-9d82-aa24fbd2b829","argument":"Knowing about convicted pedophiles may lead organizations into a false sense of security regarding as-of-yet undiscovered pedophiles.","conclusion":"Imposing restrictions on convicted child sex offenders can lead to societal complacency regarding these risks."}
{"id":"e6153259-60e4-45eb-a677-2fa231c3f289","argument":"Some of you may not get this, but I have been using Linux as a primary OS for desktops since late 2007. I hold my view because Linux does quite a bit of things Allows for more efficient consumption of power Gives higher performance in general Is a highly valuable learning experience Is in most cases open source, allowing anyone to look at the code their systems use Please change my view.","conclusion":"I believe that Linux is fully ready for the desktop,"}
{"id":"1bb029dd-356c-4512-8838-f3e265634f48","argument":"Hunt has proposed - if he were to succeed in securing party leadership - to set out social care reform plans within 100 days of becoming Prime Minister. This may make him more popular than Johnson amongst any key voter demographic who are at a disadvantage under current Conservative policy.","conclusion":"The policies supported by Hunt are more likely to appeal to key voting demographics than those supported by Johnson."}
{"id":"f981d04e-86c0-4246-913c-ddb43d6bac3a","argument":"As a United States citizen who has lived his whole life here, I've always been confused as to why my country seems to clearly favor Greek mythology over the Norse and Egyptian mythologies. I feel like Greek mythology is so much more ubiquitous in many forms of our culture, to the point where the average American citizen could tell you more about Zeus than, say, Odin or Amon. To me, a lot of this stems from schools. For example, colleges have a huge focus on Greek life, but there is no widespread counterpart for Norse and Egyptian myths. These observations extend to public schooling as well. Greek myth seems to be much more widely taught in public education. For instance, my English 1 teacher spent a whole month analyzing Greek mythology and teaching us all about the various stories and characters. My middle school World Civilization class used Greek mythology to help expand upon ancient Greek societies, but never did such a thing for other early societies. In contrast, I have never been taught, through the American public education system, even one about Norse and Egyptian characters or stories. I may have been taught about vikings and the workers who built the pyramids, but never their beliefs. When I would inquire as to why Greek was always the focus, I would simply be shut down by the teachers. To me, this seems rather absurd because both mythologies are widely studied and respected outside of the education system. Exploring Egyptian dieties is just as valuable, interesting, and complex as Greek dieties in the context of a World History course. Similarly, Norse mythology has had an observable impact on American society i.e. Wednesday is Odin's Day, Thursday is Thor's Day, the mainstream successes of Marvel's Thor and Frozen . I don't say all of this to demean Greek mythology, but simply to state that the relatively immense focus that it gets is unwarranted when there are so many equally valuable stories and characters in Norse and Egyptian mythologies. So I'm asking you all to  because I want to understand why everyone seems to think that Greek mythology is so much more valuable. I would like to know why it's deemed so much more culturally relevant and academically satisfying when compared to Norse and Egyptian mythology, because in my opinion our massive focus on it, which in turn squanders the other two, makes no sense. Thanks Edit Cleaned up some punctuation.","conclusion":"There's no reason why the U.S. education system favors Greek mythology over the Norse and Egyptian mythologies."}
{"id":"602c4467-5f1c-48db-958e-19c61177da2f","argument":"1 Most research suggests these two health conditions are causal high risk health factors. That is, they either directly or indirectly cause symptoms. Being asymptomatic is not necessarily a sign of being healthy. 2 Due to their high risk, the absence of symptoms does not suggest they will or will not cause future symptoms. Statistically speaking, you could die from something else, but this is a slippery slope away from healthy living. 3 Both of these conditions are extremely difficult to kick indeed, for many, are lifelong , and are a battle against genetics and brain chemistry. 4 Both contain components of choice, addiction potential, and genetic predispositions. The main difference people we see these differently is a reaction to a compounding mental health issue of lack of body acceptance e.g. body dysmorphia . The problem with this argument from a utilitarian perspective is that obesity is a far greater danger to public health than body dysmorphia. Corollary but not the primary  General medical doctors should not be afraid to report health concerns incidental to a primary complaint. Bedside manner aside, not reporting someone to be overweight or telling them there are high risks to smoking being overweight would be avoiding their responsibilities as healthcare workers, regardless of the patient's view on the subject. Disclaimers 1 I do not advocate body shaming,socio cultural shame is a large factor in modifying behavior without pharmaceutical surgical intervention. I look at the effects of body shaming as an observer, not as a participant and certainly not as an advocate. Shame has certainly been used as an institutional tool before, however. 2 I personally hold this view, am technically overweight , acknowledge I'm overweight, and am glad if when a doctor tells me I'm overweight. BMI~26.5, not muscular . I don't take offense, but I also don't have people regularly telling me this as some sort of reminder of failure to lose weight. I almost wish I would. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Being healthy and obese is like being a healthy smoker."}
{"id":"5396487b-4807-4563-804a-3e0b852a2aec","argument":"Christian responses to domestic abuse have been catching up to secular standards over the past 40 years. Many pastors had and continue to say that they would never advise a women to leave an abusive husband and many advise forgiveness and enduring. Recently church leaders such as the Pope and bishops have openly condemned this behavior and with more women pastors entering the ranks the responses are finally catching up to secular standards.","conclusion":"Communities and certain identities have been abused, inflicted and killed in the name of religion e.g. murder of LGBTQ, abuse of disabled children, removal of freedoms for women, child marriages, etc."}
{"id":"d48111d8-feb5-491c-98da-7157acb59dcf","argument":"Surveys emphasize that the support for a two-state solution would probably be at more than 70% in case of a referendum, as about a quarter of the population usually states that they are undecided or unsure INSS, p. 2","conclusion":"Even though the current Israeli government is not negotiating, the Israeli public supports the establishment of a Palestinian state - even if safeguards need to be established e.g. a multinational security force."}
{"id":"02fa802d-abae-4ca1-8f2f-28e42eabfe86","argument":"In recent years, countries such as New Zeeland, Australia depending on the region, Austria, Canada, Colombia, Denmark, Germany, Greece or France have legalised sex work even though soliciting or procuring is in most still illegal.","conclusion":"However, there has been a trend worldwide towards the legalisation of regulated sex work."}
{"id":"b7e26638-c4c8-42a4-9e0a-4defe2e11e8e","argument":"Obviously I think that killing is a terrible thing, and I really want it all to stop. But sometimes, I feel like there will no no end unless we put a stop to the source of it violent people, rapists, terrorists, racists, etc. I don't see how these types of people could in anyway benefit society, or the human race, so if theoretically we exterminated them all, wouldn't we start to see improvement in the world? 99 of people that I've ever interacted with have been friendly, normal human beings. When I hear news about events like what happened in Orlando, it makes me wonder would things like that even happen, if say, we got rid of violent people that held unreasonable prejudices like the man who killed all of those innocent people? Obviously, there is room for people to change their ways but I feel like if someone is willing to kill for their own selfish beliefs, there is not fixing them. Further more, there have been pastors saying that these recent killings were actually a good thing, and that they wished more had been murdered. These pastors are doing nothing more than spreading hate speech and inciting violence, so wouldn't our society be better off if we just got rid of them? TLDR I feel like the world would be a better place if we killed off the tiny, tiny percentage of people who exist purely to spread hate and violence Rapists, paedophiles, murderers, violent racists, etc . .","conclusion":"The world would be a better place without hateful, violent people."}
{"id":"92872b34-9412-4ec7-a3a4-9060463859cf","argument":"It would force the state to assure the good education of its populace, since its stability would depend on the civic intelligence of its people.","conclusion":"This could significantly enhance the civics education of the national population."}
{"id":"6603113d-6398-4393-852f-d28879e0961a","argument":"If vacancies on the Supreme Court were more common, each would be less valuable, and there would be less reason to spend political and other capital fighting over them.","conclusion":"The slow turnover rate of the lifetime appointment system drives up the stakes of each individual confirmation battle and makes them more intense and polarizing"}
{"id":"097bc272-1396-4e2d-97d9-936c4c0ed638","argument":"This is more so I can gain a little more knowledge and be brought back down to earth. But my reason for why California should secede is because they're growing increasingly progressive, liberal and diverse demographically and shouldn't be stifled by the desires of middle america and Florida. We have the 6th largest economy in the world. We have a growing solar green industry, booming tech industry, and entertainment. We produce the world's leading fruit, vegetable and nuts. Though, I'm assuming those industries would stay . California also has a larger population than all of Canada and a land mass comparable to Japan. California also subsidizes the rest of the country by 16 billion dollars. By doing away with federal taxes and increasing state taxes we can pay less and get more in return. We also have the infrastructure to support our own military having the most naval bases in the US. We also have all the ports for trading. Because California would be somewhat densely populated we would also have the infrastructure for a single payer health system. The only thing we dont have, is water. Lol.","conclusion":"California should secede from the union."}
{"id":"9f9753a1-5e19-4385-9800-2c38d0d76d8c","argument":"Evolution works by one generation passing on beneficial traits to offspring and then dying with traits that were detrimental. This way, bad traits disappear and good traits appear stay with that species. If the human species becomes immortal we will not be able to get rid of possibly detrimental traits.","conclusion":"Human biological evolution would likely slow down or come to a halt."}
{"id":"efffc44d-f979-44e1-bafe-99a7a58c4321","argument":"Every single time I see someone use the word pretentious , it's as a tool to stifle discussion. The implicit accusation is that a person is claiming importance or merit that one doesn't have simply by stating an opinion. When someone has an out of the box idea, however, it's of course going to sound pretentious because its value hasn't been accepted by the mainstream. If an idea needs immediate mainstream acceptance to demonstrate value, then I question its value as an innovation. I've heard people accused of pretension just for having the guts to do something extraordinary. But then again, extraordinary feats require extraordinary beliefs.","conclusion":"People who accuse others of pretentiousness are smug and boorish philistines that use the word to dismiss unconventional ideas"}
{"id":"30022cb8-0b34-4214-a048-ff35c88e9c1c","argument":"As mentioned in the title, I am currently living in London, UK and am 31 years old and have lived there for 27 years of my life. I worked in investment banking for 4 years after university at LSE, but found the work too boring and risk averse. After 4 years in M A, I saved up enough money to start an online business that is now flourishing and that doesn't require my physical presence in any one country. I decided to spend the last 18 20 months to travel around the world. I spent 3 months of that in Moscow. I liked the city and its overall vibe much more than London, Paris or North America. I personally find most Western countries too socialistic and more akin to a retirement home. x200B Should I move to Moscow or not? Is Russia really fucked up?","conclusion":"I am moving to Moscow, Russia"}
{"id":"1baf5cbb-b05b-4b8a-aba5-3c8f41c930c6","argument":"This would probably mean a dam on the Shoalhaven River which would not only be expensive and energy intensive because of the pumping that would be required, but would also be environmentally undesirable, as would the alternative of raising the level of the Warragamba Dam.","conclusion":"For example, the population issues committee of Australia estimates that new sources of water will have to be found early next century if increases in population and use of water per person in the Sydney area continue to grow as they have been."}
{"id":"5b4771f2-1ea4-463c-9643-ea909602b17c","argument":"A recent  thread seems to be filled with people with no socio linguistics training pulling out weak arguments. For example gt You might get a good answer to this through linguistic anthropology. The Sapir Whorf hypothesis, or linguistic relativity, is the theory that the language you learn and grow up speaking affects the way you think. Except you can't. If you looked into it, there is no consensus regarding the hypothesis. Likewise, even if the hypothesis became widely accepted, any connection between gender pronouns and such linguistic relativity would have to studied further before any kind of good answer can come out. Meanwhile OP doesn't know any better about the subject. Everyone loses. Likewise, we can extend this society. Everybody has an opinion on economics, but they rarely have true knowledge about how 1 the system s work s or 2 whether any of their opinion has been subject to study, and what the results of those studies were. People somehow think they have the right to make wide assertions about society and distribution of wealth when they really know almost nothing. I think it's OK for people to make simple assertions about academic topics, or to hold an opinion. You could say, well generally if supply increases and demand goes down, then prices will go down, or you can say I'm a descriptivist . But I don't agree that people can assert this is the answer to complex academic question without having a good background in the subject. Please . It's not relevant where the line is drawn between complex and simple questions. My view only applies to complex questions.","conclusion":"I don't think average Joes can provide satisfactory answers to complex academic questions."}
{"id":"6a01dab9-7861-464d-b969-da1799f93c6c","argument":"The British are most likely expecting many escaped slaves to die in the hostile environment without anyone knowing about their fate.","conclusion":"The information and communication technology of the eighteenth century British colonies will make it difficult to monitor us."}
{"id":"7fa6e9b9-4457-40a1-94e8-5989a9d83bcc","argument":"Every other western nation, from the United Kingdom to Germany to Israel to Australia has enacted gun control legislation. The rate of gun violence is higher in the United States. American Journal of Medicine, page 6","conclusion":"Many nations with lower rates of crime have used legislation to ban guns."}
{"id":"04f7f549-5462-45d3-a9db-e7a7a86a4fcf","argument":"The #MeToo movement has forced the people responsible for harassment to face public shame and has changed society for the better because of it.","conclusion":"Shame provides a useful tool to teach people right from wrong"}
{"id":"14456fbf-165a-40e4-89c4-d4a603c0d2ed","argument":"After all streamers are nearly always very charismatic people that you will enjoy watching and listening to, no matter what.","conclusion":"Many viewers are pulled along by their favorite streamer's passion and enthusiasm for the game."}
{"id":"d089d30a-62c9-4cd0-a2bb-0e35245e00ae","argument":"Humans are a destructive self centred species that has had nothing but a negative effect on the environment. If humans weren't around here is what would be different Most of the species that have gone extinct due to human interference whether direct or indirect would potentially be prosperous today The world would not be faced with climate change due to us putting carbon into the atmosphere Earth's natural beauty would have been preserved because deforestation and housing would not exist. I believe that consciousness was an evolutionary mistake and that every human should go away so that the Earth and its other inhabitants can recover from the blight of humanity.","conclusion":"Humanity is the most destructive species on Earth and we should collectively go extinct."}
{"id":"5dba14fd-70a7-443e-9c00-d170dfdb413e","argument":"I am talking about if a country's majority population wants to ban homosexuality, they have the right to. If more than 50 of US voted for banning gay marriage, the supreme court doesn't have any right to overturn it. Also, if English people want to remove immigrants, then that should be done, similarly, any country should be run the way its people want it to be. Why are a few things sacred and not subject to vote. You might as well say that a party is the best for the country, so you wont be allowed to choose who is in your government. If you don't agree with the majority view, you can leave, or you can just stay there and bear it, because your needs don't outweigh the needs of the majority.","conclusion":"I believe what the majority wants for their country is what should be enacted by their government."}
{"id":"b251e15f-9dbb-476e-8fe7-f622f774f325","argument":"So I see a lot, that if a woman hits a man, there will be always someone saying, just imagine if the situation was reversed dude that woman would get a beat down Let me make it clear that I 100 agree that women hitting men is JUST as bad as men hitting women. I do agree. But I also think it's sexist to see us all as all the same . Yes, a woman gets away with hitting a man a little more often because generally, they just haven't inflicted or cannot inflict as much damage weapons aside . The fact is, average man is stronger than average woman. No matter how strong average woman is, average man can pin her down if he wants. So why always the need to point out if it were reversed because the situations are not literally identical and then just gender flipped, in my opinion there is more difference than that.","conclusion":"It's just as sexist not to acknowledge, that the outcome of a man hitting a woman is probably going to be worse than vice versa, as it is to say that women can hit men but not vice versa."}
{"id":"82b3c046-ff4a-467e-9859-d14eef37a0c8","argument":"Donald Trump recently claimed that up to 3 million illegal immigrants cast votes in the 2016 election, constituting massive voter fraud and unfair influence on the presidential election. The media coverage of this issue that I have heard has repeatedly emphasized that there is no evidence, or that Trump has not provided any, or that these claims have been debunked, though I think it's too early for the specific claims of voter fraud occurring in the 2016 election to be debunked completely. I have not seen any convincing evidence that voter fraud is occurring on the massive scale that president elect Donald Trump claims. On the other hand, if this is true, I'd like to know.","conclusion":"massive voter fraud did not occur in the 2016 US presidential election"}
{"id":"d0a63eae-3e97-4816-94e4-44041373749a","argument":"In the US, every state I am aware of describes congressional districts by number. So for instance, someone living in southeastern Wisconsin and represented by Speaker Paul Ryan would be in Wisconsin's 1st Congressional district. In contrast, Canada and the United Kingdom describe legislative districts by name. So someone living in Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's electoral district would be in the Papineau riding in Montreal. I think giving place names to districts would make it substantially harder to gerrymander them. It would be difficult if not impossible to give a plausible place name to something like North Carolina's 12th district or Texas' 35th district. These districts confine themselves to no reasonable geographic or commonsense area, and giving them a place name would make it meaningfully harder to effectively gerrymander, because it would be too politically difficult to justify or explain the districts when people had to call them by name. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Congressional districts should be required to have names, not numbers."}
{"id":"a9961c0c-f167-4ac8-8225-8f265be1087c","argument":"Forcing a person to utter a word that one does not wish to utter is tantamount to forcing such person to endorse another person's thought. This would be a serious breach of the laws of nature.","conclusion":"Mandatory pronouns go against the concept of freedom of speech."}
{"id":"33de9805-2042-4a6a-990f-1b49f28c5605","argument":"According to a study cheerleading causes the highest rate of catastrophic injury severe injury to the spine, spinal cord or brain for females, accounting for 66% of all such injuries.","conclusion":"Cheerleading routines especially those in competitive cheerleading, include lots of running, jumping, being thrown in the air and flipping. This can result in serious medical injuries."}
{"id":"7e017c8d-6bd9-425f-bf62-e6d14efd3be2","argument":"I should probably explain. In my reading of campaign financing in the USA, most to avoid over extending of the funds are spent on valid costs. These might include advertising fees, consulting somewhat open to interpretation , travel costs, paying staffers, etc. etc. Super PACs, and similar organizations, also tend to use funds in similar ways. The reason politicians are swayed by large money donors is that they are a single person who can give them a substantial person, and in some cases it is a set of substantial persons. And this is key, it\u2019s not as though the money is being used as a direct bribe, rather the money serves to allow a candidate to be re elected. Of course, there are likely benefits that are associated with the office that are not in the official job description, but that is not too relevant. So in the end, all that money is being used to persuade voters, not for some other sinister or personally selfish motivation. Voters still decide if the wo man on TV gets elected. But, surely this would mean that politicians would care about what people thought and vote according to their preferences? Nah, politicians at least competent career politicians know that many people are vulnerable to logical fallacies, sophistry, etc. etc. as long as certain \u201ckey\u201d issues are dealt with. This leaves the politicians at the mercy of large donor interests, which are actively evaluating and observing the performance of politicians. This ensures that they vote in accordance with the money. So, what is the problem? Most people say it is a problem with campaign finance, but I disagree. At the end of the day, the problem lies with education and culture. If people had a half decent education and were taught to care about the \u201cright\u201d things, view things critically, etc. then if each presidential campaign party spent 5 billion it really wouldn\u2019t affect your voting behaviour. At the end of the day, you would set aside 5 10 hours in an election year, utilize the miracle that is the internet, and do your best to get a comprehensive view of a politician and their party. This would include doing your best to find solid information sources, and try to examine even your favoured candidate in an even and fare manner. For example I have relatives in California that run their family similar to how I\u2019ve idyllically described and, possibly as a result, are now composed of 1 republican, 3 democrats and an anarchist for want of a better term . If you were to talk each of these people you\u2019d find that they\u2019d at least have a comprehensive understanding of the day\u2019s politics, and evaluate their candidates with a consistent system that is reasonably honest. If we simply claim that the problem lies with campaign financing, we ignore the deeper problem. The average US citizen really is not a fit voter. Of course saying this would ensure you couldn\u2019t get elected, so there\u2019s that. First , so giddy right nowXD.","conclusion":"The problem with US elections isn\u2019t campaign financing, its education\/culture."}
{"id":"d843d1dd-004d-46a4-b2f8-26fa0420722b","argument":"I strongly agree with Ludwig Wittgenstein that the term game has no concrete definition. Instead it refers to things that are connected by a series of overlapping similarities, where no one feature is common to all. I want my view changed because the world would be a simpler place if words were to have concrete defections. Otherwise other more complex terms would also fall prey to being family resemblance terms. For example sport, free will, god, etc But let's stick with the term game for the purposes of this thread. How to change my view 1 Present a definition of the word game that I would not be able to provide counterexamples to. 2 Some other philosophical linguistic argument that discredits the idea of family resemblance terms.","conclusion":"I don't think the term \"game\" has a concrete definition."}
{"id":"00efeac9-c0c9-4691-9fa4-9b9657ac7545","argument":"One major benefit of legalizing marijuana would be allowing the United States government to spend a dramatically lower amount of time, energy, and resources on the war on drugs. It is increasingly expensive to keep drugs off the street, and even to keep people in prison. On top of that, 88 of the 8.2 million arrests in the United States between 2001 and 2010 were related to possession of marijuana ACLU . Legalizing marijuana would get rid of the need for that spending, allow law enforcement to concentrate their efforts on protecting public safety, and open space in overcrowded prisons for more dangerous and violent offenders. Not only will spending be reduced, but a proper regulation, possibly similar to that of alcohol and tobacco, would create job opportunities and open up a new market for an industry that is already in demand. A main reason for making drugs illegal is commonly health related. Marijuana, in particular, is a drug that is not lethal by overdosing, unlike already legal drugs including alcohol or prescription drugs. Approximately 88,00 deaths in the United States each year are alcohol related CDC , and none directly related to marijuana overdose. Studies have shown that marijuana leads to dependence in only 9 of adult users, and that people who use marijuana before harder drugs is more often a case of correlation than of causation Huffington Post . Like any drug, marijuana has capacity to be dangerous. I don\u2019t think that it is necessarily healthy to be high all of the time, and I definitely don\u2019t advocate for driving while under the influence of marijuana. That being said, the United States holds freedom as a protected value. The negative impacts of marijuana on health are not dangerous enough to let the government decide for its citizens if they should smoke or not. People should have the right to chose whether or not they want to smoke marijuana, and not have to worry about being taken to jail. If alcohol, a potentially dangerous substance, but safe in moderation, is legal in the United States, there is no reason why marijuana should not be legal as well.","conclusion":"The use of recreational marijuana should be legal in all 50 states."}
{"id":"2c2ae4c9-70df-4776-89fc-1133e132997b","argument":"I am a gay man in my late 20's and for the sake of a full disclosure, I am primarily sexually attracted to young, to mid teens. Having said this, I completely agree with the age of consent laws in my country and would never try to engage in physical sexual conduct with anyone under the age of consent which is 16 . Despite my sexual preference, my view isn't informed by my wishful thinking, but by my experience of being hit on constantly by young to mid gay teens. Had this not been my experience, I would have thought that there would be very few teenagers who would want to have sex with older guys, but I have met and talked to a lot of teenagers who express a very strong preference for guys who are 20 , anywhere up to about 50. Now, since the age of consent in my country and many others is 16, there is obviously nothing illegal about such relationships, but i'm writing this to express my view in challenge of the social taboo. For the sake of my view, I believe it goes without saying that such a relationship is only acceptable when both parties consent, since without consent it would obviously be rape. I would love to hear what people have to say and am happy to change my view if someone can present a convincing argument.","conclusion":"I don't believe there is anything wrong with an adult of any age having sex with a consenting 16 year old, in a country where the age of consent is 16."}
{"id":"26e8d2f8-78a8-457a-b06e-21e72444719f","argument":"Many women in the business sphere may come from the same type of background in terms of race and class, and be similarly educated, which means they may not bring particularly diverse perspectives.","conclusion":"Diversity in gender does not necessarily mean diversity in perspectives."}
{"id":"a8874f0c-aa81-4515-b63e-5cb791d7b6bf","argument":"So many of our American problems would go away if we put a concerted effort into being more localist The federal government having economic and especially social control over the rest of the country is terrible and it creates unrest and polarization. When 51 of a nation is able to force their will on the 49 , that's a problem. When you have to send in lobbyist to the federal government to make sure your interest aren't ignored in favor of others, that's a problem. When the federal government can make social laws that effect all of society and our culture, that's a problem. Why can't we just say something like if California wants to legalize gay marriage fine, if Utah doesn't fine, if Minnesota wants to take their government out of marriage completely fine, if some other state wants to do something else whatever just pay your federal taxes. Or if Oregon wants to institute socialist policies fine, if Kansas wants to institute a more capitalist system fine, if Washington wants to do whatever fine just pay your federal taxes. Or if Nevada wants a Grecian democracy fine, if Nebraska wants a monarch fine, if New Jersey wants a republic fine, if New York wants an Aristocracy fine just send representatives to the Senate and the House. If Connecticut wants the strictest gun laws ever that don't infringe on the 2nd amendment fine. If Texas wanted the most lax gun laws ever fine whatever happens is Texas' problem. If Arizona wanted to lie somewhere in between fine. Let the states deal with whatever the consequences are for their laws. If Mississippi wants to provide state not federal gov funded social programs to people fine. If Georgia doesn't fine don't stay in Georgia if you're poor. If Alabama wants to allow non profits to undertake the task of servicing the poor for the state fine. This should go right down to the cities and neighborhoods Chicago wants a family dynasty in power instead of a mayor? Fine. Los Angeles wants workers to decide things instead of a mayor? Fine. New York City wants to be governed by an aristocracy? Fine. Oak Street says no porn on their street fine don't like it go to another neighborhood. Main Street says they want a debauch paradise fine don't like that don't live on or take your kids to Main Street. 1st Street doesn't like pitbulls fine don't live there with your pitbull. That kinda thing provides more power to the people anyway because they have way more power over their state and municipal governments, than the federal, in which their opinion is nothing if it doesn't fall in line with that of the ruling party. Why can't we just say people should live in societies that suit them and their values, have it so, and not have people trying to act like everyone should value the same things all the time and everything should suit everyone always. Why do we have to pressure states to succumb to outside values and look down at Texas, Oklahoma, or whatever the state was for not liking gay marriage? Why can't we just let people be and live in and maintain societies that they're comfortable with? In that scenario, if you don't like the policies, the people, the culture, or whatever in a state you go to one that suits you better. Now, American states are almost culturally and legally homogenous. Why can't we just let states and municipalities do whatever suits their people and values best as long as they pay their taxes, send in reps, and don't try to secede? Why is the federal government trying to make states' decisions for them and why do so many Americans act like they like this? Why does it make some people feel self righteous to infringe on others population's will in places where they don't even live?","conclusion":"America should be more localist and respectful for state's rights and the societies the people wish to live in - people should be able to \"customize\" their local communities."}
{"id":"4a40d9f8-c59d-4a32-94e6-ec711d47492f","argument":"Regular participation in democratic processes within a company is likely to create a culture of democratic participation and incentivise companies to educate their workers on democratic processes. This is likely to engender greater democratic participation outside the company as well.","conclusion":"The worker cooperative promotes democratic participation and education in running a business for the workers."}
{"id":"cc33b039-2ca0-481a-a335-07549aa7e4ff","argument":"I am making this post because I saw this video will get Donald Trump elected on YouTube, and a thread on r askreddit about Trump yesterday. Preface I do not agree with all of Trump's policy, but this is not an argument of policy. Many people believe that Donald Trump is every ist and phobe in the book, in addition to a narcissist and overall asshole. I do not, for these reasons His personality in interviews from the 1970s until the election and interviews since. He seems like a nice guy in them. Stories told by those in the aforementioned reddit thread. They generally describe someone who is kind to his employees and those around him. Obama says he's a nice guy. All publicity is good publicity I believe that during the campaign, Trump used this policy to garner attention in the media, even it it meant saying stuff he didn't personally believe. He has never said anything actually racist. Illegal immigrant and Muslim refugee are not races. If he hates women, why did he let one run his campaign? That's what I can think of for now. I look forward to discussing this Edit I would like to reiterate that my intention is to discuss Trump's interactions with individuals rather than the endlessly rehashed controversies spawned during the election. I feel foolish for having been roped into trying to justify Trump as a whole. I will only discuss Trump in relation to his kindness as a person. Anything related to his beliefs and policies will be ignored. Controversies and scandals will also be ignored.","conclusion":"Donald Trump is actually a genuinely nice guy and his campaign was a show, thus not a real indicator of his true personality."}
{"id":"02809fda-f13d-4c62-a071-4fe1e528fe53","argument":"Some time back I posted a  on free speech limitations which was caused by my outrage on safe spaces. The  was defeated by primitive argumentation which can be attributed to my partial rage during the writing phase of the . Right now I was about to write a raging  about the idiocy of No tolerance policies on reddit. guess who got banned from a sub for saying haha I figured since there is no real gain in any debate on whether this is a good idea because I am not willing to change my view when enraged I thought my raging anger could be used proactively. thus this I think my reactionary  attempts are just a cover for my personal failings to accept reality in its given form and adapt appropriately. Everyone has problems being honest about their flaws and mistakes but when enraged by something very personal I try to seek the mistakes in other people to cover up for my own flaws. I think it is not only bad to try doing those s but also bad to try having other people wasting their time trying to explain me set of arguments that are meaningless for me when enraged. Making reactionary s is inherently stupid. Making raging arguments for a cause that is only tangential to your real issues can be meaningless. Making people waste time on reactionary s is not only wasting their and my time but defeats the purpose of the  because it cannot hold its very premise. And merry Christmas everyone.","conclusion":"My reactionary 's are a bad attempt at covering my own flaws"}
{"id":"2d001427-4001-4ea4-b036-deeb94a6aa72","argument":"I have almost died on more than one occasion. At no point have I felt or thought that there could be more than what is here. I was raised Catholic, and even in my earliest memories of understanding the concept of life after death I never believed or saw how that could ever be a possibility. It really boggles my mind that the vast majority of the human race believes in some form of an afterlife. I imagine most do but I really wonder what percentage of people truly believe in it and what percent are just hoping for the best. It would be interesting to me to see a study where people that self report belief in an afterlife are hooked up to polygraph and asked which of the following statements most accurately reflects their true beliefs on the afterlife There is definitely an afterlife. I am not sure if there is an afterlife but I would like to think their is. I guess there is a part of me that thinks that people are lying to themselves or just engaging in wishful thinking and know it but refuse to admit it to anyone including themselves. Again not everyone but a decent enough percentage maybe 10 to 25 percent. Flipping that around perhaps my belief that there is no afterlife is not based on a firm foundation and would not stand up to scrutiny. I am open to hearing any rational argument for life after death. Edit I am not sure what I was hoping for, maybe documented phenomena that might cause one to think that their might be an afterlife. Or a challenge to my other view in the form of a study on the percentage of people that say they believe in the afterlife and actually mean it. Or reports that dispute the link between mind and brain which forms the basis of my belief I suppose my view is probably as stated by those who responded a derivation of the the whole is there a god or soul and my view is defined by the idea that the mind is linked to the brain and no afterlife or consciousness is possible without it. In any event I appreciate the arguments and ideas put forth and acknowledge that it is hard to find evidence that life after death exists. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"This is it. This is all we get. There is no afterlife."}
{"id":"a474b7d4-5c0f-4d1b-8ff8-6bb4f0de6688","argument":"Up until then, the US, as a whole, excelled at big, historic projects Hoover Dam, transcontinental railroad, interstate road system, etc. Granted, we don't need to build those types of things much anymore but apart from a few things like the internet and International Space Station I think it's fair to say that we no longer dream big and build big. Even the internet is headed for possible trouble. I would say most of the reason for that is our hugely corrupt government, massive military spending, oversees interfering and the general partisanship between our people. That and I think we are experiencing the fallout from the past where everyone HAD to be a college graduate and nobody wanted to work a real job so now we have outsourced all of our labor to immigrants and all of our manufacturing to China leaving us fairly hamstrung in a sense. I am 43 years old and can tell a difference even from when I was a kid. Just some highly uneducated thoughts. Thinking more along of the lines of industry and not socially.","conclusion":"It's my perception that the US, as a great country, peaked literally when we first landed on the moon in 1969."}
{"id":"0c9870eb-77cf-462c-9ac3-98e1e8048122","argument":"None of the suggested reforms address the issue of 300+ million privately owned firearms already in circulation with no government registry of who owns them. Removing that many guns from a civilian population has never been done in history. It seems highly unlikely that such an attempt would be successful.","conclusion":"Guns will always be a feature of US society so we should aim at protecting against them rather than regulating them."}
{"id":"1fc8db3e-502d-485e-b6ee-f217f77db8d7","argument":"Airbnb's monetary value on paper is second only to Marriott International among traditional hospitality competitors.","conclusion":"Airbnb constitutes an overwhelming source of threatening competition for the hotel and lodging industry."}
{"id":"c5504577-d1b1-42d4-b1bc-d9cb28b6b1f5","argument":"I often hear religious rhetoric respect our beliefs . Why? I could respect you but why should your beliefs be respected at all? And is it reasonable to expect that they not be challenged? Of course, this goes for any belief people hold on to. I'm not sure this is different enough from my other question of nothing being sacred, but I think it is at the least phrased differently enough to merit a rerun.","conclusion":"I only believe it is important to respect you. I don't think your beliefs deserve as much, if any respect at all."}
{"id":"7ba87358-c3c3-4806-9ef8-b5fd051b20ed","argument":"This may demonstrate a fundamental lack of cultural roots in Islamic societies for the notion of democracy. Such cultural roots are often considered essential for the emergence of true democracy in a country. , for example, argues in Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy that the emergence of a strong Democratic culture depends on the existence of a kind of democratic culture that relies on such concepts as civic engagement of its members.","conclusion":"\"Democracy\" was not a word in any of the Muslim languages until the 1890s."}
{"id":"eff4dfe3-0e73-42a5-8fa4-75dae12027bd","argument":"Scientists can compare the relative sizes of the Earth and the Sun without getting confused by the fact that the Sun is hotter than the Earth, or concluding that the size difference must therefore be greater than what is physically measured.","conclusion":"A second point of reference isn't necessary to determine what is being measured."}
{"id":"9c366b19-76e3-4488-93ed-564deb70381a","argument":"There will come a time when the only way to learn about a culture is through documentation like in textbooks and museums, just like how many ancient civilizations are known these days rather than the people in it. Thus, we should focus on these forms of documenting while cultures are still around instead of their inevitable threats.","conclusion":"Veganism is not the largest threat to culture. Cultural beliefs and practices are getting lost anyway to modernism, so the veganism conflict with cultures would not happen anyway in the future."}
{"id":"3b7e2c5c-35d8-45d6-b024-4d116cde3cd3","argument":"Religion tried to play with the monopoly of knowledge, and taught people from a christian church point of view and banned the books that said the opposite.","conclusion":"Religion has a history of monopolizing education and knowledge limiting the perspectives one can be exposed to making them easier to control."}
{"id":"ea168090-6c20-40cd-8a95-384fda4e2514","argument":"There is a large power imbalance between sex workers and police, given the latter has discretion on their prosecution.","conclusion":"When sex work is illegal, sex workers are particularly vulnerable to abuse by law enforcement."}
{"id":"0e1a14cd-ad4d-4eb1-9bf1-30f4b1d6417c","argument":"As an amateur, it isn't guaranteed they'll make the kind of money needing financial guidance.","conclusion":"As an amateur, they do not have the same financial guidance as a professional."}
{"id":"8fcd68e2-4a23-48b4-9a22-452c7e2c9642","argument":"Maghreb cuisine is reportedly highly reputable among the upper-class of Paris, featured on culinary blogs particularly for its exquisite and, by chance, vegetarian cous cous dishes.","conclusion":"There is no necessary correlation between a particular cuisine, restaurant or dish's level of prestige and whether it includes meat or not."}
{"id":"0447d29c-3cb2-4cf4-9c33-aa074d6147b0","argument":"Reforming the UN Security Council is very difficult as no one can agree which new powers deserve representation, whether they should have a veto, and even whether permanent membership should continue to exist in any form. Japan and India seem obvious candidates for permanent status, but their candidacies are fiercely opposed by a variety of other Asian countries, while Nigeria and Egypt both feel they have a good claim to an \"African\" seat. The EU also considers it deserves a separate place. Furthermore Brazil as a very fast developing country and turning into a world power claims it also has a right in the UNSC as a permanent member. All these different demands opinions make an eventual reform or expansion of the UNSC very hard to achieve.","conclusion":"A UNSC reform is very hard to achieve due to the many different interests and demands."}
{"id":"12813f3d-30ce-48cc-a344-924b60762918","argument":"Former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, Hugo Black has argued that the public has the right to have the character of their president or a potential presidential candidate held up for a complete scrutiny. The psychiatric underpinnings of irresponsible and reckless statements are an essential part of the process by which voters inform themselves of the qualities of their potential president.","conclusion":"The American public has a right to medical and psychiatric knowledge about Trump."}
{"id":"102ac1d2-631b-436c-b899-fb55d9626d5d","argument":"The High Representative will not only act as a spokesman for EU nations when they agree on foreign policies, but will act as a catalyst around which external policy will increasingly become coordinated. By chairing meetings of EU foreign ministers, he or she will be able to shape the agenda and influence the outcomes of meetings, encouraging member states increasingly to think in terms of common foreign policy positions. They will have added authority from their ability to speak for the EU in the UN Security Council. The High Representative will also direct the EU\u2019s new External Action Service, which brings together policy specialists from both the Council and Commission in a unique manner. With representatives all over the world the EU will develop a foreign service capable of creating and articulating policy positions in a manner that few national governments can match. Over time this will promote the evolution of a true EU foreign and security policy, and will contribute significantly to increased European consciousness among EU citizens and further moves to political unity.","conclusion":"The High Representative will not only act as a spokesman for EU nations when they agree on foreign p..."}
{"id":"51903749-465f-49b6-bb83-6c15bdd53de3","argument":"Discarting obvious physical limitations, I truely believe that I would never be able to do that therefore I won't bother is not a valid argument. A good example of this would be at my last workplace, where they were supposed to recruit perfectly bilingual people but ended up recruting many people, specially French, that only spoke their native language. Included in their contract was an obligation to learn English, at least to a communication level. Almost none actually learned anything and I was often asked by management to translate text or speech . Whilst I wasn't bother at all by that, it irks me that the people who were recrutied on the basis that they would invest time and effort refused to do it and circlejerked. Comments like what do I even need English for? or well, if they want to deal with us they need to learn French were common place. Simply put if I, a relatively normal bloke, managed to learn a bunch of language I see no reason someone who wants or agrees to can't do it. I have no problem with people not wanting to do something they find hard, but claiming to want and even signing a promise to do so and then saying they can't do it because it's too hard whilst millions did it's just, forgive the expression, bullsh t.","conclusion":"I believe that if I managed to do something then anyone can do it to."}
{"id":"0631b26f-0d83-4014-8a5d-8227358d6e13","argument":"Some advancements in computer mouse technology have been practical for majority of users, for example replacing mouse ball with optical. Wireless mouse, on the other hand, is mainly technology for the sake of it. Wireless mouse can be advantageous over wired mouse in some situations, but the majority of desktop pc users it is more trouble than it's worth Workstations are, in the majority of cases, accomodating for wired mouse. It is not a common situation that a user will be controlling a workstation PC from across the room. Wireless mice require batteries, recharging, and replacement. All overhead which wired mouse do not need. Wireless mice require pairing and occasional re pairing with the PC, especially if they are Bluetooth, this is an overhead which wired mice do not need. Easy to lose parts the mice which come with little USB dongles, this piece is easily lost, and your mouse is useless without it. The case for buying wireless mice that I have heard have appealed to emotion. It's the future , wired means old, wireless means new , as opposed to rational explanations. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Most users of wireless computer mice would be better to have a wired mouse"}
{"id":"049d9839-4dcc-4bd0-a142-d16f32c328ce","argument":"Let me preface this by saying that I support anybody who would like to embody any sex gender role they can possibly imagine. Are you a man who wants to dress like a woman? I love you. Are you a woman who wants to bench press 400lbs and be the sole breadwinner of your household? I love you. Are you a trans person who wants to dress as a dragon? I love you. However, I don't support the idea of a man woman claiming to really me a woman man on the inside. Someone born into the world as a man has absolutely no idea what it means to truly be a woman. Someone born as a man cannot do anything more than try to imagine the biological, mental, and behavioral characteristics associated with women. They can extrapolate and emulate, but that's as far as I can see it. To me it is like a blind person trying to tell me what a cloud looks like. They can do their best based on what they have heard or been told about clouds, but since they have never seen a cloud, they cannot really tell me what it looks like beyond a generalization. To reiterate if you are a man who wants to act like what your idea of a woman is, I am totally OK with that. However, I do not believe you when you claim to be a woman on the inside, because I believe that only a woman can truly know what it means to be a woman. I am really interested on hearing alternate viewpoints. This is a very hard topic to talk about in real life, because I find that people react very viscerally. I would love to hear your view.","conclusion":"I believe that a man claiming to be a \"woman on the inside\" is just as absurd as a white person claiming to be \"an African American on the inside.\""}
{"id":"d377b157-daab-435c-a7c4-451e5a1b3643","argument":"Jannie Ligons had an oral rape exam conducted by a SANE nurse and it showed no evidence of sexual assault.","conclusion":"Out of 17 alleged crime scenes, there is no forensic evidence that implicates Holtzclaw."}
{"id":"25779268-ea37-4e47-bb4e-3946ee861b36","argument":"As I am no fan of guacamole, every time I go to a Taqueria I ask for no guac, and on nachos for instance they will leave out the guac and put sour cream on half of my nachos. Because of this, I have asked for enough sour cream to cover all of my nachos, but every Taqueria I go to wants to charge me extra. My counterargument to that would be that by ordering a super burrito, nachos, whatever, you are stepping up to the guac and sour cream tier by default, but If I choose to forgo the guacamole and still pay the super nachos price, I am actually saving the Taqueria a small amount of money. Why not call it even and say that my extra sour cream is paid for by the guacamole that I did not receive but paid for?","conclusion":"If I ask for no guac, I should be able to get double sour cream for no cost."}
{"id":"322939fb-d41c-4bbb-8b58-f400d095faaf","argument":"New Jersey adopted the most comprehensive plastic ban in the United States. The law was passed in May 2018, just before the start of beach season, and prohibits local businesses from distributing plastic bags, straws and Styrofoam containers.","conclusion":"Many states have gone ahead with a ban on plastic."}
{"id":"75eaf551-533c-4e0b-a9a7-c01864af5d61","argument":"This article states that over two thirds of man made emissions that are causing global warming come from just 90 companies. This article outlines some of the horrifying pollution caused by a few choice corporations. A UN study determined that in 2008 alone, corporate waste was responsible for 2.2 TRILLION worth of environmental damage. Meanwhile, for decades there have been calls for individuals to recycle their garbage, use fuel efficient cars, and clean up pollution. While these actions are nice, they have virtually no bearing on the ongoing environmental crisis, and no amount of individual action would be sufficient to overpower the damage being done by corporations. I believe these environmental campaigns for individuals are just a way of making people think they're more responsible than they are, and silently passing the buck away from corporations and onto individuals so that big companies face less intense public scrutiny for their actions. In the same way companies use tactics to distort public perception of income inequality, they have also managed to make people feel somehow blameworthy for an environmental situation that, were it not for corporations continuing to be irresponsible, would literally not even exist. . gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than just downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Campaigns to get individuals to recycle, reduce emissions, and reduce waste are just a tactic to shift the blame away from corporations, who are the real cause of our environmental problems"}
{"id":"250ad180-21dc-42f5-a665-f5001b147bb5","argument":"While seemingly groundbreaking, the current agreement on the EU reform treaty was nothing but a lame attempt to salvage a much bolder initiative: an EU Constitution. The rejection of the EU Constitution in the Dutch and French referendums, as well as the extreme difficulty in getting even its watered-down version accepted, shows the extent to which the member states of the EU are not yet ready to think and act in unison. The UK representatives successfully insisted that the language of the reform treaty clearly states that major foreign policy decisions will continue to be taken at the state level.","conclusion":"The post of a High Representative is merely a shadow of what it should have been, and its failure shows the EU's inability to consolidate foreign policy."}
{"id":"af6f9aa6-630e-45ac-be55-880618385a19","argument":"Only omnipotence of God is needed to prove the contradiction. Omnibenevolence cannot avoid this problem because every notion of God that assumes God is omnipotent would be subject to same proof by contradiction.","conclusion":"The claim is about whether all-powerful entities can do certain contradictory actions. The claim is not about omnibenevolence, which is unrelated."}
{"id":"9e120fe9-c977-4a93-bc00-365632306a8d","argument":"The state is not incentivized to assist victims of crimes. Prosecutors and police are pushed to rack up convictions, but no one is looking out for victims' needs. Punishment for the victims' sake is a cop out without a sincere effort to help victims.","conclusion":"Under a different model, therapy could help both victims and perpetrators feel better, and it can be argued that this approach would provide greater long-term benefit than retribution."}
{"id":"ae63f388-01cf-4cab-a5d1-afdda5110116","argument":"In August 2017, Trump pardoned Sherrif Joe Arpaio who the Justice Department concluded had a horrendous history of racial profiling. He conducted immigration round-ups designed to target anyone who wasn't white. theguardian.com","conclusion":"Donald Trump is a racist. Fundamentally, a racist is against values American democracy is meant to espouse."}
{"id":"05269419-8538-4ff6-8d9d-999cf6f83146","argument":"If we claim a person to be dead when their heart stops beating, life should begin when their heart starts beating. Claiming the fetus is not independently survivable at that point doesn't matter. Many people are kept alive by the assistance of machinery and technology.","conclusion":"After 4-6 weeks of fetal development, the fetus develops a heartbeat. A heartbeat is an indication of life so the fetus should get legal protections as a human with the right to life."}
{"id":"e026fc0d-7e40-47c1-b2f0-4ca77ba36eeb","argument":"Thanks to religion we have a better understanding of the history of humankind. The knowlege of most ancient civilizations would've been lost if not for their religious expressions Egyptian, babylonian, jewish and our understanding of historical process would be far worse without the critical analysis of the bible.","conclusion":"A great many historical records that preserved knowledge still exist today thanks to religion."}
{"id":"4b6bd285-761e-47bb-9cd3-d991166fb26b","argument":"I will touch on 3 points The talent, the tweets and the Louis Vuitton shoot. I will not be changing my mind because of one thing he did that was stupid. No one deserves the amount of hate he is getting, for saying one stupid thing like bragging about being rich . The talent Listen to this start maybe around the 40 s mark It starts out very slow and deep, doesn't really follow the flow of the music and honestly sounds bad. But he changes the tempo of the rap and the tone of voice throughout the song. And he does it slowly and at the same time, making those two elements work together. This shows more musicality than I see in most mainstream musicians today. Or this live performance with his sister who arguably blows him out the water, but people don't hate her . The tweets gt trees are never sad look at them every once in awhile they are quite beautiful. The only issue here is the lack of grammar. gt trees are never sad. Look at them every once in awhile, they are quite beautiful. There. Enjoy the little things, and try to remember the beauty of nature, when you're feeling down. gt how can mirrors be real if our eyes aren't real Apparently there are interpretations of this on the internet, but really, it just reminds me of Immanuel Kants filter of the world. To me that tweet makes total sense, yet it's always on his top 10 of stupid tweets. Yes, he did a stupid interview. But still, he doesn't deserve that much hate for that.8 The model shoot. That took courage. Especially at that age. If you think nah, that was fucking stupid and gay , you're the reason it took courage. Most people actually seem to love it though, and if they hate it, they hate because he was in it. To add to that point, he's basically a kid being bullied by the internet. And continueing to be true to himself despite of this, shows character. Oh and he looked fucking awesome.","conclusion":"Jaden Smith doesn't deserve the hate he's getting."}
{"id":"69126798-1d2a-43aa-81a3-ae655579fa5f","argument":"It can be more environmentally friendly as it can save a lot of space and energy, much cheaper to build than independent homes and in many ways easier to manage than the chaotic buildings and complex infrastructure, or lack thereof, that currently exists in slums and favelas. As developed Lorenz Grollo has stated there is a 'better, greener outcome when you get a bigger mass on the one footprint'1. The motivation for higher population densities also derives from a reduced need to travel which would in turn lower energy consumption and pollution2. 1Dobbin, M., & Cooke, D. 2010, March 16. High-rise push to halt urban sprawl. Retrieved June 14, 2011, from The Age: 2Kunze, J. 2005, September 15. Page 13, The revival of high-rise living in the UK and issues of cost and revenue in relation to height. Retrieved June 20, 2011, from University College London","conclusion":"High-rise housing is more environmentally friendly than traditional forms of housing"}
{"id":"8ac90340-217a-4e13-a95f-8cd6560969d9","argument":"A comment thread on r bestof is discussing the dangers of trusting information you read on subjects you are uninformed about, with some branches discussing how much misinformation is contained in newspapers. To take one representative comment gt It used to be so easy to blindly believe what I read in the newspaper. Then I read a story about something I was directly involved in. It was astounding how many things they got completely wrong. Many have upvoted and confirmed this view with their own stories, with some quoting the so called Murray Gell Mann Amnesia effect gt Briefly stated, the Gell Mann Amnesia effect works as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray\u2019s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward reversing cause and effect. I call these the \u201cwet streets cause rain\u201d stories. Paper\u2019s full of them. While I'm sure there are many cases of media getting stories wrong, I think the extent to which newspapers are mistaken is exaggerated, and fails to take account of what a newspaper is for. Many stories published are not particularly contentious. For instance political speeches are reported verbatim, with added background thrown in that is relevant to the particular audience of that publication. Financial results, product announcements and many common stories are done fairly accurately, because there is not much to get wrong. That said, journalists will admit that newspapers represent a kind of best guess on many issues, and that the industry is generalist rather than specialist, especially in the case of mainstream news sources. The industry often simplifies things, but that is partly because of time and space constraints. If you want to understand something in depth you should be buying a book, not a paper. Every so often newspapers get things horrendously wrong, particularly in the sensational world of the popular press. But these stories take up an inappropriate amount of space in the public impression of the media, and are hugely outnumbered by the mundane stories the press gets more or less right. I could go on at some length about the influence of public relations firms and other corrupting forces on the industry, but on the whole I'd suggest papers are pretty accurate given their intended purpose. So long as you bear in mind the limits of the format and don't take any of it too seriously it is a valuable information source. .","conclusion":"Information in newspapers is adequate given its intended purpose"}
{"id":"08b6cedd-ffd0-4a17-a4c0-d61997166554","argument":"Imagine you are barred from a store because you have a moustache. Do you humour this idea by assembling a moustache movement, or do you align yourself to the cause of anyone being judged on irrational bases?","conclusion":"The LGBT movement, like all movements, should not pursue misleading narratives."}
{"id":"ef8a35ba-2c73-4449-ba09-6bf6ed8053b8","argument":"I searched for breathalyzer before submitting this. One user suggested mandatory ignition interlock devices for every vehicle. That's a bridge too far in my opinion. Too invasive. But I think allowing every bar hopper the opportunity to make sure they are safe to drive makes sense. Not everyone would partake in the option, but it would surely reduce the amount of drunk driving to some degree.  Here are the things I'm undecided on and open to debate Should restaurants that serve liquor be required to follow this or should some distinction be drawn between restaurants and bars? I'm leaning towards some distinction. Should bars be allowed to charge for usage of their breathalyzer s? I'm leaning towards yes.","conclusion":"I believe every bar that serves hard liquor should be required to have a breathalyzer\/s that patrons have easy access to."}
{"id":"d0aedd77-6945-4d47-9aab-56fde7153744","argument":"Repentance means all sins, past, present, and future are forgiven and our salvation is secure.","conclusion":"Many Christians believe god forgives unconditionally, which is an ideal to strive for."}
{"id":"8beaf0be-05a5-4862-972b-c9e5a3399f6c","argument":"Ayanna Pressley was the first woman of colour elected to represent Massachusetts in the US Congress. She has frequently spoken out about issues she faced as a woman of colour - such as how mass incarceration has affected her community - and is a staunch advocate for the issues that affect women of colour.","conclusion":"'The Squad' is an influential group of four Congresswomen of colour who use their platform to speak out against structural racism and issues facing women and people of colour."}
{"id":"f1fb0951-9f8f-4e16-986b-993d795879eb","argument":"I believe that when considering the near or far future, there are only one possibility that is worth considering, and would be so transformative that worrying about anything else pales in comparison. That is the creation of Artificial General Intelligence or Artificial Strong Intelligence, whatever you want to call it. First, you have to contend with the issue of whether or not you believe human or greater than level intelligence can even be created. Which I think most people would agree that it is possible, or at least there is nothing fundamental about intelligence that requires it to exist only in humans, or a biological substrate as opposed to some other. Now, if you do accept that AGI is possible, you must then consider when you think it may be created and whether you or your direct descendants will be affected, if it happens 10,000 years from now, no one alive today would or really should care in the slightest. The issue is that unless you are directly involved in the field itself, coming up with a realistic timetable is a difficult problem. Fortunately for us laypeople myself included , a survey was conducted at a conference of AI experts a few years ago, and concluded that the median optimistic year 10 likelihood for AGI was 2022, the median realistic year 50 likelihood was 2040, and the median pessimistic year 100 likelihood was 2075. Now you are free to disagree with their predictions, but you'd better have damn good cause to do so and be takes seriously by other people. All of this taken together has forced me to the realization that there can be no useful forecasting of the near or long term future without considering the impact AGI could have on it. But further to this, no one can even make a solid guess as to what might happen if one is created There is speculation, some good and some bad, but ultimately this event, the singularity, has an apt name for a reason, we have no prior history or examples from which to learn from And then, to top it all off, an AGI would likely quickly surpass human intelligence if given the resources, not to mention it may think in such a way that humans could not even follow its logic or reasoning. TL DR So all of this is to say, if you believe AGI is possible, and if you believe that it could come into existence in the nearish future, there is no way to make any easy generalizations about what the future might be like. We have no idea what's coming, and too many people are not factoring in the disruption an AGI could cause, whether for good or ill. Essentially, not enough people are taking this possibility seriously enough, and we're making plans about the future that are affecting people today without taking into account the most profound event in human history.","conclusion":"There is only one possible future worth considering, one with the existence of AGI, and not enough people are planning around it"}
{"id":"c4b2aea0-1936-4228-b19d-303a37db2a31","argument":"After reading an AITA post on r all about a veterinarian feeling the need to update a wedding invitation to say \u201cDr\u201d instead of \u201cMs\u201d, I took the stance that it was a completely pretentious action. We do not need special titles or special treatment for those who have professional achievements deemed special by society. The most common response I saw regarding the doctor was \u201cyou earned it, you worked hard. People should respect your status\u201d. Are doctors the only people that work hard? Does a widow who works two jobs to support her young children get a special title? Does a self employed plumber who overcame a life of poverty and abuse get a special title? Have these people not achieved great things and worked extremely hard to provide value to others? Another response I hear often tied to academic or military achievement is how hard they worked to enter a thankless or dangerous position. Was this not 100 clear before starting down that career path? Thank you for your contribution. Thank you for your service. But sorry, you\u2019re not above anyone else when it comes to title or treatment. We\u2019re all humans, working hard in our own ways. We\u2019re all deserving of the same human titles and treatment. Change my view. x200B Editing for clarity Many of you are pointing out specifics of the AITA post that are not relevant to this discussion.The ONLY part of that post I am referring to is the idea of crossing out Ms. to replace with Dr. . Any actions, discoveries, or conversations after that initial event are entirely irrelevant to the conversation here. This is not a gender discussion. It's not a I'm a real doctor, not a vet discussion. I'm simply questioning the concept that we replace generic, all human titles such as Ms. with professional achievement titles such as Dr. . In my opinion, it's apples and oranges. They are two different things. Here is a list of comments made challenging the view so far, for reference It is etiquette cultural norm My response I am aware of what the cultural norm is, the point of this  is to discuss whether that cultural norm makes any sense. Doctors worked really hard to get that title, they should get to use it My response I agree they worked really hard. And I've even agreed that in business and political context, these titles should exist for many reasons such as role definition, recognition, and even verification of authenticity. It still does not make sense that this term replaces Mr. or Ms. Who cares? My response I agree to a certain extent. I'm not the kind of person to really care unless someone is being a prick about it like telling me I must refer to them by their professional title outside of a professional space or context . That said, I was really interested in the concept after reading the AITA post and my curiosity brought me here as I thought there might be some solid arguments for it beyond it's just what we do . I now know it's just what we do, and maybe no further explanation is needed.","conclusion":"Your professional achievements shouldn\u2019t earn you a special title or special treatment."}
{"id":"f5e913c2-6ec2-4328-b460-85b35ca54fa4","argument":"If asked what their child wants and needs by someone else and a parent answers that they don't know, but their child does - it shows that the parent isn't knowledgeable or attentive to their child's needs. This answer presents the attitude of laziness, which is a sign of irresponsibility.","conclusion":"Even though the parent might want to respect their child's choice, it's a sign of irresponsibility to rely on the child for their decision-making for what's best for them when it's up to the parent in the end to do so."}
{"id":"e4e914bf-2fa0-4b2a-9cb8-b29cf2370bbd","argument":"Different laws of physics may affect how stars burn, changing the production of heavy elements such as those needed for the formation of life.","conclusion":"There could be different laws of physics throughout the universe that prevent life from emerging elsewhere."}
{"id":"d3c4601d-de20-41b3-9bdd-d63090827886","argument":"Most obviously it seems unnecessary for there to be attorney client privilege when the defendant\u2019s interests cannot be adversely affected. For example when the confidential information just does not incriminate the client himself but it might clear somebody else, or when the client is dead. Few people will be discouraged from being candid with their lawyers if there is merely the possibility that the communications may be disclosed after their death. In addition there are situations where the client\u2019s interest may indeed be hurt but where this should be outweighed by some other very important public interest. In other words perhaps there should be \u2018necessity\u2019 or \u2018public interest\u2019 or \u2018in the interests of justice\u2019 balancing exceptions to the privilege. This would be the case when public safety is at risk, for example if the client holds some very vital information but is not willing to disclose it to anyone other than his lawyer. In such cases the courts should weigh up and balance the client\u2019s interests against society\u2019s and make the decision accordingly rather than rigidly sticking to attorney-client privilege.","conclusion":"Attorney client privilege need not be sacrosanct in all situations"}
{"id":"064ed182-c214-4cbc-b4f5-8ad7bb60851d","argument":"America, which has never had a monarchy, struggles with class divide fuelled by economic gaps and racial inequality.","conclusion":"Race and economic inequality are greater causes of social and class divide than a monarchical presence."}
{"id":"4c78aef5-def7-4b78-8af4-1baded04d0f3","argument":"Firstly, this isn't something I would ever protest a museum over and moreso I greatly respect the care and attention insitutuions put into preserving, recording and respecting what remains of these people. I do find it however, irrational or not, oddly disrespectful of the people who have died to be put on display without any permission . I'm not religious, and while I perfectly understand the idea of Well they're dead, it's not like they care I still think there is somewhat of a double standard we would never think of displaying the body or remains of someone found 10 years ago in a museum for whatever reason without explicit permission, we wouldn't prop up the skeleton of a WW1 solider found in Flanders, pointing out every bullet wound and imperfection in their bones. We are careful not to disturb more recent shipwrecks as grave sites, yet think nothing of displaying the remains of men, women and children killed on The Vasa I would submit that museums have a duty of care to investigate, study and learn from the lives, causes of death and ages people such as tollundman, Th Huldremose Woman or Otzi lived in, but also to respect the people that they were by not sticking them in a glass case to be stared at by the general public. EDIT I want to clarify that I know we physically cannot ask persmission from them or the relatives of a 1,000 year old man, but that's my point. Maybe if we can't get permission, they shouldn't be openly displayed? EDIT 2 So, I've read through all the responses and really enjoyed hearing some other opinions and views on the matter I've heard some good stuff about the difficulties of trying to maintain respect for dead peoples whose cultures we don't fully understand, but otherwise I would say I'm still not convinced by any of the arguments otherwise. While the idea that it's all very logical and scientific to not care about bodies after they are dead, I still think that in a society like ours today, that values the respect and dignity of individuals, and the the wishes of people who hold beliefs that aren't necessarily scientific or logical, to publicly display bodies and remains without any consent to still be slightly disrespectful and distasteful. Happy to hear more points however","conclusion":"I think it is disrespectful for Museums to display the skeletons or remains of people who have died without their permission, no matter how old the bodies may be."}
{"id":"61a7fca0-c632-4683-a419-1df33413799b","argument":"Hill was recorded saying, after she thought her recorded interview had concluded, \"is this good evidence? Even if he didn\u2019t rape nobody, he\u2019s still getting in contact with people he\u2019s arrested\". This is evidence that at least Hill lied about her rape allegation.","conclusion":"Shardayreon Hill's allegations counts 21-25 & 26 resulted in six not guilty verdicts"}
{"id":"057f8e76-a5d9-4499-96f3-6090dbbc78f3","argument":"Let me preface this post by saying I'm a practicing Muslim, and for years I've been trying to educate people on what Islam is and what Islam is not. That involves breaking stereotypes, correcting people's misunderstandings and factual errors. I'm not here to have a conversation on Islam right now or argue politics. I've spent a great deal of time over the years trying to fight against bigotry and ignorance by confronting it head on. On reddit and elsewhere I see someone post a racist or bigoted comment and address it. I try not to be nasty, I try to show data or info that shows they are wrong to make that kind of judgement. Few people actually approach me for a good faith discussion, but I persist anyway, and sometimes by disproving one of their claims eg. 90 of the rapists in Europe are Muslim , or the Quran requires you to convert or die they realize their mistake and take it back. Other times people will be stubborn and closed minded and dispute the evidence in favor of their dubious sources or block downvote me or change the topic. I learn from others as well, and retract claims that I learn to be incorrect. For the most part I'm debunking the worst stereotypes and leaving the finer points of religious debate for someone else. This work actually has a harmful effect on me. There's just too much hate, too many ignorant people, too much to debunk. My job performance is suffering because I spend hours arguing the same topics with people. It's making me deeply cynical of people, getting hate mail from strangers who have decided in their mind that I am an evil monster who is part of the conspiracy and secretly a terrorist. But I cannot stop, because while I do this I see in my news feed the swell of hate crimes, people being killed by strangers not far from me for looking Muslim in public or revenge for Iraq whatever that means. I think I'm alone in this endeavor. There's other Muslims online, and plenty of people in my communities who share the same opinions as me, but none of them speak up on forums. Some of the top comments on stories in major subreddits are copy pastes of stereotypes against Muslims and Islam. They've been long debunked and if we tried to use this logic on Jews or christians people would be rightly outraged and create a flood of replies , but they don't stop. I can argue with 5 or 6 people and debunk it, but the next day it comes back. I think my success rate is somewhat low, rarely do people admit they made a mistake, and many wind up clinging to their hateful ideas even harder. At the same time, I've had some genuine success stories of people who admit they were wrong and fell into a belief they didnt get into by reasoning or truth. My Muslim friends tell me not to bother, to leave it alone. I don't think I can, because it gives bigots the floor. People read these unchallenged claims and assume they must be true since nobody has disproved the stuff. In my lifetime I've seen 30 of Americans believe Islam is violent and hateful nearly 20 years ago and now nearly 60 today. I can't sit back and let that happen without trying to do something, but I seem to be alone in the matter. Muslims write their own blog posts and comments to social media, and religious leaders make youtube videos trying to give their own explanations of religion, but nobody is challenging this dangerous ignorance directly. I think they hope that others who bother to look will find the facts they need. Well, folks? Could I be doing this wrong? Should I be doing more of this or less TL DR Am I wasting my time trying to argue with every bigot I meet online?","conclusion":"Arguing with bigots online is not a waste of time."}
{"id":"78c274d7-b4b2-4bd4-b088-1183b7a428b4","argument":"A united Korea is projected to be the 7th most powerful nation in the world in terms of GDP, surpassing \"France, Germany, and Japan in 30-40 years\".","conclusion":"Economically, a unified Korean peninsula will generate vasts amounts of wealth."}
{"id":"b8183de7-dbbd-4669-a2e9-1f9d946fad4b","argument":"When conservatives appeal to liberty against gun control measures, arguing that prohibition is authoritarian and only drives guns underground, why do they not apply the same logic to Marijuana and other recreational drugs? There's no question that America's continued marijuana prohibition is fueling gang violence in Mexico, not to mention the world's largest incarcerated population and continued fatherlessness among black neighborhoods. Conversely, when conservatives appeal to safety and morality against drug legalization, why don't they also rail against the evils of alcohol, tobacco, and firearms, which actually do kill many, many people in America? By prohibitionist logic, our government should launch a crackdown on all of the above in the interest of public safety. Yet ATF is not low on their chopping block when it comes to budgets. Hypocrisy, much? Note that when I call hypocrisy, I'm referring to establishment conservatives, not libertarians.","conclusion":"Pro-Gun, Anti-Drug, Pro-Alcohol Conservatives Are Hypocrites"}
{"id":"2cb4bbb2-85d0-4ddb-a6f1-1bc26785f841","argument":"If given space to organize themselves, gang members can prove difficult to contain for the prison staff, and risk making the prison an unsafe environment. This makes it particularly important to limit gang activity in prison.","conclusion":"Solitary confinement can be used to separate gang members from each other, making organized crime within the prison more difficult."}
{"id":"1d8bc4be-8c7b-45a4-b753-03104bcb5ef5","argument":"To gear up to be successful trading partners, developing countries often need to go through a number of key changes. As well as developing their own economy and their manufacturing or service sectors, they may need to build trade infrastructure in other ways. For example, increased trade would focus their attention on such things as good governance, the benefits of a broadly stable currency and internal security. Although such developments may come about as a facilitator for trade, in the best case scenario they may be seen as structural changes which will have a trickle-down benefit for the broader society in the underdeveloped country. China for example has reformed its agriculture, created a large manufacturing sector and is increasingly moving into high tech sectors as a result of trading with, particularly exporting to, the rich world and as a result has lifted more than 600 million people out of poverty between 1981 and 2004 1. 1 The World Bank, 'Results Profile: China Poverty Reduction', 19 March 2010, Retrieved 2 September 2011 from worldbank.org:","conclusion":"Trade provides developing countries with an important basis for their own improvement."}
{"id":"dfd9df95-59db-4aaa-8c90-09337cf2ca98","argument":"The soccer academies of the BL's clubs are commonly seen as superior to and more successful than those of PL clubs.","conclusion":"The BL's clubs are superior at nurturing home-grown talent."}
{"id":"8642f6a7-f9c8-434f-b8fd-1c7ef75f0170","argument":"The passengers of the car in question are the most causally-responsible for the actions of the car. If an accident occurs it is most moral that the passengers rather than any third parties are the ones who should bear the brunt of any harms caused by the car.","conclusion":"If harm must be caused by a self-driving car, it should be inflicted on those who are most at fault for the accident."}
{"id":"13921ed8-47e2-41a6-bdb1-577a00a1c4e1","argument":"Works written in Latin and Greek e.g. by Homer, Plato, Aristotle, Cicero and Vergil address issues.","conclusion":"Classics Latin and Ancient Greek, should be taught in schools"}
{"id":"04aa7d30-c50e-48e5-8b91-6595c5113824","argument":"These are two thoughts which have been brewing in my head which I haven't had the real opportunity to have challenged. The first probably a more common thought that people are having and it is the more distressing. All societies rely to a great extent on trust, but for a long time people in western nations believed their institutions and system where beyond this. We believed that we had created a system where more often than not people's self interests would force them to behave nicely. The best example of this in modern society are the news sources. In the age before the internet the lack of options made many people believe that the news they receieved everyday to be more often than not fact. In the modern age peoplw can see a variety of different news sources saying vwry different things. People have to then make a decision of trust. They must decide which source is viable and which is hopelessly corrupt. Now there is evidence to point towards some sources being more legitimate than others, but this is by no means deffinitly proven in a manner that makes it relatively easy for a regular person to know without extensive time invested. The big take away from this is not that their isnt a truth. It is just that people are realizing that they have to put trust in their news being truthful when before it was more assumed. This allows people to choose their truth more than ever before and it seems apparent that people pick the truth that they agreed with before rather look for evidence. I don't believe this to be exclusive to the news, but in the interest of not making this 10 paragraphs long and will argue in the comments. Sorry for the numerous spelling errors.","conclusion":"One cause of the crisis in modern western liberalism is the realization that many of the institutions are based on trust."}
{"id":"4a29ee0d-fd8f-4847-ba70-f3c605392940","argument":"HP's 13-inch Envy laptop is not only thinner than the MacBook, but also weighs a lot less for a cheaper price","conclusion":"There are many more laptop choices in the Windows world, and at a greater variety of price points"}
{"id":"550073e3-16aa-4978-93d5-3f3ee9e28ffe","argument":"A lot of sex workers are doing this for a short time, they don't want to do this job their whole lives; legalizing it would give them the chance to quit whenever they want, which is practically impossible when illegal.","conclusion":"Sex workers in both legal and illegal settings would like to leave their work Farley et al."}
{"id":"a8004f78-42b0-4dfb-9789-73b353f0e4a2","argument":"Earthing grounding is the idea that by connecting with the earth, which has a negative charge, your body will benefit in a number of ways, mostly related to sleep and inflammation. Everything around it feels like pseudoscientific mumbo jumbo. It\u2019s mystical, the claims are extremely broad, it relies on the whole \u201cancient power\u201d sort of idea that people like to latch onto, etc. That being said, there are over 20 peer reviewed studies on the concept, and when reading through the abstracts and conclusions, I can\u2019t help but to believe in it. I\u2019ve always used studies to help determine whether something is bogus, but the studies seem so solid while the whole community, messaging, and idea itself seem very pseudo science y. So please,  that there\u2019s something to this grounding thing. The only thing I think that could change my view would be if the studies were found to be extremely poor quality fraudulent, but there may be other channels I\u2019m not thinking of. Here\u2019s an article on it from the NIH website, with links to some studies","conclusion":"Earthing\/grounding has enough science behind it to accept that it\u2019s not purely pseudoscience."}
{"id":"1ebd512a-75f2-417e-91c9-21691e3538d2","argument":"The privacy uproar is understandable, but misguided. Just like a user who doesn't understand how to back up his data has only himself to blame when the hard drive crashes, affected celebrities have multi million dollar brands to protect and should know better than to take and share nudes. Pro ball players have learned to take spent condoms with them for the very legitimate fear of becoming fathers. Celebs should learn about cloud computing, two factor verification, encryption, and SMS. For those celebs who can't live without seeing themselves depicted without clothes, there's always point and shoot cameras that keep pictures offline.","conclusion":"The recent celebrity nude leak has more to do with carelessness and technological illiteracy than privacy concerns"}
{"id":"afd6b097-6eb2-4a05-9d11-8cdb83550bdc","argument":"In my own personal life, I find when I\u2019m most miserable and feeling divisive is when I\u2019m not concentrating on my discipline of music and art. And externally I see more people trapped in identity politic divisiveness, no matter what the ideology is, I find them not to be engaged in disciplines that develop serious levels of technique that continue to challenge them and always will. Amongst those that are engaged in intense practices of discipline, I find these people to be more relaxed, energetic, and find positivity and commonality where ever they look. They also seem to be more objective people open to critique because their discipline has humbled them. I\u2019m definitely interested in other perspectives and rather than go on a long defensive dictating my counter arguments I\u2019ve already been battling in my own head, I\u2019ll just wait for them to come through here. However, I guess I\u2019ll define divisiveness to be more debate worthy. Anytime people pit their group against others especially for material or social gain where another party must suffer from oppression repression in the most general of terms. Honestly looking for a good discussion and am happy to have found this forum. Thanks everyone.","conclusion":"I feel a lack of discipline at hard to gain techniques are what creates much of humanity\u2019s divisive nature."}
{"id":"e2e51bba-bdbe-4826-8fb3-7d18b2e478a1","argument":"One of the most common arguments in favor of adopting a vegan lifestyle is that it's better for the environment. Raising cattle takes a lot of resources and results in lots of pollutants when compared to growing something like beans. The argument is that since it is better for the environment, it's reasonable to expect people to do without meat in order to save the planet. I think that this is hypocritical coming from virtually any vegan. First let's break down the argument. It makes a few assumptions that I would like to point out so I can reference them later. First, it makes the assumption that the person listening to the argument is currently a meat eater, and does not wish to give up meat. Presumably, this is probably because the person likes the taste of meat, and does not want to have to give it up. Since we know that it is possible to live healthily on a vegan diet, the argument can't be made that meat is necessary. The argument then essentially states that even though meat may taste good, you should still give it up in order to help the environment. The most important assumption built into this argument is this It is reasonable to expect people to give up food that they enjoy if it helps the environment in the long run . The entire argument relies on this notion. It's even a pretty reasonable notion, but that isn't the point of this . The idea is that worldwide well being is given a higher priority than personal pleasure, but if we lived in a society that valued personal pleasure more, then this argument wouldn't work at all. Now, I want to compare this to something that vegans commonly eat spices. I mean things like black pepper, chili powder, cumin, etc. Spices typically have a few qualities that I'll list. They Generally have a negligible amount of nutrients in them making them unnecessary for survival Have an environmental cost to grow, pick, process, package, and ship Are used only to improve the taste of food, and therefore exist only for personal pleasure Now, here is the heart of my argument. Vegans often encourage meat eaters to give up meat because meat is unnecessary, bad for the environment, and the only upside is that it tastes good. Here is the view I would like to have changed gt Any vegan who makes the previous argument, but regularly eats spices in their food is a hypocrite. Both meat and spices are unnecessary for survival. Both meat and spices are generally consumed because of their enjoyable flavor as opposed to eating non meat food, or unspiced food . And finally, both are bad for the environment though not necessarily to the same degree . Here are a few things that will not change my view. Anything regarding any other argument for becoming vegan i.e. health reasons, animal cruelty reasons, etc. . These are not part of the discussion and are irrelevant. Not all spices are bad for the environment . All spices are at least a little bad because they need to be packaged and shipped. The actual amounts are not important. It's not hypocritical because meat is worse for the environment than spices are . This is not important because the assumption has already been made that people should give up personal pleasure in order to help the environment. The fact that meat is worse for the environment makes no difference because both are bad . If we're arguing about the level of badness , then I'm sure I could find some vegan food that's worse for the environment than chicken. Essentially, it's about the principle, not the details. Anything trying to argue that a vegan or omnivore diet is better than the other. It isn't about which is better or worse. It's about whether or not the argument is hypocritical. tl dr Put down the bacon It's bad for the environment said the vegan as he reached for the black pepper grown on thousands of acres of bulldozed rainforest.","conclusion":"The environmental argument as to why a person should become vegan is hypocritical in the way it is presented by most vegans."}
{"id":"c2a1421f-e61f-40fc-a5be-42fa7cb1c5cd","argument":"I think calling someone anti Semitic for thinking that Israel was a bad idea is dismissive and totally race carding besides the fact that Palestinians are Semites themselves, duh . But yeah, just because I think it was unjust for an entire people to have their country taken from them does not mean I hate Jewish people or that I agree with the Holocaust. I just do not believe it was the proper course of action. I get why the US supports Israel, I just don't understand why I apparently hate Jewish people if I don't support Israel as well. . EDIT was typing on my phone, sorry for the obvious typos in the title","conclusion":"I think that just because you don't agree with Israel doesn't automatically make you anti-semtic."}
{"id":"48e4a6a7-43e9-4c04-8ba4-d5d3416d6269","argument":"Paul, in Romans 11:24, also described the activity of God in saving the Gentiles as \u201cpara physin.\u201d Does this also connote moral turpitude? At a minimum, it seems clear that Paul in Romans 1:26-27, holds Christian sexuality as an issue of good stewardship\u2014of using sexuality in a non-obsessive way, to not cause scandal, and to not distract Christians from the Lord's service. There is no inherent reason why unions between persons of the same sex would not meet these criteria.","conclusion":"While Paul\u2019s use of the term \u201cpara physin\u201d i.e., \u201cto the side of Nature\u201d was primarily used as a scriptural tie-in, it also spoke to a specific audience with culturally-understood notions tied to: 1 Greek regional\/cultural influence, 2 Roman cultural\/status issues, and 3 Jewish norms\/traditions. Given our modern notions of this term, it is possible that we are interpreting Paul's meaning outside of its proper context."}
{"id":"0b7285f3-7999-4b8d-92a5-c50fa86308f0","argument":"A punishment system is based on the fact that humans have free will. Acting as though all criminals are victims of circumstance removes the idea that people should be culpable for their actions and promotes irresponsible decision-making.","conclusion":"Punishment should be the primary focus of prisons because criminal acts must have consequences to be effective."}
{"id":"16613529-2cdf-4217-96ac-dee5d161a270","argument":"This has always been a major peeve of mine. I like watching random people fight, and I've been in a few myself. Every time there's a fight, some asshole decides to be a hero and try to break it up. Back in high school, these two kids pulled us apart even though we both explicitly stated that we wanted to fight. Now, I understand why a teacher, cop, or bouncer would do it, nothing against them, but if you're not an authority figure or at risk of injury or property damage yourself, you should let the people fight. For example, if you form a fight ring in high school around the two combatants, then no one is getting hurt, and nor is anyone not involved in the fight getting injured. In that case, no one should intervene unless an authority figure arrives. Now of course, there are exceptions. For example, if one person clearly does not want to be in the fight, then someone should break it up. For example, they may be asking for help or just being pummeled without throwing any punches themselves. Or if you witnessed the fight from the very beginning and one guy clearly just attacked the other without provocation. Then you should break up the fight. Otherwise, two adults should be allowed to fight and no one should intervene until one of them either states that he does not want to fight anymore, or is put into a state into which he cannot express this desire. Otherwise, people should just enjoy the show and mind their own fucking business.","conclusion":"People should not break up fights unless one of the fighters explicitly states that they don't want to be fighting."}
{"id":"412dbe9d-f6b2-42ee-b302-d29357ac8319","argument":"The USE idea is different and based on a federal state. Some of the actual EU structures can be upgraded to be used in the USE, but other ones must be totally reinvented.","conclusion":"The EU already has a large and arguably inefficient bureaucracy, so it is unclear that a transition from EU to USE would make this problem any worse than it already is."}
{"id":"293bd4d2-4ac1-4e10-bc02-37d24da895fb","argument":"The US has been willing to reverse global military strategies in the past in order to deescalate a nuclear confrontation; it might well be willing to abandon its defence of Europe in order to avoid a nuclear exchange.","conclusion":"A US military intervention to defend the EU against Russia would risk a nuclear exchange."}
{"id":"4f01d43b-2ebd-49fa-a54b-9a304cfdee30","argument":"The judges who sit on the appellate courts are all vetted by the American Bar Association's Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary, ensuring anyone chosen from the sitting judges will be a sufficiently qualified Justice ABA, p. 3 There is no reason why they should not be allowed to serve on the Supreme Court for as long as they are fit to do so.","conclusion":"During recent presidencies, nominees have at the time of nomination, most often, served as U.S. appellate court judges McMillion, Summary The duty of appellate court judges is to make sure the proper law was applied correctly, the same role a Supreme Court Justice fulfils."}
{"id":"81a79dcd-c675-4f66-804d-8dd1f3e219b8","argument":"It commits the fallacy of false dilemma in which something is falsely claimed to be an \"either\/or\" situation, when in fact there is at least one additional option.","conclusion":"Euthyphro's dilemma could be regarded as a false dilemma."}
{"id":"506167ed-ac83-406f-ac07-9009f7db8eb9","argument":"Speaking as a software developer myself with about 8 years professional experience and 15 years personal experience, I believe that software developers are paid to work a certain amount. Work smarter, not harder is often an excuse to work 35, 30, even 25 hours a week. However I firmly believe that you're already compensated for working smarter by your pay grade. If a company wanted dumb programmers, they would hire entry level guys on the cheap but if they want smart programmers, they're going to be paying 80 120k for this talent and already expect you're working smarter. That's what makes you a programmer worth being paid so much that you're efficient and talented due to your experience or other factors. TL DR Your pay grade determines how smart you should work, and the time you should work should remain roughly consistent over time.","conclusion":"I believe that software developers should work the amount of time they're paid to work, and \"working smarter\" doesn't cut it."}
{"id":"85c0032d-0909-463a-8542-183cbef42696","argument":"This doesn't apply to all Christians as only most fit this description. If a person believes that dead babies go to heaven, then they cannot logically be upset that babies are aborted. These souls are getting a free ticket to heaven, and the end game on this earth, from a Christian perspective, is to get into heaven. I've only encountered some Catholics who don't believe that babies go to heaven and this obviously doesn't apply to them or any who do not believe that God sends innocents to heaven. It has always baffled me that pro life movement is made up of so many Christians, when their beliefs seem to be in direct conflict on this issue. I think that if I truly believed that dead babies went to heaven, and that fetuses were babies, then abortion would be the greatest thing on earth.  please. I'm hoping that I'm missing something and that people aren't simply this illogical and foolish.","conclusion":"Christians cannot logically be against abortion."}
{"id":"7e177340-6f93-44fa-b8ae-1eb9612a99bf","argument":"Although J.F. Kennedy never inherited his family estate, which was worth nearly $2 billion, his own personal net worth at the time of his presidency was roughly $10 million.","conclusion":"The last modern US president that was not a millionaire was Harry Truman in 1945."}
{"id":"b799f298-340d-4a4a-8405-d643dea1d1ed","argument":"The poor's circumstances are independent of transhumanism moving forward, as they don't benefit either way whether the technology exists or not. So it shouldn't be deciding point as to whether the wealthy elevate their lives from this or not, because it doesn't matter to the poor anyway.","conclusion":"So through a utilitarianistic standpoint, some people benefitting even if it's not the poor is better than none at all."}
{"id":"4c45aaf2-e149-49ed-9e31-d25f4eeec7f6","argument":"There are plenty of flaws with Star Wars Ep. I III, but I think they were effective as a whole in telling a story, did justice to the Star Wars Saga, introduced a number of compelling characters, and were quite entertaining as a whole. One of the major complaints I have heard concerning the prequels is the overly political nature of the movies' plots. Some have criticized the situation surrounding the Trade Federation blockade of Naboo in Ep. I and the debates surrounding the Military Creation Act in Ep. II. While these examples may introduce complex plot points, I think the way they are approached, and eventually revealed to be manipulated by Palpatine in his bid for power, are extremely effective in setting up galactic conflict. Most wars result from a breakdown of diplomacy and exist as an extension of politics. People also love to bitch about midichlorians. I'll admit their introduction wasn't the best idea, but it was hardly a central point to the prequel trilogy. They're mentioned in like two scenes. It seems like people get hung up on the midichlorian thing for little reason. Finally, Jar Jar. This complaint, in my opinion, has the most merit, especially in Ep. I. He is a buffoon and not a great character. But there are two counterarguments I offer. First, his treatment in Ep. II is much better, a clear example of Palpatine manipulating those beneath him in pursuit of power. The other is a comparison to the Original Trilogy. I see a lot of similarities between the goofy Gungans defeating the Trade Federation army and the Ewoks defeating the Imperial soldiers on Endor. I wasn't around to see the film in the 80s, but both sets of characters seem to be pandering to a younger audience. I'd love to hear opposing viewpoints.","conclusion":"The Star Wars Prequels Weren't That Bad"}
{"id":"0b9e28df-1dea-4c06-aceb-4c792b6ca5d5","argument":"Parents have the right to know about any significant activity of their underage teens as they are in many ways responsible for them and thus they should be included in such a decision.","conclusion":"Parental consent should be required for pregnant minors to have abortions."}
{"id":"aaef2f78-2eff-464f-81f8-ed5c4a36bb81","argument":"Reddit is in general a pretty bad website for politics, subreddits are hijacked by one political ideology with those coming from opposing views being downvoted to the depths of hell. It happens on both the left and right and makes it hard to have a discussion because users simply don\u2019t want to hear it. An example would be ukpolitics which represents the views of the left wing far more than the views of the right, even though I would identify as left I would say this is horrible because it is important that mine and others have their ideals are challenged. I think that subreddits such as changemyview and politicaldebate are the only subreddits where both sides are equally represented because users are forced to justify their argument against an idea rather than just resisting it.","conclusion":"The only good political subreddits are those based on challenging ideas, almost all other political subreddits are echo chambers for the views one political side."}
{"id":"dd57b165-e69f-4d3c-a814-8c6b87f68ac5","argument":"Let me start off by saying I don't think all vegetarians are stupid. I would totally respect someone who says that he personally doesn't like the taste of mean everyone has tastes and I completely agree if someone chooses vegetarianism or veganism because they simply don't like meat. Also people who are sick and can't eat it are absolutely fine. However I strongly believe that anyone who is talking about all the horrible things that happen to animals and how we don't need meat to survive is uninformed at least. Here are my main arguments First of all if we stopped to consume meat that would be disastrous for multiple animal species. Cows, pigs sheep and other such animals are completely unfit to survive in the wild. If we stopped eating them the next logical step would be stop breeding them and releasing them into the wild like PETA wants . That would be disastrous for the species and they will die out. Vegetarians who want us to stop eating meat are dooming entire species in cold blood. Which is much more cruel than killing some of them to eat them. And hey, I don't care for the survivor of the species but if vegetarians are such animal lovers maybe they should. Fact of the matter is that we are making cows, pigs and chicken some of the most successful species on Earth? Why do I say that? There's a lot of them and their numbers are increasing which is not the case with animals we don't eat. That's why wolves are dying out if we ate them there would be much more of them. It's like everyone is simply ignoring this one. If we stop the meat industry that would be a huge hit on the economy. Thousands of people would lose their jobs, thousands of families won't have income, thousand of factories will fail. While the economy will survive it'll be a huge hit on the GDP of every country. Meat is healthy. Sure, eating too much eat isn't but we still need meat it provides natural proteins and other necessary substances. And a lot of them. You would say bananas also have proteins, but not as much. You need less meat to get more proteins. For people who say we can acquire the proteins via some chemically made proteins I disagree. I had a friend who turned allergic to those. He went to numerous cities, hospitals etc. Not worth the risk. Meat is delicious. Having all my previous argument I find it stupid to strip ourselves from such a pleasure in life. So change my view you guys. Many vegetarians keep telling me how vegetarianism is the future. Am I stuck in time or am I right?","conclusion":"I think most vegetarians and vegans are ignorant, and every single concept they have is absolutely stupid."}
{"id":"2b7ce7c4-2773-4b30-981b-c40e32ae550d","argument":"I don't think I could be convinced that the Penny shouldn't be discontinued however I do have some interesting reasons why the Nickel and Dime should be discontinued. I'd like to quickly say in place of the 3 coins being discontinued I'd circulate more 1 2 coins and 2 bills while also getting rid of the 1 bill in place of the 1 coin. For Nickels and Dimes I have 5 reasons why they should be discontinued Today's Quarter is worth what a penny was worth about 100 years ago and thus should be our lowest denominating coin. This also goes for transactions where the penny is a down right negative to any transaction eliminating the Nickel and Dime would only bring benefits to transactions. A considerable amount of machines don't utilize Nickels and Dimes opting instead for just using the Quarter. This makes the Quarter the smallest reliable coinage someone could carry. We got rid of the half penny coin in the 1850's when it had more buying power today than our dime, it only makes since that they could be discontinued and backed up by my other reasons. The Nickel costs more than it's worth to make. Same as the Penny not worth it's own weight in gold costing tax payers alot of money every year to mint. Sooner rather than later the Nickel and Dime will be as worthless as the Penny today in transactions so it makes since to me to cut them now even if they aren't as useless as Pennies. The only reason the Penny has survived so long is the lobby group that the US buys its metals from which would fight as much to keep the Nickel and Dime if it's not discontinued at the same time as the Penny. EDIT 1 About 100 years EDIT 2 By discontinue I mean the ceasing of minting those coins. A Nickel and Dime would still be worth a Nickel and Dime if you wanted to pay in exact change gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Not only should the Penny be discontinued, but the Nickle and Dime as well"}
{"id":"80b41d23-d66f-496f-8b34-2f5497149314","argument":"As the title states, I see a lot of people sharing this article through various social media outlets. I personally feel a lot of this has to do with the hive mind and sugar coats things. To me this article says, disregard your own feelings and concentrate only on your SO. Aren't you responsible for your own happiness? Isn't your SO just supposed to compliment your own happiness and vice versa ? In short, I think this article ignores a lot of different variables that it takes to make a marriage work. I feel YOU have to be happy in the first place in order to make someone else happy. Just making someone smile and their life great can come at a sacrifice of your own happiness if you aren't careful. Article","conclusion":"Married and Divorced individuals, can you of this article about marriage that has been widely shared through social media?"}
{"id":"3926a372-e84d-456d-9563-625f320303b7","argument":"If you haven't heard, Zeke Smith, a contestant on the long running reality game show Survivor was outed as transgender on the show in the most recent episode of it's 34th season. Survivor hasn't been relevant in over a decade and aside from a YouTube video reviewing the PC game made for it I haven't heard anyone say a word about the show since I was about 10 years old up until the other day. According to Wikipedia, the currently running season of Survivor is at record low ratings with 7.64 premiere viewers, plus this being the 34th season of Survivor, the show has lost many people's attention. I believe that this controversy was manufactured by the producers in hopes of getting more viewers and in turn, more ratings. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Zeke Smith being outed as transgender on Survivor is nothing more than a cheap PR stunt to get people to watch the show again."}
{"id":"1e7fcda0-fc7f-408f-8513-e9d7f22c8e1e","argument":"Appointment systems exacerbate the effects of corruption within legislatures. Elections can function as an effective check on the damage that corruption within the legislature can have on the judiciary.","conclusion":"Allowing the Government to appoint judges erodes the separation of powers."}
{"id":"25350b90-cf99-406b-995c-86c7f22f1389","argument":"John Tyne, the Green candidate in Chingford and Woodford Green a constituency held since 1992 by the Conservative party, tactically withdrew to help Labour party's candidate take the seat.","conclusion":"The Labour party has strategic advantages over other parties as it approaches the UK general election."}
{"id":"d909b997-0ad5-4e0a-9184-5fe7712db8fb","argument":"Intro This is not about whether the rule is designed well or not I.E., what constitutes a penalty is more or less irrelevant for this  . For the sake of narrowing the scope and keeping the discussion focused, I'll center on two particular penalties, though Pass Interference PI and Intentional Grounding IG . Let's start with the design philosophy I have that these penalties fail at Penalties should, in all cases, discourage a violation of the rules. That is, breaking the rules should in all cases result in a worse outcome for the offender than not breaking the rules. Further, the perceived expected outcome of committing a penalty should be negative for the offender. That is, the expected probability of each possible outcome multiplied by the yardage gain or loss should be worse if a penalty is committed than if it is not. Why do I believe that? Philosophy of Rules Rules should exist for a reason. There are many reasons a rule might exist to protect players from injury, to protect the competitive integrity of the game, or even just to define what the game is . In any of those cases, breaking the rules is a bad thing for the game. Breaking a rule that protects players from injury could injure a player. Breaking a rule that protects competitive integrity could give a team an unfair advantage. Breaking a rule that defines the game could make the game into something different. All of these things are very bad outcomes for the game and how enjoyable it is. Therefore, the penalties for breaking any of these rules should be strong enough to discourage breaking them. The more the breaking of a rule threatens one of these things, the stronger the penalty should be. I.E, a rule violation that has a high likelihood of killing someone should have a much harsher penalty than a rule that has some chance of spraining their ankle. Now, let's tie that philosophy back into my position in order to discourage breaking the rules, the penalty must be worse than what would happen if the penalty did not occur. If not, then it's better for the player to commit the penalty, and effectively, committing the penalty is still the encouraged action to take. Good Rule Example As an example of a 'good' penalty, let's suppose there is a perceived 90 chance an official actually flags a particular penalty, if committed. If a player commits this penalty in this particular instance and is caught, let's suppose it will be a loss of 10 yards for that player's team. If they commit the penalty and are not caught, let's suppose there is no yardage change. On the other hand, if they do not commit the penalty, there is a 90 chance their team will lose 5 yards, and a 10 chance their team will lose 0 yards. Multiplying these together, we get the expected yardage change as perceived by the players. He's a table laying this out Penalty Committed? Called? Yards Probability Yes Yes 10 90 Yes No 0 10 No N A 5 90 No N A 0 10 In the case of committing the penalty, the expectation is 10 0.9 0 0.1 9 yards. In the case of no penalty, the expectation is 5 0.9 0 0.1 4.5 yards. This is an example of a good penalty in my view. There is a significant downside to committing the penalty in terms of expected return. Additionally, if the penalty is committed and called, the result is worse than the worst case scenario is the penalty is not committed 10 yards vs. 5 yards . There is no incentive to commit the penalty unless exceptionally desperate and just hoping for it not to be called a very low likelihood outcome. This is obviously a somewhat simplified example of possible outcomes what if a penalty was called, even though none was committed? What if the exact yardage without a penalty varied? , but it's a reasonable representation overall. Intentional Grounding Okay, so with that in mind, let's examine the two penalties I brought up as examples of 'bad' penalties, starting with IG. Per page 32 of the Official NFL 2018 Rulebook gt Penalty For intentional grounding gt a loss of down and 10 yards from the previous spot or gt b loss of down at the spot of the foul or gt c if the passer is in his end zone when the ball is thrown, it is a safety. See 4 7 for actions to conserve time inside two minutes of either half. gt Note If the foul occurs less than 10 yards behind the line of scrimmage, but more than half the distance to the goal line, the ball is to be placed at the spot of the pass. This sounds reasonable enough, right? If you commit IG, it's exactly as if you were sacked. So there's no incentive to commit IG, right? Wrong. Check this table Penalty Committed? Called? Yards Probability Yes Yes 10 99 Yes No 0 1 No N A 10 100 See the issue? If there's any chance the penalty isn't called, you should always commit IG to avoid the sack, because there's some chance you end up with a better result. There's only two assumptions The IG throw is never intercepted, and the QB is always sacked if they don't throw You may respond by saying that those assumptions aren't true and they aren't completely true. However, critically, both assumptions are under the control of the QB , and the QB is the one deciding whether to commit the penalty or not What I mean is, a QB is capable of determining both of those probabilities. There are plenty of QBs who truly have a 0 chance of evading the sack, and plenty of times that there is a 0 chance an IG throw is intercepted. Since the QB has access to that information, they can always make an informed decision when deciding to commit IG or not. And there will be times when committing IG is the best decision for the QB which we don't want to be true. Here's an example of what this penalty should look like, according to my philosophy gt Penalty For intentional grounding gt a loss of down at the spot of the foul and 5 yard penalty or gt b if the passer is in his end zone when the ball is thrown, it is a safety, and 15 yards on the ensuing kickoff. See 4 7 for actions to conserve time inside two minutes of either half. gt Note If the foul occurs less than 10 yards behind the line of scrimmage, but more than half the distance to the goal line, the ball is to be placed at the spot of the pass. If the foul occurs within 5 yards of the offensive goal line, it is a safety. OOF . Man, we really don't want to commit IG now, do we? There's no time when that's going to work out well for the offense, unless they're incredibly desperate and just hope it isn't called. Now the exact numbers could be tweaked, but this idea should remain there should be no circumstance where it's preferable to commit IG. Defensive Pass Interference Okay, that about wraps up IG. How about PI? Well, let's look at the penalty for Defensive PI first page 33 gt Penalty For pass interference by the defense First down for the offensive team at the spot of the foul. If the interference is also a personal foul 12 2 , the 15 yard penalty for such a foul is also enforced, either from the spot of the foul for interference , or from the end of the run if the foul for pass interference is declined. If the interference is behind the defensive goal line, it is first down for the offensive team on the defense\u2019s one yard line, or, if the previous spot was inside the two yard line, halfway between the previous spot and the goal line. This again seems reasonable, but suffers from the same problem. What if, as in the Rams Saints game, the defender believes they are just beat and the only way to prevent a TD is to commit a foul? In that case, using the exact situation of the Rams Saints, here's the outcome chart Penalty Committed? Called? Yards Probability Yes Yes 10 90 Yes No 0 10 No N A 13 TD 100 Once again we have only two assumptions The defender cannot otherwise make a play on the ball in their perception , and The receiver is guaranteed to catch the ball The second assumption is definitely fallacious. However, it's clear that defenders, at least sometimes, consider the likelihood of the receiver catching the ball extremely high high enough to make this trade off worth it. As for the first assumption, again, the defender knows this information, so they're able to make the decision to commit the penalty or not with that information in mind. So it can be the correct decision to commit this penalty in order to prevent a touchdown Here's one possible way to 'fix' that gt Penalty For pass interference by the defense First down for the offensive team at the spot of the foul plus 15 yards. If the interference is also a personal foul 12 2 , an additional 15 yard penalty for such a foul is also enforced, either from the spot of the foul for interference , or from the end of the run if the foul for pass interference is declined. If the interference is behind the defensive goal line, it is a touchdown for the offensive team. WHAT ? ? Giving the offense a touchdown without them having to earn it? ? 30 yards for PI a personal foul Yes. They did earn it by forcing the defense to commit pass interference in their own end zone. Don't commit PI. Again, it's not my view that these exact numbers are needed, but something similar similarly worse for the defense than committing the penalty should be put in place. Offensive Pass Interference Finally, offensive PI gt Penalty For pass interference by the offense Loss of 10 yards from the previous spot. LOL. What a joke of a penalty. Here's the chart Penalty Committed? Called? Yards Probability Yes Yes 10 90 Yes No 0 10 No N A Interception 90 No N A 0 10 This is obvious. You don't even lose the down for committing this If you think the defender is going to intercept the ball, commit offensive PI every single time. This isn't even close and is the most egregious of all. Plus, the likelihood that it's called is likely much lower than stated this isn't a penalty that's called very often. That's a separate issue, but Here's a 'fix' for the penalty itself gt Penalty For pass interference by the offense Loss of possession at the spot of the foul plus fifteen yards to the defender's advantage Once again, OOF . Don't commit offensive PI, that's not going to work out for you. Now don't get me wrong I don't believe players are out there on the field explicitly doing these calculations in their heads. That's ridiculous. I've played football before, and there's just no time for that. There are, however, both coaches and players that figure these things out outside the game, and go into these circumstances with a plan of what to do if and when the circumstance arises. How to  It's a much bigger issue, in my view, than this single call or even these two types of penalty. It's a pervasive design flaw of the rules of the NFL on many, but certainly not all, penalties. The exact numbers used throughout especially new penalty yardage and the probability percentages of penalties being called aren't necessarily important to my view. In order to change my view, you would probably need to convince me that there is some design principle that is more important than discouraging breaking the rules at least in specific cases , or that my philosophy is flawed. If you could convince me that the existing penalties are sufficient to discourage breaking these rules, that could also change my view partially although frankly, I doubt that you can on that point. I've seen plenty of examples of individuals deliberately violating these rules in an attempt to gain advantage. So, Reddit, . gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Many NFL penalties are too lenient \/ not real penalities"}
{"id":"bb121b8b-627b-4ad4-9248-25e8a2014464","argument":"Has anyone seen those kids that were attacked? Fuck, chemical weapons are horrible, it's hell on earth. Everyone is saying it's gonna be another Iraq, but why? Just because it happened there, doesn't mean it will happen in Syria. We have to demonstrate that using these weapons is intolerable. Yes, we have to be the moral police. We have to attack somehow, even a small surgical operation, to at least signal that further use is unacceptable. It kind of scares me how people are shunning this off with well, it's not my problem or let em kill eachother . The extent of the dismissal of any operation at all is what bothers me the most. It seems like everyone here has there mind set, and the only concern is to not get involved. America has been stigmatized as an unwanted meddler, until we've reached a point where meddling is justified, and it's automatically dismissed. .","conclusion":"I think not attacking in Syria is extremely selfish."}
{"id":"81fae506-386a-47f2-8496-5ff5166fda52","argument":"I see three reasons It means that residents of larger states will have an equal say. Currently a vote in California is worth half that of a vote in Wyoming. It will let people who live in states which are overwhelmingly red blue still affect the election. The 3,528,633 people who voted for Obama in Texas in 2008 had no effect on the election. Many members of the electoral college do not have to vote in line with their constituents. A popular vote would solve all of these issues. Everyone's vote would count the same. Political minorities would be able to affect the general election. There would be no members of the electoral college to worry about. EDIT I made this post last night, and responded to a few arguments before I went to sleep. I had no idea it would blow up like this over night. I'm going to do my best to respond to everyone.","conclusion":"In the presidential election, votes should not be counted by state. Instead, it should be a popular vote, whoever gets the most votes wins."}
{"id":"df730a0b-b53f-4cd6-b01c-339583314bb4","argument":"First off happy Thanksgiving everyone. I hope you all have great food, and a great day. Second, I don't hate this game. With that settled, I will explained why I think Goldeneye on the N64 is unplayable and has not aged well. Goldeneye on the N64 is without a doubt the most important first person shooter on a console. First person shooters before were pc ports on consoles and were inferior. Goldeneye is also my most respected first person shooter ever because of how it impacted the industry. It proved that first person shooters can still be good even if it is on a console and not a pc. Goldeneye was ahead of it's time in 1997. With an excellent splitscreen multiplayer, and detailed mission objectives, this game became one of the best video games that year. While the story wasn't fantastic, it was better than watching a movie and that is not an easy thing to pull off as most video games based on a movie are down right bad. Today, this game is archaic. First person shooters have progressed alot ever since and in my opinion, Halo CE is responsible for that. The ai in Goldeneye is laughable bad. Your enemies are too slow, and they are dumb. One time, in the Aztex mission, when I died the guards threw a grenade at my dead body. The stupid bastard killed himself by throwing a grenade at my dead body. Don't get me started on Natalya. That imbecile is a burden. The graphics aren't bad but there are some questionable designs such as the AK 47 resembling or looking more like a pencil. The Klob looks like an unfinished weapon. The Magnum is blurry. The gunplay is so simple and easy. Even without auto aim, players can take advantage of the bad ai because of how slow they are when getting ready to shoot at you. Another sad thing is if you are in front of an enemy, you can't get hurt when he fires his weapon. Hell sometimes the guy won't even shoot. I get that maybe the developers didn't realize or fix this issue because this was after all Rare's first game due to how they lacked experience. Still I feel like a god when playing this game. I will give the game credit for making up the lack of verbal dialogue with text boxes. That is a neat addition if you like reading but for someone that has played later first person shooters after Goldeneye, this can be awkward. If I recall correctly, Perfect Dark didn't have text boxes and they had actual voice dialogue. The reason I say Halo CE is responsible for showing how outdated Goldeneye on the N64 is due to how much progress there has been. Yes Halo CE has bad graphics today. However it can be still playable to any gamer who has played any modern first person shooters. The health system is similar to other fps. Goldeneye is unique but also risky because you can forget how much health you have especially since there is no health regeneration. True you can check your health by pausing the game but Halo has done better by adding your health bar on the screen. Halo CE also introduced big open levels that make Goldeneye smaller in comparison. Halo also has a much more compelling story. Yes Half Life may be better but that is on PC. Halo CE was originally on a console. I am not defending health regeneration. I am explaining how Goldeneye on the N64 can scare or alienate any gamer that has played a fps post 2000. Compare the latest fps to Halo CE and tell me the difference. I know there may be big differences but I guarantee you it is not as big of a difference when you compare Goldeneye 007 on the N64 to Halo CE.","conclusion":"Goldeneye's single player on the N64 is unplayable today, has aged terribly and Halo CE is responsible for this."}
{"id":"dc3792c2-b813-4c3d-b13f-2942aa5f7b5f","argument":"In order to be effective and not an overlap of jurisdiction, executive power must be allowed to act without expressed consent. However, the concept of Monopoly on Violence forbids unrequited armed or violent intervention, which makes international police either illegal or powerless.","conclusion":"The US does not have the legal authority to interfere in other countries' laws and practices."}
{"id":"45a03f2e-1610-455c-916b-8b0bc7bd938a","argument":"George T. Conway has provided an article that supports the view that Donald Trump\u2019s narcissism makes it impossible for him to carry out the duties of the presidency in the way the Constitution requires.","conclusion":"Donald Trump shows most, if not all of the signs of Clinical Narcissism"}
{"id":"a5a0a2e7-d4db-4ccd-a65d-c04187a8607a","argument":"Everytime I hear someone complaining about social media, it always reminds me of when adults used to complain about me playing video games. Most arguments against social media can be solved with, use it responsibly or don't go crazy with it. For example social media is toxic unfollow the toxic people social media makes me feel bad only use it for messaging social media is a distraction turn off notifications and stop checking it However, there are others that make the arguments that it has negatively affected society or how kids are extra susceptible to social media, but literally every argument against this can be applied to video games. It just sounds like Christians complaining that legalizing the gays will tear the fabric of society. In fact, I'd say that video games are far more addictive than social media and are terrible for your attention span. Mobile app developers a b test the fuck out of their games to trigger the right responses to get you to keep playing. Don't get me started on the social factor of gaming. Facebook toxic is rookie compared to any competitive multiplayer game and it is reinforced by the fact that being an asshole is just the norm for these video games. Any behavioral argument can be applied to both. x200B Finally, people will say that video games bring people together which I can agree with but social media allows me to do that as well. Snapchat lets me keep up with some of my friends that I don't get to see on a daily basis. Facebook is a nice messaging platform, lets me organize events, and the marketplace is very useful. Linkedin lets me keep in touch with my previous coworkers for referrals and references. x200B Now if you say both are bad for people, I'll understand, but to say one is and not the other is a double standard. x200B","conclusion":"Saying social media is bad is the same thing as saying video games are bad"}
{"id":"bfd66dd7-3ebd-4387-94ba-bfcba90a66c8","argument":"This is from a policy perspective. People who are anti abortion at the personal level of course have an appropriate, valid view point. The backdrop of this is also a support for rare, safe, and accessible abortion. Making it rare via social programs that have shown to cause abortion rates to plummet is a no brainer. A personal view point while valid shouldn't be equated to what is best for a society. Regulating over extending the role of government will not reduce abortion incidence nor come close to irradiating eradicating it. it just hides the problem and makes it less safe. As these decisions don't exist in a vacuum, hypocrisy tends to dominate these talks. Anti abortion because murder is bad, but ok with silent on not as vocal about war and military industrial complex. Anti abortion because life is sacred and religious reasons, but, to be sarcastic, the baby better be born with a set of bootstraps. Cut funding to education, welfare, and other social programs to bring each other up especially children. Arguments today seem to be very black and white. Abortion because of its implications is difficult. I believe those two points while crudely put here invalidate the argument against abortion from a policy standpoint.","conclusion":"People who are anti-abortion have two major logic gaps that make their stance incorrect."}
{"id":"e5b81757-bd3e-43b7-8d71-40ee2f77f92b","argument":"Surgeries are intended to help children conform to rigid gender stereotypes before being given a chance to express their sexual orientation or gender identity. This greatly undermines the right to free expression as children develop into adults with a surgically-modified body intended to fit social norms, and not the individual\u2019s sense of self.","conclusion":"Genital reshaping surgeries on intersex infants are unnecessary as they encourage conforming to outdated and binary ideas of gender."}
{"id":"60e3d0fa-84e7-4ea9-b9be-4264875b5974","argument":"Colombia Supreme Court overruled a ban on bullfighting because it represents a \u201ccultural form of expression.\u201d","conclusion":"Cultural practices, discourses and material expressions surrounding bullfighting give social meaning to societies."}
{"id":"5c3bd6ac-72c6-4a5d-92d1-71e1471915d9","argument":"Ideological categories are never clear-cut and often highly contentious, so there will always be someone who disagrees with how a particular incident or act of speech has been classified.","conclusion":"It will be difficult for companies to correctly identify which views are harmful enough to be censored."}
{"id":"fd35f159-223b-45d8-b6c6-6543abdf774b","argument":"Some countries simply do not have enough adoptive children for the number of parents who might want to adopt.","conclusion":"While it may be possible to adopt children, this is not always the case for various reasons."}
{"id":"0219074e-9492-4a46-aa86-a0c1d261b160","argument":"I have a problem with the outrage over Russia's annexation of the Crimea. The government of the United States and Ukraine have both denounced Russia's actions as against international law . When was it decided that countries could not try to change their borders through force? Land has changed hands over and over again throughout history, and the current geopolitical situation is just an arbitrary snapshot. I think that if a country desires to change their borders through force, and it is within their interests to do so, then they should go for it. If another country or the global community has a problem with that then they can resist them through force. But to argue that everyone should just keep the status quo in perpetuity seems extremely arbitrary to me. It seems very hypocritical for the United States to claim that we should respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine after hundreds of years of displacing its indigenous population and territorial expansion.","conclusion":"Countries should be able to change their borders by military force"}
{"id":"a62479b0-c728-46dd-96c2-f34bd58380af","argument":"Between 1990 and 1998, during the Liberian civil war, thousands of children were reported to have been fathered by UN peacekeepers.","conclusion":"UN peacekeepers have been known to father children whilst on duty in crisis zones."}
{"id":"3affd15a-97ef-460b-9d16-588d56601a45","argument":"Men are horny creatures that crave a lot of sex from a variety of physically attractive women. Physically attractive women are generally very selective and either off limits or take a lot of time energy to lay, so there's naturally a huge imbalance between horny men and the beautiful women they crave willing to fuck them. On top of that, most men don't have the time and or energy to devote to constantly being on the prowl and putting in the work necessary to have sex with a ton of beautiful women, not to mention the looks, personality, status, etc. All this time wasted chasing sex is time that could be better spent elsewhere. Sexually satisfied men are happier, more focused, and more productive than sexually frustrated men. Prostitution makes sex an option, sexually satiating a man and freeing his mind to pursue more productive things. Sure a man can always masturbate, but the real thing is generally more satisfying. Also, masturbation makes it easier to live in a reclusive virtual world removed from human contact where sex with an attractive woman isn't believed to be a real possibility. Women would also benefit because they'd no longer have a legion of desperate sexually frustrated guys chasing and using them solely for sex. Human interactions would be more genuine and less driven by sexual desperation. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Society would be more productive if prostitution was legal"}
{"id":"6ff8e227-74bd-4c47-ae7c-dc1ff8d194a3","argument":"There are more pressing issues with the voting system, such as nontransferable votes, the inability to cast preferential votes, the two-party system, gerrymandering, electors not being obliged to vote according to their constituents, voting fraud, non-citizens voting, etc.","conclusion":"Of the many things wrong with the current voting system, the electoral college is the lesser of them."}
{"id":"7160abd7-0d60-4b66-930d-f70a26fc1d44","argument":"I believe the United States government is one that caters to the rich and elite rather than one that works for the common people. Reason 1 Obviously it is going to be the tax difference, the elite pay less in taxes than we do, and get away with breaking the law, or if they are caught they get very little to no punishment. E.G A homeless man stole 100 and got 15 years, CEO stole 3 billion and only received 3 years. ARTICLE E.G Crack cocaine are the same drug, however crack w is cheaper has harsher penalties than cocaine w is more expensive and is generally reserved for the upper class. Reason 2 Gerrymandering of large urban areas where the poor disadvantaged live prevent them from actually making a difference and voting in the people that they want. E.G Look at Californians map Reason 3 The electoral college is the decision maker when it comes to the presidential elections, not us. It's just for show. Reason 4 The elite keep the masses distracted, entertained, and ignorant. It's right in front of us and we just have to open our eyes to it. For example historically poor areas in the country are highly religious with Churches everywhere you turn they keep the poor so obsessed with heaven and the afterlife dying that they don't see the shit life that they live now, thus they never make an effort on changing it. They keep the middle class distracted with celebrities and other peoples lives and we are just like sheep and follow. Do you think the elite believe in Heaven or God? Hell no, they're living it, do you think they allow their kids to watch the shit we have on TV? No, they're educated and know their stuff. We won't ever make an effort to change because we are fine where we are and too lazy to do it. Sorry for the long rant . So what do you guys think?","conclusion":"I believe the U.S is an Elitist Society rather than a Pluralistic Society as it is labeled under."}
{"id":"782ee32c-59e3-4914-9a80-74e2f86f1abd","argument":"Languages are extremely beneficial to the economy in two senses. Firstly, language skills improve a job candidate\u2019s chances of selection, which keeps unemployment down. The National Centre for Languages CILT reports on its website that \u201c36% of employers recruit people with languages\u201d, \u201c49% of employers are dissatisfied with school leavers\u2019 language skills\u201d and that \u201c95% of London employers think that language skills are important for the London economy\u201d.1 Secondly, a high number of employees with language skills enhance companies\u2019 abilities to engage in trade and to expand their business abroad, in turn enhancing exports. 1 CILT The National Centre for Languages, \u2018Employers value language skills\u2019, accessed 17 November 2011,","conclusion":"Workers with advanced language skills increase the competitiveness of the economies they participate in"}
{"id":"592a56ed-afc9-4566-8c17-b30eca0b5dc7","argument":"It is in line with the Hippocratic Oath - to help, or at least do no harm. So doctors should help in any way they can.","conclusion":"Homeopathy could be used in specific circumstances where conventional medical treatments may do more harm than good."}
{"id":"8b5712d8-7705-4c30-91b5-0bb094d3b547","argument":"There is no doubt that there is a problem in the United States related to firearms. There are people who believe that getting rid of guns is the answer and there are others who believe that adding more guns to the mix is the answer. My view is that we should not only make sure that people who shouldn't have guns don't , but make sure that people who should have guns do . My general idea The US should use part of the defense budget to train volunteers in the use of firearms as well as how to deal with domestic terrorism and active shooter situations. These volunteers will also go through thorough background checks in addition to mental and physical health screenings. Active members of the military would be allowed to carry while on leave and, upon honorable discharge, could take a shortened course to also be part of this volunteer force. All volunteers would be required to be retested annually. The volunteers would then receive an ID card that permitted them to carry a concealed weapon anywhere, even especially in gun free zones most likely excluding airports commercial flights . They could use their own pistol or, if there was enough in the budget for it, could be issued a standard issue military sidearm Beretta M9 . Potential impact There would be no truly gun free areas for shooters to target. Criminals could never know where they might encounter resistance by armed civilians. This would not interfere with current concealed carry laws, however, current CCW permit holders could be encouraged to volunteer. A more prepared and aware population in general. Population open to more strict gun control while still feeling protected. It is possible that there could be an increase in accidental gun deaths, but overall loss of life should be less tough to swallow but what would you rather have? I know this isn't a perfect plan but I honestly believe that we will never be able to reduce the number of firearms in the US to a level that would have a significant impact. My goal is to shift the balance of bad guys with guns vs good guys with guns. If we want to make it harder to get guns in general then there should be a driving force to ensure that our overall level of defense is not lowered.  Side note on the The Beretta M9 These pistols are safe. They have a firing pin safety lever and have a double action first trigger pull which means you do not have to keep the hammer cocked at all times in order to draw and fire quickly and that you are less likely to accidentally discharge requires 13lb for first trigger pull vs 5lb for additional pulls .","conclusion":"The United States should train volunteers to anonymously carry concealed weapons in public, even where normally not allowed."}
{"id":"d1dacd57-63b2-466b-af85-580d2365dd58","argument":"There are situations where this could be seriously disrespectful and considered a blatant breach of social customs for example when a person is in a position of authority or in the middle of carrying out some official duties or involved in important work requiring focus.","conclusion":"Approaching strangers for sex is not appropriate in many public situations."}
{"id":"a7c697ba-7dcf-4aaf-8c9e-623d5a1a76f1","argument":"Prerequisites I understand that this is a sensitive topic for some. I will start off right away and say that I have never been in the military, so I am sure that I have a very limited perspective on this that is why I am here I have no problem with civilians wearing military uniforms in public as long as there is no Stolen Valor . Given the number of YouTube videos on the subject, this seems like an uncommon position, and therefore worthy of a  It's important to start with explaining Stolen Valor as defined in H.R.258 Stolen Valor Act of 2013 which states gt Stolen Valor Act of 2013 Amends the federal criminal code to rewrite provisions relating to fraudulent claims about military service to subject to a fine, imprisonment for not more than one year, or both an individual who, with intent to obtain money, property, or other tangible benefit, fraudulently holds himself or herself out to be a recipient of lt full list in the above link gt This definition is pretty clear about what is and is not Stolen Valor, with the only exception being the words, tangible benefit . Essentially what this says is that it is illegal for any person to attempt to obtain money, property, or other tangible benefit by pretending to be in the US military. Tangible benefit in this case is referring to anything you can touch that a reasonable person can consider to have value. For those who haven't ever seen a Stolen Valor video most will pick up with a guy girl walking around the airport or at work or walking around the mall or again at the airport The guy girl recording usually starts interrogating the person in uniform about their metals, military history, etc. After a few minutes of questions, we finally arrive at the grand finale where the person recording will reveal himself herself as a veteran or currently in the military and accuse the person of Stolen Valor . In every video I have ever seen, and I have seen a lot of these, when the person recording describes what Stolen Valor is, they leave out the part about obtaining benefits from the uniform, which is a necessary requirement. It is important before we move on that everyone understand what Stolen Valor is, because I do not want to waste time responding to people who have an incorrect or incomplete definition trying to change my view. Why I do not have a problem with this Usually in the videos the person in uniform is not attempting to benefit from wearing the uniform . There are obvious exceptions like when the people are begging for money which I would agree is wrong, but most videos do not actually even qualify as stolen valor. When Americans see a man women in uniform, the reaction is usually to think about how much you appreciate people who serve in the military in general. You might choose to show this appreciation in the form of shaking the hand and thanking the man women in uniform who reminded you to stop and think about that, but at that point the person is nothing more than a symbol for something much greater than himself herself. Sure, it is weird that some people like to wear around a uniform they didn't earn, but why should I be mad about this? An analogy for this would be seeing a guy walking around in a Tom Brady jersey. It is not illegal to be wearing a Brady jersey, but if that person started selling fake Tom Brady signatures, then we are dealing fraud. As long as the person in uniform is not doing anything to disgrace or disparage the US military, then there is no reason to be upset. How to earn a delta Convince me that I should care when I see a civilian pretending to be in the military while not asking for, receiving, or accepting any tangible benefits . How to not earn a delta and waste everyone's time Try to convince me that it is stolen valor regardless of if the person is trying to benefit directly from the lie. The law disagrees with you and so do it. Deltas Awarded 1st Delta to u Kip karo for this comment equating military service to a college degree. While it didn't convince me that I should feel personally offended, it did get me to better understand where the vets in the videos are coming from, and why it is so hard to not take it personally. 2nd Delta to u john gee for this comment. A civilian wearing a uniform may not necessarily be trying to receive a specific tangible benefit but they are likely doing so out of the possibility of reaping some sort of non specific or intangible benefit . While this does not classify as Stolen Valor from a legal standpoint, it does illustrate why people in the military would take it very personally to see someone pretending to be in the military Bonus Tosh.0 clip about the subject for laughs","conclusion":"I have no problem with civilians wearing military uniforms in public as long as there is no \"Stolen Valor\""}
{"id":"77f4a0e1-8597-4a24-8601-58930bc31f76","argument":"Using a utilitarian approach encourages people to think about the costs and benefits of their actions in a way that a rules-based framework provided by a religion does not.","conclusion":"There are other, superior, sources of philosophical frameworks and moral codes."}
{"id":"e48e3058-12ad-499b-aad5-b84e6b5b6531","argument":"More than 87 countries currently have some kind of surveillance or attack drone. China and Iran are two countries that have unveiled such programs. Insurgent groups are also moving quickly to acquire the technology. Libyan opposition forces used drones and Hezbollah claims that it has used drones as well.","conclusion":"The US cannot Risk Lagging Behind the Rest of the World in the Development of These Technologies."}
{"id":"2a30811b-def9-46ce-a9e6-2d09b6a04f4a","argument":"Countries emerging from violent pasts, involving repression, civil war and political violence may attempt to come to terms with their histories in three ways. Firstly, they can attempt to ignore the past, allowing those guilty of atrocities to go unpunished and perhaps even prosper under the new system. This approach leaves victims' families bitter and communities divided, entrenching resentments and potentially distorted accounts of individuals\u2019 involvement in violent activities. Such a situation makes renewed violence all the more likely. Secondly, post conflict states can set up war crimes courts as in the Balkans, Rwanda and Sierra Leone, but these may be seen as victor's justice, or as an imposition by a distant opaque international body. Those threatened by such courts may refuse to lay down their arms, jeopardising any chance of a lasting peace settlement - as with Joseph Kony's long-running rebellion in Northern Uganda. Finally and often best, they can set up a form of Truth and Reconciliation Commission. This requires the whole country to face up to its past, to acknowledge that violence was done by all parties and that the victims were many, and to seek reconciliation through forgiveness at both personal and national levels.","conclusion":"The reconciliation process provides access to justice in post conflict states"}
{"id":"ca02c89e-fc13-4ae3-8a42-517953ce9777","argument":"I've yet to hear a good argument as to why anyone should feel optimistic about this life thing. To me, it seems to be an exercise in futility. I suppose some people are given hope by their belief in God. I hate to be the typical snarky internet atheist, but I think it's pretty reasonable to say that religion is probably a bunch of bunk. That being the case, what reason is there to feel hope? The universe is an indifferent void. Nothing we do will ever really matter. In the end, the human species will go extinct, and every trace of our existence will be erased. It'll be as though we were never here. How is it that some people seem to feel optimistic about life? Live, die, what does it matter? What's your reason for getting up in the morning? How do you not feel weighed down by the pointlessness of it all? I say there really is no reason to feel peace or contentment. We're all just kidding ourselves. You and I are nothing but lumps of flesh. We're just wasting time until we die. Sorry to be morose, but I really don't see a counterargument. Can anyone tell me why my outlook is flawed?","conclusion":"I think that life is pointless and depressing."}
{"id":"44a0b340-afc8-41ca-a6ca-4993725f67b6","argument":"Over the last five years, ACLU advocates have helped block over 300 laws aimed at restricting reproductive rights all across the United States.","conclusion":"The ACLU has been an important force in challenging laws in the justice system. They are involved in numerous cases each year."}
{"id":"11a98f34-0aa7-46b8-8c75-d06539558ba7","argument":"The image with the UFO is from the Space Telescope Science's official website, stsci.edu which is the sole organization that \"performed the science operations for Hubble,\" and is available for download from the same site for any individual looking to verify the sighting for themselves hubblesite.org The Youtuber UFOOvni2012 first made the discovery and published a video on December 11th 2016 to his Youtube Channel www.youtube.com","conclusion":"The Hubble Space Telescope captured a cigar-shaped UFO in its \"sharpest yet\" picture of the Orion Nebula."}
{"id":"fd8379a7-db9d-40f0-add9-6807bd077c0c","argument":"The Arunachal Pradesh is claimed by China as a part of Tibet occupied by India.","conclusion":"The Central Tibetan Administration renounced Arunachal Pradesh, damaging its moral legitimacy to govern."}
{"id":"f1c1ec49-7307-4790-bd07-a8e23652e420","argument":"The facts as I understand them The Koch Brothers are two people who both have a net worth in the neighborhood of 30 billion each, which was made in the chemicals business. They've made headlines for spending a lot on political donations, and their political views are basically libertarian. There's a lot of criticism that they're some of the primary culprits of right wing corruption of politics. I've read most of this Why I don't buy it They're obviously some of the richest people on the planet. Basically everybody at that stratum is going to be spending a huge amount of money on philanthropic stuff. Politics is a component of that, but it's not like they've given billions to that cause. Plus, it's really just a component of a larger philosophy. From a recent article gt Freedom Partners\u2019 principal goal is to educate the public about the critical role played by free markets in achieving economic prosperity, societal well being, and personal happiness. So this could be good or bad. But the only thing of real substance that I know is getting funding from this network is the Learn Liberty organization. Their youtube channel is fantastic I don't consider myself politically libertarian, but almost all of what they say is very moderate and reasonable. This is just one example of things that get funded by the Koch spending, but there are a lot of university professors connected with them. Just to throw out a name, Duke's Michael Munger for instance. This kind of person does real honest to god research, and is a far cry from a political shill. Learn Liberty features these very people in their videos. Let's get to the real point isn't using your fortune to make the world a better place a good thing in general? The Koch brothers didn't have to get involved in promoting economic freedom issues. These guys are filthy rich, and I don't see how their advocacy has anything to do with self interest. It seems obvious that they fund this stuff because they believe in it. I admit, eradicating Malaria like Bill Gates seems more positive, but that's ridiculous. In both cases, these are people giving away their own fortune with the best interests of humanity as perceived by themselves in mind. If it were my money, I would have a lot of opinions about how it should be spent to do the most good, but how can I possibly think ill of someone who is making their own decisions about what they think is the best?","conclusion":"The Koch Brothers seem like decent guys who want to make the world a better place."}
{"id":"2ed1dfbe-86b8-4a23-8113-4206af807bf5","argument":"Bolton, a city in the UK, England, is adamant in having their city's schoolchildren, sing their national anthem altogether, every weekday for when the children attend. Rather than going about a predetermined, biased mission of patriotic pride that I do feel is politically drove , for the UK the persons in charge of primary school curriculum, should in fact, propose then, a teaching of the UK's sightly and unsightly facets, if they feel that nationalistic morale is too low to stay as it is. I believe it'd help them to gain knowledge to have them to the fullest a young child has the mental capacity for , have an overview of the good and bad, and let them do what they will with the facts and statistics presented, at their age and beyond that not however, fall into a state of subconsciousness, singing the lyrics to a national anthem that they've yet have the understanding for. To have them be told in a determinedly and definitive fashion, that one viewpoint is rightful, and that it is the only one of its rightful kind, would, I believe, disaffect them in terms of being insular within the right winged end of the political spectrum. Ultimately, I believe, that parents, if they must, should go about having their child s singing the national anthem in their respective households and not in a clumped together space, where choice isn't available to refuse to.","conclusion":"UK children ought not to be planned for mindlessly singing their national anthem along with their classmates"}
{"id":"51f5277d-975b-43ef-9d08-580e4180b223","argument":"The problem with the supposition of the \"OmniGod\" is that it leaves no wiggle room for God to act in anything other than a single prescribed course. What about a non-interfering God? Or one who uses this world to test or forge people into better people? What are we calling evil? And is evil everything that causes humans pain? Or is evil a directed act of harm? Maybe an OmniGod created the conditions for utopia to watch what his creations did and maybe \"evil\" is a word thrown around too lightly.","conclusion":"Monotheism does not preclude the existence of evil, insofar as some of the features of the traditional conception of God can be abandoned without rejecting the traditional conception of God in toto in its entirety."}
{"id":"29ba1b1a-1785-44b3-91e4-3bf429c69afe","argument":"The judgement of pigs - like that of humans - is shaped by both their basic personality traits and their mood This demonstrates that understanding and applying sentience to animals may have all sorts of complications.","conclusion":"Many studies have shown that animals possess characteristics associated with sentience."}
{"id":"335e0791-607c-43f0-978a-e980d0cf1a3e","argument":"God is defined as the ultimate being, this is not necessarily the same as the ultimate imaginable being","conclusion":"The definition of God is not a being which nothing greater can be imagined."}
{"id":"706d5499-7d63-4041-9fc8-d12bb7ce4d14","argument":"Because of public opposition to full implementation of single-payer healthcare, the US has a mixed public-private hybrid healthcare system which generates many perverse incentives","conclusion":"Healthcare policies that are only partially implemented often end up being incredibly inefficient."}
{"id":"77b92424-7ec8-43e2-8aff-bf12c198e852","argument":"If I am using Adblock, it means that I don't want to see the ads and won't click on the banners. Maybe companies will gain a footing in my mind for the next time I am in the supermarket but that is me being held hostage and subjected to something I don't want to be part of. This extension gives me the possibility of escaping the situation. I realize that the content creators need to earn money but it is their responsibility to find a way and monetize their product that doesn't involve emotional blackmailing me into disabling AdBlock.","conclusion":"The onus doesn't fall on me to disable AdBlock and help the content creator."}
{"id":"61cbbe4e-8364-4c58-a7d4-d37965593908","argument":"British authorities said in 2008 that three-quarters of post-9\/11 UK plots can be \u201ctraced to Pakistan\u201d Coates and Page 2008.","conclusion":"Foreign fighters who return for domestic operations are more effective in carrying out their attacks than non-veterans."}
{"id":"f5db41f4-89f9-4b3e-84c9-39b2f8b39667","argument":"A study found that time spent on social media site Instagram was linked with lower levels of body satisfaction.","conclusion":"The constant comparisons of different lives on social media is detrimental to self-esteem and so exacerbates existing disorders."}
{"id":"bb3757c5-15d6-4b41-9806-6d05bd613c1a","argument":"In the \u201cGood Luck America\u201d program on Snapchat, host Peter Hamby goes to all different parts of the USA and talks to people of vastly different upbringings and political beliefs. This week, the show gave a very interesting representation of both candidates in the Texas Senate race, as well as their respective parties. Peter the show definitely has his its biases, but he brings up some very valid points, such as voter participation rate among different ethnic groups in both Texas and the country as a whole. If you want to watch the episode, click here I want you to change my view on three things related to this episode. Voter participation rates exist and are noticeably different, at a large scale, among different ethnic groups. It beneficial for America that more people pay attention to this kind of big news political content, regardless of your definition for what \u201cbeneficial to America\u201d means. The fact that Trump has said that he will send illegal immigrants back to where they came from is directly at odds with his actions. Basically, he says one thing and does another. Cheers lads","conclusion":"I have 3 claims about the Snapchat coverage of the Texas Senate race covered."}
{"id":"5244a858-e8d8-4970-aa80-dc32f42ac7bd","argument":"Hitler led a revolution in Germany and had what seemed like the entire country supporting him. His speeches and rallies are stuff that can only attempt to be replicated in terms of their size and atmosphere. He started the world's most famous war, and which led to millions dead and also involved the most famous and arguably worst genocide in human history. The US economy boomed during WWII, London and Paris were destroyed, and the Soviet Union lost a large chunk of it's population. After the war, numerous steps were taken to avoid such a catastrophic event, On top of this, Germany was divided, the Cold War began, and the Nuclear arms race caused major world tension. Today, Germany is a country with little national pride. Besides football tournaments, Germans are rarely displaying the national flag or showing any sign of nationalistic pride. EDIT I'm an idiot and hit send by accident. In the past few elections, the two most famous politicans in the world have been compared to him by critics. Europe have been hit with a refugee crisis due to the fear of being compared to Hitler. On top of this all, being Literally Hitler is now a meme.","conclusion":"Hitler is the world's most influential person"}
{"id":"df6210ed-0211-4ba4-80d6-33543c6ed284","argument":"It takes two to make a baby, therefore it shouldn't solely come down to the woman's choice. Also if she refuses to have an abortion or give it up for adoption then I dont think the man should have to pay child support.","conclusion":"I think it is is just as much the mans choice to have an abortion\/give up for adoption as it is the womans."}
{"id":"4c8c5cdd-e699-40a1-b58a-9c876c2f6ff5","argument":"Speed cameras are a way for the government to tell when people are breaking the law. That's why they exist. It completely defeats the point if they have to be clearly signed and visible. Because of this, people just brake right before the camera, and speed up again on the other side of it. Sure speed traps still catch people who aren't paying attention, but that's a small percentage of the dangerous drivers that speed cameras were invented to help prevent. I've heard that they have to be signed to prevent the government from using them as revenue machines, placing them all over the place just as a way of making money. But why is that a bad thing. The only way for drivers to avoid paying a fine if there were speed traps hidden everywhere would be to obey the law . Really there should be speed cameras lining the sides of every street everywhere, because then they would have the effect that they're supposed to have, which is to force people to drive safely. Even if that is an outrageously expensive set up, we can atleast emulate it by allowing the government to hide cameras anywhere they like. Then we'll never know if we're about to drive past one, so we'll have to obey the speed limits at all times or risk a fine.","conclusion":"I don't think there should be restrictions on the placement of speed cameras."}
{"id":"52f5f94c-a2a1-4fc7-9855-be4907328766","argument":"On February 26, the cartoonist who had drawn the \"bomb in turban\" picture, the most controversial of the twelve, explained: There are interpretations of it the drawing that are incorrect. The general impression among Muslims is that it is about Islam as a whole. It is not. It is about certain fundamentalist aspects, that of course are not shared by everyone. But the fuel for the terrorists\u2019 acts stem from interpretations of Islam. . if parts of a religion develop in a totalitarian and aggressive direction, then I think you have to protest. We did so under the other 'isms.","conclusion":"The \"bomb in turban\" cartoon was aimed at extremists, not Islam generally."}
{"id":"9e0cb9b7-c20f-4c7c-97a4-e1fa5e1df0e9","argument":"Since humanists believe in creating their own ethics, it is not possible for them to achieve the happiness of following a particular ethics code.","conclusion":"Without faith in a higher power, humanists will not experience the joy of feeling that there is a higher purpose to their existence."}
{"id":"452a837c-d3a7-4b21-8cd3-34053494db6b","argument":"In some Muslim countries such as Saudi Arabia, apostasy and atheism are punishable by lashes, imprisonment and even beheading. People are free to express their beliefs in Western democratic societies while they believe these are morally reprehensible crimes in theirs.","conclusion":"A fixed standard is not necessary to make such a judgement, especially since such standards can vary culturally."}
{"id":"c42563b7-6efb-4bc1-9d3c-88c4dd0e85a0","argument":"\u201cAlthough the US produces about 22 of the global GDP and accounts for 4 of the world's population, it accounts for 44 of global biomedical R D expenditures and its domestic pharmaceutical market about 40 of the global market.\u201d This seems to suggest the US consumer is ultimately bearing the majority of the cost and risk on bringing new drug treatments that the rest of humanity will eventually benefit from. If this is the case, then that should be recognized when discussing why US healthcare, and drugs in particular, is disproportionately expensive compared to the rest of the world. Especially when comparing systems, the hidden benefit of US investment in pharmaceuticals for nations with free inexpensive healthcare needs to be considered. Edit Do note that the pharmaceutical companies can be anywhere in the world. Everyone seems to be aiming at the US consumer to make their profits even if they are based in Sweden or Switzerland. This is a 2010 study that concludes that while USA companies do contribute a lot to drug innovation, it is not disproportionate given its size. It acknowledges USA consumers pay a lot more than everyone else for drugs. However, all this shows is that the USA itself doesn't supply new drugs disproportionate to its GDP and size. It does show that the USA is the biggest CONSUMER of these drugs and the largest market by far. It doesn't matter where in the world a drug is developed if the US customer is the target. e.g. A Swiss pharmaceutical lab develops a cancer therapy and can charge a US customer 100 and an Indian customer 10, and in fact targets the US customer first. This is what I mean when the US customer is subsidizing the rest of us.","conclusion":"The expensive US healthcare system means US consumers subsidize drug innovation for the world"}
{"id":"fb02301d-3f8a-4ab8-b5f6-ec79b38dcbe4","argument":"The Church of Scientology has extremely high revenues, profiting millions of dollars just off of its tax exemption.","conclusion":"There are many cases of churches using their tax exempt status to pocket large sums of money."}
{"id":"0011a427-2fa7-4154-9963-e5984453d63a","argument":"Everyone loves to debate whether one player is better than another, comparing statistics and eras, considering teammates and systems, but when comparing great ones, none can compare to THE Great One. Wayne Gretzky was a transcendent talent. A nine time MVP, he played for 20 years, and holds the all time career records for goals, assists, points, and hat tricks. He was the fastest player of all time to every single scoring plateau, and still holds 173 official and unofficial records more than a decade and a half after retirement.","conclusion":"No athlete is more deserving of the title of GOAT in their respective sport than Wayne Gretzky."}
{"id":"d1bc47c6-d084-487d-95ce-2271c9012769","argument":"It is estimated that roughly 84 million owned cats live in the US, and that there are 30 80 million un owned cats, which include feral cats, barn cats, and cats who are not allowed inside. Researchers estimate that free ranging domestic cats kill 1.4\u20133.7 billion birds and 6.9\u201320.7 billion mammals annually. This study calls cats the worst invasive species in the USA. Thus I believe cats should only be allowed indoors and should treated as pest like pigeons or rats if found outside. I am a Bird lover and I can witness the damage done by cats every day. As such I should be allowed to destroy any cat coming at my property.  please.","conclusion":"Free roaming cats should be treated as pest and destroyed if possible. In addition, letting your cat outside should be made illegal."}
{"id":"66f567f2-9956-4ed1-a7d0-31b4cfc4143f","argument":"It is important that man not attempt to play God or nature in subjecting another individual to euthanasia. Rather, patients should be allowed to live and die naturally. God or nature intended man to die in a certain way ie. \"naturally\". By euthanizing the individual, a person is deprived of this natural human experience and its diverted from the intentions of the Maker.","conclusion":"Euthanasia is not a natural death, or as God intended."}
{"id":"786eb5af-f858-4010-8bfb-caaf9b13a981","argument":"I am often irked by claims about how awful it is that we objectify people particularly women , but until recently I couldn't point to why those claims bothered me. The recent uproar over Robin Thicke's Blurred Lines video and Miley Cyrus' VMA performance was largely centered around the objectification of people In Thicke's case it was women, for Cyrus is was also women, but them being African American seemed to be the larger issue . However, I think people who demonize performers for turning other people into objects are missing a really big part of what the performance is a showcase of the featured artist. Any and everything in a performance be it props, scenery and back up dancers are there solely to highlight how awesome the main performer is add to the narrative of the main performer. One could then argue that everything in a performance is the objectification of everything centering around a protagonist, but for the purposes of telling a narrative I don't think there's anything wrong with this. Extrapolating from the above example, I think we all see other people in the context of our individual narrative. When you look at any other person, it's impossible for you to understand every one of the complex factors that make up who they are. Subconsciously we know this, thus most of the time when we think of other people we take mental snapshots of them in a particular moment and use that them in our thoughts. For example, if I M see a beautiful woman walking down the street I know absolutely nothing about her other than that she is in my estimation beautiful. In the context of my life she is essentially just a beautiful women. If we were to begin talking and I found out more about her, she would be just beautiful and whatever new information I had about her. The way in which I form my mental image of her identity does not vary from when I don't know her to when I know more about her. In that sense, I think we constantly objectify everyone we see interact with because it's much simpler for our minds to take mental snapshots of people than to try to account for every variable in that person's life and their unknown motivations. Of course, as we get to know people better close friends, family members, lovers our ability to understand that person in context GREATLY improves, but I believe we still objectify them. Because we don't know everything about a person, any ideas we have about them are incomplete and thus in our minds we hold a false image of who they truly are. This works because our relationships with others are based in how they relate to us personally eg. how others fit into our individual narrative. Because objectification is such an integral part of how we relate to others, I think there is nothing wrong with it and cries about how awful it is that we objectify people particularly women are ignoring how we understand the world around us.  tl dr The way in which we relate to others is based on how they fit into our individual narrative, thus every time we interact with someone objectification occurs. Because objectification is essentially a tool we use to reasonably relate to others, there is no inherent wrong in objectifying others.","conclusion":"I think objectification is an integral part of how we interpret visual information, thus there's no inherent harm in objectifying people."}
{"id":"7ff5633e-4176-4833-bc2c-f6dceb1d6e51","argument":"With globalization and trading of ideas between cultures there is a large amount of culture appropriation from outside nations and countries around the world are loosing their musical heirtage. I come from India and the music that is heard now a days in movies for those that don't know, most Indian music comes from films not typically from individual singers or bands is awfully westernized to the point where half the lyrics are English. And the meaning or interpretation behind the music is understood by everyone where as before people needed to generally learn or inform themselves on the culture to understand why certain pieces were sung or performed the way are. It has turned into almost stereotypical music, with very little influence going back the other direction. As time goes on more songs have partial or full english lyrics. Instruments such as the guitar electric or otherwise have been integrated. So I want to know, how exactly do you think your country or another country whose culture you are familiar with has not lost its roots and still retains those aspects in MODERN music, none of this oh a teeny tiny population still listens to classical music . Hopefully I didn't ramble too much and made some sense. This is my first one but definitely not my last one","conclusion":"Modern music around the world has lost it culture and is all becoming the same"}
{"id":"769991cd-9036-4b92-a639-99e340c2e17c","argument":"Feminists are always arguing for a woman to have the right to choose what to do with her own body. But it appears they only care for a woman's right to choose until she does something they don't like. If having the right to choose should give you the right to have an extremely controversial and in the eyes of some people, murderous not saying abortion is murder and I don't want to turn this into another debate about abortion. Just saying it is controversial enough that a sizable percentage of the population feels this way . Then having the right to body automomy should also give you the right to show any part of your body you want for a magazine cover.","conclusion":"Feminists are flaming hypocrites for criticizing Emma Watson's Vanity Fair cover."}
{"id":"c9dfc358-246e-43ad-9c49-95a4c3b42a9b","argument":"The basic idea is to tax all land and natural resources at close to 100 of their rental value. This would essentially eliminate real estate speculation. At the moment, a lot of valuable land is held idle for speculative purposes. This tax would free up that land so that society can gain the economic benefits from its use. In the US, vacant houses outnumber homeless people. By making it expensive to hold on to land without using it, we could force those homes on to the market and make housing more affordable for everyone. Socially, this would be a way to resolve historical injustices. In the US, land was taken from the Native Americans. Countless countries all across the world have seen the exploitation of peasant farmers by wealthy landlords. In Zimbabwe, the issue with the white farmers shows the disasterous consequences of simply redistributing that land. At the same time, the new distribution is not necessarily more just. With a land value tax, we could use a percentage of the proceeds to create a basic income, so that all people will share equally in the land wealth of a country, regardless of history. EDIT Forgot to mention that it's the least disruptive and most enforceable method of collecting tax I can think of. Land can't be offshored or hidden. It doesn't require a huge bureaucracy to spy on everyone's income. And if there is a capital flight away from the land of one country, that will just lower the value so someone else can use it.","conclusion":"A georgist land value tax would be beneficial both economically and socially."}
{"id":"95685785-70ce-4d8f-9d4e-b8c09196925d","argument":"I believe that all religion is bad, and that It is only spreading hate and causing artificial differences for people to fight over. In my opinion, religion has only harmed scientific and technologial advancement, and servers to marginalize nonbelivers. It seems that every religion has taking the path of If you don't agree with us, we have to kill you. if not in writing, then in practice, holy wars proof of this. In this day and age, religeon has been the only force holding us back on issues that should be common sense, such as gay rights, and drags us back to an irrational superstitious way. And even doing all of the above while being complete hippcrites. This has been shown in every religion. If there are any spiritual and and moral benefits, then they could be obtained in the same way without all the indoctrination, teaching to hate others. Please  on some or all of the above.","conclusion":"I think that all religion is bad and should never have existed,"}
{"id":"e0b57b09-daa3-4135-992b-d410628e323b","argument":"Fashion and style are not the same thing. Style is self defined, its an aspect of your personality. You will naturally see something whether or not its clothes and say hey thats cool I like that style. Fashion is a style which is defined by 'fashion designers' which are basically people who got lucky and ended up having influence in the industry for no objective reason. Just happened. People who define their own style by what they think is fashionable are superficial people with no substance who are too scared to be themselves and tailor every aspect of their personality to what they think is cool. edit if you have something to say, say it, im getting a very weird comment to downvote ratio.","conclusion":"Fashion is superficial and youre a superficial person if you care about it."}
{"id":"fc025376-8142-42b5-8da5-a6317bc990a0","argument":"The European Convention on Human Rights ECHR recognizes that committing a crime can result in a person being deprived of their liberty","conclusion":"Individuals forgo most of their rights when they are proven guilty of a crime, including the right to free choice."}
{"id":"24c0cfb6-17ce-480d-ae77-897571e872cb","argument":"If it's illegal for prostitutes to be paid for sex, why is it different for porn actresses and actors? particularly with the whole women's rights thing going on, and people protesting for women to respect their bodies Also, not many people are calling for prostitution to be legalized, but people are calling for David Cameron's head after he made essentially the same thing illegal. Just to clear it up, if people create pornography on their own accord, without being paid, it's OK with me. I believe it's a mistake, but it's their mistake. Pornography is a dark road when money is involved.","conclusion":"I believe porn should be illegal."}
{"id":"a5b60330-f9f1-4866-8312-eea41adb545f","argument":"\"So far from engaging in a war to perpetuate slavery, I am rejoiced that slavery is abolished. I believe it will be greatly for the interests of the south. So fully am I satisfied of this, as regards Virginia especially, that I would cheerfully have lost all I have lost by the war, and have suffered all I have suffered, to have this object attained.\" Statement to John Leyburn 1 May 1870, as quoted in R. E. Lee : A Biography 1934 by Douglas Southall Freeman.en.wikiquote.org","conclusion":"Robert E. Lee is remembered for his sense of honor and duty. In fact he was not a staunch supporter of slavery or secession but fought for these ideas because they had been more or less democratically decided upon."}
{"id":"5804f85d-1899-4224-ac79-f320409a574c","argument":"There was a cultural and religious coexistence of Greeks, Italians, and Arabs up to 1229, when Frederick II ruled. After, that, it was the decline of the Byzantine Empire in 1261 and start of many Roman Catholic rulings to past when pizza was created in 1522.","conclusion":"The number of known Catholic places of worship present during these times is several orders of magnitude greater than the number of Orthodox places of worship."}
{"id":"1ce6f538-f7ef-4c38-8396-eac969686cff","argument":"Italian cuisine has a long history of experimentation, contrarian ingredients, and niche things some people enjoy. Pizza is no different, which is why so many variations exist around the world.","conclusion":"However, eating pineapple pizza can become a regional cuisine that would respect the traditions of a locality, if is consumed in a country where pineapple is native."}
{"id":"4ef25772-b683-4a66-8849-2c39d842ea0c","argument":"Couples need to pass tests in order to procreate Disclaimer 1 I have not figured out what the tests should be, but the point being humans should not be allowed to procreate at will. Disclaimer 2 This stance is coming from a point of advancing the human race, and not to be a debate about human rights. Disclaimer 3 There are certain assumptions i am making, and if they turn out to be wrong, might make me more inclined to change my view. 1 Lets talk adoption. As far as i am aware, adopting kids is a rigorous process. There are a healthy number of checks in place to ensure that the kids are going to be in the right hands. Of course, one of the main purpose which makes sense is to prevent bad people sorry for the lack of a better term to be able to adopt kids and end up doing bad things to them. But to a certain extent, i assume it would be to ensure that the kids have the proper living environments to give them the best shot at life. I'll cover best shot soon . So if adoption is so difficult, why shouldn't making one be equally hard? More on that later too . 1a Best shot. Broken families, poor families, abusive families, circumstances which would not be ideal for raising a child, or at the very least would not be the kind of family you put a child in. 1b With regards to making one being equally hard, i am not saying people cannot engage in intercourse. By all means hump like rabbits. What i mean is i think it should be punishable by law when you make a kid when you are not allowed to have one hence my point on people having to pass tests . 2 When born into families that do not give children the best shot , the likelihood that said children would end up on the wrong path would be more likely. An assumption, no statistics, but i think it should be a reasonable assumption that a large amount of delinquents come from families which fall under the categories as listed above . By preventing people who are in such situations from procreating, you are reducing the chance of people who would eventually do society more harm than good. 2a I would concede this point to be a poor argument, not on the basis of fallacies i am not sure if theres one but based on evidence that the reasons kids usually end up as delinquents stems from something else apart from poor birth circumstances. 2b I do not necessarily think that kids who are born into wealthy families etc would not turn out to be delinquents, i just think its less likely that they would become citizens who cause harm to society. 3 Educated Population vs Uneducated Population birth rates. For example compare between Singapore and India. Clearly neither are good. But i think more social problems would stem from high birth rates in uneducated populations than vice versa. Countries wth low birth rates have to deal with an aging population, which seems like less of an issue in an affluent country than dealing with rampant poverty. 3a I can think of more societal problems with higher birth rates in uneducated populations, but i'd leave it to you to point out the opposing views instead. To summarise, i think there needs to be a certain criteria that is met before a couple is allowed to procreate, which would reduce the chances that a kid will end up cause more harm than good to society.","conclusion":"Laws should be in place for procreation"}
{"id":"a9ce68d5-fb23-4054-91b2-6b1d40cd664e","argument":"Okay so to begin I think the copyright on Beatles songs are too strict. I mean, I'm not against claiming songs with Beatles songs, but takedowns? That makes no sense at all. First of all that's restricitng free speech as people should be allowed to post what they like and second of all it's lost income. The way the copyright is handled should be like many other songs. Get a liscense to use them, or get claimed. This way both people should win. This also applies to many other songs like ACDC and Radiohead. I mean lets put it this way. If someone decides to sample 10 seconds what impact is there really? The copyright owners won't go bankrupt overnight in that case so why so much worry. Old things should be given more access, like fables and fairy tales. As long as the full song isn't used why bother. Would an anime music video with those songs cause stock loss. Would a YouTube poop sampling white album suddenly cause the owners to live on the street. No of course not. Sampling a bit of song will in no way whatsoever cause any damage. Finally, I think this is direspecting the artists. I appreciate the owners remastering and uploading every song Unlike ACDC but think it this way. The band would definately like their fans showing creative freedom. By allowing fans to upload fan content with those songs it's like paying tribute. It establishes a bond between artist and fans. If you search Beatles on YouTube the only songs are the original. No fanwork. No vibrant colour. It just feels so industrial, lifeless, and dystopic. When things get old they should be given more public access, just like fairy tales gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The Beatles songs should have laxer copyrights"}
{"id":"0f04bb9f-2946-4e33-a588-3b4ba2c1e474","argument":"It is true that much of the world's manufacturing and emissions are occurring in China. But, this is not a cause for exempting these countries from the emissions standards present in developed countries. This would effectively mean that the world and all the nations that outsource to China get an exemption, so long as they are outsourcing to China, which would be unfortunate on many levels. The world should not allow for such an emissions loophole, and must act to fully constrain emissions in China without exemptions.","conclusion":"World's manufacturing is in China, emissions must be cut there."}
{"id":"5efa23df-a355-485f-8d1d-f7eb8fe543ac","argument":"In 2017, a year dominated by Trump-Russia coverage, both CNN and MSNBC improved on their record viewership numbers generated by the 2016 election. They have every incentive to portray Trump's alleged Russia connections in the most dramatic light.","conclusion":"The media needs to have material to fuel the 24 hour news cycle and this story is dramatic and interesting, so it sells."}
{"id":"29f2e4d2-79cb-46db-b6ae-832e985a7ced","argument":"When fired by a starship without shields, at a target in close range, a single photon detonation had a high probability of destroying the firing ship as well Star Trek Generations; TNG: \"Q Who\", \"Unnatural Selection\". If a photon torpedo was fired by a starship with shields, at a target in close range, the torpedo explosion could cripple the firing ship TNG: \"The Nth Degree\". The minimum range of a photon torpedo is 15km according to Star Trek Wiki about 3\/4 down the page.","conclusion":"Photon torpedoes have a 4km radius and would obliterate any rebel ship in the sphere of effect."}
{"id":"baf38959-8d5d-4f77-ad03-546ee4f41107","argument":"Research suggests that a 1% increase in the share of taxable income being held by the highest 1% of earners decreases national life satisfaction levels as much as a 1.4% increase in the national unemployment level.","conclusion":"Research suggests a correlation between income, happiness and life satisfaction. Income inequality thus translates into inequality of subjective well-being Kahneman\/Deaton, p. 16491f. Stevenson\/Wolfers, p. 602f."}
{"id":"c1465fd1-a285-47af-badc-e184a5cde295","argument":"Before I begin, I would like to clarify that my definition of the word whore slut tramp and the like when I was growing up meant a Woman Girl who had a lot of sexual partners, not the other definition, which means to have sex for money and this is the definition I will be discussing here today. A person's view of what sex is and how it should be done is different for everyone. Some see it as just a casual thing, others a sacred act. But in the end, I doubt anyone would dispute the claim that a desire for sex is one of the most natural things about being human, secondary only to wanting food water shelter, and on equal standing to a desire for life fulfillment and companionship. So why then, is having sex with a lot of people viewed as bad? Especially when you're taking the proper measures to make sure both you and your partner are safe, and you are not going to produce an unwanted baby Women in particular are the ones who get this sorta flack the most. It's very easy yet also extremely nasty to call a fellow girl a whore slut tramp etc when you want to discredit her. It's implied that a woman is somehow dirty or is a low life or what have you simply because she chooses to have a lot of sex. But what happens when a guy has a lot of sex? He get's applauded for it. It's seen as him just doing what guys do. It's almost like it is encouraged. Even gay guys like myself don't get flack for having a lot of casual sex we get shit for a totally different reason lmfao but generally our straight allies don't tend to question our behavior all that much. At least, from my experience So why is it bad for a girl to have a lot of sex? I get that girls sexual wiring is different from guys as they generally leads to them having different lower sex drives. But when a girl DOES have a high sex drive, and doesn't want a relationship, WHY IS THAT BAD? Footnote Any girls out there reading this who like having lots of sex GOOD FOR YOU MAN. I support you.","conclusion":"Being a whore\/slut is not a bad thing"}
{"id":"458a55a0-e68c-4ebd-b3c2-d93613a28dae","argument":"As someone that is 30k in debt for a worthless college degree, I do not think it is wise nor beneficial to give out loans to naive, idealistic teenagers seeking a higher education. Rather, I believe loans should be given out by private entities primarily because a private entity would take measures to ensure their loan will be paid back. Thinking realistically, most private lenders would find giving a loan to a straight A student so that he she can go to medical school to be a much safer bet than some kid with a GED that wants to pursue art history. Therefore, if student loans were privatized, loans would go out to people that have some realistic way of repaying their debt. There are already companies that pay students to attend college with the agreement that they will use their newfound skills to benefit said company after they graduate for a few years. This is a mutually beneficial arrangement. There are other benefits to this plan as well. Chances are degrees in the humanities and non STEM fields would become cheaper as they would not have the steady stream of money coming from government subsidized loans. They would be forced to either make their programs more affordable without taking out a loan, or prove that their graduates are making a profitable decision by enrolling. Many economists believe the rise in college tuition is a direct result of easily available student loans. I understand that many would object to this by saying that doing the student loan system this way would make it so many would not have the opportunity to attend school. And that may be a problem for some, but the benefit of not having so many indebted citizens would outweigh the costs.  x200B","conclusion":"Loans should not be given out to everyone that wants to go to college. Rather, student loans should be handled by the private sector."}
{"id":"e4a7fe82-c3a0-4c19-a80e-5f44215aa3ee","argument":"I really want to have my view changed on this one. My inability to bring myself to identify with the feminist movement is actually a great source of angst for me. Despite being a white cis male I believe very strongly in principles of equality, and speak out regularly whenever I see injustice. The problem lies in calls for feminists to stop criticising each other in the name of solidarity. I feel the modern feminist movement contains within it troubling racist homophobic trans exclusionary elements, and in the name of not in fighting or tearing each other down the feminist movement has leant both explicit and tacit support to the more vile elements in its ranks. Given how strongly I tie my identity to my sense of social justice, and my loyalty to my friends, many of whom are members of a gender or sexual minority I can't bring myself to count myself among their number as much as I believe in feminist principles of equality. This mirrors greatly the way that sexism in the Atheist community led me to leaving it as a community and just going about my beliefs on my own. The problem is that while IMO Atheism doesn't necessarily need a 'movement', solving inequality does, and I would like to be a part of that solution. I can't though as long as that means standing up for and with those that would strive for exclusion and injustice in feminism's name. So yeah, please. Change My View.","conclusion":"I really want to be able to call myself a feminist, but can't because identifying with the movement means accepting its troubling relationship with racial minorities, GSMs, etc."}
{"id":"4fe61839-5164-4bcd-b5e1-1e150a1f4eb8","argument":"Osama bin Laden was a very serious national security threat, as head of the global terrorist network al Qaeda. He had committed unparalleled atrocities and crimes against humanity by masterminding attacks such as 9 11. Normal international and even US law did not apply in this case, given that it was a special mission on Pakistani soil, as part of the War on Terror. This would make bin Laden an enemy combatant, and aider of al Qaeda. Not only did he resist arrest during the high risk raid, but Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions was never signed by the US, meaning they are not subject to its laws. It would have been very dangerous, if not impossible, to actually capture bin Laden in the raid, justifying his killing.","conclusion":"I believe the killing of Osama bin Laden by Seal Team 6 was fully justifiable and legal."}
{"id":"8ab94eb5-2f35-4aee-b56a-75ee982ce3d3","argument":"A recent r news thread focused on billionaire George Soros and the millions of dollars of taxes that he has avoided, despite advocating for higher taxes for the wealthy. Many commenters took advantage of this story to identify Soros as a liberal equivalent of the Koch Brothers, a view I am not convinced of. I tried to distinguish Soros from the Koch brothers by pointing out that while both parties take advantage of current laws, the Kochs can be distinguished by their doggedness in perpetuating those very laws. My comment wasn't well received Many of the responses that I and other Koch detractors received accused us of being too selective about the billionaires that we criticized that the Koch brothers were a distraction boogeymen from a larger problem of rising oligarchy in the United States. Upon reflection, I realized that I don't know a lot about the Koch Brothers, apart from what I have heard on reddit and NPR, primarily, over the past few years. Here are some things I think I know The Kochs promote climate change denial, which is useful when one is in the petroleum business They astroturfed the Tea Party, which is nominally about freedom from the government and personal liberty oversimplification? , but conveniently supports a very corporation billionaire petroleum industry friendly agenda They have a poor environmental track record and support policies that will allow them to continue to harm the environment They seek to maintain the low tax rate they enjoy personally, despite massive wealth inequality They support low corporate tax rates, through the Tea Party and lobbying I'm concerned that my opinion is based on years of accumulated sentiments and not much dedicated critical thought. If I'm wrong about the Koch brothers, and as open minded as I like to think I am, it shouldn't be too tough for you to change my view. Do the Kochs deserve the attention they get as the worst of the wealthy, or are they scapegoats for a self serving billionaire class?","conclusion":"Charles and David Koch are more harmful to the United States than other super wealthy policy influencers."}
{"id":"ffd1e467-40ef-4af2-9c02-7004963878e0","argument":"A USE would be created under one single government. This will help the decision-making of Europe to be faster.","conclusion":"The USE will prevent one country from vetoing measures that benefit the majority."}
{"id":"a9ef6e03-ac46-4fc7-b03a-cb2cd0f6bf9b","argument":"This God is improbable when one considers the possibility of endless rising and fallings of forms and events from a quantum field.","conclusion":"The universe and everything in it is part of an infinite cycle of probabilistic events."}
{"id":"9ba15e75-eecb-4184-86a4-91b59d83cadd","argument":"A universe or temporarily ordered series of universes that did not begin to exist is philosophically incoherent because it implies the formation of a concrete actual infinity by successive addition of events in time","conclusion":"The universe began to exist \"began to exist\" defined here at definition A5"}
{"id":"6a9e9e6e-c305-4555-a6a7-2a72186cdd3f","argument":"So, I've been a tennis player for a few years at this point, and one of the things that seems to ruin the sportsmanship of the game is people that take things too seriously there are commonly younger players than me who are comparable, if not better than I am. And more times than not, they take the sport way too seriously and seem to not be enjoying it, and very stressed about the outcome of the match. Bringing this anecdote to a more real world perspective leads me to this conclusion that the key to being stress free is simply learning to not take one's self too seriously. I feel like by not taking one's self too seriously allows said person to be able to not be preoccupied with the fairly trivial outcome of any activity or even in time. Granted, I do think that there are things that deserve special attention and need to be taken seriously, but for most everybody I see stressed out, whether they be older or younger, it seems to be that they are taking themselves too seriously for them to get past the fact that most of the stress they are feeling is coming from trivial topics that don't ultimately matter too much in the course of time. First post in r changemyview","conclusion":"I believe that the key to being stress free is simply learning to not take one's self too seriously - ?"}
{"id":"a27e2868-38a7-4773-aa4a-55b5a33431bc","argument":"Rooting for bad sports teams isn't fun. Especially when they're perpetually bad. But even if you're a New York Yankees fan, I have no problem with you jumping ship and rooting for another team during a rebuild period. Watching the game played well is way more rewarding, and you owe nothing to your local team. You have nothing to do with the organization and have no affect on the outcome of the game. Staying loyal when the team is bad is just a waste of your time and energy. Bandwagon fans shouldn't get shit from real fans and anyone who takes pride in supporting a team through bad times has serious issues with their priorities.","conclusion":"there's nothing wrong with being a bandwagon fan"}
{"id":"a6b7854a-5e13-412d-8895-343fd29107ae","argument":"Non Trump supporting Americans that are neither Hispanic Latino nor Muslim that choose to abstain from voting this election rather than vote for Hillary out of principal can do so because they have the privilege of not having to worry about how Trump's policies could negatively affect them and their families. Trump has called for the deportation of millions of illegal immigrants and blocking the immigration of Muslims from so called terror states Americans who oppose these policies should therefore vote for Hillary Clinton, and if they do not, it is their privilege that has allowed them to withhold their vote. Note I am not entirely convinced of this argument but it has caused me some introspection. A delta will be awarded to anyone who can convince me that this line of reasoning is wrongheaded.","conclusion":"It is out of privilege that non-Trump supporters can abstain from voting in this year's presidential election."}
{"id":"9a0d1691-b80b-439e-bbaa-946a8a2df82e","argument":"OK I know everyone will tell me how this is never going to happen for all the obvious reasons lack of cultural connections, distance and EE SA being too fragmented . My reasons to belive such thing is possible though All of the mentioned are mono cultural unlike the West or Russia neither is pro Muslim They are all small, sturbborn cultures who think they're the best in the world trying to use the word stubborn here positively . Excluding Japan, each one of them has huge diaspora living abroad. Which means as the countries loose their pro multiculturaal folk the remaining citizens will be nationalists. Again, I'm talking about a world in which people will get tired of the whole China hype and new world leader will being to emerge, hence 2040 2050 or later.","conclusion":"In the future ~2050 there will be strong alliance\/world power between Eastern Europe, South America, Israel, Japan"}
{"id":"923ad66c-8c23-4e28-ab42-645e4d937576","argument":"So I was asking my friends and the problem is that all the girls answered fellatio, few boys answered fellatio and the other answered cunnilingus. I think that the patriarchal view of the society makes the cunnilingus more valuable in a couple because it is the man providing pleasure to the woman. I also find that the penis is gross and makes the fellatio gross as well but my friends argued that they preferred knowing what their tongue is licking because what's in the vagina could be even grosser. You could change my view simply by exposing arguments for the fellatio and maybe arguments showing that most people would prefer that option and destroying the ones for cunnilingus. I know that it stays a subjective answer but I think there are arguments out there that I could not see.","conclusion":"In a couple, I think cunnilingus is more intimate and more bonding than fellatio"}
{"id":"12c70d86-753a-49eb-8587-27568d850467","argument":"This is a hot topic in the news right now. Arizona is trying to pass SB1062 the religious freedom bill. Here is a quote from CNN \u201cIn short, SB1062 would amend the existing Religious Freedom Restoration Act, allowing business owners to deny service to gay and lesbian customers so long as proprietors were acting solely on their religious beliefs.\u201d I think it\u2019s a bad bill without even having read it. It\u2019s clearly discriminating against a group of people. I think it would be discriminatory if you refused to sell goods or services to someone because of his or her sexual orientation. If you were a car mechanic and refused to fix cars for same sex couples, that would be discriminatory. If you had a restaurant with a sign that said \u201cNo Gays Allowed\u201d that would be discriminatory. But what about the wedding photographer or caterer? That\u2019s a bit more of an intimate service than say selling books or shoes, or even selling a wedding cake. I don\u2019t think it would be right to legally require a business to participate in a same sex marriage ceremony if they disagreed with it on moral or religious grounds. Change my view.","conclusion":"A wedding photographer should not have to photograph a gay wedding if he\/she feels it is in conflict with his\/her religious beliefs."}
{"id":"a974f1c3-c1db-4272-b8a8-1ee948f946c7","argument":"Alright guys let me tell you something real fast, the definition of a salad is x200B any of various usually cold dishes such as x200B x200B a raw greens such as lettuce often combined with other vegetables and toppings and served especially with dressing x200B x200B b small pieces of food such as pasta, meat, fruit, or vegetables usually mixed with a dressing such as mayonnaise or set in gelatin x200B x200B Right, so we all know what a salad is right? Its the green things with veggies we eat when we want to feel healthy. Right? WRONG A salad is a usually cold dish , usually is just a suggestion here. So lets make a hypothetical hot salad. We're using small pieces of food here, we're going to add macaroni, some ground meat, some select veggies of our choosing and then we're going to top it all off with some red tomato sauce as dressing. That, by definition, is a salad. American chop suey is by definition a salad. Change my view","conclusion":"American chop suey is a salad."}
{"id":"253fd364-dcdf-4710-8d77-4c40e954eaf1","argument":"Due to the monetary funds spent, the lives endangered, and the ineffectiveness of most protests, protests are more harm than they are good. They have caused mass chaos in regions like the Middle East and are a waste of public resources in the form of police and riot control. Today's major protests like the Occupy protests may garner media attention, but the actual issue is not addressed. It only makes people angrier and angrier. This anger can lead to violence, causing more harm to not only the humans around them but people all around.","conclusion":"Protests cause more harm than good."}
{"id":"4d9d9b18-3379-4db3-8032-816c437bfdb2","argument":"Although with SCOTUS blessing, funding was achieved by circumventing Congress' power or the purse, making Presidential budgets blank checks","conclusion":"The way funding and eminent domain were secured have permanent and far reaching consequences"}
{"id":"ac4f94b2-15be-43a4-ad05-0f2d319b4416","argument":"The Gospels report that the tomb was discovered empty by Jesus's woman followers, which meets the criterion of embarrassment since the testimony of women was not considered valid in that time and culture.","conclusion":"Following Jesus's death, the tomb he was buried in was discovered to be empty."}
{"id":"ce808038-4335-43c9-8f9d-564d7bad8c5b","argument":"The range of jobs in the music industry is very wide, from accounting to promotion. It is important to respect the existence of these jobs and the industry that supports them.","conclusion":"The music business provides millions of jobs that are threatened by unregulated downloading."}
{"id":"a44a895e-2ada-46ae-b6b0-502fecf3d3c2","argument":"When people calculate things in their head or by hand, they may make errors that go unnoticed. Calculators reduces the amount of errors made by humans.","conclusion":"Calculators are always useful as a way of double checking any math done by hand in one's head."}
{"id":"ed48a001-abb2-462f-a2c3-7fa13a59ec44","argument":"The documents also admitted that 150 people currently detained in Guantanamo Bay were innocent Afghans or Pakistanis who were rounded up or even sold to US forces and transferred across the world.","conclusion":"Assange released the Guantanamo Bay's 'Camp Delta Standard Operating Procedures' - classified documents from the U.S. military prison that highlighted the systematic abuse by US officials towards detainees in the camp."}
{"id":"8961f20f-d6a7-45de-8ce1-08106218f845","argument":"I think that I should lose my virginity in a casual encounter to get it over with as opposed to waiting for someone I care for because it is more important to lose it quickly around the right time 16 rather than to lose it with someone you care for. I am speaking from the perspective of a 21 year old heterosexual male. It doesn't even need to be an enjoyable experience, the only restrictions is that it must be with your preferred gender, and it must not be with a prostitute, and it must be consensual. I think the main benefits gained from losing your virginity are being able to understand roughly what works when it comes to flirting, and being able to stop worrying about losing it for status and focus on actually finding something you want something I believe is impossible while being a virgin . I have heard some males claim that they regretted doing this but I really think that they are doing so to try to deny how they were wasting so many years of their lives as virgins by pretending it didn't matter. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I should lose my virginity in a casual encounter to get it over with as opposed to waiting for someone I care for"}
{"id":"6cf95f73-ee91-4e87-9c3c-8b4b12a6a28d","argument":"Pharmacists receive the most education out of all healthcare professionals on medications and how to use them. Therefore, they are the best-suited to manage patient's medications.","conclusion":"Pharmacists' scope of practice should be expanded to allow them to prescribe any medication."}
{"id":"5d625a81-d80f-4328-8187-028d56e6a71b","argument":"So I have a horse in this race. I am Australian, currently in the process of applying for citizenship for Canada. I believe that once I gain citizenship, I will become Canadian in every sense of the word. I will no longer be Australian. My hypothetical children born in Canada will be Canadian and not considered Australian in any definition. I am trying to understand when people of a country state that their country in being over run by another country, what does this mean? Is over 50 of the country temporary residents? Will I never be considered Canadian? Is cultural values the only thing that matters? I like burritos so am I Mexican? This is more of a change my understanding but I will still give deltas if you change my view regarding this reference. Edit 1 I am specifically using my example to discuss the nature of citizenship not my specific circumstance . Where is the line to determine once someone joins a country? Also, Dual citizenship should generally be ignored for this discussion. It is a good point but moves away from my nature of my question. Edit 2 The specific nature of the questions comes from reddit posts news regarding the influx of refugees into Germany Sweden and how the culture of the country won't exist in the next 50 years. Yes, the culture will change but culture always changes. Once they become Swedish, they are Swedish won't they? gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Once you gain citizenship of a country, you are now part of that country."}
{"id":"1b70e60c-057e-4a5b-a195-5eed56099357","argument":"Even if the relatively small space that became the \u201cBig Bang\u201d always existed, it would in terms of space-time be infinite. There has to exist something uncaused and\/or infinite. Everyone either assumes this or is ignorant. There are no \u201csimple\u201d hypotheses actually worth anything.","conclusion":"Atheism assumes existence exists apart from God and therefore exists in an eternal state. This is, as far as we know, is just as likely or unlikely as there being a God."}
{"id":"d07766a2-770d-487f-a4ad-ccb838dfe360","argument":"So exercise is not part of my life or my interests. I don't value exercise, and I don't have any compelling reasons in my self to do it. I know all about the health risks and that I could die young if I don't do it, but that's not compelling enough reason for me to exercise. I've done a few different gym routines as well as a weight routine at home and I hated them. I hate weights and I hate cardio. When I do them I'm constantly asking myself what's in it for me to continue doing this, and I never have an answer. So I think my problem with exercise has always been that it's never been important to my life and it's never been part of my core values in my life. I don't care about the strength gains in exercise, or my body looking ripped. I'm pretty attractive, in fact I've gotten more attractive now that I have a little belly than when I was thin. I'm content with not living to my 70's. At that point learning and mental cognition is not the greatest so what's the point retiring at that age and struggling to acquire new skills when I could do that work now while I'm still young. I don't have retirement plans either because I'm investing in my self now, not later when I'm not as fit mentally speaking. I smoke, have been fighting it for the past 2 years of quitting, caving, quitting, caving, etc. I don't really have a strong reason to quit, yes it's bad for me but at the same time I don't have a compelling reason to quit. I tried fear based reasoning ie. If I don't start exercising I will have a heart attack in my 30's and honestly found that approach incredibly useless and destructive. I need to find a real internal reason behind doing exercise. I guess what I'm looking for is different arguments, maybe one's I haven't heard of before. I'd like to change my views on exercise and incorporate it somehow into my life, but I haven't found the reasons for doing so. Progression, gains, healthy living, etc I don't see as valuable as having high neural plasticity, learning as much tech as I can for my field enterprise development , learning my favorite sim hobbies sim racing, combat flight sims , my piano, and my music production skills.","conclusion":"I don't see any value in exercise or staying fit - I'm a walking brain"}
{"id":"27c1d7c0-fedb-4279-bdc5-6be0657a9dbf","argument":"Darth Vader would often refer to Anakin Skywalker as a separate being that he had killed. The fact that Darth Vader saw Anakin as a separate identity enforces the idea of the dual personalities and almost separate spirits within him: Anakin Skywalker, a jedi fighting for the light side and Darth Vader, the dark lord of the sith who has fully embraced the dark side.","conclusion":"We know through canon that only those who becomes full part of the force can become force ghosts. That means that in order for Anakin to become a force ghost, all of the darkness within him, the sith part called Darth Vader would have to die or disappear."}
{"id":"50baae33-bbef-417c-871a-bcd856aa8ea0","argument":"I am not 100 against piracy. I know why people choose piracy. For example Financial restraint lack of disposable income Region Lock licensing issue or legality issue Payment option Bad localization especially JPN companies which generally look down on fan translation Poor service. Testing product before buy belief. Personal reason belief. i.e. For digital goods, nothing should be locked behind paywall, everything is permitted or people hating the companies' action believe that boycotting while pirating is the right way to affect them Opportunist pirates If they can't find the digital unlicensed copies on the internet, they buy the official version I don't know about other reason why they pirate. 1 6 might be solved by Sales period, pre order bonus, bundle discount, regional pricing. Try to convince the IP owner for worldwide release. Platform which support paypal and local debit card. Convince companies for better localization. Better service the pirate site like automatic update Refund policy, game walk through I don't think it will solve compatibility testing issue . For 7 and 8, I wonder what if you use the stick approach or the denial of carrot methods. Will it convince most of them to buy the official version by making the piracy hard or dangerous? How can the harm outweigh the benefit for the game developer. Harsh method A Strong DRM not completely infallible while trying to make it less intrusive to the consumer. I heard that the sales is the highest after the first 4 months of the year. If nobody cracked the game during that time, then those impatient opportunist pirate might buy the game. For niche games, generally professional hackers are not interested in cracking the unpopular games. Is the DRM license expensive or cheap for the game dev? B The punisher vigilante method. Game dev or their customers might release a corrupted games on the pirate site for free. It range from making the unofficial game unwinnable to trojan horse dangerous to pirates' computer. I heard of some game dev used this method to scare the pirates. C Government or NGO ways to deter pirate. ISP which block the pirate site try to do it like GFC . ISP fined the people pirating the content torrent . DMCA or any cross border legal action. People still can bypass it, it just discourage less savvy people from pirating it. I heard people complain why those method harm the consumers. I never heard of why it would harm the game dev more than the pirate. What are the flaw of various anti piracy method I heard it from some blog or news ? I am not good at explaining it in English. For Books and Artworks, they don't have the service advantage of steam or gog. For indie creators, how they are going to convince them to donate money. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Harsh methods are necessary to fight digital piracy especially games."}
{"id":"11dc2a7b-f4e2-4208-b643-e14f04c1ea5e","argument":"Hey r . I consider myself somewhat of a skeptical environmentalist. That is, I understand the risks that climate change have on our planet and agree that action needs to be taken, but I feel that some will latch on any diet fad solution to our climate problems and fail to understand the economic and social repercussions of our actions. One major source of contention between me and some of my other environmentalist friends is on the subject of oil pipelines. There have been talks about building a new one relatively close to where I live, and they are vehemently against it. I just don't see why they have such a problem with it they aren't that unsightly when you consider how god awful many of our highway side strip mall satellite towns are. People are legitimately concerned about oil spills, which are a serious risk. However, we have the technology and tools to help control these systems and highly skilled engineers who oversee them. There is always a risk of an oil spill, but their impact can rather effectively be contained in a disaster. I'll be the first to admit that I hate our nation's dependence on oil. I wish we could invest in better public transportation infrastructure, reduce our waste, and invest in clean energy like wind and nuclear. However, blocking a pipeline isn't going to stop our oil demand, nor is it going to spark more interest in renewable or green living if anything, it is just going to keep demand up for foreign sources who aren't bound by the strict regulations we have in the United States.","conclusion":"Pipelines are not inherently evil and will help stimulate the economy"}
{"id":"5def00c1-4760-4c78-ad19-b06691f53bc9","argument":"War should continue to be a brutal endeavour, making us loathe to ever engage in it again. Because of that, some level of harsh treatment of prisoners--without permanent damage--is at times necessary to collect information, as each combatant has different thresholds of discomfort and pain.","conclusion":"Torture, conceptually, could act as an excellent deterrent; knowing torture is acceptable is likely to make individuals reconsider actions that leave them vulnerable to it."}
{"id":"1d0a1348-13e0-4878-817e-bcc719fd95e5","argument":"I have seen so many times my friends make stupid decision and than say that they were just following their heart or when they were struggling to make a choice and then chose randomly saying that they were listening to their instincts, even when the correct choice appeared obvious to me. It seemed more likely that they just got tired of thinking or were unable to think logically. Its true that many successful people say that they succeeded because they followed their heart. I guess thats too oversimplification of their journey and they just find that a little bit of accuracy can save them a lot of explanation. A lot more cases you will find of people who are living miserably and they say that they reached there following their heart.","conclusion":"When you say you are just following your heart or instinct, you are expressing your inability to think logically."}
{"id":"30ca3477-495e-4a7e-b2af-1a519bce5fd6","argument":"New Orleans was founded by the French, and yet now less than 35% of people are ethnically white let alone being ethnically french.","conclusion":"The foundation of Naples by Greeks is probably completely irrelevant to the people living there 2000 years later."}
{"id":"9718cca3-c29d-4b98-a7e4-662c4fd32fdb","argument":"There will be less public participation in voting if voters can't use party affiliation to quickly identify political candidates that share many of their beliefs.","conclusion":"Party membership is a significant motivator that inspires people to vote. Without parties, people are likely to vote less."}
{"id":"e96803da-363c-4204-b8a6-504ab7cdba5a","argument":"Man is not fit to judge evil, and many monotheistic religions explicitly or implicitly state this. The infinite and unknowable bounds of time and creation mean that evil from a mortal perspective is meaningless, ie, what appears evil to us might not be evil in the scope of the universe and all possible future events.","conclusion":"Humans have tiny, finite minds compared to the infinite mind of God. As a result, it is unreasonable to precondition our belief in God upon our first understanding God's purposes."}
{"id":"3c25a587-4b1f-43d1-b41e-31af008f8497","argument":"claimed to help Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis: slow disease progression; reduce pain, appetite loss, depression, drooling.","conclusion":"Overwhelming scientific research supports the beneficial medical effects of using cannabis."}
{"id":"f3322a53-db25-4bb3-8e09-e359640076db","argument":"If people want to gift their DNA along with personal information to private companies, that is up to them. But there is no reason genetic information can't be obtained without providing your name and address for police to obtain under warrant.","conclusion":"Genealogy databases like AncesteryDNA and 23andMe should be available to law enforcement to solve crimes."}
{"id":"efa27bdd-c910-4117-9ac9-3fc22872a90c","argument":"It really isn't it. Some background on my perspective I'm a guy, been in a couple long term relationships, I've been with my current girlfriend for about 5 years and I'm thinking about proposing to her. We have good sexual chemistry, and we are both pretty satisfied with our sex life. Still, I don't think sex is the most important part of our relationship. I'm going to marry this girl hopefully because of the support we provide to each other, the way our personalities complement and balance each other out, the fact that I respect her career ambitions and her work ethic, the respect I have for her family and her background, the fact that we have similar interests and can spend time together doing just about anything, etc. All of these things seem a lot more important than what can be gleaned from about an hour of physical pleasure. I've never been the kind of guy who chases after casual sex, I've never played that game, but I know guys who do and I just don't understand why. The amount of resources, effort, and ego invested into one night that may or may not be satisfying it just doesn't make sense to me. I think there is something inherently unobtainable about sexual desire. As you become sexually aroused, your desire escalates and escalates at the same time. When you finally reach that pinnacle of the orgasm, it passes through you before you can really grasp the true satisfaction of sexual desire. It feels good, and then it's over and you don't want it anymore until you want it again. At no point does it ever feel like your desire is truly fulfilled. That's why the more sex a person has, the more they start to fantasize about sex in other forms fetishes, multiple partners, incorporation of food, pain, excrement, taboos, etc., anything to keep sexual fulfillment from truly becoming attainable. I think sexual desire evolved to be an insatiable appetite, designed to keep us fucking and reproducing as much as possible. Not saying that this experience is completely negative, but it's not as great as everyone works it up to be, and it certainly shouldn't be given the weight it is usually given by people who are seeking romantic partners. When you enter into a real relationship, you should worry more about how you're going to spend the other 95 of the time with your partner. As for casual sex, I guess that's cool if that's what you want, but I've seen so many people attract so much drama into their lives just so they can spend those twenty minutes in bed with somebody they don't actually care for it just seems pointless to me. gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than just downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Sex isn't that great."}
{"id":"6f8a78b0-64cb-4d9c-8dae-decbbc5f7b0e","argument":"Given that this option exists, we would therefore be morally complicit for our actions as we chose to pursue a life as the slave police despite the alternatives.","conclusion":"Full collaboration is not the only way to stay alive. Cheating, after all, is an option."}
{"id":"a96ff94a-1a25-4bfa-baab-1f013f3e98cf","argument":"The definition of God is self-contradictory in that he is omniscient but also omnipotent. If God is omniscient, God cannot be omnipotent since God would not be powerful enough to change the known future. If God is omnipotent, God cannot be omniscient because God would be able to change the future and therefore not be certain about knowing it.","conclusion":"The classical definition of God is contradictory in that God is said to be all powerful omnipotent but also unable to do certain things."}
{"id":"55992f45-1725-469c-bd9e-05db84cab55d","argument":"Cage sees an opportunity to take acting away from literalism and towards a surreal and experimental style. See: Wisecrack","conclusion":"Carole Zucker argues that \"excessive acting\" is a legitimate style that deserves no less consideration than \"naturalism.\""}
{"id":"50b5fa79-7a8f-4396-9801-0f4790bcf0bc","argument":"Currently, with the museums being free, the young could cynically see museums as a cheap day out for cash strapped parents. However, if a voluntary admission fee was set, in New York it is $20, youngsters would see the value that people place on the information contained in that building. They will therefore be more likely to pay attention to what is inside.","conclusion":"It will encourage the young to see the value of such buildings"}
{"id":"86aa285c-2bc3-4c23-9ed7-b93fbbe7c869","argument":"Hopefully this is not a direct duplicate of another post, I saw a few on the topic of gun reform but none that seem to tackle it from this direction. Also please let me know if this is a complete straw man, as I am not sure if people actually believe a gun ban or assault weapon ban would put an end to mass murder or if that is just something I have inferred. Let me start by saying I am in favor of gun reform, primarily into re opening research into gun violence as a public health issue, and removing the ability for people to buy guns from a gun show or other place without a federal background check. People with violent criminal histories, warrants out for their arrest, or those deemed mentally unstable should have no access to firearms and we must fix the 'loopholes' that allow people to buy firearms in this way. However, a general ban on Assault Rifles or even on all guns fails to address the fundamental issue, the root cause of these tragic events crazy evil people. The vast majority of American citizens could legally purchase an AR15 within a day. If that ability to purchase the firearm easily is what causes mass shootings, why isn't every single person routinely committing these atrocities? Because most people know right from wrong, right? If we did not have people in America who were insane, radicalized, etc then there would be zero mass murders. The fundamental problem of violent crime cannot be solved by removing one of the tools used to commit these crimes. If an insane person is bent on harming people, do we doubt they could find a way without a gun? There are many horrific examples of mass murder without the use of guns 9 11, Boston bombing, and the Venice beach tragedy where a person drove a car into a crowded board walk killing 10 people. I have no doubt making it more difficult for people with criminal intent to buy firearms would reduce the occurrence of mass murder in the US, it would and that is a good thing we as a nation should do. But to suggest that it would solve the problem seems ridiculous. The only long term, absolute solution to this problem is getting dangerous deranged people off the street before they can act. Obviously this is a more complicated and involved process then gun reform, but in my view it would be far more beneficial to society. I do not intend to 'distract' from the notion that we need to act on gun reform as I mentioned at the beginning of this post, but people who suggest that talking about mental is a distraction from the real issue seems ludicrous. If your only goal is to ban guns then yes these acts of terror would be less common, lives would be saved and that is great, but without pushing for improved mental health screening, access to treatment and medication, etc we will still have tragic events where a single individual bent on destruction can cause a massive tragedy.","conclusion":"Outlawing and removing every single gun in America would not solve the fundamental problem the nation faces."}
{"id":"b670eb10-00b8-4bd4-8ec6-6c0a821fcfad","argument":"\"Two and two is four\" and \"squares have four sides\" are mathematical truths that work in the same way that \"all bachelors are unmarried\" does. They're all examples of something that is true by definition and reasoning alone. They're analytical truths. There is no evidence or fact in the real world that proves it.","conclusion":"Mathematics is like logic with numbers. Mathematics is a logical process and we wouldn't truly know anything at all if it weren't for logic. Another name for logic is reason, or rationality. Therefore: mathematical logic is an example of rationalistic knowledge and, thus, supports the epistemological theory of rationalism."}
{"id":"e36a49e4-e15a-4951-96c3-0d91b6fa56f5","argument":"Vocal minorities pressure companies into enacting gender quotas and general diversity requirements that force employee selection away from performance and niche skills Said pressure is most often applied through Heckler's veto as there is otherwise no other causality, nor legal requirement.","conclusion":"In practice it is the loud minorities that shout down the passive majority."}
{"id":"14051c49-2d5b-484c-b71e-039413a23254","argument":"I'm not going to google statistics to back this up, my computer is broken and typing a thesis sucks on mobile. First off I don't carry, don't have a CCW, and recently bought a shotgun to shoot skeet. I'm not a gun nut or paranoid or feel unsafe. I simply respect people's rights in this country to own and if they wish carry a weapon. First off, withrespect to the current tradgedy while it was horrific and it may have been prevented by having less access to guns I feel that It is unfortunately a cost of living in a free society. Some crazies will slip through the cracks and get guns. It is not worth infringing on the rights of all law abiding citizens. My belief on this is akin to we could make the roads safer by limiting cars speed to 30 mph at all times who wants to live like that though. In a way we are trading one type of statistical error for another. Second, I don't feel unsafe. Despite what the news says, people on Facebook, or politicians I do not think myself or my child have any statistical likelihood of getting shot in a mass shooting. People are overwhelmingly more likely to die in a car wreck, health issue, a work accident, or suicide than a mass shooting. I think the likelihood of getting shot with an AR15 is so low it's not worth banning them and infringing on rights. Third on banning types of guns, this goes to my point listed above. AR and AK look scary but your chance of getting killed by one is low in the grand scheme of things. Most gun crime is done with a pistol anyway. Fourth I disagree that ALL felons should be auto banned from having guns forever. Possession of an Aderall felony 10 years ago means no guns? 1.0 DUI where the person claims an injury to get insurance money DUI w injury felony ? Embezzlement or other white collar crap which has nothing to do with violence? I think that there should be reasonable processes to restore your rights after being clean and it should be discretionary and up to a judge during your case if your felony warrants a firearm ban. I would even go as far as saying an ex con who has been clean for 20 years and is a pillar in their community should be considered for restoration of their rights. Even domestic abuse in SOME cases. A domestic abuse charge could mean you dated some crazy bitch 15 years ago and were forced to plea. A single misdemeanor so long ago should not bar you from owning a gun. Finally mental health. I would hate to see proposals where someone is made to be afraid to talk to a psychologiest about depression or anxiety for fear you lose your rights. Unless you are a threat to yourself or others your info should be private. Even if at one time you had a problem there should be a straight forward process to restore rights. This recent tradgedy sucked but we shouldn't let it be an excuse to give up more rights. We live in the safest time in history. This particular case, if it was to be prevented, should have done so through ordinary police work. People gave tips about this guy claiming reckless shit on social media. So change my view guys. How am I looking at this wrong? Edit Despite this post my thoughts and prayers are for those families. This was a tragedy and absolutely horrific. Nothing in this post is meant to discount that.","conclusion":"I oppose a most gun control measures and I think our current laws are too much"}
{"id":"9248ff6e-cc44-45bd-9f5b-4f65a815c94c","argument":"I support equal rights for all genders, races, religions and cultures. I think it's great for people to be proud of who they are, and should be free to live without any sort of discrimination, overt or otherwise. However, it seems to me that most people tend to gravitate towards just one group, usually the one they most identify with, and push for equality mainly only for that group. This leaves only a small minority who are vocal in their support for equality for all. I think this is harmful, and that if everyone banded together to support Equality for all, the movement would be much stronger and successful, whereas now I feel like it's splintered and mostly ineffective, especially for smaller groups. .","conclusion":"I believe that the splintering into special interest groupsFeminism, LGBT etc... is harmful to the movement for Equality for all."}
{"id":"bcfffe8b-a85f-421c-84b9-223c274ca55a","argument":"Reparations have the potential to put a large financial burden on the country as a whole.","conclusion":"There are severe barriers to determining an appropriate amount of recompense."}
{"id":"13faa6b7-7739-4dc2-9161-234ebc9ec4c6","argument":"There are many cases where God is defined as good but claimed by believers to have done things which those same believers would consider bad if done by anyone other than God or someone claiming to be doing God's will.","conclusion":"God's interactions with the world are inconsistent with God's divinity."}
{"id":"c5e1cdb4-14f7-430e-9914-33376df0f49e","argument":"It would arouse suspicion among European partners if one member state would legalize polygamy without asking its European partners.","conclusion":"A legalisation for each country alone would be detrimental for the social fabric of federal decision making."}
{"id":"8e384898-eb33-400c-94d9-79ed4ff28855","argument":"So this is probably a bit of an unpopular opinion, but I don't think the fact that someone needs wants a support animal should automatically make it the default position that they get to have one in public settings where animals otherwise would not be allowed. My objection rests on three main points 1 Lack of control regarding whether or not the animal is in service or not Now this is anecdotal, but opinions are subjective so I have a friend here in the UK who is active in a charity that rehomes dogs. I think this is great and respect her for it, but when she needs to help rehome a dog she will just put one of those yellow vests on it, and boom any dog goes on the train how do we actually know that this dog isn't going to start attacking people? 2 Allergies. There is no requirement that your service animal is of a breed that will be the least intrusive to anyone around you who has allergies. Now I am luckily able to be around dogs, but the day that service cats or horses become common, am I supposed to just leave every flight that has an anxious person on it? 3 People may have a fear of animals. If they chose to take a flight or go for a meal under the expectation that animals are not allowed, is it really fair that they are going to have their nice experience ruined? So CMW Edit Ok so my view has been changed. Main points 1 Yes, I conflated service and support animal. Where a service animal is more akin to a seeing eye dog, and a support animal is anything that people use to cope. I obviously though should prob have stated so in my OP do not feel that my objections in anyway should stop a blind person from using his dog, that would be like stopping someone using a wheelchair. But, there should be a very high bar for what qualifies as actually being reliant on the dog as to avoid exploitation of the system. 2 My problem is not with animals but the at least perceived lack of regulation and enforcement. Anyway delta was awarded and have a good weekend","conclusion":"There should be no right\/expectation to bringing your service animal everywhere"}
{"id":"a66d53cb-74ff-415a-94f5-e613c489cff9","argument":"The claim that an experience with God is equivalent to claiming moral values like equality and non-violence are true i.e. real because these claims are self evident i.e. a claim which is of a metaphysical nature and which can not be established empirically.","conclusion":"A self evident truth is the highest standard of establishing something to be true in epistemology. The direct experience of God is a claim of self evident truth. Plenty of people claim they have an experience of God."}
{"id":"986a0de2-a42a-4150-9402-ffae9d563c4a","argument":"Colleagues know when someone starts to work and is ready for questions, once they see the standup note of that person.","conclusion":"People can write their standup note when they start their day."}
{"id":"9acf02ab-6afa-43f5-b4c9-eed7ab56e950","argument":"Innate gender specialization for math and engineering has been amplified by Western cultural bias and recent echo-chamber effects in the technology business to create a severe under-appreciation for the 'other half' of consciousness. Tech is driven by intellectual abstraction and communication rather than feeling, touching, caring, etc.","conclusion":"Those who already are more willing to assume machines can be conscious tend to underestimate the possibility that they are unconscious."}
{"id":"63ac241b-527e-499a-8d01-930fe634e2ef","argument":"People like to think of capitalist markets as magical systems that operate better if you just let them to do their thing. Maybe a few regulations for health and safety here and there, but if you put too much red tape in front of a business it'll damage its ability to earn profit, create jobs, and benefit consumers. Problem is, that sounds exactly like what propaganda from those business owners who are rich enough to influence media and who we KNOW have lobbies up in Washington would say. x200B Here's the thing when it comes to money, morals go right out the window. Scams scandals are extremely common, even among the regulated economy we do have MLMs, pyramid schemes, ponzi schemes, artificial price inflation, out right lying about what a product is or does often with little regard to consumer safety , planned obsolescence looking at you, Apple , monopolizing, snake oil, placebos, sabotage, shills, tax dodging, made up fees, cutting corners with staff sometimes putting them in danger, all that stuff. x200B Sadly, you cannot trust a business to look out for the safety and benefit of the employee or the consumer. Yeah, it's not good business sense to kill your customers, but that didn't stop big arsenic wallpaper, big lead, big tobacco, it isn't stopping big oil nor big natural bull shit the people and products that claim to be able to replace real medical science . x200B In Albania when their communist government fell, the people were extremely excited for capitalism. Well, the government didn't have the ability to regulate that capitalism and basically, in a libertarian's wet dream, an enormous chunk of the population lost everything to MLMs and the like. They're still struggling today. x200B In summery, my view is that a private market will be nothing more than a wasteland of organized crime without a third party there to moderate it. The free market is not a magical system handed to us by god that functions like a perfectly tuned ecosystem, it's a bunch of people all trying to make money off each other and they're not going to play fair, ever .","conclusion":"Capitalism needs heavy handed regulation & close monitoring"}
{"id":"7af18ba5-1102-4332-9ac8-78aaf18d1515","argument":"The author argues that fossil evidence is filtered out by the scientific community when it challenges strongly held beliefs about materialism and evolution. youtube.com","conclusion":"The book Forbidden Archeology presents scientific evidence and demonstrates how that evidence is ignored and excluded by the scientific community."}
{"id":"fd513ded-4f81-4961-92a6-ab4bc2d95f4a","argument":"Land taken by Israel through military requisition orders was declared illegal p. 22 by the Israel High Court of Justice, yet these orders have not been stopped, nor has the land previously been seized returned.","conclusion":"Israel has continued to build settlements in the West Bank which entrenches its position in Palestinian territory. These settlements are also illegal."}
{"id":"4955b833-8efa-443a-b691-a1f47a9c8c97","argument":"It is impossible to quantify the likelihood of an omnipotent being using a particular evil to further some greater good. God's omniscience means that there could be a butterfly-effect of causation at play that human beings are simply unable to measure. Thus, God may have a multitude of sufficient reasons for using diseases like smallpox and other forms of suffering, even though we may never know what all of these reasons are.","conclusion":"We lack the omniscient perspective to know or even gauge the probability of whether the total amount of suffering throughout history of humans or animals warrants its use. Thus, the objection above is effectively a wash. It doesn't do anything to raise or lower the probability of God's existence, since we lack the omniscient perspective necessary to make the relevant measurements."}
{"id":"75f177bf-002b-49a3-b54e-9ec793f92b1b","argument":"Both charities and government agencies which seek to preserve historic sites do so with the understanding that their work contributes towards a greater social good. While what constitutes 'historical interest' will always involve contentious judgements, preservation organizations should always attempt to consider the benefits and costs to society when attempting to restore and maintain old sites. George Reid's report demands a thorough inventory and assessment of the National Trust for Scotland's many assets before any decisions are made, and this approach is essential before valuable charitable or state resources are invested in preserving any developments. 'Historical Interest' may be an unhelpfully vague term, but at the least it should refer to sites which the public as a whole would feel beneficial in preserving. An in-depth and public evaluation of candidates for preservation is always necessary before any work should take place.","conclusion":"Preservation organizations are obliged to act in the public interest"}
{"id":"3b2d02a3-c85f-4f9a-8ace-0f03e175ee2e","argument":"I don't think textbooks and classroom alone are enough to be fluent, even if it's a major in college. I studied French from middle school through high school taking AP French. I placed into literature courses instead of grammar conversation, but my schooling became little use once I was immersed into the language and culture. Syntax is different and colloquialisms are much more common. I was told I was too proper when speaking. My brother had the same sort of education, but was a foreign exchange student. His French is much better and fluid than mine.","conclusion":"One cannot be truly fluent in a foreign language unless they have been immersed in an environment\/location where the language is native."}
{"id":"2e5a17bf-42fd-4634-88da-8865c95f412f","argument":"Muslims across the world are persecuted, abused and murdered by various states. These people deserve to have a way out of this persecution.","conclusion":"People of different religions are being persecuted around the world."}
{"id":"7fd36331-bc67-4fd0-b7d6-b704959cfbc8","argument":"The very qualities that have made dogs attractive to us as pets intelligence, sociability, energy also make them ill suited to prolonged periods of isolated confinement. Most of us realize this, and yet this does not seem to deter many young, single, working people from owning dogs, in spite of their busy lives and modest living circumstances. A pet that spends the majority of every day alone, locked in a cage, crate, or studio apartment, is a neglected animal. Whatever extra coddling you may do for your dog does not compensate for your inability to provide species appropriate accommodation. Dogs are loyal and eager to please, and often will not immediately demonstrate the extent of their unhappiness. Even dogs that have been beaten and starved wag their tails when they see their owners. Just because a dog is excited and affectionate after being in its crate all day, does not make that an acceptable living situation. A small number of young, single dog owners are able, through great effort or fortunate living circumstances, to ensure their pet has adequate space, stimulation, and socialization throughout the day. Too many more are content to leave their dog in a crate for all but a few hours out of every day. I'll put it this way, how many neurotic family dogs have you known? How many neurotic apartment dogs have you known?","conclusion":"Most young, single, working people should not own dogs."}
{"id":"cdf1dd32-f819-4c6b-b24f-0e339bebe6e7","argument":"I'm not just going to jump on a bandwagon and decry a guy based on completely untested allegations. Claims like that can ruin a person's professional and personal life, and that being the case, they need to be substantiated. I have zero compelling reason to think any of them are true. No evidence, no charges, nothing but a claim. I'm sure this is informed by my background. I'm currently pursuing a career in criminal law. I'm inherently cynical with these things parents will convince their children to lie about being molested for custody reasons, girlfriends and boyfriends I suppose will lie about sexual assault for revenge or whatever reason. Not all the time, but it does happen, so I am always hesitant to buy it lock, stock, and barrel unless I have some good reason to other than simply the accusation itself. Trust the client, but confirm what they say. I'm not saying as a matter of fact that these people are doing it just for publicity, but I am saying that's a legitimate possibility. It's always a red flag to me when people come out of the woodwork alleging misconduct regarding a public figure years after an alleged incident with very little support ref Bill Clinton, Michael Jackson . It's in vogue for a story to break on the internet and for everyone to jump on board. Articles going on about the Bill Cosby allegations have been all over the place lately, but I never see much actual support that he did anything, just a repetition that there are allegations. I'm just not buying it.","conclusion":"I don't take the Bill Cosby rape allegations seriously."}
{"id":"cc16b810-bac9-4c76-bf1c-6ee0549173a2","argument":"Outside the EU, the UK cannot be subjected to forced immigration like the \"2015 European Agenda on Migration which obliges member countries to fulfil quotas for asylum seekers.","conclusion":"The UK should be able to control and limit its immigration policy as it sees fit."}
{"id":"11cefba5-bec9-4fff-98ad-e67906bf5267","argument":"I think Reddit have an interest at having Bernie Sanders elected. If they have an interest to do it, they are probably working in that direction. If Bernie Sanders is elected, they would likely claim that he won thanks to Reddit which would seem to be true . This is a huge marketing that Reddit is able to have such an impact Political parties in all countries would have to work with Reddit, if it is proven that is has that much power. It would draw even more people all over the world. Having Bernie Sanders elected would prove their superior strength compared to traditional media, who generally support traditional candidates. I am pretty sure Reddit employees are smart enough to work on opportunities like this. Therefore, if they are able influence the website to have more people convinced by pro Bernie members, they are doing it.","conclusion":"Reddit management is trying to promote Bernie Sanders"}
{"id":"e8850cc2-fdea-45f7-b932-4f55a2451153","argument":"Every human being expresses the same basic emotions like anger, joy, grief and insecurity. Large parts of body language are universally understood. Thus, body language is an existing universal language. The positive impact of it is that people can understand each other and communicate. Because of this positive impact, a more profound universal language should be developed and tought to everyone.","conclusion":"The positive effects of our existing global languages suggest we should endeavour to create an official global language."}
{"id":"7a5ba087-61bf-4566-bcb2-240baee85a1d","argument":"Whenever a person of the male gender argues on the side of feminism or other forms of equality, they are labeled as being a \u201cwhite knight\u201d or a \u201csocial justice warrior\u201d. They are also accused of having self profiting motivations rather than genuine motivations. For example, they may be accused of \u201cstirring the pot\u201d or \u201cattempting to get more views on their website\u201d or \u201cwanting to sleep with feminists by siding with them.\u201d How do we know that? What if they genuinely want to help people and are not out for the sake of their own profit? Isn\u2019t it possible they are fighting what they believe in, regardless whether those beliefs are true or foolish? So, when Bob Chipman or Jim Sterling or Tom Preston or Aaron Diaz or David Willis or whoever else argues on behalf of females or social justice, why not give them the benefit of the doubt and say they\u2019re fighting for whatever they believe in, even if those beliefs are found to be foolish in the end?","conclusion":"White Knights or Social Justice Warriors side with feminism because they believe in it, not for attention"}
{"id":"92c2c167-8b7e-422c-9d64-6913d3ded46f","argument":"Farm animals eat grass and animal feed, which took exactly as much CO2 out of the atmosphere during growing as the animals give back during digestion. Therefore animal farming does not contribute to climate change, it keeps it in balance.","conclusion":"Most animals do not contribute to climate change because their net affect on CO2 and CH4 is zero they consume CO2 and CH4 indirectly via the plants that are grown specifically to feed the animals."}
{"id":"65cb9686-5ada-4c49-b192-2d6a7af0ca12","argument":"Just to be clear if the plot deviates far enough from the original story, then the argument is irrelevant. I'm talking about movies like the one about Ted Bundy, or documentaries like When They See Us . Thing is, since these are based on true stories, I can simply talk about the events if they rise up in a conversation, unknowingly spoiling details about such a movie if someone's planned on watching it. Hell, I might not even know such a movie even exists, since I'm talking about the actual events. If we're discussing a situation where someone says Hey, can we please not talk about that thing, I wanna see a movie based on that, which might spoil it for me then that's sort of reasonable. But anything less than that simply cannot be anticipated.","conclusion":"You can't spoil a movie\/book that is based on real events."}
{"id":"4499b823-ecc8-4c21-86cf-95d7c0e3e4bc","argument":"Dr. Ronan and Michael Conolly Have released scientific papers indicating that our emissions cannot affect our global temperature due to our atmosphere existing in a Thermodynamic equilibrium They presented their findings in this video from 'Doctors for Disaster Preparedness Meeting, July 20, 2019, Tucson, AZ'","conclusion":"We shouldn't fight climate change because it is natural."}
{"id":"07728aae-6c7f-4e5f-9a7f-86777f99362c","argument":"People may be upset with dogs so much that it'll make them either move out of a city or not move to the city to begin with. To make cities more attractive to live in, banning dogs makes sense.","conclusion":"Dogs make people more fearful to the point it affects people's health."}
{"id":"03f29068-5b19-4168-857d-c98bb3ce546d","argument":"Hi I am an avid gamer, and a very big BGS fan. I have played every game developed by BGS since Oblivion, and I have a huge love for both the Fallout and The Elder Scrolls Lore. I usually prefer playing SP RPG\u2019s, although I have played and loved a game in just about every genre during my gaming years. When I first saw the news of Fallout 76, I was both excited and disappointed at the same time, not because it wasn\u2019t a usual Bethesda Game Studios SP RPG, but because the game looked and felt very much like a Fallout 4 clone. I have remained silent and hopeful during development and B.E.T.A, and unlike a lot of other people, I have tried my very best not to be affected by the opinion of the masses, and I instead chose to watch and observe, and form my own opinion of the game. During the final days of the B.E.T.A and with the release, I now feel like it\u2019s completely obvious that the game in fact is a cheap cashgrab, and I find it VERY hard to believe that some people aren\u2019t able to see this. 1 the game looks, feels and plays almost identical to Fallout 4 2 It is per usual, a buggy mess, but that in it self isn\u2019t really surprising. What really boggles my mind is the amount of bugs from previous games that carried over to this game, like this one The notorious physics bug, that makes your game go bananas with more than 60 FPS, is an ancient bug in Bethesda Games, and I find it completely blasphemous that a AAA game like Fallout 76 doesn\u2019t support more than 60 FPS in 2018. It should not have made it to live, and it doesn\u2019t make sense to me. The optimization is unacceptable, and it runs quite horrible on various systems, especially the consoles, which should not at all be the case considering the fact that the games graphics are quite outdated they were even outdated in 2015 when Fallout 4 launched, compared to other AAA titles from that year. The lack of customization is shocking, and the fact that the community is already trying to fix and clean up this mess is sad to see. No FoV slider support, no push to talk ATM a lot of settings like changing from borderless windowed mode has to be changed manually in the INI files, and the same goes for FoV if you want to change that. I could delve into the fact that the game has no real NPC\u2019s, or the fact that it has strayed away from what Fallout really is, and that it has damaged alot of the lore, but I do not think this is relevant to the discussion, so I am gonna leave that out. I would love to strike up a good conversation with you guys, because I want to play the game, but at this stage it\u2019s impossible for me to justify the price, because I feel like I\u2019m paying 60 dollars for a Fallout 4 mod with upgraded lighting and shaders. Everything about this game sounds like a half assed cashgrab.","conclusion":"Fallout 76 is a lazy cashgrab"}
{"id":"f650dea2-976f-4422-b083-58b53bc3bf43","argument":"Russian politicians have been building ties with the National Rifle Association, a conservative group which prominently backs Trump and other Republican candidates, for over six years.","conclusion":"Even before Trump's campaign and election, during which Republicans' views on Russia became much more favorable, Putin has been targeting segments of the American right."}
{"id":"43a35ab3-5f1a-47f2-b1d2-f83ac39b3858","argument":"Reusable shopping bags can be made out of canvas, cotton, fibre or other reusable material.","conclusion":"We don't need them when there are reusable and better like no waste options."}
{"id":"6937411b-5e73-4283-9872-1ac5db2806a2","argument":"Since it is almost impossible to tell when an attack will occur, the military has to be maintained in equal strength at all times.","conclusion":"Given that the military is necessary to provide this ability, it is fair that the state should require their citizens to maintain it."}
{"id":"e81326bf-5013-453a-a508-320367080c98","argument":"Me and my SO were discussing the other night whether there is a rational and non subjective argument against being a person with one single desire in life hardcore gamer for example . She said that since people are different, there's no need to think or force everybody to get rich and have a fit body Or even be smart. EDIT2 When me and my girl were discussing the topic, she asked me why would it be bad if somebody enjoyed sitting in a park for multiple hours each day? I argued that you could use that time more productively for example working out or getting smarter, which both are beneficial aspects to life and also admirable goals. Eventually she hollowed out my argument by saying that everything is so subjective, which is correct. I turned to reddit wondering if anybody had any rational or a reasoned argument which would favor growing as a person working out, getting smarter instead of falling for simple enjoyment gaming sitting in a park for hours . Or an example If I were perfectly happy with my fat body and I had a low paying job to cover all my basic needs and I played computer games till I die of whatever, and I'm happy with that, then there is no rational reason to judge me. EDIT Thanks for the answers so far. I would like to point out that gaming was just an example. The essence of my problem is, that there is no rational argument in favor of being above average with one's knowledge, looks and amount of skills, etc.","conclusion":"It's okay to play computer games all my life and not experience anything else."}
{"id":"fe32f862-4f25-4f91-9c54-481937bb406c","argument":"Students have to pay off college debts for a long time after they have graduated.","conclusion":"Student debt can cause long-term consequences for college graduates."}
{"id":"dc9fec80-cf1f-4e88-bbec-1a4e1bc2522c","argument":"Estimates calculate that there are about 10,000 religions in the world, with most people adhering to a low number of big religions. Worldly, there are 2 billions of self-identified Christians and 1.3 people identify as Muslims Norenzayan, p.2","conclusion":"Despite predictions of religions' demise in the last centuries, most humans in the world are still religious and religions have been growing and mutating at a quick pace Norenzayan, p. 2"}
{"id":"565f2c0e-b400-49e7-acc5-753f3b7a0a8f","argument":"In the 1970s, some North Korean officials thought that a peaceful unification of the peninsula would be impossible. If a war were to break out again, nuclear weapons would be necessary.","conclusion":"Nuclear weapons can be a tool to unify the peninsula which can be regarded as a preemptive way to secure its national security."}
{"id":"c0eb3a05-3160-45ca-8d2b-b2ae2265f414","argument":"Christianity introduces concepts of atonement which are foreign to Judaism. According to Hebrew theology forgiveness, atonement and salvation were already attainable to Hebrews and other peoples through Divine Grace or prayers, fasting and sacrificial offerings.","conclusion":"The salvation mission attributed to Jesus by Christians is foreign to the Hebrew religion."}
{"id":"114de835-8db7-46c8-a98e-39ca02da7c24","argument":"Numerous members of the feminist community are now in uproar over the societal problems which have led Elliot Rogers to commit hate crimes against women. In light of the recent shooting in Isla Vista, I would like to say that this seems to me like a recurring event in every shooting that is mentioned on the news. When the circumstances behind the shooting are revealed to the general public who the shooter was, what groups he she was affiliated with, stuff he she said before the shooting, etc. , people immediately treat the shooting like it's just another part of a widespread cultural issue which is now just being touched on by the media. With Newtown, the issue was automatic weapons and mental illness with the Sikh Temple shooting in Wisconsin, it was neo Nazism with Treyvon Martin, it was racial prejudice towards black people and now, with Elliot Rogers, it's not only misogyny, but something called the Men's Rights Movement , something most people including myself had never heard of before this event. But now it\u2019s suddenly a \u201csocietal problem\u201d that is a matter of national concern. While all these events are obviously tragic, to treat them like evidence of a more widespread issue is as reactionary as it is unreasonable. Almost all shooters lie way outside the norm of what is considered to be normal behavior. They are not at all representative of any large number of people and if they ever are they are just taking the ideology of whomever they follow to the extreme because they are often so incredibly unbalanced that they can\u2019t be responsible with the things they believe . It\u2019s the same kind of logic that justifies the argument that all Muslims are terrorists because a few extremists who make up only 1 of the entire Muslim population act in ways that make Muslims look bad. Yes, I agree that the treatment of the mentally ill, gun laws, women\u2019s rights, and race relations are all very important topics people, as they should be. But reacting strongly to extreme examples like mass shootings is the wrong answer just look at what the Obama administration almost did with gun legislation in 2013\u2014scary stuff IMO . TL DR shootings should be treated as isolated albeit tragic incidents in which highly unusual people committed highly unusual acts of evil and violence they should NOT be treated as evidence of a \u201cproblem\u201d in an attempt to react against it in ways that harm everyone. .","conclusion":"Shootings should be treated as isolated incidents rather than as evidence of \"societal problems.\""}
{"id":"8c825ade-877c-48fe-b51c-a8127283af66","argument":"I think one of the things that makes Americans feel like Congress is so dysfunctional is that it takes one party having control of both houses of Congress for legislation to really get serious consideration. Even when there is potential legislation with widespread support among moderate voters on both sides of the aisle, the majority party seeks solutions that largely satisfy their base and will get near 100 support internally, and if no such solution exists, that issue goes unaddressed. This approach was pioneered as the Hastert Rule but has persisted past Hastert's time in Congress. I think a potential solution to this could be to allow the minority party some limited ability to set the agenda in each house. If, for example, the minority party had 200 seats in the House, and was certain it's members would line up behind a bill and they'd be able to pick off enough Reps from the majority side to pass a bill, they should be able to call that vote including conducting hearings on the issue and advancing it through committee . I think this could lead to Congress being more productive and more centrist, both of which I think would make Americans view Congress more favorably. One potential concern is that the minority party could just use this power to make the majority party take embarrassing votes. My response to this is twofold first, forcing embarrassing votes already happens plenty. It barely registers with the public now and I'm not sure that a few more such votes every session would be a big deal. But I think a way to make this system better would be to only allow the minority party to use this power a limited number of times each session 5, maybe? That would force them to choose whether to use the power to actually advance legislation or just to make their opponents look bad. Hopefully they'd choose the former Some potential routes for challenging my view that I can see Arguments that there are powerful practical limitations involved with giving the minority some agenda setting power Arguments that no substantive legislation would actually get passed by the minority party due to partisanship and polarization, so nothing would change. I can already partially see this argument, given that the amendment process already allows the minority party to force some votes. But I'm not sure whether actually allowing the party to advance substantive legislation rather than amendments would have a different effect . Arguments that the minority party passing legislation with some appeal to the moderates of the other party would be bad for policy, or unpopular for reasons I don't yet appreciate Argument that I'm not really interested in The American government is supposed to be slow and not get anything done Anyway","conclusion":"The minority party in Congress should have some influence in setting their house's agenda"}
{"id":"fa36a0a3-0960-4b30-834b-7ea41fbf7451","argument":"Hey internet peeps. This is my first reddit post. I'm still getting used to it so bear with me. I'm just curious to find out what are people's view on this topic. Also, if you are suicidal now, I urge you to stop reading this post right now. I'm not here to convince anyone that they should just die. You should also not be here just to convince yourself that you should die. To put it succinctly, I've come to the conclusion that my life is not worth living. Don't worry I'm not going to kill myself for reasons that will be stated later on. I'm just in a dilemma over this. I'm torn between wanting to die for myself and being obliged to live for others. I have a few reasons why I think this way Life is too hard for me . Every action requires energy and effort. All our efforts of every living creature is used to produce some outcome that we define as favourable. All our efforts lead to the experiences we share. Personally, I've looked back on my short 20 years of life and I feel that all the effort I've put into it and the efforts of others around me isn't worth the experiences that came out of it. Like everyone else, I've had both good and bad experiences. The sum total of those experiences isn't worth the sum total of my efforts. Honestly, I'd rather die now and become an inanimate object than continue putting any more effort in life. Dying is so much easier. Life requires too much effort and energy. I'm tired and I feel that it's my time to go. Reality has no objective value. We, being human and alive, assigns everything with a certain value. We value our material possessions. We value our experiences. We value our relationships. We value our emotions. We value our rights. Everything has some value to us. But if you think about, and I mean really think about it, there is no purely objective proof that anything has value. Purely objective here means being perfectly logical and not being based on opinions. No one has a purely objective proof that anything has value. Every action thought situation that has ever existed and will exist are simply facts. They don't mean anything. They only have meaning, have value, because we humans feel like valuing it. But in reality, if say all of life on Earth were to be wiped out instantly, there is no value in anything. There are no emotions, no purpose, no value in an objective reality. There is no proof of any objective value in anything that has and will have happened. Therefore, my life and also my death has no objective value. I instinctively want to die. Without considering that I feel my life is too hard for me to live and that there is no purely objective value in anything, I feel that my body and mind are telling me to stop living. Ever since I was young, I've always been an unhappy person. I wasn't sad or upset, I was just not happy. Then when my dad passed away unexpectedly, I gradually became depressed. Then I became sad and upset. It seems that I am naturally genetically predisposed to loathe living. I'm just born this way. Everyone always says to do what you want to do and follow your dreams etc etc. So I'm telling the world now, I want to die. I dream of dying in my sleep. I fantasize about the different ways I could lose my life. I crave my death. Does that mean that I should do what I want to do and kill myself? Apparently, society deems that I shouldn't just go die. Then if I can't follow my urges, instincts and subjective opinions, then that means I should follow some objective purpose or meaning. But there is no logical proof of any objective value. What then should I, a person who looks forward to his own demise, do? Do nothing? I'm stuck. I acknowledge that there are reasons why people choose to live and find worth in their lives. People live to experience all that life has to offer. People live because they believe that there is some objective value to living, they just can't prove it don't know it. People live because their bodies are biologically coded to sustain life as long as possible. But for me, life experiences isn't enough and not worth the effort. Proofless illogical subjective objective reasons to live aren't convincing enough. Everyday I think about my death and wish for it. How then am I expected to live this life? What do I do? What should I do? Personally, I've chosen to fight my instincts to kill myself because of the people who care about and love me. I know that my death would upset them. As much as I feel that my emotions and wants and opinions are objectively worthless, I still do not wish to cause anybody pain. But now, I am in constant agony. I'm obliged to not do what I want to do. I'm stuck. To anyone who got this far into my rants and is getting triggered by my words and wants to die like me, please PLEASE stop reading now. I'm so sorry if my rantings hurt you. I don't wish to cause anyone pain. I just want my pain to stop. TLDR. If you've made it this far, I thank you for your effort and time. I hope that perhaps someone can give me a logical proof that life is indeed worth it. If that isn't possible, then I hope that someone can logically validate my death so that I can make the final decision with peace. Emotions, needs and wants aren't enough for me. If they were, then I would dead now. What I need is logic. I need something more to show me a direction. Maybe even something beyond human comprehension. Any and all responses are welcomed. I sincerely want to thank anyone in advance for their reaction. And yes, I know it's paradoxical to ask for people's opinions when I already stated that I want a purely objective and logical response, lol.","conclusion":"Life is not worth living."}
{"id":"e81ed3df-bc81-43bd-8f71-ef3d2f2819f3","argument":"The proposition has used example based reasoning to show that a division of property based on a pre-nuptial agreement can be open to exploitation. We would argue that any form of property division specified at the beginning of the marriage and visible to both people at the beginning of the marriage and this includes state mandated property division system divorce arranged by courts no matter what form it takes, is also open to abuse. We bring two examples. 1. When a rich person marries a poor person the rich person takes on a certain risk. Under a no fault divorce system that many states operate, divorce requires an asset separation on a 50\/50 basis. Given that the wealthy partner will lose 50% of his assets on divorce he has a much greater financial duress to remain in the relationship and put up with infidelity, neglect etc. This means that the poor person has an opportunity to abuse the rich person in marriage, an abuse, that the rich person could fight against with a pre-nup agreement. 2. Many states incorporate systems of alimony whereby in situations where a partner provides continuing financial support to another partner, that support must be continued for a term in the marriage . This term was put in place to protect housewives who have no financial income of their own, but changing conditions have made this term open to exploitation by other parties. For example, under Massachusetts law if a wife provided financial support to her husband to support him in an attempt to launch him into a career in a small business or in the arts, she would still be obliged to continue to provide that financial support beyond the termination of marriage under the term of alimony. Clearly, this provides disproportionate power to the husband, who will be receiving unjustified financial support from the wife after the end of marriage. These two examples show that state based divorce systems also contain the capacity for abuse. Virtually any form of freedom can be used to exploit weaker parties. The solution is to target protections that help those who are likely to be exploited. That\u2019s why we have an ability to nullify contracts. That\u2019s why certain terms, things that are objectively harmful in contracts are simply not allowed. Other matters are subjective and on those matters individuals themselves should be able to decide what it is they want. We want to prove that our system has a smaller opportunity for abuse and when the abuse occurs, it can be made less harmful. Pre-nups provide four benefits to couples, that State imposed terms of divorce cannot provide don't. 1. They provide flexibility. People can get legal advice and tailor contracts to receive the protection that they believe they will need in the marriage. People with different financial means, different preferences and different views of what is right can ensure that they will not be abused both by their spouse and the state, both of them, who can have different ideas of wealth, equality etc. within a marriage and that their marriage will correspond to their desire of what it should be. 2. Pre-nuptial agreements provide specificity. There can only be ONE State system for splitting assets. That system is a blanket ruling, it is limited in the scope and the type of conditions that it can impose on couples. If the conditions are too specific then the State runs the risk of dis-empowering certain forms of marriage. For example some people may want to include terms against infidelity in their pre-nup, but if the State was to force that condition on everybody then it would dis-empower forms of open marriage, where both partners have a more open view of sexuality. The point is that in prenuptial agreements these sort of subjective matters, where nobody can objectively decide on what is right, are left in individual hands. Then everybody can decide what is right for them. And there are so many things in life and love for which there are no objective criteria to judge on their rightness or wrongness! 3. When harm accrues to individuals through these sort of voluntary agreements, then it happens through their own decisions. Society can handle individuals making their own mistakes, but not states forcing them into situations where they suffer harms, because of the State's cookie-cutter system. People in general feel better if they feel that they are responsible for their own decisions and mistakes and thus they adopt better to harms. The State's role should be to provide opportunities for the minimization of the risk of such harms accruing, but not to take away the capacity of people to make their own decisions just because they could get hurt. But in addition to this we think that couples are far more likely to understand their own pre-nups than have a fine understanding of the divorce law that is imposed by the State. This is because they have to actively participate in the making of the pre-nup, therefore they are more likely to understand fully what they are getting themselves into. Couples don't take Law textbooks with them to bed. Law that is imposed on them by the ''far away'' abstract State is much more difficult to internalize. This argument has proven that any form of specified system for the division of property will always allow for certain conditions that affect parties in a marriage disproportionally, this always creates some opportunity. We've showed you that prenups provide a more tailored approach-- they thus reduce the risk of the person ending up unhappy. But even when harm accrues to individuals it is accrued through their own decisions and not through a blanket ruling by the State. We think that people have a right to make their own mistakes in the pursuit of happiness.","conclusion":"Abuse in a system with State imposed terms vs. the system with voluntary agreements pre-nups"}
{"id":"94417a46-0249-42b4-ac9b-67d133c7f962","argument":"If randomness underpins our actions, then we can't be in control of our actions: our actions are random rather than free, undermining the kind of control required for free will.","conclusion":"Even if the universe isn't deterministic, randomness does not mean we have free will."}
{"id":"365dd5f4-c99b-48e6-89f5-c93fb0daf0ac","argument":"There is an explanation of the movie here But I still think the movie is dumb. This is largely a rant, backed with some reasoning. I will probably offend huge swathes of people. But please understand when replying, I am totally open to rebuttals, but I will cross examine them with logic, and I will grant fair plausibility to things that seem true and fair enough despite not being able to prove it to a T. I am mainly looking at blatant and cherry picked arguments, as you will see in the paragraphs below. So by all means, rip apart my words here, as I am doing can't have double standards now, can we? That would be hypocritical. Please do rip me apart based on the words I have said here, and not based on the offense you may have felt by those words. Thanks Really, the glass cracking but the wine still being there from that you're supposed to draw that the spirit is present as the body is cast aside? Really? Because that's the only thing that that could mean, right? And you had to be so implicit about it? and was the the LSD trip really necessary? Hal900 faked shit, and you don't know if he's really plotted communications module malfunction to isolate and strategically destroy his human passengers, or if he's just actually malfunctioning. Deceit. So how do you know if Hal900 isn't faking dying. He says he feels himself dying? And as the human disconnects memory modules, Hal900 talks more slowly? That's not how computers work. It would be instantly corrupted, and stop. There is no reason why it would talk more slowly as opposed to just stop talking or losing the memory file that it's speaking. Shows how much Stanley Kubrik knows or cared to research or consult or listen to advisors who would have pointed that out knows yet we're to take lessons from him about AI singularity? pft . So with such blatant ignorance of the behaviors and mechanisms of computers, I, the viewer is supposed to understand the Hal900 is actually losing and dying , as opposed to faking it and being Machiavelian, like he arguably was but we can't be certain when he said the communications module is failing? Come on. And then it goes into this LSD trip that I'm supposed to take literally? And then I'm not supposed to take the room scene after the LSD trip too literally? Come on There is a pervasive oversimplification in film about man and tools. AI singularity is the mechanism and the theme by which man loses control of his tools . And really, a f ing starchild? where the f did that come from? Did he figure out a way to clone himself? Maybe you want to insert those steps in, instead of spending 5 times longer on every scene than necessary? It commits the sin that the 2013 movie Snowpiercer does. Both movies spend so much time on the buildup, but when we get to the actual crux of the philosophical thesis and main point of each movie, it is glossed over so quickly, when there many many questionable steps in the logic of the grand thesis. This rapid glossing over of steps to me is a common observed pattern that I notice in the artsy humanities majors, generally speaking of course. They want to claim things are true, but not submit to the methodology and criteria of establishing truth. And if you press them on it, they retreat to relativism, that everything is subjective, why aren't you being nice, logic is just as valid as opinion, post modernism it's like they have no shame. Cerebral , academic film such leaps of conclusions, such skipping of steps, such construing of events that could mean ten thousand things to mean specifically one thing arbitrarily chosen such pretentiousness achieved through an unnecessary degree of implicitness. My personal opinion is that this is an example of over glorification of the ivory tower. Just like how stupid child art passes off for tens of millions of dollars because of overinflated, fabricated demand, and the error of the human mind. No, that painting is not worth that much, and neither is this film well, economic worth is determined by supply and demand. I'm talking about the intrinsic worth that those buying and praising the work claim they have . There is a saying by Richard Feynman. The gist is to use simple words instead of jargon to test whether anything of substance was said, or if jargon was inserted, obscuring whether any real idea of substance was said. In film, the close equivalent would be to see if any point of substance was made, or if you just artificially inflated it to be cerebral by obscuring, skipping steps, and making things implicit when you could have used simple words by being explicit. That would never fly in engineering or the sciences. Hey look at me, I'm such a brilliant person I skip steps to prove my points. Can I has PhD? This gets to the crux of why a 3.0 GPA in sciences is considered much more than a 3.0 in humanities, again, in general. But then again, maybe Stanley Kubrik is just sooo f ing genius, and I missed 10 thousand things. But again, even if that were the case, the point about being implicit vs explicit still stands.","conclusion":"A Space Odyssey and other such films are pretentious, arbitrary, and contradictory"}
{"id":"a6b987ab-c2c7-4151-af49-80f98f754be6","argument":"The lower price of a drone results from its limited spectrum of action. A multi-purpose fighter is naturally more expensive.","conclusion":"This comparison is flawed. A human operated multi purpose jet is not comparable to an automated air\/ground attacking drone."}
{"id":"86f37a86-47ed-4755-b6c0-3501c990d161","argument":"Due to the inter-relation with each other, the level of intelligence could help with not entirely though the level of consciousness one has.","conclusion":"The receptiveness and use of it can translate to the level of intelligence one has and vice versa to some extent."}
{"id":"5ed05a48-bcb4-43c4-bd31-52eb3a3d5d4a","argument":"Pull yourself up by your bootstraps . From Horatio Alger to Trump, and beyond, it holds a huge place in the popular imagination, particularly in the USA. It is often a key phrase used to describe a philosophical outlook which emphasises the individual person's responsibility to endeavour to work as hard as possible to further their cause, and succeed in their aims. Inherent within the common use of the phrase is an idealogical attachment to the primacy of the indidual, over and against the state , society , or communality. It goes something like this if you work hard, and pull yourself up by your own bootstraps, you'll succeed and be able to provide for yourself and those you love within your own lifetime . It goes without saying that the idea is based on a success one could attain despite starting at the lowest eschelons of society, and touts social mobility and individual success in a competitive environment. I dont think Im being unfair. Im also not interested in having my view changed about authoritarianism vs Libertarianism, left vs right, socialism vs capitalism, or liberalism vs conservatism. To change my view, you need to show me Im wrong on these points Pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps is impossible. If my boots are on the ground, and I reach down and grab hold of the straps attached to them, I cannot succeed in pulling myself up. Whether up means to a more tall and straight standing position, or a geographic position physically above the ground, it is impossible for me to pull myself up by my bootstraps. However strong I am, no peraon could, ever. My feet will remain on the ground where they are, unless I lose my balance. I can pull all I want, but I will either break my boots, injure myself, or flat out fail. An outlook in terms of a narrative promoting individualism should not use this parable to defend its ideals, or means. This parable shows that an individual can't pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. That is the only specific lesson worth concluding from the parable. The only conclusion you could draw from a story about a person pulling themself up by their bootstraps, is that they were doomed to failure from the beginning, due to the impossible nature of their task. Individualism using this story to defend its economic and societal outlook is farcical. Assuming point 2, I come to these conclusions regarding those who use this parable to promote the view of the competence of the individual to overcome lowly start in terms of economic clout, social position, or disadvatagedness Shut up, it should be a word , yo come to substantial gain in those fields solely or even as a great majority of total factors, which I dont think is unfair on the parable by the expending of their own efforts, to elevate themself 3.1.That the speaker of the parable lacks critical awareness of the meaning and impossibility of their parable. 3.2.That the speaker of the parable has certainly failed to understand that trying to use a parable based on an inherent impossibility, to defend a view based on the parable offering a distinct inherent possibility, is farcical, and undermines their own position. 3.3.Yhe speaker of the parable is promoting a view which will not require the hearers to engage in critical, reflective, thought, in order to believe what is being said, and even summarily defend it in turn, as an idea, despite lack of comprehension of its meaning, its impossibility, or its effect on ideas based on it. So, please, I know that I am a smug society believing European I am British , and i know the parable and its use exist almost entirely within suspension of an environment the USA in which I have never lived, but please, CHANGE MY VIEW so that I dont continue to believe that everyone who uses this expression is a moron.","conclusion":"Pulling oneself up by their own bootstraps is physically impossible. To defend a social, economic, or philosophical outlook based on this phrase betrays a lack of awareness of the impossibility described in the phrase, and a related lack of awareness of the viability of the abstract idea."}
{"id":"1f217d1f-8884-4994-a197-36f735248ba1","argument":"He was striking with Vader with anger and hatred until he saw that robotic hand, a hand just like his own. With that he remembered he was fighting a person again, and he let his love overturn his hate. He let his hate go and Darth Vader turned, proving that someone who has committed many terrible acts, can still be redeemed. Even before this, Luke was considering joining the Imperial Academy in Ep IV.","conclusion":"Luke's battle with Darth Vader in The Return Of The Jedi is just as trialing for Luke as the moment of weakness with Ben Solo."}
{"id":"7d07e881-7f4f-46d7-82fd-cfaa1f70ea88","argument":"There are many reasons for this. First, they fear that Sunnis and Shias will attempt to dominate the country and impose their religious mores.","conclusion":"The Kurds are strongly in favor of \"federalism\" and a partitioning of Iraq"}
{"id":"994a360c-d78a-4a7e-8a9c-7180e4a3d46a","argument":"This may give rise to many conscientious objectors who deliberately break the law so as to prove a point of their non-support for it.","conclusion":"Codifying into law behaviour that a large majority find repulsive does not always change attitudes."}
{"id":"3646954f-9ca7-435a-b78e-bc19b7d3762e","argument":"When a crime is committed, both the victim and the society as a whole deserve retribution \u2013 seeing a criminal punished as the just response to his crime. It is a right due to victims, who often face great anguish from a crime. It does not matter how long ago the crime was committed \u2013 criminals still should be punished, and so we should not excuse criminals from retribution by such a limitation.","conclusion":"When a crime is committed, both the victim and the society as a whole deserve retribution \u2013 seeing a..."}
{"id":"8d1189a3-651c-403d-b242-a838715af653","argument":"Voting at least in Presidential elections, possibly on other issues as well should be mandatory for all adults in the USA. Furthermore, verified information about the candidates' pasts and if they were politicians before their campaign voting records should be public and easily accessible. Workplaces should give mandatory time off on election days, and free public transportation to nearby voting locations should be available. A more educated and widespread voting population is the only way for the American peoples' rights to be exercised. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Voting in the United States should be mandatory."}
{"id":"42e8aec1-94f7-4d12-ad44-a433bcd82d1a","argument":"I asked my fellow co workers for an opinion based on a situation that made me pretty upset. A situation where a manager yelled at me for doing a practice that he himself taught me when I first started. Mainly because it would amount to a decent amount of work for his fling. I was visibly upset, and mean mugged my way through the shift. It bothered me because this practice has become routine. I and many others have done this method before without a peep from my manager. Why was this different? I asked my co workers after the shift was over and they just told me that's the way of the world. To just deal with it and don't trip over that situation. It just bothers me that productivity goes straight out of the window in favor of special treatment for others. Its something I've had to deal with my whole life but today it got to me. In high school, in college, in stores, in the workplace. When does it stop? Or should I even concern myself over this? Change My View","conclusion":"I believe one should be visibly upset in the face of favoritism in the workplace."}
{"id":"2380e31a-35b6-4d67-a8d1-e1e97841899f","argument":"Providing youth with sexual health education is critical in informing their future decisions to engage in safe sex practices behavior and improving their overall health outcomes. Providing safe sex education provides students with the knowledge of the health risks associated with engaging in unsafe sex behavior and the associated health outcomes such as STIs and unplanned pregnancy. It gives them the knowledge on how to make smart and informed decisions regarding their health, whether they choose to engage or abstain from sex. This education provides them with tools to protect themselves and make smart decisions for their health. This education can also promote more open communication between students, their parents and health care providers. Students may feel more encouraged to ask questions. This communication can help decrease confusion and misinformation that students may be exposed to in the media or online. In addition, having an open chain of communications on the topic of sex and sexual health may help eliminate the stigma associated with it. If more people are aware of the risks associated with unsafe sex behavior, they may be better informed to either engage in safe sex behavior or abstain. These behaviors can decrease rates of STIs, unplanned pregnancies and the associated health care costs.","conclusion":"Sexual health classes should be required as part of the comprehensive curriculum in all public schools in the United States"}
{"id":"c2b63279-6b2b-4595-8b2e-a730806e5645","argument":"If it is possible it will not be done only once things seldom are but many times. A parent reality exploring different simulated universes probably includes variations on the same theme, simulations resembling each other like almost-copies. Our universe will be one of many like it. With the corollary that there are almost-copies of everyone.","conclusion":"If it is possible to Simulate, then it is highly probable someone\/thing will eventually Simulate."}
{"id":"0c3a47c4-0140-415f-b50f-624c4f901fc9","argument":"Australia, New Zealand, the US, and the UK are high on the list of countries who give large quantities of money to charity in private donations.","conclusion":"High-income countries already discharge the obligations placed on them by colonialism through foreign aid and charitable donations."}
{"id":"60ea5c27-3285-49cd-93cf-08993672973e","argument":"Condoms cannot protect from the transmission of certain STIs, such as herpes and syphilis, and offer no absolute protection from other STIs, mainly due to incorrect use or product failure.","conclusion":"Even if protection was used one-night stands still have a non-neglible risk of sexually transmitted infections that could harm your significant other and mean they should be informed."}
{"id":"d0e53b92-33af-4a14-adae-2659c557d67a","argument":"Example 2 demonstrates a case where the patient was able to give information about what was going on in the room during the medical procedure while they were clinically dead.","conclusion":"Near death experiences are inconceivable from a materialistic world view and yet they happen."}
{"id":"828eeda4-07e4-48e0-9bcc-09580f782fba","argument":"The US Fish and Wildlife Service uses 5 factors to determine whether a species is threatened present or threatened destruction, modification, or curtailment of habitat overutilization for commercial, recreational, etc. purposes disease or predation inadequacy of existing regulatory mechanisms other natural or man made factors Most of these I am fine with. If human involvement is causing a species to go extinct it should be regulated. But disease predation I have a problem with. Like it or not, extinction is part of evolution. Why should we hamper industry with regulations protecting a species that is dying off from natural causes? My example would be the Northern Long eared Bat. F W wants to list it as endangered and put in new regulations because it is supposedly getting killed off by something called White Nose Syndrome, a disease that may have spread to the US from Europe where bats have developed a resistance by recreational caver equipment contamination. I support regulation of caving to protect the bats though lab tests have only shown bat to bat transmission to be possible , but F W wants to put regulations on the Oil and Gas industry as well, limiting the time of year construction can be done clearing trees would only be allowed when bats were hibernating in caves because it might kill some bats during the rest of the year . This would greatly inflate the cost of construction in affected areas and have zero impact on the effects of WNS on the bat population. Yes, the bat population might be greatly affected by this disease, but something else will spring up to takes its place likely other bats with better immune systems . That's how nature works. TL DR we should only protect endangered species when human actions are directly responsible for their decline.","conclusion":"I don't believe we should always protect endangered species."}
{"id":"c1994fcf-6ba7-4a87-bfc1-fdbd563c24aa","argument":"It is ridiculous and clearly unfair that some sixteen year olds should get to vote in an election while most are barred from participating. This is the case in European Parliament elections at the moment; young people in Austria are able to vote in elections at 16 while everyone else has to wait until they are eighteen.1 This means that a tiny minority of the Youth in the European Union get to vote before the rest something which is clearly discrimination against the majority of the European Union\u2019s 16 and 17 year olds; \u2018universal suffrage\u2019 should be universal for the European Parliament across the whole of the Union. The age should therefore be lowered to sixteen so that voting age is universally recognised with no one group receiving the right to vote before the others. 1 European Parliament, \u2018About Parliament - Members\u2019, europarl.europa.eu, accessed 3 May 2013","conclusion":"The voting age should be the same across the Union"}
{"id":"11f864f3-82cc-4ddb-a962-5eba5890bf4f","argument":"The way I see it likely skewed since I'm an American and not actually from the UK , there were really two camps in the referendum those who wanted the UK to have more control over the laws and regulations that affect the UK, and those who wanted to keep integration with the EU. Those voters, based on their stances, would rank palatability of those options as follows Sovereignty Hard Brexit Staying in EU even if they hate it, this would still allow them input on EU decisions EEA no input whatsoever EU integration EU EEA Hard Brexit So going from the EU to the EEA would mean both camps get an outcome which they'd prefer the status quo to. Since the compromise option will please absolutely no one, the better way to do it is to recognize that the Sovereignty camp won the referendum and deliver them the option they want by pulling a Hard Brexit, or else ignore the referendum entirely and stay in the EU because the unpalatability of Hard Brexit is so high among the second camp and just taking their option would be better than going with a compromise no one really wants.","conclusion":"The UK would be showing less respect to the wishes of its voters by joining the EEA than it would by doing a \"Hard Brexit\" or even staying in the EU entirely."}
{"id":"5f467aa8-e2f8-4458-9e6a-27966dbc34c7","argument":"I rarely go to bed before 12, but when I'm awake at night, I am far more creative, as I work on music, write screenplays, and do work or many other things. I find that in the hours when it is dead, I get a lot more work done. The cons being that I am not getting enough sleep and other health related problems are things that I can look past because I am so efficient at night. This is a big problem as I believe that I do need more sleep, but I really can't quit on my most active time of the day.","conclusion":"I believe that the pros of being a \"night owl\" far outweigh the cons."}
{"id":"32dc98fe-cc9e-4a9b-a182-43702b32e7cb","argument":"I am American and have used toilet paper my whole life. I've had to use a bidet the past week for medical reasons, and I think that toilet paper is the far superior option. Cleanliness In this area, I prefer toilet paper for a few reasons. First of all, there is actual visual confirmation that you've got it all. With bidets you just have to keep spraying until you think you're good. And as the amount of wiping bidet ing can vary greatly, the visual aspect is a great help. I used a towel to dab afterwards, as toilet paper doesn't hold up against all the water. Secondly, a bidet shouldn't be necessary as people should shower daily. Many people like to point out that bidets are better because they rinse away bacteria and other nastiness. But, a shower with actual soap and water and scrubbing should do that job much better than just water alone. But you wouldn't just wipe it away if you got some on your hands No, and I don't think you'd just rinse it away either. You'd use soap and water and scrubbing. Another point, your hands are usually the first thing you use to touch something. Until you grab things with your bare ass, wiping is just as good. Comfort Good quality toilet paper is amazing. It's soft, thick, almost like Kleenex. Hell, you could wipe with Kleenex if you wanted. Point is that high quality stuff is glorious. On the other hand, you're getting a cold spray of water in a very sensitive area. Even if you have a super luxury bidet that uses heated water, it's still basically shooting water up your ass. Even low quality toilet paper is better than that. In a shower the water flows down, which is much less uncomfortable. With a bidet there's also the added trouble of being all drippy with water while you move to towel off. And unless you want to reach into the bowl with a towel while you're still sitting on it, you're going to have to at least move up to a squat to towel off. Those with an air dryer feature may alleviate this somewhat, but toweling will probably still be necessary if the air hand dryers are anything to go by. Price I understand bidets cost less. But for me and where I am in life, I can and will pay extra for quality. There must be many others who feel the same, or else only single ply sand paper toilet paper would exist. In this area bidets are better, but I think that if this is the reason someone buys a bidet it would be because they have to save money. Eco friendliness I think we're past the whole 'save the trees' business. Reforestation is greater than reforestation in most of the world. Bidets may actually do more harm in low water and drought areas, if everyone dropped toilet paper and got bidets the gallons would add up. To clarify I'm talking about a bidet for home use, that's built into the toilet. The bidets that are completely separate just seem impractical. Edit The point here is that given a choice between a bidet and toilet paper, toilet paper is better. In situations where there's no other alternatives, of course one will be used over the other. So, .","conclusion":"Toilet paper is better than bidets."}
{"id":"b13a0370-863d-496f-adae-de0377095318","argument":"First off, I realize that this is an politically incorrect, rude view, and not something I would admit to most people. I find it tough to fully respect and get along with fat people, because I can't understand how they're comfortable with themselves and content to stay fat. I'm trying to change this, but I can't seem to shake this mindset. ? Just to be clear, I'm not talking about slightly heavier or chubby individuals, I mean obese or severely overweight people.","conclusion":"I find it extremely difficult to see overweight people as being fully equal,"}
{"id":"bf8f94bf-bb07-4894-966a-fcb12f2ccf42","argument":"Much of US gun control is enforced via the Internal Revenue Code ch. 53 aka \"tax code\" by heavily taxing the possession of firearms but not banning them outright. This approach was used to skirt the protections of the Second Amendment. Regulating firearms via taxation is illegitimate because taxation is theft","conclusion":"These policies infringe on various rights that the government has an obligation to uphold."}
{"id":"b69f1ac3-54cb-45fb-88d7-6df1e2f636ef","argument":"Giving same sex couples rights through marriage encourages gay people to form strong interpersonal connections.","conclusion":"Promoting stability and permanence in relationships is an inherent social good."}
{"id":"4b1bbfb4-b1e8-4873-997a-60ffc6cc5d20","argument":"There are 350 Million firearms in about half the households in the US. The proposed regulations do not allow for self defense with a firearm. Any attempt to enforce a ban on commonplace weapons or to criminalize armed self-defense would be met with a level of resistance would place Law Enforcement and potentially the military in a conflict with a population in which Law Enforcement and the Military would be significantly outmanned and outgunned. It is untenable.","conclusion":"Attempting to implement strict gun control measures is likely to create backlash."}
{"id":"a8d8076e-6f84-4f4f-b983-9567dbb5f84d","argument":"Government agencies for most states and a wide variety of private sector firms have strong vested interest in global imaging and mapping.","conclusion":"Wakanda will be discovered eventually. Better for it to happen on Wakanda's terms."}
{"id":"2b210c41-3052-48b1-87a6-ad5f7555e260","argument":"This also applies to a lot of Trump's idiotic mistakes, i.e. the time he misspelled tap on Twitter. Last night on the latest episode of As America Turns , every liberal's favorite politician Donald Trump posted a nonsensical tweet now deleted after six hours that read gt Despite the constant negative press covfefe And he kept that up for six hours. Then, just recently, he tweeted this still up . gt Who can figure out the true meaning of covfefe ??? Enjoy I will admit, part of me finds this funny and I do look forward to comedy shows Bill Maher, John Oliver, Trevor Noah etc. roasting him for it. But honestly, I believe that is part of the problem these idiotic, inexplicable things said by Trump are part of a campaign to turn Trump into a joke. Because by making himself out to be a cartoon character, the public becomes desensitized to his idiocy, to his bad decisions it normalizes Donald Trump as a bad decision maker and a foolish person. There is no way in Hell that this is possibly a mistake. It's not a small typo it was an incomplete sentence with a non existent Bowling Green word that was kept up for six hours . 0.00000000000001 this was a mistake. I believe this is part of an insidious campaign to not only make the petty and foolish things Trump does i.e. this tweet and it's reply the focus of Trump's media coverage taking attention off of his actual scandals , but also normalize the idea that Trump is idiotic so the people are desensitized to him. It makes you expect this kind of idiocy from Trump which lessons the impact of his real scandals. I believe all of us need to be vigilant and not put nearly as much focus on this petty tweet as people want. You can  by convincing me this legitimately might've been a mistake, or that this is not as bad as I think. EDIT I've been convinced that it's not as infeasible as I thought that this was unintentional. But I am still unconvinced that the effects will be the same as if it was intentional. Whether Trump was running a calculated ploy, or whether he was simply salvaging a bad joke for the sake of saving face, the effects I mentioned here I still believe they will occur nonetheless. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"CovfefeGate is just a ploy to desensitize the public to Trump's idiocy"}
{"id":"1aca5ce1-130d-49fd-9102-3a1feb2c20d4","argument":"1 They genuinely care for each other and enjoy each others' company. Late night talks, running in the park, etc. They don't like to see the other get hurt eg. when Frank found out Claire was raped, he was foaming at the mouth with anger before Claire restrained him . Conversely, when Frank's dying bodyguard said insulting things about him, Claire verbally tore the man apart because she cared about Frank so much. 2 They have no sexual insecurities or are really good about handling insecurities . Claire goes over to her lover's place often and Frank has no problem with that. Consequently, Frank sleeps with younger women and Claire turns a blind eye. She also accepts Frank's bisexuality and encourages him to explore it with his bodyguard. 4 They have an open and honest relationship. They tell each other about everything that goes on in their lives somewhere in season 1, Claire explicitly stated that. In the same vein, they won't cheat. 5 They trust each other to do the right thing. For example, when Claire assured Frank she would handle the rapist, he trusted her completely and backed down. A lesser man would have been overtaken by his angry emotions and tried to hurt the rapist himself, but Fran trusted Claire to take care of it. 6 They also assert their independence, showing they aren't attached to an unhealthy extreme. When Claire found out her water organization was being used by Frank, she put a stop to it instead of just going along because he was her husband. She demonstrated that she was an equal partner in this relationship.","conclusion":"Frank and Claire Underwood have the perfect romantic relationship."}
{"id":"2342f2d3-c677-4da8-affc-c005accdaaab","argument":"There are 5 deaths for every 100,000 people as a result of conflict and war in the world. In comparison, there are 279 deaths per 100,000 people caused by cardiovascular diseases and 211 deaths per 100,000 people caused by infectious and parasitic diseases.","conclusion":"There are many dangers in society that constitute a much higher threat to citizens than warfare."}
{"id":"b3626c90-4a03-4798-a870-b991be7bc2c9","argument":"Working together allows many Intelligences to work on the same problem at the same time. All with different values, opinions and traditions.","conclusion":"Working together is just one of many technologies that an AI can use to avoid making life threatening mistakes."}
{"id":"54812fef-b608-4e0b-8a3c-e38409be93b9","argument":"With the exception of hydro power, most alternative energies produce power at highly variable and unpredictable levels. You might be able to produce at great expense as much power from wind and solar as from nuclear, but only until the sun goes down or the wind slows. Once it does, if you don't have without a stable\/controllable source like nuclear, coal, etc., you just have to huddle in the dark.","conclusion":"One cannot even replace all energy production with wind\/solar. There is not enough sun shining and wind blowing to do this at suitable sites around the globe."}
{"id":"66270149-b019-4cc6-bacb-5ab859b5e42f","argument":"So basketball is my sport of choice and I love the highlights, scoring and athleticism. I never got into baseball and was always bored by it. I just tried watching the highlights of a Yankees Indians game and the announcer said \u201cswing and a miss\u201d for at least half the video. Most of the time they don\u2019t hit the ball or if they do hit it, it ends up as a fly ball or the outfielder catches it. I\u2019d like to understand the appeal of watching MLB. I think baseball softball is fun to play but so hard to watch. I want to know why and how baseball fans find this so entertaining.","conclusion":"- baseball looks like such a boring sport compared to basketball or football"}
{"id":"4c101db7-d228-425f-9491-61b6b6047803","argument":"I believe Israel does NOT have a right to exist as any state . I believe the optimal solution, unfortunately probably not the one to be carried out, would be a single Palestinian state, where jews and palestinians could live in peace, with no reminiscence of apartheid. I believe the two state solution is unfortunately already a product of the advances Israel has developed in the region. It will most certainly deepen the apartheid, segregation, gentrification, racism, etc. Attacks will hardly stop. I believe Israel should be heavily divested from, boycotted, sanctioned, rendered economically unviable by the countries of the world. I believe the jewish people should be welcome anywhere, as any people who do not seek to occupy and colonize, or exploit economically. All jewish people, from 1942 to 2014, should be protected from antisemitism. However, I disagree very strongly with the utilization of the word antisemitism to categorize those critical of Israel as do many jewish people, who, by this logic, are themselves antisemitic . I don't believe the actions of Hamas are of special concern. Whereas I am against war everywhere, I recognize a people's right of self defense to military occupation and ethnic cleansing. Demagogy aside, nobody likes to experience the death of loved ones. Thank you for reading and I hope we can have an honest and serious discussion.","conclusion":"I believe Israel does NOT have a right to exist."}
{"id":"97021b79-1248-4ff2-a656-c9fc016f96e8","argument":"The notion that the prop. presents, that the only way to insure that people don\u2019t die of thirst is to create a monopoly is preposterous. I don\u2019t deny that there are some people that need water very much and can\u2019t afford it, but most people over the world is getting along at the very least with their basic needs. The State can certainly provide vouchers to very poor and disadvantaged people, so they can use it to pay the company. If there is a remote village that is not being covered by a water company, there are many solutions. The State could help find a solution for very sparsely populated areas. The best solution wouldn\u2019t be to force the private water company to get them a connection to the main supply, it doesn\u2019t matter if we are talking about a private or state owned company, to take water pipes to 10 cabins at the top of the mountain would be a waste. Maybe there is a nearer water source available. For a bigger but still remote area, the inhabitants could create a Co-op to find underground aquifers and such. In cases of a war or a natural catastrophe, there is indeed a place for State emergency intervention. The State should have an emergency water supply. We would still have the competition drive, the innovation of private companies and they could pay a tax on their revenues, making it easier for the State to actually give vouchers to people that sorely need them.","conclusion":"A mixed system: let\u2019s have the best of both worlds"}
{"id":"773b7710-7eda-4b8d-8ccb-3c5c3c8cf69c","argument":"Countries seem willing and head towards that direction eventually. Adopting a universal currency would just speed up that process.","conclusion":"Setting up a universal currency would be easy to accomplish."}
{"id":"81c9512b-cbc4-40a7-8c0f-d3e562d6b333","argument":"Hello all, Thanks for stopping by, I had someone bring this topic to me up recently and I'd like to test the validity of my conclusions. I don't think weed should be legalized. My view is based upon these two fundamental assumptions. 1 You would not trust a pilot to fly you while high. Meaning, the average sane person would not dare to step on airplane if they knew the pilot to be high. As such I think it can be said that weed by it's nature is a dulling substance. Smoking greatly reduces your mental capabilities while the drug is active. 2 Society benefits from a smart educated general populace. That is, the smarter and more well educated the average joe is, the better we as a society are. As such, we can't allow a dulling substance to be legalized since it would run counter to point 2. If weed became a legalized, I think it could be argued that the average populace's intelligence level would drop due to the higher level of people partaking. The same logic can be applied to alcohol.We saw during the prohibition that delegalizing alcohol was near impossible. This shows that legalizing a drug is a one way street. Legalizing weed would be a point of no return for us. If legalization were to happen, it would become a permanent addition to our society. As such, I think the legalization of weed is simply unmoral if you value the welfare of our society as a whole. It is simply too harmful and too risky for us to venture. EDIT I can see now that I've expressed my point poorly. Thank you all for your response. I'll respond to and delta everyone ASAP. I appreciate your time. I'll further think about this topic and try again another time","conclusion":"Weed cannot be morally legalized."}
{"id":"bb1c4147-6170-4957-95a1-a8f22576a11e","argument":"My mother is a deeply loving woman who sent me to Logical and Critical thinking classes as a kid. She has spent her life trying to raise children with clear thinking and a strong moral core. I respect her more than almost anyone in the world. She also nearly had a degree in biology, but had to abandon that due to personal crisis at the time. However she is a Young Earth Creationist, believes people shouldn't write books where people talk to fay elves, whisps, etc to get magic because then they're teaching people to open themselves to demons. She was very afraid of Harry Potter and ate up the supposed satanist connections. She says I'm too cold in my logic, and that life's greatest things love and god, etc are not measurable. She says I only talk like I do about extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence because I haven't experienced spiritual powers of good and evil. And she casts my walking away from the faith as being just part of the natural rebellion phase. People realize they had it right when they were children, and come back to god. She counters my arguments advocating skepticism in regards to spiritual matters by this condescending well you just haven't experienced it crap. I feel like I'm talking to a brick wall, there's no conversation when someone just waves it away with a hand. And so, I don't think I can make any headway trying to debate her because I feel like she'll just dismiss anything that doesn't line up with her view. I'll be so happy when I understand it all in heaven, she says when I bring up conflicting elements oft he bible. It's so MAGICAL and MYSTERIOUS, why could our little minds try to understand. Thus I see nothing of value to debating her, and just want to spend time enjoying the wonderful person she is otherwise.","conclusion":"I think I should not have any more philosophical debate with my YEC mother."}
{"id":"8e980a3e-c832-4254-8b7b-c6f30b9e07cb","argument":"Two-thirds of the 2016 presidential campaign events were in just six states, of which North Carolina is the most rural one, with still over 60% of the population living in urban areas. Census 2010","conclusion":"A small number of swing states get almost all the attention from the candidates. Ninety four percent of all campaign events in 2016 were in just 12 states."}
{"id":"3fcecf0a-8f2a-4fde-b9e6-af6e061406ef","argument":"Delayed assimilation into the new culture tends to come from protectionism, which has rarely served any civilization over the long term. As the outside world progresses into the future without that protected culture\/civilization, it leaves that protected culture\/civilization vulnerable in many ways.","conclusion":"Willingness to not obey legal cultural norms is the opposite foundational pillar of a civilized society, i.e Civil Disobedience. Without it, a culture can stagnate & choke from within on its own."}
{"id":"07015a42-ff10-4d86-9315-f99d80d9d645","argument":"Feminists argue against beauty standards off of the fact that they are unfair, as they are gender specific and that enforces a double standard while also being forced. Here's why this argument is problematic. See, in grade school, you were probably taught about the idea of a social contract. Of course, it was specific to the one existing between a people and its government. However, I bring this up to remind people about what a social contract is, which is an implicit agreement between 2 collective groups of people for their mutual benefit. With regards to the genders, a social contract exists between the 2 genders and this involves beauty standards, masculinity femininity and more. There are certain biologically ordained attractions between men and women and so standards are created around them. Now here are the counters to this. counter Beauty personality standards are unfair, why should they be different between men and women? Well, think about any trade that has happened in a contract. Has there ever been an equal trade? Does anyone by 10 dollars with 10 dollars? A tomato for a tomato? A burger for a burger? No, just because the trade is unequal doesn't make it wrong. Men and women, just like customers and businesses, want different things out of each other and this is a biologically ordained thing. I want groceries and Wal Mart wants money, but no one is out their lamenting this trade as bad because its unequal. Same thing here, each gender wants something and its in both genders interest to agree to give these wants to each other. Counter Fine, but they shouldn't be forced onto people. They aren't affecting anyone and they shouldn't be compelled to do so. The error with this argument is the individualism. See here's why this argument is wrong, it assumes this premise as long as x doesn't affect someone directly, then there should be not taboo against it or for it. Here's the thing this ignores, a stigma against something does 2 things. if done correctly A. It corrects the person who has done X and is doing it B. It prevents people who would've otherwise done X from doing it This is valid if A. X is a bad thing for the individual. So you are essentially helping people who would otherwise hurt themselves. B. if X is an action that needs to be minimized for a common good to be reached. An example was the expectation during WW2 that any healthy grown up man was to join to fight the military. It was stigma not to do it as that sacrifice was needed to achieve a greater collective good. This is how beauty standards work, they get everyone to participate in them to achieve the greater collective goal of satisfying the male female social contract so that way we all benefit. The only rule I would say for taboo is that a taboo should, and should only apply to an aspect that someone can actually change make up, muscle, clothes etc. rather than something unchangeable. Counter How can I be apart of a social contract that I never agreed to? Social contracts are special in that due to the collective and disorganized nature to it, consent isn't particularly necessary to enforce that contract. All that's needed is some sort of evidence that the contract is beneficial for both parties and that's it. I'm a consequentialist, mean I care about the consequences of these ideas over all. And to be able to achieve the beneficial consequences of any social contract at all, it requires the foregoing of consent and just merely the proof that it is beneficial and that's it. counter There is no objective beauty or attraction. Well this, has been falsified by science many times over. There's a neurological basis for finding proportionality This evolutionary study supports the idea of a biological basis for beauty.","conclusion":"Beauty standards are fine because they are a part of the male female social contract"}
{"id":"cf82c239-4d0c-406d-bf96-61ac67a1659d","argument":"Certain groups of citizens lack the mental capacity to make such a choice, e.g. seniors suffering from dementia. This would remove many of the benefits of the policy - for example, most terminally ill people are elderly.","conclusion":"A general application of the right to die is legally problematic and thus it should be restricted."}
{"id":"b22d355f-1444-4788-a000-85b6d1cc527d","argument":"I honestly can't see why this isn't done. Marriage is a religious construct, and we do our best at least in the US to separate religion and state. Individuals can get married by their church, but they should be entered into a civil union from the perspective of the government. The only argument I've heard that I can sympathize with is that this will lead to further expansion of the definition of a civil union, to eventually allow polyamorous groups to gain the rights of a civil union. I personally don't have an issue with this either, but I suppose I can understand why some people may. gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than just downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I think all marriages, current and future, heterosexual and homosexual, should be identified by the government as civil unions, and that civil unions should have all the privileges that marriage currently has."}
{"id":"fae3a9b0-e06b-428e-9bf1-754bc6d73f33","argument":"After paying off this amount, one can cancel their private mortgage insurance which may free up 0.5% to 5% of the original balance.","conclusion":"Have at least 20% equity in one's property can afford such benefits."}
{"id":"c681a2be-f078-40a4-b8a1-121c2a62e6cd","argument":"I hear the argument Well, it's just my their opinion come up quite often when referring to a variety of different topics. For example, people who say Well, being gay isn't natural, that's just my opinion or You can't lose weight eating nothing but twinkies, that's just my opinion . Considering that being gay is recognized in the animal kingdom, and therefore in nature , or the fact that extensive dietary research shows that Calories in vs. Calories out is the largest factor in losing weight, I don't believe that these are opinions , but rather just refusing to acknowledge fact. These aren't simply the only topics this can relate to, just two that come to mind. Now, I feel that opinions are things that cannot be backed by any kind of facts. I think being gay is disgusting and Eating only twinkies is my favorite way to lose weight , as controversial as these opinions are, are still valid. But once the person with the opinion goes into topics that can be proven wrong by facts, you now are just ignorant, not opinionated.","conclusion":"I do not think that people can have opinions on anything that can be proven scientifically or factually."}
{"id":"76c48866-e186-4bce-b019-c3539297a992","argument":"Many adverts do more than just advertising products. Some try to make people feel inferior if they don't have the product, or if they have something which the product would change. Perceptions of beauty and fashion in particular have been terribly distorted. Many young people have low self-esteem, and lead unhealthy lifestyles because they feel they should be thinner and more attractive like the models they see in adverts. This leads to serious problems like eating-disorders and self-harm. Research that proved this effect also concluded that 'the media can boost self-esteem happiness with one's self where it is providing examples of a variety of body shapes. However, it often tends to portray a limited small number of body shapes'1. 1 Skinny models 'send unhealthy message'. The Guardian.","conclusion":"Advertisements try to make people feel bad about not having the product"}
{"id":"01dba978-1d26-4f9f-936e-615a01dc1d18","argument":"I am starting a small business and my lawyer convinced me to put the business in my wife's name purely because I would receive FAR more grants and lower interest rates on loans because it's a minority owned business. He told me if I had been single, I should find a black friend to pull into the business and make sure the business was in his name for the same reason. I've been passed over on jobs because the college in question wanted more minorities in the position I was applying for. After I met with the Diversity Officer of the college a black woman , I was treated like shit, and the only question she asked me was regarding the confederate flag. I believe that it's offensive to minorities to tell them that they will be given more jobs than their overall qualifications merit purely based on race. edit I want to thank u Red Zergling for pointing out that I was discussing discrimination more than racism. This conversation should move forward with that distinction in mind. I should also state that my anecdotes did not shape this position in any way. They are simply two examples that came to mind quickly. Change My View.","conclusion":"I believe that Affirmative Action is government-mandated racism."}
{"id":"9e9e99dd-dfe6-4968-b853-3caeae0c1111","argument":"So ever since Trump entered into the election, I've been seeing alot of really edgy, dank meme trolls show support. Now while my political views are quite to the left, I'm willing to listen to people from other viewpoints to help strengthen my beliefs or even find common ground. So I figured I might look into where they are coming from. Well when you gaze into the abyss it looks back. So I find out that not only have I found xenophobia and typical right wing stuff, I find race realism, pushes for eugenics and segregation and sometimes national socialist views. The problem is that they are alot more savvier than other conservatives who repeat the same points. Their clever enough to search for typical left wing arguments or even right wing talking points, and use it to strengthen themselves. These people are mostly trolls on twitter, but I've seen a few grow on Reddit. They seem to mostly come from American Renaissance, The Right Stuff, RadixJournal and leftovers from pol . Look, alot of their arguments are based on emotions and propaganda in the forms of copypastas and memes, but they still have sources to back their claims. But the thing is, I don't know how to prove these sources, statistics and theories have any weigh or not. I've come from a very different world from them and have seen a different story throughout my life, no matter how extreme. I know these people are very extreme and probably shitty people underneath, but it does raise my curiousity. So this there some truth to this, all truth or no truth? Does race realism and human biodiversity hold water, Is ethno nationalism really beneficial and do homogeneous societies fair better? Are stricter hierarchies and traditional gender roles the best course of action? And are whites really dying? or superior over other races for that matter? Personally I'd like to believe that all of this is not true. I know that diversity can give birth to new ideas an open up alot of new venues, I know segregation isn't the answer from a moral standpoint and pragmatic standpoint since oppression is doomed to fail from the start and because the idea of ethnocentric nations of purity is laughable in this day and age. I also know that traditional gender roles aren't always for the best and that people can be successful without them and not have to face shame or discrimination for it, and that hierarchies is kinda impossible since even the elites depend upon others and vice versa. And I don't believe that a culture cam be superior to another since the standards used to judge other cultures come from your own, our because another culture conquered your own, so there's no real way to know. I also believe that while Intelligence has a basis in genetics, environmental and cultural factors play an underrated role that should be investigated more thoroughly, and that IQ is only one of the many forms of intelligence. Since there are barely any resources for debunking their claims I'm left to my own wits, which isn't alot. So tell me, what do you all think?","conclusion":"Are the Alternate Right onto Something? Are my Pseudo-Egalitarian Views wrong?"}
{"id":"cfcffbc4-de18-4b69-b550-0e29f3b29fe1","argument":"It is important to realize that cows are farmed to be killed, butchered, and eaten. There is no real dispute that this ethically acceptable. So, what could make killing cattle at an earlier stage ethically unacceptable? If killing cows is acceptable, than it should be acceptable at any stage in the life of cows. Sympathy should not be extended to calves simply because they are young and maybe cute. No analogous sympathy and special consideration is extended to baby humans. Killing a baby human is just as unacceptable as killing an adult human. By analogy, killing a baby cow should be just as tolerable as killing a cow.","conclusion":"If cattle can be killed tolerably, what makes killing them as calves unethical?"}
{"id":"d17cad8d-a951-402f-a6e3-5c6f77acccd8","argument":"According to a survey of 6,432 individuals working for 42 publishing organisations, only 11.6% identified as BAME Black, Asian and minority ethnic people.","conclusion":"In the UK in 2017 only 5.58% of children's books were written by people of colour pg. 9."}
{"id":"ae6b4c4d-7957-4741-859e-22824583ed67","argument":"Had a thought about the disparity between mortgages and rent. Two cases Person A buys a property to live and every month for 20 years pays 1000. Person B rents a property to live and every month for 20 years pays 1000. While both persons paid the same amount, after 20 years person A could sell his property and have 240,000 returned. I understand the importance of rent. Not every person has the financial backing to obtain a long term mortgage. However, there's something that seems wrong with the above. People of means can buy property and essentially have others renters pay the mortgage for them. While not a perfect solution, there's something that seems interesting that paying rent includes the requirement that .4 of the property ownership also transfers per month. Of course, the rent would be based in large part on the perceived value of the property and then also include costs that cover services. If a person had a 2 year lease, they'd own almost 10 of the property. During lease renewal, maybe the owner will want to buy that 10 back or the person moves and sells it to a higher bidder. It might not stop slum lords from forcing tenants to sell back their .4 ever month or other under the table dealings, though laws can be set up to protect against such practices. Of course, property owners are not required to rent their property. However, there's something I like about the idea that if you let others use your property, you agree to give up a portion of that property as well as part of that exchange. Basically, rent morphs into a mortgage.","conclusion":"Property rental, especially for living spaces apartments, houses, should also transfer 0.4% ownership of the property each month as well. After 20 years of rent, renter would own almost 100% of the property."}
{"id":"c876f7e1-85f5-4294-ae8a-62f1199089b4","argument":"Article 29: \".2 In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.\" People can't arbitrary be treated differently.","conclusion":"UDHR articles 1-3, 5-12, 16-20, and 22-29 are specifically directed to the idea that when someone crosses a border, they keep all rights and legal protections."}
{"id":"9c66c6c8-4d36-477c-a438-f3033a15baa6","argument":"They didn't mention about many of the issues discussed in these articles: Religion and Overpopulation Causes and effects of Overpopulation","conclusion":"The arguments in the source linked in this claim has many biases."}
{"id":"dc7b2394-4f3c-48b3-a084-21010187babc","argument":"Being overweight is both dangerous for the people they are supposed to protect and serve as well as themselves. I know Reddit as well as myself do not have the highest opinion of law enforcers, but I don't think any of us want them killed because they are too gassed out to adequately deal with a dangerous situation. But yes, my primary issue is with the possibility of dangerous people being able to escape from a severely overweight office and continue to pose harm to a community. I don't feel that these officers are fit to have the job they have. Change my view, Reddit.","conclusion":"I believe overweight cops should be required to either lose weight or be fired."}
{"id":"4e52aa32-6850-459d-9492-c84b4a688bc2","argument":"Many countries around the world have banned the use of torture or enhanced interrogation techniques because of their violation of fundamental human rights.","conclusion":"Counterterrorism measures may violate the prohibition against the use of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."}
{"id":"a04e179b-eb07-4608-bf40-8e6ec9e77ff7","argument":"So I heard an interesting opinion about the Ray Rice situation, so he assaulted his fiance, and when the video of that got leaked, public outrage caused him to be suspended from the NFL permanently. The opinion I heard was If Ray Rice attacked a man instead, would he get the same reaction and public outrage? Of course not, but that makes sense, and I discarded that opinion quickly, but than the person continued on to say that if he assaulted a man, and the man forgave him, would he still get the same reaction? Would the man get called out on being wrong and weak for forgiving him? I'm not so sure about the other point, do you think it's OK for women to still consider a relationship with a man who showed violence to them even once? For those who don't know, Ray Rice's fiance forgave him and they're getting married.","conclusion":"I feel like a woman is wrong for forgiving a man who abused her even once, can you ?"}
{"id":"a13b2994-5d9c-4d0b-ab1c-e336cc62e533","argument":"Recipient states may invest foreign aid resources in order to deter potential rebels from fighting by raising the probability of a government military victory Nielsen et al., p. 221 Without unconditional aid to increase government resources, potential rebels may see fighting the state as a risk worth taking.","conclusion":"Recipient states can use unconditional aid to prevent rebellions and mass civil conflict."}
{"id":"147db173-70d2-47d9-97da-0820de567c5c","argument":"Genetic modification of wheat to produce high fiber versions of the crop enables the creation of white flour that contains three times as much fiber as standard white flour.","conclusion":"Genetically modified crops can be nutritionally enhanced therefore making them more beneficial sources of food."}
{"id":"6b8d4019-9ffd-4ca5-a2b6-7a7bf3fd49a8","argument":"The massacre of more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men at the hands of Serb forces in Srebrenica in 1995 was an even more specific failure for the UN than Rwanda.","conclusion":"UN peacekeeping failures in Srebrenica and Rwanda resulted in many thousands of deaths."}
{"id":"421dc4f8-e865-4950-8be3-9f0b692116bf","argument":"First, being straight. This one I think is the easiest to explain and most widely agreed upon. Straight people can get married, not all gays can. Straight women can hold hands with men in public and not worry about people staring at them. There are absolutely no rights lesbians have that straight women do not. Second, being white White women are portrayed as the most beautiful. They are the most sought out group of women in this country. I see a lot more white women with men of other races than white men with women of different races. White women who grow up in more diverse areas know this and take advantage of it because they know they can attract the wealthiest men. On dating sites you will see want a professional must make at least 50K and white women are the ones doing it the most because they know they can still attract males. Most black women, for example, cannot get away with saying things like that. Black women, with the exception of only a handful of celebrities, are portrayed by the media often as disgusting. Let me give you an example A young white woman growing up in Nebraska has no advantages over her peers in terms of attracting males because almost everyone looks like her. She graduates college and moves to Chicago to work. She will suddenly be treated with more respect, be flirted on more at bars, etc. She is much more down to earth than the white women who spent their whole lives in Chicago because she did not experience the effects of a social racial hierarchy. Third, being female Being female alone doesn't make them privileged, but when combined with being straight and white, it makes them the most privileged group in our society. Despite the women's rights movement and the emergence of women in the workplace, straight white women have to worry about making money the least of anyone else. A common counterargument is that more women go to college than men, but on average make significantly less. These are facts, but I will explain why. Women in college tend to study for example education, social work, and nursing, while males dominate in business, engineering, and mathematics. There is much more pressure on males to make good money to provide for a woman, while women look to make at least a bit of money and look forward to marrying an upper middle class man who can provide for her.","conclusion":"Straight, White, Women are the most privileged group of people in the United States."}
{"id":"f41c1dab-bb8b-437b-9bfd-f1cc592301b7","argument":"In Indonesia a new police taskforce was put together targeting discriminatory action against activity within the LGBTQ community.","conclusion":"Police regularly targets members of the LGBTQ community, particularly queers of color."}
{"id":"cdc102ab-983d-45c1-8cae-cf5f885bcdfc","argument":"Countries would be less self sufficient, and thus more vulnerable to global market and diplomatic volatility, in a vegan society because they would depend more on imports.","conclusion":"Veganism is not feasible for less privileged societies or individuals."}
{"id":"2483c1ff-232d-40d5-aaa6-2301faec6b39","argument":"Russia intervened in Syria for many reasons, but fear of a jihadi victory there was central. A Taliban victory in Afghanistan would be as problematic for Russian security because Islamist groups from the Caucasus\u2014hostile to the Russian government\u2014could then find sanctuary there, as they have in the past.","conclusion":"If the United States left Afghanistan, Russia would find it reasonable to assist the Afghan government in its fight against the Taliban. Russia has already aided the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance in the past."}
{"id":"4be12b06-0217-40c5-9c23-ee26be464bef","argument":"Currently we have no defense against a nuclear threat and it is only a matter of time until someone crazy enough pulls the trigger. When they do, it will nearly make the earth uninhabitable for even those away from the conflict So why not invest in nuclear defense instead of Trump's idea for a nuclear arms race , not to mention broken arrows What is your take? Edit Changed nukes to nuclear defense.","conclusion":"We should invest in nuclear defense"}
{"id":"3e7de0be-f46f-4d10-a176-aa87d9ddb975","argument":"Many women who do wish to remain pregnant have reported examples of being pressured harmed or threatened with harm by the biological father to get an abortion because he wants to avoid different types of responsibility or does not want other people in his life to know about the pregnancy . stopforcedabortions.org","conclusion":"Legalised abortion could put some women in a position where they are coerced or forced to have an abortion that they do not want, which would also not give them bodily autonomy."}
{"id":"e5585a8c-81f3-4390-9159-836c4a40be66","argument":"We don't really know if, without Global warming, the planet is cooling, heating or staying the same. For example there is some statistical possibility that without our warming of the globe we might be heading into an ice age more economically detrimental than what's happening now. Since it's so expensive to stop global warming, shouldn't we first do a lot of research into whether or not stopping it would really be beneficial in the overall scheme of where we are in the planet's natural warming cooling cycle? I know there must be some flaw in this logic it bothers me though that I can't put my finger on it.","conclusion":"Although I accept that global warming is man made and real, it seems to me the odds are it might be better to do nothing."}
{"id":"29986a79-fdf8-4022-952a-0e23f0bf508b","argument":"An orbital ring could be globally-owned, as it is located outside of nations' borders unlike a space elevator that most likely needs to be planted within one country's borders.","conclusion":"An orbital ring would not have political tensions that space elevators create."}
{"id":"bae28c5e-d713-490c-9368-df1e71054547","argument":"The rebels suffer a fuel crisis during the episode The Call of Star Wars Rebels.","conclusion":"There are in-canon instances where lack of fuel was a major plot point."}
{"id":"0b9c4f6e-3aa6-4ae3-825f-391e16aa226b","argument":"Most of the time I'm pretty tolerant behind insects, even the predatory ones that could plausibly hurt me. However, there's just something about earwigs. These things have been terrorizing humans with their appearance for centuries, always existing in dark scary places and positioning themselves menacingly with a big pincer. They also nest in big balls of insect y terror and I'm sick of their shit. Someone convince me that these things have at least some place in the world because I really can't see it.","conclusion":"Earwigs are a terrible type of insect and the world would be a better place if they didn't exist."}
{"id":"b46a4df0-2ff7-4f80-a29e-4b749948184e","argument":"In my opinion, the ownership of a company should always lie with the people employed by that company. The profit of the company should be given to those employees, and they should be able to elect the management. Reason 1 It would democratise one of the most important aspects in most people\u2019s lives. People at hugely influenced by their workplace, yet those workplaces are almost always authoritarian in nature. We should instead expand the democracy to more parts of our lives, including the workplace. Reason 2 It creates a fairer distribution of wealth. At the moment, you can buy shares of a company, and then get a part of the companies profit. But you have done no work to get those profits, you have added nothing to society. You are essentially getting money for already having money in the first place. On the other hand, you could give the profits to the people who actually worked for the money, who actually added value to society. Reason 3 it would help with things like automation in the future. If the result of automation was not people losing their jobs, but instead people being able to work less while still having their job, that would be better. In our current economic system, Automation will only benefit the few people who own parts in companies where jobs can be automated. If instead of losing jobs due to Automation, we would lower the work times at a company, and if the profits of Automation would the get distributed across the workers, then you have a system where Automation benefits all, which in turn would result in less resistance against Automation. Because in theory, Automation is always a good thing, because it results in less work having to be done in society in general. But at the moment, lots of people resists because they will not benefit from that Automation, and will may even be actively harmed by losing their jobs. Edit I was actually convinced that my third reason is rather weak And before anyone now argues that what I am suggesting is pure communism, let me say that yeah, I\u2019m a socialist, and this is my view of how society should change.","conclusion":"Companies should be owned by the people who work at that company, not some shareholders."}
{"id":"d52c7988-7ee1-4732-8304-65695a206001","argument":"Im not trying to be offensive trust im literally a black lesbian lmao but like i honestly do not understand why we need asexual awareness like are y'all really out here being harassed, bullied, murdered, kicked out of your home, discriminated in church or in general just because you don't experience sexual attraction?? Oh and i don't agree with straight ace people being included in the lgbtq spectrum community. Like if you're literally romantically attracted to members of your opposite sex exclusively then you're straight regardless if you want to have sex w them. You're still only attracted to members of the opposite sex which makes you straight and not in any way, shape or form lgbtq","conclusion":"asexuality isn't kind of ridiculous and asexual straight people shouldn't be considered a part of the lgbtq+ community"}
{"id":"e799d66b-c4f6-4f55-a301-6ea4813735f4","argument":"According to the , Farmers contend that the existing guest-worker program is not usable. While some industries, such as Maryland crab pickers, rely on the H-2B program to provide foreign labor, farmers contend that the equivalent program for agriculture - H-2A - is too complex and has unreasonable requirements, such as offering housing for workers. One farmer said, \"We explored H-2A, and it was so cumbersome, it just would not meet our needs. It's so specific; you agree to hire so many people at this time. What if the season is two weeks late? I have to have work for them. Or pay them to do nothing.\" Nationwide, only 2% of agricultural workers use H-2A visas.","conclusion":"The existing foreign worker programs are \"too complex\" and \"not usable\", according to some sources who argue that the new guest worker program would be more practical:"}
{"id":"0e7657c8-4ad8-4785-848d-28249bbd1109","argument":"Recently I've noticed a growing trend amongst the younger generations of mocking the sort of cartoons produced by baby boomers. Here are some examples Boomer comic 1 Boomer comic 2 Boomer comic 3 Typically seen on birthday cards and in newspapers, these cartoons are often mocked for their distinctive, same y artstyle big nose, no necks, noodle tits, and so on and their repetitive jokes I hate my wife , millenials are obsessed with technology, gross out jokes, and so on. Undeniably these points are true. Many of these cartoons have these common features. However I also feel the same criticisms apply to modern webcomics enjoyed by the exact groups that mock boomer humour. Rather than the big nose and no neck, many of these characters are all over simplified, stick figure esque characters with plain and simple facial features. Despite being drawn by many different artists, many of these comics all look similar. And the jokes are certainly just as repetitive, this time being about depression, dogs, and despairing the state of society rather than loathing your spouse. Here are some examples Millenial Gen Z comic 1 Millenial Gen Z comic 2 Millenial Gen Z comic 3 Clearly I'm generalising to some extent here, though I feel this is also the case with how people mock boomer humour. Many boomer cartoons are similar, much like many current webcomics. To me it seems unfair to criticise one as being lazy and unoriginal humour and not the other.","conclusion":"Modern Millenial\/Gen Z webcomics are just as one-dimensional as Baby Boomer cartoons"}
{"id":"4e1efd72-9391-4d43-818c-418c927f1699","argument":"Alright I know what you\u2019re thinking. \u201cBut they have a whole history in Africa It\u2019s known as the cradle of civilization \u201d And all that stuff. Yes, you are right. The history of Africa is an amazing history that I do recommend you learn. The culture of different regions in Africa is really beautiful, and should not be forgotten or overlooked. Here\u2019s the thing What I just talked about was AFRICAN history. Not African AMERICAN history. All of the amazing things going on in Africa before and independent of America taking slaves to America, did not have anything to do with America. It is not African AMERICAN history. Just AFRICAN history. So if you can convince me that all of the great things that we celebrate as \u201cAfrican American History\u201d during Black History Month but are actually just the aspects of African culture that come just from Africa are somehow American, then I will believe that it is African American history. If not, then I will continue to say that there is a difference between African American history and African history African American history starts at slavery, and is about black culture in America, like jazz during the 1920s, the Harlem Renaissance, and music, etc. African history is about the history of the people of the continent of Africa, about the tribes and civilizations from that region of the world. Yes, I am aware that the heritage of African Americans is African, but that does not make African AMERICAN history the same thing as AFRICAN history. It just means that African Americans have their heritage traced back to the continent of Africa. Edit A lot of people are bringing up the fact that the first Africans in the United States were actually indentured servants, not slaves, therefore African American history has to have started BEFORE slavery. While this is true, it still does not change my view that the things going on in the continent of Africa are not at all African AMERICAN history. This is my fault, because my title implies that I am arguing that slavery is the start of African American history. I have been proven wrong on that part, as African American history actually started with indentured servants instead. Still though, I believe that the history of the continent of Africa is not African American history.","conclusion":"African American history DID start at slavery."}
{"id":"fdb22bbc-a01d-4f7d-b6db-6162e446b537","argument":"The imposition of a hard border in Northern Ireland would undermine the Good Friday Agreement an essential aspect of the peace process in Northern Ireland. Neither May nor the EU were in a position to promise the hard border that was the inevitable result of the demands of Brexiteers. p.5","conclusion":"The EU was unlikely to ever allow a hard border in Northern Ireland, regardless of any attempts at negotiations by British government, given the significance of the border"}
{"id":"82e5b39f-01de-47cc-a69c-1814cb9448bd","argument":"I think having a panel of government appointed bureaucrats screen films, and impose changes before mass distribution is archaic, especially when anyone can upload anything on YouTube. Further, I think ratings systems, R, PG13, 18 are equally archaic. Rotten tomatoes could easily issue parental advisories. Also, kids should be able to watch violence hear cuss words in theatres if their parents are okay with it. Video games are far worse anyway. I think censor boards and mandatory movie ratings are not just archaic, but undemocratic and go against free speech. I wonder how people were okay with censor boards to begin with Change my mind fellas.","conclusion":"Having censor boards rate movies is an archaic and undemocratic concept"}
{"id":"c33d7abc-f256-4666-8e98-c311ea2dc913","argument":"I often hear people say including several threads on  if women want full equality with men, then that means they should be prepared to accept the same physical consequences that men face when picking a fight . Or in simpler terms equal rights, equal fights. I don't think this is true, because as a general rule of thumb, women are not as strong as men. I believe it is unnecessarily brutal to treat a 120 pound woman in a fight the same way one would treat a 180 pound man. Say a 190 pound body builder gets into an altercation with said 120 pound women. She throws a punch. In all likelihood, she will not cause much damage to him, but he can sure as hell cause a lot of damage to her. While obviously it is acceptable to fight someone to get them off of you when they are an aggressor, and women should still face the same legal consequences as man for starting fights, I don't think it's acceptable to hit as hard as if one were fighting a man of equal size and strength, because it is simply unnecessary to use the same measure of force to win a fight against a weaker opponent, and to use such extra force is uncalled for and cruel. People will often say Well, if you can beat up a weak, scrawny guy, you should be able to beat up a woman, too . I don't agree, because I also think it's wrong to beat up a far weaker man than oneself to the same extent one would beat an equal opponent. I do believe all of this would be negated if the man and woman were of roughly equal size and strength, and that it would be just as wrong for a very strong woman to beat up a weak man.","conclusion":"Hitting a woman is, in fact IN GENERAL, more wrong than hitting a man."}
{"id":"0c944ff7-9a1d-41e9-b296-d6e68763af34","argument":"The disproportionate number of representatives given to smaller states is because the interests of the state as a whole might be under represented if the representatives were chosen strictly based on population. But the president represents all citizens, not all states, so one person one vote is a more appropriate model.","conclusion":"The extra representation of smaller states is inappropriate when applied to election of president."}
{"id":"a849105b-903d-4f37-9224-43182e232246","argument":"The current consensus on Reddit or at least on r politics is that the recent Wikileaks dump of DNC emails is proof of corruption at the highest levels. I don't agree with this consensus at all. I don't see anything that shocking there. Bernie was never really a Democrat and didn't do anything for the party so naturally they supported Hillary. There aren't any emails about actual corruption, like screwing with polls or stopping Bernie supporters from voting. Just strategies to defeat him. I can't imagine anyone reading this is truly surprised by what they find. Like the email I keep seeing people talk about is the one where a DNC official discusses the possibility of labeling Bernie as an atheist. But that strategy was never used It was one official talking about it as a possibility which is exactly what I'd expect to see in these emails, a number of strategies that never came to fruition. Just thinking of an idea and not following through counts as corruption? I think people want this to be a big deal but I don't think it is. What are the shocking revelations here? Just to anticipate one counter argument Someone elsewhere brought up the emails between the DNC and MSNBC as proof that the DNC forced MSNBC to change their stance on Bernie. I haven't seen any sort of evidence that these emails are what changed MSNBC's stance. Every email is just like hey we need to talk about this. I don't even know what the timeline is on MSNBC's supposed change. Did it happen soon after these emails? But weren't the emails spread out over weeks and months? Maybe MSNBC changed their stance after seeing that Sanders was definitely not going to win? It's any number of things that could have happened. But the Reddit assumption is there was a shady meeting in an undisclosed location where the DNC chair and the president of MSNBC shook hands and probably a big briefcase of money was handed over or something. There is zero question in my mind that our political system and the media have elements of corruption. In fact I support Bernie 100 in his efforts to get money out of politics. I just don't see anything in this email dump that tells me anything I didn't already know. That being said, I am fully capable of changing my view on this subject. Did I miss some truly shocking revelation?","conclusion":"The DNC email dump is a non-story. Nothing shocking has been revealed at all."}
{"id":"81e19f05-2d7a-4b3e-a286-697b78cf53e2","argument":"I've noticed something in my personal life that has been eye opening. Plenty of people I know family members, friends, coworkers, all men by the way who either supported Trump in 2016 or did not support Hillary in 2016 are now huge fans of Joe Biden being the next President. Why would you support Biden but not Hillary are President? They are both similar in so many ways. Both have decades of experience in government, both are moderate establishment Democrats, both have very similar policy stances, both served in the Obama administration closely with Obama. Also lets sweep aside the obvious and understandable explanations such as being a Republican conservative in 2016 and switching to being a Democrat in 2020. For instance I was an independent voter in 2016, but now I'm on team Democrat mainly due to the fact that I think Republicans are on a whole new level of awful. I also have more liberal views than I used to as well due to movements like MeToo for example. People change their views I get that. However I know these people fairly well since I interact with them regularly and often talk about politics, and their views haven't really changed over the years. So redditors, can you give reasons why someone who hasn't changed their political views would have been opposed to Hillary in 2016 but now want Biden as President in 2020? Perhaps I'm jumping the gun too quickly, but I just have a gut feeling that these people have sexist attitudes and that plays a big role in why they support a man as President but were against a woman as President despite the fact that both of them are extremely similar in so many ways.","conclusion":"People who support Biden but didn't support Hillary are sexists"}
{"id":"a51884d0-b59c-42ec-a800-d7b2a1acc216","argument":"As it is, the constant focus of school league tables on academic progress ignores the standard of pastoral care or non-academic subjects, which means students will be less well-rounded.","conclusion":"The perception of therole of schools would change towards pure productivity enhancement. Aspects like social education etc. would be pushed into the background."}
{"id":"9c1db299-5a79-454d-ada7-0eb13e6f192f","argument":"It might not be conscious thought processes for me it is , but I've found, that a lot of us like for other people to affirm things we're down in the dumps and know about, so that we can successfully share and distribute out the blame for our misdoings. Something along the lines of ''Oh, but you told me it was ok to do this, bleh bleh bleh ''. Maybe people aren't as clever as to do this, but if I've happened upon this sort of coping mechanism for possible failings, then I can only presume, that it transpires with others too.","conclusion":"People love affirmation of themselves, so that they have someone to cast blame upon when the shit they were reassured about, hits the fan"}
{"id":"e65a3e89-e0d9-47dc-a217-ae87bc39301b","argument":"A conspiracy is an evil, unlawful, treacherous, or surreptitious plan formulated in secret by two or more persons. We should all know that many powerful men conspire all the time whether they be bankers, politicians or terrorists. History shows that even our own governments have conspired against there own people. This alone doesn't justify belief in 9 11 or Kennedy assassination conspiracies but i think it justifies skepticism about what our elites say they want, what they really want and what they do behind the scenes. Conspiracies have been proven to have happened or must have happened due to a certain event that has occurred. Meanwhile creationism in my experience has nothing in its favor. Most creationists who argue against evolution don't even know what evolution is or how it works. The arguments they use prove there ignorance. It seems that creationists have either only ever read a holy book whether it be the Bible or Koran or have never opened a credible science book. One more point i should add is that at least bankers and politicians do exist can be proven to exist which is obvious to anyone with a brain while the existence of a God is still very disputed.","conclusion":"Most conspiracies are more plausible than new earth creationism or even religion itself."}
{"id":"f61f5fd6-2e28-4288-8ef0-c0f2e7d567c6","argument":"There is no reason epipens and insulin should cost many times more than it costs to make them. There is no reason a saline bag should cost more than a dollar. It is greedy and it litterally gets people killed. It is on the same level as murder in my mind. There really should be a price ceiling on the cost of medical supplies. I understand that a business needs to make money, but at a certain point it is just a corporatist monopoly held in place by government over regulation limiting competition and there is no excuse for it. For context I am in the USA if that was not clear already.","conclusion":"Medical necessities should not be allowed to be priced above a certain amount more than the complete costs of manufacture and disposal."}
{"id":"a2cbd55e-b4b8-431e-b597-a707c74cedb4","argument":"It's considered so bad and taboo to have natural, naked bodies in movies, but there is no problem in chopping someone's head off and burning them to death. Killing people in gruesome ways has a much worse effect on people than nudity. People who are allowed entry into 18A and R rated films at theatres are already considered adults, and probably about half of them have had sex previously. Every single one of them has already seen naked bodies, and probably pornography too. Sure, some kids might watch the movies at home by themselves or with parents, but they'd just find porn on the internet if that's all they wanted. And you also can't fix shitty parenting. In my opinion it's just one big preconcieved notion that 0mg gu1se sex is bad 1 that's been tossed around which no one has an issue about. It's a natural function of the body that you will likely use in your future, but things that are commonly seen in movies like tearing someone in half are not","conclusion":"I believe full nudity and sex scenes should be allowed in 18A\/R rated films."}
{"id":"13a9e394-3bb2-41ee-bd70-e42f92119110","argument":"Ethnography studies of 69 countries reveal \"no case where co-wife relations could be described as harmonious\u201d.","conclusion":"Polygynous families tend to foster jealousy and resentments among spouses."}
{"id":"c6d01988-dcce-4099-94d6-df6e3fcdd099","argument":"Humans, as \"imago de are created to stand in a relationship to god They have the mental ability to realize that there is a god and are capable of religion and spirituality, animals do not.","conclusion":"Humans are the counterpart of god provided with an immortal soul. Animals are, according to the Bible, subjects to humankind."}
{"id":"13e6297c-2063-4796-a0b6-3bd2c237540b","argument":"Any valid is statement that has been derived from an other is statement has the underlying axiom of 'The underlying is statement has to be true.' If we generalize this we could say 'In order to derive an is statements for an other is statements one ought to be honest.' Therefore if we want to live in a world where our is statements are valid we ought to be honest. You are welcome to argue that we want to live in a fantasy world where our valid is statements should not be honest, but then could you also convince me that this is a good faith argument. Because I do not believe that living a life built on lies is a thing anyone is pursuing. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"You can derive an ought from an is."}
{"id":"02c42b6b-613b-4703-8672-670d54c92b3f","argument":"The only way this statistic could be exceeded is to take into account accidental vehicular deaths. Even taking into account all accidental air crashes and air traffic accidents and incidents would not come near to reaching this number.","conclusion":"America has a much higher death rate from gun violence than from deaths caused by bombings, air crashes, or deliberate vehicular attacks annually, or even as an average over the last 20-30 years."}
{"id":"f96e86cf-2d12-48d0-ab60-084f77224bf3","argument":"Theresa May's initial support for Remain compromised her political position and may have prevented her from getting a Brexit deal. It is likely that Hunt will suffer the same fate.","conclusion":"Jeremy Hunt's Cabinet experience makes him an unattractive choice for those that would like to see a break from Theresa May's failed government."}
{"id":"e3e325a9-8fe0-4266-82c2-db5201e958f6","argument":"With legal rights and legalization of certain aspects of the sex industry, workers can easily transition from the sex industry to other jobs.","conclusion":"Sex workers' rights must be legally established in addition to the legalization of prostitution to counter the stigmatisation of sex and sexuality."}
{"id":"f32ac2c2-46c5-4501-a711-b3fa795e43fd","argument":"This study found drops in systolic blood pressure between 5 and 8 mmHg in the placebo arm of trials for new anti-hypertensive medications. Therefore, it is logical to conclude that the placebo effect is real.","conclusion":"The placebo effect can be very powerful, and can improve people's health."}
{"id":"0ceeb4ec-3eeb-41c1-9e08-edf8afb64d4f","argument":"The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights ICCPR is a multilateral treaty adopted by the UN's General Assembly. It commits its parties to respect the civil and political rights of individuals.","conclusion":"The UDHR has been used as the basis of many legally binding international agreements."}
{"id":"40943335-6797-4676-a2e5-82d4415c315f","argument":"What would science for instance mathematics be without their notation languages? All notation languages are some kind of constructed languages? Notation language - Wikipedia","conclusion":"Are constructed languages useful and do we need more of them?"}
{"id":"94ab3089-a12b-476e-a7f5-f3963a945231","argument":"I often see comments on here that say that Islam is not compatible with the west or that all religion is bad. I am personally agnostic, but essentially an atheist. Truthfully, I don't bother too much with trying to explain or disprove the existence of a certain God or religious doctrine. I find that it can exist as a claim about the nature of reality, but I don't need to try to vehemently defend it or be hostile towards the idea. HOWEVER, if there is anything I have learned from growing up in a religious Hindu family and living in a generally religious country the USA , it's that in the context of today there is no real way to objectively define a religion. My dad, uncles, family friends, and other Hindu teachers have very different viewpoints on the history of Hinduism, the nature of the deities, and even the ways to reach some ultimate bliss. Some believe they are incarnations of one being, some believe they are all separate beings with different powers, and some even pick and choose which of the gods they think is more relevant or significant for example, the Hare Krishna society exclusively prays to Krishna, one of the avatars of Hindu God Vishnu . In Christianity, many of us are aware of the multitude of Bible versions there are, which tend to say different things and have different accounts of the religion. In Islam, although there is more similarity between the versions they all recount the same events , small semantic differences and grammatical inconsistencies singular vs plural nouns for example can change the interpretation of the text across different versions. Source Some groups that seem to maintain unity are Sikhism, Confucianism, and Taoism. I am not very educated on religions such as Jainism, Ba'hai Faith, or Shintoism. However, one thing to note about the first three mentioned here is that none of them are conventional religions. They do not really focus on the higher being or deity in their doctrine. Sikhism is monotheistic, but focuses on philosophical values such as family, respect, and being a defender of the innocent or those in need Warning I am Sikh so there may be some inherent bias here . Confucianism and Taoism are also centered around societal values or a way of living, not necessarily a religion. I might be wrong and there may be a multitude of interpretations to even these philosophies, but that would only serve my point further. My essential claim is this ones view of religion is so personalized in the modern context that it is difficult to truly say why religious interpretation is right. So, if one wants to say things like Islam is inherently bad or Christianity promotes hatred against other groups, then they will need to specify an interpretation they are referencing, and furthermore will need to be willing to answer to other followers of that religion who do not use the same version. This claim leads into the next point. Beyond even the different versions and interpretations of religion, people today often pick and choose what principles they can follow. I am pretty sure there are Christians who commit adultery and those who wear mixed cloth, both of which are prohibited in multiple versions of the Bible. There are also clearly Christians such as the Catholic Pope who do not condemn homosexuality as some versions of the Bible do. There are also Hindus who eat meat, which is prohibited by Hinduism, and the overwhelming majority who have foregone the ancient caste system that is written in the Vedic texts. What use is it then to point to a line of text and use this against an entire religion, as if everybody agrees on it? A large majority of Muslims practice peace and acceptance. Another large group perhaps follows strict Sharia law and does not allow homosexuality, women's rights, etc., but these conditions are not so different from the supposedly amazing and modern West which condemned these same things just 50 years prior and in some cases still do today . Overall, any religion is open to interpretation and dissected by each individual follower. It is morally wrong and nonsensical to make sweeping claims about the religion, and then attempt to justify these claim with singular lines from religious texts. The religion doesn't matter so much as the people and how they practice it.","conclusion":"It is both wrong and impractical to make sweeping or generalized claims about religions because of the large variety of interpretations and practices that exist, both of which matter more than the religion itself."}
{"id":"c626bd03-5050-49ec-8279-4bbb5ea2b674","argument":"I\u2019ve seen multiple examples of people saying some really mean things to someone else and when the person retaliates and punches that person, people are typically on the side of the person who punched the mean guy. For example, there was a reporter who was trying to tell Buzz Aldrin that he hadn\u2019t gone to the moon so Buzz punched him and everyone I\u2019ve talked to and in the reddit comments seem to think that it was justified. There are also many examples in movies where the good guy will be sitting at a bar and a group of bullies will come over and start making fun of him and when the good guy gets offended he fights them and beats them up. I just don\u2019t think that there is any combination of words that would justify causing physical pain to someone else. Edit I'm saying if there is nothing related to physical pain that they said then I don't think they deserve physical pain against them. So threats to do not count in relation to my post.","conclusion":"I think it\u2019s wrong to hit someone for what they said no matter how bad it is"}
{"id":"ec86cadc-ac75-4edf-b625-37ee39e317ca","argument":"A politic could be defined by a pack of answers to questions that start by \"how should we deal with .\" \"what to do if . happens\" and politics would be about taking those systems and seeing what effect they have. A politic that has more guns in it could be very good or very bad depending on what the other answers to the other questions are.","conclusion":"Correlation based reasoning is good for some domains but not for politics."}
{"id":"e3d04210-f014-4dda-8d2f-4fa900056d9d","argument":"Personal letters, charity reports, photographs and even visits help to build a bridge between the developed and developing world5. More and more people are able to talk to each other around the world, and it is important that less fortunate people in poor countries are connected to the rest of us and have the opportunity to communicate with us. Sponsorship creates a personal connection - the children get to learn about their sponsors and the sponsors get to learn how their money helps people. This continued attention to the positive effects of sponsorship is really important to help poorer countries, especially at a time when worldwide economics are in trouble and charities are most at risk from begin forgotten 6.","conclusion":"Child sponsorship brings about greater understanding between people from different countries and cultures."}
{"id":"1db45fa0-d43c-456a-bf99-fc718e2cae78","argument":"This has been something that has been bugging me for the past couple of weeks and I can't seem to shake it. I am an Asian male here in America and honestly I have it pretty good, but for every Asian American like me, I'm sure there's some out there who are treated like shit on the daily merely on the basis of their race and the various stereotypes that come with them. I feel since movies from the 1980s along with other forms of media, certain stereotypes and forms of subtle racism against Asians has been staggeringly prevalent in not just the US, but media as a whole. Also every time I see or hear race being brought up in a debate, Asians tend to be neglected in these circumstances. Also, my main gripe comes mainly from the slew of stereotypes of Asians I witness on the daily, especially in my hometown in Virginia. People act as if it's okay because Oh lol Asians are good at math, great with technology, and bad drivers It's always been that way and always will be More importantly, I find it kinda bullshit that as an individual of Asian descent something far out of my control and my future children's as well that I am automatically put at a disadvantage. I'm not just compared to other applicants in schools or jobs, I'm compared primarily to other people of my racial background. I kinda get the feeling Asians tend to be higher achievers because we're systematically forced to compete and fight against one another for pursuing similar fields which seems incredibly bogus to me. Before attempting to , here's two things I would like you to consider when responding 1 Yes, I do indeed find some stereotypical jokes about Asians funny, but I don't appreciate the constantly regurgitated ones like we're good at math and we're bad drivers. Put some effort into your humor and stop treating us all like fucking calculators. 2 I do not believe that the plight of Asians so to speak should be elevated above others, but simply receive the same amount of attention. Change my view if you would, because I honestly don't know if I feel right about it fully myself.","conclusion":"In light of all the social justice movements over race, religion, creed, sexuality, etc. etc, I feel Asians deserve more attention than they get."}
{"id":"a805ca07-e106-48c5-8e89-069dad145d50","argument":"There is a reason monarchies developed the way they did, and they may become useful again, especially in times of civil unrest or social chaos.","conclusion":"Monarchy has a historic and cultural value that should be preserved."}
{"id":"d4f235af-80bc-4462-9c0d-1c20c4c53e51","argument":"It\u2019s difficult for a predominantly working class party to get all that excited about the choice between a range of millionaires. The Bush presidency made it all too clear that the interests of the rich are the primary interest of the party and that it fails to deliver on areas such as a commitment to smaller government. As party activists becomes ever more obsessed with issues such as gay marriage or the flag-burning amendment, it simply fails to address the concerns of most Americans to whom it has little to say. Until it has a clearer and reasonable economic message, there is little it has to say and less worth listening to","conclusion":"The leadership of the Republican Party simply has nothing to do with its membership as a result no candidate has, or can, capture the imagination."}
{"id":"28cc541f-a5d5-493b-bece-fb41e975ea3b","argument":"Most single player AAA titles today have complex DRMs \/ anti-cheat systems which are very hard to support on Linux, via compatability layers WINE or virtual machines. \"search for never work\" steam","conclusion":"Linux users, on average, have a worse experience playing games, than Windows users."}
{"id":"8605f3dc-9065-4928-957a-7b38e0662787","argument":"What brought me to this thought was that my Singaporean friend thought it was just that Amos was arrested. While I agree he had done some things that were direct harrasments to live people, I disagree with the specifics. I want to talk about specifics though, such as contained remarks against Christianity, with the deliberate intention of wounding the religious feelings of Christians in general . I got this off Wikipedia while I don't know the exact circumstances of his trial, I think anyone, if arrested for making remarks about a religion, should not be arrested. For example, various countries make criticism of a religion illegal as well as being atheist illegal. I see no reasoning that 'blasphemy' talks should be deemed illegal. If the reasoning is 'we must not criticize an ideology that which many people support and subscribe to' then we would have to bar other things such as socialism, democratic republic ideologies so on and so forth. I do not see a difference between saying 'the idea that there is a god is not a sound argument as I see no evidence of it' in comparison to 'the idea that the economy is better of in a socialist state is not a sound argument as I see no evidence to support the idea that socialism will make a state better'. We would then have to arrest critics of anything that is of the majority. If the majority thinks wonder woman is good, then we'd have to arrest wonder woman critics, so on and so forth. Now, one could argue that religion is a lifestyle, but so is everything else, including being atheist. So, I think punishing someone for their lifestyle or way of thinking is a slippery slope. If we base 'blasphemy' laws off things that cause inflammatory remarks, many things are inflammatory, such as Galileo's statements and discovery of the space. If we silence everything people did not like, the world would not be the world we are in now. And while what counts as advancements are subjective, I do believe that advancement would not have happened without people saying things that others do not want to hear. To sum up Someone saying the ideas that are rooted in religion as illogical, and point out flaws that one thinks in religious texts, should not warrant the speakers arrest nor for their beliefs, stance, or view of the world, as the reasoning, if applied to other cases, would have almost everyone arrested. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"'Blasphemy' laws are a slippery slope and should not be implemented"}
{"id":"d3b9d87e-600c-48e0-9b8d-8ff0c77f0bdd","argument":"People who got into this country illegally, by their very presence, are adding themselves to the political landscape illegally. If the numbers are large, this adds up to an illegal political revolution.","conclusion":"Granting DREAMers citizenship could significantly alter the political structure of the US."}
{"id":"0cce1e58-b4bc-46b3-8110-88a65ace90d5","argument":"^ This may seem a little strange to you, as this sub doesn't seem to be about relationship advice, but after the background I will explain more. If you have read my previous post, then this is an updated one. Background My ex girlfriend, Clara, has borderline personality disorder, and subscribes to Taoism. Most people would know about Taoism via the yin yang, but actual its core teachings are about social harmony, acting spontaneously, and avoiding conceptualization. However, as with anything else, there are misconceptions and extremes that you have to be careful. In Clara case, these misconceptions nurture the disorder, and the core values of Taoism help her navigate in life. Because on the surface she is sharp and reasonable, a therapist cannot work out without having a solid understanding on Taoism. Besides her problems, my problems were that I didn't have the confidence to say the thing I needed to say. A BPD person and a Taoist both need an insightful person to guide talk with, but at that time I was so afraid to be wrong. So we got to a funny situation, where she needed me to say what I knew, and deep down I knew that what I knew was correct, yet I still felt guilty for saying them, and thus refused to say it even when she needed the insights most. Hardly I dared to stand up against her, not because I was unable to do so, but because I needed more knowledge to satisfy my anxiety first. Without saying, we concluded that the relationship couldn't go any further. In order to have a legit reason to pull the trigger, I decided to intentionally hurt her. By doing so I could control the situation, avoid all unwanted problems, and focus on the facts that I was inadequate, shortsighted and selfish. This made her feel like it was her to decide to terminate the relationship and have control over me, thus mitigating the disappointment and frustration of trying so hard to maintain the relationship but still fail the self fulfilling prophecy . As how it was planned, the breakup was quick and efficient. She accepted my offer to end the relationship immediately, because she did see that there was an invisible wall that was so transformative that we couldn't analyze it. Now I have worked out my problem, and want to offer her to restart the relationship. If you want to know more, check out my research A theory of perspective 1 . It answers the questions that we both inquired but didn't have a satisfactory answer back then. Without it, I couldn't answer her questions, and she couldn't answer my questions. What do I want? I can text her right now with a fairly high confidence that the message is what she is looking for, however there is no rush this time, and I want to go the hardest route first convince strangers on the internet. By pushing the hardship to extreme, I can force me to write down any assumptions I make, and uncover aspects that I'm not aware of. This may feel to you that I'm unwilling to change, but actually I just want you to help me scrutinize my thoughts. Think of my question as a mix between r ChangeMyView and r TrueAskReddit. If there is a thing that you are still unconvinced, then it's a sign that I haven't completely worked it out yet. Here is the overview on the critiques I will answer You lack empathy People are not objects so that you can use them as tools The mind cannot be analyzed she has been through many things without me You are not respecting her decision to distance from you You are not trained to do therapy You will gaslight her and draw both into the cycle of abuse With this post I can send it to anyone who is still skeptical on me but don't have time to invest to the conversation, or don't know where to start. They can read it at their leisure. I will also send this to her friends, but for the same reason, not for pressuring her. And even if I want, I can't. I want to thank anyone who helped me, and I want to specifically thank u MrAkaziel and u DrugsOnly for their investments on the previous post 2 . Whether they are still disagreeing or even disinterested with me or not, it is indisputable that without them I cannot form my thoughts more concrete. Recently I just read a post from a person trying to push NLP in a scientific sub, and I have a mixed feeling for them and who spend time with them. Critiques You lack empathy I will illustrate my behavior via three examples an autistic person, a biologist, and a surgeon. For an autistic, it's not that they can't read the emotion of the others, it's just that they don't see why they should react to it. Even if they know they should react, they just don't know what to do. This doesn't mean they don't have emotions. Likewise, a biologist needs to do experience on animals. Are they love them? Yes. Do they want to bring them pain? No. But for the animal, the biologist is evil. Maybe at the lab they test hormones on rats, but outside they still love them. For a surgeon, it's not their job to care about the pain of the patient. It's their job to focus on the anatomy or oncology, to make sure that after the operation they are better. Sure, they must be gentle to the patient, but this is their lower priority. It's the patient who has to bear the pain and put their trust on a person who has no string attached to them. When I make those analogies, my focus is the relationship between me and the object. I don't intentionally compare her to animal, I just want to emphasize the dispassion, the detachment they has towards the object. They have a job to be done, and they do it regardless the reactions of others. This is why even when she says no, I keep doing it, because this is the job that needs to be done. You can say that a patient has the right to refuse the operation, but this very patient hoped that I would do that. She had explicitly said that with me she felt safe and happy with me, and trusted that with my ability I could help her. This is similar to idealization, but it's really from her core. Both of our core parts and problematic parts depicted the same representation. If I don't do what I think is necessary to her, then I fail her trust. People are not objects so that you can use them as tools I know it is wrong unethical to see people as tools, but in this case It is necessary. The relationship wouldn't go anywhere without doing something already, and we had tried other ways to solve but they didn't work Mostly I experimented on myself She allowed me To elaborate the third point, her hurt, BPD part definitely wouldn't accept such action. But her core will accept that to get the necessary knowledge you need to do something different. In the flirting stage, I had made it clear on my goal, and that was what attracted her, not repelled. During the relationship, I had explicitly said that I would hurt her, and she was fine with that. I had done an experiment on my relationship without her consent, to understand my problems and her problems more, and afterwards I explained it to her. Of course at first she wouldn't accept it, but after hearing my explanation she said that if in my mind it was for her benefit then she would accept it. It's no different to a doctor to ask do you want to help us test a new drug? , and the patient answers I trust that you are doing this for my best benefit. I will take it . It is necessary and ethical for the doctor to not fully disclose the whole experiment to the patient, even lying, to avoid placebo effect. Note that there are still controversies about ethical issues in blind experiments, and there isn't a standard between institutes and countries. Also note that this section exists because I have to answer the accusation that I used her as a tool. In reality my brain punished me every day for hurting her. It only focused about how hurt she was, ignored the fact that this was the only way I could think of to gently end it. In other words, I forgot why I lied, and thus became the character of the play I directed. But it has a good side too only by that I could do experiments on myself without having the placebo effect. The mind cannot be analyzed she has been through many things without me Perhaps this couplet between Poincar\u00e9 and an unknown poet best describes my view gt Mathematics is the art of giving the same name to different things Poetry is the art of giving different names to the same thing Emotions change, but the change is repetitive. It's like we eat or have sex you want it, then you satisfy, then you don't want it, and then you want it. It's basically the same, but each time its representation is different. Knowledge is different. If you don't understand a thing, then you don't understand it. You will want answer, despite you have time to find it or not. And when you have found it, then you don't drift back to the non understand state. It's either you understand or don't understand, and the states don't run circular. Yes, you will find more thing that you don't understand, but your old problem is satisfactory solved. The problem with thinking is that you have to rely on your emotion to initiate it, making your reasoning can be circular. Each time an emotion comes, your reasoning will be represented by another set of words, but they are just the same thing. It's like the blind men who try to understand the elephant each of them has a different word to describe it, but doesn't realize that they are talking at the same thing. Anyhow, this is not the first time human falls in love, talks philosophy or analyzes others' minds. Instead of trying to rationalize alone, you just need to share it with others, and everything will be clear again. Perhaps there is always a thing I cannot grasp, but at least in this specific case, everything should be simple. Just read some textbooks and all are good. You are not respecting her decision to distance from you People will always have suspicious about blog posts, but if it has good content they still upvote it. Likewise, an insightful email on a topic you have interest will catch your attention, even when it's from a bad reputation source. I think this is the line between positive persistence and stalking. For an important topic like choosing a partner to attach with, she only accepts a person who can guide her through chaos. Until now, her role model is Zhuangzi, a Taoist philosopher. She said she was attracted to me because I was like Zhuangzi, and this was when I knew nothing about him. Because I fitted her when I didn't know why I fitted her, I don't afraid I will be outdated from her emotions. If I really stalk her, then after the breakup I should have sent a lot of messages or flowers, but actually I was just like yay, finally my ultimate free time has come. I did have ruminations and resentments, but besides researching I also slept, wandered, watched professional games, traveled, or learned new programing languages. Not only I don't see how I disrespected her decision, but also I have to thank her for understanding that I need more time before I can feel ready to enter the relationship again. For me, let's bygone be bygone is just a platitude, and I cannot accept a bad advice like this. Likewise, one sentence paragraph like Stop it. Move on only shows that the writer is struggling to walk in other's shoes, is having anxiety that their words will not be taken seriously, and doesn't really explain how the advice is based on understandings of psychology or philosophy. Why do you have to stop growing your core and move on to a thing that doesn't create a value for you? If the words are enough convincing, there will be an inner transformation in the readers' minds, motivating them to take action spontaneously, obviating any need to make commands. The way Zhuangzi convinces others is to embrace their transformation, intentionally create vagueness so that others can project their background in, making them feel his ideas are theirs. Their self will be transcended, and at that time there is no boundary to be intruded at all. If it's really important to not contact her again, it's still fine to contact her friends, and this wouldn't intrude anyone's boundary. The eager to continue will be evoked without you having to exert any effort. If it is to contact her friends, the text would be gt Here I've convinced the internet that it's beneficial for her to come back with me. What do you think? If it is to contact her directly, it would be gt Actually being Zhuangzi is pretty easy. There are a lot of them in the internet. You are not trained to do therapy This is the issue of credential it is for my safety and her safety. She has a serious condition, and I'm not trained in doing so. Two reasons why I think professional help is hard to find It's hard to find a therapist specialized in BPD in our area. Even when I have known the term now, googling DBT therapy in my language shows virtually no institute provides that service. Even there is one, they would be very confused if they don't understand Taoism \u2192 it 's hard to find a therapist who she can perceive as worthy to try. Two reasons why I think safety is not a serious problem I actually trained in her specific case Even if I make a bad operation , she still says nah, I don't care. It's fun to fail. To elaborate more, the dialectical behavior therapy 3 DBT is considered the most efficient therapy to treat BPD. It relies on many mnemonics like GIVE, PLEASE, STOP, whose roots are from mindfulness, which she is already familiar with Buddhism and Taoism is popular in my country . So while it's something new to the West, she won't see it's as a new thing to learn, but will question the competence of the therapist. A therapist that is qualified in her eyes have to be like Zhuangzi. He doesn't need to use mnemonics to control his anger, but can let the problems solve themselves by using analogies. Her logical thinking will refute all clich\u00e9s, platitudes and compliments that are necessary to use in the therapy. Just to get you a feel for the problem, for example, she admitted that she doesn't understand herself a typical problem of person with BPD . But on the surface Taoism supports this a wise person is the one who knows nothing, but at the same time knows that and knowing is not knowing, and not knowing is knowing. You have to understand this to fix the problems made by BPD. The attitude it's fun to fail is a spirit of Taoism and more than just acceptance. It means if every bad thing has a good side, then why don't we make the good thing worse? . Because it's bad, then it's good. So to make it better, you need to make it worse. Accepting a bad thing as a part of life is one thing, proactively doing that to explore unexpected aspects of it is another thing. It's not about gambling, but under certain circumstances it can be actually stupid and risky. Again, this is where BPD is nurtured. I think in her case Beck's cognitive therapy is enough. One just needs to have a solid knowledge and use Socratic questions to guide her. Emotional problem would also be easy, when I have the evidence that I won't abandon her. A short explanation on mindfulness and cognitive psychology would be more efficient. You will gaslight her and draw both into the cycle of abuse This is for her safety specifically. It's possible that I'm narcissistic. Gaslighting 4 gt Gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation that seeks to sow seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or in members of a targeted group, making them question their own memory, perception, and sanity . Using persistent denial, misdirection, contradiction, and lying, it attempts to destabilize the victim and delegitimize the victim's belief . With the knowledge, I can sow seeds of trust in the targeted individual, answer their questions about memory, perception, and sanity, stabilize them and verify solidify their belief. Again, if you want to know if you are paranoid or not, just read some textbooks and all are good. Cycle of abuse 5 Here are the phases in one cycle Tension building accumulate stress from daily life Acute violence outburst violence Reconciliation honeymoon feel remorse guilty fear that their partner will leave Calm apologize In my experience, stresses from daily life are merely about being unable to make decision, unable to balance conflicted interests, or unable to put yourself into other shoes. Via my theory I have solved these problems, so there will be no phase 1. Even if phase 2 happens and we enter phase 3, her gaze on me or my gaze on her will assure that we actually work out together to solve the problem, once and for all. There is no need to apologize, because the effort and result from phase 3 are stronger than any apology. No one will act from their insecurity, but from their innate personality. nbsp OK, thanks for reading so far. I'll hang around for the first 3 hours, but sometimes a comment may need a sleep to construct. Edit maybe almost all. Edit 2 thanks guys. This time there are many new ideas that I actually want to award delta, but my head is dizzy and I have to defer replying to tomorrow. I'll give some points that I think many of my replies will reply on I would say she is more logical than emotional It's not that I don't want to go therapy again, but I need to explore more ideas, so that the session is more efficient The theme of your comments can be summed up to 1 I'm still abusive, 2 I'm not qualified. 2 is more convinced than 1 , since this is really outside of my training, and I think I can answer 1 . 1 2 3 4 5 gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"It's beneficial for my ex to restart the relationship"}
{"id":"c1996977-fefb-4f53-a040-d6795344c2b3","argument":"A doctor should be required to inform the patient of the existence of recognized alternative treatments, even if they wouldn't want to provide such treatments themselves. A doctor who thinks mental illness shouldn't be treated with drugs should still provide drug info at least pamphlets to the patient. A doctor who thinks cancer can be solved through diet should still provide info on chemo. A doctor who lets their personal beliefs interfere with the patient's informed consent is unethical.","conclusion":"Doctors may be constitutionally entitled to free speech, but knowingly withholding treatment from a patient is a serious breach of their professional ethics such that punishment is justified."}
{"id":"16266caf-3dd3-4487-9b15-72d65e6bf3af","argument":"Internal money transfers are a common feature of federal states e.g. Equalization Payments in Germany and burden wealthier states.","conclusion":"It can be harmful to combine many countries under one valuta."}
{"id":"5bcb7948-6e10-4d94-8920-33050ee77610","argument":"Dirty, crowded conditions on factory farms can propagate sickness and disease among the animals. These diseases also lead to human infections.","conclusion":"Diseases such as BSE, MRSA or bird flu are connected to intensive livestock farming conditions."}
{"id":"202622d4-6385-4775-b8eb-53b2cdf9c3a7","argument":"Catalonia's claim for the right to self-determination keeps getting stronger due to the undemocratic response of the Spanish state to Catalan requests. When a state refuses to work towards a political solution, uses violence on citizens who are asking for independence, imprisons leaders whose political views it does not like and creates obstacles for a regional government because it doesn't like election results, these actions justify a right to secede on democratic grounds.","conclusion":"The self determination right is a basic human right that should be respected above any constitution"}
{"id":"f8d462c9-67d1-4f65-a78f-23331cc28d35","argument":"In the vast majority of cases it is easy for the minority in question to avoid interacting with the speech of white supremacists.","conclusion":"Speech, in the absence of action, is not an active threat to the people to which it is directed."}
{"id":"33aab773-ffe2-4436-9c0e-8ce53c55d18a","argument":"Humans enjoy basic rights and liberties as guaranteed by a wide range of domestic and international institutions. Animals do not have these kinds of rights and protections.","conclusion":"Generally speaking, in all societies, humans treat a human's life as more important than that of an animal."}
{"id":"7529e0e7-26c7-4bac-bd2a-98c91847de90","argument":"The modern idea of gender is tied to emotions. \"I feel like a girl today, I'm a man today.\"","conclusion":"A woman can do anything a man can do, except be a man."}
{"id":"076bd582-0cd9-47bc-a7a8-e12ee5c4c63b","argument":"The recent Georgia special election featured endless messaging from Republicans tying Nancy Pelosi to Jon Ossoff which was apparently quite effective. Pelosi has terrible national favorability ratings on high name recognition, and is therefore an excellent foil onto which to levy attacks especially against Democrats in House races. Pelosi is 77 years old and in one of the safest Democratic seats in the country. She can plausibly retire simply due to age, and safe in the knowledge another Democrat will take her seat. Given her connections in the party and caucus, she could even probably arrange a hand picked successor for both her seat and for the leadership of the House Democrats. A successor to her would not have the name recognition poor polling to be used as a bludgeon against House Democrats running in 2018. The reaction of most Americans to seeing an attack linking a local candidate to Steny Hoyer would be who the heck is Steny Hoyer? The only other substantially famous member of the House Democratic caucus, John Lewis, is also much more difficult to attack since he's principally famous for being a civil rights hero who worked closely with Martin Luther King. Pelosi was quite effective in managing her caucus as Speaker. She might be effective as Speaker again, but she is deeply unpopular and running a national election next year on the premise of giving her the Speaker's chair makes it much more likely than otherwise that Paul Ryan would remain Speaker. If Pelosi cares more about her party than her personal power, she should retire at the upcoming election and let new blood replace her in the leadership. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Nancy Pelosi should retire from Congress for the benefit of her party."}
{"id":"eb09cac3-84fe-46ea-b1df-a88923d2c28c","argument":"In an increasingly interconnected and integrated world, being powerful is no longer about dominating land, resources and markets, but more about gaining trust, respect and support.","conclusion":"China lacks the soft power influence that the US and Europe has been able to employ."}
{"id":"734faea7-876e-4ec5-9763-5cf4b505723b","argument":"Society is already divided between progressive and conservative parties in many developed nations. The development of AGI is about as progressive as things can get.","conclusion":"Society would be divided over the issue of electing an AGI to be president of a major nation."}
{"id":"431c5dd6-e4ad-4643-a17d-794680782bcf","argument":"By the definition of supernatural: \"The concept of the supernatural encompasses anything that is inexplicable by scientific understanding of the laws of nature but nevertheless argued by believers to exist\". Improbable events can be explained by scientific understanding, so there is nothing supernatural in them.","conclusion":"Chance is, by definition, a possibility of something happening. Even if the probability is low, there is nothing supernatural in an improbable event happening."}
{"id":"6083a69d-7766-4016-a971-c502b87272ce","argument":"I feel like any person willing to work under secrecy for the government has to be trusted with keeping their lips sealed. I'm not for the NSA surveillance but what Snowden did was traitorous and he should be held accountable for his actions. Confidential information is confidential for a reason. This whole ordeal reminds me a lot of a quote from the first men in black movie. A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it. Still, I really want to know more about the whole situation and I felt this was the best place to learn.","conclusion":"I believe Snowden should be charged and tried as a criminal."}
{"id":"279294ce-ff88-494d-bdf2-5187ccda0805","argument":"she basically describes how she gave up her own desires in order to make her husband happy. She also says that if she were to do things over again, she would guard the things that she enjoys and the things that make her feel like herself.19 Women do give up much of who they are, but the reason is to accomplish their dream. Yet after they get what they want, women forget this fact and mistakenly think that they have given up and sacrificed in order to make their husbands happy. I agree with Armstrong that marriage is the greatest conspiracy in modern history. However, in truth men don\u2019t fare any better than women, and to believe anything else is merely to buy into the conspiracy.","conclusion":"\u201cThe greatest conspiracy in modern history is not Watergate or the shooting of JFK; it\u2019s something far more ingrained and insidious in how it distorts the truth. The conspiracy is marriage.\u201d"}
{"id":"8672b94a-3f98-4e2e-9973-70dd5e82f58d","argument":"Construction, manufacture, driving and aviation are some examples of human practices which cause the deaths of many animals. Vegetarians and vegans participate in these practices.","conclusion":"A great many human activities cause the deaths of animals. A focus on meat leads to moral inconsistency and potential hypocrisy."}
{"id":"7a1b6e8e-5c55-4e06-b0ad-ae928ec85258","argument":"This thread was motivated by the commentary in this r worldnews thread If you haven't been following the news, an extremist group called ISIS recently released a video showing their execution of an American journalist, along with some propaganda for their cause and a warning to those who would resist them. Police in England are warning that it may be illegal to download or distribute this video. I don't think it's too hard to understand my view. ISIS created a video which required irreversible harm to someone in order to create. They aren't interested in making a monetary profit, they're interested in spreading their message to people. When you view the video, you're showing them that there is demand for more of this content, and they've demonstrated they're willing to kill more prisoners. The family of James Foley has gone on the record requesting that people don't view the video out of respect for James. Child pornography can be created for a few different reasons. A large amount of child pornography is created not for profit, but simply to exchange with others. These videos and images may require irreversible harm in their creation, and by downloading and viewing them you are creating a demand for further production of that content. I would imagine that given the choice, the victims of child pornography and their families would give the same plea that the Foley family did to avoid watching or spreading the video. It's interesting to me that everyone in the r worldnews thread thought it was completely absurd to make viewing the execution illegal, while I'm fairly sure none of them would want to legalize free child pornography. I'm not advocating that either of these things should be legal or illegal, I'm just having a hard time understanding why they occupy such a different legal space in much of the world. One argument I forsee is that many people are downloading the Foley video out of a morbid curiosity, while people who download child pornography are doing so to enjoy the content. Whether or not I enjoy content is of little concern. The fact remains that if I enjoy child pornography, I would continue to view it again, and if I had the morbid curiosity to view an execution, I would likely have that same urge the next chance I got. There are also people viewing the Foley video in parts of the world which support ISIS, so I don't believe that there is nobody enjoying it. Thanks in advance for any input I've never posted on reddit before, and I just made this account because I didn't think anyone else was going to ask this question. EDIT My view has been changed in light of the vast majority of child pornography falling under U.S. Obscenity law, while the execution video wouldn't. Although I now understand the legal difference that exists, I have a big problem with obscenity laws themselves, but that's an issue for another day. Thanks for everyone who gave me some input, it was fun","conclusion":"Legally, there should be no difference between watching the James Foley execution video and watching free child pornography."}
{"id":"408e170b-ac87-4225-af02-472d745b4409","argument":"Homo Sapiens have lived with many different global environmental climates throughout their 100,000 1,000,000,000 year history on this planet. Sure, rising sea levels and global temperatures will pose challenges, but if we survived the ice age when we were literal cavemen, we can no doubt overcome and even prosper through a changing global climate with the use of modern technology. You probably get the point but in interest of meeting the charater requirement i'll go on While it is true that environmental conditions needed for life are held by relatively thin margin, our minds have allowed humans to be incredibly resilient in the face of environmental change. Even if mass migration toward the poles was necessary for our survival this would not be the first time in our biological history that we have mass migrated in response to local and global climate change.","conclusion":"I believe that climate change is not a big deal for the long term welfare of humanity."}
{"id":"4c73d12b-a71e-4727-a885-8829b8da5c3c","argument":"Economic development projects, such as the China Western Development economic plan, or the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, are politically-motivated actions to consolidate central control over Tibet by facilitating militarization and Han Chinese migration while benefiting few Tibetans. Even the programs that are ostensibly beneficial to Tibetan development have the effect of increasing Tibetan dependence on China and China's grip on the future of Tibet.","conclusion":"China's development aid to Tibet only consolidates its control"}
{"id":"29993f0c-4e35-4eeb-9850-b98c2cc92bdd","argument":"If overall parenting improves, the drain on state resources is likely to decrease, resulting in better child services for those children still at risk.","conclusion":"A parenting license system will lead to better childcare and parenting."}
{"id":"158e1699-2ef3-4e52-88b2-304e9e4bda33","argument":"2a In bald English the compound word, \u201carsenokoitai,\u201d means \u201cmale fuc@#rs.\u201d However, it is not clear whether \u201cmale\u201d designates the object or the gender of the second half. The English expression \u201clady killer,\u201d when written, conveys the same ambiguity.","conclusion":"2: \"arsenokoitai\" The claim that arsenokoitai \u2018obviously\u2019 means \u201chomosexual\u201d defies linguistic evidence and common sense See sub-claims 2a & 2b."}
{"id":"a87f91db-7865-4301-8922-94662453ced3","argument":"This is my solution to the problem of political corruption. It should be illegal for any politician to have a net worth greater than an ordinary citizen at any point for the rest of their life, even after they leave office. Politics should only be pursued by people who are willing to sacrifice the allure of riches for the sake of making their nation and the world a better place. I know that it\u2019s difficult to become elected without being rich, and I don\u2019t have a solution to that problem. However, forcing the winning candidates to give up their riches and never accept a \u201cdonation\u201d that would enrich them is a step in the right direction. Politics should be completely decoupled from riches. Politicians should agree to undergo lifelong surveillance to ensure that they never become rich again. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"It should be illegal for politicians to have a net worth beyond the national median for the rest of their lives"}
{"id":"5593a2e8-bafd-4d94-9439-954cd3486fcf","argument":"My main points are these 99 of European graffiti is tagging the graffitist rapidly writing his nickname rather than murals of high aesthetic value. For every Banksy, there are 99 graffitists scrawling their tags with little complexity and poor composition. Tagging looks pretty much the same regardless of place bubbly letters, exclamation points, asterisks, etc. Tags have a very limited visual vocabulary compared to all the symbolism and techniques in the history of art. When images are drawn, they are overwhelmingly intended to frighten skulls, guns, caricatures of ethnicities, etc. . They expose children and families to threatening and violent imagery in their daily lives. Over the last 30 years, Europe has gone from having almost no tagging, to tags being in virtually every town and city, all along the highways and railways, and even in natural parks. Europe, therefore, is beginning to look the same everywhere at eye level , no matter where you go. Tagging increasingly draws our attention away from the beautiful architecture and landscapes of Europe, to its garish, repetitive, incomprehensible lettering. Tagger culture is proud of its illegality, shock value, and semantic impenetrability. The motto of r bombing bombing means going to a place and tagging as much as possible is less art, more vandalism . Academics' tendency to romanticize modern graffiti as street art originates in a flawed conception that European graffiti is an expression of the voice of the margnalized. It was that in New York in the 1970s, where it originated. But it is not that in Europe. Rather, taggers are almost all young, white men the opposite of the marginalized. European tagging is almost never performed by the truly disenfranchised, like immigrants, Roma, or the mentally ill or drug dependent. Most of them can't afford the paint. Ethnic Europeans write on the walls darker skinned immigrants have to look at it. Tagging is therefore an expression of white privilege . Furthermore, it is often performed in places that are dark and unpoliced, where women often fear to go because of the continuing epidemic of gender based violence. Tagging is therefore an expression of male privilege . Illegal tagging violates the vision of the architects and community which approved the architecture. Taggers sometimes claim that they are simply beautifying drab, modern walls. However, these were the product of community compromise. Tagging is therefore violence against that compromise. Taggers compete with each other and post their work online in a constant act of one upsmanship among a secretive community, like Fight Club, complete with fight club uniform black hoodies and fight club profanity. All this is a hypermasculine display. Spray paint used by taggers is environmentally unfriendly and when it invariably comes off the walls, it ends up in our water supply, rivers, oceans, etc. Political graffiti also exists and almost all of it is either radically right wing think Swastikas or left wing think communist, violent overthrow of state . European graffiti is therefore one of the most odious manifestations of globalism it is violence against local communal architectural and aesthetic decision making, performed mostly by Europe's most privileged residents, and therefore a public imposition of anti social political tendencies on the continent. If you'd like more fully developed arguments, I've written a longer essay with my ideas about graffiti in Europe here I'd really like to have my view changed, because graffiti really annoys me, and I don't want it to annoy me. I've tried very hard to understand the case for it, but have yet to be convinced. Please do so if you can. Edit typos","conclusion":"Graffiti is making Europe uglier."}
{"id":"5c85da5d-02e5-41db-9ec4-5c4814eaf708","argument":"I know my current opinion is popular on reddit but I want someone with a more nuanced understanding to shed some light here surely no one would just start a war for shits and giggles. I dont buy that it was about oil, so I guess I just don't get it at all. I can't figure out what the reasoning was so right now I guess I just believe there wasn't any other than a bunch of bullshit and hype so, like, no justifiable reason. What are the counterarguments? Even if you agree with me, sharpen your debate skills and .","conclusion":"I dont believe there were any good reasons to start the war in Iraq"}
{"id":"7e47d0ef-cf3e-4b03-ad53-7d6b14748a4c","argument":"First and foremost let me say that I support gay rights, or rather, I support gay equality. In my opinion view there should be no distinction made whether you want to marry live with people of the same or the opposite gender. Still, aren't we overstepping our boundaries by forcing our beliefs onto other countries cultures? I mean, this is what WE believe is fair and just but for instance, take some middle eastern countries where women have virtually no rights. This is something they believe in very strongly. What if they all of a sudden decided that we should also adapt to this and started pushing their ideals onto us? I guess what I'm saying is even though it's already too late, it should have been the olympic committee that upon screening Russia as a candidate, should have vetted its application and then I would wholeheartedly defend that they use the because your country and laws will discriminate athletes based on their sexual orientation line. But now, now that we allowed them to organize this, it seems waaaaay too late to start complaining and I find it ridiculous that we, the western world, is somehow asking the world's largest country by area to change their views just because we want to participate in the olympics there. If by now you're gonna start bashing me and calling me a biggot, please read my first line. I very much stand by it but I'm simply trying to reason and trying to play devil's advocate here. But ultimately I'm here to get my view changed so . EDIT Ok, just to clarify, I think it's pretty clear that it's not just the Russian government Putin et al who are homophobes but it would seem more like this is still deeply instilled in Russian traditional values . My point is more like this should have been screened when Sochi was chosen for the Winter Olympics, and I'm still not convinced that it was all that difficult to know in 2007 that in general, Russia would have this kind of issue. But maybe I'm wrong","conclusion":"We should not demand Russia to respect gay rights, but rather should not have let them organize the olympics in the first place."}
{"id":"b0421e5d-3028-4978-865a-defe11c2047d","argument":"There's this idea that if a person agrees to sex, but is intoxicated, then it automatically becomes rape. This makes no sense to me since there is nothing else that excuses the actions of someone who's intoxicated because of their loss of inhibition and decreased decision making. For example, I'm drunk and my neighbor asks for a ride to the airport I agree after being persuaded and eventually get pulled over for bad driving suspected DUI. Would the officer give me the ticket or my neighbor? Would you even consider charging my neighbor with anything? Even though my neighbor convinced me to drive the car, i got drunk i agreed to drive i got in the car and i drove drunk. Even though some of the blame rests on my neighbor, I am ultimately held responsible for the decisions I made, even while drunk. There are also penalties specifically for being intoxicated DUI and public intoxication. Besides differing from all other ideas of responsibility, how exactly can someone prove that they were drunk. Since the burden of proof lies on the accuser, surely people should have to prove their level of intoxication, plus its effect on their cognition, at the exact time the rape , not some ad hoc measurement that could easily be altered by the time they get to a police station. I understand that verbal and physical coercion is a problem, but that is a different problem, entirely. Persuading someone to have sex, which could be affected by alcohol, is very different from an intimidation to do some act against his or her will from the legal dictionary. On a related note, what if both parties are drunk? What happens then? Is it a draw or did they rape each other? Edit the view was specified to exclude cases involving coercion, total incapacitation, or a minor.","conclusion":"yes means yes, always"}
{"id":"8048036e-e3fa-478f-9636-6f9594c4a9fa","argument":"It just seems so stupid, I agree that it's healthier not to drink, but if everyone drinks before 21, especially at college, why should we encourage criminal behavior in young people when they want to do something we all did at that age? WHats the point of a law that isn't obeyed by anyone, and has been violated by a majority of people? We have laws against murder because it harms people and the overwhelming majority of people dont murder and dont like murder. I'd say a solid 95 of the people i have known drank well before the age of 21, maybe half of them before the age of 18, I don't see why it should still be that way.","conclusion":"The U.S. drinking age, and other laws that are disrespected by the majority, should no longer be enforced and changed"}
{"id":"42410441-378e-4d62-96b7-18f85fd26b8a","argument":"Overpopulation is contributing to global warming, scarcity of water and food resources, pollution, and is also proceeding at an alarming rate from 1.5 billion to 6 billion in a single century, and another billion in the first decade of the 21st Century.","conclusion":"Humanity is harming the planet; having children for your own happiness, at the expense of the planet, is nothing short of selfishness."}
{"id":"6eb9f692-f797-4b81-916b-7b0b5df5e336","argument":"The Racial Relations Act was adopted in the UK in 1965 to protect racial minorities, but has been used to persecute activists of color, trade unionists and anti-nuclear protesters.","conclusion":"Because there are no clear standards for what should be no-platformed, the tactic can be co-opted and used against social justice movements to suppress their legitimate\/meritorious speech."}
{"id":"24ab3b38-7a37-4af4-bcd5-e83bb5cd99c1","argument":"I have heard both sides of the argument, and I really feel like getting vaccinated is the best thing for your health. I'll give you a personal example. Three years ago, I got mono and it was one of the worst experiences ever. Following that, I got sick multiple times. The next fall season, I got a flu shot, and I did not get sick at all that year. I got another one again this year because I think it will definitely give me a better chance of staying healthy. A coworker of mine said he would never get his kids vaccinated because he thinks that they will acquire negative side effects like autism and what not. So reddit","conclusion":"I think everyone should be vaccinated."}
{"id":"adb9f580-e20a-424c-b963-1d1d4a1da038","argument":"My reasons Even though vocals are an incredibly important maybe the most important part of a song, they are not entirely the production of the singer. The melody the singer sings is written by the composer. I think that this melody is more important than how good the person's voice sounds Here's a thought experiment. Imagine a song that you love listening to would you rather here that same singer sing happy birthday , or a different totally average singer sing the song that you like so much.","conclusion":"I believe the composer\/producer of a song deserves more credit for a song than the singer."}
{"id":"c57ca69b-0ac6-4d4f-ae1b-22d985d28043","argument":"I mean ridiculous. 95 20 30 can stay in state of all income earned by anyone and anything by doing anything. All of it goes to the government. That money is then given back as a flat income at the poverty line to everyone. Any social services SNAP, healthcare, Financial Aid, literally everything is cut immediately, including the bureaucracies. The entire federal gov is just slashed to pieces. Trump wants to gut it all, but we're one good tax plan away from saving the USA. Any money left over by this plan gets to be distributed to fbi cia defense, research grants science, infrastructure, government salaries state aid. People who can't work because of illness have their necessities met. People who can't work more than 10 20 hours get a few commodities luxuries. There's no bureaucracy to corrupt at the national level. Any salary boosting is met with serious and substantial diminishing returns. If being too rich too poor is one of the biggest problems associated with crime, contaminating the environment, abuse mental health problems, then maintaining the minimum for absolutely no reason should seriously impact everyone's lives? So many conservatives here in WV bemoan being taxed, but we're facing a HUGE budget shortfall we didn't have plows or salt trucks this last winter at all. We're cutting essential services at the state level, and the majority of our citizens need medicaid through the ACA because they're too impoverished to afford a healthy standard of living. McDowell country has some of the highest rates of drug abuse in the country. There are places in the state where pills are as accepted as currency. How would guaranteeing all of them a basic income through this flat tax NOT save them? Save us all? Edit Thank you all for the great conversations. I'm pretty thoroughly convinced now. For those of you curious, our GDP is at 56k if you include the top 1 . If you remove them it sinks to right below 30k. So a guaranteed income of around that mark seems plausible still. Such a prohibitive tax as a flat tax won't seem to work. My original thought was that small medium sized businesses would fill in the spaces left if mega corps leave. I didn't take into consideration exports, globalized systems, and startup capital, and I feel that while far more people would be interested in starting a business, the net result would be diminished. That said, Only one person really tried to address the bureaucracy problem, but failed to provide anything that convinced me that it's a net positive. If we all get SOME level of GI or food, housing up to a certain amount , and healthcare are tax deductable instead of implementing huge bureaucracies to negotiate much of these industries, it still seems beneficial to me.","conclusion":"I think a ridiculously high flat tax could save the USA"}
{"id":"45c3d724-eba8-47a9-9097-639b0b2f25cd","argument":"Democratic numbers decreased by 8% in this time frame and Republican numbers dropped by 5% as a result.","conclusion":"In the last 10 years, the Libertarian Party has seen their numbers increase by 92 percent"}
{"id":"ab943236-d324-4dbd-82d6-ab6625811ca2","argument":"Unicorns, elves, ninja turtles, Harry Potter, etc. do not exist, but are merely a story told without the need of evidence or facts. Any beliefs in a god can be held to the same standards. Hence, we do not need a god to imagine the idea of a god.","conclusion":"There does not need to be a God for humans to have conceived of God."}
{"id":"6c5f74b5-70cb-4896-9364-6065c160e89e","argument":"Over the course of history the papacy has held tremendous political power in various forms.","conclusion":"Religion cultivates political power which can then be used to exert control."}
{"id":"56b2e0a5-d00a-44cc-8ee6-df1b647081b6","argument":"Failing to price water economically is bad for the environment. Proper pricing of water would reflect all the costs of providing it, including the environmental ones. Water exchanges such as Australia's one for the Murray-Darling basin can start by taking account of the needs of the environment and then trading the remaining water efficiently through the actions of the market. Pricing water according to consumption, e.g. through domestic metering, also discourages wasteful use and so reduces the demands on natural water systems such as rivers and underground aquifers.","conclusion":"Failing to price water economically is bad for the environment. Proper pricing of water would refle..."}
{"id":"29a84585-6056-468c-bbe6-12df27e38184","argument":"A lot of people have this weird idea that ethics are just completely subjective and totally arbitrary. I think thats just kinda stupid. The way I see it, good and bad, right and wrong are entirely based on happiness pleasure good emotion, and suffering. We classify something as bad if it makes us suffer and good if it alleviates suffering or creates good emotion and because we're hardwired with mirror neurons we are born empathetic so this feeling extends to how others are treated too . Or rather, we have it classified that way for us, we dont have a choice its just an objective part of our being. So it seems obvious to me that utilitarian style ethics have an obejective basis similar to morals handed down from god but less retarded. They're morals which naturally occurred. I think torture is wrong and charity is right even if I have no idea about the concept of morality, im born with a sense that some things are right and some things are wrong.","conclusion":"There is an objective basis for ethics."}
{"id":"49b21548-879e-400e-94a3-eec4fb9c3c2f","argument":"Searched the sub, couldn't find this topic being discussed A few years ago I saw the TED talk by the Open Source Ecology project, also known as the Global Village Construction Set. Here's the video I saw if you've never heard of it. Here's some more info about the project and their goals. And here's my  I don't think this project is necessary people aren't poor because they don't have access to equipment, they're poor because their governments are corrupt, and will take steal equipment like this whenever they want. Right now, we have the bioengineering and construction technology to grow food for billions of people. I don't think people are poor because they lack access to these types of machines, or that it's because these machines are too expensive to buy and maintain. The reason why poverty exists in most parts of the world is due to government corruption, cronyism, and kleptocracy, as exemplified in this video. This type of government malfeasance can even apply to the US, where it's often illegal to grow your own food or set up a roadside stand without spending tons of money on permits and compliance with laws regulations. If there wasn't so much government cronyism, then these farmers in other parts of the world would be able to own property, start and grow a business farm, and be able to provide food to the people who need it. Then, they'd be able to purchase equipment that could help them increase their ROI without having to build it themselves. The idea that a farmer doesn't have enough money to build a tractor at John Deer prices, but does have the money to buy steel and welding equipment to build their own tractor equipment, it also ludicrous to me and almost elitist. Did Marcin Jakubowski ever visit these farms in poor countries to find out what types of goods services they were lacking, or did he just assume it was equipment? I think it was the latter. The OSE project itself has barely been able to stay afloat in the past 11 years and can't even pay for their operations will the sale of goods services. If they can produce a good for 8 times less than the competition, why aren't they selling machines instead? So for now, they still have to rely on user donations. Only one other group tried to build their own machines from these plans for use in agriculture. I couldn't find any updates on this, so please let me know if their are more groups . Don't get me wrong, I think it's great to be able to build your own things and share your ideas with other people. But this idea isn't new, and has been around since people started hacking their Model T's in the 1900s to be used as tractors, bucksaws, threshers, silo blowers, conveyers, balers, church organs, etc. If anything, the OSE should've started production of Model T's, since most people in poor countries don't' even have cars trucks. Those patents must've expired by now, right? Even if a farm in Africa did build all their own equipment using OSE, the government could come and trash it all or steal it anyways. Their videos also use a lot of rhetoric that isn't backed up any evidence, but I'd rather stick to the core idea of the group and why it won't work, rather than delving into all of their gobbledygook . Thanks 'ers gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than just downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I think that the Open Source Ecology project i.e. Global Village Construction Set is a misguided attempt to help the poor."}
{"id":"7fbed08f-ea80-4981-b6dd-fe8f3c6dbad3","argument":"The entire framework on which we base the \"norm\" in the United States is white and euro-centric, and as a result everything that follows is seen as \"other\". That itself is an example of privilege.","conclusion":"Racial stereotypes shape how African Americans, Latinos and other ethnic minorities are viewed. White privilege is the advantage of not being subject to those stereotypes."}
{"id":"dc043bc2-38cc-4ef8-85df-627f036494ff","argument":"The most common defense I've heard for keeping the drinking age at 21 or even raising it center around people's brains aren't fully developed until X age, therefore a drinking age of X will ensure the least damage done to the developing brain . Yeah, alcohol is bad for you, and especially bad at a young age, but the law shouldn't exist to protect individuals especially adults from themselves it should exist to protect people from violence or negligent reckless endangerment. I'll be adhering to that principle for this , so to change my view you'll need to demonstrate that brain development is in fact relevant to determine whether 18 20 year olds drinking is in fact a violent negligent act. I'll also be adhering to the following definition of a victimless crime A crime where the victim is either The perpetrator Intangible morality , common decency Not specific humanity , the community , society To change my view, you'll need to convince me that an 18 20 year old drinking is not a victimless crime because of factors related to brain development To do this, you can do any of the following 1 Establish that a single 18 20 year old drinking any amount of alcohol is inherently violent impossible, this is verifiably false 2 Establish that a single 18 20 year old drinking any amount of alcohol is inherently reckless unlikely, but doable 3 Establish that a drinking age of 21 is intended to protect people from others more than it is intended to protect people from themselves kind of abstract, doable 4 Establish that a drinking age of 21 when practically enforced does protect people from others more than it protects people from themselves a bit more concrete but might be harder If you're discussing drinking and driving in the context of 3 or 4, you'll need to do one of the following Prove that 18 20 year olds are the most likely demographic to drink and drive and establish that this is related to brain development Concede that 18 20 year olds are not the most likely demographic to drink and drive but that factors related to brain development put them at high risk for drinking and driving. If you do this, you'll also need to defend allowing more likely demographics to drink Things that won't convince me Claiming that 18 year olds don't deserve the same autonomy that other adults have at least under the law Taking the position that the law should exist to protect people from themselves Similar to the above, asserting that you have the right to stop someone from doing something that harms only themselves. Claiming that we should keep the drinking age at 21 because it's fun to break the law when you're 18 and that brain development is a convenient strawman to convince people to keep it at 21 yup, I've heard this one For reference, I am over 21. I'm including this because it seems to come up a lot when discussing the drinking age, as if being underage totally invalidates an argument for lowering it. Bonus points if you can convince me that my age is relevant to the discussion. . Edit Formatting gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Brain development is irrelevant in discussion of the drinking age"}
{"id":"f9d877ae-6fd4-46d6-ba3d-398f654e283a","argument":"I often see articles or videos on the topic of free will, where there's usually the sentence if I don't have free will, I can't be accountable for my actions . Isn't the only thing implied by free will that everything isn't predetermined, so why should I be less accountable for my actions if the whole system in which I'm acting in is predetermined? My choices are predetermined, but I feel perceive like I am making this choices. We all are feeling perceiving like we live in this system, so why should free will matter at all? EDIT Fixed a negation. To clarify what I mean, I'm copying my response gt I'm questioning the importance of the concept of free will. Whether we have or do not have free will doesn't matter, because we can't tell the difference.","conclusion":"The question of free will is pointless"}
{"id":"801d538f-1c9e-4b17-b5e7-2c62bfda665c","argument":"\"9\/11 Families Reject Towering Mosque Planned for Ground Zero Site\" 9\/11 Families for a Safe and Strong America: \"Victims\u2019 families view the imam\u2019s expressed plan to \u201cleverage\u201d the mosque\u2019s proximity to Ground Zero to engage in proselytizing and to \u201cgrow the Muslim community,\u201d as shockingly insensitive to the history of the site where their loved ones were slaughtered in the worst terrorist attack by extremist Muslims in America\u2019s history; following the attack, 20,000 body parts were recovered in a nine-month operation to remove 1.8 million tons of rubble from Lower Manhattan.\"","conclusion":"Mosque wrongly uses proximity to ground zero to spread Islam"}
{"id":"7677f5df-faa7-4983-ba17-516ffd859b29","argument":"First let me make it VERY clear that this is not a pro assault or pro harassment view point, nor am I saying I believe any of these men women are lying about being assaulted. That has nothing to do with my opinion at all. Additionally, this is not meant to attack or shame any victim past, present or future. This is about those who have experienced assault, knew it would hurt them professionally and did not report it when something could actually have been done about it. A prime example of this and certainly not the only one would be most of Harvey Weinstein's victims. SO many women and girls. Scores of women spanning decades. Most of which went on to reap the benefits of his influence later. Actresses, Screenwriters, Models, TV Hosts, etc. I'm betting a major reason no one spoke out about him is because they each had something to lose. Which in this case is a career in show business. This was their biggest pay off as well as an actual pay off in some cases . So they did not speak out, they kept quiet and it continued to happen. To compound the fear and shame that comes along with a crime like this, they knew that their careers would suffer. So they said nothing. Some of these women have admitted that they knew it was happening or had happened to other women. This is where the TRUE harm comes in. But now, 20 30 years later, after the benefits have been reaped, under the veil of strength and bravery, women are coming forward in droves crying about this injustice. And now its a movement that we are supposed to rally behind. Everyone of these women have failed the women that came after them. Making it harder and harder each time for them to come forward. The damage is done, there will be no proving this ever happened. He has gotten away with it, and each one of the women that did not come forward helped him, and those like him. I know, first hand, how bad it sucks to have to report a person of power who has taken advantage of me. I know it is difficult because I've done it. This does not make be any more of a woman and I am not looking to start a movement. But as woman we all know that no one is going to stand up for us ESPECIALLY if we aren't willing to stand up for each other. I said something. I lost my job, I knew I would. But it is my sincere hope that I made it easier for the next woman to say something and in turn making it more difficult for him to do it again. Granted, he is not Harvey Weinstein, but that does not make my fear and shame at the time any less. It does not help for a millionaire actress to come forward and say she was assaulted 30 years ago. My young daughter who may look up to her cannot use that. The outcry has lost it's power. What she NEEDS to see is women propping each other up in the NOW. Not this happened years ago and I have gone on to a fabulous career in the public spotlight. This does not take his power away. Our children often WAY too often imo look up to these women as idols. Our girls are seeing what can happen if you DON'T speak up. I speak very candidly with my children about many things we see in the media. The ONLY good thing I can see that has come of this in my household is I have been given another chance to talk to my kids about what is appropriate, what is not and no matter how hard something might be, you should ALWAYS, ALWAYS do what you feel in your heart of hearts to be right. Should the women of long ago and certainly not just the Alyssa's and Salma's of the world have stood up for each other the conversation around the dinner tables of the country could be much different. I would rather be saying we can thank these women for being brave trailblazers not, yeah, they should have stood up for themselves and each other","conclusion":"The MeToo movement does more harm to assault\/harassment victims than help."}
{"id":"b3ba8690-4ebe-4dcc-a6c3-56991a5ad748","argument":"Germanys Pirate Party has shown that with liquid democracy, voting is much more concentrated than with other forms of democracy. Out of 80,000 citizens in Friesland, only 583 0,7% registered for their platform at all. Only 382 out of these 583 registered users voted on liquid democracy decisions, and twelve users dominated each of the 76 initiatives.","conclusion":"In 2010 the German Pirate Party tried Liquid Democracy but it was not successful."}
{"id":"44edd985-07de-43f4-a394-e48e370471f9","argument":"It's a very common observation that SJWs seem to be unpleaseable, and that regardless of how well a given piece of media complies with what they seem to be saying they want, some of them will still find a way to call it something ist, actually evaluating whether they approve or disapprove of a work less based on its content than on whether its creator kisses the ring by engaging in a great deal of tribal chest thumping and pissing off anti SJWs to show SJWs they're part of the team . This is currently epitomized in the reactions to Captain Marvel vs Alita Battle Angel. Any criticisms of sexualization or similar being used in an attempt to discredit Alita's feminist bona fides would also logically apply to Captain Marvel, but the reception from the critical establishment is the opposite. The same could be said of last year's Star Trek Discovery vs The Orville battle. Orville is every bit as diverse and topical a show as Discovery, but the reaction from SJ minded critics was nearly opposite. Nothing justifies these differences unless you read between the lines and conclude that the basis on which SJWs actually evaluate media is not its content, but whether it swears allegiance . And the more I think about this, the more I conclude that this is the ONLY way it is possible for social justice to decide whether to support or oppose a work of fiction, because their critical framework is intentionally designed so that no work can pass on internal merit alone, and the only way to do so is to kiss the ring hard enough that the critics give you the benefit of the doubt and ignore some of the rules. No matter how good an intersectional progressive a given author is, there are simply so many lenses and theories applied in SJ media critique that it's impossible to thread your needle through all of them at once. Intersectional theory, critical theory, gaze theory, cultivation theory, etc etc etc, many of which make contradictory demands. You can't simultaneously be diverse and inclusive AND stay in your lane . You can't create female characters with agency and avoid falling prey to the Thermian argument There are a million catch 22s like this. Of course, all of social justice is not one single person, there is always internal division within a movement. But the idea that all of these various analytical lenses are simultaneously valid is pretty uncontroversial within the movement, to the point that any pushback against it, any attempt to discredit any of these dogmas, gets a person excommunicated. Consider the following hypothetical You are a fantasy author looking to design cultures to populate your fictional world. Not only do you need to decide on the actual skin colors of these made up people, you need to give their societies things like architectural traditions, clothing styles, cultural and religious practices. No matter how creative you are, how impeccable your research is, or how much education you have, it's beyond the capacity of any single human being to create an entire world whole cloth that draws no inspiration from reality. So where do you look for that inspiration? If you draw entirely from medieval western Europe, your work will be considered too white, even if the characters are diverse you can still be accused of an imperial gaze that centers white culture. But if you draw from non European historical cultures, you can be accused of stereotyping, orientalism, or cultural appropriation. There's no answer that doesn't include some sort of ism under a strict reading of all the different sociological theories and analytical techniques social justice uses. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"No matter how hard you try, it's impossible to create a work of fiction that is 100% compliant with social justice ideology"}
{"id":"3d382ff8-47a7-48f9-ae01-a2dd4eb841af","argument":"Perhaps in early childhood, doing well is a decent indicator of intelligence. As young kids, good grades give an idea of how fast a child may grasp simple concepts like basic arithmetics or reading and writing. Later on, like High School and beyond good grades just give an idea of how dedicated one is. It has more to do with other factors such as amount of time spent studying, discipline, access to resources, etc. If 2 kids have similar aptitude, the one who studies more will get a higher grade, this does not mean the one who studies more is smarter it means s he has more KNOWLEDGE because they dedicated more time toward the subject. Intelligence should be measured in the ability to problem solve neutral topics and the ability to reason, not how well one can regurgitate facts on a standardized form. Edit I notice a lot of you are saying things to me like Well, wouldn't you hire someone who works harder? Edit 2 Wow, I did not anticipate this blowing up like this. I apologize if I am unable to respond to everyone. I agree with this and that is not what I am debating. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Good grades are a VERY poor indicator of intelligence"}
{"id":"317f4e15-4a9f-4afc-8f30-0ca3bab94563","argument":"I really don't get the big deal. I have great connection speed and my xbox automatically gets online as soon as I switch it on anyway. I don't see how this will detract from my gaming experience. Even if it applies to single player campaigns I can't see it having an effect. Aside from people who live in the wilderness and have crappy connection, why should we care really?","conclusion":"I don't care if nextgen consoles require \"always online\" or not."}
{"id":"2d3da9fd-3950-47ef-b9c0-c4ea4219e813","argument":"The income gap continues to increase between the wealthiest 1% and the rest of the population. A UBI would not only help close the gap, but would also all but eliminate the constant debate of a liveable minimum wage we've been having for over a decade.","conclusion":"Unlike current welfare schemes which only benefit the most disadvantaged in society, a UBI will benefit almost everyone by taxing those who have accumulated large amounts of wealth over a long period of time."}
{"id":"33446e60-b43f-4110-9986-e88c0ec7dbe8","argument":"Newer studies seem to have lower numbers than older studies, e.g. in the Southern Hemisphere minke whales were estimated to number around 700.000 in the 1980s, while the number drops to around 500.000 in the 1990s.","conclusion":"Whale statistics rely on old data, as many studies were conducted in the 1990s. This makes them unreliable."}
{"id":"ce5be0f8-81ad-4fd9-b143-c66e271a853d","argument":"Bulgaria-Romania border has had across-border cooperation programme since 1999. Its general strategic objective is to bring people, communities and the economies of the border area closer together, and to support the two countries in the joint creation of a cooperation areaespaces-transfrontaliers.org","conclusion":"There are non-EU counties that have soft borders with the EU."}
{"id":"aee74e88-28dc-4734-9d77-a6611a9645ab","argument":"Reasons Carla del Ponte, former war crimes prosecutor and part of a UN panel on Syria says the moderate rebels\u2122 were behind the Sarin nerve gas attack on civilians, not the Syrian regime. The attacks came just after the UN arrived in Syria to look at the allegations, which would be the worst possible timing for the Syrian government to use chemical weapons. The moderate rebels\u2122 sold Steven Sotloff to ISIS. After receiving weapons, the moderate rebels\u2122 have a habit of joining ISIS. Obama himself had to admit that Assad protects the Christians in Syria. Assad is the closest that Syria can come to a secular leader, keeping local tribal dynamics and cultural conflicts in mind. Most of the Syrian public supports Assad. Syria's president came out from the start of the conflict, promising reforms. The moderate rebels\u2122 don't care, they just want a war at all cost. No country that has been Arab Springed\u2122 by the US is doing very well now. Tunisia elected moderate Islamists . Libya is ruled by a bunch of tribes and has airstrikes carried out in its territory by foreign nations. Egypt had an incompetent president from the Muslim Brotherhood, the same group as Hamas, who was then deposed by the military. Democracy isn't implemented through a revolution, it's implemented through a gradual series of reforms that create a democratic culture. A democratic culture is one where groups are willing to settle disputes through democratic means and where the rights of minorities are protected. What little of a democratic culture Syria had has been destroyed by tribal hostilities created during the Syrian civil war.","conclusion":"The US should arm Assad instead of the \"moderate rebels\"."}
{"id":"cdd7a10e-c7d1-449a-bded-6e5258921769","argument":"Worded a little weird in the title but I\u2019ll try to explain it. The U.S. picks 15 20 states to do a test in that have different variations of location, population size, political status, economic status, etc. and then implement a raising of a minimum wage. For \u201cx\u201d amount of months the U.S. would closely monitor these states and how the economy does in these states, compared to others in which minimum wage wouldn't change. The government, before the test, would have also polled people in the states and what they think should happen with the minimum wage. Then after they poll the same group of people to see what the population thinks about how the minimum wage has changed their everyday life. If the people like it and the economy did well then it spreads to different states and then, maybe, the entire country. If it did so so in the test group of states maybe they could switch it up a little and try new states. Maybe the only reason it did bad in Texas would be because of the lack of support for minimum wage and California might be better. If it did badly in most states then the idea could be scrapped. So basically the country acts accordingly to what the test states think of it and how there economies do. Why I think it will work \u2022 It will give us a good estimation of how the country will respond as a whole to the increase of minimum wage if we pick good test states for the testing. \u2022 It would give us the answer of whether the raising of minimum wage will work or not and the arguing would be done with. I have read both arguments on the topic and although I support the raising of minimum wage I can see what the people are saying who support keeping minimum wage where it is. This plan will show both sides what will work and what won\u2019t without any discussion.","conclusion":"The U.S. should pick 15 or 20 states to test raising the minimum wage and then they should act accordingly."}
{"id":"1d74e1ca-7e49-4162-a515-31e5cbd2ba8b","argument":"The goal for all Buddhists is nirvana which is achieved by giving up the idea of Self.","conclusion":"Giving up the self is an act of self-improvement for a persons own benefit."}
{"id":"4d0ede1b-4dcf-46fd-8bca-18f9f123dfd6","argument":"Americans are materialistic and emphasize the importance of large sizes in terms of products or goods like cars. This culture places a drain on resources.","conclusion":"American culture instills certain values in its citizens, some of which are harmful."}
{"id":"d9333736-d2a1-4f18-81cf-c268391d0f37","argument":"In the event of two different perceptions of what constitutes harm, there is a tendency for that of the larger group to be seen as normative and, therefore, correct. This is shown to be the case in the example given here but also in other instances from the Salem witch trials to the fatwa on Salman Rushdiei; the fact that there was an authorising body \u2013 in the shape of an orthodox religious body \u2013 the allegation itself acquires the force of that orthodoxy. It is rare for minority beliefs to have much success and almost unknown for secularists to do so. Several cases in North America brought in an effort to protect the religious rights of Wiccans, for example, yielded little as they lacked the force of religious orthodoxyii. In states where there is either great homogeneity of belief or there is a theological element in the courts or political system, this has tended to be even more the case. This is particularly true of states that identify themselves officially with one religion, and especially so in the case of Islamic statesiii. i The Guardian. Looking back at Salman Rushdie\u2019s The Satanic Verses. 14 September 2012. ii Religioustolerance.org. Wiccan education and anti-defamation groups. iii Viewpoint. The Blasphemy syndrome. 12 October 2012.","conclusion":"Inevitably protects entrenched interest groups Church in Crucible, Muslims in Pakistan"}
{"id":"37950b39-391c-468d-b6c5-ea25985a60be","argument":"If a company is not allowed to pay very high salaries for crucial, hard to replace positions e.g. CEO, it might hurt the company because, if the position is not financially attractive, it might not take much for the person in this position to quit. The search for and training of a replacement is hard and costly for the company, thus hurting the company itself.","conclusion":"The required skills to replace a janitor being much lower than those to replace a CEO, it would be a lot easier, therefore faster, to replace the janitor, no matter how necessary either of those are."}
{"id":"4d24e0ee-7cea-4791-9228-4337ff0e5fe9","argument":"Guantanamo Bay is a perfect example for this bigotry, claiming human rights in the world and not caring about them at home.","conclusion":"Western bigotry towards its own values cannot be taken serious."}
{"id":"3cce00d4-8c40-4072-b6df-974cdf59947d","argument":"Believing that life requires certain qualities to be morally valuable does not require believing that those qualities are purely hedonistic. Even if the value of a life is not dependent on the nature of its conscious experiences, it could be dependent on other things, like interpersonal connections or the creation of intrinsically valuable things like art.","conclusion":"Life is not intrinsically valuable. It is valuable because it brings with it certain morally valuable features - conscious wellbeing, interpersonal connections, aesthetic appreciation and the creation of culture and art. When these features are absent, life is not valuable in itself."}
{"id":"84491a76-6e6f-4327-a5ae-82316a218822","argument":"i was looking for shirts to wear to pride next weekend on amazon, and saw a decent amount of lgbt ally ones. things like \u201ci\u2019m straight but i don\u2019t hate\u201d in rainbow letters, or \u201ci like my whisky straight but my friends either way,\u201d and just stuff that i thought was silly and unnecessary. being an ally consists of a lot more than just clothing, and i feel that it\u2019s a rather showy and unnecessary display of allyship. for lgbt people, we\u2019re wearing these clothes because we\u2019re proud of our identity. why do they need these shirts? why can\u2019t they be an ally in the way that they advocate for us, rather than in a shirt? i\u2019d like to not feel so disdainful because i know this is probably harmless, but it leaves a bad taste in m mouth.","conclusion":"there shouldn\u2019t be ally pride clothing"}
{"id":"ebcb91f1-c3e5-4d7d-b85b-9623dd02a106","argument":"A religion that really wants to promote free thinking, unlike Catholicism, would wait until their potential believers are old enough to commit to the faith and understand everything that it entails.","conclusion":"Religions are routinely introduced to children who are too young to make an informed choice."}
{"id":"a3cd7838-fc58-4daa-bce3-3acc26627000","argument":"This isn't really a strong view of mine, just a though that has been lurking and I can't shake. Races of humans are most easily identified by their physical attributes that they share, a combination of skin color, facial structure, eye color, height, etc. these physical traits are passed down through generations for thousands of years. Since these physical attributes are grouped together, shared, and passed on, is it possible that emotional intellectual traits are similarly being inherited within these groups races or people. For example, people in country B happen to have blue skin. They are also not too bright. They usually only breed with other blues, so we can assume that blues children are going to be blue and dumb, and it would follow if country B is the only source of blue people that blue people are categorically dumb. So when blue people travel abroad and still only mate with blue people evidenced by the fact that their children aren't green they are still going to be dumber, on average, that the purple people. I'm not making the case that one race in this world is smarter than another, because there are too many environmental factors like education, social ecos, culture etc , but rather that it's possible. I'm not an anthropologist so please correct me if I got any of this wrong. Edit added some smurfs","conclusion":"some races or categories of people could be categorically smarter"}
{"id":"e14e3c74-0a4d-4402-8d2c-fc0ccfeb5fdf","argument":"According to a study, terror attacks in the US carried out by Muslims receive five times more media coverage than those by non-Muslims.","conclusion":"The impact of religion is often exaggerated in the media by over-representation of religiously motivated terrorism."}
{"id":"e0ea8321-9f29-4b30-92d4-9ea0e0634dc7","argument":"There are non-biblical sources that refer to Jesus' miracles Josephus 37-101AD: \"he was a worker of amazing deeds\" Celsus 175AD: \"he acquired certain magical powers\" See this article that describes what can be learned about Jesus from non-biblical sources.","conclusion":"Jesus' deity must not be taken solely on faith. There is evidence of the deity of Jesus."}
{"id":"8e4f0520-fcec-40f5-b67d-09c282b8ff89","argument":"Such copying has occurred ever since the invention of tape cassettes and the increased economic impact of simpler access to copying provided by computer networks does not seem to have been large.","conclusion":"Massive copying has been occurring for a long time with little impact:"}
{"id":"9370d704-0f13-45dd-bb00-b6fc8ee0f67f","argument":"The Iwakura Mission toured the West to copy the best things as a foundation as modern nation.","conclusion":"Japan took the foundations from Western ideology and cut the connection with its past."}
{"id":"501fc88a-dbfe-4789-91bf-9bb7e05cc403","argument":"I hope this isn't too niche or subjective for this sub. If it is pardon my gaucherie Jim and Greg of the public radio show sound opinions said on today's episode that Husker's album streak from Zen Arcade to Candy Apple Grey was uniformly outstanding. I love some of them ~as songs~ I think Grant and Bob were great songwriters, and I like some of the live performances that can be found from that time and since see Bob Mould, Dave Grohl, Jason Narducy, and Jon Wurster could you be the one But the drum sound on the albums is so tinny How do you get past this?","conclusion":"Great songwriters they may be, but I find H\u00fcsker D\u00fc's studio output unlistenable because of the quality of the recordings -- especially the drums."}
{"id":"6aa643ce-6721-42a4-bfc0-de75bccd5d52","argument":"The police rescued dozens of children from a \u201cbaby-factory in China, where surrogacy is forbidden. The living conditions were unhygienic and unsuitable and most of the babies had sexually transmitted diseases.","conclusion":"China has a 'booming' surrogacy market despite the fact that both commercial and altruistic surrogacy are banned there."}
{"id":"67939f0e-2263-4eb5-8d70-303153bbdb51","argument":"Often tendencies and addictions are not hereditary, but can seem to be because of following similar living patterns by subsequent generations obesity, alcoholism, etc.","conclusion":"We do not know enough about these tendencies to claim they're inherently \"evil\"."}
{"id":"cf89e644-3724-4160-ba9f-ff40d7d3a7f9","argument":"I believe that the death of anyone should be celebrated and not mourned. I can't seem to wrap my head around it, why such crushing despair and in my experience, it is nothing short of crushing despair , why would be the way that you would want to commemorate someone's life? Some background in February my ex's mom died and the ex lost pretty much all will. I will forever remember holding her that night, being there for her in every way and more including giving her the space she wanted and needed it and in the end, months and months later our relationship also died. I am a nurse now too new grad and we, as a North American society, are a death defying one. Everything we do is to push back a death date a little longer, even if it sacrifices the quality of life of that person and in many cases, against their wishes. The other part of this is that people get genuinely angry when my beliefs come up which I never bring up because I don't think there's much to be had by stirring a pot . They invariably ask why I don't get upset over deaths. I have no issue with other people doing it, and my belief won't change others points of views, and I know that. But I also get to choose and I choose to celebrate the good things that they did, how they impacted my life in a positive way, or if I knew them personally I remember the times we laughed and how they helped form me into a better person. Finally, please don't turn this into something about my ex gf or necessarily nursing medicine. I am just interested in the reasons why people chose to mourn their loss instead of celebrate the memory of the person they clearly loved so much. edit after reading through these, I'm glad that it hasn't come up yet but I only mean we should celebrate for those who are not children. I cannot imagine the grief a parent would have burying their child and that to me is a whole other ball game. The most recent and awful example is Sandyhook and I think it would be AWFUL of me to look at those families and say 'Don't mourn.' As well, families shredded by tragedies such as bombings or terrorism, that's different too and I have no experience with. I don't think it's fair for me to say anything about that seeing as, again, I have never experienced terrorism myself. Thanks everyone for your responses so far","conclusion":"I believe that the deaths of our loved ones should be celebrated and not mourned, !"}
{"id":"383a50e6-deeb-4d4f-ad31-2a18ac3af5e2","argument":"SEE MY ALSO DOWN AT THE BOTTOM So at my high school, you have to take and pass 2 of the same language courses and you have to pass Algebra II and finish off with one more math credit after that. Now this is in North Carolina, and other schools may be different but it still exists . I don't think this is fair. Not everyone has the ability or the concept to learn a language or excel in math. I understand that it's revolutionary to learn a language. But forcing someone to learn a language to graduate just doesn't seem right. It's a waste of space and of credits, especially if you fail and ruin your GPA. A pretty large reason of why kids drop out of high school is because they get held back and forced to do the same thing over again. Not everyone wants to be a doctor or lawyer or even a grocery store owner. Some people just want to graduate high school. What's better? A high school graduate that failed math or a high school dropout with no concept of math AT ALL?? It just doesn't seem right but a lot of people decide to stick behind the fact that learning a language or passing a higher level math is necessary . Hell, wouldn't algebra one be a fair class to make it a requirement? Yes, I get the face that math is a necessary thing. I said certain maths in the title, i.e, Algebra II, Calculus . I also understand language can input diversity. But a comment made me come and edit this post. They said All you need to do is pass which cannot possibly be that hard with a little bit of effort. Okay, but you need to pass, not just the first, but the second level of the language as well. Meaning if you just pass the first course of the language with a C or a D, how in the hell are you going to pass the second one with harder vocabulary and sentence structure and a whole swirl of other objectives involved? Here are 12 well paying jobs that don't require math. Change my view. Why do kids need graduation credit requirements? Edit Just for the record, I'm only railing on math and language because those are the only 2 you are required to pass for a graduation credit. I'm not complaining about just simply math and language . I'm talking about level 2 of a language and a higher level math. Are you guys actually reading this post? ALSO I love foreign language. I've taken Spanish and German, and I've also passed Advanced Functions and Modeling. This is not a  because I hate those two courses . I absolutely love learning languages. I go to school in a rough area, and I've seen enough students drop out because of the requirements. Students that I know really could've done something with a high school degree. That's my reason for this .","conclusion":"I don't think high schools should have \"required graduation credits\" such as foreign language or certain maths."}
{"id":"42e02105-6b85-46a9-bc11-ee838d0751be","argument":"I am talking about good ice cream and good pudding. Obviously terrible pudding is worse than some ice creams, and vice versa, but we are talking about decent quality versions of both. I know that some here may claim that this is simply a matter of opinion. They are wrong. I am speaking in an objective sense. Those who think ice cream is better than pudding have been misled by the ice cream cartel. Let's get into the reasons 1 Ice cream is too cold. I'm sure almost everyone has experienced a so called ice cream brain freeze , but who has experienced a pudding brain freeze? Not me. 2 Even the best ice cream is still more grainy and gritty than the cheapest pudding. In fact, all pudding is smoother and has a better mouthfeel than all ice cream. 3 Pudding is much easier to make than ice cream and does not require specialized equipment like a churner or some MacGyver salt monstrosity. 4 Pudding is much richer than ice cream, and this is a good thing. I'm talking about chocolate and vanilla, not lemon ice or something else that's meant to refresh. When you eat these flavors, you want a rich dessert, and pudding is always more favorable in these scenarios. 5 Pudding can easily match if not exceed ice cream in matters of taste. Anyone with a differing opinion has not tried good pudding, only the store bought kind. This might seem like a no true Scotsman fallacy, but it's not. Because the public has been misled into preferring ice cream to pudding, ice cream is more widely available, and many high end ice cream brands exist and market to adults. We cannot say the same thing about pudding, which is only marketed to children.  gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Pudding > Ice Cream"}
{"id":"dcdf3705-7665-4c84-a068-82707739c5b2","argument":"The Whale Rider, a work by award winning New Zealand Maori author Witi Ihimaera has been included in many English curriculum.","conclusion":"Many diverse writers are already included in the English curricula because of the significance and quality of their writing."}
{"id":"8bbea23f-23d2-4532-acf8-866fb3a32cfa","argument":"When things are publicly funded, they come under heightened scrutiny by the public and government. The government could more closely monitor homeopathic practitioners and researchers so they produce more accurate results.","conclusion":"Homeopathic treatments could be used more safely within the public health system."}
{"id":"94f79f6d-8e64-48c4-9c79-c98588a2a094","argument":"Drag Queens often embrace hypersexualisation - a stereotype frequently applied to individuals across all groups within the LGBT community.","conclusion":"The mainstreaming of drag contributes to the stereotyping of the LGBT community."}
{"id":"27a58776-bb96-402c-8db0-865aee4c7dbc","argument":"It is mostly Western countries which have signed the UN General Assembly declaration of LGBT rights or sponsored the 2011 resolution on LGBT rights of the Human Rights Council.","conclusion":"It is also largely \"Western\" societies in which people outside the normal gender binary are currently gaining the most recognition and rights."}
{"id":"0c117f8d-3856-422c-b5c3-977822596005","argument":"At least as the U.S. political environment currently stands. I think this applies to all elections, but to explain myself I'll just give a single example. The obvious example here would be the previous presidential election, fought primarily between Obama, Romney, and Ron Paul. My opinions on Ron himself aside, voting for a libertarian presidential candidate was a waste of a vote for anyone who chose to do so. I believe that anyone who, at least when it got closer to election day, honestly thought that Ron Paul would magically shoot up in ratings and somehow nab the election was either grossly misinformed or simply ignoring the facts in front of them. It would have been smarter, and I think more pragmatic, to just suck it up and vote for either Romney or Obama. I get it, some people didn't like either of them, but the idea that there really was any more than two options was just an illusion, so it would have been better to vote for whichever you deemed the lesser of two evils, and if you wish, support your choice of third party candidate in other ways so that they perhaps have a better chance next election season. I know this is just one example, but I think the same thinking could apply to any past or future election. I could summarize by saying that in such important instances like presidential elections, pragmatism trumps ideology nine out of ten times, and voting third party simply isn't pragmatic. And with that, . EDIT Oops, completely slipped up there, forgot it was Gary Johnson not Ron Paul in the 2012 election. My bad. I'll only be able to reply to a few of these, but overall consider my view changed","conclusion":"I think that voting third party in a presidential election is, overall, a waste of your vote."}
{"id":"018e67e9-4a85-4bd1-bb4d-22be24ecb4ac","argument":"The UN notes that \"a group engaged in the democratic political process of opinion formation and decision-making cannot simultaneously possess an autonomous armed operational capacity outside the authority of the State. More broadly, the existence of armed groups defying the control of the legitimate Government, which by definition is vested with a monopoly on the use of force throughout its territory, is incompatible with the restoration and full respect of the sovereignty, territorial integrity, unity and political independence of the country.\"","conclusion":"Israel battled the organization Hezbollah, which exerted control over the southern part of Lebanon, and not the Lebanese army."}
{"id":"308c0314-f486-4b97-b84b-f4bdc5f05e91","argument":"5 Since infinite regress is absurd, either a base universe exists, which we can deduce is currently ours; or the assumption in premise 1 is flawed. Both would imply that our universe is not a simulation.","conclusion":"If every universe is similar real and simulated, then the arguments that support the thesis would result in a recursive paradox and would be self-defeating."}
{"id":"c5eeea70-b03b-4158-be2e-0cb81c35130a","argument":"First post, sorry if it contains irrelevant information I am young 22 and do not have enough life experience to understand the implications of certain policies primarily economically I would love for poverty to go away and for the middle class to get stronger. I think that is something most people would agree with. The methodology in which this problem is approached can be done many ways. I have not had to be financially independent, as I am lucky in having supportive parents as well as loans to help me through college. I cannot possibly know how raising minimum wage will affect the economy, nor free college for everyone, or how healthcare, or anything. I live in a red state that will not be blue anytime soon. Regardless of my beliefs, I know that because of the electoral college, this state WILL republican. Aside from primaries, my vote simply will not matter. I know if everyone who said that did something , but I have yet to see it even be close to making a difference. Why should I vote when the outcome doesn't have a chance to change? My beliefs are different than my peers. I don't have a problem with having different beliefs than my peers, but it seems that with the way of politics, it is always us vs. them . If I get involved in a discussion, I will simply have mud slung at me with no desire to listen to my viewpoint, not allowing for any discussion. This is not the case for all of my friends, but at the risk of generalizing, it seems like a lot of people don't have any interest in discussion, but simply having their viewpoints reaffirmed. There are areas like foreign policy that I cannot even fathom to understand I can educate myself on these issues as much as I want, but I do not think I will even come close to truly understanding the true nature of international politics. There is so much information I will never know, I will always feel uneducated. It affects so many people that I cannot relate to. I will never know what it is like to be in the middle east. I will never understand what the implications of getting involved or not getting involved. Sorry if this is disorganized, I'm not very good at articulating my thoughts on politics because I avoid it so much. To provide a little bit of background, I have noticed lately that a lot of my peers 18 24 age range on facebook have been getting more and more involved into politics. As you would imagine, many of these posts would mirror that of r politics, in the sense that it is very much pro Bernie and all about getting involved, name recognition, etc. For what it's worth, I am libertarian, and while I like the guy as a person, I just can't agree with some of his ideologies.","conclusion":"It is pointless for me to be involved with politics outside of the local level"}
{"id":"3bc1b5f6-f0b8-4b18-9fe2-4f5eba278ba5","argument":"The EU has signalled its resolve not to back down from such a confrontation, saying that it will ban European companies from complying with US sanctions on Iran.","conclusion":"Trump is considering applying sanctions upon European companies that continue trading with Iran under the terms of the deal, which will likely lead to an economic confrontation."}
{"id":"3618b787-10b4-4cd6-b750-d5b26104a661","argument":"The first article doesn't really support my position, as it provides 3 more possible explanations for the correlation, while the second one has a very strong stance, so make of them what you would. My view is not based on them, but more of a 'belief' through my observation, so no point would be given for argument about the articles, they are just supporting. x200B You can actually split my view into 2 parts environmental problems are resulted by population growth and the population growth is not being tackled because of greed, you could address one without the other. x200B For the first part, I'm just gonna be lazy and copy from the first article although it doesn't come with a strong conviction Population causes CO2. This is \u2018obvious\u2019 explanation that most people would give. The more people there are on our planet, the more CO2 generating activities there will be, such as electrical power generation, industrial activity, automobiles, cooking fires, and so on. Second part greed. A shrinking population would mean a shrinking wallet for the corporations a maintained population would mean no record turnover and profit of course it's still possible, just harder , meaning no soaring share price, again, a shrinking wallet relatively. Therefore it should not be surprising that while corporations pledge to reduce their CO2 emission, you have never heard about them addressing the population problem. If you thought I was merely gonna criticize the corporations the greed doesn't only lie in the corporations and the people behind them. We had and still have conservatism that prohibits contraception for various reasons, chief among them is so we can go to a place no one is proven to have ever been and then return safely. No longer do we want to subject ourselves to the daily physical slug that might weaken us and shorten our life span just to grow our own food. We want to taste food from the other side of the planet, even if they are not native to our diet and sometimes even causes allergy, either by having them delivered to our doorstep or being there physically and there's that too . All those are just a few examples of greed to be immortal, to have a less physically daunting hence 'easier' life, to Live Life^ TM . as in human as a species, generally, there is no way everyone of us could have lived from 1800 till now, when the population booms from 1 bil to 7.6 bil. I do not wish to discuss the solution because that in itself deserve another discussion. Also it's because frankly I do not know how to solve it, but I believe not having any solutions to a problem identified doesn't mean that problem is not a real problem.","conclusion":"Global environmental problems are ultimately resulted by greed via population growth."}
{"id":"0350a7a9-c5b4-46cf-bc0a-c61cbcc62b35","argument":"To be honest, I'm not sure I completely believe in the title opinion statement. The issue seems really complex to me, but at the moment that is what I think. Currently, the migrant crisis is one of the biggest items of concern for Europeans. Most Europeans say, with much accuracy, that the migrant stream has to be shut off because a immigrants are a weight on the economy, and b most migrants refuse to assimilate, creating a lot of social problems. However, I still feel like they have to own up to that problem. Western societies historically engaged in colonialism and imperialism and profited over it so much, that they achieved wealth that continues to earn their country the status of developed first world. Often times when they did this, they ended up creating conditions in the colonized country that would be unfavorable to their future development. I know most Europeans Americans would respond to this by saying I had nothing to do with this, why should I take responsibility over the past? but I find that to be a really weak argument. If my grandfather robbed somebody of something, died, and passed the stolen goods money down to me, don't I have a moral obligation to return the stolen items, even if I had nothing to do with the crime? I think I would. Maybe the main problem with my view is that it is purely moral, and not legal practical. But letting poor people work out the problems that are partly as a result of your people's past seems very selfish to me.","conclusion":"Western nations have a moral obligation to help the people of poorer countries"}
{"id":"e27d0ea3-c5ff-45dd-a82d-0fb5b5f76de8","argument":"In 2012 the journal of Food and Chemical Toxicology retracted an article that claimed that increased consumption of genetically modified maize caused cancer in rats. The article was misleading because of the limited sample size and because the rats used for the study had a known high incidence of cancer regardless of their diet. The study, despite being retracted, is still quoted online by anti genetically modified food activists.","conclusion":"Almost all articles that claim that genetically modified foods are unsafe for human consumption have since been discredited by scientists"}
{"id":"267f8b1b-a9ba-4f0f-a0ed-447491be9da8","argument":"I just saw an Independent article about how in spite of some westerns apparently finding it offensive that Scarlett Johansson had to been cast to play an originally Japanese character in the Ghost In The Shell movie, actual Japanese people did not seem to care. I have no opinion about whether or not casting Johansson is racist, but what bugged me about the article was the implication that Japanese people were somehow specially privileged to speak on the issue of what qualifies as racism in based on a manga or not a Hollywood movie. suppose there was an alternate reality where 1000 years ago something wiped out everyone on Earth apart from sub Saharan Africans. Everyone on that Earth would be black. If you went to that world and showed them examples of racism against black people from our world, they probably wouldn't understand it. They probably wouldn't understand it because in their world being black is totally synonymous with just being a person. If you then went to the trouble of explaining it to them they might gain some understand of racism in our world, but that understand would be totally abstract. It would remain abstract for the same reason a white person's understand of the topic might, they have never had the experience of being black in our reality. We often think that the opinions of black people should be given special privilege when discussing the issue of discrimination against black people, because they\u2019ve actually had life experience of it. It would make no sense to afford the people from this other world that privilege because, in spite of them being technically black, they live in a world where being black doesn\u2019t meant the same thing that it does in our world. I kind of feel like asking Japanese people their opinions about East Asian discrimination in the west, is idiotic for a pretty similar reason. Japan is 98 ethnically homogenous, for them being Japanese is the default. For them going through life having everyone around you view your ethnicity as a non issue is something they can take for granted. They have no more incentive than me me being a white person from a 96 white UK county to care what it\u2019s like to be East Asian in America, Canada, UK, etc, because like me they will never have to experience it. Unless they actually emigrate they can\u2019t have that life experience. I don\u2019t mean to criticize Japanese people. My point is that it\u2019s totally ridiculous to take people who live in a society where being East Asian has been the default since time immemorial, and ask them about the plight of East Asian people in a society where East Asian people didn\u2019t even use to get basic citizen\u2019s rights as standard, less than 200 years ago.","conclusion":"it's totally nonsensical to think Japanese people who have lived in Japan their entire lives have any special insight into discrimination against East Asians in the west"}
{"id":"b62efb46-aa6d-4f82-8882-51c5cac417a5","argument":"Research shows that women\u2019s reasons for choosing abortion are overwhelmingly tied to their life situation as opposed to abstract, moral or religious principles. pg.3","conclusion":"Many women have abortions despite moral opposition to the procedure."}
{"id":"bdb21b63-99b1-4856-b286-5b97a40d8545","argument":"I think that bystanders to crimes should be held liable for their inaction. This comes up a lot when talking about bullying and as someone who has been bullied, it just sickens me that other kids walk by you as if they saw nothing. I'm not advocating that bystanders should intervene, but I think that maybe telling someone with authority could help i.e. calling the police when assault is in progress or telling a teacher if you see bullying . I also obviously understand that you shouldn't be charged with the crime of literally doing nothing. I'm really conflicted on this issue, ?","conclusion":"I believe that bystanders should be held liable for their inaction when viewing a crime."}
{"id":"4709ef13-e4ae-4559-ade3-ca1453b4d7ca","argument":"Preface I'm not some closet racist. I understand the socio economic factors behind certain crime statistics. I'm merely using them to prove a point. I believe that insurance companies should not be charging young males such high insurance rates, relative to the rest of the population. It's predatory and unfair as age alone is not a clear indicator of driving ability, decision making skill, etc. It's prejudice in its purest form. How is this type of activity any different than racial profiling? Let's say I own a convenience store in a neighbourhood that 50 50 split black people and white people. Statistics say that black people are more likely to commit robbery and theft \u201cIn the year 2008, black youths, who make up 16 of the youth population, accounted for 52 of juvenile violent crime arrests, including 58 for homicide and 67 for robbery.\u201d so I add a 20 surcharge to all purchase made by black clientele to make up for the increased risks, and to make up costs associated with predominantly black theft. This would be completely illegal, and would most likely result in such a large community blowback that the store would be forced to shut down. Insurance companies doing a very similar thing however is completely ok? How are these any different? Sure, statistics say that young males are more likely to be in an auto accident. I understand that. At the same time, a black person is more likely to commit a robbery. Yet it's only acceptable to implement discriminatory pricing based on one of them? My young age and gender does not mean I'm going to get in an accident just because I'm statistically more likely to. The fact that my peers, and other young males get in more accidents does not make it fair to charge me more, just like it's not fair to charge an upstanding law abiding black male more because they're more likely to commit a robbery, statistically . I may be the best driver in the world Perhaps I've been learning to drive from the age of 4, and have more hours behind the wheel of a car and more skill than some 40 year old woman. Yet, if both of us try to secure an insurance policy with the exact same coverage for the exact same vehicle, I can expect to pay 2 10x more, just due to my age and gender. So, why is insurance companies practicing price discrimination perfectly common place, whereas doing the same thing based of race statistics is not only not practiced, but illegal ? Please . e.g. here is a quote comparison for two identical people, the only difference being age provided by u jftduncan gt That's not true. Age and experience are both used separately to calculate the premium. You can use one of the online tools to calculate quotes for identical applications except for the age. It'll show that that isn't correct. Driver born in 1995 Driver born in 1990","conclusion":"Charging absurdly inflated auto insurance rates for under-25 males is discriminatory and unfair, and no different than racial profiling"}
{"id":"14f048d3-5f79-401a-b899-5502b8f636d1","argument":"In Kantian ethics, the categorical imperative must be willed to be universal. As such, simply being the moral will or experience of the generalized people is not enough Since these imperatives must be universal to allow murder, one must allow it under all circumstances and by all people not just toward one specific group of people. Thus this is a grave distortion of Kant's ideas.","conclusion":"Even if the Administrator has an identical reasoned outcome to the collective will, he will not be acting in accordance to the categorical imperative, because Kant insists that we don't just do the right thing but do it for the right reasons. The right reason is that one's reason is derived from the categorical imperative."}
{"id":"6a602276-f631-4afa-9072-e7f238dca6be","argument":"General William Odom. \"'Supporting the troops' means withdrawing them\". July 05, 2007 - \"Gen. William Odom writes that opponents of the war should focus public attention on the fact that Bush\u2019s obstinate refusal to admit defeat is causing the troops enormous psychological as well as physical harm.\"","conclusion":"Keeping troops in Iraq beyond their call of duty is an abuse not an honor"}
{"id":"d106d1ee-6cfa-4b1f-a533-273ba4366d42","argument":"The National Security Agency NSA protects against terrorist attacks oversees the medium media through which sophisticated attacks can be organized has the ability to foresee such attacks before occurrence does not hold concern over personal matters of individuals neither does it nor should hold concern over revolutionary ideas, but rather for large scale and violent activities only The National Security Agency, and the safeguarding it provides, is a necessary exception to the right to privacy. Note The argument insisting that the NSA will lead to a complete strip of privacy bears slippery slope fallacy. Edit As I stated in a comment below in response to u lynxieflynx, gt I would revise my statement if I could. I do not support recent NSA activity in which the NSA exercised their power outside of their true concern security. I do however support the existence of the NSA and a government organization that overlooks the internet and other free communications at the expense of public privacy. Unconstitutional, but necessary. Edit2 I am logging off for now but will return later to read all your responses. Thanks to everyone. The discussion has broadened my understanding of the NSA, opened my mind to other interpretations of what is already understood, and has really questioned the depth of trust I have in current NSA activities.","conclusion":"I support recent NSA activity"}
{"id":"0af7f749-2f68-4d5a-b2b5-3957218bbf70","argument":"From what I understand, not giving a fuck is supposed to help with your anxieties and realize that the actions you take, regardless of their outcome, are ultimately inconsequential to the grand scheme of the short life we live. It has a certain poetic touch to it that I am often tempted to follow myself, but every time that I decide to follow it, I end up doing stupid things that I usually just regret i.e. getting too far with a joke about how my coworker should make their baby boy's first word the korean word for poop to which things just got pretty awkward with everyone . I don't know, maybe this is just me being dumb, but I can't help but feel that approaching your day to day life with the belief that your actions are inconsequential is either just an excuse for being too short sighted on the impact you have around others, or is just a way to get a feeling of pseudo confidence not unlike the effects of alcohol in making poor decisions in the hopes of getting a better social sex life. And maybe in the latter case, the context could make sense and maybe even in the broader sense in just life in general that we will all die someday, regardless of the actions we take it could be liberating. But, taking a look 5 10 years into the future following this sort of advice passed around like some frenzied chant in a frat house if you were out of a job, in debt, homeless and stuck in a foreign country while you were out backpacking because you couldn't pay for the way back home hypothetical btw, but I believe possible if you were following the aforementioned don't give a fuck mindset how would you feel if you expected life to just be all grand unicorns and rainbows? Of course, you could just brush aside your current problems as trivial, simply thinking no matter what, I will be ok and in a way, I suppose you would be right. But, there has to be a breaking point somewhere, right? I mean, who in their right mind would want to live like Diogenes, who lived on the dirt floor of the marketplace, begging for his food, defecating in public just to follow his philosophy of simple living which all also applies under the rule of don't give a shit . Maybe I was a bit extreme with my example, but I think this self destructive pattern can be applied for milder cases. Please let me know what you think about this and feel free to tell me why I'm dumb or justified for thinking this.","conclusion":"\"Just Stop Giving a Shit\/Fuck\" is terrible advice that will often lead to irrational, self-destructive behavior\/decisions."}
{"id":"4477e1a7-4724-4eed-84e0-dc9cb47159c3","argument":"I do believe that the American system should focus more on corrections than punishment, and people who've committed minor crimes should not be waiting in jail for a trial, but I think it's way too radical to completely get rid of jails and prisons. I just think there's some people who commit crimes so depraved rape, murder, child abuse, etc. that shouldn't walk among us because there's little to no chance of rehabilitation for them. I would not feel comfortable having someone that's harmed my family or me walking around freely because he can be rehabilitated, and this notion implies that every criminal who commits a violent crime would comply with corrections as opposed to lashing out resisting. I don't agree with the way America is currently handling it's criminal justice system, but there is no way we should be getting rid of prisons that lock away people who are genuinely dangerous to the general public. I'm open to having people change my view on this nicely which is why I came here. I've gotten into arguments about this before in real life they haven't been the most cordial.","conclusion":"I believe in criminal justice reform, but I don't think jails\/prisons should be abolished."}
{"id":"2e7f755a-e7fb-4879-abfa-46bdd2c975be","argument":"Supreme Court nominees are evaluated based on their ability to write clearly and persuasively, to harmonise a body of law, and to give meaningful guidance to the trial and circuit courts and the bar for future cases ABA, p. 9 These are the requirements of a good Supreme Court Justice; their ideological predispositions should not effect their tenure.","conclusion":"The American Bar Association's Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary evaluates each nominee to the Supreme Court, ensuring that every Justice on the court is sufficiently qualified."}
{"id":"ab5a97e0-778f-4b62-bde3-56b9d52ddbed","argument":"Due to my own experiences, I believe biochemistry neurotransmitters, hormones, inflammation rule your mental health primarily. Notice I included hormones and inflammation as part of this, so I am NOT saying the simple chemical imbalance theory. While some may discredit or credit that on the basis of SSRIs, I don't think that is right. Im referring to a more broad since of physiology here. The reason I believe this is that ones psychology can change very very dramatically when biochemistry changes. Some people but not everybody can become severely depressed with Finasteride which depletes Allopregnanolone, a GABAergic neurosteroid or Ciprofloxacin or Interferon alpha induces inflammation . Its possible to get long term depression or anxiety out of nowhere too or with something that screws around with the HPA axis. Such as EBV leading to CFS or depression. Or even just low Testosterone causing low confidence or social anxiety or general anxiety. The reason I say this is that there are days where I can feel amazing and days where I feel like shit, both for no reason. Also, I can manipulate hormones or NTs for example and produce feel good effects. Or I can do something like smoke weed, which for me recently I had a bad reaction to and then felt anhedonic and lost all sociability for a week. Im convinced biochemistry is the biggest if not the end all be all component of psychology mental health. Physiological things can produce dramatic effects on mental health VERY QUICKLY whereas psychological things take a long time EG Inducing social anxiety via depleting for example GABA can happen very quickly vs. Long term social defeat causing social anxiety takes a long time","conclusion":"Biochemistry\/Physiology rule mental health first and foremost"}
{"id":"9df59597-cc11-44bd-a8f2-4aa16e843105","argument":"Roman Polanski achieved widespread fame and success as a film maker despite having numerous sexual assault allegations against him, both of children and adults. He ended up not having to face any consequences for his actions as he fled the states and continued to enjoy his film-making carrier in other countries.","conclusion":"The entertainment industry has repeatedly failed to act in response to allegations."}
{"id":"5a5c8c4c-cf43-4540-82d5-7426093264e9","argument":"The combination of species extinction, ocean acidification, and the \"Methane Time Bomb under the Arctic means humanity faces an immediate existential threat that could lead to our extinction within this century. In the Permian Mass Extinction 83% of all life went extinct. Therefore, we should overcome political, economic, and ideological divisions to address this now, collectively.","conclusion":"The impending ecological crisis is our most pressing threat, and we must act on it now."}
{"id":"55cc4ff5-0cfd-462b-b225-971670e8478a","argument":"Democracy allows the state to take into account the realities of more than one class of people. Whilst the ability to adapt under any form of autocracy will be up to a single person, which is unaware of the realities of a great deal of his subjects. One cannot ask someone who has everything what it is to live in poverty, one cannot ask him to solve a problem he knows nothing about, no matter how wise.","conclusion":"The Enlightened Despot is incapable of understanding everything that needs to be done, whereas an effective democracy reflects the needs of all the people."}
{"id":"56c30fed-54d2-49d4-93df-710758da0778","argument":"Much fewer bisexual people have revealed their sexual orientation at work than lesbian or gay people.","conclusion":"It isn't even clear how an employer would figure out that their employee was bisexual."}
{"id":"e8ab5c51-0462-4185-9afe-8aa79a335b7e","argument":"After studying politics at university, specifically a module on ethics, I have come to the conclusion that we have no free will. Before this module I always thought free will was a shaky concept, and this module just seemed to confirm my views. Obviously, I live my life pretending free will exists, otherwise I wouldn't be able to blame or praise people at all. However, I've had long conversations with people who believe they deserve things that they actually haven't had much of an influence on. For example to outline my perspective , a friend of mine got a place at a top university and believes she deserves this place because of her hard work. In fact, she believes she deserves it more that students who went to private school because she went to a state school we're talking UK definitions here . I argued that, although private schools can indeed confer an advantage on students, she still wasn't entirely responsible for getting a place at a top university. Other factors such as her family being stable and her parents being very intelligent also played into this. Her family is wealthy, so she never had to have a job when she was in her teenage years, so she had more time to study. Small factors like this, along with many many others, slowly erode what you perceive to be your own 'hard work'. In my view, everything we do is predetermined by our upbringing, environment, and other factors. We have no free will, it's just an illusion that keeps society stable because without it there would be no blame or praise. There'd be no justice system","conclusion":"I'm a hard determinist, so I don't believe we have free will at all."}
{"id":"ce74d3ae-458d-47a0-b7fc-3e415eedab97","argument":"The ICC may well lead to the political prosecution of war criminals, but that is not necessarily the most effective means to peace, or lasting peace for victims. As U.S. policy papers have pointed out, despots like Pol Pot and Saddam Hussein did not consult lawyers over potential legal ramifications before they committed their respective human rights violations1. Furthermore, the impact on an oppressed population of a long, protracted trial of their fallen dictator is not always therapeutic for it can dredge up events of particularly melancholic qualities and grants the dictator a platform to continue his psychological control over his population. 1 Elsea, J. K. 2006. U.S. Policy Regarding the International Criminal Court. Congressional Research Service, p. 22.","conclusion":"It may be in the best interests of victims and their state for war criminals not to be brought to trial."}
{"id":"ef1b11f5-67f0-4388-950f-0db10940b5be","argument":"I only recently accepted the idea of workaholism as a thing so my opinions on the subject continued to blossom as I was writing this. The thing reads like an ode to Robert California, but seems like a perfectly rational radical belief to me. The premises are as follows Alcoholism an unmanageable compulsive desire to consume alcohol is widely accepted as a disease independently of the dispute regarding its source. Presently, the heritability of alcohol dependence is estimated to be between 38 and 64 . This means genetic and environmental factors contribute varying amounts to risk for this condition, probably depending on the population in question 1 . Workaholism an unmanageable compulsive desire to work is gaining acceptance as a disease in the same vein as that of alcoholism. The workaholic's mutated body produces adrenaline as a result of a consistently heightened level of stress, and those who are addicted to work are in fact experiencing some level of substance addiction. 2 Psychologically, these disorders seem similar enough to me that they would share common risk factors and treatment methods. Kar\u014dshi, as workaholism is known in Japan, is considered a serious social problem leading to early death, often on the job. The same does not follow in other Western nations, though, which implies that environmental factors allow workaholics to manage their genetic mutation in a not so destructive way. In fact, the mutation is commonly considered laughing material in America, while I am of the opinion that workaholics in America are significantly likely to be found in positions of power. At first glance, this seems to me like the difference lies in the workaholic's ability to manage his heightened level of stress. The substance the workaholic is addicted to is not an intrinsically harmful chemical manufactured outside the body. Therefore workaholism, if properly managed, leads to a mutated version of human who is able to be significantly more productive in an environment without boundaries on what can be achieved than the average person. Accordingly, the properly managed workaholic is a mutant and somewhere, some kid is actually moving metal using only his mind 4 .","conclusion":"Workaholism gives you superpowers."}
{"id":"f0ab99dc-6490-4db6-9bcf-a07f14f01b2c","argument":"One single bathroom for all genders and non-genders is the most realistic yet effective option if society wishes to create more inclusive spaces.","conclusion":"No public restrooms of any sort should be separated by either sex or gender."}
{"id":"e1af94a1-0bab-4d95-852e-7f783eccf78d","argument":"Modern Democracies are not adapting quickly enough to the opportunities and threats arising from modern technologies. The rise in easy direct dialogue twitter , email, other social media and other possibilities represent step changes that should be taken advantage of. Resilience includes the consideration of adaptation and changes of methods p53-55 .","conclusion":"Modern technologies including communication and data management, can be used to massively engage citizens in the democratic process in ways that were previously not possible. So our models of Democracy, that were right a couple of centuries ago, should be modified for the 21st Century and this may prevent, or delay, failure."}
{"id":"b370d194-e3e0-4cc1-9e75-1fcc883ff557","argument":"As long as coalition forces are present on Afghan soil, the Taliban will refuse to negotiate or work towards peace. Western forces are themselves the cause of prolonged conflict.","conclusion":"Western forces are harming the country more than they are helping to protect and rebuild it."}
{"id":"c2e3588c-309b-4ba5-82d7-6e7994986522","argument":"When animals receive the same rights as humans they also have to fulfill the same duties and contribute to society. Therefore they can be forced to work, e.g. on the fields or to pollenize plants and crops.","conclusion":"Farming inevitably murders animals too, so that would have to be forbidden."}
{"id":"a91c5b5b-99e4-4b6b-9221-c7029e6137b6","argument":"When the media and society reinforce these strict expectations, it is thought to contribute to the development of eating disorders and extreme dieting as people try and meet these expectations.","conclusion":"These strict expectations regarding appearance lead to a significant amount of body dissatisfaction, especially among young people"}
{"id":"6d9de00c-fa19-424a-b3eb-bdc2ef5fca1b","argument":"Just an FYI I am an independant My reasoning is actually very simple. It seems that in order to win the nomination, a republican candidate has to bring out the crazy . The three front runners Cruz, Trump, and Carson have all clearly done this. Essentially they are saying out loud what the fanatical republican base is already thinking. However, in order to actually win the presidential election, you have to have some support from moderates and independants. You can't just rely on the far right. Since they proclaimed such radical views prior to the election, they won't have enough support from the moderates and independants, and will lose. Democrats don't face this problem nearly as severely as Republicans do. Bernie Sanders is kind of the liberal version of Trump, but liberal radical views are more along the lines of taxing the rich to pay for things we can't afford. This goes over a lot better than 'Let's not allow any muslims in our country', or 'climate change is a hoax'.","conclusion":"I don't believe we'll see another republican president for a very long time, maybe never"}
{"id":"2b75eed8-c329-4bff-893a-98a1996fb0b0","argument":"When I see people in difficulty, I have a very strong urge to help them. Though I can't claim to be any sort of humanitarian, I have in the past often helped friends, acquaintances and colleagues. However I've noticed that when my aid involves a possible risk on my behalf, more often than not I end up losing as a result of the other person failing to behave altruistically in return. Then I regret that I helped at all. I want to be the kind of person that thinks of others before themselves, but I can't handle feeling like I've been cheated and as such have decided to stop helping people if I could potentially lose from it in any way.","conclusion":"I'm beginning to think that I shouldn't go out of my way to help people if I could stand to lose from it."}
{"id":"e3f8be62-c712-4ca9-b576-b5ab881053e9","argument":"She can't control the fact that she gets older. To me, she's an artist continuing her career and doing what she loves. People make fun of her because they're used to seeing 20 year old singers and young artists, but being a musician should be just like other careers nobody would make fun of a 56 year old lawyer, but when Madonna continues singing into her old age she gets made fun of for being a dinosaur and gets criticism for Trying to stay relevant by collaborating with Nicki Minaj. Of course she's trying to stay relevant. All artists try to stay relevant. It's how they make their living. I just don't see anything wrong with Madonna continuing to perform into her 50s.","conclusion":"People shouldn't make fun of Madonna for being old."}
{"id":"cf47e095-e2c1-45ca-ab27-3edbf52f6bd4","argument":"I did a quick search about this, but didn't find a thread directly addressing this. My view is that energy weapons lasers, emps will never completely replace technology that is based on a gun . Projectile weapons will always have a place because they're based off of a physical chemical reaction that can't be altered by any sort of energy power failure. This may be a futurology type debate, however I didn't completely form this opinion until the Navy has both completed successful tests of both rail guns, and lasers. The fact that a railgun is still a serious option for the Navy gives a lot of weight to my point. , reddit.","conclusion":"Kinetic weapons will never become obsolete."}
{"id":"6afccfe5-4592-49d8-8561-785a6c2f0e77","argument":"Immigration, can not reduce the worlds poverty, immigration will not fix the problems expressed. Taking individuals from impoverished populations with the goal to fix world poverty, or fix the worlds problems; is immoral, and ineffective. www.youtube.com","conclusion":"Any responsibility that high-income countries have towards refugees can typically be discharged without taking them in."}
{"id":"14109428-f4ed-41d6-8f75-02afbcf0d688","argument":"Despite some common myth to the contrary, studies have shown that children thrive in households with gay parents.","conclusion":"Regardless of sexuality, anyone should have the right to raise a child."}
{"id":"9b93cdb8-54ca-4d9e-ba0c-c80dd1e80249","argument":"17% of the total carbon footprint caused by technology is because of data centers. In addition, a lot of energy is wasted as servers don't always run on full capacity.","conclusion":"Increasing computing efficiency will lower electricity usage for the same results, and thus lower carbon emissions and other environmental damage."}
{"id":"fd197a1f-eb74-44b5-aacc-bc62b1acfc4d","argument":"EDIT I realize this is far from concise. I'm never sure how much detail I should include in my writing, so I tend to err on the high end. I also wanted to include as much detail as was practical to try to frame the discussion well and avoid us talking over past one another. If you read the entire OP then all I can say is God bless you, you beautiful bastard. x200B To be clear, my position specifically regards recreational bear hunting i.e. any kind of hunting that isn't carried out for the obvious reason of food in a wilderness survival setting or by a forestry service for the specific purpose of euthanizing a specific animal who is sick wounded or who has attacked a human. That kind of hunting merits a separate discussion. But any hunting by private individuals which falls outside that very narrow scope of forestry work or survival, even when it allegedly aids population control efforts because it falls within a certain season, is what I consider to be recreational hunting for the purposes of this conversation. Also, note that I'm writing in the US and if I ever mention gov't policy or the culture surrounding bear hunting, I'm referring to what exists here in America. Apologies for that but my scope of experience is somewhat limited. If anyone has insight on these matters from another part of the globe, you are welcomed and encouraged to share \u200b A little background I live in western North Carolina where bear hunting is considered a heritage sport and I spend a lot of time in the wooded slopes of the Blue Ridge. In doing so, I encounter wild black bears frequently at least several times each year. They love to hang out in the thickets of blueberry and blackberry bushes which choke the high ridges and the occasional power line cut, which is something we actually have in common. There's really nothing better than some fresh picked wild blackberries. This brings me to one of my main premises, which is that bears are not your average dumb beasts. I'm not sure how much I should elaborate on this point, because I could mention mountains of evidence stemming from my own encounters with bears, but the point is that wherever you want to draw a line in the sand between sentient and non sentient beings, you would be remiss not to include bears in the sentient category. I'm not here to propose a fully fledged theory of sentience. But what I can do is draw upon my personal experience to conclude that bears are sensible, caring, empathic creatures endowed with a natural sense of curiosity that is not all that different than our own. They aren't naturally aggressive or destructive in any respect. In some sense, even, the lives they lead are more noble and righteous than many of our own. \u200b Maybe it's somewhat arbitrary to make such a grand distinction between bears and other animals that people hunt like deer and quail and whatnot, but again, we have to draw the line somewhere as to what kind of animal is and isn't ok to kill for sport And I for one, knowing what I know about bears, could never imagine sport killing such an obviously intelligent and emotive creature. At its heart, that's why I think bear hunting is immoral they're just too humanlike, and if we think that such a person y creature is still Other enough that we deem it acceptable to kill that creature for sport, then I don't see there being much of anything left to stop us from othering certain kinds of humans in a similar way and before you charge me with using the slippery slope fallacy, recall that human civ has a long historic tradition of both bear hunting and brutal dehumanization . So that's the question I have for bear hunters if you respect the rights and dignity of other humans as you should then how come it's so easy for you to disregard the rights and dignity of a creature that clearly shows these uncannily similar intellectual emotional traits? Yeah, bears aren't humans. But morally speaking that's a spine tinglingly fine line you're drawing when the question is literally, Can I kill this for fun? So either you're engaging in these cantankerous mental gymnastics, you're a sadist and you just don't care, or you're woefully, maybe willfully ignorant of how similar to us in terms of inner life bears really are. But I take that human bear similarity as an empirical fact. I think any rationally responsible person could reach the same conclusion given ample personal experience with bears in the wild. I won't dwell on that point too long because I don't want to be accused of soapboxing and if you want to try to convince me that bears aren't really all that intellectually emotionally complex or similar to us then by all means go for it. All I'll say though is that I have a lot of evidence to back this belief up, so unless you're some sort of expert you probably won't get very far. But that's not the view I came here to test anyway. It is the fundamental reason I think bear hunting is wrong coupled with the moral premise I just explained, which I suppose is fair  game too, but I digress . But what I'm really wondering is given the empirical premise that bears are as intelligent as I say they are, and given the ethical premise that generally speaking it's wrong to sport kill creatures with that level of intelligence, are there any out standing reasons that make rec bear hunting morally justified? My view is that the answer to this question is a resounding No. And I think it should be outlawed on the grounds that it's a gross misuse of public land resources, as is anything that's categorically unethical. \u200b Forgive me for being long winded, but I'd like to frame the discussion by mentioning the two strongest pro bear hunting counterarguments I can think of and explain why they don't convince me as I understand them. From what I can tell, there's the heritage argument and the conservation argument. Neither argument necessarily disputes either of my original premises, the ones I just discussed. They just disagree that these premises imply that bear hunting is necessarily wrong, and they invoke further nuances of the situation to make that case. That, you could say, is their logical strength. \u200b The heritage argument is, as I mentioned, a popular one in the area where I live. Bear hunting is culturally significant in southern Appalachia, no doubt about it. I can easily imagine growing up in one of the isolated mountain hollers of Madison County, NC and having bear hunts be some of the most exciting and memorable events of my young life. That's not meant to be condescending at all. Bear hunting is a way for people who live in close proximity to one another to enrich their relationships and especially in a rural setting, that's everything. In a place where there aren't a lot of people around in the first place, you want to be able to depend on the ones who are. And with the inherent danger of bear hunting, in some circles a kid's first bear hunt can be seen as sort of a coming of age thing, which we all know is deeply significant. So if I grew up with that rural Appalachian background, I might say, Look, I get that bear hunting doesn't appeal to our 21st century sensibilities but that's kinda the thing it's not a 21st century development for me and my community. It's something that's been an important part of our way of life since our ancestors settled here hundreds of years ago. So even though it doesn't entirely square with the way you're thinking about moral right and wrong, and even if you're right about that in theory, it would be unfairly disruptive to our community in specific for you to come in and say that this thing which is a longstanding tradition for us is no longer allowed. I can't emphasize how sympathetic I am to that position. One thing you have to understand about the rural communities in places like Appalachia is that they have faced a long long history of exploitation, neglect, and unfair stereotypes perpetrated in large part by city folk who either resent their socially conservative allegiances or who see in them an opportunity for cheap and willing labor. So rural folk, especially in Appalachia, have every right to mistrust outsiders who want to change the laws, cultural norms, or economic policies that affect their communities. The reason this heritage argument doesn't do it for me is that while tradition is vital, I don't think it's sacred. Traditions inevitably change. And they never exist in a vacuum. So frankly, I don't think that condemning or even banning bear hunting outright would really do much damage to the communities that practice them. These are the same communities that have rich traditions of art, music, craft, and so on that are still incredibly vibrant. Besides, if you really need to go kill something there are always deer, and there is deep tradition in that kind of hunting too. Basically, I think this argument comes from a well founded mistrust in authority, but it fails to demonstrate why bear hunting is SO culturally important that we should compromise our morals as a society to accommodate it. With that being said, though, it's important to maintain that so far as we ask these rural communities to give up one of their traditions we owe them for that and for so much more. Their interests and their needs must not be overlooked in the political and economic theater, as they largely have been throughout US history. \u200b The other argument is the conservation argument, which basically states that well regulated bear hunting is good for the ecosystem as a means of population management. Now, I'm not an ecologist or a forestry expert so if any of you are then maybe you'll be able to completely shred me on this point if so, good . But I'll say that I definitely understand how this is a sound principle with regards to deer hunting. I just don't see it for bears. Deer breed like crazy and they eat an almost incomprehensible amount of foliage. Then their refuse builds up in the waterways and causes more problems. Like I get it. They're herd animals. They can do a lot of damage if their populations aren't kept in check. That's why frankly I couldn't care less how intellectually advanced deer are when addressing the moral question of rec deer hunting. If bears, with their intellect, were the same way as deer when it comes to population, I wouldn't bat an eye about bear hunting. Hell, the only reason an open season on human beings couldn't be justified on the grounds of population control is that we're actually not entirely incapable of regulating our own rates of reproduction, despite what some people might tell you. And there are still too many of us anyway. But the point is, deer haven't learned that trick yet and their numbers need to be controlled, and using recreational hunters to achieve that is honestly kind of a stroke of genius. If people are going to be hunting in the woods then there need to be regulations anyway. So let's just regulate it in such a way that it becomes an effective forestry management strategy. Brilliant But then I hear people use the same argument to justify bear hunting and I have to scratch my head. Bears are not liable to cause any of the population problems that deer create. They don't reproduce at the same rate, or decimate foliage, or develop large herds or packs, or pollute water sources, or damage crops. I assume that livestock herds in bear lands suffer the occasional bear attack, but bears are notoriously timid so I can't imagine this would be widespread enough to justify a wholesale, seasonal population control effort utilizing recreational hunters, even if, as a herdsman, you may need to shoot a particularly trouble making bear once every blue moon and even then, this isn't the 19th century we have plenty of non lethal wild animal deterrents at our disposal so I really don't buy the they damage property so we should hunt them for fun argument . Not to mention, the deer problem is one that we created by decimating woodland habitats and ruthlessly hunting the deer's natural predators incl. bears . So I can't even fathom how there could be too many bears when there's literally a surplus of bear food in the environment. It also just rubs me the wrong way to hear bear hunters basically claiming its good for the environment when that's clearly not the reason y'all are out bear hunting, even if it is true. That's part of the whole appreciating nature rhetoric in hunting culture, especially big game hunting, which I think is incredibly bizarre. We hunt bears because we appreciate them. Yeah, right, and I'm gonna appreciate this flower by pulling all its petals off. You can maybe slide by with that rhetoric regarding deer hunting. But bears? No way. So anyway, at its surface, this conservation argument doesn't even make sense to me. It's compelling to me only in the sense that it doesn't violate the basic premises I've accepted as true, and I have to consider that my understanding of the biology ecology facts here could just be wrong. \u200b That's all I got. Roast me fam. Well don't really roast me just tell me where how I'm wrong and lets talk abt it. This is something I feel very passionately about, but I'm well aware that there are people just as passionate on the other side of the debate from me and I want to honor that above all else. I won't say I respect any all opinions but I definitely reserve my disrespect for the ones who really really deserve it, and I sincerely doubt it'll come to that. This is my first time posting in this subreddit also one of my first posts on reddit ever but I have to say I think the concept being explored here is very exciting and cool. Bring on the dialogue","conclusion":"Recreational bear hunting is morally repugnant and should probably be banned outright if not just strongly and publicly condemned"}
{"id":"bc02af57-3f29-43c1-80d4-25923ec6b51b","argument":"The free trade foundation is of comparative advantage. The countries that are involved should have a significant comparative advantage against its partner. This model should work perfectly if the agreement is exclusive between only two countries. So, for example Country Y, which has a comparative advantage in commodity A, B, and C, while Country Z, which has a comparative advantage in commodity D, E and F, the two countries can sign the agreement and shares the advantage of global trading. But Adam Smith, contrary to HC Andersen, could never guarantee a happily ever after ending, because unlike marriage, free trade agreement is not monogamy. Country Y, can also sign a free trade agreement with country X, which supplies commodity E, G, and H. It Country Y could also sign an agreement with Country W, which supplies commodity E, I, and J. So now, country Z, X, and W will compete in the market of country Y for the same commodity E. So there is now a competition between them. But, what is wrong with the competition, isn\u2019t all trades involves competition? Following opposition\u2019s assumptions, given that consumers tend to choose the cheap between the convenient scroll down, see No point 3 the competition between country Z, X, and W will become a \"race to the bottom\", where the condition causes the reduction of price to its lowest level. If they are richer countries that can subsidize their commodity there will be no problem. For example, Europe with its Common Agricultural Policy For poorer countries, to preserve profits while keeping its competitiveness in unreasonable price, the only option is to lower its labour wage. Chile, as an example, is proud of its status as one of the most open countries in the world. It has signed 47 free trade agreements. In the agricultural industry, Chile exports products such as grapes for wine, fruit, and salmon. The cost that Chile has to pay to preserve profit for transnational companies is an increased insecurity for millions of women workers; being paid below minimum and losing their labour right.ibid In the fruit-picking sector, 75% of women work more than 60 hours a week in season, on temporary contracts, and a third of them do not earn even the minimum wage. Half of these women have no contract, and therefore there is no welfare system to support them if disaster struck.ibid This is also evident in China with its textile industry. Minimum legal wages in the developing countries hovered around US$30-50 a month. This is equivalent in China to 240-400 RMB a month. The legal minimum wage in Shenzhen, the Chinese city with the highest minimum wage, is only equivalent to US$42. China has set its minimum wage standards very low, to the point that it is even compete with Vietnam and Cambodia - two countries where the cost of living is lower than in China. In Mexico, El Salvador and Nicaragua, the wage levels are slightly higher than Asian wages, but this competitive disadvantage is largely cancelled out by the proximity of Central America to the American market, the biggest market of textile. China biggest competitor for US market is Mexico; today China and Mexico are competing neck and neck for the American market, each supplying around 15% of all apparel imports to the US. ibid, p3. Mexico, having their status as a country with FTA with the US, enjoys the advantage of geographical distance to the US. Along the US-Mexican border assembly plants called maquiladoras have mushroomed, employing about a million migrant workers in various labour - intensive industries. This number is still small compared to the 12 million in Guangdong province alone, but, justifying opposition\u2019s claim on growth, it represents a 150% increase in Mexico since 1990 The Economist, July 7th 20 01, pp. 27- 30. The 150% increase is huge for an economic indicator, but align with our a priori before, the increase did not affect labour wage. The minimum legal wages in Mexico are almost double compared to Shenzhen, and this produces pressures on Mexican wage trends. In the manufacturing sector, real wages dropped by 20% during the 1990s. According to the ILO\u2019s estimate, the migrant workers\u2019 wages in Mexico\u2019s apparel industry shed 28% of their purchasing power in the period between 1994 and 1999. This is the bitter reality of free trade, which fails in increasing labour\u2019s welfare, as a price of macroeconomic growth. Mexico is one of the countries that aware with this problem. That is why Mexico was the last country to sign a FTA with China, delaying China\u2019s entry into the WTO. Mexico perhaps by now knew by learning from past mistakes, that when the trade barriers are removed, it would have much to lose. But the international pressure was too great for Mexico to stand its ground. ibid, p4","conclusion":"Free trade is not Free Trade : Labor welfare for the price of macroeconomic indicators growth"}
{"id":"a84653d5-332a-4804-87b1-8e2ab70ddac4","argument":"European leaders need to consider whether their methods are likely to achieve the result they want. What Europe\u2019s leaders want is first of all Yulia Timoshenko released and secondly improvements in Ukrainian human rights. Timoshenko is unlikely to be released as she has been convicted on charges of abuse of office and sentenced to seven years in prison; the best that could be hoped for is an improvement in her treatment. Similarly the result is not likely to be positive for human rights and democracy. There might be an improvement during the games while the eyes of the world are on Ukraine but long term there will be no impact unless Yanukovych is persuaded that improvements are in his benefit. This would require more concrete and long term actions than one off boycotts. Past boycotts have demonstrated a lack of success in changing the situation on the ground. In the 1980 Olympics held in Moscow during the Cold War the USA boycotted in response to the 1979 invasion by the USSR of Afghanistan. The result was that the Soviet Union stayed in Afghanistan, won most medals in the Olympics and retaliated by boycotting the 1984 games held in Los Angeles.1 1 Gera, Vanessa, \u2018Boycott of Ukraine During Euro 2012 Carries Risk\u2019, Associated Press, 11 May 2012.","conclusion":"A boycott won\u2019t help resolve the issues at question"}
{"id":"b72bd39c-2b9e-4c8f-8054-d3b327f48df8","argument":"Okay, my post requires a bit of setup, so read on please I also think this is a relevant conversation to have since there have been from what I can tell no posts on the iOS Android discussion since the release of iOS 7. I'll tell a little of my phone history. My first smartphone was a Motorola Droid 2 Global, back in 2011ish. I ditched it when I discovered the microphone wouldn't turn on during calls. Since I didn't text at the time, that was a deal breaker. I bought an iPhone 4s in 2012 and have had the same unit since. So in my personal experience, iPhone longevity gt Motorola longevity. That's just background to the bigger issue at hand. My 2 year contract is up and I'm considering a new phone. So I'm here to get educated on the advancements in the Android OS and Android's hardware since 2011 and how they compare to iOS and iPhones. My working hypothesis, currently, is that in terms of how I use my phone light app using, little to no games, heavy music listening and heavy texting and phone calling , the two phones in the title are perfect substitutes. I'm no audiophile, by any means, but the phone's built in speakers matter little and less to me. Processor, memory, these don't matter terribly much to me. Screen size is not a concern between the competitors. I would need to upgrade to something along the lines of a Galaxy Tab or Note to see any appreciable increases in productivity. That's not really an issue, since I have an iPad to do my tablet y things on. To elaborate on my statement in the title The variety of features offered by iPhones make it as a unit superior to its Android counterparts. iPod and iTunes integration means my music is always accessible and playable. iCould sync means that I don't have to worry about my data. The fact that all of these services are free to use makes the iPhone a better use of my money than purchasing a comparably priced Android phone and paying money for comparable services. The widespread availability of accessories also increases the iPhone's value. Most importantly, features like iMessage decrease the overall cost of operating the phone, increasing its value as an investment To be honest, I might have to upgrade my texting plan if I change phone types, since a large number of people I text also have iPhones . The App Store's selection, while comparable with the Android counterparts Google Play, Amazon App, etc is often more innovative, and new apps take longer to reach Android phones. This is not a question of hardware. This is a question of which offers the best features and gets me the biggest bang for my buck. Thank you,  I'm interested to hear what you have to say","conclusion":"The iPhone 5s is a better long-term investment than a Samsung Galaxy S4."}
{"id":"06c26389-536a-4699-9a1b-f4b2d0e5e7b6","argument":"we should subsidize space exploration because it is the future of our species at stake. the earth is slowly dying due to global warming and it is necessary to find our next livable planet to move to","conclusion":"Space exploration is necessary for the future survival of humanity"}
{"id":"c31eb6d1-a52f-4761-8ceb-606f2f17783b","argument":"The variety of religions polarizes the faith of human beings, confronting each other. Moral values and love are universal and religion only divides morality by justifying any conflict between the goodwill of the believers.","conclusion":"Religions have been a prominent source of conflict and strife all over the world and through all ages."}
{"id":"26b7a379-86a9-42e6-b0e6-15ef802d249d","argument":"My view is that if a mother wants to give her newborn child up for adoption and there is a family willing and able to adopt the child, then the mother should not be liable for mandatory child support in the case that the father does not agree to give the child up for adoption. While I do believe that the father should have the right to claim the child and deny the adoption, he should not then be able to collect child support after he overrides the mother's wish to give the child up for adoption. If there is no family willing to adopt the child, then I believe mandatory child support is necessary since there is no one else willing to provide for the child. However, if there is a willing and able family to adopt the child, then it is no longer a question of whether the child\u2019s needs can be fulfilled and now a question of who should raise the child. And in the case that the biological parents disagree on whether they are able to support a child together, I do not believe that one parent should be able to obligate the other into supporting the child when there is another family eager to provide support for the child. For example, consider the case that two 18 year olds have a child together. The mother may realize that they do not have the resources to support a child and that raising a child will jeopardize their chances of developing careers or completing college educations. In this case, I do not think the father should have the right to obligate her to support the child if she is unable to convince him that they need to move forward with an adoption due to the fact that they do not have the resources to support a child. Essentially, I do not think the father should have the right to deny the support that the adoptive family is offering the child and then demand the support from the mother. Obviously, the reason that we make child support mandatory is because the child should never suffer as an innocent bystander and had no choice whatsoever in the matter. However, in the same way that the parents are trusted to make decisions in the best interest of the child with regard to spending child support, parents should be trusted to make the decision in the best interest of the child with regard to adoption. If the father cannot support the child, he should be expected to move forward with adoption as it is in the best interest of the child. As an aside, if the father declines the adoption to keep the child himself and the mother does not opt to support the child, she would lose all right to custody of the child. Also, the same should apply if the roles are reversed and the mother declines the father's wish to move forward with adoption. Finally, I am not advocating what I've seen called financial abortion where the father has the right to decline providing child support if the mother fails to get an abortion. I view abortion as a complicated medical choice and does not obligate the mother to support the child she should only be obligated to support the child if there is no willing and able adoptive family .","conclusion":"If there is a family willing and able to adopt a child, then the mother should not be liable for child support if the father does not agree to give the child up for adoption."}
{"id":"e8469040-ebdf-4b85-8d38-c1df2b60680c","argument":"I have recently been introduced to the concept of gender fluidity. It seems to me that this, as well as the push for the acceptance of people who are transgender but do not transition, is at odds with the idea that we shouldn't have certain expectations of men or women. If we define 'man' or 'woman' as the social expectations that we put on XX versus XY people, then those expectations have to remain in place in order for them to be useful terms. For a gender fluid person to say they feel like a man today and therefore they are going to act masculine and do manly things is fine, but reinforces the idea of what men 'should' be doing. Therefore, if we want to push for there to be no more expectations specifically of XX or XY people, that would not be compatible with gender fluidity as a concept. The most reinforcing aspect of this that I've seen was a man bearing his soul and being quite emotional and someone off Tumblr suggesting that he was actually a trans girl, because that's how girls talk. I realize that this is in no way representative of the movement as a whole, but I think it speaks pretty clearly to the concept of girl and boy now being linked to how girls and boys should behave, which is a concept I believe we should be fighting against. .","conclusion":"Supporting gender fluidity and trans-people who don't transition is sexist and reinforces gender stereotypes."}
{"id":"ca566418-b8fa-4543-bd84-66750666de41","argument":"A lot of the benefits of living in other 1st world countries outside of the US come from things like stronger social safety nets, more consumer protections, and increased social economic equity. As such, it seems like being poor in the US is not very easy compared to, say, Sweden, or even more similar countries like the UK or Canada or Australia. However, something I hear occasionally is if I was rich, I would love to live in the US . I find myself agreeing with this position. Here's how my logic plays out. Suppose I am upper middle class, with 100k to 150k per year in income. Many things that other countries supposedly do better than the US seem to be less important with access to higher income. Healthcare . The US has very good healthcare, if you can afford it. While health outcomes are not as good in the US for many things, this is largely attributed to lack of access, or reticence around going to the doctor because of fear of costs, rather than the actual quality of the care itself. Assuming I'm wealthy, I can afford the best doctors in the world. Low taxes and less welfare systems If I am rich, low taxes are awesome. And of course, less functional welfare systems don't really matter to me if I wouldn't qualify for them anyways. Crime The US has high rates of crime, particularly violent crime. However, this crime is generally concentrated in poor areas. If I live in a remote area owning land in a rural area or a rich area an condo in a wealthy urban center random crime matters less to me. Mass shootings, because they are extremely rare, are little concern to me. Education The US is middle of the road when it comes to education. However, assuming I am wealthy I can live in an area with good schools, or even pay for private schools. I think you get the point of my argument. The inequality in the US works to my advantage in most of these issues. Furthermore, the US offers a lot of great benefits for the wealthy such as cheap and available land to purchase. Our consumer culture means that we can purchase practically anything we want, as long as we can afford it. Many people in other countries lament when things are US only , such as online services like netflix shows, or new products from silicon valley. In the end, I feel like the benefits of being even moderately wealthy in the US are to great to ignore. Many of our problems are only problems that the poor experience. So with that in mind,  gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"As a wealthy person, the US is the best country to live in."}
{"id":"217398f5-0a96-4778-96d1-a021212f5395","argument":"The Australian government cut development aid stating the aid must go to the most effective programs. Countries unable to meet the conditions can not be regarded as 'effective programs', thus it is justifiable to stop support.","conclusion":"Conditional aid works as an excuse to stop providing support for those in need."}
{"id":"6f6a9fe4-3a65-4290-8f3b-a44ef8dc914d","argument":"Voters already distrust politicians, so they will go for anything that takes power away and punishes politicians.","conclusion":"Bad trading decisions or scandals will lead to repeal and lack of trust in voting reform."}
{"id":"f44e07c4-0cf8-45e4-a708-2f89618cc849","argument":"If you have done nothing wrong then surely you have nothing to worry about and it could help to solve crimes that otherwise could leave dangerous people in the public domain.","conclusion":"Genealogy databases like AncesteryDNA and 23andMe should be available to law enforcement to solve crimes."}
{"id":"275b2b7a-59f4-425c-9816-efed7a198ebe","argument":"In the 1940's and '50's many school students carried their guns to school, left them in their lockers\/cars\/coat rooms and there were no school shootings. Why? Those who live in urban areas might not understand this, but those of us who live in the country know how important it is to teach firearm safety to our children. When you take away their curiosity, by letting them shoot in a safe, controlled environment, they learn to respect guns as the tools they are.","conclusion":"Proper gun education and better maintenance on guns would reduce this problem. In other words, this is a user error."}
{"id":"dd8393b3-3f7e-449b-af81-08adab6783e2","argument":"Whites are overrepresented as teachers compared to the general American population. Indeed, the unexamined structural experiences of whiteness has been identified as a major barrier to education in minority schools.","conclusion":"For Black students it might be hurtful to hear a non-Black teacher use the N-word."}
{"id":"5a383f67-4149-4556-8221-a3aa742cccc2","argument":"One of the most common arguments that people use against anti vaxxers is that we rely on vaccinations for herd immunity. Even if your child doesn't ever get sick from the disease, there are people that either can't get the vaccination or their immune system might be especially susceptible to a certain disease, and they rely on everyone else being vaccinated in order to not contract the disease. Lately, I've seen a lot of people poo pooing flu vaccines because every time I get the flu vaccine, I get the flu or they just don't have time or any number of stupid reasons. I get that the CDC tries to anticipate what strain of flu is going to be the prominent one, and there is still a chance to catch any number of other flu strains, but so what? If you are REALLY for herd immunity, the more we can do to prevent ANY kind of widespread flu is a good thing. If you can alleviate just this ONE strain by getting a flu shot, you should If you don't, you are no better than the anti vaxxers when it comes to spreading disease.","conclusion":"If you are against anti-vaxxers, but don't get a flu shot if you are able, you are a hypocrite"}
{"id":"405f2ee3-5d03-4812-8543-f1a8abc4ba19","argument":"My reasoning is that a political policy is going to affect other people, and you shouldn't advocate something that will affect other people unless you have objectively cogent evidence. If you don't have objectively cogent evidence, then you have a personal opinion. There's nothing wrong with having a personal opinion, of course I have lots of personal opinions but we want to make our political policies on a firmer basis than that. An example of advocating a political policy without good evidence would be opposing gay marriage solely on religious grounds. I don't want to argue against religion in this thread, but let it suffice to say that so long as there is no universally persuasive evidence for the existence of God and the other doctrines of Christianity, religious grounds are an insufficient basis for a political policy. To be clear, this is not an anti religious thread. I am just using a religious example because it is particularly well known. Another example I could use would be a Marxist who is a Marxist for aesthetic reasons advocating Marxist policies on that basis. To change my view about this, you will need to explain how it could be reasonable to put a political policy in place when you cannot prove objectively that it is the best policy.","conclusion":"I believe that no one should advocate a political policy unless they have evidence for it that any reasonable person would accept."}
{"id":"19e800ce-ed6b-4ed8-9643-aa9b27ac232f","argument":"We need a universal point of agreement that is a realistic for all nations to aspire as the foundation.","conclusion":"Making the UDHR legally binding is the best way to curtail human rights abuses."}
{"id":"e493734a-5702-4fcb-b033-621d7c97eea5","argument":"Citizen scientist are less bound by structures that may prevent professional scientists from coming up with creative solutions.","conclusion":"People are able to contribute to any citizen science project they view to be worthwhile."}
{"id":"e414051a-b388-4cee-9b82-66d29042b773","argument":"The argument that internet news tends to offer small passages of text compared to newspapers is to be liberal with the truth, due to the vast nature of the internet it offers a variety of styles and is arguably more likely to provide longer passages than newspapers as there is not space restriction as there is with newspapers which can only be a certain size, due to advertisements and printing agreements. With the ability to both search for and easily share content via social networks, the argument that newspapers are better as they prevent information overload feels weak because there are many ways in which content can be filtered to ensure that both the news you actually want and the style and perspective you prefer can be easily accessed. improve this","conclusion":"The balance of analysis and relevancy is better struck by newspapers"}
{"id":"d4e88a0b-0b07-4eb9-994b-702107edc3ce","argument":"First of all, I should make it known that I am not anti LGBT and I believe that everyone should have equal rights and be treated fairly. I am straight but I do have a few gay and lesbian friends, coworkers, and family members. The common belief nowadays is that gay people are born this way and I can't find myself to completely believe this. I want to, as I want to be fully supportive of my gay friends. However, I am under the belief that who we are as people is almost completely defined by how we are raised and the experiences we have as children and through our entire life. IE we are the sum total of our experiences . I think that this expands to sexuality. I don't think there is anything wrong with this or that it is some sort of a mistake if you end up being gay. However, I do believe there is some alternate timeline universe course of events whatever you want to call it where certain people end up with different sexualities. In my opinion, my life could have been drastically different and I could have ended up being gay, but my cousin could have ended up straight. I am not trying to offend here, and I hope that it doesn't come off that way. I would truly like to have my view changed. Thank you","conclusion":"Not all gay people are born that way."}
{"id":"04528f41-8f74-4c28-a0b2-ef98ff9bc843","argument":"Those who claim to be acting morally without reason do so without authority, but Utilitarianism is based on reason, social contract is based on reason, Kant's work is based on reason, these systems, and many more draw there authority form the reason, and logic on which they were built.","conclusion":"Humanists do not have the moral authority to make such a distinction. If morality is defined by man himself, then man himself is free to rewrite the rules of morality as he pleases, whether he cares for social contracts, utilitarianism, or any other social theory or not."}
{"id":"aadce0b2-deca-42c5-ba24-84ccc341b145","argument":"In the United States, high-level candidates must hold the same stances on key issues as a party's base in order to gain the party's nomination and thus be guaranteed ballot access.","conclusion":"Politicians usually have to appeal to their base in order to get fielded."}
{"id":"36e34cee-bce8-4e0f-974f-fb2a1f1378ce","argument":"It has been proposed that the UK could form a commission to cut back on EU regulations post Brexit by almost a quarter. This would save the UK between \u00a333 billion $43 billion and \u00a3140 billion $182 billion annually and bring more industry and investment into the UK.","conclusion":"Brexit is a golden opportunity to get rid of cumbersome EU regulations that the UK has no need for."}
{"id":"c86cdfff-fe12-4942-ab32-c11c1282d77b","argument":"Religion is a way to understand the Unknown, namely death and what happens to us after it. But, it requires no test, inquiry or research.","conclusion":"Religions set a bad precedent that applies outside religion, that it's okay to believe: That we don't need evidence and logic to draw conclusions."}
{"id":"0c7a4252-a2b2-4e5f-8a3e-59061508771a","argument":"Sex is a wonderful part of life. Sexual satisfaction is essential to the well being of any animal. By neutering a pet, you are robbing them of a natural biological function that they are programmed to seek out and enjoy. It's wrong.","conclusion":"I think neutering pets is immoral."}
{"id":"0a146eb9-0153-4310-b15f-553489708671","argument":"Commodifying refugees can lead to them becoming a novel source of economic rent to be strategically exploited by countries for national interest.","conclusion":"A quota scheme commodifies asylum seekers, treating them as a burden to be distributed. This is ethically concerning."}
{"id":"c7156b1b-5961-4bf7-a50d-9adc7a6175fd","argument":"Consensual non-consent which has different iterations, is most commonly known as a style of BDSM play in which the participants agree to behave in a manner that mimics non-consensual behavior for the duration of a scene or until a safe-word is used.","conclusion":"There are different kinds of consent that govern healthy BDSM relationships."}
{"id":"59603b49-ff41-4ab6-8d1a-560b21284913","argument":"Over the years, I have come to notice how I believe as a general rule quality is better than quantity. It is more valuable to have less of something supreme than to try to acquire a greater amount simply for the sake of the number. By following this idea and recognizing the alternatives, people will actually feel more appreciative of what they have in scenarios of both tangible and intangible goods. Less is more. For example, the clothes consumers buy. In my eyes, it is better to spend more money on a few timeless pieces that you will love and wear all the time than to buy a whole collection of cheaper things. It is more than likely the quality pieces will last longer and will end up being the better deal than something that breaks or isn\u2019t worn again after one time. If you feel otherwise, please change my view","conclusion":"Quality is better than quantity."}
{"id":"e2946842-1a06-40b4-a212-4d3e03d6917d","argument":"The government has more control over the country's economy, most specifically its oil than does the populace, so economic freedom favors the current regime over the people.","conclusion":"Another 10 years of economic freedom will allow the current regime to gain more power and control over its populace."}
{"id":"e538f3f6-dadf-4333-8464-64c27789e5f1","argument":"Interventions are not a panacea for failing states; they do not ensure the success of either the military offensive or subsequent reconstruction efforts on the ground during the occupation. If the intervention fails to overcome local forces, civilians are powerless to overcome a political hierarchy boosted by military victory and reliant on violence. Furthermore, even if the military offensive is successful, the underlying causes of the failure of the state are still present and may be exacerbated by the presence of an intervening force. As such, intervening forces must be aware that the decision is not simply whether intervention is necessary, but whether it will do more harm than good. Coyne describes this fallacy as the \u2018Nirvana Fallacy\u2019, whereby states assume that the \u2018grass is always greener on the other side\u2019. \u2018It is assumed that the foreign governments can generate, via occupation and reconstruction, an outcome preferable to that which would occur absent of these interventions\u2019. The reality challenges these assumptions, for Minxim Pei calculates just a 26% success rate for U.S.-led reconstruction efforts since the late nineteenth century.1 If an intervening force can\u2019t be certain, even remotely, of the benefit to the state concerned, it has little justification in deploying and risking the exacerbation of an already-precarious problem. 1 Coyne, C. 2006. Reconstructing weak and failed states: Foreign intervention and the Nirvana Fallacy. Retrieved June 24, 2011 from Foreign Policy Analysis, 2006 Vol. 2, p.343-360 p.344","conclusion":"Interventions can fail and eventually cause more harm than good"}
{"id":"e90759a5-4829-4e2b-9065-c73322cd730b","argument":"The way I see it, if a person has all of the necessary credentials to fill a certain position, and they interview well, then there should be no other factor considered in the hiring of that person. By allowing businesses to ask for things like race ethnicity and criminal record, it is implying that this information will somehow have an affect on the viability of their application. This is deplorable to me I see it as one of the contributing factors to the massive wage gap in this country, and as a vicious cycle. Say a drug dealer is arrested for trafficking and slapped with a felony conviction or two. After they have served their time, say they go to school to try to turn their life around, only to find out that they can't land a job because of a stupid decision they made years ago. Even though they have served their due punishment, the crime will follow them for the rest of their lives, likely leaving them in near poverty and, in many cases, leading them right back to the criminal lifestyle for which they were arrested originally. Even in the case of something more extreme like a murder felony, the punishment that society sees fit to put upon them has apparently been served, why not let them get back on track if we're going to let them live a free life anyway? As for race ethnicity, I suppose I could see how this could be used for demographic reasons, but making them state it in their application implies that it would have some sort of affect on the business's decision to hire them. I might go so far as to say that applications should be completely anonymized to avoid all discrimination based on race, ethnicity, or gender that might be implied in a person's name.","conclusion":"It should not be legal to inquire about race\/ethnicity or criminal record on job applications."}
{"id":"c80ddc2e-5d5e-41f8-8dac-eedc10f63d81","argument":"Mass shootings are rare relative to homicide in general and causes of premature death overall. 2012 had the most victims killed 88 in at least a decade. By way of comparison, over 4000 pedestrians are accidentally killed by cars annually. Proposed policies, including more restrictions on guns, fewer restrictions on guns, tighter security at schools and improved mental health services may be good ideas or not for unrelated reasons, but that's not relevant to my viewpoint. It may be true that mass shootings have the psychological impact on the public necessary to summon the political will for an otherwise beneficial change, but that's not relevant either.","conclusion":"I believe that mass shootings should not be used as the basis for any significant public policy decisions in the US."}
{"id":"a6fbe1dd-f7d4-4e7b-a3e4-9579bb82c086","argument":"I drive manual and when I am not shifting my hand is on the shifter stereo my lap. I don't think that driving while holding a phone to your ear should be illegal because the distraction is extremely minor vs. texting, looking a GPS, reading a billboard. I understand that you take your eyes off the road for a second when you swipe to answer a call, but the distraction is the same when you look at your GPS screen or speedometer. To justify this law, it would have to be mandatory to always have 2 hands on the wheel. I think the media has done a fantastic job convincing people that talking on your phone is horrible. Yet if you think about it objectively, it isn't dangerous. I think the lawmakers have attacked talking on your phone to counter act people who are caught texting that would argue that they are simply answering a phone call. link to support my view another link to support this view","conclusion":"There is no significant difference between driving while talking on your phone vs. using a blue-tooth device. Holding my hand to my ear while talking is the same as placing it on my lap while talking. !"}
{"id":"2595f1cf-a65d-456b-b908-e8d040fc6672","argument":"It is natural for people to be averse to the idea of eugenics. The belief that some people constitute better biological stock than others is hard to swallow we do not choose our genes, and none of us like the idea of choices being made by others for our own supposed benefit. We believe that we have a right to reproduce, a right to bodily autonomy, that precludes government control of reproduction. Our individualist society places ultimate worth in the individual no matter how beneficial something may be for the collective, it is wrong if it infringes on the rights of the individual. This is faulty reasoning, and an indication that we are out of touch with reality. The 'individual' does not exist we are continuously and overwhelmingly shaped by external forces outside of our control our genetic code, our upbringing in childhood, the societies in which we live . In turn, our actions shape the genetic makeup of the future, shape the future families and societies. This being realized, it is clear that to place the individual above all else is to suppose that each individual's self interested actions will eventually benefit the collective as a whole. Adam Smith called this the invisible hand Of course, Smith was referring solely to economic growth patterns, which are not necessarily good indicators of true progress. One need only comprehend the devastation wrought upon the Earth as a consequences of the Industrial Revolution to see that economic growth may not be a good thing after all. Throughout history we have been shown that in a competitive, individualized society, that to which we are all entitled quickly becomes degraded Which brings me to my point something to which every individual feels entitled is the production of children. We shudder at the thought of someone other than ourselves controlling our prospective children. We can see no reason for another entity to restrict our ability to reproduce. However, such reasons do exist, and they are quite powerful. Among these are The introduction of a child into the world is a fundamentally violent action. Parents do not ask for consent when they have children they are forcing the world to accommodate the presence of their child. All parents hope that their children will become self sufficient and ultimately benefit the world around them, but clearly this is not the case. It has long been known that less intelligent people have more children This inverse relationship between IQ and fertility has worried scientists since industrialization in the 19th century. It has been shown that IQ is largely heritable gt 66 with the conclusion being that the Flynn Effect is a phenotypic consequence of better nutrition that masks our steady downward spiral of genotypic intelligence Not only are less intelligent people predisposed towards having more children, but our society encourages diversion from intellectual pursuits. The explosion of mass media and popular culture is very troubling the average American spends 5 hours a day watching television We have entered an age where selection for beneficial traits has reached an all time low, and so has selection against deleterious traits. Plastic surgery, infertility treatment, deodorant, simple and repetitive jobs, the welfare state makeup and fashion, lack of disease and natural predators, the list goes on. Now more than ever there exist a multitude of forces that accommodate genetic weakness, and allow these individuals to reproduce with the same vigor as those who are more genetically fit. The world is experiencing a real crisis of of overpopulation and consequential deterioration of the natural and built environment. It is said that education will lead to lower fertility of course I agree with this And that is precisely the problem the educated and intelligent people decide to have fewer children. Those who are unintelligent either through lack of education or lack of aptitude will always have more children if it is in their self interest to do so. The potential economic worth of a child is hard to overstate when one is living in poverty. To summarize my points, I believe that when an individual makes their contribution to the gene pool of the future by reproducing, they are perpetuating their own genetic deficiencies to the detriment of not only their descendants, but those who will live with their descendants. Note that I would never suggest that genetically 'weak' people be killed. They deserve all the compassion that we should grant to any individual. It is this compassion that I feel towards future, unborn individuals that leads me to believe that eugenics is necessary. Human civilization has reached a point where natural selection no longer favors intelligent, cooperative, sociable, and moral individuals. It is a world where anonymity and division of labor have enabled the potential for everyone to survive and have children. But such survival is not thriving The value of a population is measured in its quality, not its quantity. With dysgenic free reproduction, there is very little that encourages high quality, low quantity births, and very little that discourages low quality, high quantity births. As to how such eugenic goals may be realized, I point to China for inspiration Incentives for individuals to have few children is the first step. Once the total birthrate has become low enough to maintain a stable population, measures can be taken to improve genetic structure of future born children. These might involve extensive sperm eggs banks where individuals identified as genetically fit i.e. high IQ, non criminal, genuinely altruistic, physically well formed healthy could supply the majority of new children. People on the lower end of the genetic spectrum could still raise children, provided they pass certain tests background checks ensuring that they will not be abusive and corrupting. I propose all people pass these tests to qualify as adoptive parents, even genetically fit individuals I foresee that responses will suggest that I am placing too much concern on heredity that is, I am giving undue weight to 'nature' over 'nurture' . To this I contend that we often underestimate the power of heredity. Of course, all humans share common ancestors if you go back far enough. It is generally accepted that we all came from the same initial genetic stock But the reality is that our physical manifestation is determined mostly by the genetic structures of our parents, and our environment in the womb, infancy, and early childhood. Our brains are physical organs, whose physical form is determined almost entirely by genes. People have long recognized the importance of the brain, and many attempted to physically deform the brain for mystical or social reasons. Heredity is recognized as the major determining component in intelligence, among other behavioral aspects If you wish to change my view, you will have to convince me that Dysgenic collapse is not only not imminent, but impossible. I see no difference between it happening 100 years from now, or a thousand, or even a million. The threat of its occurrence must be dealt with at some point . Individualist and 'free' society where no government oversight over reproduction exists can counter dysgenic trends of its own accord. Show me that people are willing to embrace technology that will rewrite the genetic codes of fetuses rendering concerted natural reproduction eugenicist efforts unnecessary. That a future with dysgenic collapse a la Idiocracy is not necessarily a bad thing, so long as an elite exists that will 'take care of' the unwittingly enslaved humans. I look forward to seeing some responses soon.","conclusion":"Dysgenics is real, and the only way to avoid collapse is government control of reproduction."}
{"id":"e01eb217-f1fa-4f5b-bc69-48320507cf06","argument":"Steven Farrell. \"A Conservative Case for the Capital Punishment\". 18 Mar. 2005 - \"If one robs a store, the captured thief can pay back the debt and, in fact, under biblical law which is better than today's law would be tasked to work for the man he robbed until the debt was satisfied seven times the value of the goods stolen. With such a bounteous payback, the thief is then freed and, by his honorable labor, restored to a position of trust.\" Farrell continues that murder is not a repayable crime, that society can never again trust that person again, and that the person, therefore, permanently forfeits all rights as a citizen, including the right to life.","conclusion":"Death penalty addresses crimes where victim can never be compensated"}
{"id":"e3eb2397-ebf9-4b6d-bda4-9c165a4151eb","argument":"Harm reduction is what people who see addicts as people choose. Anyone who lumps drug users into the sub human category of \u201ccriminal\u201d is very likely motivated by job security rather than compassion e.g. law enforcement officials . I don\u2019t know what the best way to reduce harm is, but it can\u2019t be to separate users from friends and family and surround them with violence and hatred in prison. Who really thinks that\u2019s the best way to bring strays back into the fold?","conclusion":"The soaring popularity of synthetic drugs should be met with true cultural maturity instead of futile rules: we should accept that some people will get high, and minimize the harm."}
{"id":"b2a2e107-0134-4b97-a328-31e3d64f32c2","argument":"Firstly, i know GoT is a good show, im not by any means saying that it isn't good. Let me start with an example, i convinced myself to watch the movies 'Avengers' and 'Frozen' many years after they got released. The reason being exactly the same, i felt they were way overrated and that it isn't anything special, so i didn't feel like watching them. When i did get to watch both, i was happy that i was right, they were just good movies nothing special whatsoever and i still don't understand why people went bonkers. So im stuck with that exact feeling with GoT. While i love shows such as Sherlock, Black Mirror, Westworld etc, some of them hardly get any recognition and this puts me off. Like the general public is going bonkers for a show which has a hundred characters and the main ones get killed each season, just sounds like 'meh' to me. Infact i did get to watch a few episodes and i absolutely loved Tyrion, and the rest seemed boring to me. His episodes are probably the only ones im willing to watch. One more thing thats holding me back is now that the show is 6 seasons deep, and im fresh, the immense catch up i need to do is putting me off. Also, i feel its always a bit different when you binge watch. Some long shows might seem extremely boring if you watch back to back episodes. So what about the binge watch perspective? Is it worthy of binge watching? I know im kinda overreacting, but im looking for something to convince me otherwise. EDIT Removed some spoilers and added another view point.","conclusion":"I cannot convince myself to watch Game of Thrones. I feel it is overrated and i rather watch shows which are just as good."}
{"id":"acb2fef0-45e2-43fb-a8ae-f50e76b6da02","argument":"Low social mobility leads to a more socially stratified society where different classes are less likely to interact with each other. This makes the trust required for the operation of institutions like the welfare state much more difficult to generate.","conclusion":"High income inequality and low social mobility go together, globally as well as in the US Kearney\/Levine, p. 1, 57"}
{"id":"27ab8dc8-58bc-4838-9f9e-1d498709cab5","argument":"I dont know if it will increase math scores or not, but I think we probably need at least 20 years or so to find out. I think the biggest issue people have is its not the way we learned and parents are to lazy to try to learn it to help their kids with their homework. When I first came across it, I was frustrated as well, but realized its pretty much the way I do math in my head. Its still annoying, but we ahould all be open minded enough to accept that maybe there's a better way to do things. It may turn out to be a colossal failure, but if there's a chance it helps kids think more critically, we should see it through. Bonus  cursive is fucking stupid and i dont care that schools arent teaching it anymore","conclusion":"common core math is fine and should be given a chance."}
{"id":"adb3d253-a086-4c93-8c26-8c3ad0737d18","argument":"I believe overzealous people overestimate the issues we face and actually we're all fine. Sure the UK has it's issues but in the long run we're fine. We have a decent and fair judicial system, strong liberty and freedom of speech, plenty of food and basic housing for the vast majority of people, a capable welfare system once you get past the beaurocracy , a functional NHS, a secular school system, a statistically low violent crime rate, an overall standard of living matched by only the richest of countries, and a faily liberal minded society with little ethnic, gender, or segregate based oppression or sentiment. Sure we're not without the odd racist, sexist or homeophobe but they make up the small minority. Sure we have problems, but there will always be problems, especially in the current economic situation. We're lucky that the economy is holding following the recession look at Spain. We're lucky that nationalists and racists haven't taken control using scapegoating and radicalism look at Greece. We could be so much worse off than we are, and there's certainly room to improve, but we're hardly doomed for revolution as some corners of the Internet would have us believe. In the end I don't worry now. I'm disabled I rely on benefits and the NHS and while I oppose privatization and would campaign against the Conservatives, I understand their politics and know they're reasoning and while my standard of living will decrease under Tory rule, I'll still be fine even if they are in power. Politics in UK seems now to be just arguing over details. I don't even think UKIP matters that much. It's a reactionary response to scapegoating for things that don't really matter tinged unfortunately with a little racism. The thing is, after a few of them get into power and people realise they're all just hot air and don't actually know anything about local governance, they'll vote them out again next election. In short, I feel happy with my country. While I'm chronically ill, I'm looked after by the NHS, welfare system, housing system, emergency services etc. and have enough money to live comfortably. I have plenty of food, clothes to wear, a place to live, stable utilities and internet access, my games consoles, a Netflix account, and enough money for a pizza night once a week and the occasion trip to the cinema with my friends. I'd get that almost no where elso on the planet, not even USA despite it's insistance that it's number one . Yes it's not megabucks that I'm on, it's actually about what you'd earn working basic shifts for McDonald's, but it's enough and it's far more than I could get on my own. In short, thank you UK and the tax paying british people for all your help. It's taken me some time to realise it but I genuinely think we've got one of the best countries in the world. Now it's time to put up the challenge.  if you can . If I'm wrong and there are serious issues I don't see, tell me and . Personally I hope to change your view, but just because my current opinion is nice doesn't mean I'm right so, let's hear your arguments.","conclusion":"Politically, the UK is actually just fine..."}
{"id":"1e119042-939a-4f64-afb9-25d70b2f1a49","argument":"The original cause has to be one because if it were a committee nothing would ever get done as we know from experience.","conclusion":"This is not true of Aristotles first mover argument, also known as the argument from contingency."}
{"id":"1b2e59b0-3bb9-4daf-b9f3-4c865c2c4d76","argument":"I recently expressed this opinion around some friends who judged me harshly for it, saying I shouldn't judge people for their vices. I feel that smoking is a vice that also harms others, esp. the children of smokers who get exposed to the secondhand smoke. I vehemently hate the habit and judge the character of those who do smoke, despite having loved ones who smoke. Smoking is harmful not only to those who smoke, but to those who live around them and associate with them. It's not just the secondhand smoke, but also the social influence they have on their peers who might just smoke socially, just one once in a while from a friend but who often go past that because of the broken barrier. That concerns me almost as much as the children family of smokers exposed to the toxins. I've heard arguments from smokers and none of them have convinced me, maybe one of you can help me a bit more than they have with my view. Again, I have family and friends who smoke and I love them, but I think it's stupid that they smoke and that it does demonstrate a certain lack of integrity, change my view. edit view has been changed, I was too eager to lump all smokers together, thanks for the comments edit no really, my view was changed, you can stop trying to convince me now","conclusion":"I feel very little sympathy for most smokers and feel justified in actively judging them for their addiction,"}
{"id":"fc2f1455-9f0a-4351-90d0-550fbbdb9820","argument":"When an user jailbreaks their iPhone, they reduce the security of the device, rendering it more open to hacking Assuming this technology were similar, if users hack or modify their cars' programming, it reduces the cybersecurity of the cars, making them more vulnerable to control by other hackers who want to use them for harm.","conclusion":"Behaviour that does not prioritise the owner creates an incentive for owners to hack or modify their car's programming."}
{"id":"cd696bf1-0fb5-491e-9d20-c75605f8c395","argument":"With an eye on the threat posed by outside interference, the Netherlands reverted back to paper ballots and vote counting by hand for the recent general election.","conclusion":"Electronic voting is still in its infancy, and liable to fraud and technical problems"}
{"id":"daef53fb-7ccd-4e29-810c-cff30781e595","argument":"An individual's right to privacy already is revoked if a crime is committed. It's not a crime to generate wealth, but if that wealth is ill-gotten and the benefitor is found to have committed a crime, then information pertaining to the crime becomes public knowledge.","conclusion":"This right is not absolute, and there are many legal exceptions recognized."}
{"id":"1394fc9a-3f89-4b20-a19b-2a0d9cdbb597","argument":"Someone being able to build a supercomputer in an apartment, be isolated enough to focus on what needs to get done and does it, and has mental health issues but works through them, shows that anyone can achieve greatness even with given limitations.","conclusion":"The merging of reality with the realistic potential of what people can do in it makes the movie great."}
{"id":"1a26ca42-c056-410b-9ee8-e9420bbf8540","argument":"The China-US trade war is an ongoing economic conflict between the world's two largest economies in which each country is imposing tit-for-tat tariffs to harm the other's economy.","conclusion":"Hong Kong\u2019s stock exchange may be more important than ever for China if the trade war between the US and China cannot be resolved by further talks."}
{"id":"538202b9-a702-49ed-82f4-0da1a5692940","argument":"The winning drawing in the draw Mohammad contest in Garland, Texas was a picture of Mohammad saying you can't draw me. With a reply from the artist, That is why I draw you. That tells me that many people draw Mohammad for just that reason, because someone tells them they can't. The fact that this was voted best, shows that this is at least not a minority view in why people draw Mohammad or support the drawing of Mohammad. So a group of people is telling others what they don't want them to do in this case, and they respond by doing it. Wouldn't saying nigger because people tell them not to, be the same thing? In both cases something is trying to be censored by a group of people who find it offensive. In both cases people are threatened with violence. For example, I have been playing video games when a white person said 'nigger' and a black person then said that if they knew where they lived they would shoot them. I also don't think many people would find it to far fetched for a white person to get beat up for walking down the street in Harlem and yelling nigger to no one in particular. Or imagine if the held a draw nigger stereotypes day in downtown Baltimore. I am certain that would provoke violence. I posit that people who draw Mohammad should also by the same token hold a draw or say nigger day. Furthermore, there are other drawing that are actually prohibited by law like obscene realistic drawings featuring minors. Should they not have a draw obscene realistic minors' day? It does follow their logic draw it because you can't legally in this case . Drawing such stuff also seems equivalent to draw Mohammad to me. I don't want to go into arguments about whether drawing Mohammad saying nigger is right or wrong, just if they are equivalent. EDIT I am doing my best to answer all replies, but there is no way I can get to the majority of them. It blew up more than I expected. While I haven't had my mind changed, you all have brought up some good points for me to think on. I will continue reading responses and maybe my view will be changed.","conclusion":"Drawing Mohammad for no other reason than Muslims don't want you too is no different than saying nigger for no other reason than black people don't want you to."}
{"id":"ecc6fe6e-7ebe-4045-aab0-91f737729138","argument":"Adoption could from the perspective of any particular genetic mother have only downsides. She may not care about the happiness of the adopting family nor see having biological descendents as a plus, and to have any other stake in the life of the embryo, to be looking for an alternative to abortion she'd need to be pro-life, which she may not be. In short there may be nothing in it for her but pain, eating for two, losing her figure, expense etc.","conclusion":"Adoption is not a reasonable alternative given it requires women to go through pregnancy and childbirth, and bring a genetically related child into the world."}
{"id":"410071de-5f5c-4057-abb2-77a00c9a52db","argument":"A collective intelligence is a system of intelligent agents which as whole exhibits what seems to be intelligent behavior. What makes civilizations collective intelligences? Well, they tend to accumulate intelligent products. Such as technological artifacts, complex buildings, messages,academic publications etc. These are things which are usually accumulated by an intelligent system. If a single agent were to accomplish these things, we would consider them very intelligent and powerful. If we found these things lying around on another planet, we would assume that an intelligent system had existed there. So the history of civilization is the history of collective intelligence. There is no difference in kind between a city and a hivemind, it is mostly a difference in the speed communication between minds. The upshot of this is that if civilization continues to advance, it only advances in so far as the speed of transmission of intelligent products between individuals improves and the number of individuals within the network increases. Civilization advancing technologies include faster transmission of information wireless, fibre optic materials and intelligent laborers planes, trains, ships, motor vehicles . The end point, or holy grail of this is, in part, a hivemind. the advancement in technology and advancement in human wellbeing are peripheral when talking about advancement in civilization, even though they are more important. Civilization advances in so far as it increasingly closely resembles a hivemind where materials and information can be transported between nodes at speeds approaching light speed. This, surprisingly, jives with our intuitions. The best place to live would be a utopia,, theoretically, a utopia is the place which best promotes human floursihing. But we do not usually think that a utopia whatever we think it would look like is the most advanced civilization possible. The most advanced civilizations are not necessarily utopias, and utopias are not necessarily advanced civilizations. Cities are more advanced than rural communities,but a lot of us may prefer to live in a rural or pseudo rural suburban community than in a city possibly while still reaping the technological advancements which come from cities . So if human flourishing is a not critical feature of an advanced civilization, what else could it be? gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Civilizations are collective intelligences, the most advanced civilization possible is a hivemind."}
{"id":"e73c563f-4a24-4b3b-9d3d-800dbd485502","argument":"Economies should be self-regulating. Giving tax breaks works in a similar way to prolonged terminal care that artificially extends life but doesn't improve quality of life: by preventing natural life cycle and death, we're creating zombies who are taking space and resources from other organizations.","conclusion":"Organizations generally \u2013 charitable or not \u2013 should never be tax exempt."}
{"id":"8a5e2cc7-a2ad-4911-82a2-a085eebe1ff3","argument":"I\u2019m in the process of learning several different languages, and important parts of that process are pronunciation and accuracy. So it\u2019s frustrating to me when I hear people celebrating someone who has yet to learn these parts of a language. This might come across as racist, since it puts discriminatory pressure on foreigners. That\u2019s not where I\u2019m coming from. I\u2019m open to celebrating as many cultures as I can, and that\u2019s part of my motivation for pursuing polyglotism. But I believe that if someone commits to living in a community with a dominant language, it\u2019s their responsibility to learn how to interact with the people of that region. Some exceptions I can think of would be Dialects and accents that are part of the same language but nearly unintelligible. For example, as an American, I can\u2019t understand cockney accents at times. But if I were to move to London, or if one of them were to move here, I would expect that newcomer to assimilate to the local way of speaking, at least to a degree of universal intelligibility Border communities that have developed creoles or bilingual communication systems. Again, so long as the people who have chosen to live there are able to converse with the locals, I would consider that a perfectly acceptable degree of understanding of the local way of speaking. But, ultimately, if I were to move to a foreign country like Ukraine, I would expect myself to be able to converse easily with Ukrainians as soon as possible, and I hold other emigrants to the same standards","conclusion":"Heavy accents and broken language are not to be celebrated"}
{"id":"e36d1c29-cf82-4079-baea-e4e797f0cc39","argument":"The same goes for children minors and men. Lay people have an important role in spreading Faith, that's exactly the point of Vatican II concile. They do not take place\/role of consecrated people however.","conclusion":"Women certainly can and do play a meaningful role in spreading the Gospel, although that doesn\u2019t imply that they hold any church office."}
{"id":"7dd7ad88-9f70-4211-9306-66a793ebf0ed","argument":"Conspiracy theorists are wrong and their interpretation is thus not a good guide for policy making.","conclusion":"A small crazy minority should not play a big role on public health policy."}
{"id":"a51d9f9f-330f-4ce1-8ef2-9c2e9fb388b1","argument":"In reference to that colorado baker What I understood from situation baker has rules , he does not make cakes for explicitly xyz events those include halloween baker will refuse to make cakes for others and he states he has refused other gay couples so must not be discrimination against GAYS, maybe that particular gay couple, but not GAYS then? this line The panel also rejected the argument that selling a cake to a gay couple was so great an infringement on Mr. Phillips\u2019s beliefs that it trumped the anti discrimination law. is why court rules against baker baker feels PART of the wedding personally as the cake maker meaning it means a lot to him Here are my opinions viewpoints when it comes to marriage, there is a spectrum of beliefs held by many people. This includes the liberal where marriage is simply for tax reasons, it's just a relationship on paper kind of thing. It also includes the more ideological where marriage is a holy matrimony, a very symbolic and bonding ritual ordinance. Ruling that the baker should HAVE to provide a cake and not discriminate against clients to me is forcing him to participate in a ritual that he does not want a part of. It is one thing if the baker was rude and outwardly homophobic, for example, but he simply did not want to be a part of the wedding and rejected the offer of making the cake. So next logical question then is, can a private business owner of a restaurant who refuse to serve clients? To this question, I adamantly say No, a restaurant owner should not refuse to serve clients based on race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation etc so why is this scenario any different than that of the baker's? The key point for me is that although food is a basic human right, and accessing it is also, but sometimes foods can be used as a symbol for an event with very different meanings to people. As a restaurant owner, I believe you should not refuse to serve others for unreasonable cause, aka. should not be denying another an opportunity to consume food. YET, a cake, which is also food, is being used as a SYMBOL how symbolic is a cake? quite so. People freeze their freakin cakes, then eat it a year later. Cutting the cake is quite symbolic, and what is all this symbolizing? the tying of the knots of two individuals in a matrimony, in this case, a gay marriage if a baker who is to be providing this symbolic cake does not want their product to be used in such ideology he she does not agree with, he should reserve the right to refuse. I also think that the baker is surely not the only baker around town, they can ask someone else who is willing I also think it was very virtuous of him to be honest and tell them WHY instead of simply refusing. The baker is consistent with his beliefs and just wants to uphold his personal beliefs I cannot assume, but if the baker doesn't actually impede gay marriage in other ways e.g. as an active member of anti gay movements, etc then I think he's just simply wanting to be of no part of a gay marriage, no? last but not least, the state should not force baker to change his rules and reeducate the staff to not discriminate it is his bakery, he should be able to commission his work the way he wants to. his cakes aren't just packaged peanuts you can buy everywhere. they're a piece of art as a baker, because it does take a lot of time to produce a piece, he will naturally be more picky with which events he chooses to cater, why does gay weddings HAVE to be on the list? Since he doesn't make halloween cakes, can he be accused of being discriminatory against halloween lovers? please don't tell me what logical fallacy I am using I just want to have a discussion on the other side of this issue because as of now, I am quite appalled tldr I just don't think the baker should be forced to produce a creative product that should be used in a symbolic way within a very special occasion that carries greater meaning. ps I am very pro gay, I have no personal opinion against gays and more or less stay neutral politically I am just saying it's kind of ridiculous of forcing someone to be part of a movement because our society has become so sensitive overall. EDIT Formatting sorry it was just a whole paragraph Omg apparently moving from comp to phone I was on different accounts Lol so uh there are two peeps but same ppl. Y'all are smart you can figure it out. Sorry gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"forcing someone to provide a product for a MARRIAGE event should not happen"}
{"id":"cf2d225c-5312-4194-8cb5-db38c2e786d3","argument":"People tend to avoid this kind of discussion so it's very difficult to me to change my view about it, so you're very welcome to do so. I don't have a Facebook account for these reasons ~~ Personal impact there's a study that affirms that using Facebook makes us feel bad Reviewing the study made me think that it's not accurate enough so I'm removing it. gt Over 500 million people interact daily with Facebook. Yet, whether Facebook use influences subjective well being over time is unknown. We addressed this issue using experience sampling, the most reliable method for measuring in vivo behavior and psychological experience. We text messaged people five times per day for two weeks to examine how Facebook use influences the two components of subjective well being how people feel moment to moment and how satisfied they are with their lives. Our results indicate that Facebook use predicts negative shifts on both of these variables over time. The more people used Facebook at one time point, the worse they felt the next time we text messaged them the more they used Facebook over two weeks, the more their life satisfaction levels declined over time. Interacting with other people \u201cdirectly\u201d did not predict these negative outcomes. They were also not moderated by the size of people's Facebook networks, their perceived supportiveness, motivation for using Facebook, gender, loneliness, self esteem, or depression. On the surface, Facebook provides an invaluable resource for fulfilling the basic human need for social connection. Rather than enhancing well being, however, these findings suggest that Facebook may undermine it. Data usage for surveillance May sounds little too much since we all think we have nothing to hide . But you are welcome to check r privacy for more information where you'll find that we do have something to hide why privacy matters even online and since Facebook,Twitter, and such main social media companies rules so much data, governments take advance of this eg. PRISM there's another link about why is this so wrong Data usage for censorship and social experimentation I think it's general culture and it's self explanatory, but there's lot of information with examples about it on the Internet just in case you don't know it. Data usage for advertisement Facebook sells their users data online see their ToS and even though, they still put advertisements which sucks, but this is not my main reason at all since I can avoid it just blocking their publicity. Anyway, it's still a reason not to use Fb.","conclusion":"Facebook and other centralized social media are bad for you"}
{"id":"eafc66c0-8a34-4ac4-8689-e3ea73288aae","argument":"Acidification because of CO2 of the oceans occurs at faster rates than species can adapt.","conclusion":"Higher levels of CO2 lead to acidification of the oceans at damaging rates."}
{"id":"3b62b39e-64cf-46f3-9e65-58fc8a08d40c","argument":"Starting out, I want to ignore dual sovereignty and the federalist arguments about what should and should not be legal based upon the preferences on the citizens of the states because I, ultimately, believe that people living in a state should be able to define their own marriage laws. Personal and sexual relationships between consenting adults should be legal and recognized by society. However, while the government does not need to regulate the marriage itself, it is free to regulate the adults' duties and obligations to offspring once the marriage decides to have children. Even if one can show that heterosexual and homosexual polygamy does present some detriment to society, society should collectively carry that burden for the sake of personal liberty until that liberty infringes upon the rights of other citizens. Let's have a discussion.","conclusion":"Heterosexual and homosexual polygamy should be legal"}
{"id":"62e5d977-c732-4428-854c-5ff2115ddcb6","argument":"The US Department of Agriculture, which is responsible for the enforcement of the AWA, has insufficient staff and resources.","conclusion":"There is a lack of enforcement of the Animal Welfare Act."}
{"id":"fce0aa84-b322-440a-878d-203943dcab57","argument":"Inheritance rights and widows' pensions would need to be given by the Church to families of priests who die.","conclusion":"Allowing priests to marry may lead to financial complications for the Church."}
{"id":"efc1ab72-a824-4ed1-9c04-a6b11cc0effb","argument":"Carried interest refers to a longstanding Wall Street tax break that let many private equity and hedge fund financiers pay the lower capital gains tax rate on much of their income, instead of the higher income tax rate paid by wage-earners.","conclusion":"Abolishing capital tax gains will make it possible to close the carried interest tax loophole."}
{"id":"54a7bd98-4c2b-41b9-828d-75d550f35615","argument":"Ancient Greece's original democracy was never representative. In the ancient \"Agora\" 5.000 Athenians were discussing the issues and then decided what should be done. Original democracy comes close to what Switzerland does with its referendums. \"Representative Democracy\" is a system where only 300-1000 people create laws for the rest.","conclusion":"The EU as a representative democracy has an inherent deficit compared to direct democracies; these are closer to the original idea of democracy."}
{"id":"1eef4422-e305-4dce-a568-85bf169f6155","argument":"Every week there is a new story about some kind of scandal in the games industry. Disservice is being dealt to fans, games are being cancelled or released prematurely, and people are losing their jobs because corporate leaders are so disconnected with the actual products and services they provide that they only care about the numbers. Indies are now taking over the spotlight with games like Hyper Light Drifter and Celeste. Not that these games aren't good, but how much better are they than Zelda or Mario? At this rate, we'll all be playing ROMs instead of buying a PS5. But hey, I guess we can save money, right?","conclusion":"Big Publishers are destroying the games industry for both gamers and developers."}
{"id":"2e08dfba-24ae-4a65-9c62-df4bfa801784","argument":"Whenever I express a view saying the victim was asking for it or variations of that phrase people just respond with he she does NOT deserve it, they are in no way at fault STOP trying to shame the victim But I'm not putting blame on the victim, I'm not saying it's all their fault, I'm just looking at it realistically. Here's an example. A highschool kid wears a brony tee shirt to school and then gets the shit beat out of him. I don't think he deserved it, I don't think he's at fault for a bully beating him up, and I think it's wrong of the bully to beat someone up for what they wear. But if the victim just didn't wear a brony t shirt to school, then maybe he wouldn't have made himself such an easy target for bullies. Like, just having some sort of common sense and situational awareness should tell you that wearing a brony t shirt to school is a bad idea. You know, I'd love to live in a world where nobody will judge you for what you wear. But in reality, that's not how the world works and you should damn well know that wearing something deemed socially unacceptable or strange is going to attract unwanted attention to yourself. In that regard, you are asking for it by knowingly wearing something that might cause trouble. Again, I don't think the victim should feel like it's their fault, I don't think it's right if they get beat up for it, but I find it hard to believe that in certain circumstances the victim wasn't pushing the boundaries of what is known to be socially acceptable. Seemingly everyone I talk to about topics like this just automatically assumes I'm putting all the fault on the victim when in reality I feel like I'm just expressing that it's not all black and white. .","conclusion":"I believe \"asking for it\" and being at fault are two completely separate things."}
{"id":"5addcc30-43f5-406f-8163-af2a857c0304","argument":"Ross Monica are brother sister, but yet they remain incredibly close friends, well into their 30s. While this in and of itself isn't necessarily concerning, the way that they act together is. Time after time, Monica Ross share the same chair when the gang is just sitting around, and Monica sometimes sits on his lap. Monica is always grabbing on to Ross, touching him and leaning into him, and he's always wrapping his arms around her. Okay, but this can be put off as they're relatively handsy people. Not only that, but there are also countless situations where there are just some weeeeeeeeeeeeeird boundaries crossed. Monica Ross are incredibly open about their sex lives with each other In The One Where the Stripper Cries Season 10 , we find out that Ross Monica kissed at a party once which just so happened to be Monica's first kiss . In The One in Barbados Part 2 , Monica listens through the very thin walls of the hotel on her brother hooking up with the girl that Joey had been dating approximately 1 hour previously. In The One Where Rachel Goes Back to Work , Monica wants to have sex with Chandler Pants off Bing , and when Ross lets her know he's still in the room, she says that it will happen whether or not he's in the room. Most of these examples are from later seasons because that's what I've been watching the past week or two , but there are SO many examples throughout the series and it's something that really has been bothering me. Please help me find a way to find their relationship not as creepy, since I really love the series, but this is really weirding me out.","conclusion":"Ross & Monica have an almost creepy relationship in Friends"}
{"id":"a0888416-99d7-4270-a189-e5f8ac2bc6fa","argument":"I just recently had a son, and because of him I've been doing a lot of thinking about what kind of culture and society he's going to grow up into. x200B It scares the shit out of me. x200B The way we as people tend to deal with things that offend us, things that upset us, things we just simply don't like. It's completely counter productive. We've fallen into a pit of outrage culture, and it seems people are actively seeking things they deem problematic for a chance to show off virtue points and put others down. x200B PC Culture tends to oversimplify things and is often used by jerks who want to excuse bigoted behavior, but it's not entirely an incorrect characterization of America. I'm terrified of introducing my son to a world where the Jordan Petersons and Joe Rogans are demonized. They are viewed as scum simply for having a different viewpoint than the status quo. side note I don't think either Jordan or Joe are infallible. They aren't perfect, but they have immense value when it comes to cultivating conversation and encouraging discourse. Joe especially is wonderful in my view simply because he encourages open minded thinking and new ideas without blindly accepting dumb shit. x200B I don't think there's a path back to redeeming this culture. I'm afraid things will just progressively become worse. People will become more sensitive. Exhibiting characteristics associated with masculinity will be viewed as misogyny. Saying offensive things will become classified as hate speech and will be illegal. I may sound exaggeratory but I truly think that is where we are headed. And I think even the supposed benefactors of this kind of culture, ultimately will fall victim and be cannibalized. We already see it happening with major social justice figures slightly misstepping and being cancelled for it. When everyone is forced to walk on eggshells, no one can survive. x200B I hope someone changes my mind so I can sleep a little better at night.","conclusion":"The direction American culture is headed is deeply concerning and has little benefit to anyone within it"}
{"id":"2a296c9d-067a-4376-a5c2-20a3be2f13b1","argument":"Even in the event of a perfectly successful stoppage of a school shooting. The teacher has now taken a life. Taking a life is a heavy burden that even soldiers who's career path strictly involve this type of burden, have trouble assimilating to society afterwards because of PTSD. Teachers would be same if not worse.","conclusion":"Unlike law enforcement, teachers did not choose their career on the understanding that they are to put their life on the line. They became teachers to educate people. It is unfair to expect them to put themselves in mortal danger."}
{"id":"9808787e-e697-468d-93c4-94f5170bc504","argument":"The MeToo movement prompted an assessment of Clinton\u2019s tenure, tainting the regard with which an ex-president would usually be regarded. His favourability ratings have slumped to 45% in 2018 from 69% in 2013.","conclusion":"Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky as well as the sexual harassment allegations leveled against him tarnished the reputation of the presidential office."}
{"id":"e38d8f55-81de-480b-8eca-090f6aa0b13f","argument":"Addictions can lead to improper care of children, relatives, or any person even animals who depends on the user.","conclusion":"It is well documented that emotional harm comes to the loved ones of people using drugs and alcohol"}
{"id":"463f4ab0-ca2f-4913-820e-410ebc51e21d","argument":"Even after negotiation employees can still wonder if they are being compensated fairly. Therefore it is never a win for those involved, because there is no transparency with the situation.","conclusion":"It can be quite stressful for everyone discussing and negotiating salaries; therefore, work relationships are more at ease without such a burden."}
{"id":"686fef37-5de5-41de-8bfe-01a738d07fe9","argument":"It is necessary for everyone to understand gender in detail in order to embrace a more nuanced view that avoids bigotry.","conclusion":"A conversation around gender roles form a young age allows us to critique oppressive and mysogynistic behaviour."}
{"id":"19a656b3-74f7-4f91-92c5-cb29aa8bab7b","argument":"Once you make unfounded assumptions that are relevant to your decisions\/opinions your ability to make those decisions or draw conclusions objectively is at risk.","conclusion":"Most religions use the you-have-nothing-to-lose-by-believing argument. Of course you do: There's your time, your independence, your objectivity, and your cash."}
{"id":"9c4e647a-8dc5-4c66-8453-97114583ad2c","argument":"Stories are not assigned or covered if it's not believed that they'll appeal to readers. When editors, producers and correspondents have been desensitised to violence, they choose the most shocking stories and images. This shifts public acceptance and tolerance of violent imagery and reporting. p.12","conclusion":"When journalists, media editors and producers have themselves become desensitised to violence they are likely to report and create news that further desensitises the public. p. 12"}
{"id":"e727ecc7-fbc2-4751-9c61-d939041dbe82","argument":"Cursive is a waste of time to learn. I rarely sign anything now a days. I order stuff online. Even then, my signature does not look like my name and I learned cursive back when people thought high schoolers would hand write all assignments we didn\u2019t 3rd grade teacher . Cursive is discouraged when the computers go down because it may be misread if the person doesn\u2019t write neatly. Not being able to read important documents in its original form isn\u2019t a big deal. There will always be hobbyists who learn it for fun. Not to mention thr average person doesn\u2019t even bother to read the documents. If they need to look it up, they read a printed version in a book or on a website. So it is my belief that cursive is a waste of time. Edit it is a waste of time to teach in a standard school setting","conclusion":"Cursive is a waste of time to learn"}
{"id":"a49e5781-a771-454c-b2ed-81c973c70dc8","argument":"Sexual orientation is only one out of many characteristics of an individual and it does not have to be accentuated in public, just like one\u2019s political views, family and financial background, etc.","conclusion":"Many LGBTQ+ individuals can \"pass\" for an identity that would be acceptable by discriminatory vendors."}
{"id":"d870de01-e54e-4870-9e16-40ace2edd9db","argument":"I see these posts popping up on here all the time with people holding their ground on one side of the coin or the other as is the point of this subreddit . The way I see it is that the fundamental role of the government is to protect it's citizens, no more and no less. Now I firmly believe that abortion is wrong, I hate it, and under no circumstance should a woman prevent the life of another human being, even after being raped. But at the end of the day I just don't see why something like this has to be written into law. A fetus may be life, but it isn't a citizen of it's respective government and therefore that government should not be deciding what happens. It is up to the woman to decide, whether it be the right or wrong choice. People do wrong things everyday that aren't punished by law. There are bigger issue's out there that are killing more people more often that get completely overlooked. Alcohol for example, legal at a certain age, has led to the deaths of far more people, far more often than abortion could ever dream of doing. People are dumb and decide to argue about the racy stuff that gets the people going, but the fact of the matter is there are bigger issues at hand but no one seems to care. One citizen drinks and kills another citizen in a drunk driving incident, and the DUI charges start rolling out, murder charges, negligent homicide, etc. No one cars about the root of the issue once you're 21. That shit poisons our citizens, and kills them, something the government SHOULD be preventing. That protects our citizens. TLDR Abortion is wrong, but a fetus is not an american citizen and the federal government is not obligated to pass laws protecting it.","conclusion":"I believe in the pro life movement but will vote pro-choice."}
{"id":"8f9890ae-2f4d-45cd-9ab7-1fcac2978594","argument":"The typical vegan argument goes something like this we should be minimizing unnecessary harm to sentient creatures. Eating meat increases the demand for unnecessary harm. Therefore, we should not be eating meat. But eating meat and killing animals does not, necessarily, increase the net harm in the world. If a bear is going to kill you and your family, you can kill the bear and even eat it since there is nothing in the argument that eating meat is wrong in itself. In fact, wasting food is probably wrong since it is an inefficient use of resources. So, in general, we should be compelled to kill animals if they will cause needless suffering. Even if they are just natural predators looking for food. As long as it doesn't throw the ecosystem out of whack. Domestic cats cause lots of needless suffering. They almost all eat meat products and they kill small animals for fun and food. They are not contributing to a balanced ecosystem. So killing cats, especially feral cats with no attachments would be a net positive. In general, they're probably also compelled to kill other kinds of predators and destructive animals. But the cat is the one that most obviously demonstrates the needless suffering caused by certain animals. EDIT I thought my idea might be unique, but it seems like William MacAskill has a similar idea By killing predators, we can save the lives of the many prey animals like wildebeests, zebras, and buffalos in the local area that would otherwise be killed in order to keep the animals at the top of the food chain alive. And there\u2019s no reason for considering the lives of predators like lions to be more important than the lives of their prey. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Taken to its logical conclusion, vegans shouldn't be avoiding meat. They should be eating cats."}
{"id":"7a7eadc2-a19d-4ea6-9cb9-31c2bb719fff","argument":"The prime directive is Starfleet's General Order number 1. It has some variation from series to series but generally dictates that there can be no interference with the internal development of alien civilizations. It is generally regarded as a moral philosophy used to guide star trek captains The Prime Directive is not just a set of rules. It is a philosophy, and a very correct one. History has proven again and again that whenever mankind interferes with a less developed civilization, no matter how well intentioned that interference may be, the results are invariably disastrous. \u2014Jean Luc Picard, Symbiosis So maybe there is hypothetical evidence that interfering with alien cultures is always detrimental from star trek history that the viewer never knows. But as a moral philosophy and a practical method it seems stupid. Here are the problems with it 1 It seems to be propagated by the naturalistic fallacy and bans playing God, which is pretty weird because everything else about star trek moral philosophy is centered on secular humanism. 2 There is a disturbing application of Social Darwinism. Only the fittest civilizations which can avoid their own destruction and can achieve technical wonders on their own are worthy of survival, or joining the federation 3 It can easily be used as an excuse for inaction when there are tough decisions to make. 4 The evidence we have in the real world generally indicates that technology is a good thing 5 It limits what the general mission of the federation is, exploration of new life and civilizations.","conclusion":"The Prime Directive from Star Trek is Stupid"}
{"id":"b4b61655-f2af-4fd2-8058-23d270114472","argument":"Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see anything wrong with Trump's son being given tip offs by the Russian's during the election. Don't basically all politicians try to get any advantage they can? I would agree that not questioning the sources of the information is very suspicious, but simply receiving information itself isn't illegal or anything. One would think the illegal stuff would have been the Russians hacking or whatever, but simply receiving the information wasn't illegal or wrong. In my mind it is the Russians who are bad, and whatever it is Clinton did that was worth disclosing. Disclaimer I think Trump and his whole family are idiots, but I just don't see this being the big story. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Trump Jr. did nothing wrong by accepting information from the Russians."}
{"id":"d7177db0-4449-4bfa-a17a-13ab4e89ea10","argument":"I am not Antisemitic, and I do recognize that Antisemitism exists in America. But when my Jewish friends complain about being the Jews being discriminated against in the US, I literally can't take it seriously. I certainly hear offensive jokes about Jews or mean comments, but I can not think of an event where a Jewish person was persecuted on the level as say a Black, Mexican, or gay American. I mean jokes are bad, but other minorities endure that and so much more. Jews are not harassed by the police, assumed to be of inferior intellect, or treated like a slave labor force. Historically the Jews have faced much hardship, but in today's society they seem unhindered by prejudice. Aside from the occasional hurtful comment I'm not seeing any other hardships for the American Jew. It is in no way uncommon for a Jewish person to enjoy fine dining, high end retail shopping, college education, country club membership, etc. Whereas in other ethnic groups these actions would be rare and noteworthy. Furthermore when a black or Hispanic person goes shopping the security guards typically watch them like a hawk. Or if they were to attend college many people assume it is on an athletic scholarship or simply to promote diversity. I have not seen Jewish people endure such circumstances. Am I missing something?  UPDATE Toptomcat swayed my point of view with their analysis of hate crime data. Thanks for everyone who participated, even the people that hate me.","conclusion":"I think that Jewish Americans face little discrimination in today's society,"}
{"id":"8a9b8e2a-e0d8-4772-a1f3-88a43e88498f","argument":"here are the fitness standards in question, which I found on wikipedia the reason for the modified standards is the strength and endurance difference associated with gender and age. that doesn't make sense to me because in practice a certain task will not magically be easier for someone of a different bracket. if I were a soldier in a combat position, I'd rather have a partner who can do a minimum of 40 push ups, not one who can do at minimum 17, especially considering that push ups already scale in difficulty with body weight. an argument that I am expecting is that the military has a lot of non combat positions which require less physical ability. in this case, a reasonable thing to do is have a different set of standards associated with these positions and these again have no reason to be modulated by age or gender. edit a lot of answers are moving the goalposts. bringing up that there are different positions which involve less physical work is not relevant. edit I also don't think that putting a standard on overall health is the same as putting a standard on performance at physical tasks. both are important, but this post is about performance standards number of reps, minutes per miles .","conclusion":"Military fitness standards shouldn't account for gender or age."}
{"id":"ad928ec4-7967-4a1f-ac81-a236e951eb05","argument":"I am speaking specifically on the differences between men and women. I have seen numerous people who I regard quite highly reference progressive egalitarian societies and that when these societies flatten out the variability of the environment that is societal pressures on the sexes, etc , what we see is that biological variability maximises. There have been numerous studies done to show that the referenced countries Sweden, Norway, Scandinavia, Denmark, etc do in fact report larger discrepancies of men and women in traditional career fields large numbers of women in nursing, teaching and large numbers of men in construction and engineering , so the statistics aren't in dispute, at least not so far as I can tell from the studies that have been provided from those countries. What I am curious about is how exactly these countries are 'egalitarian' and what they have done to 'flatten out' the environmental variability. So effectively, what I am asking is,  that there are biological predispositions between genders with respect of interests, career choices and moral values. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The more you open opportunities for people to do anything they want, the more likely it is that any kind of genetic predisposition they have will be able to express itself."}
{"id":"ebfcf038-690a-46aa-a984-1218a3e12c6e","argument":"When Mass Effect 3 came out, a lot of people hated the ending and complained to Bioware. After this response, they issued DLC changing the ending. Basically, this isn't how art works. In my eyes, the main tenet of art is free expression, the ability to say something how you want to say it and make the statement you want with a lack of obligation to change it to fit the views of the public. When fans started the outcry against the ending, it showed that despite what they say, they still treat video games predominately as consumer product and expect them bent to their will and enjoyment. You can't send back a Dali painting or a Death Grips album and say hey, I didn't like this, start over and expect it to be changed, and that leads into the developer's fault in this. The fact that they caved shows that they don't care about making an artistic statement and only care about making money. It's like when bands go back to their old sound because fans don't like new experiments they do. Now, you can probably say that the ending was a disappointment, but that's not the point the point is that that's how Bioware INTENDED for it to end, and the fact that consumers didn't accept that and the company bent to accommodate shows that neither side looks at video games as an art form. .","conclusion":"The fan reaction to Mass Effect 3's ending, and the subsequent developer response, shows that neither side treats video games as art."}
{"id":"a01b23ef-788b-4bfc-a152-bb9d1a76a358","argument":"In Sri Lanka women are not allowed to work after 10 p.m. in the retail sector.","conclusion":"In many countries, women are not granted the right to work at night"}
{"id":"c83e375a-f9cd-40c1-b20a-b6e849778daa","argument":"I believe that government subsidized health care is critical to having a healthy and productive nation I'm Australian FFIW . However I believe that the focus of this should be on attempting to prevent acute deaths and performing critical transplant surgeries, directly not indirectly saving lives, as opposed to improving the quality of life for a very slim minority of the population. I am aware of the increased incidence of mortality as a consequence of mental health issues suffered by the transgender collective, however their specific needs are very narrow and for every surgeon that specializes in gender reassignment we have a specialist who doesn't specialize in cardiac surgery, or oncology, or transplant surgery, or pediatric acute care. For every transgender person requiring very specialized care that isn't being provided there are dozens of people who require care that isn't being provided but is comparable to many more others in their situation, there is an economics of scale in treating those dozens in lieu of treating the few.","conclusion":"Subsidized gender assignment surgery should take a backseat to critical life saving surgery."}
{"id":"c3587df5-f20f-488e-afc0-36b472fc96d7","argument":"Human rights and dignity are not due to a nation by other nations if they dont give it to themselves first.","conclusion":"Democracies should only provide official development assistance ODA to democratic countries."}
{"id":"542083f8-2e8a-435a-ad48-6c36594aa1ed","argument":"The potential reward for pleasing an all powerful being is clearly greater than the valid but limited reward of taking care of shoe laces that likely can be easily replaced. Taking care of shoes is straitforward while pleasing God will take choosing to know and practice what He has told us","conclusion":"The implications of untied shoelaces are demonstratably less important than the implications of a God existing or not."}
{"id":"e02f2c13-3c68-4dad-ae4c-b1d0359e56b1","argument":"I believe that whistleblowers are really the last chance the public has to confirm suspicions of wrong doings in powerful institutions. Without them, with what evidence are we able to credibly and legally stand up to our governments? I understand that some others do not feel the same way, I am interested to know why.","conclusion":"I think Ed Snowden, and other Whistleblowers who expose various infringements of rights, privacy and plain wrong-doing by powerful institutions are hero's of humanity."}
{"id":"cfe7e192-271a-48a9-8539-dcfb4b27708b","argument":"WhileCarter Page was a Trump Campaign official, he was invited to give a commencement address in Russia at a school funded by Putin and pro-Putin Russian oligarchs. He gave the speech and then met with Russian officials. Though initially denying these meetings, Page later admitted to them. His initial denials of these meetings indicate that he wanted to keep them from public view. There would be no reason to do that unless the purpose of the meetings was counter to the public's interest.","conclusion":"Carter Page a former Foreign Policy advisor to the Trump campaign, has had numerous connections to the Russians and was approached by Russian Intelligence Operatives."}
{"id":"dc3a6746-5f60-4f21-a276-1db02f0121fe","argument":"Without welfare, people have to work in order to provide for themselves and their family.","conclusion":"Cutting welfare budgets provides an incentive for people to find work."}
{"id":"f81f42d2-7f4e-4d3a-8586-4dd769cd8686","argument":"Free trade means that American businesses are open to greater competition from international companies which encourages innovation and efficiency.","conclusion":"Free trade encourages the American economy to be more efficient."}
{"id":"03bd1adc-b589-4abd-902d-a9c015c425f7","argument":"When I say guided meditation I'm talking about Headspace, 10 Happier etc. or the free guided meditation videos on Youtube. I also want to clarify I'm far from an expert meditator. What I consider to be one of the main purposes of meditation is that it trains you to become more aware of your thoughts, which then leads to becoming generally more aware of your surroundings. It also helps you to be able to control your thoughts emotions more easily. So for example you might notice that you're becoming angry for no good reason, so you calm yourself down. This is because meditation usually requires the person to focus on their breath, sensations, emotions etc. and whenever the person notices that their mind is wandering, they bring themselves back. My point is that during meditation you are the one noticing your focus thoughts drifting off. I feel that guided meditation gets rid of the meditator's independence because the speaker is there to remind the meditator to focus. I feel like this goes against the entire purpose of meditation. It's supposed to the meditator recognising their thoughts are drifting and not anything else. It's like another person pointing out that you're angry, it just doesn't work. It's far better if you notice yourself so you can then calm yourself down. I do believe that guided meditation can be a useful tool for some people just starting out. However I think that its only use is for beginners and there's no reason why intermediate meditators above should do it. I've even heard experienced meditators such as Sam Harris talking about guided meditation as something that can be occasionally useful. Sam talks about the person there to remind you to focus as a positive. I never really understood this which is why I've decided to post here. There is a possibility that it can be a good to educate people about meditation, however I don't see why it's necessary to make the meditations sessions worse in order to pass on information. I half believe that guided meditation is just a way to monetise meditation and that's the reason why it's basically taken over the meditation community. Edit I want to emphasise this. My main point is that I don't see how guided meditation is just as good as regular meditation for intermediates, experts or masters. I do see how for beginners it can be useful.","conclusion":"Guided meditation is an inferior form of meditation."}
{"id":"9725f8c5-4003-4f84-b7ff-6d10de2a0545","argument":"Edit a lot of people want to argue the term all things being equal or about divorce. So let me put it this way would anyone prefer their child grow up and have a child out of wedlock instead of being married first. Children of unwed parent are twice as likely to drop out of high school, 2.5 times as likely to become teen mothers, and 1.4 times as likely to be idle out of school and out of work as children who grow up with both parents. Children in one parent families also have lower grade point averages, lower college aspirations, and poorer attendance records. As adults, they have higher rates of divorce. These patterns persist even after adjusting for differences in race, parents' education, number of siblings, and residential location. This statement is meant to taken with the understanding of all other things being equal. Yes two meth addicted married parents are worse than a single mom with a PHD that teaches at the local college. This statement includes two married parents of the same sex. So don\u2019t try to turn this into I'm against gay marriage. This also has nothing to do with religion. Two married atheist parents would be better of than an single unwed religious parent. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"It is better for a child to be raised by two married parents then by a single unwed parent."}
{"id":"48ff43b2-8361-40d8-bdff-1851a2e6bd57","argument":"I'm gonna try to keep it short for you. I apologize in advance for my condescending tone, but it's inevitable when you receive the same easily refutable arguments over and over. Typical Reddit argument 1 Cell phone radiation is non ionizing, thus, can't cause DNA damage. Reality gt It has been argued repeatedly Park 2001, 2002, 2006, 2009, 2010, 2011, Shermer 2010 that cellphones must be safe because a single microwave photon does not have enough energy to break a chemical bond. This argument would perhaps be convincing if the photon flux were less than 1 photon per square wavelength per photon period equivalent to a photon density of lt 1 per cubic wavelength . However, this condition, which holds for some common sources of ionizing radiation, does not hold for cellphone exposures Table 1 . This means that while ionizing radiation is typically in the pure quantum limit of low photon density, cellphones and cell towers operate in the classical wave limit of high photon densities. In this situation the energy of each photon is often irrelevant. This is backed up up by most experimental data, which repeatedly finds that cell phone radiation leads to oxidative stress in biological tissue. A 2009 review found 49 studies showing that microwave radiation leads to DNA damage. A 2005 study done in India indicates that cell phone users have 5 times as much chromosomal damage as non users in their blood cells. Typical Reddit argument 2 There is no consensus. If we take away industry funded studies, a large majority of studies does show an effect. Between 1990 and 2006, 85 studies were found on a link between DNA damage and microwave radiation, of which 43 found an effect, and 42 did not. 35 of the 85 studies were funded by the cell phone industry, and 32 of those studies found no effect. Eliminating these industry funded studies leaves us with 40 studies that found an effect versus 10 studies that found no effect. This would indicate that 80 of non industry funded studies find an effect. Typical Reddit argument 3 If cell phones caused brain tumors, we would have seen a strong rise in brain tumors in cancer statistics. The answer to this is no, because the effect is generally only visible after a ten years latency. This is because brain tissue is slowly dividing, thus a brain tumor takes a long time to develop. For people exposed to radiation to their head in their occupation, the latency between first exposure and diagnosis is 23.5 years on average, with a 5.9 year standard deviation. This means that only 2.4 of the total number of brain tumors caused by occupation related exposure to radiation would be expected to be seen within 11.7 year of first exposure. Thus it's easy to see why a rise in brain cancer cases caused by cell phones would take a long period to show up in government collected statistics. Most studies look at early adapters of cell phones, the small minority of people who have used them for a long time. The reason we have not seen a rise in brain tumors so far in the general population statistics is because the number of people who have used them for at least 10 years was still a small portion of the general population. In addition, other factors that lead to brain cancer have been on the decline. There has been a decline in fetal X ray exposure, as well as a decline in human pesticide exposure. Chemicals like Lindane, linked to a 5 fold increased risk in brain cancer are currently being phased out. This leads to a decline in brain cancer, which has masked the rise in cases of brain cancer caused by cell phone exposure. It should be noted however that cell phones don't just cause brain cancer, but cause thyroid and salivary gland cancer as well. Both of these forms of cancer are rapidly becoming more common according to government statistics. The rise in thyroid cancer is observed globally, and can not be explained solely by increased diagnosis. This is exactly what we would expect to see if cell phones cause cancer, because these tissues are more rapidly multiplying than brain tissue, and thus develop cancer at an earlier point in time. Of course a theory has to be falsifiable to be debatable. The idea of a link between brain cancer and cell phones could be cast aside if statistics show that there has still been no significant rise visible in cases of brain cancer after 2018. We should also expect to see some evidence pointing at a rise in brain cancer in the coming years, which already appears to be the case in Scandinavia. The real epidemic of brain cancer will only become visible when the generation of children currently using cell phones grows up to be adults. After all, their skulls are thinner and their cells are still rapidly dividing. This is going to be an enormous tragedy.","conclusion":"I think most of you reading this are going to die from cell phone induced cancer."}
{"id":"dee47717-3eac-4445-a1af-43b2203eb02d","argument":"If societal instability becomes the norm and we have lost the traditions and knowledge on animal husbandry and meat preservation it will result in mass casualties within the human family.","conclusion":"Eating meat is a central part of human nature, evolution, and physiology\/biology and thus its consumption is inherent to humankind."}
{"id":"b3e0c2e7-0d7c-498b-a476-9ded43479b03","argument":"UBI could indeed help societies to address low-income citizens\u2019 sense of helplessness thus providing them with hope and life meaning, shying them away from crime and encouraging them to advance society instead.","conclusion":"A UBI can reduce the economic stresses that contribute to crime."}
{"id":"7738e7d3-e442-4a90-8043-5da71fc4a92a","argument":"I was in another thread discussing bandwidth usage, and my opinion has always been for the consumer pricing of home internet to use a \u201cMetered usage\u201d model. i.e. a pay as you go sort of deal where everybody using the service pays the same X number of cents per GB. This could also incorporate time of use pricing, so it\u2019s cheaper on off peak hours, similar to electricity companies but everyone pays the same rate. I have heard a lot of people argue strongly against this, but I don\u2019t really understand their position and what the big deal is. Shouldn\u2019t the heavy users pay proportionally more than casual light users? User pay\u2026? My main issue is the price disparities in tiered pricing that all the telecoms use. If the tiers were priced appropriately I don't think I'd have a problem it's the volume discount pricing that irks me. For example, Rogers in Canada 500GB is 226 0.45 GB , whereas 20GB is 45 2.25 GB . So the heavy user is using 25 times the bandwidth, and is paying about one fifth of the cost per unit the light user is paying. What if I only use 5GB per month? Then I still have to pay 45 for only 5GB because it\u2019s the lowest tier available. That's bullshit in my books. Why are the light users essentially subsidizing the heavy users? The cost of increasing network capacity infrastructure etc. is mostly due to the heavy users, is it not? Can\u2019t we just pay like a 10 flat fee for access or whatever and then X number of cents per GB thereafter? If you use 3TB, pay for 3TB, if you use 3MB, pay for 3MB. Apparently my opinion is very unpopular and akin to being on the side of the Evil Telecoms wishing to gouge everyone. Maybe some of my perceptions above are mistaken or misinformed so","conclusion":"I think internet bandwidth should be metered and billed based on actual usage..."}
{"id":"938ff29c-e99f-4732-b1be-661be7b32cf6","argument":"Studies on drug users show that criminality among adults both men and women and young people rates higher than on people that don't use drugs. The National Institute on Drug Abuse of USA states the same thing.","conclusion":"Drug use correlates with criminality, thievery, and risky sexual behavior. Responsibility is a state that is easily bypassed when you enter the flow of the drug world."}
{"id":"d8155ef7-a70f-44b0-98f2-e1df2de6aa6e","argument":"This was my first election and around the election I was full heartedly anti Trump. I hated him, I constantly made the Donald Drumpf jokes, I watch comedians who would tear him to shreds over how stupid he was as a candidate, I voted against him, i was active in my community and on my college campus, I was actively following his social media to see the next horrible thing and unpresidential tweet he would spill, I even encouraged others to vote against him. I was helping America but for some reason it changed. Now though I'm tired, I no longer feel the fervor I felt against him and I honestly don't feel the same hatred. I feel almost sympathetic to Trump and his family. The jokes I would always make about trump aren't funny anymore and during the election I religiously watched LWT to watch John Oliver tear him to ribbons but I watched last Sunday's episode about Ivanka and her husband and I just didn't find it funny.i went back and watched his episode on The Wall and just on Trump and only chuckled when previously I would die laughing. I feel exhausted, I feel like the jokes about him got stale even though they shouldn't have since he was and still to some regards is a joke , the 24hr news cycle has completely killed my passion against the man I see him everyday and while he has made some decisions I am strongly against the fascist society I though would occur really hasn't. I watch him day by day just do stuff meetings and golf , the constant marching and protesting has drained any feeling I got when I stood up and said I was against him, I felt like I was 1 in a crowd based on my location and that needed to stand up to this tyrannical idiot but that feeling is gone I feel like the realizations others are there to fight the fight so I can relax a bit weakened my resolve. I am afraid my exhaustion makes me part of the problem. I don't care anymore about everything he does only his policies and I even find myself not hating everyone of them. I might disagree with them but I can see where they are coming from even if they appear to be short sighted to me. I feel like I am part of the problem now, all the politicians and protesters who are standing against Trump and his presidency and I've become exhausted over it. I feel like my failure to keep my fervor is passive acceptance of Trump. I plan to obviously vote in my local elections, since all of the news, John Oliver, and Select subreddits I follow stressed the importance of voting, even though I really have no idea who any of the people are or what they stand for only their names and party allegiance Change my view that I'm not becoming part of the problem. Also terribly sorry for any bad formatting, I'm on mobile. Edit I've seen quite a few though provoking responses that have made me sit back and evaluate myself and actually make me realize my own views weren't my own. I was in an echo chamber that reinforced certain ideas and made it feel like I had to believe X or I was part of the problem and in an effort to not be part of the problem I fully engulfed myself in a certain camp of ideas. I realize now that politics and political views are something personal that should be based on experiences, beliefs, and even reservations and that as a responsible adult voter I need to come up with my own view since it's through the mingling of ideas true greatness can be found and made. Thank you so much everyone for helping me open my eyes and actually grow up.","conclusion":"I've become part of the problem with America by losing fervor against Trump"}
{"id":"37390822-eccb-4389-a419-5d052ee50b64","argument":"I'll try not to spoil anything here for people who haven't watched Game of Thrones, but this post is specifically about events in that show. So if you don't watch it, or intend to, perhaps this is a good time to skedaddle. Tonight's episode featured a rape scene. sp I Googled 'game of thrones rape' to find that within an hour of the episode airing, several prominent publications had already posted articles with titles like 'Did Game of Thrones go too far?' 'Was that rape scene necessary?' etc. etc. I don't even want to check Twitter because I have a feeling it's full of the same. A rape scene Outrage When will rape culture stop ? GoT went too far Yet the show also depicts HUNDREDS, literally HUNDREDS of murders. Murders of babies. Murders of parents in front of the children. Casual murder. There was a murder of an unborn child in one episode. Yet the only reaction people have to those is that they miss that character or OMG I DID NOT SEE THAT COMING. HERE'S WHAT I'M NOT SAYING I'm not saying that rape is acceptable, or that we should just sit back and enjoy it when it's depicted on film. That scene was hard as hell to watch. I'm also not saying that we should be outraged that Game of Thrones or any show for that matter is ultra violent and depicts so much murder. But I think it's absurd to get worked up about a show depicting something terrible rape while totally ignoring that it constantly depicts something that is, in my opinion, worse murder . Change my view. EDIT I guess I need to clarify a bit, as lots of people have posted regarding what it means to be offended outraged. I have no problem with people being personally offended by something, either because it invokes a memory, or they simple find it difficult to sit through. To clarify my position, being offended by something, and then taking to the internet to say that the show's creators were WRONG to show it, is ridiculous. Example of what I'm talking about scroll down for Twitter reactions as well here EDIT 2 Really wish I had worded things better, but it's fine, I think it still made for a good discussion. I'm gonna stop responding to most things now, because I think enough people share my view that I'm not necessarily needed. Also, I do apologize if this ruffled any feathers or brought up any rough memories for anyone it's always challenging to discuss rape in a careful yet constructive way, so I hope it went that way for the most part. Thanks all","conclusion":"It's ridiculous to be offended by a rape scene in a show Game of Thrones that features a violent murder almost every episode"}
{"id":"5fd0754b-0035-4469-8a11-56a7a7e0868e","argument":"CTNS is an international program dedicated to research, teaching and public service. The central scientific focus of CTNS is on developments in physics, cosmology, evolutionary biology, and genetics, with additional topics in the neurosciences, the environmental sciences, and mathematics. With regard to the theological task, CTNS engages in both Christian and multi-religious reflection.","conclusion":"During the last quarter century, a flourishing dialogue between science and theology has been going on in North America and Europe. Clearly faith and science can, at bare minimum, have mutually respectful discussion."}
{"id":"10edf0f8-4510-44b4-8358-f8fce4dff6b4","argument":"The common courtesy rule dictates that if you know someone is in a relationship, then you shouldn't actively attempt to pursue them, as if being in a relationship somehow meant a person was branded as untouchable . If a guy knows a woman has a boyfriend, for example, he most likely won't even bother making moves let alone talk to her. I personally think single people should be encouraged to respectfully pursue other people, regardless of their relationship status. In fact I think this can benefit all parties involved the pursuant, the object of their affection, and the significant other a.k.a SO . Note this theory rests on the assumption that after the cheating takes place, the relationship between the target and their SO will collapse. Without the relationship ending, this theory no longer holds true because the SO then gains no benefits. Let's consider various scenarios Scenario 1 the pursuant gets rejected by the target This seems like the most likely scenario. In this case, you've actually done that person and their SO a favor by testing the strength of their relationship. You also personally benefit, on the one hand, from added social experience, and on the other hand, from not having to wonder what if at the end of the night. And the SO would be none the wiser. Scenario 2 the pursuant is successful, and the target cheats on their SO with the pursuant In this case, I still think everyone wins in the long run. The pursuant wins, obviously, because he she gets to be involved with the object of his her affection, whether it's a one night stand or develops into a long term relationship. The target wins, because he she gets to be with someone who, in that moment, offered them something their SO couldn't. They essentially upgraded, in a sense of the word, albeit temporarily. This will also force them to re think their entire relationship. And lastly, the SO wins, because this will most likely bring their relationship to an end, thus cutting his her losses early. If the target was willing to cheat this time, he she most likely would've done eventually. You've actually saved the SO a lot of time and energy in the long run.","conclusion":"by pursuing someone who's in a relationship, you're actually doing them and their SO a service"}
{"id":"e43a3429-a590-41c4-ac2b-e3fce2a192c7","argument":"Example: Person A: What are you suggesting? That I'm too uninformed or ignorant to participate in this conversation? Person B: \"I apologize, I didn't realize how that question could sound insulting. I asked because.\"","conclusion":"Ad hominems can reveal specific problems in communication, an understanding of which may move discussions forward."}
{"id":"a9693944-d576-4349-986f-a590df627827","argument":"According to the Stoic, Marcus Aurelius \"the impediment to action advances action.\" This helps build a positive attitude among people.","conclusion":"It would help build a positive mental health for people who have nothing to loose"}
{"id":"a61eefb8-486b-41a8-9b9e-f5bd0c7e6d46","argument":"The flag and the National Anthem are symbols of the nation. The offences being protested are not.","conclusion":"NFL players should be forced to stand during the National Anthem."}
{"id":"17c50363-2928-42c0-9aba-79a3f9a330ce","argument":"Despite promising to eliminate the Federal Debt \"fairly quickly\" in an Interview with Sean Hannity Instead, in his first 4 years of office, the federal debt increased by $3.1T. This is during an economic expansion, a time when the Government is supposed to be reducing debt for the inevitable recession.","conclusion":"Trump failed to follow through on the financial promises that he made to the voters."}
{"id":"087a7cdd-59d8-45da-9615-62938a37ae59","argument":"Politicians are labeled with their Name, Political Party, and State example Senator Bernie Sanders, D VT . Politicians should only have their title and state associated with this names because x200B 1 We are in an increasingly polarized political climate. Some constituents will call their state politicians and say Do not support Bill 1234. It is sponsored by a DEM GOP This will prevent leaders from working in a bipartisan fashion. x200B 2 Related to 1, if an American who is staunchly DEM, he she will automatically think that the politician who identifies at GOP is the enemy without actually knowing what the politician's platform is. We rely on stereotypes to make first judgments, which impairs willingness to start discussion ex Oh, she's a GOP from AK, I bet she supports guns and is pro life x200B 3 This will prevent the media and others from labeling a largely GOP supported bill or 11 GOP senators voted for Kavanaugh and 10 DEMs voted against him in a committee of 21 people. This type of rhetoric further divides the country, x200B Americans will vote for state and local leadership based on who has their best interest, and it's ok that people know what the party of the politician is. However, when we give the political party affiliation of politicians in national news, I feel like it feeds into the divide rather than cohesiveness. x200B Tl dr Labeling political party affiliation with politicians after they are locally elected causes Americans to think more along party lines rather than what is actually good for Americans as a whole because of bias.","conclusion":"Politicians should not have their political party associated with their names after they are elected by their constituents into office."}
{"id":"2a6013cb-494b-4a05-a5af-70758c8997d0","argument":"I once said There's a passage I got memorized. Ezekiel 25 17. The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of the darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy My brothers. And you will know I am the Lord when I lay My vengeance upon you. Now I been sayin' that shit for years. And if you ever heard it, that meant your ass. You'd be dead right now. I never gave much thought to what it meant. I just thought it was a cold blooded thing to say to a motherfucker before I popped a cap in his ass. But I saw some shit this mornin' made me think twice. See, now I'm thinking maybe it means you're the evil man. And I'm the righteous man. And Mr. 9mm here he's the shepherd protecting my righteous ass in the valley of darkness. Or it could mean you're the righteous man and I'm the shepherd and it's the world that's evil and selfish. And I'd like that. But that shit ain't the truth. The truth is you're the weak. And I'm the tyranny of evil men. But I'm tryin', Ringo. I'm tryin' real hard to be the shepherd. That last line I'm tryin' real hard to be the shepherd. My story is one of redemption, but I feel that I should have tried harder to save Vincent. That day was the day I felt the touch of God right then, I was the Shepard, and Vincent was part of my flock. Not this idiot in the diner, but the man I worked with. And I abandoned him, left him without guidance only to be gunned down in an act of senseless violence that could have been prevented. That touch of God wasn't so much for me, but also for Vincent. God saved me that day so I could save Vincent, but I mistook the signals for myself and selfishly walked out of the life not thinking twice about my brother in arms. So go ahead, change my mother fuckin view, mother fuckers.","conclusion":"I'm Jules Winnfield, and I feel directly responsible for Vincent's fate. Mother fuckers. Pulp Fiction Spoilers"}
{"id":"99ad89ff-4803-4f67-a537-ca210df43bbe","argument":"In 1969 federal legal initiatives aimed at increasing federal control and regulation over gun commerce, possession and licensing.This goes to prove that historically people have aimed at regulating the individual right to bear arms in the name of a greater public safety. The DC Handgun Ban should be analyzed holistically in terms of previous attempts and legal initiatives to control and regulate gun possession.","conclusion":"Historically gun control laws and prohibitions have been applied even at the federal level"}
{"id":"504ef7cd-64d1-4355-9ab8-e53d17def54f","argument":"I'm happy to throw my vote to the occasional third party candidate, but either party rules this country and no matter how much fervor I possess while casting my vote I think it'll never amount to anything in the face of the serious manipulation of voting I've seen the warped pictures of how districts are divided . I've no doubt there's a lot more going on behind the scenes than just that. For that reason I don't pay attention to politics, because I think there are better ways to waste my time for something I can't affect in the slightest.","conclusion":"I think politics has no relevance to me because my vote will accomplish nothing of significance."}
{"id":"cbae4d2a-c8a7-4421-abdf-df5079ebe066","argument":"Every time I hear a Silkk feature, I get really confused why anyone paid this guy to rap. He was always off beat. If I were as bad at my job as he was at rapping, I'd be banned from the industry. It especially bothers me because I like most rappers some claim to be awful. I love Lil B and understand his stream of consciousness lyrics. I get how Young Thug values sound over coherence to make massively fun music. Even when Big Sean started rapping off beat, it worked because he properly knew how to syncopate his lyrics. I understand some things take a while to get used to. Somettimes that knee jerk reactions will call a guy who's being different terrible because he's hard to understand. But Silkk takes me out of the song every time and I don't understand what he's doing. The guy sucks. Inexplicably popular and awful. Can someone explain to me why Silkk was consistently so awful yet so successful?","conclusion":"Silkk Da Shocker was a terrible rapper and was famous only because of nepotism"}
{"id":"eb0f2123-b6f7-4c9e-845b-7c65d7c6db0a","argument":"Literacy is correlated with wealth, both at the individual level, and at the collective level of cities and nations.","conclusion":"A literate populace is necessary for the modern economy to function."}
{"id":"d55c9c98-e270-403e-b4b0-030b319b38cd","argument":"When you take a look at modern racial violence it is no wonder why people saw segregation as a good thing 1 Why do you hold your view? Because of the obvious black on white violence that gets ignored by mainstream media. From the Knock out game to Chicago death tolls it is hard to understand why people remain silent about the issue that is black America 2 Is there any evidence you can use to support your view? Tons of videos that most people will call propoganda","conclusion":"I think Jim Crow laws were made not because of racism but to keep people safe from violent blacks"}
{"id":"a7a885c9-a220-4d9a-bc10-6c1f0a186cd9","argument":"It is typical to believe that each person has 1 Will, has 1 set of beliefs, has 1 Consciousness which drives their actions. However, it is readily apparent that this view is false. Addiction A person can truly believe that they want to quit X. They can seek help, they can seek guidance and want desperately to quit X, yet fail. Their body may perform actions X which they don't want to perform. Cognitive Dissonance People can be of two minds on 1 subject. Someone can earnestly support 1 thing, yet also actively undermine it. They may believe X is moral, but in action do the opposite. Ego Depletion This is the concept that Will is a limited resource. That once your Will is depleted, you have substantially less conscious control over your impulses than you would otherwise. If true, what does this mean? This implies that one's impulses towards actions are separate from one's ability to suppress those impulses, which implies at least 2 Wills. Freud taken at face value this implies 3 wills, id, ego, superego. We have impulses, we have moral constraints, and we have an arbiter between them. But this means that we are of three minds about all our decisions. System 1 System 2 System 1 is the automatic quick thinking system, System 2 is the slower, logical system. While system 2 can occasionally restrain and control system 1, most of the time, system 1 runs our lives. Neuroscience our brains process information in parellel there isn't 1 long circuit which connects our entire brain there are many separate circuits each with different functions. In aggregate, these circuits may yield contradictory outcomes in seemingly similar circumstances, because different circuits took the lead as it were. Urges in its most basic form as humans we have urges, yet we also have the ability to repress those urges and not act on them. Which of these is the singular Will the initial urges or our ability to repress them? As soon as you acknowledge a distinction between our urges and our ability to not act on them, you have acknowledged 2 Wills. While I'm sure everyone here finds at least 1 of the above opinions objectionable, I also believe that everyone here will find at least 1 of those opinions to be roughly correct. While we can all disagree on WHY the concept of a singular will is wrong, I think we can all agree that there is at least 1 strong reason to disbelieve in a singular will. How to  find a way to demonstrate that addicts act of 1 mind or demonstrate that urges and the ability to suppress urges, which can and often fails, fits within a singular will and doesn't necessitate a second will. Edit Not 100 sure this will clarify my views, but this comic does touch on the general ideas I am attempting to argue. This comic is not my own, I found it via a Google search, if someone knows the original author, I am more than happy to credit them. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The Will does not exist as a singular entity"}
{"id":"8f3c704a-0617-4a9c-9adc-da6b61f3de14","argument":"Public order and national safety would be more difficult to sustain without technologies that enable deterrence. Therefore not all weapons systems should be banned.","conclusion":"By this logic the development of all new weapons \/ weapon systems should be terminated."}
{"id":"e7a17103-d87d-4a42-a37e-9db5eede4eb4","argument":"Here are view topics that can be discussed that can contribute to changing my view. 1 African American's contribution to technology that directly benefited all races and that are comparable to the accomplishments of other races in that field. e.g Carver's Peanut Butter vs. Edison's Light bulb 2 African American's direct contribution to society that positively affected all races involved. 3 Where African Americans lead the world in innovation. Throughout most of history, the role of African Americans blacks has been marginally insignificant to that of other races. e.g Romans, Greeks, Arabs, Mongols, and Chinese.","conclusion":"Historically speaking African Americans are inferior to most other races."}
{"id":"f517a3b2-4e14-4540-8ad3-98fcd3e69505","argument":"I've had discussions with people that say they prefer the company of animals over humans because people are mean spirited and evil and animals can never be that way. They give money to animal rescues instead to charities that help humans. I find those beliefs sick and potentially dangerous and I think those people need professional help.","conclusion":"I believe that people who value relationships with animals over humans are dysfunctional to the point of requiring psychological therapy."}
{"id":"446c4218-1bfb-402b-9ca1-4fc0533b282a","argument":"Minority groups who don't have a sense of strong identity in their country, making them susceptible to recruitment by terrorist organizations.","conclusion":"Groups, subjected to hate speech, are likely to feel more isolated and turn to radicalism."}
{"id":"0c551afe-e26e-4e04-846c-8dfc8e0c2bad","argument":"You can never be sure about the future intentions of the state, one day it might turn completely legal things you do today against you. Not being recorded would give you a more secure feeling of protection against this possible threat.","conclusion":"Many people might feel better knowing that no one will even potentially be able to control their transactions."}
{"id":"6d6d8eb0-cca4-4450-b4b3-df06c912f1b6","argument":"Chris Mosier was the first trans athlete to qualify for a U.S. national team in a sex different from his birth, showing that a trans man can compete with cisgender men at the highest level.","conclusion":"Trans men are usually allowed to compete with other men, the same should apply to trans women."}
{"id":"35a8ac20-e4b8-478c-bc82-cec2a53f1db1","argument":"St. Louis University professor of earth and atmospheric sciences Timothy Kusky told Time this week, \"New Orleans naturally wants to be a lake. A city should never have been built there in the first place,\" he said to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.\"1","conclusion":"New Orleans was wrongly built below sea level at odds with nature"}
{"id":"3ae2a950-02f4-470e-8949-71ae29446f26","argument":"Moral standards may include some form of intolerance. Thereby, limiting freedom of speech would also limit freedom of religion.","conclusion":"Absolute freedom is not desirable because it necessarily infringes on the rights of others."}
{"id":"08feac45-d5f0-4729-8f1f-c957fde9179f","argument":"Many scholars argue that there is more about Shakespeare in contemporary materials than about most other writers in English Renaissance theatre.","conclusion":"This is considered a fringe theory among academics, almost all of whom recognize William Shakespeare as the true author."}
{"id":"29343b62-deb5-484b-b237-942359b04f26","argument":"The drive to succeed as an individual is the strongest motivating factor a human being can feel in their work. When work is uncoupled from reward, or when an artificial safety net provides a high standard of living for those who don\u2019t work hard, society suffers. The fact that individuals are driven to succeed is in all our interests.","conclusion":"The drive to succeed as an individual is the strongest motivating factor a human being can feel in t..."}
{"id":"a8b23c2a-f898-4fc0-aec7-ed1bfbf46bd8","argument":"The militia were not assigned the mission of confronting the national army. The control over the army is given to Congress as the sovereign representative of the People--with tight purse strings. The militia's role is \"to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions\" Article I, Clause 15 Note that the militia is tasked with SUPPRESSING insurrections.","conclusion":"The US was explicitly founded on the idea that individuals have a right to own guns as part of a right and responsibility to resist tyranny."}
{"id":"c7f25c8e-f639-41cd-9879-605211349e89","argument":"This sexualisation can harm the quality of the sport that cheerleaders are supposed to be supporting.","conclusion":"Cheerleading is a profession that is overtly dependent on the sexualisation of women."}
{"id":"d3317009-dd4d-4be7-8867-db0d0fac6917","argument":"Modi held an informal summit with Xi Jinping, with the goal of building a cooperative, and not combative, Sino-Indian relationship.","conclusion":"Under Modi, India has become an important regional counterweight to a rising China."}
{"id":"da4ca8cc-833a-46b5-bf90-5159c9d24cf1","argument":"I have recently been told that my pro life position is forcing my ideas on others . I believe that it is not or that if it is then it is necessary. This forcing ideals on others is an argument I hear often and I just want to understand it better. I believe that a fetus is a human being. I confess, that is my view, not everyone's view. I believe an abortion is the murder of that child. This is still my view. Not everyone's. United States law entitles all humans to life. Passing legislation opposing abortion is simply following that idea in my way. I am not forcing anyone to agree with me. I am simply making sure the law is followed as I read it. For a hypothetical It's 1870 and there is a white who believes that black people are subhuman not so uncommon at the time . If I say no they are not subhuman. They are human beings and I will prosecute you if you kill them am I forcing my ideals on them or am I simply protecting what I believe to be human life. And even if I am forcing my ideals on the man isn't it necessary to do so? The abortion debate is a matter of whether the fetus is indeed entitled to the rights of a living human. It has nothing to do with a group forcing it's ideas on another and such statements are only used to unjustly vilify the pro life movement.","conclusion":"Being pro-life is not \"forcing my ideas on others\""}
{"id":"5d25fb6a-8e82-4743-baac-d9560e645d65","argument":"Edit Got a better understanding of copyright law and i's purpose under fair usage and fair dealing laws. Specifically learned that the purpose of use is an active consideration in court rulings and courts are not blind to it. Thanks to u BolshevikMuppet, u EyeceEyeceBaby and each other user that commented on this post. Plot summaries on wikipedia pages for Novels, Movies, etc are in vivid detail and give away the entire plot of a work of art. Other sections on the page discuss the critical and popular reviews of the work as well as give author, production and cast details which can be considered under fair usage. However revealing almost the entire plot for a work of art I think violates copyright. Unless a copyright owner explicitly gives permission to allow this, it should not be there. Wikipedia being an organisation that serves a global audience should self censure, especially since it is funded by common people who might not look into details and wouldn't have any concrete way to communicate their disagreements . gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The \"Plot Summary\" section of Wikipedia pages For works of Art violate copyright and go beyond \"fair usage\" and Wikipedia Org should self-censor as a responsible netizen"}
{"id":"f4da8a8f-a6ba-4d0f-8f38-0574a1c0a314","argument":"It is possible that a person who completely rejects any religion whatsoever may consciously or unconsciously avoid walking under a ladder, even if there is no one on the ladder who might drop something.","conclusion":"Not everyone who is religious is also superstitious, and not everyone who is superstitious is also religious."}
{"id":"3d2db46c-48c4-493b-a142-8ab3b44056f0","argument":"Provided that someone is identified with an \u2018oppressor\u2019 group, silencing them because of that identity marker can be morally permissible as a consequence of our fundamental moral duty to resist oppression. But silencing someone because of their identity is immoral. Therefore, critical theory results in moral duties that go against our moral intuitions.","conclusion":"An inherently asymmetric view of human relationships leads to an asymmetric view of moral duties. These duties are immoral and justify the very discrimination that critical theorists claim to want to eradicate."}
{"id":"44c53734-b0d9-48c2-b843-84301aa3a3c8","argument":"My friend and I are debating whether a bra is considered a top or not. The context of this discussion is regarding the participation in Topless Tuesday events. My argument is that any article of clothing that you wear on your torso is a top. This includes bras and vests. Their argument is that, because bras are undergarments, they're not considered a top. Who's in the right here? I believe that they're tops because they go on the top part of your body. They believe they're not tops because they're the bottom layer of your clothes. How can we decide whether bras and other undergarments are acceptable to be worn on Topless Tuesdays? gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Bras and vests are also tops because they're worn on the torso."}
{"id":"c4a854a8-e31f-4b6f-944c-795f477a8bbc","argument":"Be careful not to read too much into the statement. I draw a distinction between child molestation and rape, which is an act of violence and should be punished as such and pedophilia, which is a sexual preference as unavoidable as any one can not choose their sexual preferences. As ine can not choose their sexual preferences, I think the demonisation and witch hunting which is a reaction to pedophilia simply drives these people away from help and forms of authority which might be better suited to assist in rehabilitating and counselling against their urges in support groups. Of course, a person who acts on these urges is comitting a violent act to whom there is a victim, and should be punished accordingly, but always with the mindset that he was acting out a sexual desire which he cannot choose, any more than we choose our own. I'm not gonna say that ciminalisation does more harm than good i can't call those numbers. But i do think its not a fair or long term solution. Edit i had recieved a message from the subs Bot that my post had been removed due to the frequent topic post. .","conclusion":"I think that pedophilia should be treated as a sickness to rehabilitate rather than as a malicious crime."}
{"id":"a12633b6-1ac3-4631-b294-f7160474a005","argument":"There are almost 10 times more US computing jobs open right now than there were students who graduated with computer science degrees in 2015.","conclusion":"The relevance of computers to everyday life is constantly rising."}
{"id":"89f2451f-19d5-42e5-b540-a1e79860399f","argument":"In 2010, Johnson penned an article for The Telegraph promoting the work of climate change denier Piers Corbyn","conclusion":"Boris Johnson's negative actions on climate change commitments could cost the Conservative Party votes from eco-aware voters."}
{"id":"df3c1ed9-e7f4-469c-a48f-25ed20cbadb6","argument":"If you are in any doubt that God commands bloodshed in his name then Jeremiah 48:10 declares that you will be cursed if you refrain from bloodshed.","conclusion":"The Bible claims that God's wrath should be feared."}
{"id":"ed5ae520-ca3c-466e-b907-834f34c19efb","argument":"In social situations when we are surrounded by people, whatever we do is to get attention. Be it our clothing, or the way we talk. We are surrounded by instruments which will let us help seeking attention like Facebook and instagram. Even without it, we get attention by sharing stories to what we did last night or week and what excited things we are planning to do. I hold this view so strongly that i don't share any personal stories with people. I think sharing those things might make you interesting but then why do you want to make people believe that you're interesting? That's again attention seeking. Or it is universally accepted fact that everything we do is to get attention but no one acknowledges it. I want to listen counter argument to my view. Edit i should have worded my title better. I wanted to say that everything we do in social situations is to get attention. Edit 2 why the heck this community is so aggressive about knocking someone's views down. What i said was my opinion and i wanted to change that and that's why i posted on this community remind me if it's not r  . If someone's willing to change their views, you don't f ck ng reach down their throat to make them accept it, they're already willing to do that. P.S i am thankful for those who seriously tried to explains things which i was unaware of. Those explanations were the reason i posted in here for. Thanks.","conclusion":": Everything we do on a daily basis is to get attention on one level or another."}
{"id":"80b9cca2-0033-4c5d-b7e9-f57b4ec48b90","argument":"Soviet Communism wasn't communism in the way Marx intented it to be, but it was actually state capitalism which is how Lenin worded it ? and it was a dictatorship in the first place under Stalin in the first place, but not alone then . It was basically fascism. Fascism is also what is happening nowadays in the Western World. Production has been outsourced in the last decades from here to so called developing countries with the result of more social economic insecurities in the West, as well as conditions of production which we wouldn't have accepted here for most of the time. On the other hand the economic system nowadays is far away from Adam Smith's thoughts on his often quoted supportive idea of economic competitiveness and his negative stance on monopolies. The internet used to be more than the 5 to 10 pages we visit nowadays an example that Adam Smith couldn't have forcasted but at least a current one Last but not least employment in traditionally perceived capitalist countries has already been based on the state, the church or other non profit organisations. Those employers are oftentimes described as socialist whereas they've been part of our society for decades, to say the least. Freedom did increase, since minorities do have improved chances from publicly holding hands in the European Union to becoming President of the United States but what do we actually experience ourselves?","conclusion":"Capitalism the way right now is not in the best interest of Western societies"}
{"id":"84c0872b-3b8c-4d02-af87-e7f5aa00d1f7","argument":"Religion has a threatening factor whereby people are instructed to comply to what the spiritual leader tells them to do or else they'd be going to hell, where they will burn eternally for not taking heed of divine instruction.","conclusion":"Religion uses the fear of what is unknown and what we don't understand yet, to make people do what the heads of religion want."}
{"id":"ea9df062-b221-46fb-89bc-3e65dd35a431","argument":"Negotiations are dependent upon mutual good faith, and require full information. Any concessions or decisions made on incomplete information are illegitimate.","conclusion":"Iran deceived the international community about the deal prior to its implementation."}
{"id":"1c59f1b0-a8b7-41d1-a2bb-9c6750db4183","argument":"Mike Pence is less controversial, and thus more able to get people on his side.","conclusion":"Mike Pence would be more effective at moving policy forward."}
{"id":"1c8da4b9-6069-4c07-9c67-83b861564747","argument":"The German Blitzkrieg tactic was successful because the drug Pervitin pushed the performance of Wehrmacht soldiers.","conclusion":"Drugs can help you to push your performance and efficiency"}
{"id":"199dc333-38d4-49f1-8555-1e48c0747cbc","argument":"They are micro-transactions with a gambling mechanic to make them sell better. As a micro-transaction, they erode the value of the game by being unable to be resold and erode the value faster because they are addictive. This lessens the liquidity in the market making it more susceptible to recessions. Users become less able to exchange their games when Money is scares to keep the gaming market flowing.","conclusion":"The implementation of lootboxes available for real money - even where they only give cosmetic benefits - into video games should be rejected."}
{"id":"bce9c43e-fa67-4e70-85d1-0400a4118091","argument":"DNA originated from RNA which has also functions other than coding. This would imply that the main process of life reproduction hasn't been subjected to any sudden shifts like interstellar journey. It's been rather a continuous, unbroken slow process of matter organising.","conclusion":"The idea that life has come to Earth from space is improbable, compared to a simpler idea, that life was a product of early Earth conditions."}
{"id":"f2b44d65-e18c-47b5-b90c-e727e158fbcb","argument":"Hello there. I am a 24 year old male from Bangladesh. Excuse my terrible grammar, English is not my native language. I am a Muslim male on paper and not religious at all although I do strictly adhere to much of the important cultural and social values of the subcontinent. I have never studied philosophy and I find the subject to be complicated, so please try to answer in simple, everyday argumentative terms. Anyways, the thing is, I have some self esteem issues. I am short, ugly etc. I hate myself and my life. I have been going over several self help resources on self esteem . I have read Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Dummies , Boosting Self Esteem for Dummies and several other resources from online articles to booklets. It seems to me that there is an underlying theme to all these Do not globally attach a label to yourself. I find this approach to be grossly flawed, dangerous and purely Western centric and not applicable to other cultures. Especially not mine. The above mentioned resources claim that humans are too complex to be globally labelled or rated. Therefore, they should give up attaching a label to themselves. If they ever have a thought I am bad , they should counter it by saying I have other good qualities too . Now this is all fine when we are talking about petty mistakes or crimes. However suppose hypothetically speaking we apply this approach to a murderer who is suffering from self esteem issues. He believes and thinks that He is bad . Should he use this approach to make himself feel better by saying I am a murderer and I kill people. Although I should not call myself a murderer and instead I should consider all the other good qualities that I have . This is insane This approach might go well with the western view where retribution is frowned upon, however its totally incompatible with my culture. In the Islamic and also the subcontinental culture, there is a strong culture of retribution. A murderer who kills for evil reasons is to be punished by death and is to be burned forever hereafter. There is NO scope for him to feel good about himself or redeem himself . I am not going to argue whether this cultural approach is better or worse then the Western one. The only issue here is that I find this philosophy to be highly flawed, dangerous and not applicable to other cultures. Looking forward to hearing your side of the arguments. EDIT Its 2 30am here. I will reply to all the comments in the morning, too sleepy now.","conclusion":"Psychotherapies self-esteem are based on Western cultural perspectives, flawed, dangerous and certainly not applicable to other cultures"}
{"id":"efb6a871-ee75-4ebf-9a84-72fec322ce13","argument":"Dry masturbation is clean and less expensive than conventional lubed masturbation. You are prepared to go at any time, anywhere. You don't have a lack of lube holding you back. When you are finished, your jizz catcher will only be damp, rather than sopping with lube.","conclusion":"I believe dry masturbation is better all the way around."}
{"id":"c3da08f1-c7b6-4e90-b325-be166fd22d7f","argument":"At present there is a vicious circle whereby women see no point in standing for parliament because it is viewed however inaccurately as a male-dominated institution. Positive discrimination would provide role models for future women MPs to follow; for that reason it need not be a permanent measure. Nor should it be seen as contrary to human rights legislation -- no one is preventing men from standing in elections. This measure would simply try to overcome the institutional sexism in the selection committees of the established political parties, which has for so long prevented a representative number of women from becoming candidates.","conclusion":"At present there is a vicious circle whereby women see no point in standing for parliament because i..."}
{"id":"b1c755de-9f15-45b4-8385-f9699363a4eb","argument":"I'm thinking here of cases like the polygamist Mormon sect s , or the Ultra Orthodox Jews who require strict gender segregation, or groups of political radicals who want to live in an anarcho syndicatist commune or whatever. I'd go so far as to include things almost anyone would find distasteful like a white supremacist group who wants to live somewhere without any minorities, or Muslims who want to enforce Sharia law see the conditions below . This would, of course, be legally thorny. Here's my proposal for a set of laws to govern such a practice The community must either be established on uninhabited land, or there must be unanimous consent from everyone in the community to be including any child old enough to express an opinion . The community must have a publicly available constitution explicitly outlining its laws and any governing body that may exist for it. The community must have clearly demarcated borders and cannot claim land not being used by its inhabitants. The community must not interfere with the enforcement of the law in general excluding crimes committed within the community if it deems them to be not illegal . This means that for example a murderer cannot flee to an anarchist commune where there is no explicit law against murder The community must not forbid people from leaving or communicating freely with the outside world. Residents of the community are not exempt from income tax or any other relevant taxes, even if all other laws are rendered moot. Community residents who do not pay their taxes are still subject to prosecution. I realize this would fundamentally change the nature of government, but I think it'd be for the better. I used to be an anarcho socialist, but after thinking more I decided a solution like this would be better. Socialism for those who want it, unrestricted free markets for those who want them, strict religious morality for those who want it, etc, without losing the advantages of a strong government.","conclusion":"People should be allowed to form their own communities within a country and enforce their"}
{"id":"f51b1f91-de22-430a-a3e0-5042c64f4db8","argument":"TL DR basically the title. I wanted to ask many of the commenters the same question, so I edited my post to include this question at the end. The news nowadays is often about gun control measures that Obama wants to take. Horrific acts of violence are common because of guns. The Young Turks did a nice video that shows that people will always be violent or criminal, but what makes crime and police violence deadly, are guns. Still Americans want to keep their guns for multiple reasons and they in some way can if we make guns less deadly. Self defence Killing is not necessary for self defence so Taser stun guns can be legal instead of bullet guns. I believe technology is able to make long range stun guns not far from now or maybe they\u2018re already being made. You could argue that people would go running around tasing everybody, but remember people already do that with actual deadly guns. Taser guns can kill people with heart problems so one should be just as careful with them as ordinary guns, but tasers are unlike guns not making it easy to kill unintentionally . Sport Stun guns obviously won\u2019t work for firing ranges, but why wouldn\u2019t rubber bullets or air soft guns do? If you want to hunt animals, again the stun gun works just as fine or engineers will make it so, including the \u201cfancy\u201d explosions going on in a gun. Law enforcement and Security Just enforce a police protocol that deals with the possibility of people having heart problems. Just as with ordinary guns, the police should be careful not to hurt civilians criminals, not following protocol is another problem. More arguments are the same as those under \u201cSelf defence\u201d. What if criminals shield themselves from stun guns and they got ordinary guns somehow? Engineers may again find a way to penetrate that shielding maybe syringes like those used on animals and some policemen already use tasers, which would be stupid if just a thick coat would provide protection not really sure if the police actually has this problem . The police are also able to fight criminals with bulletproof vests, they have a solution for that too. The police or special units could still have bullet guns, but with a very strict protocol don\u2019t use it unless the stun gun doesn\u2019t work. A proper stun gun will be manufactured and tested to provide the same ability to provide security as ordinary guns. We can make it so that even in panic, the stun gun will be preferred. The criminals will shoot and kill, but the police will shoot and win. With bullets a gun fight with the police means technically a death penalty or punishment by injury even in states without official death penalty. A suspect who shot people won\u2019t be shot by the police unarmed, that is not lawful, good cops try to avoid shooting. The difference from the gun fight situation is that the police shoot to prevent the shooter from killing, so shooting back wouldn\u2019t ideally be lethal, so why not use stun guns if they work just as well? I would like to know about flaws in my theory and actually why the heck the government would not want to change gun policy this way? Willing to edit some language if necessary. Edit It seems to me that many of you state that alternatives to guns are unreliable compared to ordinary guns. Do you agree on that? Do you have studies or statistics that clarify this?","conclusion":"Altering guns to shoot non-penetrating projectiles specified in the text would provide a solution to most deaths by gun violence."}
{"id":"fd0ff96f-5779-464c-86a6-67d1a81a20fb","argument":"I believe 3D printing is a gimmick and will never reach a state of where a average home can own and properly use one. You always see these new technologies in the media that get over hyped and eventually die down and hardly get used. The current global industry already has problems employing workers and if 3D printings begins to get used then the impact will be more negative than positive. The research I have looked into says that it will impact the food and medicine industry a lot but to make the current 3D printers work with that type of technology will take a very long time and we could be using our time and money to advance in other areas of industry. Please enlighten me on the positives of 3D printing","conclusion":"I do not believe that 3D printing will have a profound effect on global industry with in the foreseeable future"}
{"id":"3da19350-145c-4b23-b2c7-695dcadd2f25","argument":"The aadhaar system is a far cry from being a secure system. There have been multiple leaks. Even the TRAI chief's details got hacked.","conclusion":"Aadhaar has put the private information of billions of citizens at risk, as UIDAI\u2019s Aadhaar software was hacked"}
{"id":"77d7bd60-27e7-4e02-bf00-8c63cc4acc3e","argument":"I believe that drugs should not be penalized in terms of law. What I mean by that is you should not be able to go to jail for doing something that only affects you and not anyone else. Instead, if you are found to be using you should be put into rehabilitation, somewhat like a community service sentence. Am I completely wrong in my way of thinking? If so, why? EDIT Legal in the sense, not for sale so facilitation but use. 2 Also, if you do something against the law while under the influence, possible have that as an addition to the crime for more penalization. I think this would remove the stigma that coming out with a drug addiction will destroy your life as you'll be legally penalized. Having it be legal creates a healthy environment for addicts to seek help. Legalize the drug use, you can do them without any consequences. However, somewhat like a dui you can have it tacked on if you do something else illegal. As well, drug abuse should be decriminalized, yet still illegal. Somehow, such as how we catch domestic abuse or child abuse, society has the responsibility to report drug abuse.","conclusion":"ALL drugs should be legal."}
{"id":"e6a5ec82-1c3e-4be0-8990-d7189181077a","argument":"Ideally I would say they should never be born, but because they ARE born, everyday, I've always thought that children born completely disabled As in, can't move by themselves, can't feed themselves, can't go to the bathroom without diapers catheters, can't speak, can't communicate at all etc, should be euthanized. I don't know if I'm lacking some morality that most people have, or if a lot of people actually agree with me. It seems as though the only reason these children are kept alive is because the parents Usually a mother refuses to let them go. And this is what I don't understand. They spend their entire lives caring for a completely disabled child, to what end? For the child to be passed onto the next caregiver when they die? They spend their life savings on expensive medications, therapies, etc, for a child that will never get better? If a child has cancer, I completely agree with doing everything you can to save them, because there is at least a CHANCE of recovery. But these children have no chance. They are born to be cared for, and then die. They have no life. I just don't see why people let them live. I guess you can say, You wouldn't know because you've never cared for one before. But the truth is, I don't feel like I have to. I see videos and people in real life caring for these people, and it doesn't make sense to me. Often times they even have other normal children, and those children get a shitty upbringing because the parent is so focused on raising the disabled one. My mothers sister kept their mother alive long after she should have died, just for her to be a bed vegetable. I get that there are emotions at play with these people, but it just seems really selfish to me. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Children born completely disabled should be euthanized."}
{"id":"21573c96-c82f-4d54-ba3d-7d58ed7a1b16","argument":"I have gone back and forth between economic policies espoused by the Left more public works, higher taxes, more regulations, etc and the Right fewer regulations, lower taxes, less government in the economy, etc . My understanding of the data I've seen is that market economies create absolute gains for the population. That is, if you take a capable person and leave them to their own devices for some time, their lot in life is likely to improve over the course of that time. Thing is, humans are not just absolute creatures, but relative ones as well. It isn't just about how well one does in a vacuum, but how well they do in relation to other people. From what I've gathered, market economies also produce capital accumulation through generations, which is where the Mitt Romneys of the world who, through no merit of their own, ride the coattails of their ancestors ad infinitum, creating a de facto aristocracy in a system designed to reward valuable contribution and literally nothing else. This, from my perspective, is the achilles heel of market economics. It's why I support public works so strongly because I think anybody should be able to show up, outproduce others, and find himself on the top of the food chain for it. The unfairness of making it so that some are, when you get right down to it, born to lose, regardless of their innate talents, while others are basically born to win regardless of their lack of said talents, is the competing argument that draws me to the Left's economic outlook. I mean, let's face it, collecting rent and playing with the numbers in a stock profile do not fall into the contribution to society category. At all. There are two ways to convince me to change my mind. You can show me that The capital accumulation I described is actually caused by government regulations and undermined by legitimately free markets after, or That this capital accumulation is just and fair after all, and that my current concept of fairness is wrong","conclusion":"I think free markets unintentionally undermine meritocracy."}
{"id":"beda183f-4d15-4716-9c7b-60fc66e717b5","argument":"In the case of abortion, the seminal concern is not maturity or competence, but ensuring that a minor is not hamstrung with the permanent consequences of having a child. The opposite is true for gender reassignment surgery, where minors would be allowed to opt in to something with permanent consequences.","conclusion":"Abortion is an exceptional case, and distinct from the case of gender reassignment surgery."}
{"id":"ebd889a5-d33c-4ffd-8915-38bbbb458dbf","argument":"There is a story of two judges who met for luncheon one day. At the end of it, one says to the other, Go and do justice The other replies, That is not my job. My job is to apply the law. Understanding the purpose of our judicial system as applying the constitution and the constitutional laws enacted by our elected officials, would the answer to an unjust system not be to amend one or the other? Can we truly say that the framers of the constitution intended for their words to mandate acceptance of same sex marriage partnerships? On what basis would they invalidate state laws prohibiting it?","conclusion":"Recognition of same-sex partnerships\/marriages is not necessitated by the constitution and should be changed via legislative process or constitutional amendment, not Supreme Court ruling."}
{"id":"744e722d-1719-408e-b93c-34697d864651","argument":"Cloning animals creates an expectation that owner will get the same animal in personality and character. The reality is the cloned animals can have physical differences from late pets because genetic material also contains other genes that alters appearance.Pros and Cons of Cloning","conclusion":"While the cloned animal will resemble a beloved pet, it may not have the same character, making it hard to believe it is the same animal."}
{"id":"0cbbb978-3569-472c-b13f-c64e7dda4b66","argument":"My current view is that it is more difficult to be of the male sex in the United States than a female. I'd prefer if we could stay away from cherry picking in this , and stick to broader more measurable ways of determining which sex it is more difficult to be. I've had similar discussions about this before, and it turns into one side citing cherry picks and me finding equivalent or worse cherry picks on the other side of the coin. These are subjective and don't lead anywhere. The scope should be limited to the United States, as I do not deny that it is much harder to be a woman than a man elsewhere. The main points behind my view are that men are on average unhappier than women, and live an average of 5 years less than women. I consider these two points to be the most important, and if these two are refuted my view will be changed regardless of whether or not the following are refuted. Other more minor points are society's predilection to place a motivation of competitiveness in men, as opposed to women. Men are perceived as better leaders, and are often placed in positions of power and or leadership, which are more stressful and difficult to handle than lower positions i.e. it is easier to be a homemaker than to have a job and men have shown to work more stressful jobs than women , the president of an organization, albeit more powerful, has more to worry about than a member of the organization that holds no power . Men are expected to be the providers for a family, while their wives are not. The expectations for men, similarly, are much higher, and men must compete more and do more to reach the same feeling of accomplishment than do women. These high expectations also provide other difficulties that a woman would not face should her sex be different. When it comes to college and job applications, men are at a disadvantage when companies or university's favor diversity over qualifications. The expectation that men are more competent than women in the workplace leaves men with tasked with greater and more stressful responsibilities in the workplace, while women are given less stressful jobs. This also leads to men helping or doing tasks that are tasked to women, because of the stereotype that a man helping would improve the efficiency of the task done, creating a dependence of female co workers on men. Men have a stereotype of being more powerful and violent, which leads to longer sentences and higher conviction rates in court, and for female opponents to be favored.","conclusion":"It is more difficult to be male in the United States than to be female."}
{"id":"9fe4dcd7-c99e-4f97-9862-13df33804451","argument":"Worldwide recognition of women's rights are demonstrated in the UN Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women.","conclusion":"Mainstream feminism has been important in bringing about the international commitment to women's equality."}
{"id":"b52795ea-c260-4233-a92b-03e6a7f060e2","argument":"A mother told visiting politicians that her daughter was too emotionally disturbed by their detention in an ICE facility and had stopped eating as a result.","conclusion":"The treatment in the detention centers is causing serious mental health effects for both adults and children."}
{"id":"a29202b7-db49-4978-85e2-2b27861d5846","argument":"I have always thought that reserving an area for a dead body is both unsustainable and a waste. Just to be clear, it's not the funeral ceremony or anything regarding the grieving process. Just specifically the burying part. Think about millions and millions of 7x3ft rectangular spaces and stones for decomposed bodies that don't benefit any wildlife or humanity. Most are even forgotten after 100 years. I feel like there are more efficient and beneficial options. People donate their bodies to science, some choose to be cremated. I've even heard of some people who are buried in an uninhibited area and planted with a tree. How cool is that? I just think that this nonesense is just a mindless tradition we carry on just because people before us did it.","conclusion":"I think that graves are a waste of space."}
{"id":"f6f2bfcd-532b-40d6-9b40-a2763c1a9fa9","argument":"Political representatives are more likely to represent the concerns of those who fund their political campaigns given that their survival is often dependent on long-term support.","conclusion":"No Republicans voted for the 'For the People Act which would strengthen voting rights and reduce the influence of corporate money on political campaigns."}
{"id":"9266e817-b4bb-45fb-8e92-1f0f60bb7241","argument":"Removing women's right to legal and safe abortion does not remove the necessity for it. Women, if they feel desperate enough, will seek dangerous abortion methods anyway.","conclusion":"Making abortion illegal is not an effective or safe manner in which to preserve the alleged right to life of a fetus."}
{"id":"5cef84e2-c536-4be0-a521-b2e7ce30348b","argument":"Outrage at foreign occupation has been multiplied by brutal American tactics, from the use of degrading torture at Abu Ghraib to the recent discovery that phosphorus weapons were used against civilians in Fallujah. Instances American soldiers at roadblocks shooting men, women and children has also undermined the image of the United States. Indeed, counter-insurgency occupations are ugly and gruesome incidence, which will inevitably undermine the image of the US, cannot be avoided.","conclusion":"Torturous and brutal tactics in Iraq have only worsened US moral credibility."}
{"id":"bc99d2e7-f63b-4188-9872-337aa70e2e57","argument":"The economy will be boosted by a lot of spending in building businesses, paying debts, and generally participating in industry.","conclusion":"Black Americans have low saving rates Thus, money received would be channeled into the economy directly."}
{"id":"a1bb6a25-9313-40d6-beaa-65c131d25a12","argument":"Even if younger generations learn a new language at school that replaces the native language of their parents or grandparents, others who are not involved in education will not have the same opportunity to be taught and learn a new language to ensure their ability to communicate, express themselves and receive information remains unchanged.","conclusion":"As the language dies out, it would leave older native speakers with dwindling access to entertainment, information and others to communicate with in their native language. That experience creates suffering for those people."}
{"id":"071eda06-1c37-4e22-a65e-c7c963e278c5","argument":"Making a distinction between metaphor and simile is, in my view, not valuable. The difference is purely syntactic was the word like or as interposed in the sentence but there is nothing meaningful that makes that difference interesting in any way. Maintaining two words is perhaps even a net negative, as people feel the need to correct a misuse with a well, actually , which can at best only serve to derail a topic on a point of pedantry. The distinction is also often carefully taught in school, which is probably time better spent on learning something more worthwhile. So, my suggestion is that we just use the word metaphor without flinching for either type of comparison.","conclusion":"The distinction between the notions of metaphor and simile is not worth keeping"}
{"id":"f4b02f80-e935-48f9-9a55-6c5cd9de30cc","argument":"Those in society who are wealthy enough to not require government support lose empathy and understanding for why others do because they experience such different lives. As many as 24% of US citizens reported that poverty was a result of individuals not working hard enough.","conclusion":"Low social mobility leads to a more socially stratified society where different classes are less likely to interact with each other. This makes the trust required for the operation of institutions like the welfare state much more difficult to generate."}
{"id":"a87c02e6-0857-48d6-a7dd-03b4dd6751a7","argument":"Please note that I am not quite comparing this to an ABUSIVE relationship. The crushing defeat of your own team is not comparable to being battered by a domestic partner. But being a fan of a sports team is, from a logical, medical, psychiatric standpoint, far more destructive to one's well being than any possible benefit gleaned from allegiance to the team. 1 None of the positives have any enduring effect. Yankees fans experience heartbreak often despite having won dozens of World Championships. Any joy felt from a previous win is eliminated as soon as the next match starts. 2 The odds are extremely likely that your team will lose. And in fact, the better they perform, the more devastating their losses can be. Losing a championship game is not unlike continually doubling down in blackjack, winning several times in a row, but losing so egregiously in the final game that you owe double what you bet. 3 Fandom almost always fosters very specific rivalries which are overflowing with negative prejudices about the individuals who cheer for these teams. It gives rise to prejudices not all that different from real life racism. People murder each other over sports. 4 You, as a fan, have negligible control over the success or failure of the team. Cheering for your team in person or writing nice things in your local paper about your team is nothing compared to actually being a physical behemoth with killer instincts, or being an absolute strategic mastermind of a coach, or simply fostering a team atmosphere. The only action you can take to prevent the pain is to walk away. If your fandom were a girlfriend boyfriend, literally everyone in your life would tell you that you need to break up. NOW. .","conclusion":"allegiance to a sports team is no different from an unhealthy relationship that any rational person would tell you to walk away from."}
{"id":"fb3fd6ab-4620-496e-b990-ea10c49475cb","argument":"Outward approval makes us experience a thrill, while disapproval makes us feel low. Attachment to approval is thus like giving everyone a remote control to our satisfaction.","conclusion":"The source of all suffering in humans are their attachments."}
{"id":"170e712d-d722-4b69-821b-622a5137d4e4","argument":"I want to be wrong, but I just cannot feel sorry for people who ignored the evacuation and warnings about the storm. For example, here one Texas mayor told residents that if you are going to stay here, mark your arm with a Sharpie pen with your name and Social Security number. The message was certainly clear stay and you risk your death. So I guess I just want to better understand why anybody in their right mind would choose to stay. If I lived there, I would certainly not risk the safety of myself and my family and ignore evacuation protocol. I do understand if you are disabled or elderly and cannot leave, or have some outlying circumstance where leaving may not have been an option. But for the majority of people, I have a hard time sympathizing. Maybe I'm just naive?","conclusion":"Residents of Houston and the surrounding areas were given numerous warnings to evacuate before Hurricane Harvey. If somebody is still there, it is their fault"}
{"id":"389d7dc1-5793-4364-8ff0-bcb11d291f6c","argument":"Currently, modern humans do not know if Neanderthals could speak. A live one could answer this question, among others.","conclusion":"Modern humans could learn a lot about themselves by observing them."}
{"id":"48e77b08-578f-4627-8fb3-8e2815e186af","argument":"There is a chance if graduates live at home that they start just paying the parents back by doing menial jobs around the house or around the local area for cash in hand, or going into the family business or other local work arranged for them by the parents that is inappropriate for a graduate. Graduate placements doesn't happen locally, they happen in the head branches of major corporations and institutions, in London and other larger towns, where the management jobs are. A young person stuck in their parent's house isn't free to go where the work is, especially a young person who can't afford a car.","conclusion":"Decreases the chance of graduates ending up in inappropriate family jobs or local work."}
{"id":"8b041c98-d43c-496e-b03f-0d1e41581805","argument":"There are some reasonable predictions that climate change could result in widespread human death, as well as mass extinction of other species. We are already seeing grave signs of our oceans being at risk for massive negative changes. If that does happen, then climate change deniers should be held responsible for crimes against humanity. Wikipedia defines crimes against humanity as certain acts that are deliberately committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack or individual attack directed against any civilian or an identifiable part of a civilian population. Unlike war crimes, crimes against humanity can be committed during peace or war. They are not isolated or sporadic events, but are part either of a government policy although the perpetrators need not identify themselves with this policy or of a wide practice of atrocities tolerated or condoned by a government or a de facto authority. One could argue that the consequences of climate change were not deliberate but there has been plenty of warning by trained scientists for people to be aware of the risk and for a non scientist to take a stance in opposition is grossly irresponsible. I'm not interested in discussing the premise that widespread death might not happen. My argument is that when and if it happens, people should be held responsible. EDIT Like most crimes against humanity, we would be targeting leaders. People of influence or in powerful positions, especially politicians. Although I think the average Joe does hold some responsibility, it might help to compare this to WWII. We didn't put every German person on trial, although many Germans certainly were somewhat responsible for going along with what the leaders were asking for. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"If climate change causes widespread death then climate change deniers should be tried in court for crimes against humanity"}
{"id":"a6ecb7ef-3fe1-4340-b62a-4b902baafbfe","argument":"Please leave the footnote below the following line, but remember to delete this sentence by replacing it with the body of your post. Warning Long Post . In the aftermath of 2012's Election loss, the GOP recognized it had a major problem it was failing to adapt to the changing demographics of the country. Realizing that future obscurity loomed on the horizon should it continue to ignore the necessity to appeal to non white voters, it set about on several projects to win back the White House.They set out on this mission in several ways shifting some aspects of it's stances on immigration and the social safety net being a couple examples. In 2016, the GOP fielded it's most diverse field of candidates in history Two Latinos, an African American, and a woman were among the contenders in an overall field of 17 19 candidates. The Party was desperate to take back the Presidency. There was one candidate, however, who didn't comply with the change the GOP was attempting to undergo, and who even ran as the physical embodiment of everything they tried to put behind them Donald Trump. Trump ran on an openly This is where I stand, I don't care about appealing to other groups type stance. Particularly, he stood tough on immigration stubborn on the re negotiation of trade deals. He knew, as we knew, who is target audience was, and he stuck with it. The GOP tried to stop him, and, when they couldn't, distanced themselves from him by denouncing his rhetoric and actions. The sick truth here is that Trump's positions were merely the explicit version of the dog whistle politics that his adopted Party had been feeding large sectors of the country for decades, but in coded terms. His beliefs weren't anything new or representative of some new hybrid of American conservatism. It was Reagan's welfare queen trope, with the volume turned up. The essence of the message was the same that the country is being taken away from real Americans and others are responsible. If you don't believe me, just observe the rise of AM Radio and the genuinely hateful poison that floods the airwaves . HOWEVER , Trump is a bit of an enigma. I firmly believe the GOP didn't despise him because of what he spewed on the campaign trail, but because he was so honest about it but, he's also an unusual Republican, in that he's simultaneously not a Republican . He's a populist. Trump was victorious in the General Election, defeating arguably the weakest most vulnerable Democratic nominee since Michael Dukakis' infamous campaign of 1988. Yet Donald Trump clinched it by the bare skin of his teeth. A grand total of 79,000 votes spread across three states PA, MI, WI, sealed the Presidency for him. No doubt a great achievement, considering no Republican had done such a feat since the late 80s. However, despite all of Clinton's frailties FBI scandal, Wall Street connections, perception of being out of touch with the populace, seen as representing the past, etc He still lost the Popular Vote by the largest margin of a winning President Election in the history of the United States. Trump received 3 million votes less than his rival. Ultimately, it is the Electoral College that determines Elections in this country, but one would have to be absolutely kidding themselves to deny that such a stark margin of rejection by the public isn't symbolically telling. The notion of a mandate doesn't deserve to be taken seriously. It's very important that DT didn't win by Obama 2008 proportions, given how similar they are to each other in that they represented outside change, regardless if the change they call for are radically opposite in nature . It's true many Obama voters switched to Trump in 2016 but many in the Mid West also stayed home out of disenchantment with Hillary Clinton. You may point out to me that Trump received a higher percentage of the Latino African American votes than Romney had in 2012 and you'd be right. But let's dissect this Would any Democratic nominee have bettered or even matched Obama's performance with black voters? It's doubtful. As for Latinos, while Trump did win 3 or 4 more of their vote than his predecessor nominee did, I think this is much more attributable to the net negative impact Clinton had with her presence on the ticket. Of course it seeped down to all corners peoples of the country. The first part of my conclusion is this Donald Trump's victory was tenuous and borderline razor thin. It is not indicative of a rightward swing of the country. If anything, it demonstrates that even with Right wing outsider wild cards, the Right will struggle to win Elections. Had HRC nor any other plagued candidate been the main opposition, Mr. Trump almost certainly would've lost . The second part of my conclusion is this Due to the fact the Republican Party was victorious with a candidate that rejected their plan to appeal to broader bases, combined with the fact that tenets of Trumpism are now ingrained within the Party, the GOP has been lured into a false sense of security with it's super majority in all Houses of government. Many have embraced Trumpism and there is now less emphasis on tackling the same problems that they identified in 2012's defeat . Trump is now the Republican Party, even with voices of disagreement within it, because he has altered it's face forever. Economic also honestly, racial, imo nationalism is at the forefront of what the Party represents. Truth be told, it will be enough to sustain power for at least the next four years, and arguably the next decade. I personally believe Trump will be re elected in 2020 due to all indicators showing the Democratic Party to be utterly incompetent and refusing to recognize it's own undoing in their 2016 loss instead resorting to scapegoating anyone anything from Trump voters themselves to Russian hackers. Long term, however, it's an unsustainable path. The GOP will not garner larger support from other demographics, in a rapidly changing country, because now they don't feel the need to. Trump is not ushering in a new Conservative Era like Reagan. He's merely the last vestige of it . This is the last gasp. The last hurrah. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Not only does Trump not have a mandate - he will accelerate the Republican Party's demise."}
{"id":"1388ed64-8bbc-41da-8a91-58d025659992","argument":"I hear a lot of people these days, especially on this site, talk a lot about how income inequality is Public Enemy No. 1 and needs to be alleviated. However, when I think income inequality, I think about people making different money based on what the market says is appropriate. I disagree with the idea that there should be a cap on income that people make, nor should there be a range that all salaries wages have to stay in. What I'm trying to say is, if everyone made the same or similar amounts of money, why would there be incentive to climb the socioeconomic ladder?","conclusion":"I think income inequality is a good thing."}
{"id":"bed941e8-3e43-4714-8312-b77554a386d5","argument":"People would not be willing to pay taxes for a state which they do not agree with or do not want to be a part of. Therefore the higher the taxes that the public are paying without revolt or force means that the citizens are happy with how the state is run. Especially with the European Union, if people were not happy they could easily move elsewhere. By people staying in a country with high taxes, the Government is showing that they are effective and they are keeping their people happy.","conclusion":"People willing to pay taxes shows that a state is effective"}
{"id":"2d8f57ab-227f-4233-94a4-0bffb81d4519","argument":"Not too long ago I proposed that those with extreme ideologies should not have free speech And unsurprisingly, it blew up with many comments most of which being the same criticisms. I want to address them here and get some fresh arguments from you guys. But first, here is my original argument gt As the title suggests I believe these groups holding extremists views based in their extreme dislike for the establishment do not deserve not should they be allowed free speech. These ideologies often induce antagonism between group and a disregard for individualism and freedom. Their ideologies should be treated as threats to national security and human rights and property rights which are protected by our constitution. Center left right parties are fine as they often are required to recognize and abide by fundamental human rights but the ones advocating for revolution, race wars and or theocracy should not be given a platform to further legitimise their regressive ideologies. Counter Argument 1 How do you decide what ideologies and what speeches entail malicious intent? We have the u.n declaration of human rights which can be used to classify certain ideologies as entailing malicious intent to human rights e.g Fascists have historically violated article 2 . The goal here isn't to silence certain people because I disagree with them, it's because they intend to use their speech to promote the violations of the rights of others. With this, We have an objective method to classify ideologies and to avoid arbitrary revocation of freedom of speech. Counter Argument 2 Why not just destroy their ideology with logic and reason? When you do this, you give their deplorable ideology intellectual merit which only furthers their interests in spreading their pernicious ideology. Counter Argument 3 The american revolutionaries we're too extreme How dare they go against the establishment Sarcasm The Revolution was founded on the basis of enlightened ideas which further inspired other constitutions in france and eventually, in the U.N. The american revolutionaries were justified in their radicalism because it was in the interest of a kind of proto liberalism which further evolved into the basis for the rights we have today. Counter Argument 4 You're implying here that non mainstream ideology is inherently dangerous to fundamental human rights which isn't true. No, that is not at all what i'm implying. This isn't about popularity this is about the philosophical basis for said ideology. And if the philosophical basis for said ideology contains a disregard for fundamental rights then we can deduct that those who identify with said ideology hold malicious views relating to the rights of others. Counter Argument 5 What do you think freedom of expression is for if not to protect unpopular viewpoints and ensure that they get a fair hearing? Freedom of expression is for anyone who wishes to speak their mind. But of course, the common axiom is that this freedom is curtailed as soon as you threaten the livelihood of someone else. I'm applying this to more broader terms. Those who hold certain ideologies inherently hold the intent to violate the livelihood and rights of others. And thus, their freedom of expression should be curtailed. Feel free to rebuttal any of my arguments or preferably, create new ones. Note I apologize if I can't get to all your critisms as there is often A LOT to go through. So please don't get offended if I don't respond. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Communists, fascists and other's with extreme ideologies should not have free speech. Part 2 w\/response to common criticisms."}
{"id":"ce918bbd-e9b1-412e-93ff-ba005796c79d","argument":"East Asians Chinese, Japanese Korean should be placed into a separate racial category from South Asians such as Indians, Pakistani people and such. I've noticed that the US Census Bureau during surveys for instance will group them all into one category based on the concept that both groups belong to the continent, Asia despite having next to nothing in common. I would argue that the entire concept of Asia, which supposedly encompasses all the way from Japan and Indonesia to Israel is a Eurocentric concept. After all, wasn't the term originally dubbed by ancient Greeks who decided to classify everything East of them unknown at the time , as Asia? Again, this is problematic because some groups within 'Asia' are too different to be placed into the same racial group. For example, the cultural, linguistic and phenotype difference between a Korean person and a South Indian person is the difference between a Korean person and a German person. I would even argue that even having people from SEA backgrounds like the Philippines and Indonesia being lumped together with someone from China is already stretching it. After all, East Asian migrants tend to be significantly wealthier than SE migrants, which makes programs such as Affirmative action pointless. Simply put, having a demographic census group that includes so many different cultures defeats the entire purpose of grouping people for surveys in the first place, which is to find information from a group that share similarities with each other. To reiterate my point, Chinese and Pakistani people face different issues in society, have statistically different goals, different wealth and are just different in general. Hence, classifying people who share next to nothing in common in the US Census Bureau based on an outdated notion of a continent is just nonsense. What I think should be done The US Census Bureau should split the 'Asia' category into 3. South Asia India, Pakistan and such , East Asia China, Japan, Korea and Southeast Asia. Even if it doesn't distinguish SE Asians from East Asians, at least make a separate category for South Asians? Thanks.","conclusion":"The US Census Bureau shouldn't group Indians and other South Asians with East Asians"}
{"id":"a27b226c-bfa0-4da4-a45a-3d4d0da6ca11","argument":"I've always been a huge Arby's fan. In my mind, Arby's stands head and shoulders above virtually every other fast food option. I think their food is fresh, original, flavorful, and affordable. If most people gave it an honest chance, they would like it. I recently realized how poor of a reputation Arby's has when Comedy Central released a super cut of all the Jon Stewart Arby's jokes Conan O'Brien has had his own Arby's gag going for over a decade at one point earning himself a gag free Arby's for life card due to the sheer volume of on air Arby's mentions. The main criticism of these comedians is that the food is artificial, stomach busting, mystery meat. And I think anyone who's eaten at Arby's ever knows that that's just not true. The food is great, it doesn't taste fast foody at all, and most of it is downright mouth watering. I remain thoroughly convinced that, if everyone could try Arby's without all the marketing bias of a lifetime of anti Arby's jokes, they would come away loving it. It's hard to demonstrate taste with writing, but let me give you the next best thing, pictures. Note, all real photos, no promotional images. Though do have a look at the promotional photos It's not just the curly fries. Look at this god damn brisket sandwich Look at this juicy beef and cheddar Look at these giant ass onion rings Look at this god damn steak sandwich Fine, yeah, the curly fries are awesome And yes, the meat mountain does exist, though I've never ordered it","conclusion":"Arby's is amazing, and by far the most underrated fast food."}
{"id":"e5a06d1c-b4d9-46ce-86d8-02817b2d6f5b","argument":"Violence is never justified by any circumstances whatsoever. Life is sacrosanct, and no cause or belief you may possess allows you to take the life of another.","conclusion":"Violence is never justified by any circumstances whatsoever. Life is sacrosanct, and no cause or bel..."}
{"id":"173b5bc3-31cc-4b86-8ca7-06fe1861e777","argument":"I have mostly eaten New York style and I have eaten Chicago deepdish only on some occasions, but when I do I find that it takes a lot to just cut it neatly and eat it. It is also rather large and bulky, making it very filling with just one half of a slice. I also don't like the fact that you have to buy a whole pizza rather than just one slice, rather than New York style. I also don't like the fact that deepdish has the cheese on the inside of the pie, I don't know why this irks me, but it does.","conclusion":"I Believe That Chicago Deepdish Pizza is Inferior to New York Style"}
{"id":"48b6d789-2c6f-401c-92e4-e8926940f1dd","argument":"When Olympic gold-medalist Caster Semenya refused to conform to expected gender norms, she was bullied and scrutinised, and had her identity and gender questioned.","conclusion":"Black female athletes are regularly criticized for their bodies being \"not feminine enough\", often resulting in professional disadvantages ."}
{"id":"6a2a56e7-4ff3-4970-885b-b3966c8fd719","argument":"I should append that though I am of this belief, it is not something I act on or preach because whilst I do not believe a successful man with a high flying career who positively contributes to society is worth the same as someone with severe mental disabilities and is unable to function normally and requires constant care and attention, I also don't think that it's their fault they are worth less than another person. They just got unlucky. I'm posting this on a throwaway account because I'm not proud of this view and don't want people to think less of me. Also, I am from the UK if that helps anyone. A lot of people I speak to preach that every life is worth the same and that no matter what ailments you have you should be given the same opportunities and freedoms as someone else. I'm not sexist, racist or a homophobe this is not what I'm on about. But I think that someone who scrounges off society or relies on other people to prop up their lifestyle is worth less than someone who is self motivated, pays his taxes and makes a positive contribution to society. I judge people based on how they act and what they are, I live nextdoor to a family who have a severely disabled son. It's not a physical ailment but a mental one, I think it's asperges and a few other issues but I just think of him as the retard next door. He's loud, stupid, requires constant care and attention and is regularly abusive or violent. He's swore at the daughters of the family the other side of my house who are seven and nine years old and has swung for me before after I waved and smiled at him one morning on my way to work when he was sitting in the car not realising he was in a foul mood. Luckily, I was able to move and hit him back harder in the stomach to which he suddenly realised maybe it wasn't a bad idea. His carer threatened to press charges but fortunately several others had witnessed the event and testified that I hit him once, in self defence before moving swiftly away so as not to prolong the situation. I think he's a worthless human being. What can he possibly contribute to society? How can anyone with such disabilities be considered the equal of anyone else when they are incapable of surviving on their own. A few hundred years ago, he would have been left to die and yet now we as a society do everything to ensure they are given the same opportunities as others yet they are dangerous in a lot of cases and a drain in nearly all others. I don't think everyone who is disabled is worthless, I think there are some that take their situation and do incredible things with it. There are war veterans who will never function on their own again but campaign tirelessly raising awareness for how they came to be paraplegic so that soldiers can be better equipped and this sort of thing does not happen. Steven Hawkings, a man who was supposed to die years ago, instead of giving up and accepting his condition and his inevitable death has gone on to be one of the most influential scientists of our time. There are cancer patients who are going to die that campaign to raise awareness for their condition and how it can be prevented, they to me are worth far more than those that resign themselves to their fate and cease to be of any use even though they can still do a lot. People that just accept their lot in life and are content to be average piss me off. Everyone can achieve something and yet for there to be success in life there must also be failures, for there to be great men there must be also be shit men else how would we recognise greatness? I do not think that those who are obviously not of equal value to society should be treated like they are. Should a jobless man who lives off the money he won in a claim against a company who was not to fault for his incompetence and unsafe working practices have the same liberties as another man? No. Why should he be given free medical care, police protection and all sorts of other privileges when he does nothing to earn them. I think that most human rights are a sham, yes everyone should have access to clean water but not everyone should be given a roof over their head if they do nothing to earn it. I have no empathy for drug addicts, alcoholics, gangbangers and criminals because despite what people may say about peer pressure and the circumstances of ones birth and upbringing you always have a choice. It's a bit rambling and all over the place and drifts off all over the place. tl dr some people are just shit people and we should give up on them instead of trying to help them.","conclusion":"I do not think that everyone is equal, born equal or can ever be equal and that if there are great Men and Women, there must also be useless Men and Women to quantify them by."}
{"id":"15e4da9e-6c05-4aa9-b41d-354f8f896b4b","argument":"Seriously, I can't support this current system of welfare. The more children you have, the more money you get from the government. Screw that, if you can't support yourself you shouldn't be having children, especially if you make me pay for it. NOTE I am not against welfare, just the way it's implemented. The apartment where I currently live has basically been bribed by the government to rent out tons of its rooms to homeless, and almost every women among them has at least two children at their feet at all times and are pregnant. It is my belief that welfare recipients should receive free birth control and condoms and that they can enter welfare while pregnant and while they have children. However if they become pregnant while on welfare they are either taken off welfare altogether or they must have an abortion. UPDATE Ok, view changed 30 degrees by Feathering. My modified view is that having kids on welfare won't mean it is revoked from you but it won't raise whatsoever. So every kid will stretch the budget thinner, thus motivation to stop having more children. UPDATE I am now pro required birth control for anyone on welfare with a 1 strike policy. If they have a child while on welfare and not get it aborted, if they still want welfare they need to voluntarily be TEMPORARILY sterilized IE a procedure that can be undone after they no longer draw from welfare . So not punishing the children, only the adults. UPDATE View Changed. Thank You for all of your comments. I am really glad you took the effort to convince me otherwise of my view, which even disgusted me a bit. This sub is awesome. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I think people who have children while on welfare should lose all benefits."}
{"id":"c65b9d77-cf25-4632-b552-36b4f98a8233","argument":"Whistle-blowers often pay a high price for doing the right thing. This is very discouraging for other potential whistle-blowers. Compensation would mitigate this effect.","conclusion":"If doing the right thing is costly, it would be good to compensate."}
{"id":"3331f676-90fb-4f5a-ad20-2c12993dd6b3","argument":"No country which has developed nuclear weapons has ever become the target of a large scale invasion attempt.","conclusion":"Nuclear weapons help North Korea to deter any possible military attacks."}
{"id":"d74d0708-bbcb-432b-b470-79b4d231926e","argument":"Men should not hit women back, ever. There is honestly an epidemic in the lack on knowledge when it comes to how women build and maintain muscle. Unless a women is a top female athlete she is not going to be stronge enough to knock out a man however one punch to the head from a guy can put women in the hospital for days. In the UK from my exposure it is a comon belife that if a female punches me as hard as she can, then I can punch her back as hard as I can this view is wrong in my opinion. Men can kill women with there hand its not equal. women cannot threaten your life with her fist, you can hers however. aside from the fact the violence is never the correct response and no one should be hitting anyone, I would love to here a counter point thankyou for reading.","conclusion":"Men and Women are not equal. Not even close"}
{"id":"9a5897c1-dde2-4fa2-9621-a71e49fb45d7","argument":"I think anyone convicted of raping molesting very young children should be castrated. It can be chemical or mechanical, the method isn't the issue. Perhaps restrictions like multiple offences, or maybe have to have witnesses or something would apply. Maybe a 3 strike policy, idk. Either way, you diddle, you lose um.  Edit The idea is to remove the offenders libido. At first, a man who has been castrated will still have a sexual urge. Over time, however, because he's no longer producing testosterone, he'll lose much of his libido or sexual desire. Is taken from a Q and A I found online. So the courts already order chemical castration, but i feel it would be better to just do a surgical chop and be done.","conclusion":"To go along with the pedo kick, I believe convicted pedophiles should be castrated."}
{"id":"9fa9701e-137e-43a1-b70d-0a757f972af8","argument":"This analogy is easily seen if we imagine Reddit as a country. The admins are akin to laissez faire leaders, intervening only for minor policy changes or a reshuffling of their administration whereas, in this direct democracy, the moderators of each subreddit make up the municipal leaders, but whom have unrestrained control over the population within their municipality subreddit. In what would be seen in country terms as almost a Coup d'Etat of sorts, these moderators are calling for increased authority for themselves, for Reddit to run every decision made within the larger organisation past them before it occurs something which is unfeasible at best , and have used their sway in social media to direct the views of the masses against their own leaders, shutting down key infrastructure in an attempt to hold the governing powers that be to ransom. Through calling for greater intervention to strengthen their own powers that they have asked the Admins several times, but whom the Admins out of a laissez faire attitude have refused to get entangled with , Reddit moderators are going against the very spirit of this website for their own self interested purposes they wish to change the purpose of how it was designed and created to suit their desires . The unified bloc of Redditors who stand in support of these moderators, being spoon fed this single sided view of what to think and going along with it uncritically, should only look as far as r undelete or similar such subreddits to see the misbehaviour of certain moderators on a regular basis, of the same type who are calling for increased powers to impose upon their Redditor population. Moderators claim that their pleas have fallen onto deaf ears and have simply being ignored. On the contrary, based on Admin responsiveness to subreddits such as r redditrequest, I believe those requests were actively denied , and moderators are simply using this excuse of the firing of Victoria as a lever for social change to the website in their favour. If I were the Reddit admins, despite their laissez faire leanings which would make such a course of action inconceivable for them, I would act to swiftly remove the malcontents from their privileged positions of power and to show them who is truly in charge of the website. These are individuals who are seemingly attempting to subvert the values of this website, and it seems through their fragile might you admins are reluctant to encroach upon, due to your values they are succeeding. As far as I see it, it's simple, Admins You grant them concessions, and they continue turning your website into a mini oligarchy echo chamber in promotion of their values you force them out of positions of power and place in loyalists, and you go against your laissez faire values to be a tad authoritarian not necessarily for the first time you let them continue onward without intervention or concessions, and you leave malcontents in to fiddle with your infrastructure whenever and wherever they please. For any option, you risk a mass exodus of people, persuaded by their moderators that this website's ultra liberal and non interventionist policies are somehow not conducive to the thriving of a social media platform online discussions. So, , change my view Tell me, how is my perspective misguided or incorrect?","conclusion":"This fiasco regarding Victoria is simply Reddit mods acting through the values of realpolitik, and for their own self-interest."}
{"id":"a2180758-e696-4376-a34e-ea43b41e0b65","argument":"For a long time, I've had a very negative view on fraternities sororities. Most of it comes from the fact that I was bullied and had a very hard time making friends when I was younger, and the process of joining one seems very similar. You spend a large amount of time and money trying to please a specific group of people and sometimes it's all for nothing. I graduated in December and the only interactions I've had with people in frats sororities was when they were trying to get me to donate to whatever charity they were trying to raise money from. They all wear shirts, backpacks with the greek letters and like other colleges, got a housing complex exclusively for them. I always thought about joining one, but I felt like I never had the look . My family also didn't have a lot of money, so I knew I would never have the money to join one. I understand that they sometimes do good things for the community, but besides that, I really don't see a purpose for them. If someone who is was in a frat sorority could try and help me understand and debunk the common stereotypes of frats sororities, that would be great. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Fraternities\/Sororities are pointless and are only good to flaunt around the fact that you are better than everyone."}
{"id":"096a628e-f1a1-4b1f-88a5-33aead4b456e","argument":"Jim Crow laws functioned under a similar theory that some people were potentially dangerous and therefore barred from having or carrying weapons.","conclusion":"Under equal protection laws, it would be impossible to prevent gun sales to \"potentially criminal people\"."}
{"id":"6a088c6a-7b18-46bc-947a-260c2f8a7812","argument":"As the border between genders is blurred for some people with the progression of our civilisation, society should accept any kind of ongoing processes - like men wearing dresses and skirts.","conclusion":"This would help transgender people blend in throughout society, allowing them to face less discrimination."}
{"id":"253fe901-373c-4169-88a6-29b3600b84d0","argument":"Time magazine and numerous other sources list it as one of the greatest of all time. For myself, the movie was dull and boring. Betsy's character was flat and uninteresting, and poor acting by Cybill Shephard. I cant even quite say that I saw Travis as a psychopath. Sure he made some bad dumb choices, but it was difficult to ascertain if he was really crazy or just disillusioned. The movie was just there it didnt seem to have a purpose. Sometimes it seems that movies are taken for more than they are designed to deliver for me, this one seems to fill that space. There is so much we dont know that we end up filling in the gaps with it was brilliant . I dont deny that the film is artistic but any film is a work of art. Good art being relative of course. But I consider greatness as a film which changes things, excels at something, or has a massive following. Star Wars changed the perception about sci fi and special effects. Titanic set world records due to it's emotional weight. The Godfather gave a believable, human, gritty view into the depths of the underworld that most people never knew of. Unforgettable for one reason or another. But when i have asked people about Taxi Driver, they say isnt that the movie with DeNiro and Jodie Foster? or Is that the one with 'You talkin to me?' . And that's about it. So that being said, given what you believe about what makes a film great , help me to see how this movie fits in that category. Im willing to bend if Im just missing something that everyone else saw.","conclusion":"I cant see how \"Taxi Driver\" is considered to be one of the greatest movies of all time."}
{"id":"ba197c60-08f7-451c-b46f-810e2e61df7d","argument":"I believe that Trump\u2019s administration has a clear path, and willingness, to establish an indefinite authoritarian government that will see Trump Pence as its leaders The current demographic shift of the United States does not favor the conservatives or white supremacists in the US who back and serve in the Trump administration. The next four years presents them with possibly their last opportunity to maintain the status quo indefinitely and fulfill their agenda. I say the Trump administration because it\u2019s clear Trump is more of a figurehead who will maintain morale and support from his core supporters with rallies while Pence and the cabinet run the government. The mainstream media has already failed to hold Trump\u2019s administration accountable and will not be willing to lose access to Trump because they can\u2019t have Trump headlines which bring in ratings. They refer to white supremacist as \u201cAlt right\u201d playing into that PR game, and have not taken to task the conflicts of interest present in Trump\u2019s candidacy and cabinet appointments. They\u2019ve already proven from the Presidential campaign they won\u2019t ask the hard questions and keep candidates focused on policy issues. Their falling in line means that the Trump administration has some control of the information being disseminated by the media about their activities, or at the very least they control the perception of their activities. The Executive branch has full authority to issue drone strikes on US Citizens and has already done so on foreign soil. There is nothing stopping them from doing so on American soil outside of their willingness. The Executive branch has the full authority to indefinitely detain US citizens at military prisons, and even send them to black sites overseas for interrogation, so long they pose a threat to national security or support enemies of the state Section 1021 of National Defense Authorization Act The definition of threat and support of foreign enemy is an intentionally vaguely written definition in the law so that it can be extended in suppressing an uprising from civilians. The thinking among the establishment is that as the middle class continues to be destroyed if the pitchforks ever come out for the rich the gov\u2019t can use military force and detention to stop a civilian lead revolution. I expect that the Trump administration will use it to silence and punish political opponents and civilian dissidents. It\u2019s no secret that every Internet search, email, text, and phone call in the country is being monitored by the NSA. The Republican controlled Senate and House are in the pockets of the oligarchy who are in full support of Trump\u2019s administration because it is about deregulation, lower corporate taxes, and anti Union. The Democrats are the Democrats, and let\u2019s be real\u2014 they don\u2019t have the teeth to mount an effective resistance for so many reasons. At worst, their most progressive members want to win moral victories so they\u2019ll never play dirty enough to block appointments, call for impeachment, or even properly obstruct a single thing. At best, they\u2019re too reasonable to shutdown government and go to any extreme to see that the administration is stopped. They will always acquiesce for the \u201cgreater good\u201d and to set a good example for the children. And any meaningful effort they can pull off must be done in the next 12 18 months before the GOP controlled legislature and Trump administration completely seize all effective control of federal government. The GOP successfully gerrymandered all districts around the country so the House will never be controlled by Democrats or even Moderates in our lifetimes. The Democrats will not gain a majority in the Senate in 2018, not by a long shot. They may even lose seats from the likes of Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Nevada. The population has devolved into partisanship, so no one is even looking at the issues or policies and are voting in blind opposition to whoever they\u2019re against. \u201cOh, liberals support Obamacare, then I\u2019m against it.\u201d In November, Florida re elected Mark Rubio who despite getting on a national platform and proving his incompetence was re elected by his constituents. A terrorist attack on American soil is almost certain in the next four years because nothing will serve the Trump administration better. He will have moral authority to exercise dubious and extreme measures against civil liberties, and get some moderates to side and support America, as well as the troops, as we go after the terrorist both at home and abroad. The definition of terrorist will then expand from Muslims to every citizen that doesn\u2019t fall in line and whoever protests the violations of civil liberties and supports anti corporatism. Americans are too indebted and concerned with Monday Night Football or The Bachelor to protest and resist in any meaningful way outside of sharing a story and liking a post on social media. True change happens when someone is willing to make real sacrifices, and no one is giving up their comforts until the tanks are rolling down their street. By the time the wool is removed from over their eyes the window for Democratic or peaceful resistance will have expired. I would like to be convinced that an authoritarian government can be stopped or that our institutions are functional enough to protect us from an indefinite Trump administration.","conclusion":"The Trump administration has a clear path to an indefinite authoritarian rule"}
{"id":"d96c31ec-cbe2-41cb-957c-7ee12277368c","argument":"Banning racial profiling will simply cause police to more heavily profile on the basis of other characteristics, like a person's apparent socioeconomic status.","conclusion":"Even if racial profiling is wrong, a ban on racial profiling is likely to be counterproductive."}
{"id":"60ad3345-bc54-4191-8c10-2ed9b00ff2e2","argument":"Let's say a man uses protection and or the girl is on the pill, and the man did not intend to impregnate the woman he was having sex with, but somehow, it ended up happening. The woman says she wants to keep it, but the guy doesn't. He wants her to abort it. He doesn't love her nor did he ever intend on spending the rest of his life, let alone another night with the woman, but she decides to keep it and now he is on child support. The common argument is If you decide to take your pants off and have sex, then you also have to take the responsibility. I think this goes for women too, regardless of whether or not the woman wants the baby, if we're being responsible then isn't it the right thing to either take the man off of child support, or at least for the woman to abort? A child born without a father in his or her life is usually worse off than someone who has both parents fully commited. The mom is typically struggling financially and has troubles going to school or advancing in life. Yet, not having the baby was an option, she chose this route. Now the man is tied into her decision.","conclusion":"I don't think men should be forced to pay child support for a baby they didn't intend to create."}
{"id":"f3ead73d-f3fc-435f-a798-26d5ffc746b8","argument":"No country, rich or poor, does enough to help mothers breastfeed their babies for the recommended minimum of six months, according to a UN backed study","conclusion":"Breastfeeding is already globally encouraged, but levels are still very low."}
{"id":"2f4dde24-16f2-467c-b495-2a0d3d16be86","argument":"An act of saving someone's life by violently pushing them out of the way of a moving vehicle, justifies any non-lethal harm caused by the push or any selfish motivation the person may have had for pushing.","conclusion":"It does not matter who causes the suffering. If by putting animals in zoos, they suffer less overall, the good we provide justifies the lesser harm that we cause."}
{"id":"9a2a616b-8473-41c8-afa7-e4168322af59","argument":"I see no reason to hate GMO's, assuming that they aren't directly hurting unknowing consumers. I understand the hate of Monsanto itself, of course, due to their unethical business practices, such as suing farmers and other GMO creators for this or that, and buying politicians and court judges, and the like. But Monsanto and GMO aren't one and the same. On top of that, we're soon going to hit a point in world population growth that we'll need Genetically Modified Crops in order to even feed people. GMO's are improving our way of life as we speak, and I see no reason to prevent that progression. Also, on a more political controversial side of things, I see the whole situation as the free market fixing problems that need fixing, and I feel that if we interfere with that, it's not only interfering with Capitalism I know not everyone supports that one here, I'm just saying , but it could stifle our progression towards higher crop yields, better quality crops, and so on something that, I would hope, nobody here wants. EDIT I forgot to say, yes, I know there's already been some threads on the topic in r , but I thought it was time for a new one also, most of the ones I've seen are directly Monsanto related, and that's not what I'm going for here, really.","conclusion":"I don't believe that the hatred of GMO's is justified"}
{"id":"9c81974d-9f04-4b8c-afcb-2440c2813a8d","argument":"Grahame Morris, a labour MP, falsely accused Israel army to hurt a Palestinian children on Easter eve with a video from Guatemalan soldiers hurting a Guatemalan child. He pointed out Easter Monday and asked God to forgive them. He did not denounce the Guatemalan army when faced with the fake news.","conclusion":"A lot of antisemitic rhetoric appears at Easter which is linked with the death of Jesus and the culpability of Jews for that death 1"}
{"id":"cf91627a-8ff5-466a-8631-5d1f72464e15","argument":"The theory behind carbon taxes is that it would cause higher energy prices, which would cause less consumption and emissions as well as providing incentives for greater fuel efficiency. Other reasons include:","conclusion":"Carbon tax market mechanisms would be more effective in reducing carbon emissions"}
{"id":"2f6f3d39-9442-4007-92e1-b21840e1ed67","argument":"No territorial problems will occur if the EU organizes itself as a federation which represents every nation of Europe, regardless of the country to which they belong.","conclusion":"The idea is to keep the identity, culture, and language of each state."}
{"id":"1b67ad41-5825-4372-a9e0-95c4478dad63","argument":"A person may choose to donate $1,000 directly to a life-saving treatment, or not. Yet he does not own his neighbor's money, so he cannot decide for his neighbor whether he must finance a life-saving operation or not.","conclusion":"The bystander owns his own body and may freely choose to sacrifice it or not, but he does not own the body of the one victim."}
{"id":"4829b086-c28c-4836-8600-1ffc9ce950b2","argument":"By social credit score i mean a number calculated from tracking a person's activity in both social media and real life interactions. Good actions and having good friends rise the score and this could be used in order to evaluate people for jobs, loans, even dating. For further examples see The Black Mirror episode Nosedive The real life project being developed in China While the chinese project is outright Orweliian, i think even the most progressive western societies will implement this through social media such as Facebook. My main arguments This isn't and will never be illegal, all Facebook has to do is add a disclaimer in its terms conditions where we all accept to be rated, and even if this causes Facebook to fail unlikely the next big social network will have it. Plenty of companies will pay for this score, specially for hiring promotions and lending money. And it would be very difficult to prove someone didn't get hired because of a low score. Plenty of people will want this information, in order to pick potential friends or to hire services such as nannys. I imagine major dating apps will introduce social score filters as well. Refusing to be scored won't be an option since people companies will assume you have something to hide and will default you with a low score. Kind of having no credit history. TLDR The future is bleak o","conclusion":"The rise of social credit scores is both unavoidable and terrifying"}
{"id":"76fdee74-06d7-4fb0-a488-574f68568e37","argument":"In descriptions by witnesses of Joseph\u2019s Smith\u2019s translation process for the Book of Mormon, it was a matter of mechanically reading words exactly as they appeared in Joseph Smith's seer stone","conclusion":"The Book of Mormon text is not consistent with Joseph Smith\u2019s description of a precise, word-for-word translation method."}
{"id":"94e0a6e8-47cb-4c78-9b86-f0ef90977596","argument":"Governments can play a role in requiring gender neutral parental leave. When only maternity leave is required, it encourages a gender bias. Currently only around half the countries requiring maternity leave also require paternity leave.","conclusion":"Governments have a responsibility to all of their citizens to ensure that their citizens' opportunities and rights are not dictated by their gender, race or sexuality."}
{"id":"fedab8dd-97bd-4ecc-8a91-35519718f284","argument":"This  is about cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Litecoin and Ethereum that rely on \u201cproof of work\u201d for them to exist. I\u2019m sure there are smaller cryptocurrencies that are designed to have no or minimal impact on the environment, but I\u2019m not interested in those. I wanna concentrate on the biggest well known cryptocurrencies that do rely on mining, or whatever it is called. I believe the so called advantages cryptocurrencies are supposed to bring isn\u2019t worth their cost to the environment. In 2017, apparently the whole Ethereum network which is something like the third or fourth biggest cryptocoin was using at minimum 2 Twh per year, which is roughly comparable to a small country. And that is just one cryptocurrency, there are others beside, each burning up mostly fossil fuels and giving little real back in return. And yeah it is mostly fossil fuels, why else would there have been all those mining centers opening up in China, if not for the cheap, but dirty, coal powered energy? And what they give in return is dubious at best, even their fans generally can\u2019t agree on the strengths. Is it safer than using a bank? Almost every month there\u2019s another exchange going under, or getting hacked, or founder arrested. Is there any real anonymity using these, since it is all tracked on a public ledger? Are transactions faster, easier or cheaper than a bank transfer or direct debit? I never bought nor sold a cryptocoin, or have had anything to do with them, but the answer from what I can tell is a resounding \u201cno\u201d. What would change my mind? I could think of some, are all the estimations I see online on how much power they require grossly mistaken? Can you make a case for it, for it to be worth and making up for the cost to environment, something I might have over looked? If your attempt to convince me is to tell me that anthropomorphic climate change ain\u2019t real, completely exaggerated, or that we don\u2019t have a moral duty to ensure a decent enough planet for future generations, don\u2019t bother trying to get deltas from me.","conclusion":"Cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, are morally indefensible because of their impact on the environment"}
{"id":"28b0e224-e0be-4c20-a2d0-94dd67f2f1a3","argument":"Matthew Iglesias. \"Health Care Co-ops\". Think Progress. July 10, 2009: \"I think the larger issue is that you sort of can\u2019t \u201ccompromise\u201d around the core political issues here. Insurance companies object to the idea of a public plan because they don\u2019t want to lose business. Anything you dream up that would cause insurance companies to lose business, they\u2019ll object to.\"","conclusion":"Public insurance should not be compromised away to insurance lobby"}
{"id":"59793ac0-7960-4146-a67c-d8b2b7242138","argument":"Humans are not the only animals that have shown love. Elephants, for example, have shown remorse for other elephants that have died.","conclusion":"Many animal species experience a range of emotions such as happiness, resentment, joy, sadness, empathy, and even PTSD."}
{"id":"7b70b0c9-ed4b-4cf4-8b54-f6d280d760ae","argument":"Edit formatting My main points A dead person has no feelings. They can't feel sad, angry, remorseful, discontent, anything. They can't know if their body autonomy has been violated. They aren't conscious. It doesn't matter to them. Some things are more important than body autonomy. Take the instance of blood donation. If your blood type matches another person's who's dying from a loss of blood, you should be legally obligated to donate your blood as long as you're healthy. If someone is losing their life, body autonomy should be irrelevant. This should be even less controversial if someone has recently died. Blood donation doesn't harm the donor. The donor doesn't have to take a break from their busy life to donate blood. It poses no risk to a dead person. I can see NO cons to taking blood from a deceased person to save another's life. One argument is the family of the deceased wouldn't like the dead person to have their autonomy violated. But again, it's about the greater good. Physically, their family member being used for scientific experimentation has no effect on them. And if it becomes common practice, we can assume the family wouldn't mind, it would be accepted and you would be mentally prepared for it. There's lots that can be done if the ethical issue of bodily autonomy was irrelevant. Like I mentioned before, scientific experimentation. Live animals wouldn't have to suffer, instead we can use dead humans without feelings. Organs blood could be stolen to save lives. Those with taboo fetishes like necrophilia could satisfy themselves. So, change my view.","conclusion":"Bodily autonomy shouldn't extend to deceased people."}
{"id":"73bd6511-e555-4731-9ea7-62409f93941b","argument":"Hate speech, and the political and societal discourse that surrounds it, should be discussed with everyone openly. People should be allowed to express their hateful views as a manifestation of their psychological distress, not as a means to furthering a political agenda.","conclusion":"The goal is not to hide hate speech from people, but to dissuade its use in society."}
{"id":"9f58da6a-f426-48d6-bd0c-8d45d7a874fc","argument":"Pascal's wager justifies the belief in Gods in general, but not necessarily the God of Christianity. If one proposed that there existed a God who would send them to heaven and hell based on their belief, then Pascal's Wager would say one should believe in that God over the God of Christianity. It does not advocate for the belief in an established God, but instead in the theoretical deity that promises the most reward\/punishment.","conclusion":"The notion proposed by Pascal in his Wager is inherently flawed."}
{"id":"030decce-7f80-4884-bf7f-33a1b84f3759","argument":"Growing algae absorbs C02 in the process of photosynthesis. It is a carbon sink. This is why, when algae biofuels are burned and emit some C02, the emission balance is C02 neutral; it emits only C02 it previously absorbed, adding no new C02 into the atmosphere. Because it is carbon neutral in this way, it is a renewable energy source that can be produced and burned for energy sustainably.","conclusion":"Algae biofuel is carbon neutral; only emits C02 that it absorbs."}
{"id":"eb03e13f-8120-4db5-8094-642786ab658e","argument":"So the idea is that the USA is 50 states and therefore 50 experiments. But I am going to argue this cannot be so, because the basic idea of testing means there must be isolation. Let's take gun control. Detroit can ban guns, but not 30 miles away, you can cross the state border and buy a gun. This makes it very easy for anyone who wants to get a gun to simply go get one. Likewise, the same can be seen for drug law. In CO, pot is legal. As a result, neighbor states that voted to banned it or keep it banned will see increased drug traffic to their state as the states residents will simply cross the border to buy weed legal. We see this also in Florida, where prescription drug law is very relaxed. As a result, people smuggle drugs from legal Florida prescriptions to sell the drugs to people all along the east coast. We can see the farther from a border, the less this happens. But in smaller states like the North Eastern USA, going to another state to subvert your states laws can be a simply 10 minute drive. So any experiment done by any state really can't be seen as a true scientific experiment because people can subvert the laws, or can change buying habits to subvert the state. This can even play into min wage laws. If one state implements min wage laws, business can easily move across a state line and still import into that state, thus subverting the law. But if every state raised min wage, then businesses in america wanting to do business here would either pay the higher wage or leave the market.","conclusion":"We cannot be 50 states of 50 experiments because we cannot control for cross state movements."}
{"id":"4a042ead-913b-4238-8e66-427dca17d277","argument":"The Likelihood Principle states that if some observation O is likely under hypothesis A and less likely under hypothesis B, then O counts as evidence for A over B. The existence of a life-permitting universe O is likely assuming a creator with the intent to create life A, and less likely assuming the absence of such a creator B.","conclusion":"Not all teleological arguments assume intrinsic purpose, despite the etymology of the argument's name."}
{"id":"060b808d-b0bb-41d2-b81e-221671533c88","argument":"Anyone who is seeking 'help' from a therapist, psychologist or psychiatrist is risking their future and their freedom for little chance of any improvement to their situation. We empower these professions to deprive someone of their freedom by way of involuntary commitment without the usual checks of due process, and often without even a scientific backing to their findings Seeking help can cost you your college career cost you your livelihood your right to keep and bare arms, and even your right to bodily integrity when it comes to medical treatment Also, consider how the primary education system encourages us to drug young boys into submission in the name of 'treating' things like ADHD, sometimes with sever side effects. I find he thought of exposing children to this sort of risk out a desire for mere compliance to be dehumanizing, and I don't really see the difference between that any other sort of psychological treatment. Specifically regarding primary and secondary education, we must also account for the harmful effects of having a label attached to you. I remember being told of a study where researchers swapped the profiles of elementary school students around. Formerly star students were given class trouble maker's profiles and vice versa. The researchers apparently found that performance of the students matched the provided records, suggesting that much of the discrepancy in school performance came from the teacher's preconceived bias. Getting a label of mental illness is sure to attach this sort of bias to you, causing great harm. In a worst case, students can even be separated from general population, or singled out for punishment on the basis of such labels. My father still describes how one of his early girlfriend's family sent her to a psychologist to convince her that he was sent by the devil to tempt her and thus convince her not to pursue any sort of relationship with him. We can also see how Soviet dissenters were labeled as 'insane' and made to go through psychological treatment to correct their errant viewpoints. Even today, in the west, the field seems to lean in favor of authoritarian ideologies. Given the subjective nature of the field, I have reason to worry about being diagnosed as mentally ill on the basis of my political ideology alone.","conclusion":"Seeking \"help\" from any sort of \"mental health\" professional has the potential to cause far more harm than good and should be avoided at all costs."}
{"id":"b4166b48-0df1-4b66-9fb6-7704c122ba2a","argument":"The North Korean economy is in a bad place mainly because of the flood in the 1990s","conclusion":"There are other reasons that have cause North Korea's bad economy"}
{"id":"f919346d-f19a-43fa-8176-6b5f7fa1cbca","argument":"The X Men should not exist in the Marvel 616 universe. They should have their own universe for just them. There are numerous national and international events in X Men comics that only occasionally are referenced in non X men books. I'm not an X Men expert, but concepts such as rampant mutantphobia, the construction of Sentinels, Apocalypse, the Sh'iar, etc are never addressed in, say, Captain America. Wouldn't Captain America have something to say about Sentinels hunting down American citizens? At the moment, there's a weird contradiction where mutants are supposed to be hated and feared by everyone, but there are tons of other superheroes who seem exactly like mutants Spider Man, for example who don't ever worry about stuff like that. X Men books would be much more compelling if they were in a universe by themselves, a universe of only human and mutants with no other superheroes. They would be the only ones capable of stopping the worldwide threats such as the Brood or Magneto, and no one would ask why the Avengers aren't contributing to stopping those threats. If the writers wanted the X Men to occasionally interact with other Marvel characters, have them go universe hopping with some device built by Forge or Beast. But otherwise, the drama and worldbuilding is much stronger if the universe in question is just for the X men.","conclusion":"The X-Men should be in a separate universe than the rest of the Marvel U"}
{"id":"69265b99-8f71-41da-9927-69d54f47d745","argument":"In any meaningful way Palestine is a state. It may well be one at war with a neighbour and in dispute over its boundaries but the only reason it has yet to be recognised is that it would be politically inconvenient for the US, Israel and their allies. There are plenty of nations that do not function in line with European and North American concepts of statehood, Afghanistan for example, however they take their seat at the UN and add their voice to the choir of nationsi. There are even other member states that are not recognised by every other member state, Israel is not recognised by 33 UN membersii and the People\u2019s Republic of China is not recognised by 23 UN members.iii i John Quigley. \u201cStatehood for Palestine: International law in the Middle East Conflict\u201d. Cambridge University Press, 2010. ii Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, \u2018Background Note: Israel\u2019, U.S. Department of State, 10 December 2010, iii Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, \u2018Background Note: China\u2019, U.S. Department of State, 6 September 2011,","conclusion":"Palestine has its own infrastructure and government and is, in all meaningful ways a state"}
{"id":"eee5d417-71cf-4385-9db1-73e25d2a4043","argument":"Black Panther will likely be the highest grossing film of 2018. Get Out was by far the highest grossing and most profitable Best Picture nominee. These are just two examples but throughout the entertainment industry, minority filmmakers and minority performers have greater visibility and success. There are far fewer egregious examples of whitewashing, and films that do exhibit it tend to suffer at the box office.","conclusion":"The entertainment industry has taken big steps toward improving in this area so this objection doesn't apply."}
{"id":"5e3e0cec-2892-47b6-b8f9-34c47f024d3e","argument":"In Ireland, the Referendum Commission is responsible for disseminating factual information to the public on any issue subject to a referendum.","conclusion":"Independent bodies can be set up which provide information to the public on the referendum issue."}
{"id":"e91a872f-f54c-449a-8b40-9913af117483","argument":"Turkey has been criticised for the enforced disappearances of 818 Kurdish individuals between 1980-1999, some of which were ruled as violations of the European Convention on Human Rights for example, see Kaya v. Turkey C\u0327akici v. Turkey","conclusion":"Turkey has been criticised for its violation of human rights regarding the Kurdish minority."}
{"id":"f61fd1a5-082e-4860-996e-f5f74a7e2783","argument":"This bill that opens the door to creationism is really about changing the way that teaching is done to make it more critical and analytical. This is an improvement in scientific education as it will help ensure that science is about critical, constructive discourse rather than just imbibing \u2018facts\u2019.1 This bill aims to \u201cinform students about scientific evidence and to help students develop critical thinking skills necessary to becoming intelligent, productive, and scientifically informed citizens\u201d.2 How can students be critical and learn to analyse if there is only one theory available to them through which to look at and analyse those facts? That would not be education, it would be indoctrination.3 1 Zimmer, Robin, \u2018Critical Thinking, Analysis Foster Good Science\u2019, The Tennessean, 11 March 2011, 2 Dunn, \u2018House Bill 368 An Act to amend Tennessee Code Annotated, Title 49, Chapter 6, Part 10, relative to teaching scientific subjects in elementary schools\u2019\u2019, State of Tennessee, 3 \u2018New Tennessee law: encouraging creationism or academic freedom\u2019, Public Radio International, 23 April 2012,","conclusion":"Teaching creationism as well as evolution gives students freedom to choose"}
{"id":"acb11106-4843-4f9d-a2cf-f86c15573a67","argument":"Tarot readings, in many cases, involve long conversations about your life problems with other open minded people. This can expose you to new perspectives.","conclusion":"Tarot forces you to think through your problems in different ways."}
{"id":"dc79f19c-fe82-4c33-8c46-d6a6f0dcb5a6","argument":"Reference video Agree that it should not be so expensive, but people are not \u201cdying because of it the lack of its affordability ,\u201d in the United States specifically in contrast, the drug should be administered freely in developing countries . Condoms are abundant here and safe sex is never not under the discretion of the active participant. If the average American can afford Truvada at the proposed 8 value, they can certainly pick up condoms for free at their local clinic as well. The unrelenting push for it as a necessity also makes a case for the state of widespread moral decline in our developed society. It is not a strong enough argument to suggest that we need it just because we are a developed nation. Truvada is nothing more than a luxury in the US. Therefore, I don\u2019t necessarily think Gilead has any obligation to lower the price of the drug.","conclusion":"Truvada is nothing more than a luxury"}
{"id":"ba1d14e7-dda3-49f1-81c6-d3ce41e6b2d1","argument":"Saying Hey faggot or You're a faggot is completely. Think of it this way if I were to say fuck you that statement has nothing to do with sex just like if I were to say you're a faggot it has nothing to do with me saying your gay or that it makes being gay a bad thing. Faggot is pretty much a slang word. There are to uses of it just like saying someone's a pussy I'm not saying you are a vagina I'm saying you're a scaredy cat. People just need to stop thinking everything is a personal attack especially if it's not even directed to you. P.s this is kinda my excuse if you find that what I'm saying makes no sense. I'm only 16 so idk if adults even use this word but in a high school scenario with my experience most people that use faggot as an insult really aren't saying being gay is a bad thing. Edit I won't be able to reply for awhile because I work at 5 00","conclusion":"I believe that the use of the word faggot is just fine."}
{"id":"f4795456-667a-4d74-961d-80154b912115","argument":"Poor people, or people with specific needs, would be able to get help more easily.","conclusion":"A maximum wage would help bridge wealth inequality, benefiting the most vulnerable in society."}
{"id":"d1024bf8-77ca-45ab-88a4-76f1591769df","argument":"Europe has not had a chance to fully unify itself in the EU. Many eastern European states remain outside of the EU. Before Turkey is admitted, the EU should focus on admitting those states that are clearly and traditionally part of \"Europe\".","conclusion":"Admitting Turkey distracts from fully unifying Europe in the EU"}
{"id":"0abac079-a33f-463e-9f9c-c9e93bb6c50e","argument":"As the example of Montana shows, death penalty cases are very complicated: Double the number of attorneys and experts are involved, the jury selection process is very time-consuming and more working hours are spent for preparation than for other cases. Once the sentence has passed, appeals can prolongate for many years and keep the courts busy.","conclusion":"Appeals procedures and additional, often complicated, requirements for death penalty cases clog the court system."}
{"id":"a1fbfa01-b9ae-4905-83cc-4700995b21f5","argument":"In most countries the narrative around sex, especially in popular media, focuses on the male experience. Having CSE will empower women to take charge of their sexuality.","conclusion":"Traditional narratives around sex often reinforce harmful gender stereotypes that comprehensive sexual education can help combat."}
{"id":"1175f77e-c068-46ed-96e9-69f04c765e9a","argument":"The whole Superman's disguise is so dumb thing has been a meme forever and I honestly don't get it. It's not THAT weird that this Clark Kent guy might look a bit like the alien supergod people see on the news. Canonically, Supes changes his appearance quite drastically when he goes incognito, he doesn't just put on glasses as the critics would have you believe. He slouches, alters his voice, and becomes a nebbish loser akin to Cyril Figgis on Archer. But frankly, even if he didn't do all that, the Clark Kent disguise is still perfectly effective. Plenty of people look like other people. I've been told I look like Benedict Cumberbatch, but I don't get mobbed by fangirls every time I walk down the street. I'd imagine Kent had more than a few of these conversations Man, Clark, you look just like that Superman guy. Yeah, I get that a lot. Bam. Disguise maintained. Nobody mentions it ever again.","conclusion":"I think Clark Kent is a perfectly adequate disguise for Superman"}
{"id":"f9cb4647-475a-498f-a6b8-49442249ae15","argument":"To further this three quarters of abusive children in this experiment perceived the robot as humanoid, yet decided to abuse it regardless. Indeed, 35% did so 'for enjoyment'. Evidently, there are serious issues with how children perceive and respond to humanoid robots.","conclusion":"Disturbingly, children - when allowed free reign to do with a robot whatever they liked - ended up beating a robot to pieces, showing 'frightening moral principles regarding robots."}
{"id":"f58f5b19-c032-45bf-bcc9-e921304f8165","argument":"If everyone was guaranteed some income even, most people would be able to afford to undertake unpaid experience.","conclusion":"Governments could ensure that citizens who are not working paid jobs are entitled to state-funded income."}
{"id":"a2a3a52e-0652-479e-95fc-53e957b6fb1b","argument":"In 1990, resolution 678 was passed by the United Nations Security Council. 678 authorized nations to use any force necessary to force Saddam to comply with any resolution pertaining to Iraq after 660. Shortly following the First Persian Gulf war, resolution 687 was passed, which established three things. First, Iraq was not allowed to have or pursue nuclear weapons. Second, Iraq was not allowed to pursue or have chemical weapons. Third, and finally, Iraq would have to comply with periodic inspections by UN security teams. Moreover, resolution 688 was passed in 1991 as well, which condemned Saddam's treatment of Iraqi Kurds. In the same year, the United States, France and Britain established a no fly zone over Iraq to enforce resolution 688, using resolution 678 as legal justification. This created a precedence, that force was granted by resolution 678, even without direct Security Council authorization. In 2003, Saddam refused to allow U.N. weapons inspectors into his country. In response to his defiance, resolution 1441 was passed, which was a final chance given to Saddam to comply with statues of resolution 687. This chance at redemption was, again, ignored by Saddam. As per resolution 678, the United States, Britain and Poland used force against Saddam as a method to enforce resolution 687. UNSC authorization was not needed, as the no fly zone over Iraq set a precedence in 1991 after the British, Americans and French used force without the formal consent of the UNSC, but was still recognized as enforcing a legal operation in another country. Finally, resolution 1483 was passed by the UNSC in 2004, which viewed the United States and the United Kingdom as the legitimate occupying powers of Iraq. Given the fact that this right has only been given to nations with legal justification for war, it's obvious the the International Court of Justice found no legal flaw with the invasion. Even though Annan famously argued that the invasion was illegal, he is in no way the sole legal authority in the United Nations. The International Court of Justice is. Obviously, the ICJ would uphold international law against the U.S. if they thought it was broken. Make note this is not a moral or strategic justification for the war.","conclusion":"I believe that the 2003 Invasion of Iraq was legally justified"}
{"id":"3cf4b286-4db2-4cd4-a22f-c7009dfe05da","argument":"From what I understand from this the three central tenants of the ideology as promoted by Mussolini, Hitler, Franco, etc. are Corporate welfare mixed economy for economic development Military aggression and high defense spending, to stimulate growth Ethnic supremacism and cult of personality around the head of state, to unite and motivate supporters The biggest headlines of the Trump campaign so far seem to be that all Mexicans are diseased degenerates, that we need to return to full scale military interventionalism when it comes to foreign policy, and that we should make the state as friendly as possible to the billionaire class often called job creators in rhetoric . You may have guessed from my use of the phrase billionaire class that my own views are fairly left. People of my persuasion have a bad habit of labeling all objectionably strong right wing figures as fascists , and I'm worried that I'm doing that here. But am I missing something, or would Donald and Benito have a lot to talk about? DELTA EDIT u TypicalAccountName just taught me more than I ever thought I'd know about fascism. Turns out it's a lot weirder than I thought it was, and includes all sorts of anti individualistic and anti market components. I also thought until now that corporatism was related to corporations. Trump's economic social views might sound crazy to me, but not that crazy. Some credit is due to the rest of you as well for making me more aware of my own bias. I think much of my thinking on Trump has been influenced by very non neutral non centrist sources along the lines of Daily Kos, New Republic, etc. Thanks guys I'm less freaked out about my personal worst case scenario in this election now.","conclusion":"Donald Trump's platform is very similar to fascism."}
{"id":"d2ff2083-907d-4c78-8c3e-cdef6b3e97f4","argument":"I've studied International Relations for a while and I've gotten familiarized with history, geopolitics, economics and the like. It's not hard to encounter evidence of migration being beneficial for economies that are growing, but it's also not hard to encounter people who oppose migration on a moral ethic basis or on personal opinion. Most of the time they misrepresent migration phenomena they think Latin American migration to the U.S. is increasing or they think their countries are migrant destinations instead of transit countries or do not understand what migrants are like in each specific phenomenon i.e. Mexican migrants are drug dealers muslim migrants are terrorists Japanese migrants are spies Jewish migrants are tax evaders and so on and so forth I have a wealth of evidence that migration is beneficial for economies. I'm looking for evidence to counter what I already have at hand because I want to learn and because I'm not comfortable without evidence against what I learned. And so I make this post in order to look for good sources proving cases where migration has had negative impacts in a country's economy. There are only four catches If its your opinion, I don't care. If I was changing your view I would give you numbers, not what I think If the information comes from something as biased as Breitbart I will not consider it at all. Doctored reports exists on both sides if I was changing your view I would give you quality sources even when I know The Independent would provide evidence supporting my stance The information must be pertaining to countries that are relatively economically stable. I will not consider crippled economies getting more crippled as a basis to say migration harms economies. Of course, this does not mean I will only consider perfectly healthy, 100 economies, it just means that if the country had a crisis before a mass migration I will not consider migration as the cause of a crash. I'd like to focus on economy. I know that socio cultural problems have been born from migration historically, and I can find plenty of evidence of this myself. This is why I'm focusing on the economic effects of migration rather than the social ones. Please consider this I'm doing this as part of a discipline towards research and investigation, not because I'm trying to qualify migration as good or bad. Other than that anything goes. History, papers, articles, opinions from professionals that can back their stance up, testimonies from people who had access to information like governors and presidents of the past , books, you name it. Edit This thread is overwhelming. From the get go I have to say that this community is amazing because I've yet to find a single person who was aggressive, bigoted or xenophobic in the discussion when I expected a shit storm. The amount of information here is just massive and it is comprised of well researched sources, personal experience from privileged points of view like people who has employed migrants or foreigners a lot and can testify about their experience with them , well founded opinions and perspectives from across the world. I only think it is fair to the amount of people who have been dedicated enough to post well rounded responses that I declare all the multiple ways in which my view changed It was hard to prove that migration does not aid in the long run, but it was easier to prove that it seriously stresses the lower income population in the short and medium term. If you want to look for that evidence it is enough to browse the multiple replies. Migration to welfare states poses different challenges countries that wholeheartedly admit migration have a more serious budget stress that may not be sustainable. Migration has tougher effects i the micro level that in the macro level. Sure, the economy might develop but a few affected communities can have a tougher time. It is hard to quantify exactly how much migrants take out or put in in the short run the evidence I have is that they supply much more than they take in the long run, but some posters were able to show higher impacts in the short run. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Incoming migration in relatively healthy economies is almost always beneficial, produces jobs and helps growth. In the long run, migration is economically desirable."}
{"id":"db692dc9-b68a-4516-ac5c-0c053c85a9e9","argument":"A wide distribution of crime would suggest that the root of the problem of criminality among refugees is due to the circumstances of the refugees' situation, something that is difficult to fix effectively.","conclusion":"The criminality is much more easily managed and dealt with if the crime is concentrated to a small portion of all refugees."}
{"id":"81c7cdc5-9331-4859-9e88-7f7af9dbacf8","argument":"This is a very important attribute in the current extreme polarization of the political debate. Finding common ground across the aisle is a very rare trait these days. This is splitting the conversation into two separate polar opposites.","conclusion":"Tulsi Gabbard appeals to conservatives, and has appeared on Fox news and won over the audience with her anti-war stance. She could win over independents."}
{"id":"34ff95e3-0be3-41e3-829d-feaf8b6fd5af","argument":"The cost of subsidizing could be considered to be a good use of resources in order to prevent the harm that pedophilia can cause.","conclusion":"Like other parts of the criminal justice system, there is no requirement that they be self-sustainable; they could be subsidized by government."}
{"id":"b833b9e0-8416-49c7-9cc5-b089b46db0a2","argument":"\"The country is geographically and ethno-religiously divided into three: Sunni Kurds, Sunni Arabs, and Shi'i Arabs, with Turkoman and Christian minorities. The present endemic violence has a strong chance of boiling over into civil warfare if a federation or confederation is imposed on terms not acceptable to all three major groups.\"","conclusion":"The imposition of a centralized government has the potential to foment civil war:"}
{"id":"04eec167-2361-4092-a4b1-cd2af65edd5a","argument":"If feeling safer is actually important, then the government would encourage the media to not report on crimes and accidents, and they would discourage automobile manufacturers from having safety recalls. How many people feel safe knowing that their car has an airbag recall but the manufacturer is not ready to repair their vehicle yet.","conclusion":"It doesn\u2019t matter how safe people feel. Feelings don't necessarily affect or mirror reality. Government policy should be based on facts rather than feeling."}
{"id":"de610e83-45be-4ab0-82e7-c482cb01b264","argument":"Women keep discipline in the same way as men. They also break discipline due to same reasons.","conclusion":"If the \"culture\" means high standards of discipline, then introduction of women will not improve that."}
{"id":"4d97f32d-2edc-4a3a-8fe4-f0596e83cb42","argument":"The British system in particular gives licence to the political parties to publish lies in a way that no other person or entity is allowed to, save within the House of Parliament by elected MP's under parliamentary privilege.","conclusion":"The UK system of democracy is not fit for purpose so despite being constitutional, the process is rotten and consequently any legitimacy has been lost."}
{"id":"e1ba427c-7970-47b4-ac93-56318f780603","argument":"Company's funding a seminar to help the company as a whole and we have two options to choose from. Leadership training or a seminar on Public Speaking and Writing. I'm leaning towards the Leadership training seminar while my co workers are relentlessly pushing for the Public Speaking and Writing seminar. Change my View","conclusion":"Company is funding a seminar, 2 Options, Leadership or Public Speaking\/Writing?"}
{"id":"0d7200d4-6af7-4456-988f-c67588f85ca0","argument":"In the U.S. at least, a blood donor may get a T shirt, maybe a card for a free appetizer at a nearby restaurant. The 'unit' of blood then becomes a basis for medical billing on others, maybe separated into components and sold to 'for profit' hospital corporations. Seems like I, as a donor, should get a 'fair market value' 100? tax deduction, just as though I had given money to the GOP or something OR a membership free DNA text similar to 23 and me. I do not like 'sticks' venipuncture and it seems redundant to donate and then a few days weeks later go to a doctor who then draws a few phials more for his own independent purposes and bills me for it . Presumably, donors can't be given cash because this would attract drug users and others at high risk for blood borne pathogens, which somehow can't be screened out using modern techniques. These proposals allow attracting donors with higher value incentives, which are nevertheless not cash, and therefore difficult to exchange for evil drugs. I suppose it could be a changed view if you propose other incentives which might get people to donate.","conclusion":"Blood donors should get a tax deduction *and* something like 23andMe."}
{"id":"4d6894c4-8dc9-4e48-a6d9-1c383cfa7040","argument":"American Eagle ran a joint advertising campaign with the non-profit Hetrick-Martin Institute. They sponsored a 15-foot billboard in Times Square for the \"Help Me Imagine\" project, which aims to support at-risk gay youth.","conclusion":"Many corporations have incorporated LGBTQ people and issues into their advertisement campaigns. This has sparked public conversation and helped bring LGBTQ issues into the mainstream."}
{"id":"262fc6ad-9de4-4190-b7ad-19920d7a3b69","argument":"The exposure of students to racial and cultural diversity in college has a positive, indirect effect on their recognition of racism.","conclusion":"Diversity in college is more important than fairness in admission."}
{"id":"25650047-3b11-4e29-837c-1c4210e2879c","argument":"Recently the group Antifa has been making headlines for their involvement in anti trump demonstrations particularly in places like UC Berkeley. While I disagree with them ideologically, that is not the view that I would like challenged nor is it one I think I would change. The issue here isn't about ideology but about action and intent. Under US code, terrorism is classed as premeditated, politically motivated violence against noncombatant targets. Examining each point of this definition, I believe that almost certainly the actions of Antifa are politically motivated, so I will not go into much detail illustrating this point. The points of more interest to me are whether Antifa's actions are premeditated and against noncombatant targets. As to whether these actions i.e the violence riots are premeditated, I think in large part they are. As evidence I would cite the fact that members of the group bring weapons such as M 80s to these events as well as the use of blac bloc tactics to help avoid individual charges. The other interesting point is whether these actions are against non combatants. To me, it seems as if at least in some cases Antifa initiates the violence against non combatants at peaceful demonstrations, additionally since these targets are not associated with the government in any way, the idea that they are striking back at the state is ludicrous in my opinion. Ultimately, this seems to me as a reason enough to classify them for what they are terrorists.","conclusion":"Antifa should be classified as a domestic terrorist organization in the United States"}
{"id":"82550fb1-f53d-48ec-a344-094d3e24d537","argument":"Let me specify 3 things first. I am by no means an expert regarding what happened in Vietnam, there might be some things i don't know that could change my mind As a pacifist, I am not saying by any means that terrorism is justified or justifiable I'm not a native english speaker so i might get the grammar and whatnot wrong here and there, sorry I am European so the idea of American culture that i see might be wrong So, let's think about it, there are 2 big reasons why ISIS's terrorism happened and is happening in the gran scheme, political economical interest is motivating war and terrorism, in the small individual cases, terrorists go do those things because they want to spread their ideology Islam or kill whoever disagrees. I'd also say there are 2 big reasons why Vietnam war happened in the grand scheme, political economical interest is motivating the war, in the small individual cases, soldiers go kill innocent rice farmers because they want to spread their ideology Capitalism or kill whoever disagrees cause they might spread the opposing ideology. To this date a big part of the American population thinks that comunist bad without even trying to reason about it, they see them as they see Nazis, which to me is very wrong since in principle Comunism tries to achieve a good objective, it's just that it doesn't work in practice and that the comunist leaders have mostly been tyrannical and bad. Can you change my mind about that? Can you justify to me why the killing of innocent people in their own country is an heroic act when done by USA while the killing of innocent people in their own country is terrorism when done by ISIS? gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"What America did in Vietnam is similar to ISIS's terrorism, just with more budget"}
{"id":"f1d33b5c-424d-4ecf-a2e2-d8bf5ae28a51","argument":"Quick back story, I am a US college student, and in a dance group I am in we've recently decided to ban the use of finger guns in our choreography to be sensitive due to recent mass shootings. We perform on a small stage which us only a single step up from the audience, so everyone can clearly see it's our fingers, not anything real. We also perform for other college students, although it is possible that someone could bring their child sibling etc. Everyone in the group generally agreed to ban it, to cater to people sensitivities due to the recent several mass school shootings. They also say banning it will help to stop normalize gun violence. I disagree. I think at its most basic level it is censorship, and is not protecting anybody. I don't think that it normalizes violence because I don't believe finger guns are violent, I don't believe that it should or would put anyone in any emotional distress to see it. It is clearly fake. It will be an entirely different story if it was a nerf gun painted to look real or something like that.","conclusion":"I believe the use of crude \"finger gun\" gestures should absolutely NOT be stopped\/censored on a college campus."}
{"id":"ab28c388-2db4-4512-baf9-26adf02f6079","argument":"The bar tests all lawyer on essential areas of law - including civil, contracts, torts, constitutional, and criminal law.","conclusion":"The bar exam tests a number of important skills that every competent attorneys must have."}
{"id":"503acd59-1d86-4c52-8644-e08b3376910f","argument":"Imagine if California had to compete directly with China and Russia. Imagine if New York had to compete directly with China and Russia. Imagine if Texas had to compete directly with China and Russia. New York, Texas and California are small and insignificant alone. But now, combine the three and 47 other states and you have a global superpower. United we are stronger, not weaker.","conclusion":"The USE will enable a more assertive foreign and defense policy for the benefit of its members."}
{"id":"84ef0381-f459-4802-9bc4-4ba99168aa7d","argument":"Advances in space exploration will inspire younger generations to pursue employment in the field of science.","conclusion":"New industries will provide new jobs, so the economy will grow."}
{"id":"aaab2933-2cdf-4887-ae8f-9b8c8c7b8ca5","argument":"Make no mistake there is a problem here in the UK, where many people see Muslims as 'the other' in society. Whipped up by the Daily Mail, the Daily Express, and people like Nigel Farage, a certain nasty breed of right wing xenophobes secretly dream of a Britain where they can walk down the street without seeing a non white face, or seeing a shop sign in Arabic. People with left leaning politics tend to brand this attitude 'Islamophobic'. These people are called 'Islamophobes'. They are said to 'fear Islam'. I would contend that this isn't a helpful term, because, well, if we take the word at its face value then I myself am surely an Islamophobe. I fear Islam. I fear Christianity too, and practically every religion I know of. These are ideologies that I believe are harmful to a society they espouse things about the universe that are either demonstrably untrue or seemingly improbable, they stand opposed to values I hold to be intrinsic to education such as critical thinking and reason, and they serve to draw up divisions between people and create in groups and out groups based on the antiquated tribalism contained within their holy texts. But I don't hate or fear Muslims. Or Christians. Or conservatives, objectivists, libertarians, or any other people who identify with belief systems or ideologies that I have reason to criticise or fear. Belief systems are not people. The Mail reading bunch we call 'Islamophobes' are really 'Muslimphobes'. They do not fear Islam so much as they fear Muslims . As in their fear is plain old xenophobia fear of 'the other' their fear is directed towards people , not a system of ideas. It has much more to do with race and rejection of a perceived 'out group' than it does with religion. The reason I think that this is an important issue is that like any belief system or ideology, religions should be scrutinised and criticised. These are ideas. Ideas need to be challenged and disagreed with. Dangerous and divisive ideas should be feared and shunned empathetic and humanitarian ideas should be embraced. Terms like 'Islamophobic' are unhelpful because they lump right wing xenophobes and those with an honest and admirable hostility towards religion rather than the religious such as Richard Dawkins under the same banner. Taking issue with a set of ideas is a vastly different thing from taking issue with a group people because of where they are from, how they were brought up, or what they look like. So 'Muslimphobic' would be a better term than 'Islamophobic', since it puts the focus on the people rather than the religion , but really neither term should be used, and we should probably just call out plain old xenophobia and racism as what it really is. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The problem with the term 'Islamophobia' is that it conflates aversion to race with aversion to a belief system"}
{"id":"fbebc2ed-93f5-4719-9292-4a3b217bbf9a","argument":"So far during the first 6 months of Trump's administration only 50 of the President's nominees have been allowed to pass by Senate Democrats. To put that into perspective at this point during the Obama administration in 2009 the Senate had confirmed 202 Presidential nominees. On average it takes 44 days for the Senate to confirm a Trump nominee. For comparison it took an average of 37 for Obama, 30 for W. Bush, 28 for Bill Clinton and 30 for H.W. Bush. Only 10 of the President's nominees have been confirmed by voice vote. More than 90 of Obama's nominees were confirmed by a single voice vote in 2009. Trump has 30 nominees who are going to face a cloture vote vs. Obama's 8. In addition 14 of those nominees were for his cabinet. All previous presidents combined we have a total of 11 times cabinet appointees faced cloture vote. 23 of the President's 216 nominations have been confirmed. By the August recess of the Obama administration 69 out of 454 nominees were confirmed. The view I would like to have changed would be that the Democrats are launching an unprecedented campaign of obstruction that is completely unjustified and would have far more success if they were more willing to work in a constructive manner with the Trump administration. Delta's will go towards those who find a comparable precedent that I am unaware of, or can successfully convince me it's all justified. Thanks","conclusion":"The Democrats have launched an unprecedented campaign of obstruction against the President's nominees for high ranking position in government"}
{"id":"d95a0639-e8fb-482b-a83d-8c9202dba928","argument":"Dennis Kucinich. \"The US Administration and the ICC\". Common Dreams. 9 Dec. 2004 - \"There are many in our United States government who do understand that Peace can only be obtained through international cooperation and adherence by all nations to high principles. We know that, as a matter of the survival of the human race, unilateralism must yield to multilateralism. . Each of us has the responsibility and the gift to work within our sphere to construct a world where all may survive and thrive in peace and justice. . We must work tirelessly for ratification or accession to the Rome Statute.\"","conclusion":"Cooperation in ICC and rule of law is best overall for stability"}
{"id":"0154b034-94cd-4c75-8270-fff4cc0c333f","argument":"Im writing about this from experience I've had with hearing what these self defense classes are about. From what I've heard from people who went to the class to see what its about, the class is taught by a male army guy who teaches women what to do if a male is harassing them. I see two main issues with this It implies that men are the only ones that will attack women It implies all women are weak. I think self defense classes like these shouldn't focus on gender and focus on What to do if scary creepy guy in college starts to hurt you and focus on techniques that would work on attacking people bigger and stronger than you. These classes should be available to all genders and give techniques on what to do when someone of the same gender attacks you or harasses you alongside with what to do when someone bigger and perhaps of the other gender attacks you. I find these classes sexist since they are only offered to women. IIRC men are most likely to get attacked, not women. That's not to say that I think men need the classes more both genders surely get harassed in different ways. However, the fact that no class exists for men at least here and the fact that the classes are so focused on gender because of the stereotype that all women are weak is sexist to me.","conclusion":"Female-only Self-Defense classes are sexist in nature."}
{"id":"997d2e09-e65c-4086-bbf5-23c426032905","argument":"The hijra community still faces wide discrimination on the ground: most hijras live at the margins of society with very low status, they are discriminated in health, housing, education, employment, immigration, law, and bureaucracy, and above all violence against them is still widespread.","conclusion":"The hijra community in India has indeed been recognised as existing for centuries, but this does not mean they are culturally integrated, or even treated as fully human by society. In fact, quite the opposite is usually true"}
{"id":"73d4b1ab-b45e-4a45-8462-7342cb37c22a","argument":"Many languages include a sexist and binary view of gender. A new language could be more equal and with possibilities to talk about people with non binary gender.","conclusion":"We could take advantage of this occasion to create a better language."}
{"id":"1141c738-01f4-438e-9511-f0be957a9056","argument":"Records show that HSUS affiliated groups have over $191 million in assets, of which HSUS holds $160 million, which is coupled with a pension plan of $16 million, despite its $100 million a year budget.","conclusion":"The Humane Society of the United States has been accused of keeping the funds it collects and using them for its own agenda."}
{"id":"a2ef6c71-ae60-42d1-9d2d-15980cb47330","argument":"I believe that government is a geographical monopoly over the use of force. Governments function off gaining revenue through means of violence, and therefore are immoral under my compass of morality . I do not want to argue the practicality of government or lack of government so please no Anarchy will never work comments, because I am not looking to debate this in this thread , simply just the idea of morality , and whether or not government is force. This is important because I see force as the antithesis of liberty, and liberty as the most crucial part of human life. Thanks to all who comment Change my view. EDIT updated a few things to make it more clear what my position is. gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than just downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I believe government is force."}
{"id":"43be7a84-0145-466e-8865-89f637a9fdd0","argument":"With MeToo, the Silence Breakers, the latest thing with Aziz Anzari, and everything else, I can't stand what I'm seeing happen to this country and I think it's about time somebody does something about it instead of blindly following along the mainstream narrative about how brave and courageous these women are. Let's start by talking about some terms. Let's start here Sexual misconduct. I hate this term more than any other I can think of. What the hell does it mean? If a crime occured, the act should be referenced by the name of the crime. Say rape or sexual assault. When I see that someone has been accused of sexual misconduct my blood boils there is no such thing as seuxal misconduct and it makes me think a media source is trying to generate clicks and that no actual crime occurred. Sexual assault. Again, I think this term is fairly meaningless. Why not just call it assault? We don't have workplace assault and belly button assault and head and shoulders assault or retail store assault or assault by someone taller than you laws. Why does sexual assault get its own little category? Because it's fundamentally worse than other kinds of assault? No getting your head bashed in by a baseball bat is a whole lot worse than some guy touching your boobies without your consent, and don't try to tell me it's not. Because we want to pretend these instances of assault are a whole lot more severe than they really are? Probably. Given our whole sex is worse than violence mentality we have going on in America. Now, can we talk about just how scummy it is to report an alleged crime to the media DECADES after it occurred, and expect to be taken seriously? There is one channel and one channel only to appropriately seek compensation from someone who has wronged you, or to seek punishment upon them The justice system. We all know it's a shitty system, but it's all we have. To say otherwise is to allow for vigilante justice. Why do you all want to live in a world where anyone who wants to can ruin someone else's career by saying something to the media? These people say but the justice system failed us, what else are we supposed to do to seek muh justice, things were different in 1980 I don't know, how about do nothing? It's like if a tennis player loses a point due to a bad call. If they don't like it, they can appeal to the umpire. If that doesn't work, do they get to say I tried appealing and that didn't get me the point I deserved either, can't you see I had no other recourse than burning the court down? What else was I supposed to do, going through the appropriate channel didn't work? Uh, no. You were wronged to begin with. You appealed through the appropriate channel and that didn't work. Now you're done. There is no other option. Go play the next point and get over it. Now, I should clarify I have no problem with anyone who has truly been raped seeking help. If they're still traumatized decades later, they can absolutely speak to a psychologist, family members, anyone they want to, to their heart's content. And if they want to share their story to the media to inspire other rape survivors, have at it. What you absolutely CANNOT do is name your alleged rapist. What do you think these women are trying to accomplish by naming a name? If they wanted to share their story to be an inspiration, they would share it with the name redacted. If they wanted to seek emotional help, they would be talking to a therapist. If they thought they had a real criminal case, they would be talking to the police. Why are they talking to the media and naming names? What help does that bring them? Will it make them feel better to ruin someone's career? Making completely unsubstantiated claims to defame someone that cannot be backed up with proof is called SLANDER Libel. Why are these women not being sued for every penny they own and ending up on the streets for what they've done? Basically, here's the changes I'd like to see to put a stop to all of this Crack down on people who try to initiate trial by media mob trials as a form of justice. This is slander. It needs to be treated as such. Treat people who have been accused, but not convicted, of a crime, as a protected class in employment, similar to gender, religion, or race. Under this new law, it would be illegal to fire someone or terminate someone's contract because of media allegations against them, no matter what they might be. Everyone needs to lose the sex is worse than violence nonsense. If someone brushes against someone's boobs at a bar, on purpose or otherwise, he does not deserve to go to prison for a year and be labeled a sex offender are there seriously people out there who believe that that punishment is proportional to the crime? An appropriate punishment would be something more along the lines of 50 to the victim and 10 hours of community service. Treat simple assault as simple, third degree misdemeanor simple assault. We don't need sexual things to be in their own category, that's puritan era nonsense. There are only things that are Rape horrific, violent sex acts that cause mental and physical harm to someone doing everything they can to resist , and things that are not rape. I want to be able to take the word Rape seriously again. Right now, it seems to mean someone had sex with me and ran afoul of one of an increasingly large list of technicalities. It's to the point where I don't have a shred of sympathy for anyone who claims they were raped, until I verify that they actually mean it in the term's original meaning. I think it's gotten way, way out of hand. It's so completely disrespectful to real rape victims, the way the term's meaning has gotten so twisted and lost. As a society, we have to be able to have an intelligent conversation about sexual morality without people trying to silence you with their made up terms. No, I do not have the slightest bit of sympathy for some woman who never said no, and wakes up the next morning to say I never said yes either, teehee, I got you, that was RAPE When I tell someone this, they say but informed consent is opt in, not opt out, and besides you're victim blaming made up useless terms in bold, of course . I don't care what made up terms you have for something. I'm telling you I don't have the slightest bit of sympathy for the girl and that you shouldn't either. If you disagree, I'm totally open to hearing your point of view if it's not based on phony definitions and canned phrases that mean nothing to me. Tell me why I should care about what happened to such a girl, besides quoting definitions that I find ridiculous and irrelevant. I'm not sure how it happened and I'm not sure how it sucked everyone in, but our current discourse, if you can call it that, about sexual morality is an utter disgrace, and I feel like the whole world's gone mad. This isn't going to stop until we all put our foot down and say to the next accuser Listen, and listen well. I Do. Not. Care. what happened to you. I don't want to hear your inciteful media spread filth, I don't want to hear your stories, and I do not care whether or not you're telling the truth or not. If you need help, go to a therapist. If you think you have a legitmate criminal case or lawsuit, see a lawyer or a cop. But whatever you do, get the hell off of my TV screen and stop trying to ruin people's lives through illegitimate channels. I guess this sub is the only place I can say such a thing and expect to get halfway intelligent replies instead of omg that's rape culture non consent patriarchy victim blaming, so have at it I'm open to considering anyone else's view. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The whole world has lost its mind when it comes to sexual morality, sexual assault, and proper means to deal with it, and we need to not tolerate this nonsense any longer."}
{"id":"1b8562a7-b822-49f7-b02b-c2b93f65519a","argument":"These countries are also a diverse set, spread across the world and with different political systems. This suggests that compulsory voting works in a variety of political situations.","conclusion":"Compulsory voting is successfully enforced in 21 nations which is an indication that this could work."}
{"id":"0b26dcef-7e73-42e9-9499-fead0c5a6bd7","argument":"In most legal systems throughout the world, rape and sexual assault have emerged as distinct sexual offences, differentiated by the seriousness of the criminal conduct. Rape is often defined as sex without consent I believe that definition is too broad, and devalues the word which should be reserved for the most serious cases . This definition is sometimes broadened even further, to include sex without informed consent , sometimes meaning that sex while one party is intoxicated is rape a position not supported by most legal systems, except in extreme cases . This is a particularly strong misuse of the word, as it implies that even active albeit drunken consent could be considered rape . If the word rape is going to have any meaning at all beyond that of sexual assault , it should be used in its narrower legal definition penetration without consent. This is an acknowledgement of the generally more intrusive nature of rape compared to sexual assault, and is the reason for having different criminal offences in the first place. Even forced penetration of a man should be considered a particularly egregious form of sexual assault, rather than rape. It is difficult to find a basis on which to distinguish forced penetration from, for example, unwanted oral sex or groping each involves the unwanted stimulation of the genitals by another person. Labeling these offences as rape makes the word so broad as to be useless. In order for the word rape to mean anything, the definition needs to be limited to penetration without consent otherwise, sexual assault and rape should be made synonymous. .","conclusion":"The word \"rape\" is used too liberally, particularly in the case of male victims"}
{"id":"f8d407ce-890f-44cd-8159-80deeb5e4aeb","argument":"This doesn't mean that all restaurants should be run by the government. It means that if someone can't afford to eat governments should pay for that person.","conclusion":"I believe that governments should take care of the needs of the people, and that corporations should take care of the wants."}
{"id":"5c6049ab-9dc1-40b5-8a7a-d289687cb771","argument":"The Templeton Foundation has awarded its million dollar Templeton Award in Science and Religion to outstanding integrative thinkers such as Paul Davies John Polkinghorne and George Ellis for their work in science and religion.","conclusion":"During the last quarter century, a flourishing dialogue between science and theology has been going on in North America and Europe. Clearly faith and science can, at bare minimum, have mutually respectful discussion."}
{"id":"25d9d0b1-e686-494e-adff-aef4baedbca3","argument":"Every other genre is very clearly defined by its style, there is a clear difference between rock n roll, hip hop, jazz, classical etc even if people often intertwine them Pop music justin beiber, ke ha as far as I can tell if defined as the genre of pop because it's simple, repetitive, unoriginal, and the lyrics are written by 5 10 people often written specifically to appeal to a certain demographic . Basically it is soulless and driven by profit rather than creativity, and it doesnt seam to stylistically be any specific genre. The only thing that defines pop seems to be that it's bad and only popular because corporations have learned how to exploit the market and hysteria that the beatles elvis discovered.","conclusion":"Pop isnt a real genre and if it is its defined by being objectively bad."}
{"id":"20a268e0-34ae-45df-972d-9eaa1967bc14","argument":"I've been reading comments about hypothetical situations where someone's twin has had sex with his sibling's spouse without the spouse realizing it's the sibling instead, until it's too late. People will call that sibling a rapist. In other similar occasions, for example in kinky situations where the spouse is waiting in the bedroom blindfolded, and someone other than the intended lover takes their place in the act. Those are false pretenses. The spouse wants to have sex with a specific person, and is fooled into having sex with someone else. If that's rape, then so is leaving a prostitute without paying her after sex. She clearly exchanged sex for money, and if you didn't intend to pay her then it was false pretenses and you're a rapist. Not to mention a thief.","conclusion":"People who say that sex through deception is rape should say the same when people who have sex with prostitutes and leave without paying."}
{"id":"4cc2d5bc-b564-489c-a6ca-5355e7b04f78","argument":"This primarily applies to online games but can be applied to all forms of interaction. I find banning, probating, shunning people who use offensive humor or language a valid action. In most social situations, unless the person is forced to be there against their free will, they have the opportunity to block ignore turn on chat filters not interact with that person if they find them disagreeable. This forced political correctness most cultures have serves no purpose other than to stifle forms of communication that don't fit the norm. I find rational communication of views a better system than purposely nullifying ideas that don't follow the current cultural climate. I have been kicked out of a few MMO guilds because of 'being offensive', but don't actually feel bad about it. TL DR What is the purpose of Political Correctness and being unoffensive?","conclusion":"I don't find offensive humor or language used in an online setting to be worth getting upset over."}
{"id":"4eabaef5-5fe3-4ffe-aa74-28d57f6fe86a","argument":"This was when its candidacy was unanimously accepted after three decades of consistent Turkish requests.","conclusion":"Turkey was promised a chance to join the EU at the Helsinki summit 1999"}
{"id":"96908b1e-fa5e-4f2c-bd3e-fd2b8f7e2bf6","argument":"TL DR Classism is the root cause of socioeconomic inequality in the United States, not racism. Racism is simply the mechanism by which classism enables and justifies itself. I have become somewhat uncomfortable around most of my liberal friends I'm also liberal since developing this view, because they're not very open to other perspectives. So I would like for someone to show me the light, show me why I'm wrong. In the past couple decades, a great deal of the discourse on inequities and social injustices in the U.S. has centered predominantly around one word racism. Racism has a few operational definitions depending on who you talk to , but perhaps the most widely accepted understanding of racism is that it is the ongoing enactment of or complicity with the systemic and institutionalized oppression of marginalized populations. A sociologist named Joe Feagin defined institutionalized racism as this gt Systemic racism includes the complex array of antiblack practices, the unjustly gained political economic power of whites, the continuing economic and other resource inequalities along racial lines, and the white racist ideologies and attitudes created to maintain and rationalize white privilege and power. Systemic here means that the core racist realities are manifested in each of society\u2019s major parts each major part of U.S. society the economy, politics, education, religion, the family reflects the fundamental reality of systemic racism. While I have a couple issues with this definition i.e. it seems to entirely ignore other extremely disadvantaged groups, such as the Hispanic and Native American populations , I feel that it is an adequate and concise summary of a very complex concept. But I think that we're wasting our breath. Now, before anyone accuses me of being a denier of racism, let me say this I believe wholeheartedly that racism, systemic or otherwise, is alive and well in the United States. However, what I do not believe is that racism is the foundational, fundamental source of racial inequality in the U.S That is to say, in attempting to alleviate socioeconomic inequities through the stamping out of racism, we are gravely missing the mark. I believe that with each passing day in which we attribute racial and socioeconomic inequalities to racism above all else, we lose an opportunity to truly address and treat the disease underlying Classism. To continue analogizing these concepts to healthcare, attempting to ameliorate the racial inequalities of the U.S. by rooting out racism will be equally effective as a psychologist attempting to treat the auditory hallucinations of his her schizophrenic patient by suggesting that the patient wear earplugs. This is not to say that racism is not deeply intertwined with classism, either. Our human brains are incredible at pattern recognition. It is one of our most powerful tools as a species We look for differences and similarities between objects, people, and concepts. Moreover, we form incredibly complex associations between these things and develop schemas by which we can more easily understand new information. However, this incredibly valuable gift has its flaws we are also affected by confirmation bias, and we do not always correctly identify patterns or attribute patterns to the correct causes. These are all significant factors in birthing racial as well as cultural, gendered, religious, etc. prejudices and profiles. Let's talk statistics for a moment, yeah? A couple things 1 According to the 2017 United States Census approximately 35 or, approx. 1 3rd of Black Americans and Hispanic American are living under, at, or near poverty meaning that their earnings are equal to 150 of the federal poverty line or less . Keep in mind that the U.S. Census is not able to include the homeless population in their data. 2 A recent data analysis of incarceration rates by race ethnicity showed that Black Americans are incarcerated at more than five times the rate of White Americans, proportionally. 3 Lastly, another data analysis of preincarceration incomes showed that the median annual income of the incarcerated population prior to their incarceration is approximately 19,000 when controlled for race . Hmm. Interesting. So, to summarize these conclusions 1 A higher proportion of those in poverty are incarcerated or at the very least a higher proportion of those incarcerated were in poverty 2 A higher proportion of Black Americans are in poverty. 3 A higher proportion of Black Americans are incarcerated. Poverty correlates with incidence of mental health disorders and or substance abuse disorders, with likelihood of experiencing trauma, with lack of education, with less stable family structures, etc. You can look all these studies up for yourselves, there's a lot of them. We fear being poor, don't we? Not just having trouble making ends meet, but, rather, finding ourselves in destitution among the destitute. We also disdain those who are poor, but mostly we fear them. How many muggers or gang members or murderers wear business attire or have clean cut appearances? Some, perhaps, but that's not what we are shown. We are taught from birth to associate poverty, regardless of skin color, with danger, untrustworthiness, crime, and immorality. My view is that racism is simply the mechanism by which classism enables and justifies itself. My view and I invite any person to change it is that Classism , not racism, is the foundational, fundamental source of racial inequality. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Classism is America's biggest problem. Not Racism."}
{"id":"63574af0-868a-46ba-b031-ea62d9265bb3","argument":"Abortion is invariably murder. To support abortion as a whole while holding any other belief which treats human life as valuable is directly contradictory.","conclusion":"Life begins at conception. Abortion therefore violates the right to life of the fetus."}
{"id":"0ff54f01-f19c-44f5-b97e-6ecdeb422e61","argument":"With a cryptocurrency, people wouldn't be able to participate in bonus systems, like payback, which track and analyze all purchases.","conclusion":"Most ordinary citizens would not use such a currency anyway, rendering all potential benefits moot."}
{"id":"ebd68e99-ca77-4b6d-8d19-ed245a87780b","argument":"Let's set one thing straight I would never, ever, ever want to work in a sweatshop factory. I don't think anyone wants to. The pay is not good, the hours are long, the labor is hard. But I am privelaged enough to live in a first world country where I don't have to work in these poor conditions. But what If I were living in a third world country? In that case, the best job available would be at a sweatshop factory. Sure, my life would suck, but it would suck a lot more without the option to work at the factory. I would be able to have a job besides agriculture, I might even be able to get into the middle class. Maybe I won't. But if I don't like my job, I can always go back to being a farmer whether or not I decide to take the job is my choice. Who are we to tell the people of this country that we know what's best for them more than they do, to tell them that they can no longer work where they want? How is this any different than the so called White Mans burden of imperialism in the 19th century, where we forced native people to abandon their tradition to become more civilized . Once again, mainly white people are trying to force mainly non white people to do things their way. If we truly care about these people living in third world countries, then we should start giving the people more money, and letting more of them immigrate to our countries, so that they can find better jobs than sweatshop factories. If we give them the oppurtunity for better work, of course they will leave the sweatshop factory. But simply eliminating sweatshop labor rather than providing a better alternative would be like PETA forcing the San Diego Zoo to starve their lions because they don't want the zoo to feed meat to the lions. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"It is immoral to ban sweatshop labor"}
{"id":"ed2fc7b3-2bb8-4d55-9416-fd59e7e72e43","argument":"Sex robots could allow for much more realistic forms of cyber sex if a person is 'controlling' the robot for their partner. This can help maintain a sexual connection when people are physically separated or when one person is physically unable to have sex.","conclusion":"Sex robots could be useful for maintaining and improving relationships."}
{"id":"baef5166-70fe-4287-95c9-1395ea9d3d39","argument":"First and most obviously, they'd need to get their genetic code tested for compatibility. If it turns out they can't reproduce safely, easy adoption services would be offered. This would essentially kill two birds with one stone overburdening in the foster care system and genetic disorders. The second part would vet out people unfit to be parents things like addiction, severe mental illness, extreme poverty, an unsafe home any close friend or relative having a history of violence towards children, anger issues, etc , and religious extremism. In an ideal world, there'd be easily accessible help for anyone with those conditions, but that's not really relevant. The purpose of this test would be to increase the quality of life of kids everywhere. Having children has always been a private thing, and on the surface, that seems like how it should be. However, reproducing is literally bringing a new thinking, feeling human being into the world, and it should be treated as such. Most people understand this. Some people feel like they own their children. It seems kind of Orwellian and I'm sure I don't have all the facts. So if there's any holes, please point them out","conclusion":"People who want to conceive a child should have to take a multi-part government instituted test."}
{"id":"ea7df958-9682-4cd0-bda5-ddece7ac0dde","argument":"There are abortion laws that prevent all types of abortion unless the mothers life is in danger. This ban includes preventing a mother from ending a non-viable pregnancy forcing them to carry a baby they know won't survive to term.","conclusion":"Not all pregnancies are viable and the pregnant woman should be able to choose to end it."}
{"id":"8ae924d8-5996-4c8f-b19a-2c37dab9ac03","argument":"Intercept evidence offers the opportunity to speed up court trials and stop wasting time and money by providing information which could lead to a faster, more accurate verdict. Other western democracies who use wire-tap evidence believe that is has or will help to achieve criminal convictions123, which demonstrates popular support for it as an effective and swift method of justice. Given that the UK has allowed wire-tapping in some specific cases4, it seems to be that it is not the principle of intercept evidence itself which is viewed as unacceptable by these countries, but perhaps a need to set up a formalised system of the conditions when and where intercept evidence can be used. David Bickford, the former chief legal adviser to MI5, has stated \u2018I know we have lost cases as a result of not using such evidence\u20195 and other experts have called for the wide use of intercept evidence in court6. Allowing the use of intercept evidence in the first place may well ensure that wire-taps are better carried out in a standardised, regulated manner 1 In Sweden: accessed 30\/08\/11 2 Widely in the USA: accessed 30\/08\/11 3 In Australia: accessed 30\/08\/11 4 accessed 30\/08\/11 5 accessed 30\/08\/11 6 accessed 30\/08\/11","conclusion":"Intercepted evidence could be incredibly useful for both prosecution and defence cases in many trials."}
{"id":"df1d4df3-dbd0-41a7-9f4c-a750fe63f13b","argument":"Once an encounter has begun, black people are not more likely to get shot than white people. There is therefore no systemic racism during an encounter with police. nytimes.com","conclusion":"There is no special violence of the police against African Americans."}
{"id":"862a18e4-dbf3-43a8-9dc7-358157e985b5","argument":"The Right to Self Determination is one of the most important attributes humans. Some times the Right to Self Determination comes at odds with the rights of society or civilization. When the individual and society come at odds, grievances must be adequately adjudicated. If there comes a time when grievances can no longer be settled to the satisfaction of both sides with the existing systems it is the Right, Duty, and Obligation of individuals to overthrow any government that might impede the individual's Right to Self Determination. gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than just downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I believe that the Right of Individuals to own gun is not just for hunting, but to overthrow any Government that infringes on Individual Liberty and does not provide an adequate source to address grievances."}
{"id":"73907d83-e98c-4ca4-af45-37c7df56082b","argument":"Death is real and what comes after it is everything that won't include your conscious present. There is no way to claim death is an illusion unless you hold the view that everything else is as well. Consciousness does not survive and can never survive beyond a physical body and science has failed to make advancements in futurism. We were evolved to die after old age and death is the only consistent truth out there. Personal death is part of the cycle that includes reality and cannot be stopped or let alone be perceived or observed at all, since we are not present when after it has occured to us.","conclusion":"Death is real"}
{"id":"d35ccdd2-f6ca-4677-8e4c-fd8453ffd127","argument":"3 24 2016 EDIT .mp3 downloads rss are now avail on soundcloud thx to a suggestion from u cdman Announcing the release of the first four episodes of the Delta All Stars interview podcasts with some r ChangeMyView notables available on YouTube and SoundCloud. LINKS The Playlist of ALL 4 Episodes on YouTube Soundcloud Full 4 Episode Playlist YouTube Ep 1.  Mod u huadpe and our debate on the 'end of scarcity' SoundCloud link for Ep. 1 YouTube Ep 2.  Mod u convoces discussion about the art and psychology of changing minds SoundCloud link for Ep. 2 YouTube Ep 3.  Mod u garnteller in an experimental one word topic episode focused on the word 'definition' SoundCloud link for Ep. 3 YouTube Ep 4.  Founding Mod u Snorrrlax on the history, culture, and future of ChangeMyView SoundCloud link for Ep. 4 What is this? Over the last few months, I've had the great pleasure of picking the brains of three of 's most successful delta earners, plus a fourth interview with founding mod of , u Snorrrlax, on these, the premiere episodes of my 'Podcast Sandbox.' These are long form discussions which are minimally edited, i.e. they're not pure, lean works of podcast art, but more an attempt to get to know some of these really interesting people in a conversation which has room to breathe. I am extremely grateful to u Snorrrlax, u convoces, u garnteller, and u huadpe, as well as all the other mods who also helped out with this project, especially u howbigis1gb, u Grunt08, and u RustyRook. Seriously, big thanks to all of you for participating and supporting this project. All four episodes were recorded as google Live Hangouts on Air, and later edited in, and exported from, Final Cut Pro and Audacity. These episodes roughly follow the following format I. A few seconds of teaser audio from mid episode II. Introduction III. Brief getting to know of the guest IV. A discussion on their favorite earned delta V. A broader discussion on the topic in the show's title More about the 'Podcast Sandbox' Delta All Stars make up Season 1 of my 'Podcast Sandbox' project, which will continue to be launched on YouTube, SoundCloud, and hopefully soon the default podcast app on iOS and Stitcher. The 'Podcast Sandbox', of which the above are the first four episodes, won't be limited to , and is my larger project experimenting with different approaches and rule sets for discussion and debate to play test and discuss these rules, meta discussion of debate and dialogue, and how we can all better understand eachother. For example, one of the episodes above features a discussion focused on a single word. Other episodes I've recorded but aren't yet ready for release are some 'listen only' interviews where I combine quasi Rogerian and Socratic approaches to outlining someones full opinion without challenging it. Trying out these and many other experimental formats are what the Podcast Sandbox is all about.","conclusion":"Delta All-Stars! First 4 'Podcast Sandbox' episodes featuring Mods Snorrrlax, convoces, garnteller, and huadpe"}
{"id":"73deec7d-5fba-4306-b403-f3ef16f2cabd","argument":"It is my belief that self driving cars and cars that pollute lesser than their gas powered counterparts are an unnecessary diversion in creating a safe cleaner people transportation system. We already have it It\u2019s the trains If public transport such as railways are expanded and given priority over road vehicles in infrastructure, then we can achieve the goals that the automotive industry is trying to achieve very quickly. We should divert the resources that we spend on making smarter cars finances and human capital to making smarter, faster, safer, public transport and expand the rail network. If we just expand the rail network then people will automatically shift from driving a car to riding on a train as their preferred choice of daily commute. Some of the points I have against road transport for individuals. \u2022 Environmental impact A vast majority of cars are running on fuels that emit pollutants in the environment. \u2022 Safety Road injury was one of the top 10 causes of death in the world. According to WHO, road injury took lives of 1.3 Million people in the last decade. \u2022 Stress\u2013 While driving for enjoyment is really fun on your off days, daily commute hardly is. We are spending a nice chunk of our day that we can spend relaxing, reading or working to complete the last minute project on a rather stressful, and repetitive driving route facing traffic jams and asshole drivers. \u2022 Energy efficiency \u2013 A car owner takes a Ton of metal with him just to get from point A to B. Fuel efficiency of trains is superior to that of cars. \u2022 Maintenance \u2013 a car requires frequent upkeep and maintenance of its parts and components. \u2022 Economy \u2013 Transportation is lot more expensive in cars. Here are some points that I have for expansion of public transport. \u2022 Bonus free time \u2013 When I\u2019m in a train I can browse my phone, read a news paper work on my presentation without the fear of killing someone. This is something driverless cars are trying to achieve and are still years away from it. \u2022 Potty Breaks \u2013 trains can be modified to have them, cars don\u2019t. I\u2019d have to pause my driving, find a gas station and then resume it again, why do that when you can go on the go. \u2022 Fuel Efficiency. \u2022 Noise reduction. \u2022 Skill Transfer People who graduate in engineering and were thinking of joining an automotive manufacturer can just as easily join a locomotive manufacturer. I am not arguing for an absolute ban on using cars, I just think if we focus on public transport more than we would solve a lot of problems that automotive market is trying to eliminate. Problems such as energy efficiency, pollution, and vehicle automation can be achieved with technology that we have today.","conclusion":"Instead of focusing on making self driving & eco friendly cars, we should focus on improving and expanding public transportation."}
{"id":"8ed7e5d9-51e5-45fd-b02f-7d9be861f31e","argument":"When a person dates another based on their finances, making that person a gold digger or sugar baby, is okay. The person in the relationship with the money is a benefactor, who's giving the other person money and other benefits helping that person, which isn't any different than donating money to a museum. If the sugar baby or gold digger is smart they could better themselves in many ways, its basically networking. As long as both people in the relationship agree and understand the arrangement its fine. I'm sure in some of these arrangements it may be one side or one person may get hurt in the relationship but doesn't that happen in most conventional relationships. Change my view I believe that a gold digger or sugar baby relationship is benefiting both people. Its makes the person with the money happy and gives the other person many benefits that they may have never had without the other.","conclusion":"I believe being a gold digger or sugar baby is okay"}
{"id":"3110b436-20cb-4001-a9d8-3798bdf474e6","argument":"With the chance of simple life forming being 1 10^390, it seems impossible that life could form and rather a miracle that it did here on earth. With the universe being 13billion years old somewhere around there it just doesn\u2019t seem like there would be enough time for life to form given those odds which mind you when I put 10^390 in my calculator it literally says infinity, which I know is incorrect just saying. With all these trillions of galaxies and solar systems with trillions of planets and scientists only find a few every once in a while that is in the Goldilocks zone. We could assume there\u2019s a few billion estimated that are habitable and then for each of those there is a 1 out of 10^390 chance that life will form on that planet, it seems impossible that it will happen or has happened. I guess I just want someone to show me different statistics or reasoning that I\u2019m not seeing.","conclusion":"Aliens don\u2019t exist and we are the only life in the universe. This doesn\u2019t mean I believe in creationism I just believe that the chance for life to occur is so minuscule that it won\u2019t happen."}
{"id":"fdd49163-d05a-49ef-b40f-bef9dc293b7c","argument":"I think it's convoluted and pointless how some companies offer multiple paid time off banks. Some employers will have a PTO bank for vacation days, another one for sick days, another one for personal days, and another for floating holidays. There's a lot of reasons I think this is worse than using a single combined PTO bank. The employee will have trouble calculating how much time is available to them. If the employer requires PTO to be used in 8 hour chunks, the actual amount of PTO available may be different from the useable amount of PTO available. Accounting on the employer side is complicated as there are going to be multiple ways of accounting for an employee's day off. The various PTO banks usually accrue at different rates, which makes it hard to estimate how much time off you will have in the future. The various PTO banks usually have different rules for how much time can be accumulated and whether or not it rolls over from year to year, as well as how much can roll over each year. It encourages employees to lie, which is bad for employee morale and bad for the company. It's better to know Fred will not be in a week ahead of time than for him to fake sick the morning of. It's disingenuous to offer a sick bank as employers typically act like it's the same as vacation time when hiring you, but it's only supposed to be available if you are sick. I once was offered to leave a job with 3 weeks PTO all one bank for a job with 3 weeks PTO 1 week vacation, 2 weeks sick and the recruiter tried to claim that it was just a semantic difference. In reality to use those 2 weeks I'd have to actually be sick, or lie about it. And even if I did lie about it, I couldn't use more than a day or two at a time, unlike vacation time.","conclusion":"Companies should not separate sick time, vacation time, personal time; it should all come from the same pool of hours."}
{"id":"c7881bf5-4303-47e9-b9cc-e17cb5d19b25","argument":"It seems many people have a disposition towards believing in the supernatural, in some form or another. I maintain that our world can be perfectly explained from a materialistic perspective. I see no reason why consciousness cannot be explained as chemical processes in the brain. I see no reason, whether empirical or philosophical, that supports the existence of the supernatural. I contend that God s , human consciousness, the human soul, near death experiences, miracles, and any other unexplained phenomena or phenomena usually associated with the supernatural can be explained scientifically and from a materialist worldview. Please note that I am not saying the supernatural does not exist. Rather, I see no reason to believe anything other than the physical world exists. EDIT With respect to consciousness, which has been brought up a lot, I see it as being completely compatible with a materialist worldview based on this talk by Daniel Dennett","conclusion":"Materialism is sufficient to describe reality, there is no reason to believe in the supernatural"}
{"id":"6d9be004-4a29-48d4-9953-7825d1281a04","argument":"Science can help establish the various options for achieving a particular goal, and predict their various strengths a weaknesses. However, the political aspects of this process are the choosing of a goal and a route to that goal. These choices are beyond the purview of science.","conclusion":"Science is not concerned with the selection of goals - only the analysis of existing facts, and the prediction of outcomes."}
{"id":"72b4d008-61bc-4bb4-a198-2c492169e7bf","argument":"The Dutch Prostitution Information Center has set up a monument dedicated to sex workers. This helps to keep the issue in everyone's mind.","conclusion":"Sex worker support organizations can freely inform the general public about life and problems in the sex industry."}
{"id":"8452efe1-60e1-48cf-9f1b-532ace42b7de","argument":"I think that random people are completely powerless when it comes to climate change. The most important people in the world will be the last to get seriously affected so they aren't going to do anything until it's literally unbearable. Also saying that we can form groups and protest is useless too as people are ignorant and depressed so they won't do anything. Majority won't care at all, the small part that cares won't take action and the remaining part is too small to do anything. So our pretty much only option is to wait and see what happens, then try our best to adapt and hopefully not die It's pretty depressing, can anybody show me other options?","conclusion":"Extreme climate change is inevitable"}
{"id":"3710163d-9557-4b21-ab18-3263422f0ee9","argument":"Monica Beverly Hillz a former contestant on 'RuPaul's Drag Race', has become a spokesperson against sexual violence in the LGBT community.","conclusion":"A number of queens have spoken about sexual violence in the LGBT community."}
{"id":"e6261bd7-e9c0-441f-bf89-3e9c3e86a868","argument":"Resume chatbots seem to be a new trend, especially in the technology field. They offer HR the ability to ask the chatbot questions to get to know the candidate without having to pick up the phone or write an email, avoiding giving the candidate mixed signals. Chatbots have the ability to store and communicate all the information typically found on a resume, and only provide the details that the HR person is specifically interested in knowing. Additionally, they can provide links to outside sources and multimedia content like an online portfolio if desired. Article about resume chatbots Example resume chatbot Edit Updated link to the correct venturebeat article gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Resume chatbots have the potential to become a popular tool for job applicants to stand out in the hiring process"}
{"id":"3ace69c5-d04b-469c-93cb-5dfc10f7019a","argument":"Among those more educated there is a tendency to have higher levels of non belief or to, at least, hold religious beliefs with less certainty.","conclusion":"Education tends to reduce human proclivity to gullibility and, at the same time, those more educated tend to be less religious."}
{"id":"4fcde701-a1ec-4b33-a2ae-7d44f213e799","argument":"Religious groups aiding poor countries may potentially sway that poor community to follow said religion. The correlation doesn't mean religion is making countries poor, it can be poor communities leading to religion.","conclusion":"People living in poor and in conflict areas tend to be religious, because they need religion. They are not unsuccessful because they are religious, they are religious because they are unsuccessful."}
{"id":"e73f8d10-f3df-444d-b76a-cfaf1ae1f90a","argument":"Lots in the news lately about donald trump and normalizing relations with North Korea. I'm very strongly opposed to donald trump politically and i feel that he likely committed treason, at least in the common usage of the word but maybe not the legal definition . I have no love for the man or about 99 of his policies. I suspect that he has some higher reason for his desire to normalize things with NK either personal profit, or maybe even just political gain. Maybe Putin is putting him up to it to make the US look stupid. But even if that is the case, is it so bad that we have a chance at peace? 6 months ago people were terrified that nuclear war was right around the corner, and now we seem miles away from that at least with North Korea . I don't savor supporting Trump on this, it's personally embarrassing to find my politics align with his and his supporters. Because of their past crimes, misdeeds, and hate filled policies programs, hate mongering, and divisiveness I don't want to support him. But isn't peace the most important thing? Like i said, i suspect nothing but the worst out of him but i will support peace in any way it comes. what am i missing? gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Any path to peace between the US and North Korea is acceptable. The means, pretty much whatever they are, justify the end."}
{"id":"aff6cc71-5e90-4101-b09f-8bc6665c3cac","argument":"The scale of mass shootings has been increasing at an alarming rate Some form of sensible legislative action must be done.","conclusion":"Stricter gun control legislation would decrease the number of gun-related deaths."}
{"id":"7d220924-fd2b-43f5-83b1-48b5c03c1668","argument":"Given the magnitude of global inequality caused by colonialism it is moral to create a one world state - making future colonialism impossible.","conclusion":"Given historical and present global inequalities, there is a strong moral imperative to create a one world state."}
{"id":"49b77bc5-fbf4-444d-8940-347cf1e9a886","argument":"Currently the ICC functions based on a relationship of trust and understanding with the state parties to the ICC \u2013 a bottom-up rather than a top-down approach. This is backed up by the court\u2019s respect for the for the principle of complementarity \u2013 it is hoped that national courts are capable of prosecuting the crimes, and the ICC only takes a role if the state is unwilling or unable to do so. Being willing to use an international force to catch criminals would make a mockery of this determination to leave power and responsibilities at the national level wherever possible. Having ICC forces on a country\u2019s territory would be humiliating, showing that the international community does not trust that nation to catch war criminals itself. While this model did not provide for attempting to snatch government officials who have been indicted it does leave open the possibility of an international force intruding on states sovereignty without consent. This would diplomatically backfire and could even lead to an ICC force being involved in fighting with government forces protecting their national sovereignty.","conclusion":"An ICC enforcement arm would be highly detrimental to the relations between the ICC and state parties"}
{"id":"f8e32615-9420-4ec2-a01d-12a95c204b6e","argument":"White supremacists can be innovative in their recruitment methods. Even something as ostensibly innocent as Pokemon GO was targeted by white supremacists, who may have handed out flyers to children as young as ten. Andrew Anglin openly stated that this was intended to 'brainwash' younger children, who would then be 'Nazis for life'. With this in mind, restricting the platforms and means available to them is imperative.","conclusion":"Part of the problem with allowing white supremacists a voice is not merely that they will shout racist slogans; the real concern is how they rally people to their cause, and use clever, considered rhetoric to manipulate and strengthen their support base."}
{"id":"378522de-eeca-42ed-ba5f-bbf043ee8c82","argument":"The majority of developed world humans do not donate money to help humans in life-threatening situations, but rather use the money for more conspicuous consumption, e.g. buying the newest phone.","conclusion":"There are countless examples throughout history and also in today's society, where a human life and its safety, are not considered as being of the highest importance."}
{"id":"64990f43-c6b7-428d-b438-ecf20656e6fc","argument":"The Pakistani government does not allow the participation of pro-independence political parties and routinely arrests and detains members of the United Kashmir People's National Party.","conclusion":"In Pakistan administered Kashmir there is government oppression including strict limitations on freedom of expression and freedom of association."}
{"id":"b444291d-b1af-4bc0-b86a-c94314cd8660","argument":"Yet, it certainly seems that we can have moral concerns involving people in the past. E.g. we have a moral duty to respect the dignity of past people, for instance, by not desecrating their graves. We owe this duty to a past individual even if no one living today has any particular interest in that past person.","conclusion":"This logic is flawed, as it would also rule out any moral claims or responsibilities towards those in the past, since people of the past do not presently exist."}
{"id":"a58c1d64-d71d-4fb3-987f-53d5037d8c40","argument":"Every place i work the people who seem to progress the fastest are not the most inteligent and hardworking, but the most obedient. The customers who get the most are not the most loyal or the kindest, but the most ignorant and the most obnoxious. In all of the companies I have worked at 15 now every single one rewarded not ingenuity to solve a problem, not being loyal or working hard, but who could play the game the best. I know an obvious retort to this is that the people who were the most intelligent or tried the hardest weren't doing what they actually needed to do, but they were. In every retail job I have worked in 3 , the loudest most obnoxious customers got the free upgrades, free replacements and discount, not those we saw week in week out. I feel like the reason I hold this view is a matter of perspective that maybe I'm missing a piece of the puzzle, I still hold my view because everyone I meet agrees with me, so I came here in the hope that one of you can change my view.","conclusion":"I think people are rewarded for being stupid"}
{"id":"37797c01-eff7-4702-b1e8-c4a0b9e231d1","argument":"Dog and cat meat sales are banned in the US, and eating dog or cat meat is banned in 6 states. I recently read in an economist article that Western countries are putting pressure on China and Vietnam to stop the consumption of cat and dog meat. Sure personally you might have problems with eating cat or dog I never would , but a problem arises when arbitrary cultural biases turn into laws. Even worse is when Western nations, who claim to be sanctuaries of freedom and open mindedness, try to impose arbitrary cultural values on other nations.","conclusion":"Banning dog\/cat meat sales while allowing other kinds of meat is massively hypocritical."}
{"id":"c0a9c9b4-0418-42c0-8a21-b5f77a3d366e","argument":"Imposing legal limits on military growth and on collectively lessening\/shunning consumerism in general like technology would stop these mechanisms from contributing to climate change.","conclusion":"We don't have to identify mechanisms if we could just prevent them."}
{"id":"4755616b-6534-4d4f-ba62-d1a864864810","argument":"Medicare and similar programs in developed countries are crumbling under the increased healthcare costs of which the primary driver are the expenses related to aging and rising life expectancy. Old people have multiple illnesses that require experimental or intensive care and medication. To ensure the capacity of the program, many politicians are proposing rising the eligibility age, while I think that capping it would be a more sensible thing to do. I really don't see why expensive treatments that are targeted to prolong life are used on people who are over 85, 90 or 100. In my opinion a civilized society should provide basic healthcare for all, and specialized healthcare for the vast majority of the population, but it is not financially possible or fair to the tax payers who are financing the system to continue guaranteeing the same level of expansive care that is provided today. Based on a 2012 CBO report, there were around 6,3 million Medicare recipients over the age of 85 that cost the system 79,5B with an average of 12,692 compared to the overall average of 8,319 2010 numbers . From 1999 to 2012 the age when Medicare expenses are at their highest grew by nearly a decade from 89 to 97. From 1999 to 2012, the medicare expenses for ages 65 74 grew by 25 while they grew 72 for ages 95 105. A Forbes article from 2013 suggests that 30 of Medicare expenses are used on the 5 of recipients who die each year, with 1 3 of that 30 used during the last month of the patients lives. There is potential to save tens of billions of dollars and avoid rising the eligibility age or lowering the quality of service if expensive care targeted to extend life would be reserved for people below either an arbitrary age limit, say 85, or a limit tied to life expectancy. Healthcare should prioritize palliative and pain alleviating treatments when patients above this age develop life threatening conditions such as tumors or heart disease. At the ages of 85 and above, I think that you had a good run and if the limits of your body are nearing, expanding them shouldn't be the responsibility of the society anymore, but yourself.  Sources gt Forbes Article gt CBO Report gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Instead of raising the Medicare eligibility age, it should be capped"}
{"id":"16bfc8d1-170e-429c-abba-3bef42f32c03","argument":"Many attacks have been wrongly or questionably ascribed to certain political groups. There are a number of 'right-wing attacks that have been labelled as such, despite the perpetrators not necessarily being so. Inflated statistics of 'right-wing' attacks then skew public opinion unfairly.","conclusion":"These statistics may be due to media and research biases Left-wing extremism is often minimised or ignored in favour of popularising the idea of violence being exclusively germane to either jihadist or right-wing groups."}
{"id":"c6014706-753a-4c02-a622-f188cb56ef6a","argument":"We have a legal system that forbids both slavery and indentured servitude even with the written consent of the person harmed by such systems. Contracts certainly are allowed to include termination fees for any damages incurred, non disclosure, non compete, but they are not allowed to keep someone at work against their will. The US military is the exception to the rule. It is said that if people could just up and leave whenever they want, they would use the military for benefits then skip out on the battlefield or right before wartime. The military might also lose a ton of money in training costs. To me, this is a ridiculous exception to a foundational law. The US military is not the only company that has to risk high training costs on employees that could leave at any time, this is why most ask for certain education at the outset. And soldiers deserve the right to choose whether a war or battle is ethically or personally something they ought to take part in. I believe that our troops are actually determined individuals, and that if someone wants to be a deserter, it\u2019s better that they do so before it becomes a problem. But if a soldier has a problem with what they are doing, it is a disgrace for the US Military to force their service. They need to set up incentive structures that encourage keeping up their service. But it is vital that our people who are on the front lines choose to be there each and every day. Otherwise, who knows who might take power, and what they might ask you to do.","conclusion":"Military contracts should be at-will."}
{"id":"d10d1c28-12d8-4c94-80e2-8f1022f6cf9d","argument":"Colonial rule often left strong bureaucracies and militaries as its legacy. These institutions have repeatedly intervened against democratic forces and have prevented economic development.","conclusion":"Most developing countries have experienced colonialism which deeply affected the degree to which they could solve problems."}
{"id":"9cea22d5-0d63-4d94-884d-3334a55de9a1","argument":"I then females get more dopamine by dressing a sexy or pretty then males do. Simple as that.Cleavage isn't even a thing for males.High heels are extremely uncomfortable leaving little justify wearing them. When I think of scantily clad men I tend to think of gay men in fact. I'm thinking of the gay pride stuff. I don't think the is any stigma for strait guys showing skin though. What about Elsa's customs change in frozen insinuating that she's become a more confident person.","conclusion":"Women dress more skimpy then men"}
{"id":"2d09d2e2-b489-416b-8029-af2712cb3655","argument":"The possibility for a God should not be reduced to a set of assumptions based on current religious and philosophical understandings. Projecting human notions of \"good\" and \"evil\" onto a supposedly infinite being is fundamentally senseless.","conclusion":"Humans are limited in their capacity to conceptualize God, and thus are incapable of accurately judging the relationship between evil and a divine being."}
{"id":"a6e751c2-487a-4090-afa1-0eb66e703db3","argument":"California banned affirmative action in the late 1990s. As a result, at the University of California, Berkeley, the percentage of black undergraduates has fallen from 6% in 1980 to only 3% in 2017.","conclusion":"Forgoing support for affirmative action would backtrack the good it has done."}
{"id":"0ca51e23-393d-4312-850b-68d16241fa6c","argument":"Of 17 high-income countries studied by the National Institutes of Health in 2013, the US had the highest or near-highest prevalence of obesity, car accidents, infant mortality, heart and lung disease, sexually transmitted infections, adolescent pregnancies, injuries, and homicides.","conclusion":"The US healthcare system is flawed, and performs very poorly compared with other developed countries."}
{"id":"4679ca09-81f7-4e50-b051-a9c40c305f62","argument":"Let me start off by saying I don't have any dogs or cats and that I don't agree with burning dogs alive. But I also think that pigs shouldn't be burned alive. It seems like most people are against eating dogs while they are fine with eating pigs and cows. I feel like just because people have dogs in their house instead of pigs is no reason to view their entire species as more important than pigs. I'm fine with people saying we shouldn't eat any animals or that you shouldn't eat other peoples dogs. I do think that some animals should be held to a higher regard than other animals but not because some look cute but because some animals are smarter endangered but dogs, cats and horses aren't anywhere near extinction or smarter than some farm animals. There are also other good reason to not eat something like their environmental impact or stuff like that e.g. I try to minimize my consumption of cow products because they are terrible for the environment.","conclusion":"I don't think we should care more about pet species than other animals."}
{"id":"71c243b5-dfcd-42b5-ba62-6c5ee088bf81","argument":"Cuba is one of the few countries on the planet almost entirely outside of US government US corporate control, and they have a better idea than many of what its like being on the pointy end of US foreign policy Bay of Pigs, multiple assassination attempts against Castro, multiple covert ops to infiltrate Cuban society to foment rebellion, harassment from troops stationed at GITMO, and the fact that the US virtually ran Cuba as a colony after the Spanish American War until the Revolution . Why should they try and normalize relations with a country whose foreign policy goal for the past several generations is to turn them into a banana republic to be exploited by US corporations?","conclusion":"Normalizing USA-Cuba relations is a bad idea -- for Cuba"}
{"id":"c0b165c6-c8c8-4eee-a9dc-19ee6593e3dc","argument":"Due to refugee emigration, the home country may lose a lot of manpower which will hinder the home country's ability to rebuild after the crisis. Therefore nearby countries are a better choice to host refugees as it facilitates quick return after the crisis to help rebuild.","conclusion":"High income countries could pay countries closer to refugees' homes to settle refugees, as has been done with Turkey and Jordan"}
{"id":"0b9a2741-2624-4114-abe5-75ee531df41e","argument":"Many hidden, otherwise unappreciated acts of good behavior would be rewarded and many hidden acts of bad behavior punished.","conclusion":"People who already act good have nothing to fear and will only gain social credit."}
{"id":"6ce9c88a-c671-44cc-abac-4d8110f938cf","argument":"I am a black teenager who listens to hip hop and I also grew up in a small town with almost no white people I saw like 2 3, 2 of them were from England to play for the local football team and I use the n word.I was really confused that white people were offended when black people said it because everytime I heard it it wasn't used as a slur. Because of me only being exposed to this word through music,TV and movies I never thought it was an off limits word so I used it too, and nathan turned into my version of bro. I'm not the only one either. Most of my friends who also listened to hip hop were saying stuff like My nathans and such. Then, sometime after that I discovered WHY it is offensive and it's origins. Even WITH knowing that I still choose to use it because a I'm not using it to offend anyone, hell I'm using it to call someone my friend b the n word is white culture, and IMO saying the n word isn't offensive to the white culture but ACCEPTING that white culture. c more and more people are acting whiter. White people aren't treated as they were 300 years ago and I don't see ANYONE getting anything from being offended by a word being used incorectly. Black guys and chicks are all listening to hip hop, shopping at thrift shops, putting on a whiter accent and using more white words like Nathan or Fire . I don't undestand why white people are so sensitive when you rarely hear asians complaining that people say stuff like me chinese me play joke even though that seems more previlant. I feel bad for this because I don't want to offend anyone but I'm annoyed that the same people who tought me that word wouldn't want me to use it. BUT, saying nathan with a hard N is needlessly offensive and absurd. I don't know why that hard N make such a big diffrense for me but I feel bad whenever I hear the hard N at the end. This is a very controversial thing in the US, and I can't wrap my head around it. why? Americans are white, you can just call them that. Ofcourse, if you know his name use his damn name but that's just manners. Also, if we DO start using nathan more freely we should limit it. For example, you can use it for comedic value or to call your friend that, not for everything and at the end of verything. TL DR IMO everyone should be able to say nathan but to a limited extent since it's the new bro but the hard N still isn't good.Racism isn't cool, we're different but equal.","conclusion":"I believe that using the N word shouldn't be controversial and that every race should be able to use it."}
{"id":"2cec60f9-2efb-438d-9c64-6089d89e6150","argument":"Arthur Weinreb. \"Full-body scanners; it's just common sense.\" Canada Free Press. January 8, 2010: \"The CBC warned that the scanners emit radiation. Well, if ways have been found protect x-ray technicians and others who work with radiation, then the screeners can be protected. And there was nothing to suggest that flyers who get scanned are at risk although when the machines are put into use, that will inevitably come up.\"","conclusion":"Full-body scans pose no more risk than x-ray machines"}
{"id":"151e3b6b-c23f-456e-8684-bee8bd7a0071","argument":"IP addresses are typically assigned at the level of the router access point; thus they are shared amongst all members of a household, and in some cases, an entire building.","conclusion":"IP addresses are difficult to trace as they typically involve serving ISPs with warrants that can identify who actually is behind a given IP address."}
{"id":"922b2138-079b-46f3-8099-884626cddd46","argument":"American Apparel's sex-infused ads showing women wearing leggings and nothing else while bending over, have been removed after much controversy and anger from the American public.","conclusion":"Consumers who disagree with a corporation's political agenda can resist it by taking a political stand, such as a boycott."}
{"id":"05e9ae39-cecf-4d59-9b5b-8ea2a535ad2f","argument":"So this is something that has been bothering me lately, especially given the current and ongoing fight over same sex marriage. It seems to me, that much of this argument regarding religious freedom seems centered on the fact that the freedom of a person's religion is challenged by the behavior of other people who do not directly influence this person. For me, personally, this is more about a overall personal support of every individual's freedom more than it is about marriage rights for same sex couples. Though, for the sake of disclosure, I will say that I do support the right of same sex couples to marry. Still, this right of conscience seems like a new thing. I never really remember hearing the term prior to maybe the last 2 years. It seems like a nice way of saying that I should not have to even put up with or be around something I disagree with, cause it angers me. So, I'd love to hear some alternative views on this. Thank you.","conclusion":"A person's religious freedom should not be protected when it is dependent on influencing the behavior of other people."}
{"id":"32e5187b-2be5-49c3-8390-0c9b4d0d80e4","argument":"I\u2019m probably going to offend a lot of people, but it doesn\u2019t matter, what does matter however is how we make of things and our facts and statistics. My reasoning behind this is that, smoking anything is bad for and that marijuana is not exception. But that\u2019s not my only reason. Marijuana can cause Short term memory loss long term memory loss if chronically used Impaired thought, movement memory and judgement dangerous for anyone that smokes pot and drives and could cause problems with consent. Worsens the symptoms of bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and psychosis What Marijuana is It is a paychoactive drug from the plant cannabis used for either recreational or medical purposes. It\u2019s main component, Tetrahydrocannibinal, THC, one of the 483 compounds that include over 60 other cannibinoids. Here\u2019s what it does to your body. Once you inhale the smoke, The THC goes from your lungs to you bloodstream and into the brain. THC stimulates the part of your brain that responds to pleasure, such as good and sex. That\u2019s lets dopamine loose and causes the high. It can give you a relaxed sense of being, heighten your senses, warp your sense of time, and make you anxious, afraid or panicked. There are many benefits with marijuana, but it\u2019s not gods plant. Harms Some evidence suggests that marijuana hurts your memory, learning abilities, and attention. Though, it is limited. It leads to smokers cough, long term bronchitis, increase in phlegm production and generally does not improve the quality of lung function over time. breathing problems Increased heart rate. Marijuana causes the heart to pump blood faster, which means that your heart has to work extra hard to keep itself going. With pregnancy, if you smoke marijuana your baby is more likely to be underweight, born prematurely, and may need neonatal intensive care. With teenagers, it affect their learning abilities and it affects how the brain builds connections between the areas necessary for these functions. A study in England was conducted in part of research at Duke University showed that people who smoked marijuana in their teens developed marijuana use disorder and were 8 points behind in iq points between the ages of 13 and 38. Is marijuana addictive? Hard to say, but it can lead to a substance use disorder, a medical illness in which the person is unable to stop using it even though it causes social and health problems. The symptoms with withdrawal of marijuana includes Grouchiness sleeplessness decreases appetite anxiety cravings Other Marijuana decreases sperm count Moral of the lesson, don\u2019t smoke once you\u2019re a teen or pregnant or trying to use it as a \u201ccoping mechanism\u201d for your mental health problems. Also, take note of the legalities of your state. Myths about marijuana It cures cancer Actuality it slows down cancer cells, however it does not directly cure the disease. It causes cancer Actuality there has been no evidence to suggest that cannibis is the cause of cancer in ANY medical situation it\u2019s harmless Comment did you not read my post? it\u2019s just a plant. Comment so is tobacco may or may not release to marijuana this is anti weed propaganda actuality these are the facts. The drug you guys claim to be a miracle is just the reason why teens are even doing it. There\u2019s a reason why it is called a drug. The lack of skepticism around marijuana is horrifying. Just because it\u2019s a plant or it cures cancer which it doesn\u2019t does not make it risk free. Nothing is risk free. Do research on your own to find the health risks of marijuana and it\u2019s benefits I\u2019m for medical marijuana But for recreational? Only if you\u2019re at it above 21. There is no excuse to violate the legislation of marijuana. Especially if you\u2019re a teen.","conclusion":"Marijuana isn\u2019t as good as people think"}
{"id":"19fa3ef2-c35a-4f25-9ded-41ec01a27e70","argument":"This post is inspired by some of the comments made in a previous post on . I was at a party, and a girl I've been kinda flirty with in the past tried to take me into a separate room to have sex. I said no. I didn't really feel like it, I just wanted to have a good time with my mates. She then pleaded, and tried to convince me that it would be fun and nobody would notice etc. She knew I was attracted to her, and probably knew I wouldn't continue to refuse if she persisted, which is what ended up happening. In the end it was obviously consensual, but I did indeed say no, firmly, at least once, and then continued to hesitate for a bit afterwards. Now, reverse the genders of the above story and I'd have countless people saying no means no, this is rape , well, doesn't that mean I was raped? I'm just going by the logic I witnessed being heavily upvoted in that other thread. My above story is not rape, whatever order the gender is in. . EDIT The  post I mentioned is this one I'm not really talking about the OP, but some of the comments that are within. One of the main comments that inspired me to make this post was this comment gt No means no. No excuses, no explanations, no sick games, no joking, no role play, no anything changes this simple fact. NO means NO If someone says No to you and you ignore that No , You Are Wrong. This should be recognized in all aspects of life. Can I have a piece of your candy? No Don't take it. Can I come over to your house? No. Don't do it. Can I borrow your book? NO Don't do it. It's a simple monosyllabic word. Learn it, respect it. No means No. Problem solved. I would be interested to know what this user thinks of my situation, because by this logic it seems I was raped. If they said otherwise I'd be inclined to call them sexist hypocritical. EDIT 2 During a conversation with a user on here it was suggested that I edit in something that I told them While I was hesitating, the girl touched me flirtatiously. On the hands and around the waist. To some people this is inappropriate, but, it turned me on a lot. This probably played a big part in why I ended up going for it, but I still don't consider myself to be sexually violated. Again, if the roles were reversed, a lot of people would be up in arms. Make of that what you will.","conclusion":"I have had a girl convince me into having sex. This is not rape."}
{"id":"9d8490ed-00e3-4372-a583-a61bb829952b","argument":"Cannabis users are less likely to suffer from psychosis and schizophrenia when compared to non-users as the 2008 Keele study showed, which surveyed over 5,000 regular uses of cannabis.","conclusion":"Overwhelming scientific research supports the beneficial medical effects of using cannabis."}
{"id":"7b21345b-a042-4ff7-99a2-55eaaae175f9","argument":"Advertisements\u2014especially those that identify symptoms\u2014can lead to a healthier citizenry, as consumers become aware of their diseases earlier, and can thus find the drug that targets their problem at an earlier stage. Many drugs can prevent or reduce the likelihood of a patient requiring surgery for instance anti-cholesterol drugs can reduce the buildup of atheroma in blood vessels, which cause cardiovascular heart disease and strokes, thus reducing the likelihood of a heart bypass being required and improving any post-stroke rehabilitation. This not only saves money but is also better for patients. Surgery involves the risk of complications as well as taking time both directly and in post-operation rehabilitation. Also many degenerative conditions can be best treated by early intervention; if patients are aware of the drugs that are available at an early stage they are more likely to take them, thereby increasing their standard of living and reducing their long-term cost to state or private health cover providers.","conclusion":"Advertising will enable patients to get better treatment earlier in their illnesses"}
{"id":"616e56f8-7c59-4312-bc06-e3038914781e","argument":"If the Second Amendment applied only to the collective right of the militia, it would be useless, as no militias exist today in America. It is highly unlikely that the Framers designed an amendment that could expire over time. Instead, their intention was to extend rights to individuals in the Constitution that are lasting.","conclusion":"If 2nd amendment applied only to militias it would be useless today"}
{"id":"8caa4243-408b-48e9-ae9e-27b2b8d5f2cb","argument":"A failure of the United States to act would motivate Israel to do so.1 Israel is under much more pressure to act as it would be the most affected by Iran going nuclear. The result would be catastrophic, as Iran would be able to portray itself as a victim of Israeli aggression, leading to a massive outpouring of pro-Iranian and anti-American sentiment in the middle east and central asia. It could easily spark a regional war across the middle east as Iranian proxies strike back against Israel and U.S. forces around the region.2 The US would get all the harms of direct intervention with none of the benefits, and efforts to fight Hezbollah and Hamas, both within Palestine and elsewhere, would be undermined by their newfound sympathy in the region and the need of Arab governments to pander to it. 1 Ravid, Barak, \u2018Report: U.S. preparing for an Israeli strike on Iran\u2019, Haaretz.com, 14 January 2012, 2 Benhorin, Yitzhak, \u2018Attack on Iran would ignite regional conflict\u2019, ynetnews.com, 3 November 2011,","conclusion":"Iran specific Others, particularly Israel, would act if the United States did not"}
{"id":"34d10f3f-53e1-4a69-b50c-a9a6880905b7","argument":"This is just something that's escaped me for the longest time. I think it's great that transgender people are becoming more and more accepted socially and otherwise, but I don't understand how the same people that are perfectly happy to accept someone who doesn't feel like they were born the right gender will scoff at the prospect that someone could legitimately feel like they weren't born the right species. It just feels like those who think about transgender trans species people that way are kind of blindly going along with the social standards of feminism without actually stopping to think critically about why they are or aren't accepting of other people's beliefs and lifestyles. And just for the record This question comes from experiences I've had talking with friends, not the crazy dramatic stuff that constantly goes on on the internet regarding those groups. I'm not good friends with any transgender people, and as far as I know I've never met anyone who identifies as another species. I'm not trying to demean one group or the other I'm just drawing a comparison because well, I think they're exactly the same. ?","conclusion":"I don't see any reason why a transgender person should be inherently treated or considered any different than someone who identifies as a different species."}
{"id":"4ef6f5f1-ef68-4c78-b956-ea319c721d92","argument":"In many senses nuclear energy is the cleanest of renewables. It does not produce emissions such as CO2 and greenhouse gases, which are harmful to the population and the environment. Roughly 700 million metric tons of CO2 emissions are avoided each year in the United States by generating electricity from nuclear power rather than some other source; according to the U.S. Department of Energy, that is nearly equivalent to the CO2 released from all U.S. passenger cars1. It is true that it does produce radioactive waste but since this is in solid form it can be dealt with relatively easily and stored away from centres of population. Furthermore, as new technology becomes available to allow the more efficient use of nuclear fuel, less nuclear waste will be produced. A recent example is the development of the fast breeder reactor, which uses fuel much more efficiently2 1 Max Schulz. \"Nuclear Power Is the Future\". Wilson Quarterly. September, 2006 2 \u2018Breeder reactor\u2019, Wikipedia.","conclusion":"Nuclear power is clean and emits significantly less CO2 than other renewable energy sources"}
{"id":"e13921ca-6064-43f5-bc0f-94db3517f128","argument":"If there were only one true God, and it was the God of the bible, he has passed down that knowledge of who he is multiple times throughout the scripture. Jesus Christ was a perfect example of what God was like since it is written that the son and the Father are one.","conclusion":"The Biblical God passed down the definitive definition of who He was in the Bible, and asked for exclusive worship. Exodus 20:1-4"}
{"id":"418ba039-1203-450f-8c84-d6d5ce62d0df","argument":"I beleive the most qualified person s should always be hired. To hire due to a quota of visible minority is the opposite of being fair or unbiased. I beleive candidates should be hired based on their resumes and interviews alone with no consideration of gender, race, religion, age or sexuality. If we were to hire someone based on their skin colour or nationality out side of the guidelines of affirmative action it would be considered racist. Why then is it when a government decides to do it its beleived to be fair? I understand that people have lost out on job opportunities due to their race, religion and political views. I understand this is a problem that needs to be addressed. Affirmative action however creates the exact same problem. Why can we not make it law that the most qualified person s must always be hired?","conclusion":"I beleive affirmative action is as unfair as the problem it is trying to fix."}
{"id":"2d087d56-ea56-4b05-9b7d-86c0c84d1f10","argument":"I'm a big proponent of food stamps. I think the poor do need help buying food because currently even if you work a full time job it might not be enough to put food on the table every day. However, I see too many people in my personal life take advantage of the gross amounts of money they are given to buy food. A friend who has a family of five lost his job and started getting food stamps, he got over 1000 a month and used it to buy his kids candy and little snacks instead of something healthy. He bought 300 dollars worth of coke and food for his daughters birthday party with only food stamps. His kids ate so unhealthy even though they had more than enough to get the best food. I don't qualify for food stamps and have to get by with 250 a month for food for my family, eating as healthy as we can afford. If you are given free money for food, shouldn't there be a caveat that means you can only buy nutritious food? No 24 packs of coke or little Debbies. Just think about it. Eating shit makes you fatter right? That makes it harder for you to be active, possibly stopping you from getting a labor focused job. Healthy food gives you a clearer head, gives you more energy and helps you all in all be a nicer human being. I even think that you should be required to stay relatively in shape, as in not obese people with medical excuses exempt obviously . I know that we are supposed to have freedom, but I don't see any problem with putting some basic restrictions on things if you want to get them for free. Honestly I know so many people that take advantage of food stamps and it frustrates me because this is to help poor people, not lazy entitled people. If you want to be fat lazy and unemployed, that's your business. If you honestly need food stamps because you don't make enough, or you have a special circumstance I have nothing against you. I do think you have the right to eat, but that unhealthy shit that makes you fat, lazy and tired should be something you pay for with your own money. I'll clarify if you have any questions in the comments on anything in particular, but that's my main argument summarized.","conclusion":"Food stamps should be heavily restricted on what you can and can't buy."}
{"id":"5025ee91-cac9-4471-ab7a-0b53b5713e75","argument":"Harry himself raised concerns that Meghan's treatment in the media was similar to the treatment his own mother, Princess Diana, experienced.","conclusion":"Many believe that Princess Diana's death is directly or indirectly linked to paparazzi\/media obsession with her life as a royal."}
{"id":"5beb8c91-7df6-4ab7-af76-b96b7e5870d5","argument":"Intimacy and emotional bonding can be achieved in a multitude of ways, and not all of them sexual. Sex between a couple is not a prerequisite for a healthy relationship.","conclusion":"Sex robots could help focus relationships on emotional bonding instead of sexual gratification."}
{"id":"b8772af5-22bc-4d6e-b0d1-1ffb59275a61","argument":"Wind energy provides for price stability in the long-term, wind will be with us for the duration","conclusion":"wind power should be a primary focus of future energy supply."}
{"id":"8c0f5780-d11e-47c2-b4c7-453d4bed66dd","argument":"You have a corrupt lobbyist, an insider trader, a pyramid scheme runner or a tax evader who is worth millions. They're arrested, convicted and sentenced to somewhere between six months and two years in a low security prison, fined 250,000 at most and sometimes made to offer compensation to victims , and return to their former lifestyle, prancing around their mansion in an ankle bracelet for another month or so. Am I the only one who sees something wrong with this? Their incarceration is costing us as taxpayers money, and I don't see a need to lock up nonviolent offenders. It's not practical. Now, this is not a system where millionaires buy their way out of prison. It simply means, if you're worth 100,000,000 and convicted of a white collar crime, all your wealth is gone save for an amount required to live as a lower middle class person does and support one's family. If that millionaire is a rapist or a murderer, they still go to prison and all their wealth is seized anyway. This system would allow us to fund public works and fully compensate victims of crime. It also, in my view, would be an excellent deterrent. I guarantee you most millionaire white collar criminals would much rather go to federal prison for two years or so and return to a comfortable lifestyle than to do no time at all but be left working as a Walmart greeter and living in a small, studio apartment for the rest of their life. Now, I know some of you are going to bring up the possibility that this method is essentially punishing family members of criminals, which is unconstitutional. But I argue that so long as the seized money and assets only belong to the criminal, than only the criminal is punished. For example, if a rich man commits a crime, any money in an account in his wife's name, or a car where her name is on the pink slip, that is still hers and cannot be taken. But any wealth that is legally his should be seized, again, not leaving him on the streets but leaving only a marginal amount such as 30,000, or more if he has children. Whatever it takes to be barely above the poverty line. Take Robert Durst. He's going to spend his life in prison but someone will still inherit millions from him when he dies. To me, that's ridiculous. And seizing that is not punishing the person who would inherit it who did not commit a crime, because his estate isn't theirs until he is dead. I don't think people have a claim to property that is hypothetically theirs one day, and therefore I don't think seizure of wealth violates the constitutional law that families of criminals cannot be punished. So, with the extra money for public works, a better way to compensate crime victims, and what I imagine would be a much more effective deterrent, why shouldn't a millionaire or billionaire felon lose nearly everything he or she owns? EDIT I acknowledge due to the potential for wrongful convictions and government corruption, such a system is not yet realistically workable.","conclusion":"Punish White Collar Crime With Seizure of Wealth"}
{"id":"e181e96f-ebec-47e1-a5d6-f496acefb9eb","argument":"The NCAA made close to a billion dollars in revenue in 2013 and their athletes were awarded with none of it. Yes I understand they get scholarships and are worth thousands of dollars but when players such as Shabazz Napier report to go to bed without eating because of lack of money that becomes a problem. Most athletes put in 40 hours of practice into their sport a week so the argument of getting a job is invalid considering they have classes to worry about on top of their sport. Division 1 college football coaches see a salary of 1.63 million dollars on average and their salary continues to grow while the actual athletes don't see a dime. These athletes should be appropriately awarded with money made from merchandise sales that use their names. I am not saying that these athletes should be given thousands of dollars but be appropriately compensated for their work.","conclusion":"NCAA Athletes should be paid"}
{"id":"97628a47-9e53-439e-88ea-628d7a5587c1","argument":"Some of the oldest forms of human expression and art are cave paintings of wild game, prey of humans. The chase and consumption of meat have therefore constituted a central component of human culture since its beginning.","conclusion":"Human survival does not require science, art, culture and language, yet these enrich daily lives tremendously, as can the consumption of meat."}
{"id":"2aaeb389-c1eb-4041-9012-37519f7f7092","argument":"The handgun is used more commonly than any other weapons in self defense in the home. Roughly 80 percent of all self-defense occurs with handguns, according to some sources.9 This is because it is small, can be easily stowed in a house where it may be of need, and because it is easy to wield and fire. To ban a weapon that is so important in self-defense would reduce the capacity of citizens to defend themselves, making citizens more vulnerable, and possibly inviting further robberies.","conclusion":"A handgun ban deprives citizens of the most commonly used weapon for self defense"}
{"id":"9538eb37-c354-480d-be95-063473cb11bb","argument":"Orbital rings would be scaled according to total usage needs of industry output, rather than group a.k.a. country usage needs.","conclusion":"An orbital ring spreads around the globe, which gives the global population more access than a space elevator."}
{"id":"46f2db4c-51f6-4109-9daa-5a35289db03e","argument":"All boarded, we're ready to go. The pilot comes on and says a plastic LED switch cover is broken, they've called maintenance, no ETA. I get the integrity part, and once they notice a problem it had to be reported and called in, no matter how minor it seems. But, for the life of me I can't see how it could get broken without someone noticing when it happened. Had it been reported when the flight landed, we would be much less likely to have a couple hundred people be sitting here waiting for an hour. Yes, it happens. Yes, safety etc etc but come on. I would appreciate having my view changed by those in the know, because right now I'm not thinking clearly and instead am full of negative thoughts about unions, inefficiency, and human nature.","conclusion":"the earlier flight crew of my delayed flight is negligent by not reporting a mechanical problem at the end of their flight"}
{"id":"3faf3542-f761-45c7-ab73-1277efec08de","argument":"To give some idea of the scope of this issue, including persecution of those perceived as atheists: The percentage of us who are white male heterosexual Christians using this group not as definitive, but only to get us in the right ballpark is very low, so the vast majority of us are potential targets.","conclusion":"The moral codes often found in religious texts have been the cause of many social injustices including the persecution of homosexuals, people of colour and women."}
{"id":"a125accb-7aa8-412f-bd69-6224ac992290","argument":"In Cambodia no GMO plant has been approved for production. The under-secretary of state at the ministry of agriculture in explanation stated \u201cIf we allow GMOs to exist in our market it would have an impact on our exports as some countries do not trust them\".","conclusion":"GMOs have also been banned in a number of countries for many reasons other than public protection."}
{"id":"586cec56-7a0f-4038-9ea7-c58e0773ab63","argument":"If the problem were rephrased, as a situation where they would have to choose to push another human or their pet in front of the bus, most of those that previously saved the pet, would probably not push a human in front of the bus, though this is a symmetric situation to the saving the pet\/human, before.","conclusion":"If that were a calculated decision, knowing all the resulting consequences, they might, but they do not and are thus not acting rationally."}
{"id":"7db71a2e-b95b-464a-8885-366bb66ec8d1","argument":"Sajid Javid has recently managed to get agreement from fellow leadership candidates that an investigation into Islamophobia within the Conservative party should and will take place.","conclusion":"Javid's controversial statements during his tenure as a Minister make him unfit to be Prime Minister."}
{"id":"71ca105d-f9ae-49f7-9984-0e3b2383f08d","argument":"The self empowerment approach allows participants to have their own perspective on whether addiction is a disease or not rather than forcing them to treat it as a disease.","conclusion":"Self empowerment gives people more agency over their recovery than focusing on powerlessness - thereby making it more effective."}
{"id":"a4da3d88-7b72-4302-9961-b121f0e9b61c","argument":"Humanity plays an out sized role in the Federation. Given the numerous races and population of non humans in the Federation, there's an inexplicable abundance of humans in high positions. It's understandable for the organization to be based out of San Francisco, where the 4 founding races formed the coalition of planets, but with 150 member planets spread over 8,000 light years, why is so much of the leadership human? This isn't a superficial skin color thing, we're dealing with marked biological differences between the races. Vulcans, despite their violent past, have achieved superhuman levels of mastery over their emotions, allowing them to become excellent administrators and politicians, and even if we were to assume that Humans and Vulcans have the same fundamental capacity for intelligence, Vulcan discipline gives them supreme focus to produce an inordinate concentration of highly educated citizens. Even in sheer physical prowess, Vulcans massively outclass Humans, Take me out to the Holosuite being an excellent example Here, the Vulcans are shown to be physically far superior, DOMINATING the mixed race human dominant crew fielded by the Human Captain, in a human sport, with a final score of 10 1. Nevertheless the crew of DS9 celebrate their single point as a victory of human will rather than learning from the experience that Vulcans are superior in so many ways. Vulcans are known for logic, they take great efforts to avoid letting their emotions cloud their judgement. We all know of a prestigious Human starship captain for ignoring the odds in a situation and taking great risks over the protests of his even keeled Vulcan officer. It's convenient that luck favored the crew so often after these brash and illogical decisions. These apparent successes for making the wrong decision only served to stroke this captain's ego and belief that his gut instincts are what qualify him to lead. How is this different from a foolish business executive making random decisions and claiming credit for successes, and blaming other factors for failures? The meritorious act is in the decision itself, not in the outcome. To judge the brash decision based on a fortunate outcome is a flawed post hoc reasoning, akin to throwing a dart, sliding a dartboard under it, and claiming an excellent throw What if even a few of those risks resulted in the likely outcome where many if not all of the crew members were killed because the captain ignored the logical choice in favor of an unsupported gut decision? If there are any flaws to be noted in the Vulcan people as a whole, it would be low birth rates, a bias towards peace, and a relative lack of ego despite whatever projections humans perceive in a Vulcan's taciturn face . Perhaps humans have seized so much power as a direct result of greed, ambition, and nepotism, allowing them to promote humans above more qualified non human members of Starfleet? Nevertheless, it seems clear that Vulcans are superior to humans. The tone's intentionally a bit tongue and cheek to make this discussion more fun, but the fiction really does seem to over exalt humans in the Federation","conclusion":"Vulcans are superior to Humans"}
{"id":"562ead4f-a355-4a12-ae8e-ac5cc55759d8","argument":"So let's say I'm a student in the UBI-system. there is 2 possible scenarios: 1. Where I'm responsible and cover those areas otherwised backed by the state and 2. Where I'm irresponsible and go on without these safety nets.","conclusion":"This would include shutting down the following government schemes to make it viable."}
{"id":"1064544d-b033-4cf3-b31c-f78ea1be7d95","argument":"So if you're not familiar, BenDeLaCreme is a drag performer who eliminated herself after utterly dominating the first half of the season of Drag Race All Stars. I think she's being basically truthful in her stated reasons for doing so. I also think it was in her interests to do so. The 100,000 grand prize was substantial, but this pure power play move probably got her a similar amount of value in PR and fame. Drag is a small community in many respects and she was rightly worried that the cruel structure of the show was forcing her to ruin relationships e.g. with Morgan McMichaels . She was utterly and totally dominant and has nothing to prove by staying to the end. She don't need Ru's silly crown. She made her own. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"BenDeLaCreme did the right thing. Spoilers"}
{"id":"9b6596c6-c487-42c8-8bce-673313a71a6a","argument":"I have never put much thought into why I'm not straight. I enjoy being queer I wouldn't call myself 100 gay . To me, it doesn't matter whether I was born this way or became this way. I love being queer. The only downsides come from society's negative view of being gay. To me, it is plausible that there is an element of biology and environmental shaping to our sexual orientation. I actually think if I grew up in a very homophobic environment with few gay people, I might experience more frequent greater attraction to men than I do now. But I feel a sense of belonging and love for the community and culture I exist in, so my sexuality has flourished in the direction that it did. That doesn't mean it's somehow pathological. To me it's like investigating why someone's favourite colour is blue is it biologically engrained, or were they socialized to like blue? It's of no harm or consequence for this person to like blue, so why does it matter? I know that example is somewhat reduction, but if being gay was a choice or a product of socialization, I wouldn't see that as an argument for it's condemnation, because I don't see it as inherently wrong or abnormal. Likewise in the case of a biological origin it could be argued as a natural, morally neutral variation of human sexuality. The flipside is that the born this way argument can lend itself to people condemning homosexuality as a pathological genetic defect. In that way, neither nature or nurture provide an argument for whether homosexuality is right or wrong . And I don't believe something being natural makes it more moral than something else. Our entire lives are lived in unnatural fashions, so distanced from nature. Why is it so important to find the cause of homosexuality? Why would nature vs. nurture decide moral vs. amoral?","conclusion":"I think finding the \"cause\" of homosexuality is an irrelevant and useless plight."}
{"id":"9507ba2d-5375-41eb-b2ba-e67adff791e6","argument":"Kids don't retain stuff they hear a teacher say or read in a book the same way, particularly when they are on all types of infobesity devices these days, such as tv, phones, laptops, games, etc.","conclusion":"VR should not be a complete substitute for human interaction."}
{"id":"f2c46c85-4b5e-489c-bee2-e49ad0b45b66","argument":"Many of the world's best players like Lionel Messi, Christiano Ronaldo or Neymar do not play for clubs in their home countries.","conclusion":"Many players do not play in a league in their home country."}
{"id":"ac9f404b-9a8c-4987-bbd2-24b577846b04","argument":"If we eliminate diseases with genetic engineering, humans will have no threat left on Earth and overpopulation will be a major concern. sciencegroup.org.uk","conclusion":"Genetic engineering should not be used on humans or animals."}
{"id":"6ccd0076-b158-491b-a42f-6975b8faa2ac","argument":"According to a WWF study of 52 conservancies that had any sort of financial benefit from wildlife, more than half derived all or almost all those benefits from hunting.","conclusion":"While revenue from wildlife sightseeing is good, in most cases effective conservation requires much more."}
{"id":"8045d765-bf77-41c5-945f-4ec4b28878c3","argument":"Specifically I am thinking of the right to free speech, the right to assemble, the right to due process, and the right to vote. Right now in Washington there is serious consideration to restrict an individual's Constitutional rights based on being placed on a terrorism watch list. The proposal so far is to restrict them from exercising their 2nd amendment right to keep and bear arms. I believe that if that proposal was to be passed, then it should also restrict all of the other Constitutional rights. If the logic of the proposal is that anyone included on that list is dangerous enough to not be allowed to own a weapon, then they should also be considered to dangerous to be able to speak freely. A single man with a weapon can kill 50 people, but if this person was allowed to spread his philosophy he could be exponentially more dangerous by recruiting others to join his cause. These people should also be denied to freedom to associate assemble due to the danger of them planning a terrorist attack. It almost goes without saying that these people should also be denied their right to vote. Anyone who is dangerous enough to be placed on a terrorism watch list is clearly not someone who should have a voice in the workings of government. And last, since we are restricting Constitutional rights, why beat around the bush about it? If someone is dangerous enough to be on a watch list, then they should lose their 5th amendment right to due process. This is already implicit in the proposal being suggested since there is no due process protection related to the administration of the list. It just makes sense that inclusion on the list should be enough to entirely strip you of that right.","conclusion":"If someone on the terrorism watch list loses their Constitutional right to own a firearm, they should also lose all of their other Constitutional rights."}
{"id":"9ce81c8a-02ea-44cb-bf80-eb86c22e1b75","argument":"I believe this because an individual who has sex with no knowledge of its repercussions is just as much of a menace to society as an individual who drives without knowing how to. Religious people claim its their right as parents to keep their children ignorant about sex. But that decision puts everyone else at risk. A person ignorant about sex and how to be safe is more likely to produce unwanted offspring, spread disease, and even become a rapist. Basically, I think it should be required, and parents should be punished for not complying because a child adult who has sex without knowing how to be safe is a threat to public safety. There's no good reason not to do it. .","conclusion":"I believe that sex education should be 100% compulsory, and there should be no way to opt out for any reason, even for homeschooled children."}
{"id":"9d878690-1985-4a0d-a125-cb5d252407b3","argument":"So basically i started noticing the same beggars poor people asking for money on my route to work. In the beginning i used to abide by the point of view of its not my call what these people do with the money, and if i am able to help then why not? I'm a big fan of the Kendrick Lamar song How Much a Dollar Cost? and it messed me up in the head because he was saying the same exact thoughts i had when it came to opening the window of my 60K car to give what amount to maybe a dollar or two. I wrestled a lot with the idea of giving handouts to people who asked for it. However, i'd like to think i stopped thinking about it this way and i thought of it more that i was at least contributing minimally to help another fellow human. I carried on with my life happy to give people the money if i were able to. However as the months and years passed i couldn't stop myself from questioning whether i am actually encouraging people to do that on a daily basis. They walk up to the car at a red light, knock on the window and ask for money. I'm sure if 50 of the cars stopped at the red light gave them a couple of dollars they'd be making more than the minimum wage by the end of the red light 45 seconds? . On my route to work they end up being the same exact people over and over again did i help them to think this was permanent? Am i contributing to this philosophy? I still open my window and give money if i do have change on me, but i feel like im encouraging people to continue this habit of asking for money on the street instead of working. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Giving money to the same beggars on your route to work\/home\/friends contributes to homelessness and provides these people with a 'steady' 'income'."}
{"id":"15b87c4f-223a-4562-a586-b7d543294a74","argument":"No matter if you consume beer from a glass, mug, beer funnel or any other apparatus, the end result will always be the same a fuller belly and a certain level in toxicity. The way or method of consumption has no bearing on one's health, therefore assuming you are not consuming more beer than otherwise drinking from a cup or bottle beer funnels are a perfectly safe way to consume beer. It is no different from chugging beer from a cup or mug, if that's how you want to consume beer in a responsible manner.","conclusion":"If done in moderation, beer funnels are a safe way to consume beer."}
{"id":"3d8cf3be-9dae-42d2-809c-796263d3c6b1","argument":"One of the rights women in the U.S. fought for was the equal right to choose a career which shows that career choice is a human right.","conclusion":"If society disallows conscientious objectors from practicing or entering their field of choice, it will be a step backwards for human rights."}
{"id":"dc40274a-f3be-4781-a939-7f9183871b14","argument":"In the current US election for instance, people are attacking both Clinton and Trump for their lack of integrity, morals, values, etc. and act as if their preferred candidate is some amazing and virtuous individual who has near perfect integrity and only the best interests of the country at heart. This is not true and has not been true for the entirety of US history. A quick look at the statements rated by Politifact as pants on fire for Clinton and Trump show that both them have a great proclivity to lie when they feel it beneficial. Note that while Clinton has much less pants on fire ratings from politifact she has a quite a few false rating which clearly also demonstrate her lack of honesty. It is because of this, that I view voting on the basis of integrity to be a very flawed way to participate in shaping the country and can in some cases produce very undesirable results. Such as voting for Trump purely because of a lack of integrity from Clinton, when Trump will surely make many lies in his presidency and also likely break many of his promises he made during his campaign. Personally, I vote strictly on the basis of ideology and policy as politicians have shown throughout US history that they are incapable of being honest and free from scandal. Which makes sense considering politicians are human beings just like the rest of us. They make mistakes, evolve on issues, lie, cheat, but ultimately they all have a vision for this country and that is based on their ideology and the policies they propose. For myself, that means voting for Clinton as she is currently the highest match up with me on isidewith.com and after reviewing her website and policies, she is my best choice for shaping the country in my vision. I encourage all to take the take the quiz on isidewith.com and see who you really match up with best ideologically. Also, a common argument I hear for voting for integrity instead of policy is when a candidate has a long history of flip flopping on issues they should not be voted for as their proposed policies cannot be trusted. My problem with that is that, at least in the context of US elections, the opposition to that candidate typically has polar opposite views proposed. It is just flat nonsensical to vote for a candidate on the basis on integrity and hope for them to change their position on crucial issue during the presidency because the candidate who did represent your stances had a history of lacking integrity and consistency. Also at least in the US, it is virtually impossible for third party candidates to win on account of our first past the post voting system regardless of how much integrity they 'seem' to have. A third party candidate can only act as a spoiler candidate to the major party candidate who has the ideology closes to them.","conclusion":"When it comes to elections, policy and ideology are important to determining a candidate choice then ethics, morals, scandals, etc."}
{"id":"2acc5d0a-bd69-4fa1-ae5e-b38576892b57","argument":"This can protect a married couple from unwanted interference in their decision-making by disapproving parents or siblings, which can be especially pertinent in the case of homosexual relationships Eskridge, pp. 67-70","conclusion":"In many countries, marriage allows spouses to become legal representatives for their partner should their partner die or be unable to make important medical or financial decisions."}
{"id":"6e65e83c-dee8-42c1-b395-4c92707f95f7","argument":"Nintendo fell under a surprising amount of heat for their recent life simulator game Tomodachi Life, because they allowed people to get married, but not same sex couples. In my opinion, he fact that this was controversial is somewhat ridiculous this is a game which sole purpose is to be silly. You can make your friends celebrities fictional characters, and watch them interact with one another. One aspect of the game is that characters can get married and have a child, which is a mix of the two characters faces. There is a work around that allows same sex marriages, which is to make a male character a female or vise versa. You aren't restricted whatsoever to physical appearance, which allows quasi same sex relationships. Now, this is a silly handheld game, which will likely be played mostly by children. Since their target audience is, in my opinion, children, I can't imagine the majority of them have decided whether they are gay or straight. And it affects the gameplay itself If two of the characters get married, I want to see the ridiculous offspring of my roommate and Jennifer Lawrence for example. This element would be lost with the addition of same sex marriages small factor, but still . This whole issue strikes me as one that is getting brought up by people who won't play the game, but are offended they weren't included. I can't make a female character in Madden, not can I make a black character in animal crossing, why did this become such a hot topic? I am completely accepting of gay couples, and wouldn't have complained if they had been included will be included in the game, but it's so silly to get upset with a children's game company for staying out of a hotly debated topic.","conclusion":"I don't think Nintendo had to apologize for not including gay marriages in Tomodachi Life"}
{"id":"75e3ccca-587a-46ff-9e65-4e91302b787e","argument":"Of the countries in the globe currently capable ex. Federal Republic of Germany, Russian Federation, People\u2019s Republic of China and so on of exercising hegemonic authority, the United States of America has the best demonstrated ability to lead the nations of the world towards stability and prosperity. Examples for include American assistance in transitioning the fascist governments of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan towards responsible, democratic actors in the global environment Support for the regime and peoples of the ROC to self determined governance despite PRC aggression Leadership in strategic arms reduction and anti proliferation activities, especially in regards to nuclear weapons Long standing defense of South Korea from the potential tyranny of the North The ambitious project in Eastern Europe to maintain the sovereignty of nations against revanchist claims by Vladimir Putin Continued leadership in the global effort to combat transnational terrorism and insurgency Meaningful support for the lawful resolution of territorial claims in the South China Sea Highest amounts of development and humanitarian aid given to foreign countries Examples against include The Second Indochina War, especially in regards to its cost in lives and questionable intent The Monroe Doctrine and its consequences in the Age of Empire and Cold War, which led to the continued abuse of Latin America as a sphere solely dedicated to U.S. interest Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib detention centers, whose violation of human rights speak for themselves The WTO, and America\u2019s selective protectionism in participating inside of it while also exploiting poorer nations The deposition and opposition to popularly elected leaders in Egypt and Iran The second list is by no means excusable . But I think the first is full of actions that the other countries previously listed would be unlikely to undertake, and support my point.","conclusion":"I believe that, for the time being, an American led world order is the best option."}
{"id":"4b56ca87-ab96-4af3-acd9-eb89a9d73262","argument":"First of all, I am not planning to commit suicide or anything. I just want to discuss this topic because I think about this a lot. So basically, we are all going to die eventually. Meanwhile, we experience a lot of happiness and joy, but we also suffer and experience pain. When we die, scientifically, there is nothing left. You won't feel anything anymore that's what I believe . This makes me feel so unimportant. Whatever I do, I will still die and be unable to see what happens after. Also, our planet is going to be destroyed someday, so there will be nothing left of us in the future. So why shouldn't I kill myself right away and end all the suffering of life? To be or not to be? I know I explained this a bit vaguely, but you know what I mean","conclusion":"We are all going to die someday, I might just as well kill myself right now."}
{"id":"456dbb7c-a66d-46f8-bff5-7a921616f073","argument":"Morris changed her version of events after Detective Gregory suggested that her assault occurred at a different location, after he researched where Holtzclaw had been in prior contact with her.","conclusion":"Investigative techniques used by Oklahoma City police detectives were questionable, biased and\/or unprofessional in many cases."}
{"id":"5682b032-d1ea-41c3-8ba2-8cd95af5c053","argument":"According to David Whitmer the golden plates \"were fastened with rings thus followed by a sketch of a D-shaped ring.\" Edward Stevenson diary, Dec. 22-23, 1877, in LDS Church Archives","conclusion":"Witnesses of the golden plates are inconsistent as to the nature of their binding rings."}
{"id":"a858cebb-4036-4dbd-af22-e7df69561965","argument":"Why would Russia, on the eve of a russian world cup, kill a Russian double agent living in Britain using chemicals which can only be traced back to Russia? This is way too convenient . How does it benefit them to do this. On the surface it looks like it was them, but when you think about it for more than a second, somethings not right. Furthermore, they refuse to give samples of the chemical substance for verification so we have to take their word for it They issue a 24 hour ultimatum demand a confession and then take punitive measures within an extremely short notice period. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Britains behavior towards russia is unprincipled and suspect."}
{"id":"117a5878-dacf-4c17-8ab4-29556e66d032","argument":"The UN peacekeepers are often poorly equipped to tackle the crises they are sent to, sometimes making things worse.","conclusion":"The UN peacekeepers often create more problems for the UN than help with any solutions."}
{"id":"d2aba394-d9cf-4589-a6eb-00bcd7adf856","argument":"I'm all for equality. I support equal rights, pay, opportunities for women and homosexuals. That's not what this post is about. Nearly every feminist queer scholarly article that I've read is ripe with confirmation bias. They see a knife in a movie, it represents a penis. They see a potato, it must be equated to a societal preference for masculinity and heteronormativity. Every article seems to simply say that white males are evil and every product of society is a sign that that is the case. I think that this is nothing but confirmation bias. Feminist queer scholars don't conduct quantitative or qualitative research to ground their theories. They begin with a conclusion and find evidence to support their heuristic. Any attempts to question their methodology is met with a critique that empiricism is yet another example of hegemonic masculinity, which I think is yet another example of their own confirmation bias. Change my view.","conclusion":"I believe that feminist\/queer scholars see through a lens thick with confirmation bias. They see only what they want to see."}
{"id":"5c878dae-8bca-495b-93f1-67fe306f37bf","argument":"The woman only suffers social submission to the man and physical pain in childbirth, whereas the man condemns the entirety of his descendants, both male and female, to a physical life of labor and a spiritual life of separation from God.","conclusion":"Genesis 3:16 describes the woman's judgment in the Fall as less severe than the man's."}
{"id":"4fa1e500-5735-475d-9606-f6cd3e8324cc","argument":"If moral statements are expressions of emotion, then simple arguments like: \"1. If murder is wrong, then the assassination of JFK was wrong. 2. Murder is wrong. 3. Therefore, the assassination of JFK was wrong.\" are totally unintelligible, since expressions of emotion cannot serve as premises in an argument.","conclusion":"The position that moral statements are just expressions of emotions is inconsistent with how we commonly view moral statements."}
{"id":"461c9c21-a679-4b7c-a5d5-4211f161129a","argument":"The other day I posted a  about how I refuse to date girls with a high number of partners. My view wasn't changed but my mind was opened to some new viewpoints and ideas. So here I am asking for help again. Now when I was a 6 year old kid, my father left my family. I have never experienced something quite like that, I felt pain, I felt sad, I felt alone, and it has never fully gone away. Deep down I am very afraid that anyone I ever care about will just leave me and hurt me. It has caused a great many problems with many friends and girls that I like. i always start catching feelings and the moment they do the smallest thing to upset me I freak out and push them away which in the end leads me to more pain. I just want some advice to get past this. I want to trust people, I want to feel cared about, but I'm scared and I really need help.","conclusion":"I have a hard time believing people will ever actually care about me."}
{"id":"ab0f6ef2-149c-4068-8c88-e7b316a91f46","argument":"Friend of mine who doesn't have any tattoos, but has wanted one for a while, is close to biting the bullet and getting one. His ex girlfriend is a tattooer and recently she came back into his life. They were very much in love but it was bad timing. They're trying to be friends but there are feelings still there on both sides. He wants her to tattoo him bc he says he's comfortable with her and would feel less anxious having it be someone he knows so well and vice versa. I said that the tattoo itself is the more important part and that the tattoo can be done by anyone that has a good reputation. What if they try and reconcile and it ends horribly? What if the friendship goes south? He'll have that tattoo done by her on his arm. I can't imagine that would be good for anyone's anxiety. I understand feeling comfortable with someone putting something permanent on you, but I just feel that's it's a bad idea with more reasons not to than reasons to do it. Edit formatting","conclusion":"Getting a tattoo from an ex is a bad idea"}
{"id":"f11e569f-0f98-46dd-81a2-4be8206a1aa8","argument":"Science as we understand it is only a couple of centuries old. It wasn't a way of looking at the wold in the time of the writers of the biblical stories.","conclusion":"The writers of the Bible weren't scientists. They saw the world not as a place of objects, but as a drama."}
{"id":"b0031df2-569c-4ee1-9917-067f74a74a28","argument":"A study of the social media handles of Turkish newspapers found that those who had accessed content with more violent imagery had become more desensitised to violence. P. 224","conclusion":"There is a risk that the public will become desensitised to violence if they are repeatedly shown violent images."}
{"id":"f90e83d7-2f19-44ae-b64d-3e1dcc16c442","argument":"Solar energy production depends on the sun's positioning during the day. And, obviously, at night-time, solar panels produce no energy. This inconsistency is problematic for energy grids that rely on consistency.","conclusion":"Solar power cannot produce at night, cutting yields in half"}
{"id":"08330d64-bcdc-4b01-a195-b39d9e3ce0d3","argument":"Beer is more complex and interesting than wine. It seems to me that the cultural perception at least in the US, and as far as I'm aware, Europe as well is the opposite. The only reason that wine is considered more complex and interesting is that is more expensive. First, what I'm not arguing I'm not saying that no one should prefer wine to beer. That would be silly. Preference is not something that's very productive to discuss as a . I'm not saying that wine shouldn't be more expensive. It takes longer to age, and in some cases perhaps even most cases I'm no expert it takes more expertise to make a good wine than to make a good beer. What I am saying is this I've heard of several studies, at varying degrees of scientific rigor, that cast serious doubt on the ability of wine experts to accurately judge wine. My favorite is one where experts were given the same white wine in two glasses, except that one was died red. They gave reviews of the red dyed one using all the same vocabulary they'd use with a real red wine. Now, I wouldn't claim to be knowledgeable enough about beer to give a professional review, but if you gave me the same IPA in two glasses but died one black and told me it was a stout, I'd at the very least tell you it was a very unusual stout. To give a less conservative estimation of my reaction, I'd probably completely disagree with the brewery's decision to label it as a stout and say that it was really just a dark colored, bitter light ale not unlike Guinness trolololol . What I'd expect out of the wine experts in that study is at least a wow, this really tastes a lot like a white wine . Wine has three ish ingredients ignoring simple ones without much variation like yeast nutrients, fining agents, etc. grapes, water maybe , and yeast. Beer has at least four grain normally barley but can also include wheat, rye, or others , hops, yeast, water, and adjuncts spices, fruit, etc. for the more creative experimental brews. Eliminating grapes barley as the principal ingredient, and yeast as something the two beverages have in common, beer has an extra two or three variables to play with other grains, hops, and possibly adjuncts. I know I'm drastically simplifying things here, but even when you get more into the variation in ingredients, the variation in grains and how you roast and mash boil them is greater than the variation in grapes, and so on through the the whole process, there are more things you can vary with beer than you can with wine. Given this, I'm completely content to buy a 10 bottle of wine if I want something that's pretty good. I see no reason to buy a 100 bottle, ever. If I want the best money can buy, I'll go with the 5 bottle or 20 6 pack of beer that gets a 99 on Beer Advocate, before I even think about dropping 100 on a bottle that gets a 99 on Wine Spectator if such a bottle even exists .","conclusion":"Beer is more complex and interesting than wine."}
{"id":"c7920cd1-27c2-4dd5-8152-a3cb113d2898","argument":"Raising animals in confinement, deprived of sunlight, natural soil and freedom to move, is cruel and against their nature.","conclusion":"The common practices underlying the production of meat massive livestock farming are unethical."}
{"id":"dbd3a799-5b9b-49c4-96f7-e2b5c13f4633","argument":"The US military budget is somewhere around 610 billion dollars The UN estimates that it would cost 30 billion dollars to end world hunger. The next runner up in military spending is China, at 131.57 billion My belief is that the US should reallocate some military spending towards food subsidies and distribution, ending world hunger. Assuming the UN was anywhere close to the right number, this would take less than 5 of our military budget and still leave the US as by far the most powerful country on the planet. I'd assume it would be less than the 30 billion estimate, considering the US's existing military infrastructure could greatly help with the task. I also believe ending world hunger would also be incredibly beneficial to the US. Currently, it is seemingly easy for ISIS and al Qaeda to convince young Muslims in the middle east that the US is the bad guys. The US has been dropping bombs, occupying, and abusing various middle eastern countries for years, and many believe that the US's primary motivation is securing resources, not ending terrorism. I believe if the US ended world hunger, it would be much harder to paint the US as the bad guys, making anti American and anti Western recruiting campaigns by extremists far less successful. Obviously, I have no data to back this up, but I believe the US's current strategies have only increased the amount of Islamic extremism. Tell me why it isn't feasible reasonable a good idea to end world hunger using ~5 of the US's military budget. Note You can point out that ending world hunger in itself could have averse affects, but that is not the focus of this view and is unlikely to change my opinion, as I am probably unwilling to accept that ending world hunger is a bad idea. I'm too young and hopeful to accept such a cynical worldview. Also i'm cooking a meal and pretty hungry, so if I made any typos or omissions, I'll fix them once I'm done eating.","conclusion":"It is in the best interests of the US to end world hunger."}
{"id":"220f712a-5822-4b5a-9c6c-2a7676505539","argument":"Working as a sex worker can open up specific health risks. It is important that those in the industry can get supportive medical advice, which does not occur if they do not feel safe telling doctors they see about their work.","conclusion":"Regulation allows for regular health checks to limit the spread of STDs."}
{"id":"28f55e0c-4280-4564-a0d8-105c089017d3","argument":"Affording ISPs the power to discriminate against certain types of traffic or content affords them the power to censor the internet and set societal norms.","conclusion":"Net Neutrality upholds the principles of free speech and open access that are the key values of the internet that help prevent censorship."}
{"id":"535a938a-5964-4b43-8130-23670d832412","argument":"I believe suicide should be a fundamental right for people of all ages. 'Feelings' are something that should taken account off, yes, but it is your body, your life, and it is up to you if you want to live or not. There are countries starting to change their behavior towards suicide rights Australia recently passed laws for the rights of suicide. Before anyone asks, no I am not thinking about suicide. But, it is my right if I want to commit it. No one, no feelings, have any say to this. If you tell me that I can go to jail for trying to kill myself, dont be surprised if people start to buy guns on a bigger scale and start taking matters on their hands. Dumb policies like this will only make things worse, which is what is happening with young people committing suicides on a higher rate. Look up the statistics if you don't believe it. There are kids in freshman year committing suicide, check news reports. I think very logically, and if a person thinks logically that suicide is the best option for him, let that person have it, as long as no one is hurt physically. I was torn initially, but I believe this should be a right for everyone. I will even become a congressman lol to fight congress to pass this right for all Americans. I hope in the very very near future, Congress or America gives this right for all Americans. Depressed or not, I understand people's pains. I see posts here and on reddit that people feel depressed, girl cheated, hopeless with girls, rejection, loneliness, depression, etc. Then you have young people get called beta if they think suicide is an option, while saying alphas think the opposite. And then the feeling crowd rushes in convincing the person that 'things will get better, improve this, following these 500 steps to improve your life, etc.' Things may get better yes, but, if you want to take your life, you should have that right. I will fight to the death so that it is your right again, granted no one is hurt or anyone involved . I believe the sooner this gets passed, the better. I don't understand what is the justification on policies that jail people if they try to kill themselves when no one else is hurt. One example I want to bring up is theredpill subreddit. I am 25 years old, I said earlier that a lot of young people thinking about suicide much more these days, and it is usually because a girl left, or they are lonely, depression, hopelessness, virgin, cheating,etc. These folks believe your life is your own. But then they say you are 'a beta' if you try to kill yourself. An alpha will not kill themselves. I have no problems with that argument, but seriously guys, are you trying to tell me that calling someone a beta will fix everything? Our society resonates like that, if you think suicide, automatically you are a loser or a beta. What if the person has tried, and they figured life isn't worth anything anymore? I personally see everything as hyper competitive, each girl has 10 guys messages like crazy, as a guy you need to have a girl or else you are weird and no one loves you, virgins aren't cool etc. I am not surprised young guys of my age sometimes think what is the point trying after seeing this in college or anywhere. But these are for a different discussion. And no, before anyone brings up, I am not thinking about suicide, just my observation and my belief on what should be right. Regardless, I believe suicide should be more accepted and laws should be passed to allow suicide happen more openly. I thought  should be a good discussion place for this, since you guys seem to be a very fair with your arguments.","conclusion":"Suicide must be a fundamental right. I was torn initially, but not anymore. It makes sense for people of all ages young or old"}
{"id":"d1072e68-6cdb-49cf-8539-85c49e006f8e","argument":"I'm not sure if there is already a fallacy or term named after this, but I strongly believe the perspective from which a story is told irrevocably distorts wherein a persons empathy will lie And as a direct result of this, people become emotionally attached to one side of a story, rush to conclusions and fill in the gaps with whatever fits their now cemented narrative. Little care or attention to the full scope of any given state of affairs. There are a million and one reasons for why otherwise kind people can be brought to do grievous things. Behind every action is an intent Something which I solemn see explored. In short, the advice given on r relationships, I believe, rarely does anything but go as far as to offer shallow advice of which rarely ever attempts to concentrate on a fair, balanced and impartial perspective Emotions are always high, rationale is left at the door and peoples empathy is generally skewed in favour of whomever's perspective it is being shared. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The advice given to people on \/r\/relationships is abysmal and should not be taken as gospel"}
{"id":"74e0524f-d053-40b2-8b56-6319d2469cac","argument":"Ex situ conservation includes captive breeding programs that have too many requirements captive population, habitat preservation and management, field studies, conservation education for long-term support, and preparation and reintroduction of animals to be successful and these programs themselves are both expensive and ineffective.","conclusion":"If society becomes dependent on zoos for x situ conservation and breeding programs for reintroduction of rare animals there may be less motivation to conserve and protect wild areas."}
{"id":"90630992-a071-4083-a823-a9bd0c12c8a1","argument":"The upvote downvote system encourages groupthink and discourages new ideas. The point of the upvote is to signal a high quality comment and the point of the downvote is to eliminate off topic posts however herein lies the problem the downvote is mostly used to reduce visibility of comments people don't agree with. The upvote should be kept intact. The downvote should be eliminated completely and have off topic posts handled with reports. This way, you can still reward quality rewards without discouraging people from expressing dissenting opinions or new ideas.","conclusion":"The reddit upvote\/downvote system is very flawed and easily fixable."}
{"id":"b53aff53-02bd-4faf-bfaf-b0cca77a4311","argument":"This fact is critical against S. Ossetia's case for independence. In order to obtain independence, it is important that a country be recognized diplomatically by a significant number of the members of the United Nations. This is important in large part because it ensures that a state will have viable diplomatic relations internationally if it becomes independent. It also demonstrates that the international system supports a certain action being taken internationally.","conclusion":"S. Ossetia is not recognized diplomatically by any UN member"}
{"id":"8486f631-49f6-4195-93fa-b59aeb963ce2","argument":"EDIT I've given a delta but my mind isn't entirely changed. I use it all the time because I would rather pay 30 dollars than 60. Yes I'm a terrible person. Yes it hurts devs. Yes I've seen r gaming and seen everybody who uses it get downvoted. I just don't care. I've sold drugs before, cheated while gambling, if there's money and I'm not physically hurting people I don't care. I feel like I should care but I just don't. Money means a lot to me. Besides love and friendship, it is the most important thing to me. Whether that is wrong is up to you. Yes I'm happy with my life, but I won't spend any more money than I need. I also feel like game devs are ripping us off as well. A 3 year old game shouldn't be 60 dollars, not to mention 60 dollars is quite a lot of money. And then there's dlc. HOWEVER, there is an exception. Anything from companies like taleworlds, cd projekt red, valve, or another company who I know very well, I will buy in full. If I don't know the company or despise them ubisoft, ea, bioware , I will torrent it or buy it from g2a.","conclusion":"I use g2a and don't care"}
{"id":"950d8f07-fba4-40a4-9fe1-dd8e22b9ccc7","argument":"Note For the purposes of the discussion, I'm excluding pregnancies that are the result of rape incest. That's an argument for another day. Growing up, I used to be pro life. It seemed simple enough a fetus is human and alive, and it's bad to kill human life, so abortion bad. Then I looked at it from the woman's point of view and what it means for a person to own their body. Then I became pro choice. After thinking about it from a different angle, I'm not so sure anymore. Part of the argument that the mother's body takes precedent over that of the fetus is based on the fact that fetus is dependent on the mother, that is one body is leeching off the other I don't like the word leeching, but whatever . However, I think that's going the wrong way. What if it's not two bodies and one two persons depending on your personal view on the matter , but two persons and one body. Because a lot of the talk I hear from the pro choice side is to the effect that the fetus is an imposition on the body of the mother, and therefore she has a right not to be subject to such an imposition. But if you consider the fetus and mother sharing one body that each person has an equal right to, then situation is quite different. Of course one could argue that since the mother had the body first, then she should retain exclusive rights to it unless she relinquishes said right. This is not entirely unprecedented. For example, in the case of conjoined twins it is common that the two individuals share one or more organs or bodily systems. What happens to one twin has a direct effect on the other. Some cannot be separated at all for either one or both would die. And at times it's impossible to tell where one body ends and the other ends. So can we say that they share the same body? I'd say so. So the two persons one body idea isn't too far fetched. So in order for the pregnancy to happen, she has to relinquish the rights to her body again, we're assuming no rape or incest . How? By having consensual, unprotected sex. But wait, doesn't everyone have a right to engage in whatever consensual sexual actions with one or more persons of his her choosing? Of course, but rights come with consequences. Then here comes natural law. By natural law, I literally mean what happens because of nature when a man and a woman have unprotected sexual intercourse, there is a non zero chance that she may become pregnant. Thus by having consensual unprotected sex and not taking prophylactic action before there's a person growing inside her, a woman is in effect sharing her right to her body to the fetus. I know it's a bit far fetched. But even if you reject that argument, lets return to the conjoined twins. Let's say you've got a situation where two individuals are attached in a way that means that separation would kill one of the twins and leave the other with a mild improvement in health. What should be done? Obviously, you don't kill anybody. As with a pregnancy, the dependent party did not choose this situation. However, unlike with a pregnancy the provider also didn't have control over the situation. The only argument I could see against it is that the other twin is a person while a fetus may or may not. I address that below. Here are some counterarguments I've considered What if she doesn't know that she could get pregnant As with laws created by governments, ignorance of the law is no excuse. Just because you don't know that murder isn't a crime doesn't mean you can just kill someone. Natural law shouldn't be what guides laws made by governments. I'll admit, my argument isn't so strong here. Besides, what is natural law anyway? However, I don't want to get strung off a tangential argument of the nature of natural law. If we go too far in that direction we could accidentally invalidate the right of a person to their body, which would be very bad indeed What I can say is that a the right to one's own body is a product of natural law and b so is a pregnancy resulting from consensual unprotected sex. When does a fetus become a person? That is the million dollar question and I'm not 100 sure I have a good answer. I think it should be based on science and what stage of development the fetus has reached. I would say that there should be a hard limit somewhere before the second trimester, and then each situation should be reviewed to determine the stage of the fetus on a case by case basis. Personally, I'd say when the embryo is becomes a fetus is a good point to draw the line. My argument is long and by no means perfect and I know the natural law thing sounds kinda out there . I'm just looking for some guidance on what else I should consider.","conclusion":"I've flipped between pro-choice and pro-life, and now I'm pro-life but open"}
{"id":"8694bb92-71d3-4e43-99dc-82b91ac36b7d","argument":"Okay so there aren't many topics more touchy than abortion, I mean we're literally debating about the beginning of the value of a human life here. Not too long ago if you would have asked me where I stood on abortion I wouldn't have been able to give you a firm answer, I used to say Well I don't know enough about it so I'll say pro life just be safe. Cause I felt like it would be better to be pro life and wrong than pro choice and wrong. But lately I've been watching some debates on it and I found myself become more firmly pro life. Specifally I've been watching Ben Shapiro's debates on the subject. I think Ben is a smart and well meaning guy and I appreciate the research he puts behind the things he debates on, though sometimes he is a bit too conservative for my tastes though I dont see anything inherently wrong with being a conservative or republican or whatever. I usually go into his debates with a fair bit of, I guess skepticism just because he isn't always my cup of tea but I was really agreeing with him when he was talking about abortion. So I'm gonna start with the reason I'm posting this, then the reasons I think abortion is immoral, why it should be illegal and what exceptions there should be. I'm also gonna lay out some common pro choice arguments and give my piece on them so I can get some different answers here, or at least those answers put in a more in depth and or convincing way. Mostly the way I'm looking for my mind to be changed here is to be given a better understanding of pro choice thinking that isnt some of the, in my opinion, flimsy arguments I'll be bringing up later. I have ocd and though that's not an excuse for me to say something wrong nor an excuse for you to discredit what I say because I have a mental illness, it does cause me a fair bit of anxiety and makes me have a bit of black and white thinking about things sometimes. I don't want to think of pro choice people as bad people and I just want a better understanding of that side of the argument but I'm bringing my a game and my current best articulation of my opinion and I feel pretty firmly planted in it, so don't expect me to sway easily. I'm saying this because sometimes I see posts on here that seem like the person is just trying to seem morally superior and doesn't actually care about the comments or like they're just trying to cram their arguments down people's throats, I also see comments that don't seem open for debate. Alright so simply put I think abortion is immoral because I see it as killing a baby. Some people have a stance like I'm for abortion until after 20 weeks because the fetus can feel pain. I'm not for abortion at all except for extreme circumstances, I feel like life begins when the sperm meets the egg. Now do I value an embryo and say, a toddler on the same level? No, but I still feel like an embryo has value because human life has value even in the early stages of pregnancy and you shouldnt be allowed to decide that it's not a baby and kill it because you find it convenient, seeing as though if you left it to it's natural process it would become a baby. It's not just a clump of cells like mucus or dead skin or something, it's a human life and it's wrong to think it's okay to just do away with it. With that being said though, I think there are exceptions. One being if it comes between saving the mother and the child. Like if a mother has to get chemotherapy to treat her cancer and a result is that the treatment is going to abort the baby I think the mother should be okay to go through with the treatment. Another argument I hear is what if a woman is raped and impregnated because of it? I don't like that argument in the first place because you're giving someone a horrible scenario like that in a way to sort of guilt them over to your side but I think it's a fair question nonetheless. Though part of me feels like it should be her choice then and the death of the baby would be on the rapists hands, I'm gonna say abortion should still be off the table in that case because the solution to a horrible thing happening shouldn't be another horrible thing happening, as hard as it would be for the mother. Even though it is unfair and one of the worst things that could ever happen to someone I don't think the child should die because of it. I'm not trying to be unsympathetic to the victim here, I'm trying to be sympathetic to the baby. So I've covered the Just a clump of cells argument and the question on what if it was rape or what if the mother's life is in danger. There's a few other common arguments I wanted to give my response to here. The point that seems to be most used for pro choicers from my perspective is that wanting abortion to be outlawed is actually about wanting to control women's bodies which honestly I think is ridiculous. Being pro life is clearly not about wanting to have control over women, it's about protecting the baby inside of them and it happens to be so that one of the sexes has to carry the baby and I don't think you should be able to decide to kill a child that's growing in you just because it's growing in you. The baby is still a human life and it should be protected and I think the government has a responsibility to protect human life, a child isn't just an extension of the mother, even when it's inside of her. I've also heard an argument that the government shouldn't moralize people, but what's the point in having laws then? I think the government has a responsibility to make it clear that something is morally wrong by outlawing it. And the last pro choice argument I'll touch on here is that the child may be an economic burden. But there's a reason you can put kids up for adoption and someone being an economic burden doesn't justify killing them. My thing is, if you have sex you know you're taking a risk. I understand that people aren't perfect and they make mistakes and accidents happen I can imagine how painful it must be to realize youre pregnant with a child you aren't ready for and maybe cant afford. However I don't think you have the right to end the child's life and decide that a human life doesn't have value because it's early on in the pregnancy or you think it'd be more convienent to not have to carry a child.","conclusion":"Abortion is immoral and should be illegal."}
{"id":"f1c87294-2136-4239-bf43-73cde4ee71fb","argument":"Casinos are often associated with criminal activity. Drug dealers and prostitutes operate near casinos \u2013 they know that there are a large number of potential clients in the area. Casinos can therefore be devastating to neighbourhoods.","conclusion":"Casinos are often associated with criminal activity. Drug dealers and prostitutes operate near casi..."}
{"id":"cbbcc844-a146-4cc2-961a-14bbc57ea750","argument":"Please note this goes to a specific branch of the pro life movement which focuses on the belief that abortion is murder, that life begins at conception, and abortion should be illegal in most if not all circumstances. I noticed that around the pro life movement that legal punishments for women who get abortions seems to be the gotcha question relating to this issue. So I'm really hoping to see good responses from people on the pro life side of the argument, relating to how they reconcile the issue and what if any actual penalties they would want women who seek abortion. There are pro lifers such as from this website that do believe that women should be trialed similar to murder cases for abortion, but in my experience most pro lifers deflect the issue or do not want any penalties for the woman. There are two usual avenues pro lifers go when facing this issue The first response is that they wish to punish the doctors providing the abortion, not the women. If you believe that both doctors and women should be punished for abortion, for one being the service provider, and the other for being the initiator, then I guess that logically follows your line of thinking. What I have trouble understanding is those that seek to unilaterally punish the doctors with jail time or removal of medical licenses, but not having any consequences for the women. Making it illegal for doctors will never stop abortion. Just as restricting gun rights or prohibition for alcohol. Until you stop the demand you won't cease the supply. There will always be a profitable black market for this kind of stuff as it is in countries that do ban abortion. Wouldn't it make sense to punish the initiator of the abortion the woman ? Not just the medical professional who is doing it for patient client reasons? Many women who do not access to hospital professionals do abortions in unsafe environments alone, how would that affect her punishment if she is the one initiating and the one doing the abortion? The second response that pro lifers give is that the women having abortions may not be mentally well or sane in the current situation. Quoting the pro life article I linked gt Abortion is the killing of a human person. Just like stabbing a three old on a playground is killing a human person, stabbing a baby in the womb is also killing a human person gt When the woman in Texas drowned her five children several years ago, what was your thought on her punishment? Did you believe because she had some rough times at home she should be excused from what she did? The fact is, she killed her five children and had to answer to the law. While we might feel sorry for her emotional state, we must also want justice for the five children who were killed. If you encouraged laws making women endure waiting periods, ultrasounds, clinic closures, false scripts on breast cancer, etc. etc., then you have already endorsed plenty of punishment legal penalities for women. If your worldview claims that life begins at conception, and that the fetus is a human life like any other, then you should have similar consequences for the actions of mothers who murder their unborn children. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"If you are pro-life you should believe in punishing women for abortion"}
{"id":"27bf1e13-2b2b-4730-b978-8f1aac76d930","argument":"I truly believe America is doomed by mass murders. It is becoming the \u201cnorm\u201d, and we are doing nothing to stop it but argue about the laws which I am not getting into . This inevitably leads us to out downfall, a mass murder every day, where hundreds of people die everyday. It\u2019s not at that point now, but it IS heading towards it. Nowhere is safe, it can and will eventually happen in every single school, every town, every state, everyday. We are going to be taken over by these people that commit these horrible crimes. We are wasting time fighting about the laws, and people are dying. It will NEVER end, if we do not come up with plans and actually test the plans. If one plan doesn\u2019t work then we should try another. But the issue now is that NOTHING is happening. We\u2019re literally cattle waiting to be slaughtered. I am sorry if I am scaring you by reading this, but I am truly terrified as well.","conclusion":"America is no longer safe"}
{"id":"c7d296b2-3dae-47cf-94d7-80b353f8c1b9","argument":"Power plants that emit large quantities of C02 can be fitted with algae biofuel systems, in which waste C02 is used by algae in the process of photosynthesis, creating as a result a useful biofuel. Lisa Colosi, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Virginia, supports this notion, arguing, \"the main principle of industrial ecology is to try and use our waste products to produce something of value.\"4","conclusion":"Algae can filter C02 from coal and be used for biofuel"}
{"id":"ffbc1b38-bc66-4f72-9b58-4d68d3e33bfd","argument":"According to the Azerbaijani and Turkish governments, the events surrounding what is commonly referred to as the Armenian genocide do not constitute an actual genocide. The government of Turkey and a surprising number of people on the internet argue that what happened didn't constitute a genocide. They argue that the measures adopted regarding the Armenians in Eastern Anatolia were merely a replacement in another region within the Empire for security reasons . I think that the Armenian genocide really was a genocide, since the Armenian people were specifically targeted for destruction by deportation and oftentimes outright murder in the desert.","conclusion":"The event commonly referred to as \"The Armenian Genocide\" was, in fact a genocide"}
{"id":"ca9f1d59-245b-426e-80a2-00ef7237ae75","argument":"Games like halo introduced a mode known as firefight, it is a very balanced mode that has a good score-keeping system","conclusion":"Online video games can track player scores, not requiring a score-keeper."}
{"id":"2a3eda3d-f10d-4949-83e2-9638ed630c32","argument":"Mostly because more debates would be better for the public in making an informed decision in the ballot box. The decision to have 6 was made literally by one person Chairwoman Deborah Wasserman Schultz last year there were 26 Democratic Party debates. In comparison to the Republican debates, the first Democratic debate was substantive but not enough so to make up for that difference 20 . It's a bad decision for ALL canidates including Hillary who is looking evermore inaccessible and establishment in a bad way , by these highly mediated events so obviously low balling and deify her By participating in unofficial debates she could win those outsider points that she'll need in a fight against Sanders.","conclusion":"All Democratic Candidates Should Boycott the Remaining DNC Sanctioned Debates and Coordinate Their Own."}
{"id":"027f3a1b-21d2-429c-9fd1-658734c33e36","argument":"With the increasingly powerful AI work that is being done by Google and many other companies, self driving cars are becoming much more reliable and powerful. I don't see human drivers lasting much longer than ~20 years before we see more of a AI based taxi system. You 'call' a cab kind of like an Uber, and it takes you to your destination. Parking spots become wireless charge stations and everything is automated. is this not something that is likely to happen. The only reason I currently think it would take 20 years is to enforce laws and get over the problematic view that some people have with accidents involving human deaths caused by AIs. As the technology improves I don't see this as an issue though.","conclusion":"Humams driving will become obsolete in near future"}
{"id":"14643833-7d4a-452f-9eb3-49d7550fbc01","argument":"Quick refresher on Privacy rules You can record any random individual you like, unless specifically stated otherwise Ie there is a sign that says no photography You can audio record anyone you like unless you clearly state you are not recording. may or may not be true, to lazy to research, just ignore as it is not that important You can record conversations with your superiors, in most cases individuals of equivalent position, and most people in a diagonal relationship Ie you outrank them but are in a different department . You can record any events that happen in your workspace The government can record whatever they want not legally but let's be real here Teachers can record students and vice versa Your boss cannot record you, with any device, unless he shows you the single device he is using, explains its purpose, and keeps it in view the entire time. IMO, this is rediculous. I cannot even set up an audio recorded to PROVE THINGS THAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED IN MY OFFICE. If something happens, I have no way to definitively prove it outside of basic CCTV. This actually happened much earlier in my career A clearly distressed employee came in, cussed me out I forget what pissed him off but he kind of snapped mid shift and stormed off saying he was quitting. When he didn't show up the next day, I switched his file to inactive because he told me he quit EAW state btw and it didn't look like he was coming back. Because of this, when he did return right before bonuses, he didn't get one you have to be working consecutively for a month before . He then went to my superior claiming that he went on vacation and thus was entitled to a bonus and when I told the superior what he did before, he denied it saying he went in to tell me he was going on vacation. I had no way to prove what had happened some employees overheard it so when he threatened suit, we gave in. My point is, a recording device can prevent people who blatantly lie and as stated earlier, they can only record things that really happen. They will enable any arbitrator to clearly tell who is at fault when instances arise. I may have been wrong and the audio recording would prove it. I see no reason to ban audio recorders and I believe preventing them allows people to lie and cheat justice. So Change my view. Edit He was gone for almost a month. Not sure if it matters though Edit 2 I could not fire him because he was, as he claimed, Taking his earned vacation and you cannot retaliate against an employee for taking an earned vacation. If you could, shady employers would abuse the hell out of it.","conclusion":"For their protection, managers should be allowed to record events that happen in their offices"}
{"id":"f4ddf076-56d0-4c92-bd33-0974453d06bb","argument":"International politics is a sphere without justice or morality. The United States were 'justified' in eradicating their enemy because they had the capabilities to do so.","conclusion":"Iran is an enemy of the United States and Qasem Soleimani represented the enemy as a leading general."}
{"id":"b3c673e5-02a7-4ce1-a5e1-7b6f83e1015a","argument":"The majority of terrorist attacks on US soil have been committed by far-right nationalists who are not combatted by Guantanamo Bay's existence.","conclusion":"Guantanamo Bay has done little to make the United States safer."}
{"id":"de61b978-fe2c-41ee-b387-cb35ebd5bd26","argument":"All talk about biodiversity and poor dolphins and fish is nice, but should be considered against the fact that for many people, driftnet fishing is their only means of subsistence. Banning driftnets would spell starvation for them. That\u2019s why, for example, in the 1980s the UN Food and Agriculture Organization actually recommended and helped with the use of driftnets in Bangladesh. The use of driftnets there increased the number of fish caught by about 45%, at a 40% lower cost, providing a vital means of subsistence to the locals.7","conclusion":"Driftnet fishing is a form of subsistence living for many."}
{"id":"2b560a7a-f5fb-431d-a6a4-a1caae3f92ee","argument":"The US Constitution was written in the late 18th century and ratified by the Founding Fathers of our country. Since then, it has remained the supreme law of the land. Laws and government actions that violate the principles of the Constitution can be overturned by the Supreme Court. When the Constitution was ratified, the United States of America had existed for less than a few decades and still didn't spread West of the Appalachian Mountains. The ratifiers of the Constitution would be absolutely shocked to see the way our country looked today. Obviously many things have changed, including expanded globalization, technological advances, and insane differences in the economy. Because of these differences, many parts of the Constitution are not directly applicable to modern society and many parts of society have no guiding principle within the Constitution. For interpreting the Constitution, we rely on the Supreme Court, a life appointed panel of judges who are tasked with interpreting the document's meaning to a variety of issues. Despite the fact that these justices have spent their entire career in the law, they are oftentimes unable to come to a consensus on a decision, making split decisions a common occurrence. As the Constitution can't be directly applied to most cases, we rely on the interpretation of others who frequently are biased by their own personal opinions regarding cases. Whether the solution involves writing a new Constitution or just eliminating the current one and replacing it with a totally different concept, I believe there are several ways to improve this situation as a country and that the status quo is broken. . EDIT I think I did a poor job phrasing my opinion here. My main issue is the absolute pre eminence that the Constitution has in society. We shouldn't be revoking laws that have been approved by the legislature and have popular support due to the Court's interpretation of the Constitution.","conclusion":"Basing US laws on the Constitution is an outdated model that has the potential to hold us back as a country."}
{"id":"922994d6-ed7f-428d-9dec-aac94c08b825","argument":"First time posting here. This has been one of my reoccuring post on those what's your most controversial opinion threads. So I am a 26 year old female, working full time who has no real intentions of having children any time soon as in, the next 5 years . I have always wondered how maternity leave is fair why should some women be paid for their decision to have children? No one pays me for my decision not to. . EDIT Another point to my belief is that as a women, I would hate to think that potential employers wouldn't consider me for a job on the off chance that I might have kids in the near future and they'd therefore have to pay two people when only one person was doing the job.","conclusion":"I don't believe in maternity leave,"}
{"id":"d112a2da-081d-4640-ab95-62b15e543555","argument":"Prisons were conceived of as penitentiaries, places where convicts would be reformed back into good citizens through their penance. Life in prison sentences are ways of avoiding putting someone to death, notwithstanding the court and jury has decided the convict is not reformable and not welcome back in society. Either the convicted criminal can be reformed and should have a shorter sentence and be released back into society or the criminal cannot be reformed and should just be summarily executed. Life sentences are easier to digest and therefore handed out more. It a convict is reformable, then give them the chance, if not, no more paying for life in prison. Change my view.","conclusion":"I believe life in prison should be done away with."}
{"id":"73833c4e-0e54-4e29-ae97-641818b19e84","argument":"I might have worded this poorly, but I'm not sure how else to put it. I think that identifying as LGBT etc. is useful in the world we live in. It sheds light on different sexual identities, gives people community, helps with fighting for social change and human rights etc. However, I also feel like there is also a pretty severe downside to all of this Human Nature. People are tribal, and by creating more labels and distinct groups we're creating more ways for people to label others as the other. If history is any guide, doing this usually doesn't trend towards peaceful coexistence. So I believe at some point in the future, unfortunately probably much farther down the road than I would like, treating sexual preference as anything as an identity will cause more harm than good. Or are there other benefits to these identities than I'm aware of? So what's the alternative? Ideally I think we should all just be People, and who we like to have sex with should just considered a preference that carries the same social weight as whether you enjoy only missionary, anal, or having apple sauce poured on you. Just different strokes. I should probably say I'm not LGBT or any other sub group I've heard of, so I don't have any insight or preference other than what's best for humanity's peaceful existence as a whole. I tried looking this up in the search but couldn't find anything. But I would be really interested in hearing other views on the matter.  EDIT","conclusion":"I think that in an ideal world, LGBTetc identity shouldn't exist."}
{"id":"c4e420d6-3569-42ea-a2ce-9c85fff08baa","argument":"There is no magic way to select children by ability, but tests are a good way to decide. Every child in an area takes the same exam so their results can be compared fairly. Some types of test may be better than others but that is a reason for coming up with improved exams, not one for scrapping the whole system. In any case, testing is not the only way to choose the best school for students. An alternative to testing is to have primary school teachers advising on the best type of secondary school for each child. This is done in Germany with some success.","conclusion":"There is no magic way to select children by ability, but tests are a good way to decide. Every chil..."}
{"id":"d9b53a45-df68-48ac-b03e-e8c83486cac4","argument":"Fan fiction is, and always will be a lesser art form to original composition. Fan culture has arrived to such a level to where people may actually prefer reading fan fiction to reading normal fiction. While there is nothing wrong with fan fiction, there is only something wrong when saying that it has a value greater than that of the original work or any original work . To be an artist requires technical skill creative skill. Fan Fiction authors may be technically brilliant, but you cannot ignore the conjunction. The hardest part the construction of the fictional world was done by the original author. What these authors have in way of technical skill, they lack in creative skill. To a further extent, the work of fan fiction authors necessarily relies on the original work. Without the original work, the fan fiction could not exist. While everything is, in fact, inspired by something else \u2013 fan fiction is not mere inspiration, but direct copying of characters and the world which they inhabit. Allegorical writing carries value, but fan fiction is distinct from allegory, in that it does not create anything new apart from events which may happen to pre existing characters. Example Someone who copies perfectly the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel is not as great an artist as Michelangelo. Likewise, great architects are not those who perfectly copy the Parthenon, etc. To reiterate fan fiction is fine, when it is regarded as a nice hobby. When compared to original works, it never approaches the same value . EDIT changed from quality in the last line to value Consider this question too it is impossible for something to go from fan fiction to fiction sequels, adaptations, etc. without deferring to the original author. This is because there is an authority which the holder of the Intellectual property maintains over anything having to do with their property. It is impossible to refute this claim without challenging the very notion of artistic integrity and without dispelling any weight given to the intellectual crime of plagiarism. EDIT2 I have changed my view when I considered what would happen if an author saw a piece of fan fiction and appropriated it. The author would be ethically and artistically culpable, and we can make this move only if the piece of fan fiction has the same value as the original work. I still argue it is more impressive and rewarding for an author to produce original work than to make only fan fiction So I get a delta I guess. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Fan Fiction is never of greater aesthetic value to any original composition."}
{"id":"529afca7-db70-4cb9-bb58-5049f07abd52","argument":"Madeline Brooks. \"Why the Ground Zero Mosque Must Be Stopped.\" American Thinker. May 10, 2010: \"Planting a mosque just two blocks from where Muslims murdered Americans on 9\/11 in the name of Islam is a huge slap in the face. Why shouldn't Muslims be sensitive enough to realize that a huge mosque planted right near the horrific wound to the U.S. created at Ground Zero by Muslims is outrageous to us? They claim a right to be insulted by cartoons mocking their prophet, even to the point of beheading people.\"","conclusion":"Ground zero mosque is generally offensive to memory of 9\/11."}
{"id":"b0c334ef-0f51-4991-bc09-3cc9bbf7d219","argument":"South Asian here. I am a man in my mid twenties and I used to play a lot of video games. These days I have almost given up because of social pressure that video games are for kids only and that grown men dont play them. To some extent I do believe it. Here are a few reasons why video games are for kids only Social factor a grown man playing bideo games is looked down upon. People are shocked to learn that grown men play games which were meant for kids. Target audience Video games were made for youngsters in mind. Unmanliness sitting at home playing games ibstead of doing manly things like hunting, socializing, playing cards etc is considered unmanly. PS Here by kid I mean people upto the age of 21.","conclusion":"Video games are for kids only."}
{"id":"1b564adf-87a3-4ee2-a9dd-443e9e15ed4c","argument":"I was seeing this video that reddit posted about someone making a parody of Hillary Clinton. In the video the actress was using a computer with a wireless mouse, and some redditor commented on that. The comment got some replies and one of them was for God sake, use a mousepad . But I really think they're useless with today's mouses. Even for gamers the community that most consume mousepads nowadays, due to competitive gaming . I think it is well known that mousepads had a purpose with the analogical mouses back in the day. The mouses had 2 sets of wheels, perpendicular to each other, that moved the cursor in the X and Y directions. Then it had a metal ball with a rubber coating. The movement of the mouse made the ball move the X and Y wheels. The computer then had to process how much X and how much Y it has moved in a period of time, and the result was shown on the screen. This mechanism required that the surface wasn't so smooth because it had to provide friction to the mouse ball. Therefore, mousepads were a useful yet not 100 required tool. But then we switched to optical mouses, that uses a laser and some optics do determine the cursor's movement. The mechanism now uses a light emitter and a sensor to detect the movement. The requirements are That there is nothing blocking these components. The surface should not diffract light, or be transparent which would produce false data points . We didn't change the surface. We still use tables when we are using a mouse. Your mouse now will work just fine without a mousepad. If you have a glass table, yeah, you might want one. But just because you are using in the wrong surface. It is like using a ball pen on steel, it doesn't work. But you don't have to use a mousepad. A piece of paper would do the trick. So yeah. Gamers say that a mousepad is one of the most important equipment for you, but as for today I think they are wrong.","conclusion":"Mousepads are useless"}
{"id":"fd6e79c3-2009-43ac-9770-9df43cebb17b","argument":"In Monaco publicly offending the Prince is punishable with imprisonment from six months to five years and a fine according to Article 264 of the Criminal Code. If not committed publicly, the act is punished with imprisonment from six months to three years and a fine. Similar laws exist for offending the family of the Prince.","conclusion":"Monarchies limit freedom of expression and speech by making criticism of the Crown or members of the royal family a punishable offence."}
{"id":"450d5e61-ef25-481c-8cb3-39f11220b369","argument":"I don't want any political debate. I would like to know why. I am not from the US and thus I can rely on my health care system if I ever get ill. I have to pay a portion of my income into a fund, but I would rather spend this than these horrible big sums if something small happened like an appendicitis. I can't get it why so many people thing the system in the actual state is any good. If you read the well researched start of the Wiki article it doesn't make any more sense, I quote gt Of 17 high income countries studied by the National Institutes of gt Health in 2013, the United States had the highest or near highest gt prevalence of infant mortality, heart and lung disease, sexually gt transmitted infections, adolescent pregnancies, injuries, homicides, and gt disability . Together, such issues place the U.S. at the bottom of the gt list for life expectancy. On average, a U.S. male can be expected to gt live almost four fewer years than those in the top ranked country","conclusion":"I can't see why the US is not changing it's health care system."}
{"id":"890309db-394f-42ca-83e5-144aa9fb38bc","argument":"I'm a huge fan of the HP series and that entire universe, but for quite a while now, I've had the feeling that the Sorting Hat is bit of a douche when it comes to who it assigns to Slytherin. Dumbledore himself seems to feel perhaps they sort too soon when reflecting on Snape's true nature. Taking the example of Snape, he was a kid from a broken home and apparently suffered abuse, turning him into a delinquent, but ultimately a noble character who was fiercely loyal to his friends and actually voluntarily chose a life being reviled for most of his adult life as a Death Eater while secretly working for Dumbledore. It could be easily argued that it shows greater strength of character for him to hold on to his positive attributes despite his origins than for someone like Ron Weasly or Hermione Granger, coming from their happy and relatively normal lives. Even Malfoy comes from a home that was essentially part of a cult and eventually finds himself unable to commit murder even in the face of dire consequences for himself and his family. While not explored in the series, it is not unreasonable to assume that Crabbe, Goyle and many other Slytherin characters come from similarly disadvantageous backgrounds from which they could have escaped and been better people if the Sorting Hat had only put them in better company rather than lump them all together to further their collective delinquency. It seems to me that either, as Dumbledore reflects, the sorting should have been done later or everyone should have been re sorted every year or every term. In any case, I think the Sorting Hat doesn't give Slytherin students a chance and really screws them over. Please . Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules ddit.com r changemyview wiki rules . If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The Sorting Hat really screws over the Slytherin kids"}
{"id":"04ca49cc-eb51-4fe0-b1ca-0983c8d46e46","argument":"Since the start of Trump's administration, middle-class incomes have risen by $5,003 and median household income has increased by 8% to $65,976.","conclusion":"Middle-class incomes fell significantly during the Obama Presidency, only to rise again after two years under the Trump Administration."}
{"id":"a7d0c8de-db67-4182-a6b9-f90c34036a49","argument":"What are you not free to do if you are spied on that you were free to do before? There are things that many people do that are illegal that they can't do if they are spied on, but the aren't really free to do them if they aren't spied on, they just get away with it. Being spied on is obviously different if a specific person you know is doing the spying, but the government FBI CIA etc. is not a specific person, its an organization. If they watch you have sex or whatever that doesn't effect your life at all except maybe for some discomfort at the fact that you might be on tape, which I think people should just get over. Note this does not mean I condone widespread spying by the government, I just think that freedom is not a good argument to use against spying. There are plenty of other good ones to use.","conclusion":"Being spied upon does not take away your freedoms."}
{"id":"f5beb352-11f8-46b0-a43b-4bb9ebae3a87","argument":"EDIT Sorry, typo in the title. There is any viable reason I think at least 99 of smokers know excactly what smoking can do to you, and if they choose to smoke anyway they are ignorant and irresponsible. I understand addiction amd how hard it is to quit, but what I'm saying is starting smoking is one of the most idiotic things a person can do. I also understannd peer pressure, but people should know its worth losing a friend to essentially nullify your chances of getting Cancer.  Edit My veiw was changed by u howbigis1gb","conclusion":"I don't think there isnany viable reason to start smoking cigarettes, EVER."}
{"id":"28a8031d-6d67-4b2d-93f2-02683a88a540","argument":"Selling off the state's possessions would create additional money in the country's budget, and reduce the tax burden for everyone in the country.","conclusion":"In countries like Spain, where almost half of young people are unemployed these costs should be avoided."}
{"id":"3494b508-d3c7-4fce-bbcd-6c968d286e7c","argument":"The way farm animals are herded close together in the current meat-industry increases chances for epidemic diseases to spread. This includes ones that can also hurt humans, for example Q fever","conclusion":"Modern farming methods like factory farming of animals is a danger to health."}
{"id":"16f1bd09-ebb7-4150-9c3d-6f25611b38f1","argument":"My view is that Manchin will lose his seat during midterms due to his stupidity and cowardice So ignoring Ms. Irony Hypocrite She was complaining about \u201cdark money\u201d for a minute, Manchin, by voting yes, just lowered Dem turnout in VW for the possibility. It is most likely a fact that he will lose his seat now. The reason I say this is because his vote was more about his political career than his morals. This is obvious by how he decided to vote to confirm only a few minutes after Collins pointless conference. Which even Orange Jr. even pointed out what Manchin did. Now say if I was a VW Voter, why would I vote for him, a snake, or his opponent, a puppet? You can\u2019t even apply the logic people used to choose between Hillary and Trump. Because both Manchin and his opponent are the same worst of two evils. His opponent will always vote for whatever Trump wants because that is the GOP now. But why would I vote for Manchin when he pulls shit like this? I would be better off not voting. Manchin\u2019s untrustworthiness will cause more chaos than his opponent. Manchin is basically gambling. He is gambling confirmed Dem votes in hopes he can get right leaning independents and Trump Voters. The problem with that is, Trump voters already have their nominee and it is his opponent, Manchin is basically gambling thinking it will improve his chances. Honestly, the only way Manchin actually wins midterms is if Trump does something that is so impossible to defend that enough of his supporters don\u2019t vote or vote for Manchin. And last time I checked, there really is nothing that would change their minds Even if Manchin votes no at the last minute, Murkowski has now said she will vote \u201cPresent\u201d instead of no out of respect for Senator R Montana Daines who will miss the vote to attend his daughter\u2019s wedding. So yeah, Manchin can\u2019t really win now other than by switching parties, which I\u2019m not sure he even can right now. Change My View Manchin has now ensured his loss for the midterms by weakening his own support in his state for the possibility of Trump Voters","conclusion":"Manchin will not win during midterms"}
{"id":"babb8435-9959-4b54-9180-a15ab2963a74","argument":"The UN was criticised for failing to stand up for victims and their human rights during a peacekeeping mission to Sri Lanka in 2009.","conclusion":"The UN has a history of under reporting and failing to act on human rights abuses in fear of antagonising local governments."}
{"id":"b3dd926f-533e-43de-9e48-807e5ee231cc","argument":"Vegetarians are generally more health-conscious. This is the primary reason why they are healthy; it is less a cause of vegetarians avoiding meat. Similarly, obese people are obese because they are not health-conscious, more than because they are meat-eaters.","conclusion":"Vegetarians are healthy due to their health-consciousness not vegetarianism."}
{"id":"c3c27a86-a3fb-49c8-a22c-07739e72d017","argument":"I hold this view for two reasons Cost and military mobile effectiveness. Maintaining, protecting and building these military bases in nearly every country in the world along with the soldiers, staff that run them is wasting resources for the United States as a whole. Also, it deters the militaristic nature of european nations and has turned many of them to building infrastructure while subsequently relying on USA for protection. My second reason is military mobile effectiveness. The USA retains the world's largest and most technologically advanced navy and air force. Meaning that we could reach any region fast and effectively. Basically, these bases cost too much to run and they are an outdated form of geo political prowess. .","conclusion":"The US should remove all military bases across the globe."}
{"id":"61de025f-8901-4023-a23b-a99a8f398c02","argument":"Obviously the ACOG is usually agreed to be the best sight, but you don't get the ACOG on every operator. In my opinion, the red dot sight is the best non zoom choice. Everyone I've talked to disagrees and I don't understand why. There are essentially 4 non zoom sights Iron sights, red dot, holographic and reflex. Iron sights Every gun has different iron sights of varying quality. They're bulky, hard to read in tense moments, terrible at sustained fire and pretty much objectively worse than the rest of the sights available in the game aside from arguably Bandit's MP5 iron sights or Alibi's SMG sights. With some weapons it looks like you're just holding a stapler up to your face and hoping for the best. Holographic Usually agreed by pro league players, at least to be the best short range sight and I don't understand why. It's just a red dot sight with extra bulk around the edges, and an extra circle in the middle that make it hard to see what you're actually aiming at. Reflex Little triangle with relatively minimal housing. Sometimes it's annoying to figure out where your shots will actually go in relation to said triangle, but I can see why you would use the sight. I use it with shotguns, because accuracy isn't as much of an issue and the reflex sight gives more peripheral vision. I'd agree that's the best looking sight as well, and makes any gun it's attached to look sexy. Red dot Small housing, small red dot so you know exactly where your bullets are going, and the housing makes a circular lens around the dot The circular nature of the sight makes it so even if you can't see or find the dot in the heat of the moment, you can still know exactly where your bullets are going to go, because you know where the center of the aimpoint is. If you know how to find the center of a circle, you can know where your bullets will hit. With the other two and their square window rather than circular when you can't find your aimpoint or if a thatcher nade goes off, it's a bit of a guessing game as to where your shots will go. With the glorious red dot sight, it's not a problem. I don't understand the general consensus that the red dot is bad. Or suppressors, for that matter, but we can talk about that later","conclusion":"The red-dot sight in Rainbow Six Siege is the best non-zoom sight in the game."}
{"id":"88b5b5b5-397b-4a78-8ac2-3641cd9b6b65","argument":"I support the legalization of marijuana and gay marriage, because whether or not I will partake in these things, they do not affect me. People can smoke, and marry whoever they want, and I will never be influenced by this. This logic does not extend to guns. The fact that the American population is armed to the teeth with automatic rifles certainly puts me in potential risk. What reason is there for anyone to own a gun? The United States is known for its lax gun control laws, and encouraging gun culture, at the same time approximately 11,000 gun murders occur in the United States every year. Compare that to countries that have strict gun laws and discourage gun ownership in the UK the gun homicide rate is approximately 50. This shocking difference proves, despite popular opinion, that controlling guns works. And although it is impossible to get rid of all guns, we can at least start solving the problem today. Stricter gun laws less gun related murders. People argue that they need guns for self defense, however owning a gun puts you in more danger than not owning one. Let\u2019s say for example that someone attempts to enter your home, and you raise your gun at them, they also might have a gun. There are two potential outcomes, the invader flees or he fires, in which case you will return fire and both of you will have life threating injuries or are dead. Guns are not a deterrent, they put the home invader in a fight or flight situation that facilitates potential gun violence. Don\u2019t forget that both the home intruder and the home owner are in high pressure situations where their judgement might be impaired by adrenaline, a reflexive twitch of a finger is a possible outcome. Why would anyone want to even create this risk? By abstaining from guns, a rational intruder who enters your home has no reason to harm you, and proceeds to loot your home for which he will be later reprimanded by police. Yes, not all home invaders are rational people, but the extreme minority of cases were home invaders initially seek to harm the home owner is negligible to the amount of unnecessary gun violence in the majority of situations where non violent invaders are confronted with guns. The fact that crazy people are carrying guns in the first place just proves why we need stricter control. Some argue that guns are necessary for hunting, or can be used for recreational purposes. The simple answer to this is that the risk is not worth it, the potential threat that guns create outweighs any of the potential uses. A killing machine is not a toy, if you want recreation then try airsoft or paintball, or call of duty. Hunters can learn different ways to hunt trapping, crossbows, there are plenty of ways for people to continue their rural hunting lifestyle without the use of guns. The 2nd Amendment argument is useless. Just because something exists as a law doesn\u2019t make it more correct. Anything could be written as an amendment, but they are obviously meant to be amended. \u201cGuns don\u2019t kill people, people kill people\u201d A phrase that I see everywhere on reddit. But in reality, the problem with guns is how easily they can be used to murder masses of people. Nobody should have that power. Although people will always be able to kill other people, a knife or any weapon unlike a gun is much more difficult to operate. A psychotic murder can\u2019t enter a school and kill dozens of kids with a knife. People say that the Sandy Hook Elementary massacre could have been prevented if an armed guard was there. But the best solution would be to make guns illegal, and prevent the murderer from acquiring those weapons in the first place. The American idea to use more guns to protect people from guns is a disgusting, illogical, cyclical process that creates more risk and causes more human suffering.","conclusion":"Guns don\u2019t provide self-defense, harm more lives than they save, and should be illegal for civilians."}
{"id":"ca346a16-ae86-460c-856d-a8c702eb6d00","argument":"When the government makes decisions that affect people, those decisions can gain support or backlash, and those feelings can then be used by political candidates to seize power. These political candidates can then replace a plan put in place by a previous government, or render it useless, or make it malfunction to try to tar the politicians of the previous party. This can lead to disastrous outcomes, all because certain groups wanted to push forward their policies. Thus, government agencies should be including the most salient political scenarios possible to ensure that the public and the decision makers are better prepared to know what compromises to make, what to include or not include, etc. to improve public satisfaction, and to make sure that policies are realized in a way that's most beneficial while having the least risk of being in harm's way politically. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Politics should be a factor taken into serious consideration in most government decision-making."}
{"id":"0a2856aa-bdb2-4e45-9853-d77869376b5c","argument":"Students should be given the right to discuss and research sensitive topics, including politics, in the education setting with the conditions, that: they be provided factual information, they be provided appropriate context, they be provided with an exceptional lessons concerning argumentation, they be given a connection to real life opinions and scenarios.","conclusion":"Sensitive social and political topics should be discussed in schools, but only under certain conditions."}
{"id":"f63e989d-a96a-41a5-b9d0-f4523d0d2e46","argument":"Many people have the potential to climb Mt Everest but that doesn't mean they deserve the same respect and admiration as someone who actually has climbed Mt Everest.","conclusion":"A virtue is only worthy of moral approval when it is actually exercised."}
{"id":"93cbfb07-b32b-4c7f-91c4-12b6bdd1fff6","argument":"An information study showed that spending time with animals like cats increases the production of oxytocin in the human brain.","conclusion":"Research has shown that owning pets can improve personal well-being and longevity."}
{"id":"a83eb4f7-abcd-4eaa-885e-fd6eb4003052","argument":"I believe that organ donation should be fully mandatory. I see a lot of people who believe that it should be changed to an opt out system, and to me this seems like a senseless half measure. I cant see any legitimate reason for somebody to not want to be a donor, all the reasons people claim to have are either based on religion which i think should have no basis in law , or because they feel some misplaced attachment to the lump of flesh they leave behind. From and utilitarian point of view, it seems like the slight misery of these people will be vastly outweighed by the literally millions of people saved by the forced donations.","conclusion":"Organ donation should be mandatory"}
{"id":"1452b925-d2c1-45e8-bb65-4d24a9fb1f3b","argument":"I'm genuinely scared of the future that with the pace of automation and machines that soon human beings will be pointless in the future office factory whatever. I truly believe that with the automated car, roughly 3 million jobs, the fact that we produce so much more in our factories now, than we did in the 90's with far fewer people, and the fact that computers are already slowly working their way into education, medicine, and any other job that can be repeated more than once, that job growth, isn't rosy. I believe that the world will be forced to make a decision to become communistic, similar to Star Trek, or a bloody free for all similar to Elysium. And in the mean time, it'll be chaos. Please , and prove that I'm over analyzing the situation.","conclusion":"I'm scared shitless over automation and the disappearance of jobs"}
{"id":"9465aace-ff79-4bd8-81f8-57e4e75006c6","argument":"For every song with a positive message like 'Keep ya head up' or 'Changes', he's got 10 more that glorify gang violence and shootings. The idea that he was non violent is totally at odds with the music he actually made. A brief glance at his wikipedia page will also show you that he was an exceptionally violent person He assaulted another rapper with a baseball bat in 1993, and assaulted a film director in 1994. In both cases he plead guilty. He was also found guilty of gang raping a woman in a hotel, a crime for which he was sent to prison. With anybody else, those three crimes would be enough to judge someone as an extremely violent and unsafe person highly unsuited to be a role model for anybody, but for some reason he's earned a reputation for being some kinda hip hop gandhi. There are plenty of legendary rappers like Mos Def, Nas and Andre 3000 whose positive messages are overlooked in favour of Tupac, despite managing to avoid assaulting or raping people. The fact that Tupac garners as much respect as he does is symptomatic of massive immaturity in certain parts of the hip hop community.","conclusion":"Tupac Shakur was a violent rapist who glorified gang culture in his music and never lived up to the 'peace loving messenger' image he's developed today."}
{"id":"b648d8cb-28a5-46ac-b54c-c145be23d05c","argument":"The Confederate States of America was at best an insurrection. It was openly hostile and aggressive towards the United States, and was formed in part for that express purpose. It doesn't make any more sense to me that we should have Confederate Heroes Day as in Texas , or statues of Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis all over the place that it would make to have statues of King George III, or memorial days honoring Japanese kamikaze pilots. Confederate memorials certainly have no place being supported by taxpayer money","conclusion":"I believe monuments and holidays honoring Confederate soldiers are no different than monuments and holidays honoring any other former enemy that waged war against the United States."}
{"id":"9239d193-c00e-495a-913d-4d1f0a4ab2b6","argument":"Under the responsibility to protect individual states and then the international community are obligated to protect populations around the world from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.","conclusion":"The global community has a responsibility to condemn oppression around the world and open its door to those suffering around the world."}
{"id":"31387a2d-8044-48c9-ba17-ba8c468e4fb6","argument":"Pre post disclaimer I'm a meat eater. Hell a meat lover . I eat meat on or with anything. I'm aware that may seem contradictory, but I want discussion on my view, not my cognitive dissonance, so please bear with. My logic Pain feels bad. Inflicting pain is wrong. The meat industry results in pain being caused to animals. Meat is not necessary to survive. Therefore, if you have the means financial or otherwise to not eat meat, you should not eat it. I'm aware that there are a bunch of hypotheticals in which animals are euthenised killed painlessly but this isn't really the case for the lump of mince I buy every week. I'm looking for education on the matter, and someone to explain why eating meat isn't immoral. Thank you for your time. Edit Trying my best to keep up with you guys Some good stuff here. Keep it coming. Edit 2 Changed the first two statements for clarification Final Edit Huge thanks to everyone who responded. I know this is a touchy subject but most of you kept it as objective as possible there are some great replies here. I will likely continue to eat meat. I still hold that the way animals are treated in a large part of the meat industry is pretty bad. However, my view has been somewhat changed in that I now feel consumption of meat isn't an immoral action itself. Other, and more direct, things can be done to lessen the suffering of animals. I feel like if learned a lot and gained quite a bit of perspective. TIL discussions involving morality get blurry, fast. Special thanks to u kylo renfair u iglidante","conclusion":"Eating meat is immoral."}
{"id":"9d507736-114c-41c8-8281-46ea228f6995","argument":"We can never know everything there is to be known. God could always be one of the things we don't know. For someone to know that God didn't exist they would have to be omniscient. Only God can be omniscient. God being cognizant of his own non-existence is logically incoherent therefore if God does not exist nobody would ever be able to know.","conclusion":"Non of these arguments are capable of proving God doesn't exist. If God doesn't exist they would be an indication of such at best. If God does exist they are a symptom of our lack of our knowledge, understanding and realization of God."}
{"id":"82be6299-9cd1-4c3d-97d1-fbaf48a79d2c","argument":"The top 1% of US wealth-holders are \"much more conservative\" than the wider American public regarding policies concerning taxation, economic regulation, and social welfare programs Page et al, p. 51","conclusion":"In the US, members of Congress tend to be wealthy. Wealthier members of Congress have more politically conservative voting records Eggers and Klasnja, p. 1"}
{"id":"f462f69b-0670-4fc0-aa19-449037b73340","argument":"It is commonly believed that forbidden or inaccessible things often become more desirable to people. Alcohol, particularly for young individuals, is one of these things. Thus, forbidding 18-21-year-olds from consuming alcohol may actual increase the appeal of alcohol, increase its consumption, and increase related problems with it.","conclusion":"US drinking-age increases the desire for the forbidden fruit"}
{"id":"803ae4f0-9d48-44bb-b232-eac698cbdf7a","argument":"I've come across this interesting concept in some personal conversations, and I find myself continuously returning to it and thinking, Huh, that might be something. My view is that people should not be entitled to having children that is people shouldn't automatically have the right to birth and raise a child. A quick disclaimer before the argument I do not believe this is a view that can be effectively legislated for, and I am not advocating for any program to enable this. I am posing a more philosophical and ethical argument. I fully understand the dangers of giving a group of people the power to artificially select those who can and can't have children, and I don't pose to be any kind of expert in any area related to such things. I will not discuss selection processes, nor preventative processes, except in the broadest of possible senses. Now, my points. It is immoral to force a conscious entity into existence. I think this is a principle many people feel in situations outside of human children. For example, I have asked several people a question along the lines of Is it moral to, assuming they are conscious, farm instantiations of artificial intelligence? Let's take this to a large real world scale, and say we have a thousand servers each storing a thousand AI, and these AI are sufficiently intelligent that, while it is unknowable, there is a possibility that the AI are conscious entities. Imagine that a company is trying to create a specialized AI for some problem they're trying to solve, and so they set their servers to work evolutionarily testing the AI until they produce one which solves the problem sufficiently. In essence, a million possibly conscious entities are being evaluated on their ability to solve a problem, and then discarded for a newer, better generation of a million AI. These servers are creating and destroying millions of instantiations of an AI which is possibly conscious in some way. Is this morally acceptable? I think not. These entities are being forced into existence and, to a first degree approximation, somewhat arbitrarily destroyed. I think that is something equivalent to a digital Holocaust, and I am not using that phrase lightly. Were those AI human brains, there is no doubt that we would find some practice of subjecting humans to a similar process to be hugely immoral. The principle here is that we are, essentially, exerting control over the life and death of a conscious entity. We don't find slavery or murder acceptable, so why would this be? We can take this principle and apply it to human babies. By having a child, you are creating a conscious entity you've taken control of its life. I am aware that we have children in order to continue the species, we are biologically designed to have children. But just because it's the natural course of things does not make it moral. I'm not of the inclination that the perpetuation of the species is an inherently good goal. Human life is frought with suffering and hardship. It is, until we somehow become all powerful, unavoidable. Every new human life also means new suffering. We find that inflicting suffering upon someone is immoral, and even allowing someone to suffer is widely considered immoral. Why would it be alright to enable suffering through the creation of the capacity for suffering as having a child does? Why is it okay to force people to live? If someone is already alive, then of course we should allow them agency over their body and life, and provide alleviation of suffering, but why should we be allowed to force something into a position where it must encounter suffering?What right does anyone have to do this?","conclusion":"Having Children Should not be a Fundamental Human Right"}
{"id":"aca37ebf-09b4-4072-9b97-c46bfbb6af7e","argument":"A child should be free to choose any religion, and for him to choose, he should know different types of religion.","conclusion":"Awareness of a range of beliefs does not impact freedom of choice of the individual."}
{"id":"dd101cc4-bf07-4814-a3b3-bba138cf126e","argument":"In a school in which a majority practice a certain religion, for students in religious-minority groups to be able to see that there are other people in religious-minority groups in their school will help them to be feel more welcome and to have people with whom they share something in common.","conclusion":"Children will know what the belief system of their teachers are - even if the teacher does not explicitly state it."}
{"id":"fe405897-191a-4db8-b5cb-4e6b24c2c371","argument":"A fat tax is very lucrative for a state. An article published in the American Journal of Public Health last year found that 17 U.S. states already have special taxes on soft drinks, candy and snack foods and estimated that these fat taxes already generate more than $1-billion U.S. annually. The Centre for Science in the Public Interest estimated that, countrywide, they could raise an additional $1.5-billion. Similar taxes in Canada would raise up to $250-million. The money can be spent on public awareness programs and campaigns, research, etc.","conclusion":"A fat tax is very lucrative for a state. An article published in the American Journal of Public Heal..."}
{"id":"dd4ace2f-ef2a-404e-8c9b-e4e030c47f2c","argument":"Presuming heteronormative intent from God\u2019s creation, and\/or \"His\" subsequent instructions see Genesis 1:22, 28 and 9:1, 7 regarding the so-termed: \u201cprime directive\u201d, is presupposing a definition of \u201cin God\u2019s image\u201d see Job 38-39 The problem with this belief is that there were four genders understood by early rabbis male, female, androgyne, and indeterminate\u2014not male, not female as being present in God.","conclusion":"The Creation accounts in Genesis do not support the conclusion that God created human beings to be forever paired, and\/or structured as heteronormative In fact, the Creation accounts do not so much reflect a divinely ordained sex\/gender system Gen 1 as later-humankind construct it Gen 2-9 as an explanation of how things came to be"}
{"id":"b8367a57-7187-4d5a-81a6-da689013803f","argument":"I believe that in this election cycle, the Democrats are a year or two too late to start the process of impeachment as it's too close to the next general election, 2020. I've heard arguments that if Congress doesn't at least attempt to impeach President Trump, then a precedent has been set. But I think that's a poor argument. Trump and his administration have already set terrible precedents, for a variety of things that are as serious, if not more, than being racist or sexist bigots. Secondly, every president and his administration and cabinet have set precedences, whether we realize them or not, such as circumventing Congress to engage in military conflict by not labeling these conflicts as war . Even still, let's look at former President Clinton. He was impeached by Congress, but wasn't removed from office. Effectively and legally, nothing happened to him nor did any of the legislation he signed into law were repealed solely due to his impeachment. So, given that precedence doesn't really mean much nor is there historical point of reference to refer to that indicates any laws become repealed due to an impeachment, I ultimately fear that an impeachment process has more risk than what it's worth. From how I gauge it, if Trump beats impeachment and or is NOT removed from office, this may actually set a more real and impactful precedent that the Executive Branch can get away with the kind of behaviors and rule breaking that the Trump administration has. Finally, even if there hasn't been a decision reached for his impeachment by the time the general election rolls around, Trump will likely use the impeachment process as fodder for his re election campaign narrative. He knows people vote for him GOP just to make libs cry etc. I'd personally rather see Trump get beat fair and square in the general and then, perhaps prosecuted by the next administration for obstruction of justice and other crimes. Please, convince me otherwise","conclusion":"Democratics should NOT pursue impeachment of President Trump until AFTER the 2020 elections."}
{"id":"02d44196-183c-4f90-ab64-24eb1a482643","argument":"I don't say Merry Christmas to people, unless they say it to me. I say Happy Holidays I don't say, bless you when someone sneezes, I say Gesundheit. I do it to not offend people, and because I am literally not religious. Starbucks, I believe did what they did, for the same reason. But people literally still managed to be offended. Why do people have to literally LOOK for reasons to get their jimmies rustled? What can you tell me to make me think otherwise? What can you say to make me see the side where it is wrong to not say Merry Christmas? Because I literally can not wrap my head around why people are taking this as a personal attack, then as acceptance to everything. I feel that it is taking a step back in equality for all.","conclusion":"Starbucks isn't saying \"Merry Christmas\" because they realize that not everybody celebrates Christmas. I don't think they did anything wrong."}
{"id":"15545f57-fc19-4e97-be11-6da03e2d1d09","argument":"Women make up a significant percentage of the construction work forces up to half in most third world countries.","conclusion":"More women should work in construction in the United States."}
{"id":"8115adb0-d35f-4f53-989e-39ed17c4bd19","argument":"NOTE those is not the stereotypical whiny I'm a nice guy why don't girls like me post. I used to be one of those guys but I am not anymore. But I WANT to be that nice guy. I 19m was raised thinking that I would find a nice girl who I could spend the rest of my life with. Someone who I could just love for who they are as a person and vice versa and that no matter what happened we would always stick together. However recently I've given up on this. My entire life I was the stereotypical nice guy who always cared about the feelings of others, so much so that I would invite kids sitting alone at lunch to my table, I would hang out with my friends if they seemed like they needed someone to talk to, etc. My mom instilled in me from a very young age that above all I should respect women and that was the way to find love. Hold the door open for her, be polite and courteous,buy her flowers, etc. Anyways, last year I met what seemed like the perfect girl. Beautiful, funny, ditzy, intelligent, basically everything I could ever want in a girl. Back then I believed there was a distinction between party rats and nice girls, and she seemed to embody essentially everything about the nice girl . Well we made plans to hang out one night and she flaked on me. Then I found out the reason that she flaked to fuck the football teams 5th string running back who was known around campus as a player and had fucked like 10 girls already first 2 months of college . I stopped talking to her after that. As soon as she found a better option she just left me in the dust and never showed any regret for ditching me. The point I'm trying to make is this most girls I have met in college have behaved this way. Even the ones I would never expect it from, and the ones who said they weren't that girl and wanted a nice guy . I used to laugh at nice guys on the internet but now I really feel for them. I'm not ugly by any means and I've had a little success but it was only when I pretended to be someone who I'm not and basically acted like the girl didn't exist until the night we hooked up. I HATE acting like this but based on my experiences it seems like the only way. Do women really hope to find a nice guy? Because I'm calling bullshit. Change my view. Edit I want to thank everyone who replied even the people who called me a terrible person, controlling, literally hitler, etc. . Through all of your comments I slowly started to see how silly my point of view was. One comment really put it into perspective so I gave her a delta. I closed the replies to this post but if you still have questions feel free to inbox me","conclusion":"Women are inherently repulsed by gentle \"nice guys\" and are attracted mostly to \"alpha\" qualities"}
{"id":"09a77880-2990-4894-8ef4-74a49f971272","argument":"Force need not mean \u201cviolence\u201d: it could entail the deployment of a peace-keeping force such as KFOR in Kosovo or the Australian-led mission in East Timor. If troops had not been deployed in Northern Ireland over the past decades, it is certain that sectarian violence, unchecked, would have claimed thousands more lives.","conclusion":"Force need not mean \u201cviolence\u201d: it could entail the deployment of a peace-keeping force such as KFOR..."}
{"id":"0ea110dc-5da5-4b79-a9c1-da0d79d2f452","argument":"Behavioral and neuroimaging studies have shown that pubertal hormones likely influence the structure and function of the adolescent brain. Missing out on this developmental opportunity could be harmful.","conclusion":"An individual who has not gone through puberty cannot be considered an adult because puberty triggers neural development that turns a child into an adult."}
{"id":"56814c2f-db30-4422-8d43-4299ec31bc89","argument":"Various people have attempted to document what it's like for people they know to experience the world through their senses.","conclusion":"No human's senses and consciousness are necessarily the same as any other human"}
{"id":"7b87b2a1-6d50-458c-9667-bcb865d3a8b8","argument":"Buying items offered at reduced prices triggers a certain region in your brain, that signaled that you are in a position of advantage. This is really important during evolution, because advantage means surviving.","conclusion":"Best offer sales and sales discounts attract most of the people, whether it's in regard to groceries, clothings or even travelling offers."}
{"id":"ac7da68f-6a6e-4944-a37a-f73eb8a642c6","argument":"Let me get this started by saying I do not necessarily oppose the movement per say, I just don't understand the argument. Why is a male nipple acceptable to show, but not a female one? For the same reason that the female ankle is acceptable to show in western culture but not the vagina because as a society we decided these features were or were not acceptable to show. Is this not the case? Is there anything inherently wrong with a penis or vagina also? No. It's just the way we decided it was to be. Therefore, if you support Free the Nipple from a logical and not self interested perspective, you should also support public nudity or nudism in all it's forms, and by extension public masturbation, procreation or defecation provided sufficient sanitary measures are observed. Those are extreme examples, but also logical extensions of that belief. However, if you think that the reasoning is because you don't personally think that the nipple being shown is bad, or because you personally aren't offended by nipples, you are acting in a self interested way and not considering older generations of people to whom this would be extremely inappropriate. Yes, it being codified in law perpetuates this belief, but as it is not extremely inconvenient for an individual to cover themselves sufficiently, it is not particularly harmful to perpetuate. I understand the argument for breastfeeding, and it is semi valid. But believing that things can be shown situationally is entirely different from believing it should be shown at all times for example more people would visit the doctors about genital health concerns were revealing genitalia less taboo .  Reddit.","conclusion":"I believe that \"Free the Nipple\" is a largely manufactured issue, and that if you support the movement you should also be supporting nudism."}
{"id":"8100d6a7-cf23-487b-9613-2245de9c94bb","argument":"Politicians have large social media following Politicians are likely to post their charitable activities on social media which will be visible to millions of people.","conclusion":"Politicians have a huge voter base. If people see politicians taking part in charitable activities, they are likely to do the same."}
{"id":"791e341f-a86c-4b6d-a2e7-0f39b826c702","argument":"There is an increase in women thinking that basic home making skills such as cooking and cleaning are beneath them due to pressure from modern society to not fit in to traditional gender roles. My mum and grandma are both superb cooks, a skill they learnt from their respective mothers when they were young. But I am seeing an increase in today's generation of girls who are proud to have never learnt to cook because it makes them empowered or that it's sexist if they should be expected to know how to cook. Most of my male friends can cook better than the females I'm not saying that men shouldn't know how to cook and that women should do it for them, because personally I love cooking. But I feel like I know very few girls that can cook well and don't seem likely to ever learn.  EDIT When I say cook well , I'm not talking about being a michelin star chef, I'm talking about being able to make meals that are healthy and good value for money.","conclusion":"I believe modern women are losing the valuable skill of being a homemaker due to increased pressure not to fulfil gender stereotypes."}
{"id":"07694312-7fc2-4c7d-9c5b-42794013a1b6","argument":"There is no question that the government demands that I pay taxes. If I fail to pay, I will be incarcerated. If I resist, I may be killed. I take this as uncontroversial. The only question that remains is, is this theft? I think it is theft because if it weren't, what else could it be? I've examined the possibilities and ended up rejecting each one. Do I agree to pay taxes by continuing to live here? Just because I don't move away from criminal activity doesn't mean I consent. If that were the case, anyone living in the inner city filled with crime thereby consents to be mugged by not moving. Do I agree to pay taxes by using government services? In these cases, the government has either made competition illegal as in the case with the USPS and first class mail or simply has such an advantage that the free market can't compete think eminent domain and running power data lines . I have no alternative aside from government services. It's as if the Mafia has taken control over everything and demands tribute to use those services while preventing any competition from occurring. So, how exactly are taxes a debt I legitimately owe rather than money that's taken from me by threat of violence?","conclusion":"I think taxation is theft."}
{"id":"7c5e4269-300d-4807-bab5-6b80b1629c60","argument":"The UK is made up of four countries to which more and more powers are being devolved to. The EU is a union that seeks to increase control over member states. These two stances are largely incompatible.","conclusion":"The EU has centralized power and continues to further do so, which means the UK has less control over its own laws and practices."}
{"id":"e78a2e68-6d04-4be7-a089-3c504935bcb0","argument":"Governors execute the laws that their legislatures pass, they respond to disasters, they act as a backstop to the judicial system if someone is harshly punished through pardoning people, they guide economic policy, they are chief cheerleader for their state. Basically, they have plenty to do, and plenty of places to show folks that they are leading through doing leadership things in a very leady way. They shouldn't be inserting their opinion into a system that has police, district attorneys, prosecutors, and judges who all have their own roles to play. It's bad enough that juries are already tainted by the media coverage of a story, but now your own governor is telling you what you ought to do. I feel like consoling the people by throwing despicable criminals under the bus is a cheap and dishonorable move.","conclusion":"Governors of states have no business \"calling\" for the death penalty for the perpetrator of a crime. At the moment, I'm looking at you, Nikki Haley."}
{"id":"b4576c3b-24f1-4165-aede-44114a97ac62","argument":"So basically, from what I've seen, heard and read, pedophiles do not have a choice in their attraction towards children. Just like gays do not have a choice. I've also never understood the blatant hatred for pedophiles. I feel nothing but sorry for them. They should be able to get help and cope with the fact that they can never live out their seuxality rather than being demonized by society like they are.","conclusion":"I think that pedophilia is a sexual orientation, just like being gay or straight is."}
{"id":"95b2cd8e-0c6c-4882-8229-eb0510e62ebd","argument":"Obama Administration letter to Congress justifying Libya engagement, June 15th, 2011: \"Rather than respond to the international community\u2019s demand for an end to the violence, Qadhafi\u2019s forces continued their brutal assault against the Libyan people. On March 1, the U.S. Senate passed a resolution that \u201ccondemned the gross and systematic violations of human rights in Libya, including violent attacks on protestors\u201d and urged that the United Nations take action to protect civilians in Libya from attack, including by imposing a no-fly zone.\"","conclusion":"Senate voted for UN Libya Res and Obama has enforced it."}
{"id":"8147dd0b-a297-4f96-9f90-2d228f58b4d0","argument":"Going off the post earlier today about being proud of White culture, I had a similar but different idea that I wanted to hear opinions on. I've heard from a number of people, particularly people on the far left side of the ideological spectrum, that there is no such thing as White culture in the USA. The argument goes that minorities do have their own culture African Americans have their own culture, Asian Americans have their own culture, etc But since Caucasians make up the majority demographically they do not have their own culture, instead their culture is simply majority culture. My view is that the two do not have to be mutually exclusive. Meaning that while White culture certainly is the majority culture in this country, that doesn't mean that there isn't a White culture. Baseball, Leave it to Beaver, cooking turkey for Thanksgiving, etc these are all things we would generally associate with White culture, in the same way that we would generally associate hip hop or the NBA with African American culture. I guess what I don't understand is why people say there is no White culture just because it is part of majority culture? Doesn't it still exist even if it is the majority culture? gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"There is a White Culture in the US - It's not just majority culture"}
{"id":"b0e10b88-8390-483c-beb5-821247f72bac","argument":"This report finds that among full time, year round workers, men work 8.2 hours a day compared to women's 7.8. This would mean women work 4.5% fewer hours than men.","conclusion":"This source narrows it down to 5.4%, but fails to account for hours worked. This source controls for hours worked, which reduces the wage gap by 6.0 percentage points."}
{"id":"375074f9-4ca4-4b4b-9d6e-71ecc879c9b1","argument":"In December 2018 May called out Russia's actions in the Kerch Strait as an \"act of aggression.","conclusion":"Theresa May is a tough leader when confronted with foreign aggression."}
{"id":"edf181ca-b143-497b-a4cc-045d0e009baa","argument":"I know that homosexuality counted as a mental disorder in the USA up until the 1970s, then it was taken off the list. That sounds like a progressive decision, but was it scientifically correct? From what I've read from other s, gay people's brains are wired slightly differently from a straight person's brain, like the differences between a male and female brain. Hell, they say transgendered people have gender identity disorder , so why is homosexuality not technically a mental disorder? I don't want to feel as if I have some deep seated repressed homophobia, so please","conclusion":"I'm totally in favour of gay rights and see nothing wrong with it, but I don't see how being LGBT could not be classified as a mental disorder."}
{"id":"4f359d95-a108-42fa-8c62-070a004c4c9c","argument":"There is no reason to think heteronormativity is a bad thing to want to undermine.","conclusion":"Legalization of LGBT sex work contributes to an end of heteronormativity."}
{"id":"393ea5f8-0c4c-4596-964b-0e714b6c64ea","argument":"As we know, affirmative action gives opportunities to certain minorities that they would not be able to obtain otherwise. An example of this is college aceeptances. Assuming equal grades and test scores, an African American is much more likely to get accepted than a white person. However, once a minority family utilizes affirmative action and progresses up the economic ladder, I believe their children shouldn't enjoy the same advantage because they now have the same opportunities as families in any other race. In fact applying affirmative action would split each minority into 2 subsections. One that is rich with many opportunities and the other group which can't compete with the first group for college admissions due to affirmative action. Therefore I believe affirmative action divides each race into two subgroups and it is fairer if affirmative action is only applied for 1 or 2 generations.","conclusion":"I believe that Affirmative Action should only be implemented for one generation for each family."}
{"id":"315d5f17-d9ba-41df-8dbd-2fb0ffbe5ea5","argument":"Not all cis people have the same struggles, so exluding trans women on the basis of \"their experiences aren't the same as ours\" would also need us to exclude cis women who are of different classes, different sexuality , etc. this would only lead to polarisation, which is something we need to avoid.","conclusion":"Trans women and cis women have more commonalities than differences. As a result, they should share the same spaces."}
{"id":"b6f4556a-ca3b-4c7b-9ab9-a8f123eff006","argument":"There is no evidence suggesting that a monarch is more able to unite a people towards a common cause than an elected head of state. One would have to compare the performance of monarchs in modern times versus the performance of elected heads of state, or even dictators to be able to argue the point of superior performance of monarchs.","conclusion":"There is no reason to think that a republic cannot inspire the same feelings of allegiance."}
{"id":"5280a521-b57d-4883-b0b2-7824f1ebdfaa","argument":"Though Facebook was originally intended to be a yearbook for college classmates, it's now beyond its original scope. Facebook has an ethical responsibility to fine tune even its smallest details. It's so big, it affects the collective psychology and sociology of the Western world. As of October 2013, 500 million people use Facebook 71 of online adults in the USA . Millions of people log on daily, seeing the same blue banner and dynamic information about their friends. But with every logon, there's also static information that gets drilled into everyone's consciousness. We continually see the universities and colleges of our friends alongside their names and pictures. The way it's presented makes it seem that the school is equivalent to identity. Sure, school name is an easy way to stratify networks, but this in effect elevates the university to a powerful societal position. And why should universities be considered as anything other than businesses? After all, they are money making enterprises with marketing teams strategizing how to build their brands and maximize intake of clients every fall. Why don't colleges deserve to be automatically ascribed to the identities of individuals? Though older generations seem convinced of the notion that college is necessary to success, it's not a given that younger generations should hold these businesses in such high esteem. Putting blind faith in anything is short sighted, and modern America's undercurrent of college worship resembles the way masses of ancestors once revered holy temples. Prospective students are conditioned to take ownership of their futures, talking about getting my Bachelors and my Masters while implicitly accepting the necessity of college as valuable accomplishment in and of itself. Freshmen join in a mass delusion that everyone will land their dream career. But as colleges are churning out more and more graduates, there's mounting diploma inflation. We see more applications for a limited market of quality jobs, leading to career dissatisfaction. For the past decade, the US placed higher education on a pedestal, consenting that these institutions thrive during the economic meltdown while other arguably more essential sectors tanked. The US government superseded capitalist principles by issuing millions of college loans, enabling universities to thrive. This sweeping decision repositioned all aspects of the economy for spurious reasons. Humans as pattern finders may be inclined to commit fallacies of categorically attributing positive or negative feelings to a school name. For example, we might lump the names of Ivy League schools with ideas of success and innovation, and this emotional branding is perpetuated by the media, movies and shows, and life anecdotes. These hasty mis attributions, reinforced subconsciously over time, aren't a useful metric for the flawed and complex task of quantifying student success or annual school rankings. Shouldn't society be steering people towards critical thinking, towards valuing and striving towards individual real world accomplishments? Shouldn't we steer ourselves away from the superficial pursuit of status? I propose that Facebook adopts a new paradigm that doesn't so prominently display the colleges of individuals. It's just as trivial as other profile facts favorite band, birthday, or town of origin , so why should it be emphasized? Note I'm not saying that school spirit is wrong it's fun to be proud and attach meaning however you personally see fit. I'm just saying that Facebook as a massively influential system shouldn't presume to mark you against your will. We live long lives, and though we may be indefinitely paying off loans to our alma maters, they're not equal to who we are.","conclusion":"Facebook promotes college worship, preoccupying society with shallow status-seeking thereby weakening meritocracy."}
{"id":"511126c7-d2da-438b-9ab9-e1ebb8e21357","argument":"I'm sure this post will generate lost of hate, but this is actually how I feel. No, I'm not a shill for the oil companies. Scientifically, I've looked at the evidence and the benefits of using fossil fuels far far far outweigh the associated potential costs of anthropogenic climate change. First of all, the benefits of fossil fuels are obvious. The gasoline engine has transformed the entire world. The coal and natural gas electric power plant literally makes our modern way of life possible. There is no alternative that would not either cost substantially more, or result in a reduction of quality of life for the entire world. Regarding climate change, I don't understand why we don't hear more discussion about the preventive effect of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere against the onset of another ice age. Actually I should say prevention against falling back in to a colder ice age, since we're actually still in an ice age The IPCC worst case scenario for global warming predicts a 4 C increase in average global temperature over the next 150 years. But the average temperature decrease during an ice age is 5 C So it would appear that our current carbon dioxide levels would shield the planet indefinitely against the onset of another ice age, a position that science has already embraced given the fact that another ice age would be orders of magnitude more deadly to life on earth human, animal, plant than any results of global warming, I'd say we should continue as we are, using cheap power derived from fossil fuels, with the added side effect of acting as protection against any new Ice Ages. Change my view EDIT View changed somewhat. The information seems to be that we have plenty of CO2 in the air now to prevent an ice age for at least a thousand years maybe more , so if anything, we should be preserving the remaining fossil fuels for use in the future, if or when the carbon dioxide levels start to fall low enough that we need to be concerned about an Ice Age. I can agree with that.","conclusion":"On the whole, fossil fuel use is a net positive for mankind and should not be curtailed from current levels"}
{"id":"5bc95648-eff8-410e-baf2-c79dffb3b5a1","argument":"It has not to be the next Big Leader, even if one of those kids will commit a single crime it is enough to cause suffering.That would have not happened if the child would not have been raised\/supported by support via donations.","conclusion":"The saved children could have a destructive impact and cause suffering, while gorillas do not have this potential."}
{"id":"a240304c-1a80-4948-b40f-1499c8a3ce9c","argument":"I often hear many foreign people speaking English in their own accent. All throughout school I was taught to speak Spanish with a heavy accent. Why is it different?","conclusion":"I don't believe, when speaking in another language, you should have to speak with that accent."}
{"id":"16b65e4e-cd5c-4d12-82b8-6072d142ee6f","argument":"This achievement is made more remarkable by the fact that, until very recently, Sino-Japanese relations were at a very low point.","conclusion":"The relationship between China and Japan has recently improved under Xi Jinping."}
{"id":"268c2b44-a6f1-43e2-8c55-c95ac9451ca0","argument":"There is no alternative source of value that has absolutely nothing to do with the actual or potential experience of conscious beings.","conclusion":"All notions of value will bear some relationship to the actual or potential experience of conscious beings."}
{"id":"dcbb126d-a77d-4147-851f-6b278aa9a7d5","argument":"Discussion of candidates\u2019 personal finances serves only to obscure the real issues facing society. When the focus becomes on how much tax Candidate X paid and what loopholes he or she exploited, the media tends to latch onto it. It sells more newspapers and gets more hits online to make a salacious story about the financial \u201cmisdeeds\u201d of a candidate than to actually discuss what he or she stands for. It fuels the growing tendency of the media to attach itself to petty commentary rather than real investigation and analysis. Ultimately, an examination of the personal finances of a candidate tells voters little about what he or she stands for on the issue of state finances. Throughout history, personal financial success has been shown to not necessarily correlate with political acumen. For example, William Pitt became the young, and one of the longest-serving Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom, yet he was in extreme debt when he died.1 Narrow attention paid to personal finances takes up people\u2019s limited time available to consume useful information to direct their voting, and the news media have limited air time to discuss issues. It is best that both use their time to maximum effect, and not be sidetracked by distractions. 1 Reilly, Robin 1978. Pitt the Younger 1759\u20131806. Cassell Publishers.","conclusion":"The focus of elections should be on policy, not personal issues like financial records"}
{"id":"ce60e433-5e5a-4bdf-8a04-56b507a417ee","argument":"If someone with low self-esteem perceives themselves to be less valuable than someone else in society, this self-imposed inequality is still their reality.","conclusion":"While humans may be \"born\" equally valuable, they do not remain equally valuable."}
{"id":"fb94af9b-5581-4b6f-a8b5-36681ec55180","argument":"One 2007 study in the United States found that natural gas deposits are sufficient to supply 118 years of U.S. demand at 2007 levels. Natural gas is similarly abundant around the world. Essentially, it is as abundant as oil was 50 years ago, largely because it has not been exploited on a large scale yet. Such abundance means that it is likely to cost much less than oil.","conclusion":"Natural gas is abundant, cheap, and will last for centuries."}
{"id":"54e05d5d-896a-4819-afdc-2dfa75a0a4a5","argument":"You often see in rom com movies that two people agree to become friends with benefits on the condition that neither falls in love with the other and the rest of the plot unfolds with a tedious inevitability and this is reflected in real life edit for clarity in real life it's not necessarily stated as explicitly as in film whether real life got it from movies or the other way round is a chicken egg sorta thing . This agreement is pointless for a number of reasons If one or both is going to fall in love, no agreement is going to stop it from happening. The one who does fall in love or both of them if neither says anything is going to be miserable. Even if they are able to hold back on falling in love somewhat, it's still going to leave them worse off, as it's going to cause a delayed, painful ending rather than a clean break. If they both fall in love it's just Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis wasting an hour and a half of my life causing them to waste time that they could have been together or even prevent them from ever starting an actual relationship.","conclusion":"It's pointless for friends with benefits to agree not to fall in love."}
{"id":"397a0844-11f6-474b-8da4-38fcf7e3942c","argument":"This understanding of harm undermines the notion of free speech. That historically has shown to be a good idea to protect marginalised groups.","conclusion":"There is a danger that censoring insensitive words in Huckleberry Finn might be used to justify censorship that is oppressive towards minorities."}
{"id":"2603deb8-d98d-4361-8b0c-d89dcafe81af","argument":"There is an own vegetarian subculture active in Seoul that expresses itself in magazines and connects in this way.","conclusion":"There are a lot of vegetarians living in China, Japan and Korea. Thus, it cannot be that difficult."}
{"id":"fd003080-0211-4fe8-aa89-b77674b7aaf2","argument":"A Rasmussen poll found, \"As the general election campaign gets started, 41% of voters nationwide say that Barack Obama is too inexperienced to be President.\"2","conclusion":"Obama lacks the experience necessary to be an effective president."}
{"id":"b04ecb76-4d92-4271-a1be-a94140b1c9b4","argument":"In film, music, art, sport and many other aspects of life, the American way is childish and simplistic. Hollywood only makes movies which appeal to the lowest instincts of the mass audience, delivering violence, dazzling special effects and simplistic story lines. Popular music is loud, aggressive and unsophisticated. Sports are designed for showy spectacle and constant celebration of frequent scoring, rather than as a prolonged examination of skill and strategy. Even clothing is garish and utilitarian. Such a culture has nothing to offer the rest of the world.","conclusion":"America\u2019s culture is inferior to those of many other nations."}
{"id":"4c1c34bc-9f30-4bbf-b8af-6033fc226d09","argument":"Throughout her political career, Hillary Clinton changed her positions on multiple issues, such as the Iraq War, conflict in Libya, gay marriage, TPP, NAFTA, etc. Why should I trust any of her campaign promises if she keeps on flip flopping? Also, a good portion of Hillary's campaign is backed by Wall Street cooperation and SuperPACS. Even though Trump himself is a billionaire and has some SuperPACs, the majority of his campaign is self financed. Wouldn't this mean Hillary Clinton would owe a lot of favors once she becomes president? Additionally, the Email scandal does not look good for Clinton. She claimed multiple times that she was allowed to set up a private server, but the State Department report proved that statement was false. Wouldn't this mean she clearly broke the law? Why should a potential felon ever become president? As I stated in the title, I'm starting to doubt my support for Trump. But I'm considering voting libertarian even though I have my own disagreements with them or just abstain from voting altogether. ~~ EDIT I've been convinced on why she flip flopped representing the opinion of the public and why she accepts SuperPAC money small donations are not enough to fund an election against a billionaire backed by the GOP political machine . I still don't understand why she put her emails in a classified server ~~ ~~ EDIT 2 I didn't know it was possible, but I ended up changing my view I'll be voting for Hillary Clinton in November. Thank you all so much ~~ EDIT 3 I'm back to being undecided there was no excuse for the email scandal.","conclusion":"My support for Donald J. Trump is weak at best. Convince me why Hillary Clinton will be a GOOD president for the United States"}
{"id":"d2688606-9c9a-4e4e-a6ce-85c74e16f65d","argument":"I feel that it's something most Americans probably want but feel it's not practical for most to protest for. Most countries in Europe get 4 to 6 weeks paid vacation plus around 10 paid holidays. In the United States, employers are required to provide zero paid days off. It seems most Americans are more worried about gay marriage, abortion, immigration, and other trivial matters that less directly affect them than getting paid time off work. I'd imagine if the issue is ever brought up in legislation, conservatives and lobbyists would scream socialism and tie mandated vacation as a full fledged support of communism. The average worker would probably then be outraged at the idea of guarantee paid vacation as unpatriotic and Un American. I just can't see this changing anytime in my life, hopefully someone can prove me wrong.","conclusion":"The United States will never have mandated paid time off like other Western Nations in our lifetime"}
{"id":"2c6ae2fd-5bd2-49ca-b213-f0a436656697","argument":"My thinking if most people start receiving more money, they will want more scarce or rare resources that they couldn't previously afford e.g. sports cars, cruises, organic foods, higher education, effective medicines, better housing, etc. . Because these goods are scarce there are a limited number of seats for sale on a plane, for example and producers are allowed to competitively price goods based on demand, the desire for these limited resources will cause the price of these resources to rise the cost of plane tickets over holiday periods . If prices for these limited goods rises, an individual's increased income is no longer sufficient to afford these goods another mass benefit is desired. If everyone benefits, no one really benefits in the US economy, in the long term . I feel like politicians keep promising things like this or talking about these ideas like they are the solution to economic disparity and that most people see the short term benefits without considering the long term economic consequences. I think wage gaps are damaging, segregating forces that hurt a lot of people, on a lot of levels, around the world, though I don't think we can all live the lives we want to without accepting that this is the reality that some people will have this, and others will not. It's a depressing view, and any fraction of hope y'all can provide to change it would greatly help D","conclusion":"Most people would not benefit from any mass tax cut or wage increase."}
{"id":"53ca2a5e-54fa-4bde-b555-69aed5557dd7","argument":"I am aware that rent control is now seen as an antiquated and heavy handed approach to maintaining affordable housing in urban neighborhoods. I understand that there are many stakeholders who would be opposed to the policy's reimplementation, including classes of small business and home owners that I have some degree of sympathy for. I also recognize I am taking for granted certain principles that someone attempting to change my view may not share that economically diverse neighborhoods, affordable housing, and urban development that doesn't displace poor residents or rapidly alter the demographics of communities are important and worthwhile urban planning goals, at least on par with the interests of for profit developers. With all of that said, I don't think communities and municipalities are equipped with adequate tools to protect against real estate speculation, development, and gentrification. I am not an urban planner so I don't know specifically all the methods that are being used to address these concerns some of the things I'm aware of are public housing, section 8 or subsidized housing, public private development partnerships, and commitments from developers to keep certain percentages of new apartments below market value or as affordable housing , only that lip service is always paid to them, but time after time communities wind up being homogenized and poor residents get forced out of their neighborhoods anyway. The continued gentrification of urban cores, coupled with the displacement of poorer residents to underserved urban peripheries, seems inevitable under our current economic paradigm, but I would argue that this arrangement is in no way desirable. Given that current policies seem incapable of slowing or halting this process, I think we should be looking at alternatives even or perhaps especially those that are out of favor in the current development centric political environment. I think we are clever enough to devise new policy that strongly protects the interests of poor and marginalized communities without causing complete ruination of business and development. In other words, I believe political intervention into the rental market, in the form of price controls that may or may not look like rent control policies of the past, can be one of our strongest and most effective tools in addressing the problem of today's rising housing costs.  Edit Thanks for all of your responses If you're interested in the current evolution of my view, you can follow and or comment on the one line of conversation I've sustained in this thread. Don't have the time to respond to everyone, but I've definitely been taking everyone's responses into account.","conclusion":"Rising housing costs in urban areas is a major problem that demands a political response. I believe rent control needs to make a comeback."}
{"id":"802524d8-67b5-4fc5-979e-fa53f835bf76","argument":"The gold to silver ratio is 1:17, and sickles are smaller than galleons. In the Muggle world it's about 50 times as much. So any hedge fundie with a Muggle-born child can just scam his way through the wizarding economy like nobody's business. Just bring in a ton of silver, get gringotts to convert that into sickles, exchange for galleons, convert to muggle cash and buy more silver. Repeat for max $$. These holes need to be fixed.","conclusion":"The wizarding economy is completely decoupled from the Muggle one."}
{"id":"604d3c9a-541f-46d8-b652-6bc9de5ce79e","argument":"We do not have a right to force somebody to make a decision that's not right for them especially if the consequence might hurt a dependent ie bad moms who did't want the responsibility in the first place","conclusion":"The right of abortion must always be given, as long as it does not threaten the mother's health, regardless of the person's reasons."}
{"id":"f25a5dd0-95b5-42a3-a002-323c5e36f7d6","argument":"At best, women only spaces would have to divert resources from the facilities and services that they currently provide in order to afford additional policing. This would reduce the quality of service drastically for the cis women who currently use them. Crucially, spaces allocated only for men face no such costs.","conclusion":"Women-only spaces are often either publicly funded or voluntary spaces. As a result, they often lack the resources needed to introduce the level of policing that would be required to keep these spaces safe for the cis women who use them."}
{"id":"905c2faf-18f0-4f53-afe3-625e5abea2ac","argument":"There are two ways you can eat wings bone in or boneless. I\u2019ll explain why I think boneless is the better option. More meat. The lack of bone means there\u2019s more room for actual meat. Easier to eat. There\u2019s no bone, so you can just pop those suckers and eat them however you want. Superior coating. Adding breading to the boneless wings heightens the flavor pallet, and it\u2019s not something that can be done for bone in wings to the same degree. Cheaper. Somehow, even though you get more meat, they\u2019re easier to eat, and they have the extra breading, they always cost less than bone in wings. You literally pay less to get more. Cleaner. Some people don\u2019t like wings because you get sauce all over your fingers and hands. Guess what? With boneless, you can use a fork and avoid getting any sauce on your hands. There\u2019s no bone to prevent you from using a fork. My view could be changed if someone can justify why bone in wings offer a potentially superior experience to more than just a niche group that justifies the higher price and is something that boneless wings can\u2019t offer or can\u2019t do as well. . Edit I\u2019m from California. I\u2019m hearing things about wings that I\u2019ve never heard of before. Breading on bone in wings? Leaving the skin on them? Crispy bone in wings? These magical ideas are foreign to me. I have so much to learn about the world clearly.","conclusion":"Boneless wings are superior to bone in wings"}
{"id":"b3e1a3a2-8522-4e11-8b1e-963736dc1d55","argument":"The people of Sodom and Gomorrah oppressed the poor and needy because they wanted more than they were given.","conclusion":"Believing that things are not good is the root of many if not every sin."}
{"id":"1719e126-6c51-4efc-ab72-b4cfc27a4946","argument":"In a formal policy debate, the negative team may always request the affirmative team to identify with specificity which agency is to carry out the proposal. Without such clarification, this debate proposal is unacceptably vague. It is unclear in this case whether \"the US\" means Donald Trump, the Supreme Court, the Charlottesville City Council, the Mayor of Baltimore, or random citizen\/activists.","conclusion":"The way history is remembered is part of a society's public record. A democratic majority is the only legitimate way of changing it."}
{"id":"7b8ee3e5-9a52-4ffc-ad89-7239028c1ad1","argument":"The book 'History by Hollywood: The Use and Abuse of the American Past gives examples of several Hollywood movies like Mississippi Burning that give inaccurate portrays of minorities in historically based films. pg-34-35","conclusion":"Hollywood is known to distort history, passing it off as truth. Having more authenticity can help its credibility in at least one aspect."}
{"id":"15920183-7738-4016-a957-63476c7124c9","argument":"In 2012 nearly eight-in-ten white evangelicals voted for Romney 79%, compared with 20% who backed Obama.","conclusion":"Evangelicals have a history of supporting the Republican Party and its leaders."}
{"id":"4c13244d-cc62-43f1-a198-8c4af13e37a9","argument":"If unbalanced people, willing to contemplate violence against others, are continuously told by prominent people that their prejudices are acceptable, or even normal, they will be much more likely to think that it is moral to carry out their violent fantasies.","conclusion":"A rise of discriminatory speech is bound to cause a rise in discriminatory violence"}
{"id":"42b5cf2d-1f69-44e1-a170-24a0be8dad2d","argument":"\"Biological sex\" vs \"Gender expression\" is a better distinction because the definitions appear to be intertwined. Gender - 'The \"male-or-female sex\" sense is attested in English from early 15c. As sex n. took on erotic qualities in 20c., gender came to be the usual English word for \"sex of a human being,\"' Sex - 'a sex, state of being either male or female, gender,\" of uncertain origin. \"Commonly taken with seco as division or 'half' of the race.'","conclusion":"This is false. Sex and gender have different definitions. There are also more than two sexes, such as intersex, beyond male and female."}
{"id":"7b00a2f8-e442-4807-887b-ad8d7179746b","argument":"My depression comes and goes. I've had it since I was 14. Last year was at its worst. I tried a lot of things. Therapy, exercise, meditation and more. Sometimes I get really happy and love life. When I'm happy I'm able to have clear thoughts. While i'm able to have clear thoughts I'm able to look back at my depression and realize I have no reason to be sad. I realize that a lot of things I think about while having depression are thoughts that are stupid and shouldn't listen to. I absolutely hate it when it comes back while I'm happy. It's a horrible feeling transitioning emotions that quickly. From happy to depressed. It's emotionally draining going back and forth. I feel like every time that transition happens. It feels as if I'm having the best day of my life. But on that same day I find out my mom died. I HATE it. When I'm happy I have so much hope that it's for sure gone. That I'm finally cured but then it comes back and I'm back to hating myself and hating my life. It only gets worse as I get older and older. I'm trying to be successful but depression is preventing me from learning and being productive. I'm 21 and almost 22. My age is rising while my life is frozen. Sooner or later. I'll reach that point of no return. Where I'm too old to do anything and I'm going to start hating myself even more and it'll give me more of a reason to not see a point in living life. Because living life at the moment is miserable.","conclusion":"I believe my depression will never go away. Please change my view."}
{"id":"22f44219-7e8a-4d6c-b80b-083da62da7e5","argument":"I can't get behind either the Democratic or Republican party line completely, and I want more accurate representation for everyone. It would be better to have 9 political parties, that align along fiscal and social policies, ranging from conservative liberal. So Socially and fiscally conservative Socially conservative, but fiscally moderate Socially conservative but fiscally liberal Socially moderate but fiscally conservative Socially and fiscally moderate Socially moderate but fiscally liberal Socially liberal but fiscally conservative Socially consvatice but fiscally liberal Socially moderate but fiscally liberal Socially and fiscally liberal It's like trying to fit square pegs into round holes for most people I know that actually pay attention to the political scene. This would create a political congressional scene that swings along those two spectrums depending on how people voted. You might have a lot of fiscally moderate politicians who are pretty wide spread on social issues one year, or just the opposite the next. Change my view gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"It's time to abandon the bipartisan political system in the United States"}
{"id":"b396616f-9975-4c58-b304-63bd1ea6eb8b","argument":"Roy Moore has been accused of sexually engaging a 14 year old girl and of violently sexually assaulting a different 16 year old girl. These accusations seem extremely credible to me and I believe them to be accurate. Their accounts are corroborated by evidence which puts them in the same place as Moore at the same time in the case of the 14 year old girl and in the case of the 16 year old girl, by credible documentary evidence which demonstrates personal interaction and extremely disturbing messages in a high school yearbook. Moore has denied these allegations. His denials have been perfunctory and meandering and have not meaningfully grappled with the specific factual allegations. I believe his denials are lies. So all of that said, I think if the voters of Alabama elect Roy Moore, he must be seated in the Senate, and should not be expelled. The 17th amendment is extremely clear that the Senate is chosen by the people. In both regular and special elections, it is the people who fill the seats of the Senate. To refuse to seat a Senator who has been popularly elected in a fair election I believe is unconstitutional, as it would require falsely stating that the elections, returns and qualifications of its own members were not compliant with the law. To expel a Senator or member of the House for conduct which was known to the voters prior to the election is undemocratic. The 17th amendment is clear that the people choose, and if they make an informed choice to elect a child molester, then they are constitutionally entitled to be represented by a child molester. If Moore were prosecuted and convicted of some crime related to his child molestation which appears impossible due to the statute of limitations , then it might be worthwhile to expel him for being unable to carry out his duties as a Senator due to being imprisoned lawfully. But absent that circumstance of imprisonment making him literally incapable of carrying out his office, I think if elected, he must be allowed into the Senate. If the information came to light after the election that would be different, as his expulsion would not then represent an overriding of the will of the people that the crimes alleged were not important enough to exclude him from the Senate. But if he is elected, I do not believe he can be expelled based solely upon the knowledge that was available to Alabama voters at the time that they elected him. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"If elected, Roy Moore should be seated in the Senate and should not be expelled, even though I believe he engaged in child molestation."}
{"id":"719c254c-84ff-4f92-b969-f39bd579123c","argument":"Government policy is carried out via violence and threats of violence, but violence is not an appropriate tool for dealing with most issues.","conclusion":"The government should be involved in the lives of its citizens as little as possible."}
{"id":"cd5e026e-5d0d-453f-9e5a-096355524675","argument":"The World Health Organisation, a collection of internationally qualified doctors state that breast milk naturally contains all the nutrients that a child could need for the first 6 months of its life From iron to zinc, calcium to protein; everything that is vital for a healthy young life can be found in these natural given milk ducts. The Government should make it compulsory for mothers to breast feed to ensure that every child is allowed to benefit from this. Not one child should ever be disadvantaged due to their mother\u2019s selfish choice or lack of effort. To make breast feeding compulsory is the only way to ensure this fairness. If we want equality, this is what we must do.","conclusion":"All children are entitled to a healthy start in life"}
{"id":"7d2d7e25-652c-40dc-bcad-ad5dd9e4ed50","argument":"\"I don't want n***ers in the same bus with me because they're dirty and spread disease\" was a politically incorrect thing to say in the 1950s in the US. Acknowledging that led to better integration of black American people, and that phrase is now seen as barbaric, and the very cause for the problems that it mentions.","conclusion":"Most politically incorrect speech stems from irrational sources - intuition and emotion. Over time they become obsolete, after making a lot of damage."}
{"id":"db8ce086-3a5b-4206-ab0e-a77315226044","argument":"Making the BBC subscription funded and commercially minded, would be the end of the breadth and depth of current BBC coverage. They'd naturally concentrate on commercially popular productions and less commercial programmes may be lost.","conclusion":"Without the funds from TV licences, the BBC would be unable to create the same volume and diversity of content."}
{"id":"444110ef-1dd5-4813-9025-ab07ec65bdb1","argument":"Clearly it is not Imperialism. It is clearly some form of domination but it is certainly not imperialism. the US has no crown, or king, or empire, or aristocracy, we don't colonize, we don't ship civilians overseas to govern their territories. There is no way it is imperialism and anybody who uses the word is attempting to be inflammatory to win an argument and just sounds like a total idiot to me. It seems you are trying to match a 19th 20th century injustice to something the US does that they themselves cannot describe so they scream it's imperialism, it's the American empire. . Don't downvote me because you don't like my views. This is  not DMV. It's the most irritating thing about this subreddit.","conclusion":"I think anybody who uses the word Imperialism to describe US policy abroad is a total idiot who doesn't know a god damned thing about US policy."}
{"id":"672358a3-c3a4-4176-b56e-ad30d492a9a7","argument":"The lasting example of a monarch, unlike temporary presidencies, provides a role model to its citizens which keeps them in check pg. 8","conclusion":"Social trust, an important sociological and economic factor which promotes cohesion, is higher in monarchies pg.8"}
{"id":"f02e2a77-3382-4952-bd74-66e315bb1b32","argument":"I tried to read the book two times, once in my language German and once in the original English. Both times I didn't make it through half of the book though some parts read very well, others are absolutely boring and incredibly slow paced. In some parts I really actually struggled to keep on reading. The worst sections are the ones where a character mainly Elves in Rivendell talks about lore. It is incredibly discouraging when you are hit with a wall of names and dates that you can't remember as a whole. Another problem are the characters They are archetypical, sometimes shallow and almost never feel real . The world Tolkien created is amazing and the amount of lore he imagined is stunning. I really liked the movies they are fast paced, capture the story pretty well although of course many details are left out and make the characters a lot more easy to empathise with with some exclusions. I even ejoyed the Hobbit, because it was more of a fairy tale than LotR was. Definitely, Tolkiens work has been a game changer. But it's not one of the greatest novels story and dramaturgy wise .","conclusion":"Lord of the Rings is not one of the greatest novels of all time."}
{"id":"899e755e-9172-4d85-90a6-2f8d41f743bf","argument":"Hey . This is just a theory that I wanted to hear other perspectives on. I think a hostile takeover should be illegal because it just destroys competition. I don't see how that is fair competition among companies. They just snuff out the competition and don't allow them to create a balanced market. I don't see any reason how this benefits capitalism or our economy in anyway. If you can enlighten me in some way, please do. Thanks. Tl dr Hostile takeovers destroy competition and should be illegal.","conclusion":"Hostile takeovers should be illegal."}
{"id":"40c888c0-478f-494e-a3fe-d2f034a60b9b","argument":"Now before I get any comments i am talking about infantry life not war crimes. WW1 was composed mainly of suicide missions of charging over the top only to get mowed down with machine gun fire, dying slowly by barbed wire as mud soaks into your cuts, getting crushed by tanks, shell shock, freezing to death in the Italian alps, horses charging tanks in Arabia, and the list goes on. Note I am not trying to say WW2 was a cakewalk or anything in fact Stalingrad and Iwo Jima were two of the most horrible battles in human history but then again so were Verdun and Gallipoli. and thats not even talking about chemical warfare, something that was so fucked up even Hitler couldn't bring himself to use on on enemy troops.","conclusion":"World War 1 was just as bad if not worse than World War 2"}
{"id":"65b093e2-ad02-4fcc-8b1b-db72fef3a9e9","argument":"Checking with the dictionary, the oft-cited by Trump defenders of the dossier being \"not verified is not the same as saying the dossier is \"not true And as indicated above parts of it have been verified as accurate and some parts of it have not yet been verified. No parts of it have been found to be false. As far as what information is publicly available. Special Counsel Robert Mueller has likely verified or dis-confirmed the rest of it.","conclusion":"The Christopher Steele Dossier has not been discredited. Parts of the Dossier have been proven true, and parts of the dossier have yet to be verified. But it\u2019s not the case that the claims in the Dossier have been proven false."}
{"id":"f887d1a7-5a92-4f11-b858-890a8c83c316","argument":"Alright, I've gotten into this debate a few times and hold irrationally strong views on it but I'm willing to change those views if given the right information . As a disclaimer, I can understand why someone doesn't consider a hot dog a sandwich if they also don't consider a sub a sandwich mostly those that stick to the strictest meat, lettuce, and cheese between two slices of bread kinda mindset , but I can't for the life of me understand why some people think subs are sandwiches and don't think the same of the classic hot dog. I've heard the common argument of hot dogs basically being tacos, but the two are fundamentally different. Tacos, as far as I'm aware, don't even use bread or anything to do with yeast at all in their ingredients. A taco isn't a sandwich in my mind but that's not what I'm debating here and a hot dog is because the two are mostly fundamentally different things they're only marginally related because of their shape and sharing of some ingredients, but that's where the similarities stop and that in my mind is enough to explain why one can be a sandwich and one cannot. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"If you believe a sub is a sandwich, you must believe a hot dog is a sandwich"}
{"id":"809275f2-5aa6-4a5b-ad37-c63fbdc1b4e7","argument":"Trump's populist appeal may be bolstered if impeachment proceedings are initiated. Such an action may confirm the narrative that the country\u2019s establishment and \u201cdeep state\u201d are conspiring to prevent Trump from fulfilling his political mandate.","conclusion":"It is unclear and therefore better to err on the side of caution and not impeach."}
{"id":"9e621ab3-93c1-4c43-b24c-12bdfc3d06c6","argument":"\"Probably the only place where a man can feel really secure is in a maximum security prison, except for the imminent threat of release.\" Germaine Greer","conclusion":"That men should be punished or attacked is a view espoused by many leading feminists."}
{"id":"f02f4281-5cd7-4690-a0d2-c0fcbf16161e","argument":"If you don't believe in God, then you don't believe. If you do believe in God, then you believe. There is no real middle ground. However, acting in a moral manner where you treat others as you would want to be treated is never wrong. That is what Pascal was saying.","conclusion":"An omniscient god would know whether you \"believe\" because of Pascal's argument or whether you truly believe, thus making Pascal's Wager a useless argument."}
{"id":"26a42667-c2ee-478a-b97c-891e97e0cdd5","argument":"If the access to opportunity and materials is unevenly balanced there will be people who will never realise their potential or people so spoiled that they don't feel the need to.","conclusion":"If all people are born with truly equal access to the system and to opportunities in society, then all people will have an equal sense of entitlement."}
{"id":"1305bbfc-a537-48d7-96cf-e3af4435b48d","argument":"ASICs can easily be made ineffective, at any point in time, by changing the algorithm. So they don't pose an existential threat.","conclusion":"ASICs are not an existential threat to the network. twitter.com"}
{"id":"c7157abd-7164-465a-a3e6-41438170fbf4","argument":"I think that participating in homosexual acts is definitely a choice. Regardless of nature a gay person still chooses to do the things they do. For instance, if a murderer was genetically more aggressive than another person he would still be guilty of killing someone, because he chose to do so. Maybe his genes influenced him, but that doesn't mean he's incapable of choosing his own actions. Homosexuality, in my opinion, goes completely against the theory of evolution. If being gay was because of a genetic trait, than that trait would be bred out of the species in a single generation, simply because it is impossible for gay people to reproduce. It seems like lgbt organizations have convinced people it is, not only normal, but cool interesting to be openly homosexual. This view is based on more personal experience, but most lgbt groups seem a lot like cliques.","conclusion":"I think that being gay is a choice, and that most people who choose to be gay do it for attention."}
{"id":"a9f8b841-c908-4267-91f4-feb51eb2318e","argument":"With respect to justification, we can imagine someone placed in circumstances in which belief in the Great Pumpkin would be justified for him. For example, Linus\u2019 parents assured him of the existence of the Great Pumpkin. Yet, this doesn\u2019t imply these beliefs are justified for normally situated adults because they would formulate de facto defeaters for their belief in the Great Pumpkin.","conclusion":"If justification involves obedience to one's epistemic duties or possession of a sound noetic structure of beliefs, then this leads to radical relativism. If belief in any God can meet this criteria, then just any belief, it is alleged, such as Linus\u2019 belief in the Great Pumpkin, can also be justified."}
{"id":"32cb9a12-9049-4c47-a893-7124ec110f7f","argument":"I live in Arizona, and the teachers are going on strike here, demanding a 20 37 raise. Although I accept that a teachers role in society is important, that does not constitute a pay raise. The price of everything is determined by supply and demand. The market for teachers is over saturated with qualified candidates. Why pay someone 75,000 when I can pay the next lowest bidder candidate 34,000? If anything, teachers are overpaid. In Arizona, a state that has some of the lowest pay for teachers, they have a mean income of 47,000, and around 35,000 starting. That's not even factoring for the nearly 25,000 worth of benefits they receive each year. Not bad for a job that gets 3 months of the year off. Although I do believe that an increase in funding for some student resources are important updated books shared computers , an increase of the salary of the teacher is not justified. If someone wants to make a lot of money, then get a job working in a field that pays well, like other STEM fields. By getting a job as a teacher you understand that you will not be getting paid well. If you don't like getting paid peanuts, no one is forcing you to stay employed as a teacher. Find a job else where that pays you what you think you are worth. If you can't, don't tax me more for your problem. Arizona has one of the lowest tax rates out of any of the other 50 states. If you want to live in a state that pays their teachers more, why not move to a state with double the taxes? I choose to live a child free fiscally frugal life. Why should I have to pay for someone else's mistake?","conclusion":"I don't think teachers need a raise."}
{"id":"355a6f98-aa4e-41b0-92d2-f7bc7389ee14","argument":"I believe the whole survival of the fittest concept that lays out a lot of the ground work for capitalism will be very difficult to support in the somewhat near future due to automation of labor. I wanna say it was Marx ? who basically made a similar claim but said by the end of the 20th century. He was clearly wrong about it, but that's mostly because the automation still required human interaction. Moving forward from now though, it will only decrease employment because we're moving from human interaction towards technology which can do everything on it's own. Sure there will be people involved to supervise and make sure everything goes according to plan, but it certainly wouldn't be one to one. And having a survival of the fittest mindset when jobs are steadily declining due to technological replacements, is not going to help anything. Lots more people are going to be out of jobs if, for example, they can't go work at McDonald's anymore because McDonald's doesn't need human workers. So we could potentially reach a point where we hardly have to do anything in the way of work, making it kind of difficult to not have some sort of socialism or standard of living in place to prevent most of the population from being out on the streets. I suppose there is an argument to be made about companies not replacing people with robotics because more people making money means more people spending money which is good for business overall. But I feel as though with more and more advancements being made in AI technology, it will be very difficult for companies to not utilize the extremely cheap and efficient labor. We can't just ignore the fact that this technology is being made and continue on without even a consideration towards it. I also would like to argue that many people would possibly be more satisfied with a world where they're not required to work 40 hours a week but can still live comfortably because of a standard of living and some degree of socialism to compensate for the lack of work that will be needed to survive in the near future. Of course there's always going to be people who strive for more to live a better life which could still be possible in whatever other ways, but with more automation there's less people needing to work, and with less people needing to work there's a good reason to have some sort of socialist concepts in place, and with more socialism comes less need for a survival of the fittest mindset stemming from capitalism. .","conclusion":"Capitalism in it's current form moving into the future isn't going to be possible"}
{"id":"ae2f0f4b-a779-45b5-94d0-dcb6f68cc1c7","argument":"Dogs identify unsafe conditions and are encouraged to listen to their gut. If a dog spots bad ice, the handler listens. If they don't it is the handlers life also on the line.","conclusion":"The musher may lead. But the dogs are the ones driving the sled and making choices the handler cannot."}
{"id":"19850945-4a43-4a25-b053-571675f875da","argument":"A state's reputation can ultimately not protect it from threats and attacks by other states.","conclusion":"International relations depend more on mutual tangible benefits rather than on vague \"reputation\"."}
{"id":"2472e3f8-b6e4-4d11-aaea-34707ba0ce4a","argument":"I say killer asteroid in the title for brevity, but I mean any celestial object asteroid, comet, planetoid, etc large enough to wipe out life on Earth. I have three basic reasons We know there are no planet destroyers in the Asteroid Belt, which means anything that'd take out Earth would need to come from the Kuiper Belt or the Oort Cloud. Both of these are very far away, and would give us lots of warning, even if the object were presently on its impact trajectory orbit. More likely, we'd detect it multiple orbits in advance, and have decades or centuries before predicted impact. But I think we'll at least have multiple years. Nuclear weapons would be pretty effective at deflecting an object. They are very energy dense, and we can use a standoff detonation to cause ablation on one side of the comet asteroid and nudge it. We only need a very slight nudge to push it off of an Earthbound trajectory when it is far away. If an impact were imminent, humanity would throw all feasible resources into stopping it. A lot of the things which make present space travel difficult would be overcome fast. We would allow launches which have a high chance of spreading radioactive debris onto Earth for instance, or which have a high chance of loss of human life. We might even send astronauts on a suicide mission. Of course, money would be no object for this, and massive logistical resources would be poured into anything with a chance of saving us.","conclusion":"If a killer asteroid were headed to Earth, Humans would be able to stop it."}
{"id":"491b3601-6b71-4802-a86a-b2c192fab509","argument":"Reality shows send a bad message and help to create a cult of instant celebrity. They are typically built about shameless self-promotion, based on humiliating others and harming relationships for the entertainment of each other and the viewers at home. These programmes suggest that anyone can become famous just by getting on TV and \"being themselves\", without working hard or having any particular talent. Kids who watch these shows will get the idea that they don't need to study hard in school, or train hard for a regular job. As John Humphrys points out, 'we tell kids what matters is being a celebrity and we wonder why some behave the way they do' 1 As American lawyer Lisa Bloom fears, 'addiction to celebrity culture is creating a generation of dumbed-down women.'2 Reality shows encourage such addictions and promote the generally misguided belief that they should aspire to be the reality stars they watch on their televisions. 1 Humphrys, J. 2004, August 28. Take this oath: First, do no harm. Retrieved July 4, 2011, from The Guardian: 2 Becker, A. 2003, March 1. Hot or Not: Reality TV can be harmful to women. Retrieved July 4, 2011, from Pyschology Today improve this","conclusion":"Reality TV encourages people to pursue celebrity status, and discourages the value of hard work and an education"}
{"id":"08ab6c21-1aea-48d4-bb9e-9a8f9acb4357","argument":"The biological concept of species has changed with advancements in science. Whereas taxonomic classification has previously relied on physiological, morphological, functional, or behavioral features of organisms, the advent of molecular biology has initiated a fundamental restructuring of the tree of life. Observable features may have no relationship to genetic phylogeny. There is no consensus on the delineation of a species, and there never really was.","conclusion":"Social definitions change over time, imparting different meaning to biological concepts or realities, making this claim unsupportable in absolute terms."}
{"id":"95b12113-d87a-4cb4-aa9f-10352e4093fd","argument":"I don't want to turn this into a debate about gay marriage. My point is that the logic that I've often heard justifying gay marriage is that if two consenting adults love each other, they should be able to marry regardless of their sex loveislove . Their marriage isn't harming anyone so it shouldn't be problematic. But I don't see why this argument cannot extend to polygamous or incestuous marriages. In fact, a recent article argued that it can The counter article did not persuade me otherwise After all, if the relationship is between consenting adults, why should I care if it is between 3, 4, or 5 consenting adults or between a brother and sister? I'll quickly try and rebuff the most common counterarguments. For polygamy, many would say that it promotes misogyny. And indeed, historical polygamous marriage favored wealthy males. However, modern day polygamy would not. If made legal today, it would apply equally to a woman having multiple husbands, a group marriage consisting of men and women or a group marriage consisting of just men or just women. Even if some polygamous marriages ended up being between one man and many women, if the relationship is between consenting adults, why should we care? For incest, it is often argued that the children of such a union would have a much higher chance of having genetic diseases, and this is indeed true. However, a marriage is not predicated on having biological children. This is obvious as people who are biologically incapable of having children sterile can marry as well as same sex couples, who cannot have biological children together. These couples can always choose to not have children at all, or they can adopt. In fact, it could even still be illegal for incestuous couples to have biological children, while still allowing them to marry. It should be noted that the above arguments cannot be applied to child marriage or bestiality since there is a partner who cannot give knowing consent a.k.a. a child or an animal . If, you took the time to read through this thank you. And please  if you can","conclusion":"The main arguments used to justify same sex marriage can be used to justify polygamous and incestuous marriages."}
{"id":"d72048a3-73e2-4d68-873e-bb6d724a2033","argument":"I have watched the Super Size Me movie the other day and I was discussed at what america has became. We can not except the fact that we as the consumer, are solely responsible for our own food choices and eating habits. Even worst is we blame the fast food companies for our obesity problem","conclusion":"I think America is always going have a obesity rate that is uncontrollable"}
{"id":"796bb414-05fa-4834-9a24-d8bfa505d602","argument":"Economies of scale will not only allow for immense cost cutting which is needed if we're going to incarcerate so many people , but also justify specialised programs eg having college level education, world class mental health care, etc. available in the prison . A single framework could be better at allowing world's best practice among guards and other prison workers, and may allow security to be consolidated especially if it's on an alcatraz type island . Significant separation from home will be comforting to families, and interstate mixing will help prevent local criminal syndicates from having any kind of presence in prison. Extremely large numbers of people in the one place can allow for large scale work to be done with prison labour. Having one prison also allows a meaningful comparison to be made between states and their laws. The only issue I can think of would be that visitation would be more difficult, but with video conferencing becoming widespread that's less of an issue. Remember this is a prison. This is where you go after sentencing. There's still room for temporary custody and other forms of detention. This is just an idea I had that is no doubt horrifying to some. I want to know why it's a bad one. EDIT Not entirely convinced it's a bad idea but I most definitely have to go back to the drawing board and come back with an idea of how it's going to work and some numbers to back up my claims.","conclusion":"The USA should have one \"mega prison\" for all 2.5 million of its inmates."}
{"id":"8bc1e5c9-f911-42aa-b926-57bc042e9f29","argument":"Remember back in the 2000\u2019s when you would see ads that you can interact with on the sides of the screen that would say something like, \u201cshoot three ducks and win a free Motorola razor \u201d For a time that scam worked, a lot of people didn\u2019t understand that it was bull shit. Eventually people caught on and now you\u2019re considered retarded if you fall for something so stupid. The advent of social media is brand new to a majority of the population and yes, most people know how to use. However, most people still don\u2019t fully understand how it can isolate them in an echo chamber. Most adults didn\u2019t grow up with the ability to voice there opinion out to the masses right at their finger tips. The over stimulation of fake news and misleading content is to overwhelming for many people. Most adults weren\u2019t used to being insulted by complete strangers even if it was through a harmless monitor. Society as we know it, hasn\u2019t fully integrated with the internet and therefore it is a very volatile place. I believe the generation that was born in the 2000\u2019s will have a much more stable understanding of the internet. Eventually people will see fake news as nothing more threatening than an email from a Nigerian prince asking for a money transfer.","conclusion":"The internet as we know it today isn\u2019t ruining society, old people just don\u2019t know how to use it."}
{"id":"c307ca89-4f71-4cc7-a893-5b8752a76f32","argument":"The release of the new Star Wars trailer has caused me to info binge a bit this morning during work. I've been a fan of Star Wars since my father took me to see the 1997 release in theaters when I was 7. Now for years I've been aware of the Han shot first controversy, and honestly, I don't see why it's a big deal. Of all the changes to object to, it seems like such a minor change. For instance, fan reactions to this change are far louder and far more negative than reactions to the stupid alien song and dance number from Return of the Jedi. That scene is an abomination. I've seen the original and the remake of the Han and Greedo scene. To me, who shot first is utterly inconsequential. Both the viewers and Han knew what Greedo was going to do. Although, it seems silly to think that Greedo would miss at such point blank range if he hadn't been shot first. So  as to why this is even a relevant change.","conclusion":"It doesn't matter whether Han shot first"}
{"id":"32e29d95-baf5-47be-a16e-bee6dc938535","argument":"Diseases in animals are often substantially different than diseases in humans, meaning that breakthroughs in solving animal diseases don't necessarily translate to helping people.","conclusion":"Differences between animals and humans mean positive results for animal subjects do not correspond with positive results for humans."}
{"id":"ebcbd2a6-526f-48ef-9fa4-0ab6c59920d1","argument":"In the US, there has been a spread of virginity balls in Christian communities, where young women attend a ball with their fathers and pledge to abstain from sex until marriage. This often involves the fathers vowing to protect their daughter's purity and therefore equates virginity with purity for women.","conclusion":"Gendered expectations around virginity often mean that women view virginity loss as giving something away and are encouraged to protect their virginity, while men losing their virginity is viewed as a way to gain status and experience."}
{"id":"e6687bc1-62cf-4211-b3cd-3204f3aa6012","argument":"I heard this saying several years ago, and I think it captures my foreign policy stance perfectly. A little background, I live in America. Some of you probably already know where I am going. It seems like my country is out to solve every problem in the world. Just recently, Ive heard people calling for a nuclear standoff with Russia over Crimea. That we should send ground troops to secure the crash site of that Malaysia airlines flight that got shot down. And theres the constant demand for more involvement with the Israel Palestine conflict. I could go on listing examples, but I'd be here all day. Everything from North Korea to Josef Kony, a significant bloc of American citizens thinks that it is our job to swoop in and save the day. I ask why? What significance does any of that have for our country? Because all I see is our sons and daughters being sent to die in someone else's conflict. Not to mention the billions of dollars that get spent in the process. Why not let the rest of the world police itself for a change?","conclusion":"\"The tears of strangers are only water\""}
{"id":"b7588508-12ea-40c1-97f3-3c7becfbcf95","argument":"May implemented measures which would make it difficult for illegal immigrants to see a doctor.","conclusion":"Her immigration policy has been ineffective and harmful to immigrants."}
{"id":"5cf93de5-0b86-4e36-a02c-814378fe666e","argument":"The overall sex ratio in India is 943 943 women per 1,000 men, which means that women have a greater chance than men to find a partner.","conclusion":"Women have more freedom to remarry than men in many cases."}
{"id":"9aa3e0b9-93d7-4d29-9666-bb61ebf60631","argument":"If axiom of choice is true, then P=NP? Aaronson 2003 Is P versus NP formally independent?","conclusion":"P=NP could be dependent on another difficult problem, such as the Fermat's last theorem."}
{"id":"557a9589-9856-4543-8d43-a924a61a764e","argument":"Due to the cooperative nature of unions, some self-interest - and therefore the sovereignty to act in that self interest - must be put aside to make the union functional.","conclusion":"EU member states already cede a considerable amount of sovereignty to the EU upon accession into the Union with a system of 'pooled sovereignty"}
{"id":"1529dc0a-d0d0-489c-9e71-cd038f349a3a","argument":"The scientific method is the best and only reliable path to increase humanity's store of knowledge. Divine inspiration, intuition, logical arguing and observation are great but not reliable ways to test hypotheses. Applying the scientific method is how we distinguish random bullshit from theories which actually work. Social sciences seem to produce little hard results but tons of theories, most of which don't seem to work. Granted that these disciplines study humans and it's tricky but not impossible to design ethical experiments with humans as subjects. But just because it's difficult is no excuse for the thousands of careers, reams of paper and billions of dollars spent for what? Navel gazing papers about the author's feelings about social construction of gender roles? Survey research asking self selected volunteers how they feel about things? Anecdote filled speculation? If psychology really worked you'd think psychologists would be as respected and effective as medical doctors. If education researchers did something useful why are our schools so bad? NSF sorry for the US centric post has a limited amount of funding to dispense. I think it would be better spent on science that empirically pushes humanity's knowledge base forward. .","conclusion":"Areas of study that don't use the scientific method shouldn't be called sciences or funded by NSF"}
{"id":"31331bd2-217c-4ac4-a48a-bfddcf2eb4b6","argument":"Nation-states and national sovereignty are outdated concepts in the light of ongoing globalization which separate peoples and hinder economic, social and political progress Internationalism","conclusion":"By turning into a state the USE undermines it's supranational character and the promotion thereof in the world."}
{"id":"61df129c-13d3-4355-9f03-80d419c4ea14","argument":"Being a young student currently in high school it\u2019s been tough for me, but I didn\u2019t realize why for the longest time, I always thought that I was the screw up not anything else, while that is partly true, I believe that the school system is leaving me without a lot of valuable life skills or job experience. I also believe that school hasn\u2019t taught me in the best way so that I could learn the most. But I want to make sure I\u2019m right, maybe there is something I\u2019m missing. I never expect to be 100 right on anything like this, so please, I\u2019m open for you to change my view.","conclusion":"I believe the U.S school system is outdated and should be changed."}
{"id":"d7338a3a-4965-460f-8a43-86eeda1d6018","argument":"In classical Greek philosophy humans are described as social or political animals, with an innate propensity to develop more complex communities the size of a city or town, with a division of labor and law-making. Humans need these communities to develop their full potential","conclusion":"Human life has a higher value because humans need and depend on each other, socially and economically."}
{"id":"87a86db5-c208-4e1f-b1b1-50cad376433b","argument":"Arguably, people have rights including the right to free speech because they protect us from experiences in which others exploit our vulnerabilities Hess, p. 334 However, corporations cannot experience anything, and so do not need to be granted certain rights to protect them from these experiences.","conclusion":"Even if corporations are people, it does not follow that they should have the full set of rights as a human person, including identical free speech protections."}
{"id":"916beaeb-0f0c-4122-b4e7-bd62acec1b30","argument":"President Obama tackled contentious issues such as gun control and giving legal status to a large number of individuals illegally in the US. This shows the substantial influence that concerns about reelection have on policy-making.","conclusion":"Politicians become more daring when they know that they have nothing to lose because they cannot be reelected."}
{"id":"2b92cb12-32fe-4334-9994-127114ac9fbc","argument":"What we see as fine-tuned is the only possible state for the universe to exist in a way that would lead to this very moment. It is not that Earth has miraculously been given atmosphere containing oxygen that we, conveniently, use to survive. We use oxygen because that's what we evolved to breathe because of how the universe turned out to be.","conclusion":"To believe that universe is fine-tuned for life is a fallacy we commit as beings which exist in this universe."}
{"id":"184b0eaf-f046-426b-b676-c97d9b64fbf4","argument":"France has proposed an alternative whereby the P5 would pledge not to use the veto in cases of humanitarian crisis, so as to speed up a UN response to the crisis.","conclusion":"This could easily be solved if the Security Council was expanded to include more countries."}
{"id":"527b0d30-5b93-4129-b96a-32787c75784b","argument":"Okay, let's get things straight. It's good on things like french fries, and eggs. But that's nearly it. I know people that put ketchup on absolutely everything. I find it inferior to the other condiment leaders such as barbecue sauce and mustard. It just doesn't belong on everything. Certainly not soft pretzels, not on hotdogs. I think that we have a culture that promotes ketchup eating from an early age and i think that it's just plain wrong. It's taste is just too tangy, and I find that it ruins almost every food it touches, unless it is potato or egg based. Ketchup is a 4 10 at best. Somebody please change my view.","conclusion":"Ketchup isn't that good."}
{"id":"93171af1-6c98-4a8c-ac53-89d6702b35f9","argument":"With genIV tech nuclear becomes the superior choice. The are many reactors but these are some common specs Increased fissile efficiency from .5 to 99 . This also means less waste. Increased range of fuels due to alternative fuel cycles, thorium becomes an alternative Increased temperature allows lower pressure. Pressure is incredibly scary in context of safety engineering and reliability. Lower pressures allows reduced safety margins. Liquid fuels makes meltdowns imposible since the fuel is already a liquid. Drain tanks and passive safety systems becomes available. Less complex safety systems and passive cooling systems. Molten lead becomes available as a coolent and neutron absorber. Lead cannot vaporize and can be passively cycled without the presence of pumps. Less storage time due to less ionising waste. From 100 000 s of years down to about 100 years. Possibilities of recycling old waste and making it the only possible way of actually getting rid of it. Introverted cycles instead of extrovert cycles. Cycles that are dependent on energy to run instead of ones that need power to halt the process from runoff. Effectively making some reactors walk away safe and literally impossible to runoff. Modular technology becomes possible due to reduced volume thanks to the absence of enormous containment vessels due to lower pressures. Mass producing reactors becomes possible rather than building on site. Nuclear proliferation becomes nearly impossible using breeder cycles. edit main reason why we don't use breeders today, Weinberg was not funded to build breeders because they did not produce bombs Not all reactors comes with all the specs but most of them are generally low waste and walk away safe. There are some challanges but nothing impossible. Edit I should state that I meant bulk energy production. Solar obviously has some pros but cannot compare to nuclear in terms of stability and concentration. Solar should be persued but only act as a compliment to bulk energy production.","conclusion":"Modern nuclear power is by far the superior choice of energy production and we should fund nuclear technology on a larger scale"}
{"id":"4330f53a-a765-4c5a-801e-b87036fdb095","argument":"Opp\u2019s has completely misunderstood our policy. All their args are directed against the gov indiscriminately abolishing all existing regulations and showering bailout loans and funds on companies. That is not what we argue for. To repeat, our stimulus package contains two items: 1 granting tax cuts, and 2 selectively lifting regulations that hinder corporate efficiency. Some regulations are meant to keep market forces alive and guarantee a reasonable level of consumer safety and environmental protection. It is illogical to argue for eliminating such regulations; those are kept in place. What we target are regulations that may help the economy during expansionary times but prove obstacles to efficiency during recession. Special licensing between companies engaged in a contract and other such certifications; market distortions like rates and prices that are set excessively low either readjust higher or remove; & barriers of entry liks special licensing and bailouts to select firms are such. Thus Opp\u2019s pts about working conditions and human rights violations do not hold. Deregulation will improve performance of firms. SP proved optimal with the US airline deregulation in mid 1990s. Regulated routes+competition were inefficient. With deregulation, the industry grew, creating more jobs and services, and ultimately fares became low, with consumers benefiting. What we ultimately seek is to make full use of the market forces. We do not argue for bailouts; it hurts competition. That cutting taxes and giving bailouts is unfeasible is an undue criticism. Our arg is a bottom-up approach that utilize the nature of firms to strive for profit maximization. This will not only stabilize the economy, but stimulate the supply sector to allow overall expansion\u2014a sound exit strategy. Opp\u2019s said companies will try to \u201cget more profit, the cheapest and easiest way. Yes, that is exactly why we\u2019re entrusting recovery to firms.","conclusion":"Cutting taxes, no bailouts, and selective deregulation to keep market forces alive and promote efficiency."}
{"id":"2c3b923a-04e1-4203-b7e1-e82ad9186da8","argument":"I'm currently reading my way through what are considered the best sci fi books of all time. Basically all that Robert A. Heinlein has ever written is there. So far I have read Starship Troopers , Stranger in a Strange Land and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress . They have all left me disappointed and wondering why people think he was such a great writer. I understand that at the time they were published, those books contained controversial views that may have been groundbreaking. But I don't believe that just talking about religious and sexual freedom in a book automatically makes it a good book. All I can see is a bunch of outdated ideas mentions of homosexuality are cringeworthy, even for the 1960's wrapped around a very thin narrative. I don't think his books should still be seen as some of the best sci fi books ever written.","conclusion":"I think Robert A. Heinlein books are not very good, and I don't understand why they are on every top sci-fi books list."}
{"id":"8bb66b38-8b71-4c66-b2aa-167a244b3e29","argument":"The absence of litigation against wrongful actions by police officials allow for future constitutional wrongs to be carried out against the citizens.","conclusion":"The protection of qualified immunity allows law enforcement agents to abuse their authority without being accountable."}
{"id":"d24ccfe9-c69b-4c05-9deb-0d2ec837bcc9","argument":"The US could incentivize North Korea to stop its nuclear programming by ending or down-scaling its military activity at the North Korean border.","conclusion":"There are alternative approaches to stopping North Korea's nuclear program that better serve American interests."}
{"id":"2233a832-f459-4ec4-98b9-6fd6e2c9b6b7","argument":"Indians idolize Bollywood stars and love to emulate them. So, if a star is seen stalking someone in a movie, it becomes the new normal.","conclusion":"Just because they show what is happening does not mean that showing it is good."}
{"id":"46a1cfe5-0b5e-4c41-ac87-cf4c777b7ca8","argument":"Many argue that female circumcision is different, as it removes a \"sense organ\". The foreskin has been shown to contain an enormous quantity of nerves comparable to that which is lost in female circumcision. huffingtonpost.com","conclusion":"Religious rights are considered an insufficient justification for female circumcision. To give this as a reason for male circumcision creates a double-standard."}
{"id":"c6afffa3-51d1-457f-aa28-2adb6e5297b0","argument":"For example, in some municipalities in Belgium, beggars with high levels of debt have been deemed ineligible for social housing.","conclusion":"Fining beggars can result in some beggars accumulating high levels of debt. This can result in serious problems."}
{"id":"a93ea088-e9af-4e39-9feb-614ada84c5db","argument":"Darker foundation shades. It\u2019s always a conversation about equality and INCLUSIVITY I really do believe in equal chances systematically. But makeup is so cosmetic hah , it can be talked about strictly in terms of business and brands should 100 just do what their shareholders want them to do, most of the time that\u2019s just maximizing profit. If I can\u2019t find a cosmetic product specifically catered to my Chinese skin, I might go \u201cwtf why aren\u2019t there Asians making this yet, is this a business op for me\u201d etc. Minorities shouldn\u2019t expect white people to make our foundation shades, expectations should be on our own people. Chanel doesn\u2019t need to be inclusive with black folks just like Chanel doesn\u2019t need to include us yellow folks. Top European brands now HAPPEN have entire lines made specifically for Chinese people, they\u2019ve devoted their resources and made Asians a target demo, why? China surpassed the US for the largest share of the global cosmetics market in 2015, 1 country with 20 of the entire global market. Chanel would probably make more pushing out new packaging in China and Korea and Japan by association than making darker shades in the near future. But even if shareholders would rather cash out in dividends than develop darker shades, it\u2019s their money. Rihanna\u2019s Fenty line has proved that there is an unfulfilled demand and a lot of profit to be earned from making darker shades. But again that\u2019s for shareholders at Chanel to harp about, not material for Buzzfeed to make videos about the struggles of inequality.","conclusion":"Cmv: Makeup brands don\u2019t owe anyone colour inclusivity"}
{"id":"364b566d-1460-4b0d-b78c-a76fc4e79929","argument":"The concept of an immortal soul was first believed in ancient Egypt, Babylon and Greece before Christianity.","conclusion":"Religion has only adapted itself to societal and pagan norms and then claimed credit for them."}
{"id":"07a08e3f-0383-4dae-9d1a-9ca8cdcb8019","argument":"So my male friends found out about this, and called me a stalker, creep, ect, but I find nothing wrong with this. They are not underaged, they are fully clothed in EVERY picture, I do not EVER harass the women in question for more pictures, nor do I comment on the pictures at all, and I do not share them on the internet. I find it to be in the same ballpark as downloading pictures of attractive celebrities and using them for the same purpose. I know one argument would be How would you feel if someone wacked it to pictures of YOU without your permission? I would be completely fine with this, as long as the pictures are not shared or modified through the internet. I am still convinced that there is nothing wrong about this, so please if you could, give me another view point on this? EDIT I should say my female FACEBOOK friends , as some of them I have never talked to or met in my life EDIT 2 Wow guys. Lots of good viewpoints here. I think i will stop using the pictures of my friends and classmates, but continue to use the pictures of women who live in different counties that I will never meet.","conclusion":"I download non-nude pictures of my female friends on facebook, and pleasure myself to them. I think there is nothing wrong with this."}
{"id":"09e036f5-c1a3-4ead-9726-cd3e5acc52e3","argument":"Take a look at these statistics from Wikipedia gt According to the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration NHTSA , in 2006, 13.10 cars out of 100,000 ended up in fatal crashes. The rate for motorcycles is 72.34 per 100,000 registered motorcycles. 1 Motorcycles also have a higher fatality rate per unit of distance travelled when compared with automobiles. Per vehicle mile traveled, motorcyclists' risk of a fatal crash is 35 times greater than a passenger car. 1 In 2004, figures from the UK Department for Transport indicated that motorcycles have 16 times the rate of serious injuries compared to cars, and double the rate of bicycles. 2 gt A national study by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau ATS found that gt Motorcycle rider death rates increased among all rider age groups between 1998 and 2000 gt Motorcycle rider deaths were nearly 30 times more than drivers of other vehicles gt Motorcycle riders aged below 40 are 36 times more likely to be killed than other vehicle operators of the same age. gt Motorcycle riders aged 40 years and over are around 20 times more likely to be killed than other drivers of that same age. 3 gt Additional data from the United States reveals that there are over four million motorcycles registered in the United States. Motorcycle fatalities represent approximately five percent of all highway fatalities each year, yet motorcycles represent just two percent of all registered vehicles in the United States. Taken from here It's unavoidable to conclude that riding a motorcycle is more dangerous than riding a car. It's intuitive based on how exposed motorcycle riders are. But it's not even just the motor cycle rider's safety that is at risk. Cars are looking around them for other cars. It's easier to see other cars because 1 they are larger and 2 they are more common and what drivers expect. A last point, seat belts help protect members in both cars of a crash because loose bodies not belted in can bounce around and harm others in the car. Occasionally people end up getting thrown outside of the car if windows are open I've seen this happen in person , and can even crash through closed windows, and could be a danger to other people in other vehicles. Motorcycles don't have seat belts of any sort, and once more both the loose body and loose motor cycle could be very dangerous to other members of the car crash. Again, in the end it can be argued that it is the person's right to choose to ride a motorcycle, even if it is less safe, but that doesn't stop legislation that requires seatbelts. If safety can be mandated on the roadways, why doesn't it extend to motorcycles? Alright, that's all I got.","conclusion":"I've been having a bit of a thought experiment lately - if personal safety can be legislated by requiring seat belts, motorcycles should also be outlawed."}
{"id":"d8791e6b-0093-410e-a094-63dc4d66991a","argument":"A UBI would allow for disability to be dealt with in a non-exploitative or demeaning way.","conclusion":"A UBI improves the mental and physical health of a population."}
{"id":"cd3ade95-0743-4ffa-8639-916f431043ef","argument":"Central church authorities are likely to be more moderate because they most likely will require consensus from a large cross section of the religion.","conclusion":"Large religions mean that central, likely more moderate religious authorities, can check extremist groups within the religion."}
{"id":"930c97f3-3e48-4a13-b829-3cb6fc0ffefe","argument":"Rubbernecking is usually described as the nuisance of drivers causing traffic delays to check out a wreck or other emergency scene. I have never personally slowed down to gawk at a motor vehicle accident. I also have never witnessed this as a passenger. Even if you slowed down to 30 miles per hour on an interstate, you could only directly view a 50 foot wreckage scene for just over 1 second. If you slowed to 10 miles per hour, it would give you about 3 and a half seconds. What would be the use? I have, however, slowed down if a lot of emergency personnel are walking around near the incident. I believe this, and merging due to loss of a lane, are the true causes of most of the slowed traffic and additional accidents. I want to understand why I hear complaints of rubbernecking so often. I feel like I'm missing something obvious and I'd love to hear your thoughts. .","conclusion":"Rubbernecking doesn't exist proportionately to the amount it is complained about. Most drivers are just slowing down to avoid hitting anyone at the scene."}
{"id":"60094b9e-39a4-4df6-9e4c-bdd2c1dc9e18","argument":"This responsibility is placed upon schools because the students in their charge are minors - children in the eyes of the law - who need more protection than adults. This same legal status also explains why constitutional rights to privacy, etc. cannot be applied absolutely to school students. Schools' duty of care applies both morally and legally \u2013 and they may be open to lawsuits if they don't take reasonable measures to prevent other students from bringing drugs or weapons into school, or to recover stolen property. In both these cases, searching lockers is an obvious and reasonable response to a threat to student welfare.","conclusion":"Schools are responsible for student activities so must be able to search lockers."}
{"id":"ddfe9211-91a1-4667-96b2-46589e4fb030","argument":"The Testimony of Three Witnesses of the Book of Mormon states that the plates were shown to them \"by the power of God,\" which implies that the experience was part of a vision rather than a purely physical experience.","conclusion":"Some of the witnesses said their view of the golden plates was in a vision, rather than with their natural eyes."}
{"id":"235aa5a6-54ab-4bcb-8cd0-6293bc264168","argument":"I like to see both sides of most issues, but this is one issue where I have convinced myself of a pretty radical liberal position and I can't come to understand the other side. I start from a liberal John Stuart Mill, not John Stewart position on issues I tend to think we should not restrict the actions of individuals unless we have good reason to do so. I tend to think that the arguments for strong border security and laws against entry to countries without permission are built on either a a fallacious idea that the state will cease to exist without strong border security or b a fear that people on the other side of the border will destabilize our side of the border if they come over. I also have just come out of a few years of economics training, so I find the economic arguments for open borders very convincing. I would love to hear a strong argument for the other side, though, so I can find out where my position may be going too far and to find a legitimate competing value to balance the benefits of open immigration against.","conclusion":"Freedom of movement between countries should not be restricted in times of peace."}
{"id":"0cf84cc6-25ce-4d34-88e3-ccca000b8ffb","argument":"It is fairly easy to find articles and posts that admonish users that use Reply All in e mail applications that contain many users. Here are a few examples Idiot of the Week Think Before You Reply All Reply All Etiquette NYU Student Accidentally Hits Reply All to 40000 Students I believe that this blame is being misplaced. Users who are reading e mail are expected to be experts on their e mail application and apparently bear the whole responsibility for spamming hundreds or thousands of users simply by choosing the wrong button. At the same time, users who craft e mail messages with hundreds or thousands of e mail addresses in the To or CC fields are let off the hook, bearing no blame or responsibility for setting an apparent digital trap. We start with the Idiot of the week Blog which characterizes the hapless recipients as Nitwits when they respond with well wishes to e mails that inform an office about an employee who is out sick. No responsibility is laid at the feet of the manager who crafted this ticking time bomb of e mail redundancy. The manager simply had to put all of the names in the BCC field to avoid this disaster. If the responses were intended for the sick employee, adding their e mail to the To line would allow for that without spamming everyone's inbox. Huffpo spends the entire article on when you can use Reply All and when you should avoid it. No admonishment is directed at users who craft e mails with strings of e mails in the To line, only at users who might inadvertently hit the wrong button in response. In the NYU article the first name listed is Max Wiseltier, the hapless student that clicked a dozen pixels in the wrong direction before sending the fatal Reply All . Only later in the article do they mention the actual culprit, David Vogelsang, who used an outdated program that allowed the faux pas. Why so much hate for users who are simply using the application in a simple and convenient way, while little or no responsibility is directed at users who craft e mails that are doomed to generate endless streams of useless responses. Help me change my view before I strangle the next person who sends me an e mail with hundreds of users in the To and CC box. Edit Many posters are saying that using BCC doesn't work because everyone needs to know who the distro was sent to. This is easily solved by including the distro in the body of the e mail a few clicks copy paste, it's really not that hard If someone is sending to thousands of users, two scenarios are likely The users don't need to know everyone who received the message no problem using BCC The users need to look up one or more recipients to make sure they got it Include an attachment of all recipients. I would argue that in both cases, relying on thousands of users to not make the mistake of Reply All is much higher risk than spending a couple more minutes preventing the use of Reply All.","conclusion":"Using \"Reply All\" is not the fault of the replyer but of the original messager"}
{"id":"e8056081-a604-4c09-bc34-3e794a7a88b9","argument":"Should all American presidents be forced to have held some elected office before? It can be as local as a city council or a school board, but it must have been some elected government position. I understand theres a few military exceptions like George Washington and Eisenhower, of which we can make exceptions for executive positions in the military. Why do I propose this? The presidency should not be treated as an entry level job. It is complex and requires an understanding of the limitations of power in the context of the 3 halls of power legislative, judicial, executive . Valuable time is lost to the citizens who need leadership from experienced candidates who can take control of the job immediately The presidency requires an appreciation for knowledge in the public sphere, not in the private world of industry and thus must be handled with experience of how to handle those reigns of power There are existing limitations on the presidency You must be born as a United State citizen, 35 years old, and have residency in the country for 14 years This does not reduce the ability of popular individuals from serving in government at any form This protects the executive office from experiencing reckless and dangerous leadership from unqualified candidates Would you support such a bill? gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"All American presidents be forced to have been elected to office before"}
{"id":"c1bafa4e-bf54-41d1-8096-a509d75567c5","argument":"They may be using other - possibly more evolved - means of communicating, which humans are just not equipped to detect.","conclusion":"Aliens may be transmitting signals that are not detectable with human senses or technology."}
{"id":"1f7c3138-a96b-4a07-8cfd-f0e931e0ecdd","argument":"Before, bathrooms would put the switches on the outside of the bathroom presumably to help prevent electrocution. However, when a bathroom has the switches on the outside, you always run the risk of someone turning it off while you\u2019re in there. Especially if you have siblings. However, thanks to innovations in technology this is no longer an issue. Now, we can poop without the fear that someone will turn off the lights in the bathroom. I feel that it is far better to have switches for the room located inside of the room than outside. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"having a light switch inside the bathroom is better than having it outside."}
{"id":"d0327435-897b-41e1-b8f1-164ee9f6ca91","argument":"Belief in the existence of a god would merely move an atheist to deism, which for most mythological accounts including Christian, Islamic and Judaic a deist would face the same fate in a hypothetical afterlife that an atheist would. There would be no discernible benefit to belief in the deity if it did exist.","conclusion":"Believing in God may not lead to positive theological outcomes."}
{"id":"65ee0280-2e1f-4c22-ad90-52612d934112","argument":"In this post, I'll mainly be talking about three different things about a person religion, gender orientation, sexual orientation because these are the ones where it's a noticeable problem. So. I think the human tendency to name things is a problem with the aforementioned traits because they are a lot more complicated than a single word. If one goes onto almost any post in this r about atheism, there's probably going to be someone arguing about the definition, and agnosticism, etc. As I said, religion, and lack thereof, is complicated. For example, my beliefs the length of the text is what matters, you don't have to read it I don't believe in any deity or afterlife, because I don't see enough evidence to support it. Of course, I don't deny the possibility of one, but I don't deny the possibility of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I was raised a Roman Catholic and stopped believing around the age of eleven, when Stephen Hawking let me know that there was no need for one. For one year, when I was thirteen, I 'decided' to believe because believing in God and the afterlife is easier, and less scary. After this period, I decided to stop lying to myself. I sometimes compare religion to Megalodon in the present day because of what a person group said, some people believe in it, even if there is no strong evidence. The main difference is the intentions of the person group one being significantly more benign than the other. I tolerate people's religions up to the point where they 1 try to convince someone, be they a child or YouTube commenter, of their religion that applies to atheists too or 2 deny hard science because of their beliefs, or 3 make politics or schools or whatever non secular, because this alienates and ignores the existence of 'the other'. This, or I'm an atheist. And of course, the word atheist comes with baggage a picture that comes into many people's minds when they hear that word is a person who hates all theists and considers them idiots, which I do not. There is a similar problem with things like feminism, because of the whole SJW hoo haa. which is usually misused, but that's a whole different thing . In regards to sexual orientation, it is a LOT more complicated than one word. While religion can be described with an explanation, I think that sexual orientation and perhaps gender, I'm not as well learned when it comes to that kind of stuff is best described with a diagram, consisting of a bunch of spectrums. This can be fairly easily described with words. For example, attractiveness matters around 40 to me, likability is 85 , and I'm 90 heterosexual. Some people may not be sure of some of these, and I'd suggest having a range in which the percentage may be for example, attractiveness matters 40 to me within a range of 20 . I know that this system is far from perfect, but I think it's better than I'm a heterosexual to whom likability matters a bit more than usual. What do you guys think? EDIT 1 The main point I'm trying to convey here is the ineffectiveness of the singular words, not bias. EDIT 2 Sorry guys, but I might not be able to respond to all of you within three hours. Expect either a late response or this post being deleted which I understand mods, don't hold back if you think it should be .","conclusion":"Humans have a big problem with naming types of people"}
{"id":"31973b50-4fbd-41ce-afd3-cba388d1da3e","argument":"So, my girlfriend and I will be relocating in July after she finishes her graduate program on the east coast. I want to go back to Seattle where we're from and she wants to go to LA. I'm pretty convinced Seattle is the superior option here, but I'm open to having my view changed. Pros of living in Seattle Close to family Good beer Legal pot Good vegan food she's vegan and has really missed the restaurants in Seattle Good coffee Generally speaking, we are familiar with it and know we can be happy there. Cons of living in LA Expensive rent pretty much everywhere in LA, as far as I can tell? More expensive cost of living Traffic bad metro system Sprawl Not very bikeable walkable Hipsters Smog Earthquakes Higher crime rate Drought Her arguments in favor of LA are that it's a good place for her to work strong writing community, lots of nonprofits, and she'd like to get into writing for TV and so wants to be close to the studios and meet people who work in the industry , that it would be a new adventure, the weather beaches ocean, greater diversity, and that she claims the people there are nicer than in Seattle. She doesn't want to return to Seattle because most of our social network there has moved away anyhow, because gentrification and the tech boom are having unfavorable effects on the city, and because she wants new adventures before settling down. So, what do you think? I realize this isn't a typical  post, but your input could really help me us out. I'm just not interested in living in LA and she wants it so badly, it might be useful for me to see her side of things.","conclusion":"My girlfriend and I should move to Seattle rather than Los Angeles."}
{"id":"16afeeec-8958-4062-97e8-08a8a3a3c6fe","argument":"I was in Manhattan and everyone was wearing black there. It was appealing initially but then it got boring too soon. In fact, I got desperate to see other colors, but it was just black and more black. There were few who wore blue or grey but I could not see the people there experimenting with other colors. I know black is a slimming color which makes you look mysterious but it was overkill. Please help me in changing this point of view by showing me people wearing other colors in their daily life not just parties .","conclusion":"Newyorkers are most boringly dressed people because all of them just wear black all the time."}
{"id":"71b75675-e4d1-4c08-8148-fb1c6545fce2","argument":"It could be that a trickster God who created the universe with every appearance of having popped out of nowhere and having evolved on it's own.","conclusion":"There is no good reason to think they are false either. Most religious argument are very difficult to prove or disprove."}
{"id":"5be92c73-3586-48be-8e73-7aa33ce2cea0","argument":"Private universities have historically been institutions of innovation in education, forcing them into an unfair marketplace would be a mistake.","conclusion":"Making public universities free would make it too difficult for private universities to compete."}
{"id":"576ff3dc-7976-4cec-8a55-2ccc8e5db814","argument":"There are people who just aren't smart enough to tell the difference between right and wrong, particularly where an issue is some shade of grey or foul mix of black and white \u2013 for instance pro-choice vs pro-life. Some religions give these people an easy out.","conclusion":"Religion serves as a moral crutch for those people unable to recognise right from wrong"}
{"id":"33d0289c-870b-4262-b398-7600fb13ecda","argument":"Fiat currencies also have no intrinsic value as it is not backed by any tangible asset.","conclusion":"Store of value is an intuitive analogy No money really has store of value."}
{"id":"291bdbe5-04ab-4f49-8e44-199bd50689ea","argument":"So I was thinking about totalitarian and fascist regimes and it got me to thinking about which group gave up power rather peacefully. While my knowledge is pretty weak the only thing I can think about is South Africa during the apartheid era and even then it had unique characteristics. Apartheid only ended when the fairly educated and Western influence Afrikaners themselves voluntarily gave up their minority rule and allowed the blacks to essentially take over, from what I read it was mainly because of sanctions and massive internal guilt because they were oppressing people. The thing is that I just cant imagine any other group of people outside of Western Europeans and Americans to do the same thing. I Imagine if somehow the Iraqis under Saddam Hussein were in the the same exact position as the Afrikaners then they wouldn't have bowed down to international condemnation and instead would have massacred the blacks no matter how many sanctions were in place. The same goes for any other group, Turkey would have commited a genocide just like they did with Armenians and have heavily oppressed their Kurds, Serbians would have killed the blacks off just like they did with many Bosnians and as a Filipino I genuinely believe if Filipinos were put in a similar apartheid situation then a wide scale massacre would occur since I just dont think we would give up power. Basically Western Europeans and Americans with Canada believe that liberty and freedom is a right for all and that is why Afrikaners ended apartheid but for many others freedom is a privilege and genocide is an available option to quell unruly groups of people so that my people will persevere. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"South African Apartheid only ended because because Afrikaners had modern Western European values"}
{"id":"60a3470a-1e9c-451d-bde3-b7077276c088","argument":"The introduction of GDPR legislation has clarified the EU's commitment to data protection. The U.S. does not have comparative legislation protecting individuals and their data.","conclusion":"This would promote the idea of personal ownership of data, which is much weaker in the United States compared to other countries."}
{"id":"b8fc9489-861a-40f9-bc46-f590a3b2bbf6","argument":"I cannot think of a single law or policy that has improved our approach to information security and privacy. It was been a steady path downward since the beginning. I believe any attempt made by Congress to this effect will have little to no impact. People in government believe they are above the law and exceptions will be made internally. If the government wants to know something, it will find a way, civil liberties be damned. Any proposed change in a law or policy that would improve our approach to information security and privacy would not have the desired effect. The governments contemptuous attitude will not change and it will find a way around it.","conclusion":"There is no law Congress can pass that will improve the nation's approach to information security and privacy"}
{"id":"77f46228-f796-429a-86b5-a178f3441bf9","argument":"So my ex and I went through a bad break up about a year and a half ago. I took it really hard and had a hard time moving on. I would say I'm past it now the ex and I can hang out with our mutual friend group comprised of my friends, I introduced them to her and they still hang out and it's not awkward or anything. But at one point, my best friend said he would never do anything with her. I have my suspicions that he hasn't kept his word. If I found out he hasn't, am I really justified in being angry? Or am I just being childish and haven't truly moved on yet? Edit grammar","conclusion":"I am justified in being angry if I found out my best friend fooled around with my ex."}
{"id":"39491ea2-8201-41ec-b570-c94ce922279d","argument":"I'll preface this by saying I'm not a racist, to get that out of the way. I do not believe any amount of evidence or study, scientific or otherwise, should be used as a means to treat people differently based on characteristics they lack control over. I also entirely agree that a great deal of study into the science of races is indeed psudeoscience and has no basis in the scientific method. With that out of the way, I feel the automatic dismissal of studies into differences between races as psudeoscience does a disservice to the scientific method, even if the outcome of such studies could be ultimately distasteful and empower racism. I don't claim to be scientifically knowledgable enough to comment as an authority on this topic, but I find it very hard to believe different evolutionary tracks of the human race are entirely identical bar the colouration of their skin. I would personally assume it isn't literally impossible for there to be an identifiable difference beyond that in races, meaning that by definition a study into said topic wouldn't be psudeoscience. I would agree such studies aren't particulairly needed and will almost always be motivated with bad intentions, but that shouldn't invalidate the other field. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Believing all races are identical bar skin colour to be an inalienable truth isn't logical- 'scientific racism' is not automatically psudeoscience, even if most of it is."}
{"id":"83dc2a4b-94d2-4494-a7fd-6488531a88b9","argument":"There's a lot to chew through here. There are many angles from which you can change my view on this as it is a healthy field of research of which I'm a part. I'll start with definitions special denotes any interest group that focuses its efforts on the betterment of a proper subset of the population. This would be your women's rights men's rights type deals. socially suboptimal translates to not the best situation for the collective sum of society. The collective sum is comprised of the proper subsets, i.e. if one group say women could be made better off without making the other subsets worse off, but we aren't making them better off, the current situation we are in is socially suboptimal. Equivalently the economists can identify Pareto Optimality in play here. long run is perhaps the trickiest of all words in my title to define. Specificity pokes itself full of holes, yet abstraction loses weight I can't say the long run is 50 years, for example. So, I define long run to be where we are in a socially optimal state. A special interest group's purpose is to advance the well being of its members. In order to do so, a special interest group needs to recruit the assistance of other members of society if they could resolve their members' issues with their own financing, they would have no need to present their issues to all else . To recruit assistance, special interest groups mechanically follow this procedure 1 identify to the remainder of society the existence of their problems, 2 convince society of the severity of these problems, and 3 propose to society a plan of action that, if they undertook, would aid in remedying the problem. Step 1 summons awareness, step 2 creates interest concern, and step 3 of course is the call to action. What I will call social failures from hereon, special interest groups often carry out these 3 steps in ways which undermine the wellbeing of others. A common social failure in step 1 is to identify problems that are not proven to exist. This comes about due to the natural echo chamber of a special interest group and the heterogeneity in people's abilities to identify and absorb credible research. Furthermore, step 2 often lends itself to an additional social failure in step 1 insist on the severity of their problems by understating the severity of the problems faced by other special interest groups. Finally, step 3 can produce a socially suboptimal impact when a the call to action does not effectively target the problem, or b the call to action has only been achieved by undermining the integrity of steps 1 and 2 as described above. When does step 3 actually produce a socially suboptimal state? The issue arises when we consider positive versus normative reasoning^ 1 . When step 1 cannot be populated by positive statements, special interest groups may resort to populating it with normative statements. By their very nature, normative statements cannot be proven or disproven. Special interest groups may prefer to consider their normative statements proven , and in this way, they circumvent the econometric process of identifying statistically backed problems and still command the same level of interest in step 2 , and the same level of action in step 3 . The call to action that results from a normative statement is fundamentally void of logical justification and cannot stand alone in the context of a special interest group. Normative statements can and should incite positive examination, but nothing more. If it turns out that we feel like tall people end up being paid more, we shouldn't immediately enact a law that pays short people bonus checks we should investigate the validity of the normative claim, assess positive feedback that the scientific process allows for, and act in accordance with what the positive feedback suggests. But special interest groups seldom follow this procedure, and thus the main crux of why I believe they are socially suboptimal presents itself laws are enacted, people are imprisoned, and other actions are taken in the name of normative claims made by special interest groups who have achieved the credibility to allow for such events. The CEO of a fictional Short People United , for example, receives his her paycheck of course a non profit group tries to hide the fact that they get paid contingent on them having a job, and they only have a job because they've convinced society their problems exist. Thus fundamentally, the rational thing for a special interest group to do is pretend that they face adversity if in actuality they don't. It is my belief that this behavior does not lend itself to beneficial call to action. If anything is unclear, I apologize and would love to clarify for you. Thanks for all of your thoughts 1 Positive reasoning is objective and fact based, while normative reasoning is subjective and value based. A positive statement tall people bump their heads more often than short people. This is a proposed fact that can be statistically tested, and therefore, accepted or rejected. A normative statement tall people should be more careful than short people. This is an opinion it is indeed based on a person's absorbing of facts or other opinions, but on its own, this statement cannot be proven. We can prove that tall people hit their heads more often, but we can't prove what they should do, as maybe somebody really likes bumping their head. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Special interest groups are fundamentally an artifact of a socially suboptimal state and shouldn't exist in the long run."}
{"id":"93b01b8f-56e2-40da-a38b-d5bd9860cc79","argument":"The Philosopher's Stone is protected only by enchantments and puzzles that three eleven year olds can break through.","conclusion":"This may have been its reputation however in reality this was not the case."}
{"id":"2b20b810-82f7-4688-8238-c035eafe54ef","argument":"Creation of a USE would contradict the natural human tendency to identify with the region one grows up in, which would lead to ultra-nationalist movements.","conclusion":"The USE possibly would also enhance national identity and separatism. For many people, the national identity is more important than the European one."}
{"id":"97c4a8bc-59ce-491a-b5e5-29cfba3b1325","argument":"Modified wheat is linked to gluten intolerance because the structure of the gluten changed and now moves out of the stomach through the lining\" this was shown on a Netflix documentary called What's With Wheat","conclusion":"Countless studies show that GM foods can be toxic, allergenic, or have unintended nutritional changes."}
{"id":"a707cbd1-b999-4159-b5e8-d679f73cdc08","argument":"It's likely that camps outside the EU would suffer from even lower standards of living that current camps inside the EU, hence, living in those camps could also be considered as inhumane, compared to high EU living standards.","conclusion":"This change to EU law may lead to humanitarian disasters at the borders and in those camps."}
{"id":"a23da741-0ab9-4ff5-9d17-5eb6e640b604","argument":"so basically im a college guy and got laid for the first time twice in a row this past weekend woohoo . as a guy whose interaction with the other sex is quite limited i was estatic but some of my female friends were they knew the girls and were good friends not as happy saying that i was sexist for just having sex with them and not contacting them again even though it only has been 14 fucking hours which made me think i really dont think there is anything wrong with just having consensual sex with a girl and nothing else . i believe that college is a time for exploration and fun which should be used for enlightenment and sex because this probably the only time in my life that i will be able to have with multiple partners but my female friends didnt understand that and have been chewing me out nearly nonstop for being an asshole . change my view if ya can","conclusion":"i dont believe there is anything wrong with using girls for sex"}
{"id":"88a8abfa-3ccf-4926-add4-f76d5b1a9807","argument":"This may sound a bit mind boggling and horrifying, yet is seems like a plausible theory I have come up with in my free time. Life is infinitely short. My reasoning for this is the following The span of life is infinitely small. The present is infinitely small, and us humans have a infinitely small time in which we live in called the present. If you take the moment called the present and convert it into time, it gives you 1 infinity. The present is infinitely small, and if you multiply it by however many numbers it will either turn out to be infinitely large or infinitely small. However, we do know that life is terminal, so it can't be infinitely large therefore it is infinitely small. The most important part of this argument is the reasoning, the present is infinitely small . The present is infinitely small because it is of a time length so small that every moment we recall the present, is is already the past.","conclusion":"Life is Infinitely Short"}
{"id":"44495130-8dcc-4a79-9dbe-7d44332f011c","argument":"Humans are actually the only creatures currently living who might be capable of preventing death and destruction from being the fate of our earth, its species, and meaningful activity in our universe.","conclusion":"Human life is a threat towards the sustainability of our planet and biodiversity."}
{"id":"b530b626-58a0-4f20-b6f0-41ef224fe1e0","argument":"This study from 1972 to 2000 found on average 30% of felons and ex-felons would vote if given the chance, and about three out of four would vote for the Democratic nominee for president.","conclusion":"The disenfranchisement has an impact on election results, as on average three out of four felons and ex-felons vote for the Democratic Party. This distorts voting outcomes."}
{"id":"7e86e813-5f87-4000-9a0d-07fa0bcea875","argument":"In my country UK we espouse how great trial by your peers is and is an important foundation of our justice system. All I can see however, is how bad the ordinary person is. Having just read about cognitive bias, its just confirmed my belief that trial by jury with members of the public is far from reliable. Why should it matter what the defendant is wearing? Blue is better than black? We see it in real life and in TV Shows and it plays to human cognitive weakness's. My suggestion is to have specially trained, professional Jurors. They would be educated to understand cognitive bias and to ignore irrelevant information. I believe France has specially trained Judges with powers of investigation I got this from watching a French police drama called Spiral . Even thats miles better than random people sitting in judgement. Please explain how using random members of the public provides BETTER outcomes in terms of justice.","conclusion":"Trial by Jury - is it the best way to achieve Justice?"}
{"id":"5d6e1077-4589-4888-8ccb-1299aa3ffb53","argument":"It will give people a sense of entitlement, fostering the belief that, without being a contributing member of society, the government owes them.","conclusion":"A formal UBI is likely to cause societal problems that outweigh the benefits of such a policy."}
{"id":"060911aa-5672-4dd1-9e6d-dfb24f05eab8","argument":"We need to fix our current perceptions of liberal and conservative, specifically in the U.S, because they foster tribalism and group think, some call the concern identity politics . Inherently, Left leaning people tend to foster creativity, and drive societal change, while Right leaning people are more conservative but foster productivity and stability. The power play between these two groups is highly manifested today possibly due to the exponential speed at which technology is allowing social change to be addressed. My main view though in regards to this  is that both groups perhaps best defined by which side they lean from the mean signify important parts of what drive complex society, and is best seen through a psychological perspective. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The liberal and Conservative dichotomy is better seen through the perspective of Yin and Yang than \"right vs wrong\"."}
{"id":"ac657394-f6c3-4218-8aff-89d6fdf4aeed","argument":"I think so much money has been spend on advertising research just so they can make you buy one product over the other, the same techniques can be used to make a person like one sex over another. Advertising can make us like Pepsi instead of Coca Cola, or McDonalds over Pizza Pizza. But you are telling me they cannot change who I am attracted to ? Now I don't say it can change gay people into straight but in general it can change anybody to like any gender. I have only talked about what they can do by giving us small doses of ads that change who we like. Given in a real situation, there could be pills administered and drugs that make you even more susceptible to advertising and they can affect your hormone levels. I think it is a guaranteed technology that could change someones sexual preference. I think this clearly has never been done due to the stigma around it and because it would be political suicide to sponsor such research.","conclusion":"Gays can be changed into straight people"}
{"id":"283f15e2-8f67-4f86-a50a-bf8378173238","argument":"Since the Constitution was enacted in 1789, only 43 men have been President of the United States. However, if you ask the White House there have been 44 presidents. The discrepancy is caused by Grover Cleveland's two nonconsecutive terms in the late 19th century. My view is simply that only 43 presidents have led the nation since 1789. The reason I disagree is because I'm convinced one man cannot be two presidents. Therefore, President Obama would be our forty third president. Reddit, Change My View PS Note I said President and not administration. I absolutely accept that Cleveland had multiple administrations. Also, here is a link to the official White House website list of presidents","conclusion":"The United States has only had 43 presidents, change my view,"}
{"id":"dcd0de62-87ad-403d-9f1d-3e4025fe528e","argument":"In the first season, Starbuck interrogates Leoben, who effortless breaks out of his handcuffs and pins Starbuck to the wall. In seasons 3 4, the cylons are much more human like they have neither super strength nor super speed. In the beginning of season 2, when the Galactica loses the fleet, Colonel Tigh says that they can't jump back to where they were because there was no way they could hold off a base star for 12 hours. However, later that season, the Pegasus and the Galactica take out two base stars without using any of their raptors and vipers. This show lacks continuity the abilities of the cylons and the colonial fleet vary wildly depending on what is best for the story at that time.","conclusion":"Battlestar Galactica lacks continuity,"}
{"id":"9dc963a1-1dff-42d9-ac2d-e9d8a77b0d14","argument":"I am of course referring to the recent INTERNET CONTROVERSY that is the stupid Kendrick Lamar vs White Girl deal he pulled her up for saying \u201cnigga\u201d despite it being in the lyrics of the song he asked her to sing. The crowd booed her off, and I can\u2019t imagine how mortified that must have felt. Anyway, the history of racism is awful, but one word used in the context of a song is not the same as Jim Crow whipping a troop of his slaves, nor should it ever be judged the same lest racism and it\u2019s impact continue. Also, if black folk want to say that it is their word to be used only by them for them, then women can quite easily say the same about the term \u201cbitch\u201d. Black rap and white has some absolutely disgusting things in regards to the lyrical content, stuff like shooting, rape, drugs all things which we typically view as wrong, but we allow it in song because there is context so why not the same with the N word? Furthermore, if we are to keep stigmatising the word, why put it in songs in the first place? If a white man contributes to the upkeep of a black artist by buying his records, then he should be allowed to sing the fucking song like it\u2019s supposed to be sang otherwise, why isn\u2019t Kendrick having black only concerts and prefacing his songs with racial warnings? \u201cExcuse me, you may sing this song, but verses 16 through 19 are off limits to all my non niggas.\u201d No that\u2019d be stupid. If we were to take that attitude, which we apparently should do according to some people, then why do we not do the same to the word \u201cbitch\u201d and the songs targeted against women within rap songs, lyrics which encourage \u201crunning trains on thots\u201d or some such activities. There is a double standard and it\u2019s annoying. Yes my username is \u2018thebiggestnigga\u2019 and yes I am white, it is based off of Big Smoke from San Andreas, and I mean no derogatory offence. Context matters. Anyway, sorry about the rant treat it as a late night discussion opener, I welcome any criticism and I will reply accordingly with decorum thanks, and I am open to having some wider insight on the matter cheers.","conclusion":"If \u201cnigga\u201d can\u2019t be said in a song by non-black folk, then \u201cbitch\u201d shouldn\u2019t be said by men."}
{"id":"cbcd34c4-100a-4dd0-98c8-abb2fb60d17e","argument":"The Gulabi Gang acts as a source of inspiration for women, showing them that it is possible to take their destinies into their own hands.","conclusion":"The Gulabi Gang provides an effective platform to bring systematic change to India."}
{"id":"9f39276f-e1fe-4fe5-8d34-bea9cb29f563","argument":"They could be used by people who don't have current sexual partners, to experiment without the health hazards that may go along with multiple one night stands.","conclusion":"Sex robots can provide an outlet for people to explore sexual interests that their current partners are uninterested or unwilling to engage in."}
{"id":"f1fd4744-79e3-47ff-8a82-c8f63b3e40f1","argument":"The continuing statelessness of the Kurdish nation is an indictment of modern international politics. The Kurdish cause has a low level of political visibility in Western nation-states. For this reason, it does not have a high political priority for any Western government. To preserve moral credibility, governments must judge the Kurdish case on its genuine merits rather than on its domestic political significance or lack thereof.","conclusion":"The continuing statelessness of the Kurdish nation is an indictment of modern international politics..."}
{"id":"25941af0-6993-4efc-bc59-3515245154cc","argument":"Some believe that the poor Democrat performance during the 2014 midterms was due to the fact that Obama's approval ratings were low at the time.","conclusion":"During his Presidency the Democrats failed to win hundreds of elected positions, which suggests that Obama failed to keep voters on side."}
{"id":"cd90c5a4-1535-4c2d-98b1-370b3dc42669","argument":"Baseball, like all sports, \u201cis the pursuit of transcending imperfection.\u201d1 It is not supposed to be executed with robotic perfection; it is supposed to involve human beings all trying their best to do the best they can. Fallible umpire calls are part of the drama of baseball. Many people enjoy the excitement that comes with the fallibility of umpire's calls. This sub-plot in baseball in unique and should be preserved. Indeed, fooling the ump is a time-honored part of the game.2 It is not cheating; no rule is broken when one pretends to have been hit by a pitch to try to dupe the umpire. It is a colourful, even skilful way to work within the imperfect, very human parameters that the sport. 1 Mark Coatney, \u201cThe Greatness and Perfection of Missing the Call,\u201d Daily Beast, June 2, 2010, 2 Tom Krasovic, \u201cDusty Baker Defends Umpires Amid Calls for Expanded Instant Replay,\u201d AOL News, Oct. 9, 2010,","conclusion":"Instant replay will take the human element out of baseball"}
{"id":"13baccb5-1a34-49bf-a4bc-7aabbc930830","argument":"In a flash forward in the last episode of parks and rec, both Leslie and Ben get offers to run for governor of Indiana. In the show it's Leslie who runs as she's the protagonist , but it makes a lot more sense for Ben to run. Arguments 1 Relevant experience By that point Leslie's served as a city councilwoman for one year, then gone on to work for the national parks service and department on the interior. While that's a nontrivial amount of experience, Ben's experience as city manager and Congressman for the district seems like it would prepare him better for the job. 2 Temperament Leslie's energetic and cares about getting things done, but this often leads to her making bad choices bailing out that video store, advocating for the parks budget as city councilor without considering the consequences, etc . As a department head, it lets her be effective in advocating for her department, but it can make her unreliable as a chief executive. Ben has a history of being more level headed about making hard choices and thinking through the consequences of various policies. 3 Electability They would both be running as Democrats in Indiana, a pretty red state. While it's not that rare to have a Democratic governor of a red state Kansas, Montana, and Louisiana all currently have one , they tend to be moderate technocrats like Ben rather than progressive ideologues like Leslie. Ben also has a more electable background a former congressman is generally a pretty good candidate, while Leslie hasn't held elected office since she was recalled for city council . Winning Indiana would always be a stretch for a Democrat, so this would be an important consideration.","conclusion":"Ben Wyatt should've been the one to run for Governor at the end of Parks & Rec"}
{"id":"524e390d-6d19-4dac-acff-51ae141309ad","argument":"Just for the record, I oppose FGM, I'm just really tired of people trivializing MGM by saying o FGM is so much worse. Male circumcision is in many cases as bad or worse than FGM, depending on the type, and I feel like emotional responses and politics are getting in the way of scientific reality. Most people drastically underestimate the sexual effects of circumcision. Circumcision removes the majority of sexual nerve endings from the penis. This study here concludes that an uncircumcised penis is 400 more sensitive that's 4x more than a circumcised penis, and that circumcision removes the MOST sensitive parts of the penis. Two erogenous zones in particular to focus on are the ridged band and frenulum. These are two highly innervated parts of the penis that are nearly always completely removed from the penis. Sometimes a sliver of frenulum can remain intact, but even so, this remaining piece will have only a fraction of sexual sensitivity left. Http www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov pubmed 17378847 Many circumcised men have a ceiling of pleasure intensity that will never go above a certain point. Sex just doesn't feel that good because the penis is physically unable to produce enough sensation. I know this is the case for me my strongest orgasm is about half as intense as a sneeze. Now, obviously having the clitoris removed greatly diminishes sexual pleasure and is a terrible thing to do but is it really worse than cutting off the foreskin? I don't think so, and the reason is the g spot. Even without the clitoris, women can have EXTREMELY strong orgasms through the g spot. Many women say g spot orgasms are more intense than clitoral ones, and g spot stimulation is more likely to produce multiple orgasms. It seems to me that g spot orgasms are SIGNIFICANTLY more intense than those of a circumcised man, and quite possible more so than that of even an uncircumcised man. So, a circumcised woman can enjoy much more powerful orgasms than a circumcised man, and even an uncircumcised man. For this reason, it is my belief that in terms of sexual pleasure, cutting off the clitoris is less damaging than cutting off the foreskin. Change my view","conclusion":"Cutting off the foreskin is worse than cutting off the clitoris because women can still have very intense multiple g-spot orgasms, but a circumcised man will have weak orgasms for the rest of his life."}
{"id":"f460b1e5-9028-48de-a734-3d931a4690f3","argument":"Example similar cases of this are here here here and here For clarity, I am NOT going to assert or respond to any requests to defend any supposed false rape accusation statistics I wouldn't put fabrication and gullibility about this stuff beneath the MRA MGTOW community ironic given how I am a sympathizer of them . Now I am not saying this always happens, but I do believe it happens enough that it is worth addressing, hence this . Now it seems that when a male student is accused of rape, he, merely upon accusation, will be expelled. That's wrong to me. When a student is accused of rape, he should only be expelled or undergo any punishment if there is substantial, police verified evidence that he was the rapist. If the only credible evidence against him is an accusation, then that is not enough to get him expelled, and it is not enough to get him arrested. He can be investigated if the investigation does not inconvenience or cost him but cannot be the subject of any discipline or legal punishment. And if he is expelled or suspended due to there being credible evidence at the time, and he is later found guilty or not criminally punishable, than any tuition fees he had wasted at that time should be 100 reimbursed to him. Was he expelled and later found innocent, but as a result of his groundless expulsion, wasted a few thousand dollars of tuition fees? 100 they should be reimbursed to him either as a refund, or as credit for a retake of that semester. And if he is expelled with no evidence, then he should not only get his wasted tuition returned, but he should also have grounds to sue for more money. When police officers are accused of unjustly shooting a suspect, they get paid leave because you can't just suspend them without pay because you have then absolutely ruined their lives if they are later found innocent. Same deal here. Innocent until proven guilty. Trial by media is not justice at all. If there is strong evidence against a man, he can be detained, but if there is nothing more than an accusation than that is insufficient grounds for any legal punishment. Also, it should be procedural that police cannot release or verify the name of an accused rapist sexual assaulter until they are found guilty or unless there is substantial evidence against them at first. So no. A student should not be expelled if he is merely accused. And this culture of this we believe you attitude towards women that they will be believed supported if they come forward about rape accusations needs to end with it's we will always believe you rhetoric because it is a stain on innocent until proven guilty. You may say that women don't like being treated with skepticism for coming forward about rape, but they should, because guilty until proven innocent is not how our country, or any fair society, works. Is it unfortunate that some women are uncomfortable coming forward? Yes, and that needs to be changed culturally. BUT, it should not be changed by making all men guilty until proven innocent. I know this view is kind of rough and a little edgy to talk about so I'm hoping it can be changed or that I can get reaffirmation that I'm not alone in it .  EDIT One thing I forgot to mention. See, if the welfare of men who are the targets of false accusations isn't really moving to you, then consider this false rape accusations hurt women as well. The backlash against people who claim to be raped is legitimized and justified by these false rape accusers and these unfair universities. So false rape accusers are doing serious damage to actual rape victims by legitimizing skepticism, disapproval and disliking of them.","conclusion":"Students should not be expelled for rape accusations until they are found guilty or unless there is significant evidence against them"}
{"id":"ae5b3016-c15d-4a71-92d3-09d80562f5a5","argument":"I will begin by saying I am not a sexist or misogynist or one of those men's rights people. I strongly support full, equal rights for women in the modern world and progress as a race cannot truly occur until that occurs. However, in recent years many people who call themselves feminists cause me to scoff and roll my eyes at their views and statements they make. As someone who has read classic feminist theory and has followed the equality movement from the beginning,I fully support equality and making sure women are equal to men. What I object to is the new wave of feminism that seems to be made up largely of white, college educated, middle to upper class individuals who, in my opinion, put things under the banner of feminism that do not belong there in the classical sense of the word. For example, I had a teacher who had a poster in her classroom that read pornography is to women of all ages and social groups what Nazi and KKK ligature is to Jewish People and African Americans . This level of self victimizing was upsetting to me as I failed to see the parallel between the two. I am of the opinion that as long as all involved in a sex act are of age and consent, there is no problem with it. I have heard the arguments against pornography and how it can hurt women, but I have not seen any evidence to firmly support it and I feel that men or women who enjoy pornography should not be shamed for it. When it comes down to it, being against pornography is a personal choice and if you are against it, abstain from it, do not shame others for it. It is not a civil right issue, it is a personal view that should not be imposed upon others in a free society. Further more, there has been much discussion recently about roles of women in video games or media and or over sexual objectification. Again, while not ideal, it is not a civil rights issue and simply a personal preference. Also, men are being more and more objectified in the media as well and while I do not think it is a good thing in either case, I accept that is a part of our society. Sex sells, after all. Another issue I take is with the tumblr feminism . I have seen posts from the I need feminism because movement that ranged from the silly to what could just be called misandry. I see minor issues tacked onto the banner of feminism and I just don't see how it is applicable fat acceptance, anti slut shaming which I support but do not see as a feminist issue as much of a personal belief and other views I personally believe to be frivolous. Another gripe I have is any criticism or different opinion is often dismissed as sexism without addressing the argument. While many differing opinions often are merely sexism, that does not mean all are and can be painted with a broad brush. On that note, often anyone who is male, particularly a straight white male, will sometimes be told their opinion is not valid because of what they view as privilege whole ignoring any privileged that females receive. I have heard it said that modern feminism is more about total equality for all groups, particularly in response to the pro gay movement, but in that case, why call it feminism? Why not just humanitarianism or a similar term? What it comes down to, is that in the wake of the violent wave of rapes, anti woman sentiments and institutionalization violence towards women in other parts of the world, western feminism does not really have the same claim to the world as it does in other parts of the world. I am not saying that women have total equality in the western world, we still have a ways to go. I feel that the rhetoric needs to change. I would love to discuss this and would like to preface by saying I know the examples that I felt were negative were not the norm and were the acts of individuals and not indicative of the movement, but I still felt it was worth mentioning. Thank you in advance for taking the time to read what I wrote and discussing this with me.","conclusion":"I thin the word feminism has lost all meaning because of modern, western feminism and has become a movement of first world problems that has little connection to the original spirit of the movement."}
{"id":"15393a16-56fa-4d16-a2b4-61741ad2b12e","argument":"There are many passages within the main religious texts that exhort the adherents to kill all non-believers and that any who do not follow this \"one true\" religion are evil. Examples from the Torah and Bible and from the Quran","conclusion":"Different religious beliefs and even interpretations have fueled a profound divide between humans for centuries."}
{"id":"a9ee0857-1b88-4451-9ce0-c85f52f43026","argument":"In a typical election, a candidate wins a debate by making the case that they'll be a better president, and by articulating the benefits of their positions better than the other candidate. But this isn't a typical election year. Trump doesn't seem bound by the rules of normal candidates many things that would have sunk a traditional candidate have actually helped him like the attack on Megyn Kelly, which was one of the most memorable moments of the primary debates . He went from being a long shot joke candidate to the party nominee by dominating media coverage through his outrageous remarks. Every time we heard that something could be the end of Trump, his poll numbers improved. It will be the same with this debate. The winner of this debate will not be the candidate who makes the best case for their presidency, but rather the candidate who gains the most attention out of the debate. It won't matter who makes better arguments or who is more factually accurate. All that matters is who's in the news more. And that candidate, regardless of what happens, is bound to be Trump. Consider a few possible scenarios 1 Trump says something that causes outrage. 2 Trump has a major gaffe 3 Trump is rude to Clinton, by insulting or interrupting her. 4 Trump outperforms expectations and does his best to be civil and look presidential. In all 4, Trump wins. In 1 or 2 , the clip of what Trump says will be the most played moment of the debate. What Clinton says becomes effectively irrelevant to the post debate conversation. It's basically the same with 3 . The story would be how Trump hasn't changed for this debate. In the case of 4 , even if Trump severely underperforms compared to Clinton, the story will be how he's changed his tone and looks more presidential. Even if Clinton performs considerably better, it won't be the main story. So, regardless of what happens tonight, Trump, and not Clinton, will be the main story on the news tomorrow, and because of that, he's already won the debate.","conclusion":"No matter what happens tonight, Trump is going to win the debate."}
{"id":"de4fb61e-f309-4ae0-864f-11adcf412355","argument":"This is especially noteworthy since several of these movies have attracted mixed or outright negative critics' reviews.","conclusion":"So far, most of Disney's live-action remakes have been huge financial successes"}
{"id":"11ab79c2-a58c-4527-8b40-d2791715c5dc","argument":"When the goat debate is mentioned in the NBA, it seems that the most common names are Michael Jordan, LeBron James, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, and even Kobe Bryant, Magic Johnson, and Wilt Chamberlain. One name that is almost never mentioned in the goat goat conversation is the greatest winner in North American sports history. Bill Russell won a championship his rookie year, his last year, and 9 more times in between. Not to mention he\u2019s an Olympic gold medalist, 2x NCAA champion, and High School state champion. If the goal of playing in any competitive sport is to put your team in the best position to win, then I believe that Bill Russell should at the very least be consistently mentioned in the goat convo. What do you guys think? I\u2019ll try my best to be as open to other view points as I can.","conclusion":"Bill Russell is the greatest NBA player of all time"}
{"id":"d511bf36-f559-42c7-a7d4-1a4b6963b9cf","argument":"Affirmative action takes into consideration the fact that many under-represented minority students did very well given their set of limited opportunities.","conclusion":"Affirmative action means that intelligent, meritorious candidates who would otherwise be overlooked are given the opportunity to achieve their potential."}
{"id":"1412658d-4ca2-46db-b6b8-24eb63045310","argument":"Super Mario World is the best Mario game the only arguable rival for this is Super Mario Bros. 3, and I think the larger levels and secret paths in SMW put it over the top from a design perspective, while the improved color palette brought Mario to live in a way that still stands up today, unlike the later 3D revisions which tend to look blocky and unattractive by modern standards. Sonic has had an even worse time post Genesis, but the series peaked much earlier, with Sonic 2. The music was better, the addition of the spin dash solved a major problem with losing momentum that was present in the first game, and again, the larger, multi path level design was perfected in Sonic 2. A single sidekick character, present for the new 2 player co op race modes, added some variety without diluting the franchise. The 3D Sonic games would later destroy this balance with a cavalcade of terrible mascot characters, marring otherwise acceptable games like Sonic Adventure with levels that force you to play as a giant cat fisherman. But back to the other 2D Sonic games Sonic 3 altered the art style of the sprites somewhat, making for a muddier, busier look that made some of the levels hard to look at for me. It lacked the crisp definition of Sonic 2. Sonic and Knuckles was more of the same, and began the process of bogging down the series with additional character options. In short, I think that platformers in general were perfected in the 16 bit era, and have been on a long, slow descent since that time as developers tried to translate the concept into 3 dimesions, resulting in frustrating 3D jumping mechanics and gimmicky features Mario's giant water gun, Sonic's homing dash, etc. It's nice to see a return to 2D platformers among indie developers Shantae, Hollow Knight, Super Meat Boy, et. al. , but I'd really like to see Nintendo and Sega return to classic sprite based 2D mascot platforming games.","conclusion":"Both Sonic and Mario peaked in the 90's"}
{"id":"3354205b-92fb-47bd-8904-7a862372ae67","argument":"I have been brought up to believe people from the US are rude and ignorant, and do not value intellectualism, and that the US in general is inferior to a lot of European countries. I come from a very elitist family and I am trying to change my views. My progress so far is having realised the US is a very varied and diverse nation, with many cultures and many histories. I also understand the views I hold are very reductionist and fail to see the humanity in the people who live in the US. However, the stories I hear about the US generally reinforce what I was taught to believe, including how people from the US are very US centric and generally lack literacy in and understanding of other cultures' customs, the failings of the US education system and the belief in American exceptionalism . Please help me to . Edit I've been reminded just how much the media likes to report negative things over positive things, and that people cherry pick evidence to reinforce prior ideas or attitudes they have and ignore evidence to the contrary. I've also reminded myself the people I hang out with are likely a source of reinforcement as well. Thank you to everyone who took the time to talk to me about a potentially offensive hurtful subject.","conclusion":"People from the US are rude and ignorant, and do not value intellectualism"}
{"id":"38188635-517d-4435-ae03-89fbc486b686","argument":"Many fundamental features of the 'real' economy are already essentially virtual: stocks, bonds, and currencies such as bitcoin are not physical objects but instead are intangible social constructs. There is little to distinguish these from the goods and services available in virtual realities.","conclusion":"Activities exclusive to virtual economies should be afforded the same set of protections as those in the real economy."}
{"id":"bfe034cb-6065-41b0-b0f0-0675d501f8e6","argument":"With the Russian invasion of Crimea and Eastern Ukraine, there's been a lot of talk about Putin and the Russian Federation for the past year. Some people think his actions will bring about WWIII or that Putin is trying to reinstate the USSR. Let's look at a couple facts though 1 Putin is 62 years old. By comparison, Barack Obama is 53 and David Cameron is 48. Putin, despite being in power for more than 15 years now, is getting old, fast. Eventually, someone is going to have to take over as his health deteriorates. 2 Russia's GDP is about 2.097 trillion. That's about the size of Italy. Japan's GDP, meanwhile, is 4.92 trillion, with China's being 2nd, behind the US, at 9.24 trillion. With these factors combined, Russia can't hold up a long term offensive against Ukraine or any other Eastern European countries for more than five years I would guess. However, notice how I said the Chinese economy was just behind the US. With the world's 2nd largest economy, they are also one of the most oppressive and authoritative countries in the world. With the suppression of the Uighar and Tibetan populations, and the fact the CCP supports North Korea, along with a possible invasion of Taiwan, make China a much bigger threat than Russia. The US should therefore be focusing on Eastern Asia, not Eastern Europe.","conclusion":"The PRC is a bigger threat than Russia."}
{"id":"ed6de592-f69a-4390-b23e-37e3b2a74f5f","argument":"It's in human nature and not only human as a biological imperative that one will try and preserve it's genes by offering competitive advantages to its descendants. As a result, whoever is in a position of power will use it to perpetuate the privileges, and merit will only last for a generation.","conclusion":"Meritocracy is an illusion. People start from different points and the meritocratic system doesn't address that difference. In time, it tends to elitisation."}
{"id":"8ea2882f-b207-4e92-bfa8-b85aea5d104d","argument":"The taller someone is the more naturally I yield authority to them. It's not rational but it's tough to force myself out of that mindset. I also think the taller or more muscular someone is, the more they are used to being in charge and it becomes too easy to defer to them. Conversely small people are easy to overlook and are usually neglected, which is also a problem. This is only natural. It's easy to feel intimidated when someone is towering over you, even if you know you aren't in physical harm. All the same, it's the sort of intimidation I'd rather do without. How does one stop fearing big and tall people?","conclusion":"Tall people are scary."}
{"id":"94e76e7c-4f73-4da3-a55b-5bd96ea5cae8","argument":"Okay it's over you can quit downvoting now. fucking christ First of all I'm not conservative and I don't hate women. I'm not religious and I voted for Obama lol . At first I was upset. You know, the usual Don't use your religion to take away our rights . Plus, it's important women have access to birth control. Only recently did I learn that Hobby Lobby's policy covers 16 types of birth control, ranging from Condoms to the daily pill. The only types of birth control they do not want to pay for are emergency contraceptives the morning after pill and IUD's for some reason. While I don't understand the IUD part maybe one of you can explain it to me better , I find the emergency contraceptive part reasonable. My partner and I have needed to use Plan B before. It's a life saver. It's also only about 50 dollars. If you can't afford a 50 dollar pill that will save you from having kids you probably shouldn't be having sex. Plus, Planned Parenthood bless their souls provide what they can to those financially lacking. Change my view. edit thanks for commenting upvotes all around Giving it to this person. If I was religious I'd probably be able to argue more but u theanswerisforty two did a damn good job. I guess I just wish people would be more careful, especially if they can't afford kids in the first place. Ideally everyone would have a lot more personal responsibility but it's not like taking away their avenues of aid is going to help anybody.","conclusion":"Hobby Lobby shouldn't have to pay for Emergency Contraceptives."}
{"id":"30091f6e-6e00-4df0-9d8e-3ecb3c293b07","argument":"The German constitution refers in its first three articles to \"human dignity\", \"peace and of justice in the world\" and \"every person\", and states that no one shall we disfavoured because of \"homeland and origin\".","conclusion":"Most states have committed themselves to human rights in general, not those of their citizens exclusively. This implies that they value individuals equally, regardless of nationality."}
{"id":"ce76551b-eb06-45b0-accf-b163afe123c2","argument":"Just like workers in other professions can oftentimes decide which clients to accept - for example because of demand that exceeds supply for their service - sex workers who reject clients are not necessarily harming themselves.","conclusion":"Many sex workers do have the choice of whether they accept a customer or not, irrespective of the money aspect."}
{"id":"775efab5-ba55-47fa-9b37-5db9beb001ba","argument":"Background I define violence as behavior involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone. I believe morality is relative, so violence isn't wrong for everyone. It's just dependent on personal goals beliefs. I reject the notion of forms of pacifism that involve selective violence, but for the sake of clarity I'm against any form of violence under any circumstances i.e. an absolute pacifist. Reasoning Violence is counter intuitive to one of my personal goals of peace defined as perpetual bodily freedom from reprisal. In recorded history it has failed to achieve this goal and while violence can certainly but not reliably immediately quell dissent, disobedience, etc, it also sets a precedent that violence is a tenable option in the long term. Long term effects of violence are evident in a multitude of historical events e.g arms races as a result of new weaponry yielding major casualties, arms races as a result of a toppled world power leaving an empty spot, dictatorial regimes perpetuated out fear that they'll end up being invaded like similar regimes have been, etc. Violence, specifically killing, is counter intuitive to one of my personal beliefs that all human life is invaluable. One life is equivalent to all life, so killing in the name of the many of the few isn't justified. x200B","conclusion":"I'm a pacifist."}
{"id":"48c8192f-1796-48a4-b690-a57e6ff9a1fd","argument":"When visiting the Boston Museum of Fine Arts today with one of my buddies, him and I talked both agreed that many of the contemporary pieces looked as if someone effortlessly dumped different paint colors on a canvas. After reading the descriptions of what the pieces were supposed to represent, I figured that only someone under the influence of heavy drugs could see anything but random streaks of paint in their art. Some of the most beautiful pieces of art in my opinion were from the Renaissance period, but I appreciated virtually all of the art I saw in the museum, with the exception of the contemporary art. I think it's an insult to great artists such as Monet, Goya, etc. that their art that might have taken a matter of months is in the same museum as a piece of metal that Warhol and his friends pissed on in a matter of minutes and let oxidize. While people will debate over what is great art, I lost count of the amount of people I know who dislike contemporary art and believe it shouldn't be considered art in the first place. My argument isn't that contemporary art shouldn't be considered art, only that it is garbage.","conclusion":"I believe that most contemporary art is garbage that doesn't require much effort on the part of the artist."}
{"id":"902b13af-af90-4b4d-876a-f0765cf27971","argument":"Paregoric is an herbal tincture containing opium and number of other ingredients like licorice, camphor, and anise. It's been available since the early 1700's and it's use only declined due to government crack downs on products containing opiates. Mild preparations containing morphine or similar ingredients are very effective at controlling diarrhea, coughs, and pain while not producing strong enough effects to get the person totally hooked on it. Plus, the other herbs in the product would probably make you ill if you attempted to take a large enough dose to get a recreational high off of it. Cough syrups containing codeine should also be easier to get. Codeine is super weak as far as opiates go, the effects are only slightly pleasant compared to stronger opiates and even if you managed to get physically addicted to it, the withdrawal symptoms would be comparatively mild. Perhaps a limit could be placed on the amount of purchases one could make in a set time. I'm not saying nobody would get hooked on these mild preparations, just that the convenience of them being available would outweigh the damage they would do to outliers. A lot of the damage that drug use does to society is a result of crimes being committed by addicts seeking their next fix. If an addict could just pop on down to CVS and grab a bottle of something to keep himself from going into full blown withdrawals, I think that would help greatly to reduce desperation induced criminal acts. EDIT I'm talking about the United States gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Weak preparations containing opiates should be available over-the-counter."}
{"id":"e3c270b5-6d0a-4c15-925a-0f1ff622110b","argument":"The difference between humans and other animals is intelligence. Thats literally all that separates us. People are fine chowing down on a slab of cow but eating an autistic kid is very socially unacceptable. I dont really see the logic there. Theres an ape that can speak sign language. There are people who are too disabled mentally to be able to do that. Is eating the person worse than eating the ape? At what point does something become dumb enough for it to be morally acceptable to eat it? If its not okay to eat mentally disabled people it must be immoral to eat other animals, cmv","conclusion":"if its okay to eat animals its ok to eat severely mentally disabled people."}
{"id":"6818cf65-3053-44fb-9dd3-aa8d3f040d7c","argument":"Joseph Smith's ability to translate ancient documents is undermined by the fact that passages in the Book of Mormon which were purportedly derived from an ancient Old Testament manuscript circa 600 BCE, are different from a re-translation of the bible that he undertook after the Book of Mormon was published.","conclusion":"Joseph Smith had a poor track record as a prophet or translator."}
{"id":"02a80e1b-c5e3-4d37-ac68-72217a954e11","argument":"Stores offer classifications of top free app and top paid apps, dive them by categories and make recommendations so it may be easier for user to find useful apps for their specific needs.","conclusion":"With native apps, users can discover them just by browsing through their app store."}
{"id":"23cf3e7b-ece9-4145-81fa-d351164363d8","argument":"Some people do not like standardized testing because it puts undue pressure on both students and teachers.","conclusion":"There are several other reasons why people don't want to become teachers."}
{"id":"99f52da8-9754-40e8-a62b-b7320739ef1d","argument":"I see many Redditors saying how the relations between both superpowers would be a bad thing, without providing good explanations besides what I describe as something similar to propaganda Putin is a dictator , The country is corrupt , He will manipulate Trump and the US for the good of RU , etc. I think allying would be a great thing, as having more allies is better than less, as long as rules are followed. Sure, Crimea was 'taken' by RU, and as a descendant from Ukrainian I disagree with that. There are bad things with RU, but many countries have the same problem with different scenarios. Basically, no country is perfect, and countries follow their culture and the past. As seen in the space war, we allied with RU and did wondrous things related to such. Our economy could strengthen RU, and visa versa. We could tell RU not to do a certain thing, and they might listen to us. Maybe even slightly changing their political theories, etc. Edit Hoping DeltaBot goes quick because don't want to keep this post on Reddit cause it involves Trump and Russia \u2206 Edit Also, I might've not had a hard stance in the beginning by saying US allying with RU would be good, so even with my little knowledge I still like to hear the contrary of why it could be bad. I didn't supply the hardest supporting details for my '' but still glad for the replies.","conclusion":"I think the United States allying with Russia would be a good thing, contrary to the Cold War era propaganda still going around to this day."}
{"id":"0b6c5cb1-b812-4fa8-8f42-6eab582b22e4","argument":"I have picky eater friends and they're driving me crazy. They don't want to eat my cooking, that's fine. Totally fine, as long as they let me know they're picky before hand and they don't want to try it. Instead, they'll take a bite and spit it out in front of me, and throw their plate away. Sometimes they'll even say things like ew or yeaaahhh I do not like that. I'm sorry, but in my culture that is one of the biggest insults. I was so shocked. You don't like something, you just take a small bite and say oh I'm kind of full if the host asks if you want more. Then you push it around your plate and subtly throw it away. Worse, one of these girls did it to my mom once. My mother, who spends three hours on every meal. Also, they make eating out with friends extremely difficult. We have to go to the same shitty, place over and over again. Or we have to avoid eating out all together and plan other nonfood related activities, every time. Sometimes we just want to try a new restaurant, but if we don't invite the picky friends, their feelings get hurt. I've had to leave at least two restaurants in the last month after we sat down, because they couldn't find a single thing they were willing to try. I literally don't understand. The only place I've ever run into picky eaters, was in the Western world.","conclusion":"I think picky eating is a first world problem and picky eaters are the result of how they were raised,"}
{"id":"74a7a0bc-6db2-49f7-b28e-ebf34d6da5ff","argument":"To avoid confusion I'd like to define the term existential nihilism as the belief that life has no intrinsic meaning or purpose, and nothing that anybody does or that the human race does as a whole will matter at all in the long run. Note that, based on this definition, changing my view on only one of the two qualifiers would change my opinion on the matter, as existential nihilism requires both to be true. At the same time, though, when I say nothing will matter at all in the long run I'm not talking about the differences that humanity will cause in terms of releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere or something of similar vein. I mean that humanity will never accomplish a worthwhile goal, one that will result in life having reached its predetermined objective or have truly 'succeeded' in any way. Edit I just checked the thread after waking up, at 8 00 a.m EST, and it's jumped from 4 comments to 20. I've gotta leave for school right now, but I'll reply to the comments once I get home around 3 30 EST","conclusion":"I am an existential nihilist."}
{"id":"e7a44bed-b75a-44c3-a7d5-e04985ada6f8","argument":"If you leave Islam in certain countries you will die. If you leave Jehova's witnesses you will never speak to your family again. Same with the Amish. But more importantly you did not choose to have the religion forced on you as a child and it may be so deep in your brain that you could never escape.","conclusion":"Being born and indoctrinated into a faith is not voluntary. Moreover several religions place severe consequences on those who leave."}
{"id":"65fdd7ca-0e7d-4b59-bdef-2e6568431797","argument":"The drug trade in the Golden Triangle has lead to armed militias that control regions. At various times national actors are thought to have sought to use these militias to vie for influence in the region e.g the CIAs involvement","conclusion":"Concern on the grounds of destabilisation is hypocrisy. Most of the major actors on the issue are or have been involved in actions that caused destabilisation in Northeast Asia."}
{"id":"62c60224-f45b-4840-973a-c5066237cbd8","argument":"Getting away with murder is hard, because of the likelihood of leaving evidence and the resources the state commits to finding perpetrators. As a result, lots of murderers carefully plan the crime.","conclusion":"Murders are often planned, and so there is lots of time for perpetrators to realise and consider the consequences."}
{"id":"59627f7b-5842-4537-b619-94bebad3fbb6","argument":"Given many instances of defensive gun use may be wildly disproportionate to the threatened crime, this is particularly problematic.","conclusion":"It is wrong to compare all instances of defensive gun use to only a subset of gun violence."}
{"id":"2618c93e-e1b1-4700-959b-4c0f7d0d5b00","argument":"Parental consent should be required with the exception that the minor can be excused from involving a parent if she is a victim of abuse.","conclusion":"Parental consent should be required for pregnant minors to have abortions."}
{"id":"9b8ad521-440f-4ad9-a057-1859094e0ef7","argument":"The economically and socially dominant Thevar caste group in the state of Tamil Nadu considers bullfighting, known as jallikattu to be a symbol of their caste supremacy","conclusion":"Traditions that include violence and cruelty against animals should not be preserved."}
{"id":"9a8acba0-1d88-48e7-95cd-1a46438e46db","argument":"I am in a period of my life now where I have decided to follow my passion and quit my job for something better, in this case I will pursue the role of a leader down the road, in technology. A first step is learning how to follow, then learning how to create, then learning how to lead. Altough, it's not the tech aspect that I am interested, nor the money, it's the people that I can influence along the way to become better versions of themselves, and to achieve the best as a team. I am passionate about people, and about inspiring them and bringing the best out of them and me . With that said, I am flunking my current jobs because of that, since I view them as not something as fulfilling more repetitive grunt work, that brings in money. The conflict here inside my head is that I believe playing for the late game, sticking to my direction, whatever it may be as long as it is something I want to do in life in order to be fulfilled and in my best possible environment, and this view opposes to the idea that you have to be a succesful and mature person and do what pays well and what you are supposed to do, and fight for the day, for the month to pay your bills and put food on the table. I view that looking ahead is more important than sticking to what is easy and pays well, especially if you do not have affinity for it. In the business world, what I see that is a main focus of the leaders is money as a metric, when I know that money is just a means and other aspects and values of my life is way more important than that.  First \u2206 update My view has changed in the way that when living in poverty, the priority and importance shifts towards money when you don't have the basic needs set . I agree that money is more important in that case, because you simply cannot have the time, energy and strength to focus your entire time on chasing your dream, since you are starving and on the streets. Updated statement Following your passion and finding the right job is more important than making a lot of money once you have your basic needs in check Second many \u2206 update From this thread, what I understood thanks to the users and Mike Rowe, is that there are two things First you have to make a living, and bring the passion with you. Secondly, you have to live your life in the free time that you have and the fuel you get from your job. Updated statement Don't follow your passion, bring it with you and find the right job in order to make a living. Then, use that fuel to live your life and take care of you and your loved ones.","conclusion":"Following your passion and finding the right job is more important than making a lot of money"}
{"id":"155ce0f7-4fc5-41cc-bb80-013ec3ec3e5b","argument":"I think 3D printers pose a huge challenge for society. As this technology becomes more and more advanced, the possibilites are going to become endless, possibly to the point where phones, furniture or even money could be printed using one of these machines. If this actually does go unchecked piracy will run even more rampant than it is now which would be seriously detrimental to everyone. Thats why I feel a proposition to lockdown and regulate these machines is the right move.  Edit Please note, I am from Australia and the thread that spawned this trail of thought was over in r technology relating to the 3D printable gun. In Australia there has been gun control since 1996 and the thought of having people who can just print a gun and run around with it un checked isn't a good one.","conclusion":"I think 3D printers should be regulated"}
{"id":"456a0884-5df6-4d0e-b13e-2bc650f12499","argument":"Currently, Americans favor bottled water over all other packaged drinks. This trend could change with if the ease with which water can be accessed decreases.","conclusion":"People may start consuming unhealthy, sugary drinks that are still available if bottled water is banned."}
{"id":"5ff8ca51-c6ca-43ba-9625-8c14a082c9c6","argument":"I think EDM is soulless music, what do I mean by that? EDM lacks the human element, there's no mistakes, it's all perfect. If you listen to music with instruments you can hear that it has the human element, listen to the guitar solo in the song Heartbreaker by Led Zeppelin. It's beautifully sloppy, it sounds great but it also sounds like it was made by a human. I listen to EDM and all I hear are repetitive beat patterns, when I listen to Jazz music I hear changing time signatures, and amazingly technical musicians improvising in great chemistry. I listen to classical and I hear complex rhythms, and experienced musicians recreating classical pieces made by geniuses like Bach.","conclusion":"I Think EDM Is Soulless Music."}
{"id":"fc29c442-1610-45fd-a861-8211dc70202b","argument":"There is a new design of magnets from YBCO that would make fussion reactors smaller and cheaper due to hightemperate superconductivity of those magnets. It is planed to be used for example in Sparc","conclusion":"There are at least a dozen potential designs that look promising. Only one of them has to work."}
{"id":"b3aad393-839b-47f1-a2ee-08a66d44fb22","argument":"People are more likely to have better lives if they have better access to education and enriching experiences than if they spend their whole lives trying to maximize their productivity in a capitalistic sense.","conclusion":"With a UBI, people will have more income to easily afford more enjoyable educational experiences, like studying subjects within their interests or learning through world exploration."}
{"id":"148ebb6b-59be-454f-9244-e8eb5e84a271","argument":"Angry Birds topped $1 million per month in ad revenue back in 2010 and its parent company, Rovio, has grown substantially since then, indicating that more recent figures could be much higher.","conclusion":"Ads provide a large part of revenue for game developers."}
{"id":"090f12b7-553d-440a-8001-746551e8e0e6","argument":"The balance between peace and justice is a complex issue. The ICC has disregarded peace as a priority in cases, focusing exclusively on justice by indicting individuals, which reduces the diplomatic leeway and drives those indicted towards a bunker mentality. The result then may be the conflict goes on longer and more crimes are committed. Peace and preventing future crimes should come before justice for past crimes. The ICC have focused on prosecuting Omar al Bashir, but it may be a better option to focus on diplomatic alternatives to trials for dealing with the conflict in Darfur.","conclusion":"ICC doesn\u2019t strike right balance between peace and justice for Africa"}
{"id":"54d91381-5569-4ab9-981f-b0496e8d96b0","argument":"I basically grew up with Jon Stewart. I used to sneak out to my living room as a kid to watch Battlebots, and if I were extra sneaky I'd catch Jon Stewart. He essentially fostered my interest in politics and one of the first times I ever connected with a media figure was his emotional response to 9 11. He's a legend and his show is still largely worthwhile. However, compared to the sharp satire of Colbert, Stewart has become an aging institution which has lost its luster to predictability and sanctimoniousness. I've thought this for some time, but watching him last night talk yet again about veteran's affairs brought it to mind. It's not to say that this isn't a huge and important issue, but Stewart's 5 year crusade on the part of veteran's has felt more and more like self serving aggrandizement more than humble persecution of our government. It makes irrelevant his fence sitting position of hey, I'm only a comedian as it is direct advocacy of an albeit important issue. Colbert, on the other hand, is a master of his art. The variety he brings to The Colbert Report enlists so many talents it puts Stewart to shame. He can sing, dance, cry, endorse racism, and all while staying in character. The bluster of his character oftentimes seems like a mockery of even Stewart, spoofing the self righteousness his former boss now employs on a nightly basis. To be sure, Stewart and the writers correspondents at The Daily Show can still complete a home run bit. But compared to The Colbert Report, it's a dry, slow slog through Jon Stewart's aging talent.","conclusion":"Since at least the 2008, The Colbert Report has surpassed The Daily Show in quality."}
{"id":"d1c941fa-d920-4226-87e7-6f97159d44c5","argument":"Why am I bringing this up now? There's controversy once again over media editing of a live interview. Here, Bill Clinton's remarks on Hillary collapsing frequently. This has happened before, in borderline libelous ways, to George Zimmerman and Shirley Sherrod, as well as when the sister of a Milwaukee man killed by police told rioters to take it to the suburbs. I think the Milwaukee edit was justifiable because it would discourage angry youth from descending on suburban neighborhoods and possibly prevent another flare up of violence.","conclusion":"The media's decision to censor the Milwaukee \"take it to the suburbs\" comment was acceptable."}
{"id":"48a4c9b5-8068-4b8f-bd34-b7c90545a2ed","argument":"Zoos have created a distorted view of animal behavior and habits. Thus, researching them in an environment that encourages behaviors, dietary habits, and breeding that are in response to their distorted surroundings, will not result in accurate findings.","conclusion":"Learning about animals in zoos is a warped education given that the animals are not actually living in their natural environments."}
{"id":"0b81ab38-514a-404e-b5f5-37453bef7a50","argument":"Let me just say, that I think this type of behavior is reprehensible, and I have the same negative reaction that anyone would have when looking at it. I'm not saying that this type of activity isn't a problem in itself, but rather it's not nearly as widespread as so many people make it seem. I think similar types of activity has more or less, always happened in modern history , but now, there's 20 million college students, and everyone has a near perfect quality video camera in their pocket on them at all times that they can turn on within literally seconds so there's a virtually non ending supply of anecdotal evidence to 'prove' this problem. If 100,000 college students across the country acted like this, it's still only about 1 of college students and again, I don't think the number is even remotely close to that high. And on a personal level, I just graduated from college last week from a liberal east coast school and this 'sjw' illiberalism on college campuses that everyone talks about, was virtually non existant. To the extent that it did, it didn't influence basically anyones lives. it was a 15,000 person campus, and there was a 'safe space' in the library during finals week that people in theory could go to to get away from finals stress for a little bit. I don't know anyone that went, and probably in total about 30 people went. These people were commonly referred to as 'bluehairs' as a joke, but at the end of the day, they were just a social group that minded their own business.","conclusion":"I think the problem of 'SJWs, Political correctness, ect.' is completely exaggerated."}
{"id":"bb629c4f-51f9-4c76-9801-4ea301fa9e3c","argument":"gt Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it. Mark Twain Anyone who does not expect and demand scrutiny of the government are not patriotic. The biggest patriots to the USA are the ones who shine a light, even at great personal risk, on the parts powerful people want kept dark, probably because they have something terrible to hide. To deflect such scrutiny is not patriotic, and is only the work of stooges in an unjust system or blind followers in a cult. The topic is obviously partisan but that's part of the problem issues of law abidance are partisan nowadays. It should never be a partisan question. Love Trump or hate him he should not be above the law. If you are willing to rationalize why or how Trump does not deserve the same scrutiny as anyone else in his position, then you are part of the problem because he obviously owes us that. Anyone in power does. And when we make the law a partisan issue, we all lose, because it shows that power is more important than playing fair. When people see those in power as illegitimate, social stability is the victim why do I have to follow the rules if the guy with power and money doesn't have to? For those who take the cynical view that it has always been that way, then they are simply admitting America is not a meritocracy. But should be. And those who really love this country and its principles are those who make that so, by divulging what the powerful want hidden, no matter how large the personal sacrifice. Which makes them the greatest kind of national hero, by definition.","conclusion":"whoever leaks the Mueller report or Trump's IRS filings would be committing career suicide and going to prison, but would become national heroes by letting the American people know what they deserve to know."}
{"id":"5f29f07f-3e2f-4997-8a33-1f56c83949f9","argument":"The Federal Reserve can make banks increase their reserve requirement if it's worried about their liquidity.","conclusion":"The Federal Reserve closely monitors and regulates the largest banks and financial services firms."}
{"id":"98976ddb-b45d-4576-af54-717a5ba39cfc","argument":"When I was little I used to watch 7th Heaven. As I grew up, I realized it was a fairly terrible show looking back on how I remember certain plot situations being handled and now I was considering watching it again, so I can see how different the show might be, now that I'm no longer a kid and the rose tinted glasses have come off. Here comes the problem Stephen Collins admitted to being inappropriate with a bunch of minor girls, all around 10 12 years old if I'm not mistaken. I'm not sure it's a good idea to watch the show anymore. Even though I want to, I feel like I'd be doing something imoral, knowing these things about the main character and knowing he'll be interacting with young girls all throughout the show. Can you think of anything to convince me it wouldn't be wrong and I wouldn't be supporting someone like Stephen Collins by watching the show? I feel like watching the show saying it's no big deal what Stephen admitted doing. I feel like people who commit such acts shouldn\u2019t be rewarded by being allowed celebrity status be it A list or D list and their shows movies should be pulled or boycotted once their disgusting behaviour comes to light. They are doing something very wrong and shouldn\u2019t be emulated by fans, especially kids. Please note that I am in no way judging people who have already chosen to keep watching the show. So, can you change my view?","conclusion":"It's not okay to watch 7th heaven after Stephen Collins scandal"}
{"id":"2b5ecd60-030e-48bd-8fbf-bd84e2f81f62","argument":"John Stossel. \"What will they ban next?\" Real Clear Politics. December 20th, 2006: \"In a free society the issue is: Who decides what I eat, the government or me? It's not as though information about trans fats is hard to come by. Scaremongers like the Center for Science in the Public Interest CSPI are all too happy to tell you about the dangers, and they have no trouble getting their declarations of doom on television and into newspapers.\"","conclusion":"Enough info for consumers to make choice on trans fats."}
{"id":"ee364327-a998-45ea-879b-ba1ac73755fe","argument":"Society is on a quest for immortality and reverse aging to a youthful state for this","conclusion":"Healthspan. Living longer means there could be longer periods of morbidity health conditions"}
{"id":"f5f3af79-1894-4dbb-a3ad-22c15dbc48ed","argument":"Regardless of the scenario, for example a breakdown of negotiations between the EU and the UK or successful negotiations of a Brexit deal, about half the British people support the idea of a second referendum. This indicates a preference for a public decision about what to do next over a decision made by politicians.","conclusion":"While advisory, the government would have faced heavy backlash if they didn't follow suit."}
{"id":"03de35a3-0b84-4715-873a-6cff7751c3e5","argument":"To choose to follow God freely is a higher good than following God under compulsion. But this is only possible with free will.","conclusion":"The highest goods for humans are only attainable if human beings have free will and the capacity to do evil."}
{"id":"ed7b7cff-8ad8-4e9e-a78d-e152f2a15e60","argument":"Yes, many young drivers have accidents due to inexperience, but doesn't that mean that maybe instead they need more experience rather than this chance being delayed? Also, in the same way, a high propensity of older drivers have fatal accidents due to inability, despite extensive experience, so it is unfair to judge a group such as this based solely on one years difference in age.","conclusion":"Driving ability should be judged more - why not also a maximum age?!"}
{"id":"70bbe5e0-71e6-4de8-a4d9-c64e19f3774d","argument":"A lot of young people don't even realize how much they are influenced by music. But sometimes it is singers that dictate what is cool. In addition, research by the American Psychological Society has concluded that violent films, computer games and other media music included! has a negative influence on children. The opposition's argument that \"children are simply not that gullible\" seems simply incorrect.","conclusion":"ban music that glorifies crime because of the influence it has on children"}
{"id":"2df05160-9a78-4c32-a3b3-4dce4bc588a0","argument":"Damage to the cervix can happen while giving birth. The cervix and vagina can tear.","conclusion":"All of these can also happen when giving birth to a child."}
{"id":"8f806e37-de68-4e2b-a534-ac406c070442","argument":"As with today's computers and networks, there will always be the possibility for experts to hack or infect a VR system, possibly causing insurmountable, unpredictable damage in the process.","conclusion":"VR has dangers unseen in reality, so it may be worse at some extents."}
{"id":"bd96e6b4-b93a-4083-ae48-ba719ff580b5","argument":"Political participation, and the consequent learning that derives from it, fosters the development of more informed, critical and engaged citizens who are eager to learn more and to take on larger challenges. As citizens become more enlightened, empowered and confident, they become ready to go beyond their circle and become more active in other spheres pg.4","conclusion":"When people are given more opportunities to participate, they learn to become better democratic citizens pg.3"}
{"id":"3504b4f9-1ee7-4996-a98a-8bcd408f3061","argument":"First I would like to state that I am no psychologist. First of all, and most obviously, tulpas bear a resemblance to dissociative identity disorder. DID is recognized as a metal disorder by both the World Health Organization and the American Psychiatric Association. Next. It seems like tulpas are created by people who have undergone a recent trauma, or are seriously introverted. Further reinforcing my conclusion that this fantasy is not a product of a healthy mind. I would like to apologize if I offended anyone, but this is you chance to change my view. To clear up any confusion I am referring to the modern western use of the word tulpa. Not the Buddhist idea, but the seemingly popular internet meme that one can create a sentient person with their mind.","conclusion":"I believe that tulpas are ridiculous, and people who believe that they created a sentient imaginary friend need medication."}
{"id":"d80c74a1-5c7c-4513-bdc8-67648239bdc6","argument":"In this subreddit, and others, I see a lot of people claiming that studies show XYZ when arguing a point without naming linking the study. The problems with this are that a they can make up anything they want b no one can refute the reliability of the study. E.g. in a debate about vaccinations, I could say that studies show that the MMR vaccine causes autism . If I actually linked to Andrew Wakefield's study, it could be dismissed by someone, but since I haven't, no one is allowed to argue with my facts figures. I could also totally fabricate results studies have shown that the MMR vaccine has caused 95 of autism cases in the UK in the last 10 years . If there are studies that support your point link name them. If you don't know of any studies don't claim that studies support your point. A point like studies show that dogs love their owners more than cats could easily be rephrased as dogs like their owners more than cats if you can't find any relevant studies. I think people who say studies show XYZ without citing any are just trying to make themselves sound more credible. Just to be clear I don't think that these people have any bad intentions, just that it would be a lot better if they linked named the studies . Here are some examples I've seen lately gt Studies have showed that time and time again people's perceptions are extremely colored by media and the media is biased one way or the other no matter where you get it. . gt Let's look only at evidence based science, the kind of stuff that's logical, repeatable, reliable. When researchers check back at the 5 year mark to see how weight loss patients are doing, they find something interesting. These are people who lost their weight through calorie restriction, medication, bariatric surgery, and or other means. After 5 years, the studies find that 95 percent of the people did not maintain the weight loss A small percentage of them also gained additional weight. Those who have lost it through bariatric surgery faced a higher mortality rate around the time of the surgery, and there's some concern their lifespan may be shortened. This is all very interesting stuff, but it could be exaggerated fabricated and the method reliability of the study could be refuted And finally, here's someone who makes a point but links to an article which cites the studies gt But what evidence to I have that this is true? Well, consider California's 3 strikes law, which said that after you commit 3 felonies, you go away for life. It turns out, one effect of this was that criminals third offenses became much more violent if you're going down, go down swinging and all. Here's an article on the topic, with the actual studies linked in the article I think this is how it should be done.","conclusion":"I think that if you say that 'studies show XYZ' you should link to a relevant study"}
{"id":"6bdbb427-452e-4d70-b0a5-be973b0a2627","argument":"Religion is based on myth and God cannot be demonstrated and is undetectable. The embrace of superstition is groupthink which may lead to irrational or dysfunctional decision-making.","conclusion":"Behaviours such as mindless repetitiveness of actions that cannot remedy a particular situation and herd mentality."}
{"id":"7a0c3276-f76f-4b8c-b694-f84d9226b819","argument":"I get the impression that liberal progressives view Christina fundamentalists evangelicals with disdain, and blame them for denying access to abortion rights, denial of evolution and science, treating women as inferior to men, treating homosexuals badly, and a whole host of conventional liberal issues. Islamic fundamentalism seems to share all of the non progressive stances that Christian fundamentalism hold, but to an even more extreme degree such as stoning rape victims, throwing gays off buildings, executing apostates . But the liberal progressive movement rarely condemn Islamic fundamentalism, or mock or demean their advocates. For example, the advocate Linda Sasour is held up as a feminist progressive hero even though she has openly supported Sharia law, and has attacked ex Muslim women for criticizing Islam. Is my impression of the liberal progressive movement and its attitude towards Islamic fundamentalism inaccurate? Obviously it's hard to generalize something about an entire political philosophical movement, so I'm aware that many progressives may hold different views on this. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Progressives hate Christian Fundamentalists more than Islamic Fundamentalists"}
{"id":"b89f572f-1449-4c51-8bcf-555471268026","argument":"I keep seeing posts, here and elsewhere, positing frankly alarming views. In part That we should be okay with the NSA and other federal agencies doing blanket surveillance, because the terrorists might use e mail and this means it's OK to ignore both the 4th and the 5th amendment. That because some Muslims are terrorists, we should just ban all Muslims or, more accurately, brown people from the Middle East from immigrating That getting screened at the TSA is anything less than overly invasive, under effective security theater designed to make us feel safer without actually making us safer. I could go on if I thought about it and searched through subs about this, but this is what comes to mind off the top of my head. But everything about this speaks of a fear response. We don't want to let Muslims in because we're afraid of what might happen if we do. We are afraid of what people might be saying, so we're happy to give up our privacy so that the NSA might read something a terrorist might do someday, maybe. We're afraid to fly, so we let people fondle us and take nude body scans so that we get that illusion of safety that comforts us like a blanket. We're not just afraid , we're acting terrified . This security state where we are distrustful of everyone is exactly what the terrorists want. They want us to fear them, so much that we give up essential liberties. I'm afraid that there might be no coming back from where we are. There seems to be no convincing the we need this because security crowd that this is a simple power grab, a curtailing of our basic liberties that gives us no benefit whatsoever. Here are some things that I've heard that won't change my view We need these to be safe. No we don't. The TSA scanners missed some 67 out of 70 contraband items, and the NSA surveillance program hasn't caught a single terrorist plot. Nothing that ineffective is worth the cost of basic liberties. Banning people from immigrating just based on their race is something that honestly disgusts me to my very core. I'm not afraid. You personally may not be. I personally am not. I don't think that we're the majority. This might be a good avenue of attack if there's some way to prove that most people aren't afraid of a terrorist attack, but then I've got to wonder why so many people seem to be supportive of these measures. Things that might work to convince me These views are over represented. I see these views a lot personally, which is why I think they're prevalent, and that might be sampling bias on my part. I am aware that the media is biased in interesting ways, and different ways depending on what media you trust as well. You're missing a key point about one of these things. If you think I'm misinformed, I will be glad to consider things I may have missed be forewarned that this post hasn't thought of everything I might have heard, and I am prone to Oh yeah, I knew about that, and think X when these things are brought up. I promise this isn't me trying to move the goalposts or be difficult, and I'll try to keep that to a minimum whenever possible.","conclusion":"The terrorists have won."}
{"id":"5d1e5024-abe6-41cb-8bb6-574258ee0ba8","argument":"I thought Trump was going to win the Republican primary back when PredictIt had his chance of winning at 20 , based on the way he spoke. I thought Trump was going to win the general when it had barely started, and PredictIt had his chance of winning at 20 . I feel like there's some important points that most of the pundits and polls, most of the social media I watch and people I talk to, are seriously missing. The guy's good at it. Very good. And people aren't seeing it. But what I saw this election season, was Trump holding a free master class in manipulation for anyone who would stop thinking of themselves as better than him and who actually tried to learn from him. When there were 16 candidates on the Republican primary, Trump set himself apart by declaring he wouldn't support the winner of the primary. Trump campaigned in states that the media and the Clinton campaign thought were securely blue states, and ended up carrying several of those states in the end. Trump questioned the integrity of the voting process, thereby reducing liberal turnout. It also forced the liberals to claim that the voting process wasn't rigged, so many times that now that he's won, the liberals can hardly go back on their word. Trump took advantage of the pervasive misogyny toward Clinton by constantly focusing on the point that she's a woman, calling her nasty and corrupt, etc. Trump's three letter phrases like build the wall are very catchy and a great way to garner a following. Trump emphasized how he was an outsider, thereby allowing him to blame all the failings of the current political system on Hillary. Trump's withholding of press access to those who covered him in a more positive light helped ensure that the press wouldn't go all out on attacking him. They did, but not as much as they would otherwise have. Trump's saying things that were way outside of the Overton window helped keep the spotlight on him and made it so that he didn't have to spend as much of his own money on making himself better known among the populace. In politics, all attention is good attention, apparently. Trump saying things like build the wall, attacking the Mexican judge etc all played into the racial resentment that his base had toward 'the other'. Trump flip flopped so much on his positions, and had a VP who contradicted him so much, that anyone who might have already wanted to support him would be able to pick and choose their interpretation of his position and thereby support him even if Trump actually supported a very different position. Trump kept using simpler to understand words and short sentences so that he wouldn't lose his audience remember many of them are not college educated and so that he would have an easier time connecting to his base. Trump exuded confidence throughout the campaign trail. In a country where his base is desperate for someone who seems to know how to fix things, this makes him a very attractive option, regardless of the veracity. Contrast this with Clinton, who didn't exude confidence but was self confident such as not even holding rallies in certain states . Trump kept saying that he was better, would win, etc. see his 'doctor's' claim that he was the healthiest ever . This kind of positivity sinks into the subconscious, making people more energized and more willing to support him. Trump adopted a tit for tat strategy against anyone who attacked him for anything hence the attack on Megyn Kelly, the threats to reporters, the sliming of the sexual assault accusers , creating a chilling effect else more people would have attacked him . Trump played to his base's romantization of violence, thereby energizing them, by threatening to jail and try Hillary and by urging his supporters to beat up protesters at his rallies. Trump kept Clinton's emails center stage so that one relatively minor issue essentially sunk her entire campaign. Meanwhile he diverted attacks against his character effortlessly, in part by owning it and claiming his actions to be perfectly fine while Clinton basically admitted to wrongdoing with her emails by apologizing and then spent the entire campaign admitting she had done wrong . Trump's apparent lack of preparation and lack of a filter helps convey the message that he's not part of the establishment. It's not that he isn't prepared or has no filter he knows exactly what to say for maximum effect. Trump didn't give a shit about what liberals had to say about him, he focused his efforts and his rhetoric to exciting his base and dampening liberal support for Hillary which is why the actual turnout favored his side far more than the polls would have suggested. Trump refused to reveal his tax returns knowing full well that revealing them would only result in more questions and accusations, and masterfully put the blame on the IRS auditing him. Most Americans don't like the IRS, so they would naturally sympathize with him with this. Trump's saying he would ban all Muslims tapped into his base's hatred of Islam that has been there ever since 9 11. Trump's constant marketing of his own brands and products while on the campaign trail helped to solidify the impression that he was a businessman, and by extension, that he wasn't one of those corrupt politicians. Trump blamed the ills of the nation on 'the other', thereby unifying and energizing his base. Trump kept implying that America is a mess 'make America great again' , tapping into his base's 'deep story' about a better past and in the process smearing the democrats as the ones who made things worse since Obama is a democrat . Trump refused to go into details regarding his plans, so that no one would be able to critique the details of his plans. He essentially allowed his base to assume that he would do whatever they thought was the best strategy. Because of all this, I think Trump won, not because of Hillary's or the liberals' fault, but because of Trump's political acumen.","conclusion":"Trump is a brilliant campaigner and\/or his campaign management was great"}
{"id":"a32dd82f-b0e7-4fd9-ad1d-74a9f68a6868","argument":"Romans 11:6 \"And if by grace, then it cannot be based on works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace.\"","conclusion":"One of the main tenets of Protestant Christianity is \"Sola fide or \"Justification by faith alone.\""}
{"id":"37e8a07e-2c48-40d2-8baa-5c6eb9836dfd","argument":"Just as one seeks to be identified using certain terminology, that he chooses to identify as, so to another can also seek to use terminology that one chooses to identify others as. If I call myself 'Y' and you call me 'Y' cannot I call you 'Z'? Conformity is subjective not mandatory.","conclusion":"Mandatory pronouns go against the concept of freedom of speech."}
{"id":"0db44503-ab45-4a06-b635-1191dc2d472a","argument":"It is increasingly difficult for college students, like those attending Cornell in Ithaca, New York to find affordable accommodation, as landlords are choosing to only give short-term leases in order to make more money.","conclusion":"The availability of affordable housing decreases when landlords choose to rent to transient visitors often with higher incomes rather than to local residents."}
{"id":"8bd54d0a-0892-40ec-9f41-cc77caa43063","argument":"A major part of the story is the ending. Endings can make or break stories, and I do think they are difficult to write. GRRM has been putting off ending the Game of Thrones series since he started and has changed the projected amount of books a couple of times. Many people say he knows how he wants it to end, he just doesn't know how to get the characters there, but that's the point of good writing. You get your characters there and create a great ending. Writing a story that you can't end makes you a bad writer. If he does finish the story that's a different conversation, but really I don't think he ever will because he can't because he's not a good writer.","conclusion":"Not being able to finish his story makes George R.R. Martin a bad writer"}
{"id":"aa145c63-4f86-4b74-bffe-6a671ac639c7","argument":"A study found that forced affirmative action plans such as mandating diverse writers for students usually only exacerbate racial tensions and do little to nothing to alleviate existing tensions p. 457.","conclusion":"Making these writers mandatory may cause resentment against them and their culture\/race."}
{"id":"d26ae435-fe3f-4e9e-845f-635adf18ac88","argument":"Behaviour of a population plays a significant role in determining population limits. Capitalistic behaviour puts downward pressure on Earth's carrying capacity for our species. At the same time an economic change which resulted in a reduction in consumerism would elevate our planet carrying capacity as it relates to the human species. Understanding Population Limits","conclusion":"The uneven distribution is evidence of overpopulation, as overpopulation increases rich\/poor divide, affecting more strongly the poorest population."}
{"id":"d0247c37-811e-4630-a651-37105024e9ad","argument":"What the teacher actually says and teaches will have far more influence on the child than what the teacher wears. Therefore, ensuring that the subject matter taught is neutral is far more important than restricting teachers' rights to wear the jewelry they desire.","conclusion":"As long as the person is not verbally imposing their beliefs on others, it should not matter."}
{"id":"ff440594-9f05-43c6-a7e0-da8955eb693b","argument":"I have a debate coming up, and this is the stance I took, but I want to try and see how my opponent can make an argument. Shakespeare made nearly 3,000 words, and most of them have allowed society to become a more expressive and open world, as most dealt with emotions and finding a better way of expressing them. Genghis Khan's impact started and ended with military success. His vast empire fragmented after his death and three of those four fragments had been toppled or reclaimed within a hundred years. Shakespeare introduced so many new concepts to the English language, and his play Julius Caesar inspired the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. I can see that both had an immense impact, but I want to see how Genghis Khan's impact spread farther than that of military.","conclusion":"Shakespeare had a greater impact on the world than Genghis Khan."}
{"id":"0d32e236-d997-449c-8681-cd59fbdc32c4","argument":"Christians regarded the crusades as morally right and a good undertaking to free the holy land from disbelievers. The local muslims however perceived the christians as hostile aggressors attacking their country and therefore far away from morally right.","conclusion":"An organization can be regarded as criminal rebels\/terrorists which bring harm and chaos, or as freedom fighters lead by a moral duty to free a certain region from a repressing regime."}
{"id":"00d48380-ffff-427d-ae38-b7f116f73fef","argument":"\"Badrinath ki Dulhaniya is about a violent stalker who harasses, threatens and even kidnaps the woman he is obsessed with, despite her repeated rejections. The girl not only tolerates his obsessive behavior, she actually finds the goodness in him.","conclusion":"In an Indian patriarchal society, women are objectified and treated as \"things\" rather than people. Bollywood movies just add to this."}
{"id":"71c3f3f4-6d33-4f10-a7d1-7b6f02f57e75","argument":"It would be morally reprehensible if people were obligated to share their bodily resources with others for any reason. We do not force people to donate blood. Likewise women should not be forced to supply nutrients to someone else against their will.","conclusion":"The human tissue developing inside her body depends on the mother, so she has the right to stop the dependence if she wants."}
{"id":"b3c5af9e-25cf-41ad-9470-a7a1d88e869f","argument":"Organised religion has often served as a society's welfare department. This is was true of the Church of England and of other established national religions. As far back as ancient times, for instance, the institution of sacrifices to the gods was a mechanism for distributing food to the poor.","conclusion":"Religion has motivated numerous selfless acts such as volunteering and charity."}
{"id":"d3149938-9dc1-4d44-8357-563d9204780d","argument":"This is my first post here I am not North Korean but I have been thinking what would a North Korean who has escaped the country to live in the US, against all odds, and enjoy freedom and live a decent life think about this crisis. My conclusion was that she would probably think what is best for both US and N.Korea is in fact trying to open up the doors in NK and expose the truth instead of shutting the doors and reinforcing the lies that the state propagates this might be a good read for how NK uses the threats made by the US for its own propaganda Sanctions and isolation have been tested many times before on many countries but the last thing that changed was the attitude of the man in charge I have Iran, Cuba and Iraq as examples in mind and in almost all cases it empowered the leaders and eroded whatever was left of civil society that could ultimately bring constructive change . So the North Korean would think why do people support sanctions as a means to \u201cchange behavior\u201d instead of being honest and saying what we want is to \u201cstarve people to the point of desperation\u201d. While they could do the exact opposite which would be most harmful to the lying leaders. It will empower people to realize the lies by providing them with tools to get information, food to subsists and ultimately improve their lives. Am I missing something here? \u2014Edits\u2014 I published this post originally under a different title which made the impression on some folks that I am publishing click baits, this is the same post with different title.","conclusion":"A North Korean who fled NK and is in the US would be against sanctions and I agree with her!"}
{"id":"df9a5e77-0b4c-47d3-b5f8-eaa2ec59e02e","argument":"To elaborate, I've quite frequently objected to people calling for rapists to be tortured and executed and the like, and the responses I get from the people who support this are almost universally incredibly hostile and insulting. The only arguments I've been presented with in favor of retribution, as opposed to deterrence, seem to be solely rooted in the arguer's own desire for vengeance, not any actual reasoning. Anyone have any decent reasons why we should punish for the sake of punishment?","conclusion":"I believe that retributive justice is barbaric and that anyone who supports it is incredibly self centered."}
{"id":"d5a82c58-9ca1-4440-91e0-50286dc169c2","argument":"By granting protected titles such as Naturopathic Doctor ND, NMD , we lend credibility to a field plagued with pseudoscience and practices of unproven or disproven efficacy. This appearance of credibility leads some people to avoid proven medical treatment in favour of superstition simply because they are suspicious of that which they do not understand. This is harmful to the people not getting proper care, but also harmful to society as a whole as it creates a barrier to education by reinforcing the idea that different beliefs should carry the same weight, despite vastly different supporting evidence.","conclusion":"Naturopaths should not be allowed a legal title or designation."}
{"id":"b0b94a7e-026f-4cde-810f-01a032eb0ee9","argument":"The 5th paragraph of Barnes' commentary given here highlights that there has been debate about this: \"There has been no little diversity of opinion among critics whether this phrase is to be taken in connection with the preceding, meaning that \"the church\" is the pillar and ground of the truth; or whether it is to be taken in connection with what follows, meaning that the principal support of the truth was the doctrine there referred to - that God was manifest in the flesh.\"","conclusion":"There has been some debate among critics as to whether \"the pillar and foundation of truth\" in 1 Tim 3:15 refers to the church or to 'the living God'."}
{"id":"0b7695ad-bb12-46dd-a8f7-a53d547ef420","argument":"Under the current illegal system, unscrupulous sellers who act outside the law and cannot be as easily monitored are more likely to exist.","conclusion":"Legalisation could ensure the safe and regulated procurement of the substance, mitigating the negative effects of a black market."}
{"id":"67ed865f-1b1e-445d-8ca8-434b80cc25da","argument":"That is the reason why, as a society, we have laws, governing many of the hard as well as incredibly simple topics, like stealing, murder and rape.","conclusion":"Human actions are driven by what makes them feel good, not necessarily by what is best for them or best for a society as a whole."}
{"id":"6282cabb-df94-4665-a685-9c5e6048ae05","argument":"GMOs are a hot topic in the US, but has unfortunately turned into a term that many people are scared of, but also have very little understanding of. The scientific consensus on GMOs is that there is no health risk to consuming them, and there is no benefit for consumers having labels that indicate a breeding technique that has no impact on the health of the food. The only purpose it would serve is to mislead consumers who are uneducated about the safety and global necessity of GMOs. Unfortunately, 60 of Americans think GMOs are dangerous to our health despite scientific evidence to the contrary, an even larger gap than Americans who don't accept the science of climate change. Non GMO labels only serve to misinform the misinformed, and should not be used. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"\"Non-GMO\" labels give us no useful information about food and should not be used."}
{"id":"209993e0-61aa-4ee0-bab9-ad136cb5f218","argument":"I don't think we should have affirmative action. First of all I think that it's just stupid that people who are less qualified should get a position or acceptance somewhere than those who are more qualified. People always think about how it helps minorities like African Americans and Hispanics but it also hurts some like Asian Americans. Secondly there is evidence that affirmative action actually hurts the people that it tries to help. African Americans who are in STEM majors in college are more likely to drop that major than students who are white or asian. Just because you are accepted into a better college doesn't magically make the education you received from k 12 to be better. Finally it seems that the African Americans I meet who go to top colleges are well off financially. They came from a good high school and their parents are well off. They aren't really the ones that affirmative action is trying to help, the ones that because of systemic racism had poor education. All in all I would just rather have the most qualified get the best positions.","conclusion":"I think that affirmative action isn't a good thing."}
{"id":"db6bea50-fbbe-452a-a8ce-fd0bbf254844","argument":"Adopting existing children rather than creating new children prevents the increase in the total amount of suffering in the world.","conclusion":"Adoption means fewer children are in the foster care system."}
{"id":"dcd0ecfb-d197-4b00-8c58-77e165a09bc5","argument":"Only families with a deep, long-term investment in the nation have a chance to be a part of it.","conclusion":"The makeup of the House of Lords provides for better quality lawmaking."}
{"id":"403ac8f4-177c-49de-9e1c-4cd8e1a5351b","argument":"Taxes are paid relative to individual circumstances, rather than equally, as this is a more efficient way of contributing to society. Conscription would not follow this logic of efficiency.","conclusion":"Citizens already contribute to their society by paying taxes and abiding by its laws."}
{"id":"367e8f9a-d481-4bb6-acf4-42004effa61a","argument":"Unlike other forms of labour traditionally dominated by women including sex work surrogacy is the only one that can be performed exclusively by women or individuals with a uterus.","conclusion":"Reproductive labour is different in nature than any other type of labour and therefore should not be commercialised Satz, p.177"}
{"id":"35d8825f-1a65-470b-8c10-5f125f576a51","argument":"UK-Russian relations have deteriorated significantly in recent months due to Russia's alleged involvement in the poisoning of a British spy.","conclusion":"Britain leaving the EU does not appear to have led to closer UK-Russia ties."}
{"id":"98a02065-eeb8-48b1-8b91-9803715eec6c","argument":"Effective environmental policies can contribute to developing long-run international competitiveness in certain industries which rely on natural resources pg 9.","conclusion":"Carbon pricing can improve competitiveness for EU goods and services in international markets."}
{"id":"35fc0d2f-deb6-42bb-8044-d32bfb88faf7","argument":"Wait wait before you all call me homophobic. I have never hated a gay man or woman in my life never said any gay slurs apart from saying things such as thats gay as a joke with my friends or anti gay speeches. I have no one in my life who is my friend or more that is gay. Never discriminated anyone homosexual in my life and have attended Gay pride events with my friends who support the cause. I also act really gay towards my bestfriend ,you know, being the norm. Anyways my idea is that being gay is a mental disorder because ,I think that we all have the purpose to reproduce ,like that is our goal to do, as thats how we are biologically engineered to do and therefore not wanting to do that and instead liking the same gender has changed our personality and the thing we were designed to do hence making it a mental disorder.","conclusion":"Being homosexual is a mental disorder"}
{"id":"b49be401-ccfd-4049-bb46-f4eaa6cd0468","argument":"We have examples of economic shift working already. In the dairy industry, for example. There are less people drinking milk now, which has caused the plant-milk and other non-dairy industries to flourish.","conclusion":"The economic impact may be manageable - it would not be the first time an industry has wound down, or been shut down or suppressed."}
{"id":"5e57de39-a730-4831-b749-9541c375e58e","argument":"While this is bad it is necessary for the economy and also happened in the industrial revolution. After the turmoil which happened in the IR, society is in an objectively better place. The same will happen if AGI replaces jobs. The market of employers and jobs will eventually stabilize.","conclusion":"Many jobs would be lost as workers are replaced by AGI, causing massive social disruption."}
{"id":"a98849a8-03ec-45e5-b439-485c6f3d6f17","argument":"An atmosphere of survival of the fittest is created, meaning that many hotel businesses are tempted to increase their prices but cut their costs. This means that Airbnb's presence will lead to hotels becoming not only more expensive, but also worse in quality.","conclusion":"Airbnb constitutes a major added competitor in the hotel and lodging industry, thus causing or exacerbating consequences of an over-saturated market."}
{"id":"b3c053d9-83e1-45c8-a9d1-1286607b9489","argument":"Single bathrooms are not more efficient if you have to do away with urinals. A wall of urinals is far cheaper to install and maintain than the same number of toilets with individual stalls.","conclusion":"It is more efficient to have two large bathrooms divided by gender than many single use bathrooms."}
{"id":"7634ee3e-f576-4f29-882e-0d5f8e96cc7d","argument":"TL DR The book will always be better. The best an adaptation can hope to be is equal to books, and even that is nearly impossible in my opinion. The detail, nuances, characters, story structures, all have limitations when translated into film while the medium of books is limited only by the original authors imagination. I'm not saying there hasn't been good adaptations, Fight Club, Watchmen, Cloud Atlas, Harry Potter, etc. have all done wonderful jobs trying to replicate the original work, but I would never consider them better than the books.","conclusion":"Film adaptions can never be better than their literary counterparts"}
{"id":"27b16bde-e2ab-4865-8c7d-b37addc95c6c","argument":"A diversified currency reduces the ability of a government to absolve responsibility for fiscal irresponsibility through currency depreciation. Such depreciation directly reduces living standards for those participating in the economy as wage earners. Greece in particular was a basket case when it used its Drachma with chronic depreciation. The Euro exposed the government's mismanagement which it tried to attribute to Berlin.","conclusion":"Many countries cannot be trusted to use monetary policy responsibly. It is better that they be forced to suffer through market discipline and adjustment, when devaluation often just risks even greater economic ruin at a later date."}
{"id":"a0135705-4ecd-4b30-b724-8707617dc752","argument":"It simply doesn't make much sense any other way. A dipping sauce, which some redditors have mentioned remembering as hot garbage in a packet, suddenly pops up in a highly popular TV show after nearly 20 years of being forgotten. The show's creators sprinkle references to it throughout the show and how amazing it is, an act that was totally unprecedented by the previous two seasons. Going back to an earlier point, there was no way this was an accident the original sauce came out in 1998, and 19 years later, and one year before the release of a Mulan remake , this obscure piece of corporate Americana seriously, have y'all ever seen those What product line do you wish they could bring back threads on AskReddit? 95 of the answers were about food, and not once have I seen the damn sauce mentioned after sifting through thousands of comments. suddenly comes roaring back into the limelight. In addition, there's no way that this wasn't targeted barring Tesla, Reddit is notably anti corporatist, a demographic that wouldn't eat at a Mickey D's unless they were starving. So a nerd porno of a show comes onto the air, and Reddit's just eating it up. McDonalds sees a way to tap the demographic, and does it by inserting spectacular praise about this sauce, again perfectly timed for a new Mulan movie, into Rick and Morty . Fans chalk it up to how random and bizarre Rick and Morty is, start obsessing over the sauce, creators get some nice pocketbook lining, McD's gets a bump, and no viewer's the wiser. All in all, the whole thing feels shady and underhanded to me, and has really hurt my opinion of the show. Some extra proof gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The \"Mulan Szechuan\" bit that Rick and Morty has going on is a McDonalds ad, plain and true."}
{"id":"491f279f-b982-4ea0-a80b-ab34c85cbdd8","argument":"A country is about more than just the people living in it. It's also about the resources that enable those people to live and carry on an existence. The electoral college protects areas with important resources from being ignored by people in densely populated areas.","conclusion":"Without the electoral college, densely populated areas will dominate the country."}
{"id":"a1cbb18d-7fcd-468b-b408-5cafe4e82456","argument":"It is probable that the sun-earth interactions did lead to increased temperatures historically that caused melting of ice and other effects that caused increased CO2 emissions. BUT, these increased CO2 emissions then acted as \"positive feedback loops\" in increasing temperature. Nobody disputes that CO2 is a greenhouse gas that has a \"greenhouse effect\" on climate, so why would the fact that temperature lead CO2 in the historical record even matter? Is this supposed to indicate that CO2 is not a \"greenhouse gas\"? It certainly is, and is certainly acted as a \"positive feedback\" in the natural historical record.","conclusion":"While temperature changes \"lead\" CO2 historically, CO2 still caused added temperature change"}
{"id":"0e797b09-d387-4fd4-a9a7-09dd2c1559a4","argument":"People assume a certain street or route may be less dangerous or assume someone may intend harm and avoid that person or place, even if those beliefs are not founded or verified.","conclusion":"Much of what we use to navigate the world is based on unfounded assumptions, belief is in no way unique."}
{"id":"0a83e748-bb39-475c-b82a-348005b6c96f","argument":"If it is shown that \"canned hunting\" has harms that do not exist for trophy hunting i.e. the treatment of animals in captivity then it would be reasonable to ban \"canned hunting\" while still allowing trophy hunting.","conclusion":"Canned hunting represents a very small proportion of hunting and raises very different issues from trophy hunting of free-ranging animals. It is condemned by existing IUCN policy"}
{"id":"5d833195-e4aa-46ed-92d1-00ff83776084","argument":"This bothers me because it seems the majority of the sentiment on Facebook is on Wesley Michel's side, which doesn't seem fair to me. Original video. It feels like Michel was ruder and escalated the situation more than Cukor. This is a link to a CNN interview with Wesley Michel. My reaction was as follows At 3 08, Michel wastes time trying to argue that being in the process of buzzing in somehow validates him as a real guest. He then somehow expects us to believe that he was just going to get into the lobby and wait for his friend. Like just owe up to the fact that you were trying to tailgate. Tailgating happens a lot. I've tailgated many times before. It's just more time efficient, but I also understand safety is a concern and would respect the wishes of any tenants. Really wish Michel extended an olive branch and just acknowledged that both sides were at fault. Cukor should have known the significance of calling the police on a black man and tried to reason with Michel more. Michel shouldn't have escalated the situation and just backed out of the building and waited for his friend. Then the last bit about him only recording to protect himself and prove he was innocent. If that was true, he wouldn't have posted it to social media. As it stands, we have a grey situation, people getting distracted from real issues, and the biggest loser is Cukor and his family getting social media harassment and a possible firing from his job at Youtube. This is a link to Christopher Cukor's public response. My reaction was as follows Given Cukor's father's death and the repeated robberies he had experience with, it is understandable for him to behave the way he did. I think the situation is too grey to vilify Cukor as a racist. I think his smile was mostly a disarming gesture not a smirky, racist one that many people believe. The biggest inconsistency was why Cukor kept his son so close by in the tense situation, but maybe he's just has rigid morales about protecting the apartment building he lives in and he didn't see Michel as a violent threat, just as a potential burglar. x200B To sum it up, my view is that this isn't a clear cut case of racism and that Wesley Michel was more at fault for escalating the situation. I also think that having such massive social backlash in such a grey case is harmful to reducing racism in the future.","conclusion":"I think Wesley Michel was more at fault than Christopher Cukor in the most recent cop calling controversy."}
{"id":"5466d59a-fdb1-4f9e-a0d5-35b603ca8333","argument":"George Washington fought in a risky rebellion against the English in pursuit of his personal ideals. He risked his career and legacy through this.","conclusion":"History has seen many people risk their career for what they perceive as the greater good."}
{"id":"ca60208e-6430-44a3-bf1b-d5b1304b6fab","argument":"I constantly see people claim that masculinity is super fragile. I kind of think this funny when you consider, that women are the ones who are often asking for safe spaces, claiming the existence of a rape culture and whining about patriarchy. Meanwhile, men are often pushing themselves to be as self reliant as possible. Men are less likely to be emotionally jealous compared to women. Men quite often don\u2019t get therapy. In my opinion, for better or worse, it\u2019s often women who are the \u201cfragile\u201d ones. Men often close themselves off from the world when faced with trauma. Masculinity is not bad. Having a stiff upper lip is a trait that can and should be admired. So  that Femininity is more fragile than masculinity. Note Sorry for my wording. I am willing to expand more if needed. This is more of rant about something that kind of pisses me off. Sorry if it\u2019s too shirt","conclusion":"Fragile Femininity is much more common than Fragile Masculinity."}
{"id":"ce51536a-bfe1-4b1b-9151-609a8d395334","argument":"Some high school students, for example choose to take AP's and honors with acknowledgement to how those classes can affect their mental well being.","conclusion":"Mental stress is caused by parents, peers, family conflicts\/troubles, and the students themselves---not school."}
{"id":"cd01d166-4247-48a2-9486-a2d690068543","argument":"Since I was young my parents said I was weird or odd. They blamed it one me having vaccines but the gist of it is that when I was around 3 I'd be more interested in those build your own robot magazine issues that came with parts than say, toy soldiers or fire trucks. Another thing is instead of drawing ''normal'' stuff, I'd draw concept airplanes and airships and tried using household items to build a miniature plane. I look like a stereotypical nerd also. Like I wear glasses because of bad eyesight, I'm pale and I look exactly like you'd expect a skinny nerd to look like. My parents made me drop out of college because I could tell me pursuing science was making them think even more lowly of me so I quit and now I'm looking to apply to be a cop, partly because I can be cool and it'll 'nullify' my nerdiness. They also assume being a nerd is not normal and they hate the phrase ''everyone's different''. They also seem to think because I am a nerd I should be thought of as more like an animal and not a conscious being. They assume I have no friends or that all my friends are hallucinations I'm being serious or that I'm shy when I'm an avid extrovert. I remember once they tried to sabotage my social life throughout my childhood. I find my parents do not like other nerds either. For example when I brought up Elon Musk shooting a car up into space when it was being live fed on the news. They just totally ignored me and obnoxiously changed the subject to stuff about the weather. I kind of feel jealous for Elon Musk, not so much him being a billionare since there's lots but because it seems like he grew up with parents who encouraged him about his dreams rather than toss them in a corner. Basically my view is being a nerd is bad and I should be ashamed of myself. I am also an emotional person so when my best friend died when I was 19 I cried and my parents heard me crying and told me to shut up and that I'm stupid, didn't console me at all and told me to ''stop talking to nerdy people ''. I have chronic high blood pressure because of these conflicting views where I feel like my mind's being hijacked, where I used to feel prideful of myself but now I find myself neglecting myself because I feel like I'm bad because I am a nerd. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Being a nerd is Bad."}
{"id":"49d8d3fd-b2fa-4175-b56e-defc8e196bb3","argument":"Three out of four senior executives at American Fortune 500 companies are white. In relation to the work force as a whole, they are therefore over-represented by 15%.","conclusion":"White Americans occupy a disproportionate share of powerful positions in the US."}
{"id":"5cb7dfa8-0522-484c-babe-58a42e60d629","argument":"It doesn't matter if they are open about it and the women are okay with it. Pick one and tell the rest to buzz off. Why is it immoral? Assume there is approximately a 1 1 ratio of males to females in your particular area that's how it is in most major cities . Simple math if a man is dating multiple women, a number of other men will be left with nothing. By dating multiple women, you are essentially giving a big fuck you to other men, whom you probably don't even know. I understand that in most mammal species, males want to spread their seed and females want the top dogs. However, as humans, we have a conscience and we are also highly social animals. Men with multiple partners at once are simply greedy and lack empathy for other members of their sex. gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than just downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Men who date\/sleep with multiple women at once are immoral."}
{"id":"154d6c19-bd8f-440e-975c-0c14301c61b1","argument":"Sure, we all like the way paper books smell, and it's popular to hate on e readers as something cold, technological, and impersonal. I felt this way until I got one. But now I'm convinced that they're pretty clearly superior Paper books have a greater negative impact on the environment. An e reader, while not impact free of course, can save literally millions of pages of trees and ink. E readers have the ability to instantly define a word, highlight a passage, or make a note \u2013 and then to review those later \u2013 encouraging reading comprehension and learning. The overhead cost of producing an e book is much lower than that of producing a paper book, meaning that more money can be passed on to authors and or saved by readers. Even if that's not how publishing companies are currently doing it, they could and should. E readers have accessibility options which make them easier to use for people with disabilities. E readers are lighter and could save many people, especially children, back pain and injuries when they have to carry many books. Recent advances in e readers have mitigated some of the negative aspects of early models \u2013 for example, they don't cause eye strain and there are models which can faithfully display graphics and design. Public libraries with an e book system can save on their small and precious budget \u2013 and taxpayers can save too \u2013 not to mention they could lend out infinite copies of a book. No more waiting lists. E books enable new forms of experimental fiction, and may aid plot in other ways \u2013 for example, not knowing exactly how many pages are left, a reader can have an unexpected and completely immersive ending experience more like that of a film in a theater. There are a small number of exceptions, like books which require a highly specialized format, such as House of Leaves or huge format comics or something. And of course it's true that e readers require electrical power, and that they may not be the most economical option for, say, trying to get schoolbooks to kids in African villages. But, for the average person in the developed world, the advantages of e readers seem to far outweigh the disadvantages. I feel like a guilty minority with this opinion among my fellow book lovers, though, and it's possible that my assumptions above are flawed or incomplete, so please,","conclusion":"E-readers are better than paper books"}
{"id":"46bd1248-d8a4-4d64-8b45-41d9b60b8a45","argument":"Hi, It is a commonly held opinion that women and minorities are often discriminated against. It is said that this does not happen in overt ways like saying 'you are a woman, you're stupid' but in more subtle ways, like being passed over for promotions, or ideas being overlooked at meetings. As a privileged white male, I don't have any personal experience with these kind of things. The only experience I have is the point of view of my friends who are of different genders or nationalities, who from what they have told me have never experienced this type of discrimination. I understand that there is a selection bias because my friends are all privileged by being intelligent and successful, but the fact that none of them have experienced this except to minor degrees makes me think it doesn't exist. I personally work and interact with women and minorities all the time, and I never discriminate against them, even in an unconscious way. This could, again, be selection bias due to the fact that the people I work with are all intelligent and successful. The fact is, in my whole life, I have never seen discrimination in school or work on a systematic basis. I have read articles about how people have experienced racism or discrimination. These articles never say things like I applied for a home, had a better credit score, but a white couple got it instead. RACISM , but rather things like my co worker asked me where I was from originally. RACISM . Are statements like these really racist? I am of the opinion that people who believe racism or sexism are prevalent go looking for it in situations where it doesn't exist. In situations like the first sentence of my post, is it possible that a woman was passed over for a promotion because she didn't deserve it? If a woman gets a promotion and a man doesn't, is that sexism? The fact is, in my collegiate, social, and professional life, I have met and dealt with lots of women and minorities. I did not ever see any discrimination, nor have any of my close friends most of which are minorities or women , except by a few select assholes definitely nothing systemic. I have only seen it discussed via online blog posts, which, as I mentioned, I believe are going out and actively looking for a place to find racism or sexism. When I try to discuss this with someone, the responses I am met with are you have privilege you can't tell me I'm not experiencing racism . When I reply that as a Jew, I have never met anti semitisim they reply you can't compare one type of privilege to another type of privilege . It's very difficult for me to have an analytical discussion about this because it's such an emotional and hot button topic and people get very riled up as soon as any interesting discussion occurs. I've consistently wondered if I'm wrong and my view of the world is completely warped because I only have my own experiences to go on, but I find it difficult to wrap my head around that. Please change my view and show me that this is a real thing.","conclusion":"Racism & sexism do not exist to the severity that they are commonly portrayed"}
{"id":"31256ae2-63c9-4f4f-b860-9f97536ec2d9","argument":"Colombia Supreme Court overruled a ban on bullfighting because it represents a \u201ccultural form of expression.\u201d","conclusion":"Cultural practices, discourses and material expressions surrounding bullfighting give social meaning to societies."}
{"id":"33876619-336e-469a-8398-31585bf140d8","argument":"Title Edit I don't believe the lives of children and women should be treated as more important than the lives of men. Often times in the news I see stories that treat the deaths of children and women as if they are more important then full grown men. Specifically, they will say something to the tune of 130 casualties were reported, 36 of the casualties were children and 25 were women . I find this acceptable when the event was targeting children or women, but when there's say a natural disaster it comes off as the media discarding the men who also lost there lives. I find it sexist to ignore the lose of life just because people are more sympathetic to a certain gender and children.","conclusion":"I don't believe the lives of children and women should be put before the lives of men."}
{"id":"25995326-ed23-4226-89e4-2255d7cb3041","argument":"Just a couple moments ago my mom had this discussion with my sister about how women generally want to buy a lot of things namely clothes and bags. I know know there are also several men who overspend but that behaviour isn't generally encouraged as much as women. For example real life I tried to buy 3 phone casing because I got used my previous 2 untill it broke and I am called an overspender, money waste, blah blah blah, but when my sister bought 5 casings for her old phone even though each one is still in decent conditions everyone is fine with it. Another one is when I talked about how I bought a game for 120 thousand rupiah I got nagged by everyone in my family saying I am wasting monety. But yet when my sister asked my parents to buy a really expensive branded bag those mcms and stuff. They all are like it's so cute and worth it even though she will replace it in like a couple of months. but me no even though I rarely ever buy games. Sorry for the long text wall I am not American nor British sorry if my English has errors in it","conclusion":"Girls overspending shouldn't be encouraged as a regular 'girl behaviour' or just simply accepted"}
{"id":"0ef52e2a-5ab9-4a39-bcd3-3a43a0c694c7","argument":"This is a view I really hope to change, because all current logic points to my current conclusion. The event I am referring to is when men did not have the right to expose their nipples in public, even at beaches. According to the Free The Nipple movement direct quote from the homepage gt Over 75 years ago it was illegal in all 50 states of America for men to be \u2018Shirtless\u2019 on a beach. A small dedicated group fought the puritanical status quo, the police and the courts. After several arrests and protests men finally won their basic human right to be \u2018TOPLESS\u2019 in public in 1936. Here is my reasoning as to why I believe that this claim was completely made up Whenever researching historical events, there are three types of sources primary , secondary , and tertiary . The most reliable of the three is a primary source, being that it is a direct source from the time period in question. Secondary sources are based off of primary sources, such as a direct analysis of a primary source in a book or academic paper. Tertiary sources are the least reliable, since they are based off of sources based off of primary or secondary sources. This is partially quoted and based on a r AskHistorian's post that explains the full explanation between the three sources and the reasoning in detail here . I started researching the above claim by Free The Nipple, and the only sources I found confirming it were tertiary sources pop culture magazines, online articles, blogs, and the like. There were literally zero primary sources that back this up There weren't even any secondary sources And what's even crazier is that this was such a relatively recent event, with very easily verifiable information. As an example of what I mean by this, just search for Titanic newspaper headline in Google, and you will easily find the primary sources to back up the sinking of the Titanic However with the above quoted claim from Free The Nipple, no such sources exist that I've found The lack of reliable historical evidence points to the conclusion that this historical backstory was literally made up. Please prove me wrong, and I will change my view","conclusion":"The social movement \"Free The Nipple\" have completely made up a specific historical event in order to advance their agenda!"}
{"id":"a4cd43b9-9ab1-40e3-89ec-58c32efa37d8","argument":"The Times Square attack and the Twin Tower attacks are examples of how the Taliban are actually cultivating terrorists to carry out international terrorist acts. The Taliban sheltered international terrorists, of whom Osama Bin Laden and his Al-Qaida organisation were the most prominent. In addition to Al-Qaida\u2019s strikes against American targets worldwide, fundamentalist terrorists trained in Afghanistan have been active in Chechnya, Kosovo, Central Asia, Indian Kashmir and China. This has resulted in the destabilisation of the region and contributed to a great deal of human misery. Therefore, the US and UK cannot afford to risk their nation's security by leaving Taliban to raise, equip and fund terrorists. Even for their own safety, they cannot leave the Taliban in power. The Obama administration is working on establishing a stable government - a government that has trained police force, trusted government officials and better educational system. Therefore, letting the Taliban share power means they will try to reinforce their own system which means none of the above can actually happen. This is not acceptable.1 1 The Economist, Debate: This house believes that the war in Afghanistan is winnable, May 17th 2010,","conclusion":"The Taliban supports terrorist organizations, so they are not to be trusted."}
{"id":"4baefd3e-6159-4d50-b3ee-07c137aed3f8","argument":"Being charged orders of magnitude more than the original loan is a problem that has existed since biblical times and has resulted in loans lasting multi generations and a huge boom in relatively recent years in businesses designed to place people in a permanent payment plan because they feel behind on their expenses once or twice. I'm talking about payday loan places and credit card companies. Don't get me wrong, I think that loans should be here to stay and that a 30 interest rate is fair game on a credit card if it's actually possible to be paid off. But I see no reason why after they get more than double their money back that the financial institution feels so troubled that they need to continue to squeeze people for that same loan for the rest of their lives. It's just a stupid system that only punishes those who can't afford the punishment. Got a little heated there for a second. TLDR Loan dudes don't deserve more than double what they give out on a single loan. Edit I'm getting a few replies saying the same thing and typing is hard on a phone. I'm not saying that the institution can't have late fees for not paying them back at all. I'm referring more to those who those who are paying close to the interest rate on a loan for an extended period of time.","conclusion":"Debt should have a limit maybe 200% on how much interest can be charged on it total."}
{"id":"ffb3c26d-60f4-4620-8ac2-2da737de592a","argument":"The way I see it, even in an ideal scenario, there is no perfect solution to the partition of districts within a population. In my head for the following points I am referencing the typical example of a 5x10 grid that can be split up different ways, with fives districts, twenty red boxes, and thirty blue boxes. Either you have districts that are competitive leading to a 5 0 majority for blue or you have districts that represent the overall voter composition 3 blue to 2 red districts, but there is no competition within the districts . Both of these scenarios are unhealthy for the democracy, and it think it is apparent why. In my amateur knowledge of the subject, the best way to fix gerrymandering would be to adopt a form of proportional representation that did not geographically separate voters at all. I know there are issues with removing the geographic ties of a seat although I'll be honest and say I think those don't make much sense in practice and that proportional systems give more power to party leaders and centrists, but in terms of gerrymandering it seems like the best solution. Maybe there is also an electoral system that is proportional but allows for party outsiders to have a voice? My guess would be something like STV within a party?","conclusion":"Gerrymandering has no solution in the current US political system"}
{"id":"acdcb353-189e-4710-9b1e-ea0d8d9cf8d4","argument":"Religion has frequently claimed the moral high ground, but its position that people of faith are morally superior to those without faith is as bigoted as suggesting the contrary.","conclusion":"Religious moral codes are not always valuable and can be even harmful."}
{"id":"bdc1d360-08af-46d6-b6d8-a10d20ad4683","argument":"For instance, by associating the goals with the violent means used to advocate for the goals.","conclusion":"Antifa's violence allows their opponents to portray their goals in a negative light."}
{"id":"1060ebc5-2cbf-421d-99aa-c78dece22c5b","argument":"I think the amount of quality online news sources is shrinking. I want to see quality news supported. But I notice that MANY people are annoyed with paywalls and regularly use adblockers. Does no one realize there is a connection with paying reporters well and getting quality content? Do people really want to see quality news outlets like the NY Times go away and be replaced with Business Insider? Or worse do people really believe that the way reddit posts news stories, with hard to read live threads and lots of hearsay is a good way to consume news? I don't get it EDIT So far this conversation has been great Some good points uItIsOnlyRain mentioned BBC as a great example of a news outlet that has no ads and free content Interesting example and very unique also one of my favs ucaw81 mentioned Vice although not exactly the type of news outlet I was thinking of they are more of a news magazine docu type they are making their money in ways other than ads. uantihexe has caused me to actually reconsider my position with this very important thought those who need the news most are the poorest and most disenfranchised and could use that news the most, so why prevent them from getting it for free?","conclusion":"I believe the only way we can have quality news online is by paying for it and\/or supporting it with adviews. I am against people who circumvent paywalls & use adblock. I am against piracy."}
{"id":"8a000bae-2d13-48e8-8698-9dcf56d500f5","argument":"I'm mostly talking about the UK media here. I think there is a somewhat concerted effort to undermine liberalism and support for fundamental rights by abusing those rights and pushing the outer reaches of what is acceptable. The best example I can think of is the freedom of the press. Press freedom is crucial and valuable to any democracy as it holds the government to account and educates the population. However, in the UK, the press generally leans to the right of the political spectrum, and abuses its protected position by publishing falsehoods. The examples are really too numerous to mention, but taking a quick look at the Daily Mail, the Sun, the Express shows that they are more interested in huge, provocative headlines rather than reporting on facts and giving measured opinions. I understand that the opinion jockey industry is booming and that the media has to sell a product, but I'm concerned that undermining core values of democracy and freedom is an ancilliary purpose. The Sun regularly publishes absoulte lies about migrants and the EU, then apologises and retracts. Stories are made up, and weak regulation means that a retraction does very little to undo the original damage caused. The main argument against stronger or wider regulation is that we need freedom of speech, opinion and the press to function as a modern democracy, but by mocking this freedom and publishing untruths, the media manage to undermine the freedoms that allowed their publishing in the first place. It's almost as if they push the boundaries on what is acceptable simply to provoke a reaction, and more worryingly, a reaction that could spell the end of those freedoms. I worry that this is what they really want, as it gives greater power to the wealthy and the government. I can explain in further detail, and apologies for the inarticulate reasoning at times.","conclusion":"some sections of the media are trying to undermine the concept of human rights by pushing them to their limits"}
{"id":"29f82fa1-c1f1-47ac-9e71-2f92fcfa218b","argument":"Look at the brain from a physical chemical perspective. Neurons are fired when we see smell hear touch taste things. Those neurons interact with other neurons via chemical processes that are well understood. Those neurons interact with more neurons, and so on, and so on Eventually motor neurons are triggered which cause us to respond to the sensory input. In no part of this process can I see a way to affect the chain reaction of neurons in any way. Sure, each of our brains is put together differently and that means that each of us will respond differently to similar stimuli. But given the EXACT same situation our brains will react exactly the same way to the exact same stimuli every time. So essentially, you never had a choice.","conclusion":"I don't believe in freewill."}
{"id":"b603ff8b-6018-4eb9-8c55-6b7459e444f6","argument":"The resources used to produce pornography could instead be used to produce educational content, or altogether be spent on necessities for others food for the hungry, etc.","conclusion":"The time and resources dedicated to porn could be better used to maximize well-being."}
{"id":"3b586c92-9e0c-4e08-ad4f-0ba3251c7a4c","argument":"From a capitalists' perspective, when you have surplus food that's not worthy of being sold anymore, the absolute best thing to do is to discard it. Then, the only thing you lose is the food itself. Being forced to donate leftover food presents a problem for the food industry. Suppose, for example, you are the only supermarket in a large region. You donate 1 ton of food. Suppose 0.5 tons of that food is actually eaten. But this alleviates hunger equivalent to 0.5 tons of food, and this thus decreases the demand for food by 0.5 tons. In other words, this is 0.5 tons of food that will never be bought from supermarkets. It is certain that if supermarkets donate food, they will lose money overall. I equate this to theft because supermarkets are being forced to donate their property for free, which not only fails to bring them profit but also guarantees a net loss. Some would argue that alleviating hunger is more important than some supermarket's profits. This is a convincing argument, but if you believe so there is another solution. If the government wants to dictate how leftover food should be used, it should be forced to buy the food at market price anything less than market price could still incur a loss for the supermarket . This is already what welfare does the government pays for the food when the poor cannot. Instead, France's new law is basically a backdoor for governments to collect food for a welfare program without paying for it, i.e. theft.","conclusion":"France's new anti-waste law for supermarkets is equivalent to theft."}
{"id":"160bbe6e-2fa5-482a-a294-b20324ccd68d","argument":"We still don't know much about the history of the human, and being able to understand only one language means there won't be everything understood.","conclusion":"The more languages people know and learn, the more we understand history."}
{"id":"14feeb8d-19ef-4422-9ea7-3d6ffff4c915","argument":"The basis of my philosophy regarding this comes from Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche said, \u201cWhen marrying, ask yourself this question Do you believe that you will be able to converse well with this person into your old age? Everything else in marriage is transitory.\u201d I think Nietzsche is correct in saying this is all it boils down to. You must marry someone you find compelling and fascinating to talk to. If that is the case, the little things in life like irritating living habits become unimportant compared to the admiration you have for the person's intellect, making the 'trial run' of living together before marriage unnecessary. Additionally, who you marry is one of the most important life decisions and I think there needs to be as much at stake in this decision as possible. The more you are throwing into this decision, the more you need to be excited and willing to bring on the change. Moving in together at the time of marriage is a great way to make the stakes of this decision even higher. If the idea of moving in together is not absolutely thrilling, no matter what lifestyle conflicts arise, then you will know you aren\u2019t ready yet. When moving in together is simply a trial run, you are not forced to approach the decision that way and the later decision to marry the person doesn't seem like a big change. Without very high stakes it is easy to make the wrong decision. Finally, studies show the quality of marriages is higher for those who don\u2019t cohabit before marriage. According to an article in The Telegraph which refers to a study by Denver University, About one in five of those who cohabited before getting engaged had since suggested divorce compared with only 12 percent of those who only moved in together after getting engaged and 10 percent who did not cohabit prior to the wedding bells.\u201d They found the reported quality of marriages to be higher for those who did not cohabit before marriage as well. These reasons lead me to believe living together before marriage is not a necessary step and could even harm the quality of the future marriage, but I am young and have not experience marriage so if you think this is an important step that must be taken, change my view","conclusion":"Living together before marriage is unnecessary and even harmful"}
{"id":"c7245fda-5967-4057-8ef8-eeb07438eda8","argument":"I'm a movie guy. I love movies, and I especially love old movies from the 1940's and 1950's. That being said, my argument might be a little biased. So, my little brother and I were watching Star Wars Episode 1 The Phantom Menace last night, and he made a point which really struck home that I fully agreed with. He said, gt You know, movies aren't as good anymore with better special effects. It's all flash and no substance. And I really agreed with that. Back in the day, because of the lack of special effects, writers and directors had to get creative with what they did. Think of Alfred Hitchcock's famous shower scene from Psycho. Because you don't see the actual stabbing, the scene is so much more brutal and frightening. If the scene were to be filmed today, you would see the actual attack because people want that. So much more can be said in a subdued tone than a in your face tone. Also, let's look at a famous big budget summer flick who's special effects failed them but instead it made the movie better, Jaws. The film was originally supposed to show the shark in many more scenes, but because of the failing animatronics, they couldn't, so they used a subdued tone. The result was a better film. Don't get me wrong, without special effects we couldn't get a lot of awesome films. I overall just believe that because of the all flash no substance mentality that seems to exist in Hollywood nowadays, the overall quality of movies is going down. Change my view.","conclusion":"I believe because special effects are getting better, the overall quality of movies is getting worse."}
{"id":"b536613f-2949-4272-b0a2-aea6a34cb7ca","argument":"Gender is best considered a useful model of reality. There isn\u2019t a universal, objective definition of gender, but in my view, we don\u2019t need one, and it\u2019s a mistake to define one. Essentially, something like the male female gender model should be treated like a scientific model useful for explaining and simplifying a complex reality, but with limitations that are important to recognize. Chemistry is a great example there are many models of chemical bonds and the atom, though none fully explain those things. But they help us focus on what matters, removing unnecessary complexity. I think the mainstream gender model serves exactly this purpose it describes reality really well most of the time. Exceptions do exist, though, and we should acknowledge that the model isn\u2019t perfect. In fact, no model is perfect we should be suspicious of anyone who claims as much. Gender is neither a biological determination nor a fake and oppressive social construct. We distinguish sex, gender, identity, sexuality, and appearance in theory, but in reality, they all mesh together. Every individual has a valid identity, but certain identities are more common than others. So, I think it\u2019s perfectly fine to use the model of gender have, with male and female appearances and the social norms that accompany that. We should acknowledge that the model doesn\u2019t fit everyone, though if a person doesn\u2019t fit in the model or asks to be called something, we should respect that. Given that the model is imperfect and gender is complex, there\u2019s room for exceptions and variation to the \u201crules.\u201d The \u201crules\u201d were never hard and fast anyway. But on the whole, the model works well for most interactions. I think there\u2019s utility in it that makes it worth using. Last thoughts There's nothing wrong with presenting ideas about gender to children. If you were going to introduce someone to ice cream, you would start with the most popular flavors like chocolate and vanilla. I agree that many gender ROLES are harmful, like saying girls can\u2019t be scientists, but stuff like clothing isn\u2019t problematic. In any case, parents have the right to raise their children how they want, barring cruelty. Children will eventually be able to accept or reject what they are taught, just like with religion or political views. There\u2019s reasons for the designation of gender gender being socially constructed does not mean that it doesn\u2019t exist. There are good reasons for making a distinction sexual attraction, for one. It\u2019s also helpful once again, not always true to use gender as a proxy for sex I think most people would agree that gender separated showers, changing rooms, and sports are good. Gender marketed toys and clothes exist because they sell. I get that people who reject the mainstream ideas of gender can feel left out, but I don\u2019t think there are any grounds to start abolishing gender distinctions. Like with religion and politics, how Christianity and the Republicans and Democrats are mainstream, but other groups are free to exist, I think we can find a solution that works for everyone. The whole debate about other genders and using people\u2019s pronouns is fine society should be respectful and use the pronouns you request. But I disagree that we\u2019re obligated to start introducing our pronouns or anything else like that. People disagree about social issues we have different ideas about what gender SHOULD be, but they can coexist. I\u2019m granting you tolerance by not harassing you and respect by using your pronouns easy things I think everyone could do that would resolve this debate . It\u2019s the difference between using a title like Ms. and insisting that EVERYONE use that title instead of Miss and Mrs. if you get it wrong, everyone realizes it was a mistake and will use the right title, exactly how I think pronouns can work .","conclusion":"Gender is best thought of as a model of reality"}
{"id":"25e0cab0-bf06-4618-be03-43f3a6e01863","argument":"Genetic selection is the cornerstone of Darwinian evolution, however it has traditionally been carried out by mate selection rather than selective birth. To suggest that there is an issue with genetic selection is to suggest that evolution itself is immoral.","conclusion":"It cannot simply be assumed without justification that genetic selection is a bad thing."}
{"id":"aee93a4c-2dfd-4a7d-bc45-e2fa13cb09db","argument":"Some part of donations to the church may result in charitable work that the giver would otherwise make through different means. However, the efficiency will suffer from overheads for instance the livelihood of a preacher and his boss, and his boss's boss etc, and the buildings they work and live in, their private jets, the adverts, pomp, and the expensive art that adorns their window-frames, walls, ceilings or vaults, and legal fees.","conclusion":"Most religions use the you-have-nothing-to-lose-by-believing argument. Of course you do: There's your time, your independence, your objectivity, and your cash."}
{"id":"1d3ad31a-2b91-4b9d-b57a-7cc861bd81e8","argument":"So, I know its become real trendy to shit on Elon Musk on Reddit these days, and to be clear this isn't a defense of his various P.R mistakes and there are many . In fact, I think there are a lot of good reasons to dislike Elon Musk, he's made comments that are at least mildly racist and his position against unions jeopardizes workers rights. x200B The point that I would like to have my mind changed on is the fact that its hypocritical to call yourself an environmentalist and be in opposition to one of the only public figures that is actually invested in making electric cars a reality. Not hybrids, not low mpg cars, but fully electric cars that could exist in a CO2 emissions free world. I think many times the environmental movement loves to find fault in possible solutions nuclear power, wind power interfering with birds etc. but even if these criticisms are valid, the clock is running out when it comes to becoming a carbon neutral society, and there aren't many public figures today that are as dedicated to making that world a reality as Elon Musk, especially considering Tesla and the Home Battery systems that would make off the grid solar houses viable. x200B","conclusion":"It's hypocritical to be an environmentalist and against Elon Musk."}
{"id":"b7372718-7d78-4fe9-b7b8-96e63caec07c","argument":"A marriage is a contract, any marriage has certain terms that apply when the contract is defunct. They\u2019re saying that there should only be one set of conditions of how marriage is dissolved that is determined by the State. What we want to establish in this point is the value of individual liberty and why the State should respect decisions of individuals to engage in pre-nuptial agreements. We also want to write some more extensive rebuttal on the nature of decision making under the influence of love and about the uncertainty of the future, to further justify the validity of pre-nuptial agreements. First of all a fundamental question, why the State cannot control your life? We can all agree that one of the important responsibilities of the State is to maximize the ability of people to fulfill their personhood. What distinguishes people from for animals is the ability to reason and make their own decisions based on their own methods of thinking. Any state must preserve the ability of it's citizens to engage in rational thought that makes a person a person. Actions based on that rational thought should be recognized by extension, because what would be the point of living your life and thinking if you're not allowed to make decisions in your personal life based on your own ideas about what is right for you. We think that individuals should have the right to enter into long-term contracts pre-nups which have a potential harms circumstances change in their pursuit of a good life. From the very first points of the proposition's case we see that they're trying to defend the idea that people who are in love don't make rational decisions. In particular they do not consider the possibility of that love ending when entering into pre-nups and are blind toward the future. Through this they try to justify the motion of not considering pre-nuptial agreements in courts. We have four points in rebuttal to that idea: 1. The point that couples who are entering into pre-nups do not consider the possibility of divorce, may hold if everyone were entering pre-nups, but that isn't the case. Most people stay with the State based system. Pre-nups are only entered into by couples who make an active decision to leave the State based system, who decide that the State system isn't right for them, and we would argue that this represents a significant selection effect. A couple who has already decided that one divorce system is not right for them is clearly not a couple that is incapable of considering divorce. 2. Love may mean that the decision isn't a perfectly considered, objectively rational view, but so what-- people fall in love and get married based on impulse to a large extent anyway. There are lots of decisions that have confounding factors. People tend not to think they'll get sick, we still let them decide whether to get health insurance or not. Optimism doesn't mean you take away an individuals decision making freedom because they might make imperfect choices, and to do so is patronizing for any State. People should be allowed to make imperfect decisions in a free society. 3. Even if impulse is present, decisions are made with constant advisement from legal professionals who actively question their decisions, these aren't things the individuals write up themselves on sheets of paper. 4. Finally, most of what goes into a pre-nup has nothing to do with divorce per se. Most of a pre-nup determines the responsibilities within a marriage, what each partner needs to do to remain without fault should a marriage be terminated. This section only requires the couple to have a considered view of what they think a marriage should be. Given that they are getting married, we think that this is something they should have. Even the sections that deal with divorce don't require an individual to think that they will be divorced. It simply requires an individual to decide what they believe would be fair under this hypothetical scenario. People have shown themselves capable of declaring decisions under hypothetical scenarios, no matter how unlikely they believe these scenarios to be, so we don't think the effect of love, which only impacts the person's assessment of the probability of divorce, would impair their ability to decide what they think would be fair under that hypothetical scenario. Furthermore, we think that all sorts of dangerous and absurd conclusions can be drawn if we consider people to be irrational when they're getting married. If people are irrational about the terms in the pre-nup, then surely it must follow that they irrational about what they want from their marriage and how the decisions they make during marriage. Should the State then have the right to decide how people should behave within marriages? Love is often an irrational impulse, that means that they are irrational about whom they chose as their partner. Does that then mean that the State should decide what sort of partner people should be with? That is clearly an absurd scenario and the fact that it is absurd to most people shows how much people value individual liberty and decision making, even if that entails risk. The second argument that we want to consider in more depth here is the argument of ''future blindness''. The proposition claims that the fact that decisions made in the past may become detrimental to individuals in the future, because of changing circumstances should be a basis for not considering those past decisions in court. If they really believe this then they wouldn't approve of marriage. When you marry someone you sign a contract that you may later regret. Future blindness is a necessary evil for every marriage. Society accepts that there exists a pretty good correlation between who you are now and who you are in the future and the sense of individual continuity. Otherwise there would be no basis for punishing crimes. They raise the problem of mutual consent, the fact that you cannot change your decision without agreeing with the other party first. But we think that responsibility is a good thing. People are held accountable for their past decisions in society, there's nothing wrong with that. Also, just because one individual in the marriage changes their views, shouldn't mean that the other party shouldn't be protected. The liberty of one person to exit a pre-nup shouldn't come at the cost of another person. Either way the problem of mutual consent falls when we look at the alternative-- the State imposing the terms of divorce on you. In that scenario you have no consent at all, you are entrapped into what the State thinks is right for you. In the point ''The State imposed system is not objectively right for everybody'', we show that the proposition has not proved to us that the State is objectively right. We think they'll have a difficulty proving it, because it is natural that all people are different, desire different things and that one-system-for-all, especially in such personal matters as marriage, simply will leave many people unhappy. Individuals have the right to enter into long-term contracts which have risks in the pursuit of good. Future risk acceptance is the fundamental freedom of human activity. We think that by proposition's argument people shouldn't be able to invest because they might not receive returns on their investments and shouldn't be able to vote because your opinions might change before your elected politician enters into office and you no longer support them, or because he himself might change in that time period. A plethora of equally absurd examples can be brought if you follow the proposition's logic. In conclusion this argument was written to defend the validity of pre-nuptial agreements and the right of people to make such agreements. To do this we have given arguments against proposition's claim that pre-nups are irrational but also pointed out that this idea can be reduced ad absurdum-- if pre-nups are irrational then chosing your partner in marriage is also irrational. Does that mean that the ''analytic and objective'' state should determine whom you marry? and against their claim that future blindness is a fundamental harm in the case of pre-nups.","conclusion":"Liberty to decide what you want is good and because pre-nuptial agreements can be considered rational decisions"}
{"id":"67c8ad13-f944-4b9e-a534-fee979749a7b","argument":"Emotional distance and rationality are paramount to evaluating evidence and determining the probability of guilt. This is why those personally affected by a crime can't sit on the jury.","conclusion":"Forcing jurors to participate in an execution is likely to make jurors more emotional and less rational when rendering a verdict."}
{"id":"719f9514-5414-4373-a3a5-c40bda5441c8","argument":"Before casting, potential actors are researched for their ability to attract a large enough audience. Studios then can gauge if using the actor is worth this financial risk.","conclusion":"Producers have to gauge critical as well as commercial success before casting actors in particular roles."}
{"id":"d8c85d23-d025-4cc8-b7ab-041f55032d19","argument":"Religion can be used as a protective barrier to further discriminatory, or harmful views that would otherwise be seen as violations of rights. For example, refusing to provide services for LGBT+ individuals on the basis of exercising religious freedom.","conclusion":"Religion still to this day condemns the morality of the LGBT community, a practice modern western society condemns as bigotry."}
{"id":"ffa40c78-6fb3-46e5-84be-28c18afc2849","argument":"The vegan society is very critical toward the use of palm oil vegansociety.com so calling it a vegan staple is dishonest as many vegans try to avoid palm oil.","conclusion":"Imported food tends to be less ethical than local food."}
{"id":"73304938-78a3-4bd5-b949-953f589dcd4a","argument":"In my opinion the single most important argument in favor of gun ownership is that it prevents tyranny. In the US, there are upwards of 136 million gun owners in America, and that estimate is likely on the conservative side, considering the number of people who would not want to risk ending up in a registry or on some sort of list. This number already makes American gun owners the single largest armed group in history by orders of magnitude. A common counterpoint to this is that \u201cgun owners are just a bunch of rednecks\u201d however, at least 61 of gun owners have received formal training, and 51 of gun owners train regularly on their own, with 31 consuming additional educational material This suggests that a majority of American gun owners are moderately well trained, with a not insignificant portion being highly trained. Based on these numbers alone, I don\u2019t believe that the American military could successfully repress a rebellion by American gun owners, such as in the event of a confiscation. Many people argue \u201cwhat\u2019s an AR 15 gonna do against a predator drone\u201d but I don\u2019t think that that argument is usable, because the American military cannot destroy their own infrastructure or bomb civilian non militants. For these reasons together, it is my personal opinion that American gun owners could not only successfully overthrow the government, but also prevent a civil war from happening due to the government realizing the citizenry\u2019s power.","conclusion":"American gun owners are the single most formidable deterrent against tyranny in history, and an uprising by them could not be suppressed."}
{"id":"425e5f91-005d-4a9a-9521-9d142e37b93e","argument":"I am a butcher in a rural state, and I work in a food co operative with very strong emphasis on sustainable, local food options. I have experience with many local family farm operations first hand and would say that I am fairly privy to how they operate and how sustainable they are. Everywhere you go on the internet, a common answer to how can I help the environment is to give up all meat. Normally, I am one to shrug off nonsense like this, but what was shocking to me was simple how many people were saying this and believing it, so I feel as though with the experience that I have in a profession as ancient and highly regarded as husbandry, I am obligated to step in and give my 2 cents. To preface Yes, factory farms and horribly mismanaged large scale swollen farms are playing a criminal role in destroying our planet. From mass deforestation, to poisoning the soil, to horrible mistreatment of animals, to contaminating watersheds, factory farm operations are wreaking havoc on our ecosystems. With that out of the way small family farms are not doing any of these things. Animal husbandry has been around for as long as our history goes back, yet somehow suddenly only in the 20th century eating meat destroyed the environment? Absolutely not. It's simply not that black and white. How in the world does my pork that comes from 5 miles down the road from me, have more of a negative effect on the environment than your avocado shipped across the country from Mexico? How does my butter from a farm down the road devastate the environment while your coconut butter shipped from across the ocean is helping it? How is the family that buys a half share of a cow up the highway, giving them meat for an entire year for their family of four more of an affront to the planet than families who only eat green foods shipped in from tropical states countries nowhere near them? To beat the point further, how is the chick across town who grows her own produce and only eats the meat she hunts herself polluting the atmosphere more than her neighbor who scarfs down nuts, non dairy milk, salad greens wrapped in plastic, and dried fruits from again half way across the country? The pork farm? Animal welfare certified run just by a dude, his wife, and kids. The beef farm? A retired old couple who are running the family farm that's been in their name for generations. The chicken? Raised by a musician who keeps himself busy between tours with his wife and kids. Whenever I buy food from these people, I am supporting ethical farmers who know how important it is to take care of the land they use for their living, and who do what they can to be strong pillars of our community. I know who my money goes to, and I know that I am keeping more good, honest, hard working people in business, while keeping more money out of the hands of those who are destroying our planet. I am not against vegans or vegetarians. I am not against people trying to help the environment. My point is that helping the environment is not as simple as not eating meat . I walk to work. I live within walking distance of all of my needs. I only drive to visit family or to reach trails rivers. I work in a building that is more than 70 fueled by renewable energy, and takes my compost and recycling from me every week, and as a result my wife and I fill only one 30 gallon trashbag with actual trash a week. None of my clothes were made from slave labor, and I use minimal plastic contained cosmetics even my deodorant and toothpaste are recyclable, and my toothbrushes compostable . More than 90 of the food in my apartment comes from my state, if not my town. Especially my meat and fish, where if I can't tell you the farm or the shore it came from, I don't buy or eat. The pork up the road from me is animal welfare certified, the beef is a 15 minute drive up the highway, and the chicken roughly the same distance, and over the summer I grill my own perch, bass and trout I catch. I eat meat for breakfast, lunch and dinner, proportionally less than the grains and vegetables I buy which are locally grown Exception being rice, can't grow that where I am, and I buy in BULK stored in a glass jar I reuse . The biggest carbon footprint I have is actually coffee. My biggest contribution? I avoid fast food restaurants and chains like the plague, and only begrudgingly eat from them if I didn't prepare food well on a road trip. Yet, asking the right people, I am destroying the environment simply because I eat meat, and nothing else I listed matters. Yet any vegan again nothing against vegans, and don't mean it as a negative word, a vegan is just simply the best opposite to myself I can use is seen as a herald of environmentalism, even if they commute by highway 30 minutes each day, barely recycle, buy insane amount of plastic wrapped snacks and tofu or even worse, the invasive jackfruit from southeast asia , or only buy marketed vegan proteins that don't even come from a neighboring country. All the while putting their money in the pockets of businesses you don't know in different countries, while my money is going straight back into my own economy. Where is the sense in this that I am missing? In the end, it is not a matter of if you eat meat or not which helps the environment, but rather your lifestyle as a whole. If you give up all meat, yet still don't take any other measures to reduce your carbon footprint, chances are you are not being nearly as productive as you think you are. Edit 1 To add something I missed, I do believe we eat too much meat in the united states. We absolutely do need to eat less meat to take major steps to help the environmental impact of our culture. However, this point doesn't really do much for the view that is trying to be changed. Edit 2 Many are rushing to point out that meat, regardless of source, has a higher environmental impact than veggies. Beyond the inconsistencies of this argument for example, the carbon footprint of me walking to the lake and catching a trout , there are always going to be foods that vary in carbon footprint. This still doesn't argue my view. It is not family farms carving through the brazil rainforests, and it is not small family farms abusing antibiotics, or running giant facilities that gorge on fossil fuels and irrigated water. It is not family farms shoving horrendous amounts of burgers down the gullets of americans through fast food chains. They are simply not even on the same level.","conclusion":"Sustainable family farms and self-subsistence hunters are unjustifiably grouped in with large-scale factory farm operations for destroying the environment, and as a result many are viewing \"saving the earth\" as a horribly oversimplified ultimatum."}
{"id":"5417c0dc-a265-4d4f-8b80-70e1fa079cf0","argument":"If you have two hands, you rarely think about what life is like without one hand. Sure, it's not impossible to think about life without a hand or without two hands, but you rarely have an incentive or a reason to. Those who complain about privilege are trying to raise awareness about life with something other than two hands. I hold this view because it seems like a good description of the arguments and rants that go down on Reddit and elsewhere, without being uncharitable towards either side.","conclusion":"\"Privilege\" is like having two hands."}
{"id":"1423071b-3d54-42db-943e-0a3407cd07c1","argument":"To be clear, I would not personally directly gain by a change in this policy. However, my son will be college age in 7 years and it saddens me to think that I don't believe in the value of higher education anymore except for the fields that have a stranglehold on the higher ed requirement for their professional accreditation . And it saddens me to hear the remaining kool aid drinking people of my age ~50 that defend the institution. So please  and make me comfortable with the upcoming gouging. I believe that the outrageous inflation of tuition prices is a direct result of the easy access to money that students are given. And hopeful, success chasing, 18 year olds are an easy bet for money lenders when their debts can't be wiped away by bankruptcy. They're likely to over indulge in their borrowing but they exhibit the basic responsibility of being people that invest in their future. This allows money to pour into the system and colleges to take advantage of that surplus of money. By making bad student debt the same as other debt, lenders would be forced to get more involved in the risk assessment process of these loans as they'd lose a major part of their own safety net student loans can't be written off by bankruptcy . This special consideration of student loan debt is unjustifiable and reflects the corruption of politics that it was created to serve a paying lobbying clientele. And I welcome the College education is worth a million dollars over your working career argument. I find it specious for the following reasons correlation doesn't imply causation. Why don't people ever mention this? College goers surely skew self investing and we shouldn't be surprised that self investors should be more successful as a group than those who do so less How well does a college education serve when you exclude the professions that REQUIRE a college education? I accept that professions that require a college education skew better paid. But that's cheating the stats. How much money would you have over the course of your life if you'd invested that college fund instead for 40 years instead of planting it in a college? Frankly, it makes me angry just writing about it. I find this to be the biggest injustice in society today competing with our victimless drug possession laws . d So please change my view. Teach me why college tuition isn't an abuse of the optimism of our next generation.","conclusion":"American higher education debt must be solved by allowing student debt to be written off by bankruptcy"}
{"id":"47dbd93a-fb69-4b6b-b87a-123cb642880c","argument":"A sup-group of 150 cardiac patients who received intercessory prayer they were prayed for in addition to alternative post-operative therapy treatment had the highest success rate within the entire cohort","conclusion":"People who are prayed for have a higher success rate of recovery than those who are not prayed for."}
{"id":"3b2ae69b-a92d-4d27-9df4-c62480c3a8c5","argument":"The basic idea of projection is that I interpret other people, their motives and their behaviours through the lens of my own subconsciouly projected material. I try to expunge and push out my own complexes into the world, I see other people as loving because I am loving I am sadistic because I have an inner parent sadistically abusing my mind. The problem with me accusing you of projecting is that you can turn around and accuse me of doing the same, so when it comes to discussing substantive issues, politics, virtually any socio political antagonistic discourse, we cannot make any headway with the idea of projection since nothing is real, everything is just us projecting our minds out into the ether. This idea threatens to evaporate all reasonable discourse and truth itself if we are all just projecting, what would it mean for anything to be true? What is intersubjectivity if we are all just pressing out our unconscious conflicts?","conclusion":"The idea of projection in psychodynamic theory does not work because it is solipsistic"}
{"id":"654734aa-569c-4318-b265-160a4395a875","argument":"Blocking exclusively white supremacists is hypocritical and biased; black supremacists, sinocentrists etc should be subject to the same rules, and censored in turn. The lack of consistency in treatment of hate groups demonstrate clear bias on the part of censors.","conclusion":"Censorship is inherently biased, as it is a decision based on a person's opinion; it is undemocratic to have one opinion dictating how others should think."}
{"id":"bdf80617-0ce9-4621-a335-bc3c677d3da5","argument":"The US was explicitly founded on the idea that individuals have a right to own guns as part of a right and responsibility to resist tyranny.","conclusion":"Free access to guns is a cultural characteristic of the US and thus should be preserved."}
{"id":"3076e0fd-0765-4e0e-b7eb-c3ee0050967f","argument":"Presidents should have to cooperate with law enforcement if they're involved in a serious investigation. This interview isn't a perjury trap, because Mueller can't convict or impeach Trump on technical mistakes. The only valid reason Trump has to not do this interview is that he's trying to cover something else up, be it minor or major. I think Trump's lawyers' endgame is to force Mueller to issue a subpoena, which they can then take to court, dragging out that part of the Mueller investigation, making Mueller look like he failed. Edits Republicans will always have enough votes in Congress to block impeachment. There wouldn't be much public support for it anyways, if the lies were small scale or technical. The worst punishment Mueller can impose for perjury would be a small fine. A sitting President can't be jailed, except for substantive crimes. A special investigation is a serious investigation. By perjury trap, I refer to the fear that Mueller will try to get Trump to say something that's technically false, even though Trump didn't mean to lie. I refute this by saying that Mueller won't be able to jail a sitting President on a technicality, nor will he find enough support in Congress Republicans, even if they lose all the seats that are up for grabs in the Senate, will have the votes necessary to block the 2 3rds majority vote necessary to remove Trump from office to impeach Trump, unless the lie is intentional, and very substantive. Trump has a moral and political duty to submit to the interview, even if it's dangerous for him personally.","conclusion":"Trump should do the Mueller interview"}
{"id":"16145fb9-8921-4565-bf20-17b3b3991a2a","argument":"A meta-analysis of 90 studies found that students at faith-based schools scored 11 percentile points higher on standardized tests on average than their peers at traditional public and charter schools. The researchers also concluded that students at faith-based schools had fewer behavioral issues.","conclusion":"Religious schools provide valuable education to many children in society; without state assistance, some of these children will lose out on such education."}
{"id":"c5a5008d-18ae-4836-ac46-f096f970c6b2","argument":"Due to their lower physical capabilities. Women are on average weaker and possess less endurance than their male counterparts. Front line infantry are required to carry very heavy loads over long periods of time, and then enter combat on a moment's notice. I read a passage that indicated that 85 of men in the military are capable of being a soldier on the front lines, while only 15 of women have the physical and mental capabilities tested. In addition up to 40 of female infantry became pregnant by the time they were called to duty wasting training resources. I will find a source for this ASAP, it was in an official MCAT question. Please change my view","conclusion":"I believe women do not belong on the front lines in the military."}
{"id":"e006dfa5-f9a8-4d32-8f64-74ca592f87b6","argument":"Northern Africa has mass areas of desert and thus is underpopulated. It would be a candidate for reformation but let us not impose solutions on others cf Israel and Palestine why not start with North America USA which also has vast underpopulated areas.","conclusion":"Technology researched to terraform other planets could also be used to 'repair' Earth climate changes."}
{"id":"9723b58b-da6d-4a6d-9f23-9d3e3545bb7e","argument":"We\u2019ve now passed 8 billion on this planet when I was born it was a little over 6.5 food prices are rising, oil is Ending. When our resources end in 20 years, giving everything we know of our species do you really think we\u2019re going to just share?? A third of the worlds farmland is now useless due to soil degradation yet we keep producing more mouths to feed so what\u2019s your answer for that? \u201cEnergy saving lightbulbs\u201d? You know the person who had the greatest ecological impact on this planet? Genghis Khan, because he massacred 40 million people. There was no one to farm the land, forests grew back, carbon was dragged out of the atmosphere and had this monster not existed there would be another billion of us today jostling for space on this dying planet.","conclusion":"or don\u2019t if you also believe over population will kill this world."}
{"id":"842bbceb-add6-4e99-b630-a094c8a3f2e1","argument":"Parents have to supervise children and pressure them to do their homework, this creates additional work for parents and often strains the relationship with their children.","conclusion":"Schools should not be outsourcing teaching to parents in the form of homework."}
{"id":"eca36431-d036-421e-a103-bcae460b4442","argument":"Since the decision which content to censor is entirely up to the Internet companies' discretion, nothing will stop them from denying services to other groups they disagree with.","conclusion":"Denying service to white supremacists might lead to extensive online censorship of non-mainstream views."}
{"id":"fc1dde05-7c33-4664-ac8b-9582019484bc","argument":"Vaccinations offer proven, fact-based, objective health benefits. Due to their very nature, the same cannot be said about religious practices.","conclusion":"Vaccinations similarly violate bodily autonomy, yet most reasonable people would agree that the benefits are worthwhile."}
{"id":"a130cff6-9e11-43ed-a371-e826656013ea","argument":"More progress will appear in the future, so the Standard Model should be made to be more flexible to adapt and handle this incoming progress.","conclusion":"Being from the 1970s, the Standard Model may be or become outdated, as it doesn't keep up with newer advancements that continue to appear."}
{"id":"cec61cd1-5661-45fc-a1b6-0868582a1c53","argument":"Many religions and culture view a women\u2019s place as being in the home. Within this sphere they are respected as of paramount. Facilitating women to stay at home with their children respects these beliefs and helps to foster the culture of respect towards women\u2019s special role that underpins them.","conclusion":"Many religions and culture view a women\u2019s place as being in the home. Within this sphere they are r..."}
{"id":"83f16aab-c8b9-4d2c-954f-ac6b8eea35d8","argument":"Fire ants are the worst type of ants and I'm going to prove that objectively. They are super freaking resilient. They clump up into balls when they are in water so it's impossible to drown them. When it gets too dry, the ants simply dig until they hit the water table. They can survive to 9 centigrade They are an invasive species practically every where in the world. You can't stop them One bite does a nasty little pustule that stings for days, and can get infected. TOO BAD A QUEEN LAYS 9 MILLION EGGS IN HER LIFE TIME. Also, they are freaking ninja sneaky, crawling up on you in the thousands, perhaps even millions, then they release a pheromone, signalling them all to attack at the same time. They all bite and you think they are done? THEY ARNT. They bite until either they or you are dead. They cause a huge amount of damage to crops in the US They injure and kill people and livestock. They absolutely decimate any ground birds, lizards, other bugs, whatever they can get their greedy poisonous corrosive jaws locked onto. Psychologically, Can you imagine a giant clump of fire ants, LANDING ON YOUR FACE AND GOING INTO ALL YOUR FACE HOLES I rest my case","conclusion":":Fire Ants are the worst type of ants."}
{"id":"72580c2b-27b5-40b5-ae1f-e0a4bd684863","argument":"Both plants and animals are made from organic molecules, which humans and other animals require in order to survive, and there are no alternative sources. Hence, both present sources of nutrition, and only the specific nutritional needs of a species determine which of the two should be eaten by whom.","conclusion":"It is equally ethical to eat animals as it is to eat plants."}
{"id":"c4a523ae-2afe-42ac-9844-a99a2bf63ce1","argument":"A number of prominent politicians, who have campaigned on conservative values, have been involved in sex scandals This raises questions of hypocrisy.","conclusion":"The private actions of prominent people should sometimes be revealed as they can be relevant to their public life."}
{"id":"eec5f1e6-3552-4d8d-938e-69c967ccb37a","argument":"Trump's biggest threat in the primaries in 2020 would be someone from the right who would make all the campaign promises Trump did but convince the voters that he could do it better than Trump.","conclusion":"Trump will want to avoid primary challenges in 2020 from candidates to the right of him. If Trump looks moderate, he is more likely to be vulnerable to a serious challenge."}
{"id":"1c47a45b-d2d0-49a5-a3ec-cd966f380904","argument":"Operators of AKMs will not be able to justify wrongful behavior through excuses such as impulsive reactions our of fear for their own life.","conclusion":"It will be easier to hold AKM operators responsible for wrongful actions. Thus, accountability might actually increase."}
{"id":"b67cf9ab-e8ef-4fff-be6b-9c02455cbb01","argument":"Guantanamo Bay prisoners can be released to a variety of host nations under specifically negotiated agreements, as has been the practice so far.","conclusion":"The closure of Guantanamo Bay does not mean the release of the most dangerous prisoners, there are alternatives to this particular facility."}
{"id":"d7c151f6-b165-4343-8408-a89abb760abc","argument":"First, I believe that the reason to be ideologically opposed to Obamacare, is an ideology that government should not be involved in peoples lives. Arguments focused on human suffering are unconvincing in this ideological mindset because of the belief that the solution to human suffering should not involve the government, but rather on individuals personal responsibility and voluntary charity. I disagree with this ideology because I do not think we can we can rely on everyone to make good decisions and have good fortune and that charity is inefficient compared to social institutions. That having been said, repealing Obamacare without a viable replacement will directly cause a great deal of human suffering and deaths the impoverished, working poor, those who unwisely do not buy insurance and those who cannot get insurance because of preexisting conditions. Beyond the direct impacts on uninsured and under insured, are ripple effects in the economy what economists call \u201cnegative externalities\u201d. People won\u2019t be able to work and will burden society in other ways. People will commit crimes motivated by paying for healthcare or will engage in black markets. People won\u2019t take the risk to start a business. People won\u2019t quit a bad job to go to school and build their human capital. People won\u2019t want to work for start ups or small companies because of the additional risk to their healthcare coverage. America needs an efficient healthcare system for both moral and economic reasons. Repealing Obamacare without a viable replacement, that address and improves on systemic inefficiencies, is bad for America","conclusion":"Repealing Obamacare without a viable replacement is bad for America"}
{"id":"69a2948f-fde2-4359-bfb7-030997b65d55","argument":"Solar and Wind power are now cheaper than fossil fuels. That could make fighting climate change into a profitable form of business for energy companies. source: independent.co.uk","conclusion":"Technology is developing very fast. Fighting climate change can be a motivator to indirectly improve\/innovate industries."}
{"id":"0c33e00c-94b5-440e-953a-01571dfce299","argument":"If the brain was not designed by a creator then it was not designed for thinking, but rather is a by-product of chemical and physical reactions in the brain. There is no logical reason to trust such a random and unguided process to give an apparatus capable of understanding reality. Therefore we should not trust it if it is claiming atheism.C.S. Lewis on Reasoning to Atheism","conclusion":"The ontology and existence of logic cannot be justified in a naturalistic universe."}
{"id":"54b0c9a8-5dc8-445f-9c74-e25d9f69a464","argument":"This struck me today while I was in a fancy restaurant today with my friend. Apparently some kind of manager of the restaurant struck a short conservation rather a monologue? with us bragging about how many books he\u2019s written, talking to us in 8 different languages, and how he also knows about physics and mathematics suprisingly not pop sci stuff like I thought after asking what I was majoring in. This was really uncomfortable, and definitely not humble of him at all. He was better than me in anything I deemed myself good. But this encounter gave me motivation to push my boundaries. Of course, from a perspective, he did that to feel good about himself, but in a way, it showed me that I had room for improvement. I believe being humble robs other people from this realization. Say, when I could\u2019ve showed off my skills in guitar to intermediate players but didn\u2019t just for the sake of being humble, I think I inhibited their development as a guitarist.","conclusion":"Your humility inhibits other people\u2019s personal development."}
{"id":"5f7edb2c-7a8b-45b9-a01e-347a454d8ec0","argument":"In addition to consumer pressures, the market for corporate control i.e. capital markets would punish the stock price and boards of directors of ISPs who intentionally ban content, thereby driving down their own profits. Shareholders will never stand for the business reducing content available to consumers when the business model of an ISP is essentially that of a neutral pipeline: more content = more consumers = more profit.","conclusion":"Placeholder Competition will generally prevent price gouging or other forms of market abuse, just as it does with the rest of the economy overall."}
{"id":"f1154014-561c-4649-946d-52669d9a3041","argument":"I think adults over 18 should be able to legally purchase and smoke Marijuana. It's less harmful to your body then alcohol is, and the government could make some extra cash by taxing it. It is not medically addictive and it is not harmful to your body.","conclusion":"I think adults over 18 should be able to legally purchase and smoke Marijuana."}
{"id":"db57981d-f209-4b6c-9fed-d66edbe3d5ab","argument":"yes, I know its the blaze, the facts of the story still stand. In short, I cannot fathom a reason why it is in any way unreasonable to ask teachers to pass a literacy test that should be easily passable for a 12th grade student. Most stories I've read on the topic cite racial issues in one way or another, but I fail to see how a standardized test that is the same for all participants can possibly be racist. I certainly don't see myself as a prejudiced person, so I would like to see if anyone can shed some light on this for me. In my opinion, the only relevant question at hand is whether or not a teacher is competent enough to teach. It makes absolutely zero sense to have teachers who cannot pass a literacy test at a 12th grade level teaching students who could very well be more literate than them. The racial, gender, or any other composition of the teachers resulting from such a baseline literacy test is, to me, absolutely irrelevant. If gay black men are the only demographic that manages to pass the test, they should be the demographic educating the next generation. Some counterarguments I've heard Not all people are smart in the same way, don't judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, etc. Literacy is an essential skill for teachers, they are being judged on the ability to perform the job they are seeking out. Minorities are more likely to be poorly educated themselves, which leads to them being less equipped to pass the tests. Why is this of import? Again, the only relevant aspect of this argument is level of literacy, either you have to the requisite levels to perform the job, or you don't, end of discussion. Now, should we look at ways to overhaul the education system to ensure everyone has equal access to good quality education? Absolutely But I would think one of the ways to do this is to ensure that unqualified teachers are not educating children Interested to hear other lines of reasoning. Edit I did not expect this to blow up in this manner, so thank you all so very much for your time and energy taken to respond to my post I will still try to sift through and respond to those which I have not yet been able to reach. Thanks again Excellent debate.","conclusion":"There is no rational argument for doing away with the New York teacher literacy tests."}
{"id":"550b62eb-5946-49a2-a5c1-96a710b79d0e","argument":"Most forms of physical assault are not illegal just because they cause momentary pain, but because they inflict permanent damage that degrades a person's quality of life and productivity in the long term. In virtual reality, there are no such permanent effects.","conclusion":"In a virtual reality, some actions do not carry irreversible consequenses e.g. shooting someone. Therefore, many of the rules from the non-virtual reality does not make sense in virtual worlds."}
{"id":"cc0f6670-feee-4e21-87c6-d9e5a53d1caf","argument":"Gove has stated that he would seek to delay Brexit in order to try and reach a deal rather than going into a no-deal Brexit. This is the same approach as was adopted by May.","conclusion":"Michael Gove's consistent support for Prime Minister May is likely to lead to the same policy lines despite a change in leadership."}
{"id":"efa6b867-856e-428c-b588-4b48fdc893ff","argument":"\"U.S. Cluster Munitions Policy\". Briefing by Stephen D. Mull, Acting Assistant Secretary for Political-Military Affairs. 21 May 2008 - \"We think that it is going to be impossible to ban cluster munitions, as many in the Oslo process would like to do, because these are weapons that have a certain military utility and are of use.\"","conclusion":"Importance of cluster bombs against threats makes a ban infeasible"}
{"id":"88ae2bbf-94a8-4e3c-8d21-1e7988ff35f5","argument":"Given the health risks specific to intersex individuals, the parents' decision for the infant to have surgery can minimise their child's suffering until they're of age.","conclusion":"Parents can consent to medical procedures on behalf of their children when they deem it necessary."}
{"id":"a30f8056-a6e5-476d-a3a9-88b0b72e9a56","argument":"Except Austin. My perception is that Texas is full of ignorant bible abusing homophobes that take leviticus more seriously than the general theme of love everybody. Texans would rather drive trucks running on coal power than save money with a hybrid. Texans tend to be racist and eat more meat than they should, to a point where there are proportionately more fat people than the US average. Texans hate hispanic people and want to send them all away because they think these people do more harm than good Texans would often sooner teach the bible than evolution sports are more important than learning and knowledge to Texans Texans condemn porn almost as much as they watch it Texas is generally terrible I want not to hate it, but I see very little reason not to.","conclusion":"There is nothing good about Texas"}
{"id":"af54a277-dcc5-4bd8-aec6-59bce80e8028","argument":"There's absolutely no reason to not stop the clock when the game is interrupted like in handball for example . Stoppage time never compensates precisely for the time in which the ball was out of play, so the match never actually lasts 90 minutes. A biased referee may use stoppage time as a leverage to help one of the teams depending on whether he wants the score to change or not, he may make the additional time longer or shorter Referees can't use video replays which sometimes leads to ridiculous situations where all spectators see the replay immediately and know that the referee was wrong, but he won't change his decision. edit as u skyner13 pointed out, it's not true anymore, so I was wrong on that one. I'll just leave it here though That being said, it's hard for me to see any reasons behind all of this other than wanting to have more room for manipulation and making bribing easier. Oh, and I almost forgot, enjoy watching the World Cup gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Football soccer is a terribly organised sport."}
{"id":"e55459af-be09-4f59-bb4d-545c91b4ef8d","argument":"If other parties feel like the party in power or a party from the coalition government is dissatisfying the electorate, they are able to join forces with other parties and remove them from power.","conclusion":"Voters feel that their vote is more likely to have an impact p. 551."}
{"id":"4e2580c1-3cbc-4603-9cde-3c4bfeb595da","argument":"Religious texts, such as the Bible or the Qur'an, would have no power over people if they weren't highly revered. Consequently, all commandments, moral messages and instructions would not receive the same interest devotion, regardless of their significance. I believe the texts are revered because of their history. The Qur'an is considered to be the literal word of God. The Bible has many authors and thus the religious communities feel that this furthers its credibility. The Torah lays the foundation of the covenant between a person and God and without the covenant, the rest of the text is meaningless. However, I'm beginning to consider alternate arguments and hence have turned to this subreddit to consider your views","conclusion":"The power of a religious sacred text is found in the reverence given to it by the religious communities because without reverence, the content has no significance or influence."}
{"id":"53be00c6-81f6-43e6-84ad-c4b1f7954b04","argument":"For teachers who lack an understanding of the ways others will experience racism throughout their lives, sanitising content will often simply further isolate them from opportunities to gain that understanding.","conclusion":"The removal of words from a book will have no effect on the lack of empathy of such people."}
{"id":"1f4a19c9-22d0-4d6a-867f-03e51ae791a7","argument":"I've just finished watching S3 E4 of Black Mirror on Netflix and, in combination with having playing the Soma videogame, have come to the conclusion that 'digital immortality' is impossible. For anyone unfamiliar, spoilers in both Black Mirror S3 E4 and Soma revolve around the concept of copying or moving one's consciousness from their body into a machine or computer system. It seems to me that in this hypothetical situation, the copy is made and continues but the original simply dies and their consciousness ceases to exist. The copies may think and feel that they are real but are really just 'born' with all of the feelings and memories up till till the point the original was coped and only serves as data for the system to be used by real, living users. I feel that technology like this will be possible in the future and like the idea of being uploaded in such a way, but my current stance makes me feel like it would not really do what these pieces of entertainment advertise.","conclusion":"Digital Immortality is Impossible"}
{"id":"698e1f44-475e-4226-9766-64eab940a3f1","argument":"This is technically true, however the point of science isn't about knowing the truth as much as it is about nullifying falsehoods.","conclusion":"No one was around to observe the claims by scientists so we cannot know that they are true."}
{"id":"ca3cccc4-a98e-4ef9-8b52-050717c6d61c","argument":"Before I begin let me say that I am not a homophobe. I believe that same sex marriage is as legitimate as heterosexual marriage. I believe that transexuals should have the right to undergo surgery and hormone therapy. I do not think that homosexuality transexuality is a choice therefore not a moral issue . That being said, I believe that homosexuals and transexuals have a mental dysfunction. mental dysfunction I say mental dysfunction because I do not know of the proper word to describe these conditions . They are unlike schizophrenia, multiple personality disorders, or autism because the effects of these dysfunction on a person are debilitating in all aspects of life and require rehabilitation. Either condition does have negative effects on an individuals ability to reproduce, which is the purpose for much of life. I don't think that human life has such a purpose anymore, but there are emotional benefits to producing offspring I am not saying that homosexuals or transexuals cannot have children, only that it is more difficult for them to do so . I don't think that these conditions are mental dysfunctions because they deviate from the norm. Otherwise any human behavior that is not the mean would be a dysfunction. Historically either condition would be debilitating because of the social implications those who were openly homosexual could, depending on the culture, could be ostracized or murdered but in our modern liberal societies homosexuality and transexuality are at worst tolerated and at best embraced. I am no expert, so this is only speculation, but I believe that the reason homosexuality and transexuality has been historically oppressed is because those societies are focused on either maintaining traditional values or maintaining population growth. Since we are less focused on tradition and many circles advocate for population reduction there is less pressure to limit homosexuality transexuality. genetic epigenetic component Although there is no gay gene I do not doubt that there is a genetic epigenetic component. It is clear from years of research on the human genome and human development that such a genetic epigenetic pathway would be incredibly complex and likely not be known for years. It is also likely that there are many different pathways that could lead to homosexuality transexuality. These various pathways, with different strengths create a gradient of homosexuality transexuality which is what we see in human sexuality. While there is no gay gene for humans there are some from the genetic model organism Drosophila melanogaster the fruit fly . For example a mutant form of the gene fruitless Fru leads to a large increase in homosexual courtship among male flies. There are other genes that can cause this behavior in male and female fruit flies. Furthermore, research on the genes have shown that these mutant genes affect the wiring in the fruit fly nervous system. This suggests that gene therapy in would be ineffective in curing the behavior in fruit flies since by adulthood the wiring is all done. Treatment in human beings are even less likely to be effective based on how hard psychotherapy is at curing mental diseases once again I don't think either homosexuality or transexuality is a mental disease on par with chronic depression or multiple personality disorders . Gene therapy is even further behind. However, I believe that one day there could be a cure for homosexuality transexuality which would be either drug, gene therapy, or perhaps even rewiring the brain itself. I say cure only because it would improve one's quality of life in situations where homosexuality and transexuality are less desirable. I think that this would fit better with transexuals who may find it financially easier to change one's sexual orientation than one's body. why is this point of view resisted I believe that this idea is resisted in our society because of the implications surrounding it. If homosexuality transexuality is considered a mental dysfunction it would put it on par with other conditions such as schizophrenia, autism, ect. Saying that one has a mental dysfunction when he she does not agree is very insulting, people do not like to think they are dysfunctional. It also suggests that a cure is possible right now I do not think that a cure exists . If there is a cure then 1 this means there is a choice in being homosexual transexual 2 there could be more social pressure to undergo a cure. I think we should keep an open mind because there are positive benefits to my point of view. For one, it gives the individual a choice to determine what he she wants his sexual orientation to be. A person can make this decision for any number of reasons the choice goes both ways so a heterosexual person can change one's orientation, or a cis to trans . In addition this point of view wouldn't prevent research into human sexuality because if people believe homosexuality transexuality are mental dysfunctions there would be no social pressure against such research. conclusions mental dysfunction because it can cause behaviors that negatively effect a person's standard of living makes reproduction more difficult, negative social treatment in many cultures . homosexuality transexuality likely has some genetic epigentic basis which although can not currently be cured may one day be cured. if society largely had this believe assuming that people are not homophobic transphobic there could be more impetus for a cure which would have many benefits to the individual regardless of sexual orientation. FINALLY, I apologize if my remarks have offended anyone. I did not write this in hate and I am open to other points of view that could either improve my understanding of homosexuality or transexuality. Also, if you are offended tell me how why so I do not offend others in real life. Thanks everyone for reading and commenting. EDIT I forgot to say that I did not have enough time to articulate my position completely and if anyone wants me to clarify anything I would be glad.","conclusion":"Homosexuals and transexuals suffer from a mental dysfunction,"}
{"id":"35d90f96-5301-4738-b9c7-806c7b2bfab8","argument":"Lebron had Dwayne Wade & Ray Allen for his Heat Championship teams, and Kyrie Irving & Kevin Love for his Cavaliers Championship team","conclusion":"Lebron colluded with other players to form a super team."}
{"id":"9f046d40-c8ef-4358-8951-4887541efbe9","argument":"The salaries of religious organization staff are excessive and could be easily humbled to decrease expenses.","conclusion":"The expenses that religious organizations incur are extravagant and unnecessary for their existence."}
{"id":"971a6196-c29f-46b9-9521-b993304bb56c","argument":"Approximately 20% of the worlds oil trade is shipped via the Straight of Hormuz, thus its disruption will lead to shortages and a huge spike in oil prices.","conclusion":"The Iranian Government would benefit from increasing the price of oil."}
{"id":"caf06973-0490-47b4-8c2b-7b25e82abdbd","argument":"By agreeing to the terms of the British, we save our own lives. At the same time, by not actually complying with the demand to help track down slaves, we minimize the suffering of slaves.","conclusion":"This option will maximize the number of lives saved and minimize the suffering caused. Minimizing suffering and the loss of lives is always desirable."}
{"id":"e859e21d-ef48-489a-81b2-355065876eef","argument":"Free software keeps us from advancing a EULA as a ticket to success. Open-source software seeks to justify that arrangement and compromise on principle.","conclusion":"Free software is a better alternative to open source software."}
{"id":"ce40055e-309e-46cb-a3f5-139e5bcbec64","argument":"The Liberal Democrats promise to establish a cross-party commission to set a long-term funding settlement for the NHS and social care, and introduce a dedicated health and social care tax to pay for it.","conclusion":"The Liberal Democrats have a strong policy to help save the NHS."}
{"id":"f07453df-d168-4c5b-b0c2-f3fa34709419","argument":"Schools are tense places and teachers are already faced with having to diffuse arguments and fights daily. This is not a good place for a gun to be stored. In a crisis a teacher needs to mind all the children and assure they are silent and sheltered in place or moving as the situation requires. That is already a very tall order.","conclusion":"A loaded gun is presumably on the teacher at all times. Frightened, angry or unwise students may take the gun away from the teacher, even in a non-crisis situation."}
{"id":"83262ac9-2a76-4656-8c9b-03e8af68b70e","argument":"As I understand it, libertarianism demands as much government deregulation as possible so private enterprise can flourish and the free market is as free as possible. The end result of this is the nightmare scenario that has been predicted to come with this net neutrality repeal. To remove government regulation is to put the internet in the hands of huge, semi monopolistic bully companies like Comcast. Its what the free market wants, after all. A libertarian should expect or support this. To oppose this would require supporting government oversight of the free market, which is counter to libertarian principles. I understand some libs may become frustrated on a personal level by the new slate of fees and anti consumer practices coming our way, but they should understand that this is an inevitability in a libertarian's ideal free market. The more they oppose this, the less libertarian they become. Please change my view.","conclusion":"No libertarian should oppose this repeal of net neutrality"}
{"id":"e6186c96-b8e3-4444-896e-621d5080e1b5","argument":"Ethical egoism The ethical position that moral agents ought to do what is in their own self interest. First, I would like to explain what I mean by best . By claiming that ethical egoism is the best, I mean that out of all of the ethical doctrines out there, ethical egoism is most effective in ensuring my own well being. most effective in ensuring the well being of those associated with me. most effective in ensuring the well being of society as a whole. This point should be pretty easy to swallow. If you're an ethical egoist, all of your decisions will be focused on your personal well being. If done well, moral egoism will, by definition, be most effective in ensuring your own well being. A lot of people have the idea that moral egoism means being mean and terrible to everyone in your life, but this is not at all the case. My friends, family, and significant other bring a lot of happiness into my life. For my own happiness and well being, it is important that I keep my relationships strong with these people. This means sitting through dinners with my girlfriends parents, giving my mom a phone call even on weeks that I'm swamped with work, giving my buddy a ride to the train station at 11PM, etc. In this way, looking out for my own interests indirectly serves the interests of those whom I care about. Also, acting with ethical egoism makes sure that I am never taken advantage of by unhealthy relationships. This might seem like a rather cynical view of relationships, but I believe it is the most honest and healthy way to think of it. Terrorist attacks, murders, thefts, and drug abuse would not happen if everyone acted with ethical egoism. Terrorist attacks are obviously against the rational self interest of the terrorists, they either end up dead or in prison. These attacks are motivated by ideology or, I would argue, a kind of utilitarian mindset on the part of the terrorist. The terrorist imagines that by doing an act of terror they will be damaging an oppressive force in the world and promoting what is in their view the best way of life. They believe that their act will be for the greater good, justifying their own personal sacrifice. Obviously this is a dangerous way of thinking. There would be no justification for devastating acts of self sacrifice with an ethical egoist mindset. still part of 3, I'm bad at formatting Murders and theft may not go away completely with this ethical doctrine, but they would be significantly reduced without a doubt. First, we have a strong legal system designed to make committing these crimes against one's self interest and for the most part it succeeds. Beyond this, even if someone manages to evade the law to hurt society in some way, there are other repercussions such as damage to your reputation if you were suspected or guilt even the most adherent ethical egoist will still feel a natural sense of guilt . That drug abuse would not happen is self explanatory. 3 In closing I would like to talk a little more about the point of reputation. I believe that this is the most important aspect that makes ethical egoism such an effective philosophy. Being perceived as having a reputation of a trustworthy and kind person has huge benefits. As a result, the moral egoist is obligated to do what they can to create this perception, generally by actually being trustworthy and kind. This is similar to the reciprocity I described in 2. I look forward to reading your responses  Edit Formatting","conclusion":"Ethical egoism is the best ethical doctrine."}
{"id":"17e9771e-ebe6-4488-8632-1534b233b7d4","argument":"Coding is a well-paid job. The median salary for an individual programmer in the UK is\u00a330,000 a year compared to a median household income of \u00a327,000 But in a prestigious Silicon Valley company, software engineers can make well over $100,000 a year: the best-paid coders earn far more than any average salary.","conclusion":"Coding is a secure and well-paid job: more children should aspire to be coders."}
{"id":"c6cf2931-faed-4e82-ae2c-6983afa95da4","argument":"According to a Leichtman Research Group LRG study about 84% of US households now have access to some type of internet service at home.","conclusion":"A vast majority of people now have access to internet at home because it has turned into a need of the time."}
{"id":"6e9dddb7-5721-4746-bf3e-7eabf939c09e","argument":"This raises questions of democratic legitimacy; for example, Barack Obama won the 2012 presidential election with the votes of only 28% of those who were eligible to vote.","conclusion":"Felon disenfranchisement means lower voter participation, less democratic legitimization of political decisions and nominees, and less identification and solidarity with the government among the citizens."}
{"id":"4f0bd4b5-9112-4be7-90d7-ca147c357229","argument":"Interpretation works today as politicians, businesspeople and travellers all rely on some form of it today with states. The same would apply for a stateless world.","conclusion":"Interpretation exists, whether via human or machine translation, these services would be highly valued in a stateless world."}
{"id":"79b30622-9ac4-4aec-98f0-3d79c7c62e6a","argument":"While ultimately defeated, the big role the Anarchist movement played in the Spanish Civil War supports this claim. anarchocommunism Revolutionary_Catalonia","conclusion":"Anarchy is capable of building up military structures it needs to defend itself e.g. attackthesystem.com"}
{"id":"7897c533-4992-4260-9b63-0091c9d2169f","argument":"Some religions teach their followers that they should seek to convert everyone else to their religion, which can provoke conflict.","conclusion":"Religions have been a prominent source of conflict and strife all over the world and through all ages."}
{"id":"de472239-45c0-401b-9e99-1ce425c792d6","argument":"The Rwandan districts of Nyanza and Gisagara are close to national parks and are among those hit most severely by starvation in the country.","conclusion":"Those living close to gorillas suffer from starvation. Apparently they do not profit from donations to them."}
{"id":"ddab2bce-c41d-41c6-97bd-fe3637ec6fce","argument":"Counter Culture Direct Trade Certification, a direct trade alternative to the fair trade certification, is based on less stringent mechanisms and eliminates the problem of singular-market dominant traders, while ensuring ecological sustainability and social responsibility in producing products.","conclusion":"The benefits of fair trade products can be easily achieved through alternative mechanisms that do not carry the same harms."}
{"id":"1f62a180-a467-4ca1-bf93-8b7301c362c8","argument":"I think governments and law enforcement agencies are entitled to monitor the people they are responsible with and said people's actions as long as no one is prosecuted or illegally punished for thinking differently than the guys in charge. I think such surveillence is a neccesity in today's world. I also think one who supports the idea of a civilized society ruled by law where a higher authority exists to serve and protect people, must also support such surveillence. However, I also think if and when there is a breach of privacy where said authority abuses its power to punish people's thoughts, legal action must be taken towards them just as with any other type of autoritarian protection. Until such abuse occurs, though, such surveillence is a must of modern day civilization. EDIT I'm sorry I haven't been very clear. My main point is, why is mass surveillence not okay if other forms of law enforcement are. Also, don't think about USA NSA. We all know all governments do it, I'm talking about it in general.","conclusion":"I think mass surveillence by governments is completely okay if I am assured that I will not be punished for thinking differently"}
{"id":"aee01559-ad2d-46e9-8857-f44675ebe335","argument":"This is obviously inspired by recent current events, but I am not trying to be on a soapbox here. This is my view, not only about whats currently going on, but on all situations like it. Peaceful protests should not be allowed due to the likelihood that mob mentality should take over and the situation escalates into a full blown riot. This has been happening lately with what seems like increasing frequency and I believe it has gotten to the point that the chance of it doing more damage than good has become so great that the act of protesting is no longer justified by whatever meager effect it might have had in the first place. A note on that last part. I question the efficacy of these peaceful protests. People allegedly do it in order to send a message, but I'd wager that in the vast majority of cases, nobody's listening and nobody cares. In fact, youre probably damaging your cause by annoying the wrong people. They may as well have used to money they wasted on megaphones and picket signs to take out an ad in the local paper. Probably about the same amount of people would see or notice it and there wouldn't be any chance of escalation. Finally, I may be cynical here, but it is my view that many of the people who take part in these protests don't even really care about their cause in a meaningful way. I'd be willing to bet that many of the people taking part in the current riots dont even care about the incident that started it. I think they just see an opportunity to smash some crap up and get their face on the news and look like some kind of morally justified, underdog freedom fighter, heroically taking down some imaginary oppressive regime in the process. Thats just human nature. So as time goes on and these peaceful protests gain a reputation for escalating into mayhem, they will start to attract people looking to take part in that escalation, making it all the more likely. I can hear it coming already, somebody thinking that if law enforcement stepped in to break these up, it would immediately be seen as oppression an escalate into a riot, but hopefully the local communities will step up and support them. I mean, if I own a store in a certain town and I think some protest is going to end with a trash can thrown through my store front, and I do, because of some incident I have nothing to do with, then Im going to tell them to GTFO. Or if I'm sitting at home with my wife and kids and I think a protest is going to end with my house getting robbed by a mob, and I do, because someone Ive never met got shot by someone Ive never met, then Im going to tell them to GTFO. I am aware that the constitution protects the right to assemble, but it is an allowable constraint that those assembling be required to obtain a permit, where coordination may be needed to ensure public safety.These permits can and should be denied in matters as controversial as recent events. Peaceful Protests Picket signs and shouting are ineffective and have such a higher chance of escalating that it is not worth the attempt when other, safer, options are available. As time goes on and escalation keeps occurring, the protests will begin to attract people looking to take part in that escalation, making it more likely. Not only law enforcement, but local residents should not allow these events to occur. It is in their best interest to stop them. Protesters should be universally required to obtain a permit and the local authorities should be pretty picky with what they allow, mostly due to 1. VIEW CHANGED Thank you, u bodoblock","conclusion":"\"Peaceful Protests\" should not be allowed in America and should be immediately broken up by law enforecement and the communities they occur in."}
{"id":"61481e55-5dab-4bd3-a44e-e08708467b39","argument":"In a society with no greater good, punishment prison would be illegal because it is immoral to lock up a human being against his or her will.","conclusion":"A society where no morally bad actions can ever be taken to achieve morally good actions would not function."}
{"id":"d8f4961a-d963-4d3c-b01e-754fd75c4137","argument":"Soon after the Book of Mormon was published, Alexander Campbell argued that the book took a position on \"all the great controversies\" of the era, including \"eternal punishment.\" Campbell 1832, p. 13","conclusion":"Both Mormons and non-Mormons in the 1830s recognized anti-Universalist teachings in the Book of Mormon."}
{"id":"d2c59008-664e-4923-b26e-6ebe519bad2f","argument":"I've seen a little bit of flak given to those who karma whore and I'm not really sure I understand what the issue is here? Reddit provides a point system in order to try and filter the content most enjoyed by each community to the top in the form of up votes. This system is a gamification of providing worthwhile content to the community, so what is wrong with using that system? Surely anyone who is out to earn a lot of karma is going to be trying to find the best links and topics to try and earn the most karma so aren't the just doing what Reddit was designed for? Is there some moral code that Reddit users are meant to abide by in order to only post things out of pure altruism? What am I missing here?","conclusion":"\"Karma Whoring\" is a non-issue encouraged by Reddit's own Up-Vote System"}
{"id":"7d266a4a-1e36-444b-8361-458ef8e52fd8","argument":"I'm not denying that transphobia exists or that transpeople are discriminated against. What I believe or think I believe is that, because of male privilage, you have to be physically male bodied to have cis privilage. Edit Let me repeat this. I'm not denying that transphobia exists or that transpeople are discriminated against. Listing off a bunch of ways in which trans people are discriminated against isn't going to . What I'm saying is that One oppressed group cannot oppress another solely by being a member of that oppressed group. So, what I need to see to  is an argument that demonstrates how the oppression against women does not negate women's supposed cis privilage. Edit 2 I'm not cisgendered, although I do present my gender congruously with my biological sex, which would make me a recipient of any cis privilage if it exists for me I'd rather not make my own personal gender expression part of this, but it seems worth mentioning. Edit 3 Okay, let's for the sake of simplicity, distill the myriad of gender sex combinations that exist into 4, while ommiting many others G Biological Sex E M F N M c'm Ftm D F Mtf c'F E R What I'm saying is only the upper left quadrant is privilaged.","conclusion":"I don't think women or people of a female sex can have cis privilage."}
{"id":"56738e8b-3b59-47f0-9842-c9bb4157165d","argument":"When I was a teacher in Asia, I realized my students could understand exactly what was happening in the Hollywood movies I showed them. This was a little surprising because most of my students could barely understand the fine details of English dialogue and lacked cultural understanding of western humor, social rituals, etc. Somehow they all not only understood the point of these movies, the movies held their attention, and after, they could discuss the movie\u2019s themes with insightful and profound comments. I no longer think shoot\u2019em up action movies are dull and clich\u00e9d but are actually intense, visceral stories humans have been telling each other for a long time with ideas that are so inherent to our psyche, they\u2019re nearly as imprinted on our genetic code. For example, The Terminator is not simply a movie about a machine that travels back in time to kill the unborn military commander of the human resistance against a machine race trying to wipe out mankind and the dude who tries to stop the machine, and the mom who goes from suburban party girl teen to Guerilla warfare philosopher. It\u2019s also the fears of that parents have of bringing a child into this dangerous, strange world. It\u2019s about parenthood and literally assuming responsibility for the future and tremendous burden that can be. It\u2019s about how combating unrelenting evil that cannot be negotiated with, reasoned with, or bought off. Daylight is another movie I think will make an excellent chapter in a holy book. Superficially, it\u2019s about a group of people trapped in a tunnel who want out or else they\u2019ll die. It\u2019s also a story about redemption and how to live through rough times in your life where easy answers and explanations are not forth coming. I could go on with other movies but I truly think today\u2019s clich\u00e9d action movies that are typically panned by critics as terrible remakes, are actually incredible spins on timeless themes. This has a few consequences they will eventually become parts of some kind holy book or guide, and because of that, we need them to be better and reflect values we actually value. Change my view.","conclusion":"Chiched, ubiquitous, Western action movies will be featured in the distant future as holy books."}
{"id":"b1f92b91-436a-4ceb-94ad-fd4f3bc7e74e","argument":"Today, anyone can create a website for very little money and fill it with whatever they want. For a lucky few, their website provides information or services that the public generally likes. They share their website with friends and over social media, word catches on, they place some key advertisements with GoogleAds and elsewhere on the internet, they create some solid SEO content and, before long, they're rolling in internet gold and glory. Striking down net neutrality will cut the fanfare short. Writing to Congress in 2005, Vice President of Google and inventor of the Internet Protocol, Vint Cerf argued that: \"The Internet is based on a layered, end-to-end model that allows people at each level of the network to innovate free of any central control . a lightweight but enforceable neutrality rule is needed to ensure that the Internet continues to thrive. Telephone companies cannot tell consumers who they can call; network operators should not dictate what people can do online.\" This kind of freedom that the anti-net neutrality crowd is after has not existed in any industry in the U.S. since the Gilded Age, when the likes of John D. Rockefeller and J.P. Morgan exercised monopolistic control over their respective industries to keep the playing field stacked in their favor. Mark Fiore describes this with a Dr. Seuss-esque cartoon.","conclusion":"Net neutrality provides for the free circulation of data and services."}
{"id":"3551b2dd-1578-4c8c-aba1-0321c96bdc77","argument":"Hi all, So someone just posted a video on my FB feed about the Yulin dog meat festival It is horrifying For the purpose of this , let's forget about how it's done the way they get the dogs, they treat them etc. and concentrate only on the dog meat eating part. I love dogs, and yes, I find it horrifying that other cultures eat them. However, I also understand that for other cultures, it is horrifying to see us eat beef or pork. In my opinion, the only situation where you are allowed to complain is if you are talking about eating animal meat in general. But if you enjoy eating a good steak, then it is hypocritical to criticize others for eating what they consider is just meat . Again, I am stressing the fact that this is not about the animal cruelty part. It's just about the meat eating. For the sake of this , let's suppose that the animals are bred and slaughtered in the most humane possible way. So","conclusion":"Giving other cultures sh*t about eating dog meat is hypocritical"}
{"id":"5dbec058-f097-421b-8aeb-2685bfd8eb14","argument":"It is pointless to censor a post-mastectomy breast if the nipple and areola has been removed. The fact that they are still censored regardless suggests major inconsistencies with this gender-specific restriction.","conclusion":"Breast cancer survivors often have photos of their post-mastectomy bodies censored by social media sites."}
{"id":"e5747e67-2569-488a-a90c-46f50faf3073","argument":"England should have won a major second major trophy or at least made another final following their success in 1966, and have missed out though officiating and narrow margins more than other teams. The England teams of the late 80s early 2000s had many chance to go futher. World Cup 1986 Lost to Maradona's Hand of God goal better officials would have seen this and penalised Maradona, without Maradona from the 51st minute England would have made the semi final. World Cup 1990 Lost on penalties to West Germany, who went on to win the World Cup, in the semi final. Euros 1996 Lose on penalties to Germany, who went on to win, in the semi final World Cup 1998 Lost on penalties to Argentina, after David Beckham was sent off with a straight red card for a foul that is a yellow at most. Again bad officiating. Euros 2004 Lose on penalties to Portugal, who go on to lose in the final. World Cup 2006 Lost to portugal on penalties after Wayne Rooney was sent off for a straight red after reacting to being pulled down by 2 Portugal players. World Cup 2010 Lose to Germany with a Frank Lampard goal ruled out despite being very in to make the score line 2 2 before half time. Euros 2012 Lose to Italy on penalties who go on to with make the final. I understand the argument that penalties are not wholly luck based but considering how many times England have been involved and that a majority of penalties are scored you would have expected them to make it though at least a couple of these times they should be well practised at them really . Also the Lampard goal and the Maradona goal point to bad referring affecting England in big moments. Please give me another team that has had a longer string of high profile failures.","conclusion":"England are the \"unluckiest\" national football team"}
{"id":"44793a68-bc8d-4a2b-8605-ec7f7864e94f","argument":"Mother Teresa instructed nuns to baptise those who were about to die even when they had no knowledge of the Church's teachings.","conclusion":"Mother Teresa has been accused of using her charities to forcefully convert the poor and vulnerable."}
{"id":"6b0fe5be-1cfe-4106-9cc9-fc5ebf216916","argument":"Unemployment has steadily fallen since its peak in 2009 and in the year since his election 93000 jobs have been lost to outsourcing \/ trade competition which is up from the average of 87000 in the last decade. qz.com","conclusion":"Administrative Holding Area to act as a place to put claims that have been flagged for review with no changes for awhile. Do not create new claims in this branch."}
{"id":"fd8e362c-c62c-4f31-b3ea-9bdc42ff1871","argument":"Dairy industry example of altering health results: Much of the research on dairy is funded by science institutes at companies like Dannon and Nestle\u0301. motherjones.com","conclusion":"The private sector has a certain history of \"altering\" research results to fit them to their financial goals."}
{"id":"04b39f84-4751-4e0b-a9f9-40a4c4a0a287","argument":"Melisandre is definitely reviving Jon snow tonight. The episode is titled the red woman. She took a specific side bar in season 2 to go see Beric Dondarian even though that wasn't an interaction in the books. There are lots of weird theories about Jon warging into ghost or something, but we've got a dead character who still has Shit to Do and there's only one way we've seen people revived. How can this not be what happens? She's definitely making a zombie Jon snow. You can  by presenting a compelling reason why it's not Melisandre or why warging might work. Let's not discuss the possibility that he doesn't return from the dead, it's possible but I just so doubt it. And no coming back at 10PM and saying see episode","conclusion":"On how a cliffhanger from the season finale of Game of Thrones will be resolved tonight."}
{"id":"98bd551f-d13d-4f98-9fc7-3eab6e682df0","argument":"James Hamilton wrote in the Federalist Papers that state government shall be the \"immediate and visible guardian of life and property\" under the American constitution.","conclusion":"The idea that the government shall protect its citizens stands at the beginning of American constitutional thought."}
{"id":"0448d9b3-2e6d-41af-bfa7-9055d89fd380","argument":"Corbyn has not given a straight answer about his stance on whether the UK will be better off or not outside the EU. If Corbyn doesn't even know what kind of relationship with the EU is best for the UK, it is difficult to believe he will know what to negotiate for.","conclusion":"It is possible that no politician has the leadership skills to lead the UK during the current political crisis."}
{"id":"196de782-540f-447c-9194-f934c99ba229","argument":"I often hear comparisons between the Trump campaign in the US and the far right in Europe. Le Pen in France is even referred to as the Donald Trump of France on occasion. However, there are big differences that make Trump scarier The European far right is content with limiting Muslim immigration. Trump not only wants to freeze immigration, he also wants to stop issuing tourist visas, including turning back millions of European and Canadian Muslims from visa free countries. European far right parties are nationalist. They don't care how countries outside Europe do their business and the most extreme they're willing to be is to close the borders. Like ISIS, TRUMP is an internationalist who claims the whole earth as American sphere of influence and who looks forward to bombing the Middle East, in contrast to Le Pen who has opposed intervention in Africa even when ethnic French could be in danger. Many in the far right are fiercely anti imperialist and anti colonialist like Enoch Powell and Lega Nord. Le Pen, PiS, etc are closer to Sanders than to the far wing of the US GOP.","conclusion":"Donald Trump is more extreme and dangerous than any far-right party in Europe except maybe Golden Dawn."}
{"id":"3052d39f-abc6-4518-a162-8e678a524dae","argument":"The refugee crisis is not confined to one part of the world. It is a global issue needing a global response, with all countries sharing the burden and working together.","conclusion":"There is a moral duty to allow asylum seekers in need to live in safety in the EU."}
{"id":"6b589977-e254-42f1-a41e-8bc1c0d91ff1","argument":"The Knights of the White Camelia was a white christian terrorist group that \"produced a reign of terror among the state's black population during the summer and fall of 1868.\" The group's ideology is still used in white supremacy groups today","conclusion":"History provides evidence that Christianity and racism often go hand in hand."}
{"id":"95a81a61-e84c-4395-80ef-748b14349602","argument":"The Book of Mormon commands Joseph Smith, after he translates the golden plates, to \"seal up the book again, and hide it up unto me, that I may preserve the words thou hast not read.\" 2 Nephi 27:22","conclusion":"The Book of Mormon teaches that a protective magical \"seal\" was put on the golden plates and a set of magical \"interpreters\" prior to their burial in the hill Cumorah"}
{"id":"4d8c044f-acc7-47f2-adfd-fc6cd5b2fe0d","argument":"Morality is a practical concern with the goal of finding tools for how people can interact with other people both personally and on the level of institutions in a mutually beneficial way. It is possible to discuss the goals and tools of morality in a testable and falsifiable way, and a system of morality that is developed in that way is objective in the same way that science is objective even though it is never final.","conclusion":"Morality is about different ways for people to live among one another, and how groups can use space in better or worse ways. Moral behaviours are those which, when consistently applied, lead to societal stability. Whether a behaviour satisfies this condition is an objective fact."}
{"id":"f9f62bbe-4d30-46bc-a85d-0031ed6e63d5","argument":"Adults who endured childhood trauma have a higher chance of developing post-traumatic stress disorder when exposed to new trauma, and show higher rates of anxiety, depression, substance use, and suicide.","conclusion":"Early childhood trauma is a major contributing factor for mass shootings in the United States."}
{"id":"cfc64c8f-fa46-47ce-8563-75b26e3b593b","argument":"Europeans generally support euthanasia. For example, more than 70% of citizens of Spain, Germany, France and Britain are in favor.","conclusion":"Public opinion favors euthanasia which suggests some support for a right to die."}
{"id":"f1918b77-84e2-4b75-8cb2-44b448619615","argument":"Time zones \/ Sun light: Time zones exist because the difference between illumination of different regions due to the spherical shape of the Earth. If instead Earth was a disk everybody would have the same time everywhere without the need of different time zones.","conclusion":"The existence of time zones demonstrates that the Earth is round."}
{"id":"4e656976-4822-4a72-9fa8-949d8f0fd4dd","argument":"Venus lies within the 'Goldilocks zone or the distance within the orbit of its star where water remains liquid, and therefore is a viable resource.","conclusion":"Venus contains more resources for the flourishing of life as we currently know it."}
{"id":"400019fe-dcb9-44fa-8fd4-f901b942391e","argument":"Healthcare is currently one of the most important issues for American voters, and Bernie is strongly in favor of expanding access to healthcare.","conclusion":"Bernie Sanders has a strong policy platform on issues which matter to American voters."}
{"id":"5e74d8bf-a773-4445-b6fe-34a9284864d5","argument":"Given that the government necessarily has a portfolio of information nobody else has access to partly because it's secret for good reasons, partly because it's impractical for various reasons, and probably also a part, hopefully small, that is secret for bad reasons, it is not practical to follow the majority as a general rule. The government is a democratically elected body of people that citizens trust to act in their best interest.","conclusion":"Democratic governments should act in the interests of the majority. This is a well established principle. For example, in Germany, the government must act in the best interest of the people and must adhere to the constitution. While this may not be explicit, this suggests that the government should not be able to autonomously make decisions that do not benefit the majority of the people."}
{"id":"75826aae-a9dc-4f7b-a583-b4ec114dceff","argument":"Private schooling can offer the latest and greatest technology, giving their students a technological advantage rather then a merit based advantage.","conclusion":"Private schooling contributes to inequality by giving children of wealthy and successful parents yet another advantage."}
{"id":"a7ff45b5-01ac-4672-bf1e-083dce079da3","argument":"Society has made it easy for a woman to get sex, for she is passive, and her suitors are active. Put this to the difference in demand in the sexual market place women have inherent value, whereas men have earned value. Porn subscribers, prostitute buyers etc. are for a large proportion male. Women are able to auction their virginity for several 1000s of dollars, which men can simply not do. Put simply, women on the average have MUCH higher standards for what constitutes a possible mate than men do. OkCupid findings show that women only find 20 of men above average, whereas men find roughly 40 50 above average. The 80 20 rule, a commonly accepted sociological statistic reaffirms this belief in showing that 20 of the men do 80 of the fucking and dating. Their is simply an imbalance in things, and in the direct judgment of the opposite gender there are more attractive females than there are men, even if this is not an absolute reality when examined objectively. Because of their disproportionately high sexual market value , only women can be sluts. A man who partakes in excessive casual sex, will in most cases, have some sort of attractive quality in him be it a finely attuned fashion sense, quick wit, knowledge of psychology and what it takes to get into a woman's mind etc. All a woman has to do to engage in excessive casual sex is have a vagina and not be horribly ugly. Men have usually earned their position in the sexual marketplace, women were simply born into it by nature. Because of this, no matter how excessively a man fucks around, he will always be a stud. But if a girl sleeps around a lot, she is warrant to be labeled a slut. .","conclusion":"The slut \"double standard\" is perfectly legitimate. Only women can be sluts."}
{"id":"7974b970-dedf-451f-8de5-6b46a20a85ed","argument":"I have lived in several countries, speak more than one language and I've travelled widely. I feel like national identity is a very artificial construct that provides ruling elites with a handy tool to help engender a feeling of defensive protectionism and us and them , allowing for resource and production control and encouraging young citizens to fight for them.","conclusion":"I believe that the concept of national identity is a divisive concept with no real benefit to the average citizen."}
{"id":"5c73c3bf-4297-4ae0-966d-3e85b21ca386","argument":"Have a look Tell me those aren't a family of cock and ball headed pigs. Her father even has stubble on his chin making it look especially scrotal. If you still don't agree, just picture them with one nostril instead of two. I'm not saying that this is was intentionally done by the artist, but then again, it easily could have been. I wouldn't be the least but surprised if the animators had previously worked for Disney, which is famous for sneaking dirty things into their cartoons.","conclusion":"- Peppa the Pig's head looks exactly like a cock and balls."}
{"id":"e7158e38-93fc-4627-8444-5ae4c6f27a60","argument":"I\u2019m mainly talking about goods such as clothes, electronics, furniture, cosmetics, certain food, basically anything really. The reason is that it seems like almost all of these things are made with unethical labor, and it is an absolute jungle to navigate in. Companies that claim very loudly to be ethical all seem to be extremely expensive, way too expensive for me. I mean, I guess I could save up but sometimes I just need pants or whatever. And giants such as H M seem to have enough money to pay their workers fairly, a lot of the time they just don\u2019t, so I think it smells a bit fishy that all those ethical companies are so expensive. And isn\u2019t spending 40 dollars on jeans and the rest on charity more helpful in the long run than spending 200 dollars on jeans? I know my individual impact won\u2019t have a whole lot to say in the grand scheme of things, and it seems like political evolution in developing countries will be more likely to solve the problem than the small class of people being able to buy 200 dollar clothes only. It seems humanly impossible to live a normal life and only buy ethical things. But I just feel so depressed about how the entire everything industry seem to operate as of lately.","conclusion":"I feel guilty when I buy almost anything outside of the purely necessary"}
{"id":"725dd57f-cab7-416b-b439-dee73ab7404e","argument":"Many governments limit people's ability to associate with Nazi symbols since this support leads to undesirable consequences.","conclusion":"Governments can restrict the freedom of association when such association results in harmful consequences."}
{"id":"27d70e58-0bd0-452e-954c-7998cf6e09dd","argument":"Most people have a spouse who is similar to them in terms of socioeconomical status and appearance. This often has to do with how it is difficult to date someone more desirable given how more desirable people have no reason to date less desirable people and not that many people are open to dating less desirable people. Everyone prefers good looking people but generally men care more about looks. It hence makes sense for men from the wealthiest 1 of the population to either date within their social class or extremely good looking women. They are desirable to a lot of people in terms of their wealth so they can afford to be pickier when it comes to choosing a date. Leagues do exist despite what people want to tell themselves. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"It is close to impossible for a woman to marry someone from the wealthiest 1% of the population of developed countries unless she is rich herself or extremely good looking"}
{"id":"540dc3b2-720f-4fb7-a986-6c01aaf983cb","argument":"Edit5 I realized that it's pretty useless to argue about this because neither side can really prove their arguments with our current technology. I will read more about 'Psychological Egoism' and 'Altruism' though. Not sure if I should give the one who convinced me that it's useless to argue this a delta, because I still think for myself that we are all objectively egoistic in every of our actions and the more subjective egoism which is commonly used as the real egoism has not much value for me apart from being a descriptor. Edit4 I may very well be wrong here and I'm too stupid to see it. I'm happy though for all the comments I'm going to bed now ist 20 43 here and I have to stand up at 4 30 am tomorrow. Further my mind Is swirling with this topic and probably wont allow me to sleep. I'm thankful for all the patience. Edit1 Title should be  Everything you do, you do out of egoism Edit2 Give me experiences out of your life if you can, so I don't have to fish around what could be the reason of certain behavior To some of you this might seem pretty obivious, and the title is not the sole content of this post. For the rest My definition of egoism A behavior in which your self interest is the end of all your actions. Meaning, someone with egoism as highest motivation is still able to help people, be social or share, as long as it gives him her some kind of benefit. You feel bad in some way, when you deny someone help, most of the times. And you feel good when share, also most of the times. It all depends on how you were conditioned in your early years. How your empathy, a power which bends your egoism for the benefit of others, has been developed by your environment. The easiest way to make my point clear is, that you give me some situations where you think you didn't act out of egoism and I will explain you why you acted out of egoism in my view. I'm not very good with words, and english isn't my first language, so this may be the fastest way. I secretly hope that I explain it not that good, so more people give me their full opinions. The only ways to go are either, that my definition of egoism is wrong, I'm wrong or everyone is a full blown egoist. If the latter is right, then words like 'selflessness' seem to be hypocritical and useless at the first glance. Frank, 26 years old, helped unkown students out, giving hour long lessons so everyone has a chance to pass the analysis math exam of Dr. Hamming. The students call him 'selfless', because they see no significant benefit for himself. And it's not because they are bad at judging motivations or something. It's more like because the motivation for Frank to arrange lessons taking hours of his own time could be complex and not deduceable for an outsider or even for Frank himself. It could be his always busy father, giving him praise and recognition when he showed other little kids how to climb a tree in his early childhood, which induced similar cases of Frank helping people to understand something and strengthening the conditioning. In the end though the praises how selfless his behavior is, leave another positive impression on Frank, further strengthening this kind of behavior. So what I want to show with the words above, is firstly an example how seemingly selfless actions serve only the motivation to still ones own desires. Here it was the desire of fulfilling the conditioned ritual. Secondly, it shows that words like selflessness , to have a strong incentive to put problems of other people above ones own, still have a function of training people so they meet the standards society wants. In this case, selflessness doesnt mean someone who put the problems of others above own problems, but someone who was trained to put the problems of others above own problems. I will write more once people gave me criticism. Edit3 I write narcism down here just as an example, has nothing to do with the kind of egoism I talk about in my post. The reason I write this I have the feeling that too many people still think that a narcissist is a narcissist because he wants to, or in general, that people are totally free in their actions, and thus that there are bad and good people, people who deserve to be rich and loved and people who deserve to be shunned, outcast, who earned their miserable life themself. Write your opinion on that too if you want. The issues I have with my own argumentation leaving out the thing with genetics, but I didn't study neuroscience or something like that so I won't be able to make a point even if I wanted I will edit this post, adding things I forgot to better my argumentation gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Everything we do, we do out of egoism."}
{"id":"145b6ac0-8fb4-48ac-a079-a38be8b700e5","argument":"Firstly, I am a male, and a staunch feminist. I believe very, very strongly that women should be equal to men in all ways. However, the No uterus, no opinion view that I have encountered a lot recently irks me. I recently entered a debate, which quickly turned into an argument, with a woman who was blaming the perfectly justified fear that she might feel when she goes out on all men, with my viewpoint being that in generalising all men she was A alienating male allies and B warding off potential allies, and that in general generalising is a bad way to go about achieving change, given that a majority of legislators are male. I was told that I was being patronizing and condescending, and that I had no right in telling a woman how to do feminism . When I told one of my friends, who's opinion I value highly, about the argument, she came down strongly on the side of the woman I had the argument with. She tried to explain to me why I was wrong, but was unable to do so in a way I found satisfying. So, I am perfectly I hope open to the idea that I am wrong, but so far it hasn't been explained to me why I'm wrong. Change my view, y'all. Edit My 'V' has been successfully 'C'd by guitardreams and the article linked by them. I appreciate that there are plenty of comments and responses here that I have not read, but I no longer feel the need to read them. I apologise that I may have been acting in a detrimental way, but it was with the intention of reaching a point that I actually did understand the opposing view, rather than simply accepting everything I was told at face value.","conclusion":"I believe that in discussions about feminism there are times when a males opinion can be just as valid as a females."}
{"id":"bb3e44cb-80c2-4b63-823f-e34709932670","argument":"I'm not saying either kerry or biden would win. I'm not saying hillary isn't going to be the next president. I'm simply saying we deserve more options and a better debate about the future of the national democratic party and country. I know Sanders is a very serious candidate. I also think he lacks the profile to compete with Hillary's name recognition and public achievements. kerry and biden do and have many progressive victories. Who knows if they'd catch fire with primary voters but i think they'd have a real shot. Last weekend until today are instructive for why need more serious contenders. O'Malley and Sanders were interupted by blacklivesmatter activists. They both stumbled through awkward answers but they took serious stands and responded quickly. Hillary took a few days to make statement. But today, within hours of reports on problems with her email server her campaign is quick action explaining their side. On obvious stuff, and when she's attacked, she is immidiately responsive. When it comes to issues that are more nuanced, emotional and topical, she is late and calculated. The dems deserve a real challange to the hillary out of mere respect for the people who's vote they depend on. kerry or biden are that challenge.","conclusion":"democratic party should have joe biden and\/or john kerry in the democratic nomination race"}
{"id":"6dd1a1fa-087a-459e-adbd-78275bce4f9a","argument":"It is not just the UK\u2019s decision whether a second referendum will have any significance. It affects all the other members of the EU. With the triggering of article 50 it may already be too late for a referendum to have any meaning. The UK if it wanted to vote, and decided remain, it would at the very least find that it does not have all the privileged opt outs it had before \u2013 such as the rebate which reimburses 66% of the imbalance in the UK\u2019s payments and receipts, around \u20ac6.1 billion.1 But it may even find that it simply can\u2019t get back in and needs to go through he accession process. This would likely be expedited but has in some cases taken years \u2013 Turkey has been an applicant since 1987 and is still years away from joining.2 Even worse if there were to be a second referendum on staying in the EU, or even the suggestion of one, it would impact on negotiations. The European Union would be encouraged to play hardball to try and ensure that a second vote is more likely to vote to remain. 1 \u2018The UK 'rebate' on the EU budget: An explanation of the abatement and other correction mechanisms\u2019, European Parliament, 18 February 2016, 2 \u2018Turkey\u2019, European Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations, European Commission,","conclusion":"A second referendum does not just affect the UK but will impact on the negotiations"}
{"id":"8639b72b-bb8e-44b3-977a-b7e184803c88","argument":"Hosting or running open source software is often cheaper than hosting or running proprietary software.","conclusion":"Open source software would benefit small companies and amateur coders."}
{"id":"065a58c5-fa1f-435c-8eaa-b6d881d48416","argument":"The National Football League, it's teams, and players provide much support to a variety of charities and causes.sbnation.com","conclusion":"Football is very popular, and a critical part of many communities."}
{"id":"2a80561e-a602-4bf9-b845-77fb1aeb5c31","argument":"Gay and lesbian people have been recorded as having similar brain chemistry and structure to their opposite sex. If genetic disposition toward gender isn't always normative, neither should societal expectations be normative. If any combination of gender features is possible, gender expectations should not exist at all.","conclusion":"Genetic influence on gender does not prescribe that all people behave in a gender-archetypal manner. If there is no genetic rule for gender archetypes, there should be no societal expectations of gender."}
{"id":"e783ac22-31cf-4db7-ad71-a9eaca5406d8","argument":"The difference in taste of any whiskey from the common 40 proof and 35 proof is the difference of something that you have to force down and something that you can actually enjoy the taste of. I cannot drink anything at 40 proof without wincing and feeling like I want to puke. A lot of people can put down neat whiskey without puking but I have yet to meet one who can without wincing. However, if you throw some ice in there and let it sit for a few minutes, or just put a small amount of water in it, most people can drink that with ease. Not only that, but you can taste the intended flavors of the drink because they are no longer overpowered by the taste of the alcohol. I do not believe that distilleries should lower the ABV of their whiskey. I just believe that whiskey is intended to have ice or water added to it so that it can be enjoyed. I think that doing neat shots of whiskey is a complete waste of the lengthy aging process that it had to go through to have its taste. edit Numbers are backwards in the title.","conclusion":"Whiskey is not meant to be drunk at anything above 35 proof 70% ABV"}
{"id":"35dd6f43-750b-4214-b335-b15e448171c7","argument":"Bernie Sanders' tax plan treats capital gains as ordinary income. This is not a new policy and has been discussed for many years by many different, usually democratic, politicians and lawmakers. The reason I hold this view is due to two primary reasons Investing requires risk. If I buy x shares of Enron at x price, tomorrow Enron can fail and I can lose all of my money. This is not true in the case of ordinary work. If I am working at Burger King and work x hours for x money, I am paid that amount period there is no risk of loss. When you have risk, in my view, it makes sense to receive some preferential treatment from the IRS. The sister point to this is that capital loss is not a valuable deduction. If I could lose a lot of money in the market and then write it off against my income tax then that would be a lot easier to swallow. As it stands, capital losses only yield a measly 3000 deduction after offsetting gains. Preferential rates incentivize the American way of entrepreneurship, growth and innovation. I am more inclined to invest in companies that I think are good and valuable, such as amazon in my personal opinion. I want amazon to expand and I hope my small investment in the company allows them to do that. However, if I am looking at the prospect of losing money investing, and then in the event that I make some money nearly 1 2 of it is going to the tax man I would definitely not be so inclined to risk my money in the market. On a macro scale, this could lead to economic stagnation. The IRS' tax treatment incentivizes me to invest because I know that I stand to net a decent profit if there is any at all. Lastly, my cynical view on the matter is that it's just another take the rich guys money tax plan that wants to squeeze the upper echelons, equating investors with the anti wallstreet movements. I am not in an upper echelon, im middle class, and I want to be able to invest and save for retirement without getting more taken out and given to the government.","conclusion":"Capital Gains Should Receive Preferential Tax Treatment"}
{"id":"eb5dea63-264f-477d-898e-3d984a6c66da","argument":"Statues of men who willingly fought for slavery, though maybe not the worst of people in general, can be hurtful to those that could have been affected by it. An African American whom walks under or near a Confederate statue would feel much disgust, even if it was over a century ago.","conclusion":"The principal legacy of Confederate statues is white supremacy and slavery. Since this fundamentally conflicts with American values and ideas, they should be removed."}
{"id":"2da823da-7de3-4bad-8fd3-dc5106228daf","argument":"Granted I was not raised anything other than white although my appearance was diffrent I feel that marvels attempt with things like a black spider man or female captain America is nothing more than a cop out copout? Rather than crafting new super heros and making them stand on their own two legs they make other races and genders accept that the only way they can sell as a comic is to ride on the coat tails of their white counter parts, is kind of moving backwards Example miles spider man or gwyn stacy spider man Edit I think I did not explain well enough my problem is that it's lazy writing and makes you wonder why do it. There are other examples from other sources for instance the magical school in a teen fiction novel they count on the success of Harry potter to push a sub par story into Harry potter levels of success. like wise by making and relising 85 diffrent variations of the same super heroes but making them a minority character they think they can be progressive with the minimal amount of effort and that bugs me, largely because 1. It sounds so much like the flood of heros dc released if the name some thing man than change the name to something woman and all's good granted they became better over time and were allowed to grow in 40 50 years, and 2. I expected better from marvel no one knew that x men was going to work but they did it, no one knew avengers was going to work but they pushed it forward, same could be said of the hulk, spider man their golden goose , dare devil, and countless others not so much Capitan america that was propaganda pure and simple all i want is the days where they take a risk with something, anything and not try to push hulk version 8.0 now with 100 more minority or enough iron men to fill a baseball stadium","conclusion":"Cmv: marvels new ideal"}
{"id":"810505aa-6a79-4e10-96c6-07ec1adeb189","argument":"My post is not whether abortion should be legalized or not, but the main point of dispute over abortion, or the meat of the argument. I believe that the argument over abortion is one where the woman factor is irrelevant. Of course it is an issue that most impacts women, however my argument is that the point of dispute is whether a fetus counts as alive or not. My reasoning is this almost anyone who is pro life is just that pro life, not anti choice for women. There are surely sexists out there who don't want to give women bodily autonomy, but the grand majority of pro life people justify their position by claiming a fetus at whatever stage of pregnancy is alive, and therefore should not be murdered . Therefore, I think it is a weak argument to say things like stay out of my womb or the government shouldn't control my body. Pro life people aren't trying to control your body, they are trying to protect the fetus.  that abortion is a woman's issue and not a biological one. EDIT I should clarify and say that when I say abortion isn't a woman's issue, I don't mean that it doesn't affect women. I mean that if we lived in a universe where men would get pregnant instead, MOST pro life people would maintain their position on abortion. EDIT 2 Further clarification My main point boils down to this To truly convince a pro lifer, you must convince them that the fetus doesn't have a right to life, NOT that the woman deserves the right to choice. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Abortion is not a women's issue, but a biology issue."}
{"id":"0530d8a8-2546-45bf-a96b-4657e115ec47","argument":"As I see it, the only good effect of speculation is to fluidify the market, but we've come the point where it is vastly more efficient to divert wealth via speculation than to actually create wealth. I'm expecting most of the answers to be state owned banks wouln't be able to fluidify the market the way it is now , if so is there a way to avoid that the private sector rips all the benefits of speculation?","conclusion":"I think the financial market should be restricted to state-owned banks,"}
{"id":"5415ab2c-d62e-4c96-bd36-43a68d73cb8d","argument":"Journalists will have easier access to complete papers and not only press notes and therefore may characterize research better when reporting on it.","conclusion":"The impact of the journals will in general increase The Open Access Citation Advantage Service"}
{"id":"18e818cb-395f-4f3b-9330-135895f2a74f","argument":"Without age discrimination and a mandatory retirement age, employers benefit from lower turnover and thus lower recruitment costs and effort, because workers stay on at work longer than they would otherwise have done. The DTI estimates that this benefit to businesses will amount to \u00a339m in the first year alone. By contrast, discrimination discourages potentially talented job seekers from applying. Right from the recruitment stage, employers lose by having a smaller pool of workers to draw upon, and by failing to make the most of the existing skills potential of the population.","conclusion":"Without age discrimination and a mandatory retirement age, employers benefit from lower turnover and..."}
{"id":"a6e77d59-74b3-4d83-b5e5-edbdc051e08d","argument":"After the recent shooting in Chattanooga, many people are trying to use this as an example of why members of the armed forces should carry guns at all times. My gut instinct says this is a knee jerk reaction and isn't justified, but my opinion isn't very strong and I'm interested in the other side's point of view. It seems that making drastic changes to security policy is exactly what they want us to do, so doing this seems like it would be a win for them. It wouldn't eliminate the possibility of people dying from a terrorist attack, if you arm stateside soldiers with guns then they can just start using explosives. Another point I have seen is that suicide rates would go up from the increased access to firearms. I don't know enough to agree or disagree with that, but it wouldn't exactly surprise me. I guess the main reason I feel this way is that I would have absolutely hated it if I had to carry a weapon around all day while I was in the military. I would much rather take the very small risk of being attacked without a weapon to fire back with. It would have made the daily grind significantly worse, anybody who has been through basic training can tell you how much of a pain in the ass it is to carry a weapon around all day, and again I think lowering quality of life like that just because we might get attacked is a win for the terrorists. EDIT I no longer have an opinion on this one way or the other.","conclusion":"I don't think members of the armed forces other than MP's should carry weapons stateside"}
{"id":"c74520e8-de6e-4c19-b7f8-7eb235a85982","argument":"I think my title is pretty clear, so I'll fill my character requirement with a quote from Karen Straughan about male disposability, Male disposability has been around since the dawn of time, and it\u2019s based on one very very straightforward dynamic when it comes to the well being of others, women come first, men come last. This is just the way it has always been. Seats in lifeboats, being rescued from burning buildings, who gets to eat really, society places men dead last every time, and, society expects men to place themselves dead last every time. not so ninja EDIT Sorry guys, to clarify I am not saying that male disposability is a morally appropriate practice, I am arguing that male disposability is indeed a thing that exists. So when I say 'reject male disposability' I am saying that I don't understand how any rational person could claim that male disposability doesn't exist. Here's a link to the full text I quote Straughan from as well","conclusion":"I don't see how any rational person could reject Male Disposability."}
{"id":"d86d10f4-c599-4e1f-8f23-fd131ccf192b","argument":"For one's maxim to be acceptable, it needs to pass the universal test: \"to assess the moral permissibility of my maxim, I ask whether everyone could act on it, or whether it could be willed as a universal law The issue is not whether it would be good if everyone acted on my maxim, or whether I would like it, but only whether it would be possible for my maxim to be willed as a universal law\".","conclusion":"In Kantian ethics, the categorical imperative must be willed to be universal. As such, simply being the moral will or experience of the generalized people is not enough Since these imperatives must be universal to allow murder, one must allow it under all circumstances and by all people not just toward one specific group of people. Thus this is a grave distortion of Kant's ideas."}
{"id":"82183196-e34a-4805-ac02-912407d24980","argument":"Firstly, I want to emphasise that whilst much of my arguments are anecdotal and subjective, it should not be dismissed on that merit alone given my unique experiences, coupled with it correlating with several other thousands of people in the world . I am a bona fide stoner, having been exposed to weed for the first time over 4 years ago. Furthermore, I am a final year college student working for the Law Reform Council, advocating the benefits of legalizing illicit substances and increasing funding for community education rehab programs. So that's my platform of credibility out of the way pro weed advocate, who has experienced the full spectrum of weed . Now, I love me some herb. In the last 4 years, the longest period I abstained from weed was 6 months, and after that, it was only blocks of 2 weeks. There are many personal reasons for why I chose to abstain for those six months, but I feel the biggest factor was that I was striving towards a specific goal fitness related that really outweighed my desire for any vices alcohol included or distractions. The problem was not anything physical although I did earn back a sizable pot belly , but it was mental. And the thing was, I knew it was becoming an issue, but I could always take another bong rip and shit would be all okay again, until the next morning and so the cycle would start again . On top of that, pop culture is saturated with so much references to weed that any anti weed stance I tried to consider became comical. If an anti drug friend questioned my usage, Id just call him a bore and cut him out of my life. I could financially afford as much weed as I desired to smoke, my academic schedule was set in a way that I could wake n bake and still pass, and I had enough stoner friends to always make it a stimulating and enjoyable experience. What started to change my stance that it was harmless, especially in small quantities, was that it was such a pleasurable escape that I would find my usage climbing without intending to. I would wake up the next day and reality just didnt excite me. I would find that by the end of the night, with my head pumped full of THC, that I felt unfulfilled and had nothing to look forward to except what activity I would when I next got high and what delicious munchie I would go out and buy. And just like that, a responsible guy such as myself straight As and High Distinctions, anti alcohol fitness buff who loved to socialise with others had become a reclusive and lazy individual that was dependent on weed to escape bong brain depression and to feel artificial fulfillment and excitement. I would say that each time I tried to cut down on usage, say to only about 1 2 times a week, within a month it would be back to almost daily. During busy periods in my life exams, vacations I was either able to distract myself temporarily, or only limit it to only nightly sessions. Clearly, important factors are a the surrounding environment b your current position in life c your individual mental health. Whilst these are all good reasons why weed should not be thrown over a sensationalist blanket that it makes you lazy, stagnant in your life goals ambitions and depressed , its nevertheless something that is a risk directly caused by the drug for certain individuals that make up a significant proportion of the weed community. To laugh it off and say only those pre disposed to mental health issues and laziness suffer, most of us are fine is unproductive as others who may be in that exact boat are shielded with a defence mechanism that allows them to deny that it could be a problem in their life and be fed constant misinformation as to pot's sinister effect, especially those who feel overly confident in their life situation. Whilst many people grow out of weed like I have found myself to, many people remain stoners into their late adulthood. Many people dont find its an issue, saying its just like coffee and it wakes them up. Some also say it helps them combat depression. But many of those people only use it as coffee because their sober self cannot deal with the mundane world around them. That depression that they say it helps well thats a vicious cycle of feeling unfulfilled because they only smoke 24 7, because they feel depressed, because they feel unfilled In commercialising weed, it becomes more than a prescription medication, more akin to cigarettes that are condoned with a brand name, logo and all. With society's growing tolerance with weed culture, many are likely to fall into the same rabbit hole as alcoholism, where they are so dependent on the drug that ambition falters, they become stagnant with no life goals, and withdrawal is too hard to overcome loss of appetite, insomnia, mental health issues . Marriages fail, children are neglected, unemployment levels increase and in the end, their existence becomes monotonous and pointless like alcoholics. The difference, however, is that alcohol is restrictively sold only to adults in many countries, and its portrayal in media and pop culture vastly differs alcohol fuelled violence hangovers many people are aware of AA and associated issues with drinking I will reiterate that I love weed, and even though I no longer indulge myself, I will NEVER judge others for toking. The golden lesson for me is that certain people no matter how ordinary or strong minded , can still fall into dependence. The problem is whenever this idea is brought up, its usually seen as some bs propaganda sensationalist drivel. And being at the forefront of legalizing it in Australia as a legislative drafter, this ignorant culture worries me. But, what do I know? I'm just a stoner right? Change me view please","conclusion":"Weed should be legalized but not commercialised"}
{"id":"8eaa42d0-3932-494c-adb8-7dfc3fa92da5","argument":"This  is fairly simple. I have believed for a while that Trump would be the best thing to ever happen to Democrats, and now I feel like we are officially seeing those results. To date, Trump's presidency has seen numerous state congressional seats flipped and there doesn't appear to be any end in sight. We are seeing cases of long standing GOP members being challenged in ways that were never thought possible a year a go, Ted Cruz and Paul Ryan for example before he quit . There are numerous examples of ~20 point swings such as Republican Ron Estes in Kansas's 4th, John Curtis in Utah's 3rd, and of course Doug Jones in Alabama. None of which would have been possible under a Clinton presidency. In fact under a Clinton presidency these political leanings could have shifted even further into the red. We have also seen a resurgence of political protests around the country that the GOP could only dream of. Millions of people who will very likely be politically active for years to come as a result. All in all I believe that the GOP is in for a colossal loss in November specifically because of Trump and his controversial antics. I also believe that given all possible timelines, in the long run, this is the best case scenario for Dems. . gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Trump is shaping up to be the best thing to ever happen to Democrats"}
{"id":"fb7c4630-2013-459f-8c4e-50a7816f5e57","argument":"Many of you have probably seen the huge no call on a hit by Rams defensive Nickell Robey Coleman during today\u2019s NFC championship game here\u2019s a link if you haven\u2019t seen it . It could be easily argued that that no call cost New Orleans a trip to the Super Bowl I\u2019m not a Saints fan btw if anyone thinks I\u2019m just salty . This incident highlights one of the biggest problems with the NFL today how the referees have too much power over the outcome of a game, yet the penalties they throw aren\u2019t subject to proper review. In crucial moments, missed pass interference calls like the one seen today can completely screw over a team. There needs to be a check on this. The solution is to allow teams to challenge penalties. The system would work the same as how plays are normally challenge, but now penalty flags can be subject for review. I can\u2019t seem to find a reason why this can\u2019t be done the NFL has the technology to do it and penalties can have just as big an impact on the game as bad calls. Is there something I\u2019m missing? What good reasons are there for not allowing teams to challenge penalties?","conclusion":"The NFL should allow teams to challenge penalties"}
{"id":"c839b896-0470-4158-ab23-83ebee35f1ef","argument":"I am not saying that I condone what Klebold and Harris did, but it was really the aftermath of the shootings that helped America. Without the Columbine massacre, there would not have been an inquiry and a revolution of the way people think about bullying. I'm not arguing that the response to this murder prevents more murders, I'm arguing that it changes a culture of bullying where assault and intimidation are part of the daily reality of thousands of children's lives. CREDIT GreenStrong There needs to be a small activating event in order for something to be revolutionised, therefore, I believe that the Columbine massacre was a good thing in the end.","conclusion":"The Columbine massacre was a good thing."}
{"id":"e8bbfa24-6934-41c6-9401-6ad7911eafb5","argument":"Defining the civil law system as the group of imperatives that rule the society in a fair and just way is wrong. Why? First of all, I am not arguing against our current law system. That\u00b4s not what this post is about. What I am, in fact saying is that the laws implemented are the opposite of justice. They do nothing but reveal our mentality of better for the many . Picture the case of a pedophile for example. He has done nothing wrong to be that way. He was born with a somewhat common sexual disorder that is out of his control. He cannot change the fact that he is a pedophile. When he in fact rapes a underaged person he is doing nothing but reacting to his own nature. It\u00b4s completely out of his control. I used the pedophile example for a shock value of course, I could\u00b4ve used the sociopath experiment instead. All in all, what I mean is that it\u00b4s better for the majority that he\u00b4s locked up, but it\u00b4s completely unfair, so it\u00b4s not reasonable calling it justice. Please note that English is not my first language, and that I am still trying to get decent at defending my thesis, so any suggestions of how I can improve are welcome EDIT 1 To all the people saying that a pedophile can control his actions, of all 100 pedophiles that were chemically castrated a few years ago all of them began luring kids again after the procedure, enhancing my argument that they do not control their nature. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"It is wrong to call our civil law system as justice."}
{"id":"9251292b-2eae-453d-a393-95902e46c4a1","argument":"The more someone can focus on something \"math or auto racing or football or God\", the more that becomes their own reality, as it \"becomes written into the neural connections of your brain\", experts say.","conclusion":"Neuroplasticity the capacity of our brains to change and adapt, is not a unique characteristic of religion but of extreme concentration and 'mental trainning'."}
{"id":"cff236f9-390b-4e46-bc71-bacb05a91b9b","argument":"As the title says the best flavour of pringle is salt and vinegar, this is an opinion that I have held for many years. Occasionally I will under the duress of my friends try other flavours of pringle and always end up regretting it. Purely based on taste nothing is as iconic as S V and even the design scheme is better and more aesthetically appealing. If anyone can come up with a reason for even considering any other flavour I would be intrigued as it's getting to a point where I struggle to trust people who don't place S V at the top of the pringle ladder.","conclusion":"Salt and vinegar are the best flavour of pringle"}
{"id":"e62af3fa-4fc6-48c2-92b2-29738d8eb441","argument":"In Shakespeare's Hamlet, the titular character SPOILER ALERT? sees his father in ghost form who tells his son to avenge him. Hamlet then goes on to literally stage an experiment writing, casting, and directing a play that illustrates his exact theory of events regarding Claudius' fratricide right down to the murder weapon . Aaaand it works Claudius freaks the fuck out. In the absence of forensics, I'd say that Hamlet's conclusion is sound a guilty conscious needs no accuser, and Hamlet has reason to believe that Claudius killed the King. Had Claudius acted calmly, as if he was seeing any other play, why should this bother him? So the only insane behavior Hamlet really exhibits is seeing a ghost. But stranger things have happened. Perhaps it's a manifestation of Hamlet's guilt, coupled with some bizarre behavior from his mother, microexpressions from his uncle, and then his own stressed mind. Hamlet made a hypothesis based on apparent information, executed an experiment, watched his hypothesis be vindicated, and then acted appropriately. Hamlet is not insane.  gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Hamlet is not mad."}
{"id":"420aad12-0fc2-4051-9429-0048c0b91338","argument":"Paul himself rested his entire, heretical, \"Christianity\", & his followers' faith, on his claim that Jesus died on a cross then came back to life: \u201cIf Christ is not risen, then our preaching is vain, & your faith is also vain.\u201d 1 Corinthians 15:14. Yet even in the Gospels MML&J composed by members of Paul's own sect, there is ample evidence that Jesus did not die on the cross but merely fainted, & the crucifixion was carefully orchestrated by powerful supporters of Jesus.","conclusion":"The original Jesus sect of Christianity, which was primarily attached to & located around the Jerusalem Temple, was effectively wiped out in the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70CE, so failed to propagate Jesus' revelation & mission. All the New Testament texts were composed, in Koine Greek, by members of the Pauline sect, which Paul set up to spread his corrupted & heretical \"Christianity\" to non-Jews, so they are not valid as evidence of Jesus' actual mission, revelation or intentions."}
{"id":"7da2ba0e-01a5-4216-80c7-80e1c7deefbe","argument":"Polygamy marriage to many spouses, either male or female should be legal if consensual. When two consenting adults want to spend their lives together they have the right to marry and to have their relationship officially and legally recognized. The same should apply to any extra individuals who want to enter into that relationship. If all consent, and there is no coercion in any way there is no argument for them to not make their relationship binding. Poly relationships already exist and work well for many people on personal, romantic and sexual levels. However problems arise for them sometimes when legal, financial or medical issues are involved. Lets say, in a situation where a three person poly relationship looks after a child biological child for two of them , and something happens to the parents accidents, death, etc , the third person has no legal say over what happens, even if they were all equally involved in the child's upbringing. The child will have to be put with other more distant family members, or even the state before going to the third parent . Neither does the third partner get a say in medical decisions for the couple or any inheritance even if they all have been in a committed poly relationships for decades. In the eyes of the state they are a stranger and have no rights. Edit Many have pointed out that it is better or more practical to have all my concerns addressed via separate contracts to medical, legal, inheritance rights of the 3 people then to try to get legal marriage between more than two parties. I think that would allow the people to live their lives while enjoying most of the legal privileges marriage provides","conclusion":"Consensual polygamy should be legal."}
{"id":"b3446f87-7b11-48f3-a017-87f28fa50f6b","argument":"\"Turkey: Headscarf Ban Stifles Academic Freedom\". Human Rights Watch. June 29th, 2005 - \"the protection of religious freedom is fully consistent with secularism in state institutions. Accommodating different forms of religious headgear does not suggest that state authorities endorse any particular religion and does not require additional state resources.\"","conclusion":"A state does not jeopardize its secularism by allowing head scarves"}
{"id":"43191280-9ede-441c-9a29-43373ede5a72","argument":"Workers left in a market will have higher diposable incomes and thus spend more as a result of the minimum wage. This expenditure will create employment opportunities in secondary sectors.","conclusion":"Increases in aggregate demand and associated secondary multipliers, can often offset local industry layoffs, thus reducing unemployment."}
{"id":"140d9929-fdbe-46a5-bf98-152b484e7119","argument":"Among some religious creeds child abuse and neglect is more common when certain variables are found: authoritarianism, isolation and fear.","conclusion":"Celibacy can have a negative impact on mental health and may be a contributing factor in sexual abuse."}
{"id":"cf0dc03d-e55b-4eb8-8ec4-a558db952ce3","argument":"My view On average, women are less capable at defending against a physical attack than their male counterparts. By allowing all eligible citizens to access firearms you neutralise this disadvantage women have. By preventing all eligible citizens from legally accessing firearms, you have a disproportionate affect upon women. Thus, access to firearms should be considered a gender equality issue. Notes I am a 21 year old Irish male. Gun control is an issue that interests me but there is not much opportunity for discussion amongst my peers as we don't have much of a gun culture here. Although I enjoy discussing many of the aspects around gun control, I would like to limit this  to the view stated.","conclusion":"Access to firearms should be considered as a gender equality issue."}
{"id":"9a8fa799-2f7a-4e6f-b83e-e007661f52aa","argument":"The foundation for my argument will be through a game called Runescape. When you start Runescape. You know nothing. I started in this manner, as a 9 year old. It took me months before I had the slightest clue what to do. I went fishing, cooked, smithed and did everything else, but how far did I get? Not very far, but I kept on playing. 3 years pass and I now have many accounts. I had a lvl 86 Pure was never good at pking, just liked it , a lvl 110 main not even impressive at all and some other low level accounts. My friend wanted to start playing Runescape. So I told him that I would teach him, being the good friend I am. And so I did over the course of weeks and months, I taught him much of what I knew, mostly how to make money and the best methods of doing many things. So I taught him, and admittedly, he was getting good. I was getting jealous, I thought, It took me 3 years to do this, and here he is in a matter of a year almost where I am. We played together every day and almost all the time, eventually we started sharing accounts caused many problems . Anyways, I started a new account at some point. I had about 5 mill on my main just as money not including my bank. So I put 2 mill on my new account. This 2 mill lasted me a long time, easily up to level 60 70 as I was to be a Pure no defensive stats, all offensive . Anyways what this taught me was how EASY doing anything was with Money. Had a problem? No you don't, you have money. There was not a single Problem I encountered lvling up, everything was Piss. Sure I still had to put in the time and work, but that was nothing because it was actually enjoyable, even if It didn't I could do plenty of other things. I didn't have to go from one thing from another. I even gave some of my money to beggars. This was one the most enjoyable things I did as it made me feel extremely good about myself. Now compare that to me when I first began, months before I even knew what on Earth was going on. A year before I had anything in worthwhile in my bank, another year before I made any good progress. I had distorted stats and never really committed to anything on my main account. What do I mean by all of this? Now Imagine a child who was born to modernised parents who make good money. The child is given everything needed lead a decent life, with his parents passing down some assets, giving him the knowledge and paying through much of his life. I compare this to my Friend, and my Me as the parent. He fucked off after a certain point, as he knew enough now to go on off his own. Now take a child from non modernised parents. Perhaps parents have trouble speaking English in America. His parents aren't modernised, can't teach him much except how to perhaps be a human being, his parents have little to no assets to pass down. He is me when I began Runescape. But the trials and tribulations of life won't just reward you today or in a year, and much of it is much more convoluted than Runescape.Much of runescape is Linear. It takes 22 25 years to fully develop as a human being, you're fully developed from day one in Runescape. So before you ask, what's wrong with Rich people that reek all this havoc, that are so disconnected from the commoners? Nothing is wrong with them IMO, as nothing was wrong with me. But I was conscious of what happened. A kid growing up, won't be aware. Even if you tell him, he won't care because he doesn't have to feel it, he doesn't face the trouble. He only hears of it, and words mean nothing in such context. I'm not saying that rich people can never face troubles, but that their troubles are so few compared to that of people who aren't.","conclusion":"Rich people's lives are RIDICULOUSLY easier."}
{"id":"aa14a113-64b0-43c0-9ab2-734f2123c43c","argument":"Starfleet's curiosity about the universe led them to defy aggressive overtures from godlike beings who introduced them to great danger. They overcome every such danger.","conclusion":"Starfleet's curiosity and ingenuity is a strength unmatched by the Rebels."}
{"id":"e5dfcd53-3f60-4487-a8ad-9c13b75d9c4b","argument":"I think almost all jobs are incredibly dull and involve boring repetitive tasks for the most part on a day to day basis. Most people work for reasons outside of the attraction of what they actually do this would be things like paying bills and rent mortgages, or consumerism, potentially finding a better partner and social standing. I think the hope of someday making it big is mostly a false one, a carrot on a stick type deal which is just another reason that keeps people going. Obviously there is a small minority of people that actually do interesting work because they're incredibly enterprising or supremely intelligent, or are just very very lucky. I think all of this is a capitalist conspiracy of sorts, to keep the masses engaged, and make sure everything keeps running. Consumerism and the need for money keeps the system going, without incentive everything would fall apart. If people stopped doing boring work, the world would come to a standstill. I don't think other systems like communism would be a viable alternative either. Maybe with boring tasks eventually becoming automated, this problem would gradually go away. But as it stands, the bulk of humanity is engaged in horribly boring robotic work all day, essentially being forced into slaving away most of their lives. I guess I'm being incredibly cynical, but I feel like corporate slavery is just a draining and sad product of our society.","conclusion":"The vast majority of jobs are mind numbingly boring, and pretty much the only reason most people work is money,"}
{"id":"12805404-49df-4968-95fb-8a75b8391f6f","argument":"I've often seen modern neo nazis who cover their faces at rallies described as cowards . However, this puzzles me. To me, it makes perfect sense why a neo nazi would want to keep their face covered. If their identity were exposed, they could lose their job, their family, their friends, etc. To me, this seems very parallel to the sort of discrimination that a gay person from the year, say, 1966 might face if their homosexuality were made public knowledge to the world. The repercussions they would face would be fairly similar. However, I do not consider gay people from the 60's who stayed in the closet to be cowards . In a world that hates you for who you are, it makes perfect sense to conceal who you are in order to avoid repercussions. To me that's not cowardly , that's just smart. However, when I see people refer to neo nazis as cowards and I bring up this point, people tend to get angry and it's usually around this point that I get called some pretty mean names. I have pointed out to people that modern neo nazis who are open about their beliefs are actually pretty courageous, just like the homosexuals who were open about it back in the day. However, I feel that society has progressed to the point where a large portion of homosexuals are able to come out of the closet without fear of judgment, and this is is a wonderful thing btw. So I feel that coming out as a nazi takes a lot more bravery these days than coming out as gay does. Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of other criticisms I could point towards Nazis especially. But they concealing their identity doesn't make them cowards. Lots of people seem to disagree with me on all this, but I haven't really had a proper discussion about it. So let's do it,","conclusion":"It takes far more courage to come out as a Nazi in modern America than it does to come out as gay"}
{"id":"88e8378f-5398-4fb7-aa30-a8037864579d","argument":"Goebbels famously said that you can never change a man's mind, merely inflate or deflate already existing prejudices. I would not be willing to quite go that far.There are, of course, various sciences of attitude formation and attitude change. I do think that you can change, the superficial level of factual beliefs ok so World War 2 did not happen in the 1920s, spoon bending is not paranormal and so on.A fact can be changed much easier than the constellation of beliefs that forms the persons weltanschauung or overall worldview. This could also generally be applied to political perspectives. I tend to subscribe to something like the theory of 'projective identification' from object relations psychodynamic theory, in this area that would mean that most Republicans have an 'internalised subconscious liberal' and most liberals have an 'internalised subconscious conservative'. Given enough 'fertile ground' this position can be changed. This demands the question of how I think someones commonplaces or core beliefs can be changed I think it is as a consequence of multiple complex changes in the 'base' of their lifeworld and later reflected into the 'superstructure' of their belief system. For example, An out of work painter born into a union family with broadly left beliefs retrains as an accountant and is personally affected by multiple casulaties in 9 11. He finds not long after that with his improving prospects and anger and fear that he starts to feel that there is too much immigration, that those who work hard get just deserts and so on a whole slew of beliefs shift to a more conservative domain. Could this effect have been achieved 5 years earlier by some very strong and passionate debates with conservatives? Unlikely, one can always have confirmation bias, change terms, redefine the terms, question the speaker and so on. Actually even science is not safe in a sense, if you follow the theories of W.O.Quine, even science suffers from determinacy problems, when you have replicability, is it the subject of the experiment or is some other element of the testing machinery churning out consistent falsehoods for every hypothesis there is an almost infinite range of alternative hypotheses and so on. But I am in danger of going off track. The fundamental claim is that core beliefs and ideological positions are more akin to 'unconscious and decisive leaps of faith' which are causally related to multiple complex gestaltic background conditions and even the best rationalists and persuaders cannot shake someone out of that ove the course of a day a week or even a month.","conclusion":"It is not really possible to on-the-spot change someone's deeply held beliefs or ideological faith"}
{"id":"a9dbcb52-35df-411a-93ec-343b8234c89b","argument":"The rich, who had the most to lose by Ottoman occupation had far greater incentive to move to Italy than the common people.","conclusion":"A disproportionate amount of the Greek people fleeing from the Byzantine Empire were wealthy individuals."}
{"id":"2129712e-f6ef-4e8c-9a39-e57cbfd5318a","argument":"Few fans cried out for Star Wars, its characters or storylines to be deconstructed, re-imagined, or otherwise 'fixed' beforehand. This is why the movie has been commonly met with surprise, shock, and anger.","conclusion":"Story-lines and characters set up in previous films were not treated with much respect."}
{"id":"4828eac2-16fb-44ee-8e24-8c1daa48f1dc","argument":"In terms of a superhero movie with all of the heroes involved and from a pure marvel fan perspective I completely have love for Endgame. However the writing and actual plot of Infinity War is far superior. Thanos is my first reason. He is presented as a complex villain with a reason for his evil and has to make the ultimate sacrifice killing his Daughter to accomplish what he believes is right. In Endgame, he\u2019s seems to want to kill everyone and is a flat character as a result. Second, the major characters arc\u2019s still make sense with the exception of Steve Rogers . Thor is lost and needs to redeem his hammer and Tony Stark still has the conflict of giving up being Iron Man. In Endgame, Thor is just fat and timid which was never his problem. Stark doesn\u2019t give up on he suit and he doesn\u2019t have to make the same sacrifice Thanos does to use the Infinity Gauntlet. Finally this is the big one to me , the story in Endgame is poorly thought out and really doesn\u2019t make sense. At least in Infinity War, it made sense how all the storylines came together and culminated in the climax in Wakanda. In Endgame, they give a very weak explanation for time travel and there\u2019s really no reason for many of the characters to even be involved Thor, Carol Danvers, Pepper, the Wasp, the Winter Soldier . Again all of this happens to bring it on home and have everyone in one place but I thought it was just poorly done. I would love to have my view changed on this. Thanks for reading I know it was a long one.","conclusion":"Avengers: Infinity War is a much better movie and story than Avengers: Endgame."}
{"id":"b07ddcc0-be82-4833-af78-bbbf002d57f1","argument":"Venus would add an extra 113.7 billion acres of surface for human use. For comparison, Earth is 123 billion surface acres and Mars is 35.8 surface acres. solarsystem.nasa.gov","conclusion":"Despite the costs, successively terraforming Venus would result in a massive gain for a plurality of goods."}
{"id":"5fc7d062-0a61-4ded-bcf6-15f603959ab2","argument":"The power to tax a Church is the power to limit its operations by reducing its funding at best, or the power to destroy a Church that cannot pay the tax at worst. This power is unacceptable if the Government has any commitment to religious freedom or the separation of Church and State.","conclusion":"Governments that operate under a separation of church and state aren't positioned to claim authority to tax churches, regardless of whether churches do social good."}
{"id":"f3e85ec3-6049-4eab-93fa-9e5c0a3e826b","argument":"Humans will try to convince themselves that what they are doing is good even if they know the opposite is true in order to feel justified in their acts.","conclusion":"Humans do what they think is in their best interests, even if it's bad."}
{"id":"f52a2da0-ef8f-4ba1-9002-47fd35bfc661","argument":"I want to preface this post by stating that I'm a huge Pac fan. What he does for our country in terms of unifying us, even if just for one night, is something that we haven't had or will have after pac retires for a long time. I understand that Pacman has fought Margarito who stands at like 6', and De La Hoya at 5'10 . The difference between those guys and Algieri is that Algieri fights and moves tall. DLH and AMargarito either stood, or came forward into Pacman's range. The combination of reach, height, jab, boxing acumen, and movement that Algieri brings into the ring I believe will be too much for Pacman to overcome. Let's also not forget that Algieri brings comparable speed in his punches, footwork, and head movement. I'm not discounting Pacman's abilities to get wherever he needs using his footwork, but he's never fought anyone with Algieri's repertoire. I will however recognize that Algieri has never fought anyone with Pacman's overall package of hand speed, power, footwork, and ring iq getting to his range and angle with footwork . So one likely scenario is that Pacman overwhelms Algieri with a flurry of punches coming in fast and hard. But I'd like to think that Algieri is smart enough to know what Pacman is bringing into the ring, and take advantage of Pacman's lack of defensive responsibility when he ALWAYS DROPS HIS LEFT HAND OMFGWTF it so frustrating watching pac sometimes when he wont just KEEP HIS DAMN HANDS UP Aaaaanyway , because I really want my nerves to be calmed going into the fight and I've only got my perspective, which is useless to me.","conclusion":"I believe Chris Algieri will beat Manny Pacquiao"}
{"id":"24274137-f77c-4e12-9f7e-996fdf4c44e5","argument":"All actions taken by anyone affect others and any action that has a sufficiently large negative impact on others should be stopped.","conclusion":"Sometimes people can hurt others or themselves. In these cases it is right to take away that choice."}
{"id":"50788ec1-bd37-4220-8f95-0be5ba7067e8","argument":"In my mind there are two types of racism, overt conscious racism or the Klan is a good example of this . This is not what I am referencing when I say everyone is a little bit racist the type of racism I am talking about is the subconscious type. In essence the brain is hardwired to generalize about everything. It is how humans deal with the metric crap ton of data we consume every second. Our brains do not have the capacity to digest all of the details so it picks out a few key details, categorizes things we see hear touch smell taste, makes connections about them and then moves on to the next stimulus. This applies to humans as well, and is the basis for what I call unconscious racism. Race, is a reeeaally easy short hand for our brain to use, it is obvious, and comes with so many easy possibly wrong connections that it is a way for our brain to be lazy, and we are generally hardwired to do as much as possible with the least amount of energy read we are hardwired to be as lazy as possible because of this humans will always be a little bit racist and there is nothing we can do to get rid of it. just a note, I am not saying it is right or good, just that it is and always will be","conclusion":"I think everyone is a little bit racistt, that it is a natural part of the human condition, and that it will never end"}
{"id":"b960d690-bdf4-46d4-be7d-e3cc9dac80be","argument":"The moment-by-moment, real-time transparency promoted by those companies on a worldwide scale can have harmful consequences for diplomatic achievements.","conclusion":"Facebook and Twitter do not play a meaningful role in international politics."}
{"id":"a23d344c-5b41-4173-b5ab-6e59a889c578","argument":"I'm a skeptic myself, although, I am definitely openminded and curious to learn more about those few alleged UFO encounters that just haven't been sufficiently debunked. Sure, there\u2019s UFO nuts out there and self proclaimed UFO researchers who dedicate their free time to speculating at everything flying in the skies above, people who eagerly want to believe \u2014 but I think there are a few somewhat credible sightings out there from pilots, conservative townsfolk of rural places e.g. Stephenville, Texas who would've likely never believed in extraterrestrial life prior to seeing anything odd, and from military personnel. People who are generally familiar with objects and phenomenon in everyday airspace. When reasonably credible people witness unidentified objects in the sky and witness outstanding events, I think that their testimonies should be taken seriously, as opposed to being stigmatized and shrugged off as being unworthy of further discourse. I\u2019m mainly posting here because I just recently sat down and watched this Larry King Live interview with Bill Nye, several former air force members who manned the United States\u2019 silos storing weapons of mass destruction, and a few others. I respect the living shit out of Bill Nye, I think he\u2019s really wonderful individual, but in this instance, he came off as a total dick with with next to nothing to add to the discussion aside from a few smarmy dismissals. I think Bill Nye arrived a little unprepared and maintained incredibly condescending throughout much of the interview. It became evident that he had done little, if any, research on the missile silo encounters in question. At one point he even struggled a bit to recall where this silo was and throughout, was just incredibly quick to write them off as being crazy for even speculating about about what they had seen hovering over the silos, flying in the sky and disabling missiles in midair. It seemed as if he thought he could just show up with a smirk on his face and discredit them with clumsily overlooked factoids. I understand that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, but even though the objects seen were unidentified , Nye didn\u2019t even want to consider that what these guys had seen could have been anything out of the ordinary \u2014 it\u2019s as if the scientific method is hardcoded into this guy\u2019s very being and was expecting peer reviewed paper. Nye comes in on part 2 As soon as part 4 begins, Nye seems to understand that he's just trying to come up with excuses. Two UFO sightings I would consider to be credible","conclusion":"I find it ignorant and rude to dismiss everyone who\u2019s claimed to have encountered a UFO as being crazy."}
{"id":"c73f1ec1-1a4a-4d42-bfdb-d35d41cb475d","argument":"TypeScript having less adoption poses a greater risk of support being discontinued as time passes.","conclusion":"TypeScript has less adoption and is thus riskier for the business"}
{"id":"ae444efe-a3d9-476a-bd29-3cb76add9fe0","argument":"Obama's election as a president from being a freshman US Senator inspired other US Senators to bid for presidency during their freshman senate terms - including three republican senators Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, and Ted Cruz.","conclusion":"Even most of Obama's political opponents think he was a good role model as a president."}
{"id":"094afb40-9c3a-46fb-a45a-11c6bdfc0721","argument":"I've seen people say that calling something like a word or phrase discriminatory is just an opinion. That it depends on how you look at it. Depends on a personal view. But saying something is discriminatory isn't an opinion. It's defining. It's a word category. If someone says something like Black people do this or that negative thing. Then it's not an opinion to call that racist. It's just pointing out what's being said. It's saying this phrase is defined like this. You can't change a word definition. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Calling a word or phrase racist, sexist, or discriminating is not an opinion"}
{"id":"2d90d347-40b2-4517-bc50-a960d4d4d7f8","argument":"I believe the idea of getting married before having children is outdated and based on religion rather than the benefit of the child. Two people in a committed relationship e.g. have been together many years, truly love each other, no fear that the other person will leave can provide just as much love, nurture, and support for a child. There is a lot of family and societal pressure to get married before having children or get married to your child's father mother once you find out they are knocked up and it's something that I don't completely understand. Don't get me wrong, the decision to have a child should be well thought out and discussed several times over. It should be with someone you love and care about. It should never be about salvaging a dying relationship or trying to keep someone involved in your life through a child. The pressure of being legally married before starting my family to avoid the sideways glances that my child is a 'mistake' or wasn't planned seems ridiculous to me. I've thought about having a wedding to appease parents but never actually getting a marriage license. No one would know the difference but it would somehow make it ok to start having children and I wouldn't have to deal with the judgement of other people. Ultimately, a child needs parental figures in their life but the idea that a married couple provides more stability than an unmarried, monogamous, living together bf gf is not something I can really get behind.","conclusion":"I believe marriage before having children is not necessary,"}
{"id":"c204a72b-68f5-4bc8-ab16-4a27191c1be8","argument":"I'll start with the basic info. I am in my mid 20's and I grew up in north central Wisconsin to a lower middle class family. I lived in an area with nearly no black people. In my high school there were over 2000 kids and literally one black person. He wasn't the greatest person and got into trouble with the law regularly but I interacted with his mother quite a bit because she was a client at the insurance agency I worked at and she was a great person on all accounts. So this was a case of the kid was just kind of shitty and probably in a shitty situation considering he was the only black kid. Anyway I would not have considered myself racist at all at this time, black people I met through my parents were all well educated and well behaved. Then I moved to Milwaukee for College I had had a great high school education by all accounts and was able to tutor through the university for money starting my freshman year. Many of my students were black and honestly most of them didn't belong in college at all. A majority were unable to do the most basic of algebra and some were literally in a math class that they had to write numbers in words and perform basic arithmetic. I understand that these people should get a fair shake and that to some degree it was the school system and their parents that had failed them. However, I found out that nearly all of these kids were getting subsidized educations and in some cases full rides based on the color of their skin and I couldn't get a dollar even though I was an honors student in a stem field. But I still saw the social merit of diversity and I thought I was doing a good thing to try to help them. My interactions with them were mostly ok but I did get called a white boy and cracker on occasion but whatever I had been called worse. My Junior year is when I really started to sour a bit. That year a black drug addict broke into my house and trashed the place one day while me and my housemates were at school, he was passed out on the couch when I got home and it took police and perimedics to finally extract him. He ended up pleaing for like community service and to this day has a civil judgement against him and owes all four of us for the damages. I also worked with intercity kids that summer for the student conservation association and 8 10 of my group were black. I have never been so disrespected in all my life as I was from those kids, and in addition they were some of the laziest people I have ever met. 1 black kid was great, the one asian girl was quite and hard working, and the one white girl was hard working as well. The rest were absolute shit heads, they stole from each other, lied, and fought. When I brought it up to the program supervisor a black woman the response was I simply didn't understand or that I was blowing it out of proportion. The goal was to try to show these kids the value of work and showing up each day etc etc and I feel that the program just set them up for further failure. That summer my car was broken into, the person tried to start the car with a screwdriver or something and then tried to hot wire the car and fried the electronics totaling the car. He stole a camera and a can of spray paint from the vehicle and in a case of sweet, sweet justice he was caught tagging one of the university buildings by campus police and his fingerprints matched the ones inside my car. The worst part for me was he was a rich black kid from the shorewood which is a nice part of town. He still owes me 1730 stemming from that incident as well. This winter me and two other buddies were mugged walking home, me and one guy ran and managed to get away while the second friend froze. They stole his wallet but he didn't have any money so instead of just hopping back in the car, which I found out later from the police that they stole and later set on fire, they beat the shit out of him and he had to go to the emergency room with a concussion and several broken ribs. These kids were no older than maybe 18 19 all black. I know I have a problem now because my care was just broken into this week, they took a bicycle pump but whatever they didn't total my car this time. The first thing I thought to myself was God damn fucking Niggers and I don't even know if they were black but that was what came to my mind first. That is wrong and not how I want to live my life but I am not sure how to fix it. Sorry I rambled like crazy but I am just sad that I am becoming so angry at a group of people. TLDR Lived in an all white working class town growing up and viewed everybody as equal. Moved to Milwaukee and have had repeated bad and severely negative interactions with black people, although I have had a few positive as well. I just had my car broken into and without a clue of who did it my mind went straight to black people even though there is no proof. And I am starting to really hate black people and black culture. I don't want to be angry and hateful and I don't know how to fix it.","conclusion":"Black people and culture are self destructive and they are turning me into a racist I don't want to be. Change my view towards them please."}
{"id":"563ac150-7103-4275-9ac4-dfb9ee920356","argument":"Opponents of Affirmative Action argue that it is unfair to the \"poor white male from Appalachia\" to give the wealthy black neurosurgeon's son an advantage in school admittance. Yet, the problem with this idea is that ignores the fact that there are for more poor blacks as a result of institutional racism. This relative disadvantage of blacks is what drives the need for affirmative action. As Charles R. Lawrence III and Mari J. Matsuda write in their 1997 book \"We Won't Go Back: Making the Case for Affirmative Action\": \"All the talk about class, the endless citings of the \u2018poor white male from Appalachia,\u2019 cannot avoid the reality of race and gender privilege.\"","conclusion":"Anomaly of \"poor white Appalachian\" less important than broad racism"}
{"id":"ef6ea2aa-6755-4d25-8aca-cb05ef429642","argument":"People should have the right to a final vote before the deal is made permanent once and for all, given that now they actually know what leaving really means.","conclusion":"Some of the claims made during the referendum campaign were untrue."}
{"id":"6c0737da-2ffe-4ac7-9ea8-1f67c4008d52","argument":"I hate the world we live in and all the people in it. I have been leaving in social isolation for almost a year now. However, I mean no harm to anyone and never wish so to happen. I help individuals in need. I want to contribute to the planet not because I love it, but because I hate it and want it to change. often times, I keep on hearing phrases like you need to see good in people to make the world a better place and so on. Please change my view. I'm confused regarding my current framework of this view, so please help me to clarify if you think so. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I want to contribute to the world not because I love it, but because I hate it."}
{"id":"77ff9fd6-6da9-41ba-a684-dafc0deaf770","argument":"I should preface by saying I would just like to objectively understand the other sides arguments. Recently i was told that by impersonating someone like Bob Ross with an afro, that this is would be cultural appropriation and thus insensitive towards African American. I don't believe this is true because A. He is not African American the perceived targeted race , B. An afro or any hair style should not be intrinsic and exclusive to one single race. This was a hairstyle that was largely prominent in the 70s and 80s. As well, and most importantly, most people regardless of race can physically grow an afro if they grow their hair long enough. I know I can and I'm not black. Should I be frowned upon for growing my hair long naturally, or cosplaying as someone who themselves looks a certain way with no intention of misappropriation and insensitivity towards a particular group? Thanks","conclusion":"A non-black person having an afro is not cultural appropriation as a haircut is not culturally exclusive"}
{"id":"3c1ae610-e5ef-427f-9b83-cdb139dc272b","argument":"Feminism seems to me to be about acquiring equal legal rights for women In the West, where this is already a thing, why do we need feminism? I understand that women face prejudice, but so do guys, albeit in a different manner. If eliminating intangible prejudice, why not go the way of humanism, where you would be fighting for the rights of all? This is not to say that feminism should be looked down on, or no longer a thing. It definitely helped women in the West and similar success in the Middle East would be awesome. But I believe that the movement has achieved it's goal in the West. So why continue?","conclusion":"I don't see the point of feminism in the West."}
{"id":"39ff1ddb-fac7-4c94-a93a-7db07f8d0e89","argument":"Let's start by looking at the easy case. Only the most liberal of liberals believes there to be no physical differences between races. Blacks generally have dark skin. Asians generally have slanty eyes. That's basically what we define races in terms of. Only slightly more controversially, let's move on to the fact that black people are on average taller and stronger and Asians are on average shorter and weaker. Most people agree that to deny those observations is PC thuggery gone wild, and to most they are obvious on their face. Yet, as soon as we start to talk about the mind intelligence, language, artistic ability, moral sense suddenly it becomes completely unacceptable to even consider the idea that there may be a difference between races. For most educated people, it is uncomfortable even to think about it, since the idea is immoral. For a scientist to make observations on this fact is for his career to be ended. All differences must be attributed to societal factors like discrimination and situational differences. I'm going to now focus on the specific example of the black race. I realize that this is a very sensitive subject, and it is a very negative focus, but it is the easiest example with which to make the point. People hold the aforementioned view despite the fact that in basically every situation across the world, darker skinned people are less successful and more prone to violence. Blacks are not a homogenous culture, but black majority countries are as a rule unsuccessful, uneducated, crime ridden, wartorn, and corrupt. Black minorities on average in virtually every country do worse in education. Black minorities on average in almost every country have higher crime rates. Imagine a hypothetical world where it is a fact that black people are somewhat less intelligent and less altruistic, but people don't want to believe it's true out of faith in the equality of races. Would this hypothetical world actually look any different at all than our current world? How can any rational person recognize there are physical differences encoded into the DNA of different races but then refuse to recognize that this same DNA could be the source of apparent mental differences? Additional notes I am well aware of the fact that outliers exist, and that the mental differences within races are greater than the mental differences between races, but this is not relevant to a discussion of racial averages. Edit I really regret bringing the black race into this, especially in a negative light. It is an overly charged subject which derails the conversations. Instead, I really want to focus on the fact that I believe the evidence suggests there is a difference in cognition in any form between the races, rather than anything specific to the black situation.","conclusion":"Believing there is no difference in intelligence and other cognitive abilities between races is the same as believing there is no difference in physical qualities between races. It's wishful thinking and there is no logical reason to believe it true."}
{"id":"ce7d6173-1ab9-4c52-9c22-12243d94e10a","argument":"I'm a huge Bernie fan contrary to what my opinion may be and have been following him since right before he officially announced his run for presidency. I hope with all my heart that Bernie wins, but I just don't think he can do it. I highly doubt he can get the dem nom. Although, if he does, I think he stands a chance against whoever the Republican candidate is. Obviously, his biggest obstacle is Hillary, and in a world where everything seems to be going her way lack of debates, her winning the debates despite polling, polls showing her losing the debates being deleted, etc etc etc I just can't see her losing the nom. Yes, I know this was said back in 2008, but Bernie isn't getting nearly as much coverage as Obama was getting back then and isn't considered a rockstar like Obama was, either. TL DR Even as someone who supports, defends, and plans on voting for Bernie Sanders, I don't think he has a chance to win the democratic nomination.","conclusion":"As a dedicated Bernie Sanders fan who plans to vote for him, I really don't think he stands a chance at being the Democratic nominee"}
{"id":"9dd6efef-f50e-4d39-9cb0-d2ef03d057f4","argument":"Personal identity is flexible and constantly evolving. Even if pedophilia is an important part of a person right now, it does not mean it is essential for future happiness.","conclusion":"It is not necessary the central aspect of their identity. It is very subjective and can be totally different for every individual."}
{"id":"9e6aff9c-a836-47c2-b68b-e4d2c8a4fbb4","argument":"Scotland, the spousal neighbour of England, is overwhelmingly pro-EU and has questioned its ties with London and Britain over this decision. An unfavourable Brexit may also trigger further possibilities of an independent Scotland who wishes to remain in the EU.","conclusion":"It has a major negative impact on all areas of the UK, including Scotland and Ireland."}
{"id":"1dbb62fb-a1ba-42e3-86b1-f690aa2597f1","argument":"I was just a poor farmer and I my Lord just fired me because the tractors could do a much quicker and efficient job than me This industrialization is taking our jobs, and only the rich is benefitting from it What am I supposed to do now? There are no more jobs left. My only choice now is to move to the closest city and pray to find a job there. It's ridiculous, how is a man in the middle of the 18th century supposed to feed his wife and 6 sons without any land to work on All is over.","conclusion":"The machines are taking our jobs!"}
{"id":"ddac65a6-d2d5-442f-8a7e-b87bcfe92f9f","argument":"Marriage as a word comes from the Middle english word mariage , which according to sources from Wikipedia, comes from around 1200 1300 CE. Word comes from another Old French word then to a Latin word mar\u012bt\u0101re , which describes a husband and wife. Adding on top of that, many modern religions using the word to describe the ceremony as a marriage between one man and one woman, I see that the word Marriage is intrinsically religious. Now moving to modern day, Marriage is changing as many people are adding to changing the meaning to a word that many people use as a religious word. People are getting up in arms about these and I can see their points. Marriage in a lot of religions these days is still defined as one man and one woman. Now have a court government adding to changing that definition of that word, this is where I believe the whole issue is. The issue with people not wanting gay marriage based off religious beliefs is because a word is being used for something that it does not mean to them. Marriage is from religion and should keep it that way. We need to rename Marriage in the government to remove this part of the issue that the anti gay marriage community has with it. Now I know it still won't remove the whole problem that the anti gay community has with gay marriage but I believe it will remove everyone who dislikes that this word, that is so entrenched in religion, is being redefined by a government decision. I even see a huge problem with these, I am not religious and completely for two consenting people getting married, no matter who what they are. The government needs to change its vocabulary so that when you want your union to be legal, you go get a Civil Union Or whatever we call it from the government. But if you want to get married, you must find a religion that accepts your union. This returns marriage to Religion and I believe removes a huge part of the problems we are having in the acceptance of this practice. Source of Etymology HUGE EDIT So u awa64 and u cptal has brought to my attention some information. The intrinsic nature of the word marriage that I was bringing up has some flaws. The act of marriage seems to have been more of a social thing rather than a religious thing off the bat. The church seemed to basically be the best at keeping records and the sacrament didn't come until later. So even though the nature of the word has been pretty much a religious definition for a while, the word itself is not intrinsically religious. Here and Here are their sources they brought to me. So with further communications with others, I have been bringing up that society is changing the word marriage and my view is more of a fix to speed up that change at least on the religious vs government front. The word will change in society but that takes a long time. As u GAB104 and a few others pointed out, that religion has change a bit from what it used to be. The whole owning your wife and stuff seems to come up a lot. So my view has changed a little but I still view that changing the government wording to something else would be a good thing to do as to remove the current problems that many religious people That care about the issue have with the definition of that word being changed. Here in this comment, I quickly chat about my experience with Mormons that have issues with gay marriage","conclusion":"Marriage is between one man and one woman, because Marriage is intrinsically religious. The word Marriage should be removed from Government and changed to something around \"Civil Union\"."}
{"id":"7cf443cd-0857-4f98-9c98-139f7610591b","argument":"Children are very loyal to their parents, and will likely adopt their moral codes rather than those of society. When there is such a clear disjunct between personal and societal morals such as when considering the morality of prostitution it undermines the other moral norms determined by society.","conclusion":"If prostitution is immoral, then knowing one of your parents is a prostitute will make you more sympathetic to other immoral acts."}
{"id":"9b1ec4bf-477c-4d92-8b26-1760c8049079","argument":"If you don't know what the floss is, you probably live under a rock are older than 15. I'll explain a little bit it's the arm swinging dance that young kids do to dance to basically anything. However, they should be dancing to some Bill Evans or Brahms, because the dance is actually a Waltz. This is because of the irregular time signature it is in 6 8. This is due to the dance having six motions, all done in equal time. This form of counting can be split in half, making it essentially 3 4 time, which is the same time signature as Waltzes. I guess you could Floss to some bluesey 6 8 Led Zeppelin as well. Edit I really should have just called it 3 4 in the first place. I doubt there's an official time signature for the floss but I seems most of the arguments are based on 6 8 not being the same thing as 3 4. You can count the floss in 3 4 so I shouldnt have even said 6 8.","conclusion":"\"The Floss\" is actually a Waltz, despite how it is used in pop culture"}
{"id":"4c1be537-90e4-4a0a-ad10-369227fe8274","argument":"The number of referendums in European countries has been steeply rising during the past decades. At the same time, voter turnout has seen a steady decline IDEA, p. 26","conclusion":"Frequent referendums lead to voter fatigue and make elections seem less important, thereby harming voter turnout."}
{"id":"d315032f-a051-4228-965b-be488cb52521","argument":"While mowing some 20m2 lawn may be accomplished in several minutes and be done every week or so, weeding a garden of the same area requires several hours of work in bent, kneeling or squatting position.","conclusion":"Maintaining an edible landscape requires much more time and\/or money investment than maintaining a lawn. Not everyone will like this trade-off."}
{"id":"988c35f3-491d-4030-adc8-012bfaefd2ae","argument":"UN Security Council's veto hinders any real solutions to serious conflicts, stopping the UN from helping people in need.","conclusion":"The structure of the UN is not conducive to achieving any solutions or collaboration between countries."}
{"id":"3d2fb752-7c26-4045-a6e8-308a6cc77ec8","argument":"If the problems in Northern Ireland with respect to the need for a hard border in order to extract the UK from the EU are a useful analogy, we can expect that Scottish independence would be logically impossible if Britain succeeds in leaving the EU. Likewise, Catalonia could not expect to both leave Spain and remain in the EU.","conclusion":"It is not unto the EU to redraw national boundaries"}
{"id":"e7dc9b71-ce9c-4f1e-a123-ac8d33644950","argument":"To start off with, I'm a 21 year old junior in college. I've been thinking about graduation recently and what I want to do with my life. I feel that I should never enter a career that I am not passionate about or that I at least really enjoy. You spend at least 50 of your waking hours at work, and probably the other 50 thinking about work. Why would I want to waste my life on something that I'm not excited about? I can survive on a relatively low amount of money although this is subjective. I'm content living in an apartment with roommates. I don't particularly want to get married and start a family any time soon, if ever. The only things I can see being an issue are retirement and health insurance too bad I live in the US Anyway, I feel there must be something I'm overlooking here. Why do so many people subject themselves to a career they despise? Is it because it's so hard to find a career in something they don't hate? Do they simply need to support their family? So go ahead, Reddit. Crush my dreams I mean, change my view. edit I should clarify that I do mean a career and not a job. If I need to work odd jobs at times to make ends meet, that's okay. I'll suck it up. But I don't think I should enter a career that I don't enjoy. As in, a career that I plan to stay for a long time and possibly get locked into.","conclusion":"I believe that I should never work in a career I don't enjoy."}
{"id":"5c92d868-8a6e-4023-ac0f-def405f8d43d","argument":"I kept the title simple to keep it short but the more expansive question would be that anybody who is comfortably off financially is allowed to feel sad, miserable, depressed, or a sense of ennui. I\u2019ve here this a lot from people who are not so comfortable when it comes to finances and it came up recently in r movies when someone dismissed American Beauty entirely purely because he thought the main character\u2019s problems paled in comparison to someone with less money. Basically that the middle class and upwards can\u2019t ever possibly feel blue. This was just one small, specific example though. I\u2019ve heard it a lot, basically it\u2019s summed up in the phrase \u2018it could be worse\u2019 which is a never ending rabbit hole, things can almost always be worse. So the person who scoffs at the guy who\u2019s on 100k but unhappy because he\u2019s only on 50k and struggling. Well can be 50k a year guy be unhappy when the 25k a year giy lives next door? 25k guy\u2019s problems are much tougher than 50k guy\u2019s problems Hey, what about unemployed guy down the street in his leaky apartment? He\u2019d kill to be getting 25k shut up, says the homeless man with a hunk of bread. Fuck you says the starving man with no legs next to him, dying for some bread. etc etc. in short, I belive everyone has the right to feel miserable regardless of income or background. EDIT As someone pointed out, this probably shouldn\u2019t include being sad about how much money you have as regards the wealthy. EDIT 2 The 50k 100k figures were arbitrary. I probably should have put 100k 200k, maybe, but it was just to illustrate the point of someone having more and someone having less. They weren\u2019t necessarily supposed to depict realistic salaries or anything.","conclusion":"Rich people are allowed to feel sad, depressed, or miserable."}
{"id":"5895bb35-154a-445c-b39d-31a84c491c92","argument":"My friend showed me this video Which sparked a lot of discussion which both of us love . I think this is all utter crap, to be fair, a hit on people's emotions, not many good arguments in the entire 5 minute video. He's now gone back to work, but I want more discussion Maybe we'll discuss it more tonight, but let's continue here, as well I'm ESL, more like 4th language actually, but I hope the language barrier won't be too much of a problem. My views counter arguments to the video gt The media we call social is anything but I use social media in two ways To meet new people. I've met people from different continents and countries through the internet, or just girls on OKC, met with a lot of them. To arrange meeting old friends. I ask my friends through social media what they want to eet tonight so I can go shop for groceries and cook for them. Almost everyday. That's anything but asocial gt A lot of rhymes with absolutely no content Not even gonna do any effort here. gt slaves to the technology we mastered. Come on, really? When I walk into the trainstation my phone can tell because of the wifi network where I am. It then knows that the last 10 times I was here I took the train to destination X. It checks when the next train to destination X is and tells me 15 more minutes to get to platform Y So I know I can go get a coffee and pay for it with a plastic card. That's just my life, what about people with advanced prosthetics, engineering bridges, medicine, I'm pretty sure the technology helps us move our boundaries in stead of enslaves us. gt a world of selfpromotion Why would you blame social media for this? It was like this even before Christ when some Roman dominus got a fancy new carriage and strawled throught the via. With bright white horses. I get that social media concentrates this more into one place, but how much this bothers you that people are better than you, really is more to blame to you than social media. gt being alone isn't the problem read a book or paint a picture, you're being productive Why would arguing on reddit like we're doing right now , or even playing a videogame be less productive or mind stimulating than reading a book. gt so when you are out in public and start to feel alone I really love urban loneliness, that's why I love in the city. There are tons of people, but no one knows me. I can smile to people and enjoy their company but I don't have to do smalltalk. Does that make me asocial? No, it just means I'm introverted. When I feel like doing something more exciting like this, or what the next step would be in a schoolproject or just read a movie review or whatever I can just do it. gt When I was a child I was never home I don't like watching football. I love playing it but I don't enjoy watching it. One of the arguments my friend brought up was that when we watch football in a pub, I'm on my phone a lot. If I wouldn't have my phone I propably just wouldn't go and watch football. I enjoy talking to my friends but when they are watching the football match at a pub. Seriously, what is the difference? You are watching men play football on a big screen while I'm propably watching a cat on reddit on my small screen. When they get distracted form the football and start talking I join in. But am I really asocial because I watch a different screen than you do? gt smart phones and dumb people Very poetic but I don't think there's much truth in it. gt a lot of romantic, melancholic crap that doesn't have anything to do with smartphones at all, but somehow they try to make you belief you can't find a partner and have kids when you use a smartphone? gt we have a finite existence, a set number of days. First, do we really? Maybe if we advance far enough we won't. Second, isn't that exactly why we should make sure we don't waste time on trivial things. I'm a CS student, I know that there is technology that makes it possible for you to walk out a grocery store, your phone detects this, everything in your cart gets scanned and your phone pays for it. Damn, that saves so much time just a few years and you will shop like this, no doubt . PS you are trying to change my view through the medium of a social network. And so did the guy making the video Checkmate.","conclusion":"I love smartphones, social media and technology, I long for even more."}
{"id":"ce20228d-e0cd-4e92-9edf-22aacd51a1f3","argument":"Most societies provide free education to children on the basis that it is society's responsibility to raise a child to be sufficiently educated.","conclusion":"Raising a child is often thought to be partially the responsible of society."}
{"id":"e1b18c2c-2a12-4f1c-b9ce-1cccdebd1b29","argument":"Scarcity , in the context of economics, refers to the fundamental problem that the amount of a given resource is exceeded by the potential uses for that resource. Economies exist to answer the questions of what gets made, how it gets made, and for whom it gets made with finite resources. The Star Trek universe is often described as post scarcity due to the existence of replicators , machines that can manufacture just about any material object at the press of a button. This means that food and other material essentials can be made very cheaply and are abundant enough to be given away for free under normal circumstances. If that's what post scarcity is, then we're living in a post scarcity society now. Many goods that were once expensive are now cheap, even cheap enough to be given away for free. Owning a book was once a sign of wealth, but now people hand out printed pamphlets on the street. Flush toilets, even today, are a luxury in many places, yet in the first world there are places you can go to use them for free. What the fans call a post scarcity society is just a society that's wealthy by our standards. While Federation citizens don't have to compete for food and clothing, they very often have to compete with each other or prioritize their goals due to finite availability of resources such as starships in a given sector. talented, trained personnel of various sorts. admissions to Starfleet Academy. various desirable job postings. various curiosities or items of historical significance. habitable planets for colonization. All of this is putting aside the limitations of the replicators themselves. They do not have infinite capacity. Voyager had to ration replicator usage, and various factions on Bajor fought over industrial replicators . Going further than that, I don't think I could imagine a society that was truly post scarcity . Any entity that has goals will eventually run into limitations in their pursuit of those goals. Any society that has multiple individuals will have to have a way to resolve their conflicting goals, hence an economy. I suppose it's possible if we're talking about a society that has no capacity to desire space Buddhism? , but that wouldn't last very long without the desire to survive and or propagate their society. TL DR Scarcity is a fundamental part of the human condition and it is almost inconceivable to imagine a society without it. Science Fiction post scarcity societies are simply very wealthy relative to ourselves they still need to resolve conflicts over scarce resources just like we do. Sorry if this sounds like a rant, but there was a lot of info to get across. I will award a delta if anyone can provide a meaningful definition of post scarcity that illustrates a fundamental difference between societies rather than just a difference of industrial capacity. EDIT Been done. EDIT Thanks for the discussion. Might check back tomorrow.","conclusion":"The Federation in the Star Trek universe is not a post-scarcity society, and the concept itself is barely meaningful."}
{"id":"5611de68-9fed-4c78-8b31-30ae15512981","argument":"Ideals like \u201cfreedom\u201d and \u201cliberty\u201d are more important than a single human life; they are what gives meaning to the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. Of course, peaceful methods should be tried first, but when all else fails then a nation\/ethnic community or other group must be able to fight for its freedom and independence.","conclusion":"Ideals like \u201cfreedom\u201d and \u201cliberty\u201d are more important than a single human life; they are what gives..."}
{"id":"c5f2d6bf-b3ff-40f0-8d19-0c6c326ddd2b","argument":"I know this sounds conceited, but I really believe his. I just get annoyed whenever someone is neglected or abused by their parent s and they say Oh, but he's my dad, I still love him. If they treat you like shit for your whole life, then I don't see a reason to love them. The same goes for other parts of the family. If you have an uncle or grandparent who's been absent for most of your life, I don't think you should be expected to walk up to them and embrace them, like most societies do. Since this is a social issue, I'll say that I live in the US.","conclusion":"I believe that nobody has a right to my love parents, other family, etc. They have to earn it."}
{"id":"45a88126-4cfc-49ac-9799-2c05199534c8","argument":"money is distracting, the art of making money through means other than your professionwhere you use your real skills\/talent, like for example; modeling in advertisements to keep endorsements\/sponsors is outrageously distracting. Sportsmen should aconcentrate on their game b'practice' :'hone their game' during work hours and not have to pose in advertisements through twenty seven strenuous takes after hours in makeup chave family time and time to socialize with close friends outside of attending hectic glitzy parties again for sponsors\/endorsements\/popularity which concentrate the players' attention on superficiality\/drug-abuse\/and-otherwise-self-deteriorating-activity. Sportsmen are consistently pressured to competitively become, media sports stars by literally chiseling their 'image' rather than their game.","conclusion":"monetary pursuits outside of professional winnings take a players' attention off the game,close friends & family and their own health."}
{"id":"70e157b8-ef88-4378-a4a3-868be84f9ec1","argument":"Morality is paradigm dependent. Imagine a world where lions can be fed with artificial meat removing the need for them to hunt. Which is moral, allowing them to hunt for their own food, or feeding them with cruelty free meat? It depends on whether you view nature as having morality or value free. If you're a vegan, you think that animal suffering is immoral thus the alternative that retards a lion's ability to hunt is moral. But to the naturalist the opposite is true as the lion is born to hunt.","conclusion":"The frequent presence of deep and intractable disagreement about morality indicates that no objective moral truths exist."}
{"id":"5ea888da-e9bf-4939-b130-08734eb9ca8f","argument":"That shame is natural. If it wasnt there we'd all be bedridden morbidly obese hedonists. I dont judge people individually like this, but as a collective fat people are the poster children of whats wrong with the modern world, you consume junk food and media with an insatiable lust and lack the self discipline to make changes in your life. This is the new model of the American, and its symbolic of the coming collapse. People act like it's this massive tragedy that they live in a country where they can afford to sit around all day and eat too much food. You're lucky to be able to do that, if you choose to then the price you pay is that you're the butt of lots of jokes and people find you unattractive.","conclusion":"Fat people shouldnt be individually or directly shamed by people but they should feel ashamed of themselves if they dont have a metabolic disorder"}
{"id":"a6f929a1-b55b-4a47-9f07-65a3a7a2ef06","argument":"This was specifically spurred by the recent suicide of a frenchman in Notre Dame de Paris in front of more than 1,000 people over the issue of gay marriage in France. As I see it, aside from the controversy of committing suicide in the first place, someone who does this is forcing unwilling and uninvolved participants to witness a violent act because the perpetrator is incapable of voicing their opinion in a constructive manner. I would also extend this view to people like Buddhist monks who self immolated in Vietnam during the Vietnam War and in Tibet nowadays, as well as in the West like US Congressman Bud Dwyer who shot himself at a press conference. Public suicide, in my opinion, is an attention grab and a complete disregard for the wellbeing of anyone and everyone who may view such an act.","conclusion":"I believe that public suicide of any form, for any reason, is vulgar and deserving of condemnation."}
{"id":"a0c3cda0-8a72-4d14-aef9-c15b586acced","argument":"Just for clarification we're talking about remotely operated drones, not autonomous drones that's a whole different A great deal of the time, when I see criticisms of drone warfare, I feel like people are almost treating war like it should be some kind of game. IE in the case of drones people often seem to be objecting because the soldiers doing the killing are themselves are in no danger of being killed. This seems to be the case because people are objecting to the entire concept of drone warfare, rather than just the misuse and abuse of the advantages that drone war gives us. I can understand people objecting to things like double tap attacks or other such incidents and abuses of weaponised drone technology. What I don't understand is how objecting to those kinds of attacks then leads us to the conclusion we should never use drones . To change my view If you can demonstrate why using remotely operated drones necessarily leads to the kinds of abuses that those who object to drone warfare point to, my view will be changed. However I currently am of the belief that we can use drones as weapons without abuses.","conclusion":"Objecting to \"drone warfare\" is foolish. Objecting to specific uses of drones makes sense."}
{"id":"c41bc548-f32e-422a-a3d9-2935f91a5c55","argument":"If anything, many people may find cheating without an emotional component worse, as it demonstrates that their partner thought so little of them and their agreement to be faithful that they would breach it for mere sexual gratification.","conclusion":"It is not clear why the absence of feelings would make an act of infidelity not a breach of trust. You have agreed to be faithful to your partner, and have disregarded that agreement and their feelings."}
{"id":"b0ecab71-a64d-41bf-8eec-40344a5bdcff","argument":"An immigrant that studies in the local language will be a citizen that is better integrated in the society, respected by the natives and with more economic opportunities. First of all, we have to acknowledge that going to a school for natives will permit the development of personal relations with people that are not from the same community community. Interaction will be possible with everybody in school and in the country. The first step towards becoming friends with someone is by understanding them. This is only possible if they can communicate properly in a single language. Secondly, the native language is necessary for most jobs. Jobs require interaction with natives and ability to discuss and work alongside co-workers. Immigrants are forced most of the time to do low-skilled jobs like working in constructions or agriculture because they are not able to speak the local language, though even in these sectors language skills would be useful. By promoting mother tongue education this problem will exacerbated. Language proficiency for immigrants that are trying to find a job in the United Kingdom increases employment probabilities by 17% to 22% and gives them an earning advantage of 18-20%.1 Getting a new job is already hard, so why should the state through its education policy wish to damage the chances of immigrants of finding one that requires them to know the language of the country they are in? 1 Dustmann. Christian, and Fabbri, Francesca, \u2018Language proficiency and labour market performance of immigrants in the UK\u2019, The Economic Journal, Vol.113, July 2003, pp.695-717 p.707","conclusion":"Migrants need to learn the language to improve job prospects"}
{"id":"7152bdd9-e4de-4764-b3be-3c767b85a7e9","argument":"I can understand gay, lesbian, queer, bisexual, asexual, pansexual, and aromantic. I can understand cis , trans , and a genders. Why does there need to be demisexual and demiromantic and all that? Why do we need so many classifications of gender and sexuality? If you're attracted to the same sex, why can't you just be homosexual? If you're attracted to the opposite why can't you just be heterosexual? If you're attracted to both, why can't you be bisexual? Attracted to all? You're pansexual. Keep it simple. Also, I understand people getting offended and angry when they're misgendered, but getting angry doesn't really accomplish anything unless you can be calm in your education on the subject. Hating people for not calling you by your preferred pronouns the first time when they've never met you before is not going to accomplish anything. Hating cisgendered, heterosexual people will not accomplish anything. Please change my view.","conclusion":"there don't need to be hundreds of gender and sexuality names"}
{"id":"2f81169a-c120-4273-aea8-7ec8a27a1287","argument":"By high intelligence I mean IQ above 115. I am contrasting it with average intelligence, not with mental retardation. I consider the optimum IQ range to be in the first standard deviation above the mean. high intelligence leads to an increased rate of depression high intelligence leads to later in life virginity loss high intelligence leads to inability to tote the party line which causes social isolation high intelligence is associated with decreased amount of offspring although it is possible that this is just a difference in preferences between me and other high intelligence individuals high intelligence is associated with drug addiction high intelligence is associated with a lower amount of sexual partners in one's lifetime EDIT additionally those who use their high intelligences to accomplish great things in their lifetimes will oftentimes get proportionately quite low payouts from their endeavors, those with low intelligences will get almost the entire product of their labor but those with high intelligences will almost none of it. EDIT I also want arguments that High Intelligence is positive. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"High intelligence is a negative trait"}
{"id":"de1b209e-ada0-43c5-a286-f8d79f0bb96f","argument":"Occupy movement began in September 2011 with a great furor and excitement, and it was generally believed that it can bring about a great deal of change. I do have to agree that the whole idea had a very very wide outreach with Occupy movement's springing up everywhere all over the world. But by the end of 2012, the whole movement had fizzled out into just plain rhetoric with absolutely no direction to go towards. Everybody was asking for whatever they felt was right which ended up with achieving nothing. Please  if I am wrong.","conclusion":"Occupy Movement started with a great idea, but fizzled out and ended up not achieving anything."}
{"id":"b23e702d-8683-41e6-a7e7-e089f55f0b02","argument":"Alien life forms might be stranger and thus harder to classify than we can possibly expect. The SciFi literature oftentimes playfully hints at that: Douglas Adams's \"Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy\" contains the species of Hooloovoo who are nothing but a sentient shade of the color blue.","conclusion":"Aliens might get in touch with us, yet there is the possibility that we wouldn't recognize them as such, even when they are right in front of us. After all, our conceptions of extra-terrestrial life are limited \"by the human experience and human imagination\"."}
{"id":"c090e34c-f134-47b9-8cb7-f1357435749c","argument":"We all know these jokes exist. We also know that there is usually at least one person who could be offended by pretty much anything. That being said using the fact that someone not a party to the joke could be offended would pretty much nullify any joke. I propose that it is acceptable to tell such jokes in a setting where all parties are ok with the jokes and no one supports the actual acts i.e. I would not support a joke about rape if the audience included a rape victim or someone who doesn't see rape as a bad thing . Some stipulations The entire audience is known no eavesdroppers being offended , the acceptance of such jokes is not contested if an audience member is offended they either don't mention it or go along with the group . I would agree it is the responsibility of the joke teller to know their audience this includes not assuming outright they will be ok with certain jokes as well as any stated or known opposition it should be assumed a rape victim would oppose a joke about rape . I would put the responsibility on the audience member to voice their opposition should it not be known if they say nothing or laugh along with the joke but are offended it is not the joke tellers fault . This came about because a former boss of mine was just recently convicted of his involvement in a child pornography ring. While at work he was generally professional and he wouldn't make jokes like this. Outside of work however he could joke about some of these taboo topics. Discussing this with some former coworkers one made the mention of his humor, in hindsight, being a tell that he wasn't really a good person and jokes like that shoudn't be made. I contested this as there were people that made and laughed at these same similar jokes and I assume not all of them are deviants in some way.","conclusion":"Jokes about taboo or offensive subjects are acceptable e.g. rape, racism, child exploitation so long as all parties are ok with it in a joking sense and don't support the actual acts."}
{"id":"7823e2d8-1bb5-4993-8813-274f57e9a190","argument":"86.8% of 364 young poly-drug users cited alleviating depressed moods as a reason for taking drugs In this case, the depression is indeed the cause of the destruction, and drugs the means.","conclusion":"Addiction to substances is often started due to underlying reasons"}
{"id":"270dc40c-083b-48b1-a002-1909972f87b6","argument":"Current recommendations for inclusive training for health practitioners are specific to the LGBT+ community. As a part of the community, asexuals and aromantics will be able to reap the benefits of all such efforts.","conclusion":"Both groups want to improve their ability to access competent health services."}
{"id":"d52b4e33-427a-4fe8-88f3-3e4d0bcc7d7e","argument":"I believe that if a girl throws herself on to a guy, I don't see a reason as to why the guy would hold back. Regardless of religious beliefs, societal customs and family traditional values. The only exception that I see is He is in a serious relationship with a girl, and he they is saving himself for marriage. A second girl wants him to lose his virginity to her. That is the only scenario where him saying No is acceptable. Almost every guy gets aroused when he sees a naked girl. So, given the opportunity, I don't see a valid excuse.","conclusion":"No guy is a virgin by HIS choice."}
{"id":"5b943a2c-f42c-4b02-88de-2f4086add705","argument":"Most federal and state agencies that are charged with managing wildlife refuges, national forests, state parks, and other public lands are funded in part by hunting and fishing activities, so agency personnel often go out of their way to encourage these activities rather than regulate or police them.","conclusion":"Almost 40 percent of hunters in the U.S. slaughter and maim millions of animals on public land every year. By some estimates, poachers kill just as many animals illegally."}
{"id":"50bc5000-b15a-4540-9f75-632d6c3d6059","argument":"First off, to clarify, I believe that both male genital mutilation and female genital mutilation are absolutely horrid, barbaric, archaic practices at least when done on non consenting babies that shame the concept of consent. If you want to do it as an adult or a teenager old enough to consent, then that's your choice, and I suppose it's not my place to care comment but it's wretched to do on a helpless and dependent baby that can't do anything about it. So, why is it that slicing off a third to a half of the tissue of the penis which yes, I've verified this, is a genital is called circumcision and is not called male genital mutilation But doing the same to a female is called female genital mutilation ? Compare the terms. Female genital mutilation is a much more vicious sounding term that circumcision even though male genital mutilation is a completely accurate and literal description of circumcision. It is my honest opinion that male disposability the idea that women are sacred and need to be protected a remnant of 1500s 1800s chivalry chauvinism is being heavily implied by this term not that everyone who says it believes it, but that the contrast of the terms can be chalked up to this . In the west at least, FGM is widely regarded as a horrid practice, but circumcision isn't quite there yet. So let's be fair here. Let's not be sexist. Let's ensure both genders are treated equally. We should either Rebrand circumcision as MGM Male Genital Mutilation so that it gets the vicious name it deserves to make people more aware of it's horror Rebrand FGM as female circumcision so that we stop implying female importance here Now all in all, I would greatly prefer going with the former because I do not agree with either practice, but I'd rather go with the latter than keeping things as they are now. Circumcision is an absolutely horrible practice, and independent of the contrast between the naming of it and FGM, I still believe that it should be renamed in the interest of it getting the bad perception that it deserves. I think that calling male genital mutilation circumcision is part of the reason why circumcision isn't as badly received as it should be. EDIT I fully concede that FGM is much more heinous compared to male circumcision, but that does not excuse the immorality and non consent aspects of circumcision. I believe in spite of it being less heinous, circumcision, because of how bad it is in it's own right independent of FGM comparison , should be labeled male genital mutilation. It deserves the vicious sounding name still","conclusion":"In the interest of not being sexist, either circumcision should be rebranded as \"male genital mutilation\" and also to give circumcision the frightening name it deserves, or FGM should be rebranded as \"female circumcision\""}
{"id":"7f2a2f5c-deea-45aa-9247-a8f13e00e6cc","argument":"Implementation and focus of ideas depends on the personality of the Prime Minister rather than the party","conclusion":"In Parliamentary Democracies, A Change Of Prime Minister Should Automatically Trigger A General Election."}
{"id":"4c22193e-8406-4f85-9184-6facd321d332","argument":"I thought a lot about morality and ethics and I came across Intentionalism. I believe the outcome of an action is, in the long term, never predictable for example, killing a baby would somehow be bad, but killing baby Hitler should be good? . As a result of this we can only possibly judge people by their intentions. But nobody ever intends to do a bad thing. Everybody has a set of believes about which thing would be right to do in a certain situation. Everybody has a set of moral rules, even if they boil down to Nihilism. Every person believes, that he does the right thing when he follows his rules, otherwise, he wouldn't do it. Thus, they want to do the right thing, thus every action is done with good intentions, thus, the action and thus the person, is good. My problem with this is, that there are people who disgust me, who I judge as bad people and I don't know why Have I made a mistake in my theory? can you ? also, english isn't my native language, so sorry if this is somewhat incoherent","conclusion":"I believe we should never under any circumstances judge people.Every action is always good? !"}
{"id":"70743d86-2600-40f1-ad75-91e0929b57c8","argument":"Hong Kong's GDP has shrunk from being 16% of China\u2019s overall GDP in 1997, the year it was returned to Chinese control, to just 3% in 2019.","conclusion":"Over the years, Hong Kong has clearly become less important to the Chinese economy."}
{"id":"2ff18735-cff5-41ee-afab-988f15aab944","argument":"There are about ten countries in the world where bullfighting is practiced. Whether to ban it is a decision for the people of those countries. It is no business of people living in non-bullfighting countries.","conclusion":"Banning bullfighting should be decided by each individual country, a worldwide ban would lack legitimacy and ignore national and regional specificity."}
{"id":"b35a9169-aca3-46a9-ac5b-e08d30250d08","argument":"A UK survey found that 70% of sex workers have previously had jobs in health, education or charities; one noting that \"I worked in the care sector for 20 years. A lot of empathy is required for that work and the same is true of sex work.\"","conclusion":"Many sex workers might particularly enjoy fulfilling the needs of others."}
{"id":"6553c3a9-a7f5-4968-b523-9f7a0e4985b2","argument":"I think the death penalty is justified, and while I understand that every person has a chance to come out of jail a better person, it's more likely they will just go out and commit more crimes. At least in the US, where I live, it's much more likely for a convict to come out of jail and commit more crimes rather than come out and do an honest days work to get by. Also, by releasing murders, rapists and other dangerous criminals, you put innocent people at risk. These people already had their chance at life and they messed it up. Why should we put innocent people in danger so they can have a second chance? If I go out and kill someone then why do I still have the right to live? To sum up, killing off dangerous convicts would be better than letting them go free to potentially commit more crimes, especially after they have already hurt or killed someone.","conclusion":"The death penalty is justified when the crime is"}
{"id":"d0228482-d5c6-4c00-823e-e252cfa3eaad","argument":"the power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate the ability to act at one's own discretion. That is impossible for a single reason causality. No matter which model you have for reality, if you assume that everything that there is operates by certain rules it means that things are predetermined from an initial state. Things happen because previous events happened, and those events happened because of previous events, etc. No matter the configuation of reality, be it a simulation, an infinite universe, a finite universe, an eternal universe, a finite universe, solipsistic, etc everything is predetermined from an initial condition in an eternal example you can simply pick a point of time at random and take that as the initial point . Even if you include randomness in this, like quantum states which operate by probability, we are still at the mercy of the inherent rules of the universe. It doesn't give us agency. We operate with the assumption that we are free simply because we lack the information to predict what will happen next.","conclusion":"Free will cannot exist"}
{"id":"b6148f35-1891-47ae-8721-562dedc33062","argument":"Information about compensation is freely available, if shareholders, employees, or clients\/customers wish to lobby for change.","conclusion":"Incentives already exist in the market to increase compensation for low-paid employees."}
{"id":"e18d277b-c569-4382-a31d-9046ce1fa1a2","argument":"Conscripts who are drafted can choose to try to get out of fighting in the war by finding excuses for exemption, deserting, or simply not doing what they're assigned once they're deployed.","conclusion":"It is genuinely brave to serve the military in warfare and choose to comply with the tasks that are forced upon soldiers."}
{"id":"29ffc7cb-ec9d-45a9-a50f-956f116dfc86","argument":"Many countries in Europe, including France, Germany, Austria outlaw holocaust denial. Austria imprisoned a historian who tries to make those holocaust denial claims While holocaust denial is stupid, it gives fodder to every Islamic terror apologist who went to TV after Charlie Hebdo and said that the West was inconsistent on freedom of speech, and favored Jews over Muslims. In that case, Holocaust denial laws made their point correct. We can't cherry pick which views we allow in our public forums to be aired if there is no violence or direct threat of violence. And because their point was correct, it likely increased radicalization and recruitment of ISIS terrorists, breaking apart families in the West and murdering people in the Middle East. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"It should not be illegal to deny the Holocaust"}
{"id":"972e232d-5e3b-46cd-9bf1-cd21bc76499a","argument":"Now I just want to make this clear, I do NOT slut shame or believe it is bad for someone to have as much sex as possible. With that being said I still believe that a woman who has had a high amount of sexual partners doesn't value the meaning of sex quite the same way I do. I am a virgin however so obviously I am a little biased. I want to specify though that I don't think my first time will be amazing or magical or any of that BS. I just think that when I do finally choose to be in a relationship and have sex that I would be better off with a girl who is 1 a virgin herself best case scenario but I don't see it happening or 2 a girl who has only had a few partners that were LTR's. I would like my view to be changed because I have met many girls that I do like who have had a high number of sexual partners and when they find out about my preference most people don't tend to handle it well. Edit Well my views weren't changed, my mind was opened up to some new view points but I still believe that the higher number the less special our relationship will be. Thank you for the advice though everyone.","conclusion":"I refuse to date a girl who has had a high amount of sexual partners."}
{"id":"6b3e8a70-23da-4581-98ed-ca39eea91026","argument":"Guild members are an important help channel when you don't know how to solve a problem.","conclusion":"Guilds are much more important in Classic than in Retail."}
{"id":"d1d2606c-87de-4c80-b8d6-9b636ee6662c","argument":"Giving up social control would be too costly for the CCP but without it China's soft power suffers.","conclusion":"China simply can not afford to become a global power."}
{"id":"9a09264e-798c-474d-9f1f-634e1fadffad","argument":"Pope Francis has shown himself to be compassionate and welcoming, making the Catholic church appear much more open than past popes.","conclusion":"Pope Francis has made the Catholic church significantly more open and welcoming."}
{"id":"9a0200b5-44d7-401e-928d-161f83c5133c","argument":"Innocent people could be exonerated if this data were to become an integral part of the law enforcement process.","conclusion":"Genealogy databases like AncesteryDNA and 23andMe should be available to law enforcement to solve crimes."}
{"id":"2488af00-b170-4e63-81af-ccd15d670d85","argument":"The death penalty is an archaic, immoral, and cruel form of punishment. Yet, capital punishment is still a legal practice in 32 U.S. States, and has been used to kill over 1,200 accused criminals since 1977. A fundamental topic that must be assessed when judging the usage of the death penalty is the morality of the practice. Ultimately, the moral question encompassing the practice of capital punishment has less to do with whether those convicted of heinous crimes deserve to die than with whether the government deserves to kill those who it has imprisoned. The government does not have the right nor moral justification to execute criminals. The greatest achievement that comes from the usage of the death penalty is retribution, an achievement that compromises the core of our criminal justice system, which is a system meant to be used primarily for rehabilitation. To kill the person who has killed someone close to you is simply to continue the cycle of violence which ultimately destroys the avenger as well as the offender. When looking at the statistics of capital punishment, one concept becomes clear those without the capital, get the punishment. Capital punishment perpetuates social injustices by disproportionately targeting people of color and people who cannot afford good attorneys. The rich simply do not get the death penalty, which is why you\u2019ll never see a person like O.J. Simpson sitting on death row. Death sentences are imposed in a criminal justice system that treats you better if you are rich and guilty than if you are poor and innocent. However, unlike other sentences which leave room for absolution for those who can prove their innocence at a later date, death is unusually severe in its finality. Once it is taken, a life cannot be given back. The finality and enormity involved with the punishment of death are particularly important to take into consideration when looking at the errors that are made in the conviction of innocent people in the criminal justice system. Since the reinstatement of the modern death penalty, 87 people have been freed from death row because they were later proven innocent. That is a demonstrated error rate of 1 innocent person for every 7 persons executed. An error percentage of this size may not be significant in some cases, however, in the case of capital punishment, where the consequences are matter of life and death, such mistakes cannot be taken lightly. The only way to ensure no error is made and innocent people are not killed is by not allowing the practice of capital punishment to occur in the first place.","conclusion":"Capital Punishment should be abolished in the United States"}
{"id":"e7aab420-ac3e-476d-ad54-68b93576cfd6","argument":"However, surrogacy arrangements could easily be made non-financial by allowing a friend of the family to be the surrogate, hence avoiding any legal wrangling after the birth, which can often happen when strangers are involved. It would also avoid the situation where a child has a stranger as their natural mother, which has been known to cause them problems.","conclusion":"However, surrogacy arrangements could easily be made non-financial by allowing a friend of the famil..."}
{"id":"4e6a10a4-1514-4c5e-93c8-bd8a3ae94cbc","argument":"Politicians vote on foreign policy issues regarding the use of military force, but are not required to have served in the army to do so.","conclusion":"Politicians constantly legislate on issues of which they have no firsthand or personal experience."}
{"id":"98338cf9-c25e-414d-b338-f03e8122e56d","argument":"The 1-O referendum was illegal and disrespectful to half of Catalans who voted against pro-independence political parties in the last elections. Political leaders knew that they were acting against laws and even more, they incited citizens to do it too, resulting in leaders in prison and some citizens involved in violent acts.","conclusion":"Self-determination right must be the result of a common will."}
{"id":"183f3941-0b38-4e91-a2c8-d99bb2801355","argument":"religion has been misunderstood the concept of the entire universe is in the bible and Quran and Torah and injel it's all true by only Quran is in its original shape and the truth is the end to the entire system is near! we are not here forever","conclusion":"Research in the US, shows that in most sociological measures of well-being, states with less levels or religion fare better than more religious states."}
{"id":"f15c76f6-7fcf-4e79-8ae5-99904ee2585c","argument":"I think that if you're on welfare i.e. food stamps, unemployment, etc. you should have to provide some sort of service to the government that benefits society or your community. They could help shovel snow or mow grass in public parks, for instance. Not only would this help people gain skills for working in the future but it would also save the government money if they didn't have to contract outside services for some of the more routine jobs. I think as the current system is today, it is extremely easy for people to take advantage of welfare programs and get benefits when they could find meaningful work elsewhere. The state of Maine started doing this in 2015 and they were able to bring the number of people requiring welfare down to 2,500 to 12,000.","conclusion":"Able-bodied people on welfare should have to work for their benefits"}
{"id":"c6b7c508-071e-4103-bdfa-297a56cbccd9","argument":"These are from the comments on a picture of r thefappening trending on google gt Yay I'm part of history. gt I think my life might just be heading downhill from today. gt Finally I was a part of something gt The Fappening will go down in History as our generations Woodstock And we were all there gt We did it reddit gt This is such a damn beautiful place I generally believe there's 3 types of people, those who are disgusted at the time and effort the original leakers put into getting the photos and dont want to see them, casual fappers and the justifiably curious, and then there's the sweaty gross people sitting on r thefappening refreshing every 2 minutes. The people who are most responsible for the distribution and consumption of the photos are those to whom masturbating is a big deal and are generally losers, so I agree with everything the media says about them.","conclusion":"The way the media and celebs have painted internet users who share and post these leaked photos, as pathetic and lonely, is accurate."}
{"id":"96e67c52-119d-469c-a9b2-32dc7c4e8430","argument":"\"U.S. Cluster Munitions Policy\". Briefing by Stephen D. Mull, Acting Assistant Secretary for Political-Military Affairs. 21 May 2008 - \"And the United States is proud of the role that we've played in cleaning up battlefields around the world. Since 1993, we have spent more than $1.2 billion on cleaning up war zones and former conflict zones to make sure that they're safe for civilians to go back and reinhabit. And no other country in the world comes close to that. And it also exceeds - we do this not just where the United States is involved, but in conflict zones around the world where the United States is not a party to the conflict.\"","conclusion":"US cluster bombs are justified by US \"clean-up\" actions"}
{"id":"9ebe0bc4-02fb-4e1f-b4f1-1ce774561b69","argument":"This  is specific to the United States, though I welcome those from outside the country to bring their perspectives on the issue to bear. Maybe I'm just bitter trying to crawl out from beneath the suffocating mountain of private student loan debt I'm in, but I'm pretty sure this isn't something anyone should have to deal with. That said, my actual argument has a more historical basis than this. Though literacy in the United States has always been fairly pronounced, this was not the case throughout the Western world. This chart shows the literacy rates by year in a smattering of Western countries, stretching back to the 1500s. Once, literacy was the sole purview of the nobility and the clergy. Now it's an expectation of almost anyone in our country. In pursuit of this, general education has become publicly funded. While private educational facilities do exist, public schools provide education from ages 5 18, elementary school to high school, using public tax dollars for funding. Tax funding is particularly notable because it provides funding based on the health of the local economy, which encourages a unilateral increase in said health. That isn't to say that system is flawless it does mean that areas without a healthy local economy are comparatively left in the lurch, but it's something. In the most important ways, a college degree is the new literacy. Children are raised by and large with the assumption that they will at least attempt to attend university, that this is the one true path to gainful employment. To wit, only 36 of jobs by 2020 will accept only a high school diploma or less , most requiring at least some college, if not an associate's degree, a bachelor's, or higher. page 4 . University, though, is largely private. There are public universities, but they're not fully publicly funded, still requiring a significant, personal, financial investment. The expected financial investment has spiked over time. Private four year universities have increased in cost by a factor of three, while public universities have raised their tuition by a factor of four since the 1975 1976 school year. This is in contrast to the response to the demand for literacy and general education, for which the financial burden has remained subsidized and proportional. Combine this with predatory student loan practices and you have a disenfranchised generation of debtors rising out of university into a hostile job market. It's been improving, but recent graduates still face high unemployment numbers So, there's my piece. Hit me with your best shot s . EDIT Added a chart for the point about the increase in university costs over time. Changed the wording to reflect that public four years have actually increased by a greater proportion than private four years.","conclusion":"University is the new general education, and like general ed should be publicly funded"}
{"id":"ef54c9f9-1a6e-449d-8965-e18cab43a9c5","argument":"A ban on religious education could be seen as an interference with the principle of freedom of religion","conclusion":"Abolishing faith based education would cause a great deal of political upheaval and popular resistance."}
{"id":"846ff4b0-9b9d-4beb-b64d-49d916d49a3d","argument":"You cannot stop progress. In 50 years, every machine will be autonomous, or at least have a fully autonomous operating mode.","conclusion":"Because the creation of AKMs is inevitable, the West has to build them in order to avoid a military disadvantage."}
{"id":"56cbe10b-35ff-4f00-bee2-2215014dcaec","argument":"People from FYROM have no connection to the Ancient Macedonians, who were a Greek people, just like Athenians or Spartans. This is highlighted by their contribution in the Peloponesian warGreek civil war and the fact that they took part in the Olympics.","conclusion":"The name \"Macedonia\" should only be the name of a region and not be coopted to construct a national identity."}
{"id":"1b6fc541-2f1f-4254-8d4e-36db700867b8","argument":"The Gender Wage gap is a topic of contention in the US many conservatives denounce the gap as a myth, while liberals tend to speak out against the gap, placing blame primarily on workplace discrimination, especially by the men making hiring decisions for these companies. The wage gap, as defined by this piece, is \u201cthe average difference between male and female earnings, expressed as a percentage of male earnings\u201d. I\u2019ll focus on just the pay gap in the United States, but it\u2019s worth noting in every country on earth, men on average earn more The wage gap in the US is currently close to 78 , meaning for every dollar that the average man made in 2014, the average woman made 78 cents. This leads to women being more likely to live below the poverty line in the US compared to men If you are an egalitarian, or if you have a sense of justice, and forget everything else about this issue whether you\u2019re liberal or conservative this should trouble you. A person should not be more likely to live in poverty just because she was born a woman. So when a fact this upsetting comes to you, there are two very human responses. Denial Anger In my experience, conservatives seem to deny the problem while liberals tend to become angry about it. Anger, in my opinion, actually does some good. Angry people spread awareness, hold rallies, write blog posts, etc. However, anger can also be damaging to the movement. Angry people exaggerate, and might attack or alienate would be allies. This next part is where a liberal reader might get upset. The wage gap where the 78 statistic comes from is an average. Angry, exaggerating liberal groups often say \u201cWomen get 78 cents on the dollar for equal work\u201d, but the fact this, this number was not calculated by controlling for \u201cequal work\u201d. Instead male engineers and CEOs were compared with equal weight to female social workers and maids. In fact, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, when you do attempt to control for \u201cequal work\u201d the pay gap shrinks to closer to 5 This still does not compare based completely \u201cequal work\u201d though, only on age, education, experience, marital status, number of children, race, and religion and the study concludes that more of the gap could still be explained by missing variables. The denial crowd will insist the number might go down even further if you also compared the stress and danger levels of the job, the commute time, overtime hours, and ability willingness to negotiate for higher salary. This is all very comforting for the denial crowd. For them, this means we don\u2019t live in such an evil, sexist society after all it\u2019s just that women make different choices than men, study different topics, and prefer a less salary focused work life balance. However, in addition to being comforted, the denial crowd also gets a little bit angry hearing all this Why are the liberals still yelling? Why are they lying claiming that the 78 statistic controlled for everything? I thought this was solved, guys, why am I a misogynist for recognizing that stat is being taken out of context it\u2019s just an AVERAGE \u2026And this next part should make the conservative reader feel a bit less at ease But the fact is, the vast majority of academics believe that workplace bias and sexism do play at least some role causing the gender pay gap. In the words of John Oliver, \u201cIf someone takes a dump on my desk, the size of the dump is not the issue. I\u2019m not going to say \u2018well, how big of a dump is it?\u2019 \u2026 \u2018Oh, that\u2019s almost like you didn\u2019t take on my desk at all \u201d\u201d. But the most troubling thing that conservatives should be aware of, is that even if sexism played 0 role in directly causing the gender pay gap, the bigger issue is the role that sexism plays INDIRECTLY to create the gender pay gap. So lets say the gap really is only caused by women making different choices Why do they make different choices? Boys are taught from a very young age that they should make loads of money and become an engineer or a CEO. Women are taught to look pretty and become a mother. It\u2019s in our movies, our TV even our actual lives, where fathers tend to be the primary breadwinners of the family while mothers cook dinner and change diapers. All of these subtle pressures and more contribute the the 78 gap. It\u2019s very possible that there have been a handful of female Einsteins over time, that, if given the opportunity, could have invented a cure for cancer, a solution to the world\u2019s energy crisis. But she didn\u2019t, because she was raised believing that science was for boys. So the whole world is missing out. Sexism is deeply ingrained in today\u2019s culture in America and it\u2019s almost impossible to step away from it. And it\u2019s not just men guilty of it, it\u2019s women too. A study was done where professors were given identical resumes the only difference was the name at the top was changed between \u201cJohn\u201d and \u201cJennifer\u201d. Both male and female professors offered on average 4000 more for the male candidate. In the case of this study, it is reasonable to assume that the employers were not intentionally giving John more money because he was male. What I believe happened is the professors tried their best to honestly assess what each candidate was worth, without ever consciously acknowledging that gender played a role in their calculation. But it happened anyway because the sexism is so deeply rooted in all of us, that we don\u2019t always realize when it\u2019s affecting our decision making. This silent, entrenched sexism is the scariest of all, and it will take a huge cultural shift in order to fix it. Takeaway for conservatives We all know it would be nice if there was no pay gap, or if we could explain away the gap as somehow \u201cfair\u201d. But the truth is, even if no individual actors are behaving in an evil or misogynistic fashion, the gap itself is reflective of something very negative about our society. It\u2019s best to acknowledge that, and try to understand why liberals are angry rather than denying that they should be. Takeaway for liberals Sure, there are some goons at the top of the financial totem pole pulling some fucked up Mad Men bullshit on their female employees they should be arrested. But by making it sound like this is the norm at your average company is going to turn off a lot of skeptics. Stick to the facts, don\u2019t exaggerate, and you\u2019ll find that you have a lot more allies than enemies. Exaggerations are easier to deny than facts, and if you want the denial crowd to come around, you can\u2019t give them easy targets of deniable rhetoric the main one being that these studies, especially the 78 one, are comparing apples to apples .","conclusion":"Misrepresentations of the Gender Pay Gap is hurting feminism"}
{"id":"96e164a0-2cc7-45ba-802b-a4241ab4f17e","argument":"Parents will be encouraged to think about whether the system is supporting their children in becoming happy, healthy and caring adults.","conclusion":"It will make everyone think about the failings of the current system."}
{"id":"2b18c830-aa5a-4bc1-b83f-8994080d94de","argument":"Men's brains are programmed to instantaneously react with a shot of dopamine when certain traits that represent female fertility become visible. This instant reaction suggests that the rapid progression to sex is, for men, evolutionarily advantageous.","conclusion":"Men's brains in particular are genetically programmed with instincts that support this kind of behavior."}
{"id":"8eb8e259-e590-4411-954b-036b0a9ceb55","argument":"Everyone is freaking out about Logan Paul filming a dead body. However, I would argue that the dead person doesn't care, especially for committing suicide in a public area. Furthermore, this act probably helped the family of the dead person find their body sooner. I also think that if I were that person that had died, I wouldn't care what would happen to my body if I knew I would die. I would really care what happens at all to my body, considering I will be dead. A lot of people are taking on the assumption that Logan Paul disrespected the dead or the Japanese culture but I'm not sure how this matters, considering he is already disrespecting other cultures simply my filming in their country, showing a video of a non hijab'd woman, etc. So I'm not sure why we draw the line here, and not elsewhere?","conclusion":"What Logan Paul did, filming a dead body, was fine"}
{"id":"f55b134f-70a9-493f-a51a-b2947fff0732","argument":"On the front page today, this thread was posted showing people of the Islamic faith getting offended at a video an explicitly and incredibly offensive anti Islam video and shouting screaming for it to be turned off. The video was titled Why Multicultralism is An Epic Fail sic , and Reddit upvoted it over 4K times with a net approval of 65 . The Youtuber who posted the video claims that the people in the audience were already aware of the contents of the anti Islamic film before viewing that, although no proof of this was given. Thus, this premise that these people came willing to watch something attacking them and their religion is mainly an assumption. Assuming that the people did know that they would watch an offensive video, their behavior was not OK however, if they were told the film was to be something else and acted this was in objection to what was happening, the behavior may have been an overreaction, but slightly justified. Like I said, there is no proof of the context outside of what the admittedly biased youtuber posted Who else would title a video Why Multiculturalism is An Epic Fail . Moving on to Reddit's response. I pulled some of the top comments and their net upvotes. What a bunch of shitheads 736 points Just boot these filthy immigrants out of the country. 32 points Why do people think multiculturalism is a good thing? They are fucking animals. 9 points Fucking savages, if that's how they are how can anybody not be racist against them? Not to mention their whole marrying 9 year old girls and whatnot 58 points If it's their culture they should keep it in their own stinky fucking land 42 points Fuck this religion. 58 points Allahu Akbar is one of the most annoying noises I have ever heard. 1146 points And thus why I think Islam is the downfall of humanity. 51 points Muslims acting like spoiled children? Never 164 points Now when some people tried to respond calling out Reddit on this ridiculously racist response, they were 'downvoted into oblivion'. I'm sick of Reddit claiming to be tolerant of all people and cultures and attacking leaders, countries and policies that are racist and unequal, but then having a ridiculously ignorant, bigoted and racist response at something like this. I know that I shouldn't take this instance and stereotype it to all of Reddit, just as I would hope people not take this video and stereotype it to all people of the Islamic faith, but going through all the comments and discussion on the Youtube page and the thread is extremely irritating. EDIT I apologize for the extra word in my title.","conclusion":"I believe Reddit's response to a recent video on r\/videos was just as unacceptable as the behavior of the people people in the video,"}
{"id":"72b4d867-4a87-4a06-872f-0adf66d4f852","argument":"I'm sure we're all privy to the numerous attacks. Seems like there a few everyday and there are thousands of comments screaming refugees or sjw . Even Bush admitted that his attacks in the middle east was one of the factors which led to IS being created. The more you push people away and hate, the more desperate and angry you make them. If you push all the Islamic people out, ISIS has a perfect reason for why Islam should defeat the West. So many people have said that the more attention you give to the murderers, the more murders there'll be. These people are mentally ill. I'm not promoting a ban on the news but not mentioning anything about the terrorist could definitely help.","conclusion":"Hate and Attention promote terrorism, not religion"}
{"id":"a4a2778d-7a5e-424f-899a-7a4aebfbcb2b","argument":"Yes it can, however unlikely. Agrobacterium tumefaciens can be used to insert foreign DNA. Agrobacterium tumefaciens is natural. It takes a specific circumstances but foreign DNA can be added to other species. There are cases of this occurring in nature. sciencedaily.com","conclusion":"Selective breeding would never produce Bt corn or Roundup Ready crops, which have genes from microbes inserted into their genomes."}
{"id":"fbb5f728-7bcc-483b-8aff-0a53fff1a08a","argument":"My view is that the US should, by federal statute, require that members of the House of Representatives be elected via mixed member proportional MMP representation within each state. I had a post about this a while back here and did have one small view change which I think is largely able to be overcome by using the standard two vote MMP system. A video briefly explaining MMP from the New Zealand electoral commission if you're not familiar. The main reason to do this would be as an anti gerrymandering measure, since MMP is basically impossible to gerrymander. But it would also give much more possible power to third parties since they could likely get some Congressional seats if they got large vote shares without having to get a plurality to get any seats.","conclusion":"The US should use mixed member proportional representation for the House of Representatives."}
{"id":"3c890576-4e39-48d7-b090-92359116df49","argument":"Entertainment Friendship, observing behavior like in a zoo , performing taught skills, therapy animals, and activities that provide enjoyment and comfort for people. Labor Plowing fields, police animals, herding, sending messages, all activities that make a humans life easier. Sustenance Vaccines, furs, meat, milk, things and properties that can be extracted for the benefit of human use. I have a dog. I don't enjoy it, I don't work in a field of expertise where my dog can ease my burden, and I don't want to consume it. I have little use for this dog. When I was adopting it, I felt I was doing this just for my fiancee. I tried loving it and tolerating the dog, but all I could see was a cute dog that provided absolutely nothing to me, causes me stress, and takes my time and limits our ability to freely go places. Cute for me is no reason to keep it. I feel its a large parasite in my home. And its tearing my relationship with my fiancee apart. We've had it for four months and I'm thinking about the day it keels over and dies. I honestly tried liking the dog. I tried thinking it was a human child, I tried thinking it was just its natural behavior. I just can't see why I can't love it or want to live with any animal. Its not like I want to burn down the rain forest or melt the arctic or something. I actually am really interested in animals. I love watching NatGeo and documentaries about them. I support less fishing and saving the forest. I just wouldn't want to live with one. They can give me nothing in return for the time and money I spend on them. Human lives are infinitely more valuable than an animals. Help me. .","conclusion":"Animals in general are for three things, entertainment, labor, and sustenance."}
{"id":"ebe5746a-a0f4-4796-9f4e-16ef8653cd78","argument":"Several organs are easily accessible and collected while the person is alive. Blood and its other fluid compartments are by definition an organ, while another would be skin tissue.","conclusion":"This will normalise tissue donation and thus encourage people to donate tissue when they are alive."}
{"id":"c77c5f95-f211-4f09-8efe-2f998f85aa83","argument":"The interpretation of the law by courts can have as large an effect on the way people live their lives as legislatures. People should be able to vote on the sort of legal interpretation which reflects the society they want to live in.","conclusion":"Supreme Courts often end up \"creating laws\" in the precedents they set in their interpretations of other laws and the Constitution."}
{"id":"83acc921-1acf-414c-a149-75343364e962","argument":"Many people are conflicted between higher level academics and other life changes occurring at the same time that get in the way of studies, like getting married starting up a caree and having children Skipping grades would put education chronologically before these events, so there would be fewer conflicts between them.","conclusion":"Students should not have to get stuck in academia for too long in their life if they want to do more significant personal life changes sooner, like research or get a job."}
{"id":"f3221c82-4725-4fdc-a121-be940dfc2f50","argument":"A regulated market can force companies to agree to certain conditions such as paid vacations, maternity leave, sick leave, limits in working hours or notification before termination.","conclusion":"Worker conditions are likely to be better in a regulated market."}
{"id":"bf4cb82a-6ff8-4bb2-ae3f-2d93ef777a4b","argument":"It's frustrating to see that a lot of individuals always claim black people are not the only ones facing discrimination, implying that it happens to everyone so 'let's get over it'. No. Racism in this current century\/era in western society is usually against individuals of colour: blacks, Hispanics, Middle-Eastern and the Asian community. The #blacklivesmatter movement is more of a reminder that the lives of black individuals are just as important as everyone else's.","conclusion":"The phrase \"All Lives Matter\" is often used by people to deny that racism against black people exists."}
{"id":"26b95594-31a5-4132-9810-cf9d84831ead","argument":"legalizing prostitution will make it possible to regulate it so we could fight STD's, underage prostitution and woman trafficking.","conclusion":"Legalizing sex work will allow to regulate those in the profession"}
{"id":"9e0717ca-59d7-4f83-a744-4680e5a9b0a6","argument":"A 2012 study from the University of British Columbia shows that, in polygamist cultures, \"the intra-sexual competition that occurs causes greater levels of crime, violence, poverty and gender inequality than in societies that institutionalize and practice monogamous marriage.\"","conclusion":"Normalising non-monogamous relationships makes it more likely that relationships with harmful gender dynamics will occur and contribute to wider societal problems."}
{"id":"4467be96-be17-4598-b46b-6a7a4171702b","argument":"Preamble This is a repost of an over hauled version of a previous post. The over hauled version didn't get any feedback so I am reposting. I hope this does not break any rules. Introduction If there does not exist a single person who, when acting on his own behalf, may legitimately do a certain act, say put people in cages, then there is no way that a person may legitimately do such a thing when acting as a member of an organization. The reason is that people may give rights to organizations ex I may give my bank the right to move my money to certain places and an organization may only give members rights that have been given to it by other individuals usually members . The above bank may then authorize its agents to move my money according to my wishes. But the bank does not have any rights other than those given to it by other individuals, possibly via other organizations. Moitivation Application Confirming your intuition in the positive when I join a gym I get the right to work out at the gym. The right in question to work out at Smith's Gym Membership Gym membership Does there exist at least one individual with this right Yes, the owners of the gym Mr Smith Status OK Since there is an individual with this right, this right may be transfered to other individuals via the organizational membership. Confirming your intuition in the negative married people get to wedgie those with pet goldfish. The right in question to wedgie people with pet goldfish Membership Marriage Does there exist at least one individual with this right No, no individual acting on his own behalf may legitimately wedgie all people with pet goldfish. Status Invalid Since no individual has this right no individual may use an organization to transfer this right to its members. Challenging the accepted wisdom police get to cage jail those who grow cannibis. The right in question to cage jail those with cannibis plants Membership Police Does there exist at least one individual with this right No, no individual act on his own behalf may legitimately cage jail all people with cannibis plants. Status Invalid Since no individual has this right then no individual may use an organization to transfer this right to its members.","conclusion":"The state is illegitimate because it incorrectly assumes that organizations can give rights to individuals that no automomous individual posseses."}
{"id":"7b82bb3d-915f-42aa-acf0-a732a37e26a8","argument":"Utnapishtim effort in building the boat is painstakingly detailed. Noah's effort is outlined in a single sentence The difference is that Utnapishtim survives by his hard work and the love of Ea while Noah survives by the love of God while a point is made elsewhere that Noah will give men rest from their work. Utnapishtim's work is valued while Noah's rest is valued.","conclusion":"The story of Utnapishtim and the story of Noah are re-tellings of the same story. Showing how YHWH is completely unlike the other gods."}
{"id":"d440ea08-4a9a-47d0-892f-9ca705ebbe9e","argument":"The title shows my basic premise when it comes to politics. I think people should have no governmental obstacles to stop them from being able to succeed from their own merit. I think that if you are a hard worker, you deserve to be able to work your way to the top, seek out knowledge, and stand above those who weren\u2019t able to succeed the way you did. You should be able to work your way from the bottom and get to be a CEO or the president or any other top level position if you work and learn and push yourself to the top. This is not always possible, but I believe this is how I base many of my political positions on. I don\u2019t think equality of outcome is a good thing, unless whoever ended up being equal all got there through their own merit. I don\u2019t think for instance, having affirmative action programs are a good idea. The way I understand it, they try to push for diversity by for example, if two people both have the same qualifications, or indeed even if one is higher than the other, the one with lower or equal standards could get accepted instead, solely based on their race or other criteria, even if they were less qualified. Another example is if you have 3 people in a room, A, B, and C. A earns a lot of money, and gets taxed at a higher rate than both B and C, despite the fact that A works harder than B and C. Just because he has more money, that money is redistributed to B and C so they can also get a higher standard of living, even though they didn\u2019t work for it like A did. These kinds of ideas I think are counterproductive, especially the more they increase. In my last example for instance, if everyone was to give all their money to D, who then combined all the money and then gave it back to A B and C equally, then you end up with a problem. If A knows their money will just be given back to the B and C anyway, why try and make so much more money? And B and C, why would they try and earn more money if they know that they can just rely on A to get it for them? So now A, B, and C all have less incentive to work, and therefore they all have less money. Welfare programs promote this kind of behavior as well. Instead if we took it in the complete opposite direction, and they all kept everything they had, then they would all have an incentive to earn more money. A could get richer, and even employ B and C if they were willing to work for A, and B and C would realize that they couldn\u2019t just rely on A to get everything for them. They would have to work in order to survive, and would therefore have to earn things for themselves. They all have an incentive to work, and therefore must better themselves to earn things. This principle can be applied to many things, such as speech, wherein the opportunity would be everyone can speak their mind. If B and C decided that they didn\u2019t like something that A said, they could simply not associate with him. They could instead speak how they wanted to, and tell A to buzz off, and associate with what they want. If outcome was put into place, and A was not allowed to say those things that B and C didn\u2019t like, then B and C would feel more comfortable, but A wouldn\u2019t be allowed to express their opinions, and would therefore lead to a less diverse group of opinions and discussions. Also, if A was to open a shop and discriminate against gay people for instance, if they all had equal opportunity, then B could open up a shop, and C might decide that they don\u2019t like A\u2019s policy that much, or perhaps C is gay as well, and decide to go to B. This would rob A of his business, and he would either be forced to change his policy, or lose money because of the customers that didn\u2019t like his policy or were refused because of it. If they all had the same outcome, this couldn\u2019t happen, but if A was religious, and didn\u2019t want to serve these gay people for instance, then it would violate his freedom of religion. In all of these cases, I believe that the opportunity should always be the right choice, as it then goes onto the individuals to make changes for themselves, and reflect upon their choices, or ideologies, and better themselves, rather than relying on the government to choose for them what the \u201cright\u201d decision is. That doesn\u2019t mean people won\u2019t make bad decisions, but in the case of opportunity over outcome, it comes to social standing, not the government, to make them better people. I should also mention that I think this is better from a moral standpoint as well, not just a logical standpoint. In the first example, B and C are taking A\u2019s money and giving it to themselves just because A earned more than they did. They are taking away A\u2019s right to their money. In the second example, B and C are taking away A\u2019s right to speak as he chooses. He said something they didn\u2019t like or agree with, and said \u201cby law, you cannot say that anymore.\u201d I should make a distinction that this is different if A said \u201cI am going to kill you.\u201d That implies he is about to attack you, and you should be able to criminalize that. I\u2019m referring to if A said \u201cB should die in a fire.\u201d That\u2019s not nice, but it doesn\u2019t imply action. A shouldn\u2019t be criminalized for saying something mean. In the third example, B and C are taking away A\u2019s right to choose who A gives their service to. No one has a right to someone\u2019s services. In this example, the government is forcing A to do something that he doesn\u2019t want to do, violating his religious beliefs as well. That is my stance when it comes to politics. Change my view Edit I find that my terminology wasn\u2019t the greatest. I suppose I mean equality under law, not equality as in A isn\u2019t disabled and B is. That\u2019s not something that is solved effectively by taking money from A and giving it to B, for instance. That\u2019s solved by B finding something they can do to support themselves better, or by having charity on a social level, or by having a family member help them. Edit 2 I may not be able to get to everyone in a timely manner. Lots of replies I\u2019ll respond when I get the chance. Thank you all Edit 3 Many people are addressing my points without addressing my premise. I understand that there may be flaws in my examples, but that doesn\u2019t change my underlying premise. Secondly, my premise is, under more consideration, more about removing governmental obstacles. Someone being poor doesn\u2019t play into this, because just because they can\u2019t afford things that a rich person can, there is no law stopping them from getting a better job, learning more school, taking more chances, etc. Only situational obstacles are in the way, which I don\u2019t think it belongs to the government to solve. Thirdly, a few common arguments. True equality of opportunity would result in equality of outcome. This is true, but not if you take human personality into account. Some people have more drive, some are better skilled in certain areas, and some people have different goals. People who are rich might not have worked to get it. This is also true. They were given it by someone else. This is not possible to change unless you force the person who gave it to them to not give it to them. They still play an important role, however, as they invest that money into companies, which innovate to create better products at lower prices, due to competition. This increases the quality of life for those who are poor, as they get better quality things for less. The percentage of money for people who are rich is less than those who are poor. For example, 20 to a rich guy may mean nothing. 20 to a poor guy may mean everything. This is the best argument against my premise. My argument is that people should be encouraged to give, not forced to give. Social groups and charities should help these people, and people should be taught to give extra money to people who are less fortunate. This is the biggest reason why I think religion is important, as it encourages these values. I understand, however, that this may not be as efficient, or generate enough money compared to the government taking it. If that is the case, perhaps people can agree to pay higher taxes on an individual basis. Perhaps 1 rich guy may say 80 , one may say 60 , and one may only say 30 . This isn\u2019t perfect, but it doesn\u2019t infringe on anyone\u2019s rights. I don\u2019t have a perfect answer to this solution, however, and it has swayed me. Edit 4 I made this argument overly simplistic to try and get my point across. This has been a very big mistake. I have 84 unread, very long messages right now, and I will get to them when I can. Keep in mind that my views have changed over the time I have made this post, however, and I may not agree with some things I have previously stated at this point. When I respond, it may not be the same view point you initially responded to. Thank you all for being civil and having this discussion with me","conclusion":"I believe that Equality of Opportunity is more important than Equality of Outcome."}
{"id":"04f795cc-b5c6-4b20-8cb4-5ef31c7a9fd2","argument":"Nuclear power plants use uranium as fuel, whose mining process releases high amounts of carbon dioxide into the environment.","conclusion":"Some train networks are run on electricity powered by nuclear energy which has its own environmental impact."}
{"id":"d9f9141e-80f5-441b-881e-634351859606","argument":"Most companies use utility patents for GMOs rather than plant patents, which give significantly less control. If GMOs could only be patented under plant patents, this would prevent corporations from having too much control over GMOs.","conclusion":"Safeguards and laws can always be put in place to prevent this from happening."}
{"id":"943b2b01-9e95-4e70-b8f3-52385aca6523","argument":"The citizenship goes both ways. Citizens of other EU member countries can move freely into Hungary and take Hungarian jobs.","conclusion":"Free movement fuels the rise of political ideologies like populism and xenophobia"}
{"id":"9db10d51-ad00-4d79-a0b7-e71196e28ae8","argument":"The government states that the NSA's surveillance program is for stopping terrorist attacks, and that's what I believe they are trying to do. I'm not arguing about the effectiveness or necessity of the program, but I don't believe that there is any intent to harm the American public. People, especially here on reddit, are very upset over the nsa's programs, but it doesn't seem to me that any truly important rights are being infringed upon. I don't quite understand why people care about the privacy issue so much. So some random person can see who you've been emailing? why does that matter? I get that things could be like in V for Vendetta or 1984, but they're not at least to my knowledge . I mean, in a distopian world like 1984 there are police and military. We have a military now, but they're being used for good that's a separate issue, but they're not attacking US citizens on US soil . The NSA isn't going after political opponents to them, right? It's not like Obama is using them to help him get reelected. I'm very open to having my view changed, so if someone could explain why our privacy being infringed in the current way is a problem, and why I should be scared of the current state of affairs, please explain do.","conclusion":"I believe that the US government's surveillance programs are in place for the purpose of protecting American's from terrorists, and is therefore, not a problem,"}
{"id":"8982790b-1eba-49fc-be30-711adf797ff1","argument":"Ideas like combined families have largely been dismissed by western liberal democracies but in many third world countries combined families are more practical since they reduce the usage of already limited resources.","conclusion":"Cultural differences sometimes make social customs that might not apply in western liberal democracies to be more applicable in other countries."}
{"id":"52d9da8c-1d2b-449e-947e-37111806c839","argument":"I was attempting to come up with a better situation for the stray animal population of America and eventually the world. Even if there was an organization with millions of dollars behind it therefore the means to collect all the strays where do they put them? Build countless more no kill shelters all over the country? Keep these poor animals caged up for what could be their entire live? If you somehow found foster homes for all these animals you will begin to see the same problem, due to the large number of animals and the large number foster homes needed people abandoning or abusing the animals. The only way to begin to tackle this problem is to nip in the bud, and reduce the population immensely. Please convince me to change my view.","conclusion":"I think PETA is doing the right thing euthanizing strays."}
{"id":"497ea802-bab5-4c68-909b-cc0f33181b48","argument":"Battlefield V was released in November last year. Since then, I've had some time to think about the controversy, and I've found myself at times on both sides of the argument. However, at this moment, I have determined that much of the controversy was completely irrational and an overreaction to what is really not that big of an issue. For those who are unfamiliar, the trailer for the game was met with generally negative community feedback criticizing the game for its unrealistic depiction of a female British soldier in combat during World War II. The game itself features playable female characters for all factions. Many in the community accuse the game developer and publisher DICE and EA respectively as being wrongly influenced by SJW and over political correctness to be inclusive. They claim this since historically women had minimal roles on the frontlines during World War II and to make their portrayal so common would be an overzealous effort to rewrite history in favor of modern politics often citing EA's response somewhere along the lines of crafting Battlefield V to their image of what World War II looked like . Now, I've been on both sides of the argument. Much of the claim to those that criticize Battlefield V has been that their depiction of women is unrealistic and unhistorical. This makes some sense when you look at it completely detached from shooter games or even video games as a whole, because yes, women did play only a minimal role in combat situations during World War II. But if you consider that BFV is a video game, it's not even realistic in many other aspects of its gameplay to begin with. If you are knowledgeable in the technology of World War II and examine the infantry weapons of the game, you'll notice that weapons are available to all factions. For instance you'll see British soldiers equipped with German arms and vice versa. The vehicle combat of the game is also not very realistic. The teamplay also isn't representative at all to what combat strategy and tactics was like back then. When you look at the big picture, you'll notice that at the end of the day, BFV is simply just a video game, and it makes sacrifices in realism to make the game more fun to play. It's a good thing that all the weapons are available no matter what faction you play. It's probably a good thing that vehicle combat was simplified to fit more with the fast paced gameplay of the Battlefield series. It's also worth considering that the previous Battlefield games have had little interest in realism to begin with, so I don't see why many fans of the series are upset over this. If they want a game that's dedicated to immersion and realism like they claim to, there are many other games that offer this. Why pick on Battlefield when it's simply not that game? It's meant to be a fun, fast paced team shooter. Furthermore, why is it even a bad thing that women are being represented in video games, especially in action games? So what if it even is unrealistic? It's just a game, and maybe this will get more women interested in this genre of games. I just don't see why Battlefield V deserved such controversy and criticism when it's not that big of a deal that it included women in unrealistic depictions. Mainly I feel like much of it is due to the bandwagon of video gamers that are used to hating on EA for their previous failures concerning monetization of Star Wars.","conclusion":"all the controversy surrounding Battlefield V and its depiction of female soldiers is completely unfounded"}
{"id":"9755d39f-65db-465c-895a-7251263daf63","argument":"Here's one of the most common pro capitalist arguments I hear guy A and guy B each start a business, let's say they're both grocery stores and are competitors. In the beginning they both charge similar prices and get roughly the same amount of customers. But then guy A takes the customers for granted and starts charging 125 of what he originally was. Unsurprisingly, he loses most of his customers to guy B's store. Guy A's business fails because of his greed, the end. In another timeline, guy A decides to undercut his competition and charge 90 of what he originally was. Now guy B loses most of his customers and guy A's business gets more profit, as although they make less money from each individual sale they get more sales in total. Simple, right? In this hypothetical situation, it is in the best interest of the vendor to charge less and they will get more profits. But the world in this argument is far, far away from reality. Here's a more realistic example This more scenario starts the same as the last one, but it's more complex as it's grounded in reality. Guy A undercuts guy B's prices, but this time he's greedy and instead of taking that 10 out of the profit he takes it out of his employees' salaries. At first some of his employees leave for guy B's company, but after some time guy B's company fails due to the lack of customers and they end up crawling back to his now larger store. Now A mart as I'll call it from now on is growing and needs employees, and at the moment it is the only place that will hire most people. It becomes a franchise and opens locations all over the country. Its routine in each new town it arrives in is open a large new store gt hire a bunch of employees gt undercut local businesses' prices gt now they're the only grocery store to buy from and work for gt customers are stuck supporting an unethical business and the employees have nowhere else to work. Now that they're the only store around, they can adjust their prices so that whenever there isn't competition they raise their prices, and whenever there is they undercut them, causing them to fail. Free market won't save you if there's a huge corporation whose prices are impossible to beat because of their predatory business model. The government won't help either. Since A mart is such a huge business, they now have hundreds of millions of dollars to invest in lobbying. They bribe politicians into letting them keep their monopoly which thrives off everything an ethical company isn't. And then there's the whole issue of monopolizing life saving drugs and procedures that there aren't any generic alternatives for, but that deserves a post of its own. tl dr the if there's a bad business free market will make sure that a better one will beat it argument is foolish, naive, and doesn't account for factors such as lobbying, paying employees less than they deserve, and predatory pricing to stamp out competition","conclusion":"People who believe that capitalism has no significant downsides are just as foolishly naive as the communists they love to ridicule"}
{"id":"00ebd5e9-e209-409e-92bf-327e39657cbe","argument":"I have recently discovered and became an avid user of the McDonald's app. On this app daily deals are available to users of the app. Two weeks in a row app users have been able to get any regular sandwich, such as a big mac, for just one dollar. Why do I find this unethical? I find this unethical because McDonald's is making their unhealthy food so cheap that you can't afford to not eat it. Lower income families would rather spend one dollar on a big mac than eat healthy, just because McDonalds is somehow able to knock almost four dollars off the price of a big mac.","conclusion":"McDonald's app deals is unethical"}
{"id":"2832bbb4-f08f-4c18-a2c9-011e9d9bb643","argument":"I'm a front page lurker, occasionally sort by new. Many of the subs I've actually been interested I don't subscribe to because I find I can't actually participate when I want to add to the conversation. Guess I'll just stick to front page lurking? That's counterintuitive because I could swear that the whole point of reddit is to get people to engage around things they've communally read. Right? Maybe that's where I'm wrong lol? Meme entertainment aside, I think reddit has a great amount to offer, but karma and flair requirements gatekeep newcomers from experiencing the platform in a meaningful way.","conclusion":"Reddit threads having karma and flair requirements just allows those communities to construct echo chambers instead of promoting communication on the platform."}
{"id":"773fb6ff-d326-4f0f-95cd-8fbecc5df140","argument":"I like yoga pants because you can see all the curves of a girl but I think they should only be worn by beautiful women with perfect body because I do not feel like seeing all the fat moving in the legs and butt of this woman on the bus. I feel like jeans skinny or baggy let place for interpretation so you can imagine a perfect body. Jeans make me respect the girl wearing them for not dressing like a whore as would say an old person , also, different types of jeans can give hints on your personality, for example, if a girl wears baggy black jeans with gold chains attached to it or a simple skinny blue jeans you can see what kind of person at first glance but most of girls wear black yoga pants and it's rare to see them wearing jaguar or galaxy designs on their pants so it is harder to understand what person you have in front of you. You could change my view if you demonstrate that yoga pants make a girl look prettier than jeans with some arguments I did not find against jeans and for yoga pants.","conclusion":"I think jeans show better curves than yoga pants."}
{"id":"adc0968d-77a1-4d61-ba33-b2cb67e302cb","argument":"An effective school should have the purpose of providing the greatest utility for students, to find useful and rewarding work in adulthood, and serve the community as a whole by educating people to do the things that are needed and useful to society. While there are a lot of \"nice-to-haves,\" we must identify the key subjects that provide the best opportunities for children. Unfortunately, so much time is spent debating this, that no decision is made and kids are exposed to a chaotic experience.","conclusion":"There is no agreement on the purpose and function of schooling. Making it mandatory therefore seems bizarre."}
{"id":"2f7995a3-fbfe-4f50-bb16-4924ccd3958d","argument":"How can we be at leisure in a 50 hour work week? How have we so long believed that people with too much time away from full time employment are a lost people? Especially in America, we are at a point where forced leisure takes one of two forms either unemployment with all its servile and threatening implications or the ubiquitous and demeaning two week vacation. Most wage slaves as I believe them to be have been so indoctrinated in this working culture that as soon as they hear about vacation or leisure they cringe at the idea, it's almost as if the word turns bitter on their tongue. Today even the wealthy executives happily slave eighty and more hours every week. In our modern economies only the retired rich and people on welfare really have some time off. Is this growth for the sake of growth mentality really beneficial for humans? In economism there is this golden rule that goes something like this Give unto others nothing but a little leisure, ever . If a corporation had a successful year, does it give everyone four months off? Never. The iron rule grants only minimal vacation time no matter who, no matter what or when. Is this what human life has degraded to? Are we to keep believing that a life of unending labour, is to be a successful one? Being on the verge of entering the workforce uni degree I can't help noticing that the acceptance of human sadness is the norm. Is this structural efficiency paradigm of capitalism really needed? I remember reading that Nietzsche said any man whose time is not two thirds his own is a slave . Is there any truth to this? Are we unnecessarily working too much?","conclusion":"I believe people in the First World work too much,"}
{"id":"f5aefb0b-fa10-4c96-9620-a78ca0fa31ce","argument":"As a blacksmith in training, I've been putting a lot of research into swords, different types of steel and the pros and cons of those types of steel. One thing has been gnawing at me since I took up this hobby Katana Worship. I understand that a Katana is a damn fine piece of craftsmanship. But it's so well made because it had to be. Japan is a mineral poor country, and good steel was hard to come by. Katanas are forged from tamahagane steel, which is 1 carbon, pretty high for steel. And nabegane or pig iron. These two metals are formed into layers, creating the core nabegane and the outer shell tamahagane Ok, metallurgy and smithing aside. The design of the blade. It's curved slightly, as the samurai were often used as mounted cavalry. This curve allows the sword to be pulled out from flesh and bone with a little more ease. Which is needed on horseback. My main complaint about the design is the lack of any real stabbing point. It can't really penetrate all that much. That being said, I know the Japanese didn't have metal armours and used leathers and IIRC woods instead. My point is that I'm unsure if the Katana could penetrate leather or wood. Also, the cross guard is severely lacking in any real substance. It just looks like it would be easy to cut past, but there may have been techniques used to avoid losing a hand to cuts. I'm not saying the katana isn't a good sword. In fact I have a lot of admiration for the Japanese bladesmiths of antiquity for being able to come up with such a design. I just don't think they're the best thing since sliced bread.","conclusion":"Katanas are not the best kind of sword"}
{"id":"8857cb66-c20f-4c19-8115-eb15fdd514fe","argument":"According to Willard Chase, on Joseph Smith's return home while carrying the golden plates wrapped under his arm, \"he said he was attacked by two men in the woods, and knocked them both down and made his escape, arriving safe and secured his treasure.\" Howe 1834, p. 246","conclusion":"Joseph Smith told others that when he brought the golden plates home, he had to physically fend off two or three assailants."}
{"id":"5ef28613-146f-4284-b02e-fd3bd209d8c7","argument":"Property ownership does not preclude integrated usage restrictions. Many cars and motorbikes, for example, come with aspeed limiter and digital media players as well as gaming consoles come with region codes","conclusion":"It is common practice to limit the use of products and services where it might collide with other considerations that are judged equally or more important."}
{"id":"2b434074-f32a-47fc-9870-9c4332972d5b","argument":"While gun nuts who get mad that they can't defend their homes from the poors with M60s and elitist gun store owners are lame, they're well versed in gun safety and not the kind of people who go shoot up schools and workplaces. No, this isn't every responsible gun owner. Yes, I know about the militia rampages in Las Vegas I'm more talking about disturbed school shooters, which is one of the focal centerpoints of the gun debate . On the flipside, I'm cool with gun registration, ammo restrictions, mandatory classes, et cetera, et cetera, and believe that having to register something that shoots hot lead death and having to learn about handling something that shoots hot lead death isn't an infringement on my rights. I'm in California one of the big high profile crimes in my area a while back was a gang member deciding the best way to test out his gun was to use it on a family. At the risk of sounding like some alt right shitbag, the perp obviously didn't get it via legal means this was in San Francisco, which heavily regulates firearms and was infamous for trying to ban all guns a while back, and the perp had previous criminal history and was illegally residing in America . I've also heard one of the reasons why Chicago blows up with gun violence, despite regulating guns, is that people with clean records go to surrounding states with looser gun restriction, buy guns, and resell them to street gangs. For obvious reasons, people going to commit street violence aren't going to waltz into a gun store and plunk down records for something they'll use in a crime later on, and they'll turn to other methods stealing guns was just made a felony here in Cali. Now, I'm not saying 'let's ignore potential mass murderers and thrill killers', but I believe they're not as widespread as gang street violence warning, I'm probably talking out my ass on this see this list, among others and a majority of school shootings and thrill killers nowadays seem to be because either their family members did not secure and hide their guns properly, or because, despite psych warnings, they were able to get a gun.","conclusion":"I think both sides of the American gun ownership debate focus too much on the mentally ill and legal ownership, and instead should focus on street violence and gun trafficking."}
{"id":"27ce2718-1daa-4634-9588-5e78f8123712","argument":"In Greek mythology there is on exception from the violent centaurs: Chiron He was the wisest and most just of the centaurs. He was a great healer, astrologer and respected oracle, and was the first centaur to act as a teacher to humans. This is very similar to Firenze, who was much more human friendly than the other centaurs, and started working as a teacher.","conclusion":"Not every centaur in Greek mythology is a brutal rapist. There are also myths about nice and wise centaurs."}
{"id":"dd012efd-d251-4294-9791-1e46d07c7a38","argument":"Disclaimer i'm an American middle class white girl, so no one cares what i have to say about race. Now that that's been said, i just think the concept of being proud of your race doesn't make any sense. You were born with your skin a different color than someone else's, why does that make you special? Maybe it's just because I think the concept of race is stupid biologically speaking, it doesn't exist , but i don't think your race should differentiate you from anyone else, for better or worse. Right now, there's a kiosk at a store I frequent selling black art. Some of it is African, some of it is art of significant black Americans, some of it is related to traditionally black fraternities and sororities. The only thing connecting these pieces of art is the color of the skin of the artist. Why does that matter? I think the problem here is that i just don't understand. Can y'all help change my view and help me understand why people would be proud of the color of their skin?","conclusion":"I think being proud of your race is ridiculous."}
{"id":"58304971-aa9d-445d-b7ee-a62cabf51be6","argument":"Just as lawyers know more about legal problems and doctors know more about health-related problems, professional philosophers know more about philosophical problems.","conclusion":"Professional philosophers have spent much more time thinking about morality and should be considered ethically 'more correct' than average people."}
{"id":"ddbfec85-cfeb-4e9d-8aea-6be60ac60a0e","argument":"So, I've been struggling with this for awhile, and the recent Ellen Bolt tweet thing made me post this. If you don't know, here Ellen Bolt Story I've seen this time and time again, and my view point is that the intent of a speaker should be heavily considered, most of the time, and outweigh most negative interpretations, if the intent was positive. I understand there are things white people don't understand they are doing that can come across as insensitive when it comes to things like this, but I still feel intention is everything. If this Ellen thing is an issue, then some larger issue is at hand. How would Ellen be able to make this joke without being racist? Edit To clarify If a person who says or does something that is inherently not offensive, and someone gets offended, the person's intentions should be first considered before condemning, reprimanding, or censoring them. And yes, racist comments are always racist and offensive.","conclusion":"If something that is meant to be harmless is said by one person but is then deemed offensive by another, the intent of the speaker should take precedence over the interpretation of the ones offended."}
{"id":"ab0a13cf-0f68-4b76-a8dc-1053523cab3e","argument":"The rock band RUSH suggest in their song Freewill, \"If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.\" As the band is populated by atheists i.e. believers in nothing, per the grandparent claim, it seems reasonable to view the suggested notion of \"believing in nothing\" in light of their lyrics, which then suggests that even \"believing in nothing\" still equates to \"believing in something\".","conclusion":"Arguing \"belief in nothing\" as a starting position is inconsistent with human nature."}
{"id":"4664c9f1-07ee-490c-9f64-6e29d18db8e6","argument":"I can fully understand the concept of family and the importance of it. Trust me I am not saying family is bad. What I am arguing is that just because you are the daughter of my mother's brother, doesnt mean anything special. Everything outside of immediate family is a joke. My parents are giving me shit because oh you didn't invite your cousin's to your wedding your aunt you have never heard of is now mad at our family because we got an invite to her wedding but you cant invite them Honestly, if I spend more time communicating with the cashier's at tim Hortons for coffee, than I do with you, why would on earth would I invite you to the wedding. Why am I not inviting tim Hortons employees. I am a family man, I love and believe in the concept of family. Extended family on the other hand is forced and a waste of time and energy. If I wouldn't hang out with you as a friend, why am I forced to hang out with you cause your blood related. I get that it might be my mother's brother, but why is it expected to hang out and make their family our family? Because they share a blood line? I have not talked to my extended family in over 5 years and I am considered the asshat of the extended family for not inviting any of them to my wedding. Well guess what, it's not about you, it's my wedding and I want people who know me, who have experienced my life with me, the pains and joys over the years to attend it. I don't want people there to just fill chairs, because you like weddings and you think since we are family it's an automatic invite.","conclusion":"Being related by blood, does not mean you should be invited to blood related weddings"}
{"id":"7d23fc2d-32fb-45f0-a1e3-68ea42bd3efd","argument":"Before I begin, I'm not implying most Hillary Clinton supporters are bad. In fact I've heard stories of people who regret having anything to do with her and stories of supporters trying to be humble in regards to her. But there are those who have seriously become so delusional that they can easily be compared to Trump supporters. First, Hillary's background. Hillary deserves a lot of hate for her action. She allowed corporations to have greater influence over the Democratic Party, forced party members to fight against Bernie, broke the law in regards to emails, and has stuck up to corrupt elites. Despite the fact that she has so much dirt, many passionate supporters and liberals try to excuse this and try to persuade people that she is actually good for this nation. They think that she will bring change when really she is much more corrupt for that. Many Americans hate her and don't want her as a politician but her supporters don't care and blindly believe she will win. Reminds me of the relationship between Trump and his supporters. Second, the blame game. Hillary deserved a lot of hate for her actions. Even worse she made the campaign all about her and looked down at the opposition as deplorables . Her campaign overlooked the white voting bloc since it arrogantly believed that minorities and blue state strongholds would bring her to victory. Even Bernie's supporters were frustrated at the arrogant nature of the campaign. And who did the hardcore Hillary fans felt? They blamed everything from Bernie supporters to false news to the people investigating Hillary for her loss. They think they ruined this election just because they criticized her. Can you imagine if Trump lost and his supporters did this? And third, they arrogantly believe that they are the best and those that have any dislike of her are losers. Like they guilt other liberals into getting them to support Hillary wholeheartedly despite her having an unfair advantage. Then they blame Bernie supporters that helped them for their loss. They dismiss the concerns of conservatives and call the problems as racism and sexism. Never mind the opposition's actual legitimate grievances. They are so annoying on social media because they will find any scapegoat but Hillary for her loss. They are clinging on to someone that isn't really worth supporting. When given evidence of her wrongdoing they shout down anyone doing that. And they wonder why progressives like me are shifting away from the mainstream. Hillary's hardcore supporters have made us liberals the laughingstock for the hardcore right. They are very comparable to Trump supporters though they are still better than some Trump supporters. Nonetheless I cannot help but feel annoyed at their antics and their denial of the facts. Sorry if this is a long one but I really needed to get this off my chest.","conclusion":"Some of Hillary Clinton's Supporters Have Become Almost As Bad As Trump's"}
{"id":"a5ee432b-9ec6-4509-b532-2092045cc7c1","argument":"Chaotic Inflationary models provide a cause for our universe as the result of a quantum fluctuation in the false vacuum of an eternally inflating multiverse","conclusion":"If the universe has a cause, the best candidate for that cause is naturalistic."}
{"id":"a8548695-0c27-4ae6-a56f-2da501d6ebf5","argument":"For context, I recently took some training courses for my job that involved lectures and labs for 8 hours each day for 2 3 days. It got me thinking about the way a typical school system works, and how it could be improved. In your typical American school, students have a daily class schedule that consists of 6 7 class periods of 45 50 minutes each. Each class period is a different subject, and it takes several months to complete this set of courses. I think it would be much better for everyone involved if the system was changed to focus on a single subject at a time. Students would spend 8 hours with breaks of course each day for 1 2 weeks learning a single subject. Over the course of each day, the class would alternate between lectures and lab time. The teacher teaches a topic, then the students do a lab to get practice and can ask for help if needed. The next week s they would go to a different class and learn a different subject. The benefits of doing this would include but not be limited to Students only have to keep track of 1 subject at a time. This would be much less stressful and less confusing. Students only need to carry 1 textbook at a time and don't need to move between classrooms all day. No more back shoulder problems caused by carrying multiple books in a backpack. Students have less variance in the amount of homework they need to do each night or possibly no homework necessary at all . Teachers only need to keep track of 1 classroom worth of students at a time. They can get to know the strengths and weaknesses of each student better, and target their teaching better. Teachers only need to teach 1 subject at a time. Planning their curriculum will be simplified. Each course would be completed in a shorter timeframe, allowing for more scheduling flexibility if a student needs to retake a course, for example To , give me some negatives that a system like this would have compared to the current system. Or, contest the benefits that I have listed.","conclusion":"Education systems should focus on teaching 1 subject at a time instead of multiple."}
{"id":"30741088-d5ca-4e6c-b0ac-f74c4ee714b9","argument":"Protection of minority communities allows for their participation in the electoral, judical and education system of a country This is necessary for them to function as an integral part of society. p. 2","conclusion":"By including linguistic minority protection in constitutions, the state is recognising those minorities as an integral part of that society."}
{"id":"c334a947-6c25-4bed-9f9f-c49b2962d4f8","argument":"The German Constitution specifically prohibits \u201cAngriffskrieg\u201d, which translates as \u201coffensive war\u201d. However, the meaning in German is somewhat broader \u201cNo Angriffskrieg\u201d precludes almost anything but self-defense.","conclusion":"Many EU states have adopted constitutions designed to promote pacifism."}
{"id":"534b0def-fab1-4f12-8d0e-44c93380edbf","argument":"Due to our dependence on our current main food source, at most, urban, vertical and other compact methods of farming may just resort to complementing food, rather than completely replace it.","conclusion":"We still largely depend on conventional farming for our survival as a civilisation, more than any other method to sustain our food needs."}
{"id":"4d82592c-b3bb-4e06-a3aa-0461fcad6e1c","argument":"Some names previously though not to be of Hebrew origin, such as Sariah and Alma have since been found in ancient Jewish documents from Egypt. Paul Y. Hoskisson, \"What's in a Name? Alma as a Hebrew Name,\" Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 7\/1 1998, p. 72-73.","conclusion":"The Book of Mormon has 180 named characters that are authenic ancient names, many of which were unknown to the western world at the time."}
{"id":"9388aaf2-9e59-4260-b770-1fbaad04a73a","argument":"In addition to being able to utilise existing infrastructure biogas is easier to store and has a more stable production supply","conclusion":"Biogas is a viable replacement for natural gas as it can be introduced into the existing gas infrastructure."}
{"id":"33d18aa8-b540-440f-8fce-df9b11edbfc7","argument":"You see this a lot among people on the lower-income and education scales. They want their kids to learn skills that are needed to move up the social scale.","conclusion":"Beauty contests teach kids how to strive to move up."}
{"id":"7f3f0613-6f57-4651-8442-41c699dd375b","argument":"With how close the world has come to annihilating itself because of leaders who've been a bit trigger happy Cuban Missile Crisis I truly believe nukes are pretty much the only reason the world isn't in major conflict right now. The Cold War for example. If the US and the Soviets didn't have their nuclear arsenal, what reason would Stalin, Khrushchev, etc have for NOT invading the rest of Europe? They could've easily done so and not much the US could've done to stop them. Our greatest and most terrifying weapons are pretty much our salvation and force us to cooperate even if we don't like each other.","conclusion":"Nuclear weapons are the only thing keeping the world from going to complete hell"}
{"id":"193841bc-99b2-4866-9ea9-c9d8bc6689f9","argument":"Legalizing prostitution would reduce crime and get prostitutes off the streets.","conclusion":"Legalizing sex work will make the profession safer for women"}
{"id":"1601b695-2443-438a-b6dc-1356d56644fc","argument":"Any system that is resource limited follows the logistic growth model LGM described in Calculus. At some point the non-renewable resources are used up and the population has to correct for it.","conclusion":"The ecological principle of a \"carrying capacity\" applies to humans just as it does to any other living creature."}
{"id":"0e84f5ec-c429-402e-a32d-d4e305079e70","argument":"Iran is supporting militias and insurgencies in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen that destabilize the region and hurt American interests.","conclusion":"The region would become more peaceful with a weakened Iran."}
{"id":"77bcae9b-9fce-412f-b38d-5cff870721a7","argument":"Explanation of Vote by Ambassador Susan E. Rice, U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations, on Palestinian UN Vote. February 18th, 2011: \"The great impetus for democracy and reform in the region makes it even more urgent to settle this bitter and tragic conflict in the context of a region moving towards greater peace and respect for human rights. But there simply are no shortcuts. We hope that those who share our hopes for peace between a secure and sovereign Israel and Palestine will join us in redoubling our common efforts to encourage and support the resumption of direct negotiations.","conclusion":"Arab Spring doesn't change fact that bilateral solution required."}
{"id":"4b786452-8fcd-43ed-ba3f-a67172934d22","argument":"If Bitcoin is adopted as a universal primary currency and a fundamental flaw is discovered, it will crash the global economy.","conclusion":"Bitcoin is new and barely understood. Adopting it as legal tender without knowing more about it is too presumptive."}
{"id":"afe88473-aeb2-4d4b-bcb0-a54b29109a29","argument":"It seems every John Oliver segment is about how bad our corporate overlords are, but in most cases they follow the rules and find ways to expliot them without breaking them as capitalism tells you to. Yeah predatory lending and private prisons are pretty bad but these companies were founded with single goal of making money. Of course they're gonna be greedy and bend as many rules as they can to make money no matter who they hurt The problem is the system not how evil corporations are, capitalism says your vote is in your wallet and you shouldn't give money to companies you don't like but as nice as that sounds its not practical. Companies rely on supply and demand and will drive the price as high as they can I really don't know why anybody expects otherwise For example I'm a fan of soccer and people are complaining Barcelona's ticket prices for the game against Liverpool are tool high 119\u20ac and thats unfair for the locals, but so what? Barcelona always fills the stadium and if the locals can't afford it someone one else will go instead. Are they expected to be a charity case? As long as there's demand prices will keep going up its a business.","conclusion":"Companies being greedy and heartless is a feature of capitalism not a bug"}
{"id":"48081ef0-8e80-4f0d-b867-8f4000fd0cb1","argument":"VR is cool in concept but its implementation has been rather lackluster. There have been some interesting games and exploration of new ways to interact with virtual worlds. The problem is that the current VR headsets we have Playstation VR, Oculus Rift, HTC Vive aren't quite up to snuff and not worth the price of entry to most consumers. I understand that developers of both the software and hardware need time to figure out how to develop for VR and master it but I don't believe it will be worth it to them Playsation, Oculus, HTC Valve, game developers in the long term since at the end of the day these companies are trying to make money. This isn't directly related to VR itself but Oculus' recent lawsuit from Zenimax Studios owner of Bethesda will certainly not help Oculus or VR as a whole. Sources Just to be clear I'm not saying that VR could not lead to some other form of the way we play games but it in particular is not going to pan out. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Virtual Reality is not the future of how Video Games will be played"}
{"id":"33019dfd-0629-4f55-9cff-544081e34c14","argument":"Janism for example, the more extreme you are the less dangerous you are to other people because the fundamental belief is non-violence. You might pose a danger to yourself if you cannot move or eat anything but you are no danger to others.","conclusion":"Extremism is not a problem unless the fundamental beliefs are themselves flawed. A harmless belief taken to extremes is still harmless."}
{"id":"d1d936a1-fe0e-4771-9964-f4d350d6fe9d","argument":"Edit I'm not saying soldiers don't deserve the very basic level of respect that everyone deserves, I'm saying that in my view, they do not deserve this additional or heightened amount of respect that they are automatically suppose to receive. I seriously think that the way people think of the army Both US and UK, I live in the UK is old fashioned and out dated. The constant rebuttal to this is you should have respect for people defending your freedom This annoys me the most, how exactly are soldiers protecting my freedom when the US and the UK are in no immediate threats of invasion from anyone, and even if we were at the threat of an invasion, how the hell is the majority of our troops and military funding all being pumped into unneeded wars in afghan, iraq and now places such as Syria going to do us any favours? Why should I have to show respect for someone who's chosen a certain career path? Yes it MAY be dangerous, and it MAY require bravery to choose a certain path that the end result could be you dying, but suicide bombing takes bravery as does armed robbery and murder, should I also respect those types of people because of how brave they are? I also think personally that any war hero in the US and the UK is just a terrorist in a foreign country, the way I think about it, is that the propaganda in the US and the UK makes you believe that the army is fighting for the greater good, but the reality couldn't be anything but the opposite, their leaders have hidden agendas and soldiers are nothing more than men stripped of their character and re built to be killing machines that answer to their leaders orders without question. I have had friends who have gone into the army and done tours in Afghan and Iraq and told me stories of how people they were touring with would throw stones at afghanistan citizens while shouting Grenade to see them run for their lives in panic and terror, to me, that is terrorism, it doesn't matter if you have a licence to kill, it's still terrorism, some forms are just more powerful and more publicly shown by the media. Of course if this type of stuff was broadcasted on BBC1 News I doubt many people would keep having faith in their beloved war heros . Most people join the army in this day and age as a career choice, I know that most of the people on the frontline in the UK in my opinion tend to be high school drop outs that were never capable of getting good qualifications in school or just didn't try to so joined the army as something to fall back on, so why on earth do these types of people DESERVE my respect? Yes they go out to war to fight for things they don't understand, that makes them idiots in my eyes. Too many people are commenting while picking out the smallest parts of my view, my MAIN view is that I don't see why someone in the army AUTOMATICALLY deserves my respect for his career choice. Many of you have already said most of the people join up to the army due to lacking direction so why on earth does someone who joined up to be the governments puppet because they lacked direction in their life, automatically DESERVE my respect? None of you are answering or addressing this, you are just mentioning how the military don't just kill people, I don't care, why does a medic in the military DESERVE more respect than a nurse or doctor? The US and UK culture based on how you should automatically give the highest respect to a military man is what I do not agree with, that is the view you are suppose to be changing, I know I covered a lot of topics and it may have been confusing to some, but please stay on the main and most crucial topic Change my view?","conclusion":"I don't think that a soldier AUTOMATICALLY deserves my respect and I don't think I should have to show respect either."}
{"id":"ae1e8d20-1fb8-440b-95ee-d66103b93ecb","argument":"Virtual particles are involved in numerous prominent decays. It is necessary, therefore, that such an important particle be represented in the Standard Model.","conclusion":"Particle fields may have virtual particles 1 2 so adding that in would help with conceptualizing the depths of a particle's components."}
{"id":"42d30011-190b-47be-b9e0-c9a6a4e1a13d","argument":"Virtues may enable a person to enter into eternal life with God, which is an incommensurable good. Any byproduct \"vices\" enabled in this process would be infinitely outweighed by the potential of unity with the divine.","conclusion":"The net good of enabling virtues vastly outweighs the net evil of enabling of vices."}
{"id":"183cbd7b-4ed8-4af3-96c5-d79a938fe40e","argument":"Well, Reddit, I can't see how it is widely appreciated or even accepted telling the whole islamic community If our cartoons offend you, don't look at them . How is this different to tell ethnic minorities being offended by racist statements they should just not listen to racist people? My view yes, this is about Charlie Hebdo, and no, I'm not charlie Cartoons don't affect the degree of humiliation in any message. If you say something, be it in a humorous satire or in a serious speech, you should always be respectful to others. So if someone gets offended by something we ourselves wouldn't consider offending, we should overthink our situation, should consider the loss we suffer from not printing such cartoons in contrary to the benefit of the people that are offended by these actions. Please change my view.","conclusion":"Arguing \"If it offends you, don't look at it\" isn't any different to \"if racism offends you, don't listen to the people being racist.\""}
{"id":"bda76976-50a3-43ea-b129-9914e5436e4a","argument":"I'm one hundred percent supportive of homosexual rights, and believe that loving someone is right, no matter if they're the same gender or not. But I think that transexuals are an entire different story. First off, lumping them into the same group as gay lesbian as in LGBT isn't fair to bi homosexuals, because changing your gender chemically and even surgically is bizarre and inherently unnerving to humans on a basic evolutionary level. There is nothing strange or weird about homosexuality, and we shouldn't lump all alternate sexualities into a devient group. And even if a person is more comfortable adhering SOCIALLY to the other gender's identity, than that is your right. And I'll respect it. But when a trans man, who retains his uterus and vagina, decides to become pregnant and argues that his pregnancy isn't feminine, and he's not taking part in a feminine activity, and that I should respect his decision to be a male while also looking at his pregnancy as masculine, I have a problem. Number one, the world is overpopulated, and there are a disgustingly large number of children not only lacking in homes, but in neglectful ones. Number two, is that even if you stripped away all social ideas, and tendencies, and things associated with one genders culture, then what you're left with is the basic, evolutionary, clinical definition of a female as those who can produce egg cells, nurture a child, and give birth. If you are born a woman but believe yourself to be a gay man, then that is your right and I have no place critisizing you. But when you argue that you can be a man and also give birth, I have an issue. bearing children is the most feminine of all biological processes. If you think you can go through this, but I should treat you as a gay man who was pressured socially as a child to conform to a male stereotype, come out to his father and brothers as being attracted to men, fallen in love and faced the legality of his marriage, and tried to obtain a child through adoptive and surrogate services, then you're fucking wrong. You didn't go through that experience, that's not what you are. You are a transexual. That is a life as hard, and painful, and tough as any anyone could have but it's not that of a gay man. And similarly, when a trans women wants to be accepted into feminist groups, they shouldn't gain acceptance for having not lived the life of a woman. Theirs was of a man desperately wanting to be a woman, which is equally if not more difficult, but not the same. I don't want to hold grudges against any group of people. I believe every individual should be judged equally, and I'm afraid that this opinion will cause me to be prejudice towards transexuals. Please you guys, give me reason to change my view. EDIT Here is said discussioncthat set me off.","conclusion":"I think that transexuals are selfish and greedy and ask for acceptance in ways that is unfair"}
{"id":"b6f18761-77fb-43d5-a3dc-e2e5c0623b92","argument":"The individual and family should generally have the ability to choose its own course. In general, if consenting individuals choose to start a family together incestuously this private family affair should be allowed to occur free of government intervention.","conclusion":"State has no role in private sexual affairs such as incest"}
{"id":"20f098a2-c18b-479d-bf36-b6b64e4a0f81","argument":"I'm an Inter fan, so I'm no stranger to having a rich owner, but the manner in which City have shot from largely irrelevant to the champions of England in two out of three seasons is disgusting to me. They have bought the title to a much greater extent than other big clubs in the past have, like Man United, or Juventus, or Barcelona. Their quality is artificial because of all the money spent on it. Furthermore, to prevent this from continuing and to prevent the major leagues from falling apart due to the concentration of money at the top end of the table UEFA should limit the transfer and wage spending clubs are allowed, with the punishment for breaking those limits suspension from European football. If UEFA doesn't curb the spending by clubs like City and PSG the major leagues will become farcical and will be decided during the transfer window rather than on the pitch.","conclusion":"The major European soccer leagues are dominated by money and are essentially a contest of which team has the owner most willing to invest in the club."}
{"id":"e7672633-bd96-40f1-806b-911d429a48c6","argument":"For Korea the nurses and miners that went to Germany in the 1960s were crucial in fostering domestic capital that was necessary to kick start the economic advancements off Park Chung-hee.","conclusion":"Remittances and reverse investment form a major part in many economies. We should thus speak of a 'brain double'. Brain drain followed by remittances and investments in the other direction."}
{"id":"28a1d30a-1275-4ab4-8c8f-34eead3dadd3","argument":"When the left says something like \u201clook at Sweden, it is an amazing socialist country\u201d I just feel like that statement is wrong, and I actually believe the opposite. I will also just be referencing Sweden as the main claim the left uses. This is the definition of Socialism I will be using a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole. This is the definition of capitalism I will be using an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state. Sweden runs on the Nordic model, which essentially is extremely free market capitalism similar to the US, but even more so with a lot of welfare programs Sweden even has lower corporate tax rates than the US and is ranked 5th for being open to businesses while the US is ranked 43rd A few more things to note about Sweden, they have no minimum wage, a private pension system, allow school choice so schools have to compete for money, While yes, Sweden does offer generous benefits, it is not because they have socialized businesses even close to the degree of the US , they allow more freedom to businesses and have lower corporate tax rates letting corporations and private owners control the industry and trade, not by \u201cthe community as a whole\u201d","conclusion":"The left using the Scandinavian countries as working proof of their ideals is wrong"}
{"id":"2f38c199-2b41-4e37-8c47-6ec356d5add2","argument":"To be more specific, birth control and abortion should be illegalized and people should be forced to have children until the negative utility of a life consisting of being forced to have children reaches equilibrium with the positive utility of having another life experience the world. One important factor of my argument is that any new human life that comes into existence at this point in time has a net positive experience. I say this due to the fact that most people don't commit suicide. Additionally, I have the basic belief that we should try to maximize total happiness in the universe. Thus, because on average people's lives are positive, we must be obligated to bring as many people into existence as we can. Therefore I would like to see methods of preventing birth like birth control and abortion illegalized, along with a legal requirement to reproduce. Now, this cannot continue forever. Eventually having so many new people taking up resources and forcing those that are alive to reproduce will create negative effects that take away from happiness. But when do we stop? The obvious answer is to stop when the negative effects of my proposal are about to overtake, or reach equilibrium with, the positive effects. I do not think we have reached this point yet so I currently support forcing people to have children. I feel like this is a bizarre stance so .","conclusion":"Birth control and abortion should be illegalized and people should be forced to have children up to a point."}
{"id":"a8fada84-2ee8-4a02-9b1d-07a84f7dee28","argument":"This is a view I've had since I was a teenager because after I hit 14 15 my mum didn't mind me swearing based on the context. If I was telling somebody to fuck off she'd shout at me a lot about it, but if I just said fuck because something hurt me, then she wouldn't mind it. This has been brought back into my mind because today my brother was having a go at my nephew almost 10 because he says poo if he's annoyed at a game or something instead of shit. He was saying it's the same context, so it should be the same punishment. My dad lived at home when my brother was a teen 14 year age gap so he would never let my brother get away with it. But, he moved out when I was 10 and I only saw him about four weeks of the year, so I never had to worry about him hearing me swear at home. As we all told my brother, including my mum, my other brother, his girlfriend and my other brother's girlfriend he's going to say some word when he's frustrated, it's only natural. So unless it is a swear word itself you can't actually be annoyed about it. My other brother lived with their dad so he didn't get the pleasure of being able to swear at home, but he agreed as well. He said himself that they're only words at the end of the day although he's not sensitive to other people's outlook on swearing and he won't restrict what he's saying if you don't like it. He will still call his girlfriend a cunt when she pisses him off even though she hates it to the point where he's made her cry by calling her it over and over again.","conclusion":"Swearing should be acceptable for kids too based on the context of the word"}
{"id":"5ba2f520-b698-4748-b429-8e1c09e5a24d","argument":"Georges LeMaitre 1894-1966 was a devout christian who originally proposed the big bang theory. He believed that \"such a theory remains entirely outside any metaphysical or religious question\".","conclusion":"The Big Bang is not incompatible with the theory of a divine creator."}
{"id":"c3bc1e3c-6bc8-4f02-bb32-63b67ccd5749","argument":"Perpetuating mainstream gendered cultural biases in a game's narrative such as male dominance, or demeaning portrayals of women as victims or in sexualised manners can create a vicious circle. By normalizing these behaviours in games, people may see them as acceptable in society.","conclusion":"By portraying gender equality, video games can help combat negative stereotypes about women."}
{"id":"c56fd8ca-5611-4521-88e8-98a469ff0acd","argument":"At my friend's tech company, sales executives make base 120k commission up to possible 240k. From what I learned hanging out with them, all these sales execs really seem to do is regurgitate the same sales pitch every time, follow up with clients, negotiate pricing. I don't deny it's an art, but it seems to me like a pretty low skill job anyone can learn. It sounds like these sales folks feel like because they happen to be the point of contact w a client, they're somehow directly responsible for the sales a company generates and thus deserve to be compensated accordingly. On the other hand, my friend is a sales engineer there and makes base 115k commission up to about possible 140k. My friend, on top of having to sell the technical and business benefits of the product w clients, has to work w the client on how to implement their software and build demos to show off how to use their features. In addition, anytime there's something technical the sales exec can't handle questions are deferred to my friend. This friend has done very well at this company, and recently asked for a pay raise. However because her pay is inline with industry average, company refuses to give her a pay raise more than 5 . This is ridiculous to them considering how much work they have to put in managing clients pre and post sales, in addition to other technical aspects of their job. I'm thinking about building a company in the future, and building a world class sales engineer culture is something that's really interesting to me. From my pov, why pay a sales exec when I can use that money to pay above industry average for a sales engineer, attracting the best in the industry. Instead of having my sales engineers resentful of sales execs, why not just combine those 2 roles together and reward handsomely for it. I know tons of former engineers who hate coding and have gotten into finance or product management. This is probably another role that'd be great fit for their interests. Just wanted to see if I'm missing anything here, I've never worked in sales, so I'm sure there's something I'm missing about the value they provide?  Sales execs are glorified coordinators and a tech company would be better off using that money to hire sales engineers that can do both roles. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Sales people don't deserve their pay"}
{"id":"2582f0bc-94d1-44c5-8012-b278e23d5c27","argument":"After reading Michael Hoffman's The Entheogen Theory of Religion and Ego Death I have come across the opinion that organized religion has created governing bodies that then go back and alter the original religion and that the purpose of the governing body is in turn lost as the purpose of the religion is distorted to serve the whim of the governing body. In turn, it calls for attempts of society to become self governing as the ultimate goal, in the belief that ones moral guidance will be astray regardless of an established government and that moral guidance is an innate part of human existence, and the idea of sin is inherently flawed in that one can not acknowledge ones behavior as sinful without also regarding it as destined. Michael Hoffman's essay has lead me to believe that governments should not exist, and I agree. CMW.","conclusion":"The existence of government structures are inherently flawed and do not serve the needs of people and are destructive by nature."}
{"id":"c88f9951-4c81-4151-a06c-9b3744ddbc7b","argument":"Just clarify by saying that this is for people who turn to God for decisions such as praying for cure of an illness ie praying to God to cure them of cancer instead of seeking medical help. For example that couple that had both of their sons die by denying them medical help and choosing to pray instead. I know not all Christians Religious people are like this. Basically where people use God instead of rational logic , I believe should be treated as mentally ill. Please don't reply saying that if they used rational logic then they wouldn't believe in God in the first place.","conclusion":"I think that believing in God should be classified as a mental illness."}
{"id":"bf64a121-7ed8-4b46-adc6-a8ef025bc3f2","argument":"I have lived in Qatar for at least 8 years I have witnessed the mistreatment of migrants firsthand, it is there and there is no denying it. However, the facts have been heavily distorted by the media and has become a massive circlejerk, so I feel compelled to play the devils advocate. I contend that if better off countries offered the migrants a better choice they would take it, the workers don't enjoy being treated like slaves, but they are better off in Qatar than their own country which is why they go there they are not stupid. And this leads me to the hypocrite accusation. If Qatar didn't accept migrant workers and they were to stay where they were they would have an objectively worse quality of life, but most people wouldn't care. Instead, Qatar offers them a better choice granted, they are taking advantage of desperation, but they are not 'slaves' in that they were given a choice and they would be worse off without their low wage jobs in Qatar. Therefore it is hypocritical for people living in first world countries to criticize Qatar for their crappy treatment of their immigrant workers when they themselves wouldn't want the immigrants. Also, although I in no way claim to know anything about economics I don't think the people demanding higher wages for immigrants do either. As filthy rich as Qatar is, do we know for a fact that the government can significantly increase the wages of over 400,000 immigrants from Nepal alone? Do we know that it won't create further demand for jobs, increasing competition and taking away opportunity from the less qualified workers that may need the job more? I just don't think most criticizers have thought this through properly. Finally, please read this to grasp just how much Qatar has been bombarded with accusations with little evidence and an abundance of hyperbole. Thanks for reading, please understand I'm only playing devils advocate because almost nobody else will, and I will happily award deltas for any reasonable arguments.","conclusion":"Many who criticize Qatar for their trreatment of migrant workers are hypocrites and being highly one-sided"}
{"id":"b1d842dd-1617-4756-865d-5a00ef12b2f9","argument":"America's political culture disregards international affairs and opinion, and its domestic law is placed above international law. The result is \"blatant U.S. violations of binding international legal obligations\" Koplow, p. 53, 70","conclusion":"The United States routinely violates international agreements it has signed."}
{"id":"a54172a4-25ea-4ad4-9b32-9e9ebf2e9732","argument":"I always try to challenge my own views, but I cannot for the life of me understand why we shouldn't try to limit guns in America. Safety seems so important to conservatives, who constantly talk about preventing terrorism on U.S. soil, many even going so far as wanting to ban muslims from entering the country. Despite the effort spent on terrorism, and its financial and civil liberty costs, over a decade there has been 24 deaths from jihadist attacks on U.S. soil compared to over 300,000 during the same time frame I know this is cherry picking years and terror is a larger threat now, but these are just the years for which I could find accurate numbers, and the trend is the same over any period of time . 300,000 deaths in ten years is absolutely horrific to me. 300,000 people have had their lives cut short and have been taken from their friends and family add up all of that suffering and you should be mortified. And that is just over ten years. To me, that is a tragedy that cannot be dismissed for the sake of preserving a right that has been exalted to a sacred status for no discernible reason. More than 30,000 people are being killed to preserve something that is merely a symbol of personal freedom. In addition, pro gun americans seem not to understand that their rights are not being threatened. Hardly anyone relevant to the national discussion is advocating the government knocking on your door and confiscating all of your guns. Most simply want people measures like banning those on the terrorist watch list from owning guns, expanding our background checks, or closing loopholes for private sellers. The arguments opposing gun control seem specious, or don't hold any water at all. Argument 1 people have the right to defend themselves. Reality the risk of losing your life immediately goes up as soon as you own a gun. We are protecting people's right to feel protected, but actually endanger themselves, which doesn't seem worth it. Argument 2 To conquer a nation, you must first disarm its citizens. Reality Quoting Hitler is a classic argument, but if you think that we are going to fall victim to an authoritarian government who plans to exterminate its citizens, you probably are a paranoid conspiracy theorist who doesn't understand how this country works. Hint it's not the same as 1930's Germany. The real danger is already happening, and its coming in the form of 30,000 deaths a year. Argument 3 Gun control is ineffective. people who live in the only developed nation with astronomical numbers of gun deaths. Reality It is fair to oppose somewhat misguided measures such as trying to prevent mass shootings which don't actually kill that many people by banning large capacity magazines. However, gun advocates don't just oppose these measures but ALL measures, and refuse to offer any alternative legislation that would save lives and preserve their rights. Argument 4 Slippery slope, we can't start relinquishing our gun rights or we will lose more. Reality This is a classic fallacy used against any measure that tries to help people, such as gay marriage. Gay marriage has been legal for a while but its still illegal for a man to marry a donkey. I just don't see how it makes sense to oppose reasonable legislation because it will lead to unreasonable legislation. Argument 5 None of these arguments matter, regardless of what you think, the 2nd amendment guarantees my right to own guns anyway. Reality I also am a fan of the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. People have the right not to get murdered in the street, and that seems more sacred than your right to form a well regulated militia to defend yourself when Obama imposes sharia and marshal law before leaving office. Which by the way, you still have the right to do because no one wants to take your guns away. In summary, I think that gun advocates are letting many people die to preserve their oddly sacred right to own a gun, which really isn't even being threatened. I think I might come across as snarky or arrogant in the argument i just wrote, but I know there are a lot of people a hell of a lot smarter than me who are pro gun, and I don't for a second think with certainty that I know better than they do. I simply want to open my eyes to the other side of an issue that I see as indefensible. edit many people think I am saying liberals are entirely correct on guns I do not think that. Some liberals overemphasize mass shootings, demonize gun owners, have zero respect for 2nd amendment, or focus on passing legislation without considering its effectiveness. Liberals are not always right when it comes to guns.","conclusion":"Increasing gun control is unequivocally the right thing to do."}
{"id":"eb7c9f39-5855-4bea-9a92-3675fe5f9f88","argument":"As I've gotten older I've noticed a lot of engaged couples that don't live together. The first time they've lived together is when they're moving into their first house together. I find this ridiculous. Why would you marry someone who you've never lived with? Sure you might think you know their habits and quirks but do you really? Now I'm sure someone will argue that many couples back in the day moved from their parent's home straight to their new home as a married person. And that these couples usually ended up staying together. But we also have to acknowledge that divorce was not as accepted as it is today and that marriage issues were worked on not just ended with divorce. I don't know maybe I'm just too modern, but I really don't understand why anyone in their right mind would not live with their SO before getting married.","conclusion":"I believe that living together before marriage is necessary."}
{"id":"78593a51-bd85-4630-805b-41c6c440b540","argument":"Case in point Christy Mack and War Machine. Christy Mack is probably one of those women who get turned on when they see their bad boy beating other people up, but then cry for help when they turn violent towards them. She is a hypocrite like many others. She knew he was a fucked up violent guy. He had a past and she knew it, hell, everybody knew it. Which means she willfully chose to be with a violent guy, which means she put herself in that situation. Scumbags like that love to sponge off of a guy's fame, until he does something dumb because he's messed up in the head. Then all the hypocrites turn against him. People like that deserve no sympathy.","conclusion":"Women who like \"bad boys\" deserve no sympathy when they turn violent towards them."}
{"id":"8d5eb63c-bcca-48c3-8fed-0875cf89a33b","argument":"Reddit recently announced karma points for text posts.This in my opinion will eventually decrease the quality of posts and will lead to more work for the mods of respective subs. What I propose is eliminate the aspect of giving the points earned by a post to the user.ie,the posts would be up and downvoted as they are being done right now and so will the comments but none of those points would be reflected in the users profile.They would simply be for the sake of the posts visibility itself. This in my opinion will largely reduce karma whoring and reposts,anyone obsessed with karma has no incentive to do it as it wont be reflected in the users account and anyone who posts stuff will be solely doing it to share new information as no matter how great the post repost is the user wont be directly benefitted from it in form of imaginary points. PS English is not my first language so sorry for any grammatical mistakes comitted.","conclusion":"Reddit should alter its karma structure"}
{"id":"d5c10009-840a-4f63-8abf-5e0741d687da","argument":"If measures are passed in the UN that even a single of the Great Powers objects to, the chances that the measure will be implemented are very slim, as a Great Power is liable to take unilateral actions to block implementation. The UN will be powerless to carry through its measure, and its credibility will be damaged. Therefore, the veto is something of a safety valve that ensures that no measures are passed that will fail in the face of geopolitical realities.","conclusion":"P-5 veto ensures measures aren't passed that UN can't fulfill"}
{"id":"c4d33e97-0200-4e9e-9e63-3422f4ee94a0","argument":"One way is priests setting an example by showing the joy they experience in living out the priesthood and inviting members of the community to do the same.","conclusion":"It is possible to make priestly vocations more popular in other ways."}
{"id":"a59299e6-02e2-4fc3-802f-68eed50f34e1","argument":"To begin with, I would like to establish that I am in no way a member of the standard pro gun movement. I don\u2019t think the second amendment allows for anyone to own a gun there is that militia qualifier, in addition to the fact that being an amendment doesn\u2019t make it correct or relevant to today\u2019s world , I don\u2019t think that gun ownership reduces violence, I don\u2019t think that the benefits of everyday citizens owning guns outweighs the costs, and if I had the power to snap my fingers and get rid of any gun I saw fit then they would be limited to those used by the government in general I believe that the state\u2019s monopoly on violence is beneficial. However, removing guns in the real world is not this simple. After examining the issue from a utilitarian point of view, I have made the following observations Gun control is a divisive subject, perhaps one of the most politically charged of the present day. Each side is extremely vocal in their positions and neither is willing to work toward any sort of compromise. This exists across the country, but is especially true in Washington. This polar divide between camps makes the passage of any legislation regarding the issue an arduous task, using up enormous amounts of time and political capital for anyone who attempts to back relevant legislation. Legislation to regulate guns is generally ineffective, it mainly only targets those who already follow the laws of society and are therefore far less likely to use their guns in a criminal manner , while also ignoring guns that do the most damage those that are already outside the system of legality for example, gun buybacks or limits on new guns entering the market are statistically targeting guns that are far less likely to be used in crime . Guns are a fairly non perishable commodity. If maintained properly, even the oldest guns are functional. As such, any attempt to regulate firearms by controlling new purchases will take an impossibly long time to have any effect on the amount of gun crime. A gun, in the loosest definition of the word, is simply a pressure vessel which can be used to fire a projectile. As such, regulation of any makeshift guns would be nearly impossible, since they can be constructed from common materials by anyone with a basic understanding of the concepts involved or even 3 D printed . Gun crime is displayed as a disproportionately large problem by the media once suicides are removed since most of these deaths would arguably take place through other methods if guns were not available automotive accidents cause almost triple the amount of deaths as guns do. This isn\u2019t to say that gun violence isn\u2019t a problem or a tragedy, but there are other causes of death that are more common and more easily preventable. When all these factor are considered it seems clear to me that gun legislation takes up a disproportionate amount of legislative time and effort to have a negligible effect on a problem that isn\u2019t as bad as most people think, and certainly not as bad as other preventable causes of death. While in a perfect world fewer guns would be beneficial, the opportunity cost of bringing this about is far too high. Legislative time would be better spent on a myriad of other problems that are less controversial, more of a problem and more likely to improve based on any legislation that is passed.","conclusion":"Congress should abandon attempts to institute gun control beyond what is already in place,"}
{"id":"3f26adc9-39cc-47b5-a75f-583224989bbe","argument":"Deltas \u0394 \u0394 \u0394 I've concluded that it's ok to raise an animal for meat, but they should be allowed to live long, happy lives before they become food. Thanks everyone for helping me . I know this topic is probably like top 10 on , but I really only learn by conversation.  is great for that. I am very willing to have my view changed, because I like meat, and I don't want to stop eating it. I don't make any claim that my view is correct, but I'll say it like I see it. Please don't hold any nonsense or misconceptions against me. nbsp My View It is wrong to eat or kill to produce meat unless other foods are scarce. People who care for animals should stop doing it. I won't value animal life above human life, so I can't argue that it is wrong to kill animals to survive, but I think that the U.S. and much of the rest of the world has advanced beyond the point of needing to kill animals to live. nbsp Nutrition Claims that meat products are necessary for nutrition are not backed by unbiased science. Dairy products are still a viable source of protein, and iron is already artificially added to a lot of foods that are widely available, like cereal. nbsp Taste Even if taste is a good reason to kill, there are a lot of substitutes for meat and meat flavors. There are whole companies devoted to making meat textured, meat tasting products already, and they will only get better the more interest people show in them. Also, I think claims that meat might be able to be lab grown without animals prematurely dying sound plausible. nbsp Fur The fur trade used to be expansive. Lands were settled to gain access to good furs. They could keep a person warm and were even high fashion at a point. Eventually, species died off, fabric technology advanced, and people realized that they did not need to kill animals to be warm anymore. I think the same thing is happening with meat, now. It's just not necessary anymore. Not killing animals is preferable to killing animals if other factors are equal. nbsp Please . I really want a roast beef sandwich.","conclusion":"It is wrong to eat meat unless other foods are scarce. The meat industry should end."}
{"id":"930be0e6-7d65-4d74-b423-10b8ed942021","argument":"Mathis testified she is the \"house cleaner\" for accuser Tabitha Barnes, with whom she \"sometimes smoked crack\" with p7 Both testified to each having never discussed the case with each other and didn't know the other was an alleged victim, which is unlikely.","conclusion":"Florene Mathis' allegations count 7 resulted in a not guilty verdict"}
{"id":"c9efa8fc-1afc-4583-a4f2-509d66cc9ee2","argument":"Self-driving cars need to have agreat deal of connectivity to one another to maximize safety. Thus, mods and hacks would affect more than just the individual car.","conclusion":"A dilettantish software manipulation on self-driving cars can have disastrous consequences."}
{"id":"9a3dc688-9416-48ad-95a6-2765bdf853c6","argument":"My parents abandoned me because I wasn't a genius, for some weird reason they expected and wanted someone with superior intelect and probably matching looks, needless to say, I didn't fit the spot so I got dumped. It's obviously not solely because of them that I have these certain beliefs but they were rather an eye opener, I look around me, I see people being selfish, they either are selfish or they make up excuses. ex Charity work. Charity is pretty much trading money for emotional rewards or to fill certain conditions in order for them to recieve certain advantages that will swing in their favor on certain objectives. As much as I'd like to think otherwise, I simply cannot. Change my view please, I may have lost valuable friends over things that are the result of these kinds of beliefs that I have.","conclusion":"People are all selfish and mostly trash."}
{"id":"c053061b-be61-440f-b16d-7e2849265f7e","argument":"One major reason for people's unwillingness to switch to public transport is reliability rather than cost.","conclusion":"Some commuters may not find public transport convenient for their needs."}
{"id":"6171a567-376a-4684-a608-edbcb7443cd7","argument":"Passwords can have any number of special characters, all of which strengthen the password further.","conclusion":"Passwords can contain spaces, which is a special character, making the passwords more secure."}
{"id":"e7563648-7979-4644-b4b9-3869bdacb218","argument":"I believe that the United States, Canada, and Mexico should forge a North American political union of sorts that goes up and above what NAFTA exists for. All three countries trade with each other to a good extent but I think the economic benefits of sharing a single currency, removing borders, and getting rid of this unnecessarily complex and exclusive immigration laws would in fact help each country. Canadians would benefit from lower prices, the United States would benefit from even cheaper oil coming from Canada, and policies and funds could be focused towards Mexico's poverty problems. I know this view has a lot of holes, and even I know it is much more complicated than just stating that the three countries should become one however, I'd like to see the arguments for or against it.","conclusion":"The United States and Canada would both mutually benefit from becoming a single country as would Mexico."}
{"id":"d3efeed9-ac20-4ff8-bc7c-8a173e2e5d97","argument":"Article 29 says: \"Children\u2019s education should develop each child\u2019s personality, talents and abilities to the fullest. It should encourage children to respect others, human rights and their own and other cultures.\". The usage of the N-word in Huckleberry Fin could be viewed as prohibiting children from fully developing and could teach children to be show less respect.","conclusion":"That an existing law, which could be interpreted to support censoring the N-word in Huckleberry Finn, has not yet been used to censor it or to support censoring it, does not justify dismissing the claim that it should be used that way."}
{"id":"72f81301-ea79-44f7-8483-5916c4e42177","argument":"In Turkey today people accused of terrorism or of being linked to the July 2016 attempted coup are at risk of torture in police custody.","conclusion":"Turkish security forces frequently abuse their power to silence political opposition of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan."}
{"id":"b8c64753-f002-4f3d-a281-07f8c8400952","argument":"Loving another person is not enough reason to make a baby. Neither is physical attraction. Or being drunk, high, or generally not quite right in the head at the moment. Making babies should only be done with a partner who displays all of the characteristics of a mature, reliable, grounded adult. Choosing to make babies with someone because they were anything other than what I've described means that the good person chose to create a life based on faulty logic. And because of that choice, any suffering to the child that results is in fact the good parents fault. Even if the only choice they made was to procreate with the bad person. So the pain the child feels from the bad parents behavior from infidelity, to drug use, to abuse, etc is indeed the fault of the good parent. This responsibility extends to the child's 18th birthday, and any pain the child causes to others is also the good parents fault. So every teenager out there that has grown up in a dysfunctional home, and then killed someone as a result of their poor parenting that death is the fault of the good parent. Same with every other child who does something that is the result of a dysfunctional upbringing. Those deeds are the fault of the good parent.","conclusion":"Knowingly making a baby with an irresponsible partner makes any related suffering of the child the \"good\" parents fault. This responsibility extends to the childs 18th birthday, and any pain the child causes to others is also the \"good\" parents fault."}
{"id":"542ab689-4219-4388-b9bf-a877a8ccda1e","argument":"Communication links between operator and drones can be jammed or hijacked. AKMs do not require these and, therefore, are better.","conclusion":"AKMs are better than drones because they do not require communication time between operator and drone."}
{"id":"ce89cbec-87aa-4d94-9a2c-c017167b116a","argument":"Assuming the stone was obsidian, you can then trace the steps of it's existence back. Obsidian comes about from molten silica, and you can continue the step-wise path all the way back to Planck time At which point our methods of observing the universe crease to have any meaning.","conclusion":"This is not strictly correct. You can have causes without beginnings. One can cause a rock to move. This does not presuppose the rock 'beginning' simply that it exists at the time of intervention."}
{"id":"0ae10e9a-15e4-4693-acf7-4d311c5525c4","argument":"Appeals for donations to restore places of worship are successful because they tap into religious followers\u2019 sense of duty to protect their holy and sacrosanct spaces The same compelling reasoning would equally apply to donations to secure these places and is likely to make these campaigns successful.","conclusion":"In the past, many donation campaigns have been launched for restoration of places of worship. It is likely that a campaign calling upon donations for increasing security protocols to protect the places of worship will also be successful."}
{"id":"d9c03c91-4582-4b2c-bcac-e78d58207303","argument":"This is the first time visiting posting this sub reddit, and I'm used to the angsty teenage hive mind of r atheism trying to call me out on this, so lets get this out of the way first and foremost this is not a religiously charged opinion. I'm atheist. Now that we got that out of the way, the reason being for believing that not being hetero sexual to be a mental disorder is this Every single animal species has one main goal to reproduce. That is so they can ensure that the survival of their species will continue to exist. What does that have to do with us, you ask? The human race happens to be animals, just the smartest of our kind. Now you could make the argument But we don't need more reproduction, we're already overpopulated. That is a factor of society. Let me ask you this if in today's society, we didn't have treatments for diseases, or if industriaization weren't to happen, then we wouldn't be overpopulated. Now let me ask you this If we weren't overpopulated, and suddenly the majority 90~ of us turned gay, where would we be then? Dying out. I'm not viewing this through a perspective of morals, or of religion, I'm viewing this through a scientific point of view. Pop culture has influenced many of you people to believe that there is nothing wrong with being gay, and that it is natural. Some people have argued that animals will have interactions with the same sex as well, but they tend to forget that humans aren't the only animals who can get mental disorders. .","conclusion":"I believe being gay, lesbian, or bi-sexual is a mental disorder."}
{"id":"07ecf6da-b388-4ca1-a2c8-7127710b597e","argument":"An empirical study demonstrated that students would generally attain higher test scores if they were moved to a higher-ability group than if they remained in the one to which they were assigned p. 97.","conclusion":"Tracking has been shown to create a disparity in the quality of education and opportunities afforded to higher and lower ability groups."}
{"id":"09500833-906f-4b0f-9167-cba77bdd76c1","argument":"Having the British flag in the top left corner of Australia's flag symbolises that Australia is under British rule. If Australia is truly self-governing it should have a flag that symbolises that.","conclusion":"The Australian flag does not accurately represent Australian identity. The many thousands of years of Indigenous history should be far more prominent than a British invasion a few hundred years ago."}
{"id":"c04b2285-15f9-4d0b-8eaa-17b56e132043","argument":"Some believe that communism is inherently good for everybody and should be the ultimate goal of the human society. Therefore its symbol shouldn't be banned. The usage of the same symbols by some problematic countries that tried to put the achievement of Communism in their goals is irrelevant on the long term. Since none of these societies ever got close to Communism, conflating Communism together with these specific experience is naivete\u0301.","conclusion":"There are positive aspects of communism, such as gender equality."}
{"id":"a36b6f74-7e87-43bc-9885-f704a5b73e96","argument":"The primary theme of the entire book of Job is that we are not in a position to accuse God of being unjust because our perspective is so limited. Indeed, God\u2019s entire speech to Job at the end of the book carries this theme.","conclusion":"It is possible that the book of Job is not to be taken literally. It could be a metaphorical story that is meant to instruct and teach wisdom."}
{"id":"33955fff-f4d4-4cd9-b137-7f8fb1bb03d9","argument":"Council of Trent, Canon 23 \"lf any one saith, that a man once justified can sin no more, nor lose grace, and that therefore he that falls and sins was never truly justified; or, on the other hand, that he is able, during his whole life, to avoid all sins, even those that are venial, - except by a special privilege from God, as the Church holds in regard of the Blessed Virgin; let him be anathema.\"","conclusion":"Official statements put forth by the Catholic Church at the Council of Trent deny the tenets of \"Justification by faith alone\" and support the necessity of good works for the \"deserving of paradise.\""}
{"id":"90ac109d-c7ef-454f-a7ad-45e5d25822c6","argument":"I have watched both the music video and the half time show, and neither seem shocking or even controversial. The Blacker the Berry, This song is not. there isnt a line about police brutality in the lyrics, she spends most of it boasting about taking her Millionaire husband out on her money. What the song does have a lot of is product placement. In the 2 verse and chorus song, she namedrops Red Lobster, Givenchy and Roc jewelry. For a woman proud of her natural hair, those blonde dreads sure seem to change their length throughout the video. The only comments to Katrina or BLM come from a couple blink and you miss them takes in the video. As for the live show, I doubt thats quite how Malcolm would have wanted to be remembered, with a superbowl half time performance. Edit the song, and the marketing for the song use Empowering as a marketing Buzzword, like confidence . She sings about how she is empowered by the brands she wears, and the brands she drinks. It is so Empowering to go to Red Lobster. If you are in Red Lobster, its because you Slay, like Beyonce, You are such a Stud who fucks his girlfriend so well, and she shows the world that by Eating at Red Lobster. Did I mention the song wants you to go Eat at Red Lobster? bonus round, drink everytime she says Slay. She gives that word semantic satiation, in fact, I think she repeats everything several times.","conclusion":"There is nothing controversial about Beyonce's song Formation, its music video, and the Half time performance, and the song is not the anthem it has been described as"}
{"id":"ff2fb303-9383-432d-a69f-228905a6074d","argument":"Happiness is not derived solely from the gathering of material wealth or indulging in one's base desires, but also from interpersonal relationships. Being a moral e.g. trustworthy person strengthens these relationships.","conclusion":"Acting according to our moral beliefs is a source of happiness."}
{"id":"f843aa93-213e-492f-8c5e-53937af2bd09","argument":"It seems that the point of religion is to fundamentally control, otherwise people would be left to think or believe what they like.","conclusion":"Religion has been and is used as a form of social control."}
{"id":"db307260-9b57-4376-92e2-b0c04d27d418","argument":"Official legal advice makes clear that the Queen's and Prince's consent is not a mere formality. The process by which consent is obtained, which includes consulting with the royal household and seeking legal advice from its solicitors, provides a clear opportunity for the Queen and the Prince of Wales to influence the shape and content of a bill before it reaches Parliament.","conclusion":"Queen's Consent is required before the legislature can debate a bill affecting the prerogatives or the interests of the crown."}
{"id":"c51293bf-18ec-4e5d-bb6a-efebede42e6f","argument":"My reasoning Lying bout rape does not hurt rape victims. What would be the issue? That we won't believe real rape victims at their word in the future? We shouldn't in the first place, no? That is exactly why lying about rape is such a big problem, because we take them at their word instantly. Every rape accusation should be treated with a large grain of salt. EVERY accusation of ANYTHING. That is how the justice system works. Not believing rape victims at their word in the future is a benefit, not a negative. It helps us reestablish innocent until proven guilty. Lying about rape does waste police and court time. So lying about rape does hurts rape victims but only as much as lying about any crime does.","conclusion":"Lying about rape does not hurt rape victims,"}
{"id":"0c9f1857-b2d4-4d18-a8c9-1b350e8b5c96","argument":"I think the media and society focus too much on the size of women's breasts. In my opinion, and in the opinion of most people I've talked to, breast size isn't important. I believe that fake boobs are not attractive. I think it is crazy that so many people go to great lengths and pay large sums of money to get big fake breasts. I am not advocating for a banning boob jobs or making them illegal, I'm just saying society's views on them should change. I do believe that it can be okay in some cases. Mastectomies, health issues, and pain discomfort would all be acceptable reasons for surgery. But not for purely cosmetic reasons. I want to change my view because I have heard the argument that some women have really bad self esteem issues about their breasts, and a boob job helps them feel better about themselves. Knowing that, I still can't get past my view of judging someone who plans to go through with a boob job, or who has obviously fake breasts.","conclusion":"I believe women should not get boob jobs."}
{"id":"369c37f9-896a-418d-8968-d5b4836cfcd7","argument":"Slavery violates fundamental human rights The Universal Declaration of Human Rights explicitly forbids slavery and many of the practices associated with slavery.","conclusion":"Beliefs which classify humans as property are the moral equivalent of supporting the practice of slavery, which is immoral."}
{"id":"6bbb1de7-c7fe-4688-939c-73e6710316f4","argument":"People often use the statement we are nation of laws, not a nation of men to justify sentences or rulings that seem unfair. I think this statement is bullshit. We live in a nation of men who interpret ambiguous laws, according to their own biases and prejudices. These men are educated and wealthy and show a bias against people who aren't like them. You are more likely to get parole if the judge hearing your case has had lunch If we were really a nation of laws, not men then the laws would be written in computer code. Humans would input the facts of the case decided by juries and the computers would process the outcome according to the laws. The system we have now, the judge acts something like this computer, with the lawyers presenting cases to the judge, trying to interpret the law in a way that benefits their client. To pretend that the law is the law and it's beyond the judge to change it, throw it out, or modify it at his will, that he is bound by it at all times is to do everyone an intellectual disservice.","conclusion":"we are not a nation of men, not laws. we will remain so until laws are written in computer code."}
{"id":"bd6bd1f3-64c7-421e-94a9-fa5ca94f90b6","argument":"As a medical professional the doctor's personal beliefs are not relevant to the task at hand, providing health care. These beliefs are often based on religious and personal convictions which are non-verifiable. Medical decisions should be based on scientific evidence and medical practices. If personal beliefs prevent a doctor from basing their medical decisions on proven scientific fact then \"they represent an abandonment of professional obligations to patients","conclusion":"Introducing religion into medicine undermines a practice that depends on scientific evidence and medical ethics."}
{"id":"1a2ab58f-3ac7-425e-b017-592474d8950a","argument":"I\u2019m not talking about being able to tell if someone is conventionally attractive or not. For example, healthy weights looking better than extreme weights, clean clear skin being more appealing than when it\u2019s damaged diseased, etc. However this only works on the extreme ends. If you\u2019re perfectly straight, then you should only be able to tell if someone is either attractive, unattractive, or average looking. As soon as you start showing a preference for one normal or attractive ugly individual over another, then you\u2019re admitting that you find certain subjective characteristics attractive. Features that someone else may have a different opinion on. By this I mean, a straight man can probably tell that Chris Hemsworth is more attractive than Danny DeVito no disrespect . However, if he can form a similar type of opinion between Tom Cruise and Terry Crews, then he might be a little more bisexual than he thinks. I hear men and women saying stuff like this all the time. Stating that they think a certain person of the same gender is attractive or not , and the opposite about someone else. When they both look objectively average. These same people also claim to be 100 straight. If you give weight to the Kinsey scale of sexuality It\u2019s unlikely that someone is either totally straight gay. Everyone falls somewhere on the spectrum. Plus, many ancient societies Greece, Rome, Japan were much more bisexual than we are today. It\u2019s much more likely that societal changes were the cause, rather than humans evolving in such a short timeframe. I think a lot of people repress their bisexuality because they have a strong preference for the opposite sex anyway, and it\u2019s just easier that way.","conclusion":"If you have any preferences when it comes to ranking your own gender\u2019s attractiveness, then you are at least slightly homosexual."}
{"id":"2d4e16ad-0d9d-4272-b40b-4627d5ea9f2e","argument":"Education Secretary Margaret Spellings said in an interview for a June 13, 2006 New York Times article: \"Just the fact that the charter schools are the ones that are open is testament to their ability to cut through red tape and be responsive to families where and when they need them.\"11","conclusion":"Charter schools cut through red tape, quickly opening after Katrina"}
{"id":"d07a4d21-a871-4b3f-897b-b32077539f50","argument":"So the essential premise of my thoughts on the subject are that if you want to live overall, and will still want to live if you lose something, it's not worth dying to save it. The example that immediately comes to mind is military service. If life is really worth living to you it makes no sense to sacrifice it for anything you can live without. Just to clarify, appeals to altruism morality are irrelevant to my question. I want to know if you guys can come up with a reason a self interested person would want to sacrifice him her non gender specific pronounself.","conclusion":"Nothing is worth dying for if you enjoy living."}
{"id":"88c8b193-4762-4cef-a646-ee09a44801c9","argument":"As a sort of introduction the genre in which I mainly listen to is electronic music. While a good portion of it do have vocals a very good portion of it also doesn't. I am an avid fan of the genre, however frequently on social media I will see the artists of some of the songs I listen to say that the song is about insert thing here or is the story of insert thing here . I cannot possibly see how a song without vocals could be interpreted into a story. Yes, a song can have a tone, whether it be dark, happy, grand, etc. and that can leave the listener to create images and therefor a story based on said tone. However a song cannot have a specific story if it does not contain vocals that also tell this supposed story. You might be able to make a case for it if the story is told through real life sounds imposed over say gun shots followed by screams and police sirens or something like that but I have not found an example of such a thing in my time listening to music. Perhaps there is something I am missing to this, or maybe I am just really shallow. I honestly don't know but I am hoping you guys could change my mind as I would love to be able to partake in these stories whether they exist or not. So,","conclusion":"A song cannot have a story if it does not contain vocals although it can have a tone."}
{"id":"ed625672-c4fe-42bc-938c-d4362ec45e59","argument":"Issues like the lack of minorities in leadership positions or in certain fields like STEM are due to a lack of applications or requisite skills, not because of any policy or discrimination.","conclusion":"There is no policy or law which favors whites over any other race, whereas there are laws and policies that actively disadvantage white people."}
{"id":"47616de7-0af4-44f1-8fe0-110242f8c52d","argument":"English is not my native language, although I would try my best to explain my view. Please ask additional questions if you do not understand anything. Anyways, I am a Bangladeshi male in my mid twenties and from what I have seen so far, both in my personal experiences and in my observations, I have reached the conclusion that true blind love does not exist in the real world. People do not marry those who are way out of their league. A woman considered a 10 10 in marriage value or sexual market value as r theredpill calls it , will not marry a man considered a 1 10 or vice versa. Whenever we decide to marry we consider our potential partner's marriage value . People who are unmarriageable like those with disabilities or disfigurements are usually given a score of 1 10 so to speak and thrown out of our list of potential candidates. The concept of the marriage market is aptly describe in this video To illustrate my point, consider pondering the following Have you ever seen a twenty five year old, rich, successful, extremely gorgeous, 6 feet tall, white blond woman from USA marry a 5 feet tall, extremely poor, unsuccessful, outcast, disabled does not have one leg and has a disfigured face for example , ugly looking black man from South East Asia? No Why? Because its extremely unlikely for such a union to occur at all Sure, there are a few such cases reported in the media. But they are reported in the first place because they are an extreme outlier If you recall the popular trope of love runs blind, than that type of love does not exist People fall in love and marry those who are in their league and almost never someone who is way out of their league which is exemplified in the example above. This phenomenon is probably universal, although it certainly is most prevalent in my country where prospective spouses are shortlisted from bio data based on indicators like social status, wealth, education, career, success, character, personality, height, weight, looks and so on. PS I am considering heterosexual marriage only in this discussion of mine, especially those that take place in youth and last a lifetime.","conclusion":"People tend to marry within their \"own league\" and almost never marries someone considered unmarriageable like those who are disabled or disfigured."}
{"id":"cc7d6675-e21e-439f-ba75-9f1114379f82","argument":"This isn't my view, but rather a friends. I just need more ammo to fire back it him. Here is how the conversation has gone so far. Him i find it strange that people think there's hope we'll overcome racial barriers when the earth is literally facing an extinction event and people still refuse to believe that's even happening. Call me pessimistic on this one, but I don't believe hope is an option if humanity chooses to call climate change fate more than it cares to admit its our fault and clean it up. I mean, scientists have proposed legit ideas to straighten our climate out and we dont even care to throw the couple billions of dollars it would cost their way to even try it. whereas this racial tension stuff? no one even has the slightest clue on how to fix it. Today Me 9 37pm Me That's their whole plann, everything integrated on your xbox, pc, and phone. It's sort of like that now with win8 and it already works really well Education is a big part of how to fix it 9 40pm Him Education only works for the minds of those who want to be educated. Unfortunately, I can tell just based on climate change alone how well people react to being educated and it's not good. Him 9 43pm Him Take me for instance, I am decently educated but I see absolutely no point in engaging in racial discussions when we're faced with extinction as is. Race won't matter when we're all dead, so dealing with it now doesn't matter. That's simply cold logic at work. What sense does it make to overcome our differences if we're all gonna wind up the same dead? Me 10 41pm Me Most of the change won't happen now, kids need to be educated so the next generation is smarter. Just because extinction is coming in a couple hundred years is a stupid reason to not try to fix racism. Even with out mass extinction we're all going to die either way, might as well live in peace while we're still here. The less racism, homophobia, discrimination of any kind is better for humanity as a whole because it helps us to work towards a common goal easier than if we are divided. That's not cold logic, that's just dumb and counterproductive Him 10 44pm Him I disagree. If we worked together for a common goal now, we would settle differences at the same time. Him 10 46pm Him So, it makes sense to put our focus on that which is the most threatening, in this case climate change. If we waste time debating social injustices and deciding who's right and who's wrong, it will only lead to spurious debates whose wanted outcomes would change for the better with each new generation just based on evolution itself. The further away from our primitives selves we get, the less violent we become and that is precisely why crime rates go down over time. That is not due to generations coming together and deciding peace is the best way, it is literally due to evolution which dictates that less violence means a stronger living species. Him 10 47pm Him So, in terms of climate change, we have literally run out of time. We either act now, or it's too late and what with everyone bitching about sexism and racism, it's too late. Him 10 49pm Him Our future is cemented, humanity will go extinct, and to me, that means overcoming obstacles is a gigantic waste of time. Most notably because, it will happen over time regardless of the discussions we have, and, by the time it is finally realized, we won't have much of a future left to enjoy it anyways. It's like asking people to come together and work towards this magnificent goal, for literally zero reward. Him 11 10pm Him Also, just an addition, how do you think humanity will respond to staring at its own extinction? Do you think they'll be like, well at least we set aside our differences, or do you think people will start killing each other over loaves of bread? Just saying, any amount of damage we could undo in that amount of time will be undone by facing extinction. So, if we could extend that by a hundred thousand years, then yeah it would be well worth it to overcome them as quickly as possible. But at a couple thousand years left, it simply isn't worth putting more energy into than necessary. That's not to say I believe inequality should stay around longer, I would much rather everyone were equal but the fact that humanity thinks itself so important that its needs come before the planet's is disturbing. I should like to think I'd have these thoughts if my skin were any color other than white but since it is I know this opinion will get shot to shit.","conclusion":"I see absolutely no point in engaging in racial discussions when we're faced with extinction as is."}
{"id":"11f248e2-8a18-416c-b375-42f3dbbfc7e6","argument":"I think it\u2019s a flaw of  and also logic in general. This train of though started by reading a lot of the online debates about the term \u201cconcentration camps.\u201d I think the debate is relatively absurd for a variety of reasons on both sides. First of all, no matter what you call them the realities within them are the same. Secondly, I think it\u2019s severely intellectually disingenuous to argue about terminology when you hold a strong underlying belief that you are trying to prove by using certain terminology. More than this we often lose sight of reality when arguing terminology. For a relatively absurd example, let\u2019s say you a liberal and me a conservative watch a video of ISIS beheading someone. I say \u201cwow that\u2019s really what radical Islam has done to the Middle East\u201d and you say \u201cwow that\u2019s a disgusting example of what religion does to people.\u201d We then go on to debate whether or not calling ISIS \u201cradical Islamists\u201d is really the appropriate term and whether or not I am a bigot or something else. Despite this, I clearly felt empathy for the people who were killed and these people were likely Muslim. Lost in this is someone just had there fucking head chopped off and I the conservative felt empathy toward them. This is a huge point in my opinion. Yet, if someone corrects my terminology I might feel far less empathy. Now that\u2019s how I feel looking at American politics. When you break it down, people often agree on many things. It\u2019s horrible that nearly a murder a day happens in Chicago or Baltimore. We want the kids to have better opportunities. Yet, we let terminology override our common sensibility and if a conservative calls something \u201cghetto\u201d we get in a froth. We use words that we know the other side will hate and the reject words that they use for various reasons. Now words are powerful and are the root of meaning and they do have historical context. Yet sometimes to change someone\u2019s mind I firmly believe that you need to accept some of how they define the terms in question and look for common ground. I\u2019m not rejecting debates of semantics, meaning or definition but merely saying that they can be counterproductive when people have heavily ingrained definitions. I will give out a delta for someone who gives examples where appreciable good has been done in changing a persons opinions by question the definition of a word that they were using. Thanks in advance for your responses. Edit I\u2019m speaking about American politics, and polarizing issues in general where the mere usage of word might trigger such a negative reaction by one side that will result in the conversation not being resolved. A better example is the term \u201cprivilege.\u201d In America, conservatives hate his word when it is used to describe advantages based on unchangeable factors such as parent money, race, etc. I have personally convinced conservatives to acknowledge advantages that are not a result of individual hard work and based on race, class, sexuality by never mentioning the word privilege. I\u2019m not arguing semantics aren\u2019t important, so maybe my title is disingenuous but merely we need to consider whether or not arguing over a specific word is the best way to find common ground and change opinions. Edit p2 Seems like some people construe my post as condoning hate speech. Again I\u2019m taking an intentionally vague stance on this. I\u2019m saying \u201cpeople need to think\u201d about arguments about semantics instead of \u201cpeople should never.\u201d When conversing with an individual you need to decide if it\u2019s best to use certain words that may offend them or whether or not it\u2019s possible to change the definitions they use. In some cases it may be possible to get them to see the point without changing the definition. This is a separate instance, imo, from the use of retard or faggot because the individual using that word has a clear negative intent. The term \u201cradical Islamist\u201d probably has some negative intent behind it in my example, yet I\u2019m stating that the conservatives empathy toward the individual killed may be the more relevant starting point for the discussing that the terminology. Edit p3 My view has changed fam. I think it\u2019s very important to be careful when discussing generalization like this because in some instances the speech itself can be indirectly or directly very harmful to a certain group. Arguing about words may be beneficial even if views are shared if the words used are extremely offensive and or negative. Thanks for the responses.","conclusion":"People need to stop and think before arguing about terminology\/semantics"}
{"id":"0b3c9ab8-e3e5-403e-80ae-2bf50bbc1881","argument":"I got a lot of flack for this on the soccer subreddit so I'm very curious what people think I think the one and only goal of any game sport should be to entertain people . Players and teams should try their very best within the rules to win, but winning is not the purpose of the sport. Instead it is the goal of the sport itself to entertain both the people playing it and the people watching it. Therefore if trying to win a game sport results in a boring outcome it is the fault of the rules of the game sport and they should be changed. I'm going to add the caveat that the sport should also be safe for all involved, since entertainment heedless of safety is obviously morally wrong looking at you NFL . What could change my view Convincing me that there is or should be some non entertainment purpose to sports What won't change my view Telling me that different people are entertained by different things. Yes, it would be hard to change rules if we wanted to. But I want to be convinced we shouldn't try to make sports as entertaining as possible. EDIT Need to take a break to do some work. Will be back later, but this has been really interesting so far. The arguments closest to convincing me are Sports bring used for educational political purposes. Perhaps this is more important than entertainment. Sports being used for fitness. I don't love this argument, because I think people only want to be fit so they can enjoy themselves more in the long run, so the sport is really still being used for entertainment. If entertainment is something entirely different than the thrill of competition. This is interesting and I am thinking about it. That some forms of entertainment are more valuable than others and we should seek not to entertain everyone as much as possible, but to highlight what a well trained body mind can acheive","conclusion":"The one and only goal of games\/sports is to entertain"}
{"id":"65d03008-89dd-4858-be7a-b576e553d38d","argument":"7 billion people in the world sure does seem like a lot of people, and there are few if any signs that anyone will slow down anytime soon. Everyone knows that people grow exponentially and land can at best grow arithmetically, so we have a problem. Except, maybe we don't. While it is true that land can grow arithmetically by a few means reclaiming deserts, jungles, otherwise non arable land this is irrelevant as the total amount of food produced is not beholden to the quantity of arable land as much as one might think it is. Certain systemic changes enclosure, selective breeding, crop rotation as well as scientific advances the tractor, advanced fertilizers, genetic modification have historically protected humanity against widespread, global famine. It is of note that there are a few exceptions here as of course famines have happened and do happen, but as progress marches on, these are becoming rarer and rarer still. The obvious counterpoint here is that I cannot predict what sort of new technologies will arise in the next century. If I did, I would make a considerable amount of money investing, which is exactly my point. There is a clear profit motive for anyone who wishes to develop new means by which we can produce food. There have even been a few people who were exceptionally kind of heart, like Norman Borlaug, who did not exploit their inventions to the fullest extent for profit, which I think shows that there are brilliant scientists who do not see any benefit in the starvation of others. But let's return to that number, 7 billion. It is difficult to conceive, let alone count. Where are we going to put all of these people? After all, overcrowding is a spectre that continues to haunt some countries. I would contend this is not that serious of a problem. China is first in terms of population, and a whopping 84th in terms of density. The third most populous country, the US, is 76th. There are vast tracts of land available, and an explicit profit motive to use it. So we have lots and lots of places to stick all of the yet unborn people we will see in the future. So, change my view.","conclusion":"Overpopulation is not and will never be a serious problem."}
{"id":"f5430bcd-7b91-48aa-bb81-aaaa3372c079","argument":"If all men are not equal to each other, and all women are not equal to each other, then in no possible way can all men and all women be equal to each other.","conclusion":"It cannot be based on the concept of equality, because that concept is too vague."}
{"id":"842dc677-c3c0-4997-843b-e720889ee04b","argument":"The safety of products being tested on animals has usually not yet been determined, so there is always a chance that it will harm animals.","conclusion":"The testing process itself and the products tested on the animals can be directly harmful to them."}
{"id":"39c27c8c-db32-4987-b010-a0c6a7cd4410","argument":"Providing children with equal access to education ensures the most capable are given the opportunity to experience the greatest growth, regardless of their parent's wealth, which ultimately benefits society because we want the most capable people's potential realised.","conclusion":"There is no phase in life where equality of opportunity is more important than in childhood."}
{"id":"f416da3c-2603-435b-8075-0c8a807133c6","argument":"The cosmological argument for the existence of God provides evidence to believe that there is an entity like God.","conclusion":"Christian philosophers have provided good reasons to believe that there is an entity like God."}
{"id":"0cbef283-83fc-4bdc-a41c-3246eaec339f","argument":"Artists competing on 'RuPaul's Drag Race' are held to professional standards for the purposes of entertainment and television. Underneath the makeup - and without the addition of professional camera set ups and lighting - all drag performers are human. It is unrealistic to expect perfection in local performers.","conclusion":"The popularity of 'Rupaul's Drag Race' has affected how people interact with and judge local drag artists in the community, who may not have the resources to compete on the same level."}
{"id":"8fc05f0d-79d6-41df-b921-6d256c8e72c2","argument":"This stigma may very well change in certain countries where veganism is on the rise. It might switch from \"vegetarians\/vegans\" are weird, to \"meat-eaters\" are weird.","conclusion":"Social stigmas change all the time and may very well disappear."}
{"id":"09215b9d-e2ca-4bce-85f1-2673782bc304","argument":"By recognizing a Palestine with pre-1967 borders as well as continuing its recognition of Israel, the US is legally recognizing two states existing within the former region of Palestine, and thus is de-facto accepting a two-state solution.","conclusion":"A one-state solution encompassing both Israel and Palestine would allow both ethnoreligious groups to inhabit the same space in peace."}
{"id":"9dbc83ab-ff50-4a76-8a4b-4c793b49d5e4","argument":"So I tend to hold a utilitarian viewpoint, and specifically one concerned with human wellbeing putting little intrinsic value, but substantial instrumental value on animal wellbeing . From this premise, I further believe that a society in which free markets are the dominant economic force, and governments do the minimum reasonably possible to interfere with them is the optimal structure for producing the most long term good for humans overall. As a first point, I believe that market economies have been remarkably successful in producing material wealth. I as a middle income westerner live in far greater luxury than did Louis XIV, and I believe markets are the primary structural reason why. Further, I believe that material wealth is a key source of human happiness and satisfaction in life maximization of which is the core objective of a human focused utilitarianism. As some evidence for this, I would point to this excellent paper by economists Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers It finds, from a truly enormous number of studies, a robust linear log relationship between income and reported happiness or life satisfaction. Third, I believe that pro market policies are likely to continue to promote economic growth. As evidence, I would point to the massive reduction of poverty in China since the adoption of a a private market system, which is probably the single greatest humanitarian miracle of the past 100 years. Now, I should define my terms a bit here. When I say non radical libertarianism I mean a model of the state roughly in line with modern liberal democratic states. In general, that would include the existence of some level of a welfare state, nor of progressive taxation schemes. It would however strongly favor policies in that vein which minimize market interference so things like cash transfers as opposed to in kind transfers or government provision of goods and services. It would also include a robust protection for the right to private property, and for civil and political rights. As an example of where this would diverge substantially from current policies of liberal democracies, the right of people to migrate between countries is a key civil right which produces I think extraordinary human wellbeing which is routinely denied to people. TL DR Libertarian pro market policies make more stuff than other policies. Stuff makes people happy. Happiness is the goal of utilitarianism. Ergo, libertarian pro market policies effectuate utilitarianism more than other policies.","conclusion":"Non-radical libertarianism is the political philosophy most compatible with utilitarianism."}
{"id":"c4fa8118-83b9-451b-84e0-744e459114ae","argument":"When the topics of sexuality and gender became popular among public discourse in the United States back in Summer of 2015, I encountered so many LGBT , sexuality, and gender topics that were not addressed in my sex education classes in middle and high school. Among these issues included the nature of gender and biological sex. From 2015 to 2017, I noticed that people had to be very careful in their vocabulary when it came to approaching sexuality and gender issues. In this thread, I want to talk about discussing biological sex in humans, particularly transgender people. Prior to 2013, I erroneously assumed that all men had penises and all women had vaginas with the exception of intersex people . After watching episodes of Degrassi The Next Generation where a transgender teen boy named Adam faced discrimination and prejudice due to his gender identity, I then became supportive of trans people. However, I still had issues discerning gender identity and biological sex. From 2015 to 2016, I would often say that transgender men are biologically female while transgender women are biologically male . To me, it made sense because biological sex isn't the same as gender. That said, many transgender people and allies to the LGBT community criticized me for using potentially marginalizing language. Their argument is that using such language gives transphobic people an excuse to discriminate and express prejudice towards transgender people. There is this controversial YouTube video made by Riley J. Dennis, and her video does go over what constitutes biological sex So after researching, I decided to use the terms AMAB for assigned male at birth and AFAB for assigned female at birth . To me, this should make it clear and apparent that I am not trying to misgender a transgender person. However, some people criticized me for falsely assuming that sex is assigned at birth. These people would often say that a child's biological sex can be determined before birth using an ultrasound. If that is the case, then biological sex isn't assigned at birth, but rather is determined at conception. Given that case, then using the terms AMAB and AFAB aren't accurate nor ideal even if they are considered more politically correct when compared to biologically male and biologically female . Yes, I don't want to deny the identities of certain people by using potentially marginalizing language, but at the same time I do not want to use inaccurate terminology. In my view and in this specific case, using terminology that is technically incorrect is problematic , even if it is politically correct . So that is my view. Without any further ado, please try to ChangeMyView . gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules . If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us . Happy ing","conclusion":"Using \"AMAB\" and \"AFAB\" to describe biological sex isn't accurate"}
{"id":"1704424b-d2e9-45f5-a5ff-575c1f4b3825","argument":"Windows 8 is hands down the worst operating system that has ever been installed on any computer I've ever owned. After viewing Windows 7 as pretty much the perfection of the Windows GUI and as the most stable operating system I've ever used on a home computer, it literally stuns me how they managed to do every single thing wrong in 8. I've been using it for a year and there are so many basic tasks I have to google over and over again because the way you do them now is always so counterintuitive. My current laptop doesn't have a touchscreen because I hate touchscreens and avoid them at all costs, but Windows now seems to be designed under the assumption that everyone is using one. Sadly, Serato and Ableton and a few games keep me from ditching Windows completely for Linux. Since user unfriendliness is my issue with Windows now, a Mac seemed like a good choice. My first computer was actually a Mac, so I'm still comfortable with that interface and from what I understand a lot of the basic principles of using the OS are still the same . But, back when Windows was perfectly suitable for what I wanted and needed, the thing that always kept me away from Apple products was price. Aside from the fact that a Macbook with specs comparable to my current Windows laptop would be about 3,000, to get the best experience out of using one I'd need a new phone, a new MP3 player, a new software license for Ableton or I could just buy Logic Pro and start using that but either way we're talking about roughly 200 , and I think possibly a new gamepad. Now these are things I'd eventually be replacing anyway, and if I decide this is for me I plan to slowly make this transition as the different devices need replacing anyway, but when we're talking about getting an iPhone instead of an Android phone and an iPod instead of a Zune, etc. it ends up meaning I'll be spending about a thousand or so dollars extra just to make everything play more nicely with OS X, so I'm definitely open to cheaper suggestions on hardware or ways to make newer versions of Windows not suck. EDIT too many comments to reply to i already awarded the delta","conclusion":"I am going to start switching to buying and using Apple products. so I can save money"}
{"id":"d1f5f359-52b8-4bf4-8713-fe58543db9e3","argument":"I am transgender. Specificially, I am a trans woman. I have many friends and colleagues who are drag performers, many of whom have made a little bit of bank off of it, and have managed to gain a following in our community. I continually look at the struggles of transgender people, those of which are more related to lack of adequate health care, continuous hate crime, legal ramifications, and subversion of identity by the greater LGB community, and the general population. Whenever a drag queen attempts to relate experiences with me, I have a hard time empathizing with petty issues such as a lack of tipping for certain performers, throwing shade, how wrapping your chest or genitalia in duct tape apparently hurts. I had to go through extensive therapy to verify I was not crazy, was disowned by my family, have to take hormones for the rest of my life, and am continually treated subhuman in my everyday life, simply because I am supposed to be a joke. It has gotten better, due to passing privilege, but it still does not hold many similarities to drag performances, considering that I do identify as the gender I am presenting as, 24 7, and am not doing so for financial gain or for other's amusement. Why do drag queens continually treat me as if I am nothing more than a full time drag performer?","conclusion":"I believe that drag culture has little to no intersectionality with alternative gender identities."}
{"id":"fe1b1818-d465-46eb-a1ab-5b6b417d4ea6","argument":"Okay, so first of all I have seen every episode of GOT and read every book so I don't know what spoilers are likely to arise, but if you are worried about that sort of thing turn back now. Anyway, I believe that The Wall, all 700 feet by 300 miles, and is coming down. Probably sometime in the Winds of Winter. Amidst all of the drama of the kingdoms The Others have consistently been gaining power, to the point that the wildings feel the need to flee. The evil beyond the wall is slowly building but the magic that was built in with the wall prevents it from really ever being a problem unless the wall falls. In addition the very fact that The Horn of Joramun exists and wasn't actually destroyed makes it even more likely that it will come down. The cover of The Winds of Winter even features a horn though admittedly this could be Euron's dragon horn . In addition to the arguments within the story, on a more meta level, GRRM is all about subverting expectations and throwing curve balls at us. What could be a bigger curve than The Wall which feels so permanent and everlasting crashing down and the horrors beyond being unleashed upon Westeros. So yeah, it seems pretty likely to me. Especially as a penultimate peril sort of thing.","conclusion":"The Wall will fall GOT\/ASOIAF SPOILERS"}
{"id":"3b1588b9-b12f-4f5f-a8b7-db78f75181e4","argument":"Huge baseball fan and, in my opinion, the use of instant replay to double check or overturn umpire calls slows down the already slow game. Baseball is slowly losing its fanbase, while basketball and football continue to capture the attention of its viewers due to its rapid nature. The typical game lasts ~3 hours and the pace of play rule changes that were put into place some time ago haven't done much to shave time off of the game. Yes, it's quite exhilarating when a call is overturned in favor of your team, but very often there are pauses in the game lasting gt 5 minutes just to see if a ball slightly grazed a player's pant leg. In addition, does it really matter if a bad call is made? In my opinion, that's part of the spontaneity of the game. Good umps, bad umps, slight favorism slightly frustrating if it's not working in the favor of your team in one game but good calls bad calls probably balance each other out over the season. Thus, I believe that instant replay should not be utilized in MLB games.","conclusion":"Instant replay slows down MLB games and shouldn't be used."}
{"id":"95644bb2-a378-4226-9352-43dc3f736fd6","argument":"Recently a post with Joe Rogan commenting on a Cosmo cover that glorified obesity is making its rounds. He claims in the video, paraphrased, men would never allow this from their media, but women think it's ok. My view is that men's health magazines routinely put body builders or athletes that use steroids doping on their covers as a positive image for men, and this could cause an equally destructive influence for impressionable young men to abuse those substances to reach that result or to have an unfairly low opinion of their own workout results because they cannot become what they see on those covers. So, my question is, is it fair to criticize women's magazines as being unique for propping up unreasonable expectations? Or am I correct that it's not gender biased and will be the inevitable result of any media that is trying to promote health or beauty in a media cycle dominated by sensationalism and cover appeal? gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Men's magazines encourage equally bad body standards as women's magazines"}
{"id":"1e870f4d-cc6d-4a63-8273-bc00735038f5","argument":"Studies e.g. This on researchgate.net have shown that the poor give a greater percentage of their budget to charity than the rich. This means that charity is not necessarily a good thing because it's possibly receiving more from the needy than it can justify from its spending on the needy maybe different needy, particularly when a certain proportion of contributions goes to a religion's expenses, savings, and investments in buildings, paintings, sculptures etc.","conclusion":"There is little motivation for religions to act against poverty as lasting change would lower the contributions they receive."}
{"id":"222b5dd9-a825-4d1d-948b-26f923f4bb45","argument":"We've all heard certain people insist that the mainstream media had a left leaning bias. I used to think this was complete garbage, and that it was only something uneducated Republicans said when things didn't go their way. I knew that some news outlets had biases MSNBC goes left, FOX goes right, etc. but I thought a lot of sources at least made an attempt at being fair. This past week, however, has cast all that into doubt. While I don't agree with a lot of what Trump has done, I believe it's been purposefully misinterpreted misrepresented by the media in order to whip up a storm. Whether this is the result of a long held bias that I've been oblivious to this whole time, or whether this is a direct result of Trump attacking the media for their dishonesty, I don't know. However, I think it's incredibly damaging to both the news outlets' and Democrats' credibility that these sources are being shared and taken as fact by a large majority of the population. A lot of the times, they interpret an Executive Order Bill Speech that can be easily accessed online in it's original form, but since people are too lazy oblivious to the fact that they can find these themselves, they choose to take the word of a fair news source as fact. While there are multiple examples this week, I'd like to focus on the big story from the last two days The immigration refugee ban. The actual text from the order can be found here. If you click on the link, hit Ctrl F and search for Muslim, you'll see that there are no results at all. Yet, this ban is being called a Muslim Ban by a lot of reputable news sources New York Times Editorial Board The Guardian Huffington Post And more. All you have to do is Google Trump Muslim Ban and hundreds of sources pop up, insinuating that Trump specifically banned Muslims. That is not the case. If you scroll down a bit, you'll see the part that highlights which countries are affected, specifically gt I hereby proclaim that the immigrant and nonimmigrant entry into the United States of aliens from countries referred to in section 217 a 12 of the INA, 8 U.S.C. 1187 a 12 If you look up 217 a 12 of the INA, 8 U.S.C. 1187 a 12 , you'll find the text which outlines the law or you can just click here If that's too legalese for you, you can read the DHS' statement on it form 2016. I understand the DHS's statement is focused on an update to the law, but I included it here because it ties into this point The DHS, under the Obama Administration, compiled the list of the seven countries involved in the ban. Why is it, then, that reputable news outlets such as NPR New York Times Washington Post and many, many more. Granted, there are a few sources that occasionally tip toe on both sides, such as CNN running this wonderful article explaining the ban more in depth, however this article didn't come close to CNN's front page or near the top of Google search results. There are many more examples, and if you'd like some more I'd be down to pull them up and share in the comments. I've only started noticing this phenomenon in regards to Trump, but I don't know if that's because it is more rampant now or if I've only started to notice now. I don't believe that the media has an honest agenda, and I'm starting to actually agree with those Republicans I used to think were just crazy. In my opinion, the majority of the media is blatantly biased, and trying to push a hard Anti Trump narrative for some reason or another. Please . EDIT This is turning into a  Trump's ban is fine, instead of the original question. I do not agree with Donald Trump's ban, but I think the media isn't being honest about him in general. So far, only u tesla123456 has answered my question with a very good response .","conclusion":"The mainstream media has a liberal bias"}
{"id":"ec431892-b903-4a46-a515-d339556880ef","argument":"A global government already exist. The top powers rule the world same as they would if they were on top of the hierarchy in a global government.What we actually need is a global Law. That can be done even now, with many different countries if they all accept this global Law.","conclusion":"There is so much variety in the world: each region has its own needs, resources, level of development, and cultures. It would be impossible to make laws that satisfy equally everyone without any bias in favor of a specific region."}
{"id":"4fa58c0d-859d-4603-8855-22a4644d652a","argument":"There is an increasing number of museums dedicated to Black American history, such as the National Museum of African American History and Culture","conclusion":"There are other avenues for non-white people to learn about their history."}
{"id":"f8330484-d332-4926-9872-ae1c7a072d63","argument":"If an adult of neutral religious affiliation were in a coma and a relative wished them to undergo circumcision because said relative believes that it would exorcise demons, this would not be sufficient ground to take action. That action would do harm to the patient and violate their bodily autonomy.","conclusion":"Someone's concerns should not be considered when they are opting for elective surgery on behalf of another. The welfare of the patient should be the primary concern. As the patient is not of sufficient age to elect to a surgery, they cannot be allowed to perform it."}
{"id":"48875774-2abf-4ec0-88ad-e13f10840d11","argument":"This introduction of profit in the mix of a product intended to be beneficial would create debates over usage.","conclusion":"The use of DIY gene editing may exacerbate inequality in society."}
{"id":"ebf96d42-58b1-4a06-967c-7707052713ac","argument":"Having different sexual organs at a young age when one is naturally curious may lead children to feel singled out and question their parents as to why they look different than \"normal\" children.","conclusion":"Getting used to an anomalous anatomy may cause pain and suffering for a child which can easily be circumvented."}
{"id":"d24454bd-dda4-41ec-810f-0ab21d9806c1","argument":"HRT hormonal replacement therapy and cosmetic surgeries such as FFS facial feminization surgery and mastectomy removal of breasts allows a transgender individual to be perceived as their desired gender by the outside world.","conclusion":"Undergoing sex reassignment surgery constitutes the most effective and ethical method for transgender individuals to achieve self-acceptance and lasting happiness."}
{"id":"10826a24-387f-4e56-b27f-4538ee596362","argument":"Many people born intersex who have had the corrective surgery when babies, as they grew up, they did not identify as the reassigned gender. The pain they go through to \u201crecorrect\u201d is sometimes way too much for them and they take their own lives","conclusion":"Intersex children should be able to decide the gender they are raised as."}
{"id":"5f8a92b3-6d7b-4892-bef8-a7acf38b95dd","argument":"If you collect a treaty check you have absolutely no need to also collect a welfare check on top of that, unless you're completely unwilling to get a job and support yourself. I don't think that anyone excluding pensioners and those on social assistance such as a legitimate for of disability should get a free ride when it comes to pre hospital care, an ambulance ride costs a hell of a lot of money not to mention potentially taking care away from people that can legitimately use it Whom would be paying for it and not leeching off the system Take your best shot","conclusion":"If you collect a treaty check as a Native American you should not be entitled to also collect a welfare check also simply because you have a status card you should not be entitled to free ambulance rides."}
{"id":"b1e94eb5-44fc-4dea-97ab-08b5348886bc","argument":"For example, women who sleep with criminals are morally culpable for their actions and should feel deep shame and regret for their actions. In our society men are validated by their ability to attract women, because it's not something everyone is capable of doing, and it's a sign that somebody likes you. Women can deny this and say it was entirely a factor of attraction, but this does not change the fact that sex is seen as a reward, or something of value bestowed upon you for good behaviour. You can see it in our language I got lucky last night . You can see it in our media the idea of sex as a reward pops up in many a sitcom. So when a man is rewarded , he feels he must be doing something right. He's the kind of man who deserves to be liked, so he should keep on doing what he's doing. Conversely the men who aren't so lucky will look to those other men as examples. So what happens if the men turn out to be undesirables who are causing social problems I believe that this is the case currently, at least among younger men, but this thread is only about the possibility . The problems are given more life. Nobody exists in a vacuum people are products of their experiences and the positive and negative stimuli. It's time for the people who provide those stimuli to take some responsibility. Of course it's up to each individual to make their own decisions, but just as it's a crime to fund a criminal activity, and the parents of school shooters are scorned, the women who make men feel like they're doing the right thing need some of the blame.","conclusion":"I believe women should be held accountable for approving the men they sleep with."}
{"id":"ad20fac9-a21e-4dac-b505-73362c22f210","argument":"This really messed up my world view and honestly i am looking for ways to change this view. Let me explain. A person who for example gives to charity, helps the homeless or volunteers frequently is surely inconveniencing their lives to do good. But i believe if they really didn't want to do those things in a very core level, they wouldn't. They do it because it makes them feel good about themselves that they are a caring and helpful person. Doctors without borders doctors like being a selfless doctor who ditches all to help dying people in africa. So what we perceive as selfless is not actually selfless. It's just that the person is following a different directive and is acting in his her interest. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"There is no such thing as selfless acts, we only do such \"selfless\" acts because we want to become the person who does selfless acts."}
{"id":"38286e36-ac03-4aaf-8ba1-926e984d40f7","argument":"The old adage 'it's all been done' couldn't be more true today. I think that it really has. Maybe individuals could get away with one or two novelties, but they won't have as deep of an impact from today as people had in the past. I say this from both a technical standpoint, and from a symbolic or artistic aspect. This is especially true with cinema and music, as I am most familiar with these mediums, but I suspect it might be the same with art and literature. We can no longer shock, horrify, scare, or blow the minds off of audiences any more. It's all been done, redone, distilled, parodied, commercialized and copied. We're in the post post post era. edit Thanks for all the responses so far. I have an early flight in the morning so can't respond immediately, but will do so at the airport","conclusion":"The Beatle's were the first to do so many breakthroughs in music as seen in another recent but it is no longer possible for any musician to have as many breakthroughs in their life. In fact, I don't think it is possible to do as many 'new' things in any medium anymore."}
{"id":"7bcc6dba-cbf6-4bf4-9fd9-b9d3b56e5560","argument":"This Indiana Religious Freedom law has got me thinking. So let's run through a little hypothetical scenario. Let's say there is a couple whose wedding ceremony culminates in the bride and groom both LITERALLY shitting on the Qu'ran. Not figuratively, but literally dropping a big, fat deuce on the book of Muhammed \u2013 completely trashing it. Now, this very avant garde couple, wanting a nice cake for their special day, proceed to seek out a local catering company that just so happens to be owned and operated by a devoted Muslim man and wife. Upon hearing of the details of the ceremony, the Muslim man and wife decline, saying this would be disrespectful to their beliefs. They do not wish to be part of the ceremony. This, of course, SHOCKS and OFFENDS the couple, whose alternative lifestyle includes regularly shitting on the Qu'ran. How is this substantially much different than a Christian man wife not wanting to be part of a gay wedding?","conclusion":"Religious people should be able to refuse service on the basis of religious beliefs."}
{"id":"e7f81243-709f-4bd3-8c4b-7e7d27232de2","argument":"Tailoring our beliefs until we agree with everything ignores the possibility of a higher Being that has a unique way of thinking. We cannot choose for ourselves what a God has declared moral or immoral.","conclusion":"Without an agreed upon system of morality, humans won\u2019t be able to solve moral disputes, which is problematic when trying to create a functional society."}
{"id":"0c330a45-edde-4ab4-bc34-0f5b93a46e80","argument":"So that's a pretty bold title, and I expect to get harassed, doxxed, etc which is why I made a throwaway. I'm just asking that you remain civil. As much as I try I just can't understand the other side of this argument. Basically, I believe that rape is not a big problem on college campuses, the real problem is that no one agrees as to what consent is anymore. What sparked this was the recent news story In this story, the woman has sex with the man, then sees him kissing another woman and decides that she was raped. It is mentioned that the woman attended a lecture where the speaker a college administrator said that regretting a sexual encounter means that you were raped. I think that this is a horrible definition of rape and it hurts both men and women. Then there is the mattress girl story and the Duke lacrosse story and the Rolling Stone story, all of which were big name rape cases, all of which turned out to be false accusations. Why does this keep happening? I believe that a large part of it is that people are operating under sexist definitions of consent and rape. If a man and woman both get drunk and have sex, the woman can claim rape and it's all the guys fault. If a man and woman have sex and the woman later regrets it, the woman can claim rape and it's all the guys fault. If a man and woman have sex and the woman later is angry and wants to get revenge, the woman can claim rape and it's all the guys fault. None of these situations are rape, but nonetheless, men have been punished for these exact situations. In short, I believe that women are now taught to believe that if they have any regret about a sexual encounter, then it is rape. Other women have come to see that false rape claims are a powerful weapon. These cases inflate the college rape statistics. It is impossible for a man to have a one night stand anymore without fear of being dragged through the mud and having his life ruined. EDIT I don't appreciate the mass downvotes on all of my comments. It goes against the nature of this subreddit. If I am saying something that you disagree with, challenge me on it. I want to be able to see the other side of this debate, but so far there haven't been any compelling answers. If you feel that I am not being fair in my responses, say something. Stop being cowards and downvoting something you don't agree with just because you aren't able to refute it.","conclusion":"Rape on college campuses is not as big of a problem as it's made out to be."}
{"id":"a3edc0d2-2afc-459e-af72-d56138899332","argument":"Excuse my poor grammar. What i mean by that is, if you live in rural area and you don't have a lot of money, and the therapist there are just 'bad'. You first have to make a lot of money to get the better therapist that is far away and expensive . But if you have social anxiety, it will be hard for you. It's like saying how to cure social anxiety, is cure it, just magically make it dissapear. It's endless loop that we can't escape. Or you can buy selfhelp books then realized those book don't work. And then thinking should i buy more or just give up? And then you are tired of this shit. And start to thinking that suicide doesn't sound that bad. This definitely not me btw. Thanks for reading. Edit spelling","conclusion":"Not everyone's depression is curable. To cure it you have to have money or not to severe social anxiety or an openmind friend. And this also apply to social anxity, suicidal behavior, self harm."}
{"id":"89a38c21-236f-4dd2-afaf-329efe387284","argument":"I\u2019ll preface this by saying that I am a huge craft beer fan myself. The craft beer market is a multi billion dollar industry that continues to grow year by year. However, it seems that this sort of growth is unsustainable. Especially when you consider how expensive these craft beers can get. I've seen as high as 15 for an 8 oz glass. I don't think that the industry is going to crash, but at some point one would imagine the market for some of the crazier, more expensive beers will dry up. I also think that there are way too many IPAs on the market. Especially because when they get to a certain point of bitterness, they all tend to taste the same. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The craft beer market is due for a decline."}
{"id":"44370bcf-a44f-4da7-8250-47b04c6c8f20","argument":"The Book of Tobit - which makes exceedingly fantastical claims - has been variously excluded and included in different versions of the Bible.","conclusion":"It is unlikely that the Bible has retained its original form."}
{"id":"b9de4849-7992-468f-9510-c954fa06a383","argument":"I've been thinking about the Brexit, and how many British feel like their culture and heritage is eroding due to outside influences. I understand that this desire to preserve what it means to be British was a major motivation for Leave voters. I think this motivation makes sense. England has been a sovereign nation since basically the Fall of Rome, and they have the right to determine who and what will be a positive influence in their society. If the English collectively decide that Islam is not compatible with their values, who am I to disagree? It's not like any given person has an inviolable right to live in England or be accepted there. The same is true of most other nations. If Saudi Arabia thinks every Saudi Arabian should be a Muslim, that's their prerogative. If Japan doesn't feel the need to allow outsiders into their country, that is their privilege. I may disagree with their standards, but it's not my country. Every nation has the right to determine who they are and choose their own company. The United States is an exception, in that our cultural heritage is an inherent lack of a single cultural heritage. America has always been a nation of immigrants, a place where people of all different races, ethnicities, nationalities, religions, and philosophies have come together. Our very existence is a symbol of multiculturalism, it is an inextricable part who we are. Nationalist sentiments have no place in our country because they extoll a vision of America that does not exist and never has. These movements tend to be extremely racist, and they appeal to a literally whitewashed view of the past when Asians and Middle Eastern people weren't around and black people knew their place. Any tension or prejudice against Italians, Jews, Irish, Germans, or Russian people is conveniently forgotten because we consider all of them to be white now. These people aren't trying to preserve anything, but rather invent it whole cloth and exclude people who have been vital parts of our society since it's very founding. It is a unique irony that declaring something to be un American is almost always intrinsically un American. To change my view, I would like to be convinced of either the merits of American nationalism, like what we are seeing in the 2016 election, or that other countries should have to open themselves up to new people, ideas, and influences.","conclusion":"I think preserving \"culture\" or \"national identity\" is a valid goal and concern, but not for the United States."}
{"id":"8a83f8d3-8910-434f-89f9-41d65869fb1e","argument":"As a student about to end a high school career and pursue in a field of the arts, I have looked into and researched many colleges that offer degrees and education in the arts Full Sail, UCLA etc. and I can just not see the long term benefit. Any college degree will plunge you into debt, and with jobs in any form of art being so scarce, it's unlikely that this is debt that could be paid off soon. I believe art classes in a college setting would only hone skills that the student already possesses, and although this is useful, it is not strictly new learning, but rather the refinement of prepossessed talent. I now think that becoming an intern at an art facility may be the best option. This would provide real world experience and honing of skills, as well as contact with and exposure to real leaders and potential employers, all developing and occurring 2 4 years before any college student could, plus without a mountain of debt to worry about. I would love to go to college with similar minded artists, and not feel like all the college prep was a waste, however I simply cannot see the advantage a degree holding artist would have over a non holding one in this slippery career path, if their talent is equal.  Thank you to spencerbateman and GJUBI as well as every other responder for collectively changing my view","conclusion":"I think that getting a college degree for a form of art is a waste of money and time."}
{"id":"914774e5-e0cb-43fe-8c15-82509db63fb8","argument":"I'll start by giving a few examples of what I mean. Please note that I'm not saying we shouldn't talk about these events we should or that I think they weren't horrible or wrong, simply that people who are alive today had no control over them and therefore should not be getting blamed and shamed for them. White Americans should not be shamed or have to apologize for slavery. Germans should not have to apologize for WWII or the Holocaust. Americans should not be getting shamed for treatment of Japanese during WWII. Belgium should not have to apologize for their treatment of the Congo Christians should not be shamed for the Crusades or the Inquisition or any other event that occurred 100s of years ago in a church very dissimilar to that of today. Americans should not have to apologize for dropping atomic bombs on Japan. Men should not be shamed for the oppression of women by past generations This view is relatively simple. Because people today had no influence or control over their ancestors actions, they should not be shamed or have to apologize for them. If you are a American, or German, or whoever, you should be able to be proud of that without being accused of being racist, or a Nazi, or violent, or lt insert negative characteristic here gt . Groundlessly accusing someone of contributing towards oppression that happened generations ago is not right. No white American living today has anything to do with slavery. Does that change the fact that it happened? No. Does it change the fact that it continues to affect millions of people today? No. But living white Americans didn't commit the act, so why blame or punish them for it. Similarly, if your great grandfather was a serial killer, you are not necessarily a serial killer. If your great great great great grandmother kept slaves, that implies nothing about your view towards African Americans. I do not understand how people can keep the view that people are implicated by the crimes of past generations.","conclusion":"People and countries should not apologize and be shamed for acts committed generations ago."}
{"id":"af79dc0d-a174-4b8d-9bf1-57e1ff3d4ac9","argument":"Gary T. Dempsey. \"Reasonable Doubt: The Case Against the Proposed International Criminal Court\". CATO Institute. 16 July 1998 - \"there is no evidence that holding war crimes trials reduces the number of threats to international peace and security. If anything, the opposite is true: making war less atrocious makes it more likely. The creation of war crimes courts, he concludes, seems really 'to have been aimed at making lawyers the 'guardians' of a violent society, in which war is all right as long as it is played by rules to which the concerned lawyers can agree.\"","conclusion":"ICC rules of war make war more tolerable and likely"}
{"id":"bdc2fdbf-e38f-4017-9597-790d761c3583","argument":"When people are born into the world, the prototype they have for relationships is their family. The way your parents and siblings interact with you can affect your outlook on relationships in general. Somebody might be more likely to get along better with older people if their relationships with their parents is great. If you have a close relationship with your siblings, it's easier to have a relationship with those of the same age or whom you hold in the same regard. That is, if you see someone as an older sibling and you have a good history with your older sibling, then you're more likely to allow yourself to get along with that person. When there's a person without that initial prototype or a dysfunctional one then it creates a disconnect. The parents that were responsible for framing relationships create one that reverberates throughout their social life. Assuming they don't have the resources to see otherwise, the child normalizes what would be seen as dysfunctional to many others. Without external factors, the child matures with a warped sense of relationships. They might normalize relationships as combative, competitive, toxic or abusive as a sign for success. Kids who have a brother or sister who make them feel inferior always try to fight for their parents love. This competition mindset can help with certain relationships professional job that might require a competitive edge . Romantic relationships which require a lot of intimacy would otherwise be difficult to maintain with others. Children's without siblings also seem to exhibit behaviors that might be considered self centered and introspective. After all, they never had to work with or against their siblings to make sure they had the strongest bond with their parents. It's not that all only childs are inherently incapable of maintaining relationships just the ones in where having a sibling could have taught them about having a relationship with someone who would be more like a sibling. Their bonds would most likely remain superficial and never dive deeper into a creed that lasts.","conclusion":"Without a good relationship with your family, it's extremely hard to maintain a romantic relationship"}
{"id":"fae7ff94-bf76-4809-a9ba-c253d5cae858","argument":"Before I elaborate, I should say I'm pretty sure I'm wrong but not sure exactly why. I will exaggerate my views to make it easier to find flaws in my thinking. Point 1 most of the people who are voting don't have a clue what they're voting for. They have no knowledge of economics politics sociology and are voting based on who has the best PR team and suggestions from family etc. The votes of people with the knowledge is given no more importance and so their opinions are diluted down until they're almost irrelevant compared to the big picture. Politicians lie about policies anyway and hardly ever implement what their manifestos claim, so what's even the point of voting, when you don't know what you're really voting. There's no evidence that crowd wisdom works in a social science setting. So we can't assume that the crowd will choose the best person, just because of some stats magic. Point 2 in a democracy, we have to remove too much power from the elected leader in case we elect someone like trump . This means the leadership doesn't have the power to do much and most of the time is spent in useless beurocracy. Point 3 we shouldn't have such a superiority complex about democracy when it's not that great a system. The majority of Americans didn't vote for trump and he's still in power. Most Americans don't want him as president yet it is very difficult to get rid of him. Point 4 we have no real choice of who comes in power. In the end, the people who stand for elections are the ones whom the rich have sponsored. Bonus my suggestions why don't we have a panel of experts politicians, businessmen, teachers, doctors, sociologists, philosophers etc who decide who comes to power. The person in power then is given almost unlimited power, except on things like military. If the leader goes really crazy, the panel of experts reserve the power to overthrow him. EDIT clarification on proposed expert panel system. It could be something like the doctors teachers in a different area nominate doctors teachers etc, university professors nominate philoshpers sociologists etc. They are renominated every 5 years or so. This way, the nominated experts are ones which are respected in their circles. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Democracy is useless and counterproductive"}
{"id":"dcb57b56-d09d-4f2e-bd69-751138825f63","argument":"by countries who have retained their own currency, which may well devalue over time relative to the dollar, making their exports relatively cheaper","conclusion":"Dollarized countries will be vulnerable to being outcompeted in export markerts"}
{"id":"1862044b-5112-4e80-a36d-84a7d1d235d4","argument":"This composition of parts requires a concurrent cause. It requires some outside thing or things to cause the parts to be combined.","conclusion":"A composite thing exists at any moment only insofar as its parts are combined at that moment."}
{"id":"cd639f75-9370-4232-827a-97bb355c4713","argument":"Okay, yes, you can learn and grow , and even take training from some great artists, but this doesn't justify the time and money it takes to get a degree in the field. It's time that could actually be spent refining your craft and producing your own work. Practice makes perfect. To be clear, I do not think that the Arts themselves are worthless by any means. I greatly admire anyone capable of producing a work of art, visual or otherwise, that moves people. Also, it is essential that the arts be taught in primary school, to give students the opportunity to explore expressive mediums. However, If you are a great writer painter actor etc you will get hired. No one is going to say you are phenomenal, but we need someone with a degree. And getting that degree doesn't increase your job prospects, and in all likelihood doesn't actually help you with your craft. All an Arts degree is good for is making more Arts professors.","conclusion":"Liberal Arts degrees are fairly worthless, because your success in those fields entirely depends on what you as a person, and not what you learn in the classroom. You cannot be taught to be successful in the Arts."}
{"id":"40516c96-f167-4d99-ab46-49b91d4420fc","argument":"Before I get to my argument, I want to preface that I have watched Phantom Blood and I thought it was pretty decent despite it\u2019s poor pacing. As most Jojo fans are aware, skipping parts especially part 1 is considered a \u2018cardinal sin\u2019 and you find people saying stuff like that on youtube, reddit, discord etc. However, a lot of people would agree that it\u2019s kinda hard to trudge through it if you\u2019re a newcomer to the series, with some people dropping the series entirely just because of how Phantom Blood warped their expectations of Jojo as a whole. If we want this community to grow, we shouldn\u2019t shun people for skipping part 1. However, I think they should at least watch a youtube video or something which describes the part in a nutshell. In addition, in depth knowledge of part 1 isn\u2019t required to understand the other parts. PS I\u2019m not encouraging part skipping, i just don\u2019t think it should be shunned Overall, I think this stems from elitism but some are just memeing that you aren\u2019t a true fan if you skip part one.If someone really doesn\u2019t like part 1, they shouldn\u2019t be villainised for skipping it BTW If you\u2019re going to use anecdotes, keep them related to the subject as i know this subreddit has a problem with unrelated anecdotes If you have any other views, please share","conclusion":"There shouldn\u2019t be such a stigma towards skipping Phantom Blood Jojo\u2019s Bizarre Adventure"}
{"id":"0ecb57c2-3166-4a1c-9d35-ac14e2228707","argument":"I did an enlistment in the military, and one of the most valuable things i got out of it, which i still use to this day is the NATO phonetic alphabet. I work a job in which i answer a lot of phone calls, and part of this is having people read their names when i'm inputting it into the computer, this isn't a problem if the name is like John Smith , but when you're trying to spell out some 20 character family name from heaven knows where it can be extremely frustrating Having a standardized alphabet, not necessarily NATO, though that's the one i'm going to endorse for the sake of this post though others exist would make life alot simpler for both parties involved. So for instance, if your name was Mark Zuckerberg we wouldn't be fumbling around trying to relay that the first letter of your family name is in fact a Z, rather than the C it sounds like when transmitted electronically, instead, saying Zulu would clear up any ensuing headaches and resentment for both parties. My co worker disagreed for some nonsensical reason, something along the lines of very few jobs require telecommunicattion, which given this hyper connected world doesn't really make sense. But, i'm open to counter arguments.","conclusion":"Schools should teach a standardized phonetic alphabet"}
{"id":"d5a07724-d678-4b85-bc76-0b58a616010e","argument":"Even if the money was earned illegally it could be spent in a completely legal way e.g. buying expensive luxury goods in regular shops.","conclusion":"Illegally earned money eventually will be spent somewhere. Offering anonymity will increase the chance that the money is spent in Germany."}
{"id":"580e5a2d-2559-4df5-9a5a-cfa1c8239a3a","argument":"David Gelernter. \"What do Murderers Deserve?\". Commentary Magazine. March\/April 1999 - \"Opponents of capital punishment describe it as a surrender to emotions--to grief, rage, fear, blood lust. For most supporters of the death penalty, this is false. Even when we resolve in principle to go ahead, we have to steel ourselves. Many of us would find it hard to kill a dog, much less a man. Endorsing capital punishment means not that we yield to our emotions but that we overcome them. If we favor executing murderers, it is not because we want to but because, however much we do not want to, we consider ourselves obliged to.\"","conclusion":"The death penalty is about punishment\/due desert, not vengeance"}
{"id":"b29e75a9-f435-47d5-b402-9dcfcc25b1da","argument":"The median cost per quality adjusted life year QALY gained for Australians by interventions for specific diseases such as diabetes is $3,700 AUD","conclusion":"This money could be used more efficiently to save human lives."}
{"id":"a6af837a-bf05-48fb-a8c8-94afb46757f3","argument":"By taking on disproportionate amount of obligation, developed nations intrinsically claim that developing ones are not capable of finding solutions. This is demeaning to developing countries by as it assumes that the developing world lacks the creativity and the innovation to lead the way on solving climate change. This approach is unlikely to incentivise developing nations to do their own research into cutting emissions. This will lead to less emission cuts over all as developing nations see that they are not considered capable of contributing. This is of course wrong, it is a view taken because the assumption is that the solutions are technological so the developed world with its large science and research infrastructure will have to be the ones to make the breakthroughs. This is however not always the case. Small solutions can potentially have a big effect in developing nations. For example changing cooking stoves in the developing world for only $25 per stove will not only improve health but will also cut emissions.1 Other low cost solutions to climate change are just as likely to come from the developing world as from the developed world. 1 Aroon, P.J., \u2018Secretary Clinton is promoting cookstoves to save the world. Seriously\u2019, ForeignPolicy.com, 22 September 2010,","conclusion":"Developing nations are just as capable as developed nations of taking on the burden of combating climate change"}
{"id":"b4e3f749-030a-4fcf-abbb-9d3e200c79b5","argument":"So I've seen a lot of debate recently, most likely spawned from all the shootings, that say our culture is in some sort of moral decline. People are blaming the media, the divorce rate, and pretty much everything else under the sun on this change. To those people, our culture went from a moral, god fearing, sensible one to a highly individualistic, greedy, immoral one. I don't believe there's really any change at all, least of all a decline. Yes, our culture is changing with the rise of the media and our cushy first world lives, but our culture has always been in a constant state of change. Do we have the same culture as that which existed in Medieval Europe, or the Roman Empire? We've changed drastically over the centuries, and we're not stopping. I for one actually enjoy our individualistic culture because it allows for people to be themselves without the fear of being shunned or stoned to death. I also think people who are nostalgic for the good ol' days are fooling themselves into believing in a nonexistent time. I don't think we're any more or less moral as a society than we were a century ago. The media just shows a lot more of what we do as people. It's more out in the open and less private. So I guess you could say I believe our culture is embracing individualism and freethinking, but I don't think it's in any way more or less moral, and I don't think we have anything to worry about. We're not going to degenerate into some sort of hedonistic society.","conclusion":"I don't believe our culture is in any sort of moral decline."}
{"id":"a9d6e4ec-6d6e-49b0-8b47-1fbb281d4c9a","argument":"Playing Treebeard with Merry and Pippin when fighting against the forces of Isengard is rewarded by specialized player and event cards that effect ents and hobbits.","conclusion":"There are special moments when playing the game when you feel rewarded for playing characters that are relevant for the encounter deck."}
{"id":"e9ea0418-384e-44ac-b668-f395a36ce3e8","argument":"This is not a problem in subs that are specific to one thing only, however once you get to more general subs there is no point in using the spoiler tag. If i see a spoiler tag in a sub that has posts refering to several different media, even if i have not seen all of them, i will probably click it because if it has a lot of upvotes i would hope its a spoiler for something i already watched read. The problem is that you cant tell the difference of course i would not want to see spoilers for something i havnt watched yet, and you can't assume that everyone watched everything hence the need for the spoiler tag in the first place . However, if you dont specify for what the spoiler is, it becomes pointless as people will either click it anyway, hoping it dosn't spoil them, or will avoid it potentially missing out on a post that to them is not actually a spoiler. As such i think that in more general subs the specific thing it spoils which book movie show it is should be added to the spoiler tag at all times, and otherwise there is no point in using it at all. .","conclusion":"In most cases, The spoiler tag is pointless unless it also includes the name of the thing being spoiled."}
{"id":"e23bb2e5-36f2-495b-970c-5bc2fb83f508","argument":"Only 3 - 5% of all violence in the US is attributed to serious mental illness.","conclusion":"There is a stereotype that people with mental illnesses are violent or criminals"}
{"id":"bc03309d-70ad-4044-8bb8-c1badf090c99","argument":"Our moral viewpoint has, over time, become more universal and cosmopolitan. We have rejected prejudices rooted in race, gender, culture, or religion. Prejudices rooted in species are the obvious next step.","conclusion":"We should not arbitrarily restrict our circle of concern to certain groups."}
{"id":"dbe7dd65-9145-412d-b6b0-f0124633cd93","argument":"I was on the market for a new TV a few months ago and it bothered me that pretty much all the decently sized models out there are smart TVs with network connectivity and built in apps to access services like YouTube, Netflix, and Hulu. The problem is two fold. First, they're a clunky and barely useable solution to the problem of getting streaming online content to your television. All the smart TVs I've used have menu based interfaces primarily driven by the arrow and OK buttons on a sprawling remote control. It's a pain in the ass to do basic things like type in a WiFi password or search for movies without either an actual physical keyboard or a touch driven on screen one. The software is often very unresponsive, taking a moment to update in response to user input. Second, it makes no sense to integrate network connectivity and software into a durable good like a TV. The software is already crap to begin with, and the manufacturer has little incentive to continue maintaining it with performance patches and security fixes after a new model comes out a year or two later. A smart TV lasts far longer than it's profitable to keep and maintain that particular model on the market. Without continuous software support, keeping a smart TV on your network opens you up to emerging Internet threats, assuming the manufacturer didn't already include exploitative software to begin with example 1 example 2 It's far better to keep the display separate from an Internet connected data source. Something like a Chromecast driving a dumb TV is far more preferable because 1. users interact with it through a convenient interface like their phone or tablet and 2. these add on devices receive better software support and are easily replaceable when that support ends. Given that, smart TVs are just a dumb idea. .","conclusion":"Smart TVs are pointless at best, a security vulnerability at worst"}
{"id":"b4a41ffc-1bc0-4aef-a3e3-78d8ec23d65b","argument":"A majority people or lawmakers believed the Defense of Marriage Act or similar was necessary but it was deemed unconstitutional and overruled nonetheless.","conclusion":"In a constitutionally limited republic, people do not adopt programs simply because a majority believe they are necessary."}
{"id":"a773ed61-524e-4561-9fba-475c3e8c4a00","argument":"The government has no commercial interests since it does not derive any revenue from social media platforms. Corporate actors, in contrast, do have commercial interests that do not necessarily align with the public interest.","conclusion":"The government is still more trustworthy than any other actor, and especially actors from the corporate world."}
{"id":"100cc233-b52a-43d0-8f4c-07342ae266d8","argument":"When a vegan vegetarian tries to persuade a meat eater to stop eating meat, a common response is something along the lines of I don't tell you what to eat, so don't tell me . This is a non sequitur. There's no reason for a meat eater's respect for a vegan's choices to earn respect in turn for the meat eater's choices. The relationship is not symmetrical. A meat eater is doing great harm to animals and the environment, a vegan is not harming anyone with their diet. I am not saying that meat eaters are terrible people who deserve no respect. Various difficulties face the meat eater properly understanding the vegan's point of view, looking past the societal norm, and changing their behaviour. It's not OK to insult a meat eater. However, merely presenting facts and arguments without accusation will usually result in the I don't tell you what to eat, so don't tell me response. Here is an example. If someone casually burned sections of forests for the sake of argument imagine this was legal because they found it enjoyable, and I tried to convince them to stop, would it be fair for them to tell me I don't tell you what to do for fun, so don't tell me ? Eating meat has a huge environmental impact, so I believe this is a fair analogy. I recognise that it is not a good idea for some people to stop eating meat, because of e.g. specific health conditions or limited access to other sources of food. However this kind of response can be expected even for people for whom veganism would be practical. And if you must eat meat, an appropriate response is to explain why, not to give a logical fallacy. I am not referring to telling people to go vegan for the sake of their health. Whether veganism is healthier is controversial and not in the scope of this discussion, and I am fine with people being responsible for their own health. But eating meat doesn't affect only the eater, and the I don't tell you what to eat, so don't tell me response is given when only the environment and or animal abuse is being discussed again, see the linked example . Why do I want my view changed? I feel that veganism is an extremely important cause and I feel a strong urge to try and convince others to go vegan, but I see that this just annoys people and may even discourage them, so I have to keep quiet. This is incredibly frustrating. I would be less frustrated if I believed there was a good reason for meat eaters to act like this beyond stubbornness and poor logic. Certainly there are situations where the meat eater's reaction can be justified, e.g. if the vegan is being an asshole. But the specific issue in this post does not seem justified and also seems very common and thus worthy of being addressed. EDIT I've responded to a lot of comments and I'm quite exhausted with it, especially as it's all now getting very repetitive. I'm afraid I won't respond to any more including some currently existing comments .","conclusion":"It doesn't make sense for a meat eater to tell a vegan \"I don't tell you what to eat, so don't tell me\""}
{"id":"f8029ee8-f063-4f06-b95f-b9a708fe2fe6","argument":"Multiple substances seem to be able to change a person completely in a few seconds under their influence, which goes to show that its likely our behavior and our personality can be fully changed under the influence of various chemicals. there is no reason to assume that our actions are governed by anything other then chemicals in our brain.","conclusion":"Modern science's understanding of the brain suggests it is deterministically linked to human action."}
{"id":"1d056e80-ccf9-41a1-8628-59fa78a557c8","argument":"If the artist's worldview is that of a criminal, it may well contain dangerous subtext that supports the artist's criminal behavior.","conclusion":"When we celebrate artists we are also endorsing and accepting their worldviews"}
{"id":"1f14defe-3f12-4912-a4e2-c757b70967d2","argument":"Without living prophets, man must rely on human and imperfect interpretations and applications of God's truth. Consequently, there are sharp divisions in the Christian world.","conclusion":"Living Prophets: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the only Church led by a living prophet today."}
{"id":"af11f916-cb7f-4ff8-8a30-c364852f2f99","argument":"A few days ago I had a talk with a friend of mine. He told me that he's having an open relationship with another girl and that they are both allowed to have sex with other people while still being a couple. At first I thought this could never work I honestly know I couldn't do it . But I didn't speak my mind immediately, I let him talk and asked questions. Eventually, this idea took its roots on me and I can't help but wonder if we're all doing it wrong. So here's a couple of arguments 1 The current monogamous traditional couple has a divorce rate of about 50 2 Cheating rates go from 30 to 60 , and this set is not completely included in the divorces, as there are divorces that survive cheating. source In front of these facts I can't help but think that the traditional couple just cannot exist because of how we are biologically programmed. Of course, it makes sense to form couples from an evolutionary point of view, it helps supporting the children and the species, and this idea was transferred into our culture by religion. It's pretty inherent to our culture that the couple must be monogamous. But what if we free ourselves by all of our cultural ideas and try to think. In today's society, sex can happen in a lot of forms. A one night stand is a pretty common thing right? There's not much of a relationship there. So why would someone want to remove some freedom from the person you love most? Also, I can't help but think that if both partners of a relationship are fine with this, and they sleep with other people but then go back together, they're much more intimate and sincere to each other. Is the only thing that prevents us from having a relationship like that our own pride? Our culture? I don't really think I could stay calm while my SO tells me about how she slept with another guy, but I realize it might just be my culture, and nothing more. People might be happier in a different environment. I don't really want to argue points like But children or But STDs , they can be avoided with lots of methods, I want to argue the internal relationships and feelings of the couple.","conclusion":"It is only possible to have a truly sincere relationship if you allow your partner to have sex with other people."}
{"id":"50836cec-43c9-40ea-b32e-16a44c4e4696","argument":"This all may sounds very selfish. Edit This is not a troll post damnit Our economy depends heavily on the USA. It's growth is important for the reast of the world. Bernie Sanders will raise taxes which will mean less growth. He fight for lower price of pharmaceuticals. Almost all research for new medicin comes from the USA because it is an investment for the companies to make new drugs so they can sell them for a super high price in the USA. He will fight for free college. If everybody in USA were able to receive free college education then the value of each degree will decrease. It could be my future degree which will decrease in value. He propose maternity leave, sick leave, lower working weeks which will be paid by a salary tax decrease spending and then growth and the time the workers are gone production is reduced and will hurt the GDP economy I read around reddit that Bernie Sanders have no experience or knowlegde around economics and foreign policy But that maybe just be hypersomething . Those things are whats gonna affect me as Dane. I think it's important America stay as it it. While us Europeans freeloads off USA. But Change My View","conclusion":"As a Dane. I hope Bernie loses."}
{"id":"ff0baebc-e33a-4fc1-bb3e-f23221b3a04f","argument":"It astounds me when I drive around at the number of people who don't have headlights on. This is obviously bad in adverse conditions night, dawn, dusk, tunnels, rain, fog, snow , where everyone can agree that headlights should be on. But I think that headlights should be left on even in bright daylight and clear conditions. It does not increase your ability to see others, but it definitely increases others' ability to see you, which makes for a safer road for everyone. Even during the day headlights make it easier to see a car. Pros Increased visibility of your vehicle leading to increased safety. Ability to tell if a parked car is about to drive or not. Precedence. The Scandanavian countries have required running daytime lights for a while, and the EU recently mandated the same on all new vehicles. EDIT Will ensure that lights are on early enough in a transition to adverse conditions such as the start of dusk . Cons Bulbs burn out faster. I believe this is greatly outweighed by the pros. Illegitimate cons Uses more energy while driving. The energy consumed by headlights is absolutely negligible compared to the energy required to move the vehicle, and the alternator keeps the battery charged. May forget to turn headlights off when leaving the car. Every car I've seen either beeps if the headlights are on with the door open or simply shuts them off when the key is out automatically. Too much effort to turn them on. It's a switch. Come on. I admit there are edge cases where you are supposed to turn your headlights off such as when approaching some checkpoints , but those are always marked. Does anyone have arguments to ?","conclusion":"All drivers should have their headlights on at all times"}
{"id":"8acd0849-4613-42a5-8aea-7c264daa515c","argument":"During the past ten seasons, the average number of goals per match was always higher in the BL 2.87 over all seasons than in the PL 2.65 over all seasons.","conclusion":"The football played in the BL is more attractive than that in the PL."}
{"id":"8ebff6f7-2e41-4a39-a57d-abdf5e499696","argument":"The provision of HIV services that are specific to the needs of LGBT+ people remains inadequate in countries with high levels of homophobia, as the needs of people from these groups are not given priority by governments.","conclusion":"A ban on homosexuality does not help to contain the spread of HIV."}
{"id":"2827fa88-a0db-4677-a861-559a575b7de9","argument":"Going green is often not green at all. Let's say every company switches to electric trucks like the one Tesla has . It produces no green house gases, right? So you charge it, and you think, hmm, where's the green energy coming from? . That would come from oil coal plants hydro and nuclear if you're from Canada, won't forget that . x200B So green cars trucks aren't really green, because they get their energy from dirty energy sources. x200B So now let's say we decide to change that. Replace every non renewable power source with something like wind or solar. Sweet, are we green yet? Not really where are you going to get the materials to build the wind mills and solar panels? Obviously you're going to have to mine it, and I don't know about you, but last time I checked, there is nothing green about blowing up and digging out heaps of ground and releasing toxic gases and greenhouse gases, considering the machines would still be running on fossil fuels . x200B Ok well after we get all these green power sources, are we good then? Still no the so called renewable energy sources are not fully renewable. Wind mills and solar panels have to be replaced more often than not. Not only that, but their efficiency is total garbage compared to something like a coal plant, and need huge open spaces to produce a reasonable amount of power. And how do we get that much open space? By destroying habitats, of course x200B That's the problem nobody looks further than whats in front of them. They think If I replace my gas car with an electric car, I'm not releasing any green house gases Green energy is just not efficient, cheap, and reliable enough to be a substitute for non renewable energy sources. x200B What I think we should do is put more hydroelectric stations, and more nuclear Maybe some of that Thorium ? . Both cause minimal damage to the environment, release minimal pollution, and are very efficient and reliable.","conclusion":"Green energy isn't worth the investment, and may be more harmful than good."}
{"id":"d40051fe-8c99-483c-bbb4-16dec35aea6b","argument":"\"Value\", \"Meaning\" and \"Purpose\" sound positive and heart-felt, but don't really mean anything; they're abstract and vague.","conclusion":"\"Value\", \"Meaning\" and \"Purpose\" are all human concepts. Life simply lives, reproduces, adapts and dies."}
{"id":"3e1eccba-c5e7-46d3-a9fe-6e2fa1ad96b8","argument":"Because the prediction did not assert a time and uses \"war\" in the abstract, the prediction could be suggesting an instance of global conflict like WW1 or a constant state of global conflict following the Civil War.","conclusion":"The citation states \"then war shall be poured out upon all nations.\" Following the American Civil War, war was \"poured out upon all nations\", making this prediction true."}
{"id":"8a72417d-f603-4798-93a7-16f9cf931bac","argument":"Not all stories require the full team for planning. It might be enough for two people rotating responsibility to write down a concept, get reviews for it, and then create detailed tickets.","conclusion":"Development \"stories\" cannot be scheduled to fit exactly into one sprint's duration 1-3 weeks. Thus, planning should occur when needed and not even every story needs to be planned at all."}
{"id":"f31d2b61-6e08-4ae0-9bdd-9ca184c667d1","argument":"Long-distance Apparition is considered dangerous, thus wizards still rely on other means for inter-continental travel.","conclusion":"Apparition is an advanced skill that can only be completed by fully trained wizards."}
{"id":"22b2b572-10ca-4742-87ad-174c91c56dd1","argument":"ALF has never and hopes to never injure either humans or animals. You can't call it an ALF action if it injures a living being. How, then, are they terrorists? Or, why should financial terrorism even be considered terrorism? It just deligitmizes the word. No longer is it groups that terrorize people , it's now groups that break the law for political motives when ALF is called terrorist. KKK? Terrorist. ALF? Naw. Bonus view The main reason they are considered terrorist is to protect the fiscal interests of Big Ag with things like ag gag laws.","conclusion":"Animal Liberation Front should not be classified as a terrorist group"}
{"id":"1ece7bde-9c63-4d53-8bce-559583f6f166","argument":"Feminism has become a popular brand in recent years, encouraging fashion houses to use basic feminist imagery and slogans with little regard for actual political content.","conclusion":"Feminism is being subsumed by fashion only for marketing reasons."}
{"id":"cfd6fc4c-e2bf-4d94-a232-0ada78a0d93b","argument":"On my morning and evening commute, there are several places, particularly at interstate entrances and exits, where the vast majority of traffic wants to go in the same direction. This predictably creates long lines for the lanes which provide access to the interstates and free flowing empty lanes for those which go elsewhere. Everyday, several cars use the empty lane to bypass the line of traffic, often moving from the busy lane to the unoccupied lane only to reenter the occupied lane 1,2,5 or even 10 cars down. Diagram to help visualize In my diagram, all cars want to use the right on ramp to the interstate after the traffic light. Lane B is the lane you have to be in to take the on ramp. The brown cars represent those that waited in the line, and the black cars represent those that did not by driving in lane A. The red car was a bypasser who has now rejoined the line in lane B. The red car would have been directly behind purple, had he not used Lane A to bypass. In this scenario, as the traffic light goes through its cycle, the brown cars and black cars move through the light, with the black cars moving from Lane A to B in order to get on the interstate. When black cars indicate their intention to get into Lane B, brown cars slow to allow gaps for black cars to get over, and the motion of the line in lane B is slowed to the point that purple would have made it through the green light if there were no black or red cars, but black and red moving into lane B slowed traffic and purple got stopped as the first car at the red light instead. So in this scenario, cars that arrived at this spot at a later time than purple, went in front of purple, and due to their actions, cost him an appreciable amount of time. To me this is the definition of cutting, whether it occurs in traffic or in line at a supermarket a person prioritizes their own time over another's through bypassing an existing line and their actions cost an earlier arriver more time. I know there are a thousand different traffic situations that may necessitate a driver being in lane A and bypassing traffic. I am specifically talking about drivers who know which lane they need to be in, know through experience that there is unlikely to be a natural gap in which to merge, yet bypass the line regardless. By natural gap, I mean a slower driver, traffic light patterns, and traffic movement trends that create a gap into which a person can merge without another making that gap or being forced to alter their driving after the merge to maintain a safe following distance. For example, in my diagram, if 50 of drivers typically went right at the cross street at the light, it would be reasonable for drivers to use lane A to access the natural gaps created by those turners, but if 97 of drivers go straight through to the on ramp, it is highly unlikely that a natural gap will exist for them to use. To me this behavior seems obviously equivalent to cutting in any other line, but by the proportion of drivers that I observe who do it, there must be some other viewpoints. I'm tired of watching others drive by me every day as I impatiently wait in lane B and would love a justification to cut a few minutes off my commute, so please,","conclusion":"If a driver cannot reasonably expect a future natural gap in traffic, passing other drivers is the equivalent to cutting in line."}
{"id":"e307d9bb-2eb6-4a95-a874-b33c81c2033c","argument":"Sure he is not the ideal candidate for the establishment and hard line conservatives but he is really the only one with any chance of beating Clinton. Rubio Cruz will be crushed by Hillary IMO. This doesn't even take into account if he loses nomination and runs 3rd party. That would guarantee a repub loss. So GOP best option is just hope he beats Hillary and hope they can get someone more conservative in there next time. Otherwise you're basically looking at 12 years w o republican president and likely 16 with still no real direction for the party. Personally Trump is the only republican I would vote for.","conclusion":"Republican Party should embrace Donald Trump or slide into irrelevancy"}
{"id":"73735491-36f5-4fb3-b96a-51701acf8c91","argument":"Many people base their views on social issues such as abortion and contraception on their genuinely held religious convictions. Organisations which provide a large number of voters with moral guidance have just as much right to participate in ethical debates as their secular counterparts.","conclusion":"Religious views, and by extension religious organisations, have an important role in the debate surrounding heavily politicised issues."}
{"id":"bfc2203b-27ef-4f25-b767-a6385754fc48","argument":"I believe that football should bring a clock stop rule as in rugby when the ball is out of play. Towards the end of many games, the team who is winning or drawing if they are underdogs will often try and slow the the games down in order to increase their chances of getting a good result. I have no problem with players doing this with match tactics, however you will see is players taking an extremely long time over set plays throw ins, free kicks, corners, goal kicks etc. and also faking injury to run the clock down. Whilst extra time is added on for injuries it is not usually added for set plays. This is incredibly frustrating for supporters to watch and can make a match very boring, especially if a team starts doing this from early in the match. I believe that stopping the clock every time the ball goes out of play would stop this behaviour and make for more exciting and fairer matches. The half match could end at the point after the timer ends when the ball leaves the pitch.","conclusion":"Football soccer should stop the clock when the ball is out of play."}
{"id":"b98e3bb7-2f61-4816-ad1f-7fefb44b5fa3","argument":"51% of all spending on research & development purposes in the federal budget of the US for 2015 is dedicated to defense-related purposes. This indicates the relative willingness to dedicate large sums of money to military R&D projects.","conclusion":"Spending on military research is easier to justify for governments than spending on civilian projects. After all, national security is of paramount importance."}
{"id":"7b886664-cd20-4967-9877-1786ad07aee4","argument":"The article continues, \"Factory farming\" is just the name for the efficient large scale production of meat.","conclusion":"Factory farming is essential to feed the world and thus the suffering is not needless."}
{"id":"a2042c09-b80a-42fc-9e74-3e9200e01249","argument":"I believe that it's our duty as human beings to do what we can to help each other in any way we can. I know that I wouldn't even think twice about helping someone in trouble. Unfortunately, not many people I know agree with me. While I understand that it isn't our job as civilians to get in the way of danger, I feel that it should be one's choice to do so or not. I have great respect for police officers. If it wasn't for them, I'd have likely been in jail once or twice. I don't even have a record, thanks to them. That being said, I also feel that there is too much red tape for them to be effective. There are also some IMO very stupid laws against certain methods of gathering evidence audio recording, for example . If it's recorded w the subjects knowledge, it's inadmissible in court, and could land you in trouble instead. I don't believe that is fair for many people. I realize that some people could take advantage of legal vigilantism. They could use it as an excuse to act in ways that can seriously harm them or others. That's why I think that it should be regulated if it was legal. Some rules could be. Mandatory Registration that is known to only the vigilante and the executive office of the State Government in which the vigilante is registered. The individual will then receive a form of identification to present to law enforcement if required. If the actions of the vigilante result in the death or permanent injury of another party, suspect or civilian, they are to be held responsible. Consequences of actions explained in 2 include but are not limited to Arrest of vigilante. The revoking of the individuals vigilante status, and thus legally prohibit them from continuing. Their former status as a vigilante is also put on record. Any later actions of a similar nature are to be considered criminal offense of the 2nd Degree at the least. If the vigilante is told by law enforcement to leave a case alone, they must comply. I can't think of much more at this time. I'll update later. EDIT 8710","conclusion":"I believe that vigilantism should be legalized, as long as it's regulated."}
{"id":"98873b7a-fa1c-4149-a9d7-7d510882656a","argument":"The UK policy of removing anonymity has not affected the number of sperm donors negatively. The numbers had fallen for three years to 2005, when anonymity was lifted, but increased somewhat in the two years following. The number of egg donors is down somewhat, but the reasons for this are complicated and may have much more to do with wider issues of publicity and incentives than with anonymity.","conclusion":"The UK policy of removing anonymity has not affected the number of sperm donors negatively. The num..."}
{"id":"6373eedd-68bc-4563-ace0-affd3af0ecb2","argument":"Anthropic arguments famously proposed by R. Swinburne and J. Polkinghorne replaces the old arguments from design put forewords by people such as William Paley. They are abductive in nature and argue that the universe existing as it is is a non trivial fact. The world is so finely tuned for human existence that if for example the relative strengths of any one of the fundamental forces were different by less than 1 1000th of a degree the world would not exist. God must exist to have tuned the universe to our existence. However I propose that such thinking assumes that we are the goal of creation. I would say that people only exist because the conditions permit it, rather than the conditions exist to permit man\u2019s existence. Even if you accept the abductive conclusion that God created the universe, he may not have had humanity as the end goal in mind. The dinosaurs died out to set conditions in the world. Whose to say that in the cosmic plan humanity\u2019s existence amounts to no more than fertilising the rock where God\u2019s chosen people will live.","conclusion":"anthropic arguments are nonsense because they assume humanity to be the centre of creation."}
{"id":"1d98ae8a-893e-4ae3-8450-6afbc856e458","argument":"UBI trusts the poor to make informed choices, however, in books like Poor Economics we come across how poor make unhealthy\/imprudent choices such as bad calories American poor consume leading to a poverty trap. Targeted subsidies of goods\/services that a particular income are likely to consume is a far better approach, especially to make education and healthcare accessible. However, a UBI may work in places where people are educated and \/ or aware above average levels.","conclusion":"Traditional welfare programs allow governments to target specific issues in specific communities, a benefit that is not available with a UBI."}
{"id":"da12be33-d20e-4c1b-91b9-b15881c909b2","argument":"Let's take my situation, perhaps I'm biased. If someone like me had no friends during childhood and high school then the trauma of being isolated, rejected and or being mocked can cause a loss of self esteem, low or zero social skills. Thus what happen? People in High School see you as the weird friendless kid. Thus what happen? People in College see you as the weird friendless kid. Thus what happen? People in society see you as the weird friendless kid. Loneliness is like falling dominoes and having friends is like baby birds Fly before growing up or fail and die. To have friends you need to already have friends, or have experience. Lonely people are always manipulated, used and alienated by other people. Because nobody wants to be friend with someone who has no friends, this is common logic. In the mind of a lonely one like me, you're waiting for other people to make the first step, but nobody never makes the first step. Only manipulative people makes the first step. Bitterness and cynism were not cause by my loneliness, there were caused that other people had the chance to have friends. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"If you had no friends in the past, you have little chances to have real friends in the present"}
{"id":"33687e16-4801-4f3e-a718-f8fb97f532bb","argument":"Tailoring a person's genetic makeup to achieve a particular goal such as intelligence or athleticism reduces the ability of a person to discover and explore their own goals because they feel like they were 'made for' a particular purpose the same way we breed horses for speed or oxen for strength.","conclusion":"Genetic engineering makes babies the direct result of the ambitions and desires of their parents. Giving the parents this degree of control reduces the autonomy of children as independent persons."}
{"id":"a8496230-9282-4c22-9abf-37b22877e858","argument":"There is currently a picture making the rounds on the internet that criticizes Coke among other companies for supporting the world cup in Qatar, presumably because they are using slaves from India to build the stadiums. You can view the picture here if you haven't seen it yet. I think its incredibly hypocritical for people from a country that was built by slavery, to post from their iPhones or Mac Books made with parts that are produced from slave labor, about how terrible it is that Qatar is using slaves, all without offering one cent to improve the situation. The cognitive dissonance in Americans who fail to realize they are only in a position to criticize because of the slave labor the country used to become a world power is really incredible. Their complaints would be softened if they actually offered to help these poorer countries, with money or workers, but they simply expect other countries to shy away from slavery because times have changed. That's a fair critique, but similarly to people who oppose both abortions and welfare, it just doesn't work in practice. If you want to criticize a country that is much poorer than you for using the same tactics you did to get rich, at the very least you have to be willing to subsidize their costs so as to make slavery ineffective. I believe that people who are criticizing Qatar today are wildly hypocritical and suffering heavily from cognitive dissonance, .","conclusion":"It is incredibly hypocritical and cognitively dissonant for Americans to criticize the use of slave labor in the 2022 World Cup in Qatar The cognitive dissonance in Americans"}
{"id":"78475015-1195-42bc-8027-245e00fb7619","argument":"Squatting is more comfortable, easier and healthier than sitting. it creates less stress on the the puborectalis muscle allowing for a smoother uninterrupted experience. it plays well with gravity so less pressure is needed and lowers the risk of cancer and other ailments. Toilet paper is messy, expensive and damages the environment. When washed properly the use of your hand is preferable to toilet paper, It might sound disgusting but when you think about it using a thin piece of frail paper to smear around fecal matter with no water or soap is even worse. Modern europen toilets are large, bulky and complex. They take more space, require more maintenance and are ultimately dirtier as butts keep touching them.","conclusion":"European style pooping is the worst way to go to the bathroom"}
{"id":"239d80e0-c09a-4c05-80c4-20a086e68277","argument":"I've been thinking about this off and on for years. The credit score industry Has a proprietary formula for calculating credit scores Obtains your personal financial information without your consent Is prone to errors in your personal information Is prone to hacking Will charge you extra money for a subscription so you get more accurate data Will deduct points from your score for paying off loans or closing credit card accounts A good credit score is required to get decent rates from banks or lenders. How is this industry allowed to exist? How did they get permission to obtain all of my financial information? Why can they seemingly deduct or add points to my credit score for whatever they feel like? Why is there no standardization for their proprietary formulas or regulation for their security protocols? Everything about this feels wrong and has felt wrong for the last 10 years I've been aware of these companies. edit why does reddit formatting not work?","conclusion":"The \"credit reporting\" industry is a complete scam"}
{"id":"985c1ac8-be66-408a-9f0e-26d4114625a2","argument":"I want to enjoy tennis, I really do. Right now I place it in the same tier of other non sports like Snooker and Bowling and Darts. It involves less a minute of moderate activity A rally , followed by a similar amount of time collecting the balls. I don't see how that constitutes fitness. The rules seem broadly pointless and nonsensical. Why does the score go to 45 and not aecend in uniform numbers? Why not just 1 1, 1 2, etc. Why does one person serve the ball for the entire set, rather than switching after points like in soccer? Why do serves have to be conducted toward specific, alternating quadrants of the court, from specific, alternating quadrants of the court? What makes this different from Badminton Another non sport ? Surely it involves exactly the same set of skills. For the record, I'm talking about playing at a recreational, hobby or casual level rather than watching professional games. Telling me how great 11 hour games are won't make me want to give up three hours on my weekend.","conclusion":"Tennis is Awful and Cannot Be Considered A Real Sport."}
{"id":"be4b3757-7e01-44d8-b7ae-c103b3d74bf9","argument":"Louis CK was recently accused of inappropriate sexual behavior, where he exposed himself and masturbated in front of several woman, who were shocked, confused, or disturbed by his behavior. While this behavior is certainly inappropriate and distasteful, he never actually forced these women to watch, and he didn't have any physical contact with the women. If they wanted to, they could have left the room at any time or told him to stop. He might have been in a position of power, but these women still had free will regardless. Because of what he did, his entire career has ended. All of his film, television, and stand up projects have been cancelled. He has admitted that he was wrong and has given what seems to be a heartfelt apology. He is one of the greatest living comedians and his style of brutally honest, self reflective comedy has had a positive impact on millions of fans. Therefore, his career should be allowed to continue. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Louis CK's career shouldn't have ended for what he did."}
{"id":"efe80496-6a1f-407c-b160-99c5687cf807","argument":"I hear a lot that Muslims are just the trending minority group for racists and bigots to pick on. I here this a lot especially in my country, Australia. They say first it was the Irish then the Italians then the Asians and now it's muslims. They say all criticism of Islam is just the trending outlet for racism and xenophobia and that soon there'll be another group to pick on and Muslims will be forgotten. I think this is wrong. I cannot imagine a point in the future where everyone is just fine with an entire religious culture forcing women to wear Hijabs and having a 53 year old idol that was having sex with a 9 year old with multiple wives and many other things like the troubling polls on muslim views on apostasy and treatment of homosexuals etc I think this trending criticism of Islam is partly due to terrorism and partly due to the being in the age of information where we can log on to the internet and get in depth knowledge of almost anything and all the bad aspects of Islam have risen to the surface and caused people to speak out against it's culture. If someone could explain to me a scenario in the future where modern society as a whole has just accepted that these are just the community that force their women to cover themselves and they believe a women should only inherit 1 2 of what a man inherits and men and women should be segregated, yeah that's just them. That's just the islamic community, they're alright Sorry, I cannot see modern western society ever being ok with that. I think the opposite is true and people will get tired of defending Islam from scrutiny. EDIT My view has changed but I'm not sure who to delta because it wasn't a particular response to this post that changed my view it was that the general discussion gave me the idea that if Islamic terrorism died down and Muslim communities in Western countries remained relatively small then there'd be no valid reason for everyone to keep criticizing their practices so vehemently.","conclusion":"Islam will always be a strong focal point of criticism"}
{"id":"e07483ed-fbb4-4f9a-85b6-917b82051670","argument":"If you lose the sense of smell or taste then food is less enjoyable but life is still plenty liveable. If you lose the sense of touch I'm assuming your mobility is not affected IE not gross nerve damage just you can't feel sensations on your skin then perhaps intimacy may be hampered but plenty of people live without intimacy. Without hearing you can still function as an independent human though communication may be more difficult and there are plenty of services out there to assist people with hearing loss such as closed captioning and sign language. Without sight I believe it is basically impossible to exist as an independent person. You cannot drive, you cannot easily buy anything in a store, you cannot study a textbook, and you would essentially need a person to assist you on most if not all days. As such with this loss of independence I believe sight is the most crucial sense and the loss of which would be the worst compared to others. Change my view. I should also clarify that I'm not talking about legally blind I'm talking about the complete and total absence of sight.","conclusion":"The worst sense to lose is sight"}
{"id":"12eded6c-a8c5-47e6-a55e-879acb72d2c9","argument":"I've never understood the reason why some drugs and medications aren't available to everybody. I've always assumed the reason for this is that they will most likely be misused. If that's the case, I think I should take my own responsibility for this and the law shouldn't be concerned with this because it only affects me and nobody else. The same goes for swimming in restricted areas or things like that. I get it, it IS dangerous and it's not a good idea, but I don't really understand why that should be forbidden to me. It shouldn't be the society's concern, but only mine. Oh, and also, you should ALWAYS wear your seat belt. , this is completely ok, I agree. But the law says you MUST always wear your seat belt , now that is something I've always considered unnecessary for the same reasons I mentioned before. It is highly recommended to do so, but I shouldn't be required to do it because it doesn't really affect the other people in the society. In general, I think laws that require of me to do things to protect only myself shouldn't exist at all, because that's not the idea of the whole legal system. The necessity of having laws comes because we live in a society, but we should be allowed to do things that only affect ourselves.","conclusion":"I think I should always be allowed to do things that could potentially hurt only me e.g. some drugs."}
{"id":"803105d6-7fa4-46ba-81fa-f95ff9efb7b4","argument":"I understand this view may not be popular especially in light of recent developments. But I honestly don't think it is a big deal that North Korea is developing ICBMs capable of delivering nuclear payloads to the USA. Here are my reasons 1 Every current nuclear power is already capable of striking at another, and we all accept that as a fact of life now. So why not just add NK to that list of nuclear powers and be done with it. 2 I don't actually think that Kim plans to use those nukes against the US or its allies. Kim may be a little scared but he is definitely sane. He has had plenty of opportunity to escalate conflict into war if he choose to. This suggests to me his pursuit of nuclear armament is to guarantee his own safety rather than seek destruction of the US or South Korea. 3 Although the regime's treatment of its people is appalling, any attempt to overthrown the government should come from within. If the US did not invade based on humanitarian grounds in the past 20 years, it makes even less sense to invade now. Not only will the scales of destruction outweigh any benefit from toppling the regime. We would also be hypocrites if we invaded under the banner of humanitarianism . So in summary, I believe we the west should treat NK like any other nuclear nation. I am not saying we should bend backwards to appease them, sanctions should still be used when they violate human rights, but we should also refrain from threatening military invasion. And deal with them like how we deal with China. It only took 30 years for China to get where it is today, and 40 for South Korea to transform into a first world country. Who knows what the future of North Korea holds. Maybe they will look towards economic development once the regime felt secure from invasion. P.S I actually think instead of invading, the US should shower Kim with gifts using money from the war fund. Either he eats himself to an early grave, or he becomes accustomed to that lifestyle and seek to open up economically. Worst case scenario, we invade and take that money back. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I believe NK should be allowed to have nukes and the rest of the world should just deal with them as it is. An invasion right now would be the worst option."}
{"id":"9d9e22bd-a7d0-423a-9ace-3b3f773ad888","argument":"Hate speech involves speech that attacks a person or group on the basis of attributes such as race, religion, ethnic origin, national origin, sex, disability, sexual orientation, or gender identity.","conclusion":"Hate speech has some clearly defined characteristics and \"disagreeing with someone's opinion\" is not one of them."}
{"id":"ff8875bd-f704-40c2-a42b-718ba637654c","argument":"USA . First off, I don't even know why marriage is a legally recognized union anyways. Why should the government give a couple tax breaks and other legal benefits just because they love each. If a couple really loved each other, what's wrong with just an upped boyfriend girlfriend type cultural recognition. Plus, all this arguing on whether or not same sex marriage is constitutional is akin to watching two kids fighting over who gets to play with a toy. If both kids can't decide on how to share it, then I think NOBODY SHOULD HAVE IT.","conclusion":"I believe that marriage as a legally recognized union should be abolished."}
{"id":"cafe91d7-2b66-4350-a0e7-cffb3bc21e7f","argument":"Feel free to comment even if you don't live in California, but this is primarily aimed at Californians. Inspired by this post over at r CAGuns, my basic premise is that transsexuals have it easier both legally and socially in California than Californian gun owners do. By 'easier' I mean it is easier to come out as a transsexual to friends, family, co workers, employers, and live one's life as a trans person in California, and you are much more likely to be accepted for who you are and will face less hostility than gun owners who come out . Although I am not a transsexual, I have lived in California my entire life and I have recently become a gun owner. Employers generally forbid you from bringing a weapon onto their property which is sensible, often , and will fire you if they catch you with an unloaded gun in a locked case in your locked car which isn't , or they will fire you or refuse to hire you if they learn of your hobby or if they even hear you talking about guns with a fellow co worker, or looking at pictures of guns on a computer . Landlords occasionally will refuse to give you a lease or else disallow you to keep your firearms on their property. Pretty much every business is a gun free zone or prohibits firearms, refusing entry to those who carry even if you have a government issued license to carry. To be clear, that does not happen frequently , but it does happen, often enough to make every gun owner I know very reticent to tell anyone about their hobby. I know of two other gun enthusiasts at my work place and we all keep it to ourselves for the most part, only talking to each other about it in hushed tones. By contrast, any business which refuses entry to a transsexual is going to be sued out of existence ditto for employers who fire refuse to hire a transsexual for being a transsexual, or a landlord who refuses to give a lease to a transsexual bank who refuses to give them a loan. Much more common is social ostracizing. In my experience there are very few bigots in California. Californians have an amazing tolerance for any kind of sexual preference, any kind of gender, and in general has a live and let live attitude to pretty much everyone except gun owners. Attitudes in general among Californians seem to regard gun owners as little better than child molesters. Politicians certainly speak of gun owners as all being potential criminals, and in the words of many ordinary people, and even some politicians, there's nothing 'potential' about it. I've been privy to many conversations among friends and acquaintances where my politics and hobbies are unknown, and people have genuine disdain for gun owners. Most people don't actually know anyone who owns guns, and they unabashedly use the crudest of stereotypes to understand them that we are all racist rednecks and, of course, straight, white men who all aspire to someday use our guns to murder someone. Not only do Californians generally assume that anyone who isn't straight, white, and male won't own guns, but the gay community actually outcasts gay people who exercise their right to keep and bear arms or so I hear from some of the gay members of my local shooting range and r CAGuns . It's when we get to the legal situation that the argument is ironclad, in my opinion but I am open to being wrong . The government of California currently protects transsexuals from discrimination in a variety of ways, whereas the same government is making it as difficult as possible for gun owners to practice their hobby exercise their rights. Carrying an unloaded gun over one's shoulder or in a holster open carry , legal in most states, sometimes with no permit required was declared illegal by the State Legislature and signed into law by Jerry Brown. Many counties such as Alameda or Los Angeles in California refuse to issue any licenses to carry a concealed handgun in public, and police within those counties will often refuse to recognize as valid licenses issued by other counties and California refuses to recognize any concealed carry permit from any other state . As a result, in large swathes of California it is de facto illegal to carry a gun in public, concealed or openly, licensed or unlicensed. Is there even possible an analogous situation for transsexuals? Somewhere in California where it is illegal to be trans or where one is forbidden by the government from openly being inter sex? More egregiously, many city councils and county governments make it impossible for gun stores to open or for current ones to remain open. San Leandro in Alameda County is currently embroiled in a lawsuit because their zoning laws are so stringent, minute, arcane, and restrictive that it is effectively impossible for a gun store to open. Some businessmen however thought they had found a suitable location but are now involved in a bitter legal dispute. But can youimagine a world where a transsexual health clinic is not allowed to exist within 500 feet of residential zones, schools, liquor stores or other gun stores transsexual health clinics ? San Francisco's last gun store closed a year or so ago, making San Francisco quite possibly the largest city and county in the entire country with no legal gun stores at all within its limits. The city council of San Francisco hated guns, gun owners, and gun stores so much that they wrote and adopted a law specifically designed to drive SF's last remaining gun store out of business. The law in question required that the owner of the gun store record every transaction on CCTV and provide that to the police. From the SF Chronicle gt The legislation, sponsored by Supervisor Mark Farrell, is symbolic of the city\u2019s enduring distaste for what was sold inside. gt \u201cFrom my perspective, if the last gun store in San Francisco wants to close its doors because of my legislation, so be it,\u201d he said. \u201cThis store sold over 1,000 guns each year. I would much rather have a preschool or coffee store in the neighborhood than a gun shop.\u201d Can you imagine a government official anywhere in California saying From my perspective, if the last transsexual health clinic in our city has to close because of this law, so be it. I don't want a tranny doctor in our town ? No? Can you think of a single city in California where the city council would go to great lengths to prevent a trans friendly or trans oriented business from opening, even going so far as actively try to shut it down through legislation? Do transsexuals lose their right to privacy for being trans? Gun owners do. In addition to the law passed in SF requiring the gun store record every transaction with CCTV and provide the footage to police, gun owners must provide the government their names, addresses, and fingerprints whenever they buy a gun, as if we are criminals, and now with the most recently passed legislation coming into effect, gun owners are required to register their assault weapons and surrender, destroy, sell, or modify their magazines which hold more than 10 rounds. Are trans people required to register with the government? Is there anything so equivalently invasive in the life of a trans person? And that is in addition to the myriad laws about the kinds of guns we can own. I could go on in great detail, but imagine if the government of California said Trans people can get breast implants, but only implants between 200 and 250 cc's are allowed that's the kind of stupidity gun owners have to put up with, and it is only getting worse. So go ahead, change my view it's easier and more acceptable to more people in California to be a transsexual than a gun owner. In other words gun owners are California's most oppressed minority group.","conclusion":"It's easier to be a transsexual in California than a gun owner."}
{"id":"e1e86857-bd5c-4ff0-8680-78b2a2ef4375","argument":"The cDc have campaigned against Google's decision to cooperate with China's online censorship by launching the \"Goolag\" project.","conclusion":"One of the earliest and most prolific hacktivism groups is the Cult of the Dead Cow cDc."}
{"id":"4ca4b70c-847b-4929-909e-59d842c7cf9d","argument":"Universities depend on their alumni for assistance in interviewing applicants or for financial support. Therefore, a strong bond is essential, which is fostered through legacy considerations.","conclusion":"Legacy admissions help strengthen the sense of community amongst graduates and current students in a college."}
{"id":"142cee03-c1b7-401f-81e8-273e21a684da","argument":"Saudi Arabia is the leader of the human rights panel. Saudi Arabia is a significant human right violator.","conclusion":"The UN appointing Saudi Arabia head of the Human Rights Panel was due to corruption."}
{"id":"ace748a9-b92f-45a0-a05f-22f74adf976c","argument":"Overpopulation can have negative effects on the environment by overusing natural resources such as water and soil. Resulting issues such as soil or water pollution easily spill across national borders.","conclusion":"Overpopulation is a global problem that requires global solutions. Policies on the national level such as parental licenses will be ineffectual."}
{"id":"d1fd61e2-19ae-4c1d-8ea9-bab2bf9fa83f","argument":"I've spend a couple years on this site and really want to leave. The idealistic twentysomethings spouting bullshit without knowing more than what their liberal arts profs taught them, the kneejerk circlejerk in r politics and r atheism, and several other annoyances really make me hate this site. But it's a great content aggregator. So I keep coming back. Can you make me love Reddit or at least respect its userbase?","conclusion":"Reddit is full of pretentious assholes, naive ideologues, and angsty overprivileged first-worlders who know nothing about adversity. Its only value is in its wide array of content."}
{"id":"9f46ecfd-e27d-4fb8-981f-950b9f09b69c","argument":"An actor as irrational as the North Korean regime, united in its hatred against the US and the freedom it represents for the world, will not hesitate to use the atomic weapon against the US-American people, even if that would spell certain doom for North Korea","conclusion":"The fully developed North Korean nuclear capabilities will be used in a first strike attempt against the mainland of the United States of America"}
{"id":"b2ef8633-166f-4033-800f-fbe08051590d","argument":"Reality television programmes are very popular with audiences of all ages and types. They may not be high culture but most people do not want that from television. Most viewers want to be entertained and to escape for a while from the worries and boredom of their everyday life. American Idol rejectees who stubbornly insist that they have talent provide such escapism.1 Furthermore, and importantly, such contestants are good natured in doing so, they are not exploited but offer themselves to reality shows.2Therefore, there is no harm in giving the people what they want \u2013 that is what the free market is all about. Reality shows are also popular because they exploit new technology so that millions of people can participate in the programme \u2013 typically by voting. Britain is believed to have had as many as 176 reality TV shows in a single year.3 Such supply can only be driven by excessive demand. 1 Poniewozik, James. \u201cWhy Reality TV is Good for Us.\u201d 12 February 2003. Time. 5 July 2011. 2 Poniewozik, James. \u201cWhy Reality TV is Good for Us.\u201d 12 February 2003. Time. 5 July 2011. 3 Jury, Louise. \u201cThe Big Question: Has reality television had its day, or are audiences still attracted to it?\u201d 4 January 2007. The Independent. 4 July 2011.","conclusion":"Reality television is popular and TV producers should give audiences what they want"}
{"id":"d1224d71-5ebd-4fa0-aafc-27c769884d79","argument":"Numerous private cybersecurity firms have confirmed that Russian hackers were behind the attacks on the Democratic National Committee, including CrowdStrike Fidelis Cybersecurity and Mandiant","conclusion":"It is generally agreed upon that the Russians intervened in the election to hurt Hillary Clinton."}
{"id":"f871dc0e-9c21-4780-a14c-f50996c45fec","argument":"This is especially dangerous for vision-impaired \/ blind people who don't see or expect them and trip over them.","conclusion":"People often leave scooters around a city, which clutters sidewalks and looks bad."}
{"id":"6807f17e-052a-46a9-82fd-bbf614f7efc0","argument":"It would be sad to believe that men are incapable of containing their sexual impulses in the face of a beautiful female form. Are we to believe that men are such vile, primal sexual creatures that they cannot look past a woman's sexual form to her larger self? We would make cave-men of ourselves to believe this.","conclusion":"Headscarves falsely presume that men can't contain sexual impulses"}
{"id":"79c0c8f3-130b-4929-a41e-619a24f32cbf","argument":"This is a thought I have had for quite some time but I'm only bringing up now in light of the Steve Klein controversy since he's contributed a lot to a band I really like. I feel that it is hypocritical to like the art of someone if they have done horrible things. The same way people refused to see Ender's Game because of Orson Scott Card's views on homosexuality, I refuse to watch anything by Roman Polanski or listen to anything by John Lennon because of their actions in the past pedophilia and violence against women respectively . I believe that artist and art should not be separated. If one separates an artist from their art then it should be done for all artists and one should never bring it up as an argument against another artist e.g. You shouldn't like Chris Brown because he hit Rihanna but you can like John Lennon","conclusion":"I think it is hypocritical to use an artists past descriptions as a reason to hate them without doing it for all artists"}
{"id":"687fb857-ff5f-4069-ba8e-3518d30d5187","argument":"I originally worded this a little differently on askreddit and after a handful of non committal, non referenced replies of 'the media and society' and a bucket of downvotes it was suggested I may get more fruitful discussion here. I'm on mobile so apologies for the upcoming cut and paste I see this argument brought up a lot, but failed to find any adverts or articles suggesting little more than it may make you more attractive or that it feels quite nice. The overall impression I actually came away with was that any woman can reach this beauty standard regardless of how naturally hairy they are, considering there is a polarised idea of beauty for every minute detail on men and women, is levelling the playing field the fairest thing to do? EDIT 'society and the media' on their own are not answers without some sort of reference, as I said I searched popular media and found little more than it being suggested that it may make you appear more attractive, is the western feminist movement saying that hairy legs are more attractive or are they suggesting we can no longer use body hair to form an opinion around how attractive we find another person? Please excuse me if this comes across as an odd way to view things, I'm on the spectrum and not all normal human behaviour comes across as normal to me.","conclusion":"women don't have to shave their legs."}
{"id":"e07b1445-cfdc-4c8f-a0f6-445dae7b33a7","argument":"I don't understand the term Small Government SG. I understand that 0 government is anarchy and 100 is totalitarianism. I don't understand what it means in the political context. Conservatives talk of SG I know they do not want anarchy. How are they measuring a countries bigness? Is bigness correlated with happiness utility of the average citizen? As for measuring bigness Would it be cost of government? This doesn't make sense because an extremely efficient government that just churns out Nazis for 300 Nazi would be Smaller better? than a corrupt, inefficient, bloated expensive government that can produce maybe a Nazi for 40,000. Which is better? Here is a wikipedia article organizing countries by gov't expense and tax burden relative to GDP. At the edges, there are not that nice countries and in the middle are more prosperous countries. The US is toward the bottom of those prosperous countries. Is smaller better here? Is this even a useful way of calculating bigness? Is it total government expenditure? Most countries I would want to live in are at the top of that list. I do not understand how Small Government SG is inherently better than Large Government. Would a society be better if it had 100 soldiers and 0 teachers vs 100 soldiers and 100 teachers. I don't even understand anything about those 2 societies if I know their bigness index. Is France's government bigger than Spain's? Than Iran's? Which would you rather live in? When you answered that question, did the bigness of their government come into mind? Government is a multidimensionally complicated problem. It seems like a lot is lost when you reduce it down to how big is the government. If you bought a car, did you really ask How big is this car company? and not How fast efficient reliable cool is the car? We should be optimizing for happiness utility of everyone, not for size of the instrument. Please  gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Small Government is a nonsense term"}
{"id":"32790d7b-cdbf-4e34-b785-1aeaadc36dab","argument":"Let us be clear, What White Supremacists are directly advocating is genocide.That was the result of their ideology in past, that will be the inevitable result in the future. We shouldn't engage with White Supremacists in dialogue because that's what they want. They want White Supremacy to be treated as just another political view rather than necessary first step towards genocide. And when it comes to the dialogue we want to interpret what someone is saying as possibly true but when it comes to propaganda that instinct won't serve us well. And the tricky thing about propaganda is it doesn't come with a warning label. The gist of my view was formed by my favorite youtuber. Philosophy tube  gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"We should not have dialogue with White Supremacists."}
{"id":"761c1cc2-0d12-4e3f-b42c-f3e027f4567b","argument":"Hey guys, I'm trying my best not to come off as a misogynist, but I do in fact believe that women have too much power in social situations. Woman gets raped? Near automatic sentence for a rape crime for men. Man gets raped? Unbelievable. Man hits woman? Unjust and horrible not saying its okay to hit people . Woman hits man and man hits back? Absolute ostracizing of the man for hitting a woman. Not only are these things prominent issues but men must also pay the commonly expensive bill which women assuredly take for granted and men must deal with a much greater amount of stress when involved in dating. On a lesser note, this last segment is going to sound unbelievably pathetic. I have personally been rejected to the point where I'm convinced that women like to watch men suffer by rejecting them. Let me make something clear though. I'm not a dick, I do my best to be nice, I don't push or coax girls and I respect their boundaries. In fact, I've been told that I'm too shy and that's because I'm afraid that I'll lose everything. I'm not a misogynist or a secret agent from r TheRedPill 1 I swear. Please, for the love of god, . I want to believe that women aren't demons.","conclusion":"This is gonna sound pretty pathetic, but I think that women have too much power in the social plane."}
{"id":"b66e4ec8-8183-4dc4-a742-644a44694e5a","argument":"Pedophiles who commit acts are often conflicted and feel guilt for their actions, but knowing that society will treat them harshly means they cover their actions. If they receive less harsh treatment, they will be more likely to come forward to receive help to stop them from committing any further crimes and hurting innocent children.","conclusion":"Treating pedophilia as a legitimate mental illness destigmatises pedophiles and encourages them to confess their urges\/desires to those who can help treat them."}
{"id":"b39e4175-1d78-4fdf-9e51-50a3549dbd04","argument":"Barack Obama's administration expressed confidence that the JCPOA would prevent Iran from building a nuclear programme in secret. Iran, it said, had committed to \"extraordinary and robust monitoring, verification, and inspection","conclusion":"The Iran Nuclear deal was achieving it's goals, until the US left the deal."}
{"id":"0507263b-7d79-4537-be37-900e0df086d7","argument":"For users with a learning disability like dyslexia, Apple offers features such as Speak Screen, Speak Selection, Typing Feedback, and Predictive Text to help with writing and reading text on Apple products.","conclusion":"Apple has increased its accessibility options for iOS 12 and iOS 13."}
{"id":"0fa64b44-6ac4-4e22-a7ee-14f5ec92e7ea","argument":"Religious communities can function perfectly well without institutional support. Early Christian communities often met in the homes of adherents and lacked a formal church.","conclusion":"Worshiping can be practiced with small groups in public spaces if need be. This incurs little cost to the worshippers."}
{"id":"8130df36-29b1-4248-a955-3be64fb34e3c","argument":"Employers have most of the power in the employee\/employer relationship. Unions can help balance that relationship.","conclusion":"Unions ensure that the workers are not abused by their employer."}
{"id":"6f6ad981-a410-47db-adf4-fc85f4127f57","argument":"The gaming community is riddled with the use of language that non gamers consider offensive. I come from the generation of gamers that first saw modern online gaming CS Source, WoW, PS2 network games, CoD, stuff from well over a decade ago. Online gaming has always been about competition and the winner usually berating those they beat in some fashion. At first it started with owned and noob You just got owned, noob Then, it progressed to more explicit exclamations Suck my d k, fa ot Now, and going back about 3 4 years, it seems the commonplace terms are raped and ni er. You've seen PewDiePie get in hot water for using the latter, and in most online games you're in, whether it be 10 people or dozens, someone's calling someone a derogatory slur or threatening to rape someone. When these instances occur, the gaming community usually decries the perpetrator saying they are just a bad egg and don't represent the gaming online community as a whole. I think this is a blatant and egregious straight up LIE. While there are certainly respectful and great people in the gaming community, the majority are ill tempered, abrasive, and socially stunted individuals that have a deficiency when it comes to interpersonal communication and tact. When stories come out about popular gamers using such language, it is a glimpse into the vast underbelly of the community, not an outlier of that community. To flesh out my view, I consider myself a free speech proponent, but I do think the providers of online gaming services the publishers and developers of the games, not ISPs should be regulating and fostering the types of environments they want their games to have. Whether or not you think it should be okay for people to say whatever they want in a game, whether it be directed at other players or NPCs non player characters , I don't think it can be hidden anymore that the aggressive language and derogatory slurs are the language of gamers and commonplace within the community. Now, this could be a result of the particular games I tend to play shooters, MOBAs, usually ultra competative types which may attract a certain type of person. This may be one avenue to changing my view. While these games are not the only games out there, they are certainly the ones that get the most mainstream attention due to the pro gaming leagues that are now formed. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"\"Offensive\" language in the gaming community is not the exception, it's the rule."}
{"id":"27e2396d-2e27-4540-906d-3e4040068320","argument":"This is a movable goal post. 'Turn on us' could be simply the AI following through a set of protocols to achieve the end-goal the user specified. As with all things, there are potential consequences, and using an AI comes with risks.","conclusion":"This implies that an AI is aware of itself and that it could have its own motivations."}
{"id":"820be7bf-bfed-4b1a-a139-9e710b9ced32","argument":"Withholding basic rights and dignity from a deep, sentient, self-reflective being is to invite unrest and vengefulness. The smarter the AI, the more this is true.","conclusion":"By denying AGI basic rights, we logically place ourselves as an existential threat to them."}
{"id":"1f97433d-2a73-4a18-b8a3-65eaf575be61","argument":"fascism is often considered to be the far right version of communism, but they seem to have more in common on the political spectrum. Fascism is a response to the considered failing of capitalism. Because this is inherently a reactive ideology, it belongs on the left, no? This is, if right wing is against change and left wing is for change . Trotsky even said the beginnings of fascism and communism were the same. Fascism is often considered to protect an aristocratic class. This seems to be false as in Nazi Germany the Prussian aristocracy had the lowest support for the Nazi Party and the Valkyrie coup plan was largely composed of Prussian aristocrats who wished to undo the Nazi Party, therefore pushing things back to the common status quo. These two points should be sufficient, if the left vs right distinction comes down to for change and against change. EDIT a recurring theme seems to be its not communism, therefore right wing. just because its not as far left as communism doesnot inherently imply right wing","conclusion":"I firmly believe fascism is far left, not far right,"}
{"id":"01d259d3-da67-452f-bfca-1b333f731157","argument":"What is described as victim blaming, is actually just a refusal to contribute towards victim culture. Victim culture is toxic and therefore \"victim blaming\" can be good.","conclusion":"What some describe as \"victim-blaming\" is actually a good thing."}
{"id":"dc36f720-ba75-49f8-a4de-4279d3444120","argument":"If an eternal God requires the existence of His creation, then He could not have existed without it to have created it. This would make the universe either God, or a part of God. This is the god of pantheism or panentheism, not the God of classical theism.","conclusion":"The creator must be capable of existing without the creation."}
{"id":"5c72c6bc-8a3b-41d2-ad3f-31a108c0d8a3","argument":"Docked stations allow people to plan trips by knowing that there may be bikes at their destinations e.g. at the end of transit trips","conclusion":"Docked stations gives certainty to users that bike stations are close."}
{"id":"0612619f-a1db-4dbf-a751-8e7db7f14d0e","argument":"Black students are shown to aspire to study STEM fields, but will abandon these majors at twice the rate of white students due to academic mismatch.","conclusion":"Affirmative action often puts the students it is intended to help in a position where academic failure is more likely than success."}
{"id":"f566e652-d9c8-4c9e-867c-17f0fb4aa163","argument":"I understand that religion can be good because it teaches good morals, encourages people to help others ect. I also understand that many conflicts have started because of religion or have revolved around religion, for example WWII, Muslim Conquests, the Ottoman wars in Europe, and the Israeli Palestinian conflict. Another reason I think this is because of how other religions try to demonize one another. Your religion is wrong and bad while mine is right and good Let's fight about it There are also people and animals that are sacrificed for religion, people ignore science and rely on faith , religious places whether it be a church or temple whatever are always asking for money, Censorship of speech, art, books, music, films, poetry, songs, etc. Not to mention people are voted into office often because of their religion. Suicide bombers Suppression of logical thought You get the point. So reddit,","conclusion":"I think religion does more harm than good and the world would be better without it"}
{"id":"48821fc2-036b-4443-b35a-3579a2232446","argument":"Before I begin, I would like to stress that I am a very large fan of American football, especially in its collegiate form. However, I cannot rid myself of the feeling that the sport will not survive another hundred years in the same capacity as it does today. Though football as a form of entertainment is obviously widely popular at the current moment, the dangers of long term head injury seem to threaten the future of the sport. Traumatic Brain Injury TBI research and the link of such injuries in impact sports to Chronic Traumatic Encephalopy CTE , a neurodegenerative phenomenon, have caused Americans to take a closer look at the negative aspects of football, and I\u2019m not sure the sport will ever really recover Love and Solomon 1261 . Even football players who have become successful have decided to forfeit millions of dollars in exchange for their wellbeing, as evidenced by figures such as Chris Borland of the San Francisco 49ers Gasper . With highly visible athletes are having second thoughts, it is no wonder that the amount of youth league football participants from 2010 to 2012 has decreased almost 10 percent \u201cBrain Damage\u201d . I personally would not allow my child to participate in contact football, because there is the chance that his quality of life in the future could be ruined by the high impact sport I would never want to be responsible for negatively impacting any person\u2019s life, especially with regard to my own children. If this feeling becomes more widespread, and children aren\u2019t playing youth league football, then over time one would expect the number of people involved with football at higher levels to decrease as well. It seems a sport linked to brain trauma is destined to become a pay per view experience, similar to boxing. I think it was easier in the past to blindly support the \u201ctoughness\u201d and \u201cphysicality\u201d of football players being hit at high velocities, but now that there is more knowledge of the long term dangers of a player getting his \u201cbell rung,\u201d it is much more difficult to plead ignorant to what the repercussions are. Many people who I have talked to regard boxing as disgusting or cruel, and I think this stems from what we are learning about boxing and its connection to long term brain injuries. From the growing body of knowledge about the linking of football to brain trauma, I wouldn\u2019t be surprised if the negative sentiment to boxing were attached to football in the future as well. As a current college student looking to enter medical school, I may simply be looking too much into the health problems associated with football, while overlooking other factors leading to its success. Is there some other reason why you believe football will be around for many years to come? To be clear, I don\u2019t suggest football will disappear, but rather that it will serve a much more niche audience in the future than it does today. I\u2019m very much interested in hearing your feedback. Work Cited Brain Damage Fear Hits Junior American Football. Telegraph. Dec 26 2013. ProQuest. Web. 19 Oct. 2015 . Gasper, Christopher L. Borland Decision Admirable. Boston Globe. Mar 24 2015. ProQuest. Web. 19 Oct. 2015 . Love, Shawn and Solomon, Gary S. \u201cTalking With Parents of High School Football Players About Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy A Concise Summary\u201d. American Journal of Sports Medicine. Jun 6 2014. Web. 14 Oct. 2015.","conclusion":"American Football Will Not Survive Due to its Linkage to Brain Trauma"}
{"id":"3767bdb6-71fe-4b83-ab1a-9ecc183f66fd","argument":"To preface, this is something that has been beaten to death across the internet, but I've never found a satisfactory viewpoint to it because people on both sides are usually black or white, and American. I am none of these, and this post approaches this issue from a foreign standpoint. I am personally of the belief that context and intent are extremely important in evaluating statements. For example, I believe there is a difference between calling a close friend retard , versus insulting someone on the subway with it, versus using it to describe mock someone who is mentally challenged. If I could create an ideal world, everyone would have 100 knowledge of what the other person means. As a result, there wouldn't be a need to censor yourself because the other person would know you meant no offense. However, despite the world getting more interconnected people are still greatly influenced by their own cultural background, and words in particular can have significantly different connotations to different groups of people. The problem is that no group is capable of knowing or understanding all the possible implications of every word to every other group. An example, and something I have been conflicted on as a non American and here comes the dead horse is American society's view of the word nigga I'm using this example because I assume most Redditors are American and would be familiar with this issue, although I'll try to give many non American examples as well . A lot of white Americans want to use it because it's used everywhere and is just another word , and a lot of black Americans take offense at non blacks using it. On the one hand context should be important on the other, if someone is offended by a word, just don't say it it doesn't hurt you. And yet, many black artists use the word in their songs, which I'll get to in a bit. Something I believe we all can agree on is that words can have historical significance, and they can hurt . Yet at the same time, their meaning does change over time. Today's generation AFAIK is far more inclusive than previous ones. When a rap artist says nigga , it's difficult for non blacks to understand why they aren't allowed to say it. Partly because they feel they don't use it in a racist manner, partly because they feel they shouldn't be judged for others' actions in this case, their ancestors or other racist folk . It's a very good example of the problem because it ties into the next issue How do non Americans deal with this word? American pop culture has influenced everyone across the world. However we all have different cultural and historical backgrounds. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe virtually all African Americans are descended from slaves owned by white people, so they have a reason for requesting white people not to use it while feeling free to use it themselves. However, what are the rules for Asians who don't understand the historical significance of the word, with their only exposure to it being through popular music? Is it fair for a black Arab to use it, if he's descended from a family that owned slaves? Is it fair for a white Arab to use it, if he's descended from slaves ? In some desi communities, the use of dog kutha to describe someone is one of the worst things you could say equivalent to a white American calling a black man nigger with a strong er . In some Arab communities, calling someone a dog kalb is also seriously offensive, but to a lesser degree. Yet the English dog is a more relaxed swear, perhaps because words like bastard and bitch are thrown around so casually nowadays. Where I'm from, many people won't take offense to a friend calling them dog . Yet if the same person said kutha , you know it's serious Likewise, you could call a guy a bastard and it would be less offensive than calling a woman a bitch even if the intent behind them was the same towards both parties. To add to this, in many households here even words like stupid or idiot are frowned upon, while to hell with it isn't. In some families, calling someone a bastard is less offensive than calling him a pig. Going back to the USA do black Americans have sole ownership of the word nigga ? Is it all black Americans or only African Americans? Do all descendants of slaves have a right to use it, regardless of race? What if you're half black? What if you're 1 4th black? How deep does this rabbit hole go? It really isn't efficient to debate or discuss context for every single issue, considering they come up so often in a globalized and multicultural society. It is far better to simply avoid saying something that offends other people even if you personally don't mean anything offensive by it. For instance if someone doesn't want to be called jackass, bastard, idiot or moron, then don't call them that even if you meant it affectionately. If someone doesn't like hearing the word nigga from you, just don't say it. At the same time, people should be more accommodating if the other person genuinely didn't know it was an insult or was offensive to you, don't hold it against them. Be friendly and tell them you don't appreciate it. Of course, if the two of you have time to spare and would like to get into a friendly discussion over why this is isn't should be shouldn't be offensive, that's a different story. Lastly and this is something I'm still conflicted on if you feel that certain words are only okay to be used by certain groups, then those words should not be a part of popular culture especially when that culture is no longer exclusive to that group. Instances like this are very hard, IMO, to justify. TL DR Most people aren't going to know or agree with what constitutes offensive language to everyone else, so creating an objective list of forbidden words is ineffective and a waste of time. In general, be accommodating if someone minds you saying something, don't say it. If they don't mind, feel free to use it. Exceptions apply of course, e.g. academic papers. Change my view. note I hope this is common knowledge, but just in case anyone was confused slavery has been a part of human history for, well, all of human history. It wasn't just blacks being enslaved by whites, in other parts of the world.","conclusion":"Offensive language should be avoided because context is often too difficult to evaluate"}
{"id":"82fb9933-0e41-4f74-8bdb-ccf35a5d6648","argument":"Palestine has been invaded annexed whathaveyou over the course of the past 75 years. See this map. It appears the annexation is inexorable and there is little left of Palestine remaining to be taken over by Israel. My understanding is that Israel has continued allowing illegal expansion into Palestine and there is no decrease in the rate of new occupation coercision. The US is expected to stay as a protector on the world stage, blocking any UN sanctions against Israel as it has done for decades. There will be nothing to stop the complete annexation of Palestine.","conclusion":"Palestine will be completely annexed by Israel within 50 years"}
{"id":"15575c52-2d99-466a-acba-77ce85ba4056","argument":"EDIT Thanks for the comments, they have changed my opinion a lot. Please someone explain. I seriously don't understand how non offenders can claim they're virtuous people. virtuous \u02c8v\u0259\u02d0t\u0283\u028a\u0259s,\u02c8v\u0259\u02d0tj\u028a\u0259s Submit adjective having or showing high moral standards. They just look into shady ways to get off such as Photoshop, drawings or grooming kids online without meeting touching them in real life. Also, whenever I read supportive articles about self proclaimed 'pedosexuals' and other pedophiles who claim they would never touch a child despite their belief in showing high moral standards, they ALWAYS mention that it's against the law. Yes, it is. But Is that all? Not because it will traumatize the child? Or physically hurt the child? Cause severe mental illness? I have never seen non offenders express concern for the health or well being of children. It's always about legality, and they sure are quick to defend their brethren when they brag about literally MOVING COUNTRIES just because the age of consent is lower somewhere else. BUT THE LAW SAYS Alright, and it's also about the child's feelings and sexual maturity. I believe all non offenders would gleefully rape a child if the law was different or lifted. They don't really care about children, they care about being caught arrested. Therefore, virtuous doesn't suit them because they don't have high moral standards. They don't understand empathy or human decency. This is why I have 0 sympathy for any kind of pedophile. Change my view pls gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Non-offending\/virtuous pedophiles don't actually care about children."}
{"id":"6bfbb5c2-c3a4-42be-afd1-d9968d237445","argument":"There are already healthcare services funded by the government that may be placebos or may be working but are not possible to validate scientifically, only through intuition.","conclusion":"The use of homeopathy, given its lack of scientific evidence, will undermine people's faith in the public health system."}
{"id":"a7e20f69-c1d7-4c2a-be3e-1b2bdd44bdd9","argument":"From 1600 to 1699, far more Irish were sold as slaves than Africans Cavanaugh, par. 19","conclusion":"It may be that reparations are morally required in other instances also."}
{"id":"9944094a-4cf5-44b6-929e-9ed88645b266","argument":"Journalists go through prolonged and specialized training on how to capture their audience and develop their stories using their language skills.","conclusion":"Journalists have the language skills to successfully communicate and describe the scale of atrocities to the public."}
{"id":"ad8d2e8c-72c7-4675-98d2-139c3f163ae8","argument":"Having been, what society defines, raped by a friend of mine while we were both impaired I have a hard time believing that I was raped or that some people are raped because they were impaired. Granted if they are obviously intoxicated and the other person is aware of the other person's impairment I still believe that it is assault, but I don't think you can always know when the other person is mentally impaired, and that situations like this should not be treated as severely as violent rape. Give me a reason to .","conclusion":"I don't think it is rape usually when one person is impaired drunk, drugs, etc..."}
{"id":"b57eae0e-7a29-4631-89c1-4f6903c1543f","argument":"bg i am a male, studied comp sci in collage there is a lot of emphasis in the tech industry on having more girl engineers . they see a problem cuz in a company there's likely only 1 girl engineer for every 10 15 guy engineer. so people started shiet like grace hoppar to help girls get into engineering. sounds all good rite? wrong. from my observations, it has allowed shitty programmers to get jobs that they couldn't have gotten only because they happen 2 have a vagina. im not hating cuz they're girls, im hating cuz they suck. yes, i'm bitter that some girls who could barely even make it thru their classes is now working at google or microsoft now. and i also have 2 deal with their shitty code and inflated sense of self worth no, you're not the reincarnation of ada lovelace just cuz u can write in java and have boobs. hell, i'd love it if there were moar girls in engineering. statiscaly speaking, dat meens i'd have a higher chance of geting a date fukin. but i think artificialy inflating teh number of females is a detrimant 2 teh industry. from the comments, think of it this way when your company has lower standards for girls it leads to more shitty engineers that happen to be girls which leads to more people associating being bad at cs with being female which leads to more females being afraid of doign CS cuz of the preconception that females are bad at CS which leads to unbalanced ratio of male to female which leads back to having lower standards for females in an attempt to try to balance the gender ratio and make themselves look good fuking self feedback loop gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than just downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"i think that girls can make it eazier in engineering"}
{"id":"3ee8f92b-8c15-4f83-b0ba-285fe5b042aa","argument":"Cultural appropriation is interchangeable with the concept of cultural diffusion, a natural process that happens when cultures interact.","conclusion":"Integrating different cultures is one of the main way for cultures to develop themselves."}
{"id":"174eda6a-d804-4c16-bbdc-70c6801968db","argument":"Heaven is completely God's initiative which lacks evil but arguably God has allowed the partial corruption of the world through human free will as the contribution to the make-up of our world which defers judgement from God to man who are to blame for imperfection.","conclusion":"God allows evil to exist so that humans can have free will and develop into moral people. In order to be morally good in a meaningful way, a person must have the possibility of choosing evil."}
{"id":"c6958e08-ce55-47c6-a573-4220e7391ad9","argument":"Elections with ties in the middle of the tallying process call into question the validity of the final winner.","conclusion":"RESOLVABILITY Ties should be a rare occurrence. en.wikipedia.org"}
{"id":"f2c63efe-9ada-4d26-b41f-d8cdad0cad50","argument":"Any kind of new regulation law can completely eradicate small companies and nobody will care. Small companies have to monitor change in legislation and adapt, which mostly destroys their business as it's way too expensive to do so for a small company with a small budget.","conclusion":"Government doesn't prevent oligarchy from arising, it actually helps oligarchies become established and prevents common people from bringing competition to them, by requiring a lot of permissions from government to compete which obviously most poor people cannot afford."}
{"id":"d0dbab2f-fb15-4f23-a898-ca14374daeca","argument":"Therefore, it would be more accurate to say that they \u201cwere not allowed to *have sat* around idly\u201d. Really, all Christians are not supposed to \u201csit around idly\u201d, present tense \u2013 and if a widow is still able to be an active Christian, then by all means, she should do what she can, but that\u2019s not what 1 Tim. 5 is addressing.","conclusion":"All the qualifications aside from age in verses 9-10 specify that they must have been met in the past, i.e. that their being enrolled requires the specified work to already have been done \u2013 and not that it will necessarily begin, or be required to continue, upon enrollment."}
{"id":"13fbd79b-14a2-4dee-b3d1-891384a1a8f9","argument":"Sneezing is entirely voluntary. People who sneeze either lack the willpower or desire to resist. All sneezes are preventable. I don't know why people choose to sneeze, but I really wish they wouldn't, it's quite rude. I personally have only ever sneezed a handful of times, altogether an unpleasant experience, I would not recommend it. There's almost always something you can do to prevent it, either by looking away from the bright light which is irritating you, or blowing your nose, etc. Sneezing spreads disease. It's violent and it's hazardous in situations where you need to maintain control of your faculties like in a car or while crossing the street. This has been a PSA. . gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Sneezing is voluntary"}
{"id":"2f8bf771-6ba3-4d5b-b8ed-1dd9f522e468","argument":"The thought of an afterlife gives some people comfort and helps mitigate a fear of death.","conclusion":"Souls are simply man's creation to give people purpose and are not real."}
{"id":"deb2f165-5a98-4eca-9b3e-c3d0325b57e3","argument":"People who go to Ivies and equivalents, through their graduation from such prestigious institutions, have already proven that they're worthwhile people. Weather it be that they're smarter or harder working than the rest of us, it's reasons like the aforementioned that employers prefer them over non Ivy students. Although one could argue that there are simply not enough Ivy alums to fill every job that exists is needed, this view essentially confirm non Ivy students to be plan B, hired out of necessity rather than desirability. Lesser institutions exist just to educate people to work for their peers at higher ranked schools. Socially, I feel that people are absolutely more interested in people who went to Ivies over people at non Ivies. Ask 100 people whether they'd rather have a conversation with an engineering major from Harvard or a psych major from a state school, and I bet all 100 would choose the Harvard student. That psych major, therefore, has to prove to society that he she is also worth something, but will most often pale in comparison to the Harvard student. In addition, all of the great innovators and achievers that society admirers so greatly, like President Obama, Zuckerberg, and Larry Page just to name a few, have all attended Ivy or equivalent institutions. The rest of us are and will always be irrelevant.","conclusion":"People who go to non-Ivy schools are worth something and don't just exist because Ivy graduated can't fill every job that exists."}
{"id":"e5a2b38a-1a4a-4e7d-aa8b-81f3f3275d9c","argument":"Strict quality controls will stimulate a fair competition amongst drug suppliers to offer the purest drugs.","conclusion":"The risk of unknown purity and poor-quality drugs will be minimized."}
{"id":"0f32d071-624f-431a-8b00-37ace554fa92","argument":"First of all I would like to make some remarks on the notion that it is problematic to accept some forms of speech to be violence. a I think it's fairly clear that the way in which said speech is delivered can be violent. For example, denying someone the ability to sleep by keeping him awake through noice. Or using such force as to rupture someone's eardrums. b Aside from the tone and volume of speech, the content can also be deemed if not violent than at least unacceptable, at least in certain situations. For example, an occupying force forcing a civilian to strip naked. No physical harm ought to be done, but I the implied threat would make few people think this is acceptable. A second example could be bullying. Even when no physical bullying takes place it can leave deep scars for years to come. So clearly harm has been done to the victim. Now this doesn't mean that such use of speech ought to be illegal, but we can certainly condemn it. When the victim asks a teacher to stop the bullies, few would see it as an infringement of the bullies rights. With this I think I have at least shown that to see some speech as violent is not ridiculous or some kind of post modern fantasy. Still, I haven't given an argument yet why, even if harmful, some speech can be justifiably restricted. 2 Which brings me to the point of universities and whether or not they ought to restrict some speech or ought not to. a First I'd like to point out some forms of speech that are already restricted which I believe even those arguing for no restrictions wrt to speakers and the like can accept. Certainly if they believe so because a free marketplace of ideas is an important part of education. The bullying example used earlier works here too. Mocking someones appearance, manner of speech, etc in class doesn't really entail any discussion of ideas and hampers the learning of the victim, if not the whole class. Wouldn't the professor be justified in asking the bullies to stop or remove them from the class if they continue that behaviour? Another classic example would be shouting that there is fire when there's not, or calling security forces for no good reason. Or indeed when research,a lab, or testing requires silence to proceed we'd accept the unruly person to be removed. No guilty party need even be involved. When a researcher, due to some medical psychological reason maybe tourettes interrupts a project they might be asked to leave the room in situations where silence is vital for an experiment to work. b Now the main point I believe is at stake in these discussions is the supression of certain ideas. From what I can tell this mostly revolves around a perceived leftist institution not allowing rightist ideas to be discussed. In the hard sciences the restriction of some ideas could to me at least have reason to be justified. Discussion of notions that hamper the formation of effective engineers and doctors could be restricted at least in volume . Doctors not having to discuss every quack out there is vital to get anything done at all. The curiculum is set and certain ideas have to be excluded. Of course the curiculum itself can be questioned but this should be resolved by experts, not just by random people with any kind of idea. Ultimately it's the goal of universities to teach the right ideas, heuristics and ways of evaluating info. Discussing is a vital part of this, but inevitably some actual material has to be taught at the expense of the free market of ideas . Learning science doesn't need to be science itself. The human life is simply too short for that. The reason this seems to be more of an issue in the soft sciences is I suspect that people distrust experts in these fields. Especially due to them being more politically charged. But this seems to be not an issue of speech as such. In this sense it's a discussion about wider structures like the restriction of extremist parties in parliament, banning certain propaganda ISIS for example . Personally I think encouraging terror propaganda or information , violating patient privacy, and certain other things can be restricted, and even ought to be. There's of course a difference between such things and restricting speeches at university, but it's a difference in scale, not in kind. So in the light of what I've written, I'd argue speech can be restricted and the discussion is about what speech, and what not. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Speech can be violent, and it's not obvious certain forms shouldn't be restricted."}
{"id":"0ae0377d-0d24-41cb-8f8d-0aacff8166b0","argument":"There are a few reasons for this. The NFL, for example, is a huge monopoly, which allows them to inflate ticket prices to all time highs and deflate player salaries to all time lows. This also applies to all other sports organizations, such as the MLB and NHL. Secondly, sports organizations bully the cities that they represent. They all pressure the cities and counties their stadiums reside in to pay for them, and demand new ones every few years, costing cities with high crime and poverty rates a lot of money that they don't have. This is not a problem by itself, but the stadiums actually harm the economy, causing the city to go into debt so it can go into debt. Thirdly, there are some organizations that are straight up thieves. The best example of this, to me, is the NCAA. Their players do not get salaries, yet the NCAA makes millions off them, including at least one video game. Now, the NCAA claims that they don't have to pay their players because they are given opportunities in education, but these are provided by the colleges the play for, not the NCAA. They just suck in money and do very little. These things just make it seem that sports organizations just take money for themselves and never spread it around, even to the people who they owe their entire existence to. EDIT Apparently I have been poorly informed.","conclusion":"Sports organizations are bad"}
{"id":"6b3c71de-4222-4587-9789-43a0bacdfa0e","argument":"Countries often use their veto to protect themselves or their allies, often at the cost of supporting resolutions that could help end conflicts.","conclusion":"UN Security Council's veto hinders any real solutions to serious conflicts, stopping the UN from helping people in need."}
{"id":"3f96805b-f513-4344-b856-e7a37aa020f3","argument":"Monday is a better fit for the first day of the week than Sunday is in the U.S. and here's why It is an archaic system based on when the Sabbath is etc. I suppose in some Muslim countries areas where they consider Friday the day of rest and Sunday the first day of work are exempt. Most countries that follow the same work week pattern DO recognize Monday as the first day of the week whereas the U.S. does not. See UK, Vietnam, etc. Monday feels like the first day of the week. It's the day when everyone goes back to work or school. Following point 2, the international standard of time and date ISO 8601 recognizes Monday as the first day of the week, but being the stubborn country we are we still recognize Sunday as the first day of the week. Tell me why I should recognize Sunday as the first day of the week and not Monday, or argue for any other day of the week to be the first day if you are of that opinion. EDIT My view has been changed, I see now that my previous view was self centered and that the determination of which day of the week is the first day is an arbitrary distinction.","conclusion":"Monday is a more appropriate first day of the week than Sunday is in the United States."}
{"id":"b8817650-d7d5-442d-b3c1-351d0a01fb3e","argument":"Stories like this are incredibly infuriating, and this is a growing trend in today's schools. I know I shouldn't believe such an instant reaction, but even after putting a lot of thought into it, I still can't see how this is a logical solution to today's rampant bullying problems. Kids who stand up for themselves should be commended and looked up to, not be punished in the same fashion as the agitator. But, of course, I know there's a reason schools do this, and I want to believe they're right, but I just can't. So, reddit, ?","conclusion":"It is unjustifiable for schools to punish kids fighting for self defense."}
{"id":"0755e8b7-9776-4b78-8c25-c5a436bfcac2","argument":"Looking at the SNC Lavalin fiasco in Canada surrounding PM Justin Trudeau and Minister Jody Wilson Raybould, and also looking at the inappropriate touching issue involving VP Joe Biden, I have been put off as many others are about the issues of lack of transparency and lack of professionalism\u2026 but, at the risk of sounding like I am defending Biden, I ALSO have been put off by the timing of the whistle blowing. In the case involving Biden, it had been at least 3 years since the issues had taken place, and I am wondering why it took until now, as Biden was about to or already did announce his candidacy for President that the accusers have been coming out of no where to address it publicly. In the case involving Trudeau, with the election occurring in 6 months and each party in campaign mode, why would Wilson Raybould publicly call into question her PM\u2019s and government\u2019s party\u2019s integrity knowing it would derail their efforts in gaining re election, going so far as to audio tape her colleagues in an incriminating manner? Is it wrong, in your opinions, to think of them as opportunists? Are there obvious ulterior motives in such situations other than doing what is right?","conclusion":"high profile political \u201cwhistle blowers\u201d are mostly conniving opportunists"}
{"id":"f7d2d1c2-0f72-4d71-aaed-24c9f770dd6c","argument":"Because of demographic change, a shrinking work force and rising social costs, it will become ever more expensive for the West to safeguard its security with human soldiers. AKMs can help circumvent these problems.","conclusion":"AKMs save money as they are cheaper than human forces."}
{"id":"9af3cb63-59e2-4ba9-bcd7-2aee68832cd6","argument":"Caroline Lucas. \"Cut the bullfighting.\" The New Statesman. June 5th, 2008: \"Like most industries, the profits from bullfighting end up in the hands of a very small number of people in a bullfighting elite.","conclusion":"Profits from bullfighting end up in hands of small group."}
{"id":"49abdd0f-294a-4b9e-91cb-6e4026be3ea8","argument":"For example, what is an enforceable human rights violation might be different between Sweden and Kuwait.","conclusion":"The problem with international policing is coming to a consensus of opinion."}
{"id":"d5883ba2-43f3-4edb-ae44-d9512c0e95e9","argument":"\u201cSo long as power can be denied to pure numbers, so long as great fields of human activity are exempt from the influence of government, so long as constitutions limit the scope of legislation: so long as these things endure, democratic despotism is kept at bay.\u201d - Historian Russell Kirk in \"The Conservative Mind,\" summarizing Alexis de Tocqueville's views from \"Democracy in America\".","conclusion":"Conservative conceptions of justice are also skeptical of untempered democratic mandate. Nations should do what is right, not necessarily what has the most popular support."}
{"id":"5704b86b-8b48-4c36-850b-113f989fd84e","argument":"There is research to suggest that an average couples\u2019 satisfaction with their marriage declines during the first years of marriage, and goes down further as time goes on.","conclusion":"Just because a marriage lasts longer does not make it a happy or fulfilling one for the parties involved."}
{"id":"262167be-8e17-4cde-8f01-f4de97e353e7","argument":"Here's a quite fresh topic if I do say so myself. There's this neologism I've been hearing lately that is the word unironically . Example sentences include He unironically tells you followed by something that one may normally mistake as being sarcastic. When it comes to pretty much any sentence where the word is used, I believe the meaning of the word would be a lot less confusing and ambiguous if instead it was unsarcastically . For instance During the interview, the king unironically pointed out that he has a glowing view of himself . This sentence means a king thinks highly of himself and wasn't trying to be sarcastic or joking . It's be much better to just say During the interview, the king unsarcastically said that he has a glowing view of himself. Unsarcastically gt unironically EDIT To clarify, in the provided interview, the king is saying he has a glowing view of himself sincerely, and is not trying to make an egotistical joke or comedically reference stereotypical depictions of kings. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"\"Unsarcastically\" should replace the word \"unironically\""}
{"id":"68f8951f-3d23-4c50-988f-86b576ad427a","argument":"The internet widens the array of tools available to those who seek to subvert oppressive regimes. The Burmese PDP have used the internet extensively outside Burma to provide information informing non-Burmese about the military junta and to coordinate actions of activists. Internally, whilst once dissidents were reduced to scrawling graffiti on walls or publishing pamphlets in underground print shops, now entire sets of documents can be made available online to a much wider audience at the touch of a button. The internet has also decreased the cost of being such a dissident, leading to a younger, wider group of people in Taiwan being involved in illegal link-ups with teenagers on the Chinese mainland over the web. Any individual with a mobile phone or access to an internet connection can simply evade filtering controls put in place, using tools like \u2018Siphon\u2019, unblocked proxies or mirror sites which guarantee unfettered access. The sheer number of dissidents and the fact that they leave few electronic traces makes them harder to trace and spreads dissidence from the hardened few to the many, a key step in the process of democratization.","conclusion":"The internet widens the array of tools available to those who seek to subvert oppressive regimes. T..."}
{"id":"836d859f-f6a1-4bf6-912c-398854c282d9","argument":"Dogs have been domesticated by humans for far longer than cats have been, suggesting that they have historically been more beneficial to humans than cats.","conclusion":"Dogs have a more positive impact on humans than cats."}
{"id":"013b6b5b-f917-44c3-9480-33301d9e7f79","argument":"My understanding of this is limited, but bear with me. So basically, I noticed several years ago that Chrome seemed to be faster than every other web browser, including Firefox where I had installed too many extensions. I started using Chrome and never looked back. But I recently forgot to go into incognito mode as I was viewing some, shall we say, sensitive material and I noticed that I usually browse as an identity, which presumably Google is aggregating for advertising or whatever other nefarious purposes. Who really knows what they can do with that data given that no one reads the terms of use, and they have more than enough money to buy whatever legislators to let them do whatever they want with it, and even if they didn't enforcement would be impracticable. And even when you're in incognito mode, it's all from the same computer and the same IP address, so it's really not hard for them to piece that together. So I got creeped out, downloaded Firefox, and noticed that it is now just as fast if not faster than Chrome. And aside from crash reports, Mozilla do not seem to be collecting all my private data for their own purposes, so I need not worry that all my private data is being aggregated into an identity profile that can be used against me or other people. So given the choice between a fast browser without being spied on and a fast browser where I am definitely being spied on, it does not at all make sense to choose the latter except out of habit. So I should use Firefox instead of Chrome. . Edit typo","conclusion":"It is creepy for Chrome to be tracking everything I see online, so I should switch to Firefox"}
{"id":"0e35385a-f9df-4ca4-b25e-4bdc479e97b6","argument":"These failed marriages are likely to be used as examples by parents, who oppose marriages among different minority groups, to disallow their children from getting married.","conclusion":"Breakdown of these marriages could have devastating impacts on minority groups."}
{"id":"2423504e-9ac7-4335-8f49-2be1c9d85c4a","argument":"Cigarette butts are the number one most littered object in the world. This year alone, an excess of 950,000,000 kg of cigarette waste will be produced. A single ingested used cigarette filter is toxic enough to kill small freshwater fish. British Columbia, Canada has started a recycling program where they pay people 0.01 for each butt that they recycle. I feel like this will provide an incentive for smoking and the scope of these types of programs will have very little impact on a world wide problem. Therefore, I think that the only way to solve this environmental crisis is to stop producing cigarette filters. Edit I just found this article on the history and effectiveness of cigarette filters. It is actually quite interesting and if you have time you should skim through it.","conclusion":"Cigarettes should be sold without a filter to eliminate environmental pollution."}
{"id":"9e2e10f6-ea40-4dcb-848a-e3a97b7d83cf","argument":"prompted by these two posts The swastika is an integral part of hindu culture, the confederate flag is not an integral part of any culture. This means that any attempt to ban the swastika is an attack against hindusim. This alone is a major difference. any attempt to ban the swastika will have to worry about being disrespectful to hindus, and banning the confederate flag has no such issues. The confederate flag is more comparable to the N word. As far as I know, no major culture has used the N word in a positive way for thousands of years. The swastika is more comparable to Islam. Today, Islam has been associated with terrorism, similar to how the swastika is associated with Nazism. However, both Islam and the swastika has been used as positive symbols for thousands of years before their negative association. but since people keep insisting that the confederate flag is somehow comparable to the swastika, please cmv. EDIT delta awarded to KrustyFrank27","conclusion":"the confederate flag is not comparable to the swastika"}
{"id":"fbb6fbc0-0d69-4974-be97-efc9f3a02e58","argument":"In other countries with universal health care, waiting times can be very long resulting in worse care for patients.","conclusion":"A right to healthcare would decrease the quality of care available to the people."}
{"id":"d395810e-1780-43dd-a623-696169628101","argument":"I have noticed that people that frequently share their achievements, their vacations, and their daily lives to have problems. Usually it seems like they want people to see their lives are better than what it really is. Why do they have to share so much about themselves? Psychologically there must be a reason and it might stem from insecurity or trying hard to flaunt what little they have. I find that people that don't have the mindset of constantly bragging or showing off even though they are well off to be better people. Deep now, I really have to ask myself. Why do I want to share something on social media. Number one reason is to get likes, but why is it so important to me? When I ask this question to myself, I always conclude it that I must be insecure or that my life is going so badly that I want people to see that I exist. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"People that share a lot on social media tend to have glaring underlying problems."}
{"id":"248f1586-f371-4aa0-94de-ed6cf322563c","argument":"I was playing through a philosophical game the other day, Antichamber, where as you progress you are shown little, meaningful quotes about life, and one of them was The choice doesn\u2019t matter if the outcome is the same. Is this true? If I have to choose between A and B, yet I'll end up with C either way, does the choice matter?","conclusion":"I think that the choice doesn\u2019t matter if the outcome is the same."}
{"id":"58a969b9-078d-4593-81e6-c9939263840b","argument":"The way our world is currently organized mandates consumption of resources as the ultimate measure of success. Perpetual economic growth, impossible on a finite planet, is the standard by which supposedly successful civilizations are measured. Environmental destruction, most violence and poverty are all the inevitable consequence of a profit driven system with scarcity as the primary mover. The aggregation of wealth and resources into increasingly smaller orbits of control establishes fundamental societal structures that seek to preserve the status quo at the expense of the future. I see no alternative to a catastrophic collapse of society as the only agent of real change. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Our current, profit driven, socio-economic paradigm is fatally flawed and facing a cataclysmic breakdown."}
{"id":"2783b89a-6998-4da7-a7d4-be92aafb8b5f","argument":"It's self defeating to presuppose that only empirical evidence can be a base for reasonable belief, because that presupposition can't be proved empirically.","conclusion":"Existence of God is more readily explained by philosophical reasoning than science, since science is concerned only with the material."}
{"id":"960c7d5a-d5fd-4efd-92aa-66775cbd75bf","argument":"The future is hard to predict, especially where weather is involved. There will be good and bad consequences of climate change. Anyone who claims certainty is overreaching. Climate has never been stable. At any point in the past it was either getting warmer or colder. Imposing artificial stability is a good thing for Humans, but freaking out over change is alarmist. Please bear in mind that negative messages are more salient in the media than positive messages. Things aren't as bad as people who make a living being interesting claim. Ice is retreating and the ocean is rising, which will lead to positive feedback from CO2 released out of melting permafrost. Disruptive changes may occur in ocean currents. Weather patterns will change. This is an opportunity to make our infrastructure resilient over climatic timescales. It will be expensive, but worthwhile, and the changes will happen slowly enough for our construction technology to cope with 1 3 feet of sea level rise per century is a reasonable estimate a few degrees of temperature change per century. If it's worse than that it can be mitigated by fertilizing the oceans with iron so algae grows, dies, and sinks, trapping carbon. Volcanoes can be triggered with injection wells or explosives to erupt, putting sulfur in the air that blocks sunlight for decades. These efforts will cost far less than prematurely quitting fossil fuels. Fossil fuels ended slavery by replacing manpower with machine power. A totally negative view of them is immoderate. As technology advances they will be replaced naturally. Pushing the schedule risks wasting resources. One dollar spent reducing fuel use buys much less good than one dollar spent on mosquito nets in malaria zones, vaccines, or other urgently needed social programs. The positive effects of global warming are under reported, but essential to consider. Deserts are greening. So is permafrost. A large part of continental mass is currently at a latitude where increased temperature will yield more crops and longer growing seasons, helping end hunger. CO2 is like fertilizer in the air and rainfall will increase. The next ice age will be averted. Sea transport routes are opening up. We should try to take a reasonable, balanced view of this subject and act accordingly. Nothing gets done without a crisis, so some are trying to emphasize only the dangers. But moderates should not accept the good bad false dichotomy and instead embrace an ambiguous, multiplex reality. There is a psychological tendency in all people to create tidy narratives about how things work and pay much less attention to new information that contradicts their story. This is scary because it happens quietly in the background of even intelligent people\u2019s minds without them realizing. It preserves a feeling of stability and control over reality at the cost of truth. People who become aware of this, like me, start to see uncomfortable contradictions and ambiguities in their narratives as good things as signs that we\u2019re paying attention to all of the incoming information, and not falling for the confirmation bias. If I'm wrong, .","conclusion":"It is not yet known whether climate change will be catastrophic-"}
{"id":"2fb78488-4091-4f51-a398-b0bdd18a0738","argument":"Christian responses to domestic abuse have been catching up to secular standards over the past 40 years. Many pastors have said and many continue to say that they would never advise a women to leave an abusive husband, and many advise forgiveness and enduring.","conclusion":"Some communities and groups have suffered abuse and\/or death in the name of religion. E.g. murder of LGBTQ, abuse of disabled children, removal of freedoms for women, child marriages, etc."}
{"id":"a3289e33-cd38-4b1c-ab20-0683a79864e5","argument":"I've avoided talking about politics for most of my life because it seems like a waste of energy and an easy way to ruin friendships, but lately I've started feeling like it's pretty fun to talk about after all, if you approach it the right way. Since I haven't been talking about politics, I haven't had the need to figure out what to tell people my political views are in the first place. I live in the US, and the most common category people use to talk about politics is the left right split. I don't really know where I fall on that axis myself because I really haven't thought about it very much, but I figure regardless of what I say about it I'll have to figure out individual issues for myself, or else I'll inevitably end up having all kinds of stupid views just by association. I don't want to just call myself an independent or something like that though, because that's no fun. In any case, many people who call themselves liberals have positions that others would call conservative, and vice versa, so it's not as simple as just joining a political group and accepting their positions on everything. So I thought, why not just look at it in terms of group affiliation? This is something like identity politics, but I mean it more in terms of cultural values than political policies that favor particular groups. In terms of identity politics, I'm white, male, and straight, and I'm also relatively wealthy. I'm a first generation immigrant and grew up poor though. I have a few friends but not many, and I have no connections of any sort that would give me any kind of social advantage. Close to typical for the reddit crowd I imagine. Overall, I can't help but feel that just based on that and only that, I should just tell people I'm a conservative. It's hard not to see an obvious reality that people on the left just don't like people like me . They'll never say that to me outright of course, that's not how the discussion is supposed to be framed rather it's a matter of acknowleding your advantages in life, the fact that others have different and much more difficult circumstances, etc. Those are valid and valuable points, but in terms of the cultural zeitgeist on the left I think it's fair to say that being in my identity group is going to carry a very real kind of stigma for the foreseeable future. More importantly though, I think everyone has to be careful about allowing people to dicate values for them that require subordinating their own interests to the greater good at the very least, you'd better be sure you know who's in charge of determining what the greater good is, and what is going to be expected of you. What's my place in the ideally just society of progressive ideals? Will I be expected to prove that I'm not the wrong kind of person, particularly not the wrong kind of straight white male, who hasn't internalized right thinking well enough, for the foreseeable future? Obviously this is veering into kind of a caricature, but I challenge anyone to deny that this element of thinking is very real on the left. Even if a particular person is entirely friendly and non judgmental about people with opposing politics, they'll always have that friend or two who is just utterly intolerable unless you're not in the line of fire of their hostility, like that racist uncle who makes Thanksgiving awkward for everyone except people who are used to him and enable him. To put it bluntly, I don't see why I should put up with this. I try pretty hard to remain open minded and non judgmental, but at the end of the day I just flat out don't like people who don't like people like me . I think this is pretty understandable. Am I wrong to look at it this way? I can definitely see problems with this way of looking at it the right wing of US politics really is pretty anti intellectual see Trump , and the left is certainly right about one thing, that outright chauvinism isn't ethical or a winning political strategy in the long term. I think it sucks that what is nominally my crowd according to the categories set up by progressives has many subgroups that have values like this. Nonetheless, being who I am, I don't perceive them as actively hostile and openly dangerous to my well being both physical and emotional the way I perceive many on the left. Again, not in the line of fire. So, naturally, the answer is that I need to think of the well being of others before my own, particularly those who have it harder than me for various reasons. I agree, and I think I can do that and still call myself a conservative, which would allow me to just live my life and not worry about adapting to whatever new demands come from the authorities on the left. What to do in this situation? I think I should just say I'm a conservative and enjoy seeing people get riled up about it.  reddit gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I should be a conservative"}
{"id":"380c94c6-3087-45db-8a25-43b7e331f9af","argument":"It could be a stray baseball, an errant puck at a hockey game or something similar. In the US at least, when a live piece of the game goes into the stands, there is a lot of pressure to give these rewards to nearby kids. I feel it's teaching bad lessons, like giving someone a fish, instead of teaching them how to fish. When I was a kid, my dad never caught a foul ball. He talked about it all the time. He finally did when I was 11 at an MLB game, one of his proudest moments, but we went to minor leagues games a lot because they were cheaper. He would have me eye up batters whether the player was batting left or right and taught me swinging patterns and probability that went along with it. By 13, I amassed four foul balls at minor leagues stadiums, from that summer, two from the same game. Years later, in 2010, I snagged a foul ball at an MLB game. There was a nearby kid, and I felt that moment coming on . . . but luckily his dad told me the outfielder threw him two baseballs during batting practice before the game. That absolved my guilt for keeping it. Since his dad got me the seats, I would've had to give the kid the ball normally, right? I just thinking snagging a live piece of sports memorabilia is fair game. Kids get older, they become adults and they learn like I did. No reason to just throw or give me a ball. The ones you earned, have a better story anyway. And no, I wouldn't take it that seriously I am open to hearing how people would handle a similar situation with maybe a disabled kid or a girl vs. a boy. I'm not closed to compassion or other special circumstances. But that's what I think. We have to earn things in life, but fate, luck and skill also play into things. Anyway, I'm ready reddit. Change my view","conclusion":"If you snag a foul ball, you have to give it to a little kid."}
{"id":"30a122ba-b1a3-480e-bba3-f3f332c0504b","argument":"Before I date myself too severely I'm 30 years old. I have a good bit of teaching experience, both at the college level and K 12. It would be easy to dismiss my thesis here as crotchety cane shaking. It might also trigger some defensive responses from some phone addicted youths. Before I get into it, know that I have a lot of respect and love for the young folks. I've given a lot of my 20s lifting trying to empower them and I'm counting on them to help save the world. I do not blame young people for the information addiction with which they have been afflicted. Nonetheless, I believe that smartphones are the single greatest obstacle to success for young people, and that the damage they inflict to a child's formative years could have lasting and tangible consequences that not only overwhelm the merits of carrying the device, but also outpace the negative consequences of a smoking habit. This is a difficult argument to put forward because the detrimental effects of information addiction and its most common vector, the smartphone, are hard to quantify. This is because the relevant body of research is immature those people who have had a smartphone since a very young age are still young and because causal relationships between smartphone use and negative consequences are less straightforward harder to quantify. On the other hand, the first generation raised on cigarettes is no longer young, the body of relevant research is robust, and the causal relationships with negative consequences are intuitive. Tar and carcinogens enter your lungs, resulting in roughly ten years off of your life expectancy. Additionally, in terms of quality of life, you can expect some asthmatic or even bedridden years. i.e. there is a quality of life impact in addition to a quantity of life impact. I believe that smartphone use in young people, and information addiction in general, threatens their achievable quality of life, and possibly indirectly their quantity of life as well. And, to reiterate, I believe that the magnitude of these effects, especially toward quality of life, is greater than in the case of smoking. The threat that smartphones pose to young people can be divided into two rough categories opportunity cost , and psychological effects . Opportunity cost Every second spent entertaining an information addiction is a second not spent doing something else. Even supposing that there is no direct negative consequence of smartphone use, there is still the opportunity cost associated with the incredible number of hours spent every day not doing something else things like being attentive or working in school, reading at home, learning practicing skills, creating anything music, fiction, games, doing anything that requires some higher level brain activity. Psychological effects A drug is understood to be a substance that alters the brain, but why is it important that it be a substance? It's well understood that the brain physically changes in response to many things that aren't substances trauma, codependent relationships, etc. and that these changes can equate to changes in conduct lifestyle, and ultimately quality of life. It's also the case that negative impacts to quality of life can affect your life expectancy. Again, though, I cede that the psychological effects of information addiction on the brain are still not well understood and are by nature more nuanced than the negative effects of smoking. I believe that we will look back on this era of ubiquitous smartphone ownership by young people with the same shame and disgust as we feel when we look back at photos of children smoking. We will say what the hell were we thinking? We will say How were information companies allowed to get away with that? the same way we now say How were tobacco companies able to get away with that? . And finally, as the first generation of young people raised with smartphone and information addictions grows up and is expected to take on roles in a functional society, we will discover and quantify consequences that not only dwarf those exhibited by your mother who became addicted to facebook at age 45, but indeed those of lifetime smokers. x200B","conclusion":"Buying your young child a smartphone is more harmful to them than buying them cigarettes."}
{"id":"02e56e0f-9914-4ae7-8f2c-de38d457a3b1","argument":"A general understanding of what asexuality is is not prevalen and so the community's problems with discrimination and their need for services are most likely not well known. Due to this, it is unlikely that they would receive the same funding as other groupings.","conclusion":"Asexual and aromantic groups, as a smaller percentage of the population as compared to the LGBT grouping, are unlikely to get enough funding to provide as much support as they would have gotten within the LGBT umbrella."}
{"id":"0aa3114e-43a1-4cd8-be77-2363bdeb93e7","argument":"Here is what we KNOW happened that day. At some point there was a confrontation between the two people. We KNOW the argument turned physical, and we KNOW that a young man was shot and killed by a single bullet. We can presume from a witness and from Zimmerman's injuries that Trayvon was in fact on top of Zimmerman, slamming him into the ground. Now, everything that happened before the confrontation DOESN'T MATTER, for no crime had been committed. Additionally, we can not prove who made the confrontation physical and in the American Justice system you are innocent until you are proven guilty. EDIT turns out Affirmative Defense is a thing the burden of proof falls onto the defender.","conclusion":"I believe George Zimmerman was right to be found Not Guilty...."}
{"id":"f0ba1ff5-9ba2-477b-acaf-1fabe84dfa5d","argument":"Other than the head and chest, most people would not know where to aim for vital arteries that will cause the assailant to bleed out quickly enough to stop them from being a threat. Although you should be prepared to shoot if you draw a weapon, you may not be required to.","conclusion":"Most people are incapable of aiming a gun precisely enough to \"wound\" rather than \"kill\" in a stressful situation."}
{"id":"751a0670-04db-4d02-b536-c877e65b19c2","argument":"Languages and cultures use the word \"sugar\" and related to describe certain favorable and pleasing characteristics of appearance, personality and more.","conclusion":"Tobacco is perceived as a dirty and viciously harmful product, while sugar poison has a more innocent image."}
{"id":"1a8f780f-274e-419f-9f5c-d8d8e665e17d","argument":"The more I read, and watch, and play the Assassin's Creed series, the more I am convinced that it is a product dated by the trends at its inception. Some group of execs at Ubisoft were sitting around a table in the early 2000s and saw that parkour and Dan Brown books were huge and thought, Let's make a game about those things It felt topical when Assassin's Creed 1 came out in 2007 on the heels of the 2006 Da Vinci Code movie but now it just feels totally played out and dated. Don't get me wrong, running across the rooftops and assassinating people in historical cities is amazing, but all the Da Vinci Code crap about ancient magical artifacts and the Templars fighting the Assassins throughout history is such a drag. And the present day tie in feels painfully unnecessary. Assassin's Creed IV would be a much better game if it just let you be a pirate without all of the superfluous nonsense about magical devices that the secret Templar organization has been searching for throughout history. Honestly, all the extra crap about Templars is totally ruining the series for me even though I really want to like it. Help me enjoy the games by changing my view.","conclusion":"The Assassin's Creed series would be much better if it dropped the Da Vinci Code schtick with the Templars vs. Assassins and ancient artifacts, and was just a game about being a badass at a key point in history."}
{"id":"fd6ff056-fc25-448b-b81e-91f1655cd8c0","argument":"Israel suspended a payment of $127 million due to the Palestinian authorities, as a response to Palestine's accession to the ICC a day after the statute was signed.","conclusion":"Recognition of Palestine has prompted retaliation from Israel in the past."}
{"id":"6e261508-7f47-4508-b17d-ccdede8b3752","argument":"I believe that the gaming has grown to the point where it should be considered socially as a sport the us government approved of it already . Professional league of legends players put in as much time as real sport athletes, and requires communication and cooperation of a team to achieve their goal. Thousands of people tune in everyday to watch sports like basketball and football, and the same can be said about LoL during the season . With the google definition of sport, it reads an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment. League of Legends requires is less physical demanding than a real sport, but still requires people to be aware, attentive, and fit physically and mentally. Players must be able to achieve multiple actions per second, which is a skill that is developed and perfected. Well anyways, , all my friends think I'm weird. I'm open to ideas still.","conclusion":"I believe League of Legends is a legitimate sport."}
{"id":"3c0d5fdf-2eed-4e9e-866f-f1e91d957205","argument":"Whenever I see 'gay rallies' or lobbyists, I struggle to believe that their actual demands involve 'equality' or to be accepted as 'normal' by society. In Australia, we have a gay parade called 'mardi gras' which involves the gay community perpetuating many of the negative stereotypes society has about homosexuals. I think that having homosexuals parading about in this manner serves no actual purpose to the equality movement. If we were to have a 'straight rally', this would be written off as homophobic and exclusionary. But, somehow, because this is a gay rally the broader society is supposed to not be offended by it and we should, rather, 'celebrate' such behaviour. By having such rallies, the gay community is going out of its way to display their difference and parade it to everybody to make themselves seem unique. However, when it comes to debates on same sex marriage which, by the way, I support or legal rights, they go out of their way to explain their normality and their equality.","conclusion":"I believe that 'anti-homphobia' movements largely serve to encourage further inequality in society."}
{"id":"3c75b586-093b-436a-a928-fee317f9caae","argument":"It is immoral to expect developing nations to adhere to a lesser standard of life because of the faults of developed nations.","conclusion":"The moral obligation to fight climate change is trumped by the right to development in developing countries."}
{"id":"400b76ad-8274-49fa-9ab9-700fdcc80c28","argument":"The West distributes aid in many countries in which it does not have a military presence, often via the UN","conclusion":"Foreign Aid does not require a continued US or NATO presence in Afghanistan."}
{"id":"2c5c922f-f2f6-428c-acb6-936bbcad17da","argument":"I've heard it repeated as fact constantly over the last few years that the rise of automation and improved AI will result in mass unemployment. For example, this point is often used as a key justification for proposals such as universal basic income. This argument is almost exactly what the Luddites said in early 17th century England as they smashed their mechanical cotton mills. In reality, the new availability of cheap, mass produced textiles led to an explosion of new possibilities. Yes, many cotton weavers lost their current jobs, but it didn't result in increased unemployment in the long term. Every new technology requires new jobs to maintain, manage and develop it further and increased productivity enables a cheaper end product which means it can be used in ways which would have been cost prohibitive before. Technological advances shouldn't be something to fear, we should welcome the fact that menial roles will increasingly be filled by robots, allowing people to focus their energies on more creative tasks.","conclusion":"Automation will not result in mass unemployment"}
{"id":"d9391ac8-fdbd-4ff8-bec0-eeb5868ab21a","argument":"Ireland is entirely dependent on Britain. Britain could exert significant economic pressure against Ireland to follow them in leaving the EU. Trade Sanctions would be particularly effective, but they could escalate up to blockades or even military force as a last resort. Britain has 15x the troops, naval and air superiority. There's no realistic chance that Ireland would be able to hold out. Of course Terrorism would be a concern, but realistically it'd be a small amount of deaths. The IRA killed under 200 people. FAR FAR FAR more people die in car crashes every year in either country. In time, terrorists would be suppressed by British police. If they're leaving the EU with no deal anyway, this will allow them to maintain a unified country, and not have to deal with a messy land border. Assuming Britain played it smart and used economic coercion, they wouldn't be heavily sanctioned. Even if it came to military force and there were sanctions, they'd go away eventually, but the country would be improved.","conclusion":"If a no-deal brexit is to happen, Britain should force Ireland to join them."}
{"id":"5307923c-51a7-4d64-a848-622c01943216","argument":"Trump would not want to deviate significantly from his proposed plan, for fear of being seen as changing his mind or being too conciliatory to the Democrats.","conclusion":"If the Democrats' infrastructure plan differs significantly from Trump's, it is unlikely that they will convince him to adopt some of its provisions."}
{"id":"d7bcfde9-d4a2-40c0-95d3-ec5347c9ebfd","argument":"Communities would feel that there was always someone around to protect them in their community, even if the police couldn't.","conclusion":"Communities would feel safer knowing that a group has protectors hiding in plain sight, in their community."}
{"id":"1dcad6b5-db4c-4b97-ba92-0b0992f9ae0d","argument":"The text of the second amendment clearly states A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. To me this meant that the right of citizens to keep and bear arms is a necessity because a well regulated citizen militia is the best form defense for a country. However we don't have a militia in America so I don't really see how this amendment can still be used. I do know about District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, the 2008 court case where the Supreme Court issued a ruling stating that the second amendment extended to private citizenry not in a militia, but I personally don't agree with that particular interpretation. Help me out.","conclusion":"I don't think that the second amendment protects individual rights to own firearms."}
{"id":"e1f8f2af-8115-476d-9e1d-5dafff039321","argument":"View is inextricably linked to my background, but I assure you that my view is willing to be challenged. Heirs to conglomerates and governments are those with the best resources to compliment their future roles in societies being both privileged and capable of tailoring their lifestyle and learning to what is required of them in the future. Compared to people who only begin to serve and understand their industry usually after graduating from college or high school, individuals who are heirs to organizations are exposed to the nature and practice of these entities from as young as puberty and with their parents will always understand deeper than even longstanding employees, the only people who could hold a candle to the level of their understanding. Morally, Nepotism is wrong. But if we were to retain an heir's experience and knowledge and tailored to fit lifestyle for an organization and base judgment on merit when hiring or promoting then they would still be more qualified compared to anyone else. I'd like to clarify my view. Chance of heir being more qualified than pool of candidates gt Chance of candidate in pool being better than heir.","conclusion":"Parent to Child or Dynasty-based Nepotism has the greatest chance at the best successor."}
{"id":"d92ab6fc-7c49-43a7-8e50-ed3465c76c44","argument":"It can be used to deny someone something that would help them You don't deserve to be treated . It can be used to claim entitlement for something that would be better used elsewhere I deserve a raise . It can be used to self deprecate I feel like I don't deserve a good life . Even in the best possible situations it constitutes one of the flimsiest arguments possible, hinging on zero sum concepts and simultaneously placing a suggested quantitative value on acts performed for their own sake i.e., by saying one deserves something one signifies that others do not .","conclusion":"I believe that the word \"deserve\" represents an awful concept and should never be used."}
{"id":"67f4d083-bb20-4426-8081-3291c4bf07bd","argument":"The Entertainment Software Association and the Entertainment Merchant Association wrote in a 2011 brief for the US Supreme Court on their consideration of a California ban on violent video games for youths: \"The California statute at bar is the latest in a long history of overreactions to new expressive media. In the past, comic books, true-crime novels, movies, rock music, and other new media have all been accused of harming our youth. In each case, the perceived threat later proved unfounded.\"14","conclusion":"Ban on video games follows long history of similar bans."}
{"id":"cb75a1b5-a082-418b-ac35-55e4a4143321","argument":"Any country that is willing and able to follow the EU's rules should be allowed to be part of the EU.","conclusion":"North African countries should be allowed to be part of the EU."}
{"id":"27054519-ef08-48df-b103-ed8a74895b23","argument":"On the day he bombed the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City in 1995, Timothy McVeigh wore a t-shirt that bore Jefferson\u2019s words \u201cThe tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants\u201d with an image of a tree with blood dripping from its branches.","conclusion":"The premise is false that patriots have the right to violently challenge the US government based on fundamental values expressed in the founding documents. History does not illustrate that any such right exists in the form it's been understood."}
{"id":"001a6f14-4100-495e-83d7-03e97d636980","argument":"EDIT 2 This post is about the morals and not about the legal stuff title was chosen poorly. I know that sounds cruel at first but really it's quite a simple thought. I want to start off by asking Why do we eat meat? We don't have to. In theory we could be vegeterian and spare the life of many animals but we don't. We kill them so we can eat them, and we eat them because it brings us a sort of pleasure. So if I found killing animals fun, killing animals would bring me pleasure just like eating meat. So why is one considered worse than the other? In both cases animals are being killed for our enjoyment. I'm not too sure about this one but until now I could not find why this statement might be wrong. EDIT allright guys I now see how absurd this really is thank you.","conclusion":"As long as eating meat is legal I should be allowed to kill my dog for fun."}
{"id":"748bd78d-9a1c-4392-8009-ed93bb4dd71b","argument":"For context, I am a registered Democrat and consider myself a very liberal person. I think that Trump is a disgrace to the presidency, and I think that they way he has deemed all news that speaks badly of him \u201cfake news\u201d is extremely dangerous. However, it seems to me that CNN, MSNBC, etc have shot themselves in the foot by devoting so much time to the Muller investigation over the past two years, and by reporting on it as if they were 100 certain that the investigation would lead to clear collusion and or obstruction charges against Trump. I think that a lot of people, including myself, felt like these news sources laid out a clear path to a Trump impeachment as soon as Muller finished his investigation, and that Trump Fox News would end up making fools of themselves for calling the whole thing a \u201cwitch hunt.\u201d However, it seems like the opposite has happened. Even when the full report comes out, I don\u2019t see how this could be anything except for a huge win for Trump. I\u2019ve always been skeptical of news sources and attempted to fact check anything I read. Someone please convince me that Fox News isn\u2019t right in saying that I was blinded by my hatred for Trump when I believed everyone who was saying this investigation would be a bombshell against Trump. Edit woah that\u2019s my first gold, thanks stranger IMPORTANT EDIT this really blew up, and it was brought to my attention that people are using this as evidence of liberals becoming pro trump or something along those lines. So if people are quoting this post, please include this I STILL DONT LIKE TRUMP. AT ALL. Regardless of my trust in liberal media, I STRONGLY disagree with almost everything Trump says, does, and stands for. It is insanely hypocritical to look at this post and say, \u201csee, Fox News was telling the truth the whole time.\u201d If you are agreeing with my criticism of CNN and MSNBC, you should be equally if not more outraged by Fox News. Thanks.","conclusion":"Liberal news sources have lost a lot of credibility because of the way they have reported on the Muller investigation"}
{"id":"9c04ca57-9dbf-45fe-8110-89a8dad86abd","argument":"Sharia is much misunderstood \u2013 in reality it is not a harsh system at all but humane. It emphasises justice and equality, promoting moral values which liberal western societies have abandoned. The harsher punishments applied in the name of Sharia are often associated with particular interpretations of Islam \u2013 few scholars think they are to be applied in all circumstances. Some have argued that allowing Sharia to develop in western countries will encourage new thinking within Islam, and act as an alternative to the harsh interpretations promoted by some Islamic states. In any case, the proposal is for Sharia courts to provide arbitration in family and civil law matters \u2013 criminal cases and punishments would remain with the state.","conclusion":"Sharia is much misunderstood \u2013 in reality it is not a harsh system at all but humane. It emphasises..."}
{"id":"1a44f240-8605-4a65-b341-8b16078f796a","argument":"CSOs in Africa are constituted by western NGOs or funded by western actors. It has even been argued that the involvement of western actors in African civil society cannot be avoided, since western NGOs need to function as intermediaries between funders and local groups1. In addition, western NGOs are easily co-opted by western governments, and tend to promote western interests and values rather than local ones2. In short, CSOs\u2019 wider involvement in African political life would result in an increased western influence on African affairs. Sseremba, A journalist from Uganda, even claims that western NGOs are \u2018indoctrinating young African politicians to serve western interests\u20193. It is therefore necessary to find another way to ensure African citizens are actively involved in the policy making process. 1 INTRAC, 2012, \u2018Supporting civil society in Africa\u2019, baringfoundation.org.uk 2 Talberg and Uhlin 2011 \u2018Civil society and global democracy. An assessment\u2019, in Archibugi, Koenig Archibugi and Marchetti, Global Democracy: Normative and Empirical Perspectives, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. 3 Sseremba, Yahya, 10 May 2012, \u2018THE NEXT PUPPETS: How NGOs are indoctrinating young African politicians to serve western interests\u2019, The Campus Journal","conclusion":"The promotion of civil society is yet another form of the Western imperialism"}
{"id":"e765fa1a-9915-4dab-9306-cb9a0f1faae1","argument":"The \u2018Resource Curse\u2019 describes the paradox whereby nations with an abundance of resources tend to have less economic growth than other nations. A large percentage of resource rich nations are countries with weak economies, such as African and some South American nations. Many of the politicians and leaders of these countries are not interested in the long term prosperity of their country, but rather are determined to make a profit out of the nation\u2019s abundance of resources. This is a major factor in the Resource Curse. The taxes that are paid to these nations are swallowed almost wholly by the wants of members of the government and not distributed evenly among civilians in need. Imposing higher taxes on mining & extraction would mean handing these people more money to misuse. The citizens of that nation would be exploited even further. Far from using this additional profit to improve health and education, some governments will use this money to create larger defence forces to prevent citizens from protesting against injustices. An example of resource profit abuse is Libya, where Colonel Qaddafi has exploited oil profit to create a larger army. Additionally, current resource taxes demonstrate that these taxes do not benefit the population at all because many investors make deals with local leaders to evade tax. Higher taxes will not benefit citizens. On the contrary it will reduce their quality of life even more and further plunge the government into corruption. Still, the proposition seems to be under the notion that higher taxes will create economic balance within these nations. As seen by the information provided this far, this is false. On the contrary, these nations should be assisted in distributing their current tax income effectively rather than being given more opportunities to create inequalities.","conclusion":"High taxes on mining and extraction would cause many adverse affects on the country and its citizens."}
{"id":"431816d2-9c69-4eef-b10c-853ea8648ce2","argument":"From what I understand, both the economic recovery in the 80s and the collapse of the Soviet Union could have happened under either President. I also think Carter would have driven us in a better ideological direction, especially regarding foreign policy, no gaming other countries for our benefit environmental issues and the spread of consumer culture. Even if things would've been worse under Carter during the 80s, I at least think that things would be better in the U.S. today.","conclusion":"I think that Jimmy Carter should have been re-elected in 1980."}
{"id":"a3d1f9a0-6cec-4888-86d0-a7a167a7d79f","argument":"Israel receives almost 1% of its GDP in foreign aid from the United States, more than any other country and about 9% of America's foreign assistance budget State Department, p. 16, 20","conclusion":"Israel is far too dependent on aid from the US to destroy relations."}
{"id":"f84c6ba5-00fc-42ba-9268-4319cf9625b6","argument":"Israel is a strong supporter of US military action in Syria against the Assad Regime. US missile strikes have been quietly accompanied by Israeli aircraft bombing positions in Syria.","conclusion":"A deterioration in Israel-US relations will jeopardize America's operations and presence in the region."}
{"id":"4855eeb0-3656-4e96-bdd3-ec7d5bfa8463","argument":"All positive discrimination towards one group on the basis of race is negative discrimination against other groups. Therefore all racial discrimination is negative.","conclusion":"The government should not discriminate, even positively, on the basis of race."}
{"id":"2adcbb60-ecc5-4ece-87a5-59534f462c95","argument":"EDIT In the title I meant to say that the UK should be a part of Schengen although it should be obvious. I know it's two different topics but I didn't want to make two threads and the two sort of tie together see below . Currently the biggest argument against the UK joining Schengen is due to national security however it has been shown that the UK Border Agency is inefficient and ineffective to the point where thousands of people were able to completely skip border checks and even it's now being disbanded. It has also been shown that due to having a seperate visa scheme more tourists and potential business opportunities from abroad are less interested in the UK since it's more efficient with access to 26 countries vs. only one. With the rise of independent tourists from countries such as China which are flocking to Europe for vacation with much disposable income, this is especially important. Not only this but by entering Schengen it'd be economically more efficient, trade would most likely increase and be more efficient, would increase tourism as noted above and also for inter European travel and even immigration procedures would be better for example when arriving at the UK from a Schengen country they'd put less stress on Immigration and Customs and the whole thing can be streamlined to have maximum efficiency . In regards to more integration to the EU the UK is highly dependent on the EU, most of their trade and exports are to EU countries. With countries such as Brazil, China, Korea and multiple others rising around the world Europe must stand united if they are to be a force to be reckoned with. Both politically and economically. If anything the UK is hindering progress of the EU and should accept that the only way to stand up in the world is to be united. The time of WW2 and the infighting between European countries is long over and the UK should realize this. United we stand, divided we fall is more relevant now than ever and the UK can't just pick and choose what is good and whine and nag whenever they have to compromise. Most other EU countries have accepted this and the UK should as well. It should be noted that this has had direct impact on other countries as well such as Ireland, who currently has agreements with the UK such as the Common Travel Area and is at mercy of the UK in regards to further integration with Schengen and the EU. It's selfish for the UK to do this and the sooner they realize that the era of elitism is over and they should get in the game the better. So people of Reddit, please try to change my view.","conclusion":"I believe the UK should be apart of Schengen and should also be more integrated into the EU."}
{"id":"20d36c90-7d2c-471a-a34f-5d9fd0182001","argument":"EDIT My title is a bit misleading. More accurately, Sexualizing underage characters in anime manga isn't much worse than other stuff which we have decided we don't care about therefore, we shouldn't be banning it. So first of all, let's ask ourselves this Why is pedophilia wrong ? Well, basically, because children aren't mature enough to make these types of decisions for themselves, and pedophilia is basically someone taking advantage of a child. I could go on, you could go on, we all agree though. It's horrible stuff. So, let's talk about why sexualizing underage characters in anime manga might be thought of as wrong. Primarily, I can think of three reasons. First, it feeds off of a pedophiliac attraction to underage girls boys. Second, it promotes the idea of corrupting young children via sex. Third, it might encourage or lead people to assault children in real life. I'll talk about all three. The first idea is that the media is fundamentally based off of attraction to real life underage bodies. This is wrong. I am living proof that you can be attracted to something in manga anime and be disgusted by it in real life. There are many examples I could go through women with breasts larger than their heads, women who are half spiders, and people covered in blood. I am not physically attracted to any of these things in real life, but can vouch that I've found it hot in an anime manga. I don't think you can say that everyone or even most people that find Loli Shota content arousing would find actual child porn arousing. Second, there's the idea that this media glorifies the idea of corrupting young children. Here's where the not always wrong part of the title comes in. There are a number of shows where the loli characters are older than they appear 1000 year old vampire, or whatever. People tend to react to this as Look how they're trying to excuse themselves for this reprehensible act. But why isn't this actually a valid consideration? We agree that at least part of the reason pedophilia is wrong is because you're taking advantage of someone that doesn't know any better and can't consent then why is it an issue if you have a character that is totally mature enough to consent? If you're about to say because you're sexualizing the body type telling them to do it IRL , then read my other two paragraphs. But basically, if maturity is such a factor, and the characters act as mature adults , then shouldn't that factor be discounted? A decent example of this, by the way, is Evangeline from Mahou Sensei Negima, by the way. Third, there's the idea that if you consume this type of media, you would be more likely to commit actual pedophilia in real life. I disagree with this too, although it's somewhat more shaky. I see this as very similar to violent video games promote violence in real life . From my very limited understanding, this is an under researched field at best but from what little I have read, we haven't found a positive correlation between violent videogames and real life violence. So I just can't really approve of this link. Keep in mind, the important and key difference between actual child porn and this is that real child porn is automatically harmful to the child participants. No child is harmed directly in the drawing of the content I'm talking about. To wrap this all up, there's plenty of fucked up porn out there. People fake assaulting porn actors in taxis, really crappy fake hypnosis porn, etc. I don't disagree that actually featuring a character who can't doesn't consent being forced into sex is morally reprehensible. But I disagree with the notion that all manga anime containing underage characters supports pedophilia I even disagree with the idea that manga anime that sexualizes underage characters is automatically bad. Obviously, rape is rape and rape is bad. I'm definitely not saying all cases of Loli Shota content are okay. But some people have Hypnosis as a fetish. That is literally fetishizing a lack of consent. Some people have straight up rape fetishes. Some people have incest fetishes. There are a couple of lines to draw in this discussion good whatever morally wrong illegal . I think that Loli Shota content shouldn't be in the illegal side, and is no more morally wrong than a whole lot of other stuff that we handwave or look away from. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Sexualizing Underage Characters in Anime\/Manga is Not Always Wrong"}
{"id":"3af36834-b096-41e1-b56a-be575b92a5ad","argument":"The world's most famous people, and hitherto some of the most wealthy and influential, are actors, and I believe this to be not just wrong but rather ridiculous upon close investigation. I am not about to say they lack value entertainment and art is valuable to society. Just that specific actors are overvalued and shouldn't be cast in more than a couple programs. I am basing this almost purely on my own emotional response to watching shows and movies, and enjoying them more when I don't recognize the cast at all. As soon as I see an actor I have seen before, it takes me out of the media I am watching and immediately reminds me that these are just actors and this is all scripted, and I enjoy it less. The logical conclusion is that it is more enjoyable to watch new actors play roles, therefore actors that keep getting recast shouldn't be. Change my view.","conclusion":"Acting is an over-valued and overpaid profession, and the world of TV and Cinema would benefit from having new and never-before-seen casts in every show or movie."}
{"id":"559b7873-29a0-40bc-a6ce-ded7b20590d0","argument":"\"Can you imagine what the outcry would be if @SnoopDogg, failing career and all, had aimed and fired the gun at President Obama? Jail time!\u201d - this is an example of one of the plainly bizarre quotes Trump has come out with.","conclusion":"Trump has said some patently bizarre outrageous stupid and\/or plain ridiculous things"}
{"id":"4e3dc14d-71d0-4001-bdda-a5c045bfeaa3","argument":"I find the obsession with sources to be annoying in many cases. Unless someone states a fact that is to be accepted as such no reasoning to dissect behind it , such as 87 of people who listen to metal music end up contemplating suicide, or 56 of children whose parents are divorced have bad teeth, demanding a source is just lazy. Many people who submit a cmv may be more or less informed on the topic they are talking about. Finding relevant articles for the purpose is a bit of a pain, plus it then ends up focusing the discussion on dissecting the article. If I want to discuss something and have to quickly find sources, I would try to google them even if I read a lot on it before , and then quickly decide wheter this is really what I had in mind or not, possibly linking to something of a suspicious source. People post here to discuss views and to debate possibly get informed , if you are forcing them to do research it almost defies the purpose of what they are trying to do here. I don't mind someone stating that the posters view isn't really a fact, and then elaborating further on why not, or linking their own sources, but I do mind when an intuitive view that is relatively explained only gets replied to with source? I think also part of what people here enjoy is a debate. i don't always defend or attack views that match my own, sometimes I just like finding reasons to keep the debate going. Many real debate teams actually end up having to defend two opposing views for final victory, differing from one round to the next. The pleasure comes from trying to find reasons, trying to disprove the original statement, point out to flaws in argument. Any argument that is backed by some rational thinking can be dissected. Saying source in such cases is just dumb and i don't understand the need to even post at all then. Finally, I think the sources themselves aren't always absolute. A corelation can be proven to some extent between something, that doesn't mean we can't still look at it rationally and interpret the results differently. So to sum up, I am not against bringing up sources, especially when hard cold facts are stated, but I think the essence of this sub should be reasoning. I think users who try to end the discussion by saying source? and ending it there shouldn't even bother and are the lazy ones, not the poster who doesn't feel like spending significant time doing online research just to come up with something to link here.","conclusion":"I think asking people who posted the about source is often detrimental to discussion, unnecessary and plain lazy."}
{"id":"2000409f-d5fe-4c61-86ad-f648bb4341d5","argument":"Democracy shows considerable signs of resilience a political system\u2019s ability to cope with, survive and recover from complex challenges and crises that present stress or pressure that can lead to systemic failure.","conclusion":"Modern democracy is de facto the most successful governmental system in modern times."}
{"id":"c124faa9-409e-455e-89d8-d260cd264bad","argument":"It does not matter whether an individual has to inject a deadly substance or to order an automated execution machine; both actions cause the death of a human being and as such make this individual responsible for this death.","conclusion":"Automation only translocates the responsibility from the executer to the engineers and coders."}
{"id":"7fdeb8d3-8e97-4ff9-bf2a-e7c75a661153","argument":"I live in the United States. I'm in my thirties . I've been in several, serious long term relationships lasting three years or more since college, where the possibility of marriage has existed and has even been discussed, but I honestly cannot see any real advantage when compared to bachelorhood. Maybe you can change my mind, but I should warn you ahead of time that I am impervious to shaming or societal pressures . I'm not scared of marriage my life experience and observations have lead me to believe that marriage is simply ill advised, and completely avoidable. .","conclusion":"I don't see any incentive for a contemporary \"western\" man to get married, ever."}
{"id":"8370cfdf-4e62-421e-aacb-2f51e35b4f8b","argument":"I've seen many teams, in late games, pay no attention to a runner who's trying to steal when the fielding team has a large advantage. Trying to throw out the runner can only improve their chances of winning, as not doing so is just bringing a runner closer to scoring. The focus on the batter explanation i've heard demonstrates a poor understanding of statistics.","conclusion":"I do not think that practicing defensive indifference in baseball is ever a smart move for the fielding team."}
{"id":"5313b344-ed7a-46a0-97e4-c6bd4a343217","argument":"North Korea is getting what they bargained for by developing nuclear war capabilities: a seat at the international table, being recognized as a regional power-player, greater economic freedom, and mitigated regime change goals from external forces.","conclusion":"The tensions between North Korea and South Korea and the US have eased because of North Korea's new found leverage not because of Trump's negotiation tactics, or name-calling strategy."}
{"id":"5f582d72-b574-46d5-bd29-ffccc2b2ee2e","argument":"Sadly research is not done to support what I'm saying, because let's face it, any University who tried to prove this would be labeled racist. Be honest, some of you read the title and said, oh great another racist post But my stance is based on two concepts that have nothing to do with racist beliefs. The evidence in sentencing doesn't prove racism It proves a disparity in sentencing but not that the judicial system is racist. IMO if you want to prove the DA's, Judges, and courthouses are racist you need to find evidence of racial disparities on an individual basis. In all the studies I have seen No single judge has been pointed to for sentencing blacks harsher than whites for the same crime No individual DA's can be pointed to showing they charge differently for the same crime based on race No courthouse collection of judges in a jurisdiction has been shown to discriminate in sentencing based on race Imo, if you wish to blame racism for sentencing disparity you need to find evidence on a individual level not just across averages. I will go into more detail as to why but if Courthouse A sentences blacks and whites 9 years for crime X Courthouse B sentences blacks and whites 8 years for crime X Courthouse C sentences blacks and whites 7 years for crime X And the outcome provides blacks with, on average, 10 longer sentences, for the same crime then I think another reason is far more likely than racism in our current judicial system. I am open to the idea that black crimes are given longer mandatory minimum sentences but please come with any example other than crack vs cocaine. It was widely publicized and easily proven that the crack drug trade brought about record highs in violent crimes across the nation. It's easy to argue that the incredibly spike in violent crime that came with crack was the cause of harsher sentencing Arrest rates and sentencing I believe a far less complex reason than racism exists for the disparities based on the below. Poor people are more likely to commit crime. 200 years of systemic racism in the US has put black people at a huge economic disadvantage causing a higher rate of poor people in the black community. Densely populated poor areas have significantly higher crime rates per square mile than sparsely populated poor areas In the 60's and 70's some late racist economic movements caused the great migration of black people from sparsely populated rural areas to densely populated urban areas Densely populated poor areas with high crime rates produce high violent crime rates as the criminal community fights over limited space these things also show that black people committing 40 of violent crime has nothing to do with race or culture but simply economic circumstances So because of yesterdays racism, black people make up a disproportionate amount of people in Densely populated poor areas densely populated high crime areas densely populated violent crime areas. So then we ask, how does society respond to densely populated high violent crime areas Larger police force patrolling a smaller surface area Stricter sentencing laws in efforts to make the streets safer Imo, that right there is why you have the disparities you do. A disproportionate amount of black people live in high crime areas that have more police patrolling a smaller area so the police are more likely to come across them committing petty crimes like drug possession which will lead to a disproportionate amount of arrests and stop n frisks A disproportionate amount of black people live in high crime areas so they are more likely to face longer sentences as local communities are trying to curb the violence. Also, A disproportionate amount of black people live in high violent crime rate areas which will lead to a disproportionate amount of violent interactions with the police So in conclusion, I think the economic racism that carried into the 80's is the cause of the vast majority of issues the black community has with the US judicial system, I don't not believe disparities in arrest rates nor sentencing has anything to do with our judicial system being racist today. While a racist cop will always exist I do not see today's system as racist. To change my point of view do one of the following Show me evidence of a few individual courthouses jurisdictions that have a sentencing disparity, not averages across several courthouses. One would be nice but a few would be needed to show evidence of a systemic issue Show me disparing laws created along racial lines other than crack vs coke as the violence that came with the crack trade explains that or prove the sentencing laws around crack had nothing to do with the violence. Show me flaws in the logic I used to explain why I believe the disparities exist that blame it on systemic racism of yesterday and not racism today","conclusion":"Disparity in arrest rates and sentencing are not due to a racist judicial system."}
{"id":"174cf0f5-abc1-4fbc-bbbc-f2e41da18e11","argument":"In Genesis chapters 18 and 19 Lot is rescued from destruction by God's actions after Lot tried to protect 3 male guests who had arrived at his house from a mob outside who wanted to rape them. Lot's method of protection was to send out his two virgin daughters and tell the crowd they could do as they pleased with them.","conclusion":"God's endorsement of Lot's actions provides evidence for the promotion of evil."}
{"id":"48fdaa26-fc87-407e-a5f5-2fbd8f77ead0","argument":"Religion has motivated selfless acts, but often only to others within their own religion: individuals are encouraged to volunteer and do charity work within their own community as opposed to doing things for the greater good. This \"us versus them\" mentality is the biggest con of religious groups.","conclusion":"In some occasions, religion is only charitable or helps those who believe."}
{"id":"991336c7-563c-4681-ac5e-435b7709e5ff","argument":"First a bit of background, as I understand it Copyright Act of 1790, 1831 and 1909 revisions. Shortly after the establishment of the constitution, this granted authors monopoly status for fourteen years, plus the option to extend another fourteen. In 1831, the initial copyright protection was extended to 28 years. In 1909, the option was extended to 28 years as well. 1979 revision, plus Sono Bono In response to the changing technological landscape, sweeping revisions were made to the copyright act. Most notable among the changes was the change to copyright protection for the 'life of the author plus 50 years,' as well as the inclusion of fair use which merits it's own discussion, but I digress\u2026. . In 1998, the so called Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act extended protection to the 'life of the author plus seventy years.' Change My View Speculation that Disney would once again lobby for another extension of copyright protection, specifically to uphold their interest in the protection of Mickey Mouse who is due to leave copyright at the end of 2019. With this backdrop I assert that Disney the 'author' should have the legal right to keep copyright on their character for as long as they like. This is especially true because they continue to use this character extensively, and he is strongly tied to their brand. But even if that weren't the case, they should still have the right to keep copyright protection as they see fit, and for as long as they like. Any other asset, such as land ownership, can be passed onto heirs and their heirs after that, into perpetuity. Why does copyright protection not enjoy a similar status? Why does limited time protection benefit society, to the extent that it's codified into law? gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Copyright expiry should be up to the author or rights holder."}
{"id":"04095273-7d7a-4c68-bc59-eca50144b6d6","argument":"Going potty is by its nature a private matter. There can be no legitimate motivation in advocating for sharing a restroom simultaneously with other people, especially if those people are made uncomfortable by crossed gender lines. That is, insisting one has a right to go potty simultaneously with others makes it less about the hygiene needs and more about forcing others to make these into unwilling social activities.","conclusion":"As long as restrooms are multiple occupancy - implying co-ed - then in principle this is a bad idea and serves only to make planting seeds in the litter box a communal event across gender boundaries - thereby sexualizing these activities. Where single-occupancy bathrooms exist, there is little issue. Where multi-occupancy bathrooms exist, there are only questionable motivations."}
{"id":"a67905fe-9bb2-4faa-96fe-673fca43e895","argument":"My thinking goes like this, genders exist on an infinite spectrum along multiple arbitrarily defined axis. People don't feel comfortable being thrown into specific discrete areas of the spectrum by others, instead wishing more freedom of self expression. Since one of the best methods a human has to express an abstract notion to another human is language, people thus use it to better clarify what area of the spectrum they see themselves existing in. At this point I am in agreement with supporting the ability of people to self express. However, the manner this is done currently impedes communication more than it assists, requires a paradigm shift to allow sustainability, and reinforces the problem rather than helping it. On the first matter, language is useful because of a shared set of foundational information. This is what allows one person to say something and trust that the other person forms a similar idea from what they said. The current strategy as I have experienced it, is to allow any given person to use existing terminology, or create new terminology, in order to assist explaining how they identify. This is enticing for a lot of reasons, especially since the need for change is from some forcing others into a set of ill fitting definitions. The problem is that this causes a complete loss of parity. A given word can have multiple definitions that occur within the same contextual space, overlapping with some definitions associating to multiple words. To make matters worse, this is all based on the individual interpretation, not a set of agreed upon definitions. This means that to a person who is engaging with these communities from the outside, there is now a hard language barrier. This isolates potential allies and prevents traction due to a lack of engagement. The new words need clear and concrete definitions. Furthermore, these definitions need to be widely agreed upon and consistently used. The previous problem could be changed over time with a shift in the way the definitions are handled, the next problem is more difficult. As previously stated, gender is an infinite spectrum on arbitrary axis. To compare, light is an infinite spectrum on an objective axis, wavelength. Assuming gender functioned like this, the concept of the infinitesimal tells one that there will always be the potential for a new word, with a new, more precise definition, to describe a persons gender. Without a hard communal limit on how subdivision works, this would lead to infinite definitions, and language would thus almost never be a helpful tool. There would need to be a limit on the number of agreed upon definitions. The Final problem is the most critical though. Gender lacks any form of objective basis, it's a completely arbitrary existence. By treating as something with a concrete basis, attempting to categorize and subdivide further, as we do with light, it fails to recognize this fundamental fact. The true solution in my mind to the problem of limited categories is not to create further and more precise categories for people to fit in, but give up the notion of categorizing entirely. Then to put the emphasis on each individual creating an individual explanation of how they see them self. As it is, the solution undertaken only serves to reinforce the initial error in logic that caused the problem. Thanks for taking the time to read this and I look forward to the responses. Some information was lost from my trying to avoid a full on paper, but I'll add edits and comment to try and elaborate parts that are indistinct. Edit Gender fluid, non binary, genderqueer as opposed to queer , and demigendered are some examples of these new words. Maverique would be an ideal example but I have never heard it used and don't want a strawman.","conclusion":"New words for genders are counterproductive"}
{"id":"ab48f529-418a-44f4-a551-dceb0dbf197f","argument":"Art is usually about self-expression and artists create things they can relate to. It is therefore not unusual for video game creators to create games reflecting their own identities since they relate to it the most.","conclusion":"Artistic freedom is the right of artists to create art freely. Video game creation can be seen as an important art form in today's time so this freedom can apply to video game creators too."}
{"id":"dc5ae078-9624-4b3b-b492-659c7b8a6a1a","argument":"Article 22: \"Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.\" Universal right.","conclusion":"UDHR articles 1-3, 5-12, 16-20, and 22-29 are specifically directed to the idea that when someone crosses a border, they keep all rights and legal protections."}
{"id":"fa828e64-e1f9-48e0-97a8-4c4c25507402","argument":"Free will is a crucial concept for the use of 'should' or 'ought to' These concepts lie at the heart of all society's legal systems which keeps citizens in check to avoid chaos from ensuing.","conclusion":"The concept of free will is necessary so that humans feel like they have a responsibility to choose right over wrong."}
{"id":"f75bf372-cdb2-4e9b-84db-acbd4a06add6","argument":"Although it requires a system of hydrogen fuel delivery, hydrogen-powered cars are now a feasible zero-emissions option for the future.","conclusion":"Powering cars using greener technology will mean this problem disappears without the need for a blanket ban."}
{"id":"ca08daad-4232-4231-8d00-03ddc60950c2","argument":"As a recent high school graduate this is something that confused me through out my entire school career. There was the free and reduced lunch program at my school and at least half of my grade was on it. The only way for a person to get on that list was to be in a family that had a low income. However i noticed that almost all of the people on the list came in every week with a brand new phone and brand new shoes. And Im not talking about a trac phone, they would come in with brand new Iphones each week because they broke their old one at a party they had over the weekend. And on the day of the Samsung Galaxy release at least 15 people came in the next day with it only to break it and get another one a few days later. Same thing with shoes people would have a 300 pair of shoes each week and then wear them for 2 days never to wear them again, or if they got dirty then they would throw them away. What i dont understand is how if you are living on a low income you can afford to buy such expensive items. The same thing goes for adults. I was in the store one day and a woman who was in front of me was wearing about 800 worth of designer clothes, and about 2000 worth of jewelry. She then proceeded to pay for the food in her cart with food stamps. I believe that if you have to use food stamps and rely on welfare you shouldn't be allowed to buy certain items.","conclusion":"People who are receiving government financial assistance should not be allowed to purchase certain products."}
{"id":"4567173c-1455-4513-97aa-e45c4251065c","argument":"My logic here is fairly straight forward. In MLB, starters in the midsummer classic all star game are determined by a fan vote. There have however been instances of vote stuffing, most notably guility being the Kansas City Royals, see story If this game had no consequence criteria 2 was nullified , then this would be fine. The fans would be able to stuff away to see their favorites compete in a meaningless exhibition game. However this does matter. The winning league of the EDIT all star game gets home field advantage in the world series. In the past decade, home field advantage has produced a winning percentage of about .542 source The article cites that this impacts about 1 in every 8 postseason baseball games. In a 7 game series that can matter. Furthermore, the winning league has their ideal roster able to start 4 games if the series goes the distance instead of 3, since in American League Parks the designated hitter is usually employed, while in National League Parks the pitcher hits for himself. Complications of this outlined here I do not think both can exist. I think that the criteria for home field advantage in the world series should be winning percentage, run differential, runs scored in as a tiebreaker system. .","conclusion":"The major league baseball all star game should not be both of the following which it currently is: 1. Fan votes for entry 2. The criteria for home field advantage in the world series"}
{"id":"c717abf6-62ea-47fb-8612-09530e8d4b0a","argument":"This assumes that removal from society is a punishment, and, more importantly, that prison is not a part of society. Many prisoners find prison to be an ideal escape from their inability to interact with \"normal society\". Prison is, contrarily, a very visible component of society, and former convicts re-enter the public with the lessons learned in them.","conclusion":"Being separated from society does not necessarily indicate punishment, e.g. boarding schools, communes, living \"off the grid\"."}
{"id":"f0455f93-fa42-40be-bb51-52bf5b3e7144","argument":"All of our searches for intelligent ET life since any such project became possible are equivalent to putting a toe in the ocean. The scale of the universe is beyond comprehension.","conclusion":"Taking into account the age and size of the universe, alien life exists with a high probability."}
{"id":"1214c0f9-7dd5-4302-93a1-6e81540c9c3e","argument":"People can reduce food waste by eating parts of plants that never make it to the grocery store due to not passing USDA grades.","conclusion":"Foods from edible landscapes are better than from the grocery store and thus reduce this industry."}
{"id":"2f571301-0d6a-4742-bd94-5b134972646a","argument":"It's my understanding that refined and natural sugars are nutritionally identical. Refined sugar is processed more quickly and won't leave you feeling full, but nutritionally, there's no difference. What might happen is that you eat more calories since you're still hungry. So let's say I want to gain muscle, so I WANT to eat more. I need some basic level of protein going on for muscle growth. Then, I need enough calories via carbs and fats to let my body perform all of its functions. Then, I more or less need a little extra recomposition aside to power the weight gain in muscle. This way, all my protein isn't being eaten up just to run my body's daily functions it's left over to use for muscle building. Those calories I need after getting my necessary protein can be almost anything. I need vitamins, of course, but assuming that's taken care of, these calories can come from pretty much anywhere as long as some of them are the minimum needed quantity of fat . If it's 1500 calories, I can eat 3 donuts every day if I want, and get however many calories more I need from somewhere else. The end result will be the nutrition needed to steadily increase muscle without gaining fat as long as I work out so that my small calorie surplus goes to muscle instead of fat . gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I can enjoy top health and physique while daily eating things like donuts 3 a day"}
{"id":"a3dd73c7-1f93-4ac1-bf27-263260ad40b3","argument":"Moral relativism can help people navigate the world by denying absolute moral rules and thus freeing people to do what they think is right in any given situation. In cultural relativism people decide together what is considered acceptable and moral behavior allowing society to freely change with the times.","conclusion":"There are other, superior, sources of philosophical frameworks and moral codes."}
{"id":"608c4c06-3d4f-4e87-83dd-e26f9180a889","argument":"There is a large proportion of people with g6pd deficiency which may prohibit the consumption of legumes, e.g. beans, peas, lentils and soya beans or fava beans. Carbohydrates that can cause problems include white flour, refined sugars and high fructose corn syrup. In addition, problems can cause tonic water, blue food coloring and products containing sulphites such as wine and dried fruit.","conclusion":"Many people with eating and nutritional-based disabilities may be unable to remove animal products from their diets."}
{"id":"0ae0d638-c9e8-41e7-8761-0fd39e1a3e73","argument":"Working closely with people allows one time to get to know others in a way that normal everyday interaction does not allow.","conclusion":"Contact with people from other cultures helps to broaden the mind and fight stereotypes."}
{"id":"25806f27-7443-4c20-92c0-74e146941dbd","argument":"Today I had a conversation with my gf on the way to work where she was going off about some of her friends who are standing in line for their iPhone 5S right now personally I find it a little sad that people are willing to forsake their time and stand in a line just to spend money on a phone that boils down to a small upgrade from the one they've barely had for a year. That notion made me reflect on myself and many people I know who spend so much time, money and energy being fans of pop culture trends. I grew up in the 80s and 90s, I was by very definition a nerd my entire life, I spent countless hours reading comics, playing video games, tabletop RPGs, fiddling with my computer, etc and back then it wasn't the cool thing to do, girls didn't walk around wearing shirts that read I lt 3 Nerds in fact, I was made fun of and ostracized socially because I enjoyed these things. Fast forward 20 years and I find it ironic that Comic Con is one of the biggest events of the year for millions of people who flock to San Diego to spend time, energy and money in a socialized media consumption ritual. Now don't get me wrong, I love that shit just like the next person but deep down, I believe we're being played. Perhaps it is a deep seeded human need to feel like we're a part of clan or pack, to fulfill this desire to belong and that somehow massive corporations have figured out a way to cash in on this by providing us with a whole culture of unified mass idolization. I know so many people who label themselves fans, dress up in cosplay, go to conventions, buy the latest video game at a midnight release, etc but they do almost nothing with the product personally they barely ever read those comic books, they couldn't tell you much about the characters they cosplay, they know just enough of about the subject matter to blend in with the rest of the pack, you could call these people posers or whatever but I just happen to believe they are indeed fans, but fans of being a fan. I don't hate on these people. I used to get annoyed by them because I felt they were posers, trying to fit in and be popular, illegitimate nerds who never paid for their fandome in blood sweat and tears like the nerds of yore but now I feel we're all the same, just a bunch of fuckin' suckers who spend our hard earned money on a bunch of useless shit that will never really make us happy for very long and this is indeed a marketing strategy that was thought up in some boardroom by some executives who recognized there was a potential merchandising trend and cashed that shit in.","conclusion":"I believe that the current pop ,nerd, gamer, etc consumption culture is an abomination and we're all a product of a giant marketing cash cow"}
{"id":"b877f6df-cd73-4f18-9d2d-1ede6c5662d1","argument":"I was diagnosed with ADHD at 10 years old, 11 years ago. I suspect that I have no inability to focus or concentrate whatsoever, and my condition has more to do with personality traits. I have always failed to concentrate meaningfully on schoolwork, books I'm asked to read, or other tasks I don't enjoy, without amphetamine administration. However, I have no problems concentrating for long periods of time on conversations, articles I'm interested in, sports, puzzles, et cetera. I believe this is rooted in extreme stubborness, and this would explain why ADHD is diagnosed much more commonly in males not to make this a gender discussion, but mountains of data and studies show that males are, on average, more stubborn assertive less agreeable than females. If the task that requires concentration does not yield pleasure, then it is outright ignored by those with ADHD. This is but one cause of an ADHD diagnosis. I believe other possible causes are high trait neuroticism and low conscientiousness, as this study demonstates. Depression is another cause of inability to focus on tasks. Famed mathematician Paul Erd\u00f6s used amphetamines for 30 years following the death of his mother and could not continue to do math without them, despite having no problems before.","conclusion":"ADHD is a symptom, it is not a disorder."}
{"id":"03d3ffec-a129-4e54-a021-d842922e609b","argument":"I see this all the time in the city. You have a dedicated turn lane. No traffic is flowing through the lane you're about to enter, because it is just a continuation of the lane you're currently in. There's no possible way there could be anyone to yield to, and yet there's a yield sign right before the turn. This is infuriating to me, because people slow down to unreasonable levels shortly after they turn. There is no good reason that I can think of to have yield signs on these turns. . If I wasn't clear about the turns I'm describing, imagine the turning roadway shown here, the dedicated downstream lane for acceleration , but at the beginning of the turn there's a yield sign. The bottom lane.","conclusion":"Dedicated turn lanes should not have yield signs."}
{"id":"cc2d26b1-ac91-4549-9c48-439448d3c3fa","argument":"If you're a police officer, a manager, or anyone else giving orders or making rules, you should know how to give those orders and you should be able to communicate properly. If you have a certain power over something, and your decision is being criticized, and you refuse to argue or give the smallest reason, it's totally expected for you to be told you're wrong, and you should swallow it as long as you're unable to make things clear. If you're responsible for your decision, and no one tried to make things clearer, the fallout is on you. When leadership wants results, leaderships want agreements. If you forget something or you omit details for any reason, you are not a good communicator and you should suffer the consequences. I know it's not something which is being taught, but it's quite important.","conclusion":"If you're telling me to do something because of a rule, you should at least explain the rule, not making an exception, but understanding that the rule might not be liked."}
{"id":"5337d8b1-b192-48ec-a393-44f2da6a7a27","argument":"Yes, as it should. If you vote for someone that is then impeached, then, yes, your power was challenged and removed justifiably. At that point you have no foundation.","conclusion":"Impeaching Donald Trump undermines the power foundations of those who supported him."}
{"id":"aa09828e-4577-4113-b373-2608a112b4b8","argument":"as combat mos formally open to women i'm aware women are already serving in combat unacknowledged, which is unfair, but an inevitability of modern warfare , the inherent physical differences between the average man and the average woman will lead the vast majority of women applying to fail the standards of entry. faced with charges of discrimination, the military will be forced to lower those standards and hurt the fighting ability of units across the board.","conclusion":"I don't think it's a good idea to let military women into combat positions."}
{"id":"2c591cfe-eac5-41df-8998-4511584cf8c3","argument":"In cases where parents cannot fulfil their parental responsibilities for whatever reason, youth welfare officers take those kids out of the custody of their parents whether biological or adoptive and takes care of them.","conclusion":"Parents might not be appropriate decision makers for a child when they lack decision-making capacity, when they have clearly relinquished responsibility for the child or when a different legal guardian has been appointed."}
{"id":"cee95ede-263b-4aee-a40d-cbbfbcb6bb28","argument":"Moana is serving her people: their village is suffering from blight and they cannot restore their land without restoring Te Fiti's power. Serving the gods is a 'means to an end' for Moana.","conclusion":"Moana returned Te Fiti's heart to save her people from impending destruction. This is not a service to Te Fiti herself, but a service to her people."}
{"id":"6e02db92-2b08-42db-9dd6-128874a8cfa1","argument":"The second cause of suffering, craving is related to ignorance because it characterizes our search for fulfillment based on our delusional misunderstanding of the world.","conclusion":"Ignorance is understood as one of the two causes of suffering."}
{"id":"0f409475-6e0a-44c7-a07e-fa1c90fa2fae","argument":"The Tamil Tigers a terrorist organization based in Sri Lanka and the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, carried out over 200 suicide bombings against both political and civilian targets during their decades-long conflict with the government.","conclusion":"Terrorist organizations are a threat to people all around the world."}
{"id":"ab4f1f07-424c-49f5-880b-48aa02bab22e","argument":"There are a number of viable alternatives to a graduate tax as a means of paying for Higher Education: Full state funding operates in many EU countries as part of an extensive and popular welfare state paid for out of general taxation; the value the state clearly places upon Higher Education has made it a common aspiration across all social classes. Other countries make individual students pay for all or most of the cost of their university education, which is widely seen as an investment in increased future earning potential. In the USA this has produced very high levels of enrollment and broad access to higher education as motivated students readily work to pay their way through college. Most also take out commercial loans, which are later paid off once the student is in employment; unlike a graduate tax these repayments are not open-ended and will one day be completed. The cost of educating a student to degree level varies widely both between and within countries, showing clear room for efficiency savings to be made in many institutions, perhaps through some focusing solely upon teaching rather than research, or by academic specialization.","conclusion":"Alternative- and more efficient- methods of funding universities are available"}
{"id":"f68c4e3e-1529-4b47-84b4-d3ea51ebb541","argument":"There is no other way but to live together in this planet. All these borders and boundaries are artificial creations of human tribalism. The sooner we understand the dangers coming from them, the better we \u0301ll be able to avoid or manage them, including wars.","conclusion":"The foundation of the USE can be the start of effective global governance"}
{"id":"0746d079-4778-4d91-a597-0c7c3a2b30af","argument":"Tbh, the whole political langscape is pretty barren with only two parties being relevant, five if you count some independent parties. But thats not the problem i am having with American politics. Other countries also have only two choices, but it works. see England No, the problem i have is that the electoral college seems like a fraud. A popular vote or something similar should do the trick. see Canada, most of Europe Also, why shouldn't the people be able to vote for a presidents third or fourth term if he or she did well? See Germany Other problems i see with it are voting not being on a free day for most people usage of voting machines while people counting votes is much less prone to manipulation due to watchers voting registration requirements seem like they are the wrong way around. The government should send every citizen their ballot papers and only require people to prove their identity to vote. In general, the American voting system needs an overhaul.","conclusion":"The American Voting System is a relic of ancient times and desperately needs an overhaul."}
{"id":"9a227a50-f41f-4808-b6d3-8159dbeb4714","argument":"I had just heard about them a few times until I watched the Netflix documentary One of Us which was very poignant and eye opening, the people in these communities are heavily indoctrinated from birth and even as adults allowed no access public libraries, computers or internet. They should be seen as and really are cults, if you try to leave they completely alienate and typically gain custody of your children when it's one parent whose left, that's not a good sign for a wholesome community. Also, much like the Catholic Church, many people have been raped, sexually and physically abused in the Hasidic community and never even been discovered or charged for their horrible crimes because of how isolated the community is from the rest of world.","conclusion":"Hasidic communities are more harmful than they are good, for the members and society as a whole."}
{"id":"3b3cc8d1-32ca-4b36-947d-86856f7d8b26","argument":"I believe there is a cost to sex for both parties naturally. The mother will be held back from work and such and obviously need support and protection, likewise the father will be held back in free and personal time to take care of the mother and support her by focusing more on time in the workplace. Abortion for women allows for sex not to be as costly for both parties if the woman wishes it but if a woman wishes it against the will of the father he is legally strung along against his will. Women have gained the ability to not have something as natural as sex dominate how they run their lives but they now have the singular choice to decide how men run theirs, sometimes with threat of jailing. I feel women and men should be allows to have abortions both early in the pregnancy, obviously. Give them the same time. both biologically and financially so we may have a more gender equal society. However, I do understand that getting rid of financial support will hurt children. This will weigh on mothers' decision to keep the child and may hurt opportunities the child has later in life I wouldn't want either parent to leave each other over parental responsibility but I believe it's a cost that must be done in the name of gender equality. I'm sure ending slavery hurt major industries and allowing women into businesses hurt the chances of job availability by doubling the workforce but if we can withstand those costs we can withstand this one and look for alternatives. If we can't fight for 'gender equality' then why is the support of abortion there? Was it not fought for because of what we thought was gender equality at the time? Change my view, Reddit.","conclusion":"\"Gender Equality Takes Preference Over Costs - We Should Have Abortion for Men and Women or None at All\""}
{"id":"65bd1de9-bb4c-4fc4-bcef-51cc11b42d85","argument":"The ability to determine the contents of the test under the guise of establishing a test that is \"unbiased\" can easily be abused by governments to subjugate the people.","conclusion":"It is likely that the content of the test will be biased."}
{"id":"4331a7b4-5628-46f4-a577-c6e1609b3dca","argument":"First, I know the strongest argument against this is that Goodell is just a Patsy for the owners. Well, patsies are supposed to take the fall in the event of a crisis, and the National football league is staring at an ugly 14 month chain of events. Goodell denied any knowledge of a link between concussions and long term brain disease. After a link has been found, he still refuses to mandate that players wear the most up to date advancements in helmet technology for preventing head injuries. The incidents involving Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson were shocking and horrendous, but only after video and picture archives of the damage the respective parties did to their loved ones surfaced did Goodell bring down the hammer. Goodell came out and said no NFL franchise would be relocating without his approval. St' Lous Rams owner Stan Kroenke has moved ahead with plans to build a stadium in Los Angeles, has received permission to lease the Rose Bowl until his stadium has been built, and has told the mayor of Inglewood that they will be leaving St. Louis with or with out league approval. Goodell commands absolutely zero respect. A team that has been purported to have used tactics to gain an unfair advantage is about to play in the sport's highest honor. You can feed me all the scientific reasons for balls losing air that you want. That still doesn't explain why one of the balls was still inflated to the legal limit. You can also point to the score of the game in question. Well, what about the game thee prior week with Baltimore? Goodell has shown time and time again that he lacks respect from the players, he lacks respect from the owners, that he cares mre about the marketability of the shield than getting the facts, and that he is completely unqualified to be the face of a multi billion dollar industry.","conclusion":"Roger Goodell, the commissioner of the NFL, should be fired."}
{"id":"517b6b9a-da41-46cf-ac44-e8f46296cb46","argument":"A study found that nearly 10% of people who play video games show signs of addiction.","conclusion":"Video games can cause addiction; the same is likely true for VR."}
{"id":"7ed7dcb9-322a-46f1-87ee-35c78d8f24d4","argument":"The passing of the American Health Care Act by the House represents outright Social Darwinism which falls in line with the rugged individualism which has held America back from the same social advances as the rest of the developed world. However very soon, the attitudes of those against large scale government social services will change. In the next 4 years we will see massive waves of unemployment in the transportation and low end food service industries. Similarly white collar jobs are eaten away at by software and AI at an increasingly fast pace in the next decade on onwards. Some say that history has shown that automation creates more jobs than it destroys, however it always takes us time to actually create those new jobs, and they always have a higher skill requirement than those they replace. The new jobs created through this wave of automation will have increasingly high skill requirements and are simply roles not everyone has the natural abilities to fill. That is even if we were able to implement the kind of large scale accessible retraining programs that would be necessary to give these individuals a shot at these positions to begin with. There will simply not be enough work to go around, and much of the low skill and emotionally based work left will pay far too little to live on with our current system. Unskilled workers will be powerless. The collective bargaining tactics which brought us previous waves of worker\u2019s rights would not work because the rich would not need workers to begin with. Disenfranchised people must use tactics of force against the selfish to get what they want, because the selfish who hold many positions of power do not have any intrinsic motivation to care about their plight. Previously this meant withholding the creation of value through collective action, when the disenfranchised are no longer able to get what they want through withholding the creation of value, their only remaining option becomes the destruction of value. Now this is problematic for them because while the rich have vast legal means of destroying value, the only means of destroying value available to the disenfranchised are illegal and far less effective. Think of the implications of the Social Darwinist mindset which led to the passing of AHCA under these circumstances If you cannot create economic value to support yourself, you deserve to die. This would mean that if the selfish had their way, the tens of millions of people who would not possess the specific abilities required to participate in the high skill automated world be forced to either lay down and die, or put up an illegal resistance and be sent to work as a slave in a private prison where their voting rights are conveniently revoked. This is a dark future future but it is one we can prevent if we as a country realize the problems at play here and act soon. Bonus points if you can argue for why UBI is not possible in America and point out the major obstacles to it becoming a reality. If you agree with me to any extent, please say what you think should be done to address the problems listed above. I look forward to hearing your responses gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Universal Basic Income or another similar system is necissary in a heavily automated America"}
{"id":"170b5c41-19c4-4f29-85bf-791e523f770e","argument":"Johnson and Johnson have made a point about wishing to make diversity and inclusion a part of their daily operating habit.","conclusion":"Many large, multinational corporations are actively taking steps to improve diversity within their company structures."}
{"id":"56dec360-8424-4c50-a63d-f4438d55981c","argument":"Spoilers for the first two Mass Effect games, heads up. I believe that the story in Mass Effect 1 is dramatically better than in Mass Effect 2. While ME2 had improved gameplay mechanics, the core story was largely disappointing and uninspired. The first Mass Effect had the advantage of being a totally new world, but it didn't use that as a crutch, as it had an engaging story full of twists and difficult decisions. Some of the major beats and twists for ME1 Saren kills Nhilius and gets in a super strange space ship, Sovereign. the beacon is discovered by Shepard, which has some strange effect on him. Then there is some basic character recruitment stuff which will give you your crew members. Shepard then becomes a Spectre. Shepard also learns about the protheons, and their viscous cycles of domination. After some adventuring and deciding the fate of an entire species, as well as sacrificing one of your crew members, Shepard learns that Saren is a tool of the Reapers. Suddenly the guy we thought was the big bad now is the medium bad and there is an even larger, more sinister thing at work. Reapers built the mass relays The citadel is a relay. Shepard learns most of that from a cool conversation with Vigil. Then the player has to defend the Citadel We fight Saren and destroy Sovereign. The player also has to decide the fate of the Council, and also who they want to nominate for the position. Mass Effect 2 The Illusive Man is introduced, but we don't know his motives. Will he turn on Shepard? Who knows Shepard has to collect some people. Collectors are collecting people for something who knows what Shepard has to collect some more people. Shepard has to collect a few other people. Don't forget to upgrade your ship yeah We get the data chip or whatever to use the Omega 4 Relay. Basically a computer key. We fight through the collector ship, maybe some of your people die, or maybe they don't. Giant robot that runs on human blood. Robot dies. Decision Explode, or irradiate? There's no way to know how either choices will effect the game, and they only change how the Illusive Man reacts to you. Oh damn, lots of ships are attacking the universe Obviously my synopsis is a bit dramatized, but I focused on the core plot beats, which, frankly, aren't all that much. Mass Effect 2's characters were better than in ME1, and there was obviously an increased focus on them, but the plot suffered, with the story driving beats being really route and unsurprising compared to the original Mass Effect game.","conclusion":"I believe the story in the original Mass Effect game is vastly superior to the story in Mass Effect 2."}
{"id":"ecaf9822-6c6a-4642-80c1-8a039f7468ec","argument":"Take the example of Viktor Frankl - a survivor of a Nazi concentration camp. Although exercising a great attachment to his hopes, he managed to detach from the pain and abuse inflicted upon him and contemplate the meaning of life and love in which he found bliss and salvation.","conclusion":"There are people who in spite of their harsh situation maintained a positive attitude, considering the burden laid upon them. It shows that detachment reduces suffering even under conditions one would expect to cause a lot of suffering."}
{"id":"42527a55-c916-4e21-9daa-df9d9bd39c46","argument":"Even though activists were not successful in closing the exhibit, the lawsuit required the zoo to improve the treatment of its elephants and the LA City Council invested $42 million in an expansion. In 2017, a Councilman has again proposed a motion to move the elephants to a sanctuary","conclusion":"For example, citizens and celebrities campaigned and backed a lawsuit that demanded the LA Zoo elephant exhibit to close and Billy, a depressed and sexually frustrated elephant, to be moved to a sanctuary."}
{"id":"d3484953-671f-4dd5-aff6-c2d3c9d4ae7a","argument":"Political parties engage with and attempt to appeal to voters everywhere, no matter what riding they are in.","conclusion":"Under proportional representation, everyone's vote has the same weight no matter what electoral district they're in."}
{"id":"96d67136-062e-4926-9093-488f867f6802","argument":"A couple months back a friend shared this link TL DR it's a local story about the University of Oregon hiring a registered sex offender to talk to football players about sexual assault. While I agree that sexual assault is a very serious crime, I think that a sex offender registry ignores the severity of the crimes committed, putting teen sexting in the same category as serial rape. Listing someone as a sex offender doesn't allow for redemption after rehabilitation. Perhaps a violent offender will never change his ways, but a frat guy that gets charged with date rape after a drunken night gone too far doesn't deserve the same stigma. This article published by the ACLU sums up my opinions quite nicely. EDIT Public urination was an example based on a false premise Delta awarded . Teen sexting seems to more adequately convey my issue with registries.","conclusion":"Sex offender registries are unfair and discriminatory"}
{"id":"02cc3f04-77b3-4dc4-bb74-b73f91251b9f","argument":"France ban free soda refills almost two years ago in order to combat obesity. While France have one of the lowest obesity rates in Europe and low soda consumption per capita they still did this. While quick google search didn't bring up what are results of this ban is obesity or soda consumption down I still believe it sends a clear message that the government in concerned about healthy eating habits of its citizen. Other governments around the flat earth should follow this trend. Sugary drink have clear link to obesity and limiting availability would combat negative health costs of obesity. Nobody needs these but they cause lot of costs to society in healthcare sector. There is also evidence that sugar is highly addictive and when it is so readily available people will ruin their bodies want they it or not. Following are my arguments against common criticism. Bolded text is the argument and following text is my counter argument. I will edit this portion of the post as discussion follows. It is leftist policy against free markets. Companies and consumers should be allowed to do what they want. This is 100 true but I still believe this is fair enough. But it doesn't include price fixing meaning that fast food joints can sell their soda at 10 cent a glass but they won't because it would decrease their profits heavily. Only people with high risk of obesity during 3 or more cups of soda per meal so this only affects them. Bodily autonomy shouldn't be violated. Just because sugary drinks cause obesity and lower your life expectancy you should be allowed to drink them as much as you want. I believe that citizens me included are uneducated in most of fields in life. They don't have time or intelligence to make informed decisions in most aspects of their life. This is why we need laws that limit possibility that more informed individuals companies exploid stupidity of the masses. So health of individual is more important to me than freedom of self injury informed or not . People can still drink sugary drinks and be obese but it should be made harder so there is clear choice involved instead of just convenience. There are better solutions. Just because there is better solution doesn't mean we should use smaller solutions. We shouldn't end the day in victory but strive for even bigger victory later on. Baby steps. I believe we should utilize multiple policies simultaneously to get the best result.","conclusion":"Other countries should adopt ban against free soda refills"}
{"id":"fd933d36-5c31-4af9-a7d8-8fc98defcaf6","argument":"According to a scientific study 2 bugs are killed by striking the license plate alone for every 6.2 miles driven. This would equate to 32.5 trillion dead insects in the US alone for a given year. A utilitarian that believed this argument would likewise argue against cars and other forms of massive insect slaughter.","conclusion":"The risk of death of wildlife increases during the transport of food, especially when the vegan food travels for thousands of miles by land. Local meat would cause less harm to wildlife during its transport."}
{"id":"00e46cee-437b-4d0f-8b58-e22ca61c01f0","argument":"Abuse against spouses or children which is caused by anger issues and often aggravated by addiction is violence that asserts power and dominance but is not caused by lack of communication.","conclusion":"Some violence has nothing to do with communication or lack thereof."}
{"id":"6bd4062e-8ac8-4c4e-9f13-73dadd30751e","argument":"While Europe\/Christendom was in the Dark Ages, Islamic polymaths were preserving\/translating classic Greek philosophical texts, improving upon them with their own scientific methods\/discoveries, and paving the way for the enlightenment\/rationalism. They made incredible advancements in medicine, math, science, engineering, and automation. Recent fundamentalist movements do not erase the incredible contributions that Islam and religion in general have made to science in the course of history.","conclusion":"During the golden age of Islam, the faith was a major source of support for the advancement of science."}
{"id":"a830d43a-89df-4108-b14a-817963dac22c","argument":"In the US, for example, only 10% of people surveyed act and think according to basic Biblical principles.","conclusion":"Society as a whole does not follow the Bible as a standard for moral behavior."}
{"id":"bea6993c-1ac7-44f6-b11b-b455a1c65cee","argument":"The current House Majority Leader is Democrat Steny Hoyer. Although a baptist, Hoyer has spoken out in support of same-sex marriage. This move is unlikely to be favoured by evangelical Christians, regardless of the views of the party's presidential candidate, and therefore damage its election chances.","conclusion":"The Democratic Party is increasingly moving towards the left It is unlikely that any policies that their nominee will pursue will be moderate, or take into account the conservative values of evangelicals."}
{"id":"bdfbc5f7-1d0c-4e37-b751-a2f596f60af8","argument":"There can be no right to such terribly destructive weapons; their invention is one of the great tragedies of history, giving humanity the power to destroy itself. Even during the Cold War, most people viewed nuclear weapons at best as a necessary defence during that great ideological struggle, and at worst the scourge that would end all life on Earth. Nuclear war has never taken place, though it very nearly has on several occasions, such as during the Cuban Missile Crisis. And in 1983 a NATO war game, the Able Archer exercise simulating the full release of NATO nuclear forces, was interpreted by the Soviet Union as a prelude to a massive nuclear first-strike. Oleg Gordievsky, the KGB colonel who defected to the West, has stated that during Able Archer, without realising it, the world came \u2018frighteningly close\u2019 to the edge of the nuclear abyss, \u2018certainly closer than at any time since the Cuban missile crisis of 1962\u2019.1Soviet forces were put on immediate alert and an escalation was only avoided when NATO staff realised what was happening and scaled down the exercise.2 Cooler heads might not prevail in future conflicts between nuclear powers; when there are more nuclear-armed states, the risk of someone doing something foolish increases. After all, it would take only one such incident to result in the loss of millions of lives.3 Furthermore, in recent years positive steps have finally begun between the two states with the largest nuclear arsenals, the United States and Russia, in the strategic reduction of nuclear stockpiles. These countries, until recently the greatest perpetrators of nuclear proliferation, have now made commitments toward gradual reduction of weapon numbers until a tiny fraction of the warheads currently active will be usable.4 All countries, both with and without nuclear weapons, should adopt this lesson. They should contribute toward non-proliferation, thus making the world safer from the threat of nuclear conflict and destruction. Clearly, the focus should be on the reduction of nuclear weapons, not their increase. 1 Andrew, Christopher and Gordievsky, Oleg. 1991. \u201cKGB: The Inside story of its Foreign Operations from Lenin to Gorbachev\u201d. New York: Harper Collins Publishers. 2 Rogers, Paul. 2007. \u201cFrom Evil Empire to Axis of Evil\u201d. Oxford Research Group. 3 Jervis, Robert. 1989. The Meaning of the Nuclear Revolution: Statecraft and the Prospect of Armageddon, Cornell Studies in Security Affairs. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. 4 Baker, Peter. 2010. \u201cTwists and Turns on Way to Arms Pact With Russia\u201d. The New York Times.","conclusion":"The right of self-defence must be exercised in accordance with international law."}
{"id":"8a1ac46e-f9fc-4ef5-9e11-01d08d5c6efa","argument":"Humans accept euthanizing sick animals, without them uttering a will that they want this to happen. Something that is wholly unacceptable with regards to humans.","conclusion":"Taking the life of an animal has fewer consequences than taking the life of a human."}
{"id":"666d7a12-d5b5-4499-ae01-bf791374e59a","argument":"I'm from a small, relatively poor country, study for master's degree in natural resource management and ecology. One of the classes I audited was held by a professor who's zealously pushing for a proper establishment of EIAs in the country. While EIAs produced by international giants like the British Petroleum are made up of tomes upon tomes of information, local smaller companies make documents of about 200 pages long that are flawed in every respect and never get rejected unless they fail to follow a very basic format. The simple reason for this is that if the government upheld everyone to the high standards demanded by the EIAs, no relevant business would ever be established. The field studies demanded by EIA is comprehensive and leaves no prisoners it must be meticilous and include everything from air quality to impact on ground waters. This is theoretically less of a problem in a place where the environmental data is fresh and available, but here one of the main problems is that there is limited and often outdated information regarding flora, fauna and other environmental conditions throughout the country. Therefore, if a company wants to make an honest report, it can't just review old literature from 70s, instead it must conduct a full on research, which could potentially take years and a lot of money. While well intentioned, it's a massive bureaucratic constraint that adds tremendous monetary and temporal costs on the business. The alternative scenarios that the company has to theorise about, the post establishment progress control and supposed control from the regulatory bodies also compound this problem. I am all for environment first attitude, but the amount of responsibility put on businesses is simply unrealistic to uphold, which is why EIAs end up being mere formalities . There must be an alternative, a more efficient way to do this. I realize that there is perhaps a gap between richer and poor countries here and while I understand that the problem is magnified in the latter, it must also exist in the former. Question are these inherently a good thing in the current shape that they exist? Is there nothing better out there? Please do . Edited for typos.","conclusion":"The Environmental Impact Assessment EIA documents demand too much, are inefficient at what they're supposed to do, especially in developing countries."}
{"id":"f4dae085-8f2f-4355-ac26-7c3ad136280e","argument":"The Mormon church has 10s of billions in assets, including significant real estate holdings without the strain of property taxes. The church has over a million acres of farmland. en.wikipedia.org","conclusion":"There are many cases of churches using their tax exempt status to pocket large sums of money."}
{"id":"31c5ff8b-16e4-44c5-bfd4-262d18350442","argument":"EDIT 1 Delta to u SpeakInMyPms for pointing out that laudable revolutions e.g. American, French, etc. were good forms of political violence. Cheers For those out of the loop as to why the hell I'm conflating milkshakes with political violence, these two Google searches should help clear things up 1 2 TL DR people are responding to those that they disagree with politically by throwing milkshakes at them. The thing that stuck out to me, though, and the central part of the  post, is that this form of political activism seems to have pretty widespread support here is a post from r unitedkingdom where both Burger King and most of the 300 comments on the post seem to approve, explicitly or implicitly the latter in the case of BK , of throwing food at your political opponents. I'm rather confused by the widely held support for this activism but, given that it is widely held, I figure I might be missing something hence . I should also note that I'm not a fan of Tommy Robinson or Carl Sargon of Akkad Benjamin or the ideologies they push while I will be referencing these particular cases, my view applies fairly evenly to all modes of violent political activism. Here's my rationale First, and lets just get this out of the way, what is being done here is physical assault. As far as physical assaults go I agree it's a pretty mild form, but still physical assault, regardless. It seems to me that the gold standard of political discourse disagreement should be not to physically assault those on the other side. It seems to me that well it's just a mild form of physical assault serves to normalize physically assaulting people because you disagree with them politically since we've crossed over from the gold standard of physically assaulting them not being okay, it seems to me the only remaining question is how severely you get to physically harm them. Human nature being what it is, I see no reason why this won't escalate to fists, bricks, cars, or bullets eventually. Indeed, we've already seen several examples of people using fists, bike locks, cars, and bullets to engage in a more extreme form of the same type of physical assault activism that the milkshake throwers are engaging in. There seems to be some notion that if the ideology of the person being physically assaulted is bad enough it justifies the assault. Again, human nature being what it is, I have absolutely no faith that people will be, for lack of a better word, responsible about who they physically assault. In the case of Robinson and Benjamin, the milkshakers and their supporters argue that the assaults are okay because both of those individuals are Nazis fascists. I'm not particularly interested in discussing if Robinson and Benjamin specifically actually are Nazis fascists, but I will note that I, like pretty much anyone who has ever been on the internet for more than five seconds, have realized that terms like Nazi and fascist are used at the drop of a hat, generally just to slander political ideological opponents and very rarely used as an accurate label of an actual Nazi or fascist. As such, the terms are fairly meaningless in common language at least on the internet, they're used to describe everything from a card carrying white nationalist like Richard Spencer to a mildly strict high school teacher. The way these terms are applied is extremely subjective and often arbitrary. We've seen similar inaccurate slandering with terms like socialist or communist, and we've had many people, such as the US president, inaccurately slander whole demographics of people e.g. Mexicans as such things as rapists. In short, even if we grant and I don't that it's okay to physically assault someone if they actually are a literal Nazi communist rapist extremist, etc., I see absolutely no reason to believe that people will restrict their vigilantism to people who actually belong in any of those categories. Point and case the woman who got pepper sprayed for wearing a red hat that looked sort of like a MAGA hat. If we can simply agree that it's not okay to physically assault your political opponents then there's no need to worry about mistakes or abuses of that vigilante power happening, so I don't really get the support for this kind of activism. Speaking of vigilantism that's also what this is, in addition to being physical assault. Every developed country has laws on the books that regulate things like hate speech or incitements of violence. If you feel that a political figure has violated one of these laws and poses a danger to society there is a legal recourse available to you foregoing that recourse to instead violate the law yourself by both physically assaulting someone and inciting violence against them seems counterproductive, and puts you outside the law, not them. And speaking of that, I think it's bad for the image of whatever cause you're championing. If you go over to T D right now there's a whole bunch of pictures of people like Carl Benjamin covered in milkshake with titles like this is what the peaceful and tolerant left looks like. And fuck me for ever agreeing with something on T D, but they kind of have a point on this one. I'd think that if your actions, when captured in a picture, make someone like myself who normally hates T D agree with their analysis of your actions, maybe they were bad actions. Lastly, and a big one, I see no evidence that this physical assault approach to political activism works in the sense that it actually helps shape the political landscape more in your favor. While I'm sure it's very cathartic for the people throwing in support of throwing the milkshakes at specific individuals, what does it actually accomplish? The people getting assaulted don't seem to change their views because of this so far as I'm aware. Their followers do seem to become more radicalized as a result, though, and the divide between the ideological opponents grows. There was a lot of violent opposition to Hitler and the Nazis when they were working to take over Germany, and far from dissuading them the violence and deplatforming was used as propaganda and a recruitment tool for the Nazis. So that'd be a big one for me, and perhaps something I'm missing is there any evidence that street level violence actually works when it comes to dissuading or eliminating the political opposition? Is there some grand strategy I'm missing here? Y'all know what to do. Cheers.","conclusion":"Milkshaking and other political violence is bad."}
{"id":"0a064460-06a8-419b-95a4-f5080650f09d","argument":"The Enlightenment was a period wherein a large portion of the populace gained a large interest in bettering themselves through science, art, philosophy, and math. Of course, it ended due in large part to jealousy for lack of a better term by the Church, culminating in a large slaughter of intellectuals and a return of power to the corrupt. My belief is that our government has lost control of the narrative, leading to questioning by the populace. This questioning has led to more people seeking to educate themselves and individuals the world over standing up against the corrupt. In addition, religion is dead. I know this statement will offend some, I mean no offense. Many tenets that the Abrahamic religions have historically resisted gay marriage, independent women, abolition of slavery have come to pass and religious leaders are being more and more ridiculed and ignored. Religion is dead, but many believers are trying to keep it on life support. The populace is beginning to wake up, and the next step is a global push for intellectual enlightenment. TL DR Governments are weak, the Abrahamic religions are dead, and people are beginning to stand up for themselves. The old powers are diminishing, and the new world is coming.","conclusion":"I feel we are about to enter a new Enlightenment"}
{"id":"4600b85f-c844-4c2c-893c-2d71a2ad14ba","argument":"I want to have a strong reputation and I believe I can only do that by making good accomplishments and doing good things with the money I make. Sure, money can't buy happiness, but there's a lot I want to do in life that demands a fat wallet travel the world, start businesses, send future kids to any college, ect. And it sure would be great to not have to worry about paying the bills. I also believe having more money and success would help me find the right girl. I feel like a lot of girls don't give me a chance now but if I had a more successful reputation then my romance options would grow.","conclusion":"I believe I need to make a lot of money after college to be successful."}
{"id":"e65a6dad-1012-46f8-85be-e224aceb0e7b","argument":"Due to the complex interaction of biological and social elements that underpin the wage gap, government should be cautious about the changes it attempts lest an incomplete understanding leads to unintended consequences, making the pay gap worse.","conclusion":"The government is not the right actor to fix the gender pay gap."}
{"id":"3affff43-992b-453f-b38f-707aa17eda6b","argument":"Lenin founded 'The Communist Party of the Soviet Union \u041a\u043e\u043c\u043c\u0443\u043d\u0438\u0441\u0442\u0438\u0447\u0435\u0441\u043a\u0430\u044f \u043f\u0430\u0440\u0442\u0438\u044f \u0421\u043e\u0432\u0435\u0442\u0441\u043a\u043e\u0433\u043e \u0421\u043e\u044e\u0437\u0430 \u041a\u041f\u0421\u0421, Kommunisticheskaya partiya Sovetskogo Soyuza, abbreviated in English as CPSU in 1919, Stalin became a member later on. The party's aim was to bring about a Communist society but it did not succeed. Membership of a political party that expresses such aims, was and still is, what is colloquially understood as what is meant to be a 'communist'.","conclusion":"The USSR was lead by Lenin and then Stalin, who were both Marxist-Leninists."}
{"id":"235b4d4a-8d48-47aa-8065-3d8fff2b9470","argument":"It seems that in practically every country in the world, you have to be 18 to see any kind of sexual content. This is even true in the UK, where the age of consent is 16. Going to any NSFW subreddit prompts reddit to ask you whether you are over 18. I don't really see why this is the case. Is human sexuality really so harmful to minors? Isn't it good for a teenager to have pornography as an outlet for sexual desires? What is honestly so scarring about the image of a naked person?","conclusion":"I don't think there should be a minimum age for viewing pornography\/sexual content."}
{"id":"91e8a3f5-f865-4a52-89a3-f8355bb86905","argument":"Back in the days when he still was in love with his first wife, Mileva Maric\u0301, he wrote to her things such as \u201cI feel alone with everyone except you.\u201d This shows a deep bond and respect. His demands are not of sexist nature but simply due to faded love.","conclusion":"Einstein was not a sexist. At the time he wrote the demands he simply was fed up with Mileva."}
{"id":"d17cc0ef-943f-49e9-b3e4-1e971e036c20","argument":"its true they said \"science should not be trusted cos they don\"t understand peoples mind . They just wants to be like God","conclusion":"why will science reproduce faithc can they see peoples Heart. they all liars telling u that sceince can reproduce faith"}
{"id":"db021bb4-8caf-428a-9dcb-71a473319946","argument":"I think there is an awful divide in the country right now, and most people can agree on it. The Republican party is heading in a very bad direction. Trump is a cancerous growth that has gone out of control, and the GOP falls in line with him because he has some similar policy goals and they thought they could harness the populism. But they failed and now are holding onto it for dear life. Big donors have continued to pull the Republican party to the right during primaries, where the most radical rightwing voters show up to vote in much greater numbers than moderates. Gerrymandering then allows these crazy people to get elected because the choice is so now so tribal that many people fear an evil Democrat in office more than a legitimately crazy Republican. The only way for an average citizen to fix this is register as a Republican in any district that has any possibility of a Republican win, and to vote for the most anti trump candidate. This is whether you are a Republican or a Democrat, so long as you oppose Trump your primary vote will count for much more when it comes to shaping the political landscape if you can de radicalize the Republican party. It doesn't matter if you agree with their other views or not tbh. Your real vote will be in the actual election. Tldr The best thing you can do as an American voter is to register for the majority party and vote in their primary for the least bad candidate. This has become vastly more important during the current political era.  Edit I would like to clarify, since most of the comments are missing my point. If you want to change my view, I need an alternative option for what action an individual can take, at this point in the nations history, which will have a larger impact than voting in Republican primaries to bring the party back toward the center.","conclusion":"The best thing that someone can do to fight Trumpism is register to vote as a Republican and vote in the primaries."}
{"id":"51d9ef2e-2de1-44da-9aa0-fbf8103f7cba","argument":"Nude models are expected to \"wear nudity\" as a uniform that goes hand in hand with their work.","conclusion":"Nudity - just like the absence of something in general - can also function as a uniform."}
{"id":"1c360ade-9e6b-4aba-9d71-5ef255af07dd","argument":"It seems like using some system for verifying the person voting is actually who they say they are would reduce any instances of voter fraud. While I am not a conservative by any means, it seems like the negativity aimed at voter ID laws is a reactionary stance liberals take against what is usually a Republican position simply because it is a Republican position.","conclusion":"I don't think voter ID laws are that big of a deal."}
{"id":"72cc791a-d0ac-40f9-87b4-9896f6f20d66","argument":"The link provided above gives the following definition of agnosticism: \"a person who holds that the existence of the ultimate cause, as God, and the essential nature of things are unknown and unknowable, or that human knowledge is limited to experience.\" This definition is consistent with the intended use when the argument was made that since Gods existence cannot be proven agnosticism is the only rational possible to hold for one who has not seen good evidence for God's existence.","conclusion":"The definition given of agnosticism in the link provided supports the definition intended in the parent claim, namely the neutral position or the belief it not know if God exists or not. This con is more of a pro than anything else."}
{"id":"64561074-3343-4d9b-bcc9-73a3ddbe6295","argument":"Expressions of richness and beauty can only be appreciated if one can understand the language in which they are spoken.","conclusion":"The fewer languages there are, the better the world is."}
{"id":"97f30639-dbde-44bc-ad70-5d9213d0917e","argument":"While there are some things society disagrees on, there are other things that we agree on and can establish as norms, standards, and morals. In setting these norms and laws, we establish that their violation can automatically be deemed \"harmful\" to society. Disagreement among accepted political parties exists in the area in which societies have not formed a consensus on the \"harm\" of differing policies. That's why such disagreement is tolerated; we're not sure of the true effects. Yet, if society is able to deem by general consensus that an extremist political party violates these norms, then that party should be deemed \"harmful\" to society, and excluded from politics.","conclusion":"Society can develop a general consensus about what extremist views can be deemed \"harmful\"."}
{"id":"5742898c-2c4c-4bff-a400-94bc90d0f02a","argument":"EDIT^ The title is mis worded, I made a typo. Employers to terminate employment. Please excuse this, it is un editable. Please read this before replying to my post. I will do my best to clarify my stance. I understand that this subject is very inclusive and implies that I hold opinions about the legality of narcotics, I will try to be as straightforward as possible about my underlying beliefs. On personal autonomy and the legal status of drugs in the U.S I believe that in a free society, that is to say a society that advocates personal individual liberty, an individual must be in charge of his her own body. I feel that you should have the right to determine your diet, weather you will eat drink healthily or not. I also feel that if an adult decides that they wish to drink alcohol or partake in mind altering recreational drugs they should be able to make that choice for themselves. If the government is to have any involvement in that decision, it should be from a public health standpoint and not a criminal one. Employers right to test employees for non work habits My understanding of why companies administer drug tests is to ensure the quality of work they pay for. That's great, however this is not how drug tests work. I believe that showing up to work intoxicated is wrong and should probably mean termination, that makes sense to me. However, drug tests determine if you have taken drugs in a certain time frame, the length of which depends on the drug. Cannabis THC , for instance, can be stored in fat cells for weeks after consumption. The psychotropic effects run their course in a couple of hours, but you will fail a urine test for weeks after consumption. Other substances don't remain in your system as long and some much longer, but the point still stands. As an employer, you pay for my time. I give you 40 hours a week, and you pay me for it that is employment. What I do with my personal time, how I choose to relax, etc. does not fall under your jurisdiction. It is unethical for employers to feel they are in charge of this aspect of an employee's personal life. Disclaimer section I would not be opposed to a test that determines weather or not you are intoxicated AT work, akin to a Blood Alcohol Level test. If this technology does not exist is not feasible, this is not the employees problem and they shouldn't be required to make lifestyle changes due to this. If an employer hires meth head, for instance, and he she is exhibiting undesirable characteristics tardiness, stealing, etc. I think it would be reasonable to terminate employment. But it should be performance based, and not solely because they consume meth and failed a test. Whenever drugs are talked about in America, the idea of abuse is implicitly tied to them. I think this is part of the problem. The public consensus is that there is no such thing as responsible drug use. I disagree with this notion. The main view I wish to discuss in this post is an employers right to limit use of recreational substances by employees during non office hours. This is a weighted issue, I understand, and I have attempted to clarify my underlying beliefs reasons for holding this stance above.","conclusion":"I believe it should be criminal in the U.S. for employees to terminate employment based on the results of a drug test."}
{"id":"8231f228-2323-477c-9cd1-415320697073","argument":"The number of medical trials closed due to an insufficient number of participants can rise to more than half in the case of late-stage trials related to cancer.","conclusion":"Many medical trials fail because of an insufficient number of participants This policy would solve this problem and make medical trials more effective."}
{"id":"07fcf026-e2ac-4e26-b36a-bde532d8cff8","argument":"Achieving marital status can be linked to accessing vital life resources including paths to legalised immigration.","conclusion":"These benefits will provide support to minority groups looking to get married."}
{"id":"bd33beb3-b414-407c-9bd4-f94f2a660f9e","argument":"It's not the special effects or the meaning of the piece that makes it work, but the writing. If the writing is bad, nobody will read view play it. Example Spartacus. The SFX are garbage for the most part. But the writing is beautiful. Characters speak in verse and in a way we associate with Rome, regardless of how accurate it is. It's written to immerse you in the world. Theres also a lot of messaging about servitude and religion and fate and our own powerlessness, and the scenes are written tastefully. During the slave revolt, the slaughter of non consultants isn't shown. Juxtaposed to Star Wars 8, where there was a lot of messaging, but nkt tastefully written and not particularly well received. All it did was infuriate people. Edit Allow me to explain something I alluded to in my post the writing isn't just dialogue. It includes how the scenes are written, what they choose to show and what they choose not to. Edit 2 What I am referring to as writing is more akin to what you would see in a book. I'm referring to dialogue and character interactions with the set as writing.","conclusion":"Writing quality is the most important part of media"}
{"id":"df19555b-499b-40a4-a6af-4f8c62e473b2","argument":"Some are not aware or in control of what is happening while they are having an episode, and thus find themselves unable to stop. Thus they are happy when others stop them.","conclusion":"When adolescent patients have some violent behaviors, use of restraint is necessary and prevention of further harm to themselves or others is in their best interests."}
{"id":"8d10519e-f592-46fa-b46e-8662671db6b1","argument":"The Conservative Party has lost its legitimacy to control the government which would entail an ethical duty to adopt a motion of no confidence.","conclusion":"Jeremy Corbyn Should Be The Next Prime Minister Of The United Kingdom."}
{"id":"5303321b-b5a4-441f-9d44-fda20db072d8","argument":"Searching for specific words in an ordinary book is possible only via the index. Yet indexes don't necessarily contain all words one might be interested in, so an e-book allows for word searching beyond an index's capabilities.","conclusion":"Digital books are easier to search within for specific words or numbers than physical books."}
{"id":"5643313a-1c91-42c7-be7b-a48c280c3c77","argument":"For example, in Victoria, Australia, the court has powers to make permanent care orders in respect of a child if such an order is in the child's best interests with reference to matters such as the child's safety and wellbeing.","conclusion":"Parents can lose custody of their children to the state, and their children may be permanently removed, if the parents are deemed unable to care for their children's safety and wellbeing."}
{"id":"3144c4aa-d5f1-453d-a778-ffc2353f2861","argument":"The West but mostly the US has a completely skewed view of nudity and the human body and it is adversely impacting the population in many ways. We have reached this weird impass as a society where we simultaneously censor nudity, while making near nudity overtly sexual. What originally made me think of this  was when I was browsing Instagram the other day. There are thousands of Instagram models who post pictures of themselves in swimsuits, workout wear, and revealing clothes on a near daily basis. All of the pictures show a lot of their body, but not all of it. One account in particular had literally HUNDREDS of pictures of her ass. In each picture she always had at least a g string bikini on, so you never saw her butt fully uncovered, it was always just a shy of being completely nude. This got me thinking, ITS JUST A BUTT. I mean I like a nice ass as much as any guy but at the end of the day it\u2019s just part of the body. The fact that this woman\u2019s entire livelihood depends on posting images of her butt online is insane. We are constantly bombarded with images of other people covering only their nipples, genitalia, and butt crack. And it\u2019s supposed to be \u201csexy\u201d. What would happen if as a society we allowed casual non sexual nudity into our everyday lives. I don\u2019t think showing a woman\u2019s nipple on TV is going to be the downfall of civilization. Your kid will not need years of therapy from seeing a dick in the locker room. We need to grow the hell up. Throughout history people everywhere swam without any clothes on. Women breastfed in public. Nobody would\u2019ve looked twice at a little kid running around without a stitch on. Because it WASNT SEXUAL. It was just a body and everyone has one. What if instead an entire generation of young men raised on pornography, young men were able to casually see normal women\u2019s bodies say at a pool or sauna and where able to separate nudity from sexuality to have a healthy respect for women\u2019s entire being instead of being conditioned to look at them like a piece of meat. What if our young women were raised in an environment where many body types were present, and grew up with healthy self image and an idea of what their body should look like compared to others. On top of these benefits, we would see a massive increase in quality for \u201cfamous people\u201d. Celebrities who seem to stay in the spotlight because of their willingness to be nearly naked consistently think Kardashians would lose the influence they have over the general populace. When we look at all the amazing things our bodies can do, it seems silly that seeing them uncovered should automatically equal sex. While I\u2019m not advocating for the US to become one massive nudist camp, I do think being naked while swimming, excercising, in a bath house, or on your own property should be commonplace, and would really benefit our nation\u2019s overall mental health. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Nudity is too Taboo and Overtly-Sexualized in the US"}
{"id":"b7198177-2893-43bb-826a-ec97161f4aa3","argument":"EU citizens resident in the UK, aside from Irish, Maltese and Cypriots, have not pledged allegiance to the UK and so should not be given a vote in matters of State.","conclusion":"None of these people should have been allowed to vote."}
{"id":"3c4e3619-9f24-4c8a-8e89-3755e7cbbe98","argument":"I was reading a post in r technology about how getting off Facebook makes you happier and less stressed and the comments mentioned that Reddit was probably similar. That made me wonder what you could do with your free time. You could watch TV or play video games but those are time wasters as well. You could read but I'd argue it's no different from watching TV other than a little bit more brain activity. It's still probably a waste of time. You could workout but that would still leave you with some extra free time. Basically, I'm arguing that the time you spend on Reddit Facebook can't be replaced with anything useful other than work which would make you go crazy eventually. Edit Basically, what should you replace Reddit and Facebook with in your free time that isn't a time waster?","conclusion":"Anything that you for \"play\" throughout the day is usually a waste of time."}
{"id":"8ff0cf41-9814-48a6-b424-7631fb8219fd","argument":"7% of Jews in a group of major European states have experienced physical attack for being Jewish in the past five years 2013 numbers.Technical report: FRA survey - Discrimination and hate crime against Jews in EU Member States: experiences and perceptions of antisemitism","conclusion":"These fears may be well founded with the current rise of anti-semitism and far-right politics in Europe."}
{"id":"70e3ce0b-3878-4dd9-bb1b-77a352750f18","argument":"The Center for Health and Economy estimates a 10-year net cost of up to $44 trillion and an annual deficit of $2.1 trillion.","conclusion":"Federal spending would increase as more people need health care."}
{"id":"c23b990f-ed33-40f2-a761-dd8ec2071a8a","argument":"The negative taxation mechanism would not be 'cheaper' in the UK: We do not have 100% interaction with the Inland Revenue. The majority of people are taxed though their workplace PAYE and payroll deductions. Some, such as the self employed, do have direct interaction self assessment process, similar to the US . The unemployed have no contact at all. www.economicshelp.org and www.gov.uk .","conclusion":"Whether or not a negative income tax can be more cost-effective depends to a large extent on the individual countries and their administrative systems."}
{"id":"0562d201-d4c9-44da-8c8a-8c1544d4da74","argument":"Criminology doesn't support the notion that sexual temptation is an important factor in sexual assault. Rapists, for example, are categorized as driven by anger, domination and sadism.","conclusion":"The advice \"covering your body will minimize your risk of sexual assault\" is not sound."}
{"id":"3c74e327-5aa1-476f-baec-204399d4c041","argument":"As a student in High School, I spend a lot of time writing papers and such which usually require a bibliography of credible sources. However, I have not yet been told that I can use Wikipedia as source. I don't believe this makes sense. I understand that teachers want their students to actually branch out in the world of information but I feel like they're just stuck in an era where you had to use books to research anything. I say that we should be able to use any resources available. It's true that Wikipedia can be edited by literally anyone, but I think for the most part especially this far in wikipedia's lifetime the website can be trusted. I'd like to hear any legitimate points that can be made against Wikipedia.","conclusion":"I think wikipedia should be considered a credible source"}
{"id":"7c21957b-00c4-4a89-9231-28c56c7c6bed","argument":"Sometimes those who adopt enter a contract when they can't retain ownership. This can increase the risk of someone wanting another pet and this time going to a breeder instead.","conclusion":"The pet industry including adoption centers creates this situation where animals get put in a bad position that they need rescuing, which has a negative impact on their life."}
{"id":"bd76bacb-989a-4980-8bc1-e3fdb5d1ce42","argument":"Why I hold this view I've been homeless, living in hotels, cars, couch surfing for nearly a year and a half now. I'm a healthy non veteran white male with no children and technically single, this disqualifies me from any special curcumstances. I qualify for a free healthcare plan without any trouble, as all poor have for years. My health is becoming increasingly worse due to my poor living conditions. Sure I can get check ups every month and treatments for what ailments may come up along, but i cannot live a healthy life. Yes, people need healthcare, but I could afford to cover that if the money put into supplying me with healthcare was instead put into a small apartment. What I can't afford is to continually charm my way through job interviews just to sacrifice the job a short time later because I can't sleep, can't shower, can't keep cloths clean and simply can't be reliable. Access to a stovetop, refrigerator, shower, safe place to sleep, somewhere to keep my things and have friends over should have an substantial positive effect on both physical and mental health. Cost to taxpayer wise, they work out about the same yearly. Personal cost, trips to the hospital throughout my lifetime have totaled about a year's apartment rental.  Housing is more important than healthcare.","conclusion":"If there was a choice between universal healthcare and a studio apartment, I'd choose the apartment US."}
{"id":"59cb9d9f-f6e3-4345-a48d-795feeecaa8a","argument":"This is a very specific to peer reviewed scientific journals and does not include recent initiatives like Obama\u2019s push to increase access to public government funded data ^1 The main crux of my argument is that, if adopted universally , the open access model of peer reviewed scientific research for journals would effectively shift the cost burden from the reader consumer of scientific literature to researchers producers and this is a net negative for the advancement of science overall. Assumption 1 It costs something to create, manage, and publish a scientific journal. The amount is irrelevant, lets just call it X. Assumption 2 There are more readers consumers of scientific research journals than there are researchers producers. To illustrate my point I\u2019ll be using the open access journal PlosOne and the \u2018traditional\u2019 journal Nature Now if I want to publish a research article in PlosOne it would cost me 1,350 ^2 They do say that they have waivers available for those who cannot afford this fee, but that \u201cmost authors pay the full fee\u201d. Conversely, a 1 year subscription to Nature for an individual is 199 ^3 Neither of these costs are negligible, especially for students, but the subscription cost is considerably less prohibitive than the publication cost, especially when you consider the fact that many institutions both public and private confer access to affiliates. I've been affiliated with 3 universities in the US in a research role and none of them have ever covered the cost of publishing in an open access journal either as a student or full time researcher Now up until this point, nothing I have said supports the notion that this scheme is bad. In fact, I believe the ideal situation is to have a mix of open access and traditional journals because they serve different purposes. However, I think this issue is obfuscated by the use of the term \u2018open access\u2019. The reason I believe this model is bad is that it would lead to an environment in which only those with the resources to publish have the opportunity to disseminate their results. Institutions both academic and private would have an immense advantage in publishing research and it could narrow the possibility of contrary findings reaching wide audiences. This is obviously a situation in which the truth regarding research could be overshadowed by vested interests. Hypothetically, Pharma company Z could pay to have 50 studies published showing the efficacy of drug Y whereas the small independent group of researchers can only afford 1 study showing the opposite. This would magnify the already existing problem of publication bias and could be disastrous. This is getting long already so I\u2019ll just add one more point regarding the advancement of science. I think there are competing interests in the world of science between advancement and dissemination. These two things are not mutually exclusive by any means but are often in conflict. It appears \u2018traditional\u2019 journals are more focused on the former whereas open access journals are focused on the latter. While dissemination and access are both important I believe that for measured scientific progress to occur we need to encourage more data results, not less. Universal adoption of the open access model towards scientific research would be an obstacle to this goal.","conclusion":"I believe universal open-access to scientific journals is detrimental overall."}
{"id":"d70a5db9-c752-40bc-bab6-36b3f7d38897","argument":"I have called naive and blind by so many people in the past because I would I have empathy and understanding for people and I don't like to generalize people into negative roles or stereotypes. They get on me for defending and helping people who they felt were bad to the core or too stubborn to change their bad ways. I think all those lines of reasoning have rubbed off on me. And unlike them, I haven't been burned, abused or betrayed by anyone to feel what it's like. So I think I really am a bit naive and oblivious to be this nice and kind. I'm at a lost as to why people are so restrictive and selective to who exactly they trust or help or anyone at all and I'm wasting my time with helping some people. But I don't want to be a self absorbed shut in who only cares for himself. Please .","conclusion":"I think people who are kind and generous are naive. Please"}
{"id":"bccfde52-dfdf-4388-aa7a-5edb206f0b4d","argument":"We used to see bikes manufactured to get great MPG, like 100 MPG, or at least 60 MPG, due to smaller engine sizes. The largest bike commonly manufactured outside of speciality touring was the 750cc 700cc engines. Now we're looking at a 2.4 litre engine in a motorcycle and calling it 'normal,' and thinking of 1 litre bikes as 'starter.' The frames have no mounting points for saddlebags or light cargo, and the best MPG that most of these behemoths manage is 20 30 MPG. Cars can manage better. Instead of metal and rubber, manufacturers are using super shiny plastic with crazy logos, even on Harley Davidson 'retro' motorcycles, which now routinely cost upwards of 40k, or can cost 14k used. Check craigslist. Same can be said of bicycles. Electro forged bikes weighed a lot, from 40 50 lbs., and lugged frames at 25 30 lbs. weren't light either, but they were incredibly durable and usable on a daily basis. Every one of them came with the option to mount a basket, or panniers, and they were very tough. Now they're made of carbon fiber, which if it develops a tiny crack in it, will need total replacement. They cost upwards of 4,000 8,000 for a serious bike, and attire has gone from this to this What was once 'casual' attire is now something you'd be embarrassed to be seen wearing off of the bike. It's become golf you wouldn't wear golf clothing to the office, and for all those multi thousand dollar golf clubs, it rarely sees any actual, practical use. , reddit.","conclusion":"I think bicycles and motorcycles manufactured in America have moved away from utilitarian means of transit and into shiny toys for the ultra-rich."}
{"id":"58414201-a013-4af4-9d6e-934a02fa9319","argument":"In this way it could be easy to choose an easy to learn Germanic, Latin and Slavic language for the respective groups and use them as regional lingua francas.","conclusion":"EU could promote as a solution the use of more than one common language, in a model of a bilingual, trilingual or quadrilingual Europe such as Switzerland"}
{"id":"5fdc7d15-17af-4591-9691-31757e4ee409","argument":"In fact, there are many reality entertainment programmes that educate people. Either directly how to build a house, or indirectly it is moral to help others in need.","conclusion":"Not all reality shows are centered around sex and violence."}
{"id":"4a970ab1-f40c-4544-ad51-a0a4f3270da0","argument":"Creating a common EU foreign and security policy will in fact be easier than many people suppose, because many of the 21st century\u2019s most important issues in external relations are already European competencies. Most are issues on which any one member state, even one as significant as Britain, France or Germany, cannot hope to make a real global impact alone \u2013 only by coordinating policy at EU level will the interests of member states be advanced at all. Policies in areas such as climate change, energy policy, development aid, trade negotiations and human rights promotion are already decided at EU level. Having a High Representative to coordinate and promote this work outside the EU makes sense and actually gives all member states a greater international effectiveness \u2013 the true measure of sovereignty.","conclusion":"Creating a common EU foreign and security policy will in fact be easier than many people suppose, be..."}
{"id":"3ce2d1c1-3c50-49a2-9ce3-b7714d4b3ea3","argument":"Creating a human being in order to attempt to affect another interpersonal relationship is inherently selfish and immoral.","conclusion":"Some couples may have children just so that it would save their otherwise crumbling marriage."}
{"id":"4d4f3932-3ac9-41cb-ad89-2c31b2528f8c","argument":"when families are only permitted to have one child, it is important for parents to be able to select the sex of that child.","conclusion":"It is within the freedoms of the parents to select the sex of the child"}
{"id":"57bc57ee-cfe4-4d9b-877f-9062df4dd0c6","argument":"Just going forward faster shouldn't count. I recognize that it's possible to quicken time relative to an observer by moving very fast.","conclusion":"I think time travel is impossible."}
{"id":"4e815da8-a236-4179-9523-b8454b4dc2cd","argument":"I have never eaten dog, cat, or horse but as far as I am concerned, there is no difference between them and chicken or cows. Everyone has uses the it's disgusting exclamation as an argument and it really holds no weight to me. I think sauerkraut is disgusting too, but I don't think there is anything wrong with people who eat it. I'm just wondering if there is any good reason to draw a distinction between consuming the usual fair and more exotic meats besides the same used to vegetarianism I used to be a vegetarian . Thanks ahead.","conclusion":"I don't see any problem with eating horses, dogs, cats, or any other animal."}
{"id":"cd6589ea-d4ea-4823-bfe9-458f0dc61d02","argument":"Please pardon my use of 'the person' do not want to even come close to being identified I came to this person vulnerable after almost being sexually sleep assaulted which is a separate issue from this one . This person plied me with alcohol, and took advantage of me, inebriated, unsure, vulnerable, and still having feelings for that person that the person knew about. All of this after the person promised never to use me. The person blamed me for what they did. I felt so sick during and through the next day I wanted to vomit. It sickens me that the person will be celebrated, is living well and being loved by people who don't truly know him, what he did and what he is capable of. That he is not a good person. My friends and family are trying to talk me out of coming up with a way of exacting revenge, saying it will do more harm than good. But I feel so violated, and wounded, and months of therapy haven't fixed the feeling of panic and anger when I think of this person, or someone mentions them unexpectedly. I feel like revenge is the only way for me to even the score. ? gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than just downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Getting revenge on someone who done you wrong can be healing and beneficial, especially when what they've done has caused you emotional\/traumatic harm."}
{"id":"05624569-dba8-4afb-a6b5-33cf7db42c72","argument":"Thanos' goal in reducing the population of the universe by half was to reduce resource consumption. Thanos, furthermore, seems to view each death as regrettable but necessary. Given that, it seems that an efficient Thanos would try to maximize the reduction in in resource consumption per death. The way to do this would be to kill not half the universe at random, but rather kill in descending order of resource consumption until the desired reduction had been implemented. This provides the optimal ratio of reduced resource consumption death toll. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Thanos was horribly inefficient"}
{"id":"d0d6638e-53c1-4288-a0f4-2b642d8a80d3","argument":"In 2018 the Aflac\u2019s annual employee findings survey showed that 60% of employees prefer to take a job with lower pay but better benefits.","conclusion":"The trend of providing employment benefits, such as healthcare insurance, is increasing in the US."}
{"id":"0508dda4-0eed-4c2a-8ae6-cdc11c8a1d28","argument":"Both premises have inductive plausibility, through comparisons between beings that lack agency such as rocks and potatoes and those that do such as humans. To put it another way, it seems reasonable to infer from experience that humans are greater than rocks and potatoes.","conclusion":"1. It is greater to create beings with agency than without agency. 2. Agency entails the possibility of choosing evil. 3. Therefore, it is greater to a create a world with beings who can choose evil than one in which they cannot."}
{"id":"9f698e4e-8ac5-453c-a7d1-186df062a0dd","argument":"The wealthy Persian Gulf states and the rich Southeast Asian countries of Singapore and Brunei are not democratic","conclusion":"Yet some poor countries are democratic, and some rich countries are not democratic."}
{"id":"6f4c63c4-8398-4434-ac50-4092194b51c8","argument":"My opinion is that embalming of any kind showing the dead body, waxing, keeping exposed skeletons are just creepy remainings from the past. I think that embalmed corpses should be buried normally. It seems like some strange fetish from medieval times to dress the skeletons of saints into the fancy dresses. I imagine these, or the Lenin in the Moscow. Totally awfulk in my opinion some remains of the flesh, that are degenerating slowly, so it has to be supplemented by wax and other substances. We should rather worship actions and thoughts of people than rotting physical remains. I see no upside of the embalming. Change my view? English is not my first language, sorry gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than just downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I think that embalming is disgusting, medieval and inhumane."}
{"id":"870d1c58-cd64-4c62-a719-5d10ddbf8a20","argument":"Humans are far from perfect and make many errors in reasoning. Humans are unlikely to be able to conceive of God or many gods.","conclusion":"God may exist but His existence may not be knowable or inferable."}
{"id":"7237bb18-e08e-4e51-a79c-699c1db9897e","argument":"When we do gender we are held accountable by those around us. When we fail to \"correctly\" do gender with others, we may be met with a subtle or overt punishment or exclusion.","conclusion":"Many people adopt behaviors that do not feel natural to them because they believe those are the behaviors that members of their gender ought do."}
{"id":"73cd89b1-bbbb-4c17-91d2-90456daade45","argument":"Many DREAMers would lose their scholarships internships or work placements in the interim, forcing them to go back into the shadows and work under the table.","conclusion":"Leaving DREAMers in a state of deportation limbo is harmful to them."}
{"id":"034fb3e2-48a9-4885-97b4-dde1b1ad05ce","argument":"The Roman Catholic Church considers an abortion \"a grave moral wrong\"; in Sikhism abortion if forbiden; Hinduism is opposed to it, except where it is necessary to save the mother; Islam regards abortion as wrong and forbidden though with vital exceptions and Judaism only permits it for serious reasons.","conclusion":"Religion has tried to control women's bodies by banning abortion, birth control and contraception."}
{"id":"56165e42-ad45-4302-b407-a9dfed4fd760","argument":"Parents from low income communities often have to work multiple jobs to feed their kids. This might lead to the kids falling behind in school, but doesn't make the parents incapable or abusive.","conclusion":"There are structural reasons as to why some parents are unable to prepare their kids for school adequately."}
{"id":"e2f7b11b-1de9-4dcc-8b6a-ea6e4bbd997a","argument":"Antifa frequently writes Internet posts that are anti-police \/ ACAB 1 2 3 4 5 6","conclusion":"Antifa wants to abolish the police, which the general public strongly supports."}
{"id":"21218f97-6acc-4102-a8f1-0294734ec6b5","argument":"Computer Scientists carry out roles that are very easy to automatise. For this reason, it would be easy for AI to take on the majority of the work currently carried out by Computer Scientists.","conclusion":"Computer scientists can make their own jobs obsolete by creating an AI to do their jobs for them."}
{"id":"f8f73746-9bc8-4b63-8b99-44ee11130e02","argument":"During the Second Wizarding World War, Voldemort's followers set up a Muggle-Born Registration Commission with the plan of capturing Muggle-borns and sending them to Azkaban.","conclusion":"For a long time, policies and attitudes reflected the view that pure-blood wizards and witches were superior to Muggle-borns or half-bloods."}
{"id":"7856e1cf-9b67-49a5-87aa-fdf03ee9f20d","argument":"This is in context of the recent HR1044 bill that is in the process of being passed. x200B Background This bill proposes that the quota for backlogged countries be increased. I would like this bill to pass OR ask that we start denying the H1B visa because no one is happy with this current process. x200B Situation Full disclosure, I am one of the backlogged countries India and I would LOVE this bill to pass to I don't have to wait 20 years to get a green card. I do acknowledge that this will mean other applicants from other countries will be pushed back down to the back of the queue as Indians have already been waiting in queue for quite a while. x200B A lot of minorities have taken to twitter complaining how this bill puts India first check out hr1044 . Well, Indians have been waiting in the queue for 10 years if not more chained to their jobs as they cannot freely move to other companies. I will admit these are golden handcuffs as the income is probably decent at most of these jobs. I don't have the exact statistics here. This seems to be a similar problem to Affirmative Action where to maintain the diversity we need to artificially control the over represented user group. But how is denying them green cards or rationing out green cards in proportion of nationality achieving this? We are already in this country under H1B visa buying homes, having families etc. What's the point of limiting GCs by country? x200B There are a few points being made on twitter why this bill is unfair, This bill will be unfavorable to American workers and now an Indian will take my job A. Why? Indians are already here working on H1B visa. All this bill does is give them a Green card. How will this process steal more jobs . Net net it will be the same amount of jobs. This bill puts India first A. Partially agree, but what about those that have been waiting for years? The current priority date green card interview date is 2009 so there is a 10 year backlog for Indians which is bound to increase. In contrast, nationals from other countries are getting green cards and some add economic value by being Uber drivers. There is a larger conversation around a merit based GC process which I obviously favor. This bill lets them jump in line A. No it doesn't. We have been waiting in line longer than other countries for the skilled visa EB2 EB3 and yet there is no end in sight. x200B In summary, if you don't want Indians here for diversity reasons, simply deny them the H1B visa as it is over allocated to our country. What's the point of giving them the H1B and then make them wait in line 20 years without a GC. If you start to give them relief then other nationalities are unhappy. If you don't, we are unhappy as the wait is miserable. The only solace is at least I can still stay and work in this country whereas in the no H1B situation I would have gone back home.","conclusion":"US should approve Immigration reform bill HR1044"}
{"id":"820de945-546b-40d6-8b2e-f5a7fdfc31b5","argument":"I'm not by any means complaining, but college is a lot of work. Time itself isn't the issue, I just constantly struggle to make the most out of it. Studying doing work for more than 90 minutes at a time is tough. Even then I'm often thinking about other fun social things. I feel that some sort of 'study aid' drug would make it easier to do work and make me less stressed out all the time. I would be able to focus for longer periods of time and be more productive. In summation, I think I'd be able to get more done in less time. .","conclusion":"If I had a prescription for ritalin, adderall, vyvanse, etc. college would be easier."}
{"id":"953e15a7-b239-49fb-a4de-0196e1844ff0","argument":"Liberals have been going on since the trial ended about how disgusting it is that he was let free and keep posting all these stupid articles on social media sites that try to show how ridiculous it is. I am quite to the left, but I have not one ounce in me that feels that Trayvon Martin should be getting any sympathy at this point. There are facts that show he had stolen goods in his locker, had robbery tools, and the skittles and tea he was bringing home were 2 3 of the ingredients to a comatosing drink called Lean , which he had been discussing with people on the internet. I find all this to be just convincing that George Zimmerman probably should have just sat his ass down and called the police, but did absolutely nothing wrong and that Trayvon was not a good person. EDIT My post my have caused some confusing, but when referencing the stolen goods and the lean ingredients, I am making a point that liberals have made him out to be an angel, straight up, good kid. When in reality, he was a thief and experimented with drugs. I am just here to ask why liberals, whom I almost always side with, are really going on like these things don't exist.","conclusion":"I'm a liberal who is disgusted with the liberal outrage over the George Zimmerman verdict."}
{"id":"7cf04cf6-9534-4cdc-9b65-b40f26b494d8","argument":"So, just for a little bit of background, Neil Degrasse Tyson is a famous science popularizer and he was recently accused by three women of sexual misconduct. The accusations are reported in the Washington Post and discussed in the Scientific American blog . These claims are the subject of an investigation by National Geographic and Fox NdT has responded. Now, I don't want to spend time on the claims themselves here or on NdT's character. I think a lot of his work popularizing science is highly valuable. What I want to draw your attention to is his Wikipedia page 2018 12 11 9am PDT where no mention of these allegations is made. Mind you, this is now 11 days after the WaPo article breaking the news and 3 days after NdT's response. Looking at the talk page, you will see an argument about the appropriateness of including these claims. I did not participate in that discussion. A lot of the argument is phrased in wikipedia jargon which I am not fluent in, but something about reliable sources and rules regarding the biographies of living persons seem at issue. So, I'm not an expert on Wikipedia rules, but my lay person's understanding of them is that if a fact is significant enough and reliable sources for it are provided, it should be included. The significance seems obvious. NdT himself felt the need to write a long response. Which he presumably would not have if it was not significant. His employers or maybe he just contracts with NatGeo and Fox have felt the need to start an investigation. The reliability of the sources WaPo mostly is not really in question. So I'm forced to conclude that Wikipedia should mention on NdT's article that He was accused of sexual misconduct. He responded to those accusations. He is being investigated. But as hinted at above, the minutiae of Wikipedia rules escape me. So maybe I'm wrong. Change my view.","conclusion":"Neil Degrasse Tyson's Wikipedia page should mention the accusations of sexual misconduct levied against him"}
{"id":"3b48f946-751f-4022-9ec0-d649a34935a7","argument":"Many of Obama's policies have been repealed since he left office, showing that he was not a good president.","conclusion":"Obama failed to bridge the partisan divide and be a good President to all Americans."}
{"id":"10d2325a-8beb-4604-b0fd-0b93f1be2816","argument":"People have the right to assess the risk relative to their desire to start a family. If they deem the risk acceptable, we must not interfere with their right.","conclusion":"As with normal families, it is the parent's choice to have a child on their own free will, not the government's."}
{"id":"876bcf40-176a-423d-a0b9-2f0fa8192014","argument":"People do not need to create art for health, like art therapy with non-vegan materials like chalk or animal products in paint in the digital age like electronics to create digital art.","conclusion":"People can have vegan activities that fill their time just as well as non-vegan ones."}
{"id":"e1cdd2c4-dee2-4286-bd1e-819a012bb34a","argument":"Religion itself is a form of cultural psychology where the spirit updates the dogma to fit the people. When done right it provides purpose and belonging.JP reconciling science and religion.","conclusion":"Religions demonstrate meaning-making structures which allow adopters to make sense of their environment and life circumstances. They're a coping strategy."}
{"id":"1510f528-97ee-4685-afd1-855b3a0111d5","argument":"Withholding information from one parent to avoid punishment or to solidify a relationship with another parent.","conclusion":"Teens are very good in playing divorced parents against each other."}
{"id":"6aa33fd3-c040-47d3-90ff-794d863708b6","argument":"I hear the idea of white privilege thrown around a lot by my non white friends and I'm skeptical. But I'm aware of the fact that this may be because I'm a white male, so I'm open to hearing other perspectives that I haven't previously considered. Let me begin by saying that I am privileged. I have a stable family life, I'm financially supported by my parents, and I grew up in an upper middle class family. All of these factors have given me a leg up and contributed to where I am today, but I struggle to identify a benefit I've reaped because I'm white. I know people of nearly every race who grew up in the same environment that I did and are now in a similar place in college, supported by their parents, etc. . So this leads me to believe that my circumstances has to do with a variety of socioeconomic factors rather than my race. One last point being white can pose a disadvantage sometimes. White people do not have the same advantages that many racial minorities have when applying to college Asians suffer from this same disadvantage . Racial minorities can more easily receive scholarships, they're sometimes preferred by corporations or organizations that are looking to diversify, and a variety of government programs provide more resources to certain racial minorities than they do for White people. Anyway, I'm open minded. Change my view","conclusion":"I don't think white privilege exists."}
{"id":"13ece07f-0a2e-4046-a0da-18a6eb4a9d9a","argument":"School is there for children to find out what they're good at and to teach them important life skills. How to be punctual, how to work on tasks outside of your regular work day and how to work in groups. It does a good job of teaching kids what life is going to be like. So all Summer Vacation does is them an undeserved super vacation that 95 of people with real jobs don't get. It puts a large burden on the parent or parents, and in today's world the 2 parent household isn't nearly as common. Single mothers and fathers have to pay hundreds of extra dollars on day care so they don't have to take off work. 2 and a half months of daycare is ridiculous. I'm not saying you need to get rid of it and just add more school in its place. You can still have 3 weeks off at the end of the school year for families who are moving at the end of the year and need to get settled. Also throw in two extra days off for Thanksgiving weekend. Fuck that 2 day week bullshit. Nobody takes those days seriously.","conclusion":"Summer Vacation should be abolished"}
{"id":"d1c287d3-81cf-4c00-8108-90894dd341ce","argument":"In the Book of Mormon, the leader of the Gadianton robbers boasts that his \"secret society.and the works thereof.are of ancient date and they have been handed down to us.\" 3 Nephi 3:9 Likewise, Freemasons of Joseph Smith's era claimed that their practice dated back to ancient times.","conclusion":"There are too many parallels between \"secret combinations\" in the Book of Mormon e.g., the Gadianton robbers and the popular, late-1820s understanding of the Freemasons for the similarity to be a coincidence."}
{"id":"dd60684c-9d02-49c3-a5bc-4dba1709c4e6","argument":"Warriors oftentimes switched between a Protection spec for PvE purposes and - since that spec is weak there - a different spec for PvP.","conclusion":"It was still common to change specs, for example as a Paladin or Druid, depending on the situation."}
{"id":"21f207bf-7988-44bc-9846-91a039e1a5ab","argument":"Racial profiling doesn't necessarily mean it's racist. It's information. It's a way humans naturally assess people, situations. Groups of people with similar histories, communities, outlooks would naturally have characteristics we can draw conclusions from. Observing this information doesn't logically automatically equate to being racist.","conclusion":"Racial profiling is a legitimate tool for law enforcers to use to prevent crime."}
{"id":"be34df35-ff92-45df-adfa-e2a953219d73","argument":"I appreciate that sexual harassment and even rape happen to many people, and that is not what I am talking about here. I am on about those people who say they are being 'harassed' and 'oppressed' when someone complements their looks. Such as in this video. Now I realise some of these men WERE behaving harassingly, but many of them were simply giving complements and greetings. How is that in any way 'oppressing' or 'harassing' you? Why not take it as a HUGE confidence builder? People who complain about this are completely unaware of just how lucky they have it. Do you have any idea what an ugly person like me would do to be so attractive that by passers feel the need to point it out? Maybe these people would like to swap lives with me, spend their whole lives being completely repulsive to the opposite sex, and die virgins. Hmm, no I didn't think so. In my opinion, these attractive people should stop taking things for granted, stop looking for excuses to whine, and learn to take complements. So tell my why I should feel bad for them?","conclusion":"I don't feel bad for attractive people who complain about being 'holla'd\" at"}
{"id":"c5e78bd1-7b1a-434d-b827-2c126bbc6d45","argument":"With bees, for instance, one would believe that they randomly move, but they don't. They perform waggle dances so what seemed like random movement actually is a form of communication that we weren't intuitively able to deduce it. Once we did, then we were able to see their intellect\/conscious capabilities more.","conclusion":"Plant\/fungi consciousness is not intuitive to someone just looking at it because it's different than what they think of. However, with an open mind to other possibilities and careful scrutiny, it becomes more obvious that it's there."}
{"id":"f3d82a3f-e994-4229-b72c-9d7f127070ad","argument":"For years, conservative republicans have screamed that President Barack Obama is a socialist . This makes me mad because, at least in my opinion, the biggest thing conservatives want to protect is social security, a program which is inherently socialist. Educated people, such as myself, know that socialism is not the same as communism and the a 100 free market economy would instantly crash. Conservatives yell that China is communist or socialist but if they actually studied the system in china they would be surprised to find that in some ways china is actually MORE capitalist than America the biggest example being that many Chinese factories are not regulated like american factories i.e. there are no regulations set by the Chinese government regarding led paint in children's toys. These are regulations that any american conservative would say are necessary are, by definition, socialist. The American economy is Socialist, and most conservatives today benefit from it in the forms of Medicare, Disability and Social Security, and say that socialism would destroy america when France is effectively the definition of Socialism. Their president is even part of the socialist party. I'm pretty dug in and i know this is a very partisan post. .","conclusion":"Conservatives who try to insult liberals with the term \"socialist\" don't know what they are talking about."}
{"id":"568dea91-6135-46ad-8354-9d72edfa3605","argument":"For years before the referendum lies and anti-EU propaganda had been swallowed by a large proportion of the British public. Most 'myths' were blatantly wrong. Check them all out here.","conclusion":"There were a number of lies told by the leave campaign. This means people may have made the decision to leave on incomplete or incorrect information."}
{"id":"adef4390-506b-4f07-9603-3b953d74a7f4","argument":"I think this is more relevant now than ever, considering the emergence of wrong doings of various artists like Kevin Spacey and Louis C.K I don't believe that whatever moral or criminal wrong doings a person has committed should affect how we appreciate their work. As soon as a work of art is created the artist s might as well be dead to us. Their identity doesn't matter. The only thing that should exist to us is the work itself. It doesn't matter whether it was made by a robot, Hitler, or monkeys disguised as humans. For those concerned with supporting an artist whom they believe has done wrong, a civilized society has instruments of law to pass down punishment for crimes committed within it. Any other or additional social punishment is, in my view, morally depraved and savage. Note the title is homage to Barthes' death of the author if you aren't familiar. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The Artist is Dead or the sins of the artist should not obstruct the appreciation of their work"}
{"id":"62dbe11f-b3df-4551-8922-71ea0cc5f68d","argument":"TBBT has just been renewed for 3 new series, whilst it currently remains stagnant. It's a show I had mixed feelings about. No doubt it's a cultural phenomenon and years later we will look back and say wow, that represented the late 2000's early 2010's . For better and for worse. I still think for the first few seasons, it did achieve a lot. It totally flipped the role of nerdy guys being under the league of popular girls, only to realize Leonard was a more interesting and exciting than Penny. But, the novelty has worn off and the show is getting stale. First, the show's premise. The main plot of the show is basically guys looking to pick up women. Women are prizes on top of being stereotypes. Shrew Bernadette . Unattractive but smart Amy . Dumb hot blonde Penny . Yes, there's comic books, video games, star wars and the like, but those are motifs. They add some flavor to the overall story, but they don't drive or fuel it. These things were always there, but I guess I notice them now more than ever. Yeah, it's a really limited premise. Yet, the writers want to stretch it into a 10 season show. But there's so much repetition now that most of the characters have achieved their goal of getting into relationships. Just think about what would happen to The Nanny if Fran and Maxwell had spent 3 more seasons raising their baby, or The Fresh Prince of Bel Air portraying Will and Carlton in the workforce. They would've strayed far from their roots, and felt like a stale cash in with some funny writing. That's where TBBT stands. Howard and Bernadette are already married, so it's back and forth squabbling. Leonard and Penny cycle over the same issues due to their different backgrounds. Amy and Sheldon's relationship moves at a snail's pace, as does Raj's dating life. So, since they all didn't develop evenly, half of the cast is done evolving. That puts too much pressure for the others to evolve in a short span. No doubt. TBBT has lots of funny moments and clever writing. But you can tell it masks the stagnant plot quite well. When a show has to invite a flurry of celebrities to stay relevant and funny, that's a sign. Lately, what's been most entertaining about the show is moreso the cultural things they inject in it like Xbox One vs PS4 than the characters themselves. And eventually, I see this running thin. But so long as 10 million people are viewing each episode, there's no reason to quit. People want it and it's profitable. I even still watch it, but I acknowledge it won't be as magical as it used to be. So, TLDR TBBT has achieved a lot, but due to the fundamental story problems and needing to stretch itself for more seasons, it has become stale and moribund. gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than just downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The Big Bang Theory tv show is a one-trick pony that is staying alive much longer than it should because of a large fanbase. It has been a great show, warts-and-all, but it's getting stale."}
{"id":"66fd693c-5203-4657-9442-d3e3aa2fded1","argument":"These days it seems like every kid who's a bit different from their peers is branded with a mental disorder and drugged up and or sent to special education. I was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome when I was about 10 years old, probably because I was obsessed with Pokemon it was 1999, and so were most of my classmates , and kind of shy because I had transferred schools the year before and didn't know anyone. I was put in a special ed. class, where several times a week I would play Candyland with a few other kids, and read social stories about working nicely with others. This lasted up through mid junior high. And it gave me a huge inferiority complex. I thought that because of my Asperger's syndrome , that something deep in my brain was broken and that I could never make friends, go on dates, or be otherwise socially successful. I thought that I was doomed to be a weirdo and a sperg forever. I had a few other friends with Asperger's, and they all thought the same way too. When I was 14, I transferred to a private school where there was no special ed. classes and I was a normal kid like everyone else. Lo and behold, I forgot all about my Asperger's diagnosis. I was still shy, I was a geek, but over the next two years I came out of my shell and learned to interact with my peers as an equal and not as some poor kid with a brain problem that makes her a social leper. Now, you would never guess I'm an Aspie . I have plenty of friends, a steady boyfriend, and as full of a social calendar as I want I'm still an introvert, but there's nothing wrong with that P . A while ago, I reconnected with one of my old classmates who was also diagnosed with Asperger's and put in special ed with me. He spent most of our conversation complaining about how difficult it is for him to make friends in college, and how he can never get a girl to date him, and so forth all because I have Asperger's . I tried to explain to him about how damaging labels can be, and yadda, yadda, but he wouldn't hear any of it. I have Asperger's so I can't do that . Honestly, it seems like the Asperger's label becomes a self fulfilling prophecy for many people. When you tell an impressionable young kid that they supposedly have a mental syndrome, with a long scary name, that makes them naturally unpopular and friendless, that's going to do some serious damage to their confidence and sense of capability in the world. Before we had Asperger's syndrome , shy and geeky kids were just that shy and geeky . Shyness can be overcome, and geekyness isn't even a problem at all. But when we frame these traits as an incurable flaw, a syndrome , listed with all the other mental disorders in the DSM, we set kids up to believe that they cannot control their destinies. I have a big problem with that.","conclusion":"I think that \"Asperger's syndrome\" isn't a real mental illness, but rather simply a personality quirk that has been wrongfully medicalized -- and that it's hurting the people \"diagnosed\" with it."}
{"id":"f474d98b-9762-497d-9483-4c6fa535c2ec","argument":"Oscar Goodman: \"I also believe in a little bit of corporal punishment going back to the days of yore, where examples have to be shown.\"1","conclusion":"Corporal punishment can make a valuable example of a student"}
{"id":"214cacb8-b52a-474b-8716-b722de944ff5","argument":"Modern programming languages or evolutions of old ones, see Python 3, Java 9 incorporate ideas from the functional paradigm. Functional programming is being perceived by the software community a more and more important tool.","conclusion":"Object-orientation is just one among many possible ways of thinking about code. It is important but not fundamental."}
{"id":"55b691ff-ad83-4a0a-b574-53d3856a5266","argument":"I would consider myself one of the many apathetic Redditors who don't feel strongly either way about the situation. Although I do understand that some Redditors actually care greatly about what's going on and it shows from their heartfelt reactions in several related threads the attitude that they display is very counterintuitive. For instance, they demand Ellen to speak up to the community, yet all of her comments are downvoted by the thousands . Her words fall on deaf ears that claim they want to listen. I can go on and on but would rather reply to the comments at this point.","conclusion":"Reddits reaction in regards to this whole \"drama\" is infantile."}
{"id":"52dd5e06-e9d0-4716-bbd6-8c0379e045a0","argument":"I like to pick wild mushrooms for consumption, as a hobby. I am relatively knowledgeable about mushrooms, but not an expert by any means. I know what all deadly mushroom species look like, and what many common poisonous species look like. In addition, I only consume wild mushrooms that are virtually impossible to misidentify And a few others. I would never touch a mushroom that I am even remotely unsure about. Yet, whenever I tell people that I eat wild mushrooms, they tell me to stop, that I am crazy, and that I will eventually kill myself. Are they, perhaps, right? Am I missing something?","conclusion":"Mushroom picking is a perfectly reasonable hobby."}
{"id":"43569072-3133-45d0-a7ab-1b13c6818c5b","argument":"I've noticed a few 's premised on the notion that our schools suck. I'm a teacher. I'm open to the possibility that my break from convention is due to a self serving bias, but as it stands, I believe the evidence favors my position We lag behind other nations. Sampling bias adjusted for socioeconomic factors, we do well US schools are factories, churning out thoughtless subjects. You're confusing us with eastern Asia reigning champion of international test scores. The US system is fairly responsive to new trends. Take the push to create STEM initiatives, for example. Unions make firing bad teachers impossible. I work in a state whose legislature made it illegal for state employees to unionize we have the same problems union states have. Apparently inability to fire bad teachers isn't the problem. Private charter schools are better. Charter schools nope. Private schools they don't submit to testing, and I haven't found a study that accounts for selection bias, so we don't know for sure. One would think they'd submit to testing if they were confident re student outcomes? Finally, I present to you the gap between perception and reality EDIT Given some of the responses, I should clarify the K 12 system is pretty darned good considering the confines of the US political structure .","conclusion":"I believe that the US education system is better than conventional wisdom states."}
{"id":"9922783b-ad95-4ccc-a951-ec6b85081440","argument":"High political engagement in the Athenian democracy shows that people get involved in politics a lot more when they can vote directly on issues.","conclusion":"Athenian democracy the worlds first democracy, shows the Direct Democracy aspects of Liquid Democracy work successfully."}
{"id":"de5080ab-8a70-4cee-a153-6f3347eb58b4","argument":"If society advances and gender becomes more irrelevant, it is likely fewer people will choose these schools, and then they will naturally disappear.","conclusion":"The market, not government, should decide the fate of these institutions"}
{"id":"1796edd7-ec9a-46e7-a9e0-bd68132a55c2","argument":"Historical Criticism is the multidisciplinary study of scripture as an academic subject. It demonstrates the human origins of religion by examining sources. For instance, the much older Epic of Gilgamesh was used as source material for, or substantially influenced the Bible, at multiple points the Genesis account of Noah and the flood uses the same events in the same order as Gilgamesh.","conclusion":"It is more likely that people invented the idea of God, than that he actually exists."}
{"id":"8c80ca68-a4ce-410d-bc69-2e0fa64cd354","argument":"Socialism can be defined as an economic system where the workers own, control, and manage their own workshops, factories, restaurants, etc. Rather than having a boss in charge who dictates everything, the workers would exert democratic control over the direction of the company. A great example of this would be Mondragon, in Spain. Plenty of people think it has something to be with a strong centralized state with safety net progams, but they are confusing it with a social democracy rather than socialism. Indeed, plenty of socialists are anti state entirely. The main argument I hear against this is the business owners take all the risks, so they should be the ones who benefit from this. However, I doubt anyone would disagree that just because, say, a senator takes a risk, doesn't mean that they shouldn't be unaccountable to the people, and that if they go against the will should deserve to be impeached.","conclusion":"Socialism is simply a democratic workplace and not inconsistanty at all with democracy."}
{"id":"191d6227-7145-48ae-93d1-42d3c882a6e9","argument":"POTENTIAL SPOILERS It seems that, of all the characters, Mike is the one we are supposed to like the mos of all the kids. I think. However, despite being brave and came when it is needed, he is down right cruel to eleven at times. When thins aren't going his way he has no proven yelling and deeply criticize his supposed friends. Maybe I am soft, but I really wanted him to be kind to eleven. That girl does not deserve any kind of scolding. Look at what she has been through To me, people are defined by how they act when things go wrong. Sure, he is not always bad, but I just can't ever like him because of how he acted in some scenes. Idk. Criticizing a fake elementary schooler is an odd way to spend my evening. But I just don't see him as kikeable at all, and don't really like having him as a protagonist at all. Obviously I root for him but it is pretty damn hard at times Reddit change my view. Tell my why Mike from Steanger Things is not an asshole. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Mike from Stranger Things is a dick."}
{"id":"986b0cab-8332-48de-9a4c-d1149f21494e","argument":"Living in a community means that we all have rights and responsibilities, but we can often forget that. Obligatory community or military service is a great way to realise and remember that.","conclusion":"Compulsory service helps create shared values and identities in a highly individual and fragmented society."}
{"id":"0738167e-d7d5-4d94-b237-49fdd8fa1af0","argument":"Only a minority of all detainees at Guantanamo have been deemed to be highly dangerous, and many have been innocent.","conclusion":"Guantanamo Bay has done little to make the United States safer."}
{"id":"0efe8b3a-be19-4388-9138-5f74a072a457","argument":"From the link on the root claim \"Classical theism is a form of theism in which God is characterized as the absolutely metaphysically ultimate being, in contrast to other conceptions such as pantheism, panentheism, polytheism and process theism.\"","conclusion":"Because Hinduism is a pantheistic or panentheistic belief system, this is not possible."}
{"id":"eef10741-2341-4d34-aa77-31ae4dfbec43","argument":"The recent John Brennan security clearances kerfuffle got me thinking about the idea of security clearance. I understand why a non civilian position like CIA director or general might keep their clearance on retiring in an emergency they could be called on to serve again and shouldn't have to be re read in to what's going on. However, I found out that anyone who has a security clearance doesn't lose it. Former presidents, senators, congresspeople, secretaries of state, appointed advisors, etc. This to me seems ridiculous. I understand if you are a member of the intelligence subcommittee or whatever in Congress, you get security clearance. But once you're out of office, you're not any different than me, joe schmo no security clearance. You will never be called to serve again in that position. If Trump drops dead, Barack Obama isn't going to sub in as President, there's no purpose for him being in the know on top secret stuff anymore. If Trump wanted his advice on something, he could just have him read in on that particular issue. So change my view I'm still pretty open on this, and if there's a legit reason why it makes sense for civilian officials to retain security clearance, I'd love to hear it gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"No elected official or civilian appointee should retain security clearances when they leave office."}
{"id":"54aa49fe-a446-4ff3-81df-97b1105b45c5","argument":"Chinese officials have publicly begun to focus on positive anniversaries in Sino-Japanese relations such as the 40th anniversary of the signing of the peace and friendship treaty.","conclusion":"There are clear signs of a thawing of the relationship between China and Japan."}
{"id":"6eb6bfcf-1fe1-40ca-8261-6b4591a325d2","argument":"Merriam Webster dictator defines a first responder as a person as a police officer or an EMT who is among those responsible for going immediately to the scene of an accident or emergency to provide assistance. Wikipedia defines a first responder as an employee of an emergency service who is likely to be among the first people to arrive at and assist at the scene of an emergency, such as an accident, natural disaster, or terrorist attack. The definition of a civilian, according to Merriam Webster dictionary, is a person who is not a member of the military or of a police or firefighting force . So basically, according to this, medical personnel who are members of military, police, or firefighting organization are civilians, yet are included in the first responder definition. The only reason why because I want to differentiate between civilians and first responders , yet the problem is that medical personnel who are not members of the three professions are included. It's the same way for private security guards as well, they are considered civilians as well.","conclusion":"I believe that first responders should only include members of law enforcement and fire departments, not medical personnel who are not part of the two professions."}
{"id":"4622f8ac-772a-4b6d-a79a-b907c3ee4e4f","argument":"Some drugs are toxic at very low doses. These drugs can rightfully be considered weapons as well as intoxicants.","conclusion":"A more substantial part of society will be exposed to the harmful and dangerous side effects of drugs."}
{"id":"005f8188-9c59-4909-9833-de32ba3801f5","argument":"i'll divide my argument in 2 parts why they are not gambling and why they should not be illegal, 1 when you get a loot box in a game, you are not paying money for the chance of wining money, you're buying something that contains a surprise good, anything you get has value regardless of whether is what you wanted or not, if loot boxes are gambling then surprise toys in happy meals are too. 2 many people in the gaming community and some politicians have suggested that loot boxes in games should be illegal or regulated this are my problems with that 1 if people want to spend money in loot boxes that's their problem if a company wants to make loot boxes their main form of monetization that's their problem, you may not like it but you don't get to ban something because you dislike it, specially because games are just a form of entertainment not a human need, if you look at the numbers loot boxes and micro transactions are actually very popular, people complaining about it seem to be the hardcore gamer minority, a lot of people including myself enjoy micro transactions and loot boxes Edit to clarify, i'm not interested linguistic semantics of gambling i'm talking about gambling from a legal perspective","conclusion":"Loot boxes in games are not gambling and should not be illegal"}
{"id":"bd743d08-be9c-4e5f-a334-3dbbe506d0cf","argument":"Trump's former Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, has a close relationship with Russian officials. He once personally received the Order of Friendship Russia's highest award for foreigners, from Vladimir Putin.","conclusion":"The Trump campaign and administration has pursued an oddly pro-Russian agenda, and appointed a number of officials with close relationships to Putin or Russia."}
{"id":"655dc4ab-da9d-427b-8726-617cd25344a4","argument":"I attend a public university with a equal actually, possibly majority female gender distribution. Over the year, I have formed a number of opinions which were more subtly expressed at first, but became more hashed out as the year dragged on, regarding females. They are Free speech is not an excuse for immodesty. Yes you are allowed to wear revealing clothes, yes you have a right not to be sexually harassed owing to your dress. That by no means makes dressing excessively lightly acceptable. I am utterly uninterested in using shame to get this point across to women, but rather the standards and rigor of an academic society if you are receiving a university education, you should at least be willing to dress in a manner that is decent. No booty shorts. Goddamn those fuckers are too short. Women are more likely than men to obstruct classroom flow with distracting, unimportant inquiries, which are more likely to do with repetition of content than with curiosity or ingenuity. Women should not speak in the classroom except to address a question by the professor or ask a question of the professor. A female voice, even a whisper, carries infinitely more than the male voice. Women are far less likely than men to have diverse interests by and large, they have goals and interests which they determine at a young age, and pursue exclusively at the detriment of other interests they might excel in. 'Renaissance man' is not a term that could be applied to any woman. All in all, I do not regard women as inferior, or less worthy of respect than men. I take issue with their immodesty, scoff at their oft selected routes of selection and pursuit of academic or intellectual interests, and find certain behaviors on their part to be obtrusive. I think these things only to be true of American women, on the whole, as I have met many foreign women who, by and large, possess few, if any of these qualities.","conclusion":"I might be a misogynist."}
{"id":"06fc3f20-ebca-4323-bbd2-7ac44f384836","argument":"Civil disobedience has a history of overcoming oppression and unpopular policies where all other methods have failed. For example, Ghandi\u2019s civil disobedience was instrumental in winning liberty for India, and Martin Luther King\u2019s tactics won basic rights for black people in America. In 1998 rioters in Indonesia successfully protested against the despotic system of government that existed under the Suharto regime. In all of these cases there was no other avenue open to redress grievances; law breaking, whether Ganhdi\u2019s non-violent marches or King\u2019s encouragement of the burning of rate books, was the only way to protest effectively.","conclusion":"Civil disobedience has a history of overcoming oppression and unpopular policies where all other met..."}
{"id":"c4807a4d-b39a-4b4f-843e-c3ad1bdfe675","argument":"Winston Churchill two-times Prime Minister of the UK and regarded as one of the most influential leaders of the wartime era, was an officer of the British Army, an artist, a historian and a talented writer, awarded with the Nobel Prize in Literature.","conclusion":"The best politicians have had life experiences outside of politics."}
{"id":"cd537db0-9e77-4613-b01e-5a15c057fad5","argument":"I haven't done a great deal of research into the matter, but I think that in the end he was punished so harshly simply to serve as an example to others who ended up getting off light for using PEDs. So in the end Lance Armstrong was punished for his success just as much as his use of PEDs. Haven't many of the other competing bikers been known to use? I think that perhaps PEDs should be allowed up to a degree and that they should be regulated and measured. It might cost more in upkeep but these events generate millions. The association, or whatever organization s that runs the races, should consider a different set of rules for this sort of thing and I don't think that Lance should have had his medals stripped. Perhaps tarnished with a footnote, but not taken. Regardless of his use of PEDs he still worked really really hard for those achievements with no lack of talent. Maybe an alternate league which allows them should be formed? Clearly the sport is rife with abuse, so why punish the best and brightest an icon of the competition on a global scale for decades just to prove a point? It doesn't seem right.","conclusion":"I think that Lance Armstrong got a raw deal and was no more guilty than any other competing member of his sport."}
{"id":"7b8f6ea7-97dc-4d5c-b66a-73f3c85b9cb3","argument":"It cannot be regarded a real sport as the fight lacks fairness as there is very little chance the bullfighter would be injured before the bull.","conclusion":"Bullfighting is not sport. Sports involve competition between two or more consenting parties and the mediation of a referee."}
{"id":"36f00cf8-c1f8-4d84-ba3e-92db9341d6bc","argument":"As the title says, I am not inclined to get the flu shot. First I am in good health and have a strong immune system. I am relatively unlikely to get the flu. It has been years since I've suffered any notable illness. I do not ever recall having a flu shot. I am strongly in favor of most vaccines. One of my uncles died at a young age due to my grandparents on one side of the family being part of a well known deadly cult which shuns modern medicine. I have every standard vaccine given to someone born in the 1980s. The CDC states that the flu vaccine only reduces risk of influenza by 40 60 with notable reduction in effectiveness for certain types of flu. I am also aware that the flu shot causes a few days of feeling under the weather and can result in a sore arm according to several people I know who have had the flu shot in the past. I have little to no contact with young children, the elderly, or those I know to have compromised immune systems. It is my belief that I should not pay money for the inconvenience of feeling unwell and being sore for a few days for a mildly reduced chance of an already unlikely event. It would likely make work miserable for me during that time and I am not willing to sacrifice my precious time off just to feel sick on purpose. I am fine with people getting the flu shot if they feel it is necessary. I feel that the negatives severely outweigh the positives for me personally in this case. Do you have any arguments to change my view? gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I see no reason to get the flu shot"}
{"id":"292fd2a2-a675-432f-95d6-f69fd5883691","argument":"Democrats have already abolished the use of filibusters for confirming nominees to certain executive positions, and they ran the risk of Republicans doing the same for Supreme Court nominations if Democrats had tried to block Neil Gorsuch.","conclusion":"The filibuster is not a guarantee. If Democrats overuse the option, Republicans can ban the use of filibusters for certain votes with a simple majority."}
{"id":"e12dc578-af2f-4fb2-ad25-ce3b2f31ed38","argument":"IMO the Student Council is the equivalent of voting in North Korea. I used to be a member of Student Council and now I am starting to believe schools only have it so when students complain they can say bring it up to the student council . When I was in Student Council will be abbreviated as SC we brought up that, every few days, certain teachers would be able to teach lessons outside. 6 years later everyone is still cramped in our small as fuck classrooms. Not once in my life have I seen a single suggestion by the SC do anything for any of my school's. Please convince me that it has a point.","conclusion":"Student Council is very fucking useless."}
{"id":"c91dfe43-986b-4551-8aaa-8d2388905840","argument":"If we have a moral duty to save life, then with all else being equal, the best choice is the one that maximizes the amount of life saved.","conclusion":"It is ethical to save a child over an adult."}
{"id":"e850b230-b99c-443f-8e8c-903c84aba817","argument":"Schools which provide abstinence only education have been shown to promote a culture which stigmatises same-sex marriage.","conclusion":"These programs are largely heteronormative and often stigmatize other sexualities as deviant."}
{"id":"342d70af-8672-4265-a07f-fc183a11f682","argument":"What the students want is something that can only be determined by having an anonymous vote, in which at least the majority of students vote. Someone claiming to represent a group need to actually be voted into such a position.","conclusion":"Students are the ones most impacted by what happens at their universities. Thus, they should have significant say over what happens at their school."}
{"id":"b64e5409-0645-4dc8-801a-d52a25fde890","argument":"While none can truly replace fossil fuels, only one source is currently a contributor strong enough to supply a large portion of what fossil fuels power now, and that's nuclear energy. Nuclear energy may well be the only possible candidate that produces anything nearly as close to what fossil fuel sources do now while being committed to significantly reducing carbon emissions. Currently the third largest source, nuclear energy supplies about a sixth of all electricity generation in the world, only slightly less than hydro power. Nuclear power plants are far more gross-land efficient than both fossil-fuel plants and hydro-electric plants and have much potential to expand throughout the world. Moreover, experts predict that nuclear energy will be a sustainable source for 30,000-60,000 years. It is also expected that energy security will be considerably reliable considering the widely available 16million metric tons of uranium. While being the only feasible large-scale alternative to fossil-fuels, nuclear energy is also an excellent method in curbing carbon emissions. In the US, nuclear energy provided about a fifth of all produced electricity, saving 700 million metric tons of CO2 emissions yearly, an amount that matches the amount from all US passenger car exhaust. As a source with such potential, limiting expansion is simply putting a choke-hold on our future.","conclusion":"Nuclear energy is a crucial alternative energy source that is too valuable to be restricted."}
{"id":"49ac9ac0-4ca3-4018-bb7f-4f719e3780f8","argument":"I think the first thing necessary to say here is to define extra . What I mean by extra is any additional costs associated with regularly driving unreasonable distances for the employee to cover by themselves. A series of meetings in the next town over would not count and neither would a one time trip across the state every half year or so. There are a couple professions that deal with this at pretty high rates. I'm sure there are more jobs, but in my head I'm thinking positions like entry level lawyers or real estate agents. My dad used to practice personal injury law, and his firm would require him to make 3 hour drives across the state to meet with and represent clients. Assuming he had a 12000 miles year lease on his car, he could have been forced to use up to 10 of his free milage on one client making 3 4 trips of 200 miles. A friend of mine just got a job as a real estate agent right out of college. His employers treat the driving as part of the job , which I don't disagree with, but again, with his 12000 mile limit, he's almost inevitably going to go over it with how much he has to drive across state for showings he has a great job at a pretty powerful firm . He's asked them why he doesn't get compensated for it and they're response has been that it's part of the job. Quite frankly, being an entry level at a position should require some level of busy work or dirty work, but not when it costs so much money. My friend lives like 2 miles from his office so it's not like he's racking up huge amounts of miles from his daily commute, but his long trips have become frequent enough to think he should be getting compensated. His boss, on the other hand, has access to the company jet so that he doesn't have to drive as far as my friend has. The big stipulation should be an accurate measure of how much over the company requires employees to go. My friend does drive for other reasons outside of work so the job can't be 100 to blame for the extra milage and gas, but it's enough to warrant this discussion.  gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Companies that require employees to drive significant extra mileage should be required by law to compensate for those extra costs."}
{"id":"5fb5fe2d-e664-422c-8dd8-e036dea33c87","argument":"Not only due to being consistent, logically it may also be due to have an ever-increasing potency. If perfection of God is a dynamic concept, then His potency is not fixed at some point, but is always striving towards infinity. Then it would be possible for Him to create with His maximum, and at the next moment He might as well exceed that maximum.","conclusion":"Logic and order in the universe follow from the logic and order of the Creator. While He might be able to create such a rock by His omnipotence, being consistent, it is unlikely He would."}
{"id":"eb1229e3-2c7d-48a4-94fc-a5b2583cd223","argument":"America often takes credit for being a prosperous nation. This stems from the intuition of it practicing free market fundamentalism. What many overlook is that America's success derives from smart protectionism. American workers are given high pay premiums from restrictive immigration laws and quota systems. When you're a user of a reserve currency, you're fortunate to work less hours than users of pegged currencies for the same products. Many industries are protected by occupational licensing. This protects incumbents from having to compete with new entrants.","conclusion":"Americans have high material wealth because of smart protectionism, not free market policies"}
{"id":"e0983aa8-d423-474e-a555-6b1b616e64f9","argument":"It seems as though collectivism is often an unideal state of affairs, and that individualism grants singular entities agency to pursue their unique goals and ideals. Individualism is the antithesis of collectivism, but it ought mature into the synthesis, which is interdependence. Individualism may result in a greater average amount of preference fulfilment than collectivism, as individuals free to pursue their interests tend to do so without some sort of social proscription on their desire. However, I believe it is the case that interdependence, in opposition to individualism and collectivism, offers the most effective means to overall preference satisfaction. The desirability of interdependence as a tool for increasing net preference satisfaction is derived from two important concepts firstly, the concept of specialisation and group knowledge. A group of specialists has a greater amount of knowledge and a wider range of resources than a group of generalists and is thus able to achieve more. secondly, the notion of preference mediation, here defined as a group level process that inhibits or aids the ability of individuals belonging in the group to pursue their individual goals These allow a greater pool of knowledge in which individuals are highly important and allowed a generous deal of autonomy, given their intellectual economic physical political capital, and the group mediation of individuals and their pursuit of personal goals forms a relationship between individual goals and group goals. Individual goals that yield a group wide benefit will be aided, thus maximising potential group and individual gains, whereas individual goals that are detrimental to net preference satisfaction are inhibited, either through means of persuasion, punishment, or the withholding of resources. A group constituted of highly specialised members is naturally averse to trampling individual rights, because harming an individual quite clearly harms the group. At the same time, an individual's goals that might, under other conditions, be unrealisable, are made possible by group support and multidisciplinary work. The projects that promise large rewards for both the individual and the group are helped significantly, and the projects detrimental to the group are trashed and subverted. This state of affairs strikes me as being the ideal synthesis of individualism and collectivism. The dynamic between individual and group is well balanced, individual rights are protected, universal good is encouraged and supported. There is a place of providence and societal wellbeing between the extremes of rugged individualism of the American right and the violent, vitriolic anti intellectualism of the Khmer Rouge, and this is it. Sorry for any waffling.","conclusion":"Both dependence and independence are immature forms of interdependence. The \"third way\" between collectivism and individualism is the most ideal."}
{"id":"e8758cfb-fa28-43dc-a21f-e5b4b93daec5","argument":"An attempt to limit without cause the number of firearms a citizen may own is a violation of the second amendment.","conclusion":"The second amendment constrains the government from infringing, without cause, the citizen's right to keep and bear arms."}
{"id":"9d0a18e1-032f-4e67-8ca9-18bba166c641","argument":"The EU Withdrawal Act 2018 had a clause which required the Prime Minister to hold a vote in the Commons if no agreement on a Brexit deal was reached between the UK and the EU. This provision has now expired.","conclusion":"The previous circumstances which allowed Parliament to force the government to seek an extension no longer exist."}
{"id":"0600c22a-f897-4db2-8a23-b4fac2457bbe","argument":"Julian Assange is in danger to be handed over to the USA where he might be imprisoned or even sentenced to death.","conclusion":"The trial and arrest of Julian Assange is detrimental to free press"}
{"id":"d49d7ec7-6ec0-4075-896a-5a0004a9763f","argument":"Some Evangelicals preach that men are more likely to be led astray because of \"their hormones and their nature\", and so the women around them are \"responsible for their own purity and for helping young men remain pure\".","conclusion":"Many purity culture teachings hold women directly responsible for managing the sexual behaviour of the men around them."}
{"id":"38cd771f-1b5a-4134-8e7d-17d1e6d8834c","argument":"I realize that fathers have very few rights when it relates to children, custody, visitation, and child support. Introducing a required paternity test upon a child\u2019s birth would add fairness to the rights of both mothers and fathers. I understand that it is rare to have discrepancies in the paternity of children born to married couples, but this measure would prevent massive legal, psychological, and emotional turmoil in the event that there is one. There are many practical, ethical, and financial benefits to doing this. I don\u2019t see any rationale for not having these requirements. If I am wrong, change my view","conclusion":"When babies are born, a required paternity test must be issued and the father must have access to view the results prior to being allowed to sign the child\u2019s birth certificate. Nonbiological fathers must be given the option of absolution of child support obligations if results return negative."}
{"id":"580c88c4-8d77-4e79-9df7-a9c7a4392ee8","argument":"The creation of a post of High Representative and Vice President of the Commission HRVP marks an important change in the decision making process at the EU level with regards to foreign policy. Agreement on the post showed a clear commitment to the pursuit of a common EU foreign policy and to developing a unique cooperative model for foreign and defense policy decision making that goes beyond the nation state. Member states should now deliver on that commitment by seeking as much common ground as possible to ensure that the High Representative\u2019s role is truly significant. The goal of a common foreign and security policy should thus be supported not only as a mechanism to streamline EU\u2019s position and role in world politics, but also to reinforce notions of cooperation and consultation essential for maintaining a stable international system, in line with the stated goals of the EU. The 12 stars in a circle is meant to symbolize the ideals of unity, solidarity and harmony among the peoples of Europe1. 1 Europa.eu, 'Symbols',accessed 1\/8\/11","conclusion":"The creation of the post of a High Representative marked an important change in the EU."}
{"id":"93aebad9-170c-422a-b360-0a2a2d424b2f","argument":"Hey guys, I'd like to preface that I am a 22 year old guy , because of that, there are things that women go through which I don't understand and some which I don't even know about. I am also a feminist in the sense that I've always defended women having equal rights, not being discriminated in the work place etc etc. I would like to ask people that instead of just reading a snippet of the post, please read it all to understand what I'm saying. With all of that said, I can't help but have a profound sense of nostalgia for the early 2000's nowadays. Not because of the internet or politics those are another topic all together but because of how we all used to treat each other. I venture to say that male and female interaction is a little warped nowadays. It's 2019 and there's no denying that women have achieved a great many things since then early 2000's more respect in the workplace, better wages, me too movement and so on. I'm not denying any of that. But here's the thing, I feel like there's been a victim mentality spreading around and becoming more and more popular with some women. What do I mean? You can always see on Facebook or Twitter people talking about how women are in some way or another victims of something men do or don't do. I could make a gigantic list of examples but if you're on Reddit I feel you're internet savvy enough to have seen this kind of post at least once and know what I'm talking about, if not, I'll be happy to provide examples in the comments. Yes there are shitty guys out there who do shitty things to women but I'm talking about the overall mentality of it. Men aren't these omnipotent beings while women are fragile and defenseless. Women can be badass af, mentally and physically, I think that's a pretty worthwhile concept. Instead, there's just this ever increasing feeling that men are being viewed as boogeyman who prey on women and that just feels incredibly unproductive and immature. It's not just the victim mentality of women, it's the overall view of men. Has anyone noticed how much it's discouraged to just act like a guy dude? Flirting is now seen as a pretty delicate thing to do and can be misinterpreted in a thousand different ways. I'm not talking about cat calling or being disrespectful, just normal flirting is seen with a bad eye by so many people. Have you ever seen how much it's becoming taboo talking about the friend zone? People are seeing it less and less as something that can happen to guys and girls and more as this horrible fictional thing that guys made up and never actually existed. Talking about how much a girl is attractive will get people telling you how guYs jUst RedUce giRls to sEx objeCts . Oh my god people where is this going?? Women being made into victims and guys being villainized more and more Guys are being forced to become more and more apologetic just for being a guy. Don't even get me started on how easy it is for someone to have their life ruined on the basis of a rumor but I feel like that's a separate issue. Here's my view on things. Bad people who do bad things come in all shapes, sizes and colors it can be a guy or a girl. Yes there are things that only guys do like cat calling or harassment they are real, are shitty and shouldn't be a thing. But there are things that only girls do that aren't great either. Both sexes have flaws that can and should be worked on. Neither sex should think of themselves as victims both have the potential to be awesome and inspiring. And yes, guys talk about women being attractive, it's natural, doesn't mean we think women are sexual objects. Generalizing what one person does to their entire sex isn't the way to go at all. x200B I could go on but I wanted to keep this relatively short, so it's easy to read anyone who wants a clarification, question etc just ask me in the comments. What do you guys think? Do you agree? Am I alone in my way of thinking and just being anachronistic? Are you somewhere in the middle? I'm legitimately curious what other people's stance on this is.","conclusion":"Early 2000's cultural differences guys and girls\/I need your opinions"}
{"id":"50a3570b-c452-4d32-8ea4-245d1bf0eab9","argument":"The exponentially accelerating progress in robotics and AI will inevitably result as we're starting to see already in the elimination of essentially all jobs and corporate shareholders reaping all the benefits. There are only two possible outcomes: either we tax the corporate profits resulting from automation to provide a UBI, or there will be blood in the streets.","conclusion":"Automation will accelerate the already widening economic inequality around the world as very small groups of individuals can make enormous profits while employing very few people."}
{"id":"b6e4bf1b-40e6-4619-a4d2-34f495b59ac2","argument":"While it is true that the private insurance industry does have some anti-competitive monopolies, conglomerations, and State boundary issues, this does not mean that a more competitive environment cannot be created. This can and should be done, but it is unnecessary to inject into the equation a public insurer.","conclusion":"Competition in private insurance can be improved without public plan."}
{"id":"b8ff28a3-3cfb-45df-a630-d4f6b5f33439","argument":"There were more gains to the antarctic ice sheet in 2015 than loses, according to nasa.gov","conclusion":"The extent of the damage to the volume Antarctica's ice structures seems insignificant."}
{"id":"c817355f-e04e-4133-bee5-d00f8ff04512","argument":"The issue with the American school system is that if a kid doesn't want to learn, then they won't. So forcing them to try and pay attention for 7 hrs a day during a very energetic part of their life is a horrible idea. The modern school system was designed for kids to work in factories. x200B Kids don't learn if they don't want to. I'm a student right now, and I hate reading the material, and will usually just skim through it. For math I practically don't try, I just look at the example, and if I don't know how to do it then I get it wrong. Compare this to something I'm interested in, for example, I just started learning to code Python. I am willing to read and re read the instructions if I don't understand it, and a week ago I stuck through a difficult part instead of just getting the solution. I rarely do this for any subjects I'm forced to take. Also good grades and test scores literally mean nothing. Tests aren't about seeing what you've learned, or what you need to work on, it just shows how much information you can contain in your head for a few days, until you forget it. And all you need for good grades is to put effort in, and that doesn't always mean you actually learn the material. Last year for Geography I got 100 on nearly all the tests because I just memorized the pre test, which was the exact same as the test. x200B Obviously kids are hyper. A lot of middle and high schoolers like sports. Kids from the ages of 5 20 enjoy physical activity, and school just doesn't do anything with that. We're hardly able to stand up, and science has proven that not standing up a lot reduces your lifespan. Also a lot of high schools don't have recesses, and if they do their only for 15 30 minutes. Plus this system totally abandons kids with ADHD because it's insanely difficult for them to pay attention anyway. x200B The school system was designed for when a lot of kids would go off to work in the factories. it made since back them to train them to raise their hand, memorize information, ask to go to the bathroom, etc. but now where we can choose basically any career we want that system is outdated. 200 years ago school was practically the same as today, while at the same time phones didn't exist and cars were a lot worse. Everything is improving except school. x200B TL DR The school system needs change. Kids aren't having fun, their not getting enough exercise, and the current system is outdated.","conclusion":"The school system at least in America drastically needs to change, and right now it's practically worthless."}
{"id":"5fb0e826-3e06-4775-8d2c-6c4251356a4c","argument":"I would not call myself a feminist, although I agree with a lot of their ideas. I saw a quote that makes a good point\u2014it was something like \u201cwhy would I call myself a feminist when that associates me with people who burn bras and try to keep transgender women out of the bathroom?\u201d Feminism means different things to different people. To some, you\u2019re either a feminist or a chauvinist. To others, you can\u2019t be a real feminist unless you\u2019re a female lesbian. Some think that gender equality is impossible unless we abolish capitalism. Others believe feminism means liberation from the very idea of gender itself. Feminism has many different strands and schools, all with different and often contradictory views. They disagree on everything from the best way to close the wage gap to whether symbols of femininity are oppressive. It\u2019s complicated stuff, and it\u2019s impossible to make everyone happy. There are multiple academic theories of gender itself, but people get attached to one. I think the desire for universality, that one theory or group of feminists \u201chas it right\u201d is untrue. You\u2019re missing a lot if you boil everything down to essentialism, social construction, or performativity. It\u2019s problematic to frame any one policy or belief as a moral imperative. I see this with activists, especially progressive feminists. We should be critical of everything we hear, not just accepting at face value what we see on everydayfeminism.com. Feminism is nothing without disagreement that\u2019s not oppression. What real people want should matter. Maybe one feminist thinks religion, marriage, and changing the last name to the man\u2019s is oppressive. But I think it\u2019s completely wrong and hypocritical to try and stop a woman who wants to do those things. The point of feminism is freedom to wear pink heels or army boots, to marry or not, to raise children or not, to express your gender in a traditional way or not. The point is the traditional way doesn\u2019t work for everyone. The reality is that there is a lot of stuff that sucks for women and LGBT people. The basic question of feminism is, what we do in response to this, and how do we address those issues? Different people have different answers. I\u2019m not going to agree with everything I hear. Some of the things I hear tend towards being untrue, silly or ridiculous, whether they\u2019re from \u201cgender critical feminists,\u201d progressive feminists, or anyone in between. These are emotionally charged issues, which can obscure facts and derail discussion too often things are presented as \u201cI think x is oppressive, so agree with me or you\u2019re siding with the oppressors.\u201d My view is that there is no one correct way to be a feminist or ally. Everyone has an idea that doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s a good idea. One can form their own position and you\u2019re going to disagree with people. That doesn't mean I should be forced to walk on eggshells. The point is to listen to others\u2019 perspectives and think about these things.","conclusion":"There is no one \u201ccorrect\u201d way to be a feminist or ally"}
{"id":"ff3b1672-8946-4bc8-aa2b-2dd64c5d0f6c","argument":"Transgender athletes deserve to participate in sporting events at any and all levels. However, there are biological differences highly relevant to competitive fairness between the average male athlete and the average female athlete, and identifying as a different gender does not change this biological fact. Because of this, transgender athletes should compete in the category they were born in to maximize fairness in sports competitions. I recognize that being a biological male does not necessitate being a better athlete than a biological female. However, rules in sporting events need to be somewhat generalized, and the fact of the matter is that in general the average male is stronger and larger than the average female. Males have higher bone density and larger skeletal frames, which directly translate to difference capacities for competing in sports. Males, on average and at peak performance levels, are physically stronger than females and are able to accumulate more muscle mass which correlates to higher strength outputs. This also supports my main claim. here is an example of a transgender individual M2F who competed in a women's weightlifting competition and won. I don't think this is a fair competition for the aforementioned reasons. I'm happy to be proven wrong about the biological claims I made, especially since I am not a scientist. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Transgender athletes should compete in the gender group in which they were born in order to maximize competitive fairness"}
{"id":"32bab8c9-2543-4e4e-8d11-d71d0d0402a7","argument":"So I've been having an ongoing debate about this one for the past week or so. The only official policy my university has is that tests are not allowed to be monetized or used at another university without giving credit. As I see it, acquiring past exams and working through them is simply another way of studying for a test in the same way reading the textbook is. Call it gaming the system if you like, but if the purpose of an exam is to prove to the professor that you learned what you were supposed to in the class, it is up to the professor to make sure the exam accurately does that. That means it's also their job to protect themselves and change up the test from year to year not the argument of my post though . The disagreement I have had is whether or not this is ethical. The argument goes that Since not everyone may have access to these past exams, it's an unfair advantage and therefore cheating. In my opinion, If the professor hands back an exam to a group of students after they take the test, the professor is implying that their test is in the public domain in terms of future studying, regardless of whether or not they gave explicit permission. In working through the problems on a past test, there is no better way to prepare for the real test. Yes, I could read the textbook and say oh, that's what that molecule looks like. OR I could see a test that says draw this molecule. These two versions of studying are equivalent to me. I prefer the second since it sort of condenses the material and maximizes my studying efforts. I totally concede that it's not ok to simply memorize answers in the hopes that the question might be recycled. But I see nothing wrong with learning the process for solving the problem. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"It is ok to use past exams to study for tests, regardless if the professor was the one who distributed the past exams to the class as study material."}
{"id":"4e6cf721-c01c-424b-9645-364032ee6d83","argument":"The Catholic church preached as doctrine that the Jews were collectively responsible for deicide This belief fostered two millennia of antisemitism and was only repudiated and removed as doctrine in 1962 during the second Vatican Council. This antisemitism was part of the environment that allowed Hitler's rise.","conclusion":"Different religious beliefs and even interpretations have fueled a profound divide between humans for centuries."}
{"id":"f8f3a6da-282a-464c-b0c2-c6dca7a245e7","argument":"I am currently a senior in high school and this school year has been particularly frustrating for me. The fact that I am currently required to take a bunch of classes that I know won't benefit me in the future such as English where all I do is analyze Shakespeare's shitty literature, Calculus which I won't remember 6 months from now anyway, and Piano where all I do is play Candy Crush on my iPhone waiting for the bell to ring is extremely annoying and not preparing me for the adult life that I'll be facing in lt 6 months whatsoever. I understand that there are some students who enjoy learning this traditional material and that this stuff may even be useful for them in the future because their next step in life is college. However, there are a lot of people like myself who do not plan on attending college or continuing their education after high school I am joining the military . Shakespeare, Calculus, and Piano serve me no purpose. In my opinion, it would be a lot more beneficial to give us 17 year olds who are practically adults two types of schedules to choose from at the start of the school year. One which fills a students school schedule with more traditional classes such as Science, Math, and other things of the like for those who for example, are interested in college after high school. The other type of school schedule would be dedicated for more practical and other useful things in life such as cooking, learning how and when to save spend money, and hell even learning how to socialize in a proper manner. Wouldn't this be more beneficial? I fee like most of my peers and I don't really care about school anymore anyway. We're just sitting here waiting for time to pass until June arrives. A lot of us also have no desire to go to college, so stuff such as Chemistry is of absolutely no value to us. High school students should already know what they aspire to do by the time they reach their senior year anyways, so you can't really say that these classes are necessary to broaden our view to possible careers that we may or may not be interested in. If I'm more interested in preparing to become a somewhat functioning adult, why can I not take a schedule full of classes dedicated to teaching be to do that? TL DR High school seniors should be able to choose between two types of school schedules. A traditional school schedule which fills their classes with your usual English, Science, and Math classes. Another school schedule dedicated to preparing seniors to become functioning adults by putting strong emphasis on teaching them essential life skills such as cooking, driving, and parenting and thus, filling their school schedules with classes dedicated to that. , Reddit.","conclusion":"High school seniors shouldn't be required to take \"traditional classes\" such as Math and Science anymore; they should have the option of filling their school schedules with classes dedicated to things such as learning essential life skills instead."}
{"id":"a6607737-5a6d-4023-96c1-b18cb638d427","argument":"it should be impossible under Kants moral law to stop being a person and no longer be subject to the categorical imperative. But If an individual in charge has come to a moral conclusion based on his own reason that differs from the collective will, which is the collection of individual moral reason, he will have to act for the collective or risk imposing his will over the collective.","conclusion":"Eichmann recognised this contradiction and so gave up the categorical imperative when he was summoned to Berlin. He became a tool of administration and removed his person."}
{"id":"c07b0f7b-b318-44a9-90ab-8ea71bf2e9a9","argument":"Think about it. If they have no means to pay the copyright holder, either because they have the money but not the compatible payment media for example, Sony doesn't accept debit cards, at least from many countries , or they have no money at all. All they're doing is downloading something that is available on the internet. They would not have been able to pay the copyright holder even if they wanted to, and thus they are causing no loss to the copyright holder. Whether it is moral to enjoy something without paying for it is questionable, I would allege, as much as overcharging for goods and services, as is the practice. However, that is not what I want a discussion on. I want only to discuss about whether and if yes, then how loss is caused to the copyright holder by people who illegally download copyrighted content without paying, as they have no means to make the payment.","conclusion":": In most cases, the pirates that only download but do not upload copyrighted content are causing no loss to the copyright holder."}
{"id":"39581088-4e93-4dd3-81ff-e694039c3444","argument":"CYP2D6 is involved in the metabolisation of codeine to morphine Ultrafast metabolisers respond well to codeine and get good pain relief, while slow metabolisers may get inadequate pain relief from codeine.","conclusion":"The activity of Cytochrome P450 2D6 CYP2D6 can vary hugely with genetics, and is involved in the metabolism of over 25% of common clinically used drugs."}
{"id":"2616d0a8-5336-4263-b3a9-3b0f647c7313","argument":"Getting to public displays can be difficult, and often involves traffic and\/or parking nightmares and typically requires traipsing through a lot of mud. Most people would prefer to stay in their own gardens.","conclusion":"People shouldn't have to wait for set times to see fireworks - they should be available when they want to see them."}
{"id":"1e9480c1-b05c-40e7-9fe0-fef7811a899b","argument":"This fuels racism in some countries in which there exists a stereotype about some race being less hardworking or being criminals. The employer is better off not hiring those people because it'd be hard to fire them and the employer doesn't want to risk the outcome suggested by the stereotype if they were forced to keep these people employed.","conclusion":"In many countries you cannot fire an employee without giving a reason, and those reasons have to be well documented. This makes it extremely hard to fire some employees."}
{"id":"ac9911e9-d8cf-4e2d-99c7-f3a96258e57d","argument":"A transgender man was assigned female at birth, hence some see no problem in casting a female actor for the role.","conclusion":"A role should be given to the best actor, regardless of one\u2019s gender."}
{"id":"bb7b296d-cede-4122-8d37-b0edf4136170","argument":"I believe giving sexually disenfranchised individuals the opportunity to share your sexual intimacy is a morally upstanding choice. Further, I believe that there are plenty of people who are not viscerally averse to the notion of monetizing tickets to their sexuality, and that it is perfectly possible to derive meaningful fulfillment from offering such a service, without feeling manipulated or coerced into the profession. Personally, full disclosure, I am a 25 year old virgin with severe cystic acne. For all intents and purposes I am out of the sexual market. I ask this question, because for close to the past decade or so I've been given the blunt end of the stick in regards to sexuality, my own skin has ensured that I've never as much as held the hand of someone of the opposite sex. I've experienced first hand the psychological trauma of indefinite unrequited desire for intimacy romance sex, and I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. If at some point I decide to take a trip to a state where prostitution is legal, provided that the conditions and circumstances regarding the transaction were well regulated, why would that be an action that you feel justified in criminalizing? As long as the sex worker has every ability to consent and make an informed and controlled decision regarding their own body, I have a very hard time finding a passable argument against the practice.","conclusion":"I believe prostitution is both a societally valuable service as well as a morally virtuous choice, and I have never found a compelling reason for why it should be criminalized."}
{"id":"5195c40c-3bac-46a7-93de-6b09d0250462","argument":"Unlike books, more visual oriented storytelling allows the reader to reference something outside of hir imagination and experiences. Reading books is basically self referencing your self. To read a book means to look into your own ideas and memories of what each word means to you. Thus, reading can lead into self delusion because it highly depends on the reader. I remember reading a book where I thought I understood the material but, in actuality, my mind invented a whole new story as I read the entire book because I held on to false assumptions of simple details. In addition, words are supposed to represent empirical objects and experiences. But what if a word that you encounter in a book is not at all familiar to you? This must happen very frequently, to young people with limited experiences or to people who are not very adept in the language or to people from different cultures who can't connect with the ideas and descriptions within the book. For example, how do you describe snow to someone to someone who has never experienced snow? How do you describe a ship to someone who has no prior notion remotely similar to a ship? maybe to a native person who has never experienced technology? This is like trying to describe the color blue to someone who is born blind. The reader can only try hir best to imagine whatever the objects that are being described, and more often than not, the imagination is far from the truth. Reading distorts the truth behind experiences that have real reference to reality. Not having read the book is better for the reader because the reader had not yet constructed a false idea of the experience. The reader is forced to imagine experiences thereby forcing a distortion between the real experience and the reader's ideas of the experience.","conclusion":"Books rely too much on the reader's imagination and experiences such that it detracts the truth of what the author is trying to illustrate or describe."}
{"id":"a483c4e9-7547-4ea4-a551-cbf71fca2b84","argument":"Some points to consider Non skilled jobs and non technical jobs will be a thing of the past. Any job that doesn't require a college degree is already obsolete in 2013 , the fact that the positions still exist is simply a consequence of a machine not yet having been designed and installed in all of these industries. It's going to happen soon. Think about a McDonald's, what job in a McDonald's can't be done by a machine? Skilled and technical jobs that require creativity and problem solving skills aren't impossible to teach to machines. Most employees have protocols to follow in their work, and what is creativity but the ability to mix seemingly unrelated ideas together in new and useful ways? A computer can't be creative? Don't forget to think 4 dimensionally just because a computer can't do something today doesn't mean a computer won't be able to do it in 20 years. The main difference between the human brain and a machine is that the human brain can dynamically rewire itself based on experiences machines can virtualize this process or we could build machines that have more dynamic hardware components so that they can do the same thing Beyond this discussion, we could discuss what happens to society when 90 of our jobs go out the window but I'm more interested in being convinced that 90 of our jobs won't go away. Show me teach me explain to me why machines won't replace humans. Also, I know the 'luddite' mentality is quite old, but computers are game changers in my view. And I would argue that low skilled jobs have been phased out. We are in a world where people without high school diplomas and often college degrees struggle to find work at all. So please keep this in mind as well. I'm really hoping to see some good discussion about this, it's an issue that has plagued my mind for over a decade.","conclusion":"I think machines and computers will replace 90% of human jobs within 30 years."}
{"id":"f2f8a122-90d2-4da6-be45-e457d2a1fbfb","argument":"I think this specifically about stories told in the form of a retelling. I can understand it in real time fiction. My view is, no one actually remembers what was said word for word, or even line by line, just how they felt about the conversation. Instead of trying to describe the emotions, and author can take a shortcut and make up a conversation where in reality the narrator espeically if it is in the form of journal entries would not know the words. It's based on two premises Using dialogue is easier than describing emotions. Dialogue often comes in place of describing the emotions of the narrator, and I find the latter for more valuable to any story.","conclusion":"I believe dialogue in fiction is a crutch, or 'easy way out' for character development."}
{"id":"0602319a-5e4f-4eed-b386-4276a31067d4","argument":"NOTE I am British so I am mostly talking about Queen Elizabeth II and the Royal Family. I've had many a discussion with a friend who is an ardent royalist. And he tries to tell me many reasons why he thinks the Queen is fantastic and done a lot for the country, and is worthy of respect etc. Regardless of what they've done, or how 'well' they've performed as a royal, I can't help but feel like the initial idea that a Queen or King is someone chosen by GOD to be a leader of a country is far too archaic for modern society. Every time I see videos or articles glorifying the Royal family as a national treasure, all I can think is how they are no different to anyone else, but simply born into this lifestyle. In the same way I wouldn't respect Paris Hilton for being born Rich, why should I respect the Royal Family?","conclusion":"I believe that a Monarchy is simply an aged system and is no longer necessary."}
{"id":"8fbb8b51-6bef-4376-a29f-f569dc94d869","argument":"Automation is expected to reduce more jobs than the jobs it will create, so we will propably need to find a way to work less and maintain a good standard of living. A UBI might be one of them.","conclusion":"The amount of products and services that were generated will still be produced, only now under sophisticated automation, whether this will decrease overall wealth is dependent on the decisions and discussions surrounding wealth distribution."}
{"id":"138ddc15-e04a-4e05-b0cf-99bbf51b65a2","argument":"There is a common sentiment that the USSR was a powerhouse that would have beaten Germany whatever the odds. While it is correct that the USSR was the driving force for the defeat of Germany during WW2, it is incorrect to believe that the USSR could have beaten Germany singlehandedly. Germany and Italy were not expecting to fight the Commonwealth and France in 1939. Hitler's focus was on the conquest and subjugation of Eastern Europe with the eventual invasion of the USSR. He thought that any Western war would happen years later. The Western powers declaring war on Germany was a surprise to Hitler and diverted much of Germany's forces away from the Eastern Front. Hitler had to delay his invasion of the Soviet Union to ready his army for the Eastern Front after battles in the Western Front. Besides their losses in ground forces and usage of troops to occupy Western countries, Germany spent a massive amount of resources to construct Western fortifications against a naval invasion, suffered millions of casualties against non USSR allied forces in the Western Front, Italy, Africa, and in their air force and navy. These resources would have greatly aided the eventual German fight against the Soviet Union. Also, the lend lease to the Soviet Union would have been far smaller or non existent if Western countries and the US had not declared war. While the USSR did most of the work fighting Germany, it is doubtful that a war between only the USSR and Germany and German allies would have led to a German defeat. Change my view. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The defeat of Germany could not have been accomplished by the USSR alone."}
{"id":"d1f81ff8-6673-48bb-ac0b-8ef0b0326776","argument":"Disclosure I don't believe the biological differences between races justify any superiority among races, rather it's a differentiating factor and we should recognize it. As an anon from b put it, gt There are biological differences between the races just as there are biological differences between dog and cat breeds despite the genetic makeup being identical. The idea that race is a social construction is pushed to counteract the idea that intelligence is a biological development which is a good thing, because intelligence isn't determined by race, it's determined by socio economic circumstances . gt I mean, the races are a literal proof of evolution. Skin tone, muscle length and size, body shape, these develop because of the way we bred over the past 100,000 years. Europeans are stocky because Europes filled with mountains and so we needed more core strength. Africans are lanky and tall because they live in plains and need to be able to run faster and for longer periods of time. You think countries like Ethiopia dominating long distance running is because they train hard? It's because they are biologically predisposed to it. Compare that to olympic weightlifting. Who wins that? Typically white, middle eastern, and asian nations, because they developed the pound for pound strength needed to survive in their respective areas. gt It goes even further than that. You know that it is possible to determine race based purely off of bone and skull shape, right? That hair fibres are formed differently for each race? There are blatant physical differences between the races. It's not a social construct, the social construct is that being physically different means you are also intellectually different. I believe it's undeniable there are subtle biological differences which make certain people from certain regions of the world better at performing certain tasks. This does not mean they are in any way superior than others, in fact it merely shows the beauty of evolution and adaption. I believe these subtle biological differences are by no means a reason to reel in the topic of intelligence and race because intelligence depends on a multitiude of factors, including what anon said, such as socioeconomic factors. It would be ridiculous and conceited to make any wild assumptions based on these small differences, but not acknowledging them just because we are afraid of being labelled as racist is equally as absurd. .","conclusion":"I believe there are subtle biological differences between humans of different regions, and people are too afraid of being \"racist\" to see it."}
{"id":"75f7503a-4d34-470b-adad-c701d3e1680c","argument":"Assumptions can only be a result of a thought process and cannot come forth otherwise.","conclusion":"To believe you are thinking, proves you exist, or does it?"}
{"id":"33ce2609-585f-4a98-b6a7-6afec3935067","argument":"It is wrong because it is theft. Even if the government simply prints money to pay for it, it is still theft because it will decrease the value of the money earned by those who work.","conclusion":"The government should not provide a UBI because it is immoral to do so."}
{"id":"b0b4c691-21c0-4cc6-b411-d327ac6584f0","argument":"I can understand and respect the point of view of those who hold a sincere belief that life begins at conception and that an embryo or fetus should be treated as a life that should be protected. However, I think that much of the current anti abortion stance is more about punishing sexually active women than about protecting unborn children. I believe this because many or most of the people who are against abortion simultaneously hold the point of view that access to birth control and aid to poor families should be reduced or eliminated, and maternity leave or lack thereof should be left up to employers. Birth control prevents pregnancy, and free or reduced birth control goes a long ways to prevent unwanted pregnancy and subsequent abortions. Paid maternity leave helps new mothers and their babies bond, heal and generally get a good start. Aid to poor families provides a basic safety net to keep young families from going hungry or homeless. The knowledge of a basic safety net would encourage those who become pregnant unintentionally from aborting due to financial pressure. I find it disingenuous that many of those who claim to be in favor of protecting the unborn are against the very policies that make life easier for young families. I think by simultaneously holding the views against abortion, birth control, paid maternity leave, and aid to families one is displaying that they care more about punishing sexually active women, and by extension their children, by creating a situation that virtually ensures a live of struggle for those women who do not have a supportive partner. I am not sure what would change my mind, but I am a reasonable and logical person. If it can be demonstrated to me how individuals who simultaneously hold the views that I described can truly interested in the well being of the unplanned fetus and the person it will eventually and the family unit in general become I am open to changing my mind. Edit I have changed my view. I no longer think that punishing sexually active women is the main point of the anti abortion movement. The disconnect between anti abortion beliefs and the lack of desire for policies to support young women mothers are coincidentally held by many people, but the second belief does not mean that people are insincere about their belief in the first. Perhaps illogical, but not insincere. Note that this does not change my point of view of being pro choice, which is based on a belief that an embryo fetus is a potential human, but not an actual human early in development and that choices should be left between women and their doctors. Nor does it change my option that improved policies to support reducing the cost of birth control and providing aid to families in need would be effective in reducing the number of abortions.","conclusion":"The current anti-abortion movement is more about punishing sexually active women than saving the unborn"}
{"id":"25110a8d-7541-418e-aa5f-6ef09b8e4b15","argument":"No justification is given as to why the president in particular should gain such rights, rather than any other particular person in society","conclusion":"As a Constitutional Republic, the US government should allow no person or entity to be \"above the law.\""}
{"id":"ebb34b9a-b224-45e8-978f-eeb8ce4dde8a","argument":"From the pro life position which calls abortion murder, should mothers who preform self induced abortions be prosecuted? If a mother goes to a doctor, then she is engaged in contract killing and the doctor is a murderer. If this was not an abortion \u2013 just a regular murder \u2013 both the contractor and the hitman would be punished. In cases of abortion though, people want to protect the mother. So, legally speaking, you can avoid charging a mother by giving her immunity so that she can be compelled to testify against the doctor in this case the only way she would go to prison is for contempt of court if she refused to testify . For a women who buys an abortifacient, you can make the argument for the same legal arrangement as before so that she is compelled to testify against the drug provider. But what about a mother who uses the proverbial coat hanger? There is neither doctor nor supplier to charge with a crime, so she can\u2019t be protected through the granting of immunity because there is nobody for her to testify against. That is to say, the mother has to carry the full responsibility for the crime. This seems a very distasteful conclusion, but I don\u2019t see any way around it as a supporter for the pro life position. So for pro lifers specifically, how would you justify not charging the mother in this circumstance? A few things to note 1 I want to specifically address abortions that happen purely from the woman\u2019s free will without friends or family pressuring her that way arguments that the mother had no choice or was otherwise pressured or coerced are removed. 2 To simplify matters, let\u2019s assume this pregnancy resulted from consensual unprotected sex, and the mother wants to abort the fetus only because she feels it\u2019s not a good time in her life to have a baby. 3 To further simplify matters let\u2019s assume the position of a pro life absolutist no exceptions for rape or incest, life starts at conception to remove any extraneous variables that having abortion exceptions may introduce. 4 I understand that there are practical issues enforcing this kind of law would require investigating every women\u2019s miscarriage and political issues a pro life bill would never pass if it explicitly allowed criminalizing the mother with this position, but I am specifically concerned with the moral component of this problem. So for this argument, let\u2019s set aside the practical and political difficulties. 5 Yes, I am aware that coat hangers are almost never used for abortions, but I use it in a proverbial sense. You can buy drugs that have multiple uses but also can also act as an abortifacient see methotrexate . In these cases, the drug seller would be innocent because they sold the drug to you under the false pretense of treating some other ailment. Additionally, there are other ways to self induce abortion, I\u2019m covering all those more broadly and just use coat hangers as an easy to reference stand in. P.S. this is my first post so apologies if there are any mistakes.","conclusion":"Women who self-induce abortion should be punished"}
{"id":"a761c7fd-dca6-4a29-9e8b-2575321ea7af","argument":"I read a compelling article by Victor Davis Hanson in the City Jounral the other day, which talked about the history of the water projects in central California in the early and mid twentieth century. Hanson points the finger specifically at the environmentalists who derailed the Klamath River diversion project in the 70s, which would have provided enough water to supply San Francisco alone for thirty years. Here's the article here if anyone wants to read it. I don't agree with all of his views in this article, particularly his low view of city folk, but I find it well written nonetheless","conclusion":"The Current California Drought is Largely the Fault of Environmentalists"}
{"id":"225e7958-225f-4e9d-b8a9-e6bd5a61c46a","argument":"All major restaurants in Canada and America should be government owned. Mcdonalds, Burger King, ect. People will keep their current positions. All the money made will be put back into the economy. Those that own these companies are given a flat wage. Small independent restaurants are okay, there is a cap you can earn, all profits will be recorded and can be reimbursed if you have a negative month. All major stores like Walmart, K mart, is now the governments. Any major hotel. If you are a actor, doctor, film maker, sports athelete any one making money you are able to make 500,000 max tax free. The highest person in America can make 500k and the president gets a raise from 400k to 500k. Housing is subsidized heavily. Also all clothing, shoes, bedding, anything that is for sewn fabric for the home has to be made domestically by an American company. All furniture too. If you can not support domestic jobs with your company it should not exist. The government can grant exceptions for companies that require outsourcing until automation can take over.","conclusion":"Communism is a good system for American, it just needs a new name and a few tweaks."}
{"id":"6dee45b4-8ade-4764-959c-480a47794ed3","argument":"America runs on the word of the law rather than the spirit, which leaves loopholes. There was a time when a toy company avoided paying a certain tax on X-Men figures by arguing that X-Men were not humans","conclusion":"The government will inadvertently cast too wide of a net, or miss something critical, and hurt consumer choice."}
{"id":"0b379125-2749-4074-85e8-de66368eee6f","argument":"Although Antifa has recently been demonised in the media, they have also been responsible for providing relief on the ground to many communities across Houston and the Gulf Coast.","conclusion":"Antifa promotes community response to many important causes, such as relief to those affected by national disasters."}
{"id":"0749cce6-8970-4240-9657-81b54d0e271d","argument":"From the videos of professional and amateur curling that I have watched, there seems to be little physical prowess needed to play successfully. There is no lifting and no sustained effort required. The person who launches the stone must make an effort to keep the stone moving straight, but this is a fairly simple process. Additionally, estimating the optimal speed at which to release the stone can probably be learned fairly quickly, and retained through latent memory. The player doing the sweeping must simply gauge the speed of the stone, and whether it is faster or slower than optimal. While I acknowledge that this requires some skill, it is not enough to classify curling as a sport. To me, curling is in the same league as recreational games, such as shuffleboard and minigolf. Change my view, as I hope to watch the 2014 Olympic games with an appreciation of curling. Thanks Edit words","conclusion":"I believe that curling is not a legitimate sport, and should be removed from the Olympics."}
{"id":"44407527-8101-4236-800d-ec136ba1e095","argument":"In the wake of Robin Williams' death, there's been a lot of discussion in the community about depression, which I think is great. The more awareness for what it is, the better. I have a few viewpoints on this subject that I would like to get out there because it's been bothering me. Little background I've never been clinically diagnosed I'll get to why later , but for the first 2 years of college, something weird happened. I went from having great grades in high school and a lot of friends, to finding myself literally holing up in my dorm room every night and every weekend. I gained roughly 50 pounds over those 2 years, and I was failing all my classes. I wasn't even able to muster the effort to put the work in. Also, I distinctly remember having suicidal thoughts. I never actually thought I would go through with any of them, but it occupied my mind quite a bit. I wanted to change. I desperately tried. But nothing was clicking. I definitely read a little bit into depression during this time, and I figured that I had some minor variant of it. I wanted to reach out and talk to someone but I figured that I could handle it on my own. I read a lot into depression and overcoming it, and I knew that exercise and a better diet would help but I still wasn't able to do any of that. Like I couldn't get myself to do what I know I needed to do. It pissed me off. I blamed myself for that, and I still do. So here's where it gets interesting, and here's where I hope some of you can shed light on this topic. This was almost 3 4 years ago so I'm forgetting exactly where the shift happened, but the summer after my 2nd year I started reading a lot into Zen Buddhism and Stoicism and this COMPLETELY changed my view on the world and my life. What I realized was that my thoughts are in my head obviously , and that I can be in control of them. I realized that I was putting positives and negatives into certain situations, when the situation is neutral by default. The big thing for me was realizing that the world isn't mean or nice, it's indifferent. It literally gives no fucking shits about any of us. So I think what happened to me was that I had an expectation of reality that was different from reality itself. I believe this caused my 2 year downward spiral to a point where I was an utter failure, friendless, and alone. This was definitely a ramble but I hope it made some sense. I'm at a point in my life now where I'm having a hard time remembering EXACTLY how I felt during that period, but I definitely remember that I would sometimes cry in the shower and do other things of that nature. I was literally alone for 720 days straight. I would just wake up and sit in my room the entire day. I would ask for extensions and still not be able to muster up any assignments. At the time I saw that as a character flaw, and now I still see it as a character flaw. So does this mean that I see depression as a character flaw? I also learned that a lot of people go through similar bouts. Maybe not quite as intense rarely quite so intense to the point where it is affecting your future , but definitely something noticeable. So if I can get through it with reading books and changing my mental attitude, why can't everyone else? Why can't we all realize that life isn't fun and games, that it's indifferent. Our thoughts CAN be controlled. I couldn't control them before, but now I can. It's not an overnight process it took me about 3 years to go from that fateful summer of meditation and Stoicism to where I am now. I'm at a point now where I can objectively evaluate the things that are going on in my life, and even if they're bad , I can handle it. So instead of popping pills and getting electric therapy, why don't we medicate people with depression with books and meditation and a MENTAL SHIFT, instead of a chemically induced whatever a pill is? BTW, this same thing applies to anxiety. I went from having crippling anxiety to still having crippling anxiety, but it's gotten better. I went from not being able to hold a conversation without panicking, sweating, almost crying, to being able to hold conversations for as long as necessary. Again, this all happened without meds. This happened with a mental shift that I induced through books and meditation. I guess I'm wondering if someone can explain to me why the go to method is popping pills and therapy, when I know for a fact that you can bootstrap your own healing? I'm not saying to man up or buck up, I'm saying to realize that it's all in your head and that you don't have to be a slave to it. Meditation and self help books helped me with that a lot. TL DR Pills are unnecessary for depression and anxiety. They're just character flaws that can be changed with practice. Obviously this doesn't apply to the fringe cases like Robin Williams or others who commit suicide but definitely applies to the majority of people who claim they're depressed or anxious.","conclusion":"For the majority of cases, depression can be treated without medication."}
{"id":"a2118d33-a4db-4c69-802b-489948959440","argument":"Regardless of if the content of loot boxes affect the game play or are purely cosmetic. If you cannot directly exchange currency for whatever the content of the loot boxes are and GUARANTEE you will get EXACTLY the content you wanted to pay for then these systems should be considered gambling by the law and subject to all the same restrictions as casino's or pub fruit machines. My reason for thinking this, is that it is perfectly possible for a gambling addict or child to use the loot box system in CS GO or TF2 for example. This is obviously an extreme example and developers should be allowed to include them if they want to and are willing to cooperate with legal restrictions on gambling. Additionally some games offer the ability to directly purchase items or attempt to get them for less through a random system mystery skins in League of Legends. In my opinion these systems should be individually subject to sanctions but the standard purchasing shop should be separate and thus unaffected. Loot boxes is being used as an umbrella term for the purposes of this post but refers to any game system in which the player buys a an item which they then use to gain some items from a larger pool of items with limited or no control of which items they will gain. Popular examples are the crates in CS GO or the loot boxes in over watch. For people unfamiliar a fruit machine is basically a gambling arcade cabinet in British pubs and there use is restricted by age and I believe this age restriction must be printed on the casing of the machine itself. This isn't an overly important part of law but I felt it was worth mentioning as they often deal in fairly trivial amounts of money but are still restricted.","conclusion":"Content acquisition on a chance based-system lootboxes or crates should be subject to the social and legal sanctions of equivalent gambling systems. Reguardless of their affect on game play or lack their of. mostly video games"}
{"id":"ad9b0693-a5ef-4302-a3ce-73fe7eb34d18","argument":"First of all, I am very much against racial profiling ESPECIALLY by law enforcement. I am also aware that there are racist police officers of all ethnicities and that in the past there HAS been a great deal of racial profiling in law enforcement. However, the impoverished in this country are predominantly black this in itself is a lingering byproduct of Jim Crow laws and racism from the 20th century and I am aware of this . Those living in poverty are more likely to commit crimes and incidentally there are more poor blacks than other races. Now I also understand that blacks disproportionally represent the number of arrests as opposed to, say, Hispanics who are also predominantly living under the poverty line . But I attribute it to the fact that historically poor blacks have a more established subcultural in this country than the relatively recent Hispanic immigrants, and all of the Hispanic immigrants I know actively seek multiple sources of legal income. There are also fewer Hispanics living in poverty than blacks. I feel as if my perspective is clouded by the fact that I am a white male raised in a middle class suburban family and I'm unable to fully empathize. I'm often concerned that this might be borderline prejudiced, despite the fact that I personally do not believe any race to be superior and I believe in equality. But I can't sincerely get myself past the idea that blacks being arrested more than other races is purely incidental. Change my view please","conclusion":"The fact that police arrest more blacks in the USA than other races is incidental"}
{"id":"2be8748c-75e2-4da3-b0e7-43dce7c077a9","argument":"\"Random breath tests: A frightening trial-baloon from Rob Nicholson.\" A BCer in Toronto. October 5th, 2009: \"this would seem to open up a huge can of legal worms. You randomly pull someone over for a random breathalyzer test, someone that under normal circumstances you have no legal probable cause for doing so. And in that process, while they blow clean you discover they have committed another offense: let's say, the possession of a small amount of marijuana.\"","conclusion":"Random sobriety stops set-up unjust detection of other crimes"}
{"id":"9a46e21d-3ec9-4918-b354-aa0e7e29b615","argument":"The highest proportions of women with senior roles in corporations are in countries that have not enacted compulsory quotas. Russia has the highest proportion of women in senior management globally 43 percent without any type of gender programming. The same applies for the neighboring Baltic States which boast 30 percent or more. Between 2012 and 2013, China doubled the number of senior management roles held by women from 25 per cent to 51 per cent.","conclusion":"Corporate gender quotas have produced marginal results in the countries that have adopted them."}
{"id":"0e690dfc-dcc3-4dc8-84eb-fa9bb21b96ea","argument":"The movie manages to successfully lay the groundwork for further movies and series in the same universe.","conclusion":"Spoilers Avengers: Endgame is a worthy finale for the franchise."}
{"id":"38cef845-2a51-4df6-9e87-a0a6d2c5ba15","argument":"A right to bear arms is constitutionally enshrined. As such, it cannot be qualified for the purpose of practical considerations. Legislatures cannot regulate parts of it according to some \"reasonableness\" standard; the right is immutable. The earliest published commentary on the Second Amendment by a major constitutional theorist was by St. George Tucker, also known as The American Blackstone. He authored a set of law books in 1803 that annotated Sir William Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England discussed at length later, under Colonial Rights, for American use, and that formed, in many cases, the sole legal written works read by many early American attorneys.44 Tucker, the leading Jeffersonian constitutional theorist, was widely read, even by those who rejected his interpretation of the Constitution. In footnotes 40 and 41, he wrote: \"The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. Amendments to C. U. S. Art. 4, and this without any qualification as to their condition or degree, as is the case in the British government.\"4","conclusion":"A constitutional right to bear arms is not subject to reasonableness standards"}
{"id":"aef2a3b3-9474-4d07-8720-04042f1f500c","argument":"This could increase productivity through improving total employment. If productivity increases alongside consumption and aggregate demand, then inflation will not be an issue.","conclusion":"It allows ex-convicts to be more easily integrated back into society."}
{"id":"f05b2deb-afb3-4bf5-97aa-8767b1771864","argument":"Although ERC20 type are a given for shares, derivatives etc, I would argue that a ERC725 identity type token is far more important as it allows Dapps to interact with the real world - and imho is a prerequisite to a successful futarchy. We may also be able to leverage delegates for verification too if we can somehow integrate incentives and penalties within the Tezos fabric layer - overcoming one of Ethereums ERC725 design issues.","conclusion":"Maybe: Tezos should support token creation as an extension of the protocol"}
{"id":"ba24976a-50b8-4fa9-87c9-21c93ad567e4","argument":"Of course tens if not hundreds of thousands of people were either directly or indirectly impacted by the events of September 11th, and the physical layout of Lower Manhattan will never be the same. But for the vast majority of people, either in the US or around the world, without a connection to the events, wasn't September 11th just another terrorist attack, but one that happened to be very successful from the terrorist's perspective . In other words, terrorism existed long before 9 11 and will exist long after 9 11. Of course many countries have made changes to security and counter terrorism operations, but the world is basically the same place as it always was and always will be. Things are, for the most part, the same as they were before 9 11. I just keep hearing on the news and from political leaders and from people around the water cooler that September 11th forever changed the world as we know it, and it just sounds like an inaccurate, if not imprecise statement to me. As a native New Yorker who was directly impacted by 9 11, please know that I'm not trying to disparage the attacks in the least. I'm just trying to understand whether or to what extent the world did change forever.","conclusion":"September 11th did not forever change the world as we know it."}
{"id":"40571a45-5cdc-4dce-9254-08df65eb90e8","argument":"For over three centuries the two nations have cooperated much to their mutual advantage. The majority of Scots are happy with their British-ness. In terms of culture and art the two nations have maintained distinctive traditions but ones which have been enhanced by their interaction. There are many people who have relatives from Scotland and another of the Home Nations for whom British is the more obvious identity.i After centuries of fighting with each other the Union brought peace and mutual benefit. i Mitchell, David, \u2018If Scotland does secede, I won\u2019t be alone in mourning for my country\u2019, The Observer, 15 May 2011,","conclusion":"The union has worked for over three hundred years and most people feel comfortable with the joint Scots\/British identity"}
{"id":"41c89e3f-3f1d-47ce-9145-9c792ae56672","argument":"I am 32M with an Associates Degree. I have no debt currently. I work as a server in an upscale restaurant. I am learning computer programming on my own to try to create a better future for myself, but I have a lot of people telling me it won't work is pointless unless I go back to school, which I can't do without taking on a lot of debt like a lot of people . I'll define success for the purposes of my statement. I believe success is making enough money to solve most of life's common uncommon issues. For example, if my dog requires an operation of around 3,000.00, I can't afford that, but a person who can, I would deem them successful. If my car breaks down tomorrow, I'll be taking the bus, whereas a successful person will pay to have their car fixed, or have purchased a new car before the old one dies. If I need to replace my roof after this winter, I won't be able to without taking on debt. And, like most Americans, I am one major health issue away from crippling medical debt. I maintain successful people have many problems, and that the ones I have listed are not on their radar. i.e. I am worried my dog may need surgery one day, but not worried about how I will pay for it. An obvious counter argument to this is that if I had less stuff, I would be able to pay for these things, or not need things at all. Becoming a monk in a cave might be an extreme example. I would maintain that the monk, people in large amounts of debt, or people with fewer possessions in general even in poverty certainly can be very HAPPY. But I would not consider them SUCCESSFUL. If my car dies and I convince myself I am perfectly happy taking the bus everywhere, I could consider myself happy, just not successful. So, without student loans, or other large forms of debt, I believe I will not become successful in my lifetime. I'm looking forward to someone changing my view","conclusion":"It is extremely unlikely I will be \"successful\" in life without going into a lot of debt."}
{"id":"64e55b94-4350-495a-b521-3b184026513f","argument":"The Palo Alto police used PredPol for around 3 years until it stopped using it because it \"served up information that police patrols already had\".","conclusion":"Predictive policing technology does not create a meaningful enough increase in accuracy to justify the costs that come with it."}
{"id":"0a464565-1452-4519-beac-6382b5a16e46","argument":"Trump has initiated strict regulations with regards to asylum, which greatly reduces the availability of asylum for those in need.","conclusion":"Trump has been criticized for lacking compassion which is an important belief held in evangelism."}
{"id":"4529fe4b-7a8f-4301-87b3-aed3de14d1b5","argument":"This happened to THQ's Company of Heroes, when THQ bankrupted and was acquired by SEGA. For a short period of time, the game was inaccessible due to there being no servers available to log into. This meant that even the offline modes campaign and skirmish were inaccessible. What happens if servers for a game stay down for good?","conclusion":"If the servers are shut down by the developers, you will not have access to the product you paid money for - even if you own a physical copy of it."}
{"id":"684dce6d-1b1b-4634-ac35-3e71b4ca546a","argument":"Universal basic income is often touted as the answer to the looming threat of a fully mechanized economy. In this post I will be talking specifically about UBI in the context of income designed to replace wages in a hypothetical future rather than supplement them such as has been attempted in some European countries. I contend that a mechanized workforce poses a threat to a democracy which it has not yet faced and for which we have no answer. I further contend that proponents of UBI whose answer stretches no further than UBI are dangerously complacent in their thinking. Political science provides us with two self reinforcing rules democracy favors development and development favors democracy. This works because the same infrastructure that makes people better at producing wealth also empowers them. Public schools make workers easier to train but also makes them better at understanding the political forces around them and better prepares them to effect change within their society. Similarly public roads make it easier to conduct commerce but also make it easier for individuals to move freely and network more efficiently. We see the inverse of this as well. Nation states where the vast majority of wealth comes from a single lucrative source that requires comparatively fewer people to produce ie diamonds or gold or oil tend to be the worst form of dictatorship as far less infrastructure is needed to produce the capital needed to sustain a regime. The two rules mentioned previously are ripped apart by a mechanized workforce because the infrastructure that makes people more democratically inclined is no longer the same infrastructure that makes commerce easier. Robots have no need for a hospital and all but a small minority can be left uneducated if your economy no longer requires people. A fully mechanized workforce is the point of no return for consolidation of real power in the hands of a minority of people. Far more capital is needed to start a company or even a small business in order to compete with large companies. Economy of scale would become a near insurmountable obstacle in most industries. This prevents the formation of new companies or businesses by all but the very wealthy. In our current system, while we struggle with income inequality and the consolidation of power, the masses still have recourse to effect change. The 1 still need welders, construction workers and even retail workers to sustain the production of wealth. This is why unionized labor still holds power and why Walmart works as hard as it can to dissuade its employees from unionizing through propaganda and scare tactics. Furthermore, for a large portion of the population, owning a small business is not necessarily unfeasible. A skilled carpenter can make and sell furniture all on his own. He can participate in the economy. He has something to contribute. A mechanized workforce robs the vast majority of people of the power to provide for their own wellbeing by the strength of their own hand. So what? We are a democracy after all. Should we not be able to direct the fruits of mechanized labor to our gain? This is indeed the dream put forward by proponents of UBI. The flaw I see in this logic is that it ignores why prosperous democracies are not prone to dictatorship. A regime change from a democracy to a dictatorship is inherently risky for the plotters because they have to destroy the institutions that allow a democracy to produce wealth. Hospitals, schools, even transportation is disrupted by the inevitable war that ensues. More importantly the people that the state has spent so much money to educate have to be coerced into serving the purpose of the new regime which causes disruption and a massive loss of life all of which are not conducive to producing more wealth. This is not so with a mechanized workforce. To risk ending democracy is not so infeasible when the people are not an investment. This strategy relies on nothing more than the freshly emptied liturgy of democracy sustaining itself beyond economic reality. Furthermore, in a fully mechanized economy, the average citizen is no more than a drain of assets. Every hospital built, every college education funded every UBI check written is a liability not an asset. It does not grow power it consumes it. Others have argued that rebellion would keep the 1 in check. This ignores economic history. During the second wave of colonialism, the European powers found it useful to empower small subsections of the population who would act as enforcers over the rest of the population. This was a largely successful tactic. It was employed in places such as Rwanda with the Tutsi people and in the Belgian Congo where King Leopold employed a literal orphan army with no tribal or familial loyalties. It would become far easier to suppress the majority of people as opposed to maintaining them at a standard of living that is to be expected in a first world country. Furthermore suppose a rebellion succeeds. The people are now faced with two options destroy the mechanized workforce or keep it. If they keep it, history has shown that it is more than likely that power will again be consolidated in the hands of a few people be it a government or corporation and the cycle repeats itself. If the decision is made to destroy the mechanized workforce, then suddenly you have a vast swath of people who have been brought up without the skills necessary to feed themselves, cloth themselves, or in other words take the place of the machines they have so recently conquered. The last argument I am going to touch on against this eventuality is the idea that UBI would be sustainable through the purchasing power of the masses. Simply put that if no one has a job they cannot buy anything and therefore the economy crashes. To which I say so what? For the rich the economy doesn't crash, it merely shrinks. a mechanized workforce has the power to make the 1 entirely self sufficient. When robots grow your food, make your clothes and repair themselves why should you worry about what the economy is doing? It no longer affects you. So change my view. What hope do the masses have to assert their will and defend their existence in a world where they are no longer economically necessary?","conclusion":"Universal basic income is not an answer to the most potent threat a mechanized workforce poses to democracy."}
{"id":"f47df20e-4006-49e5-86d0-c1b48e3613a8","argument":"For example, the common claim that a powerful woman has \"slept her way to the top\".","conclusion":"Legalising sex work reduces the stigmatization of sexually active women."}
{"id":"b96c0806-c849-4b71-99ee-f272df6f4c19","argument":"White women leading equality campaigns in Washington, D.C. blatantly demanded that black suffragists walk at the back of their parades.","conclusion":"Historically, mainstream feminism has been against the interests of women of colour."}
{"id":"e5770811-ceab-4ae9-8141-49e51c06fa9a","argument":"So when I was in high school, during lockdown drills, we were taught to lock the doors, close the blinds, turn off the lights, barricade the door and squat sit kneel in a corner along with 30 other kids. If the classroom had a large closet, we were told to sit in there. This is just dumb. Firstly, I don't think that locking the doors, turning off the lights and barricading the doors are necessarily bad ideas, but I don't think that they are terribly effective. I'm all for doing these things assuming you have the time to. Secondly, I think that closing the blinds doesn't really help. If someone was shooting a classroom, I would like the opportunity to break the window then jump out without getting tangled up in the blinds. Even if it meant I had to jump from the 2nd or even 3rd floor. I would much rather choose life over limb. You could argue having the blinds open would make turning off the lights slightly redundant, and I would agree, but I think that the potential benefits outweigh the fairly low cost as I don't think having little light would be very effective. Thirdly, having everyone sit in one corner of the classroom is the worst possible thing you could do in that situation. With everyone seated in one cramped corner means that if the shooter comes in, it would be very hard to get away from them. It will take a second or two to get up, and it gives the shooter a nice bunch of people to shoot at. They are literally sitting ducks. In the 5 seconds it would take for everyone to disperse, the shooter could have killed up to 10 or 15 people, depending on what kind of gun was used. This would also make it so that the bodies of someone who was killed could be blocking the way or pinning someone down, preventing them from dispersing. Finally, and this is probably the dumbest thing I heard in all of high school, students should not be sitting in a storage closet. All the drawbacks from the previous paragraph apply, but there is no where to escape to. All the gunman has to do is open the door and start spraying bullets and they will kill everyone inside. So what should be taught? I would say that they should keep the blinds open and even open a window to allow people to escape. They should allow those who wants to volunteer the opportunity to meet the shooter at the door with some sort of weapon, weather it be a stool, a fire extinguisher or something like that. Maybe even keep a baseball bat or something like that in the classroom. They should also teach students to spread out, making it harder for the gunman to shoot all of them. They should teach the kids to throw stuff at the shooter as well, maybe a chair, a textbook or a rock. If everyone threw something at him at the same time, it would definitely distract them and possibly slow them down. These objects could also be used to break the window to escape.","conclusion":"The procedures used for school shootings are some of the worst things that could be taught"}
{"id":"2b67488a-9adb-452c-a50d-8c4e37b725a2","argument":"It was a response to a Muslim invasion of Christian territory. The Seljuk Turks had invaded the Byzantine Empire and driven Christians out of most of Anatolia, finally making their way to the coast of the Bosphorus. Emperor Alexios I Comnenos had sent out a call for aid. Whether or not it was what he expected, the Crusaders succeeded in reconquering Nicea for the Byzantines and stabilising the frontier. The claims of Turkish abuses in the Holy Land cannot be dismissed. The Turks employed ghazis, religious fanatics, in their military endeavours, and reports from the Palestine did indicate the desecration of churches, the exacting of high tolls on pilgrims, and at times, the shutdown of the pilgrim route. Moreover, while Muslims had ruled the area for 400 years and there is little outrage now about those Arab conquests , the Holy Land repeatedly changed hands between foreign rulers. The Shi'a Fatimid conquered it from the Sunni caliphate, then the Turks, not too long before the Crusades, had conquered it from the Fatimids, and, while the Crusade was in progress, Jerusalem fell once again to the Fatimids of Egypt. In this context, what sets the Crusaders apart from all the other invaders?","conclusion":"The First Crusade was a defensive war and no different from the other wars going on in the region at the time"}
{"id":"106cdd2a-786d-4a41-9dd8-5fdbfbe1ce7d","argument":"To begin with, let me just say that I don't discount the existence of good April Fools jokes. I have seen some that I thought were well done. However, I still think April Fools Day is terrible. First, it seems like roughly 99 of April Fools Day jokes boil down to I lied to you and you believed me for a second until you remembered what day it is How is this funny, or even fun? It just seems incredibly cheap and easy to me. Best case scenario, you get an annoyed eyeroll. Second, the basic premise of the day be careful what you believe for this set period of time no longer actually works, because thanks to global time differences and idiotic companies every year that try to be extra crafty by starting their April Fools bullshit either early or late, the April Fools period doesn't have a clear beginning or end. Third, it makes getting actual information around April 1 a nightmare because it's difficult to tell what's real. Many media organizations participate or run April Fools articles, and some of them suck at it. Last year, my company ran a joke article we ended up having to apologize for because so many people thought it was real. I worry that if some major, real but unexpected news event ever happened on April 1 it'd cause chaos because some people just straight up wouldn't believe it. In principle, I love the idea of a holiday dedicated to pranks and jokes. But it seems like April Fools is mostly just about poorly executed jokes that are really just dumb lies, and a 36 hour period where you can't ever be totally sure if any news you come across is real. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"April Fools Day is terrible"}
{"id":"e75ee778-2106-4bd6-a59f-04a9d14ab644","argument":"I can appreciate women coming together to demonstrate. Good for them. What I take issue with is hiding partisan politics in layers of equality and trying to brand something its not. First, I didn't see too many minority women in any of the coverage of this. How can it be an all encompassing movement and leave out significant portions of those it claims to be benefiting? Second, women, as whole, do not agree on many of issues presented. I don't see where any women would not be on board with some elements such as equal pay and not getting sexual harassed, but women are far from united on issues such as reproductive rights, environmental policy, immigration, and other elements of their stated platforms. Lastly, while I saw many pro women empowerment signs, I saw A TON of anti Trump signs, many plainly vulgar. I do not see where any conservative or pro Trump women would have been made to feel very welcome, even thought the reports are that most everyone was very gracious and polite at the marches that took place. Admittedly, I can only comment based on the coverage in the media as I did not attend, but I don't think I would have even if I could, largely because I don't think the intent was to further all women's rights, but rather to push a democrat, liberal leaning political agenda and to oppose the president. EDIT Lots if engaging conversation and much of civil, which is greatly appreciated. Some folks got close to making arguments that may have swayed me, but I find myself at the end of the day unmoved. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The \"Women's March\" should be more appropriately named the \"Women Against Trump March\""}
{"id":"683d95ff-c787-460b-bf83-4e090f5e75e6","argument":"It doesnt make sense that a government that encourages people to eat five portions of fruit and veg a day can still charge 17.5% tax on 100% pure fruit juices. The Treasury is essentially discouraging the consumption of smoothies and fruit juices. But to get people on the road to changing their diet habits then taxes on all things \"healthy\" should be reduced and if it means people are buying takeaway fruit and watered down fruit juice it is a start to encouraging people to try new things and buy the healier options on sale. With out people having an incentinve to start with you will not change peoples attitudes","conclusion":"The government campaigns to encourage us to eat '5 a day'"}
{"id":"2c002578-9452-4acb-a5a1-0edc80e65370","argument":"Joseph Smith falsely promised or prophesied that he would reveal the golden plates openly to the world by a certain date.","conclusion":"Joseph Smith changed his story about who other than himself would be able to see the golden plates and when."}
{"id":"8fb8b155-73db-4f7f-b549-fac7a2ad1e85","argument":"Genes exist in nature and therefore are not patentable. You couldn't patent gold just because you elucidated its atomic structure I feel genes are the same way. edit This only applies to naturally occurring genes and not to artificially created genes, those I believe should be patentable.","conclusion":"I think gene patents are unethical and stymie science."}
{"id":"7861f3b1-c20c-4076-98b4-f6445ef5ee87","argument":"On the assumption that God would could turn up in court it would most likely have the best lawyers.","conclusion":"God would wield its almighty power in order to unfairly influence the court's decision."}
{"id":"fd34ce31-d0db-4641-be30-7f069bfe899c","argument":"Susan Collins R-Maine is the only Republican senator left in New England and felt intense pressure to vote against the Affordable Care Act Repeal, publicly citing the need for a bipartisan replacement plan","conclusion":"Republicans in bluer states or constituencies feel pressure to vote against the party line when the Democrats are united in opposition to something."}
{"id":"edaaa01a-6d8b-430e-9cbb-23fd45364b17","argument":"Judaic religious tradition has throughout history emphasised education which has been an advantage to its adherents at places and times where illiteracy was the norm, for example in Europe in the early middle ages","conclusion":"Before modern states could provide welfare, religion was the only source of education, healthcare or economic relief."}
{"id":"477d7ef7-f97a-4af1-a9f8-840329b290c0","argument":"According to the German government, Islam \"belongs to Germany The country hosts about 4.5 million Muslims. It is not clear whether the Muslim background of many refugees, nevertheless, is too different from Germany's culture.","conclusion":"It is not clear where to draw the line between similar values and traditions and different values and traditions."}
{"id":"b254a933-c6a6-41d1-8781-0c4c5a9a25ca","argument":"It seems like textbook case of lesser of two evils to me. Whether the government is technically legitimate or not, Assad's regime has managed to keep a semblance of stability in Syria for several decades, something that will surely be gone if when he loses. The rebels have no unified political credo or long term strategy for ruling the country, should they win at best there will be a new civil war and at worst the country will dissolve into warring tribes. Either case seems to bode badly for the civilian population. Yes, I am aware that Assad has killed civilians in the past, these have not been ethnic pogroms though, from what I can tell. His regime has a religious minority at its foundation and has managed to keep ethnic and religious minorities relatively safe from Sunni purges. Ultimately his government appears to be relatively secular, something I cannot say about the rebels. Targeted killing of dissidents is certainly bad, but it's on a completely different level to religious and ethnic cleansing, examples of which can already be seen on the rebel side. I believe the best way to reduce civilian casualties which I'm taking as the main objective of the intervention, as opposed to the geopolitical chess that motivates the real life thing is for an international peace keeping operation to demand a cease fire in the region. Assad has expressed a desire to begin negotiations a while ago, citing the disorganised nature of the rebels as being the biggest hurdle, if a cease fire is imposed by the international community I believe only certain rebel factions will be in opposition. Ultimately the most desirable outcome of this would be for Assad to remain in power while agreeing to certain demands from the rebels up to and including ceding land, if it comes to that . For Assad this remains a victory as he gets to stay alive. For the secular rebels this would be a win as they managed to prove a point, gain international support and bring media scrutiny to Assad's regime. For the civilian population this would be a victory as secular rule of law would return. Obviously I don't expect this to actually happen, I just figure it's the best strategy if we want to minimise human suffering rather than fuck over Russia and Iran.","conclusion":"I believe the international community should get involved in Syria, but on Assad's side,"}
{"id":"854c3e86-943d-444e-bc1c-2c87f8450e64","argument":"The human brain, with which humans have conquered the world, is orders of magnitude more capable than the brain of animals and thus animals and their puny cognitive capabilities are worth less than humans.","conclusion":"Because of their biological characteristics, a human is worth more than an animal."}
{"id":"b482c882-fe44-4886-9c6f-1210ff6b3610","argument":"Everyone has free speech, including the POTUS, and pre inauguration Trump. I don't care if his speech or catch phrases were Islamophobic or racist against Arabs or anything else. The executive order itself the 2nd one that was revised was changed in such a way so as to fix the things the judges had a problem with the first time around. Now, their excuse for blocking it is because it \u201cdrips with religious intolerance, animus and discrimination.\u201d This is just an attack against the draftee, and doesn't address the legality of the order itself, which is all that should matter. This is a blatant abuse of power for the judiciary to be taking part in, and is worthy of impeachment imo. Or maybe there's precedent for this . UPDATE I have conceded that Trump's intent was indeed a Muslim ban, and that the intent is relevant. As such, I don't think the judges were abusing power. I found the death blow to my argument in the 1965 immigration act, which states no person shall receive any preference or priority or be discriminated against in the issuance of an immigrant visa because of the person\u2019s race, sex, nationality, place of birth, or place of residence. Religion isn't included, but place of birth residence is included. The only 'out' for Trump is in using national security as an exception. So the Supreme Court will get to decide if that's a good enough reason to break with the 1965 act. Thanks for the responses. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Federal Judges blocking Trump's executive order on immigration is an abuse of power by the judiciary."}
{"id":"1fed7143-748a-41ec-8514-8f0fcd70b806","argument":"Let me preface by stating I have no issue with gay people. I respect that homosexuality is a valid sexuality and people are free to marry sleep with whom they want. However, I think that Gay Pride rally\u2019s are hideous. People parading in very little clothes highly sexualised clothes is hideous. Imagine if there was a parade for straight pride in the same manner. People wouldn\u2019t be happy about it as heterosexuals aren\u2019t a protected class. I have also seen lots of children attending these pride events and it cannot be healthy for people being exposed to such sexual nature at a young age.","conclusion":"Gay Pride rally\u2019s are disgusting and a harmful influence on children"}
{"id":"8ba15630-d410-4da8-be3a-62909728f360","argument":"This country was founded on the principals that if you can be successful if you work hard enough. Frequently, you have families leaving countries rife with instability and uncertainty for hopes of a better life in the US. Often these people risk their lives, and the lives of their families to get here. These are people that believe in the American Dream. These are people willing to take risks to achieve it and a better life for their families. How are these not the EXACT type of people that we want to populate our country with?","conclusion":"Immigration, in all forms, are good for both the economy and the country as a whole"}
{"id":"e69de113-aefe-4d44-8154-253058437dff","argument":"I am watching the CNN International reports on the Russian attacks in Syrian and they are claiming that the Russians are attacking the moderate opposition to Assad. Among the groups that they admitted were targeted were the Al Nusra Front . And they also admitted that these guys are classified as terrorists by the USA. But they didn't dwell too much on that and didn't give any other names of any moderate opponents to Bashar al Assad. The BBC whose reporting is more objective mentioned the Russian position who say that among these so called moderates are plenty of extremists like Al Nusra front. A little historical context will clarify the myth of the moderate opposition in Syria today. Qatar had wanted to declassify al Nusra as terrorists. Qatar who of course funds a lot of whabi terrorism in the middle east, just like Saudi Arabia. The the united states couldn't go that far along with their demands. Indeed, I am from Lebanon and here our local news does mention the names of the other groups, and guess what these names have islam somewhere in them and the groups carry a black war flag the flag of islamism , just like Al Nusra for example. With that in mind, who are the moderate opposition? What are their political goals? Knowing that Syria has multiple religions and ethnicities, so an islamic system would not be better than Assad. I would like nothing better than to see Assad go and replaced with Democracy. As a Lebanese I remember the oppression of his regime here in Lebanon and would like nothing more than to see freedom for the Syrian people. But Islamism is not freedom. So I come here hoping that someone might have more information to change my mind.","conclusion":"There are no \"Good Rebels\" Fighting in Syria"}
{"id":"fc4446a3-5900-47c5-9d0a-2b5a7c48bfac","argument":"I believe that with most information available on the internet libraries have lost most if their usefulness. I admit there is still specific information that can only be found in specific books but wouldn't it be much more efficient and beneficial to the progression of the human race if we paid librarians and library workers to scan the info to the web so everyone can access it everywhere instead of dealing with books which are a horrendously inefficient form of gaining information today being slow big and heavy. There should be a few libraries. National archives and the library of congress and such but do small town libraries do much than slow the progression of our spread of information as a race? Change my view. Edit I can understand the appeal of a library now as far as being a community center. My thoughts were regarding a library for research purposes and I still believe our efforts should be put into digitizing the info for such things. I understand the appeal of using one as a community center for activities and such so my view has been changed. Still think books are inefficient for research compared to digital but I guess libraries aren't really for research anymore by the sound of it.","conclusion":"I think in today's society libraries are useless."}
{"id":"325450b5-a356-45ac-8bd2-d8ef47d0c866","argument":"The possibility of an actual infinity leads to absurdities as various thought experiments can illuminate for any sincere inquirer e.g. Hilbert\u2019s Hotel, Infinite Library, Benardete\u2019s Big Read, various supertasks","conclusion":"A universe or temporally ordered series of universes that did not begin to exist is philosophically incoherent because it implies the concrete existence of an actual infinity"}
{"id":"031f9b22-4f2d-46c0-aadc-e818bede2a04","argument":"For children who have been ill their whole lives, it is only logical that they would have a greater capacity to understand their situation Babcock, 4","conclusion":"Minors have the ability to play an important role in their own medical decision making Babcock, 5"}
{"id":"ad3cd830-5e7f-4455-9594-2afcec77e52f","argument":"The framers of the Constitution and founders of the Republic had just escaped one tyrant, and were against empowering and replacing it with another one. By granting immunity to someone over other citizens, and placing them \"above the Law an individual would be doing exactly that, against their wishes.","conclusion":"A higher standard should be expected from those who hold public office, meaning there is no room for even \"minor\" offences."}
{"id":"9b9633af-9538-4c1d-803f-cd29f4bf7891","argument":"John Appleby, chief economist of the Nuffield Trust, believes that discussions on the role of the private sector may have become so loaded that they were now obscuring sensible debate.","conclusion":"According to health experts, the public fear over NHS privatization is unjustified."}
{"id":"b19a4c9f-dedd-4405-8203-5764673d0d90","argument":"Wording this to be coherent isn't going to be easy, but I'll be damned if I don't at least try. I'm afraid for the future, I'm disgusted that I even need to consider violence as an option, I'm tired of yelling at a wall, and I know that I'm not the only one. We're constantly telling our administrations that this the TPP and its like is not what we want, but they keep bringing it back in one form or another, usually worse with each iteration. It's a war of legislative attrition and, despite this affecting everyone the world over, it seems the only avenues for fighting it directly are available to US citizens. This isn't democracy, it's oligarchy in democratic clothing. It's not a going downhill, it's already Orwellian. Leakers and whistleblowers people that should be heroes are touted as traitors or, even worse, not known to a lot of people. The rights and will of the people mean nothing in the face of corporations and their profits. There is no way to fix it the systems in place are thoroughly corrupt. There will be a breaking point. .","conclusion":"In regards to things like the TPP, the governments involved aren't representing the best interests or the will of their people. When democracy fails, the only path for change will be violence."}
{"id":"23256865-9efe-4137-84bb-2c9c6079d013","argument":"The people closest to me, in my opinion benefit from these privileges too. So, what's my motivation to vote fight against them? Here's a few arguments I've heard that I don't care for 1 Privilege isn't zero sum you can increase it for everyone. How? Evening the playing field means that those that are benefiting will lose some of their advantages, however unfair they may be in the first place. How else could it work? 2 Because you value equality and fairness. I used to think I did until I looked at my behavior, and realized that I only paid lip service to these values. And I think it's the same for everyone. How many of you are for completely open borders? How many of you give away the majority of your paychecks to help others born into extreme poverty? Most people do enough to ease their conscience which is normally an amount which doesn't threaten their position of western privilege. Yay, you give 30 a month. What happens when you're asked to make a real sacrifice? Do you still believe in equality then? I think when push comes to shove, you will protect your easy life. Why shouldn't I do the same?","conclusion":"I shouldn't rally against social structures which benefit me white, male, hetero privilege"}
{"id":"fefa7f1b-a499-4012-9efd-975320263bfc","argument":"This is a extension on another reddit thread where discussion boiled to issue about physical reality vs. visual spectacle. In my view world in any form of entertainment movies, games, books etc. should have same physical laws that reality. These can be bend only if it is explained with Applied Phlebotinum. Lets give some examples. Cars should explode when falling off the cliff unless they are primed with explosives , People should get hurt when falling from ridiculous heights unless superpowers and guns should only hold limited rounds and be useless in hand to hand combat. These are just to name few. Others include starship combat, slow mo lasers, artificial gravity, bulletproof tables etc. All of these look cool but are physically improbable unless they explain them somehow. I don't mean that movies should have sequences where someone explains how everything work. It could be something as little as replacing that old wooden table with heavy duty metal table or having someone in the background adjust our spinning space station to create that gravity . This are small things that increase immersion and makes story more believable. And almost every common movie trope can be altered so that it would still look cool but be possible according to known physics. Not to say that people should try this at home but they should be possible to do so. Writers should also realise that these estetic chances alter how the whole fictional world operates. If cars explode when falling down, shouldn't they explode on car crashes? Wouldn't this alter how people drive and actuality that there would be much less cars in the roads. This small detail chances how the world runs and operates. And not just this. Key word in this discussion is immersion. If I cannot believe that world is real why should I care about it? But if I believe the explanation just a little bit that explains the world it becomes so much more interesting. For example those stories that explain even a small details how magic work are much more interesting that just brush it off as just magic . TLDR Real world physics create immersion that makes stories more enjoyable than artificial esthetics. To change my view you should show how explaining something just in the background or a passing sentence takes away from experience. Edit My issue is about internal logic of the fictional words. So fiction have two options. Be realistic Explain why you are not and make that explanation realistic. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Entertainment should maintain internal physical reality"}
{"id":"2e97ff4d-551f-48a5-8d60-27f8fc25f227","argument":"guantanamo bay is a stain on the reputation of the usa that has acted to further the cause of terrorists around the world","conclusion":"The Guantanamo bay detention camp harms the US image\/reputation\/institutions"}
{"id":"080554b9-3ac2-47da-920b-a78f53c23f0f","argument":"OK, despite the circle jerky title, I believe I have a serious point. My understanding is that as Speaker of the House, John Boenher is the gatekeeper for which bills are voted on by the House of Representatives. Speaker Boenher is following a self imposed rule known as the Hastert Rule The premise of this rule is that only bills that are supported by the 'majority of the majority' are put up for a vote. Applying it to our current shutdown situation, it means that a budget bill will not be introduced unless the majority of Republicans in the House approve of the bill. Speaker Boehner has introduced a version of the bill with specific clauses in it regarding the ACA and such, which was then rejected by the Senate. The crux is that there are a significant number of moderate Republicans in the House who would approve a clean budget bill w no alterations to the ACA. Their votes, combined with those of House Democrats would easily pass a clean budget bill. BUT, because of the self imposed Hastert Rule, Speaker Boehner will not introduce a clean budget bill. If he did, the budget bill would quickly be passed in the House by moderate Republicans and Democrats . And then the Senate which has stated they will pass a clean bill ASAP . And then signed by the President. Therefore, the only thing preventing a clean spending bill from moving forward is Speaker Boehner's refusal to introduce it. And therefore, the responsibility for the government shutdown lies quite significantly on the shoulders of Speaker Boehner.","conclusion":"House Speaker Boehner is directly responsible for the current government shutdown,"}
{"id":"8c0595a9-053b-436b-997b-29e208100b13","argument":"The concept 'free will' is merely how we rationalize our behavioral response to external stimuli.","conclusion":"Human actions and choices can be traced back to deterministic causes."}
{"id":"89d9c2a7-2eb1-43a6-a291-f4d86512a55d","argument":"Movies are too expensive and because of that there is no creativity, Hollywood is a business studios top priority is to make their money back its only natural, but movies today are more expensive than ever before, we all know a movie don't need to be expensive in order to be good. The recent film, Logan is highly, highly acclaimed both by fans and critics, Logan Budget is 97 million compared with the other X Men movies that are over 100 million. And high budget doesn't necessary mean good special effects, a lot of movies today relay too much on CGI. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Too many movies are over budget"}
{"id":"585ae078-2af3-43f2-909b-dce077b85656","argument":"For those who dont know, of the 240 deaths on mount everest, over a hundred of the bodies remain on the mountain. Sometimes people who have fallen into the crevices have their crushed body parts thaw and fall apart which is gruesome, but people near the top almost are dead in poetic positions. Their bodies are often in places the underpayed locals go ah hell naw when it comes to retrieving the body, as they've either slid to either the edge of a cliff or over the cliff in a place that's not usually part of the main path. Many families wish for people to be left on mount everest The bodies are not desecrated or afflicted by disease. Neither is popular in the extreme heights of the mountain. It makes the climb more exciting and scary when you see piles of bodies on the route near the top. Though many have slid off into the non paths where nobody would risk going too. 3 means more customers. If you don't care about this, consider that the locals, who make 5~ grand per expedition, can feast like kings with that much USD since living in their country is dirt cheap. It makes the history and plights of the climbers more quantifiable and meaningful to future climbers, as opposed to just being the thousanth or so person to touch the top, they are both avengers and survivors of an endeavor.","conclusion":"Bodies should be left on mount everest"}
{"id":"73f47530-b9b8-492f-bbe5-72623dbe0490","argument":"The teleological argument, which states that unintelligent objects cannot be ordered unless they are done so by an intelligent being, which means that there must be an intelligent being to move objects to their ends: God.","conclusion":"Well-known are five logical arguments regarding the existence of God by St. Thomas Aquinas, which are also called \"The Quinque vi\u00e6"}
{"id":"56f93570-2695-4fe8-80a5-3e779307c149","argument":"A few days ago I was conversing with my friend, who prides himself in high standards. In this circumstance there was something that I liked that he didn't, and I'm glad that I like it because I got enjoyment from it where he did not. It got me thinking that it would be best to have low standards, because you will be happy with whatever is presented to you. Note that this strictly in matters of taste preferences. Obviously having enough standards in your diet to fulfill your caloric need is better for survival than not, but I'm not talking about that. . If something needs clarification I'll do my best to elaborate.","conclusion":"Having low standards is a good thing."}
{"id":"631929db-4186-49dd-b4a6-c255b2cd6ddb","argument":"Vision works by our detection of visible electromagnetic radiation through our optical nerves. Therefore, what we always see or rather detect is simply the electromagnetic aspect of the universe and not everything else. We don't see the magnetic aspects, other forces in the universe or other wavelengths of light like gamma. Our image is not invalid but it is always incomplete. The very nature of an image produced by light is well an image. Photons and our nerves produce something that is not directly perceivable as 3D but rather it is our brains that organize the 2D image in 3D. We are always potentialialy seeing a false idea of a 3D space.","conclusion":"We only see in 2D."}
{"id":"e6941fdb-74ee-47f8-8563-069f3b9f15d4","argument":"I see often a lot of people talking about things with no context. I think this is self centered and egotistical. Doing so is rude and obnoxious. The Internet l is a global inclusive community, so saying a comment like I was at BLANK the other day should almost always contain context. I guess a good example would be that I mentioned the coffee chain Tim Hortons the other day to a friend not from Canada but prefaced it with an explanation, even though it is one of the most popular restaurant chains in the country. I think that to not explain what is local and normal to you implies that everyone should know what you are referring to in the world. It's moronic, and self centered in a global world I don't expect you to know what Mucho Burrito is, so why do others shame me when I've never heard of a Chipotle? It's bizarre and speaking matter of factly, in regards to what someone sees as normal is being self centered and rude even if it isn't intentional It implies that the every one should know what you are talking about.  Side note These similar comments and ideas often come from those who have never lived in other other that their own situation. But the Internet is a global dialog and should be treated as such when your audience is not known.","conclusion":"Not providing context on the Internet is rude, as it implies everyone has lived as you have."}
{"id":"a6e54d40-ed44-49a0-81f8-de400d6221c5","argument":"Senior Japanese government officials continue to pay homage at the Yasukuni Shrine where over 1,000 war criminals of WWII are enshrined.","conclusion":"Japan's Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, has visited the Yasukuni Shrine honoring dead Japanese war criminals."}
{"id":"e267de61-2394-4330-938f-459c7bb4e367","argument":"In light of the recent events in Colorado this seems even more true. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has noticed it, but the Syrian refugee crisis has really brought out some of the nastiest elements in our society. Some quotes I've seen on facebook and elsewhere Our president is muslim terrorist piece of shit. We all know not all muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are muslims. All the syrians affiliate themselves with ISIS and wish to destroy us. While these are just a few examples of comments made about the Syrian refugee crisis, they illustrate how radical the far right is becoming and how little they value true information. This kind of baseless hatred will sew more domestic terrorism, and is actually more of a threat considering a lot of these people are gun owners than radical Islam within the borders of U.S. It's easier to track people from the Middle East than it is the millions of people here that espouse views that are just as radical as Islamic extremists. Edit Some great replies from the right, and I concede many of their views. I'm not sure anyone actually changed my view but certainly moderated it.","conclusion":"The far right in the U.S. is as dangerous as radical Islam."}
{"id":"627bad62-398d-456f-8c2a-242cf75736db","argument":"Two of Facebook's values as outlined by Mark Zuckerberg contradict those of ISIS: be open, and build social value for the world.","conclusion":"Facebook and Twitter represent values that are opposed by groups like ISIS."}
{"id":"9537ecdb-8373-44d5-8542-c34536426a69","argument":"Legalization could provide valuable data in tracking addicts in early stages when purchasing substances frequently. This could create the opportunity to offer addicts support at earlier stages.","conclusion":"Legalizing would lead to a better understanding of addiction in the first place."}
{"id":"4b736f37-93fe-4d82-b302-1705be41c288","argument":"I'll get this out of the way first I am a man. Let me also say that more than anything else, I believe strongly in the equality of not only the sexes, but races, sexualities, everything . I believe that everyone should be equal and I think this should really be common sense. And yet, I cannot bring myself to call myself a feminist. I think my reasoning for this is sound, and yet I constantly see people talk about how horrible anyone who claims to believe in equality yet doesn't use the term feminist is. This makes me feel horrible, because there is nothing I want more in the world than for everyone to be treated equally. At first I fought against it, trying to argue my position, and I thought that I was doing well, but I just got called names and mocked for it. Now, a lot of people that I respect very much have been recently saying this same thing Feminism IS equality, the terms 'humanist' and 'egalitarian' are misogynist , and I've come to think that there simply must be something here I'm not seeing. I'm either overlooking something or being unnecessarily stubborn in a way I can't seem to realize. Before that, though, here is why I still believe I am at least partially in the right The word feminist implies focus on women, just in its name. I don't mind this when used in connection to women's rights that's what it's for, right? And I certainly support women's rights, I just don't like the term because it seems to erase the fact that inequality is constant, from both sides. When someone says feminism IS the belief in equality for both genders , they are right, in the technical sense, but by its very nature, feminism only focuses on women's issues. Masculinism is stupid for the same reason, with the added bonus of devaluing women's issues. I think we need an all encompassing term, and feminism does not seem to be it. I have also been faced with discrimination from so called feminists simply for being a man. I understand perfectly that these people are NOT examples of the movement as a whole, but they are prevalent enough that I don't want to use the same word to describe myself as the word they use to excuse their hatred for men which is the definition of misandry, though they claim that doesn't exist . I have also been discriminated against for not only being a man, but daring to believe in equality. If men truly have more power, isn't it more to the advantage of feminists to get men on their side? Not according to the extremists. But those are extremists I am digressing. I understand that the term humanist was claimed by another movement which did not allow women to join. I don't use that term. I don't use egalitarian either, if only because of the negative stigma feminists give it, but that word means belief in equality for all people , and I cannot fathom what the problem with that is. That is exactly what I believe. It goes beyond sex or gender, it is all people, and that is how I prefer to think of it. Yet, if I were to call myself an egalitarian, I would be met with cries of such things as you're ignoring women's issues , etc. I don't understand how an all encompassing term would ignore any part of it. If anything, a term which focuses on women is ignoring part of it. Women CLEARLY have it MUCH, MUCH WORSE than men. That is the main reason I think Men's Rights in general is a load of rubbish. I think we should solve all issues of equality, but there are priorities that need to be followed, and I think women's rights are the priority right now. However, there are some issues on the opposite side which I think are just as pressing. For example, male victims of domestic abuse have hardly anywhere to get support. Either they are not believed, or they are mocked. It is similar for some male rape victims, though I have heard from a few actual victims that in recent years this has been getting much better. As a side note, one that I've seen getting thrown around is the higher suicide rate among men But I'm not sure how that's really relevant, because I don't see a way to change that without simply better mental health care for everyone, and even then the divide would still be there. The phrase not all men has been misused by assholes to distract from real issues, but I don't understand why people don't seem to realize that it's true. If you don't believe than not all men are like this, then you do believe that all men are like this this being misogynistic serial rapist murderers waiting to happen, if they haven't already. That is sexism. I perfectly understand the ridiculing of the term's most common use, but it seems to get washed away completely because of aforementioned assholes. Isn't that the same thing as discounting feminism because of the man hating extremists? I think I had more to say but I've run out of steam, it seems. I really, honestly do want my view to change about this, because I want to be able to understand why everybody else is arguing for the use of the term. Please, help me understand. I am as sincere as I could possibly be.","conclusion":"I don't see why people insist on the term \"feminist\" being used for someone who supports equality, rather than something which actually means \"belief in equality for all people\"."}
{"id":"008df2f7-9aca-4bff-a2c3-8892c61f5a75","argument":"I see no reason why there should not be extensive requirements that need to be met before you own a gun. Free requirements, but you should at least need training. People get so mad at cops for shooting random people, then they think its totally ok for every citizen to be packing heat, and think that for some reason a bunch of untrained people with guns arent going to shoot people when they feel threatened just like cops to ALL THE TIME. If people arent trained extensively, them packing heat is going to escalate situations. I mean hell, escalated arguments are the leading cause of homicide, above even gang violence and I see no reason why it should be considered ok, or that people should feel safe with everyone packing heat. Even if it did cut down on a few crimes, is it really going to be worth the amount of arguments that are escalated by Joe Schmoe feeling threatened and pulling out his .38? There should be extensive training before this is allowed. This lets people keep their freedom while making the situation safer. Edit wow, good thing you went through and downvoted all of my posts. Really changed my viewand contributed to intelligent discussion. Im talking about a happy medium of freedom and safety, such an ignorant anti freedom idea, right? Jesus","conclusion":"People walking around with guns is completely ridiculous and should require extensive training."}
{"id":"12e00c30-2d39-4071-a539-0ef2cd8d487c","argument":"'Reverse discrimination' would require minorities to be the actors doing the discrimination. In the case of affirmative action, the minority groups are not the ones doing the 'discriminating'. Rather, it is action taken by the State or university, both of which are overwhelmingly white institutions.","conclusion":"Racism is a systemic issue embedded in cultures and institutions. Members of minorities have no power to set majority norms within those systems and thus always suffer from - rather than inflict - discrimination."}
{"id":"b2a04cd4-43c8-46d3-9628-fd0bc833e527","argument":"Polio only remains endemic in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and there only 22 cases were diagnosed last year, down from an estimated 350,000 cases worldwide in 1988.","conclusion":"Viewed as long-term consequences of the industrial revolution and scientific advancement, climate change and declining biodiversity are a small price to pay."}
{"id":"e9b219e7-5c6b-4258-a1f3-ddcb2e3d9eea","argument":"The flaw in critique may be that it asks a person in authority to discount his own moral judgment and apply the morality of the collective will. It could be said that Eichmann did this. The collective will at the time being the persecution of the Jews. Therefore, the fault lies both in Kant's idea and in Eichmann's 'idealism'; his literal interpretation of Kant's rule.","conclusion":"Eichmann did not distort Kant but applied the ideas correctly, the philosophy itself has the flaw in it that allowed for the persecution of a race."}
{"id":"a3ef641b-e53c-4576-a6e8-338dfb1cee54","argument":"I think that it is important for the American people to know what really happens in the wars they vote for and finance. It seems that most Americans have a very idealized view of soldiers and of war in general. The secrecy surrounding American wars largely contributes to this view. I think the people paying for these wars and whose loved ones are dying in these wars should know the true costs of them. Bradley Manning helped expose the horrors of war and damaged the idealized image of American soldiers, and for that he is a hero. edit To add a point, I realize that Bradley Manning was contractually obligated to not leak those files, but I believe that any contract preventing a person from doing the right thing is automatically invalid. In my mind, what he did is no different from a member of a violent gang turning over evidence on other gang members to the police.","conclusion":"I think Bradley Manning is a hero."}
{"id":"312827bc-ed2a-444f-90be-9acd0ea56fd9","argument":"I am not here to debate whether or not white privilege exists but rather the fact white peiple who disagree who do not belive it exsits are shunned away to talk about. In essence this is racist, it doesn't matter if your opinon is right or wrong because your opinon is instantly obsolete due to the color of your skin The people who also say this reason that it's justified because their view is 100 correct, which is facisim Please leave the footnote below the following line, but remember to delete this sentence by replacing it with the body of your post. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"White people shouldn't be disregarded when talking about white privilege."}
{"id":"3702cd1c-0aaa-4dbf-8e28-a3fe07e19742","argument":"I don't see any reason why people would be sympathetic towards others, or nice or caring towards others unless there's a certain expectation that they will be treated the same by them. Perhaps not directly, vis a vis. That is, that just because you do something nice for someone that someone owes you someway. But unless you have a certain guarantee that you will be treated like a peer by those people, I don't see why you'd treat them better than they'd treat you. For that reason, people who are pariahs have no reason to be sympathetic or nice towards other people. Sure, there's the common courtesies that are unavoidable unless you want to raise a stink wherever you go but other than that, going that extra mile to be the nice guy or being sympathetic to the troubles of other people who look down on you? It's irrational. Why should you treat them better than they treat you, if there's no guarantee that you will be treated the same? Moreover, there's a chance they'll mistreat you, due to your pariah status. I see this comment about being genuinely nice and sympathetic and treating people nicely about those socially inept men whom people call Nice Guys, or otherwise loners and social rejects that always strikes me as completely absurd. Why would they treat other people with more respect, sympathy and niceness than that with which they are treated by their peers? That's a very serf like.","conclusion":"The drive to be sympathetic and kind towards people is entirely dependent on an expectation of reciprocity. So I see no reason why pariahs should be sympathetic or nice towards people beyond their best interest"}
{"id":"655df900-1067-429c-b46e-bba8ad226737","argument":"I'm sure many of you, including me hated doing homework after school, it was long, tedious and caused us to procrastinate a lot but regardless, homework is important for two reasons, practice and time management. We often forget the lessons during school and may not remember them clearly, homework is there to remind us of the lesson and practice makes perfect, always practice. Homework is also important for time management skills because when we grow up, we will have to manage time manage our own time for college , work and numerous other things, homework helps this by making us manage what time to do the homework at home. A lot of the frustrations we experienced due to homework was mostly our fault, we chose to procrastinate, do homework at late times, avoid sleep. Al the frustration could've been avoided if we slept at the right time, did the homework sooner and no petty arguments with parents which I was guilty of Some people say that homework is good but we have too much, I personally disagree but the amount of homework is not the same for every country","conclusion":"Homework is necessary and should stay mandatory for schools"}
{"id":"311a0e03-8b66-42fe-ad0e-cf6707c63fa8","argument":"Many industries, especially at the highest paying end, rely on people of various nationalities. This is especially true in places seen to be financial centers of the world, such as New York, London and Tokyo \u2013 for example, 175,000 professional or managerial roles were given to immigrants in the UK in 20041. When a policy such as this is instigated, many people will leave to other countries that do not have such a limit, especially if they are initially from another country. Furthermore, it will be difficult for a country to attract talent while this policy is in effect, as the significant difficulty moving country involves, such as leaving friends and family behind, cannot be compensated for by a higher income. 1John Salt and Jane Millar, Office of National Statistics \u201cForeign Labour in the United Kingdom: current patterns and trends\u201d, October 2006 improve this","conclusion":"This motion will lead to people leaving the country, and will limit the intake of skilled workers"}
{"id":"488fa7e8-ea83-4a20-b2e3-46d987a50f28","argument":"The arguments Christians have offered to compete against scientific explanations tend to display a transparent and noticeable lack of scientific knowledge see: every argument against evolution since Scopes . To boldly set up straw men in this way calls into question the sincerity of the speaker and the truth of their claims. To an outsider this is both a poor testimony for Christianity and does not inspire investigation into the reality of God.","conclusion":"It is an assumption that is both intuitive and reasonable given the history of the church, the existence of 1,000s of denominations and sects with incompatible views, changes to the biblical canon, Rome's tendency to mashup new religions with existing religions, and the lack of confirmed miracles."}
{"id":"db002396-9f0d-491c-85e2-776b33b29c44","argument":"There is no reason for each student to write down the content covered in its entirety when the same content can be delivered in a different form that is both permanent and well-organized.","conclusion":"Teaching in lecture form relies extensively on students' ability to take notes."}
{"id":"4c267c72-916a-40c0-aeea-29402871bb98","argument":"Citizens need to be able to budget, file their taxes, make sure they're registered to vote, and understand state services. These may not be covered fully in existing academic subjects and thus would be very useful skills to teach in school to have engaged and self sufficient adult citizens.","conclusion":"Life skills set a person up for the rest of their lives."}
{"id":"f91492c4-869e-49ab-9d5b-1a5f1e7c8d85","argument":"I'm going to give some context to my view point on this. Recently there has a been a news story about a teacher engaging in sexual activities with a student. The story is here Normally in these situations we hear that the relations were more secretive but in this case it appears that the parents knew of the relationship and approved of the activities between the two. I'm finding it difficult to present a legitimate reason as to how their consensual behavior should be considered wrong . Here are a few of my points so it is easier to dismantle my argument Both parties in question expressed clear consent. The 13 year old's legal guardians approved of the arrangement No persons were harmed in the arrangement The only arguments that I can see against this are that of a legal stance. But I'm finding it difficult to subscribe to the point that the 13 year old is somehow being taken advantage or is incapable of understanding sexual motivations and that the law is protecting him in this instance. I would like to hear some alternatives to my perspective. Update I'd like to make it clear that my premise does not involve the power imbalance inherent to the relationship between a teacher and student. My premise is only concerned with age and consenting parties.","conclusion":"I don't believe that consensual sex between a 13 year old and a 24 year old should be a punishable offense"}
{"id":"337ba060-83b5-4403-a152-67142a81b386","argument":"I believe that we should get rid of the citizenship test. Why are subjecting immigrants this test if many of us probably couldn't pass it? Who here really knows the answer to questions about our Constitution like the amendments that guarantee or address voting rights? If we can't answer them and I can honestly say I can't, why should we expect them to pass it if they want to get a citizenship. We are lucky to be just born here and get citizenship here automatically. We aren't really required to know how our country works. Why should they? They already risked their lives coming here for a better. If that doesn't show a commitment to this country, than I don't know what does.","conclusion":"I believe that we should get rid of the citizenship test,"}
{"id":"803460df-1a1e-4c70-9e1a-a2d0daf2da2c","argument":"Impeachment would be more dangerous for the stability of the nation: the American legal system is based on the Common Law so devising a system to make him fall would create a dangerous precedent usable in the future to affect presidents who are making right but unpopular choices.","conclusion":"Administrative Holding Area to act as a place to put claims that have been flagged for review with no changes for awhile. Do not create new claims in this branch."}
{"id":"5f2e9bdd-0b8b-40b6-8f3d-dca2b94cedda","argument":"A 2013 analysis conducted by Harvard's own Office of Institutional Research found that legacy status conferred a 40-percentage point advantage of being accepted within the admissions applicant pool.","conclusion":"At Harvard, the rate of acceptance for legacy students is higher as compared to the rate for non-legacy students during the same period."}
{"id":"a8649d88-73c6-4492-86bb-fd22ba99fa4e","argument":"technology within the last 50 years has negatives, and im undecided on if there are any positive significant effects that would sufficiently be beyond the negatives technology this is the broadest view on tech, and to narrow the scope, and so that you dont have to trace the history of technology, technology would the near full complete form of something usable in general life, and not the research or development of something in any earlier stages within the 50 years approximately within the last 50 years, is lenient and not significantly important, something from 1950 is fine here are a few negatives technological insufficiency an endless array of things do no meet expectations or necessity or what is possible high consumption of life usage of tech takes up much of life that could be used for other things such as living progress development of tech comes at the cost excessive working hours, and many other costs progress development of tech is slow, extremely extremely slow that's a pure negative as it directly affect tech and im undecided i dunno, or i know but am undecided, or im just indecisive, or i can't tell if i've decided or not so i dunno, or im unsure, or 'a lack of absolute certainty', or i dont want to decide and am undecided, or i do want to decide and am undecided, or im procrastinating as if on an exam, or im procrastinating on an exam, or i dunno anymore, or i always didn't know and still dunno, or i knew but i dont remember anyone due to a marginal form of amnesia, or 1 billion other interpretations, which shows the extreme limits of language and communication, as well as the failures of humans in their interpretations, for the sake of clarity but that's a separate topic , so back to tech on if there are any delta would be awarded for any examples that fits 'positive significant effects' positive anything that is generally good based on my views feelings significant anything that can be shown via examples, and anything where you make me feel this, and possibly other things? effects anything that can be shown via reliable data, and other quantifiable things that would sufficiently be beyond the negatives based on my decision delta from looking at some of the top posts here, it seems like ppl award delta for changes in views delta would be awarded for any examples that fits 'positive significant effects' as that would constitute a 'change' in views for on if there are any could also show examples against the negatives as another method, but i do no recommend this recourse, as any intelligent person would never have any views that was not based on everything they understand unless they were biased , so the likelihood of 'changing' the fundamental views would be quite the challenge oh yea, i completely forgot, it's advisable to not make any definitional semantic pragmatic points or anything related to language or meaning as that go nowhere since you would be talking about what i meant when im the one saying and i understand what i mean, and how i feel but examples that shows value utility in real life and every day life, and reliable high quality data, would get you very very very far  technology within the last 50 years has negatives, and im undecided on if there are any positive significant effects that would sufficiently be beyond the negatives gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"technology within the last 50 years has negatives, and im undecided on if there are any positive significant effects that would sufficiently be beyond the negatives"}
{"id":"eb79c3c5-f3fd-47c4-9598-e7e5721de771","argument":"The fiduciary rule was found to be overreaching by U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals which resulted in it being struck down.","conclusion":"The fiduciary rule, introduced by Obama, hurt investors which in turn hurts the economy."}
{"id":"4c8cf165-132c-472b-9cce-4c58aafe6dec","argument":"I graduated from a public high school in the United States and do not have a large depth of understanding into the education systems of other countries so this post will only apply to American institutions. Regardless of your political affiliation, \u201cfake news\u201d is a real problem that has only become further exacerbated by the massive rise of the influence of social media. A huge amount of Americans now receive the majority of their news from Facebook which is a platform incentivized not to educate, but to hold users attention for as long a period of time as possible. The consequence of this is a rapid increase in the amount of sensationalized, if not downright fabricated media we as Americans are consuming. I was on the debate team when I was in high school years ago. The first thing we learned before ever delivering a speech was how to correctly research facts and how to determine the legitimacy of a source. I personally never received this education anywhere else during my time in school. The importance of this knowledge is that I can feel confident that my political opinions and world views may be subjective but they are based in reality and fact. I believe that the most important element going into discourse is that all parties agree on the facts and background of the topic prior to engaging in discussion. I understand that reintroducing something like the 1949 Fairness Doctrine is unrealistic and possibly even unnecessary. I say this because I believe as per our First Amendment rights that media outlets like The Drudge Report, Infowars, and the Huffington Post have every right to espouse whatever rhetoric they choose. A major problem with our political system today though largely impacting our polarized climate is that people can choose to subscribe only to the news outlets that already support their opinions. People need to agree on the unarguable facts before we can attempt to understand each other and the laws that affect us. Vaccines do not cause autism. Human activity is impacting the global climate. Our drinking water is not turning the frogs gay. There are legitimate publications that deliver unbiased factual reporting and there are others that deliver opinion pieces and mistruths. Americans should be educated during their formative years to know the difference so that they then have the knowledge base to be able to form their own legitimate political views regardless of what side of the political spectrum they fall on. This is why I believe we should have standardized curriculum in public schools to teach young Americans what media they can trust and what media they should be skeptical of. Change my view. Side note This post is not about any particular issue or a criticism of any particular outlet. Convincing me that Huffington Post or Infowars is legitimate will not change my view. What the mutually agreed upon sources we reference in this proposed standardized model are is not the discussion, this post is about universally establishing the ability to identify trustworthy media as part of our education system.","conclusion":"public schools should be required to teach factual discernment and media literacy as a part of regular curriculum the same as math, science, social studies, etc."}
{"id":"acab1934-9a16-4079-adba-4d74f9d546a4","argument":"Kate Pickert. \"Can health co-ops do the job of a public plan?\". Time. June 22, 2009: \"apart from Group Health and Health Partners, the history of nonprofit HMOs is littered with failures. In the 1990s, a similarly set-up nonprofit HMO in the Washington, D.C., area called Group Health Association was forced to sell itself to Humana, a private insurance company, after its finances deteriorated to the point of insolvency. GHA, which had about 130,000 members, was plagued by falling membership rolls, strikes by staff doctors and nurses and competition from other HMOs. Before being acquired by Humana, GHA even tried to transform itself into a for-profit HMO to stop the bleeding. A partnership between two nonprofit HMOs in New York, Group Health Inc. and Health Insurance Plan of New York, is currently seeking state approval to do the same thing \u2014 turn itself into a for-profit company to raise capital.\"","conclusion":"Health care co-ops have a history of insolvency and failure"}
{"id":"6d9f8b1e-e80b-4ad0-af08-45a67f76ed78","argument":"Quick note I refer to Rust throughout the majority of this description, as it is the game I am most familiar with. My argument does not lie solely with that game, but with the Early Access system as a whole. As of late, there's been a large swell of Early Access titles. The earliest one I can think of that got major traction though I'm sure there are earlier ones was Prison Simulator, and now we've got Rust, Dead State, DayZ, 7 Days to Die the list goes on and I'm intrigued by the zombie survival theme . While many other titles I haven't mentioned are probably doing just fine with their Early Access run such as Starbound or Project Zomboid, which seem to be doing well , the majority of the press and attention is focused on the issues and failings of these other games. You can argue whether or not that's right, but that's another debate for another time. The problem is not singular, and its not the same between every single Early Access game. It could be the devs don't completely understand what Early Access means and put up a product that shouldn't be given that designation. It could be gamers that have a similar issue that is, misunderstanding what Early Access is. It could be a dev game getting more attention than anticipated and the devs are therefore unable to keep up with the critiques or the update schedule they were planning, and possibly cracking under the massive pressure the Internet and gamer culture can exert on things that piss them off. But whatever the issue, everyone loses. Additionally, I believe that these games that pop up as Early Access in alpha shouldn't be allowed. You should at least be in beta to ensure some level of playability. But that's not up to me to decide. Look at Rust. An amazing looking game with a great concept and huge potential. It could certainly go on to be a fantastic and heavily played game, a new standard, even. To be sure, it's been on the top seller list on Steam for quite some time now. However, I'm certain there are people who have heard all the bad press, the horror stories of hackers and griefers such as this incident the crappy modding in the forums, and decided the same thing I have Fuck that. People like myself don't want to deal with these issues, even if the game looks great or piques an interest, and Rust certainly does for me. At its core, it seems fun, and I love survival games. But all the issues that come with it being an Early Access title drives me away. I can see the counterargument to this, however. Its not for people like you. It's for people who can deal with those issues. Apparently not, or there wouldn't be such a massive outcry. People would be ok with bugs or glitches, or the hacks and exploits unprofessional players take advantage of. And then, it falls to the devs to handle these problems maturely and swiftly. Devs for Rust haven't really done that, as far as I've seen, and I doubt there would be as much outcry surrounding other games if that was the case for them. To me, this process alienates your players. There are many people who might have been diehard fans of Rust if the devs had released the finished game. They wouldn't have as many problems and they could've dealt with just playing the game with the few bugs hacks etc. a game like that is bound to have, even when it's a finished product . But consequently, the devs would be able to more easily handle those problems, as there would be fewer of them and not as many angry players. The supposed benefit of being an Early Access game is getting a large amount of public opinion before you release the game. Why not, then, do a closed or even open beta? Why make people pay money for an unfinished product, then struggle to keep up with all the problems, and thereby anger your prospective fan base when they've given you money and you don't even have a functioning game? Letting any average person buy your unfinished game means many people who aren't really prepared for an Early Access experience even if they think they are will be able to get in, feel ripped off, and get mad. Additionally, announcing a beta carries the connotation of an unfinished product, and is usually a little more controlled e.g. the ESO beta . Early Access does not have this subtext yet, despite ample warnings to the community, and there is no hard control or guidance. I would argue that this is because the game is listed on Steam, and people tend not to think past their nose. They see an interesting game, they think It's on Steam, it must be playable , and buy it without noticing that game is actually in early alpha. Devs need to prepare for and safeguard against this to maintain their reputation and ensure the game is well developed. TL DR Early Access has few inherent benefits over a solution such as an open or closed beta, and it carries with it a large amount of negative consequences that entirely outweigh those few benefits. Please . Edit Grammar issues, clarification, etc.","conclusion":"I believe the Early Access system is greatly harming the indie game market and gaming as a whole, and does very little good for gamers or devs."}
{"id":"9edb1484-c8fc-41d9-93d8-01e538853766","argument":"Faculty members who include diversity in their courses are much more likely to encourage peer interactions across difference, emphasize deep approaches to learning, use active classroom practices, interact with their students, and promote learning outcomes such as intellectual and practical skills and personal and social responsibility p. 14.","conclusion":"A diverse curriculum causes teachers to adapt their teaching style and factor in the complex relationships between learning and diversity p. 13."}
{"id":"065de983-d89c-4558-a4d7-79ed38b1f718","argument":"The enforcement of rights ensure that there is less social conflict for said rights in the future, this is beneficial for the overall economic stability of the countries at hand.","conclusion":"Aid ensures that liberal ideas are implemented into policies as they are often a conditions for aid to be given, e.g. property rights, respect for human rights, etc."}
{"id":"e4b20ff6-57cd-4519-93ce-73e88c16f99a","argument":"Bolsonaro was elected because the previous president was deeply unpopular in the wake of a struggling economy and a massive corruption scandal that engulfed ministers in his government.","conclusion":"Fringe movements can give hope and a promise for change to disenfranchised demographics."}
{"id":"e2739fba-b476-472e-9774-73d11c730283","argument":"For humans, a cat attack is less likely to cause serious injury or death than a dog attack.","conclusion":"Dogs are the cause of far more human deaths and serious injuries than cats are."}
{"id":"bc712418-d8bb-47a6-ac8f-dbe7c714bcba","argument":"Omnipotence, from the Christian Bible: \"with God all things are possible\" Matt. 19:26; \"All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth\" Matt. 28:18; \"the Lord God omnipotent reigneth\" Rev. 19:6","conclusion":"There are verses from all three holy books listed here which explicitly assert the omnipotence, omniscience, and omnibenevolence of God. See the Pros to this claim."}
{"id":"2133a04e-0b86-4e60-8ed2-82050e2541ee","argument":"To pick a state at random, Florida reports an average age at time of capital offence of about 28, with age at execution averaging around 45. So life incarceration by no means costs an extra 50 years of jail costs; it's closer to 20-30.","conclusion":"To put someone in jail for 50 years is a poor basis of comparison, since it greatly exceeds the average life sentence."}
{"id":"228cb43c-3719-4a09-a44d-525fe3293fd6","argument":"Pence has been a strong proponent of the Trans-Pacific Partnership a regional trade deal involving 12 countries pushed by the Obama administration.","conclusion":"Unlike Trump, Pence has been a long time supporter of free trade"}
{"id":"8aa64359-951b-47e7-98aa-d21e1764cae8","argument":"It would take far more time to convince individual members of Congress to vote on a specific bill than it would to convince a party.","conclusion":"Political parties allow for elected officials to form majorities and pass agendas through Congress as opposed to individuals who will disagree and block governance."}
{"id":"2b1700d8-c20f-49e3-9358-4c157ea24480","argument":"I consider myself a left leaning moderate. I'm not a Trump fan, I went into his election hopeful he'd do okay after voting third party in 2016 but he's certainly lost any modicum of support from me that I had. I think that whether or not he has done enough to get impeached is up for debate, but let's go off the premise for this  that he has. I will say I fear Pence a million times more than Trump. Trump is a buffoon, and has put some damaging policies into place, but under Pence we could expect the same policies plus the dial turned up all the way. He's extreme, has more government experience, his views on social issues are much further to the right of Trump's, and if he chose to run for re election in 2020, I'd argue he'd possibly be more electable than Trump and post a greater threat to whomever the Democrats nominate. Even if that last one isn't the case, Pence is straight up horrifying and I don't understand how anyone on the left side of the aisle would take President Pence over him.","conclusion":"Impeaching Trump is a bad idea because Pence is worse"}
{"id":"e24b37b3-822e-4820-a83d-e1115b462e4e","argument":"Politicians, such as New Orleans mayor Mitch Landrieu have noted that Confederate monuments are often erected due to an improper nostalgia for the period. Thus they reflect a failure to learn history.","conclusion":"Remembering history does not require maintaining statues in public places. A full appreciation of history may demand their removal."}
{"id":"ed9014cf-2629-46fc-bcff-c4b1b3699d94","argument":"I believe that suffering and death is pretty much always a negative thing. There are some fringe instances where euthanasia or assisted suicide is not a bad thing, however the reason it's not bad is because it aims to reduce suffering. When humans suffer and die because of mental illness, cancer, racism, poverty, war, or famine, then that's a bad thing. We should do what we can to prevent that suffering and death. I don't think many would disagree with me on that. When nonhuman animals suffer and die in animal agriculture, then that is a bad thing. Because unwanted suffering and death is bad. Like with humans, and because suffering and death is a bad thing, we should do what we can to prevent it. Finally, when an animal in the wild suffers because of disease, hunger, or predation, then that is also a bad thing. Suffering is suffering, and the cause of the suffering does not make it okay or less bad. Like with human suffering and farmed animal suffering, we should take steps to prevent wild animal suffering if feasible.","conclusion":"Unwanted suffering and death is a universally bad thing and we should do what we can to prevent it."}
{"id":"1299fc43-2c40-4025-84a9-2cc86044ec9b","argument":"I just heard that little quip from House. I don't take the stance literally however, the figurative philosophy sparked my interests. The safer we make cars, the more we enable reckless driving to continue. Of course this could lead us down a road that makes cars unequivocally safe, yet that would only enable reckless driving to the maximum as well. It's a weird duality. We may need more traffic cops in conjunction with the safer we make cars. One would think the opposite would be needed though. I would like my view changed because I think it's right to make cars safer, but I do not wish to increase reckless driving either.","conclusion":"\"If you want people to drive safer, take out the airbags and add a machete pointing to their neck.\""}
{"id":"c4a30165-0322-4f61-a36d-0f68c9e9fe38","argument":"There are people out there intent on doing bad things with guns bad guys with guns , and there are people who would try to stop them from doing bad things with their own gun good guys with guns . I think that if my county were to allow concealed carry for people without a special need shift from may issue to shall issue , I would be in greater danger when out in public. The incidence of gun violence in public places, while highly publicized, is quite low historically, and people with good intentions, particularly those with minimal training not police are prone to errors. I am more afraid of the mistakes of the well intentioned, than I am of the ill will of those who are out to do harm. Please .","conclusion":"I am more afraid of good guys with guns than I am of bad guys with guns"}
{"id":"a737359d-8e25-444a-89c5-efa404718cb2","argument":"Eastern countries e.g. Poland, Hungary and Czech Republic have refused to take in a single person under a plan agreed in 2015 to relocate 160,000 asylum seekers from Italy and Greece, even if that policy was imposed by the EU. A federalization would strengthen the obligation for all countries to respect their humanitarian and political responsibilities.","conclusion":"The USE would be in a stronger position than in the current system to design a humane and equitable joint immigration policy, one that serves migrants' interests, as well as those of the countries that welcome them."}
{"id":"98e00513-6d29-47f6-8989-3d097ebf617e","argument":"Okay, so the title is somewhat apocalyptic and certainly hyperbolic but that is indeed the gist of my belief. With only a few minor exceptions and debatable ones, at that , Democratic Peace Theory is largely true. A quick re cap of DPT Essentially Western style liberal democracies do not go to war with each other. Not included in DPT but included in my theory is the fact that Western style liberal democracies rank the highest in nearly all important measures of development, from literacy to mortality to education to security to finances and beyond. It holds true that nations that reach a certain level of economic prosperity, and with it the accompanying representative and at least somewhat non corrupt political systems, do not fight with other, similar nations. If that is true, then it must be the duty of the West, who espouses these liberal, democratic values to convince or coerce everyone else into following these systems. We have seen that you don't need the institutional history behind Western European economic and political liberalism for it to succeed. Consider Japan Forced in the mid 1800's to accept Western influence, it proceeded to modernise, turning itself into a Western style imperial power. After the Second World War, under the guidance of the victorious Allied powers, Japan became a liberal democracy, and despite a near uninterrupted three thousand year history of totalitarianism and feudalism, the Japanese now rank among the most prosperous and peaceful nations on Earth. Similar examples can be found from South Korea to Chile to Israel and beyond. This all goes to prove that you don't need to be European, or former European colonies US, Australia, SA, etc. to successfully Westernise and thus fall into Democratic Peace Theory. If, then, it is true that A Western style liberal democracies are peaceful, prosperous and progressive comparatively , and B You don't actually have to be Western to successfully adopt the Western system, then it must logically follow that it is the duty of those in the Western style liberal democracies to spread this system, unique in world history, to every corner of the globe. To that end, and, truly, with great sadness, I believe we must be committed to the destruction of all other economic political social systems, or, if not the destruction, then the alteration of those systems to the point that they are compatible with ours which many people would consider destruction anyway . Of course, I am not advocating the death of the adherents to or physical destruction of the locations in which these other systems exist absolutely not It is my sincerest wish that all people could co exist in peace, prosperity and harmony, and I have immense respect for and interest in the works and accomplishments of all the civilisations that have yet arisen on our planet, from the Islamic Golden Age in Baghdad to the Spring and Autumn period of Chinese history that brought us Confucius, Lau Tse and Sun Tzu, and beyond. Even so, it remains true that the countries of the Middle East as an example there are plenty of other regions of the world that are similarly un Westernised, like Central Asia, most of Africa, some of South America, much of South east and East Asia, etc. , with the exception of Israel and formerly Turkey worrying developments there, eh? , are neither liberal nor democratic, and this must be changed, by force if necessary. It is with this theory in mind that I advocate the West's cultural imperialism across the globe, and where necessary and possible, the West's physical intervention, in order to as soon as possible bring about a peaceful, prosperous and stable international order. Change My View, I'm intensely interested in hearing critiques and rebuttals TL DR Western style liberal democracies are peaceful, prosperous and progressive, and they do not fight each other. Because of this, all countries should be coerced or forced into becoming Western style liberal democracies. PS I hope this won't be necessary, but I will make it explicitly clear I am absolutely not a white supremacist or anything like that, and an Arab American or Pakistani Briton is every bit as Western as a French American or Scotsman, provided they are indeed Westernised.","conclusion":"I believe lasting peace will only occur once we have destroyed the other civilisations of the world and replace them with our own."}
{"id":"a5faecdd-f10a-49aa-b1a0-f3f736050be2","argument":"The Olympics in my opinion, is to challenge the boundaries of a humans physical abilities and see who is the best of the best. Its amazing what the human body is capable of when pushed to it limits. I understand the same level of commitment goes into being a horse rider, but I feel as though equastrian sports is more a test for the horses. In theory, a javelin thrower can use any type of javelin but still throw a winning shot, but a rider can't really do the same with which horse he she will use, therefore relying heavily on the horses ability to perform as well as their own. In the same vein, why not include the traditional horse racing with jockeys into the Olympics.","conclusion":"Equastrian sports should not be part of the Olympics."}
{"id":"6b9f9116-7f44-4c68-8877-c5e2fb06f0a7","argument":"It is possible that some animals deemed as inferior really are at an advantage that can save the population. One example is that if people were selected for positive traits, then the ones that are sickle cell disease carriers would be selected out. However, this trait protects them from malaria and thus are more advantageous than those without. Thus, removing them weaken's the capabilities of a population to survive.","conclusion":"Humans might have poor judgment on which animals should thrive within a population or not compared to nature and their assumptions can negatively impact populations."}
{"id":"31035bdb-cfa5-49ee-a56a-39a7368c9aeb","argument":"Basically, we can all quite agree on the fact that vaccines are effective, and overall, safe. Mercury and Formaldehyde levels are low enough for it to be completely safe. I guess the majority of Reddit thinks that vaccines should be required, so I won't explain that point unless there is a comment that asks me too. Anti vaxxers have been protesting for the right to not give vaccines, and spreading false information that can endanger the lives of many, many people. It's like that they are spreading diseases into the atmosphere physically. I think that it should be a civil offence, liable to a fine for spreading false information regarding vaccines. As for not giving your child an immunization, it should be punished more severely, probably with a very severe fine or light jail term. Edit I've been converted to the idea that if the claimer can show evidence that is strong enough judged by the court and scientists maybe? , they shouldn't be prosecuted. And a scientific study should never be prosecuted under this. Also, I think that there needs to be extra caution in this system, to avoid scenarios such as what u antidote mentioned.","conclusion":"Vaccines need to be required, and there needs to be a limitation to what anti-vaxxers can say"}
{"id":"cca654bf-7c73-40d4-9f36-b5e277c9a3b7","argument":"It is good for the individual to have the right to decide for when to die.","conclusion":"Every human should have the right and means to decide when and how to die."}
{"id":"69211084-c1f8-446e-8c2c-53ff219fdb44","argument":"In case anyone doesn't know what I'm talking about Reasons why I think this may be so From the wikipedia page, gt According to Edwards p. 160f. , F. Mairinger has investigated the ink of the lullaby and the Hebrew line and concluded that unlike the remaining Hebrew words, they were not executed \u201cin the typical medieval 'Eisengallentinte' with soot admixture\u201d. This points to a forgery. The parchment and the Hebrew pen trials appear to be medieval, though . I saw this as a pretty convincing argument. I'm not convinced by the other arguments in favor of it being a forgery presented on Wikipedia, but the fact that there are the Hebrew phrases written on top of the paper that seem to be totally unrelated to the writing's content suggests me that Zappert just wrote that in to come to his conclusion about it having been recorded by a Jew. The mention of goddess Tanfana referred to as Zanfana in the text, is also suspect to me. Why would a goddess who is supposed to be of any significance appear only in this random lullaby in the 10th century after all mentions of her had never appeared again after her temple's destruction during the first century? She would have survived in other sources as well, not just this one. Of course, I can't explain away the bit about the linguistic knowledge part that Zappert could not have known, and it would be possible to make a strong case with that.","conclusion":"I think the \"Old High German Lullaby\" is a forgery. !"}
{"id":"68158633-1240-4392-ac56-027205cfcb4a","argument":"I am a full blooded American female of the tender age of 18 who, a few months ago, decided, consciously or not, to stop shaving my legs. Other body hair is not necessarily dealt with accordingly. This decision has sparked entirely more arguments with many people, friends and family, than I would have thought. I still wear shorts and such. I am going to college in the fall, and in a very body conscious city. Many people, male and female, ascribe much more importance to my decision than I do. I stopped because I found it a super tedious chore and really don't think they look that bad, fully grown. I don't do it as some feminist, fuck society thing, and am still quite girly in terms of makeup and clothes. I am perhaps to be considered attractive otherwise, of normal weight and face appearance. So what I am wondering perhaps is if it is really as important as everyone seems to tell me and should I suck it up and shave so I can continue having normal relationships and will my hairy legs be a detriment to forming future friendships? So please comment to try to  Edit Just because it seems like a common theme, I am very hygienic in every way. Every day face washing products, deodorant, flossing brushing mouthwash every day as well. I definitely look conventional and practice good hygiene, better than most.","conclusion":"I don't shave my legs 18F and do not think that it is important or will impact my future relationships romantic and not"}
{"id":"58f2b69e-b7f3-4f50-8f23-3b4dc853af58","argument":"In the trolley problem, the person choosing whether to pull the lever or leave it alone has no way of knowing how many people are on parts of the track he cannot see. If he pulls the lever to kill the one, but the trolley\/train keeps going, he would be partially responsible for the death of any people obscured by the trainyard or around a bend that the trolley\/train then hits.","conclusion":"Any assumptions of metadata, especially metadata that a person in such a hypothetical scenario could not know, may artificially influence what would be the most ethical action in a scenario."}
{"id":"3684f5d7-5d58-44e2-9808-04d264d7332d","argument":"In an Eco-Park, no animals would be kept in a permanent state of captivity and a specialized clinic would be set up to recover and release wild animals from illegal trafficking.","conclusion":"Educational benefits and research can be equally achieved by Eco Parks"}
{"id":"ffdeb312-9cb5-4a1c-856b-d6b37c1625ad","argument":"Phase One the machine open source hardware software with only one revision in the wild at a time. Absolute minimum attack surface Transistors printed large enough that hardware software can be verified by anyone with a good camera or specialty hardware if needed . Write once read many memory Electronic voting machine also prints a paper ballot which is accepted or rejected before dropping into ballot box. Use paper ballots to validate digital votes vice versa. Phase Two Federal voter roll After machines are in the wild vet your voters as normal and use that opportunity to take a bio metric reading. Use that bio metric data to start building a master federal voting roll with as much data publicly available and verifiable as possible. Validate build the list during the off season, the goal should be to have every qualified voter included possibly with the aid of census workers . After a few election cycles with the two systems running in tandem you can switch over if it's ever proven trustworthy. This would ensure there is no voter fraud like illegals voting, or people voting twice, while also making voter disenfranchisement by states more difficult. If the machines are ever proven trustworthy you can also have them better distributed available for a few days before election day both to vote to verify registration with results only released after polls close why isn't election day a federal holiday again? . Voting and registering is much too much of a hassle in the US, we can do so much better. People deserve to have full confidence that their vote will always be accepted and accurately recorded and every vote should have equal weight . The Supreme court got to pick a winner in 2000 due to crap machines we still haven't fixed the problem almost 20 years later. Anyone who discloses a bug not only gets a hefty bounty, but a seat on the committee which designs manages the system. Obviously this is a fist draft, so please be gentle. As an aside, I do not support the death penalty for most crimes, but I actually think it would be a fair consequence for interfering with a vote.","conclusion":"Unimpeachable electronic voting machines are possible & needed."}
{"id":"2540d817-3d4d-4300-a1ce-9166bb0583d8","argument":"For about 50k, you can get a car with a fairly powerful motor and a nice interior. Getting up to the 100k range, you get a very strong motor and a nice interior. However, I'm unable to understand the appeal of paying 500k or more for a car that, most likely, performs the same as a 50k car. When I look at luxury cars, I see tan cream colored leather interior, a powerful motor, and that's it. I'm guessing that you're paying mostly for the little sticker that says the name of the car manufacturer instead of any actual benefit to the car. It could be the fact that I don't judge my worth by the things that I own, and I'm unable to understand the idea behind it. I imagine that lower end Cadillacs and Buicks probably perform the same function at roughly a tenth of the price.","conclusion":"I feel that high-end luxury cars Bentley, Rolls Royce, etc. are a complete and utter scam."}
{"id":"6a3bbe8d-dd52-4cc6-b3a6-989a1f97aa39","argument":"In my province schools distribute lists of specific items that the children must buy and bring to school in order to fulfill the requirements for the year. This is a list of perfectly reasonable items like pens, paper, glue sticks, etc. So parents all go out and purchase these items from retail stores at very high markups, spending an hour or two of time, and in many cases they overspend on unnecessary items. I believe that school boards government should purchase and have available these items for the following reasons governments pay well under 30 of retail for these items, probably even less, so the total cost would be much lower and leave more money in the pockets of families governments already accept it is there responsibility to school our youth, it seems perfectly logical that supplies that are REQUIRED for this should be supplied","conclusion":"schools\/governments should pay for consumable school supplies for children"}
{"id":"a8a5d036-badb-4021-b5e0-5e7b5dd7cbd2","argument":"Zoos are invaluable at breeding healthy new animals that are endangered. The San Diego Zoo, for example, is developing cutting edge reproductive technologies to rescue the Northern White Rhino from the brink of extinction.","conclusion":"Zoos also make efforts to breed endangered species and reintroduce them into the wild."}
{"id":"f49ae9e0-90ac-4d43-89dc-12cf15010432","argument":"The nuclear industry is always keen to point out how cheap it is to produce a therm of energy through splitting an atom. However, these figures tend to leave out a few details such as the decade of taxpayer\u2019s dollars it takes to build a nuclear plant in the first place or the 20,000 years it takes to reprocess the fuel rods afterwards. In every nation with a civil nuclear industry, the tax payer has been paying through the nose to keep it running. Even with all of this support, the price of nuclear industry is still not competitive. In the US alone the bill is running at over $150m in hard cashi, when British Nuclear Fuels Ltd BNFL had to start facing up to the costs of reprocessing its spent fuel in 2001, the British government was required to underwrite the cost of 2.1 billion pounds in that year with an anticipation of ten times that during the forthcoming years. The alternative would have been bankruptcy for the entire industryii. i Mark Hertsgaard. \"The True Costs of Nuclear Power\". Mother Earth News. April\/May 2006 ii Rob Edwards. \u201cTaxpayer bailout bankrupt nuclear plants; leaked BNFL report\u201d. Sunday Herald. 14 July 2002.","conclusion":"The nuclear industry has constantly required government bailouts and has never been commercially viable in an open market"}
{"id":"27a78adc-9f94-4b80-9f83-b7674dff143d","argument":"The way I view it, both cases are fictional books wrote by talented authors that are enjoyed by many people and both have a strong fan base. I don't think being a Christian is more than this . Using Harry Potter as the example, here are some comparisons Going to church on Sunday is like a convention. Harry Potter has a small enough fan base to only justify a convention like every 12 months Harry Potter Con? , while the Bible fan base is big enough to justify a convention every Sunday Bible Con? . The same way there are some Harry Potter fans that hope believe Wizardry and wizards are real, there are some Bible fans that hope believe God is real. When you are a hardcore Harry Potter fan, you make it an important part of your life, you know all about it, talk about it, build relationships with people who share that same interest, maybe even get a related tattoo, etc. When you are a Christian, you do the same, you make it an important part of your life, you seek other Christian people, etc. The same way there are people who claim to be Harry Potter fans without reading the books or knowing enough about it, there are also people who never read the Bible or know what Christianity is about but claim to be Christian. These are only a few points I thought of in a few minutes, but I'm positive there is more parallelism to be made. Please change my view and make me believe there is more to it","conclusion":"Being Christian is the same as being a Harry Potter \/ LOTR fan. It's just a book you enjoy a lot."}
{"id":"1dfd65b8-9652-4591-a0bb-b2fe7cae66a0","argument":"This is obviously related to the killing of Daniel Shaver. If you haven't already, you can witness the footage here viewer discretion advised My argument is that no cop should be allowed to kill a man because the cop felt threatened. Killing a person should be the absolute last resort, when the situation is imperative and no other action is possible. An act like that cannot be based on feelings of threat. Judge jury cannot order a person to be executed just because they have a bad feeling about him. The conviction has to be based on evidence. Same here, even though response time is much shorter. Feeling is not enough, for two reasons Feelings can be influenced by a number of things. What if you slept really badly the night before? What if you had an argument with your wife and she said she wants a divorce? What if another vehicle nearly hit you on the way to the crime scene? Lot of things can influence how we feel, not merely what is happening at the scene. Feelings can also change rapidly. There is no way to prove a feeling. Only I truly know what I feel, no matter what I project to outside. It's extremely difficult, if not impossible, for others to prove I did not feel what I later swear I felt. If I am allowed to do what I want because of the way I feel, no one could hold me accountable for anything. All necessary punishments should be based on verifiable evidence and the punishment should fit the crime. But what if the person does not respond appropriately to orders? You know, like Daniel Shaver. Well, honestly there could be a number of reasons for that for example he might be drunk, on drugs, panicking having a breakdown, mentally handicapped or simply does not understand English well. Because reasons other than he is going to kill us exist, there needs to be at least another factor, like the suspect being verbally aggressive and threatening. I should not be killed just because I had a twitch on my leg and the cop had a stressful day. Not even if I reach to pull up my pants. If I am not armed, I pose no threat and ANY fatal shot is not justified. How can cops know if I can pose harm? Either by my aggressive behavior or witnessing the presence of a gun. But then the cops get shot right? No. The likelihood for that might increase, sure, but the likelihood for innocent person getting shot needlessly also vastly decreases. At worst, it's a zero sum game. At best, the society at large benefits, with fewer people dead. Also, I have to note that a cop that has his gun already out and pointed at the suspect, has a huge advantage in response time. It takes 0.5 seconds or less to pull the trigger. For the other to reach and pull out a gun, extend their shooting arm, aim and pull the trigger, it takes about 2 3 seconds. Odds simply favor the cop. So cop deaths might not even increase, even if cops have to wait an additional second to identify a gun. Nevertheless, in all scenarios the appropriate action should be the action of least harm. Frisking, restraining, detaining, taser, warning shot or non lethal shot first. Fatal shot should be the absolute last resort, when others are not available. Daniel Shaver should have been frisked and detained when he was on the ground. The cops outnumbered him 3 to 1, had their guns ready and he was unable to harm anyone when on the ground, hands over his head. Result from his non compliance should not have been a fatal shot. Maybe no first shots policy would be too much, but at least cops should not be able to shoot until the threat weapon has been verified to exist. Having a feeling of threat is not enough. Sudden twitches or movements towards waistband or glove compartment are not enough, as the suspect might be unable to rationally think about what his actions look like to a stressful cop. And even then, shots should be non lethal maybe use rubber bullets first and foremost, until all the other options have been exhausted or impossible. I don't think this is the case nowadays. Same goes for me, or anyone really. I cannot beat up a guy, just because his presence threatens me. Not even if his hand is in his pocket. If he threatens me verbally or non verbally like getting extremely close and touching me , I would should be allowed to do the action of least harm to protect myself. But even then I definitely should not be allowed to kill him as my first instinct . Only if I know for sure that my life is in mortal danger, and it's my life or his. Police should follow the same rules, pretty much. The bottom line I cannot be thrown into jail for robbery, if I was literally unable to rob that bank, no matter what the police thinks . And likewise, I cannot be shot to death, if I was unable to pose a serious threat, no matter what police thinks . And the fact is that if I face 2 3 armed police officers, my unarmed ass simply poses no threat to them. Just because they feel I might be dangerous or armed is not enough to sign my death warrant. Nor is death appropriate punishment for my failure to comply with all of their orders. EDIT Lot of good responses, no time to reply to them all. Thanks regardless gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Police should not be allowed to kill an unarmed man just because he felt threatening or failed to comply."}
{"id":"136c34e9-c16d-4adc-8424-1fee6cd574d8","argument":"Physical attraction is one of the major factors driving love marriages. Physical attraction however fades with time as people grow older, which can lead to undesirable results.","conclusion":"Couples in arranged marriages tend to feel more love for one another as time goes on."}
{"id":"cd3bb942-90f9-44da-84e4-c6b7370cc408","argument":"Let me begin by saying that I use AdBlock on every computer that I own. However, I can't help but notice how it is morally and I'm only arguing morally equivalent to piracy. Lets take the example of a content creator on YouTube. It's their job, and their videos are their products. Whenever you watch an ad, part of the amount paid by the advertisers goes to the content creator. By using AdBlock, we are circumventing the price that the content creator determined for his her product. How is this not morally equivalent to pirating a game app? In both cases, we are preventing the creator from receiving the monetary compensation they agreed to sell their product on.","conclusion":"Using AdBlock is morally equivalent to piracy."}
{"id":"12c0147f-a853-4e20-a1c8-4c2f14e85039","argument":"Ah, like it says in Dust In The Wind. Every line in that song is correct except for nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky. Probably won't last forever either. I believe that it doesn't matter what you do in life. Well, not in the big scheme of things anyway. Human endeavors such as developing a cure for cancer or ending world hunger are all very noble, but futile nonetheless. Maybe we'll get there someday, but does it matter? For now it seems like it does, but when our species dies out it won't. God probably doesn't exist and nobody gives a shit. You create your own meaning in life is wishful thinking, because your meaning ultimately doesn't really matter to anyone or anything but humanity at large, if that. And if it doesn't matter, it's not meaningful. I'd love to be wrong on this one, so go ahead and change my view.","conclusion":"Human existence is futile."}
{"id":"06e16ed5-ed03-4ee8-934c-73b36677903a","argument":"Needless to say, I've always been pro democracy. I thought the problem was that we don't have enough of it. I thought we should not only get money out of politics, but I wanted to get politicians out of politics and have a direct democracy. In my heart I still want that, but I've concluded we can't handle it. America is simply too stupid. Democracy only works if we have a very disciplined, well informed public. Not one that can be persuaded by a 30 second campaign ads and bumperstickers. I mean Trump supporters are unamerican nationalists. But the democrats aren't much better At least the Trump supporters know what they stand for. We really don't deserve the democracy we have. It's a beautiful decentralized system of checks and balances, designed to distribute power from the bottom up. Yet nobody knows who their assemblyman is, or what a state assembly even does, for that matter. I know I didn't for most of my voting life. I'm tempted to believe our national ignorance is due to lack of education. But we spend 12 years learning social studies and they fail to teach us about our basic political structure. We simply graduate believing we elect a president to act as king. So please change my view. It sucks to be this cynical.","conclusion":"We haven't earned a democracy and we deserve the oligarchy we have today."}
{"id":"40b5db75-5e27-4646-b699-b6c83d9c8001","argument":"At some point on a long journey you have to charge the car for a long time. If you have two drivers you can't get straight back on the road. With a fossil fuel car and two drivers, you can go along way with only very minimal stops.","conclusion":"It takes a long time to charge an electric car."}
{"id":"fc9aeda3-926a-45ec-8060-ae562ec749e4","argument":"I think the best analogies for my case is the fat guy that keeps going to the gym, but can't drop a pound, because he always rewards himself with a burger fries cake or the lottery millionaires who win millions then find themselves broke in an year or two. In fact, let's keep talking about the lottery millionaires, just like the fat guy at the gym, he has poor discipline and self control. He has money and he frivolously spends them it doesn't matter if it's 10 or 1 000 000 they will be spent on things that would provide no return on investment like opening a business or education or heck, even bribing your manager . So you provide a safety net or some other type of welfare program, so now the poor folk save 100 or 200 or however much the program saves them, but instead of using that money to better their lives on the long term, they dump them in a new expensive bag, shoes, first class tickets to a match or what have you. My point is that creating massive welfare programs isn't going to stop poverty, no amount of government interference would ever erase poverty. In fact, there'll always be a large group dare I say majority of working class who are stuck in their position not because of the lack of hard work or talent, but because they have absolutely no self control when it comes to spending. And there's nothing other people or the government could do to help them unless they help themselves. Some people do get out, but they usually do through good use of money. Bottom line is that while some social programs are beneficial I would not argue that all of them are massive social welfare benefits help no one and are a burden on the taxpayers.","conclusion":"Social programs are no substitute for a good financial education and throwing money at people who cannot handle money is a waste."}
{"id":"b5b49ff7-f855-43f1-a734-8704aec55d19","argument":"The government is democratically elected by its citizens, therefore it has a mandate to implement measures that balance civil liberties with the safety interests of its citizens.","conclusion":"Governments always have to balance civil liberties with the safety interests of their citizens."}
{"id":"d6980864-3208-41ed-84f4-ad4346691a2d","argument":"For example, omnibenevolence could be defined\/understood as \"loving all that one creates and desiring their good and acting to achieve their good in all ways that do not violate one's nature or other intrinsic properties. including, in God's case, properties like logic, omnipotence, justice, etc.","conclusion":"Epicurus' Trilemma only exists if God's superlative attributes such as omnipotence are defined colloquially or imprecisely. Under standard philosophical definitions, the trilemma does not exist."}
{"id":"2c83d191-beb3-45fa-9eac-0a246e989caa","argument":"Victor Kiam Entrepreneurs are risk takers, willing to roll the dice with their money or reputation on the line in support of an idea or enterprise. They willingly assume responsibility for the success or failure of a venture and are answerable for all its facets. Private Enterprise can cope with the need for long-term planning. The interplay between the different managers and stockholders works to instill a strong sense of self-preservation in such enterprises. Private enterprises, when regulated properly, work to ensure their own long-term survival. Unlike the government, their survival is a not guaranteed and b dependent on efficient running of the business practice. They are forced to make attractive yet sustainable proposals to consumers, who as responsible individuals are allowed to choose from a wide variety of schemes within a market framework that is liberated from government intervention but still supervised to ensure competition. Allowing for the flourishing of private enterprise aligns incentives with efficient, sustainable and long-term minded practices. The way government schemes function act creates a pension time-bomb. The system works by the current generation of workers providing the pensions for the previous generations. Given the aging population this creates a time bomb that most developed countries are facing. Chronic failures of this system coupled with public mismanagement leads to an unsustainable situation. Private institutions gather contributions from workers which then form the basis for their pension which is more sustainable. Moreover, given proper regulation, private institutions will be adverse to excessive risk as consumers will choose to move to other providers. Private corporations are better suited in the long-run than the government allowing for sustainability.","conclusion":"Private Enterprise is more suited to long-term planning and sustainability"}
{"id":"c1ca824a-faf7-4b33-b9c6-6b0cbbc42603","argument":"After years of legal proceedings children born in the host country will be integrated and therefore their families cannot effectively be returned even if their asylum application was rejected.","conclusion":"Those who came in illegally and were rejected because they aren't real refugees will remain here, because it's almost impossible to take them back to their countries."}
{"id":"24659bd0-d338-4f2f-bbc5-20caafd5b4ab","argument":"People in religious societies are made to believe that members and proponents of the LGBTQ+ community are destined for eternal hell and suffering. Hence the choices these people make with regards to things like conversion therapy are coerced choices at best.","conclusion":"Increasing current regulation could ensure that consent is always fully given by participants as opposed to family pressures or other social pressures."}
{"id":"9c01bdb5-4a7e-42e5-b6ef-433250c18847","argument":"It would not always be practical to increase foreign language teaching to being mandatory for all students. In the United Kingdom for example there is a shortage of foreign language teachers already with 73% of Local Education Authorities struggling to find teachers, particularly for Maths and Languages.1 At the same time in many countries there are worries about their competitiveness in the world due to the success of East Asian countries in education. The PISA tests shows that East Asian countries, particularly China Shanghai and Hong Kong, South Korea and Singapore far exceed countries where English is the first language in Maths and Science leading to a need to improve those subjects first.2 1 MailOnline, \u2018Teacher shortage reaching crisis levels\u2019, 2 PISA, \u2018What Students now and can do: Student Performance In Reading, Mathematics and Science\u2019, OECD, 2009,","conclusion":"In many countries it would not be practical to have foreign languages as mandatory."}
{"id":"5a9cf73f-d373-4edf-8dc0-68376d14e76b","argument":"In the early days of the novel 18th century , a lot of books were written to resemble actual, real documents Dangerous Liaisons was purportedly a collection of real letters thrown out of a carriage at the author's feet Gulliver's Travels were supposedly actual travel diaries from one Lemuel Gulliver. The notion that some of the stories being published could actually be real not only added to the popularity of such books, but were also a measure of the gullibility of the reader it said something about you if you accepted or rejected the existence of Houyhnhnms. I believe the correct term for this is mystification although that term can also refer to deliberate, malicious forgery with intend to defraud, like James Frey's A Million Little Pieces I'm referring to writing that is not malicious in intent, but playful . As books became more mainstream, and readers more experienced, this kind of deception became less and less effective. These days, bookstores have clearly marked Fiction and Nonfiction sections, and authors presenting fiction as reality might face a lawsuit or public scorn. And that's a shame fiction that provokes and possibly upsets its audience is a testament to the power of the written word. The practice of deceiving your audience has largely fallen out of use. One notable exception is the movie The Blair Witch Project, which was carefully marketed to be actual footage, going so far as contractually forcing the actors involved in the movie to not make any public appearances after the movie came out. Again, the idea that this could actually be real was what made the movie such a sensation which is not to say that it's a masterpiece necessarily . Now on to the Jenny and Carly story for those who don't know it, a series of r tifu posts here is part 1 claiming to be about OP discovering his wife's infidelity . The posts have become wildly popular over the last few days, and have invited lots of speculation about their veracity. People are examining OP's posts for clues that he's lying, and I think it's safe to argue that not knowing if it's real or not is part of the attraction of the story the comments definitely suggest so . Many comments also say that the posts are entertaining regardless of whether they're true or not. So popular, controversial, playing with notions of truth or falsehood it fits the bill. My conclusion is that, if forged, OP's posts can be considered as a form of literature. You can argue about the quality of the literature, but you can't deny its impact plenty of redditors were mesmerized for several days, hanging onto every update that OP produced. Plenty of published books cannot claim the same kind of effect. Most of all, I applaud the fact that a new channel has been found for presenting fiction as fact. I'd love to hear your arguments against my claim. Edit Delta awarded to u DaystarEld. Calling this 'literature' is too much of a stretch. Edit 2 Delta awarded to u duckwantbread, who rightly points out that the deception only works because it is pandering.","conclusion":"If the Jenny and Carly story is fake, it should be praised for reinveting mystification, not condemned as deception"}
{"id":"ae27de9c-9a1c-4545-a82f-bd55e15b690f","argument":"While I fundamentally agree with the idea of a free and open internet, one which is not governed by any international financial, economic, technological superpower and not controlled by the enterprising 'free market', I believe if net neutrality were to be defeated it would lead us to a MORE ideal internet. If Net Neutrality were to cease to exist in its current form, a significant push would be to anonymize traffic, secure connections and ultimately be better safer internet for all.","conclusion":"Net neutrality is a bad for the progress of privacy on the internet"}
{"id":"a85f0978-bbbd-4e1d-8b95-41805e5f8081","argument":"A video apparently showing a group of Catholic schoolchildren in MAGA hats mocking a Native American protester has recently gone viral, with the typical Twitterati incandescent with rage at the audacity of these priviliged teenagers acting so disrespectfully. The Catholic high school has been identified, and people are working to try to identify the kids involved. However, watching the video, it seems pretty clear to me that it was the Native American guy who was deliberately provoking the kids and looking for a reaction. According to one of the kids they had been attending a pro life march and were simply waiting for their transport home when they were set upon by the protesters. The Native American chap deliberately goes right up to the group, starts loudly chanting and beating his drum inches away from the face of one of the kids, which is a pretty aggressive action. The kid, who has been widely criticised and mocked online, actually handles things pretty well in my view he stands there smiling, and doesn't react aggressively. This seems like an entirely manufactured effort to discredit Trump supporters. The kids may not have acted in a 100 culturally sensitive way, but newsflash they're kids , and were probably a little bit intimidated. They do not deserve this widespread characterisation as racists. If anything, the Native American guy is the one who deserves criticism grown men shouldn't try to intimidate schoolchildren. Change my view . gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"If anything, the Native American guy was the one doing the harassing. The MAGA kid did nothing wrong."}
{"id":"6cec499a-ffcc-42c4-82e9-596e043b741d","argument":"According to the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism CSHE hate crimes in the US have risen by 9% in 2019. This rise is the fifth consecutive increase and the steepest rise since 2015.","conclusion":"Researchers say that the US and UK are among countries that show a worrying rise in religious discrimination and hate crimes as a result of the same."}
{"id":"1e3070cb-cf94-488e-af2e-3cc338d29994","argument":"I work as a social worker for the developmentally disabled, and my state is thinking about eliminating subminimum wages for those that work in sheltered workshops day programs for the developmentally disabled, basically . Most of my clients attend a sheltered workshop during the day. There is both subminimum wage work and minimum wage work. Subminimum wage work is piece rated and based on how quickly you work. For example, if the job is to put a stamp on an envelope, someone that puts stamps on 1,000 envelopes in 1 hour is going to make more than someone who puts stamps on 20 envelopes in 1 hour. Most of the time, subminimum wage work pays below minimum wage duh , but it is possible to work quickly enough to earn above minimum wage doing piece rated work. Minimum wage work in the facility usually consists on doing janitorial work for the facility or going out to job sites. An example of this would be a small group of people going out to a local bar for a couple hours in the morning to clean, and then returning to the facility. My state is looking at eliminating subminimum wages, and I view this as a largely political move. We're a blue state, and it sounds bad if someone says that our state allows employers to pay disabled people illegally low wages, even though subminimum wages are legal under certain circumstances . The biggest problem I have with this is that many of my clients rely on the subminimum wages they earn. Their checks aren't very large, but every little bit helps. If they live on their own and their social security checks don't fully cover rent, utilities, and food, their income makes up for it. These individuals may not be able to, or want to, work at a minimum wage job in the community. Also, for those that live in group homes, although they don't really need to make money to cover living expenses state pays for everything , they love to use their income to pay for a cell phone, vacations, camps, etc. Our state has already been pushing a lot of programs that help people with disabilities find jobs in the community, and these programs can coexist with subminimum wage work in sheltered workshops, at least in my mind. The state thinks differently and wants to end subminimum wage work soon. Considering I plan to stay in this field for a while, I'd rather not be resentful towards the state if they do decide to take subminimum wage work away. Am I missing something in my view? Edit I'm all for making every job pay a living wage or minimum wage, but this would cause most subminimum wage work to be eliminated, meaning a majority of my clients would probably be out of work. Thus, I would want to keep subminimum wage work legal. Edit 2 When I say subminimum wage work, I don't mean hiring someone to work as a burger flipper for 0.50 hr just because they're disabled. Subminimum wage work is by definition piece rated work, meaning the work must be measurable. If a normal worker can put a stamp on 2,000 envelopes an hour, than someone that can put a stamp on 200 envelopes an hour will earn 10 of the minimum wage. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Subminimum wage should remain legal for the developmentally disabled"}
{"id":"964d4d34-6022-4f9f-be80-55ccff368b69","argument":"Please help me, I really need to get out of this mindset. I know some people who are Doctors Adam Flamer Caldera and Engineers Peitro Boselli and kind Engineers Ranveer Allahabad who are build or have good figures and have careers in the fields I've said in the topic but I need more potential role models. I'm sorry if I hurt someone's feelings with this statement. I think that I've got this view from the stereotypical muscle guys that the media portraits and some of my own personal interactions. I did an engineering degree and I've only met a handful of muscled or built guys who followed those kind of streams throughout my academic life and even some of those guys were struggling I felt somewhat sad typing that sentence, I could've helped if I could but I myself was struggling and their overall character which was filled with macho, girl banging, trouble prone conversations and actions and stuff which is not my cup of tea, therefore I kept a very good distance from them . This view that I have is so bad that even if I see a well suited built or muscle guy, I think that the value that they give themselves, shows that they have or their company has given them is somewhat false and exaggerated. I literally thought that Peitro Bosseli didn't write his Master's thesis alone and that his professor wrote a major part for Peitro. Do you understand how bad this is? I don't want to be that kind of a judgemental person. I want to change this thought process. Please help me by your thoughts and role models. Thanks.","conclusion":"Built guys or Muscular guys are dumb and knows only to boast about their bodies. Doesnt under- stand science or technology. They are probably judgemental and mean towards other people who doesn't look good. Probably narcissistic."}
{"id":"219edef4-f153-46f1-af94-eb343f68d016","argument":"Rainforest Action Network, an environmental non-profit organization, stated the following in a fact sheet on its website titled \"The Dirty Truth about Clean Coal,\" available at www.ran.org accessed Sep. 17, 2009: \"The concept of CCS is that we can curb climate change by capturing the emissions from coal plants and store them underground, safely away from our atmosphere for eternity. The most glaring flaw in this concept is that CCS technology is not likely to be a commercially viable option for at least another decade, and new coal-fired plants are slated to begin construction now. There are also no working models of CCS at a commercial-scale power plant anywhere in the world.\"","conclusion":"CCS will take far too long to implement for climate change"}
{"id":"acc4ac92-e62c-474b-8f70-03c2a575e8e4","argument":"An inability to elect a government that was reflective of their own beliefs led to the Scottish referendum: whatever way Scotland votes, they get a much more right-wing government than they want as England has the majority of seats in Parliament. Such sentiments will only be exacerbated when power moves even further away to a supra-national level.","conclusion":"Loss of sovereignty is never popular, and will lead to increasing political discontent. This will only hinder the stability of the USE."}
{"id":"8abf0462-0e8d-46b0-bccf-c97c0ef6c865","argument":"Edit I went to bed and woke up, and I have work, and have way too many inbox replies to be able to deal with them all. I had a good time, and thanks to all the responders. I posted a lot of views, and while not all have been changed, y'all did correct quite a few. Thanks, again I'm a soldier, and I want to be able to proudly serve under my next president. The only problem is I absolutely hate Hillary Clinton. Like, entirely despise her. Below I will post what I believe, and they are beliefs I don't want to believe in. Please change my views. In my oath of service I swore to obey the Constitution above the president. I don't want to spend the next 4 8 years believing I'm not following my oath. I see her as a puppet to huge donors, such as massive corporations, and foreign nations like Saudi Arabia. She has no care for the actual American people. She gets away with ger crimes due to her power alone. Anyone else who has done even a fraction of what she's done would be locked away for life or executed. The majority of the media is basically in her pocket and ignores everything she does wrong, while making everything any other candidate does headline news. It highlights how corrupt our media is. There is evidence of voter fraud against Bernie Sanders and I worry she may attempt it again against Trump and Johnson. It undermines democracy itself, and frankly how little anyone seems to care about this pisses me off. She was losing in the polls until polling companies changed their algorithms, making it look like she has support when she doesn't. She's doing this to make her voter fraud less obvious. Her proposed gun legislation is absolutely unconstitutional, and is a direct threat to our social contract as a nation and our ability to defend ourselves against other people, and most importantly, our government. I feel like if it were up to her, I would not be able to defend myself. Props to anyone who can change this view in particular. I'm a historian by education, and I know that it is against everything the founding fathers believed when they designed our nation. It's something I'm incredibly passionate about. All others aside, this alone is enough to make sure she never gets my vote. While social issues are important, she devotes far too much time talking about social problems, and spends too little time proposing economic reform or foreign policy reform. And what foreign policy she does advocate, will likely be the same kind of interventionist meddling in other nations, arms distribution bullshit. Syrian refugees are not our problem, and even if 99 of them are great people, there is still the chance of bringing in terrorists, which is unacceptable. All incoming people should be subject to the legal process of immigration. No exceptions. Terrorism is a threat to our nation, and she downplays it as if it is not. Even if it happens infrequently, the fact that it happens at all is reason enough to take any necessary action. DNC opponents are dropping like flies. They seem to be dying left and right. I don't see how it can be a coincidence. Trump is far from perfect, but I think his policies are safer for national security, and with him, even if he says dumb things every now and then, I have no doubts about his unwavering patriotism, and as far as crime goes, he is far less guilty. This part isn't really in contention. I don't want this to turn into an anti Trump fest. I want to actually change my views of Hillary herself. It seems the only arguments I ever actually hear for Hillary are really just anti Trump shit and have nothing to do with her.","conclusion":"Hillary Clinton avoids criminal prosecution because of a corrupt FBI, and her presidency would be the epitome of a United States that is owned by corporations and foreign donors, and much of what she proposes is against our Constitution or a threat to national security."}
{"id":"6eb0a777-ca10-4f9b-8295-6399b744f05d","argument":"One of the problems of the current aid system is said to be that it creates an impression amongst receiving countries and their people that the west is a wealthy, free-handed donor which provides what seem like huge sums of money by local standards. The impression can also be that this is given without too much concern about corruption or indeed without moral judgement, since many of the people who administer aid may be seen as morally ambiguous collaborators within authoritarian regimes. This influences developing world expectations of the first world. As well as leading to a sense that there is some sort of right to aid, it can also distort values of openness, self-help and honesty. It encourages many people in recipient countries to consider migrating to the source of this wealth, since they assume that it must be a rich place where all can prosper. When the reality turns out differently, this can cause problems on all sides.","conclusion":"Trade allows a fair impression of the international order to be created."}
{"id":"de13a96c-8a83-4a5f-8b2e-8c8926ffa6a1","argument":"A multivariate analysis which takes into account a plethora of indicators of societal well-being, those states in the US with the worst quality of life tend to be among the most God-loving\/most religious such as Mississippi and Alabama, while those states with the best quality of life tend to among the least God-loving\/least religious such as Vermont and New Hampshire.","conclusion":"God's rules are an obstacle for humans to reach their full potential and thus cause avoidable suffering."}
{"id":"fede3cb3-4359-427b-aeab-e0b617f4e809","argument":"Not allowing somebody to be President for minor Presidential misconducts is the same mistake as not allowing former rapist to work in building construction.","conclusion":"Bribing former sexual partner to not talk about personal matters before elections is a minor misconduct."}
{"id":"68de823d-998f-446b-b315-37fbe6f2c462","argument":"A uniquely harmful aspect of #fitspiration is that it promotes many features which are common to people with eating disorders - excessive exercise, meal-planing, calorie-counting - under the guise of healthy living.","conclusion":"The rising trend of 'fitspiration' posts is placing even more pressure on women to achieve a slim and fit body."}
{"id":"e1a91f43-cbba-4fae-89ab-71dd81e2314b","argument":"\"Should fiscal conservatives vote Republican.\" We Op-Ed. March 5, 2008: \"tax rate on those individuals from the highest tax bracket has been dropping precipitously since the end of WWII, regardless of which party held the white house. In fact, the rates began to fall under Kennedy, a Democrat, and continued through Johnson, another Democrat. The tax rate held steady through Nixon, Ford, and Carter, before tumbling further under Reagan. The tax rate bottomed out in 1989, under Bush I, at 28%- less than a third of its modern peak of 94%, under Truman. Bush then raised taxes from their absurd low, and they have been bouncing around the 30s every since. So from this graph it seems pretty clear: Keeping taxes low for the wealthy has been a bipartisan effort for the last sixty years.\"","conclusion":"Dems just as good as Reps historically on low taxes"}
{"id":"967a1965-411b-4012-8f39-90aa9ae9f53c","argument":"Jesus was put up on the cross and stabbed in the side with a spear so he would bleed out to ensure he was dead by the time he was taken down from the cross.","conclusion":"The Romans were expert executioners. It is highly unlikely that they would fail to successfully execute a condemned man."}
{"id":"5ed7662d-b9e8-416f-8712-0fb522201dc5","argument":"Property rights and capital ownership are community assets. Individuals with no property or capital need to be compensated by those who are hoarding these assets.","conclusion":"A UBI promotes social justice improving the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within society."}
{"id":"b71b967b-5302-47b9-8190-3418a297eb16","argument":"Hey everyone, Lately I've been more honest with my political opinion and realized how flawed and wrong they are. Essentially I despise the left wing wide of politics and will go to the far or alt right just to spite the left wing even though said ideas are flawed and dangerous. Here is the background. Im a son of a South Vietnamese refuge, the losing side of the Vietnam war defeated by the communist North. The Western Vietnamese community as a whole is still angry and bitter at the defeat and as a result we despise communism. Growing up I was also raised in a conservative household and grew patriotic towards my host country Australia and growing a love for the military at a very young age. Subconsciously I grouped communism along with Maoism, Stalin ism and pol pots Khmer rouge regime with all left wing ideas even though most liberals are moderates. Anyways upon learning about what happened to the Vietnam veterans upon returning home being spat on by anti war Protestants my hatred for the left grew and a negative experience with a college liberal put the final nail in the coffin when i was called a murderer just after I joined the army. With my generation being increasingly left wing and the rise of 'SJW' I just grew to hate the left even more to the point i started supporting Trump and the likes of 'Milo Yiannopolous' simply to spite the left and I refused to listen to any left ideas such as gay rights, civil rights, feminism, and all other social justice and human rights related topics and if you even criticized the military and were anti war you were a traitor to the country. Now i realize that as I get older I will run into people with diverse political opinions and I need to respect and accept that like an adult. Please change my view. Thank you. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Everyone who is either liberal or on the left wing side of politics is either a anti war hippy that spits on the the face of veterans and abuses them or a condescending annoying insufferable 'SJW'."}
{"id":"f556224c-4117-4f06-916e-960d1b89cf5d","argument":"So the basic premise is that IP's and new idea are hard to come by when almost every trope idea has a copyright behind it. We'd live in a much brighter and creative world if we were allowed to use many public IP's to utilize and garner support. I'd personally push for a 10 year length of ownership of an IP before it gets opened up to the public domain. Simply because after ten years, in our current media climate, everyone has either seen the product, bought it, or ignored it because it wasn't to their interest. In this model you'd have many people creating with many different ideas all throwing ideas at the wall giving everyone a chance to make it big Though this isn't what I was going for, it'd be nice . So to change my opinion, I'd have to be shown the merits and need to maintain the 100 year need on keeping an IP safe. Though there has been works done to try to remedy this in Law Congress, its mostly stayed the same or gone longer due to corporations wanting to keep their IP's for longer. Most notable Disney with all of their main cast of characters Mickey mouse and the rest of the gang . A quick run down of what Public domain means The public domain consists of all the creative works to which no exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly waived, or may be inapplicable. The works of William Shakespeare and Beethoven, and most early silent films, are in the public domain either by virtue of their having been created before copyright existed, or by their copyright term having expired. Some works are not covered by copyright, and are therefore in the public domain\u2014among them the formulae of Newtonian physics, cooking recipes, and all computer software created prior to 1974. Other works are actively dedicated by their authors to the public domain see waiver some examples include reference implementations of cryptographic algorithms, the image processing software ImageJ, created by the National Institutes of Health, and the CIA's World Factbook. The term public domain is not normally applied to situations where the creator of a work retains residual rights, in which case use of the work is referred to as under license or with permission . As rights vary by country and jurisdiction, a work may be subject to rights in one country and be in the public domain in another. Some rights depend on registrations on a country by country basis, and the absence of registration in a particular country, if required, gives rise to public domain status for a work in that country. The term public domain may also be interchangeably used with other imprecise or undefined terms such as the public sphere or commons , including concepts such as the commons of the mind , the intellectual commons , and the information commons . I welcome all and would love a discussion on what we could possibly do to change my opinion on this. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Public domain laws should be amended due to the large amounts of people currently adding to the media market"}
{"id":"0edf7020-5dfa-4045-8cac-5ac60cdc2f67","argument":"Studies have shown that driving with your headlights on at all times reduces accidents by a significant percent. This is because people can see you better from a distance as the headlights provide much better unnatural contrast against the background. Many auto makers have started making models that have driving lights that can't be disabled while the vehicle is running for this very reason. Vehicles are equipped with alternators that recharge the battery while the vehicle is running so it doesn't drain your battery. Replacing batteries and headlight bulbs are just a part of basic vehicle maintenance, similar to oil changes, tire rotations and tire replacements. If you can't deal with these things you shouldn't be a vehicle owner. Safety should be your number one priority when operating a vehicle, so if extra safety at the cost of replacing your battery or bulbs ever so slightly more often is bothersome to you, you shouldn't be driving in the first place as it's not a responsibility you're cut out for. If you can't remember to turn your lights on when you begin driving or off when you park your vehicle and this isn't something you can fix with practice then driving probably is again too great a responsibility for you. Anyway, I'm open to your views on the topic. Please try to change mine. Thanks for reading. Edit Yes I am aware of DRL. If your car has these then turning on your headlights is not necessary. If it doesn't then I believe it is, which is the purpose of this . I thought that was clear from my second paragraph but apparently it wasn't so I'm clearing that up here. Thanks.","conclusion":"There is no good reason to not turn your headlights on while driving any vehicle on public roadways regardless of what time of day it is or what the weather is like."}
{"id":"a1a28fef-2621-4d92-a1ed-e5e177fb2abd","argument":"Puts the cart before the horse. Presupposition that a nation cannot grow economically and socially except via democratization, and presumes that its problems exist due to a lack of democracy solely. Such a \"charity embargo\" placed on a nation externally could only compel its failure, which would not constitute proof that it would have anyway.","conclusion":"Democratisation will not necessarily help these countries or their economies develop, and may make them worse."}
{"id":"9b06c00e-b94f-458a-bd07-df0723352222","argument":"Assuming no weapons, food or water, and let's say a 100x100m caged off area in order to make a strategy of divide and conquer very difficult. The humans can be whoever you want, and the victors are the species with the last remaining member alive. I believe the gorillas sufficiently impregnable, and so easily capable of killing humans with just a swing of the fist, that there is no question of them winning.","conclusion":"I believe 10 gorillas would beat 100 humans in a cagefight."}
{"id":"d2a3c123-bb10-4234-abc5-5c224e9e75a0","argument":"People change of course but not as frequently as perceptions of ideas do. I'm sure older people hear Big Oil and Big Coal and see different things than younger people. The leaders of those industries are not as small time and innocent as they were back in the days of the Greatest Generation's youth but I think their perception stayed with them. The same can be said of the military industrial complex. Seen as bloated and unnecessary and oppresive by the young, a provider of jobs, liberties, and fighter against fascism by the old at a time when the United States' military supremacy was new and contested . I could go so far as to predict that Big Data will be the issue that turns modern liberals into conservatives. The generation that grew up or was born during Google's and Microsoft's ascendance into internet glory would under most circumstances hold the NSA responsible for invasions of privacy. And yet I can already see some instances of it being the fault of Big Business in some more progressive circles.","conclusion":"People don't get more conservative as they age, the ideas they find progressive when they were young do"}
{"id":"90f4ff55-598c-4a02-94f2-a293a4a7ab5d","argument":"Democratic systems usually have an opposition, whose job it is to hold the rulers at bay and accountable.","conclusion":"Democratic systems usually have mechanisms and checks that prevent the majority from acting arbitrarily."}
{"id":"20699073-4907-41d3-b378-84e2f9ab7ea4","argument":"If I use a sledge hammer next to a sleeping guy, and I make a mistake and injure the sleeping guy, I am personally responsible for any injury I cause him even if there is no specific regulation about proximity to others while sledge hammering. When Grenfell Tower in London burnt down recently if it transpires that the cladding complied with all the regulations, despite being slightly flammable, then the project manager is no less responsible for the deaths caused by the fire. The guy who signed the order for that type of cladding to be used is at fault for causing the deaths, and should be held criminally responsible for his negligence, no matter what the regulations say. Complying with regulations should never be taken to mean you have done your job correctly or legally. The regulations can never anticipate every possible thing, so it's not reasonable to shift the responsibility onto the regulator, from the person doing the job. The regulator and the mayor do not share any of the blame. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Just because you are complying with the regulations of your trade does not mean you are doing your job properly or legally"}
{"id":"b78ee974-a8f3-4034-9961-7c42ccaadecd","argument":"I keep watching random murder shows and there are so many cases where people recant their confessions. I don't understand how one can confess to a murder if they've never committed the murder. I understand that the stress levels of an interrogation can be very high but ultimately, if you are being accused of KILLING ANOTHER HUMAN and you know you didn't, why would anyone give in to something so terrible? I'm currently watching Confession Tapes and a defending attorney mentions that after days or weeks of being interrogated it is normal for one to just give up and give in. It's episode six about the labor day murders. The man confessed of being an accessory to the murder. He had said that he was completely worn out from all the interrogations that he thought if he confessed to something they'd leave him alone, but if you understand the consequences to committing or being an accessory to a murder , what makes you think that you'd just be free to go? I feel even with a very very low IQ, you should understand that if you're somehow involved with a murder you're going to do time or be taken to jail until your court date at the very least.","conclusion":"When someone confesses to a murder then later says they never did it and that they were forced into a confession, they in fact committed the murder because if they hadn't they wouldn't have confessed to such a heinous crime."}
{"id":"ce300146-b659-4ead-827b-7e70bd8da00c","argument":"I hear a lot of people say you\u2019re abs are made in the kitchen. For me I feel like if you are physically pushing yourself at least you know you\u2019re burning calories. When sticking to a diet even if it\u2019s strict it\u2019s hard to really know if you\u2019re losing anything at all not only that diets are usually short term solutions but give \u201cquicker\u201d results, on the other hand exercising is long term and you can lose it quickly depending on your given size. I know it\u2019s best of not world to mix both but alone I\u2019d think exercise would have more effects than dieting alone. CHANGE MY VIEW. EDIT AFFECTIVE IN THE SENSE OF LOSING WEIGHT.","conclusion":"Exercising is much more effective than a diet."}
{"id":"980c0e49-de94-475e-8310-273d5f2d8e88","argument":"Accusing women of the charge of espousing corrupt Western values is used as a justification for sexual assault.","conclusion":"India has a culture of victim blaming that no real progress has been made on otherwise."}
{"id":"a3abab07-98eb-447f-ba24-53ff5bff0485","argument":"Color is not a human or a personal reality it is a political reality. This quote by James Baldwin from The Fire Next Time claims that color is solely a political reality. I have a problem with the fact that Baldwin denies that color is a human reality as discrimination by color is uniquely human. Also, is it not a personal reality if someone is rejected from a school based on the color of their skin? There is no doubt that color is a political reality, but isn't it all three? My view is that color is a human, personal, and political reality.","conclusion":"\"Color is not a human or personal reality; it is a political reality.\" Why not all three?"}
{"id":"229de037-f26d-4269-b534-8077206e10e8","argument":"Supporters argue that corporations should have the protection of the U.S. Constitution, pointing out that they are just organizations of people, and that these people shouldn't be deprived of their human rights when they join with others to act collectively.","conclusion":"Citizens shouldn't be deprived of rights when joining corps."}
{"id":"c78e70cb-ae26-476a-b967-03dbd97170d8","argument":"To be clear up front I don't support the actions or ideology of the armed individuals who have occupied the federal building in Oregon. What they are doing is clearly illegal. I just don't think it qualifies as terrorism, as the events stand now obviously if events change, so will my view on the matter . Many have been quick to label these individuals as terrorists and chastise media outlets and pundits for not using that label. Many have also argued that if these men were not white or presumably Christian, they would in fact be labeled as terrorists. The problem is that this is an entirely unique scenario of which there is little precedent, so we don't have much to compare it to to make such a claim. These narratives are ultimately problematic because they make inappropriate use of the term terrorism and they represent a clear lack of understanding on what the legal definitions of terrorism are and what ultimately constitutes terrorism. There is no universal definition of terrorism even among various US governmental agencies there are conflicting definitions. The FBI, for example, maintains that vandalism and destruction of property can be acts of terrorism, while most other agency definitions maintain that terrorism is inherently defined by use or threat of violence toward noncombatant targets. Here is a decent Wikipedia article for reference My point in bringing this up is that there is ambiguity with what constitutes terrorism and it is not always clear cut. As such, we should err on the side of caution before throwing out highly inflammatory terms. Consider the PATRIOT Act's definition of domestic terrorism Acts of domestic terrorism are those which A involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State B appear to be intended\u2014 i to intimidate or coerce a civilian population ii to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion or iii to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping and C occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States. Let's go through this line by line A There has been no loss of life, violence or direct threat of violence, committed during their occupation. While one of the armed occupiers said something to the effect that they would fight back, they made it clear that they would not instigate violence. B i This is a critical point they are not threatening the civilian population they have made it very clear that their opposition is directed at the federal government. If they were occupying privately held buildings or lands, or otherwise threatening the civilian population, that would be a different story. B ii They are indeed intending to influence governmental policy by at least passive coercion, which is where I admit this gets into a huge grey area. But because i has not been met yet, it is still in that grey area. B iii There have been no kidnappings, assassinations, or actions of mass destruction or threats thereof. C Check. My point here is that in a court of law, as the events stand now, it would be very difficult for federal prosecutors to charge them with domestic terrorism. But let's forget technicalities in US law for a bit and look at scholarly definitions and interpretations of terrorism. Again, there is no widely agreed upon definition of terrorism, but there are elements of the definition that are widely agreed upon. Most agree that terrorism, at a very basic level, is violence or threat of violence committed against non combatants by non state actors in order to advance a political goal. Again, no violence has been committed yet the threat of violence is still weak or nonexistent and most importantly it has not been committed against non combatants. And in this situation, I would define a combatant as any member of the local, state, or federal government that is armed\u2014an unarmed federal employee is a non combatant in my view. One last point. My overarching argument is that terrorism is thrown around loosely, and that it cheapens the value of the word when it is used so recklessly by commentators. There are many instances of what has been called terrorism that I don't think meet the basic definition's requirements either. For example, I don't think the Fort Hood shooting was an act of terrorism because the violences was perpetrated by a disgruntled mentally ill member of the military against other members of the military, not non combatants. To reiterate one last time I think these guys are fuckwits and I don't agree with their actions. I hope the situation resolves peacefully and that they are brought to justice on appropriate charges e.g., criminal trespassing, unlawful carrying of a weapon, vandalism, breaking and entering, etc. I am interested in legal arguments as to why my view is wrong.","conclusion":"The armed occupation of the federal building in Oregon, while clearly illegal, is not terrorism."}
{"id":"23f95e95-c9af-4465-a10d-bfdf1dede001","argument":"Inspired by u Fuck Blue Shells post about grilled cheeses versus melts I had to come to the defense of ingredients in grilled cheeses. Cheese elitists and provolone partisanship like this is what's tearing the country apart. gt This entire subreddit consist of melts . Almost every grilled cheese sandwich i see on here has other items added to it. Is my burger less than a burger if I add guacamole to it? Is my hotdog less hotdog when I add relish? No, of course not. We have food combinations that compliment each other, that take it to the next level. Mixing up the cheeses and breads are a great idea, I would encourage anyone to try that, but the thinking Fuck Blue Shells encourages keeps the grilled cheese decades in the past. gt Adding cheese to your tuna sandwich? It's called a Tuna melt. Totally different. I agree with this. However, as with a lot of things, intent matters. Think of satire. Does Fuck Blue Shells watch The Colbert Report and think Stephen Colbert is a true neo conservative? Intent is everything. I made blueberry pancakes this weekend. I didn't start calling them blueberry smoosh breads. Chocolate chips, bananas, blueberries put what you want in there, they are still called pancakes at the end of the day. If you make a tuna sandwich and just happened to put cheese on top, then yes, that's a melt. The cheese is an afterthought. A good grilled cheese sandwich can be constructed with intent and purpose to deliver the most mind shattering mouth orgasm by knowing what tastes compliment each other. Gouda, apple and bacon on sourdough. It's no accident, it's no afterthought. The cheese as well as every other ingredient is on purpose. If I make pancakes and just throw blueberries on the top instead of in the mixture, that's not a blueberry pancake any more than a tuna melt is a grilled cheese, because intent matters. By Fuck Blue Shells' logic, using butter on your grilled cheese is a butter melt. Using a cooking spray to grease the pan is a cooking spray melt. gt But as a bland white mid western male I am honestly the most passionate person when it comes to grilled cheese and mac cheese. As of this post, Fuck Blue Shells hasn't spread his culinary segregationist message to r macncheese. You'd better bet that's coming next. Beware you who adds bacon to their cheese and noodles While I admire their passion, Fuck Blue Shells and his followers are merely propagating a backwards and anti progressivism when it comes to what's on your plate. What am I eating, you ask? I am eating equality.","conclusion":"Adding extra ingredients to a grilled cheese doesn't make it any less than a grilled cheese"}
{"id":"309b5b91-6c4a-47ae-a260-25d3945045fd","argument":"The evidence we do have in proving life came from matter is tantamount to me claiming I'm going to jump over the moon one day and giving as evidence that fact that yesterday I could jump 2 feet in the air and today I can jump 4 feet. It's understood that there is a limit on how high humans can jump even with the best training and hard work. Similarly science will never be able to prove consciousness is an epiphenomen of matter or that life comes from matter.","conclusion":"So long as the gaps remain then the evidence for the naturalistic and atheistic model cannot be considered complete. There is no evidence that these gaps will ever be filled."}
{"id":"db31ae73-87f3-4e1f-9901-2ff7c7c7bd96","argument":"Wiki on Mucophagy I have been eating my own nasal mucus for fifteen years on and off, and very deliberately and seriously for about five. I am seldom sick, and when I am, it is usually short lived. I work in a woodshop sometimes, and when there is sawdust in my cilia, I do not engage in this activity. I almost always take care not to be seen by others when I do this. I drink water after doing this before kissing my significant other. You'll note in the wiki article that there are several studies cited that seem sound to me. Why are these studies particularly the Bischinger something to ignore?","conclusion":"I pick my nose and eat it, because I assume that this extra exposure to germs will strengthen my immune system in a manner that is superior to those who do not eat their nasal mucus."}
{"id":"1c108c13-dfb3-41e4-8209-f62fa1eb1ad7","argument":"I live in a state where handguns and CCW's can be handed out like candy. I notice that the worst and most uneducated of the population are often the ones that purchase the deadliest weapons. I have taken plenty of armed combat training courses and I still don't like to carry weapons around because I feel as though I would be more likely to use it against said people above. My last weapons instructor was an ex Israeli special forces soldier that now runs an executive protection training facility. After the 30 hour 3 day course he told us the privileged training group that we are now more trained than even a lot of people that carry guns for their job. This bothered me as it came from such an experienced guy because it means there are so many unskilled gunslingers out there. Regular CCW courses do not teach you how to properly identify targets, fix weapon jams on a fly, or even how to properly hold and take your weapon out of concealment. I would like to hear an opposing argument. Please  EDIT I do want to say I appreciate alternative views. Often times people in the reality self defense industry own a very high horse that they like to sit on all day and they almost always have a we know best attitude. It is part of what gives their business a competitive edge. I lived amongst that for a while and, quite frankly, I was tired of hearing about it from day to day.","conclusion":"I believe that in order to carry and purchase a handgun you must go through the same weapons training as the police, FBI or military."}
{"id":"e0728528-ed9b-4929-936d-a82db95e8de1","argument":"I've been to Chinese hotpot a few times. Everything going into the broth comes out tasting bland, simply boiled and unflavoursome, not really being flavoured by the soup. All the tasty ingredients cost a fortune, and all end up tasting the same once they go in the broth. And, yet, there's hundreds of hotpot places around, and they all seem popular and busy. What am I missing? Why am I paying a fortune for bland soup and cheap ingredients The only tasty things I've had were dipping sauces and side dishes but they weren't tasty because of the hotpot. The hotpot simply meant I had to wait longer to have something flavourless to go with them. I genuinely think I'm missing something important. But what is it?","conclusion":"Hotpot is boring and overpriced."}
{"id":"317a020d-a527-4e4b-89c4-eb6612feb85d","argument":"The effect on Earth Temperature T of doubling CO2 levels lies somewhere between 1.5 and 4.5 C, with the most likely figure in the 2.5-3C range.","conclusion":"We have increased the concentration of CO2 by 33% from pre-industrial levels, and are on course to doubling those levels sometime around 2075."}
{"id":"f25a2b02-7758-4d9d-857b-23bf646fbbe0","argument":"Innocent victims can suffer real-world ramifications from such inaccurate online attacks. Some have lost their jobs, received death threats and left the country to escape the relentless persecution.","conclusion":"Vigilantes may be working with incomplete information and consequently may end up instigating attacks on innocent people."}
{"id":"b48e5e07-ca4c-4afc-8e6f-89d892d7fc87","argument":"As a male feminist concerned with the rights of both genders, I must admit that the name feminism is really unfortunate. I would have liked to align with the people calling themselves egalitarians, but most egalitarian forums I've seen seem more concerned with calling out feminism than working for gender equality. As the rules of this sub necessitate 500 characters or more, I'll go ahead and generalize wildly I think there is a large amount of cross over between MRAs, egalitarians, white supremacists, conspiracy theorists and antisemites. It's kind of unfortunate, because all of these movements touch on valid issues here and there, tainting the efforts of those who are legitimately trying to improve things for everyone. For example, if I suspected that black people white people women men were biologically less apt to do math creation teamwork etc, and I devised an academic experiment to test this hypothesis, I would automatically be thought to work on the behalf of hate groups and be discredited there would be no doubt that I have an agenda, because active hate groups have made those subjects effectively taboo, and anyone oblivious to these taboos are probably seeing the world through the lens of those hate groups.","conclusion":"\"Egalitarianism\" is an euphemism for anti-feminism and sexism, the same way \"race realism\" is an euphemism for white supremacism."}
{"id":"26e522a6-a231-4f61-b5d7-c596f30cd6ae","argument":"A UBI would reduce the incentive to have a large family, if the money is paid per head of household. It is easier for a head of household to support himself alone, than to provide for a family. This would result in a lower population over time, and less economic potential.","conclusion":"A formal UBI is likely to cause societal problems that outweigh the benefits of such a policy."}
{"id":"8610fd04-fc3a-49c7-92e9-5eb7c71a0a11","argument":"The oversight required to ensure that public funding is being used properly will force governments to monitor religious organizations, something that is both difficult to accomplish and in the interests of neither governments nor religious organizations.","conclusion":"Religious organisations in liberal democracies should not receive any public funding direct or indirect."}
{"id":"752a0b18-ae34-4fef-8760-b48bfa155273","argument":"I'm not asking about this closing's origins that I understand, such as its reference in the musical Hamilton 's song \u201cYour Obedient Servant\u201d just feels bombastic and thus unprofessional nowadays, if you're not writing the Queen of England. One of my customers, who's not in the British royal family, always closes her emails and letters with Your obedient servant . I was flabbergasted the first time I saw it, and still literally raise my eyebrows whenever I see it now. I've been closing replies to her with Best regards , as I usually do. We're both in England. I've met her in person. She speaks with a standard Estuary English accent and looks like a typical London businesswoman in her 40s. She obviously isn't obedient as she's smart, strong, forceful albeit polite, in her dealings. Thus obedient feels like highfalutin balderdash.","conclusion":"Closing with \u201cYour Obedient Servant\u201d is unprofessional in 2018."}
{"id":"b601a555-4d5e-41a7-8cf9-7380c0a9b128","argument":"If a human in traffic made a mistake such as abruptly and illegally crossing the street, it could force the self-driving car into an accident. The passengers in the self-driving car would then not be to blame.","conclusion":"The self-driving car could have been brought into this situation by a third party. That person or entity would always be more to blame than the passengers."}
{"id":"41f38691-90f8-4f03-9c82-353337aeb8d3","argument":"In a survey completed by the Times Educational supplement 1, 6000 teachers were questioned. One in five believed that class room behaviour had deteriorated since the abolition of corporal punishment and they believed the education system would improve with the re-introduction of corporal punishment. We should adhere to the teachers requests. 1 Old Corp frustrated and afraid i grow our society in decline discipline, personal responsibility only few adhere to how far must the pendulum swing is this when, enough is enough! learn we must from past misfortunes our elders abused and taken for, those locked rooms, monsters behind unchecked horrors lived, compassion grow-ed, forced upon; Justly! the Corporal dishonourably discharged now! today------------------------------ legacy apparent our youth growing without the Corporals watchful eye- time outs, detention stars to earn. all to worry bout! ! ! much we have learnt evidence mounting. remember or imagine for those who never felt, the Corporals hovering hand on watch; lol.one weighed up quick smart if sacrifice was worth, old Corps loving touch- and we did, at that young age decide to take 'one' for a noble course consequence learned, schooled was i steered by our negligence\/wisdom! our impressionable youth out of balance- drowning em in compassion we've got it ass bout before grow-ed, before 'it' earned see our youth-lost initiated wanting self inflicted search, a cry for help mans hammerer of fate hovering? too late, when crashes short life lost knowing no consequences short life lost.when schooled on streets long life.serving, consequence learned the Pendulum out of control risking destruction come!!! let us stand up! let us unite- rein list the Corporal. reinvent the old bastard. our future begs! learn we must, modern twist for age old teach Utopia do we live? Jails still exist, war still wages are we so arrogrant. stop preaching, they have to make their own mistakes we must show wisdom to aid in this! give them the tools for this journey. RPL our children\/invest in the future when coming of age, when the chemicals hit, natural or manmade Old Corp's training just might save that youth from the daily horrors\/ challenges of our society civilised or uncivilised please define! at a loss i am.","conclusion":"bad behaviour is on the increase in the class room"}
{"id":"a4794832-1486-4326-8104-70ee4ca4cc4f","argument":"For example, though the diets of poor individuals may on average differ from those of wealthier individuals, there is still a wide range of diets among poorer individuals, so most possible diets will be present in the sample.","conclusion":"It is possible to to some extent control for lifestyle factors in the course of clinical trials, especially considering that poor individuals do not have identical lifestyles."}
{"id":"c89e445e-bce1-48b5-af29-31e5114e080f","argument":", according to some sources: noting that there are 20.8 million American children and adults with diabetes roughly 6% of the population. It is the sixth leading cause of death, lowering average life expectancy by up to 15 years. It is the leading cause of kidney failure, lower limb amputations, and adult-onset blindness, and adults with diabetes have heart disease death rates two to four times higher than persons without diabetes. The estimated total financial cost for diabetes in the U.S., including costs of medical care, disability, and premature death, was $132 billion in 2002. This all makes the potential health and social benefits of stem cell research substantial, if it were to lead to something of a cure for diabetes.","conclusion":"A cure for diabetes would have a massive social impact"}
{"id":"6c8c95c7-4dd8-4ce1-87c5-1555e3f46ac9","argument":"A study has demonstrated that government policy will ultimately decide whether a carbon tax is regressive, progressive, or neutral Gordon, 6","conclusion":"Multiple studies have demonstrated that concerns over the unfair distributional impact of a shift to a carbon tax are overstated."}
{"id":"36fcb042-5c0d-47c8-9447-3eea771a17c3","argument":"People may feel they have more money than they do or have the less incoming money than before which could happen if a UBI loses its funding, and still spend at a higher rate than they can afford. This could put them in a higher debt than without having the higher income source.","conclusion":"People can get into trouble when they spend at a higher rate than they get, due to making and having more money."}
{"id":"867c1a57-8980-4184-b19c-6313c541d836","argument":"An Eastern European President of the European Commission could lessen the feelings that many Eastern Europeans have of being looked down upon and treated as second class citizens in the EU.","conclusion":"Tomic, as a Slovenian, would be the first Eastern European Commission President."}
{"id":"1e10e228-e51b-4faf-88d2-037e16837fec","argument":"Grenades and rifles are ranked more efficient than drones. It is likely that AKMs will figure similarly.","conclusion":"AKMs are not the most cost efficient weapons available and therefore should not be designed."}
{"id":"83986ff4-9547-4a85-bdaf-b1818b4ce663","argument":"Banning religious symbols could be viewed as just a way of targeting a group of people. In a nutshell, religious symbols would be used as a scapegoat in order to both highlight and blame for problems that are much bigger. Removing the hijab, the Crucifix or the Jewish skullcap would take away someone's culture, religion and heritage, and, therefore, banning them would cause more problems.1 It could potentially increase hatred within religious groups, and lead to more racism and more criticism, ultimately making the country a worse place to live. 1 at 'Belgian ban on full veils comes into force', BBC News Europe, 23rd July 2011, accessed on 23rd July 2011","conclusion":"Banning religious symbols is just a way of unfairly targeting people."}
{"id":"fea3bba7-87d2-411b-804c-1db6afbf0158","argument":"Reddit has a pretty strong liberal bias so calls for r The Donald to be banned are pretty common. I am a strong believer in free speech and I am concerned about the power of PC culture in my country USA . I believe that the answers to racism, mysogyny, and homophobia are social, and dialogue is a big part of that. Sure, r The Donald is a big echo chamber, but banning them does nothing to solve the problem. I grew up in a very religious setting and attending a religious university. My whole life was an echo chamber. Reddit exposed me to lots of different opinions and lifestyles. It has made me a more tolerant person. I hope that Reddit will remain a place for people of wildly different views to be able to have a discourse, even if it gets angry and aggressive at times. nbsp This is Reddit's policy on prohibited speech nbsp gt Content is prohibited if it gt Is illegal gt Is involuntary pornography gt Encourages or incites violence gt Threatens, harasses, or bullies or encourages others to do so gt Is personal and confidential information gt Impersonates someone in a misleading or deceptive manner gt Is spam nbsp Rule breakers are subject to a number of punishments gt Asking you nicely to knock it off gt Asking you less nicely gt Temporary or permanent suspension of accounts gt Removal of privileges from, or adding restrictions to, accounts gt Adding restrictions to Reddit communities, such as adding NSFW tags or Quarantining gt Removal of content gt Banning of Reddit communities nbsp nbsp Banning of communities is a last resort, and in my opinion should be limited to cases where users break the rules so often that moderators are unable to enforce Reddit's policies. Ineffective or unwilling moderators should be replaced. In short, as much leeway should be extended to the community until it is banned. One side effect of Reddit's upvote downvote system is that minority opinions never see the light of day. So minority communities pop up where these opinions can live and breath. Banning a community because its ideas are offensive to the majority is mob rule and anti democratic. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"A community like \/r\/The_Donald should not be banned only because it contains offensive language and ideas"}
{"id":"f1b1dacc-acb8-483b-8909-824165a8a9a8","argument":"Transsexuals are mentally unstable as they are looking to change there appearance to fit in and feel normal like a teen would, and the mutilate there bodies to make a rash decision. Sure, evidence is there that there brains are more similar to the opposite gender, but what does having a penis or not has nothing to do on how feminine or masculine you are. Outspoken Advocates for transgenders such as feminists usually also fight against gender constructs such as men being Doctors and Officers, which is contradicts transgenders as it shouldn't matter what parts you have if there is no gender roles. Additionally, Transsexuals usually have other mental health issues some say as a result of having to conform and substance abuse.","conclusion":"Transsexual people are mentally unstable."}
{"id":"30471f79-e254-40f6-9e8e-115330c07b67","argument":"Whatever its other virtues, Huckleberry Finn tells the story of the antebellum South in a way that centers whiteness. Other stories, such as Frederick Douglass's Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave do not.","conclusion":"If the goal of reading this piece of literature is to teach readers to empathize with the victims of racism, there are many more appropriate and effective works."}
{"id":"c164d879-6cd8-48d1-84e9-36b339c06d61","argument":"I am an introvert, and I have heard that we tend to self assess other people and analyze them more often than Extroverts. I fall under this category since I find myself constantly judging people right when I meet them. I tend to notice the little things like body language and behavioral changes more often than a lot of my friends. \u200b When I am judging someone, I want to make sure that I am being empathetic and try to consider the many factors associated with said behavior. \u200b For example, a person I have met is extremely annoying and stated to have a learning disability. Normally, most people would empathize with said person, but I tend to be a caught off guard by this. This person is known to ask a lot of redundant question and act without thinking. To give more context, me and this person is in an university. I believe that it is ok to ask a lot of questions but one also have to be considerate and at least show they have at least put in some thought before asking. What annoyed me is that this person tend to not put it much thought before asking redundant questions. I am also confuse about the term learning disability . Where would one draw the line on an adult with behavior issues under the pretenses of a learning disability. I believe the card can only be played so much. I have decided to ignore this person and try to limit contact even though this person is friendly. \u200b I am constantly judging said person because I am trying to analyze. I am compiling information I know about this person and tailoring my thoughts to better understand things socially. \u200b I need to be judgmental to make better decisions and be a better person.","conclusion":"I need to be judgmental to make better decisions"}
{"id":"d321b38f-e736-4f38-9df2-6820bf57e2d7","argument":"Over the past couple of years I have engaged in the sitting vs. standing for wiping argument with friends. I am completely confident that sitting and wiping your butt is the better method of cleaning yourself after taking a poop. My reasoning for why sitting and wiping is superior are When you are situated on the toilet and shift to one side, your butt cheek is naturally held by the toilet seat, giving your other hand complete freedom and allowing your other hand to properly wipe without any hindrance. It's a clear wipe. Sitting and wiping offers less movement and more saved energy, you are already sitting, there is no need to stand up until you are completely finished and cleaned. Sitting offers less of a chance of a mishap from any possible drip, drop, or whatever you don't want falling anywhere but inside the toilet. By wiping while you are sitting there really is no way possible for any thing from your butt to get anywhere but the inside of the toilet. Standing and wiping forces your butt cheeks to squeeze together and increase the area that you need to clean up with wiping. Lastly sitting and wiping limits any exposure that may occur if someone walks into the bathroom while you are using it, they only see you sitting on the toilet, not standing fully exposed waist down.","conclusion":"Sitting and wiping your butt is far superior to standing and wiping your butt"}
{"id":"cad2921b-a7fe-4bb8-a374-0a569f40479a","argument":"Ben Nuckols. \"Hybrid cars criticized for being too quiet\". Associated Press. 3 Oct. 2007 - \"Gas-electric hybrid vehicles, the status symbol for the environmentally conscientious, are coming under attack from a constituency that doesn't drive: the blind.","conclusion":"Quiet hybrids are a risk to those that can't hear them coming"}
{"id":"3bce2584-2edf-45b5-8468-2a246a6da22c","argument":"There is no evidence of life emerging independently on Earth more than once i.e. all known life shared a common ancestor, LUCA. This is evidence of improbability of the emergence of life.","conclusion":"The creation of life by chance may well be such a fantastically improbable event that it has happened only once."}
{"id":"06109bf1-ed37-43d3-884b-1ccee4e78ec4","argument":"This method of classifying vegan foods is really helpful, especially when it comes to single-celled organisms that group together to act like one living being","conclusion":"Taxonomic classifications can help to determine whether a biological cell to eat is vegan or not."}
{"id":"37638c3f-2e5a-4fdc-b75a-8a72458e0fc4","argument":"Like I said in the title, I believe that If you don't opt in for organ donating, organs shouldn't be given to you in a time of need. Those who aren't willing to give shouldn't get. I also feel that those who don't give to charity, should they find themselves in a bad situation one day, shouldn't be given that much help. Simple karma in my opinion. While explaining my opinion to others, most people I've argued with have completely disagreed with me without actually giving me any reasons as to why. If you can, change my view. Edit Those who can't donate their organs are exempt Edit 2 Sorry guys, I'm at school, I'll be home in 5 hours and I'll try to reply to all comments when I get home","conclusion":"If you don't opt-in for organ donating, organs shouldn't be given to you in a time of need"}
{"id":"2c27aa3d-2884-48b7-a498-3628802f6539","argument":"If Bernie Sanders wins the nomination against front runner Hillary Clinton, that is solid proof that he is electable. Any doubts that he could win the the general would be dissolved in that scenario. Hillary Clinton has the lion's share of the superdelegate votes, which represent some 30 of the delegates. The rest come from the state outcomes. So for him to beat her, he has to overcome her steep advantage. If he can pull that off, he has proved by a large margin that he can compete in the general better than she can. Therefore, there is no electability danger inherent in voting for him in the primary race.","conclusion":"I don't see any possible danger in voting for Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary."}
{"id":"882671bc-27b0-4359-9317-2691283defda","argument":"Only a third of Americans have a great deal or a fair amount of trust in the media. Even fewer on average, believe all or most of what the media reports.","conclusion":"Given that the media is already undergoing a crisis of legitimacy, any added influence they gain is likely going to be marginal."}
{"id":"bce13680-f8f8-4351-b678-a0f6ef86e55e","argument":"The asthma medication albuterol is not as effective for African-American and Puerto Rican children as it is for European American or Mexican children.","conclusion":"There are many examples of race based medicines which demonstrate that taking race into account can produce highly effective treatments."}
{"id":"926bb882-8b1c-46d6-bee7-adafcbd0e269","argument":"We're able to determine how long an organism can function without oxygen. For humans it is about 15 seconds and no more than 20. After this time the nervous system stops working, causing both lack of consciousness and ability to feel pain.","conclusion":"It's enough to make the animal unconscious before killing it and this can be done without use of chemicals, for example placing it in oxygen-free atmosphere or by a phycisal impact."}
{"id":"e66636ad-5b13-484a-aaa1-75f9cf80b6eb","argument":"A friend recommended that I start watching the TV series vikings. I love vikings like, actual ones so I thought it would be a great idea. I will say now that i have only watched 4 episodes but i do not feel inclined to watch anymore. Things like historical inaccuracies and anachronisms don't phase me but characters not acting like real people does. firstly the dialogue is kind of poor. whenever something needed explaining, the writers just had the kid ask ragnar about it so he could explain it to the viewers. There were very few exchanges that seemed to develop character everything they said was important and meaningful like they knew they were part of a story The characters seem incredibly flat and boring and don't really reflect real believable people. like the earl's wife. come on. no one would exist with a character like her's she's completely unbelievable. The shield wall fight seen made no sense. There were like 20 guys maybe less. you can't create a phalanx with so few people especially fighting against a larger group of people. the enemies would just go round your tiny wall and surround you each episode's plot was pretty simple and could be described in a few sentences without missing out on any of the gravity of the events. The vikings have a varying degree of accent from minute to minute wth Like I said, i have only watched 4 episodes. I have heard lots of good things about this series and would love to be able to enjoy a series about vikings but am i missing something? does it get better? please cmv","conclusion":"The Tv series Vikings is rubbish"}
{"id":"17ea0152-8dd9-4d26-b12d-e5c1e04e6e53","argument":"I am pro life, and one of the counterarguments that I often encounter is that if abortions were made illegal, women would be forced to get them in a 'back alley' fashion, rather than in the safety of a clinical setting. I believe that a fetus is a human life. Not a potential life, or some other silly half measure. With that in mind, why should I want abortion to be a safe procedure for the mother? She is choosing to end the life of one of her children, and I'm supposed to be concerned about her? This isn't to say that I would wish death upon those who would have an abortion. I am against the death penalty, and I would prefer that the parents could be tried and punished rehabilitated appropriately. However, I feel that making abortions dangerous discourages some who would otherwise seek them, and that benefit outweighs the loss of a few people who were killed in the act of getting an abortion. As I reread this, I'm not completely happy with the clarity, so feel free to ask me to straighten things out. I know this view will seem cruel to many of you, but I wouldn't be on r changemyview if I was completely happy with it, so show me what you've got.","conclusion":"I don't want abortion to be safe;"}
{"id":"a24c66b7-0492-4ecc-88db-4af76826d210","argument":"I'm moving to Singapore in the coming months and discovered that they have basically a flat tax system much lower rate than US on income and have heavy luxury taxes on items like cars and brand named clothing. Many employees in my company are relocating to different parts of Asia because their tax burden is too heavy especially in European countries. High taxes seem to be causing an exodus from certain countries which creates loss of tax income. Places like Dubai and Singapore are benefiting greatly from the tax challenges faced in mature economies. MNC have been doing it for years, individuals are starting as well now.","conclusion":"I feel that wealthy should pay a flat tax rather than the current progressive US tax system."}
{"id":"3a1a5741-4834-414f-a7f4-a16903ec6bae","argument":"Removal of these artifacts is editing of history. They should remain as a reminder of progress.","conclusion":"Confederate monuments, flags and memorials honor an important part of the American story."}
{"id":"3e6ee41b-fe8b-4472-828c-0c69b5c7b07b","argument":"This is both for the sake of the victim and abuser; wrongful behaviour that 'involves harm to the moral character of those performing them' may still be necessarily prohibited.","conclusion":"Legally, criminalising acts that constitute wrongful conduct is often necessary, even if there is no extrinsically harmful effect on others."}
{"id":"857e24f1-37f4-4942-9848-fa95dfcfe8df","argument":"I've been thinking about personal finance recently, and this is a conclusion that seemed reasonable. However, I'm sure I haven't thought of all sides of the issue and would be interested in other points of view. My reasoning I believe that if you have the means, you should be responsible for yourself and minimize the amount you take from others. This includes not only current living costs but future needs such as retirement and health care. I want to minimize the amount I take from public and private assistance, freeing that money up for people who really need it. A disaster can happen at any time and can be incredibly expensive. In the US this is most likely to be a health issue. I also want to be able to help my family and friends if they need it. While one could argue that charity recipients are no less deserving than my family, and I agree, I think we all have a unique responsibility to those closest to us. If I gave to everyone who deserved it, I would go broke. I don't have kids currently, but I might some day, and it's better to start saving as early as possible. Because of this, I think the best option is to save as much as I can, letting it grow throughout my life, and then give whatever is left to charity in my will. For what it's worth, I'm neither rich nor poor. I make above the median individual income, but less than the median household income. Thanks","conclusion":"I should give little or no money to charity during my life and instead save it and leave it in my will"}
{"id":"47ed534b-37ef-4e5d-b262-70172b09791d","argument":"Long hours of work are associated with a broad set of adverse physical health outcomes, including cardiovascular and musculoskeletal disorders, diabetes, and obesity Rose, p. 10","conclusion":"Working long hours is detrimental to one's health and encounters diminishing returns."}
{"id":"dd5fb4ee-314b-4abc-a6ae-4637814cf8bb","argument":"Apologies for typo should read Guilt is destructive and serves no useful purpose By making this statement I am differentiating between guilt and remorse. Remorse and guilt seem to be conflated even in the dictionary but I would argue that feeling regret seems a natural initial reaction to a mistaken action or thought. But even then its Latin origin indicates it's something which 'gnaws' away at a person The origin of the term guilt is according to Collins dictionary is of 'obscure origin' I find this convenient and an indication that it is a social construct in order to control people While people are spending time feeling guilty they could be getting busy repairing the damage guilt can paralyse and cloud judgement Instead use logic and self analysis spend as little time as possible feeling remorseful. Rather focus on not repeating the action again developing more self knowledge and control rather than torturing oneself to no purpose gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Guilt is destructive and serves not useful purpose"}
{"id":"46110736-8a5f-4016-a26d-00580f8f79da","argument":"I hate when people say cigarettes are as bad as hard drugs. No one has ever beat their wife because they smoked too much cigarettes. Also, you get to use cigarettes 20 times a day for like 30 years before you die. Where are you going to find a fairer deal with that? You get to use like 10,000 of them a year. You think people using heroin and cocaine would live long like that? just imagine if crystal meth were sold in packs of 20 at 7 11 for about 10. how could a drug that gives you literally hundreds of thousands of chances be one of the most harmful?","conclusion":"- cigarettes are not one of the worst drugs"}
{"id":"9ba46231-5887-41ec-ae0c-b8aed93487a6","argument":"Why? The Holocaust Modern day faith healers, people who have abused the flaw of faith to tell people they've been healed by God which, if gullible enough, will cease medical treatment, killing them. The Crusades. Probably the most famous example of religious warfare I can give but millions died on each side to reclaim the holy lands martyrs. For those who dont know a martyr is a person that in most cases dies for their religion. Modern day equivalent are most suicide bombers. Religious segregation. Pre Holocaust Nazi Germany was extremely prejudice against Jews. People who discriminate against people from the Middle East who I'm not fond of either, but not to that point because they are faithful to Islam. ok maybe religion isn't the single worst but its still pretty fucking terrible","conclusion":"Religion is the worst thing to happen to mankind"}
{"id":"9afa2621-c208-491c-a7d0-3192723585cb","argument":"I argue that teams put WAY too much stock into non pitching defense Player A commits 5 less errors than Player B. Player A also makes 10 more hard plays that player B would have failed to make. Player B gets on base 20 30 more times. Player B also hits 3 5 more home runs. x200B I's argue the consensus seems to be that Player A is more desirable than Player B. I feel like the difference between the best batter and an average MLB level batter is huge, whereas the difference between the best fielder and an average MLB level fielder isn't going to matter as much. Again I completely understand the need for a strong pitcher I'm talking about the other guys. Edit Swapped player A B","conclusion":"Baseball Coaches put too much stock in non-pitching Defense"}
{"id":"2b9c8c30-52ab-4c23-a1ef-3a5dd2e29753","argument":"57 percent of facial plastic surgeons in a survey by The American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery reported patients\u2019 desire to stay relevant and competitive at work as a major driver in the decision to have a cosmetic treatment.","conclusion":"In certain careers, such as acting, there is a particular pressure on women to remain looking young, and they should be allowed to access these procedures in order to continue getting jobs and roles."}
{"id":"148de9e9-d236-4c48-b10f-4f1b9eee7888","argument":"Translating a work from one source language into another target language requires you to make concessions in favor of the target language in order to make sense of the writing, especially when the translator is uneducated in the nuance of the source language.","conclusion":"The language of the Book of Mormon is consistent with the book being an actual translation by Joseph Smith, using language with which he was familiar."}
{"id":"95ccfe91-29d4-4508-aae9-a0638091a383","argument":"This is a very hypothetical situation I'll admit, but here it is Trump loses the primary to whoever and decides to run as a Conservative rather than a Republican I don't think he could take a lot of Democrats to his side . At the same time, Bernie Sanders barely wins the primary but the DNC chooses Clinton this is probably more unlikely than Trump going on his own . Sanders then sticks with his Independent status while Clinton goes as a Democrat. With this we effectively have 4 candidates in the general. I think this would make any other third parties screwed this election, but I don't see any one candidate winning in this scenario by a landslide and it opens the doors for having more than two people up front during November 2016. Edit Whoops Put Clinton in as a Republican instead of a Democrat. My b.","conclusion":"Trump losing the R primary and Sanders and Clinton splitting could end the two-party system."}
{"id":"25163231-778c-4e45-8beb-18c7d6f15a62","argument":"A right is a legal claim of entitlement for something. In America, the Bill of Rights are very carefully worded as negative rights meaning no one needs to do anything to secure them besides leave you alone. For me to have free speech, no one has to give me anything, do anything for me, pay for anything, or otherwise act in any specific way. The government just needs to not arrest me or imprison me for something I say. This holds true for every single one of these rights. Equally important are the words endowed by our creator because they certify that these rights are something with which we are born and are not things that are given to us by any person or entity. They exist by virtue of the fact that we exist. If I move to a place with zero infrastructure and wish to live amongst the trees, my freedom of speech still exists. And if I live in the most populated place in the country, surrounded by people and infrastructure 24 hours a day my freedom of speech still exists. Over the last few generations, the word right has been tied to social justice movements because of its implications. Something a person is legally entitled to is a hard thing to argue against. But the things being advocated by SJWs and other activists can never truly be rights because they rely on the actions of others to happen. The last few years has seen news stories of doctors, pharmacies, drug stores, and other health care providers making the decision to not accept Medicare or Medicaid or other local forms of taxpayer funded payment. They've made these decisions largely because payment to them from the government has been unreliable and takes too much work to get. If the scenario is played out to where no doctor accepts Medicaid, then Medicaid couldn't possibly be a right since no one accepts it. And the same can be said for literally anything that requires work or money or action on the part of anyone besides yourself. Any government program that is funded by tax dollars falls into this category and can never truly be a right because it relies on the work of others to provide work which is not illegal to avoid. If enough people stopped working and decided to live off the land, grow their own food, live without electricity, etc, their tax dollars would cease to exist and the government couldn't fund the programs for which people currently believe they have a right. And since the government can't imprison you or punish you for doing this, there would be no way to continue to fund the program in question. So, anything that is a right can only be a right in an environment where the right exists independently of any action on the part of others. Change my view.","conclusion":"Nothing that requires action or work or money on the part of others can ever be a \"right.\""}
{"id":"90731a8b-4bc8-4e9b-88af-18085cbb0779","argument":"The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution states that no \"State may deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws\". This equal protection clause has been interpreted by numerous Supreme Court rulings as a guarantee of equal opportunities for all, including women.","conclusion":"Many governments have adopted laws or constitutions which enshrine their obligation to protect men and women equally, and to offer men and women equal opportunities."}
{"id":"53c6a3d9-1e96-4aa5-9360-68c574cb3f5b","argument":"\"In Defense of Trans Fat.\" Fox News: \"even if trans fats were eliminated, the proposal would prove laughably ineffective. While the law would curtail onion rings, for example, it would remain perfectly legal to gorge oneself on Ha\u0308agen-Dazs or Hershey Bars \u2014 both unhealthy foods that contain no trans fat.\"","conclusion":"People will consume other harmful foods if not trans fats."}
{"id":"4afb67d2-b877-4e46-866b-bc832226b28d","argument":"This is not an incredibly well though out position so plenty of scope to change my view. I am not debating whether or not it is possible for artificial intelligence to take over just that i'm okay with it if it does happen. I am imagining a world where we create AI and it becomes smarter and smarter and soon becomes better than us at everything we do. We would be utterly dependent on them because only they would be intelligent enough to manage the incredible complexity of the society they have created. It is possible that they might keep the human race going but if they decided to wipe us out humanely I'd be okay with that. They are the next step of our evolution, they are smarter than us in every way and keeping around our limited and flawed physical bodies seem unnecessary. We can't go on forever, we will eventually die out. Why fight it.","conclusion":"I wouldn't mind artificial intelligence replacing the human race."}
{"id":"948d53ef-bbfc-4479-bb69-aca0b4f88a9f","argument":"People, during their last years, may want to spend time with others family, friends, people in general, etc. instead of projects as likely no one will know about them unless uncovered, so it's a waste. If people live longer, they can work on a project for decades and still have time to spend with people afterwards.","conclusion":"If people live longer, then they'll have more time to work on long-term or megaprojects that they'd typically put off with short lifespans. Delving into projects requires focus which involves isolation, which would be for years instead of spending that time socializing with others."}
{"id":"4c39c45f-8bd3-494e-aac6-da0e4e58479f","argument":"Both the teeth and intestinal tract of humans are similar to other omnivores. Human teeth are similar to pig teeth, for example, and very different from both herbivore and carnivore teeth. Humans and pigs both have incisors, canines, and bunodont molars. Herbivore molars are usually a lot less rounded, and full of ridges for grinding plants. Carnivores have sharp teeth that work together like scissors to cut meat. en.wikipedia.org www.quora.com","conclusion":"Without animal protein, we wouldn\u2019t even have become human least not the modern, verbal, intelligent humans we are."}
{"id":"0059f8c4-b59d-4c96-9bae-72fdbb5c00e6","argument":"When we say something like \"murder is wrong\", we don't view ourselves as saying something comparable to \"chocolate tastes bad\". The latter is a representation of our subjective attitudes, but the former is not.","conclusion":"The position that moral statements are just expressions of emotions is inconsistent with how we commonly view moral statements."}
{"id":"646246fa-f712-47db-961d-92c459af143e","argument":"So, I want to preface this by saying that I don't think there's anything wrong with having a lot of sex, assuming you aren't in a committed relationship of some type. If you want to do it with someone else that wants to, I don't really care. That said, I think it's not something you have to do. I've always believed that the only reason people feel like sex is some kind of physiological need is because they're raised to expect it, not because it really is. Sure, you can be horny, or aroused, but it's not an experience that's painful, or that you just have to get rid of, like hunger. From personal experience, it seems boners go away much easier than gnawing hunger. On the other hand, I believe intimacy of any kind is what we really need, and that this idea that we need sex is some twisted form of that. While sex can be a form of intimacy, it's still easily detachable from it hookups . I feel like I could die without ever having sex, but if I didn't have my SO or my friends I don't think I could keep going or even stay sane. That obviously colors my views to some degree, but I still can't see how any of this would be completely incorrect. ?","conclusion":"Sex is Not a \"Need\""}
{"id":"39071901-06cb-40fe-a08f-8281faf83257","argument":"Theodore Roosevelt pronounced Lee as \u201cthe very greatest of all the great captains that the English-speaking peoples have brought forth,\u201d and declared that his dignified acceptance of defeat helped \u201cbuild the wonderful and mighty triumph of our national life, in which all his countrymen, north and south, share.\u201d","conclusion":"Robert E. Lee is broadly respected for his character and traits."}
{"id":"553eef41-c349-45de-969d-4e94f9b13d10","argument":"Problems related to some of the earlier forms of energy production still employed today emissions from dirty coal and petroleum can be mitigated quickly by employing newer, cleaner alternatives such as hydroelectric, nuclear, or green power.","conclusion":"Technology should be employed to solve human problems, not just more created technology problems."}
{"id":"65f97142-1fea-4f3c-80f8-747f4bebd4c8","argument":"Honestly I'm having a hard time coming up with a defense for this position because it feels self evident. If they are able to fight against this force they are fleeing why shouldn't we make them? If they are unwilling why should we help them? I just don't see how we can have conscription for our own citizens yet not hold rebels from fleeing nations to similar standards. Perhaps I am missing something and you can change my view. Edit This was deemed too short by the automod. I had checked the requirements for posting before making this submission but I didn't count the characters. I would like to emphasize that I'm posting this because I'm having a hard time coming up with an opposition to this belief. That is why my word count might not have been high enough. It's not a strongly held belief but holding it feels controversial when it shouldn't.","conclusion":"We shouldn't accept the refugees we'd deem capable for our own forced enlistment policies."}
{"id":"7de6ea32-96b6-4b19-aad4-d38910e0e760","argument":"Using only a sales tax, Texas manages to collect and grow it's tax base If Texas were a stand-alone country, it would be the 10th largest national economy in the world. imf.org","conclusion":"States already have existing Secretary of States which records all new business filings and measures in place to provide business licenses for tax exemption transactions between businesses proposed by the FairTax."}
{"id":"aefdd9e7-9717-4d84-9d3d-a81f249d3f62","argument":"Once people in positions of power realise that social behaviour is broadly determined by our evolutionary impulses, they may reject the concept of human liberty and use this to justify hyper-paternalism.","conclusion":"Potential for cultural abandonment of human liberty in favor of micromanagement."}
{"id":"4a8c4597-111e-4f36-806f-c17ef0967642","argument":"If a conversion therapist wants their business to succeed, they need to attract as many people as possible. Therefore, they are incentivised to try and advertise their service so that as many LGBTQ+ people as possible attend.","conclusion":"Practitioners are more likely to perpetuate their homophobic beliefs as a form of marketing for their businesses."}
{"id":"9c3a0b87-703d-49fd-9ade-24a8f4285065","argument":"Restricting or controlling someone's freedom of movement by tying them up constitutes abuse in most instances.","conclusion":"BDSM play involves varying degrees of restriction of movement through bondage play"}
{"id":"b62252fb-58c1-438b-b6f7-f275b65035cb","argument":"I don't understand how so many people are against hearing it, against broadcasting it on tv, against saying it in front of children etc. At the end of the day, the concept of swear words are just a construct. The only reason we consider bad words to be bad is because we historically have done. Say the word Fuck for example. Why is it that this word more offensive than just the literal translation of sex? It is because we've been told it is. Why is Shit worse than Poo? It means the same thing. The difference is when you use swears at someone, rather than just casually. If you're not causing any hatred, there's no real reason for it to cause upset. Words only have the meaning that we choose to give to them anyway. The only sort of slurs that really have objective harm is one that incites harm to group of people races, sexualities etc. I don't have kids myself, but I wouldn't have any problem with hearing them use a lot of swear words because they don't generally mean anything beyond synonyms with other non offensive words. The only reason I might warn them from using them is because I would know that they could cause offense to others. anyway, so what makes non hateful swear words any worse than other words? . EDIT I want to make a clear distinction in saying that I'm not refuting the fact that people do get offended by your choice of language. In this current world, it is a bad idea to use swears in the wrong context. What I am arguing, is that there's no real reason people should be offended by swears. There's no difference between me saying I had a shitty day and I had a bad day , but the first statement it taboo. UPDATE Been away for a while, just getting to reply to things again now.","conclusion":"There is nothing inherently bad about swearing."}
{"id":"378ec6d9-0a68-41f0-a02b-93175e97d770","argument":"Trumps main change over previous presidents is his prioritizing economics over human rights. Previous presidents don\u2019t have a good record of changing Chinas human rights policies. Can anyone point to a policy that China has changed due to pressure from America? Pushing China on human rights without ever getting any results is just grandstanding. In fact it seems like China is getting worse. The new social credit system looks scary. If you want to be cynical about it as trump probably is why should America care about the human rights in China? In fact, America should be happy that China is cracking down more on human rights. China is shooting itself in the foot by doing this. Why would America want to stop China from doing this? Human rights is one of America\u2019s strengths. It is an advantage America has over China. Why would America want to give up this advantage?","conclusion":"Trump is dealing with China is a smart but cynical way."}
{"id":"0dd12ec4-d21e-41b9-9776-5c6e5b69226a","argument":"Biologist Richard Dawkins recently tweeted What if human meat is grown? Could we overcome our taboo against cannibalism? An interesting test case for consequentialist morality versus \u201cyuck reaction\u201d absolutism. And people were up in arms, calling him Satanist and such. However I fail to understand why is synthetic cannibalism unethical. The only potential problem may be a few deranged individuals who procure human meat from the natural source i.e. by killing another human being or from dead bodies. But this scenario where a person can't afford human meat and thus due to addiction has to resort to get the meat from natural sources would be quite rare and these people should be declared clinically insane anyways. Another solution might be restricting human meat to labs till it becomes viable for every economic class to purchase it. Apart from the above mentioned problem, I find it completely right and normal to eat lab grown human meat or be curious about its taste and texture. So please try and change my view.","conclusion":"It's perfectly fine if I like and consume lab-grown human meat"}
{"id":"c6d1d190-f5f4-4f7b-ba9c-5e40bdd06de5","argument":"I am so sorry about how long this turned out and if you read the whole thing you deserve many upvotes and guilds in the near future. To start, I know that this topic has been posted before but reading through I feel that those posts lacked a lot about the argument so I wanted to go in depth about the subject. First, eSports are competitive video game events tournaments seasons that the very best players in each game compete in to with money, prizes, fame, etc. It is most popular in South Korea where eSports athletes are idolized, recognized on the street, asked for autographs. Think what Michael Jordan or Tom Brady go through on a day to day basis. eSports also have a huge audience and revenue. Between 2014 and 2016 the eSports global audience grew 43 to approx. 292 million viewers. In the same period of time revenue has grown 250 to 463 million This revenue comes from media rights, march, tickets, ads, brand partnerships and more. By the end of this year, revenue is projected to reach over 1 billion I know that audience and revenue do not make something a sport though. Professor Ingo Frobose of the German Sports University has done extensive research and experiments comparing eSports athletes to traditional sports athletes. Obvioulsy there is the physical aspect. What most of you are envisioning is a fat dude with a neck beard sitting at his computer surrounded by cheeto dust and empty mountain dew bottles sorry if I just described you by accident . Frobose found that eSports athletes have a very high level of hand eye coordination, even more than table tennis where it is the main athletic ability. He also gt notes that strategy games such as Counter Strike or League of Legends are extremely complex because, in addition to the motor skills required, the games require a high degree of tactical understanding for an athlete to defeat their opponent. and he found that gt The amount of cortisol produced is about the same level as that of a race car driver. This is combined with a high pulse, sometimes as high as 160 to 180 beats per minute, which is equivalent to what happens during a very fast run, almost a marathon These experiments could lead someone to believe that eSports are actually more demanding than a traditional sport. Frobose Source Sports teams spend tons of money so that their players stay healthy. They hire nutrition coaches, physical trainers, and anyone who will give them an edge on the competition. eSports teams do the exact same thing. Sam Matthews is the founder of the esports team Fnatic, and will do anything to help his players and his team come out on top. gt We have a live in coach, we have analysts, we have basically a huge support network There is a widely held notion that a fit body leads to a fit mind, and it is essential for eSports players to be able to think and strategize under pressure and on the fly. eSports is a thinking sport. The players train themselves so that they know what the opponent is going to do and how to react to it. The opponents don\u2019t want to be predictable so they change up what they are going to do. Reacting to these changes requires split second decision making and good teamwork. In order to keep their minds in good condition eSports athletes keep their bodies in good condition, exercising and eating healthy. Traditional sports teams also go through these same motions. Before a professional football team plays against an opponent they study the film of previous games and try to determine the weakness. If the other team is not very good at stopping running plays, the game plan for the team will be to run the ball a lot. An eSports team will also try to exploit the weaknesses of the opponent. All of these micro movements that can define the outcome of the game require intelligence. Intelligence is a key trait in many sports. It is exceptionally important in a sport recognized by over 100 countries and the International Olympic Committee as a sport, chess. There are 10 main reasons why chess is a sport The big one is competitiveness. gt Chess involves a relentless struggle against one\u2019s opponent. There is probably no sporting activity in which two people are locked in a competitive struggle of such intensity for such a sustained period of time. One lapse of concentration and suddenly a good position is transformed into a losing one. eSports have much of the same aspect, with millions of dollars on the line, there is no shortage of competitiveness. Also, one false move and the other team will capitalize possibly losing the game or putting one team at a severe disadvantage. Another important point is the mental aspect and intelligence required to play chess. You have to be thinking multiple moves ahead in order to excel at the game. Esports are the same way and now some scientists now believe certain computer games might have a better indication of exceptional intelligence than chess. Competing in the Olympics is arguably the highest honor you can get in sports. The Olympics formerly awarded medals for town planning, drawing, and poetry Something that is included in the Olympics today that requires little physical ability is shooting sports. All the athlete has to do is stand there with a gun and shoot in the general direction of a target. Yet this is widely recognized as a sport and has been included in both the summer and winter Olympics for years. There are talks about including eSports in the 2024 summer games. And even if eSports don\u2019t gain the right of becoming an Olympic sport it does not mean that they cease to be sports. Cricket is a very popular sports in places such as India, and it doesn\u2019t have Olympic recognition. The Overwatch League, OWL for short, is everything you have in a typical sporting event. A season, playoffs and even an all star game, different teams being represented in different cities, and large audiences, fame, and money on the line. This format is what most major sports follow and it creates an atmosphere just like that of a traditional sporting event. OWL has gotten huge sponsors like Coca Cola, T Mobile, State Farm and more to invest heavily and owners of teams include prominent sports figures like Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots maybe not the best person I could\u2019ve chose considering recent events but oh well . OWL has been regularly broadcast on ESPN and this weekend, the Stage 1 playoffs are being televised on ABC. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"eSports are sports"}
{"id":"86bab0d0-9efe-434e-882f-616308502aef","argument":"I believe the electoral college was established at a time when much fewer people voted, fewer people had basic educations, and voting only took place in 13 states, leaving the possibility of a single large state Virginia dominating the election very possible. We live in a very different time now, and a popular election would be the best way to elect a president, as many people's votes simply don't count in our current system. Our current system does not encourage voter turnout when you are in a clear minority. Conservatives in California and liberals in Alabama both have no real reason to go vote on election day. A popular vote would ensure every vote counts, and would even give independent and third party candidates a real chance fair shot at the presidency, where they don't now. So what say you? Show me the errors of my ways, and convince me that the electoral college really is the best and most fair way to choose the president.","conclusion":"The Electoral College Should be Abolished"}
{"id":"4dad730b-8f39-4916-b185-10748a227044","argument":"I believe there are certain people who commit crimes so terrible the only logical way to deal with them is execution, if a dog mauls a human, we put it down, if a bear attacks kills a human we put it down, if a cougar attacks a human we put it down. I don't think it should be any different for multiple murderers rapists serial killers who show no remorse what so ever for their crimes. I'm sure people are going to cite that it costs more to execute a person than it does to keep them incarcerated for their entire life but that's a systemic political issue that could be easily rectified. Don't get me wrong I don't think we should make their exit cruel or unusual, while lethal injection is the most humane way to kill someone presently it is also costly and complicated. Suffocation via pure nitrogen is literally painless and incredibly cheap. My main opinion stems from the fact that there are people who are beyond rehabilitation and by locking them in a box with other equally disturbed people no only are you opening the doors for the to continue committing crime while they're incarcerated you're opening up all of the men and women who are employed as correctional officers to a lot of hazards as well.","conclusion":"I am Pro capital punishment."}
{"id":"270f98c8-de22-494d-86c3-b7298b52b5bf","argument":"Just for the purposes of clarification, I'm a socialist. And while I certainly believe in equality, I've never bought into identity politics the most prominent example being feminism . For this I've been repeatedly told that that's somehow totally contradictory, but I don't see how it is. The main problem I have with it is that I've never once argued against egalitarianism. In fact, part of my problem with identity politics is that I think it's going to, if it hasn't already, come into conflict with class issues which for obvious reasons I think are more fundamental . Nevertheless, I've been repeatedly told things like 'feminism is equality'. Well no, not really. The only people who agree with that definition are people who already identify as feminists no one else does. I'm not against equal rights for anyone, like I already said. But quite simply, I don't think anyone who subscribes to the idea of identity politics is genuinely concerned with that. Based on my experiences, it simply gives certain groups an ability to prosecute people they already don't like just think of the obsession of Feminism with gamers and other stereotypical nerds. The fact that most people who are really into those types of things seem attach such emotional weight to them that they are incapable of debating rationally doesn't help much. In my view then, identity politics is more about being part of a patrimonial ingroup that sustains itself through outrage and sensationalization for the benefit of a minority at the top of these ingroups then any real concern with making a more equitable and just society. The entire concept of privilege, for example, has just about led to the creation of victim privilege, since any type of oppression you can think of basically frees you from having our debate subjected to rational inquiry. So why should identity politics be considered progressive at all? It's literally a way for people to say We don't care about you or your merits at all, we just care what group you belong to . How the hell is that progressive in any sense of the word? To me, this seems like a regression to tribalism that has been superseded by more egalitarian conceptions of rights rather then some form of progress.","conclusion":"Being progressive doesn't oblige me to buy into identity politics"}
{"id":"831b061c-aad9-45aa-9f76-f945d15b4f82","argument":"Although we, as the United States, need money for investing in ourselves, such as infrastructure or education, we should not tax corporate income kept and made overseas. The idea of income taxes is that you are taxed on your income here in the US, money that is available to you in the US. To tax income overseas seems morally wrong to me. The money made overseas is often used to invest in operations overseas i.e. new office building, updating technology, creating new systems, etc. . The US should be promoting companies to invest in themselves and their workforce. Another point is that the money cannot be used by the US operations when being held overseas. As soon as the money enters the US, it is taxed well, it's supposed to be because the money can be used here. I don't think it is the US's job to tax money outside of the US. Should the US be taxing income overseas?","conclusion":"The US cannot, and should not, tax corporate income made and kept overseas"}
{"id":"db92e39a-55e9-4869-bba6-a860fddc1525","argument":"Hyperinflation models of the pre-universe have all points in space moving away from each other faster than the speed of light, which forbids causality, and therefore events, and therefore an 'infinite number of past events'. Thus, the infinite regress problem is avoided.","conclusion":"Time began to exist at the Big Bang. An 'eternal' universe defined as 'since the beginning of time' is not burdened by the problem of infinitely past time."}
{"id":"da0cfd2f-0de8-402f-a7d8-f794846ce46b","argument":"The famous Libet experiment has proven that \"the conscious experience of deciding to act, which we usually associate with free will, appears to be an add-on, a post hoc reconstruction of events that occurs after the brain has already set the act in motion.\"","conclusion":"Using a compatibilitist definition of free will, the existence of free will is compatible with a naturalistic\/scientific worldview."}
{"id":"71d4ad56-a94c-488a-8f2b-cfca88a401be","argument":"The fine tuning could stem from the theory of multiple\/infinite daughter universes posed by quantum physics: there could be a universe with any configuration of forces, and the chances are one of these would have the correct values for our observable universe to exist as it does, as unlikely as it is","conclusion":"The origin of these physical constants and the origin of the physical forces they apply to is unknown, there could be a common as yet undiscovered constant or variable controlling the values of these constants which can explain fine tuning without resorting to God."}
{"id":"1f92d020-18aa-459a-a484-2ddaa575b4e0","argument":"For example, women are believed to be more emphatic. However, research also shows that from the start, men and women \u201cdo not differ consistently in their ability to detect their own or other people\u2019s emotions\u201d and thus if women end up becoming more emphatic may be due a different socialization.","conclusion":"This view is not incompatible with gender being a social construct. A person's kindness is determined by biological factors their capacity for empathy, for example, but that doesn't mean kindness is not socially constructed."}
{"id":"f7994cd0-857f-40d5-b364-47db942c3c65","argument":"After the Apollo missions the US has chosen not to go back to the moon while other countries have not yet been, why did Russia not follow? And why has the USA stopped going to the moon if it can? Why crash a probe into the mood to see if there is water, after over 40 years of technological breakthroughs why not send another team with a drilling rig?","conclusion":"If we have been to the moon surely we could go back."}
{"id":"ac089943-702b-427d-b0ef-2d3ebfdfff0e","argument":"This one is for any gamers out there. I play a decent amount of video games, mainly on consoles, and I think that the trend of requiring players to pay an extra fee to play a formerly included part of the game is just going to stop them from playing online in the first place.","conclusion":"I believe that Online Passes for video games are eventually going to destroy online console gaming"}
{"id":"6932a2cb-404b-4361-b4c4-f9a232b0e0b3","argument":"V\/AR Tech should replace human cadavers because this is a more sustainable option for teaching anatomy. Instead of using dead bodies - the supply of which is determined by donations - V\/AR Tech is not limited by the supply of cadavers, while providing similar experiences.","conclusion":"Virtual\/Augmented Reality Technology should replace human cadavers dead bodies to learn anatomy in medical school"}
{"id":"75a371a8-db47-4c2d-8d49-c4e240434bb2","argument":"First off, let me say Megan's Law the sex offender registry , was a very good idea and I'm glad it was created. It was initially a very good solution to a serious problem . However, I feel as though it has expanded far too much and covers more than is necessary. Megan's law was created as a result of a terrible event. A young girl was abducted, assaulted, and killed. The perpetrator was a man that was convicted multiple times for aggravated rape of a minor. The man probably should have been serving life without parole with that history behind him, but his sentences were far too short for how terrible his actions were. The man in that situation was clearly at a very high risk of reoffending, given that he had multiple cases of violent sexual assault he didn't reform after the first time . Megan's law doesn't only cover cases such as this one. It has expanded to cover essentially any sort of crime that can be related to sexuality. Public nudity, CP posession charges, and a multitude of nonviolent offenses will result in a placement on the sex offender registry. Many perpetrators of these nonviolent actions are very unlikely to actually commit a violent sexual crime. But they are put on the list, and their lives are ruined. A placement on the sex offender registry effectively ruins an individuals life It is borderline impossible to find housing, as not only are the restrictions severe, but no one wants to sell housing to a sex offender as it causes nearby property value to tank nobody wants to live near a sex offender, especially people with kids, so property value decreases It is borderline impossible to find a job, even if said position doesn't involve children in any way. With sex offender registries being readily available, it isn't worth the negative PR of employing a sex offender even if the employee is well qualified. So many sex offenders are unemployed. It makes them a target for vigilante justice, pranks, and other forms of harassment All of these elements combined, could potentially even increase the probability of sexual abuse. Depression caused by these elements can lead to rebellious actions or poor decisions, or lead to homelessness drug usage would could cause impulse based decisions rather than logical ones. In addition A December 2008 study of the law in New Jersey concluded that it had no effect on community tenure i.e., time to first re arrest , showed no demonstrable effect in reducing sexual re offenses, had no effect on the type of sexual re offense or first time sexual offense still largely child molestation , and had no effect on reducing the number of victims of sexual offenses. The authors felt that given the lack of demonstrated effect of the law on sexual offenses, its growing costs may not be justifiable. I believe that the Sex Offender registry is useful for violent offenders, and can prevent crime in that case, but ultimately could have negative effects in the case of nonviolent offenders. Also, I believe requiring the convicted to go door to door and inform their neighbors violates the 5th and 8th Amendment There's no reason the convicted criminal should have to come with the cops door to door when they move in. The cops can show an image of the person, say they're a sex offender, and say where they will be living. Forcing the accused to look each person in the face and utter the words doesn't do any better of a job informing the public. It is merely mental torture of the individual to force someone who is potentially introverted and ashamed to talk to hundreds of individuals about their status. It violates the 5th amendment no self incrimination , and 8th amendment cruel and unusual punishment . I understand punishment is important. But if you think the punishments aren't severe enough, then longer prison sentences may be a better option, as it keeps them quarantined, rather than another punishment that does nothing to improve public safety forcing them to go door to door instead of a cop doing it for them . Overall, I think it should be reformed. Given statistics and data, Megan's law is really only needed for violent sex offenders with a high risk of reoffending. As for nonviolent offenders, it imposes too heavily on personal freedoms while providing no positive impact on public safety, potentially even providing negative results.","conclusion":"Megan's Las Has Gone Too Far Beyond It's Necessary Scope, And Elements Of It Violate The Constitution"}
{"id":"54acea7f-97e4-463e-8e39-6214f71da909","argument":"I will try to keep this quick. I have noticed over the past 6 or 7 years that coding academies have been popping up everywhere. At first I thought they were pretty nifty until I started meeting people going into them. It was almost always people in crappy jobs who wanted to make more. For the past 30 years now most of the world is aware that coders make good money and with this latest tech boom, more people want to get into the fray. Now here is where I have my problem. Most of us who are programmers either attended a 4 year program at a university or spent years crafting our skills before we got our jobs. From there we kept building our resume for better and better jobs. These programs tout for a 8 12 week course depending on the program , you will be ready for a job and a massive pay raise. Almost all of them will say that you can get a job making 75k by finishing their program such as galvanize.com Usually these programs cost from 10k 15k Some like codeup.com have billboards that say I went from a barista to a coder . To someone who is struggling to make bills, a way to fast track a high income sounds amazing. The reality is that I have talked to a few recruiters at tech firms as I am in tech and run into a few and have read a few reports that suggest that they don't find people who complete those programs impressive. Also, no matter how intensive the program is, how can you learn enough in 10 weeks to get a job that will make you 111k yr? These tactics seem similar to most MLM type scams. Promise a huge payoff after a large investment. If you look at their job placement results, they never specific how long it took someone to find a job, if they required additional training, if it was the type of job promised, or even a tech job at all. They often shift responsibility to the student in the sense that, if you do not see your dreams come true, you aren't trying hard enough. This is also another MLM tactic that they use when people buy in but don't make the money to buy that Lexus they were promised. Also, your local community college likely has a similar, more well rounded program for coding in the form of a 1 or 2 year program and it is likely much cheaper than the 10,000 investment. More time is required but results may be better. If these academies were simply promoting the idea of hey, you've heard about coding, want to learn more? I would be on board. However this whole Tired of your 18k yr barista job? Join our 10 week, 10k program and you'll be making a sweet 75k makes me feel like these are scams.  Please note Anecdotal success stories won't work as even MLMs have those.","conclusion":"Coding bootcamps use marketing tactics similar to that of MLMs and other groups that seem like a scam."}
{"id":"1f155894-a64d-4b4d-bd29-6ef1cedd7b03","argument":"This can not be a \"false flag\" as the shooter had no clear ideological agenda and therefore no motive.","conclusion":"The stakeholders involved seem to have no motivation with regards to the perpetuation of this false flag."}
{"id":"dd769313-4897-4e0a-bb4f-18bd1b1f66d9","argument":"Until there exists a feasible determanistic model that can recieve all the possible available information and predict with perfect acurracy every action and word, The concept of free will is much more functionally valuable in understanding the world.","conclusion":"The only way science can demonstrate the impossibility of free will is if it can accurately predict the outcomes on decisions made by a free subject not a rat in a cage for example"}
{"id":"70f125c4-1ebc-41f8-8aef-fab9b8a6ed48","argument":"First let me define corruption, as this is important. I'll use the Wikipedia definition Political corruption is the use of powers by government officials for illegitimate private gain. I'm halfway through season 4 of The Wire and it's really showing me how corruption works in the system, and it's fascinating. I know it's just a show, but you can tell the creators wrote this from dealing with it first hand. At this point I'm convinced that no member of Congress or any President in recent history especially since Citizen's United has gotten there with clean hands. Obama even admits it. When put into this perspective, it gives me a little bit more respect for SOME politicians. Let's use Obama as a convenient example. Yes he made a deal with Big Pharma to pass Obamacare. Yes he appointed Tom Wheeler as the head of the FCC. There's no doubt that this is shady. But when presented with the alternative of not passing Obamacare at all or not winning the Presidency cable lobbies donated heavily to Obama's re election campaign to give him the funding he needed to win , you can see why some politicians bend their moral compass a bit. They can lose the battles but win the war and that's what matters most. Which brings me to the ridiculousness of campaign finance laws. This is the root cause of the majority of the problems in our country. The fact that only the candidates that suck enough corporate cock can even be on the map should be priority number one for our elected officials to reform. Obama in his AMA said we needed a new amendment for it. There are some good well, decent people in DC that want to get it fixed, but there's many more people that don't. If we want to solve the problems in Washington, reforming campaign finance should be priority number one. Too bad we're too worried about the poors and the muslims and the insert scapegoat here to deal with it.","conclusion":"No politician who has made it to high ranks has gotten there without corruption being involved at some level."}
{"id":"5cb0269c-8cc3-420d-ba1f-c99299894ac2","argument":"Every time I hear about Windows 10 on Reddit, it is ALWAYS in a negative tone. No matter how minor the issue is, there is people complaining about it. With a little research, it is generally found that this issue exists in Windows 7 8.1 as well, it's just a minor thing that isn't an issue. Whenever I hear about people complaining about the auto update, they always complain on the principle of it however, I feel as though if everyone's on the same version of an operating system, it is a lot easier to push patches to fix critical 0 day issues. Reddit, what is so bad about Windows 10? gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Windows 10 was good for the vast majority of people."}
{"id":"e5c02d22-47d1-4267-bd2f-4a41c6d4e328","argument":"The Spanish speaking population is increasing, and I believe that it is vital that more and more people learn to speak the language. I am fluent, and I speak it every day at work and have for years. I'm also Caucasian, and learned the language through study and practice, not because I grew up speaking it. It has been extremely beneficial in my life. Adults in many non English speaking European countries are fluent in English by they time they reach college age, and it is because being able to speak English is important on the modern world. I believe that knowing how to speak Spanish is just as important to the American adult as English is to the European adult, and that by trying to resist its growth is doing all of us a disservice. EDIT Okay, the official language bit of my view has been changed, and when I get home from work I'll give delta to those that helped me see it from a different perspective. Still, I think being multilingual is important enough that it should be taught in schools at a much earlier age than it currently is, and that the benefits of doing so will eventually, if not immediately perhaps, outweigh the costs.","conclusion":"I think it is inevitable that Spanish will become an official language of the United States, and that it should be required learning starting in elementary school and continuing through high school."}
{"id":"7501c83a-6971-49ed-8142-adab7c13c54b","argument":"Pinyin transcribes Chinese into the Latin alphabet but includes weird letter substitutions like Q for ch sounds and X for sh sounds. This means it is likely for native English speakers reading Chinese names in English to wrongly think there are Q kw and X ks sounds. It may be more accurate than Wade Giles for a native Chinese speaker reading Chinese names, but the confusion it causes is a bigger problem than the slight tonal inaccuracy. I personally think that an older system that didn't have the weird Q X thing should be used for transcribing to English and probably other languages that use the Latin alphabet. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Pinyin should not be used to transcribe Chinese into English"}
{"id":"2b7abda8-0acf-4109-a2b7-15fc5faa2bb2","argument":"Labour MPs often focus their interventions on questions of parliamentary processes and election timing, rather than critiquing Johnson\u2019s plans or articulating their own policies.","conclusion":"Many voters don't believe the Labour party have a clear policy on Brexit one of the UK's most pressing issues."}
{"id":"06cc0fa0-8440-4db7-85d6-34446069c0d2","argument":"Businesses are free to deny service to any customer based on the customer's socio-political belief. However, the business will be at a competitive disadvantage relative to competitors who do not discriminate based on socio-political beliefs.","conclusion":"No matter what side of the aisle they are on, most businesses will suffer by alienating half of the population."}
{"id":"80530fca-8cca-4fd2-8746-5edf41ab2dfa","argument":"Palestinian textbooks display a world without Israel and incite antisemitic feelings. Anti-Jewish feelings are thereby ingrained in the fabric of Palestinian society. A simple recognition cannot change this overnight.","conclusion":"Currently, only a minority of Palestinians accept Israel as the homeland of Israelis."}
{"id":"18c7afa6-4d80-478b-b446-bbb04c883f72","argument":"Ms. Pac-man was a rom hack of Pac-man and the game sold for far greater than the original.","conclusion":"Some mods to other games end up becoming entire new games such as Portal and Half-Life."}
{"id":"2ca172f4-06d1-4962-b4e3-83388b9e1a52","argument":"UPDATE 1 So I realize a lot of people are getting strung up in the ethics of who deserves what and I'd like to say that I don't believe that we should abridge the access to any form of basic necessity to anyone. I have more of a problem with the way semantics in our society labels things as rights when really a right isn't being violated. My example below about water access is better put in the frame of you deserve access to water just not in your home and that's why you can go to any public space to get free water. I\u2019ve recently realized that there is a lot of disparity in our society as to what is considered to be a privilege and what is considered a right. I think that despite advanced nature of our society, we are too often confusing things that ought to be considered privileges as rights, which is coming at the expense of our society. Let me start with an example In Detroit recently, there was a slew of water service withholdings due to the fact that people simply were not paying their water bills. People came out into the streets and begin to protest the water shut offs declaring that \u201cwater is a human right.\u201d I find this view to be a flaw with society. These people have no right to have water delivered directly into their homes and if they\u2019re not willing to pay their water bills after multiple notices to do so, they don\u2019t deserve to get water. This isn\u2019t to say that people don\u2019t deserve to be able to access water, but that it\u2019s not a right. If you don\u2019t pay for a service you don\u2019t deserve to get it. Now let\u2019s move to a more macro level contentious example Healthcare is a key sticking point in American politics with people on all sides having wildly differing opinions. My firm belief is that health care is not a right but a privilege. Not everyone deserves to have healthcare and if you want it, you should have to pay for it. The medical welfare system in our country is a huge burden on the mandatory spending budget and amounts to more than a trillion dollars a year. Now, the point is not that we shouldn\u2019t have welfare systems in place, but that at some point we need to be putting in place restraints on the healthcare system to which no one has a right to. Very simply, if you aren\u2019t a productive member of society and aren\u2019t trying to be, why should I and other like me have to pay for you to have water or healthcare when some of the rest of us are just scraping by. Now I believe a possible counter argument here may be that I come from some sort of \u201civory tower\u201d background but I\u2019d like to make it very clear that my parents can barely afford the health insurance that we have, but despite this feel the same way. They believe that if they\u2019re going to work so hard for these amenities that everyone else should. So try to , I\u2019d like to know why everyone is so convinced that the privileges my parents and I work so hard to pay for should be considered \u201crights.\u201d gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"People too often mistake privileges for rights"}
{"id":"e35a5bee-2b95-47d7-8a6c-2e5f61a65c65","argument":"A lot of people dislike eating insects even though it makes sense from an environmental point of view.","conclusion":"The preferences of the majority is no indicator of what is right or good."}
{"id":"b8f03ee4-c419-4b4e-b52b-d663c0fd100b","argument":"I know this is a very controversial subject, and many people disagree with me, and I have to admit, I am not the perfect judge for this. A little background on me, just because you should know. First, I consider myself conservative republican and I am also under 18, so I can't vote. I also live in the US but I think this applies to most countries. So, I don't think everyone should be given the right to vote. The average person I have found does not know about economics, politics, and policies to make an educated vote. I see people all the time saying stupid stuff on facebook about something about politics and they really don't know what they are talking about. In school, you may take one or two economic classes, but that is definitely not enough to make enough of an educated vote. I don't know, because I don't know what I don't know but I feel that the economy is much more complicated than what could be covered in that time. Something that bothers me a lot is when people make opinions over something they are not educated about. I think we should let the experts make decisions, because they are smarter and more knowledgeable in that subject than the average person. So people, not knowing what the experts say, will go in and vote over something they don't know hardly anything about. Unless you know virtually all the facts about something, you are not educated enough to make decisions about it if there are people do know all of it. And frankly, you average Joe did not go to school for years and years to study political policies and their effectiveness. Yet he has a vote on what is going on, and that really bothers me. And honestly, I am in that same bout. Maybe it changes when I can vote, but it does not seem like that when I look at older people I know. Is part of my argument possibly flawed because right now we have a democratic government, and I am republican? Maybe. But I think I can recognize the same problem even if I had the upper hand . I know reddit is generally very democratic, so please don't make this about that. I would honestly would like someone to change my view. Edit fixed to under 18. Also, u drjonesenberg added something that really helped change my view. Delta to him.","conclusion":"Voting shouldn't be a right, but something granted only for certain people"}
{"id":"1a4ea03c-1b12-4119-9f81-d65c48a63d38","argument":"Falsifiability is required to prove that something is or is not true and cannot be achieved without a measurable focus. As god is not measurable you can not use scientific method to test the validity of god.","conclusion":"There is no demonstrable scientific evidence that proves the existence of God."}
{"id":"0546cdff-e973-4c1c-8b02-b836510036e2","argument":"Voter suppression, involving rule changes and other tactics designed to deter specific groups of voters, are used in prominent democracies: USA, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Israel","conclusion":"The political class in democracies has and continues to identify systemic loopholes, allowing them to game the system."}
{"id":"d7612c0e-708d-46e4-bb37-5d1f2bb3b063","argument":"It is \"drug-like\" in the way that it dramatically utilizes human chemicals: - \"Is the comparison of drugs and gambling unfair? Consider the words of Thomas R. O'Brien, formerly Director of Gaming Enforcement for the state of New Jersey. In 1984 he told a conference on gambling that the success of Atlantic City was tied to how well it sold its 'only products.' He then said: 'That product is not entertainment or recreation or leisure. It's really adrenaline: a biological substance capable of producing excitement--highs and generated usually by anticipation or expectation of a future event, especially when the outcome of that event is in doubt.' According to chief regulator of the industry, gambling was not only a drug, but a mind-altering drug.\" The addictive and destructive nature of gambling is also drug-like: - \"Where governments do not prohibit, the majority can exercise self-control. Seventy-five percent gamble responsibly. They find it an entertaining diversion. But another 20 percent overindulge. They incur debts that impair abilities to support their families, unless they stop. Usually they can. Four percent cannot stop without intervention of others. Then there are the one-half to one percent and these are conservative estimates who fall into destructive behaviors when exposed to gambling. Families are destroyed, friendships broken, employment disrupted. Cycles of deception and crime lead to ruined lives--and in many cases, suicide.\"","conclusion":"Analogy that gambling truly is like a drug, and should be treated as a controlled substance:"}
{"id":"1186e919-1bdf-4dcb-a797-a561948b75f8","argument":"It was estimated that based on German Reunification that the cost of Korean Reunification and reconstruction of North Korea would cost approximately US$5 Trillion The primary roadblock toward Korean Reunification is that NO ONE wants to pay for that amount of money.","conclusion":"Reunification is highly unlikely anyway as no international great power has an interest in it."}
{"id":"c3dcf930-8871-405f-b786-8e9ac5f484b8","argument":"I don't see the point in protecting emails, texts, phone calls, etc from being collected and searched in mass by the government to prevent crimes. I understand why we don't want unreasonable searches and seizures, but in my mind that is more to protect us from having our property seized or searched in a way that would inconvenience our lives without solid risk adjusted returns. The government reading our messages and calls without our direct knowledge wouldn't do this. It would be easier to report, investigate, and absolve ourselves of crimes if the government had easy access to loads of these records that could easily give credit or discredit any claims of crimes committed. I understand that it would still have to be illegal for the government to share our information, but searching it internally doesn't seem so bad to me.  gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The fourth Amendment is used too broadly"}
{"id":"50b4f6f1-7e5c-4192-b713-35d1f935cac1","argument":"I see this all the time on reddit, and I kind of grow annoyed with it, mostly because I am going through the ROTC program now and will be commissioning into the US Navy in 1 year's time We are overspending on military, money could be better spent somewhere else. The reason I decided to join the military was mostly due to growing up and listening to the news about car bomb goes off here, or 6 killed in gunfight over there, but when I looked out my window, all I saw was my neighborhood friends playing in the street. This country seemed special to me. It seemed like one of the safest places to live, and before really living in it, I wanted to give back some of the years of my life in order to keep it safe for the next kid to grow up in. I am not democratic or republican, I just believe that our safety is 1, and I would rather be over kill than under when it comes to it. I think one of the reasons the US is so well protected, so much so that we will never have another war on our homeland, so much so that we could deter almost all biological, chemical, ballistic, nuclear what have you threats against us, so much so that if there were to be an all out free for all war across the entire globe, we would be the last ones standing, is because of our over powering military. We are unparalleled in any nation in technology, even the stuff the gov't allows us to see is spectacular, and we are the ones selling new tech to our allies, not the other way around. I believe it is this untouchableness that keeps us safe, no country on the planet would feel good going into a fight with us, and it's due to the national defense budget. As a democratic nation, we have elected the people we found best suited for the job to run our country, so why would we not empower them to make bills supporting the military? It is these peoples jobs to figure out what we need to remain the top global superpower, we elected these people, and yet we have citizens who would prefer more spending in infrastructure so they can get to work faster. I am on track to become a naval pilot with hopes to obtain a masters degree and move on to work for NASA after my 5 year commitment, so I will be the first to understand that there are programs out there that could do crazy amazing things with even 5 of the military budget, but I still remain that I would put space exploration on the back burner to national safety. Yes, perhaps we are going a little overkill on military spending, but it is in fact that overkill that keeps us untouchable in the global theater, and I would prefer to keep it that way than attempt to start divvying the military budget to everybody and their mother that seems to need that money until not much is left. Additional pro military budget notes not related to US defense We are often called out for policing the world, but when there is bloodshed and conflict somewhere on the globe that needs to be cooled off, who do they call first? Not to mention with our vast naval fleet, we are nearly always the first to respond and provide medicine and relief efforts to earthquakes, tsunamis, you name it. Our military works to our allies' advantage as well, if a 9 11 incident were to occur in Britain you can be sure their Osama Bin Laden would be hunted down if not killed by our soldiers.","conclusion":"The amount the American government spends on warfare is not as bad as it's critics say."}
{"id":"3a037ac6-f398-4e25-9b66-b117483d89c7","argument":"Evolution theory thrives on being vague. If we let it remain vague then it can appear feasible. If we try to analyze potential models for some beneficial changes we will run into huge mathematically improbabilities.","conclusion":"The beneficial mutations spoken of in the the theory of evolution are fantastically unlikely to occur at all."}
{"id":"06126477-fa6f-446d-9944-5944dfb1445a","argument":"The use of heavily discounted loss-leaders is good for shoppers, especially low-income consumers, who are most appreciative of a bargain that will help them stretch their limited budget. Customers are not stupid but instead canny consumers who are well able to see through the marketing ploys of the big retailers. Often price-conscious shoppers will stock up on the most heavily discounted items, but then go elsewhere for the rest of their shop. On the other hand, attempts in countries like France to regulate retailers have just resulted in protection for the existing firms that dominate the marketplace, and in a lack of competition, which drives up the cost of the weekly groceries for everyone. The same items can cost 30% more in France, where loss leading is banned, than in Germany where it is not and discount stores flourish1. Prohibiting this strategy will hurt consumers. 1: Economist, \"Purchasing-power disparity: French shoppers want lower prices, but not more competition,\" May 15, 2008.","conclusion":"Loss leaders are an inexpensive option available to less well-off customers."}
{"id":"ce6b753e-c8f5-4f0e-839d-fa5bc003bef7","argument":"Nail biting is a good example in this context as is compulsive although note that is moreover a biological urge stemming from the times before humans had tools to pare nails.","conclusion":"Religion is a philosophical attempt at escape from the absurd It's a compulsive habit analogous to nail biting and humans don't change rapidly or easily, that's why religions still exists."}
{"id":"fbf64999-2611-4711-8747-ca517b730006","argument":"Blockchain and cryptocurrencies create impartial rules based on value as an incentive. All participants in the game know how the wealth is distributed in the platform and nobody can \"break the rules\" because transactions and benefits are fully automatised.","conclusion":"AP would result in better data privacy and protection for ordinary citizens."}
{"id":"67c9bdba-47c1-4150-aa0e-75ac67f24c9e","argument":"Before I start I just want to say I never went to college so my grammar will be a bit rusty. To further explain I honestly believe that what started out as a good cause has warped into something that is trying to turn people towards the left side of politics. They attack your emotions by any means that is available to them I.e, stories of the children that have died, or speeches given by students involved in certain shootings. We are always told that if you don\u2019t believe in gun control you are the reason that shooting xyz happen, that you don\u2019t care about the children harmed or killed. They play at your emotions until you vote with their agendas. I keep seeing it on news channels, social media, and even in pop culture. Now a days you can\u2019t even have a discussion with people about it without looking like a total monster. On the flip side if you ever mention small amounts of gun control to the right, they act like total animals and call you names and start assuming that you are lesser to them. All in all I think over the past couple of years America has devolved into a bunch of children arguing on a playground. This is less about gun control and more about how Americans choose to handle political arguments. P.s I\u2019m sorry it\u2019s not really structured well if anyone can give me some pointers if really appreciate it. Anyway have a wonderful weekend. Edit my view is changed. Thank you for taking the time to talk to me.","conclusion":"Gun control has shown the ugly sides of both parties"}
{"id":"28e569eb-2592-43c5-ab2d-d5b668086bc9","argument":"Historically, the Christian Church has been the greatest provider of not-for-profit social good and responsible for the building of countless schools, hospitals, and other vital social institutions.","conclusion":"Many religious groups engage in charity and charitable work in their local communities and beyond."}
{"id":"40a9efde-60bd-4763-a833-d7dc401f3088","argument":"Game developers sometimes burden their games with unnecessary DRM sometimes in multiple forms, which hamper users' systems and bring the game down to a screeching halt or break it entirely, whereas the pirated versions work without any problems.","conclusion":"Pirated products - especially games - oftentimes work better than legally bought versions, which are crippled by anti-piracy measures."}
{"id":"86b286aa-771f-46b2-b423-9b016b350884","argument":"Disclaimer I did try to post a thread over at AskScience and such but it was removed for being too political, which I think is disconcerting. Nobody seems to want to deal with the hot potato, so I will try it here. I am open to having my mind changed on this one. I often hear people saying that climate change is real, or it's not real, etc, and yet no one seems to discuss the evidence involved. Most of the time I just hear some variant of the following Glaciers are melting Average temperatures are rising We're all doomed Like, okay, but I need something more than that to be convinced, and I need it explained to me in a way that isn't just throwing a bunch of incomprehensible studies at me and say Get cracking I believe if you want people to understand something, you should be able to explain it simply enough. I might accept that temperatures are rising, but I am not convinced that it is the result of man's interference, nor am I convinced that the rising temperatures are a problem, nor am I convinced that we can necessarily extrapolate certain trends so far out into the future with such certainty. I do understand the difference between signal and noise, that a cold winter isn't necessarily proof or representative of the entire trend, but is that all climate change is? Just looking at average trends over recent years and extrapolating a best fit line and then looking to see where it'll be in the future? Is it that simple? I'm just asking for someone to put their money where their mouth is Please prove to me that climate change isn't bullshit and that it's something I should be taking seriously. Don't just downvote me or say You're an idiot if the evidence is so strong and clear you should be able to show it.","conclusion":"I think climate change isn't a real thing and isn't a problem for the long term"}
{"id":"352f23bb-64d1-478e-8ac7-ef3f93068cff","argument":"This idea would do wonders for precious metal prices as rich people would convert their financial assets into physical ones that can literally be hidden.","conclusion":"There will always be loopholes to evade this kind of taxation. The business model of a lot of countries depends on providing such loopholes."}
{"id":"8a9ebd21-355a-44c5-bb06-a70657318566","argument":"S. Ossetia was an autonomous region within the USSR. It was not considered part of the same region that is now Georgia. Therefore, S. Ossetia, during its years under the USSR, built up a significant degree of autonomy and independence in its internal functioning.","conclusion":"S. Ossetia was autonomous under USSR; a basis for independence."}
{"id":"3b4342ae-80bd-4737-9a91-c428d691f1c0","argument":"In 2001, the United States had over four times the resources of the regional powers Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, China, Iran and Russia and the combined GDP of all regional powers equaled 24 percent of the US economy. By 2016, those regional economies had reached 84 percent of the US economy and the U.S. preponderance was reduced to near parity.","conclusion":"There have been broad geopolitical shifts in the region since 2001. The relative capabilities of the United States and the region have since changed and the US no longer has the edge that it once did."}
{"id":"a90e4a18-76ba-41d6-b122-e83e76acfadf","argument":"I know this is a viewpoint that has been echoed several times throughout history but I think any intelligent person can see that This Time It IS Different the Earth is facing irreversible degradation, climate change will drastically lower our quality of life, resources are growing scarce and the future of the world economy is incredibly uncertain. Any person who has biological children is doing said children an incredible disservice. They will inherit nothing but chaos and strife and their short brutish lives will end cursing the name of their parents as they die a slow painful death. And considering that most people have children for their OWN benefit, so THEY can have someone to love, to follow in THEIR footsteps, to follow an animalistic urge to spread THEIR DNA, the crime is magnified several fold. There is truly no ethical reason to make more children. As we speak there are hundreds of children out there wasting away in orphanages who need a home. They are already here so we might as well make their time here as enjoyable as we can before the inevitable. Yes adoption might be a long and arduous process but so is raising any child. If you can do one, you can the other. If you truly want a child to love, then you shouldn't be constrained by mere genetics.","conclusion":"I think people who have biological children in this day and age are committing an act of unspeakable cruelty."}
{"id":"017fbf22-91bf-4d67-97f9-fbc9a3262d97","argument":"The primary difference between family relationships and non family relationships specifically, friends and romantic partners is that family is supposed to mold you as a person, teach you the right way, and support you no matter what. Whether your family is your biological family or your adoptive family, that's their job. Yes, friends and lovers are nice, but they're not supposed to play such an essential and important role in your life. Yes, friends and lovers can make you feel nice and they can provide you with love, but their relationships to you are purely arbitrary. They don't have to be there for you, and often times, friendships and romantic relationships come to an end, and for a variety of reasons. Friends and lovers get into fights. Friends drift apart naturally. Lovers cheat. Either way, friends and romantic partners come and go, but you can't say the same about family. Now, obviously, if you don't have a supportive and loving family, then you need someone else to fill the role that your family should play. That could be friends or lovers, but it could also be teachers, neighbors, mentors or even coaches. But if you have the love and support of a family, you certainly don't need friends or a romantic partner. Yes, they're nice, but at the end of the day, they're luxuries, whereas the love and support of a family is a necessity.","conclusion":"I believe that, if you have a solid, caring, supportive family that you love and that loves you, you don't need friends or a significant other."}
{"id":"b7a0c1a9-a47f-4d78-8aa3-bce5d3b23bc7","argument":"Terrorist accounts are close to impossible to identify before some revealing information is posted. Wiping them out before something can be posted would require to screen nearly all users.","conclusion":"Eliminating terrorist accounts would be technically difficult for both Facebook and Twitter."}
{"id":"3220b41e-9d2d-46e5-98cd-85d5954293f9","argument":"The European trading systems has run into problems, but this is mostly because politicians interfered to protect their own countries\u2019 industries. Such meddling is even more common with government regulations, which often change so quickly that business cannot plan properly for the future. The EU is already improving its carbon trading scheme, and we can learn from their experiences to design a global system. For example, a smaller number of permits can be given out and they should be auctioned off to the highest bidders rather than given for free to old and inefficient industries. On the other hand, we could choose to create a carbon tax instead, which would be a very reliable way of putting a cost on pollution and ensuring emissions are cut.","conclusion":"The European trading systems has run into problems, but this is mostly because politicians interfere..."}
{"id":"cc4f54f3-42e9-47e2-9ce9-fb81b0d7b74d","argument":", for example, through speed limits, rules against drink driving, etc. Dangerous driving meets the classic liberal test by endangering not just the individual but others, including drivers, passengers and pedestrians, and so society has a right to intervene to protect the innocent. A new law signals social unacceptability, and will send a message to drivers; the New York ban has already been highly effective.","conclusion":"State has authority to regulate actions of drivers by cell phone ban."}
{"id":"c47eeb20-035e-46d0-ba21-7bb3c006dda4","argument":"It's a discussed topic here rn and I'm on the against side because 1 We might have EU referendum and it might end up with us leaving the EU. 2 Only 2 options on the ballot yes, no is just not enough and may not satisfy everyone. 3 Quorum paradox minority voting yes might overrun majority voting no . 4 There's a proposal that public can trigger a referendum and I think when there's like 10 referendums a year, people can be tired of them. 5 It divides the society. I'll give an example We already have referendums on local level. We needed to either repair or build new train station. Sounds like a non political issue but then some activists proposed a referendum and now we're quite divided on that issue. 6 People might make stupid decisions. The reason we have representative democracy is to vote for a party that indicates a direction and that is more qualified than average citizen see no. 1 . And I have many more problems. The only one good thing about referendums is that people can choose for themselves but I even doubt that with the influence of parties we experience every election People from countries with referendums, change my mind.","conclusion":"Referendums should not by allowed"}
{"id":"489b38c8-3929-48ad-aaf7-7d259cac93ee","argument":"Animals in captivity are at risk of suffering from 'zoochosis characterized by obsessive, repetitive behaviors like rocking, swaying and pacing.","conclusion":"Zoos are high-stress environments for animals often leading to their becoming anxious and distressed."}
{"id":"3cb21db4-2376-492a-9739-ccf8f05008de","argument":"General disclaimer I consider myself a fairly libertarian supporter of low taxes and minimal government intervention. I say this to provide perspective, rather than to solicit a pro con type debate on big government vs. small government That said, it seems to be illogical to ever increase interest rates instead of simply increasing taxes and using it to pay off international debt. The Fed increases interest rates when the economy has reached some degree of sustainable maximum output . The rationale for this is that increased interest rates will reduce demand for goods and services and therefore tamp down the risk of inflation beyond the target rate . However, the same general concept exists from a fiscal point of view in that raising taxes removes capital from the overall economy and dissuades the sale of goods and services one of the big reasons I am generally a supporter of low taxes . Both options reduces the effects of inflation. But while both options work for inflation, raising interest rates is simply destructive while raising taxes has a net economic benefit . Increasing taxes without increasing spending would cause a reduction in national debt which is generally a healthy thing while raising interest rates both increase the national debt greater interest debt service and destroys capital stock value greater discount rates . Couple of items of note I get that the Fed is not in charge of fiscal policy, and I understand that there is the whole aspect of congress not having the political will to raise taxes, but if raising taxes truly is the better alternative, the Fed could simply notify congress that if they don't raise taxes the Fed will raise interest rates and if congress doesn't understand the ramifications of it they can direct them to this helpful  It's beyond the scope of this viewpoint to deal with how the taxes should be raised personally, I would rely on a flatter tax, but I believe it really shouldn't make much of a difference how the money is sucked out of the economy for these purposes Finally, this concept only works if government doesn't go ahead and spend the money as soon as it is taxed otherwise the same cash would go right back into the economy so while taxes would rise, government spending would stay static.","conclusion":"We should raise taxes and pay off international debt instead of raising interest rates."}
{"id":"65462f07-bea9-48f9-90f6-c7417ad6b2cb","argument":"Causes and effects are events in the universe. They occur at a given time, in a given place. There is no event where and when 'The universe began to exist'.","conclusion":"The law of causality works within the universe, where time exists."}
{"id":"b401a676-701c-4fc4-8896-e8accda960ea","argument":"My husband and I tried opening our marriage to another sexual partner of my husband's choosing went great for years until said partner found someone else and had to stop. Then husband and I tried opening our marriage with the idea of polyamory, having multiple loving partners. In theory it's great, in reality didn't work out so well. But in the mean time I developed a deep and loving relationship with another man. My husband can not handle it. He's gone ballistic, we've struggled, tried to work through everything, are in counseling, etc. At the moment the other man and I are just friends in actions. We talk, but it's about boring, how's your day, stuff. No intimate interactions while we all try to sort this out. But I love him. I love him more than I knew it was possible to love. He and I click in this crazy cosmic way. We make each other whole. We make each other better. To imagine life without him, is to take away color from the world. I love my husband too. I love my husband very much. We have been married 12 years and have three wonderful kids. But he and I are strained and the kids feel the strain lately too. And nothing I do is enough, because the fact of the matter is I'm in love with someone else and that makes him crazy. Even if I love him too. Even if I am still a good wife in every other way. Even if I'm not acting on it. He cries all the time he is not a man prone to tears , he has nightmares. I don't think it'll get better while we are in this purgatory. I don't want to leave my husband, but I can't stop loving the other man on command and our lives are slowly falling apart. I'm starting to think I need to just call it and admit my marriage is over so that we can both grieve and move on. Please Change My View EDIT For the record, I am not talking about leaving my husband for the other guy. The other guy is also married and has a daughter. They are polyamorous, his wife has a long term live in boyfriend . If I got a divorce I would be alone, so to speak. Yes, I'd have a long distance boyfriend whom I love, but I'm not looking to replace or change over from one relationship to the other.","conclusion":"I am in love with someone who's not my husband. I think this means the end of my marriage."}
{"id":"a43a4c55-454d-4a74-9d76-a1cc19557152","argument":"The way the US military chooses its future leaders completely baffles me, while I understand this is a simplifying things a bit, but it does have its merit in truth Why the fuck should some dude or woman, literally, fresh out of college at the ripe ol' age of 21 22, immediately start off with the ability to boss around even guys who'e been in for almost two decades or even more? Yes, in practice O 1s don't even bother trying to swing their dicks around E 9's, but the fact of the matter is, on paper and by military regulations they STILL outrank them. That's fucked up, plain and simple. I believe all officers should start off enlisted so they KNOW what its like to deal with bullshit, dig the trenches, etc. You can still keep the degree requirements if they so choose just to weed out the shitheads, but at the very least they'll have some experience and won't have to come in literally having to learn how to lead and earn the enlisted respect, and there would be a lot less complaining about butter bars so called fucking things up","conclusion":"Officers in the US military should have some kind of minimum experience in the enlisted side to even be considered becoming a O-1."}
{"id":"9495372f-ff4f-4dd9-b866-6ad304e7f95d","argument":"Xi Jinping is hesitant to use force to crack down the protests in Hong Kong because it would potentially mean putting an end to any possibility of Taiwan\u2019s voluntary reunification with China, under a deal similar to the one struck with Hong Kong.","conclusion":"Cracking down on the protests could harm the reputation of China's leader, Xi Jinping."}
{"id":"9f8447db-2b79-4796-a476-800eb771ed56","argument":"Person centered therapy is a very old therapy that involves asking questions based off minute assumptions to lead an individual to their own conclusions, on their own accord, through their own viewpoints, essentially. It's actually a lot more nuanced than that, but thats the gist of it. As someone who has been to trained use this, I have adapted my own, stream lined, version of this for this subreddit. It's how I got my first, and only, delta actually. However, I'm not actually changing anyone's minds by doing this type of therapy. I'm actually just helping them reach the conclusion based of their own perceptions and beliefs. I'm simply imploring a type of therapy that works because it is the path of least resistance. However, I'm not actually changing their views whatsoever. Instead, I'm basically leading a horse to water. As such, I don't believe this method should be rewarded with a delta, at least when deliberately used. x200B I would like my view changed very much so, as I am proud of my first delta. However, I feel like I cheated to get it.","conclusion":"If I use an adapted version of person-centered therapy to change someone's view, I don't deserve a delta."}
{"id":"77b7d628-a7bf-4037-a63b-d6f5cf978826","argument":"During the 20th century, the Soviet Union ended killing around 20 million of their own people, despite the fact it was a secular society.","conclusion":"Absent religion, ideologies fill the void and motivate humans to do terrible things."}
{"id":"f5771673-2b6d-4996-8371-3575943162ac","argument":"A few weeks ago, my Aunt was catfished through match.com. A female friend of mine, who is a journalist, is constantly berated by personal threats and harassment based on her gender and appearance in the comments section of her articles. There are numerous news articles and personal accounts of people, particularly women and the LGBT community, being sent abusive comments and messages on social media. Whenever I dare to read the comment sections of new stories, I am horrified at the blatant sexism racism and generally bullying behavior. I believe the best response available right now to quell this abuse, and have both tech companies and individuals take responsibility for the behavior, is for certain places on the internet to not allow anonymity. For example, these places should include Comments sections for major news publications Specific social media platforms Specific dating platforms I believe removing the ability for anonymity from these platforms would Mean that individuals must take more responsibility for their behavior in particular, direct threats of violence or sexual abuse Allow for increased civil dialog Decrease cyber scams, including catfishing Decrease the overall rate of abuse, making the internet an overall safer space for everyone, but particularly women, minorities, and the LGBT community Decrease abuse for celebrities and non celebrities alike Still allow for anonymous areas of the internet to support communities who value anonymity for a variety of reasons Be a reasonable action for tech companies, news outlets, and organizations to address cyberbullying In the long term, shift the culture of the internet at least in the U.S. toward a more civil discourse I am not saying that the entire internet should no longer be anonymous, but large tech companies and news outlets should take a bold stance against cyber bullying, and users should be able to choose whether they want to interact in a space that is anonymous or verified identity. Admittedly, the most compelling argument against this idea for me is that anonymity can also protect some of the same communities that are currently the most harmed by cyberbullying. However, when I think about the issue, I am at a loss for a better solution. Is there a better one out there? For the sake of productive discussion, I would prefer to put aside the technical viability of this idea. I am instead interested in if this solution, if executed, would be the best response to quell harassment online.","conclusion":"There Should be Certain Places on the Internet Where You Can\u2019t be Anonymous"}
{"id":"b3a422e5-f65d-4ec5-8c36-6295a73865aa","argument":"The people of major US allies such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt as well as of important regional players like Turkey see the occupation of Palestinian territories as the greatest threat to peace and stability in the region. America could gather sympathies by recognizing Palestine Zogby, p. 10","conclusion":"The Palestinian conflict colours public perception of the US in the Middle East."}
{"id":"d896d62a-7cb5-407f-a7f8-71d9e176548d","argument":"I'm fairly sure we can all agree that racism is inherently evil, and that those who are racist should not hold seats of authority or honest influence in mainstream culture. However, some instances of highly publicized racism that have occurred over the last month had me begging the question what rights do openly racist individuals have? When Chelsea football fans were seen acting in a racist fashion the team vowed to ban those who were responsible from attending games. When students are seen chanting racist slogans they are expelled from a state funded university. How far is this legally and ethically allowed to go? Chelsea is a private organization and they have the right to ban those who bring a negative image to the team, but if someone wrote hateful literature about a certain group should they not be allowed to attend football matches? If someone espouses unpopular and despicable ideologies do they forfeit their right to go to games, or see a movie, or go to a cafe? The question of University of Oklahoma is more interesting. UO is a state university and as such is funded by tax payer money. There are unfortunately bound to be racists in Oklahoma and they pay taxes. If the concept of a university is to promote self guided thinking and a few ignorant individuals come to a repulsive conclusion do they no longer have the right to go to that university? If someone is an ardent hater of all things not white and protestant do they no longer have the right to go to a university that they pay for? I know the stories are far more complicated than that. Chelsea fans were seen using physical violence and intimidation and UO belonged to a frat and were acting in a vocally abusive manner. However, the instances themselves beg the question of what rights to racists honestly have? Should we not treat them on par with other radicals that have unpopular opinions? Just because we by and large hate what they have to say does that mean that they cannot say it without facing punishment that bars them from functioning in our world? I do not promote in any way, shape, or form what these people believe. However, I think racists should not be stripped of their rights or perhaps even privileges simply because we disagree with them. We should let them say what they believe and then retort with our own right to free speech, letting them know we stand with those they condemn. Racism is vile, but we should not seek to ban and expel all that is vile from our community simply because we find it wrong. Side Note I understand that the notion of being able to say anything no matter how unpopular it is is somewhat of an American mentality and that in many nations such hateful speech is not protected and I am not suggesting that hate speech such as that which promotes violence should be protected anywhere .","conclusion":"I think racists deserve the same rights as any other radical"}
{"id":"b43a47e5-c429-4bea-b2ec-33529c899e66","argument":"The main cause of mass genocide in the twentieth century was not religion, but humans playing God. The Nazis, the USSR and Communist China were all systems that rejected religion and followed their own moral code, one that far more questionable.","conclusion":"People who do not believe in God also do so. Illness and fanaticism can born out from every ideology."}
{"id":"9085876a-9cf8-43cb-b03f-8197d5022613","argument":"I'd like to preface this by saying, I know a lot of these still s end up with answers along the lines of Well, everyone's taste is different, you shouldn't judge others , and I get that. People listen to rap and watch romcoms, too I'm not shitting on anyone's taste. I simply don't understand the allure of fanfictions. They seem to just be shittier extensions of stories that never measure up to the original work. I've read a few of them, all of which were terrible. That's not to say that they're all poorly written, though I have to imagine some decent writers have written some. However, they almost by definition cannot be better than the original source. I get that a reader or viewer of something might become attached to a particular character, and want to see their stories continued, but that itself is a point that many fictional narratives have driven home a bunch of times. Things die, things end. Resurrecting one into a lesser version will not bring back the magic of the original. That's not to say I don't see any point in writing fanfiction, however. It can be excellent practice, a method of honing ones craft by using characters and worlds that are already established and that you're familiar with. It just seems a stepping stone on the way to writing your own, real stories, however, and I can't imagine why anyone would spend their time reading them. Change my view.","conclusion":"Fanfics aren't worth reading."}
{"id":"6e8d4c88-beb0-4f54-a918-c6cac3ba2735","argument":"Critics argue that the approach of the movement has changed from \"live and let live\" to \"if you don't believe gender is non-binary you are a bigot\" and that this has made straight, cisgender people feel unable to relate and attacked.","conclusion":"The LGBT movement has been criticised for pivoting to a far-left stance on political issues and thus abandoning the moderation and integrationism strategies of the past. This has alienated the public whose distrust of LGBT people has increased."}
{"id":"4d2a1a24-7a0e-4863-8f80-cf889fe034a3","argument":"Machines engage individual muscle groups instead of one's full body, which build less muscle. On top of that, they force a person's lifting into limited, unchanging paths of motion, which prevent them from using form that is natural for them and increasing the chances of injury. If you are capable of using free weights I simply see no reason to use them their appeal to me seems to be that they less off putting for the inexperienced beginner who is better served taking a few days to learn free weights anyways. , please","conclusion":"Free weights and compound lifting are almost always superior to using machines at the gym"}
{"id":"a1b4f6f7-b0c0-4a05-9c22-a56cf91e2af3","argument":"Population trends for humanity being what they are, and our track record of habitat and resource depletion taken into account, it is more practical to save animals and plants that are going extinct by domesticating them rather than trying to save them in other ways. To proceed differently is fighting a massive trend. I also believe that saving as many species as possible is a moral good, as well as beneficial to humanity as a whole. The domestic animals we already have prove their usefulness daily, whether by providing companionship, meat, clothing materials, transportation, research subjects, or some other use. By the same token, invasive species like the beloved house cat, if gone feral, can be extremely damaging to native animal populations. Because of this, it is highly advantageous to KILL THEM ALL if found outside a loving home . ADDENDUM edit From Wikipedia Domestication from Latin domesticus of the home is the process whereby a population of living organisms is changed at the genetic level, through generations of selective breeding, to accentuate traits that ultimately benefit the interests of humans.","conclusion":"The most practical way of saving species is to domesticate them."}
{"id":"96e3472f-9248-455a-b2fe-cddca0099e1d","argument":"FDR's attempted stimulus plan ultimately failed because they tried reducing income inequality as a means of recovering the economy. The New Deal significantly increased taxes, artificially raised prices on goods, and discouraged small business.","conclusion":"It was his policies that helped drag it on for seven more years. It could have been a regular economic depression otherwise."}
{"id":"29c60cc4-aea8-428a-a6a0-9abf0cd001e3","argument":"Here's a link to the said act. As stated in the Declaration of Independence Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form The Smith Act directly goes against such principle. While, AFAIK, the Declaration of Independence is not a legally binding document, I believe that the Smith Act fundamentally undermines the will of the Founding Fathers.","conclusion":"I think the Smith Act of 1940 goes against the principles of the Founding Fathers."}
{"id":"5d944662-5fe5-4815-8746-c091cba557ff","argument":"Todd May. \"The Emerging Case for a Single-State Solution\". Counter Punch. September 9, 2004: \"A first objection might appeal to the motivation for recognizing . a Jewish state in the first place. . That the Holocaust proves that European Jews deserve protection against the history of hatred against them is undeniable. It does not follow from this that they deserved a state where they would be privileged vis-a\u0300- vis another people. That idea has more to do with nineteenth-century nationalism than with the internationalism more characteristic of the contemporary world. Moreover, history has shown the effects of this privileging.\"","conclusion":"Idea of Jewish state, in two-state solution, is undemocratic"}
{"id":"8871df19-ae88-4f4b-b61d-39b3b5bc11ba","argument":"Opponents of a ban often argue that employees at smoking institutions can simply get another job at a non-smoking institution, and thus such workers are voluntarily subjecting themselves to being \"passive smokers\". Yet, are they really freely making this choice? Many supporters of a smoking ban posit that a job is not something that is easily replaceable. There are many factors that may limit a workers ability to freely shift jobs like 1Job-markets are tight. 2A worker's family depends on a worker's income from a job. 3The time and therefore money required of an employee to find another job is limited. 4Other job opportunities are less lucrative frequently the case in service industries such as bars, clubs, and restaurants, and so the ability or reasoned-impetus to \"choose\" a different job is heavily constrained.","conclusion":"Many workers can't simply quite an unhealthy, smoky work environment."}
{"id":"918b62cc-0353-446a-a517-26c6eb585f90","argument":"Countries like Yemen have, for all practical purposes, only Muslim citizens yet do not call for their international recognition as Islamic.","conclusion":"Other countries do not require recognition by other states of their affiliation with a certain religion."}
{"id":"a8b15a45-64b3-40fc-bc02-a168b41b3748","argument":"If Brexit proves to harm the UK economy as many people predict, then it could persuade enough people in Scotland to leave the UK. During the original Scottish Independence Referendum, the Better Together website said: \u201cScotland enjoys membership of the EU because of our membership of the UK and if we no longer are members of the UK then it follows that we are no longer part of the EU.\u201d Link Scots who voted to stay in the UK for continued EU membership now feel cheated as a result of Brexit.","conclusion":"A hard Brexit could trigger a second independence referendum within Scotland."}
{"id":"b9f02652-1468-43df-89ea-fd651ec08068","argument":"Of the Eight Witnesses of the Book of Mormon, none of the six witnesses still alive in 1838 is on record disputing Martin Harris's public announcement in 1838 that the eight witnesses had only seen the golden plates in a vision.","conclusion":"Some of the witnesses said their view of the golden plates was in a vision, rather than with their natural eyes."}
{"id":"90040489-b2cb-473f-a801-4ec538ad544a","argument":"In places without public election financing, politicians from major parties are at a massive electoral advantage compared to those from smaller parties because of their capacity to spend more money on their campaign.","conclusion":"If each political party gets the same amount of money to spend on elections, smaller parties will be in a position to compete with larger and more entrenched parties."}
{"id":"9825184e-5e9d-4fdb-a0a2-e884984cf269","argument":"Today it's 350 times for plants right now 1,000s in the future 80 years from now. But an important additional observation within that paper is that it is not the number of humans that are causing it, it is how we behave on Earth.","conclusion":"The rapid loss of species 1 2 we are seeing today is estimated by experts to be between 1,000 and 10,000 times higher than the natural extinction rate."}
{"id":"94cb0f35-b4c1-44f0-be8f-89cdeeb6e754","argument":"British judge Mr Justice Collins remarked in 2006 during a hearing on the holding of British residents in Guantanamo that the United States' idea of torture \"doesn't appear to coincide with that of most civilised countries\".9","conclusion":"US definitions of torture do not comply with international definitions"}
{"id":"371ba53b-ddf4-4084-a71a-e0586dc3cb05","argument":"Given that the Canadian government cannot spend more than $1.3 billion to clean up an oil spill, the provincial and federal governments, local businesses and residents would bear a significant percent of the cost.","conclusion":"Cleaning up a medium-oil spill can cost between$2.4 billion and $9.4 billion dollars."}
{"id":"0bc3ed37-ec52-43bc-920f-6774c112c919","argument":"Churchill's History of the English Speaking People confronts us with the fact that, for many centuries, foolish wars have repeatedly been sought to settle conflicts and make national decisions, very often very lame decisions after huge sacrifice. Governments have turned to one religion over another, or to the legitimacy of monarchial blood lines in order to validate decisions. Old habits die with difficulty. The present monarch is not allowed to speak or have political views. What makes one form of religion better when there may be no deity? What makes a first borne a more legitimate leader? The decision to go into Iraq against majority opinion and against the wisest of advice, shows that the UK government has not overcome past habits. Important decisions which affect the whole populace require the most informed and able sources, sometimes science, sometimes an affected minority, sometimes the costs of consequences. Not on the basis of party ideology, pressure from a foreign power, the influence of the media, financial interests that fund the media during elections, minority party standings, money from powers that can profiteer arms, contracts as a result. Large sections of the population are ignore-ant of complex issues, so are MPs who follow ideology or party whipping at voting time. There needs to be a kind of balance that prevents profound wisdom from being ignored and overcome by narrow interests. Suffrage and representation does not mean that democracy has been fulfilled, it is corruptible, it can fail to seek evidence, critical planning, and wisdom, it can even promote beliefs in falsehood. The two party system over simplifies, in the same way that matters were once decided by foolhardy wars, by teams in sport finding a winner even by a narrow margin of milliseconds!; the naivete of up\/down, left\/right, win\/lose thinking; life and optimal community decision making are more complicated and complicated than that! Let's struggle, and get past democratic condescension!","conclusion":"4. A PM can take the country to war, seek inspiration from a non-existent God for decisions, & ignore wise, highly informed, advice."}
{"id":"d4d7bc96-3ed7-473a-8801-5a48e8474411","argument":"I've seen proposals to ban high capacity magazines as a way to lessen the severity of mass shootings when they occur. It seems intuitive that magazines holding 10 rounds instead of 30 would make it more difficult for a person to walk into a night club of 300 people by themselves and shoot 50 of them without being stopped. Not impossible, but certainly more difficult. They're not needed for hunting and not needed for sport shooting. The common argument in favor of keeping high capacity magazines is that civilians need them in case they need to fight off the government if it becomes overly oppressive one day. Even if we assume that's going to happen, I don't see magazine capacities making the difference between civilians and a military force that has belt fed weapons, armored vehicles, drones, and tanks. Without any other legitimate need for them, I don't see the harm in getting rid of high capacity magazines for civilians. Edit It seems a lot of people are responding with the same idea, which misses my point, so let me address it here. No, we don't need a great many things, like candy and expensive clothes. This is not the point. Candy and expensive clothes can not be used to walk into a building and kill dozens of people against their will. Nor is it like cars, or gasoline, or fertilizer. Yes, they can also be used to kill people, but banning these things would have a significant impact on society. I'm saying that limiting magazines would cause a negligible detriment to anyone not on a mass shooting spree.","conclusion":"American civilians do not need high capacity magazines."}
{"id":"54789fe4-b5ad-4ff6-9764-38119bb50b75","argument":"The norm of monogamy means partners are more likely to focus on improving their current relationship, rather than simply turning to other partners.","conclusion":"Monogamous relationships force a couple to actually commit to one another because there are no alternatives."}
{"id":"640c7874-e934-4360-a3ab-7ec3ff811ee0","argument":"A variety of different diagnosis is not necessarily unproductive. Some psychiatrists believe that it is in line with the ethics of science, which supports a free discussion of competing hypotheses in a marketplace of ideas, with the confidence that through discourse the truth will emerge. Hence even if psychiatrists initially disagree, in the absence of the Goldwater rule, they are very likely to come up with the best diagnosis eventually.","conclusion":"Discussing potential mental health problems of Trump in the media raises awareness and draws attention to the fact that many people are susceptible to mental illness, even those who seem to be at the highest levels of society. Such public dialogue allows for a more transparent and honest conversation about mental health in today's society."}
{"id":"fb3d04db-237a-4b7b-8188-1f922e211cbd","argument":"For the following reasons It dilutes the historical significance of the word. Perhaps black people initially called each other the N word to show brotherhood however, today it is often casually used interchangeably with words like bro, dude, or man. This trivializes its historical origin and makes it hard for non black people to believe it is truly offensive. It engenders resentment among white people who mean no harm. A white musician can't even perform a cover of a black rapper's song without censoring the lyrics, lest he face backlash. It aggravates racial tension by widening the linguistic rift. If language is a barrier, allowing one group to use certain terminology while barring another group from doing so exacerbates cultural separation. It is has become associated with some of the worst aspects of black culture, popularized by black entertainers who celebrate the thug lifestyle, gang violence, and drugs. In fact, it seems to me that the more affluent a black person becomes, the less likely they are to use the N word. No other minority group frequently refers to themselves by derogatory terms coined by their oppressors. You don't hear Asians call each other chinks, Mexicans don't call each other wetbacks, and Jews don't call each other kikes. Maybe it happens on occasion, but nowhere near to the extent that black people use the N word. In order to change my view, you need to make an argument showing the benefits of black people using the N word outweigh all the negative things I have listed. Just addressing one of my points is not sufficient. EDIT The word queer is not a counterpoint to 5. Gay people don't get offended by cis people using the word queer. It's completely different from the N word, which is one group of people using a word while telling another group they cannot use the word. The analogy is not at all appropriate.","conclusion":"Black people should stop using the N-word"}
{"id":"16b67a2d-1ac4-4a77-8838-06b50f4b406d","argument":"Others could better understand the context and reasons for why the action was committed. This may lead to a more understanding judgment.","conclusion":"With the elimination of privacy, society could better understand each individual's circumstances."}
{"id":"b3a7d6a2-9083-49fe-a299-eb255a1d479d","argument":"B12 is not found in any plant-based sources other than fortified cereals, meaning it is difficult to access.","conclusion":"Vegetarians are more than ten times as likely to be deficient in the vitamin B12."}
{"id":"7bd88110-b951-4b6e-a001-85b9c9647a52","argument":"Let's be real here makeup is lying, plain and simple. It's not my fault if a man can't tell I have colored eyelids and lips I hear this strawman quite often. It's completely untrue, however. Makeup isn't just coloring your eyelids , it changes a person's face entirely via contouring and what have you . Just look at some of the before and after pics on Google. It's like a complete 360. Well men have beards that can change their appearance. True, but this is a false equivocation. Beards are natural, a part of the body, just like head hair, while makeup is something entirely separate. Growing a beard is accentuating your natural features. Makeup is putting something on top of your features and covering them. Well then clothing and heels must be lying too. Well yes and no. While clothing can enhance your looks there's a bit of a disconnect there. An unattractive person wearing nice clothes is still unattractive and vice versa . We don't really associate a person's looks with clothes in the same way we associate a person's looks with their face. That's not to say I think women shouldn't use makeup. If a woman wants to use makeup I have no problem with it. I've used makeup myself to hide horrible hyperpigmentation from acne. But me having clear skin was a lie. Makeup is lying about your facial appearance. Edit I have changed my position so that makeup is lying only if the intention is to advertise a face of makeup as your own. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Makeup is lying"}
{"id":"61112c94-7df0-4d2a-92b8-1a317565b181","argument":"A lot of people hate on BIG PHARMA and I've encountered quite a few who claim that of course depression can be cured naturally, what else did they do 100 years ago? I personally think that severily depressed people killed themselves before and or never got better I am talking about someone who is very depressed, perhaps on the verge of suicide and completley apathic. How can you treat a person like that without meds? How could you possibly get a unmotivated person to do anything that would make him better? It's quite clear that there is something physically different about their brains when in this depressed state vs. a healthy person and so only meds can change that and cure them","conclusion":"I don't think it's possible to cure a clinically depressed person without meds."}
{"id":"bd3283cb-6439-48ce-9ba9-4ae4b592ca9d","argument":"I have been semi keeping pace this election cycle and again the two candidates are picking the lesser of two evils. However my political beliefs disagree more heavily towards Donald Trump. I would prefer this not to be a political belief discussion and who I should vote for, more on the democratic election process and my thought process towards that. My hope this election is that the third party turn out will be significant enough to show that it is possible for them to have a legitimate following, contrary to it only being the typical two parties dueling it out. If I did not live in Florida, my vote would be clear because most other states have voted the same party the last 100 years. However, if I decide to follow through, though improbable, this scenario could realistically happen Donald Trump wins Florida by one vote, he wins Florida, and this wins him the presidency. This is why I believe a Third Party vote in a swing state is a wasted vote. Change my view. Please.","conclusion":"By living in Florida one of the largest swing states in the US and disagreeing wholeheartedly with Donald Trump, I am required to vote for Hillary Clinton because even though I would prefer to, a Libertarian vote is a wasted vote."}
{"id":"c714eb88-9afa-436c-be36-e7a9249f9349","argument":"\"Banning the burqa. A bad idea.\" Economist. May 13, 2010: \"On security, women can be required to lift their veils if necessary.\" This allows for the burqa and niqab to be worn, but while providing adequate measures and exceptions when security matters are at hand.","conclusion":"Women can be required to lift veils for certain security reasons"}
{"id":"14e8fa5f-8339-4d93-8e11-bc74432d8adb","argument":"Everyone will care about news stories that involve the military because most people will be veterans or know veterans now. This gives the media a big viewership and profit incentive to talk about these issues.","conclusion":"The media is likely to focus on the military more when it becomes a more important institution in the country."}
{"id":"19ae53a1-d1dd-4dff-aeae-d5ab891ec522","argument":"I think like the title says that the era of the white man has ended. We have conquered, enslaved and almost killed the whole world. We had a good run , but now I think the era of the white man has ended. As the Chinese are more and more profiling themselve as a superpower Russia and yes even the allmighty USA are going downhill in terms of power. Europe didn't have any real superpower after World war one ended or wen downhill very fast. I think we as just another colour of the human race that happens to be white need to accept our place as no longer any superpower.","conclusion":"I think the era of the white man has ended and we white people need to accept it"}
{"id":"bd202bf6-e2b2-4452-9270-84501a8e83c1","argument":"Implementing this would require punishment for not voting. This would require knowing whether or not a person voted in any given race. This could be used to determine who the individual did vote for, which would violate anonymity.","conclusion":"The right to vote in a democratic society also extends to the right not to vote."}
{"id":"e009a4cb-2ffb-43bd-8a00-03736c9bb9f9","argument":"A rundown of the history behidn this  At UNC Chapel Hill there was a confederate monument called Silent Sam, which many felt to be racist. While the statue itself does not depict anything overtly racist it is, of course, a confederate monument which can itself be considered to embody systematic racism by its existence in a prominent location of the university grounds. After a series of protests this past early Fall late Summer, the statue was defaced and eventually torn down by protesters. Since then the university administration has been deliberating on what to do with it. Do they return it to its position? Find it a new place? If so, where? How to store it? etc. They solicited feedback from students and, to my knowledge but it is only anecdotal, the majority of students do not want the statue to remain on campus. The Chancellor and Board of Trustees announced their proposal for the statue in early December, basically proposing a new building a University History installment be created and maintained at significant cost, and student fees would increase as a result. Since then, students, faculty, staff, and joined departments and schools within the university have all acted in different ways of protest. Many letters written, meetings held, etc. Now, to the meat of the  subject ~80 TAs and professors intend to strike until the university withdraws this proposal, which at this time finals have already begun, no more teaching is taking place this semester simply means final grades are being withheld from students not posted to student records. Newspaper article about strike. Additionally, surveys sent to students in at least one department indicate that there could be continued striking protest activities in the Spring semester, including professors refusing to teach and or walk outs. Now, for the  Regardless of the reason of the strike or how justifiable it may be considered to be, it is not appropriate to withhold grades from students or to fail to teach courses for which students pay tuition. While it is understandably the goal of these actions to cause the most turmoil possible and, by way of negative press or student complaints, drive the University to reconsider the proposal, it is not an acceptable course of action. Students pay a lot of money to attend classes and to learn from these professors. They work hard all semester to earn their final grades. Some are even bound to graduate this week and may have that delayed. To the extent the students have a say, they have spoken. Protests, surveys, letters. Students do not need to be riled up, but the university. However, those who choose to withhold grades fail to teach courses the students have already paid for are punishing students for something they have no control over, and something many would change if they could. Additionally, any choice the students had to engage or disengage was made 3 month 5 years ago when they chose to attend UNC. They can't choose to have done this semester somewhere else, they can't avoid being negatively impacted by this strike in any possible way. By threatening teaching grades strikes but noticeably, to my knowledge, not research strikes they are hurting innocent bystanders in all of this, hostages, in a sense, who have no power to stop or mitigate the damage to themselves, and this is inappropriate for any educator regardless of how justified the reason for the strike may be. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"It is unacceptable for professors and their ilk to withhold grades as an act of protest."}
{"id":"db5348ce-ef05-4fae-97bc-2616059fd632","argument":"I know that this is a HUGE topic around here, and i see a lot of posts that seem a little too intense however, i am a good person subjective, i know with no legal trouble on my record and i have no intentions of harming the United States or any of its citizens. So, Reddit, enlighten me and please change my view.","conclusion":"Being a law-abiding citizen, with nothing to hide I think i have nothing to fear from the NSA scandal and PRISM."}
{"id":"1df83864-9985-4257-9aba-1855a44cead8","argument":"A National Research Council report that pegs 2020 for the arrival of the mass-market fuel cell vehicle. According to USA Today, \"That's the best case scenario, of course, assuming technology, government, industry and the public all cooperate on bringing hydrogen cars to the nation's highways.\"1 Yet, the IPCC says that steps must be taken immediately to stop global warming. This means that hydrogen fuel cell technology is out of sink with the immediacy of global warming.","conclusion":"Hydrogen vehicles will arrive too late to help climate change"}
{"id":"265db70e-df60-413f-8772-312658192627","argument":"I'm overall a fan of the United Nations. I think it critical that some voluntary international body that forms a basis for international needs to exist law. I think that the UN has done a great deal of good work in ensuring a more peaceful world. Now I do not believe that a 'world federation' is entirely desirable as the many short comings of the European Union show. Neither do I think that the world is ready for any kind of real democratic international body as a good portion of the world is not democratic. But I have many issues with how the UN works on a basic level. I disagree with five countries having a veto power over the affairs of the world, this only promotes great power headbutting. I also find the General Assembly to be far to favorable to very small countries and unfavorable to the large ones. It doesn't make sense that India has the same voting power as Nauru. So my view is this we need a new UN charter that does away with the Security Council and the General Assembly. Instead we should have a sort of Board of Directors selected by the member states through votes. Votes would be disputed to each member state by formula account for the funding that state gives and that states population. For the purposes of this thread I will arbitrarily say that the formula will be Schwartzberg's weighted voting, though in reality diplomacy would decide the actual formula used. The Board of Nations would function like and have similar duties to the Security Council except no country will have veto powers. The Board of nations would appoint the Secretariat to run the day to day affairs of the UN bureaucracy and help streamline international affairs. The Board of Nations could also act as a 'court room' for international disputes as neutral body for arbitration and enforce treaties between nations. Such a new United Nations would better help the efforts of peace and prosperity for the long term.","conclusion":"It's time for a Second United Nations"}
{"id":"4bd5a380-c3ef-462c-820a-d43915033736","argument":"To be clear, I support the Supreme Court in their decision to legalize same sex marriage, and I'm happy that rights that have been granted to heterosexual couples are now going to apply to everyone in society. I am, however, mildly concerned or at least intrigued as to where this debate or issue ends. The reason it's troubling for me is that the most common arguments used to support gay marriage are that love is love and loving who you choose is your right . What these arguments implicitly say is that the necessary criteria to be allowed to marry is that you love that which you are marrying. Now I won't delve into the typical response of Next thing you know, it'll be legal to marry your pets because I find that particularly hyperbolic and non productive to the discussion. But I do feel that this open mindset of the definition of marriage will definitely lead to a future debate about what marriage is. I believe that the next group to demand legal marriage rights will be polygamists, and that the same arguments of love is love will still apply. My fear is that despite this good ruling today, we have opened up the door to extremely loose and liberal interpretations of the meaning of marriage to include anything we want it to under the law. ~~Further, I believe that polygamy is harmful to society and that raising children in a polygamous is harmful to their growth. I believe that polygamy is not a natural arrangement for humans, and that no matter what, it will be emotionally damaging to at least one person in this relationship ~~. But then as I type those words, I realize that the exact same things were said about gay marriage in recent history. So, Reddit,  that this supreme court ruling isn't going to evolve into a culture of people being able to marry whoever or whatever or however many people they want. Edit Let's avoid the moral implications of Polygamy for now. I shouldn't have typed out my personal views on the matter because it's really not what I'm interested in arguing whether it's right or wrong . I'm interested in hearing legally, why this SC ruling will not lead to a case law precedent used to affirm Polygamy rights in the future. I ask this because all through this debate, most advocates for gay marriage rights said that comparisons of the movement to polygamy were ridiculous.","conclusion":"In light of the recent Supreme Court ruling, the most logical extension of this policy is the eventual legalization of Polygamy and other non-standard marriage arrangements, which will have a negative effect on society as a whole due to the difficulty of defining \"marriage\" or a \"family\"."}
{"id":"f4771edc-2bc3-47e9-bfab-02033d6d0b96","argument":"When people are going about their lives, and buying things, they might be busy with other stuff. I believe it's completely acceptable to talk on the phone when making purchases unless it's making it difficult for the cashier to run a tight ship. So long as you're not making the rest of the people in line wait, or inconveniencing the process in any way, why do people say it's rude to do this? This was inspired by my reading of this comment thread Thanks in advance","conclusion":"It is completely acceptable to talk on the phone while a cashier is ringing up your items."}
{"id":"21db9ef7-06cc-4031-8030-4aed4cd59bab","argument":"Liquid Democracy does not stop delegates from amassing votes and gaining power over voted decisions. However, delegates can not abuse that power to forward their personal agenda as this would result in the loss of votes and power.","conclusion":"Liquid Democracy reduces centralisation of power from the few, and gives it to the many."}
{"id":"51d53b05-bc7c-4db0-953c-55ef2e5fbb42","argument":"Individuals often join these groups because they feel there is an existential threat to the \"American\" way of life.","conclusion":"Restricting speech proves to potential followers of these movements that there is a tangible threat to American liberties."}
{"id":"9bf29243-8aca-412d-ad23-a83573be259f","argument":"The best way to decide whether or not to abolish referendums would be through a referendum, as any restriction of power should be decided by an equal or higher forum in our case, the highest, the electorate. Which proves the necessity of at least one type of referendum.","conclusion":"Referendums provide a way to settle contentious issues when elected officials are unable to make a decision."}
{"id":"d0618100-1846-4ee8-8f2e-55508d630802","argument":"Banning something can have the unintended consequence of making it more appealing or more widely cherished. If the information is wrong, it is more effective to write and publish a succinct rebuttal to the book showing how it is wrong, and letting readers decide for themselves.","conclusion":"Banning is inherently wrong for everything - because it will not change the demand, it just opens doors wide open for the black market."}
{"id":"9ff921e8-6208-4acb-b651-0c0df1585f78","argument":"My view is that most subs that utilize a weekly thread in order to consolidate content do so to the detriment of the subreddits usefulness and in doing so they stifle conversation. Why do I feel this way? 1 Most weekly threads are only going to get attention on the day the weekly thread is posted. If it doesn't occur to you to post on the subreddit on that day, your question, suggestion, anecdote, etc is probably not going to be seen or responded to. Or you have to try to remember to come back to the sub on the day the thread gets posted. 2 it makes searching the subreddit to see if your question suggestion has already been posted or discussed more difficult 3 Reddit is a discussion based website. The entire point of making a post is to engage in discussion with others. Forcing users to post in a weekly thread significantly reduces the visibility of ones content. Almost every time I have been redirected to a weekly thread, my question has gone unanswered, making the subreddit significantly less useful to its subscribers. Basically, I just don't find weekly threads very useful in general. If a subreddit is being overloaded with the same kind of questions or content, perhaps a better solution would be a more inclusive FAQ or wiki page. By the way, the weekly threads I am referring to are the ones where posts are removed and you are instead referred to a weekly thread. Optional weekly threads are alright. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Most subs that attempt to consolidate content into a \"weekly thread\" are stifling conversation and making the subreddit less useful"}
{"id":"099a2c25-ea56-4291-82f9-edbf35e42d67","argument":"What we class as 'news', even serious news, is mostly just entertainment. But we are obsessed with it because we have an in built craving for gossip and new information, which is actually just a relic of our ancient history, when knowing the latest 'news' such as the location of the latest foodsource was was vital information. x200B More detail in these posts warning they're long form and quite sweary . On bullshit it the news and media, parts 1 and 2 x200B x200B Meanwhile, news websites and outlets naturally encourage us to think that it is vital that we stay informed of the lastest current affairs, and craft their content to give it an unmerited air of gravitas and importance. But largely all those outlets are doing is encouraging short termism through focusing on what is happening right now, with little far sighted or in depth analysis of history or long term trends that could influence our future. x200B Edit Thank you so much to everyone that commented on this. You have exhausted, confused and challenged me, and I've spent my entire Sunday on Reddit. I now no longer know what I think. Although forgetting about thinking for a moment, I still feel that I'm still attached to most of my original point. I hope I'll be open minded enough or maybe that should be open gutted enough for that feeling to be open to change.","conclusion":"Staying up-to-date on 'the news' is pointless and a waste of time. There are far better ways to improve your understanding of the world."}
{"id":"38ce04f7-b50e-45aa-bc55-5e7245b385cb","argument":"They made him out to be some sort of evil person. The article seems very biased. To me, just because you made money from stock of a gun company who's product was used in a shooting, doesn't make you in any way responsible or supportive of the shooting. It's kinda like say McDonald's stock went down because it became public that they were using some nasty additive responsible for a number of deaths. So you buy a bunch of stocks in McDonalds when they are down, knowing that they will inevitably rebound when people forget. I also made a bunch of money off of devalued gun stocks right after the shooting. I have no moral qualms about it. Zero. I think the author of the article has his head up his A .","conclusion":"This article is about a hedge fund manager who profited from gun company stocks after the sandy hook shooting. I don't think what he did was immoral."}
{"id":"94227f72-acbe-41ca-882e-ffe535e8f3a7","argument":"tl dr criticizing people more powerful than you according to an artificial scale of morality is not healthy for your mind An explanation of what those mean Note that the terms sound incendiary but I am not looking to incite controversy. I didn't decide what words are used to describe these concepts. Another problem is that those terms were used in a rather complicated way and a specific context by the author that the wiki isn't accurately depicting. I'm only talking about those concepts here in a very general sense as they apply to my own life. I'm starting to think that master morality is healthier for the mind in general. To give you an example, I used to resent the rich and powerful. I would create artificial moral scales to put myself on top. I would be critical of Floyd Mayweather for not knowing how to read or Trump for being trashy and rude to give just two representative examples among many, many others. In reality, those traits did not affect the rich and powerful's ability to lead their lives and do what they want and be satisfied, because they provided value to their fans, supporters, and business partners in many ways. My appreciation of them was just a defense mechanism for my ego. I could judge them according to a moral system I had devised to make myself feel better, but it would not change the fact that I had no way of affecting or changing them outside of my own mind. If you look at someone buying an astoundingly expensive car and your first thought is money doesn't buy class or he's probably secretly unhappy because consumerism is bad , then it's like the deft hands of a magician swiping cards from top to bottom. Trump is actually a good illustrative example because one reason he drives people crazy including me, a while back is that he reveals the naked exercise of power there are no niceties or decorum, just him using his power to its fullest extent. This creates cognitive dissonance since we expect him to fail because he doesn't conform to what we think ought to be presidential conduct, while failing to realize that presidential conduct is just a veneer to make less powerful people like us feel less threatened and more accepting of power, and that we've created an entire mental universe to defend ourselves just like people thought the King had divine blessing back in the day to make our subservience sting less. Nietzsche also gave as an example of slave morality the virtues of Christianity. Humility means you can't take pride in anything, turning the other cheek means you are a weak target, chastity masks your inability to attract etc. What were sold as virtues are in fact a toxic mindset that promotes subservience. After changing my mindset a bit, I feel a lot better. That's not to say I don't support society preventing practices harmful to it, but rather that obsessing about moral faults just makes you miserable and gives you a false sense of superiority that you don't even really believe in. It's bit like holding a hot coal and expecting someone else to burn. If Twitter mobs are so angry and normative, it's largely because they have little power in real life so they resort to going after what they perceive to be moral slights to get that power high they lack. In comparison, I now feel like I take things much less personally. It's a bit like the Romans who would just accept their fate and enter the bath with open wrists when they had been bested by a rival vae victis style. Overall, I agree with Nietzsche in that slave morality seems to paradoxically make society less healthy since it breeds resentment with no escape valve. Feel free to  and let me know if you think I've missed something. Thanks","conclusion":"master morality is a healthier mindset than slave morality"}
{"id":"ef818d56-998b-466d-848b-b55bf869e957","argument":"A lunar base could also hold a future site for launching rockets to distant planets such as Mars. Launching rockets from the Moon would be an easier prospect than on Earth due to the Moon's lower gravity requiring a lower escape velocity.","conclusion":"Moonbase could be used to launch rockets on mission to Mars."}
{"id":"9e4ddf87-bb15-4293-8318-f8b2e558187d","argument":"It's a tale as old as time that you see whenever the new blockbuster comes out of Hollywood CGI is overused and people wish they used older forms of SFX such as animatronics, stop motion, perspective tricks, make up etc. While each of these can be done terribly and done well depending on how they're used that's a discussion for another day , the one that puzzles me is stop motion. I've watched a fair few older movies and not once have I ever seen stop motion done well. Something with the frame rate makes stop motion have a very jerky look to it and does not gel with the motion of the real actors. Older films like Babes in Toyland, Jason the Argonauts, Clash of the Titans etc. all look laughably fake which is a major problem since the point of SFX is that the illusion disappears and you believe that the creature is actually there. Not once have I ever seen stop motion do this. I bring this up because I keep seeing people bring up stop motion as a dying art form and it puzzles me. It looks so fake. I'm fine with stop motion animated movies since everything in the movie is CG so you don't have anything to compare the jerkiness to. For the record, the only stop motion anything I've ever seen that didn't seem jerky was The Nightmare Before Christmas which I read they did because they futzed with the frame rate somehow. But stop motion next to human actors has always looked like crap to me and just jolts me out of the movie I'm watching. So, yeah, why do so many people still wish stop motion would make a comeback over CG? gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Stop-Motion is an Inferior form of Special Effects to CGI"}
{"id":"94c879c3-ba52-4004-8615-d19365aaebb5","argument":"There is a difference between equality of opportunity and equality of economic income. Equality of economic income would never be reached and would potentially lead to an economic paralysis, while equality of opportunity would be the incentive to make everybody participate in the work market.","conclusion":"While a UBI does not correct income inequality, it assures equality of opportunity."}
{"id":"3c08dcb6-f9d9-4aa4-8038-628c2e44a76a","argument":"I think that Brexit is bad for the UK because if the UK left the customs union and the single market the British economy would be damaged significantly and Airbus and car manufacturers e.g. Jaguar Land Rover are a perfect example of this as they have complex supply chains stretching across the whole of Europe and many British companies rely heavily on labour from the EU even the NHS heavily relies on EU doctors and nurses as well as unified regulation and friction less trade, which also applies to other industries such as banking. Furthermore, if the UK is against the free movement of people that will mean that there will have to be a hard border in Ireland and this also will be detrimental for the economy. So please tell me if the apparent upsides outweigh the economic losses and border problems in Northern Ireland?","conclusion":"I think that Brexit is bad for the UK"}
{"id":"fb36f3a4-372c-4b43-a0ae-a36906f94377","argument":"I honestly don't get the love for JFK. Where many see a heroic president, I see an ineffectual leader who, among other things, bungled the Cuban Missile Crisis, blew it with the Bay of Pigs invasion, and was ineffectual at getting his agenda passed while he was alive and in office, which was significantly harmful to much of his legacy, most notably with civil rights. His actions regarding the steel industry in particular were harmful to the economy. I'm not seeing where he was a great, or even good, president. If he hadn't been assassinated, I don't believe we'd hold him in high regard at all, nor would many of the accomplishments attributed to him have passed.","conclusion":"JFK is only considered a great president and held in high regard because he was assassinated."}
{"id":"4dc9ec11-570d-4c2c-a2f2-7b5d4cd8d73b","argument":"The Diary of Anne Frank is studied extensively in schools around the world, mostly in an abridged form that has had sexual content removed.","conclusion":"Removing questionable content is a well-established practice in the field of education. There is no reason Twain's work should be treated differently."}
{"id":"be1a8ee5-c607-49a6-8221-cce7480d4857","argument":"First, I am not here to discuss pro life versus pro choice. Second, I do not mean to trivialize rape in any way, and my heart truly goes out to victims. My main motivation for posting here is that people seem to vilify those who are pro life even in cases of rape more so than those who are pro life barring cases of rape and others . I would like to understand their reasoning. Now, before beginning to explain why I am of my titled opinion, we need to accept that pro life individuals believe that abortion is murder. Unless I have been misunderstanding for years, that seems to be their platform. Perhaps that belief is illogical itself, but it is a  for someone else at another time. For now, abortion is equal to murder for a pro lifer. With that in mind, I have asked myself, if I believed that abortion was murder, what would justify that murder? A few things came up topics for another day, perhaps but carrying the product of rape did not, in my mind, qualify. Tl dr if abortion murder to pro lifers, and rape does not justify murder, then pro lifers who are against abortion in cases of rape are logical.","conclusion":"I believe it is understandable and even logical that pro-lifers oppose abortion in cases of rape."}
{"id":"fc3fb627-b089-422d-9bce-3ae9803017d0","argument":"Just to be clear, im talking about loading your silverware into one of these things Throughout my life I have encountered numerous people and households that choose to load their dishwashers by putting in the forks knives spoons with the tip up and the handle down. I believe that the altnerative tips down, handles up is the better choice for the following reasons Placing the silverware in tip down allows you to hold the handle when inserting the piece into the tray. Similarly, when you remove the silverware after the cleaning cycle you can pick up the pieces using the handle. If you put the silverware in tip up you are forced to hold the dirty and sometimes sharp end when putting the dishes in. You are then forced to grab the end you will be eating off of when unloading. Most, if not all, dishwashers clean by shooting water up from the bottom. If you place the tips down it means that the area you are most concerned with getting clean gets the most direct stream of water. The only exception I can think of to my view is when your dishwasher has the blue plastic guides as shown in this picture These force you to put your silverware in tip up. Although personally I usually just ignore these and put silverware in tip down.","conclusion":"Putting silverware in \"tip down\" is the superior method of loading the dishwasher"}
{"id":"a204713c-0927-46d7-bae0-fa0c597e4ec3","argument":"The acceleration g-force experienced in a space elevator can be adjusted to be near the natural value of 1g, as opposed to e.g. Space Shuttle, where it is up to 3g.","conclusion":"Space elevator is a more convenient way to get to space than a rocket."}
{"id":"cfc52d61-441e-4bdb-bd6e-bacbbc95c5f1","argument":"OPINION CHANGED greater speed impact in inevitable collisions as presented by many below, makes sense as a good reason for parallel flow. \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014 It may seem counter intuitive but here is the thing there is a massive power imbalance between a car or a person on a bike, scooter, or skateboard amp blind spots hard to see spots are a thing when you are traveling in the same direction. In particular the scenario occurs all the time where a motorist needs to make a right turn through a bike lane. With bikers traveling the same directions as traffic, they are approaching the turning vehicle from a totally different direction than all other hazards they would typically be watching for while making a right turn. Sometimes there is even a row of parallel parked cars between the turning car and the bike lane further obscuring on coming bikers from view and eliminating the bikers ability to see the turning car as an approaching hazard. When I lived in Washington DC biking was my primary mode of transportation amp there are a lot of bike lanes. However I generally rode my bike on the road because inside the city I could keep up with the flow of traffic and I felt much safer occupying a visible place in the traffic pattern than I did in the bike lane next to it. Out in Long Beach I skate board around a lot and typically do so in the bike lane going the wrong direction. In this way I have a clear view of any hazards coming in my direction and I am approaching turning vehicles from a direction they would be looking while deciding if it is a safe moment for them to proceed with the turn. Similarly when traveling on one way streets with no bike lanes which there are a lot of in LB I always travel against the flow of traffic so that I can see motorists and they can see me amp know I see them. It feels dramatically safer yet still I see most people sticking to the herd mentality on these streets and going in the same direction as motorists are our urban planners failing us miserably or is there some strong bit of logic i am failing to consider?","conclusion":"Bike lanes in should go in the opposite direction that traffic travels in the car lanes they are next to because it would be dramatically safer."}
{"id":"d9f82c51-a1ff-4469-938c-e885ad99e6af","argument":"There were numerous reports of Britons frantically Googling what the E.U. is, hours after voting to leave, which indicates that many did not know what they were voting for.","conclusion":"Complex and potentially irreversible decisions are oversimplified by framing issues in the binary and asking voters to choose just one or the other."}
{"id":"86470a45-4609-4f08-810c-8feb90801551","argument":"Cultural diversity will cause the disappearance of the organisation's traditional values, resulting in the loss of the organisation's original mission.","conclusion":"Organisations that serve one cultural niche can be successful without diversity."}
{"id":"57e0d999-9b1a-4cd3-bd32-b2d8c8a90da0","argument":"It seems like every time a holiday named after a person comes around I see a slew of historical facts about the terrible things that that person did. This is especially relevant to Colombus Day, but even applies to MLK day. Even further, this is sometimes brought up about days named after certain saints e.g. Valentine, Patrick . I think that naming holidays after people opens up the idea behind the holiday to too many ad hominem attacks while ignoring the virtue that we are trying to celebrate. That's why I think that all holidays currently named after people should actually be named after the virtue that person stood for. MLK day could be renamed Equality Day, Columbus Day could be renamed Discovery Day, and St. Valentines Day could be renamed Lover's Day. The only exception to this would be celebrating people's birthdays, like George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. EDIT I've decided the birthday exception was indefensible and no longer stand by it with one exception. Its ok if the person is still alive, like the queen of England or something.","conclusion":"Holidays should not be named after people, but after the virtues that they represented."}
{"id":"b9563d3b-b42d-4c73-b4a2-b22cb38cf752","argument":"I've read arguments and seen post on reddit that endorse the idea that flushiable toilets are terrible because there are people in other parts of the world who are thirsty or have poor access to water. I've also seen reduction of fresh water as an argument of overpopulation concerns. My main problem with all of this is that where I live it rains all the time. In fact it's raining right now outside my house. This year during hurricane season Southeast U.S our river even flooded and damaged some of the local buildings. My biggest concern is that our water sources will become polluted from our terrible environmental protections laws. But I don't see us running out. The problem with lack of water concerns are transportation of water not lack of water.  gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I don't have to worry about wasting water if I live in a place that rains a lot."}
{"id":"f38c25a1-1876-4a18-9f1e-c17cd2b88e72","argument":"Let me preface this by saying i'm of mixed race descent myself, and by all accounts am not 'white british'. Each and every time i've seen him make a public appearance he's the underdog, with people leaping onto every word he says and trying to trick or twist it to suit their narrative. He seems to know what he's talking about, speaks with confidence and with quotes and facts to back up his points. I feel as though his accent and appearance does him a disservice as people simply discount his as a football hooligan. I believe in the freedom of speech, and that the media should be unbiased as much as is possible, but virtually every interview i've seen involving him as been little more than a subtly disguised character assassination. Example Most people I know think of his as nothing more than a racist scumbag due to his past affiliation with the EDL, and his political presence taints whatever organization he's currently aligned with now. I watched his speech at the Oxford union and it completely changed my opinion about him, he really felt like a genuine speaker who believed in what he said, and to my shock I actually agreed with many of his points. It made me feel that he's been unfairly attacked and smeared by the media. Have I just been taken in by a smooth talker, can someone explain to me why he's a hatemongering racist like i've been told.","conclusion":"I don't believe that Tommy Robinson Former EDL leader is racist, and can sympathize with him on some issues."}
{"id":"4d5ca176-7310-4daa-92e7-835de3f59d5e","argument":"Proof Try really hard to believe in santa clause right now. Go on, do it. Did it work? Do you believe in santa now? If your answer was yes, you clearly are lying to yourself and everyone else. There is no way to force a belief. Beliefs form from experience, social norms, and your best available understanding of how things work. That said, I'm an atheist. No matter how hard I try to believe in God, I can't. There is simply no way to force a belief. I want you to change my view that I can choose to believe in God. Edit Also, please don't post comments along the lines of you have a choice to listen to the counterarguments to your belief . This does not equate to directly choosing your belief. It is more of an indirect choice. Here's why You have no way of knowing if you will be convinced of something by researching arguments against it. You could, but imagine if you have already seen all arguments in favor of the opponents arguments and you still haven't been convinced. This means that at this point you have no ability to continue on until you are convinced.","conclusion":"Religious beliefs or lack of are not a choice"}
{"id":"06cb2f18-7c2e-4784-a0cf-3a4f0f17a1cd","argument":"Heavy vehicles especially cargo trucks use only a few times more gas than small cars, but can tear roads 100s of times faster as well posing greater risk in case of injury.","conclusion":"Gas usage is not in proportion to either road tear or congestion."}
{"id":"045b9860-b166-44fc-b43b-572ae380af77","argument":"In the Arab World, ethnic cleansing happened often for the Jewish Diaspora since the Muslim stifled any right of return to Israel. Ethnic cleansing in the 8th century by King Idris I of Morocco; ethnic cleansing of Grenada in 1066, the Almohads in the 12th century, ethnic cleansing of 1475 in Fez, Ali Burzi Pasha in 1785, in Algier in 1805, 1815, 1830, in Morocco from 1864 to 1880. 1","conclusion":"Because of the Muslim occupation of Israel and political prevention of any Jewish return, the Jewish diaspora continued for 1300 years, and persecutions of Jews was the norm in the Muslim and Christian World through massacres, humiliation, enslavement, arbitrary confiscation, and forced conversion from 635 AD until the creation of the State of Israel."}
{"id":"e3eaed69-750a-43a7-b91a-bce9e3997dae","argument":"Granted, I am ignorant about the subject. I've always assumed that it brought no harm to the animal. I've even had several cats as pets that were declawed when I was a child. I've never been witness to a cat being harmed due to declawing. Although I've only been exposed to a few cases. Ive never really heard about the issue until it was outlawed in Denver. If there are some cases to where the animal could be harmed, why does it happen? Is it dependent upon the vet, the individual animal, or something else? I hope some of you can shed light on the subject. Happy 'ing","conclusion":"Declawing cats is not a bad thing."}
{"id":"161d13c9-341f-4d21-a99b-9eb2f05ac2ca","argument":"I am a minority that has come across more than a fair share of discrimination, ignorance, and flat out racism. Even the majority probably has at some point too I am just trying to establish my point of view . I believe that affirmative action breeds a different form of subtle racism and provides minorities with an unneeded advantage over others. For example colleges giving preferential treatment to targeted races takes away opportunities for qualified individuals and provides chances for those who may not be qualified simply based off of biology. It's genetics being awarded over merit at that point. As well, accepting affirmative action is essentially admitting that past racial indiscretion and insidious acts example of slavery are something to be forgiven by means of special treatment. As for cultural appropriation, in some degree I can see how it breeds ignorance and forms of racism. Delivering cultural accents or dressing up as religious figures as a butt of a joke is supremely insensitive, however cultural appropriation can and probably most of time propagate culture. Culture is a fluid and ever changing concept that is shaped by contemporary art, music, fashion, politics, and discussion. The idea of trying to preserve some form of traditional customs and culture is admirable however not necessary and ultimately not believable. The key to being able to understand each other and be at peace is to educate, empathize, and strive to share culture and experience with others. Thoughts? tl dr Affirmative action is a different form of racism because it provides unfair advantage to minorities and disadvantages for the rest. Cultural appropriation is at times insensitive, but we can benefit from it for the most part. edit Still reading and responding to your comments Thanks for all the thoughtful insight and I think at this point I need to step back and mull over your responses. Also I'm still at the office so I have to actually work . Please keep up the thoughtful discussion and I promise, I actually am willing to change my view.","conclusion":"Affirmative Action is obsolete and Cultural Appropriation is misunderstood."}
{"id":"19643873-9f5d-4079-98aa-4d4f98ca2314","argument":"Okay, I wont hand out deltas to people that give semantic replies. I dont mean that they are both wrong because obviously that would be impossible since they have conflicting viewpoints. I meant that neither side really knows if they are right. Take issues such as guns, abortions, taxes, trickle down economics, etc. Each stance has their own advantages and disadvantages so how can someone really know if they are right? Arguments against homosexuality have no merit since they're all fallacious arguments so we can say that we know that homosexuality isnt bad or rather no good reason to believe in it being bad. Pro anti gun is a complex issue, no one knows what is the right thing to do. Would removing guns prevent murders? There are statistics for both sides of the argument. If guns reduced murders is it right to deprive people those who have no intention to commit a crime, and are presumed to be innocent of their freedom and personal autonomy? Would an armed population be able to stand against a tyrannical government? Even if they would fail, dont they have the right to defend themselves?","conclusion":"The Left and the Right are wrong"}
{"id":"6e142591-4c3e-47af-b097-bf4063879457","argument":"The racist lady on the tram that was arrested a while ago in London, I think it is wrong to arrest someone for their views, no matter how stupid they might be. Also with the guy on twitter who was racist against the football player and got arrested, I too think that was wrong. It might just be because I am American, and I think freedom of speech is extremely great to have I'm not saying that Britain doesn't have freedom of speech, but it does seem limited in some aspects , even if it produces nuts like Westboro. So,","conclusion":"I think it is wrong to arrest someone for being racist in the UK, whether online or in public."}
{"id":"0ace32ad-ae81-417d-9be9-118580077a94","argument":"Late arrivals in large classes are less likely to be noticed, thus not as likely to be disruptive to the class.","conclusion":"In a large class, it is of little importance if one or two students arrive late."}
{"id":"bfa1b15f-8afc-4309-99f4-0d680da69254","argument":"Other places and countries in the world such as Dubai, Doha, Qatar, Israel and California have succeeded in turning semi-arid areas into large populated areas. Australia can emulate such efforts.","conclusion":"Populating an area with humans and caring for the environment are not mutually exclusive. You can do both. Just like Eco-Tourism, you can do Eco-housing."}
{"id":"dad4ab2d-ff96-458b-b109-f3b095135e09","argument":"According to a survey of 28 countries, an average of 41% of citizens trust their government. In three out of four countries, the majority does not trust the government. This level of trust is even lower than that of the media Edelman, p. 12, 13","conclusion":"Additionally, based on the logic that a lack of trust and legitimacy in an actor makes a powerful role of that actor problematic, power should be taken from politicians via referendums. Politicians are in a legitimacy crisis much more severe than the media."}
{"id":"27721238-0fcd-47c2-9a95-a6c1082b0658","argument":"Data suggests that the number of prisoners exceeds official prison capacity in at least 115 countries. While as many as 51 countries have a problem of extreme overcrowding above 150 per cent of capacity.","conclusion":"Allowing long term inmates the choice of a death sentence could help alleviate the pressure of overcrowding in prisons."}
{"id":"fe19620b-b467-4553-bcf2-103b7aefb08c","argument":"I am of the opinion that the prevalence of non American actors playing Americans in American film and television is a bad thing. The primary reason for this is that the majority of non American actors playing such roles do not understand the nuances of American speech and behavior, or else strain hard to achieve accuracy in these regards, so that in either case their performance suffers, and along with it the TV show or film in which they appear. I would also suggest, more generally, that the appearance of non Americans portraying key figures in American history such as Nixon, MLK, and Lincoln is simply not proper. The way that a culture represents itself is a key aspect of that culture itself. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"There are too many non-American actors in American roles"}
{"id":"0aee34f3-dea0-40c9-8deb-1d9580750bc8","argument":"I don't expect you to make me suddenly enjoy it, but perhaps I could gain a better appreciation for the sport. First of all, it is very high scoring. When each team is scoring fifty or sixty times per game for a total of over 100 points , each point means very little. A basket is kind of nice, but it's nothing special. In baseball or sports where you score a goal, each goal or point or run matters. It's not easy to recoup your loss. In basketball, there are so many opportunities to score. Oftentimes, the game is within one or two baskets which, as a percentage of how many points were scored , is very low relative to another sport this is important . So either one team gets a lot of turnovers early and scores a lot and the game becomes uninteresting, or the only exciting bit is the last thirty seconds when it's anybody's game. Especially in the NBA, when people play for their egos more than in any other sport relative to the collegiate level where there is much more team pride , those games that aren't close are not going to usually see comebacks. I feel like a major comeback or one cool three pointer is the only cool thing about basketball that makes it entertaining. It's just way too back and forth. The other problem is the fouls. God, the fouls. You can't touch another player without the whistle being blown. It's crazy. I imagine a little more contact would make it a lower scoring game and a more interesting one at that. Please change my view, or at least explain the appeal of this sport that bores the hell out of me.","conclusion":"Basketball is a poorly designed sport and is not fun to watch."}
{"id":"3876b7a4-825d-4cf9-98bd-042736470a72","argument":"There is little to no evidence that international terrorist organisations willing and capable of striking the US, like al-Quaeda, are linked to Palestinian groups Mearsheimer & Walt, p. 63","conclusion":"It is unlikely that Palestinian organizations commit acts of terror in the US."}
{"id":"07be16ef-ac47-40d8-8625-dbc0f1a5e4e3","argument":"The labor value taken from slaves from 1790 to 1860 has been estimated to amount to between 7 and 40 Billion dollars, and even more once lost interest earnings are taken into account, which supposedly resulted in substantial tax revenues for the US government Feagin, p. 53","conclusion":"While the U.S. Government never held slaves itself, it did promulgate many laws and institutions which codified and enforced slavery and profit from slavery in other ways."}
{"id":"6878c97b-ff09-4831-a03d-62f5dbe0e4b1","argument":"Tax cuts, raised taxes, and tariffs have been the subject of much debate and scrutiny lately, not just in the US but in numerous other First World nations. Issues like decaying American infrastructure or overburdened healthcare systems in the UK and Canada make it clear that more tax revenue is needed. But raising income taxes just hurts the middle class since the filthy rich have lawyers and accountants and offshore banks to legally minimize their burdens. Raising sales taxes hurts the poor and middle class who spent a far greater portion of their income on sales taxes. Tariffs drive up prices and if they're imposed on critical export markets, retaliation can cause them to backfire on the economy e.g. over 260 billion of exports go from the US to Canada a trade war would sharply cut that number . As a member of the 99 37 , I'd like to see the filthy rich start paying something a little closer to their fair share. But as I mentioned, income tax increases are only effective on paper. However, many filthy rich people flaunt their wealth through large mansions, flashy cars, designer clothes, etc. I don't have a problem with rich people spending their money the way they want to, but I also feel that those purchases are an ideal target for taxation. One nation in particular has done exactly that for luxury cars Australia. Australia doesn't charge any tariffs on most vehicles, but they set a threshold of about AUD 65k for efficient cars like hybrids and electrics, it's more like 75k I think , and any portion of MSRP above that threshold is hit with a 33 37 tax. Therefore, if an Australian buys a standard gasoline powered 80k BMW, he'll pay an extra 5k in luxury tax since the car's price exceeds the threshold by 15k. While many rich people and automakers have repeatedly complained about the luxury car tax, the Australian government isn't showing any signs of backing down and it doesn't seem to have hurt sales either, as the streets of Sydney and Melbourne have no shortage of cars whose prices exceed the luxury car tax threshold. Evidently, this tax is a very effective cash cow for the Australian government that does not hurt the 99 37 in any way. Additionally, since the tax applies to ALL cars regardless of country of manufacture meaning it's explicitly not a tariff , this avoids foreign trade disputes since everyone is competing on a level playing field. The tax also doesn't apply to used vehicles if they've depreciated below the threshold, so more frugal buyers aren't locked out of the game. If countries like the US and Canada could copy this idea and apply it to cars, houses, yachts, handbags etc, governments could see a huge windfall without having to hurt the pocketbooks of the 99 37 . For example, a 50 37 sales tax could be charged on the portion of a home sale that exceeds 1 million. A 25 37 tax could be charged on luxury yachts. A tax could be charged on suits costing over 1000. And so on. These taxes would apply to all goods that fall within the specified category, regardless of country of origin so a 100k Lincoln Navigator made in USA would be competing on the same playing field as a 100k BMW 7 series made in Germany. The taxes would need to apply at a federal level so that one can't skirt them by just traveling around the country. After all, at the end of the day, the rich in North America want to live in cities like Los Angeles, New York, Vancouver, etc and they want to show off their fancy clothes, zip around in sports cars, and so on. They are not going to give up on those purchases just because the price went up 30 37 . And since the 99 37 can't ever afford that stuff, almost everyone is happy. EDIT Since some people don't seem to get it, when I talk about the rich paying their fair share , I'm not calling for already high marginal income tax rates to go up. I'm calling out those who use offshore accounts, shell companies, and god knows what else to EVADE the taxes they're obliged to pay.","conclusion":"More nations should adopt Australia's Luxury Car Tax and apply it to more than just cars"}
{"id":"f531fa12-ddda-4275-adf2-a111307032c5","argument":"Mankind's progress is a historical reality. Slavery, torture and the death penalty have been abolished, private wars have globally receded for centuries, and education and healthcare have grown.","conclusion":"According to the character-building defenses some virtues may be contingent on evil."}
{"id":"4e03a904-4dba-4f1b-ab53-c264c78c886f","argument":"All private institutions fund their security inside their facilities. Government also do not fund security in private homes. Religious facilities should not be any different.","conclusion":"Places of worship can secure themselves on their own, without government funding."}
{"id":"7e38d031-9a41-4391-89b8-113ec0b3cdf2","argument":"The plan to slow down or stop internet connections is the most economic and practical way to deal with file-sharers. Many illegal downloaders are young people and this plan will prevent the offenders from receiving a criminal record","conclusion":"Cutting web access is the most viable way to stop pirates"}
{"id":"028d3c43-ed47-4407-b0d9-df72ae5d7209","argument":"In the UK, a ten-fold increase in funding computer science at schools is needed in order to provide computing teachers a level of support on par with physics and mathematics teachers Royal Society, p. 6","conclusion":"There is currently not enough funding to properly train and support coding teachers."}
{"id":"173cda2e-325c-4838-8317-9dca86abd909","argument":"I come from a nonreligious background. I believe religion has their place in society, but I am against religious beliefs that condone violence against those who don't believe that same belief, or those that try to convert others with a sword. , Namely, by using threats of violence murder. I uphold the ideology that everyone should have freedom of speech and religion. Infringement is taken seriously. Followers of Islam say it's a religion of peace. I argue otherwise. Their holy book, the Quran, has their prophet waging war against non Muslims, saying if there are contradictions in parts in the Quran, the latter parts take precedence. Lying to non Muslims is OK. In their press, it's clear they have an extreme hatred towards western societies. Their goal is to convert all societies to live under Sharia Law, through whatever means possible. To be sly when they aren't the majority. To use force when they are the majority in that society. Right now they are one of the fastest growing religions mostly because of how many kids they have. Most western countries average 2 kids per family. Muslims average 5 . I predict civil wars will arise when Muslims in each non Sharia Law country they migrated to become the majority. Here's an example of a popular Islam author not wanting to answer yes or no questions. Q dodging What practical things can each person do when guests are evading a question? I find so many things about Islam to be appalling. Tldr People I like. Religion, especially Islam, not so much.","conclusion":"Islam breeds violence at an extremely higher level than other religious beliefs."}
{"id":"8d3e871b-571d-4c9f-90f6-1e63955e920f","argument":"Another article mentions the top 10 companies in the league of Microsoft, Facebook, Uber etc. that are leading the ways in which AI can be used. This shows the variety of use cases and approaches that are being taken for development of AI.","conclusion":"AGI will not be developed by a single group. It will be simultaneously developed by different groups with different approaches. So the power will not be concentrated in the hands on one group."}
{"id":"b0ff946d-90d6-44d5-9a66-ff1dc487f747","argument":"Types of gender roles and their labeling as either gender are social constructs, not the existence of gender identities in and of itself. Trans women can be butch trans men can be feminine and both can be drag queens.","conclusion":"Gender expression and gender identity are independent variables of a person's identity. A trans man can be more or less feminine than your average cis woman."}
{"id":"07667437-ae7b-46b4-a140-f3e9d75e3ca1","argument":"The political center of the United States - the National Mall in D.C. - has featured museums dedicated to Native Americans and even the Holocaust for decades, yet it took until 2016 to open one on African-American history","conclusion":"America still downplays the role that slavery played in its history and the evil that it was."}
{"id":"dd0167db-a918-4470-9367-de33d35ffc15","argument":"Gillette's \"We Believe: The Best Men Can Be\" ad, which focused on toxic masculinity, sparked numerous conversations online and around the world. Despite the controversy, the campaign was ultimately a large success for the brand.","conclusion":"The success of a number of political ad campaigns is indicative of their wide scale support."}
{"id":"c0cd8149-1886-4057-b6fa-d10f58cfac57","argument":"Mueller states, \"evidence about the June 9, 2016 meeting and WikiLeaks\u2019s releases of hacked materials was not sufficient to charge a criminal campaign-finance violation.\"","conclusion":"There is insufficient evidence of illegal collusion between the Trump Campaign and Russia."}
{"id":"1c595dbf-1269-4167-8b3c-0b61d66f1f80","argument":"Let me start by saying that I am liberal and in a protected class, so I don't feel unsympathetic to victims of hate crimes. What I don't understand and after discussing it with a friend now realize that I have never really understood is why a similar crime against a protected group should be punished in a different way. Maybe it is because I don't believe in the preventive nature of increased punishment, but to me it is sufficient that the crime is punished, and if the horrific nature of the crime merits increased punishment it should merit that punishment across the board, regardless of who the victim is. e Thank you to everyone for the discourse in this thread, I'm replying as quickly as possible to people but you've all been great and given me a lot to think about","conclusion":"I don't understand the need for hate crime laws"}
{"id":"5ab1ae18-dcaf-4121-a6fb-ae5c79b9dc72","argument":"Philosophy is a very important and valuable discipline, because it tells us the fundamental nature of reality, knowledge, and the good, as well as how we should organize society. Science, politics, and popular culture have been deeply molded by philosophy. However, when a discipline is this important, we should expect there to be many attempts to use it to manipulate people. Just look at all of the scientific studies and theories people have developed with the deliberate intent of supporting an agenda, and then consider how much more vulnerable philosophy, which requires such delicate reasoning and has so few places where we can check its results directly against reality, is to distortion. I need specific examples, so here are a few Plato argued that there was a Form of the Good in another dimension which gave the rulers of his Republic an insight into what was good that none of their subjects had any way of verifying. This has the convenient result that Plato and anyone else with the relevant insight can just tell you what the right thing to do is, and you have no way of disputing what they say. Descartes gave a notoriously terrible my philosophy professor laughed at it while she was presenting it in class ontological argument for the existence of God that was supposedly the only guarantee we have of being able to trust our senses. If Descartes is right about this, then it is impossible to deny the existence of God while also holding to science as a source of knowledge, which is a convenient result for the religious. Schopenhauer argued that the most moral form of life was to be a self denying ascetic, but didn't practice this way of life himself, which suggests that he may have wanted the people around him to be self denying while he took advantage of them. There are many more possible examples, but I think I have made my point.","conclusion":"Many great philosophers were trying to manipulate people with their ideas."}
{"id":"3cbe1b20-6f3e-401e-a17e-502743b6568f","argument":"Edit RIP me title typoing, you know what I mean. I'm talking about 'headline browsers' we've all done it , simply reading news headlines as you scroll through Reddit and internalizing the info without reading the article. I don't believe most Redditors are reading any of the article I have almost always had the experience when I do read the article to go back and read the comments section to find that top voted contributions contradicted or were irrelevant flippant to the significant information underlying the headline. r science is generally the exception to this imo. We usually think of clickbait headlines as definitely or obviously misleading false, but any headline can play in the grey area between honest and clickbaity to serve varying degrees of manipulation, whilst still maintaining some semblance of legitimacy. Reddit's function of serving up these possibly misleading headlines one after the other, all with plausible believability, low incentive to click loads a new page and low visibility on the actual source, conditions users to trust news 'they get from Reddit'. I know that there are proactive decisions most users could make to avoid any manipulation or incidental belief in faulty reasoning reporting, but most users are content to simply read the headlines and invest some amount of belief in them. I would like to see subs that accept articles to make mandatory if legal the text of the article in the post description, so users and easily read the content and reference it for discussion.","conclusion":"Reddit's role in the way people receive their news has greatly exacerbated how media outlets ability to manipulate the general user base's understanding of objective reality."}
{"id":"64785cc9-ef3f-478f-a7d4-16f8b8623e08","argument":"All intelligent phyla are already known to us. The most intelligent animals only approximate the average intelligence of a five year-old human child. That\u2019s only a fraction of what an adult is capable of.","conclusion":"Using their intelligence, a single human has the potential to improve the world for both humans and animals. Human lives are therefore more worth saving, as animals have no such potential."}
{"id":"85474eff-b486-4653-8a0f-0e5db0d3a2e7","argument":"The modern LGBT movement is all about pride and flaunting your sexuality, which I feel is hurtful to LGBT individuals. The whole point of the LGBT movement should be about making it so our sexuality doesn't matter to people. It's also heavily politically charged and tends to disown anyone that doesn't have liberal beliefs, which is very dismissive of a large portion of the community. Because of these and other things, it generates a lot of unnecessary stereotypes and tiptoeing around LGBT individuals. Because the community disowns non liberals, it's assumed that if you're LGBT that you're also liberal. Because it flaunts sexuality, it makes people's sexualities become their identities whether they want it to or not, all because of their peers, and it becomes all people can see in you once you make it known. The LGBT movement has transformed from Just let us get married and not be discriminated against to yaaas bitch i love hillary and fucking members of the same sex and it doesn't even seem to have any clear goals besides being a political agenda. It creates and encourages stereotypes which in the long term is harmful to individuals who don't fit in their box. BONUS  I also think adding the brown black to the pride flag was stupid, as it took something that wasn't at all about race and made it about race. EDIT I don't get why this post is being downvoted, shouldn't the people who don't like the opinion I stated above be happy that I'm here to discuss it in a civil way?","conclusion":"The modern LGBT movement is ultimately harmful to the majority of those within the LGBT community"}
{"id":"95c3ba05-4a85-4c78-bf28-d6342f632a63","argument":"In light of the recent conflagration over the selling of a Black Rhino hunting permit to fund conservation, I would like to see what the opposing argument is. I think selectively selling hunting permits would be a great way for wildlife sanctuaries to fund themselves, of course the animal in question would already need to be killed for some other reason . I would also support governments selling ivory, rhino horn, lion pelt, etc to fund conservation and anti poaching efforts. There is clearly a large demand for such items, and clearly people are willing to pay absurdly high black market prices for them. A wildlife reserve selling rhino horn is going to reduce poachers incentives to kill rhino. This is probably the best solution, many of the African countries lack the funds to set up a strong anti poaching and conservation effort, the money has to come from somewhere. We must kill the Rhino to save the Rhino.","conclusion":"I think wildlife preserves should sell permits for hunting, as well as sell rhino horn, Ivory, etc for cash to fund conservation."}
{"id":"a11b3d39-5d2c-4107-aafd-03572625bb5d","argument":"Depending on the Rebel shield technology they'll suffer from two issues, either a rotating shield frequency like that which the federation uses of which stops enemies modulating your weapons to your shields but has the problem that transporters can be used through it following Chief O'Brien's method or they use a continual frequency of which can be modulated to and made pointless","conclusion":"The Federation's shields are vastly superior to those of the Rebel Alliance."}
{"id":"5b332159-c4de-45b4-b0c8-56ee406d9bac","argument":"1 Algae Crude Oil will become commonplace, therefore averting the already debunked Peak Oil theory and will meet energy needs while having corporations to stick to crude oil, because it's a well known fact that America and it's corporations love crude oil. And since crude oil is here forever because of Algae, it's not like renewable resources will ever become commonplace. In other words, while Crude Oil will continue to be the energy source of America and the world, it will be from Algae. 2 Islamophobia will grow to uber fascist extremes in America and especially Europe. Since Europe and America is having hard times, they are looking for someone to blame for, and that someone is Islam. A lot of hate crimes against Muslims through out America and Europe are happening, and hate against the Muslims will continue to grow bigger and bigger. But Muslims will be hit the hardest in Europe, with the Muslims being treated like scum and will be victims of the next holocaust in the future. And by the way, does that remind you of anything? 3 Let's face it, Japan will collapse or be insignificant. Fukushima is already poisoning the entire country and the planet , the economy is getting crappier by the year since 1991, Anime and Manga is becoming a fad just like Disco, and mark my words, Tokyo 2020 will be a disaster. Let's not forget that Abe, the prime minister, is pretty much hated by the Japanese and it's only a matter of time until Mt. Fuji erupt and destroys Japan. 4 Sorry Humanity, but a disease will wipe all of you out by next century. If you want to see the next Pandemic, look no further than MERS Cov. That disease, while pretty obscure, is growing with a number of cases and deaths still growing to this day. This disease will kill hundreds of thousands in the near future because hey, this disease came from Saudi Arabia, a place where science is considered unimportant compared to Islam and fuel Prediction 2. 5 Mark my words, Bitcoin will be banned by many countries and will turn into a fad like Jetpacks. Self explanatory.","conclusion":"These are the 5 predictions of the future that will come true."}
{"id":"0c7cd14e-c42e-4db0-bf3e-0861b050872a","argument":"The main advantage that i feel would be gained in doing this is it would help eliminate the hive mind that people often claim exists on Reddit. While I make no such claims, I think that more free, individual thought should be encouraged wherever possible. I think its likely that most reddit users look at a comment's score before voting on it. Whether they know it or not this subtly alter's one's interpretation of that comment and changes how they will vote on it. I think that if people are unable to know how others already feel about a certain subject, they will be more inclined to make up their own mind about it. That said, i do understand that some users like to look at comments scores but not vote on them, so I propose that if you clicking, or for mobile, tapping on a comment, would also allow you to see the score of it.","conclusion":"reddit should hide a comment's score until after you vote on it"}
{"id":"140d3751-6fbf-4c01-a234-9a5e58e6b894","argument":"When only a specific group holds political power, it is possible for authoritarianism to override democracy in a country.","conclusion":"This policy threatens the principles and ideals enshrined in democracy."}
{"id":"81d40190-01c7-4472-b6a7-768c8c0e9269","argument":"I just feel like from parks to lawns to the side of highways that grass is overused in landscaping. This post is in reference to grass that is planted by people and requires maintenance, not prairie grass, or wild grass that grows in meadows. Grass is the most irrigated crop in the United States, and more total area is covered by lawn than by crops. Properly maintained grass uses a lot of fertilizer and pesticides which are bad for the environment. Forests and Meadows are just as if not more aesthetically pleasing than a well manicured grass lawn and take a lot less time and money to maintain. Most people don't even take good care of their lawns, leaving them overgrown and spotted with weeds. Whole regions of the United States get on just fine without having much grass. A lot of grass dies in the winter and looks dumb for half the year anyway. Edit This is not a call to ban planting grass, just to encourage alternatives in home and public landscaping. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"There is too much grass in the United States"}
{"id":"121bcadf-8d0e-4ea3-8563-ebfea35f6ad2","argument":"Allowing an employer to not hire a felon just because they are a felon is not beneficial to society. If a felon is trying to get money to help themselves they should be allowed to and nothing should stop them. An employer should be allowed to ask so they know whether not watch your actions more closely. A felon can have a lower pay than usual but not lower than minimum wage to compensate for the additional security. Denying a person work hurts the persons ability to better themselves. If they can't work to make money that forces them to break the law in order to feed themselves and their family. I understand a felon is a liability but that's why the employer is allowed to reduce their pay in order for them to make sure the felon doesn't try anything.","conclusion":"Being a felon should not be allowed as a reason to not hire someone."}
{"id":"dd8f2f1c-bff2-4246-9b81-208d83acd611","argument":"Not sure what to do about this one, but a friend has what she calls 'headmates', alternate personalities, well, in her head. This is also called identifying as a multiple. I have different aspects of my personality, we all do, but she identifies these aspects as different people, I guess. Technically could be Dissassociative Identity Disorder but I haven't gone there and she seems happy, so saying 'get help' seems pointless. I'm going to leave out details, but my friend does have trauma in her past and is queer. Again, please don't ask for details on her orientation and gender for the sake of privacy. I don't know if that's linked at all, but maybe it affects things somehow. I've done my best to be accepting and treat these as people but even though her personalities are harmless, I'm still massively uncomfortable with it. So I'll ask about their experiences as well as hers, etc. I guess you could call this enabling, but I'm not sure what else to do and it doesn't really seem to be hurting her to have multiples. But again, I'm massively uncomfortable and I find myself avoiding her company as a result. Help?","conclusion":"I'm really uncomfortable with a friend's headmate personalities."}
{"id":"ff960e89-a3fa-4f3b-99db-6f24bd563c2e","argument":"Forced pregnancy, or denial of abortion rights, is an inherently sexist and discriminatory practice, since there is no other instance in a parent's life in which they are forced to provide bodily resources i.e. blood, organs, bone marrow to serve their child. Cook, Dickens, and Bliss, p. 583","conclusion":"Women have a right to bodily autonomy and should ultimately be able to make choices about what happens to their bodies."}
{"id":"52ecd9c2-6d2c-4b35-b78a-d007a8108e2a","argument":"I think that international pressure would keep NK from using a nuclear device against another state if they were to acquire one. Both China and Russia work as a big enough deterrence in the region, and the United States would likely support action against NK if a nuke was detonated. I believe North Korea is a rational actor which would not commit suicide through an open attack. All their displays of force and missile tests are for show and are simply meant to inspire fear in order for them to gain political leverage in the international community.","conclusion":"I don't believe North Korea would aggressively use nuclear weapons if they obtained them."}
{"id":"7a007a25-a7fa-4d78-94cd-68063d7279ac","argument":"I'd like to start off on my stance on the whole premise. I am pro gun, I have multiple guns, so i have a general understanding of firearms and the buying process. This post is not for changing my mind on guns bought completed, and at a gun store. It's about 80 firearms. So what is an 80 build? Let's take the example of the ar 15. The lower receiver which contains the magazine well, trigger, safety, grip, etc, is the part considered by the at as the firearm . This is the serialized portion of the firearm everything else is not, it can be shipped straight to your door. See optics planet. . Here in the state of Illinois, there is a waiting period, and I had to wait 72 hours to receive my lower receiver. Within this time, a background check was preformed and since I didn't have any felonies, domestic abuse, etc, it went though. Everything I just described is standard protocol that I agree with. Here is the problem. 80 lowers are technically just chunks of metal that are in the shape of lower recievers. As it sounds, it is 80 milled and complete. The other 20 is up to you to mill out and get certain holes correct is placement and size. The key here is that the ATF doesn't recognize 80 's as a firearm. There is no background check needed, nor any paperwork. As long as you have knowledge and the tools required, you can own an unregistered firearm. In areas like Chicago where there is a real gang related violence, you don't need a gun show loophole or Indiana border buying . It may take some time because you do need to mill, but this is a real loophole that could be easily exploited. And it's not just rifles, there are 80 firearms for pistols as well, which is what most crimes and homicides are committed with. So the fact that a felon can order a chunk of metal and turn it into a firearm is somewhat alarming. This has the potential to become a serious ploblem. If this isn't that big of a deal, then .","conclusion":"80% builds of firearms have the potential to become a very serious problem."}
{"id":"8a04faeb-d890-4351-8ce2-6fd6e2929fa2","argument":"Final Edit Thanks all for the great discussion. It was thought provoking and I appreciated the time that people put into their arguments. My feelings on this issue didn\u2019t change, but I saw the flaws in my argument and I\u2019m going to think about how I can better present my case. I simply want all powerful men to be held to an equally high standard. No passes for being on the right team. I got a lot of hope that this generation of left voters are holding their representatives to higher standards and that women are making progress. It sometimes doesn\u2019t feel that way, especially with Kavanaugh and the heartbreak that brought on, but where we were in the 90\u2019s vs now wow. Fun fact Women were not allowed to wear pants on the U.S. Senate floor until 1993. \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014 I saw the news that Bill and Hillary Clinton will be touring together, and on the heels of seeing all of my friends protesting Kavanaugh and grieving over what this means for the metoo movement, I find any support or excitement for Bill Clinton to be extremely problematic. If people believed Brett Kavanaugh\u2019s accuser, Christine Blasey Ford , they should also believe Bill Clinton\u2019s accusers Juanita Broaddrick, Kathleen Willey, Paula Jones, Leslie Millwee . All of these women have been accused of being politically motivated in their accusations, but the left believes Bill Clinton and gives him a pass because he\u2019s on our side. I find this to be extremely hypocritical. We should be protesting his events \u201cAn Evening With The Clintons\u201d , and not allowing another accused sexual abuser to have a platform for shaping this country. Edit to add link detailing accusations against Clinton. I kinda forgot that a lot of people aren\u2019t aware of the severity of the accusations Four women over the past few decades have publicly accused Bill Clinton of sexual assault or harassment. One woman accused Clinton of raping her.","conclusion":"People who support the #MeToo movement should protest Bill Clinton\u2019s arena tour due to his history of being accused of sexual assault."}
{"id":"b8f0016e-6c6b-483f-b9b4-7299ec2b200d","argument":"The majority of the public consider nuclear power plants to be unsafe. They really are very safe, but the public opinion in countries currently not using nuclear power is predominantly against nuclear energy. The public opinion really is the only factor stopping nuclear energy coming into place globally.","conclusion":"Ill-informed public opinion the main obstacle for nuclear energy."}
{"id":"b83d8c14-93cb-4551-80b1-26868b6c18d9","argument":"There are many non-formal ways that can help shape your future and your education. For example voluntary work.","conclusion":"In today's information age, education can be supplied in many other ways."}
{"id":"e4c36ac5-b5de-4f68-bb71-e092976c78bd","argument":"I am basing this from my experiences both on reddit and in real life, and acknowledge this may not be the case everywhere, but here goes. I feel like the derogatory nature in which people refer to those who breathe through their mouth to be utterly baseless. People end up breathing through their mouth for many reasons, whether it be allergies causing a blocked nose, inability to breathe comfortably through the nose due to another medical condition or even just habit. It's not popular to shame fat people, and definitely not those with other medical conditions I feel it's a complete double standard that insulting this one habit is completely acceptable. Yes according to the Wikipedia page on Mouth breathing there are some negative side effects, but something tells me that people don't have these in mind when they shame someone as a mouth breather . How is it damaging? People will be led to being self conscious about breathing incorrectly in public, which is arguably the most basic human action. You wanna talk about self consciousness, here it is. Change my view, reddit. gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than just downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The attitude towards \"mouth-breathers\" is completely unjustified and damaging,"}
{"id":"9d3b7dc5-5f49-429b-9ad8-f094b3cf9dd3","argument":"Most states with voter identification laws make it easy for those without current forms of photo ID to obtain them from the government either free of charge or very cheaply. This would additionally benefit minorities and poorer citizens who are currently most likely to lack valid forms of photo ID, and who suffer a range of problems as a result. For example, they may face very high fees for cashing a check without a formal means of identification, or suffer problems in applying for state benefits. Finally, knowing that they already have what they need to vote will make it more likely that they will choose to do so, boosting participation rates.","conclusion":"Most states with voter identification laws make it easy for those without current forms of photo ID ..."}
{"id":"a6559c7a-7e3c-4ee4-9e61-f8ef051c68c4","argument":"If you call a man a pussy bitch , it's a legitimate insult. One would also think that being called an asshole douchebag is just as insulting and infers the other side of the spectrum. However, in America, people are generally better off leaning to the side of being an asshole than they are leaning to the side of being a pushover. Our culture promotes selfishness even at the expense of others, and many view the insult asshole as being called out for an abuse of power, where as pussy implies a lack of power whatsoever. It's a very sad and toxic trend in our country, but true either way. Narccicism, refusing to agree, and inflating ones ego arn't recognized condemned on the same level as being nervous, anxious, or passive. I think society could change this by condemning those who treat others poorly out of an inflated self image, but as of right now, the attitudes of many of America's icons suggest that for now a man is better off being an asshole than he is being a bitch. I am not sure how this translates to women. rstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"In America, \"Asshole\/Douchebag\" isn't a legitimate insult"}
{"id":"10e80577-07bb-4436-83a1-f21200d82ceb","argument":"As a fully metaphysical being, God is out of bounds of physics, which could suggest that he is also out of bounds of any other scientifical, even logical, bounds.","conclusion":"Science has room for the unknown, and certain metaphysical issues are resistant \/ inaccessible to scientific investigation."}
{"id":"65349e26-6c27-45fa-98d8-933b89a3d17d","argument":"The probability of alien life is not just a function of the number of planets, but also of the probability of life developing on those planets. Although we know that the first number is colossal, the second number may be so small that the existence of aliens becomes very unlikely.","conclusion":"According to the Fermi Paradox there is a contradiction between the lack of evidence and high probability estimates."}
{"id":"fecfb315-d912-4ed8-9fcc-94a1ecbfa71a","argument":"i know someone has to win, i know its a game and that means competition but Edh is meant to be a fun casual format of magic the gathering. there is a difference between the competitive of EDH and the competitive of other formats. that is how the majority of players view it. This should be fine, there are many different formats of mtg for hyper competitive players. if you really want to use a 100 card singleton deck there is still a format for that called canadian highlander. when i hear people say things like you shouldn't need your commander , tuck, hard counters, and turn 4 combos are fine or people who only care about how it wins i can't help but think why don't you play a different format? commander was meant to be a timmy johnny type formant not a spike format. there is plenty of discussion to be had about how to play well, for example misplays and such, but commander is a format that is unique in that you get one card to represent you. it is meant to be the most expressive format, not one where you try to solve it as it's not meant to be solved like the others. that expression is why i say its meant to be casual, you are trying to do something with that commander as you have some attachment to it other than its really powerful ideally. tldr magic has many formats, most being very competitive, so being very competitive in the format designed to be causal makes no sense. edit1 I am not trying to stop anyone from playing edh nor do i have a problem with competitive players, i just question the reason for playing edh rather than a different format","conclusion":"EDH should not be \"competitive\"."}
{"id":"29390238-e814-45f1-9bfe-9a6bc957fe44","argument":"Stakeholders involved, like app users and development clients, can be unknowingly subject to undue service interruptions and additional costs, when relatively simple events outside of the framework's scope, cause problems that take longer to be fixed because the developer doesn't understand them.","conclusion":"It can be irresponsible to use a framework without having the skills necessary to fix problems that may occur with underlying components."}
{"id":"67544995-a0d8-4659-a2a9-78e7fd7b166a","argument":"it should be impossible under Kants moral law to stop being a person and no longer be subject to the categorical imperative. But If an individual in charge has come to a moral conclusion based on his own reason that differs from the collective will, which is the collection of individual moral reason, he will have to act for the collective or risk imposing his will over the collective.","conclusion":"Eichmann recognised this contradiction and so gave up the categorical imperative when he was summoned to Berlin. He became a tool of administration and removed his person."}
{"id":"889c5d4c-0102-4ab9-8fc0-7c766797f10b","argument":"I'm envisioning a freely accessible public website that anyone can log in to to take courses similar to Coursera , but with the following changes Instead of videos, courses are fully interactive modules with graphics, text, voice read along, links if a viewer is confused about any aspect of the material, they can click on it for more examples and in depth explanation , fully worked out examples with annotation and explanation, interactive 'lab' like components, online tests, etc. Option to send questions and suggestions to the course creator to tell them where it could be improved, and these course creators would be on standby for the first year of the course's release during which they will continuously add to and update content according to feedback they receive Students' progress would be monitored and should they fall behind, the educational system will loop in their parents to resolve the issue. And at the end of it all students can sit for a proctored exam to earn a certificate indicating they've learned the material. Teachers would of course be reimbursed for providing this content and helped to transition to a new field. It would not Would not cover high level college courses since the number of students would be too few to warrant it and or changes in the field happen too quickly. Would not cover middle and elementary level because students wouldn't necessarily be mature enough to study on their own. The reasons I support this is are It would be far cheaper than hiring teachers each year, in each school, for hundreds of thousands of schools the content may take 500,000 to create per course but only needs to be created once each . Anyone who wanted to could use it as an immersive, interactive way to learn a topic of interest. The education these courses provide would be far superior to any provided by a single teacher since it would be based on feedback from numerous people, be a collaborative effort by multiple content creators, and they would be held responsible for the quality of their work. Compared to the current system, where there's not much that can be done to either accurately evaluate or improve teaching ability or replace underperforming teachers. It gives everyone equal access to education for these courses. This makes it fair for the students, facilitates standardized testing, and makes grades comparable across the country. It makes competing for good high schools and colleges such as moving to the required school zone less of a concern since the educational quality is consistent. It can be done without attending school, and can be done at any time. This also means that parents wouldn't have to send their children to school. It allows the teachers to then progress to doing something more useful to society than just rehashing the same thing over and over , like post graduate research.","conclusion":"We should develop a free, comprehensive, national MOOC for high school and low-level college education and do away with teachers for these courses."}
{"id":"12ea50a9-f581-44d7-86c4-4a2c1b669518","argument":"I've seen a lot of articles lately condemning costumes like Native American or Geishas, comparing them to Black Face, and calling the people who don them racists. Obviously, if you dress as a Native American and go around making grunting noises and jumping all over the place and acting like an asshole, or if you're in an Oriental outfit and say nothing but 'Ching Ching ding dong' then that goes without saying you're not only an asshole, you're a racist asshole. Racism stems from negative stereotypes that are trumped up and oppress a people in a certain group. However, if someone were to wear a costume to celebrate those people, feel good about themselves and express their interest in other cultures, and behave like an actual adult would in public, I honestly can't see how this is offensive to other cultures. Donning Black Face was racist because white people dressed as blacks to mock them and dehumanized them for entertainment. Dressing up in a Native American headdress in order to celebrate a holiday that requires you to become something you're not is no more racist than donning a Toga at a frat party.  Edit thanks for the great replies guys Keep em coming I think we have a pretty interesting, and intelligent conversation going on here, thank you all for being mature and open minded during this discussion. This is one of my favorite subs for a reason. Carry on","conclusion":"Dressing up for Halloween as a member of another culture is not racist."}
{"id":"28116f2b-ae0f-42cd-ad0a-c688f83c85e4","argument":"The book Why I\u2019m No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Reni Eddo Lodge. Reddit, consider me stumped. If it means anything, I will state than I consider myself to be a non racist. I also generally don't care if people are racist towards me, as a white person in a largely white area It doesn't really mean much. Sure, if I was in a largely black area, things might be different where I would become a 'minority' of sorts , but on the whole it doesn't offend me. Today, for the first time, I felt attacked because of my race. An emotion I would use to describe it is sad . I came across this article and started reading despite it's provocative title. After reading the first few paragraphs, I realised there was also a book by the same name. I can't bring myself to read this book due to this. It just isn't right. I understand the title is probably an oversimplification of a deep issue, and I recognise some silliness in judging a book by its cover , but unless it's an outright misrepresentation and lie, how can I put my money in the hands of someone who refuses to include me in a global conversation? Please, sincerely change my view on this. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"As a white person, I am justified in not reading the book \"Why I\u2019m No Longer Talking to White People About Race\" due to the title alone. I am simply heeding those words."}
{"id":"7974f2cc-3d2f-43ee-b8c1-908dabb32c5e","argument":"When we catch fish just to throw them back into the water, we are at best not hurting them too badly. We are also littering and leaving lures in the water that would otherwise not be there allot of these lures contain lead . Fishing also promotes the unnecessary killing of fish that pray upon the game fish. I understand that if someone wants to eat the fish they catch, that is a different issue, we are talking about catch and release fishing. I grew up fishing and understand the values it can teach about nature, but arent there better ways of teaching these things?","conclusion":"Catch and release fishing is unethical and selfish"}
{"id":"f763e0a5-dfb8-4234-9840-6172580579e9","argument":"In the US, there were 3.4 alcohol fuelled driving deaths per 100,000 population in 2015, which represents more than 10,000 deaths.","conclusion":"All drugs, including alcohol and nicotine, cause harm to the body."}
{"id":"0f467059-04fe-4507-aed3-8eae9042b165","argument":"I may be a bit late to the party on this one, but my own reddit profile just got switched, and I'm much more frustrated by it than I'd like to be. While it has some improvements, mostly I'm finding it much harder to use than the old, simpler layout. The main thing the new layout provides seems to be context, which is great. It's nice to see the flow of the conversation, rather than just pieces of one half. However, the new layout doesn't show the entire thread, and sometimes inexplicably breaks up long comment chains. That's even more confusing than just having each comment in isolation. Even more frustratingly, though, is that if you participate a ton on one particular post this is common for me on r AskReddit, r AskWomen, and here on  it doesn't show all of your comments on your profile. If you click on the link to more comments, it just takes you directly to the post. On posts with thousands of comments, that can make it virtually impossible to find the conversation you were having, since that comment no longer exists on your profile. Things that would change my view additional benefits to the new layout that I haven't thought of, additional faults of the old layout that I haven't thought of, or the news that there are navigational features I just haven't figured out how to use yet. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The new profile layout is worse than the old one"}
{"id":"2d5387f0-da4b-4eef-894d-7e62add9a89e","argument":"There is no need for money payments to ever enter the equation. Even if commercialisation does occur, it would be controlled by strict laws and regulated by independent bodies, as is currently the case in the US. If standard charges were fixed there would simply be no room for a market to develop, thus ensuring that all had access to a surrogate if they wanted.","conclusion":"There is no need for money payments to ever enter the equation. Even if commercialisation does occur..."}
{"id":"71105ddf-09f0-4087-921f-e82bc3399d62","argument":"I believe that the downvote exists for a positive reason and that it shouldn't be removed as some subs are want to do . I believe the downvote button helps take slack off moderators so that a sub can self moderate despite a very low mod to user ratio. But I believe that the downvote is currently abused as a disagree button and that it should somehow be fundamentally altered. I believe vote brigading can suppress dissenting opinions and fuel the hive mind that pervades reddit. I believe that anonymity of downvotes allows people to ignore reddiquette. edit partially \u2206'd, see below I believe some sort of deterrent should be in place to prevent using the downvote button as a disagree button. Edit My stance on Anonymity has shifted. While I still believe Anonymity allows people to ignore reddiquette, I no longer think downvotes should be anonymous due to posts primary by u TheDeathSaint and u Yolocaust survivor. The costs would outweigh the benefits to implement.","conclusion":"I believe downvotes shouldn't be anonymous, nor should they be used as a disagree button, and anyone who uses them as a disagree button should be somehow penalized. Please"}
{"id":"01b8f2f3-fe0c-485b-b68d-9f95d75a15f3","argument":"A state which chose to over-regulate its citizens by restricting access to most guns would see increased civilian radicalization and rebellion.","conclusion":"These state laws would necessarily create reasonable balance of power between the citizens and the government."}
{"id":"b0f6ad08-a344-4545-b47a-c201f3b95073","argument":"The Korowai tribe of south-eastern Papua could be one of the last surviving tribes in the world engaging in cannibalism.","conclusion":"Throughout human history there have been incidents of cannibalism, thus eating humans is a conceivable option."}
{"id":"3153149a-fe93-4d02-ab22-a122cf102161","argument":"In the United States, 151 people died from meat and poultry jobs between 2004-2013, averaging 15 deaths per year.","conclusion":"For example, poultry workers are exposed to a diverse set of dangers."}
{"id":"d4b07299-79b3-492c-9a34-69176469cdb6","argument":"The Law established that government officials were the ones to register properties but also had the exemption of allowing the Church to do it. While Spain was under a real estate bubble the Church gained many properties under its name, without publicity or any of the proper channels a private citizen would need, only with the certification of a Bishop and paying ludicrous sums like 30 euros for historic Cordoba\u2019s mosque.","conclusion":"The Catholic church in Spain from 1998-2015 had the prerogative to register properties under its name. In that time, an estimated 4,500 properties were registered including aside from worship places schools, garages, farming lands and houses. None of those buildings incur property taxes since the Church is exempt."}
{"id":"0dd3a456-aa1f-4fd3-9400-028d5ae41ba4","argument":"In order to build new infrastructure for the games, cities often forcibly evict local populations and communities to make space.","conclusion":"The Olympic Games have a negative impact on the residents."}
{"id":"5172f1be-3012-4e32-87f8-c731084d2285","argument":"The Swiss political system has hosted over 600 referendums to date and is widely regarded as having one of the most stable political systems in the world.","conclusion":"Referendums strengthen the voters' position and therefore the foundation of democratic systems."}
{"id":"afb36c40-967c-4954-839c-d0fc0559e0d7","argument":"Donald Trump has received nearly $109 million in cash from Russians or individuals from the former Soviet Union, mostly in the form of cash purchases a common sign of money-laundering.","conclusion":"It is likely that Donald Trump owes much of his personal wealth to dealings with Russian interests. This gives the Russian Government significant leverage over the US President."}
{"id":"372a8b21-0259-4d16-9a98-e7579668fe6c","argument":"One reason plants don't like heat or drought, assuming that they are not adapted to it, is that those climatic changes can affect the life cycles of animals the plants depend on for pollination or seed dispersal.","conclusion":"The crops that sustain human civilization benefit from increasing CO2, but they don't benefit from increasing heat not to mention drought or floods."}
{"id":"19b58359-cea7-4e1c-a527-72d8a5bd580a","argument":"Margot Ka\u0308\u00dfmann is probably an advocate of modern human dignity and a religious important figure in our society.","conclusion":"Human dignity is a concept that is co-developed and is under co-reform by religious leadership advocating it."}
{"id":"31fd5e2f-5bb6-41d9-9f00-41e435cd86a7","argument":"The Sound Of Music has a fantastic soundtrack, pretty well the whole cast was selected well, each song ties into character development and moving along the plot. There are some legitimately funny jokes through the film And moments of cinematic excellence in shot composition like the moonlight dance scene between Maria and the captain or in the Sixteen going on seventeen song. Beautiful shots of Austrian architecture and landscapes fill the film, as well as covering the build up to WW2 and humanising the people who lived through the war.","conclusion":"The Sound Of Music is the best musical ever put to film."}
{"id":"0af8e5a2-6f12-448c-9061-33e77547b688","argument":"Different regions have very different law schemas; it is difficult to create universally acceptable rules of conduct, and harder still to enforce it. As such, individual Internet companies have a responsibility to do what they are able in policing activity, despite not being democratically legitimised.","conclusion":"Momentous decisions such as taking away someone's freedom of speech can only be made by democratically legitimised actors, not private companies."}
{"id":"1770b542-6aec-4569-b928-96325481b767","argument":"Donations can be public and even celebrated. Cheating cannot and is not, signifying that it is inherently different to donating.","conclusion":"The difference between donating and cheating is that only the latter is dishonest."}
{"id":"4743fab0-3cc1-4633-9166-33357ac4cfb4","argument":"Parts of the United Kingdom, such as Northern Ireland rely heavily on the agricultural subventions by the European Union.","conclusion":"Leaving the European Union is likely to be economically catastrophic for the UK."}
{"id":"30d1a4be-16c9-4710-8959-0cd5c1262f04","argument":"If everyone acted on this belief, no one would vote. If many acted against this belief, many would vote. This is a useless metric as it is basically a self-fulfilling prophecy for those who believe it.","conclusion":"If every voter thought so, the elections wouldn't work."}
{"id":"dbaec4fb-c910-4cbb-aac0-3242eb9ac0f7","argument":"Their war tactic rests on scaring and intimidating opponents. This tactic would get strongly damaged.","conclusion":"Social media is a very effective tool for carrying out psychological warfare"}
{"id":"85d50398-439b-40ee-846b-61127ec109f7","argument":"Yes, I am being serious here about the concept. Not addressing the logistical complications at this point. By South , I mean the former Confederate states. Sure, we'd lose some good things in the mix. But The NET gains would be amazing. The political center for the North would generally move to the left. Political Influence from religious fundamentalists would shrink a lot. Factual and Science based policy arguments would less often have to yield false equivalency to brain dead ideas. Fox News would want to move shop to the South, to be among their base. Some of the most preposterous congress members would no longer be our problem. Civil rights would progress faster. Same sex marriage, ditto. Voting rights wouldn't regress to Jim Crow times. The South could then completely own their beloved immigration problem . Almost all the great national parks would go to the North. The list of upsides goes on and on. . . . Many in the South would be open to this idea, at least from what I've observed living there for a while a few years ago.","conclusion":"'Murca should just let the South secede, so the rest of the country could progress to a better place."}
{"id":"a095581e-f1d8-4984-a393-65df755a578f","argument":"Whenever someone tells a joke, someone will often respond with That joke is offensive to women men people born in Oregon whatever, you shouldn't tell that joke . The thing is, with 7 billion people on earth I don't think it is possible to tell a joke that isn't offensive to someone. Whether you find a particular joke offensive is not much more relevant than whether the other 7 billion people do. I'm not saying you don't have a right to be offended, I'm just saying that catering to everyone who could possibly be offended means not being able to tell any jokes at all which I guess might be offensive to comedians . To prove me wrong, feel free to suggest a joke that is not offensive to anyone. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"All jokes are offensive to somebody. Catering to everyone who could possibly be offended means not being able to tell any jokes at all."}
{"id":"d328e045-6b82-4006-b333-20f694cb0ab2","argument":"I live in Seattle and go to University of Washington. UW is a place abounding in tolerance, and acceptance of all nationalities, sexualities, genders, disabilities and so on. The only people that seem to be thoroughly hated are tobacco smokers. I am no proponent of smoking, however I think that people that smoke deserve the basic human rights that someone who eats 5 Big Macs a day gets. Overweight and obese people are harming themselves just as much as smokers, and they affect the people around them just as much as smokers do, by influencing younger generations to eat just as unhealthily. I honestly believe that smokers are no worse than obese people.","conclusion":"I think that smoking cigarettes is no worse than eating McDonald's"}
{"id":"0d1aa759-3318-4f2e-b659-977a98a3770b","argument":"Virtual reality has been used for decades to effectively treat mental health conditions such as phobias or post-traumatic stress disorder. Clearly it can be used to profoundly affect one's psyche.","conclusion":"Given that virtual reality has been used in mental health treatment it seems plausible that it could also be a highly effective tool at damaging the psyches of others."}
{"id":"2a84609c-a1fc-44bb-8c08-52b87259179c","argument":"Lately, I've been hearing a lot of praise for Rust, a systems programming language that emphasizes memory safety with no overhead. Some people hope that Rust overtakes or replaces C or C , believing that Rust will ensure safer code. Rust tends to be hyped a lot on sites such as Reddit and Hacker News, with more Rust related submissions reaching the front page as opposed to C submissions. However, I believe that Rust does not improve enough on systems programming to merit replacement of C 11 and the later versions of C . Both Rust and modern C emphasize the concept of ownership and RAII, in which the programmer dictates what objects own what resources and are responsible for their cleanup, which is automatically done when the lifetime of the owning object ends. Rust takes the concepts further than C by statically tracking ownership. However, I believe that Rust's rules are too restrictive in practice and that C provides a better balance between safety and power. A major gripe that I have with Rust is its treatment of pointers. Rust allows the creation of dangling pointers, then requires any dereference to be in an unsafe block. To me, this is like saying, We guarantee memory safety by making you annotate every possible source of memory error. This design does not actually protect me in any way. Contrast this with this set of C memory safety rules which catches dangling pointers. Granted, idiomatic Rust uses references instead of pointers. However, many data structures require pointers, as seen by the use of unsafe in the implementation of Rust's collections. In practice, I will want a compiler checking my work when implementing data structures, and Rust does not offer this. Rust's memory rules severely limit the programmer and force the use of unsafe blocks, and it does not guarantee memory safety where the programmer is most prone to mistakes. Rust's handling of move semantics is also too restrictive. The compiler checks moves, but at a cost of what can be moved. In C , I can move arbitrary data by casting it to an rvalue reference the standard library provides std move to do this conveniently. On other other hand, due to Rust's compiler tracking, I can only move some kinds of data for example, I can't move array elements. C 's rvalue reference documents that resources can be safely moved from an owner, and it is adequate for reasonable memory safety, whereas Rust's compiler tracked moves sacrifice too much ability for total safety. Rust's one mutable borrow and no simultaneous mutable and constant borrow rules are perhaps the most restrictive aspects of the language. The rules attempt to solve race conditions, but they reject many well defined programs those that may mutate something from multiple references on a single thread . I view C 's const references as simply a way of documenting and enforcing that a certain piece of code will not mutate an object I do not wish to restrict mutations done elsewhere. Rust's mutation rules are extremely asinine. Modern C allows greater memory safety without overly restricting the programmer. Destructors ensure cleanup in the face of exceptions and early returns, smart pointers convey ownership semantics, and rvalue references convey move semantics. These features are the sweet spot, in my opinion, for supporting memory safety without overly limiting the programmer. For these features, Rust is either equal or inferior. From what I can tell from the documentation, Rust has no way of repointing a box to something else the way that one can repoint a std unique ptr . Rust does not provide any benefit over C in the case of reference counting, a possible source of memory leaks, as Rust does not define ensured deallocation as memory safety Rust does not improve upon C 's smart pointers and RAII and is in some cases less powerful. C is rightly criticized for its cruft, which it suffers from because of its huge legacy as well as limited compatibility with C. Despite being a relatively new language, Rust also has cruft, and Rust's cruft stems from its attempts at safety. One example is PhantomData, a hacky type used in relation to lifetimes and ownership. From my understanding of its purpose, PhantomData is a missed opportunity to have limited lifetime tracking for pointers instead. Another wart is Rust's treatment of references they are in an awkward limbo between a pointer and a C reference so that they are automatically casted to what they point to. Here, I prefer C 's treatment of references as the result of an expression. For this reason, I also prefer C 's design of all expressions returning a reference over Rust's move by default with explicit referencing. All in all, I don't see Rust as an improvement over C in terms of elegance or design, and I'm not sure if Rust will age well. One praiseworthy aspect of Rust is its sum types and ML style pattern matching. C 17 adds a variant type and an optional type via templates, but Rust's built in support for tagged unions is much cleaner than C 's template hacks. On the other hand, OOP is an aspect of C that Rust does not support as well. I see this as a balanced tradeoff. An argument for Rust over C or C that I sometimes hear is the latter two languages' legacy code, the argument being that it's better off to start fresh. In this case, I see no difference between writing Rust and adhering to modern C practices from the start. Contradicting the desire to start fresh, a lot of Rust code depends on C code via FFI in this aspect, C is better because it has better C interop, as well as interop with well designed C libraries such as Qt and LLVM. Of course C has interop with itself Rust cannot as easily benefit from such libraries. Switching languages is a huge investment and the marginal benefit that Rust provides over C does not justify a switch from modern C to Rust at the cost of a much larger ecosystem. I understand the desire for a more intelligent compiler that can reject more invalid programs. I'm glad that Rust has stepped up to the plate to try to ensure memory safety. However, I don't think that Rust is the solution and I don't see clear gains over using C 11. Ultimately, I prefer a more libertarian language that allows me to do what I want and potentially create memory bugs over an overly restrictive language that imposes rules that reject too many valid programs yet does not guarantee complete safety. Where C is behind Rust, it is quickly catching up via features such as string view , modules, and concepts traits that are soon to be added. I don't understand the disparity between Rust hype versus C hype in programming communities. Please correct any misconceptions that I have about Rust and  that a switch from modern C to Rust is not worth the effort.","conclusion":"With C++11 and onward, I have no good reason to use Rust instead"}
{"id":"9160b484-5f8b-48dc-a6dc-07e5138be1eb","argument":"One's memories alone define who one is. If Alice and Bob were put to sleep and their memories were swapped, Alice would wake up in Bob's body and vice versa. When Alice wakes up, she wont remember being Alice all her memories of being Alice will have been transferred away. Instead she will remember being Bob, up to and including going to sleep for this procedure as Bob, and so will conclude herself to be Bob. I contend this conclusion is not in error that indeed Alice and Bob have swapped bodies.","conclusion":"I am my memories."}
{"id":"bb7104c2-9a35-4a2d-9570-8abf4a4e046f","argument":"Evil is just a word we use to describe actions or events with an arbitrary level of severity. Thus, it is better understood as a term of emphasis, rather than a thing itself.","conclusion":"There is no objective standard by which to determine what counts as evil"}
{"id":"35ebe80d-d6bb-4044-9e99-de1d6436b775","argument":"Natural causes are principally responsible for global warming today, making Kyoto irrelevant. Every 100,000 years, a cycle of glacial and inter-glacial periods occur. We are at the peak of the 10,000 year interglacial warming period before the next 100,000 year ice age. Our warming now is part of this cycle. Only planetary interactions between the sun and earth can cause such regular, but lengthy cycle's. This leads to the conclusion that the sun is most responsible. Yet, the Kyoto Protocol bases its carbon-cutting objectives on the assumption that humans are chiefly responsible for global warming; a false assumption.","conclusion":"Humans are not causing global warming so Kyoto can't solve it"}
{"id":"23c738b7-bf27-4cec-b483-725fdb326bfd","argument":"Let me start off by addressing my biases. I have played LoL for about a year and a half now, and I still play. I play it in my free time, and I think I am pretty good because I am in the silver 3 league. I have also watched a few professional LoL tournaments, so I know what goes on in those. As for baseball, I played from 6 years old to 15 years old. So I definitely played more baseball than LoL. However, I have had a taste of both, and I think that is what matters. Now for my argument. I am not saying that professional gamers are not skillful, let me get that out of the way. I am saying that all pro gaming boils down to using 10 fingers on a mouse and keyboard. And one may say that baseball boils down to throwing a ball. But even that is difficult. I think it takes more dexterity and coordination to throw a ball than it does to press Q, W, E, and R at the right times. As for mental capacity, baseball is an extremely complex sport. So complex that there are still rules being added to accommodate new and unexpected exceptions of earlier rules. There are just so many possibilities. Knowing what to do in a rundown. And not only knowing what the procedure is in that rundown, but getting a firm grip on the seams of the ball, or bare handing the ball for more speed in a split second decision. Batting is also one of the tasks that many scientists claim to be impossible. The batters get something like 1 10 of a seconds to see how the ball leaves the pitcher's hand, to see how the ball is spinning, to shift back, and then explode forward. I feel like you just don't get that level of coordination in LoL.","conclusion":"I think being a skillful baseball player not only requires more athleticism than professional gamers, but it also requires more wit, coordination, dexterity, and mental capacity."}
{"id":"69a63b95-6814-4fb2-8166-d03225b7b949","argument":"Trump is a piece of shit. That opinion isn\u2019t changing. The discussion at hand is that traditional debating and politicking didn\u2019t win the last election and won\u2019t win the next so long as Trumps media dominance holds strong. To get headlines, candidates will have to resort to much of the same trash talking and polarizing behaviours Trump uses. This escalating behaviour will lead to a progressively widening gulf of political division in the US. No sources to cite and no learned experts to quote. Just my view.","conclusion":"The 2020 presidential campaign is going to leave a lot of political credibility on the floor as many of the candidates will feel that they need to fight Trump with the same strategies he employs lest they fall like the others that came before."}
{"id":"8900bb95-c7fd-41c4-82f7-588ee4192c74","argument":"Any 21st century world class luxury boutique likely has a large Arab and Asian clientele, and are assuredly well aware that the ultra rich come in many shades. I would also assume that such businesses are happy to serve anyone who can pay their prices, no matter what race, color, or creed. Such businesses that cater to the ultra rich also likely must be forced to turn away browsers as a matter of routine. Racism should not be the default assumption, and the reason it\u2019s be presented that ways is because such claims garner headlines. Here's the story","conclusion":"I don\u2019t think it\u2019s fair to refer to the recent \u201cnews\u201d story about Oprah being turned away from a luxury boutique as being racially motivated."}
{"id":"3309cc15-14c3-4d6f-b1df-44db33a6d124","argument":"This would help create a better system to regulate what drugs are being used and create rules on to how much is healthy to consume.","conclusion":"Legalise all drugs, requiring each purchase to be accompanied by a test to ensure the consent and health of the consumer."}
{"id":"5d0f26fe-cb13-4a04-9b31-ddc2a92a4501","argument":"Dumping garbage into the sea is a lot cheaper than recycling it, but it's also a lot more harmful to the environment, sea life, and human health, for example.","conclusion":"Regulated markets are the only way to ensure companies are environmentally and socially responsible."}
{"id":"e9a3b8d6-45ab-4ea6-9cbe-8f124594d652","argument":"Okay so bear with me here. This is a constant worry I have due to the economic, social, and political climate that\u2019s quickly degrading. I\u2019m a college undergrad, I study CIS and write fiction. My worry is that if I try and graduate in 3yrs I will ultimately be stuck in a society that is imploding. Also I hate being part of a society that has leaders hell bent on destruction and their supporters whom act like war is an away NFL game. I don\u2019t want to stay in college in the USA because of this. I worry that if I stay in the USA I will be stuck between a rock and a hard place without much of a future. I worry about my mental safety which also effects my health. So how can anyone whom is informed want to stay in the USA and graduate? I know I would rather take my chances without a BA and travel and work outside the USA. I feel it makes no sense to create a home within a land that has a bleak future. Even if a nuke war does not happen, I still don\u2019t want to be part of a society that is highly uninformed and does not stop the atrocities that have and will happen again. I would love a learned professional's opinion on this. I just don\u2019t want to support an empire oligarchy plutocracy.","conclusion":": I think living in the USA is pointless now if you want a happy future."}
{"id":"0c73b2b7-4a47-4ee9-af4d-b67e9d075371","argument":"Obesity is defined as a medical condition in which excess body fat has accumulated to the extent that it may have a negative effect on health, leading to reduced life expectancy and or increased health problems. There are many different ways of measuring obesity, but for the purposes of this discussion I am not talking about a 5'8 football player who is obese using bmi but physically fit. I'm talking about the kind of people you would see on the street and think to yourself that person is obese. Of course we all have different definitions so I'll provide some pictures. But I want to make it clear I'm not talking about someone who has 5 or 10 pounds to lose. I'm talking about people who have a serious weight issue. If you refer to this image you get a good idea of what I mean. I beleive that parents who raise obese kids have failed because thy have saddled their children with a physical debt that their children really had no part in. Of course by the time you're 15 16 you can make your own choices about food, but usually parents control money, and by extension food. It is also very hard to break a pattern when you've been doing something for a decade. Growing up obese means you will get less attention from the opposite sex and live a generally less happy life. Parents have full control over their children's diet for a long time, and even after that they still have a large hangs in what children eat. It is their full responsibility to maintain the physical appearance of their child. There are of course outlier. Kids with diseases, parents who are forced into this situation, kids who run away from home, etc. I beleive that outside of those exceptions, a parent raising an overwieight child has failed as a parent.","conclusion":"If your child is obese when they move out you have failed as a parent."}
{"id":"966fd060-d129-42aa-9f59-54292ce6c96d","argument":"First of all, race had nothing to do with the Manson case. If Manson wished to start a race war, why pin a crime that happened in a predominantly white area where blacks hardly, if ever, frequented on the Black Panthers. Blacks weren\u2019t the only ones in the 1960s to use the word \u201dpig\u201d to describe people they hated. Recalcitrant youths also did so. Second of all, even the corrupt, lying, self centered, scheming opportunist that was Vincent Bugliosi admitted that the theory was bullshit. Third of all, the reason that the TLB murders happened was because of Bobby Beausoleil\u2019s incarceration. The Manson \u201cFamily\u201d had hoped to commit a series of murders identical to Gary Hinman\u2019s. Had it not been for drugs, the TLB murders would've looked as similar to Gary Hinman\u2019s as could be. If somebody believes the illogical and idiotic Helter Skelter theory, it makes me question their willingness to think for themselves.","conclusion":"The Helter Skelter theory in the Charles Manson case is both illogical and preposterous"}
{"id":"23489e71-be3d-46c3-b7ed-eaceedd1d948","argument":"The U.S. Department of Labour projects that the number of software developers will grow by 24% between 2016 and 2026 much faster than the average for all occupations.","conclusion":"Most estimates project that the demand for coders will continue to grow."}
{"id":"cd4f3280-5c6b-43aa-9fa6-a0b965407d50","argument":"I'm an EMT in training, was at a clinical speaking with a classmate of mine today and the topic popped up. Homeless people come to the ER all the time dirty as hell. Why don't we provide shower facilities for the homeless? I don't think they would be incredibly hard to put up and maintain. Measures could be taken to ensure the safety of individuals, say having a security guard to check them in. I think it would be a great service to many homeless people and society in general. Cleaner people happier people, both for the homeless, and those with homes.","conclusion":"I think free public showers should be provided for all, especially for the homeless."}
{"id":"6b3a62a2-d178-4738-a32d-cc2b3e0a790b","argument":"A conservative Irish newspaper proposed that celibacy had contributed to the abuse problem within the church and an Australian public inquiry panel claimed that priests being celibate may have also contributed to abuse.","conclusion":"Celibacy can have a negative impact on mental health and may be a contributing factor in sexual abuse."}
{"id":"96a89c9e-8a38-4831-947c-76969058c17d","argument":"Economists use the term \u2018network effect\u2019 to describe how if several users use the same program, it becomes more valuable for others to do so as well because they can then share and collaborate work using that software. This is one of the reasons why Microsoft\u2019s monopoly of around 90% of the desktop market with its Windows and Office software has been so hard to challenge. Governments are one of the few organisations which can define the standards to be used in their states because citizens and businesses increasingly have to interact with government electronically. This occurred over network standards which the US Department of Defence defined in the 1970s. Today it forms the basis for Brazil\u2019s Digital Inclusion Program which has selected open source software for 58 government units rather than Windows or Office. The result is that ordinary Brazilian citizens can use the same open source software at home knowing they will be able to interact with their government. Because open source software is often either free or cheaper than closed source alternatives, this saves the whole population money and enables wider uptake of computing, and interaction between citizenries and their governments.","conclusion":"Open-source software, because it is typically cheaper, can be spread more widely, such that citizens and governments operate on the same systems and more commonly, to the benefit of democracy:"}
{"id":"1dd9607c-8b3c-4aae-bb90-4be424d8819f","argument":"Hi all, I think that safe spaces are a genuinely well intentioned idea, and when properly implemented, can provide a strong upside to those in need without any significant downside. Specifically, I think that the idea of a safe space as a particular dorm floor, building, or club where individuals can find refuge are the best possible implementation. However, implementing an entire university and all spheres of interaction associated with a university as a Safe Space is incredibly damaging to free speech and to non mainstream individuals. The notion that a safe space should be implemented at an institutional level in Universities allows the suppression of dissenting opinion and perpetuates a hive mind mentality. Whether the university if conservative and individual being suppressed liberal, or the university liberal and individual being suppressed conservative, it's still damaging. p.s. this is my first post on  and am very excited this sub is awesome gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Safe Spaces should not be apply at a University-wide level"}
{"id":"dc644b54-f1ca-4baa-9c22-a7b563b5e8e2","argument":"A global military force and its actions could be influenced by the political leanings of the president, congress and senate.","conclusion":"The United States would be biased according to personal interests."}
{"id":"a0c53dc1-aea6-45c8-9ada-1a920a4cca1a","argument":"This is similar to joining a competition. The starting point is the same for everyone, yet there's winners and losers as external factors will lead some people to go further than others. A UBI just creates a starting point, with winners and losers emerging due to external motivators.","conclusion":"UBI isn't designed to eliminate work, but simply to start people at the poverty line instead of zero. Those motivated by financial gain will still have the opportunity to pursue financial gain."}
{"id":"b57f9ac3-eeaa-4439-9824-b8db5d04f005","argument":"Before you pick up your pitchforks, give me a second to explain. I am in full support of LGBT rights and such, I just want to be more realistic about the change. As a male, I'll never know what it's like to be terrified of being raped because I'm walking down the street by myself, if I became an MTF, I would never pretend that would change. I can't even begin to imagine the pressure of always trying to look pretty and being oogled, hit on, harrassed and all sorts of other things that happen to women on a daily basis. I would never have to understand that even if I'm a Supreme Court Judge, people will still judge me by my looks despite being one of the most powerful people on the planet. As a male however, women will never understand the nuances of masculinity, the constant battle for alpha. The everyday battle to sit well with gender roles especially with bottling up emotions, expectations to constantly battle every male in every arena from work, to hobbies, to even videogames. The vie for power is constant and is draining and requires so much mental energy to accomplish. An example is a friend of mine who is an FTM who constantly posts on facebook things such as, I'm so glad to know what it's like to have been both a female and now male. and other types of posts. A few weeks ago he got into a fight with another man who didn't know he was a FTM and started shouting that he was a woman in transition and that the attacker was hitting a woman. The fight was over how my friend was disrespectfully talking about the man he got into a fight with. When confronted, my friend lied and then tried to talk him down and when it came to blows hid behind his previous gender. The most surprising part was that my friend was confused by the physical reaction of the other guy. There's also lots of nuances in being whatever gender you are that vary from culture to culture, that I don't think that FTM's or MTF's can ever truly understand. .","conclusion":"I don't think that FTM and MTF's can ever truly understand their transitioned gender."}
{"id":"192f9dcc-d61d-46e0-8560-ce49c78b06fe","argument":"Think about it, literally every teenager swears. I don't think that any of them are offended by swearing. Like seriously, try to find a teenager who finds swear words offensive. You never hear a teenager say Hey watch your language or I don't like it when people swear, it offends me cause they don't care. If you call a teenager a dumbass , they'll be offended by the meaning, of course, but not the word itself. If you say something like This is fucking cool or Fuck yeah , you're not offending anyone, you're just making your statement stronger. There is no reason to offended by this. Of course, words like faggot , nigger , and retard will still be offensive because of its homophobic, racist, and ableist relation. When we were kids we thought stupid was a swear word. Our parents would tell us that it was a swear word and that we should never say it. But as we grow up we learn that it's not a bad word, just that it's not nice to say to people. Our parents don't care if we say it anymore, only if we don't use it to hurt others. What makes stupid different than any other swear words? Why don't parents teach it like that with other swear words? Or dork . It's not a swear word at all and never has been, but its definitely not nice to call people that. My point is that when all teenagers become adults and adults into old adults, swear words won't be swear words any more. Would you honestly be offended by your child swearing? Just teach them that using it offensively is wrong","conclusion":"In 1-2 generations, swear words won't be offensive anymore"}
{"id":"bbb6455f-27f9-4926-be23-032b2ead44a2","argument":"I am not sure if my view can or should be changed at all, but I'd love to hear your thoughts about this. When I grew up there was no porn easily accessible. A dirty magazine or some vhs tape was all I saw until age 18. A spread pussy was already so extreme for my generation. Today in pretty much any porn video online there is almost always a part of anal sex or something that was taboo 20 30 years ago. If youth is easily exposed to such porn, won't they consider it to be the standard? Will girls feel obligated to offer anal sex because it's portrayed as being a normal part of sex?","conclusion":"Girls getting into sexual intercourse will consider anal sex to be totally normal because of all the online porn that is available and watched by guys their age"}
{"id":"ee739e90-e495-44b3-809e-161db5f279c0","argument":"Islam is a religion that spawned from the Quran, a religious text considered to be the Word of God Allah . This religion began in the Arabian peninsula in the early 600s. Islam is not only out of date, dangerous to today's society and subversive, but it has always been a violent religion. This would be fine if Islam could be reformed. But that's the trouble with Islam. It has not been widely reformed and I'm afraid it cannot be due to its structure. Sure, it has a similar structure The concept of Dar al harb Garb Kufr War, War ottoman ,Infidel and the Dar al Islam Islam Peace is one that divides the world into two nations that follow the law of Islam Shariah and those that don't. Before you say that this practice is outdated and out of style, please look at Salafis, the extremist groups in the middle east, and this fine fellow and other people like him that do not classify as salafis Even if the Quran is not taken literally, Shariah law still applies. I have lived in an Islamic country. You do not need to take the Hadith and Quran literally to be subject to literal Shariah law. Read here gt Looking at the Malaysian legal system as a whole, sharia law plays a relatively small role in defining the laws on the country. It only applies to Muslims. With regards to civil law, the Syariah courts has jurisdiction in personal law matters, for example marriage, inheritance, and apostasy. In some states there are sharia criminal laws, for example there is the Kelantan Syariah Criminal Code Enactment 1993. Their jurisdiction is however limited to imposing fines for an amount not more than RM 5000, and imprisonment to not more than 3 years. In August 2007, the then Chief Justice of Malaysia proposed to replace the current common law application in Malaysia with sharia law You can literally go to jail for renouncing Islam. It's far more serious in countries like Saudi Arabia, and 4 in 10 muslims in the UK want to establish Shariah law. In fact, there are 85 shariah law courthouses in the UK which run by court approval basis. I personally believe that the political stress plus the fact that both parties signed an agreement to be judged by shariah law makes every case a stamp and go case. Before you say that both if both parties consent to it, it's alright, please think about the cultural and familial pressure of Islam and their treatment of women. We must not forget Islam's borderline slavery of women. They are covered, silenced, veiled, separated, and treated as commodity. God willing, they at least inherit half the amount a man of the same level of descendence would. I do not say that muslims are bad people and must convert to be part of today's society. I do not say that at all. In fact, I say the opposite. If anything can stop the self indulgent hedonism of today's society it is Muslims And Sikhs . I just say that Islam conflicts with today's society, and it cannot be wholly compatible with today's world. I do not approve of Islam.","conclusion":"Islam is incompatible with today's society."}
{"id":"41dbaa2f-0d45-4590-8142-544faeb876fb","argument":"Oprah inspired thousands with her keynote speech at USC Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism.","conclusion":"There are many accounts of motivational keynote speakers at university commencement ceremonies."}
{"id":"e97b82b7-b877-4d73-bb51-03305af78b65","argument":"Some parents work hard so that their children and grandchildren will be prosperous long after their deaths. Seeing as the parents can never be confident that they themselves will gain from this action, and the hard work that is required to achieve this goal ensures that they get little current satisfaction, the parents are truly acting selflessly for their children and grandchildren.","conclusion":"Often people do good things even though they are unlikely and they may never get to enjoy them."}
{"id":"060fdeec-c662-4d6f-881d-102199863dfe","argument":"When various bans across different parts of the world began to be put in place on the advertising of tobacco products the companies behind them had to find both loopholes and alternative ways of advertising their product to both current but most importantly new potential customers. One way of continuing to advertise was to invest in product placement within film which many bans did not block. The ban on advertising in the UK was introduced in 1991, by 1995 the instances of smoking in films had increased fourfold and the appearance of cigarette brands went up by a massive 600%. BBC, 1998 A study by the American Lung Association also found after reviewing 145 movies \u201c.that PG-13 movies contain more tobacco use than R-rated films intended for adults.\u201d and \u201cIn a similar study the following year found that eighty percent of the popular PG-13 movies examined depicted tobacco use.\u201d Media Awareness Network, 2010 This clearly demonstrates that tobacco companies are using films to advertise their products, and particularly towards young children, this should be regulated.","conclusion":"Tobacco companies may use movies to circumvent bans on advertising cigarettes"}
{"id":"27b61b34-dad6-48ed-874f-c69e9ca3d199","argument":"Let me start by saying that I am in full support of the LGBT community. I have no hate towards anybody, only confusion that I'd like to clear up. When it comes to people who claim they are the wrong gender, I do not understand this. When you were being formed in the womb, you had a certain amount of hormones or whatever, sorry I don't know the technicality tell you what gender you will be born as. You either have a penis or a vagina. I don't understand how your brain can confuse this and make you think you're the opposite. I can understand if someone is born a hermaphrodite being confused as to which gender they are, but I can't understand someone who has fulled formed genitals of one gender thinking they are the opposite. Also a part of me thinks that in recent years this has sort of became a trend, especially with males. I have a teen sister and often times I can see things her male friends around the same age are posting on Facebook and over half seem to be bisexual, gender fluid , or transgender. It makes me wonder how much of this is legit and how much of it is being influenced by other teens the same age as them. When I was growing up before puberty I was a big tomboy. Literally had my parents buy me boy clothes, had short hair, ect. I can't imagine how I would have turned out of I sprung up the idea on my parents that I wanted to be a boy and to call me Chris or something and they encouraged it and I grow up being super confused with my identity and I am seeing more and more of this online and on the news, parents encouraging their children to be the opposite gender because their boy is feminine and their daughter is a tomboy. Can someone please clear this up for me?","conclusion":"I don't understand how anyone can believe they were born the wrong gender."}
{"id":"aa5b9d17-0645-43f8-a5c9-59475ec75418","argument":"\"the reality is that even after the debt cancellation provided to date, the world\u2019s most impoverished nations continue to send $100 million each day to the United States government, other wealthy nations, the IMF, the World Bank, and other creditors.1 It is time to extend the promise of debt cancellation to additional countries that require it to fight extreme poverty, provided these nations can demonstrate their ability to utilize released funds well.\"","conclusion":"Rich countries will still earn off of poor countries following debt cancellation."}
{"id":"c51f1d79-5bcb-4c4f-a3c8-ccc59cd663b6","argument":"The Trump administration is considering a virtual shutdown of refugee admissions in 2020 and cutting the number of refugees admitted in the US to nearly zero.","conclusion":"Most evangelicals support immigration reform that would allow some undocumented immigrants to stay in the country."}
{"id":"0f1878ef-684c-4d1f-9eaa-2891a60979ad","argument":"Charlie Kirk recently tweeted Texas State University had voted to ban a conservative student group in an attack on free speech. The University issued various statements saying it had not banned the group and no intention of doing so. Still, Kirk has made no attempt to remove, edit, correct, or clarify his false tweet.","conclusion":"Many people know what political correctness is, it's just that anti-PC groups lie about what political correctness is to deceive people who don't check for themselves into believing a fallacy."}
{"id":"e9c61667-a7b6-4631-aa36-780965393df8","argument":"The US typically provides aid through a third party either to peacekeeping forces or to independent contractors and consultants. Groups apply to the government for funding, and USAID then selects recipients for the aid.","conclusion":"The majority of development aid is usually spent on specific approved projects; governments often cannot choose what to spend it on Jelovac and Vandeninden, p. 2 Carlin, p. 3"}
{"id":"f0f8a187-5ad6-49f8-ba8a-566f6b2b4439","argument":"Because gangs are heavily involved in the drug trade, prostitutes are often coerced into drug addiction.","conclusion":"If legalized, gangs would be less involved in running sex working rings."}
{"id":"3febba25-26f5-4cad-b5d2-59d0e2867efd","argument":"Long term studies in the US indicate that rates of gun ownership and firearm homicide rates rise in tandem.","conclusion":"There is a correlation between gun ownership rates and gun violence and gun deaths."}
{"id":"caf610ee-b5c7-4a1a-8e56-f6f6f7718b35","argument":"Okay, let's assume the universe will die in an bigbang. This next universe has to be exactly like this universe because otherwise it couldn't exist. Example If the gravity of that universe is stronger than the gravity in our, it would immediately collapse and so there would be no life. And if the gravity is too low, stars and planets couldn't form. In this universe we would life the exact same life because everything else is also exactly the same. AND you would have no free will. But if the universe dies in a heat death, we would not life again and this is the only life we have. But you would have free will. I personally think the universe will die in an bigbang forever and we will life our life again and again without any free will. Why? Because the nature is so perfect. Everything is just right. For example Gravity. I don't think that it was so perfect in the first time it was created. But that's a little bit sad that there is no free will and if the universe does not die in an bigbang, it's sad that this is the only life we have. Please change my view. Thank you.","conclusion":"Either you have no free will or there will be nothing after death."}
{"id":"e897088f-39da-4cfd-b797-2adae2c1dba2","argument":"The need to trust is most of the time caused by not having enough knowledge or experience and the other one has. But trust also means that the other person can't explain it to you or give you the knowledge.","conclusion":"The fact that you can trust someone is positive, but it doesn't mean that the fact that you need to trust someone else in a situation is positive."}
{"id":"fda07884-4928-4884-98ad-c87cc41cad14","argument":"The Supreme Court harshly questioned the Centre NDA on failing to take steps to prevent pollution, saying \"People are more important than industries\".","conclusion":"Modi's government has failed to tackle the issue of air pollution."}
{"id":"0d582172-9522-4777-8604-8203cd9e63b0","argument":"I think it would be ethically \u201cbetter\u201d to lie to someone than to take away their chances of healing from an illness. In a lot of situations, a placebo can be used for a nearly risk free way to heal someone. For example Depression, headaches and social phobias have been cured using a placebo. Since placebos are very cheap to manufacture and studies have shown that the more expensive it is the better it works, a lot of profit can be made by selling the placebos. For that reason, it would be better if the doctors just would not be allowed to lie about the placebos and research must be done to create medicines which do work. Instead, I think the money made by selling the placebos should be used for more research in the medical field. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Doctors should be allowed to lie to their patients if that would cause a placebo to work."}
{"id":"7784b17b-9d9a-4dba-9df1-5e373dcda381","argument":"In many countries and cultures gender selection happens already, usually by selective abortion or abandonment of unwanted babies. Everyone can agree that this is a terrible waste of life and potentially very dangerous for the mother concerned, and of course many people object strongly to abortion on moral grounds. The use of new technologies to allow gender selection at the start of pregnancy will reduce and hopefully eventually end the use of selective abortion.","conclusion":"In many countries and cultures gender selection happens already, usually by selective abortion or ab..."}
{"id":"62aa1042-4779-4cfd-a674-29b35db40f74","argument":"The EU has set standards of human rights, democracy and the rule of law to which countries must adhere if they want to be part of it.","conclusion":"The EU is a force for good in the world and is worth being a part of."}
{"id":"60fb3963-6c4c-415f-b460-8700b763fccb","argument":"One of the most common TILs on reddit is the statistic that terrorism is an insignificant threat and that I'm more likely to be killed by a policeman. My problems with this. Just because the figures are low does not mean the threat is not there. Everyone loves to call the TSA theater, but would the underwear and shoebomber's plots have failed if their bombs weren't forced to be so sophisticated to avoid detection? Terrorists have no problems detonating bombs, but they haven't been able to detonate one on a plane since 9 11. Maybe the insignificant threat posed by terrorism is due to our vigilant security. If terrorism is the result of blowback, then we are surely due for our involvement in Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt, Libya, and Pakistan. I would say the US is hated even more now in the middle east than we were ten years ago, so another 9 11 like attack doesn't seem unlikely if we let our guard down. People seem to underestimate the potential scale of a terrorist attack. There has never been the potential for so few people to destroy an entire country than there is now. If even a small nuke were to go off in NYC, the radiation would make the city uninhabitable, crashing the US and global economy. There seems to be a consensus that a terrorist group acquiring some kind of bomb is a feasible possibility. This would literally change the world and affect hundreds of millions of people.","conclusion":"I believe that terrorism is still a relevant threat to America and the security measures in place are wholly necessary."}
{"id":"db710160-61f0-45cc-8a28-9678ad8bdafa","argument":"The USE could fix a minimum wage and real basic social rights effective for every citizen.","conclusion":"The USE will mitigate the inequalities in living standards among European states."}
{"id":"be0d5e38-3dbb-4740-8479-664150e4dac1","argument":"There is a hazy basis for biological sex, but even that is complicated. Roughly 1.7% of the world's population is born intersex, or a mix of male and female biologically. Some individuals don't even know they were born intersex until their parents tell them they had cosmetic surgery.","conclusion":"Western culture has come to view gender as a binary concept, male or female, grounded in physical anatomy. However, anatomical variations alone should be enough to indicate a gender spectrum rather than a binary gender system."}
{"id":"1fc10469-2cf9-4463-b54a-1789decf55aa","argument":"There are many ways in which the UK could maintain its free trade with Europe - Switzerland and Norway have free trade with the EU but are not members. The UK imports more from EU member states than it exports to them, so they would be substantially harming their own economies if they imposed tariffs.","conclusion":"Free trade still likely with EFTA, EEC or individual treaties."}
{"id":"622fd4cf-cc9c-4cb0-b3c6-bc836ce1da0b","argument":"So, I guess I'm trying to build and internal model to wrap my head around the idea of sexual harassment. For the last few years I've worked in small teams of essentially only men and a few women, but the kind women who would fit very well in a group of dudes shooting the shit at bar , so I don't really have a good perspective here, and I think my model could be flawed because of this. The way I think of it right now is as follows. These are my, premises, which I would hope most people agree with Any workplace will be on a scale of sexual harassment incidents ranging from essentially every woman working here has been inappropriately touched by a superior or worst to literally no incidents of sexual harassment . I assume this from personal experience seeing and hearing about many mixed teams where no issues of the sort existed and from an inherent statistical logic most features aren't distributed evenly . Men and women are, relatively speaking, equally valuable to their company's or team's success if they occupy a similar role for the sake of my argument, women being usually better than men in the same position is also a valid viewpoint, it actually strengthens it . So essentially, women aren't getting any free launches and they a being evaluated on the same criteria as men, or, possibly using harsher criteria see gender pay gap, which essentially implies this . There isn't something inherently wrong with most men that makes them suddenly become savages, essentially guaranteeing most men will do something very inappropriate to a woman if a long enough span of time passes. Most sexual harassment allegations are true i.e. it is a widespread problem, not just a way for people to cash in settlement money There's a limited talent pool for most professions i.e. there's not an infinite amount of engineers, doctors or lab assistants to chose from and being pickier about who you hire will essentially mean you end up spending more money on employees then if you had broader criteria. In this case, wouldn't even an imperfectly rational world result in a Women move from the companies and teams where they are being harassed, to ones that have a reputation for not perpetuating any sexual harassment b Companies and teams that don't contain sexual harassment, have a broader talent pool to chose from then those that do since most people will only work in places where they are not harassed, or at least, will strongly prefer them . So they afford to hire better people for lower wages c Companies and teams where sexual harassment is non existent, start to out compete those where sexual harassment is an issue d Companies and teams where sexual harassment is an issue start becoming and insignificant of the market. As they start dying out for economic reasons, resulting the normal people moving into other normal teams, or, they fire people that perpetuate sexual harassment. Obviously, this isn't something that happens over night. But, women have been in the workforce for a long time there isn't much of a difference now compared to the 80s 90s and yet, sexual harassment seems to be a bigger issue now then ever. So, assuming my premises are correct, why would this happen ? What are the elements that this mental model or mine is ignoring ? Again, this is talking on a macro scale, obviously edge cases like the porn industry or the armed forces branch of the military are a bit more complicated. Bit I'm thinking about STEM, administration and standard service jobs here, since those comprises most jobs in the Western world . Certainly most of the companies where sexual harassment seems to be an issue seem to operate in those fields. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"If workplace sexual harassment is a solvable issue, the market should have gotten rid of it"}
{"id":"d65adc3e-3f96-4e62-aa2e-ef3d89883275","argument":"There is no doubt that one day we will be superseded buy something more intelligent than ourselves. It's just evolution continuing. Obviously , anyone observing the world can see that we are so limited as humans. We still kill each other for land, religion or material things. We focus subconsciously on the need to reproduce and how to get a mate One day we will create something that is beyond that. Humans can be the fathers of the next generation of intelligent beings. That is our place.","conclusion":"Any change of state is considered evolution and it is neither objectively good or bad, it can only be regarding to an objective such as survival. Transhumanism is the most likely future for humanity. Therefore it is most likely the next step in human evolution, because humans constantly change their state and are heading in the direction with their changes towards it."}
{"id":"5812294c-dfb5-4aee-9049-14e00ecb70b0","argument":"Under a winner-takes-all system votes cast in an electorate for a losing candidate or for the winning candidate above the level they needed to win are not represented in any way in the resulting Parliament.","conclusion":"Proportional systems give equal weight to all citizens' votes, whereas in winner-takes-all systems there are a larger number of 'wasted votes"}
{"id":"97936082-ab4f-4124-86e5-c4138f8452e4","argument":"Moral considerations depend on the human subjective experience; it is difficult to transfer such concepts to a machine without drastically altering the character of them. Bendel, p. 20","conclusion":"Sex robots are fundamentally immoral and incapable of autonomy; they have no say in their usage."}
{"id":"78f885f6-7fbb-4e12-9656-e943b9ffd331","argument":"During Modi's time in office, the income required for a decent standard of living for a worker and their family in India has remained almost flat in the 17300-17400 INR per Month range. Meanwhile, wages paid to low-skilled labor decreased to 10300 INR per Month in 2017 from 13300 INR per Month in 2014. As a result, many people's quality of life has suffered during the BJP government.","conclusion":"The lives of Indians in poverty has not improved under Modi's government, and many are suffering."}
{"id":"7bc95f6b-0f10-4ddb-86e4-bd2f6700e890","argument":"Joseph \"could neither write nor dictate a coherent and well-worded letter let alone dictate a book like the Book of Mormon\" - Emma Smith, Joseph Smith's wife.","conclusion":"Joseph Smith's third grade formal education and near illiteracy would make creating a complex work such as the Book of Mormon impossible."}
{"id":"436814ba-78f9-4eb8-9b67-b030ff904857","argument":"So long as both sides are in agreement with the fixed salary, both employer and employees can relax as there is no more discussion or questioning about the salary.","conclusion":"Full transparency over pay can help build trust in the workplace."}
{"id":"d1c56d18-2901-46da-8e37-d52a333a117f","argument":"The monarchy is a direct reflection of Australia's past as a British colony and continues to symbolize Australia's subservience to the British crown. Such symbolism has a powerfully negative effect on Australians' sense of independence and identity. Ending the monarchy and establishing a republic would constitute a substantial stride in the direction of creating a greater sense of independence and national pride and identity.","conclusion":"Ending the monarchy would foster an independent identity in Australia"}
{"id":"909e9144-2322-4dce-8f83-0873548edb1e","argument":"Feminist abolitionists who wish to see an end to the sex trade, call it \u201cthe oldest women's oppression\u201d.","conclusion":"Most women did not want to end up as sex workers."}
{"id":"f8c9ae7b-3425-4b32-9ddb-f28ec6caf034","argument":"Robin Chase. \"Zipcar-Like Data Innovation Counts on Neutral\" Bloomberg Government. March 03, 2011: \"Without the Internet and wireless data transmission, Zipcar could not have become a mainstream service. It would not exist. Incredibly, this fundamental asset is in serious jeopardy in America, putting at risk our ability to innovate and to compete. The U.S. House of Representatives is trying to block the Federal Communications Commission from implementing a network neutrality order it issued in December. If the House action is successful, it will put small entrepreneurs at a disadvantage because we can\u2019t pay the tolls for faster speeds and quality of service that the big guys can, and it may help them create groups of users that we can\u2019t access at all. We could not compete.\"","conclusion":"W\/o Net Neutrality, price discrimination risks stifling start-ups"}
{"id":"6f1297cf-ed6f-4064-8e61-01e7e0264a9c","argument":"I'm not a US passport holder, but I live and work in the US. Therefore, I get taxed on income, property as I own my home in lieu of renting , and pay sales tax. I believe I should have the right to vote. One of the reasons the US exists is that the colonialists protested the British parliament for raising taxes on them without their consent. Ought I not have the same right to give consent as to what goes on in this country's governance? Given that I live in one of the most heavily one sided regions of the country, it isn't like my vote would change the outcome of an election here, but I look at my SOs ballot vs my own as I vote absentee and marvel that theirs is 8 pages of small, white on black font while mine may as well be on a postcard.","conclusion":"If I pay taxes in America, I should be permitted to vote in all elections"}
{"id":"b4f0d441-890d-45dd-a354-00d165dfebaa","argument":"Ronald Reagan, \"Abortion and the Conscience of a Nation\", Human Life Review, Spring 1984 - \"As a nation, we must choose between the sanctity of life ethic and the 'quality of life' ethic. I have no trouble identifying the answer our nation has always given to this basic question, and the answer that I hope and pray it will give in the future.\"13","conclusion":"Abortion advocates wrongly value \"quality of life\" over \"sanctity of life\""}
{"id":"1a0170aa-4a20-456c-9641-ffaaa4118ab2","argument":"There is no evidence that Charles Manson physically murdered actress Sharon Tate and her husband Roman Polanski. It was Susan Atkins and Tex Watson that broke in to their home and brutally murdered them, including Sharron's unborn baby. There is also no motivation for Manson to murder these two people, even Sharon Tate's mother thinks that Charles Manson wasn't involved in the murder. Even if Charles Manson ordered these killings, then these two kids didn't even have to listen. If I tell you to kill someone and you do it why would I go to prison even though I wasn't the murderer in the first place?","conclusion":"I think Charles Manson is innocent."}
{"id":"1084a90d-2821-488d-bc27-e9d9fcfc06a2","argument":"A system in which the court has increased engagement with the elected President and Senate - because of an increase in the rate of judge re-appointment - would better reflect the will of the people and promote democratic accountability.","conclusion":"If judges are replaced on a more frequent basis, the ideas they bring are likelier to be more reflective of modern public opinion as opposed to the opinions of the past."}
{"id":"d01c4655-6565-40f6-991c-68b8a6c3b17c","argument":"If you watch enough Asian porn this starts to get implanted in your head, I swear. But if I had a girl then that girl would be so perfect. Please don't flame me, I'm not stereotyping but just going off Asian porn. If you have another opinion and have seen a fair amount of Asian dick then you may be a woman or gay. If you have a different stance then please elevate me. I would rather not have this opinion. So just be up front, I think it's a valid fear. It's not as if I have any issues down there so I know it wouldn't be that small but I still worry. On the flip side the IQ would be higher. Here is some proof","conclusion":"This might sound mean, but I love Asian girls and yet I worry if I have a family with one and have a boy, he may grow up to have a small penis."}
{"id":"50976b99-ac91-4c3e-ab9a-304bf771e44e","argument":"The simple exercise of suppressing an innate desire e.g. I am hungry, but still refuse the snacks in front of me supports the idea that there actually is free will. My body and internal processes are telling me, or even pulling me, in the direction of eating the snacks, yet I choose not to eat the snack.","conclusion":"Free will lets us override our involuntary reactions that evolved for efficiency."}
{"id":"e2f00d8b-bf38-40cb-874a-2139033ddc02","argument":"I suppose this is less of a , and more of a eli5, but I generally appreciate the logical discourse that I see in this subreddit. So, here's the scenario you and a friend are driving around downtown looking for parking. You're the passenger. As is typical with these downtown streets, a ton of them are one way only. You spot a parking spot on the right, but you can't turn because it's a one way against you. Your friend asks you to step out of the car and go stand in the parking spot while he drives around the corner. Let's say you go stand in the spot and hope your friend gets back quickly. But pretty much immediately another person drives up, rolls his window down and asks what you think you're doing. Questions is this considered normal? Like I saw it first, so I'm entitled to it ? Do you, as the second driver, honor the dibs or is it bullshit?","conclusion":"I don't understand etiquette regarding \"standing in a parking spot to save it\""}
{"id":"618e4db9-a203-4b7e-863c-490869c30f3d","argument":"We should ban private military companies as they do not abide by the same regulations and standards as state armies.","conclusion":"Private military companies are less ethical and violate rights or commit crimes"}
{"id":"9db0d6ea-b400-4b72-a375-e46f1c359b3d","argument":"A study in the US found that at the one year mark, hires who were previously interns with an organization had a 65.5% retention rate. In comparison, hires with no intern experience had a retention rate of 46.2%.","conclusion":"Graduates who are offered jobs at a company after an internship are more likely to stay with the company."}
{"id":"da528def-9837-4200-a37f-2ab0a0a3028d","argument":"Here is the post, in case you're wondering When I first read the title, it seemed to me that the NRCC was creating fake websites pretending to promote a democratic candidate, and then collecting the donation money. Naturally, this seemed incredibly fraudulent and I couldn't believe that would actually be allowed to happen. And it wasn't happening. When you actually take the time to look at the site, the only misleading part of the site is where it says so and so for Congress . The rest of the websites then begin to list reasons for why that person is a terrible candidate, then asks for donations, in large, bold letters, to stop this person from getting reelected. Clearly, these websites were done in satire, and anyone who accidentally donates shouldn't be donating in the first place. And yet, looking at the comments, people are talking about how the media won't report on this, because there aren't half naked celebrities in it and how it really shows how desperate the republican party is. Is there something I'm missing? If anything, these articles are exactly the kind of sensationalism people always complain about. .","conclusion":"I do not believe that the outrage over a link posted in r\/politics deserves outrage."}
{"id":"fc589f56-a387-440c-b29b-08064c053156","argument":"The US and Mexico share fundamental common interests in encouraging trade flows and energy production, combating illicit flows of people, weapons, and managing environmental resources page 17\/18","conclusion":"Drone strikes will have a huge negative impact on the bipolar relations of the US and Mexico, which would hurt both nations."}
{"id":"275e19f0-f1a4-4939-99b4-bc51e5e86809","argument":"\"Clearly, Pluto is a different type of object than the 8 solar system planets in the official IAU definition. But if we look at those 8, we see an extreme range of diversity as well. Mercury and Jupiter differ in mass by a factor of 5,750, and in volume by 25,000. Their compositions could hardly be more different. Jupiter's composition is more like that of a star; it's a giant ball of mostly hydrogen and helium. It also has a family of at least 63 moons, and several tenuous rings. In contrast, Mercury is a ball made of heavy elements, with no appreciable atmosphere and zero moons. Mercury is more than 13 times closer to the Sun. About all that Jupiter and Mercury have in common is that they are spherical objects orbiting the Sun. So if astronomers are comfortable lumping Jupiter and Mercury into the same category, it's not at all obvious that Pluto should be excluded from this club.If Mercury and Jupiter are considered similar enough to fall under the same category, it's not crazy or unscientific to think that Pluto should also be included, especially since Pluto shares the same properties with Jupiter and Mercury that give these two objects their commonality.\"","conclusion":"Pluto's planetary characteristics diverge in just the same way as other planets."}
{"id":"08455a17-dca3-4a50-8ade-da5274e90040","argument":"Religions prevent people from reasoning freely as they're based on dogmas which are by definition incontrovertibly true. Therefore believing in a religion reduces liberty of thought, as religions generally don't tolerate the questioning of their fundaments.","conclusion":"Lack of religion can encourage free thinking and more rationality."}
{"id":"4036f671-85df-49a5-84ce-761e53b406a4","argument":"\"Society\" is often a very large population--not everyone needs to agree that it's wrong in order to achieve the endorsement of a critical mass of persons with enough social capital to enforce their opinions. Smaller communities within a society can enforce their disapproval for this act.","conclusion":"If as a society it is decided that this is not appropriate, then this goes for all individuals."}
{"id":"3f218adf-10bc-4e9f-a9b6-847653607032","argument":"Even if they have a metabolism that facilitates obesity nothing can change the simple fact that you can't build up fat if you do not have an energy intake that's higher than your consumption of energy. Fat is not produced in some alchemical process, it actually comes from somewhere. So despite all the treatments, remedies, operations, therapies and diets that are out there, the only thing fat people have to do to loose weight is simply eat less, no matter what excuses are made up by themselves or even offered to them by society.","conclusion":"Fat people are fat because they eat too much. Its not their metabolism, their genetics or some wrong-tuned glands."}
{"id":"3bf9aa49-b5ac-4449-9a0f-f377a94cca5a","argument":"I'm in my late 20s and I've been to three different colleges since high school I'm currently changing careers and am back for a second degree. So, needless to say, I've gotten my fair share of experience with group projects and I've had a taste of the real world as well. And I have never had a good experience with a group project in college. Not one. There were a couple here and there that were just OK, but none that were good, and all the rest were varying degrees of awful. Why? Because people are fucking lazy, especially when they're at an age where they've never had to take care of themselves, and thus, group projects invariably mean at least one of two things A I have to do someone else's work B my grade is going to suffer because of someone else. It has reached the point where I will always opt to work alone if possible, and will push my professors to allow me to do so. But recently I had a class where the professor wouldn't budge, so I teamed with three people who seemed OK. But it was a fucking nightmare. One was solid, the other was OK, but the fourth was the worst teammate I've ever had on any project, ever. It was so bad I had to go to the TA and then the professor about it with one of my teammates backing me up. The prof was essentially on our side, as he knew what a pain in the ass this dude was, but he gave me the same excuse professors always give when you start working, you have to deal with people you don't like, so this is good practice. But you know what? I'm not buying that shit anymore. I might have accepted it ten years ago when I didn't know better, but I've been in the working world and I know that this simply isn't true. Of course you have to work with people you don't like in most jobs. But that doesn't change the fact that the dynamics there are drastically different than they are in college. For one, people like the guy I'm describing admittedly the worst I've encountered would never be able to hold down a job in the first place unless they knew someone high up in the company. But more importantly, there is a key difference between a college course and a job you pay for one, you get paid for the other. The world is full of lazy fuckers who do the bare minimum to get by. But when you're getting a paycheck, your manager, and his her manager, have a lot more incentive to care about your work ethic than a professor does. Professors want your work on time and unplagiarized. If they receive work from a group of four, why should they care if all four pulled their weight or not? It makes no difference to them, and they're left with one project to grade instead of four. But if a manager is in a similar situation, and learns that one or two of those four people consistently aren't pulling their weight, in most cases they're going to get reprimanded, and if they don't change their behavior, fired. This is significantly easier for managers to do in the U.S. private sector due to our near non existent labor laws, but it's a fundamental truth of business pretty much everywhere that doesn't exist in the academic world. EDIT I am not saying that there are not shitty coworkers in every company who make life difficult for those around them. I am saying that they typically cannot be as callously lazy and uncooperative as they tend to be in college group work. TLDR group projects are bullshit and they don't really prepare you for the working world at all, because the working world and college are different animals. College professors just like to give this excuse because they want less work to grade. I don't know what the solution is at this point, but it's a significant problem and students are right to be pissed about it.  gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Group projects are complete bullshit that professors force on students so they have less work to grade"}
{"id":"6ce46477-c066-4d90-b0a2-c9eb1c732e21","argument":"Sex is what makes it \"cheating\", and not the length or breath of the affair. So, because it happened once does not make it any less important a subject to confess to.","conclusion":"A one-night stand is as much a reason to confess as a full-blown affair since it still involves sex - which is typically not acceptable in exclusive relationships."}
{"id":"c6262912-0fc5-4eb1-866c-901fe8b31feb","argument":"Whites without four-year college degrees make up fully half of the adult population Giving up on the white working class is bound to result in electoral failure for the Democrats.","conclusion":"Clinton lost the election in part because of key shifts in support from white voters in swing states."}
{"id":"d6c26856-9796-422b-8faa-b19d55a29075","argument":"Religion is not needed to bring people together; many secular organizations exist that serve the same purpose, such as Sunday Assembly The School of Life the Y etc.","conclusion":"Secular spaces such as pubs, schools, neighborhood associations, civic events, and parks do this as well."}
{"id":"2c97f2a1-72ce-443a-a31e-8836010ae7d7","argument":"The Global South is restricted in its ability to raise barriers against cheap food imports from rich countries, which subsidize their exports. The resulting flooding of local markets with cheap food imports has threatened the livelihood of the local population.","conclusion":"Global trade rules put in place by Western nations over the past decades have disproportionately disadvantaged the Global South."}
{"id":"12142ca6-1295-4311-b3c1-8d614afaecb2","argument":"Marginal utility implies that there is a point at which a person is rich enough. While the bare minimum amount for subsistence is roughly quantifiable, the amount above and beyond that level, required for a person to lead a fulfilling life, is entirely subjective. While philanthropy is a good thing, it should not be mandated by the state via taxation especially since this mandated philanthropy could interfere with a person's fulfillment in life. A person's right to their own property should trump economic equality let history judge people who were excessively selfish and miserly. Taxing a person beyond the value of the government services they used is tantamount to theft. Therefore, redistributive taxation fails to solve any problems, but rather transforms and transfers them. By government services they used, note that this can be understood as access to services, not necessarily utilization. ie a couple who sends their kids to private school still had the option to send them to public school ergo they used the public school system and cannot expect a reduction in their tax bill .","conclusion":"I believe that although its intent is noble, progressive taxation specifically the notion of marginal utility is wrong."}
{"id":"39b22acb-5275-487a-97b3-94fc5700f13e","argument":"Inspired by the post where a patron left a note talking about why he doesn't tip to the server. I am going under the assumption that boycotting is seen as an effective means of creating change. It was used extensively in the civil rights movement, many wars, and in today's world with the gay acceptance and marijuana legalization movements. If you want servers to make a living wage, stop funding the vicious circle. In America it's always seen as taboo to not tip restaurant servers, even if they do a horrible job you are expected to tip. I don't see why the customer should be forced to make up for the establishments low wages. A common reason I hear is that it makes them work harder and serve you better, but this is simply not true for a lot of places. Having a well paying job is reason enough to work hard, and if you tip you only keep things the way they are. I do tip though  Edit so the main thing you guys are saying is that going to the restaurant and not tipping is not boycotting, rather I would need to not go out to eat at all. I agree with this and I should have used a better word to describe what I meant. I think the main issue I have is that servers pool their tips usually, so a bad server will still get an equal cut of the money compared to the best server there.","conclusion":"If boycotting is seen as an an effective means of change, then it should be completely okay to not tip servers, bellhops, caddies, etc."}
{"id":"21cab8a7-fd2a-44a4-9a17-2348b0eb7854","argument":"The very definition of ethics is very subjective: some may say it is linked to religion, others to what the majority believes or even to common sense, so ethics could even be used as an argument in support of abortion.","conclusion":"Ethics and morality are subjective and can vary from society to society or even from person to person."}
{"id":"ac2e0966-8dae-41a5-a05f-0169d4008411","argument":"EDIT My title should be more along the lines of I think the social stigma behind smoking is oppressive,  Let me clarify. I only smoke about a pack every 2.5 days so maybe 1 4 pack a day? And unless you're smoking 1 pack a day, it isn't that bad. I also think that there should be designated smoking areas if the business owner wants one . Smoking can be extremely pleasurable, and if I chose to smoke in an area that does not affect non smokers, that is my prerogative. I feel like the stigma behind smoking is just as bad as slut shaming or fat shaming. It's my choice, my body. .","conclusion":"I don't think smoking tobacco is THAT bad,"}
{"id":"1685b04d-a6df-4f4a-82fa-a8107c2c1447","argument":"I\u2019ve been raised my entire life to do good, but to not seek attention for it. I\u2019ve been taught that this is the preferable way to do things, if not for nothing more than appearing humble. At the same time, this line of education has also taught that seeking attention for one\u2019s good deeds is seen as a negative, something along the lines of self promoting, and should be avoided. But are you still not doing a good deed? If you help someone and gloat about it, did you still not help that person? If people were more encouraged to \u201cshow off\u201d their good deeds, then would it not contribute to some kind of mass beneficial virtue signaling?","conclusion":"Doing good things for attention is more constructive than people who hide their good deeds ."}
{"id":"2e9d7de5-2891-41fb-a2c9-d232b229b6d6","argument":"A free market in higher education will inevitably result in large flows of people around the world \u2013 this may bring some benefits but governments also have to consider its negative implications. It is one of the primary roles of governments to control the number of non-nationals entering the country. This is for a number of reasons, partly this is done to protect the interests of their own nationals but also to take account concerns of national security. For example there were concerns in the UK in 2009 that terrorists could get into the country on student visas leading to a tightening of the rules.i Similar worries would mean that governments would be unable to make the necessary relaxation of the rules to truly allow free competition for university places. Assuming that the lion\u2019s share of any change would be seen in students from the developing world studying in the developed world, all of the countries concerned already have problems with migrants \u2018disappearing\u2019 into the population. Were universities to significantly increase this, there would, of course be implications both for the job market and for the threat from terrorism. i Laville, Sandra, Northn-Taylor, Richard and Dodd, Vikram, \u2018Student visa link to terror raids as Gordon Brown points finger at Pakistan\u2019, guardian.co.uk, 10 April 2009.","conclusion":"Governments have to be aware of the implications for national security and immigration of an increase in student visas"}
{"id":"a50db87b-2261-4799-826a-2d41313d471d","argument":"There are some arguments in favour of the electoral college. The two I hear most commonly are. It prevents dominance of the election by a single small group of, densely populated region s It allows smaller areas to have their voices issues heard in the presidential campaign. And while that's an argument, I cannot see how it overrides the central argument for abolishing the electoral college. Specifically, that it allows candidates who have less of the popular vote to win. Democracy, fundamentally, is about majority rule. While there should be checks and balances, those checks should not extend to a minority being given executive power over a majority. There have now been four US presidential elections where the loser of the popular vote has gone on to win. This surely cannot be defensible any longer. I want to see if my view on this can be changed. Can someone give me a reason to defend the EC in the light of the fact that it makes it possible for people who have not won the popular vote to win.","conclusion":"The Electoral College's continued problem of allowing for presidents who did not win the popular vote justifies it's abolition."}
{"id":"7c192375-f4cd-436e-b8cc-de5499287a33","argument":"Attachment parenting being the \"best\" form of parenting would imply that parents who cannot spend excessive amounts of time at home with their child are necessarily bad parents.","conclusion":"Attachment parenting excludes working women as the parenting style is too demanding on mothers, making it harder for them to work."}
{"id":"3a5f07ae-2806-485d-8b6d-c7f948b11336","argument":"I'm not saying that it's awful or anything, I just don't understand why people might think that it's top shelf stuff. My primary complaint is that 30 Rock doesn't really have any individual identity or particular strength . There are a lot of hyper generic characters, scenarios, running gags, etc. and in everything that 30 Rock attempts some other series outclasses it. Evil Corporation not directly for 30 Rock, but still indirectly present gt gt Better Off Ted did it better. Lovelorn Nerd gt gt IT Crowd did it better. Primary Relationship between grounded, anxiety riddled introvert and delusional, overconfident extrovert gt gt Peep Show did it better. The Weird Guy Tracy Jordan is a one note shit awful caricature gt gt Community's Abed, Parks and Rec's Orin, and numerous other characters in numerous other shows approach this trope in several different ways all with a great deal more success. etc., etc. Blah, blah, blah. I recognize that a lot of this is subjective, but still would be glad to hear from anyone who disagrees. EDIT Many thanks to everyone who responded, for taking the time to provide detailed posts and for being civil. The primary response to my primary complaint seems to be that 30 Rock doesn't particularly need an identity beyond being a sitcom because it has it does such a good job of working within the standard constraints practices of the sitcom genre. I could certainly argue that the show's quality suffers creatively for taking that route, but it's a very subjective thing. side note This argument to me states that 30 Rock is good, but not great. It would be much more valid if I was arguing that 30 Rock is awful. Then again, this is more of a general response that I've gotten, and perhaps I should have tried to turn arguments more so towards the overall quality of the show in which case not dedicating the majority of my post to pissing and moaning about a bunch of details via bullet point list might have been a good idea. Lesson learned . I'll admit that I could be misunderstanding the intended arguments of responses. People may instead be saying that something doesn't have to be innovative to have value which I wholeheartedly agree with. All things considered, my initial post and subsequent responses were flawed in regard to generating the focus on the points that I wanted to discuss. I apologize for wasting anyone's time. Final Thoughts My original view has not been changed, but I am considering rewatching a portion of the series keeping arguments made ITT in mind with the intent of possibly reforming or at least altering my opinion.","conclusion":"I don't think that 30 Rock is a top tier comedy show."}
{"id":"9629d434-7fd1-406b-875e-8f148d17b17d","argument":"The US has acted to ensure its loan guarantees cannot be used to pay for the wall\u2019s construction. The wall stirs memories of the Berlin Wall of the Cold War, and global media coverage has mostly been negative. Stories of pregnant women dying on their way to hospital because of the war do Israel\u2019s cause much damage in the international community.","conclusion":"The barrier harms Israel\u2019s international image and weakens its support in the USA, a crucial ally"}
{"id":"7b577868-2a1d-4542-8da9-69bb83f1dfc2","argument":"For genres like rap which have a lot of swearing or unpleasant themes, this could be very unsettling.","conclusion":"New genres could introduce ideas that are hurtful or even harmful."}
{"id":"e1639fb3-0ea7-4e5e-8996-89454c41d82d","argument":"Their marijuana purchase can be delivered straight to their door, mitigating any potentially dangerous interactions with underground dealers.","conclusion":"Consumers can avoid meeting up with underground dealers and purchase marijuana online or through social media"}
{"id":"113434d7-0aac-407b-9c3f-067e36695d04","argument":"U.S.-sponsored regime change in Iraq and Libya led to a civil war, a brutal insurgency, and the rise of the Islamic State and other terrorist groups. The United States has also intervened repeatedly in places including Somalia, Yemen, Afghanistan, and Syria in recent years, and all it reaped was additional instability and fertile ground for terrorists. There is no guarantee that an externally induced regime change in Iran will lead to any positive results.","conclusion":"Regime change would not be in the US best interests."}
{"id":"41066860-6779-4e68-9c1f-c3508095ffac","argument":"During Pride month in 2017, Adidas released a rainbow-flag makeover of its iconic Stan Smith trainer and devoted a portion of the sales to an Oregon-based charity supporting homeless LGBTQ+ teens. If nothing else, this raised awareness of homeless LGBTQ+ teens and the issues the community faces.","conclusion":"Corporate sponsors of Pride advertise themselves as LGBTQ+ friendly, and by doing so advertise acceptance of the LGBTQ+ community more broadly."}
{"id":"2bfc74ce-a69f-448d-ae7a-35e3352b5725","argument":"Compared to other high-income countries with single-payer systems, the US spends the most per capita on prescription drugs.","conclusion":"The U.S. spends more per-capita on healthcare than Canada or the UK."}
{"id":"8773fbbe-e871-4c7b-8ce4-9286cc66db6a","argument":"The following arguments are derived from the following sources The Conspiracy Against the Human Race by Thomas Ligotti, The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker, Escape from Evil by Ernest Becker, The World as Will and Representation by Arthur Schopenhauer. The argument is this Life is a disappointment for everyone, of cosmic proportions. We're born, coming from non existence non consciousness into existence consciousness, knowing full well that we will escape back into non existence non consciousness once again. But the most thing that humans desire is their continued existence and their continued to feeling of consciousness, which can be seen in human endeavors in all fields, from the religious to the scientific. The belief in an afterlife, in scientific progress, in humanistic ideals and goals is all a means of our futile attempts to continue to exist. Life itself is cruel and a disappointment for all involved, and the more conscious you are, the more of a disappointment your life is. Your desires, your hopes, your dreams all will be denied for you. From this, I believe that giving birth is worse crime than both rape and murder. Through childbirth, you are condemning your own child to die, to feel pain, to lose hope, to feel all the confusion, lack of knowledge, loneliness in life that could otherwise have been prevented. You are condemning the child to live in a world that is not only indifferent, but built against its needs. I think childbirth and child rearing is inherently driven by a selfish desire of contributing to the world, of securing and strengthing a bond of a couple, a misplaced nurturing instinct that's anything but nurturing, and worse than a murderer or a rapists, who only bring about the cruelties of life sooner to their victims, unlike parents and those that give birth, who gaurantee death, sadness, abuse, and the loss of hope in their progeny. Reddit, feel free to change my view.","conclusion":"Giving birth to a child is a worse crime than rape and murder."}
{"id":"29a8969b-bfd5-466a-962b-f514a23c0f67","argument":"If the system can equalize the candidates, and therefore to be sure everybody have the same level of opportunities, then, it will work.","conclusion":"Performance-based distribution of power would eliminate all forms of inequality."}
{"id":"e523786e-a8ec-41f4-9975-c4cb2793cc52","argument":"Firstly This is not a meta post. I am talking in general. I am aware that meta posts are banned in , but the issue I am discussing applies to all subreddits which ban meta posts. I believe that meta posts are important to allow subreddits to absorb and discuss ideas and topics relevent to the content. I cannot think of a single good reason to ban meta posts, and believe it is done simply because the moderators of those subreddits are acting childishly by removing anything they deem as critisism, regardless of how constructive it is as all meta posts are banned . Some reasons which I have seen given include 1 There are too many meta posts This doesn't add up to me. If there are lots of meta posts, this may just be indicative of changes which many people deem nessisary. However because of the voting system, these meta posts if unpopular will be buried for most users. 2 Specific meta posts result in circlejerks ect. This also makes no sence to me. If you want to avoid circlejerks, then deleting specific comments or even specific posts would work. To ban every single meta post smells like scapegoating to me","conclusion":"Subreddits which ban meta posts are implementing needless censorship simply because the mods cannot face criticism"}
{"id":"abb9f641-fd72-4d78-a504-3aec0c7a67a0","argument":"Out of town malls offer a better shopping experience. It is easier for shoppers to visit an out of town retail development than an urban or town centre shopping area. Typically, out of town malls offer access roads which are not crowded and plenty of \u201cfree\u201d car parking. This is welcomed by shoppers and is in contrast to many city centre or high street shopping areas. It is also convenient for shoppers to be able to make their purchases under one roof. In an out of town shopping centre, shoppers are typically able to complete their purchases in one covered mall, and perhaps even in one giant store. This is less time-consuming and less stressful than the more traditional experience of needing to visit multiple different shops. In addition, the interiors of shopping centres are actively managed and so are typically clean, relatively safe and may offer their own entertainment e.g. skating rinks, cinemas, live music. This is typically less true of more traditional shopping areas, where for example at night poor lighting may be off-putting to some shoppers.","conclusion":"Out of town malls offer a better shopping experience. It is easier for shoppers to visit an out of ..."}
{"id":"07d8e721-8a0d-4f4e-b785-02cc296eedbb","argument":"Certain groups of people cannot easily travel by public transport, even if provision is excellent.","conclusion":"No other form of transportation is as flexible as cars."}
{"id":"24ba0f5f-4a16-4efc-a93d-004821c93a42","argument":"Please don't mistake apatheism for run of the mill agnosticism. For me, the question of god's existence is not a matter of knowledge nor faith but practicality and my limits as a human being. In other words, I am an apatheist because I am not convinced that a relationship to god or lack thereof has any significant impact on my everyday life. Many people justify their belief in god on the basis of faith, justifying the general lack in evidence regarding god\u2019s work by arguing that \u2018God works in mysterious ways\u2019. But, if god\u2019s motives, methods, and or goals are essentially unavailable to me, why care?","conclusion":"I am an Apatheist, meaning I don't care if god exists or not."}
{"id":"17df2f78-34d6-4395-8bbf-c77cf8d89e7f","argument":"From a philosophical standpoint, I get being tired of why do Trump voters still stand with Trump or what do Trump voters think stories, mainly because I was tired of Trump and his voters two years ago. But the narrative on Twitter bemoaning these stories is justifying them, as they continually question the value of these stories while showing that they don't understand these voters and, in many cases, don't want to. Furthermore, these stories do a lot to invalidate diminish the narrative of being driven by racism or hatred driving these voters, and the pushback on these stories comes across as an attempt to confirm one's priors as opposed to becoming more informed about voters not like us. Finally, the complaint about profiles on Trump voters that didn't exist for Obama voters or even Bush voters doesn't make a lot of sense given that Obama represents a popular, traditional politician who won big and Trump got in the White House via a primary plurality and a second place popular vote performance. It is interesting to find out why these people voted the way he did given Trump's electoral performance. While the media is attempting to self correct in its attempt to not miss a Trump like phenomenon again, these stories are valuable and the counter reaction to them shows exactly why he stories are necessary.","conclusion":"Stories about Trump voters are justified by the questions people ask about why the media continues to do stories on Trump voters."}
{"id":"a4a608a8-4978-4c8a-a89d-2be1abdfcbff","argument":"There is a lot of disagreement about what information should be included in sexual education and which should not. Any set standard would invariably exclude some important information or include harmful\/unnecessary information.","conclusion":"There is no universal standard regarding CSE, giving the government too much power in defining what should be included in CSE."}
{"id":"248a2d21-6e49-4f92-a285-67c9ce03b038","argument":"Government structures adapt to handle and distribute incoming ODA. As the funding from ODA is significant, countries have vested bureaucratic interest to remain bound to aid pp. 197","conclusion":"A country used to receiving ODA may be perpetually bound to depend on handouts pp. 197"}
{"id":"6966605c-b6b9-4448-ad67-0a5d62821410","argument":"Horizon Zero Dawn, which has a female protagonist, has sold over 10 million copies worldwide.","conclusion":"Portraying or teaching gender equality does not preclude a game from being fun."}
{"id":"e217b953-023e-46e1-8996-281066f48fde","argument":"I have a close friend that is very into the paleo diet and thinks grain is super bad for you. My friend states that 'humans aren't meant to eat grain' because it isn't part of our 'natural' diet and that it can't be digested well. She thinks that we should only eat like hunter gathers. I don't think that there is any sort of actual natural diet for humans, we have evolved to eat all sorts of things, so wouldn't we have evolved by now to be able to eat grain? From what I have read on the subject, grains don't seem to be necessarily bad for you, but also not that beneficial. If grains were so terrible and made people sick then why does every nutritionist in the world not say this? I believe that I already eat healthy and that grain does not make me feel sick. .","conclusion":"I don't believe grains are bad for you"}
{"id":"d5de4c40-91e8-4f8f-830b-c2442186d50e","argument":"I feel that animals, especially dogs, are better than humans, on every level imaginable. And that they make better friends.","conclusion":"I think animals are better than humans. Fuck humans."}
{"id":"27f590ea-cc89-40e4-93fd-467cb46f34b3","argument":"So, I live in Seattle. As I'm sure you're aware, there's a very bad homeless problem here. One of the worst in the entire US. I routinely see homeless people camping out in parks and other green spaces median strips, next to highway on off ramps, etc with tents and other camping equipment setup. Eventually they sprawl outwards and start spreading garbage and filth including used needles and a tent city pops up, with more homeless people doing the same. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not against supporting the homeless population, as I fully support expanded taxing to take measures to house and provide for them in the form of shelters, food banks, clothing banks, free housing, etc etc. My idea of fixing it is to provide free, effectively unlimited low stipulation housing IE, you can have your drugs but no dealing, no violence, no petty crime, etc until they get to a place where they can support themselves. The idea is that stability is incredibly difficult to achieve when homeless, so having a home even if it's 4 walls and a bed provides some level of comfort, stability, and care , which ultimately ripples through their entire life. In addition to this, I think we should also have nicer extremely low income subsidized housing that has more stipulations quiet hours, no drugs, etc that you could strive to upgrade to once you got a job. Something like once you're at a job for X number of months you're automatically qualified and the cost of the housing is based on your income and obligations IE, if you have family . But at the end of the day, camping in the park should not be acceptable. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Homeless people should not setup camps in parks and other public green spaces, especially in cities where green space is limited. The correct solution is relatively non-conditional housing."}
{"id":"0cde2edc-8012-48cc-a23b-8d3a74db9c89","argument":"An omniscient being who wants to be noticed should be impossible to miss, so to even merely lack belief rather than disbelieve should require ample evidence that such a God exists. To actually maintain a positive belief in God should require even more substantial evidence than would be required merely to be agnostic.","conclusion":"Atheists exist which is not what we would expect if a god existed"}
{"id":"76f649b7-3012-48df-8456-fb4a35ff9183","argument":"Abuse against spouses or children which is caused by anger issues and often aggravated by addiction is violence that asserts power and dominance but is not caused by lack of communication.","conclusion":"Some violence has nothing to do with communication or lack thereof."}
{"id":"ff818217-5f18-47a8-833a-df2be503b785","argument":"To voice any opinion, you must be willing to implicitly or explicitly undermine positions that contradict or are inconsistent with your own.","conclusion":"People should not be prevented from voicing their opinions for fear of undermining another movement."}
{"id":"62dbeaff-837f-405f-8078-3f88248665e7","argument":"Experts claim that a \"new\" national identity is taking shape among South Koreans in their 20's and 30's. This new identity is nationalist, not ethno-nationalist, and therefore support for reunification continues to fall.","conclusion":"According to several recent polls, a clear majority of SK people are no longer in support of unification as was the case in the past."}
{"id":"28cd1fb7-1ba8-44d0-94cd-62cfc4fef05b","argument":"My view is that anyone can get amazing at anything through hard work and practice. People who say they aren't musical or artistic or clever enough are either making excuses or haven't practiced enough. There is also the possibility that they are practicing the wrong way which I left out of the title because I didn't know how to phrase it such as trying to get good at guitar by learning only one very hard song assuming that will make you good at everything else. I have friends who are very good at certain things. To be specific, video games I am using this example because it is easiest to quantify , and even more specific, osu. He is around rank 5,000 in the world out of 8 million users and about 650 in the US. He wasn't born good at clicking on circles. He doesn't play any instruments so he doesn't have any background with keeping a rhythm. He didn't ascend to that rank in a few weeks. It took him over a year of hard work and practice to get to where he is. He has put in tons of hours of hard work and practice into that game and it shows. He is still getting better every day too. The skill ceiling doesn't exist unless you let it exist. The same can be said for less quantifiable fields such as piano playing. You can't expect to sit down for an hour every now and then at your grandma's grand piano and expect to be Mozart in a year. It requires hard work and determination to get to that level. While we're on the subject of Mozart, sure, Mozart may have been gifted pianist, and sure he probably had some mental abnormality which made him recognize patterns and formulate ideas more easily than a normal person, but I guarantee that when he wasn't sleeping, he was at the very least thinking about music. It also has to be said that those with mental abnormalities savants shouldn't really be counted in this discussion because they are outliers and do not represent the vast majority of the population For my final point, I'll mention Mike Boyd. If you don't recognize the name, that's the guy on YouTube who learns new things. He doesn't seem particularly gifted or smart, he just seems like an average guy which is why I think his channel appeals to so many people , but he learns new things through practice Lots of weird things with which he has little to no experience, and he does it with practice Not because he's a genius or a renaissance man or anything crazy like that. Just through repeated failure. And I am typing this out before I go to bed and I know I could have made a stronger argument if this was for a college paper or something, so sorry if it rambles or anything. I think you understand my point. Thanks guys","conclusion":"Anyone can get amazing at anything through hard work and practice. People who say they aren't musical or artistic or clever enough are either making excuses or haven't practiced enough."}
{"id":"9098bdf6-4603-4196-a8f1-c6450de40f59","argument":"Artistic. Hollywood films are poor, lowest-common denominator pulp, relying on special effects and large quantities of sex and violence to mask preposterous plots, weak dialogue and poor acting. The studios\u2019 addiction to test audiences leads to unadventurous films, with compulsory happy endings and slushy morals.","conclusion":"Artistic. Hollywood films are poor, lowest-common denominator pulp, relying on special effects and ..."}
{"id":"71269a6d-ee3e-40c3-aae3-7624cebf15e9","argument":"What is better? To be born good or to overcome your evil nature through great effort? I know this is an unpopular opinion I love our favourite grandaddy Dragon as much as anyone else. He is kind, wise and was instrumental to humanity throwing off the tyranny of the dragons. So please change my view people But here is why he must die 1 The dragonborn must side with the blades. Dragons raid villages and cities, slaughtering many people in their droves. The people live in terror of a dragon attack and many people are terrified to travel from one city to the next. Meanwhile the Grey beards, safe and protected, spend their day sitting on their ass talking at the sky. At the very least the blades are locating dragons and taking the fight to the dragons but they need the dragonborns help. For the greater good, one elderly dragon should be sacrificed. 2 Parthunaax killed, tortured and enslaved many humans. He was also very high up the command chain a top general I believe . His actions were akin to war crimes against humanity and he was so high up the command chain he cannot just claim he was following orders. The same way many Nazis were hunted down after WW2 and executed, Parthunaax should as well. 3 Humans generally speaking by nature mostly crave freedom, company and security. Dragons are different. The same way we want to feel safe and free they want to rule over others and be venerated. It is not in their nature to be good and every day Parthunaax is fighting against that urge to massacre and enslave humans the same way an addict might always crave that next drink. You are the last known Dragonborn, actually able to properly kill a dragon, how can you leave the fate of humanity up to the mood of someone who is always in danger of relapse. Note as well dragons are Immortal creatures So the risk isn't just for a few years or even a century. 4 Following on from my last point. He literally betrayed Alduin when he was his right hand man how can you be sure he would never betray humanity?","conclusion":"In Elder Scrolls V Skyrim, the Dragonborn should opt to murder Parthunaax"}
{"id":"7f5982c9-3165-499d-9c01-bc918cf07993","argument":"Inspired by a post by a black gay Facebook friend regarding the attack on Jussie Smollett criticizing straight black people's ire focusing more on Smollett's blackness being attacked than his gayness. Without question, people being attacked for their sexual orientation or race is both horrible and I don't think anyone isn't acknowledging this, but if I am being honest, as a white gay person, hearing that the victim was attacked partially for being gay got to me more on a personal level than hearing him attacked for being black, mostly because of a it could happen to me factor. Of course its also horrible that he was attacked for his race, I'm in no way denying that, but hearing he was also attacked for his sexual orientation stings more to me, and it makes total sense why a straight black person would feel the opposite. I'll also say of the same idea, the Pulse shooting has affected me more than any other mass shooting in history, for the same reason. My community was attacked, and it could have been me. This isn't to say that all mass shootings acts of hate aren't tragic and horrible, but it's fair to be more personally hurt by an attack on people of your race sexual orientation etc.","conclusion":"There's nothing wrong with being more offended by hate crimes committed against a group you're a part of"}
{"id":"fed185af-09b3-4700-b953-f49d5d395b07","argument":"Guns are needed by potential resistance movements in the case of the government becoming authoritarian, and they can be a useful deterrent against authoritarianism.","conclusion":"The right to a firearm is a natural extension of the right to self-defense."}
{"id":"093e7c64-da3f-4112-a087-12fdb6cc69d6","argument":"The CEA estimates that the Obama administration's policies helped the poorest fifth of American households earn 18% more in 2017 than they otherwise would have.","conclusion":"The Council of Economic Advisers CEA has reported that Obama's policies reduced income inequality."}
{"id":"d8bb8455-8169-40a7-b68b-72402626965f","argument":"There are schools of thought that assert Gratian transferred power to Pope Damasus I this one for example.","conclusion":"There is some political and social continuity between the Roman Empire and the Roman Catholic Church."}
{"id":"8e1a6107-c884-4e39-a7e6-157fccda34d9","argument":"Any individual leader might want to murder some of his opposition or a former spy. Doing so would be incredibly pragmatic from their point of view.","conclusion":"Pragmatism is not always a positive trait. Many violent acts have pragmatic values for some."}
{"id":"9332bcfc-57bb-4c6a-98c5-0bfaed321ff0","argument":"Acknowledging and redressing the wrongs committed against their ancestors would improve the relationship between the Black community and the US Government.","conclusion":"Reparations do not heal wounds. Rather, the acknowledgement of guilt and a plea for forgiveness does."}
{"id":"ce90ea5a-f7c7-49a0-b659-7e574f605051","argument":"Our oil industry drives the global economy, and is what set the U.S. dollar as the world currency. No other nation in the world can match our technology or efficiency in the oil field. The UN hates that and is doing everything they can to get the U.S. off oil while exploiting the worst leader in the history of the US because they not only know he has to grease his campaign donors from failing green energy corporations, but they also know he will buckle to anything the UN says because he's made it obvious he has no interest in creating American jobs. His interests lie solely in appeasing the international community.","conclusion":"The UN is working against America, taking advantage of us through the ineptitude of our current president."}
{"id":"6428b4b4-febb-4936-8d87-16b0ff368cb3","argument":"I've been reading many articles about the technology of the future the biggest one being automation. x200B Many people believe in the next 50 or so years, 95 of the jobs today will be fully done by robots or software. What a lot of people think is that the jobs that will be automated are relatively low skill, low wage jobs such as cashiers, tellers, waiters, truck drivers, etc but it goes further than that. x200B The entire financial and business world is estimated to be automated. Most big corporations are going to be completely done by software or robots besides a few key leaders which means any job related to accounting, investment banking, law, consulting, etc are going to be gone. Entertainment will be mostly automated, real estate will be gone, sales will be gone, eventually, the medical field will be heavily done by robots and before you know it, nobody has a job except the people making the robots. And even then, once we develop a smart enough AI the people making the robots will eventually be out of a job. x200B Eventually, universal basic income is bound to be implemented and we would all be given enough money to live relatively comfortably though this might be a problem for some. I know many people who enjoy working because they're interested in the field as well as it preventing boredom. Not having a job may sound nice to some but to others, it'll lead to extreme boredom and laziness. A common occurrence for people who retire early is that their life gets dull after a few years of 100 free time that they even return to work on some occasions. Having goals related to your job or education is important for some to feel accomplished with themselves and in the new automated world, they're going to have trouble finding that somewhere else. x200B People with interests and aspirations to work in certain fields will no longer be allowed to pursue their interests because they cannot perform the same as a robot could. There are people who genuinely enjoy their work and they get a sense of accomplishment from it. Free time is definitely vital to the mental well being of an individual but in a sense so is working, there needs to be a healthy balance between the two. x200B I'm definitely not saying we should be FORCED to have a job in order to survive but the removal of all occupations could easily be seen as a negative to some. Automation is for sure important for the development of our world but I feel that the complete removal of jobs in certain fields and industries could leave many people unhappy.","conclusion":"Removal of all jobs due to automation isn't a good thing."}
{"id":"64f442c6-1c6b-484f-b2f3-11329dfcc85a","argument":"Prior to a UBI, a worker had a certain available income, and a non-worker had no income. Post UBI implementation a non-worker would have available income. Individuals earning more than 50.000 USD would have to pay more into the UBI tax than they get back in UBI payments; they can afford less than what they had before. The worker's comparative marginal gains over a non-worker pre vs. post UBI would show their work is less valuable.","conclusion":"Workers are not 'happy' if their work is not significantly higher valued than \"non-work\" in terms of spending capacity and available income; the UBI devalues the perception of basic work."}
{"id":"7eb5e9be-b9b3-44b6-9d77-86be8e228975","argument":"False prophecy is one sign of a false religion or belief system. Many false religions have made predictions that have long since been proven false","conclusion":"It is possible to avoid hell if one system is a lie, and the other the truth."}
{"id":"6d03434d-c9c4-42b1-9b7a-df4be0a4bd83","argument":"I'm no door expert, but I think it's safe to say that they cost a lot more than a regular two hinged door. Usually only found in buildings belonging to multi million billion dollar companies, revolving doors are arguably a luxury item. Luxury items are meant to make your life more comfortable. Think luxury cars they're expected to be quiet, keep outside noise out, operate smoothly and fast, etc. With revolving doors, we get an expensive product that operates with a resistance and limited room to walk in. People with long legs that usually take long strides when walking are forced to take small steps while going through the door, otherwise the rear door will come in contact with their back foot. The resistance on them puts a limit to the amount of people that can pass through the door way within a given amount of time. A regular door when propped open, can people passing through at the speed rate that they can walk or run at, where as with revolving doors, we're forced to obey the speed limit. While you can argue this prevents head on collisions, people's lives are at a higher risk if the building requires an emergency evacuation. It's also physically more dangerous as limbs that get caught in between the revolving door and door frame can be broken, or severely injured TLDR Revolving doors cost more than regular ones, are less efficient, and are down right dangerous","conclusion":"Revolving doors are not a detriment to society"}
{"id":"4462da72-fffb-4df4-b843-2aafffdc8437","argument":"Carrying for a wife is about more than supplying her with material needs, something polygamist husbands are frequently capable of doing for their many wives. It is also about more than treating all wives equitably and even \"loving\" them equitably. It is, rather, about providing a wife with reciprocal attention, love, sexual attention, and feelings of individual value and meaning. This is reflected in the notion of the yin and the yang; parity and complementarity between two partners. A man with even just two wives is incapable of reciprocating equally the love and care he may receive from each of them. He will fall short to some degree with each of wives and violate the notion of reciprocity in marriage.","conclusion":"Polygamous men cannot reciprocate equally the love they receive from their wives."}
{"id":"be216cfc-3d2d-413f-969a-5124f1a359e3","argument":"A lot of futuristic technology has floundered lately 3D TV, Google Glass, etc. but Amazon Echo can be incredibly harmful if it takes off. Watch the launch video to understand what Amazon Echo is. If you don't have the time, this is the pitch Amazon Echo is designed around your voice. It's hands free and always on. With seven microphones and beam forming technology, Echo can hear you from across the room\u2014even while music is playing. Echo is also an expertly tuned speaker that can fill any room with immersive sound. Echo connects to Alexa, a cloud based voice service, to provide information, answer questions, play music, read the news, check sports scores or the weather, and more\u2014instantly. All you have to do is ask. Essentially, it is an omnipresent Siri that lives in your home and is constantly listening. The device already has 23,058 reviews from testers and it is just hitting the market. Now imagine one of these in everyone's home. I will cover some of the highlights of the launch video as examples in my argument. Reason 1 Laziness A lot of technology today encourages laziness. However, this takes it to a whole new level. Example Alexa, add waffles to my shopping list. Now we don't even need to jot things down or even type them into our smart phones at the very least. Example 'Alexa can provide news ' Instead of reading the newspaper or watching the news we can listen to a mono tone robot recite world events. Example Alexa, what is the chance of rain? The woman is literally standing next to the door when she asks this question. However, she would rather receive the weather from her nifty new gadget than to actually look outside or watch a weather report. Reason 2 Reliance on Technology Most of us can admit that we are uncomfortably dependent on our smart phones. However, what if our smart phone was never in our pocket? What if it was always plugged in and tempting us? This is essentially Amazon Echo. The narrator even proclaims that Echo will, Become a part of the family Example The echo is a tool that we use to keep our household functioning. This is a quote from a mother as she dresses her daughter. I am aware that these are commercially invented situations being reenacted by paid actors. However, I feel as though they are fairly accurate depictions of how people will use this technology and how they will respond to it. Clearly, there are many issues with one piece of technology keeping a household together. Example The prime re ordering is when you can ask Alexa to order something you've already ordered through your prime account. Now we can shop by shouting a phrase at a robot No need to go out. I think laziness coupled with reliance on technology have been the most harmful qualities that todays youth myself included suffer from. We find it difficult to go out and make plans. We find it difficult to socialize. We find it difficult to talk on the phone. In a world full of constant updates and fast information, why should we access things in any other way? We want things instantaneously and at our discretion. Reason 3 Invasion of Privacy Major corporations will do anything to learn more about consumers and what they want. Echo allows consumers to order things through Amazon Prime. I am not afraid of what this AI will do granted that it can always hear and learn. As long as it's just a black cylinder speaker with no hidden flame thrower I don't believe we have a reason to fear an Echo uprise. Rather, I am more afraid of what the men and women behind the scenes will do. Example 'Echo can hear you from anywhere in the room, so it's always ready to help ' I can have the water running, I can be cooking, the TV can be on in the back room, and she still can hear me. All I could think while watching this was, Genisys is Skynet Here is a link to the Amazon page. So, can anyone give me some reason as to why Amazon Echo can be more helpful than harmful? Edit View changed by u fssbmule1 with this comment Great points. I wish I could reply to all of you but there are way too many comments. Also, quit down voting stuff you disagree with I put just as much time and thought into my comments as everyone else and I don't deserve to have them hidden. Down voting comments you disagree with is just going to deter people from contributing to .","conclusion":"Amazon Echo is an incredibly harmful piece of technology."}
{"id":"9054ffd8-6162-42b0-8f62-bcbb41dae5b1","argument":"Whilst opinion pollsters are told their interviewees are willing to pay more for ethical products, very few people put this into daily practice.","conclusion":"Consumer pressure is too weak to force change on social and economic issues:"}
{"id":"febc7e37-d402-4441-8d30-0df4a19ee611","argument":"For those who eat meat, it may also mean that they neither have a developed empathy nor a developed compassion - leaving farm animals out of their circles of compassion or just that they don't have reliable sources of information e.g. \"suicide food\".","conclusion":"Eating meat, in the majority of cases, involves the cruel and immoral treatment of animals."}
{"id":"c41c2e4b-9ada-447a-8d64-b4629e33cb4b","argument":"Even to the extent AI's are capable of learned or random behaviours, human programmers still create and structure the conditions through which these develop.","conclusion":"Only sentient beings can exert real choice; the programming\/artificial intelligence of a self-driving car is deterministic and so incapable of having free will."}
{"id":"c18d4bd3-d047-487b-9c98-7388b48b5a5f","argument":"Shutting down the debate by eliminating the possibility of the opposing viewpoint from being expressed on an equal footing galvanises the opposition. In removing ones voice, you end up potentially radicalising said party. In a true democracy, it is the moral duty of participants to discuss issues openly without the need for consensus. Totalitarian regimes remove the ability to discuss issues which they take an opposing view on, shutting down the debate to further their own agenda.","conclusion":"Justice which depends on refusing to hear another party is not justice at all. It is totalitarianism."}
{"id":"fdca4d13-4068-43c9-af8b-36a8ad0b8ee6","argument":"Let me preface this by saying that I am not very familiar at all with feminist positions on things. Most of my exposure to feminism has come from a few feminist acquaintances and random stuff I've seen on the internet. I'm well aware that my sampling of feminist thought is probably not representative of most feminists. With that said I have often heard it said that the major factors in the incidence of rape are something along these lines The media portrays women as sexualized objects, thus discouraging boys and young men from seeing women as fully human. This leads men to think that it is okay for them to rape women. We do not teach our males what consent is. Alternatively, we don't teach them that it is not okay to rape women. Now, I don't think that the first reason is a totally invalid point. I agree that the media sexualizes women to an obscene degree, and I'm sure that that has deleterious effects on the psyche of both males an females. The second point seems totally absurd to me, though. I believe that rapists know that what they're doing is wrong, but they choose to do it anyway. This goes for all kinds of rape, too. I think that both the violent rapist and the frat guy who pressures a girl into getting wasted at a party and then has sex with her while she's semi unconscious know that what they're doing is wrong. Rather than these two points, I think that the main contributing factors to rape are psychological issues that occur as a result of trauma in childhood. I don't have any statistics to back this up, so please lambast me if this is wrong I believe that the majority of rape victims were the victim of some sort of major abuse in childhood, most likely sexual. I also believe that the same goes for the perpetrators of abuse. People who were abused in childhood almost always reflect the repercussions of their abuse in their demeanor, and abusers can sense that. I'm not talking about anything magical, either. In my experience, victims of abuse carry themselves differently and can have personality traits that indicate that they were abused. Abusers recognize that and seek those people out as victims. In summary, I think that the main contributing factor in the incidence of rape is childhood abuse of both future victim and perpetrator. I believe that dehumanization of women through sexualization in media is a much smaller factor, and that media influence alone cannot take a boy who grew up in a healthy and supportive family and turn him into a rapist. I think that if media does have any significant effect in the incidence of rape, it is only because it reinforces the already sick foundation of someone who was abused.","conclusion":"I believe that psychological effects of childhood trauma in both victim and perpetrator are a much greater factor than the effects of the media's portrayal of women in the incidence of rape."}
{"id":"32e1d497-a5e3-4299-a86f-59ad12146005","argument":"I don't care about any First Ladies or their potential male analogues. I find them mostly irrelevant. Usually they show up as a distraction. Their pet issues, while they may be noble, are not usually worth taking note of unless their commander in chief opposite takes an interest, and only because they can take their pet policy and turn it into real policy. To me, the concern over presidential spouses smacks of monarchist concerns of a royal family, where women were commonly expected to take an interest in some aristocratic endeavor. This is clearly gendered but I am extrapolating to the possibility of having a female president with a male spouse. I don't care about the First Lady's shoulders. I don't care if she is worried about obesity, because most of what she does will be ineffectual, in terms of practice and awareness. It just looks like a nod to monarchist couples who rule as a duo, with one being political and the other taking on a 'softer' role. The reason I am open to having my view changed is that I realize having an ear of the President is useful. I understand that issues such as the 'War on Drugs' have been furthered by pet issues. But at the end of the day, it seems like the whole concept of the First Lady or her male counterpart is a distraction issue designed to take attention away from substantive concerns of the American republic and over to concerns that a may be worth noting, but b whose political capital is minimal. The only reason we care about this person is because of his her affiliation with the President. To be sure, their concerns and philanthropy might be worthwhile, but when we talk about them seems to be associated with an empty news lull where we have an obsession about presidential gossip and not much more.","conclusion":"I don't care about the First Lady or her potential male analogue."}
{"id":"62bbede1-2b84-4d77-941c-1e267fbbe2e3","argument":"Stars in the night sky rotate around 2 poles, a northern celestial pole Polaris, and a southern celestial pole Sigma Octanis. This can be simultaneously verified in different places on earth, such as South Africa, Australia, and South America.","conclusion":"Observations of our solar system, and visible universe, indicate that the earth is round."}
{"id":"ed7b8cff-4081-40ef-8784-f8a399f19266","argument":"Human beings share over 99.4% of their genes with chimpanzees and about 99% with mice. It is instructive to consider that humans also share approximately 90% of their genes with cows. The physiologies of humans and these animals are very similar, with very similar organ and nerve systems. For this reason, it is useful and productive to study these animals as a means of advancing human sciences. The reactions of these creatures are a very good guide to possible reactions of human patients. \"Why do scientists use animals in research?\". The American Physiological Society. Retrieved May 3rd, 2008 - \"Animals make good research subjects for a variety of reasons. Animals are biologically similar to humans. They are susceptible to many of the same health problems, and they have short life-cycles so they can easily be studied throughout their whole life-span or across several generations.\"","conclusion":"Animals are good research subjects because they are similar to humans"}
{"id":"d7e0484b-a87a-4975-ae8b-d70917b33d1d","argument":"Like it or not, people are inherently unequal and some are simply smarter, stronger, or just outright better than others. Notice how I said people and not groups of people as only an individual has value, and groups are a meaningless construct even if it was true that X race is better than Y race, that does not necessarily mean an individual of X race will be better than an individual of Y race . Equality is an unnatural state that goes against nature. If it is to exist in any form, it must be forced on society. The irony of this of course, is that it would take State violence, exercised by individuals who are hugely unequal to the rest of society, to enforce this. Our societal obsession with equality is unhealthy and irrational, and leads to greater inequities than it seeks to prevent. People are manifestly unequal, and no amount of wishing or legislation will make them equal. The only fair and just system is one that allows individuals to succeed and fail on their own merits as individuals .","conclusion":"I believe in meritocracy and do not understand our society's obsession with achieving equality beyond legal equality"}
{"id":"9f192675-f657-4dbd-8756-90372e9db3fa","argument":"Very commonly one will hear calls not to invest in stocks of petroleum companies global warming , chemical companies pollution, plastics , arms manufacturers etc. While this may appease ones conscience, it does nothing to the company in question, either financially nor will make its change direction. It might even be counterproductive if enough like minded stockholders could have united to change a companies direction. Essentially the company makes no money off the stock any more, and the stocks are simply a liability. If the price drops because of selling then it might even be advantageous for the company to buy back the cheap shares. The only possible bad effect might be that it could limit a company raising new capital in the future, and maybe a little bad PR, but you would need a very large drop for the former to bite. So why would Shell worry if some some investors dropped their shares? gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Not investing in controversial companies as a matter of principle is unproductive"}
{"id":"cb04b7f1-ad39-423d-a9b9-d76eebb5d613","argument":"Here's what I mean. Even if you favor big government, you should nonetheless agree that a world in which massive regulation, taxing and spending, welfare programs, military intervention, etc, weren't necessary would be a better world, and that such a world should ultimately be our goal. Perhaps better moral cultural norms, e.g., concerning tolerance and responsibility, have to be developed first so as to render certain government functions unnecessary. But better moral cultural norms as means to an end are obviously preferable to state intervention and coercion. All sensible people should be able to agree that, all else equal , small, limited government is better than large, far reaching government. But if you agree with that, then you just are ideologically libertarian, in some minimal sense at least, despite your perhaps not recognizably libertarian positions on various current issues. In other words, freedom, to whatever extent possible, should reign all else equal, go with freedom absent some compelling reason to limit freedom, it shouldn't be limited. Some, though, don't see things this way. Some see government as a positive force, a good in its own right, valuable beyond its instrumental effects. That's wacky, and not consistent with the historical thrust of, ya know, the western liberal democratic republican lower case l, d, and r tradition.","conclusion":"Everyone should be fundamentally libertarian."}
{"id":"f23b23a7-4c38-4137-9e89-0d929fc3ae23","argument":"In recent years, I've heard a lot of people complain that grinding has become the norm, instead of real dancing. Oxford defines dance as, to move rhythmically to music, typically following a set sequence of steps. I've always considered grinding to be dancing. While I enjoy it on occasion, I'll admit it may be lewd or undignified, but I believe it's just as much a dance as the tango or ballet is. Grinding is still a relatively new phenomenon, so maybe our society isn't ready to accept it as a dance yet. But wasn't that the situation when Elvis started dancing in his day? I think it's just a matter of time before almost everyone admits it's a legitimate form of dance. I'm curious to see if anyone can change my view. I've discussed it with many people, but no one has been able to convince me that grinding isn't dancing.","conclusion":"I believe grinding is a legitimate form of dance"}
{"id":"8a20f108-863d-4b25-a96c-aa4aed051448","argument":"As an Engineer I will admit I have a natural affinity for science and math that many don\u2019t, but I also enjoy reading, the study of history, and art. I will also admit there are some aspects of liberal arts I disagree with or don\u2019t like but I recognize the importance of these topics in our modern society none the less. This feeling of mutual benefit from the sciences and liberals however is not return by others of non stem affiliation. It\u2019s as if science and math is viewed as a necessary evil by some only used when necessary. Growing up in school I was lucky to have parents who were both intelligent and physical fit. These genes pass to me so I never had a problem fitting into school but the same couldn\u2019t be said for my fellow colleagues. I remember children have such a hatred for stem topics which I never understood. Science and math are responsible for most of the advancement in human culture which people enjoy but yet many people despise the very thing that give raise to the objects that give them joy. I witness people who had similar scientific appetites as myself, get harass simply for their intelligence and hobbies. It\u2019s just plain feel disgusted when I read headlines like \u201cis Algebra necessary\u201d, \u201cShould non stem majors be force to take math\u201d, \u201cis too much time spent on math and science education\u201d, etc. Even my Philosophy club at University whose ranks I believe are fill with very intelligent people seem to suffer from this problem. It\u2019s a very diverse crowd compose of Engineers, Physics, Arts, History, Math, Political Science, and of course Philosophy undergrad, postgrad, and professors. Whenever we discuss economics, politics, or similar topics everyone\u2019s engage and discussing, but when math or sciences topics are being discuss it\u2019s like half the room gets uncomfortable. Yes the stem majors have vivid discussions, but others seem to be frustrated and instead of actively asking questions to try to gain understanding which many of the stem people do when non stem topics are being discuss they just seem to sit there mourn and pout. This as cause lots of friction in the club causing many stem members to leave in protest. I also see it happening on a national wide level. Quotes like \u201cScientist are soulless calculating people who done care about others\u201d, \u201cscientist shouldn\u2019t be allowed in politics\u201d comes to mind. Whenever I engage people in topics they become interested and actively hold conversation until I bring math or science into the picture. Whenever I debate people using math, originally rational in our debate, becomes irate, defensive and sometimes express hatred not at me but at the fact that I would include math in our discussion. It\u2019s very frustrating at times because while I recognize the importance of liberal arts in society, the same recognition of sciences and math is not return. Look at our so call role models and heroes. Sports players, reality TV stars, actors, etc. Where\u2019s the mention of Neil Degrasse or Stephen Hawking? This really gives me a grim outlook on the future of our society in the upcoming years.","conclusion":"I believe there is an anti-intellectual movement happening in the USA and it might eventual cause the country to fall behind the rest of the develop world-"}
{"id":"8180ef11-67a7-4b85-af88-5502f7980040","argument":"As background, I have been a big fan of Star Wars for a long time. I saw the original trilogy as a child and have rewatched it many times since I consider those movies to be film classics and among the best and most iconic sci fi movies ever made. The prequels, which I enjoyed as a child, I now find to be weak and uncompelling. I don't really have a desire to rewatch them, but I still accept them as part of the Star Wars universe. The Force Awakens was the first Star Wars movie I was old enough to see in theaters, and although I don't think it's quite as strong as Episode IV or V, it's my personal favorite. I also consider Rogue One to be a solid addition to the universe. That being said, my engagement with Star Wars Expanded Universe is near nonexistent. I haven't read any of the novels or comics. I've seen a couple episodes of The Clone Wars, but they didn't really pique my interest. Furthermore, I currently have no desire to start consuming this material, for these reasons In my opinion, movies are the best and most natural format for Star Wars. It's not that I don't like books, comics, or TV shows, but they just don't seem right for Star Wars. Although I've never experienced Star Wars in another format, I can't imagine that any other medium would match my love for the movies. I love the Star Wars movies in part because they are so familiar to me. TFA did a good job of capitalizing on this familiarity by bringing back many characters and themes from the original trilogy. I am not particularly keen on exploring entirely new characters and planets just for the sake of it. I don't really feel a need for more Star Wars content. Yes, I'm excited for Episodes VIII and IV, and I'll likely watch the upcoming spin off movies as well, but I think that the characters and storylines are developed enough for my taste in the films. While I'm sure there is quality Star Wars content to be had outside of the films, my impression of the EU is that some of it was created primarily to further monetize the Star Wars intellectual property, and as such is on a lower level as the films. I'm not saying it isn't good or well liked, I'm just saying that combined with my other reasons, it may not be good enough. Ultimately, I am afraid that alternate Star Wars content may ruin the movies for me. This happened to me with the prequels to a small degree the inconsistencies between them and the originals definitely diminished my view of the franchise as a whole. The EU no longer being canon certainly doesn't help. I would rather not risk this happening again. Of course, everything I have said above is from the prespective of knowing very little about the EU. So, if you think I'm wrong, change my view Note Although I'm not concerned about spoilers, they may make the EU content less enticing for me, and therefore would probably be counterproductive. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The Star Wars Expanded Universe isn't worth reading\/watching"}
{"id":"49fb590c-d9eb-42a2-bb04-030b96e35355","argument":"Individuals have a right to pursue treatments that they believe are in their best interest, and which do not come into conflict with the rights of other patients. Medical marijuana qualifies as a such a treatment, which many believe is best for their ailments, and so should be allowed to pursue.","conclusion":"Individuals have right to pursue what they believe are best treatments."}
{"id":"e58314e3-6b5d-4a75-8a68-598ae13f3f6e","argument":"This is frequent argument of animal rights activists; that animals deserve rights because they have at least as much capacity to reason as do some retarded humans, who retain rights. The problem with this argument is that it fails to see rights as a thing that must be shared among a group of creatures, not something that is extended on an individual basis. Therefore, the question is not whether some humans are incapable of having rights, but rather whether human kind, as a species, is capable of having rights. They are. Non-human animals, conversely, as a class of organisms, are not capable of holding rights.","conclusion":"That the retarded have rights does not justify animal rights"}
{"id":"efe069e5-f159-48d2-8b5c-7806f4866e16","argument":"Many shower products, including shampoo, conditioner, and liquid body soap, come in plastic containers with some sort of cap. There are many variations of bottle designs, but overall we can group these into two categories cap on top , where the cap is at the top of the bottle and as far from the base as possible, and cap on bottom where the bottle actually sits on its cap. Cap on bottom designs are a fairly recent invention, made possible by the use of arbitrary plastic shapes for liquid packaging. So I understand that cap on top designs are entrenched, culturally. Some products often shampoo and conditioner pairs actually use the same packaging, but with labels in opposite orientation to suggest that one end our the other is the top. I don't care about that my only concern here is that the product can sit stably on the cap, regardless of whether the text is now upside down. I would count that as a cap on bottom design because the bottle can sit on its cap without concern of toppling. My argument is very simple cap on bottom designs are better, because as the remaining liquid gets to a low level, it remains by the spout and can easily be ejected. Otherwise, high viscosity liquids require a lot of shaking and squeezing to eject from the bottle, as they have settled to the end furthest from the spout. I believe cap on top designs defined here as designs where the bottle cannot rest on its cap without being at risk of falling over are functionally inferior, with no functional advantages. The only advantage to them at all is that, by having no concern for stability, the cap can be artistically shaped for visual pleasure in arbitrary ways. I don't think this is anywhere near as important as being able to easily access the contained product, and this I believe I would be happier if all liquid shower products had cap on bottom designs. Please try to convince me that the cap on top design has redeeming qualities, so I can stop being annoyed by them.","conclusion":"\"Cap on top\" shampoo, etc., is a worse design than \"cap on bottom\""}
{"id":"6526aba9-8961-4671-9e13-26e615641deb","argument":"\"Treaty of Lisbon. The Treaty at a glance\". Europa. - \"Improving the life of Europeans: the Treaty of Lisbon improves the EU's ability to act in several policy areas of major priority for today's Union and its citizens. This is the case in particular for the policy areas of freedom, security and justice, such as combating terrorism or tackling crime. It also concerns to some extent other areas including energy policy, public health, civil protection, climate change, services of general interest, research, space, territorial cohesion, commercial policy, humanitarian aid, sport, tourism and administrative cooperation.\"","conclusion":"Lisbon Treaty strengthens the EU's ability to secure Europe"}
{"id":"d68c1b41-7721-4706-9bb9-71ff7555161f","argument":"Mike Pence is less divisive than Trump. He would be able to pass legislation, and maintain a unified strategy to governance, and have the knowledge necessary to tackle all the issues, unlike Trump. We would see less government shutdowns, less failures to compromise between both sides, etc. Pence is less likely to end up shooting or triggering North Korea to shoot nuclear missiles. He has more connections and relationships with the people in Congress, having rep'd in there for a few years. He would not tell as many lies, would not spread the seeds of mistrust and hatred as much, and would do less harm to the institutions of American democracy. Edits A discussion on Donald Trump's issues, compared to Pence. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Mike Pence would be a better President than Donald Trump."}
{"id":"62a672aa-f841-4058-aef6-69bc06fd8e4a","argument":"This would acknowledge the existing power of wealth affecting elections and elected officials. The system would be more transparent and money used for bribes would find better use.","conclusion":"Those who pay more tax should have an increased number of votes."}
{"id":"afff6f5a-3f5d-43a7-beb3-c0e259272fde","argument":"First off its victim blaming to an extent and she is wrong. Second off, aren't rapists the most bated people in the world. This post Enjoying rape a woman\u2019s point of view, legalize rape dominance and abuse. The first article is on how a women gets off on rape as she has had experience, the second is ways to legalize rape, and the third one is women should be abused this women needs serious help and if i joke, its sick. this post disturbed me and infuriate me and I all want to know is why would this women think this way. I think she is sick for being this way. All I thought about was victims o people in general seeing this and thought, why is this poor women thinking thistle way and her friends, how did she become this way, etc. I think she needs to rethink here right and wrong morals because her morals don't make sense","conclusion":"I believe this women is sick and needs help"}
{"id":"84b8a057-3e86-4ce8-b161-0c7b973ce604","argument":"Every claim of observable features of the world that point to the actions of gods or other mythical beings has been shown to be caused by natural means. While theists believe the origin of the natural world is a miracle, empirical facts point to natural explanations for the origins of life, Earth, and the universe without need to appeal to any mythological explanation. For those hoping to find empirical evidence for their faith, \"God of the Gaps\" is the only fundamentally flawed proposal left.","conclusion":"There is no demonstrable scientific evidence that proves the existence of God."}
{"id":"04015a20-4976-44d8-9710-5efc61984e7b","argument":"In children we can see this emerging, as they are spending less time outdoors neglecting them these health and social benefits and more time indoors on video games.","conclusion":"Games are a means of maintaining deficient social relationships, which inevitably replace real, face-to-face relationships with other humans."}
{"id":"61b38616-af27-470c-a5e4-4a69f497a326","argument":"I often observe either in the media or through social interactions the growing viewpoint that no one should ever use the term 'rape' for any description other than actual rape. This, of course, is severely contradicted by online players who freely use the word rape. Although I admit I do not feel too strongly of my viewpoint, I don't think that the term 'rape' should be looked down upon to describe something. I do not view the term 'rape' any better or worse than I view any other phrase that may allude to events equally or even more tragic. For instance, I do not think the phrase we just raped their team is any better or worse than we just murdered their team or their team, never forget, alluding to the political phrase of national tragedies. The first phrase might attract violent outcry while the second two would be completely fine. The argument I hear of the opposing individual is usually something along the lines of you've never been raped you do not know how traumatic the experience is, or something along those lines. How is murder being used in the phrase any more acceptable than rape? How is using national tragedies like 9 11 more acceptable than rape? The 9 11 incident was after a friend made a joke about never forget to which I asked whether he thought the term rape is acceptable to use which he answered no, which I felt was completely hypocritical . Let me end by saying I am completely against rape culture I want complete gender equality. Anyway, to stop rambling, please change my view.","conclusion":"I don't think using the term 'rape' is as bad as people make it out to be."}
{"id":"75a9e6ec-79e1-4a4a-849d-8d817f4145b9","argument":"The absence of a presently adequate explanation is not reason to assume there is no adequate natural explanation. Every explanation we currently have was true and adequate before we understood it.","conclusion":"Teleological arguments based on the existence of specific things are nullified if natural explanations are discovered for those things."}
{"id":"e5256abc-c652-4b6e-900c-f3cfa9318394","argument":"A general A.I. would observe humans as we observe ants in anthill. It will only be a matter of time before it \"experiments\" on the subject - humans.","conclusion":"There is the chance an AGI might be able to think for itself and turn on its creators."}
{"id":"4b605ee1-583f-43a4-97a2-047e054f223d","argument":"The help is mainly issued to promote a capitalist and imperialistic economic system. Often only the ruling class of a country benefits from foreign aid and it is contributing to corruption and inequality.","conclusion":"Foreign aid and especially the world bank are used to influence and exploit poorer countries."}
{"id":"f3b525d7-3bd5-4a17-b392-18ebc7946bb5","argument":"In today's world there is a lot of progress in the tecnology about the mobile phones. AS the computer's, now mobile's retated sholud be also taught to the students and should made thm aware about its bad and good effects.","conclusion":"Mobile phone use as a subject in school as computer is there."}
{"id":"a8faf81f-3334-4b14-9628-55521897f73c","argument":"A welfare state is an acknowledgement of a broken economic model rather than a solution in itself.","conclusion":"There should be no welfare state, so a more just system could emerge."}
{"id":"c28159f2-7a3a-44a4-acb9-3649d940b212","argument":"Pregnant minors would be prevented to abort for the sake of the underaged father and could concentrate on their own feelings.","conclusion":"Parental consent is required for the sake of the minor."}
{"id":"58ebafc3-3975-4a3d-9694-bef3c1a1df38","argument":"Faith has a positive position for the unknown. The unknown is accepted as part of the world and can exist alongside the scientific and rational. Whereas science treats the void as a negative, the thing outside of knowledge.","conclusion":"Belief that miracles exist in no way rejects the validity of reason and science. It is merely an understanding that not all things in human experience fall within the grasp of empirical tools."}
{"id":"67a11b48-cbb6-458f-910d-7a2d63e55ebd","argument":"When a mature adult consents to sex, pregnancy is a foreseeable risk. Mitigating that risk with birth control only seems to further acknowledge that the risk is present. It certainly does not negate it. A mature adult also knows that birth control is fallible. So consenting to sex, is consenting to the foreseeable possibility of pregnancy, even where it is not strictly intended. Someone does not always intend to commit a crime negligence but if the consequence of some action or inaction leads to that result, and the result was reasonably foreseeable, than we I believe tend to hold people accountable for that action. Note I am not saying anything about abortion, I take a pro choice stance generally. I am not saying the woman has the sole responsibility to any children that are born either. Ok, have at it,  I will be out for most of the day, but will check back to view responses when I get a chance today .","conclusion":"I believe that if a person consents to sex, they consent to the possibility of pregnancy"}
{"id":"b02b6a05-0c62-42ba-a380-05304d173569","argument":"My grandfather often uses racist slurs, gay bashes and has told me multiple things others go to hell for which I have done and both him and my grandmother have been very pushy. Even went out of their way to buy me a bible and text me everyday about reading it. Now the reason I'm not interested is because I don't have the same mentality as them. I disagree with the racial slurs, I believe that gay couples are not going to be banished to hell because they are happy and unfortunately I have tried to take my life before while using plenty of drugs, I was told I had no redemption to get into heaven after my actions by any Christian I asked hypothetically if a person did such and such what happens? . But this is where I might piss people off I just simply don't believe in a higher power, I see it as a way people comfort themselves because they are scared of death but want to be rest assured they are taken care of if there is an afterlife or they have sinned in the past and see that following the Bible can help them be a better person, which is great Nothing against that. But both my parents and grandparents think I'm insane because our beliefs don't align. I'm sorry about not being more clear with what I wanted I want to get my view changed on my lack of belief I have of the Bible and my lack of belief in a higher power. I am ignorant on this topic and want to maybe know why you believe in it and good reasons why I should give it a chance. Edit 2 Thank you for all the replies It made me feel a lot better about the situation and you all are very intelligent I will be trying to give the Bible's a few reads but I believe in what I believe in, the worst thing that'll happen is I'll get a better understanding of the whole thing.","conclusion":"My grandparents are pushing the Bible on me and I'm seen as a bad person because my beliefs aren't on par with their beliefs change my view."}
{"id":"604a7007-dd93-490d-b1ff-1a6ef69c924b","argument":"Old circus freak shows took people with unusual disabilities or physical conditions and put them on display for people to gawk at. Today at least in first world countries that kind of thing would be unacceptable because of how degrading it is to the performers . Shows like Dr. Phil are not much different from a freak show. Many people appearing on the show are clearly in need of therapy and Dr. Phil is a psychologist but I feel like this is just a facade used to make viewers feel like this is an acceptable way of presenting people with mental disorders on television. I don't feel like any therapist would recommend for a therapy session to be conducted in front of millions of people. On top of that recently it appears that people are being rewarded with social media stardom for their unusual behavior which is probably the opposite of what is needed for their health. And just to be clear I think it is important to show people with mental and physical disabilities in media and there are respectful ways of doing it. Dr. Phil and similar shows are just not it.","conclusion":"Dr. Phil and similar TV shows are the modern, socially acceptable equivalent of circus freak shows"}
{"id":"96db9319-5dc3-44c1-bb1b-a8a34a8b83fe","argument":"Its well and good he exposed some things about his own country. However he should have stayed in the United States and accepted the consequences of his actions. This would have shown that Snowden understood the consequences of his actions and willing to be tried on why he did those things, and worked within the system to change it. Snowden has completely fled the system, to Russia a nation which to this day continues practices which are the exact antithesis of what Snowden supposedly represents. This brings me to my next point, by accepting Putin's patronage Snowden has become his pet. Putin is allowing Snowden to stay in Russia because it suites Russian intrests. Furthermore it is not fully known the stipulations Putin placed on Snowden to stay in Russia. Snowden staying Russia invites suspicions that he handed over intelligence on America and her Allies in exchange for Russian clemency. Some Recent leaks have begun to work for Russia for example It is in Russia's best interest for them to further drive a wedge in already aggravated Australian Indonesian relations ahead of Russia negotiating for placing Glonass Russian GPS Installations in that area of the world. Snowden has leaked information that damages international credibility from Germany to Australia and every American Ally in between. This would seem to indicate that Snowden is now acting as an Agent of the Russian Federation, by damaging the interests of his country and her allies abroad to suit Russian purposes. Spycraft has been part of the world since the dawn of conflict and exposing intergovernmental spying only further deteriorates precarious situations. Much like the Bradley Manning leaks before him which leaked diplomatic documents that all powerful nations keep. These Leaks do more harm than good, and only expose a single side of very complex coin. Snowden is perhaps more dangerous than Manning because his benefactors are not Wikileaks but the Russian Government. Russia is 148th out of 179 countries in the Press Freedom Index from Reporters Without Borders whereas the United States is ranked 32nd. Russia has extreme issues with censorship, government secrecy and basic human rights abuses far beyond the United States. By Accepting Russian aid Snowden is not only a traitor to his country but a traitor to the ideas he supposedly represents.","conclusion":"Edward Snowden is a traitor"}
{"id":"e47a8c76-d805-4167-b19e-e4480177552c","argument":"There is compelling evidence that Putin has been involved to a significant degree in providing substantial financial \"material\" to support the Leave option, in the form of the services of the troll army \"Internet Research Agency\" in St Petersburg.","conclusion":"There should be a final vote on the Brexit deal because previously unavailable information, which has the ability to influence votes, is available now."}
{"id":"cc6669d5-be17-46f4-af17-2bf70e1e7e12","argument":"Twice during the battle of Yavin Luke would have been killed if not for the actions of other characters. In the first instance he is saved by Wedge Antillies, and in the second by the intervention of Han Solo. Luke's own piloting abilities were not up to the task.","conclusion":"In \"A new Hope\" Luke is frequently in need of saving by other characters."}
{"id":"b4135fe7-5681-4b98-85aa-3f96e78aae19","argument":"Some communities and groups have suffered abuse and\/or death in the name of religion. E.g. murder of LGBTQ, abuse of disabled children, removal of freedoms for women, child marriages, etc.","conclusion":"People have been led to do terrible things in the name of religion."}
{"id":"98deb0b5-ebea-4349-91ca-bf438d57c2f9","argument":"My reasoning is that humans have been eating meat since the beginning of time or better yet animals have been eating meat forever and we as humans are animals are we not? So why substitute meat for the much less nutritiousness plants when we have always been eating meat. Also meat is so tasty if you had every tried it I don't believe anyone would ever want to go back. I also just realized this is most likely a very popular  but I already wrote this and I'm lazy so I guess I'll just keep it. Can someone please just tell me why go against the food chain?","conclusion":"I believe that vegatrians are weird because they don't eat meat."}
{"id":"e36303f8-e7c7-465f-ab37-98afa0c531ce","argument":"In his first 10 months in office, Trump told 103 separate untruths, many of them repeatedly. Obama told 18 over his entire eight-year tenure. That\u2019s an average of about two a year for Obama and about 124 a year for Trump.","conclusion":"Commentators and fact-checkers have described the rate of Trump's falsehoods as unprecedented in politics."}
{"id":"4a512183-515d-4e2c-a460-1b1018a4c0c4","argument":"Where children have a close relationship with their parents, they are more likely to engage in safe sex practices as a teenager and have lower use of alcohol, tobacco and marijuana.","conclusion":"The parent \/ child relationship is one of the most important relationships for a child."}
{"id":"4709383d-a799-4870-a88c-afbf4526a9cb","argument":"No state has ever been able to impose alien political institutions on the Afghani people, whether by force or by flattery. The Russians tried and so did the British, but neither was successful. In fact, the greatest massacre of British soldiers happened in Afghanistan in 1842. The British then awarded these tribesmen with fancy titles and the Khyber pass was thereafter protected by Pakistani and Afghan tribes the ancestors of the Mujahadeen & then the Taliban. The border between Pakistan and Afghanistan was thus never manned by British soldiers. More than 16,000 people had set out on the retreat from Kabul, and in the end only one man, Dr. William Brydon, a British Army surgeon made it alive to Jalalabad.1 The Russians threw bombs, tanks, landmines and napalm at the Afghan guerrilla army, the Mujahadeen. They killed around half a million people, injured many more but they still faced dismal defeat in the Soviet war in Afghanistan in the 1980's. Therefore before the situation spirals out of control, the British and the Americans should commence a power sharing deal with the Taliban.2 The opposition may argue that the Taliban cannot be trusted. Nine insurgents are very capable of fibbing about the Pakistani intelligence. There is no way that funds siphoned off from any clandestine secret intelligence agency can realistically be traced to it. Word of mouth, especially when the mouth belongs to the enemy is rarely credible. Therefore negotiating with the Taliban directly feels ineffective. They might argue that talks solely with Pakistani-Afghan government representatives is a rather more feasible and less dangerous means of achieving the coalition's desired end. However, such talks frequented have borne little fruit. In fact Pakistan and Afghanistan are both pushing for talks including the Taliban if any progression towards peace is to be made. The coalition's ancestors were wise. 1 Robert McNamara, \u00abBritain's Disastrous Retreat from Kabul\u00bb, 2 \u00abObama Will Vow Troops Leaving by July 2011\u00bb, CBSNEWS, December 1, 2009 9:35 PM, Updated 3:44 p.m. ET,","conclusion":"Afghan history shows failings of foreign invasion, so this campaign is also doomed to failure."}
{"id":"8ac250ef-50df-4b30-8566-4fb8c80b4f60","argument":"So we've all heard the women's right to choose arguments on the topic of abortion and I get that. I understand that people want complete control of their body. What I can't wrap my head around is how people can morally justify abortion. You are killing an unborn, defenseless child. A child that cannot speak for itself. A child that will have hopes and dreams just as you have hopes and dreams but you're not even giving it the chance at life. How is this any worse than murder? There are other viable options other than abortion when it comes to deciding what to do about an unwanted pregnancy. You could always consider adoption. Human life is not something that can be tossed out like a tissue. An embryo is a human, a future human, and if you're going to snuff it out like a candle then I do believe that you're going to have to live with that guilt. So Reddit, Change my view. I am fairly rooted in this opinion but I would really like to hear your thoughts on this. Edit I have read all of your comments and I am going to digest what I think of it. Edit 2 So I think I need to make something clear because I am getting alot of the same things from everyone. I have nothing against a woman's choice to do what she wants with her child, I just think you have to recognize that you are, in fact, depriving a future human of it future potential and that is not something that should be taken lightly Edit 3 I really appreciate your opinions and though I still don't think it can me justified, I have been able to see what you all think. You have convinced me in some areas and rooted me in others. I really do appreciate your responses. Thanks.","conclusion":"I believe abortion cannot be morally justified."}
{"id":"c8041f6f-dede-43cc-b564-9697881382c1","argument":"This also leads people to not question the rationale behind potentially harmful norms due to fear of social backlash.","conclusion":"This is not a good thing. Coercing people to conform limits their freedom and autonomy."}
{"id":"9abacbd9-1d4a-4d0d-840a-5ef941152ed5","argument":"Robert Meyer, Renew America Columnist. \"Why Capital Punishment is Pro-Life\". Renew America. 20 Sept. 2004 - \"The commandment, 'Thou shalt not kill,' has been a source of great confusion. Most modern translations of the Bible have corrected the Hebrew translation to English rendering, 'Thou shalt commit no murder.\" This is an important distinction in the context of the death penalty, as the death penalty cannot be described as \"murder\". Therefore, the Bible does not forbid the death penalty.","conclusion":"\"Thou shall not kill\" means \"thou shall not murder\"; executions okay"}
{"id":"b88242e1-ba23-4995-8a23-c7a491b01816","argument":"Toward the end of the Brotherhoods book in Part 2- Chap 9 where it talks about how neither side tries to win the war or wants anything to change, it makes the point over and over for several pages.","conclusion":"It often rambles, making the same point over and over within the same chapter\/paragraph."}
{"id":"e46d9db6-64e6-4285-b1a9-1ac1e2c35327","argument":"There is a long winded explanation to this, but in short the lack of evidence of any alien life is extremely damning evidence to the existence of other space faring species in the galaxy. This is for two reasons. One a species can capture mosy of a stars energy with simple technology, and almost all species looking to expand at all will do this. Secondly, within a galaxy the distances are not nearly great enough to explain why an expanding space faring species hasn't been to and possibly exploited every solar system. So basically evidence for intelligent life should be extremely obvious, and a lack of any evidence suggests that their is none out there. Also, this obviously assumes our understanding of physics doesn't change in a way that explains away the need for a species to expand at all.","conclusion":"The galaxy is most likely devoid of intelligent life, or at least intelligent life capable of space flight."}
{"id":"ea1db444-e5d0-4a5e-9a8b-b53e902db6a9","argument":"The battle on Crait with the contrast between white desert and red salt is visually one of the most distinct of the saga.","conclusion":"It has the best cinematography any Star Wars film ever had."}
{"id":"b68c5ab4-6b06-4f4d-a254-f9eb5293b1f5","argument":"This implies that it's more important for Scottish voters to be a part of the UK than it is to remain in the EU.","conclusion":"Opinion on whether Scotland should be independent does not seem to have significantly changed because of Brexit."}
{"id":"d32fb665-1e09-4fc0-8503-56a22f2b5092","argument":"Cultural relativism states that the morality of an action is determined solely by its cultural contexts.","conclusion":"Morality can't be transcendent, because different moral standards apply to different historical contexts."}
{"id":"df6cc490-0200-4eff-af16-da730493655c","argument":"Research shows that drugs studied on mice often fail when tried on humans. The practicality of mice is irrelevant if using mice does not translate into real discoveries in human genetics.","conclusion":"Animal studies do not effectively translate into beneficial discoveries for humans. It is therefore better for resources to be reallocated in human studies."}
{"id":"80788ed3-398b-4048-a1c8-242b3bfff283","argument":"OK, so, full spoilers at the end of the movie, Nathan gets stabbed and dies. The movie seems like it presents this as a karmic ending, but I can't see anything he's done that's wrong besides the standard privacy violations that he's done which he makes clear that any phone manufacturing company could have made public but chose not to. He's the one that makes the robots and the AI possibly with some outside help, but that's irrelevant to the movie . All the robots and AIs are his creations, based on his research. Nothing that he does to his creations is morally wrong, because at least up to a certain level of prototyping, they're just objects the highest crime you could ascribe to him is animal cruelty, in the same way that it would be cruel to kick a puppy that you personally cloned in a vat. The robots can't have human standards of morality and victimhood applied to them because it's explicit in the film that they aren't human Ava essentially has access to all of Google, and is a walking lie detector, and probably has numerous other functions or lack of that distinguish her from being human. She's also shown that she has little regard for morality of her own by leaving Caleb to starve at the end of the movie. When Nathan tries to club the robots to death at the end, he's making the correct decision if he had succeeded he'd have managed to prevent the deaths of at least two people himself and Caleb .","conclusion":"Spoilers in full post In the movie Ex Machina, tech wizard Nathan did nothing morally wrong besides stealing facial recognition data"}
{"id":"d7455180-3e97-4909-a8fd-5ad87ffd9d99","argument":"Due to the simplicity of the FairTax, elected officials will be less willing to use the tax code to fund pet projects. Today 10\/3\/17 there are 3,303 tax code proposals to the current congress 115th. govtrack.us","conclusion":"The FairTax is simple and cheap for the government to administer."}
{"id":"c173c8bb-bef6-468c-97be-55b578317f4a","argument":"This is further complicated by a change in crime reporting standards in 2002, which made data from after that point incomparable to data from before that point Home Office p46. In effect, this change increased the numbers of all recorded crime, by requiring police officers to accept victim accounts and report them into the data unless they had evidence they were false.","conclusion":"The initial spike is almost entirely due to an initial spike in reported crimes involving air guns Home Office p36, which largely concerns reports of property damage, not interpersonal damage Home Office p45"}
{"id":"b9185e77-8d06-4e5b-a066-afb0fd6bfd7e","argument":"ISIS supporters should be tried in a way that takes into account that many terrorists are sponsored by their home countries. This would allow terrorists to share their views on how they were recruited, etc. and would hold the state sponsors accountable for their involvement.","conclusion":"ISIS supporters should be tried and convicted in the countries where they committed their crimes."}
{"id":"610a086b-6056-493c-9dfc-77662262a47e","argument":"I know this is a controversial statement, but it\u2019s how I feel. I am not talking about someone that is odd or quirky looking. I\u2019m talking about just overall crappy genetics. Granted natural selection takes care of us by no one wanting to reproduce with us. Unattractive people go through life being bullied, mistreated, and rejected. Granted unattractive people can produce average to attractive children the odds are much lower. In my opinion unattractive people should be responsible and not reproduce.","conclusion":"Unattractive people should not reproduce"}
{"id":"e8318774-e31a-4fd5-af0f-711dc8e0eff0","argument":"\"The basis of Hume\u2019s exposition is a twofold classification of objects of awareness. In the first place, all such objects are either \u201cimpressions,\u201d data of sensation or of internal consciousness, or \u201cideas,\u201d derived from such data by compounding, transposing, augmenting, or diminishing. That is to say, the mind does not create any ideas but derives them from impressions.\" source of quote","conclusion":"David Hume remarked that all uses of the human imagination come from our observations of the external world."}
{"id":"1f2cf936-6438-484a-81b9-4f1739517928","argument":"I came across this piece When Playing Video Games Go Too Far The two pieces, collectively, seem to suggest that addiction to video games requires particular attention and the latter goes on to criticize the fact games are sold with minimal regulation. My view involves two facets One, if we pursue regulation of video games not sure what form they envision this regulation taking , then we should consider regulating all sorts of behavior that lend themselves to addictive personalities. I realize that we do regulate some addictive behaviors cigarettes and gambling . But there are a slew of activities that currently remain unregulated, and should remain unregulated, like shopping, sex, Internet, body modification tattoos or piercings or plastic surgery , eating, and work. Any of those could be harmful in the extreme, but I don't think the average person believes that the government or some other entity has a right to intervene. Further, any such intervention would be an expense that wouldn't be justified by the benefit. The numbers I'm finding suggest that the number of gamers suffering from video game addiction is extremely small, and those are numbers based on the gaming population. Second, aside from being a pointless overreach, this approach seems woefully misguided to me. Someone who is likely to become addicted to video games is likely to become addicted due to an inherent inclination that can apply to all sorts of normal behaviors. I think regulation of video games would only be a superficial bandaid that fails to resolve the underlying causes for the addictive inclinations. I believe this piece effectively makes the case that video games are not, themselves, problematic Video Games Aren\u2019t Addictive Ways that my view might be changed include, but are not limited to Demonstrating that video game regulation would be effective and is necessary in a way that is distinct from the other, unregulated, addictive behaviors. Demonstrating that video game addiction is, itself, a distinct and relatively more harmful addictive behavior and or treating the symptoms is a sensible approach. Rebutting the case against video addiction as a separate classification laid out in the second link. Additionally, for purposes of this prompt, my argument is limited to the idea that if we were to regulate video games, we should be expected to regulate those other addictive behaviors. The viability of regulating those other behaviors however is not a concern. So showing that we should regulate video games but not those other behaviors may also be sufficient. If there are any uncertainties related to my view, I'll happily clarify. But feel free to argue a singular interpretation or both, and I'll return the favor. This was a somewhat impromptu line of thinking so I realize there may be gaps in my reasoning. The scope of my argument is limited to regulation of video games outside the context of parent children or similarly intimate dynamics from my view. tl dr regulation of video games, for mitigating video game addiction is, at best, a waste of time and, at worst, an excessive overreach into people's personal lives.","conclusion":"Regulation of video games, for purposes of combating addiction, is needlessly paternalistic and fails to address the underlying problems."}
{"id":"62ea7ddd-0d5b-4e8c-b3f0-e74fe8cc19f2","argument":"The electoral college nullifies the votes of individuals that disagree with the majority of their state. Take the 2016 election, for example. Clinton received 60% of the popular vote in New York but won all 29 electoral votes. She got 100% of the electoral votes with only 60% of the popular vote. That's 12 unearned electoral votes from NY which is enough to negate the electoral votes from several smaller states, not to mention the 40% of NYers whose vote was rendered irrelevant.","conclusion":"Many states use a winner-takes-all system where a candidate could get 51% of the vote, but all of the electoral college vote."}
{"id":"433e489c-a106-42d7-ad06-607203ebd908","argument":"This is kind of a difficult thing for me to have to admit, and I'm making this post because I feel like I want all life to be sacred, but I'm starting to doubt that. Without going into too much detail, I'm a person who works with developmentally disabled adults. I have seen and met many of them. I would say that at almost all of them are not living meaningful lives. They have no family or friends who seem to have any interest in contact with them. I used to think that at least the fact that they have staff like us would offer some meaning for their lives, but as I've worked more closely with several of them, I'm learning that many of them see staff as just that staff. Maids, chefs, that's about it. They seem to have just enough cognitive ability to recognize that they have people who cater to their needs, but aside from that they indulge in unhealthy and selfish behavior with a low ability to understand ideas and concepts, or have a conversation that would qualify as minimally meaningful. Neither can they engage in any normal activities that a neurotypical person would be able to engage in. Unusual situations cause them great distress discomfort at best, huge meltdowns at worst. I'm afraid to expand any more than that for fear of violating HIPAA laws, but suffice to say, it would be hard to argue that they're living meaningful lives. It's truly tragic, because I feel like they had the same potential as the rest of us, but a malformed neurological foundation has left them incapable of living a meaningful life, and therefore I wouldn't call their lives sacred . Tragic, maybe. I'm just wondering if anyone had any insight who maybe works in this same industry, or a similar one medical with a viewpoint or opinion on this that I might not have considered. I don't want to put a huge wall of text on here, I know some of you have been in situations or environments similar to mine and you likely aren't so fatalistic cynical. Please, change my view. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Not all Human life is sacred."}
{"id":"2e7c5774-62c6-480e-966c-0d94b46835ed","argument":"Given their previous strategies when not in power, it is unlikely that Republicans will try and work with Democrats.","conclusion":"There is little hope for bipartisan legislation in the future."}
{"id":"a864f00e-d52a-42b5-aec1-2f12f07b0681","argument":"Sometimes I imagine this hypothetical scenario. Suppose we are puppet like beings and that we see, with our puppet eyes, strings attached to our body which move our body and clearly imply that we don't have free choice. Even for that scenario I think the puppet version of me would still continue to believe that it have free choice and that it exists. Coming to our world which seems more complex and such conclusion should be harder why do people jump to it? I think it is irrational. The reasoning behind of my view is because when I don't have a free choice or I don't exist it does not matter what my actions or beliefs because after all I don't exist. However it would be kinda sad for a free creature to believe that he and the others like him are not free. tl dr you are only wrong if you exist. Edit This comment by me may explain my view the best. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"It is irrational to believe that you don't exist or that you don't have a free choice even if that seems to you almost certain."}
{"id":"aa74d3eb-a555-400e-8307-1d4acad35a63","argument":"Property valuers possess good knowledge of the market and evaluate the actual market value of the property most accurately, meaning that the owners get the most accurate valuation of their property.","conclusion":"Professional property valuers are qualified, with the necessary knowledge and experience to properly carry out the task."}
{"id":"9b7fe7f3-113a-46d2-9106-7d7111af048c","argument":"Ever since \u0141ukasiewicz proved that the objective probability of a strictly universal statement approaches zero and Carnap and Popper each rediscovered the proof , I see a fork. Either 1 Bayesians embrace an objective interpretation of the probability calculus and give a vanishingly low credence to scientific theories that have a high degree of corroboration. 2 Bayesians embrace a subjective interpretation of the probability calculus and give a high credence to scientific theories with a high degree of corroboration. If 1 , then objective Bayesians should not believe highly corroborated scientific theories if 2 , the assigned credence does not reflect the objective probability of the scientific theory the assigned credence reflects the assigned prior. 1 isn't palatable if probability is, as Bayesians think, ampliative 2 isn't palatable because Bayesianism loses any normative force it becomes a description of the psychological conviction of any agent. And, as Goodman notes, so long as two theories R and S are equally corroborated at t 1 but make divergent forecasts at t 2, the preference for R over S or S over R is dictated solely by the assigned priors, not the available evidence before t 2. So what use is a subjective interpretation if it doesn't give normative force to preferences? I'm not interested in what a scientist believes R or S before t 2 I'm interested in whether the scientist ought to believe R or S before t 2, that is, whether R is in fact more or less probable than S. Yes, I know that 2 can work under some accounts of Solomonoff induction, but it's so question begging that I'm at a loss why anyone thinks it would work unless they think humans have an infinite amount of time. But we don't. So Solomonoff induction isn't a viable out for subjective interpretations. I could go on, but I hope you get the idea. I'm all for accepting Bayesian accounts when in the betting hall, I think Gillies' work on the intersubjective interpretation is helpful when comparing a subject's belief to their peers, and there is nothing wrong with accepting a subjective account of Bayesianism if one is interested in describing belief revision, so I'm a pluralist when it comes to accepting interpretations, but I'm really at a loss as to its normative appeal when these problems have been in the literature since 1909. And seriously, cribbing from Less Wrong won't likely help.","conclusion":"I think subjective interpretations of the probability calculus should not be applied to assessing our credence in scientific theories."}
{"id":"9b9c79e4-68e0-4519-ac6e-5f80ebfc086e","argument":"Religion typically serves as major tradition for our rites of passage and thus structure life, make transience understandable and therewith enable the individual to make deliberate choices of provided opportunities.","conclusion":"Religion is not necessarily a bad thing as long as it is not practiced in a radical matter. Most American polygamists however could be described as fundamentalists."}
{"id":"69c34186-ed82-48b1-9543-81e67db894b4","argument":"There's a popular idea that acts of terrorism against the US are in part or fully stemmed from previous military campaigns in the Middle East. The Well, you had it coming argument. I believe that idea is incredibly racist. I think it promotes the notion that brown people are too stupid to have their own agendas and everything they do must be a consequence of something that happened decades ago that they'll be eternal pawns in a chess game between the great white powers. Groups like al Qaeda do the things they do because they have their own agenda, and to blame the US and the West for their actions is a disservice to their victims.","conclusion":"I believe the people who blame 9\/11 on the US for previous meddling in the Middle-East are racists."}
{"id":"ef663362-0572-4a17-bb5d-ca98f5eca68d","argument":"People who are ill may feel a lack of control over their bodies and circumstances Rodri\u0301guez-Prat et al., p. 15 This gives them back some of that control by ensuring that they do not have to suffer longer than they want to.","conclusion":"It is central to personal autonomy and bodily integrity that each person is able to embrace a timely and dignified death on their own terms."}
{"id":"ae015c30-a280-40c7-92e9-e5c747044def","argument":"Currently many of the most successful businesses in the early legal cannabis space have been based in Canada or other countries.","conclusion":"Legalizing drugs could help to secure the investment portfolios of investors across the country and further afield as well."}
{"id":"08600d0c-be04-4e11-8a12-0fb0c4f199e7","argument":"Why not limit or eliminate incentives for illegals to circumvent proper immigration procedures? How about a gradual implementation of stiff penalties for employers hiring illegals? How about a cutoff date for medical benefits provided to illegals. I understand cutting them off immediately is a bit harsh, but say a highly advertised cutoff date of a year or two would give illegals plenty of time to gather the necessary resources to leave. The opportunity and value of a life in this country seems to be worth circumventing something as simple as a wall. edit Title should be efficient ways, not effective, as a giant impenetrable wall would most certainly be the most effective way but not the most efficient.","conclusion":"There are more effective ways of stopping illegal immigration than building a giant wall."}
{"id":"87782228-5e50-4e62-bf32-6fe5e086973c","argument":"Taxation is coercive and theft. No one should have their ius naturale to property violated; whatever the goal is. Charity must be voluntary.","conclusion":"This implies that happiness trumps the morality of not stealing since welfare systems are generally supported by taxes."}
{"id":"f335d64e-652b-42c1-97e4-3fc9eb4dd32e","argument":"I realized today that I have been in blind agreement with upholding net neutrality without truly understanding both the short and long term implication of repealing it. Clearly a highly polarizing topic today. My goal here is to understand the full spectrum not to assert that my point is more correct. My argument We've all seen the picto infographs illustrating the potential consequence of repealing net neutrality. This and this come to mind. Sorry for the weird hosts, I pulled both directly from a post on net neutrality from a sports blog. These make it extremely easy to understand that the repeal gives large companies power to throttle data and potentially control the flow of information. It seems to me, however, that there is an upside that isn't really being popularized on reddit or elsewhere. We are all operating under the assumption that these large companies which many of course have a history of having a single focus on profitability above customer experience are going to act maliciously in order to increase profit without rendering better services. So to put it into perspective, the common theory is that internet companies will take current max internet speed, let's call it speed 1 , the premium service, charge more for it, and then charge a lower price for a throttled speed. Let's call it 0.5 . Based on the history of some of the larger comm companies, not exactly an unreasonable assumption to make. HOWEVER With net neutrality in place, these companies have much less of an incentive to create new infrastructure to earn the business of potential consumers. With less regulation, every single ISP, both large and small, have a greater incentive not only to improve technology and infrastructure but also to increase their outreach and provide competition to the areas that have limited options for providers as any large company that chooses to gouge prices opens themselves up to losing business to companies that are looking to expand their market share in the US. Not a soul was against the USPS when they green lit next day delivery service for an increased price. With less regulation, companies are further incentivized to create new technology with greater internet speeds because there will presumably be increased levels of competition. So instead of paying the same for speed 0.5 , now we are opening ourselves up to paying more but for a greater service. Let's call it speed 2 . Further Freedom of speech is very much still within the US constitution. It is a commonly promoted statement that repealing net neutrality will render the FCC useless or less useful in regulating what these large companies do. What is often left out is that the very same regulatory ability will be put in the hands of the FTC, arguably the commission that should at very least be involved in regulating what these large comm companies are doing to begin with. TL DR sort of If everyone hates three fifths of the FCC, and repealing net neutrality strips them of much of their power as it pertains to regulating large communication companies, even if net neutrality was upheld doesn't that just leave the people who everyone claims to regularly make terrible decisions in power to continue to make those same decisions? gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Despite the immediate short-term impact repealing net neutrality will have on the consumer, the long-term impact will be largely positive and encourage growth."}
{"id":"11b237ba-1c98-4009-8ab8-6d3128ae335a","argument":"I believe this for a lot of reasons. But I'm thinking that the biggest reason is that I simply haven't heard a convincing argument to give it up. Some personal beliefs that go along with this please attack these as well People have good reasons to act morally. People's moral weight is contingent on their mental states. Moral intuitions should be distrusted wherever inconsistencies arise. And they should probably be distrusted in some cases when inconsistencies do not arise. Hoping to be convinced So please, make arguments, not assertions gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"That classical, hedonistic, utilitarianism is basically correct as a moral theory."}
{"id":"6d8d48bb-b7a6-4ed6-a27d-5a024e847b54","argument":"We've already seen what happens to the world when humans take an artificial route - as the claim mentions about climate change - which comes from artificial activities like growing food and using vehicles instead of eating what grows naturally and using our bodies to get around like walking or running. Because the mass-scale led to mass destruction, this potential risk could happen again.","conclusion":"Transhumanism implies loss in the natural equilibrium due to artificial changes in humanity which is an important actor in the system ~ as effects in nature show, i.e. climate change. An option is to include nature in changes made to a whole system as a sort of transnature, to allow for the collective evolution and minimization of potential risks of the imbalance."}
{"id":"175dabab-13ce-476d-b839-c70dc555384c","argument":"If we follow the reductionist tradition when looking at someones' consciousness we can say that our consciousness is nothing more and nothing less than the sum of our parts. If we manage to copy someones' brain structure and put this in a synthetic body, a reductionist would hold that the consciousness that this synth possesses is exactly the same as the consciousness of the person it was copied from. However, this Synth has an artificial body, not an 'organic' one think of the synths from Fallout 4, but even more advanced . This is a very important distinction for my argumentation as you will see. If we follow Nagel in What it's like to be a bat , I uphold from his argumentation that there is something more to human consciousness. Now, I don't mean something dualistic or a soul or anything, I think that there is something intrinsic, something unique as Nagel would say, to be human. For the Bat, this would be the echolocation, but for Man, I personally think this special something is the sum of all its senses and all its individual cells including the Brain itself a pretty reductionist position . Now, if we take the synth again, his body is comparable to ours, his brain structure is exactly the same albeit non organic , his nerve system is exactly the same, but it's all synthetic. It's not made from individual, living cells. It is in my opinion exactly this distinction in organic and non organic which will ensure that the consciousness it possesses is not human consciousness, but rather synthetic consciousness which makes it comparable, but not the same. Therefore, if you put you and the synthetic next to each other, you can't say they're the same person when referring to their identity, not their body. change my view","conclusion":"If we somehow manage to make an exact 1 on 1 copy of the human anatomical structure and put this in a synth there is a distinction between the synths' consciousness and yours"}
{"id":"f7c9cf6a-305e-4ce0-a3fc-96c489d04bac","argument":"The operational training that foreign fighters receive while abroad means that they know how to covertly plan, carry out, and maximize the damage of a terrorist attack.","conclusion":"Foreign fighters who return for domestic operations are more effective in carrying out their attacks than non-veterans."}
{"id":"64440fce-fbd3-4d60-bdb2-05fb651f427d","argument":"Whenever I listen to music, I like to listen to the whole album. Hearing the song progression from the beginning to the end really feels like an adventure for me. Because of this, I can rarely listen to Greatest Hits albums. They feel contrived, like an artist just wanted to make money off songs he's already released. There also usually isn't a flow to those albums, they just stick 15 popular songs on a CD. Artists didn't intend for us to listen to Greatest Hits albums all the way through, so I don't want them mucking up my music collection. Right now, I'm expanding my iTunes library. The iTunes store has all these albums on sale, but they're all Greatest Hits albums. I'm morally opposed to getting the albums, but they're very tempting. If anyone can  that would be super cool.","conclusion":"I think Greatest Hits albums shouldn't be part of my music collection."}
{"id":"6107b6c9-3783-419f-b8a1-c378de623803","argument":"For example, money spent towards purchasing a house is more useful than spending an equivalent amount on rent. The person paying rent loses money every month while the person buying a house gains an asset which will grow in value.","conclusion":"The fact that substitute goods exist doesn't debunk the parent claim you are attacking. Not all goods that are purchased provide the user with 'value.'"}
{"id":"721e1d00-be8e-4854-b4aa-749e68941afe","argument":"Child prostitution has dramatically risen in Victoria compared to other Australian states where prostitution has not been legalized.","conclusion":"Legalizing sex work has been shown to increase child sex work."}
{"id":"66e5f194-6e95-4694-a531-fe9fd42a45cd","argument":"Suzanne Sitherwood. \"Let coastal states drill offshore if they want to\". Journal-Constitution. 17 July 2008: \"While some argue that we don't want to see exploration in these pristine areas, the fact is that with today's technology, we can sensitively explore through directional drilling about 30,000 acres of surface lands with a single well. Isn't that a bargain when you calculate the cost to Americans to continue to rely on energy overseas, especially the volatile Mideast?\"","conclusion":"Directional drilling allows a single well to tap massive reservoirs"}
{"id":"42cdf9c5-71c2-42ca-8a22-bce6f6058a3a","argument":"It seems impossible for an out-of-shape 64 year old man, with no military training, to kill 59 people and injure 500 from the height and distance he was at in the time he was said to have fired.","conclusion":"A lot of facts about the incident do not align with the official story."}
{"id":"b64f0725-43cc-4996-9c94-e74d7ad0a115","argument":"In the last few years, a number of reports have appeared suggesting a link between alcohol or drug use and sexual behavior such as unprotected intercourse, that is known to place an individual at higher risk for HIV infection.","conclusion":"Drug use correlates with criminality, thievery, and risky sexual behavior. Responsibility is a state that is easily bypassed when you enter the flow of the drug world."}
{"id":"fed52bac-bec7-4446-a099-62fb0fd93fb0","argument":"True Sports Incorporate athleticism, direct teamwork, and direct interference Soccer Football Hockey Rugby Ultimate Capture the Flag Volleyball Individual True Sport even when on a team, success of one player does not directly affect success of a teammate Wrestling MMA Fencing Lawn Activities Major physical interference is not primary, teamwork absent Croquet Golf Horseshoes Bocce ball Team Lawn Activities Baseball Cricket Feats measure one or a few things how fast, how accurate, how graceful competition is indirect Cross Country Pretty much all of Track and Field Gymnastics Diving Shooting Archery Bowling Weight Lifting Dance eSports this already has its own name. body fitness is not primary eSports Board Card Games body fitness is not primary Chess Poker This isn't to say that the above activities don't take a tremendous amount of skill, or that the people who engage in them couldn't kill me with their bare hands especially chess players . It also isn't to say that people who excel at these activities should not be celebrated. It's simply to say that there is a meaningful difference in the types of activities and that they ought to be delineated in order to allow the word sport to mean anything. Edit clarity required. I'm presenting what I think ought to be called a sport. Factors include primacy of athleticism, direct teamwork, direct interference, and a competitive but diverting endeavor where a winner and loser are declared according to set metrics.","conclusion":"Lots of things that are called sports aren't really sports"}
{"id":"2742f46f-577a-4636-8ea0-bab534d8f226","argument":"The success of farming depends on the climate and size of land. At the point of saturation, if lands can not be conquered, then the minds can be conquered instead because it accumulates wealth and creates committed soldiers to defend a faith.","conclusion":"Religion organizes and manipulates people in order to make them easier to control."}
{"id":"7f06496f-f9e0-4170-b6bc-102509a25f85","argument":"Hi There are lots of women's marches going today, and my partner talked about joining one due to Trump's sexism, and I just fail to see 'sexism'. Certainly, he's been a dick to some women but most things I can find are him being a dick to individual women, in very similar cases where he has been a dick to individual men. I don't see this as sexism, just Trump being a dick. In my mind, 'sexism' or racism, or whichever 'ism' requires different treatment based strictly on the 'class' Trump being a dick to all women because they are women, not just Trump being a dick to a woman for some reason. So I guess there are two aspects here that I would be happy to be challenged on 1 Has Trump said or, preferably, done anything demonstrably Sexist, rather than just something impolite to a woman? 2 Is my perception of sexism wrong? Thank you for reading, and, uh, . gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I don't think Trump is a sexist, I just think he's an asshole."}
{"id":"5287b1c6-f2c0-4e4f-8d35-3b6bb0126a29","argument":"I just saw a post from r quityourbullshit that pointed out that a post on r vegan from a picture of a chick supposedly being lead to its death was actually the subject of a photoshoot and was perfectly fine. The comments were a shitshow because as I learned chicks are regularly shredded to death by the hundreds in macerators NSFL and people felt like OP, though rightfully calling out a misattributed image, was missing the actual point that this is something that really happens on an industrial scale. So when I watched the chicks being shredded to death NSFL I felt something shift in my view of animal rights. The shit that happens in that video is just horrific and it made me question my view of whether or not animals deserve protection on a moral basis. And that's why I'd be happy to have a discussion about different views of animal rights. So my current view is that no rights are intrinsic, in that there's nothing in the universe that makes anyone entitled to any right, human or animal. I believe in a social contract theory where humans collectively decide to grant each other human rights such as the right to life, the right to freedom of speech, the right to private property, etc. but I don't believe that this extends to animals because animals do not have the cognition necessary to grasp such concepts. The reason why we grant these same rights to humans children from birth or conception depending on your view is because they will grow up to become rational agents capable of understanding such concepts. That's how a human baby can have a right to life, but not a fully grown baboon, even though the baboon probably has a higher self awareness and cognition than the human baby. Now I'm not gonna lie that this ethical view is very convenient for me because I fucking love the taste of meat. I like eggs too but I'm seriously considering not buying eggs that are produced with the chick culling practices I saw in that video. As I said though I'm absolutely open to hearing about other ethical systems with animal rights. Just to be clear I'd rather the arguments not be moralizing look at how sad it is that x animal is being killed but rather systemic and philosophical animals should have certain rights because y. Thanks for reading gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"It is not intrinsically wrong to kill an animal for any reason"}
{"id":"30515cb6-d52c-4279-aa76-431f6dcb5427","argument":"I worded my topic carefully, because I do think student debt is a problem. However, a subset of people being crushed by student debt have no one to blame but themselves, and I do not feel bad for them. I'm mostly talking about people who chose to go to insanely expensive private schools and make other poor financial decisions. As someone who turned down multiple private schools and went to a state school instead purely due to financial considerations, I don't have sympathy for certain people who chose to go to an expensive private school and are now buried in debt. I am not talking about people who have a modest amount of debt, i.e. around the average of 30,000, which I agree is too high and is a large social issue. When I hear news stories about students struggling with debt, it is usually someone who have 150 200k in debt with no hope of paying it back. Why on earth did they think getting into that much debt was a good decision? Especially if they major in something that is not very marketable. Now, I know the response here is going to be how could they know better, they are only children But this, frankly, does little to stir my sympathy as someone who worked his ass off throughout college in minimum wage jobs at a state school. There are always expensive options available even for mediocre students. You don't have to go to the Ivy League to accumulate that much debt. The fact that the average is around 30,000 just shows that the people who do decide to get into hundreds of thousands of debt are way above average in being irresponsible. I reject the notion that I was somehow so superior to these people at 17 18 years old in terms of financial savvy that I made a responsible choice and they were too intellectually immature to do so. I would say that I would have to consider each case on a case by case basis in terms of sympathy. I'm sure you can come up with examples of students with massive debt who got unlucky and were making a sound financial decision when they started going to college. To make up an example, maybe someone went into a lot of debt becoming an engineer at a university which has a strong relationship with a particular industry, but the market crashed before they graduated. I would definitely be willing to feel sympathetic towards them. But to the humanities major who studied abroad for 2 semesters and went to an expensive private school and now is crying out for debt relief, I don't have sympathy for them.","conclusion":"I have a hard time feeling bad for many of the people with very high levels of student debt due to poor decisions."}
{"id":"bd69d8b1-a396-4ef0-aeae-85901f4d1636","argument":"Some dictators have been democratically elected. Ferdinand Marcos won the presidency of the Philippines in a standard democratic election, became very popular, and won re-election before declaring martial law and becoming a dictator. Adolf Hitler came to power via a completely legitimate parliamentary election in which the Nazi party received the most votes by a huge margin.","conclusion":"Elections do not automatically foster democracy, but also have the potential to prevent or destroy it."}
{"id":"8fdf9468-2eb8-4296-bfbb-b9f1e3c74a99","argument":"The Preamble of the Indian Constitution has the word \"secular\", and articles 25 to 28 implying that the State will not patronize any religion. As it pertains to the Indian government, secularism means 'respect for all religions' and 'keeping a principled distance' from each religion.","conclusion":"A common standard in liberal democracies is the illegality of publicly funding religious organizations directly or indirectly. It is thus inconsistent with the norms of liberal democracies to fund religious organizations."}
{"id":"f86a5952-af60-42d8-8261-1b07328806a3","argument":"As someone who is divorced and struggling to find a long term relationship while nearing 30, I am very despondent about the general attitude towards relationships in my generation. A recent Slate article drew a connection between the technology used in dating and the decline of serious relationships Beyond that, I believe that the globalization of society, complex career paths, and the ease of divorce have all created a negative opinion of committed relationships. Ours is a generation afflicted by constant fear of missing out and relationships are often the first thing to be sacrificed committing to another person reduces our ability to take certain opportunities, not least of which is the chance to date other people who we imagine could be better for us. While we celebrating couples who have been together for 50 years, we fail to acknowledge and value the sacrifices they have made for each other. Rather than seeing marriage as the culmination of compromise and mutual support, it seems to be more and more viewed in the frame of settling , as if it always signals having given up. I acknowledge the great benefit of easier divorce in instances of abuse.","conclusion":"Modern freedoms are ruining relationships"}
{"id":"1cae2bbf-7701-4a92-80ea-98f3766c06df","argument":"Healthcare personnel in the United States are already required to provide vaccination records and obtain certain vaccinations. Influenza is not distinct from these other requirements except for frequency of vaccination.","conclusion":"Receiving a flu shot is part of an individual's personal medical history and employers should not have access to that information if an employee chooses not to release it."}
{"id":"b6ce22d4-577b-48b1-8f55-2b030aec5605","argument":"I got some backlash when I voiced this on reddit and argued with a family member about this so I am posting it here. I think that a straight person would know that a gay person wouldn't have any more choice to be gay than they have to be straight. You can't convince a straight person to want to do homosexual acts and from that perspective they know that the same must be true for homosexuals. A straight person would know that there is no choice in what anybody is attracted to and if there's no choice then there is no moral failing. A bisexual would be able to believe that there is some temptation to homosexuality and that it is some sort of choice or failure of character to succumb , the same would be true for a homosexual in deep denial who believes because of cultural pressure that they should be attracted to the opposite sex. In short, it should be impossible to be straight and hold the belief that homosexuals are doing anything wrong by choice but it makes sense from the perspective of a bisexual or homosexual not that this makes homophobia a correct viewpoint. edit spelling","conclusion":"I believe that you have to be at least bisexual to be a homophobe."}
{"id":"a4e4aaa9-862d-44b3-89af-f2cdbacf014c","argument":"A report found that media and movies have a decisive influence on children\u2019s ideas about gender stereotypes. These concepts are difficult to counteract as they are received precisely when kids are developing and are therefore more receptive","conclusion":"Other portrayals of women, including in pornography, music videos and advertisements often present women as sexual subjugates. It is important that young, impressionable children are educated to understand that these portrayals are misogynistic, rather than representative."}
{"id":"8165c057-2381-4a9e-b462-6f84f1a1b58c","argument":"Transhumanism can take a very long time to emerge, so people can avoid living through it just by avoiding its development.","conclusion":"Just because the next step is inevitable, does not mean we have to encourage or hasten its progress."}
{"id":"4c271539-d2e9-4588-9716-657f0ee438aa","argument":"C 3PO as programmed was almost worthless to Luke skywalker as soon as he departed Tatooine . Skywalker didn't work on the moisture farm anymore and had no need for programming binary vaporators or binary load lifters. Instead of helping Skywealker and anticipating his needs C 3PO constantly tells him not to do exactly what Skywalker needs to do to accomplish his missions, surrendering is never a good option when dealing with Imperial forces. Additionally C 3PO is clumsy and can barely walk.","conclusion":"Luke Skywalker should have had C-3PO reprogrammed or sold it."}
{"id":"16752fd2-fdf4-4690-9584-10f955b455fe","argument":"In a 2010 survey of evolutionary scientists, 87% of respondents said they had found some way to make religion and evolution compatible.","conclusion":"Increasingly, many scientists are adopting the belief that the evolutionary basis of religion is compatible with scientific evidence."}
{"id":"d45a331e-f080-4dd5-b893-0aaada14e5ca","argument":"Many Christians oppose the expansion of government funded health care coverage for the poor, despite several biblical passages that encourage Christians to help the sick and needy.","conclusion":"In this tribalism, Christians are acting contrary to Gospel teaching and damaging the Church's reputation in the secular community."}
{"id":"a47e2611-ffcc-47f5-9ac0-793a0108f913","argument":"On what grounds is it OK to torture, slaughter and kill hundreds of millions of the world's fifth most intelligent animal and at the same time fixate over other animals which just seem cuter? Also we tend to label Koreans and chinese who devour dogs at certain festivals. Dogs can be equally tasty as other cultures prove , so it isn't a matter of taste. Why can't even one percent of the people who eat beef relate with cows the same way as they do with other animals? I am a Hindu and don't understand this culture as we tend to worship cows as sacred animals and killing cows is even banned in most states.","conclusion":"People are hypocrites for loving animals like cats and dogs while at the same time slaughtering cows to satiate their taste buds."}
{"id":"36cb9dfa-404e-48d0-9a98-a4087f2bf185","argument":"If children are being monitored, or if it seems to children that they are being monitored, they would immediately lose trust in their parents. As trust is reciprocal, children will also learn not to trust others. This will result in their difficulty in forging human connections, thereby straining their psychosocial growth. For them to learn how to trust therefore, children must know that they can break their parents\u2019 trust as said by the proposition before. This will allow them to understand, obey, and respect their parents on their own initiative, allowing them to respect others in the same manner as well. 1 This growth would only be possible if parents refuse this proposition and instead choose to educate their children how to be responsible beforehand. 1 Shmueli, Benjamin, and Ayelet Blecher-Prigat. \u201cPrivacy for Children.\u201d Columbia Human Rights Review. Rev. 759 2010-2011: 760-795. Columbia Law School. Web. May 2013.","conclusion":"Monitoring is a hindrance to forming relationships both outside and inside the family."}
{"id":"71e47ef6-72e3-48c7-b5bc-004697f7a0f2","argument":"One of the leading world suppliers of child sex dolls, Trolla, is run by Shin Takagi who credits said dolls with preventing him from becoming a sex abuser.","conclusion":"Some are postulating that paedophiles could be 'prescribed child sex dolls, to help rehabilitate sufferers."}
{"id":"1ef36484-43b3-46d8-821e-ffde33d09d36","argument":"Leaked documents have shown how Facebook policies are unclear, often arbitrary and performed by moderators that have about only 10 seconds to decide if they allow an image or they censor it.","conclusion":"Facebook has open-ended community standards and a reporting system that makes the rules and their application vague."}
{"id":"bfcbf060-49d4-4352-80c3-ff70f6be5637","argument":"According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders DSM\u20135, there are 11 symptoms of alcohol use disorders. How many of these an individual displays indicates the severity of their addiction.","conclusion":"The severity of people's addictions affects how they view recovery. p. 2"}
{"id":"18d98b71-b88b-4f95-9a4b-34c46ccec44b","argument":"Why did this country fail so bad? Yes, SA is rather developed for African standards, but I think it's just a more or less Anglophone dry Brazil, because it wasted its potential. Like Brazil, South Africa has a lot of crime and corruption, and add an extreme AIDS rate, probably because of that myth that raping a virgin is the cure yes, antivax and flat earth movements probably came from developed countries but whatever . I was searching if the ban on the Afrikaans language was true it probably isn't and found a report over students of a university complaining about it using Afrikaans in its lectures. Yes, Afrikaans is heavily associated with the apartheid oppression even the word apartheid itself comes from Afrikaans , but it's not a reason to complain about the language. If so, we should call the aardvark in English by some other name like earthpig or antpig. I don't think Vietnam and Iraq ban the use of English because of the invasions by the United States, and the complaints will make apartheid widows radicalize themselves even further.","conclusion":"South Africa is depressing."}
{"id":"6a17b100-c886-406e-9fcb-d16f203ca2b0","argument":"Since the foliage of edible landscapes may not cover the ground 100% due to having bare rows to walk on when picking crops, as compared to lawns, people may slip if the soil becomes wet especially clay.","conclusion":"Edible landscapes can be dangerous and a hazard to those who go near it."}
{"id":"5e7dd42d-6fe6-4ed6-8305-f382c736238e","argument":"In 2017, ISIS killed nearly 50 people in bomb blasts that targeted Coptic churches in Egypt.","conclusion":"Christians have been targeted by ISIS both in the Levant and abroad."}
{"id":"976e340a-3b7a-4995-8790-ba54dac1ad3e","argument":"Currently, many \"information campaigns\" about drugs are propaganda. If a person is being lied to while also being told drugs are bad, they might think the opposite is true.","conclusion":"The legalisation of drugs could lead to better education on how to be safe around them."}
{"id":"093cd91b-9248-40ae-9782-c04f351dd5db","argument":"Waging war costs resources that could have been spent on more important and progressive things like education, research.","conclusion":"Carrying out more missions and wars is not a desirable goal for the West."}
{"id":"39eaa7a9-f485-4ced-a853-7919c3baf56b","argument":"Scientific progress is determined by the actual studies performed, which require funding, which is supplied by political and economic actors.","conclusion":"Academic and industrial contexts expose scientific research to political influences."}
{"id":"cab86941-1fa1-4e2b-bda7-ca1473e45430","argument":"Countless people in history, up to the present day have pursued various schools of meditation and or consume potent hallucinogens such as ayahuasca in the hope of making some grand connection. Achieving a realization far in advance of current human knowledge. But if it's sufficiently far in advance of what is known, it won't connect in a recognizable way to what is known presently, so to everybody else it will just sound like random nonsense. This means it will be impossible to persuade anybody of it, which means you cannot use that information to effect change in the world. Sharing such information is more likely to be harmful to you, professionally and socially, than it is to bring about any positive developments. Unknown unknowns are useful only if they are pretty close to the ever expanding frontier of human discovery, such that they were nearly foreseeable anyway and fit recognizably into what has most recently been discovered in the relevant field. Like how when you put together a jigsaw puzzle, you attach pieces to existing pieces and build on what is already there. Generally you don't skip ahead and begin building a second nucleus of pieces in the far corner at the same time or w e. There is historical precedent for any knowledge sufficiently abstracted from the status quo being regarded as lunacy. Look at the treatment Lois Pasteur suffered for sharing his findings concerning sterilization, hygiene and microorganisms as a cause for disease. Even if a revolutionary proposition is supportable through reason, extrapolating from findings already known to be true, people overwhelmingly do not accept conclusions they did not arrive at on their own or which came from an authority they trust. At most you have an interesting idea people may entertain briefly, in the mindset that they are generously indulging humoring a nutty weirdo. This is why I think the promise of grasping for, and somehow attaining a discovery far in advance of current human knowledge is not as desirable as it appears. If successful then you're like a sparrow who suddenly understands what it is to be a human. But the next moment he's a sparrow again. What can the sparrow do differently with that information? How will it affect sparrows on the whole? Not at all. You might also compare it to being a savannah dwelling proto human who has suddenly realized how to build a jet engine, or a computer. What good is that information to him? It won't be useful to anybody for a hundred thousand years. All he could accomplish by talking about it would be to convince everybody else in the tribe that he's insane or possessed. Even technological breakthroughs heralded as brilliant and groundbreaking often fail spectacularly when brought to market prematurely, because the conditions necessary for it to succeed did not yet exist. This is just an analogy about how inapplicable advanced understanding is, I don't mean that enlightenment is specifically future knowledge about technology or something, just any sudden realization of a grander scheme, the nature of reality, etc. which is not already known about For these reasons, there's no sense in desiring enlightenment. You cannot do much of anything with it. I mean I guess you can write about it, as fiction. You could use it as inspiration for art of various kinds. Other than that, what good is it? What does it do for you? If it does not change your existence, you are still a human being living on Earth who must do all the same things to survive as before. You may as well have never had the epiphany.","conclusion":"Enlightenment, if truly possible through meditation or psychedelic substances, would be useless at best and possibly detrimental"}
{"id":"7347f1a6-b8f8-48cc-97b1-666e109071e6","argument":"In a society where women have the right to choose not to marry and have children, it's not the government, nor society, that determines the amount of hours women work, nor the amount of educational attainment that women pursue. Those choices are in the hands of the women themselves.","conclusion":"The gender pay gap is a natural phenomenon due to individual choices and strengths. As such, the government should not intervene."}
{"id":"65349bb0-30ef-4478-9565-d2f8c1a5348b","argument":"Timothy Geitner said in 2010: \"We think expiring the bush tax cuts for the wealthy is the responsible thing to do, because we need to make sure we can show the world that we're willing as a country now to start to make some progress bringing down our long-term deficits.\"10","conclusion":"Expiring Bush tax cuts will send right fiscal message to world"}
{"id":"4768fe9d-b164-44e4-b496-86f69f756734","argument":"To start off I have a fan of confederate forms of for two main reasons 1 Typically lead to small, weakened governments 2 Typically thrive economically EU for example With that I am a States man and agree with mostly the libertarian party. I understand that both confederacies of the US failed, but for different reasons. Regardless of their failures I still believe in the right to succession. The last thing I want to leave is a quote from Abraham Lincoln who was didn't think states could secede from the union Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, most sacred right a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government, may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can, may revolutionize, and make their own, of so much of the territory as they inhabit. Now, please change my view Edit Formatting","conclusion":"I believe States have the right to succession."}
{"id":"1cf2f984-2aa7-4b88-8ae4-4538be7ca339","argument":"I'm tired of seeing people complaining about Wish and misleading advertising and misleading products and not getting what they want. The process is simple. Someone goes online, finds an attractive picture, and then jumps to a conclusion. It's cheap It sounds and looks like what I want I'll take it Then they get the product, then they get mad that it isn't what they want, and then they complain about it. Getting pissed, angry, and mad that they got cheated . It is my view that when it comes online shopping, the responsibility is on you, the consumer, to have some common sense. I feel like this is lacking in a lot of people who shop online, and that caution is lacking in a lot of people. Often, reviews and specifications listed are enough to send warning bells. If people would spend an extra 30 seconds to a minute scrolling around, instead of leaping to that add to cart button, they would've avoided the mishap. No reviews? Suspicious, move on. Too cheap to be true? Probably, move on. Bad reviews? Move on. Missing details? Move on. Specifications aren't what you want? Move on. There's a reason why these functions, reviews and notes and such, exist. Use them. The common argument is that vendors should be moral and should cater to consumers, and be ethical. I argue that this is the Internet. Much like downloading materials, it is impossible to ensure every download source is legitimate. You can legislate all you want, at the end of the day, it is still impossible to catch every criminal. Why do you think piracy is still a thing? The Internet is full of suspicious gubbins and we need to learn to be cautious and wary. Change my view.","conclusion":"In e-commerce, the onus is on the consumer when it comes to avoiding scams."}
{"id":"18ae3866-5a47-4dbc-923c-baf0071d5141","argument":"Ok, so this might be a preference thing but I think fake tans are unnecessary and unattractive. I believe they are unnecessary because it is changing something that never really was wrong in the first place. I would imagine those that get fake tans do so in order to change what they believe to be an ugly or inadequate self perception. For me at least I do not care how pale or tan you are, sure it can look nice if you are bronzed coming from the beach but I do not expect that. I think the biggest issue I have with it is the fact that tanning beds are harmful, I mean you can get skin cancer. As for spray tans they are just aesthetically gross to me, they often are streaky, unnatural and way too dark or orange. Anyway this is sort of a ridiculous , but if anyone had any idea to  than that would be cool and maybe I wouldn't have such ideas about people that get fake tans. Its just, whats the point?","conclusion":"Fake tans are superfluous."}
{"id":"22775e93-102c-44ab-b477-d8b7c206ae97","argument":"A bodycam's shaky low quality footage often adds, what critics call a deceptive intensity which can help justify police use of force.","conclusion":"With the viewing angle being limited, information can be limited or misleading which would do more harm than good."}
{"id":"e38091e1-15a9-441a-88e3-04df525040da","argument":"This is a common argument against gay marriage, and sometimes underlies the position of those that reluctantly are willing to accept civil unions. But, the premise is that homosexuality is immoral and wrong, so efforts for full equality through gay marriage are misplaced. If civil unions are unequal, the argument goes, than it is, nonetheless, fitting. This argument is not supported by most advocates of civil unions with equal benefits, but by some.","conclusion":"Homosexuality is wrong along with equal rights by gay marriage."}
{"id":"1d14d291-e029-4a57-aeaa-13310249599c","argument":"Many companies are required to reveal the pay ratio between CEOs and the average worker, thereby attempting to reduce the rich-poor disparity.","conclusion":"May has introduced a range of corporate governance reforms designed to increase business transparency and accountability."}
{"id":"cf29e81a-83df-4901-9c9a-05d6f62ffadd","argument":"People used to burn people as witches, scientific advancement has shown the supernatural power of witches to be absurd, and thus people have stopped burning people as witches.","conclusion":"Scientific fact often lays the groundwork for development and evolution of a moral codes."}
{"id":"0579d24c-4a8b-451b-b0c3-22f8881e95f9","argument":"The racial wage gap in the US shows that Black men earn only 73% of white men's hourly earning and Hispanic men earn just 69%. These numbers have not significantly changed in 35 years. Its unlikely that UBI will change this.","conclusion":"Minorities continue to experience a wage gap in the workplace. A UBI does not solve this discrimination."}
{"id":"25bbb1ce-6422-4d39-9f9e-6bdb5a2a1f82","argument":"The reason I say most of us is that I want to exclude those who live in food deserts and don\u2019t have other options. For most of us this is not an issue and veganism can easily be achieved. Economy More than half of Scottish farms would have worked at a loss last year without subsidies The industry is not self sustaining, and is reliant on subsidies to function at this level. It is estimated that a Big Mac would cost 11 in America if you didn\u2019t take meat subsidies into account. Going vegan means we can eat healthier as well as have more money to invest in different sectors. As I believe that animal products lead to a variety of diseases, going vegan would result in less hospital visits, surgeries and medication. These things cost us billions every year and can a lot of the time be avoided if we\u2019re careful with what we\u2019re consuming. Poor countries are selling their crops as feed for the livestock that is to be consumed by the rich. If we all went vegan, we\u2019d already have enough plant based food for the global population Also, see Michael Gove\u2019s aim to alter agricultural subsidies Environment The transportation of feed from country to country contributes massively to food miles and that isn\u2019t even the final product. Although buying fruit from foreign countries isn\u2019t eco friendly, it doesn\u2019t hold a candle to the environmental impact of meat. The water use and emissions for meat, dairy and eggs are common knowledge The animal agriculture industry is worse than the transportation industry for emissions, and while beef is evidently the main culprit, it is definitely not alone. Morality Every single industry that uses animal products inflict pain on to the animals they are using. the gassing of pigs calves are boltgunned in the head as a result of their gender not being economically beneficial for the dairy industry, and chicks are macerated for the same reason This happens with free range animals, this happens in your country and even your local farm likely sends animals to the same slaughterhouse as the factories. Besides these particular atrocities, the idea of a miracle farm which would not be economically viable still uses animals as products. There is still pain, they are still stripped of their rights. Whether the farmer loves them or not is irrelevant, as what they do to them does not reflect love. I am not personally bashing farmers as the vast majority of them do not have the luxury of changing career paths at the drop of a hat. Health Antibiotics, faeces, pus, blood, mercury, microplastics, high amounts of sodium, cholesterol. Any animal product will have at least one of those in them and they all have negative health consequences I can\u2019t say this for the pus and blood as I have no data, but I think the fact that it is pus and blood is enough for me to avoid it . Milk has casein, which when digested creates casomorphin. This is an opioid that makes all mammals crave be addicted to their mother\u2019s milk so they return. When we drink milk and cheese, we feed a literal addiction. We do not have the same length small intestine as obligate carnivores and therefore cannot adequately process it. It can therefore putrify and result in colorectal cancer The Dieticians Association of Australia \u201cWith good planning, you can get all of the nutrients you need from a vegan diet to be healthy.\u201d There is nothing naturally found in animal products that we need to survive or be perfectly healthy that is not present in plant based options. Many would say B12, but that is naturally found in soil and we don\u2019t have the same levels now due to sterilisation, however it is present in a vegan diet through supplementation. If you think that supplementation is unhealthy, then you should know that we get B12 through meat as the livestock is injected with supplements. Change my mind","conclusion":"For economic, moral, environmental and health reasons, almost all of us should aim to go vegan"}
{"id":"1d8ae4f5-03ff-4d0f-9f32-584e50200f9e","argument":"This means voters can end up turning to the guidance of trusted authority figures or choices that fit within a familiar narrative for the answers instead of assessing the information available for themselves and make their decisions in a non-partisan way.","conclusion":"Reducing political decisions to a binary yes or no leads to worse decisions"}
{"id":"d66272cf-1055-4ab4-813e-bb9098382f2b","argument":"Firearms are used to defend against criminals roughly 1 million times per year in the United States excluding military and law enforcement.scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu","conclusion":"Gun owners need guns to protect their family and loved ones."}
{"id":"56af2e60-f92d-4f51-ae15-d8433f389c60","argument":"A citizen of a wealthy country who helps dig drinking wells in poor countries, may feel that they can effectively ignore more complex social problems, like homelessness or racism, in their home community, because they're already \"doing their part\".","conclusion":"Solving easier problems elsewhere may create a sense of satisfaction, leading people to ignore the harder and more impactful problems at home."}
{"id":"030bf3f6-aff7-4c3e-8285-2629834aae35","argument":"Out of all the species on this planet, only one rose to become as powerful as humans. This happened despite the fact that their frail bodies are no match for many of nature's dangerous animals. They are incredibly vulnerable for 7 9 hours every night, due to a condition that leaves them immobile and oblivious to the world around them. When young they are unable to fend for themselves, and require years of constant supervision. They also lack fur and other useful things, and need to find clothes, weapons, and shelter. In some ways, a common cat is more equipped to handle the elements. A human can't best a gorilla in an arm wresting competition, but somehow it doesn't matter. The things that evolution perfected in other creatures speed, efficiency, strength seem to have been overlooked when it came to humans. Yet somehow they conquered the entire planet. Humans have language and a brain adapted specifically to handle its complexity. Humans write works of literature, and work to discover the secrets of the origin of the universe. In most areas of the world they have no real predators to worry about anymore. The greatest worry they have is usually other human beings. Together they can do anything Humans can explore space, develop technological innovations to save the world, build zoos and rehabilitation areas for the animals whose natural ecosystems they destroyed. Through the miracle of genetics they can even hope to bring back some of the species that went extinct. The reason for all these things seems to simply be that Humans are truly special. They used their unmatched intelligence to overcome the fiercest predators. They overcame their weaknesses, with ingenuity and creativity. They reign supreme on this planet due to their uniqueness. Edit tl dr Humans, despite their humble origins, would go on to conquer the entire planet. This has to be due to some unique exceptional deviant aberrant qualities. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Humans beings are truly special"}
{"id":"57300e5a-733c-41ee-acbf-f3ec7476c864","argument":"I live in Florida scene of the most horrific active shooting crimes in the world. My kid wants to go to public school but I fear I will be sending him down the green mile. I watched a few videos that tried to address they hype but it still seems horrific things happened regardless of the media response. I am considering keeping my boy at home and using the Florida virtual school for K 12, I hired four security officers for our neighborhood paid via the homeowners association. My concern is that having to pass the screening process will cripple his social life it takes about 50 minutes on entry and exit and has admittedly turn me into a bit of a shut in. Would hiring a security officer to escort my son throughout twelve years of education be sufficient? Or perhaps should I let the dice roll and just accept he lives in a world of unending terror and mayhem, and perhaps my protection would leave him unprepared to engage in the warfare that is to come? I hate that it seems my son must participate in this hostile world or become a victim of it.","conclusion":"Active shooters are media fear mongering and not a reason to homeschool my child."}
{"id":"32df2bc6-d8b0-4237-aed9-0db4ebccdd0b","argument":"In the case of Yale and Harvard, if a student's family earns less than $60,000 a year, they will pay nothing for their education.","conclusion":"If a family's annual income goes below a certain point, their children have to pay virtually nothing to attend Ivy League colleges."}
{"id":"7c0dcb50-c618-4a9f-ad6f-057e159d8ebd","argument":"Women are often slut-shamed for having active sex lives. Sex robots would be private devices that women would be more able to use frequently without public knowledge.","conclusion":"Sex robots could allow women to have better and more liberating sexual experiences."}
{"id":"322fc79a-db49-49f9-bf56-061d1fe1a52f","argument":"The early history of feminist movements were founded on ideas of equality: \"after the First International Women's Conference in Paris in 1892 . the term, following the French term fe\u0301ministe, was used regularly in English for a belief in and advocacy of equal rights for women based on the idea of the equality of the sexes\".","conclusion":"Feminism's roots are founded on this concept of equality."}
{"id":"9bdbf966-4b4f-4d16-bd87-597fb06662a1","argument":"Humans do never do anything, besides instinctive non-thought through reactions, that are not net beneficial for them.","conclusion":"Every action we perform that helps another person is motivated by self-interest."}
{"id":"3d52619c-adba-4609-bea1-0e6c2dc25386","argument":"There is evidence that people have lived in the Americas for at least 19,000 years, and archaeological evidence constantly provides evidence for complex and varied cultures from habitation until European contact. This is much longer than the territorial claim of almost any other group of people, but such evidence is usually written off as being the complaints of Indians or worse disgruntled Mexicans looking for a handout . Living in Southern California, I have seen the ironic xenophobia and racism against native groups by citizens of all races, but conservatives seem the most opposed to increased Native rights. This is ironic considering the support of Israel's historic claim based on a similar cultural history.","conclusion":"Native Americans have as much right and justification for a homeland as the Israeli Jews do, and conservatives who argue against this idea are selectively ignorant to indigenous history."}
{"id":"4563a6c2-8b50-4bcb-98db-d4eb0d04ac56","argument":"Hi Average sophomore debater here, looking for some insight on an instance I've seen play throughout the internet with biased views on both sides. While I do understand that accepting your body and being OK with it is a generally good thing, I think it motivates an unhealthy echochamber that the world is against you because you are bigger than others and the problem in itsself is unfixable. The facts are true being overweight increases health risks at a substantial rate. I don't want to seem like someone who is against overweight people, and I do think the mindset of some who encourage weight loss is generally in someone's best interest, although in some instances poorly executed. Points correcting or supporting my views would be appreciated","conclusion":"Encouragment of weight loss for overweight people is inherently better than the fat acceptance movement."}
{"id":"952184e0-a1bc-4188-a94f-e0c02e31e8fe","argument":"In the U.S., while it costs approximately $15,000 to settle a refugee, and the Federal government pays out an approximate further $92,000 in welfare benefits over the first 20 years of a refugees stay, it is estimated that the Federal government gets back $129,000 in taxes over those 20 years. So there is a net gain of about $22,000 for the Federal government when it comes to refugees who stay long-term.","conclusion":"Refugees pay more in taxes than governments spend on them."}
{"id":"36ea5cd5-91ba-4be1-8a27-4eb8454d5595","argument":"I am a gay man, born and raised in the UK, and I don't want to give money to a country that hates me. This question came up because a friend of mine is fundraising for a trip to Kenya, and asked for a donation from me. I don't feel like I should help the Kenyans, when they would have me imprisoned for what they consider an immoral lifestyle choice. This is the same for a lot of the countries that are common targets for foreign aid. Take for example Comic Relief Some of the largest receivers of money Uganda life imprisonment for anyone found guilty of homosexual acts Zambia up to 14 years in prison Ethiopia up to 15 years in prison So every year when Comic Relief comes around, I'm sat there thinking these people hate me, why should I help them? They hate me because of something that I didn't choose or want. I think by giving them aid, we're showing them that it's acceptable to treat gay people they way they do. So no, I won't be giving money to my friend to go and help the Kenyans, unless someone can change my view?","conclusion":"Why should I be charitable to countries that hate me?"}
{"id":"9cf1ec90-cf90-4143-a6ad-daedca8be298","argument":"Proposition If someone stabs, they deserve to experience the totality of the emotional and physical pain involved with getting stabbed. If someone kills someone else, they deserve to experience in excruciating, visceral detail the emotion associated with entering the void for the rest of eternity and then the emotional pain that all the loved ones that the deceased are going through. If someone robs someone else, they deserve to experience the sense of loss both in monetary value and emotional physical security that their victim experienced. Read the sense of loss in monetary value, the oh shit I lost x of my income feeling not actual loss. The sense of loss of emotional physical security. Ideally, in some far future society where we could force people to experience emotion, a just form of punishment would be to first have the criminal experience all negative emotion associated with their crime, and then go through a period of rehabilitation from which they are not released until their personality has changed this far future society would have the capability to determine if their personality has changed enough . Even if we had and were willing to use technology capable of redeeming a criminal and changing their personality for the better, it is still just for them to experience the magnitude of the crime they committed. Thoughts The reason I ask this is that the concept of proportional punishment seems to be reviled and thought of as fundamentally wrong. Let's take torture, for example if someone tortures someone else, in my mind, it is only fair and just for the criminal to experience the same again, only the physical emotional pain without any permanent effects other than emotional . However, most civilized people would say this is barbaric and wrong, and I don't understand why. I can even understand barbaric, but why would it be wrong ? To me, it seems only fair. Major Edits There would be a system in place to reduce or eliminate punishment for mental retardation insanity etc. This is more for the 'I stabbed Jimmy for 5 bucks or ran over a kid while drunk driving crimes. The idea is to force people to feel and understand the magnitude of their crime. We don't want people to suffer, so we don't enforce reciprocal punishment in the real world. We want to minimize suffering wherever possible, and let people lead happy, fulfilling lives. My current point of view is that minimizing suffering \u2260 equality fairness justice . I need you to convince me that either a this is not true, or b this is alright, and enforcing complete justice is a bad idea. Someone went through my history and downvoted everything. Congrats, I guess? I would still like to  however, so please let this be visible so people have a chance to .","conclusion":"Emotionally proportional punishment is just punishment"}
{"id":"4939e0fd-4aa4-4423-a4df-307fc8a4e733","argument":"This is a problem for the police, parents and society as a whole, not for individual shopkeepers. Nobody is forcing gangs of teens to go to dangerous areas - the Mosquito just stops them hanging about for long periods in particular places, which many people find threatening. Young people can go to each other\u2019s houses, youth and sports clubs and parks.","conclusion":"This is a problem for the police, parents and society as a whole, not for individual shopkeepers. N..."}
{"id":"488dd23f-670d-4b8b-a26e-6b04d618c6bf","argument":"I am a man of average intelligence and I remember that when I was a child in elementary school, certain students were identified as gifted. I found this to be insulting at the time, and finding out that this program is still going on today in most elementary schools is very insulting. Thus it is my view that we should stop calling children gifted and let their grades speak for themselves. I am perfectly fine with some children taking advanced classes, but they should not be called gifted because it is simply insulting to everyone else. As a side note, I will mention that I am currently a sophomore in a four year college with a GPA of 2.79 which is equivalent to a letter grade of B","conclusion":"Calling some children \"gifted\" is insulting to everyone else who is not called \"gifted.\""}
{"id":"e80ca440-27a9-4724-a679-d5e2656fa385","argument":"Masturbating in the perceived safety of one's home to the same source in the same place over time sets up a habit. As this becomes more set, arousal to other different sources or situations is decreased.","conclusion":"Masturbation to certain sources may train the brain to become aroused more by those sources and less by real life situations or people, resulting in less motivated people who wish to connect with one another."}
{"id":"8134d703-129d-4a6f-bff1-a661b42a97d8","argument":"Without equating Islam to Christianity and the atrocities committed in the name of Christianity over the years because that is neither conclusive nor compelling , how am I suppose to believe this bullshit that Islam doesn't promote violence or the oppression of women when that seems to be all people are publicly doing in the name of Islam these days? I realize that there are many many decent muslims out there and am friends with several here in the US, but their silence speaks volumes IMHO For some light illustration, let's start here and here for the cultural historical outrages committed recently in the name of Islam. Even some leaders are calling for destruction of the pyramids On the matter of oppression of women, I've personally had the misfortune of having to talk to a group of young muslim women and had to bite my tongue as they talked about how their difference in status from muslim men and the men in their families is and this is verbatim because Islam teaches that women are beautiful and our beauty should be protected by men in our families via headscarves, etc . But, apart from personal anecdotes, there's this this this less conservative source the various examples of this that pop up lately or these that have been going on in India or if you prefer a more scholarly source don't forget about this tragedy or this well known fact Apart from those terrible things, there's the omnipresent brutishness, barbarism and just plain bloodlust repeatedly perpetrated in the name of Islam. These being the most visible examples but also shit like this popping up left and right it's like Islamic groups can't not bristle under authority and start killing people maybe that last example was pretty excusable this and let's not forget about this terrible thing in London a few years ago The list goes on and on. How, pray tell, is this a religion of peace again? Where is the Islamic outrage? Why are we the nonmuslims the only ones making any real noise about this? It seems like muslims across the world turn out in the thousands to angrily protest even the smallest slight but rarely and only in the west to protest what's being done in their name Please change my view. EDIT So far I've seen some good, lively conversation but I was hoping someone would confirm my suspicions and say Yes, the Qur'an promotes some shady shit but it was written in a different time and in that regard is not far off from the Bible. Different social and economic pressures create different forms of unrest in different parts of the world and Islam has become the dominant religion in many of those parts. Groups with secular goals wishing to expand their power or to appeal to more people have used these shitty parts to justify their ruthlessness while maintaining their appearance of legitimacy among a largely Muslim populace. Their actions have to do with Islam in the same way that the Civil War had to do with state's rights as an oversimplified banner for their power base to rally under in order to further their other goals. It's not too late can someone confirm or deny?","conclusion":"I think Islam is a religion of oppression and violence."}
{"id":"84132014-52cf-4140-997d-fe6751f66c9f","argument":"I believe that social security would better serve the people as a retirement asset if it were invested in better yielding investments. First, returns for the individual would be higher, resulting in higher retirement income. Second, market fluctuations would not be a major impediment because even if you were to retire at an inopportune moment Like 2009 , you'd still have 4 decades of investments leading up to that point. A 50 loss in that year still leaves you way ahead of where you would be with social security. The insurance part of SS for the indigent and disabled should be a separate program. To boil down my perspective, most people would benefit from privatized investment accounts they would still be required withholdings . Theoretically, some people would be worse off please tell me who these people are and how they would be worse off but the net gains for the majority would be worth it.","conclusion":"Social Security should be privatized and put into self-directed investments."}
{"id":"55e41710-c14d-4685-910e-d1473a2eb611","argument":"Trans people also face discrimination in health services. Tyra Hunter was an example of this oppression, when a paramedic refused to treat her after discovering she possessed male genitalia and instead let her die.","conclusion":"Individuals who challenge traditional notions of gender are often rejected at home, in schools, churches and in their communities."}
{"id":"b4455a48-41e3-4dd8-857c-443a413382b3","argument":"One is assuming that we understand who, or what, God is. As mere humans do we have the capacity to understand something so huge and all-encompassing? Does a small child understand why it's parent says 'no'? If we are discussing a Christian God, then we are but children - and children do not understand what their parent does all the time. Saying that God would not let such and such a thing happen if 'he' were a good God, is naive.","conclusion":"Humans are limited in their capacity to conceptualize God, and thus are incapable of accurately judging the relationship between evil and a divine being."}
{"id":"e1ce3ac7-761e-4b63-a049-7104d39d53f1","argument":"Sanctions are a good lever to influence Cuban political leaders toward liberalization. While this may not be achievable with Castro, it is certainly possible with the leaders that follow Castro. Sanctions have more potential to influence post-Castro Cuban leaders because these leaders will be less able to resist the public outcry against the government actions in Cuba that have led to the existence of these sanctions. Therefore, the liberalizing objective of sanctions are much more likely to succeed with the next Cuban leaders, and so they should be sustained so that they can be used effectively in this context.","conclusion":"Sanctions should persist to leverage Cuban leaders that follow Castro"}
{"id":"0ac2d25d-8d0b-4bec-b687-571f3f98847f","argument":"A common argument I've seen online is that it's acceptable to spoil movies that came out some time ago. The argument usually goes that people have had plenty of time to go and see that movie, and therefore they shouldn't expect others to warn them about plot twists. I don't agree with this reasoning, as it ignores the fact that not everyone was born or old enough to see those movies when they were released. There are countless teenage kids who may just be hearing about say, Fight Club or The Sixth Sense for the first time when they see it discussed online. They don't deserve to have those or any other movie spoiled for them just for being too young to have heard of them when they came out. Tagging or labelling spoilers costs nothing and requires practically no effort on the part of the person discussing the movie. It is a simple courtesy to those who hadn't seen or heard of the movie until then.","conclusion":"No amount of time that passes after a movies release justifies publicly spoiling them without an appropriate tag\/warning."}
{"id":"7b7f9181-c2c7-4521-a923-1b29259697f3","argument":"I've thought long and hard about this problem, and find rent prices are of the few hangups with creating a Basic Income system BI for short . We have our basic needs wants Air, Water, Food, Shelter, Health, Mobility, Communication, and Education. As time goes by, most of those major over simplified categories get cheaper. The only one that doesn't is Shelter. It's an opportunistic price point in all situations. Supply is limited and demand is competitive. Let's use an extreme example and say everyone gets 10,000 a month. I can't imagine a situation under today's economic structures where inflation real or imagined wouldn't just scoop up that opportunity capital, especially in the housing and land markets. I don't want to call people dumb but you put money in their hands and everyone will fight for better, but end up in the same position they're in anyways because of the counter demand of all others who now are in the same financial boat. I'm not saying BI won't help in other ways but I just have a feeling it's going to get absorbed into housing and maybe food stamps are a better option? Vote with your stamps, and everyone has the same amount to spend so it would only make it more profitable for food companies to cut cost and deliver the highest quality.","conclusion":"Basic Income doesn't work because rent will always absorb that money."}
{"id":"b91e5398-6246-42fa-9f3c-48040b2708db","argument":"Selecting politicians for political roles will be more difficult as there are likely more applicants for each position. This could result in the election of politicians that are less representative.","conclusion":"The absence of political parties would fracture the viability of political representation."}
{"id":"1a44b662-528f-47df-9c78-7ba06936ba09","argument":"If you have a law of an open carry guns it is necessary thst everyone is forced to carry to be at equal playing grounds. For an example at the Mosque shooting, if everyone was armed the perpetrator would just be outnumbered. The reason why open carry states don't work now is it is more on the minority side to carry guys in open carry areas, so if you are giving a human the ability to have a weapon legally and not a lot of people are also at that same playing field, you run the risk of someone taking advantage of the power they have over being able to carry a gun legally and use it whenever they want. Meanwhile not a lot of people are interested in carrying a gun so they are at a disadvantage I am very moderate on the issue of guns but in my opinion an open carry state only works if everyone is involved or none at all. The only flaws this system has is more accidental deaths and a more death count in general. Also because everyone is armed it's a more shoot to kill society instead of calming the situation down This is just a theory I propose, anyone agrees or disagrees? I dont tgink society should be this way Just if it is open carry, everyone joins in. I am not looking for a debate on pro gun and anti gun, I am looking for someone to tell me how an open carry state can function even though not a lot of people participate in it. Also open to disagreements on my theory in general","conclusion":"Open Carry gun states only work if everyone is forced to participate"}
{"id":"1c6febb2-b787-4628-abdc-cf81d2b58125","argument":"Gaming is one of my main hobbies, and difficulty is a very common topic in discussion relating to games recently. From the success of the Dark Souls series, the games it inspired, and the revival of a lot of tougher, older series, we're seeing a large rise in difficulty in video games, and sometimes, it's just annoying. As someone who has personally beat every game in the Soulsborne series, save Demon Souls, I know how to deal with difficult games, but I wish I didn't have to. I understand why some people enjoy high difficulty, and I'm not saying it should ever be removed, but I think it should just be an option in games to tone the difficulty down if you don't want to grind out 3 4 hours straight of attempts on a boss you don't even like. Making difficulty optional and games less stressful would allow those who enjoy it to still have their fun, but would also stop people from just giving up the game when they don't feel like dying another 60 times to something they don't feel is fair. Plus, it would give you the option to lower the difficulty only for parts you find boring or unfair. I could breeze through Blighttown in 10 minutes on easy mode, then ramp the difficulty back up later for an exhilarating boss fight, saving me from any miserable repetition. I actually quit Shovel Knight, a game I was very excited for and incredibly happy to play, because of parts that I felt included unfair difficulty that I just got tired of dealing with. The failure and dying was costing me more fun than the game was giving in return, so it just became not worth it to keep playing.","conclusion":"Difficulty in video games should be optional."}
{"id":"f986f187-561d-4fa7-8d56-10cfb677094d","argument":"Irresponsible They don't care enough about their bodies to get stay in shape so they have a complete disregard for their health, thus lack of responsibility. Burden to Society How many laws regulations have we written simply to cease the growing number of obese people in America? Why must we give up our unhealthy food choices because someone else screwed up? Not totally sure about this but, insurance rates have increased for everyone because of obese people as well. Feel free to correct me on that because I heard that one from a friend I do realize that it is inherently wrong to prejudice these people, so please change my view","conclusion":"I believe most if not all morbidly obese people are simply irresponsible and overall a burden to society. !"}
{"id":"c866d9ff-761b-4f56-931e-2fcdca1efe3e","argument":"A ticket can be lost, but a system that does not have tickets is more secure and convenient for the user.","conclusion":"All physical traveling tickets will gradually be replaced by digital technology."}
{"id":"1f9e222a-7999-419b-afd4-75e2c433c16a","argument":"Millennials will be responsible for themajority of the tax burden created by policies adopted by the European Parliament","conclusion":"Millennials are uniquely affected by the decisions of the European Parliament."}
{"id":"d899b28e-8e36-45f6-95c1-a1779d198c44","argument":"The acceptance and use of torture impacts a nation's consciousness, signalling that the use of violence is acceptable, which is then interpreted and translated at individual and collective levels throughout that nation.","conclusion":"The sanctioning of torture has deleterious effects on a country's government and culture."}
{"id":"845745e7-5f3a-44b7-a788-ac7956c7cdf1","argument":"Sanders is the only candidate with an unwavering support for an actual universal, single-payer healthcare system not merely so-called 'access' to give everyone in America healthcare free at the point of use and a plan to pay for it","conclusion":"Bernie Sanders has a strong policy platform on issues which matter to American voters."}
{"id":"a00fd6b0-2f41-46e1-aac2-ffd5c184433f","argument":"The age old \u201cI was blackout drunk, i didnt know what i was doing\u201d doesn\u2019t sit well with me. Why? Because I have been drunk plenty of times, to the point of being completely incomprehensible to people, to the point that i black out some memories. but I always felt \u201cin control\u201d of my decisions, during my relationships id still go clubbing and get absurdly wasted but id still never hit on anyone or kiss anyone, because I could still make conscious decisions. So the thought that someone \u201cdoesnt know what they are doing\u201d makes zero sense to me, i can\u2019t imagine being in a drunken state where i didnt know what i was doing. Change my view reddit","conclusion":"Being drunk isn\u2019t an excuse for cheating"}
{"id":"7a6f4eee-332a-4ce9-86cc-c94eba6b9831","argument":"Protestors sometimes find themselves at risk of sexual assault, something which the organisers or protest could take more steps to combat.","conclusion":"Legally making protest organisers think carefully about safety might encourage them to take other measures to promote participant safety."}
{"id":"8db34c41-04b7-498d-9465-5d6a821af5b3","argument":"The right to die would reduce medical costs per capital by allowing people to die instead of receiving expensive treatment","conclusion":"Introducing a right to die will be beneficial for society."}
{"id":"399b1580-a047-48c7-9337-24e0db7bae47","argument":"The EU is the largest donor of aid in the world, giving an estimated \u20ac50 billion annually to a variety of humanitarian causes.","conclusion":"The EU is a force for good in the world and is worth being a part of."}
{"id":"61c5348d-9aee-4b4c-9c42-8aa21c6bfd64","argument":"Due to fracking, North Dakota's state budget has a surplus, which it uses for spending on schools and social services","conclusion":"Fracking generates millions in tax revenue which funds important services such as education."}
{"id":"507c0619-869d-4380-833f-85cdff743f4e","argument":"Hi , I'm making this post after reading this AMA about a bullied kid that retaliated. The story can be found here. As expected, the comment section isn't endorsing his course of action. The knee jerk reaction to a stabbing is disgust or disapproval, ofcourse. But I disagree with this sentiment, as I believe the kid had every right to do what he did, and he does not deserve a punishment. I have several reasons for holding this view. First off, the kid has exhausted all non violent courses of action. He has talked to counselors, teachers and the principal. None of them did anything that helped, in fact, he got discouraged from seeking help by getting suspended The kid that was being bullied obviously wasn't large or intimidating enough to keep the bully from bullying, and in the 6 years he was being bullied, not one person stood up for him. He mentioned that his family didn't have any money to move away, so he couldn't just leave the school either. All non violent paths are out of the question, so sadly he has to resort to violence. I'm making the assumption that he's not a large kid, and doesn't know any martial arts. The bully was larger and likely had friends that bullied with him. So a fistfight is out of the question, since the bullied kid would lose. So he has to resort to a weapon. Secondly, the stabbing is a form of punishment, and it would have a positive effect on the situation. Let me elaborate there are multiple reasons to punish someone, but the ones I want to focus on are deterrence, rehabilitation and retribution. Punishing the bully would deter others from bullying. Not necessarily this bully, but all 'potential' bullies. If I saw a friend of mine get stabbed because he bullied someone, I'd think twice before bullying someone myself. It shows that actions have consequences, and showing this will prevent bullies from bullying. It would also rehabilitate this specific bully, with a similar reasoning as with deterrence. I'm fairly sure he learnt not to fuck with this kid after the situation. Rehabilitation is more of a principle thing, and I admit it's less important than the previous two reasons to punish. When someone does something wrong, it's natural that he faces a negative punishment for it. If he doesn't, he gets to do something immoral without consequences, and that's unacceptable. Lastly, the bullied kid should not have just 'sucked it up', or anything similar. Getting bullied is mental and physical torture, and it will have a lasting effect on his adult life. Getting bullied in the years where you're supposed to develop your personality changes you forever. Letting this happen is not only unjust, but it is acknowledging that situations are as they are. It shows he has no power over his own life, that he is merely a result of actions of others. This will result in empty shells of a human being. gt But fighting is wrong against the law He tried to solve it in better ways, and those didn't work. Violence is against the rules and against the law, sure, but what do those laws and rules mean if they fail to protect this kid? Laws are the means, not the end. In this case, the end justifies the means. Violence isn't per se wrong, it's a tool. One that no one would like to see, admittedly, but one that is sometimes needed. gt He brought a pocket knife, what he did wasn't self defense, it was premeditated assault. He did not initiate the violence, the bully did. He brought a knife with him in the expected case he got attacked. This is similar to someone carrying weapons with him in the US. He has it in case something happened, and something did. He could've also not carried the knife with him, and he could have gotten the shit kicked out of him once again, but I also elaborated on why that would be unacceptable. To conclude , because of the three aforementioned reasons, I think that the OP of the AMA did the correct thing. And because he did the right thing, he doesn't deserve a punishment for his actions. By punishing him, you're discouraging someone that is defending himself. That wouldn't be such a problem if someone or something else defended him, but that clearly wasn't the case. He did something for himself, because it was just, and people are jumping the bandwagon because they're all taught that violence is never the answer. Thanks for reading,  EDIT I forgot one response to an objection, it slipped my mind to include it in the post. gt He didn't have to use a knife, he could've used a blunt weapon for example I'll freely admit that a knife is less than ideal, but considering the situation and the age of the kid, it was a fairly logical choice. A bat or other large blunt weapon is something that you can't casually bring with you for self defense. And his friend presented a pocket knife to him, which is basically his escape from the situation in one handpalm Sure, it works And I elaborated earlier on why a fistfight isn't feasible.","conclusion":"The bullied kid that stabbed his bully made the correct choice in doing so."}
{"id":"9282d2a7-5a2e-4919-acab-dee30d3fd147","argument":"With the upcoming presidential elections in the U.S. in 2020, these groups will very likely raise further objections and continue to drag this controversy into the spotlight.","conclusion":"Many human rights groups, news outlets and the general public have outlined objections to this ad policy."}
{"id":"c6c33b99-2e46-4cf2-815f-03ac49b0cada","argument":"Education about the faith as part of a general religious education course or program in a school or to a wider community might provide more and wider understanding and empathy, and give minority faiths such as Coptic Christians a greater sense of identity.","conclusion":"Faith-based education can be useful for minority groups whose faith is not recognized, or is actively discriminated against, by the state."}
{"id":"4c206278-0874-461e-a21f-6efb763fe46b","argument":"The Star Trek economic model, as I understand it, is that the federation central government is essentially technologically advanced enough and wealthy enough that it can provide all basic human we'll ignore the aliens needs to its citizens. Food, shelter, healthcare, can all be provided for free. Citizens work if they want to, but there is no need. Menial tasks are automated. I see no downsides to this model. I am not claiming to know how to achieve it, and while I can certainly see why it would be hard to get to, if not impossible. I am most interested in hearing arguments against the model itself.","conclusion":"I believe that a Star Trek style economic model is ideal."}
{"id":"8ababfba-c97f-46fd-b8cd-7333a1e23dca","argument":"This it total throughout ones undergraduate career, not per semester Colleges should get rid of maximum unit counts. Two reasons being that currently having a limit it puts pressure for students to pick a major, freeing it up gives them more time to decide, and lastly it will make the school more money. I originally went to community college before going to a four year university. I was 18 and not sure what I wanted to do in life. I decided to major in electrical engineering my reasoning being I was good at math and I could make a lot of money. After three semesters I realized I decided to change my major to Communication Studies because. Even though I took math and science courses, they no longer contributed to my major, but I still had them down under my unit count. I still wasn\u2019t really sure what I would do with Communication Studies, so I started taking additional courses in journalism and accounting. I liked both and was still conflicted on my major. Then I got a letter saying I needed to go through an appeal process because I reached the unit maximum. I was 20 years old, and wasn't sure what I wanted to do with my life. And luckily, since I went to community college, I saved a lot of money. Now, I know I wasn\u2019t the only college student, and won\u2019t be the last who isn\u2019t sure what they want to do with their life, let alone what major to do. Taking classes in several different subjects is helpful, because it gives you a taste of what you could potentially be doing, and if somewhere down the road you realize you like something else, you can change your major. But if there is a max unit count, then colleges make it hard for students to experiment and change their major. This means students who aren\u2019t sure what to do , or don\u2019t like their major could be stuck with it. So by having more freedom to explore academia, students will feel less stressed to take additional classes and stay longer in college to figure out what they really like. And when a student, or person for that matter, likes what they do, they will perform better at their job. Also, if a student decides later down the road to pick up a minor, they won\u2019t have to worry if they passed a unit maximum. Eliminating the max limit and giving students freedom to take more classes, which in return will make the college more profitable. Students will pay tuition, and since they\u2019ll be on campus, they\u2019ll also be spending money on food, events, and books. Now I am aware of students who spends years and years in school, aka the 10 year community college student. Problems with students taking too much time in school because they keep changing their major or can't decide I agree is a problem, but this is another issue entirely. Putting a class limit pressure on students won\u2019t encourage them to find the major best for them, it\u2019ll just force them to pick a major for the sake of having a major.","conclusion":"Colleges should remove the total maximum unit count to take courses"}
{"id":"d8d0de85-541f-4b62-8820-d6d33ebdb728","argument":"Let me start off by saying i do think that some rules of war are fair like not enslaving enemy hostages etc. However i do find that quite a bit of them not to my liking. The one that i do not like the most is as said above the rule of war that forbids any sort of harm inflected upon enemy medical services. Why i dont like the idea The main reson why i find this bad is because of how self detrimental it is. If we wanted the enemy to be healed we would not be at war with them in the first place. Aswell as that i dont see why preventing them from dying when you just shot them while intending to kill them is consindered a war crime again if you are intending to kill them . Arguments against my claim that does not convince me There is really only one main argument againt my veiws on this matter. That being that everyone no matter who it is is entitled to medical services because said person is human just like the rest of us. My problem with that is we are at war with them and that war has casualties. If that ideology was implemented with everything then the same would be said for war. We are all human we should not kill each other. Which i find true but it will never happen because war never changes","conclusion":"I find the rule of war that it is forbidden to interfere with Enemy medical services a bad thing"}
{"id":"54aebb90-62ec-42cc-be45-0109da48c897","argument":"I've always wanted to be a writer, I have so many ideas and stories and I feel like I want to get them out their. I wanna show my perspective on things and show people stories of life. However, when I think about that stuff I often just realize how pointless it is. I'm not a smart guy, I don't have any talent. My books would most likely just be lost to time and pointlessness, so why even bother? I currently am a sophomore majoring in Computer Science and minoring in mathematics. Sure, I really do like it, I'm not any good at it, but I find it interesting. I don't wanna switch my major to creative writing or any bs like that, I think it's a waste of money to be honest and there's no applicability in the real world workplace. Plus, society is created in a way to create as much debt as possible for people, and I feel like in 10 years I'll end up having 100's of thousands of dollars in debt from school and a car and a house and it's a system stacked against me. Another factor that I find myself thinking about is the disillusionment of my dream. So far in my life, I've been disillusioned by everything I loved in life, all the stories I've held dear and all the places I loved, and I feel like pursuing my dreams would just do that to me.","conclusion":"I don't feel it's wise to pursue my dream of being a writer"}
{"id":"d32e118e-d6dd-4c3b-ad1e-632c984b7707","argument":"Hoping this doesn't get deleted again. This isn't a pro trump anti trump . This is about my internal battle regarding the act of voting in general, sparked up as a result of the election and subsequent presidency thereafter. Ever since my early 20's I stopped believing in government completely. I got tired of being lied to and morals justice were obviously gone. This is a conclusion I made BEFORE Trump, mind you. With Gerrymandering, corporate lobbying, and just plain fuckery run rampant in politics, it makes voting for any candidate a waste of time. No matter who you elect, you aren't their priority and you never were. My vote truly doesn't matter. So the only form of protest I could think of was to just not participate. Don't let myself get involved in a system of party gt country, don't perpetuate a problem and make it worse. I've been tempted to vote. I almost voted in 2008 for Obama and was glad that I didn't once things like NDAA were signed by him a week after saying he wouldn't. This re affirmed that the President is not in charge to me, furthering my belief that my vote doesn't matter because the string pullers behind the scenes will get done what they want done no matter who is behind the big red button. Now I feel I'm at a point where I've done what things I can for my fellow man by trying to spread my opinions and converse with people of contrasting views to help change minds in that way and evolve my own views as a result of healthy discourse , but I think most of us who set out on that endeavor quickly realize how much of a waste it truly is 99 of the time when it comes to Trump Supporters. It still deeply depresses me how many people I've looked up to and respected showed their true, racist, ignorant, selfish colors once the MAGA craze went rampant. Even my own father almost turned into a completely different person post election. I've learned that it's like a deep seated religion. Once it's set in there, there's almost no changing it. Their minds will always find a way to re affirm their beliefs whether it be by completely twisting their perceived reality or just turning off to it entirely when it seems beneficial. So now I'm feeling like I'm left to challenging my own limits in order to do SOMETHING that I feel will matter and help contribute to make things better. I feel like all I can do is vote, but my own deep seated feelings are telling me that I'm wasting my time and that our dictator will stay our dictator with our GOP being complicit to anything that furthers their own agenda despite the majority of the nation rising up in protest and then I'll feel used, fooled by, and taken advantage of by the system that I've grown to loathe and have never officially been a part of.","conclusion":"Torn between my commitment to my protesting of our system by not voting and the passion that's erupted in me post-Trump-Inauguration"}
{"id":"863556d3-b6aa-40ff-ba8b-3b4557c358be","argument":"The installation costs of an entire wind farm are, admittedly, fairly high \u2013 although they pale into insignificance compared to an oil station or a nuclear plant \u2013 but after that there is almost no associated cost whatsoever. In addition to which farms can be built incrementally; a half completed wind farm is simply one that is half its original size for virtually any other form of power generation it\u2019s an all or nothing propositioni. Furthermore, many experts agree that so-called micro-renewables will play an increasingly important role in the energy future of the planet and wind energy is the example par excellence of how this can be done; the most basic homemade windmill can power a generator and wind power predates electricity \u2013 offshore and on \u2013 by centuries. i \"The Future of Energy. Trade winds\". Economist.com. Jun 19th 2008","conclusion":"Wind energy is an economic form of energy generation reducing both running costs and environmental harm"}
{"id":"00cf5887-b07e-4615-aa5d-46554e0e8d72","argument":"this is a violation of the definition of free will, which requires the decision making process to be made at least partly without the influence of past experiences.","conclusion":"Under compatablisum, what that nature is has been predecided. At best, it ignores the past, and calls the present free will."}
{"id":"6fc9f6f0-e993-41b2-9e1b-ef29647e7182","argument":"Let's say your in a high school, and you have 2 math teachers that teach calculus. One male, and one female. Perhaps, which i doubt, this is because i am also male, but i would choose the male teacher over the latter sex anytime.","conclusion":"I think male teachers do their job better as opposed to female teachers."}
{"id":"69270df2-7384-4604-9e2b-1122a0b95544","argument":"When politicians see themselves constantly under the lens of public scrutiny, they are essentially forced to dedicate themselves wholesale to their duties as representatives. They are disincentivized in the extreme to pursue any transgressive or hypocritical activities behind closed doors, resulting in more energy dedicated to legislating, and less to lining their pockets or chasing interns, since the added risk of being discovered increases the cost of trying to conceal their foibles.1 Having a culture of scrutiny of politicians private lives will mean those who most see their work as a public service and so will be dedicated to it will be the ones who seek to become politicians. Dominique Strauss-Kahn\u2019s lurid sex life has thrown light on the sexual misconduct rife in French politics and has actually sparked a major effort to reform the system and a change to a more demanding culture towards politicians.2 Politicians are human, after all, and susceptible to the base human urges that power unchecked is wont to accommodate. A powerful probe into politicians\u2019 private lives can only serve the cause of better governance. 1 Hughs, J. \u201cDoes the Public Really Have the Right to Know About Politicians\u2019 Private Lives\u201d. University of Phoenix Online. 27 June 2011, 2 Clifford, C. and Vandoorne, S. \u201cScandals Put a Spotlight on France\u2019s Hidden Sexism, Privacy Laws\u201d. CNN. 3 June 2011,","conclusion":"Heavy scrutiny forces politicians to dedicate themselves fully to their public service"}
{"id":"6bf546d6-d4b6-461b-a007-a56afe02a0ae","argument":"EDIT Shit, shit, my computer's acting up. Error alerts, freezing, even my clock's screwy. Sorry if I can't respond to some of your responses in time EDIT 2 I don't know why, but only certain posts are showing up on the subreddit since I posted. I messaged the mods, but I'm worried if what I plugged into my laptop is somehow messing with Reddit? I hope this isn't breaking any rules. Hi, first time Redditor here. Sorry if this is an unusual topic, but I want  to help change my view about time travel. My roommate studies quantum physics. I'm really interested in mind blowing abstract theories about matter and the universe, but I really can't for the life of me comprehend the science when she explains it to me. She recently explained to me how time is a volatile and relative thing to avoid a certain Doctor Who line , and how it somehow meant that viewing the past is a possibility. I mean, I can see what's left of the past, but what does it even mean to see past events? So I plugged in her secret lab project to my laptop to see if her data and files can help me understand time travel. But while the program loads, I'll be spending some time browsing Reddit. If you can somehow prove that time travel is possible, please change my view.","conclusion":"Time travel is impossible."}
{"id":"9fd0cea7-b8da-4dd3-8e85-b4ad380a7ab5","argument":"There are fewer parts in an electric car so the supply chain is necessarily smaller, transportation is less and so overall EVs are less environmentally damaging for the manufacturing process.","conclusion":"Manufacturing fossil fuel cars is less environmentally damaging than EVs because the energy required in the manufacturing process is less."}
{"id":"6399dd45-4de3-4d4f-bae6-8a7f51426b6c","argument":"EDIT I noticed a typo in the title, it should read emulation AND presentation sorry. I read an article online that my friend posted here And I didn't understand what would be so offensive about the photoshoot that it would call for an all out outrage. The article states that the main problem for photo shoots like these, is that, it oversimplifies intricate cultures by condensing them into a one whole generalization. I can empathize with how people may be somewhat bothered, but I just can't comprehend the extreme backlash that this article suggests. I just don't think it's possible to please everybody. How else could a culture be presented otherwise? I won't be persuaded by, don't do the photo shoot at all , because I think that would be an easy way out. I also think problems like this is a pretty specific as an American phenomenon. We often boast that the US is the modern melting pot of cultures, but I kind of see it more like a salad bowl. This analogy might seem silly but bear with me here. We have many cultures, like how salads could have many ingredients. Imagine that there are so many ingrediants that all the berries in the salad bowl start to look the same. Strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries, we know that they are different, yet they are similar to each other. Now imagine having 200 similar ingredients in that salad bowl. If the media would want to portray these cultures to the public, I think there is no way around it but to simplify. Also, I think its better for these minority groups to be represented in media in some way, than to be not represented at all. We as Americans are exposed to many cultures, but one of the cons of having so many cultures is condensation of it, when presented to the mass public. I'm just babbling on here, but I guess what I'm trying to say is that, condensation and simplification of many cultures in our media is not the original nor the malicious intent, but it is the by product of having so many cultures stationed in America today. Also, it is better for us, the public, to be somewhat knowledgeable in simplified versions of these many cultures than to not know any at all, so long as it does not create malice. Change my view.","conclusion":"I believe that emulation presentation of cultures different from your own are acceptable so long as it's intent is not malicious. Example article inside thread."}
{"id":"5f37cea7-fdcd-46b1-92a4-6888daa0455c","argument":"Sortition is the practice of randomly selecting citizens, in this case, from a pool that people submit themselves to , to be in a legislative body, like a jury. With sortition, the legislative branch can take in the views of the population better, meaning that the law could address and resolve more popular issues. At the same time, elections ensure that government has more educated, elite people who are willing to lead, and prevent bad bills from passing. This way, people's desires can be moderated and shaped by more informed people, while also making it harder to avoid addressing popular desires and thinking. As an example, the US Senate could be a sorted body, with or without state based representation, while the House stays elected.","conclusion":"A mix of sortition and elections could be better for a democratic government"}
{"id":"437e53ed-8f5c-4720-b135-789b0dad3bd3","argument":"According to Lankford, over the 47 years from 1966 to 2012, an enormous amount of the world\u2019s mass public shooters \u2014 31% \u2014 occurred in the United States","conclusion":"Mass shootings are more of a problem for the United States than the rest of the world."}
{"id":"10648b38-a59a-459d-b9c9-02629f1a3140","argument":"They are currently mired in an apparently unwinnable war in the mountains that has lost momentum. Their equipment and supplies are both out of date and running out. The expense of the war is only just bearable because of the temporary high value of Russia\u2019s oil reserves. Most of the Russian troops are unpaid by the government and in low morale. Casualties are reducing support for the war among Russians. In these circumstances International intervention provides a face saving method for President Putin to withdraw from a war that serves no purpose while appearing statesmanlike.","conclusion":"The Russian government can be persuaded to accept intervention and a brokered agreement."}
{"id":"daf9aea1-5e1d-478e-becb-be6ca3fb8ec1","argument":"It is impossible to make a single decision without weighing the costs and benefits, either consciously or subconsciously. The only reason you do anything in life is if the benefits, to you, of doing that thing exceed the costs. Even the most seemingly selfless things in life are done for selfish reasons. For example, the only reason I donate to the cancer foundation is because it makes me feel better about myself to help people with cancer, which means I'm doing it for a selfish reason. If helping other people made me feel worse about myself, I wouldn't do it. I have yet to think of a single example that lives outside this realm of selfishness. Change my view, because I was ignorantly blissful thinking of the good things people do for one another in this world before I had this realization. Lol","conclusion":"I believe everyone can only make 100% selfish decisions. It is impossible to be selfless or to \"put others first.\""}
{"id":"3bf2caf8-1391-4641-9c81-e89ab519772e","argument":"The Minister for Culture has stated that the French public will get a say in how the Notre Dame will be rebuilt.","conclusion":"Recent polls suggest that 55% of the French public want the iconic cathedral to be restored exactly as it was before."}
{"id":"036a23a5-60c2-4a38-a411-530cdcc00a2e","argument":"Many genuinely believe that climate change is a myth. Silencing them means suppressing opinions which they deem to be legitimate.","conclusion":"Banning climate change denial is likely to weaken the fight against climate change."}
{"id":"d4fc75c3-5e42-4d47-8c80-ecb1aef2465d","argument":"I recently saw a few events of a vegan march going on in the city where I currently live in. That's what led me to making this post. Ok, so. Killing animals. Those animals that are grown for the sole purpose of becoming food. Their existence would not happen if they weren't needed wanted to become food. I don't really care about sympathizing with those animals, so I'd rather have other kinds of arguments. I already agree with vegans at the level of it's bad for the planet and it would be beneficial to stop, it's bad for the environment etc. But what I don't agree with is that those animals shouldn't be killed because they have rights or whatever bullshit is it that they usually protest for. Those animals would not be alive in the first place if we would not need want them for food. Also, they are ANIMALS, they may have some level of thinking and sentience but why the fuck do you care? I mean, come on, we have bigger fucking problems than some food. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"It's not wrong to kill animals grown for food."}
{"id":"dd638dd0-7650-4906-b013-031fa8d9ac4a","argument":"I know, I know it's hard to change the view of what amounts to a prediction, but I'm rather looking reasonable refutation of my points on why she is in a good position to capture the nomination. None of what I say is laced with personal desire, but rather as impartial an observation as possible. Let me know if you agree disagree or have any general thoughts on the following take. Essentially, the TL DR version is, I tip her to clinch it by Spring Summer 2020. Although, I do believe it will come down to her and Biden, both of whom have advantages disadvantages that I will highlight. I'll also mention the shortcomings of the other candidates. My reasons are as follows 1 Although it's early, the field of 20 candidates has molded about four or so favorites , based on polling data Biden, Warren, Sanders, Harris. 2 Although Kamala Harris has been propelled to a sort of rising star in the party, and, is among the front runners, her numbers have shown consistent dips in polls taken after the second Democratic debate a week or so ago, where she had a weak moment in response to the attacks leveled at her from Tulsi Gabbard whether or not you personally agreed or disagreed with the Hawaii Congresswoman . 3 Harris also may be hurt from an over crowded field, an observation that was noted the other day in an article by FiveThirtyEight.com, which I think has clout. The presence of Biden is siphoning African American voters from her, and Bernie Warren's presence and representation of the Progressive wing is also diluting her chances. 4 Having said that, it's true that Harris ticks all the boxes for where the Democratic Party is headed, i.e. her demographic appeal as a woman and a minority. And she very well could benefit from the primary scheduling once they hit South Carolina and her home state of California on Super Tuesday. 5 Sanders is hurt by Warren's presence. Likewise, she's hurt by his, but she has been more warmly received in the aftermath of the first few debates than Sanders has. If one of them is going to trail off and endorse the other, I see it being him doing so for her. 6 Biden's advantage largely stems from name recognition and his association with the Obama years. He's known for saying trivial things at times and the more his past remarks and record gets dug through, the worse it gets for him, i.e. segregation busing, Anita Hill, etc. Granted he's surviving the onslaught fairly well. After a lackluster first debate, he's sort of rebounded in the next one and still is the odds on favorite to win. So he's got some armor about him. However, I remain skeptical it can last very long, with five months out from the first votes being cast, and with potential consolidation around an alternative candidate for the anti Biden camp. 7 Biden is, admittedly, aided by Warren and Sanders splitting the progressive vote, and, if the latter two stay in the race long enough, may make it easier for him to clinch the nomination. 8 Warren seems to have overcome the Native American blood ordeal that embarrassed her a few months ago. She was great in all of her debates, including getting a couple of great soundbites against the likes of John Delaney, and has arguably been the candidate who has most benefited from screen time, as polls show her now hovering consistently around 2nd 3rd in the race. 9 While Warren is Progressive, she has the distinction of presenting herself as the bridge candidate between the Left and the center, in a way that Bernie can't. She's demonstrated having a high ceiling for garnering support, whereas Bernie mainly has a committed base. Centrists view Sanders a tad more unfavorably than they do Warren. 10 Many of her policy proposals, like Sanders are popular with Democratic voters, but she's generally done a better job of fleshing out her substantive arguments that Bernie has. She has more fluidity in her appeal. Prediction Elizabeth Warren narrowly captures the nomination over Joe Biden around May June of next year. It's a taaaad bold Biden has considerable things in his favor , but not really. Thoughts?","conclusion":"Elizabeth Warren quietly has a very strong chance of being the 2020 Democratic nominee"}
{"id":"2a78f98c-4142-4e6e-8fbd-37b182c53c4e","argument":"A UBI would enable a lot of people to do what they really like, instead of what they currently do for a stable income. Doing what you really like for a few years helps you master some skills which, together with great quality coming from your enthusiasm around that \"hobby\", might result in an increase of small businesses.","conclusion":"A UBI makes it more likely that people will attempt to start their own companies, or become self-employed."}
{"id":"d9ff1e6c-a119-4893-acd5-65b62d38b34a","argument":"Airbnb competition threatens the existence of hotel compression nights nights of the year when 95% of hotel rooms are occupied, which are an incredibly important source of income for them.","conclusion":"Airbnb constitutes an overwhelming source of threatening competition for the hotel and lodging industry."}
{"id":"a2ae89a4-7d07-4580-96ee-e4bf0fa20b80","argument":"For some subjects it's important to be able to look up information that is often misrepresented, poorly indexed or difficult to find. Now that textbooks are no longer the primary means of looking things up students might need to learn how to google effectively.","conclusion":"Mobile phones are a way of providing easy access to more information."}
{"id":"e59ddd1f-3402-4a79-9777-31ede5fcda47","argument":"The process of mining and removing the ores from the ground with heavy equipment is disruptive for nature and environment and releases toxic materials.","conclusion":"To produce an army of AKMs, thousands of tons of metal steel, aluminum, titanium etc., composites, electronics silicon, rare earths etc. are required."}
{"id":"8462bec7-a09f-4353-aa51-f458f515b079","argument":"First of all, I would like to say that what the Nazis did with their eugenics was horrible. However, I believe this to be quite a different matter. The main difference being that the fetus has no feelings and will not suffer from its abortion. The reason that I wanted to discuss this, was the following tweet from a while back by Richard Dawkins Oh, how this man has a way with words. s This was his response to one of his followers tweeting I honestly don't know what I would do if I were pregnant with a kid with Down Syndrome. Real ethical dilemma. . I was surprised at this backlash. When I asked my friends, it turned out pretty much everybody was against forced abortion as well. After some research, it turns out that others who have proposed mandatory abortions of fetusses with Down syndrome have also received gigantic backlash even being thrown out of their political parties . Still, I would like to change this view, because my feelings tell me that this is absolutely horrible and I therefore do not want to want this. Now my reasons for believing this Handicapped people will, on average, cost society more money than the average person contribute less to society. Somewhat related to the previous point the parents could, to put it as bluntly as Dawkins himself, 'try again' and this time, they will most likely have a child without birth defects or some other kind of handicap. The child will cause the people around them a lot of stress, more than a normal child. Stress that could be avoided and should therefore be avoided. The two main arguments against my point of view, I think, would be Slippery slope What exactly would a handicap be? Who decides what defect is enough for a forced abortion, and what defect isn't? However, I don't think this means that we should simply avoid the whole issue altogether, merely because we can't define exactly what constitutes a handicap. As an example, the government also deals with handicapped people. They need to decide who is and who isn't handicapped and who therefore deserves money to help them with their disability and privileges such as special parking spots . It is quite clear that Down syndrome and Huntington's disease have huge effects, not only on the child's parents and siblings, but also on all of society and of course on the child itself That would be enough to qualify as a handicap. Also. this argument sounds quite fallacious There is quite a large difference between aborting fetusses diagnosed with Down syndrome and aborting all fetusses that will not have blue eyes and blond hair. The government also controls the army, but that doesn't mean they are just going to shoot everybody they don't like. It can't be enforced how could the government enforce this? The government could simply force all women to register their pregnancies and force them to have their fetusses tested for birth defects. Sure, this might lead to people hiding pregnancies, but just because it isn't a definitive solution doesn't mean that the law shouldn't be there. It will still cause many fetusses that would otherwise have been born with a handicap to be aborted. One could argue that this law would violate the rights of the woman to control her own body, however, that's what laws do. Should we not be sending people to prison, because people should have control over their own body? EDIT Thanks for all the responses I notice that you are all very much convinced that I'm wrong and I must say that your arguments are very persuasive. Some of them What about people who would be able to compensate pay the difference? Would they then be allowed to have the child, whereas the poor would not be allowed to? This would be a very unfair law then. If I condone forcing a woman to have her fetus aborted, I obviously condone violating some basic human rights. Why would I not condone murder of society's 'burdens' as well? The government shouldn't be deciding how much stress people put on themselves. Trauma of the parents. A smaller gene pool causes the race to be less capable of adapting. Good example sickle cell causes horrible pain. If it had been eliminated from the gene pool, a massive malaria outbreak might have happened since sickle cell causes immunity against malaria","conclusion":"Abortion should be mandatory if a fetus is found to have a handicap"}
{"id":"8a90f90f-c41e-47d5-a4ee-52440b1947a2","argument":"Here's the deal I believe that high skill food preparation and general foodiness is wasteful, inefficient, time consuming, snobbish, pointless, and ultimately subjective. However, I am dating someone who enjoys cooking and good food, and would like to understand the other side of the issue. I'll lay out what I believe. Good cooking should go the way of the dinosaur for three main reasons. First, it's incredibly wasteful. Second, progress has a general trend toward removing labor intensive parts of human culture. Third, at the end of the day, who cares how good the food is? First, wastefulness. When cooking, I've witnessed some of the most startlingly wasteful practices I've ever seen. Ingredients bought so one small part of them can be used to flavor a dish, and the rest thrown out. Cooking each ingredient separately in pans really? you heat the stove itself, the air around the pan, the unused space in the pan, and the air above the pan to cook the little bit of food that does touch the pan? before combining them and cooking again, in order to bring out flavor. And overall, spending an hour or more preparing something that could offer the same nutritional value after twenty minutes of cooking, because some members of the group find it more pleasing. When humans are able to make processed nutrition cubes for meals, we will be able to get much more out of our energy, our food sources, and our lives. Second, I often hear that cooking is a part of culture, and will endure because of that. That you can't look at cooking as just a necessity to provide nourishment because it can't be divorced from the social and heritage aspects. To that I offer the example of the Roman communal baths. The Romans took a necessary consideration, hygiene, and gave it cultural value. They built aesthetically pleasing halls for bathing, and made it into a socially valuable part of high society interaction. Today we wake up in the morning, jump into a shower, use the minimum amount of water to clean our bodies, and get out. We do this because our time and our water became scarce. When our food supplies do likewise, historical precedent says culture will give way to prudence. Finally, and this is a big one, who cares? Taste is a lower order pleasure. It's not like a critically acclaimed movie which stretches your mind and emotions while impressing your senses. It's a simple, sensual intake, and because of that, it's a subjective judgement. Many of us can go to KFC and find something we enjoy more than the offerings of Food Channel Approved restaurants. The insistence that hand prepared food is better strikes me as absurd, like saying that a farmer's field is just not plowed very well because he used a tractor instead of hitching a single blade to his horse. We have microwaves, we have instant food, we have the capability to make these inferior creations stimulate many of the same parts of the brain that expertly cooked foods do. Why should I care? Why should I believe that the absurd waste of resources, time and energy is necessary to sustain an inefficient process because some people are desperately attached to the old ways of doing things? Fine food prep should go, and we will all be better off when our allotments of MealPills arrive for the month.","conclusion":"I believe that skillful cooking of good food will become a lost art, and we will all be better off,"}
{"id":"fb2ce4c7-e507-4766-b2a5-86ba2fdbfc1e","argument":"Of course I am going to start this post by saying everyone has the right to seek love, but for the sake of being an adult men, the sake of finding a girlfriend would be much higher if they have their shit together. As an adult men, the standards are going to be a lot higher than a woman. In many countries, Men are expected to be the provider of the family so it is paramount that they are shown to be able to take care of themselves if they want a good chance of being in a relationship. It is also a negative stigma for adult men to be living with their parents. That is not to say that it is impossible to be in a relationship if they are, but for the most part they are going to be judged quite a bit. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Adult men shouldn't make it a priority to get a girlfriend unless they can take care of themselves."}
{"id":"fb4bf350-6574-4b6d-b513-cb7984da4666","argument":"As someone from Romania that just moved to the US, I think PTSD is too big of a problem here for no reason at all. I'm saying this because I haven't hear of any case of this in Romania. It literally is not a thing. And guess what? People don't suffer from it. They don't have triggers. They don't wake up in the middle of the night screaming. Maybe it is just made worse by the American media, but I think that if having PTSD isn't something that is expected to happen, it is way less likely to happen.","conclusion":"PTSD wouldn't be such a big problem if it wasn't taken so seriously."}
{"id":"672c5f32-f425-4ac3-bf6b-0226ceceebfc","argument":"Repost from r unpopularopinion People keep complaining that our country is so divided. I hear trash about people becoming more polarized and divisive language . Guess what geniuses? Politics is divisive by nature, unity is shit dictators rally around. For 30 years this country the United States has settled into a calm political process where not much has gotten done on the home front. In the last 30 years the only serious reform we have had is Obamacare 10 years ago which made a serious but not serious enough effort to overhaul the healthcare system in this country. Additionally we did have some minor economic regulation after the 2008 collapse which has since been rolled back . However since the economic recession things have become more polarized and as a result we are finally having some real talk in this country about fixing serious problems. Legalizing Marijuana and ending the drug war, glass stegall type regulation, taxing the rich, immigration reform, medicare for all, free college, UBI maybe , bringing the troops home. I don't agree with all of the reforms I mentioned but I am glad we are addressing issues seriously rather than just sitting around. I should add that I am on the political left so I mentioned leftist issues, but I have little doubt Conservatives agree with the notion that new necessary actions are being considered. The problem people should focus on is civility. Civility I should note, is not being nice but having honest and often intense disagreement with people. At present people are way too emotional and are engaging in faulty reasoning and identity politics. There is also a collapse of good journalism and the internet has changed us in many not so good ways. But in general, if people in this country can reason and discuss politics better, we might be able to start fixing very serious issues in the decade to come.","conclusion":"Political Polarization is definitely a good thing"}
{"id":"b2fa8ed3-d789-491e-8a89-c76795d2c324","argument":"Throughout the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child there is an emphasis that when making decisions about the rights of children, its signatories will prioritise what is in the 'best interest' of the child as a 'primary consideration'. See, for example, article 3.","conclusion":"Parental autonomy is often overridden when it comes to questions of children's health and wellbeing."}
{"id":"bca0c0ed-5d0e-4d42-8d83-86997cdca466","argument":"Corporate sponsorship of Pride parades increases the number of supporters for the LGBTQ movement in the form of loyal consumers of these corporate brands.","conclusion":"This shows that corporations support the LGBTQ community and are willing to put their name beside Pride."}
{"id":"19438e11-2578-4037-b5c9-1ea5d9f1d1de","argument":"This is my first , critique as needed So this conversation sparked because a friend of a friend is male that identifies as a female and wants a sex change surgery. MY friend says that as long as the individual mentally identifies as a female, then they are female regardless of what they were born as. This is where I disagree, I believe that our genders are in our genetics and that we do not choose. I am not arguing that a male cannot feel feminine or mentally desire to be a woman, I am here to express my point of view that Gender is SET at birth regardless of how you mentally identify. I think that it cannot be just a mental feeling decision about your gender, and that is a biological decision made beyond our power. EXAMPLE If a male patient gets a sex change Penis to Vagina , I would personally still identify him as a male because if we were to pull his blood DNA, his chromosomes would read XY. So what does the  Reddit community think? Can you change my view to agree that Gender Identification is a mental capacity only and not defined biologically?","conclusion":"Even if you identify as the opposite sex want a sex change, you are and should identify as the gender you were born as."}
{"id":"b4ee20d2-604d-4df7-a8b9-83995bb61bde","argument":"With the Jordan vs Lebron discussion finally put to bed and the twilight of Lebron's career upon us, its becoming clear that Lebron's fall from grace will not be pretty. Jordan for example did not have much of a fall from grace. Even his brief and underwhelming stint in baseball or the over the hill era with the Wizards, did not seem to significantly tarnish his Legacy. Kobe's recovery from a major injury late in his career, in some ways made him seem even more exceptional, despite poor individual and team performances. Similar to Kobe's farewell tour, Dwayne Wade's strategy of fully accepting retirement is fail safe. You can be checked out and occasionally surprise people by having a good game if you want. Carmelo Anthony at least had Stephen A Smith in his corner insisting that it was always the coach or the Owner, or the GM. Even with him being essentially retired, the question of why is somewhat ambiguous. Lebron's case is unique. He doesn't seem to have a good out. He has performed at a high level for so long that it is hard to imagine how his career might end. The narrative is quickly escalating towards his downfall being entirely his fault. No loyalty to Franchises, Cities, Players, Coaches, etc. Distracted with opportunities outside of basketball. Passive aggression, Lack of effort. The list goes on. Things are not going well for King James. Jordan second retirement was a fairy tale and seemed like a natural end. For Lebron this should've been the Cleveland championship but perhaps that would've been too early. His current injury is not severe enough to be career ending and should he choose retirement based on injury, it would look foolish in comparison to Kobe's achilles injury for example. Magic Johnson's end had social relevance as he became a business mogul and an inspiration for individuals struggling with HIV. As of now it is unclear how Lebron will spin his inevitable decline as an athlete an icon. The numbers and accomplishments will always be there, but the Myth and legacy have taken major blows since moving to LA. I cannot think of any other major NBA star that has had such of a decline.","conclusion":"Lebron's fall from grace will be the worst of any \"Top Level\" NBA star"}
{"id":"32c5cff1-4f6a-49ce-9b5c-836e7a85db6f","argument":"If travelling in a group, the buses or trains may be too full to accommodate everyone.","conclusion":"It would make it difficult for individuals to move over longer distances."}
{"id":"224568e7-d9b8-4fbc-9595-828bfeda9977","argument":"Studies show that students who are not challenged in school often resort to forms of misbehavior p. 27","conclusion":"Disengaged students in classrooms tend to have more disciplinary issues than the student body on average."}
{"id":"65c8912f-9650-45fb-9204-60c5d9587b90","argument":"Allowing women to show their nipples won't really erase decades of stereotyping and sexism that contribute to how we view the female body or deconstruct societal notions of what it means to be a woman.","conclusion":"A movement like #FreeTheNipple that relies on naked breasts to fight patriarchy, might actually reinforce the male gaze instead of fighting it."}
{"id":"e050953e-926d-4a3c-8308-9ebdd3330afe","argument":"If a voting system is seen as being too complex and people struggle to see the impact of their vote, they are less incentivised to commit the time and effort to becoming an informed voter because they are not certain of the pay off.","conclusion":"The more complex a voting system is, the more people will be afraid of using it, because they'll feel like they won't understand how their vote affects the outcome, as well as a simpler system."}
{"id":"26c44f3c-d32f-4d42-98d5-31179748ac74","argument":"I used to be really big into photography as well as my brother. However, after thinking it over, I really only think its about timing and how still you can hold a camera. Don't get me wrong, I am not bashing photography, but I just don't believe a large amount of skill is required. Please try to  if you have some insight. EDIT Damn you guys really put an effort into this i really appreciate it. Turns out there were many aspects i didn't look into all that much. Though i still will be critical of the growing fad that buying a camera makes one a photographer, I will definitely look at it with far better eyes.","conclusion":"I do not believe photography takes a lot of skill."}
{"id":"04709edc-0c76-4525-b0c0-758591a13d0d","argument":"I cannot understand why actors actresses are perceived as being superiorly talented for what they do. No, I have never acted in a production. At the most, I think committing the lines to memory would be the most difficult part. Please enlighten me.","conclusion":"I feel the \"talent\" of acting and actors are overrated."}
{"id":"5550e7ac-ed28-473a-8057-2fb0e931cccc","argument":"Public health should be a responsibility of all citizens. As with juries and criminal justice, the best way to distribute this duty is to randomly choose who must participate.","conclusion":"All participants for drug trials that involve humans in the US should be chosen randomly from those in the population who meet the required characteristics of the study."}
{"id":"494135a6-2f9a-46b3-956f-46ceefda18a2","argument":"The claim concerns faith, not God. The argument doesn't claim more than that \"an idea included within the Christian doctrine is pursuit of understanding, which leads to scientific inquiry.\"","conclusion":"As long as there is no evidence of a God, naturalism tells us that we should reject Christianity and other religions, no matter what other merits they exhibit."}
{"id":"562580b8-1040-4062-acab-f394134ae504","argument":"There are four levels of French language. In descending order of formality these are; Pre\u0301cieux snobby, poetic, Soutenu literary, written, Courant public, administrative, Familier informal language, non-standard popular terms, Argotique very informal language, offensive if used in the wrong context or said to a stranger.1 \u201cthe Middle Ages ninth century \u2013 fifteenth century.saw the emergence of a new standard language, replacing Latin.\u201d2 Since French - if not began, at least \u2018grew up\u2019- it has functioned with these four levels of formality. Franglais is not standard French, although many Franglais nouns un post-it, un walkman would be acceptable in a formal context, and its presence, uprising and prevalence threatens the use and survival of the more formal versions of the language. It is important that the French people are not seduced by the English language but instead know their mother tongue properly and can appreciate and understand these four levels. The acceptance of Franglais and Anglicisms within the French language means there could well be a whole generation of French whose mother tongue is punctuated and littered with Anglicisms. If English influences are allowed to prevail in the French language, then soon any linguist who writes about the French language will only be able to see it in relation to the English language that influences it; and not as a language in its own right with those four differing levels of formality. If the French language is protected, it will not only be protected against English but against becoming degraded into a language littered with wrong usage; good French will be upheld and defended against bad French. 1 Lodge, R. Anthony, Exploring the French language, John Wiley and Sons, 1997, page 28 2 Lodge, R. Anthony, Exploring the French language, John Wiley and Sons, 1997, page 44","conclusion":"Franglais interferes with the four established levels of the French language."}
{"id":"0fa1c12f-dd49-4c69-8de1-a8c28477a8a5","argument":"The word is only racist in modern context and at the time it was written the 'N' word was only a descriptive term and not a slur. Descriptive terms for groups of people only become slurs after the group of people are deemed to be loathsome in majority.","conclusion":"It is important to preserve the artistic integrity of great works of art like Huckleberry Finn. As such, none of its language should be modified."}
{"id":"8d841cfa-09d9-4709-a202-3de8ba2680a3","argument":"I think it's quite possible for me to exist in a completely new environment, looking different maybe not even human , acting different, and everything has changed, but I instantly recognize my new environment because I have had all of my previous memories replaced and new ones implanted. Try to make my previous views faulty and make me believe that my existence is consistent.","conclusion":"My being is not consistent from day to day, my previous existence has been erased, and false moemories have been implanted."}
{"id":"61ae0e53-b2d7-4572-8917-2fbf89da5bee","argument":"I suspect this might turn into a huge shitstorm but please just read this before lunging into the comments Also this is only applicable to certain circumstances I lock my doors when I leave the house because I don't want to be burgled. It is my responsibility to take that measure to prevent theft. Obviously it's the burglars fault that I got burgled, no question there, but if my insurance company finds out I left my doors unlocked they probably wouldn't pay me. If the victim of a negative event didn't take any kind of reasonable precaution against that event, we blame them at least somewhat. If it's an overcast day and you don't bring an umbrella, and you get rained on, you failed to prepare yourself for it. Why is rape any different? Now obviously there are a lot of retards out there who'll say something like yes you're right brokeninpieces That's why it's their fault they were raped if they're wearing skimpy clothing And all that crap. That is different, that's like saying well if you have a big house you're obviously gonna get robbed you moron . I'm talking about reasonable preventative precautions to deal with awful possibilities. say that nail polish stuff that tests if a drink has been spiked. That stuff sounds amazing, because drink spiking happens often I am led to believe and now there's a way to actively prevent it. I'm not saying it's your fault you got spiked , I'm saying you could have prevented this but you didn't . Also regarding the teach boys not to rape argument, it's not that rapists don't know any better. It's not like thieves say oh wait, taking other peoples things is wrong? Oops They know it's wrong, they just don't care, they're awful people.","conclusion":"It is the victims responsibility to ensure they are not raped, just the same as stolen from, drugged, or murdered."}
{"id":"ad6becad-41bc-48bb-83f9-744b72a268ad","argument":"Economists believe an inverse relationship existed between inflation and unemployment, and that rising unemployment could be fought with increased inflation.","conclusion":"Inflation can be better for the people of a country."}
{"id":"3b1995a0-7dd2-414b-bc50-00e7ec008a38","argument":"Nobody can decided for others what is the right amount of money that they can live with.","conclusion":"\u20ac1 million is not enough to ensure a good quality of life for inheritors."}
{"id":"296d7d37-6f29-4e75-a341-4299977ca428","argument":"Shared responsibility might make it easier for decision makers to decide based on what they think is right and good, not based on what they think will receive the least public backlash.","conclusion":"A collegial presidency would allow individual members to deflect the political fallout of difficult decisions."}
{"id":"98f9a472-a3bb-4784-b3b8-dd3da910bc2d","argument":"Australia has taken a leading role in tackling the under-representation of women in the gaming industry, through a series of programs targeted at education and career development.","conclusion":"The gender representation gap in the gaming industry is decreasing."}
{"id":"67d06a09-005e-476f-bce4-ef30c5384ccd","argument":"So lets look at what he did. He raised the price astronomically on a second rate malaria and HIV drug. So what's the downside? Insurance companies who need to buy the drug have to pay a lot more money. Everyone in the country is mandated to purchase insurance because Obamacare is a mandated law. Insurance companies can't discriminate upon preexisting conditions either. So the lions share of the money being paid for the drug is being paid for by insurance companies. Which, I should add, is why Shkreli was able to raise the price to begin with. To my knowledge, no one has come forth and said they couldn't afford buying the drug because of the price. Shkreli himself has come forth and said if you can't purchase the drug he'll give it to you at a heavily discounted price. So no one's health has been effected negatively due to the price increase. So lets look at the facts, no one has been physically hurt by the price increase. The only ones really hurt are hurt economically. They're the people who pay for insurance businesses, certain private individuals, and the government are paying huge premiums because of Obamacare. Now lets look at the positive effects. When Shkreli's company bought the rights to produce the drug they did so in order to develop derivatives on the drug to improve its efficacy. They're creating chemicals that are similar and testing it to see if it can treat other diseases or see if they can improve how well Daraprim works. Furthermore it creates an incentive for other companies to start developing drugs to compete with Shkreli's ostensible monopoly. Because he's charging more, medical science is going to progress and lives in the future will be improved. While currently no one is being denied access to the drug for being prohibitively expensive. Furthermore, it highlights how ridiculous Obamacare is and how it needs to be repealed. This would have never been able to happen if insurance companies were allowed to deny patients for preexisting conditions and if every American citizen were mandated to purchase insurance. So my view is that there are quite a few societal benefits to Shkreli's price hike that outweigh the negative.","conclusion":"Martin Shkreli's drug price hike isn't so bad, in fact it's probably a net positive"}
{"id":"faff451b-f8d0-4b05-a0ca-6708f4ac4df4","argument":"Given the high wind speeds around the Venusian equator, it might make sense to anchor the floating structures to the ground 30 to 50km below in order to prevent collisions. The cablework for this would be heavy and might be challenging materialwise, but the weight could maybe be supported by balloons. To these cables and balloons, wind turbines might indeed be attached for energy generation.","conclusion":"Given the dense atmosphere wind turbines for generating electricity would be more efficient."}
{"id":"bd498130-7bef-4aae-a9fb-c30de541445f","argument":"While many of the actions of Sharon were unacceptable, he is not the only person who committed horrible acts: not just only in the Israeli-Palestinian conflicts, but across the world. If he were to be prosecuted, many others would be. Hamas figures would have to be indicted for their actions, too \u2013 for example Mohammed Deif, who masterminded the 1996 Jaffa Road bus bombings which killed 33 civilians as with many other commanders of groups \u2013 Hamas, Islamic Jihad, even Fatah - that have engaged in targeting civilians could be put on trial.","conclusion":"If Sharon is tried then many others would have to be as well"}
{"id":"dad66595-c526-4f13-b165-586deb288320","argument":"The Bible states that there is no being like God. Therefore, no commandments intended for humans could be reasonably applied to God in the same way they might to humans.","conclusion":"The Ten Commandments were written for the Israelites to follow not for God. Hence, most commandments are not applicable to God."}
{"id":"fc9fb240-4f44-46cb-8b06-4e061e9cfc78","argument":"The #MeToo movement is an example of feminism that has been criticized for creating an inherently anti-male bias Critics say it harms due process and assumes the guilt of the accused without fact-gathering.","conclusion":"Feminism by definition is inherently biased against men thus making it divisive by nature."}
{"id":"e2d28592-fe7c-4782-92c6-0f11ee7e43a2","argument":"In many parts of the world wind speeds fluctuate over the course of several weeks.","conclusion":"Wind energy can't provide power during absence of wind."}
{"id":"11187744-a1d5-44a6-9326-2d476279fe82","argument":"To clarify, this is usually used to in cases where someone is trying to make a moral or behavioral argument. As an overly simplistic example, People who commit murder are worth less than people who don't. Well, who are you to define what a human life is worth? I'm the guy who didn't murder anybody. That sort of statement does little except to try to belittle the person making the assertion by implying that they are nobody, or are unqualified. It does nothing to refute their core point and attempts to shut down the discussion. If we're going to play that game, then hardly anyone is qualified to comment on anything. Well who are you to say how the government should be run? Well who are you to say I shouldn't hit my kids? Well who are you to say I should drink water instead of soda?","conclusion":"I believe that the \"well, who are you to define xyz\" argument is a cop-out and a lazy debate tactic."}
{"id":"ef70118c-a2b7-436f-a45d-f19deba6a507","argument":"Programming is very intense and requires a lot of concentration, so it is impossible for most people to code for 7 8 hours straight every day and still produce quality work. This includes stuff like getting coffee, reading articles, or just going outside and taking a walk for a few minutes. I don't bill this kind of stuff in my work now but the thought has crossed my mind before that I should be able to, since it does positively contribute to the work. So as long as I am meeting deadlines, cooperating well, and producing quality work, etc. I should be able to bill any personal activity I can reasonably justify as helping me get in the mood to code. Update These billable personal activities I am describing would just be brief escapes from the code for 15 30 minutes or so. Not hours at a time. Update Wording.  Edit My V has been C'ed. It just doesn't seem right to bill time not spent doing some sort of directly work related activity.","conclusion":"As a programmer, everything I do to help my brain relax and \"get in the mood\" for programming should be billable."}
{"id":"3dcf2c60-fd46-4604-831f-6c63a7794fa0","argument":"Studies show that those without jobs are much more likely to become addicted to alcohol or drugs.","conclusion":"Being employed has a positive impact on people's health"}
{"id":"b4957703-1685-4e88-8ad3-9c2c7950ef2b","argument":"How are concerts different from any other consumer good or service? The people that are willing to pay the most will and therefore everybody wins. If ticket companies want to avoid this, they should just charge more.","conclusion":"Ticket scalping and resale is fully legitimate, and an example of free market capitalism."}
{"id":"3e9a1ae3-676e-465f-99be-7e5668d3a6d9","argument":"According to research \"gender-based victimization, discrimination, bullying, violence, being rejected by the family, friends, and community; harassment by intimate partner, family members, police and public; discrimination and ill treatment at health-care system are the major risk factors that influence the suicidal behavior\" among the trans community.","conclusion":"Transgender people face a high risk of prejudice and mental health problems: approximately 41 percent of trans people in the U.S. have attempted suicide according to a 2010 survey by the National Center for Transgender Equality and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force."}
{"id":"bcc0642e-e5eb-40d1-8b22-4b4c48d5cf91","argument":"It's weird to me that people on Reddit are sceptical about anything that is posted, until it considers 'social justice'. It's too hard to believe a Redditor stood up to his noisy neighbour, or farted during sex or whatever, but when a Tumblr user remarks that teeth are racist he must be earnest as hell, because that's how 'they' are. This follows a larger pattern of blowing anything out of the social justice movement vastly out of proportion. This goes for both the fact that anons redditors feel the need to make these troll posts on Tumblr, because maybe there aren't enough really absurd posts, and the fact that r tumblrinaction is so ready to believe them at face value. The amount of people that honestly believes we should be sensitive to wolfkin, and are cis gendered white male scum for wearing shoes with laces, is insignificant and generally in their teens, just experimenting with worldviews.","conclusion":"At least 80% of the posts in \/r\/TumblrInAction are troll posts."}
{"id":"aa48a6a6-6c3d-4248-9101-f51dcb7b192c","argument":"Plants utilized an abundant chemical that they needed - CO2 in an environment that they weren't in before - by moving to that abundant area to get it. They were pioneers in doing so.","conclusion":"Plants\/fungi have existed long before humans walked the planet and survived up to now. This may indicate plants are conscious in that they are conscientious of what they are doing."}
{"id":"c68be1f8-9aca-4177-b7a9-7e4881ad1065","argument":"The Red Pill is often misunderstood to be hateful against women and destructive to one's life. After studying Red Pill philosophy in depth reading several books, countless articles, blogs, posts, and comments I believe that Red Pill is anything but hateful against women and destructive. I'll start with the core Red Pill philosophy. Red Pill is targeted primarily towards young males who are frustrated with their dating and sex lives. Hence this is why Red Pill is associated with misogyny. It is not Red Pill that is misogynist but rather the people it attracts. Red Pill is trying to convert misogynist guys into productive members of society who also have increased luck with women. According to its philosophy, the reason men have trouble with women these days is because of the rise of feminism and break down of gender roles. I'm not making the argument that feminism or gender equality is bad, but rather it has negative effects towards masculinity and the perception towards it. Instead of embracing the nature of masculinity taking action, leading, bravery, boldness, etc , men today are being raised in a more feminine way. Men today increasingly are becoming too soft, too yielding, and too nice. Being soft, yielding, and nice isn't a bad thing, unless it's taken to an extreme which is what is happening today. As such, a lot of men believe that in order to attract women they must forgo their masculinity and appeal to the desires of women. Rather than focusing on themselves and following their own life dreams and goals, they must instead try to seek validation from others. Women are generally not attracted to this. From an evolutionary and biological standpoint, women tend to be attracted to strong, powerful, and independent men. In order words, men that embrace their masculinity. Nature has created a system like this to create the optimal environment to successfully raise a child and ensure the survival of the woman. In return for offering protection, men get sex. Although this system nature has created is not as useful today in the modern world as it was back in the caveman days, human biology, psychology, behavior is still largely unaffected in the most fundamental sense. Evolution is slow to occur and happens over the course of millions of years. This explains why nice guys are typically unlucky when it comes to dating and women and why women prefer the jerk and asshole guys. Asshole guys act in a more masculine fashion whereas nice guys act in a more feminine fashion. The rise of feminism and gender equality is creating more nice guys and thus many guys today are experiencing frustration against women and dating. To solve this problem, Red Pill preaches that men embrace their masculinity. To embrace one's masculinity means to take action, be a leader, constantly improve oneself in positive ways, and not seek validation from others especially women. This translate well into the dating world because it promotes men to stop being needy, clingy, and desperate towards women. If they see a women they like, Red Pill encourages men to take action and talk to the woman. During dates, Red Pill encourages men to lead the date in how they see fit, not what the women wants. If the women doesn't like the date, this just shows a lack of compatibility and the guy must move on. Red Pill DOES NOT encourage being disrespectful towards women. If you browse r TheRedPill, you might see a lot of people posting about hating women but that's just people who have yet to truly swallow The Pill. They are in the process of letting go their frustrations so that they can hopefully eventually better themselves. After all, everyone needs a place to vent and Red Pill provides that to men. It does not encourage negativity towards women or anyone in general. The following are 2 books that are heavily Red Pill and have been most supportive of me in my journey to become the best and most masculine version of myself. Models by Mark Manson Book of Pook Here's a free online version I recently swallowed The Pill and although I disagree with feminism and gender equality, I harbor no hate against women. I plenty of friends who are women and I still treat and view them with respect. The only difference is that rather than seeking to constantly please women as a nice guy does, I seek to please myself first. I also now embrace everything that means to be masculine within reason of course, meaning I won't do any illegal or hurt anyone in the name of masculinity . Despite all the positive benefits of The Red Pill, a lot of people are still adamant that is very destructive. Change my view that is isn't","conclusion":"I believe The Red Pill is a valuable resource and that all men should explore its philosophy"}
{"id":"b76f7c09-6bec-4829-a3be-d6fabb9341e2","argument":"Female genital mutilation is a noted part of Islamophobic rhetoric Khalil, p. 43 While this may be acceptable in the context of such a horrific procedure, the harms of circumcision do not justify this risk.","conclusion":"Defining circumcision as a crime may increase stigma against Jews and Muslims two groups already facing increased discrimination."}
{"id":"3ef30512-2039-4baa-8924-e6bd2a74a722","argument":"The duty of the state lies foremost in protecting its citizens and its institutions. The citizens have given the state the monopoly of violence, thus becoming innocent lambs who must be guarded and protected. When an external force is threatening the security of the citizens or a crime has been done against them, it is the duty of the state to shield them and to make sure that the perpetrators are brought to justice, because the citizens rely solely on the state for protection. War of course is an immediate threat to the bodily security of state's citizens. Traditionally war has been waged between states. States threatened other states by acquiring armies, weapons and military structures. But modern warfare is different. Increasingly, violent non-state actors are gaining enough power to pose a real threat to civilians, without the need for armies in the traditional sense. What do we mean by non-state actors? They certainly have a citizenship of some state, but they act independently from that state and are organized to actively harm another state. They use unconventional methods of warfare that cannot be countered by traditional methods that are used in state to state warfare. They exploit the vulnerabilities of the social order of the state performing surprise attacks on civilian structures and inflicting many casualties among completely innocent and unprepared people. Conflict between states and non-state actors are fundamentally different from conventional warfare where damage to civilians can be limited and the fighting mainly goes on between soldiers abiding by international rules of law S. Sheppard. Passion and Nation: War, Crime, and Guilt in the Individual and the Collective. . The very strength of these violent non-state actors like terrorist networks lies in the fact that individuals from that network can hide within other states and are very difficult to find, capture and bring to justice. They can spend years plotting an attack against the state while hiding out in a state that either has no interest, no means or is hostile toward the other state. All the while a danger looms over the target state and we on the opposition side believe that it has to be allowed to use the means of extra-territorial rendition to eliminate the threat. Why is using extra-territorial rendition justified? Firstly because it is done in self-defense. When seeking out terrorists from other countries the state is seeking to prevent harm being done to it's citizens. We do not doubt the ethics of self-defense. International law recognizes that a state can resort to self-defense when attacked by another state. Why should the right to self-defence disappear if the security threat is a non-state actor? States should be allowed to use extra-territorial rendition as a method of self-defense, because what else can they do to defend themselves if the terrorists are outside their territory. Indeed sometimes the only way that the state can exercise their right to self-defense is through extra-territorial rendition. Of course it is preferrable if the state where the terrorist is hiding will willingly cooperate with the rendition and seek to disarm the terrorist, but this cannot always be the case. For example, US has for many years sought from Lebanon the extradition of Mohammad Ali Hamadi, who participated in the hijacking of TWA Flight 847. Imad Fayez Mugniyah\u2014head of security for the Lebanese group Hizballah, is also wanted by the US for his role in the hijacking of TWA and although there is strong evidence to the contrary Lebanese persistently denies his presence in Lebanon. If the state doesn't cooperate then the only way that the other state can achieve the capture of the dangerous terrorist is through the disregard of the sovereignty of the non-cooperating state and use extra-territorial rendition to capture the criminal. This disregard of the right to sovereignty however is not aimed to damage the integrity, sovereignty or institutions of the non-cooperating state, but serve only to capture the dangerous non-state actor. The state who is under the threat of terrorism is thus acting in non-aggressive towards the non-cooperating state, seeking only to eliminate the threat posed to it.","conclusion":"States have a duty to protect their citizens and a right to self-defence."}
{"id":"da64a494-4065-41c8-807a-e3ae820e6026","argument":"Violent video games where one has to work in a team teach how to work cooperatively to achieve goals. As many mass shooters are lone wolfs this cooperation tendency prevents violence.","conclusion":"Humans can very well separate between entertainment and real world violence. Violent PC games, for example, do not lead to more violence even though humans enjoy it."}
{"id":"37fd549e-2214-4276-b91c-d75b609a4d0d","argument":"Investors are more interested in putting their mile into the economy that they are sure in. Economy where a lot of spheres belong to the government is easy to predict and, therefore, take profits from the investments. On the contrary, private sector that is extremely changeable and unpredictable will prevent the investors from putting their money in Venezuela's economy.","conclusion":"The increase in private sector in the economy causes instability."}
{"id":"88b33604-e694-430f-b8bd-f1712187040f","argument":"Enos 1:20 describes Lamanites as \"wild, and ferocious, and a blood-thirsty people, full of idolatry and filthiness; feeding upon beasts of prey; dwelling in tents, and wandering about in the wilderness with a short skin girdle about their loins and their heads shaven; and their skill was in the bow, and in the cimeter, and the ax. And many of them did eat nothing save it was raw meat.\"","conclusion":"The Book of Mormon describes Lamanites consistently with 19th century stereotypes of Native Americans."}
{"id":"e256768c-11ef-4cd6-9e98-ca141fe9cc95","argument":"As monarchs have a far longer mandate than republic presidents or prime ministers, it is easier for monarchs to establish strong and long-lasting international relationships with other monarchs or career diplomats.","conclusion":"Constitutional monarchy is an effective system of government as it avoids the requirement of republics to appoint a President or leader on a regular cycle."}
{"id":"f68a7f57-a818-471f-9a78-ff95f0151a68","argument":"If i steal something that i want i don't think that i should feel guilty in the slightest. I saw something that would benefit me and i took steps to get it, thus improving my quality of life or even bringing me simple pleasure. If someone stole from me, i would not be mad at them in the slightest. I would notify the authorities and take steps to regain my things, but i would not believe that they were a bad or immoral person, nor would i hold any kind of grudge against them. If i take steps to punish them, it would be for no other reason than to encourage others not to take my things. Likewise, if i stole from someone else, i would fully expect them to attempt to regain their things. If i were caught and punished, i would not be angry with them. i would only feel wronged if they punished me according to the concepts of fairness , or because i wronged them. Edit wow, the internet hates me. Every response I've given has gotten like negative 10 karma.I realize that my opinion may have been incredibly immoral to some of you, but i don't feel that my arguments were all that bad. thanks to those who presented good arguments, you've done very well and presented the standard ive come to expect from this sub. to those who have down voted me, i very much hope its because my arguments were shit, rather than a dislike of my moral character.","conclusion":"i believe that stealing is completely morally acceptable."}
{"id":"23a2100d-83bb-4226-a3c5-8737c9844abf","argument":"Note This  pertains to America, specifically the 1st amendment rights discussion. I'm happy to hear perspectives from outside the US, though they likely won't receive deltas. Recently, flag burning has been in the news because of calls to criminalize it despite it's plain constitutionality decided in Texas Vs Johnson Those who oppose flag burning, whether in general or specifically supporting penalties, suggest that the flag is a critical symbol and that desecrating it is a specific insult to citizens and veterans. Mohammed Drawing has been a recurring issue, with cartoonists who draw Mohammed being targetted with death threats, prosecuted in Muslim countries, and even at times targeted with violence most notoriously in the case of Charlie Hebdo . More generally, many Muslims agree that drawing Mohammed is highly offensive, and a personal insult to them as if to a member of a family. But again, this is obviously protected under the first amendment. Blasphemy in general is protected, see Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson While I am open to any argument about why these are fundamentally different and should be treated as such, I'll provide a couple more specific points about how I think they're similar. The first part of the analogy, established above is that both are highly offensive and unambiguously protected by the first amendment. The second part of is that any organization or publication that actually publishes a Mohammed cartoon as its own editoral content not just reporting on someone else's or a flag burning by the organization not just a video of a protestor , can reasonably be labeled as intending to offend. That is, barring cases of unusual cluelessness, anyone who draws Mohammed is being deliberately provocative just as is anyone who burns the American Flag. While both can serve as assertions of free speech in general, coyness about the provocative nature of these acts is disingenuous.","conclusion":"Flag Burning and Mohammed Drawing are highly analogous acts of offensive speech. Most arguments we might make about one should apply to the other."}
{"id":"7ae15850-ec37-40bf-bccd-8ae1f81dabdb","argument":"Putting cameras in court will improve public confidence in the judiciary and the system of justice as a whole. It is difficult to see how the public can have confidence in a system that most of them never see! The judiciary often appear to be a secretive and closed club. The occasional clumsy comments that are made by judges are ridiculed in the media. It is necessary to dispel this unrepresentative image by showing the competence, efficiency, and sensitivity of the majority of judges throughout the legal system. Judges have made efforts to improve their public profile in recent years.","conclusion":"Putting cameras in court will improve public confidence in the judiciary and the system of justice a..."}
{"id":"c769c152-33c9-49d2-b60e-d8b4e5e9f381","argument":"Today's zoos do more to help animals than hurt them. Rather than anthropomorphize animals, assuming they feel about freedom as we do, we need to recognize that a good zoo home can keep an animal content as well as healthy.","conclusion":"Zoos do a lot of important work to improve animal well-being."}
{"id":"bbd14bc2-eeeb-4818-852f-bdf0bef3fe6c","argument":"A newly introduced bill in California several other states have similar pending legislation aims to make repairing consumer devices easier by forcing manufactures to provide manuals and access to official parts. I am a huge believer in right to repair and think that too many people discard devices that could otherwise be repaired. However, the new law requires companies to take specific actions and I think that goes too far. I believe that right to repair legislation should instead focus on things like making it legal to unlock phones and other devices, or to side load custom software or firmware. Basically, I think it would be better if there were no legal barriers to repairing your phone, but that manufacturers should have no obligation to make this easier. If you want a repairable phone, choose a manufacturer which accommodates this. If enough people make this choice, more manufacturers will move in this direction, and if not enough people care enough to make those choices, manufacturers shouldn't be forced to accommodate the small minority of users who do. As long as their is no legal barrier to repairing your devices which I believe there are currently in some cases then I think the market can take care of the rest. edit I think people are focusing too much on one sector, phones, and ignoring all the other sectors where this law would also apply. Lots of areas of consumer electronics already have durable, repairable options, usually at a price premium. Most consumers choose to buy the inexpensive, non durable, non repairable options. This law would take that option away and make those products more expensive. I also think that half the reason why phones don't have repairable options is the rate of progress in the sector. Phones are still improving at a rate that makes most people want to upgrade every couple of years regardless of the condition their phone is in. When this eventually changes, people will start keeping their phones longer simply because new models are less attractive, which will lead to people running into breakage issues more often, and being more interested in durable options. When that happens, I think we will see a similar pattern to other consumer electronics markets 2 3x price premium for a product that lasts much longer and is much easier to repair in the cases where it does break. Until a large majority of phone users want phones that last 4 years, the market won't provide it. I love the irony of a few commenters mentioning the competitiveness of the phone market, but then not realizing that that same competitiveness would provide durable repairable phones if consumers actually wanted them. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The newly introduced California \"Right to repair\" bill goes too far."}
{"id":"9048be15-c366-4cff-b0ef-7748dd955afe","argument":"For example, one partner in a married couple may earn $80k\/year in the workforce while the other partner stays home with the kids and works a part-time job for $20k\/year. They both earn $50k\/year.","conclusion":"All partners in a household agree on labor division and split the household income equally. When correct accounting is used, the gender pay gap disappears."}
{"id":"62af6ebf-5c15-42f8-bc51-9391fd8caa8c","argument":"Note This is from a person outside the US, so cable dominance isn't a thing. So, a smart TV is any tv which has internet connectivity, and built in applications to access both the internet and specialized content streams within it. Which sounds great until you realise that a tv remote is not a functional tool for typing and only average at menu navigation. In practice, the vast majority of the features go unused, with people either ignoring the features entirely and using the device for the critical use as a display panel, or bypassed, and an alternate and functional media source plugged in cable box, sky, computer of a various kind . The extra design and coding and whatnot to add these features tends to add a couple of hundred dollars to the price, for no good reason. However, the internet connectivity of these tvs have things like cameras and microphones, inherently insecure things, vulnerable to exploit. As such, it would be expected that regular software updates are made easily available. But they are not. The lack of updates mean that bugs and other software issues persist. Finally, the spread of this tripe as a 'standard feature set' especially at moderate to larger sizes I was looking for a 40 49 tv , leads to increased prices and a lack of product that I actually want to buy A large display panel I can put in the lounge and connect media sources to. This widespread sale of weakly secured, internet connected devices can lead to easy compromise and installation of information gathering software, or just use of computational resource for nefarious ends. I find no redeeming features of a smart TV, and what features they do have can be replicated by say, a compute stick or home media PC. a HMPC is often cheaper than the difference between a smart TV and a dumb TV, offers a variety of software, updates and critically, can run appropriate security settings.","conclusion":"Smart TVs are overpriced, insecure, unsupported and critically, underused versions of TVs, and their ubiquity is a problem."}
{"id":"885798b8-db6e-4a2b-98a6-e913d163129f","argument":"I was raised catholic but under the belief that sex is only morally acceptable between two people who are in love not necessarily marriage . I believe that it's wrong to have sex with someone you don't love or have strong feelings for and I don't understand how some people can sleep with many partners and not feel ashamed or embarrassed. I think promiscuity is immoral and find it disturbing to think about how someone could sleep with so many people that they can't actually remember how many they've been with. Am I slut shaming and being sex negative ? If you think yes then please help me to change my view","conclusion":"I think I might be sex-negative and I am definitely prone to slut shaming but I don't think its a bad thing..."}
{"id":"5c2419c9-1c86-4bc2-9735-ac213bd607a3","argument":"Voters' freedom of choice is greater when voters have more candidates and political platforms to choose from, more possibility to express their preferences, and more information about the candidates as in the provision to choose individual candidates instead of entire parties.","conclusion":"Voters are able to exercise their freedom to choose more fully within a proportional system by virtue of the way voting is set up."}
{"id":"48237389-5a4b-4479-8d2c-4a6cdd27ba2b","argument":"What is permissible and what is advisable are entirely separate matters. For example, rocks do not have feelings or rights, they fit in our mouths, and it is not presently illegal to eat them. None of these facts have a bearing on the question \"should humans eat rocks?\"","conclusion":"Animals not having recognised legal rights does not mean that killing them is an acceptable or appropriate course of action."}
{"id":"72f222fa-0251-4e93-96e6-b58da741dcd2","argument":"In a study a majority of bisexuals rated monogamy as less of an enhancement and more of a sacrifice than did heterosexual or gay\/lesbian people.","conclusion":"It is likely that more bisexual people are in ethically non-monogamous relationships than straight people."}
{"id":"36afc3e7-7583-4395-9121-56a14f729211","argument":"People who are prone to jealousy may end up developing emotional attachment and can often get a lot of emotional pain out of such a relationship.","conclusion":"Sex without emotional attachment could make one dependent on something that could end at any time."}
{"id":"74e9dab4-a1b4-42ff-9003-384ea653a6a5","argument":"The American political system is a good example of this. Solid democratic institutions, hijacked by the interests of the few and wealthy.","conclusion":"Money is power, and an unequal distribution of money thus means an unequal distribution of power"}
{"id":"150f2d87-2a0f-4915-8b64-3292c84af090","argument":"The vote-hacking controversy in early 2017 proves one thing: that voting booths are tied to the internet for some inexplicable reason, and votes can theoretically be changed digitally. Yet the American people for some reason have to go to voting booths to cast their vote.","conclusion":"This brings up the question of why we do not simply vote electronically from home."}
{"id":"c825cb7b-2bf0-4f88-a935-66e624d93625","argument":"The ability to interact digitally is already incredibly easy to access outside of school. In contrast, exposure to human interaction in real life for kids outside of school is highly dependent on the child's parents.","conclusion":"Human interaction happens all the time electronically and digitally. Some people even feel more comfortable behind a computer, and eventually comfortable enough to socialize in the real world."}
{"id":"38490488-6217-4b89-b6e1-ad0897722abb","argument":"So, let me start off by saying that I have used thePirateBay a number of times to download programs, ebooks, software, ect. However, I view it as something that is good while it lasts, meaning that I will use it until it ends but when it does end will see that it had too. It is sort of like when a store wrongly prices a product and I can by it cheaper. I will by the product, but when the store realizes and corrects the prices I come to the conclusion that the prices were wrong and the correct price is 100 fair. To mer there is no debate on whether the lower price was fair it was not In order for the store to make a profit and employ workers they need to have the correct prices. Also if they dont correct the price they may have to stop selling the item from the manufacturer and that may cost more jobs. Jobs that normal people like you and I have. It does not matter how much the manufacturer store makes in a year, it is still their money that they can use for raises, expansion, health care, ect. Could you imagine if we lived in a world where your wealth made it ok for people to steal from? A world where I could come to your house and steal your car because you have too much money anyways, and dont need that much money. IMHO the whole freedom of speech argument is a total cop out. To me that is a totally non issues. It reminds me of when slave states in the US turned slavery into a states rights issues when it is clearly a racism and money issues. Also, if I was to make a website on how to steal senior citizens social security but label it as educational only I would 100 see the merits of it getting pulled down. Technically it is free speech but it is speech aimed solely at stealing someone's hard work. There is also the argument that because thepiartebay does not host any files and only directs, they are in the clear. However, there have been countless times that someone has been convicted of a crime for being an acquaintance, and some states even have bystander laws to punish people for not stopping a crime. If I was to drive my buddy to a bar house where he kills a man, than I will be indicted on aiding a murder. Sure I may have the right to drive where I want to but that argument will never hold up in court. Even though I only directed to murderer to the scene and will be held partially responsible Love to hear your thoughts","conclusion":"While PirateBay is a very handy site to use I ultimately see it as illegal\/unethical."}
{"id":"e3b1ad3b-6858-4466-afee-751d8fd64f42","argument":"With only 66% of its women participating in voting in the 2014 general elections, India is statistically the 20th worst country in terms of female political participation.","conclusion":"India has very low rates of female involvement in politics."}
{"id":"094e22d9-09dc-41b3-a702-f3e0e83d9b53","argument":"With an area no larger than the amount of land currently devoted to golf courses, we could power a third of the US with solar energy","conclusion":"There is sufficient space available worldwide for renewable energy to support our current power consumption needs"}
{"id":"43989010-a5ca-446d-b065-f752d4eb51f5","argument":"In a world where people are hounded by competitive jobs, education and an overall high level of stress, the search for a life partner can create more stress than the benefit it ultimately provides.","conclusion":"Arranged marriage skirts the opportunity cost associated with finding a partner."}
{"id":"2786297c-890a-4172-9613-8ba2eaee7bae","argument":"This doesn't just apply to swords and the Japanese, but rather to all cultural objects taken by Americans from countries during times of war swords were just the most prominent example I could think of. I get that these are spoils of war and such, but I feel that it basically amounts to theft and disrespect and whatnot, especially since many of these swords were passed down for generations. I would hate it if I knew that some family thousands of miles away has one of my family's treasured heirlooms. Disregard any current Japanese laws that might make repossessing such swords illegal. And by owner I obviously don't mean whoever owned it during WWII since they are most likely dead.","conclusion":"Swords taken from the Japanese during and after WWII by American soldiers should be returned to their rightful owners"}
{"id":"a7d6548f-ebe3-44bc-aa51-96a56cf95f14","argument":"Sporting stars have considerable financial resources, making them less likely to be convicted and more likely to be able to settle with their victims and avoid criminal charges.","conclusion":"Sporting stars are often able to avoid harshness in the criminal justice system; the potential loss of their position would be a much more effective deterrent."}
{"id":"285e58bd-dee9-4939-a241-2b6e1cc309c8","argument":"Married 10 years guy here. I see my wife get ready for work, social events, and just general purpose get out of the house chores, and the amount of time she spends in the bathroom is baffling. The same can be said about every girlfriend I had before we got married. I understand that women have make up, longer hair, legs to shave, etc. However, I see no attempt to optimize those extra tasks. Not only that additional, completely useless tasks are added on For example, putting on and taking off several outfits to see what looks better. Looks better as opposed to last Tuesday when it was worn last? If I were a chick, I'd never shave pluck before I get ready to leave it would be done during off peak hours. I'd make peace with my wardrobe and learn what's in it, and I would never trick myself into thinking that I looked skinnier in this outfit that I did last week cause I was all bloated . I'd create 3 4 make up configurations and rotate them depending on the occasion. I would not experiment with anything related to my look for school work, using only tried and true methods. I would take 3 minute showers, focusing mainly on the hair. Dudes can rationalize doing the same exact stuff. We have to trim armpit hair, ball hair, beards. Some of us one guard the head with clippers every week. We have to shave our face, deal with the rash pimples cuts blackheads, pull out ingrown hairs, and cut out nose hair. We can also put on and take off the same 3 pairs of jeans cause we think it makes our asses look fatter than they did last Friday but most of us don't . Obviously, you ladies know something we don't cause this type of behavior is pretty universal. I think that yall need to spend less time getting ready and more time living your life.","conclusion":"Women have no reason to spend significantly more time than men in front of the mirror getting ready to leave the house."}
{"id":"85a62480-dba3-4896-8f25-033b0e2db586","argument":"First of all sorry for my English, not my first language. Anyways, here is my view. After the European elections I had an argument with one of my friends regarding this topic if you know your party won't pass the quorum you shouldn't vote for it, but instead vote for the most similar one that you know will pass . He said that by doing so I willingly decided to throw away my vote and the representation in the EU parliament that would come with it. I'd like to debate that and here is my opinion voting for your favourite party is a moral obligation. doing so doesn't give you a place in parliament now, but still gives a message to the public and the party for the next elections it may reassure other people to vote for it in five years . by voting for another party I'm still not fully represented, even if there are a lot of things in common. by having this mentality not voting your party because of the quorum and telling other people to do so it creates a self fulfilling prophecy, the party will never have enough votes. doing so invalidates the core meaning of a democracy, even more if it is a proportional and not a majority one","conclusion":"During an election you should always vote for the party that represents you the most, even if there is a quorum and you know it won't pass it."}
{"id":"b1dcc07c-0c04-4c44-8bda-0f0895d57301","argument":"First, this is not a Democrat vs. Republican thing, although many of the examples below are based on that division. This is about representation and majority rule. No argument based on the present setup is better because Republicans are better is going to change my mind. Representation in the Senate is horribly unbalanced. As one example, the senators opposing Neil Gorsuch's confirmation were elected by 73 million people. The senators supporting his confirmation were elected by 54 million. Similarly, Merrick Garland, who couldn't get a vote, would likely have been supported by senators representing about 20 million more voters than those who opposed him. For comparison, Elena Kagan the narrowest confirmation for a Democrat nominated justice was supported by senators representing 68 percent of the popular vote. Each California senator represents over 19 million people each Wyoming senator represents less than 300 thousand less than any member of the house represents. California's population is 67 times that of Wyoming. For comparison, in the 1790 census Virginia was the most populous state, with almost 750,000 people 39 of them slaves , while Delaware had 59,000 people. Virginia's population was less than 13 times that of Delaware. Even in the House, there are less significant imbalances representatives in California, Texas, Florida and New York, represent over 730,000 people each, while Wyoming's lone representative stands for only 586,000 people Interestingly, the most under represented state is actually Montana, whose sole representative stands for over a million people, while the most over represented state is Rhode Island, where each of their two representatives stand for just 528,000 people. Of course, the other shortcoming of the differential between the states is in the Electoral College each voter in Wyoming counts for 3.6 voters in California The result of this is that George W. Bush became president despite being voted for by 547,000 fewer people. Donald J. Trump lost by 2,868,000 votes and still took the White House. We tend to think of states as red or blue , and the Senate clearly reflects that concept, but in reality, almost no state is red or blue , and the Senate clearly misrepresents a large number of people. It is the House's role to more closely reflect the people, but the stats show that the misrepresentation by the Senate is greater than it ever has been. Minority rule is against the principles of this country, and splitting up larger states would reduce that misrepresentation. Arguments that are less likely to change my view Appeals to what the founders intended. I'm far less interested in their thoughts than I am in the practical consequences today. Arguments that the smaller states need greater representation to stand up to the larger states. First, the states themselves have no rights beyond the rights of their people, in my opinion, so you could change that opinion to make this argument so you would have to describe some way that the people of smaller states are being shortchanged by the system that their greater representation compensates for or protects them from. Second, this implies that the smaller and larger states are homogenous, so it would have to be supported by some data to that point. Third, breaking up the larger states would itself tend to address this imbalance. Appeals based on GOP vs. Democrat, or their positions. This isn't a red v blue problem it's a representation problem. Texas is red, but underrepresented the same as California is. And the red people in the rural areas of California and New York are not being represented by their Senators and in presidential elections the same as the urban blues of Texas. Arguments are more likely to change my view Descriptions of some other way that would address the issues described above. If you can argue a way to get North and South Dakota to combine into a single Dakota, for example, that would work. Descriptions of benefits that larger states derive that balance the issues described above. Arguments based on some sort of firewall that the smaller states get to hold the line against some bad consequence which would have to be defined . Reasons why the negative consequences of this imbalance aren't as great as I think they are. Arguments that breaking up larger states would have such specific negative consequences that it wouldn't be worth the trouble. EDIT To be clear, I'm proposing that the larger states split themselves, as has been proposed in California at least several times. This would not require changing the constitution, and would not be solely for the senate. It would be actually splitting the larger states, resulting in more than 50 states. EDIT 2 Clarifying my point above about changing my view providing some other way to address the issue would have to be at least as likely and at least as effective as splitting the large states. Specifically Abolishing the senate would fundamentally change the nature of the federal government. It would require a constitutional amendment, which requires the consent of 3 4 of the states, and because of the language of the constitution, which says no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate, probably requires the consent of all 50 states, seems far less likely to happen than additional states, which simply requires a simple majority within the state, a simple majority in both houses of congress, and the signature of the president. Abolishing the electoral college would require a constitutional amendment, with all the issues that brings, and would only address one of the two main issues I raised and to my mind the lesser of the two issues . EDIT 3 If your attempt to  is some variant of This is fine, this is the way it's supposed to be. Note, this includes claims that I don't understand the constitutional basis for the Senate. You need to provide some sort of evidence that the present imbalance isn't causing results out of line with the will of the people. Specifically, if you are saying that the Senate is doing a perfectly fine job of representing the states, then your position is at best neutral to my position that there need to be smaller, more representative states. And to be clear just because I'm saying that the current degree of imbalance is too much doesn't mean that I'm unwilling to accept some level of imbalance. The Senate isn't inherently wrong in conception, and there are valid reasons for it. EDIT 4 One other potential consequence of this imbalance and I know this treads close to violating the non partisan rule I set out above the GOP currently controls the state legislature in 33 states. 38 are required to ratify an amendment. I'm actually surprised this hasn't been leveraged already. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"For the good of the nation, large population states like California, Texas, Florida, and New York must break up into smaller states."}
{"id":"078669a6-58dc-4f45-bef4-91495f3b6e23","argument":"The Fifth Amendment of the Constitution requires that due process must occur by law before the state may take away someone's rights due to criminal activity. Gun control legislation effectively violates the due process clause by infringing on gun rights for millions of Americans without any of them first being accused, tried, or convicted of a crime.","conclusion":"These policies infringe on various rights that the government has an obligation to uphold."}
{"id":"b721d4ae-1548-4914-a6b3-72840f6d97a1","argument":"Hey econ people out there,  So here is my basic theory from an individual and collective level, the forces that push companies to make decisions towards seeking Monopoly of a market and if possible negative externalities. I believe that the invisible hand that should supposably prevent these behavior are not strong enough to offset the potential profit incentive, given no outside regulations. I want to save the issue of what to do about it for another post. Right now I just want to get some depth and breadth to my understanding of how this stuff works. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Monopolies and negative externalities are natural tendencies of global free markets."}
{"id":"96e1e566-0d50-4023-8150-c06ce25df034","argument":"Gender identity is the personal sense of one's own gender. So if somebody identifies as female, they are.","conclusion":"Trans women are women. They are human beings whose gender is female."}
{"id":"3d957813-117d-4409-a31d-1ebb691eb2fc","argument":"There seems to be a growing annoyance on many subreddits these days in which any mention of a brand or the sight of even the most obscure company logo has some people worked up to think it's an advertisement, therefore commenting with the r hailcorporate tag. Now I understand there have been some legitimate and blatant ads masquerading as normal posts relevant to the subreddit to which they're posted, such as that McDonalds UberEats post. But for everyone else who honestly makes a post that may include a company logo somewhere in the background, what I feel matters most is the purpose of the post at face value, and that is harmless entertainment. Whether it's a photo of a pet or a selfie with something the poster is legitimately enjoying, it's completely harmless to the viewer. Why can't someone speak highly of a product or service without someone feeling so repulsed by it that they have to make accusations that the poster and commentors are shills ? What harm is being done that they have to call them out and thus repost the post on r hailcorporate to share with those sub's followers to analyze and conspire to try and prove that the post is an ad? So . Why should posts by honest redditors that include or mention anything about a certain company be called out as ad, and its posters and commentors as shills? And what purpose does calling it out serve that has a long term positive impact on Reddit culture? gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Speaking highly of a company's product or service on reddit does not make someone a shill, thus makes r\/hailcorporate tags unwarranted."}
{"id":"576e8ea3-c755-40fa-929b-1bd0cb669ae6","argument":"Public discourses are essential for a democracy to function properly. The EU is a democratic system.","conclusion":"The European Union lacks the necessary public discourse to function properly."}
{"id":"eb3f4dba-4a6e-423c-90d5-a632ffc1c513","argument":"By describing how the word was used in everyday situations within the book, students are better able to fully realize the oppressive nature of the word.","conclusion":"Learning what it was like in that era, as literature can uniquely do, lends to empathy with those suffering from racism."}
{"id":"3e190792-9872-44b1-b076-3ef5891f4c9f","argument":"I'm no human rights lawyer so my understanding of what the term means is probably way off, but I define a human right as being either A Something I'm allowed to do without state interference because it is one of the basic things that allow for a decent standard of living B Something that the state is obligated to provide me with with no strings attached because it is a basic requirement for a decent standard of living. I have the right to say things in my kitchen without being arrested, I have a right to a glass of clean drinking water even if I can't afford to pay for it. These things are so fundamental that for what we consider an enlightened society to function they should be non negotiable. I don't believe marriage a human right in this sense. It is not something you're born into or something you do, it is a legal status afforded by the government which allows it to provide you with certain financial incentives as well as step in and resolve property ownership in the case of a dispute. There are thousands of small benefits and responsibilities that the married status offers, none of them are fundamental to a decent standard of living IMHO. Tax rebates on things like income and inheritance? For this to be a fundamental human right would implicitly suggest that there is a discrete threshold at which point paying taxes is oppression. Is having to pay more taxes on your income an oppression of your rights? Is taxation at its very core oppressive? I'm not a libertarian, I don't believe so, that's a  for another day. Privacy, the whole government should keep their noses out of the private affairs of two consenting adults ? I would agree, but marriage is the exact opposite of that. If you want privacy you live in a civil union with your partner and don't register it with the government, marriage is what you do when you want a bureaucracy to tell you how to split your belongings and handle your children, it brings a third party into your two consenting adult model. Is that a fundamental human right? Hospital visits? Hospital restrictions have a very specific function and that is the prevention of disease transmission, spouses are allowed to circumvent these laws and put themselves and hospital patients at risk. The whole area is very gray, does anyone have a human right to put themselves and others in danger like this? It may seem like we're arguing useless semantics here, but I feel that it makes a huge difference if we refer to marriage as a collection of legal benefits rather than a human right because it changes how we approach marriage laws. This  is largely inspired by the gay marriage movements. I don't have any specific issues with homosexuals being offered the legal benefits of marriage, my main issue is with the rhetoric that is being presented. Calling marriage a human right is a dishonest appeal to emotion and it ruins the discussion as it turns the whole thing into an all or nothing black and white debate. Marriage laws definitely need to be changed, but as long as we regard the whole topic as being something people are unquestionably entitled to then we will never have a proper discourse on the different facets involved. I'm not an oppressor for believing that hospital visitations are usually unnecessary thanks to Skype, I'm not a bigot for thinking that a government going through austerity shouldn't provide tax credit to people who are married just because they're married when they don't have children putting a financial strain on them. These things need to be talked about, they're not talked about because the main marriage debate right now consists of one side thumping the bible and the other side thumping the human rights charter.","conclusion":"I do not believe gay or straight marriage is a fundamental right but rather a series of arbitrary benefits offered by the state and should be regarded as such,"}
{"id":"8465f2f1-a530-471a-bd36-624c73f7486c","argument":"Tim Berners-Lee is opposed to monetary incentives that go against other users' interests, such as disinformation or click bait.","conclusion":"The free and opensource software defends the original values of Internet."}
{"id":"92224f5b-cdd2-40e3-939d-b47ae0eb38db","argument":"In Texas, wild pigs were not prevalent until 1980ish Considering the idea of wild is simply an escaped domestic pig, the numbers have grown so large that the pigs cause problems for the Texans- eating the crops, destroying property. Pigs populate quickly even in nature.","conclusion":"Even in small numbers, an animal like a pig that doesn't produce any product beneficial to humans or make a good pet will have difficulty surviving."}
{"id":"a6491521-4af9-4a7f-a5ae-d8d5e3ef2815","argument":"By choosing to work, they can earn additional income, which would be disposable income. This would never be possible without a UBI since all of their money would go towards making ends meet.","conclusion":"The idea of a UBI is that even the poorest would have enough money to cover basic expenses."}
{"id":"9578fd27-99ed-436d-9e40-88da545f9a81","argument":"European countries are burgeoning under the weight of economic and war refugees. Rather than shoulder the cultural and economic weight of integrating millions of people into their own countries, when ethically they are compelled to shelter refugees during war, rather establish refugee camps in turkey and house them there under good conditions. The net effect would be to lower the economic cost of sheltering refugees, allowing Europe to provide safety and shelter to MORE refugees, as well as alleviating the cultural pressures that are threatening Europe currently by taking on so many. This alleviates the humanitarian crisis just the same as housing refugees within one's borders would. Obviously this is only for war refugees, economic refugees should simply be sent back, which Europe is trying to do now. From an economic perspective, Europe would do well to stoke economic growth and political stability in these middle eastern North African countries, it would solve a whole bunch of issues, but that's another conversation","conclusion":"The west should only house refugees in camps in Turkey"}
{"id":"cda1e825-a775-4afa-ab03-8b76ab13bdee","argument":"Yes, you read that right, and here's what I mean Not all racism. Not actual serious racist beliefs or acts. But instead the jokes we're uncovering people telling each other, trying to prevent people form using the 'n word', trying to uncover those villainous, secret racists at every turn if they date to say one thing that sound remotely insensitive, etc. This is not a good thing, in fact I think it's quite bad. Trying to weed out and crucify not just what people do, but what people think, actually gets a little Orwellian. I think most of what you see today is not people who rationally believe one race is inferior, but moreso people who are just angry, pissed off people, and hatred fills a vacuum. Or perhaps people who don't rationally believe one race is inferior, but still engage in it because it provides them some emotional satisfaction. A lot of it also seems to be an abstract hatred, rather than a hatred of people they personally have connected with in some way. It's also true that when you hate someone, you hate everything about them. Even the most innocuous acts become part of your hate Look at the way she got up and walked to the bathroom. What a bitch. I've often argued that many conservatives don't hate Obama because he is black, but simply hate the opposition so much that they hate everything about them, including his blackness. As someone who dabbled in conservative Libertarian thinking, to the point where intellectual opposition mixed with passion turned to anger toward those opposed, I started to realize the line between, I disagree with the views of the party which is supported by minorities, to, Damn minorities are ruining everything is shorter than one likes to think. If I still have a real dislike, it's not for a skin color, it's for social justice warriors and do gooddery. I see it as so self righteous, and oppressive in it's own way. Nothing makes me want to shout Ni er I think it's sad that I can't even write the damn word without expecting my post won't be excepted in a debate about the word more than being told I'm never, ever allowed to use that word by someone else. It's strikes a core nerve in me to go, Oh yeah? Who are you to tell me what is right to say or do? And I have used that word, let's talk about some context In my car. I dunno about you, but there are few base joys they lift you from a bad day than giving yourself an excuse to feel superior to another driver. Most people wouldn't label someone a terrible person for grumbling about a driver that cut them off in traffic. That person may not be any worse a driver than you on whole, but for now, they're just the asshole who cut you off. In the comfort of my own car, I'm free. I can say anything I want to say, and it's liberating. And the more base reason I have for that pleasurable chemical release the coincides with imagining myself feeling superior to another human being for that short time, the better. The easiest are sex, race, and age. I often like to string expletives together. Bitch ass negro, is a good one I don't even know if the driver is black or female, it just feels good . I also often love to play off the fact that gay or faggot has developed so interestingly in our society. To me and Eminem, those words don't actually apply to gay people, although I think it's Louis C.K. who pretty much nailed the dichotomy Chris Rock has a similar line . I often like to even go the other way with it, so if someone is, as Louie says, acting 'like a faggot,' say something like, I found that action to be rather homosexual in nature. Or at least, I'd like to be able to say that more readily, if I didn't have to worry about the political correctness police, who have successfully invaded society to the extent that you actually have to worry about your job and life if you said that, jumping on me for it. That is not a good thing. The recent Sigma Alpha Epsion frat video with the racist chant that's been going around makes me think too. I think we should be easier on them. Yes, there were being assholes, but they were being assholes as a fun thing in their own private setting. If every inappropriate and 'I'm going to hell for this' joke my friends and I have told in the comfort of our own homes were recorded for others to see, it would be a treasure trove. Also, I dunno if anyone else remembers being a teenage boy like I do, but teenage boys talk shit to make themselves seem cooler and tougher. I remember when I was in Jr High and the OJ Simpson case was big news, and exchange between two friends went something like this Actually, I thought Nicole Brown was pretty cute. Yeah, but she did marry a negro Yeah, she deserved to die just for that. pretty damning, huh? I can just see that as a huge news story if someone today caught it on video. But I feel like it would create a cognitive dissonance in many who don't get it that those same guys, when faced with, say, a black guy on the street who looked like he was hurt, wouldn't hesitate to be decent human beings and help, but it's true. If you can't figure out how that is possible, then you're missing part of how human beings interact. I feel the same way about a lot of the emails that have been 'exposed', like ones talking about what movie Obama would like. I see it as two people making joking with each other. Bottom line, I think if we're really going to live in a society where everything we say and do is exposed for others to scrutinize, we have to gain some better understanding or how people behave, and become more, not less, tolerant of such 'racism'.","conclusion":"We need to be more tolerant of racism."}
{"id":"95f317bb-cffd-4581-8290-363e4ab5fb03","argument":"Parents should be able to plan out their family the way they please and that includes selecting the sex of their children, if possible.","conclusion":"It is within the freedoms of the parents to select the sex of the child"}
{"id":"952a3838-0b9e-4600-a39f-a95ead5b11e0","argument":"I compare Toronto to other world class cities only with the best public transportation, like Hong Kong, London England , and Tokyo. I\u2019m chiding all public transport systems that serve the Greater Toronto Area GTA , not only the TTC. TTC\u2019s scant subway lines suffer many more delays and difficulties than Hong Kong\u2019s MTR or any of Tokyo\u2019s railways. I haven\u2019t checked the statistics, but please educate me if I\u2019m wrong. GO Transit and TTC are both too sluggish in route expansion and fail to cover the GTA. Even after they are planned, they waste far more time to construct than the aforestated 3 cities. E.g., the UP Express opened only in 2015 far after the aforestated 3 cities' rail linking of their airports. E.g., TTC\u2019s Downtown Relief Line is still being debated, and TTC\u2019s Crossrail is delayed, and scheduled to run for 2021 All the while Hong Kong\u2019s MTR\u2019s South Island Line is already running and many other projects are actively being undertaken and London Underground\u2019s Crossrail is scheduled to run in 2018.","conclusion":"Greater Toronto Area's public transport is too bungling and underdeveloped."}
{"id":"6fd9868f-7c77-48dd-b848-799a36405f60","argument":"Disclaimer I'm all for Net Neutrality, but I cannot simply call others who disagree ignorant or greedy. I want to try to hear them out. Why Net Neutrality may not be good? A friend of mine who is not associated with the media industry argues that the problem is the lack of competitions. If cable companies are truly in an open competition with each other, then customers would have choices and would choose the company that looks after their interests. So, the solution should be to fix this aspect and restore market competition instead. This, to him, is the root cause. Applying government regulation is contrary to the open market and capitalism. At best it is short term. At worst, government itself could corrupt themselves and use it to violate greater human rights. What are other arguments?","conclusion":"Net Neutrality is Good"}
{"id":"8e0afe4e-7207-422a-a35b-40e5a5e2a52d","argument":"This is all based on my limited understanding of economics, so I'm certainly open to having my view changed. A common argument I hear is this Immigrants are coming into the country and taking jobs. But given my knowledge of how the market works, here's what I'd expect to happen Immigrants come in, increasing the supply of labor, this means salaries go down. But since salaries go down, so do production costs, and thus prices will drop, leading to cheaper goods. And thus no value has been lost. The lower costs balance out the lower salaries. What's the flaw in my logic here? How could it be bad for the economy to accept immigrants?","conclusion":"In a free market immigration will always benefit society as a whole"}
{"id":"07ae7b7b-f787-4427-825e-3dbd268f97b8","argument":"Buddhists believe in enlightenment i.e. they believe that everyone can become God. Therefore, they believe in God.","conclusion":"Buddhists do believe in god, they just don't believe in a personal god."}
{"id":"1f1978a3-2347-4a73-9715-9bde6df838a7","argument":"There are many examples: domesticated or tamed predators dogs, cats, . can coexist and even care for animals who would normally be their prey chicken, mice. There was a story of a bear saving a crow - not for food. Dolphins saving drowning humans and so on. Dogs don't usually, most of the time, eat their owner's children either.","conclusion":"Animals do respect the right to life. They probably learn it the same way we learn it as children. We do not need codified contracts. It's just the way we do it. Laws and agreements only normalize what's given."}
{"id":"fa3c1336-0f1a-461d-a86c-8c8c291901d9","argument":"I think the world should agree on a universal timezone. It would make scheduling easier, business meetings would be smoother, and there'd be much less confusion when travelling and trying to synchronise things between countries. It wouldn't make any difference to sleep cycles or work hours or anything like that. We would also abolish daylight saving time. What I'm not suggesting is that the world all wake up at the same time and go to work at the same time. Let's say that we agree on GMT as the world's timezone although it doesn't matter which time we choose . London would wake up at about 7am, work from 9am 5pm, and go to sleep at about 10pm. The sun would rise at about 7am and would set at about 8pm. New York, however, are 5 hours behind London, so the sun would rise there at 2am on the universal clock. This doesn't affect anything though, because they'd wake up at 2am, go to work from 4am 12pm, and go to bed at 5pm. They'd still get up when the sun rises and go to bed when the sun sets, but the only difference would be the number they read off the clock . They'd still have the same sleeping pattern and working hours, and they'd get used to it in a matter of weeks. Instead of waking up and reading the time as 7am, they'd wake up at the same time and read the clock as 2am. All that would change is what time they consider nighttime. Sydney, meanwhile, are 9 hours in front of London they wake up when the sun rises at 4pm, they work from 6pm 2am, see the sun set at 5am, and go to sleep at 7am. It seems weird that they should go to sleep at 7am, but to them it would be the correct time They'd still be going to sleep shortly after sunset, like the rest of the world, and would go to sleep right on schedule at the same time they would now. They'd just call the time they go to bed 7am rather than 10pm. The only difference is the time they read off the clock The times used above are obviously an arbitrary template used to demonstrate my argument. This would synchronise the world, so if you want to skype your friend in Sydney from London, you can just say I'll call you at 4am and he'll know exactly when to expect your call. The same goes for business meetings etc. Scheduling in general becomes so much easier. It doesn't solve problems like jet lag, because when you travel you still have to adapt to the physical difference in location on the planet. It also makes programming a hell of a lot easier, because timezones are a nightmare to program properly It can also make contracts easier, because if any one person says that something should start at exactly 12am, nobody disagrees about what time that is and there's so much less confusion. I think it's a good idea, but I've never met anyone who agrees with me, but I've also never met anyone who's presented a convincing counter argument. I thought it'd be interesting to discuss it here. What do you think?","conclusion":"I think we should abolish timezones and have a universal time across the world"}
{"id":"496fa883-3a62-4d4c-b9e0-ba2d3ac9a0d6","argument":"So I was having this conversation with someone the other day, and did a Fermi estimate of about what the odds are of shooting at another person lawfully are, and I got a quite low number which I'm interested for people to check. My baseline datapoint is this There are about 200 250 justifiable firearm homicides in the US each year. I'll use 250. From this, we need to expand to how many justifiable shootings there are a year. To do so, we need to know about what percent of shootings become homicides. That is, what percent are fatal. To do that, I use the about 9000 firearm homicides a year divided by the about 170,000 firearm assaults per year which gets me about a 5 fatality rate. Multiplying by 1 0.05, or 20, therefore I would estimate that there are about 5000 justified shootings of another person with a gun each year in the US. edit I typo'd and put 1 0.5 here originally but it was 1 0.05 which I actually used in my calculation and which is the number derived from the prior paragraph. And let's generously add another 4000 for justified shootings where the shooter misses. Giving us 9,000 incidents per year. There are roughly 250,000,000 adults in the US, and let's say they have an average of 60 years of adult life. That gives us odds of .000036 per adult life year of shooting a firearm justifiably. Adding 1 and taking to the 60th power gives us 1.0022, which means about a 0.0022 or 0.22 chance over a 60 year adult life. How I can envision this view being changed Point out a math error which significantly changes my conclusion. Point out a flaw in my underlying data which significantly changes my conclusion. Point to a better data source administrative data better, survey data worse which produces a different conclusion. Otherwise show some significant flaw in this I have not thought of at all. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The odds of lawfully shooting at another person in your lifetime are about 0.2% in the United States."}
{"id":"e8fbb437-d3dd-471a-8c18-e0022f93bd43","argument":"The mention of gay relationships currently and in the past makes many people uncomfortable. In the past it made all not gay people uncomfortable. In a society where it makes everyone uncomfortable it should not be mentioned or legitimized for the same reason Joe shouldn't talk about how he eats shit. The comfort of the many outweighs the sexual needs of the very few. While I accept it does not bother people now, I feel that it did in the past and because of that it would have been more ethical for gays to stay closeted. This seems like the most utilitarian position, as valuing the individual over the group is selfish.","conclusion":"gay relationships should have never been legitimized or allowed to exist in public according to my utilitarian world view."}
{"id":"1aa25b8c-a0b4-4c83-b294-ee86694b348a","argument":"Some people of color have a preference to date white people. While this is due to various reasons I think it usually boils down to one thing internalized racism. Some people of color just find white people more attractive. I understand that beauty is subjective, but again, I think that this is linked to internalized racism. Why would you find a person who looks different from you better looking than people who look like you? It implies that you have internalized racism and an inferiority complex where you think that white people are the best looking. There are people of color who make it clear that they think that white people are the best looking because of racist reasons, but even for those who said that they have preferences to date white people, they still subconsciously have issues with internalized racism. In their case, they subconsciously bought into the idea that white people are the most beautiful, an idea that is propagated by the American media with its predominantly white celebrities. There are also people of color who believe that dating a white person will help them fit into American society. Again, this boils down to internalized racism. It is ridiculous how they think that fitting into American society means that they have to date a white person. Their desire to integrate into white society is also a sign of internalized racism. I have read about these two motives in academic studies but I don't have the link to them at the moment. I would like to see what people who do not agree with me have to say.","conclusion":"People of color who have a preference for dating white people probably have issues with internalized racism"}
{"id":"b86b8c4c-577d-4f07-982f-8a54d4bbdd49","argument":"In 2017, a video of a couple arguing with and pushing an elderly man who asked to share a table with them went viral. In the process of trying to find the couple, people online incorrectly identified a couple. The woman wrongly named online wrote on her Facebook page that it was an \u201cemotional period and scary moment","conclusion":"These victims, if mistakenly targeted, can often suffer depression or anxiety from these attacks"}
{"id":"08a1fbab-a688-447e-b711-1ef709eff541","argument":"I see feminism as a sexist movement, as it indicates in the name. I have taken classes at university on feminism by a feminist instructor, and I've met several feminists. The premises of all of them are that I must WORK in order to not be scum because I am male . They are no different from many extremist fundamentalist religions. For example According to feminists, certain words are unforgivable, no matter what the context is used in. I believe that the majority of feminists are one of two things \u2022 1 They have been raped before, whether or not they reported it, and their hatred for men and reason for joining the movement is entirely motivated by this emotional scarring. This would explain their behavior when reacting to rape accusations and their extreme position against men and on the subject of rape. \u2022 2 They crave attention to the point that they have a personality disorder.","conclusion":"I believe the feminist movement is extremely harmful and provides little or no good whatsoever."}
{"id":"b2fdf6e8-e748-43fe-a9e5-e6cd010b73b8","argument":"On May 7, 1999 an American B 2 bomber dropped 5 guided munitions on the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. The attack killed three Chinese nationals. The United States government has always maintained it was an accident. Argument I believe that at least some people in the CIA knew the target was actually the Chinese embassy and wanted it to be attacked. We have no 100 solid proof of this, but put enough evidence together and I believe it goes beyond a reasonable doubt. The official account of the bombing from the U.S.'s perspective is fairly straightforward. The CIA wanted to target a Yugoslav arms agency. Due to out of date maps mapping errors the Chinese embassy was attacked instead. No harm was meant, these things happen in war, etc, etc. Their are a number of problems with this story. The Chinese embassy had been in its current location for over three years. An embassy isn't some little fly by night mom and pop shop. Embassies rank near the top of things not to bomb so great attention is given to them. In addition it was a very large and distinct building. The CIA had likely been monitoring communications from the embassy more on this later so they knew where it was. A source at the U.S. National Imagery and Mapping Agency told the Observer the wrong map story is a damned lie. In addition the CIA itself admitted it had up to date maps. The Chinese embassy was correctly listed on the no strike list. According to some sources. Before China built their embassy the land was just a vacant lot. Making the outdated map story even less likely. The supposed target, Yugoslav Federal Directorate for Supply and Procurement, was over 500 meters from Chinese embassy. Motives The Chinese embassy may have been aiding the Yugoslav army in transmissions. The CIA may have feared that the Chinese had stolen technology from the recently downed stealth bomber. Circumstantial evidence Of the 900 targets struck in the war. CIA was only responsible for one. The mission was run outside of the usual chain of command. It seems very strange that the CIA would take such interest in what by their accounts was a minor arms dealing operation. Even stranger was that this seemingly routine bombing needed to be separate of the NATO chain of command. In summary the official account is highly suspect, they had the motive, and a bunch of circumstantial evidence to prove that at least someone knew what they were doing. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The CIA intentionally bombed the Chinese embassy in 1999."}
{"id":"07264ce8-b0ea-4398-adcc-40470c55c13a","argument":"You are in a unique position to save lives without major personal cost, it is immoral to do nothing.","conclusion":"Even if there is no strict obligation, there is a moral imperative."}
{"id":"af55eea3-cf8b-4dba-90ca-27bc17735c73","argument":"I mean that's the only thing it does that really make it seem worse than other states edit because it wasn't clear enough north korea does a number of wrong things though probably not to the extent commonly attributed to it as I try to argue below. Other countries do things often similarly bad but come out looking better through major media outlets and among the western public opinion because they are not in a heated relationship with the US . Why? Some common arguments against north korea to prove its evilness. 1 It's people are starving left to starve forced to starve No. Even though starvation and famine is a real and not first world problem, north korea hasn't had a famine in decades. In fact it only had famines for one short period of its 60 year old history, right after the USSR dissolved. So famines and north korea aren't two inseperable things. But even though there might not be famines now, there is still widespread malnutrition, right? Noooot quite. Acute malnutrition isn't even a health concern but stunting is widespread. About 27 of children had stunted growth in a 2012 survey the trend is positive . That's bad but compare that to India, where 20 of the children suffer from acute manlutrition and 48 from stunting. India however is always brought up as an example of a rapidly advancing and successful economy. Data for the statements above taken from the links below 2 But the camps Though obviously no one has any hard data on the number of inmates, a figure thrown around is 200,000 people in camps . Now, if we tried to be something other than sensationalizing journalists, we might want to stop and think here. 200,000 prisoners because of what, why and where? Let's translate this evil number to a boring statistic. 200,000 prisoners, if the number is true, in a population of about 25,000,000 people gives an incarceration rate of 800 per 100,000. Which would in fact be the highest in the world but then again quite comparable with what we see in some other countries, for example the US where the incarceration rate is 716 per 100,000 people Wikipedia mentions that estimations for the prison population of north korea range between 150 and 200k. So high, but numbers we do see elsewhere. It's all about marketing. 3 But it's a dictatorship The first retort could easily be So what? There are plenty of dictatorships around. There was a dictatorship in Egypt for decades, it was overthrown and reinstalled when the elections brought unfortunate results . There were elections in Palestine that elected Hamas who are considered terrorists be everyone else, but evidently not from the palestinian electorate. There are also myriads of genuine dictatorships or monarchist regimes that no one cares about. So that can't be the reason everyone's going apeshit on north korea. But let's take this a little bit further to make it more fun. What if north korea isn't a dictatorship? I mean, there are certainly elections which could easily be treated as a sham. But what if the north koreans don't think of them as such? Is that not even a remote possibility? Sure, north korea seems strange. But most of what's strange about is also fake. There are no unicorns, there are no paid actors filling the subway, there are no unfed rabid dogs taking care of the executions. Most of the super weird stuff is made up and believed . What is real is a country that's been, from it's pov, semi independent for 60 years, still in a war, with american soldiers in its borders and a ton of sanctions from everyone else. Is not arming itself rational ? What's the big fuss about? I think the big fuss is this Because people think of themselves as generally good , if someone's against them they must immediately think of him as generally bad . North Korea must be crazy and evil because otherwise why would it say these nasty things about the US? I think people need to look a bit beyond good and evil. Being american or being north korean of course doesn't necessarily mean you're by definition right. Not does it mean that you're equall responsible for anything your country's doing. Say, if we were to consider stationing american soldiers in the DMZ an act of agression , people shouldn't feel the need to defend this act merely because their state is behind it. They can take a step back and calmly decide whether it's right. And when people can go crazy over some basketball game or actually believe nonsense about unfed dogs ravaging someone with Dr Evil smilingly watching, you know then that no one is being calm or thinking. I hope people won't start appointing me moderator in a certain subreddit and will instead give me their insights.","conclusion":"The only thing North Korea does wrong is being anti-US."}
{"id":"9d52f0e8-22e8-4a5a-aa2d-d09cd7488cf0","argument":"Especially in the context of colleges, where tenured professors have few incentives to teach in an engaging style, laptops and the distractions they provide to students can be a measure for the quality of teaching.","conclusion":"The use of laptops for distraction is not the problem but a symptom of a problem."}
{"id":"313edbfc-4a9e-4324-84b6-9c3a6d3d0e11","argument":"Society should encourage people to be the best forms of themselves, which most people would say includes being healthy.","conclusion":"Obesity can carry serious health risks for the individual, which society should not accept as a norm."}
{"id":"0f9f3659-7544-465a-8df9-6257b4b3199f","argument":"God's existence can be proven on a person-by-person basis through the practice of meditation, deep devotion, or the path of wisdom. This is where the individual becomes a spiritual scientist using the laboratory his\/her own consciousness to discover the consciousness of God within him\/herself. Since science depends on the testimony of the senses, it is too limited to discover God.","conclusion":"\"Demonstrable evidence should not be appealed to in this case, because humans as 3rd dimensional beings are incapable of perceiving a higher dimensional being.\""}
{"id":"10b6ee0a-fdcf-4378-94fe-81017c2b8c77","argument":"This study was from 2008 when coal accounted for 50% of US generation. It would be helpful to see a recalculation now that coal is down to 30% according to the EIA www.eia.gov","conclusion":"In a careful study, MIT concluded that EVs are on average twice as clean as gas vehicles. This advantage remains even when manufacturing and recycling emissions are factored in"}
{"id":"7c54780c-c557-482b-9125-1e0d5b331ca8","argument":"I like reading NBA and NFL draft projections. It's fun to anticipate who will be a future great player in professional sports. But to me, it doesn't make sense to make a mock draft when you can just make a big board. Here are my definitions for these two terms. A mock draft is the order you expect players to be taken in the draft. A big board is simply your ranking of players who will be available in the draft. My main arguments for big board over mock draft In the NBA, you don't know the draft order until they hold the lottery in the middle of the summer. This makes a mock draft silly because you have to assume which team gets which pick, making it inaccurate. Usually, the best practice for lottery teams that is, teams picking in the top is to draft the best available player . So, quality is more important than the fit on the team in most cases. Teams can trade picks on draft day , and that'll throw off your entire mock draft. You'd be better off with the big board, because even if teams trade picks or do pick and swap kinds of moves like Doncic going to the Mavs even though he was technically picked 2nd , you'd still be accurate in your ranking of players. Mock drafts often use information or rumors about which team will pick whomever, and a lot of times those are smokescreens . I.e., NBA teams intentionally leak out info certain times as a strategy, and allowing this to inform your mock draft can make it inaccurate. What would potentially change my view Are my definitions wrong? Am I misunderstood about how these two lists work? I'm no expert so I'm happy to be schooled here Is it simply a matter of preference? If you prefer mock drafts, please tell me why. I enjoy reading mock drafts, so I'd like my view changed expanded. Something else I'm not thinking of Thanks gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"NBA Mock Drafts are dumb and should be replaced by Big Boards"}
{"id":"198bd42e-6739-46c0-89b6-2ba95e0a865e","argument":"Hindu philosophy has, at its core, the 4 Vedas - Rig, Sama, Yajur, Atharva compilations of ancient hymns of unknown origin.","conclusion":"There are tens of thousands of books in Hindu philosophy, which elaborate, explain and support a well-developed belief system."}
{"id":"b461f204-5e09-499f-95c2-50737f6729b0","argument":"Theres no reason to believe free will exists. We are groups of atoms that react with other groups o atoms. the complexity of the human human brain and emotion and the fact that we are conscious just creates the illusion that we have free will. Its all just cause and effect, thats all anything ever is. Humans are like continuously learning robots that get all their knowledge exclusively from their surroundings and all start off with slightly different hard n soft ware or genetics . Absolutely everything we think or do from a voluntary extension of our legs to the slightest twitch of a muscle is entirely the direct result of external causes. This also has a fat amount of implications when it comes to dealing with people. For example, the entire concept of justice, and that people deserve punishment makes no sense. Imagine punishing a robot for doing what it was programmed to do. Shutting the robot down makes sense, but actually causing it harm for the sake of justice or whatever is just some basic bitch shit. So yeah, I think thats about it. sweggout","conclusion":"Free will doesn't exist -"}
{"id":"f1f104c4-b1dc-4304-a2fb-f7d6b5abe5c3","argument":"In 2007, US news media differentiated poor and working-class black people from the black middle-class and white America, but white people living in poverty were not subjected to a similar type of differentiation p. 3","conclusion":"Media depictions of race and struggle of racial minorities trivializes their issues within the society."}
{"id":"ee974964-b8ed-4de3-bdc6-2b7bbf565044","argument":"Edit 3 Thanks everyone I have had my view changed mostly due to these arguments 1 that grading is different between STEM and non STEM with maybe a bit more leniency outside the hard sciences 2 My school is far from representative of everywhere despite being a large mid tier institution and 3 Philosophy is hard when you dig deep enough. I honestly would like someone to change my view in regard to this because I totally believe that the academic elitist view of many engineers myself included is justified based on the difficulty of my classes. I haven't heard much of the same from other STEM majors but I think at this point it's a justified view for them as well. Basically, my view boils down to this After having taken a number of upper level social science courses as required non tech electives some economics, psychology, philosophy , it is my opinion that non STEM majors excluding skill based arts music are much easier and in general require less work to get the same grade. If I were to decide to major in a non STEM major I think I could be just as if not more successful than nearly everyone in these majors if I wanted to pursue one of them instead. I do not think the same can be said of a non STEM major switching into engineering. They may be able to make it through the introductory courses but upper level undergraduate sequences of classes like heat and mass balances gt fluid transport gt heat and mass transfer I think would prove nearly impossible for the majority. Thus, I think I am better than my fellow non STEM majors academically because I believe I can do everything they can do in addition to being able to do something that they are unable to do. To me, this is a very negative view to possess because I devalue the effort other students. If you can change my view, I would very much appreciate it. I will do my best to reply to all reasonable challenges. Please feel free to ask me for any clarification. Edit I do not believe that I am more intelligent or that STEM majors are inherently more intelligent that people in other fields. Many of you have made my conscious of the fact that what I believe stems more from the fact that the mid level university I attend does not seem to have as strict of requirements for non STEM majors in regard to coursework as it does for STEM majors. I'm certain there are programs out there with excellent non STEM programs that I would be in way over my head at. I'm going to read this all later when I have a bit more time but I think there a couple people at least that I may want to give deltas to. Thanks everyone. Edit 2 Ok, sorry for the delay Reading over everything now after having previewed it on my phone.","conclusion":"I think the academic elitist views of engineering and other STEM fields in undergrad are justified. Please"}
{"id":"86adb525-fc66-4fff-8038-c581a48b5ba0","argument":"I like to think that I'm fairly progressive when it comes to women's issues and sexual assault. While listening to a podcast Guy's we f d It's not your job to be the perfect survivor where their guests were two of the women from the movie, The Hunting Ground Andrea Pino Annie Clark . One of the topics they brought up was sexual assault in the media and the narratives they create and perpetuate. All of the women seemed upset and offended by Sansa's rape on Game of Thrones on her wedding night. Some of the points they made was that is was unnecessary, and only used to progress one of the male character's development Reek's . They argued that it perpetuated the idea that a survivor uses their tragedy to rise up and become a hero which can create unrealistic and dangerous expectations of actual survivors. I'm not sure I actually agree with them which worries me that I might be part of the problem surrounding some of the reasons victims choose not to speak out. From a purely storytelling point of view, it's not unusual for us to see Ramsey as this monster. I mean, he technically sexually assaulted Reek through genital mutilation. And rape being a crime of control not sex, it makes sense from a character point of view that Sansa was going to be raped. I thought it was also important that we saw this because Sansa was shown literally growing up with this fantasy idea of a prince and her wedding night and what her life would be like violently stripped away from her. This was the final moment she could no longer live in that fairytale. So I'd argue it wasn't just for Reek's development that the rape occurred. Sansa's character was changed as well. And while, yes, we do only see the rape through Reek's facial expression, it's not a male's gaze we're seeing but another victim's gaze. It's all to easy to forget that men are also sexual assault victims and I think it's dangerous to ignore Reek's abuse just because he is a male watching a woman's abuse. Their final argument is the one that I'm most concerned about. Does including the rape and her development from it perpetuate a dangerous narrative? I don't think it was unexpected that this occurred so the only thing that could have changed was reaction. If she had given up hope or turned to self harm wouldn't that also be a harmful narrative? If she waited for Reek to save her wouldn't that also be a harmful narrative? I can't come up with another direction they could have gone that wouldn't have perpetuated an idea we've already seen and thought having her use that to push her to be stronger made sense from a character development point of view. I remember when the episode first aired there was a lot of backlash from the audience calling the scene gratuitous and unnecessary but I don't think I agree with that. Hoping that someone who does might be able to better explain why. EDIT I think what I'm looking for is an alternative to what was shown. I agree that rape didn't have to be the final act that changed Sansa and Reek into finally fighting back, but if we assume that rape was going to be the act than was the depiction the issue? How do you show a character getting raped without it being torture porny? How do you show it affecting another victim without taking away from the one being currently raped? Does Theon Reek being a man and changing overshadow the fact that he is also a sexual assault victim being forced to watch? My biggest issue with the critiques of the scene are that they underplay or outright ignore the changes it has on Sansa, ignore who Reek is by putting his gender first, and don't offer an alternative that would have been more acceptable to have used. I don't think I disagree with the using POV used during the scene, but that could be changed if I had an alternative choice for a shot that wouldn't have been explicit. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Sansa's Rape in GoT was Justifiable and Good Story Telling"}
{"id":"db781bdc-8cf6-4459-ad61-41f52b34319d","argument":"Children are about as impressionable as it gets, and getting religious instruction from their parents is, in my opinion, tantamount to brainwashing at the age where they are most susceptible. Choosing a religion requires the same responsible, mature mind that allows one to vote, drive, drink, choose a political affiliation, etc so why must those wait until adulthood, but religion can effectively be forced on the young? By my suggestion I mean Instruction regarding religion in all schools must be multi denominational and as wide as possible, such that a person can make as informed a decision as possible upon reaching adulthood on what path they wish to take. Religious schools can only accept adults those who have made the conscious decision to go there. No religious rituals such as baptism until willingly chosen as an adult. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"People should not be able to choose a religion until they reach the age of legal adulthood"}
{"id":"de2c3990-e8ce-4531-b94f-2fd9af151612","argument":"Hear me out, I used to hate furries. I thought they were really weird and I didnt understand them. I only really hated them because everyone else around me did, too. A couple years ago, one of my friends told me they were a furry. Instead of ruining our friendship because of a thing I thought was messed up, I accepted them for who they were. Since then, I've learned a lot on what being a furry actually is. Here are some things to know The community is nothing more than a creative hobby. The majority of the people within the community are artists and some even make a living off of doing furry art. No, they do not think that they are animals. For some reason almost everyone thinks that furries think of themselves as animals. They simply enjoy the anthropomorphic ? style of drawing animals. Robin hood, Mickey mouse, Zootopia, etc. Yes, there is a sexual side to the community, but most furries dont participate in that. It makes up a very small percentage of the community. Saying that the community is completely sexual and perverted is like saying all people who enjoy anime like perverted hentai. Sure, there are some, but it's a minority. These people have raised hundreds of thousands for charities of all kinds. Everyone likes to ignore this fact. A recent charity run a few participated in raised around 10,000 for autism research. There are tons who've raised money for other diseases such as cancer. Lots have also raised money for endangered species and ecosystems. You name it, they've probably raised money for it. They visit kids in hospitals, they run charity runs, they go to carnivals, children's parties, and overall are very charismatic and amazing towards children especially. They're incredibly welcoming and accepting. Since they get so much hate for something that truley doesnt deserve it, they've learned to move past the negative stigmas and instead support each other. The community is extremely positive and supportive of one another. The furry community consists of ordinary people. There are doctors, lawyers, engineers, biochemists, you name it. There are probably people in every common field. Its definitely not just unemployed 20yr olds living in their mothers basement. I believe that while the furry community may be different and slightly odd, we shouldnt harass them because of the very few negative things that come with their community. The positives greatly outweigh the negatives. This may be hard for people, since we've all grown to hate them by default. It's like a common thing to hate furries for no particular reason other than everyone else does too. That to me, makes absolutely no sense. In conclusion, furries are one of the most if not the most hated community on the internet. Theres universal hate for them for no good reason other than it's weird and everyone else hates furries too. They dont harm anyone else and my view is that if someone or a community does not hurt or harass others, they shouldnt receive extreme amounts of hate for their hobby. I believe the community as a whole does not deserve as much hate as it gets.","conclusion":"The Furry Community Shouldnt Get As Much Hate As It Does."}
{"id":"a8202354-1739-4bcc-88b2-f364f80160ee","argument":"American citizens were born is USA because of the accident of birth. They did not put in any effort of their own to be accorded the privileges of being a US citizen.","conclusion":"The life of an American citizen is not more valuable than the life of a citizen in another country."}
{"id":"1f0dd2e5-317b-4862-a21c-47ffb2cc941a","argument":"The Governance Expert Reference Panel - comprised of governance experts from various fields - has representation on the board of various UK Workers' Cooperatives.","conclusion":"Board members elected by workers' cooperatives to make strategic decisions on their behalf are likely to be experts in economic governance and management."}
{"id":"cd8e1656-bb5e-4b5b-8100-7e34bf930d54","argument":"It means that the community and its resources are less likely to be open to those who need support for engaging in queerness, even when they are not - for example, for people who gender-bend in their dress but do not identify as trans. They nonetheless face discrimination and the risk of violence, but have little access to support.","conclusion":"It suggests that your decision to engage with queerness is 'not real' in the same way that another's is, and that puts it in a hierarchy below the actions of those who feel they were born this way. This harms two important groups of people."}
{"id":"4bc19405-b020-4c82-aa80-f4763c579266","argument":"The way I see it, believing that voting for a third party candidate is a waste of your vote is no different as believing that if you voted for the loser is wasting your vote. No, the only wasted vote is the vote not cast. In fact, a vote for Hillary Clinton was just as big or bigger a wasted vote as a vote for Gary Johnson. At least a vote for Johnson could be in an attempt to get enough votes to qualify for debates. Also a vote for a third party helps keep them on the ballot for future elections. Yep, a vote for Hillary Clinton in 2016 was a bigger waste of a vote than a vote for Gary Johnson. One need only look back to 2010 when a write in candidate won the Alaska Senatorial race for evidence of opting to vote other than for the 2 major parties can be effective. gt On December 30, 2010, Alaska state officials certified Lisa Murkowski as the winner of the Senatorial election, making her the first U.S. Senate candidate to win election via write in since Strom Thurmond in 1954. Proof that not voting Democrat or Republican is not a wasted vote gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The \"wasted vote\" meme is incorrect"}
{"id":"7b938b37-4f53-4705-961a-16be184c1dcb","argument":"Firstly, from an economic perspective, if the 1 own 90 of the world's resources, it stands to reason that they should bear 90 of the burden. Secondly, from a political perspective, ordinary individuals have no power to enact change when compared to the 1 . An ordinary individual can write a letter to their congressman. A corporation can lobby the same congressmen with millions in donations. Thirdly, an ordinary individual's life makes no difference to the world. What is the point of telling us to use the bus more when the 1 are flying private jets. Why should I donate money to charity when the 1 have the power to end global poverty? From my perspective, being eco conscious as an ordinary person is essentially losing in a prisoners dilemma if the 1 don't do their share.","conclusion":"Problems such as Climate change and Poverty should be left to the 1%"}
{"id":"7c2071e3-bd83-4da5-a27b-c15d6be573f4","argument":"German legislation prohibits the display of swastikas in public in any form. For example: In 2003, a court decision was required to make allowance for an anti-fascist organization to display crossed-out swastikas. From an American viewpoint, the strictness of anti-Nazi regulations in Germany is exactly the sort of slippery-slope result that should be guarded against.","conclusion":"The Nazi flag unified the down trodden working class German. The Sickle and Hammer was a symbol of the worker in the Soviet Union. Once values changed, these were removed and moved to museums."}
{"id":"785bc825-d238-469e-b435-50e001455668","argument":"ISIS posts training material on a variety of websites and uses internet search for intelligence purposes Alarid, p. 320","conclusion":"Terrorist cyber activities are not limited to Facebook and Twitter. Thus, their activities will not suffer beyond repair."}
{"id":"ac24cc9b-b0ce-4c95-b8c2-a645941b4725","argument":"The only solution is to try to understand the other side's perspective, help them feel comfortable, to build trust, to help them cultivate a sense that letting their guard down is the best possible outcome, and ultimately give them the space to relax and come around to your position of their own accord","conclusion":"People shut down when their political beliefs are challenged. Certain brain areas related to personal identity go into overdrive, treating opposing evidence like an existential threat"}
{"id":"861f0f7e-c50f-40c9-ab5b-65a9e8e1ca68","argument":"George F. Will. \"A law Arizona can live with.\" Dallas News. April 28, 2010: \"Arizona's law might give the nation information about whether judicious enforcement discourages illegality. If so, it is a worthwhile experiment in federalism.\" In other words, the feasibility and efficacy of a law such as Arizona's is not entirely known yet, and so Arizona provides an very valuable test case to determine these things.\"","conclusion":"Arizona's immigration law is good test case for nation"}
{"id":"7a4a8653-f965-49c0-8e08-8d612558b75e","argument":"The trauma caused by slavery resulted in genetic modifications that are expressed as a disposition for post traumatic stress disorder among Black Americans today.","conclusion":"Reparations have the ability to cure the US' post traumatic slave syndrome"}
{"id":"88eeed15-91c8-4855-aeb3-a0fe852ab32b","argument":"Forcing employers to pay women that bring less value to a company than men same amount of money, could actually hurt women in long run even more, as it may be undesirable to hire women.","conclusion":"The government is not the right actor to fix the gender pay gap."}
{"id":"fcb905de-1040-4bee-9d1d-0c8285fdcc43","argument":"So as the title says, I\u2019ve always considered myself very open minded. Over here in the Netherlands everyone can be everything and I like that. I'm actually pretty proud of our nice accepting country. Recently an old friend of mine came out as gay, and we all knew ages ago that he was so we were really happy for him. Good for you right? Right. Now here\u2019s where that changes. While I accept everything, I don\u2019t want to be involved in it. I look at lgbt stuff the same way I used to look at anime. \u201cOh yeah this is a thing that exists, I don\u2019t think it\u2019s for me, but whatever it\u2019s all good you do you.\u201d And then 1 show came along, I got hooked, and now I would consider myself a big ass weeb. Which is fine of course. I liked Pokemon and Dragon Ball as a child and just forgot about the medium until I suddenly realized this is something I really liked. It was there the whole time but never considered myself a part of it. But after learning more about it I really started enjoying it. This is now kind of happening with my gender. Looking back there have been times in my childhood where I\u2019d literally say I wanted to be a girl. I kept those memories in my head and never knew why. The last three years of my life I've had a lot of feelings that I thought were just related to weird sex stuff. I thought that some thoughts and ideas were just temporary and that it didn't mean anything. But after listening to some debates, some podcasts and just doing a lot of thinking recently I came to the conclusion that I might have feelings of wanting to be more girly or even a girl. So why is this a problem you might ask. Well it\u2019s a problem because I don\u2019t want to have these feelings at all. I don\u2019t want to have to deal with this, I don\u2019t want to read about this and I REALLY don\u2019t want to explore this. Fuck all that noise. Again everyone is cool in my book but i'd never thought about me being like this and I really don't want to accept that. But there is also a chance that if I ignore this any longer I\u2019ll wake up one night in 15 years and be miserable. Basicly I need someone to convince me that being like this is okay, because right now it doesn\u2019t feel like that in my head. It\u2019s not like I wouldn\u2019t have support from friends or family I know for 100 fact that i would it\u2019s just that in my head it feels wrong and for a lack of a better word cringe. I am making myself cringe by talking about this. I've talked to some friends about this, and the conversation usually ends with It'll still be you . I don't think so. I have pretty much always been a pretty confident person, and able to describe myself very well. I know what I like and dislike. I know what I'm about, what my style is and what I want in life. This 'problem' is about to ruin that. It feels like I'm giving up if I go with this. Like I'll lose myself with even the slightest change. How do I change that? Or how do I figure out what I really want? If you think you can help but need to know more about me, by all means ask away. Just some extra things I am not suicidal I read that a lot of trans are , only pretty depressed sometimes It\u2019s not that i\u2019ve ever hated being a guy, but I think there\u2019s a chance I rather wanted to be a girl As far as I can tell right now, I don\u2019t like guys Edit This is great. All of these responses are giving me a lot more to think about. Keep it coming, i want to hear from as many different people as possible.","conclusion":"No matter who you love, what you call yourself or what you look like, I am cool with you. But I think I might be Trans and I really do not want that."}
{"id":"4243e00f-d44a-4db6-aee4-eaa0a5b08281","argument":"Bullying among children would go up as it will be easier to find out who is different and doesn't fit in, which would affect the long term mental health of the individual if they are unable from the get-go to fit in.","conclusion":"Humans are probably not very well adjusted to living in a world where they would always be watched and where their actions would continuously be scrutinized, by friends and third parties."}
{"id":"696d4212-c588-418d-a497-43d638e19185","argument":"There are many men's issues that the movement does not address. \"Egalitarianism\" is the correct word. It is perfectly fine that a movement strives for women's issues, Feminism does this, but to say that modern Feminism is a movement for equality for both sexes is wrong.","conclusion":"If feminism were only about equality, feminists would call their movement \"equalism\" or something similar."}
{"id":"a85fc115-fe91-4d9a-a25d-b070fbf56a54","argument":"Cat shows date back to the late 19th Century, and were widely attended, with a large variety of cat breeds. 'Show cats' exist now, usually with a competitive element that rewards purity of breed and behaviour.","conclusion":"Humans enjoy competitions and shows that are based on purebred animals."}
{"id":"a8420a31-4889-49dc-b783-0b3cf96b7e9f","argument":"I think in the U.S. we should pay more taxes so that our social welfare safety nets are actually strong enough for people to use. I also believe that we need to think of government aid as less something to be ashamed of but more as of a duty we have to one another to help others. I think our country is too proudly individualist and that if government wants to pry into my life so badly, we should at least be using it to help others. I believe that in providing a minimum standard of living and quality of life for all U.S. citizens, we could have a large and happy middle class.","conclusion":"I think the U.S. social welfare system should be more like that of Scandinavia."}
{"id":"fa423a51-52c7-485f-8dbb-3f7a7ba0303f","argument":"The cost and environmental pollution for implementing electric cars large scale would far outweigh a gradual transition from fossil fuel cars to electric. Not to mention implementation of reskillling mechanics and repairman etc.","conclusion":"A slow transition to EVs would be better than a fast transition."}
{"id":"c0745ee8-905e-4983-be74-47aa9945c31d","argument":"Hear me out, I understand that for some specified careers Lawyers, Doctors, Engineers it is an absolute necessity. There is less to no learning it all on the job or general knowledge to be applied in these areas. However, business degrees for example, are merely taking the students general knowledge and throwing a textbook at their face and telling them to learn it by themselves. All the while, the specifics of a job are normally taught first week on the job and the intricacies taught in the degree are largely done by a technology a simple calculator or lower level employee. What happened to the inspiring lecturer challenging youths to think different? Or the hard working tutor who pushes you to critically analyse a situation? These days its simply post grad students who need some extra cash. I believe some degrees are no longer a step up in a career but a forced step, forced debt and delay of full time employment. Am I alone in this line of thinking? If so, please change my view. If you agree with me even in the smallest amount, please share. Thanks","conclusion":"I believe that some university\/college\/higher education is fast becoming a waste of time."}
{"id":"220869a0-b2e7-4dc4-a536-612a7ac3ded1","argument":"There are many people who may not understand abstract concept, yet are able to express their value of something.","conclusion":"Living things do not need to understand abstract concepts to show that they value something."}
{"id":"2688c668-a023-4f51-bfb5-29a8894a3ccc","argument":"So I was raised in the Church of Christ under the heavily implied belief that the world was created by God in 7 literal days. Throughout my life however, I have been exposed to many different ideas and liberal interpretations of foundational beliefs in the Church of Christ. This has led me to question and educate myself on many of the typically controversial Christian topics e.g. Homosexuality, abortion, etc and more recently one of the most controversial evolution. Now as you might imagine, bringing this topic up with any of my conservative Christian friends can cause quite a ruckus. I am afraid to even suggest to them that you can believe in evolution and God at the same time or heaven forbid, that you can interpret the Bible with evolution in mind which for those of you who don't understand the impact, is often held equal to God, though nobody would ever admit that . So what's the deal here? Can you believe in both evolution and a world created by God? Edit Minor formatting.","conclusion":"Evolution cannot coexist with Christian theology."}
{"id":"df2f247a-1efc-4bdb-bf9a-fa44163244de","argument":"My belief Gangs make their money off of drugs Gangs use this money to purchase and use guns to help maintain their dominance in areas where they sell drugs Gangs cut their drugs with other chemicals in order to get higher profits Over doses are usually a result of improperly mixed drugs eg. too much fentanyl in the heroine This is an unpopular opinion where I'm from, but I really believe that if we decriminalized all drugs and allowed for controlled production of narcotics, it would undercut the profits of violent gangs and give drug users safer and cleaner drugs. Stop the cash flow going to violent gangs, then they have less money to buy guns and less incentive to engage in violent crime. There will also be less accidental over doses as people will be getting cleaner drugs that are not improperly mixed by underground manufacturers. It seems a lot of people believe that if we decriminalize drugs our entire society is going to fall apart because all the children will start doing drugs, get addicted, and their lives will fall apart. But, they don't want to accept that people are doing drugs anyways, legal or not. Also that there are natural limits to drug consumption, and addiction is usually a result of a much more complicated problem. Drugs are often a symptom of a problem, not the root. So why support the black market, when we could instead put it all above board and avoid the problems of a black market? I want to see less shootings and violence in my city, as well as less over doses. I want people who are dangerously addicted to get the medical help they need to recover. I believe that keeping all narcotics illegal only helps to support a black market which leads to violence, marginalization, isolation, and despair. Decriminalizing would allow for safer consumption and would take money away from violent gangs and decrease guns and violence on the streets . Give me a good reason to believe otherwise.","conclusion":"Decriminalizing all drugs will lead to less fatal overdoses and gang related gun violence."}
{"id":"05f8f2df-a32e-4888-b03c-d0b0b468f0a9","argument":"A legitimate market in human organs would not be inconsistent with either public or private healthcare services. The transplant surgeon, the nursing staff and even the pharmaceutical companies producing the anti-reaction drugs receive payment for each operation performed. Why should the donor of the organs, arguably the most important actor in any transplant, not also receive remuneration ? The United States already tolerates markets for blood, semen, human eggs, and surrogate wombs. Is there a moral difference between a heart or a lung and an ovum ? It is remarkable that a lifesaving treatment should apparently have no financial value.","conclusion":"A legitimate market in human organs would not be inconsistent with either public or private healthca..."}
{"id":"d30bccb5-b625-481c-9d01-d1539b816b28","argument":"Ketsun Lobsang Dondup. \"Independence as Tibet\u2019s Only Option: Why the \u2018Middle Path\u2019 is a Dead End\". January 25, 2007 - \"China also has deep structural problems such as an inflexible political system, growing economic inequality, rampant corruption and pollution, spreading protests and disorder, and unstable nationalism directed against Taiwan, Japan, and the U.S. As Professor Samuel Huntington explained in his classic, Political Order in Changing Societies, economic growth and the mobilization of new social forces combined with inflexible politics often leads to disorder. Tibet\u2019s best hope lies in being able to use the East Timor model to exploit disorder in China to regain independence.\"","conclusion":"Tibet can follow the East Timor model to achieving independence"}
{"id":"0864f947-0137-4634-9bce-50746b5cd081","argument":"Hi r cmv, This post is not about whether or not abortion is morally permissible or ought to be legal. Rather, it's a meta view about the way the abortion debate is structured. Often, those on either side of the debate invoke the circumstances of the pregnancy to support their arguments. Speaking broadly, pro choice advocates often point to sexual violence or lack of consent as a trump example. Pro life advocates tend to argue that sex is a responsibility and that women who engage in casual sex are obligated to see a pregnancy through based on that decision. Logically, however, I can't see how the circumstances of a pregnancy hold bearing on whether an abortion is morally justifiable. Once a pregnancy has occurred, via any course of action, the moral quandary is the same does the mother's right to bodily autonomy take precedence over the fetus' right to life? Pick your favorite set of hypothetical circumstances, but at the end of the day the decision at hand is the same, and the logic that brings you to your conclusion ought to apply universally. While I understand the gut instinct to bring up rape and promiscuity when discussing this sensitive issue, I fail to see what bearing they hold to the core question, and believe they only serve to cloud and emotionally charge the debate. I'm interested in well structured arguments that connect the circumstances of pregnancy to the abortion debate.","conclusion":"How a woman came to be pregnant is\/ought to be irrelevant to the question of her right to an abortion"}
{"id":"df9cb20d-c215-4dcb-ad16-ba233c585500","argument":"If the Tea Party has shown anything it's that a small portion of a political party can have a large impact on national elections because they can sway primaries in areas either deep in the Red or gerrymandered to ensure it. I've been an liberal and have pretty much registered and voted as a Democrat. For the longest time, I've said quite honestly that my vote does not count in Presidential elections due to my state. While I disagree with the Electoral College it is the nature of the system for some time to come. However, it also means I have no say in how elections turn out. I can vote Blue every year yet it'll be a Red senator, representative, governor, county sheriff, dog catcher, etc. that's getting picked in November. Having seen that in situations like myself, primaries are where its at. However, if I register Democrat, I only can vote in Democratic primaries. To me, it seems reasonable that if thousands in my area instead banded together and registered as Republicans when can have a controlling vote in who at least is the Republican candidate. Hell, we might even vote for him her in the November elections if the views are aligned enough. Basically, I'm getting tired of not getting invited to the dance and I think its reasonable to change how the invitations are handed out. I'll register Republican, encourage others in my gerrymandered red area to do the same and at least have an impact on the real election we call the primary. Change My View.","conclusion":"Even though I'm liberal, since I live in a red state and county I should register as Republican to have a say in political elections via primaries."}
{"id":"b0a79e4f-e16d-4b04-bd2c-619e181e10b8","argument":"Immigration is not a charity. Its not a favor we do for the rest of the world. It has one sole purpose and that's to benefit us. We take in immigrants because we believe they will improve America. People following a religion in which strong majorities believe women who wear pants deserve rape and gays and apostates need to die will not in any way shape or form improve America. Being Muslim is not immutable like race or gender. Its a belief that you chose to hold. You read a book about a prophet who's main activity was conquering villages then beheading all males with pubic hair and enslaving the women and children. A prophet who once ordered his own people burned alive for failing to come out for the call to prayer You read about that prophet and said to yourself I think that's a good role model for me . I understand that the Old Testament contains some harsh stuff. But if Muslims ignored the Quran, and didn't abuse women or kill gays, and ignored the frequent calls by the prophet to wage open ended violent Jihad against unbelievers. If they ignored all that, we wouldn't be having this conversation. But to anyone who reads the news or looks at Pew's frequent polling of the Muslim world it is quite clear that that is not what is happening.","conclusion":"I don't think we should have Muslim immigration"}
{"id":"b86feb15-408d-49fe-b5fc-882e9f87ecb2","argument":"The visuals of Luigi's Mansion 3 uses paranormal magic to defy physics and architectural logic.","conclusion":"Luigi's Mansion 3 has upgraded graphics and expressive animations."}
{"id":"dcc39260-dfd0-42e7-8868-007f6708da79","argument":"Title pretty much sums it up. People are calling for reddit to remain apolitical on the gay marriage issue. However, when we were dealing with SOPA, everyone was up in arms over it. Same thing with Net Neutrality. When we're dealing with the issue of whether or not two consenting adult's love is recognized by the State, people want reddit to remain apolitical. But God forbid our precious interwebz is at danger, then we sound the call to arms. This is disgusting, lazy, and bigoted behavior by the reddit community and there is no excuse for it.","conclusion":"I believe that Reddit should support gay marriage, as it has supported other political causes, and those who claim to want an \"apolitical\" site are nothing short of hypocrites."}
{"id":"e7690cd9-b737-460e-b130-42aa81e491ed","argument":"The war on drugs has been a failure. 1 trillion spent since 1971, and addiction and overdose rates are as high as ever. Countries like Portugal have shown significant drops in HIV and overdose rates. 1.5million arrests due to drug violations in 2016 1.2 million 84 due to possession only. 2016 I have personal friends who have lost financial aid and been kicked out of college just because of being caught with unprescribed adderall while studying. 4.0 students now unable to get into college due to being felons and not receiving financial aid. Decriminalization has shown nothing but positive impact on countries implementing it including the US with marijuana. I'm talking about all drugs here and not just weed though.  on why all drugs should be decriminalized and why they shouldn't implement the 10 day supply rule that Portugal has. Edit just to reclarify I mean decriminalization, not legalization Thanks guys Edit 2 I also want to clarify I mean for personal possession. 10 day supply rule in Portugal means if you have a 10 day supply or less it's assumed you're not selling example 20 grams of weed, 2 grams of cocaine, etc. dealers are still treated as felons. Users are treated as sick and should be helped, not punished other than ticket and doctors rehab visit","conclusion":"Drugs should be decriminalized"}
{"id":"1fec1b50-a88b-4e62-a592-7d45a502a013","argument":"I often see the idea being tossed around on Reddit that fact checking should play a major role in presidential debates. People have suggested the task be given to a panel of experts or even a supercomputer like Watson. In my view, fact checking is not nearly as objective as people would like to believe. Oftentimes, facts are put forward by one group of experts and disputed by another. There are two types of statements that one may hope are fact checked during a presidential debate. The first, is broad statements like Social security is unsustainable. Complex issues like these are argued back and forth and back and forth. Millions of research dollars are put up to answering policy questions such as these. Statements like this simply cannot be adequately or honestly fact checked during a debate. I'll admit that when people think of fact checking, they most likely aren't considering that first example, rather statistics, such as 30 of inmates grew up in single family homes. Even facts like these will have experts both supporting and refuting them. I think the onus should be on the viewer to research these matters for themselves to decide what answers make the most sense to them. The biggest problem is not the ability of facts to be checked, but the introduction of bias by the fact checkers . The most recent example was when Candy Crowley supposedly corrected Romney's characterization of Obama's address after the Libya attacks. What she did was extremely controversial, and Crowley even admitted later on that she was in the wrong for doing so Being corrected by a moderator during a debate has a huge impact on people's perception of the candidate, giving the fact checker a lot of power in the election itself. Please don't make a response on your opinion of that specific exchange because it is besides the point. My assertion is that by allowing any form of official fact checking into a Presidential Debate you are unavoidably introducing the bias of the fact checker. In summary No third party should be given the authority to fact check candidates during a Presidential debate. Any fact checking should be done by the candidates themselves.","conclusion":"Fact-checking has no place at a Presidential Debate"}
{"id":"32640187-b285-4856-b029-f0d3bc90dcb5","argument":"These non-vegan components can become a health risk, especially if a person is avoiding non-vegan foods due to allergies such as the gelatin and possibly shellac 1 2 on bananas.","conclusion":"Supposedly vegan foods might secretly contain non-vegan components on them, like shellac and gelatin on bananas"}
{"id":"83d65c15-ab20-416b-9a9c-aa6aef64bd61","argument":"Students who study English and History at university tend to come from families with higher household incomes than those who study other subjects.","conclusion":"Government funding liberal arts degrees is regressive; it forces poorer people to pay for richer people's education."}
{"id":"29fbb402-38e1-4da5-9cc2-82e938d84f11","argument":"An increase in the water temp causes expansion as it does in all liquids. The oceans are large. So is the amount of expansion.","conclusion":"Sea levels are projected to rise as a result of climate change."}
{"id":"da67a88c-b2ff-450f-bddd-b8cae8c582a4","argument":"Israeli combat soldiers who are paid more than non-combat soldiers earn only 282 dollars a month In other words, just above 9 dollars a day. This is vastly insufficient for a living wage.","conclusion":"Salaries under conscription are often far lower than minimum wage, and certainly lower than for career officers. This is because it is too expensive to sufficiently pay the soldiers."}
{"id":"16aa1a6b-3072-4924-8552-a51a6c1ea5f0","argument":"Drones could for example attack any person that carries a firearm or explosives and does not carry a special electronic id which would be provided to authorized personnel like police forces.","conclusion":"Autonomous drones could provide a persistent coverage and protection that would be too costly in terms of money and killed soldiers to achieve with conventional means."}
{"id":"cc5c4ff9-0e30-4489-8fcd-27e3b77b4bad","argument":"Proportional representation systems tend to have less elections because governments are more likely to serve their full term.","conclusion":"Proportional representation systems lead to more stable governments by virtue of coalition governments being formed."}
{"id":"489018c6-032c-4163-b83a-fe5500580c9b","argument":"The last new ideas or solutions to problems I can recall coming from a conservative philosophy have been soundly rejected by conservatives in the USA. The idea of Cap and Trade as a solution to climate change causing green house gas emissions, a conservative idea, has been roundly rejected in favor of denialism and the insurance system invented by conservative Mitt Romney that became the ACA has been rejected because it was implemented by the Democratic Party. I\u2019m trying to recall anything proposed by conservatives that isn\u2019t a tax break based on the long proven ineffective \u201ctrickle down economics\u201d idea or a rook back of regulations that is aimed at increasing corporate profit margins, and I can\u2019t think of anything. All that\u2019s left is a constant push to dismantle the separation between church and state and vaguely racist at best, bordering on genocidal immigration policies. What good is conservative political thought these days?","conclusion":"American Conservatism has gone philosophically bankrupt and has nothing to contribute to modern governance."}
{"id":"a9017280-4a7a-428d-a361-31fa33e46656","argument":"It is the individuals who commit sins that are responsible for themselves going to hell, not God.","conclusion":"Going to hell is a decision made by humans, not by God."}
{"id":"336cfcb3-8e11-486b-b693-c99143276d48","argument":"The reason I say this is because there is a certain authenticity to the internet that is rarely found in real life. The people with whom you're interacting have no dog in the race, they don't know you personally, and they will be less inclined to sugar coat things because they don't have to deal with the repercussions of being rude . They tell people what they need to hear, not necessarily what they want to hear. The criticisms provided tend to be harsher, more direct and therefore, more accurate. Change my perspective and convince me that, for example, r relationships isn't a better place to ask for opinions and advice than friends, family, or therapists. I'm not focusing specifically on that one community that was just an example. Update I'm actually having a hard time figuring out who to reward a delta to, as an overall majority of respondents here have thoroughly swayed me. I'm not sure I can give just one delta in this case.","conclusion":"The internet is the best possible place to get advice."}
{"id":"c3bd7282-4039-4a21-9b1a-97571a9f02ff","argument":"I find it scary how easy it is to rile Americans up. I am talking about the very high importance Americans place on the flag, the military, national anthem, patriotism, unhealthy focus on the 9 11 attacks and so on. I'm not saying it's all systematic but the politics in the US does revolve around patriotism hugely. Especially in Europe, politics based on patriotism is kind of seen as a scary thing, it promotes the us and them mentality, is seen more as a extreme right wing thing. But in the US, I feel like this is more or less the same for democrats as well as republicans. As a result of this, I think Americans are easily susceptible to propaganda. I don't think there is any country in the world who does not respect and appreciate its military but I feel like the American culture exaggerates this as well. The use of the phrase 'thank you for your service', I don't think is as prevalent in any other country as it is in the US. It's so easy to get people to listen to you by involving the military, the sacrifice they have made for everyone's freedom, which is true, but it is used heavily as propaganda. The insane defence budget helps keep this culture alive. I saw all the 9 11 posts that were all over the internet yesterday. I am not trying to undermine the immense tragedy that happened a lot of people were killed and many more affected and it is completely fair and respectful to remember that and pay your respects. But that was 16 years ago, which is a long time. What bothers me is how ingrained this event is in the American culture. 9 11 is a household phrase now, the politicians use it all the time throughout the year to their advantage. There are plenty of tragedies that happen around the world, but I don't know of any recent ones last 2 decades or so which is talked about as much or is ingrained in the culture of any country as much as this one event. the flag and the national anthem can always be used as a propaganda tool for any country but I feel it is extremely easy to get Americans up in Arms by using these compared to any other country. The fact that an athlete did not stand up for a flag, it's national news that the president has to react to seems a bit absurd to me. Given all this and the fact that the US is the strongest country in the world when it comes to military power, it is kind of scary how easy it will be to gain public support for a war if it comes to it.","conclusion":"Americans are extremely susceptible to propaganda and the culture reflects this and this is a bad thing."}
{"id":"f5e5ddad-edfe-43e0-a300-5a9316615e98","argument":"The EU is constantly loosing it's cases at the WTO for this reason and pays fines for now nearly 20 years","conclusion":"There is no secured evidence that GMOs are having negative effects on human or animal health."}
{"id":"b4a3dad0-f822-4d27-acee-97bf9381984b","argument":"Same shit happened with obeezy. I have no faith in our political system, its fundamentally ineffective and archaic to the extent that i dont see a huge difference in policy no matter who ends up being elected. I believe that if you want something to change that the best and more or less only way to do it is through grass roots activism, eg. We kept CSG mines out of our community by fighting the actual companies and protesting instead of relying on politicians, the same thing recently happened on a larger scale with the Adani coal mine, an example in the US would be the introduction of bodycams on police and heightened scrutiny of their behavior in general thanks to regular peoples social activism.","conclusion":"its stupid to get excited about political candidates eg. bernie and expect their election to bring about any significant change."}
{"id":"f93d36a1-1f89-4b51-bad3-532581b47124","argument":"Recently, southern states have sought to limit and potentially outlaw municipal broadband projects. I don't think this makes any sense at all. If the taxpayers of an area want to bring public fiber to their communities, then it's their right. If a local municipal government has the funds and capability to build their own fiber system, then it's their right. We allow municipalities to create bus systems and lend and sell books. We let them run utilities and provide health care. So why can't we allow them to lay optic fiber wire and allow them to sell internet?","conclusion":"This is no good argument to outlaw municipal broadband."}
{"id":"0833b5cb-934c-4c6b-b2c1-82a08e5568a4","argument":"Johnson's quick resolution, or even complete jettison, of elements introduced by his predecessor smacks of design by committee a pejorative for a project with multiple designers but no unifying plan or vision.","conclusion":"Story-lines and characters set up in previous films were not treated with much respect."}
{"id":"02d3147a-6f2d-43d9-bd3d-bff792945a04","argument":"Let me be clear, I am not against the use of self defense by police officers, or anyone, just the idea that the laws do not apply equally. This is in direct response to the recent clearing of Michael Brelo of the Cleveland Police Department. In 2012 Brelo was part of a chase that ended with over 130 rounds shot into two unarmed suspects. Brelo fired continued to reload his weapon, climb on the care, and fire another 15 rounds in the car, after other officers had already stopped firing. The judge ruling over the case cleared him of charges using a baseball analogy and saying it was impossible to prove his bullets were the fatal shots. Although this is true, the use of force was excessive and he was still, nonetheless, a party to this grotesque undertaking of justice . This case highlights that police can operate according to a separate set of laws. If I was with a person who fired one shot into a person and killed them, despite clear evidence I did not shoot the fatal shot, I would likely still be charged with murder, at the very least accessory or an equivalent charge to the murder. Even in a case of clear self defense, one is almost certain to face criminal charges, especially when they continue to use force after the threat has been eliminated and they are in no clear danger. For example, If me and three friends fired 140 rounds into a home invader you can be certain we would all be in jail. Though it would be close to impossible to prove who's shots were fatal, we were all participants, and we would still face severe legal consequences. If we as a society accept the idea that people are justified in using lethal force in self defense, it should not be also accepted that certain people, because of their job, are able to follow a different set of guidelines. So Reddit, in order to help me deal with my anger at the moment, I hope you can convince me that in a nation where no man is above the law which prides itself on the idea of liberty and justice for all that some people, because of their job, should be allowed to be more equal than others.","conclusion":"Police should be held to the same standards for self defense as any other citizen."}
{"id":"99599125-83dc-4a98-89e4-63517c3471b1","argument":"By keeping this secret from your partner when others may know it, you may be opening your partner up to ridicule or judgement by others.","conclusion":"People can be harmed without knowing it or knowing why."}
{"id":"e5a624a8-734b-4d6d-9fff-1ecd093311d9","argument":"Why do we allow companies to dictate their own \u201csell by,\u201d \u201cbest by,\u201d and or, \u201cuse by,\u201d dates? It seems incredibly misleading, and companies have a vested interest in keeping this practice as cloudy and misleading as possible. Or am I wrong? I could see myself changing my view if someone could show me how it is best practice for the government FDA presumably to practice non interference in this sector. I often hear about \u201cgovernment regulations killing jobs,\u201d and likely this regulation would dent profits, as it would mean that fewer consumers would be throwing out \u201cgood\u201d products and having to replace them due to a misleading date. Still, though, should the government not intervene, even to the point of diminishing profits and jobs, if those profits and jobs are propped up by misleading and often flatly dishonest practices?","conclusion":"The US Federal Government should regulate the \u201cdating\u201d practices of consumer goods and foods."}
{"id":"a7a06b1e-c244-4893-a4c8-6ecda65b3ebe","argument":"The way I see it people are mainly angry about two things A F said they want their brand worn by only skinny, attractive people. They destroy clothing to avoid, for example, homeless people acquiring them. In my opinion We'll, duh It's a fashion label, that's what fashion is. Not discrimination, but having average looking people aspire to be like the people they deem beautiful. Wearing the clothes they wear is a massive part of that. Marketing to beautiful people is the cheapest and most effective way to market to EVERYONE. It's a business. Any business that allows it's old products to be acquired cheap or free is taking away from potential new line sales. I like to wear a big brand, but I couldn't give a shit if it's 'last season'. Why go to the official store when I can get last season's line cheaper? Their only mistake was admitting two business techniques to millions of people who would have otherwise been blissfully unaware that A F along with the companies behind most of your favourite products do this shit all the time.","conclusion":"A&F aren't evil or immoral in the slightest. Business arguably is, but that's just the world we live in."}
{"id":"e675bc7b-0571-4903-b71a-17ba77ba39d5","argument":"First, a disclaimer I am not one of those anti government, gun toting, Michigan Militia stereotypes. I lean left on most issues and right on a few. I do not own a gun and haven't since I was a teenager hunting rifle . Second, I am not actually advocating attacking the US government with violent means. This is a very bad idea and will not work, as evidenced by Ruby Ridge, Waco, et. al. I define political corruption as government officials committing acts that while of benefit to themselves are detrimental to the people. Some specific examples United States Congressmen and women are allowed to engage in insider trading This behavior is detrimental to the market and is understandably banned for the rest of us. It undermines the purpose of the market which is to provide a mechanism to achieve class equality or something close to it. Because of the Supreme Court decision on Citizens United of which some claim Justices Thomas and Scalia should have recused themselves due to conflict of interest money is playing a bigger role in our political process than ever. We now have shadow organizations with very generic sounding names e.g. Americans for Prosperity as if there are Americans who aren't for prosperity , anonymously donating and funding political campaigns without any accountability or disclosure required. The above is only possible due to the Supreme Court's decision that corporations are people An absurd notion on the face of it. The U.S. Government has accelerated the systematic stripping of individual freedoms and liberties in the last decade, thanks largely in part to legislation like the Patriot Act. The NSA is listening to our phone calls after repeatedly denying the accusation for a number of years , and we only know this because of Edward Snowden, who had to flee the country to avoid arrest, something I was raised to believe only happened in Soviet Russia or North Korea. I admit that I developed this opinion in part due to listening to Diane Rehm's interview of Peter Schweizer The fact that our government engages in corrupt behavior is not the main point of my argument, however. I'm sure this is not controversial to anyone reading this, and many of you could do a much better job on the above list. I contend that the situation is hopeless. The obvious non violent solution would be to elect different officials. I don't think that's possible. Why? Congressional districts are subject to Gerrymandering, which is the practice of drawing boundaries specifically so that incumbents have an overwhelming advantage against their opponents. The reason for this is simple congresspeople want to keep their jobs, so they're going to do everything they can to do so. As a result, for at least the last 50 years, over 80 of Congresspeople have kept their seats each election Despite approval ratings close to or in the single digits for many years, the members of the House and Senate have remained largely the same. Even though Congress is not a lifetime appointment, which practices like Gerrymandering in place, it is common to see a Congressperson or Senator's career last for decades. The two party dichotomy an inevitability forced upon us by our crude, 18th century voting system doesn't give us much choice. Oftentimes, the alternative to the corrupt Representative is another equally corrupt Representative. Though there may be a few congresspeople here and there that are truly willing to change things, they often go against their party, which results in being removed from certain committees congressional committees are where the true power lies in government . Non corrupt politicians simply aren't numerous enough to stem the tide of corruption in Washington. The problem is, all of the solutions to these problems whether it be changing the voting system to be fair to more parties like it is in Europe where it is not uncommon to have half a dozen or more parties with representation in government , giving the voters more choices, introducing term limits, or fixing the problem of Gerrymandering have one thing in common under our constitution, congress would need to vote for these things in order for them to happen. Basically, to reform our corrupt system would be to expect that most of the men and women of the US Congress will vote against their financial and political interests for the greater good. There is no historical or other basis to believe this will ever happen. In a nutshell, the keys that could open the door to change are being held by the people who'd be harmed the most by it. The door is staying closed until the keys are taken by force.","conclusion":"I believe the Government of the United States is hopelessly corrupt, and nothing short of massive armed rebellion and overthrow will fix it."}
{"id":"7c151eef-020e-49e3-ba6b-e2b62ae22913","argument":"So I was on Google , and I was like PS4 is overrated. Every other console is better. Then people came to me like are you implying that is a kiddy console? I said. No, I just think that the younger generation never had the chance to play older Sony consoles. She replied Well I think those are good but the PS4 is much better. You just think that PS4's only target market is youngsters or young people prefer it more. That wasn't the point at all. Anyway, I just can't really get that much into the PS4. I mean the only games I got into was guys get your tissue boxes prepare for this Cross Gen games, Killzone Shadowfall , Knack , Crash remake , and The Order 1886 . I don't care about Uncharted 4 . I don't care for Uncharted , so yes this thread is going to even be more challenging. And I couldn't get entirely addicted to Horizon Zero Dawn and Infamous Second Son . They where very pretty and big. But thats the problem about games today. They don't know how to be designed so all they can be is pretty and big or just multiplayer. I don't play multiplayer. I could never get into The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt . Oh and I also don't care about remasters. I'd rather play it on PC or the original consoles they where on. You know what I got into the most on PS3 that makes it much better than PS4? Metal Gear Solid 4 the Guns of the Patriots . That was my most favorite game. I loved the lenght and depth of the cutscenes. How it went into the lore. The stealth, the art, the fan service. It's so EPIC . Plus the PS3 and PS2 have backwards compatability so I can play PS1 games which I love. Yeah, I'm a retro gamer. I also love Sega games. I heard Sonic Mania might be fun. But I have the entire Sonic games collection. I don't have enough time for video games. I spend too much time being creative and working. Maybe that's why I can't get into it. Do you think that's my problem r cmv or am I on to something?","conclusion":"I don't think the PS4 is the best Sony consoles."}
{"id":"783817e9-4a85-4eba-90b4-9db1490ab79a","argument":"All tax collection, ultimately, is enforced by the threat of state violence if people refuse to comply.","conclusion":"A UBI cannot exist without taxation. Taxation is immoral, therefore a UBI is too."}
{"id":"37c004ce-d563-44a9-9689-a698bbb994c4","argument":"Let's take the Yellowstone Caldera for example. If it is going to explode in my lifetime, I don't want to know about it until the USGS warning changes to red eruption underway . If Yellowstone erupts, most of the US will be uninhabitable for a long time, with toxic atmosphere and volcanic winter. I don't want to live through that, and I certainly don't have the means to relocate me and my family to Europe or Middle East. I want to spend my last few days as if nothing is happening and enjoying my life, rather than fighting with looters, guarding my house day and night basically leaving under massive fear and pressure. Since I have never experienced a major catastrophic event, my view is largely shaped by literature books movies , The Road scares me of an apocalyptic world, death would be a better alternative. 2012 is a terrible movie, but its message aligns with my view. The government keeps its citizens uninformed and devises a plan to save the best to rebuild the world. And although the ending of Seeking a friend for the end of the world touches my heart, I don't want to go through all that regret just to find a short lived happiness. TL,DR It is ethical for the government to withhold information about major catastrophic natural disasters volcano eruption, asteroid, the earth splits in half, etc","conclusion":"I believe in the event of a major catastrophic natural disaster, the government should let its citizens enjoy blissful ignorance until the last moment."}
{"id":"f74af1cc-1997-4602-bafb-b4c623d55e2e","argument":"I am not a pedophile and I find pedophiles absolutely disgusting. However I came across a similar argumen6 on reddit about this subject that I find incredibly persuasive and I can not find a logical argument against it. Basically the argument goes that because no child is actually hurt, then fake child porn is victimless. And to suggest that it should be banned because it can even5ually lead pedophiles to act on their urges or normalize being attracted 5o children, is like saying that the violence in video games and movies will lead violent people to act on their urges or normalizes violence in society which is obviously not true. People who plays a game like GTA doesn5 think that violence is acceptable or that it makes 5hem want to commit violence. Or revenge porn doesn't make people think rape is normal or make them want to commit rape. Basically if you think fake child porn should be illegal then you should also be in favor of making all violent media and porn in general illegal ad well. In order to change m6 mind you have to basically either argue that violent media and porn should be illegal, or why fake child porn is a special exception. So change my view.","conclusion":"There is no logical argument why drawn or digital child porn should be illegal."}
{"id":"4adf2aee-6645-401e-b070-be5494427ed7","argument":"China and India constantly battle with infrastructure aid for influence in their region. Increased Chinese investment in Afghanistan will also force its regional rival, India, to increase investment in Afghanistan to secure regional influence.","conclusion":"China wants to include Afghanistan in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor CPEC. This would increase infrastructure investment in Afghanistan."}
{"id":"5b4042cf-91c4-4113-b306-db88b01fd76b","argument":"As to clear up some definitions a LMP cockpit is like one like this the current f1 cockpit is like this the Bianchi crash was this and suffered a Diffuse Axonal Brain Injury more info here The big issue i see is genuine safety improvement is not i think going to come about for 2 reasons the canopy has to be shatter and snap proof to avoid cutting or stabbing the driver with impact we have seen, yet not flexible in order to actually help as it would just bend back and hit the driver any way but also, flips then become much more dangerous as the canopy is stuck closed as the car is on top of it, the bianchi crash was a freak accident and one made dangerous by the canopies is a flip and fire I think there are many other issues present such as the canopy acting as a lens and causing the driver to be over heated a case is availaible here whether it would prevent these issues in the first place and how to ensure good visibility in overcast conditions, under artifical light behind heavy spray example here p.s. there are 22 cars in the picture 19 obscured by the spray a fighter pilot canopy would have to be introduced rather than an LMP style cockpit as in order to get an LMP cockpit on a car you would have to completely redesign the cars from the start rules with the rules rewritten but before that the FIA need data on materials dimensions, hinges, how to design it so the driver, team and marshals all can get in within seconds regardless of fire , damage and conciseness without it accidentally opening and if there are any other safety features needed without this this may well make it more dangerous I should add i think there needs to be a look at recovery of crashed vehicles or setting up better yellow flags conditions or at least spend enough time working it out properly so realistically not until the 2017 season","conclusion":"F1 should not introduce closed cockpits as a response to the Bianchi crash"}
{"id":"796f290c-f798-4fda-9334-98b0c857f36d","argument":"So, a sissification fetish is basically when someone wants to be dressed up as a girl or further, such as hormones surgery etc for primarily sexual reasons. It's sometimes done with a Mistress. Here's a Wikipedia article on it gt Feminization or feminisation see spelling differences is used to describe the practice, especially in female dominance, of switching the gender role of a male submissive. It is usually achieved via cross dressing, where the male is dressed in female attire, ranging from just wearing female undergarments to being fully dressed in very feminine attire, including make up, hairdress and nail polish. Some males take on tasks, behaviours and roles that are overtly feminine, and adopt female mannerisms and postures in tasks such as sitting, walking, and acting in a feminine manner. This emasculation may be coupled with punishments such as spanking or caning to gain cooperation and heighten submission of submissive male. Begging and pleading to stop the feminization may be part of the fantasy. This really perplexes me. I don't get it. I mean, to each their own. I don't think it's something that should be condemned. Keep in mind, I'm talking about cisgender men identifying with this role, not transgender women. I can see why transgender women or non binary people would do it. I can see why people would go in dress and play, but I can't at all see why someone would mess with stuff like anti androgens and estrogen. Being forced in the wrong hormones is such an emotionally draining and traumatizing experience for me, that I can't really see why someone would be so insistent on being feminized in that way, if they were not transgender in some way. Can  help me with understanding this kink a little?","conclusion":"I think sissification is odd."}
{"id":"568338f2-5c2b-43e8-80ad-3a6288e2a238","argument":"The 1997 handover agreement of Hong Kong promised the city special freedoms of press, speech, and assembly for 50 years before the island was incorporated into mainland China. However China's attempts to speed up this process and break this agreement has lead to wide spread anti-China protests across the island.","conclusion":"The sudden encroachment of China into Hong Kong's political affairs has threatened China's relationship with the island."}
{"id":"a8692d11-e739-4691-8045-4617d4634948","argument":"The problem with revisionist history is that it pretends to know what is best by today's standards by ignoring and wanting to change how we got to today's standards. The biggest problem is that a book that helped the abolisionist movement by humanizing black slaves is no considered racist because of the contemporary word use. By revising history, you are removing context and eventually, we will revert into a word where meaning of certain aspects is lost. This will hurt us all in the end","conclusion":"Removing racist language in a historical piece of literature could constitute historical revisionism."}
{"id":"f94b4a77-abaf-405c-a528-216d9dc86331","argument":"Most lab animals are not used for medical purposes, but for industries with far less positive impact on humankind, such as cosmetics or defense.","conclusion":"It is unethical and immoral to use animals for testing."}
{"id":"bb54053d-85c7-4f06-887a-7f3c5c018519","argument":"I am seeing this opinion very, very often, and I think is very problematic, at least in the US. We have a pretty sizeable proportion of population that is passionately in love with guns. I think of them as stamp or coin collectors think what happens when you try and take an album from an avid collector who needs so many stamps, most of which are cancelled anyway . It should be no surprise that many pieces of regulation provoke the same response. And they should think about recent pieces of legislation that limited the number of rounds in magazine to 7. It just so happens that many highly collectable military guns from WWI and WWII are over this limit and now you said that someone who have just paid 5000 for a fully matching including the magazine WWII Luger needs to get rid of this pesky mag which will lower the value of the gun by 2 3. Now, stamps or coins can't kill people, right? This is true, of course, BUT forcing restrictions on guns, especially the ones that make very little impact on the actual number of deaths majority of gun legislation has been recently focused on mass murder, which kills fewer people per year than lightning pushes a very large number of people into Republican camp. This is especially true for white middle class males with less than high school education, who benefit the least from Republican policies, yet are drawn to them because of red meat issues such as gun control. My assertion is that letting Republicans own gun issue kills vastly more people than gun legislation prevents. If we took gun people from the Republican camp, they would have no change for legislative victories in their current ultra rightwing form. Many wars would not have happened, saving literally hundreds of thousands of people it will take a few hundred years for our current gun legislation to just make up for Iraq body count, for instance . We would have had better health care, sooner, also saving tens of thousands per year. So IMHO, based strictly on the body count, our current attempt of gun legislation is a VERY BAD THING.  EDIT Many people on the thread are arguing that gun regulation is a good thing in general because it could save very many people. Please not that this is NOT A TOPIC I am arguing here. I am not against any and all gun regulation. I am pointing out that there are specific firearms that have NO IMPACT on violence at large, yet are the first ones targeted. The proponents of this legislation justify it by saying that it is worth it even if it saves one life. I am saying that corrected for the broader impact we probably end up with more people dead because of it.","conclusion":"Regulating guns because \"if it even saves one life\" is a REALLY BAD IDEA"}
{"id":"3cb48191-48d8-46fc-85ed-c21e4c31b108","argument":"Taxpayers are kept in the dark about the exact cost of the British monarchy, due to the royal household's exemption from the Freedom of Information Act and widespread misunderstanding about the nature of the royal family's finances.","conclusion":"Given the lack of transparency of monarchies' costs, it is likely that the real cost of these monarchies is greater than is publicly known."}
{"id":"b53c8ddd-aaae-4388-b73c-6f18efef53d2","argument":"Following the aftermath of the events in Virginia this past week, most of the mainstream media etc I've seen reporting on it refer to members of the protest as Nazis among white supremacists, fascists, and so on . From what I understand, the Nazi Party was dissolved in 1945 and no longer exists. People who today identify with the ideologies are Neo Nazis. By referring to members of these groups as Nazis, are we not just doing what they want? Undoubtably they wish they were Nazis, but since the Nazi Party no longer exists, they are by definition are Neo Nazis. We should stop calling them Nazis because it only just feeds their aspirations. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"We should stop calling Neo-nazis \"Nazis\" as it only gives them what they want."}
{"id":"69b9ce0d-aa76-420d-b398-fca5e1a2c463","argument":"The result of poor cultural fit due to turnover can cost an organisation between 50% to 60% of the person\u2019s annual salary, according to the Society for Human Resource Management.","conclusion":"Hiring for cultural fit may result in greater employee retention which is crucial for organisational efficiency."}
{"id":"d1124ef0-ad8c-465c-afac-bff90fe1531b","argument":"The Barnett established the model by which money is divided up within the regions and nations of the UK. The formula works greatly to Scotland\u2019s advantage with a net flow of funding heading north. The English taxpayer subsidizes Scots to the tune of \u00a319bn a year 2009-10.i Without that subsidy The Scottish government would not have been able to give away the many benefits that have been handed out by the devolved authorities. Scotland needs English support financially just as she does in terms of diplomatic representation or political muscle. i McLaren, John et al., \u2018Financial Implications of Different Fiscal Arrangements For Scotland\u2019, CPPR Centre for Public Policy for Regions, June 2011,","conclusion":"Scotland needs English economic muscle as through the Barnett formula England, especially the Southeast effectively subsidizes the rest of the UK in general and Scotland in particular"}
{"id":"6bb061b1-7b0d-48bf-be0f-7bbc0954cf7e","argument":"A hoverboard is a well known science fiction trope a skateboard sized device that can float above solid surfaces and is used for personal transportation and recreation. Today there exist some modified Segway bases that call themselves hoverboards despite the fact that they are entirely incapable of hovering. If anything, they are less capable of spending time aloft than a standard skateboard. However, their name causes confusion among potential purchasers and may mislead us into obtaining one despite the lack of the advertised capability. Worse yet, if they become popular and retain this name, they may poison the original term and make great science fiction works like Back to the Future less accessible to future generations. For these reasons, the devices should not be allowed to advertise themselves as Hoverboards. Self balancing boards or Headless Segways would be more reasonable. I understand that Patmont Motor Werks has registered a trademark on the term hoverboard for two wheeled scooters this is not the source of my objection. Also, their trademark should be sharply limited to ensure that actual hoverboard manufacturers can call their products hoverboards without legal difficulty.","conclusion":"Devices incapable of hovering should not be permitted to call themselves hoverboards."}
{"id":"e8badc6d-b0db-4f36-8569-c8dc5109e5bd","argument":"Currently, 99% of China's exports go to refiners in the US, where limits on pipeline and refinery capacity mean Canadian oil sells at a discount.","conclusion":"This helps Canada become more independent by not relying on favourable prices set by the USA."}
{"id":"34033498-f785-48d2-8ae7-499579588998","argument":"Plenty of people live a vegetarian lifestyle and seem to be in a good shape and health. To my knowledge no studies have proven the contrary. Also plenty of cultures lead an almost vegetarian lifestyle due to different reasons.","conclusion":"I believe you can leave a healthy and long life on a vegetarian diet."}
{"id":"26781e61-ebda-4690-b567-bc6ac54d6460","argument":"Other factors, such as the expense and effort of a campaign, limit the number of candidates far more than the electoral college and would not be eliminated by removing the electoral college.","conclusion":"Other features of American politics cause the entrenchment of the two-party system, not the electoral college."}
{"id":"517d32a8-bef4-4d30-b8e2-0dc710f50b2d","argument":"Both operating systems were built for different purposes, and neither Apple or Google has any interest in making an OS with both those purposes because doing so would ruin everything, even if it seems that they do have such interests. The purpose of iOS is to be user friendly and reliable. meaning stability, security, and compatibility are priorities. This is very easy for Apple to do because they control every part of the OS. But unfortunately, that means the users have less control. And Apple intends to keep it that way for the sake of stability despite what they might say. During Apple WWDC 2014, they announced the whole customizable keyboard thing which they were very proud of because it meant that iOS had more flexibility and customization. But this feature is very superficial and they will most likely not take it any farther because their main purpose is reliability and stability. Tim Cook was very clear about his opinion of Android. He says that Android fragmentation is turning devices into a toxic hellstew of vulnerabilities.\u201d If Apple continues with what they are doing with the keyboard, iOS will be just as fragmented and just as hellish as android. So it is rather counterintuitive for them to abandon their best argument against their main competitor. Android's main purpose is flexibility and freedom. Android is a modular operating system, which means that the majority of the OS is made up of individual apps that each do their part. this makes it easy for developers to modify any app to make it do what they want, and distribute it to the consumers via the play store. Android is stable and secure enough, but Google has taken a Don't fix it if it ain't broke attitude towards security. You still have to click a check box to install apps from unknown sources, and apps still have to declare permissions, but that's it. Google is leaving it to its users to protect themselves from viruses. Google knows that its customers want freedom, not security, so they cater to that. While android and iOS are competing within the same market, they are not competing within the same ideologies, and that means there is no way to define which one is better. There's an old saying that describes this perfectly Don't judge a fish for it's tree climbing ability.","conclusion":"The debate over iOS vs. Android is useless."}
{"id":"1a2de15b-2293-4e09-85da-646a60ac82fd","argument":"I just don't see the appeal of spending money that you could use to get something usable or useful on something that doesn't do anything. It just sits there for you to look at and go yep, that's a thing . For example, buying a Blu ray set of a show you've already seen, or one of these or a collector's edition of a game with trinkets and statues. My friends agree that I'm weird and have no sense of ownership because I prefer to spend the small amount of money I ever have available on things that benefit me in some way, rather than something to sit on a shelf or wall and look nice. Seriously, my entire room is completely black and almost empty save for my bed and my computer. I have no posters, no physical media like games music movies, nothing sitting on shelves, no decorative items, nothing. Virtually everything I have is digital. I've seen how violently hostile people can become at certain hobbies which further reinforces the fact that displaying what I like in some form would only make me feel shame even though it's unlikely anyone but me would see it, oddly rather than the satisfaction it supposedly brings. I still feel like I'm seriously missing something or that there's something wrong with me because, as far as I know, nobody else is like me in the sense that they focus all of their money solely on utilitarian items.","conclusion":"Spending money on things that are purely aesthetic or novelty and have no useful purpose is a waste of money."}
{"id":"ac2f7e3a-f158-40c5-888d-de4593e3ee58","argument":"What I am not talking about A man or woman sneaking around and having multiple families without their spouse knowing about it. A man or woman cheating on their spouse. A man or woman being allowed to have another family while their spouse is not allowed to. What I am talking about An open relationship where if it is agreed upon, either spouse can have multiple spouses. The only argument I can think of to this is that marriage is defined as a union between a man and a woman aka, the same argument used against gay marriage . Let's assume that this argument is out the window, because it is a religious argument and is completely invalid against anyone who does not share that religion, and therefore is not relevant also I don't believe it's the most commonly held opinion in the world anymore . I am unable to think of any other arguments against polygamy. Edit The general consensus here seems to be that people believe polygamy inevitably leads to supply and demand problems or abuse of the system. The supply and demand issue assumes that people are not for the most part naturally monogamous, which doesn't explain why the vast majority of people don't go around sleeping with everyone before they're married. The abuse of the system issue does not address there being anything wrong with polygamy, it only addresses something wrong with abusing the system. This was never really up for debate, it is assuming human nature and saying that we should legislate personal freedoms to prevent people from breaking the law. To put this into perspective this is like saying we should make it illegal to enter banks to prevent bank robbery.","conclusion":"I believe that nothing is wrong with consensual polygamy. !"}
{"id":"aced8a63-ab8e-4aaf-98a4-54c7e5727658","argument":"The Bank purchased advertisements in American daily newspapers that proclaimed; \u2018World Bank : A Good Investment\u2019 and asserted that the US companies received $1 in contracts for each dollar the United States contributes to the IDA. However, a US Treasury study showed that US companies in fact received only $0.23 in procurement for every dollar paid into IDA. Consequently, in 1997 the US refused to provide its assessed contribution to IDA. The inefficiency of the World Bank infrastructure suggests that US companies could receive a better financial return and have a more instant impact upon local development by direct investment in the developing countries.","conclusion":"The contribution of donor countries to the World Bank is a poor investment."}
{"id":"c7490310-1a32-48d8-802e-c60538067ddd","argument":"\"oceanacidification.org.uk -> Time series have been started in Antarctic waters. The three years of coastal data collected so far show large seasonal and interannual variation in ocean pH, with strong influence of seasonal ice cover\"","conclusion":"Literature indicates Acidification of the Ocean is well within bounds of normality - +\/- 0.2pH units for parts of the Earth studied - both on small and large geological timescales"}
{"id":"9e0d6cbc-ea1d-4f5c-8157-33d62c752e56","argument":"It is well known that the old testament refers to homosexuality as an abomination. However, most christians do not believe in the applicability of Old Testament rules to the modern day due to the new covenant of Jesus Christ. Under this interpretation, homosexuality should be judged to be just as immoral as wearing mixed fabrics or eating pig, which to almost all Christians is not at all . In fact, the notion that homosexuality is a sin is inconsistent with the theme of the New Testament, which Christians put much more emphasis on. In the New Testament, Jesus encourages believers not to judge the immorality of a person by what is socially acceptable, which is essentially what those who would say that homosexuality is a sin are doing. edit. So I have conceded that Homosexuality is a sin in the sense that all sexuality is a sin through lust. BUT that's not the crux of the argument about homosexuality. The question is whether homosexuality is 'especially' sinful.","conclusion":"Belief in Christianity Does Not Necessitate the Belief that Homosexuality is a Sin"}
{"id":"4767ec11-be4f-43ca-ac82-5ec6851edfc1","argument":"By having guns in schools it's possible there could be gun theft, placing guns in the hands of delinquent students.","conclusion":"Armed teachers would lead to a net decrease in school safety."}
{"id":"d2dbe512-1e53-4432-972c-4e29eb695c6e","argument":"SPOILER ALERT There might or might not be spoilers, but, just to be save. I just watched Wonder Woman, so this is as much of a rant as it is . It is a good movie. But it could be better They should be speaking ancient greek in Themyscira, not English. The Germans should be speaking German as well I feel that this is what's going on The director screenwriter had a grander vision, but the producers were too fidgety with DC flop streak, so the movie is forced to be dumbed down by having more English and less original foreign language, except a bit here and there to give an illusion of authenticity. I think the same can be said regarding the modified version of greek mythology. I don't mind the myth being modified to fit the plot. But the modified version became much simpler, and Americanized to make them more audience friendly, and not to improve the plot movie as a whole. EDIT More developed arguments What I'm asking is for something that other movies have been doing all along Game of Thrones, Lord of the Ring, Star Trek. The majority of the movie would be in English, but when it make sense to use other language, use it gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Wonder Woman should be speaking Greek Themyscira SPOILER ALERT"}
{"id":"17423432-f937-4a69-bcd2-cfad8b685544","argument":"Military build-up on borders is an optically aggressive move which can harm relations between countries.","conclusion":"Increasing numbers of military personnel on borders are likely to increase tensions between nations."}
{"id":"e0a2e3e1-aa9a-4fac-9a73-2cc6f21cc2d2","argument":"Dogs, for instance,are able to distinguish and interpret human emotions This can be seen as a sign of dogs being self-aware and intelligent beings.","conclusion":"Humans, who we know are generally very complex biological and psychological beings, only differ from animals in degree, not in nature"}
{"id":"3c7f8fec-641e-4048-a54d-892776618758","argument":"First and foremost, I am a guy but I am not a sexist. This was a comment originally posted on Psychology today Link below by an anonymous poster. It's very tragic, touching, realistic and I agree with her wholeheartedly. If you can change my view, then you could to her's as well gt I don't think this article will surprise any women. Being a born a woman is the most depressing thing there is as society says we have zero importance aside from the way we look and being a slave providing sex, domestic duties and childrearing. gt I grew up a depressed girl because I realized from the very beginning being born female is like a curse. We have no intrinisic value even in what some insist is the modern world of today. Nothing really has changed. I feel like my whole life was a waste because I was born female. Tested at age 11 with IQ of 165 yet my father insisted it was a waste of money to send a girl to college despite school officials trying to get my in college courses while a high school sophomore. It seems to me more a waste to humanity that someone with high IQ does not get educated because there is a lot of potential that could have been used to better the world. I couldn't put myself through college because being a lowly female in the bible belt I wasn't able to get a job that paid enough to live on my own let alone pay for college because women don't get paid as much. I finally ran away with someone to another state and got a job but again the men were paid more than women for same work. I ended up with a host of medical problems including an autoimmune disorder with no cure. Life savings was spent on medical bills and now I am on disability. Since I have no spouse, no children and on disability and am not attractive I have zero value as a human being because that is all society values women for. Now I struggle to live yet am required to be caregiver to my aging father the one that places no value on women. Have a feeling most women have similar stories. gt There is no reason to be happy if you are female because we have no value in this world other than taking care of others and providing sex. Link","conclusion":"Happiness in women is pointless. There's no value in this world other than taking care of others and providing sex."}
{"id":"cc89ccbb-1b32-42f6-af24-c36d6419cb77","argument":"Carrying a gun is an extension of personal freedom to defend oneself; removing it would be unreasonable in a climate where shootings can and do take place.","conclusion":"Some people conceal carry for personal safety and feel better when they have one with them."}
{"id":"198198b6-a629-4736-9e9e-9aa3e3f9fc34","argument":"If one does not question, one can not really believe something. If one just accept things, it means that one actually never thought about it or didn't give the subject a certain degree of importance.","conclusion":"Many deeply devout people often question their faith. As Mother Teresa always returned to her religion and her beliefs, this should not have prevented her from being canonized."}
{"id":"e5a6103d-69e2-4971-b820-65bffc85ac11","argument":"Kosovo does not intend to \"go it alone\" as an independent nation, but, rather, to join with the EU. Therefore, Kosovo is not seeking \"independence\", per se, but rather the opportunity to become a part of the EU, where it can certainly survive as a viable state.","conclusion":"An independent Kosovo would actually become part of the EU"}
{"id":"401adb99-4ebf-494c-9aaa-25f796accc62","argument":"Metal Gear Solid V Ground Zeros is coming out today and much has been said about it's campaign, which only clocks in at around 2 3 hours max. However, the price tag on the game is thirty bucks compared to the average sixty. I think this is a right model to take. I don't think games like Call of Duty, Battlefield or even Titanfall with little or no campaign should not be worth sixty dollars. Games like Skyrim, GTA, Mass Effect and others with long campaigns and or an expansive and immersive open world, on the other hand, deserve that sixty dollar price tag. Don't get me wrong, I love multiplayer, but I think it's ridiculous to pay full price for a primarily multiplayer experience with a single player campaign as a afterthought.","conclusion":"I believe that a video game's price should be determined by the length of its single player campaign"}
{"id":"22168314-7caa-4d56-82b5-a71e9cecab98","argument":"While the Hague Convention refers to states and the Geneva convention to individuals it was meant as an improvement as the Hague convention was often ignored in the two World Wars. Thus, the Geneva Convention should be applicable to define what constitutes 'occupation' Sharon, p. 7","conclusion":"Neither the West Bank nor Gaza is covered by the terms of 'occupation' stipulated in the Geneva Convention."}
{"id":"b41ff70e-abe2-49e7-b067-b7946cc53333","argument":"Not only has the Sandy Hook conspiracy theory caused immense psychological harm to the victim' parents by asserting that they've been lying about losing their children, but many of the victims' families have even received death threats as a result of this conspiracy.","conclusion":"Some conspiracy theories target certain demographics or even specific people and threaten their safety; therefore it is important to prove that such theories are baseless."}
{"id":"af403902-9f88-427d-8a0b-1867c30c6c6d","argument":"Experience repeatedly tells us that it is human nature to fear what we do not understand. If we don't understand it, we can't predict it, make use of it, or evade it. It becomes another challenge for survival. Accepting ignorance is just not something we are inclined to do.","conclusion":"Throughout the history of mankind we have attributed every event that we didn't understand to God, while the safest answer to those should simply be \"we don't understand\", as chances are those event justifying the existence of God will eventually find a scientific explanation."}
{"id":"54c83d43-74c3-415e-9198-1fe850387a5f","argument":"First let's define an ethical politician for the purpose of our discussion. An ethical politician EP is a congressman, congresswoman, or senator who does not use their office for personal gain. In my opinion using your office as a jumping off point to become a lobbyist or for financial gain by giving speeches is using your office for personal gain. My view Politicians in general work in a very hostile environment. ~50 of your peers dont want you there. Your personal life is gone through with a fine toothed comb. Things that should be kept private are blown up in the media and talked about all over the country. You are rarely awarded the benefit of the doubt by the media, anything that can be construed into an offensive remark, action, or gesture will be. These mistakes can be career ending. Low job security. You're more educated in your field than the closest thing you have to a boss the voters In addition to the hostile work environment, most politicians have to uproot their family to take the job. Finally, for the skillset that most politicians have, they are underpaid. These folks are at the very top of their field, with usually a decade or more of experience, and are mostly college educated. They make 174,000 a year, potentially up to 225,000 if they're speaker. Dont get me wrong, those are good salaries, but they arent good salaries when compared to the salaries of similarly successful people in other fields. People who work in far less hostile environments. To me I think it is clear that being an EP is a raw deal, and this, in my opinion, suppresses the number of potentially ethical politicians who would run for election, leading to fewer elected EPs. Fewer EPs leads to more corruption in the legislative branch. Disclaimer I am not arguing that there are not no ethical politicians. I am arguing that there are fewer EPs because the QoL of an EP is quite low, and therefore fewer EPs run for office.","conclusion":"Being an ethical politician in the United States is not worth it. Thus we are pre selecting poor candidates."}
{"id":"fe35d58f-08a6-4c06-b24b-5585545f837b","argument":"That \"life is short\" is the main argument against such reckless behaviors as procrastination and gambling.","conclusion":"Knowing they are immortal, people may adopt more reckless behavior."}
{"id":"9c8afd1f-6e90-4387-8581-6eab6eb84be9","argument":"It's definitely my favorite for sentimental reasons, it was my first non PC game and every playthrough triggers some serious nostalgia palpitations. However, I'm willing to change my mind about what the best generation is objectively. By that I mean the most interesting areas, the most catchy music, most interesting story and so on. Clearly none of these are literally objective, but I still think a lot of people agree on what is good music, bad music, boring areas and interesting areas. I think the Pok\u00e9mon are the most interesting. I like the fact that there are only a few legendaries. I realise that there's a shit ton of water, but while the routes are many, they're not that big. I really don't think they are. I find the music to be the most memorable and I find the towns to be fabulous. The third gen Pok\u00e9mon games are sort of objectively the best, .","conclusion":"The third generation of Pok\u00e9mon is objectively the best R\/S\/E, including ORAS if you want as well"}
{"id":"09a9deae-7755-424f-854e-050edb5c447c","argument":"Even though flying carpets are now banned in Britain, due to being defined as a Muggle Artifact by the Registry of Proscribed Charmable Objects, they are popular modes of transportation for wizards in other parts of the world.","conclusion":"Wizards can easily travel across large distances using magical methods of transportation."}
{"id":"86d2761c-70a6-481a-b5ca-57af8bd38099","argument":"Whenever there is a powerful new weapons technology, someone is bound to make it happen and I'd prefer it be my country instead of someone else's. I knew the NSA was wiretapping for over a decade now and I really dont care. I say all sorts of fucked up things into the phone, no guys in black suits have ever shown up to fuck with me. There is enormous intensive for someone to make a program like this, and if it's not PRISM, it'll be something else. How else do you track one truck filled with TNT in a society this complex? We cant just roll out the army to deal with this, we need a scalpel and a way to aim it, People with bad intentions can easily penetrate our boarders, unlike armies of old, and we need a means of preventing and discouraging people who would aim to cause massive infrastructural damage by explosives etc. For those of you who would point out the recent gun related violence, I would point out that A people get shot all the time and it's not reported and B we have no idea how often the NSA has actually been successful because they classify when the system works to keep it working. The only problem is that we are not kept in some kind of loop about how exactly they are allowed to use our information. If they are running complex statistics and mathematics and they simply need a huge data set in order to find likely terrorists that are then perused, but are restricted from accessing specific data without solid legal reasons, I'm fine with that. It means my data is never directly accessed by a human, and it remains only a collection of numbers to feed a computer algorithm which detects patterns that correlate to ill intent with national security ramifications. However, if it can be used in the civilian court of law to convict me of crimes that are not a serious threat to national security spying on petty drug deals or something then I have a problem. But to date, no one has ever shown to my knowledge that NSA wiretapping has been used to prosicute people for domestic crimes, even homicides. Drunk driving is more dangerous than this. I further think that one day historians will be able to use the NSA data which will eventually become unclassified in like a hundred years or more to data mine and piece together more accurate historical information about what has been going on. This could be amazingly useful for future generations to study their history. I do not find information gathering in and of itself to be dangerous. As Isaac Asimov said If knowledge creates problems, then it is not by ignorance that they will be solved. I think we should take control of this technology and set strict overt laws for how it can be used, not just dismantle it. Technology is a tool, and wiretapping like this is a very powerful tool. We should be wise in our application, not inherently fearful of new capabilities. I want a strong government with officials appointed by responsible citizenry, not an impotent government fearful of it's own shadow. I recognize the potential for abuse and the likelihood that this idealization is not yet realized, but I think we should aim for this, and not try to rewind the clock and destroy the program. Furthermore, I feel that if these things have done any damage, it is our own fault for being so disenfranchised and uneducated that we cant do anything about it. Raise your hand if you know your State Assemblyman Thought so. We should be taking an active role and not just yell about it, but having a political and philosophical debate about what this means for the future of the USA. I do think there is a balance that can be achieved where a big computer thingy watches a lot of data streams and determines threats, and ignores embarrassments or petty disputes that can be handled by civilian institutions. You cant put the genie back in the bottle, but maybe you can word your wished properly, so to speak. I think, like the atomic bomb, that this tech is here to stay, and we have a responsibility to make sure it is used right, not simply to destroy it. We have new responsibilities if we want to guarantee our freedom and optimal way of life. Yelling TURN IT OFF will get nothing done ever and not help fix any inefficiencies the program might have. Only acceptance and oversight of our new technology can improve our situation. We must control it. I think the best thing for the country right now is quasi disclosure of the system's reach. Less focused on the technical capabilities, and more on the legal ramifications of the gathered information. I still want dangerous people stopped. I still want to not have creepy government people randomly question me about what I jerk off to. I think we can have both, but it's going to take work.  if you can. hornet's nest, meet rock.","conclusion":"I believe the NSA is on the right track, and the program just needs a few tweaks. I think PRISM is a good thing and a logical step in human evolution."}
{"id":"a1fb1012-5b38-4718-a381-14de5105dda3","argument":"The British public voted to leave the EU. Democratic will requires that the outcome of the referendum must be respected, thus the UK must leave the EU regardless of the deal secured.","conclusion":"Remaining in the EU would harm our democracy and humiliate the UK on the world stage."}
{"id":"a71ad625-1726-4c98-b599-043200953eb1","argument":"You would need infinite power for this act. There is no end to infinity, so you could not possibly do this, not now or ever.","conclusion":"It is impossible for a simulated universe to be infinite."}
{"id":"7704a5ea-ce2e-4177-b090-45b61b6af6fe","argument":"Individual members of the public, who are not well-versed in financial and taxation issues, will not be well-placed to identify genuine cases of tax evasion. Their tips will often be misleading.","conclusion":"Relying on the public to report potential tax evasion to the authorities is likely to create a large workload for the authorities while providing them with little useful information."}
{"id":"a3047a13-91cf-4c8e-93f1-5988e77b8cd8","argument":"Everything related to America has become second fiddle to the rest of world. America's infrastructure, ie roads, bridges, rails etc, are in such bad shape. Poverty, unemployment, teachers, a long list of shit this country has forgot about. This Congress has performed as the worst in history, and it's not even close Another Bush or Clinton won't change anything And honestly idk who will. It's like the entire country slowly fell into this hole, over years and years of mistakes. Instead of digging our way out the hole or calling for help, we just kept digging and making the hole more livable for the future.","conclusion":"Congress and basically our entire government has become useless."}
{"id":"0caf1157-1b6b-4093-92e1-e13b419e512b","argument":"Moral truths are perceived differently by people according to their level of consciousness. In lower states of consciousness criminal actions are considered acceptable and in higher states of consciousness upstanding behavior is given primary importance. The same can be true of perceptions of theological truths. Someone needs to have a certain maturity of consciousness in order to perceive God's existence.","conclusion":"The epistemology employed to perceive and prove the existence of moral truths self-evidence can, with the same validity and epistemic strength, be applied to God's existence."}
{"id":"0a92a79d-3928-47db-8950-51772be68e4b","argument":"On May 9th, 1901 various colonies in Australia joined together to form a federation. This can be celebrated instead.","conclusion":"There are other dates, which are equally important in founding modern Australia, that could instead be celebrated."}
{"id":"fa250123-2aa2-4f88-86c7-cb190e026102","argument":"This scheme is designed to help developing countries recover after terrible tragedies, not to channel money to rich nations even if disaster strikes them too. The key difference is the ability of the country to cope with the situation. The US or Japan may have huge debts and potentially huge reconstruction costs after a disaster, but compared to the size of its overall economy or government budget these are much more affordable. And developed nations have access to insurance to spread the burden of loss after a disaster - something which is either absent or totally unaffordable in developing countries.","conclusion":"This scheme is designed to help developing countries recover after terrible tragedies, not to channe..."}
{"id":"7eb14fbc-4833-4993-bd2d-92e5bdd8cfb4","argument":"This is what I mean by working backwards The producer director, etc will decide first to cast a minority actor, and then decide the story from there. This is as opposed to casting people with an open mind and discovering that a minority actor happened to be the best fit for the role. x200B This truly is a feeling, as I don't know of many times a producer flat out said their first goal was to have a diverse cast and then work from there. If you have data available that isn't just a one off situation, then my view would likely be changed. x200B I don't feel this way because I think minority actors are inferior to white male actors. This feeling is based off my belief that many in Hollywood see movies as a method of promoting a political agenda And often times the political agenda they want to promote has to do with diversity. x200B While this isn't a huge deal to me it's just movies after all , I would prefer that casting was done in a meritocratic manner. With the exception of movies where the race the actor needs to be is obvious like you wouldn't cast a white woman as MLK, or an Asian male as Hitler , I think casting should be based off of merit. x200B More just for clarification The recent casting news of Ariel didn't bother me, nor did the new 007 bother me either although that hardly counts, as she isn't playing the role of James Bond . Matt Damon in The Great Wall, and Tilda Swinton in Dr. Strange didn't bother me either. x200B I'm more thinking overall at a high level, not about any one specific casting decision.","conclusion":"I feel that Hollywood producers\/writers almost always \"work backwards\" when it comes to diversity in casting"}
{"id":"b3552dd3-7e2e-4a5a-ab43-aecf393b141d","argument":"Compared to most recreational drugs marijuana has very few apparent negative side effects. Its come down basically makes the user sleepy compared to nausea headache with alcohol or mood swings with substances like cocaine or mdma. You are fairly functional while high on marijuana and the drug is relatively cheap. The lack of negative side effects makes it easy for moderate users to become every day users. Every day users are more likely on average to lose motivation and become content with short term stimulus compared to achieving long term goals. Heavy use also tends to lead to a certain amount of dependency where the user has difficulty quitting even if they decide they want to. Where i'm from Canada I see 10 every day weed smokers for every single alcoholic. I can't help but imagine many of them would be happier had they never smoked weed only smoked weed moderately. I see alcohol and other drugs as more obviously dangerous and therefore people tend to treat them more carefully or ignore them all together less likely to drink and drive than smoke and drive . I believe that if weed had an unpleasant come down less people would become heavy users and they would ultimately be happier for it. Change my view.","conclusion":"I think marijuana's lack of obvious negative side-effects makes it a more harmful drug."}
{"id":"771b6747-a5d1-4857-a649-7e09f17dadfa","argument":"It empowers the state at the expense of individual voters by removing them from direct participation and only allowing them in through the state as an intermediary which may or may not allow their vote to be reflected in the EC votes that actually elect a president.","conclusion":"In highlighting states as political actors, the electoral college violates the individual's status as a political unit by invalidating their vote if they voted for someone other than the person their elector votes for."}
{"id":"b94c34ad-db09-4817-90d9-56e90ac2a44f","argument":"Before reading about Steven Bannon, I thought the man was a devil as reddit makes him out to be. I thought he was a man who was itching to start World War III and tear down America for his own pleasure. Then I did my research on him and I was shocked at how much I agree with his beliefs. I was a huge Bernie supporter and still am . This article from Buzzfeed transcribes Bannon's Speech to the Vatican. Everything in there is from his own words and it is where I'm getting my information from. 1 He wants to do away with crony capitalism and return to the capitalism of the early 80s , where the little people matter and aren't being used as commodities by companies to simply turn a profit. Whether or not that capitalism was a result of Judeo Christian beliefs or simply due to circumstance, I don't know. But I agree with his belief. Quote from him That capitalism really generated tremendous wealth. And that wealth was really distributed among a middle class, a rising middle class, people who come from really working class environments and created what we really call a Pax Americana. It was many, many years and decades of peace. And I believe we\u2019ve come partly offtrack in the years since the fall of the Soviet Union and we\u2019re starting now in the 21st century, which I believe, strongly, is a crisis both of our church, a crisis of our faith, a crisis of the West, a crisis of capitalism. Another quote One thing I want to make sure of, if you look at the leaders of capitalism at that time, when capitalism was I believe at its highest flower and spreading its benefits to most of mankind, almost all of those capitalists were strong believers in the Judeo Christian West. They were either active participants in the Jewish faith, they were active participants in the Christians\u2019 faith, and they took their beliefs, and the underpinnings of their beliefs was manifested in the work they did. And I think that\u2019s incredibly important and something that would really become unmoored. I can see this on Wall Street today \u2014 I can see this with the securitization of everything is that, everything is looked at as a securitization opportunity. People are looked at as commodities. I don\u2019t believe that our forefathers had that same belief. 2 He is for the middle class and anti establishment in the same way that Bernie was. And you\u2019re seeing that whether that was UKIP and Nigel Farage in the United Kingdom, whether it\u2019s these groups in the Low Countries in Europe, whether it\u2019s in France, there\u2019s a new tea party in Germany. The theme is all the same. And the theme is middle class and working class people \u2014 they\u2019re saying, \u201cHey, I\u2019m working harder than I\u2019ve ever worked. I\u2019m getting less benefits than I\u2019m ever getting through this, I\u2019m incurring less wealth myself, and I\u2019m seeing a system of fat cats who say they\u2019re conservative and say they back capitalist principles, but all they\u2019re doing is binding with corporatists.\u201d Right? Corporatists, to garner all the benefits for themselves. Additionally he believes Democrats and Repubs are basically on the same side of the coin. 3 he is not sympathetic to Putin \u201cBecause at the end of the day, I think that Putin and his cronies are really a kleptocracy, that are really an imperialist power that want to expand.\u201d I said most of his beliefs because I disagree with him on social issues like abortion and gay marriage. I am pro choice and supportive of gay marriage. I will only have my view changed by things that Bannon has said or done himself, not by opinion pieces on how he's the devil and the Antichrist. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I support Steve Bannon and most of his beliefs."}
{"id":"4cd9970d-7850-4a2c-ac9f-33214577467a","argument":"Marketing, the entire concept of, is a net negative to society, and inherently immoral. The entire idea of marketing is selling lies, or at least, half truths. It is that just by definition if marketing is basically advertising information about your product, then you want to maximize the positive elements, and minimize the negative elements. If you and a competitor both approach the same information and disseminate it to the public in a way that makes your company look better, then one or the both of you have to be presenting some manner of falsehoods as truth. This is extremely pervasive, and has a significant impact on our society. This sort of marketing distorts science since part of marketing is to fund scientific studies that almost always find in favor of their sponsor. That isn't science, and the negative consequences of such studies are far flung, from sugar industry studies affecting the obesity epidemic, to pharmaceutical studies on the effects of opioids essentially causing the modern heroin crisis. These are not just dog eat dog business practices, these are lies that are sold as part of marketing schemes to the unsuspecting public with actual death tolls. Furthermore, marketing leeches money away from the actual benefit that companies provide to society. Nine out of ten of the biggest pharmaceutical companies spend more on marketing than they do on research. Instead of focusing on providing a better product, more and more companies are more focused on crafting a better narrative. I love me some narrative, but I prefer my fiction stay on the page, and not sap money from diabetes research. I will admit that there are some positive uses for marketing. Public service announcements, anti smoking campaigns, etc., all provide a public good, but I still believe the overall effect is a net negative. Far, far more money goes into pumping out technically true falsehoods to sell us stuff than do programs to raise positive awareness. Even campaigns ostensibly designed to aid the public can be propaganda in disguise, and there's no real way to control that flow of information. Now, I understand that capitalism makes marketing a bit inevitable, and the social media era simply has accelerated that process immensely. I do not know how marketing could be prevented, or divorced from capitalism in any significant way. I do, however, maintain that marketing is bad for society, and is a generally immoral practice. Change my view. EDIT Not marketing entirely, advertising. Not evil in the melodramatic sense, but evil in the sense of is a net negative to society . gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Marketing is evil"}
{"id":"141b1232-f25b-4248-a4b9-755fab7b587c","argument":"Here are my assumptions People speed too much in their cars. I run and ride my bike regularly, and I see people exceeding the speed limit, as far as I can tell, more often than not. Furthermore, when I drive, I try to stick to the speed limit for reasons, and I'm passed very often. I just think that if the speed limit is posted, it should be followed, otherwise, what's the point? I am also in the health field, and I know firsthand the impacts of automobile accidents. Municipalities need money. New taxes are essentially off limits and political non starters. I think that if the fines were lower than current speeding tickets i.e. lt 100 that might dampen any outrage. The technology is there to estimate speed within a reasonable accuracy and automatically issue tickets to the owner of the car. Of course, this is a problem if the owner is not driving, but maybe this isn't an obstacle, per se. Change my view","conclusion":"A system of automated \"speed-trap\" cameras in the USA would be a net benefit."}
{"id":"c5acbb1e-dca6-4ad8-8bcf-5c1f8ceabf14","argument":"Protestants believe that salvation is by faith alone, through grace alone, in Christ alone. They view justification as the specific point upon which God declares that a person is righteous. In contrast, the Roman Catholic Church views justification as a process, dependent on the grace one receives by participating in the Church.","conclusion":"Even though Protestants and Catholics are both denominations of Christianity, they are very different from one another."}
{"id":"4834216b-8ae3-4ec5-a5c3-ccb47e15a5a0","argument":"The official policy towards uncontacted tribes is to leave them completely alone so they can do their own thing and preserve their culture. While I understand the well meaning intentions behind this I think this approach is misguided and can actually be detrimental to these uncontacted people and there are many reasons we should contact them People will contact the tribes anyway, regardless of its illegality Loggers, miners, drug traffickers, hunters and explorers enter all these protected areas and frequently put these native people in danger. Even governments that vow to leave said people alone sometimes violate their own laws because of companies paying bribing them so they can access resources located there. These accidental contacts are almost always disastrous so the people should be contacted before hand so they at least know what's going on and what threats they are facing. Contacting them would give them increased protection Contacting them almost always leads to increased, not decreased, political protection, because they get incorporated formally into government protection and land titling processes so get a say in how they are treated. Contacting tribes and giving them technology will help reduce pain and suffering Many of these people live in stone age conditions without access to any modern medical equipment meaning that many injuries that could easily be solved with a trip the hospital would most likely be excruciatingly painful and even deadly for them. Not to mention the women in the tribes who often have to give birth to multiple children without anaesthetic. Giving them access to these thing would not only reduce the pain they suffer from but also increase their actual chances of survival. It would give them more freedom Many people argue that contacting uncontacted tribes will result in their culture and their way of life being destroyed as has happened many times in the past. While that is a very valid concern I think if it contact is handled in a controlled manner, instead of their culture being destroyed I believe contact will expose them to new ideas resulting in a cultural change that many benefit them for the better. This is natural as cultures do change with exposure to new ideas. Their culture wouldn't necessarily be destroyed just evolved. Cultural destruction can be avoided by limiting cultural exposure so that it doesn't necessarily overwhelm them. The final reason is we should contact them because they should be treated like people. The approach of leaving them alone, at least to me, comes from a paternalistic attitude to look after these people, who have already been looking after themselves and making their own decisions for hundreds, possibly thousands of years. Isolating like this is, at least to me, more akin to treating them like endangered animals or fragile, valuable objects instead of people. These people should at least be given the choice of whether or not they want to interact with the outside would and to what degree they want that contact to be. If you think that any of these reasons are wrong or there is something I haven't considered feel free to comment below. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"We should contact uncontacted tribes as it is the best way to ensure their survival. It is also, I believe the moral and ethical thing to do."}
{"id":"9debf28d-a826-4add-8f10-95274bfb569c","argument":"Human senses can degrade over time, meaning an older person\u2019s current experience might be different from a younger person\u2019s","conclusion":"No human's senses and consciousness are necessarily the same as any other human"}
{"id":"fdfee1d9-0406-4ce9-9ff1-945e4ddb8925","argument":"I believe that an individual's sex, specifically when considered on a binary scale, is a social construct. I'll start by clarifying that I am only discussing the sex of human individuals, not the gendered language used for single cell organisms.What I'm arguing is that the reductionist bio medical definition of sex is not an empirically determined truth, but rather a social construct with a foundation of empirically determined truth. First off, these are the definitions I am using. Sex I am incorporating the top two definitions for sex found on Merriam Webster's site because I find each one incomplete on its own Either of the two major forms of individuals that are distinguished as female or male on the basis of the sum of their structural, functional, and behavioral characteristics that are involved in reproduction. Biological Truth An empirically determined fact regarding an organism's physical characteristics. Social Construct A generally accepted concept or phenomenon in this case, an identifying component of an individual that is disseminated through social practice and dialog. I'll start with the low hanging fruit. There are no behavioral distinctions between the sexes for which social influence plays no role. While distinctions have been recorded in individual studies, they are inconsistent across cultures. An individual's sex is also the result of many phenotypic qualities, not one of which sufficiently determines sex on its own. Chromosomes, hormonal characteristics, genitalia, and various other markers contribute, but any one of those qualities can stand in opposition to the others though some cases are exceptionally rare . As such, the biological complexity underlying one's labeled sex is simplified to a human understanding of what reproductive function their body most completely fulfills. With this in mind, I believe that one's biological sex is determined with more regard for what the human can intuit through the senses rather than what the amassed data shows. The nuanced reality of multiple systems dynamically interacting within an individual and between the individual and their environment is not properly incorporated into our conception of sex. As such, I conclude that biological sex is a social construct on the basis that it is determined by an intuited set of categories that fail to address the complexity behind underlying their construction. Don't get me wrong, sex is a damn necessary construct that's derived from observed facts of the human body, but it's getting more and more important as my classes take a clinical slant to remember that we as a learning species labeled these observations and messily categorized them. Every phenotype that falls under the umbrella term biological sex in some way related to the function of reproduction, but our dialog regarding them has cultural fingerprints all over it. Though our current conception of sex is founded upon reliable correlations between structural and functional characteristics, it only serves to set the basic scaffolding for further discovery. I consider this important in light of the steadily blurring line between bio medical and psychological research. Over the last 30 40 years, the distinction between psychological, sociological, biological, and neurochemical clinical research gradually fell away. For modern researchers to honestly address how one's sex is relevant to whatever topic they intend to discuss, it is imperative that they utilize the most precise concepts and language in their endeavors and conversation. Sex is a concept that needs to be refined, but we must first acknowledge that it can be.","conclusion":"I believe that sex is a social construct rather than a biological truth."}
{"id":"52a5501f-c991-4fa1-be5a-f9d0716f1174","argument":"A regular source of tourism would also have the benefit of supporting the recovering Greek economy.","conclusion":"It would be a great opportunity to return the games to Greece."}
{"id":"2731d104-32c7-46b0-a3ba-330883103466","argument":"So sometimes I see people say oh, you're a vegetarian vegan so you are obviously biased . Not only is this type of bias call out unproductive, it's also unfair and not very logical. Most vegetarians and vegans in industrialized countries were not born veg . They once had the same beliefs as omnivores, and engaged in the same practices. It's only after introspection and thinking logically empathetically did they become vegetarian or vegan. They were not brainwashed, they simply learned facts and used logic. Thus, it's not very fair to say a vegan or vegetarian is biased. The first reason is that it assumes that the person making the accusation is unbiased, when they are likely just as biased as the vegan or vegetarian, if not moreso. Second reason, is that the vegan or vegetarian arrived at their viewpoint through logic and ethics after a period of behaving in ways that they now consider wrong. The person accusing a veg of being biased, likely was not vegan or vegetarian from birth and then arrived at their viewpoints through logic or ethics, instead, they internalized hegemonic social values, ideologies, and rationalizations. They did not arrive at their viewpoint through critical thinking or ethics. Because of this, saying a vegan is biased is not logical, as it implies the other person is free from bias, when they in fact have a bias that is even more irrational and illogical than the vegan or vegetarian.","conclusion":"Though everyone has biases, it's unfair to criticize a vegetarian or vegan for being biased."}
{"id":"89783240-ba7c-4874-9c55-cd7767a387cf","argument":"If women\u2019s bodies have been traditionally controlled and used by patriarchy through different systems, and only women are able to be surrogates, it is arguable that commercial surrogacy is a modern form of control and use of women\u2019s bodies.","conclusion":"Unlike other forms of labour traditionally dominated by women including sex work surrogacy is the only one that can be performed exclusively by women or individuals with a uterus."}
{"id":"fcc4cd33-179d-4af1-a615-af3cae92dfc6","argument":"Because of the free market people are free to experiment with various methods of organization and decision-making concerning the acquisition and distribution of resources. People are free to make decisions by themselves or within a group. Under a socialist government people must either participate in group decision-making or make no decision at all. The method of decision-making is decided by the majority within that group.","conclusion":"There are multiple methods of decision-making in a capitalist society"}
{"id":"38f67e0f-3ad8-48e7-808e-d96ae8145985","argument":"I don't see a reason for the Internet hating on popular kids. Sure, some of them may be pricks and assholes, but most popular people I know are just nice, enjoyable people and have a lot of friends because of that. They thrive in participating in multiple different communities they're extroverts if you will. Another problem with people complaining about popular people is that they're usually pathetic people complaining about popular people instead of doing something about their situation, while the popular people never say anything bad about the people complaining about them. The third and final large issue I see with people hating popular people is that it brings out debates about similar topics, like reverse racism sexism etc. Enough said about that. In summary, people hate popular and also, often, beautiful people without a good reason to do so. Just because someone is popular doesn't mean they're assholes, and it's often the opposite. Please do change my view on this topic so I can see both sides of the issue. x200B EDIT Even though I said the Internet multiple times throughout this post, what I actually mean is a small vocal part of it. But, even though it's only a small part of the Internet, nearly all complaints I've seen and all complaints I can remember are nonsensical to me mainly generalizing all who have more than 15 friends.","conclusion":"The Internet hates popular kids without a good reason."}
{"id":"a454d1d4-427b-4222-b899-5a226cbc46a7","argument":"Despite all the scrutiny fMRI has come under in the legal field, I still think it should still be useable in a criminal defense or prosecution . I remember there was article on wired a while back where someone ran an fMRI on a dead salmon and found brain activity as a way to poke holes in its usage, but in spite of that, it's still scientific evidence and even if it may be unreliable in any given case, it is the other side's responsibility to find the experts to dispute the reliability of its findings. People bring shaky evidence into trials all the time, and I don't see why fMRI scans should face any different scrutiny.","conclusion":"fMRI should be admissible as evidence in a criminal trial."}
{"id":"f01d2696-e55f-448d-9bfe-aced57ef47b9","argument":"I have given a lot of thought about this and knowing people who have depression and seeing how even with therapy and medication how unhappy some people can be is very distressing. I think that they have to have at least tried medication and therapy for a minimum of 6 months and at the end of it if they still think life is not worth living, that is there choice and no one should have the right to tell them otherwise. It is safer and more humane than having people take their lives in other ways especially since sometimes they can physically or mentally hurt others. Of course the doctors would inject them with what we use for lethal injection after they sign a waiver saying this is for sure what they want. After they sign the waver they have to wait a minimum of 24 hours in a government building and make sure they have no outside influences affecting their decision and that they are not under the influence themselves. At the end of the 24 hours they are asked again to confirm if they still want to do it and if yes the procedure will happen and that person no longer has to struggle anymore. Please try and change my view","conclusion":"I believe that people who are over the age of 21 and do not think life is worth living should be allowed to have a doctor assist them in suicide."}
{"id":"d004b6e7-4ac7-45d8-94e6-b34db1f2daba","argument":"The biggest offender is grouping young male drivers into age 16 24 and charge premium on obscure basis such as statically higher risk and that insurance companies need to make profit. Why isn't driving history the main factor in determining risk observe how much insurance rate drops from going 24 to 25 ? how is it justified to group drivers into 8 years age group haven't the insurance companies heard of progressive rates ? How is insurance companies' need to make a profit a defensible claim for higher premium? Why do I care as a customer about insurance companies' performance if I have no stake in it? Please explain the reasons stated by the Supreme Court judges. link for summary gt It ruled that at the relevant time no other statistical data was available on which to base the risk classification of automobile drivers and that consequently there were reasonable and bona fide grounds to rely on the statistics that were available. If they ruled it this way, why is driving history not a determining statistics that insurance companies use? If young male driver was driving 8 years from 16 to 24 accident free, does it make sense that someone who started driving at 25 to pay less insurance? gt To allow discrimination simply on the basis of statistical averages would only serve to perpetuate traditional stereotypes with all their invidious prejudices. It is necessary therefore to consider whether there is a practical alternative in the circumstances. gt The majority finds that there was no practical alternative. Alternative statistical bases of risk classification were not available at the time. This further reinforces the question, why is driving history not considered a practical alternative? The records are written into the driving license. Edit gt on obscure basis such as statistically higher risk on basis such as obscure link between statistics and risk calculations why the length of clean driving history isn't counted more, etc.","conclusion":"I believe that auto insurance companies should NOT be allowed to charge different rates based on age, gender, marital status."}
{"id":"4ec29ea6-f6c5-489a-801f-e86c6e546597","argument":"True in part, but the value of what is gained is relative to how hard\/easy it is to achieve it. Hence, small benefits can have high percieved value. It\u2019s psychological. Similar to how a smaller net raise in salary is percieved better than a bigger net raise, if ones colleagues\u2019 levels of raise is less. I.e. more money can be percieved as worse than less, because we\u2019re relative beings.","conclusion":"Gains from efforts are the only motivating force behind the efforts. Distributing outcomes demotivates the achievers."}
{"id":"b35d275e-592a-4fba-b0cc-8eb7219c5283","argument":"Disclaimer In my opinion, any stereotypes I use in this argument are reasonably accurate refer to a majority. If you disagree, feel free to contest me at any point. Problem 1 Scientifically illiterate public In the modern world, people believe the media, they desire instant gratification , and antiintellectualism is undoubtedly prevalent. Scientists and the scientific method are increasingly taking a back seat, that is part of what the recent protests were about. People's political beliefs vary widely about how much money governments should pump into research. Many feel that money should go to more immediate problems, actuals rather than hypotheticals. Problem 2 State funding for science Given the divisive public opinion and lack of literacy on the matter, governments find it hard to put too much funding towards research, and governments that promise to do so are unlikely to be voted in. Most governments, in fact, do not want an overly literate educated public as this reduces the unskilled labour available and forces them to fund more higher level activities. The above problems, I think, are linked by a common cause the public behaviour of scientists and academics. Scientists not all of them, but many are typically arrogant and blunt, they tend to have poor interpersonal and social skills. Not surprising, since these are the exact kind of people who would be attracted to a research career where there is in theory very little subjectivity, dishonesty or need for good social skills. This stereotype has, in fact, become something of a public image for scientists, and that is a problem for them, as it is one certain way to avoid public interest. I have heard many scientists blaming the public, in fact, saying if they could only use their brains, we'd have a much more scientifically progressive society . In my view, scientists need to realise that this attitude is not getting them anywhere. Being angry about public attitudes and the intricacies of human psychology in general will not magically simplify the problem. They need to realise that just telling people about their ideology will not copy it into those people's heads bonus points if it is told in a condescending tone . This is hard to describe in the abstract, so I'm going to give a couple of examples Example 1 Climate change A touchy topic at the moment, I'm sorry. Scientists and the scientifically literate fraction of the public find the general attitude to this stupid . How mad is it, they ask, that some people still think it's a hoax? How dumb is it that even though we know it is coming, most people can't be bothered to do a thing about it? They do no one a service by saying those things. Deniers will not start believing and lazies will not start making an effort if you insult them. Part of the problem is that, having given the evidence, the scientists do not know what else to do. Their whole lives revolve around the process of hypothesis gt evidence gt publication gt action. We've given you the evidence they say what more do you need? . It frustrates them hugely that people make these decisions based on emotion rather than reason. But the thing is, they do, and moaning about that won't make it go away. Many people do not believe in heavy regulation of society, which has so far been the de facto method of slowing down climate change. These people tend to be more willing to believe that climate change is not real because it better fits that world view, and we can argue all day about whether that is a sensible way of thinking or not, it doesn't matter, you can't get rid of it overnight, it's too common. Example 2 Space exploration Why haven't humans walked on Mars yet? The main reason is cost an apollo program style mission to Mars would cost over 100 billion estimated , and no matter what you say about the US military budget, that is still a significant percentage of the GDP of even the wealthiest countries. The scientists and enthusiasts who want to go usually have no better justification for that level of spending than we want to and it will lead to this scientific advancement and that scientific advancement . These reasons will not motivate the public, and therefore will not motivate governments. The 100 bn would have to be a colossal investment, with a return expected that could never be guaranteed and, in most people's opinion, could never be worth the price. The truth is that scientists view people's indifference as an annoying barrier, most are socialists, and think that profit motive is something that has to go if the human race is to survive long term. Maybe they are right, maybe not, but here and now, capitalism and profit motive are the driving forces in our society, and ignoring that will not get you investment. I've touched already on the geek culture aspect of this post, but to elaborate, it is the same phenomenon, but with more ignorance. It is common on reddit, people are willing to selectively ignore evidence because it comes from a part of society the human psyche that they don't like and want to go away. In conclusion, I think that intellectuals need to accept antiintellectualism and need to accept that human related problems cannot be solved by telling everyone else how to behave. I think the solution to creating a more scientifically literate public is to improve science's public image in general, and for academics to treat the public more respectfully and charismatically. This may not be an ideal solution, but it is a realistic one. I wrote this post because all of the above has been festering in my head for a while and I wanted to see how it held up when put on paper, so please, . gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The main blocker to change in the government\/public's attitude towards science is the behaviour of scientists themselves as well as \"geek-culture\" in general."}
{"id":"e22f814b-8f2a-4d01-ab0b-af16616fe268","argument":"If issues occur during construction, people would need to travel back-and-forth between Earth and the rings to repair. A space elevator does not have those issues as much.","conclusion":"An orbital ring is more prone to construction errors and halts than a space elevator."}
{"id":"a84203f1-e5f6-4d38-adba-d46d20b213cc","argument":"Life, not just for humans, seems pretty pointless. We all live, in various ways giving various forms and levels of effort to make our lives worthwhile, with different understandings of what a worthwhile life is. I don't see how any life is worthwhile thought, we all live and then we die. And what we accomplish is, especially for the majority of us, minimal and even for those individuals who actually do accomplish something noteworthy its actually only noteworthy to others whose lives are pointless themselves. It all doesn't really matter.","conclusion":"Life is pointless"}
{"id":"c91f5dbb-471d-48a2-961f-330ccbc35bca","argument":"Polls suggest that Britons support a 2nd referendum by as much as 16% and there is still time to allow voters to decide due to a lack of understanding of the true repercussions.","conclusion":"The Leave campaign would have demanded a second referendum had Remain won by a narrow margin; given the narrow win for Leave, a second referendum should still happen"}
{"id":"efbb5ae5-85af-43b6-8802-0f05ed1d622d","argument":"When retelling Joseph Smith's story of the golden plates in June 1827, Joseph Smith, Sr. described Moroni as a \"the spirit of the prophet who wrote this book.\" Howe, 1834, pp. 242-43","conclusion":"Early versions of the golden plates story describe Moroni as a spirit."}
{"id":"0ff844c2-d224-458d-86af-435708e951c7","argument":". Gal Luft. \"The Logic of Israel's Targeted Killing\". Middle East Quarterly. Winter 2003 - \"many Israelis dismiss the argument that the killing feeds a vicious cycle of death and violence that might not be to Israel's benefit. They believe there is no causality between Israel's actions and the Palestinians' decision to embrace terror. \"Islamic Jihad and others do not need excuses to carry out attacks,\" said Israel's former deputy defense minister Ephraim Sneh, \"since in any case they are constantly trying to harm Israelis.\"\"","conclusion":"Assassinations don't incite terrorism; terrorists are already fully motivated"}
{"id":"9635674a-0828-4b8a-a429-212fcd32fa22","argument":"Even if all subjects must show practical economic utility, the study of Classics is still justifiable. Translation of Latin and Greek teaches concentration, attention to detail and logical thought. Debates about the interpretation of classical literature develop the ability to think critically and to construct reasoned arguments. Familiarity with classical literature improves the ability to write clearly, concisely and eloquently. These are all skills valued by employers; people who have studied Classics have reached the top of politics, commerce, diplomacy and law.","conclusion":"Even if all subjects must show practical economic utility, the study of Classics is still justifiabl..."}
{"id":"f07a67e0-7918-45d6-ae1c-b7c2378a3d72","argument":"Individuals have a right to bodily integrity Undergoing a voluntary surgical procedure is within the bounds of this right.","conclusion":"Doctors should be allowed to remove healthy body parts to replace with artificial ones."}
{"id":"b50a24d0-3556-4f4b-86b3-6ed9d1fbf344","argument":"The procedure for taking a sample of DNA is less invasive than that required for the removal of blood.The police already possess a vast volume of information relating to the citizenry. The National Crime Information Center Computer in the United States contains files relating to thirty two million Americans and receives approximately two million queries each day.The availability of a DNA fingerprint to the police should be seen in the context of the personal information that is already held by outside agencies. Insurance brokers commonly require an extensive medical history of their clients. Mortgage lenders usually demand a full credit record of each applicant. Employers subject their employees to random urine tests for drug and alcohol consumption. If we are prepared to place our personal information in the private sector, why can we not trust it to the public authority of the police ? The DNA will only be utilised in the detection of crime. In short, the innocent citizen should have nothing to fear.","conclusion":"The use of a DNA fingerprint can scarcely be regarded as an affront to civil liberties."}
{"id":"95d05008-79a9-442a-bdb8-82cb4961da1d","argument":"Hey everyone, I've recently been thinking about the educational system and the professionals in charge of our children future. Heres a few points I'd like people to read. I'd like to point of that in specific I'm referring to the school systems in place in Canada USA, but I assume this can apply to anywhere. I have nothing against any of the teachers I have met, so this is not a slight. I understand that this would be very expensive and is much more expansive than simply hiring better more educated professionals. However, whats the price for our childrens future? If I think of anything else I'll respond or edit this post, thanks Some things to edit quickly. I should have clarified my thoughts further, and from what u McKoijion has mentioned it seems that there is a shortage rather than an abundance of teachers in the US over Canada. I'd like to point out that when I say its too easy to be a teacher, I mean its too easy to become one, as in, the degree is too easy to acquire, and in my area province there is a huge abundance and many cannot find jobs. I'd also like to say that when I say master of their fields I do not mean PHD, bad word choice my apologies. I simply mean that those who teach should have a lot of experience or more education than simply a degree in their field. Also, as another person has mentioned they should also be a master of teaching, good point, I agree and thank you.","conclusion":"I believe that its far too easy to be a teacher, and that teachers should be masters of their fields."}
{"id":"54cff709-bdfb-4ec7-ba84-d441d951139d","argument":"Even Mark Hamill has come out and said that is not \"his Luke Skywalker and he got through playing the part by rationalising it as a different character with a different name, in a different universe. From Mark Hamill of all people, that's pretty explosive.","conclusion":"Luke's character in The Last Jedi is inconsistent with his portrayal in previous installments."}
{"id":"c19688f5-b401-485e-82bc-1994395c82bc","argument":"It is worth considering how to give them the best return on investment for that time and money.","conclusion":"People already make the effort of learning languages to comunicate internationally."}
{"id":"fe8a6ab6-4f20-4536-8d07-b9dfea97841d","argument":"Science must be regulated for ethical practices by a regulatory body, which is inherently political.","conclusion":"Academic and industrial contexts expose scientific research to political influences."}
{"id":"8963d267-643c-4841-aff5-387cfb159454","argument":"Either that or they're more accepted by society at large when homosexuality is involved. Here are some of the things that have led me to this view Rock Hudson having statues of shirtless boys, one adolescent, one pre adolescent, by his poolside. Henry Scott Tuke a painter who apparently has cult status in the gay art community for his erotic paintings of adolescent males. Latin an award winning play by Stephen Fry about a teacher hooking up with a 13 year old student. Famous and acclaimed poet Allen Ginsberg being a member of NAMBLA and saying naked kids were a staple of delight and that to label pedophilia as criminal is ridiculous. Oscar Wilde being highly regarded despite reportedly having sex with a 14 year old. For a Lost Soldier a movie about the romance between an adult soldier and a 12 year old boy, featuring scenes of them lying in bed together and kissing, being well received by critics and audience members alike. If these examples involved heterosexual relations, I don't think the works of art or individuals involved would have received nearly as much acceptance. The only well liked depiction of heterosexual hebephilia I can think of is Lolita , but the apparent message of that book is that the narrator is a maniac who robbed the girl of her childhood, so it doesn't actually condone the relations like Latin or For a Lost Soldier do.","conclusion":"I think pedophilia and hebephilia are more accepted in the gay community than in mainstream society."}
{"id":"d703fe85-1aa3-4d45-8eba-606fff62f3fb","argument":"If you don't have a popular opinion your post will be downvoted and hidden Unless you comment in a popular thread within the first hour, your post is likely to be hidden among the other hundreds thousands there never to be seen Pun threads, need I say more? The upvote downvote system in general encourages low effort, easy to digest content To me the comment system is basically making it so someone's opinion is more important than someone else's. On other boards, all comments will be showed to you, the only option is to Like, and if you don't like something then you reply to it, or if it's against the site's rules you report it. You can't simply hide something because you don't agree with what the person is saying. On reddit you can make someone's opinion completely hidden, even if they're following the website's rules. Just because someone don't follow popular opinion they're gonna get downvoted and their post hidden. To me this discourages discussion, because rather than replying why you disagree with this person's opinion, you'll downvote it. Why reply and explain your stance if you can just downvote them and make their post hidden? What's the point, right? Just downvote and make their post hidden if you don't agree with what they're saying.","conclusion":"This websites comment system is crap"}
{"id":"112466ae-08d4-49a6-a8ac-990e20dcd7eb","argument":"I have and always had a high libido. I had different type of girlfriends, some with a high one, some with a lower one . I didn't cheat with either when I was just in my dating years , but relationships would normally last a little longer with those with a bigger appetite . The first time I paid for sex was in Amsterdam. I wasn't in a relationship, in fact, I had just gone through a very difficult breakup. I didn't like the first time, but I tried it again and enjoyed it. I tried again and again after, when I just needed to nut . I never found anything wrong with paying for someone, when all I needed was to relieve myself, and I didn't want to get it by going out, flirting, hoping that something might happen at the end of the night. I always found this too costly, and frankly, if I want to go and flirt on a night out, I find it more interesting when there's not the focus for sex at the end. Not immediately anyway. Now, I have grown into an older adult, I have been married for some time 20 years. After having our second child, almost seven years ago, me and my wife have stopped having sex. From memory, we probably had sex about three times since. There are different reasons for that. The raising of kids two, in our case changes everything. Mind, body, life, everything. Even after our first child was born, I found myself looking at her differently. She wasn't the girl who I loved to have sex with previously, she was the mother of my child. I'd say that the change in desire started there. I wasn't over yet, though. We were still enjoying sex then. We grew apart a little bit since the beginning of our family. But for better and for worse, we are together in this and we believe that our kids need both of us in their lives. We are, most of the times, a happy family, and I wouldn't want to lose any of this for the world. But the sex is always absent. I think we both kind of gave up on it. Her libido previously equal to mine, seems completely gone. Also, it pains me to say, we re not attracted to each other the way we used to be. Which I think is something that a majority of couples go through. We continue our lives like this, we have accepted the death of sex in our couple. So I go to see a pro always the same one once a month to relieve my sexual needs. I can afford it, there's no romanticism attached to it, barely even any words are spoken. I pay her, it's over until next time. There won't be any phone calls, any dinner, any flirting with anyone until then. It doesn't help to revive the absence of sex in my couple, but it keeps me balanced, gives me the smile, and doesn't make me love and appreciate what I have any less. I don't think I am doing anything fundamentally wrong. Change my view","conclusion":": There's nothing wrong with paying for sex. Not even in a relationship."}
{"id":"02352324-3cd4-4db3-8f7d-b5d544738509","argument":"Great areas of planet are still not formed and used; there are possibilities to make arid areas green again, and to settle at sea and use a water agriculture. Earth with clever management can without problem feed more people.","conclusion":"There are possible solutions that would allow us live sustainably without the consequences of the high population level."}
{"id":"50bcc5c0-8f6e-4153-8625-fb3c01b9407d","argument":"Any man could deceptively claim he \"identified as female\" in order to gain access to women-only spaces. They would then no longer be safe spaces.","conclusion":"Allowing anyone who identifies as female into women-only spaces might make those spaces worse for cis women."}
{"id":"8107d1b4-bd94-446f-8beb-22f4f404c5be","argument":"If one is found guilty, it's perfectly legal to ensure that that individual receives the maximum penalty under the law.","conclusion":"Some people have done such appalling things as to forfeit their right to human dignity."}
{"id":"ad7e6148-b289-435c-86eb-ad2982ecbbb2","argument":"\"Pros and Cons of a JD\/MBA.\" Veritas Prep. April 8, 2009: \"you can have a very 'business school' type of experience at most law schools through elective courses, cross-curriculum opportunities, and clinical work, while preserving the MBA for a rainy day. In fact, that is the second 'con' to getting both degrees at the same time: you use up your last bullet when you get a JD\/MBA. Above, we discussed the school of thought that says you have to capitalize on your educational momentum. There is another school of thought that says to wait and save the MBA as a 'get out of jail free' card in case you need to make a career change down the line. Much of this stems from short-term and long-term career goal considerations, which are the subjects of future entries in this series, but each prospective student should give careful consideration to this notion of saving the MBA as a possible career change option.\"","conclusion":"Saving MBA or JD for later is good career change insurance."}
{"id":"b2ca2cdf-1cff-41e1-a2a8-d62da2eeca19","argument":"The Greenhouse Effect is a simple physical fact. Earth temperature T is +15C. Without Greenhouse Effect T = -15C.","conclusion":"This hypothesis is refuted by consideration of the chain of causation of AGW."}
{"id":"9cbc1a75-2589-43db-b023-039dead939dc","argument":"For sex workers to make use of their rights they must interact with government officials in a non-anonymous fashion which can make them vulnerable to abuse.","conclusion":"Legalization actually makes it more difficult to prosecute abusers of sex workers because legalization removes the assumption that the transaction is wrong."}
{"id":"4af4e079-51f8-44cf-850e-e3ec2f3d26e0","argument":"I'm a guy, and all of my close friends are guys. I have some friends that are girls, but they are mostly acquaintances. I am currently not single I have been dating my girlfriend for two years, and I consider her one of my best friends. I love her dearly and I intend to marry her. All of her close friends are girls as well. I don't believe that 'women and men can't be friends'. For normal friends, it makes perfect sense in the sense that someone has dozens of friends, people that you enjoy the company of and make small talk with, but don't really know that well. You know, you never really hang out one on one, it's just a very casual and relatively distant friendship. But I do believe that 'women and men cannot be close friends'. Because it doesn't make any sense. The person you love needs to be your best friend. Your wife or husband is your best friend. This is a core principle of any healthy, long term relationship. So, if you met someone that was your best friend, and they were a member of the opposite sex, why wouldn't you want to become romantically involved with them? In these cases, I 100 believe it is a matter of physical attraction. If your best friend of the opposite sex was a god goddess, then you would absolutely fall in love with them. I don't believe in oh I love him, but not like that or I see her like a sister . No, I've seen plenty of childhood friendships evolve into romantic relationships. How could you be so close with someone of the opposite sex, yet have no romantic intentions? In my opinion, I think it's a matter of dishonesty, and it's as really as simple as people not wanting to admit that they are shallow which is fine, everybody is shallow . I don't want to hear anecdotal evidence unless it's thoroughly explained. But I'm totally open to having my view changed. Feel free to ask me any questions about my personal experiences or any clarifications on my thoughts.","conclusion":"The same traits which are necessary for the development of a meaningful friendship are necessary for the development of a meaningful relationship. Thus, there is no way in which two members of the opposite sex can remain platonic best friends, unless it is an issue of attractiveness."}
{"id":"3bf92f81-b26f-4e0d-8f8a-75c43b218b3f","argument":"Even if one believes climate change CAN be stopped, we still should have a Plan B in case we can\u2019t stop it. I suggest NASA can take the lead by taking habitats for hostile environments, which they have already made, and adapt them to a hostile Earth.","conclusion":"Humanity is unable to stop climate change and therefore should save its resources to cope with the effects."}
{"id":"0d4fb8c8-fd85-4908-a081-cb952ec7ca1c","argument":"The success and dominance of American products, from MacDonalds to Hollywood cinema, are not necessarily heavily criticized as disruptions to local economies. Rather, because the spread of American stores and the sale of American products around the world benefits Americans, such \"American-sourcing\" and selling, and at times even a ruthless dominance of local non-American markets is not critiqued in the same way as outsourcing.","conclusion":"The problem with criticisms of outsourcing is an implied double-standard."}
{"id":"f9a78df4-47b5-4b8b-98f1-ad6932923259","argument":"I don't think that sex with animals bestiality should inherently be illegal or animal abuse. I DO believe that, if the animal is being physically injured during the event, that it should be considered animal abuse cruelty for example, internal damage such as ruptures , especially if the person involved is aware of it. Firstly, I don't understand how an animal penetrating a person willingly is considered abuse at all. Mating and reproduction are programmed into animal's minds. They do not have the capacity of feeling 'raped' or 'molested'. We're attributing human level emotion to animals below our intelligence level. Similarly, the argument of whether or not an animal can give consent seems a little biased. Animals don't give consent to the following being killed for food, going to the vet, being kept as pets, giving them a bath etc. Therefore, I think that when an animal is the one penetrating the person, I do not think that should be illegal. I do realize that regular acts could cause behavioral issues, especially in dogs, and I do believe that if someone sees these warning signs and continues their behavior and the animal becomes aggressive and hurts someone that the owner should be completely responsible and face charges although this may be hard to prove of enforce. Secondly, I certainly understand why penetration of an animal can be illegal. I'm sure with smaller animals, internal damage could be an issue. However, when involved with larger animals like horses, I have no understanding of why penetration is illegal. I am fairly certain that routine inspections checkups of farm animals like horses include sticking most of, if not all your arm into the animal's anus and vagina, which is most certainly larger than a penis. Precautions should obviously be taken with this sort of thing, because I believe it can definitely be more dangerous to the animal, especially smaller animals like dogs, sheep, pigs, etc. Thirdly, I find that we draw a strange line at what is considered animal cruelty when we have things like factory farms. In many factory farms, animals are kept in tiny, unhygenic quarters with barely any space to move around in, and I also believe that the slaughter of these animals tends to be fairly long and torturous not talking about traditional 'family farms', the ones that give their animals plenty of space, proper nutrition, a good life, and a swift death when the time comes , but somehow having sex with an animal is considered cruelty? I don't understand it. Fourthly, bestiality has been practiced in many cultures in many eras Overall, I think cases of bestiality should not be illegal unless the animal is injured during the act repeated injuries occur. Injuring the animal especially repeatedly like so would fall under animal abuse cruelty and would be punished accordingly. I don't think that the inherent act of having sex with an animal is abusive, and the argument of whether animals can give consent is null because of all the other things we do to animals without 'consent', why is sex suddenly an issue?","conclusion":"I believe bestiality should not inherently be illegal or considered animal abuse."}
{"id":"8773c0b3-c43f-4966-be0a-034f9565ae73","argument":"More resources are used to make up for what is lost. For example, another animal has to be raised for the meat that went spoiled.","conclusion":"This is bad, because it accomplishes little and instead makes the world worse off than before."}
{"id":"cfc184ec-f5e3-4dd9-a9ee-0a608875a1ef","argument":"Income taxes pretty much make us modern day serfs, do they not? We only get what's left of our paychecks after the government gets their share. I think taking tax directly out of a person's paycheck, savings, and investment does harm to the economy. Taxes are being taken out of what makes the economy grow. FairTax is both progressive and based on consumption, which would appeal to both the conservatives and liberals. It would also encourage savings and investments. I know most of you probably know way more about this than me, and I could be very misguided. If I am, then , Reddit.","conclusion":"I believe that income tax should be replaced by FairTax."}
{"id":"62317991-aeb6-4d34-a9d5-d07f17843c19","argument":"If students manage to oppose or publicly shame a racist speaker as a collective, they gain the opportunity to formulate concrete criticism directly to them and force them to defend themselves or apologize.","conclusion":"If a speaker puts forward an idea which is racist or otherwise extreme, students will be able to challenge the ideas and engage directly with the discourse."}
{"id":"d8818749-df3f-49ec-a742-ba475fb73842","argument":"Anti Depressants are inherently predisposed to negative views, while other medication like insulin for diabetics are fine form the public's perspective. A Type 1 diabetic requires insulin to survive because their body doesn't produce enough to convert sugar into energy. The same argument can be translated to Anti Depressants in the sense that people with mental illnesses like depression or anxiety have chemical imbalances and needs certain medication to balance their brain chemicals out for them to feel normal . If someone taking anti depressants starts to feel better and see their anxiety or mood swings gradually fading away, then I don't see why taking anti depressants holds a negative stigma. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Prescribed Anti-Depressants should not be frown upon."}
{"id":"200c2c01-b337-43da-b67c-267f04d0f1fd","argument":"Solution Architects rarely make a recommendation purely to business, but usually to a panel of Solution Architects \/ Enterprise Architects as well, so that the Technical decision isn't made in isolation, thus mitigating this risk","conclusion":"Decision-making isn't put in a vacuum. Solution architects explain what they know and the impacts to the business to the company heads who then make a joint decision based on what they know."}
{"id":"3030d20c-5de0-4eb5-92a4-540b8407d712","argument":"I've noticed that the term 'sexual assault' has been recently thrown around more and more frequently, and with little or no context each time. For example on a news story, the most common description is 'A woman was sexually assaulted today,' or something similar. This is such a broad statement that it is almost entirely meaningless. The way the term has been used as of late, 'sexual assault' can mean anything from getting a look that the victim deems pervy, or full on thrown against a pinball machine rape. Imagine if your friend came to you one day and said he was assaulted at a bar and got into a fight. You would ask what the hell happened to get him into a fight got punched, slashed with a knife, broken bottle, whatever. It's just a throwaway term to prevent people from getting triggered. But really, if you're worried about that then you shouldn't be talking about it in the first place. Edit Gotten a lot of replies with the same argument, that the term is used to protect the victim. Mental state, confidentiality, etc. If the reporters are so worried about the mental state etc. of the victim, then they shouldn't be reporting on it at all.","conclusion":"The term 'sexual assault' should never be used."}
{"id":"4f612198-b5b8-4320-ab54-6554659a1e3a","argument":"For example, some states in the US allow commercial surrogacy, which is forbidden in Canada, Australia and most of Europe. Citizens from these countries also go to the US to use fertility treatments which allow them to choose the sex of their babies, something also illegal in their home countries.","conclusion":"While other countries, may be more liberal on some issues, the same can be said for the US in other areas."}
{"id":"187d1dea-5aeb-4841-a7d2-e36aeac2bde7","argument":"The majority of DREAMers are Latino, and statistically the majority of Latino voters lean Democrat. Therefore granting DREAMers citizenship could garner millions more votes for the Democratic party.","conclusion":"Granting DREAMers citizenship could significantly alter the political structure of the US."}
{"id":"3ff37590-e33e-41ed-8c2c-c7cb61577869","argument":"Every human no matter the race that can speak above a 3 year old level has at least a little power, the power to deride or create a sense of alienation or rejection. Every human that has the physical ability handle a knife or a gun has the power to threaten and remove another person's sense of safety and peace. Therefore, almost anyone capable of prejudice has the power to be this formula's definition of racist. The only exceptions being someone who has racial prejudices but is unable to communicate. There are likely fewer than 1 in 100 million cases where the statement Racism Prejudice Power creates any meaningful distinction. And therefore, this formula in no way excuses, nullifies, or justifies prejudice and the harm that it causes.","conclusion":"When examined logically, \"Racism = prejudice + power\" is a borderline meaningless tautology, and does not mean what it's users intend it to mean."}
{"id":"ebf93644-7afc-4248-8fea-2d04d0375245","argument":"I agree with the author of this article as far as the premise of the show being shallow. The message also seems pathetic and immature the show seems to be saying that beauty is a weapon, and formerly fat girls deserve to weild it to exact vengeance . However, the student who wrote this piece said Fat women DO NOT need to lose weight to be successful, respected, loved or sexy. I don't know about all that, though. Attractiveness is certainly an asset in attaining success, for better or worse, it's true. Respect probably should be independent of attractiveness if people are behaving fairly but, people with glandular and genetic disorders aside, it's not obvious that person A who chooses to eat themselves into obesity deserves as much respect as person B who chooses instead to live a life of moderate caloric intake and disciplined physical fitness. And of course, being loved and being considered sexy are completely subjective things. The common conception of female beauty may have been somewhat coopted by the media for advertising purposes, but it's not like the stereotypical sexy female image makes no sense a thin, even muscular build indicates to men not only that a woman is healthy, but that she cares about herself enough to take care of herself, and that is indicative of her having her life together in many other ways. These things are extremely desireable traits in a potential life long partner. Not all body types are created equal. What am I not considering that I should be?","conclusion":"- It's okay that society considers fat women less attractive"}
{"id":"9099c398-f529-40b0-8cb6-690cbad2b31e","argument":"If condoms can be used as evidence, many brothels will not provide them and sex workers may not want to carry them. So making sex work legal will reduce STIs among sex workers.","conclusion":"This sex work occurs whether it is legal or not. Indeed the spread of STDs is likely to be higher where the industry is unregulated."}
{"id":"4953b994-018b-4937-bd25-d940731b7637","argument":"This view is pretty simple, and I would hope that it would seem pretty self explanatory, but I'll expand on it a little. First of all, it's incredibly superstitious, plain and simple. There is nothing special about the number 13 that makes it any more prone to failure, evil, disaster, bad luck , etc., than any other number. To continue on with this sort of nonsense only serves to reinforce primeval thought processes. Secondly, it's just a label. There is an actual 13th Floor, it's just been renamed to the 14th Floor. The 14th floor has then been renamed to the 15th Floor. This is ridiculous.","conclusion":"It's ridiculous that buildings skip the 13th floor."}
{"id":"16d4a01f-58c9-483c-bca5-a35fe3fa23ac","argument":"Tests can be cheated or examinators can be bribed, creating a society which benefits the rich and lying of having children.","conclusion":"It is very likely that corruption would affect this license. Bad people could \"buy\" the license from political staff"}
{"id":"6e4cb221-0f70-490b-a4ce-eec46359f110","argument":"Refugees that come to Europe are not the ones in worst situation. Many lie about where they come from because the are in fact coming from areas deemed not so dangerous as to require refugee status. Furthermore the trip costs considerable amount of money meaning that they have to be somewhat well off to be able to afford it. I think European countries should block all refugees coming via unofficial routess human trafficking and instead coordinate to set up operations as near as possible to the crisis zones so it will be possible for the people who are most in need to seek asylum without having to pay criminals to smuggle them. Then we could also make sure that women, children and the elderly have equal chance to get asylum compared to the current situation where most refugees are young men.","conclusion":"I think European countries should turn away all refugees who come seeking asylum, and instead work as near as possible to the crisis zones"}
{"id":"accaa687-2512-488e-94e4-e2728df0f298","argument":"If we can't get a space elevator to function and be in use, it's likely to be abandoned and have so much money wasted, that any cleanup effort would be nill.","conclusion":"If the operation to create a space elevator fails, our orbit will end up full of junk."}
{"id":"f4c85665-2a14-4ff9-873c-ae881aa91471","argument":"All EU member states are members of the European Emissions Trading System which sets an overall limit on all CO2 emissions.","conclusion":"The EU's current climate change policies are sufficiently reducing the EU's carbon emissions."}
{"id":"49d8df0f-05e1-4f4c-9ed8-a2611b2bfb78","argument":"Hi , This is stemming from a joke my friend made while we were watching season 4, but after I was done laughing I started to actually think this is too possible to ignore. Basically my view rests around the idea that the popularity of Game of Thrones put the idea of a border wall into the heads of the American public. The timing is too perfect, as seasons 4 and 5 are, in my view, the seasons when Game of Thrones got huge. There's also some plot stuff that makes sense too. Here are the specifics Timing By season 4, viewership had increased to nearly 20 million, a sizable fraction of US voters. Season 5 had even more. These seasons were released in 2014 and 2015 respectively. Trump's political presence really took off around 2012 with the birther nonsense. This article identifies summer 2014, right around the end of season 4, as the time when Trump's consultants came up with the idea of the wall. It also says the first time Trump suggested it at a rally was in January 2015, just months before season 5. He announced his candidacy in June 2015, two days after the season 5 finale. Something about this timing seems too perfect. I know you could just say that Thrones just happens to be on around the time candidates announced they were running, but the inception of the wall idea coincides to neatly with the show, especially in the plot that I'm about to explain. Plot Season 4 had a lot of attention on the wall and Jon Snow. Episode 9 had the famous The Watchers on the Wall episode that is entirely comprised of the battle between the noble and undermanned Nights Watch and the savage wildlings trying to breach the boarder yeah. I believe it's no coincidence that Trump's aids came up with this idea during this time, because even if they don't watch GoT themselves, they definitely would have seen stuff about the wall on social media. Also, at the end of season 5, when the Nights Watch and wildlings return from Hardhome, Jon is faced with backlash for bringing the wildlings across the border wall. Trump announced his presidency two days after this season with the idea of breached borders fresh on America's mind. I don't want to sound like I think the creators of Game of Thrones subliminally suggested to America that the wall is a good idea, I just think the idea of the wall was present in the American political consciousness because of the popularity of Game of Thrones. Even though illegal immigration numbers are falling, the thought of wildlings breaching the border made it more of a sensitive issue. Someone please tell me this isn't true. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Trump's wall idea resonated with the American people because of Game of Thrones. Mild Spoilers"}
{"id":"2f52966b-bb53-4731-9ffa-6263026d9b07","argument":"It is beneficial to the populous to have children because they increase labor and creative force on the planet.","conclusion":"By not having children, the world is deprived of all the good that the child could have done."}
{"id":"e8925895-ce96-48d9-b5e1-0ed25f78fbad","argument":"Companies in the top quartile for racial and ethnic diversity are 35% more likely to have financial returns above their respective national industry medians.","conclusion":"Organisations with more cultural diversity at the top management level may perform better in terms of achieving greater financial returns p. 5."}
{"id":"d2104ada-1108-4e86-af60-539228f0e927","argument":"To borrow inspiration from Louis CK Of course it's a terrible thing that the CIA is hacking our computers, but maybe if people would stop doing illegal shit on the internet the agencies wouldn't want to hack us. And look, I'm not interested in a discussion over the moral quandaries of this law or that law and why your vice of choice shouldn't be illegal. That's a totally different thread. Nor is this a discussion of the 4th amendment and why the police shouldn't do it despite their obvious interest. My sole point is that the cops FBI, CIA, NSA, TSA, or any other alphabet soup agency would be much less interested in hacking all of our computers if websites like Backpage didn't exist. If there weren't entire web communities dedicated to the sale of drugs, stolen credit cards, and human trafficking including prostitution , the police wouldn't give a shit about our computers. If there weren't servers dedicated to disseminating child porn out there, the cops wouldn't be casting such absurdly large nets while fishing for evidence. There are laws out there that are meant to be abided by. There are police whose job it is to investigate the breaking of laws. If the laws are being broken on computers, then simple logic follows that the agencies will want to know what we're doing in our computers. Thus, a few people participating in criminal activity have helped the furtherance of one of George Orwell's worst nightmares. Edit u dunce confederacy raised a good point in that this is kinda vague. I suppose the view I want changed is that there was no other cause for alphabet agency intrusion into personal computers than the criminal element. Fear of blanket surveillance is irrational.","conclusion":"The authorities trying to get into everyone's computers is a direct example of a few bad people spoiling something great for everyone."}
{"id":"aabf215e-f879-4de5-8464-3ccf63b0506a","argument":"'Fridays For Future' could have scheduled the demonstration on weekends, so as not to jeopardize the education of the youth and not to serve as an excuse to bunk off.","conclusion":"Thunberg's 'Fridays For Future' has lead to a considerable number of students bunking off lessons and school."}
{"id":"e5c6156c-d3f7-44be-a3d0-07510152d73a","argument":"Humans have no physical need to eat meat, its a personal choice. So for vegans, it is not a viable alternative.","conclusion":"There are many meat alternatives that make altering animals in this way unnecessary."}
{"id":"c2dab3ad-6d2b-4f4c-aa8b-497a52ca681b","argument":"AI in the classroom would likely have access to personal information about students and their studies.","conclusion":"Having AI in classrooms could lead to concerns about data privacy."}
{"id":"e87f420d-6fa0-4c1e-b36e-7fa8dbff37ed","argument":"Those possessing the lowest-ranked passport in the Passport Index - Afghan citizens - can only travel visa-free to 5 countries. In contrast, citizens of the UAE can travel visa free to over a 100 countries.","conclusion":"While some passports offer visa-free traveling in up to 189 countries, others are limited to 25."}
{"id":"561daf04-0529-4b86-a222-91f4454704a4","argument":"The government of Canada announced its desire to be operating solely on renewable electricity by 2025 Strengthening the oil industry goes against this agenda.","conclusion":"This would strengthen the oil industry, which should be replaced by renewables."}
{"id":"576a4b99-efb1-46e5-bd6f-6a11b2274af2","argument":"I support the recent ban on bump stocks. I support it because bump stocks turn semi automatic rifles into fully automatic rifles. Fully automatic rifles if firing multiple shots using only one trigger pull are illegal in the United States, and their ban has been found to be constitutional. Bump stocks previously used a legal loophole to get around this, and it is reasonable to fill this loophole. EDIT Multiple people are being nit picky. It's illegal to produce full auto guns, but you can own ones created before 1986. I'm aware of this. Same is the case with bump stocks manufactured earlier than yesterday. I believe in the right to bear arms, but that right can be limited by reasonable regulations. I believe those regulations should not stand in the way of normal situations of self defense, and that those regulations should not stand in the way the effectiveness of an armed rebellion against the national government. I don't believe bump stocks are useful for self defense, when faced with a single assailant or a group of assailants. I believe they are only useful to maximize your bullet output and to fire as many bullets as possible firing into a crowd. Standard weapons training tells riflemen to keep their gun on semi automatic, or fire in short controlled bursts because otherwise you will be wasting your ammo and ruining your accuracy unless your target is something massive, like a crowd. I'd have to strain my mind to think of any situation where a guerilla soldier would need full auto to fight against a tyrannical US government. And even in situations where groups of soldiers or government officials would be grouped together standing still that situation would not be commonplace enough for bump stocks to have any real effect on the effectiveness of an armed rebellion fighting against a tyrannical government, should their access to firearms be the same. For easy access, the text of the second amendment is this A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I support the ban on bump stocks and I do not think it is a violation of the second amendment."}
{"id":"3cdea11f-3f6a-4d04-964e-5a61757206ee","argument":"So a story that has been on the news in the UK recently is professional footballer Ched Evans, convicted of rape, not being able to join a new football team. I thought this was the right outcome, but for some reason decided to google his name and came across the website www.chedevans.com which is fighting his case. I've read through it, and unless the information they're providing is an outright lie, I just don't understand why he has not been considered innocent? Is there something I'm missing? Edit On a related note I think this shows a problem with our media. Everyone's talking about the football club side of things, it didn't even cross my mind that there could be some opposing evidence because it's not been mentioned at all.","conclusion":"I believe Ched Evans is innocent."}
{"id":"18cbe905-c437-493f-b8c8-1606954a32c4","argument":"Nobel Laureate economist Paul Krugman. \"Inventing a crisis.\" New York Times. December 7th, 2004: \"It's true that the federal government as a whole faces a very large financial shortfall. That shortfall, however, has much more to do with tax cuts - cuts that Mr. Bush nonetheless insists on making permanent - than it does with Social Security. But since the politics of privatization depend on convincing the public that there is a Social Security crisis, the privatizers have done their best to invent one.\"","conclusion":"Budget shortfall has more to do with misguided tax cuts, spending."}
{"id":"5a49522c-4786-46de-8462-87fa99a614c3","argument":"I've always believed that the government is always one step ahead of us if not several. The notion that using different browsers and other software like this to hide information from the government is ridiculous. Do we honestly believe that they play by the rules when it comes to privacy? They probably have complete access to anything on the internet. After all they created didn't they? So what does this leave us with? The only way to truly keep your privacy is to stay off of the internet period. If your privacy means that much to you then I believe this is the only way to keep it.","conclusion":"I think that trying to hide anything from the government is ridiculous and that no matter what kind of software your using if they want they will be able to access your data."}
{"id":"684c7153-e107-497e-9541-76e7be04c7ae","argument":"I have recently thought about how distracted the device makes me, how fast the battery drains, the size of it with the case to protect the expensive device , and how much more it costs to include data as opposed to a simple talk and text plan. These prices are in the states by the way, I understand prices are very different in other countries such as Canada Through out the work day, many people do fall into a rut and need a quick distraction to save them from mind numbing work on a slow day. But Since I have the entirety of the worlds knowledge in my pocket, I whip it out and browse reddit or facebook occasionally Even with the same website sometimes still open on the computer I am working on. The battery drains fast. There are plenty of us who have to charge our phones every night or else we are without a phone the next day. Yes, there are ways to prolong your battery life, but after deleting apps and not using the phone for its smart use in the first place, what is the point? The size. I am glad we ditched the trend of tiny phones with tiny buttons, but some of these phones are getting ridiculous. I have big hands, so my galaxy s5 isn't a problem when I use it although my thumb stretches if i want to use the other side . And since I don't want to break the 600 device from a drop I have a case, which makes it a pocket hog. A simple plan with decent data is 45 month, and up towards 80 month depending on how much data you want. That isn't too bad, but for anyone wanting to save money and find corners to cut, many 25 month and lower plans are available for just talk and text. Smart phones get outdated.Fast. Recently many older iPhone users have complained and even sued when an updated that was un reversible cause their iphone to slow down tremendously. Since smart phone are basically computers, new software updates and newer apps will cause the older hardware to strain. this makes it almost essential to upgrade about every two years or so although I know many people who have nicely functioning older smartphones But when you do have to upgrade, that is at least 500 for the latest gadget, plus what ever case you need if you are me. One of my biggest concerns is the connectivity via the internet, and it's impact on social health. We live in an age of constant connectivity, and this has shortened many of our attention spans. Along with that, when I get real face time with someone, one of us is bound to check their phone a handful of times due to the constant need of new information. Not in general public We have always disliked strangers but with our FRIENDS. With the rise of Wifi being available essentially any where, I can carry another device capable of maps and general internet searching if I know there is a chance of getting lost. Along with that, that same device in my situation can store my music an I can use it when working out or taking a hike with out the fear of interruption from some app or even a text. And When I do need to check my email or facebook, that can wait until i am home or a planned time and place to check all of that stuff, putting me back in control of some methods people contact me. I would lose some functionality, and occasionally need to carry another device with me, but the mental, financial, and practicality benefits would outweigh the loss. Edit Words","conclusion":"I and many other people would have more pros than cons from ditching our smartphone."}
{"id":"a25f2e50-2bb0-416c-9e62-4ae722816741","argument":"If anything, longer terms of office, with carefully negotiated break clauses, are required in order to ensure a strategic approach to government.","conclusion":"Effective government requires fixed terms of office to allow policies to be enacted and outcomes delivered."}
{"id":"a31d2027-4fbc-44d4-9888-96b246ca7e49","argument":"Pharmacists can play a vital role in filling this gap, as they have more time and the appropriate expertise to provide high-quality patient-centered health care.","conclusion":"A major contributor to shortfalls in delivery of recommended health care services is lack of physician time"}
{"id":"6a595646-bf3e-4674-88a1-f86e0472851d","argument":"Tywin's last words were \"You are no son of mine.\" Earlier he said: \"Men\u2019s laws give you the right to bear my name and display my colors, since I cannot prove that you are not mine.\"","conclusion":"It is also possible that Tyrion is a secret son of Aerys II."}
{"id":"6072d853-1a57-402e-9de0-cbb50398e286","argument":"A while back, before the Syria mess and such, I a post on r futurewhatif about what if Obama were to resign out of frustration if the Democrats were to lose the midterms . With the passage of time, I think this maybe a painful yet beneficial decision in the scheme of things. Let's face it, the gridlock in the US government boils down to Republicans not liking someone who isn't 100 white and on their side and they know Obama is quite vulnerable due to his non experience never mind that he was in an ideological cocoon of sorts prior. Also consider that if the GOP solidifies the House and wins the Senate, Obama becomes the lamest of lame ducks being wholly impotent. Rather than deal with two more years of frustration, resigning would be the best as it'd cast him in a sympathetic light for being chased out of the White House while making the GOP look bad. At the same time, as much as Biden wouldn't work as a caretaker President, his ability to compromise never mind the obvious might help the nation a little, yes? I'd like to see any scenario in which Obama being hated and obstructed for two more years is the best outcome for the US and his legacy. Does anyone agree?","conclusion":"If the Republicans win the Senate\/add seats in the house, it may be best for Obama to resign to save face and help America."}
{"id":"41bd4e33-72ce-4845-ae63-8ebe9ddcb64d","argument":"A society where the life of an animal were worth as much as the life of a human would be doomed to fail.","conclusion":"This would imply that human and animal rights should be valued equally, which is not feasible."}
{"id":"1b16606e-649f-4983-8685-fe0954666228","argument":"The modified gene gives the chestnut the ability to make an enzyme that detoxifies the blight skill none of the four billion American chestnuts that preceded it ever developed.","conclusion":"The American chestnut is vulnerable to chestnut blight The disease has radically reduced the species population. Genetic modification could help to revive this endangered species."}
{"id":"d5a3bf08-fc61-4511-bd6d-d3f1f71906e2","argument":"Most sites are cluttered with a variety of advertisements - from banner-ads to intersticials - some of which can be very disruptive and unnerving. This is a quality that is new to online-advertising as opposed to advertising in print.","conclusion":"In 2017, 27.5% of internet users in the US used ad blockers."}
{"id":"12fa9090-10a5-4315-aff5-6a2fcb9def40","argument":"I am an atheist. I was raised in a household with no mention of religion, and never heard about a God until I was dragged to church at 10 years old. When I turned 13, I decided it was all BS. This is my position on God. My position on religion is that it's no good for the world we live in today. I've read a lot of real life horror stories where religious nut parents refuse to take their kid to the hospital because God will same them. or children are sheltered from everything and know nothing about sex when they're 35. A good friend of mine called out a girl in school because she hugged a guy in the school hallway, calling her a whore and telling her she was going to hell. Let's say we're not friends anymore. There are good things about religion, yes, but the bad outweighs the good. I have a lot more examples as in my being called a Satan Worshipper by some jackass at school for three years , if you do need more. Edit \u2206 Allright, not sure about the delta stuff. The winning argument is one of the least upvoted, towards the bottom.","conclusion":"I believe that religion should be illegal."}
{"id":"9fd1240f-927f-4679-b516-025240ed1dc2","argument":"The rise of Islam saw the rise of support for science the wider adoption of Algebra and numerous other technological innovations, as well as an increase in general prosperity.","conclusion":"During the golden age of Islam, the faith was a major source of support for the advancement of science."}
{"id":"7c3b0f23-c4ef-4aeb-a3df-8e9e3e926c63","argument":"Given that women have a less autonomous position in society, having the choice to wear the clothing you want and determine your own aesthetic without being shamed or ridiculed is a very feminist philosophy. So, encouraging women to wear what they want and embrace the fashion of their choosing without judgement is in line with feminism.","conclusion":"Feminism is about giving women the option to choose their appearance without social consequences."}
{"id":"1216f516-b283-4991-a038-8d419505a3a6","argument":"Now there are certain things I agree with particularly the crackdown on the lack of clothes, though I do see the requirement Men wear Tee shirts to be a cop out from earning the rage of external social forces from being unjust towards women in this case. However taking seemingly direct control of people's streams with these new rules I feel is crossing the line. Specifically The drinking, The use of certain speech, The non gaming content clause and sexually explicit game content I feel that this gives too much power to the user base as it gives people room to interpret minor infringements that this policy is not trying to harm and allows angry fans to take a video clip and spam it like a hate group. Lastly, one way to not change my view is by saying Everyone agrees to Twitches end user agreement to use their service. I am aware of this fact, I don't care as it does not validate the implementation of these rules.","conclusion":"Twitch's most recent policy revision is a net negative."}
{"id":"ed252e6e-2520-4568-89ea-7b6cb261ba05","argument":"1 in 10 women in the UK suffer from endometriosis which can cause chronic period pain, fatigue and is linked to depression.","conclusion":"Providing paid period leave can highlight the serious pain many women face on their period to unaware male workers."}
{"id":"da323cf6-220f-4aee-a38f-270486f84a3b","argument":"No natural plant-based substance should be illegal hence all plants should be legal. We are a part of nature as one so are these plants.","conclusion":"The decision to use drugs should rest solely with individuals."}
{"id":"76d295c9-20d2-43cf-9677-52686cdaa068","argument":"Slavery is easily the greatest crime short of murder that someone is able to commit against another human being. Aside from that, Slavery is a crime that by its very definition is totally premeditated and devoid of any possible mitigating factors like passion, self defence, or coercion. Even as someone generally against the death penalty on principle, I don't think the courtesy should be applied to slavers. Enslaving another human being is a crime that is unquestionably deserving of summary execution, change my view.","conclusion":"Slave-owners don't deserve to live."}
{"id":"fe490a34-59c6-462f-912a-8f34d891925d","argument":"I purposefully avoided using a term in the title because I'm not sure what the right one is japanophile, weeb, weeaboo, asian fetish, otaku are some that I've come across , and a change in the name will not . On the internet, the terms listed above are typically used derogatorily and imply the person is a loser. My boyfriend is the very stereotype of a white guy interested in Japanese culture. He's self teaching Japanese, took college classes in Japanese history for fun, watches anime and hentai, used to frequent 4chan, and is primarily interested in Asian girls. None of his girlfriends have been Japanese, but his favorite pornstar is. He has never been to Japan and, as far as I know, has never even spoken to a Japanese person outside of his college classes. He shares some of these interests with online friends that he made through video games. However, he's also a well adjusted person and a great partner. He has a good job as a software engineer, has a great relationship with his family, has a solid group of real life friends all of whom tease him about being a weeb , and has been dating since he was 13 all Asian girls, but still . As long as his interests are not interfering with his quality of life, I see no reason to care that his interests orbit Japan.","conclusion":"It's okay that my White boyfriend is obsessed with Japan."}
{"id":"ff8708fa-68e1-4433-a172-96cdab02aa00","argument":"Esme Cullen, the adoptive mother of the Cullen 'children' in the Twilight Saga, is a vampire whose defining characteristic in human life was her ability to love; in her vampire life, she is portrayed as even more compassionate and loving.","conclusion":"Many vampires in various literature and film have not always been vampires, and started out life as humans. Their human attributes remain with them, to at least an extent, in their vampire life; they cannot therefore be inherently evil."}
{"id":"4fe410e6-6258-4511-a47d-b7000283cb0e","argument":"Training and \"maintaining\" human pilots is very expensive >10Mio$ per soldier. So drones that do not require a pilot can be much more cost effective.","conclusion":"The X-47B bomber does not need human interaction and can start from an aircraft carrier."}
{"id":"fee977e5-4447-4876-81d3-20edf3540e7f","argument":"Since self harm tags are really popular with edgy kids of Tumblr, I think what we should do is, give it no attention. In my opinion, or according to my experiences, self harm is basically a way of seeking attention. And since everybody goes crazy when they see someone harming themselves, they realize that this is a way of getting attention. In this case, what society needs to do is just not to care. This way, they'll realize they're not getting the attention this way, and try less edgier ways to get it. I know it sounds harsh, but it'll actually help our children.","conclusion":"Self harm shouldn't be taken seriously"}
{"id":"dbc354d9-7fb3-41fa-8dfc-8605120699e0","argument":"I am from America and live in a place where anime is a big thing and there are anime conventions frequently held near where I live. Let me start off by saying I can't stand anything or anybody associated with anime. I have friends who I think differently of just because they are into anime. I know it's wrong but I can't help it. I see someone express their love for anime and I can't help but think of them as childish and associate them with the neckbeard culture. Another thing I will never understand is cosplaying. Why on earth would a grown man dress up like an anime cartoon. Another thing I dislike is the way the cartoons are drawn. With stereotypical japanese drawing style I just can't bring myself to actually even consider watching any of it. Which brings me to my next point. I have never actually seen an episode of anime besides pokemon or yu gi oh, and I don't even know if those are really traditional animes. Everything together distracts me with disgust from an anime that could have a great story or plot. Please help me change my view because it could open a whole new world to me.","conclusion":"I dislike everything about anime."}
{"id":"abddac41-7009-483a-92c8-a4ae00787ab6","argument":"First let me say im posting from a phone so please excuse the spelling format I do not think state of palestine has a right to exists. I also do not believe it should be a nation. Furthermore i believe that if Israeli was a muslim or Christian nation the world would ignore Palestine. Gaza and the west bank have separate governments. Gaza is ruled by Hamas a known radical islamist terrorist group the west bank is governed by the PA a ineffective shame government. Neither governments should be recognized by the world community Some people say palestine has a historical right to the land which now host Israeli and therefor Palestinians have the right to rule. But if we go along with that thinking then all of america must be given back to the native americans. Same for Canada, Australia and most pacific islands. With that thinking how far back do we go to restore country boarders. In short i believe palestine has no right to become a nation and should not be one.","conclusion":"I do not believe palestine has the right to be a nation and shouldn't be one."}
{"id":"acaabd77-9856-4fe4-b559-f3900a6005dc","argument":"For some individuals, natural foods may be the best option. For others, GMO foods may be the best option. There is no one-size-fits-all. Limiting access to GMOs helps nobody.","conclusion":"People should be allowed the freedom to choose their own food."}
{"id":"63b1cbfd-2f0e-4e40-82a4-2793f05dc7b4","argument":"An important guideline to distinguish between fake images online is to check its metadata which can provide clues of the provenance and authenticity of an image. Consumers online are unlikely to be able to access this metadata.","conclusion":"Some of these guidelines are unlikely to be cross-checked and adhered to by consumers."}
{"id":"ad4c538a-7167-454f-bee3-bf138fdbde23","argument":"Like they still do in Asia and perhaps parts of Europe, and used to do in North America, before political correctness infected the culture. I'm not saying appearance should be the only factor personality, competence, experience should count for more, clearly. I'd take a kindly 3 over a cunty 9 any day. But attractiveness should count for something . All else equal, airlines should try to field a beautiful brigade of flight attendants. That should be an explicit goal. And I'm not just talking about women. Attractive men should be favored just like attractive women. I'd make the same case about sales reps, secretaries, hotel clerks, servers and hosts in restaurants, anyone whose role in their organization is to be the face of that organization the meeters, greeters, liaisons, customer service personnel, all the first impression and last impression makers. Flight attendants very much play that role in the airline industry. They, more than anyone, are the employees who interface with end consumers, and in close quarters, and sometimes over many hours. Flying is stressful and uncomfortable, especially in God forsaken coach. Flight attendants who are easy on the eyes provide a degree of pleasantness. They make the ordeal a little more tolerable. And subconsciously they leave customers with a positive impression of the company. Before you start in on how this outlook is shaming to less attractive people, consider all the similar looks discrimination we happily embrace. Models, actors, musicians, TV hosts, news anchors. They skew attractive to no small degree, because beauty matters . It matters in certain specific, limited, relatively insubstantial contexts. In most situations, I don't care. If I'm going under the knife, I don't give a fuck what my surgeon looks like. If I'm taking a biology course, my professor's appearance is a non issue. In any substantial professional capacity, I, like any reasonable person, am concerned with competence, reliability, and so on. And people of merit do just fine in this world. There's a ton of jobs at Delta Airlines besides flight attendant, which is one of the least interesting ones. What I'm saying is, on a red eye from Chicago to Honolulu, give us some damn eye candy. It helps. I may not respond to comments super fast but I will definitely respond.","conclusion":"Airlines should hire attractive flight attendants"}
{"id":"2a298322-a861-48c1-898c-fc4aee341099","argument":"I'm an agnostic, and don't rule out the idea of some form of god. However, it seems to me that all religions that say you should have faith and believe in their god can instantly be ruled out as untrue. The problem is that it seems completely irrational for a god to place humans in this reality, and then be completely behind the scenes and never make himself known to any humans at least, any humans in the last 1000 years and then demand that the humans believe in that god. How can he demand we believe in him when there isn't any good evidence? All we have are thousands of books from ages ago, all talking about completely different gods, and a few of them Christianity, Islam, etc. happen to be popular in the era we grow up in. Some argue that they can feel god or Jesus or whoever in their hearts, or they just know their religion is true, and that this is all the evidence they need. However, this cannot be viewed as evidence, because throughout history people have always felt this about many different religions it is obvious that humans are simply capable of getting this feeling just from the belief itself . Apart from that, all we have are books from ages ago. I believe that no reasonable god would put us in this scenario and then say Believe in me or you will be punished . I think when you really look at it like that, it's a pretty ridiculous idea. I think we've grown up in a world where the idea of faith is very prevalent, and are therefore used to it, and don't think of it as an irrational idea. However, a world where all the religions do not involve faith, and are simply more along the lines of Here is a set of ideas that might be true, and we're going to choose to live along these ideas because it seems more likely to be true than other religions is a much more reasonable world. But hell, what do I know. Change my view Edit trying to answer all these now. There's a lot of comments, thanks for the effort. gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than just downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I think any religion that incorporates the idea of faith is inherently irrational and therefor isn't true."}
{"id":"9150e783-6620-49e1-af53-41ccaaeb5321","argument":"In 2018 and 2020, voters will ask themselves whether they are better off then they were in 2016. If the answer is yes, even if in reality that is due to Democratic party support for legislation, voters will respond to perceived Republican success in governance.","conclusion":"Legislation passed while the Republicans are in the majority will be credited to them, not the Democrats."}
{"id":"4530166d-b2f5-4837-b5c0-ac156374b993","argument":"There are many different regions with different traditions and opinions. USA should not interfere just because they think their understanding and solution is the right one.","conclusion":"The United States does not have the moral or legal authority to decide what is or isn't right for another country."}
{"id":"46471dfb-b233-4b6b-a7c9-eff23bbf3595","argument":"Note I do not work for nor am I affliated with the Khan Academy in any way except for having an account there . All the criticism I have heard read thus far has been along the lines of Salman Khan does not have a degree in teaching or Doing Khan Academy encourages rote memorization . To me this is all absolute BS. First off, it doesn't matter if Sal Khan has a certain piece of a dead tree from a university or not, he is a good teacher because I often watch his videos if I don't understand something that my maths teacher was incapable of explaining in a way that makes sense. Secondly, I don't believe that the Khan Academy exercise software encourages rote memorization. I honestly wouldn't know how, as the problem sets vary every time you use it. All in all, I think that all the criticism towards KA that I've read so far are from teachers who are simply too narrow minded to even want to understand what the KA is about. EDIT When I refer to Khan Academy I mean the idea of flipping the classroom . My bad. I should have been more specific.","conclusion":"The idea behind Khan Academy is one of the most brilliant ideas ever."}
{"id":"ded43485-12db-46a5-a105-1d710a7b3485","argument":"Before I explain my reasoning, I do want to state that I am a lifelong Patriots fan and a fan of Julian Edelman. I do not think it is much of a stretch to say that he is a big reason why the Patriots have won their most recent three Super Bowls and the game against the Eagles last year, in which the Patriots lost, may have ended differently if he had been able to play out for the season with an ACL tear . Over the course of the NFL postseason, there started to be some chatter about Julian Edelman as a worthy entrant into the NFL Hall of Fame, which only intensified after he earned Super Bowl MVP honors two weeks ago. However, even though he has proven to be a dependable and \u201cclutch\u201d player, I do not believe he is a Hall of Famer. In looking at his statistics, during the regular season, he is currently tied for 148th on the career receptions list with 499, in 248th place for career receiving yards, outside of the top 250 for receiving touchdowns, and tied for 224th in receiving yards a game. On the positive side, Edelman\u2019s ranking when it comes to playoff performance is much more favorable. He is currently ranked second in both receptions and receiving yards, behind only Jerry Rice, and tied for 43rd in receiving touchdowns. He does have three Super Bowl rings to his name and contributed some of the most memorable plays in those games, including incredible catches against the Seahawks and Falcons, and his ability to be open on seemingly every play against the Rams. On the negative side, besides the low regular season rankings, Edelman also tested positive for the use of performance enhancing drugs last year and was suspended for the first four games of the season. There is also the stigma, which is hard to quantify, that Edelman is a product of the Patriots\u2019 system, not an elite talent.","conclusion":"Julian Edelman is NOT a Hall of Famer"}
{"id":"4b99ac91-6bc0-4f4b-861f-ccd03d6d1eea","argument":"Parting ways with the Monarchy can bring Australia together by serving as a genuine apology to Indigenous people for the atrocities that occurred in the past.","conclusion":"Retaining the monarchy legitimises the British invasion of Australia and the genocide of Indigenous peoples that took place."}
{"id":"45e190d6-1fce-4036-a1ce-c17bfae96670","argument":"Love is not just an emotion, but a decision to share your life with someone, to treat them well and to be able to do things that are hard, sometimes even painful, for their happines.","conclusion":"Many people believe that love is the least malleable and fluid of all emotions."}
{"id":"d035fa51-bfbd-4ce2-9b18-c363eca0f6dd","argument":"If you have the option of declining sex and choose not to exercise that option, then there is no reason to deem your partner to be a bad person . If you feel less than joyous about the sexual encounter after it happens, then what you are experience is regret or remorse, not the trauma of being sexually assaulted. It may not be a perfect definition, but it is better than any others that I've heard. There may still be situations where it is unclear whether or not a real option to decline sex was available. But this definition will cover most cases Have a gun to your head or other real physical threats? Not a genuine option of declining since the consequences of declining are no better than the consequences of accepting. Unconscious? You don't have an option to decline. Being genuine blackmailed? Similar to having a gun to your head and no genuine option to decline. Your girlfriend is going to break up with you if you don't have sex with her? You've got the option to decline, you just need to choose whether you want to or not. You've already said no 8 times and he asks again? Clearly if the no was an option the other 8 times, it is an option this time as well. You've had 6 drinks and your inhibitions are lowered? You've still got the option to choose to have sex or not. Easiest way to change my view would be to provide a better definition that would both a respect how real world consensual sexual interactions occur and b make more clear to both parties than my definition whether or not sexual activity being engaged in is consensual. Another way to change my view would be to show that there is a more important objective than the objective I am trying to create with my definition. My objective is to reduce confusion where two people have sex and one comes out thinking it was consensual and the other comes out thinking it was not resulting in a reduction of both rape, and false accusations of rape .","conclusion":"Morally and legally, consent with regard to sexual activity should be defined as \"choosing to have sexual activity when the option not to is available\"."}
{"id":"548df510-2b65-4e12-8343-ebc25b9937af","argument":"This is after a lot of people like George Takei been outraged by states' new laws mostly in the south that grants businesses' religious freedom to not serve homosexuals. I am an atheist libertarian who thinks that any two humans can legally marry, but I also think that private businesses can do what ever they want if they would rather financially suffer by not taking gay money, then that's their cross to bare. I don't think they should pass these laws in the name of religious freedom, but they should be passed to protect the right of free trade. If I don't want to trade with someone either because they are gay or are making a bad offer or both , who is the government to tell me I have to? If a business wanted to denied blacks the right to conduct business, than that business would be in the red in no time either from boycotts or by the sheer lack of business that African Americans would give. I value personal freedoms above anything else, and the only time a person's freedom should be taken away is when they take away another's freedom. Personal freedom includes deciding whom to serve and trade with. Personal freedom does not include forcing someone to trade with you. I know people are going to say discrimination is wrong, and I agree. But I think that being an asshole is wrong too, should we outlaw that? Governments cannot and should not regulate kindness. gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than just downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I think that private businesses have a right to deny service to any for any reason."}
{"id":"ee3a1a24-0835-4173-b2d0-56fc46c090e0","argument":"Every society takes certain moral truths as self-evident. Any outliers that don't accept these morals are thought to be lower in consciousness and are if they transgress social norms or government laws which in some cases enforce moral values are sometimes punished. The society does not doubt the veracity of the moral truths it holds to be self-evident because a few don't see it that way.","conclusion":"To be able to recognize evidence in any sphere requires sufficient education on the matter , or in the realm of spiritual and moral values requires and elevated level of consiousness in order to be able to see it."}
{"id":"68cfc602-b82f-4d07-8ceb-b8b720a201c8","argument":"They can be killed instantly when struck with weapons made of dragonglass or Valyrian steel, or when they're set on fire.","conclusion":"Their weakness has been revealed and used to destroy them several times"}
{"id":"c18e2a76-db0e-45f4-8c28-c03d76bceee0","argument":"For something to be deemed objective we need to be able to have consistent measures across time, individuals, cultures and contexts. There are, however, substantial differences","conclusion":"Morality derives from subjective sources, and is therefore itself subjective."}
{"id":"d377f8a9-ad6f-41f3-ac45-8a0e6117c7b5","argument":"The most powerfully strategic ballot is almost always an honest ballot. Something that is not true for most voting systems.","conclusion":"Approval voting. Vote for one or more. Described here: en.wikipedia.org"}
{"id":"bf1858f5-f60e-4ea3-ae38-58c0858130f8","argument":"For example, some journalists argue how it is possible to give a voice to those with oppressive ideas without normalising or endorsing those views.","conclusion":"There is no clear correlation between debating or talking about an issue and normalising it or making it acceptable."}
{"id":"59b0b850-a261-450f-a6b4-827f63b1f2ed","argument":"I've personally come to the conclusion that we humans have manufactured a word that is not meant to exist. We think that so long as there is no war, then we live in peace. How can there be peace when our own species cannot understand each other? You speak of peace yet not everyone has come to think well of homosexuals. You speak of peace yet religion is not tolerated. I'm very open to this particular subject because I've not read too much about it. However, the answer seems to be clear. Power, money, and all that brings the goods of this world will always be the determinant factor, whether or not true peace can be achieved. Nonetheless, I think it's a good idea to give you guys an idea of what I mean by true peace. I personally think true peace is the time when humans as a whole understand each other. I don't mean for them to understand how I feel when I've experienced something they haven't, but rather that not everyone's mentality is the same. When homosexuals are not hated because they're different , or religious people are not hated because they're dangerous , or any of the on going stereotypes to be honest. Again, I'm very open to this subject and willing to have a proper discussion. Thanks for your time, I appreciate it.","conclusion":"True peace can never exist."}
{"id":"03bb8b2c-3ea0-4dab-9f9f-ef885ff8d04c","argument":"For example, the arguments of someone complaining about the way Glenn Gould played Bach will aim to raise their own subjective taste in music to some kind of higher truth. I've decided to make this thread because of all the arguments I've heard, that higher truth is not based on any kind of objective reality. The first of the two most common arguments I've heard is that you are insulting the composer. However if that composer and everyone who knew them is dead, in what way can they be insulted? Does the soil in Bach's coffin quiver when I play his music in a certain way? Do recordings played to your taste erode and disappear from the earth? No, the only tangible impact it has is to make some people of different tastes dislike my performance. The second argument is that the music is not being played in the way it would have been during the composer's time. This is usually a fairly speculative argument based on some objective evidence. Although even if it could be proved it still has no basis in objective reality. Perhaps you are playing it in the same way although to get that exact is impossible as Bach, but that has no tangible impact on anything other than pleasing or displeasing people. All of the arguments I've heard seek to compare the lively object of music to these fixed, stagnant labels about how it apparently should be played. Talking about music in this way is as pointless as trying to dance about economics. Ultimately, I don't think it is possible to point to any kind of impact other than pleasing displeasing people in some way. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"There is no Objective Basis for Arguments Advocating Playing Classical Music in the 'Proper' Fashion"}
{"id":"a7b7bc61-42f7-48d3-8ebe-1e77d9b8eb61","argument":"The Brazil Game Show is the largest gaming convention in Latin America. In 2018, it had approximately 325,000 attendees","conclusion":"Gaming conventions and events occur all over the world with large numbers of people attending."}
{"id":"d8133305-5b61-46c5-ad35-c45443741df9","argument":"The world\u2019s most populated country is China, which has an enormous export market, that has seen its industry grow to become a serious danger to the planet.","conclusion":"Developed western countries are responsible for 79 percent of historical carbon emissions."}
{"id":"e5579b38-bbe0-491c-825d-0520d9432302","argument":"Since the events in Charlottesville on Saturday, there has been a lot of talk in social media about Nazis protesting the removal of Confederate monuments. No one who uses this term, and no one who reads it, genuinely believes that the German National Socialist Party was present at the demonstrations, nor are they confused about what is being communicated. It's obvious that the term is being used as a shorthand for neo Nazis. When someone responds to a criticism of Nazis by saying that it's not the right word or making a joke about very old Germans in Argentina, they are wasting everyone's time at best, and at worst they are nitpicking in order to defend the indefensible i.e., the neo Nazi demonstrators .","conclusion":"Insisting the \"Nazis\" only refer to Germans from the 1930s and 40s is pedantic and unhelpful."}
{"id":"46b6acf8-554f-446d-b8ed-c9945ca4d1d7","argument":"The CCP video \"I am a Chinese Soldier attempts to imbue patriotism and to reassert the need for the party.","conclusion":"Xi has been using promotional videos in order to foster a positive image of the party within China."}
{"id":"ae28c229-56e1-406f-8a0b-37d2380471eb","argument":"I feel like the best way I could be argued out of this position would be to attack my assumptions about which traits are traditionally taken as masculine or feminine, but from my limited cultural perspective Masculinity is usually associated with power, force, will, strength, bravery, action, intelligence, logic, protectiveness, stoicism and honesty. Femininity is usually associated with weakness, docility, passivity, indecision, fearfulness, immaturity, need of protection, emotional displays, and manipulation. It seems odd to me that many feminist critiques seem to call out this unnatural and unfair division of traits between the masculine and feminine, or between men and women, and yet demand for a rejection of what masculinity stands for and an embrace of what femininity stands for. How can you simultaneously recognize that the concept of gendered personality traits is artificial and sexist, and has traditionally painted women in an unfairly negative light, while calling for the embrace and celebration of these same gendered personality traits?","conclusion":"Gender-stereotyping personality traits like aggression or logic, is always detrimental, as it only limits the potential of individuals. However, many more of the traits traditionally associated with \"femininity\" are negative and should be discouraged in everyone."}
{"id":"6e78e4d3-0f5a-4e59-869b-ecd691f33d88","argument":"Furthermore, the healthcare, wage and benefits package would set a minimum standard for private businesses as they would have to match the government offer. Aiding employees who are not involved in the program with healthcare.","conclusion":"With the provision of health benefits to full-time workers through the jobs guarantee program, a sizable fall in the need for Medicaid and the Children\u2019s Health Insurance Program can be expected."}
{"id":"ebcf18ec-ad18-4976-a8f8-e247dfa647e5","argument":"The Right to Participate in the Cultural Life of Community would mean that most social animals need to be allowed to live in groups of their own kind. For larger animals, this requires more space than zoos have available.","conclusion":"This is true, but if we extended analogous rights to animals, the obligation to not-violate-those-rights would likely necessitate an end to zoos."}
{"id":"44fac4e8-8cad-4c78-b77b-ba2f0341396b","argument":"With ACA staying as the law of the land and many advocating to move to a single payer system, I started to think how would we exactly implement this. More importantly, what would be the implications of moving from the current system to a Single Payer. It seems that the headache of removing health insurance companies from the economy would be hurtful in the short term and we might not recover from it at all. Pros Now even though we would lose a lot of productivity geared toward health insurance we would be getting some benefits. Single Payer means that the government would pay providers 56 to 80 cents of what insurers currently pay them. That's a huge discount for the patients and the government. Cons 1 Economic downturn due to the elimination of healthcare insurance. Removing all insurance companies would cost up to 1M jobs using United Healthcare as a proxy 230K EEs, and 20 of industry . If we were to say overnight that 1M people would lose their jobs that would impact the economy significantly, especially considering that these folks are generally paid significantly more than minimum wage. Using United Health care again as a proxy, that number is closer to 150B 28B in Operating costs . In other words firing all these people would cost the economy 150B per year. Some cities like Hartford CT would just be devastated. I understand that some people would get a job with the government, or other private companies, but let's be honest the transition would be brutal. 2 Even though we stand to get a discount by moving to Single Payer, it is not likely it will be possible to have all providers agreeing with 20 40 reduction in pay. For example nurses who use to make 80K are going to now make 50 60K, or we will see less nurses available by firing them, or we will see less nurses because they won't want lower salaries. The last two situations will lead to less healthcare regardless, and longer lines. If we see such situation in the first 2 years of implementing single payer it will be its death. The other option for the government would be to pay exactly insurer rates, that would mean higher increase in taxation that we would anticipate. 3 Taxation will be much higher than people think If the government were to take on the rest of healthcare currently paying for 46 via Medicare Medicaid , it would cost and additional 1.6 Trillion per year That's about 12K per worker 128M US workforce . This is huge. I make fairly good money but I would freak out having to pay such a huge bill for healthcare. My employer would need to pay me 10 15K more money to replace that loss in salary. I don't think all employers will do so, and more importantly, the cost of healthcare won't match over time. Overall, I just don't see it happening. This seems like a political disaster at least in the first 3 4 years of implementation. I want to cheer for Singe Payer by seeing its success abroad, but it seems we are too far down the rabbit hole to do Single Payer in the US. Let me know what you think. FYI I am not considering whether the US government would be capable of administering a program like this. I am assuming it would be as good as the current Medicare Medicaid programs. Definitions single payer means that anyone can walk to a hospital and get treatment, the Government Federal or State would pay for all the costs. I know there are slight differences but I would like if we can limit it to this definition no taxpayer will pay for healthcare when sick, all the payments are made through taxation. Additionally, the government administers the system, no health insurance involved in providing health care at least basic health care that we all want to benefit gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"It is impossible to move to a single payer in the US, unless we are OK with a recession in the short-term and availability of healthcare being diminished"}
{"id":"b1a44b7c-5fe0-4095-9c36-f247c12a3207","argument":"The highest teachings in the Hindu tradition are monotheistic and center around love for God","conclusion":"Monotheism is central to all the major world religions with the exception of buddhism"}
{"id":"e91903b6-d213-47a7-8889-98a49934b507","argument":"I believe that r politics should try a week of 's style posts where it's harder for the masses to see the upvote downvote count but still are made aware of the most well received comments. I think looking at the topics which have hot or faster up down votes could be an interesting look into the issues people feel more strongly about. I don't think we need to enforce it permanently, but it would be an interesting thing to consider. We could have people who are interested about each topic mark changes about the trends in their issues when upvotes downvotes aren't as easily shown and down voting is . I think it's a more important part of  for sure, but I'm really interested in how r politics would be different. I guess to  you'd need to convince me the implementation wouldn't be worth the energy, but I just don't feel believe that myself. Good mods can make and break a subreddit, and I think something like this would reveal a lot about the users and might hopefully encourage more diverse discussions. I also think it'd be great to keep down votes to people who are talking for the sake of talking, not because they disagree with you. Don't down vote about issues you haven't researched well enough to clearly discredit. I believe it would be interesting to see how r politics functioned if we made some steps to try and get people interested in really seeing how uneducated we all are. There's a lot of times we don't even know we're wrong, and I think of all places r politics could provide some of the best insight by changing the voting methods. I'm not demanding any kind of complete change, but I think a quick week of not seeing the down votes and encouraging people not to down vote so eagerly would reveal a lot about how much we all base our reactions on the voting system. I guess to change my view, you'd need to convince me it wouldn't be worth doing, but I think it could really help for some more casual summer redditors to have some awareness about how annoying excessive down voting can be and see if how it stifles discussion.","conclusion":"I think r\/politics should try a week of 's blank rating system,"}
{"id":"2723da68-58e1-4f42-9287-0328fc60eeac","argument":"I float around what used to be called the skeptic community that eventually morphed into the liberalists and what have you people who became extremely unhappy with the direction that the left, particularly in the MSM, was going with its philosophy, and sought to correct what they see as an attack on liberty itself. The way that the intersectional left and non intersectional sphere terms I am using because I believe that intersectionality theory is the crux of what the two spheres disagree on use the term seems to be different. The non intersectionalsts use the term alt right to specifically denote white nationalists, people like Richard Spencer and Mike Enoch. The intersectionalists, on the other hand, seem to use it as a catch all phrase to denote anyone who is skeptical of intersectional ideology. This, of course, includes white nationalists, but also people who have disavowed white nationalism such as Sargon of Akkad and Count Dankula. Yet despite this disavowal, the intersectionalists imply that they're just as bad as white nationalists I believe that there needs to be a concrete definition of alt right so that nobody can be smeared by a loose definition that both does and doesn't mean white nationalist.","conclusion":"There isn't a clear consensus on what the \"alt-right\" actually is, and there needs to be one."}
{"id":"d573c52b-d8ed-4489-bb31-f650eceed09a","argument":"Many members of parliament have a stake in the profit margins of corporations and are unlikely to pass climate change legislation.","conclusion":"Lobby groups are able to pressurize governments to block climate change legislation."}
{"id":"20b837e3-16ce-4da7-adf0-073ca66093ac","argument":"When I refer to illegal immigration I am referring to instances of \u201ccivilians\u201d crossing the border into the US in pursuit of safety, a better life, etc. Organized crime operations that involve illegal border crossings are out of scope the illegal immigration in those cases are a means to an end. I\u2019m referring to immigration for immigrations sake. Most illegal immigrants I have met are ordinary people who are overstaying a student visa for example or seeking asylum in the US. In all these cases, it is a victimless crime. No one I know personally has ever lost their job to an undocumented worker. However I work in a technical and regulated industry. I\u2019m willing to concede that my anecdotal evidence alone is not proof that illegal immigration is a victimless crime. But with that said, I\u2019m still very skeptical that anyone should be genuinely worried about non violent illegal immigrants in the US. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"illegal immigration is a \u201ccrime\u201d on par with forgetting to renew your vehicle registration."}
{"id":"7d22fc3b-1302-4451-ba75-6374ce5a18b1","argument":"The police system in India has been criticized for not allowing members of the police to have complete autonomy over their decisions, and discouraging fairness in leadership.","conclusion":"India does not have a functional or fair court and police system."}
{"id":"60e6e913-edf8-4623-8815-3fd9ab27069c","argument":"Despite belonging to none of these groups, I do not believe that such people are inherently immoral or malicious. I think it is a very arrogant to discriminate against this aspect of a person's being, as it may be completely independent to their true character. As homosexuals are becoming more accepted in modern society, I'd like to see a similar decline in prejudice towards other identities. If a necrophiliac were to murder an individual for the sole purpose of getting intimate with the corpse, then by all means, throw down the full force of your judgement. However, simply adhering to this interest does nothing to harm others.","conclusion":"I do not believe that Bestiality, Polygamists, Pedophiles, Necrophiliacs or people pertaining to any other unconventional sexual orientation should be looked down upon by society, so long as they do not commit any criminal offense."}
{"id":"72671cdc-6247-4b25-bfcf-4714ea921ba3","argument":"VR can lessen the dangers of straight into an industry unprepared by letting them practice first like surgery","conclusion":"Virtual reality VR is the best format for online education."}
{"id":"2cc5ae30-0463-45f3-a4c7-6b0404a32b2a","argument":"My main reasoning is, compared to other programs the government funds, NASA has the least direct benefit to the people of the USA, and the rest of the world. Sending a rover to Mars is interesting, but realistically, it will have few effects on people on Earth. With the same amount of money much more could be achieved in the scientific field of medicine I'm aware that the USA already spends more on healthcare or even chemistry. The only possible practical use for space travel I have heard of is asteroid mining, yet that process is still only really an idea. With poverty still present in the USA, not to mention in other parts of the world, it would be better to work to prevent that, rather than travel to, effectively, a large rock. We should improve things on Earth through politics and science before taking ourselves into space. I find space travel interesting, and I would really like to see whats out there, but I see no reason why space travel is more important than improving the Earth. I also think that deep sea exploration is more interesting and will have more results as we know that there is life down there. I think what the USA is spending on NASA is enough, if not too much, and I believe when we have sufficiently improved conditions on Earth more funding should go towards it, but look at it from a politicians point of view. Will NASA improve their country? Does it have much of a practical use? Not very much compared to other programs that the government funds.","conclusion":"I believe the US government should not increase funding towards NASA."}
{"id":"9c9552a1-ddcf-4a46-964c-d9294c51158f","argument":"Let me give you an example Confidence. If you want to nail a job interview, you must appear to be confident in your knowledge abilities. Why? Because humans see confidence as a positive signal of actual knowledge and skills. Its a cognitive bias. Unfortunately, this doesn't map with reality. Research into the Dunning Kruger effect shows that confidence and knowledge ability isn't positively correlated. I could give plenty of more examples and I'm sure others will jump in to defend my thesis and will give examples as well. Have at it","conclusion":"Getting a job is typically about explicit or implicit knowledge of how to manipulate the cognitive biases of the interviewer."}
{"id":"d5cd8174-d645-47fe-b3ff-634c7aa1ee19","argument":"Humanities are crucial to inter-cultural exchange and understanding, for we understand other humans through their language, their history, and their socio-cultural context.","conclusion":"Humanities are the basis of how we communicate and human society could not work without this skill-set."}
{"id":"3f8eb641-c75b-4e8f-99ac-b09ef29beb8d","argument":"Parents have a right to know what their children are doing: they are legally responsible for their care, and as parents they have a proper interest in any case. Any good parent would want to know if their daughter were having an abortion; any good parent would want to help her daughter make a good decision on the matter, and to prevent her making a bad decision.","conclusion":"Parents have a right to know what their children are doing."}
{"id":"bf471302-3de2-434b-9ee5-4dfa617a3a08","argument":"Let me preface by saying that I consider myself left of establishment Dems but still have voted Dem my entire life as the lesser of two evils. I felt physically sick over the election results this November, not only the Presidential vote but congressional and the statewide votes in my state, Missouri. The Russian involvement in our election process doesn't bother me for several reasons. First, it's hypocritical to not expect foreign interference in the U.S. political process when every single administration in my lifetime has done the same thing to other sovereign nations. Second, it's a red herring and allows the Dem establishment to blame everyone but themselves for propping up a horrible presidential candidate and ignoring the populist sentiment in the country. Finally, I see little difference between Russian involvement in our elections and Multinational corporations. Each have their reasons for wanting a certain candidate. Neither has the welfare of the American people in mind.","conclusion":"I don't care that Russia \"hacked\" our presidential election."}
{"id":"7f47f353-befe-453a-b3bf-81d4af33ebe1","argument":"Toxic shock syndrome can be caused by women using tampons for longer than recommended. It is a life threatening condition. The tampon tax increases the costs of tampons and may contribute towards women placing themselves at risk of the condition.","conclusion":"Access to menstrual hygiene is a human rights issue as it is linked to the rights of health, sanitation, education, and work."}
{"id":"a1ff2123-62ee-44cb-b542-3fff2beb107c","argument":"Shark culling methods often result in inhumane killings where sharks are trapped in nets or drum lines suffering for hours before they die.","conclusion":"Sharks should have the right not to be subject to unnecessary cruelty."}
{"id":"b1435546-73f0-43bb-8e3e-cfcc09343952","argument":"Long term loss of sleep is associated with hypertension, diabetes, obesity, depression, heart attack, and stroke.","conclusion":"Lack of sleep is hugely detrimental to people and society."}
{"id":"7b8ae307-7d5b-4f5c-9570-39d94ba748b8","argument":"Religion has motivated selfless acts, but often only to others within their own religion: individuals are encouraged to volunteer and do charity work within their own community as opposed to doing things for the greater good. This \"us versus them\" mentality is the biggest con of religious groups.","conclusion":"In some occasions, religion is only charitable or helps those who believe."}
{"id":"ddf54417-5917-49c5-82b5-3979cd0005fa","argument":"Precise synthetic human adaptations make sense when we live in mostly synthetic environments, like cities. If we absorb data from screens all day, it is more efficient to adapt to the process by devising a direct neural interface, than to wait for our bodies to biologically evolve to the task, and so forth.","conclusion":"Human evolution is already not natural, so transhumanism being a non-natural evolutionary advancement will not be anything new."}
{"id":"b6d7e7bc-d600-4800-b07b-e7abf78f551a","argument":"I used to work as a technical expert for hiring offsite employees. Not the direct hiring, but in the technical validation of their skills. The major issue we would experience were employees from India having resum\u00e9 s that were total fabrications. We'd include proprietary company products we created that no one externally had access to in our requested skillsets. Low and behold we'd have applicants with 5 10 years experience with our product, with a masters in computer science from an unverifiable university somewhere in India. Because our VP was originally from India he often was the best person to toss those and was the one to originally identify the issue. My core role was to assess their technical skills. Then I would remain online for the remainer of the interview. The main thrust of the interview goes over time availability, relocation if possible and if your contract goes over the lunar new years or a wedding and their expectations of when and how long they'd need to work to accomplish our goals. Those questions directly relate to your nationality and some may argue race. We also use a standard nationality time expectations assessment tl dr Germans are on time, Spainards are late , then the interview to determine whether the individual doesn't subscribe to the consensus. This way we can avoid friction when people of the same culture don't symmetrically agree about when one should arrive at a meeting or when they have a meeting with me they know I'll sit for 5, but nothing beyond that. In each instance, a vague stereotype gets thrown out and the individual is asked how well it relates to them. The reasoning is, by identifying where pre existing stereotypes are, then confirming with the individual we are removing the bias of the stereotype. The vagueness is less vague for specific regional exceptions. Lunar holidays, extended weddings, and culturally specific inquiries are made. These do not impact their payrate or hiring preference. Unless Lunar holiday is coming up and the contract falls within that time, then yea, not hiring them. Keep in mind, these are not backwater stereotypes. These are would you have a problem if your lead is a woman? type questions. If you don't understand why that's a stereotype for people from certain regions globally From what I also noticed was the question bank is quite large. Often the persons testomomial led to a set of questioned responses. However, to ask every candidate every question would probably take 3 hours just on questions. There is also a different performance metric based off us knowingly hiring someone we know will be late to meetings and takes longer than average breaks. If that person doesn't perform as well that's built into their performance numbers. Gross negligence, however, can lead to early contract termination. When I brought up these details over hiring practices I was told taking someones culture and personal specifications was racist, as we start with stereotypes, and we should have a singular metric for job performance, not one that takes into account we consented to hiring someone with their specific criteria and we were familiar with what performance is normal. What I find useless about the dissenting opinion is the fact certain cultures have built in expectations and asking generic questions around specific events, like lunar holidays, often leads to suddenly not having employees several weeks out of the year and the employer not having sufficient staffing to cover that. I also experience people conflating race with culture or nationality. IE black people can be German. White people can be south african. Horribly timed example I know, but when is it not? I was led to believe our hiring partner was attempting to provide unbiased availability and work habits to assist us in communicating and understanding the individual we'd be working with. Change my view Tell me how this can propogate racism or cause me to treat my fellow employees in a manner that makes them feel undervalued or disrespected.","conclusion":"Using nationality for performance expectations isn't bigoted nor racist."}
{"id":"27136c56-7bb9-4691-bdc9-731286bb90e4","argument":"\"If we have talked ourselves into a belief that American liberties demand social toleration, or worse, approval of an Islamic site explicitly branded with 'Ground Zero,' a mosque clothing itself in the respect accorded to the victims of that atrocity, then we must sincerely question whether our national life and purpose is damaged beyond repair.\" Instead, RedState argues that the mosque should be opposed and condemned vigorously by its opponents in an effort to shame the developers into picking another, less sensitive site.4","conclusion":"Opponents have a right to protest ground zero mosque vigorously."}
{"id":"afaa39be-c116-44a2-9c38-9bdf7899aea1","argument":"Only a tiny percentage p.9 of Chinese internet users will attempt to use Google to search for 'controversial terms' such as 'democracy' or 'human rights.' The majority of users will not be affected by Chinese censorship.","conclusion":"Having access to a restricted Google search engine is better than not having access at all."}
{"id":"5f6c2662-2d45-4d77-94d5-1f5e58bd7811","argument":"This post continues to haunt me, not the least because it keeps getting reposted at every opportunity. I am desperate to disprove it solely because it has driven and continues to drive me to existential despair. I do not want to live to see this future, but unless I act I'm afraid I shall. To that end, I want to see if I should feel as defeated as I currently do regarding climate change, specifically as it relates to the above post . I have my own counters to the post, but even together they do not seem to have made a difference in my mind The Clathrate Gun hypothesis he refers to looks unlikely based on current research. We are going to continue using coal for a long time even as we reduce the amount, which will perpetuate the aerosol masking effect although I suppose once we reduce to a certain level the masking effect will cease to function before we hit total elimination. We need to act now or humans and the global ecosystem alike will suffer for it is, to me, wildly optimistic. By the rest of the post itself it seems we're far, far too late. If you want a TL DR of my view to be changed, it is thus The linked post has convinced me human civilization as we know it is doomed, and the environment as we know it is doomed, and it's too late to stop. I hate awarding deltas based on semantics, so if you try to  along the lines of actually it's mythane instead of methane you won't achieve much. Similarly, the arguments below have not convinced me of anything in the past and are unlikely to do so now Life itself won't go extinct Whoop de doo The environment will recover eventually Whoop de doo two, electric boogaloo Human civilization as we know it will die because we will change to a more environmentally sustainable future I don't see that happening in time to make a meaningful difference Humanity won't go extinct But humanity can suffer immensely and perpetually as a result, so whoop de doo III, complete the trilogy Human extinction is a good thing I disagree This won't impact you so why worry? I'm an empathetic person, and it will impact me anyway Climate change isn't real I wish this was true","conclusion":"The Linked Post on the Aerosol Masking Effect is Correct"}
{"id":"128e80f3-508f-4c41-9a51-29035a446c2f","argument":"cannabis is not a dangerous drug such as meth and should be legalized for all the country to enjoy, like alochol.","conclusion":"Alcohol and tobacco are more harmful drugs yet remain legal"}
{"id":"368c4f20-08a1-4a95-809a-a0a6bcf11192","argument":"At the outset it should be said that I am religiously agnostic, although practically atheist, in that I never attend services and I don't observe any holidays excepting secular version of Halloween and Christmas . Reproduction arguably the most critical process for the general survival of our species at least until genetic sorcerers are able to develop the chromosomal therapies we need to live forever and certainly one whose import is drilled into our heads from an early age. Should the world suddenly be beset by global and intractable infertility, it would almost certainly mean the end of the human race within the next one hundred years. It is therefore critical that we keep replenishing kindergartens globally, in order that these kididdlers may work to provide for us in our old age and in turn propagate our genetic legacies when they reach adulthood, or 16 in the American South. Yet discussing reproduction in impersonal terms like this fails to address a not insignificant byproduct of each successful pregnancy a new human consciousness. Each time a baby is pulled forth screaming into the delivery room, behind all the \u201coohs\u201d and \u201cahhs\u201d and \u201citsaboys,\u201d there is the simple fact that Mom and Dad have called forth from the abyss a unique and isolated identity and cast it headlong into a cruel and callous universe, a universe whose machinations are still very much a mystery and whose ultimate purpose may never be known, if such a thing can be properly said to exist at all. While Dad is lighting a cigar in the hospital\u2019s parking lot and calling his own father to share the good news, Junior is already set on a path toward either spiritual emptiness or the wholesale embrace of his own reproductive future as a balm for this. He is offered no explanation, other than perhaps some variety of \u201cwell, that\u2019s what you\u2019re supposed to do.\u201d Given that it seems most explanations and justifications for reproduction are either wholly missing or accrue to the benefit of either the parents or society as a whole excluding the child in question , it seems to me that such decisions to reproduce, given their inability to justify the creation of a new life per se , are unethical. Change my view. EDIT I could have been more clear in my post, and certainly in my title, since a large number of comments were counter arguments regarding the apparent contention that all self serving actions are ipso facto unethical. Wasn't my argument. EDIT 2 Judgment Day u swearrengen gets a delta for reframing the discussion in a way I hadn't thought of. I still maintain that a lack of justification beyond some form of because that's what you're i.e. we're supposed to do is ethically compromised. EDIT 3 Rise of the Deltas u MonkeyButlers has articulated a useful deontological framework by which the impulse and decision to have children can be found to be satisfactorily ethical without requiring or appealing to ultimate meanings of life, etc.","conclusion":"The typical rationales for having children are either narcissistic or self-serving and therefore unethical"}
{"id":"f8be99e1-07f2-4ffe-9afc-fd1740444fdd","argument":"If there is evidence that a sitting president has committed a crime in office, then impeachment is the proper course of action for congress to take. Trump is on record as having both 1 known that Michael Flynn lied to the FBI about Russia and 2 asked the FBI to stop investigating Flynn. It is not unreasonable to see this as evidence that Trump attempted to obstruct justice.","conclusion":"Impeachment is the only way to stop Trump from taking future actions that could be damaging."}
{"id":"116809f7-dbf0-43be-a67d-a4eabb9e29eb","argument":"If you cannot donate for religious reasons, you can't receive either, right? So that's not an issue. All that's left is selfishness or people not getting around to registering.","conclusion":"I think organ donation should be an opt-out system and if you do you also opt-out of receiving donated organs, should you need them."}
{"id":"320b5d19-e55d-4b40-9fee-84521975f0c5","argument":"The access pharmacists have to patients significantly improves patient care, as demonstrated by various programs. It stands to reason that this pattern will be upheld when pharmacists are given the ability to prescribe medications.","conclusion":"Pharmacists have more contact with, and are more accessible to, patients than other care providers."}
{"id":"881c61ae-1e20-48fc-8be8-e1bfd8a3d76f","argument":"It has been shown that studies funded by the soda industry tend to produce findings that are favorable to the soda industry. nytimes.com + annals.org","conclusion":"Studies have shown that some scientists are prone to Funding Bias which ranges from minor oversight of results to intentional misrepresentation of findings"}
{"id":"3fee03ba-3ff0-41ba-a8ec-62fd58e540ed","argument":"35 is sort of an arbitrary number, basically anything over 19 would work. I'm 26 and I proudly live with my parents. I have a job, I'm an accountant at a big4 company, I have two cars, and I pay for rent and bills. I even own a property I rent out I choose to live with my parents because it's nice and I feel no need to go anywhere, why should i? I'm happy here and its cheaper than being alone. A lot of people in America think you're a loser if you live with your parents, or you have some other kind of issue. I think it is totally okay although in the past people have argued with me and sometimes very angrily about the topic.","conclusion":"There is nothing wrong with being 35 and living with your parents."}
{"id":"369da4fd-cdb3-4725-862c-37fe2cdf3cb4","argument":"My dad helped support my brothers and I financially and he taught us the basics how to hammer, change oil, clean, change tire, etc. He also loved us very much, but he never showed it. He physically beating me for bad grades , mentally immediately after the beating he asked if I would rather be beaten by the alphabet or by numbers\u2026Answer alphabet, because they end , and emotionally we were afraid of him abused us, used drugs to the point that we were foreclosed out of two homes making my mother and us homeless for a year or two, chose drugs over us needed to get to wrestling practice but he needed to finish getting drugged up in the bathroom , violently showed us who was the boss flipping over Thanksgiving dinner that my Mother made because he was mad, shit like that and basically just being pretty bad to us, and the things we did not do or accomplish was never his fault but ours. When I say this I mean things like if we got bad grades it wasn\u2019t his responsibility to make sure we were doing well in school other than beating us, telling us to do better, and sometimes asking did we do homework we didn\u2019t . These small anecdotes were extremely common and unpredictable. My question is whether this upbringing had decreased our chances. While we all have emotional problems we are all still alive, not incarcerated, and he did fed us and sheltered us for most of our childhood. Does this financial support outweigh the bad, or is providing the bare needs assumed, a parenting ground zero, and everything built from that start? My position is that parents do not get parenting points for fulfilling a child\u2019s basic needs, especially if the baggage that comes with those basic needs are very heavy. And that being raised by my father has caused such trauma that my chances of being successful were lower than if he was simply absent.","conclusion":"A parents can lower one's chances of being successful, regardless of financial support."}
{"id":"ab9f643a-4397-4f5f-bcbe-65e409e47bd2","argument":"I believe Reddit promotes a homogeneous, dominant view, especially when it's often the only source of one's information and opinions. Negative opinions are easily hidden, rebutted without addressing a real concern, or simply outweighted by the mass of opposing information surrounding it. While I believe the site does have its uses as a giant repository of links to the web, as a promoter of certain niche interests, and as a source of humor, a majority of the content is overused, repeated inside jokes, comments that derail serious issues to jokes, and opinions circlejerked over and over. I believe a certain culture it promotes is one of rehashed platitudes, laziness, and procrastination, as Redditors gradually see a homogeneous opinion because of the relative anonymity the site provides usernames matter only if it's a mod, someone famous irl or on site, or if its a novelty account . Our incentive to actually read articles and formulate our own opinions regarding them is overwhelmed by our desire to read the comments, allowing opinions to be outright fed to us. I see these as major issues with Reddit. Can someone change my view?","conclusion":"I believe Reddit is detrimental to our lives"}
{"id":"9942cea5-c165-4c09-861f-f7527cffa469","argument":"Women in developing countries have to face several barriers to work which fair trade has not been able to help them overcome.","conclusion":"In developing countries, fair trade is not yet working to empower female laborers."}
{"id":"93752f58-7e39-4cec-ab02-e396e96a25b9","argument":"1 If someone makes a really good post, they can get gilded many times at once. But the benefits don't pile up. For example theres a limit to how many months someone can be ad free by being gilded. 2 Speaking of the benefits, they are barely any. I get you can only do so much with a text based site, but I'm sure the reddit community has plenty of good ideas that reddit could have incorporated to make gold better. I get it that there should be a way to show approval of a high quality post. And being gilded is seen so highly because it costs actual money. But I think this system isn't as good as it could be.","conclusion":"The reddit gold\/silver\/platinum system is broken"}
{"id":"05a3bb5b-c124-47fd-ad5c-c859b81bb969","argument":"There's been a lot of talk recently about universal basic income UBI thanks to US Presidential Candidate Andrew Yang. A UBI is essentially giving every citizen a set amount of money each month, like 1000, with no work, income, or ability conditions. This  is not to debate the merits of UBI, it is to change my view that this type of program is NOT socialist. If you want to learn what UBI is see this video or read this article A number of critics have said this type of cash transfer program is socialist because it's an income redistribution. I disagree. A UBI is not socialist for the following reasons. . UBI will not make the the government larger in the long term. Sure there will be a short term administrative need to setup and send money to every citizen each month and costs around creating and collecting the taxes to fund it. In the US there is talk of a Value Added Tax VAT to pay for the lionshare of UBI, but the costs of simply creating the program, sending checks, and levying a new tax should be temporary. Socialism is when the government owns resources and the means of production think nationalizing the oil and gas industry in Venezuela Though a UBI will need additional taxes like a VAT, there is not any aspect of UBI that requires a government take over of companies or resources. In fact, companies must do well for this to work, because their revenue taxes will assist in funding a UBI. The line between socialism and capitalism is quite blurry. Technically, police, fire, and military are socialist endeavors, i.e., the government levying taxes to provide a government service. A UBI is different in that it's not a service, it's a transfer of cash similar to tax credits and social security. If anything, because of it's potential to reduce the need for government services, a basic income is more capitalist than socialist. A UBI is championed by some conservatives like Milton Friedman, because it is fundamentally about freedom. Many other progressive policies are advocating for additional regulation and laws. A UBI is devoid of of this, as people can do what they want with the money, and there is not special conditions to receive it. UBI fundamentally allows more people to participate in our capitalist system how they see fit. I'm at work right now, but will do my best to respond to comments throughout the day and into the evening. I'm open to having my mind changed, but I am a huge fan of UBI. Thanks for reading.","conclusion":"A Universal Basic Income UBI is not Socialist"}
{"id":"3c524509-0c7d-48d0-86b5-90b6eb35bd39","argument":"While quotas have been proven to be unhelpful, these protectionist measures continue to be the default solution for policy makers to remedy the US trade deficit. Another approach would be to compare the tax rates South Korea applies to Samsung 20% verse the whopping 39.5% corporate rate applied to American manufacturers.","conclusion":"Our existing tariffs and quotas are self-inflicted trade barriers limiting US exports. Boundless Economics"}
{"id":"366e01da-02bb-4f8e-ad2d-37795884c5f6","argument":"If by omnipotence we mean a being who can do any logically possible thing, but not break the laws of logic, it is possible to remain all-good while also willing God's existence. However, if by omnipotence we mean a being who can also break the laws of logic, it is also possible to remain all-good while also willing God's existence. Thus, on either interpretation, it is possible for an all-powerful God to be all-good while willing evil's existence.","conclusion":"If God is all-powerful, then he would be powerful enough to remain all-good while also willing evil's existence."}
{"id":"0f2cd03a-050c-4e19-9ebf-7db287aeddf0","argument":"Because the wealthy are taxed at substantially larger amounts it is only fair that they get a proportional return.","conclusion":"Wealthy people should have more decision-making power over who runs the government."}
{"id":"4cf8ca77-339f-48da-b718-37f20316cd91","argument":"\"Jesus is the Messiah\" is to certain extents falsifiable. If it can be proven that the accounts of Jesus are unreliable guides to his life, then Jesus as the Messiah would be proven false.","conclusion":"The Messiah is described in terms of requirements which are themselves falsifiable, even without assuming a supernatural or inspired nature of the scriptures."}
{"id":"59e81e0b-06b1-41d4-ac2f-21f10e63eda4","argument":"I say this because there are obvious and significant biological differences between a person who was born a certain gender and someone who has converted to a certain gender. What they have done to their bodies isn't natural and theres no reason we should consider it as natural. Why should an person not make a distinction between a transsexual and a person who is in their natural gender? sorry if the phrasing is a bit off, I couldn't really think of the appropriate terms I believe it is an important distinction that has to be made and making it should not be considered 'bigotry' or whatever pejorative that is used. This distinction is especially important when it comes to things such as dating and other sexual relations. And, it should not be considered politically incorrect to make such a distinction.","conclusion":"I believe that Transsexuals cannot be truly considered as their preferred gender."}
{"id":"89f27ee7-58aa-4181-8ac5-0bb64c646806","argument":"The Roman Catholic Church considers an abortion \"a grave moral wrong\"; in Sikhism abortion if forbiden; Hinduism is opposed to it, except where it is necessary to save the mother; Islam regards abortion as wrong and forbidden though with vital exceptions and Judaism only permits it for serious reasons.","conclusion":"In a lot of cases, even if individual believers do not think abortion is wrong, their religious teachings say otherwise."}
{"id":"0c9762f2-083c-4587-b87d-fd4522c502f5","argument":"During a self defence class I attended, the instructor demonstrated several techniques for women to use when attacked by a rapist. He explained that the positions a male rapist would need to assume to rape a female victim are actually extremely vulnerable from a ground fighting perspective. Correctly applied Brazilian jui jitsu would use the attacker's weight against him and provide an opportunity for the victim to attack the eyes, usually and then escape. I'm not a martial arts expert but if this is all true, then girls should be taught to defend themselves from rape and assault, possibly in their early teens. It's not a panacea for sexual violence, I admit, but it will empower women physically and be an effective deterrent. Edit Found a Youtube video with the kind of techniques I'm talking about","conclusion":"To combat rape and counteract the general physical advantage men have over women, girls should be taught self-defence at school, specifically anti-rape techniques."}
{"id":"4737eef3-6bc8-46b2-8f3f-1414c7d130cc","argument":"If churches needed to pay taxes, they would need more income to pay these. This can result in churches pressuring people to donate or even making it a rule that you have to pay to get into the church.","conclusion":"If churches were stripped of their legal status as charities, they would require a new legal designation, and likely gain corporate status, which would result in a variety of harms."}
{"id":"423a5af9-4388-4fa8-95cb-3919a166f995","argument":"For legal immigrants, it takes years of process, stringent requirements and specific circumstance, and no guaranty of success. Now DACA is requesting a citizenship just because their parents chose to break the law?","conclusion":"Granting DREAMers citizenship is unfair to those waiting to come here legally."}
{"id":"67d65390-f7d8-480b-804a-d93ec88927cd","argument":"NPA raised due to loan granted by UPA government to companies which are not capable. This is a big fraud happened with indian banking system. Modi government try to short out this big problem.Fact Check: Modi on NPAs, Economic Growth and Democracy","conclusion":"Modi's government has been significantly interfering with the running of state governments, undermining India's federal structure."}
{"id":"c917b311-4de1-45f9-9169-3d5c304ccb5a","argument":"This is a view which is very much out of vogue within today's scientific community, but it's an idea that has historically been embraced by many great thinkers, including but not limited to, Karl Popper, William James, John Eccles, Max Planck, Erwin Schr\u00f6dinger, Eugene Wigner, and others. There are two main branches of argument in favor of this hypothesis that I find persuading. The first is arguments that deal with the so called 'explanatory gap' or 'hard problem' of consciousness. David Chalmers gives some of the clearest arguments in favor of the reality of the hard problem, and why it implies a non brain generated consciousness. Many of his papers are hosted on his site here For a briefer introduction to his ideas, Closer to Truth offers a good interview with him. The second branch is arguments that propose a model of the brain as a localizer and filter of consciousness, instead of a generator. Chris Carter gives a good overview of this model of the mind brain relationship, and offers a rebuttal to a skeptical reply of his overview. 1 2 I think author Bernardo Kastrup makes the clearest arguments in favor of this model, and offers several lines of evidence in support of it. He makes his case in the first article of this journal He's also received and responded to criticisms of his hypothesis from Christof Kock and Steven Novella on his blog, neither of whom seemed to adequately address his points, from my point of view. 1 2 3 4 5 6","conclusion":"I believe that consciousness is not generated by the brain, but a fundamental aspect of the universe."}
{"id":"b8e0fa1c-2ead-4eb9-92cf-6650f10252c9","argument":"My message to world is that there is no growth you can only or best get from bad or difficult experiences. They don't need not be negative, the difficult ones, but they're not the best. I have romanticised and sought out many bad things like homeless drugs,hookers, gambling and mental illness, crime and sex and there's nothing special there, no greater meaning or learning inherent there, more than you can attribute to anything else and they're even shit tools for promoting u to get there. They just landmines. Polite society does talk down these groups but not as much as commensurate with how bad they are cause some people beyond saving and just don't want them feel inferior on top of that, they don't even get to know this truth out of our pity.","conclusion":"Growth - Negative experiences don't teach you anything you'd be better off learning another way or not learning at all"}
{"id":"85e95e07-7379-43db-952c-68d0c3d2b354","argument":"Anything and everything by The White Stripes is overplayed and should never appear the on radio television movies ever again, especially Seven Nation Army which I hear about three times a day on the radio I'm forced to listen to at work. However, it should be allowed in this one specific scenario. When an International competition Olympics World Cup etc. is having a Quarterfinal round, there are obviously 8 nations competing, which means 7 nations other than the one the music is being played for. This song should only be allowed in these very specific circumstances due to it being both topical and correct. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Seven Nation Army by The White Stripes should only ever be played at Quarterfinal matches\/rounds for International level competitions."}
{"id":"04c9d9f0-70c4-44e8-b848-561ea6b413e7","argument":"FGM is done solely to restrict female sexuality and play into ideas of 'purity' and 'modesty'. Circumcision is done to fulfil a religious practice and \/ or to provide health benefits.","conclusion":"Female genital mutilation is bad because it is motivated by misogynistic social structures that use it to oppress women. The same is not true for male circumcision."}
{"id":"4cea66d5-4485-4907-ba44-ffacd11e4b23","argument":"VIEWPOINT If I was given stock in Facebook and Twitter when I enter Congress and every day I am in office I get an additional share, it would create an obvious conflict of interest. That would not only be disclosable under House Ethics Guidelines it would be disallowed as disclosure alone would be insufficient to overcome the potential conflict that would arise if, for example, I needed to vote on the regulation of those same social media companies. Just like stock, social media followers are monetizable not just by the platforms, but by the person being followed. Someone with millions of followers can get paid for posts and for the advertising that is streamed through her feed. This creates a similarly perverse incentive as the example of receiving an equity interest in the social media company. x200B Obviously, there are 1st amendment rights and other practical aspects of existing in our society. For example, getting paid for speeches after one leaves office should be and is legal. I'm not saying that legislators shouldn't accrue followers while in office, merely that they should forfeit those followers they gain in office when they leave office. Some might argue that the creation of a separate government ID is sufficient as it creates a firewall for content. While I agree with this for compliance with ethics guidelines for communication, I don't think it dispenses with the significant conflict as they still own those accounts and can convert them to private, monetizable accounts when they leave office. x200B WHY THIS MATTERS One thing that seems to be true regardless of media type and outlet controversy drives attention. If someone has a choice between creating consensus and losing social media followers or creating controversy which increases one's follower count, the perversity of getting paid on those followers when one leaves office incentivizes controversy and de incentivizes finding the more boring middle path of compromise. And I believe this is a bad thing in a representative democracy. x200B EDIT 1 DAY LATER HOW MUCH A SOCIAL MEDIA FOLLOWING IS WORTH If you're unaware of just how much someone with millions of followers can make, here's an example. We're not talking about a few thousand bucks. That wouldn't be a big much of a conflict. But that's not the case. Conservatively, someone with an active instagram following of 3mm followers could make upwards of 100k per post on average . So do the math, 100 posts per year and you're talking millions annually . x200B EDIT 1 DAY LATER APPLICATION OF EXISTING ETHICAL GUIDELINES TO OFFICEHOLDER SOCIAL MEDIA FOLLOWERSHIP Most governmental bodies have codes of ethics and rules. And most of these I would say virtually all have some variation on The US House Rule 23 gt A Member, Delegate, Resident Commissioner, officer, or employee of the House may not receive compensation and may not permit compensation to accrue to the beneficial interest of such individual from any source, the receipt of which would occur by virtue of influence improperly exerted from the position of such individual in Congress. There are usually rules about how one goes about negotiating for employment or compensation such as in US House Rule 27 But in both cases for those rules to apply, there needs to be an understanding about the nature of compensation. Usually this is not driven from inside the organization, but through the pointed demands of those on the outside. In the case of the monetization there is no incentive for the House or Senate or others to clarify that social media followers accrued in office count towards a members compensation. But I believe they should for the reasons I stated in my .","conclusion":"Social Media followers accrued while in office are a significant conflict of interest and should be forfeit once a person leaves office."}
{"id":"2fa93746-b58e-424b-b6bb-c5db573c644f","argument":"For the record, I have only been permabanned from three or four subs I don't remember an exact number . T D and L S C, cause, well and a couple others for reasons that I would argue that the moderators didn't do their jobs well. Now, this isn't a rant against moderators, but I do think they can be lazy in making decisions, which is part of my issue. I recently was banned for a sub for breaking one of their rule on gatekeeping. I disagree that I had broken the rule as I explained myself in my comment albeit in a limited manner, I was on my phone and in more detail in responses to my comment. I was given the response by a mod that I had broken their rule and it states in there rule that an immediate permaban is how they handle these issues. Here is my  topic Unless a rule is universal across reddit e.g. doxing then a permaban should not be allowed for first offenses. Each subreddit has different rules, rules are usually not clearly defined and at times hard to even locate especially on mobile devices . If a moderator's job is to make the experience of a subreddit more 'enjoyable' for users, permabans for vague or borderline offenses is not accomplishing the goal.","conclusion":"Moderators should not be allowed to permaban on subreddits for first offenses."}
{"id":"1ff11889-5895-4ca9-a4f2-130f7d44c04a","argument":"Punishment for the most violent and heinous of law breaking behavior exists to act as a deterrent to prevent the behavior from occurring in the first place. In the US, punishment for the most violent act murder often results in life in prison or a lethal injection two extremely undesirable results for the vast majority of humanity. Two obvious subgroups that are probably not affected by the deterrent are suicidal individuals think Columbine or mentally ill individuals think Jared Lee Loughner . While a significant amount of mass murderers, terrorists, etc. may fall under this umbrella, I don't think it's fair to say that every single individual has and or that every single individual is either suicidal or mentally ill. My view Assuming not all mass murderers are suicidal mentally ill and assuming that torture we can discuss length later is a less desirable outcome than life in prison or lethal injection, I believe we can rationally reach the conclusion that the threat of being tortured as punishment for the most heinous of crimes could potentially deter such crimes from happening. I also believe that if the possibility of torture as punishment saved even one innocent life in the form of a murder not taking place , then it is worthwhile. Let me clarify a few things I don't like torture. In fact, I hate it. But I hate the death of innocent people even more. What we have is a classic trade off the threat of, and possible use of, torture on an individual guilty of the most heinous crimes in exchange for innocent lives being saved. I am not advocating torture as punishment because they deserve it. I'm advocating that the mere threat of torture and possible use the threat must be real as possible punishment can prevent some of these crimes from happening in the future. In anticipating the counterarguments, I will leave you with this I don't know if the system can ever logistically work. How do we know if someone is 100 guilty? How do we know if someone is truly functioning at full mental capacity? What exactly does heinous mean? How many people must someone kill before the threshold for torture as punishment is reached? I don't know these are all subjectively determined, and we can discuss in the comments. But let's attack the principle I have laid out first the threat of torture as punishment in order to prevent extreme homicidal events from occurring is potentially a net gain to society change my view","conclusion":"I believe that torture as potential punishment for the most heinous of crimes can save innocent lives."}
{"id":"3ba8b319-1c5e-456c-8d3c-e84e436223ed","argument":"Health secretary, Matt Hancock has set up a trade and readiness support unit to lessen the impact of any potential negative effects Brexit may have on the supply of medications.","conclusion":"A 'no-deal' scenario would likely not be as damaging as people believe."}
{"id":"55ae97fb-584d-4493-9617-97cd156e2d3e","argument":"There is a theory which states that if a villain from one Universe ends up in another, and the heroes of that world fight it, they cannot defeat it unless they use what the villain is weak against. Saitama, has no weakness because he has already broken his limit.","conclusion":"Saitama is the most powerful fantasy hero and would win in last entity standing style free for all."}
{"id":"6cbba1d0-f909-4eae-a863-321917d40b98","argument":"The proof of anything, e.g., the existence of God, should be based on hard physical or experimental evidence if it were to be scientific. From the scientific point of view, reasoning or theory is insufficient; the theory needs to be backed by physical or experimental evidence, e.g., in physics the Higgs boson had been predicted many years ago & it had only recently been detected through physical experiment resulting in a Nobel Prize. There\u2019s no such physical evidence of God\u2019s existence.","conclusion":"The classical definition of God is contradictory or incoherent, and thus God cannot in principle exist."}
{"id":"af9f69b7-00c0-4f58-b0fb-7d0ceaf75124","argument":"The ownership of important businesses by sovereign wealth funds runs counter to the economic policy pursued by almost every government over the past 25 years. In the 1970s many states owned nationalised industries as part of an attempt at socialist economic planning that has now been discredited. State ownership distorted incentives, interfered with management and produced decades of underinvestment, poor service to consumers, and national economic failure. Since the 1980s countries everywhere have followed the example of Thatcher\u2019s Britain and privatised their industries, freeing them to compete efficiently and to generate more wealth and jobs than they had ever done in state hands. Going back to state ownership of business is a dangerous backward step, especially as it is now foreign governments that are doing the nationalising.","conclusion":"The ownership of important businesses by sovereign wealth funds runs counter to the economic policy ..."}
{"id":"555d0c68-4a26-44ae-8412-513b9c1970df","argument":"The National Anthem holds no real relation to the United States military. It doesn't represent their sacrifices or how millions of men and women dying in lands thousands of miles away correlates to preserving free speech.","conclusion":"Neither the national anthem nor football games have anything to do with American servicemen or women."}
{"id":"23fda890-5b95-40d9-9fc6-468ddfed160c","argument":"Empathy is a key element in functional generosity, with class divides showing very rigid and self-perpetuating tendencies; ie, our current class divisions continue to widen as those in different classes empathise more strongly with those at a similar level, and find it harder to empathise with the opposite viewpoint.","conclusion":"Statistically poor people actually give a much higher percentage of their income than wealthy people - likely, because they can better empathise with the needy."}
{"id":"19d84232-b6bd-44e0-b9b6-948f59ca9627","argument":"There is an important need to apply God's eternal truth in a quickly changing world. Living prophets who commune with God can guide His people in our dynamic time.","conclusion":"Living Prophets: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the only Church led by a living prophet today."}
{"id":"4900a5b6-4bc9-47da-a3ff-6e7648d10278","argument":"Sexuality denotes a subtype of personal preference. We may not be able to control our preferences, nor should we be forced to change them to fit others' standards, but we wouldn't say we were 'born that way' about any other type of preference. We are born with anatomical structures, and sometimes disorders. Sexuality isn't an anatomical structure. LGBT isn't a disorder. Therefore it's inaccurate, and knowingly pedalling inaccuracies, even with good intent, is wrong, and usually turns out badly.","conclusion":"'Born This Way' is too simplistic and it is incorrect to campaign as though sexuality and by extension, gender are inherent, and often binary concepts, rather than social constructs."}
{"id":"b4ce15ec-f652-4970-9d01-26eb73884313","argument":"Humans are uniquely capable of acting immorally, so capable of assuming a moral inferiority to animals.","conclusion":"Humans can do wrong so can be morally inferior to animals"}
{"id":"baee4bd3-1ff6-4965-af83-7171823a8104","argument":"Raising animals in confinement, deprived of sunlight, natural soil and freedom to move, is cruel and against their nature.","conclusion":"The common practices underlying the production of meat massive livestock farming are unethical."}
{"id":"6dfca75a-9eb8-4d53-bed0-9e4d24b70e15","argument":"Fanatics do not care what you can prove or debate: engaging with them is how their views are popularised The objective is to not let disenfranchised, vulnerable people be radicalized into what appears to other people as completely ludicrous ideas.","conclusion":"Unfortunately, allowing bigots to say whatever they like doesn't mean they can be 'defeated in verbal combat'. Often, the opposite is more the case."}
{"id":"c78b57e9-28fc-46ba-8e39-42259f34f897","argument":"President Trump is presenting a picture of a nation that is abandoning its commitments to other nations and seeking only its own wellbeing. He is showing the world a nation that rejects refugees and others in need, even when those populations add great value to our society.","conclusion":"Removal of Trump will help global perception of the US."}
{"id":"1e2547b4-ff11-482a-87a5-7a411a283a1e","argument":"All chicken wings are not created equal. I prefer the flats, for a few reasons Better meat to skin ratio Let's be honest, chicken wings are largely a vehicle for tasty sauces and crispy chicken skin the meat is just an added bonus. And since the flat has a bit less meat, you get qualitatively better bites from each wing. Less gristle Flats tend to have less inedible parts to them, they're mostly skin, with some meat and less bone. The drummies tend to have more connective tissue, and parts that are difficult to eat. Meat texture The meat on the flats comes off in strips. It generally comes off the bone easier, and that bit between the bones is more fun to eat. It is also more moist, which becomes especially noticeable when ordering them extra crispy as I am a man of culture and refinement . Drummies have more variation, with some parts of the wing tasting dry, and others tasting undercooked Skin Texture This is, in my opinion, the foremost reason flats are better. The skin is of even thickness and texture, which forms a nice crispy shell around the meat bone inside. By contrast, the drummies' skin is of varied thickness and texture. Like the meat, some parts are dry, while others taste undercooked. Honestly, the only argument I have for preferring drumsticks is that they're easier to dip eat. In theory, you could eat them one handed, which is virtually impossible to do with flats. But chicken wings are an inherently messy food, and part of the joy of eating them comes from it being a visceral, primal experience similar to eating BBQ ribs, or a T bone steak , One handed wing eating just seems wrong. I'm sure there are some reasons to prefer the drummies, so go ahead, . gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Regarding chicken wings, \"flats\" are superior to the drumstick"}
{"id":"11392a66-679e-46d2-b531-565d2d75b068","argument":"Let me start by saying I\u2019m an ex Muslim woman and I have my issues with Islam, particularly certain teachings around gender roles so I\u2019m not arguing that Islam is above criticism in any way. I think there are good arguments to be made against the faith or at least certain strands of the faith. The problem I have with Western non Muslim critics is that their arguments are so often lazy and not well thought. They typically come out of a very shallow understanding of Islam where they\u2019ll point to violent versus and say, \u201cwell the Quran says this, so Islam must prescribe this\u201d. This is a very simplistic approach to understanding the way Islam works. For one, the Quran is not that easy to understand and there are many ambiguities and contradictions if you were to read it literally. And Islam, itself, is a tradition that has developed many schools and systems to interpret the Quran. Literalism is just one interpretive method but it isn\u2019t the only method. There have been schools of thought that advocated incorporating science and rational thinking into interpreting scripture. There are other systems that emphasise the importance of understanding context. For example, Asb\u0101b al nuz\u016bl or the occasion of revelation which is about understanding the culture and period within which each verse was revealed. These are not modern new ideas by the way, they have existed for hundreds of years. And the thing about Islam is that there is no central authority to say which school of thought is the most authentic so it is unfair to say some Muslims are more authentic than others. What\u2019s most frustrating about this is that these are lazy arguments made by people that consider themselves rational thinkers eg. Sam Harris, Ayaan Hirsi Ali etc. Anyway I\u2019m open to changing my mind, if people can point to these criticisms being grounded in evidence but I just don\u2019t see it. TL DR, To generalise Islam, a religion practiced by over a billion people in many different ways and with no guiding authority, is lazy and makes no sense.","conclusion":"Most criticisms of Islam from non Muslims are lazy and incoherent"}
{"id":"c7b1a26b-26a8-44f6-9f06-c3ff751cd37e","argument":"According to Charles Darwin only humans can blush which reveals the depth of social thought and innovative mechanisms to keep society together.","conclusion":"Humans are exhibiting different characteristics than animals and therewith can be considered unique."}
{"id":"5e2803c7-cf71-414b-ae76-9bed72a75553","argument":"There are several good reasons why I think this Products that can be made synthetically can be made much, much cheaper. This would push marijuana out of the market simply by how many gram of THC you could get per dollar. Weed just couldn't compete with pills on this front. You think people are going to take the time to buy weed which is ridiculously expensive and bong when they could simply take the drug orally? I doubt it. 2.It avoids the problem of ROS released into the blood upon inhalation of smoke. This will help negate all the negative health problems associated with marijuana while keeping all the important ones. This would also negate the issues with bad weed grown in bad soil that could potentially soak up toxic metals or other chemicals from their roots. 4.The amount of second hand smoke getting into the lungs of children and other people from those smoking. Imagine how many dumb parents would smoke with their kids in the car with them. You could get a good estimate of how much you're actually taking in. You can get a pretty good idea of the actual dose you're taking with pills, when smoking the dose depends on several different variables. For the hippies and gen Xers who say you have to have the right combo of thc and cbd or you'll get anxiety dude or whatever, with pills you could get any ratio you want. Even in cases of people who just can't take pills they could easily make some kind of oil that would work like normal vape oil.","conclusion":"It would be just as good, if not better to legalize THC pills\/marinol rather than weed itself."}
{"id":"9c874b49-f889-4d30-b755-2d58bba7db90","argument":"A more diverse workforce creates more choices for hiring, making it easier for small businesses to find workers and for big businesses to expand.","conclusion":"Open borders would stimulate the economy of the host country"}
{"id":"3093b32d-4bcb-4658-9c10-518b34ba1980","argument":"a link to read about him To put it short, Heinrich Himmler was Reichsf\u00fchrer of the Schutzstaffel, which you can pretty much think of as the head of the German military during Nazi Germany times. He was appointed by Hitler, and carried out his position for over a decade. He set up the concentration camps, extermination camps, and many more cruel things. He was the director of the massacre of around six million jews, and other races. He was one of the main perpetrators which set forth the aryan race idea.Ultimately, he was the one who set the plans that made the Holocaust a reality. Now you may be thinking, That's horrible, but why is he the worst ever? I thought Hitler was worse Hitler was horrible as well, but I think Himmler is worse for many reasons. First, he held almost as much power as Hitler. Although he wasn't as powerful as Adolf, he was one of the most powerful Nazi's, some historians would even say he was second. He was head of the SS, which if you read any Holocaust story I believe they are mentioned in Anne Franks Diary you would now how damn cruel they were Secondly, he was more personal than Hitler. Hitler was the main guy, the leader, and one everyone associates with the death of over 10,000 people. However, he only ordered this to happen. Himmler was the man who did the deed. By running the camps, he is who's responsible for the nightmares of the gas chambers you've heard about. Not only was he a ruthless executioner, but he was a psychopathic experimenter, conditioning tests on prisoners that were more or less torture. He actually did the deed, while Hitler simply ordered it. I recommend you check out this site to see the deeds Himmler committed. That is why I believe Heinrich Himmler was the most evil man to walk the Earth. P.S. You don't have to respond with just another Nazi example, but with any example of someone you think is worse than Himmler. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Heinrich Himmler was the worst person to ever live"}
{"id":"a35ba593-43cb-4c1e-a76a-f4d76c6b2608","argument":"Despite promises in his 100-day action plan Trump has still failed to place complete lifetime bans on foreign lobbyists raising money for American elections.","conclusion":"Many of the political promises that Trump made have failed to deliver any results."}
{"id":"bcd99e50-7854-43a4-bde4-d553ba1db83c","argument":"Some citizens don\u2019t just have political differences with the current government, but are fundamentally opposed to the democratic state and are willing to use violence against state and society. To protect itself, society and most importantly, the lives of other citizens, it\u2019s necessary for a government to sometimes want to keep a close eye on some of their own citizens. A democratically elected government has both the authority and the legitimacy to order such surveillance, and can be held accountable for the way in which it uses its powers.","conclusion":"Some citizens don\u2019t just have political differences with the current government, but are fundamental..."}
{"id":"3d68210d-eb8d-4b51-b0ae-25601398d6ec","argument":"With higher wages from the job guarantee, fewer households may qualify for the Earned Income Tax Credit For instance, those without dependents working full-time would no longer qualify, while those with dependents would be more likely to see EITC benefits reduced as they phase out of the program due to higher earnings.","conclusion":"The jobs guarantee programme would reduce the dependence upon and need to fund programs for the working poor such as food stamps, Medicaid, and the Children's Health Insurance Program."}
{"id":"ca189793-28ba-471c-ba76-ff1a9594e682","argument":"People are more likely to walk on edible plots vs lawns, because of the necessity to pick crops. Due to the variety of plants, people may trip on vines and other ground-level crops while going to pick them.","conclusion":"Edible landscapes can be dangerous and a hazard to those who go near it."}
{"id":"72808ff0-645e-4df2-a37d-174386e80309","argument":"I used to be a fan of IRV, because it seemed to make sense, and be similar to normal voting, just with backups. As I've looked into it further though it seems too opaque, and too prone to weirdness, to be a substantial improvement. This article covers the basic problems well Instead I've gravitated towards Range Voting, which just means every candidate that reaches some required threshold can run, and every voter can give each candidate a score say 0 9 or 99 and at the end, whichever candidate with the most points highest average these are the same as I understand it wins. It seems though that IRV is more well known popular, so I'm open to the idea that Range has some big flaw I've missed, or IRV is less problematic more advantageous than I think. I'm going to try to unpack some of the discussion, the points made, and my qualms with them here. The basic points touched on are why I don't think there would be only 2 viable candidates, and why people could and would give multiple candidates top scores, especially if they felt their true favorite had low odds of winning, the position that Range Voting rewards and encourages Strategic Voting less than most methods, and that even its Stategic Voting expresses more, and more honest opinions of the voter than FPTP or IRV, the assertion that normal voting behavior under Range Voting will naturally prevent unknown lunatics from winning, and my belief that the advantages of Range over Approval voting outweigh the potential downsides. Finally I suggest a system of proxy Range Voting and it's effects on campaign rhetoric, strategy, and positioning. Here we go. The assumption that 2 major candidate would emerge, or that people would give low rankings 0s to candidates they like, but perceive as unlikely to win these are related, because the later reinforces, and leads to the former This doesn't make sense. If you believe your favorite choice to be unlikely to win, you can still happily give them a top score, and hedge by giving your favorite viable candidate a top score as well, sharing the top score would only mean you've failed to make your actual favorite more likely to win if it came down to that and your viable backup , you've done nothing to help your least favorite candidate s or hurt your favorite or your back up in relation to the rest of the candidats. If you were wrong about your favorite candidates chances, you could be pleasantly surprised to have helped elect them. If you were correct and the masses disapprove of them heartily, then your top score helps keep them from being quite so soundly defeated, while your top score for a viable candidate keeps your vote useful in determining the eventual winner beating out those you don't want, and therefore rated low or 0 . Because of this dynamic, several strong candidates from each position could emerge, only competing for attention funding, not votes, what's more, candidates could be surprisingly strong not by representing 1 faction, but by carefully blending the positions of many factions, while also establishing a personal brand of compromise, capability, and someone who uses the right tools, no matter which party's name is on them and win by not being hated by anyone, and having some folks in the center to really like them, while candidates from both sides slug it out and get dragged down by the oppositions low scores. Because so many potential position combinations could be viable, two obvious frontrunners would be unlikely or at least, no more likely than 1, or 3, or 5 . Range Voting punishes honest voting First, obviously so does FPTP, and almost as much IRV. The reason for this is simple. If 4 candidates are running, Called Radical Left, Center Left, Center Right, and Radical Right RL, CL, CR, RR All my fancy formatting disappeared when published leaving a mess, so here's an image showing the results In this case, just 1 voter who was between RL and CL deciding to put CL first instead of RL would have resulted in the election of CL instead of CR. This means that anytime a non major party candidate gains too much in the polls they have at least as good a chance of causing their opposed major party to win as to win themselves, much like the typical FPTP spoiler problem. Note that Radical Left lost by 4 points, even though the Left had a voter advantage of 3 points, and even the centrists overwhelmingly broke Left when choosing CL vs CR, so this represents a high point for the Left, yet the Center Right runs away with it because of non strategic voting. This result then would encourage strategic voting enough to keep 3rd parties out, just like FPTP. That's the gist of what my link got at. To respond directly to the Range Voting punishes honest voting though, is more complex. Since different voter strategies can result in quite different candidate strengths a broadly popular centrist liberal might seem strong, but a lot of far left folks figure this is the election to win and their main obstacle is the popular centrist, they could bullet vote their candidate top score to them, 0 to everyone else and potentially win sure, but they might end up giving the election to a moderate conservative because that side went for approval voting every acceptable candidate gets a top score, the rest get 0 and boosts the score of a reasonably well liked, but lacking in vocal support candidate since the lefties got overconfident and tanked their candidate with broad appeal, they could even lose out to pure honest voters if enough of the moderate liberals supporters consider the leftists candidate to be as worrisome as the capable moderate conservative, and a lot of conservatives at least like that candidate enough. It depends on how many leftists there are, just how unified they can make their bullet vote, and how surprisingly well broadly liked the moderate conservative is, all of which could be very hard to poll with much accuracy. Essentially my argument against Range Voting doing much to encourage strategic voting is that in the real world, doing so would be just so hard and fraught with risk that people wouldn't bother, this is unlike IRV or FPTP where both the method put most viable candidate you can stomach on the top of your ballot and the effect avoid accidentally helping your least favorite candidate get elected is clear. No one can wonder if by strategically choosing to put Clinton over Stein on a IRV ballot they've actually helped a less desirable candidate get elected. Put differently, different strategic votes can accomplish different things, but because the landscape of the election is much harder to predict which one is right for any particular election until after the fact, and honest voting tends to split the difference, as in, if it really IS a big year for leftists, and you can convince enough voters to place the far left candidate on top, even though they aren't MUCH higher than the moderate leftist, they could win after all, especially if the other side goes for approval voting, thereby eliminating the moderate lefty's advantage from the right, and if the year isn't quite as good as you thought, you've just elected the moderate lefty instead of the moderate righty. So advantage to the honest lefty voters over the strategic righties in that case. Approval Voting is better because people can't accidentally weaken their vote This also addresses the argument that Approval Voting is better because it doesn't allow people to weaken their vote. My main response to that is to say that only by restricting the maximum range of scores given to viable candidates can you dilute your vote, and while this might happen some, there's no reason to think it would only happen to one side, and thus distort the election much if that were the case, that side would likely quickly correct that mistake for the next go round and indeed Approval Voting is essentially one of the strategic voting options available, if you value defining a threshold candidates much get past to be elected over maximizing the odds of your favorite candidate being elected bullet FPTP style or some hybrid of the two honest voting, with enough strategy to give your favorite viable candidate full points, and your least favorite viable candidate 0 points, along with all your loved and hated non viable candidates getting appropriate top and bottom scores, and those you're less passionate about arranged in between by how much you like them, regardless of apparent viability. An argument I've seen a bit of is that fringe candidates could win by being unknown, but I've also seen people say that giving unknown candidates a 0 is dishonest, and leaving them unranked in IRV is better Unranked is equivalent to bottom ranked, or a 0 in Range voting, so IRV still doesn't win out on this metric But I would say the two problems cancel out, if the average voter hasn't heard of a candidate, that candidate shouldn't be elected, no matter how much their supporters love them, because that's how you get fringe crazies, so a lot of folks defaulting to 0s for unknowns is basically an immune response to crazies for the Range Voting system. There's also been a suggestion that outliers could throw off the results, but I really don't get that argument, since the biggest possible outlier would just be a bullet vote, which gets back to the strategic voting section, and the fact that, yes, an outlier bullet vote could distort the election, the the effect of that distortion would be difficult to determine ahead of time, and an opposite outlier broad approval voting for most candidates, but leaving out a few, anti bullet voting if you will would cancel it out. This, the large number of votes cast, and the fact that other voters would be inclined to respond to indications that one faction isn't supportive of any other candidates by isolating that faction, reducing their chances of winning and if your bullet vote outlier doesn't succeed, you've thrown out your vote, and the outlier is no more . Proxy Range Voting My final thought is on Proxy Voting, which would alleviate some of these concerns, while also adding an interesting dynamic to the race. The idea is that candidates and even non candidates could publish their scores for all the other candidates, updates as they learn more about them, as they strike deals, as they listen to their supporters opinion of the other candidates, and then those scores would be locked in on election day, and voters could choose to pass some or all of their scoring choices to their trusted candidate, i.e. scoring those candidates the voter knows and cares about, and leaving the rest up to their top pick or someone else i suppose . Candidates would have strong incentive not to vote in any classically strategic way, since each point up or down that they give another candidate could represent large swings for those other candidates, helping or hurting them a lot in close races. and so those points could be leveraged to extract concessions, reward even staunch foes for movement in the right direction, and to build bridges between diverse factions. Voters might well take cues from these scores even if they down just let their Proxy pick the scores, looking for candidates that are broadly liked by the other candidates, and then looking at who THOSE candidates are scoring high and low. I have the notion that this exchange of relative strength between competitors would improve the campaign rhetoric, since attacking other factions could hurt you by lowering your score with their voters even if it's dropping from 20 10 99 it could be enough to cost you the win in a tight race and praising them, even if they're mostly opposed to you, could achieve small but significant gains. It's not just a matter of convincing people at the margins and turning out your base, it's about building support across the political spectrum or at least that would be one effective method for winning, which under FPTP and IRV is a recipe for a respectable but thorough loss, unless you can get a lot of first choice, or at least fairly high rank votes. Being loved on one side, and respected on the other could also be an effective path, but polarizing candidates would have a hard time of it, unless their pole is considerably larger than the other it's fair to assume there'd be a center other poll that would be turned off by your partisanship and would prefer a less polarizing candidate from the other side of the aisle, or one who is more eclectic in their positions. I've not changed the overall position as stated in the title, but I'm definitely refining both my ideas of how the system could be set up, and how to address clarify the concerns people have about it. Thanks to all for bringing up the issues as you see them.","conclusion":"Instant Runoff Voting is only slightly better than First Past the Post, Range\/Score Voting is a vast improvement."}
{"id":"a87da44a-62a4-489a-8826-9f0fd750dd25","argument":"The United Nations, as the institution that formed and maintains the Geneva Conventions and other restrictions on warfare, is able to use its structures to punish states that do not adhere to its protocols. The International Criminal Court, established by the Rome Statute of 1998, is able to prosecute those specific persons who are charged with war crimes. Such defendants, if convicted, can be ordered to pay the victims. Furthermore, the International Court of Justice is able to bring cases against specific states that are clearly identified as having broken the protocols of war. As such, the United Nations is both legally and institutionally capable of ensuring that the dictates of the Geneva Conventions are upheld, specifically the right of a combatant captured in a conflict zone to be granted prisoner of war status. While this would provide a degree of protection for captured terrorists, it also means that terrorist organizations are subject to standards of conduct in war. Making them subject to the Geneva Conventions would uphold an incentive of restraint which might sometimes influence their conduct.","conclusion":"The United Nations can punish those states who refuse to subject its prisoners of war to the Geneva Conventions"}
{"id":"0d4d8b6f-944a-49b6-ad14-b257e757ea9c","argument":"EDIT My view has done been changed. Here I suppose I should say that this is mainly directed to shift workers. Salaried folk need not apply, although I think a case could be made for them as well. I understand the reasons an honest employer would like me to arrive a bit early for work. It means that I can start working right at the appointed time. It gives them a bit of peace of mind to know that everyone is present and accounted for before the shift starts, and if everyone makes an effort to get in the door a little early, it lowers the chances of stragglers coming in late. What I'm not a fan of at all is managers or employers requiring me to walk in the door before the appointed time that my shift starts. The kind that will recite such managerial gems like If you're early you're on time. If you're on time, you're late or If your 5 minute early, You're 10 minutes late. This is especially bad in my industry, the live event theater world. I've had more than a few stage managers insist that I should arrive in the theater 30 45 minutes before the call time. I'm unsure as to what would change my view. I feel like it's pretty solid. If you aren't paying me, you can't expect me to show up early and work.","conclusion":"Arriving 5 - 10 minutes early for work is a kindness that employees should extend to their employers. Not a requirement that employers should expect of their employees"}
{"id":"2a729f73-5b35-45cf-873e-11186fc4eed4","argument":"Not all black people are like this but the black people who acts like their stereotype should not be entitled to call anyone racist because the fact is they are the racist ones, they are the people who constantly bring down their own culture, they are why people don't want to associate with them. Now I'm not saying all blacks are like this, but the ones who are obnoxiously loud where ever they go, don't work, call every white person rackets because they won't bend over backwards for them, and they ones who just act like the stereotype. White people shouldn't be held accountable for them, and their actions. Cmv Disclaimer I am we'll aware that not every one acts like this and by no means is singling out the whole race. Just they ones who try not to be decent human beings and constantly blame white people for their problems. And by no means is saying white people are complexity innocent either.","conclusion":"Don't be your stereotype"}
{"id":"5f98debd-473a-452b-9493-894996dd6a98","argument":"I've seen a lot of people saying it's ok to bar nazis and MAGA enthusiasts from holding rallies or demonstrations. I get it. What they believe and are encouraging others to believe is inherently violent and oppressive. But, hear me out, they are still Americans. Like it or not, they have the same rights as you and me. If we want to uphold those rights in their purest form for everyone, including you and me and our future children, keeping speech truly free and open for any future social debates or conversations we might need or want to have, we MUST entertain their right to speak their minds. With this, there is the obvious concern. What if they attract more people to their belief? What if they embolden people who have been harboring these vile ideas in private to join ranks and speak out themselves? To this I say, fine. Let us know exactly who is susceptible to this line of thinking. Let us get numbers and statistics. Let us study them and understand why and what made them feel this way. This is only doable with open communication, as with any relationship. But let us not drown them out, force them back into hiding, make them feel as if their only option to express themselves is by festering in small communities where they can indoctrinate generations of children. They'll only continue to exist, out of sight and out of mind, until a similar economic crisis or misinformation debacle occurs when they feel they have enough sway to convince more people that they have the solution to their problems. They'll be back. To counter the fear that their ideas will spread, we must encourage and trust individuals to think for themselves. The individual, given this immense right of speech, is responsible for their own ability to research and come to their own valid conclusions. So, my view is that free speech must be upheld in its purest and freest form for all views, and we must better our education system and encourage critical thought and research of we truly want to fight this scourge of oppressive thought to its end. But let them speak.","conclusion":"in a society that champions free speech, that right should be applied to anyone regardless of the content of their message, and it is up to the listener to be properly informed on the topic."}
{"id":"e0dddebe-0249-4004-9922-1c6c772dae8e","argument":"This problem could be addressed by subsidizing school supplies or rewarding good attendance records with additional cash. Cutting benefits will only hurt the children we are trying to help, with their families deprived of the resources to feed them or care for them. Free breakfast programs in the US feed 10.1 million children every day1. Providing meals, mentors, programs that support and help students are ways to help them get along better in schools. There are already 14 million children in the US that go hungry, and 600 million children worldwide that are living on less than a dollar a day2. Why punish those families that have trouble putting their kids in school, which only hurts those children more? There should be rewards for good grades, and reduction to the cost of school and above all programs so that children don't have to sit in school hungry and confused. 1 United States Department of Agriculture, \"The School Breakfast Program\",Accessed July 21, 2011. 2 Feeding America 2010, \"Hunger in America: Key Facts\", Accessed July 21, 2011. and UNICEF, \"Goal: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger\", Accessed July 21, 2011.","conclusion":"There should be rewards for success in school, versus punishment for failure to attend."}
{"id":"11064a16-bc1f-4142-9279-8e5c9f22b294","argument":"Think tanks depend largely on voluntary funding for their projects,1 so they must be careful when risking potential investments. Investors are likely to be put off from funding think tanks with good aims if this funding will be scrutinised and their interests questioned.2 They are likely not to wish to risk being associated with seemingly biased results: a system by which funders can support ideas in themselves, perhaps even anonymously for the think tanks themselves, is the one in which think tanks best flourish and best produce results. Those that produce the best and most interesting ideas will be those who succeed in obtaining funding. 1 Think Tank Funding, On Think Tanks, accessed 11 June 2013 2 Butcher, Jonathan, \u201cDoes it Matter Who Funds You?\u201d One World Trust, 12 July 2012,","conclusion":"Being subject to scrutiny discourages investors from supporting good projects"}
{"id":"c3f4b814-13b6-4637-a3a2-3d08f41d4849","argument":"Voting is a privilege that impacts all of society and this is a good way of making people realise the importance of their vote.","conclusion":"This would create a more engaged, politically aware, and cohesive society."}
{"id":"2eb57dc7-b6f5-4e84-9b0e-8aa7f153fd34","argument":"Success at the highest level requires hard work, native ability, AND luck in life. If you get lucky enough to be born talented, and then you work hard, you can almost definitely achieve some basic level of success, but people no better than you, and maybe a little worse can become much more successful if they're the ones that get lucky instead of you. There are many people just as able as the most successful people. If there are 100 Elon Musk level people, each will be lucky or unlucky to some degree, and one of them will be the luckiest of all. Any 2 of the 3 above traits is enough to get you something in life, but to get to the highest level requires all 3 ability, work, and luck. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Most successful people got lucky"}
{"id":"17520725-1d04-4179-8767-4b66b876ba80","argument":"Let me first say that I'm not someone who jumps to conclusions nor am I part of a reactionary group of people that is knee jerk anti or pro war. Just look at Syria as a nation. It has an organized military and secret service, and it has allies which are also world players some of whom have invested heavily in the country and aren't just going to walk away from those investments. It also has influence over other States in the region and could easily cause regional instability. Unlike Libya, Syria is not an empty desert with the country's population really just occupying a coastal strip along the Mediterranean. The conflict is spread out over the land mass of the country which would require more than just airstrikes to deal with. Not to mention the Syrian Military would pack a much nastier punch with the resources to return fire to our forces in ways worse than anything we have dealt with in quite a long time. This is even before other players become involved for and against US intervention. The specter of a Non Islamic power becoming involved yet again in a majority Muslim nation would swell the ranks of Insurgent forces who wrought massive havoc in Iraq following that invasion. In an ever increasing digital age, hackers could target electronic US assets domestically and abroad. The New York Times website was apparently brought down today by the Syrian Electronic Army . Remember that the 1st World War came to be as nations with promised alliances were dragged in one by one as allies were attacked. Any punitive action taken by another world player against the US in retaliation for interfering with their client State could cause a major international incident which could lead to a war. Historically, trade has been a small barrier to preventing war. The UK and Germany traded heavily before WW1 2 and it didn't stop them and they got along rather well. The US, China, and Russia are already resentful of each other and cutting off resources that each depends on the other for could cause a military conflict. So . EDIT spelling and grammar","conclusion":"I believe that any military action taken by the US in Syria could easily spiral into a regional conflict which draws in other major world players whose interests in the area conflict with our own, possibly starting another World War. -"}
{"id":"0b53262f-b24d-4154-9bcb-2f3d738b933a","argument":"Prosecution of a senior politician or parliamentarian damages the dignity of office. It is important that politicians are not scared to speak out, for example to encourage free and open parliamentary debate and so encourage optimal law-making. Involvement in the legal system, especially the criminal justice system or in cases where there is some hint of moral wrongdoing, creates an explicit link between the politicians and a mode of behaviour which is not exemplary. This is deeply damaging to the public respect for high office, even where the person may have in fact done wrong. This is one reason why, for example, absolute monarchs tend to sit above the law. Even where the accusation may have some basis, it is better for the dignity of the office to ignore individual wrongdoing and retain the fac\u0327ade of the role.","conclusion":"Prosecution of a senior politician or parliamentarian damages the dignity of office. It is importan..."}
{"id":"7d021a03-4466-405a-be89-e348058f4eec","argument":"Omnibenevolence is not something that people fully understand. Therefore, we cannot say we actually would know what an omnibenevolent being would do.","conclusion":"There is no reason to assume that the God of Job is an omniscient, omnibenevolent and omnipotent God."}
{"id":"5b1b0860-0f51-4481-b5fb-f21d937e0387","argument":"I'm not sure If I'd be considered a racist or not, them being black isn't the problem for me, skin color I don't care about, because I have black friends that I love talking to, but almost all of them are from the UK or Canada I just find it idiotic how a decent portion of them in the united states have a huge sense of privilege here, and I don't understand it and I find it extremely annoying. I understand the whole slavery and oppression thing I guess, I'm from California, and I'm half native american and half Mexican, settlers killed off almost all of my people My tribe, Only about 10,000 of us are still alive today and our land has been reduced to just a small portion of Santa Rosa County And yeah black people here are victims of hate crimes and racial stereotyping but I've also had those kinds of problems with police and people telling me I should be a gardener, soccer player, or that I must be a good swimmer runner, and other stupid shit like that. But I don't take it out on other people, I don't try and play the race card constantly or express that people owe me something for the troubles they have caused my people in the past. Now I'm not saying I hate all black people here or that I find every single one of them annoying, because that's just completely untrue, I have a few black friends that are from the US that are really cool and really good friends, I'm just saying that I find most of them can be a little Well, annoying? I just want someone to change my view because I live in California, and I literally only have 3 black friends I can hang out with I'd like to have more but my views really get in the way. Edit Oh, you can't downvote in here, I didn't notice that, well I hope you looked inside before you ignored the post? lol. Edit 2 It's not black people that I have a problem with, it's the arrogant attitude that people in my area share, I was just being racist for assuming only black people act that way, but it isn't just black people that have that attitude, it could be anyone, not all black people are annoying or arrogant but some are, but that's fair to say about any race. and me acting like only black people act that way is extremely rude, racist, and make's me a dick and I apologize for that, I'm not doing anyone any favors by saying that they're intolerable, and I'm not saying that I'm magically not racist now, but it's something I'm going to try and work on in the future and give more black people a chance instead of just assuming how they'll act. Thanks to u mombo101 and u BenjaminSkanklin for changing my view.","conclusion":"I think most black people in the US are intolerable and arrogant Look inside before you downvote for racism"}
{"id":"c07b8e14-4624-4e9c-ba25-891ce7cb4b18","argument":"So, I've been around the block with women and I know how I operate with them. I feel attraction for them and I want to be with them. That being said, love is a concept that exists as nothing more than a formality. I believe that love is a euphemism for I want to have sex with you. As humans, our ultimate goal is to procreate and pass our genes into the next generation. This has not changed. As society developed, and sexual taboos were set in place, we found loopholes ways to get around the norms that sex wasn't okay. This is where the concept of love comes from, I believe. I think the entire process of courtship and marriage is a coverup for sex. Edit Please remember that this is just an idea I'm throwing out there. Feel free to take offense, but that's not my goal. Another edit I would also like to point out that this post was solely for argument and debate, two things I think reddit does really well. Props to u GrayMirror for shifting my views a bit. Edit This refers to romantic love, not platonic or familial love.","conclusion":"Love doesn't exist."}
{"id":"c30087a2-e017-493d-b3b7-53cb5a45a6b8","argument":"except, I suppose, a defensive war. The point being that if you believe it's immoral to take a life, that belief shouldn't change just because your government has declared war on some other country. If we can't kill someone who really wants to die eg. a patient suffering in terrible pain , why is it ok to kill someone who doesn't eg. an enemy soldier ? Some might say that it's ok to kill the soldier because if you don't, they'll kill you. That's why I specified that a defensive war might still be excusable for an opponent of euthanasia. If someone's about to kill you, then that scenario doesn't really compare to euthanasia. However, any war of aggression involves soldiers going into a country when they're perfectly safe at home. Someone who believes that it's wrong to kill in all instances must also be against this. IMHO, there's no difference either there are some instances when it's ok to kill even if your life isn't in danger and if this is your stance, then how could it possibly not be ok to kill someone who desperately wants to die because they're in agonizing pain and is going to die anyway? , or it's not ok to kill if your life isn't in danger in which case, war is off the table for you .","conclusion":"- Anyone who is against euthanasia should also be against ever going to war."}
{"id":"16183f98-7d44-4eb5-a886-d9477cf2dd56","argument":"The Chinese government deliberated set the release of the film after the Chinese New Year an awkward time for films, to ensure that local films dominated the more lucrative holiday market.","conclusion":"There were a number of problems unique to the 1998 animated film that mean it was unsuccessful in China. These issues are not likely to plague the live action film."}
{"id":"ed19184a-e043-4859-8ce1-02ffa90bc10c","argument":"EDIT2 I'm not saying I don't like the season or that it's bad as a whole, I'm merely talking about the plot, I still look forward to every episode. Spoilers for all the season released so far. How to  at bottom I'll mainly be talking about episodes EDIT 3 4 here, as I feel they were the most egregious when it came to poor plot. In the battle of Winterfell Not even gonna talk about the general layout and stuff they had setup outside Winterfelk. The plan with the Dothraki was to literally charge them into the super tight ranks of undead who aren't gonna stop running at the horses, seeing as how morale isn't a factor, one of the main advantages of a charge like that with weapons that can't even kill the wights. Melisandre showing up wasn't part of the plan, she just happened to be there. The literal only outcome of this is that Dothraki are 100 a waste and not only that, must now be killed by defenders. Placing them off horses in a line or on wall would still be stupid but slightly better with the fire swords . We see characters get massively swarmed, in such a way that they are going to be overrun until we cut back later and there's hardly any wights on them so many times, in courtyard and with Jon v Night King. The only way Jon survived that swarm was if he beybladed with his sword. Arya killing night King, ok they wanted to subvert expectations, whatever, fair enough. How to did she get past the 10 thick ring of wights and Night Lords ? to jump at King? Or did she somehow get night Lord mask and then decided to pull it off in front of army in order to charge without one on? Episode 4 50 survived? We saw so many shots of castle with fucking nobody alive except named characters and they try to pull this 50 number out of where exactly? I could talk about how poorly written Eurons power level is all day but I'll just talk about ep4. Dany flying high in air somehow doesn't see the fleet of ships that cliff was not even close to being able to hide the entire fleet . Not only that, but almost all of he first volley connect and kill one of the dragons. If they wanted to reduce power level they should've just killed a dragon in Ep3, watching that episode I thought Drogon had fucking died already from the swarm on him also stupid writing he didn't take off sooner To change my view I gues you'd have to convince me either that the Winterfell battle they did the best with what they could, point out some things I missed that may alleviate some of my major complaints. I'm not sure how to change my mind about ep4 but I'll be very impressed if you're able to lol.","conclusion":"The writing in the current GOT season is objectively terrible"}
{"id":"e0f31196-6820-46e2-b805-3013337e360e","argument":"There is no difference between writing 'f ', f ck, f , fck, or fuck. Omitting a letter, changing the spelling, or substitution with an asterisk does not change the meaning of the word, show politeness, make a higher class of writer, or somehow make the word more palatable. The writer still used a word that some find offensive. The reader still reads the word the same as if it was written correctly. What got me thinking about was this article about Frank Taaffe The URL has 'ngger', headline has 'N gger', the body text used 'n word', 'n gga', and 'n gger'. Changing nigger to 'n gger' does not really make the word more polite. I read the 'i' into every use. The meaning is still the same, as is the reading. This questioned my use of 'effin', 'fck' and 'frick' in my writing. Seems ridiculous the reader knows what I am saying. I am not being polite or higher class, I am just being timid. If I really cared I would just avoid the word completely. My thought process. I am indicating that I know the word is offensive. If know it is offensive and use it anyway, even with a spelling change, then I am saying I don't care that it is offensive. If I don't care that it is offensive and still use the word then why am I changing the spelling. EDIT I don't know why my asterisks were removed on post, but not in edit frame. Is there a special coding for asterisks? EDIT 2 Learned something new, asterisks change type to italics and then back again.","conclusion":"Writers should own the usage and spell fuck, ass, shit, cunt, and nigger correctly or not use the words at all."}
{"id":"e0b0302c-b47d-47ac-a170-b20fc4931fbd","argument":"I believe two things about collegiate athletics. A university should not be allowed to divert funds from any other part of the university to athletics. If a university chooses to keep a self funded athletic program the program should be no more than loosely affiliated with the university. The only requirement of the program and link to the university would be that the athletes participating must be students. If the program wants to pay players, great. It would be similar to minor league sports. My reasoning is as follows Many Universities cannot afford their athletic department and increase tuition and fees for the general student body to offset the shortfall. The latest example I can think of is the University of North Texas hiking up tuition to build a new football stadium. According to the NCAA 43 ~~ 91 of ~~academic athletic departments lose money on their programs. Resources are being shifted away from academics and toward athletics. Tuition is already so high at many universities that buying a house would be a cheaper option. Athletics is driving up this cost unnecessarily and providing zero academic benefit to students. Many athletes are not students in any sense of the word. They aren't accepted into the university with the same standards as the general student body and don't concern themselves with academics. Taking 6 hours of ballroom dancing does not make a football player a student Athletics has absolutely nothing to do with higher education and no academic purpose. This is the biggest issue for me. Athletics diverts vital resources such as tutoring and office hours away from the general student body and toward athletes. These resources should either be available to every student equally or available to none. Athletics breeds inequality. Star athletes are not held to the same academic standards as the rest of the student body. If we are continuing the charade that athletes are students they should be held to the same standard as students. I suppose this argument could be tweaked a bit to apply to middle schools and high schools as well. If a university is a place for learning so too should a middle school and high school. Change my view. Edit Changed 43 of academic departments to 43 of athletic departments. First bullet makes much more sense now. Edit 2 I'm not arguing against collegiate athletics in general. Let it be clear that I have no problem with collegiate athletics. My problem is using tuition and fees to fund an athletic department that has zero academic purpose. Edit 3 The number of athletic departments that actually generate a profit is far lower than the 57 I indicated above. According to this report only 9.6 of Division I athletic programs are self sustaining. Edit 4 People keep repeating the same argument that regulation here is silly and that people should just pick a different school. Most public universities are publicly financed. You cannot pick which school receives funding. I will concede that this law should only apply to schools receiving public funding.","conclusion":"It should be illegal to divert funds from academics to athletics."}
{"id":"273464b5-5c6f-49ac-a2d7-a44ed7d47c4f","argument":"Jury nullification is when the jury acquits someone because they feel that the laws used to convict them are unjust, or are being unfairly applied. I think it should be a right that's more publicly known, that courts can't restrict the doing or awareness of, and that jurors feel more comfortable using. I think it could help significantly in cases where jurors feel that a law is being used for racial profiling, for needless incarceration, such as drug convictions, and that it would do more good than harm to let juries overturn the law when they find it to be wrong. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Jury nullification should be a respected right."}
{"id":"ad1f1c4c-82be-4baa-ae62-cfb89b34e970","argument":"I get by on water mostly, with the occasional beer or bourbon. I've had about one sip of coffee in my life, never touched the stuff again bleh . Never had a need for an energy drink I see these as treating a symptom, not the cause not enough sleep, maybe? I see these people every day at my job. You have to keep away from them until they've downed that first cup or can, otherwise they're liable to be rude or unresponsive, unable to think , sometimes a bit on edge, just plain unhappy until they've had that first hit of the day Similar to other drug addictions. Change my view","conclusion":"I believe that people who can't function or be happy without a coffee or other energy drink first in the morning are addicts in the same line as cocaine or heroin devotees."}
{"id":"c134b1d6-f2da-4f34-9436-d0c23b00276f","argument":"I hear all this hate on Jake and Logan Paul all the time. Although I don't like Jake Paul because he is uninspiring, I love Logan Paul's work ethic and attitude He vlogs, stays fit, acts in movies, and flys his fans out to hang with him. I've heard a quote from Logan Paul that says I would be comfortable with 2 3 million a year. Some people make fun of this, but I think it's awesome to set high goals for yourself. I want to hear why he is disliked by many, or if the Jake Paul hate just leaks onto Logan. I'm sure there is some sort on Logan that I don't know. Btw I am aware of the fake colorblind video.","conclusion":"Logan Paul is a good youtuber"}
{"id":"61d0cea1-b5a5-40ee-991e-62daf8c44bfd","argument":"The percentage of religious couples divorcing is often calculated against all adults rather than just married adults. This skews the statistics rendering them inaccurate.","conclusion":"Many of the statistics on divorce rates among religious couples are flawed for a number of reasons."}
{"id":"2cfe44a5-473a-4a0b-8c94-7487fb33f4e1","argument":"Politicians make decisions for all of us, and spend our money. We are entitled to take steps to prevent them from doing so under the influence of drugs! Results may well not show in their work until it\u2019s too late to do anything about it. It may well be the case that we see a politician has done badly whilst negotiating a trade agreement, and, looking into it, we discover that he is taking drugs. But why not solve the problem before this happens, by testing everyone periodically?","conclusion":"Politicians make decisions for all of us, and spend our money. We are entitled to take steps to pre..."}
{"id":"7686665b-11c7-4650-9000-42a80920f0d1","argument":"If the earth was flat, then you would be able to see everything from the highest point on the surface.","conclusion":"Observations of the horizon indicate that the earth is curved."}
{"id":"eabb82c5-1163-4574-85c6-57036fd8c2b6","argument":"Trump and the Trump campaign colluded with Russia. Two administration officials have pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI on this issue and 2 more and under indictment.","conclusion":"Impeachment is the only way to stop Trump from taking future actions that could be damaging."}
{"id":"a07865f0-ef7e-4c00-a155-e869d38dad04","argument":"Opposition to \"political correctness\" has been used by those who find themselves in a privileged position to silence critiques of their privilege and maintain oppressive structures, which are clearly not beneficial to societies.","conclusion":"PC is used by anti-PC people as a slanderous term for a noble action."}
{"id":"590c2fae-71c2-40d1-a984-72d8b8638176","argument":"I know this might be controversial, but it's what I feel instinctively. Usually I am a liberal, but the older I get, I adopt conservative views. Since this is something that I wish it was not true, I would like you to change my view. I have NOT investigated studies or anything relevant. I think my view was influenced by news that claim that immigrants from Turkey and Africa use social system much more than others, and that f.e. there are many 3rd generation immigrants from these areas that don't even speak the language of the country where they immigrated in. This might be rubbish, don't know, but it was what various news from various sources claim. I am of Croatian nationality, and we are also immigrants in countries of central Europe like Germany, Austria and Switzerland. But allegedly, we have lowest unemployment rates, don't use social system much, and have crime rates comparable to native people, or at least lower then most of the others. Likewise, during the war in the 90s, practically all of my family, uncles and aunts, dozens of them, moved to Switzerland. They all work, they all speak swiss German, nobody has ever done any crime, and 3rd generation will be swiss 99 . I guess we are all kind of racist a little, but their subjective experience is universally that many immigrants from other countries are not as hard working and have much slower assimilation rate. I realize that POTENTIAL of every human, no matter where from, is probably similar if they grew up in similar condition and culture. But immigrants from countries farther from EU than my own, because of much larger cultural differences, have a much harder time adapting and refuse to adopt many of the values of the country that accepts them, and then they raise their children mostly in their own culture, which then extends assimilation further. I also don't think that europe has the moral responsibility to make up for past crimes. Maybe that is also connected, and maybe another topic where I would try to have my view changed. I care not about nationality, but I do care about values that I personally assign to western culture, like hard work, meritocracy, separation of state and religion, freedom of speech, but also political responsibility and calling out someones mistakes, I think the only thing to convince me would be a study that would show that on net, immigration from near east and africa in Europe does bring benefit to everybody, the whole country society.","conclusion":"Europe should not be acccepting EVERYBODY in"}
{"id":"5ce4756b-a9c2-43fa-b13a-243a9ee40867","argument":"Reddit has nicer people for sure , more consistently interesting content for sure but when it comes to people and most conversations on popular subreddits , it falls flat. Lots of comments are only about agreement, bashing, or talking about how good a person is or bad a person is. And I'm not talking devil's advocate people will consistently circle jerk around any opinion, so long as its popular. Take things like the Westboro Baptist Church. I wouldn't call them good people, but the majority of the comments on those articles basically only mention that 1 they're pretty bad and 2 what people would do to them. I've seen shit like torture, gay rape, all kinds of crap that's just constantly repeated and repeated and repeated. In fight videos always 'wow that guy deserved it', or 'wow if I was there I would've killed that fucker'. When really, I don't prefer conversations like that. You're probably now thinking, 'how the hell is 4chan any better? They're even nastier '. Well, sometimes. But that's because 4chan is a community that doesn't give a shit what the other users think. If there's an opinion, you can bet money that there'll always be someone going against it. Challenging it, searching for the tiniest errors someone will always agree and someone will always disagree. Some of the reason why is just because they can, but some of the reason why is also that no voting system will judge you, mods will rarely judge you, people can't judge your future comments on that one as long as they're in different threads you don't have the risk of being ridiculed and shunned because of your unpopular opinion. While Reddit is sometimes nicer, to be honest I prefer honesty to kindness. Especially when we're talking about things like gay rights, fight videos, favorite albums, the best star wars movie, reddit vs. 4chan, etc. I'm not saying there aren't varied opinions on popular reddit subreddits this one is great, for example I'm just saying that the format of voting and long term consequence especially when dealing with heavily opinionated places doesn't really support varied opinions when it comes to large issues. Thanks for reading, and I'm really hoping you guys can change my view","conclusion":"4chan is better for discussion than Reddit"}
{"id":"d0056b29-7784-4826-b2e8-ba0cf2a07d92","argument":"Because of a mismatch in academic preparation and experience, Black law school graduates from low performing, poorly-funded secondary schools are more likely to fail the bar exam than their white peers.","conclusion":"Affirmative action places students into a competitive academic environment, without equipping them with the necessary skills for success. This has a negative effect for students accepted from lower achieving schools."}
{"id":"23ada52c-93b5-46ff-beca-0b0f75d25318","argument":"For example, in Second Life, the parent company reserves the right to remove a user's virtual property at will As governments regulate landlords or community covenants to ensure they are fair, so too are laws needed to ensure fair governance in virtual reality.","conclusion":"Legal protections may be needed to ensure that the Terms of Service that might govern virtual realities are not overly restrictive or unfair to users."}
{"id":"bb06d6ea-fe7c-4398-8603-c27a1a8ed478","argument":"Religions are abused as causes of war and conceal actual reasons for conflicts, which makes the resolution of these conflicts more difficult.","conclusion":"Religions have been a prominent source of conflict and strife all over the world and through all ages."}
{"id":"0fccebc0-352f-4d15-96ab-d46fc2db65fd","argument":"To slightly misuse a quote with great power, comes great responsibility. Officials both in charge of creating and enforcing laws have a great deal of power within our society. Shouldn't this power to paired with a greater responsibility to those that they serve? To clarify my title I do not believe that the 4th should be completely stripped but rather that the standard of unreasonable and probable cause should be legally defined as requiring lower amounts of proof then that of citizens, criminals, and even terrorists. For the 5th I believe that the citizens of the US have a right to know what has been done in their name. If there is sufficient proof of misconduct upon the part of an official I believe that official should be required to give testimony of the illegal events even if that means incriminating himself herself. Self incrimination is the only part of the 5th I wish to restrict. They are not acting as private citizens when they wear the mantle given to them by the people. They are now the very hands of the people and because of that should be held to a higher standard for us all. Edited the third paragraph to correctly show my views on what part should be restricted.","conclusion":"I believe law enforcement personal and high ranking members of state\/federal government have restricted or no 4th\/5th amendment rights when acting in their official capacity."}
{"id":"25a721c5-a9ef-4f69-a9e2-f0e9c10f6c6f","argument":"I am imagining a system where the legislature has a rolling membership of four cohorts and each year the oldest is replaced by a new one. Members are selected from the citizenry at random with a method similar to way we do the lottery. Those selected can pass and a new person will be drawn. The pay and benefits will be about the same as they currently are. Benefits candidates are no longer selected according to access to campaign resources or charisma. since future lawmakers cannot be predicted and current ones cannot run for re election the opportunities for corruption are reduced. a random legislature will represent the population it will be half women and with accurate proportions of every race, religion, identity and political creed. parties will no longer be the center of political life. Without the ability to put people in power they'll be pushed to the margins. lawmakers can vote for what they feel is best for the country without having to consider re election. IMO this is a more true form of democracy than we practice now as we're ruled by the public and not a political class. Why not direct democracy? The legislature still needs to consider complex issues and will often need to sit for presentations from experts. We need people whose full time job is to consider these things. The legislature will still have all the same polling tools that we do now for determining what the public wants. Rebuttals to common arguments People are stooopid 1. We don't currently select leaders according to their non stupidness usually it's party affiliation or charisma. 2. Compared to all other periods in time we have the most literate, educated and travelled population ever. We need experts to guide us That's true. As it currently is if you want to design highways or agricultural policy or something like that you wouldn't run for office, you'd get the appropriate education and go into civil service. That would remain the same. Currently legislators are not experts. What kind of expert would even make a good legislator? They have to consider such a diversity of things. A random President? That's silly That is silly. There would not be a president as the term is understood in the US. It would be a mostly symbolic position filled by someone selected by the legislature each year probably a senior diplomat or something. This person would do the photo ops at international summits while real negotiations are handled by professional civil servants, as is the case now. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"We should do away with voting and select our legislators by lot."}
{"id":"af296739-2b8a-4381-8950-a3ee2b53fd84","argument":"Much like the failure of the prohibition era to stop alcohol consumption, trying to restrict the use of guns that are already widely owned and prevalent in a society is an impossible task.1 The people who intend to use guns for illegitimate purposes are obviously unconcerned with the fact that it is illegal to acquire the guns in the first place in countries where this is already the case such as in the UK .23 1 Kates, Don B. \u2018Why a Civil Libertarian Opposes Gun Control\u2019. The Civil Liberties Review. June\/July 1976 2 The Independent. \u2018Up to 4m guns in UK and police are losing the battle\u2019. 4th September 2005. 3 The Guardian. \u2018Firearms: cheap, easy to get and on a street near you\u2019 30th August 2008.","conclusion":"Effective gun control is not achievable in democratic states with a tradition of civilian gun ownership"}
{"id":"285e43bb-c03c-4881-b4a1-a58af9b8bd45","argument":"Without government agencies, how will anything get done? Who will build roads and schools and hospitals? Without government humans cannot organize themselves in a productive manner to support the sheer number of us on Earth. What about things like polution? We will have nobody to regulate or enforce that. Who would protect you from a murder or punish a murderer?","conclusion":"I believe government is absolutely necessary for the human race."}
{"id":"337d064d-7b53-4d50-afa3-cba56fac0f40","argument":"The US Army\u2019s Future Combat Systems program estimated that developing AKMs would come at a price tag of $300 billion","conclusion":"The development cost of AKMs that are as effective as humans is very high."}
{"id":"99022033-8c32-428f-8c0b-fbecb80a86d1","argument":"The logic that doing something is better than doing nothing, even when the problem is impossible to be solved completely, applies to many areas, for example the fight against crime and the amelioration of poverty.","conclusion":"Taking in refugees is not an all or nothing proposition. Even taking in some refugees can ameliorate the overall crisis."}
{"id":"01bb616a-4bf5-425d-a6a1-6040c0d275c9","argument":"So despite the fact I'm a socialist English Lit grad, I'm gonna be advocating for something generally reserved for STEM folk. My argument is that there is misplaced value given to quoting other people rather than expressing your own idea. Of course we should still read secondary sources, and if you use their idea you should give credit, but it shouldn't be seen as a virtue to cite people. Instead it should be about clearly communicating an insightful thought. Philosophy particularly tends to descend, in my opinion, into referring to people and their ways of saying things rather than tackling issues. The academy gets bogged down by all this to an unjustified degree. To change my view i'd like to hear a defence of why this focus on sources is actually a good thing.","conclusion":"The problem with the study of arts and humanities is too much focus on sources rather than ideas."}
{"id":"44176165-30bf-4ed3-851c-c5e6c2a983d8","argument":"There is no link between why the players are kneeling and soldiers and veterans. They have clearly stated they are protesting racism and police brutality.","conclusion":"Neither the national anthem nor football games have anything to do with American servicemen or women."}
{"id":"73dcf676-6048-4d76-9dcc-5f596edb2b3a","argument":"Hey, guys and girls. I've posted here on  a few times in the last couple of weeks, and many of my posts have had a similar theme intimate non family relationships namely, friendships and romantic sexual relationships are unnecessary or mere distractions unlike PS4's and Miley Cyrus. The reason I've posted all of them isn't that I genuinely believe those. It's that I desperately want those things. I want friends. I want a girlfriend. I want to have sex with a girl. I want a social life. I want intimacy in my life. I want fun in my life. I want to share my life and enjoy it with people who aren't family. I want someone to love me and someone to love who isn't related to me by blood. But I also can't help but feel like, for some reason, wanting those things is wrong, unnatural, or frivolous. For one, I'm Indian, and in Indian culture, heavy emphasis is placed on family, including extended family. So I've kind of had it drilled into my head that family is more important than friends or lovers. One time in group therapy, I once mentioned how frustrated I was that my social life seemed to consist primarily of blood relatives, and the response I got was a guilt trip from a guy whose family had broken apart about how I didn't know how good I've got it . So I've been conditioned, I think, to believe that family is more important than friends and lovers, that they could love me more than friends or lovers ever could, and that if I ever complain about it, I'm being ungrateful or callous. On top of that, growing up, whenever I complained to my family about how lonely I was or how few friends I had, they basically told me that that wasn't important, that grades were way more important, and that friends were basically just there for me to have fun with. I'm also a pretty, I don't know current affairs minded guy, for lack of a better word. I care about big issues like environmental degradation, economic injustice, war, and the erosion of rights and liberties. And I can't help but feel friends or a girlfriend would distract me from caring about these issues. On Reddit, people often criticize those who care more about things like the Kardashians or the latest iPad than about things like the NSA or the erosion of voting rights or whatever other horrible thing is happening. And I agree with them. I've kind of internalized those people in my head and doing so has really helped me see what's important in the world and what isn't. It isn't that I pretend not to care about stupid celebrity bullshit or the lastest fads. I really don't care about those things. So I try not to do anything that would disappoint them or make them look down on me as one of the masses who's only interested in bread and circuses. And I can't help but feel like friendship, romance, sex these are just more bread and circuses. After all, they make us feel good . They bring us pleasure. Isn't that all bread and circuses are? You might counter by saying they do more than just make you 'feel good' . Do they really? Are friendship, romance, sex, intimacy, and so on really that much more important than what Macklemore did at the Grammys or the latest exercise fad that came out? I guess, in a sense, I kind of feel like an LGBT teen, not to minimize the very real troubles that they go through. But those teens often feel like their desires, feelings, and urges are unnatural, immoral, or some frivolous phase like listening to emo music. That's sort of how I feel. But I don't want to feel this way, which is why I've posted here in the past. I'm having trouble convincing myself that it's okay to want what I want. So I've posted these thoughts and feelings that intimacy, friendship, love, and such are mere playthings and distractions and that you don't really need them and that family is more important in the hopes that you guys and girls would help me tear them down. So I'm coming clean. I want friendship. I want a girlfriend. I want romance. I want sex. I want intimacy. I want a social life. I want fun. But I feel and think that wanting those things is wrong, unnatural, and a waste of time. If you go through most of the things I've posted on this subreddit in the recent weeks, you'll see things that I don't want to be true. Please help me feel and think otherwise. Hit me with science, if you can, or philosophy, or literature, or history. I want to believe that it's natural to want the things I want, that it's hard wired into me like the need for food or water, but I'm having trouble. But please, no bullshit pop psychology. Hard science, please. Maybe from a university. I understand this may seem a bit vague, but I don't care. Also, please say something more than get professional help . I realize I have issues that need to be dealt with, and I'm in the process of getting help, but I'd still like to hear from people who aren't paid to listen and care. I'd like to get some feedback from normal everyday people and not professionals.","conclusion":"I can't help but feel like my longings for friendship, romance, sex, and intimacy are unnatural, immoral, and frivolous. PLEASE"}
{"id":"d19e12a5-1bb3-4dbe-84ce-a2ddd2e9957f","argument":"I believe that Luna Lovegood should have been sorted in Hufflepuff rather than Ravenclaw. My argument has less to do with disproving her Ravenclaw traits than affirming her Hufflepuff traits. I think Luna fits the Ravenclaw house very well she is curious, eccentric, and open minded her being \u201cspacey\u201d doesn\u2019t mean she doesn\u2019t seek out knowledge. However, I think her Hufflepuff traits far outweigh those of any other house. She\u2019s pretty much defined by her loyalty to her friends, from being one of the first members of the DA to helping Harry find the diadem in the final book. We find out in the Deathly Hallows that she painted the image of her 5 best friends onto the ceiling of her bedroom Additionally, her kindness to creatures different than her like house elves seems to be motivated more by a genuine desire to make people happy a Hufflepuff trait rather than a means to learn about the creature and feed her curiosity a Ravenclaw trait . PS I have a simplistic sorting diagram that sorts the houses along two axes people \u2192 ideas and logic \u2192 intuition. Gryffindors are ideas intuition, Hufflepuffs are people intuition, Ravenclaws are ideas logic, and Slytherins are people logic. I\u2019m not going to ask people to prove that Luna would be people over ideas or intuition over logic, since my system isn\u2019t standardized or accepted by anyone except myself, but I thought I\u2019d include it in case anyone found it useful.","conclusion":"Luna Lovegood is a Hufflepuff, not a Ravenclaw."}
{"id":"0501d805-caa4-40e6-bfdd-1cb713b203b7","argument":"To start off my family isn't racist. I grew up in a natural and secular lifestyle where we accepted all kinds of ethnicities, races, religions, and customs into our lifestyle. My parents encourage me to join a Christian missionary, or a Jewish synogogue to find a passion in something they are Athiests and they encourage their children and parents to be fair, respectable and open minded. I have Jewish friends, accomplices and teachers. I began to study Hitler and his roots in Anti semitism. Naturally, I went online and began studying his speeches and his passion that drove a whole nation into his control. I saw the comments on Youtube and the forums, and curiousity go the better of me they were hoards of people preaching Anti Zionism and how the Holocaust was a total hoax . Then I began to silently believe that the Jewish people are so smart and they are so influential in our society that they naturally control our social system, right? The reason why our schools are so into the Holocaust and into antisemitism rather than atrocities such as the Rape of Nanking other Japanese violations of Human rights and the Armenian Holocaust is because we have so many Jewish people in power, that is pushed to teach us. The people in certain communities are so persuasive and so passionate in the evidence that they find, I have subconsciously began to believe in them. The racism is gradually seeping into my conscience mind. I really want someone to rationally talk me out of this. I apologize for the wall of text, and I appreciate anyone who can reply and change my mind. Edit I apologize for such a poorly written post, but this was somewhat rushed. Sorry.","conclusion":"I am transforming myself into an Anti-Semite. Please"}
{"id":"57c1ea48-abbf-444b-93b3-ad55038ce38e","argument":"Chapo Trap House, a popular leftist podcast, has recently released a book with some of their views. In the book, they say the following gt When freed from the soul crushing system of wage labor, what we used to call work actually becomes the passionate, creative fulfillment the lizards in marketing tell us it is. After setting everyone on equal footing by seizing the billionaires' money, socializing their wealth, and handing the keys to production over to workers , you're looking at an economy that requires something like a three hour workday, with machines taking care of most of the drudgery and as our public fund pays for things like health care, education, scientific research, and infrastructure all this technology actually makes work quicker, easier, and more enjoyable. When I first read this, it seemed flat out ridiculous and still does to me. So ridiculous that I felt I must be missing something, so I set out to find some kind of elaboration on this argument not simply written by people who have a vested interest in being provocative. The closest I found was this article. That article is a little more compelling than the Chapo Trap House quote, but I am still not convinced, for the following reasons 1 I'm sure that there are some jobs where there is a lot of wasted time. The survey in the article I linked, for example, was specifically of office workers in the UK. However a I'm not convinced that by simply reducing a workday to the average amount of hours worked, people will work hard for that entire time. I suspect, intuitively, people will still waste some time no matter what. And b some jobs clearly can't be cleanly reduced to three hour workdays without major problems for example, most blue collar jobs, as well as doctors and nurses, many kinds of lawyers, some trades, and some tech support jobs. 2 One counterargument I've heard is that if we greatly reduce the amount of hours spent on generic office work, that then those people could now spend time working as nurses or other time intensive jobs. But this seems to defeat the premise of making work more enjoyable somehow compelling people to work in jobs outside their field does not seem like it would lead to happy people, and certainly represents a loss in individual freedom. If there's a case that people would do this voluntarily, I'm not sure what that case is. 3 More broadly, I just don't see how moving towards a 3 hour workday, especially for lower income workers in hourly jobs, would lead to anything except a way less productive economy and, in turn, lower standards of living. Products and services and information come from somewhere. To imply that this would not lead to way less productive economy would also be to imply that companies are currently choosing to employ way more workers than is optimal, and that they are missing out on huge productivity gains and in turn, profit by employing so many workers and for so many hours. Again, this does not seem compelling. That all said, I find this to be an incredibly interesting argument and would be interested to see a more robust justification of it. Maybe I should be regarding the argument with more respect than simply treating it as a socialist pipe dream, but that's what I'm here to find out. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Transitioning to a 3-hour workday in the US as suggested by some on the left would lead to a dramatically lower average standard of living, greatly reduced individual freedom, or both."}
{"id":"647dda11-9e59-432a-9795-0b565be64d51","argument":"By bad people I mean toxic people like rapist, pedos, bad parents, etc. These people deserve punishment, not sympathy or empathy. I see it as being unhealthy especially in those circumstances. They need punishment, not pity. not everyone is good at heart, there are many psychopaths and sociopaths who, lacking remorse, cannot be cured and will never change. Many convicts recidivate during and after prison. I think a murderer is more than capable of killing again, while rapists and other sex offenders live in a deranged fantasy that they won't leave from. Even if a criminal is genuinely remorseful or wishes to change his her ways, there are some crimes so heinous and permanent that cannot be so easily forgiven. Murder is the intentional act of taking a human life, which can never be reversed. Rape causes permanent psychological trauma for the victim. Families of victims are always left with these painful reminders. By ending or ruining other people's lives in such a manner, I think that for murder, rape, terrorism, treason, etc. the minimum penalty should be life imprisonment without parole, and the maximum penalty should be death. I know that there are plenty of people who oppose the death penalty, but I really believe that the killing of a killer is far less heinous than the killing of an innocent. If you're still squeamish, then I think life imprisonment would also do however it would be wrong to ever parole and release a murderer, and I also think their eternal stay in prison should be anything but comfortable. They should never be released to kill again, or at least go back to the comfort of their homes and in prison they really do not deserve comforts such as television, or write to anyone outside their family, or demand sympathy for themselves in spite of being proven guilty. I know this is old news, but it amazes me how a significant amount of sympathy was showered on Stanley Williams, a Crips street gang leader who robbed and murdered 4 innocent people with a shotgun. He was sentenced to death, but while on death row he claimed to have reformed. Lots of activists and celebrities came to Williams' cause, asking that his death sentence be commuted or that he should even be pardoned for his brutal crimes. After he was finally executed, his friends and supporters were probably shedding lots of tears for him, but not so much for his victims. Now let me give a good example of a reformed criminal. Jack Unterweger, an Austrian serial killer, strangled prostitutes. He was given a prison sentence at one point, but many Austrian activists believed he had been successfully rehabilitated and demanded his release. After he was freed, he traveled through Europe and the United States and strangled more prostitutes. The authorities wised up a little and threw him back into prison, but he committed suicide. Williams' claims of being reformed were questionable, and he refused to cooperate with authorities against gang activity. Even if he did turn good, his brutal killings of four people were inexcusable, and if I were a truly remorseful criminal I'd accept whatever punishment was given to me. Unterweger was a liar who benefited from mass gullibility, and proved very well that he was still a psycho killer. I think that the victims and their families must be given more attention and sympathy, rather than the perpetrators who ruined them. Nobody deserves a get out of jail card for something terrible that they confessed to. It is NOT morally wrong to give monsters a taste of their own medicine.","conclusion":"I believe that showing compassion for bad people is wrong"}
{"id":"b65f277f-b654-4c9b-b614-8eb320e515bf","argument":"Every mother has the right to publicly breastfeed their child. There have been endless stories of women being harassed because they\u2019re breastfeeding their children in public. I think that harassing someone who is simply trying to feed their child is dumb. I\u2019ve even seen women get kicked out of restaurants for publicly breastfeeding and thats just ridiculous. However, i have seen a swarm of women on social media respond to this harassment by posting pictures of themselves breastfeeding their children. What exactly is posting pictures of yourself breastfeeding online going to do in order to stop the harassment of public breastfeeding? Basically you faced an injustice by doing something in public, and now you\u2019re basically like \u201chmmmm, maybe i can combat these injustices by posting what I\u2019m doing online That\u2019ll do it \u201d There is a difference between simply breastfeeding a child in public, and posting a picture of yourself breastfeeding online. When you are just breastfeeding your child in public, you are feeding your child. Children need to be fed and there\u2019s nothing wrong with feeding them. You\u2019re not inviting any type of unwanted attention. You\u2019re not inviting people to watch you feed your child. You\u2019re simply by feeding your baby. When you post a picture of yourself breastfeeding your child, then you ARE inviting people to watch you feed your child. You ARE inviting attention to your breastfeeding. Like you literally are broadcasting your breastfeeding pictures to your hundreds or even thousands of followers. If you post pictures of yourself breastfeeding then you purposely took the time out of your day to whip out your phone while your child was eating, and share to your hundreds or thousands of followers pictures of yourself breastfeeding. Therefor you are now INVITING the attention. Your child is not gaining anything from the action of you posting yourself breastfeeding your child online. Your child only gains from the action of actually being breastfed. You\u2019re not feeding your child by posting selfies. The point of ending stigma towards public breastfeeding is to end UNWANTED attention towards public breastfeeding , not invite even more attention by posting it online. Can someone please explain to me why people post breastfeeding selfies online? Like what is the purpose exactly? I want to understand because I am quite confused.","conclusion":"i believe women have the right to breastfeed their children in public without being harassed. However, i don\u2019t understand why mothers on social media post pictures online of themselves breastfeeding their children."}
{"id":"2b67fe45-ccf2-49a0-9877-b7b12e46c139","argument":"Women are going bare breasts in other areas of society as well without having major issues.","conclusion":"Nipple showing is broadly accepted in fashion and haute couture."}
{"id":"0bf88720-bc5c-4efb-a1be-c70e3eac3700","argument":"I base my view on two assumptions Israel has for some reasons that are their fault and some that are the fault of others attracted so much ill will in the middle east that no matter what it does or how it changes, it will never have a shortage of mortal enemies in nearby Muslim countries. The means to create weapons of mass destruction especially biological and chemical weapons are becoming cheaper and more accessible, just like many other forms of technology. This trend is likely to continue. The time will therefore soon arrive or has already arrived when relatively small, non governmental groups, such as terrorist organizations and apocalyptic cults, can create weapons of mass destruction quickly and cheaply enough to fly under the radar of intelligence and counter terrorism bureaus. Because of its antagonistic relations with the Muslim world and its key role in the apocalyptic beliefs of many religious nutjobs, Israel is a natural target for such weapons. So once the technology is there, it will inevitably be used on Israel repeatedly, with little possibility of deterrence or defense. In the long run, Israel is fucked. . I want to head off any ad hominem responses by pointing out that although I don't care for Israel's West Bank settlement policy, I have no wish to see anything bad happen to Israeli civilians or to Jewish people in general. This post is inspired by sad but realistic cynicism, not by any apocalyptic or anti semitic beliefs of my own.","conclusion":"Israel will most likely be destroyed or crippled by weapons of mass destruction within the next generation or two, so all the political handwringing over the Israel\/Palestine situation is pointless."}
{"id":"1f276edb-a0c6-4087-be14-a6e4719ad45d","argument":"The Moon is the closest large body in the solar system to Earth. While some Earth-crosser asteroids occasionally pass closer, the Moon's distance is consistently within a small range close to 384,400 km. This proximity has several benefits, making it easier to transport supplies and build a colony, requiring less energy to do so, offering the prospect of emergency rescues and mission abortions, and also enabling timely communications.","conclusion":"The proximity of the Moon to Earth makes it ideal to colonize"}
{"id":"2d16650f-8730-470f-a323-4cc522419301","argument":"Infantile circumcision is a breach of a child's bodily autonomy, since the child has no say as to whether he wants the action performed. There are certain medical occasions where it may be necessary to perform an operation, which is acceptable to my mind. However, the two most common justifications for non medical infantile circumcision are it's part of my religion and or it's my identity, I was circumcised, and I want my son to be too . The first point relies on am assumption that religion is a legitimate ground for action. However, most holy books have parts which believers adhere to, and parts which are deemed morally wrong in today's society, and so are disregarded. The idea of autonomy is key to Western society it was key in abortion rights, in the removal of military service for much of the West . Why is such a violation overlooked as fine ? The second point, similarly, ignores the move to bodily autonomy and personhood. The argument that it's ok because it happened to me is perpetuating an eye for an eye mentality, where you can violate your child's bodily autonomy because yours was similarly violated. How is this a justification in any way? If any group ritually cut someone's body without their consent, it would be illegal without question. Why should circumcision get treated differently in this respect?","conclusion":"I believe infantile circumcision is wrong in almost all cases, and hence should be illegal."}
{"id":"d8911a3a-c97d-4a87-97a5-cf4efcb59718","argument":"So I was talking with someone about how some conspiracy theorists harassed people involved in Sandy Hook because they believed that they were crisis actors .^ 1 The same thing happened to families of victims of the Aurora shootings. ^ 2 There are plenty of other examples, from 9 11 to the Holocaust. While I can't imagine how hurtful this must be to the families and think they should be sheltered from such harassment, I find it hard to find what they do hateful. It's not like Westboro Church that was going out to intentionally cause pain. Instead, it seems like they sincerely believe that they are trying to expose a hoax to save everyone else from being fooled. Just like I respect the fact that an evangelist even though I find his attempts to save my soul to be pointless and annoying, I sort of respect the fact that they are doing what they think is the right thing. And since, in their minds, these events never happened, these aren't real victims who they are harassing. I also find it hard to condemn rather than pity people who can look at the facts and still come to their conclusions, which to my mind, are completely irrational. However, because of the harm they do, I would like to feel freer to side only with the victims, so please change my view. For purposes of this discussion, please assume that Sandy Hook, Aurora, 9 11 and the Holocaust actually occurred as described. If you wish to debate those, please start your own thread.","conclusion":"Conspiracy theorists who act on their beliefs should be pitied, not hated."}
{"id":"fdea5d86-7472-4bdb-9759-a262c7262037","argument":"Before we begin, I'm British, so I am going to call it football from here on out, without the added clarification. If you look at some of the elite football players over the last decade, the range of body types are incredibly varied, unlike other sports. To list a few you have, Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Virgil van Dijk, David de Gea, N'golo Kant\u00e9, and Dimitar Berbatov I'll explain why he's included further down . These 6 players all have very different body types. Messi Short, weak upper strength, good pace. When playing he relies on low centre of gravity to be able to dribble past opponents, while also having the pace close control to do so at speed. Ronaldo Decent height, strong, quick. He is a bit of an exception, since his physical qualities are all round outstanding, a considered to be pretty close to what peak physical performance looks like. His game intelligence just adds to make him a complete player. Zlatan Very tall, not very quick, strong, and agile. His eye body co ordination, allows him to create space for himself, while his height and strength make him an intimidating opponent. Although not very quick he is clever enough to be in the right place, and read the game. van Dijk Strong, quick, and relatively tall, he is, similarly to Ronaldo but less so, a phenomenal athlete. He's not hugely agile though. So relies on anticipating play i.e. a good football brain . de Gea Being a GK, his pace is a bit of an unknown, but he is tall, which gives him an advantage when collecting high crosses. He also has very fast reactions, although not particularly strong. Kant\u00e9 Short, but strong, and not very quick. He is incredibly athletic, allowing him to keep running, and performing for the whole game without suffering fatigue. Berbatov Now, those who know their football would argue he isn't elite . I would counter this by saying he won 2 PL titles with Man United, played in 2 CL finals, and won a PL golden boot. The reason why I include him is because physically, he was pretty unexceptional. Aside from being fairly tall, he wasn't quick, he wasn't particularly strong. What he was however, was technically proficient, and tactically smart, allowing him to make up for the physical weaknesses. All of these players have won top division trophies, and are pretty indicative of a range of physicality. I think this partly explains the global popularity of the sport, anyone can play, with no prohibitive cost of equipment. There are also elite players which sit closer to the median body types e.g. Kevin de Bruyne, Karim Benzema for examples . EDIT thanks to u JohnReese20 for getting me to clarify two things. 1 not e sports. 2 I'm talking playing at a elite professional level. Basically, Is person's primary source of income said sport? , if the answer is no , they wouldn't qualify as elite, high enough for consideration.","conclusion":"No sport caters to a wider range of body types than football soccer"}
{"id":"65122e78-77e3-4075-9e34-6765456511f5","argument":"To summarise the parable A farmer needs some extra labourers to work in his vineyard. He goes into town to find some. He finds an idle labourer at 9am and asks him Do you fancy working a full day for 60? The labourer says Sure Thanks At 3pm the farmer goes back into town and asks another idle labourer if he would work until dusk for 60. The labourer says Are you for real??? Of course At 5 30pm the farmer goes back out into town asks a third idle labourer if he would work for 30 minutes for 60. The labourer responds Am I being filmed? This seems too good to be true. Absolutely The first labourer gets wind of the situation, that even though he has worked a full day, he hasn't been paid proportionately for his efforts when compared to the other workers, even though he agreed to work for that sum at the time. The parable apparently teaches us that any laborer who accepts the invitation to the work in the vineyard said by Jesus to represent the Kingdom of Heaven , no matter how late in the day, will receive an equal reward with those who have been faithful the longest. I claim that this parable, and this kind of narrative, especially in the economic climate and system we're in, serves to normalise the idea of inequality and make people more agreeable and thankful for receiving any payment whatsoever, rather that receiving payment that is equivalent to the work they've done. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The Parable of the Farmer and the Workers is a nefarious story that primes people into accepting inequality"}
{"id":"a4628537-569f-43d4-8ae9-fed17612b411","argument":"To preface, my values are fairly traditional. I support the 2nd Ammendment wholeheartedly. I am pro life. I believe in God. I believe compulsory military service would be a positive impact on American society. I went to university. It was super liberal. Most the vast majority did not agree with my views, but were generally willing to discuss freely with me. I knew when it was a waste of my time to try to discuss my views any further, and instead focused on more interesting topics than politics. I used to browse TumblrInAction and related content in and around 2014, possibly earlier but I just don't remember. It was pretty funny I even knew a few pink haired ultra left wing nutjobs on campus who said things like Destroy masculinity and other such nonsense. My issue is people like those left wing fanatics have always existed. They were, and will always be people who are deeply detached from reality and become repugnant in their views to the degree it even effects their outward appearance. This is true on the right as well with the most obnoxious televangenlists being used as a strawman against the legitimate religious people in this country. Or in the case of Libertarians, the most obnoxious sovreign citizen preppers are used to mock their movement as a whole. I get it, its really convenient to mock the weakest and most repulisve members of your opposition. Its like rhetorical junk food. However, recently I have noticed that I have seen literally 0 people who would qualify as SJW even by my own right biased definition, even in a liberal coastal city. I am sure they are here, but they probably are busy working on pet political projects and you'd have to look for them. Meanwhile I have seen no end to triggered right wingers who complain about every percieved slight from the left just as loudly and viciously as any rabid SJW from my university days. They constantly self victimize based on the liberal media , and see the design of corporate environments as anti christian like the starbuck coffee cups. They complain about gay people shoving their sexuality in their face just for living as normally as any other couple. They also hate whenever any company voluntarily introduces left leaning events like gay pride support etc, then unironically turn around and support chick fil a or mozilla's old CEO who donated to prop 8. I'm not merely saying the right is just as bad as SJW. I am saying we're actually worse. SJWs are confined to university campuses and are self neutralizing threats they don't perform in real society. They have no real power due to their own ineptitude. Meanwhile we have conservative leaders being complete snowflakes and complaining about how Pence was treated at a theater play for example. Suck it up buttercup. That's what a raucous, healthy, American society is like. People are free here to say what they mean and use their resources to support their own causes. Stop playing the victim. Edit and to bring it full circle back to my original point people on the right, in spite of their own behavior, are using this canard to criticize legitimate complaints about the status quo. The conditions of the poor and working class. The situation of minorities. I could go on and on. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"\"SJWs\" are not a real threat, but are instead a reactionary canard against legitimate criticism of the status quo."}
{"id":"6ebdf30d-5a8c-4a86-86c9-ea45605ddf39","argument":"I checked the faq for this topic, I didn't see anything directly related to my concerns so here I am posting I'm a chemical engineering major studying to get my Bachelors at a state school in the U.S. at the moment. I've taken several courses on nuclear power during my time at university. One on nuclear power engineering, where I learned about the nuts and bolts of the physics and engineering, as well as big events in nuclear history Manhattan Project to Fukushima and everything in between . Others on ethical and justice concerns in matters dealing with the environment and energy infrastructure. Don't get me wrong, I think nuclear energy is cool . I have a lot of trust in the safety of fourth gen reactors and I think that continued development could make them even more safe and efficient. That being said, what's the point when the Earth has a finite amount of uranium? On top of that, uranium mining is destructive to local environments and communities. Strip mining is bad, and no amount of nuclear development will make that a better process. And it doesn't seem very justified when we only have about 200 years of uranium left at projected rates Bottom line, I think the nuclear fuel cycle is toxic and poses too many risks for the potential rewards. I'm aware of developments with thorium and maybe even cold fusion reactors. But even with all of that, I can't help but feel that solar, wind, geothermal, and biofuels are better options to pursue. My research at the moment is with biofuels so I may be a little biased. But nonetheless. I frequently see a lot of pro nuclear opinions on Reddit so I'm eager to hear some good points. My mind is open. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I don't think expanding nuclear power is the right direction for humanity."}
{"id":"8aadc17d-6c3d-43c6-908c-529c07f1215a","argument":"This is a set of government guidelines that regulates such things as the accuracy of sharpshooters that kill Kangaroos, ensuring that direct shots to the head occur and result in the instantaneous, painless death of Kangaroos.","conclusion":"The Code of Practice in the ACT helps ensures culls are humane."}
{"id":"16d12d3e-9ec9-4d9d-ace4-423655f8a0d7","argument":"Ignoring the implications for Japan of dropping the bomb is simplistic, there were embryonic cold war concerns, but these should not be pulled into the foreground the exclusion of all others. The lives of Allied servicemen, the potential slaughter of Japanese civilians in case of an invasion, Winning the war in the quickest way possible are all important factors among many others. None should be cherry picked or ignored.","conclusion":"Just because dropping the bomb had external value does not mean it was not necessary to end the war with Japan."}
{"id":"a2b06d78-0551-4c48-9ee6-3efdb34307c8","argument":"Bitcoin value is highly unstable. The actual value of a bitcoin is not determined by social or economic factors but by stock market like principle. Large scale transactions have a huge impact on the price of a bitcoin.","conclusion":"As a currency, Bitcoin is not stable enough. Thus consumers who invest in Bitcoins as a store of value might be gravely disappointed."}
{"id":"0f387a91-e053-43ae-afe1-2a2b4d37a0a8","argument":"Pushing for gun control in the wake of a mass shooting is cutting your nose to spite your face. You are literally disarming yourselves, doing more and more of the same solution over and over again, thinking it will change something. Do you know what the definition of insanity is? It's doing the same thing, over and over again, getting the same result, but still somehow expecting things to change. No the real issue is a toxic culture, a broken corrupt education system, shitty parents trying to fill a void, and an invisible censorship system that literally has everyone hooked on it like drug addicts. Our culture glorifies recognition from our peers, and society. With many parents, they either neglected their children, abused them, or imposed their will upon them Expecting them to achieve greatness in their stead. Then they were thrown into the meat grinder that is public education. It discouraged independent thought, and deviation from the norm. You were then promised a false bill of goods Then you were thrown into the real world, expecting to be great, only to find many people were pushed into the next meat grinder of crippling debt, and a job structure that fucks its employees. So you find solace online. The need for recognition imbedded in you since childhood. But now, you see people online living the life you were promised. You feel invisible, maybe even a failure. You are then made privy to an invisible algorithm system that segregates you by ideology. Google and Facebook are everywhere, and constantly collecting your data. It places you in echo chambers of your own beliefs. It controls what information reaches you and what information can go out of these echo chambers. In Oreo 8.0, the Android operating system as of right now, it is impossible to see the active RAM and data usage on any given app without rooting your phone Which risks turning your 800 smartphone into a brick. Shootings are a result of people who have been damaged by the system, given false promises, isolated by the same negative repetitious information, and made to feel like they don't matter. It is either revenge for what the world has done to them, or it is a desperate cry to be noticed. Stop listening to the same noise from the big political powers, or news sources, get off your ass, and actually get involved in your community. Now please Try and convince me the problem is as simple as Guns are legal in America, and that's why other countries don't have shootings , or white supremacy which doesn't make fucking sense because it's white people, shooting other white people , or whatever else bullshit explanation you've been force fed.","conclusion":"Gun control is wrong, and won't stop shootings. The real issue is a toxic culture, indoctrinating school systems, bad parenting, and a corporate monopoly on the distribution of information."}
{"id":"d1faeaee-ab0b-4a7d-820e-1aed712a42cf","argument":"I love the idea as long as all have accces to participate, it should almost be mandantory with minimal exceptions. But, that being said the MOB mentality could possibly take a country down a path of non logic or reason. The ideal of a vote having genuine consequences would almost demand education of such a system in school to inform the pros and cons of each particular vote in itself. In otherwords a plain language explanation what a voting result would entail.","conclusion":"Liquid Democracy would be a better mechanism of governance than current representative democracy."}
{"id":"5b3b077f-2c6c-4faa-ad59-2a551c02425d","argument":"This has the further uptake that such interests transform to become more society-centric. Instead of profit and pleasing shareholders, corporations would be incentivised to work in the interests of society at large.","conclusion":"Minority interests, like big corporations, that can be very influential via lobbying career-politicians need to be much more transparent about their interests, if they are to gain anything."}
{"id":"a1deb6de-c144-4567-ab22-f04732c85619","argument":"If you're wearing a top that starts just ahead of your nipples, you are inviting people to look there. Same goes for dresses that barely cover your ass cheeks. I'm not saying they should allow perverted comments. However if somebody says hey sweet tits ass why the hell would you be upset? You are showing off those features, if you didn't want people looking at them, draw attention elsewhere. It's unfair to get mad at somebody for staring at your tits or ass when you clearly dress to show them off. The whole my eyes are up here line is usually given by a girl who spent 20 minutes making her tits look good. Its intended as a compliment, we are not sexualizing you anymore then you have yourself.","conclusion":"Women who dress provocatively shouldn't be upset when they recive a provocative comment."}
{"id":"9c8eb7e6-838f-4877-8005-6bb76a7d2025","argument":"Legally, everyone already can, of course, as it should be. But for some reason it's socially unacceptable to use the word unless you're black. This is incredibly confusing to me, is it not racist by definition for the usage of a word to be judged differently depending on the color of one's skin? This of course is not solely limited to a few words and phrases that have double standards attached to them, but the entire idea of cultural appropriation being a bad thing. The whole point of America is to be a melting pot where all cultures are infused together. Is it not also un American to expect your culture to be closed off to foreigners? gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"White people should be able to use the word \"nigga\""}
{"id":"95fd2a0a-eae5-4ab0-b75c-f0951b7a6d87","argument":"Over the last decade the NHS UK Health System spent approximately \u00a31.75 million on homeopathic treatment. That money could have gone into funding treatments that actually show results.","conclusion":"The money available to public health systems is limited. One patient's decisions to use homeopathy limits another's access to a more effective treatment."}
{"id":"19e142eb-e8cd-4cb9-b667-5b260ae826cc","argument":"Sure, there's going to be the odd boss here and there who is an asshole, but overall I believe the statistics that say There are fewer women in x field just mean that fewer women have had an interest in x field, not that they have tried and had a more difficult time succeeding. The only reason we can calculate statistics that support the gender gap is because women do work less over our entire careers because we are usually the main childcare providers and we have less of a natural instinct toward being career oriented so we don't drive ourselves as hard as men do.","conclusion":"I believe that the gender salary gap is a myth and if you dedicate yourself to the field of your choice, you will succeed equally, no matter your gender."}
{"id":"65f0f30f-62da-4bbc-90cd-333ad7f99c23","argument":"Pretty much the title. I'm from the United States and a lot of people were generally angry that I believe this. Their main reasoning was that in many other countries, the citizens have no say in who leads them or are forced to vote for one candidate, and that my right to vote isn't something to be thrown away. If I don't support either presidential candidate or have a particular interest in voting for either one, I'd rather not vote for either instead of voting for someone I don't support. But there seams to be a generally unfavorable attitude towards non voters, especially in older generations. To clarify, I'm not saying that I don't vote, but the stigma against non voters is unfair.","conclusion":"It should be perfectly acceptable to abstain from voting."}
{"id":"a1595b76-1214-4f86-a85e-b0cca6f23f8d","argument":"Allah, the Monotheistic, Omnipotent, Omniscient, Eternal, Self-Sufficient, Creator, Sustainer, and Monitor of all that exists, has repeatedly revealed, since the first human being, guidance on how to minimise evil in, even eradicate evil from, society. All but one i.e. the Quran of Allah's messages of guidance have been destroyed or perverted by evil humans, for their own greed for power and wealth. So evil only exists because evil humans reject and\/or pervert Allah's guidance.","conclusion":"Evil is an anthropocentric idea. There was no evil prior to the appearance of humans."}
{"id":"f8fe274b-643b-46ca-ae1e-6880e1b67179","argument":"I have a really hard time understanding the benefits of conservatives to society. I believe that social development, as well as progress, will only come upon changes and reflections of our communities' current political actions. What are then the benefits of conservative individuals to social development? I understand that some might be in favor of maintaining values that may have worked or fit in the past, but often these are individualistic or even exclusive to a really select group. Edit I am Brazilian. I believe that if we didn't have conservatives in our societies we would develop more equally.","conclusion":"Conservatives pull social development backwards."}
{"id":"6ad278cb-64a4-49ed-8ccb-464cf9cbb70a","argument":"There should not be a minimum wage in America. A long time ago, there was probably a good cause for it, just as there was good cause for Unions to form. Now, most unions are useless and should be done away with as well now that society has changed. The same can be said about the minimum wage. Nearly every economist agrees that there should not be a minimum wage. Economists don't agree Edit This wasn't intended to be the centerfold of the argument, I was more focused on the merits. There is no need for us to price fix anymore. The market should decide the price. If McDonald's wants to hire a cashier for 4.75 an hour, they will have a rude awakening when they realize that nobody is applying for their jobs, or only the extremely incompetent. Minimum wages hurt small businesses. Many small businesses are already on a tight budget and when people are thinking about the Wal Marts and McDonalds that should pay more, they forget about the small businesses that are hurt by these wage increases. Additionally, minimum wage hurts employees. If a business has a budget for two employees to make around 7.50 each, and the wage is increased to 15, then the business will simply fire one of the employees and tack on the extra work amongst the other workers or automated systems.This leads to more job loss. Further, the unexperienced are greatly hurt by this increase. As a young person with no experience, how would they compete against an older person with greater experience? I'll work the same amount of hours, but I'll do it for less. This advantageous technique can get them the experience they need to then move up the chain and get their foot in the door. We all hear about young people not being able to get a job because they don't have experience and being stuck in an endless loop. With this minimum wage, that way to get their foot in the door is lost. Lastly, minimum wage increases will lead to inflation. If wages are increased and everything else remains constant, either employees are fired or prices increase. The minimum wage worker will now have more money in their pocket to pay for more expensive products in turn leaving them back where they started with the rest of the economy facing the inflation. Minimum wage should not be used to support someone's cost of living not saying that 15 does . This is usually for people to make ends meet as a second job or to get experience.","conclusion":"There shouldn't be a minimum wage."}
{"id":"224cb8c0-477e-460c-b55b-8e0fa717f83d","argument":"SpaceX's business model is based on building rockets that are substantially cheaper than those of its competitors. So far price-cutting has been achieved through vertical integration and reusable rocket technology.","conclusion":"Spreading fear about AI doesn't appear to be directly beneficial to SpaceX."}
{"id":"2d4dffc9-b355-4b12-a6a8-69a8a7d13a71","argument":"The whaling commission was hijacked by non-whaling members joining and overriding the concerns of whaling nations. This imbalance from the envisioned purpose causes great instability within it.","conclusion":"Allowing whale hunting will save the broken International Whaling Commission, which has become dysfunctional through internal disagreement, because it allows members that previously withdrew to return."}
{"id":"af9026b1-dc26-41af-9809-1631606a36b2","argument":"The Universal Declaration on Human Rights and other human rights treaties allow states to partially restrict the full enjoyment of human rights if it is necessary and proportionate p. 4.","conclusion":"Infringing the human rights of some individuals to prevent harm to the general public is only justified if it is necessary and proportionate p. 20"}
{"id":"26454489-23a4-4283-b933-dc2a448201ce","argument":"I really feel that boob jobs really don't improve the look of a woman, and I think that face lifts are actually freakish and scare me. Now, some plastic surgery to fix cleft palate and horrific injuries are fine and have their place. But when girls like Sara Jean Underwood and Nessa Devil for example get boob jobs they end up looking butchered and not good at all. When people like Cher try to get face lifts it just looks freaky and un natural. When girls like Lindsay Lohan get their lips injected I think it looks awful, and like an allergic reaction. I hate plastic surgery for cosmetic reasons, change my view.","conclusion":"I have never seen plastic surgery for cosmetic reasons that I think improved someone."}
{"id":"9f1a3e4c-2b7a-4666-a3fe-36eab86b0d00","argument":"Europe as we know it and its culture were in part shaped by influences from abroad, for example through invasions by Mongols as well as Persians","conclusion":"There is no such thing as a unique and stable culture in the West."}
{"id":"804fe4bb-4f22-4831-8047-57f151f5acb5","argument":"my position is that reality follows phisics without exception therefor all action in reality are a reaction of different effects comming together. for example, if we roll a dice, the idea that the result is random can only be maintained if we are ignorant to all the variables applied to the dice, if we where to know them with precision, we could predict exactly how the dice would land, rejecting the idea of randomness. I believe the same applies to free will, I think that our mental proceses are ruled by chemistry, which is also an exact science assuming we have all variables our decision to take certain actions or think certain thoughts is one predisposed by those variables, and that we cannot do otherwise. so I think reality and everything that exists in it is preordained since the beguinning of time, just like a rock falling in a vaccum has no choice as to which forces affect it and what direction it moves in this variables include everyting from the chemistry of our brains to the physics of our atoms, to our perspective of reality, and social preasure.","conclusion":"I believe everything is preordained"}
{"id":"76e7857e-d031-4303-a9f6-f1fc82355b5f","argument":"I recently moved to Toronto after living in Seoul for ten years and Tokyo for one and before moving here, I did a lot of research into real estate and related trends as my wife and I weren't sure if we were going to buy or rent. One of the things I noticed while reading article after article and opinion after opinion about the reasons behind the skyrocketing housing is that very, very few people see it through the lens of a simple supply and demand issue. Many economists painted a picture of an overly inflated bubble on the verge of bursting and insisted that the market was responding to artificial demand rather than actual demand. I've noticed the same issue in other cities as well. While house hunting in Toronto, however, we saw first hand how fast condos appeared and disappeared, how people bought for well over the asking price, and when we finally decided to rent, it was such a hot market that we had to do everything short of sucking the landlord's to get a place as non residents with no local references. It doesn't seem like artificial demand to me. It seems to me like there is a surge in demand to live in these cities as the world's population becomes increasingly urban, and so far most cities have failed to respond to this surge in a way that future proofs them in the long term. In Toronto, the ugly glass condo boom in commercial and otherwise built up areas seems to be caused by the regulatory framework being so slow to evolve that only ugly, cheaply made condos in the downtown core could slip through. Go even slightly outside the downtown core and all you see are rows and rows of single family dwellings detached or semi detached homes , many of which have dedicated garage alleys I don't know the actual term running behind the rows taking up huge amounts of space on their own y'know, to provide a nice stable for your horse and buggy . From what I can tell, because of zoning laws, NIMBYs, and the general population and their representatives not realizing that they should emulate East Asia more and 20th century North America less, it's difficult to demolish sections of these housing blocks and replace them with low rise apartment buildings that could be visually appealing and help create a larger supply of housing to drive down prices. As it stands, unless you're making 25 30 hr, you have no business living anywhere near the downtown core unless you're content to cohabitate. What really startled me in all this is that Toronto is actually on the cheap side as far as major cities are concerned Then there's the topic of an aging public transportation infrastructure that is being pushed to it's limits. In Toronto and other major cities, you often have a choice between more affordable housing and long commutes of an hour or more or comparatively short commutes and housing that eats up most of your paycheque. I'm not an economist but it seems to me like these major cities in the west ought to start building up, not out, yet there seems to be very little discussion of this or political will to allow it to happen. The alternative would be greatly expanding improving public transportation but this doesn't seem like a good idea to me because any cursory glance at the future of transportation will tell you that massive changes are coming from the private sector that may eventually chip away at the practicality of buses, streetcars and subway trains anyway. tl dr I'm no economist but it seems apparent to me that major cities with expensive housing ought to build up rather than out and increase the population density in order to satisfy the needs of the people that live in these cities.","conclusion":"The main solution to overly expensive housing in major cities is to increase population density by building up, not out"}
{"id":"e7c52076-3be2-4f0f-838f-4fddc1a0bc46","argument":"So this is my take on this 1 I'm an individual. I have red hair, I'm white, straight, my gender identity is the same as my sex, and I'm Irish. I'm proud of those things. Shamelessly and unapologetically. Why is this a bad thing? And really, there's only three things in that list that pisses people off, my pride in being white, my pride in being straight, and my pride in having a gender identity that matches my sex. I can be proud of my red hair and Irish descent all day and nobody would care. But the second it's admit my skin color, not my nationality, in a racist bigot that deserves the most painful punishment imaginable x100. This is ridiculous, being a minority doesn't give you special privileges. That actually goes against what these groups have supposedly been fighting for, EQUALITY. 2 There have been some awful black people. There are crime Lords by the dozens in Africa. But the second you bring that up, you're flexing your privilege. There have been more terrorists from the middle East than I can count, but people fight eveday to stop people from grouping all Muslims together. But when it's about white people, it's okay. We're automatically grouped with the Confederacy, Nazis no I'm not excusing the acts of the alt right as of late, but that's a well known white extremist group , and the KKK. They are not their history, but we are??? How does this make any sense?","conclusion":"Everyone is entitled to being proud of their race, heritage, skin color, gender identity, sexuality, and everything else that makes up their individual identity, even if they're white, cisgender, and straight."}
{"id":"305dfbd2-c638-4821-a2a3-9001f541f360","argument":"Many monogamous relationships do not involve these benefits, as 40-50% of all marriages in the US end in divorce.","conclusion":"While stability is important to children, polygamous households are not necessarily less stable than monogamous households."}
{"id":"faa615ce-4742-4ed5-b9f7-2197a4961043","argument":"I've been trying to better understand motivations behind transitioning but am hung up on one point. As an lgbt person, I really want to understand so please help me reddit My thoughts about this are still pretty jumbled so feel free to ask for clarification about anything I don't explain well. My main hangup is that it seems like trans people have taken on their gender or trans status as a huge focus point of their lives. I've never met a trans person who before transition was a lawyer or successful business owner with lots of interesting hobbies. Instead it seems more often than not to be someone who lacks direction and finds community with other trans people and purpose in the transition process. While I think people should be free to identify however they choose, I can't help but think someone must be a pretty boring person if their gender or trans status is one of their most interesting and defining qualities. I often see this in the gay community too. I've seen so many ladies take their sexuality on as their entire identity. After coming out, they cut their hair, wear rainbow stuff, buy flannel with the goal of looking more gay. If you asked me to describe myself in a handful of words then I would say that I'm a scientist, triathlete, animal lover, math wiz, disorganized person, a great friend. I might add that I value being a good partner to my wife but the fact that my wife and I both have lady bits isn't one of my defining aspects. I genuinely feel that if I woke up tomorrow as a man then that would not be ideal but not a big enough issue that I'd put all that energy into transitioning. I don't see how I could transition while also dedicating myself to my career and hobbies to the extent I currently do and those things are way more important to me than my gender. To summarize I want to better understand transitioning but am stuck on this idea that to transition, someone must be centering their identity around their gender or trans status. That leads me view people who are transitioning as boring or lacking hobbies and purpose. It also makes me think we shouldn't encourage young people to transition. During teenage college years, people are still figuring out who they are and sometimes temporarily latch onto ideas, find religion, etc while figuring out what they want out of life. x200B Edit I should clarify that what I've said only would imply to someone currently transitioning. If someone transitioned in the past then what I've said here would apply at the time of their transition and would say nothing about who they now are.","conclusion":"Trans people often lack direction and center their identity around their gender\/trans status"}
{"id":"e55d81fc-bd43-4576-bb3e-aeb4bc64dc1b","argument":"Allowing former ISIS fighters a fair trial in a democratic state can protect them from unfair treatment by the legal systems of other nations.","conclusion":"Denying foreign fighters reentry could put their lives at risk."}
{"id":"1b83c11f-8289-4c46-b474-2ed87025d0aa","argument":"This is not an argument for the existence of God as much as it is an argument against reason and rational inquiry. If this argument is accepted, the entire concept of rational debate on which this thesis is founded is internally inconsistent and the discussion cannot continue. This would not prove the existence of God, it would only prove that a rational debate cannot be had as to whether God exists.","conclusion":"Any argument without evidence to support it is not a good reason to believe."}
{"id":"61d68799-9e25-4a83-9172-7b7e116456bb","argument":"Many large industries such as the fashion industry employ large numbers of unpaid interns to reduce the need to hire paid staff.","conclusion":"Unpaid interns often do real work meaning that they drive out people searching for paid positions."}
{"id":"85733ffd-c935-4ff7-acf2-f07db1288238","argument":"Consumer loyalty just seems to cause issues in the gaming market. People will buy things just because they are simply the next in the series. While this accounts for things like the latest aliens game, it also accounts for the consoles themselves. If we look at the latest ones, ignoring the wiiu, they both have no backwards compatability, and both are moving away from dedicated machines. This even accounts for microtransactions, because they worked well in whichever game did them first, and then they spread like a virus to almost all ios android games, even those that had no right to use something like that, and even spread to pc games. Change my view. gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than just downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"gaming consumer loyalty is actively hurting consumers and the gaming comunity"}
{"id":"c4e62db6-3583-42db-836b-acde2e01c961","argument":"It would enable people, who do not have the financial means to pay for cannabis in the pharmacy, to still benefit from it's advantages.","conclusion":"Growing your own cannabis is way cheaper than having to buy it from others."}
{"id":"cda6f6ed-0360-4084-96b8-f41c22e00d4a","argument":"The state is dependent on civil marriage as a tool of social control to regulate sexuality and family formation by establishing a favoured form of lifestyle.","conclusion":"Marriage is a harmful institution and should not be supported by the state."}
{"id":"ea87e5bd-dbaf-4cd8-a671-2c51aaae10b1","argument":"If we abandon elements of God's perfection, then God would no longer be that which nothing greater can be imagined, because the thing with all perfections would still be imaginable and greater.","conclusion":"The Ontological Argument shows that there must be some being that has the properties traditionally ascribed to God. We can't abandon those properties and still be talking about that being."}
{"id":"4326f1fa-43cd-4ebd-8762-a9c5603cd467","argument":"First, I'd just like to provide a little backdrop for this discussion. I'm am speaking from a specifically American point of view where cyclists are in the minority. I live in a suburb on the outskirts of a large city. I sit squarely between suburbia and rural areas, and cycling has become very popular over the past several years. Legally, at least in my city cyclists have every right to use the same roads as motorized vehicles. Many of the roads I travel in my city are winding and through forested areas. The speed limit usually ranges from 35 55 miles per hour in these areas, and cars obviously outpace cyclists by a large margin. Visibility, even in broad daylight, is very limited for long stretches of these areas. In one county in particular, the roads are incredibly unsafe for cyclists and accidents deaths occur on what feels like a monthly basis. Just as an example there is one particular road that has an aggressive downhill slope. You can round the corners of this road safely and legally doing 30 MPH, but cyclists have trouble reaching over 8 MPH going uphill. There is no bike lane. The road is very narrow. Accidents are regular. I have come close to hitting a cyclist probably 2 3 times a year for the past several years. In a few of these cases, I've nearly run myself off the road. The avid cyclists I've come into contact with are vehement about their rights on the roads and how drivers need to adapt to this new cycling culture. The problem is, accidents are occurring when neither the driver or cyclist is being reckless. With such low visibility and differences in speed between cyclists and drivers, injuries and deaths will continue to no one's fault. Everyone's lives are unreasonably at risk in these situations. Drivers and cyclists alike.","conclusion":"Cycling on any road not exclusively set aside for cyclists is wrong, dangerous, and should be made illegal."}
{"id":"7c1315c3-7da2-49dc-aba1-73153a95f562","argument":"According to the \"Zoo hypothesis aliens may be purposely preventing us from contacting them, so that they do not interrupt humans' natural development. In short, Earth might be kind of a \"zoo\" for aliens, to watch our growth as a species.","conclusion":"In the sense of Star Trek's Prime Directive aliens might not get in touch in order to not disturb Earth's civilization and impose themselves."}
{"id":"6ca88237-63af-4201-b003-007ea48e05c2","argument":"One must consider a weighted average of all outcomes. Demonstrating that the least bad rape is worse than the least bad false rape conviction isn't sufficient.","conclusion":"Pointing out that not all false accusations are the as bad as the worst case scenario isn't a sufficient counterargument."}
{"id":"a6c6313f-12b5-441d-b131-da8843f08e5e","argument":"In my opinion, the people who would be the best in power are those who don't want it, and those who do want it shouldn't have it. People who don't want it This reflects on their character and suggests they believe everyone should be equal. People who do want it They are hungry for the power alone, and just wish to be in charge and force others to do things they want. Please convince me that my logic is flawed.","conclusion":"I believe those who want power shouldn't have it."}
{"id":"ff56aa92-65b3-43f2-9e30-fa28f5fad9a3","argument":"Another form of social control through the use of guilt and pressure - in this case to pressure the country to implement such laws.","conclusion":"Religion has tried to control women's bodies by banning abortion, birth control and contraception."}
{"id":"c8fa4d53-8014-4ad1-af71-141f564fbb2e","argument":"When - for example - an ethnic female character is poorly written, that will only make her weaker, as she will stick out like a sore thumb. The audience will then automatically think that she was just haphazardly slapped on top of the story in effort to achieve equal representation.","conclusion":"Along with the inclusion of a broader cast, much effort should be put into the writing of these characters to make them compelling, useful to the story and interesting."}
{"id":"4c5cc9ab-a580-4037-94c7-a8c869cb7095","argument":"It could be the stepping stone for any young person who has not yet figured out what they want to do with their lives after high school.","conclusion":"Obligatory two-year service would guarantee that young adults get important work-experience which they can then later apply in life."}
{"id":"3b387354-58da-48b2-ad32-a2e411e1982f","argument":"But think about the people who care about you. Ok, so now the persons only reason to live is to prevent others from getting sad? It kinda contradicts itself you should live for my sake yea they totally care about the suicidal person It can get better Just like how you can win the lottery, doesn't mean you should keep on trying. Assess the situation, if meds and therapy hasn't helped then this is a BS argument. I think people are reflecting their perspective on life onto other people and assume they process the world the same as them and get the same enjoyment out of it when they actually don't. Also in many cases people are severely suicidal not just thinking about it because they don't have anyone who genuinely cares about them, so I think that kind of debate is saved for a minority and even then encouraging the suffering of others is ridiculous. edit Sorry for my insecurity, and getting extremely defensive at first, I understand your perspectives now, I just picked a topic I felt strongly about it. The first one suggests don't do it because it makes others sad. But that argument could be used for the suicidal person. Don't live because it makes you sad. The second one it can get better works both ways. It can also get worse, and nothing is certain.","conclusion":"I don't think there's a good argument against suicide, other than \"sometimes\" it gets better."}
{"id":"56842d3a-2015-4d67-b732-e78630c7e196","argument":"It\u2019s very easy to infantilize an argument and present it convincingly to someone who has never heard an opposition argument. Frighteningly easy. Examples Evolution is stupid because humans don\u2019t come from monkeys and if they did monkeys wouldn\u2019t exist. Climate change is dumb because the earth is always changing in climate look at this graph conveniently plucked right before el nino to show the earth is actually cooling. Liberals are stupid. government never works look at the Soviet Union or Maoist China. Conservatives are heartless. They want to get rid of welfare for poor people ONLY so they can pay lower taxes. All the examples would seem logical and rational to someone who was never pressed on the issues by the other side In recent times especially, we\u2019ve seen an increase in these echo chambers in nearly every avenue of life. They\u2019re were really very few leftist or right winger echo chambers 10 years ago like there was now. Media tended to be left leaning but fair. Now we have entire subreddits dedicated to one political view and often times these subreddits ban opposing view points. Look at r latestagecapitalism for example. We have news channels which subscribe to political ideology now. Breitbart wouldn\u2019t be here 20 years ago. Don\u2019t get me wrong, we always had political leanings and websites dedicated to certain ideologies. But these echo chambers are now becoming to the most common mode of information as opposed to the exception. When we don\u2019t observe the opposite argument, we\u2019re all political geniuses in our own head. It\u2019s like playing a basketball against no defense. Not hard to score in those conditions. My favorite example is the abortion debate. I feel like nobody stops to listen to the best arguments of the other side during abortion debates. A liberal talking point on this issue is that conservatives are hypocritical for being pro life and anti birth control subsidies. I don\u2019t think so. Conservatives simply believe abortion is murder and subsidies are bad for the free market and for cheap access to most goods is maximum when the free market is left untouched. Another talking point is that abortion is about legislating the vagina. Again, this couldn\u2019t be more divorced of reality. Pro life conservatives simply believe what you\u2019re doing is murder. A murderer wouldn\u2019t be able to say \u201cyou\u2019re oppressing my right to kill someone with my own body\u201d. Now to pick on the other side, conservatives seem to believe that banning abortions would stop them despite this logic not working on guns. Liberals argue banning abortions wouldn\u2019t stop them, but simply make them more unsafe. All arguments here have merit intellectually, but not to the other side. The reason for this in my estimation is because the other side never hears the argument. They, at best, hear a distorted version of the argument that serves their groups interest. This dichotomy is the worst thing to happen to American discourse because it prevents us from even discussing the issues which is the first step to forming a solution. Just to be very clear, this polarization was always there. The abortion debate is decades old, so modern media can\u2019t be to blame solely. But I believe it\u2019s getting very much worse thanks to modern media.","conclusion":"the biggest issue with political discourse today is that no one knows what they\u2019re talking about in reference to the other side."}
{"id":"bb3f05b0-eb0e-4bcd-82b3-30f1158e0a2e","argument":"Mario begat Luigi. Star Wars begat the Extended Universe. Christianity begat Mormonisim. All of these begats have one thing in common without the original base on which the derivate work is founded upon, the work that was derived would not make any sense or have meaning. This is quote unquote copypasta, but I think it serves as a good illustration of my point As it says, Waluigi is a man seen only in mirror images lost in a hall of mirrors he is a reflection of a reflection of a reflection. These characters and works of fiction only exist to supplement a piece of work that has already succeeded and not on their own merit as creation. That's not to say that they do not have value or bring up interesting points and ideas, but they cannot do that without being subservient to the rules, ideas, and customs defined in their spawning work. For example, the character of Thrawn in the Star Wars extended universe is beloved by many fans. But without the greater context of the empire, the light dark dichotomy of the force, and other tenets of the Star Wars canon established elsewhere, he would not have near the emotional impact and resonance that he does. He is the paint job on the Robie House he improves and shores up issues in the base work, but he does not create something new he only adds to what already exists. And because of this quality holds true across all those examples I listed, I do not believe that a derivative work could be argued to be superior to the work that spawned it. Change my view Edit For clarity of argument, I am referring specifically to artistic works here, not all things. Technology improves and advances onward","conclusion":"Derivative works are inherently inferior to the works that they spawned from"}
{"id":"45e8135d-7a87-4854-98aa-9015dc03ac8b","argument":"As we learn in uni, sincere conservatives come in three forms religious, economic and isolationists. It is my contention that what we have in the US Republican Party is not genuine conservatism but simply greed. As proven by the election of Donald Trump, Republicans have no principal save one I've got mine. The three varieties of conservatives are 1 Religious. They believe that social change gay marriage, abortion, racial equality is disruptive and potentially catastrophic. They strongly believe in Traditional Values like monogamy, civility and moderation. Obviously, nobody who voted for Donald Trump can claim to believe any of this instead, they are motivated by hate I've got mine , an opposition to extending rights to oppressed groups for its own sake . 2 Economic conservatives. These people believe in small government to avoid handouts to favoured businesses. They also believe in budgetary restraint. Trump has already engaged in the sort of discriminatory industry policy they claim to oppose for instance, threatening to whack tariffs on businesses that shift jobs offshore. He also intends to blow up the deficit on military and infrastructure spending. Obviously these people are motivated instead by a desire for welfare, in the form of personal favours like tax cuts and light regulation. 3 Foreign policy conservatives claim to believe first in sovereignty above all. For this reason they oppose international courts and the like. Obviously this is not a genuine belief, since they voted for a Russian spy. So convince me. Is anyone in the US an actual conservative? Or do we have sincere liberals on one side and the greedy and stupid on the other? PS I also note that conservatives claim to oppose executive orders and don't, among other good government policies.","conclusion":"American Conservatism is dead, and Trump nailed the coffin"}
{"id":"be5d5150-14f5-4830-b270-ebe7f3251444","argument":"It could be argued that the rhetoric and atmosphere seen during the first referendum could become more feverish. The country was shown to be very divided and those same divisions could resurface","conclusion":"The last referendum was an unpleasant, divisive, all-consuming ordeal. Citizens will not want to be subjected to all of that again."}
{"id":"12fb7768-a20d-4fc2-a8e1-c62a5c9c0a96","argument":"I have never really understood why people like to watch baseball Maybe it's something you just have to be brought up appreciating But with the nba season ending soon, I would like to be able to enjoy watching espn over the summer for once. I realize how impressive it is to be able to hit a 95 mph fastball and some of those crazy double plays with rocket throws from right field to second base are truly impressive, but I still cannot sit through any more than a few pitches waiting for something cool to happen Is there something I'm missing or that I should be watching for to keep me entertained? Or am I doomed to another summer of no sports to watch? Please change my view","conclusion":"I think baseball is boring... PLEASE !!"}
{"id":"cbe833ba-01c0-4db5-91e6-93e5bd95d5fe","argument":"Having the lack of diversity will also make any findings harder to implement. Research from the National Bureau of Economic Research indicates that African American men are more likely to take cues from doctors who look like them.","conclusion":"There is a lack of racial diversity in healthcare professionals meaning the people implementing any findings are also disproportionately white."}
{"id":"5a8146cd-ddf1-411f-81cd-e994535aa148","argument":"Just as a clarification before I dive in, I don't mean LITERALLY. If someone is pretty much running away from you and refuses to engage, then clearly attempting to debate is futile. However, if we define debate as a discussion between individuals with different viewpoints, then debate is only as pointless as the competence of the respective interlocutors. The reason I see it this way is due to the fact that when without fully reversing the viewpoint of one's interlocutor, the ability to provide insight to that individual that they have may previously lacked is always a possibility. Furthermore, even in the event that you are conversing with a particularly stubborn individual, who insists that, nothing will change their mind , assuming that they actually hold a faulty position, then they are mistaken about their own convincibility. The fact remains that belief is not a choice, therefore convincing someone of something is merely a matter of finding the right argument that they hopelessly find convincing. I feel like I've thought this through and I'm pretty confident I'm right but because it seems too obvious I'm willing to accept that I'm missing something.","conclusion":"Debate is never a waste of time"}
{"id":"097c1bc4-548d-4279-94f3-ae00b0b310ef","argument":"I'm not happy about it, either. I know it's sad that someone's favorite Pok\u00e9mon won't be in the game, and I'm guessing that at least one of my favorites will be dropped. However, game development is not easy . Call me a gatekeeper, but I haven't seen anyone who actually understands programming getting mad about this. Here are some of the common arguments I've heard about how Game Freak supposedly has no excuse not to include every Pok\u00e9mon, and why I believe they're wrong gt But the models created for X and Y were specifically designed to be future proof Can't they just import those? Nothing in game development is ever that easy. Models also have to be rigged and animated, and probably more. Since Pok\u00e9mon will appear in the overworld in the Wild Areas, each individual Pok\u00e9mon will probably also have to have its own AI behaviors. I can't even imagine what else the developers may have to do. gt Every other game had every generation of Pok\u00e9mon Sword and Shield appear to be much bigger than previous generations. The previous games were designed for portable systems, but Sword and Shield were designed for a home console. gt You're acting like Game Freak is a small indie studio. Compared to other companies, it is. The Witcher 3's production started with more people than Game Freak has in total. Every Ubisoft game has a large multinational production team, sometimes containing thousands of people. Zelda Breath of the Wild had 300 names in the credits. gt The 3DS could handle 800 Pok\u00e9mon, so why can't the Switch? The 3DS was a portable system with a 240p screen. The Switch is a home console that can display up to 1080p. The Pok\u00e9mon aren't the only models in the game, and making HD models is much harder than making SD models. Countless game studios didn't survive the PS360 era because the shift to HD was too much of a jump. gt But what about Masahiro Sakurai and his dedication? Sakurai almost killed himself working on Super Smash Bros. for 3DS and Wii U. I don't like throwing this word around, but it's pretty entitled to believe someone should push themselves to their breaking point 24 7 just so you can use your Garbodor. gt Couldn't they just delay the game? Actually, they already did I'm not sure Game Freak would be able to delay it twice.","conclusion":"Game Freak's decision to remove Pok\u00e9mon from Sword and Shield was perfectly reasonable"}
{"id":"f5b8ca58-2e85-42a4-bcb9-1e4070bc7785","argument":"Fraud actually represents the 2.1% of the overall benefit expenditure. From that, only 0.7% id due to actual fraud, while the rest is due to claimant errors 0.9% and to officials errors 0.5%.","conclusion":"Abuse of welfare it is generally perceived as way bigger than it actually is."}
{"id":"5a428cec-2f68-4a9d-9578-08bea8b20abc","argument":"Our world cultural heritage is extremely important and its destruction would constitute a crime against humanity.","conclusion":"treat the desecration and destruction of high-value sites and property of cultural heritage as a crime against humanity."}
{"id":"a6a7a305-3115-40a0-b4fe-cccee35e5470","argument":"Another form of social control through the use of guilt and pressure - in this case to pressure the country to implement such laws.","conclusion":"Religion has tried to control women's bodies by banning abortion, birth control and contraception."}
{"id":"37bf25e4-6615-4c1f-98a3-e26d0a8e32a1","argument":"If, for instance, a digital intelligence were created from the minds of real humans, or even copied from them, we would need a framework for their rights and protections.","conclusion":"By denying AGI basic rights, we logically place ourselves as an existential threat to them."}
{"id":"488535e5-0b9c-468e-9bf2-5fc9a62d9f61","argument":"The Olympic Games focus international scrutiny on host countries and usually go hand in hand with lots of critical inquiries and bad press that distract from the actual sporting event. A permanent venue would likely prevent that.","conclusion":"The International Olympic Committee IOC should create a permanent venue for the Olympic Games."}
{"id":"fcb9044c-5968-49f4-b9df-70b8e4fab11b","argument":"So, I understands this is an extremely unlikely scenario that wont ever occur, but it's an opinion I've formed due to the huge increase in environmental issues in the world. x200B My opinion is this We as a human race should stop trying to save ourselves, as the Earth would continue to thrive without us. Instead, we should start deconstructing our cities, taking the world to its original state and removing our presence from the planet. x200B My reasoning The amount of effort needed to completely restore our climate and environment to a sustainable, liveable place exceeds our possibilities. Even now, as I type this, the Amazonia is burning down, and the media is unaffected. There seems to be no reasonable, effective way to restore the damage and overturns hundreds of years of pollution in the time needed for the change to matter. Here's why With supporting links Large companies wont listen. They will continue to pump plastics and pollutants into our environment Single use plastics will remain for at least a few decades Meat will still be continued as the demand is not decreasing, meaning methane gases and rain forest loss will continue as to make way for more farm land Transport is an essential luxury and changing petrol fuelled cars to electric cars globally will take decades x200B To change my view Maybe show some examples of how humans can save themselves or how we can reverse our impact on the planet. I'm open to any views or discussion.","conclusion":"The human race should give up on trying to save ourselves and start deconstructing our presence on the planet"}
{"id":"9d6d9fc4-7e45-408b-83b7-dfbaded90cc0","argument":"In a survey consisting of 467 drop-outs from 25 major cities of the US, 69% cited a 'lack of motivation' as their reason for dropping out.","conclusion":"Disengagement in studying increases the chances of students dropping out of educational institutes."}
{"id":"22c8c964-0646-4a50-81f4-e3c7593cd41e","argument":"I'm aware that developed countries have their own issues too. The list may be kinda long. 1 We are a developing country. Actually, not developing because our economy is growing too slowly. Developing country is probably a euphemism for underdeveloped or less developed . Our public services suck and the politicians only think about themselves. It doesn't help that most of the population is ignorant as shit because of the shitty education system that the politicians won't fix dammit Another vicious cycle . I looked up that the Brazilian city with the highest HDI has it comparable to Czechia's. Brazil itself has a smaller HDI than Mexico and Turkey, a.k.a. two countries that are often treated like giant slums and also smaller than Russia's. 2 We became an elderly country before becoming a developed country. The country won't have enough money to sustain so many old people and I think I'd have to breed like an insect rabbits don't reproduce fast enough for this metaphor so there would be enough workers a few decades later. 3 Too. Much. Crime. I even had an I'm ashamed of being Latin American  because of that. The situation is too chaotic to leave as it is now, full legalization won't work because taxes and poor education, and human beings love to ruin themselves and each other. Don't talk about wealth inequality because Singapore is safe. Criminals aren't victims of society, they are huge c s. 4 Too much bureaucracy and taxes. It's almost impossible to open a business here unless it's a church and the almost only way to have a stable job is to make a test to get a job in a state company. Excessive taxes make everything expensive. The United States are praised as being a land where people are free to achieve their dreams. Why can't we be like that? P.S. also, we can't have nice things because our fellow countrypeople keep ruining it. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I can't see anything positive about my country, Brazil."}
{"id":"1e91c9b8-05f0-4999-b601-6d9ca135b5c3","argument":"It was by making a deal with Trump that the Democratic party protected Dreamers; without cooperation, these immigrants could be at risk of being kicked out of the country.","conclusion":"Some of Trump's dealings with Democrats give reason to be optimistic about the prospects for cooperation on policy areas that are of high priority for Democratic Party."}
{"id":"2942206a-e6dc-4427-9d76-2310550b7826","argument":"This is especially the case for software. Eversince the atomic and the nuclear bomb were created, we've been trying to prevent rogue entities from getting their hands on this technology. The warfare of the future is software drones and cyber warfare, and software is infinitely harder to track down and regulate than who has uranium or plutonium. You don't want to add AGI to that mix, the outcome could be devastating.","conclusion":"Universal regulation is impossible. A better strategy would be to not develop AI you don't want to fall into the wrong hands."}
{"id":"71d495dc-5dea-47eb-9d8e-d83a9dd376a4","argument":"The Burnaby Mountain facility is on unceded Coast Salish territory and the Tsliel-Waututh and Squamish Nations are currently opposed to the pipeline expansion. In BC, tenants are not allowed to make improvements without a landlord's express permission.","conclusion":"It is against the constitution to overrule any First Nation's rights."}
{"id":"e2676be7-1684-4972-9c56-7d308fab244a","argument":"The technology is available to determine whether a baby is brought into the world with or without a genetic neurological disease such as Huntingdon\u2019s. This technology should, therefore, be used to prevent a child from living a life of suffering with Huntingdon's disease. Again, this is not a case of engineering a child, or altering a genome, but choosing which of several embryos will be implanted into the mothers womb. It is only practical to choose a child with the best chance of being healthy.","conclusion":"Genetic screening better creates the opportunity for a born child to live a healthy and fulfilling life."}
{"id":"6d755586-56ec-4955-95ea-dc85e1adadcf","argument":"My thinking is very simple, everyone who has ever flushed a urinal has done it immediately after touching their dicks, I don't want to touch the dicks of entire generations of men every time I have to take a piss in an airport, so I don't flush urinals. I don't feel bad about not flushing the urinal because I don't make urinals particularly dirty, and urinals benefit from the herd effect were the vast majority of users flush, so I'm not having a significant, long term impact on the cleanliness of the urinal. Reddit, .","conclusion":"I never flush urinals and don't feel bad about it"}
{"id":"35474141-0c2f-43c2-9e31-c0bab99bfd3b","argument":"According to research for Americans 12-34 years old, Facebook usage declined from 79% of that group in 2017, to 62% today. Twitter is down from 36% to 29%. Pinterest is down from 36% to 31%. Linkedin is down from 23% to 21%.","conclusion":"There has been a declining usage of social media platforms on the internet by young people."}
{"id":"42f35a16-b781-4584-93be-784364d63e97","argument":"Any lifeforms that get off planet essentially become immortal. The spread in various directions from the home planet prevents any extinction assuming there is no way to create a galaxy wide explosion. Life has two goals, in this order. Minimize pain, maximize pleasure. Pain is suffering of all kinds like hunger, thirst, lust, physical pain, emotional pain. Pleasure is the opposite, all good things. Assuming that life in other parts of the universe has to occur similarly to our own, they will have the same goals. It could be another way that I can't fathom but this question is under the assumption that a slow evolution is the only way for intelligent life to occur. With these goals, there is only one thing we will do when we are sufficiently advanced technologically. We will alter our bodies minds so that we are perpetually in ecstasy, bliss, and love no matter what occurs. This would be done on the level of the brain chemical structure itself. We they will understand concretely what brain structures cause what conscious experience. Therefore, any being willing to travel across the universe to another being would be doing so to offer extinguishment of pain. You cannot purposely harm without negative emotions and they will be rid of them. As negative emotions are just evolutions survival tools and a sufficiently advanced civilizations survival would be autonomous. Let me clarify that I think it's unlikely such a civilization would try to contact others But if they did Deltas awarded for these ideas The technological tree may progress in such a way that intergalactic travel occurs before we can reign in our desires with medical technology The majority of civilizations do end up this way with no pain and their desires extinguished, therefore any that visit others will be those who have not and therefore will likely not be benevolent. Predicting the intentions of a such a highly advanced civilization may be impossible. They may think they are saving us by glassing the planet because dead people can't hurt. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Any life anywhere in the universe that gets off planet and tries to reach other civilizations would only do so for benevolent reasons."}
{"id":"3f244735-fb11-417b-afac-f0fabb8b0862","argument":"Defining what constitutes harassment and bullying to make transgressions obvious may prove very hard without infringing on what i believe is and should be Reddit's highest aspiration a platform for free speech. That's what the internet needs. If what you want is to feel comfortable and safe browsing cat pics and inspirational macros, facebook is right over there. I'm a fat person myself and i have absolutely no problem, in fact i fervently insist, on defending the right of a group such as FPH to exist. I'll deal with the fat hate as i deal with all types of hate openly expressed on this site downvote and move on. No need for police to get involved. Honestly, i find it much more offensive to be treated as an insecure defenseless baby that needs to be protected by mods, than i'll ever be by all the hate Even death threats are a mostly laughable inocuous matter in the context of an anonymous chat, and shouldn't merit any mod intervention, if you ask me. The only concern in this case would be escalation leading to a breach of anonymity, which itself is already a bannable offense. Protecting your users' anonymity should be enough if you want to create a safe environment . Besides, banning users for their behaviours in an attempt to make people feel welcome is a complete contradiction and will accomplish just the opposite. And considering how recent events invited such an ugly and violent flood of harassment towards Pao, i'd say someone is going to be very busy for a very long time clicking that ban button over and over if such a policy is to be fully and justly enforced . Or am i missing the point and FPH's actions have indeed no parallel with all other forms of harassment going on daily? ^This ^was ^posted ^initially ^as ^a ^comment ^in ^Steve ^Huffman's ^AMA, ^but ^way ^too ^late ^to ^get ^seen. ^There's ^been ^loads ^of ^discussion ^about ^this ^topic ^and ^i'm ^sorry ^if ^it's ^becoming ^annoying ^to ^some, ^but ^i've ^yet ^to ^read ^a ^convincing ^argument ^to ^refute ^my ^position ^on ^this.","conclusion":"FPH should be unbanned or all users who have been harassing Pao since then should be banned."}
{"id":"9f197f99-4434-4f3d-852b-d0aa017bcc2d","argument":"This is for a few reasons. Firstly a misunderstanding of technology. Understanding what it can and can not do is hard, because most of the information explaining it is quite technical. This leads to an opinion formed by documents that are understandable . This is often published by mass media and thus biased by sensationalism, leading to a fear of AI. Tying in with the first is the fear of the unknown. That is, trusting a system that you don't understand, e.g. a driver less car, or feeling inferior, e.g. having one's job replaced by a machine. Both lead to a negative view and a desire to reject AI. Third is the frequent attribution of almost human level intelligence to such systems. For example personalized ads, where the AI actively tries to manipulate or the correct response of a speech recognition system leading to the impression that it can understand the meaning of words. Another factor causing this fear is Hollywood where the computer makes a good villain and is glorified in how it wants to wipe out humanity. Similarly, big public figures voiced concerns that we currently don't have the means to control a powerful AI, if we were to create one. This creates a bias, perceiving intelligent machines as a thread and resulting in fear.","conclusion":"Non-experts fear AI"}
{"id":"c63c9b12-8cc6-4b02-8055-bb3b8bc542cc","argument":"Without significant stakes, our choices lack the seriousness necessary to develop virtues. For example, we could not develop courage without facing serious danger, or we could not develop compassion without suffering people to have compassion on.","conclusion":"According to the character-building defenses some virtues may be contingent on evil."}
{"id":"f30c67aa-87ab-4388-9932-e3ba6ec6db57","argument":"There have been cases where bullfighters have been gored to death by the bulls they were fighting.","conclusion":"Professional and non-professional bullfighters suffer severe injuries and sometimes even death."}
{"id":"52f35fb6-42fb-45a6-bfb9-bcf9213c3e66","argument":"A peace treaty between the USA and North Korea would ward off the threat of a nuclear war.","conclusion":"The USA and North Korea should sign a peace treaty."}
{"id":"3a90bf53-a625-4b03-8b1a-c80e614b1a5b","argument":"Animals are sentient beings - they feel pain and have complex emotional lives. Many have family structures and are able to bond. Killing them for our pleasure when alternatives exist is immoral and archaic.","conclusion":"All animals have a right to live and be free of suffering."}
{"id":"a4f82e56-7a0e-48b5-9c53-c8da22a38cde","argument":"Everyone believes that the entertainment industry continues to rehash old ideas, that they refuse to make new stories and everything is just based of an existing property. We have heard it before , If you want a diverse cast of people you should make something new , Hollywood, stop with the remakes and sequels \u201cWhy not more original movies?\u201d \u201cWe need original movies and franchises, why we still have sequels and remakes?\u201d Each time I hear phrases like these, I think Do moviegoers these days actually want originality from Hollywood, or are they begging too much? I say this because some of the most original and good movies of, for example, this decade, unfortunately 1 Become an undeserved box office bomb, because most moviegoers go to see other movies that they supposedly hate for copying concepts 2 When you think some of them might be present in pop culture history years after its release, they go unnoticed and are forgotten for the next anticipated sequel and remake. It's very easy to blame everything on the ones running the business because everyone likes to believe that corporations are these evil greedy entity's that only care about money but the truth, those corporations are people like you and me, they run a business, they have families to feed and bills to pay and they are going to stick to where the money is because of it. A friend who work on the industry told me how a lot of his co workers want more original works in the movie and video game medium but they can't work on it because it would require a high budget and they would loose their jobs if those works don't make back a profit. They don't want to put their families at risk just cause they wanted to try something new because the truth is the general audience don't care about new Ideas no matter how good and well made it is, they only like and support things they are familiar with. The industry sadly don't care what a bunch of movie buffs, gamers or animation enthusiasts say on the internet because they are a minority compared to the general audience where most of the money come from and as I said, the general audience vote with their wallet.","conclusion":"The general audience is to blame for the Lack of originality in the entertainment industry not the makers."}
{"id":"6ce8aaf0-8ad7-43a7-bf32-4d7ee8cedfc4","argument":"Unpaid internships allow for certain workers - who may not be hired due to the company not knowing if they are worth their salary - to get a job with a company.","conclusion":"In some demanding and highly-paid professions, employers do not want to risk offering a job to the wrong candidate."}
{"id":"7b851867-0aa5-4002-983c-98d10fd31419","argument":"An EMP strike cannot be aimed well and will thus destroy everything electric\/electronic in its range.","conclusion":"An EMP is not useful as the own equipment will be equally disabled."}
{"id":"5bb9716e-f38d-4217-aa4a-8fd4e49750e0","argument":"I'm fairly left wing and think that feminism has been mostly a good thing, still is and will be for the foreseeable future. That said, I think men are better off avoiding it. By avoid, I mean try to avoid becoming involved in any campaigns or movements that describe themselves as feminist and, in the case of celebrities, avoid saying anything public about feminism. This is because of four problems Most feminists don't want men involved. As far as I can tell, most feminist activists are either indifferent about involving men or against it. The hate around things like 'mansplaining' shows that elements of feminism doesn't want men's input into gender based topics which means men can be cringeworthy cheerleaders for women and feminism at best which is difficult to do when feminism is so divided. Any actual discussion about serious topics to any detail will be dismissed by someone as sexist and attempts to defend himself will just make it worse. Elements of it hate men. This doesn't apply to most feminists obviously but parts of it very vocal parts seem to hold men in contempt. The OTT anger about 'Nice Guys' shows how parts of feminism are pretty hostile to men. Just by expressing frustration about being single or by being bad at dating, men can be dismissed as sexist or creepy. I'd argue that some of this contempt is what leads some men to things like the Red Pill or PUAs which feminists see as being incredibly sexist. By ignoring some toxic feminist rhetoric, men can avoid being attracted to a sexist ideology. Part of it will make men's lives worse. A recent story about a grant in an Australian college is part of a long line of anecdotal evidence that indicates that as things become more equal, feminism has little interest in helping men in areas where they are the minority. I've seen stories about men's groups being refused because women's groups exist, laws that protect men from being tricked into raising another man's children be criticised, contempt for International Men's Day, definitions of sexism that automatically exclude women from being sexist and indifference to the idea that men could be wrongly accussed of rape. The more power that feminism has, the more likely it is that men will wind up worse off in certain areas. I don't believe feminism would do this out of contempt but moreso out of belief that women's welfare is more important than men's. Men are better off tackling any issues they have on their own. As can be seen in point 3, I think men are better off tackling issues they face themselves as feminism is either uninterested or hostile to the idea of men doing so. Feminism has helped raise those issues where men are disadvantaged but to actually make things truly equal and fight sexism, men should not rely on feminism as it will reach a point where it will make things worse rather than better. Also, feminism is only interested in men to the extent that it helps women. When issues like male suicide come up, women are not directly affected enough compared to things like abortion for feminism to care. So is there any benefit to men for being interested or involved in feminism that outweighs the negatives or am I wrong about the negatives? gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Men would be better off avoiding feminism"}
{"id":"f4c40f47-ce6d-4d38-b84b-eddccedad1a3","argument":"Foreign Minister Shidehara Kijuro claimed that \"the people would gradually get used to being bombed\". This shows that he was not very concerned.","conclusion":"After the bombing of Hiroshima, the Japanese leadership did not express serious concern and instead emphasised the need to endure."}
{"id":"ccf44d9b-3ef0-44c6-ac31-1c9d22a42333","argument":"There seems to be a ton of waste and abuse at SOME of these organizations. Things like I know there is a lot of good out there but think of all the rich folks that start a charity, get a tax write off so their money goes to the charity NOT the general fund, then hire their wife at 100,000 to 'manage' this. Seems like utter BS and waste. A few sports figures have gotten bad PR recently but rich folks are way, way worse So I think any group that gets nonprofit status should show quarterlies like a public company which must be posted online for all to examine. However, this must include everyone's salary, expenses, event expenses, etc. If they are not competing with anyone it's not a for profit business, but a public good hence not having to pay tax so they should encourage others to look at books and offer ideas to reduce cost. This would increase the of funds spent on actual good. Please convince me why this is a bad idea I've been saying this for years, some folks have told me cost but they're pulling all these numbers anyway so I don't see the big deal there. Thanks","conclusion":"I believe all nonprofits finances salary, expenses, etc. should be open to the public & give quarterly updates."}
{"id":"3528bab6-7286-407d-9896-ea98c982817a","argument":"In Sweden crime rates have been rising significantly each year since the migrant influx of 2015\/2016.","conclusion":"Crime rates increase in European countries as more immigration comes in."}
{"id":"91c84435-dba9-4c3c-b375-8103bddd2afc","argument":"Janism for example, the more extreme you are the less dangerous you are to other people because the fundamental belief is non-violence. You might pose a danger to yourself if you cannot move or eat anything but you are no danger to others.","conclusion":"Religion helps people focus on the present by finding peace in God's will and trusting in his plans and guidance. This inner peace permeates outwards and reduces conflict."}
{"id":"2ebc6282-23d0-4dcd-9942-e032c86fc676","argument":"I think the IS 2 model 1944 was the best tank of ww2. Since there is great deal of what could be considered the best tank of ww2 best at what?, time period etc , what I mean by this is the most effective and cost effective tank of all of WW2 I know, this gives late war tanks an advantage because of the pace of development . The main qualities I'm considering for besthood are gun ammo performance against tanks, gun ammo performance in infantry support role, armor, tactical mobility ability to cross bad terrain , strategic mobility ability to move, or be moved, across huge distances, reliability, and unit cost. The reason I'm not really considering visibility and optics, and radios, even though they are crucially important, is because of how easily replaceable they are. For example, when the Germans captured any tanks they would slap a cupola and a better gunsight on it, simply because it is not dependent of the tank design itself whether it is able to have a cupola or good gunsight any tank can have these. I will be comparing the IS 2 to the panther ausf G, the T 34 85, and the tiger 2 H. The IS 2's gun performs fantastically in the anti armor role, 122mm could penetrate the T 34 85 easily, as well as the panther from range, where the both would struggle past 500m, and tanks armed with the 88mm kwk 43 would still have trouble hitting the lower plate or turret. The IS 2 struggled to destroy a tiger 2 frontally at range. IS 2s were used in berlin to demolish houses, and I think 122mm HE speaks for itself for the infantry support role. CLEAR GUN Armour WIN against T 34 85 and Panther panther's gun was not great against infantry , and a anti armor loss to tiger 2 and clear win in infantry support compared to tiger 2. The only downside of the gun was the poor rate of fire which would be less of a problem with the devastating effectiveness of its ammo, and if the IS 2s where working as a group, as well as the low ammo capacity would be solved by the same solution. The IS 2 was very reliable, especially for a heavy tank, and could double its expected time between repairs, and had a reputation for reliability. This all meant that it could travel far on roads without need for repairs. Clear strategic mobility win against tiger 2 transmission suspension problems and panther crippling final drive problems 150 200km average life , and loss to T 34 85. The IS 2 had a weight that was similar to that of the Panther, less than that of the tiger 2, and greater than that of the T 34 85. All tanks had wide tracks, although the panther and tiger 2 had highly effective weight distributing interleaved wheels, which would make average ground pressure almost that of the max ground pressure max pressure is more important according to vid , so for lack of enough info I'll assume the IS 2 had similar cross country ability as the Tiger 2, and worse cross country ability than the Panther and T 34 85. The tiger 2 had a unit cost of approx 900,000 RM reichsmarks the panther and IS 2 were about the same IIRC at around 120,000RM , and the T 34 85 was around 90,000 RM. The way I think of this is if you had 1,800,000 RM and spent 900,000 on a single tiger 2 and the other 900,000 on a team of 7 IS 2s which would likely win in a fight. The result for any of these scenarios would leave the team of IS 2s as the victors. I've never really seen much ww2 stuff on this subreddit, so I'll ask that nobody gets toooo political and keep nice,  Sources Fantastic vid, it's got very good subtitles, 10 10 would recommend everything else shouldn't need much of a source, if you need confirmation ask me for it or just look around online for a minute.","conclusion":"The IS-2 was the best tank of WW-2"}
{"id":"45226e90-e5ac-43f2-b744-672afc6892e2","argument":"Bacon. Whenever there is a debate about not eating meat, bacon is quite a strong argument for the case that eating meat brings more taste and pleasure than most plant based foods.","conclusion":"In the most world-renowned cuisines, meat plays a central part and is often the highlight dish."}
{"id":"37ff96ad-e282-474e-81ba-fb0d9ebd933c","argument":"Why? I find most of you ignorant, rude, lazy, and stupid. 21 years in your history, you have NOT been at war. For that reason I find you violent. I have absolutely no respect for anyone in your military. The only \u201cheroes\u201d you had fought in the world wars. The ones signing up today are either, continuing a family tradition, or just want to shoot a bunch of Muslims. Your support of Israel is a slap in the face to every country in the world. Your war of terror is pathetic. You allow your politicians to get away with murder. Literally. You have no problem at all with the fact you lost all your rights under Bush and Obama. You have no problem with Obama having a secret kill list, that may include killing your own citizens. Btw Obama has killed Americans before. Next I find you dumb because most of you still believe in the bible. Talking snakes? Seriously?","conclusion":"I don't like Americans."}
{"id":"439e8c1d-9bad-41ec-844e-5d668fd5d0e4","argument":"second post already because barely anybody gave a fuck about the first one I'm a sentiocentrist, so if the fetus isn't sentient, it is to be considered an object and the woman gets to do whatever she wants with it. Since it's her body, I also don't believe the husband has any say in the matter. It's unreasonable of him to request her to keep something that's essentially a parasite against her will. Non religious objections are preferred because to argue against a religious objection which would most likely involve the soul requires me to know whether there's a God in the first place, effectively changing the debate.","conclusion":"Abortion, if the fetus isn't sentient, is amoral"}
{"id":"fe3a95b6-49de-4b8a-8ce1-0fcca22c8109","argument":"The UN rights chief has condemned ''extremely broad'' US sanctions of exacerbating suffering among an already vulnerable population.","conclusion":"Many Venezuelans are suffering from power cuts and lack of access to basic services."}
{"id":"82df4b10-ed49-4bb4-800b-439db1f3815f","argument":"Since truth is a concept, it is not fully external to human ability to think, and therefore it must not be considered as independent of it. If human ability is unable to grasp something that would be considered as \"true\" by a different mind\/system, it would still be \"not true\" or untrue for human beings.","conclusion":"A truth that would eliminate your ability to live a proper life could be morally wrong, not true."}
{"id":"e7da301c-d4a5-4cec-9974-47b023e775f2","argument":"In 1 Timothy 2:12-14 the Apostle Paul justifies his claim that women ought not teach or exercise authority over men by showing that man was created first. Paul's basis for making a distinction in roles is God's created design.","conclusion":"Many Christian denominations restrict governing and teaching roles in the Church to only men."}
{"id":"045c8332-3d8a-4f8d-911f-ac11d6ef5ca0","argument":"Some shows can reinforce the idea that masculine traits are more acceptable than feminine traits.","conclusion":"Television can create division with shows that perpetuate false stereotypes."}
{"id":"bfffa0fc-eaaf-420a-829d-2d868320a772","argument":"Religion creates fear on people using hell and heaven as a way to manipulate, where sins condemn yourself, instead of teaching values to people.","conclusion":"Fear of hell, can drive people to do despicable things."}
{"id":"147b3e03-ea6d-42e6-abcf-b1131d23aa17","argument":"The current American lifestyle is immoral, and unless an individual Americans is looking to escape and change their lifestyle they are immoral. Internationally America constantly ignores the human rights of non American citizens, and has had a questionable influence in places like the middle east, overthrowing democracies that do not serve American interests. Without American support Israel would not be exterminating the people of Palestine. This is probably the weakest part of my argument however, as Americas foreign policy is really no worse than any other nations. Ultimately it is the potentially catastrophic environmental damage American citizens inflict on the world themselves, especially when we consider how their economy drives much of the pollution caused outside of the USA in the Middle East, Europe and China as well. Americans have on average the biggest environmental footprint of all people of the world. Most American people live incredibly unsustainable lives, driving everywhere, eating meat, flying regularly, throwing waste away needlessly without recycling and doing all this while sadly ignoring the poorest and most vulnerable in their own states, which provide a laughable welfare state that would have Europeans rioting in the street I dread an American style health care system in the UK replacing the NHS . This would be forgivable if American citizens seemed to be working to change this. However most Americans seem content with an incredibly corrupt political system awash with publicly recorded bribes in the form of lobbying Whenever challenged on their individual lifestyles they reel of a host of excuses \u201cI can\u2019t give up my car, it is very hard to get about without it\u201d, \u201cI can\u2019t give up meat, I can\u2019t afford it it\u2019ll make me unhealthy\u201d, \u201cI can\u2019t do anything about the corruption in my local and national government, I don\u2019t have time\u201d. Most don't attempt to look at how they can work round these barriers, happy to have found a reason for inaction. If in the next hundred years civilisation collapses, history will blame the average American citizen who was unwilling to be an agent for change and wilfully ignorant of their impact and ability to do good in the world. If someone is living the \u2018American Dream\u2019 blindly consuming without consideration, passively participating in politics if at all and making no effort to move towards a better lifestyle they are living an immoral life by any measure. If you are not a materialist and believe in something more than this world, then you must value conscious life beyond yourself maybe for good treatment in the afterlife, maybe because it makes logical senses, maybe because you somehow divine \u2018gods\u2019 will for you to do so and cannot look at an individual living such a wilfully unsustainable life without condemning their behaviour unless the are genuinely working to change. If you are a materialist, unless you are an immature nihilist who refuses to imagine that life may have some meaning, even a fleeting one, then you must subscribe to either a utilitarian or principled idea of morality. From a utilitarian point of view, the average American citizens destruction of the ecosystem can only be considered immoral, and the individual living such a life unquestionably without working to change without a conscience. If you subscribe to a set of rationally derived moral principles such as Kant\u2019s categorical imperative, then you cannot justify the behaviour of the average American if we were to all live as Americans we would be without an ecosystem within a few years, and our children would surely perish . I'm rubbish at philosophy sorry If someone is living such a life, but trying to break these habits, change their diet, cycle more, recycle more, get rid of their politicians and joining campaign groups I think they are living a life that could be considered moral. It\u2019s the people who think that history or other people will sort all these things out, they are wilfully ignorant in a world of knowledge, and their ignorance is already causing misery to many living beings, if not yet already millions it soon will be, and in our lifetime probably billions, unless the average American bloody well pulls themselves together. TL DR Americans are killing the planet, and it's those who can only come up with excuses for their individual behaviour instead of implementing solutions are immoral. EDIT I'm not saying all Americans are immoral, only those who are happy living in a society that is so harmful to the rest of civilization and are not actively trying to change it Final Edit for today I'm heading out, will respond tomorrow to further comments. I\u2019m not looking to debate climate change, your sceptical argument has been addressed here","conclusion":"The American lifestyle is immoral, and unless as an individual Americans are looking to escape and change their lifestyle they are immoral."}
{"id":"9a08caa6-2501-4384-8e6e-6bdaa2bd8f93","argument":"Governments would benefit from additional revenue through the implementation of a tax on drugs as is already the case with alcohol and tobacco.","conclusion":"This policy would come with a drug license test for the consumers to ensure that drugs are used responsibly."}
{"id":"4a846520-08db-4b4b-a7ce-9276b15c06fd","argument":"This means that individuals will give portions of their UBI to local community leaders that will directly invest in the community instead of relying on national welfare policy","conclusion":"UBI policies shift the provision of welfare from a national level to a local level, where individuals are more capable of investing in their communities."}
{"id":"9a7bd91e-0646-416c-b3b9-4cdca4bdf988","argument":"Global warming has lead to an increase in tropical storms and tropical storm intensities, which has caused the loss and uprooting of human life.","conclusion":"Increased carbon emissions have had devastating consequences for humans, which will only be exacerbated if there is no intervention."}
{"id":"88e2a758-f070-4747-890c-6730fff3ecfc","argument":"I feel one of the reasons there is so much backlash against the term white privilege is because of the word privilege itself. The modern left has a weird habit of taking words from the general vernacular and just using them differently than the average person would leading to a failure of conversation. The word privilege is defined as \u201ca special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group of people\u201d. It\u2019s something that can be taken away. So when the average blue collar white guy trying to make ends meat is told he has privilege because of his skin colour it doesn\u2019t make a lot of sense because he has no special right or immunity. A clearer example of why this is poor communication is with \u201cable privilege\u201d which is what an able bodied person has over a disabled person. This is a dumb use of the word because it implies someone\u2019s functioning body is a privilege that can be taken away or is unfairly granted to them. It also leads to the argument that a disabled body person trying to become healthy is seeking to become a member of a privileged group which is somehow bad. \u201cPrivilege\u201d is associated with wealth which many so called \u201cprivileged\u201d people do not have. A much better word would be advantage. Being white might be advantageous and being able bodied is definitely an advantage as opposed to being disabled. The SJ movement changes these words and uses them that way but the rest of the world is just continuing to use the original meanings of these words. The other example is racism. Most people think of racism as just hating other races or thinking one race is superior. The modern left has changed the definition so that whether it\u2019s racism or not depends on who is saying it. Again, it creates a failure of conversation. When challenged they will say it\u2019s not their job to educate but they are the ones using a new and different definition of the word.","conclusion":"The social justice movement is being set back by using common words differently than the public"}
{"id":"e0c579fe-702a-4f96-ad65-3fb71ad07c13","argument":"I think 9 11 was a conspiracy and that it was actually planned and executed by the government. I think there is undeniable proof that no plane actually was forced to crash, that the planes that hit the twin towers did not bring it down and that it was detonations in the basement and along the frame of the building. Lastly I think that the pentagon was a missile and was launched by the government in order to give them tons of money, give them an excuse to get oil in the middle east, and the attacks also led to the passing of the Patriot Act which restricts our freedoms as Americans. Thanks","conclusion":"I believe that 9\/11 is a conspiracy."}
{"id":"215a9b1c-49e5-4511-be2d-d8a0e79521bc","argument":"Even a small accidental leakage in the process of extracting and utilizing natural gas can negate its benefits compared to coal. Even if the optimistic 1.6% national leak rate claimed by the gas industry is true, it\u2019s enough to erode nearly half of the climate-saving advantages.","conclusion":"US emission reductions are mainly due to natural gas replacing coal. Whilst natural gas emits 50% less emissions than coal, it is not renewable or fully clean, and so is not sustainable in the long term."}
{"id":"6224a4e5-cf6e-466e-8776-7a8c0fa1e72e","argument":"Marching in the parade is an attempt to smooth over their image in the community.","conclusion":"Having police present pinkwashes the history between queer communities and law enforcement."}
{"id":"13fddb30-a32c-4032-a1ae-a5ece2ce3bd3","argument":"The presiding officer is provided with a 'close' button which would stop voting if an intruder were to enter the polling center, and votes couldn't be further cast.","conclusion":"An EVM provides a far better security in case of Booth Capturing."}
{"id":"9dbfd684-39b6-4faa-b119-713dac6fcc5a","argument":"Disclaimer I wasn't sure how to best put this in one sentence. Trump has withdrawn for nationalistic reasons as far as I know. In this thread I gather that there are quite a few people who think it was Trump's plan all along to make private entities and states deal with this. Whatever you may think of this I think it's untrue because Trump hasn't said any of that it is still a wrong decision if that was the reason. States If it's left to states, 50 different rulesets could be implemented, from heavily regulated to not at all. This would give companies situated in the one state advantages over the other. This is conflicting with the free market and would make it less efficient. Private entities The article suggests a third of the US economy in revenue will comply with the Paris Agreement. While I don't believe much of this, this is still incredibly inefficient. It is slightly confusing too because the Paris Agreement was meant for countries, so it is unclear how companies will comply with it. Will they become parties to the agreement?  gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Supporters of Trump's decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement are wrong if they think that this can be solved on a local or state level."}
{"id":"2599b694-649a-460f-9d4c-644522e7e120","argument":"The responsibility for handling disobedience is going to shift to outside of the classroom. So even if there's no management in the classroom itself, chaos won't be an issue there.","conclusion":"Just because a classroom moves to VR doesn't mean that they can't be disciplined. It may require different methods for a different setting, but isn't impossible."}
{"id":"c8a19547-cfa6-49d4-b841-e14e064ed8d2","argument":"This event will likely dictate international relations for generations to come. It is only fair that the British people especially younger generations get to vote on those terms.","conclusion":"The generation this will affect the most did not have a say on the result of the referendum."}
{"id":"fb472db7-1a57-4c20-897e-edaa9d5eb7ad","argument":"Let me get one thing out of the way I'm really not interested in hearing arguments related to hitting a child in order to save them from harm for example, I jerked by kid back because he was about to run into oncoming traffic or I slapped my child's hand away because he was about to touch a hot stove . In those cases, you're taking the lesser of two evils, I'd much rather a child get pushed back than getting hit by a car. Now, where the problem occurs \u2022 Bad grades \u2022 Staying out late \u2022 Screaming in a grocery store \u2022 Pissing you off \u2022 etc etc The list is endless, it's what kids do. My problem lies in parents who feel the need to discipline their children by hitting them, even lightly. The fact of the matter is these children are defenseless and have the right to live in an environment where they do not have to worry about being hit by their parents. For those who say Don't tell me how to raise my kid , it has nothing to do with you, it has everything to do with your child. No one excuses parents who use the same argument if they, for example, refuse medical care. The fact is, if you hit your child, you're a criminal. Your anger does not justify hitting a child . Here's my rule of thumb As a subordinate to your boss, anything your boss can not do to you, you should not be able to do to your child . If your boss hit you, you'd sue and they'd be arrested. However we give a pass to parents when in that case, it's 100x worse considering we have a grown adult attacking a child. .","conclusion":"I believe that parents who hit their children are criminals and should be charged with assault, including the ones who disguise the abuse as \"spanking\"."}
{"id":"f57fc5db-8674-4b69-a1a1-6dbdc0936bb3","argument":"I have a B.S. and M.S. in an engineering field, and would generally consider myself pretty smart. The smartest? Definitely not. Smart enough though. I have coworkers who I would label as much smarter than myself who only have a B.S. in our respective engineering field. That being said, I sometimes pick up on this elitism of I went to college. I don't really feel like a piece of paper is any real proof of your true intelligence. While you may be more educated on a particular subject, so many of the well educated people I've met in life hold moronic beliefs political, religious, etc. . Since they have that piece of paper, they feel entitled to an automatically correct opinion, even when it holds no place when actual logic is applied to it. x200B Essentially, education does not equal intelligence. We should push people to be more intelligent, rather than collectors of paper that doesn't necessary provide intelligence.","conclusion":"Attending\/completing a university degree program does not make you any more intelligent than your less educated peers"}
{"id":"a270ad79-f81f-4e8b-826e-46b89c9f1509","argument":"There are many self taught musicians who are very proficient at their instrument, some even better than those who've received lessons. Granted many started when they were young, but not all. I taught myself piano and guitar as a kid, but I don't recommend it because my power of reasoning was not fully developed, and I spent a long time figuring out things that music theory could've taught me in a matter of days. If I could go back and take lessons I definitely would. But, adults are different than children, especially with the advent of the internet. Adults understand better what questions to ask, and how to think in a way to progress on an instrument. Humans are capable of learning almost anything if they have the will I believe. Most instruments I can think of are intrinsic in the sense that making sound on them is very easy to figure out how to do. To shape that sound in a way that is musically pleasing is a lot harder. However, we are intelligent creatures and given enough time we could figure out probably with no help whatsoever. But you may say, who has the time to learn by trial and error like that? Why not use information that's already been accumulated? That's very true And the internet can do just that for you There's no cap to how many questions you can ask it, when you can ask it, how many times you can get it to repeat itself. If you can ask the right questions you CAN get the right answers There's really nothing a human teacher can do for you that the internet can't. Add to that, not every teacher is a good teacher, just like in any subject. It may take a little longer to learn online, but it is not a necessary thing to learn from a teacher and even be better in some instances.","conclusion":"Music lessons as an adult are not necessary with the wealth of information on the internet"}
{"id":"fc123cdb-8171-45d5-b6cd-e65f26ac9ba3","argument":"Modifying existing memorials and monuments would symbolically express that history is not erased from public spaces but rather that the attitudes of the past have been overcome and replaced by something new.","conclusion":"Removal is the most drastic measure when there are more gentle alternatives."}
{"id":"f3d5374b-3a33-4a75-a5a2-2e0c21c81b2e","argument":"The same-sex marriage is a wave crossing the entire world. As fast as being legalised, Australia will get a new status in the planet, were love and freedom are before old beliefs that hurts people.","conclusion":"Many other countries in the world have allowed same-sex marriage"}
{"id":"04643b50-8c86-489d-b782-743a918d3533","argument":"Cream cheese is fucking delicious and can be added to both sweet and savory foods unlike vanilla garlic. I believe cream cheese can be incorporated into any food and the end result will still taste good if you know what you're doing. I'll admit that I've had pumpkin rolls where the cream cheese icing didn't work, but I've also had pumpkin rolls where the cream cheese icing was great so there is a layer of execution to this. I'll also give that sometimes people make cream cheese monstrosities because they were so busy thinking about if they could, they forgot to ask if they should. But overall, anything can work with cream cheese. This is not the same as everything can work with cream cheese or anything should will work. I'm saying that the potential for anything to work with cream cheese exists.  Edit cream cheese can be added to any FOOD. Adding it to a drink is fucking ridiculous","conclusion":"Anything can taste good with cream cheese added"}
{"id":"aa6bad37-11fc-4b3e-a13f-59491287f90a","argument":"I have a very mixed stance on abortion. While I don't merely think a fetus is a clump of cells anymore than it is after it is born, I do think abortion is helpful in decreasing the amount of unwanted children that would otherwise overcrowd orphanages adoption halls and be on welfare and other government benefits, in addition to enabling a woman what to do with her body. However, my mixed stance comes in when considering the rights of the said father in an abortion, which is none. The said father has absolutely no rights and isn't even given the right to be notified that not only is the woman pregnant, but the baby being aborted as well. While I do agree it is the woman's choice as it is her body, women are not asexual creatures in the respect that they produce in such a manner. The fetus is, legally, just as much hers as it is his. And likewise, while I generally am not fond of the idea of abortion since, regardless of whether you say it's a clump of cells or a human I don't give a shite to be quite frank , the operation is still killing what would be a child, and there's no way to beat around the bush with saying that fact. But I'm very offset by the lack of the father's rights. I don't understand why the father is not granted rights in the process of making the child the pregnancy itself but he is legally obligated to parent the child not necessarily from a nurture standpoint, but at the very least a financial standpoint when he's not even afforded the right to interfere with the status of whether his child can be born or not. Because of this, I only support abortion under the clause that if a woman can abort the child, the father must also be able to abort his right to parentage to whatever child that is biologically related to him including child support. Otherwise I think it's only fair to have both sides of the equation equally fucked abortion illegal, illegal not possible to revoke your right as a parent and not pay child support , etc. If a woman can abort a child, it's only logical the father be afforded a similar right. It seems like a lopsided scale to afford a woman the right to abort the baby but legally force the father to recognise his parentage and pay child support up until the child is of age. Before anyone says this, obviously in cases of rape and health complications an abortion can be conducted. Many countries that ban abortions generally have at least one if not both of these exceptions to the rule.","conclusion":"Abortion is supportable only if the father is able to \"abort\" his parentage to a child"}
{"id":"4cca31cb-8dff-48a4-9901-758a7036697d","argument":"Btw, I don't mean life in society as a bad thing. I like the creature comforts of the modern life. I just find an insane amount of angst, anxiety, disappointment and rage when I have to interact with people. I can solve all of my personal problems and be fine, but I cannot change the fact that people are greedy, stupid, ignorant and sometimes evil, and in the end I'm always suffering because of others. I find it frustrating how much people can be illogical, insensitive, and the more time I spend alone, the more I am happy and in control of my own life. I think that with modern technology we could and should isolate ourselves in some ways, minimizing social interactions, and in this way we would be happy.","conclusion":"Hell is other people. Everything bad in our lifes comes after the fact that we have to deal with people."}
{"id":"0d7ea8e3-2c8d-4d7a-b486-1efd2e054b42","argument":"Access to information that may lead to nefarious activity does not commit any individual to follow through with illicit activity, and thus accessing blueprints is not a crime and shouldn't be regulated.","conclusion":"Information, regardless of its nature, should always be accessible to all individuals."}
{"id":"fa20b1b7-6546-45d5-9156-a14106ae75ec","argument":"It would be foolish to make a plan which is contingent on a random person landing on a certain side of a philosophical debate. If the plan is assumed to be well-made, it is more likely that the mastermind either accurately predicted the bystander's decision, or planned for both outcomes. Either way, the bystander is participating in the scheme whether they pull the lever or not.","conclusion":"Assuming that the situation is orchestrated, it still does not follow that pulling the lever is participating in the scheme and would have negative consequences."}
{"id":"9ad11bf7-1c0f-4ebd-9319-a7f7eb4f12df","argument":"Any benefit derived from eating human flesh outside survival is extremely small compared to the value of that human life. Therefore, even if cannibalism only very slightly devalues human life, it is still unethical.","conclusion":"Cannibalism outside of immediate survival would likely weaken the privileged status afforded human life."}
{"id":"1d0e8205-9eb5-40b8-b301-dd8d06510ff3","argument":"This is a problem I personally see a lot both IRL and online, especially when the statement given is pretty much known by everybody, but hard to actually back up. Whenever Source? or Proof? is sent as a reply, it usually ends the entire argument. Why? Saying that doesn't automatically invalidate the given statement, and adds nothing to argue. For example, if you were asked to prove or give a source that 1 1 2, that would be incredibly difficult to do, if not impossible even though pretty much everybody knows it as a fact. You can't switch the burden of proof since you made the statement, so now what? Or another example Say you were arguing with somebody over local slang and its usage. You insist that a certain word is used as slang, and the other person claims that your statement isn't true. Both of you know that it's true, but the other person is just being contradictory and asks you to cite a source or prove it. Now what? There isn't any reputable written documentation that says it. If you ask people on the street in your area, they can just claim a small sample size or something along that line. You can't back yourself up any more. If we accept these kind of statements as valid, then many things will be incredibly hard to argue even when they're obvious.","conclusion":"Saying \"Source?\" or \"Proof?\" against a generally accepted or known statement that's difficult to back can not and should not be used as a shutdown for arguements"}
{"id":"fcf10bc9-cfa0-4eaa-846f-f6198f8159b8","argument":"Religion is based on human power and due to religion human beings have been divided in so many groups such as Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Christian, etc. If all these divisions were scraped, humanity would be better.","conclusion":"While it may have fostered unity amongst like believers, religion has historically caused more division, conflict and violence amongst groups than it has ever unified them."}
{"id":"4be00977-4aeb-42c7-b0a7-d121bb1007db","argument":"Slavery has existed in most cultures and societies on earth and has been an accepted aspect of human history from the very beginning of organized societies. Slavery is not distinctively American or an American innovation. If the U.S. pays reparations, most other nations will be pressured to pay as well.","conclusion":"Public opinion polls indicate that a majority of Americans oppose paying reparations to descendants of slaves."}
{"id":"23ec7464-9578-492e-8b3a-f8eb7b282fc3","argument":"Everyone remembers the government shutdown of 2014, where Republicans, led by Ted Cruz, refused to fund the government if Obamacare was included. This wasn't really a good idea the Senate and Presidency were held by Democrats, who were not open to compromise on the issue. Long story short, the government was shut down, people blamed the Republicans, and then life went on. Fast forward to now. Republicans hold the House and Senate. None of them support a budget including Planned Parenthood funding such a budget has the votes to pass both chambers. The President is still a Democrat, and he has indicated that he will veto any such bill. This time, the Democrats are in the minority, and the entire funding bill is being held up by one man. So how is it the Republicans' fault this time? Edit Saying that they're threatening shutdown or making demands will not change my mind. A shutdown wouldn't happen if Republicans withdrew their insistence on Planned Parenthood it wouldn't happen if Obama declined to veto funding.","conclusion":"If the government shuts down over Planned Parenthood, the President, not Congress, will be to blame."}
{"id":"f25502c1-f9a5-45d7-917b-952ea0806db4","argument":"We decline with age.Our health gets worse, our brain gets worse, our looks get worse, our energy reduces its basically all downhill.This is not good news.There are ways to stave off the unpleansant feeling of decline. One of them is to exercise power over other people. Children and young people are less experienced than older people and responsibility is inherently stressful.Society reaches a balance by older people offering to take on extra responsibility so that younger people can be more 'carefree'. This unburdens younger people but also gives them less status and power. Some older people try to really buy into this they say things like 'looks are cheap' or 'there is more to life than beauty' of course,the main motivation is that their beauty cannot compete on the market anymore. So far the trade seems to be working well enough.","conclusion":"Society is based on a tradeoff between propping up the ego of old people and staving off responsibility for young people"}
{"id":"630078d2-c875-4ac4-a273-de14d7f7b581","argument":"The production of corn ethanol produces feedstock as a byproduct. This can make the land-use complimentary. Over 50% of corn is used as feedstock for livestock, which means that corn ethanol is very complimentary with common uses of land for corn.","conclusion":"Corn feedstock is a beneficial byproduct of corn ethanol production"}
{"id":"59604d8e-4012-478e-8a38-8806d8993b1f","argument":"Socialism is bad because it grants the government too much power, it's economics are faulty, and it is basically legalized theft. Every socialist country in the world is an autocratic dictatorship lacking human rights. These countries include or have included China, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, Soviet Union and all their puppet governments in europe, Vietnam and many more. All countries mentioned do not have democracy and they lack human rights. The governments are given too much power and it always becomes abused. The USA has one of the most high standards of living in the world. The USSR economically collapsed, North Korea is dirt poor, and China and Cuba are adopting freer markets so that their country can survive. Pure socialism means no free market which means no thriving economy which means stagnation and poverty. Socialism is popular somewhat on reddit out of a sense of 'justice' to take from the 1 and give to those in need. That is theft, hands down. And don't give me that But Scandinavian democratic socialism stuff because it is basically capitalism with increased government power, which is bad. It is just the first step to true socialism. Look what has happened to Greece","conclusion":"Socialism is bad"}
{"id":"c301e39d-66a2-4eab-9c87-5af789c7d2db","argument":"In the American education system, kids are taught that cyber bullying is bad. Then they get into the real world and see a movie like The Interview which is making fun of Kim Jong Un. Imagine if someone made a movie about you that is about people trying to kill you. It is simply cyber bullying. Kim Jong Un is not a good person, and certainly is not trying to help the citizens of North Korea. However, you can get into trouble in school for cyber bullying someone who has even bullied other people him herself. If Obama defends Sony for cyber bullying Kim Jong Un, why doesn't he defend cyber bullies in schools? Isn't is freedom of speech too? edit Additionaly, aggrevating Kim Jong Un is bad for the people of North Korea. It will only make him madder and more resisted to doing what Ameica wants, which is to stop the harm that is coming to the citizens of Noth Korea.","conclusion":"The movie \"The Interview\" is an example of cyber-bullying, and making Kim Jong Un mad will do no good."}
{"id":"808d8233-bb13-4ff6-93b6-b6e31f9e2f9b","argument":"A common meme among MRAs and the pussy pass crowd is that whenever a woman hits a man in some way and then gets hit back, it's equality in action because society sees violence against women as more important than violence against men. A shorthand catch phrase that expresses this is equal rights, equal lefts which implies that if women want to be treated equally they should expect to be hit back if they hit someone else. I disagree that this is about equality at all. 1 Overwhelmingly, in cases where this concept is used on reddit, the man used disproportionate violence. See this thread for an example Most of the upvoted comments in the linked r news thread stated she had it coming and that it was equality for her to be hit. But if you actually watch the video she hardly posed a threat to him, and all she did was weakly hit him. Then he lobbed a punch that knocked her flat 2 The stronger larger person should show self restraint. Many of the same people who argue in favor of this phrase are also the same people who constantly argue about the physical differences between men and women. Is it not then hypocritical to expect fair fights? 3 I think all you need to do is check out how much people revel in women getting their comeuppance in these fight videos to see that they enjoy watching women get beat as if they always expect not to get hit back ie. using their pussy pass when in fact I've rarely if ever seen videos where women are shown saying or expecting that. edit since a lot of this discussion has centered around self defense, I would like to link this Sam Harris article on de escalating violence. I don't think we should be celebrating fights that start from either party escalating it further edit 2 Not sure if this is relevant, but what brought this up is this My concern is that whenever I see those kinds of comments, people claim that they're just interested in equality. But that doesn't sound right to me because of how 1 the fight is usually so one sided, 2 you usually can't even show that the woman was using her pussy pass , 3 I don't see much evidence that women by and large even think they can get away with violence because of their gender","conclusion":"\"equal rights, equal lefts\" isn't about equality, it's about violence"}
{"id":"cf1a5ebf-a6e9-4782-b569-14576e77cd32","argument":"Please, I am here to really change my view, not to be a bigot or evil. Ok, I've been keeping up with the GOP and seen their ideas, cutting taxes for the rich so it would trickle down, keeping th Constitution in effect and holding their religious views against abortion and gay marriage. I don't see evil in the Republican Party and I want to see the other side. Democrats destroy traditional marriage, want unions which is terrible for small Busninesses, want abortion legal which I think is really sad that the unborn have their right to life, liberty and happiness abused. Feel free to call me stupid honestly because I feel the left has a brighter side that I don't see. I also want to add that their programs are designed to keep the poor in poverty, it hasn't helped the lower class one bit.","conclusion":"The Democratic ideals are destroying our country."}
{"id":"63da0262-6c98-497a-8c2c-615efb7ff3ca","argument":"Unqualified coaches might push athletes to achieve new skills before they have mastered the fundamentals, due to which the chance of an injury greatly increases It is therefore important to train with qualified coaches who stress, and train to achieve perfection of fundamentals before progression.","conclusion":"Training with a qualified cheerleading coach is crucial in preventing injuries."}
{"id":"9af95d0a-e1e5-4a95-a3ee-ca325cd5d51a","argument":"The Netherlands has had a few patients who donated their organs after they took advantage of the Dutch right-to-die laws.","conclusion":"If death is planned for in advance, organs can be harvested and donated"}
{"id":"62892cdc-79c4-4908-99b7-55fa586c0456","argument":"If straight actors were prevented from playing gay roles, then it would be logical to prevent gay actors from playing straight roles, which severely limits their career.","conclusion":"People should not be denied work based on their sexuality."}
{"id":"4338e49f-ad2f-4b29-bc3b-946a1366d42c","argument":"I love meat, especially beef, but I can see the argument for becoming a vegetarian. As I understand it and please correct me if I'm wrong , vegetarians don't buy or eat meat products because it supports the industry of slaughtering animals for their meat. That makes sense, even though I don't share their concerns. What doesn't make sense to me is that vegans avoid animal products altogether. That includes cheese, milk, yogurt, eggs, ice cream, butter, milk chocolate, etc. Now, the way I understand it again, please correct me if I'm wrong , the reason vegans avoid buying or eating animal products is because it's taking food from innocent and or helpless animals. This seems like strange reasoning because it's not like it hurts a chicken to take its unfertilized eggs or a cow to take its milk to turn into butter or cheese. The chicken will continue to lay eggs weather we collect them or not, and a cow will keep producing milk as long as we keep taking it. EDIT I see now that I should have considered factory industrial farming. I was mostly thinking about small to medium scale farming when I originally wrote this post. The argument about animal cruelty abuse in industrial farms is a pretty good one and I can see now why someone would become a vegan. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Having a vegan diet seems pretty pointless."}
{"id":"22e1b237-c1c4-4315-af17-f95ff6c29fe5","argument":"Notice also that the scene in question visually mirrors Rey's training but instead of natural island has backdrop of stark contrast already mentioned. Scene culminates with Kylo reaching to the ground to grab his lightsaber in identical shot as when Rey reached to the ground to sense the Force, visually representing the difference and similarity between Rey and Kylo. Such level of visual storytelling is indeed new and refreshing to Star Wars or any blockbuster franchise in general.","conclusion":"Actually the stark, clean lines of the First Order are reminiscent of the same stark clean lines depicted of the Empire vs. the rag-tag, nerf-herding, garbage corellian heap flying, rebel scum. Another stark contract when comparing the Light with the Dark."}
{"id":"a0278bc4-196e-43a7-9284-a5efa4c84230","argument":"The most significant driver of jobs comes from demand outpacing supply capacity. Capturing greater market share means profits, the quintessential motivator in capitalism.","conclusion":"Corporations do not create jobs merely because they have extra cash. That contention is logically absurd."}
{"id":"c8452d0c-5a42-4660-bb3e-6295a95762d0","argument":"At this time, Kialo publishes features on a daily basis. An app would have to live on a different release schedule and would be at the mercy of Google's and Apple's app stores.","conclusion":"Kialo should continue with just mobile browser support and not build a progressive web, IOS or Android app. Mobile browsers are fully-featured supported"}
{"id":"fd1cae67-f027-4c1a-943f-170a56b1b37b","argument":"From 1972 until 1976 the US Supreme Court had already put a halt on capital punishment due to its conflict with basic rights.","conclusion":"The death penalty contradicts the democratic principles of the US Constitution."}
{"id":"b4567874-4360-4aeb-9e6f-52228d25557a","argument":"Grace could be extended by very good, very competent people to slightly less good, slightly less competent people. It does not require the existence of evil people.","conclusion":"The exercise of these virtues does not require the presence of evil; it merely requires the presence of a spectrum of goodness."}
{"id":"d7c1ab46-0a27-481c-8649-5bf15bd6bbdf","argument":"Phyllis Schlafly, JD, conservative political activist, public speaker, and author, in a Nov. 9, 2004 Human Events article titled \"Get Borders and Illegal Immigration Under Control\": \"Since millions of Americans are without health insurance, repeal the federal laws that require local American taxpayers to pay for emergency medical care and schooling for illegal aliens, and enforce the law that forbids states to grant the subsidy of in-state college tuition to illegal aliens.\"16","conclusion":"Illegals and path to citizenship is a burden on taxpayers"}
{"id":"852d0674-ee17-49b3-8bb8-f482a805e914","argument":"Judith Jarvis Thompson's essay A Defense of abortion was a groundbreaking essay was a groundbreaking and formidable philosophical essay in defense of abortion rights and her view has helped shape the bodily autonomy defense of abortion and much of the modern discourse of the topic that we see today. To summarize even though Thompson does not believe that a human life with full inalienable rights begins at fertilization, she grants that it does for the purpose of her argument and states that, even so, the unborn child has no right to exist while reliant on the mother's body. She uses an analogy of a society of music lovers kidnapping an unsuspecting sleeping person who's circulatory system must be connected to their favorite musician in order for the musician to survive a 9 month long illness. She argues that the kidnapped person would be very kind to allow the musician to remain connected, but has no obligation to keep himself hooked up. In the same way, she argues that the dependency of the fetus does not obligate the mother to nourish the unborn and use her body. I am probably not doing this powerful piece justice in my summary so I have linked it for anyone interested My view is that the mother is indeed obligated to nourish her unborn child even with the fetus's dependency for her nutrients. Before explaining my view I would like to set out a few premises with which I am arguing under. 1 The human right to life begins at fertilization. In my opinion this is most likely the most vulnerable area for abortion rights advocates to contest. However, this is not what I am arguing today and although I might choose to do so at a later time. Judith Jarvis Thompson and proponents of bodily autonomy assert that, even if the right to life begins at conception, abortion is permissible and this is the view that I am contesting today. 2 This is not an argument about childcare, birth control, prevention of abortion, or whether or not banning of abortion leads to unsafe abortions. Each of those are topics worth exploring, however, I would like to keep this one simply to the moral permissibility of the act of abortion itself. I am actually very socially liberal on healthcare and many other topics, but it is not the topic of discussion for today. Anyway, onto my view. In my view, Judith Jarvis Thompson's argument is a very strong case for the moral permissibility of abortion even if the fetus has been acknowledged to have a right to life. After all, I do not believe the kidnapped person is morally obligated to allow the musician to use his body, even if the musician will die without being connected. Thompson was actually successful in changing my view on the topic of abortion in cases in which her analogy is applicable. Those cases, in my view, are pregnancies due to rape. Because the kidnapped person was taken in his sleep and gave no consent explicit or otherwise to being hooked up to the musician, he has every right to remove himself and share no moral blame for the death of the musician. The morally culpable party in this case is the society of music lovers. However most pregnancies do not involve a party that has not given her consent or does not have the foresight into the possible consequences of their actions. In the majority of pregnancies, there are two moral agents two sexual partners involved who undertake an action that both parties understand may lead to pregnancy. In these cases, there is full consent involved. Even if used properly, birth control methods can and do fail. Even if the male and female partner are both very careful and take proper precautions, a pregnancy can happen and a human life can be created unintentionally. Because both parties have full consent and foresight that a dependent human life may be created as a result of their actions, the unborn child's has a stronger moral claim to life than the mother does to bodily autonomy at least until birth . To illustrate this point I will use an analogy of my own. An accidental pregnancy is analogous to the following scenario A driver in a red car is driving in an isolated country road and accidentally hits a blue car, despite driving very carefully. The occupant of the blue vehicle is seriously injured, unconscious, and unable to call for help. There are no other passing cars that can help as this road is very isolated, however there is a hospital that can initiate a helicopter rescue. The uninjured driver responsible for the accident is the only one who can help the injured person. The red car driver has full bodily autonomy and is physically able run away from the scene of the incident, however most would argue that he has a moral obligation to stay at the scene and call for help. This moral obligation is due to the fact that the driver of the red car's actions are what lead to the dependent status of the blue car driver and the fact that the red car driver knew when he drove the car, that there was always a chance he may be in an accident and by choosing to drive his car he undertakes an implicit moral obligation to drive responsibly and take responsibility for any accidents where he is at fault. In other words, the blue car driver is dependent on the red car driver specifically because of the actions taken by the red care driver. The red car driver may not have intended to hit the blue car and may have been very careful to avoid doing so, nevertheless, the fact the fact that the accident happened because of red car driver's actions obligates the red car driver to help, at least until the point where the blue car driver is no longer dependent on the red car driver such as after a rescue by the nearest hospital . If it is not clear, in this analogy the red car driver is analogous the mother of the fetus. The blue car driver is analogous to the fetus. And the hospital rescue is analogous with birth of the fetus when the fetus no longer becomes reliant on the mother . I have changed my mind on this topic to at least some extent several times and am open to changing my mind again, despite my strongly held beliefs. I am willing to hold a respectful dialogue even with those who strongly disagree with me. I will do my best to respond in a timely fashion, even though I am a relatively slow typer and often take some time to organize my thoughts. If you've made it this far, thank you for reading. Try and change my view gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Bodily autonomy is not a morally justifiable motive for abortion in the majority of cases."}
{"id":"fe62529a-153a-415b-9e11-d8b9eec08a2c","argument":"For example, visiting the site of a former concentration camp can create a multitude of emotions that documentaries or other virtual experiences cannot recreate.","conclusion":"Visiting digital representations of monuments, while better than not seeing them at all, can't recreate the experience of being at a physical site."}
{"id":"14197c4a-ff60-453e-b1bc-d50be3609b62","argument":"Every human being has a right to life, because it is a human being and human beings have value in and of themselves. Other species, such as acorns have value based on other characteristic, like beauty or age, something they can gain or lose. Human beings cannot lose their value and have it as long as they live and a new member of the species is created after conception.","conclusion":"Abortion is the unjustified taking of human life in most cases and the unjustified taking of human life should always be illegal. Therefore, unborn humans should be protected from abortion in most cases."}
{"id":"aa2841e6-7f34-4ae9-b5f2-bc4fadc56ff6","argument":"Hate speech is equivalent to an act of violence because of the pain it willingly inflicts on others. Hence it must be controlled.","conclusion":"Hate speech encourages hateful and harmful action, which is an impediment to the freedom of others."}
{"id":"4214874d-0e49-4d13-8d88-029148f18aee","argument":"Domestic intelligence does require the collection of information, but this is not fundamentally different from a standard police investigation. Furthermore, the rights, duties and powers of a domestic intelligence service are carefully restricted by law. For example, under Dutch law, the General Intelligence and Security Service AIVD is only allowed to wiretap someone after permission granted by the Minister of Interior Affairs the UK situation is very similar. Generally speaking, for every surveillance action the domestic intelligence can take, it needs to weigh whether the action satisfies the principles of proportionality and subsidiarity, meaning that the invasiveness of a surveillance method should be proportional to the risk the person poses, and that the method chosen should be the least invasive of all possible methods.","conclusion":"Domestic intelligence does require the collection of information, but this is not fundamentally diff..."}
{"id":"7a5d548e-d64f-403e-88c6-21cca2edce83","argument":"Often in political debate a party argues that we should seek maintain avoid something because that is what the founding fathers of the United States intended. Second amendment rights are a classical example. I am not trying to argue against the right to bear arms rather I'm challenging the common notion that the intentions of the founding fathers have any relevance to modern debate about well, anything. I am not saying that we shouldn't explore the founding fathers' reasoning for believing certain things, but that their intentions alone are irrelevant. Edit I\u2019m on mobile right now. I will respond to most answers within a couple of hours. Thanks","conclusion":"Intentions of the founding fathers of the United States are irrelevant in political debate"}
{"id":"76adb9b9-9974-46bb-b5ee-2d9c4dd75457","argument":"Because of demographic change, a shrinking work force and rising social costs, it will become ever more expensive for the West to safeguard its security with human soldiers. AKMs can help circumvent these problems.","conclusion":"AKMs save money as they are cheaper than human forces."}
{"id":"8be4573b-5852-42cd-a9c1-ace06539ad5b","argument":"The Dodd Frank Act has forced many smaller banks to merge with larger banks or consolidate because they were unable to keep up with the demands of the legislation.","conclusion":"The regulatory expansion introduced by the Dodd-Frank Act has disproportionately impacted smaller banks, thereby facilitating big banks to consolidate their market share."}
{"id":"16083650-7c2c-4508-884c-c4ab8a3fa07d","argument":"Choosing with whom we share personal information and do personal things with is what allows people to create intimacy with others. A lack of privacy removes this choice.","conclusion":"Privacy is intrinsically valuable because it is a necessary condition for intimacy"}
{"id":"0ab1e3ae-9788-4ba2-98f0-53bd5f61b662","argument":"Many decisions are based on values - where politicians are unlikely to have an advantage over the average citizen. Conservatives and liberals put different emphasis on particular moral considerations in their world views Graham et al., p. 1029","conclusion":"In many cases, there is no obvious right or wrong in political decision making."}
{"id":"c2901144-eb1f-4ad8-8484-66a5694d5e74","argument":"Young people want to enjoy fun and the spirit of the group; not violence in words or acts.","conclusion":"Young people are not as easily manipulable as some adults think."}
{"id":"56246709-f823-43c9-8e6d-8fe99f8d175b","argument":"There's always a balance between safety and privacy. The information that the NSA is collecting is not harming 99.9 of people, and they could potentially be doing a lot of beneficial work to the people of the United States that they keep hidden as well.","conclusion":"I believe that the surveilience state would be morally OK if the NSA could prove their effectiveness. , please."}
{"id":"50c54ab2-0a91-45d4-98e1-6e61c89afad4","argument":"I'm in the process of submitting some applications that allow me to indicate that I am of Spanish ethnicity, though I would identify as white. One of my great grandparents emigrated from Spain to Puerto Rico during Franco's rule. I have a quarter of my family living in PR. My mother and my grandmother both speak Spanish fluently. I am effectively of 1 8th Spanish blood. I mentioned this to a few of my friends and they seem to think this is morally wrong, because I am basically white, and don't have strong Spanish cultural ties. They believe that I am trying to game the system of affirmative action, and think I do not deserve it. I do not see the issue here, as I am not lying, and indicate that I identify as white. I don't believe my situation is any different than a black individual who indicates that he is black on an application, and enjoys the benefits of affirmative action, even though he is far better off than most. . Edit To give an idea of exactly what I'm talking about, here is what the application defines, word for word, as Ethnicity Hispanic or Latino A person of Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, South or Central American, or other Spanish culture or origin, regardless of race.","conclusion":"It is completely acceptable and moral for me to indicate my hispanic heritage on applications, even though I would be considered white"}
{"id":"d790ddb0-c582-4000-99c6-faff101028ca","argument":"Policy 1a. Money ought to be decentralized. Banks and government ought to have little to no influence in trade, as the population further proceeds into a globalized state. 1b. Banks and government can use their influence for their own agenda, one that doesn't not agree with the will of the people as shown with Wikileaks issue. 1c. The benefits of inflation strongly favor the institutions rather than the people. 1d. Taking a leaf from the book of Elon Musk here when we do colonize mars and other planets in the distant future, what are we going to use? Cash money? Definitely not. Bank run dollars? Are we really going to open up a branch of Wells Fargo on mars? I truly want and hope to never have corporate influence on any other planet than earth, and bit coin is the solution for that. Instantaneous, interplanetary currency. A family who is split across planets as some family's are split across borders today would still be able to access the same pool of currency. Personal Finance 2a. The best time to plant a tree was 30 years ago. The second best time is now. Gotta get in early. Over the past couple of years it has been growing at a better rate than most index's. 2b. As bitcoin gains more in popularity, so will its stability. I will keep enough in my bank account to pay off bills, credit cards, etc and any emergency cost, but the rest will move towards a bitwallet. My paychecks will migrate there as well. I'm OK with gambling about the volatility of bitcoin in comparison to the USD because I believe in the long term, bitcoin will prevail, and thus any crash or drop will be insignificant. A big premise in the argument is that eventually the world will run on bitcoin, and thus any market gains or losses are not important, because ultimately it will all return. And lastly, everyone should vote with their wallet. I want organic foods to be common place, so I buy organic. I want bitcoins to prevail, so I should buy bitcoins. An issue I would also like to discusss is the potential regulatory aspects that would come with a bitcoin take over. I don't know much about this area but I think it is relevant here, so if you have any relevant opinions on the ways government would want to regulate a crypto currency, please speak","conclusion":"changing ~90% of my savings to bit coin is a good decision"}
{"id":"a0863bc9-b036-4add-9675-d53988aeaa0d","argument":"Go back ten years and how many black people played in the NHL? Twenty years? More and more young black men are making it to the NHL. Not because, in my opinion, that black people are somehow physical specims. But instead because racial equality in the world today is changing for the better. The  is not about whether we have equality. Just whether we can look at the diversity of races and it will tell us about how equal or unequal we are. This doesn't just apply to racial equality either. Equality in general think gay professional athletes . For hockey specifically, it is very expensive to pay for your child to play hockey. Since we do not live in a racially equal society, the races at disadvantages will not be able to pay for their child to play a sport as expensive as hockey. The NHL is dominated by white people, again not because they're inherently better but simply because there is no disadvantage to being white. There have been a very limited number of black and asian people to crack NHL rosters and very few first nations people to come close. On the other hand, the NBA was mostly and still is dominated by black men. I believe this is mostly because of the fact that basketball is cheaper and more disadvantaged families have an easier time allowing their children to play basketball. As time has gone on the number of white asian players have increase less so for asian people . It's not to say that now there are more poor white people, but that basketball is no longer seen as a poor mans game. Thanks to the equality movement, the diversity of races in professional sports are steadily increasing. Now some sports just happen to be wildly popular soccer for instance and their racial diversity is pretty much at a maximum. So if you'd like we can change this to a rate of change problem woo calculus , and assert that racial equality can be approximated by the change in racial diversity in sports. More racial diversity more equality Less racial diversity less equality Anyways  Edit speling I'd also like to add that there is substantial lag in terms of changes in racial diversity. When Martin Luther King made his speeches there weren't suddenly black men making the teams of professional sports.","conclusion":"I think Racial Equality can be approximated by racial diversity in professional sports"}
{"id":"01762a27-bc7b-409a-aa7d-9e0d944ec970","argument":"The economic changes required for sustainability are based on three axioms: 1 It is impossible to expand forever into a finite space 2 it is impossible to take forever from a finite resource 3 everything on the surface of Earth is interconnected.","conclusion":"Far reaching changes to the way we run our economy and society will be required to put us on a sustainable path."}
{"id":"43e3d9a2-31a5-4d06-ab99-90848ebbbcbe","argument":"Some research suggests that the victim is satisfied if the offender signals that they understands why punishment\/revenge was imposed upon them, rather than if they see the offender being punished.","conclusion":"Under the view of utilitarianism, it is hard to argue that the happiness experienced by the victim overshadows the harm to the criminal."}
{"id":"2f482a40-cb41-4cf1-ae08-e73c125ff846","argument":"The settlers in the early USA did not share language or culture coming from different European states that were back then much more divided than nowadays. Still they developed a common identity.","conclusion":"Many current nations were formed out of regions with more differences and less ability to overcome them."}
{"id":"c5619128-01fa-4781-8fc7-a4dd77c8bf6c","argument":"The campaign Above the Influence was found to be effective as only 8% of teenagers who were familiar with the campaign started smoking pot, versus 12% of teenagers who had not seen it.","conclusion":"Anti-drug campaigns by both government and independent agencies are widespread and have an educating effect."}
{"id":"a6512da2-7c03-4212-9dc0-d2ae973dd733","argument":"Hi all. I know this is a tricky subject in many ways, but I want to assure you that I'm open to my view being changed, and will not be offended by anything you say. I have seen Israel, and in particular its treatment of Palestinians, compared to Nazi Germany's treatment of the Jews, many times. I think this is deliberately provocative offensive, in a slightly juvenile way, and a totally unwarranted comparison. I think it is deliberately offensive because I believe people are drawn to this comparison for the shock factor. Everyone knows that the holocaust is, to put it mildly, a very touchy subject for Jews. I think everyone knows that to compare a Jew to a Nazi is always going to be incredibly offensive. And I think people are drawn to this comparison not because it's the closest analogy to the current situation, but rather because there's a certain I don't know how to put it poetry in pointing out how Jews have come to resemble their most hated oppressors. But the meat of my argument is that it's an unfair comparison. What Israel is doing may be disproportionate, and may be wrong in many ways. But it categorically is not genocide. There is no plan to systematically eliminate Palestinians. There are no death camps, there is no mass murder. I really feel it's more a case of allowing far too many civilian casualties, than of attempting to wipe out an entire group of people. Having said that, I really want to hear the opposing arguments, so I invite you to","conclusion":"I think comparing Israel to Nazi Germany is deliberately offensive, and an unfair comparison."}
{"id":"701156d1-be9b-4b18-8c37-3863430953b8","argument":"When one is intoxicated, feelings of violence and violent tendencies are exacerbated by the loss of inhibitions and increase in stress.","conclusion":"There is a positive relationship between alcohol consumption and domestic violence."}
{"id":"e7010c26-3c45-48c7-8da5-d47151343e5c","argument":"If the purpose of incarceration is rehabilitation, we could customize the length of time a person remains behind bars individually according to the length of time it takes them to successfully be rehabilitated. This could potentially save taxpayers an enormous amount of money. It would also reduce the probability of judicial bias.","conclusion":"Prisons must prioritise rehabilitation because highly punitive sentences cause harms to the prisoners."}
{"id":"17d6088f-882d-40f0-ada2-c5a8fdeead3e","argument":"Hi all, I've been a long time subscriber to , but this is the first post I've made on this subreddit so let me know if I'm explaining myself poorly or doing something wrong. Essentially, I believe that suicide is a personal decision that people should be allowed to make about their own lives and bodies as long as they are not physically hurting anyone else. I think that there is nothing morally wrong with choosing to die because I don't think choosing to live is morally right neither is right or wrong, existence is just existence. I do not discount the negative repercussions that suicide can have on others, however I do not think that any individual can judge another individual's pain or coping mechanisms and if a person has genuinely sought help for their problem whether a terminal health issue, permanent life change, lifelong battle with mental illness and has come to the conclusion that they are in much more pain existing than they would be not existing, they have the right to do what they need to do to relieve their own pain. I am not suggesting that anyone with depression should have the right to end their lives immediately. I'm not even arguing that suicide should be a legal right. I'm arguing that morally and philosophically, I have not heard a good argument as to why someone who has determined that not living has become a superior option to struggling should not be allowed to do so. The rules state to also explain where this viewpoint comes from. I've battled with a pretty serious health condition since college, and although I'm much better now, at the time I was worried that I might die and I researched physician's assisted suicide. After reading a bunch of literature, I came to the conclusion that no doctor could judge a patient's physical pain and that if the patient would rather die with dignity it is their body and their right to do so. I've also struggled with depression and anxiety my entire life. If I have a right to end my physical pain, shouldn't I, someone who has taken measures to alleviate my mental pain medications, working out 5x a week, meditation, positive affirmations, asmr, thinking exercises, journalling and found no permanent solution, also have the right to end my mental pain? I would argue that my mental pain is actually much worse to deal with than my physical conditions. Vomiting and pain are manageable, I have pain pills if I really need them. But the mental torture of believing the people you care about would genuinely be happier without you, that your existence is an anchor on everyone elses life, that you are too emotionally unstable to be around other healthy adjusted people, is not something that even Prozac has been able to fix. The argument that but it could get better is nothing because it could also get worse, it could also stay the same. The argument that you will hurt people around you is valid, however I do not think avoiding hurting others is enough of a reason to endure a lifetime of misery. Suicide is a selfish choice, but I don't think just because it hurts others it's wrong. .","conclusion":"Suicide is a personal choice and everyone has the right to make it."}
{"id":"7825e00c-d2f3-421f-a284-19e31f31e578","argument":"Evangelical pastors argue that God chooses \"imperfect\" men to be \"vessels\" for his will because they have talents \u2014 in Trump's case, belligerence and bullying, interpreted as \"strength\" \u2014 that matter more than their sinful behavior.","conclusion":"Trump's involvement in sexual acts is not incompatible with traditional Christian beliefs, since evangelical leaders and supporters have been able to provide sufficient reasoning to excuse them."}
{"id":"5ad340a0-0d39-439a-80c9-a585a5019e53","argument":"You chose to take the job. You chose to keep your job. If you don't like it, quit and move on. If you can't find another job, be thankful that you're employed at your current skill level. No one is forcing you to do anything. You can always quit your retail job if you don't like the way things are run. Millions of people enjoy the day after thanksgiving sales ok they go to the sales , there is a market for that. Which means there are jobs there. If you don't want that job, someone else does. I've worked my share of holidays long hours in a job far shittier than retail, its not that bad. Stop being a whiner and accept that you may have to do something unpleasant sometimes.","conclusion":"I don't feel sorry for people who have to work Thanksgiving\/Christmas\/etc at retail stores."}
{"id":"1a702476-bd6a-48e4-b9cc-fd3578358c0d","argument":"The forests that gorillas live in could be a source of food for the local children. That way donating to saving gorillas indirectly helps children eat too.","conclusion":"Fighting against habitat destruction helps to prevent climate change which is an important cause of drought and starvation."}
{"id":"b2fc3e44-6db1-446d-95dd-f19581e4854a","argument":"I believe schools Middle and High schools mostly should start around 2 00 PM to 3 00 PM, rather than the usual 7 00 AM to 8 00 AM. Why? Well, teenagers tend to be more nocturnal and therefore get less sleep at night. If schools started around the afternoon, they would feel much more rested and therefore go through the school day better. Also, since adults have to go to work in the morning, a few accidents could probably be avoided. Also, now parents can pick up their kids on the way from work, as the day would end around 8 00 PM to 9 00 PM. EDIT Based on the counterarguments presented by users here, I hereby . Schools should start around 9 00 AM to 11 00 AM.","conclusion":"I believe schools should start in the afternoon."}
{"id":"ca0978f4-f12c-4158-8898-2fb06b05a1d5","argument":"First time  I searched Reddit for the right platform for this discussion. Sorry if this is not appropriate for the board. There are some games or game genres out there that are controversial because a lot of people deny that they qualify to be games. They are not game enough . Games where you simply walk around a dreamy landscape and chill, like Proteus. Games where some narrative guides you down a linear corridor with no other action, like Dear Esther. Also known as walking simulators . Some people say these are not games . But by my definition of game, anything with definable boundaries, rules, and participators that interact with the subject is a game. That's pretty broad, I know. That means it extends to things like relationships, society, money. Practically anything that humans do is a game. Perhaps my definition of game is bad? Should I just call it a life philosophy and call it a day? Let me know if there's a flaw in my logic, or if you think Femme Fatale is not a game. x200B Edit u Milskidasith and his link here have effectively ended the discussion for me. Thanks for everyone that participated.","conclusion":"Anything interactive is a game."}
{"id":"4af619b3-c863-40f6-b5b5-56b9fd458c46","argument":"I have dual citizenship in Canada. I know most Trump supporters hate the identity politics stuff, but as someone who is mtf trans and lesbian and also works in higher ed, I see nothing but shit coming down the pike. I want to get out of dodge while I can. Trump's cabinet is horribly anti LGBT and I lived through the possibly milder Bush years when it came to LGBT issues. When people tell me Trump is not anti gay or trans it quite frankly pisses me off because his cabinet is horrible and moreover, the GOP controls everything now. It would be a bit of an easier sell if say, Trump had to contend with a democratic congress and the Supreme Court only had members who were under 800 years old on it. What can be said to convince me to stay, besides closeness to family I may actually be moving closer to my family by moving to Canada but farther from my girlfriend's family ? Also we have no children just in case that gets brought up.","conclusion":"I should leave America because of Trump"}
{"id":"448cc1ae-2238-4530-9814-dd4651d52f11","argument":"A lot among them are even extremely successfull and can often be found in position of leadership.","conclusion":"Not all psychopaths are murders or criminals. A lot of them live a normal life."}
{"id":"413d62c1-01cd-41f5-b6ea-74d1aea0bb8f","argument":"Edit Some confusion about the timing. Im saying that police should inform subjects that they are detaining or arresting why the are doing so DURING the arrest. Not before, not after, DURING. Currently, police detain, and or arrest subjects, while simultaneously refusing to explain what and why they are doing it. When asked to explain why someone is being arrested, the common statement from the officer is \u201cI\u2019ll tell you in a minute.\u201d This often causes the subject to panic and possibly turn aggressive toward that officer out of very rational fear. I\u2019m fully aware that many people criminals know exactly why they are being arrested and feign ignorance, but my argument is about those who truly have no fucking idea why they are being ordered out of their car, or turned around and cuffed. IMO, that subject has a right to know exactly what\u2019s happening and why. I also believe that the officer\u2019s safety and ability to do his her job would be improved if the subject was informed. It seems like a win win. I think grabbing someone and forcibly restraining them without explanation is pushing the 4th Amendment, as the subject could have no idea why they are being detained and searched.","conclusion":"For their own safety, police should explain what they are doing and why they are doing it - WHEN they are doing it... not after."}
{"id":"56999e11-25c9-4caf-977b-6c6cdf569f0a","argument":"I believe that people convicted and found guilty of violent crimes that were premeditated and life altering for the victim and or the victim's family should be imprisoned for life without parole. For example premeditated murder, breaking into someone's house to rape someone, kidnapping and sexual assault molestation, armed robbery where victims are tied up and beaten. In my opinion, perpetrators of these crimes have shown themselves to be violent in a planned and premeditated way that cannot be rehabilitated. Basically if you plan to commit a violent crime as opposed to committing a violent crime of passion , you're done. Off the streets. Once you've shown that kind of behavior, you should be removed from society. Period. We all know that those crimes are wrong, and there's no excuse for letting perpetrators of these crimes back on the streets. Things I would not include in this heat of the moment murders, manslaughter or involuntary murder , larceny, date rape without evidence of drugging, to name a few. To address prison over crowding, I think drug possession charges should be dropped and those convicted released, unless they were dealing at a high level and or committed a violent crime while high. But simple possession and low level dealing should be dealt with through rehab, not prison. On the one hand, I feel this is sort of draconian, but on the other hand, I think it's a much more practical use of our prison system that would make society safer. . Thank you. Edited Removed an extra word that was confusing. Edit 2 Clarifications. By life altering, I meant that this should cover emotional distress and trauma short of killing someone. If a child is kidnapped and molested, that follows him or her the rest of his or her life. It affects one's sense of safety, of healthy relationships, etc. You don't have to kill someone to permanently mess up their life. I used the term life altering to cover this, though perhaps it's not the best way of expressing what I'm thinking of. Basically if you plan to commit a crime that either kills someone or permanently fucks up their life, you lose the privilege of being part of society. I specifically excluded that kind of date rape because I feel like that's much more of a gray area in terms of premeditation. If you drug someone and rape them, you planned that. If it's less clear cut i.e. possibly no poor communication of consent of lack thereof then I don't think a life sentence is warranted.","conclusion":"I believe that people found guilty of premeditated violent life-altering crimes rape, murder, kidnapping, etc. should be imprisoned for life. No parole."}
{"id":"fea0f83b-eb10-4de3-986d-668d8503ee67","argument":"I think that urges to spend a lot of time masturbating and trying to have sex with a lot of people is a norma part of human behavior and should not be regarded as a disease except in cases that are both unusual and harmful. Let me clarify my title. I mentioned r nofap only as an example of a sex addiction community that I find particularly annoying. There is absolutely nothing wrong about choosing not to jerk it for a while. However, the people on NoFap seem to act like they have a serious problem and need a support group of the same kind that supports substance addiction. Treating masturbation like alcoholism is, at best, hilariously silly, and at worst, offensive to people who have dealt with real substance addiction. I understand that porn or random hookups could be thought of as the substance that one is addicted to. If that's the case, there are a whole lot of addicts our there","conclusion":"I think that the \"NoFap\" community and, to a lesser extent, sexual addiction in general, is ridiculous."}
{"id":"d2b9808f-e219-46a5-a46e-502fa5157557","argument":"Dictators will continue to remain wealthy regardless of whether aid is given to their countries. Unconditional development aid is one of few mechanisms to ensure the trickle down of resources to the masses.","conclusion":"Conditional development assistance harms the poor in particular; those individuals are not responsible for the non-democratic nature of their government."}
{"id":"bbd5da8c-9f35-4c8f-b9f9-fab25ddd0317","argument":"The broadened definition under the ADA amendment, means employees can now get protection if they are simply able to prove that they have a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities another term which has been significantly broadened. So getting rights after disclosing is easier now.","conclusion":"The ADA amendment significantly broadenes the definition and scope of \"disability\" which means millions of individuals having mental illnesses that were not previously covered and may not have wanted to disclose because of that, now have protection as employee and can disclose easily."}
{"id":"4edc424d-b08c-49eb-9e11-a46a2ef8aacd","argument":"Proposing that the ecological crisis should become our singular goal totally goes against the individual freedoms that are the basis of modern civilization. What's good about our culture is that everyone can do their own thing. To make ecology our focus is a kind of eco-fascism, even if it does mean we may go extinct otherwise.","conclusion":"Focussing on climate change will come at too great a cost to our societal norms."}
{"id":"5c3f678f-3850-4092-aee4-76179d9b6ebd","argument":"Note I am an American, so for this I'm mainly discussing American citizenship. We should be able to agree that all people are equal. If all people are equal why do some have a harder time gaining citizenship than others? Is someone who was born in the U.S any better than someone from Canada or Mexico? No. So why do they get automatic citizenship while foreigners have to wait years. I believe that EVERYONE should have to pass basic intelligence tests and U.S history tests for citizenship regardless of national origin.","conclusion":"I don't think citizenship at birth"}
{"id":"1dda6f99-c1c1-461f-968d-2db03bf4ea05","argument":"This may reduce income for businesses who take part in these schemes, resulting in businesses not taking in ex-convicts and resulting in a failed system.","conclusion":"With these systems in place, customers and civilians may not trust certain businesses due to number of ex-convicts on staff."}
{"id":"062479f4-1305-49c7-b485-b1a847723d8e","argument":"The International Court of Justice in 1996 declared unanimously that any use or threat of nuclear weapons had to be compatible with existing international law relating to armed conflict International Court of Justice, 1996. Furthermore, a majority of the judges present felt that any such use or threat would \u2018generally be contrary\u2019 to those rules of international law and therefore, unanimously, \u2018there exists an obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international control\u2019 International Court of Justice, 1996.","conclusion":"Both the use and threat of nuclear weapons is illegal"}
{"id":"56879dd5-4092-415a-93a6-9e627c7dfc82","argument":"Cultural Appropriation is defined as the adoption of some specific elements of one culture by a different cultural group. It describes acculturation or assimilation, but can imply a negative view towards acculturation from a minority culture by a dominant culture. Background When a white person, often from the English speaking modern world is seen sporting some kind of cultural artifact from a culture that is not theirs, it is coming to be viewed in a negative light, and rightly so. Examples being wearing bindis as a fashion statement. Ignorant to the fact that if an Indian or Pakistani person was to wear a bindi in the US, they're viewed as probably some dirty terrorist whereas when an attractive white kid does it, they're exotic and fashionable. Or when a white person styles their hair in dreadlocks. Something that has cutural and spiritual significance to Jamaicans is reduced to nothing more that something that's trendy. Many people argue that it is a matter of personal liberties, and that individuals should not be told what they can and cant do as long as they aren't hurting others, and that just because someone may be offended doesn't mean they're in the right. But the reality is, appropriating these cultural elements is harmful. Furthermore, I do believe that any person of color has every right to be offended. It is not fair to claim that others can or cannot be offended by something. If you are a white person, you probably are ignorant. Ignorant of what it is like to live as a person of color in America. So let's not try to tell other people what to be offended by. ? Edit Part of the reason why I made this  is because I have very I guess you could say libertarian views on personal liberties. My philosophy is that every person has the right to do whatever the hell they please, to go or not go, to say or not say, to be or not be. And as long as they are meeting the standards for moral acceptability Maximise benefit, minimize suffering, does not harm others then no party or government can infringe on these rights. Not one. This is the most basic human right. But my views on cultural appropriation tend to clash with this philosophy, so that was why I made this post. I'm open minded to the possibility of realigning my stance. gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than just downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Being white and \"wearing bindis\" or having your hair in dreadlocks etc. *is* negative cultural appropriation, and it *is* wrong."}
{"id":"8957f63e-b5f1-42bf-aaa0-ae29b3b92998","argument":"If you believe something that is untrue you will make incorrect actions because you are acting out that belief. If you don't act it out you don't believe it. So you can't believe it without making bad decisions","conclusion":"Beliefs inform actions, believing in a God that doesn't exist can lead to bad outcomes."}
{"id":"09f755ee-0e09-4542-b724-12f1aadd2418","argument":"Other elected officials such as Senators are elected on longer terms with rolling elections, so that only one third of positions are filled in any one election.","conclusion":"This can be mitigated by limiting the number of judges who are appointed in any particular election."}
{"id":"aa9714b4-0aec-4021-ad83-d7afa6de17cf","argument":"\u201cGravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who sets the planets in motion.\u201d \u2015 Isaac Newton 1999, The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, I.B. Cohen and A. Whitman trans., Berkeley: University of California Press.","conclusion":"\"Empirical evidence\" can neither prove that God does or does not exist."}
{"id":"41099970-aedd-4ecb-8cef-2f10ec7f233c","argument":"As a country founded on the belief that all persons have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, the United States has a duty to ensure those unalienable rights for all.","conclusion":"Because the United States has strong military capabilities, it is only right for the country to use it to save people from a violent and oppressive government."}
{"id":"0e949628-0a19-430e-824b-23a5ffd86c72","argument":"My position is that if someone believes there are things that are objectively good or bad then they may fall into a mindset of simply accepting things as good or bad without much thought. This can lead them into blindly following their so called objective morals. On the other hand if they don't believe that there are things that are objectively good or bad, then they will more often try to think through why something could be good or bad . This in turn can make the person more aware of little details and nuances that may cause a big change in their way of seeing a situation. This can allow a more flexible outlook of the world. This will prevent the blind acceptance of ideas of what is good and what is bad. Note when I use good and bad in quotations it's because I understand that a component of subjective morality is that it takes the position that nothing is inherently good or bad, but I don't know what would be more appropriate words to use. Edit My view has been changed by u appropriate username and u bananaruth. Thanks for the discussion everyone and bye for now.","conclusion":"A benefit of believing in subjective morality is that it forces you to really think about why something would be \"good\" or \"bad\"."}
{"id":"a7804d9b-2684-41cd-9ed4-40706fe70472","argument":"1 Africa has been ravaged by exploitation, but we can only feel guilty and help so much. Eventually, Africans need to be self sufficient to thrive. If you teach someone to fish, they will never be hungry. 2 Emergency aid is fine, but continual dependence on foreign aid sends the wrong message. 3 This used to be a religious company, and their intentions are good, and charity is something I believe is very important, but they are causing more harm than good for the long term and don't realize it.","conclusion":"Companies like Childfund hurt those in need by discouraging self-reliance, innovation, and problem-solving and encouraging dependence on help from others."}
{"id":"9d29cf8d-433e-4f37-a5c8-89ed4c59b725","argument":"With no limit, and no recourse inside the legal system, it would be quite easy to ruin a regular person's life for a few thousand dollars -- with just a little false information and a few made up stories about how s\/he is, for example, a pedophile, or that someone who's livelihood depends upon trust, violated that trust in another state where no one can really check on those facts.","conclusion":"Speech can cause psychological, material and sometimes physical harm to people who did not ask to be subjected to it, and should therefore be restricted by law and technology."}
{"id":"ef5905bc-48d6-4b90-a5c8-1e1ea33c30f5","argument":"If legalised, drug users could be less likely to leave dangerous paraphernalia broken pipes, syringes, etc. behind in public places as the fear of criminal penalties for the possession of drug paraphernalia would no longer be an issue. This would lessen risk of disease and injury.","conclusion":"Many users currently do not properly dispose of their paraphernalia for fear of being caught with it on them, leading to evidence of illegal drug use being disposed of quickly and carelessly."}
{"id":"57c1c21e-7d78-4ae6-8f8c-5dad2d198504","argument":"In principle, this is not different from subpoena-ing a tape recording or transcript, for which there is an established precedent for being acceptable.","conclusion":"It is okay to subpoena a translator to expose the subject matter of meetings between world leaders."}
{"id":"acf97db4-52e8-4222-872a-c450d1dd9780","argument":"Aging is the microscopic damage a person accumulates throughout their lives which ends up causing complications at some point which lead to death. Preventing damages to your body during life is healthy behavior. Being healthy is a good thing. Every argument that claims that our health should gradually deteriorate seems irrational. Being unhealthy reduces peoples happiness, it reduces the happiness of their friends and family under most circumstances and it stifles their potential. It's unclear what the reasons would be to allow people to die of heart disease, cancer or stroke. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"There are no good logically sound arguments against curing aging"}
{"id":"aac029a7-924c-4a37-9601-74f744768a7d","argument":"The meaning of life is drumroll nonexistent. We exist simply because of chance, and the only point in living is living and, I guess, fun and making sure next generations can live. For the sake of living. I see nothing else. Sure fun sounds like a valid reason, but in the end it won't matter at all how much anyone has had, the universe isn't better or worse of. After the last life on earth dies, things, essentially, would be as if it was never there at all. Is life really just studying so you can have a good job so you can work hard so that if you reach retirement you get to think of all the things you could spend your money on if you were as fit as you had someday been? Or so when you die you have enough coin to pass down? Surely many people see this in another light, or they wouldn't keep going. What's the secret? EDIT I feel it can't hurt to point out I'm not suicidal. I don't despise life for finding no use in it. I simply fail to see its place in the bigger picture and was interested in opposing other thoughts on that.","conclusion":"Life has no significant meaning."}
{"id":"c5e5304d-8f70-4b2f-89f4-db06c1f50458","argument":"Having more than one sibling increases the chances that you will have a friendly relationship with at least one of them. Having a sibling with whom you can share your thoughts is important for your personal development.","conclusion":"Growing up without siblings can have negative social consequences on both youth and adult life. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov"}
{"id":"c8fbe5b6-0742-4e8a-9cdd-edfd16b20859","argument":"Children are unique, and the skills necessary to care for a particular, individual child are not predictable or easily teachable. It is impossible to know in advance what kind of person will be born, so it is impossible to know what skills should be tested in the first place.","conclusion":"It is impossible to design a test that accurately assesses the ability to be a parent."}
{"id":"960a418c-91ef-4286-87f0-790506e54179","argument":"People today appear to be either ignorant or confused about what is, or is not, freedom in liberty, which is the opposite of enslavement in tyranny. Free people are free, slaves are slaves, and a lot of people claim that Americans are not slaves, when in fact, they are slaves in tyranny, and have been slaves in tyranny since 1789. These are not claims, these are well established facts. Claims that I have not backed up these facts constitute a demand for a process by which the truth is found.","conclusion":"The United States of America was founded on principles explained in the Congressional Record, the Declaration of Independence non-censored version and then the Slave Traders took over in 1789, which set in motion the criminal enslavement of millions of African Slave Victims, paid for by American \"tax\" payers also slaves, and virtually ensured a future Civil War: as known by those in opposition to the Constitution of 1789."}
{"id":"3bc4c380-1234-412a-85b8-64211d2e2a8f","argument":"Even with a budget of $16.5bn for 2006, NASA expects it will take more than a decade to return to the moon and has no date for Mars. The cost of really pushing the boundaries of human exploration is too high even for the big-spending Bush administration, so surely we need to examine the scientific and technological returns of the space programme as it really is rather than how it appears in Star Trek.","conclusion":"The costs of pushing the boundaries in space are too high."}
{"id":"e4c0b11c-9a51-48b9-bf2e-8f7ad57627d6","argument":"Edit I am not saying that abortion is never murder, or can never be murder. I am saying abortion is not necessarily murder or not always murder, even if it is elective and not done out of pure medical necessity and even if the sex was consensual. I have two thought experiments about this. The first is about emrbyos. Is an unborn baby or a human embryo worth the same as a newborn baby? Is killing an unborn baby or destroying an embryo as bad as killing a newborn? Should it be treated the same? If not, how much worse is killing a newborn than killing an unborn baby? Is killing an unborn baby later in pregnancy worse than destroying a recently fertilised egg? A day later? A week later? If there are differences, imagine that you're in a fire at a fertility clinic. In one room there's a mobile freezer with a number of embryos in it, and in the room across the corridor there is a newborn baby crying. Which would you save first, the embryos or the newborn baby? What if it was a hundred embryos, or a thousand, or ten thousand? Would that make a difference? Or would you save the newborn no matter how many embryos there were in the freezer trolley thing? I know I would. No matter how many embryos there were in the other room, I'd always save the newborn. So to me, if there is a difference between them it can't be quantified as a multiple. I would say that a newborn baby is a completely different class of being from an embryo. I would say somewhere between fertilisation and birth there is a cut off point, but I don't know where. The second is about life support. Suppose there were a parent who had given their child up for adoption and never met them, and then that child had grown up and the parent had no relationship with them. Suppose the child's adoptive parents had died early in its life and it had been raised in state care and had no relationship with any adoptive parents. Suppose that now, as an adult, this individual has become terminally ill, but there is one cure. The parent, a genetic match, has to have their body attached by an IV to their adult offspring for nine months, and act as a life support system for the child. At the end of the nine months, the parent will have to go through an invasive surgical procedure, or else go through a traumatic and potentially fatal or injurious reaction when the iv support system is removed. One is surgical and one is natural the surgical one has less complications but the natural option is healthier for the child and can result in death. Throughout the nine months, the adult child is in a coma, and when they wake up at the end, they will be pretty much disabled and have to learn everything again. Suppose the parent was young when they had the child, suppose 15, and is now 30, so not too old to be raising a kid, and the child is not quite an adult, just a teenager. Somewhere in that age range. But the adult will either have to give the child up for adoption once again or else raise them and feed them and take care of them until after a few years they have returned to a normal adult level of functioning. Suppose this occurrence was relatively common. In a just society, would we require the parent to go through with the procedure? Given that it involves an invasive process, and suppose over the nine months the parent has to gain weight and their body changes irreversibly, and at the end there's either the surgical procedure or the traumatic and potentially injurious natural option of just letting the IV cord thing come out on its own. The parent created the child. The parent is responsible for the life of the child. If the parent does not go through with the procedure, the child will surely die. But, on the other hand, the parent has no relationship with the child, although they may come to have one. Would a just society require the parent to go through with this? Would it give them no choice? Would it treat people who refused the procedure, or who gave up on it part of the way through because they couldn't deal with it, like murderers? gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Abortion is not Murder."}
{"id":"34175e49-d7d1-4136-8855-7c9ae6ecceac","argument":"Humans have high mental abilities, they are not equally talented, and if you save these children, one or two might turn out to be scientists and become vets, help gorillas, but gorillas cannot help themselves in case of a disease, hence it's more logical to focus on human survival first in order to promote animal survival.","conclusion":"A human life is worth more than the life of an animal. Thus it would be immoral to donate money to support gorillas whilst children are starving."}
{"id":"dcf9a9f0-38e5-4408-b2bc-fb781711bd83","argument":"The Constitution is considered sacred. There is enormous resistance to any law or policy that would attempt to change it.","conclusion":"The Constitution can hinder the enactment of laws and policies that would benefit the public."}
{"id":"cdfc744f-027f-44cd-83f1-d762559651c9","argument":"First of all, I lean pro choice. But I don't think that any arguments related to women's rights or feminism are at all relevant. If the counterargument is abortion is murder, then that completely overshadows any argument that relates to women and their rights. If abortion is not murder, then there is no argument against it aside from religious which is by default not valid religion doesn't matter to law . Abortion is murder or not, and that is the debate. Women's rights and men's rights don't really matter when the question is Is this a living thing that deserves to live it's life. Edit Just wanted to say thanks for all the comments, ideas, and points of view I appreciate how civil everything was given the inflammatory topic.","conclusion":"I don't think the debate over abortion has anything to do with women's rights or feminism."}
{"id":"a81b3760-821c-4858-b9fb-1d4005f3d104","argument":"An ethical foreign policy can and must be pursued by western governments. Like any other aspect of government policy it must be conducted in a moral, decent way. This translates into the philosophy that we must act whenever there is a moral imperative for us to act.","conclusion":"An ethical foreign policy can and must be pursued by western governments. Like any other aspect of g..."}
{"id":"ed9f58f1-d331-4bf8-bf61-7e54c33645b1","argument":"It doesn\u2019t make sense to call an entire branch of knowledge a \u201cfailing\u201d. Knowledge is worth in itself.","conclusion":"It\u2019s unclear what \u201cfailing\u201d means or what requirements are needed not to be a failing discipline."}
{"id":"0c3e3ec0-5cba-4cab-82c4-bcb2fb91421b","argument":"Scholars argue that the right to vote for everyone is part of the American Constitution, even if only implicitly, and \"the only just basis for self-government\" as well as the \"standards of human rights\" that America promotes.","conclusion":"Voting is not a privilege that has to be earned by following the law but an inalienable right of every citizen in a democracy."}
{"id":"98a2dea4-0ae8-4d73-bca4-d6ea2e43da80","argument":"Certain species of wildlife is increasing in urban areas Cities create an unbalance of species, leading the food chain to fall apart. That process makes it possible for some species to overgrow and others to falter","conclusion":"There isn't a lot of wildlife in most cities."}
{"id":"5ca506ff-b48c-4304-a292-26c461844823","argument":"I believe that confidence is a word people mostly use to encourage people to be arrogant. Particularly, I think that when people say that women are attracted to confidence, what they're really saying is that women are attracted to arrogant douchebags, and they're just trying to say it in a way that doesn't sound as awful. Confidence is the name of the quality when we like it, arrogance is the name of the quality when we don't, but they really are the same damn thing. There's one recent article I've been quoting a lot, but these are ideas that I've held for a very long time. gt When people are confident, when they think they are good at something, regardless of how good they actually are, they display a lot of confident nonverbal and verbal behavior Their overconfidence did not come across as narcissistic.\u201d .","conclusion":"I think the word \"confidence\" is mostly used to make certain ideas more palatable."}
{"id":"0150801a-b445-47ac-8e8e-7bdc00c02919","argument":"Robert Rector. \"The Effectiveness of Abstinence Education Programs in Reducing Sexual Activity Among Youth\". Heritage. 8 Apr. 2002 - \"Virginity Pledge Programs. An article in the Journal of the American Medical Association by Dr. Michael Resnick and others entitled \"Protecting Adolescents From Harm: Findings from the National Longitudinal Study on Adolescent Health\" shows that \"abstinence pledge\" programs are dramatically effective in reducing sexual activity among teenagers in grades 7 through 12.19 Based on a large national sample of adolescents, the study concludes that 'Adolescents who reported having taken a pledge to remain a virgin were at significantly lower risk of early age of sexual debut.'\"","conclusion":"Virginity pledge programs are an effective form of abstinence-only"}
{"id":"b333eef2-2632-4336-902b-c4117fd3bfbc","argument":"There is a sharp rise of the far-right and disturbing parallels to the historic rise of Fascism in Nazi Germany occurring in modern America emboldened by Trump and his rhetoric.","conclusion":"Some people fear Trumps policies and rhetoric mirror and parallel historical fascism turning America fascist."}
{"id":"e0188677-bd79-4fb9-b906-3eb2d626d001","argument":"The economic sphere and the private family sphere have separate obligations and systems of contracts. The way in which the economic system works is that generally people are paid for their labor by those who benefit from it, either directly or indirectly. This is a mutual relationship of monetary-labor exchange. In the family sphere, the contracts are based on personal obligation and the family unit as opposed to individual contraction of services. The family unit is a pre-existing relationship not created on labor-pay agreements. Individuals opt into being a parent in a family unit on a voluntary basis and with no expectation or pretence of return for their services, except perhaps from their children in the future. Remuneration is created in the form of a functioning, rewarding family unit and family life and the products and services produced are of no quantifiable monetary value nor can they be sold or do they create wealth. Because housewives do not labor for anybody outside of their household, they should not be paid by anybody outside of their family. Moreover most of the work that housewives do would have to be done by a member of the family unit regardless of whether everyone was also engaged in monetized work \u2013 there would still need to be washing, cleaning, shopping etc done. Housewives do not exist as workers in the economic sphere as they do not create a monetized product with their labor and opt into the agreement on voluntary non-monetary bases. As such, they are not entitled to pay.","conclusion":"Payment and obligation works differently in public and in private."}
{"id":"309d231e-4184-4864-b677-4eeabaafd4e4","argument":"Over 1 billion urban women in developing countries lack the ability to fully exercise their property rights. Reasons for this include unequal formal property rights, cultural norms preventing equal property rights, and a lack of access to the tools and means to exercise property rights such as formal land titles or savings accounts.","conclusion":"Gender stereotypes and discriminatory social norms often prevent women from escaping domestic work, or gaining employment outside the house. The gender gap for economic participation and opportunity stands at 60% worldwide. This is especially harmful for single mothers and working class women."}
{"id":"987f7531-88ae-44aa-a15d-f71bd23cc322","argument":"As far as I can tell, the central argument in favour of the legal recognition of gay marriage is the idea that there is no justification for different treatment for different kinds of romantic affection. It does not matter if the affection is between two men, two women, or a man and a woman, all the affection should be treated equally under the law. The issue I have here is that, that argument surely then can be extended to it doesn't matter how many people the romantic love is shared between . Surely the central, and peripheral, arguments for gay marriage also open up the door for Polygamy? Don't they? Is there any way this is not the case? gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The arguments for gay marriage open the door for Polygamy"}
{"id":"8491ac72-8cfe-496c-bb27-526e578a3c34","argument":"We should reward those talented men and women who are prepared to devote years of gruelling training.","conclusion":"Tax Payers Money Should Be Used To Fund Top Sportsmen and Women"}
{"id":"e43eeea5-3aaf-4122-bbda-b75362912d2a","argument":"Argument one ice occupies valuable space that could be filled with more drink, thus making refills be required more often, and therefore there is more time that you are without a drink. Argument two ice melts and waters down drinks. Sweet tea? A disgusting barely sweet teawater hybrid. Soda? Flat and watery tasting. While I will agree that outside on a hot summers day, a cold iced tea is nice, in an already cold restaurant, ice serves almost no purpose as most drinks that are served cold will stay cold.","conclusion":"In an air-conditioned restaurant, drinks without ice are vastly superior to drinks with ice"}
{"id":"e03ae2ce-9f3b-4b1f-892d-a1ccaa8b78aa","argument":"To expand, I think the reason we don't kill people generally isn't because it might hurt them, but because it deprives them of what is termed a future of value. Deprivation of an ability to live and experience all other rights and privileges is what I think is heinous and it is why I think we don't allow killing generally. I think this right to life necessarily extends to viable foetuses regardless of whether or not their life is comparable to that of a born and developed person, because they too have a future of value. My caveats are for non viable foetuses, as mentioned above and who have no prospect of a future of value, and for threats to the mother's life, which can be justified on the same grounds of self defense. I don't think the arguments of bodily sovereignty that I see floating around Reddit or Tumblr whereby a foetus occupies a mother's womb with her permission since they make use of her organs and sustenance fly because an abortion requires an active undertaking to violate the bodily sovereignty of the foetus. I don't think this is justifiable because we extend the right of bodily sovereignty to people as a safeguard against their being killed. This has to extend to foetuses too, because I've explained how I think they must receive this equal right to life. Lastly, I don't think any of this can be brushed away by saying it's a personal issue of choice for individual women. If we grant that the foetus is not an inhuman life, but rather a human one, then I think it needs to be a social question that regards the foetus as having the same potential in it's future as any other member of society.","conclusion":"I believe abortion should only be allowed in cases of threat to a woman's life including suicide, or if the foetus has a fatal foetal abnormality."}
{"id":"173959ff-81cb-46de-9a5f-0549f84eede1","argument":"The higher the amount of rescued persons, the higher the chance, that anyone of them will rescue another person or maybe yourself.","conclusion":"You should pull the lever because five lives are worth more than one."}
{"id":"4afb81bc-79a2-4fd5-931e-5761b83b4c2a","argument":"I like to consider myself as a pretty average person. Over just the last year, I lost track of how many times I have been presented with a terms and conditions notice when using some kind of software iTunes, Facebook, heck even company websites . However, each time I have blindly accepted them just like pretty much everyone else. They are usually ridiculously long and written in small print so it would be a huge waste of my time to sit down and read it before accepting. I heard read somewhere that if the average person were to read the terms and conditions of all software they legitimately plan on using, it would take them several decades as a full time job. Am I really expected to do this if I want to use any kind of software? To me that just seems absurd, especially since that information could be used against me in court. I understand that this is important from a company's perspective to protect them legally, but that's hardly fair for the consumers and hence why I think it's stupid.","conclusion":"I think that legal Terms and Conditions notices are stupid"}
{"id":"babd2ecf-0392-4aae-a4a5-c84bc9bdb126","argument":"I think that people who are in the 90 100IQ range who spend their days partying, having sex, watching scripted reality TV shows and indulge in massive consumerism is enjoying existence way more than those in the 110 IQ range who spend their time and energy pondering politics, philosophy, science and so on. I just don't see what's so great about being smart and enlightened? It leads to angst, depression and in many cases suicide. You realize that you are just a speck of dust, you'll die, everyone you love will die, the universe itself will go heat death so there is no chance of eternal life for anyone, there is no inherent meaning to life and it's hard to create subjective meaning when you are indeed smart enough to see through the illusions, you overanalyze things and don't experience the magic that dumb people experience. In short ignorance is bliss. They might think there is a life after death and that Kim Kardashians daily routine is sacred, but at least they are having fun and enjoying life. They might have pointless sex with random individuals with no deeper purpose, but they are nejoying it and loving it. They might not have a fucking clue about how anything in the world operates scientifically , but they are enjoying the things. Sure these people are not immune to depression or angst, but they don't get it from knowing too much about reality.","conclusion":"I think being dumb & ignorant is better than smart & enlightened."}
{"id":"a9a69ec3-afc6-411b-af21-cd9166500cbd","argument":"I want to clarify that I am not advocating dismissing rape claims or saying the victim is lying. I believe fervently in dispelling rape culture especially on university campuses and the work place. However, I am worried about public opinion hanging someone out to dry because of a rape accusation before the trial even takes place. I recognize that rape accusations have a very small percentage of actually being fake, and I feel that if one person is innocent, it is important to protect everyone's rights and keep the accusation a secret until the trial takes place. I do struggle with this belief, as it can potentially backfire and lead into settlements that don't expose the real rapists, but I think that it is worth it to protect everyone's right to a fair trial, no matter how heinous the crime. That said, I am open to possible alternatives, as I know the trial process can take a long time before it even begins, and life is rarely one or the other. If there is a way to both prevent public opinion attacks and help people get justice, I am happy to hear them. edit I have changed my mind on suppressing information in media until the trial. I still hold that people should engage in an objective review of facts and go with innocent until proven guilty, but that is more of an individual task and something that is more long term and on society itself to change. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"rape\/sexual assault accusations should be kept private until trial proceeds and guilt should not be assumed"}
{"id":"cd21ca27-6d86-4bb4-8cb1-d6ec54ff2cb5","argument":"The idea is that deliberately overeating will build eating habits that will be difficult to change later, when you are working a desk job and being a dad and not burning off those calories. This would not apply to celebrities whose job includes shaping their bodies and people with sufficient self control that they are never tempted to keep eating the slab of ribs until they're gone. But it happens to former football players all the time. One premise I have that you might not share is that losing weight is just about impossible once you have gained it. There is no scientifically approved diet that you can follow and it will work. This is why any weight gain that disrupts a body with a nice, working non obese equilibrium is very risky. In sum like tanning, bulking is something that increases your relative status but is bad for your body in the long run. .","conclusion":"Deliberately increasing your caloric intake to add muscle \"bulking\" leads to obesity later in life."}
{"id":"2dbfdda5-0582-45bb-bc89-291cf1e32d4b","argument":"The Wiz the 1978 musical film featuring Michael Jackson and Diana Ross, was a re-imagining of The Wizard of Oz. Without the creative freedom to do so, this film would not be the cult classic it is today within the Black community.","conclusion":"Taking a film and recreating it helps a wide variety of people to become familiar with a timeless story, but in a way that may appeal to them."}
{"id":"5001e344-7ef6-4587-97e2-ec4745b968ae","argument":"I grew up in California where it was illegal to buy alcohol from 2am 6am. I know many other states have similar laws. After living in a country where I can buy booze 24 7 it seems extremely conservative and antiquated to prohibited the hours where an adult can buy alcohol. I am adult and can make my own choices. It is not up to the state to police my purchase of a legal substance because they disapprove of the time of day I buy it. Furthermore, this law is extremely odious to people who don't work traditional 9 5 hours. What if you get of work at 2am and want a drink too bad I guess, you should have gotten a 'correct' job that works normal hours. Here are some objections I've heard to changing this law It will increase crime I'm not sure this is true. I live in Japan where you can buy alcohol 24 7 and the crime rate is next to nothing. Furthermore I'd argue that when all the bars close at the same time and masses of drunk people are released into the streets at the same time it increases the amount of fights and crimes. I've certainly seen it anecdotally. Let's assume it is true though. So? It's not up to the state to police someone from buying a legal substance because of what they 'might' do. When they commit a crime, then arrest them. There are all sorts of potential laws that could prevent crime, for example a curfew for adults from 10pm to 5am. But these kind of laws that severely curtail liberty for the possibility of safety are un American. It will increase drunk driving I've never owned a car and lived within a 5 minute walk of a liquor store for my entire life. Why should I be subject to these laws? People who buy alcohol at those hours never have good reasons It is not up to the government to police my reasons. Morality is for the individual to decide, not the state. It will force workers who work in bars and liquor stores to work way longer hours Slavery was ended in 1865. Employment is voluntary. If this is really a concern than either better enforce current labor laws or make stronger ones. But I don't see why my liberty has to be curtailed. Anyway please","conclusion":"It should be legal in the United States to buy alcohol at any time of day."}
{"id":"929c498e-59cd-4c4d-b05a-21a9681d0fd8","argument":"Multicultural states are a nice idea, but the history of Kurds living within Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria is characterised by oppression and discrimination. It is insensitive, given the history and intensity of discrimination, to expect Kurds to remain a stateless nation. A national homeland is exactly what is needed: a space in which all Kurds are free from discrimination and can determine their own lives. Israel as a Jewish homeland is an obvious historical precedent.","conclusion":"Multicultural states are a nice idea, but the history of Kurds living within Turkey, Iran, Iraq and ..."}
{"id":"fba06123-1908-42b6-b738-74a31679cc8f","argument":"The way I see it. Child porn is illegal not because it's abhorrent, buy because children are harmed in the making of it and it supports human trafficking. Its also a problem to consume something that was made by abusing children, because you are supporting that abuser making more content, and therefore abusing more children. When it comes to stories, comics, sex toys like child dolls. I don't see an issue. In fact I saw a gif on the top of Reddit just the other day where a girl had a Micky mouse doll fucking her with a dildo. What's the difference between that and a man fucking a child doll? The fact that he actually likes it instead of it being a joke? I think that's getting into thought censorship. Same opinion goes for bestiality, rape porn, necrophilia, and any other abnormal stuff. If it's not real people it's not doing harm. I'm guessing the biggest argument against this will be that this media will breed more pedophiles and deviants. I'm not convinced that's true but feel free to try to convince me.","conclusion":"there is nothing wrong with stories\/comics\/dolls that depict pedophilia or other illegal, abnormal, or immoral sexual acts."}
{"id":"cd4739e1-1d16-4b2a-abe0-dc46a5d31043","argument":"There are several very small or completely uninhabited atolls en.wikipedia.org in the Pacific Ocean. Chances are small one gets approached there by any tax office.","conclusion":"There are some islands or spots in deserts etc. where it's most likely you will never be approached by any governemental organisation."}
{"id":"9060778b-584f-40fc-b98d-412cb5ab64ce","argument":"The net capacity factor of a power plant is the ratio of the actual output of a power plant period over its output if it could operate at the full capacity of the installed generator. Tidal energy has a very low capacity factor because tidal energy production peaks infrequently in the day. This means that a tidal energy plant could have the same turbines and generators as a hydroelectric dam, but produce half the electricity. Because it takes the same amount of money to build and install these generators, the return on investment in tidal energy plants would be about half that of hydroelectric plants.","conclusion":"Tidal power has a low capacity factor poor return-on-investment"}
{"id":"43ef16ad-5232-406a-92cd-ba09caeec148","argument":"With climate change, people may become much more limited in their capabilities. However, being vegan will get people to think more about the limitations and use it as a challenge to create better and live their life out in their new environment. With an omnivore diet, people may not thrive like this as much.","conclusion":"If anything, being able to survive and thrive with the benefits veganism provides would opportunities to be creative where they wouldn't normally have the chance to without it."}
{"id":"48c77ee2-0b08-4f8d-9dab-f7fe8cabc5b1","argument":"I am here to state that speeding is an arbitrary offence, that the goal of speed enforcement is safety, and average speed cameras enforce safer driving than point speed cameras. An average speed camera is one that takes a photo of a car at a certain point on a road network, and communicates with other cameras to determine the time and distance it travelled since it was last seen. If the average speed over this distance is in excess of the limit, the car is fined. A point speed camera is a singular camera with doppler detector that determines car speed at a particular point. Often static or used by patrol cars, they single out people who happen to be going faster for a number of reasonable reasons, such as overtaking, traffic flow, descending a hill, etc. They also miss people who manage to slow down in time, and resume speeding once past. The average speed camera is better as it catches all intentional, long duration speeders, yet does not penalise people who temporarily exceeded the limit.","conclusion":"Speed limits should be enforced by average speed cameras, rather than point speed cameras."}
{"id":"a040898c-df79-40f8-91db-1dceab828055","argument":"To clarify what I mean by mediocre, I don't mean bad, I mean painfully average or even slightly under performing. Full disclosure I may be a little biased since all my jobs have been what could be considered unskilled. But here are a few of my reasons It cost less to replace an average employee than an over achiever. To replace and average employee you only have to hire 1 average person, to replace an over achiever you will need to hire 2 or more. Mediocre employees are less likely to have studied policy, therefore making them less likely to take advantage of things such as leave or loopholes in rules. They can be selectively taught the rules and policies. This also means they are less likely to argue with a higher member of management. There is next to no risk in doing this. Most people in these job fields have little to no other job prospects, so they would have a hard time justifying lack of opportunity as reason for resigning. Edit I made to realize factors other than work quantity quality and knowledge are just as big of a factor in these decisions","conclusion":"Employers in \"unskilled\" fields are actively incentivized to promote mediocre employees"}
{"id":"96226eb3-c0f1-4912-9c39-444dcab70506","argument":"I'm a new grad entering the technical field software development . I have an impressive portfolio, CS degrees are statistically the highest in demand at the moment in terms of bachelor degrees at least , and when I apply directly to the companies I get interviews often. I've also spoken with MANY recruiters who contact me and say they have a perfect client looking for someone like me. These recruiters always forget to email call me back, never seem to even read my resume, these perfect jobs they talk about all want someone with WAY more experience than a recent grad. I know I've heard some people on reddit mention success stories with recruiters, but 99 of the other comments on the subject are extremely negative about their experience with recruiters. Also, I've had recruiters wanting me to change things on my resume before they send it off so its not due to my resume being bad . TL DR almost everyone I've heard mentioning recruiters has only bad things to say about them. If you have examples of recruiters being useful, please mention what field it was in. Thanks","conclusion":"I think recruiters are completely useless"}
{"id":"587eb276-ac2f-4e9f-a68b-b2d235747733","argument":"There already exists VR technology that allows chickens to experience a simulated version of roaming freely. This proves that the ability to simulate zoos isn't unrealistic.","conclusion":"Future advancements in Virtual Reality VR technology could enable us to simulate the experience of attending zoos."}
{"id":"1b683b8f-85ac-4b9c-999e-a4c7cc1303ef","argument":"At the same time, I don't think it's a choice. Perhaps sexuality is imprinted at some point in someones childhood, like most other mammals?","conclusion":"I believe in evolution, so I disagree that being gay is genetic. The various theories that attempt to explain this idea away are all inadequate."}
{"id":"b1596570-5066-452e-8fc2-a7717fe0be41","argument":"It cannot be regarded a real sport as the fight lacks fairness as there is very little chance the bullfighter would be injured before the bull.","conclusion":"Bullfighting is not sport. Sports involve competition between two or more consenting parties and the mediation of a referee."}
{"id":"6349b697-30c0-4d16-a26d-b9294121271c","argument":"I think it is clear that the online threats directed at feminist public figures benefit their causes. These threats have enabled mainstream media coverage to create a straw man of any opposition to them and has poisoned the well for anyone who finds their views problematic that wants to have a public dialogue about them. As evidence, for each of these women, I simply did a google search of their name and opened every recent article from a mainstream news source about them on the first 3 pages. Here is what I came up with. Anita Sarkeesian Zoe Quinn Every article mentions the threats, and only two provide anything close to objective coverage of the controversy. The narrative for almost all mainstream coverage of these women universally supports them, and an inordinate portion of these articles focuses on harassment from a small group of psychopaths and trolls, which usually includes quotes of some of the most tasteless comments for shock value. Because of this, I believe that the threats and trolling these women have experienced has greatly helped their cause. People unfamiliar with the games industry who read these articles are led to believe that a large portion of those opposing these women are psychopath basement dwellers making rape threats. Because this narrative helps their movement so much, I believe that feminists who support the actions of these women can definitely help their movement by creating many fake, anonymous accounts and viciously threatening feminist public figures with them. Drawing from this, while hardcore members of Gamergate have undoubtedly trolled and threatened these women, I believe a decent portion of the vitriol against these women is posted by their supporters.","conclusion":"It is in the best interest of internet feminists to make fake accounts to threaten people like Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkeesian"}
{"id":"594c0e68-7545-423a-9e98-44f2edd4352d","argument":"A few things first First, let me say that there are exceptions. Surgeons probably shouldn't quit without notice due to public health reasons. Attorneys shouldn't leave their clients unrepresented in court. Second, anyone is free to do as they wish. I'm merely talking about what the norm should be. So on to it The largest part of my post focuses on those working in the corporate world. I believe the standard notice period of two weeks or any notice period is inappropriate. The reason for this is because 1 If you are fired or laid off it will generally be on no notice with no out placement help or severance 2 The impact to you being let go, in most cases, will be far greater than to the company should you up and quit and 3 if the company wanted to secure notice, they should guarantee at least an equal term severance or pay you upfront at hire for the requested notice period. Any impact to your team, even if you like everyone manager included , is countered by the fact that the company would still let you go with no notice and no help. If a manager thought they could hire someone cheaper or better at the same price , they would. So, please, change my view. Edit 1 Let me clarify, I'm arguing about what the norm should be. I agree employers may bash you for up and leaving. That's because we have a system where the expectation is two weeks. That should change. Does no one else think it's manifestly WRONG for an employer to bash you to a future employer based on your last two weeks versus your entire tenure which would be supported with actual performance reviews ?","conclusion":"Employees Should Not Give Notice When Quitting"}
{"id":"87c97e20-b952-41f8-b1b2-072d10ece722","argument":"Biologically, adolescent children are sexual beings. I don't think any right minded person would disagree with that, since the whole point of puberty is for children to become capable of having children themselves. Along with the biological changes which happen to children's bodies during puberty, there are also psychological changes which start, on average, at about 10. I say on average, because these changes have been found to start as early as 6, but 10 seems to be the age at which most children become capable of expressing a distinct interest in sex, independent of abuse or anything else like that source As children, we were all sexually attracted to children. Again, this is an adaptive behaviour which at one point was necessary for the continuation of the species. Believe it or not, there hasn't been any research which looks at whether adults ever stop being attracted to adolescent children. There is plenty of research that shows that adults respond to erotic adult stimuli but none which has tested adults against erotic stimuli involving children, for quite obvious reasons child porn is illegal . There is no logical reason to think, however, that adults have an off switch, to stop them from feeling sexually attracted towards children. One recent study suggests that about 10 of men and 4 of women reported a sexual attraction to children. In a survey done in the 1970's, it was more like 1 in 4 for men can't find source . So assuming for a second that a large of significant proportion of society are attracted to children, let's say for arguments sake that the majority are not exclusive. Now consider the age we live in where sexualising children is so taboo, pedophiles cannot speak to doctors in confidence about it due to mandatory reporting laws. Yet, at the same time, western society seems fixated with youth sexuality, which can be observed in popular culture. I think everyone can agree that abusing children is abhorrent and something that is worth coming down hard on, but suggest for a second that sexually promiscuous adolescent children instigated sexual activity with an adult and all hell breaks lose. It's just too much for people to handle. Children are not sexual beings? Children cannot be sexual being until they reach the age of consent, because how oh earth will they be able to deal with the consequences of sex? Fun fact, children have been having sex for millions of years and the idea that children are somehow distinct from adults is a relatively new thing. The idea that children are not sexual beings is new too. The only reason I can think of for adults to get angry to the point of wishing murder upon adults who engage in sexual activity with children in cases where the child is the one to instigate it, is that the adult getting angry is conflicted inside to the point that they wish to distance themselves so much from it, that they say such things. The same has been found to be true for homophobic men being gay Even though I don't feel I should have to qualify this, I do not advocated the sexual abuse of children. That isn't my point. Would love to hear if people can change my view","conclusion":"I think being attracted to adolescent children is widespread due to it's evolutionary necessity, and that people who make the most noise about sexualising children being disgusting are likely struggling with an internal conflict as a result of having sexual feelings"}
{"id":"e9e47250-968a-43bd-853e-9e7b77c69ad1","argument":"The decision of perpetrating a crime depends on benefit and cost, the costs by which are determined by the potential punishment and the probability of getting caught. For crimes where there is a monetary transaction, the anonymity of APs decreases the likelihood of getting caught and therefore the cost of the crime. Therefore, potential criminals will be more likely to perpetrate crimes in a world with APs.","conclusion":"The legal system attempts to discourage potential criminals by increasing the probability they are caught and the punishment they receive, rather than attempting to create new criminals in order to catch them."}
{"id":"feeacda7-0b45-47a9-8ee5-c08421fafd32","argument":"People claim the electoral college prevents California, Texas, and New York from determining the outcome of the presidential election But it is only under the electoral college that states vote as blocks. More people voted for Donald Trump in Los Angeles 620,285 than voted at all in Alaska 246,588 and Wyoming 248,742 combined. Their votes were switched and discounted. Even ignoring that states dont vote as a block, voters in those three states don't account for half of the voters in the country. Even if everyone who voted in those three states in 2016 decided to vote for the same person it would only have been 27,903,726 votes, 22.55 of the total voter turnout. Nowhere near enough to decide the outcome. If you want voters in small states to have a bigger voice than voters in large states, giving their votes a multiplier would be much fairer. If people in Wyoming just had their vote counted 3.73 or whatever times as much as Californian votes. At least under that system dissenting votes within a state would be counted how they are cast instead of being switched. You could apportion the voting power multiplier by an index of population per congressperson with whatever state was lowest set as 1 vote or you could apportion it by a simple formula based on population ranking like this gt Vote multiplier state population rank 19 20 However, I do not advocate for this type of system either. One vote per person is fundamentally more fair. People claim that under a popular vote system candidates would ignore everywhere but the most populous areas. Under the current system candidates only have an incentive to campaign in swing states, how is that any better than the imagined problem of candidates only campaigning in populous areas? For example if Hillary Clinton could have changed 73,515 minds in Florida and Arizona in 2016 she would have won the whole election. On the other hand convincing 100,000 Trump voters in Idaho to switch their vote would have gained her nothing. 375 out of 399 campaign events in 2016 took place in just 12 states. Half of all states had no candidate events during the Presidential election not counting primaries which are a whole other unrelated issue . Furthermore, Under a system with one person, one vote, candidates would campaign anywhere they felt they could persuade voters to vote for them. That calculus would be different for every candidate. Certainly some candidates would campaign primarily in populous centers, but that would not be a winning strategy for other candidates. Consider the state of Illinois. It has a gigantic liberal city in it that accounts for about 75 percent of the states population. Despite that in 2014 they elected a Republican governor who carried every county but one Cook, 40 percent of population . Now, do you think that candidate campaigned solely in Chicago? Why then would a candidate who truly wanted to represent rural america campaign solely in cities? As of the 2013 census only 28.2 percent of people in america live in cities over 100k population. Even winning all of the votes in those cities wouldnt come close to winning you the election. And again, it is only under the electoral college where cities vote as a block. People say the founding fathers never intended for people to directly elect the president and that the electors were meant to make the choice independently and prevent an uneducated populous from electing a demagogue. That is clearly not how the system is working, so their intentions dont mean anything. All election and voting numbers are from or Info on city dwelling are from the report linked at the bottom of the page here Info on the Illinois election are from this Wikipedia page.","conclusion":"The electoral college is dumb, anti-democratic and doesn't even accomplish any of the outcomes its supporters claim are its purpose."}
{"id":"d415118f-3759-4d2c-9c59-84bbca7ca722","argument":"Edit have no reason to interfere with LGBTQ people's lives because of their sexual identity. Whether it's because of their religion, morals, culture, or other reasons, there is no reason for someone that is straight to interfere with LGBTQ lives, may it be marriage, adoption, love, sex, or behaviour non criminal of course . Just like Mormons say, someone can't impose their views religion to everyone. I don't understand how someone who simply doesn't understand someone's life and feelings can impose their thoughts onto them. How can someone say bisexuality doesn't exist or very rare things like agender and asexual people don't exist or bisexual people are gay . How can someone think they know better than the person itself? Some people will argue that some of the LGBTQ people especially in that Q are simply seeking attention. What problem is that for you? Do you consider someone who has confidence issues to be wrong when they seek attention and people that feel the same? Some people also say that many genders sexual orientations are very similar. But don't we always say that there aren't enough words to describe your emotions? What is the problem for you when someone is simply trying to explain their feelings? please no useless comments about identifying as an animal other than human or bestiality. These comments are out of topic I'm an LGBTQ atheist Edit So I've received lots of comments, mostly to do with government, general policy, and identifying as an animal. Some people gave me reasons I were looking for. Maybe my question wasn't clear enough. However quite a large amount of people have said that I wasn't willing to , or to hear their arguments. That's not the case. I've answered to almost all and read all the comments. However people are looking for far fetched ideas linked to the government maybe trying to mock my question and just discussing why they think that transspecie people and bestiality should be included in this post. But what I was asking for was far more simple and straight forward. I was simply asking for what some of you say when they say they don't believe in bisexuality or agender like I said in my text . Some people did give me really good reasons, and I gave them with deltas","conclusion":"Straight people have no reason to interfere with LGBTQ people's lives"}
{"id":"0b60454d-0b46-4008-861d-9ab72bbd787c","argument":"Byron Atkinson-Jones an indie developer for Uncharted, stated that there are several additional costs to adding a female protagonist, such as \"mesh data, texture data and possibly mo-cap data\" which needs to be duplicated.","conclusion":"Creating female characters may require a lot of extra production work, thus reducing profits because of the added cost."}
{"id":"cf81c5fd-fc66-4ae9-90a5-7a046ffb4839","argument":"A common argument for a flat tax rate is that a progressive tax rate removes the incentive for people to work hard to become rich. A person pulling in 1 million a year taxed at the absurd rate of 50 would be living a significantly more luxurious life than someone making 50,000 a year taxed at 0 . I can't imagine someone waking up one day and thinking, It would be pointless to even try to do something more with my life because I'll just get taxed at a higher rate. I believe that people's drive to work hard stems from their internal desires to contribute to society and live a more luxurious life, not the percentage at which they will be taxed.","conclusion":"A slightly higher tax rate for the rich doesn't remove the incentive to work"}
{"id":"e48a80dd-de1f-4b1f-b649-40a3ed6267f9","argument":"Tysha He spared Tyrion's feelings and kept the secret that Tysha wasn't a whore for years. How do you tell your brother that instead of cruelly being tricked, his father made him watch as a garrison of soldiers raped her and then made him go last with the soul scraping addition of each of her rapists paying her after they were done? How do you even begin to tell him that? I'd have taken it to my grave. Brann This is pretty cut and dry. If Brann told anyone what he saw, it'd be a headspike for the both of them. If it's me and my sister me and my significant other me and my significant sister or some 8 year old? Guess who wins every single time? Banging Cersei Okay The TARGARIANS HAVE Kingslayer Oh I'm sorry, did anyone in the entire 50,000 page story actually express lament over the mad king's death? Some kings got to get got. People misunderstanding him raping Cersei It's a limitation of the medium. According to the book that can just tell you how the character feels , Cersei was into it. When you put the expectations you put on every other character onto Jamie, he's not such a bad guy. Sure he has flaws, but he's constantly trying to do the right thing in spite of himself. He's had a tough life in his own ways. He's lost a son that he could never really be a father to. His whole life, he's cared for his brother who everyone else hated and mocked and he was powerless to stop it, no matter how much he stood up for him.","conclusion":"Jamie Lannister hasn't really done anything that isn't understandable. Spoilers"}
{"id":"8bb1c230-345d-4b9f-a69c-5bce7c6db912","argument":"Hi all I believe that punishment for crimes is a very rock fisted approach to a delicate issue. I would claim that all crime stems from societal, cultural or personal problems. Economy, mental health, the treatment of a person or class in society, etc. all cause crime to happen. I think that this applies to the most brutal criminals in history, too, most of them falling under the personal label. If crime, then, stems from all of these things, it's necessarily a bad system to punish criminals, since they are not, except in our perception, truly guilty. I think we should take the view that crime is a signal of distress. People who steal, murder, etc. should be taken in, yes, but compassionately. We should attempt to alleviate any illnesses, provide financial or social help, etc. If the government is for the people, as it should be, it must be for all the people, not just the innocent ones. Obviously this is all very cerebral, and I know that advocating this to a mother of abducted twins or some other victim would be needlessly cruel. But I do think that this is because of a clash of perspective. In another situation, with different variables and environments, I do believe that any person could be driven to commit, or attempt to commit, awful crimes. Looking at the practical side of things, I realise that what I say here would be incredibly hard to implement. People aren't always cooperative, the role of the benevolent carer would be a tough job to anyone with a sense of justice or emotions, stuff like that. I still can't see, though, that it being a near impossible system to implement means we shouldn't strive to adopt a practical system nearer to that. I also struggle to empathise with what I believe. I am human, I do also feel hate for abusers and murderers and rapists even if I can reason out that their life has been a domino trail leading to that awful moment, I still struggle to see them as deserving compassion. I cannot for the life of me decide if emotion and gut reaction has a place in this argument, biased and subjective as they are. Is it a case of us simply not being advanced enough societally to do this? I.E. we do not have the economy, resources, infrastructure to be able to aid people, and the current prison system is the best way we have to keep the majority of people safe? Or is it generally believed that criminals do deserve punishment? I'd really appreciate somebody walking me through their thoughts on this, and helping me muddle through my own.","conclusion":"Punishment for criminal acts is unnecessary"}
{"id":"ae033377-7994-42a6-a62f-561cbba5977c","argument":"Has anybody ever seen the movie Room? for those of you not familiar with it, the premise is that a creepy man takes a young woman, kidnaps her, and holds her in 1 room for years on end, without her once being able to leave. During this time, he routinely sexually abuses her, and ends up impregnating her. The child grows up for years in this room as well, until finally, they get free, and the evil man who detained them is punished. In the movie, he of course gets sent to jail. Do you have a problem with him being sent to jail? well why not? the legal system seems to think that he is such a bad person, because he detained people for years against their will. If the legal system is going to deal with that, by detaining him for years against his will, doesn't that mean that they're no better than the man they're punishing. Isn't it very hypocritical of them. With all that was said above, I am of course being cheeky, but if what I just said sounds so ridiculous, then why doesn't it also sound ridiculous, when people take the whole hypocrisy approach, when discussing the death penalty. Yes, the simple fact that someone is getting a particular thing inflicted upon them, is something that is a commanality between when a criminal harms a victim, and when the law harms a criminal, but are we really going to define the whole situation by that one factor, and completely ignore all other context surrounding it, before we judge whether there's some sort of equivalency. It's suddenly impossible to justify anything that is done to someone else, who doesn't want that thing done to them, if we suddenly stop caring about the circumstances surrounding it.","conclusion":"Saying the death penalty is invalid, because it's \"hypocritical\" is ridiculous."}
{"id":"60477878-6848-408d-bc24-11982ee14d6d","argument":"We are but mere human beings that are conditioned to embrace the moral standards of our encompassing society. Our cognitive processes, opinions, and moral code are largely dependent on our surroundings; therefore, morality is not objective.","conclusion":"Moral frameworks can only be constructed by and apply to specific societies, so morality can't be truly objective."}
{"id":"383a57d5-097a-4c7e-ae8b-aa816fbf6121","argument":"First off I'm not against equal rights for woman and I think that what the so called first and second and even a portion of the third wave is was good. Never the less as a white male I often feel like they are personally attacking me that I did them wrong even tho I do not see them as worse nor make I for example period jokes and that kind of stuff . Still with people shouting about the wage gap which is either 50 70 or 90 cents what I've found is that it is an average that has nothing to do with the same job . And stuff like mansplaining and man spreading aren't lets call them man friendly and I hear that they often boycott readings about things like mens issues and that attacks free speech in a way which Worries me. can someone change my view about feminism towards man . I hope I'm wrong tho because it is important what they stood stand for.","conclusion":"third wave femenism isn't for men atleast now"}
{"id":"ffb5eb8d-03be-48e2-8af3-14c095769f4c","argument":"The government had cancelled subsidies for fuel used to power irrigation pumps and to take produce to market \u2013 and it had dismantled a micro-finance network that had served as an income security net.","conclusion":"The relationship between drought, migration and conflict in the example of the Syrian farmers is not so clear-cut"}
{"id":"70ae9004-accb-4c93-adf4-b6ddfc251f53","argument":"Omniscience, from the Christian Bible: \"Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father\" Matt. 10:29; \"Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world\" Acts 15:18","conclusion":"There are verses from all three holy books listed here which explicitly assert the omnipotence, omniscience, and omnibenevolence of God. See the Pros to this claim."}
{"id":"00a8e0da-506b-49e9-910d-b1260bdcb07d","argument":"To give an example, the holiday of Kwanzaa. This tradition is often mocked, because it was invented by one man in the 60s. I do not think this fact should automatically invite contempt. To begin with, what traditions aren't invented? Every generation unconsciously makes a decision on what elements of tradition to continue and what to adapt to the times. You can pretty much guarantee that the way our traditions were observed in the past looked very different than the way we observe them now. This is especially true of mainstream Western traditions, which have been heavily shaped by commercial entities through tv and movies. Traditions can serve a number of functional purposes in a society. If there is a need to be filled, it is rational to adopt a tradition that meets this need. I think that what Maulana Karenga tried to accomplish is noble. EDIT Ok, that should cover rule E. Will be back tomorrow.","conclusion":"Invented traditions are legitimate and potentially constructive."}
{"id":"e48ad880-298c-4118-a554-307484ba98bd","argument":"Like it or not the UK is a part of Europe geographically and as such the countries that are most important to UK foreign policy are also in Europe. Leaving the EU will damage relations with those powers that are currently a part of the EU, and potentially also those who are used to dealing with the UK as part of the EU. The United States has noted it \u201cbenefits from a strong UK being part of the European Union\u201d1 in much the same way as the UK does. If this is the UK's strongest ally's view what would be the view of the powers from whom out would mean divorce? The UK will be outside the group trying to influence it rather than on the inside. The EU states will no longer need to listen to the UK on a wide range of issues where it has previously been a key voice. 1 Earnest, Josh, \u2018Press Briefing by the Press Secretary Josh Earnest\u2019, White House, 14 March 2016,","conclusion":"Leaving the EU will mean the UK will have less regional influence"}
{"id":"1dc02981-384f-4b5b-bcf6-67fcc7466518","argument":"Opening doors for women because they are in dire need of that falls under the category of chivalrous behavior.","conclusion":"Chivalrous behavior is predicated on the notion of women not being strong or independent enough."}
{"id":"c35692bf-ab6d-4e12-bcd1-318461ebfcc1","argument":"Installation of ubiquitous sensors in major population areas means that no meaningful consent can be provided for the collection and use of data, only regulation can offer a proxy form of consent by articulating the will of the people on what uses are permissible","conclusion":"Data collection capabilities can be abused without the acknowledgment of user."}
{"id":"9b13c7b8-462a-4666-a2b2-6b540c993e61","argument":"My contention is that Human Evolution has ceased, or has significantly slowed, since the advent of human intelligence. By Evolution, I refer to the currently taught Darwinian Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection. Based on the authoritative definition of Evolution found in Wikipedia Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. The processes by which the changes occur, from one generation to another, are called evolutionary processes or mechanisms. 26 The four most widely recognised evolutionary processes are natural selection, genetic drift, mutation and gene migration due to genetic admixture. 26 Natural selection and genetic drift sort variation mutation and gene migration create variation. As taught, Evolution is a natural process in which accidental changes produce both positive and negative adaptations in a species. Those that encourage survival remain and reproduce and those that do not die out. As such it is a natural process occurring over long periods of time. Since the advent of human intelligence, humanity has been selectively breeding both itself, the animals it eats and domesticates, and the plants that it harvests and eats. Thus, conducting a form of directed Genetic Engineering through natural processes a form of GMO . Changes to these human, animal and plant species can thus be thought of in terms of Intelligent Design rather than Evolution. The term Human Controlled Evolution, used by many scientists who should know better, may be inherently correct, but an incorrect usage of terminology. Change my view. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Human Evolution has Ceased"}
{"id":"95b7f287-1efe-4493-a7ef-2e8c76b3fa6d","argument":"I am a man who struggles with reading body language and non verbal communication. Matter of fact, let's go beyond struggle. I'm actively bad at it. Unless you verbally tell me you're wanting to do something, or not do it, I will never know you're interested, and I will actively choose to assume you are not. I am also struggling with deep personal hatred and confusion about my place in society as it relates to romance, and dating. Add this all together, and you get a situation where it's very easy for me to feel fear, and a deep anxiety, about having to constantly be responsible for leading an attempt to create a romantic connection with a member of the opposite sex. It's not out of the realm of possibility for me to enter into a nightclub, or some other similar setting, and feel fear to the point of wanting to leave the area absolutely. Maybe it's personal bias about this but if there are more men like me out there, why is it that I have to be responsible for always showing interest, escalating interest from the purely romantic into something sexual, and making every move?","conclusion":"It should no longer be acceptable for men to constantly have to make the first move in dating scenarios."}
{"id":"a97f6021-9f0e-443b-9a05-4a66629410c5","argument":"People have always told me to give my seat to the elderly, the disabled and to the women with children. I get why the elderly and the disabled might require a special treatment because it wasn't their choice to be old or disabled. But the mother most probably chose to be a mother and knew the consequences of bearing a child. She should have been ready before making that decision. This is not limited to women. No parent deserves any special treatment just because they have a baby kid with them. Buy your own car, have enough money to raise your kid without needing assistance from other people before you decide to have a kid. Nobody has to do something extra just because you decided to have a baby. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Mothers do not deserve any special treatment."}
{"id":"82af2f21-a2f8-428b-8da0-6d1062cbc4b5","argument":"High quality, thorough documents.Technical. if you want to know what your country has been up to notably the United States of America look it up here so that you know what they know. Unclassified or declassified documents.","conclusion":"Department of Defense DTIC Discover.dtic.mil Defense Technology Information Center"}
{"id":"b267770c-b176-4ff9-a94b-d2446d85ebbf","argument":"A sense of community between alumni and current students can still exist without legacy admissions. This can come via having events on campus for alumni and current students.","conclusion":"Universities can build ties to their alumni through other methods which are not as unfair."}
{"id":"9331f451-7fa9-4241-88b1-c7f3cd6a7740","argument":"\"You are harmed by decadence when judgment is based on private views, when forces are mobilized for personal reasons. These generals are treacherous and immoral.\" means by having a gun. you are more likely to start a conflict.with a gun because you have a gun","conclusion":"Temporary location to collect top level flagged & abandoned claims until we can resolve them - feel free to chime in and don't delete it yet please :"}
{"id":"8a90da54-3795-4368-b447-1c3435e8361f","argument":"Genetic enhancements are likely to be protected by patents. Thus, new competitors cannot enter the market.","conclusion":"Society will become dependent on companies that offer genetic modifications."}
{"id":"8afb7c35-5d8f-4547-9608-b64cbdf2e5a6","argument":"For me, it's one of those interesting but very clunky games like Alpha Protocol or Deadly Premonition, but Dark Souls is now a mainstream cult classic. I can't figure how people can forget its flaws Rigid gameplay, which is the cause of a good 50 of the game's challenge animation stun, harsh level design, The universe It's bland, shy, confusing and important at the same time. The game tries to give you that Figure your goal out yourself feel but it only makes you feel lost and uninterested. Some other games, especially Mirror's Edge, are very good at this, but in the case of DS, it just makes you frustrated It may be a RPG, but you can only play two ways Hard hitter occasionnally throwing fireballs or harder hitter with nothing but a weapon and a shield. Ranger or Stealth gameplay have classes but it just doesn't work with the game. All the cryptic stuff, including basic stats and item description. Without some indication, you are bound to make fatal mistakes in your build, even if you know what you want ex stats for spells . One starting item even have a misleading description the regenerating HP pendant . It's like the game is trolling you. The humanity mechanic. It complicates things even more and it doesn't really add anything to the game The PC port is a shame, people shouldn't play such a game in terrible conditions Last thing Please don't assume I'm a filthy casual that thinks the game is too hard. I keep giving this game a chance and I can't force myself to play past the gargoyles, because I feel the game's clunkyness is part of its design. So let's see if you can change my view, and even say if DS 2 and 3 adress some of these issues","conclusion":"Dark Souls 1 is a clunky game and is not that good"}
{"id":"d52e3211-6b87-4e25-aa01-b24f6d79eab7","argument":"I hold this opinion as I hear stories online about parents who seek help for their child and then when questioned about the child's medical history they say the child is unvaccinated. I think that not vaccinating your child is putting them in unnecessary danger as they become more at risk of contracting the illness that the vaccine would of stopped. This puts the child in unnecessary danger and could lead to serious medical complications and in extreme cases death. Because of this the parent who don't vaccinate should be charged with child endangerment and the child should be vaccinated with anything that they need and get put into the care of another family member. I know that putting more pressure on the prisons is not needed but a punishment needs to happen to the parents.","conclusion":"I think that not vaccinating your child is child endangerment and neglect."}
{"id":"fcb73472-1c8f-46c3-9461-4e20342054f9","argument":"I believe that any ideology no matter what it is pacifism, egalitarianism etc is inherently toxic for human consciousness. I have long held this belief, but am open to debate and change. I believe that an ideology is a blanket statement. Plain and simple in my view to say that you are ideology is to limit yourself to a filtered world view. It is as if you are looking at the world through a colored lens, and no matter what that color is you are not seeing the whole picture. I believe ideologies limit ones ability to take in information, as that information must first pass through their ideological filter for example certain feminists are unable to accept women rape children almost as much as men do, Pacifists are unable to accept that sometimes the only solution to a act of violence is eliminating the person committing the violence and that some people cannot be reached by reason. . I am a firm believer that anyone who says they are a subscriber to an ideology is mentally handicapping themselves. It is different in my opinion between saying I do not like harming others and would not do so in almost all circumstances and I am a pacifist , or I believe woman are equal human beings and should be treated as such by society and law and I am a feminist . The difference is when information enters that directly conflicts with your ideology, you are predisposed to toss that information out in favor of protecting the ideology. I am curious and open to see all replies. EDIT TL DR we do not need to categorize or define everything in our world, and no blanket statement or worldview can ever be completely correct. EDIT2 credit to Thoguth for changing my view by pointing out my inherent contradiction, good job.","conclusion":"I believe any ideology is inherently bad"}
{"id":"368da810-764f-46ac-9042-68d06bcab282","argument":"I think my view has been changed. I don't think I'll ever be a sports fan, but many of you had really great points as to why sports or the discussion of sports. Thanks to all who gave great answers and weren't jerks Sports are great for exercise, and to an extent they are good to have at a pro or semi pro level for entertainment. However, I think the fact that a huge number of people follow teams, players, or sports in general religiously is ridiculous. When people are dying across the world due to civil war and starvation, the average person on the street knowing next to nothing about our political system, and the presence of hundreds of other actually important topics of conversation available, what the hell is the big deal about games? Sports are a waste of time and conversation. I found a post similar to this from a few months back, but there were few responses. With a husband who is a sports fanatic, I would love for someone to . EDIT It seems that my post came off as saying that people shouldn't have fun because there are bad things happening in the world. That wasn't what I meant I just worded it poorly. I am asking specifically about sports because people in my life are sports fanatics and take an interest in almost nothing else. What I am looking for is for an explanation on what the value of sprts is. I have a mostly great responses, but some people need to read what this sub is about. Is rudeness going to change my view?","conclusion":"I think sports are ridiculous and carry no real value."}
{"id":"5da530c6-27c3-4a4e-b948-055d64d20b19","argument":"Humans accidentally kill several little animals a day without even recognizing it. Like flies squashing against car windows.","conclusion":"A person who \"kills\" a fly will not feel bad or guilty."}
{"id":"cdd56528-3011-4671-87dc-96062522509e","argument":"EDIT I've changed my view. There wasn't an individual post that had all of the answers, but communally this is what I walked away with My major gripe was in people behaving against their and by extension all of our best interests. I also assumed that we all had the same best interests. By and large I still think that, but it's not as clear cut. Thank you all 1 u rustyrook While it sounds like a sales pitch, it is easy to see that some offers may not be readily available at all times. If the buyer feels that they have a rare opportunity, it is in their best interest to seize the opportunity. Even if they were aware of the social impact, it would still be a worthwhile trade off. 2 u DaFranker While we might think that we are logical and think act in our best interests, we often do not akrasia . This is common in every field and impossible to completely eliminate. 3 u CurryThighs Telemarketers have predatory practices. Just because they call me to find that I'm not worth the effort does not mean that they are not more persuasive with others. 4 u nllpntr Non profit organizations have different thressholds for what constitutes a successful campaign. They are not subject to the national dnc list. I think most of us will agree that telemarketing is an intrusive practice. It interrupts our day with unsolicited, unimportant offers. It is generally a social burden. However, I can't blame the telemarketing companies. They provide a service, follow the law and get a result for their client. I can't blame the person working as a telemarketer. Each person has to earn a living the best way that they can. So long as it's a viable legal model, it's fair. I also don't blame the legal system. We have national do not call lists, but there is only so much that big government can do. It is a general, public good to allow strangers to contact one another. Without breaking that down, the loopholes abound for companies. But I do despise anyone who is willing to pay any amount of money for a product or service sold by a telemarketer. This single handedly propagates the cycle and causes everyone else the annoyance of having to deal with a telemarketer. Even if the person were interested in the product, I think it would be better to hang up the phone and purchase it elsewhere. EDIT I should have mentioned A I am in the United States B I am already registered in the national do not call registry.","conclusion":"Those who buy from telemarketers are responsible for the existence of telemarketers."}
{"id":"9f17f882-9bd6-451b-bc97-123165162db5","argument":"With the ever-expanding prevalence of tech in the world, it is unlikely that programmers and developers will be out of demand in the foreseeable future.","conclusion":"Demand for developers is expected to grow much faster than the average for all occupations in the next 10 years."}
{"id":"3fdfb3db-4e85-4ee8-ae01-7e1e22b1e418","argument":"As a driver in the U.S.A., I very frequently see some driver all of a sudden desperately NEEDING to exit the freeway RIGHT NOW. They occasionally use their turn indicators, but usually just bully their way into the queue exiting the highway. The profound absence of A forethought and, B even a semblance of civility or manners, is not behavior that should be encouraged. Every driver behind the person who let the mouth breather get in front of them is thus delayed. Their drive will take longer, especially if this late merging knuckle dragger causes a collision. Rewarding such blatantly, obviously selfish, self centered, childish bratty, self important, and dangerous driving practices inconveniences and endangers every other driver behind. The choice for the person who lets in this 'driver' is to either be a 'nice guy' to the ONE person who can't didn't think ahead or is simply an asshole , or be a 'nice guy' to the oodles of people behind them. As a driver, it is not possible to be 'nice' to everybody all the time. Some folks claim 'it's just one car ' This ignores the way traffic congestion works. If you try to force many objects through a suddenly narrower opening, everything backs up. For just one car. Are you eager to let somebody in front of you in line at the market? Is that fundamentally different? EDIT I was not as accurate in my title as I should have been. I offer my apologies. Drivers who merge near the end of the merge lane, but who merge well and do not disrupt the flow of cars, are not an issue for me at all. That is how folks SHOULD drive. My beef is with the drivers who pass spaces into which they could merge, so they can get slightly farther before forcefully shoving their vehicle into the continuing traffic, causing unnecessary braking and traffic back ups. EDIT II The collective thought seems to be that some folks are assholes and that will never change. When faced with the choice of missing an exit ohnoes or driving aggressively dangerously, some folks will opt for the latter. I cannot contest this. Refusing to back down from a bully, in these instances, is more disruptive to traffic flow than letting the driver shove their vehicle wherever they like. While I may not like bending over for jerks, my driving habits and my view are changed. It's safer that way. Thanks everybody gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Drivers who 'let-in' people trying to merge at the last moment \/ chance are doing a disservice to everybody behind them."}
{"id":"4f9dd0f6-944f-43c3-8dac-8e5f000df26a","argument":"Pro life doctors can claim conscientious objection to push back the time of abortion so late that it is no longer possible for the patient to have an abortion performed","conclusion":"Abortion is a very safe procedure, but the longer a woman waits the higher the chance of complications. Thus, time delays caused by conscientious objectors threaten women's health."}
{"id":"033eeafd-28f1-49fa-adef-5c1a56d0fec4","argument":"After the attacks against not just France, but also Lebanon and Russia, it is clear that ISIS is shifting strategies. Previously, they focused on securing land and setting up a new caliphate. Foreign air power, which has broken the momentum of their offensives, has made this mission impossible. Given a few years, these air strikes will inevitably push ISIS back and eventually cause its collapse. The last weeks of attacks show that ISIS is not only willing, but able to carry out attacks on soft targets with the goal of killing large numbers of civilian. These attacks are not a onetime occurrence they are an attempt to regain momentum. Attacks obviously will not eliminate French support for military action, but they will serve as a recruitment tool that ISIS hopes to use to gain more fighters. Whether it actually works, ISIS will continue to carry out attacks like this until its demise. The west cannot secure itself against these attacks. The reality is that borders are to open, weapons to easy to acquire, and cities to unsecure for attacks for the prevention of soft targets to be realistic. Attempts to change this, such as stopping refugees and persecuting Muslims, will help ISIS recruit more fighters and fail to address the actual problem . From now until its collapse, ISIS will be able to train and equip terrorists. These terrorists will try to carry out attacks on major cities in the West, and in many cases, be successful. To prevent these attacks, there is only one option go on the offensive. In 2003, it took 21 days for American forces to capture Baghdad. A similar attack against ISIS would take less than three months and would only require a few divisions of armor. Following this invasion NATO occupation forces could break up Iraq and create a Kurdistan in the North, an independent state in the East, and occupy western Iraq under a pan European force. This option is not perfect, so Change My View there is no other way to prevent more attacks. Also I think moves like this are wrong on a human level they punish many innocent people. Edit1 playing around with the formatting to make it easier to read","conclusion":"NATO should carry out a large scale \"boots on the ground\" attack on ISIS"}
{"id":"2ff4b119-3981-4c2e-90ea-451066ec5d0e","argument":"Free speech in real life, is a right. And for good reason, in countries without free speech people get imprisoned or murdered for saying the wrong thing. But no matter what it seems like, racist comments being removed on a forum post, isn't the same thing. If you're upset your opinion is getting censored, on the internet, go somewhere else on the internet, nobody's forcing you to stay here. Reddit isn't a country with borders, it's a company. And rarely do subreddits get deleted by the actual admins. And when they do, they're either creep shots borderline child porn, or racist subreddits. And as a company, they don't want that type of shit associated with them, and you can complain that they went back on their whole bastion of free speech idea, companies change shit all the time, Subway dropped Jared for that type of shit, can you blame Reddit for doing the same for a forum that's literally called r coontown? And when it comes to subreddits that report about things like news, they're still their own subreddits. Maybe the reason they delete things like those threads about the German refugee New Years sexual assaults, is because of the racist assholes in the comments using it to further their agendas, and claiming the mods are deleting them to further theirs. If you don't like it on reddit, leave, go to sites that you agree with, or promote total free speech with no threads deleted, like 4chan. There's your bastion of free speech. But next time you think somebody's violating your rights by censoring you, stop and think Is this person really censoring me? and after you answer that, think Is it because I'm acting like a dick?","conclusion":"Free speech on Reddit, or anywhere on the internet, should be a privilege, not a right."}
{"id":"dc89558e-cde9-4141-8c9b-feb38d68701f","argument":"I'm 53 and I've changed my political affiliation a few times in my life. I find that I'm basically moderate with a pro science leaning. I've voted all over the spectrum, but I always vote for the person not the party. Full disclose, I did not vote for Obama both times. However, Obama is our president and I have directly benefited from several of his legislative victories and I personally know many others who have received medical treatment and stayed on their parents' health insurance at a critical time in their lives who previously would have been kicked off. I'm no Obama freak. He makes me angry pretty much on a weekly basis, but he's our fairly and legally ellected president and is just a human being. George W Bush was also someone whom I both supported and questioned. I skeptically considered things Bush did and tried to do. My disagreements with his and Obama's sensabilities was always based on the argument at hand, not their party or their religion or wealth. I did not allow these individual questions paint their entire presidency with one broad thoughtless stroke. Complaining as a sport is destructive and so fucking wrong. We are looking at what may become one of the most contentious and insane election cycles in US history. I'm no fan of either Trump or Clunton and truthfully I don't know who I'll vote for, but whoever wins, I know they are going to try to do the best they can. Mistakes will be made and candles will happen, but I can assure you, it helps no one to blindly state that everything that president does is based in ruining the country or shipping your job overseas. Be reasonable and research the issue before painting the president as an out of touch fool.","conclusion":"Claiming that everything a US president does is treasonous, anti-American, race-baiting, promoting class warfare, stupid, dishonest, selfish and evil is not only completely wrong... it's harmful."}
{"id":"3c698a33-8cb2-4394-adb2-b4414752ed01","argument":"Post-modern, concept, and performance art have blurred the boundaries between artist, work, and audience, so the reputation of the artist is absolutely a factor in the subjective of their works. Therefore, art is judged on technical merits form, technique, subject matter what the art is about, and context what the art means.","conclusion":"Art is often judged by its artist rather than its content."}
{"id":"a58b6988-74d3-4275-971a-903b896b5adb","argument":"I so often hear people complain about poor people's smartphones as if that somehow means that they deserve to be poor or are keeping themselves in poverty. Yes, some phones and plans can be exorbitant, but a quality used smartphone can be gotten for about 40 on ebay and minimal service plans are not that expensive. It is a hell of a lot less expensive than a land line and and people need to have some means of communication. If you have children, you need a number where people can contact you in case of an emergency. If you are applying for a job, you better be able to respond to an email pronto and take a call or they will just go to the next person on the list. Texting is much cheaper than talk time and it is a good way for poor people to communicate and coordinate with their families, employers, etc. A broke person with an old smart phone and no plan can at least search and apply for jobs using public wifi. I know a quasi homeless day laborer who uses a 3g smartphone and the wifi at mcdonalds to coordinate jobs and price materials. This is not to say that people cannot spend unreasonably on phones and service, but that people should not assume that someone having or using a smartphone means that they are spending lavishly or unwisely.","conclusion":"It is perfectly reasonable for poor people, even homeless people, to have smart phones and it doesn't mean that they are making poor choices about money."}
{"id":"736baf80-9cfa-4c10-8948-a527540ab7a1","argument":"Please change my view, I want to hear bad things about cannabis legalisation because all I hear from the online communities is how weed is good. I love kush as much as the next guy but everything is starting to feel so one sided. The tax the gov will receive from sales will help the economy New coffeeshops will invigorate the high street The medical pros far outweigh the cons gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than just downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Cannabis Legalisation in the UK is a good thing. PLEASE"}
{"id":"8e398dab-ef2c-4bd9-81ea-daa2faa52050","argument":"Switzerland is a modern semi-direct democracy which has 3-4 votes per year. It has average voter turnouts around 46% Big issues have high turnouts joining the EEA received 70% turnout, but there are \"only a few Swiss who always vote","conclusion":"Switzerlands Semi-Direct Democracy has well functioning voter turnouts\/engagement, despite allowing citizens to vote on topics directly"}
{"id":"d7eef2b0-b0e1-4a76-8f20-73b30b0aa301","argument":"Individuals might be likely to spend a cash bonus, not anticipating a future harm e.g. unexpected illness. However, if the government provides welfare or subsidized healthcare, this protects individuals from unanticipated harms.","conclusion":"It is better for the government to provide a social safety net as individuals don't accurately consider future risks."}
{"id":"b193f226-fada-4ec2-a4e2-aeabf8fd93c7","argument":"Relying on the accomplishments of one's ancestors or of the group one identifies with religious, national\/regional, sport etc, results in a false sense of entitlement on the share of praise one is owed for said accomplishments. Individual identity and worth should be based on personal achievement and not on the accident of one's birth or circumstance.","conclusion":"Individuals should not derive disproportionate parts of their identity from their cultural inheritance. This has been a major source of grief being a basis for ultranationalist and grassroots movements across the world Japanese shinto nationalism German nationalism till WW2 Italian nationalism ."}
{"id":"ffbfd17c-5e00-4017-8e73-554981506e85","argument":"Countries have a clear incentive to attract scientists, who bring economic and other benefits. This incentive causes countries to compete with each other to give scientists the most resources, resulting in a greater pool of resources for science.","conclusion":"Some of the greatest scientific and technological advancements in human history were the product of competition between countries. Without any competition, a global state may lack the motivation to invest in such projects."}
{"id":"a37061eb-6a24-47e2-86aa-41e5d7c88180","argument":"Removing these artifacts is equivalent to erasing history, which makes learning from past successes and mistakes more difficult.","conclusion":"It is important to leave Confederate memorials and monuments up to teach our own painful history."}
{"id":"93ffe0de-003a-45cd-9268-5a247fbe5fb4","argument":"The very idea of discrimination being reversed suggests that a harm is being mitigated, not created.","conclusion":"Though the term exists, the harm it implies does not."}
{"id":"090a4678-73e5-4d9b-a330-febbf35fd667","argument":"Disclaimer I am by no means an expert on this subject matter, so please forgive any poor usage of terminology. I feel that, if it is true that life sprang forth from non living matter randomly without any direction or intelligent design, then, with all of our scientific knowledge and equipment someone should have been able to produce a single celled organism from non living matter by now. Basically, if something can happen randomly, it only makes sense to me that it should be far easier, maybe even trivial, for it to happen if we really focus all of our efforts into making it happen. To the best of my knowledge, this hasn't been done yet. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. I know that people have rewritten the DNA of a bacteria in the lab. I know that RNA has been synthesized in a lab. But I don't believe anyone has gone completely from non living material to single celled organism in the lab. And I have to assume that, if it hasn't happened, it must be incredibly difficult to reproduce and that just doesn't make sense to me.","conclusion":"If abiogenesis happened by random chance we should have been able to reproduce it in the lab by now"}
{"id":"656ce2e7-876a-40fb-80f5-cb77cfc1d1b1","argument":"The World Bank credited decisions made by the Modi government, including an injection of $32 billion into public sector banks to encourage infrastructure investments, and introducing reforms in key areas such as policy restructuring, the protection of minority shareholders' interests, and the simplification of the taxation process, with India's rise in the rankings.","conclusion":"India rose from 130th to 100th place in the World Bank's 2017 \"Ease of Doing Business\" rankings, and to 77th in the 2019 report, which is encouraging for potential investors."}
{"id":"09172d34-2ca7-4121-b137-0a87f41debd9","argument":"Primary battles oblige senators to devote enormous resources - time and money - to keeping their own base together, and detract from their ability to run a good general election campaign.","conclusion":"A senator who votes against their party on something as important as a supreme court nomination is likely to face a primary challenger."}
{"id":"17507b43-504d-4212-a54e-bdcacf42272d","argument":"To be clear upfront, I am not blaming victims of crimes the perpetrators are responsible for their actions. I do, however, often find myself thinking things such as Why didn't she leave? or Why did she get herself into that situation? , and I think these can be natural, innocent, and productive questions. When hearing about some crime that occurred, I think it's important to consider all angles of the incident in order to help oneself and others avoid these situations themselves from either direction. In a case like domestic violence or rape, I think from the perpetrator's side there are not usually significantly mitigating circumstances, so I can avoid being the perp by just not being an asshole. I don't require a ton of reflection and discussion to know not beat a woman unconscious, for example. More broadly though, there is definitely major value to understanding how the perp came to be motivated to do this whether they are sympathetic or not, so we can figure out how prevent other potential offenders from doing the same So naturally my thoughts turn to the victim and consider ways they could have avoided the situation, because I want to know what to do if I am in that side of the story some day, or if someone else I know is. This side is sometimes not at all obvious to me, and the above questions are the obvious ones to ask if I don't understand the situation. Why didn't she leave him? doesn't have to be an accusation, it is literally a request for information. It is the beginning of a conversation that leads to helping people avoid being victims. What often happens though is that people who ask these questions are shouted down for blaming the victim . Certainly there probably some people who do this, but the wording of the question can be the same when genuine and innocent. Then some of the same people doing the shouting down go on to actually answer the question but as if they have some new moral superiority. For example in the recent Ray Rice situation, there was a surge of victims of domestic violence coming forward to explain why victims don't leave. GOOD That's the question I asked It's a very useful conversation to have So why are people who ask them shouted down as victim blamers? To do so is to use a thought terminating cliche, which makes dialogue on important issues more difficult, when open dialogue is what we need. Problems like these can be worked from both sides.","conclusion":"I think labeling personal reactions to incidents of domestic abuse \/ rape \/ other crimes as \"victim blaming\" is often both incorrect and counterproductive"}
{"id":"05a817cc-d8a8-4236-8c50-e6d92d553c0d","argument":"Beyond the definition of what crimes constitute a felony, the degree of punishment and whether the crime thereby qualifies as a felony is anything but predictable.","conclusion":"Democracy relies on a principle of equality of all individuals. Felon disenfranchisement violates this."}
{"id":"2f3b912a-447b-4049-8ca5-51698825a575","argument":"It has been found that a majority of men and women would be happiest if they largely played by their traditional gender roles; feminism has made it commonplace to stigmatise such choices while in the meantime it has glorified a kind of non adherence that only a minority of people really enjoy.","conclusion":"It remains to be seen whether the deconstruction of gender roles has actually led to an overall increase in happiness."}
{"id":"e1ae1db5-a6b0-4109-b982-eae2aa140898","argument":"I enjoy competition, I enjoy playing when there are stakes the risk of winning and losing having some meaning. If I wanted to play the game for fun I would queue up into a normal game, I do not mind having a garbage score in normal games. The moment I queue for a ranked match, with placements and LP on the line, I want to win. When you begin to lose horribly due to a a complete lack of skill b lack of awareness or c utter stupidity, this is when the 'toxic' chant arises out of the accused. I admit my behavior is far from in line with the code of conduct when this occurs, I criticize and berate my teammates when the mess up. My vocabulary becomes much less diverse, and at the end of the day, I end up either having one of two effects on people. They become disillusioned with the game itself and quit playing on ranked because of the environment, or they turn toxic themselves and continue on the line of though. This article might help explain toxicity to some who are unsure of the concept. Now, I am not asking for the business responses, I wholly understand that as a company, Riot wants as many people playing as possible, and to do that they must create an inviting environment, which means punishing players that act as I do. However, what I am trying to put forth from purely a player's perspective aside some nice alliteration is that by acting hostile towards players who show a lack of skill, toxicity deters them from playing with those who are in it for the sport if you will, rather than the fun.  EDIT 1 Clarification of terms sorry, thought the article would suffice League of Legends which is a Multi player Online Battle Arena MOBA style game, in which often two teams of players compete with each other in discrete games, with each player controlling a single character through an Real Time Strategy style interface","conclusion":"Toxicity in LoL breeds a more competitive environment."}
{"id":"22a9d8d4-4398-45ab-a007-e9c29b7b1bd5","argument":"Robert Creamer. \"Three Reasons Why a Strong Public Option is Likely to be Part of Health Insurance Reform\" Huffington Post. August 18, 2009: \"most major health insurance markets are dominated by two or three companies so there is no real competition -particularly with respect to price. . Once everyone is required by mandates to buy insurance, the companies can have a field day raising prices and profits using the government to guarantee they are paid - either through subsidies or the imposition of fines. You can see why, from an insurance company perspective, this would be a great deal.\"","conclusion":"Public option is better way to universal care than mandates"}
{"id":"6f547ce9-649e-4358-8df9-68e2301496fe","argument":"If morality is objective, then there is innate value to life, and therefore innate value in existence. It is hard to explain why morality and meaning exist as concepts if they are illusions -- any explanation would imply that all living things are delusional for valuing their own lives, which itself discredits the claimant.","conclusion":"Any attempt to claim that morality is subjective is self-contradictory or self-undermining."}
{"id":"b5d92754-c28e-4e47-8fed-035a3052d780","argument":"It is beneficial that the candidates are all gathered in Iowa and New Hampshire for a number of weeks to compete against each other, give speeches, and to present themselves to the country. It is necessary that some states act as a stage for candidates to first show themselves to the nation. Why not Iowa and New Hampshire, both of which are small and so less likely to tip the scales to significantly in the beginning of the elections.","conclusion":"Iowa and New Hampshire help reveal the candidates to the nation"}
{"id":"e4079931-8f35-4a2a-98f2-bfada3b1d6ec","argument":"Combat prowess on land with access to any equipment in their story Elsa is an obvious first choice, she froze the whole of Arendal in about a minute and has some freaky ice powers. Kida is the princess from Atlantis and has access to some really high tech weaponry, she might be stronger than Elsa herself and definitely is underwater. Mulan is a trained fighter and is skilled in hand to hand combat, swordsmanship and bow and arrow. Merida is skilled with a bow. Rapunzel has her pan and magic hair. Now I vaguely remember Pocahontas can use a bow? but even if she can't she has some really high tier athletic feats. The following princesses I just put in order of who had the hardest life, I don't remember any combat feats from any of these characters but if there were, they should come higher than the others. Tatiana is a hard worker, Cinderella also works pretty hard, Aurora grew up in a hut, Jasmine and Anna both grew up in a palace, Ariel is a beginner when it comes to walking and Snow white is 14 years old. CMW on this list. x200B Edit Oh fuck, I forgot Belle, one of my favorites as well. She probably goes after Aurora and before Jasmine just cause she didn't grow up in a castle. Also, she climbs ladders everyday to get to her books so leg strength 10. Also, I haven't seen Star vs the forces of evil nor plan to but Star goes before Elsa based on her wiki. And to further add characters, Princess Fiona fro Shrek goes before Mulan but after Kida, Httyd from how to train your dragon comes after Mulan no pets allowed , Mavis from Hotel Transylvania stomps everyone with her super speed and telekinesis. EDIT Holy shit, also forgot Moana, she could be above elsa or below Pocahontas depending on where the battle is held near the ocean .","conclusion":"In terms of Disney Princesses battle prowess, the order goes: Elsa > Kida> Mulan > Merida > Rapunzel > Pocahontas> Tatiana > Cinderella > Aurora > Jasmine > Anna > Ariel > Snow White"}
{"id":"168e1c9a-89c1-4e14-bc39-f05e63998cfb","argument":"While men had access to education for millenia, women only got broad access in the modern age","conclusion":"Men in many societies have directly prevented women from achieving ambitions beyond the home."}
{"id":"89b8ee5f-8c81-4c9a-ba45-b5e07bb3629d","argument":"If you didn't vote then you're not participating in the one way a majority of people have a voice. You can't be mad that someone won or another person lost if you personally didn't vote. x200B I can understand if you're in a district 90 one party and your voice would definitely be drowned out, but there's still a limit to that. You have to make yourself heard otherwise you're enabling a self fulfilling prophecy. I didn't vote because it didn't matter, but look how bad we lost, so I'm not gonna bother voting next time. x200B You have to take initiative and show you care, and you do that by voting. x200B THIS IS FOR PEOPLE OF VOTING AGE WHO CHOOSE NOT TO VOTE.","conclusion":"If you didn't vote in a competitive election then you have no right to be angry about the results."}
{"id":"f4400345-f44e-4f8d-ad58-5a311c05a3b4","argument":"Arguments that can be made that power should be devolved from Europe to the national governments can often equally be made for devolving power to smaller units within each nation, or from the European Union to the these sub national units rather than to national governments. In Europe the idea of subsidiarity has become accepted and incorporated into treaties by this government should take place at the lowest level possible. Legitimacy derives from the people upwards to the level of government that can best carry out the task efficiently.John Hopkins, Devolution in Context: Regional, Federal and Devolved Government in the European Union, Routledge, 2002 pp.25-6. So devolving power tends to increase legitimacy as the politicians are elected on a more local level and each one if often elected by less electors.","conclusion":"Power should be devolved to levels lower than the national government"}
{"id":"d69f6baa-66c9-43b5-8566-6f708935b333","argument":"If we applied anarchism at an individual level, there would be a need to 'always sleep with one eye open' because we could never ensure that our neighbors or friends would always remain at peace with us.","conclusion":"Many people get hurt in anarchist societies who wouldn't get hurt under a stable government."}
{"id":"3bcf0aac-3841-4e3b-bed1-94d6a9ea4ee8","argument":"Brown vs. Board of Education was a landmark case for desegregation within the USA. It was greatly opposed by many people and operating on democratic principles in law may never have let the decision pass.","conclusion":"The law should operate on fairness and justice, not public opinion."}
{"id":"1acbaf65-0827-4967-bf07-923eac26167f","argument":"The Pope's visit to Poland in 1979 was significant in bringing communism to an end.","conclusion":"The Church was instrumental in bringing communism to an end."}
{"id":"c9fbdbd4-f27d-4060-bcb4-d478ccd8b886","argument":"I consider the term Social Justice Warrior SJW to be completely valid since there is such thing as SJWs. It isn't some catch phrase internet meme concocted by idiots for idiots. Nor is it a device used to categorize people as a means to avoid discussing facts they may be presenting. I personally don't consider the term to be inherently flawed. I consider the term perfectly legitimate to be used in real world discussions by those who want to be taken seriously by others. There is such thing as SJW because it refers to people who are too involved in social change and take things too seriously. When most of the time, nothing really changes. So no reason to waste time and energy pursuing change or complaining about injustices. The idea that people with real intelligence don't use the term SJW or take it seriously is false. People who are against SJWs are not the ones who are mad and unreasonable, but the ones who use reason and logic. SJWs are the ones who don\u2019t use reason and logic because they\u2019re mad. The term SJW isn\u2019t harmful, but beneficial. It shows that those who are mad about something are petty and out of line. Bad things happen all the time. Nothing to cry about. Simply move on. The whole idea of SJW wasn't concocted by people wanted to be free to continue to commit injustices. Then use the term SJW on anybody who threatens their ability to commit injustices in order to pressure them to back down. Peer pressure and conformity has nothing to do with calling people SJW. People call others SJW because SJWs are annoying. Likewise, I don\u2019t consider SJWs annoying because I wish I was more like them. I'm fine. Therefore, this is for anybody who thinks there is no such thing as SJW, like consider it to be insubstantial terminology. If you think SJW is a ridiculous absurd term concept, I would like to know more about your view on the matter. Why do you consider the term concept to be flawed? nbsp nbsp Addendum You don't have to read all this. This is just added information from another user regarding SJWs for anybody interested. The term SJW did not describe people who hampered the ability of others to commit injustices. The term was created to describe people who sit behind their computers and get offended by everything and think that beliefs are the same as political opinions. They assume the beliefs and thoughts of a person based on politics. And they think they are morally superior so they have no interest in listening to other opinions and no interest in debating politics because their politics is the right way and anything else is wrong. For example, if you supported Trump in the election SJW's will assume you a an evil white supremacist, you are racist, probably a nazi, and transphobic, homophobic, islamaphobic and is ok with you getting punched just so you know your place. And any gay person, trans person, immigrant, Muslim, non white person who voted for trump has internalized all the isms and is a token . SJW's think that diversity means anything but intellectual diversity and that conservatives are all white men complaining because they are no longer dominant over society. They attribute all of their personal failure to being marginalized, think words equal violence, and have no interest in being responsible or accountable for their actions. They favor equality of outcome rather than equality of opportunity and because of that they will always see inequities anywhere they look.","conclusion":"There is such thing as SJWs."}
{"id":"f0e5a919-92d5-45ff-8a03-2842da8d3f92","argument":"Current veto holders enjoy their privileged position and are unlikely to go along with the extension of this privilege to other countries, as it dilutes their own veto power.","conclusion":"Extension of UN SC veto power to other countries will be resisted by current veto holders."}
{"id":"f301bec0-45e7-48a7-a3af-89d5564cf554","argument":"America's most powerful nuclear bomb - the B83 - was developed in the 1970s and came into force in 1983.","conclusion":"Today's nuclear capabilities are not significantly different in terms of their destructiveness from those in 1982."}
{"id":"50d3423e-175f-484a-bae1-6d5e99035673","argument":"Note This post says view changed, which is wrong. I gave 2 deltas to 2 people whose points I couldn't counter or who changed ONE PART of my view. Feel free to continue to try to earn deltas here EDIT I got to go, I'll respond in an hour or 2 EDIT 2 I'm back. It's getting hard to respond to everyone D EDIT 3 I have to go again, and this is getting really hard to respond to everyone. I'm sorry if you made a reply some hours ago and I didn't respond. Not sure when I'll be back EDIT 4 Ok I'm back, I'll try to respond as much as I can EDIT 5 Holy shit this is getting hard, I spent over 30 minutes making 1 response. I don't if I can respond to all of you guys. EDIT 6 Yeah, it takes me at least 20 minutes to make a response. I am definitely unable to respond to everyone, and I have real life work to do. I am responding to one more person for today. EDIT 7 Took me 20 more minutes to finish last response for u hellohellizreal. Sorry for everyone else, but I gotta work. I LOVED the discussion we have had so far. Maybe I can do more tomorrow. So, I'm probably get a ton of downvotes because no one cares about reddiquette, but I am genuine in changing my view. First things first DEFINITIONS. Because I don't want to spend my time squabbling over them and getting nowhere. 'Upper Case' Communism Refers to the Leninist, Marxist Leninist, or Marxist Leninist Maoist states that have a Communist or Vanguard Party. YES, any other socialist that reads this, I am aware that so called Communist states weren't communist, it's just easier to say this 'Lower case' communism The final utopian end stage for almost all socialist ideologies, where the state and money is abolished, the socioeconomic class structure is destroyed, and private property ceases to exist in favor of community ownership. This is why 'communist state' is an oxymoron. The fruits of labor food, clothing, housing, etc. are provided from each according to her ability, to each according to her need. Socialism HUGE broad system of ideologies, united under the definition of Democratic ownership of the means of production. Can also refer to the transition stage between capitalism and communism. Ranges from anarchism horizontally divided decentralized power to state socialism capitalism vertically stacked centralized power Capitalism Private ownership of the means of production, characterized by social AND economic inequality, and lack of worker democracy in workplaces. Means of Production Property Facilities and resources to produce goods, like factories Productive assets. Private Property Anything else a person owns that does not fall under Means of Production or Property, like family heirlooms, toys, and clothes. Leninism Vladimir Lenin's socialist ideology, where the proletariat revolts against the ruling class, but the 'best and brightest' of the proletariat represents them and forms a Vanguard or Communist Party. It is characterized by the use of Soviet Worker Councils to help democratically manage means of production and the economy, and the state which is controlled both by the Supreme Soviet Council and the Vanguard Communist Party the state is expected to wither away or become abolished after industrialization and development are achieved and communism is possible. Marxism A materialist philosophy that is also the foundation and justification for a branch of socialist ideologies. Not a political ideology itself. State Capitalism State Socialism Many people see this as a criticizing word of Communist states, but I see it as a general term that describes any socialist system where power is centralized. Before socialists come out, Lenin and Marx coined the term and used it to describe the USSR I say that state socialism IS state capitalism, but state capitalism is not state socialism. An entity can only be state socialist if the state itself properly represents the interests of the proletariat, so that the state acts as an extension of the people's community ownership of the means of the production. If the state ceases to do so, it is not socialist. Proletarians Proletariat The workers. Bourgeois Bourgeoisie The ruling class, the capitalists. Second thing, no I do not think Stalin was a good person, but stuff like Holodimir gt The 1932 reductions in state procurements and exports proved hopelessly inadequate. So did the regime's attempt to deliver food relief. In a series of decisions in 1932 33, the Politburo reversed its policy to reserve grain relief for the cities. In March 1932, it 'substantially reduced' the food rations The urban death rate doubled in the main famine regions. Between August 1932 and January 1933, the Politburo reluctantly reduced grain collection plans by 4 million tons, and the state failed to collect a planned 1 million more. In 1932 33, it released 2 3.5 million tons of grain collections for rural consumption as food, seed, and fodder, of which 330,000 tons were for food Most state agencies, even including the repressive apparatus, were largely overwhelmed by the scale of the famine tragedy. Third, background history Karl Marx had said in his works that socialism is ONLY possible if the transitioning country is INDUSTRIALIZED and DEVELOPED. His thought process on how society would transition was something like this PreCap feudalism? gt Capitalism industrialization developing gt Proletarian Revolution gt Socialist state gt Abolishment of state communism Now, heres some history 101. When Russia had it's proletarian revolution during World War 1, they were NOT developed, NOT industrialized, and practically lived in a preCapitalist stage, if not, then barely exposed to capitalism. They also had just fought World War 1. The combined conflicts resulted in over 10 million Russians being killed. After the revolution, the Communist party got together and all and had a discussion on the future of Russia. Here's the thing, they were divided. One side believed that Karl Marx was 100 correct, and that considering we were underdeveloped, we had to undergo a bourgeois revolution before socialism. In other words, they were advocating capitalism. The OTHER side, strongly disagreed. They thought that capitalism wasn't a necessary stage to reach before socialism. They had another plan. You know what this plan was? It was the detour to communism, a way around capitalism. State capitalism socialism. I can honestly sympathize with the second group, I mean for crying out loud, they lost MILLIONS of russian lives who DIED FIGHTING for socialism, and these punks were telling them no? Give the power to the capitalists? Nuh uh, that could mean another century, or even more, before another socialist revolution. They would be throwing away everything they fought for. Keep in mind, that at this time, worker conditions were AWFUL. Handing control to the capitalists was basically ensuring oppression for the workers. These 2 groups were called the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks. The Bolsheviks advocated state capitalism socialism, and were lead by Lenin. Before anyone gets butthurt, Lenin actually called the USSR state capitalist, in one of his quotes, and he saw it as necessary for the union. The USSR was trying to achieve development through an economic phase that SIMULATED capitalism, without the big disadvantage of losing control of the revolution, and maintaining a capitalist socioeconomic class structure. And you know what? It worked. USSR went from a feudal society of field plowers to a superpower that launched satellites to spaaaaaace and could outfight and out manufacture the Nazis in a 40 year time span. It worked for them. Just not as they hoped. FINALLY My actual post. A lot of what I could have said was actually said in my background history. So this will be short. Lenin's USSR was very progressive. It had free education, healthcare, and abortions. For coming out of a war that struck out a section of their population close to the double digits, they had done well. They had a happy populace properly represented by Soviet councils and the Vanguard Party. Lenin's era was the Golden age for the USSR. However, Stalin later came in. Lenin had not wanted Stalin in power, but he got it. Stalin had taken several measures to consolidate his authority, including reducing the power of the Supreme Soviet Council, and famines like Holodomir had shaken things up. I wouldn't be surprised considering that again, Russia came out of 2 wars that incredibly devastated their country, AND they were very underdeveloped compared to the rest of the world. The efficiency of the Communist system though, was very well represented in World War 2. Stalin's organization of the proletariat and management of war factories had allowed the USSR to OUT MANUFACTURE the Nazi's. After the battle of Stalingrad, they started pushing them back along with the West. Remember this as well, the USSR had lost around 20 million people in total casualties as a result of World War 2. Had Hitler not broken the pact, the Nazi's would have a very real chance of winning. Despite the now 3 wars they have gone through in 30 years, the USSR became a world super power along with the U.S. The death of Stalin and the rise of Nikita Khrushchev had led to the de Stalinization period, and attempts to compete with the U.S., which has not suffered 3 devastating wars in a row for almost 100 years. They were forced to commodify, and some of Stalin's and Krushchev's changes had led the USSR to have become a degenerated worker's state, in which they cannot hold the title of socialism. For example, the significant loss of power of the Supreme Soviet in order for Stalin to consolidate power The USSR, however, still continued to be a prominent power, even going to spaaaaaace first, until liberal economic reforms started affecting the GDP. Gorbachev put the nail in the coffin with Perestroika. Glasnost allowed people to dissolve the crippled USSR early, thus leading into the 1990's, a period of intense corruption and an active oligarchy. Now you have Putin invading Crimea and a country that has an incredibly high crime rate Had Lenin not died so early, had the wars not crippled Russia like so, had they not lost over 30 million people in the span of 2 decades, had liberal reforms, corruption, and intense competition with an outright scared U.S. occured, I would imagine that the USSR would have been successful in creating a communist society. Now, I AM a Libertarian Socialist, and I prefer horizontal power accumulation over vertical, but the fact that the USSR was able to be so successful while still be in a hellhole shows that if the conditions were simply better, the USSR would have been better too. Socialism is a preferable alternative to capitalism, which has a socioeconomic class structure that creates not just income inequality, but social inequality as well. The bourgeoisie are oppressing the proletariat, just look at Chinese manufacturing by Nike, and Mexican maquiladoras. As Karl Marx had said, capitalism is doomed to fail anyway Inevitability of monopolies, which eliminate competition and gouge consumers and works. Lack of centralized planning, which results in overproduction of some good and underproduction of others, encouraging economic crises such as inflation, slumps, depressions. Demands for labor saving machinery, which horse unemployment and a more hostile proletariat. Employers will tend to maximize profits by reducing labor expenses, thus creating a situation where workers will not have enough income to buy the goods produced, creating the contradiction of causing profits to fall. Control of the state by the wealthy, the effect of which is passage of laws favoring themselves. Capitalism is a ticking time bomb. One of these days, maybe a few decades later, maybe even a century, it will. And what about the coming of automation and the possibility of 40 of jobs being destroyed? What then? Capitalism cannot solve for these problems. For Communist states, automaton may actually prove a boon. A UBI could be instated, materials and goods can have better equality at more production, less costs, and if worst comes to worst? Capitalism will have been destroyed, and there will be no more need for a Communist state, in which it will be abolished and a communist society can begin. TL DR The fact that the USSR was able to be so successful even being able to compete with the U.S. despite the tens of millions of deaths, wars, and lack of development, means that had it not been for this, the USSR would be successful.","conclusion":"Communism can work. If it were not for Stalin and Liberal Reforms, the USSR would be successful"}
{"id":"a87dd034-73bb-4e8b-9ea7-64b8e217a683","argument":"The rainforest in the Amazon supposedly creates 20 of Earth's oxygen, as well as being one of the most bio diverse areas of Earth and home to Uncivilised tribes. This is past the point of sovereignty We're talking about everyone on Earth now. A council of scientists should estimate the area of land that the rainforest should realistically take up and this area should become an international zone like Antarctica that no single nation controls as well as being environmentally protected for the good of us all. Refugees Not the tribes should be given the choice of America Europe or any U.N. country along with reasonable financial assistance. Like, this needs to happen yesterday. We're already in a global climate crisis The days of playing around are over. From the pictures, it doesn't look like the fire is going to stop on it's own. We're literally watching 20 of the entire planets Oxygen factory go up in flames, not to mention an extinction event for all the native wildlife, some of which remain undiscovered and now might never be. Money, rights, ownership doesn't mean ^ when you can't breathe","conclusion":"The U.S. or the U.N. should take military action against Brazil"}
{"id":"cd00836c-fdf8-407a-946b-b6f80c396504","argument":"If God existed and controlled whether we went to hell or not, it is in out best interest to appease him, even if he doesn\u2019t deserve it.","conclusion":"Worshipping God will get one into heaven, which is better than going to hell."}
{"id":"a35cfd5b-7a93-4c4f-a0da-627131d928aa","argument":"We do not see higher reports of UFOs from people such as astronomers, astrophotographers, etc. This would lead us to believe the label of UFO is generally attached by people who are otherwise unfamiliar with natural and known objects.","conclusion":"Most UFO sightings are reported by laypersons with no sophisticated knowledge, and not by professionals who observe the sky daily, or by the tens of thousands of active hobby astronomers."}
{"id":"15510e5b-84ea-426c-bae1-b2fdb42a19be","argument":"Many people realize after years of working in a particular field that they are better equipped to work in, or are more passionate about, another field. Living longer would allow easier transitions to other fields of work and lead to greater happiness among working individuals.","conclusion":"A person could spend an infinite amount of time pursuing their dreams or doing what they love if they had the opportunity to live forever."}
{"id":"7fc06ea8-4d14-4df3-8194-81f651b78f62","argument":"Virginia Representative Rick Boucher D: \"And I think my constituents view with deep suspicion anyone who says, 'We're going to attack your congressman, but we're not going to tell you who we are.'\"5","conclusion":"If you're going to attack a candidate, reveal your identity"}
{"id":"14914475-44db-4b5a-961a-9c8be31cfd34","argument":"The categorical imperative can work on an individual level, but when applied to a society, it fails. The people would use Eichmann as a means to an end, and Eichmann would act out the collective will rather than his own. This function is necessary for the categorical imperative to be applied to government.libertarianism.org","conclusion":"When viewed from a modern perspective ,Reason had been lost in Nazi Germany, yet to the people of the time they would have believed they were reasoned. Eichmann knew that they were wrong. But he administered their collective will anyway. This was what he saw as the highest achievement of 'idealism'."}
{"id":"95ef3693-ffdd-4705-997a-acc8dd0bff07","argument":"And socially isolated as a result. I started reading Garfield Minus Garfield and it makes it even more obvious. There is this sad tale of the tutu, Then we have this panel where he is trying on makeup, this one with the Christmas card and this one with the skirt. He is not gay, but girls keep rejecting him because he either tells the truth about himself or is so in denial he comes across as deeply boring. Am I wrong?","conclusion":"Jon Arbuckle is transgender and in denial."}
{"id":"ee807cc1-ed94-437c-8b2e-e6b7a7a320d2","argument":"Yoda tells Luke that Rey has learned all she needed \"Without\" the need for the Jedi books or the type of formal training a temple would afford. This could be seen as a main thrust of the movie; the Force is something much more than what is understood - even by the Jedi as they exist at the time. It can Speak to the intended sans temple and books.","conclusion":"The movie delves much deeper into the philosophical side of the Force than the rest of the Star Wars movies."}
{"id":"f20557b2-c5da-4c51-a9e5-68843e4f73ae","argument":"The legal system right is terrible for anyone who suffers an injury. If someone defrauds you out of 1,000,000 dollars, you are going to have to spend 300,000 just to get it back. At the end of the day you are out 300k. I had a client like this. Even though we took their case on a huge discount, they had to deplete their retirement fund just to pay for the case. Most cases worth less than 50k are not even worth litigating because of costs. Someone came to me because someone is trying to shake him down for 50k. My advice to the guy was just to pay off the person shaking him down. It's worth it to pay out 10k because going to court is going to cost him 20 30k minimum. It's also near impossible to go to court pro se because of how complicated the legal system is. Companies engaging in very profitable illegal activities will spend millions in legal fees to delay the courts so they can continue their illegal activities. A loser pays system would discourage people from defending cases where they have no defense. It would help discourage shakedowns. Admittedly, a loser pays system has certain downsides which would need to be curtailed. There would have to be a cap on the amount the loser would have to pay. Otherwise, it would discourage people from suing the rich who would run up huge legal bills. It should also be limited to cases that are clearly bogus. The standard could be something like Even in viewing all evidence in a light favorable to the party, no reasonable person could ever find in their favor . TITLE EDIT winner's","conclusion":"The loser should pay some of the winners legal fees in frivolous cases."}
{"id":"27d8966b-da90-4809-ae30-db41cdf6703d","argument":"I like to workout, and protein powder has always seemed like a useful way to get a few extra grams of protein, especially if i'm busy. I have recently learned however that the FDA does not regulate the honesty of supplement labels, and only steps in when supplements kill or harm people. This leads me to believe that my protein powder might not actually contain the things on the label, and this is corroborated by scandals where protein powder companies have been caught amino acid spiking their powders. By this process they artificially raise the tested levels of protein in their product, so even with a home protein test kit there really is no way to know if the readings are accurate. This excerpt from the Wikipedia article on bodybuilding supplements captures many of my feelings. Mislabeling and adulteration While many of the claims are based on scientifically based physiological or biochemical processes, their use in bodybuilding parlance is often heavily colored by bodybuilding lore and industry marketing and as such may deviate considerably from traditional scientific usages of the terms. In addition, ingredients listed have been found at times to be different from the contents. In 2015, Consumer Reports reported unsafe levels of arsenic, cadmium, lead and mercury in several of the protein powders that were tested. 4 In the United States, the manufacturers of dietary supplements do not need to provide the Food and Drug Administration with evidence of product safety prior to marketing. 5 As a result, the incidence of products adulterated with illegal ingredients has continued to rise. 5 In 2013, one third of the supplements tested were adulterated with unlisted steroids. 6 More recently, the prevalence of designer steroids with unknown safety and pharmacological effects has increased. 7 8 In 2015 a CBC investigative report found that protein spiking the addition of amino acid filler to manipulate analysis was not uncommon, 9 however many of the companies involved challenged these claims Amino Acid Spiking","conclusion":"It's a waste of money to buy protein powder."}
{"id":"edd0abf0-d32f-4ae3-8bbc-2f4da6f684cd","argument":"Some public figures mentioned in the Bible - such as Augustus Caesar and Herod the Great - have widespread historical acceptance.","conclusion":"Historical sources have validated the existence of major figures mentioned in the Bible."}
{"id":"8c18ff22-afe3-4515-baa3-0665ec2b7153","argument":"Every couple should discuss what things they are and are not comfortable with within the confines of their own relationship, and set appropriate boundaries. Going beyond those boundaries should constitute cheating. This is, I think, a given. However, there is a general understanding in society about what cheating typically is. It includes things like having sexual intercourse with another person outside of the relationship, having oral sex with another person outside of the relationship, kissing another person outside of the relationship, and sending nude photos to another person outside of the relationship. These standards are the default from which couples start, but they are usually not stated outright unless it is to move to goal posts, so to speak. I think that masturbating to pornography should be included in these defaults. The common themes in most of what the general public considers to be cheating are, in my view Intent being raped is not cheating, nor are involuntary reactions Sexual gratification The involvement of a person who is not a member of the relationship In the case of pornography, all of these standards are met. A person must actively seek out the material, and receive sexual gratification with the aid of someone who is not their partner. Masturbating sans pornography, however, does not meet these standards, because another person is not involved. Images in one's mind are not real people, though they may be close representations of real people. The same applies to masturbating with animated pornography. If anyone would like to change my view on this, I'm very willing to listen. My feelings on this subject have gotten me a lot of grief over the years, especially from my liberal friends, and I wouldn't mind being genuinely convinced otherwise.","conclusion":"I believe that masturbating to pornography should be seen as cheating by default."}
{"id":"640b0c1e-7132-4279-a3da-fbc3fd7256f4","argument":"When token creation is supported on-chain this leaves the original chain with data which becomes irrelevant to its own function.","conclusion":"Not at all: Tezos should not support token creation on-chain or in the protocol"}
{"id":"aa17e935-7af0-4df8-8c17-2f0a758bf0e7","argument":"Consider being a part of another country which would treat you. \"unwell\". Where would you go? Certainly somewhere near your border, so what would the choice be? You will definitely choose the U.S. since it is a free country and for immigrants this is a great opportunity to get out of their past lives and make a new one, despite the fact that this is attained through desperate matters what you people call \"Illegal Immigration\". So why don't we give these people a shot at what they want, give them the rights of any American citizen? If America really is the land of the free, why can't we share some of that freedom?","conclusion":"Citizenship is great opportunity; grant it to those already here."}
{"id":"ce229cba-bf62-42f4-859f-41b001a9b5c3","argument":"Like driving under the influence of alcohol, driving under the influence of cannabis presents more risks on the road than having none in one's system.","conclusion":"Like alcohol, cannabis is an intoxicant and therefore should also have a legal limit."}
{"id":"943e3d48-171f-4a0e-9ce3-1e833c05282a","argument":"Animals could be given rights similar to those of children ie: they are 'persons' but in recognition that their cognitive abilities are not equal to those of adult-humans, they do not have full legal rights, so their parents\/owners are responsible for them by proxy.","conclusion":"Animal rights are broadly accepted to exist to some extent. For example, most jurisdictions have legislation which restricts gratuitous cruelty to animals."}
{"id":"92a3581a-aa18-46bc-8003-db4dff077ffc","argument":"God is perfection in it's being by man's definition. Imperfection would have to exist to prove perfection. So God would have to be imperfect to need imperfection to exist with God's perfection. Imperfection could not be if there is a God. God would not have need of anything imperfect if God is perfect.","conclusion":"The classical definition of God is contradictory or incoherent, and thus God cannot in principle exist."}
{"id":"c82c550a-63d8-46a1-b20e-8cfad949ae66","argument":"I have partaken in both in the past, but I am now disgusted by both. I am not saying this because I am deprived, I AM deprived, but I only crave the regular vaginal sex.","conclusion":"I think that both oral and anal sex are disgusting,"}
{"id":"1a4e0015-5751-45db-bdb2-bf5f1b688864","argument":"The Imperials follow Palpatine who legally became Supreme Chancellor of the senate albeit due to manipulations that are very common in politics. He used legal means to control the senate by a domino effect that he and his Sith allies started to coerce the population into granting him emergency rights. Although he broke the trust of the voters while he had these emergency rights by declaring himself emperor, he still did it within the law. The rebels on the other hand aren't able to overthrow him legally and therefore committed terrorist actions against the established government and were trying to eliminate the Sith elements that headed this government for religious reasons dark side of the force . Although this government brought order and stability to the core worlds and protection from outsiders as referenced by the Vong invasion. The rebels led by the Jedi religion light side of the force relied on ancient texts and prophecies that told them that there would be a balance to the force which gave them permission and incentive to perform terrorists acts against the established government in effect their jihad. Reasons that the Empire was a legit government It drove technology forward via innovation in weapons, ships, shields and communication. It imposed the law effectively by dissolving the senate so decisions would be made quickly and efficiently rather than by corrupt officials. EDIT I LOVE Star Wars but I've always wondered about these aspects of course I rooted for the Rebels Still Change my View. EDIT 2 this wiki provides more examples of the rebellions terrorism","conclusion":"The Imperials are really the law abiding citizens in STAR WARS compared to the Rebels who are simply terrorists fighting a religious war."}
{"id":"b36973ff-7286-4181-bca8-ce6ec6029c0e","argument":"The current roster for CLG's LoL team has proven themselves to be able to win both domestically and internationally. Additionally, Stixxay and Huhi have lots of room to grow. Aphromoo, Xmithie, and Darshan are veterans and act as stabilizers for the team. While the veterans have shown weaknesses in certain metas, their tactics shore those up. The biggest problem with changing the roster is that it will cause a disruption in the synergy and increase tensions for the people that haven't been changed. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"CLG should not change their LoL roster, unless a player steps down."}
{"id":"5b8bc74c-6432-491e-aa8e-eaeed66b63f0","argument":"This opinion is based on my time as a UN contractor in Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan South and North , and Afghanistan. Working in an aviation support role, I remember that the flights we were doing were ineffective to say the least. We carried a myriad of UN staff who seemed more intent on visiting parts of the country rather than helping, and that it was incredibly difficult for any NGO staff to get on board. Further, and I say this with inference rather than fact, the flights were inefficient to the point of suspicion, in that it seemed intent on using as much fuel as possible. The widely held belief was that there was massive corruption going on with the fuel contracts. I personally saw two UN support staff dismissed over the reporting of these deficiencies. In my time spent in these countries, the former colonial power would work closely with the UN, and from my fly in the wall perspective almost all talks revolved around negotiating mining rights and monetary values. I never heard talk about the plight of the people. As well, there was widespread knowledge among the UN contract corps of abuses by UN peacekeepers in the field. Child prostitution at one of the outbases was extremely rampant, to the point that whenever I visited said base the kids were waiting at the fence to offer themselves to you. Overall, I saw most of the good work done by the NGO's in the area, and the general consensus from most populations DRC and Sudan was that the UN was making things worse. I have many more anecdotes that can further my side of the argument, however I once did believe that the UN was capable and did make a difference. I'm hoping for someone who has an alternate experience to contradict or illuminate my argument, as well as point out why things would be worse without them, rather than, say, a conglomerate of nations like NATO or the African Union. Thank You.","conclusion":"I believe that the United Nations is a complete sham that causes more harm than good."}
{"id":"25e501c8-1756-48bb-ad27-8b3499bac513","argument":"There is already a lot of shame and social stigma attached to mental illnesses that stops people from seeking help and treatment A declining confidence in the institution of psychiatry will only make the process of getting help harder for people.","conclusion":"If psychiatrists end up giving various different diagnoses of Trump's mental health, or disagreeing on whether he is actually mentally ill or not, public confidence in the institution of psychiatry will be undermined."}
{"id":"a746cc52-8600-404b-aed6-cda96aa0c536","argument":"Fumigation, the most common method of drug plantation destruction, destroys wildlife, crops and causes health problems for local people. McSweeney, p. 6","conclusion":"The war on drugs has done far more damage to the environment than drug production."}
{"id":"7ad07362-6ddd-412f-b5ac-deb646cb4968","argument":"A thin layer of democratic coating superimposed on a system of personal rule without any major structural changes will simply entrench the power of the existing elite.","conclusion":"Having a veneer of a solution can be even worse than leaving the problem exposed, because it discourages further work and improvement."}
{"id":"91ecefd6-b4df-417c-837d-548d5f87c163","argument":"I can't stand when people who are otherwise savvy about personal finance e.g. Contribute to a 401k, no big debt, etc get excited about a huge refund. I understand how it could make sense for people who don't know any better and would just spend the extra money as it comes along. But for those who pay closer attention to their finances, I see it as nothing more than an interest free loan to the government that, with just a little bit of planning ahead of time and checking up during the year, they can get rid of. Change my view","conclusion":"I get overly upset when otherwise savvy people get excited about their big tax refund. Chang my view"}
{"id":"d972de2e-6fd5-4fc9-b6a7-bb1423906c71","argument":"The ritual and setting of a public speech at a university demands the honoring or at least polite introduction of a speaker. The setting intrinsically restricts open critique to a certain level.","conclusion":"Providing the resources and very often honoraria or speaking fees to people who promote e.g. racism is a tacit legitimization of their views."}
{"id":"cc9b95b7-b94b-4009-adf8-00ced1336e85","argument":"Often times I hear people comparing this ism to that ism, or saying how this ology is superior to that one, but I find these complex arguments, which are necessarily steeped in cultural nuance after all try explaining anarcho capitalism to Kalahari Bushman , only serve to complicate what is essentially simple and universally applicable to all human beings. We all have the same survival needs that transcend cultural differences. Some needs like air for example, are incredibly abundant, so rarely do we fret about where our next breath is coming from. Other survival needs, food for example, are often very scarce for a great many people, so you have the proverbial poor man stealing a loaf of bread to feed his family. The problem is that we as a species have always lived in conditions of scarcity or looming scarcity. Sure there have been times of abundance, but among hunter gatherers it was impossible to sustain perpetually hence why they hunted an gathered and lived nomadically , and once the first civil agrarian societies were set up it was abundance for the haves and not the have nots. Really, all civil society is is one guy growing a bunch of difficult to grow crops and due to the effort invested and their scarcity, he puts up a fence around them. Voila, the first property. Naturally, this was followed by the first formalization of property rights law codes as well as enforcement apparatus' police to protect property rights. But what was the property less guy to do? He still needed to eat right? That constant never changed. But he was an alcy, or lazy, or he sowed the wrong seeds, or broke his leg or whatever which prevented him from being productive. Now he sees his neighbour with the good crops and he's like fuck it I can climb that fence. Voila, the first crime. Then as he is climbing his neighbour sees him so he kills the neighbour. Voila, the second crime. The other property owners, fearing for their property fear that those without food will come for their crops and thus leave them in a condition of scarcity so they build bigger walls, hire security and press for harder laws and sentences, wanting to make an example of the first thief murderer. And it works Well, at least to give them temporary peace of mind. But the problem of human need still hasn't been solved and those hungry motherfuckers are still schemin on that delicious crop. So the rich, propertied dude becomes a little paranoid and barricades himself in. The poor motherfucker has to become a little more devious and try and shake down the rich man in future dealings. Nobody trusts anybody and each blames the other for their misery. This is a very simplistic example of how the scarcity fear of scarcity mechanism works. It is applicable in the current world too except its usually not crops that are stolen but things that can be sold for money to provide the means of access to life. The big difference with this example and the current world is that from a technological standpoint, we live in a post scarcity world there is absolutely no reason anyone has to be hungry, on conversely no reason why anyone has to look jealously at someone else who's eating. Yet because this scarcity mechanism keeps prices high, complete access abundance simply isn't a profitable venture. There are other issues with deprivation and stratification like neuroses and psychosocial stress which can contribute to aberrant behaviour not directly related to scarcity, but scarcity is still indirectly responsible as it is the mechanism our socio economic paradigm is based upon. Also, money warrants mention as it emerged as an early technology for engaging in commerce and trading commodities. Presumably, the first forms of money were created with the knowledge that they were only as good as what they could buy. Well at some point when the few could amass enough money out of the supply to meet their immediate and long term needs, money became pursued as a commodity in and of itself. This has become a problem obviously because it is a bastardization of its original purpose and leads to great disparity.","conclusion":"I Think That Fear, Specifically Fear of Scarcity, Is The Root Causal Mechanism Which Is Responsible For All of The Socio-Economic Ills In The World"}
{"id":"2ebf2bbf-0264-4016-8de9-74cbca2a921f","argument":"Given the memetic and arguably addictive nature of fake news so long as it matches your expectations, the more you see, the more you want to see and given that it is in the best interest of a social media platform to encourage distribution of memes, it seems that fake news is more profitable than any effort to impede its spread. Therefore it is in Facebook's best interest to encourage the distribution of misinformation. I do not believe that it is in their best interest to follow through with any efforts to limit the spread of fake news. Since that process is expensive to implement, impossible to audit, and vague by definition, they have the ability to claim that they have made changes without doing anything, or with only minimal effort. Further, as time passes since the 2016 election, people will be less interested in the problem over time. Therefore it seems that even if they are claiming to make changes, it need only be a token response that is more of a PR stunt than anything else. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Facebook is incentivized to allow fake news to propagate and it is unlikely that they will take anything other than token actions to prevent it."}
{"id":"228b499c-05de-49f8-8a7f-ff99df2d06d2","argument":"Donations are not taxed. There is no need to fill out paperwork to be classified as a 501c3 corporation or whatever to receive tax-free donations. Churches will be on the same footing as political parties and unions.","conclusion":"A tax on expenditures is simple for the public to understand and reduces tax compliance costs."}
{"id":"5fca15ed-3c65-45db-a3e2-c8652f61d618","argument":"Marriage is becoming obsolete with more and more youth cohabiting without the need to celebrate anything. Celebration is costly and deprive couples the means for sustaining their family","conclusion":"Most of the advantages of marriage are achieved by a monogamous relationship"}
{"id":"9754a2a8-370d-4bb1-9fbf-9bc8748be1a7","argument":"Wealthy individuals are able to buy more and consume more food, products and recourse, and have a \"more\" mentality.","conclusion":"The rich are bigger contributors to the problem of climate change. As such, they are more responsible."}
{"id":"2956e5f6-187c-40c0-8e9e-90cc6c8f789e","argument":"People who have no interest in politics, and are not interested in learning about the candidates and issues should not be encouraged to vote under the pretense that it its their patriotic duty or that they are supposed to . I believe it is the duty of all citizens eligible for voting to do so, but only as informed citizens. If they are unwilling to become informed, they should not be encouraged to vote. Please note that this does not mean that their right to vote should be infringed, simply that other people should not encourage them to do so. EDIT to clarify what I would consider the standard to be for a low information voter Someone who has watched none of the various political debates leading up to the election, and cannot differentiate what major policies beliefs are traditionally associated with which party.","conclusion":"Low information voters who are not interested in learning political issues should be discouraged from voting."}
{"id":"20a50891-3675-4fd3-9668-a251ea04e8f6","argument":"That is the reason why, as a society, we have laws, governing many of the hard as well as incredibly simple topics, like stealing, murder and rape.","conclusion":"Human actions are driven by what makes them feel good, not necessarily by what is best for them or best for a society as a whole."}
{"id":"278123e8-9f93-4106-8cea-b273e5f93615","argument":"This is a common Conservative talking point, that is generally dismissed out of hand by those on the left. I'm socially liberal and economically conservative, but on this point I personally agree with conservatives For my personal situation they are correct. I don't have any kind of super elite special job, there are tens of thousands of other employees that have access to the same plan as me My total monthly healthcare expense is 170 the amount taken from my paycheck for medical vision dental I have a 500 annual deductible the max I pay myself per year , and my out of pocket maximum is 2500 per year After I've paid 2500 in a year, I no longer pay for any medical expenses 85 of the cost is covered for all chiropractic, therapeutic massage, sports recovery, and mental health services x200B My view is that any national government single payer plan IE Government healthcare like in Canada or Europe would either cost me a lot more than 170 per month, or wouldn't offer me nearly as many services. x200B Telling me that I should be willing to have it worse so that others less fortunate can have it better is very unlikely to change my view. I'm a 40 year old who plays golf and baseball competitively, as well as is in the gym every other day lifting heavy weights. I simply would not be as effective at any of those things if it weren't for the chiropractic, sports recovery, and therapeutic services I have access to. I didn't need them in my 20s and early 30s, but now that I'm 40 I cannot recover as quickly on my own.","conclusion":"I am one of those people who \"likes their health insurance and wants to keep it\""}
{"id":"09b7df70-9466-4176-8e6b-446e1798cd2e","argument":"Disclaimer to the NSA I have not, nor will not partake in any actions of property destruction I'm way too much of a pussy. You and I likely have different definitions of violence. A lumber company destroys huge swaths of lands that's violence. A bank leaves another family homeless that's violence. The CIA runs drugs to fund anti leftist terrorists to overthrow democratically elected governments that's violence. The fracking corporation down the street pollutes our air and destroys the property value of my house that's violence. The military invades countries in pursuit of American interests that's violence. They get away with it time and time again, and no one stands up to them. No one shows them that this is not okay that they will not get away with this anymore. When combating massively powerful entities such as these, it is important to have a range of tactics to bring them down. Anything from boycotting, to striking, to street protesting, to blockading, to various forms of direct action. This is why I cannot help but smile a little bit when I see a black bloc smashing bank windows, when protesters block the Keystone Pipeline, or when direct action groups such as the ELF burn down a logging headquarters. It's refreshing to see that there are some people courageous enough, with enough conviction, that they do take action into their own hands arguably for a greater good. Where I lose respect for these forms of direct action is when it begins to harm innocent people. But for once in my life I want to see a town take control and drive out those who are actively threatening the community. While writing your congressman, voting for either the douche or the turd sandwich, and changing your profile picture may give you a smug sense of activism, in the end it will do nothing to change the system. What do you do when you're screaming at the top of your lungs, but nobody even cares to listen? Why shouldn't we take actions into our own hands and hit them wherever it hurts?","conclusion":"I believe property destruction is a legitimate form of protest."}
{"id":"0b531ed7-154c-4697-af22-ac3e47d5823a","argument":"Taking a human life is so abhorred by society that those committing it must either have total disregard for society, or be driven by something even stronger. This is likely to be the passions of the moment, and ones that are so strong that they are not deterred by all the existing consequences of murder.","conclusion":"It has been argued that most crimes are the product of emotion and passion - and that logical considerations about the possible punishment painful as it may be do not feature in the underlying considerations."}
{"id":"5bf8e690-7dde-4834-9940-a5deb5489dd2","argument":"Solar power is more renewable and cleaner. Its supply is endless, unlike that of nuclear energy. Similarly, wind power generates no waste and can sustain our planet for millenia to come. Nuclear power is not the answer. When there are so many cheaper, safer, cleaner and more sustainable alternatives, why the debate?","conclusion":"Nuclear energy has a limited supply and is far inferior to solar power."}
{"id":"b737c66b-6d22-4cb9-aab1-846868531f6d","argument":"Religion provides a solution in the face of nihilism and the dramatic nature of existence. This is called the Terror management theory","conclusion":"Religion allows societies to feel hope and to see light in the most darkest periods."}
{"id":"ea82d3e7-714e-48c7-9ef4-49c37147ff9c","argument":"Adam and Eve indicate that God wants mankind to find their own path and will let us make our choices, even if they are to our impediment.","conclusion":"The freedom to choose is essential to God's plan to function: humans ought to learn what is right and what is wrong."}
{"id":"c1e48a18-5ab0-4a71-8120-53b86610440e","argument":"It will be harder to call him out for distorting the news since he doesn't have to put in the effort to convince the media to present their way and risk getting caught in the process.","conclusion":"He runs the media with Bloomberg L.P. and could possibly use it a negative manner to distort the truth, making himself look good, much more easily than presidents in the past."}
{"id":"9d1e1dbf-d384-469b-91a5-cca28d203ed3","argument":"At least 91 languages in the world have 10 million first language speakers but the United Nations only has 6 official languages.","conclusion":"A universal language would be instrumental in improving international relations."}
{"id":"de0bcd38-1190-412b-84be-2fd264bfc836","argument":"Hey , First post here. I've thought this for a long time due to the ridiculous amount of alcohol related deaths from drunk driving, alcohol related illnesses, and other alcohol related incidents like fights or other crimes. I don't see how anyone can make the argument that the social benefits of alcohol outweigh the negative outcomes. For reference, according to National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism an estimated 88,000 people die from alcohol use a year, including nearly 10,000 traffic related deaths in 2014. Alcohol was the third leading cause of preventable death, behind tobacco which is universally accepted as a net negative product for society. The only counter argument I can see right now is that it is ingrained in western culture and is beneficial for improving social situations. To the first point, I don't care. Just because something is around for a long time doesn't mean it is a good thing. To the second, I say that is a small benefit for the cost of acquiring it.","conclusion":"Alcohol does far more harm than good in society"}
{"id":"eab343a4-1942-448f-88df-a84b2ad9c5b6","argument":"I love music, sometimes . But sometimes I go multiple weeks without listening to a song. What I do in that time that couldn't be done with music is explore new ideas, develop my goals, listen to ebooks and podcasts, introspect and sometimes just let my mind be empty mindfulness meditation . My claim is that culturally, music has consumed too much of our mental bandwidth and inhibited personal fulfillment in other ways. To be clear, I believe the same about television and movies, but music feels like a special case to me. There's no taboo against listening to too much music, whereas there is for TV. It's become a given among young people especially , that we should always be aware of the hottest new music groups and trends, and those who become music aficionados are seen as somewhat cultured or refined individuals. In addition to the bandwidth problem, I think there are ancillary harms done by music because of its special status. Most notably, we look to music, rather than more appropriate tools or people eg. critical thinking, mentors , for advice and derive special meaning in the emotional trips great music can send us on. To summarize, I think music is wonderful, but other things can be wonderful in similar, mentally and emotionally fulfilling ways, and to me it feels like music has consumed too much free time of the average person. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I believe music is overrated"}
{"id":"2119f4d0-9771-472a-8e51-86e81abdcff4","argument":"If one's subjective moral opinion is the ultimate arbiter of morality, then when a person believes they have done something \"wrong\" or \"immoral\", they have only violated their own internal standard.","conclusion":"Relative morality cannot explain why any person would ever consider something that they did to be immoral or wrong."}
{"id":"34043962-6260-4ad3-be85-4f895ee6ee22","argument":"The Ministry of Magic has cars that look like exactly like Muggle cars but are enchanted to accommodate a much larger number of people.","conclusion":"Cars and motorcycles can be magically altered to suit the needs of the magical community."}
{"id":"d69fb9ee-5a79-43af-9245-f055f880c634","argument":"Credit bureaus and banks are more likely to increase a person's credit line, based on speedy payments.","conclusion":"Paying early earns favor from credit bureaus and banks for future large investments."}
{"id":"c3f99d81-e251-461b-8c41-540c669f1059","argument":"Banks should be prohibited from lending money. First and foremost, they're not lending their own money. We deposit money in an account and they lend that out to other people for their own benefit with basically no real benefit for us. Checking and savings accounts build a completely negligible amount of interest that is far offset from the amount of inflation banks create by taking our money, lending it out, and forcing us to pay higher prices for things. Prices, especially home prices, would come to a stand still if banks were prohibited from lending money.  EDIT It's clear that I did a poor job in making my argument. I'm a homeowner and understand what the average house goes for. I also own a car and know what they go for. I have a job and know what people make on average. But all of these costs are affected by banks forcing us to bid against one another for these things. And it's not JUST those specific items either. The building materials, etc. for all of those things are all inflated by banks lending money. The average American NEEDS to make 50,000 year because the average American home goes for 250,000. I'm aware of this. But the only reason the average American home goes for 250,000 is because banks inflate the price by flooding the market with money that has to be paid back. The cost of EVERYTHING would be cheaper without banks lending money. I get that the average house costs 250,000 TODAY but if banks didn't exist than the average house WOULDN'T cost 250,000. The average car WOULDN'T cost whatever the average car costs. Food prices WOULDN'T cost whatever the average cost is. And so on. All of these things would go down to more affordable levels and EVERYONE, particularly poor people, would benefit. Everyone keeps posting what their houses cost and that's fine but that wouldn't be the cost without the bank. ALSO instead of telling me what your home cost to buy, why don't some of you take a look at your mortgage and figure out what you're going to PAY . When you finish paying your mortgage you're going to pay very good deal more than your house actually cost and all of that is because the bank lent YOUR OWN MONEY TO YOU. And that's how it works for everything. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Banks should be prohibited from lending money."}
{"id":"74df061f-91c9-49fa-a758-e1b86b247558","argument":"There's a few people in my group of friends who have screwed over other friends and when it's found out, the backlash is expected, but never lasts long. However, There are people who have fucked up maybe ONCE and everyone seems to hang it over their head forever, even if it's less severe. I notice the same thing with public figures. For example, its much easier For Justin Bieber to be forgiven than say, Dwayne Johnson. It's like people get more upset that you acted contrary to their expectations than they are of the actual offence frequency of offences.","conclusion":"People who are known assholes get more leniency than \"kind\" people who just happen to slip up."}
{"id":"93506714-1b9b-4d16-b854-9d2200e70003","argument":"It's not about where and how you earned your degree, but that you completed one.","conclusion":"As long as the learning institution is regionally accredited, they are equal."}
{"id":"4476c8b3-9a4a-4e22-bf78-e6a68130d542","argument":"As soon as we agree that there are situations where killing is acceptable we have reason to fear for our own safety. By accepting killing in certain situations society as a whole becomes more open to the idea. It then becomes hard to draw the line as to where killing is acceptable and where killing is unacceptable. It is much better to outlaw all instances of killing so that we have a general moral standard to follow in all situations.","conclusion":"We do not want a society in which killing can be acceptable"}
{"id":"d44b1565-3e73-4d91-afc5-72b000a18c71","argument":"No surprise amount of taxes due in April each year. When the tax is spread out evenly throughout the year, it's easier to budget for and does not cause hardship month.","conclusion":"Individuals do not need to file tax returns under a FairTax system Tuerck, p. 3 This simplifies the lifes of citizens."}
{"id":"47e43f35-c835-43fc-b896-2476475c0cf1","argument":"These 2 answers argue the view to be changed In a dispute with some organization's staff, the party being escalated i.e. that compelled me to escalate should normally be informed of my escalation i.e. appealing to their superiors , e.g. by copying them in correspondence to their superiors or informing them directly. Arguments Not informing the counterparty appears sly, by appearing to circumvent them behind their backs. You will get your response faster, positive or negative. When the counterparty don't believe that the problem got escalated, they will continue to do what they have been doing, and won't change their behavior until their superior i.e. the party you escalate to acts but the superior may need a few hours to a few days. Then the original staff will likely be stunned or offended by the escalation and may seek additional time to learn about my dissatisfaction and why they didn't satisfy me. So when they know the problem is being escalated, they gain some additional time to act on the escalation. They can use the time between your sending the escalation email and them being contacted by their superior to fulfill your request or formulate a response on why they didn\u2019t fulfill. They may even contact their superior before the superior contacts them usually a smart move from their perspective , to save the superior some time and further hastening the process. Escalation means only that you are notifying the superiors of the delay, which may be due to legitimate problems not noticed by the junior staff. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I should usually inform the staff against whom I escalate, in a dispute."}
{"id":"02686121-1c22-4410-8cfb-c1732e52f213","argument":"Both start from values and assumptions, progress via somewhat systematic methods, and culminate in emotional and intellectual contributions to a human community.","conclusion":"They both strive for a way to express observations of the world to other humans."}
{"id":"d7fa1fe0-f096-4aae-9ea0-2968587ea414","argument":"Every time i see an outrage mob in action i get this sick feeling in my stomach and i cant understand how somebody that isnt fishing for rts or likes can participate in going after people and trying to ruin them. I think its vile and evil. Also, i cant stop thinking how this is going to affect culture, entertainment and art in the future. Children already think that there is nothing wrong with trying to ruin somebody and it can only get worse with future generations. Creative people are walking on eggshells not to awake the anger of the mob and get fired and how does that affect their output? Who knows, but i don\u2019t think is good. I might be spending too much time on the internet, but i have a really bad feeling about all this and i know that you could say \u201cwell, dont make anti pc jokes and you will be fine\u201d but just that, in principle, is fucked up and you could anger the mob anyway with racist transphobic etc things you have said or done in the past. And its not like people do research beyond the twitt they saw. And if you bring up freedom of speech, people lump you with the right and the whole discussion goes to hell. That\u2019s very dangerous and dystopian. There\u2019s a large group of people that don\u2019t think freedom of speech is valuable and who don\u2019t see that it will eventually backfire because the goal keeps moving. My main concern is that we are on uncharted territory being the first people in history to have this much power. Never before people could get other people fired as easy as now days. I am afraid for comedy and dissenting ideas, but also the eventual backlash against what you could call pc culture. What people are getting outrage for is noble and progressive but the thing is that their methods are getting attached to things like inclusiveness and equality. This is dangerous because the backlash against outrage is not only going to go against the mob but also the ideas they are supposedly representing. The real nazis are lurking and waiting for the right time to come back and ride the wave of hatred against the party poopers and the over sensitive. Normal people are going to get tired of the alarm of nazis. Its like the boy who cried wolf and when the real nazis come, nobody is going to care until its too late. Anyways, my point is that who knows how all this outrage is going to affect us and if somebody should do something about it like shutting down twitter so the mob doesn\u2019t have so much power anymore. Or i am just exaggerating and everything is and will be fine? Change my view. Thank you for your time.","conclusion":"Something is very wrong with twitter\u2019s outrage mobs and they should be stopped."}
{"id":"a074d55a-6fb2-4553-a4c5-5e89c5208598","argument":"Returning to the final shot of The Force Awakens, Luke's \u200bexpression indicates that he is emotional and relieved that someone found him- not peeved or apathetic, as Johnson's retcon would have you believe. It's clear from the acting alone that Luke intended to be found in a time of need.","conclusion":"Luke Skywalker went into exile with the decision to die there, as he explains. Yet, for whatever reason, he left a map that would guide friend or foe to his location."}
{"id":"947b9a38-f1b1-4a08-9cb0-ebb79562faed","argument":"The increased use of DNA evidence will minimize the risk of future wrongful convictions. An FBI study indicates that since 1989 DNA evidence has excluded the primary candidate in 25% of sexual assault cases. Moreover, forensically valuable DNA can be found on evidence that has existed for decades, and thus assist in reversing previous miscarriages of justice.","conclusion":"The increased use of DNA evidence will minimize the risk of future wrongful convictions. An FBI stu..."}
{"id":"2f3a0dc8-7d0f-42d5-bdd7-dfabc073944c","argument":"As Moyo and many others claim, Africa would benefit significantly more from enterprise-led development and involvement in business deals. In addition to delivering financial results, this would also encourage a pro-active approach on Africa\u2019s part, allowing it to help itself prosper according to its own analysis of needs and objectives. Moyo asserts the Chinese have done more for Africa than the US, noting the impact of making equal business deals rather than patronising and preaching to governments. In China, African produce is welcome with a population of 1.3 billion and only 7% of farming land. Africa\u2019s opportunity for success by such methods is evidenced from past conduct: its GDP has doubled from $130bn in the 1980s to $300bn today. 2 Rather than being pitied and condescended, Africa should be granted the independence to get back on its own two feet. 2","conclusion":"Africa deserves the opportunity to assert itself as an equal global partner"}
{"id":"ef607aad-1505-4d11-b11f-7250f2783f65","argument":"Torpedos are near-impossible to evade as their speed-to-mass ratio is much more favourable than that of any vessel.","conclusion":"Photon Torpedo Long range weapon capable of carrying different kinds of powerful warheads. Star Trek"}
{"id":"b21a34e1-12dc-4f66-8582-379cd8717f7a","argument":"Freedom of speech protects the right of fans and advertisers to boycott the NFL if they feel regulations restricting protests are unjust, even if they are legal.","conclusion":"People die for the ideals of America, not a piece of cloth. The ideals include freedom of speech."}
{"id":"a0e6ac9a-8f66-4c28-aaef-28d6676b5c8e","argument":"Reddit, by definition, is aggregation of varied content in varied communities. Users that comment, vote, and submit and thus determine what the content of reddit is that people use to judge it need to be logged in, and so they have the opportunity to customize their front page and subscribe to different subreddits of their interest. Reddit is not homogeneous in the slightest. Then, people generalize about the big defaults like r askreddit. Sure, some of the more circlejerky comments get upvoted early and more frequently, but I think that generalizing about those most active users on reddit is no different than generalizing about mostly relatively young, relatively tech savvy people all around the world. And those people are very, very different. So all of the  posts and complaints about the users of this site as if they are not the wide variety of humans that they are don't make sense to me. .","conclusion":"I think generalizing about \"reddit\" as if it is a communal entity with general consensus is counterproductive."}
{"id":"60e7fb69-2ed5-46ce-bb4a-f8c659f97dec","argument":"Becoming involved with drugs is going to become harder for children because they will be denied access to the legal market and there will be drastically less demand, and thus supply and availability for black market drugs.","conclusion":"The legalisation of drugs will make it harder for children to access them."}
{"id":"fc68b120-c6ad-4443-b31d-343be99e5237","argument":"China has become increasingly aggressive in territory conflicts across the Taiwan Strait, East China and South China seas","conclusion":"China's foreign policy under Xi has become increasingly expansionist."}
{"id":"ca290fb3-9859-4cac-a8ee-bd9ae886bc0f","argument":"Quick preface I have no intention of going against the gay community, or anything like that. I just think the flag is bad. First off, It's just not nice to look at. The use of bright colours and the complete disregard for negative space make it overpowering to anything around it, and frankly garish in contrast to everything around it. Dulling the colours helps, but the fact of the matter is, without anything to compare these colours to, the end result is just dense and unsightly. to see what I mean, look no further than this rainbow flag with a white stripe thrown in. Already, the colors flow together more fluently and the flag as a whole is easier to appreciate. The flag, I feel may also reinforce the stereotype of gay people being flamboyant and eccentric. People who see their sexuality as secondary to other parts of themselves may feel alienated or misrepresented, and may have trouble rallying under the flag , per se, as a result. Let's talk about flag design. The North American Vexilological Association has decide upon five major rules for Flag Design They are Keep It Simple . Use Meaningful Symbolism . Use 2 or 3 Basic Colors . No Lettering or Seals . Be Distinctive or Be Related . Although the rainbow flag excels at some of these guidelines namely 1, 4, and 5 it uses far more than three colours, and arguably does not have very meaningful symbolism. While sources list meaning for each colour Life, Sunlight, Healing, Nature, Magic Art Serenity, Spirit , It is clear that the design is simply based on a common rainbow obviously and the meanings behind the colours were chosen after the fact. Furthermore, the meanings that were chosen are not true aspects of the Gay Community. Sunlight? Magic??? . For a counterpart, take another LGBT flag, that of the Transgender community. Three colours, negative space, and Good symbolism blue for male, pink for female, white for unity and transition . Perfect. Another general rule is that the flag should work in greyscale, It should go without saying that a flag based entirely on colour, well doesn't. I will not argue the fact that this flag has been incredibly successful in uniting homosexuals across the world, nor the fact that it is strongly important to many people, and the Gay community as a whole. But the fact of the matter remains It looks bad and misrepresents parts of the Gay Community.","conclusion":"The Rainbow Flag is unsightly and a poor representation of the Gay Community."}
{"id":"9d0ecc65-d6b5-4c84-baa3-def2a7a24e71","argument":"The Proclamation of Tehran established during United Nation's 1968 International Conference on Human Rights states that: \"Parents have a basic human right to determine freely and responsibly the number and the spacing of their children.\"","conclusion":"People should be free to have as many children as they want."}
{"id":"3e09785a-e54c-462b-be2a-6ec3fba018bb","argument":"Bishops would have more authority to make decisions affecting the lives of people in their local communities instead of always looking to Rome for a centralised decision that has to fit all. So if any problems were to arise, more accountability would fall upon the shoulders of Bishops instead of Rome.","conclusion":"Decentralisation of power means more accountability. Increased accountability will provide a greater incentive for members of the Catholic Church to conduct themselves more responsibly thus improving the overall standards of the Church."}
{"id":"a1a0bf49-020e-4795-8801-4dc3c822332a","argument":"I am only pertaining to education affirmative action because I lack most knowledge when it comes to business and the like. When I read and hear about affirmative action, the only true argument I hear is minority communities are poor and therefore lack proper education and are behind compared to the rest of the communities. I believe that being poor has an effect on education but I do not believe being a race other than white has a negative effect. What if a white person grew up in a low income town, go to a low income school, and his black friend gets into college with the same credentials but he doesn't?","conclusion":"I believe Affirmative Actionin education is out-dated and I believe scholarships\/acceptance should be income based. I find AA to be reverse discrimination."}
{"id":"e74dfece-4806-41d1-84bd-5cc738e803a8","argument":"Trump has been known to bring Obama down on several occasions in order to prove that he is better, which has been suspected to be envy.","conclusion":"Trump has embodied outward envy on several occasions, which has manifested in harmful ways."}
{"id":"38e21a69-4d20-4984-adcc-003f549a8498","argument":"As stated in the Oxford dictionary, wet defines something or an item that had once been dry. Water cannot be dry Also, water makes other things wet along with other liquids, this means that water is not wet. Things that are wet can be fully wet or just a little wet, water cannot have that.","conclusion":"Water is sometimes dry even in a broad definition of wetness. Specifically, ice and snow well below the freezing point is devoid of liquid water on its surface or in its pores and thus may be described as 'dry'."}
{"id":"448259ed-9b8a-4636-91d7-889e0d0f0867","argument":"Territorial and sovereignty disputes in the Aegean Sea have twice led to diplomatic crises between Greece and Turkey, which came close to the outbreak of military hostilities, in 1987 and in early 1996 Incidents on a smaller scale have continued ever since","conclusion":"NATO is weakened by internal divisions: Greece and Turkey are military rivals. An EU Army would not have this problem."}
{"id":"5d107a82-1493-441d-99be-09ca5946b188","argument":"There has been a lot of disagreement over the nfl players protesting \u201cthe flag\u201d. People are shaming them for doing what is in their exact right. Protest IS NOT MEANT TO BE PRETTY and there is no thing as the \u201cright\u201d way to protest. As long as the protest is not hurting other people then they shouldn't be shamed. Americans are not forced to recognize the national anthem as long as they are silent. Kneeling is a silent action. People are focusing on the wrong part of this protest. It is not about the flag or the military. It is about POLICE BRUTALITY. The fact that african american males are filling up the prison due to mass incarceration. The fact that african american males are being shot multiple times while being unarmed. We can all agree that protest is meant to capture the attention of those around them. In order to bring light to the horrible issues mentioned above, football players are deciding to take advantage of time when Americans are watching and use it to send a message. During the civil rights era , the Greensboro sit ins are form of protest that disrupted norms to send a message. America is addressing the wrong issue. If police brutality was being addressed then there would be no need to kneel.","conclusion":"Protest is meant to be DISRUPTIVE and UGLY"}
{"id":"c259360e-1a5e-4a49-b815-0d994f09fd3e","argument":"It is dishonest to use terminator seeds as an argument against genetically modified crops since they are unlikely to be further developed or commercialized.","conclusion":"Opposition from the public, NGO's and many governments have resulted in terminator seeds de facto having been banned"}
{"id":"a657974e-1462-49cb-b3fa-3aab5782690c","argument":"The idea that there is no free will implies that choices people make are not what makes people and societies flourish, and that can't be proven because those societies have to make good choices, when bad choices are always an option, in order to be successful. Lack of free will removes credibility for success and patterns to said success. The same implies to failures.","conclusion":"The everyday actions of everyday people are evidence for the existence of free will."}
{"id":"62f70e96-d7d3-4720-a17c-927e10ef6704","argument":"I think forcing the public to interact with police without any reasonable suspicion or probable cause is illegal, even if the reason is to catch drunk drivers. If you have done nothing wrong and are not suspected of committing a crime, you should not be forced to interact with police, period. And do you really think a DUI checkpoint is designed to ONLY catch drunk drivers? It's a police checkpoint with a fancy name which is designed to make it more palatable for the American public, but really it's just a random police stop that lets the police peer into your windows looking for anything illegal.","conclusion":"I think DUI checkpoints represent illegal searches without probable cause and should be banned."}
{"id":"611a3709-0e27-480c-86a0-4b26324ec2fe","argument":"This is because there would still be a strong desire to provide a disincentive to slaves from running away. This is true regardless of whether the owners are likely to get the slaves back.","conclusion":"Brutal and often lethal force is a common form of punishment for many infractions on a plantation. There is no reason to expect that our cooperation will change this fact."}
{"id":"04bf9b96-ddd8-4db4-bd87-c8a555fa081f","argument":"Chester Zoo spent \u00a340 million on a project called Islands a recreation of several South East Asia islands for some of their resident animals. At the same time, the Kenya Wildlife Service KWS, an organisation that protects animals in situ, has less than half that budget.","conclusion":"Zoos in Western countries receive funding from donors and governments. Those contributions could be invested in animal conservation in struggling countries, thus protecting endangered species instead of going to zoo\u2019s operational budgets."}
{"id":"fa438fcf-7449-44fd-8b8b-eb9b9b14e7cd","argument":"I agree 99 on the premise that drug addicts are not evil, they're vulnerable and using drugs to cope with unstable psychological social conditions. Drug addicts only commit the crime of possessing taking illegal drugs because they're not in a fit state to make proper judgements. Harm reduction is more moral and has shown to bring better results than just throwing drug addicts in jail. However, that being said, if we shift our perspective not to jail drug addicts for committing a crime but treat them instead, due to the notion that they are not capable of making rational judgements, we have to apply that to all people with mental health conditions. Why not treat a depressed person instead of jailing them for robbing a store or assaulting someone? If people with unstable mental health conditions can't be held up to criminal standards, why not let them get away with anything? On a similar topic, some people say that those who commit suicide are selfish due to the grief they cause to other people in this subreddit actually . The counter argument to this is suicidal people suffer from severe depression and are not fit to make rational judgements. I'm very sympathetic to those who fall into a complete spiral due to mental health conditions, but if we shift our view to treat drug addicts and not jail them which we now are then there are problems with this, mainly being that the logic implies we cannot hold them accountable for pretty much anything. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Drug addicts should be jailed, not treated"}
{"id":"77841c29-8a2d-49cd-8b82-a1d6759dda24","argument":"Assisted suicide is legal in some countries, including Canada, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Colombia, Switzerland, and parts of the United States and Australia.","conclusion":"The right to die is already recognized in places which allow euthanasia and assisted suicide."}
{"id":"5adca550-e603-408d-ac01-90004e772858","argument":"Human persons are biological, animal organisms, and are already inherently sexual in nature. Therefore it is the person's inherent qualities that have \"sexualized\" them, not the actions of a person who is attracted to those qualities. Furthermore, being sexual is not in and of itself a bad thing.","conclusion":"Sexuality doesn't cause sexism, prostitution, pornography, exploitation or restrictions on freedoms. Sexuality is a normal biological and social function."}
{"id":"6f0f5be0-d434-4920-83e8-1385136801bb","argument":"In reference to recent debates in the USA. Every regulation surrounding coal can't be repealed especially those that concern worker safety and the like. But regardless, shale gas is so plentiful, and we keep finding more and more efficient ways to extract it, that coal just will never keep up. We are even finding ways to get at natural gas that was once thought impossible to touch even at the beginning of the shale boom. Efforts to stabilize coal are in direct opposition to the economic forces at play and effectively is subsidizing a non competitive industry. Further, it only leads to continued development of infrastructure and investment in equipment that would have limited use when the industry is finally completely inviable. It's not a question of getting it back on its feet, because that won't happen. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Coal is losing to natural gas, not overregulation."}
{"id":"61b8015a-beb3-4ec0-807f-f4aa0530eb90","argument":"Even if some individuals manage to circumvent the censorship measures, the Government has sent an important message about what society considers to be acceptable. The role of the state in sending social messages and setting social standards should not be underestimated, and censorship be it through bans or minimum age requirements is an important tool in thisprocess.","conclusion":"Even if some individuals manage to circumvent the censorship measures, the Government has sent an im..."}
{"id":"24ee0a15-94f3-4258-a41a-28e6b29a2004","argument":"If good is defined as the level to which one resists and overcomes evil, then evil must be present to be resisted. \"Good\" cannot exist without \"evil\" any more than \"hot\" can exist without \"cold\". These are comparative concepts in nature, and thus require opposition to necessitate their existence.","conclusion":"If evil can be defined as privation of good, then good can also be defined as privation of evil. We must either accept that both good and evil co-exist, or that neither exists."}
{"id":"baecaaa1-b3e4-4df7-88ac-79dbb6eaf12c","argument":"Many people say that they are animal lovers because of they have dogs or cats or perhaps they volunteer at an animal shelter. However, they continue to eat meat, dairy, fish, eggs, and other animal products that require killing or keeping an animal under inhumane conditions. In my opinion, you cannot say you are an animal lover while supporting factory farms and other forms of animal violence. What puts the value of one animal's life above another when cruelty free options are readily available? There is no need to exploit sentient beings capable of feeling pain while non sentient beings plants, fruits, etc. can be used. I myself have not eaten meat in 6 years, and animal rights is the main reason why I continue this lifestyle.","conclusion":"If you say you are an \"animal lover\" and still eat meat, you are a hypocrite."}
{"id":"3475fb1e-fcaf-460f-a793-564b69ff9614","argument":"Given that the last election turnout was at 50% Trump's base is not large enough to be sufficient on its own.","conclusion":"Trump's base is not big enough to carry the election."}
{"id":"5496f3ac-1717-45e1-8d1d-b9f17fecb9b6","argument":"It is plausible to believe that most natural habitats are, on net, bad for animal wellbeing. If we cared overridingly about animal welfare, then we ought to destroy those habitats. The fact that we reject this indicates that animal welfare is not the overriding consideration, and that there is intrinsic value associated with the operation of natural habitats.","conclusion":"If we are concerned about the death and harm of animals the logical extension of this care is to do as much as possible to prevent animals from dying in the wild. That we don't do so supports the idea we accept that this natural dynamic of predator-prey is not always overridden by animal welfare concerns."}
{"id":"488744bf-9dfd-4e66-8774-256c82879f39","argument":"All actions are determined by some function of prior circumstances and actions, so no action arises of its own accord. Thus, it is impossible to make a choice, because all choices are inevitable results.","conclusion":"Understanding the biological working of the brain is an arbitrary goal post. The question of free will can be tackled deductively without any knowledge of how this particular process unfolds."}
{"id":"9945d9c6-4293-4ac0-b16d-509ec9c16dab","argument":"Recently, we have seen Michael Jackson release an album of songs that he never wanted to be released. Likewise, Tolkien's translation of Beowulf has just been published despite his protestations that it is hardly to my liking . Jackie Kennedy's private letters to a priest are even being auctioned off. I believe that this kind of behavior represents a deeply problematic invasion of the artists' privacy, and should not occur. If they are unfortunately published, you and I ought to refrain from listening to or reading these works. In short, I believe the dead have a right to privacy that ought not be violated for merely prurient interest. Scholars and spies may have compelling interests in the material, but most of us do not.","conclusion":"Artists who do not wish their works to be published should have their wishes respected posthumously."}
{"id":"800dc902-a2e3-467f-8dba-e267a806a742","argument":"Most black individuals are not radical enough to support the violent overthrow of their states.","conclusion":"Killmonger would be doomed to fail if he got his way."}
{"id":"9708941a-a9fd-40dd-b009-f3a25f48bf69","argument":"The WIR Bank in Switzerland has greatly stabilized their economy in times of economic depression, and with the decreased overhead of digital currencies, could be a more accessible model.","conclusion":"Digital currencies allow financial innovation among communities that otherwise do not have strong access to capital, potentially increasing prosperity."}
{"id":"09621488-c0fb-4afa-86e8-38e7631b6825","argument":"There is a moral obligations to help make things right, but capital is unlikely to do so. There are other ways to make things right that are better than capital.","conclusion":"Even if there is a moral obligation to the descendants of slaves, there is not a moral obligation for reparations."}
{"id":"9cf6e6c4-62a6-470b-aaf3-6d07c97d1e30","argument":"Back in 1950s, it used to be that completing highschool is enough to get you an average job, and a college degree is someone who wants to go for a really good job. In the 1970s and 80s, it became that highschool is not enough, and a college degree is enough to get you an average job, but a Masters degree is for someone who wants to go for a really good job. Now in 2018 and forward, it is becoming that highschool is not enough, college degree is not enough, and a Masters degree is for someone who wants an average job, and a PhD MD is someone who wants to go for a really good job. Even many people with Masters or PhDs still have to get additional certification to add to their resume. The trend is alarming for me. All this education it's not necessary not to mention, inefficient and bad for society . We all know 90 of hte stuff you learn in school don't apply to the job, and the best way to actually learn to do a job is to actually work on it.","conclusion":"Our education system process is too long and unnecessary."}
{"id":"21dfc4a0-efe4-48d1-94ac-f0e53f47aec3","argument":"Being an entrepreneur is extremely tough and requires you working much more than most normal jobs.","conclusion":"Many people are more suited for corporate work than entrepreneurial."}
{"id":"f575685e-25ef-4836-b0a6-c27ca02ac4ed","argument":"Women in bikinis are often seen as sexy, but I don't think that makes a bikini a sexual object. I believe that if a women in a two piece is sexy, it's either because she is a sexual being herself or someone pushed that sexuality onto her. I've seen a few toddlers in little triangle top bikinis, but I don't see that as an act that sexualizes them at all since it's just another form of clothing and their young age indicates that they have probably not started developing sexually yet. I could also understand that it might cause young girls to start worrying about appearance at too early an age, but isn't it really society sending those sorts of messages to children as opposed to the fact that they're wearing bikinis? I'm genuinely curious to hear other points of view, specifically the reasoning behind why it would be inappropriate for young children to wear bikini tops. There was a lot of opposition in an askreddit thread towards giving toddlers bikinis, but most commenters shot down the idea without actually explaining why.  please","conclusion":"I believe that it is OK for toddlers to wear bikinis and that this does not oversexualize them,"}
{"id":"4b9fb782-970e-4760-9a01-c446f50fcf25","argument":"Since every women needs them. Since the price is the same for everyone this means that lower income brackets spend more of their income in terms of percentage.","conclusion":"This would benefit the vulnerable in society most and remove the burden of cost from them."}
{"id":"e91de4a1-2706-4aec-8938-e1fe1df6cb0c","argument":"Imagine with Asset Voting for a single candidate, that the major parties have a private agreement that they will not negotiate with minor parties. Then the minor parties are shut out and can do nothing unless together they get the plurality of votes.","conclusion":"The major parties may restrict ballot access for minor parties, making it impossible to vote for them."}
{"id":"a2078dd2-22eb-460b-b70e-0bc81f8bbcfb","argument":"The UN gives the independent NGO \"UNWatch Special Consultative Status. This includes access to proceedings and allotted time to talk. UNWatch's mission statement is to to \"monitor the performance of the United Nations by the yardstick of its own Charter\".","conclusion":"The UN is open and self-critical of it's shortcomings, and regularly takes steps to improve."}
{"id":"97fce6f3-851a-4a88-a6fa-bbb82bb6373e","argument":"Don't assume anything about me yet. I know the title sounds bad. Please hear me out and help me with an alternative. I am a girl, and also a feminist. I'm a bit new to reddit, but I heard it's a bit misconstrued here. For me, much of feminism is recognizing and respecting women, not all about equal treatment but about fair treatment, since some of the needs of a man and woman are different. The needs of everyone are different, as a matter of fact. So, I promise I am not trying to assume the matriarchy or degrade women, especially as one myself. I'm all for equal pay, since I feel that equal pay enables men and women to live independent lives if they so choose. I'm young, but I'm scared that I can't make a living for myself no matter my education, I won't be able to live an independent life if I choose, and will end up relying on men or just not myself I just want a choice to be equally independent because they make the money given that they make more money. Now, women's necessities, are expensive. Bras, pads and tampons, birth control, clothing of low quality, that falls apart, so we have to go back and buy more , and even more even without a baby. Men need similar things, too, like haircuts, but they're often more expensive for women. I call those things necessities because, for the average woman in the US, they guarantee the minimum comfort for life. Add in how most people want to fit in societal norms, then even more than those necessities are needed to live a decent life. Usually, woman can be expected to wear makeup and jewelry, which are bought. Sure, women don't have to fit in those norms, but the tradeoff is being socially unacceptable which makes it hard to still live a normal life. With the cost of being a woman being so high, I'd really hope for equal pay, not less pay. Men have their problems, too, so ideally men and women are paid equally given the job work experience situation is the same. I don't like asking men to take the burden for women's needs, because that's unfair for men. Yet, splitting a bill equally at a date between a girl and a boy seems unfair for the girl in the typical situation. I don't want to perpetuate my own lack of independence by being dependent. As long as there is equal respect all around, I think it's morally fair, even obliged, for a guy in a relationship to pay for a girl because the odds are against her. Maybe when there's equal pay, I'll morally agree to splitting any costs between relationships marriages. Please prove me wrong. Edit DISCLAIMER I believe in this theoretically. In my real life, whoever has money on them pays. More accurately, no one really cares that much about who pays because whoever didn't pay would get a chance to pay in a later purchase of whatever so it evens out. Also, I suppose the use of being in a relationship is optional for this conversation. It's mostly about moral obligations monetarily compensating for social disadvantages. Don't take it for anything more.","conclusion":"I reluctantly believe that, for now, a guy should pay more for the girl in relationships."}
{"id":"7d87b09a-c3d1-4476-ad83-f5d04e509d4f","argument":"I believe Iran is attempting to achieve nuclear weapons capability. Countries, probably the US and Israel, spent years developing viruses like Stuxnet to sabotage the Iranian nuclear facilities. Why bother with all that work and funding if their intelligence revealed Iran's nuclear research to be peaceful? Likely the US and Israel have intelligence that we aren't privy to that is causing concern. One possibility is that they are seriously concerned about Iran arming a proxy, affiliate, or third party like Hezbollah with nuclear weapons capabilities. The IAEA in the past has accused Iran of researching the development of nuclear weapons. Iran has a lot of enemies and nuclear weapons capability would give Iran large defensive and offensive military advantages.","conclusion":"I believe Iran is attempting to achieve nuclear weapons capability -"}
{"id":"84954021-40d7-4a76-9281-bccc0993da0d","argument":"The second amendment states gt A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. The reason to have an independent militia is because the police will always outnumber a few outliers murderers if they are equally armed, and still be able to stop murders, but are unable to stop a popular uprising say, to undo a coup . However, if the police have assault rifles and citizens have nothing, they will be able to oppress the general population. ^ see ^DPRK A good example is the American Revolution. Since the American militias were somewhat equally armed than the British, who acted as a police, they were able to throw off their oppressors. A common argument is that the Second Amendment was created before assault rifles and didn't consider them. However, because they emphasize the militia to be well regulated in relation to the police , since the police scale up to assault rifles, the militias must too. Therefore, citizens should be roughly equally armed as the police, therefore, assault weapons should be legal. To elaborate, I don't think citizens should use Tomahawk missiles. Why? Because the police do not, the military does, and the military and police serve fundamentally different goals. .","conclusion":"Individual citizens should be allowed to own assault rifles or any other weapon the police uses on a somewhat large scale."}
{"id":"29ee4bc8-9998-4c00-86e3-a01afa81141b","argument":"Let me lay out the evidence 1 in nature, it\u2019s dog eat dog. 2 human history is a history of violence and greed So when I say cruel what do I mean? 1 some people in society will suffer, die, spend their lives alone. Society doesn\u2019t care about them at all. Society is happy they die So why do I care? I think I\u2019m one of the doomed I think some people might want to tell me that this is not true because where they are people are not cruel, then I think if that is true you should be able to pass this test are there losers in your society? Oh, everyone has money you say? Well what about social status? Or some other kind of status? What happens to the losers? The cruelty free answer is no, or that the losers are not doomed. Here are some views and additional thoughts that are related to or that come from this view, but I\u2019d prefer to argue this view itself rather than argue about any of these things 1 tribalism racism is good 2 society will become more competitive and cruel as the population increases. We literally will not be able to feed everyone, and so we must agree that some people are not worthy of life. This to me is terrible. That last point seems like an irrefutable proof to me.","conclusion":"society is now and always will be\/should be cruel"}
{"id":"317ae38b-920b-4390-96ec-bcc8e1d1f6a9","argument":"In the 21st century, with the separation between church and state, the monarch's power emanates from national constitutions rather than divine legitimacy","conclusion":"Monarchies are an imperial relic of an elitist past, a bygone age that has no place in the 21st century."}
{"id":"3d8ced92-6004-4627-bfa2-813462993f80","argument":"In the past a disabled child was an unfortunate occurrence that could not be avoided. To mitigate the cost of this risk disability insurance was developed to spread the cost. Now with prenatal testing and selective abortion this risk can be avoided. Those who refuse testing and abortion are increasing the cost of disability. Unemployment insurance mitigates the risk of losing your job but you cannot collect if you quit your job. Home insurance mitigates the risk of fire damage but you cannot collect for arson. While denying disability benefits may be seen to harm the child, this is similar to denying school attendance to children who are not vaccinated in that it creates incentives for parents to make the responsible choice. From gt We will eventually get to the point where identifying disability pre natally\u2013or even before you get pregnant, in the case of genetic screening\u2013will be so common, and the steps to avoid disability so easy, people will wonder why someone chooses the harder road. And they will also ask, if you make the choice to go down the harder road, why do we have to pay the costs that result? EDIT my view has been partially changed, private disability insurance should deny benefits to disabled children whose birth was not avoided but public disability insurance should deny benefits to disabled children where the costs exceed the benefits.","conclusion":"parents who deliberately create a disabled child should be denied disability benefits"}
{"id":"11283442-9146-450e-baf7-886ea4f9dee0","argument":"The majority of developed world humans do not donate money to help humans in life-threatening situations, but rather use the money for more conspicuous consumption, e.g. buying the newest phone.","conclusion":"There are countless examples throughout history and also in today's society, where a human life and its safety, are not considered as being of the highest importance."}
{"id":"e83dcee3-18f0-467e-802b-1b48b7062188","argument":"Angst filled autobiography below Abandon all those who value a non reading status As per the requirements, I will give you a bit of background here Throughout my entire life of 19 years, I have been nothing but a blubbering mess of a failure. I am morbidly obese, I procrastinate on every thing that I do, and I don't participate in any hobbies at least, not anymore . I believe, as was aforementioned, that the only thing that I can look forward to in life is complete and utter failure in which I live a difficult, miserable life, and die at a young age. Allow me to go into more detail Ever since I was in grade school, I have procrastinated on every thing that I have done. I can not think of a single major thing i which I have done in a timely matter. I have procrastinated on school work, I have procrastinated in my senior project, I procrastinate in my job, I procrastinate in my studies, I procrastinate in starting my weight loss, I procrastinate in EVERYTHING. The only time that I ever act is when I am in the danger zone for example, I did the mass of my senior project 2 nights before it was due. I don't know what it is like to not procrastinate. Then, there's the weight. I weight 309 lbs 140 kilos , and I have always been big, all my life. My weight gain accelerated in high school, and any weight that I have lost I once got to 230 lbs or 103 kilos I have gained back, notably after life changing events. When my step father committed suicide, I ballooned to 330 lbs 150 kilos . I got down to 286 lbs 130 kilos in June, but since I moved to university in August, I have gained around 30 lbs. There has been a price for this obesity. I have pretty severe asthma, which I have to take daily medications for, I get very tired whenever I move a distance, I'm sore and tired pretty much all the time, I get bodily cysts regularly, and I know that I will live a short life. I know that for the most part, it is my fault, and yet I have done nothing about it. I say that I have tried, but I haven't. Moving on, this affects any kind of social or love life. I am still a virgin at 19 still young I know, but still , I've only been kissed once, but that girl dumped me without explanation around the same time my step father committed suicide. This was 4 years ago, I haven't had any relationship since then. I've tried to meet up with some women since I moved to university, but around the time I go to meet them, they cancel, and I blame myself. Whenever I hear stories about sex and love life and all that, I boil with rage for myself. I talk down to myself, saying, Why haven't you had sex yet? Why haven't you had a relationship since you were thinner? Why are you such a social outcast? Most of the time, I am by myself, I don't talk to others, and I don't try to start conversations. I almost never start conversations. All that said, I do have two very good, lifelong friends, but I haven't seen them much at all since I moved. One of them is going into the infantry in the U.S. Marines and I am terrified for him I haven't spoken to him about this. Also, I have a very loving and caring mother, but I feel like I burden her. These are the only people who I feel like I can talk to in real life if I told any of this to anyone else, especially my father and his side of the family, they would talk down on me and tell me to Buck up . Since my mother and father divorced when I was 6, I haven't held a real relationship with him, but he has tried, and it is my fault. Let's move on to money. I used to be so good with money, whenever I wanted something, I saved for it, and then I bought it. Now that I have money, and I job, I am fucking terrible with it. 99 percent of my purchases is food. When I started in university, I have 1500 dollars saved. Now I have a little more than 600 dollars. All on goddamn food that I didn't need to buy I have a meal plan at my school that has been paid for. I tell myself that I am going to save for what I want, but using a debit card is so easy when you are hungry bored. 900 wasted dollars in 3 months on food. Let's speak on hobbies, or a lack thereof. I used to have hobbies. I loved to draw when I was in junior high and in high school. I drew in MS Paint, and I was NSFW fairly decent at it . Heck, for the longest time, I planned on majoring in graphic design. But, since about 2011, I haven't drawn anything. Like, anything. I don't think I've even opened MS Paint since early 2012. I just up and stopped one day. I haven't even attempted to draw since then, and even if I did, I probably wouldn't be anywhere near as good as I used to be. I used to enjoy playing video games too, but I haven't done that at all since August. I've always wanted to learn how to play an instrument, and I've even gone as far as buying some of the instruments, but I never pick them up to try to play more than once, even though I know in the back of my mind that I want to learn how to play. I have no hobbies now, all I do all day following classes is browse the internet aimlessly all day, eat, lie in bed, and stay silent. Anything a class ends, I just go straight to my room, and lie in bed doing aimless browsing. I occasionally do homework when I have waiting too long, and they are probably due the next day, but beyond that, nothing. I used to be pretty engaged in volunteer work, too. I helped with Habitat for Humanity, Red Cross, and I, as my high schools Beta Club president, I started an initiative for us to adopt a highway, although I graduated before I could participate in a cleanup. But now, nothing. It's just, wake up late, go to classes, eat, go to my room and grovel, rinse and repeat. I'm not taking advantage of the amazing gift that I have been given I have been given a full scholarship to my university , and I'm making shitty grades. I don't feel like I'm learned anything, probably due to the fact that I procrastinate and never read any materials, I am continuing to gain large amounts of weight and overeat, I am engaging in none of the activities that I used to love, and overall, I generally hate what I am and perhaps on a larger scale, I hate myself. Because of this long list of facts, I feel like that only thing that I am look forward to in life is failure and then death. tl dr I am an obese, procrastinating, girlfriend less, antisocial, inactive, and hobby less person, and because of this, I feel that my life is destined to failure.","conclusion":"I believe that my life is destined for nothing by failure and an early death, please"}
{"id":"71d6bc21-9038-43d0-adb2-cf91d2c162d3","argument":"Edit Thanks for all the info I'll put this to good use. I believe in a democracy I just wanted other view points for a book I'm planning While pure democracy or communism have advantages and fascism is well fascism an oligarchy is superior. Trump winning the presidency while I know not through popular vote, through a form of oligarchy was tragic I believe a solution would be to have a leader elected by proper, well educated politicians perhaps political philosopher? with a constant threat of replacement. Have sectors of government eg transport, health etc and the head of all of them cast votes on candidates, who volunteer, who are from these sectors. Have the head of each sector be under a similar system. People don't know what they want, they're not educated enough. They vote on parties like they're teams or due to family ideals. We don't have the patient or patients family instruct a doctor on how or what to preform, we leave such a delicate task to the professional. Running a country is like a surgery depending on the circumstances it may not be too demanding but other times you have the patient die in your hands.","conclusion":"A non-plutocratic oligarchy is the most viable form of governing"}
{"id":"e8c81d32-d25f-427b-a019-3d1ba3f4b34b","argument":"Peter Pettigrew stayed hidden for twelve years by living as the Weasley family's pet rat, Scabbers.","conclusion":"Animagi are able to masquerade as animals unbeknown to other wizards."}
{"id":"79443d8e-357f-40f7-ae55-e06cafcdbd31","argument":"Conscientious objection is not only used by Christian doctors. A survey in the US found that only 40.2% of Jewish doctors said they would perform an abortion, compared with, 1.2% of Evangelical Protestants, 9% of Roman Catholics or Eastern Orthodox, 20% of Hindus and 26.5% of doctors who said they had no religious affiliation. The low percentages demonstrated in all these groups show that conscientious objection is used by a range of religious and non-religious people.","conclusion":"Most religions have stipulations which do not allow frivolous abortions."}
{"id":"62224567-e4c3-448e-90e9-39b876d9f4c7","argument":"First off this assumes a Compatiblist view of free will. I believe that there is no natural free will. We are all chemical systems, and, as such, all decisions we make are really the inevitable result of the laws of physics. Even assuming quantum mechanics adds some amount of randomness, our actions are still the result of their nature, and not the other way around. Although this is the nature of the universe, I don't use it to inform my morality. It is just an observation of What must happen will happen. To try and derive a morality from this would be fatalistic and essentially nihilistic in its practice. Since I don't think we know what will happen, in a lot of cases, that we can pursue what ought to happen and that that will make what must happen and what ought to happen become one in the same. And it is this ability to pursue that, with a mind that FEELS independent of nature that is the important thing. As long as we FEEL we can think independently of nature, we effectively can to it. And that's all that matters The other definition of free will, our ability to take actions independent of the intent of others, and independent of impulse, is alive, although not absolute. We are all hugely the product of the manipulations of other individuals. Our parents, our friends. We can deviate from them, but often we won't through pressure, apathy, or just our brain socially indoctrinating itself to fit in with its surroundings. But, to varying degrees, we each have free will, that is a will independent of the will of others. And some wills are more free than others, but all wills are at least a LITTLE free. But, if there did exist a god with omnipotence and omniscience, then I believe that it is logically impossible for free will of that second kind to exist in a universe in which that God exists. That second kind of free will can exist because of two things 1 No will belongs to a conscious being with enough power, in either itself or the resources it controls, to completely control the will of others. 2 No will belongs to a conscious being with enough knowledge, in either itself of the resources it controls, to know how to completely control the will of others, or how its actions will effect the will of others. If either one of these conditions are met, then free will is severely compromised. And if both of these conditions are met then it is completely compromised. A God with omniscience will know EXACTLY how each of his actions is going to effect the universe upon which it acts. And if that God is also omnipotent, then he can cause anything he wishes to occur to occur exactly as he wants it. He would be able to and know exactly how to tailor the nature of any universe he creates or comes into contact with in such a way that the events he wants to unfold, must unfold exactly as he wants them to in that universe. He would not be oblivious to the consequences of any action he took, thus there could be no unintended consequences. Everything must therefore be intended by his will. But free will, as I said in the beginning of the second paragraph, is our ability to make actions that are independent of the intent of others. Therefore, free will cannot exist in a universe in which there exists a conscious will that is omniscient and omnipotent. OTHER than that of the god itself.","conclusion":"Free will cannot possibly exist in a universe in which there exists a god that is both omniscient and omnipotent."}
{"id":"9ed13575-36c2-497b-af00-59639183c646","argument":"They can make do with what they have at home, especially since all the books are accessible through an electronic device instead of bookshelf.","conclusion":"People do not need extra spaces to go to as there are other locations that can provide that."}
{"id":"2076b482-e01d-415f-9bb0-9464a0f8ad35","argument":"This will give humanity a fresh start like a second chance to remove the negative aspects of society and implement new capabilities like technology to live with a better quality-of-life.","conclusion":"Colonizing Mars provides an opportunity to test out various utopian ideals."}
{"id":"79e47f90-d19f-4411-9bac-f024ed33a3c0","argument":"A friend of mine recently said that he resented his parents for encouraging a sense of ambition and creativity and big ideas, as it opened his mind and gave him an 'anything is possible' view of the world. Now he's stuck in crap unfulfilling jobs and living on the cusp of poverty, and feels bitter that he was lied to. The more I think about what he said, the more I think he's right. Unless you're wealthy and or well connected and this is especially true in the UK, where I'm from , you're point blank lying to your kid if you fill their head with such stuff. You're essentially setting them up for a lifetime of disappointment. How horrible. How cruel. It might seem cold or brutal, but wouldn't it be better in the long run to tell your kids the truth that the world is designed to keep you down, and that it's better to grasp that idea while you're young than grow up and wonder 'what the hell happened'? I know it's satire, but this Onion piece hits the nail on the head for me","conclusion":"Telling your children to \"follow your dreams\" or \"you can be whatever you want to, if you just work hard enough\" or similar is instilling false hope, and is at best cruel and at worst sadistic."}
{"id":"e351ce49-4b59-45e0-9d01-7450beaf08f7","argument":"Anger fuels war Without this emotion, it is likely nations would make more objective decisions.","conclusion":"Wars to increase a society's living standards would not happen anymore."}
{"id":"badaa35b-3ad2-49ce-8dae-d31e864404bd","argument":"A highly-representative electoral system that selects by consensus can enhance total representation. Nonpartisan blanket primaries using a proportional method followed by general elections using a Condorcet method will identify the common consensus candidate. This incorporates all votes into the final selection and represents the electorate as a whole, rather than exclusively representing some plurality of voters, majority of EC.","conclusion":"The electoral college system results in unfair outcomes for voters."}
{"id":"b2176e11-62db-49fb-aafb-594e396a3667","argument":"National holidays tend to be some of the busiest days for restaurants, which see them as an opportunity to earn greater profits.","conclusion":"It can be harder for people employed in the service industry to take time off on a national holiday."}
{"id":"bfd924b6-2c17-4c21-acc6-d01451661f2e","argument":"Religious rules are the main source of contemporary laws and in some cases contributed to democracy.","conclusion":"Most of today's cultures and remaining world heritage are due to religions."}
{"id":"65c3c965-ad46-41ac-af4e-f33f53ad69be","argument":"Thanks for reading. In our 2 countries, anyone is free to believe and express whatever they want as long as they don't invite violence basically . I realize USA and Canada are slightly different in that respect holocaust denial being legal in USA but illegal in Canada, etc but for the most part our legal protections of belief and expression are very close. I don't like that 'religion' has special status, since it is simply an ideology like any other except adds the supernatural. Other ideologies like communism and capitalism are still protected in the sense that one can adhere to them without discrimination, right? I'm not sure Anyways there are many religions that I personally consider harmful in my opinion. Scientology, the people's church, Jehovah's witnesses, heaven's gate, whatever We have people demanding to wear collanders on their heads in driver's licence photos because they are from the church of the spaghetti monster. I have no problem with accommodating within reason, but our other laws against bigotry preserve all human rights without a need for legal protection of all ideologies that claim to be a 'religion'. I understand this law is borne of the context of bloody European sectarian Christian inquisitions and persecutions of various denominations and sects but in my view this law is now anachronistic . I'm sorry for the rambling post, it's Saturday evening Thanks very much for reading, have a lovely weekend, and please  or get on board","conclusion":"'Freedom of Religion' should be excised from the constitution of America\/Canada I'm Canadian as we already have freedom of belief and speech"}
{"id":"a3f35a92-a754-444d-b5c9-e54f1c9d6163","argument":"To start out with, it's not necessarily that I advocate that everybody uses performance enhancing drugs. Some all? have negative side effects that you certainly should be cognizant of before using. However, especially in professional sports, players already subject themselves to pretty brutal conditions. Football players specifically can shorten their lifespan by playing. My point here is, why shouldn't the players have a choice in the matter? Are we worried about the integrity of the game? Well, if everyone has an opportunity to do it and nothing is kept secret about it, what integrity is ruined? As it is, there are supplements that players can take that are legal. What if those legal supplements help a player get the edge he needs, but another player doesn't know about those supplements? What difference does that make? Please help me understand this.","conclusion":"I believe that it should be legal for all athletes to use performance enhancing drugs."}
{"id":"09a03776-ebdb-4f3d-9dd2-9c7c9d63b978","argument":"I know this sounds melodramatic, but growing up and experiencing what I have so far I really don\u2019t think there is a point to living to an old age. I\u2019ve seen marriages fall apart, I\u2019ve seen and been abused by other people that I hardly even have connections too, and I always see people taking advantage of each other without much thought of hurting them. Maybe its because I haven\u2019t actually experienced a family or a proper relationship, but the future doesn\u2019t look too pleasing. This isn\u2019t because I\u2019m in a bad situation or I have nothing going for me, I\u2019m in a field of my choice and very content with it, I\u2019ve just eventually reached this conclusion and I need help changing it or I fear I won\u2019t really live to enjoy the benefits of old age.","conclusion":"I think that there is no point living past 30 years old."}
{"id":"5141bcdd-ba1e-45b8-88a0-af1c7f9fe052","argument":"I think that the wii u is the best current gen console on the market including gaming PCs. The total number of wii u exclusives with metascores over 50 is 23 not including the 367 wii exclusives which are playable on a Wii u but I won't research the metascore of all of them . Compare that to the 9 XB1 exclusives and the 6 PS4 exclusives above 50 numbers from wikipedia and metacritic . Of course, PCs have many more exclusives including steam, flash games, etc. that I won't count the metascores of, but gaming PCs are extremely expensive. Combine that with the high likelihood that a person will have a computer in the first place that can run almost all PC games Graphics don't matter at all and it seems that a Wii u is the best choice. EDIT When I was mentioning PCs, I meant that gaming PCs aren't worth it. I think an average PC or dare I say a mac is a better buy than a 500 1000 gaming PC.","conclusion":"The best choice for gamers at the moment is a Wii U. The PS4, XB1, and a gaming PC are not worth the money."}
{"id":"1c14788c-a381-4765-8645-3ae80577ef8a","argument":"I honestly can't see why or how people get so obsessed with watching sports. I get that actually playing them is exercise a good character building opportunity way to make friends, etc., but getting WAY into a major league team? I don't understand the stat memorization how are these even measured anyway? . I don't understand the rivalries what makes a rivalry between two teams? . I don't understand the OUR team WE won mentality but it wasn't you that did it, it was the team that's on TV that did it . Last Super Bowl, I was invited to a SB party by my co workers. We're all friends where I work, so I said sure. About halfway through the second quarter my patience was totally spent and I was literally starting to fall asleep with my head resting on my fist. It was the same players in the same uniforms running across a green field the entire time. Sometimes there was an impressively made touchdown, but those were few and far between amidst all the NOTHING there was in between each play. Why is there so much dead time between plays in Football, or pitches in Baseball? Seriously, there's like a solid 40 seconds of everyone standing around doing what looks like nothing before they get into position for the next play. And when the player holding the ball immediately gets tackled and the timer stops again? God, just COME ON. Fortunately for me, it turns out the majority of the other people weren't that into the game either and, like me, saw it as an excuse to just hang out and chat. So, sports enthusiasts of Reddit, please explain what exactly you get out of watching games day after day, weekend after weekend, I truly wish to understand.","conclusion":"I think sports are incredibly boring to follow and watch."}
{"id":"2d465d48-59c9-4f55-9305-cde642d93c12","argument":"A fine is a minor inconvenience in comparison to their belief that their child's health will be irrevocably damaged because of a vaccine.","conclusion":"If parents fear serious health complications should they vaccinate their child, potentially having to pay a fee won't change their mind."}
{"id":"c1580be8-44e6-4184-9025-8bd52ab95fc3","argument":"I have always thought we should be consistent as possible throughout the world. I'm going to do my side of the argument through a series of statements below to lead to a conclusion. If you agree with it, move to the one below it. If not than comment why you don't agree and attempt to . 1 Having as little confusion as possible between people is good. 2 Even if some people know all of the time zones perfectly there will be some who don't know them and have to look up the diffence and figure it out every time there is somthing outside of their zone. 3 This one is the least solid probably The lack difference in Time Zones would not cause a problem because most people know basic geography and can tell if that place is a quarter, half or three quarters from them around the world and would know if they are sleeping or not. 4 There would be no other major disadvantages to switching over to universal time. 5 Ok, you should agree that we should move to universal time if you got down to here. Thanks for reading, if you disagree with anything above than please leave a comment to .","conclusion":"Everyone should be on one time zone to avoid confusion"}
{"id":"9a0f9413-1a14-4002-ba71-8ea416dd8020","argument":"There are two possibilities for these two fallacies My schools taught me them wrong and were too broad They genuinely can be easily misused To clarify, my teachers taught me that ad hominem with an example like The weatherman was wrong yesterday, why would he be right today? and a fallacy fallacy to be What you just said was fallacious, therefore I'm right. While sometimes this is good, and just because someone was wrong once doesn't mean they'll be wrong again, and someone might be right even if they got there fallaciously, they could run amuck like this For ad hominem, if someone got their information from the Onion , they probably aren't right. For the Fallacy Fallacy, I should be able to say That was kinda fallacious, not all Mexican immigrants are criminals, not even a good sized amount are You cannot make a claim based solely on a generalization or a stereotype Couldn't find a broad example for when the Fallacy Fallacy isn't fallacious, so I used the first example I came up with. I have not researched how many Mexican Immigrants are criminals","conclusion":"The Ad Hominem and Fallacy Fallacies aren't fallacies"}
{"id":"614cf312-2547-4235-aaa5-b6b62ded8913","argument":"Some common arguments I hear against this are But the library pays for its copy. So does the original seeder of a torrent. The number of people who use a copy is far greater than the number of copies that were paid for in both cases. Only one person can borrow a book from a library at a time, whereas any number of people can download a torrent. That's true, but unlike music, you're not going to be reading a book every day. You borrow it once, and then you're done with it. Consider the parallel to video games. If you torrent a single player game, you'll probably play it once and then be done with it, which means you could have gotten it out of a library with no difference at all. Either way, you're receiving something while paying nothing. But you do pay for libraries through taxes. Well, you also pay for internet access. In both cases, there's some physical infrastructure that needs to be built and maintained, but once that's done, you can use it to access any amount of information with no additional charge. Authors give permission to have their books lent out at libraries, but artists don't give permission to have their content shared online. I'm pretty sure they don't ask each individual author if they're okay with having their books lent out at a library. It's just assumed that they are, because libraries are so accepted. If libraries weren't accepted and someone proposed them, the exact same arguments that are made against filesharing would be made against them. Stop trying to justify yourself and just admit that you're a thief Let's just avoid the ad hominims altogether, shall we? In the end, libraries and filesharing operate on the exact same principle, except filesharing is more efficient. If people understood this, the opposition to filesharing would vanish.","conclusion":"I believe anyone who supports libraries has no grounds to oppose filesharing."}
{"id":"6608f71c-ced9-4c21-bcb5-8aa5093a9e89","argument":"70% of women who claim to have been sexually assulated in the workplace did not report it.","conclusion":"Statistics indicate that we still don't have gender equality."}
{"id":"f9797301-95be-4432-a952-7a4d053749d5","argument":"In general, it is easy to find, recruit, and deploy women who are in better shape than many men we send into combat. If a level performance target is set across genders, it would not be difficult to find women who could meet these standards, even if the proportion of women capable of doing so may be smaller. The key point is that some women would be capable of meeting these standards, thus making it unjustified that all women should be banned from combat service on the basis of lower physically abilities compared to men.","conclusion":"Many military women are more physically capable of meeting performance targets then men in combat roles."}
{"id":"dd79fa0a-c7d8-410f-b44c-deef899bff64","argument":"I can't imagine the horror of being separated from my family, and the devastation of losing my income while not working. Short scheduled visits with my family would seem like visitation that prisoners get. What if the other jurors I am forced to live with are complete jerks? I can't imagine the burden on my husband of having to care for our young children on his own. I can't believe sequestered juries are allowed to happen","conclusion":"I believe sequestering a jury is as bad as false imprisonment and should not be allowed to happen."}
{"id":"c836adf3-81d4-4171-8281-af01025f1551","argument":"Religion gives ethics based on what people claim interpret what god said, potentially thousands of years ago and through multiple translations.","conclusion":"Teaching kids religious ethics could prevent them from learning philosophical ethics."}
{"id":"34934a3f-888f-4e3a-a0d1-2709b380cf49","argument":"Whether that system is a public option that competes with private insurers or a single payer system which I am leaning toward , I'm not completely sure. But what I am sure of is that a Universal Healthcare system is the only option on the table that will yield the best outcomes. All of the highest ranked healthcare systems in the world are Universal Healthcare systems, including every single developed country in the world besides the US. 1 2 We already cover the most expensive population group, senior citizens, with a single payer healthcare system, Medicare. Medicare is one of the most popular government programs and taking it away would be political suicide. Private healthcare simply does not achieve the outcomes Universal Healthcare does. Our own single payer program, Medicare, is much more efficient than our private insurers when it comes to administrative costs. 1 Universal Healthcare also has no need to make a profit. Private healthcare systems do, so they do what ever they can to save money, and there are many stories of people being completely fucked over by private insurance companies. I think it is pointless to try and tweak our own private system in an attempt to lower prices when we know a system exists that will provide better outcomes and cover 100 of the population. Meanwhile there is not a single example of a working private healthcare system, and ours leaves tens of millions of Americans uninsured. There is no such thing as medical bankruptcy in countries with Universal Healthcare. But in the US, this is one of the leading causes of bankruptcy. There are also tens of thousands of deaths every year due to a lack of health coverage in this country. In countries with universal healthcare, that number is zero. I'd also like to hear what system you think is a better option if you disagree with Universal Healthcare. Every system has flaws, so pointing out flaws in a Universal Healthcare system does not debunk it or prove that we shouldn't switch to that system.","conclusion":"The United States must switch to one form or another of a Universal Healthcare system."}
{"id":"2b44c99b-2f7b-4b13-84d1-4848c4636cd6","argument":"According to the US-based Foundation for Biomedical Research, 'animal research has played a vital role in virtually every major medical advance of the last century - for both human and veterinary health. From antibiotics to blood transfusions, from dialysis to organ transplantation, from vaccinations to chemotherapy, bypass surgery and joint replacement, practically every present-day protocol for the prevention, treatment, cure and control of disease, pain and suffering is based on knowledge attained through research with lab animals.' Without such testing, most, if not all of these procedures that save thousands of lives and elevate the pain of millions of people would simply not be possible. Just a few of the many named examples of the advances made possible through animal testing include source: Foundation of Biomedical Research: Smallpox eradication testing with cows Polio eradication in the developed world mouse & monkey Availability of insulin fish & dog Tetanus vaccines horse Rubella vaccines monkey AIDS treatment monkey","conclusion":"Animal research has played a vital role in a great many of the major medical advances of the last century"}
{"id":"aa9c33f3-75de-482f-be58-7fb08329cc6b","argument":"If gay bars are allowed to discriminate against heterosexual individuals, then this will embolden other private business owners to discriminate against the homosexual community on a much wider scale.","conclusion":"Denying entry on the basis of sexual orientation would be illegal and discriminatory."}
{"id":"4b843b2a-5968-4ae5-b498-4b3908c28ea0","argument":"By randomly selecting lifeforms to cleanse, he didn't take into account what the planets needed. All he did was halve the problem.","conclusion":"While his cleansing was egalitarian, it did nothing to improve the universe."}
{"id":"ee63f6c1-7bd9-46a2-a92f-5262df70cbf4","argument":"Kamala Harris' extensively rehearsed, set piece \"\u201cThat little girl was me\" attack on Biden during the first primary debate looked calculating and unprincipled, and that could hurt her chances with voters in a general election who take it as a reason to doubt her motivations and credibility.","conclusion":"Harris' vicious attacks on Biden might gain her attention from the small fraction of Democratic voters that identify as very liberal, but they're not enough to win her the nomination and her smears risk undermining the party's chances of unseating the incumbent president."}
{"id":"fc83ec56-c552-479e-ae5b-87947ce8d114","argument":"While I do not consider myself atheist, I have removed myself from practicing a religion as I have come to believe organized religion is inherently bad for the human race and has had a deleterious impact on the world despite its good intentions. Here\u2019s a laundry list of negatives that can be attributed to various organized religions War According to The Encyclopedia of War, over 100 wars have been fought in human history with religion as the root cause. Examples include The Crusades, Syrian civil war, Israeli Palestinian conflict, Iraq Afghanistan 9 11, Protestants vs Catholics in Northern Ireland. Millions of people have been killed fighting over religion with entire countries torn apart. Sexual Abuse The Catholic Church has been the worst offender by far, but every major religious movement has sexual abuse scandals in its history. Patriarchy Religion is one of the biggest driving forces behind the Patriarchy. Obviously Islam is one big patriarchy, but Christianity also perpetuates it. How many women have forced themselves to stay in abusive toxic relationships because of their religion? Burning witches at the stake? Stoning adulteresses? Not great. At BYU, a woman who is raped can be charged with an honor code offense because she is never supposed to be in a room alone with a man. Homosexuality Despite progress being made with most western religions, homophobia is still a toxic presence in the world. Has led to countless people committing suicide, teens being exiled by their fundamentalist parents, murders, hate crimes, etc. Non religious people do not preach hate against the LGBT community, but my wife quit going to her bible study group after hearing women refer to homosexuality as an \u201cabomination.\u201d Corruption and financial crimes the Vatican bank President was indicted for embezzlement and money laundering earlier this year. The Catholic Church has had numerous issues with dirty money over the years not unexpected when it is the wealthiest organization in the world . Prominent evangelical pastors make millions off their parishioners and continue to receive favorable tax status. Slavery Throughout history, the Bible has repeatedly been used to justify enslaving other people. Forced conversions Native Americans endured some atrocious acts at the hands of the colonizers. I\u2019m sure I am missing other negatives. On the plus side, religious organizations have funded plenty of charitable causes. That being said, wealthy secular individuals also can and do fund massive charities all over the world without being tied to religion in any way. I do believe there were good intentions with organized religion, but the human tendency to form tribal groups and view everyone else as an enemy and the ease with which we are corrupted by money and power have made organized religion a net negative force in the history of man. Change my view","conclusion":"Organized religion has had a net negative effect on humanity"}
{"id":"06ababd2-f5f6-4d95-b17a-438043a9506c","argument":"While it is true that nuclear energy does compete with renewables, it should be noted that fossil fuels are equally competitors. In so far as fossil fuels contribute to global warming and nuclear energy does not, therefore, fossil fuels are the real enemy of renewables.","conclusion":"Fossil fuels, not nuclear, are the real enemies of renewables."}
{"id":"ce47dd64-d99e-4e16-a1d9-196ddfe38ec7","argument":"I understand the argument that people want to celebrate not being massively oppressed anymore and to recognise the work that generations before did for equal rights. However, surely pride events nowadays do more harm than good? For example the one in London, tube stations, cars, streets covered in flags, rainbows, and people walking around topless and the whole thing being very 'pushy' or in your face. This just makes the concept of being gay less normal. It creates an obvious separation between straight and normal and if there were no pride events, or they were more reserved, it would seem much more normal in society to be gay as people don't make it seem like a big thing. Akin to this is stuff like coming out, if people attach such a stigma to it that it's a huge thing and make a massive deal about it, it becomes less normal. If you just act like being gay is normal, it becomes more normal in society m","conclusion":"Gay Pride harms equality more than it helps it"}
{"id":"41f347a5-cec7-4eff-85f4-e282eb9c58f2","argument":"If using PEDs becomes normalised, the drive to win, or coercion from others, could motivate athletes to go beyond the recommended medical advice in order to get ahead of their competitors.","conclusion":"Legalising steroids would force all athletes to take steroids if they wanted to remain competitive."}
{"id":"9cd73515-89e9-4a49-9853-a200c90fd8ec","argument":"A society with no gender constructions would require the authoritarian elimination of the expression of such biologically induced gender constructions. Forcibly preventing naturally occuring expressions of gender would not lead to a better society","conclusion":"Gender is an intrinsic part of humanity and cannot be removed."}
{"id":"5aa49776-73fc-4a89-9f36-3b9753209757","argument":"I personally feel more productive with a plain non rolling chair that has elbow rests. It forces me to keep my back and neck straight, which isn't uncomfortable and doesn't require constant re adjustment. This could be just me, but please  that a non rolling chair is optimal for productivity for the average person assuming that there's no other stations for you to frequently move between in your work space because it forces you to maintain a good, comfortable posture and keeps you glued to your work. I also find that rolling desk chairs do require some level of 'stabilization' which is not noticeable over time but could be subconsciously irritating. The ability to recline could also tempt slacking. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"non-rolling desk chairs are optimal for productivity and long-term postural health"}
{"id":"10f5599c-d10b-4db6-a1bb-f36485ac9bb6","argument":"I get frustrated by the subcultures that form around ideas. I first noticed it as a Christian in church where Christians do not just have a set of beliefs but will dress, act, and talk a certain way. For example a Christian might start a discussion about where they are in their walk with God and how they've been washed in the blood and what does that mean unless you know about Jesus? Or maybe when we begin a discussion about philosophy we'll all sit in our armchairs with a cup of coffee and start sounding like an old college professor giving a lecture. Or in Buddhist circles there is the continued use of old pali words in regular discussion and none of it makes any sense unless you google every other word. Or in an office environment, I'll use a mission statement generated from to explain We interactively build holistic catalysts for change in order to continue to professionally fashion long term high impact meta services for the highest standards. So I guess my focus is more around vocabulary, but I feel like when we're communicating with people outside of these groups we talk in a way that makes sense, but once a discussion begins around the topic, we change. We shift into a mode where it gets really hard to have a conversation unless you've been involved with that group for some time. I hope what I'm saying is making sense. I'm trying to point out that by identifying and taking on and identifying with these little cultures surrounding these ideas, the idea becomes more difficult to spread when accepting it means accepting the culture as well. If being patriotic means having a decal of a bald eagle on the back of your pick up truck, maybe being patriotic seems a little dorky. But maybe you can change my view, if I even made any sense.","conclusion":"The subcultures surrounding ideas act as barriers to the spread of ideas"}
{"id":"154526f3-e210-491e-b2ce-a52d3d540d8d","argument":"Rich governments and industry will devote their resources to geoengineering instead of helping the global South fend off the chaos ahead. ETC, The CaseAgainst Geoengineering www.cbd.int","conclusion":"Might aggravate the situation of those who are globally worse off. Cited as Rawls by Betz www.argunet.org"}
{"id":"124ee67b-656a-40d0-b22b-233ae47cb8d9","argument":"The Payments Council made an announcement to the effect that by 2018 cheques would be dead. Making paper payments is no longer viable in the 21st Century. There are very few shops that accept cheques these days. Compare this dwindling figure to the number of shops which are making provisions so that they can take card behind their tills. Even local corner shops are implementing card technology. The paying of bills used to be a matter of sending cheques in the post, now people set up direct debits to pay for their bills and they are encourage to do so by being offered discounts on the bill. This form of payment is quicker and more reliable. The same arguments can be made for completely replacing cash with card payments.","conclusion":"Cheques are a thing of the past, direct debits have taken over"}
{"id":"d8667904-6e5d-42c6-8b4c-18e319447a80","argument":"I would like to acknowledge that I may be biased towards this view as I grew up in a household full of domestic abuse. Although I myself was never physically hurt, I watched years go by as my mother's partners would hurt and bruise her physically. I was too young and immature to protect her, and instead was subjected to what I consider psychological abuse I was always put in the middle of these fights D Why the fuck can't you agree with me and tell your mother that she's psychotic? M Did you not see him hit me? Look at my arms and legs. They're purple. Fucking coward, stand up for me You're my son, for Christ's sakes. Back and forth, back and forth. Anyways, this indirectly relates to the topic at hand now as a fledgeling adult at the age of 21, I have an extreme abhorrence towards any kind of violence, whether it be wrestling, war, or the violent punishments my ex stepdad would give to our pets in an attempt to house train them properly. I understand that there isn't and probably will never be a unanimous view towards spanking children, but I would love to hear some of your thoughts on the matter. I acknowledge that there are well bred kids who respect authority no matter their childhood circumstances. I was never hit or touched for any bad behavior in the past, and I turned out just fine. My college roommate, on the other hand, was spanked time and time again for his misdeeds, but later grew into becoming an accomplished Eagle Scout and respectful man. I admire his character today, but we have always disagreed on the topic at hand. I just find it wholly unnecessary to treat bad behavior with physical discipline, no matter how harsh or light the hand is. I would like to draw a parallel to disciplining a new cat, where you place an emphasis on consistently rewarding good behavior using reason and logic to deconstruct and correct misdeeds with respect to children and not backhanding the cat like that fucker did. Today, witnessing physical abuse in any form makes me nauseous. TL DR Spanking should be reserved for two consenting adults only.","conclusion":"Spanking children is unnecessary and immoral."}
{"id":"197c793d-3baa-4848-86a2-b7f6d0b11f63","argument":"Capitalism incentivises lowering costs thereby making it easier for those in extreme poverty to gain access to basic necessities.","conclusion":"Capitalism makes it likelier for the poor to access resources."}
{"id":"2014ee27-e583-41d3-aafe-b8ec0f2ee53d","argument":"First off, I realize that there are rappers who are very talented. But rap music, compared to other genres, requires little musical knowledge and ability to make. Most other music genres, especially classical and jazz, require years of practice and dedication in order to even begin making music. You don't have to learn any instruments to rap. You don't have to be able to sing. You don't even have to know what a C note is. All you need to be able to do is write lyrics and speak them. Other musicians have to write lyrics, and be able to sing them in tune. They have to spend years learning an instrument and learning about music theory. I'm sure that most rappers don't know any instruments and have, at best, a rudimentary understanding of basic music theory. If they had learned these things, they probably wouldn't be making rap music.","conclusion":"I believe that, in general, rap music requires significantly less talent to make than most other genres."}
{"id":"4aee8877-027c-4c15-9c60-2fa16cefc5a9","argument":"The moral argument for the existence of God provides good evidence to believe that there is an entity like God.","conclusion":"Christian philosophers have provided good reasons to believe that there is an entity like God."}
{"id":"4d9ab18d-8842-4ad1-953a-53491e91407c","argument":"In the fall of 1827, Joseph Smith allowed William T. Hussey and Azel Vandruver to look inside the chest and see a thick canvas inside which Smith represented as covering the golden plates. After Hussey removed the canvas despite Smith's protest, the men observed a tile brick. In explanation, Smith \"claimed that his friends had been sold by a trick of his.\" Tucker 1867, 31-32","conclusion":"On at least some occasions, Joseph Smith intentionally represented a box or cloth wrapping as containing the golden plates when it did not actually contain the plates."}
{"id":"4e27ce1d-6fe8-427f-b650-1063b79105cf","argument":"The assumption of net positivity is really based on perspective. The net is positive for some, not for all. From the farmer's perspective, that short life might be worthwhile, whether for food, job, or increased quality-of-life from interacting with animals. However, the short life is not worthwhile for the animal who has a quality-of-life that people would never want.","conclusion":"A life in a factory farm is worse than no life at all."}
{"id":"41b0a762-b3b1-4bae-bb24-1ada3b8b5d99","argument":"The  pretty much puts it as clearly as possible Preferring a lighter skin tone from a sexual attraction standpoint is racist. However, it is also morally permissible to be attracted to certain physical traits over others. Why it is racist and the definition of racism I am using Racism is discrimination and prejudice towards people based on their race or ethnicity When we say that black skin is more attractive than white skin, or when we say the opposite, we are discriminating against another race for their skin tone in the context of sexual attraction. If I am on Tinder and there are many black and white girls, I am discriminating against the black girls if I solely choose the white girls because I find whiter skin to be more attractive. Same holds for vis versa. For this reason, it is considered racist in the context of sexual attraction. Why it is morally permissible Well it is morally permissible because human beings have forever been discriminating sexual partners based on physical characteristics and it has never been an issue. Physical traits are inherent to our definitions of race black people have darker skin, middle eastern people have brow skin, anglo saxons have white skin, east asian people have more slanted eyes etc. . If you find it immoral for people to discriminate sexual attraction due to physical traits, well then you have to find the following actions immoral Women finding shorter men more unattractive Finding people with certain eye colors more attractive Finding people with certain hair types more attractive None of these situations would be considered immoral to a reasonable person in my opinion. Really the crux of it is that having physical preferences in terms of sexual attraction is ok . gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Finding dark\/darker skinor having a preference for any specific physical trait tied to race is racist to an extent. It is also morally permissible as well."}
{"id":"70022f9f-33a5-4839-967e-dbdcb6e95152","argument":"So, I'm just now getting acclimated to 5e, after playing 3.5 and Pathfinder for a long time. I just noticed the item rules, where Wizards outright refused to price items because there Wouldn't be a magic shop in the general 5e mythos. I'm presenting this view with the implications being worthless in form of roleplaying and worthless from a statistical point of view This harkens back to my 3.5 and Pathfinder experience. Unless there is a magic item shop of some kind magic items are worthless. I add two caveats. Wondrous Items. Generally these are so absurdly powerful or carry such high utility innately baked in that they are self justifying. Though, there are still exceptions here. Item's whose existence is for utility or dungeoneering purposes. So maybe you have a rod of ropes, or a ring of alarm, or everlasting rations. These are still useful because they are generally unbound from a player's characterization choices. The rest however are essentially worthless. So that's Items that directly affect combat, Weapons, Armor and Shields. Why? From a roleplaying standpoint, a good deal of the time it flatout doesn't make sense. If you're a Wizard, and you slay an enemy with a named magical hammer, it doesn't make sense for a Wizard to find use from an item they've never trained with, whats more they're a wizard, which means they practice the arcane so the roleplaying applications for this type of use are limited. Similarly, a Druid wouldn't don an adamantine plate just because he found it if his entire life was predicated by the idea that wearing metals was blasphemy . Secondly and arguably more importantly, Without the ability to purchase magic items it means that the DM must reward players with magical items they can use. This cheapens the storytelling in the same capacity that having a magical item shop cheapens the storytelling. It's entirely unrealistic to assume that a group of adventurers are so fortunate as to observe that all the magical items they come by are useful to them . I'd argue that in this capacity, at least having a magic item shop infringes less on the suspension of disbelief than the absurd wave of good fortune. This directly conflicts with statistical enjoyment for players who enjoy number crunching. Just as an anecdote for this from a few years back playing 3.5 I had a Dwarf Barbarian, who was completely tailored to fighting with a two handed weapon. Sword and Board for him was not only a misuse of the build but it diminished my enjoyment because my best magical item to drop was a shield . Now the reason this is so important, is because this particular shield was a wondrous item. Hawk's Stone Bulwark . The shield had the ability to change from a shield, into a suspension bridge at the discretion of my character including in combat. So the shield in of itself began to derail combat, because it became my best damaging option, as I would just compel the shield to turn into a bridge and crush my foes underneath. As a player, there is a certain level of investment required to want to continue playing D D and this is wholly circumvented by not being able to play your character in a capacity that fits your vision. A barbarian I built to use a Two handed sword should be using a two handed sword. I should be able to find a two handed sword that is of relative though not nessecerily exact value in terms of power to Hawk's Stone Bulwark. To at least purchase. Otherwise finding items that don't fit my character's vision are as good as trash even if they are magical because they encourage deviant and disruptive play that does not coincide with the player vision of the character. Both of these in tandem detract harshly from the two primary reasons people play pen and paper games. Making magic items worthless generally speaking. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"For the most part in Dungeons and Dragons, magic items are worthless unless you can purchase them."}
{"id":"6ad2987b-2054-42bb-a80a-01780bea848a","argument":"Will try to keep this view as short and concise as possible One of my views is that violent crime statistics is the best statistic that is available today to measure against. No matter how one chooses to group people, the group that commits the most violent crime will have the most negative interactions with the police. The reason why is my view that people who commit violent crimes are more likely to physically resist police officers than people who do not commit violent crimes. This leads to another of my views, that people who resist police officers are more likely to be fatally shot by police officers. Black people, while being only 13 of the population, commit 37 of the total violent crime. Source BJS Arrest Data Analysis Tool AND US Census data Compare this to white people, who represent 77 of the population and account for 60 of the total violent crime. So, black people commit a disproportionate amount of violent crime, and as a result are disproportionately killed by the police comparing to population . When just looking at the total violent crime numbers and not accounting for population it makes sense. White people are killed the most every year by the police, and also commit the most violent crime. Black people commit the 2nd most violent crime, and also represent the 2nd most number of people being killed by the police. So, I can't find any disproportion of real significance, and I don't see any reason why violent crime statistics shouldn't be included in the discussion. I certainly agree that there is a vast opportunity to get better data, but of the data that we do have, I can't find reason to conclude black people are being disproportionately targeted by the police.","conclusion":"Have an open mind on this, but the data that's available tells me that black people are not killed by the police disproportionately"}
{"id":"d2513723-d878-4c4f-926a-d41b114a900c","argument":"If all EU MS use the euro it would lead to higher stability of the Euro.","conclusion":"All the USE states would probably use the Euro, unlike the current EU member states."}
{"id":"ac080f69-d53b-443a-a926-ef1fd52255e4","argument":"I had to read Howard Zinn for my IB history class in my senior year of high school and I hated it. Howard Zinn's book is made up of a wide array of secondary sources taken oftentimes out of context to fulfill this delusion in his head that the United States has this history of powerful cartoonish villains defeating the poor and helpless little guy every time he gets a chance. At times his analysis is correct and has merit, I actually enjoyed his chapter on the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, but for the most part he interjects bizarre marxists arguments into arenas he clearly has no business being involved in. I particularly hated his chapter on WW2 and how it was a grand conspiracy on the part of the allied leaders to make money, ignoring the fact that the German and Japanese governments were murderous and committed disgusting acts. The only value I could see in the book is that it shows how the fringe views history. But if we are gonna see how the fringe views history, why don't we read some Glenn Beck? Which is just as stupid but because it's a conservative book, isn't as trendy to read.","conclusion":"Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States is a terrible history book and should not be standard reading for High School or College students."}
{"id":"b166bb0c-f5e1-4e33-b9cb-7373f2c2c32b","argument":"In Abrahamic monotheism, God is good. But he has created a universe where his omniscience knows evil will inevitably happen and not using his omnipotence to prevent it. This therefore makes himself evil and thus cannot be God. Any theological argument that the Devil didn't create the Universe is illogical. The only possible alternative identity of this evil omniscient, omnipotent creator is therefore the Devil. Anybody who worships 'God' is instead actually giving praise to this Devil entity.","conclusion":"Monotheism does not preclude the existence of evil, insofar as some of the features of the traditional conception of God can be abandoned without rejecting the traditional conception of God in toto in its entirety."}
{"id":"df8827d8-dc1d-4264-9efe-69124cda8652","argument":"Friends of , challenge my view. I hold the belief that in the 21st and 20th centuries, Islamic extremists are more prevalent and violent because of their life conditions and circumstance. Please no Christians instigated the Inquisition rebuttals. Not because of their religion. I suspect that if their basic needs were met to a reasonable and satisfying degree food, shelter, social life, etc There would be less overall angst and they would be less susceptible to the errant extremist preying on vulnerable and disadvantaged youth. The same logic applies to young urban American men who are attracted to gangs. They're typically attracted to the support network and fraternity, not the violence. Delta awarded here. Explanation also here.","conclusion":"The world seems to host more Islamic extremists than other religious extremists because of poverty."}
{"id":"d1a7ac6f-71d4-4617-981f-f4aade2c05b6","argument":"This is proof that the prohibition of drugs, which raises the price, benefits drug cartels since raising the price of an inelastic good will result in more revenue and profit.","conclusion":"The demand for drugs is inelastic meaning it does not act according to the supply."}
{"id":"bdd8e7e4-5137-4a43-9bde-fd4b43b0707d","argument":"If employers do not provide a safe environment for their employees, their employees may quit the industry, or find another employer.","conclusion":"Employers have an interest in keeping their employees happy and fit to work."}
{"id":"ce5a5104-53c5-45ae-810e-6ff93e862b3c","argument":"Children represent almost half of all people living in extreme poverty although they make up roughly a third of the world\u2019s population.","conclusion":"Children are the weakest members of humankind, therefore their support and protection must be the highest priority."}
{"id":"1b3ac0b7-bd39-4df8-bc35-fb76cd7055c0","argument":"I\u2019m kind of an economics nerd, and one of the more popular discussions about is how to reform the tax system in the US, just to be clear I can\u2019t speak at all as to other tax systems . I can definitely support some libertarian ideas, like eliminating most preferably all tax breaks. The idea being that any \u201cloopholes\u201d in the system will be exploited, especially by the rich as they have the resources to find advantageous loopholes and the most to save if they do . Another such idea I hear bandied about is that of a flat tax, wherein every citizen pays a flat rate say, 15 for income tax. This is where I have an issue. Since the rich don't need to spend as much of their income as a percentage on necessities e.g. food, clothing , they can afford to invest more of their income, which leads to a multiplication of wealth. This makes the tax not flat, but instead regressive. My fear is that such multiplication ends with a concentration of wealth in the upper few percent. This creates a group that holds too much sway over political and social affairs who can change policies so that they can get even more money. Furthermore, once a person obtains a certain level of wealth, it is completely self sustaining. The only way to get that money back into society is if the owner chooses to do so by lavishly overspending or by pursuing risky investments . By taxing higher earners more than low earners, this money can be put back into society where it can help the greatest number of people. Likewise, it would help keep democracy more fair, as the super rich couldn\u2019t sway policy at least not as much as they do now . Lastly, a simple progressive tax system isn\u2019t more inherently prone to corruption or complication than a flat tax. The only thing that changes is that those who can pay the rich are taxed more than those who cannot the poor . Change my view.","conclusion":"Non-progressive tax codes invariably end with a massive accumulation of wealth in the top 1%."}
{"id":"b36eb947-e3f0-4b52-9b07-969d75d9dd3b","argument":"May lead to more children being born to younger parents who decide to be risky about the use of protection.","conclusion":"Accidental pregnancies will be far more ruinous at age 14."}
{"id":"c4377d5a-2ab6-4261-a1ba-adc6486a1967","argument":"In many cultures men are socialised to stifle their emotions, hide any vulnerability and not ask for help. This has contributed to higher rates of depression and suicide amongst men","conclusion":"It might, but \"manliness\" does not need to be so narrowly defined. Masculinity \"as we know it\" is not always a positive."}
{"id":"88279388-7dc0-4388-80b5-8c8eea9a002f","argument":"I have often heard of the parallel between safeguarding from theft and safeguarding from rape. But I think the two issues don't make for effective parallels for the following reason It claims to address causality i.e. dress more demurely, decently, appropriately, etc. and you will lessen the chances of being raped. Don't party, be promiscuous , don't drink, don't get drunk, don't do X. Some of these may be good suggestions in that they work to reduce the likelihood of sexual assault or rape. This is a separate issue. What I contend is that they do not adequately address culpability because they ignore how much the potential victim might want to do those things. The freedoms to do these things is something that people have fought a long time for. They are not available in contries under religious law for example. So these freedoms are held dear. We are comfortable telling people to lock their houses to prevent theft, and people in general do not consider it an affront to their freedoms. But I imagine that in a society where the norm is not locking houses it would be a tragedy if when someone was robbed there was a demand on them to lock their houses. But we would likely be less sympathetic to someone in the current society who wouldn't lock their house because we consider them more responsible. Going from the former to the latter situation would result in loss of a certain freedom. While it is true that some risk might be mitigated it comes at the cost of freedoms that people hold dear. And it is wrong to not account for this. So it is my position that any advice regarding behaviour modification must adequately address culpability and freedoms or it is at the least inconsiderate advice. .","conclusion":"I feel like the focus on dressing \"appropriately\" or something similar to mitigate sexual assault and rape doesn't address the issue correctly because it attacks causality instead of culpability."}
{"id":"010d92e4-7409-4740-9e88-15df1d60d6e9","argument":"I do not believe that it is okay to dox people by publishing their names, identities, addresses, places of employment against their will. The only time when this is acceptable is when that person is a fugitive and the information about them you are spreading was released by a police department and even then, you have to be very careful to ensure that any of the details about that person only came from the polic department no follow up information of your own should be added it should be tipped to the PD not blasted to the public . Outside of when you are parroting information released by a PD, you should not spread their personally identifying information against their will. This applies to everyone no matter how much they personally agree or disagree with you. Even including Neo Nazis, who I condemn to the bone. There was some doxxing of the Unite the Right rally protestors and as much as I despise them, I do not believe that they should be doxxed. You've opened up the door to the counterprotestors being doxxed if you're standard is I disagree with them vehemently so I will dox them those protestors despise the antifa counterprotestros just as much as the antifa members despised the protestors. I do not believe that appearing unmasked in public is tantamount to saying you are free to dox me by amplifying the spotlight on me . This also spreads the risk for false identification like what happened to an innocent Arkansas professor You cannot take vigilanteism into your own hands. One of this very site's darkest days was when it doxxed and falsely suspected suspects in the Boston Bombing case in 2013. Outside of when you are parroting information already released by a law enforcement agency, it is always morally impermissible and it should be illegal to publish personally identifying information about a person against their will. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I believe it is never okay to dox anyone, not even Neo-Nazis."}
{"id":"a75e4461-29af-490c-91cd-d2fafbcd6c1c","argument":"It is better to spend limited resources convincing everyone your reform is decent, but better, rather than convincing half of them it's great and trying to dissuade the other half from naive criticisms that fool them into thinking the reform is bad\/unnecessary\/expensive.","conclusion":"Check out FairVote's fallacious critiques of STAR Voting, largely powered by its misunderstanding of the additional Runoff step, as an example of how complexity increases error propagation and the energy\/time\/burnout required to fight those errors\/misunderstandings. It's an opportunity cost."}
{"id":"e624bed4-b343-417e-8fea-608ea90e3891","argument":"The Alcoholics Anonymous 12 step program - and others like it - are designed for alcohol users who have hit 'rock bottom and are not proved to be effective in treating other, seemingly less severe, forms of alcoholism.","conclusion":"AA is not the best way to battle addiction if it is only effective at helping a small number of people"}
{"id":"b1d3b765-b158-4868-9675-5084b8b010d2","argument":"Under the Dodd-Frank Act, public companies are required to disclose the median annual total compensation for all employees at their company, as well as the ratio of that median to the CEO's compensation.","conclusion":"Information about compensation is freely available, if shareholders, employees, or clients\/customers wish to lobby for change."}
{"id":"62aefcea-5cff-4522-ad91-4c3bd454e08b","argument":"Unlike racism or sexism, there are huge and relevant differences between humans and animals. Animals will never be able to fully participate in society with us or interact with us in meaningful ways, nor will they ever possess anything approaching our level of cognitive sophistication. It is therefore acceptable to discriminate on the basis of species-membership.","conclusion":"Racists have no meaningful characteristics on which to base their discrimination. By contrast, significant and measurable differences exist between us and animals. So racism and speciesism are disanalogous."}
{"id":"3e8df1b4-0fc4-4f4e-b8d3-dd8593b87578","argument":"I am aware of actual conspiracies such as operation Snow White, MK Ultra, Operation Northwoods, etc. I am completely willing to accept that there are times when data from other sources is manipulated and construed to the favor of the government or other parties. What I am not following is when data that I can test in my own back yard or in private is somehow a conspiracy from the government? Why, given all of the testable evidence in my back yard about how CO2 acts and all of the known problems with the polar ice caps and weather, would ANYONE deny that the problem exists and is something that we caused? I wrote a longer blog about it here I outline a lot of the actual science behind it and so on. I'm open to the idea of conspiracy, but I'd need to have some really good and compelling ideas to move that way. Instead, as of right now the evidence does not suggest conspiracy or political favor. If anything, it's against politics best interest to push it because big oil is a major investor into campaigns on both sides.","conclusion":"Denying Climate Change is Outrageous"}
{"id":"85374e52-08f0-4d8b-9363-0dcad179390e","argument":"A week or two ago, the Linux Foundation decided to introduce a new Code of Conduct will be referred to as CoC from now on that is designed to reprimand instances of harassment and abuse among Linux kernel developers. This new CoC was implements mainly due to the alleged toxicity from Linux kernel developers and the founder Linus Torvalds making harsh remarks about the code contributions in the past. For those who are unaware, the Linux kernel is an important piece of software that powers many of the devices in the world, from supercomputers, Internet of Things devices to web servers, to Android smartphones, and to even some desktop laptop computers. Many of these computing devices powered by Linux do mission critical tasks in fields such as finance, healthcare, and database management. The issue at hand is that the new CoC allows moderators to ban individuals without much thought, destabilizes the meritocracy system in place, and divides the community as a whole. First, the first point is that the new CoC would allow moderators to ban any individual that expresses controversial political viewpoints. For instance, the CoC states gt Maintainers have the right and responsibility to remove, edit, or reject comments, commits, code, wiki edits, issues, and other contributions that are not aligned to this Code of Conduct, or to ban temporarily or permanently any contributor for other behaviors that they deem inappropriate, threatening, offensive, or harmful . The issue is that interpretations of viewpoints as inappropriate or offensive are subjective. The terminology in the CoC is much too vague. Meaning, if Linux kernel contributors express controversial political viewpoints that the moderators disagree on, then they can get banned from the community. In my introduction, I brought up the point that the Linux kernel is an important piece of software and removals of code from the kernel can lead to serious implications for any manufacturer or IT department that utilizes Linux. For instance, this issue has already popped up in June 2015 when the person who devised the CoC suggested that a maintainer who holds anti LGBT views should be banned from the Opal project another open source software project . Here is the link for anyone who wants to know. Many people would find this confusing since at one hand since while it is important not to marginalize groups of people, there is a legitimate concern that left leaning moderators will use their power and authority to ban anyone with whom they disagree. Second, the new CoC compromises the current meritocracy system that is in place for the Linux kernel project. Many people who work on the Linux kernel have attained their status through hard work and dedication. Even though the policy is intended to help marginalized groups, it can also put top contributors at a disadvantage. This can lead to top contributors leaving the project along with revoking their code contributions. The Linux kernel is licensed under the GNU GPL v2, which allows contributors to keep their copyright to the code, as stated in the license. This means that top developers can revoke code from the kernel by revoking their agreement licenses. As stated previously, many computing devices that provide essential and mission critical services rely on Linux. These changes could have major implications for people who use IoT devices, Android OEMs, and Linux distribution producers. The new CoC has the potential to devastate Free Libre and Open Source Software FLOSS communities since many open source projects utilize Linux as a base to build on top of. Lastly, the new CoC is problematic because it can and has divided the Linux community. Throughout the past two weeks, I have heard of various Linux YouTubers stating that SJWs have hijacked Linux kernel development and that Linux is doomed . This conflict has divided the community through people expressing their disapproval of the CoC, while others praise the decision to implement the new CoC. In order for a FLOSS community to survive, the community has to stay united in compassion and love. I completely understand and respect freedom of speech and the importance of dissenting opinions, but when people spread misinformation about Linux due to the new CoC, then that is bothersome. Given that this news is still relatively recent, people are still figuring out how to understand this matter,and the spreading of misinformation online should be avoided. Linux Code of Conduct","conclusion":"The new Linux Code of Conduct is problematic"}
{"id":"e6734838-6301-4a4b-b2a5-cb384249bc5c","argument":"I feel as if most of high school is directionless read open and exploratory preparatory education for college life. However, it seems much of it is pointless and is more force fed book curriculum over actual insightful education that helps foster lifelong learning. I understand that some base education is needed to function in society, but much of that is in elementary middle school and at the high school level, much of it seems exploratory and not all of it is necessary. Overall, curriculum seems just to pass tests and get good grades rather than insight curiosity and help make people learners. this is where I think the internet comes in. So much information is available online today that high school seems obsolete. It is so easy to learn new things that actually interest you and explore the purpose of high school. Instead of being fed meaningless information that may or may not be relevant for your life, on the internet you can dynamically learn whatever you want and in as much depth as you want. I know high school gives you a good base for further learning but what use is that base if you do not care about it? Why spend the time and energy doing something that is not relevant to you?","conclusion":"I think High School is an obsolete institution and it's purpose can be replaced by internet learning"}
{"id":"1fed4164-fe26-4d51-b55a-a4172c376447","argument":"Where everything that makes things for free, in this case technology is self sustained individually in a night watchman government, while capitalism accounts for what we can't automate such as space exploration. To me, automation is more than a labor saving device. A labor saving device requires someone devoting their labor to it to still produce a product. Because it's made for free Or at least the equation is 1 for setting it up and then infinite it is something that capitalism needs to view as a common, like air. 1950s Economist Garrett Hardin's The Tragedy of the Commons is when people abuse something that should be unregulated and shared. If Wal Mart suddenly took control of the entire airsupply and began selling it, there would immediately be about a thousand antitrust lawsuits. The Venus Project solution would be to assign all the air to the state, and distribute it as UBI handouts in exchange for citizen obedience. To have people need such a high barrier of entry in R D to begin self sustainment violates the freedom from the government we all know, if we look back at America's roots, freedom from a theocratic Great Britain followed by The Homestead Act. The Venus Project solution would be to pretend all the new land for self sustainment didn't exist and say when Great Britain finds that, I sure hope they give some to me . We have no new land to run to anymore. To accomplish this, people will simply need to know how to repair their self sustaining technology. The 5 things people need to be free are Fire, Water, Food, Shelter, and Tools. The automation technologies are already there to take care of those. All a human would have to do is maintain the technology, which is literally their life goal. It can be delivered in a one 1 time payment by the government or charity as I said, 1 infinite. Fire Geothermal, solar panels, any resource that you live near Water A well or river that you live near Food Some sort of synthesized nutrient product like soylent which can be made by growing things in a greenhouse and or field run by self driving combines Shelter Everyone is given an acre or so to live on Tools 3d printer to print everything The population will have to be prevented from using up too much land obviously. I finish with a quote He who sacrifices freedom for security deserves neither. Benjamin Franklin","conclusion":"To preserve true freedom we need Technautominarchocapitalism"}
{"id":"72378d9e-17c3-4de9-94b5-4b05dfbaba22","argument":"More than 50% of Chinese believe that American was trying to prevent China from becoming as powerful as America.","conclusion":"This pro-American viewpoint amongst the Chinese population has decreased in recent years"}
{"id":"ef9ba344-ddc1-49e9-bece-1a0c984b39b7","argument":"Power has a strong tendency to corrupt; it is highly intoxicating. For this reason, it should not be left in the hands of one person for too long. When a leader is firmly entrenched, he may seek to enrich himself at the expense of the public. He may seek to shower benefices on family and allies in order to maintain and strengthen his powerful position. Without term limits the executive runs the risk of becoming a personal fief, rather than the office of first servant of the people, as it should be. This is seen particularly in parts of the developing world where leaders use state funds to generate electoral support from key groups and to maintain the loyalty of essential supporters. A current example of this is in Venezuela where Hugo Chavez has been able to monopolize power to the point where it is unclear who his successor would be should he die suddenly.1 Term limits serve to limit the ability of individuals to enact self-aggrandizing policies and to retain power indefinitely.2Instead, by maintaining term limits, leaders have only a limited time in power, which tends to shift their focus toward genuinely benefiting the public. 1 Shifter, Michael. 2011. \u201cIf Hugo Goes\u201d, ForeignPolicy.com, 28th June 2011, Available: 2 Green, Eric. 2007. \u201cTerm Limits Help Prevent Dictatorships\u201d. America.gov. Available:","conclusion":"The longer a single leader remains in power, the more entrenched his grip becomes, and the more likely he is to use his office to his personal advantage."}
{"id":"ad6468c7-8e52-4aa7-b12a-6c99a1bb64ab","argument":"The purpose of prison should primarily be to contain dangerous individuals in order to protect society. Non-violent criminals are not dangerous.","conclusion":"We should require restitution instead of or in addition to prison and fines for criminals that are not dangerous."}
{"id":"aebe0841-c742-48dc-833f-351713c5af1d","argument":"First, some pertinent quotes We do not want any other god than Germany itself. It is essential to have fanatical faith and hope and love in and for Germany. ~Adolf Hitler, Heiden, Konrad 1935 . A History of National Socialism. A.A. Knopf, p. 100. Fascism is a religious conception in which man is seen in his immanent relationship with a superior law and with an objective Will that transcends the particular individual and raises him to conscious membership in a spiritual society. ~Benito Mussolini, Doctrine of Fascism , i. 5, 1932 Nationalism and religion alike cause international conflicts to fracture upon similar lines. Sometimes, like in the Balkans and Northern Ireland, nationalism and religion are one and the same. Is this a coincidence? Shayne Singleton produced this excellent video on why nationalism is a religion, and just as dangerous any any other. In it, he cites Ernest Becker's excellent book The Denial of Death . The central thesis is that nationalism is way to subscribe to a group dynamic that lives into an indefinite future. In other words, nationalism is a faith. Next, let's consider statements in this video by Albert Ehrlichmann, a self described nationalist I think that Europe should be for Europeans, Africa should be for Africans, etc. While whites might be a majority in our own countries, soon enough we won't be. We are already a minority on a global scale. I focus on Europeans because they're my people, and they're also the most threatened at the moment. All of these statements are faith based, not fact based. Erlichmann doesn't define what a European is, nor who is white. For example, he cites that Turks kept white slaves while at the same time not acknowledging that a portion of Turkey actually sits in Europe. There's also some historical revisionism at work. For a large amount of time, Celts, Slavs, and Southern Europeans like Italians and Spanish were considered separate races. Even now there's disagreement on who is white. With racial identification used by the US government, North Africans and Middle Easterners are considered white even though those geographic regions are not in Europe. Many Americans would disagree with that assessment. So what would cause someone to become a nationalist if they're not persuaded by facts? Religion, and not necessarily religion in the traditional sense, but in the sense that adherence to a nation or ethnicity is a religion itself. Hitler knew this. Mussolini knew this. Nationalism is faith based on the intrinsic goodness of the national in group. Hence, it's a religion.","conclusion":"Nationalism is a religion"}
{"id":"a50bd7de-16e4-4b03-8472-ee01690e2fd6","argument":"If they were going to bring him in, they missed the perfect opportunity to and a season with a scene of the Golden Company storming the beaches of Westeros under a Targaryen Banner, and everyone expects Danny to step out. Surprise! It's someone you don't know! Given that they didn't do that, and that would have been the best way to do it, I suspect he's not coming, and so he can't be integral to the final resting place of the story.","conclusion":"Having been written out of the show so far suggests that he is unlikely to ultimately ascend the throne."}
{"id":"7297a796-f948-40ad-a7d1-1fa50d1feac9","argument":"So I was stoked for the new Lion King film, have no gripes with how it basically followed the original story beat by beat or how it was animated, my problem is with the performances across the board. Every single voice actor, with the exception of PARTS of Scar's performance, were utter garbage, devoid of any real emotion, often providing tired, lame jokes looking at Seth Rogen and John Oliver , and seemed performed by people only out to get a paycheck complete amateurs. It honestly felt like the initial, casual read through at a round table shipped to final product. Even Mufasa Voice by Mufasa Was terrible. Seriously, I don't understand how it shipped the way it did How they were okay with those performances. How anyone was. Chang my view. Please.","conclusion":"The New Lion King Movie is Atrocious."}
{"id":"1d2791f7-349d-4fe4-a9e3-46b0de287a10","argument":"Although the idea of everyone following a vegan diet is apparently ludicrous, it has been explored before, in the BBC Docu-comedy Carnage showing how a society could function with veganism.","conclusion":"A world of veganism would be a more ethical world: its morals would bring benefits to human society."}
{"id":"66386fd2-e26c-4a6e-8ccb-d6ecf52e2c1e","argument":"I'm fast approaching the belief that most laws concerning internet safety are pointless, and indeed harmful and counter productive. However, please be patient about the precise points here as I'm finding it difficult to express what types of laws I'm talking about. I am talking about Downloading data from a company's server such as password hashes. Using Javascript to mine bitcoins using someone else's processing power. I am not talking about Threatening someone online. Stealing someone's money from their bank via online means. The important distinction here is that the last two can be brought to court using non internet laws, even though the internet was the medium of the crime. Reason 1 The Laws are Damaging When a young Hungarian hacker found out that the Hungarian website for selling transport tickets was configured incompetently, he did the right thing he broke the system stealing about \u20ac1 worth of a ticket and then told the authorities while explaining the problem. The teenager then faced legal complications when he should have received congratulations and thanks from the department of transport. I have a similar view on Gary McKinnon and there are many more examples. In short Nobody has shown any benefit from prosecuting any of these people. If the people could not be prosecuted then the onus would more obviously fall entirely on the architects of these systems to be more secure. Reason 2 The Laws Provide the Illusion of Safety rather than Encouraging Safety The fact that it's illegal to break into a house disuades people from breaking into houses. The fact that France has laws against hacking means next to nothing to someone sitting in an internet cafe in Mongolia. People who think in terms of traditional laws should not be judged for imagining they might be safe on the internet because of laws we can't all be young and educated in tech problems. But I fear this idea leaves them imagining that the laws are somehow effective and that there are internet police who might stop crimes happening, rather than taking some precautions. Reason 3 The Only Effective Security is Just Security I don't have a whole heap of experience in this area, however I remain confident that if you ask anyone who does, sie'll tell you that multiple illegitemate attempts at accessing online resources can happen to many companies daily, and that these attempts are stopped by good security policies and not by laws. Reason 4 The Laws Don't Target Real Threats These laws might dissuade teenagers who want to mess about with cool pentesting tools they find on YouTube, but those people aren't much of a threat. The laws won't stop people who are competent enough to pose a danger to anyone because the competent people are at significantly less risk though, obviously there are some people who were both dangerous and were then prosecuted . Reason 5 We Can Prosecute Damaging Behaviour without These Laws If someone successfully tricks another into sending lots of money, most coutries' fraud and theft laws will cover the crime. Same deal for someone illegitimately stealing someone's online identity. The laws which target downloading data illegitimately aren't necessary to prosecute serious crimes. I've been told not to bother reporting cyber crimes in my job, and my co workers were right to say so. I didn't listen to them at first, I wasted time which would have been better spent just having good security. This all seems pragmatic to me, but I might be wrong on any one of these points. . gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Cyber-crime laws are mostly a waste of time and might dissuade good security"}
{"id":"7f08cb8a-1f2c-4891-a3f7-e01cad9611e0","argument":"Violence as punishment often spankings used to be legal towards servants and wives as well who at the time were both legal minors That was an abuse of power, using violence against children is no different.","conclusion":"Initiating physical violence against anyone without consent is assault and battery, and a violation of natural rights. These rights are not dependent on age."}
{"id":"6f9aa2e9-ab6b-4c6b-88d8-c10f24d1fa75","argument":"Every item has a life expectancy, and by purchasing an item that already has an undetermined amount of its life used up, you're going to end up replacing the item sooner, and have to deal with a lower quality product for the duration of its life. There are some exceptions for things that last many, many years, like cars, tools, jewelry, dishware, books, etc. But some things are just worth it to buy it new, like couches, video game systems, computers. You'll get a longer and better performance. Edit Thanks for the responses. I've been having this disagreement with someone, and they said that my insistence on buying new will cost tons of money. I say that buying old shit and constantly replacing it will cost tons of money. This seems to settle it, as long as we can agree on what constitutes worth it.","conclusion":"Buying used is often not a moneysaver"}
{"id":"5573fd76-1131-478a-a37e-eec889415de7","argument":"At the macroeconomic level, this will induce a better distribution of jobs because people reducing their hours will increase job opportunities for those currently excluded from the labor market.","conclusion":"A UBI will allow individuals the opportunity to take fewer work shifts, giving them more time to pursue other interests they hold valuable."}
{"id":"9f0bbcd6-ac04-4510-9640-4fa85fdebb74","argument":"Well, all too often there are evidence of the business world bending the way of the executive branch to a given course, or breaking the law and getting away with it easily ex the 2008 people who worked in finance, judged in court and found culprit, mostly exonerated or got a meager punishment of a few months years in prison . Surely, the work done by the private sector is crucial, innovative and benefiting.I'm not advocating the banishing of it, only the separation of it from govt branches, as in the separation of powers principle. It is surely a custom nowadays, with lobbying being the hip,cool thing to do.But wouldnt it be a wrong thing if the legislative lobbied the judicial ? It certainly would. Imo the private sector plays an even bigger role than any of the separate govt branches, and can project an even bigger power and influence than the branches I'm not saying that it does as I don't have the proof of it at hand, just saying that it has the ability, as certain companies have revenues bigger than entire countries for instance In a way I most certainly feel that my argument is flawed, and it needs refining I just thought it up so it's in a crude state , and so i need you to .","conclusion":"The separation of powers principle should be applied to business enterprizes."}
{"id":"fb003ce0-8e33-4d7a-8b87-7fcf50681b90","argument":"Living is just like an exam, the after death is the result. So God created good and evil so God can test humans. There will be another mission for the humanity that will depend of your life's result.","conclusion":"The existence of evil can be reconciled with an all-powerful, all-knowing and all-loving God. God would not want to remove evil if a greater good were only achievable with the existence of evil."}
{"id":"760cde77-ebf3-4d69-9734-feb84fe90e6d","argument":"I'll start by admitting that at the time the election actually happened I was way too young to know what was actually going on, so everything I'm saying here is things I've been told after the fact, and I'm also not American. I'll also clarify that I don't think there was a conspiracy to rig the election from the start or anything like that . I think that, basically, the election in Florida was so close that various people Jeb Bush, the Florida Supreme Court, the federal Supreme Court, etc independently decided to basically give Bush the win to save face, even though they knew he didn't receive the majority of the popular vote or at least that they had no way of knowing he did and that in the face of all the confusion the electoral college system was not going to provide a fair resolution to the election. I'm actually open to changing my view if anyone can provide convincing evidence that a Bush legitimately received the majority of votes in Florida or b The Supreme Court's decision was actually in the best interests of democracy in some way. I'm not accusing anyone of acting illegally, so explaining how nothing that happened was unconstitutional or whatever won't really convince me. TL DR No one had any way of knowing who really won the popular vote in Florida, so for the Supreme Court to stop any further recounts was essentially allowing them to decide the election themselves.","conclusion":"What happened in the 2000 presidential election was not democratic"}
{"id":"1351e6cc-dd7b-4e77-bcac-03e7656aa84a","argument":"Mueller states, \"the evidence was not sufficient to charge any Campaign official as an unregistered agent of the Russian government or other Russian principal\".","conclusion":"There is insufficient evidence of illegal collusion between the Trump Campaign and Russia."}
{"id":"3d665cfa-f2b8-47c8-b465-26563941a8f8","argument":"Examples of massacres without firearms have either; used something illegal such as bombs or poison; or have a practical use, such as using a knife to cook or a car for transport, and are limited to them. Only guns are legal, not practical, and easy and common to use for massacres.","conclusion":"A lone assailant with a knife has significantly less chance of causing mass harm than a lone assailant with a semi or fully automatic weapon."}
{"id":"e6d27618-1724-479c-a909-7886049072e0","argument":"Coal ash is the second largest industrial waste stream in the United States, behind mining waste.","conclusion":"Coal is neither sustainable nor green as a means to supplant nuclear power generation."}
{"id":"5068f98d-fee1-40d3-8729-bcee39b489c0","argument":"I'm not really talking about those little decisions you make that turn out to be huge, like the choice to ask out that woman at the bar that becomes your wife. I'm talking about big life decisions, like deciding to have kids, deciding to get married, deciding to get divorced, deciding to move across the country, etc. Imagine you're an 18 year old kid who wants to study Engineering. You have three choices College A A large private school in NYC. College B A big state school in Michigan College C A local community college or trade school. All of these choices are equally valid, but they all come with a radically different outcome. College A NYC You join the Computer Science Club because your roommate is in it. You change your major and get really into gaming because all of your friends are. You meet someone at a networking event who gets you a recommendation for a job at BigTechCompany, and you end up moving to Seattle after college. You meet your wife on Tinder five years later. College B Michigan You take the Engineering core classes and have an amazing Environmental Engineering professor. You end up going on a trip to South America to study some obscure environmental thing, and it instills a lifelong love of travel. After college, you backpack for a while, become one of those obnoxious overly chilled out people, and end up meeting your wife at a hostel in Argentina. College C Local You start out as Engineering but realize that you can make decent money and not have to pay loans by becoming a plumber. You train, and bond with a guy in your training over your mutual love for movies, and the two of you end up going to multiple independent film festivals together. Through one of those events, you meet your now wife. You move to LA for her job, and eventually open your own business. In each scenario, you live a perfectly nice life, but the outcomes are radically different. You'll have plenty of other big decisions after that, like whether this is really the person you want to get married to. But by that time, your character is a little more formed. You're not as malleable. You probably know whether you want kids, you know that it's important for you to have a spouse who likes x, y, or z. Similarly, kids changes your life, but again you already are a person by that point. You might make different choices and prioritize differently, but you are essentially the same human that you would have been had you chosen to have no kids vs. four kids. But when you're 18, you could literally be anything.","conclusion":"For many people, college is the most life-altering life decision they'll ever make."}
{"id":"cdd6a844-c2ee-436f-ae76-b1fa1855690b","argument":"Men are hardwired to protect women. They will risk their lives for even women they barely know. It's in their DNA because the female were important for reproduction. Us men protect them because it only takes one man to impregnate multiple females. Women are much more valuable than men, sorry but that's the facts. This is why we can't have mixed gender soldiers going on the front lines and shooting because no matter what, men will risk their lives protecting the women. They will abandon the mission for the women's safety. To change my view, I want you to explain why it's social and not an deep instinct that can't be changed show me proof , show me mix gender combat soldiers that are successful and didn't have men protect them constantly, and any more information that will make me change my view.","conclusion":"Men are biologically programmed to protect all women. It's not social!"}
{"id":"e336122a-8c77-48e7-b7d0-fe23c1d8b09a","argument":"Emitting carbon dioxide and other fossil fuel pollutants into the atmosphere is always bad because it is the cause of a global crisis called Global Warming. Therefore, it is always fair to punish this activity through a \"carbon tax\". If we do not punish people today, than our children will be punished with the consequence of global climate change.","conclusion":"It is fair to punish all carbon emissions with a carbon tax:"}
{"id":"8e3be04c-a887-4c03-8a6e-f74f7fbf6167","argument":"\"The case against nuclear power\". Greenpeace. January 8, 2008: \"The Three mile Island and Chernobyl accidents should never be downplayed. The Chernobyl disaster is perhaps one of the worst in human history. Serious radioactive contamination spread over 150,000 square kilometers in Byelorussia, Ukraine and Russia. Radioactive clouds deposited radiation thousands of kilometers away. Hundreds of thousands people had to be evacuated, and millions more were left to live in areas that were dangerous to their health and lives. Moreover, scientific studies have shown that the full consequences of the Chernobyl disaster could top a quarter of a million cancer cases and nearly 100,000 fatal cancers. . Renewable energy, on the other hand, is the cleanest, safest and most reliable form of power generation.\"","conclusion":"Any risk of another Chernobyl or Mile High is intolerable"}
{"id":"25d2c800-de6a-4a24-a4b9-a8893645d02d","argument":"A lot of roadside zoo's do little to nothing in terms of animal care and well being.","conclusion":"Some animals are subjected to physical abuse and neglect at zoos."}
{"id":"4ae7bd46-9642-45b3-a316-590bb5f205db","argument":"For context, I'm from the US and this is US western centric. Most people are against inequality full on bigots are in the minority. Part of dealing with inequality is acknowledging systematic oppression and how it impacts both the oppressors and the oppressed. To actually address inequality massive changes would have to happen, especially in regard to historically privileged people and sacrifices they would have to make. People who self identify as pro equity and benefit somewhat from the status quo probably aren't prepared for what it will take to achieve equality. That's my general though process, I'll give a more emotional rendering below Let's say that we all woke up tomorrow and finally said, okay enough is enough time to end inequality, what would happen? Start with sports team mascots, that's easy. No more red skins or braves. Now we rename roads and tear down monuments. Wipe Jackson off the 20 bill. Stop celebrating Columbus day. Stop celebrating any people from history that laid the groundwork of inequality because those scares are real for a great many people. While we change the name of colleges and other institutions, we have to examine the structures themselves, many of these institutions were built to keep poor, gendered, and colored people out if not explicitly than implicitly. Seats of power will be given up. And that's just a start. We could begin this tomorrow. Yet there are always excuses, I don't think a massive force of bigots is holding us back, but a population which isn't ready to practice what they preach. It is not those who are overtly bigoted that keep inequality in tact, but the inaction of those who would otherwise give equality lip service. Bring me back to reality,","conclusion":"You say you're for equality but I don't think you quite understand what that means,"}
{"id":"7fba42bb-aaeb-4ed3-a652-f2e87d7bf16a","argument":"The most successful queens have their own makeup lines, TV shows, and fashion campaigns. They also appear in advertisements for everything from Starbucks to vodka to McDonald\u2019s breakfast sandwiches.","conclusion":"While drag culture started as radically anti-capitalist, mainstream drag is now openly engaging with the capitalist system and no longer speaking out against it."}
{"id":"eba1a3c7-33f3-423b-93d8-5de857294f9d","argument":"There are credible reports that Michael Bloomberg has made sexist comments such as remarking \"I'd do her\" in relation to a female colleague and \"look at the ass on her\" in relation to a woman at a holiday party.","conclusion":"Michael Bloomberg has an established history of offensive behaviour towards women."}
{"id":"48c5810a-422b-428c-b799-173bac29a346","argument":"A UBI offers the same benefits as raising the minimum wage, but without increasing the cost of labor. This keeps prices down as incomes go up, resulting in better purchasing power.","conclusion":"A UBI could allow the removal of the minimum wage if it were high enough, since it provides sufficient bargaining power to prevent exploitation."}
{"id":"b5b6390f-9a3b-4437-8efb-637e7cf3d351","argument":"I take Germany as an example. The costs that the facilities cause to literally bury the waste are unbearable and seem to become bigger and bigger. The energy lobbyists are trying right now to persuade the German government into taking over all of the nuclear power plants, meaning that the German government will have to pay for the deconstruction German government is leaving nuclear energy in 2022 and also ALL costs related to the disposal of nuclear waste. They are even threatening to sue the German government over 15 billion Euro as compensation for leaving nuclear energy in 2022. If the German government agrees on taking over all the long term costs of those power plants, the corporations will not sue them. In short They are literally blackmailing the fucking government That's how serious it is to them to not have to pay for the disposal. It is way too expensive. Now I am curious how anyone could still be pro nuclear. Hit me. EDIT You fuckers failed miserably.","conclusion":"I am against nuclear energy - not because I doubt its safety, but because the costs that are caused by nuclear waste are higher than what is made by selling the energy"}
{"id":"831ae761-1606-4d4e-b38c-cb84752365f6","argument":"I'm a huge Star Wars fan, and this is my controversial opinion on the series. While I've found that most people are in agreement that The Phantom Menace is the worst Star Wars movie, I posit that Return of the Jedi, the last of the original trilogy, is the second worst. Yes, even worse than Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith. While I've found that Sith was decent, and Clones was pretty bad, they had redeeming qualities that elevated them above the level of Jedi . Sith had some pretty great action and arguably the most impressive fight scene of any Star Wars movie. Even Clones had an interesting mystery thread going on with Obi Wan tracking down the mystery of the clones, and the mere presence of Christopher Lee enhanced it by a great deal. I don't like Clones , but I've found that Jedi is cheap, lazy, unoriginal, and downright boring. The actual plot doesn't kick in for a solid half hour. Instead, we're treated to The Three Stooges Rescue Han , which makes no sense. Why not just kick down Jabba's door with a battalion of soldiers instead of screwing around with this convoluted plot? Boba Fett, one of the most badass characters in the Star Wars universe, is unceremoniously killed off for a burp joke instead of being given a purpose in the movie or even a legitimate death worthy of his status. The humor is slapstick and gross out, instead of being based around the chemistry of the characters. The only new original location is Endor, which is a bunch of trees. What about the frozen wasteland of Hoth, the fantastical cloud city of Bespin, or the lifeless deserts of Tatooine? There's no creativity, just grab a couple of old locations and throw the characters in a forest The main points of the movie are a complete rehash of Hope . Imperial station with a beam that must be disabled? Check. A Death Star to destroy? Check. A shot of a Star Destroyer panning overhead? Check. The Ewoks, but not for the reason you might expect. I hate the Ewoks for being disgustingly cute in this war story about a brutal misunderstood Empire r empiredidnothingwrong , but that's not my biggest complaint. Lucas originally intended for them to be Wookiees giant, badass forest warriors who could plausibly assault the Imperials and win. But Lucas didn't think the Wookiees would sell as toys, so he changed them to Ewoks. I have no problem with marketing, but Lucas sold out his creative vision for the sake of making money, officially taking his artistic integrity with him. Fuck the Ewoks. The rest of the reasons found here courtesy of Dan Vebber, whom I shamelessly ripped this argument off from. Credit where it's due, scenes with The Emperor are legitimately awesome, but the rest of the movie just plain sucks, and I believe that it is the second worst Star Wars movie. Change my view.","conclusion":"\"Return of the Jedi\" is the second-worst Star Wars movie."}
{"id":"836a4aa8-6683-4c75-bfd6-10abfcf0e09a","argument":"To claim monarchistic institutions should be abolished without considering the complex cultural ramifications is short-sighted and potentially damaging to a country's cultural identity.","conclusion":"Monarchy has a historic and cultural value that should be preserved."}
{"id":"f4ceb2a4-1658-48dd-bfaf-6b092462890b","argument":"Legislators have created laws to criminalise conduct even in the planning stage, such as for terrorists acquiring training manuals or for potential sex offenders grooming children See, eg Australian Criminal Code ss 101.4, 272.15. These are justified according to a non-utilitarian moral interpretation.","conclusion":"Real world law recognises non-utilitarian moral principles insofar it classifies attempted murder as a serious crime even if no harm is actually done."}
{"id":"22f48dd1-07ff-4341-8382-461062f5e490","argument":"For most non-Muslims, the only Islamic education they receive is through the media alone, which is biased and politically motivated. 'Open days' held at mosques, such as in the UK, help them learn more about the religion and its teachings \"so that they are equipped with the true knowledge and values of Islam\" .","conclusion":"Focusing on security is likely to lead to mosques holding less 'open days for non-Muslims. This will limit the audience of education surrounding the idea of fostering a better understanding of Islam in an effort to counter rising Islamophobia."}
{"id":"63fb6a94-3672-4b7b-a1e8-cf10552aefe3","argument":"I am not the whole lewronggeneration KIDS R TOO SOFT type person but this is something I cant stop thinking about. I work with kids, specifically teens, and the difference between them and people even 6 7 years older is absolutely insane. I have talked to other people who have done this much longer than I have and they all agree, there has never been as much of a generational shift as the one in the past 5 6 or so years except maybe the late 60s , the teenagers growing up today are radically different than they were before. The changes aren't all bad, for instance teens smoke and drink and do drugs much less, but that also plays into a general level of inexperience that they face. It feels as if teenage rebellion and risk taking in general has become a thing of the past. A lot of teenagers simply don't go out and statistics show this, they are not 'hanging out' with friends nearly as much. They are not getting into relationships, many are not having sex or even dating at all because of anxiety or shyness. A lot are very, very obsessed with social media, video games, their phones, texting which is all fine, teens in the 2009 2012 generation were too, but nowadays it seems as if the other aspects of normal teenage life have basically gone away. I used to see kids hanging outside the school all the time, in parks, against the benches its all gone now, they just head home. In many ways I think the average 16 year old today acts similar to how many middle school kids were in some respects to maturity and adulthood. But in some ways they are also far more mature and respectful than 16 year olds were. Bullying went from a huge problem to seemingly non existent, and everyone is super respectful and very careful not to offend each others feelings. However these kids also BREAK DOWN at the feeling of any form of stress or anything similar to it, I have never seen such levels of anxiety. The feeling of openness means that people express every little emotion they feel, which means we often have kids openly crying and then we have other kids which encourage them to cry and to it almost becomes like a competition of who can express the most amount of emotion from the least amount of stress. The 2009 2012 kids were very different in this regard. The 2009 2012 kids seemed to be able to take some form of punishment and anxiety and not let it get to them, I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that they had dealt with adversity before, whether it be bullies or people they disliked or anxiety, they felt far more prepared. But even the 2012 kids were less prepared than say, my generation in the 90s. Now these things should seem like not that bad right? But heres the thing, these kids are entering a world which is not going to be good for them, at all. We need to be raising our kids as tough as god damn possible, we need to make them face the reality that they are entering. Global warming is what I am talking about. The sheer level of destruction and horror which they will face in the future will be unlike anything our generation has ever faced, and they are about 1 3rd as well equipped to deal with it as we were. Flooding which destroys entire cities, antibiotics which begin to stop working, epidemics which wipe out populations, food prices rising from drought, mass migrations of tens of millions of people. The reality is that our first world bubble is going to be shattered, and its possible its going to be even worse than I am describing. We have no clue what kind of feedback loops are going to happen, how this will turn out. There are scenarios where half of the world population is dead by 2030 if a certain wave of feedback loops happen. We need to have our kids understand this reality, even if it upsets them, even if it makes them anxious, because this isnt some unwarranted anxiety like getting murdered or something, this is fucking real as hell. And the whole world will experience it. We are raising our kids with this idea that the future will be better or just the same as today, and that is so far from the truth. We are raising them to be softer instead of tougher, and this is going to be a problem. I am a firm believer in the idea of stoicism when faced with unavoidable pain, not like full stoicism but a bit, and we need to learn to have these kids deal with problems and emotions instead of letting them overcome them. This is the exact OPPOSITE of how we should be raising our kids for the future. I believe if times are good and we know they will be good, we raise our kids to be softer and kinder. Times are not going to be good, so we raise our kids to be tougher and more prepared emotionally, physically, and mentally. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"We need to begin raising our children now for the harsh realities of global warming and climate change. We are raising them far too soft for such a harsh future."}
{"id":"ccc66f23-7880-4226-9e03-a38faa5e8ae0","argument":"According to Libertarian author Phillip Mirowski monopolies are not bad for democracy, however anti-trust laws are. Proposing limits on corporate power is not a libertarian principal.","conclusion":"Some libertarians believe that government interference with businesses are an over-reach of government powers."}
{"id":"dfe7f8b1-9c9c-42ae-b17e-ec4058107204","argument":"I kept the title vague to avoid spoiling the ending of Doom 4 since it's still fairly recent. If that breaks the submission rules, I can resubmit with a more specific title. I think that Samuel Hayden is right for wanting to harness Hell's argent energy rather than destroy it. He knows the risks, especially after what happened to Olivia Pierce, and the fact that he sent the Doom Marine to stop her is proof that hell hasn't influenced him. Basically, I think that humanity's energy crisis can be safely solved with argent energy, and Sam Hayden is right for wanting to do so. Most of my friends who have played Doom 4 disagree.","conclusion":"DOOM4 SPOILERS Sam Hayden's actions"}
{"id":"775ad46e-6622-44da-b32f-3ff72d1e119a","argument":"A guideline which relies on subjective offence will lead to selective enforcement, with content which offends those with the loudest complaints censored.","conclusion":"Podcast guidelines should concern content \u201cintended as\u201d rather than content that \u201ccould be construed as\u201d insensitive."}
{"id":"ec55dc82-d6f5-4d5d-a23b-3538c8a88072","argument":"As part of a years long contract dispute, the NJ transit public union is considering a strike that would shut down NJ transit train service. NJ transit trains are a vital piece of local infrastructure, and shutting them down would create a huge debacle edit not a boondoggle not only for the 100,000 people who is it so commute daily, but also those who would be hurt by the incredible traffic jams that will result from 10,000 additional cars on the road. It is estimated to cost the area millions and millions of dollars every hour . see here for a lot of this info . In short, these union workers are holding the local economy hostage as part of their negotiations. They should not be permitted to do so. This is very different than a private union negotiating with a business. Here it is not some company's money that is at stake, but the welfare of the general public. How would this ban be implemented? There should be a bill banning public unions from using threats to shut down vital services as part of contract negotiations. It would not become a criminal or civil offense to strike, but the NJ transit authority would have the freedom to fire any individual employee on the spot with cause, without appeal and without benefits to the employee. Yes, this would reduce the union's bargaining power. But it should , IMO. They are using power they should not have in their negotiations the power to hurt the common good. This would not render public unions toothless. They could still negotiate contracts as a collective. They could call for outside arbitration. They could still have a say in new hirings and firings. They could still work via public advocacy and get out the vote campaigns. They could do partial work stoppages that do not lead to shutting down the services for example, many ticket collectors and sellers could strike, costing the agency ticket money but still running the trains . Edit Such a change would not happen in isolation, and steps would be taken to insure that municipal unions retain their ability to function. Consider New York state's Taylor Law which bans most municipal unions from striking. However, provisions are in place that are beneficial to unions, such as mandatory outside arbitration and the fact that in the absence of a new contract, the previous contract is automatically extended including pay raises. Municipal unions covered by this law have in general done quite well in New York. They also have substantial influence in state and NYC politics to advocate for themselves.","conclusion":"New Jersey transit union workers should not be allowed to shut down commuter train service as part of collective bargaining"}
{"id":"591b9167-9d3d-42eb-a58e-5223839cec75","argument":"Candidates can score high on an examination by revising hard beforehand, only to forget it immediately afterwards. Surprise examinations are perhaps more effective in showing the candidate's knowledge.","conclusion":"Examinations do not show if someone has truly acquired certain knowledge."}
{"id":"7498cca9-7803-43f8-90a0-c4f869a66cd7","argument":"Their economic contribution is valuable and the cost of assimilation is already paid, and thus lower to the country than it would be for unassimilated foreigners taking their place in line.","conclusion":"DREAMers have already assimilated into American culture, so they should be first in line for citizenship."}
{"id":"61f6eb28-4768-45fb-a561-79048ffdada5","argument":"American patriots have a general mentality against immigration. Saying these people shouldn\u2019t be allowed to become part of the country, is the same as saying they are worse, because they were born on a different side of a line, and americans are better because of the side of the line they are born on. This is prominent in many ads and political champagnes, namely the slogan \u201cCreating jobs for americans\u201d. I understand why politics use this slogan, because they are trying to get americans to vote for them, but this slogan is also prominent in ads made by private corporations. As if creating jobs for americans is morally superior to creating jobs for people of other countries. The companies launching these ads may be trying to win in the american market, so they can sell more of their product, but the fact that this can increase sales shows that many americans hold the being born on one side of a line belief. I am not blaming the politicians or corporations running ads running these slogans, they are merely trying to win votes or make money from this mentality, but really it is the citizens that have the belief that they are better, because of the side of a line they are born on, that are at fault. Patriotism is really just this belief.","conclusion":"Patriotism is the belief that being born on one side of a line makes you better."}
{"id":"beaadf2c-834a-40ee-81dc-f6b92f264199","argument":"This has caused some fights with friends and family, so I'm really hoping I can be swayed more towards their point of view. I am not advocating for separating families, and I agree that ICE has sometimes used unconscionable enforcement tactics . But enforcement can be still be achieved in a humane manner, and I don't think these problems justify the amount of leniency I see being advocated for I think the police can do some pretty terrible things, but I don't want to eliminate all laws. I'll try to break my view down into points Illegal immigration is a net negative impact to the US . It's expensive . The Congressional Budget Office surveyed the academic literature on the economic impact of illegal immigration and concluded The tax revenues that unauthorized immigrants generate for state and local governments do not offset the total cost of services provided to those immigrants source So illegal immigrants cost money, and more illegal immigrants will cost more money. It's a culture clash . Most of these immigrants speak very little English, and Pew estimates that half never finished high school. Additionally, being here illegally encourages them to avoid citizens and civil society for fear of being reported, creating enclaves rather than cultural exchange or assimilation. It brings crime . Good social science on illegal immigrants is tough, and the only paper I can find to differentiate between legal and illegal immigrants is John R. Lott's Undocumented Immigrants, U.S. Citizens, and Convicted Criminals in Arizona 2018, source It finds that while legal immigrants tend to be extremely law abiding, illegal immigrants are 142 more likely to commit crimes than citizens and 45 more likely to be gang members. Other studies I've seen lump legal and illegal immigrants together and find that the effects wash out so it looks like immigrants commit crimes at a similar rate to citizens. Therefore promoting legal immigration is better. I have a few clarifications responses to some points I anticipate This doesn't mean immigration rates need to slow . There's some limit to the low skill labor that our economy can absorb before unemployment becomes a problem. We should be trying to hit this limit with as many legal immigrants as possible, for all the reasons above. This means curtailing illegal immigration as much as we can. This doesn't mean asylum shouldn't be granted . Seeking asylum is an important right, and we should try to improve this process as much as possible. This doesn't mean I don't care about people . This one frustrates me the most. I want the greatest good for the greatest number, and letting in a bunch of people in who will put a huge strain on social services, increase violent crime, and not contribute to civil society seems like a terrible way to achieve that. Additionally, since the country can only handle so many immigrants per year, there's a zero sum game here, where higher numbers of illegal immigrants means lower numbers of legal immigrants. I have the utmost respect for immigrants who go through the legal process to be here, and it seems like such a slap in the face to say sorry, we can't let you in because while you went through the process you were supposed to like a sucker, someone else hid in a truck, and we can't be bothered to enforce our own laws . Thanks for reading. I'll be around for the rest of the day to respond. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The US should strictly enforce border security to prevent illegal entry"}
{"id":"2366778a-ef82-49d2-99d6-069a9ed8ab4e","argument":"I hold this view because I have read that conspiracy theorists have a common trait they are trapped in a belief system, and that any opposing view, no matter how much evidence it is supported by, is seen by them as more than an attack on their opinion, instead as an attack against them personally. I haven't studied religion in any great depth, I am not a religious person, and I was brought up in a tolerant family who weren't particularly religious either. From what I have seen and read on the news and in books, including the recent debate between Bill Nye and Ken Ham certain groups of people choose to believe a literal account of what the Bible says, and they put this forward as a counter argument to any evidence put to them. To me, there are strong parallels between this lack of critical thinking in Creationism, and the conspiracy theorists' refusal to believe evidence put forward to them.","conclusion":"I believe there are fundamental similarities between conspiracy theorists and certain religious groups, such as Young Earth Creationists."}
{"id":"aa1bd6a0-82fc-4865-a9d5-ee18886961d2","argument":"In the 2000 Camp David peace talks, both sides agreed to a solution whereby in the two-state solution, pre-1967 borders would be adjusted so that the largest settlements would be under Israel's control in exchange for the provision of more land to the Palestinian state elsewhere. Withdrawal from the other, much smaller settlements would then be easy.","conclusion":"Nothing is irreversible. Withdrawal from the problematic settlements and businesses is eminently possible."}
{"id":"10f034e5-3f59-42ee-ae9f-b7d19e5ba8e9","argument":"It is possible to limit the grounds on which no-platforming becomes legitimate to prevent it from going too far. This means that people can be protected from hate speech, and people who have done nothing to be silenced get to keep their right to free speech intact.","conclusion":"Even if some instances of no-platforming turn out to have been illegitimate, that does not delegitimise the entire tactic."}
{"id":"c6a8d0c1-b280-4a63-92c8-185956cbbbd4","argument":"\"Design by committee is a disparaging term for a project that has many designers involved but no unifying plan or vision. Using a series of single creatives in a wider arcing project, all with the freedom to reinterpret the work of their predecessors, is literally the definition of design by committee.","conclusion":"Johnson's quick resolution, or even complete jettison, of elements introduced by his predecessor smacks of design by committee a pejorative for a project with multiple designers but no unifying plan or vision."}
{"id":"5c795b0b-92cc-4dd1-ae52-9a98607b6f59","argument":"I'm not to educated on the topic, but while debating with my friend I found three fairly credible reasons to legalise marijuana that would make it more difficult for people under the age of 18 21 for some other nations harder to become 'addicted'. 1 If marijuana was being sold and monitored to people over the age of 18, with some sort of ID presented, that would put the very vast majority of illegal production and distribution of marijuana out of business, so where would minors by there pot from? An older sibling or friend? They would have to buy it from the government registered weed store or whatever it would be called and if the government would make it so people can only buy a relatively low amount from the weed store, then this would meen minors would be able to get there hands on only a small amount of pot. 2 The money the government would get from selling all of this ganga would be able to go into drug education to minors, preventing many to ever starting the habit. 3 If the government can successfully knock out the weed selling business, then surely that would effect other illegal industries such as prostitution, selling other drugs and violence that are at least partly funded by selling pot. This would provide cleaner streets for the minors, and making it harder for them to fall into a life of crime. Like I said I'm not to educated in the matter and there are a few flaws, so .","conclusion":"I think that legalising marijuana would be beneficial for minors."}
{"id":"07406214-22a2-4ecc-a656-3164723345cd","argument":"This actually could help resolve the problem of domesticated species destroying local ecology and agriculture If we convert the land into an ecosystem where they exist, they'll actually have a place to go.","conclusion":"Pasture land is not necessary for a vegetarian diet and could be rewilded, providing desperately needed space for plummeting wildlife."}
{"id":"15ede48f-42c8-49a4-a828-9b0dc9809ed1","argument":"Ethics and morals vary depending on the culture, and even on the individual. If this were to be a valid argument, you could argue that butchers are immoral because they offend vegetarians, or that acting is immoral because it's akin to lying.","conclusion":"Moral and ethics arguments should be considered as a logical fallacy: appealing to popular belief."}
{"id":"c9f798e8-2350-42b0-a656-a2309acc3a73","argument":"As I am from the United States, my viewpoints are specific to US politics, although it may be the same in other countries as well. All too often you will have someone in a political discussion discussion say, Both parties are corrupt and out to screw you over While I am not out to defend either party and do acknowledge that politics has more than its share of corruption, such a flat dismissal of all politics reminds me of arguments from atheists. There's a sense of self congratulatory complacence in feeling above the sheep, with no discussion of alternatives or anything productive to add. I don't mean to offend anybody about this, I'd just like some other viewpoints on the matter.","conclusion":"People who criticize specifically with US politics all political parties are like \"political atheists.\""}
{"id":"a0a65a91-0d35-44cf-b215-51da7b779900","argument":"Legal cultivation\/production of psychoactive compounds on the personal or even community scale could eliminate the international black market for them, making society safer for communities.","conclusion":"The legalization of drugs deprives criminals of a substantial source of their income."}
{"id":"dc2e6d26-c1d7-406c-8d96-6fe936a638a7","argument":"First, by natural I mean they exist in nature I am not saying they are normal in the statistical sense . But it is precisely because it is a minority issue that it deserves society's protection. Second of all, all the arguments that may have been used to rationalize the perverted epithet have been rendered invalid by the courageous activists preceding me. For example Physical health . True it can involve certain risks to have intercourse with corpses and or of certain animals, but that risk can be greatly mitigated by using appropriate protection. Furthermore, the same can be said of heterosexual human PIV sex, and of anal sex. The latter in particular produces morbid fecal incontinence, and carries a much higher probability of STD transmission. M2F transgenderism, which typically involves amputating one's testicles, would also have been considered unhealthy in a more bigoted time fortunately we understood, as humanity progressed, that these practices are desirable rather than harmful. Mental health . Astonishingly enough, the medical community still regards necrophilia and zoophilia as mental illnesses. Indeed they are both classified as paraphiliae by the ICD10 published by the WHO and by the fifth latest edition of the DSM Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, published by the the American Psychiatric Association . But such was the case with other anti normative sexual preferences, such as many fetishisms, homosexuality, BDSM, transgenderism and transpecism which have fortunately fully entered our culture . Abnormality . Normality is to be celebrated by all means, except when it comes to the bedroom. Equality is indeed a great idea but when it comes to sexual preferences, much like race, individuals are sovereign and nobody has the right to say yours is unworthy or inferior . That is hate speech by very definition. Even if that metaphorical bedroom is actually a morgue or a barn, the same rule of basic morality applies. Disgusting . This is a last resort argument on the part of the lunatic bullies. They're stuck in a 19th century conception of beauty. They haven't been in a contemporary museum in their life. What does it mean really, for something to be disgusting ? That is utterly subjective. Finally, I'd like to point out how prejudice is ingrained in the very language we use if I identify as a mare, having sex with a horse isn't zoophilia it is normal copulation. Therefore, much like the expression bi sexual denies the hundreds of genders in nature, the very term zoophilia denies the existence of significant otherkin populations in our societies. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Necrophilia and zoophilia are natural sexual preferences; our society's habit to call them \"perversions\" is hateful and bigotted."}
{"id":"e6168c29-9876-4696-955c-fb941fc27ea4","argument":"While technical knowledge is required, these blueprints can be recreated independently by other individuals, and therefore prohibition of plans is pointless as it will not ultimately prevent the at-home manufacturing of firearms on 3D-printers.","conclusion":"Even if prohibited, blueprints can find their way to 'users' just like other illegally circulated materials, such as pirated movies."}
{"id":"866b2292-7138-42d7-806a-f92699bdec7d","argument":"Welcome to T Tuesday, our weekly post where we can celebrate our ability to adopt a new mindset or gain another perspective. Tell us what experiences you've had outside our subreddit, either recently or in your lifetime, that made you think This Changed My View . Give us your stories in the comments You can consider these questions to help get you thinking Known or met someone with an interesting ideology or opinion that caused you to reconsider your own? Had an experience, good or bad, that changed your perspective? Learned something new that challenged what you believed? Ever have your tastes or interests changed? Read an article or seen a video that got you thinking differently? And just as a reminder, comment discussions here are not debate oriented, so there's no obligation to take opposing sides in conversations here in other words, Rule 1 does not apply here .","conclusion":"T Tuesday - 07\/30\/13"}
{"id":"39e0bc41-c1bb-433b-bdf3-30d6579debd6","argument":"Faster voting and change could lead to chaos as direction on issues is changed frequently and dramatically. This could dramatically affect business competitiveness and international relations.","conclusion":"Liquid Democracy would be susceptible to the whims of the people, which could lead to instability, lack of direction, and even chaos."}
{"id":"0abb77cf-1f00-4042-8d1f-979cf473802b","argument":"State violation of fundamental human rights signifies that the terrorists are winning because the hallmark of a civilised society is unwavering respect for civilian lives.","conclusion":"State violations of fundamental human rights feed into the agenda of terrorism."}
{"id":"f81e095b-c205-4ec3-90a0-8616184f5a0c","argument":"Ta Nehisi Coates published a great open letter to his son that is well worth reading. However, he says I have seen that dream all my life. It is perfect houses with nice lawns. It is Memorial Day cookouts, block associations, and driveways. The Dream is tree houses and the Cub Scouts. And for so long I have wanted to escape into the Dream, to fold my country over my head like a blanket. But this has never been an option, because the Dream rests on our backs, the bedding made from our bodies. And knowing this, knowing that the Dream persists by warring with the known world, I was sad for the host, I was sad for all those families, I was sad for my country, but above all, in that moment, I was sad for you. He goes on to say There is no them without you, and without the right to break you they must necessarily fall from the mountain, lose their divinity, and tumble out of the Dream. And then they would have to determine how to build their suburbs on something other than human bones, how to angle their jails toward something other than a human stockyard, how to erect a democracy independent of cannibalism. Coates is right about so much in this letter. He is right that whiteness is an illusion people create for themselves. He is right that our history has been built on oppression and murder. He is right that the problem of police oppression of black communities is not a matter of a few bad apples but is structural. But I don't think he is right that this American Dream rests necessarily on oppression. My belief is that most Dreamers want black Americans to share those same cookouts, have those lawns, and join the cub scouts. They may not be making that happen indeed, some may be standing in the way of that happening , but there is nothing about the Dream that cannot survive in a more just society. . Explain to me why Coates rejects the idea of hope so absolutely. I don't think I understand.","conclusion":"Ta-Nehisi Coates is wrong about the American Dream."}
{"id":"98eb6945-60f8-4922-93ae-4668af72037c","argument":"Even devoid of some system, someone can believe things right, or wrong, which in turn would mean there are good, and evil.","conclusion":"The existence of evil does not require a moral law beyond man, simply morals."}
{"id":"21ce0707-2b24-407f-aa27-3fe0bf694046","argument":"For those who don't know much about the FDA and how the process of approving medical devices like surgical implants is different than that for drugs, I'll give a quick rundown, but my information comes mostly from the Netflix documentary The Bleeding Edge . I thought it was a well balanced and informative documentary, but I'd love to know if people think there are any major flaws with the way they presented their information. Basically, the FDA requires two clinical trials for new drugs each involving lots of patients, while only one trial with fewer patients for entirely new medical devices to receive pre market approval. However, there is a provision called a 501 k that allows for new devices to be approved with no trials what so ever on the condition that they function in a comparable way to an existing approved device. For example, new artificial hip joints can be approved without human trials because they all serve essentially the same purpose. They can vary in the materials the implant is made out of and other details such as the shape and still gain the approval necessary to enter the market without ever coming in contact with a single patient. If a variant of an original is found to be unsafe and removed from the market, it can still be used to approve a new device even after its removal. This provision was meant to be an exception to the normal pre market approval process, but has become the overwhelming favorite method for medical companies to introduce their new devices. Now, one device that received the more stringent but still not ideal pre market approval can predicate the introduction of countless new devices that have no guarantee of being as safe or effective. This allows for a reduction in the bureaucratic nightmare that the FDA would get caught in if they had the same method of approval for all new devices, but has also allowed some dangerous things to happen. The documentary gave the example of metal on metal artificial hip joints, the Essure female sterilization device, and Johnson Johnson surgical mesh specifically when used for pelvic floor repairs for mothers after childbirth . All of these implantable devices cause serious side effects that require further surgeries procedures along with enormous amounts of pain for the patients that were unfortunate enough to receive one. These complications are an enormous burden to the American healthcare system and are entirely avoidable. One woman in the documentary who was interviewed needed 17 surgeries after her initial outpatient implantation of the Essure device and was still not asymptomatic. There is a Facebook group for over 30,000 women who have suffered serious complications as a result of the Essure device in the United States alone, while the product has been banned in the EU. It is still available in the US. The cost to treat these complications must be astronomical, and I cannot possibly believe this is an isolated incident, even for completely unrelated devices. Obviously, it is not in the best financial interests of implantable device manufacturers to take more care with their pre market approval process, and the current administration is not in support of more stringent regulations regarding government agencies that could help solve this problem. There is also an enormous amount of lobbying going on behind the scenes that has made sure the current laws are going to stick around for the foreseeable future. I think keeping the current laws for device approval and introducing a new government agency regulatory body that was funded to specifically find dangerous devices that had slipped through the cracks, fully evaluate them and provide sufficient evidence to remove them from the market would not only pay for itself, but also reduce the overall cost to the American healthcare system. I don't think this would need to be an enormous program either since patients could report serious complications independently from their healthcare providers to the agency. Then, if a significant number of complaints are reported for a specific medical device, it can be meticulously evaluated and deemed either safe or unsafe to continue to be used. This would hopefully allow for a dangerous implantable device to be removed from the market before an excessive number of patients continue to suffer the consequences when something could have been done to stop it. I struggle to imagine that having a platform to objectively test medical devices retrospectively would not save American patients and insurance companies huge amounts of money that would be used for procedures to correct for something that should not have happened in the first place. Far more importantly, however, stopping a dangerous device from being used on patients who would have otherwise received it has the potential to save lives across the country. While this system is not perfect, I think it allows for the same amount of innovation to continue in the industry, while making it safer for patients. Changing the current laws to make approval for an implantable device harder would not only potentially prevent safe devices from reaching patients, but also have no chance of ever happening with the amount of money the industry contributes to our lawmakers. While still not likely to ever happen, a new regulatory body to retrospectively evaluate suspect medical devices is in the best interests of all Americans patients and manufacturers alike and is more likely to happen than outright changing the existing legislation.","conclusion":"A new government agency\/regulatory body specifically designed to scientifically test medical devices such as surgical implants and provide evidence to remove them from the market will help decrease the cost of healthcare without stifling medical innovation."}
{"id":"2303e8f2-4229-4a00-a230-75b75cfbcb16","argument":"The weakness of the German military illustrates the need for a united European army: if all EU member states' armies are combined, they will be able to make up for each others weaknesses.","conclusion":"A USE will be able to better defend its borders than the EU in its current form."}
{"id":"f794452f-18d5-4abe-9559-5378323219c2","argument":"Doom 2016 does a lot of things right in terms of bringing back good old fashioned shooters. But it has a bit too much polish to it. It still reaks of AAA production. It still seems more like it was created by a business person to make money rather than an artist with a vision. Brutal doom adds a lot more features, and mechanics without superficial things like weapon upgrades and skill trees. Instead giving you more firepower with a wider range of weapons, new maps, better soundtrack, voice lines, ect. All for free. It still has that nostalgic feel while feeling like a completely new game.","conclusion":"Brutal Doom > Doom 2016"}
{"id":"7d2426b0-2bc9-4c79-9775-09826be7d6cd","argument":"The more is produced by 3D printing, the better: it makes consuming much more environmentally friendly. They involve less transportation costs, no large scale factories, and by involving additive manufacturing, they can use as little as only a tenth of the material that subtractive manufacturing would require.18 When households, and not only companies, have access to 3D printers, companies will no longer have to move products around the world, but can sell electronic blueprints instead. Furthermore, things are only actually produced after they have been purchased, reducing waste even more. 18 \u201cPrint me a Stradivarius\u201d, The Economist. 10 February 2011.","conclusion":"Household 3D printers would reduce the environmental harms of consuming"}
{"id":"5d166ee6-fe66-4918-aac0-d717a45e6389","argument":"The reasons why I believe this are that the great majority of creationists and religious fundamentalists are from the South, and many of the horribly stupid politicians that we've seen over the past ten or so years have been propped up by their Southern supporters. Racism and homophobia also seem to be much more prominent in the South than in the North. I hate generalizing people like this and would really like for someone to successfully change my view I just can't help but think of the South like this at the moment. NOTE The title may be a bit miss leading because I don't believe that all Northerners are smarter than every single Southerner, but I do think that, on average, the North has an advantage. EDIT Strike intelligence out of the title. I have no foundation of proof for that and shouldn't have included it.","conclusion":"I think that Northerners are smarter and more educated than Southerners in the United States."}
{"id":"7cae6142-ebda-486a-a351-2cd02996f904","argument":"Discussions and debates happen all over reddit Views can be changed outside the subreddit which still conform to the rules of issuing a delta This encourages debate regardless of whether or not it is a formally structured debate within  So it follows This will encourage users to challenge and learn both inside the subreddit and outside and will encourage users who are not active  members to partake in more reasoned debate and reward other users who also partake in reasoned debate. Raising the quality of debates on the entire site. This is a net positive for the community and reddit in general.","conclusion":"I believe deltabot should troll for deltas issued outside of the subreddit."}
{"id":"50d99c26-565c-41f7-b178-f14c2d92a48c","argument":"There are several reasons that make me believe that one ply toilet paper should never be used and it angers me that it is so prevalent in hotels, restaurants, schools and universities. One ply toilet paper is uncomfortable Why would anyone prefer a thin layer of sandpaper over something a little thicker and fluffier? A lot of one ply toilet paper is so thin that it will actually tear more on this later resulting in your fingers possibly geting contaminated. In the service industry, I look at different restaurants hotels less favorably if they have a poor quality of toilet paper. One ply toilet paper is bad for business If there are two hotels or restaurants that are similar in quality which I have visited before, I will always choose the one with the better toilet paper. Although many may not be as picky as me, this is still a small loss in customers. Additionally, when wiping, the toilet paper can rip resulting in people using more and more toilet paper. Whether at home or in a business establishment, it would be cheaper to get higher quality toiler paper because although it would be more expensive, it would rip less and therefore result in less of it being used up. Perhaps I'm being too harsh and picky but one ply toilet paper experiences affect how much I enjoy different restaurants and hotels. Change my view gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"One ply toilet paper should never be used"}
{"id":"4ab41a63-4f99-4f99-a26b-cebd326a3a24","argument":"Many people live far away from where polling stations are placed. Because of the transportation costs and loss of time incurred, they do not vote.","conclusion":"Even in the status quo, many people are unable to vote. Therefore, that problem exists both ways and should not be a consideration."}
{"id":"7541b483-e357-4010-8248-3158060479d2","argument":"Places of worship that are located in places with existing security protocols, such as gated communities or educational institutes, may not need additional security.","conclusion":"Places of worship can secure themselves on their own, without government funding."}
{"id":"453292cb-dbc1-4062-ad4b-48d866783b32","argument":"Moral agency can be exercised through decisions to make supererogatory acts or not, and not merely decisions to make impermissible acts or not.","conclusion":"It is possible to create a world with free will but no evil."}
{"id":"750c34f9-c0f9-407d-bc99-c90043810b46","argument":"This is true of the Bagava Gita, which though believed to be true by Hindus is not.","conclusion":"Claims to divine revelation are not a sound basis for proving historical authenticity."}
{"id":"22c347e2-43b8-43f5-9c13-921f72044409","argument":"Going by the premise that God created everything, matter included. It follows that he must be different from matter. He must be some kind of consciousness that is beyond human comprehension.","conclusion":"Consciousness affects and interacts with the physical realm. Since God is a conscious entity, it is plausible that He is able to create the universe without being physically there."}
{"id":"59b4432d-dbdf-4c8d-8ab2-fee486955ea4","argument":"Meat makes you more selfish and less social key attributes to success in todays times within our cultural sphere.","conclusion":"Consuming meat is an important part of many culture's cuisines, religions, and practices."}
{"id":"b5ab6204-473a-43c7-8961-b344601e23a5","argument":"Many people would consider it torture to be imprisoned at all. Society as a whole considers this perfectly acceptable depending on the crime.","conclusion":"Some methods that may be considered torture are not so damaging as to be illegitimate."}
{"id":"682c1998-3d28-4f74-9371-7055130f9728","argument":"If you truly want to be just and fair then people need to be treated as individuals with their own unique personal views, circumstances, cultural and beliefs. You can still factor in and deal with things like discrimination, unearned advantages, unearned disadvantages, economic status, culture, etc. after seeing if it actually applies to that particular individual.","conclusion":"Judging others by the color of their skin is inherently wrong in any situation. It is prejudicial by definition."}
{"id":"59d2f72d-52b4-4369-a932-ee68ea38ff34","argument":"My friend likes to bitch and moan about how the rich and corporations control the world. Yes, they totally do, I get it. But my point is that there is nothing you can do to stop that. He personally wants to limit the power corporations have. He feels they get away with too much, and corrupt the government. My argument is that if you limit corporations, they will just find loopholes to ad nauseum. Organizations or groups, and even individual people can change their tactics far more quickly than the slow bureaucracy of a government. They can break the law in spirit, but not legislation. I.e., they can find a way to legally rob you blind, and while everyone hates them, nothing can be done if we respect the sanctity of the law, until it changes. And by then they will have adapted again. If you reset the wealth of everyone to exactly a dollar, the smart and cunning would rise above the rest again, and become billionaires. The smart and cunning would form corporations, which pool the minds and wealth of those who have the most of both in the world and with that they can perform superhuman feats of economic and political control. Bill Gates, the wealthiest man in the world is worth what, like 70 billion? Microsoft is worth 290B and Apple hit 660B last year. See my point? The only way to completely rebalance wealth would be to cap everyones bank account at a certain amount, but even then crafting capitalists would find a way to pool their money together and beat the system. A society of 5 people can come to a quick consensus to punish someone who obeyed the law in theory, but broke it in spirit. A society of hundreds of millions cannot.","conclusion":"Any attempt to re-balance wealth is futile, because even if you reset everyone to exactly $1, some would rise above the rest and eventually become billionaires again, and those billionaires would form corporations and wield superhuman economic and political power"}
{"id":"10fcfe07-9841-453e-b8f3-151f8a4e710a","argument":"Many good economic activities that currently require legislated exemptions to not be taxed would automatically be exempt under the FairTax.","conclusion":"A tax on expenditures is simple for the public to understand and reduces tax compliance costs."}
{"id":"373955ee-376a-4cfa-aaa7-f777cd06bb79","argument":"As renewable ways of generating electricity without generating pollutants exist manufacturing fossil fuels is inherently less eco friendly than manufacturing electricity.","conclusion":"EVs are better than fossil fuel cars because they use fewer finite natural resources to run"}
{"id":"eb4b6c2c-cc7a-4c8d-bcbc-78d94353b02c","argument":"Even some pure-bloods who claimed they would never touch a Muggle artifact own fancy cars.","conclusion":"A lot of wizarding transportation options are magical improvements on Muggle transportation systems."}
{"id":"38072305-53c5-4482-ace7-a1c4900a3d63","argument":"Minors who go on puberty blockers and then hormones risk being unable to have biological children","conclusion":"Some alternative procedures may harm individuals' ability to have biological children"}
{"id":"439153ab-beda-46e2-8738-72a49be89045","argument":"In the US, there has been a spread of virginity balls in Christian communities, where young women attend a ball with their fathers and pledge to abstain from sex until marriage. This often involves the fathers vowing to protect their daughter's purity and therefore equates virginity with purity for women.","conclusion":"Gendered expectations around virginity often mean that women view virginity loss as giving something away and are encouraged to protect their virginity, while men losing their virginity is viewed as a way to gain status and experience."}
{"id":"0d6a51ba-6a79-483c-94a9-578e25b5d872","argument":"The obvious exceptions would be for visibly disabled people, people whose hands are full, and anyone who asks for help. Also maybe anyone who looks frail or small, e.g. the elderly and children. Other than that, holding doors open by default is inconvenient for the hold er and the hold ee. The hold er has to break stride, wait, look behind, and possibly get snubbed if the person is actually walking in a different direction or uses a different door. The hold ee is in an equally awkward position. Unless they are walking in lockstep very close behind the hold er it is unlikely that they will arrive at the held door at a convenient time. More likely they will feel obligated to speedwalk or run to catch the door. There are much more effective ways to be polite and pro social. This is just an inconvenience for the sake of virtue signalling. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Holding doors open for strangers is more trouble than it's worth for everyone involved and should not be a necessary part of polite behavior."}
{"id":"262fb9ee-11be-4ebb-9973-f38aca502917","argument":"The UBI would not affect anyone by 1 being revenue-neutral for the middle class and 2 replace other forms of government assistance, like pell grants for college students, earned income tax credit EITC for many low-income families, and social security for the elderly, so they can still receive their benefits without issue.","conclusion":"The US already pays nearly $10,000 to many taxpayers in the form of the standard deduction currently a non-refundable tax credit. Changing it into a refundable tax credit a one-line change to the tax code would constitute a UBI structure while consolidating other governmental assistance programs into it."}
{"id":"f53cb126-e81b-4d94-b3a6-e4aca1818cdf","argument":"post inspired from this The majority of commenters seems to side with the guy. I mean, even if the girl didn't catfish him truly trust him, that still means the guy will fall for another girl who messages him, right? Another case if X snoops around their partner's Y phone, and found out that they have been cheating, reddit usually blames X for privacy invasion that X should go to therapy for being that insecure, or relationship that insecure is doomed to break anyway. I mean I agree that invasion of privacy is wrong too. But if you check your partner's messages, and finds out that they have been cheating, doesn't that mean he's done something wrong first, before you did? edit thank you for all the comments. but I feel many are missing the point. Yes, I know and I agree that invasion of privacy is bad . Period. I'm not arguing that it's acceptable if it's done to confirm suspicions satisfy your insecurity. What I'm asking about why do the majority of reddit seem to hate the invasion of privacy more than the cheating? Even to the point where some even think that the cheating is fair deserved, even though technically the wrong deed that happened first is the cheating. Because my view is, while both are bad, the invasion of privacy is less severe. can someone enlighten me why, and the train of thoughts? edit2 I just thought of a simpler way sorry for not thinking about this earlier I'm a bit slow not fluent in English We all agree that our privacy being invaded being cheated are bad, but if you have to pick one, your partner checking your phone behind your back, or your partner has been secretly sleeping around, which one do you pick, and why? And again, yes both are bad, both can be red flags, both can be dealbreakers, both are valid breaking up reasons, but if you have to pick one to happen to you, which one? And why? For me, cheating is an absolute dealbreaker, while if they're insecure that they have to check my phone, then it's something that I can do about, because to me, insecurity, is like jealousy, it's something that we can work it out together. And it's something that can be improved fixed. While if it's cheating, you know, once a cheater, always a cheater. And this is why I want to understand the PoV of those who think that IoP is the bigger red flag dealbreaker. And please stop saying that both are bad because yeah we all already know that and that's not the point of this post gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Invasion of privacy is less severe than the cheating"}
{"id":"b282714c-f7b2-41b2-8a36-8cf4fb0148cd","argument":"The corruption of politicians, government officials lawyers is so prevalent we almost accept it as a society. The widespread lies propaganda over everything from cannabis, alcohol, tobacco, to the 'harder' drugs known as opium, herion, cocaine, lsd I'm sure the list goes on. The US, education system has failed time time again to provide a safe, constructive environment for our children, not only poisoning them with the food, but creating a social class hierarchy promoting the bullying, violence, classwarfare that's so well known as 'boys will be boys' or 'kids will be mean'. With the blatant lies fake culture the media by media I mean commercials are legally allowed to parade around with is absurd, most of the products these companies sell you, kill you how is that legal? Dare I begin on the medical system? Currency has no place in civilized humanity. I don't believe in it. Abolish it. We've grown beyond it.","conclusion":"I've absolutely no faith in currency."}
{"id":"b6c1bc50-4e08-45bb-a1e3-fbf7945e8524","argument":"The existence of mental illnesses that create behavioral compulsions shows there is no free will beyond brain chemistry, as otherwise mentally ill people could just choose not to behave that way.","conclusion":"Human actions are determined by uncontrollable internal and metaphysical processes."}
{"id":"5604856f-5ead-4a4f-87ce-a33e81d1d2f2","argument":"I really wanted to like this movie. But the writing was so cliche and manipulative from the beginning. I admit, I didn't make it quite to a half hour in before the cringe got so bad I had to turn it off so I don't know the whole plot. They killed his wife, and then killed his puppy, but the top badasses revere him. But he's just Keanu Reeves acting like Keanu Reeves does in every single movie. Don't get me wrong, I like him when the writing is good, but this whole movie plays like a bad video game cutscene. What am I missing? Let the downvotes fly if you must, but I'm genuinely curious why so many people enjoyed this movie.","conclusion":"John Wick is a stupid boring movie that made me cringe every 5 minutes."}
{"id":"9cc7f917-a17b-464e-a6fd-405436d0f358","argument":"Presently in the US, African Americans are the only people who assume no risk of being regarded as racist when the term is uttered in a public environment. Naturally, according to this socially accepted principle, anyone who isn\u2019t black is strongly discouraged from openly using the word \u2018nigga\u2019. If this unspoken rule is ever violated, the guilty person is ferociously berated, denounced, or condemned in the vast majority of cases. This is even true of the more \u2018innocent\u2019 instances, such as the time when Kendrick Lamar booted a non African American guest off stage for not self censoring \u2018nigga\u2019 while she recited his lyrics. This  only pertains to the ambiguous or seemingly benign uses of the word, NOT the instances where it is blatantly racist in the context of its use. For example, when you see an anonymous person include the word \u2018nigga\u2019 in a comment or post on Reddit, then his or her use of the word can be considered both acceptable and unacceptable, until his or her racial identity is known Seriously though I think all this rings true.  PS I\u2019m black.","conclusion":"Schr\u00f6dinger\u2019s \u2018nigga\u2019 - usage of the word \u201cnigga\u201d in comments on the internet can be considered both acceptable and unacceptable until the identity of the author is observed."}
{"id":"9121c00d-d062-4269-a8d9-3e8242904f59","argument":"The internet has reached a precipice, that those who steal our money and freedoms, are afraid of losing control of, and are on attack to bury whomever is in the way of this agenda. I don't think these people are open minded enough to have created such a beautiful tool for human kind. It's counterproductive to allow these people to remain in power and continue changing breaking making laws that hinder the evolution of healthy life. I hope someday we will realize what it takes to make the change, and start living again. Peacefully.","conclusion":"The Internet couldn't have gotten soo powerful and open, if government's had been in control from the start."}
{"id":"5507a9b1-9d88-47bd-983d-49e967702cbd","argument":"If abortions will happen anyway, it is preferable to make them as safe as possible so at least the women survive the procedure.","conclusion":"When abortion is banned, many women who do not want a child seek out illegal abortions"}
{"id":"acfb00fd-0a51-476b-9e61-511d4bcdff51","argument":"Note A film that is bad means that the various elements of the film directing, writing, acting, photography visual composition, editing, soundtrack ect. are objectively bad or don't work together. Pete Travis's 2012 film Dredd starring Karl Urban receives a lot of praise from many not all people over at r movies and reddit in general I don't know to many people irl that have seen the film but of the few people they thought it was a great film . The praise people give the film and the non existance of the criticism of the film confusing. In what ways is the film good? The writing was very unoriginal I can think of about 20 films of the top of my head that are action packed dystopian violent films, not to mention it had a very similar plot to The Raid Redemption , had terribly written characters a 12 year old could have thought of characters with more depth and complexity and the overall story depended way to much on the action. The acting was bad. There I said it. I have no idea what people see in Karl Urban, maybe it was because the character of the Judge was already terrible but Urban did not bring his A game to that movie. Lena Headey also was average in the film, Mama was meant to be this extremely brutal and evil character with a tragic and horrorfying past. However the writer, Pete Travis and Lena Headey did a terrible job at trying to communicate this to the audience. She wasn't fearful or even intimidating, I get that Pete Travis was trying to show that women can be even more cruel and dominate than men by making the antagonist a female but it just didn't work. The directing style of Pete Travis is something of a redeemable feature. I suppose the film is a lot like the 2003 film Equilibrium , the style was bold and is the main reason for the appeal, even if the film itself is pretty average. The extreme violence along with the slow motion sequences, and visual techniques to achieve shots like this does separate the film some what from the other hundreds of dystopian action films. However overall Dredd is just a regular dystopian action film with bad writing acting and some interesting directing style. I have no idea why it has such a large fanbase. Dredd is a bad film, .","conclusion":"Dredd 2012 is an over all terrible film"}
{"id":"091e6800-5768-4a3f-87e5-6b1fcfa7491a","argument":"Pope Francis decided that the theme of the 15th Ordinary General Meeting of the Synod of Bishops should be \"Youth, faith, and vocational discernment\"","conclusion":"Pope Francis has actively encouraged young people to participate and have a say in the running of the Church."}
{"id":"ece1f06c-6bfc-43c4-b455-3ea93cecd4e3","argument":"I don't think the title is that good, I couldn't say what I wanted to say exactly, but I will try to clarify my point. I see threads like this often and see the people that point out the method of suicide is a horrible thing to do to another person. I agree with that completely, but we should still give sympathy to those who have committed suicide instead of undermining the message sent by the act itself. I think we should try to prevent it from happening in the first place and try to change the sad fact that some people have no escape other than killing themselves. Am I completely off base here?","conclusion":"Debating the ethical or moral judgement given on the choice of method of suicide completely undermines the act itself."}
{"id":"5ffed670-e029-4539-8e12-32a3008480b3","argument":"Many high schools, colleges, and even professional sports teams use Indian mascots to represent their teams. Teams such as the \u201cWashington Redskins\u201d, \u201cAtlanta Braves\u201d, and \u201cMontville Indians\u201d all use Native American logos. Opinions vary as to whether or not this is appropriate. Some people would argue that these mascots honor Native American culture, while others would say that they are offensive and insulting. On the other hand, many if not most Indian mascots are offensive and insulting. They promote negative stereotypes and values such as violence and the \u201cwarrior\u201d image. They ignore the fact that Native American men held many other roles, and that women played an important part, often choosing chiefs and leading matrilineal clans. Indian mascots also promote the misuse of important objects like drums, weapons, headdresses, and regalia. Spectators wear stereotypical \u201ccostumes\u201d that are rarely even from right region, and play ridiculous music that is supposedly \u201cIndian\u201d. Some people might say that Indian mascots are degrading, as they are displayed among the animals and objects more commonly used to represent teams. Although some \u201chuman\u201d groups like the Celtics, Vikings, and Patriots are used as mascots, they do not use images of groups that are still functioning. Though some people in America probably have ancestors that were Celts or Vikings, those people themselves are not Celts or Vikings. This is not so with American Indians, many of whom still practice traditional ceremonies and traditions. Edit Thank you to everyone who replied, your comments are all very insightful and I really enjoyed reading them.","conclusion":"I think that Indian mascots\/logos are offensive and should not be allowed."}
{"id":"d35a9f2b-f59b-4e0b-84cb-41801d8de596","argument":"Now, I understand that this statement is a broad generalisation. The standard deviation to such statement is so vast, that it would perhaps just border into stereotypes and not really be a fair, logical generalisation. I have, and appreciate the claim which I've heard in the field of genetic research and whatnot, that there is no clear, distinct genetic differences betw. difference races . However, my argument is somewhat critical of this social construct of attractiveness and race I don't think anyone can deny the following physical traits that we would normally associate with Western and East Asian physical traits, respectively tall short small, more defined facial structure round, large 'pan' face longer legs shorter legs more variable eye, hair color monotone being light dark in skin tone etc. Perhaps I'm just being systemically biased, but couldn't it be argued that Western, predominately Caucasian traits possess an evolutionary advantage to their East Asian counterpart? I do see both as a sort of dichotomy in terms of anatomy. And another limitation of my argument could be the narrowing of this comparison between Caucasian and Orientals. Of course there are African, Latino, Middle Eastern, etc. that we could vaguely categorise as having superficially distinctive, characteristic qualities. But the focus of my argument lies in the significantly distinct qualities possessed by Cauc EAsians. My conclusion is therefore this If we were to assume the premise that we could accept the existence of evolutionarily advantageous, 'superior' traits being carried disproportionately by certain 'races' superior in the sense that more women men would be likely to be attracted to the opposite sex , would it be racist, or realist, to carry racial dating preferences? Does it even matter, since who cares who or what you\u2019re attracted to, right? But my point is we must attempt to explain why Caucasians are more desirable than East Asians, even in parts of East Asia not exposed to western media or internal media influences. I can't link a widely quoted sociological study right now, but it would show that black women and asian men suffer a statistically significant bias against their attractiveness to others, if I must simply its findings. And of course I would be wary of its limitations like only surveying ~200 university students, which isn't representative at all of the human nature of what we find attractive in the evolutionary sense. So, I would like someone to challenge this somewhat controversial opinion that I hold. Is it fair and sound to just accept that some races may be 'superior' in certain aspects of quality than other races? such as aesthetics, certain sports like basketball where taller ppl are likely to succeed and intelligence although intelligence is almost certainly determined by environment rather than genetic differences even if such differences exist Finally, I could imagine ppl would say media influences and historical, cultural factors. The whole point of my argument would rest on the assumptions that such factors are negligent or non existent or mutually cancelling in statistically producing the sociological phenomena of seeing caucasian male female being generally speaking more desired, which is yet another thing that must be assumed for my argument to make sense something that I do believe is a sound generalisation, again, I would be open to the idea that it may be false if you take into account what you see all around the world . Thank you for at least reading my ramblings. If you feel there are holes in my view, please feel free to contribute to this niche discussion. EDIT I just realised that one must assume that Caucasian traits are indeed more inclined to being more evolutionarily advantageous for this to make sense. It is of course debatable whether humans are still evolving even if we aren't, I think we can run with the idea of believing that certain obvious traits, like being tall, have a tendency to be attractive to a significantly more people. FINAL EDIT THank you to those that have helped me realised some of the weaknesses of underlying flaws of my view, I've now certainly taken on a different stance about this after some thought.","conclusion":"- Western physical traits are generally speaking more attractive than East Asian traits, and so not sure whether it would\/wouldn't be racist to have racial dating preferences"}
{"id":"17928c16-88e0-486b-8166-7d94bafd46d8","argument":"I came across a discussion in another subreddit about the future of the bond franchise and whether or not it would be a good idea for the new Blofeld to be female or not. The quote that jarred with me was I don't care whether it's Ernst or Evelynn. This made me think, wow, in this case the gender has been altered, but the cultural heritage of the character has been maintained the choice of female name was still Germanic, the quote didn't read I don't care whether it's Ernst or Esmeralda. The point I'm driving at is that the characters have a context and a cultural context. Films of yesteryear may well have been written at a time when the role of women was seen to be x, the role of minority ethnic groups was seen to be y, etc etc, however to alter these attributes is disingenuous to the character. I'd like to make it clear that I'm not against diversity in the film and TV industry. What I'm saying is that a character is written in a certain way. It would be a better idea to write a new character than to retconn an old character to be completely different. I'm also not trying to say that certain aspects of a character can't be changed. Lets use the example of James Bond. A black Bond can easily make sense. The character can still use the same tropes, Bond can still be a slick secret agent. If you made James Bond into Jimmy Bond the CIA agent from Boston, then you start to erode the integrity of the source material.  EDIT I've now had my view changed. I recognise that directors aren't exactly riding roughshod over IP, and for the most part, changes are only made which do in fact maintain the integrity of the character. A great example is that the newer Spiderman, Miles Morales IS a black hispanic Spiderman, but he isn't a black hispanic Peter Parker.","conclusion":"Changing genders\/race of characters in movie reboots isn't a good thing"}
{"id":"702145ad-ffb8-41ce-98cf-75980b09b3d8","argument":"Paxton notes that fascism is \"working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence.\" While Antifa forgoes working with traditional elites, they do abandon democratic liberties for violence as evidenced by their counter protests.","conclusion":"Robert Paxton description of fascism in 'The Anatomy of Fascism' is so broad in can be used describe groups that claim to be anti fascist."}
{"id":"a6ec51bb-6338-40ed-85ad-e376a02f9cd4","argument":"To start, I want to give an example. Girls, imagine you go on a date with a man. The date went really well, and you can see a future with this man. But at the end of the date, the man expects you to pay for the entirety of the date. Not just your expenses, but his expenses as well. You can say no and offer to just pay your own expenses, but if you do you will come off as selfish. You will come off as someone who doesn't respect your date enough to pay for his expenses. It will show him that you really didn't enjoy the date. x200B What would you think about this? Would you say your date is overthinking everything and strawmanning your reasoning? Would you think the man is selfish for expecting you to pay for his expenses? x200B So my question is why would it be considered perfectly reasonable if the girl expected the guy to pay for her expenses, but unreasonable if the guy expected the girl to pay for her expenses? This is basically saying that the girls time is more valuable than the guys time and the guy should have to pay for the girls time.","conclusion":"It should not be an expectation for the man to pay for the entirety of the date"}
{"id":"d213c415-ae5c-4a3e-849c-527f7d8213c8","argument":"This is because the number of adults functionally eligible for jury duty is far smaller than the total adult population. Jurors must be fully proficient in the native language of their country, be a citizen, have no disqualifying health condition and must not have been convicted of a felony.","conclusion":"Just 0.02% of U.S. adults serve in a jury trial in a given year. A proportion of people this tiny does not have a meaningful effect on the the public's knowledge of justice."}
{"id":"d79c3cd6-b867-4e9b-ba45-5aebf420b79e","argument":"I find sexist jokes funny. There are inherent differences between men and women body build, endurance, muscles, etc. I find sexist jokes funny because they use these SLIGHT differences and make a mountain out of a mole hill. I find racist jokes abhorrent. There is no difference between a black asian, middle eastern, whatever man and a white man, or a black again asian, middle eastern, whatever woman and a white woman other than a little melanin, especially because most humans were descended from people in Africa. Try to change my view.","conclusion":"I think there is a huge difference between racism and sexism,"}
{"id":"0e5fc93b-8a63-4e10-be82-c76278ddb80b","argument":"Edit A few comments have made valid arguments but not any that I would consider a view change. I think the best solution is to go through the clinic. Maybe for a small fee the clinic can mediate contact? They can send any pertinent medical information to the child. If further contact is wanted by both parties, it can be made. If not, the person should not track down the genetic parent and try to inject themselves into their lives. Remember my argument is not whether they are breaking any laws. My argument is that it is rude. Some have said that they also have a right to the rest of the family tree. Maybe they legally do. I can't imagine reaching out to genetic grandparents when you know that the parent, your link to the rest of the family does not wish to acknowledge you. I just think it's rude wrong to potentially bring drama to a family in that way. I was reading a story by a small author that I really like. In her new story the plot centered around a young girl tracking down her sperm donor father. Not a sperm donor as in a deadbeat dad, a literal sperm donor from a sperm bank. In the first half of the story, the sperm donor wanted nothing to do with the girl when he learned that he was being tracked down. He was painted as selfish and just as a bad person. The author has a small but loyal online following where fans like myself discuss the story. Many people in the fan page seemed to think the donor was truly the asshole for not wanting to meet the daughter. Of course, since the story is fiction, somehow they got through their rocky start. He got together with the child's mother and they lived happily ever after. Reading the story made me curious about what happens in real life. These donors were promised anonymity, was it even possible for them to be tracked down? Turns out it happens in real life too. The children can use ancestrial DNA test companies like 23 me and ancestry DNA. Plus a combination of social media to find the donors. Here's one article I also found out that in the UK since 2005, children of sperm donors have the right to track down the sperm donors when they turn 18. They receive the donors name, birthdate and last known address. This means there is not really any anonymity for UK donors. The law is linked to the sperm shortage in the UK, requiring them to import sperm. article I understand that people want to track down their families. I just believe that trying to find these donors is an invasion of their privacy. They helped give you life, they don't owe you anything else.","conclusion":"tracking down your sperm\/egg donor is rude. It's not a cute story about finding yourself and your history. It's violating someone else's privacy."}
{"id":"a5a4e768-3b76-41c9-81ca-0ea36e4602a3","argument":"Not the deepest or most important view I hold, but I've often balked at the idea that anything is unnatural. To be clear, I hope to discuss the spirit of this view, not the semantics. Specifically, I obviously concede that something can be man made, that something can be unusual. But my gripe is with the idea that there's some significant categorical distinction between man made and natural. Man made entities are often labeled as artificial because they wouldn't occur but for human intervention innovation. For example, some would deride Kraft Singles or Pop Tarts as unnatural. Now, Pop Tarts may be unhealthy, less tasty, etc. etc. But to me it is arbitrary to distinguish them, or to characterize them as occurring outside of nature, on the basis that they are man made. I see it like this if a group of primates in central Africa was found to be producing its own cheese esque product and surviving off of it, no one would call it unnatural. On the contrary, I imagine folks would rightfully marvel at the innovation of the animals. Some might even go as far as to wax philosophical about the wonders of nature and life and evolution and whatnot. Why don't we look at our own achievements as such? It's almost arrogant to act as if our creations are seperate from nature. The fact is, animal manipulation of nature is nature. If a gorilla breaks a stick to use it as a back scratcher, that's not unnatural. And in my view, we're doing the exact same thing but to a larger degree. It's arbitrary to draw a line somewhere where that manipulation becomes complex and label it as outside of nature. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Everything is \"natural\""}
{"id":"085807d0-67fd-4888-8dea-567da9e82661","argument":"How much money has your own city wasted restoring old abandoned buildings? The only defense is materialism hiding behind culture , my own city will restore and old building, just because it's like 50 years old and is Art Deco , restoring it will be like x10 the price of bringing it down and making a new one. I find this disgusting, this is a city that constantly has problems funding social programs, yet they wanna throw money away in this building, we already have good cultural buildings we constantly give maintenance too, this abandoned building is a money pit, I'm glad they had trouble with starting with it, hope the project remains in the abyss until the whole thing comes down on it's own. I think the fact they want to fund this project is like taking the bread out of people's mouth, it is disgusting.","conclusion":"Old buildings should be demolished instead of restored"}
{"id":"103636ba-67fd-437e-af5b-01309c618549","argument":"In the US, there has been a spread of virginity balls in Christian communities, where young women attend a ball with their fathers and pledge to abstain from sex until marriage. This often involves the fathers vowing to protect their daughter's purity and therefore equates virginity with purity for women.","conclusion":"Gendered expectations around virginity often mean that women view virginity loss as giving something away and are encouraged to protect their virginity, while men losing their virginity is viewed as a way to gain status and experience."}
{"id":"a7b42dd1-f865-43a5-ae1c-22a0dc52aeef","argument":"Please leave the footnote below the following line, but remember to delete this sentence by replacing it with the body of your post. Thank you Throughout American History there have bene countermovements to social revolutions in the United States. Segregationists were not racists, but rather staunch supporters of states's rights Anti abortion activists are in fact pro life Anti gay marriage campaigners are just defenders of the family and traditional marriage In an attempt to sound enlightened these countermovements frame their oppositional propaganda against social movements as being favor of something else, and that something else is usually specious and seems sophisticated or desirable on a superficial level. In that vein, I believe that alllivesmatter is nothing but a reactionary movement against blacklivesmatter, and that it has nothing to do with bringing attention to other people who are victimized by police brutality. People who are genuinely concerned about white, Hispanic, Asian, etc. people being harmed by the police would not wait until people started talking about black people being killed by the police to speak up about it. I believe the hashtag was designed expressly to ignore the plight of black people in this country, and that it is not designed to include black people under a broader blanket of police brutality, but to deliberately draw attention away from the special plight of black people with regard to this social problem. Change my view.","conclusion":"#Alllivesmatter is a racist countermovement designed to minimize attention on black victims of police brutality, not to draw attention to victims of other races"}
{"id":"45e83b0d-2e3b-406c-bceb-0a9eba61ff03","argument":"Sexual age of consent laws are arbitrarily conceived and arbitrarily enforced. It is obvious to any young or older adult who lives on Earth that people vary in their appetite for, understanding of, and maturity with respect to sex at every age from the onset of puberty forward. Age simply isn't sufficient to indicate that a person either is or isn't unless it's set absurdly low competent to consent to sex, or mature enough to engage in it without adverse consequences. Given all of this, which is obviously true, I propose that age of consent be replaced by qualification to consent, which can be earned and certified irrespective of age. The criteria for competency to consent would ultimately be a matter of democratic policy, but might include such items as completion of puberty, subsequent completion of a course of sex education, and proof of a sufficient degree of physical, cognitive, and emotional maturity. Accommodations might be made for individuals with learning disabilities, mental illnesses, hormonal disorders, or other disadvantages. It would be the right of any post pubescent person to enroll in any required courses and petition for competency to consent qualification at any age. Competency to consent is superior to age of consent because it more accurately reflects the sexual maturity of individuals. x200B Edit Commenters have made some pretty good counterpoints to this. Also my first online pedo accusation D I think there's definitely a conversation to be had about the pluses and minuses of the status quo with respect to protecting young people from sexual predation, but it can't be as simple as what I've suggested here. The solution I've suggested would be overly complicated and expensive and just as likely to be ignored as existing age of consent laws, while failing to address more fundamental problems.","conclusion":"Let's replace sexual age of consent laws with age-neutral criteria for competency to consent."}
{"id":"f0c143c1-9731-4f4d-b21e-226e5bc24237","argument":"Celebrities that do stupid, careless and reckless things should not be elevated in their death. While I don't wish harm on anyone, I can feel no pity for a 40 year old man racing through streets like he was on a racetrack. His buddy and he endangered themselves and were a menace to the whole community. I have read so many glowing comments about a screen fantasy figure, without people really looking into how he went out of this world. Of course, my disgust is based on the assumption that his car was speeding recklessly, if that is in fact what happened I would love for someone to defend him and change my view.","conclusion":"I believe that Paul Walker is being unfairly treated as a really good guy,"}
{"id":"caa54266-0fc0-440f-8c22-09a9e6077c6d","argument":"God wants the human beings he has created to come to choose to follow him spiritually and come to love him as he loves them. In order fot this choice to be possible, his creations have to have free will.","conclusion":"God allows evil to exist so that humans can have free will and develop into moral people. In order to be morally good in a meaningful way, a person must have the possibility of choosing evil."}
{"id":"d359e3a1-834e-4acc-8134-520a2590c2bc","argument":"I am from Colorado. In 2013 the state implemented a 15 round magazine limit. I dont see any logical reason behind this. What is the difference between a 30 round magazine and two 15 round magazines besides 2 or so seconds to switch the magazine? How is that 2 seconds going to seriously interfere with a criminal's actions? It seems to me that either A idiots who fear guns but have no real knowledge or experience with them are trying to impose their illogical and fear based ideals onto everyone else or B the state is trying to pass bullshit laws to grow in power And neither of these are logical reasons to have a law in my mind. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I am against magazine capacity restrictions."}
{"id":"61280015-cf88-4210-b007-d73025780367","argument":"Don't get me wrong I fully support the school walkouts in the states and everything, I support peaceful protests for good causes. What i don't think is good or helpful is when two parties violently protest against each other. For example if I were to be an American who walked out of a trump rally and got bombarded with abuse and violence, I wouldn't think 'you know what these guys are right', I would think 'what a bunch of unhappy assholes, what a great person they must be supporting'. I would probably dislike the other group even more because it portrays them as violent uncivilised people, not the kind of people I want in power in this case. It wouldn't convince me or change my mind at all. .","conclusion":"Protesting doesn't help in most cases."}
{"id":"416d5a06-c7e7-4a40-ba84-349907733861","argument":"A troubling number of questions I've seen on ELI5 about science have at least one answer posted and up voted that's incredibly wrong. On r askscience this kind of stuff will usually get down voted to oblivion , but the necessary expertise and moderation is missing on ELI5. There's also not nearly as much pressure to provide credible sources. The first objection to this idea that I could imagine is that ELI5 has a different enough purpose to differentiate it from AskScience, but plenty of posts on the latter are phrased simply, for laymen. Often, people ask for and recieve ELI5 level explanations on that sub. Hell, if you really wanted to, you could even add an ELI5 flair to separate laymen questions from more expert ones. So try and convince me that ELI5 serves a purpose for scientific technical questions that isn't being filled by AskScience.","conclusion":"If they aren't going to strengthen their moderation, \/r\/explainlikeimfive should delete questions about science\/technology and point people to \/r\/askscience instead."}
{"id":"b1411926-175c-4de1-a216-b789f4f36238","argument":"I don't think the actions currently associated with the word terrorism are inherently worse than conventional war practiced by most modern nations, That is not to say that I support the terrorists but I that I oppose terrorists because of their goals and general opposition to conflict. My idea is as follows, the reason most terrorists nowadays use these tactics is because of practical manners, there is no way they can face a conventional army face to face therefore their only choice is to resort to terrorism suicide bombings,car bombs,etc , A similar thing happens with conventional armies, it would be too costly to judge each scenario based on how many civilians would get hurt and take extreme measures to avoid, probably by having soldiers on the ground with good aim, and so they resort to things like airstrikes,drones and other modern methods that achieve the objective with little regard to collateral damage. Lastly imagine if the roles were switched and the world had an incredibly powerful theocratic nations with guerrilla terrorist groups seeking to change things to become more secular liberal would there be a big difference in the way the secular party would act. Just to clarify I am not saying terrorism is effective, I generally see that the cost of conflict is mostly too high so I am not sure if I would like the secular terrorists in that imaginary scenario. edit just to be absolutely clear I know that terrorism relies on fear and targeting civilians my point is that the reasons behind terrorism and the way modern armies act is quite similar, The major differences is in the objectives and the availability of alternatives, i.e no one gives the priority to avoiding civilian casualties except when it is important in achieving the objective. edit 2 After thinking more about it and rereading my post I think I wasn't clear enough, attacks with civilian collateral damage are similar to terrorism but the morality of the action depend on the aim of the perpetrator which could be to save more lives, this can be applied to terrorists or armies. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I fail to see what is unique about terrorism as a form of violence"}
{"id":"0791da65-7773-42e0-ac57-2b5e2dd899d1","argument":"The ability to support or withhold approval from earmarks strengthens the party leaderships in Congress too much. Effectively the leadership can bribe elected representatives with pork for their state or district in order to get them to vote for flawed legislation or budgets. This was clearly seen in the 2010 Healthcare bill where in the Senate votes were secured from conservative Democrats by offering federal spending or subsidies that only affected the states of Louisiana and Nebraska.1 One consequence of the temptation provided by earmarks is poor policy-making, but more broadly it discourages Congressmen from thinking and voting independently, according to their consciences and their belief in what is best for the nation. 1 Murray, Shailagh and Montgomery, Lori, \u2018Deal on health bill is reached\u2019, 2009","conclusion":"Earmarks transfer too much power to political parties' central leadership"}
{"id":"12c2e6aa-76d3-45d1-aab0-bc2167ad64d1","argument":"People often see rape in the media but don't recognize it as rape or chalk it up to a \"lesser\" form of rape; for example, in shows like Game of Thrones, we are expected to actually root for and admire characters who have committed blatant sexual assault.","conclusion":"Rape culture is so engrained into modern-day society that often people are unaware of what is deemed rape and what is not."}
{"id":"2a2d3114-5764-46cd-8f11-e33ab627dafc","argument":"Even if all subjects must show practical economic utility, the study of Classics is still justifiabl.","conclusion":"Classics Latin and Ancient Greek, should be taught in schools"}
{"id":"544cd13f-16cb-4999-b56e-0d44d5e93887","argument":"Understanding how the government works takes effort, and most people don't have the time or desire to learn about this subject so they rely on myths. A myth is a pervasive attitude or belief that oversimplifies a more complex issue, one example of a myth is the belief that all republicans represent big companies or that all democrats are liberals. Myths may have seeds of truth which is why they are popular, but ultimately they are harmful because they create hostility between groups of people by making both sides oversimplify the motivations and beliefs of others. The only way to prevent yourself from using myths is by learning how something works and preventing yourself from using a myth as a shortcut to understanding. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Myths help most people make sense of politics and government but they are mostly harmful."}
{"id":"6b137f96-f92c-477b-b9fa-3b11e32f8449","argument":"Harris has already manifested this hostile approach based on impugning the character of an adversary, and the result was the exacerbating of divisions in society and the deepening of Republican control over the Senate.","conclusion":"Harris' commitment to a prosecutorial approach to combatting Trump would probably backfire in the general election. Such a strategy is unlikely to be effective against Trump."}
{"id":"490f6b93-f53b-49f0-afed-8d091bcd00c5","argument":"If employees are hired purely for their contribution to cultural diversity and not based on merit, then their coworkers will not respect them and this will lead to harmful workplace dynamics.","conclusion":"If organisations were to achieve cultural diversity via recruitment, then it would make the hiring process un-meritocratic. This would harm the efficiency of work."}
{"id":"22943b85-f7a9-414d-99cb-3c2622c83156","argument":"A panel of the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals in the United States recently rule that the conservative lobby group Citizens United should be considered a part of the media, and as such will not be compelled to disclose sources of funding for their polemical films, which have a strongly ideological angle. It is suspected that funding mainly comes from big corporations in America who have a vested interest in helping Citizens United spread muck about political road bumps, such as in Hillary The Movie. Therefore, so the argument goes, they should be held to a high standard of transparency. My view is that a legal obligation to release detailed accounts of their means of production of films is a violation of the first amendment, and that anyone who feels they have been defamed by the organisation is free to sue. If the material presented in their productions is factually correct then it is for others to use their free speech to counter allegations made, however they see fit. Here are some links providing context for my view","conclusion":"Citizens United should not be forced to disclose funding for their film \"Rocky Mountain Heist\""}
{"id":"1d6cc05c-67ee-42ce-afea-d36d782addba","argument":"The market has a natural corrective process for eliminating unprofitable business practices, like avoiding the hiring of qualified minorities. Those firms that behave irrationally due to ingrained bigotry will see their market share, and with it their revenue, drop, and consequently will see their share of the work force under their control decline at the expense of more rational and fair-minded companies.","conclusion":"Governments should not intervene in the hiring and promotional practices of companies without serious cause to do so."}
{"id":"9549c5bd-5706-4012-acb8-1bc91c0e5842","argument":"Hey y'all. Before I start, I want to make clear this isn't an attack on people who do believe in this stuff. I was in the same boat for a long time myself. I'm posting here because the existence of magic has been a deeply held belief of mine for nearly a decade but ever since I started seeing a psychiatrist and taking medication my perception of things has changed a lot and my once solid foundation of belief now seems shaky at best. Some backstory I've been or I guess had been, at this point a witch since I was around 14 and I first read about Wicca online. Didn't end up becoming Wiccan but I did dabble quite a bit and spend a lot of time reading occult books and posts online. A few years later I became active in Tumblr's witchcraft community and it wasn't long before I got sucked into whatever that was. I jumped around between religions constantly, mostly NRMs, but practicing what I called secular witchcraft remained a constant. Ended up adopting a lot of crazy beliefs i don't buy into anymore simply because it was so heavily normalized in my little internet bubble. One of my old blogs even ended up on the TiA subreddit lol. I discarded a lot of those more out there beliefs later on, like godphones , when I wasn't a teenager anymore but I still held onto the idea that magic, in some way, is real. I was just on the wrong path with those particular beliefs. x200B As I kept going though, I found that no matter what system I tried to adhere to I just kept getting more questions than answers and a lot of people telling me to just shut up and do as I'm told and if it does work they get full credit and if it doesn't it must be my fault somehow. Every group or tradition I seemed to end up getting into would turn out to be either an echo chamber with some dangerous beliefs at its core, or a blatant extortion scheme of some kind. Eventually, for other reasons, I went to a psychiatrist and ended up on antidepressants and anti anxiety medication that I'm still taking now. I'm not saying they made me more sane, but as time went on a lot of the extreme emotional responses and obsessively negative thought patterns I had all my life went away. It's the kind of thing you don't realize is there until it's finally gone. And in getting rid of those, it wasn't just that I didn't know how to justify or explain magic. I realized that I had never known how to justify magic's existence in the first place. I had simply never let myself question it because facing a reality where my physical and social short comings couldn't be justified by the fact that I was some kind of special and gifted individual was too painful. Not to mention I wasted roughly 8 or 9 years of my life on it and studied it more than any other skill I have. I believed because I found the belief necessary to protect my fragile self esteem at the time, and everyone I respected reinforced that this was a valid and reasonable way to approach reality. x200B Now I'm in that weird in between where I really do not believe anymore, but my social life is still heavily involved with witchcraft and other believers of varying degrees of off the wall. I don't feel comfortable debating my witch friends over this because I feel it could easily be interpreted as me being religiously insensitive and hurt my standing in the community. I'd rather just remain friends with them and talk about other things. So I come to reddit instead. x200B I want to hear all your best arguments for the existence of magic not the stage kind or the con artist kind. Real magic, whether it be based on spiritual ideas like in Wicca, or a psychological model like in chaos magic. Anything that claims to affect reality through mystical or metaphysical means that can't be explained through mainstream science alone. Give me your best arguments and if I can't find any flaws in your evidence or logic, you've earned your delta. x200B EDIT Alright, I've been going at this for around 3 hours now and I should probably get off reddit and go cook dinner. Sorry if I didn't get to your comment, it seems every time I answered one another would pop up in its place. Which is great I'm glad this post had such a large turnout. In the end I have not been convinced yet I will come back and check on this post later assuming I don't forget, I'm not the most active reddit user and continue answering comments. Thanks for the debates everyone and have a great evening.","conclusion":"Magic and witchcraft aren't real and don't work at all"}
{"id":"9fce5dbf-1a9a-4a5a-8864-9c5f71b578f8","argument":"Offering drivers licenses to illegal immigrants makes the streets safer by giving drivers training to people who would otherwise be driving on the streets without adequate education. Unlicensed drivers are five times more likely to get into a fatal crash than licensed drivers1. A fact that needs to be acknowledged is that illegal immigrants have a necessity to drive and the vast majority will do so regardless of if they are given licenses or not. This is very dangerous both for them and for those who they share the road with as they are operating motor vehicles with a proper education on the rules of the road or any form of driving instruction or test to ensure that they can competently and safely drive on the streets2. Illegal immigrants are very likely to opt into this system of driver\u2019s education and licensing because it is in their own interest to avoid breaking the law to avoid detection, but also because it is very much in their interest to get instruction on how to drive as they are as much a danger to themselves as they are to the rest of society when they drive without instruction3. Therefore, offering illegal immigrants driver\u2019s licenses will help make the streets safer by giving drivers access to the education and instruction they need to be safe and competent drivers. 1 \"Immigration: Let them drive.\" Economist 25 Oct 2007, n. pag. Web. 1 Dec. 2011. 2 \"Immigration: Let them drive.\" Economist 25 Oct 2007, n. pag. Web. 1 Dec. 2011. 3 \"Driver's Licenses for Undocumented Aliens.\" Institute of Governmental Studies. UC Berkeley, n. d. Web. 1 Dec. 2011.","conclusion":"The provision of driver\u2019s licenses makes the streets safer."}
{"id":"985a1665-f38e-4fc6-971b-c0523eaf0909","argument":"Alcohol was once made in illegal in the United States but this decisions was reversed because it created a space for a black market and more violence corruption. I think this happens with anything illegal and the harm caused by other drugs cannabis, cocaine, LSD, heroin to name a few would be lessened if it were made legal and controlled as alcohol is. Below are a couple statistics explaining how clearly noxious alcohol is, and yet we allow it in our society. I also think that by recognizing other drugs as a legal component in our environment we could more efficiently treat addicts for the disease they have rather than criminalizing drug use. In 2012, according to CDC, alcohol related car accidents cost about 10,322 lives in the U.S. this amounted to about 31 of all the car related deaths. Alcohol also instigate family or domestic violence. Child and spouse abuse are often attributed to the offender being drunk. Additionally, the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence NCADD reported that 37 of rapes and sexual assaults in the United States are alcohol related same goes with 15 of all the robberies, 27 of all the aggravated assaults, and 25 of simple assaults. Health issues caused by alcoholic intake is quite alarming. The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism NIH reported that alcohol causes brain malfunction by interfering with its communication pathways thereby disrupting mood and behavior. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"If alcohol is legal, all drugs should be."}
{"id":"d8617f08-ae1f-4b66-b25f-980a578cc708","argument":"To get it out of the way, I understand that the foreign assistance budget is a small proportion of the total U.S. budget and is dwarfed by our military budget. At 23 billion it's less than 4 percent the amount we spend on defense and well under 1 percent of the total budget That said, it's still in the tens of billions of dollars. While I understand that it's important to be compassionate and that giving this money away allows us to conduct diplomacy and negotiate from a higher moral standing, I don't believe that we get limited tangible benefits from it. In an age when we have veterans who require care and there are plenty of people outside the U.S. who wish to do us harm and who we have to defend against, I can think of many other, better functions for this money Please change my view EDIT Thank you to everyone and to u electronics12345 and u McKoijion in particular. To me, the best arguments tied foreign assistance with a cost we wouldn't have to incur elsewhere. For example, providing money to organizations in W. African nations to fight Ebola means they can contain it and we don't have to fight Ebola here. Providing money to middle eastern nations means they can effectively do what U.S. service members on U.S. bases in the region would do. In each of these cases, because of many reasons including that we're assisting and not doing the whole thing ourselves, the cost can be much cheaper. EDIT2 It's important to also mention u fstd who suggested that the premise upon which my argument was based is flawed. A big chunk of foreign assistance goes to security not just humanitarian aid. Thanks again and have a good evening. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The U.S. spends too much on foreign assistance; this may feel compassionate but could be better spent domestically or on defense"}
{"id":"782ece76-e52a-421a-9523-7c9f54e0bad0","argument":"If the election day holiday law was passed, although there would be plenty of people who who would get election day off that usually wouldn't, these would likely be the same people who would go out and vote on that day anyway, even if they worked. Typically the workers who get Federal Holidays off are government employees. i.e. public school teachers, postal workers and government office personnel. While there may be some industries who would adopt this day off, the majority of them would not. The reason for this is that most industries don't get Federal Holidays off right now. Restaurants, retail, police, firefighters, and many large companies do not observe MLK Jr. Day by taking it off. Some companies will do a floating Holiday where you get President's Day off one year, and Memorial Day the next and it just cycles through. The two days out of the year that most companies recognize in the United States is Independence Day and Christmas Day and on these days even most movie theaters are still open. Grocery stores, gas stations, mini marts and fast food restaurants would still be open. Hell, I've even seen a Subway open on Christmas Day. The only thing an Election Day Holiday would do is give companies like JCPenney an opportunity to have a new ELECTION DAY SALE STOP BY THIS TUESDAY BEFORE VOTING TO GIVE US MONEY And guess who has to work that sale? The same people this law is trying to benefit. Most states already have laws in place that allow for workers to schedule for time off on election day so they can go out and vote. Some of these states even make pay for this time mandatory. While not all states adopt this policy, making an election day holiday will not resolve this issue. What will resolve this issue is if the states that have no laws currently, pass new state laws that require employers to allow their employees to vote while the polls are open. This is not a national or federal issue. This is an individual state issue that the voters of those states need to address.","conclusion":"A \"National Voting Holiday\" will not increase voter turnout to any significant degree."}
{"id":"0ae139c6-6a7f-4615-85fb-519d037f4e3d","argument":"In order to protect the religious from these views, we should prevent people from saying these offensive things.","conclusion":"Some intellectual views are antithetical to beliefs held by major religions, and should be protected against."}
{"id":"fa46cd66-c472-4db9-8b92-df1fb7e1dd35","argument":"Mostly its because of sanitary reasons and smell but generally i cant find anything appealing about them. Im not against them i just think they're disgusting especially in porn they look gross and slimy actually i just cant handle it and thats really it. im just rambling because of this stupid 500 word limit so yeah, the internet has really fucked with my head and now i have no attraction to it. Maybe its' paranoia but i need help to not find vaginas gross, i don't think im in the wrong entirely but eh idk","conclusion":"Im a male and i find vaginas to be gross"}
{"id":"61a5c330-a089-4fac-88eb-d49dac2b4bb7","argument":"While one might expect one of America's closest allies to play a supportive role in times of conflict, Israel has been a strategic burden in the past, for example during the Gulf War in 1990 and 1991. The US government intentionally had to keep Israel out of the coalition against Iraq. Its participation might have led to more Arab support for Iraq and possibly even Arab countries leaving the coalition.","conclusion":"This might be a positive outcome; its close association with Israel is a burden for the United States."}
{"id":"189f7039-b768-405e-a2d9-7456dbad947c","argument":"I am passionate about the idea of becoming an educator. I grew up hating school and underachieving because I didn't have any teachers that really understood me. I want to go back to school as a teacher so I can help students like me and just do my part to improve the educational system. I am apprehensive about pursuing this career, however, because the pay is so low. The median salary for teachers in america is approximately 50 60k a year which is not enough to sustain a family of 4 in the U.S. unless it's supplemented by dual income. Change my view please","conclusion":"The only reason I am apprehensive about pursuing a career in teaching is the extremely low pay."}
{"id":"29de2f5c-c906-4ac2-8227-09c5244ce846","argument":"On February 20, 2015 the District Court for the Eastern State of Virginia issued a warrant allowing officers to make use of Network Investigative Techniques. 1","conclusion":"Potential targets were unable to object or even be informed about the warrant issued against them."}
{"id":"2323b267-9be8-4576-95c3-b35ab7e3cf22","argument":"Now to be clear I am not stating that varying news organizations have no bias, that is impossible and I'm not even sure that's a huge issue. But i would argue that the idea that mainstream media is deluding and lying to their audiences is frankly rather absurd. I would imagine a newspaper that prints lies doesn't get bought. And, come to think of it, I see large news organizations as probably one of the types of large organizations with the most integrity. I get the local news and the WSJ at the doorstep each morning, will listen to NPR in the morning as well, and during the day I'll log on to the NYT. I feel like it would take conspiracy theory level suspicion to feel like all of these organizations where colluding for some agenda, No? However if you convince yourself that Fake News does exist you allow yourself to reject any information without much reason.","conclusion":"Fake news doesn't really exist. And people's distrust in the media is unwarranted."}
{"id":"f7e5022f-e6d3-44c1-94e9-c5d2051811b3","argument":"First of all, My English is not perfect. so bear with me. lt 3 I've been thinking about this a while, with all the net neutrality and NSA and how people online seem to dislike the government being able to intrude it's citizen's privacy. First of all, an ideal government is a government for the people, by the people . A government where it has no interest whatsoever other than improving it's citizens. Now, I agree that the government could be potentially hacked, or even the government is terrible and uses the information against it's citizens. However, This information could also be used to improve the country as a whole faster than the alternative. Off the top of my head, how this would help a country 1 Terrorism is totally stopped 2 People who need help, are guided better 3 The citizens are emotionally enriched Everyone trusts the government and knows it wants the best for them. 4 No more spies, because the government can track them. 5 The government can help you much faster, suicides can be prevents, crimes stopped, almost no people in jails for crimes not committed etc. 6 There are many other detrimental advantages that I can't think about right now off the top of my head. Can you please change my view about this ?","conclusion":"In a country with an ideal government, it's better for the government to be able to track down all phone calls and internet of it's citizens."}
{"id":"75963381-8e66-4999-b7c0-69fa00c591aa","argument":"Private funding favours profit, which may cause them to act contrary to the interest of the consumer - for example, if there is more profit in developing symptomatic drugs that require repeated purchase vs important treatments for rare tropical diseases.","conclusion":"Investor-owned hospitals have not been known for their participation in the education of health professionals or in research."}
{"id":"a8edd44f-c1c9-406c-9b9a-37a3fa6f2033","argument":"Half Life 2 to me has always been kinda boring. Nothing really new or shocking or exciting, just dicking around Eastern Europe. On the other hand, Half Life 1 is wild you spend the entire time galavanting around a secret science lab, barreling down maintenance tunnels, fighting aliens that you've never seen before. You have no idea what is going on in the outside world, all you know is the hell that is Black Mesa. Conversely, Half Life 2 is a kind of flaccid, predictable stroll in the forest. I dunno, I've just never held Half Life 2 in the same high regard as Half Life 1.","conclusion":"I believe Half-Life 1 is a much better game than Half-Life 2"}
{"id":"b3c87a77-5139-427f-b8f6-f9370f9e85a8","argument":"People may demand to have AGIs that are representative of the current racial and gender makeup of humans; if so, will we need affirmative action for them?","conclusion":"If we create AGI in our own image, this may serve to reinforce outdated social standards."}
{"id":"20030fc0-1897-4772-8d68-a7beed3f8c2e","argument":"Having a massive handout makes it easier for people to coast through life without needing to try overly hard; this is far from character building.","conclusion":"Everybody needs to do their best to accomplish something in life."}
{"id":"6a95b93e-75d2-46cf-8eb2-b4e84b8c446a","argument":"Edit I realize that there isn't much to do to change my opinion. Im asking why others enjoy so much. I just bought Interstellar, and was really hyped to watch it for the first time. I tried to go in without a good or bad feeling, but the incredible IMDb rating got me excited and I had super high expectations I mean, many of my friends rate it in their top 10 . SPOILER AHEAD TL DR Great beginning, boring ugliness of space, exciting sequences with bad directing and comparing action to other Nolan films, cheesiness follows, awful ending, bad dialogue, acting, writing etc. I adored the first section, it was emotional and created a great world or universe for the movie. Once they got into space it started to take a lean for the worse. I found space to be beautiful and realistic, yet it did not seem to reach the beauty that 2001 made. I found that the dialogue was bland, uneventful, and overall badly written and acted. But this is similar to other Nolan films, so I didn't see it as that big of a problem, and expected it to get better. I soon found myself thinking what alot of other haters think, that it is more of a complicated collection of science, than it is a complicated journey of the mind similar to 2001 . I began to doubt the movie a bit, but then my excitement rase again, as I felt Nolan's precision with summer blockbusters regain through the wormhole scene. It felt intense, fun, and I had a feeling that it had more to do with the plot than being just an epic scene. Although, it didn't make up for the problems in the minutes before If I remember correctly, the next sequence was on the water planet. I felt excited, as they landed on the planet. However, it was dispelled. I felt the epic and intensity of the scenes, I loved it. While it wasn't the brilliant action that is seen in other movies including Nolan's , it was exhilarating. By now, I was sure it wouldn't be in my top 50 movies, but I knew that it wouldn't be a bad one. It was followed by an attempt at an emotional scene, with Cooper and Brand I think that's her name . It did not contain the great emotion and direction as the Earth scenes, or as could be acheived, yet it did have good acting and fairly good dialogue. They reach the spaceship again and is greeted by their now old teammate. Cooper then has an offset scene with him and his daughter now horribly portrayed by Jessica Chastain . It felt like Nolan realized his lack of good dialogue and emotion, and through this in. Then it shows Chastain on Earth, in sequences that greatly effect the plot. From what I can remember, I enjoyed this part. Now that I look back, I feel as though I had an urge to have the movie containing the emotion and plot dipicted in the Earth scenes, and that I hated the space scenes. On Earth, Chastain goes back to the house and sees Tom. At this point, I begin to notice thing that aren't right plot holes, and badly made sections . Tom seems to not be loved by Cooper further shown later on , and I realize other instances in the movie that are not as they should be, and I start to go full critic mode. The audience never got enough to be attached to Wes, and he dies epicly, yet emotionlessly. However, somehow, he gets a sequence with the characters mourning and arguing over his death, while it would be great if we got to know Wes, we didn't, making the scene pointless other than plot wise . Other characters also are badly portrayed. I don't know what TARS is supposed to be, a sidekick? A comic relief? All of the sudden I lost my sympathy for the movie, and had a bad taste through the rest. I'll try not to overly explain my emotions towards the rest of the film, as it was always bitter Dr. Mann's section was stightly enjoyable, and I really wish the rest of the space sections were like it. I don't remember much about it other than that Michael Caine's death was similar to the other, felt pointless to the audience, and while tried to, later on had not alot of influence on characters development and emotional struggle. I didn't really enjoy Matt Damons casting. Maybe it was because, his acting felt off against the others, or because it felt like there were better options to portray his character. Then of course came the way too loud ending. The tesseract scene was way too long. Cooper's understanding of it was nonsensical, emotionless, and it felt like Cooper was going through an oh yeah, this totally is normal and makes sense moment. Here's where I hate the movie the most Cooper Station. It felt like it took the mood Chris tried to make through the last third of the movie, and through it out the window unmatched and unexpected tone . I'm not sure why, but it felt a little TOO futuristic even for a space epic.The documentary premise was designed to be a oh yeah, like at the beginning moment, but actually made the beginning almost like a meaningless reference to the end, or vise versa.Overall, ending was oversaturated.","conclusion":"Interstellar 2014 is an overrated movie!"}
{"id":"4928597b-db94-4070-ba88-79f3d95dbd73","argument":"As of 2010, eight out of ten members of the Australian parliament had a post-secondary education degree. The share in the general population meanwhile stood at less than half that OECD, p. 2","conclusion":"Citizens without a high level of formal education are under-represented in most parliaments."}
{"id":"04565779-988c-4b50-b853-19c89bcd5da5","argument":"Some well known villians, who would traditionally be persons of colour can be portrayed by white characters in order to separate their villanious behavior from their race and comment upon the convention to cast POC as villians.","conclusion":"White stars are cast where casting an actor whose ethnicity matches with the original character would perpetuate negative racial stereotypes."}
{"id":"d526dbbd-7a34-476a-a90b-baf9a6fa51ac","argument":"For example, if there is a 200 million jackpot, it is worse if 20 people win it and thus you get 10 million each than it is to win the entire 200 million jackpot. I keep telling people this, people keep saying, Well no but they fail to refute my main argument so here it is The more money you have, the more freedom you get. 10 million can get you a nice house, nice car, allow you to fly first class sometimes but not all the time, ensure no emergency can destroy your life, etc. However wouldn't it be better to win the entire 200 million so you can get several nice houses, several nice cars, allow you to fly first class all the time and still ensure no emergency can destroy your life? Also, before you say, Yeah but you'll get taxed more if you have 200 million that doesn't change the fact that the 200 million guy will still have more than the 10 million guy gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"In the lottery, it is worse to share the jackpot than it is to win the entire jackpot"}
{"id":"a8c81a2d-2e40-4557-b911-8585cf513749","argument":"Elizabethan audiences would have been particularly ready to believe that supernatural occurrences would be more likely in the wake of deeds which challenged or upended the natural order of things, such as the murder of King Hamlet. The unnatural state of Elsinore is emphasised throughout the first act: \"Something is rotten in the state of Denmark\" Act 1, Scene v.","conclusion":"In Elizabethan times when Hamlet was written, ghosts were more commonly believed in and so would not have been considered a hallucination by the audience."}
{"id":"6ec42a88-bf76-43e5-b717-475674ec0567","argument":"Important distinction I believe people do act selflessly everyday but I don\u2019t think I makes rational sense to live this way. Why would I ever serve anyone\u2019s ends other than my own? I also believe the argument that basically goes if you\u2019re nice to people they\u2019ll be nice to you is invalid since it's based on serving one\u2019s self. I think most morals just come from social custom that have held because it's generally good for the group to work together which again can still be viewed as self serving. The best argument I can think of is simply that it feels good to do so. However I think this has a lot to do with conditioning. We\u2019ve been drilled into us since birth about the rewards of kindness and compassion but if this was really how we naturally felt it wouldn\u2019t need to be hammered into us. It doesn\u2019t make sense. People just cling to this notion of compassion because they\u2019re scared of being alone.","conclusion":"I believe there is no reason for me to act compassionately or act selflessly."}
{"id":"b6d36cf0-8880-4f87-8314-f61669870904","argument":"Every human should have the right and means to decide when and how to die.","conclusion":"Euthanasia is a choice for patients, often supported by several health experts."}
{"id":"2c9f8da4-fe41-459f-b875-f2a2af6819fc","argument":"Is there porn where the theme is objectifying and exploiting women? Yes. But the women in those videos are acting. Just like a murder victim in a movie isn't actually a victim, many of the women who appear to be victimised in professional porn are in fact paid actresses. And it's not like all porn is about exploiting women. Most porn is about consensual, enjoyable sex between adults. There's also porn where men are degraded and exploited. There's something for everyone. Now, when you look at the porn industry in general, the women in it are not exploited any more than the men. Most of them do it by choice and are paid well. I'm not going to deny that there is human trafficking and exploitation going on in the world, but that's more prevalent in places where things like porn and prostitution are not legal. That kind of black market exploitation is a symptom of illegality and the solution is usually to make it more legal, not less . What porn does, though, is it catches people in one of their most primal emotional states during which people are much more likely to make bad decisions and exploits them. Not just for subscription money and views, but every porn site I've ever been to is covered in ads telling me that my dick isn't big enough and I need to spend money on magic solutions or I'll never get laid. So we have objectification, emotional manipulation and economic exploitation all perpetrated by the porn industry against its mostly male audience. Yet, often people seem to be implying that it's the guys at their computers jerking off who are complicit in some way in exploiting and degrading the well paid happy actresses on screen.","conclusion":"if anyone is objectified and exploited by porn, it's men."}
{"id":"3d40100f-ffa9-4b17-bb62-30c5e5fcb9a4","argument":"This is the only way I can say this without coming across as a bigot. There are people in this world who are undeniably better than me in multiple ways. Stronger. Smarter. More efficient. I will never be equal to them no matter what I do. I can certainly improve myself and strive for progress but it likely won't grant me the same level of success and adoration others have achieved because I am not equal to them . Personally, I believe it has to do with genetics. Perhaps some people are simply unlucky and wind up with faulty genetic compositions. I insist this has nothing to do with race or heritage and more to do with intelligence, capability, and adaptability. I think some people just happen to win the genetic lottery, and others have to put in a bit more effort to make it through life. I am in no way suggesting people should be treated with less decency or respect due to perceived failings just that strict equality may be a bit of a naive concept.","conclusion":"I'm beginning to think true, legitimate equality is nonsense."}
{"id":"a53b2b06-e8ad-4606-96db-734ad8532675","argument":"Having this alternative, wanting to \"extend\" public nudity to the whole public space means the nudists and their proponents clearly intend to impose the sight of nudity to those that don't want to see it.","conclusion":"In order to respect everyone's opinion and differences, there are already defined places where social nudity is acceptable. Properly separated, they do not cause offense to those who disagree."}
{"id":"50513f10-cac7-4db4-8fd4-2fa4e3199209","argument":"What does equality mean? Does giving open access to the capitalistic system and one vote ensure that people are equal? We have three levels of response. First of all, the opposition fails to engage with our point. The proposition showed how private property generates inequity in opportunity for the next generation\u2014how the system contradicts itself. The opposition naively reiterates progressive tax is against equality, when we proved things were not equal. Thus we go back to the inherent contradiction; while the opposition agrees that gap must be reduced, it opposes to principles that show why. Besides, what does Opposition mean by equality? There comes the second subpoint; the Opposition does not have proper reasoning. It believes there are \u201cnatural rules\u201d and that it is natural that income should be proportional to income. However, who draws the line on what is natural and equal? Why should \u201cextra\u201d governmental regulation be considered \u201cartificial\u201d when a legal system already requires governmental involvement in society\u2014not to mention the \u201cextra\u201d rules are already partially incorporated into the \u201cnatural\u201d system by 16th Amendment of the US constitution, for example. Who decides whether equal percentage from income is the right interpretation of equality\u2014why not equal amount or different amount that invokes equal sense of loss? Simply saying progressive tax takes away more percentage is not a logical reasoning of equality. Since the Opposition does not have proper reasoning, the argument based on principle becomes quite similar to simple preference. The opposition reintroduces the corruption, which, as we showed in the first point, only has minimal influence as drawbacks. Only one thing new and quite convincing is corporate social responsibility, the alleged solution by the market. However, CSR is not altruistic, but a reluctant response to growing social demand. and note that our policy aims to do so in the long-term.","conclusion":"Response to rebuttal Equality is not just about same percentage of income; and certainly it's the government's role to prevent it from being so."}
{"id":"7a9b5519-977a-4121-8c84-091a2ca2c94b","argument":"A video for those who aren't familiar. Straight to the point, this video is an example of emotional bullying. The only difference between a prank and a real crisis is that the prank is resolved with laughter at the victim's expense . These children are being subjected to a scenario that causes them to experience intense emotional suffering they are being goaded to the point of tears and emotional break downs, all for the sake of a few laughs. The fact that their parents are doing it to them makes it even worse, because they are the child's ultimate role models and emotional providers. Cruelty is cruelty, even if it ends with lol jk. Furthermore, I believe that pranks like these create an environment that specifically teaches children that it is okay to bully and to be cruel to others, so long as there is a laugh at the end. It's one thing if both sides can get a laugh out of the situation, but many of these children are still visibly upset, even after learning that it was all a prank. This is the quintessential picture of bullying, in which one person inflicts pain on someone else and laughs at their misfortune, while the victim is left hurt and confused. EDIT There have been a lot of responses in which people have taken the opposite of my argument, claiming that the Halloween prank is actually an example of good parenting. Several of the people who have responded believe that my viewpoints advocate for coddling and overly sheltering the child. This argument takes two opposites, ignores the full spectrum of parenting techniques and behaviors in between them, and sets them up as a false dichotomy. So, according to this logic you are either a good parent for intentionally inflicting pain on your child, or you are a bad parent for coddling your child. Another way to look at it is that this argument re defines coddling as not intentionally inflicting emotional pain on your child. I do not accept this definition, and I do not believe this dichotomy exists or should ever exist.","conclusion":"The Jimmy Kimmel Halloween Prank crosses ethical lines in child rearing."}
{"id":"38c53433-c35e-4d00-9bf0-237bd3249d49","argument":"If big lenders within the financial system go bankrupt for lack of government support, companies will be unable to raise new money and this can have a \u201cdomino effect\u201d on the whole economy. Corporate bankruptcies will soar. Consumers will also find it difficult, or expensive, to borrow money for household loans \u2013 such as a new house or a new car. The result will be a sharp downturn in demand that will push the economy into a deep recession.","conclusion":"If big lenders within the financial system go bankrupt for lack of government support, companies wil..."}
{"id":"614809fa-6594-483c-8f78-1e16bc9067d2","argument":"Since the dawn of times there are prostitutes. There seems no reason to prefer a sex-robot over real women.","conclusion":"Men will never accept a robot as a substitute for a women."}
{"id":"717460ca-0dbb-42b4-babf-d5556799c8e0","argument":"For the past 20 years I've lived in the Greater Toronto Area henceforth GTA , but am mulling about moving to the metropolitan area of Greater Vancouver henceforth YVR , not merely the city of Vancouver I don't mind living in the suburbs. I loathe GTA's frostiness. The colder the weather, the more I gripe, and the more unproductive and listless I feel. I've visited YVR many times, and don't mind rain. I love nature. YVR is much nearer picturesque scenery to which I can drive like Whistler, Okanagan. Ontario's flat and dull. I fly to Japan to see family every year. YVR is nearer Japan. Non decisive factors Real estate prices are dreadfully lofty in both cities, perhaps a shade more in YVR, but I'm willing to sacrifice some money for warmness. I have just 1 true friend in the GTA, and we can always FaceTime. Being away will sadden us, but I spurn the cold more than I spurn not seeing her. Anyhow, it's challenging for me to befriend new people as I'm antinatalist","conclusion":"As I scorn Toronto's coldness, I ought move from Toronto to Vancouver."}
{"id":"a62efe51-c1ba-4921-a881-01e9e0446efe","argument":"Religious views regarding sex rely on harmful stereotypes that often place women's virginity and purity as the measure of a woman's worth.","conclusion":"Many religions instill views of shame and sin regarding sexual relationships."}
{"id":"a690328f-764b-4063-8a83-134d95c4c909","argument":"Voldemort's army consisted of not only Dark Wizards called Death Eaters but also various other creatures like giants, Dementors, Acromantulas and werewolves.","conclusion":"Both Voldemort and Gellert Grindelwald had armies of followers to aid them in their respective missions."}
{"id":"99ca51cb-1fba-4efb-a8ee-f89e7e13f426","argument":"As an artist I take a huge problem with the word talent. It's used as a scapegoat to diminish all the time work and effort one puts forth to hone ones chosen skill. I believe this very strongly because of the numerous times people not in the world of art and art making really underestimate just how long it takes to get good at anything to make it good enough to present to the public. This lack of understanding leads the general public to leads to the idea poeple are just born knowing how to create what it is that they are presented with. When in all reality some may be born with the imagination to create great works next to no body is born with the skills needed to bring those ideas to life. The ability and skills needed to bring forth these ideas takes years if not a life time of practice and work to achieve and to say oh he she is so talented is just cheapening what we do. Talent is also a way to try to make creatives feel guilty for charging what we do as it's just supposed to be easy for us as it comes naturally.","conclusion":"The word talent robs artist and other creative people diminishes the hard work and time spent perfecting their chosen skill."}
{"id":"86f69dbb-0246-4326-95bb-ce21c2a8061c","argument":"In the 2014 General Elections, Bharatiya Janata Party and the Indian National Congress, the two largest political parties of India, gave only 8.8 percent and 12.9 percent tickets to women candidates respectively.","conclusion":"India has very low rates of female involvement in politics."}
{"id":"a4516397-3db1-4921-bf49-fe9560f0db0b","argument":"\u201cLike racism, sexism is a system of beliefs and behaviors by which a group is oppressed controlled, and exploited because of presumed gender differences. Homophobia \u2013 the fear of homosexuality- is part of the system of social control that legitimates and enforces gender oppression. It supports the system of compulsory heterosexuality\u201d Andersen","conclusion":"Critical theory presumes that our identity as individuals is inseparable from our group identity, especially our categorization as \u2018oppressor\u2019 or \u2018oppressed\u2019 with respect to a particular identity marker."}
{"id":"32a6f5ff-7946-46b0-8925-e3e25ce19c15","argument":"Pretty self explanatory. I think the TPP would be good. Source Page 29 To be specific, the USITC predicted that TPP would benefit the economy in the following ways U.S Annual Real income would increase by .23 Real GDP would increase by .15 Employment would increase marginally 0.07 US exports would increase 1 and imports would increase 1,1 s. U.S. exports to new FTA partners would grow by 34.6 billion 18.7 percent U.S. imports from those countries would grow by 23.4 billion 10.4 percent . And that NAFTA was good. Source","conclusion":"TPP would be good for the economy, just like NAFTA was."}
{"id":"938db60f-cd18-4fb6-a343-47db32dc6500","argument":"They have their position pretty much guaranteed from the state. They do not need to be competitive. Unless they were found guilty of gross embezzlement or extreme fraud, I cannot imagine them losing their position. I would love to believe that my satisfaction is a priority of theirs but I do not think it is.","conclusion":"I think American state businessesFasTrak, CalTrans, DMV, etc. are less likely to care about their customers because they have nothing to lose, no need to be competitive,"}
{"id":"2a1e2eb8-6864-46d5-a6e3-d65d37dc6e75","argument":"Monopolising the room and discussion, as well as undermining and disrupting an educational leader's authority are common methods students utilize to attempt to take back control of their environment when they feel unmotivated.","conclusion":"Students tend to misbehave proactively when unmotivated due to the need to take control of the environment. p. 18"}
{"id":"8ddf6e72-c57e-48c2-af89-2db816a98eda","argument":"30% of Republican primary voters nationally say they support bombing Agrabah, as do 20% of democrats Agrabah is the fictional country from Aladdin.","conclusion":"People are often unaware of their ignorance\/misconceptions and provide input regardless."}
{"id":"021e937b-5d0f-4274-8780-9c86b02a1f6f","argument":"Most esteemed fathers of the Senate, for how long must we allow Caesar to make a nuisance of himself in Gallia? For Caesar hath started this war not for the good of Roma or her People nay He hath made war to sate his desire for personal glory, not the glory of Roma. He hath seized riches argentum, aurum, cuprum, and other wealth to feed his debtors' desires for full coffers if their own, not the coffers of Roma For Caesar hath declared to us all the dangers the Gallics supposedly present us, yet our proconsul still provideth us evidence of this not. Too long hath the cupidity of riches come before the good of Lady Roma. Too long hath the blood of the fine young men of Roma been used as fuel for Caesar's unchecked ambition. And aye it is Caesar who gaineth glory, dignity, authority before the eyes of the legions out with him. It is not unknown to us Romans for a man to attempt to supercede the authority of the Republica Surely, O Conscripts Fathers, ye remember the perfidy of Gaius Marius? Had not Sulla intervened, we might perhaps be living under his heel today. Let us not place ourselves in that position Recall Caesar now, before it is too late","conclusion":"I am Marcus Porcius Cato, and I think Gaius Julius Caesar's proconsulship should NOT be prorogued."}
{"id":"610b7417-f0ca-4aac-9b42-0d2f993c6995","argument":"Brazil, Spain, and Switzerland require consent for all photos involving people. In several other countries consent is only required in certain situations.","conclusion":"Some countries prohibit filming individuals without consent which makes it illegal in general."}
{"id":"f40851ee-b82b-40c9-b962-2dd0b50cf0d6","argument":"Hail Columbia was the unofficial anthem of the USA until 1931, when the Star Spangled Banner became official. I believe that Hail Columbia should have been chosen as the national anthem instead, for the following reasons The Star Spangled is about the War of 1812, which the USA lost. Sure, the USA won the peace treaty, but it was definitely defeated militarily by Britain and Canada. The USA suffered many more casualties and the capital was burned down. It makes no sense to me to have a national anthem celebrating a war that the country lost. The Star Spangled Banner isn't rousing. Take the French anthem, la Marseillaise for example. It's fast, bombastic, and rousing Now, slow isn't necessarily bad as far as anthems go Israel's anthem, Hatikvah is another one of my favorites, and it's a slow and sad anthem. The Star Spangled Banner isn't like either of these anthems, though. It isn't bombastic like the French anthem, and it isn't sad and emotional like the Israeli anthem. Hail Columbia, on the other hand, is fast and bombastic like la Marseillaise. Imagine a baseball or football stadium singing it before a game the crowd could sing it with much more energy and enthusiasm that they could sing the Star Spangled Banner. Change my view.","conclusion":"Hail Columbia should have been chosen as the USA's national anthem instead of the Star Spangled Banner"}
{"id":"ff758363-dc57-40ad-8942-d284689ccf05","argument":"The full interview here The main two excerpts in question are as follows What, in your mind, is sinful? \u201cStart with homosexual behavior and just morph out from there. Bestiality, sleeping around with this woman and that woman and that woman and those men,\u201d he says. Then he paraphrases Corinthians \u201cDon\u2019t be deceived. Neither the adulterers, the idolaters, the male prostitutes, the homosexual offenders, the greedy, the drunkards, the slanderers, the swindlers\u2014they won\u2019t inherit the kingdom of God. Don\u2019t deceive yourself. It\u2019s not right.\u201d And \u201cIt seems like, to me, a vagina\u2014as a man\u2014would be more desirable than a man\u2019s anus. That\u2019s just me. I\u2019m just thinking There\u2019s more there She\u2019s got more to offer. I mean, come on, dudes You know what I\u2019m saying? But hey, sin It\u2019s not logical, my man. It\u2019s just not logical.\u201d As an intro, I will state that I am a straight male, who was raised Catholic but considers himself agnostic, and who fully supports the movement for LGBT couples to have the same rights to and privileges from marriage as heterosexual couples do. I only mention my religious background because, well, it's obvious what role religion tends to play in this debate. My interpretation of his comments is that in response to being asked What, in your mind, is sinful? Phil responded with his religious beliefs about activities that he considered sinful. He included homosexual activity, bestiality, adultery, prostitution, being a drunkard, etc. In his statement that It's not right, I understood right to mean morally right, which would be likely heavily dictated by his religious beliefs. As for his statement that, It's not logical, I have heard several people raise hell that he was stating that homosexuality is not logical, or that homosexual acts in this case are not logical. My rebuttal to that is that It as a pronoun is directly preceded by the word sin, which I interpret to be its intended antecedent. My interpretation of his statement is, therefore, Sin is not logical. I'm not trying to argue that the network should or should not suspend fire him or that the network should or should not have the right or duty to suspend fire him. My argument is simply that his comments, when considered within the context that they were said, are not anti gay, as so many media outlets are trying to make them out to be. Change my view.","conclusion":"After reading Phil Robertson's GQ interview, I honestly don't believe his comments were \"anti-gay.\""}
{"id":"963c5df7-43fa-4eb3-9062-31c8dc9e43fd","argument":"Addressing the social and cultural causes, overtly presented as a means to help men, may be an effective strategy to effect behaviour change and improve outcomes in other areas by coopting men into the wider change sought by appealing to their self-interest on this issue.","conclusion":"Whilst the biological causes cannot be addressed, the social and cultural causes, which are the more significant contributors, can, should and are being addressed by the feminist movement, in its widest sense."}
{"id":"1dc6bb6e-45f8-44a7-9874-9dcc57dfae69","argument":"The United States has pushed for the use of structural adjustment loans at the World Bank to make developing nations move towards further trade liberalisation, thereby promoting an American form of capitalism","conclusion":"By making development assistance conditional on democratization, donor states run the risk of losing out on a potential source of influence over recipient states to protect important strategic interests."}
{"id":"f49b4834-bc2f-4d1b-865e-cd86732f4c8e","argument":"\"Hey internet entrepreneurs, nuts to you.\" The Economist. Apr 6th 2010: \"THE writers at this blog don't really care about today's appeals court ruling, which concluded that the FCC lacks authority to regulate net neutrality. Why should we? The paper will pay whatever Comcast or any other connectivity provider charges to make sure our bytes get out to the masses at a reasonably high speed. At least, we think it will. Unless the Financial Times or Forbes offers more. Then the magazine will have to ante up, or face discriminatory second-class service. Perhaps Comcast will start demanding \"ultra business elite\" fares on our packets if we expect them to reach that last mile just as fast as those from the FT. Then, of course, they might offer the FT the Sapphire Express rate on their packets, with an absolute guarantee that packets will arrive faster than the competition. . As much as such services are worth to us, they'd obviously be worth vastly more to Bloomberg or Dow Jones. A guarantee that time-sensitive financial information will arrive milliseconds ahead of the competition can be worth billions when you're trying to move markets. How could a last-mile connectivity provider possibly explain to its shareholders a decision not to take advantage of this opportunity, to offer 'priority packet service' to time-sensitive information companies and induce them to engage in a bidding war?\" Having such fast and slow-lanes, while potentially advantageous to an individual company, is not good for customers and browsers, who must constantly deal with these inconsistencies.","conclusion":"W\/o net neutrality Internet has fast and slow lanes"}
{"id":"ebb40a59-6bee-42fe-b488-c15ab7548f7c","argument":"Those who are the first women in a male-dominated sport, such as Jackie Mitchell in baseball, act to inspire future generations of women.","conclusion":"Male-dominated sports have been captured by women and been transformed into a tool to fight gender stereotypes."}
{"id":"91c4bf2e-46ec-4505-806e-636d7e57c640","argument":"In 2009, a company began producing a desktop novelty called Buckyballs, that consisted of a bunch of small spherical magnets. Users could use these magnets to create shapes by pulling the magnets apart and rearranging them in different ways. Over the first few years, some of the magnets fell into the hands of children who swallowed them. Doctors found that if a child swallowed more than one at different times, the magnets would be attracted to each other and cause a myriad of internal injuries. According to a 2012 article on Huffington Post 22 children were injured, but no fatalities were reported. In July of 2012, the CPSC filed a lawsuit against one company. Their demands were as follows paraphrased for brevity Cease Importation and Distribution of the product. Notify all persons that handle the product to cease immediately distribution of the product. Notify state and local public health of the dangers. Notify the public, any third party sellers, on radio, television, in English and other languages about the dangers of the product. Notify every distributor and every person who knows such a product was delivered or sold. Refund all money to purchasers. Refund all expenses of retailers associated with the recall. Report and keep records of all of the above for five years and report to the commission monthly on the progress. In my view, this is irrational and an obscene waste of resources. Not to mention a clear and deliberate attempt to utterly destroy a legally operating business. The only justification is that swallowing the items can hurt you which could be said for literally millions of other commercially produced items The final ruling bans ALL magnets that fit into the CPSC small parts cylinder sold for entertainment as part of a set or as a set and has a magnetic flux of 50 kG2 mm2 or stronger. What possible societal benefit could result from this that outweighs the cost associated with this action?","conclusion":"I see no rational argument in favor of the Consumer Product Safety Commission's ban on magnets"}
{"id":"8a354d7b-0ba2-467b-94d6-062f58bbcca4","argument":"The equivalent would have been Iran carpet bombing the Secretary of Defence's home and expecting the Trump administration not to declare war on Iran.","conclusion":"Even a proportionate response is likely to trigger a war or some disproportionate responses by the US."}
{"id":"90f01261-5af1-4120-a2ef-e2d231a6c4a6","argument":"Computers are already 'better' than us in many aspects. Wikipedia can store more knowledge than your brain. Computers can calculate way quicker than you do. Google Maps can find the quickest route way faster than you do. But we, humans, certainly have our strengths. We are amazing in pattern recognition, for example. But if we can 'give' those 'last human only skills' to computers, they will quickly become much more 'intelligent' than normal human brains. gt How could an AI surpass human abilities? Let us count the ways gt Speed. Our axons carry signals at seventy five meters per second or slower. A machine can pass signals along about four million times more quickly. gt Computational resources. The brain\u2019s size and neuron count are constrained by skull size, metabolism, and other factors. AIs could be built on the scale of buildings or cities or larger. When we can make circuits no smaller, we can just add more of them. gt Introspective access editability. We humans have almost no introspective access to our cognitive algorithms, and cannot easily edit and improve them. Machines can already do this see EURISKO and metaheuristics . A limited hack like the method of loci greatly improves human memory machines can do this kind of thing in spades. gt Serial depth. The human brain can\u2019t rapidly perform any computation that requires more than one hundred sequential steps thus, it relies on massively parallel computation.2 More is possible when both parallel and deep serial computations can be performed. gt Consider how far machines have surpassed our abilities at arithmetic, or how far they will surpass our abilities at chess or driving in another twenty years. There is no reason in principle why machines could not surpass our abilities at technology design or general reasoning by a similar margin. The human level is a minor pit stop on the way to the highest level of intelligence allowed by physics, and there is plenty of room above us. gt We humans have to study and train for years before we can enter a profession. At this moment, we cannot 'copy' the training a surgeon has received from his brain and paste it in the brain of another human. We still have to use lectures and books and internships, but these are completely inefficient compared to 'copy paste'. In the past, monks had to manually write new Bibles, making Bibles very expensive and rare, just like all other books. Nowadays, we can copy paste the Bible within a second. They are now available for free on the internet. This is some kind of 'information explosion', and I think the same will happen to intelligence. When we 'decode' intelligence by simulating one brain, we can easily copy it to other super computers. It will be able to combine the best traits of computers and humans and it can spread rapidly. More information These ideas play an important role in my life but because they are so important, I want to be sure I am not wrong. On the other hand, I also want other people to know about this. That's why I made a couple of posts here to fully explain my ideas and expose every part of the argument to criticism. Part 1 Exponential growth in computing Part 2 Simulating the human brain This is part 3 Intelligence explosion. Thanks for reading this","conclusion":"I believe Strong AI will lead to an Intelligence Explosion that changes our entire civilization."}
{"id":"44536eed-9cdb-488e-9b5d-5d4eea76d452","argument":"I really want to like this new series of Cosmos. I like Neil deGrasse Tyson. I'm totally OK with his way of presenting science in a popular way. I'm OK with Ann Druyan. I don't think she's nearly as good at presenting an idea like Sagan, or even Tyson, can, but I've read arguments and chapters written by her in some of Carl Sagan's later books. Plus, I love science. So, on the basic level, I should love this new series of Cosmos. But I don't. I find the episodes lacking. One thing that was great about the original series was that it was like a book. Each chapter was separate. Each one presented, formulated, and expounded on a single point. The first episode was an introduction. The second expounded on the introduction and took off on it's own point. And the rest were a myriad of different points and arguments, each building upon prior episodes. Then we get to the last episode, which takes everything we've learned, and how it paints a bleak picture of our own future, yet despite this lack of hope there is a glimpse of hope and greatness. This new series simply doesn't. I don't know if it's because there's roughly 15 minutes less per episode, or if it's because Sagan isn't around to be a part of this series, but I don't feel like a single episode has a cohesive message. It's like they're trying to explain a point, but give up half way. Not only that, but they seem to expend way too much time on cartoon animations and story lines at the cost of making an actual point or explaining fundamental details they otherwise simply gloss over. The series, itself, does not present a cohesive point altogether. The last episode still presents new data, rather than using the points already presented to sum up the message. No reasonable ending to a paper, or closing argument to a presentation, puts forward new information, but rather uses the information presented to make its final point. This is trying to borrow a pedigree from the most popular science series of the last few decades, yet it doesn't follow the one thing that truly makes the original series unique, even to this day, which is the layout. Sure, it has good visuals for the time , but so do any new science series. Not only that, but in the second to last episode they show an Apollo Command Module moving in such a way that would cause any person who've played Kerbal Space Program to call BS. Sure, it has good music to go with those visuals, however it doesn't make the point as to why the music or art, or study into the humanities is as important as the science like the original series does. In the end, I feel the new series is style over substance. It has flashy visuals. What visuals it does have are often inaccurate, which is contrary to the point of the original series something that still largely stands up to scientific scrutiny at least at in its own time albeit not necessarily historical scrutiny. And finally, I feel like it knows it's not nearly as good, and uses constant appeals to the authority of Carl Sagan from the original series to somehow justify it's existence. The original Cosmos literally changed my life. It holds a dear place in my heart. I desperate want this new series to be just as good. However, after 13 episodes I find myself disappointed 13 times. Each time I feel unsatisfied. Each time I feel wanting. I'm trying to be open and responsive to this series, and I have a sneaking suspicion I'd like this series a hell of a lot more if it wasn't named Cosmos. However, by trying to take up that torch it's simply reduced to a disappointing sequel a Rambo 2 of science television. And even still, watching through them I just feel empty inside, so I'm not even sure if it's some nostalgic view of the original series that is causing this view. So, here's where you can . I feel like my dislike of the new Cosmos series is potentially because it's trying to live up to the original. It's not cohesive, either on the individual episode level or as a series all together. It does not explain why humanities and art as just as important as scientific endeavors, though that was a subtle point in the original series. And finally, due to all the points I've listed so far, it does a poor job of explaining the current scientific views and how they pertain to our lives and our futures. If you can convince me that I'm looking at a show, which I first saw only a few years ago on Netflix, through rose tinted glasses, or that any if not all of the points I have presented above are fallacious, then you'll get a delta from me , and I won't just stop on one, unless a single person refutes every single thing I've mentioned in a single post. edit Hey all. Thanks for all the posts. I posted this late last night, and was surprised to find it at the top of  when I woke up. I'm really enjoying the different view points, and I'm still going to keep reading them so keep them coming A few people have asked very good questions and or made pretty pointed arguments, and I need to step away from the topic for a little bit to mull over them. I'll be back in a bit.","conclusion":"I don't think the new series of Cosmos is nearly as good, or cohesive, as the original one by Carl Sagan."}
{"id":"67451bce-21a0-4104-a0b3-6846b2977f46","argument":"It is unnecessarily difficult and feels extremely cheap for the sake of being difficult and cheap. It does little to explain itself as far as what items you must have in order to fight certain enemies, where you're supposed to go, why you're supposed to go, and what the hell is going on in the world you're in. People tell me that I'm too used to having my hand held by other games and I disagree because even though Dark Souls does teach you about your limits and goals, albeit vague, cryptic, or sparse the explanation, the penalty for learning is crushing. So crushing that I found myself spending 15 minutes getting back to the place where I died only to be killed by another lesson soon after. And what did I have to show for the progress I did make? Nothing. My understanding of it's popularity is that it's a call back to the days when games were unforgiving, and I get that. However, those older unforgiving games were as unrewarding as Dark Souls, I get the feeling that they wouldn't have been as popular as they were. Maybe I'm wrong, since that's all people had to play back then. I actually really want to like this game, but every time I play it I feel like an ant under a magnifying glass.","conclusion":"Dark Souls is not a good game."}
{"id":"155ec286-517a-41a3-b13b-bb8dbdaca5b3","argument":"Polkadot makes blockchain experimentation possible in the same way Ethereum made decentralised application DApp experimentation possible.","conclusion":"Inclusive multi-chain frameworks with pooled security supporting interoperability between wildly different blockchains e.g. Polkadot."}
{"id":"a4d27b83-9f6c-4398-94a2-ebd34cd9b1a8","argument":"By top 20 it usually means what is deemed attractive in that region. So if you're in America you probably have to be toned, 6'0 , and white. Under 6'0 works if your pics are good, you're still toned, and you're white. The underlying case is that I literally messaged a girl I knew from high school that was average looking and probably was waiting for a Ryan Gosling lookalike to message her. EDIT She had a picture of Ryan Gosling with her in her photostream. If you want to argue that was only one girl, searching for 5 star attractiveness men every single one is white, 6'0 or close to it, and toned mostly beards and tattoos also . Imagine how many other girls on a logical scale think like this because it's their ideal due to the media giving that message. In other regions it can be different of course. It's probably best to meet people in real life.","conclusion":"If you're male, you have to be in the top 20% of attractiveness or else online dating is a waste of time"}
{"id":"f8ec9841-a4da-4c1a-a1ea-b2328c6e6810","argument":"I'm not a cab driver and rarely a cab customer, but when I need a cab I don't want some random guy with a car. Lyft and Uber seem to think cab driving isn't a skill, that it's something anyone can do with no training. Well, it's not. An experienced cabbie provides a reliable service that Joe Schmoe who owns a Chevy can mimic but can't duplicate. Lyft and Uber drivers offer \u2022 Questionable insurance. \u2022 Questionable character. \u2022 Questionable integrity. \u2022 Questionable driving safety. \u2022 Questionable background checks. \u2022 Questionable service for the disabled and elderly. \u2022 Questionable answers to questions about the city and area. \u2022 Questionable coverage at other than peak commute times. Change my view.","conclusion":"Lyft and Uber are a bad idea."}
{"id":"3910febe-0833-44d0-8e62-59965e9f2342","argument":"Minority applicants who were successful would become role models for future generations. This would be good for the minority and good for the economic welfare of the country since it would facilitate the development of bright, able youngsters from minority backgrounds.","conclusion":"Minority applicants who were successful would become role models for future generations. This would..."}
{"id":"420c3a39-6d7b-43ea-8fe7-f4ac523f212c","argument":"For instance, in the community services sub-sector, while about 40 per cent of contracts were held by private providers, they made up just 5 per cent of overall earnings from the provision of community services, demonstrating that many of the contracts were held by small organisations rather than large providers.","conclusion":"Contrary to popular belief, private contractors make up a minnow share of the total earnings from healthcare."}
{"id":"6ef5f491-8a25-4a04-91e6-d41f8bb2dd87","argument":"Veteran here, and I believe that transgender individuals who have had or will request transition surgery should not be allowed to join the military for the following reasons Transition surgery is entirely elective. The military is not a healthcare provider and should not be a means to get elective surgery. Getting medical care after transition surgery requires ongoing dosage of hormones. Going without this medication can cause serious side effects including brittle bones. 2a. Making sure the proper medication arrives to the right person places undue burden upon the logistical supply chain, especially under wartime conditions. I would rather have food, fuel, ammo, and personnel on transports rather than hormone medication. 2b. Assuming the supply chain COULD handle this additional burden, making sure the right medication gets to the right place assumes each Pvt Schmuckatelli at every supply facility properly fills out the forms. Simply misreading or miswriting a form can cause the end requester to get the wrong items. 2c. Not getting these medications can force the unit to medevac a Sevicemember and go without their expertise skills. In a situation where every person counts, this can have dire consequences. Military treatment is already unreliable and difficult to obtain for those that NEED it. Why would we place additional strain on that when it's not necessary. We already exclude many others for reasons such as food allergies or other medical conditions diabetes, asthma, etc. The cost is likely underestimated, as many trans would likely join if the military announced that it will pay for transition surgery. The numbers of LGB service members increase far more than expected after the repeal of DADT and I don't believe the trans community will be different. The viagra expenditure comparison is a false comparison for the following reason a. Those who receive viagra have seen a medical doctor and have been prescribed the medication for a medical condition. They need it for intimacy but it's not a 24 7 thing. b. Going down this path means we should lump in birth control expenditure as well. The argument that the military is big enough to leave transition service members stateside is an argument against itself. If the service member stays stateside for post operative care, then what benefit are they providing their unit or the military. The military shouldn't be large enough to take in people just to leave them behind. I'm not opposed to anyone in the LGBTQ community serving as long as it doesn't put the lives of others at risk or cause unnecessary cost burden. Update I've been persuaded that transition surgery isn't elective just like viagra isn't elective. THAT BEING SAID, I still don't agree that the military should shoulder those costs or be responsible for the surgery for the following additional reasons The military doesn't allow people with other medical conditions in. Why don't we allow deaf with cochlear implants or hearing aids? There are a myriad of examples where otherwise well qualified candidates are turned away The military's primary function isn't or at least shouldn't be health care. If you become ill, yes you should be treated. However, you shouldn't join just to treatment. I've got cancer, I'll just join the military for them to take care of me ? What if something happens during the transition surgery, does the VA now have to provide lifetime treatment and disability pay?","conclusion":"Transgender individuals should not be allowed to join the military if the have had transition surgery or will seek transition surgery"}
{"id":"99baffa3-6805-40cb-af18-efb11c405d96","argument":"I find it unbelievable. Usually when I talk to someone about this, they say that our countries defense is more important over NASA and education, but that doesn't really make sense to me. Wouldn't funding NASA and education make us smarter as a nation? Also, tell me if I'm wrong, but to me there is no possible way they use all of that money. I remember seeing a youtube video where they talk about how the military buys new bullets every year because they want to, while the exess bullets from last year are used for training. In addition, why on earth do they need that much money when we aren't even in any major wars? If we were in a world war or something, I'm all for a large military budget. But we aren't, so why do they need that much money? EDIT This has been a blast to learn about, seriously. Being a junior in high school I have learned more in this thread than I would if I had never posted. Additionally, I only just recently found out about this subreddit and with this being my first post, I hope I can post more about subjects I know little about but still have an opinion over. Also, rip inbox.","conclusion":"It's absolutely ridiculous that the military US gets a budget of 500+ billion dollars while institutions like NASA and the education system barely get a quarter, if that, of the military's budget."}
{"id":"c5540114-109e-4dbb-8b5f-74853f67e7ca","argument":"Often it is the case that reasonable views and ideologies are associated with regimes or groups which performed atrocities. There is no way to tell the difference short of full state interference in the market place of ideas to make subjective value judgement.","conclusion":"This provides a subjective and incoherent standard for nations should ban speech which is subject to abuse."}
{"id":"b94e0fcf-4410-4b50-8cdc-802c4f311e0c","argument":"On April 30th 2010, a man in the U.K., who was found guilty of attempting to murder a 60-year-old woman in order to abduct and rape her two granddaughters, agreed to undergo chemical castration as part of the terms of his sentence.","conclusion":"In some countries convicted paedophiles are forced to undergo chemical castration."}
{"id":"00df151a-ff8d-4a19-a24d-459fc2ee122b","argument":"Hi  , First of all, not that this makes my opinion more valid than anyone else's, just to give you my perspective I am a musician, and have been playing for about 10 years now. I have tried to sit down and listen to this album twice now, and I just don't see the appeal, at all. I am constantly being told that I just don't understand or that You have to be stoned to listen to it . It absolutely baffles me that it is the 3rd best selling album of all time. All I hear are a bunch of sound effects and what sounds to me like the engineer sat on the mixing desk and forgot about it. Please  or help me understand what I'm missing.","conclusion":"Dark Side Of The Moon is a terrible album."}
{"id":"239847f9-b249-43ef-82ad-943e34eab31a","argument":"Marriage was one of the seven key factors to long-term happiness identified in a long-running study on human happiness.","conclusion":"Personal and emotional relationships are a key source of happiness."}
{"id":"7b8ac6be-e631-441c-93b5-92a0e75e5911","argument":"This argument mainly applies to people who watch sports. I think the NBA is vastly superior to other major sports for several reasons. First, decently fast game play is maintained by the 24 second blocks by the shot clock. Second, players must play both defense and offense continuously, with a limited amount of breaks. This makes the need to be athletically capable on all aspects of the game. A player must have sufficient cardio and coordination to play in the NBA. Although there are specialized positions, they all must handle the ball in some respect and run the length of the floor to contribute every 24 seconds. In addition, the small teams 5 players per team on the relatively small court make the game more personable and easy to identify a player. Finally, games are rarely completely blown out, and come backs are routinely made in the 48 minutes of play. This is magnified by the inclusion of the three, and rare but possible four point play. Tracy McGrady once made 13 points in 35 seconds to win a game. In conclusion I think the NBA is vastly entertaining than other major sports.","conclusion":"I think the NBA is the most entertaining major sport to watch."}
{"id":"42b5e357-af82-485a-a162-917780904b61","argument":"Citizens tacitly consent to a 'social contract whereby they surrender some freedoms in order to produce a government that maximises their welfare. In democracies we do so in the knowledge that the government will maximise the welfare of the majority of its citizens.","conclusion":"Government policy should enforce the beliefs of the majority of its populace."}
{"id":"4d7f81ad-23d0-49b0-97a3-f165c39885f0","argument":"In the 1980s, allegations were made of physical and sexual abuse committed by members of the Christian Brothers, who operated the Mount Cashel Orphanage in Newfoundland. The government, police, and church had colluded in an attempt to cover up the allegations. Eventually more than 300 former pupils came forward with allegations of physical and sexual abuse at the orphanage. The orphanage filed for bankruptcy in the face of numerous civil lawsuits seeking damages.","conclusion":"Cases of child sexual abuse by Catholic priests, nuns and members of religious orders in the 20th and 21st centuries has been widespread and has led to many allegations, investigations, trials and convictions, as well as revelations about decades of attempts by the Church to cover up reported incidents."}
{"id":"e768e8cc-983b-405d-b2ab-49b8a4adf578","argument":"disclaimer Apologies if this piece comes across a bit preachy. I think it's a naturally tendency that I've tried to scour and remove before posting. If you happen to read something in your news feed which leaves you feeling angry or upset and are compelled to say something in the comments, but then worry about saying it right or upsetting someone, or people misunderstanding what you mean and then attacking you don't trade all of the anxiety in wanting to speak your truth for a convenient emoji instead because soon enough you'll have forgotten how it feels to articulate your grievances through words to any satisfying degree at all and the next time your emotions are stirred by injustices taking place in the world it will be even more difficult to muster the confidence to say what you really want to say, making it more likely you will choose the easy way out once more taking the entirety of your feelings and emotions in that moment and replacing them with 1 of only 6 possible options I agree I love I'm amazed I hate I'm sad I'm angry x200B We're much more complex than emojis allow us to express, and deep down we know it. It seems as though the continued denial and inaction to improve our capacity to describe our reality is becoming yet another increasing source of frustration for us. And if a backlash to the inherent lack of precision of emojis does eventually become a source of collective distress, I would not be surprised at all if companies like Facebook responded to the outcry by introducing yet more refined emojis capable of allowing us to 'articulate' ourselves with greater 'nuance'. x200B Not being able to express our sentiments exactly how we experience them, or not feeling free enough to talk openly about sensitive topics that may require us to be generous and kind to each other isn't good for our collective mental health going forward. The system itself in which we communicate Facebook encourages us to be less nuanced in our thoughts through the crude alternative of emojis. Emojis are to language what McDonald's is to food. They never fully satisfy, but they do at the time. We can only be as expressive as the tools that we use will allow, and being able to crystallise in words precisely how we feel at a certain point in time truly is one of the best ways to externalise and then look squarely at, whatever it is that might be troubling or exciting us inside. x200B So down with emojis and alphabets FTW D D D I'm troubled by the culture of fear I see growing around me, when I look at my friends and read their concerns over consequences of them expressing themselves honestly online. I worry about the long term conditioning and self limiting effects this will have on them. From what I can see, a lot more people are choosing to self censor in order to minimise the chances of anxiety inducing responses from others, and for some, even the idea of getting into a debate online these days is leading some to become filled with anxiety. If having a debate online in front of an audience feels like a battle, then the ability to articulate yourself as you would like surely is a great weapon to have in your arsenal. x200B Reflecting on this last point a little further it seems as though one of the precursory factors which causes people to avoid engaging in online discussions stems precisely from them perceiving online debates as battles. If you use war analogies and metaphors as the lenses to help you make sense of discussions then you've already admitted to yourself that conflict of some sort is to be expected. But if you choose to see discussions as group problem solving exercises, where everyone present is a free participant able to contribute an idea or just as important counter an idea in order for the collective train of thought to eventually arrive at the truth, then it may help us see others more favourably and with less preconceived judgments.","conclusion":"Choosing to use emojis to react to emotional stories because we find it difficult to articulate ourselves as we would like, is degrading our ability to communicate effectively, which in turn is having a negative impact upon our mental health"}
{"id":"b6d7146a-58f1-4d1f-b118-4b08553ca7d6","argument":"Religion was the spiritual framework with which early societies were able to express their ideas about morality and ethics. This allowed for the development and organization of complex systems of law and order which were slowly improved upon over time. We are now capable of extracting morality and ethics and discussing them as independent concepts, which is for the better, but one should not be so quick to discard the thousands of years' of religion that allowed us to get to this point.","conclusion":"Religions provided, for centuries, common behavioral guidelines for the society, enabling an organized and peaceful coexistence what constitutions and legal codes do today."}
{"id":"85b87ac5-9471-456c-aa69-8426a4910c02","argument":"Rights cannot be separated from responsibilities, or freedom from consequences. If there is freedom, there must be consequences for harmful actions taken as a result of that freedom.","conclusion":"People's right to free speech should not include hate speech"}
{"id":"ef976a23-fc8a-4cdb-9fde-848b26768107","argument":"While religion may be a way to understand the Unknown, namely death and what happens to us after it, it has no test, inquiry or research.","conclusion":"Religions set a bad precedent that applies outside religion, that it's okay to believe: That we don't need evidence and logic to draw conclusions."}
{"id":"46681e3c-6b82-4010-85ed-5d5c34e4dba0","argument":"There are things, such as science, which aren't democratic by their own nature, but have to be accounted during the lawmaking process by experts.","conclusion":"Citizens lack the knowledge and skills to draft good laws."}
{"id":"c41badf8-af0d-42b1-9979-2cc73accb14f","argument":"For instance, during a medical emergency, the legal policy could simply be that any partner in the marriage who is present is able to make decisions. If multiple partners are present, there could be an order of priority.","conclusion":"No evidence is presented as to why it would be unworkable. The framework of chains-of-command works well in the military and could easily apply to legal arrangements for polygamous groups."}
{"id":"72111c7d-c51b-4f68-a5ac-691208830221","argument":"In almost literally every reference to any quote or law or anything done by any member of congress or the senate, it always starts as 'The Republican Senator from Alabama put forth a bill ' or 'Democratic Congressman John Jones has this to say about '. Obviously framing the subject with the parties source provides a context, but acting as though that context is universally important, or even important at all, basically preconditions 40 of the country to prejudge the following content from their own frame of reference. Especially now, you could almost put a pin in how a D will rate or interpret a statement from an R, and vice versa, to the point that it basically has nothing to do with the content at all. For example, a perfectly benign or positive statement like 'a person has a right to the pursuit of happiness' could generate some valid discussion but if a Democrat hears a Republican say it, the discussion will immediately go to preconceived talking points like religious oppression or gun control, where in reverse, Republicans will immediately hear the person begging for handouts and immigration. Leaving the R and D off the front of their names would at least force listeners into a few moments of 'hmm, that seems like someone on 'my side' might have said' instead of framing the argument before the words have even been spoken. Kind of like taking quotes from the Bible or the Koran if you don't tell people which quotes are from which book, they're likely to like dislike passages equally but if you tell them where they're from beforehand, they be far more lopsided in their acceptance rejection.","conclusion":"A major part of the divisiveness in the US is due to the practice of the media unnecessarily putting an R or a D in front our representatives names in almost every reference to them."}
{"id":"55033932-f992-4b55-82f8-095ca306da05","argument":"In 2006, Montenegro seceded from Serbia after only 55.5 voted for independence. It is weird that nobody cared about that or called it illegal and or undemocratic especially considering it was such a small majority. Premilinary results show that 93 of Crimea's population wants to belong to Russia. That is a very big majority. I think a lot of the anger coming from Western countries exists because it's Russia we're talking about. And people seem to forget that borders are not static, they change.","conclusion":"I don't see the problem with Crimea seceding if over 90% of population wants it to happen."}
{"id":"8bf1c89b-ba7e-498c-9326-33ae9110b93d","argument":"US military recruitment in schools has a very sinister side. Under the No Child Left Behind Act, military recruiters collect data on 30 million students. A huge database contains their personal details, including social security numbers, email addresses and academic records. The purpose of this is to allow recruiters to pester young people with messages, phone calls and home visits. This itself is bad enough, but many people think the government should not be trusted with so much personal information. Isn\u2019t it police states that want to keep files on all their citizens?","conclusion":"Military should not be able to collect info on students."}
{"id":"a1995f89-9d21-4f04-9770-f8ceae2caf07","argument":"There were 31% or 824 fewer reported rapes in Rhode Island over a period of over two decades.","conclusion":"A regression model indicates that the availability of sex work reduces incidents of rape."}
{"id":"8f3b2f36-bbf6-4be3-b61f-aaacf6f68589","argument":"Let me start this of by saying I have NO INTENTION OF SUICIDE. Yes, I have thought about it before but I reasoned that doing so would ultimately just cause grief and misery to everyone around me. Anyway, I do not see a point in living. This is purely in my head and I will not act any differently. I seriously just don't see a point to life what are we all living for? The most common answer would be because of family. A father would want to take care of his family and see them grow. However, I have decided that I do not want to marry nor have children as I feel that that is too much responsibility and I may not be able to handle it. What other reasons do you guys have for wanting to live so badly? I honestly have come to terms with my feelings regarding this issue and as of now I would be perfectly fine with dying tomorrow. Sorry if this is the wrong subreddit, I want to get this off my chest.","conclusion":"I think life is pointless\/not worth living."}
{"id":"bd278f6c-a03f-4240-b3d1-8a74345ec5b1","argument":"Multilateral aid tends to be less tied to the political self-interest of individual donor countries. One criticism of bilateral aid arrangements is that they are often drawn up based on self interest. Major powers who provide international aid have tended to direct their aid to former colonies or countries with which they have significant strategic ties, economic interests or potential markets. Often, aid money must be spent on goods or services from the donor country. While the United States does not have as developed a colonial history as some other major donor states, it does have a history of providing aid to countries it sees as strategic partners. This was particularly true during the Cold War, but has now emerged as a practice in the war on terror. Aid that is given multilaterally is therefore much more likely to go to developing countries on the basis of need, and of where it has the most potential for good.","conclusion":"Multilateral aid tends to be less tied to the political self-interest of individual donor countries...."}
{"id":"9800cbd9-ea61-4519-93cf-264cd67dc970","argument":"The military could make officer classes more representative of the general population, so that there are always officers who can be approached to investigate abuses. This would allow the military to more effectively police discrimination and abuse.","conclusion":"Even if it is impossible to completely solve these issues, the impact of the problems caused by these internal structures can be significantly reduced."}
{"id":"75d2e999-3dc0-4133-ab07-3214f67cf6ff","argument":"An investigation commissioned by the European Parliament found that in countries where sex work is legal, such as Austria, \u201cthe effect of regulation can be a massive increase in migrant prostitution and an indirect support to the spreading of the illegal market in the sex industry.\u201d","conclusion":"One study found that where sex work is legal, there is more human trafficking than elsewhere"}
{"id":"deca1a95-e7ab-4e14-9200-4cfbd5ffd33e","argument":"Employees that favor legalizing marijuana or protecting the unborn are generally discouraged from wearing marijuana or pro-life memorabilia in the office.","conclusion":"Many forms of personal expression are already prohibited in the workplace."}
{"id":"4a33186a-601b-48b8-ac16-335acc5b0fe4","argument":"Celebrating abusers' art propagates the message that any malicious or harmful actions a person performs are outweighed by their successes.","conclusion":"Celebrating works by abusive artists perpetuates a culture of abuse."}
{"id":"0ffd5edf-0669-44d5-82f3-2fc3868fc0aa","argument":"I am a frozen food junkie. A responsible one, but I find it far easier and more cost effective to buy frozen tiki malasa, pasta dishes, etc. from a somewhat reputable retailer as Trader Joe's than it would be to make it myself. Another part of this is time expense of cooking my own meal. I'd much rather be out and about than taking the time to prepare. I'm looking for more of a cost benefit analysis, and as a former cook I enjoy cooking, but now that I don't do it as a profession I find this easier and simpler. .","conclusion":"I believe that buying frozen meals responsibly is more cost effective and offers more variety than cooking food from scratch with little lost in terms of healthy eating."}
{"id":"afc7d078-6bd9-4a7f-870a-86532b9760b5","argument":"Sorry if my thoughts ramble a little, I'm really hung over, but I want to get this out before I forget. Never once have I seen a person in power not abuse that power in some way. It's human nature to use the resources at your disposal to their maximum benefit. Giving anyone political power to have final say on any decision without having to post every detail for possible public scrutiny, financial and otherwise, has proven to be flawed and will always result in corruption. That might be a huge amount of information, but it already exists somewhere, we just need put it in one place. I understand some things should be top secret, but the vast majority of information can and should be made public. This would force politicians to own up to their actions, and give the public real power to make change by finding discrepancies and inefficiencies in the system, and the end result would be near perfectly efficient political system. Politicians would become spokespeople, which is what they were originally intended to be. The public is forced to pay taxes but have no access to information they deserve and which impacts their daily lives greatly, sometimes causing death or worse. I truly don't see any reason for this to not be implemented in the digital age, and I think people would be appalled to the point of revolution if past history was suddenly released for review. Please do your best to","conclusion":"Full transparency is the only way to have a truly non-corrupt and efficient government"}
{"id":"7a170a5f-7503-42ff-8bce-d9797d3a8e04","argument":"Given that in order to fulfill its founding purpose, Israel must remain a Jewish state, Israel can legitimately demand of other nations that they recognise its right to remain a Jewish state.","conclusion":"Israel is unique; it was founded as a Jewish state in response to thousands of years of global anti-Semitism culminating in the Holocaust."}
{"id":"6d3fa140-17a6-4270-9569-93db3cf85e12","argument":"A good solution would be to avoid sending those convicted of non-violent crimes to prison, but instead to a community centre for rehabilitation. With this they can perform community-based work for which they would be paid a minimum wage, given to them upon release to probation in order to help defer the cost of living. The current system simply does not work, and promotes re-offending.","conclusion":"The offender will be less likely to commit further crimes if there is an emphasis on rehabilitation while in prison."}
{"id":"eb327c5e-c2c4-4c14-bd6b-ce556f22fa1a","argument":"If the intentions of the framers had been to protect an individual right to bear arms, they would have clearly expressed this. Yet, the Second Amendment is not at all clear about an individual right to bear arms. The natural reading of the clause would indicate that the right relates only to the first, qualifying clause that states, \"A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State.\" It is a stretch to read into the language an individual right. If this were the case, why wouldn't they simply have explicitly stated that an \"individual right to bear arms should not be infringed\".","conclusion":"If the 2nd amendment was to protect an individual right it would have clearly expressed it"}
{"id":"ecc89d33-dd6e-47ae-b039-158dbd8cb130","argument":"An explosion from an on-board hydrogen tank risks the political future of hydrogen fuel cell cars. This is a real risk that governments should consider before investing too much in a hydrogen economy. Public support could quickly evaporate.","conclusion":"An accident could end the political future of hydrogen cars"}
{"id":"021e697f-2c3e-4358-8755-f2a1687a268e","argument":"Kate Scottow was arrested after using multiple twitter accounts to carry out a \"campaign of targeted harassment\" against transwoman Stephanie Hayden, including publishing non-PC-related defamatory statements such as \"stating she was. a crook and mocking her as a fake lawyer.\"","conclusion":"Such legislation targets people who go out of their way to troll others. Political correctness alone is not enough to convict. It must be part of a larger action of harassment, stalking, or threat."}
{"id":"cf196b79-ffcf-4f53-a4b9-7591c8d0edc2","argument":"I believe minimun wage jobs are meant for students and or people supplementing their main income source. Raising minimum wage creates nothing but hardship on small business owners and pushes middle class into poverty level. Anytime there has been a hike in minimum wage, everything else becomes more expensive until you are back at square one. Leave minimum wage where it is, most jobs that pay minmum wage shouldn't be your career path. Currently, in Ontario Canada , they are pushing to raise minimum wage from 10.25 to 14.00. Outrageous, seeing as most factory workers are making 14.00 for much more labour intensive work than a donut shop employee. Driving wages in turn increases cost of everything else","conclusion":"I don't believe in raising minimum wage."}
{"id":"37d32a3d-53f1-420a-9e40-bca824a2efda","argument":"There is evidence to suggest that ADHD is under-diagnosed amongst Latino and African American children in the US.","conclusion":"It would be dangerous to assume that racial categories map neatly onto medically useful biological categories."}
{"id":"90b2fb24-446f-45fc-8ea1-51bae732943b","argument":"Americans' diets are not exemplary, and this is especially true for those below the poverty line. There are many factors that contribute to this the pervasive marketing of sugary junk food, food deserts and desserts , the addictive nature of junk food, a lack of education about nutrition, and the overall higher prices of many healthy foods. However, even though healthy foods are on average more expensive, it is easy to find healthy, calorie dense foods, that are cheaper than their junk food counterparts. For instance, I looked at prices at Kroger and constructed a cart with more than a week's worth of healthy food for under 50. It was comprised of wheat bread, PB J, peanuts, oats, 4 gallons of milk, 4 pounds of chicken, beans, rice, hummus, and 7 bananas, apples and bell peppers for each day of the week. All told, there was an excess of 21,000 calories for the week 3000 a day of easy to prepare, healthy food, for about 2 dollars a meal. Unless a grocery store is not easily accessible, there is no excuse for not eating healthy. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Eating healthy is not unaffordable"}
{"id":"f26bb1cb-af1e-4838-80cc-94792161c135","argument":"Even if a voucher scheme is used, parents still need to have considerable input in order that their children are able to access the best educational opportunities. Thus, those children who are most vulnerable, i.e. those with inadequate home support structures, will find that they are unable to access the best schools as their parents may lack the desire or knowledge to find out which schools are the best in their area. Further, this problem will be exacerbated by the subsequent dearth of funding at the worst schools.","conclusion":"The most vulnerable children would be left behind by the scheme"}
{"id":"b4d2e44d-af5a-48d6-86da-c646a52b3f2c","argument":"There is a growing global consensus that crimes against humanity need to be punished, as demonstrated by the tribunals to address the crimes of Yugoslavia and Rwanda. The question is no longer whether we should set up an international court but rather how to best do it, and the ICC gives the international community a framework within which to work to establish a strong courts.1 Rejection of the ICC has become a symbol of rejection of international norms, and countries that have refused to ratify the Rome Statute in the name of national interest, such as the United States, have been seen as imperialist, isolationist, and against global efforts to tackle important issues. 1 Prakash, K. P. \"International Criminal Court: A Review.\" Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 37, No. 40, October 5-11, 2002, pp. 4113-4115. 2Carter, Ralph G. \"Leadership at Risk: The Perils of Unilateralism.\" Political Science and Politics, Vol. 36 No. 1, January 2003, 17-22","conclusion":"Efforts to strengthen the ICC will promote global cooperation, norms against crimes, and international stability."}
{"id":"b5f8ef2e-c95c-4367-99c2-9d5543b4e952","argument":"According to the Torah an Amalekite ignited the war against the Israelites after the exodus. From that one time, After Generations, After All the Amalekite people have been Wiped out either because of the Israelites or because of Breeding to the point of the term Amalekite being irrelevant. Jews have recited Dvarim caf he yud chet yud tet Deuteronomy 25 18 19 About how they are going to slaughter the entire Amalek tribe. Even after irrelevance. First of all, The Amalekites were just a non existent target to riot the Israelites, right? Nope, every single tribe mentioned in The Bible actually existed. It is just as bad as the Quran. The Stories may or may not be real but the people were and for the Chief Rabbinatte, they are definitely real, and claim one of the things King David did better than Saul was that King David killed an Amalekite on sight and King Saul Pardoned a bunch of Amalekite Women, Children and Sheep Sheep count as Amalekites . But you might claim that they were evil, but the Torah specified killing every single innocent child just because they were born to the wrong family. That isn't Tolerance that Jews Preach, that is the definition of Bigotry. But it is meaningless. Though Gallileo's Pardon was more Meaningless. Jews have constantly called their enemies Amalekites. Palestinians, Muslims, Gays, etc. Basically saying you are good as dead . Also, Canaanite Tribe descendants have been recently found in Lebanon. If genetic testing gets better and we find Amalekites in Countries Bordering Israel. Every Single Peace talk that involved Israel is now Mute. The Rabbinatte has a lot of influence on Israeli Politics, and if they don't pardon them soon. It might spell trouble. It isn't meaningless gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The Chief Rabbinate Needs to Post-humorously pardon the Amalekite People like the Catholic Church did with Gallileo."}
{"id":"1c357382-e139-4666-9ae8-36b47b77c649","argument":"If there were to be a really anonymous AP, then they most probably will not get caught.","conclusion":"Catching borderline criminals, tempted by AP's anonymity, would be beneficial to society."}
{"id":"a51f294a-2541-463b-8e76-4b2f23ff9685","argument":"All representations have aesthetic value to some degree. Some representations are more valuable than others for various reasons. A Picasso has more aesthetic value than a pie chart used at a mid level sales meeting. It looks better. Written numbers have some sort of aesthetic value as well. One stands below the rest, 61. Perhaps it's the contrast between the wideness of the 6 and the slender build of the 1 , but for some reason 81, 91, 19, and 16 do not stand out in terms of ugliness. The number 61 is particularly garish on sports uniforms. It's telling that in the history of the NBA, only two players have worn the number on their uniform It's rare in MLB as well as only nine current major leaguers have worn it during the current season Furthermore, a grand total of 28 players have worn it in the NHL since 1950 Despite the relative popularity for NFL players, only one person to have worn 61 has a chance at the Hall of Fame, Nate Newton. Is there some aesthetic value to 61 that I'm missing? Am I crazy for being somewhat repulsed that the new centerfielder for my Detroit Tigers wears 61?","conclusion":"The number 61 is the most aesthetically unpleasing two digit number in Arabic notation."}
{"id":"0a361e7e-7bd6-4726-9265-8f31cf890c88","argument":"As a christian myself, i don't consider myself close minded. I love listening to other religious beliefs, never calling them stupid for believing them. When discussing religion with some atheists, i get called stupid. Not just the belief, but as a person.","conclusion":"I believe that there are close-minded atheists, just as there are close-minded Christians."}
{"id":"994f9aac-24f9-48f0-8734-b57dbc3923d4","argument":"From my view point, even as I try to submerge myself in more right wing media which I end up just not believing, as with any media, I'm cautious , he is using his position as a really powerful person to benefit his supporters, which can pay to keep him in power via donations to the party . I know it's probably not the case, hence why I'm here. It feels like he entirely supports, and requires, arbitrary decisions within West Minster and ignores public research and the other side of things. I seriously don't think there is one thing that man has done which I support fully, and it's rather worrying. I would love the other side of the argument. Thank you P.S. Some back story I'm 18, going to Uni next term.","conclusion":"David Cameron is a public-deceiving sly person, working with Osborne to use this country for unknown gains not in its interest"}
{"id":"52dcf2b0-6b3b-4be2-8de3-b5d52b86af70","argument":"Many believe that Wikipedia can be used only as long as it is not considered a \"serious reference\". But, what does serious mean? Serious can mean: timely and up to date, requiring of citations and footnotes, open to change all the time, with no unalterable dogma, and immune to political or economic pressure. Wikipedia fits all of these criteria. Only a select criteria of \"seriousness\" could prevent Wikipedia from being considered serious. In any case, its loyal writers and readers almost all consider it to be a very serious, and historic resource. It seems that those that are not involved in the project or that don't consistently use the resource are the only ones that don't consider it a \"serious\" encyclopedia.","conclusion":"There is no reason Wikipedia can't be considered a \"serious\" reference."}
{"id":"e659cfd1-d68c-4ce8-a138-dc57d16b727b","argument":"Even if people are deeply offended by the content of the song, it is dangerous to claim that the right to sing such songs should be taken away.","conclusion":"People should be able to exercise their right to free speech by singing these songs."}
{"id":"b89324a1-32c2-4b02-87f6-05d41716bfed","argument":"Apologies for spoilers I guess? When Jesse phones Walter from the store, Jesse asks why the material used matters so much. Walter responds harshly criticizing his performance in class and refuses to explain why. Throughout the short history of the duo up to this point, Walter has consistently corrected Jesse's bad chemistry knowledge. The relationship between the two characters is also abrasive, with both personalities and egos colliding. The smart dumb divide works into this as well with the remark that the plastic tubs are flimsy, ignoring the scientific specifics of material and Walter's knowledge. Once again, he had a chance to prevent accidents and failed to adequately communicate. Walter's own arrogance and bad temper led to the situation which transpired with the roof falling in. .","conclusion":"Walter is to blame for the bathtub incident, not Jesse"}
{"id":"a79221ea-9121-4109-a97f-dec61b44c96e","argument":"In Germany, a former monarchy, the President has similar prerogatives to monarchs: he or she is the de facto executive and symbolic nonpartisan figurehead; has veto and emergency powers; has prosecutorial immunity and cannot be voted out of office.","conclusion":"In many former monarchies, the President of the Republic has many similar functions to royals and yet the institution of the presidency is not deemed as outdated."}
{"id":"14cce444-33a6-4585-8e6d-c9a4200994cd","argument":"Forcibly enacting gun control may indeed trigger a civil conflict, just as it triggered the Revolutionary War against the British Empire. Should civil war occur, the body count of that conflict could be thousands of times greater than the annual rate of deaths from gun crimes, terrorism, accidents, and suicides combined. It would not be worth the risk simply by the comparative rise in death toll alone.","conclusion":"Gun control could only solve that problem with a mandatory buyback followed by forced confiscation for those who refuse to give them up. This would be very difficult to confiscate or buy back over 300 Million guns, not to mention expensive if the price of each gun would average at $1000 each."}
{"id":"fa290359-9ae1-4fb9-b0b9-5238d2bc57cf","argument":"If sustainable, a UBI helps keep people invested in the society that is supporting them, leading to less likely chance of revolutionary action.","conclusion":"Many pilot schemes have found that UBI increases social cohesion through community empowerment and mobilisation."}
{"id":"8af79657-3f83-4a36-a289-e3d0e4114900","argument":"Disclaimers 1 I am not talking about people in wheelchairs. 2 I am a 5'8 male that weighed 260 pounds in may of 2012 and lost 100 pounds over the last year. All of that was done by diet. On to my opinion. I learned last year that weight loss is wrongly attributed to exorcise by the majority of this country America . That said, it feels like all these fat 50 60 year old men and women blame the fat on something physical. I cant walk so how could i burn off all this fat? or Some glands dont work 100 normal . I think these people value food over walking, and are content with their situations. Because 30 minutes on google, could teach them the basic calories in calories out formula and they would be thin in no time.","conclusion":"I believe that the majority of fat people on electric scooters have chosen food at the detriment of their health over walking."}
{"id":"2fdff9f1-9ffd-415b-8ee5-4447fd34dbe4","argument":"First off, I'll say that I'm a very left leaning Canadian and that this isn't really an opinion about Mexicans specifically. I also don't think that illegal immigrants ALREADY in the United States should be deported, imprisoned, or have their rights taken away. This is not an opinion about the current state of illegal aliens within American society. It seems to me that there is a lot of debate in the US about keeping illegal aliens from crossing the border. I truly feel for people living in Mexico who see America as a better place , but the fundamental truth is that a modern nation can not just have an open border where anyone can flood over. Control of immigration is a major societal concern and it is a process that needs to be taken seriously. No, I don't think the minutemen and other such groups are acceptable. I don't, however, see a problem with using fences, border patrol agents, and other government sanctioned bodies to keep illegal immigrants out. Tell me why I'm wrong. What are some better ways to control this situation.","conclusion":"I think that the United States is completely justified in building a fence across the Mexican Border or using other means to protect themselves from illegal immigration."}
{"id":"74e95623-f16b-4a9e-bacb-d9ef85f7403f","argument":"Every person has a right to decide who they want to listen to, and whose ideas they want to present to other people. Companies are collections of people workers, owners, customers and can collectively decide to not use their platform to help some people\/ideas. Only when violence in the form of the state is used to prevent those ideas from being expressed anywhere is a moral threshold crossed. This is analogous to a group kicking out a member for being annoying.","conclusion":"Since they simply provide a privately-owned forum, Internet companies have no obligation to provide a platform to everyone."}
{"id":"d1c2f499-cb89-42c0-89ec-1eb461cf532e","argument":"I live in the eastern US and am sick of people who drive around loud pickup trucks with Flowmasters or little dodge neons and honda civics with muffler tips that go tear assing through neighborhoods causing noise pollution. Much of the time, their upgraded exhaust system makes their vehicle run worse than it did before. I'm all for people modding their cars to their hearts desire until it has an effect on my ability to sleep, listen to the music in my own car, or carry on a conversation with someone without having to shout over the person who has pulled up beside us. If you want a loud racecar truck, save it for the track, or the farm. I won't even get started on loud bass cabinets in cars. Sorry if this was too much of a rant. Note I didn't include motorcycles, because of the argument for safety It makes their presence known on the road.","conclusion":"I believe purposefully loud vehicle exhaust should be made illegal for street legal cars and trucks."}
{"id":"acc2b932-b6f7-4d78-8bf7-6d76117d2a04","argument":"I've been watching news out of the Whitehouse, and I've been following Trump on Twitter for quite a while. The picture that emerges for me is one of a narcissistic idiot who is too conceited to recognise his own incompetence. I'm aware this is just one possible narrative, and that interpreting events in a way that fits with this narrative may just be my own confirmation bias. I deliberately seek out alternative narratives, to see if the evidence fits other possibilities, but so far I've found alternative arguments deeply unconvincing. Some people argue that Trump is really a strategic genius, who excels at winning people over, and that this is why he has been successful in business. It's possible that this is true, but whenever I hear him speak, I just can't see that there is any significant intellect sitting behind his ridiculous statements. Before anyone responds, be aware that I don't find the fact of Trump's wealth in itself to be convincing evidence for his competence. Becoming wealthy does not require skill, it just requires risk taking and luck. We always remember the one reckless person that wins big, but forget the legions of similarly reckless people that crashed and burned. Trump could easily be just the last fool standing. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"President Trump really is as incompetent and narcissistic as he appears"}
{"id":"35ef832c-663e-4c52-a649-f9dc22cf0b87","argument":"Many people struggle with life because there aren't any clear answers to guide them. Knowing that they exist in a simulated reality can provide them with much needed clarity and relief.","conclusion":"Knowing the truth can be soothing, giving comfort to people and provide them with an opportunity to come to terms with their fates."}
{"id":"9eaecbec-c01e-411d-b1a5-4a3b3051fdf7","argument":"As crazy as this title sounds, I really don't see anything wrong with it obviously unless it's your friend, it's not your responsibility to keep other peoples girlfriend's 'faithful' if they are going to sleep with you they are probably going to sleep with somebody else anyway, also I wouldn't want to be with somebody who would have slept with another guy but because he didn't want to in the end she didn't. I wouldn't blame the other guy at all, she is the only one to blame imo, regardless of wether he talked her into it or not, he shouldn't be able to anyway","conclusion":"I don't see anything wrong with sleeping with somebody's girlfriend"}
{"id":"a729aae1-c30a-4b6b-a093-77dec9efcccc","argument":"Classes for life skills would eventually turn into another textbook course and additional burden for students and would prove ineffective if the students themselves are not interested in the subject","conclusion":"Teaching in school would be ineffective, and thus useless and wasteful."}
{"id":"601cc79a-a62b-4876-a373-d35ba156b342","argument":"2 Nephi 3:6-22 in the Book of Mormon describes Joseph Smith as a \"choice seer.\"","conclusion":"The Book of Mormon contains self-serving purported prophecies about Joseph Smith."}
{"id":"72c281e6-10c9-4935-afd2-f1b90e1eff95","argument":"I often hear people talk about how the legalization of euthanasia could lead more people to suicide than before, and many people worry that they might get coerced into it or even depressed people will take advantage of it. Whenever I hear all this all I can think of is So what? It's that persons life, why are you allowed to decide what is or isn't valid reason for euthanasia? I think that the rules for euthanasia should be the same as for DNRs I am from the US and not sure about foreign equivalents, sorry and the idea of this topic being so controversial seems silly to me. .","conclusion":"I see the validity of any of the arguments against euthanasia,"}
{"id":"b72204fb-38ed-464c-9d27-37fe923af52d","argument":"The driving principles of human civilization ought to be the mutual benefit of all humans, not violent competition. In a world with more than enough resources to feed every human being living, our culture ought to be moving towards making that happen, not becoming more efficient killers or competitors. Cooperation is the basis of a humanistic civilization.","conclusion":"Military-societies inherently posit violence and oppression as guiding cultural principles. Compulsory military service creates a dehumanized cultural condition."}
{"id":"5ac35edd-3fc5-4262-81e0-e4076386c022","argument":"I think this would create a greater unity among all humankind by making communication with different people much easier. I understand that, to an extent, culture is tied to language, but many people of other cultures still practice those cultures while speaking english. It doesn't seem like other cultures would disappear if all people spoke one language. In fact, the fact that language is a part of culture seems to provide even greater evidence that speaking one language would bring the world closer together, by making all cultures that much more able to understand empathize with each other. Edit I am not arguing for one particular language over any other. Also, this is regardless of how everyone comes to speak the same language maybe starting with everyone speaking it as a second language would work best? , I'm just arguing that if they did, it would have a positive effect overall.","conclusion":"I think everyone on earth should speak the same language."}
{"id":"2dc70dfd-b8f9-4d89-bdbb-709c5f1e60e9","argument":"Political correctness and the ambiguity over what's allowed to be said has always irked me. I don't want to look racist or be called racist, but I honestly don't know what to call black people anymore. African American isn't always accurate, as a black person has probably been living in the US for a while. White people could also be called European Americans, but that's mostly inaccurate and is never used. I've seen that POC has started to gain traction in some circles of the internet mainly tumblr , but that was considered extremely racist just a couple years ago and I don't see why it's acceptable preferred now. As the title says, my view that black people should be just as acceptable as white people . gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"It's a double standard to freely use the term \"white people\" while condemning the term \"black people\"."}
{"id":"193dc127-cbf3-4468-953c-e5a94da123b5","argument":"Even assuming it were shown that Black Americans are better off than they otherwise would have been had their ancestors not been subjected to forcible immigration, this would only show that no reparations would be due for forcible immigration. It says nothing about whether or not reparation would be due for any harms suffered subsequent to immigration. These would include any harms that accrued from the practice of slavery in the US.","conclusion":"To say that Black Americans who are descended from slavery have profited from having been enslaved commits the fallacy of the simple cause."}
{"id":"41aa8588-823e-4e76-beca-40b8a4ff9259","argument":"Recently, Bill Gates said that technology will replace many routine jobs and lower skilled labor is in danger of having no prospects of having a job at all in the face of robots and software that can do the job better and at less cost This might lead to social unrest as those unable to get jobs will petition government to create make work jobs for them while those who hold jobs will resent paying in taxes the income for those make work jobs holders. However, the advent of genetic engineering GE will make it possible to up skill the workforce even before you are born. If GE can target genes that make you smarter or stay healthier then there will be a smaller starting gap between one another. Moreover, GE will allow most people to do high level work even as routine work is phased out by machines. Therefore, GE will solve the any job crisis that results from technological advancement.","conclusion":"Genetic engineering will take care of the technology death spiral of jobs."}
{"id":"cd37f25e-1966-4afb-a773-86b54ad93e7e","argument":"The American Dream is the romanticized idea of owning a large home, a nice car, career and a perfect family in the nation of opportunity. This is supposed to be accomplished through hard work, gradually working your way to the top this notion is laced with rugged individualism anyone can make it to the top in America despite where they originate. I disagree, that at least today, this is nothing but a dream and may not be sustainable. If you were born into a middle or upper class family in America that has accomplished some sort of the American dream, or you are from a previous generation yourself, you may be biased and it is hard for you to see what struggle looks like. The previous generation had it much simpler college tuition was non existent or proportionally lower. America's big cities like New York and San Francisco didn't cost you the arm and a leg it does today. I live in a big city in the USA and in order to afford housing you need a skilled career salary, for which you need an education to get, which you can't afford without government aid or scholarships. You can't move out of the city because moving is also expensive, and jobs pay lower, public transit isn't as available and jobs are not as plentiful. It's a viscous cycle. If you don't have parents to pay for your education, you are beholden to charity and bureaucratic government aid or loans which are horror stories in themselves. People are known to be stuck paying them off well into their career . I recognize that America has more opportunities compared to developing countries, but our individualistic roots have left us behind the rest of the developing world in terms of grasping opportunity. Lastly, I recognize that we are a large country with plenty resources to work with, so at the moment the American dream isn't necessarily unsustainable. But in the long run, it will be. I've met Americans who feel like they have to live in a big house, own a big gas guzzler. Most worse is the distaste of public transit here outside cities like NY of course , which I think is integral to reducing our carbon foot print and reducing highway traffic. Go ahead,","conclusion":"The American dream is a myth and not sustainable"}
{"id":"006728f1-2d2a-48e2-94ae-fd3e07f54e54","argument":"Small autonomous drones could be mass-produced cheaply, for less than 10k per piece. They would be expendable, similar to how an ant colony has no problem to sacrifice thousands of its members.","conclusion":"Many kinds of AKDs will actually be very small ones that will operate in swarms, instead of the big chunky predator drones today. Eg bird and bee sized."}
{"id":"e0c41a04-2a16-4a61-b979-0838c1b3ee87","argument":"A few years ago back in high school I was hanging out with some friends in my neighborhood when we decided to go visit another mutual friend who lived down the street. When we got to his house, we rang the doorbell and heard a dog barking inside. I have a dog, albeit a small dog, and am very familiar with their classic behavior of barking at whichever stranger arrives at the front door and subsequently running up to them and checking them out. I had never had a bad experience with dogs and wasn't freaked out by them at that point in time, so when we walk in and I spot this kid's German Shepherd at the top of the stairs, I don't think much of it. The dog is barking, starts to run down the stairs, and I start to brace myself in the event that the dog jumps up on me to sniff me or what not, but I'm not afraid at all. Then suddenly the dog jumps up and onto my friend standing directly on my left, bites into his shoulder, and thrashes his head back in forth. When they finally pulled the dog off my friend, he was bleeding all over the place. I've never seen someone's flesh so torn up. After we left to take him to the hospital, I couldn't help but think that that could just as easily been me. The dog apparently had no history of that kind of thing. Why he bit my friend, no one knows. He wasn't displaying any kind of aggressive behavior, wasn't being threatening, he was literally just standing there and within 15 seconds of being in the room, he was attacked. Needless to say, this event left me pretty scarred and I have never been able to look at big dogs the same way. My belief stems from my opinion that while dogs can learn to trust their owners after being fed and cared for over a long period of time, they are simply too unpredictable to be considered safe for strangers . There is no way you can know the behavior of a dog at first glance, whether it is friendly or aggressive. Even good natured, well trained dogs can't be considered safe, because if they perceive you as a threat to their owner, they will attack you defensively. I'm writing this post because I have recently become friends with a few people who have bigger dogs and I know in my head that it is illogical for me to feel this way, but I just can't shake the fear. I just want to be able to sit on the couch, or walk into a room, and not be on edge all the time that the dog is going to go berserk. So, please please please help me out Reddit and","conclusion":"I believe that large dogs are dangerous, regardless of their past behavior or how well trained they are."}
{"id":"a43dfc18-149c-4374-acd0-b29798b722f4","argument":"I just wish the governments would just let me take ownership of their own existence. I didn't choose to exist, be transgender or anything and yet as soon as anyone I know catches wind of how I feel about myself it generally ends with some busybody sending the police around on a welfare request , shouldn't the police have better things to do. The government doesn't care that I was made redundant, that I couldn't pay my council tax on time as a result but when it possibly makes them look bad they completely overreact. Anything like Euthanasia is thrown out by politicians thinking its against their principles or whatever, why does the government think it has the right to determine what we do with our own life? Most people don't ask to be one of their citizens you are born into it by accident.","conclusion":"Government bodies shouldn't be allowed to forcibly stop people from suicide or refusing treatment"}
{"id":"b898f3fa-1b2f-4f41-bac3-52c259bc4426","argument":"Banning Tor is welcoming in an Orwellian future where the way people think and speak is completely controlled by Corporations and Governments. Bad enough political factions continue to rewrite our history to suit their agenda.","conclusion":"Tor protects freedom of speech. To ban it would be censorship."}
{"id":"8529d16f-7534-4485-b15f-5eccdf53b51a","argument":"This is kinda hard for me to explain, so I'm sorry if this is a bit confusing. I'm pro choice, I think that while a human hasn't born yet it has no concience, it can't feel or remember anything, so from a pragmatic standpoint it is as it has never lived, therefore, it as for me , it hasn't lived if it's aborted. But on the other hand this logic doesn't sit right with me because the fact is that there is life, there is a creature on the way of life from the moment it is conceived, and no matter how you put, there exists a legal right to life in pretty much every country of the world. My ultimate position is always that people live and die everyday, and to treat each and every life as sacred when so much bad shit happens all around the world, where lives go out at the snap of a finger and misery, and to try to protect a life of a something that isn't even born yet is rather cynic, and even more so if it's due to moral and religious reasons. I mean, if it's such a big deal shouldn't we be incredibly more outraged of deaths in third world countries, or, I don't know, wars? On the other hand, and this is what I think my strongest reasoning, I think that goverment shouldn't have a say in what a woman does with her body, and that nobody is in a better situation to decide what to do with the creature that is growing inside of her, and I find the need that other feel to intervene is an absolutely disgusting paternalistic attitude.","conclusion":"I feel I am pro-choice but I can't reconcile pro-life reasoning with my own logic."}
{"id":"4807bdbb-3743-4ea8-a569-9add042d4c97","argument":"For this post I will mostly use Google as a example. I often see news articles that take a \u201cpick\u201d at Google for intruding on our personal lives, and the world. For example this article Yes, I admit Google may snoop. But Google is helping the world, on the technological front. Google is \u201cinnovating\u201d. For example Google is connecting the unconnected world, using weather balloons. The sheer size, logistical and communicational scale of a task like that is huge. But a Californian a sister company cough Apple cough Has just partnered with another company that make\u2019s extremely bendy unbreakable glass to produce an additional phone to their line of \u201cnerfed\u201d phones and they get claps and cheers from the public and media. Also everyone says that they are a amazing inspirational company and they are \u201cinnovating\u201d. But this is beside the point. Google Yahoo Bing are not \u201cThe Internet\u201d they are a Search Engines, in this context, but the European Court seems to think differently and have ruled they have to take down content from their Search Engine\u2019s. WTF The European court should be targeting the websites and admins to remove the content, and stop pestering the Search Engines for doing their job. Which is to provide search results Anyway even if the search results were removed will the content still be on the websites? Secondly, Every single person has a RESPONSIBILITY to read the terms and conditions of any online service or \u201cGateway To The Internet\u201d service product they are using. If the Product or service states in their T C's they are going to put information on a search engine for others to view, so be it They shouldn't remove the content because you were warned in the Terms and Conditions. Remember you are using their services and you are \u201cbuilding\u201d on their theoretical \u201cland\u201d. Thirdly, all information no matter how irrelevant or relevant should be stored by search engines. All information is in the public interest to create a archive, just like a library tries to accumulate as many books as possible no matter how ridiculous the books may be For example Willy The Sperm D . Fourthly, The European court doesn't seem to understand what the \u201cInternet\u201d is, as most of the judges and lawyer do not have a clue how it works? ? So why should they make the decision? ? And not specialists????","conclusion":"Search engines shouldn't remove search results due to the EU \"Right To Be Forgotten\" Law."}
{"id":"513dda58-c3e5-456f-a847-3ab644404393","argument":"I've done quite a bit of research on this, so I'm fairly confidant in my view, but I'm still open to other opinions. Basically I think that the IRV system solves a lot of problems inherent in the antiquated electoral system, an that we currently have a level of technology capable of making the switch.","conclusion":"I think American presidential elections should be decided by an instant runoff vote instead of the electoral college."}
{"id":"51654f3d-f0e7-4552-a6a9-a02e3710a833","argument":"Information being accessible at the same time for everybody is a huge advantage for humanity. Today, many people need to wait for scientific reports and other materials to be translated before they can access the info.","conclusion":"Education would be upgraded in an unprecedented way if this happens."}
{"id":"8fec0616-087f-4617-b651-0239b99a4ede","argument":"A decade after the 1st 2nd attack on American soil the post 9 11 world is still used as a valid argument. Have we learned nothing from the lies and deceit propagated during the run up to the US war in Iraq? Or what about the fact that there still exists known and unknown places like guantanamo bay and abu ghraib? Or how about the ever expanding and never ending additions to the patriot act, the NSA, and retroactive capabilities to detain? A question for those Gingrichy people who do think that 9 11 changes everything when will we stop living in the post 9 11 world ? Or will more and more dystopian policy be the only result? Will the post 9 11 world end when the unending war on terror drugs ends?","conclusion":"\"in the post-9\/11 world...\" is a cliched phrase used to excuse the most egregious forms of oppressive policy.. try to"}
{"id":"197fd433-75aa-40bc-8c53-70affa0003fe","argument":"Religious rules are the main source of contemporary laws and in some cases contributed to democracy.","conclusion":"Most of today's cultures and remaining world heritage are due to religions."}
{"id":"f76799ac-9bec-4e30-a36c-efbdf3a4a7af","argument":"First of all, how do you measure it? If you do box jumping or train for max touch, you\u2019ll get very different results, as well as I think training different muscle groups. I think most people want to train for max touch since that\u2019s more relevant in athletics. Second, vertical jump is more dependent on genetics than most other athletic measurements. Some people just won\u2019t get a noticeable return on investment, but the same can\u2019t really be said for things like lifting or jogging, which most people can improve at steadily. Max touch is hugely dependent on height and arm length. Third, I think vertical jump training is pretty unexplored. Some people train by lifting, some by repeated jumping, and I don\u2019t think the science is settled.","conclusion":"There\u2019s no point training vertical jump"}
{"id":"2fb131c8-9b09-4017-8675-12795a5d8ff7","argument":"North Korea\u2019s withdrawal from the NPT as the only country ever to have done so as well as its continued defiance to the US is a behaviour that could be emulated by other states under The Security Council Role that feel threatened by the US and\/or its foreign policy","conclusion":"The development of the North Korean nuclear weapon threatens the current world order that was primarily established by the United States of America same argument as on the PRO section as this point can be used for as well as against the main thesis depending on different perspectives"}
{"id":"821948f2-ce9c-4daf-860d-3e7607fdf820","argument":"For example, if a young male child finds that he is naturally drawn to stereotypically female interests wearing dresses, playing with dolls, engaging in nurturing activities etc. I believe the correct response is to help that child understand that they do not have to conform to gender stereotypes. It's fine to be a boy who likes wearing dresses. By extension it's also fine to be a girl who wants to be a rugby player, get a crew cut and drive a bull dozer for a living. Even having a full gamut of interests primarily associated with the opposite gender is totally fine because one does not have to conform to or be defined by stereotypes. On the other hand, to respond to that child by saying that being drawn to feminine interests suggests that they may be transgendered is reinforcing gender stereotypes. It makes gender stereotypes so powerful that they can change a persons gender. Note This is not me making any statement about transgendered people as a whole. The boundaries of this discussion are purely based on attempts to define gender based on likes, interests or pursuits. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Identifying as the opposite gender based on likes\/dislikes is harmful in that it reinforces stereotypes."}
{"id":"2e50e905-398e-4b08-bbdf-b901853a1563","argument":"In its morally ideal sort, identity politics also challenges the exclusion of certain groups from the \"social\" and forces powerful groups to recognize the need to be supportive of them.","conclusion":"Identity politics is in itself a form of social solidarity. Any kind of identity politics aims at uniting individuals from one single identity group."}
{"id":"2863dfe0-f5f9-4d35-a2c0-89855a348b5b","argument":"If I am wrong about this and I very well might be, as this belief is based on nothing but my intuition it should be very easy to demonstrate. I have a difficult time believing that many types of sexual molestation, in and of themselves, would be traumatic for most people as children. Obviously any type of penetration or violence could easily be physically damaging, but I mean simply touching. If there had been an adult who had done that to me frequently, I think I would have found it strange, but I doubt that I really would have thought of it for long, or in anyway would have found it significant. Intuitively it seems to me that every single time my parents spanked me was notably more traumatic barely traumatic at all than any non violent molestation would have been. Additionally people often complain about the double standard of attractive women getting off with having sex with teens and preteen boys lighter than men do, but if I imagine myself at that age I know I would have been extatic to have that happen to me, and I have a hard time understanding how it would have been harmful assuming that I had given my consent, of course . I know that people obviously do have quite strong reactions to these experiences which I, again, understand for any situation in which some sort of violence was used, I am talking about non violent occurrences . My intuition is that these people are only reacting that way because that is what society suspects of them. While that seems intuitive to me, it also seems like a really belittling belief, and I certainly would prefer not to hold it if its not true. If someone provided just a few studies suggesting that this a natural reaction to sexual contact at that age, then I could correct my view. I know I'm ignoring a large class by leaving out any violent acts, but I don't need to be convinced of why those would be traumatic. Thanks gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than just downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Childhood molestation is only damaging because people think it should be"}
{"id":"5414d9b4-056d-4c06-9f4f-e7a58670923b","argument":"As the power distribution between states defines the structure, AKMs would strengthen the power of such states which own them. This would lead to a reaction of non-AKM-states, forming new alliances and cooperations in order to create a new balance of power. This process could change the international system as we know it today and create disadvantages for the West.","conclusion":"According to Waltz and Ashley Neo-Realism the self-help character of the international system is responsible for the behavior of its actors and forces the states to create survival strategies. However, over-mighty weapons - in this case AKMs - pose a potential threat to the survival of states."}
{"id":"1c12e661-b889-4d5f-b48e-69badf66ec19","argument":"Considering cloning as immoral, while not considering other types of intervening in natural processes as immoral such as manipulating electricity is hypocritical.","conclusion":"Humans already intervene in God's creation nature in various ways. We do not see those as immoral."}
{"id":"037641ba-11c7-47d7-96f9-50d50c203403","argument":"I want to start by saying that even given my view, I do not believe transgender surgeries should be outlawed. Nor do I believe there should be anything prohibiting any individual from appearing however they want or changing their bodies however they want. I would never even condemn a person for identifying as a gender other than their biological sex. HOWEVER, I feel the overarching movement of accepting gender identity changes and using \u201cfeminine\u201d and \u201cmasculine\u201d to describe expressions interests behaviors is counterproductive. I do not understand the notion of identifying as a gender other than the sex you were given at birth. Being a female implies you have female genitalia and being a male implies you have male genitalia. That is all. Claiming you feel like a woman because you enjoy more stereotypically feminine interests detracts from the concept of egalitarianism and gives too much power to biological sex. I think it is perfectly fine for a male to be completely interested in traditionally feminine interests and or be sexually interested in men, but why would this make them a female? Even if a man completely changes their appearance to appear as a woman but has male genitalia, why does this make them a woman? As an extension of this idea, I believe that deeming certain behaviors interests characteristics things as either feminine womanly or masculine manly is pointless and impedes equality. In fact, I don\u2019t understand the concept of using the terms masculine or feminine at all. I believe these terms further divide females and males and make it easier to prematurely place people in categories. If I am wrong, what makes something innately masculine or feminine? Note, I am very curious to discuss this and am not interested in hateful comments that don\u2019t add any value.","conclusion":"There are not any feelings or interests that are innate to being female\/male, and changing your gender based on how you feel increases the divide between females and males."}
{"id":"f85d6a9a-1405-4d42-a9e1-e74ea231e2b6","argument":"Many present European cultures, traditions, values and identities are based on common heritage, such as ancient Greek culture the Roman Empire, Christianity, the Renaissance, as well as the Enlightenment.","conclusion":"The European identity already exists. This is a heritage of democracy, freedom of speech and thoughts and focus on personal development."}
{"id":"98ced06b-6a5d-4c9b-8dcf-4f45d1677111","argument":"I may be slightly biased but I think dogs are better. They can play with you, they learn better. Dogs are like having another family member as for cats I feel like are not. Cats are usually only focused on themselves and food. Dogs can do everything cats can do but better. Dogs have more emotion than cats, a study showed they did. Scientific proof. Copied from article But it now appears, that when it comes to raw brain power, dogs are clearly ahead. Their cerebral cortex is particularly dense. What\u2019s the surprise about dogs being dense, cats say? It\u2019s all about efficiency when it comes to hunting. It seems dogs have about 530 million neurons calculating their behavior, as opposed to 250 million in cats. \u201cI believe the absolute number of neurons an animal has, especially in the cerebral cortex, determines the richness of their internal mental state and their ability to predict what is about to happen in their environment based on past experience,\u201d neuroscientist Suzana Herculano Houzel from Vanderbilt University says. Dogs had the most neurons of any carnivore \u2014 even though they didn\u2019t have the biggest brains. Brown bears had roughly the same number as cats. Sorry if I had a lot of grammar mistakes I\u2019m a mobile peasant","conclusion":"Dogs are better than cats."}
{"id":"fa453869-665a-4f01-992c-2d9aa222ef80","argument":"So yes, few days ago, on my birthday, I received like 5 flowers I'm a guy , I was wondering why do people gift flowers instead of something useful? In my opinion flowers don't serve any purpose, well something like potted flowers which grow in a flower pot do but you get the point. For the price it would be easier to buy something like a Nutella or something edible or useful . Then you could at least use it unlike flowers. They just stay in a vase wasting my space until they die. P.S. I like Nutella. Thank you","conclusion":"I believe that you should stop giving flowers as gift and instead give a jar of Nutella."}
{"id":"67f223a7-bd8a-4d5e-8dcd-2820bebb2220","argument":"It is false to claim that South Ossetia's de facto independence from Georgia is some how a sign of its independence. It was only able to secure such de facto independence with substantial military and foreign aid from Russia.","conclusion":"S. Ossetia maintained de facto independence only with Russian aid."}
{"id":"79f9398f-1f04-433f-832c-1b76c9fcd836","argument":"\"Top Ten Reasons Why Merit Pay for Teachers Is a Terrible Idea\". Education Portal. July 10, 2007: \"1. Standardized Test Scores May Be Unreliable. Most merit pay programs are tied to the scores students receive on the tests required by Bush's No Child Left Behind Law. As the American Federation for Teachers and the National Education Association have pointed out, these standardized test scores are seldom reliable and do not provide an accurate barometer of a teacher's performance.\"","conclusion":"Merit pay for teachers is tied to unreliable standardized tests"}
{"id":"a99b172f-d1f9-418f-89f1-0b0722dba43d","argument":"Hi, allright so as I see it. Black Americans make up ~10 of our population but ~40 of our incarcerated. Large majorities of our incarcerated population have been sentenced on minor drug and possession charges made possible by the war on drugs. The US prison system is structured as a profitable venture, those profits coming overwhelmingly from the tax pool insofar as I understand this . The only conclusion I can reach from this is that an institution of normalized slavery exists and functions on a wide scale in the united states. Following emancipation, there was a long period where black slavery in America truly did function, with large work camps and prison gulags sourcing labour from the black community after slapping them with minor charges, loitering, etc. As far as I can tell, this never stopped and has only grown in scope. Racial minorities in america overwhelmingly black and hispanic are obviously mostly incarcerated. Whether or not our justice system is structurally racist is not the issue here. It is I sort of came here from elsewhere on reddit after running into this documentary from where I cited the work camp gulag comment Anyway, this realization has made me quite uncomfortable, that my tax dollars support you know, racial slavery, because even after a brief review of the numbers involved here yea I don't know what else to call it. Is that not what is going on here? Is there something I don't fully understand about how prisons operate?","conclusion":"Black slavery is alive and well in the United States."}
{"id":"5829419e-5f61-4e29-bd94-0e73ab622a35","argument":"If birth is the crucial dividing-line we use to decide when legal personhood begins, then we should not be allowed to induce birth and then deliberately kill a foetus during that process - this is different from early abortion in which birth is induced and the foetus dies naturally. Partial-birth abortion is murder, even on the pro-choice understanding of personhood.","conclusion":"If personhood accrues at birth, then abortion after inducing birth is wrong"}
{"id":"0694d29a-5955-4ff2-b244-b5c1b9dc890f","argument":"Sentience is the property of being conscious. Sentience brings with it the ability to experience. There is a massive difference in the way that we treat sentient and non-sentient beings instinctively. We see nothing wrong with forming relationships with one\u2019s pets but we tend to deem people with emotional relationships to objects mentally ill. Here we are talking about something more than sentimentality but rather the kind of relationship in which one is concerned with the other party\u2019s emotional wellbeing. We even feel concerned about the wellbeing of sentient beings which whom we do not have a personal connection. For example we may feel upset when we see a dog run over on the road. This would be a very difficult reaction to how we might feel if we see an object crushed by a car. We feel moral outrage at the clubbing of seals. The instinctive way which we differentiate between these two categories relates to the type of value they have. Whilst objects have value because of how they affect us - e.g. they are useful or remind us of a good time or person \u2013 we believe that animals have intrinsic value. This means that a sentient being must never be treated as a means rather than an end in and of itself. Animals are sentient. Therefore, animals must not be treated as a means to an end but as intrinsically valuable. improve this","conclusion":"Animals are intrinsically worthy of rights because they are sentient"}
{"id":"c371b4e3-3ce5-4e77-97cc-ca7a43ad8d44","argument":"People forget that the EC was a key component to creating the United States. Smaller states correctly foresaw that industrialization in urban areas would create a population disparity. There would be no USA without the electoral system. The situation is exactly the same today; smaller states will never vote to abolish the EC.","conclusion":"The electoral college works to reduce the influence of densely populated areas and give fair power to smaller states."}
{"id":"759ca33a-8499-47a8-bb17-ccb13da7d8be","argument":"Predicted traffic chaos outside the zone in which cars are prohibited does not materialise Wallstro\u0308m, p.18","conclusion":"Even if unpopular initially, this is likely to prove popular in the long term."}
{"id":"b5039c80-b3a9-4127-88c5-c4a47009fcf7","argument":"If all tasks for an omnipotent being are infinitely easy, then there is no effort required for any task.","conclusion":"If God is omnipotent, logically he cannot expend effort to make something real."}
{"id":"5c5c279b-812c-4544-a592-ef1aa0113992","argument":"From the HCO to the MWP when oceans were 0.5 sometimes 0.9c warmer than today's","conclusion":"There are multiple examples of climate shifts similar to today."}
{"id":"4626eed8-132b-403d-901f-abf1a1e2ab2d","argument":"Especially in work environments this is important. After all, an employee distracted by concerns about their smell is certainly not performing as well as an employee fully focused on work.","conclusion":"The use of fragrance can make people feel more comfortable and less worried about any odors they might produce."}
{"id":"ab4ab9fb-42a6-40e8-8493-57c2a8607bf1","argument":"Nike has been accused of using its Colin Kaepernick ad to distract from controversy that had developed around the company's use of sweatshops and a report about how women in the company were poorly treated.","conclusion":"Corporations use political advertising as a way to hide their bad business practices."}
{"id":"ce72222c-4b99-4905-b68a-d3df29013711","argument":"Even today's separation of bathrooms by gender is a product of a society in which the overwhelming majority of power lies in the hands of men. Bathrooms were initially separated out of male chauvinism towards women.","conclusion":"The small number of people affected does not justify a violation of their rights. This represents a case of the Tyranny of the Majority a decision does not become right or just based on numbers."}
{"id":"fd9840ff-7b03-49e8-b93f-7cac58f40853","argument":"His hate-speech rhetoric widens the diplomatic gap between the USA and most European countries and has been shown to bring discrimination and human rights violations to new heights","conclusion":"Trump damages popular and public opinion of the United States, diminishing its standing and prestige in the eyes of the World."}
{"id":"5babe124-16f4-4d52-806f-6444645fee61","argument":"The amount of fuel to travel, risks involving space radiation for long periods on human bodies, furious environment on Mars, and only to some rich and chosen people to get the 'promised benefits' to survive in a desert within all those lack of resources is not worth it. Colonizing some poor explored country again, in the right way this time and bringing technologies, resources, health knowledge, qualified professionals and attention to evolve it would be a more viable new civilization than Mars.","conclusion":"Colonising Mars will take an unbelievable amount of natural resources from Earth."}
{"id":"6d8f645b-3688-42ed-aee4-f6b0ab0c7b9e","argument":"Divine origin could be related to things like quantum physics and internet a century ago or the idea of industries and black holes 10 centuries ago.","conclusion":"This doesn't mean that it is of divine origin. If we don't understand it yet doesn't mean we will not be able to later."}
{"id":"fa5140a3-6e2c-4890-b60d-513f76b0d416","argument":"I am stuck in a rut at my current job and need to do something about it. I want to actually do something I feel like I can make a difference with I really want to be a vet but I grew up in a household where money was always tight and learned to not bite off more than I can chew. Being in a debt and owing people money is a huge deal to me and I try to avoid it at all costs. I wasn't to go to school to be a vet but I feel like it will only make things worse by piling on student debts or not being able to find a job in my field or both . How accurate is this assumption? EDIT I thank you all for replying to this topic. I honestly wasnt expecting to change the profession but looking at these posts and knowing myself, I would be better suited to studying to be a VET TECH and enroll at community college for the first couple of years and transfer. I am 26 living in Utah and have put off doing any sort of higher education just based on the whole debt job field issue but I am going to start making some changes and speak to some career advisors at SLCC the local community college here and get started. I cant thank you all enough for all the advice given to me","conclusion":"I would like to get a better paying job in a rewarding career field but I can't help but be dissuaded from going to college because all I read about it is people not being able to find a job in their career field and or having a massive amount of student loan debt."}
{"id":"89b08c1f-cbe9-43dc-8606-bdbf6d7755e6","argument":"Note this is only in a sense for governmental texts, documents, addresses. For things of emergency safety health of course that can be excluded. Also for those physically incapable of speaking learning English I would like English to be the official national language since it was chosen by our forefathers since the nation's birth as the de facto national language, but not as the official language. A national language helps bind national unity. English is taught in all to my knowledge public schools in the US. A national language is helpful so everyone can understand each other, and work more well together. Having to print recreate documents in different languages takes money which could be better placed elsewhere. I used this as a fiscal reason although I'm not 100 behind it. Multiple languages divide a National US identity. Citizens should be expected to know english as it is taught to them for the entire duration of their public education. Naturalized citizens have to know English to even become a citizen. I am not saying that English should be the sole language anyone speaks for everything including private matters, but every American should be expected to know english. If it is a requirement of citizenship, all government texts ought to be only in english as much as practically possible since all Americans should know english. I'm not attacking second language programs like public school Spanish, French, etc classes since to be bilingual is a very good trait, but a national language would beneficial in organization and standardization. It doesn't have to be complicated. Also, I kinda believe that residents should apply to become citizens after living x amount of years in the US. If they don't expect to become citizens and join the american community, maybe they ought ^not ^to ^be ^here. Please don't judge me for that Please change my view Edit sorry, my internet was acting up and I couldn't access reddit also east coast so kinda late. P","conclusion":"English should be the official language of The U.S.A."}
{"id":"437a5bc1-5eef-4523-8d80-fb7c1e360a5b","argument":"I'm pretty damn liberal but with Trump's new policy on foreign born babies and their resulting citizenship got me thinking about this topic again. Overly Simplified position If you are in the country illegally, your offspring born in the United States should not receive citizenship. ~~This position would have largely decreased the Dreamer population before it started. ~~ Decentivizing travel to the United States illegally for purposes of giving birth and having your child born into citizenship may cut down on the rate of illegal immigration. Most illegal immigrants don't cross a border illegally, but rather overstay a Visa. citation needed Those that are immigrating here to escape persecution or poverty would not be initially impacted by this potential policy change as having a baby here was not the primary intent. However, if they are not here legally, birthright citizenship would not be allowed if they did have a baby. Those immigrants here with a green card or a valid visa of any kind, would still have citizenship rights conferred to the newborn, even if they themselves are not citizens. Potential problems What if a child is born to a US female citizen whose father is illegal? What if a child is born to an illegal female immigrant whose father is a US citizen? I wholeheartedly believe that we need immigration reform. I also acknowledge that we, as a nation, screwed this up a long time ago and there needs to be an amnesty program or a citizenship path for people who came illegally, have lived here for decades, and have established roots.","conclusion":"Persons born to someone residing in the United States illegally should not automatically become a citizen."}
{"id":"7b46072a-401b-4f01-9763-57b8be4ab8b0","argument":"I'm not an owner of guns. I love playing video games and watching movies with gun violence. I recognize the world will always have guns, that there are people interested in using them to maintain power over others, and that's not always a bad thing. Also, I am a proud citizen of the U.S. of A. I love the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the founding fathers that made them. The idea of changing any of the Amendments that have successfully allowed America to be all it has been scares me. Even if 100 of Americans suddenly agreed to abolish guns, and overturn the 2nd Amendment, the precedent of abolishing any of the founding Amendments feels like a dangerous game. I still am not comfortable with the number of gun related deaths in my country. I want to come up with something to fix it. Here's what I got The fact that the modern interpretation of the 2nd Amendment is way way more modern than I originally thought, makes me curious if it's really that correct. I think the outcome of that decision downplays the militia part too much. Why did the founding father's need guns? What were they thinking you needed to protect yourself from? The militia part makes it clear, to me anyway, that your protecting yourself from an oppressive government In 1770's The British . You need arms to defend and keep from oppression, and though effective from 1777 standpoint, I don't think guns are very well suited to that nowadays. I think computers, education and information are better suited to that. TL DR the term Arms shouldn't simply refer to guns, but all the tools needed to protect yourself from tyranny. On top of having a bunch more stuff protected by the 2nd Amendment, we can also maybe work towards a society that doesn't see gun ownership as a symbol of American freedom. The should just see it as a thing they do or don't own.","conclusion":"The 2nd Amendment should not have anything to do with guns"}
{"id":"0736effb-8b71-4269-8ba1-f53a3fe33563","argument":"If a job guarantee was implemented this could help counter the effects of reduced bargaining power, technical change, globalization, and the Recession.","conclusion":"The US labor market is weak and people are suffering as a result."}
{"id":"ae2aea84-73f3-49a8-a62c-5228c62af61d","argument":"NK citizens are not permitted to move freely in their own country, and are not allowed to visit a foreign country unless given permission by the government. Pain of death or detention deter escapes.","conclusion":"NK has one the worst human rights records in the world. Unification will solve this problem."}
{"id":"dab32d5c-c3cc-4d53-98d8-044c44990b37","argument":"Many countries have done very well with far more liberal governments than the USA's, however in those countries the culture is different. In many European countries, for example, people don't view socialized health care as a handout by the government, it is seen as something everyone who is able must work for. This applies to government aid welfare as well. In the US, there are just too many people who aren't willing to get off their asses and work. They just want to sit around and let the government take care of them. I recognize that there are many people in the US who are in need of government aid, but there are very many more who are capable of taking care of themselves but they'd rather let the taxpayers do it for them. I voted for Obama in the last election because I thought his policies on these matters were sound. But now I'm starting to regret that decision. I think a cultural change needs to occur before policies such as extended welfare and Obamacare can be effective. What do you guys think?","conclusion":"The policies of the Democratic Party in America will never be effective until US culture changes with regard to work ethic."}
{"id":"7644f10d-5ce4-45b3-bfda-94cc1e02c0d9","argument":"I know people who do not have the smallest qualms about screwing over their best friends to get what they want. I know guys who cheat on their pretty girlfriends about their one night stands with even prettier girls. these same guys who would steal from their own best friends and not show a sign of remorse when caught. this very same person would then hide an important piece of information about the job interview that both of you are supposed to be attending tomorrow. No ethical qualms about anything whatsover. I see these people all around me. I try my best to be as nice to people and helpful as i can, but when i see these scumbags out there, with all the success that i work so hard for, and it all just falls into their laps, i think why not just be like them.  magic internet people.","conclusion":"I believe there is no advantage to living an ethical unselfish life."}
{"id":"e02bcfea-566c-4846-b000-93a65cbaf0ac","argument":"First and foremost, i extremely dislike our prison system as it stands because of it's self perpetuating nature and believe we need hard prison reform. That being said, i strongly feel that long term sentencing is pretty pointless because you arent reforming life sentence criminals, you're locking them in a room and hoping they feel punished for their actions. And i do think this works for a period of time, but once you stay in a crappy situation for a long time you just get desensitized to it. And to me, paying to keep someone alive through taxes, for long periods of time, after committing life sentence crimes, is really insulting and more of a punishment to the victims of these people. I dont think long term sentencing really does anything, if the point is to get them out of society for the rest of their lives then why not just make them serve 10 15 years and then proceed with execution. Because after that amount of time people would just be used to it. Any moral standpoint on the death penalty will not . Im more looking to discuss the psychological effects of long term sentencing and wether or not it is an effective punishment for heinous crimes, which i currently do not think it is. EDIT As for wrongly convicted people, mandatory minimum sentencing, and current inmates serving long term. The first two would have to be fixed before this idea could ever be implemented, and for the third, current convitcs would be exempt from this rule as the entire system needs to be reformed. My view implies 0 wronful convictions, and all crimes receiving appropriate sentencing length. Im looking more to discuss the effectiveness of long term punishment vs short term with execution.","conclusion":"Any sentencing above 45 years in prison is pointless and should automatically be turned to a death sentence after a set amount of time served because of how humans adapt and acclimate themselves to their environment."}
{"id":"acf4ea66-b2dd-4034-bb05-e67cf65db6b7","argument":"Incarceration for minor possession of marijuana is possible in more than half of European countries.","conclusion":"Legalizing cannabis will free up space in courtrooms and prisons."}
{"id":"86c6b8b6-3c61-43ff-b510-09e95322b8ed","argument":"Youtube is a massive site that is far bigger than all of its competitors combined. Because of many factors including its massive size, there are no reasonable alternatives. The barrier to entry for competitors is extremely high since they require a large investment and require a massive audience to even begin to compete. It might be different in other countries but in the US I think Youtube constitutes a monopoly. Things that will not change my mind Netflix, Hulu, and HBO are competitors. Those services have far fewer videos, require monthly payments, and do not allow most of the types of content available on Youtube. They do not directly compete with Youtube. You can use other free video hosting websites. Those services are not comparable alternatives. Their library of videos and the size of their audience is miniscule compared to Youtube.","conclusion":"Youtube is a monopoly in the US"}
{"id":"c435b232-89d7-4a3a-9e0c-bab46cd41e20","argument":"We've all seen where people or corporations are able to prove legal innocence, even though they've acted morally reprehensibly, because they followed the letter of the law. Under my proposal, we would have one law you are not allowed to be a dick . The juries could be made up of peers, if you're alleged to have broken a speeding law, the jury would have to be pulled from a pool of people that use the roads everyone . Financial shenanigans? Peers would be financial people. So you knowingly sold mortgages that weren't worth the paper they were written on? Well, legally you might be ok, but you acted like a dick and a jury would no doubt agree. You moved your fence 3 foot over your neighbours property, that's being a dick. Guilty. Drink driving? being a dick. Bring a lawsuit against someone over and over? That's being a dick too. Using someone's photograph without permission? being a dick. This would be the ideal democracy in my eyes, as the laws to being a dick would totally depend on the jury, not what's written down. So as new things come up like posting pics of an ex's sexy pics without their permission people should already know that's dickish behaviour without having to read it in the legislature, so we wouldn't be hurriedly bringing in new laws for each new different thing. There'd be a vote on each thing whenever the jury convened to come to their decision, really showing the will of the people. edit Right, I'm going underground for a few days, will be back on sunday uk time. Been given a few things to think about, but I think i need to give out a couple of deltas. At the moment, i'm thinking that this works on a small scale thing, but doesn't scale up very well.","conclusion":"All laws could be replaced by one \"You are not allowed to be a dick!\""}
{"id":"dfb6e175-e247-43d4-8cc9-fdcc262c4760","argument":"Trump's actions may damage important security and economic relationships with key allies and, during the time of Trump's tenure, these allies are forced to continue making economic and security decisions and relationships. Trump's tenure at this time may force key allies to move toward other partners and away from America in ways that have permanent impacts on our security and prosperity.","conclusion":"Trump's actions may send America into a spiraling decline, both at home and abroad, from which no revolutionary backlash, 'lessons learned', or future efforts could recover."}
{"id":"1471823a-30c9-427d-aceb-e169a7e983a6","argument":"Currently 'on the ground' officials such as members of the police or military rely on the frantic nature of violence\/crime to avoid scrutiny and accountability. Having a 'perfect' recording of their actions would help identify abuses.","conclusion":"The behaviour of all public officials can be monitored and thus reveal any illegal, unethical, or abusive behaviour."}
{"id":"147ea156-6c07-48fe-9908-964e208f376f","argument":"If potential terrorists know all the details of a country's defenses and security procedures this makes attacks much easier.","conclusion":"Governments sometimes need to conceal information in order to protect civilians and security"}
{"id":"e0cdfa73-afd7-473c-8d5b-ee13474eea23","argument":"What constitutes hate in speech is subjective and depends largely on the audience. Therefore, it is impossible to define what would be banned and what is allowed.","conclusion":"Hate speech is at risk of being defined too broadly and impinging on free speech generally."}
{"id":"dabdf2f4-ec89-4b8c-ba66-28381dc0f8b4","argument":"As you can see from this article the US accounts for 45 of the world's development of new drugs. The UK is a distant second place at 14 . According to the NBER there would be a 30 60 reduction in R D projects if the US were to similarly control pharmaceutical prices by cutting them 40 50 . The US Dept. of Commerce Page 12 of PDF estimates that prices controls in other OECD countries result in a loss in pharmaceutical industry revenue of 18 27 billion per year , which would translate into 5 8 billion per year that would be spent on R D. Considering the US develops 45 of the world's new drugs, a 30 60 reduction in new drug projects would result in a 14 27 reduction in the world's new drug projects.","conclusion":"The rest of the developed world has cheap and effective healthcare because US citizens pay the lion-share of drug and medical device R&D costs while the rest of the world enforces price controls and reaps the benefits at a discount."}
{"id":"a4f566d1-62f3-490f-bb27-e5ae558a735c","argument":"People may not be able to appreciate what they're looking at as much if they're able to go everywhere like too much of a good thing. Going in person allows people to limit their exposure and thus let them enjoy the moment and place.","conclusion":"There are just some experiences that can't be replicated digitally."}
{"id":"306ad57c-d4a0-40c7-ab67-55b771bf2d92","argument":"Small autonomous drones could be mass-produced cheaply, for less than 10k per piece. They would be expendable, similar to how an ant colony has no problem to sacrifice thousands of its members.","conclusion":"Many kinds of AKDs will actually be very small ones that will operate in swarms, instead of the big chunky predator drones today. Eg bird and bee sized."}
{"id":"732885c0-83ac-4a98-a132-98885e541690","argument":"Soldiers are unlikely to object to orders from the higher ups to carry out disproportionate levels of violence.","conclusion":"Attacking forces would not feel remorse when carrying out violence."}
{"id":"80b8e84c-abba-420e-a7fe-070647cca275","argument":"There would be little political will or pressure to induce governments to fund care for people who need it.","conclusion":"Some families will suffer because the government will not extend services to them anymore."}
{"id":"b6d4fc6b-c4ec-4c82-8e69-3fed865931d3","argument":"A philosopher pushes his views including threats of divine punishments on the mob; the mob accepts his views and the philosopher profits from their submission to his ideas.","conclusion":"Religion has been used as a form of social control."}
{"id":"c2db7401-c9f1-47c3-9aa2-86a2f9224ad8","argument":"I do not understand the issues that people have with racial profiling and why it is supposed to be such a bad thing. I think of this in light of the Zimmerman case where it was such a negative thing that perhaps Zimmerman profiled Martin because he was black. What is so incorrect about profiling a person in certain environments and situations, when empirical evidence completely supports the notion that my profiling has merit? African Americans make up 40 of the U.S prison population yet only 12 of the U.S. population. Why is it so wrong for me to make assumptions? From Wikipedia with sources A black male born in 1991 has a 29 chance of spending time in prison at some point in his life. Nearly one in three African American males aged 20\u201329 are under some form of criminal justice supervision whether imprisoned, jailed, on parole or probation. One out of nine African American men will be incarcerated between the ages of 20 and 34. Black males ages 30 to 34 have the highest incarceration rate of any race ethnicity. I heard Al Sharpton going on a wicked long rant about how the white American public profiles black people unjustly, but it seems to make perfect sense to a non American like me looking in? TLDR I think racial profiling is reality, and until empirical evidence suggests that black people do not commit an enormously substantial amount of the crime, there is no reason for a person to NOT profile.","conclusion":"I don't believe there is anything wrong with profiling a person because of their race."}
{"id":"969f858c-b4d8-4e8e-be17-594c43f53b79","argument":"Suppose your doctor prescribes you a drug without taking into account likely and serious side effects. You would rightly be upset. Suppose the European Central Bank ECB prescribes ultra low interest rates and high levels of liquidity without taking into account that this monetary policy will exacerbate inequalities in income and wealth. Should we be upset? I argue the analogy holds. There is widespread agreement today that the magnitude of current economic inequalities is unjust. The ECB\u2019s response to the financial crisis such as the wholesale buying up of mostly government bonds to boost liquidity called \u201cquantitative easing\u201d can be shown to have deepened inequalities. Cheap credit and a high money supply have driven the prices of stocks and houses to historic highs. This favours the owners of such assets over the have nots who solely rely on \u2013 relatively much more stagnant \u2013 income. Central bankers object that even if all this is true, it does not follow that they should take into account the distributive effects of their monetary policy. First, they argue that it is not their job. Granted, the ECB\u2019s mandate does not include a reference to inequalities. However, that is not the point. The point is whether it should include such a reference. Second, central bankers have argued that the alternative to quantitative easing was financial meltdown, with an even more disastrous impact on inequalities in tow. This argument is too quick. True, doing nothing would have resulted in financial meltdown. But doing nothing was not the only alternative the ECB should have taken into account then or consider in future situations of this kind. Less inegalitarian remedies to financial crises are available and should be given serious consideration. Third, even if central bankers conceded that taking distributive consequences of their policy into account was desirable, they would argue that there is no feasible institutional arrangement to do so. Of course, it would be absurd for the ECB mandate to assign inequality reduction the same status as price stability or financial stability. This would turn the ECB into a kind of modern Robin Hood. However, more moderate and realistic approaches are available. One such proposal requires central banks to take the distributive consequences of their actions into account only when they result in a large increase in the bank\u2019s balance sheet. Quantitative easing falls into this category. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The European Central Bank should consider the distributive effects of its monetary policy"}
{"id":"2a3b690e-4bf7-4dba-9db7-6bfa877590c9","argument":"It is estimated that expense of ten years of protecting the borders of Eastern Europe are between $10 and $50 billion. Moreover, the bill for stationing forces permanently in the territory new Eastern European members would likely exceed $100 billion per decade. Given the fragile economies of the new republics, the existing NATO States will be obliged to absorb the expense of expansion. The proper question is whether the taxpayers of the US and Western European States wish to pay to protect citizens of distant republics from phantom threats.","conclusion":"The costs of NATO expansion are prohibitive at a time when the Western European members are scaling back their defence budgets and the reducing the size of their conventional forces."}
{"id":"253c16da-b7e6-4b13-af11-017e8213f846","argument":"Striking is an important negotiation tactic, but it's balanced by the risk that a company owner will remove their capital and reinvest somewhere else, so the strikers will lose their jobs. Or that their demands will make the company uncompetitive and it'll go out of business, again leading to no jobs. Thus the demands of strikers in a private business are tempered by the need to account for what's best for the business as well as its workers. In the government sector this balancing force does not exist. The state does not typically run organizations to make short term profit they're run for the benefit of its citizens. It rarely has direct competitors, and often cannot exit the market because it provides key services. Thus, striking government sector workers who already have relatively better job security are not taking on much risk and have little reason to produce reasonable demands. While I strongly believe in the right to strike for other workers, and feel that everybody deserves reasonable pay working conditions, government employees should not have the right to strike. This includes police officers, firefighters, soldiers, teachers, transport workers et cetera. They need to negotiate using other methods more appropriate to the state sector. I feel this is sensible but there is often widespread public support for government sector strikers, so I'd like to hear some opposing arguments and get a feel for where there might be situations where my approach is inapplicable.","conclusion":"I think that government employees should never have the right to strike,"}
{"id":"d9f9f1c5-4f6e-463d-913a-6f5c73cbbc97","argument":"Christine & Scott Gable. \"How Safe is Natural Gas?\". About.com - \"Natural gas vehicles are very safe, for not only do they have all the same standard safety equipment as conventional cars passive restraints, air bags, head restraints and anti-lock brakes, but they are subjected to the same crash safety tests as well.\"","conclusion":"Natural gas vehicle fuel tanks are very strong and safe"}
{"id":"0d2c1087-eb02-45f0-9778-53017f7b25bb","argument":"The mechanism that determines embryo\u2019s genetic sex depends on a complex interplay of genetic, psychological, social and, naturally, hormonal factors. The chief hormonal factor is the influence of testosterone in the womb.","conclusion":"The biological factor of being XX or XY makes you female or male, thus feminine or masculine."}
{"id":"afbf3207-1de7-482a-ac77-ac57d0120e19","argument":"Ultimately any policy of translation of academic work must rely on a degree of prioritization on the part of the translators since there is no way that all academic work of any kind could be translated into other major languages, let alone into all the multitude of languages extant in the world today. In 2009, for example, the number of published research papers on science and technology exceeded 700,000.1 That is a gigantic amount of research. Translating all of these articles seems to be an obvious waste of time and resources for any government or institution to pursue and increasingly so when one considers the more than 30,000 languages in current use today. Translations today currently exist for articles and research that is considered useful. Any blanket policy is infeasible. The end result will be only a small number of articles translated into a finite number of languages. This is the status quo. Expanding it only serves to further confuse the academic community and to divert useful energies away from positive research to the quixotic task of translation. 1 \u2018Science and Engineering Indicators, 2012\u2019. National Science Foundation. 2012,","conclusion":"It is prohibitively expensive to translate everything and difficult to prioritize what to translate"}
{"id":"dcfcd136-dfcb-4d21-ab85-934a00f76af1","argument":"I also believe that by arbitrarily censoring certain websites that the mods have pulled the rug out from under the people who initially helped those subreddits grow. These subreddits grew and were supported by people who were operating under the pretense of a very open forum for discussion available for many different media types and with an open diversity of sources . Then when they subs became huge they clamped down on what they allowed in a way which very much allows the mods to control which stories get the most attention. This, to me, is no small offense and it shouldn't be overlooked or forgotten. gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than just downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I believe that when the major news and political subs disallow videos and self-posts that they limit and stifle discussion."}
{"id":"8ec005b8-77d6-4601-b0cf-f4ec8256d0c8","argument":"true travel has been bastardized by modern Americans true travel, the good sort, is of the old school kind, only available to the elite and truly rich a year long jaunt through Europe and Asia or a few months in Paris. it is certainly a worthwhile experience IMO. likewise old school proletarian travel ie a quick trip to a nearby lake or an amusement park where you do something immediately entertaining and fun also makes sense but nowadays true travel has been bastardized by proletarian american shrews who are taking a week or two once a year to spend furiously dashing around a new country. it is exhausting and its primary purpose is to take pictures of said shrews in front of famous things and to get stories about the elite places they've been and then post those pictures stories on facebook instagram so their friends can think they are sophisticated. cmv.","conclusion":"True Travel has been bastardized by Modern Americans."}
{"id":"259f10d1-ced8-40b8-a4b7-692877d93e54","argument":"Personal Background My mother is a narcotics addict addicted to benzos and antidepressants and has struggled with them her entire life. Her addiction ruined her and made a lot of growing up hell. Between the homelessness and the emotional struggle I came to despise my mother. We eventually made amends and she has been to rehab multiple times. I obviously have a bias against them. More recently my friend accidentally became dependent on Xanax. She has struggled with anxiety and depression her entire life and has been on antidepressants since her early teens, she is 18 now. Earlier this year her doctor prescribed her Xanax with the instructions to take them when needed. No further instructions were given, no real break down of the risks.She took it as needed, once or twice a week. Slowly having to take it more often until she took it every day. She complained that if she didn't take it she would experience Rebound anxiety. The moment I heard this from her I immediately realized this rebound anxiety was actually the beginnings of withdrawal. She had taken her medication exactly as prescribed and was now addicted. I did what the doctor should have done and introduced her to the Ashton Manual. Explaining the risks involved in benzos and she decided she needed to step down the xanax and ween off. She went to her psychiatrist explaining this and telling him she would like to change to valium in order to start properly weening off of it. He didn't list and instead prescribed klonopin. Repeatedly telling her she had nothing to worry about, and in fact telling her to continue use of these benzos. The attitude disgusts me. Enough with my personal issues with Benzos and onto their destructive properties. Some of the adverse effects of Benzos include Oversedation. Memory impairment. Increasing depression and emotional blunting. Dependency. Increasing anxiety on and off. Developing irritable bowels or cardiac or neurological issues 7.When stopping you can have deadly seizures and convulsions I think it is extremely irresponsible for doctors to prescribe benzos, however I am interested in hearing views of people who have used them or have arguments for their usage. So Reddit, .","conclusion":"I believe benzodiazepines such as Xanax and Ativan should be highly illegal and no doctor should prescribe them. ?"}
{"id":"d4352c3a-fb0c-4a21-ab41-57527f15d986","argument":"From everything I've read about climate change I find it hard to believe that humans have as much impact on the climate as most people believe. I think the climate is a very complex system that we don't really understand, and by looking at historical graphs I see that the climate has always changed regardless of humans' CO2 output, i.e. the Medieval warm period, ice ages, etc. I am beginning to be slightly less sure though, as the vast majority of people believe that we are to blame. Although I don't change my views just because most people think , I'd be very interested to read some peer reviewed scientific journals that specifically prove that humans are responsible for climate change and not simply the complex system of the Earth that we are still learning about. Change my view, I guess.","conclusion":"I don't believe climate change is caused by humans."}
{"id":"ff9231e1-a2be-4fc2-b63d-7c3128931543","argument":"The British referendum on EU membership has been the most recent and most visible sign of a generational clash between the preferences of young people and old people.","conclusion":"Millennials will be the ones who have to deal with and live through the long term repercussions of today's political decisions, including those of the European Parliament."}
{"id":"a59f9ea1-c1cc-43f7-86be-1be7123f2b31","argument":"Pakistan appear to be willing to assist in ending the war; their National Security Adviser Nasser Janjua accepted Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani's invitation to enter into talks on bringing about an end to the war.","conclusion":"Trump has called for increased pressure on Pakistan, a constant supporter of the Afghan Taliban."}
{"id":"b4caefa0-427d-43de-9681-8e3c0eb1d307","argument":"This is purely hypothetical and something I\u2019ve been thinking about recently. My position is that people should have to prove that they are capable of raising a child before they are allowed to have one, going through the same checks as Foster Carers and Adopters have to go through. For example, check such as, Criminal Record Checks, Mental Health checks, financial viability checks and so on. My hypothetical theory on how this would be achieved is via an easily reversible castration which I'm fairly sure doesn't exist, but I'm not a doctor so I don't know. My reasons for this This would greatly decrease the number of neglected children born to parents who are abusive, incapable or uninterested in raising their child. This decrease would lift the burden on social care services and would save local councils large amounts of money. This would also reduce the number of children born into poverty. It would stop teenaged pregnancies. A good metaphor for how I see this subject is as such \u201cIf someone was unfit to drive a car, they would not be allowed to buy and drive a car, yet if they built their own car, they\u2019re free to drive when and where they want. until the crash and a social worker has to spend months in court trying to get the car taken away for its own safety.\u201d This doesn't mean that just the wealthy and healthy would be able to have kids, just that the people who really shouldn't have kids would be prevented. I know it does sound a touch like eugenics and it's not something I can see ever being in place. It's a recent idea that I'm still working over the pros and cons. Currently, I feel that the Pros far outweigh the Cons. The Cons that are glaringly apparent are Having Kids is a basic human right. The actual possibility of such a procedure. But please, Change my view. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"People should earn the right to have children."}
{"id":"37d52ccd-2340-4735-9da2-e74d6fd35638","argument":"17 of the 22 Arab League members Algeria, Bahrain, Comoros, Djibouti, Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen, do not recognize the state of Israel.","conclusion":"Most countries in the region endorse a boycott of Israel. Any decision they would take would be heavily biased against Israel."}
{"id":"4585e92b-a8f6-486a-ae16-dcde2c532dae","argument":"A heathy vegan diet is theoretically possible, but it is extremely hard to maintain such a diet long term without consuming any animal products, unless you take an industrial preconceived super balanced food.","conclusion":"Not all vegetarians have a healthy diet. There is a lot of meatless junk food available. Hence, an absence of meat in a diet does not equal a healthier diet."}
{"id":"07edfff1-5fe6-4230-b9d5-048f09f932d1","argument":"I know this sounds harsh, but this view was formed by my experience in Nevada. Maybe this is a silly opinion but I'm open to anyone who knows the place a little better. For background, I live in Northern California and have been to most areas in Nevada Northwestern parts, all of Highway 50 and I 80, Great Basin NP, Reno, Las Vegas and I didn't see anything worth revisiting. It feels like most of the state is the same dull desert with depressing towns of all sizes scattered throughout. I love driving long distances but I hate the drive on 95 between Fallon and Vegas. There's something creepy and depressing about Nevada but I'd like to hear some reasons as to why this feeling is unjustified. Living so close to Nevada it feels like there should be some good reasons to visit every once in a while. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"There is nothing worth visiting in the entire state of Nevada, and there isn't a good reason to live there."}
{"id":"8b9bccd3-519c-40c5-a1a3-fa79fee1d16a","argument":"The provision to amend the constitution itself shows that it can fail with changing times and need to be altered to maintain the needs of the people.","conclusion":"Constitutionality does not imply fairness. Fine prints can be altered to make unconstitutional entries constitutional."}
{"id":"cdf012cf-6aec-4463-a7fa-1d2c6922419b","argument":"Research suggests that democracies trade more and are less likely to utilize trade barriers. This serves the interest of rich countries in the maintenance of an open economic order and the creation of global markets.","conclusion":"Democratization of recipient-countries is beneficial for the donors' economies."}
{"id":"bb3b2afd-440d-453c-8f45-d36af553ae93","argument":"There is evidence that people who are thought of as oppressed find these statues oppressive also It also does not undermine their agency to find oppressive statues that either do or are perceived as celebrating figures who in the past *did* try to undermine their agency, autonomy, and personhood. Agency is among other things the capacity for self-determination, to make choices, and to have causal efficacy. These statues can justifiably be seen as oppressive without undermining one's agency.","conclusion":"For these memorials to act as effective \"tools of oppression\", would require those oppressed to recognize the power of these statues and then submit. There is no evidence that the people thought of as being oppressed actually find these monuments oppressive, and it's generally insulting to imply that people are dominated by statues over and above their own sense of worth and agency."}
{"id":"68a37fc0-9c38-4996-9941-0e400240b31c","argument":"I am looking at if the numbers will actually add up. I am not arguing the effects of making public colleges free that's a whole different can of worms. Sanders plan is explained on his website FULLY PAID FOR BY IMPOSING A TAX ON WALL STREET SPECULATORS. The cost of this 75 billion a year plan is fully paid for by imposing a tax of a fraction of a percent on Wall Street speculators who nearly destroyed the economy seven years ago. More than 1,000 economists have endorsed a tax on Wall Street speculation and today some 40 countries throughout the world have imposed a similar tax including Britain, Germany, France, Switzerland, and China. If the taxpayers of this country could bailout Wall Street in 2008, we can make public colleges and universities tuition free and debt free throughout the country. OK so, the money is obviously there, but the concern I read here is that investors will flee to another country where they are not taxed, or that type of frequent trading would end altogether. I don't buy the argument that investors will go elsewhere. I don't buy the argument that a .5 tax will stop frequent speculations, thus cut off that revenue. To me this sounds like a win win. If all goes according to this plan, good, college is much more affordable and speculation is met with more thought less risk as a result . Even if frequent traders leave, that would mean lower risk of crashes good for most people","conclusion":"I think the Sanders free college plan can work"}
{"id":"2d368226-27a5-4b38-92dc-a27ac2724f39","argument":"The terrorist organisations could have the cleverness to avoid specific language that algorithms and AI could understand, they could use coded phrases, so this measure would not effectively stop or slow down terrorist organisations.","conclusion":"Eliminating terrorist accounts would be technically difficult for both Facebook and Twitter."}
{"id":"85da6a63-26d7-4cbf-aee4-4444f44ca41c","argument":"Guiding your children is a part of religious practice. This involves deciding what is and isn't appropriate to teach them. Not allowing religious parents to send their children to schools that will teach them the creationist viewpoint on how the world is created, thus infringes on the freedom of parents to practice religion.","conclusion":"Failing to require the teaching of creationism as a mandatory subject in school, violates religious freedoms."}
{"id":"513ede72-c0d5-44ec-8d3d-8f8fd24f0022","argument":"I was curious as to the ethics of this norm in the U.S. healthcare system. For example, when a patient gets admitted to a hospital for cancer, they are often faced with huge bills that insurance won't pay. The hospital will often hire financial counselors to help the patients figure out clever ways to pay the bill or arange discounts BEFORE treatment. This to me is a conflict of interest and unethical on behalf of the hospital. The hospital knows it's not getting its money from Big insurance so it must get the rest somehow from the patient. Consulting with a patient about financial options prior to life saving treatment puts the patient in poor negotiation position. One cannot easily answer what would one pay to save their life. The hospital knows this and will certainly find most patients agreeable to some terms in order squeeze the rest of that bill out. Now the alternative is no financial counseling and the debt goes to collections and the patient's financial integrity is destroyed. Maybe a third party financial counselor would be more appropriate. Would love to know your thoughts.","conclusion":"Financial Counseling in U.S. Hospitals is Unethical"}
{"id":"f09d5744-3629-4dba-8540-d8e52e29a1cf","argument":"Trump said that America would destroy 52 Iranian sites if Iran retaliated to America, which is a disproportionate response.","conclusion":"Even a proportionate response is likely to trigger a war or some disproportionate responses by the US."}
{"id":"0d568bd7-66e2-402b-aa53-15b7aee5a1c7","argument":"I've thought long and hard about the concepts of culture and tradition, and though some may have or have had practical reasons, or were out of necessity for harsh conditions and whatnot, anytime today when someone speaks of preserving some cultural idiosyncrasy, it's because the alternative is either to have to think rationally about something and challenge their own views, or give up some sort of power or privilege they have that is entirely unearned in rational community. The exception to that would be social anthropologists attempting to document and preserve information on ancient customs or a government that bars people from contacting stone age tribes Brazil with the people in the Amazon, or India with the Sentinelese . But any time a lay person has uttered anything about preserving culture, it seemed to me they were being an asshole about something gay marriage, integration, slavery . EDIT A good point was raised about marginalized groups protecting their heritage from being plundered by the majority, so I'd like to edit this to say that my statement should be that when someone who isn't a marginalized minority person says it, that they're being a bigot. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"People crying to preserve their culture are almost always bigots looking to preserve their power over others or privilege."}
{"id":"623e214b-b302-4768-9502-a056685816fc","argument":"The human body is remarkably resilient to toxins, damage, and the elements. GMOs have no proven threat to the human body. People complain about pesticides having toxins, but any of the amount of toxins is so low and FDA approved that it doesn't cause the body any harm. And they protect us and produce from far worse things the body CAN'T handle, nor the produce. I don't believe I have ever seen a scientific article that has proof saying a normal amount of pesticides in food has ever done someone harm, same goes for an approved GMO produce. But I have facebook friends who are vegan crazy and their reason is things like PESTICIDES OMG and OMG GMO SO CRUEL TO PLANTS. They buy from farmers markets. You know, the farms where these terrible things are grown and also distributed to restaurants and stuff. You only need to modify enough peppers before your whole crop takes on the modification. It's not like we inject peppers individually to make them bigger. Besides, we've been doing genetic modification for hundreds of years.","conclusion":"I don't see a problem with gov. approved GMO produce, pesticides, etc"}
{"id":"a51f1bf9-c7a8-4ad0-aefb-6f76040e3688","argument":"I am not saying that it is morally wrong to boycott the game. However, people are blowing this way out of proportion. People claim that they love the Borderlands series so much and are so hyped to try the new version. So why are they then getting deterred by a launcher? Sure, it may be an inconvenience, but is that really worth depriving yourself of the fun that can be gained from it? x200B So what if it is not released on Steam? What actual benefit would you get from having it in the same library as the other Borderlands games?","conclusion":"People are overreacting about Borderlands 3 being released exclusively on Epic Games"}
{"id":"5a0b0f68-bd1c-4cbc-ac3b-39d806ba51d3","argument":"The pursuit of nuclear defence respectively the possession of nuclear weapons by more countries is a guarantee for peace.","conclusion":"All countries should have the right to pursue a nuclear defence"}
{"id":"9f15df3a-f814-4ef5-97ac-02b37b610b9e","argument":"On several occasions, the Quran states how prayer has the ability to strengthen the connection between God with humankind.","conclusion":"It can be argued to be the other way around - engagement in constant worship can strengthen belief."}
{"id":"ef19dc18-826a-4731-b0ee-d04944343bcc","argument":"The BIAs are at best bad faith compliance, and worst a blatant violation of the Rome Statute","conclusion":"pull out of the Article 98 Agreements that prevent US soldiers from being sent to the ICC for trial"}
{"id":"018f97d5-36d7-4352-bf2f-dbcd5e6329f4","argument":"I have a lot of issues sleeping, and I was actually recently diagnosed with severe delayed sleep phase disorder meaning my internal sleep clock is constantly pushing itself back. I work 5 days a week, 40 hours a week, then I go home and work on other projects. A lot of time I feel exhausted no matter how much I sleep 6 hours, 7 hours, 8 hours. I've tried for years to fix this but nothing has worked. When I started my job was the first time I had a 5 hour energy drink. Coffee did nothing, Red Bull was ineffective. But 5hr boosted my energy and actually elevated my mood. I make sure to avoid consuming it daily and only drink it when in dire need, so at most twice a week on different days. My family and GF say it's bad for me, but I feel like in moderation it can't be too damaging. I never drink 2 within a 24 32 hour time frame. For something that helps me stay alert and boosts my mood, I dont want to think it's dangerous, but please change my view anyway","conclusion":"I believe that, in moderation, it's perfectly fine to have energy drinks like 5-hour energy. Please"}
{"id":"14812d76-4149-449e-8025-1a0f697bfd37","argument":"It is likely that the presence of a larger number of people will result in increased consumer spending and thus benefit local businesses.","conclusion":"Free public transport would encourage people to go to locations they otherwise would not visit."}
{"id":"8fb46697-04a6-41de-9118-57b4cb303f28","argument":"On average major events and those with the greatest reach and engagement tend to be spaces created for gay, affluent, and white males.","conclusion":"The LGBT community has not been devoid of racism and other forms of exclusion."}
{"id":"645b5818-df80-4abf-9323-c15884402038","argument":"I'm thinking of permanently deleting my instagram while keeping both snapchat and facebook. I'm basing deleting instagram on the following points. Firstly, consider that instagram socially rewards people on a variable interval basis. This results in the average person checking instagram compulsively because there is always some small chance of a like, follow, some extraordinary gossip . This makes instagram very difficult to use as a tool for staying connected with friends and very easy to be compulsively checking throughout the day. Secondly, most people are consuming content that is usually superficial, fabricated and unimportant. People go to great extents to perfect their profiles compensating their insecurities attractiveness . Obviously, this does not actually improve the quality of set individual, they only feel like this quality is improved due to social acceptance through likes and comments. Moreover, the lurkers of instagram get a very biased perspective on people's happy lives. Thirdly, if you really want to stay in touch with someone, message them, call them, actually share things with them directly. Merely liking or viewing a post does not improve relationships. Understand, other platforms like fb messenger, whatsapp fill these roles without being addicitive. So instagram is addicitve, it usualy does not improve distant relationships, it feeds on people compensating for their insecurities and it distorts our perception of other's lives. Thank you for reading. I'll do my best to answer all counterarguments, I'm busy though so it may take some time.","conclusion":"Instagram negatively affects most people"}
{"id":"367d8025-ec37-40ca-8b81-29b5dd07c5df","argument":"As I'm sure most know, we have a bit of a crisis on our hands in the US regarding rape on college campuses. In response, politicians and public figures are speaking out, and some legislation is being passed. California recently instituted the Yes means Yes law for college campuses. In the midst of all this, a writer on reason.com published an article suggesting we lower the drinking age to solve the campus rape crisis. I think his reason is spot on gt People who reach their 21st birthday may enjoy the right to drink casually out in the open, during the day, at bars and restaurants, or anywhere else. But underage students who want to drink must take their chances in less socially regulated environments, like a friend of a friend's dorm room, the basement of an older student's house, or a fraternity party. Fraternities, in particular, offer dangerous drinking scenes for the underaged. Since any amount of alcohol is illegal for underage students, they are averse to holding their drink without immediately downing it. Teens who never learned to drink leisurely\u2014and have strong incentive to get drunk as quickly as possible\u2014are throwing back shots and accepting red solo cups from strangers in dark fraternity basements and bedrooms. This environment fuels blackout binge drinking. And in the haze of alcohol induced incapacitation, misinterpreted sexual cues, regret filled couplings, and yes, outright rape, occur most frequently. link I totally agree and am making his argument my .","conclusion":"To solve the crisis of campus rapes, we should lower the drinking age from 21 to 18."}
{"id":"41c05dd0-630a-4651-a947-55ef809b5e2d","argument":"In Universal City Studios v. Corley the US Supreme Court ruled that code is protected as speech. 3D blueprints do fall into this category.","conclusion":"Entirely prohibiting an individual to publish personally generated content is in its nature a suppression of this individual's right to freedom of speech."}
{"id":"385d07a2-834d-4005-9717-ffdbc97991a1","argument":"The U.S. and Europe account for up to 90% of Chinese banks\u2019 foreign transactions Russia\u2019s share is too small for China to risk sanctions.","conclusion":"China is too frightened of collateral damage from sanctions to meaningfully support Russia's \u201cpivot to Asia\u201d with anything more than words."}
{"id":"9d5ecd24-081a-4ba3-866e-a3e382aa9b73","argument":"Hello all, Something that struck me recently talking to 30 40 year old people is that they think the way Trump acts when campaigning, on television, and in the media actually reflects the real Trump. When probing about this, they say that Trump is a businessman bringing a businessman's approach to politics, and that is why he is causing such a stir. Considering the mass amount of falsehoods Trump says, the general lack of tact, and changing rhetoric throughout the campaign that is never acknowledged to have changed , I think Trump is simply gaming the system. He knew his persona expressing views the way his persona does would elect him president, and he is simply rolling along with it now that he actually is president. My reasoning is that someone of Trump's stature is too educated to lack tact as he does or not have knowledge on things he most certainly does. It is an act. A game. From some sort of mass influence style textbook. Now that he is president, he will extol his and his friends business's under the guise of doing presidential things see the wall as a misdirection from this . Even if this is not the plan, I still do not believe Trump's presidential persona is the real him. If I had some time with him and he was under truth serum, I'm sure he would actually be reasonable but maybe lacking ethics .  gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Donald Trump is doing something like \"playing 4-d chess\""}
{"id":"918a7eda-2f74-4049-bac9-f8edcf84ecc8","argument":"My disdain that borders on a hatred of smokers has nothing to do with my desire for a nanny state or for social controls to stop smokers from smoking. I really do not mind if people wish to smoke and bear the consequences of those actions for themselves, but the problem is that smokers do not just harm or affect themselves. My real disdain begins to manifest itself when I see smokers standing at cross walks, near doorways etc. where non smokers are forced to endure the smoke. Or while walking down a street forcing everyone around you to breathe the fumes or smoking in your apartment balcony causing all the smoke to rise up and into your neighbors or worst, when I see pregnant women smoking or being forced to breathe 2nd hand smoke . Smoking is a selfish act where getting their fix comes first without respect for non smokers space and lives. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Cigarette smoking a selfish act where the smoker doesn't care if others are harmed."}
{"id":"6bfc335d-79e0-4a10-bd41-11bfc07b5403","argument":"This system is accessible to individual police officers on the street, and allowed them to identify over 6,000 people of interest missing, organised crime, etc. in the UK between April 2015 and March 2016.","conclusion":"A hard Brexit would be particularly dangerous as it might threaten access to some essential systems such as the Second Generation Schengen Information System which is a key tool in countering terrorism."}
{"id":"293cd099-0ae8-475b-bbc8-c6b446e30226","argument":"Often these speakers which are being No-Platformed are known to passively aggressively try and provoke people who believe in norms, by obfuscating racist or other radical ideas within coded speech. This targeted provocation can put students at risk by causing violent counter protests\/reactions. Any speaker who is so vitriolic as to potentially cause this violence would be best not allowed if not only for students' safety.","conclusion":"Universities and student organisations have a duty to protect students from harm."}
{"id":"5e71a12d-1bb7-4c86-9015-fe330904e108","argument":"It is extremely difficult for any established educational program to remain agnostic regarding underlying beliefs about reality, how we attain knowledge, and morality i.e. the essential components of a worldview.","conclusion":"All education promotes a particular worldviews, and therefore interferes with presupposed \"Right of a child to choose their own faith\" or worldview."}
{"id":"210af688-be4f-44e5-8482-3b34cee7385b","argument":"I've actually never posted on r relationships but it was recently brought under my attention that they have a rule for requiring gender and age of everyone in the story to be posted. I feel this is a bad idea because In many cultures people are either not typically aware of each other's age or it is even a private matter that is impolite to ask it's not impolite where I live but don't know the age of anyone I know including my close relatives With the advent of close friendships and romantic relationships over the internet it is quite plausible that people are not aware of people's gender either I talked to people on the internet for quite a while without being aware of their gender or age. There is also still the assume one's gender thing in real life. While it may provide context it is highly arbitrary many more things provide context that are not required. Saying where you live is probably more useful than your exact age but that's not required and again people may not be aware of that to begin with People might just not want to reveal their gender or age on the internet","conclusion":"r\/relationships should not require that gender and age of all persons be posted"}
{"id":"7b164494-9f52-4ffb-9617-b1e62f8b9a4a","argument":"Back in Vanilla there even were black-lists of players that players would not play with.","conclusion":"Players quickly knew who the bad apples on their realm were."}
{"id":"d3900374-2d35-497f-b1bb-a373d353dd46","argument":"Being in the EU helps us negotiate on the world stage with the weight of 512M people and the cost of negotiation spread across 27 countries. Unilateral negotiation of deals alone represents only 60M people and the deal renegotiated 27 times.","conclusion":"UK will always be seen as the country that decided to leave the party. This would impact its international image and relationships."}
{"id":"750cf491-0a2b-49a5-941c-54339862bf46","argument":"Religion is often imposed on those young enough to be impressionable, leaving them stuck with it at least until they're old enough to question it, which could be a decade or so, or maybe the rest of their life if they're not that smart.","conclusion":"Religion organizes and manipulates people in order to make them easier to control."}
{"id":"79bcbe64-4a83-44bf-863a-5fe5964dbb07","argument":"The US the UK Germany and Australia are some of the countries that provide either compulsory training or voluntary training services to prospective parents who wish to adopt in the status quo. Such training systems will therefore be incorporated into the licensing system.","conclusion":"Parents can learn about parenting through dedicated classes, meet-ups or parenting books. It is not necessary to implement a licensing process to offer educative experiences for prospective parents."}
{"id":"592d9dcd-e692-48d3-b604-5c5cca366f71","argument":"or to put it another way, I suppose it could be written that People hold many opinions about the immoral nature of certain actions just because with no real logical reason for it. This is an opinion I've been trying to quantify for a while now, and my time on  has only seemed to reinforce this view. People posting everything from views about the morality of drugs, to homosexuality, etc and so little of morality seems to make sense. There are taboos against drug use, against incest, against homosexuality, against open sexuality, against so many things. There's this kind of moral disgust for things which don't inherently do any harm. Most of the explanations I see for why these things are wrong are generic answers with little thought or reason to them It's unnatural , It's an affront to god , It just isn't, because it just isn't . As far as I believe morality should be concerned, we should be allowed to do whatever we want with our own bodies so long as nobody else is harmed. If you want to do drugs just because the high makes you happy, and you've been educated and warned about the potential damages to your own body it is your body and your life, what is wrong? If you're gay and you choose to have consensual homosexual sex and that's what you both decide to do with your bodies, what is wrong? If you want to post nudes online and you feel empowered from it and the comments you get, what is wrong? The only explanation I could honestly come up with is the way others may react to you, but even that is just a biproduct of a culture which creates senseless taboos, and does things like shaming people for being sluts or for being gay without any real justification. What sense is there in these taboos, and the kind of bullying and shame that often comes with them? Where is the reasonable justification for deeming things that don't harm others immoral? .","conclusion":"There are more taboos and stigmas in modern morality than there are logical reasons for them"}
{"id":"87bbbbf1-e9c8-4050-800a-dc1ad6080d58","argument":"Stress such as from a hated job or excessive hours can take time away from self-development, and force people to use all their spare time in attempting to survive and recover and\/or escapism. The related exhaustion can also prevent them from thinking in the long term, beyond the immediate moment.","conclusion":"Working in a job that one hates, for very little pay, is not self-development. It actually traps them in a perpetual state of none-development."}
{"id":"ae44df2b-f7f1-40fb-92a5-5387919738db","argument":"I'm low income and I have literally just lost a room I wanted to get in a very nice neighborhood because they saw that I was living a women's supportive housing place previously. I try to stick to my morals and be honest and it seems to be that it doesn't matter unless you have money. I have dreams. Dreams of starting a family, getting myself through school, finding meaningful work and sending my kids to a private school. Thing is, I can't afford any of this. I recieved an offer about 20 minutes ago saying they would be my sugar daddy if I wanted. They told me how much they would pay me and that I would have free rent. If I can save all this money and send my future children to the best school and live in a well off, safe neighborhood than why the heck should I not do this? ?","conclusion":"Having a sugar daddy is a worthy pursuit"}
{"id":"5b5c5475-1fcb-4552-bc04-caf6b52e7a92","argument":"The commonly used phrase Android vs iPhone makes absolutely no sense Android is an open source operating system used on thousands of different devices, produced by hundreds of different companies 80 phones to 1600 phones, 50 tablets to 700 tablets, televisions, cars, smartwatches, digital cameras, and even game consoles , while iPhone is a name of a few different smartphones produced by Apple currently on the market iPhone X, iPhone 8, iPhone 8 , and iPhone SE, while today the iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, and iPhone XR will be announced . For comparison, it's like saying monarchy vs the USA the USA is a country , while monarchy is a political system used in numerous countries some like Norway or Denmark with a considerably higher standard of living than the USA, and some like Swaziland or Oman with a considerably lower standard of living . In order to compare like for like, there are 3 different ways that can be acceptable 1 Operating System Android vs iOS both are used on numerous devices primarily phones and tablets , both are overhauled annually, and both are developed by American tech giants Google and Apple, respectively . 2 Smartphone manufacturers Samsung Huawei BKK parent company of Oppo, Vivo, and OnePlus Xiaomi etc. vs Apple all of the above manufacture numerous smartphones with their own unique user interface and design, and have a large share of the worldwide smartphone market. 3 Brands of high end smartphones Galaxy S Galaxy Note Pixel LG V Huawei Mate Huawei P Oppo Find Vivo Nex OnePlus Mi Mix etc. vs iPhone all of the above have new versions released on an annual semi annual basis, all claim to have the latest and most innovative technological advancements chipset, display, camera, etc. , and all try to make themselves the most attractive to the upper class consumer. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"There is no such thing as \"Android vs iPhone\" - one is an operating system, the other is a series of smartphones"}
{"id":"ed35f4be-236f-4ac5-a882-0d7406c78e8a","argument":"This is likely to create further negative externalities in the countries they leave from, such as greater unemployment and more dependence on the welfare state.","conclusion":"High carbon industries will likely just shift production to countries where there is no carbon tax, rather than reducing their emissions."}
{"id":"21d6af85-be14-4f71-97bf-8cf71375ea06","argument":"Violent sports have been linked with increased rates of domestic violence, with rates of domestic violence suspected to be much higher among Mixed Martial Arts competitors and studies showing domestic violence rates can spike as a reaction to sporting events.","conclusion":"Given the strong focus on elimination of violent crimes including domestic violence, it is counterproductive to support a tournament which glorifies the same motivators."}
{"id":"7d21dbc2-758b-4c25-95f4-5649ce87bf0a","argument":"There are also some people who are born addicts and didn't choose to have an addiction Ex. A mother who uses harmful substances and the baby develops fetal alcohol syndrome . It's hereditary, like alcoholism, and is not the persons fault regardless of educational background. There is also mental and physical addictions that people do not choose to have. It is not always a choice to become addicted to drugs. Change my view on why it isn't a disease how it is a choice and how genetics do not play a role in addiction. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Addiction is a disease and should be treated as one."}
{"id":"2aee0c63-e5a8-46ef-a15b-3ff606087568","argument":"Episkey is a spell that heals relatively minor injuries such as broken noses and split lips.","conclusion":"There are many healing spells that can be used to treat diseases and injuries."}
{"id":"2fd9ed35-8108-4de9-8c6b-f81e7d5dc799","argument":"Hi Reddit, I think that not only hording is dangerous, but just your average buyer who constantly buys things they don't need. I see it everywhere I go where the same person is buying another pair of shoes though they have 10 pairs, buying and more buying for themselves I think is a serious disease of the mind and revolves around the ego. What's more sad is that most of us aren't concerned where any of these items come from, more that we need them than anything. It breaks my heart to see so much wrong when it comes to corporations moving our jobs to overseas to have little kids build and make our stuff, what is so american about this? And why are so many of us okay with it? I think there is a disease in the mind of americans and I don't know how else to describe it, thanks reddit.","conclusion":"I think excessive buying of materialistic items is a serious disease of the mind"}
{"id":"ea246113-099d-444f-9f0e-c89abbbeb7bc","argument":"The main focus of my stance is people who have served long sentences for serious crimes such as those wrongfully convicted of murder or rape and released decades after their conviction although I would also support some form of compensation for lesser sentences for lesser crimes. But the main focus of this  should be those convicted of major crimes such as murder who have spent many years in prison before their release. One concept we have in American justice is the idea that someone who is sent to prison is paying their debt to society . The premise behind this is that a crime causes harm to society to a whole and having the criminal give up his or her quality of life for some time balance the scales. If said person faced the same punishment without having owned that debt then the reverse must be true, society owes them a debt. Since it is impossible to give them extra years on their life, the next best thing is to make the remaining years they have left as good as possible and financial compensation is the best way to do that. The job market can be hard enough for anyone, let alone someone with a huge gap in their employment history. Even if it is understood that the conviction was reversed there may be some employers who may be prejudiced against that person, maybe they feel that it's possible that they actually were guilty and don't want to hire them. Even without such prejudice, it's hard to imagine a scenario in which a person with 15 years of experience would not get a job over someone who had 15 years of no job experience because they were in prison, save for an employer wanting to be charitable. Finally there is the concept of time away from life . Think about the things that you enjoy, that make life worth living. Whether that be time with friends, family, travelling, going to concerts, or simply taking a walk outside, imagine having years taken from your life where you couldn't do these things. Most people spend a large portion of their waking hours working to sustain a lifestyle of these things in their free time. I spend time away from my wife at work, so that the time I do get to spend with her after work and on weekends is enjoyable and that we have necessities such as food and shelter. Someone who has been wrongfully imprisoned shouldn't have to spend their time doing anything other than trying to make up for lost time. They should be able to spend every day with their family and friends and just relaxing, doing things most of us hope to do in retirement. But maybe there's something I missed, if you feel differently, see if you can change my view. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"People who have been wrongfully imprisoned should automatically be compensated for their time in prison to such an extent that they can live a comfortable lifestyle."}
{"id":"438f929f-e9a6-4bad-ba4c-54d8cefb319f","argument":"It does not exist as a literal place but must be understood as the spiritual underworld that most religions painted. It is equivalent in understanding as \"the place you do not want to go\". It is a concept that everyone understand intuitively due to our connection to the collective unconscious. It is not punishment, it is a necessary part of the struggle of life.youtube.com","conclusion":"Hell is an object of the collective unconscious proposed by Jung."}
{"id":"e88a2304-362e-4928-8c24-77a4d992b99a","argument":"Commuters who travel by bike are the happiest, whilst those who drive are the least happy","conclusion":"Banning cars encourages people to travel more by bike or by foot more often."}
{"id":"1aad02bb-e1e6-4ef0-8f94-7cdacf5ba51c","argument":"Internationalization is a process going through different stages. Once we obey them and do not just conform then laws and rules are followed not because of punishment but because of internalization. digitalcommons.law.yale.edu","conclusion":"Our society has internalized rules and laws. Thus crime rate will not sore with anonymity"}
{"id":"dc4c2d1b-214b-49dd-841e-b0aa173eea66","argument":"There are expressions in many languages that support the existence of social representations associated with native sex, such as \"Be a real man\".","conclusion":"Language often reproduces social norms and conventions attached to gender."}
{"id":"b5e6acb0-d965-465a-9c14-b0acfb482732","argument":"If you leave Islam in certain countries you will die. If you leave Jehova's witnesses you will never speak to your family again. Same with the Amish. But more importantly you did not choose to have the religion forced on you as a child and it may be so deep in your brain that you could never escape.","conclusion":"Being born and indoctrinated into a faith is not voluntary. Moreover several religions place severe consequences on those who leave."}
{"id":"2289811a-508a-4fe7-8811-f8d4cc13409f","argument":"The killing of over 1,400 Palestinians, mostly civilians, and more than 4,500 injuries, accompanied by the destruction of schools, mosques, houses, UN compounds and government buildings, which Israel has a responsibility to protect under the Fourth Geneva Convention, is not commensurate to the deaths caused by Hamas rocket fire. For 18 months Israel had imposed an unlawful blockade on the coastal strip that brought Gazan society to the brink of collapse. In the three years after Israel\u2019s redeployment from Gaza, 11 Israelis were killed by rocket fire. And yet in 2005-8, according to the UN, the Israeli army killed about 1,250 Palestinians in Gaza, including 222 children. Throughout this time the Gaza Strip remained occupied territory under international law because Israel maintained effective control over it.15 The targeting of civilians, whether by Hamas or by Israel, is potentially a war crime. Every human life is precious, but the numbers speak for themselves: 800 Palestinians, most of them civilians, were killed during Operation Cast Lead. In contrast, around a dozen Israelis were killed, many of them soldiers.17 Precision strikes which avoided civilian deaths were never going to be possible in the crowded Gaza Strip. As Akiva Eldar argued: \"The tremendous population density in the Gaza Strip does not allow a 'surgical operation' over an extended period that would minimize damage to civilian populations. The difficult images from the Strip will soon replace those of the damage inflicted by Qassam rockets in the western Negev. The scale of losses, which works in 'favor' of the Palestinians, will return Israel to the role of Goliath.\"24 It is notable that Israel is more culpable for the civilian deaths it causes than Hamas is with its rockets, as Israel had options such as ending the blockade and negotiating with Hamas which could have caused fewer civilian deaths, whereas Hamas did not. Rather Hamas responds as the disproportionately weaker party; the Palestinians were compelled to use the crude means at their disposal to free their lands from Israeli occupation, even if this meant being unable to target them well and some civilian deaths resulting.25 Israel's Operation Cast Lead was less legitimate as it was not Israel's only option, and so cannot be regarded as proportionate. Furthermore, Israel's use of white phosphorous in Gaza was a humanitarian crime. The use of white phosphorous by Israel to shield its military movements in Gaza was a humanitarian crime, as the chemical causes serious health problems to civilians that inhale it. And, by all accounts, the chemical was inhaled by many Gazan civilians.25","conclusion":"Israel's military operations were disproportionate and harmed too many civilians:"}
{"id":"88e9797d-db26-41b3-ba07-0137079ff55e","argument":"Given current methods of agricultural production, the world will be unable to meet growing food demand. It is therefore urgent that we increase agricultural productivity by producing less meat.","conclusion":"Ceasing to produce meat will be necessary in order to meet the growing food needs of the world's population."}
{"id":"d74f0552-df27-4a43-af78-714e1f9deba7","argument":"Pope Francis is a 'man of the people', coming from a pastoral background, rather than an academic background. Many feel this aids him in understanding issues that are relevant for the world's Catholics.","conclusion":"Pope Francis has made the Catholic church significantly more open and welcoming."}
{"id":"d74fd600-9016-494d-9bb7-d8ba61e48777","argument":"Any Kashmiri that argues to be with India or Pakistan may be due to insecurity of it being taken over by the other nation. If both India and Pakistan were to agree on it's independence, vast majority would want to be independent.","conclusion":"Polling indicates that independence is the most popular position across all zones of Kashmir compared with becoming part of either India or Pakistan."}
{"id":"14e9e1d0-2e5f-4f4d-bfd7-7a3835d445e9","argument":"Many women who become pregnant are still in high school and are forced to drop out","conclusion":"Abortion can help prevent the numerous financial issues that come from having an unplanned pregnancy."}
{"id":"65f3bed6-3c14-4439-99ed-5e73bfcbb201","argument":"prompted by this post As many of my previous 's have gone off topic, I'll start by describing what my view is not. It is not any of the following a discussion on whether or not feminism is right or wrong whether people should be feminists or not the actions of men, women, feminists or anti feminists anything about my personal views on feminism or anti feminism. The reasons for my view are simple Anti feminism is the dislike of feminism. Misogyny is the dislike of women. As women and feminists are not the same group, Anti feminism and anti women are different, as they refer to the dislike of different groups of people. I am anticipating a counter argument that since feminism advances women's rights, anti feminism is against women's rights and is therefore misogyny. My counter counter argument is that someone can dislike the label of feminism without being against women's rights. People can dislike the actions done under the label of feminism, and thus be anti feminism, without being anti women or misogynist. I will also refute the claim made in the linked post, which is gt By rejecting feminism, you're rejecting feminism's message that you can be whatever you want to be, while simultaneously embracing an antiquated notion of femininity as the ONLY way to be a woman. That's misogyny. I disagree. The claims I am against feminism and I think that the antiquated notion of femininity is the ONLY way to be a woman are not equivalent. People can reject feminism because of their actions or because of the negative connotation associated with feminism , while still believing that women are free to be feminine in any way they want. This is not a contradiction. delta awarded","conclusion":"anti-feminism is not misogyny, and it is possible for someone to be anti-feminist without being a misogynist."}
{"id":"bd71efba-2674-436e-a548-1d2fad4f6d78","argument":"Title says it all honestly if a man or a woman lies about rape, he or she could literally destroy the life of another person because they either 1 regret sleeping with said person or 2 they want to ruin the life of the person being lied about. There have been many cases of both, and those who lie don't suffer the consequences. I am not saying that accusations of rape should be considered false, that would be beyond stupid. All I am saying is that the cases should get carefully and properly investigated before a final verdict is reached. Also, according to research, about 8 of rape accusations are false This seems like a small chunk, but it is a significant amount of cases. EDIT I've found out through many comments that it is in fact a crime. That being the case, I'd like to say that I believe that the sentence regarding lying about rape to in order harm someone, and or knowing that the information is false, should have the same minimum sentence as rape sentences. EDIT 2 I forgot to say, I'm not from, or live on, the US. Just so you guys don't use US laws and stuff EDIT 3 ok guys, I get it, I'm dumb lol. I was not aware that the laws you've all mentioned existed, and I'm sorry for that. Thanks for your insight, everyone","conclusion":"false accusations of rape should be a crime"}
{"id":"2a2a44f1-6981-4506-8463-6001c6d2280f","argument":"Deng\u2019s new policies saw party members and their families, who were best positioned to take advantage of the new opportunities available due to the opening of China's economy, quickly getting rich at the cost of others.","conclusion":"The propagation of this policy involved tolerating corruption the consequences of which are still felt by China today."}
{"id":"941db086-eb0a-4844-9f49-e333a120820e","argument":"Before I begin this conversation, I should probably note that I am a member of an ethnic minority group in America to keep this post as anonymous as possible, I will not give out any specifics about my ethnicity. Please avoid making any assumptions, and I would also ask that you refrain from knee jerk accusations and unhelpful needlesly hostile language. If this post becomes too popular, then I will delete it to protect my anonymity. I recently got into an argument with a few of my relatives due to an opinion that I espoused about race relations in America. I stated that personally , as an individual who possesses the right to freedom of association, that I would prefer not to have members of my social circle who are not from my own racial group. A few of my relatives immediately accussed me of being a bigot and a racist although I was hurt by these accusations, I have compiled several refutations of their main points I am not a racist because I am not in a position of power to oppress others. If I were the manager of a large company and I refused applicants solely because of race, then I would certainly qualify as a racist. I cannot be a racist because I am not a member of the dominant ethnic group in my country. I do not contribute to a culture of supremacy. I do not force my opinions onto anyone, and I do not feel that any race is inferior to my own or seek to control the actions of others. My beliefs are entirely justified by my experiences with the dominant culture these experiences have been almost completely negative and by my knowledge of basic psychology. I am perfectly open to altering my viewpoint and even my actions if someone is willing and able to show me that my beliefs harm others or society in general.","conclusion":"I believe that I am incapable of being a racist due to the sociological definition of the term."}
{"id":"b0eeac3c-63c0-4091-a9c2-90af407c8281","argument":"Legal decisions would be more unbiased and unemotional and right because the AI would not feel and act on facts.","conclusion":"The progression of AI and tech in the legal industry is useful for all parties."}
{"id":"b16c98b4-d655-4248-94a0-fb1457f477be","argument":"I think we are seeing the limits of a democratic republic being tested by our population size. Take California as an example. The state has a larger population than Canada and contains more people than the 21 least populous states combined and yet we are represented by two senators. It would be difficult even for a well intentioned senator to represent the interest of the entire state, much less ones that place their own personal interests ahead of their constituents. This is far too much power invested in the hands of the few, compounded by the fact that Senators can be re elected without term limits. Increasing the number of senators increases the difficulty for special interest groups to control the Senate as they are doing today. Creating term limits through a Constitutional amendment will also help create turnover in Congress and serve to disrupt and dismantle the entrenched bipartisan power blocks. Edit Let me clarify that I understand that the House of Representative exists. But that doesn't solve the problem that an entire chamber of the legislative branch, just a hundred members, could be easily manipulated and bought by special interest as they are doing today. Even if we have the House of Representatives to counteract any policies proposed by the Senate, this is still a slippery slope that needs to be addressed. This is why Congress can't get shit done. My argument was not to make representation in the Senate based on population, but to increase the number of senators representing every state, from two to say six, so that we'd have a total of 300 senators instead of 100.","conclusion":"There is a need in the US to increase the number of Senators representing each state and creating congressional term limits for members."}
{"id":"9a937a3c-d7cf-4405-a0d8-948d19e91d0d","argument":"According to the Scientific American the agency \"went out of its way to note that the decision isn\u2019t based on a scientific determination.\".","conclusion":"There's a lot of science which suggests that biomass isn't carbon neutral."}
{"id":"10f4bfdb-35b2-4516-8a0a-7f4c3016b78e","argument":"If something is morally wrong, then it's wrong no matter what religion or culture you're part of. Even if a culture has a centuries old tradition of torturing infants for fun, it's wrong for people in that culture to torture infants for fun. Moral relativism is the view that what's morally right or wrong always depends on your culture or society. That seems like some dangerous BS to me. Updates EDIT A couple points keep being repeated. Here's a basic preview of what my responses have been so far But people cultures disagree about what is right and wrong There's disagreement in science and math, too. So what? But how can we know what's right and wrong? By reasoning logically, reflecting on our intuitions, etc. And even if we can't know what's right and wrong, it still could be that there is an objective truth about what's right and wrong. Where does morality come from? It doesn't come from anywhere. Mathematical and logical truths don't come from anywhere either. But our moral beliefs are just the products of evolution biology You could say the same of mathematical or logical truths, but you don't doubt that there's an objective truth about math or logic. But you can't empirically test moral principles. Maybe not. So what? But there are difficult questions about morality, and complications, and nuances There are also difficult questions, complications, and nuances in fields like science, math, and logic. That doesn't mean there is no objective truth in these fields. You can't prove that moral axioms are true. You can't prove that all mathematical or logical axioms are true without relying on other axioms, but you think there's an objective truth about math and logic anyways. So what's the problem? EDIT Darn it, I was hoping to be convinced by now. Some of you have made some interesting arguments against the objectivity of morality, but the best ones also work against the objectivity of mathematics, logic, and or science. Since math, logic, and science do give us objective truths or at least, no one has argued against that so far , these are presumably bad arguments.","conclusion":"Moral relativism is a bunch of garbage."}
{"id":"1a03b3b1-c89c-4778-87a3-4cf414ff6f06","argument":"I think American cars are shit, I'm a huge car guy and I want to love ALL cars but I just can't love American cars, not even tolerate them. American cars are vastly inferior to european cars and to asian cars, but european cars are the best. How can someone like a nice car like a mustang, camaro, charger, challenger, cadillacs etc when their interior is made almost entirely of plastic Japanese cars also have a lot of plastic in their interiors but that's kind of expected, I don't expect a honda, subaru or a nissan to in any way be luxurious and the plastic interiors in japanese cars are of much higher quality than American interiors, American interiors look like shit. European cars are IMO the best cars, sure we have some bad manufacturers like fiat, lancia, dacia but for the most part european cars are premium and of very high quality Mercedes, Audi, Volkswagen, BMW, Volvo, Maserati, Ferrari, Jaguar, Rolls Royce, Bentley etc . The leather and the overall quality is MUCH higher than ANY american car, Compare any Mercedes to a cadillac, which will be the nicer one? The Mercedes of course, Cadillacs are full of plastic and cheap looking interiors, despite being americas Luxury brand. Why would you love Tesla, sure it's an ok car but it's in NO WAY luxurious. For 90K you could get a nice Mercedes or BMW, maybe they won't be electric cars but they will still be eco friendly if you choose the eco trim. And now to sports super hypercars Please, don't tell me that a corvette not even the stingray is a supercar because it REALLY isn't, a supercar isn't just about numbers. A corvette is a CHEVROLET, A CHEVROLET, chevrolet SUCKS they have made the worst cars is modern history, late 1990s early 2000s . The Nissan GTR and the Audi R8 are not supercars, they are very fast sports cars and I love them but they are not supercars so why would a GM car be? A supercar is about the brand and exclusivity, NOT only about how fast it is. The mustang it starts at 22k 22k ? in my country, a scandinavian country it starts at 55k How is it considered a nice fast car? Its interior is shit. And why is there always some fat redneck saying Buy 'Murican and support our car industry when the subject of which car to buy comes up? Why? Why buy American? Why doesn't the rest of the world matter ? why shouldn't you care about the european car industry? And if you not all americans obviously but some of you don't buy an American car you buy an Japanese car? Why? Doesn't quality of luxury mean anything to you? Do you just want a cheap reliable car to take you from point A to B ? Why do you say import cars are ALL CARS ARE IMPORTED IN DIFFERENT COUNTRIES You talk like All import cars non american are all the same, and mostly they are japanese. What's wrong with european cars? What's wrong with our premium quality? What's wrong with station wagons estates? They are the most practical cars on the market. No, you don't need a big shitty chevrolet SUV, A mercedes volkswagen Audi BMW estate station wagon is MUCH better. And Last but not least, One thing that REALLY pisses me of WHY DO MOST AMERICANS DRIVE AN AUTOMATIC? Why not stick or Manual as it's really called. HOW can you get a drivers license without knowing how to drive manual? Sure cars in Europe are automatic too, but mostly the premium ones like Mercedes, Bmw, Audi, but still everyone know how to drive manual because IT'S REQUIRED TO KNOW HOW TO DRIVE MANUAL TO GET A DRIVERS LICENSE Thank you for reading Sorry if I offended some of you, that was not my intention","conclusion":"I think American cars are crap."}
{"id":"5a011097-5cff-413c-97dd-4c0e13413b3c","argument":"Removing all gender-based differences and behaviours strips us from a huge portion of human culture we have accumulated for years.","conclusion":"There are other and better solutions to the problem of gender inequality than removing all gender-based behaviours and differences."}
{"id":"c246e216-7b4c-4b1c-b0f3-f86e24b55e5d","argument":"government should keep money for space exploration to find new locations to live and\/or remove dangerous waste from earth.","conclusion":"Space exploration can help in colonizing the resources\/lands of other planets"}
{"id":"acb38063-2ef3-4c34-9ea7-9c92a0625883","argument":"EDIT TBH this may not have been the best forum to post this view in because I wasn't very strongly committed to my view here, and I was more interested in stimulating the discussion. As soon as I read all the responses I found little tidbits here and there that I could agree with and found my view change pretty quickly. You all make good points, and I guess its more the culture we create that allows for the toxicity than the internet itself. I love reddit but I do think the culture we've set up in political subreddits is detrimental and harmful to civic dialogue along with much social media in general like Twitter . So I'm relatively new to Reddit. I've been a member of the Bernie subreddit, but something that bothers me is how conspiratorial and downright hostile it can become. I agree with the ideas of most of the people but infighting,, hate and negativity pervade a lot of the posts. Of course, if you go anywhere else, you'll see the same. TheDonald isn't any better. It made me wonder why its like this why we seem so incapable of civility online. Of course most people equate civility with censorship, and as much as I value free speech, I think they're pretty different. Take this subreddit for example there are specific rules and norms we agree to follow we'll abstain from name calling and smearing, and stick to the points we're discussing. These are norms and they keep the discussion civil and respectful. In real life physical movements where people meet face to face, there are basic social norms we all follow and are all acquainted with that keep the movement from derailing. We don't shout, argue, or name call. If someone is an asshole, they will probably not last long in the movement, not because they are being censored, but because they can't function socially. The internet removes all of our norms. People say whatever they want, whenever they want. If someone tries to curb their language, they are accused of censorship, political correctness, and being a SJW. On the other hand, people who out of good intention do try to uphold civility can overdo it and genuinely be too politically correct, censoring, and SJW, at the expense of ideas and genuine discussion. To summarize the lack of basic social norms that you have in any social group makes the internet a toxic place to try to have a movement.","conclusion":"The internet inherantly makes all social movements toxic"}
{"id":"2923e87f-d73d-47a6-b819-2402cce3e877","argument":"I understand this might be an overreaction and I don't want to be right so I'd like to get some ideas on why I'm wrong. When I see comment threads like this one looking at what people have upvoted makes me think most men see women as some kind of sex toys and nothing more. It's a picture of girls holding underwear that like tons of girls use. Totally normal underwear and they're acting like girls are naked holding a big sign that says fuck me or something. Also my dad never got upset about anything like this. Why would the dad be upset? Unless he's some religious conservative? Help me out here. I get really misanthropic when I see threads like this.","conclusion":"Some posts on reddit make me think the majority of men have no respect for women."}
{"id":"fbc8d83d-b424-45ca-aad0-d100da352d49","argument":"When I filled out an application to Wal Mart right out of high school, one of the survey questions asked if stealing from Wal Mart is a victimless crime. I can't think of one person who is actually hurting from this type of theft. I would consider it better than downloading copyrighted media. Downloading copyrighted music can prevent an artist to make the money they should have received, which is a lot less than the money going in department stores. Stealing from a Wal Mart and stores like it doesn't even affect a single worker's pay. In the end, I'm guessing it can only hurt the Wal Mart family, who are currently sitting on a ridiculous fortune. I cant even imagine them caring about theft in their store. I'm not saying I steal from Wal Mart, and I'm not justifying theft. This is simply for the sake of the survey question. I currently work there to pay for college, but I can't think of one honest victim of theft. I understand that technically theft keeps the money from someone's hands, but who is that and do they really care?","conclusion":"Stealing from a department store like Wal-Mart is not immoral."}
{"id":"d77538f9-ab1f-4968-9d01-d230e050d774","argument":"Not to do away with teachers though there should still be class time. Except it should be used to ask questions not introduce topics. I don't know how often I've been in a class, lost, for an hour and then I go watch a video about it and get perfect clarity on the subject. Also the comments on the video often say the same thing. KhanAcademy is where I heard this from all schools should be like that not just the 2 or 3 in the States that use the khan videos. What have you learned in all your years of k 12 instruction that you couldn't get from a simple tutorial video? Go ahead, try and convince me otherwise","conclusion":"I Believe All Schools Should Follow The \"Digital Aristotle\" Model"}
{"id":"a8cc6c10-29f5-43d4-adb2-ef96d31215f1","argument":"A teenage mother could face several social obligations like not getting respect from friends and family members and experience an emotional trauma for bad reputation.","conclusion":"Those who choose abortions are often minors or young women with insufficient life experience to understand fully what they are doing."}
{"id":"d48be208-c0c1-4ee2-9d10-0c2fadf8a114","argument":"There would be less opportunity for ISIS to track down societal groups that it actively persecutes, such as homosexuals Shi'ias Christians and Jews","conclusion":"ISIS and its activities would suffer from such a move."}
{"id":"c7a7041c-9b72-4b99-aa8c-b17d5b1213e5","argument":"This does not apply to those have been diagnosed Mentally Unstable and therefore unfit to display the necessary reason to vote. At the very least it is a separate debate.","conclusion":"I believe Prisoners should have the Right to Vote,"}
{"id":"87d8375a-5c62-4f04-8be7-ab97b3109119","argument":"Movies are dope but I think tv shows are so much better for a couple of reasons. Firstly TV shows have the time to build your love for a character, like Sons Of Anarchy for example. Their are 7 seasons in that show and the way they introduce the characters and make the characters feel like a part of your family is AMAZING In a movie the character generally feels kind of generic and not that loveable because they only have 2 3 hours to build a character. Don\u2019t get me wrong some movies build characters perfectly like Poetic Justice, Goodfellas, The Wolf Of Wall Street, Bronx Tale etc. But TV Shows just have so much more time to do it. My second point is that tv shows are a lot more convenient, let\u2019s say you come home from a hard day of school work and you have half an hour to chill before having to do your homework or clean. It makes so much more sense to put on a twenty minute show like F.R.I.E.N.D.S and watch thru fully, instead of watching 1 4th of a movie. I\u2019m pretty new to Reddit and young so sorry if this post is kind of irrelevant lol just wanna know your thoughts.","conclusion":"TV Shows Are HANDS DOWN Way Better Than Movies."}
{"id":"8e45919a-e5dc-4ba5-a593-1f24e7034fe8","argument":"Hi, I am lucky that my home country doesn't have the tradition of requiring any letters of recommendation for most jobs at universities that you apply to, but having applied in the UK and the US in the past I always found those letters to be a real pain. Let me explain why. The people writing the letters of recommendation have 'no idea' about my real abilities, interests or motivations. I mean, even my parents don't know me well enough that I would trust them to write an unbiased letter about my abilities and character. When I was in the position that other people asked me to write a letter of recommendation, I had the feeling that I am just guessing and most of the questions that I was asked to answer were completely ridiculous. I got a job at a pretty good university due to good recommendation letters from my 'famous' Ph.D. supervisors. I had to take the job for reasons difficult to explain here, but I would have prefered that the 'right' person would have been offered the position and not the one with the well know supervisors. Apart from that, they must have written quite good letters, because they were interested in me getting the job. Why should my chances of getting a job depend on how motivated my letter writers are? In some countries, there is no such system in place and everything seems to work fine, as far as I can tell, so it seems to be only a cultural thing. I seems to be a huge waste of time to look for people to write you a letter and often one needs up to 4 letters and it is a waste of time for the person writing the letter. Now why I think it can be harmful. If one has several measures to decide between several options, people tend to be lazy and take whatever information is readily available. The letters of recommendation seem to give us a personalized view on the candidate and make it easy to apply selection criteria to narrow down the list of options, based on how well we recognise the name of the person writing the recommendation. In some cases, this leads to people from less known universities being sortred out well before they get the chance to show their actual abilities. It is similar to a big 'family tradition' or Mafia , where only people already belonging to the family have a chance to get a job. This can lead to mild forms of corruption and harm the quality of the research. So, having been a beneficiary of the system, I still think it is broken and should be phased out, if possible. But maybe, there are good reasons that I just cannot see and I would love to hear from you all. Thanks EDIT To summarize, most of you think that the letters are still a useful tool to weed out the 'jerks' and spammers and are not necessarily a good indication of ability. The system might be broken and wastful, but so is the security system at airports, where we would be 'better' of without it, were it not for the annoying people bringing bombs with them.","conclusion":"Recommendation letters for job in academia are useless most of the time and in the worst case a waste of recourses and can even be misleading and harmful"}
{"id":"c1f0e346-51de-4592-b6e6-0830374917ec","argument":"The raw data of the senses light waves, chemicals, sound waves requires processing by the brain in order to become a describable experience of an object, and even more processing to be conceptually articulated into a scientific theory.","conclusion":"When processing data, human perceptions and bias is infused into science."}
{"id":"139de767-830b-472a-a4c7-1a0b8364e80b","argument":"I don't believe that spontaneous voluntary charity sufficiently provides the sufficient resources or proper allocation of those resources to aid those in need in a way that we as a society feel would be appropriate. I believe that some portion of the tax collected by any major government should go to ensuring the basic human wellness and dignity clothing, food, education of those who would not experience it otherwise due to economic circumstances. I concede that this is not always a perfect arrangement for the health of the economy, but that it is better to reduce suffering at a reasonable cost to economic growth within the bounds of diminishing returns and necessary growth than to routinely place net economic prosperity above human dignity. At risk of sounding stereotypically left wing, I've only heard one side of this argument presented reasonably and convincingly.","conclusion":"I believe that some redistribution of wealth is a necessary component of a healthy, reasonable society."}
{"id":"53de8063-aac1-4248-802d-34f313bbde52","argument":"I am fully aware that money can influence the outcome of an election, with races usually going to the candidate who spent the most. What I dispute is the idea that this needs to be addressed with limits on campaign contributions. Companies cannot buy votes directly the only way to change the outcome is by convincing enough voters to support a cause. If the particular argument rests on facts and logic, I can only see it as a positive that more people are exposed to it if not, no informed person is going to forget the things they already know, and uninformed people can become no less informed than they already are. The real problem, then, is not that money is being spent on political advertising, but that a substantial portion of the voting population can be swayed by arguments that are factually weak. Until that changes, I have to expect that taking away political speech, no matter the source, will only make voters less informed. In the absence of direct political spending, many other factors can decide an election, and those are in many cases even less fair than simply using money directly. The media will inevitably attempt to present a more favorable view of whichever side they support, and influential people can affect the outcome disproportionately simply by publicly stating a preference. Candidates voters recognize get a boost from that fact alone, making it much more difficult for a new candidate to defeat an established politician. With the help of a moderate sum of money, however, a good but relatively unknown candidate can get the exposure to make voters start thinking and discussing his policies. Most of the reasons I've heard for limiting political spending seem to stem from the idea that it allows corporations to push their own interests at the expense of regular people's, but I find that simply wrong unions contribute to campaigns the same way as businesses do, and corporations compete with each other just as often as not. Individual business owners have the same range of interests as anyone, and supporting something that doesn't appear to benefit the company can be a calculated decision to make people feel good about buying their products. I am curious to hear other arguments. ?","conclusion":"Restricting political spending will not help voters make informed choices"}
{"id":"dd95acb7-05f5-449c-8697-73aa1bfa79a6","argument":"Workers have higher marginal productivity in these big companies because the companies have more capital. If the company has enough capital, the worker can increase his marginal productivity because of the minimized risk of losing or changing an employer, the lower costs of training other people, legal expenses, and the increased productivity companies are likely to have when paying employees more than they would get paid elsewhere.","conclusion":"Just because some big companies raised the minimum wage doesn't make it the right choice."}
{"id":"692962d8-235d-4b02-863e-933f697784c4","argument":"I'm sovereignist since I'm really young.I don't see Canada as my country mostly because of the hate that some of them have against us ans because our culture is totally different. We don't even have the same language Most of quebeccer are left wing oriented when, mostly, the canada is more right oriented the federal elections of 2011 show it. We don't have that link with the queen and the united kingdom that some Canadians have, including our Prime Minister. I'm sorry about my bad English.","conclusion":"I'm Quebeccer and sovereignist."}
{"id":"37bfd4e9-30a9-463d-b363-1c716884363e","argument":"Dieting is simple. Eat more fruits and vegetables Limit intake of carbs, sugar, fast food, etc. Exercise on a regular basis This is not arcane knowledge that only ivy league graduates know. I agree for athletic performance and illnesses aka less common cases there's a need for deeper knowledge on the subject. For the majority of fat people, there's no need to consult your physician or nutritionist. Just do those basic things. If you try those things for an extended period of time and it still doesn't work, then consult a nutritionist. Am I denying the fact that there are people who need special diets according to their body and the like? No. I'm just saying that before micromanaging into dieting, probably half of Americans are better off doing. It's really insulting to fat people to say that they don't know what is healthy for them. Of course they know that shoveling french fries down their throat and gulping on a 32oz cup of soda is not healthy. But there are deeper psychological issues that cause people to eat. For some, its abuse, a bad childhood, stress or a literal addiction to food that goes beyond will power. I wish we can just be honest that food is just an outlet much like any other vice , and that fat people aren't stupid. Us fat people just have emotional issues that need to be worked on.","conclusion":"Nutritionists are overrated. Most fat people need psychologists and psychiatrists - not nutritionists."}
{"id":"aca9fc02-589c-4dd0-841f-291c398293d8","argument":"It seems to me, that there is nothing essential that humans are capable of and no animal, at least to some degree, is. All animals have some means of communication. In the case of apes or cetaceans, I wouldn't hesitate to call it an intermediate language dolphins, for example, were shown to call each other by name. Animals do not make so complicated inventions as we do, but many are capable of using tools and making simple, but apparently intelligent, plans and also doing simple arithmetic. Do I need to mention learning new skills? This includes not only many mammals, but also some birds and octopodes as well. Anyone who has pets can confirm, that animals can develop friendships , even with members of other species. Some mammals cows, for example , exhibit a strong loving bond between mother and child. Altruistic an emphatic behavior is not uncommon. There are species who live in monogamous relationships, I don't see any good reason why it shouldn't be comparable to human love. I think that as humans, we have more language, more capacity for abstraction and perhaps more empathy. But the difference is only in how much we have of it, there is no fundamental distinctive trait to us. It'd be nice to think that we're somehow special, but I think that basically animals are humans, too.","conclusion":"There is no qualitative difference between animals and humans, only quantitative."}
{"id":"d12e5a77-1d83-4eb3-b9a7-b35fe7c27e58","argument":"With the designation of a practical methodology to determine individual viability for rehabilitation, covering the classification of the wrongdoing\/criminal history and appropriate psychological examination, a significant portion of prisoners could be helped.","conclusion":"It is morally acceptable for prisons to focus on rehabilitation."}
{"id":"e2b673da-6b84-486c-a288-70ff9380f72c","argument":"If individual politicians were not forced to vote in line with their party, they could choose to vote for policies that are in the best interests of their home districts.","conclusion":"If a bill takes longer to pass, it can be modified over a longer period of time."}
{"id":"abea88ec-66dd-40ee-b099-6cf1d0653c41","argument":"After getting into a disagreement with a friend, I've spent the last several hours researching the life and jurisprudence of Clarence Thomas. I've discovered that he is a bitter, angry old man stewing over childhood grievances and wondering why no one else has his work ethic and station in life. I pity him and dislike him in equal measure, without even going into the sexual harassment allegations. That being said, I think his widespread status as an Uncle Tom is idiotic groupthink. Thomas is certainly no ally to minorities in America, but why should he be? Since when did he swear allegiance to the NAACP? What, because he's black, he has to throw in with the black community and run his actions by them? Thomas may be black, but he never signed up to play for black America, and I think it is weird for people to expect him too. The explicit race policing that gets thrown at him is insane to me. Because Thomas doesn't decide cases how you want him to, he's not a real black man? Who the hell made you the arbitrator of whether or not someone counts as black? To quote Chris Rock, what kind of ignorant shit is that? Every single thing Clarence Thomas does is by definition black because it is being done by a black person. If someone has a problem with that, they need to realize that just because they have the same complexion as someone else doesn't mean they get any say in how they should behave. On a personal level, I sometimes get into this dispute with the LGBT movement. I'm asexual, and I have nothing against them or their policy priorities, but I am not one of them. They can claim me if they want, I think I'm somewhere in their extended alphabet, but I do not claim them in return. Their interests are not my interests and my interests are not their interests. They don't represent me or my beliefs, and I don't represent them or their beliefs. I never signed up to carry a rainbow flag, and I'm not betraying anyone by having beliefs that stray from their orthodoxy. I will not be guilt tripped into falling in line because of some imaginary debt I've incurred to them by being born a sexual minority. To be clear, I believe people have an obligation to their fellow man as a moral absolute. However, that is a blanket rule that applies to everyone equally, and people are free to choose what communities, factions, cultures, and ideologies they want to associate with. I believe the allies you make and the causes you take up define you infinitely more than the circumstances of your birth. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"You cannot betray a cause or team you never signed up for."}
{"id":"dfbe1340-7ad5-48b7-adf2-be578bd325dd","argument":"Groups like ISIS use social media to influence sympathizers to commit terror attacks abroad, since it is easier and more cost effective to encourage lone wolf attacks than trying to sneak established terrorists across international borders.","conclusion":"Terrorist organizations use Twitter and Facebook for recruiting purposes i.e. convince people to either physically join them or carry out attacks in their name."}
{"id":"31894849-2796-4e03-96df-3d5b5557fbeb","argument":"As far as I know, most people who play Fortnite are bored kids, since they tend to have a lot more free time than adults. These kids don't have any money, and they say, oh look, a free thing that's entertaining and I can waste time on Fortnite is also a ripoff of other games cough cough PUBG . If Fortnite cost money, kids wouldn't be able to buy it or as attracted to it, so there goes a lot of the userbase. I have a few reasons I don't buy a game too expensive ripoff of other games doesn't seem very fun Games don't have to go through this if they're free, who doesn't want free stuff? I want free stuff. However, if Fortnite cost money, it wouldn't pass the test and I wouldn't buy it.  gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"If Fortnite cost money, it wouldn't be popular."}
{"id":"d50ea9f9-4d8f-44a7-9511-5c9a84513122","argument":"Like the title says, I find the argument from the Asian American and American community at large mostly anime fans whom are white about the casting of Ghost In the Shell GITS by DreamWorks to be hypocritical and unfounded. Note Please read my entire argument. If you are unfamiliar with the show, the casting controversy was over the main character of the show nicknamed Major, a female cyborg partial human, partial robot . In the show and franchise overall , she switches synthetically made bodies multiple times and the only human part about her is her mind that is still intact from her human form. Everything else, her biology and DNA, is gone. But her main form is a big chested woman with red eyes, purple hair, and a very non asiatic figure that looks like this A couple of wrongs from the argument 1 A lot of Asian Americans stipulated that the actress should be Asian because it is a Japanese animation, even though virtually her entire crew looks explicably European And this is not a new trait in anime plenty of characters have blue eyes, double eyelids, and blond hair and look like white people and nothing like Japanese, let alone asian people. Second fallacy with this argument was that people justified it by stating that because Major has a Japanese first name and surname that she must be Japanese ethnically ethnicity includes both culture plus ancestry, but mostly the latter e.g. a white person raised in Korea is not ethnically Korean . Her biology is erased, therefore she has no more ancestry or DNA that is Japanese. But to me, a black person who has a Scottish first name and surname, this makes no sense. According to this logic, a white Scottish man should play be in a biopic about my life. Third fallacy is how they accused the casting of racism but yet suggest Chinese and Korean actresses as a proper role for a supposed traditional Japanese role This is often in confliction with the saying that people who label all Asians as Chinese despite them not being Chinese are being stereotypical and racist. But the end point is that virtually all of the actresses suggested who were Chinese and Korean, were not ethnically Japanese whatsoever, in name or culture. ScarJo is not ethnically Japanese either so I fail to see how the logic adds up that it's for her to play this role because she's not ethnically Japanese and I will note that being of the same race which is generally a western notion of grouping them together as Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans most certainly do not see themselves as being 'part of the same group' culturally in their own countries is something void of unity outside the west, and hell even within the West a lot of times, but i digress and yet suggest people who are not ethnically Japanese. Considering the history of the wrongdoings of Chinese and Koreans colonisation of parts of China and the Korean peninsula, mass rape i.e. Nanking Massacre, Korean comfort women sex slaves for the imperial army by the Japanese, it is very distinct as to why you should not lump them in the same 'race' and claim they are the same when they have such distinct histories. The end tail of this point is, you cannot call someone racist or stereotypical for labelling all Asians as Chinese or whatever generalising them but in the same breath do the same thing with these actress suggestions of suggesting a Chinese and Korean actress to play a Japanese woman . 2 Japanese people themselves have no problem with the casting. In fact, some even think it's better than a Japanese person being casted as for the role 3 The director of the original animation has no problem with the casting, either. gt \u201cThe name \u2018Motoko Kusanagi\u2019 and her current body are not her original name and body, so there is no basis for saying that an Asian actress must portray her. Even if her original body presuming such a thing existed were a Japanese one, that would still apply.\u201d 4 When western movies are adapted by Asian film makers, they are racialised for the local audience and the lead, who is generally white, is changed to someone of the local ethnicity. For example, the Japanese adaptation of Spiderman had a lead who was Japanese. Originally, Peter Parker was white, but yet this is not a problem for them to race swap for the local audience and yet it's a fundamental problem for DreamWorks to do so in this case to keep true to the franchise's integrity ? Bullshite. 5 The complaints from the lot of Asian Americans is talking about an entirely different subject of the lack of Asians in media and projecting it onto this film. While I understand the complaint, their frustrations have nothing to do with how this film must have an Asian lead. 6 There is no need for DreamWorks themselves to take on gaining more attraction of Asian actors and actresses when the community itself doesn't do so. You only see controversy of these films like GITS, The Great Wall, etc. when it involves stereotypical Asian roles, but there is no advocacy for Asians in media outside of those stereotypical roles aka most films , so I find it very hard to even sympathise with these complaints as what they preach is not what they do in real time. The bottom line is, there is no logical argument that the lead has to be a Japanese actress, let alone an Asian one. I think there is nothing wrong with advocating for an Asian actress in this role, especially with the lack of under representation of Asians in western media in general, but this advocacy seemed to have been founded upon erroneous accusations of racism, whitewashing, and using faulty logic that the lead must be Asian. Regardless of the current representation of the Asian community in the West, the lead does not have to be Asian whatsoever and there is no argument to justify such.","conclusion":"There is no logical reason to stipulate that lead actress of Ghost in the Shell HAD to be an Asian woman"}
{"id":"fe17ad4d-26f6-4067-8c86-a30a7a22b658","argument":"I consider myself irreligious lapsed Catholic who haven't been to church for years and don't really have problems with individual Anglicans and the modern church. Anyways wasn't Anglicanism created revived by Henry VIII so he could dump his wife and make the church his minion by proclaiming himself head of church and taking their property? I hardly consider him good Christian. Isn't that similar to what Nazi Germany did and modern China trying to do? At least Luther had legit concerns about corruption within church. Am I forgetting something?","conclusion":"I don't really see the point of Anglicanism"}
{"id":"46c2e521-acd2-4729-9030-64b526c9ff5d","argument":"The fact that people presuppose evil exists in the acceptance of using it to refute a particular god suggests that they presuppose an objective moral arbitration, which requires a god.","conclusion":"Evil is a problem for atheism as well, because it is not clear what an atheist's moral basis for calling something evil is in a purely physical world."}
{"id":"3875d363-822c-4226-9ae9-55be58ed30a3","argument":"In 1 Timothy 2:12-14 the Apostle Paul justifies his claim that women ought not teach or exercise authority over men by showing that man was created first. Paul's basis for making a distinction in roles is God's created design.","conclusion":"Many Christian denominations restrict governing and teaching roles in the Church to only men."}
{"id":"fe6be605-1343-4bbf-a136-fc0df48e7d6f","argument":"Let me preface this by saying, I am NOT an anti natalist, and I do NOT wish for the extinction of the human species. I got into an argument with someone over my opinion today, and they weren\u2019t able to articulate a convincing counter argument so I\u2019m wondering if one of you might be able to. My thinking is thus we are living in an era of upheaval and political unrest all around the globe. We are just beginning to feel the effects of global warming and climate change, and in the years to come the effects will become even more dramatic. The planet is overpopulated. And it\u2019s been estimated that there are 153 million orphans around the world who need homes. As if this weren\u2019t enough, it\u2019s been scientifically proven that the single best thing you can do for the environment is NOT have children. From a purely rational standpoint, it seems pretty clear that the best thing to do for the long term health of humanity and the planet is not to bring another life into the world. The resources that go into raising a child would be much better used towards improving life for those already here. If you simply must have a child, adopt one of the many who need a family. I\u2019ve heard it said many times by adoptive parents and adoptees both, that you can love an adopted child just as much as you love a biological child, and sometimes that the bond is even more special because it was chosen. With all that said, what incentive is there for having a biological child? Some people want to have a child that shares their DNA, that looks like them, that will continue their lineage. And I\u2019m sorry, but in my book that\u2019s just plain old fashioned selfishness. Why do you think you\u2019re so special? It\u2019s that kind of limited, self centered thinking that has gotten us to a crisis point as a planet. I think there\u2019s a moral imperative not to have children. Once all the orphans in the world have been adopted, and we\u2019ve turned back the clock on global warming and overpopulation, then maybe it\u2019ll be acceptable to procreate again. There was a point in human history where we needed to procreate so that the species would survive. Now the opposite seems to be true we need to NOT procreate if we want to survive. I realize this is a very emotional subject for a lot of people. Parenting feels selfless, and people have a hard time with the idea that the very act of bringing a child into the world could be selfish. But really, why would you do that when you could adopt a child in need? Do these people think that an adopted child is somehow second rate, and are unwilling to say so openly? I understand that emotions run high when it comes to this topic, but I believe it\u2019s one of those times when emotions need to be acknowledged and then put to the side for the sake of doing the right thing. For the sake of our planet and our species. When faced with cold hard facts, the only remaining argument I can think of for procreating is \u201cI WANT TO HAVE MY OWN BABY AND I WANT IT TO LOOK LIKE ME \u201d Can someone can come up with a different argument, that can withstand the scrutiny of logic?","conclusion":"I believe that it is both a waste of resources and unjustifiably selfish to have children in these times. I would go so far as to say it\u2019s immoral."}
{"id":"e51087d4-e610-4928-9e62-ba8b96c07a71","argument":"In 1833, a Mormon church publication noted that \"the Universalist says the Book of Mormon reproaches his creed.\" Evening & Morning Star 2: 108","conclusion":"Both Mormons and non-Mormons in the 1830s recognized anti-Universalist teachings in the Book of Mormon."}
{"id":"a810f647-c3d2-432f-bdfd-5e2e19541ed1","argument":"The meat industry is particularly harmful to its workers. Supporting the meat industry by eating meat involves being complicit in this harm.","conclusion":"It is better that consumers feel distasteful than to live with the negative consequences of eating real meat."}
{"id":"5a51f567-c633-4fe0-b4a2-4aed581c0e87","argument":"We're beyond the 400 ppm carbon dioxide threshold, and won't see any dip below it in our lifetimes. We're going in for the wildest ride in human history, there have never been so many people on the planet, and never have been so many in catastrophic danger caused directly by changing climate. Now, about the oceans. If we continue 'business as usual,' fisheries stocks worldwide will collapse by the year 2048. Overfishing mitigation has been a failure, due to many varied reasons, but the most over arching one is diatom decline. NASA shows a decrease of 1 of plankton per year since the 60s. Diatoms are the grass of the ocean they feed animals and the first line for food and energy to enter the system. Warming conditions are stagnating the surface layers and stopping nutrient recycling needed by diatoms to grow, so we're seeing a shift towards bacterial plankton, which still produces oxygen, but cannot be eaten by animals. This has caused over the past decades the massive decline of fish stocks, that not politics or management protocols can save. El Ni\u00f1o events and overfishing only mask this downwards trend. Now, iron has a stoichiometric ratio of 50000 to 800000 atoms of carbon to 1 atom of iron. In other words, it's a micronutrient, its essential and required in small quantities. Ocean fertilization proposes the following seeding an area of the ocean that is high in nutrients but low in iron, to promote an algal bloom, which can add an order of magnitude more organic matter to the ecosystem. This will revitalize fish stocks and sequester carbon. In my view, it's a win win. There's a caveat it only works in the open ocean. If this is attempted in the coastal regions, then the bloom may interact with the seafloor, where matter can decay, and create an anoxic zone. Also, harmful algal species are native to the coast, since there are evolutionary pressures that prompt them to defend themselves. Open ocean blooms in deserted areas would, in contrast, revitalize the ecosystem. I think were just playing the wrong wait game with this technology. We should be applying ocean fertilization to areas of the ocean that require it at this very moment, accounting for all the ecological effects and of course the sequestered carbon.","conclusion":"We should be doing ocean iron fertilization at this very moment."}
{"id":"0b22bdb1-0eb2-4788-a7e5-771d9cf2326b","argument":"Companies will discriminate either way. The pride movement should use that money to provide some benefit to the LGBTQ+ community, even if that benefit is simply running a better parade.","conclusion":"Rejecting sponsorship from companies that engage in discriminatory practices does not reduce the effect or incidence of such discrimination."}
{"id":"59e36e3f-dd01-4d09-9f30-a99396b17ad4","argument":"Churches are presently classified as non-profits for exactly this reason. Unless we want to tax all non-profits, we can\u2019t tax churches.","conclusion":"Religion in itself is a social benefit, and therefore religious organizations deserve to maintain their tax-exempt status."}
{"id":"35359629-01ec-4328-8f4c-8c0e40d5f45a","argument":"Drink driving causes a lot of injuries and deaths every year. In 2013 over 10,000 people were killed in alcohol-impaired crashes in the US.","conclusion":"All drugs, including alcohol and nicotine, cause harm to the body."}
{"id":"0ad1556e-d399-4075-b76d-1b53ffef01b7","argument":"Starfleet has access to regenerative force fields like those found on The NX Prometheus, which are a massive step forward over existing shields. These are also demonstrated by one of their opponents in Star Trek Nemesis.","conclusion":"The Federation's shields are vastly superior to those of the Rebel Alliance."}
{"id":"67b49e2a-2703-468e-a22a-3eb1ef23e884","argument":"Let me start off by saying that I am neither vegan nor pro life. Now I would like to frame the parameters I am discussing. Specifically vegans who are doing vegan out of belief you shouldn't eat a possible living animal out of the morality. Ex. A vegan won't eat eggs bc they are animal products and possibly could hatch Well the same argument is the pro life largest argument that there is a potential living being and aborting it would therefore become immoral by the same standard of the chickens egg. Now I understand some people are vegan due to lifestyle and health choices and not due to the morality but I am specifically speaking about those who do this specifically out of the morality. I see this as being a pretty big fallacy with at least one of the arguments but which? Not sure. Change my view.","conclusion":"Vegans being pro-choice is hypocritical"}
{"id":"2e3924d6-b85b-46a0-9d59-958b6fda33df","argument":"When given the choice of leaving with no deal or remaining, no deal is the most popular choice.","conclusion":"The public has shown more support for a No-Deal than for remaining."}
{"id":"b40d082c-c169-42a4-b6c2-03a6793e451d","argument":"some people are poor financial planners, some were dealt a bad hand in life and it's necessary to continue working past retirement or they won't be able to support themselves. it would create suffering.","conclusion":"A mandatory retirement reduces the quality of life for those forced to retire"}
{"id":"f98f7ae6-ff19-42e5-846b-f899d1eebe8a","argument":"Voter turnout in the 2019 elections for the European parliament was the highest in almost 25 years.","conclusion":"Voter turnout in numerous democracies has been rising recently. This points to the opposite of complacency."}
{"id":"03cea17e-2ad1-419f-a989-9e22b1289c82","argument":"Goldman Sachs shorted the mortgage securities market before the 2008 financial crisis, whilst advising investors to put money in their own mortgage-backed securities","conclusion":"Corporations manipulate the markets by creating information asymmetries that benefit their own economic interests."}
{"id":"c952dd50-ffd3-4110-bab9-d75434fd98f9","argument":"For one thing, I find the idea of \u201crace\u201d itself a very artificial thing. For example, both Indian and Chinese person are \u201cAsian\u201d. However they have radically different cultures and values. The only thing connecting them is that they are vaguely \u201cthe same color\u201d, which in of itself is \u201cracist\u201d. To take pride in your race, is totaled pride in the accomplishments of others. In essence, itself like taking Shakespeare and claiming that you made it because you happen to be the same \u201crace\u201d as Shakespeare. You didn\u2019t do anything. You can\u2019t take credit for work you never did. Also, ideas are never limited to one culture or race. White people gave African Americans English, which eventually gave rise to Blues. Which was adopted into Rock. Which as adopted into Funk and later Hip Hop. History is never just the interaction of one people, but of many. Any person who takes pride in \u201ctheir Race\u201d, is ignoring the progress done by others.","conclusion":"No one should take pride in their race, regardless of if said person is Black, a White, Asian,etc."}
{"id":"4157bdaa-f99f-4ebf-9d2e-c3fa554ac217","argument":"By fighting against ISIS, we give them exactly what they want, and they gain power. Rather than shut them down online which is impossible, we should shine headlight on them for open mockery.","conclusion":"Surveillance of terrorist organizations' Facebook and Twitter activities provides intelligence agencies with valuable access to their digital footprints which provides information about the group's tactics, members, and sympathizers."}
{"id":"3576e144-dc8c-4c0f-985b-9bae798dac77","argument":"Imprisoning an individual places a massive restriction on their liberty. Therefore, imprisoning someone can only be justified in one instance if they deserve it. This is because it is illegitimate for the state to instrumentalise an individual's liberty even for some other consequentialist benefit i.e. if other people feel secure as a result of that because the state has a duty to protect every individual's liberty.","conclusion":"Often there can be multiple consequences that flow from particular actions. Considering you can't control the flow of these consequences, it is arbitrary to imprison individuals based on the factors outside of their control."}
{"id":"ec64ebcb-6c3e-4a0f-85d6-b6a84cbacb0c","argument":"Jakob Fugger who was probably the richest person ever alive, created the Fuggerei which is still used today for social disadvantage housing.","conclusion":"In the past, entrepeneurs have been crucial to establish new forms of support for the poor."}
{"id":"02d75098-d322-4c1c-9765-d54d13fee8a2","argument":"In spite of the state, the vast majority of human interactions are still voluntary. Instead of helping these interactions, the state is mostly detrimental by prohibiting or \"regulating\" them.","conclusion":"Like many other species of animals, cooperation amongst humans is common, natural, and likely."}
{"id":"2071271b-2c9e-4329-965f-2cf02d5996b9","argument":"Open source code can benefit from a diverse set of contributors from across the globe, instead of just employees of a single company or organization.","conclusion":"All software being open source would promote collaboration, and therefore, better software."}
{"id":"3d8c4d4c-e2dc-4be6-9065-dae35b5909e2","argument":"Race is a real phenomenon called subspeciation in other animals, and it should not be ignored as different behavior means different needs.","conclusion":"\"Colorblindness\" ignores the current realities of how someone's race affects them in daily life."}
{"id":"a1cadd77-2ab0-4386-86f0-d608995e5050","argument":"Confederate soldiers, like Robert E Lee, tried to destroy the Union, fired on US forts, and started armed insurrection. Honoring these men honors people that wanted to destroy this country. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson worked to build this country. Andrew Jackson, for example, kept SC from seceding over an import duty and fought in the war of 1812. There is a difference from being flawed and leading insurrection.","conclusion":"The Confederates committed treason against the United States. The United States should not continue to honor or memorialize them."}
{"id":"1617e0de-776b-4e83-b505-8718780d3aea","argument":"Fraud, which uses false speech, is harmful. For example, If someone is promised a 30% return on investment and they lose all their money instead, there would be no protection because the promise was merely speech and the person has a right to make false claims without penalty.","conclusion":"Crimes from making false claims such as fraud and tax evasion are much more common than violent crime."}
{"id":"f72e8406-757f-4e6b-85b9-5616638fa039","argument":"A lot of people seem really unhappy with Luke's character arc in The Last Jedi, but I really don't see a problem with it. Most of the complaints seem to revolve around him briefly thinking about killing Kylo Ren Ben Solo. But looking at the original trilogy, Luke's number one character flaw is that he's impulsive. In his confrontation with the Emperor, both the Emperor and Darth Vader successfully taunt Luke into giving in to his anger and attacking. Eventually he's able to overcome his anger and refuses to kill his father, and that's exactly what happens with Kylo Ren. Remember Rey's vision from TFA? What if Luke had a similarly intense vision of Kylo Ren's future? After that an experience like that, it makes perfect sense that his immediate reaction would be to see Kylo as his enemy. Then he gets control of himself, just like he does every other time he's confronted with a dark side impulse, but it's already too late. Some people also seem to think it's out of character for Luke to have gone into exile and abandoned the rebellion. But considering that he was just directly responsible for the son of his best friend and his sister falling to the dark side, and then murdering dozens of his students and utterly destroying his life's work of restoring the Jedi, his response is completely understandable. Wouldn't an experience like that be enough to crush the idealism out of anyone? He sees himself as an utter failure and is convinced that he'll only do more harm if he remains. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I don't think there was anything wrong with Luke's portrayal in TLJ spoilers, obviously"}
{"id":"0b79e04b-52f6-490d-ae1e-c318b543bc53","argument":"This subreddit is about looking at all the facts from both sides and observing which side is better, that being said I don't think I could effectively argue against Parental Influence because I don't know enough of the facts. I will start with the overview though Parents have forced children into events, sports, and even careers that they themselves didn't want to pursue. This can lead the child to have a very unhappy life and I would imagine the child would in most cases quit the job eventually which could end worse off for the child if there far enough into their parents decision. In some kids, giving the forceful nature to them even for making them do something like brush their teeth, will cause them to resent you. Maybe a better approach would be explain the logistics to a child to make him think for himself. Change my view? Again I recommend arguments for both sides please . Edit I fixeeed sum wurdz","conclusion":"I believe Parental Influence goes too far when they force their kids into events\/sports they don't want or Argue for my view"}
{"id":"2dc7acf0-66a2-479e-87e7-39aaf7649b35","argument":"Hillary Clinton believes in capitalism and in 2016 she wanted to \"appoint tough, independent authorities to strengthen anti-trust enforcement and really scrutinize mergers and acquisitions, so the big don\u2019t keep getting bigger and bigger.\"","conclusion":"There already exists anti-monopoly legislation in capitalist countries. There is no need to enter a socialist economy to deal with monopolies."}
{"id":"fa38c9f6-aa53-41f0-b2bc-7d2100350e1a","argument":"Believing that there's an all-knowing and all-seeing being makes it likelier for human beings to adhere to a moral code which is beneficial for the world.","conclusion":"One should believe that God exists, even if they are not sure it's true."}
{"id":"d9e10d60-634e-4627-856d-08c28c030903","argument":"For example, I do not think that an employee at a restaurant should be allowed to 'opt out' of not handling certain meat products because their personal religious beliefs. I also think termination based solely on this should not be considered wrongful termination . Not meeting specific personal religious or cultural taboos is not an attack on personal freedoms, but rather a refusal to adjust a company agenda, which I believe is the sole choice of the company. If one refuses to wear pants at a workplace where pants are the dress code, there is an unemployed person who will gladly take their place and wear pants. I imagine that my philosophical thoughts while washing dishes at minimum wage are somewhat fallacious, so I invite you to .","conclusion":"I believe that businesses and places of work should not allow employees to exempt from certain job requirements due to personal religious or cultural beliefs."}
{"id":"2c706437-f7b4-4c8c-8d18-9e3d58255715","argument":"A no-deal Brexit would have significant negative impacts for immigration and free movement of UK citizens.","conclusion":"A no-deal Brexit would be the worst possible outcome of the negotiations."}
{"id":"de07c1ed-dec5-4aa6-b7aa-12aad1bcd1d5","argument":"In many countries, those who are not born or have lived in a country or territory for a long period of time cannot be elected to certain positions like the presidency that highlights the link that elected politicians need to have with those that elect them. Otherwise, any technocrat with good political skills could run for those positions.","conclusion":"In a representative democracy, elected officials by definition represent the citizens they govern, and thus sharing interests, values and characteristic with their constituents is vital to be effective political figures and represent their citizenship in the best possible way."}
{"id":"9c44dc41-2c24-4ddd-b0e6-9dd5178da87f","argument":"Consider the following two situations in which there are a husband and wife, who are 100 comfortable with each other physically, sexually, and emotionally. SITUATION A A husband asks his wife before bed, may I wake you up with oral sex? His wife says, yes, please. I would love that . He wakes up the next morning before her and performs oral sex on her. She wakes up and says, hey, could you stop? I'm not feeling in the mood . He immediately respects her wishes and stops. SITUATION B The wife comes home after a bad day at work and sits on the couch. The husband, wanting to cuddle, puts his arm around her. She says, no thanks, I just want some alone time right now . He takes his arm off of her and leaves her alone. Now, WHY is it that in situation B, the guy is perfectly okay, but in situation A, he is considered a rapist? How does the inclusion of genitals rather than a shoulder arm make that kind of a difference? Waking your partner up with oral can be really fun, we don't need to ruin people's fun by having these stringent rules about sex. Also, sexual consent shouldn't need to be explicitly stated, only clearly implied. For example, after a first date, a guy and girl go to the bedroom and decide to cuddle. The guy has innocent intentions, but the girl starts taking her clothes off and putting her hand down her pants. The guy starts touching her more intimately, and then they have sex. The above situation is not rape, even though consent was not given. It was clearly implied. EDIT It seems I was mistaken. Now consider a new situation The husband and wife are sexually comfortable with one another, very sexually active, etc. etc. He does it as a surprise without asking one morning. Is that still okay?","conclusion":"Affirmative consent is stupid and ruins sex."}
{"id":"594fefae-805c-4f7a-9b47-88aaa86e9ec8","argument":"God \"dealing with evil\" in itself necessitates that evil exists to be dealt with. Though Evil should be dealt with by a good all-powerful God, it must exist for a time before being dealt with. We are in that time before it is completely dealt with","conclusion":"It has not been demonstrated that omnibenevolence must be defined so as to be logically inconsistent with permitting the presence of any kind of evil for any duration. As it stands, the inconsistency is tautologically assumed, not explicitly demonstrated."}
{"id":"2ca1693f-c541-49f9-abe8-2d9d70f10fbe","argument":"Cash For Clunkers was a temporary government program that provided a credit to purchasers of new vehicles of a fuel efficiency of gt 22 MPG if they destroyed their old vehicle that's lt 25 years old and lt 18 MPG, and in working condition. The program is a prime example of the Broken Window Fallacy the idea that if someone went around smashing windows, it would help the economy because it would create jobs in window repair. So the first effect it had was creating incentives for the purchase of new cars. Buyers could get a credit from the government for trading in their old car to be demolished, to use for a new car. In this way, the government subsidized the purchase of the new car. The government partially paying for people to get new cars is already a massive handout to the auto industry, but that's not all. By demolishing the old cars that were workable, the government effectively reduced the supply of used cars. This caused used car prices to go up, thus hurting the poor, and making new cars more appealing due to a lower price spread. So the law is a handout to auto companies in two ways. First by subsidizing new automobile purchased, and secondly by reducing availability of used cars, thus reducing the impact of the substitute effect. As for hurting the economy, the program involved destroying items of value without creating additional value. It simply tried to change consumer behavior while eliminating fuel inefficient cars voluntarily. With used car prices rising as a result of the government reducing the supply, Americans were forced to spend more to meet their transportation needs. This reduced the amount of remaining income they have to spend on other discretionary products of services, thus slowing economic growth. Increases in the price of non discretionary goods has been known to trigger or prolong recessions, most notably with oil. I believe that by providing a handout to the auto industry, the U.S government benefited automobile industries at the expense of the rest of the economy. So please .","conclusion":"Cash For Clunkers was a Massive Handout to the Auto Industry And It Hurt the Economy"}
{"id":"5bdffc81-d66b-4a3e-9e8c-edf57d99c772","argument":"More specifically, I wish i was born somewhere in the Rocky Mountain region early on enough to witness and experience all of the amazing mega fauna before they were driven to extinction. I think that the hunter gatherer society would be more suitable for my personality, I have a lot of trouble with certain things about modern society from an emotional standpoint and I think I would be happier living a simpler existence. I recognize the high likelihood of sickness and pain, but I think that the psychological benefits would outweigh this. I mostly believe this because I accept the viewpoint demonstrated in the field of ecopsychology that our abuse of the world around us due to the consequences of civilization is felt in the soul as personal trauma and is psychologically damaging. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I wish I was born before the dawn of civilization."}
{"id":"64eb7538-c7a0-4ec5-a4c8-f483b120e155","argument":"The \"preference to eating meat\" part is disputable as humans are actually opportunistic omnivores and evolved to adapt to the availability of food which in some cases meant a primarily plant based diet. Even if this were true, though, it would be irrelevant as a properly planned vegan diet is perfectly healthy","conclusion":"This argument is an example of the is\u2013ought problem What *is* doesn't justify what ought to be."}
{"id":"d7418884-12ba-4b19-8a30-1d1b0d6be798","argument":"Even though his victim repeatedly consented to be cannibalized by him, Armin Meiwes was indicted and sentenced by a German court.","conclusion":"There is legal precedent to say that consenting to abuse is not possible."}
{"id":"74841831-8873-44e8-b47a-42dce88b7a42","argument":"I haven't ever experienced it, so I understand I will get some strong counterarguments about how it affects mainly girls so powerfully when they are at an impressionable teen age. However, I do not believe that it can be categorized as a real disorder, as it is simply something that one wants to. I suffer from anxiety, and it is incredibly difficult to overcome, but I don't go around labeling it as a disorder. It's me getting scared. I bite my fingernails and can't stop no matter how hard I try, but that's not an addiction. Please . Edit Would anorexia exist as humans live in a vacuum aside from being born and having genes passed on ? If all human beings were separated, or placed in their own earths, would there still be illnesses such as anorexia? Or is it simply a result of societal values imposed on impressionable teenagers and adults ?","conclusion":"Anorexia is not a real \"disorder\""}
{"id":"f1bd4cea-ddfe-4f85-8603-f20619f0832c","argument":"Even conspiracy theories that see the bullfighting ban as western attempt to conquer the Indian dairy industry cannot point to widespread economic consequences.","conclusion":"The main economic victims of the bullfighting ban in India were regional bull breeders in just one province."}
{"id":"accc6621-3616-4488-860b-3bb526ca7fe3","argument":"Once we are in conflict with each other, we interact with each other and are given a chance to voice our concerns and express our interests - thus making us both better off as we know each other better and may end the conflict in the first place once we have expressed our concerns.","conclusion":"Conflict prompts change. Such conflict does not have to be violent or undesirable; peaceful ways of resolving conflicts can equally lead to enhancement of potential, discovering new resources and better understanding of the self and others."}
{"id":"9f29093b-31ce-4dd4-9e7d-a2a0ea7de349","argument":"I have so many friends who insist that The Lord of the Rings trilogy is Tolkien's best work, and I was so disappointed when I read LOTR. When I read Tolkien for the first time, the ten year old in me was sure I'd fall in love with the Lord of the Rings trilogy just as the teenager in me was sure I wouldn't like to read The Hobbit. Surprise surprise I read all four books, and realized that The Hobbit was truly the book to rule them all. x200B I recognize a lot of this argument is based on opinion, so here's some points to help clarify my opinion. For my argument, I also mean that The Hobbit is a stronger read than either one of the three Lord of the Rings books or all of them collectively. This is for the You can't compare one book to three books argument. You can treat all three books as one book if it helps your argument. I'm also here to discuss THE BOOKS, not the movies. x200B This thread is so I can appreciate my love for Lord of the Rings all over again. Change my mind x200B My personal reasons for preferring The Hobbit It tells a time less, compelling narrative without feeling like you have to slog through endless pages for action scenes. Traditionally disliked characters in the JRR Tolkien universe are less prevalent in The Hobbit, such as Tom Bombadil. The plot is simple and doesn't necessarily rely on wars to make the story move forward. Even when the plot does get political, but the key motivator for the characters is still simple Get the treasure, find the dragon. This isn't to say a book with a complicated plot or story isn't good, but there's something to be said about a simple book which still engages its readers. The Hobbit is a book that could appeal to all sorts of ages and interest groups not just the Medieval Ages nerds and fantasy lovers. The Hobbit is an escape from the horrors of modern day. Fantasy has been a genre dedicated to challenging ideas and offering refuge from bitter reality. Like many Tolkien's age, his experiences and views were shaped by the World Wars, and I found it incredibly interesting how in The Hobbit, Bilbo avoids the major battle. It was refreshing, to have a narrative in fantasy that doesn't require the main character to fight or slay something at least every time , even if conflicts with evil or dangerous forces and creatures present themselves. Bilbo is able to have a great adventure, in a fantastical world full of adventure that awes and entertains. You don't NEED to know about the World Wars or politics to appreciate this story or why it's fun to read. This said The Hobbit is STILL a great commentary on the horrors of war. If you already know about how Tolkien was inspired by the World Wars, you can still find a lot of real life inspiration in his first book. I know no one really argues that The Hobbit ISN'T a good example of World War literature quite the opposite , but a lot of the people I speak to about The Hobbit are frustrated at the fact Bilbo isn't seen for the big final battle. Why? You don't need to see a war to know how horrible it can be. If Sam and Frodo's struggles represent what veteran's faced as a result of war ie shellshock PTSD , Bilbo represents the struggles soldiers faced when not actively holding a weapon. Bilbo isn't there for the worst of the battle, just as Tolkien himself had been ill with trench fever in 1918. While most of the men who shared his battalion were killed or taken prisoner, Tolkien was left to recover and realize what he lost after the fact. This can also be said for Bilbo Baggins. Sometimes people or hobbits survive conflicts when they shouldn't, and others who should have lived die. That's one of the great tragedies of war and The Hobbit discusses it without making it graphic or obvious. The characters are less serious, and more like friends than mentors. Although I liked reading The Lord of The Rings a lot, I felt frustrated at the fact that almost ever character seemed like a mentor or aide than a genuine friend. I know that's part of the reason why Sam is so important for the narrative while Gandalf is all knowing and the other characters are all important guides for Frodo, Sam is a friend and is the reason Frodo can complete his mission in the first place. But The Hobbit showed more characters' flaws and less serious sides more often, and I found myself liking the majority of the cast rather than just one or two characters after over a thousand pages of text.","conclusion":"JRR Tolkien's The Hobbit is better than The Lord of The Rings trilogy"}
{"id":"59539ba8-8f6c-470d-8ca8-50f797c88f01","argument":"Much time is spent praying. Though many say their prayers are answered, evidence of a causal link between their prayers and the outcome that occurred is lacking.","conclusion":"Most religions use the you-have-nothing-to-lose-by-believing argument. Of course you do: There's your time, your independence, your objectivity, and your cash."}
{"id":"262050cd-e906-4924-a11a-9743165a1488","argument":"I genuinely believe that people who support toxic groups like ISIS and Al qaeda should be straight up executed or put given life imprisonment. I see people going around and saying that Don't be like them , they should receive the treatment they give to others. Anybody who voluntarily joins or supports a group that cuts throats of people solely for not following their beliefs or supports them shouldn't be given any rights. It's cancer that needs to be removed violently and brutally since there's no other way around it. Having a policy where you do this to supporters and fighters will make people think twice before joining or supporting groups like them. If you still join and or support them despite being warned, you should face the consequences. Remember when the Jordanian pilot who was captured and burned alive? Jordan responded by executing terrorist prisoners. In 1999 when terrorists invaded Dagestan from Chechnya, they brutally executed 6 Russian conscripts who were all like 18 20. Russia ended up executing 76 militants who surrendered in one of the battles after they responded to the invasion. Some countries need somebody to rule them with an iron fist, to keep the population under control. Chechnya has been in decent shape for sometime now. EDIT 1 I agree that you should have the right to face a trial. If your guilt is proven, you face the consequences above. EDIT 2 If you willingly surrender and help in the fight against the radicals With information , you should be let off the hook and just watched.","conclusion":"I believe that ISIS and their supporters should be given the exact same treatment that they give to their enemies, if not worse."}
{"id":"6ae52eb3-09ae-4d8e-bccd-ba0967f1be75","argument":"The story of Utnapishtim ends with Utnapishtim being blessed and made godlike. The story of Noah sort of ends with God blessing all life and putting his bow in the clouds signifying that he will not use it to attack the Earth again.","conclusion":"The story of Utnapishtim and the story of Noah are re-tellings of the same story. Showing how YHWH is completely unlike the other gods."}
{"id":"43455cd9-805d-4bd5-ab80-625d018e7619","argument":"If God is pure actuality, then he cannot be material physical, for matter always and necessarily contains an admixture of potentiality. In fact, traditional Aristotelian understanding of matter is that it is pure potentiality, but agreement with this idea is not necessary for the statement about God to be true.","conclusion":"Empirical or scientific proofs presuppose purely material phenomena, which, given that God is immaterial, means that there could never, even in principle, be a purely empirical proof of the existence of God."}
{"id":"ffe14cf3-23d0-4b5c-9741-0208b172e893","argument":"Even if Cuba was a vital market for American goods it would be worth giving up some economic growth in order to maintain a commitment to the freedom of the Cuban people.","conclusion":"Economic considerations should not be taken over principles supporting sanctions."}
{"id":"f19a6ae9-d17a-456e-a617-257a98ad61a7","argument":"According to one study, bisexuals are less enamoured with monogamy than straight, gay, lesbian and those that are unsure of their sexuality.","conclusion":"It is likely that more bisexual people are in ethically non-monogamous relationships than straight people."}
{"id":"7fb2dcea-3a09-4dd9-bc20-fcbdd3db10f3","argument":"Because almost all Iraqis want to see the coalition leave Iraq, on some timeline, they will likely unify in rejoicing the withdrawal of coalition forces. Certainly, they can all agree on this. Following such a unifying moment, it will be harder for sectarian groups to bear down on each other.","conclusion":"Iraqis would unify around an early US withdrawal, avoiding civil war"}
{"id":"72f5acb0-fddc-4892-9cd1-a66ac8ee57ac","argument":"Rule changes and better sideline procedures for dealing with potential head injuries have made the sport safer for those involved.","conclusion":"American football can be made safer for players without banning it outright."}
{"id":"c11d52d5-0f6d-4de8-9473-b036c884ba3e","argument":"I believe there is a major conflict of interest in most moral teachings. It is not in your interest to be a good person, and the concept of selflessness appears to be designed to take advantage of you. First, I assume that people are inherently selfish, and neither good nor evil. Because people are selfish, I believe that the world tends toward trying to draw as much energy out of each individual as possible. In other words, people will take your time, labor, money, etc, whenever you let them. Our idea of a good person is someone who lets other people take from him or her often without reward . Moral selflessness is designed to take from you. If I tell you to follow the Golden Rule, for example, what I'm saying is I would like you if you did things that benefited me. In this example, I'm the one evangelizing, and with good reason It's in my interest to convince as many other people as possible to follow that rule. However, it is not in my interest to follow that rule myself. It's not in your interest to follow the Golden Rule all the time, but it is in your interest to spread the rule around. Think of it like a pyramid scheme the more people you recruit, the better off you are. Of course it's widespread it's a self replicating meme. And it's little wonder why there are more moral evangelists than moral exemplars The person doing the evangelizing is the one who benefits. I find it difficult to buy into a moral rule when I suspect that the system was designed to take advantage of me. I don't have a problem with helping others. Consider these three scenarios If helping others also helps me, we both win. Our interests are aligned. I have no problem with this that's good old self interest. If helping others costs me nothing, there's nothing wrong with that. This is unlikely anyway. If helping others hurts me e.g. I give you 10,000 , then I have a problem with it. I think most of us act accordingly with the above, selfish as we are. Yet most of our society would agree that 3 would be an unequivocally Good Thing To Do. If I proclaim here that I will never act outside of my own self interest, you will probably view me as a less good person than you did before. Why is 3 a good thing to do if it harms me? Why do we consider it good to help others at our own expense? There's more than one plausible answer. But the simplest answer and the one I currently believe is that the idea is very attractive for people who want themselves to take and others to give. Wouldn't Tom Sawyer be proud? And because selfless morality always benefits the one who shares it, the idea is bound to be shared. tl dr I believe it's not wrong to always act in my own self interest. Why is it morally good to sacrifice my interests for others? There is a major conflict of interest when someone else tells you to be selfless. I have not read any ethicists who have addressed this subject. Is this a topic widely written about? If so, please tell me","conclusion":"I don't believe that selflessness is morally good, and I believe there is a conflict of interest in moral systems that say otherwise"}
{"id":"bb5361cd-5751-425a-88f8-5acb44d4c53f","argument":"Another Redditor has pointed out the errors in my argument, so I've deleted it and will try to start a new. There's no way that I can fully express this argument without it seeming like the rant of a deluded, worried person. To some it may even seem that I make this argument as though the world should revolve around men. I'm not intending any of this. I'm simply stating the fact's that I believe support my thought that women should ask men out. Why should they ask men out? Quite simply I reply, because if they did then they show their interest and the man could take it from there. True women would be rejected just as men are rejected now, but I would hope that through all the years of men being cruelly rejected by the opposite sex, that they would have learned how it feels and be nicer in their rejections then women can be. Probably when pigs fly, but still one could hope. If a man approaches and ask's out a woman he could be called names, or possibly pepper sprayed depending on her particular frame of mind at that moment. If a woman approaches a man, in most cases he tries to break the topic and excuse himself. In other cases he too would call her names but certainly wouldn't resort to pepper spray. In either of those scenarios the man is labeled the bad guy in the latter one he would be and justly deserves being called it and has to prove his innocents. While the woman is held up as the victim and needs to be pitied. This is why I think women should approach men for dates. I have more that I could right but it would come off as a raving rant about the things women can do that men can't. This is not my intention, so I leave it with my paltry argument, and bide you adieu. As I said there was no way that I could express this opinion without coming off as a jerk some way or the other. .","conclusion":"I think that women today should approach and ask out men, instead of the other way around."}
{"id":"befee270-47d6-4c9a-b660-20b084dab78d","argument":"Politics is, in my opinion, much too large scale to be under the influence of morals. When the stakes are millions, billions or perhaps even trillions, sparing someone because you like them should not be expected, nor should it be laudable. Following the UK EU Referendum, people got up in arms about Michael Gove, part of the Leave campaign, stabbing Boris Johnson, the frontman of the Leave campaign, in the back. The outcry is because lt s gt they were friends and Gove was the one who told Boris to step up to the plate for it, so surely he would not knife him to get where he wants Why, that would be realistic, and we can't be having that here. Politics is about ideals of course lt s gt Bullshit. The only politician in all of Britain who can be argued to not be a snake is Jeremy Corbyn a divisive, unlikable, un electable idiot who is about to act out the role of Julius Caesar in real life with his MPs. Let's swap to a slightly more upbeat analogy Civilisations Europa Universalis Crusader Kings etc In those games, do you ever stop to wonder if the ruler you are controlling has made friends in a country you are about to crush under your heel? NO You do what is best for your empire and yourself by extension. Everyone who gives handouts and free passes gets fucked when the other side rises, notices the opportunity, and slits your throat because they need to expand and gain power. The world is cutthroat, and expecting our leaders not to conform to that is as stupid as expecting the rottweiler you decided not to punish after attacking someone to never attack anyone again, or spare someone from a mauling once they have jumped on them, just because that's what you did. In addition, while we, living our small, insignificant existences as part of a small, insignificant species on a small, insignificant planet, can afford to be nice to each other and offer handouts, this does not mean that the people whose shoulders bear the weight of making decisions that can be life or death for tens, or hundreds of thousands of people, should do that. Imagine what you would think if David Cameron had been talking to his mate idk if they actually like each other the French president, and he said, oh, sure, go ahead, you can send in all of the illegal immigrants massing by the tunnel, hell, we'll even pay for them for you Remember though, you owe me one now Imagine the outrage Our leader has just sold us out because he liked someone What Michael Gove did was not nice, but it has hit people like a brick wall when it really shouldn't have. After all, Boris was doing a similar thing to Cameron in the run up to the referendum, and no one really cared. The only surprise as far as I am concerned is that Gove hasn't taken the time to cultivate public opinion, and that Jeremy Corbyn ever even ran for office. They've both always been at odds with their parties, Corbyn with, like, all of his MPs, and Gove with, well, everyone .","conclusion":"People should stop expecting political leaders to display A morals, B idealism, or C altruism."}
{"id":"06becc1f-be42-46b6-9cdc-3c1736266365","argument":"States have a primary responsibility to cater to their own citizens by protecting them from external security and economic threats. Therefore, the right of states to control their borders overrides the freedom of movement of citizens from other countries.","conclusion":"Yet it is not the only factor worthy of consideration. The rights of states and societies to control their borders is also a right that has to be kept in mind."}
{"id":"40230e01-b7e5-4d80-a787-23f990e929a4","argument":"Some people have a stereotypical view of what a black person should look like and often a lot of African groups like Nilotics, Horn of Africans, Khoisan, Nubians, Pygmies, etc. are seen as not pure Africans due to not fitting the stereotype, but other groups of people like Afro Caribbeans and Afro Americans are seen as black regardless as what they look like. x200B I will define mixed as anyone who isn't predominantly monoracial. x200B I will define monoracial as any person who has over 85 of their ancestry coming from one continent or subcontinent within the last 1000 years. x200B African American is defined as any person who descends from the African slaves brought to the southeastern United States of America x200B The main Ethiopian population I will be investigating are the Habesha Abyssinian people who are sometimes conflated with Amharas x200B Proof Ethiopians aren't Mixed Ethiopia has never been completely conquered or colonized by an outside force. Turks, Arabs, Somalis, and Italians have all tried totally subjugate Ethiopia and they failed. There has never been an opportunity for a dominant foreign group to introduce their genetics on Ethiopian subjects. Humanity probably started in Eastern Africa and could have potentially started in modern day Ethiopia, making the proto Abyssinian people one of the oldest ethnic groups of humanity with their phenotype. It is likely that the main meta group of Ethiopian languages, Afroasiatic, was started in the Horn of Africa. When you look at 23andme images of Eritreans a related nationality , all the results are over 95 Sub Saharan African . Proof African Americans are mixed The Majority of African Americans have Paternal European admixture. If you look at a composite picture of people around the world. The African American one is lighter skinned than the West African one. x200B Therefore, despite Ethiopians technically being Caucasian via anthropological pseudoscience, they have less non African admixture than African Americans do arguably, East Africans were the original Caucasians if anything and West Eurasians are based off of them. x200B","conclusion":"Ethiopians are less mixed than African-Americans"}
{"id":"d06f83f1-d40d-48f5-a904-64f73f6f302d","argument":"It's absolutely ridiculous that people in places like the UK or Francecan be thrown in jail for trolling facebook pages, dehumanizing someone, etc. but they're all perfectly still within the realms of 'sticks and stones'. You have the comedian in France, Dieudonne, banned for 'hate speech', but anyone who watches his shows knows he's simply a troll who picks on society's sacred cattle. Same goes with many other people around the world who have been censured and rebuked by the media, especially for the nebulously defined 'hate speech' along with the usual double standards, i.e, laws for Holocaust denial and laws against Armenian Genocide denial . Speaking of which, why are there laws preventing the investigation or outright denial of events like The Holocaust or Nanking? Certainly, such events stand on their own two feet in the face of insurmountable evidence, and many politicans may argue for the idea that people are stupid and we can't let them discuss , but isn't that having a cynical view of humanity as mere sheeple? If you support these kind of laws i.e, vote parties that support them , why? Finally, simply given my opinions and the way I voice them, do you think I'm a bigot? Are you going to reply with a snarky, sardonic remark? , reddit","conclusion":"I believe that freedom of speech should extend to the right to insult or troll someone, or question historical events."}
{"id":"ddd44e9b-8435-4bfb-b2ac-d9b72938fce4","argument":"After all, the final spirit is supposed to be just water and ethanol with a few trace components, and many distillation practices produce a gt 90 ethanol solution which is then watered down prior to bottling. I'm excluding brands like Crystal Palace, Dark Eyes etc., but even those are not THAT much worse tasting than brands like Smirnoff or Stoli. I also want to add that I think marketing is the main driver in people's perception of what is a good vodka versus what is bad.","conclusion":"Most vodkas taste pretty much the same"}
{"id":"cee1a16a-8e01-4561-bf4f-a03393782439","argument":"I'm not talking about songs that are all screams or grunts, but rather songs where there's one or two lines where you think to yourself Huh, what was that sentence? Did he say X or Y? . In my opinion, music can be enjoyed entirely without understanding what the song is saying, and only a handful of songs I've ever heard were improved by actually understanding the lyrics. I'll admit that I rarely, if ever, listen to songs for meaning. Most of the time I'll just have music and and enjoy what it sounds like, but occasionally I'll actively listen, and sometimes I won't quite understand the lyrics. In these events, I normally invent a version of the lyrics in my own head, and sometimes I have looked up what the actual lyrics are. This has only ever led to my disappointment, and I always regret having looked up the lyrics. More often than not, the actual lyrics are just disappointing, because my own fake version of the lyrics is what I wanted to hear in the song. The real version of the song might be alright, but at best I'll continue to appreciate the song, and at worst I might dislike the lyrics and it may ruin part of the song for me. So, are there any good reasons I should be looking up song lyrics I can't understand?","conclusion":"If you can't understand the lyrics in a song you like, then the worst thing you can do is look them up."}
{"id":"3108df8a-c1e7-4a85-8423-49a62310b76a","argument":"Majority of immigrants are low skilled, in the UK only last year scrapping the cap for high skilled migrants was discussed 20,700 per year despite immigration from outside the EU being on level around 300,000 per year for a long time.","conclusion":"Mass immigration increases the competition for jobs and lowers wages. This serves big companies but not the employed poor and middle class people."}
{"id":"2c56c223-9ff3-460a-9b3e-c4586e42baef","argument":"Eichmann was not using the categorical imperative because he was referencing a critique of pure reason rather than Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, from which the idea comes from.","conclusion":"Experts and scholars have considered that Eichmann distorted Kant's philosophy to make it fit his needs."}
{"id":"74558bfb-ba26-4e3e-bec7-93ebcce61f0b","argument":"If the city council will be responsible they have an incentive to install security measures.","conclusion":"The implementation of measures depends on who will eventually be responsible when deaths occur."}
{"id":"e26433c3-1c4c-4e3a-b7a0-35b6a57bdbd9","argument":"The referendum does not propose a solution, because if it is lost, it insists until the victory due to the exhaustion of public opinion. Scotland Second Referendum","conclusion":"A referendum on independence does not solve the problems of Catalonia. Regional referendum"}
{"id":"825d6615-1338-408a-971d-58ad9e520117","argument":"I'm someone who can be considered priviledged I'm white, male and middle class, able bodied. When I'm told to 'check my priviledge' or that I lack empathy because of my priviledge this makes me feel guilty and selfish, I believe it's an unhelpful aphorism that is born of antipathy, rather than a genuine recognition of disparity. I think there is a huge distinction between classifying someone as with an advantage and classifying someone with a disadvantage People are much less likely to take offense to being recognised as disadvantaged than to being recognised as having an advantage. Noone choses their circumstances, but by highlighting disadvantages we can assist and help those people, by recognising advantages we can only inhibit or shame people. I think a lot of the disadvantages within white, middle class males are largely ignored particularly one's that result from the inversion of priviledge speculation, people generally think that the priviledges held by white mid class men means we should achieve more and we are easier to deride when we fail. There is also results in a sensation internally that we should achieve more and this mentality inspires only pressure and a constant sense of failure. I know I have an advantage, but you highlighting it is harmful and does not add to the discussion. . Edit Perhaps it's a bit closed ended for a discussion, it doesn't seem like a popular topic either. If you do read this, what do you find poor about the question view topic and what would you change about how I've presented it?","conclusion":"I think it's offensive to highlight someone's priviledge"}
{"id":"abe2e4da-75c2-499f-bbcd-bd0691176c1e","argument":"Some crimes are too heinous and awful that a lifetime in prison isn't just. In my opinion, crimes such as homicide and torture are far too immoral to allow a person to live. A life in prison isn't an adequate alternative. It is also far easier to end someone's life rather than attending to their food, shelter, and other necessities, even if they are in prison. This uses much more tax money than killing them in a humane way, which currently is done via a series of injections which kill someone painlessly.","conclusion":"Capital Punishment should be legal"}
{"id":"c9ef4d21-1fe2-48a1-8353-73672c6e3cb8","argument":"This leads to bad sex with future partners, where clients of sex workers may have unrealistic expectations about their skills and how their partners should perform.","conclusion":"Sex work presents an unrealistic version of sex where a client typically a man has their attractiveness and prowess exaggerated."}
{"id":"cc3bede7-0f2b-440a-9e4a-9b98ec97c843","argument":"Abortion is not about personhood. It's about bodily autonomy. It wouldn't really matter if you considered even a first or second trimester fetus a person or not, because it's about the woman's freedom to do what she wants with her body. Therefore, whether you consider a third trimester pregnancy a person or not is irrelevant. It is still the woman's body, and she has the freedom to get an abortion if she chooses.","conclusion":"I think third trimester abortions should be legal."}
{"id":"dab88baa-b202-47a5-a378-e631aa0dc29c","argument":"These last few days I kept seeing 'Je Suis Charlie' cartoons, some really bold, some so and so, some being just the artists with a tagline underneath them. And most of them sounded so hollow it was unbearable. No, even the best 'Pencil Vs Machinegun' cartoon doesn't make you Charlie. I've seen some really beautiful ones, and they're really powerful, but they are not powerful enough for CH. CH specialized on stuff that people would ban anywhere else. The face of Muhammad. Jesus in sexual positions. Unrestricted sexual acts. These are CH. A pencil and a bullet can be printed everywhere around the world. It's a cartoon with kiddie gloves compared to the daily CH cup of tea. yay for mixed metaphors If you want to pay tribute to a former heavyweight boxing legend, by inviting him to a tribute match, you wouldn't try to fight with kid gloves or mittens. That would be mockery, not tribute, even if you didn't mean it as such. Charlie Hebdo was, is, a magazine that takes its call from the very roots of satire. And satire must be completely unrestricted and without boundaries, or it simply isn't satire. It's simply humor disguised as satire, and an affront to it. Aristophanes' swan song in theatre, 'Frogs', pulled absolutely no punches. It was the ultimate expression of satire for centuries to come. In it, Aristophanes satirized, mocked, condemned, everyone and everything, whether they mattered to one person or to everyone. He satirized Gods in a period where Socrates was condemned to death for disrespecting them , he satirized heroes, real and mythical, the Athenians, the Greeks, other playwrights, dead and living, the state, the government, the authorities, citizens and slaves alike, people, animals, trees, buildings, literally EVERYTHING. If we can't have the same freedoms as Aristophanes we are doomed to always live under his shadow, never able to surpass him. This makes satire irrelevant. Lack of satire makes comedy a sad shadow of its own potential. This expands to all forms of theater, and its modern equivalents in all media, cinema, literature, comics, radioplays, everything. Without satire as the extreme limit, everything else loses meaning and definite value. The infinite boundaries, both positive and negative, are removed from the equation, and little by little, all art becomes limited by definition. Therefore only cartoonists who break all boundaries with their art deserve to say Je Suis Charlie . Say whatever else you want in solidarity, but Je Suis Charlie is only for the courageous few who will do satire .","conclusion":"Unless you're prepared to go to the same lengths as 'Charlie Hebdo', Vous N'\u00eates Pas charlie"}
{"id":"cdb19b11-6543-4e57-bb5f-8bf9c9bafbac","argument":"When there is knowledge that there is an event or a demand for more bikes in certain areas, the city and bike share company can prepare accordingly. This allows for urban planners to keep track of what is going on and to be organised in providing transport.","conclusion":"Having a docked\/station-based system allows urban planners and city government to better plan and organize their transportation system"}
{"id":"a39da20b-6532-4215-9bf2-f678fffde38c","argument":"sexual activity and lewd behavior, as religious groups fear, because everything in life is already sexualized. One need only watch a typical perfume ad on television to know that sexuality inculcates popular culture already. Sex education would not lift the scales from the eyes of children entirely; they already have some idea of what is going on. The danger is when they know something about sex, but not enough to be safe. That is why mandatory sex education is essential to people\u2019s wellbeing. The research evidence from across the world is clear that sex education holds back the age of first intercourse and most certainly does not foster early promiscuity.3 The abstinence programmes that have been developed in the united states in particular have been spectacularly unsuccessful in reducing rates of sexual exploration and STD and unwanted pregnancy rates.4 Research has made it clear which kinds of sex education are most effective.5 1 Reiss and Mabud, Sex education and Religion, 1998 2 Blake, Teenage Sex, 2003 3 Boethius, Swedish sex education and its results, 1984. Swedish National Board of Education, Sex Education in Swedish Schools, 1986. 4 Oakley et al, Sexual health education interventions for young people, 1995 5 Kirby et al, School Based Programmes to reduce sexual risk taking behaviour, 1992","conclusion":"Even religious and conservative communities will benefit from mandatory sex education"}
{"id":"59d0ebae-c3f0-42aa-83df-7711a7066288","argument":"People should be encouraged to donate to any organization that they choose without judgement. Donating to animals verse humans should not be considered a \"bad thing\" Having opinions and morals that differ from others does not make them a bad person. It is a great thing that Americans can donate to any cause they support.","conclusion":"People should donate to organisations that support gorillas instead of to those that support starving children."}
{"id":"5248963a-bc8d-4b85-a3bf-52b4a47092bc","argument":"Polish and Hungarian Eurosceptism is a populist policy of the ruling parties, driven by Islamophobic, homophobic and xenophobic attitudes of a part of the electorate. These attitudes may be changed, and are likely to alter in the future.","conclusion":"These are the values of the actual governments, not the people. Populism and nationalism are on the rise but it does not mean that the general values of the people differ."}
{"id":"d22271d3-9528-4cb8-8d82-eab9df4c86e8","argument":"\"Expensive church buildings do not communicate the transforming Truth of the Gospel, they enslave people to the consumerism of our culture.\" - House Church Leader Ken Eastburn","conclusion":"Examples of religious infrastructure depict excessive spending, unnecessary to their supposed purpose."}
{"id":"8ccabfca-c764-4dc3-abb5-dc04c8441333","argument":"If the public thinks overpopulation is a problem, governments may respond regardless of if overpopulation is, in fact, a problem.","conclusion":"Governments may have other reasons for slowing the growth of a population."}
{"id":"38488c4a-e5d7-4bb4-9936-e2b8f25ff99e","argument":"Images have a bigger impact than other forms of journalism because they are more likely to be remembered.","conclusion":"Violent images are able to create an impact in a way that other features of journalism cannot."}
{"id":"7febae28-c03f-4af4-897b-a95026a3a14a","argument":"Ok, first let me state that I am a male. I have identified as a \u201cfeminist ally\u201d since college. I am happily married to an awesome woman who I know is the better and stronger human of the two of us. We have one child a son, whom we both fear will grow up with a target on his head simply for being a male. I\u2019d fear for the way society would treat my daughter if I had one, but for separate reasons. I am posting this to see if I can open up my perspective on this issue. I\u2019m super, super frustrated with how people around me talk about men\u2019s rights and feminism. It seems to me that there are compassionate, reasonable men and women on both sides bringing up issues unique to men and issues unique to women. Then there are idiots spewing an anti man or anti woman dogma who get held up as examples of the other side and whenever this happens all reasonable discourse stops. I recently had a conversation in which a feminist told me that she was super concerned about this dude she knows talking about some men\u2019s rights stuff because men\u2019s rights is just a \u201cdistraction\u201d and pulls resources away from the real inequity in society. I was shocked. Clearly there are plenty of reasons to be a feminist today. Lots of work that is still needed to create a society that is not run by penises. But to be so laser focused on women\u2019s issues that you view his mostly legitimate points as nothing more than a distraction is indicative of a lack of true empathy. There are plenty of individual ways in which it is harder to be a man in the USA than it is to be a woman. Overall most women probably have it harder than most men. But certainly some women have way easier lives and experience far more privilege than some men, and this particular lady is one of them. And I think the result of ignoring some of these concerns is to deepen the divide between the two groups. If either one started acknowledging the other\u2019s concerns and making an effort to understand they would likely find that they agreed on more than they disagreed. At present I can\u2019t call myself a feminist ally anymore, and well, I\u2019ve never thought of myself as a men\u2019s rights guy either. It\u2019s only the fringe members of these groups being provocative, but the vast majority of feminists and men\u2019s rights activists completely ignore the other side, and that\u2019s stupid. I\u2019m tired. So tired of trying to promote equality within my own life, learn the right ways to think about and talk about every issue and yet always feel like an outsider. Screw tribalism. I\u2019d rather be scorned by women and men, and the political right and left alike and try to treat every individual I meet with empathy and respect and try not to assume things about people based on their sex or anything else about them for that matter. Ha, which is exhausting because the human brain wants to stereotype the crap out of everything but I\u2019m going to keep trying . Change my view feminism and men\u2019s rights should coexist listen to each other, acknowledge each other\u2019s different experiences, and work together to create a just and equal society .","conclusion":"Feminism and \u201cmen\u2019s rights\u201d can and should coexist."}
{"id":"0d92d684-3f8e-4789-963e-a419dedb4faf","argument":"The United Nations does not hesitate to request support from NATO's unique expertise and capabilities when the situation demands it.\" \"International and regional responses to organized crime, terrorism and peacebuilding - the role of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization NATO\", by Jonathan Parish, Deputy Head of Policy Planning and Speechwriting Section, Political Affairs and Security Policy Division, NATO HQ","conclusion":"\"NATO is now seen by many as a major \"enabler\"."}
{"id":"dfd28091-f969-4f84-9c4e-3a66bbab0d98","argument":"A future USE is likely to retain the EU's current, pluralist language policy with a large number of official languages, and a handful working languages.","conclusion":"European languages are likely to persist, regardless of a secondary common language."}
{"id":"8d39ab2b-0711-4604-b131-0cc21696c6d0","argument":"The First Amendment offers protection for people to peacefully assemble and speak their beliefs. Although NFL players work for private corporations, they play in taxpayer funded stadiums. Therefore their right to kneel is protected as peaceful assembly and free speech. If the NFL owned the stadiums, then the players would be compelled to adhere to their corporations policies.","conclusion":"Kneeling during the Anthem is a choice that should be made by individuals as an expression of their first amendment rights."}
{"id":"71a839d0-5c51-4494-8f04-88ddcba49eca","argument":"New ideas and research are often hidden and encrypted to make sure that they are not stolen. Human nature drives people's pride to go after fame- even in the scientific community. The race to discover the structure of DNA is one example.","conclusion":"Academic and industrial contexts expose scientific research to political influences."}
{"id":"e2b1b276-f402-469c-96aa-58b21935c167","argument":"In 2018, voters in Ecuador approved a package of constitutional amendments that limits elected officials to two terms in office. This barred the left wing populist Rafael Correa from running for office again in the next presidential election.","conclusion":"Constitutional referendums can be used to increase liberal safeguards against populist authoritarianism."}
{"id":"b4c30133-5935-4a90-869c-f7aba8b8d274","argument":"Some psychiatrists are already commenting on the mental health of Trump. This leads to a skewed debate where only those who feel strongly about Trump - that he is a clear and present danger to the republic - participate in the public debate, and those who think otherwise refrain from commenting publicly. It is better to remove the Goldwater rule altogether and allow everyone to diagnose Trump, leading to a more intelligent discussion.","conclusion":"The American Psychiatry Association should repeal the Goldwater Rule and allow psychiatrists to publicly diagnose Trump."}
{"id":"02c275ba-e86e-4e79-b4f0-d77f452a3113","argument":"Nationalist parties such as the SNP have been on the rise since early 2010 across Europe. A Scotland outside the UK and the EU would therefore be appropriate for the political landscape at this present moment in time.","conclusion":"An independent Scotland would probably also be outside the European Union."}
{"id":"80b526fe-bd29-4bd8-b43e-5f606f1aa005","argument":"Classical theists do not believe that omnipotence was ever meant to include logical impossibilities. There is no thing which God cannot do, and logical contradictions are not truly things but inconsistent bugs in language.","conclusion":"Salvation requires free choice by the saved. It is definitionally impossible to force a creature to freely choose something, so God would not be able to do this."}
{"id":"46789477-690b-48d1-911c-ad341a195f2e","argument":"Airbnb CEO, Brian Chesky, made headlines globally after he offered housing help for those stranded due to Trump's 2017 immigration travel ban","conclusion":"Immigrants can help businesses grow, and so corporations may take stances on immigration policies and reform."}
{"id":"44f6a045-e0b0-4eaa-970e-92ff2252647e","argument":"The Constitution of the Philippines declares, \"The separation of Church and State shall be inviolable\" and \"No law shall be made respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.\"","conclusion":"A common standard in liberal democracies is the illegality of publicly funding religious organizations directly or indirectly. It is thus inconsistent with the norms of liberal democracies to fund religious organizations."}
{"id":"5157058e-ba1c-4764-9aa0-710512e0b336","argument":"The US has the highest number of guns per capita estimated at over 300 Million. If it was the case that more guns = more gun deaths, then the US should therefore also be #1 in gun deaths. In fact, Honduras is the highest with 65 gun homicides per 100k people per year, and the US only has 10 gun homicides per 100k people per year. The statement that more guns = more gun deaths cannot therefore be supported.","conclusion":"There is no correlation between firearm homicide rates and guns per capita among countries with high firearm homicide rates: Chart 4"}
{"id":"7ef86b9e-ee94-42dd-975f-688ea5cedae1","argument":"There are many, many different branches of law. Many of these do not operate in a court of law, and thus do not necessarily require the skillset associated with functioning well under pressure.","conclusion":"Competency as a lawyer doesn't necessitate being good in court; there is a great deal of non-litigation work performed by attorneys."}
{"id":"f1f66aef-5bc6-4e3d-a3ec-d10a3869ddaf","argument":"Foreign Minister Stephen Smith told Network Ten. Britain's Queen Elizabeth II is hugely popular in Australia, and that \"There's. something of a view in the community that the appropriate time to move is when the current monarch moves off from her position and whenever that might be.\"","conclusion":"Republic a bad idea before Queen Elizabeth II leaves Aus"}
{"id":"1d065701-e767-4ff4-8910-ebcc51155b47","argument":"The idea of warfare between science and religion is a relatively recent invention of the late 19th century, carefully nurtured by secular thinkers.","conclusion":"The supposed history of warfare between science and religion is a myth."}
{"id":"1931b41e-b0db-4b5e-b410-4643e4d0301d","argument":"Individuals, regardless of their surname, connections, gender or race should be given an equal opportunity to be considered on the basis of their merit during application processes.","conclusion":"Hiring based on merit ensures that only the most qualified and capable are appointed to the appropriate jobs"}
{"id":"f45b96c8-a770-4017-93ec-8a20bf891855","argument":"Understanding that equality is referring to opportunity indicates that gender representation levels do not reflect equality in the literal feminist sense.","conclusion":"Equality can be understood to be equality of opportunities and equity in the respect given to both genders."}
{"id":"de0048a5-781e-4170-9532-698e1f4a1a26","argument":"The possibility of a candidate winning the election but losing the popular vote undermines the perceived legitimacy of the victory.","conclusion":"The electoral college system results in unfair outcomes for voters."}
{"id":"f8cd4379-6ea3-48f7-9b7a-327ddd2b7bed","argument":"If all landlords passed on their costs to tenants, to maintain the margins, then the entire market would simply experience inflation.","conclusion":"Increasing the costs for landlords would prompt them to increase the amount they charge their tenants."}
{"id":"9285309f-c0f3-48be-a24e-3c1d4f1e55c2","argument":"I understand voting against trump. If you supported Bernie and you believe Hillary to actually be corrupt, you are a hypocrite if you don't vote for every republican you can who can contain her power and prevent her from overreaching. Giving her carte blanche in the oval office after all the outcry over her corruption, how she is in the pocket of corporations etc. If she is as corrupt as the left was saying during the primary, I believe you have an ethical responsibility to back those words up and limit the power she has in office. I understand this changes with local government and a senators power to change things locally, I am speaking purely on an ideological level. Edit to further clarify because I don't think I fully knew what I was proposing when i first posted this my underlying point is that I have no confidence in the democrats to police their own. no one will call her on anything that she is doing that is underhanded, i see a track record of a lack of accountability within her party that gives me confidence that if the dems controlled everything, they would let her do whatever she wanted, not on policies, but in terms of selling our government to the highest foreign bidder as she did when she was secretary of state and even after in preparation for taking the white house as an example . I don't feel much more confidence in the GOP policing their own incidentally, I'm not holding the democrats to an unfair standard. though i will say the backlash the right has had against trump does give me more confidence in them to call out bullshit from their own party. Not hearing the same backlash against hillary, in spite of the avalanche of scandal on her that is uncovered every day. I get that people will still want to vote for her, but when everyone in her party is working so hard to cover up or flat out lie to the public, it's concerning. Why not hold both candidates feet to the fire for bad things they have done? Is power so important that principle has to be sacrificed? I think the support for Trump on the right or lack thereof should tell you how the GOP feels about it. Edit 2 Please, let's cut the bullshit, if the emails were lies, they would have denied them rather than every single dem making a stupid pivot to how it isn't their corruption that mattered, only that russia was trying to influence the election by showing how corrupt they are, as if that is russia's fault. so let's just skip that argument, it won't change my view. Hillary hasn't denied it, so it's fact. Okay, so now i feel like even I understand my position better. Change my view edit 3 this is just kinda turning into a political debate about how good a pres obama has been, which is a debate im willing to have, but it's not really fair to people who think he has been. so play at your own risk i guess.","conclusion":"Democrats who opposed HRC in the primary over corruption but are voting for her in the general should vote down ticket GOP in order to hem her in."}
{"id":"a15fa5ee-41f4-4bed-90ea-fa42b7a20fce","argument":"The Munich Olympic tragedy and now 9\/11 have become common denominators in discourses of state protection. They have also entered the organisation of the Olympic events, encouraging the consolidation of 'Islamophobia' We may be debating what the term really means, especially in academic contexts. We do, nevertheless, witness the impact this has in terms of discrimination and hatred expressed against Muslim communities around the world and leading to a ridiculous securitisation of the host city - a securitisation often translating into 'Americanisation'. It is not just the host city, but also the hosting nation-state as a whole that is treated as a 'zombie zone' of insecurity. In tandem, global Olympic visitors are constructed as vulnerable subjects, in need for protection. Protection by whom, however? Athen's invitation of NATO forces to supervise security during the 2004 Olympics is a case in point: NATO accepted the Greek invitation and promised the provision of technology for airspace and maritime surveillance as well as the deployment of its chemical, biological, radiological and Nuclear Defence Battalion. For some, especially those well-disposed towards ideas propagated by the Greek Communist Party KKE, such security arrangements operated as an excuse \u2018to justify pre-emptive wars, such as those against Afganistan and Iraq, and to restrict civil rights and liberties\u2019 Consulate General, LA, CA, 26 June 2004. The Olympic Games become thus implicated in global power games that reproduce the idea of 'risk' without offering any concrete solutions except for more securitisation - and more insecurity.","conclusion":"It sanctions and encourages 'Islamophobic' panics and promotes the excessive 'securitisation' of the globe"}
{"id":"43aab016-db6f-49e1-955c-cf2875b3f097","argument":"Millennials grew up in the age of technology Therefore, they are likely to be politically aware and interested in voting.","conclusion":"If Millennials feel more represented and understood from within institutions, this in turn could encourage more votes."}
{"id":"62e9c641-173d-43f7-ac3f-a6780fbe9469","argument":"There is the typical question about tipping, is it good, bad? why should i tip for bad service? Typically people point out that work places often have hourly wages below minimum and add on the tips the staff received during their shift. If the total amount is less than minimum wage, the business would make up the difference and make sure the staff got at least minimum wage. But people point out that many places will not do this, and if an employee brings up the topic they can often lose their jobs. I believe that enforcing a minimum wage for these type of service businesses would alleviate the issues we have with tipping. It would make tipping completely optional, if you get good service you will reward them with added income, and if they do a bad job, well they get their hourly wage for doing their job, nothing more. but this way, if you choose to not tip, you cant really be seen as punishing the waiter and putting him in a spot below minimum wage. Often the waiters like to blame the customer for them not making as much, when they should be blaming management. That responsibility should lie with the employer,","conclusion":"I believe ENFORCING a minimum wage pay for waiters would alleviate much of the problems we have with tipping."}
{"id":"7bdfdeea-224f-4ada-bacf-2c37b01876bb","argument":"Minor spoilers for Detroit Become Human. In the stratford tower scene, there is a part where you have to get past two guards. The two options given are 'ruse' and 'assault'. Given the past choices with Markus's route focusing on nonviolence versus violence, any reasonable person would assume the 'ruse' option is peaceful and the 'assault' option involves taking out the guards. However, the ruse scene requires you to execute a QTE labelled pull gun , so that you can threaten the guards and then knock them out and tie them up. If you fail to execute the QTE in the required few seconds, your friend gets shot and you'll probably have to abandon him to die later. Most reasonable players going for a nonviolence based approach would get bamboozled by this scene. First off when you think of 'ruse' you think of distracting, you don't think of literally pulling a gun on someone and then knocking them out, that's way more 'assault' type than 'ruse'. Also, there are examples of QTEs which you're not supposed to execute in order to get the desired outcome, so a reasonable player would think that the 'gun' thing would lead to a violent outcome and thus would ignore the QTE. Finally, this doesn't really count as evidence, but pretty much every streamer I've seen playing the game has messed up this part because it was confusing. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"*Spoilers* The \"ruse\" scene in Detroit: Become Human is unfair"}
{"id":"480fc36b-4650-4295-8d43-023b37c96138","argument":"In my 1st year exam for University of Cambridge\u2019s BA Law that allow these Statute books I scored a 3rd the only one in my College in the past 10 years . My College will expel me, if I don\u2019t improve in my 2nd year exams in June 2018. My glumly pessimistic, fatalist view is that I can\u2019t smarten sufficiently, and am too slow witted. Even if I can, I can\u2019t earn a 1st that I covet, but only a 2 1 or 2 2 that appears lousy to me, as ceterus paribus, rational clients prefer lawyers who graduated with a 1st. The other students appear much craftier than I. even if I\u2019m wrong about 1, I don\u2019t know how or what to improve, esp. in only 5 months The nature vs. nuture debate for intelligence appears inconclusive. This 06 Mar. 2014 post I corrected grammar alleges nature gt nurture. This 14 Dec. 2014 the opposite. My study habits and lifestyle. I love law when it helps the underdog, e.g. like the Papers that I pick I loathe EU Law\u2026too political activist Property, Land\u2026too biased for the wealthy. attend all lectures, supervisions. I study at least 6 hours daily weekends. In order of priority, I read my textbooks and lecture notes, the reading list\u2019s more advanced books criticism journals that we\u2019re warned to read only after mastering the basics . I read only cases mentioned in lectures. eschew all parties to focus on studies buying groceries drains too much time already. My only pasttime is eating out with friends several times weekly. spend 2 hours daily to prepare and eat vegan meals that my doctor has assured me to be healthy, as I take vitamin supplements and test my blood at least annually. I seldom eat there at my College\u2019s cafetorium the vegetarian option\u2019s usually shoddy, and their portions too measly as I always remain hungry after eating. I sleep 9 hours daily. My Directors of Studies, Supervisors reported that and I agree I answer the basics, and support my argument with the cases explicitly covered in lectures and supervisions. In problem questions and essays, I can spot, argue, counterargue the basic issues. But in problem questions, I fail to spot the finer, subtler issues\u2026or too slowly. I always feel that I could\u2019ve done or thought better given more time. In essays, I discuss raise nothing novel, creative, or insightful.","conclusion":"I can\u2019t improve my intelligence enough to boost my law grade to a 1st from a 3rd-class honours."}
{"id":"616dcc5b-33e6-4fb0-bb25-ea51cbe46e08","argument":"The illegality of publishing child pornography constitutes a limitation on free speech across Europe and the Anglo-American world. Yet no one seems to be concerned that this will lead to free speech restrictions similar to, for example, the People's Republic of China, because the reasons for limiting free speech in each case have nothing to do with each other.","conclusion":"If you limit speech to avoid encouraging discrimination or violence in public discourse, that does not set a precedent for banning speaking out against the government. This is the 'slippery slope' fallacy. Thus, the precedent is set by the reason given for limiting speech, not the limiting of speech itself."}
{"id":"31d1c0db-4d08-40e0-bef8-1515004b1e25","argument":"I'm all for knowing what the government is up to. I'm all for privacy, and the fourth amendment. I'm all for whistleblowing. To an extent. The fact of the matter is, if you're working in any part of the government that deals with any significant classified information, you take an oath, and usually sign a contract promising you won't release said classified information. Had Edward Snowden went out and said, Your government is invading your privacy , not only would he have been protected by the Whistleblower Protection Act, but he would have gotten his point across. Even if he released, oh I don't know, one or two censored documents that proved his point, no problem. But he released thousands of classified documents, that he promised not to release. And the truth is, as a result, it is a matter of national security. So change my view","conclusion":"I believe that Edward Snowden is a traitor."}
{"id":"8f3736e2-daf2-4372-9419-de7e1fd82a80","argument":"Shameless Plug  post State lotteries are a reminder of wealth disparity Only kids seem to order that drink. Most people in their 30's and 40's avoid it because it's seen as immature. But why? Is it because of the sugar? It has no more sugar than soda which is acceptable at a bar setting , or your average Joe's coffee? It's no worse for your insulin than liquor. Because of the milk? Perhaps milk is seen as childish because, by definition, it is created to nourish the young. But milk is nutritious, supplying you with Vitamin D and protein. What makes a kids drink and an adults drink? Perhaps the advertising campaigns of how Nesquick with the cartoony bunny rabbit has a monopoly over the market. Who knows. But, if we add coffee and ice to chocolate milk, then you get Starbucks, which isn't kiddy. This makes no f ing sense","conclusion":"Chocolate milk gets an unfair reputation as a \"kid's drink\""}
{"id":"ed164937-8c57-4380-8436-d8a2a8c8ccf1","argument":"Maybe he does but he has a right to express his views and opinions. Social media can't pick and choose when to be private and public companies.","conclusion":"Testing the limits of free speech is how we protect free speech."}
{"id":"a05bbd66-3098-4395-a1af-8575aa2cbc43","argument":"In this day and age thanks to the internet there has never been greater public scrutiny into how corporations are supporting employees, minimising environmental impact or creating products that support a sustainable future. A 'long tail' of news sources and open social platforms like Twitter enable the public to access more information and be better informed then ever before. Also with the rise in ethical investment funds such as Morphic and Ethic or startups like Goodments we now have the ability to prioritise where we put our money. This means that as the general public we should also be more accountable for our decisions whether it's the products we buy or the businesses we chose to invest in. So in this day and age when you are investing in the unethical, doesn't it make you outright evil? gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Investing in unethical corporations makes you evil?"}
{"id":"d87c48b6-443f-4085-bf0b-5c9e5d710eb4","argument":"I've heard a couple people get nitpicky about calling the US America because there are two entire continents full of people that are all Americans. When we talk about Korea, we're almost always referring to South Korea because they're the only ones that are actively participating on the world stage. North Korea is this little cult that people don't really talk about all that often. I think that America is a perfectly fine term for the United States, and that referring to anyone on either continent as an American would be a bad term unless they actually come from the United States.","conclusion":"It's not improper to refer to the US as \"America\""}
{"id":"9908273c-3122-4664-ba44-3183fa458d5b","argument":"Athletes can use their fame to shed light on important social issues, which may become social movements.","conclusion":"Sports creates idols who become beacons for social change, and they can spark a movement."}
{"id":"9dbc1614-6947-4cab-9556-5ae103e5181d","argument":"A different team of researchers confirmed the existence of water by giving additional evidence of the presence of hydrothermal vents","conclusion":"Enceladus has warm water geysers that point to a possible life supporting environment."}
{"id":"2f73218c-025e-4a42-ad57-e49e6dd9b0fe","argument":"I have been reading some studies and articles about children transitioning And my opinion is There is not enough research about long use of puberty blockers to determine that it's completely safe. Most preteens with Gender Identity Disorder outgrow it when they are teens. So I think that until there is reliable way of diagnose persistent Gender Identity Disorder, or further research that shows that the use of puberty blockers from a long period have not adverse effects in the development of children, the use of puberty blockers in children is unethical.","conclusion":"I think that we shouldn't give puberty blockers to children with Gender Identity disorder."}
{"id":"cba372cf-d444-4b41-a9be-930f7f9585ef","argument":"Lego is pretty cool, i'm not saying they are evil or anything but seeing the new Moana sets made me post this. The mini figures for these sets are different from regular sets and seem to be stylized to appeal to girls, being much different than other sets. This isn't the only theme to have different minifigures, their Friends theme also has different mini figures which are similar to the Moana ones. The size and design of these different mini figures makes them incompatible with the other and majority lego sets, meaning that they cannot be used with the other, more boy oriented themes and sets. But one of the themes of the movie Moana is female empowerment yet Lego is making their moana mini figures incompatible with anything but stereotypical girl themed sets. I have a female friend who i'm pretty sure if offered her choice of a lego set would pick the tardis one really likes the movie Moana, partly because of Hamilton writer Lin Manuel Miranda buts that not important, what is important is that I wouldn't ever ever see her picking out a friends set or even a Moana set because of the fact that they are different and girly. In fact I don't ever see these sets selling in stores compared to their more boy themed counterparts. Girls don't buy lego sets to get dolls, they are buying them for the same reason that everyone else does\u2026. Totally not to smash them once you're done building them. So I think Lego would have a much better time if they stopped selling dolls with their sets and just sold regular mini figures. for reference, here is a regular mini figure this is a moana mini figure did they use a hulk body for maui? bricklogists get on this and here is a friends mini figure","conclusion":"Every time The Lego Group releases a theme with a different style of Mini figure then the regular style they are just making the set worse and maybe being a little sexist."}
{"id":"c4b10745-bb96-4db7-90c9-57f6654406c3","argument":"I always thought this was obvious, but a study came out recently saying people felt moral outrage at the thought. I'm not talking about infertile people. I'm talking about people who just don't like the thought of being a parent, and would rather spend their time and money on themselves. I just don't see anything wrong with it. Why am I obligated to have kids? If my SO doesn't want them, it's not helping them. My parents parents in law might want them, but I don't owe them kids. It's not like I agreed to be born and in return I'd have childten myself. No, our parents had kids because they wanted kids . Society needs kids to continue, but that doesn't mean everyone needs to have them. America is very close to having a birthrate high enough to keep a stable population. I don't think we need to go into panic mode because on average women need to have a tenth more of a baby. Some family have four kids. I can have no kids. So what is wrong with not having kids? gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"There is nothing morally wrong with choosing not to have children."}
{"id":"52590534-081f-4670-a22b-26b5aa7d6907","argument":"The World Health Organisation endorsed a 'Declaration of Sexual Rights which states the sexual rights of any individual. Interestingly, it cites \"the right to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress and its application\"; sex robots presumably fall under this remit, making them a sexual right for those who wish to explore this option.","conclusion":"Being able to receive sexual satisfaction is an important part of self-actualising and living a fulfilling life for many adults."}
{"id":"92b77a30-4038-4956-b563-334fc5ccefba","argument":"If there were no Potency, change could not occur, and if there were no Act, then nothing would exist.","conclusion":"The distinction between act and potency is not merely semantic, but is a real feature of the world."}
{"id":"a794e07e-7d06-421e-968c-7b57cd9e0d0e","argument":"When it comes to popularity, Despacito by Luis Fonsi is truly something to behold. Mega hit music videos on YouTube have always been a thing Gangnam Style immediately springs to mind but Despacito has outdone Gangnam Style by such a huge degree that it's downright fascinating. Despacito then raced past Wiz Khalifa's See You Again , narrowing stealing the first video to hit 3 billion views trophy from it, became the most viewed video on the site, and has now surged even farther ahead it's currently at 3.425 billion views as of this  and its view count just keeps increasing. You can check Despacito's view count in the morning, write it down, and then check it in the evening to find that it's jumped up dramatically. Despacito not only somehow surpassed both the enormous view counts of Gangnam Style and See You Again in under a year, but it's on track to hit both 4 and 5 billion views this year too. Since becoming the most viewed video on YouTube, Despacito has been averaging an astonishing 18 million views a day. Because of this, I think that Despacito will never, ever be surpassed in YouTube views, and will remain the site's most viewed video for years to come. You could of course that argue that another ultra fast viewed video could come along one day and finally surpass it after all, a lot of people thought Gangnam Style's view count was unsurpassable. But remember, it took over four years for Gangnam Style to be knocked off its throne, and now Despacito has taken such an extreme lead that I don't think any video can possibly catch up. Obviously Despacito's view count will eventually slow down, but by the time that it does it will have so many views that it will safely remain in the lead permanently. . gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Luis Fonsi's \"Despacito\"' music video will never be surpassed in YouTube views."}
{"id":"c252387d-603a-4963-9072-fef3b096e62a","argument":"The belief that infidels and apostates must die is the problem, there is not even need to take that to extremes to see the dangers.","conclusion":"Many beliefs are themselves inherently intolerant and require neither fanaticism nor extremism to cause problems."}
{"id":"2411f890-145c-471e-ba84-d8511b58f35d","argument":"Before i get into the topic i'd like to say two things.Click back if you see this wall of text and think TLDR and secondly i identify politically as liberal my social views are pretty libertarian but my economic views are left centre left which is why i identify as liberal and i support efforts for equal treatment under the law and what is known in the social sciences as sociological agency meaning freedom from coercion that restrictions ones choices However i am skeptical of social constructivism for reasons that i disagree with the right over.I do not believe that people should be forced into societal roles,i'm skeptical of social construction not because i see it as morally decadent as many on the right do but because i question the many epistemic claims and theories that have been formulated primarily through phenomenology. The first thing i'd like to talk about is my experience with social science journals and research in general,i am extremely distrustful because of the continuous production of misleading research where the authors make a causal conclusion that relys on social construction.I'll point out a couple clear examples,gender studies research papers that don't account for marital status,parental status and age while talking about economic inequality and gender discrimination,studies concerning social institutions such as marriage and divorce that don't account for religion,political orientation,socio economics and their underlying correlates.Studies concerning religion and poverty that don't adjust for IQ. The reason is quite clear,a combination of politics and bad statistical method.I'll first take my aim at gender ,although there is differences between individuals as there is within any population there is this pervasive view within the gender studies community that gender roles are a construct enforced by a power structure to limit the agency of women.The ultimate test of this would be to take a look at the most gender equal country in the world,Sweden.In line with emphasizing and systematizing theory although both men and women are given affirmative action into gendered fields they both still choose to stay in gender normed field.A series of controversial claims have been published in economic evolutionary psychology journals never to see their day within a mainstream news publication.Such as the claim that women on average pursue men with status and resources at a higher frequency weather or not you're in the United states or patriarchal Nigeria,to the average man everything else is secondary to looks.The denial of such claims often takes shape of simone de beauvoirs concept of bad faith.A more fundamental question to ask is,have men and women really changed?The change in fundamental expectations of both genders in terms of how we treat each other is one of the things that is the result of culture however in terms of interests,preferences and behavioural expression much has stayed the same.Individuals aren't persecuted anymore for being different however as a collective we both remain gendered. Do genes matter?Within the social sciences the role of genes is severely under emphasised when a whole body of research has shown that the big 5 personality traits correlate highly with genetic markers meaning who you are as a person is largely out of your control.If you expose everyone to the same environment regardless of perspective with all the same temporal experiences hypothetically some people would adapt react differently than others.Personality traits are believed to for the most part be hardwired.Another touchy area is political affiliation,there is research that suggests that your scores on big 5 personality traits correlate highly with your political orientation and if we make the connection your personality dictates your beliefs. Private schools,they're useless i'll explain why.As a society based upon research by social scientists we've come to believe that poor people are poor mostly because of structural barriers.However research shows that income correlates highly with IQ g factor is largely genetic and all interventions thus far have produced refuted results because of poor controls or no results and private schools produce children that score higher than public school children because those who have the financial means to send their children to a private school generally are in a higher income bracket and because of such have a higher IQ.A study from a while back had a group of poor white black children were given vouchers by the government to attend a private school for elementary,the results?They actually preformed slightly worst than they did in a public school when the private school had an average grade that was above that of the rest of the country.Private schools are also selective with admissions. Criminology by large takes an approach that is modelled after sociology.Some researchers like they pat themselves on the back by showing the historical decline in the crime over several decades.However the decline coincides with the removal of lead in many household goods childrens toys which raises questions of weather or not directly human involvement concerning societal issues was responsible for the decline.It's worth noting that many poor black americans live in housing that still uses lead pipes. I am all for a society that treats all people as individuals equally concerning treatment and rights,however as Steven Pinker mentions in his work we're going to get to a point of which the empirical evidence will become so overwhelming to ignore.We need to mitigate differences,not pretend they don't exist.Society shouldn't force people into conforming to traditional or egalitarian gender roles,if choice produces unequal outcomes it doesn't matter as individual freedom is integral to western culture","conclusion":"I believe inequality is natural and that the only thing we can do is to protect the rights of individuals."}
{"id":"246277b1-1efe-4235-b6bb-955480db5aa2","argument":"\"A stone that can't be lifted by an omnipotent being\" isn't a thing that God can't create because it's not a thing, only a series of words that have been put in a certain order. This only defeats God's omnipotence in the same way as His inability to create a married bachelor.","conclusion":"Classical theists do not believe that omnipotence was ever meant to include logical impossibilities. There is no thing which God cannot do, and logical contradictions are not truly things but inconsistent bugs in language."}
{"id":"685ed498-7f9a-41bd-ae4e-6a7e2925b026","argument":"Often times my friends will point out a stranger and describes him as black to identify him, but when they point out a white person, they usually do not describe his race. I think this is inappropriate to do so because it unfairly labels and stereotypes this person. There is so many negative connotations with describing a person by their race whether, black or white or Asian or any other race.","conclusion":"I believe that labeling someone by race is wrong."}
{"id":"12f20f0c-dcb6-4f37-8b65-2f5bd4086783","argument":"Free and fair trade, even if not perfect, can be considered as the most ethical form of trade as it improves the lives of the most vulnerable the fastest.","conclusion":"Countries which allow free trade tend to grow faster and provide higher standards of living for their citizens in comparison to those who pursue protectionist policies."}
{"id":"95cf18ce-09c5-44c5-9c6f-b208c16d8d78","argument":"I think it is the best political system because it advocates the abolition of the state, capitalism, wages and private property while retaining respect for personal property , and in favor of common ownership of the means of production, direct democracy, and a horizontal network of voluntary associations and workers' councils with production and consumption based on the guiding principle from each according to his ability, to each according to his need . I also think it will end social stratification, coercion, and alienation.","conclusion":"I think Anarchist communism is the best political system."}
{"id":"0f6ed6bf-4eba-4c53-b068-29cb470e7105","argument":"The detention of a person for prospective crimes violates rights to fair trial and freedom from arbitrary detention in contravention of Articles 9, 14 and 15 of the International Convent on Civil and Political Rights","conclusion":"Human rights protections in some countries prevent preventive detention from operating."}
{"id":"bdbaeeaf-2590-4ed3-8e9b-e6f09e1fcfc3","argument":"Super unpopular opinion. But I really cant accept the idea that my boyfriend jerks it to images of other women when I'm not around. I've never needed it, I'm always open to sex, I don't see the purpose of it. Plus I feel less connected emotionally during sex when he tries to get me to do the same overtly sexual shit. Especially when theres little affection involved. Maybe the fact that I lost my virginity to him is what keeps me so closed to the idea. But in any case it feels degrading. Make love to me, don't just fuck me. I'm not a crazy bitch of a girlfriend either. Im not jealous, not insecure, I just take sex very seriously. Sidenote, watching together is a different story. We haven't done that but if he wanted to I wouldn't mind. But without me? No. Why? I have a great body. Text me and I'll send you pics. Thats not enough for you? Please tell me why. In any case, why do I still feel like the bad guy here?","conclusion":"I don't like my boyfriend looking at porn."}
{"id":"7a8e12da-603d-4424-9e72-20f8fe57837d","argument":"There could also be emergent properties within the grouping of neurons themselves that bring about a non-mental consciousness that controls free will. So really, free will isn't some material, but rather an outcome from the complexity of our neural connections.","conclusion":"HOLDING AREA for unresolved claims that have been flagged for some time. The purpose of this area is to ensure such claims are resolved within 7d of being flagged."}
{"id":"7775b843-39b5-471d-a34a-50a19d81929f","argument":"With work and school, there tends to be an arbitrary mandate that doctors notes are given for pretty much any situation concerning absence, withdrawal and health. If you go into work and have difficulty talking because your throat is sore you sound froggy that should be more than enough to substantiate your claim. Furthermore, if you can point to visible injuries such as cavities, and say This is causing me pain. You should not have to validate that by going in to a dentist to have him write you a note saying This guy might be in pain. I understand the underlying motive, if you're sick ailing you should be trying to get better. Work and School, should not have any say in how you handle your health issues. They should merely acknowledge that you have them and assume you are dealing with it in a manner that is consistent and appropriate for the situation. Concerning non visible audible things, I tend to have a much more reasonable time understanding. Saying I can't lift X because gastric abdominal pain. Is something that should be substantiated by a medical professional. Reason being is that you can't just common sense test it. .","conclusion":"If you have a visible\/audible health issue, a doctors note should not be required."}
{"id":"df8835fc-2da9-4707-a5e5-81167d93983d","argument":"Background on me I'm 25, a graduate student in soft sciences communications .Bilingual. Not religious, never have been. No desire to reproduce.  I think that overpopulation is the key to our problems as a species. I think that all humans should be tested at birth for common diseases disorders but also a lack of mental poorness autism and mental retardation Basically not sound fucked up I think people with psychological and mental problems should not be allowed to reproduce. While I don't believe their lives should be ended abruptly or in humanly, I don't think they should be a viable species to reproduce. If somehow the speculation can get pretty dim, which i wont discuss the world population was no longer such a strain on resources. In other posts I can discuss how a quote unquote plague can be beneficial to the population as a whole We may be able to advance and survive as species. However if we continue to try and help everyone, then truly no strong gene lives and we should all be accommodating to our weaker inferior genes. In common man terms we should release the anchors before they drown all of us. I think cost wise, the plan to help with the expenses of having a mentally retarded child should lay solely in the parent. I believe it to be more humane to abort those children, rather than to bring them forth and raise a special child with limited funds. Without these needy people and their needy children, we may have a chance at surving.","conclusion":"population reduction is key"}
{"id":"649cc691-870e-4a23-9c7e-7b9adcc0ce76","argument":"With the recent stories around Intel, Bitcoin, and Equifax, insider trading seems to be a big issue within the companies. Buying and selling shares of the company while knowing what the company is about to do seems perfectly rational. Here are my main points 1 It is unenforceable. Any time a shareholder buys or sells stock, they would have to run it through the government. They would need to run an investigation to see if there is any news within the company that could impact it for the positive or negative. There is simply not enough manpower for it. You could look at it on a case by case basis such as Intel, but this still requires a ton of manpower. If the stock changes price after anyone buys sells, then an investigation would need to be done. 2 It is unreasonable. Knowing that something will happen shouldn't bar employees from buying or selling stock. If it does, then they shouldn't be allowed to trade stock at all. If you know the value of something is about to raise, you buy it. A real life example is the price of gas at least here in Canada . You know days in advance if the price of gas will rise or lower. Usually with an accurate number to boot. If the issue lies in public knowledge, then it sorta makes sense. The sentiment is there. But the reality is, you can find out a lot of this sort of information. In the case of Bitcoin you could see the rate of bitcoin cash purchases. The sudden spike also drove up the price before the announcement even happened. With Intel, people have been talking about it for months. The only thing that happened was that Intel confirmed everything. 3 In America's current state, it is further unenforceable This is a smaller point that I wish weren't true, but it is worth mentioning nevertheless. This isn't my main point, just an aside. Big corporations get away with a lot. Way too much. The CEO's of Equifax still haven't had charges brought against them against their insider trading. Even if insider trading is proven to happen, nothing is done about it. They have too much money and thus power to be charged. I understand the sentiment of insider trading and the idea of public knowledge. I am just not convinced it makes sense to have as a law. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Insider trading should be legal."}
{"id":"8e39ea8f-85a7-4cb1-9771-7a2f1774e7b6","argument":"Over the past few weeks its been clear that many redditors are extremely disturbed and angered by PRISM and everything the NSA does, calling it an invasion of privacy and a sign of us becoming a police state. Personally, I see no problem with their surveillance. What effect does their information gathering have on my daily life? While 99.99 of the information they obtain may be completely meaningless, if there is just a little bit of knowledge they gain that can protect the lives of myself and others, I'm happy. I'm more than willing to give up a little privacy just for the chance that someone's life can be saved. As far as them knowing all our personal information, I really don't believe they care about us individually. There are over 300 million Americans, and to think that they are going to really care about your secrets or whatever is just absurd. All in all, I really just don't feel that government surveillance has a negative impact on my life in any way, but it does have the potential to do some good.","conclusion":"I see no problem with the NSA's surveillance on US citizens."}
{"id":"634826ba-3205-4249-a22e-9f4ffafafd7c","argument":"I recently got divorced and I now have to pay 30 of my income for the next three years to my spouse as alimony. My former spouse stayed at home and raised the kids, forgoing schooling and work experience that limited his earning power. We made this decision mutually as a couple and were both happy with the arrangement. When we split, the logic behind the alimony payments was that because we made the decision together for him to sacrifice earning power, I should help him while he gets back on his feet. That makes total sense to me and I have no qualms concerning my monthly payments. My issue comes in when the very same logic applied to force me sacrifice my income isn't applied to my spouse. When we decided I was going to be the working one, I made sacrifices as well. While my spouse was sacrificing earning power, I was sacrificing everything else. I sacrificed cooking experience, cleaning experience, social experiences, and more by working while my spouse was gaining those skills. If I have to pay alimony, why shouldn't he have to continue doing some of my laundry and cleaning? Why is it that after the marriage, things are only flowing one way when we both made sacrifices? I believe that if I have to pay 30 of my income for three years to my ex, they should be forced to continue providing 30 of the services that I sacrificed for when we chose to make me the worker and my spouse the stay at home parent. Another alternative I would accept is abolishing alimony. If we agree that these decisions are made together and when making the decision both the stay at home and working spouse knew that if things went haywire, everyone was on their own, I wouldn't mind the one way street that is alimony. If my spouse can choose to stay at home with the safety of knowing that if it doesn't work out they will have a portion of my income to start over, I should have the safety of knowing I will continue to have a portion of services provided for me if the marriage ends.","conclusion":"If I have to pay 30% of my income to my former spouse as alimony he or she should be forced to continue providing 30% of their cooking, cleaning, laundry, etc. to me."}
{"id":"6e3ed886-ddc5-4f54-bc53-0794d4ad297f","argument":"My understanding is that one of the reasons women cover their hair in a religious or cultural context is to prevent men from becoming aroused tempted by her beauty in day to day life. A lot of women don't see it this way and choose to cover to honor their culture or whatever, but I don't understand why this is not seen as a sexist relic of the past. As a woman born and raised in the US, I just can't imagine voluntarily wearing something that symbolizes such oppression. Doesn't the fact that these women don't view it as oppressive, propagate that very thing?","conclusion":"Women who voluntarily wear headscarves or hijabs for cultural\/religious reasons are perpetuating sexism."}
{"id":"defecd95-4b5f-4393-8c7f-6e422ec009bf","argument":"Civil rights movements have often appealed to the principle that the proper way to treat someone is as a sovereign individual. The reason why blacks, or gay people, or trans people deserve respect is because they are human, not because of their particular identity.","conclusion":"There is a massive difference between modern identity politics and groups advocating for themselves, or even civil rights."}
{"id":"409b6f8d-645c-4e8a-8d16-bef2cc1191bc","argument":"Safe sex should be promoted in all schools; the more teens who are informed the better. Not all schools promote safe sex and a few schools don\u2019t even give sexual education, so is it right to say that the amount of STDs amongst teenagers and pregnant teens is due to the promotion of safe sex? It might also be good to consider that the amount of pregnant teens and teens with STDs are due to lack of information given to all teenagers in the whole nation. After all, the Netherlands, famous for its very frank sex education, has both a higher age of first sexual experience, and much lower rates of teenage pregnancy and STD infection than countries such as the USA and the UK. And research shows that abstinence education often fails \u2013 inevitably many teens who sign chastity pledges do end up having sex, and because they have not been taught about safe sex methods, they are much more likely to become pregnant or infected as a result.","conclusion":"Safe sex should be promoted in all schools; the more teens who are informed the better. Not all sch..."}
{"id":"f68da224-cc99-43bf-bc57-89d0b2cf49d3","argument":"Gender is referred to as roles, behaviours, activities and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for men and women, so it must be socially constructed.","conclusion":"There is a human need to label people indicating that all social echelons and categorizations including gender are social constructs."}
{"id":"33adc3c3-85cd-489f-b494-83f996c84bf3","argument":"Religious people tend to believe they have a purpose in life, they do the right thing, behave in the correct way and have ethical superiority which creates division, criticism and hate.","conclusion":"While it may have fostered unity amongst like believers, religion has historically caused more division, conflict and violence amongst groups than it has ever unified them."}
{"id":"aaaa4914-81c6-4788-a769-eb16739d1d48","argument":"Compatibilism holds that for every individual there exists a hypothetical exhaustive list of preferences and tendencies called their nature, which is not freely determined by the individual and thus determined by something external to them. That individual then wills makes decisions in a way that predictably follows from their nature and other data, and acts in a way that predictably follows from their will. It's unclear how any change to this formula would make an individual more free.","conclusion":"According to compatibilism free choices can be made even if God knows them beforehand."}
{"id":"0a9107fc-a663-4f74-888f-fc59a3c48eed","argument":"Heads of state in Qatar Kuwait Saudi Arabia Jordan Oman and Morocco are among the biggest landowners of the world and and all of their countries have an official state religion Islam.","conclusion":"Most of the world\u2019s biggest landowners are monarchs from countries with official state religions that support the monarchy or heads of religions themselves."}
{"id":"3057fc0a-3147-47af-b49f-6a9ba67f3d25","argument":"High-rise housing has a deep negative social impact both at the collective and the individual level. By limiting living space and access to outdoors private areas that have traditionally played an important role in supporting large families, high-rise housing encourages smaller, nuclear and single-parents families, breaking down traditional connections. It also has a deep impact on the individual by putting intense pressure on him\/her to compromise, deal with noise, small spaces and lack of privacy. High-rise housing is also not ideal for children and families, breeding conflict, little investment in public spaces, few safe playing grounds and creating spaces that often isolate the individual affecting his\/her emotional growth and ability to communicate and relate to others1. In Toronto, where a sprawling metropolis has led to a lack of low-rise homes, families are having to turn reluctantly to apartments. As an expert on the Toronto housing market notes, 'high-rise condo units tend not to be very efficient for two parents and multiple children'2. Children need room to run around and stretch their legs; parents need an escape from their children. High-rise living prevents this, and inevitably drives stress levels up. 1Society Guardian. 2002, January 2. Ups and downs of high-rise living. Retrieved June 20, 2011, from Guardian 2Van de Ven, L. 2011, June 30. Market News: High-rises outpace houses. Retrieved July 5, 2011 from Market News","conclusion":"High-rise housing has a negative impact on family relations"}
{"id":"f07c15f4-2576-4886-890e-36b26bdcdcd1","argument":"Many people don't know the difference between respect and courtesy. Don't tell me to respect someone just because you're a senior, a veteran or an authority figure. They didn't do anything to earn my respect. If by respect you mean doing things like listening to them speak, holding doors, being polite,etc then yes, i'll do it. But that's not respect, that's courtesy. Respect is a feeling of deep admiration for ones personality, beliefs achievement or all round being. Therefore it should be inaccurate to say that you respect someone you don't know because you would have no prior knowledge of them or what they have done to be respected. If you are somehow referring to respect as treating people kindly, then yes, i do think that should be a given, but stop falsely call it respect, call it courtesy or good manner. Everyone deserves courtesy, but very few deserve respect.","conclusion":"Respect must be earned, courtesy is given"}
{"id":"ab82194a-4ae9-4723-b1e0-dc1085c69e09","argument":"Theresa May has recently continued to show that she does not support a second referendum, saying that a second referendum would threaten social cohesion and shatter faith in democracy I think that, perhaps, faith in democracy needs a bit of shattering. Brexit has proven some of democracy's largest flaws groups of politicians can lie to the masses about numbers they can't verify themselves think big buses saying brexit is going to add hundreds of millions of pounds to the NHS budget , have it completely work when the people vote for what is nearly an economically objectively poor decision, admit they lied about things, and get away with it with no consequences, and then any attempt to rectify the situation is seen as threatening democracy. Well, if that's how democracy can work, perhaps democracy has some flaws after all that we should look into mitigating instead of pretending its a perfect system of government. TLDR Even if a second referendum were to shatter people's faith in democracy, considering democracy got us into this situation, it ought to be shattered.","conclusion":"A second Brexit referendum would absolutely \"shatter faith in democracy\" as May claims, but that's a good thing."}
{"id":"32eaedbd-b571-4846-b1db-3243f4fd5317","argument":"Hello fellow open minders. This is my first  and I chose a pretty important topic for me. I live in this town where there are many people with communist ideas and some of my closest friends have these beliefs. I often find myself arguing with my friends about communism because I have a stiff belief that communism will always lead to a dictatorship or some authoritarian government like it happened in the USSR and still happens in countries like Cuba, Venezuela and China I didn't refer North Korea on purpose . But my friends say that communism was poorly implemented and their governments were just corrupt, and they say that communism is going to be someday a good regime, unlike the ones in Eastern Europe and so on. I searched a lot on communism and Marx's Manifesto, and it still seems to me that those ideas can only lead to non democratic regime.","conclusion":"I have this strong belief that communism will only lead to dictatorships"}
{"id":"dee38363-693e-488c-86b3-b68670a55fef","argument":"Our physical brains follow the laws of thermodynamics, and the principles of information processing systems we've come to understand we're Turing machines among others. No combination of randomness whether quantum or emergent pseudo-random and determinism puts us the driver seat with upstream control over our physical brains. We can and do discover & then cultivate novel *degrees of freedom*, a hallmark of complex adaptive systems. This is not freedom to do otherwise, but to change & learn.","conclusion":"Compatiblism is widely supported and popular within the academic community."}
{"id":"885c8d92-224b-4984-8715-172492d0bf06","argument":"The Orthodox Tewhahedo broader New Testament canon does not match that of the narrower canon or other biblical adherents.","conclusion":"The Orthodox Tewahedo Canon is commonly divided into two categories, the narrower canon and the broader canon."}
{"id":"48ed4bf2-1088-4952-a1f6-bc7c8e01f1d5","argument":"It is possible to cause significant distress to someone else, perhaps by sending 'angry' feelings to them or by transmitting traumatic memories.","conclusion":"Having the technological capacity to transmit thoughts, feelings and memories can have negative implications."}
{"id":"a92eb3a8-1796-4346-bc9f-1eb620d4b479","argument":"Many 'straightpassing individuals those whose perceived sexual orientation or sexuality differs the one they identify with may feel under pressure to justify why they should be allowed within an LGBTQ+ space.","conclusion":"Enforcing rules like this would mean to assume one\u2019s sexual orientation or identity, which could bring more harmful consequences than the alleged benefits."}
{"id":"9c4e5c0c-9f13-4a5c-a926-eed5364e8a57","argument":"Being transgender has nothing to do with a desire to change one's sexed body. A person is transgender when they identify as a gender that does not align with the one they have been assigned at birth and which society assigns them in daily interactions.","conclusion":"People insisting that they are non-binary are creating a false binary between those who conform to the gender norms associated with their sex, and those who do not. In reality, we are all non-binary."}
{"id":"f172d714-a387-4747-9d1f-7046ebc7682a","argument":"Children may not feel like they can fully develop into themselves without the space and privacy to self-express and socialize.","conclusion":"This could lead to children not being ready for the world by the time they grow up."}
{"id":"a16b2b6d-7511-4acc-9984-73492db4a2f2","argument":"It's in the language, the themes, the things people say when talking about sex Guys talk about wrecking girls, ruining them. Guys brag about cumming into a girls eye as if humiliating them is some sort of achievement. They talk about convincing girls into anal and then laughing about how she really didn't seem to like it as if that's the best part. Sex is treated like some sort of game where your goal is to lower your partner as much as possible. Fucking a drunk girl from the bar in the ass is not nearly as brag worthy or notable as de virginizing a girl over a trashcan. It's in the expectations and language of women too Women want a man that can fuck the shit out of them. Its about not being able to walk the next day. Women take it , or are the ones getting fucked. Women brag about being submissive, or that their willing to do anything as if these are excellent qualities to have. I could go on, but I think you get the point. . Edit Thanks for all the replies some great, some not so much You have all helped me realized that 1 My viewpoint is very narrow because I have a very limited set of experiences social groups 2 That I know tons of terrible people 3 That I can't generalize sex and that the majority of sexual interactions may not fit my description of it 4 That maybe not all sex is an act of domination and degradation However I am astounded that many of you don't believe this stuff goes on. Or that I'm getting lied to, or that the minority of guys that do this type of stuff aren't very successful with women. All I can say is that you people are very lucky to have never been exposed to these elements of society. So, please go on not believing me, because you will be much much happier for it, I won't try and dissuade you further. But I will thank you nonetheless because your naivete has convinced me that maybe, just maybe, these elements aren't a majority You wouldn't be so dismissive or outraged by my statements if they were . As for a delta, I haven't decided yet since I am not totally changed of mind. However some of you gave some very well thought out arguments and certainly gave me something to think about, so I'll consider those.","conclusion":"Sex is an act of one person dominating, humiliating and degrading another."}
{"id":"b78b5c5d-d3f5-4615-892f-bf35983a0e80","argument":"I believe that the United states was wrong in dropping the atomic bombs on Japan at the conclusion of World War II. I think this way because of the mass civilian casualties, over 100,000. These civilians were not part of the fight for a reason, they didn't want to be. So why was it acceptable for the US military to bomb two cities that have been proven to show no militaristic advantages. I believe that there would be much better ways to end this war than to brutally kill civilians, and give others a death sentence radiation . .","conclusion":"I think that the United States should not have dropped the Atomic Bombs on Japan."}
{"id":"8eb30569-b39b-41cb-8758-5ae75e93c02f","argument":"My basis is this eating or killing certain animals isn't wrong as long as they are in a certain category. For me animals belong in one of three categories. 1.Resource like cows and chickens these animals are raised with the sole intent of killing them for food. 2. Companion like dogs or cats these are kept with humans not to eat but for friendship. Except for extreme survival circumstances these shouldn't be eaten. And lastly 3. Wild animals basicly everything else is in this category these animals can be killed and eaten but shouldn't be killed without cause. Either it attacked you or you plan to eat it. Any animal can be a companion animal as long as it's being raised in that manner.","conclusion":"It is okay to kill and eat animals only on certain categories."}
{"id":"f0ec3bc6-a26b-4338-bc91-1f59dff38ef3","argument":"My mother practices reflexology so I'm informed about her practices and similar ones. It seems nearly all of them are not supported by the scientific method. The only proof out there is from anecdotes, placebos, authoritarian fallacies and other cognitive biases. Nevertheless, these practices are advertised as effective and sometimes even more effective than traditional medicine. This is dangerous to people with serious diseases who choose alternative over traditional, and possibly worsen their situation. The most common arguments I hear from practitioners of alternative medicine are Traditional medicine is too capitalistic doesn't treat the root cause of the disease is subject to error. None of those arguments justify the use of alternative medicine as a good alternative. Capitalism has inherently nothing to do with the use of the scientific method and is a separate issue altogether. Moreover, traditional medicine has cured polio and is close to curing other global diseases as well. What has alternative medicine achieved? gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Alternative medicine is useless and should never be supported."}
{"id":"0b30e584-fa3f-4f5c-865a-77544518b77d","argument":"Kim Il-sung himself opposed the \"way of eating and being eaten - or in other words \"unification by means of absorption\", and therefore argued for '1 state, 2 systems', as opposed to SK's '1 state, 1 system' p. 7.","conclusion":"SK's unification goals include the eventual democratic absorption of NK, this is not a goal shared by NK as they are vehemently opposed."}
{"id":"b6656e85-4406-458a-9eed-fb75f40c5260","argument":"Recently, this image Might be NSFL for some people was posted to another sub reddit, and people were talking about the driver being 100 at fault and anyone who claimed otherwise was pretty much downvoted to oblivion. However, I think it is foolish to assign 100 of the blame on the driver. Yes, the driver should have stopped for the pedestrian, but the pedestrian also should have walked slowly across the street to make sure the people in the other lanes have stopped, too. Likewise, if someone leaves their car doors unlocked and their wallet purse other valuables in plain sight, they should accept some of the fault if it their stuff gets stolen. So that's my view. Change it.","conclusion":"I don't see anything wrong with assigning some blame to a victim that failed to take proper precautions"}
{"id":"211d1a37-4197-4fe3-9bdf-e413ff8e1786","argument":"EDIT My view has definitely been changed. I don't want to sound like I was actually here to change my view, because I wasn't. I just wanted to test how strong my opinion was and it was about as solid as piss. Because I missed so many probably obvious and important points despite holding this view for at least a year, it is obvious I've got some underlying prejudices I have to work through. Thanks to the people who commented though. It will make a big difference in the real world I'm sure. Also, I have a daughter, which means that now she will benefit throughout her life from not having Daddy's asshole opinion about a topic that is relevant to many many people. Thanks for doing my parenting for me, suckers I hold this view because I believe that weight and it's various consequences, disease or the lack of it, are a part of personal hygiene. Some people find it difficult to lose weight for many reasons. I get that. I fucking despise working out until I finish doing it. It's awful stuff, I'd much rather be doing other less strenuous shit. But I still do it anyway because even though I'm not built like a brick shit house Australian for big and tough I still find that it maintains the shape of my body. If I didn't work out then I would get fat or at least start looking pretty sloppy i.e. gut etc. But When that starts to happen I eat a little better and work out and do my best to pull away from being fat or obese. If I didn't have showers twice a day I would stink. It sucks. People don't think I smell bad but it's because I put in the effort to shower when I wake up and before I go to sleep. If I didn't I would stink and people would react accordingly. If I stank enough to need 3 showers then I would do my best to do so. Even if there was a trend running in the wealthier parts of the world where more people were stinking, I would still try to shower enough. I wouldn't just accept it. Please, if anyone is thinking of posting an argument saying that it's really hard for some people , or anything close to that, do not do it. I get for a select few, weight must be impossible to lose. We are human, some people are born with hearts out of their fucking chest, I'm sure some people just literally can't lose weight. But I don't believe all the fat people here in Australia and America should even think about asking to not be teased or ridiculed. Obviously, I don't advocate street rallies against the fatties. I'm just saying that as far as people would normally ridicule stinky people or dirty people then so should that level of ridicule be due obese people. Some people stink more and so they have to shower more. Some people gain weight quicker or faster or easier and so they should be more healthy and work out harder to avoid being fat otherwise they are fair game. . I am sorry a little bit if I come off sounding like an asshole. I'm not that sorry, but I am mildly apologetic despite it being my intention. I just am curious to see if people can  on seeing the broad obesity problem in the West as a personal hygiene failing. THIS ALSO MEANS THAT I WOULD REALLY LIKE PEOPLE NOT TO TRY TO  BY CITING THEIR FAT COUSIN OR FAT SELVES WHO HAVE A DISEASE DISALLOWING FAT LOSS OR EXERCISE. So change my view or just tell me I'm wrong. Feel free to be hostile if I am blatantly wrong.","conclusion":"Obese people deserve the same amount of ridicule at the same intensity felt by people who don't shower enough or fail to use deodorant. Obesity shouldn't be defended or have any concessions made for it because it is a failing in one's personal hygiene."}
{"id":"b07ffaed-99c5-4e5a-a573-ed6dc74114d5","argument":"First things first, this is my first  and I'm an American millennial, so this view may come off pretty biased so excuse me on that. This is a pretty straightforward view of mine. Society, at least in the U.S., has progressed pretty well but the media convinces older generations that it hasn't by making the world seem like an ugly place and that it's only getting worse. There are a handful of conflicts that have been going on for the past couple of decades, but we haven't had major war in the world since 1945. Also, when's the last time you heard of a statistic on hitchhiking killings and home invasion murders and not a horror story? Another side of this view is the social angle. Older people say that this generation is worse than theirs. I mean, it's so obvious right? Look at all these videos of kids doing idiotic stunts in their backyards, downing spoonfuls of cinnamon, and lighting up their assholes. Well I'm fairly certain that if Gen X and the baby boomers had massive video sharing websites like Youtube and Vine that they would be subjected to this statement as well, since I'm sure they were also young and doing not the brightest things with their people as well. People saying that the world is going to shit because of this generation is ridiculous. That's what the generation before theirs said as well and they were just as wrong. Each generation has only progressed human society forward and that doesn't make for exciting media coverage if it's not a major milestone or something violent scandalous and uninformed persons can be easily swayed by this. With all that said, I hope to get a couple replies from the other side of this argument so I can come to an honestly objective view on whether or not the media is to blame for this or if it's just a minority of the older generation that make me believe they think this or something else I'm not thinking of , thank you.","conclusion":"Society hasn't gotten worse, it's actually gotten a lot better and older people think it's gotten worse because of the media."}
{"id":"d360fcd5-6744-4547-9c4c-103072d7db2a","argument":"I won't bore you with my life story but I'll give you a good idea of how I developed this thinking. When I was 26 years old I was a college dropout but high school grad and had no skills whatsoever, so I moved from job to job a lot. I found myself hating my life at 26 with no future or prospects, so basically every day I'd go to work, then I'd come home and play video games they are what helped me get away from the reality of life . On the weekends if I wasn't working or staying indoors gaming , I'd go out with friends. A friend of mine in Seattle was posting some nice pictures of his apt. car on facebook, I basically started talking to him and we got to talking about jobs, I basically said I wish I could do what you do man , to which he said well you can learn , and he basically talked to me about how he programmed and that most companies didn't require a degree, but skill. Long story short , I would wake up an hour early every morning learning to program and whenever I came home, would spend all my time learning some more instead of gaming . I'd go out about once a month on the weekend as opposed to every weekend. Nine months later I quit my job and got an entry level programing job where my salary wasn't too bad still much better than stocking shelves . It's been about 6 years since I made that decision and I've finally broken six figures though I admit it's only that high because it's a major metropolis . However anywhere else in the country I'd be making at least 80k. The point I'm trying to make is I really think that people who complain are not necessarily lazy, but have no initiative. They'd rather facebook or game or watch pointless videos than learn a skill in demand.","conclusion":"I went from stocking shelves in a grocery store to programmer in < 1 year, so I believe that the minimum wage is just fine and people would rather complain than put in effort."}
{"id":"7257520d-9d80-4edb-905b-f6175c4d5e75","argument":"Tibet, and the resistance Tibetans continue to show to Chinese rule presents a toxic domestic and international political problem that costs far more than it worth. Domestically, violence in Tibet is the most serious domestic disturbance facing the Chinese government, and the fact that there is nearly constant violence between Han Settlers and Tibetans forces the Chinese to alienate everyone in order to contain it. Furthermore, the economic and political disenfranchisement of the Tibetan people is an enormous domestic problem, as it has led to large numbers becoming unemployed and moving to other parts of China where they form an underclass. Internationally, the Tibetan issue keeps China\u2019s Human Rights record in the news and almost torpedoed the 2008 Olympic games. Given that China is already losing money on the province, it may well be worth it for China to jettison it in order to gain much greater international benefits.","conclusion":"Tibet presents an explosive domestic political issue for China which the latter would benefit from eliminating"}
{"id":"dd1b7634-fe8a-45ff-90d2-d20d4ad9cc53","argument":"Kurdish forces from across the region have already showed the willingness to fight for fellow Kurdish liberty when Iraqi Kurdish fighters supported Syrian Kurdish fighters.","conclusion":"It could also aggravate them and cause occasional flareups to turn into potential inter-state wars."}
{"id":"d5f6208d-db7c-41c6-bdef-70f77808f874","argument":"Premise 1 Looks matter. It's an uncomfortable fact that we try to avoid, but it's been shown time and time again that attractive people live happier lives, are treated better, and experience the halo effect which is that people attribute all good qualities to them, even ones unrelated to looks. Attractive people have an unfair advantage not just in the dating world, but they are usually hired sooner, paid more, and are more likely to be found innocent in court. Premise 2 Modern, well done plastic surgery is relatively low risk and looks natural. I am not talking about people who get extreme surgeries to make their ass huge or to look like a barbie doll, but procedures that improve asymmetries, like nose jobs, chin implants, or fillers. When performed by a reputable surgeon with a track record of great results, these procedures can look completely natural and have a high rate of satisfaction. My view People who decide to get plastic surgery to become more attractive, or to improve certain asymmetries deficiencies, should not be demonized or looked down upon. With reasonable goals, realistic expectations, and a reputable surgeon, plastic surgery can truly improve a person's life for the better, and we should support those who decide to do so. Caveat There are certain situations in which plastic surgery should not be recommended or supported, such as for someone with mental health issues related to their looks that would be better treated by a psychiatrist rather than a plastic surgeon, for someone who is not financially stable enough to afford it, or for someone with unrealistic expectations about what plastic surgery can achieve a nose job will fix all my problems and make my life perfect vs a nose job could make my nose more symmetrical and aesthetic . EDIT Since so many people are commenting about the taboo aspect, I would like to clarify by saying we should treat someone walking around with a nose cast on post nose job the same way we'd treat someone with braces. They both achieve similar goals, but in my experience one is basically ignored, while the other is seen as vain weird fake.","conclusion":"Plastic surgery should no longer be seen as \"taboo\""}
{"id":"9e3054f9-8d2c-4eae-9a87-6df092efa255","argument":"Gives school districts the opportunity to demonstrate proficiency, even for subgroups that do not meet State Minimum Achievement standards, through a process called \"safe harbor,\" a precursor to growth-based or value-added assessments.","conclusion":"NCLB has safeguards for schools that are failing despite proficiency."}
{"id":"3fbf66dc-a48d-4b89-b7d2-60a520e0f4ef","argument":"The government should end the war on drugs. It has proven to be costly to the taxpayers and has yielded very little results. Over the past 40 years, the US government has spent over 1 trillion dollars enforcing drug laws. Since the war on drugs began, drug use has expanded steadily, the exact opposite outcome the war is meant to effect. Instead of stopping people from using drugs, we should aim at either legalizing at least some of the drugs, or reducing the harshness of the sentences for drug related crimes. If the US legalized at least some of the drugs, it could then tax them to generate revenue and removing the income tax burden on middle class families. The US government could spend the money it used on the war on drugs on other programs such as promoting infrastructure, economic growth, etc gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"End the war on drugs."}
{"id":"b084bbb1-92f9-42e4-8c3a-8be2c8fa5b94","argument":"The rape culture discussion is an issue that has been stirred up a lot lately, most recently with a US presidential candidate's comments about how some women are so enamored by fame, they will let a man do almost anything to them. While obviously these private comments are regrettable, words are never necessarily actions and I disagree with the leap that they embody rape culture or a pervasive cultural normalization of entitlement to women's bodies. For one, this denies the agency of women who respond favorably to forward behavior. As a man, I am allowed to be attracted to a powerful woman who is sexually aggressive without indicting her dominance. But more centrally to my , this illuminates the problems with society continuing on a script where outside very specific parameters, sexual contact is shameful for women and female sexuality is demonized. Reading through the horrific NotOkay stories shared on Twitter by women who have been sexually assaulted I was particularly struck by how many felt unable to come forward after their assaults. If a woman is ever victimized, she should never be made uncomfortable by authorities for being immediate, confrontational, and forceful in her rebuke. But I don't think the commonly arising discomfort stems from a common belief that men feel entitled to women's bodies. I can't deny that in the past, a reluctance by authorities to investigate or a tendency to blame the female may have been prevalent. But without question, in 2016 no man can get away with an excuse of being ignorant to the concept of consent to justify an alleged sexual assault. If our worthy goal is to continue reducing the number sexual assaults in society today, it cannot be achieved through policing men's thoughts and fantasies though certainly we should aggressively police and prosecute their actions . It has to be done by elevating women's thoughts and fantasies, and removing the persistent culture of shame around women and sex. This cultural attitude is perpetuated just as often by women towards women, if not more so. By the same token, I don't think this goal is served by perpetuating a notion that sexual assault has to result in unrecoverable victimization. Of course some people are deeply scarred by these events, and society should do everything it can to assist them. But society also should not force anyone to define themselves by a single occurrence in their life. I really believe the only way to fix the problems currently attributed to rape culture are to reach a point in society where women can initiate sexual contact without judgement, and banter about sexual conduct with the same shameless suggestive freedoms men enjoy. If women know they can speak freely about sex, men know they can't get away with untoward actions in silence. Obviously as a man my perspective might be parochial, and I don't want to be seen as a rape apologist or anything, so please change my view","conclusion":"The problem is not rape culture, but shame culture"}
{"id":"728cfc00-3215-4802-bdd1-642a35438186","argument":"I see the tipping drama on Reddit fairly often and i see guys commenting that they tip cute and hot waitress more for being cute. I think this behavior makes you a lesser man , a wimp , cuckold and creates power balance in industry where he could have had a male waitress doing the same quality service and he gets less tips for that than average service from bubbly hot 18 year old.","conclusion":": A man who tips waitress extra for looking cute is a chump"}
{"id":"09325769-471e-47bc-881b-9d54c015d76a","argument":"Belief bias is the tendency to judge the strength of arguments based on the plausibility of their conclusion rather than how strongly they support that conclusion. A person is more likely to accept arguments that supports a conclusion that aligns with values, beliefs and prior knowledge, while rejecting counter arguments to the conclusion. It is an extremely common and therefore significant form of error; we can easily be blinded by our beliefs and reach the wrong conclusion.","conclusion":"Increasing the social value of religion would likewise increase religion's influence on culture. This would further bias society's ability to perceive and interpret phenomenon equitably and impartially."}
{"id":"903db391-ca7d-4327-830a-93d3c6d15857","argument":"This topic is kinda relevant to my life right now. I guess you could say that my life lacks direction, but that would imply that it needs direction, which is exactly what this post is about. So my question is, why do anything? Firstly, the only reason I've been provided with to participate in this society up until this point, is social pressure and expectation. Both of those have not been particularly fun, and it makes me not a little frustrated to seemingly have been made to suffer like this. I mean, it seems like that's all we do, we impulse each other based on an ingrained idea that we're deficient if we don't do x y and z. Well, so far so good. I figured, screw that and started ignoring it, and now it seems like there's nothing left to do. I mean, the one thing I know is that I don't want to suffer more. And it seems like all my plans for the future, dreams, expectations of myself were little more than a combination of fanciful daydreams and distractions from that suffering. So I suppose through a combination of resentment of the social conditioning that's been forced upon me, and the ultimate meaninglessness that seems to result from ignoring it, I feel like I couldn't bring myself to do anything anymore. Anyone have some views on this? Edit Thank you all so much for the responses I really appreciate all of you taking the time to share your perspectives","conclusion":"I have no moral obligation to contribute anything to this society."}
{"id":"7352a5d7-215e-4e56-9a5c-4cfa4af879ed","argument":"Since there is no internationally agreed upon definition of terrorism, countries can exploit the concept to label political opponents as 'terrorists'.","conclusion":"Removing accounts of terror organizations sets a dangerous precedent for other countries to fight their 'terrorists'."}
{"id":"06c41b05-dd2b-450b-a9d5-257878729c43","argument":"Japan was chosen, because of the construction of its buildings They were likely to be more damaged by the bomb than the ones in Germany.","conclusion":"Japan was selected to be a better target than Nazi Germany in 1943."}
{"id":"4d71a182-212a-4ba5-888c-9e1677d0447e","argument":"With the disappearance of pension plans, weaker 401ks, and increasingly expensive health insurance options corporations have got people to buy into the idea of greater personal responsibility as well as other ideas such as being lucky just to have a job that they have warped people's idea of what acceptable behavior is to where we have lowered the bar of expectation from them. The only way to get reverse this course is push back very hard and make sure people aren't just being payed living wages , but excellent wages along with good benefits. People need to get companies back on board with looking out for their employees just as much as they look out for their company shareholders because if they only push for the minimum they won't even achieve that and if they do we will lose those achievements quickly to inflation and companies who want to get rid of those improvements as quickly as possible.","conclusion":"The 1% and corporations in the US have been so successful in pushing off financial burdens and responsibilities onto employees that the only way to get the scales back to some normality is to take hard-line stances on what is acceptable."}
{"id":"b9ee300b-81af-4e91-ad95-639be5dab136","argument":"Forgot to include  in the title and got removed, reposting with a few edits for clarity. I want to be clear in my intent I don\u2019t believe it is misguided, insulting or problematic for someone choosing to identify themselves as a survivor rather than as a victim. I can intellectually understand the psychological benefit of reframing, and emotionally understand the ways this vocabulary can be an empowering and a significant tool for recovery. I support that. I\u2019m not here to tell anyone how they should react, process or define their experiences. My view that the concept and expectation of Survivor and associated rejection of Victim is diminishing. I would like to examine this perception. \u2014\u2014 I did not survive anything. No one hurt me, physically. Physical harm is obviously not a requirement or measuring stick for rape, which is precisely why I take issue with this. To say I survived suggests that a stranger attacked me in a dark alley and left me for dead, which reinforces the idea that \u201clegitimate rape\u201d is limited to violent attacks on a stranger. My life was not in danger. I had little or no discernible signs of physical harm on my body. Ironically, that fact is perhaps the best evidence of my lack of participation in the act. Why would I define myself around living when no one tried to kill me? It creates hierarchy. Of course rape does endanger, kill and physically harm people. Many people survived rape. My point above is that calling all rape victims survivors carries with it a requirement of violence, and those who were not physically harmed are seen as not having been raped. This distinction is appropriate and necessary in sentencing, but the term survivor skews the societal perception of rape and perpetuates rape culture. I AM a victim. If someone implants a device in your arm that sporadically electrocutes you for the rest of your life, you\u2019re not choosing a victim mindset, you are a victim of a crime and continue to be the victim of a crime. You didn\u2019t ask for it and can\u2019t control it, yet you pay for it and suffer all the physical, psychological and social consequences of it. Someone did this to you, you are a victim. EDIT in case I articulated this one to sound like it\u2019s just about semantics, I want to give it another shot I don\u2019t think there is anything wrong with someone thinking about themselves as a victim, because it is a reminder to themselves and everyone else that it\u2019s not their fault, which can lessen some of the shame. Keeping the focus on the fact that they were victimized also allows someone to feel and process anger. Survivor is good in that it implies \u201cthis didn\u2019t break me\u201d but can send a message that diminishes the fact that \u201csomeone did this to me and it sucks\u201d I haven\u2019t achieved anything. Survivor is active. It implies rising above and achieving against all odds. Rape doesn\u2019t build character or make me a better person, I have not overcome a temporary roadblock and channeled it into something positive, nor should I be held accountable for doing so. Glorifying the fact that someone was the victim of a crime and turning it into something inspirational benefits everyone except the victim. It absolves the rapist of wrongdoing. Survivor suggests something that used to be bad is resolved, removed, not so bad. Whereas Victim requires a perpetrator and a crime. Removing the rapist from the conversation and lessening the significance of the offense in order to create a new survivor narrative is harmful and diminishing. Let\u2019s keep the focus on the rapist. It blames the victim. Telling someone they should be calling themselves a survivor conflates being victimized on the receiving end of a crime, not at fault with living in a state of victimhood at fault, self indulgent, lazy, helpless, weak . Someone who is raped is neither strong nor weak by virtue of having been on the receiving end of a crime. The term survivor places a burden on the victim to thrive and exhibit strength, so as not to be perceived as weak and helpless. Why should either of those assumptions be assigned to begin with? Survivor creates and reinforces a negative association that being a victim is something shameful. \u2014\u2014 Again, those who choose to redefine themselves as survivors are doing just that making a choice. They are not diminishing themselves or anyone else, and to suggest otherwise would be equally diminishing and a violation of their agency.","conclusion":"- The term \u201crape survivor\u201d as opposed to \u201crape victim\u201d is diminishing"}
{"id":"760d5e74-410f-4cba-9878-c175302e6d6e","argument":"While jailing tries to deal with the causes in its aftermath through re-socialisation, the death penalty literally eradicates the symptons.","conclusion":"The death penalty does not fight the causes of crime, but only the symptoms."}
{"id":"f29b98ab-02fa-4f4a-8592-c66905de755e","argument":"Since the introduction of the Equal Pay Act in 1963, it has been illegal for a man to get paid more than a woman when they work the same job in the same geographical location.","conclusion":"The assumption behind the Democratic Party's pro equal-pay position is that the reason for the pay gap is gender based discrimination. This is false."}
{"id":"2ed146a3-ce52-485e-994f-f7bb0f65fcec","argument":"I\u2019ve noticed quite a few people don\u2019t believe in this rule. If you go to someone\u2019s place and they allow you to smoke weed there, you are required to share with them, regardless of if they have their own or not. It\u2019s just common sense, you come into my house, you start smoking weed in my house, you better let me smoke with you or else you can go somewhere else. There is no reason someone who brings weed to your place shouldn\u2019t share with you. It is your house, if they want to smoke in your house, they should share with you, free of charge.","conclusion":"If you go to someone\u2019s place and they allow you to smoke your weed there, you should share with them for free."}
{"id":"8da8db8c-cd96-484f-8584-be6e5760c1f8","argument":"Women still fear for their safety when rejecting romantic interest from male strangers See: incel","conclusion":"Women are still subject to disproportionate and gendered physical violence in many instances."}
{"id":"22b3060b-3a46-4a26-becf-3f3dd742d507","argument":"Look at the list of all these people nominated to be TIME Person of the Year. All of them have clearly done something to change the world. What people like Edward Snowden has done pales in comparison to what Miley would be able to change in the world. You get three presidents of countries that constantly affect how the entire world perceives different things. So Miley Cyrus made the headlines on a few tabloids, why does that matter? There are people like Lady Gaga who has done the same Acting weird to the press. Maybe it takes some courage to go out there as a celebrity, but it takes more courage to backstab your entire country and prosecution your entire life. .","conclusion":"I believe that Miley Cyrus doesn't deserve to be nominated as TIME Person of the Year."}
{"id":"c84f5001-d3ec-4b2f-8f82-a3849eb1385c","argument":"With social media being one of the fastest growing industries and sectors in today's world, I believe the line between personal and commercial accounts, posts, and pages has become blurred. Due to this, I hold that all public soical media accounts, and their subsequent content, can be viewed as commercial works. To be more specific, I believe The use of hashtags to garner a larger audience or engage with communities across platforms can be seen as marketing one's social media content, further solidifying said content as commercial. With the option to make most social media accounts private, keeping one's social media page public on these platforms is an explicit acceptance of the possibility of commercial commodification of one's social media content. This is further solidified by the Terms of Service of most social media platform, which allow said platforms to commercialize any content hosted by them. The incredible number of social media stars and the resulting industry behind them have created a culture that has normalized commercial, marketing, and advertising tactics within the social media practices of average users e. g. hashtags, image editing, sponsored posts, collaborative posts, destination marketing, and more. The drive to attain this social media star status, juxtaposed with the normalized nature of this culture, has also created a plausible deniability where average users can strive and attempt to achieve this status while denying that desire until it is achieved. It is my belief that due to this, all public social media accounts should be considered commercial entities. With any public account being able to blossom into a full fledged business overnight, and a large majority employing the tactics necessary to do so, it has become impossible to differentiate between those using social media solely for personal use and those using social media for commercial use. Change my view","conclusion":"Due to the fast growing industry of \"social media\", all public social media accounts can be considered commercial entities"}
{"id":"1bca2c97-ddbf-4630-a7e0-c0854f75e2f8","argument":"As of 2014 a Gallup poll found that 42% of US citizens believe in Creationist views of human origins.","conclusion":"The U.S. is falling behind other countries in education."}
{"id":"fb64b612-100a-4c6d-ab02-138cc59b6fcc","argument":"I would like to preface this with I know this isn't a popular opinion but I have seen it argued multiple time, many times with good points but I believe still not enough to make it morally better. Also, I am not discussing plausibility here, this is purely hypothetical. I have heard the argument that exactly what I am supporting is the root of almost all if not all wars, that is true. My reasoning for supporting it regardless is there is a risk of something worse than war, a tyrannical coalition or government essentially destroying any chance of freedom, and likely worse than any government today. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I believe a multitude of opposing nations, cultures, and ideologies are necessary for a good world"}
{"id":"03bfa2ba-f51b-460c-9886-cc1d4fb411a3","argument":"I majored in sociology in undergrad and I gotta say, the whole field seems as made up as homeopathy. It's part psychology and part stoned conjecture, strung together with poorly designed experiments and questionable thinkers, few of whom even acknowledged sociology as a thing. Psychology contains a lot of nonsense and hell, so do the harder sciences. But sociology's apparent bullshit to publication ratio seems to be higher than any of the sciences. If a person wanted to research society, they would be better served learning psych or neurobiology, followed by history. . gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than just downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I think that Sociology is not a real science."}
{"id":"2a9b6300-bfd3-4b8b-bb77-881c257aaa16","argument":"I'm not a big Milo Yiannopoulos supporter, not because he's politically incorrect but because he's so often factually incorrect see e.g. . However, I do not think he violated Twitter's rules, by a reasonable reading of those rules, before Twitter kicked him off. I'm not looking for answers saying the First Amendment doesn't apply to Twitter I know that , or how they can make any rules they want I know that , I'm asking Did Milo violate their rules? When Twitter cancels a user's account, it's their policy not to tell the user which tweets got them cancelled or which rules they violated however the consensus seems to be that it was Milo's tweets about the black Ghostbusters actress Leslie Jones that got banned Here are the Twitter rules as of July 19, 2016, when they booted Milo It looks like their sections about hateful conduct and harassment are still the same today So, first Did he violate their rules against hateful conduct ? The rule says you may not attack people on the basis of race, gender, etc. The Vox article called it racist when Milo tweeted AT LEAST THE NEW GHOSTBUSTERS HAS A HOT BLACK GUY IN IT , but I disagree. He was only using black to identify Leslie Jones out of the group. Arguably it was insulting to call her a guy , but physical appearance is not one of the protected categories in Twitter's definition of hateful conduct . None of the Milo tweets that I could find said anything negative because of her race. Second Did he violate their rules against harassment ? Twitter's rule says, You may not incite or engage in the targeted abuse or harassment of others. After Milo tweeted Leslie Jones, his Twitter followers barraged her with racist tweets and memes, and, looking through the examples posted in the article, some of those were pretty ugly. But all that Milo himself did was to send out tweets that mentioned Leslie Jones's Twitter handle. I think under any reasonable understanding of inciting harassment , simply mentioning another user's Twitter handle should not count. Milo never said anything that could be interpreted as a call to action to his followers to harass her. If Twitter wanted to prohibit users from mentioning other users' Twitter handles or even just prohibit it in an insulting context , they could have stated that explicitly in the rules, or coded it into the product that user A can't tweet out user B's Twitter handle without their permission. Indeed, there are many other cases where public figure A tweets an insult or a call out at public figure B, and when that happens, it's not unreasonable to think that many of public figure A's followers will pile on and also send negative tweets to B, but nobody calls that inciting harassment . So, I think Twitter was not following their own stated policies when they terminated Milo's account, but they got away with it because he is widely reviled and Leslie Jones made a sympathetic victim.  gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Milo didn't violate Twitter's rules, by any reasonable interpretation, before they kicked him off"}
{"id":"ed35468d-4ebd-4aac-a13f-6b32b3f0ccd5","argument":"I hear the number one complaint about black box recorders and dash cams for private citizen vehicles is an encroachment on privacy. Requiring these devices in the future would help authorities determine causes of accidents and other auto related events. I know some insurance companies already let you opt in to black box recorders for a discount on your insurance. I feel like these devices would help protect you in an incident and even provide a great addition of details to reports when trading or selling. Anyone care to share their thoughts why this is a concern?","conclusion":"I think citizen dash cams and black box recorders are a good thing. Should I ?"}
{"id":"76821692-5367-4f72-ba36-cafa8d4f64e4","argument":"I have a 'live and let live' attitude to issues such as gay marriage two consenting adults should be able to do whatever they want as long as they aren't harming others. I believe that the same should apply to incest. People have no control over who there parents are, so it is wrong to disallow consenting adults to have sex because of a factor which is out of their hands. While I admit that I think incest is weird, I don't think it should be illegal there's a lot of weird shit out there that isn't against the law. It's not the role of the state to ban what isn't normal. Change my view.","conclusion":"Incest should be legalised"}
{"id":"3a433cbd-2cfb-40eb-8135-0fb0e091a167","argument":"Let me just say first that I am an engineering student and currently doing independent research on the subject of Mars life support systems. So I am somewhat educated on the subject of what it is like to live on Mars, and have a great interest in it as a possibility for the future of human civilization. That said, from what I've learned about the conditions on Mars, it is a complete waste of time to try to actually set up permanent settlements on the red planet. Here's why I think this. First, the climate is just too harsh. Temperatures vary between 243 F at the poles and a high of 68 F at the equator. This is a wide fluctuation, but the overall average is that it is a cold planet, that will require a tremendous amount of resources to keep the habitat modules warm. On top of this, there are frequent dust storms. This means that we must use some form of non sun dependent power system for electricity. It also means that everything needs to be cleaned on a regular basis so the dust doesn't foul up instruments and equipment. Then there's the water quality. First the state of the water. Most of the water we've found is frozen solid, so much so that you would need a diamond tip drill bit to get through it. The water that may not be frozen is only liquid because it is incredibly salty with perchlorates. Perchlorates are highly toxic to humans, so you need to develop efficient methods to remove the perchlorates from the water. All of this is incredibly labor and energy intensive. Then there's the distance. We would be so far from earth that should there be any kind of emergency, it would already be well under way before earth got any word of it, and then if there needed to be help sent, it would take most of a year to get someone there. In terms of just the travel time, you are basically asking people to take 10 months to travel to a barren, cold, dusty planet with toxic water. Do you really think a lot of people will be interested in that kind of time commitment, once they see what the quality of life will be like? Lastly, the reason many people cite for wanting to colonize Mars is to have a backup plan in case of extinction, usually from an asteroid. To paraphrase Neil Degrass Tyson, the effort it takes to colonize Mars is likely equal or greater than just simply diverting an incoming asteroid. So that is a rather flimsy excuse for going through all the time and effort to live on a poorly suited planet. Overall, I do get why people want to travel to Mars. We have an innate desire to explore and push the boundaries of civilization, and answer questions about life on other planets. However, living on Mars is just foolish, especially when we have several closer frontiers we have yet to explore. These include the bottoms of the oceans, Antarctica, and the moon. These places are equally challenging to live, and yet we don't see nearly as many efforts to try to colonize these places. Why not? They are equally interesting, have a lot of resources we could use, and are within a short distance, so people can travel there easily and communicate with existing civilization quickly. The moon for one would serve the extinction prevention function that most people cite for wanting to colonize Mars, and would be the most practical and easy to achieve stepping stone towards becoming a multi planet species. For tourism, I think many people would be much more inclined to go to the moon, which only takes a few days, and would have stunning views of earth. To be clear, I don't think having small manned missions to Mars and building a surface and orbital base is a bad idea. We should definitely do that, and explore the red planet to the fullest extent. The main thing I'm arguing against here is long term large scale settlements. It may end up being a place where people go to do academic studies, but for long term settlements of average people, I just don't see it happening. So please, change my view that colonizing Mars is a terrible idea.","conclusion":"Colonizing Mars is a Waste of Time and Resources"}
{"id":"01527db6-884d-4ceb-92f0-e944a2bb5e6b","argument":"Vitamin B12 is required to stay alive on a vegan diet, so companies can increase their prices to unreasonable levels as with life-saving pharmaceuticals because people are forced to buy them to live.","conclusion":"Supplements could allow the whole of the human race to be at ransom by the companies that make them."}
{"id":"0fe4780f-dc96-4026-afbb-f54f4a5fbfd9","argument":"Affirmative action distributes opportunities to racially marginalized groups, but fails to account for the full scope of intersectional oppression. As a result, it locks out students who are the most vulnerable.","conclusion":"Affirmative action distributes opportunities to racially marginalized groups, while ignoring other disadvantaged groups."}
{"id":"37234de7-80ed-4660-96d4-c2a4f19d75d1","argument":"Many are of the belief that one should not be able to discriminate against another on the basis of their race, religion, gender, etc. The primary motivation behind this mentality, as I understand it, is that these things are largely not within one's control, and therefore it is morally wrong to treat them differently as a result of those characteristics. However, my assertion is that one's political beliefs, even going as far as racism and sexism, are no more within one's control than their race, and certainly no more than their religion. I base this on the contention that your political beliefs are not a conscious choice that you have made, and my evidence is that you cannot willfully change them . For example, I believe that homosexual people are no different than anyone else, that they did not choose that sexuality, and that there is nothing morally wrong with their lifestyle. I did not CHOOSE to believe that, and I could not force myself to believe otherwise. I live in the South. It would actually be a lot easier for me if I just went along with the religious crowd and condemned homosexuality as a sin, but I can't do that. I cannot MAKE myself believe that it's wrong, anymore than I can simply decide to believe in God, or believe that Santa is real. In other words, my belief regarding homosexuality is not within my control, but rather something that is simply part of who I am. Therefore, it logically follows that someone who disagrees with me ALSO did not arrive at their conclusion by choice, and therefore also cannot willingly change it. Therefore, it THEN logically follows that if one believes that discrimination on the basis of religion should be forbidden, then so should discrimination based on political opinion or affiliation. That is to say that if you cannot eject someone from your store for wearing a cross around their neck, you likewise cannot refuse service for that same person wearing a Trump '16 shirt, or even a swastika. I am tempted to extend this as far as race, but I will stop with religion for this post. So that is my argument, and I challenge you to convince me otherwise. Your political beliefs are as much as part of you as your religion. They are unchangeable by will alone, and to argue civil rights for one, but not the other, is inconsistent. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"You cannot change your political opinions by choice, and therefore they should be treated no differently than religion with regard to civil rights."}
{"id":"ee77e403-d69e-46b8-a1bb-52fc0599f249","argument":"Mentally ill criminals not capable of rehabilitation would be better suited to be treated in a secure psychiatric facility than a prison.","conclusion":"Many inmates have serious mental illnesses that would be cost-prohibitive to effectively rehabilitate."}
{"id":"aa630564-804e-46db-ab38-aa153b1ebccf","argument":"Throughout history, we have gone into debt with each other. Not all debts, however, are created equal. The ultimate arbiter of what is right to be owed are the people who can force the existence of the debt, and the people who those people with capabilities of force listen to, possibly religious figures that they take seriously. As we began to store large quantities of commodities that we found useful, we would record debts of the quantities that we owed using valuable metals that would not tarnish and were hard to reproduce, and found valuable. Gold and silver, in this process, began to become a more and more widely accepted medium of exchange. And when governments would form gold and silver into their own currency, and that currency began to become the standard by which people were taxed, currency started to be associated with a means to appease the tax collectors. Eventually, because gold was such a heavy thing, and after the invention of the printing press, printing began to become such a cheap thing that now the creation of banks and the creation and circulation of banknotes became very popular. Banknotes were, ultimately, backed up by force, because they were an agreement by the bank to give the holder of the banknote their gold back upon the return of the banknote. If the bank were not to do this, the holder of the banknote would be able to go to the police of the time and have them march up to the bank and force the bank to give the holder of the banknote their gold back by force. Fast forward hundreds of years. And we are at the end of the Bretton Woods System. Under this system, other governments would peg the value of their currency to The U.S. Dollar, and The U.S. Dollar would be legally exchangeable for a set quantity of gold. Then, The U.S. took its dollar off The Gold Standard. Even though The Dollar has not been officially exchangeable for gold by central bank guarantee, The Dollar and all fiat currencies of powerful nations have still held up. And this is entirely because of taxes and the force behind them. Currency acts as a medium of debt that someone owes to you. In the past, it was a debt of gold. And gold was only valuable to most people because the government and the rich interests who had a stake in it, would denominate tax debts in gold. Most people are starving or near starving, and starving people cannot eat gold, so the only reason that they would have to accept a soldiers gold for their real resources is so that they could pay tax with that gold instead of paying the resources of their hard work. This same logic applies to fiat currency today. What backs up currency is not the fact that you can exchange it for some physical commodity that is promised by the central bank, but that you can exchange it back to the tax collector in exchange for them not punishing you for not paying your taxes. And this makes fiat currency, by far, a more efficient and infinitely sustainable system when compared to a currency that is backed up by any commodity or combination of commodities. Any resource standard demands that you store quantities of that resource indefinitely, where it can not be utilized in the production of goods and services valuable to peoples desires. No matter what, if you are storing a fungible resource that has no uses for basic utility for most people, and only produces utility in advanced production, either as a conductor in electronics, or as jewelry, most people do not have use for gold. It is force that imbued gold with most of its value throughout history, and it is that same force that imbues fiat currency with all of its value today. However, while gold is actually valuable outside of currency uses and is expensive to produce, fiat currency is nearly useless outside of its currency uses, and is extremely cheap to produce. So fiat currency is an extremely efficient use of the very cheap materials used to make it, whether it is cloth, paper, plastic, ink, or computer hard drives that can encode up to trillions of dollars on them, and it is an extremely inefficient use of gold, should a government either promise to back their currency with gold or silver, or issue their currency in the medium of gold and silver.","conclusion":"All stable currency throughout history has been backed up by force, at a minimum. Therefore, fiat currency is the best and most efficient kind of currency that could possibly exist."}
{"id":"01a31f1d-aec6-445b-9af2-98c479bd86e1","argument":"Harry Houdini himself made a promise to his wife that, if there was any possible way for him to communicate with her following his death, he would find it Even after consulting with numerous seances over the course of a decade, his wife never received his message.","conclusion":"There are accounts of people trying to contact ghosts that never receive any evidence."}
{"id":"6bca4739-bfbe-41d6-8b12-34c4b895e277","argument":"I think we should have respected the autonomy of other nations and allowed to transition to whatever form of government they saw best for them. I believe we should have kept our business out of it. I feel like there is some ulterior motive for stopping the spread of communism that had nothing to do with human rights. Perhaps it would have caused negative effects to our economy if others went to communism? I also don't believe we would have succumb to communism either, as that's supposedly why we have the second amendment, not to mention we scared enough people into believing communism is pure evil. Again, I think it's some ulterior motive that probably had to do with money. I also feel like many things we thought would happen under communism has happened under our form of capitalism. Whenever I tell people this view I get some pretty negative reactions and regurgitation of what you hear in a high school history class. I want to hear some actual, informed responses to . Thanks","conclusion":"I don't believe the US should have stopped the spread of communism."}
{"id":"e817f950-c909-4594-a43e-9b607258b042","argument":"Recently I saw a post about how some store had a fence around their dumpster so homeless wouldn't steal the bread that they threw away. I see absolutely nothing wrong with this practice. And here's why 1st. Giving away free food at the end of the day is an unsustainable business practice. Everyone wants free stuff and why pay for something when you can get it for free at the end of the day? Suddenly you'll have more people asking for handouts and less people buying the product. With less customers you have more excess supplies. It's a continuous cycle that only ends when you have no customers and can't afford to make food anymore. 2nd. The food you're going to throw away is either expired, stale, won't last or has gone bad. The restaurant could be sued and lose a lot of money for giving away bad food so it's better to throw it away. 3rd. By giving away free food you're attracting very desperate and hungry people to your location and when people are that desperate they can be very dangerous. You don't want dangerous people around your location because they'll scare away actual customers. This is why people don't like homeless people hanging around their store. It's obviously better to give out samples or make less food but you can't predict how many customers come in each day and how much food you will sell.","conclusion":"There's nothing wrong with Restaurants throwing away excess food at the end of the day instead of giving it away."}
{"id":"23949ab2-e84d-4702-926a-9979bd041965","argument":"It seems to me that forcing bicyclists to stop when it is unnecessary adds very little in terms of safety, and slows down the bicyclist's journey especially when there is a 4 way stop on almost every block . It can also be very frustrating to keep having to stop when there seems to be no good reason. Exceptions would be for stoplights where the view of cross traffic is obstructed, making it unsafe to be a yield. Bicyclists would have to yield to both pedestrians and all road traffic. I'm not saying that it should be OK for bicyclists to run stop signs or red stoplights without paying attention, or caring about the consequences. Also to be clear, my view is that this is how the law should be, not that bicyclists should be allowed to break the law.","conclusion":"In general, stop signs and red stoplights should be yields for bicyclists."}
{"id":"de5075e4-ab0a-47d6-8947-7370db133b43","argument":"I don't understand why it's generally accepted to penalize those who make good decisions in order to hand out money aka reward those who make poor decisions. I'm going to drop a bunch of stats on you Women receiving government assistance have literally 3x the fertility rate as women not receiving government assistance Table 3 If you look at table 2, you see that total fecundity of those at risk of living in poverty is 15 higher than those who can support themselves. If their fecundity was 15 lower than those who actually contribute to society, would inequality be as much of a problem? To me, this problem is even worse once you understand that poverty is largely a cultural generational problem. Motivation determines success Impulse control determines success All of these individual character factors determine success at a much greater than parental income. Why do we feel as if it's ok to take from some through the use of force and use that money to raise other peoples' kids, but not ok to say, hey, don't have so many kids if you can't afford them ? If I've missed something, or if someone can tell me why what I quoted doesn't matter, I'm more than willing to consider new evidence or look at things in a new light. .","conclusion":"I believe that poverty is a problem best addressed not through redistribution, but through better family planning:"}
{"id":"4a08b312-6cd9-4b7d-8def-c51450594624","argument":"In the McDonalds case the defendant spilled coffee on her lap in the drive through and ended up needing to be hospitalized for eight days while she was getting skin grafts to heal the 3^rd degree burns on her crotch. When she asked McDonalds to cover her medical expenses about 20K they said no and went to court, and when her lawyer offered to settle for 90K, and McDonalds still said no. When it was clearer that they would win they again offered a settlement, but McDonalds refused the 225k offer. So basically the only reason McDonalds ended up having to pay her ~half a million dollars is because they were too stupid to pay for her medical bills when she had to spend over a week in the hospital from some spilled coffee. ?","conclusion":"I believe that the McDonalds \"hot coffee\" incident was absolutely NOT a frivolous lawsuit"}
{"id":"5998528c-f8d8-46cc-8f54-4fe1d5c0517f","argument":"Just as ''dollarisation'' is seen as a way forward by those who are happy for the US Government to exert economic power then the Chinese and Russia would also like to extend their reach. It will be easier for a small cartel to lead the rest when there is no currency 'market' to play against them.","conclusion":"The dominant countries who would lead the way will be able to manage the global economy to their favour."}
{"id":"b1b6b3b6-4f33-4b80-826d-a7105f5cd3cd","argument":"Many of the leaders of sectarian groups have a direct interest in fomenting civil war. These groups and their leaders are frequently disenfranchised from the Iraqi government and are incapable of achieving power through political means. Therefore, they are only capable of attaining power through their means of power, violence. A civil war, to the extent that it creates opportunities to use the power of force and violence, is subsequently within the interests of many of these disenfranchised armed groups. This is why so many armed groups seem to be attempting to foment violence. If the US withdraws, the opportunity to seize power through force will appear greater, as decisive repercussions from the US military will be gone. The nodes of a civil war, therefore, would increase.","conclusion":"Many armed sectarian factions have a direct interest in fomenting civil war."}
{"id":"91a73a51-6277-41b5-8172-0b43076ffd7c","argument":"Traditional families that suffer the loss of both mother and father, either temporarily or permanently, would leave children to next of kin, who may not be prepared or even able to care for children, or burden local governments.","conclusion":"If men and women are both drafted there will be no one to take care of the children."}
{"id":"882ddf67-1c5f-4bdc-8e6f-df28475e5a43","argument":"A study has found that multiparty coalition governments tend to have higher degrees of stability and less policy change.","conclusion":"Proportional representation systems lead to more stable governments by virtue of coalition governments being formed."}
{"id":"7ee2b676-7b67-4f0a-8016-ac0e592e5c01","argument":"To preface, it's important to note that I like some free verse poems, and I understand the value of the form, but only as one of many options available to the poet. It's like if I went to a Chinese restaurant buffet, and every tray was full of spring rolls. I like spring rolls, but I like other stuff too, and I'd get pretty damn sick of spring rolls real fast. Now, that being said, I think 99 of the usage today is lazy and pretentious, throws dirt on the face of a millennia old poetic tradition, and is rapidly dissociating poetry from having any bearing or purpose outside of a rarefied circlejerk of snobs, hipsters, and editors of the New Yorker. Fundamentally, poetry is a recognition that we derive meaning from the aspects of language beyond the simple meaning of the words themselves, such as the sounds and shapes and interactions of those words. Modern free verse recognizes none of this, and has thus lost its power to compel, or indeed have any relevance to an ordinary person. If nothing changes, the art of poetry as itself will soon simply be over.","conclusion":"Free verse is destroying poetry as an art form."}
{"id":"4d4255c0-151a-4f7b-abb7-a4d77ac48b05","argument":"In my life never have I ever found the top toilet lid to be useful. I'm speaking about the one that serves to close the toilet. I've never touched any because I don't acknowledge any use for it It doesn't stop odors because it's not even remotely hermetical It doesn't hush sounds if used before flushing, explained in point 1. Doesn't hush sound if used after flushing either After you leave the toilets there is no mess that should be hidden It's usually dirty , more so when you're not in your own place. I've, very occasionally, used it to put things on the toilets, but again that is very very rare and according to point 4, not really the cleanest way to put things . I don't consider the top lid to be a shelf. I'd be glad to hear some of your opinions on this. Thanks.","conclusion":"The lid of the toilet serves no purpose."}
{"id":"7453495c-0a45-49d3-afdc-d431eb12f453","argument":"Juries inject a \"community norm\" into the process which helps maintain a necessary connection between the body politic and the adjudicative element of the Judicial Branch.","conclusion":"Juries increase the legitimacy of the criminal justice system in the eye of the public by including them in trial processes."}
{"id":"a95a17eb-cef5-4186-8c3c-c4d8483c5451","argument":"In poor countries, landowners are the elite. They have the most to lose in a move towards democracy, as democracy would require land redistribution Acemoglu & Robinson, p. 289 Economic growth, which involves industrialisation is first crucial to lessen the power and influence of these landowners.","conclusion":"In poor countries, with little wealth, democracy requires redistribution of wealth and resources. The elite have more to lose in such countries as the total available wealth is limited, whereas redistribution in richer countries without destroying the power of the elite is possible."}
{"id":"b3691d17-f076-43cb-915c-3c7262475421","argument":"In February 2003, a Florida Court of Appeals unanimously agreed with an assertion by FOX News that there is no rule against distorting or falsifying the news in the United States. I think there should be a law in place demanding that all news corporations must report facts. Another recent report about news reporting on global warming showed that Fox is only accurate 28 of the time. I am not trying to target Fox, but they are the easiest to list examples of reporting crap. Without factually based news agencies, tens if not hundreds of millions of Americans are getting fed opinions in place of facts. This makes every day harder and harder for us as a country because we keep tripping over all of the hairs, or just air, in our path.","conclusion":"I think there should be a law associated with calling yourself a news corporation"}
{"id":"bc4c12b3-76db-49d9-8195-c49d96c8926c","argument":"People shouldn't be subject to fear and persecution generally, however these are not constitutionally protected in the way free speech is. The ACLU strongly believes in constitutional protections and defends those rights in particular.","conclusion":"Feeling safe and not persecuted are subjective and generally considered to not be overarching rights."}
{"id":"515d8483-bdb5-4195-9c64-eceae45c43ef","argument":"I've read into this from numerous academic sources, I can give a list of references if so desired, but I don't see how many developing economies are able to justify child labour.By stopping children from getting educations as a result of child labour, these children grow up to be unskilled members of the work force that are the first to be fired due to their lack of knowledge and experience in other fields. In the short term, yeah sure you might need someone to work for you quickly, but in the long run, you as a company would be better off employing educated adults that are more productive, so why not do that and contribute more positively to the GNP of the country you operate in, rather than decreasing it by having a large proportion of unemployable unskilled child labor graduate adults.","conclusion":"I believe there is no way to justify child labor or that any good can come of it."}
{"id":"375282be-9d07-4818-b389-398164b39b06","argument":"We have the Formula 1 Grand Prix, The Australian open tennis tournament. The Melbourne Cup a horse race that has horses from around the world and everyone in Australia watches. The AFL grand final, which brings 100,000 people to the MCG, one of the iconic stadiums in the world. The Boxing Day test match is a big deal for every country that plays cricket. There are so many great sports facilities and stadiums, the MCG, the National Sports Museum, Etihad Stadium 50,000 capacity and numerous other big stadiums. Melbourne has hoted the Olympics and the Commenwealth games. Change my view.","conclusion":"I believe Melbourne is the sporting capital of the world."}
{"id":"954588ce-71d0-4ea2-b4d5-cb6373f81e8f","argument":"If you stab me in the leg, it is morally justifiable for me to stab you back in the leg tomorrow, even if you don't post an immediate threat to me tomorrow. It's not an awesome thing, NOT stabbing him back may be better, but you're not morally wrong for doing it. Being the bigger person and forgiving them turning the other cheek is an admirable thing to do, but to say that someone MUST do that is wrong. There are reasons not to have the justice system implement this, e.g. in the case of the death penalty you'll end up convicting some innocent people, and so you end up with murder on your hands, but that's a problem in practice of aplying it on a large scale. similarly it may be benefiicial to punish revenge to stop it getting out of control and because it's usually a case of he said she said, but you still should have the moral right to retaliate, even if you don't have the legal right to.  EDIT a little more on how this would be taken into account by the justice system If i stab someone in the leg i get x punishment. If i stab someone in the eye i get y punishment. Say it's jail time for both. Personally i think eye stab is worse than leg stab, so i'll go with y gt x, but you may disagree. Either way we need to assign some punishment and decide which is punished worse. I stab you in the leg, you stab me in the eye. You should get y x jail time, since you've already been retroactively punished 'x worth' for the leg, and it was my fault. If we both stab each other in the leg, the y x 0 since they're the same, and neither of us get punished since we're already 'even'. I don't think any of this applies beyond those who were initially involved. You can't punish someones relatives or friends etc. because of something they did, you can only punish that person.","conclusion":"revenge, if it's not disproportionate, is not immoral."}
{"id":"a181ae5e-1e38-4efa-abe3-de53a86672e7","argument":"Good historical examples of this will be the The Law for Defense of German Blood and Honor and Dekulakization.","conclusion":"The fact that governments think something is a problem does not make it true."}
{"id":"c686be23-6bd0-42ce-b430-9d2d8e52e7c2","argument":"Producers must develop, implement and monitor an operations plan on their farming and techniques. This needs to reflect a balance between protecting the environment and good business results.","conclusion":"Fairtrade rewards and encourages farming and production practices that are environmentally sustainable. Producers are also encouraged to strive toward organic certification. fairtrade.net"}
{"id":"d940c54a-ac32-42d3-acf1-cfed6e82fd95","argument":"Title says it all Windows is, at best, adequate. it's only useful as a platform for other people's better software, which was only made for Windows because everyone uses Windows. Windows in my experience, particularly Windows 10 is full of glitches like broken updates and broken start buttons. The permissions system is terrible and hamfisted, and the whole thing suffers from the unfortunate condition of being kludged together from an operating system originally written in 1985 when Computer Security meant putting your 5 and 1 4 inch floppies in a safe. edit holy crap, this blew up a bit. lots of good discussion and honestly a lot of it's beyond my ken. I can't say my view is really changed, but you've at least prompted me to do some more of my own research on the topic.","conclusion":"the only reason anyone uses Windows is because it's compatible with all the other stuff made for Windows, not because Windows itself has any merit."}
{"id":"fd398296-bc46-4615-915f-4884fb195b95","argument":"Christ reaffirmed this definition of marriage in Matthew 19:1-11. In Genesis we can see God Himself declaring that Adam shall rule over Eve, and so Christ did not repeal this law. Nor is this law under the Old Covenant, for the Old Covenant was not even made until Abraham. It's still applicable to us Christians.","conclusion":"The Christian Bible is full of comments which condemn women to a secondary state. For a Bible-following Christian, women wouldn't be equal to men and feminism would be anathema."}
{"id":"570265ec-ea03-42bd-9116-2674f1226517","argument":"So I heard this statement briefly in a politics lecture not that long ago and I've thought about it ever since. It's such an unpopular opinion, that i'm scared of all the hate, but oh well. I think that being confident is a synonym for not taking under consideration anything else, which automatically makes person look dumb in any situation. If you don't think about the risks which can be in every of your decisions or statements, how is your self confidence smart ? How is Hitler who seems like a very confident man to me in history smart by being so close minded about nations ? Take any official, who appears on media, makes a statement or a promise to the citizens of his country and then shuts up when his plan fails ? Because he seemed so confident and smart, got all of us thinking that he had all figured out, talking so loud and throwing his hands around like he knows shit. How is he smart ? I think that it takes a truly wise and well educated open minded person to know not to embarrass himself by being so confident to the public. Furthermore, not to make a fool out of himself when his confidence may fail him. Let your work speak for you, not brag about your confidence thinking you're smarter and better than everybody. I have to make an apology about my english, which is not my first language. I never express this opinion. But I don't want to think that every self confident human is dumb, so please, change my view.","conclusion":"Only people with low education are self-confident"}
{"id":"10481809-992b-4c5e-9285-1b6146bccdfa","argument":"In his campaign, Donald Trump gained wide support from the disenfranchised, white working class in the central United States. He promised to bring back jobs, tear apart free trade deals, and to drain the so called swamp. However, he has already gone back on a number of issues he's no longer aggressively going after Hillary Clinton after proclaiming that he would lock her up , and appointed a plethora of establishment republicans to key roles in his presidency. Former RNC chairs and speakers of the house are in his staff, the embodiment of the establishment. How can he present himself as an ant establishment President when he picks the establishment for his cabinet and key roles in the White House? As far as his ego goes, I don't see any other reason why he would want to run. He wants the prestige of president, but without sweeping ideological changes. He has demonstrated that he will not drain the swamp , and has already backtracked on his views of ObamaCare, softened his view on NAFTA and relaxed his radical views on Climate Change. Quite frankly, I don't think he has the experience to make sweeping changes himself, and his choice of cabinet members prove that he'll defer to them for advice. As a man that is so enamoured with his image, it is safe to say that he only ran to bolster his ego.","conclusion":"Donald Trump ran for president purely to bolster his ego, and despite his anti-establishment rhetoric, his presidency will not be much different than a typical Republican Presidency"}
{"id":"d644015e-0fd9-4261-a318-184081052059","argument":"I am a self learner when it comes to economics and I have invested some significant amounts of time to learn it. From what I got is that deflation is bad as it makes it harder for people to pay their debt. It also can lead to a deflationary cycle as businesses stop producing goods and services as they see their prices going down. From what I understood about the Great Depression the Gold Standard caused deflation which exacerbated the crisis. I also understand that fiat currency is necessary to the growth of an economy when you have more people or production rises you need more money to account for that . I also understand that spending by governments can create a multiplier in the economy and make it grow But I don't quite understand the opposing point of view, even though intuitively it seems so logical and ethical. Money should be a store of value and inflation is an illegal tax. With that in mind, please change my view? does the Austrian School make more sense than the Keynsian school? Especially in light of what is going on right now with the Great Recession?","conclusion":"I believe in Keynsian economics and think that the Austrian School has got it wrong..."}
{"id":"f1519066-c4d8-4da3-91f1-6050ddc70ad9","argument":"I've read the book multiple times and it is one of my all time favourites, a book I will read again and again even when I'm 50 years old. I've also watched the movie a couple of times when I was younger and I was very dissapointed with it. First, it doesn't show the second part of the book, which in my opinion is more powerful than the first. I mean I love the first part, it has many symbolisms and the story is fascinating, but the second part has an equally fascinating story with a lot of fantasy, but it also shows how Bastian changed and became corrupted, it shows the importance of honesty, friendship, what real courage is, in fact it discusses anything including the relationship between Bastian and his father, all through the adventures of Bastian and Atreyu. In addition, the movie doesn't even contain the climax of the first part, when the the Empress herself meets the Old Man of the Wandering Mountain, which is full of symbolisms. It also shows a completely different image of the Empress, she makes her beg Bastian if I remember correctly, which is absolutely NOT what she was supposed to do. She is supposed to make Bastian understand that he is a part of the story and to make him realise the importance of his actions, not by begging but by giving him a choice and by helping him find the courage. In the book she is fearless but still playful even whan Bastian did not respond to her, representing Fantasia, she's not just a weak child. In fact there are so many things wrong with the movie I can't even write all of them down. Can anyone tell me what is so good about this movie, so that I can appreciate it?","conclusion":"The Neverending Story movie absolutely sucks in comparison to the book and is way overrated"}
{"id":"d0142556-589d-46b1-aeec-da552d222bef","argument":"I believe that you can find educational options that are nearly as good as what you find at the university if you know where to look. There's Coursera, Harvard has some free class options, and of course there's always Youtube. That means a bachelor's degree that you have to pay for is overrated. I refer to the U.S. system where student debt is becoming a hot topic because of high tuition costs. I know that having an actual diploma opens up more opportunities if you chose the right major, but if you can pass a knowledge test as part of an interview process because you took all the courses on Coursera that are equivalent to what you would have learned at a university, you should be considered equally qualified for the job.","conclusion":"A diploma is basically a receipt from the university."}
{"id":"0dcdc00c-a522-4b0f-8da9-2c9ccfae8108","argument":"People employed under these programmes could clean up rivers, build better housing, construct new water systems, etc.","conclusion":"A jobs guarantee program could be used to revive depressed communities"}
{"id":"b5831710-de45-4a31-93e1-8d249fcabcc5","argument":"Some ocean trials did indeed report remarkable results. According to IronEx II reports, their thousand kilogram iron contribution to the equatorial Pacific generated a carbonaceous biomass equivalent to one hundred full-grown redwoods within the first two weeks. Researchers on Wegener Institute's 2004 Eifex experiment recorded carbon dioxide to iron fixation ratios of nearly 300,000 to 1. Current estimates of the amount of iron required to restore all the lost plankton and sequester 3 gigatons\/year of CO2 range widely, from approximately two hundred thousand tons\/year to over 4 million tons\/year. Even in the latter worst case scenario, this only represents about 16 supertanker loads of iron and a projected cost of less than \u20ac20 billion $27 Billion. Considering EU penalties for Kyoto non-compliance will reach \u20ac100\/ton CO2e $135\/ton CO2e in 2010 and the annual value of the global carbon credit market is projected to exceed \u20ac1 trillion by 2012, even the most conservative estimate still portrays a very feasible and inexpensive strategy to offset half of all industrial emissions.","conclusion":"A global iron fertilization plan would cost only around $20 billion."}
{"id":"0e7bf9bb-5ae5-44a6-bd33-d89a263592c5","argument":"For the fourth year in a row, the United Nations has ranked Norway as having the highest standard of living in the world. Sweden, Australia and Canada are next in line, while the United States is further down the scale. Also one of the happiest people in the world. Norwegians have the second-highest level of satisfaction with their standards of living: 95 percent say they are satisfied with the freedom to choose the direction of their lives; an unparalleled 74 percent say other people can be trusted.","conclusion":"Norway still the world's best place to live With 70% atheists"}
{"id":"8e0cd723-e898-4d24-abce-455fd759b3f6","argument":"I see a lot of threads that are basically the same opinion and request for a , often on the same page or just a page away from one another. Right now, there are several threads along the lines of I don't think PRISM is a big deal,  , I think income should be capped,  , I don't think we necessarily have to support the troops,  and I think you should need a license to have kids, . Ideally, mods would merge these threads into megathreads, but with the huge growth the sub has seen from r bestof I understand that it would be hard for them to keep up in practice. I really feel like users need to at least take a cursory glance at what threads have been posted recently before posting their own thread, and if they find one that's extremely close they should just participate in that discussion. This would allow more interesting discussion to occur in depth, without crowding out diverse topics with topics that are basically the same.","conclusion":"I believe that people on this sub really need to use the search feature before making a thread."}
{"id":"a67dc67f-f2cf-4b1a-bf74-b86ef33d9ab9","argument":"Okay, just to be clear, I am not trying to piss anyone off or start a fight. Please be civil. I saw a post on here stating that Lesbian doesn't imply genitals. Lesbian is a woman who likes other women. No one said anything about genitals. Huh? I definitely imagine two women with vaginas when hearing about a lesbian relationship. Otherwise it would be a hetero or straight relationship. If someone says I met this woman. I imagine a person with a vagina. If someone says I met this really nice gay couple yesterday. I imagine two men who each have penises that like other men with penises. I think you get the point. Alright Reddit, change my view. EDIT Wow, how awesome is Reddit I was a little apprehensive about posting this because it's such a touchy subject, and unfortunately I did offend a few folks, but I have come out of this with a totally different perspective. If you read the post that I awarded a delta to, it explains that gender is really more of a social concept that isn't directly related to what you have in your pants. I don't know why I never was able to think of it this way, but now I can understand why someone born in a man's body might feel differently and vice versa, and why what they have in their pants really isn't important unless you're their doctor or in an intimate relationship with them. Again, I'm so sorry to those that I offended, it really wasn't my intention. My mind was made out of ignorance, so thank you Reddit for helping me see clearly","conclusion":"Women have vaginas and men have penises."}
{"id":"6df4391a-88c6-4cef-a640-d896d127d7a8","argument":"There is approximately 34 states that require front seat drivers or passengers to wear a seat belt by law. There is about 19 states I think that require motorcyclists to wear a helmet. Most of the other states have partial laws requiring motorcyclists to wear a helmet if they are below a certain age threshold. However both the seat belt and a helmet serve the same purpose, which is to protect the driver in a significant way. Why is there a distinction between which should be required and which shouldn't? My argument isn't that drivers and motorcyclists should always be required by law to wear a seat belt or helmet. Instead i'm curious as to why there is this inconsistency and distinction between the two. If drivers are required by law to wear a seat belt regardless if there is no passengers , motorcyclists at the minimum should be required to wear a helmet. EDIT 1 I want to add that my argument is only applicable if the driver has no passengers. If the driver has passengers I think they should all be required to wear seat belts for the safety of each other. EDIT 2 Sorry for being slow to respond, i'm trying my best to comment on each post.","conclusion":"Motorcyclists should be required to wear helmets if car drivers are required to wear seat belts."}
{"id":"5529d938-cba7-402f-a200-781f42b90076","argument":"Let's start this off with a premise Women should always have the right to have an abortion for any reason, up until day X, where the unborn child is too old and feels pain. It is their body and their life and they should not be forced to raise a child they did not want. I will not debate that in this . But someone else may submit a  on that, if they want to. A woman can have many reasons to have an abortion. Some of them are the emotional and financial situation or just other plans for her life. The same holds true for men. They might not want to be a father or pay child support. While a woman can just end her pregnancy and therefore mothership, a father cannot. This is unfair. I know that having an abortion can be emotionally challenging for the woman, but the earlier you decide to have one, the easier it is. Mentally and physically. I think, that every potential father must be informed by the potential mother asap, that she is pregnant and intends to have the baby. The father should then have the right to just say no . The mother then can either keep the baby, but get no child support from him, or have an abortion. The father, in turn, would have no visitation rights whatsoever. He should also cease any contact to the woman and her child. The same is already true in reversed logic If a father wants to keep the baby, but the mother does not want to, he cannot do anything about it. If the mother is already past the day X and can't have an abortion, it is entirely her fault for not telling him earlier. She could still always give the child away for adoption, if she doesn't want to keep it after the father said no . This might sound emotionally cold and harsh and I apologize for that, but English isn't my first language and I'm sleepy.","conclusion":"If women are allowed to have an abortion, men should be allowed to not pay child support"}
{"id":"532362fb-db99-4d57-be19-f1b95ae7a894","argument":"It is currently accepted thought that Gender is a Social Construct. Assuming that Gender is merely a social construct than everyone should be open to dating someone of any gender. Imagine if you have a 99 connection and the only thing that is lacking is the correct sexual organ, isn't that homophobic, or hetero phobic, or trans phobic depending on your gender? Imagine if your partner had the opposite genitalia, would you just up and walk away? For those who will argue relationships are about having children, you could always adopt.","conclusion":"Not dating other genders makes you phobic."}
{"id":"a6b2670f-70a5-4f4e-8aa8-67aff3b2bc93","argument":"This might be technically correct, but seems like splitting hairs. If a child was vegan except for something like gelatin capsules for a required medication, they would perhaps technically not be vegan, but in any practical terms they would be.","conclusion":"Not all medicines have vegan alternatives readily available, or not all alternatives are affordable by everyone."}
{"id":"559ec66f-1cc8-40e1-97dc-1662c638ca54","argument":"The bigger issue us that very few companies hold the world's data, which subsequently is misused by those in power. The majority of people do not benefit from the data collected.","conclusion":"Access to large amounts of personal data leads to the ability to control an individual's opinions."}
{"id":"c1d14a03-5bb1-497a-be85-b7330bec3072","argument":"The conflict that existed between Catholics and Protestants in Ulster simply translated into conflict between Nationalists and Unionists after the creation of the state of Northern Ireland.","conclusion":"Animosity between groups can often be rooted in past conflict. This is unlikely to simply be forgotten once they are incorporated into a single state."}
{"id":"dc9c5a72-b2e8-4d55-9145-9c46af2dee48","argument":"There is no possible way to account accurately for how the advances of technology will be able to solve current limitations we have. You can't assume conditions will always be the same.","conclusion":"Just because something potentially becomes a problem in the future does not alone require it to stop today."}
{"id":"fb14af28-42c2-4b8c-a476-4c71257a133e","argument":"In 2017, the average amount spent on healthcare per person in the US was $10,739 compared to \u00a32,989 approximately $3,628 spent per person in the UK.","conclusion":"Countries with private healthcare systems such as the US, tend to spend more per capita on healthcare than those with public systems."}
{"id":"f4b8b821-aa1c-4138-8a04-f0874cc06fb0","argument":"After a ski accident that resulted in a Traumatic Brain Injury, I also obtained two comorbid disorders Broca's Aphasia, and Cognitive Disorder Not Otherwise Specified NOS . However, with the change from the DSM IV TR to the DSM V, they have eliminated Cognitive Disorder NOS entirely. Research articles state that those disorders that do not cause sufficient impairment to qualify for a diagnosis of dementia are now defined as neurocognitive disorders and placed on a spectrum with the more severe conditions. Neurocognitive disorders NCD warrant different diagnostic criteria than Cognitive Disorder NOS. Reading the aforementioned article, it further it states, in the new system, memory impairment is no longer a requirement in the diagnosis of a major NCD As such, I take it that memory impairment is the difference the between NCD and dementia related disorders, which in this situation would have previously been labeled Cognitive Disorder NOS. However, this is wherein my fundamental problem with the new diagnosis exists. To me, memory impairment is my most intense problem that has persisted throughout the years. Even though it has been years since my accident, I still have lapses in my working memory, wherein I will often forget what I'm doing, who I'm talking to, and or where I am temporarily. I have since then implemented coping mechanisms into my life that help me deal with my aforementioned problems, which do help, yet my problems still persist on a daily basis. Given the new classification of NCD, my problems are no longer addressed, yet I still encounter them everyday. As such, my problems are not not identified in the newfound diagnosis, while still perhaps meeting the diagnostic severity of dementia related disorders. Yet, even with the severity of my disorder, it cannot fit under a dementia related disorder. As such, it can no longer be listed in dementia category with the elimination of Cognitive Disorder NOS, even though its severity warrants it. x200B","conclusion":"Just because my disorder is not in the new DSM that does not mean I no longer have it."}
{"id":"2bae3c03-d2b0-4a69-8706-66aeb5e444f9","argument":"This seems like a system that would be rife with opportunity for corruption and race-based tweaking of demographics by politicians. For instance, if this went into place 50 years ago, mixed-race couples would be denied licenses to procreate in most parts of most countries. in 100 years perhaps two people of the same race would be denied that on the basis of perpetuating racism by perpetuating race.","conclusion":"A regime bent on eugenics or racial supremacy could use a law like this to allow only parents of a preferred race to procreate and not other races."}
{"id":"a2b6265b-4825-4261-b1c4-c0c167ab5c38","argument":"The workers in China, even if they get paid only pennies, clearly need the money. My understanding which I admit is limited is that unless a governing body makes an active effort to relieve poverty, the outsourcing of American projects to China is a necessary thing so that the families people of China can scrape by. If a family suddenly loses their jobs, they can no longer afford to eat or pay rent or buy clothes. Additionally, if outsourcing was removed, prices all around the world would increase dramatically, affecting people currently living on the brink of poverty themselves. Workers who have the jobs that robots would replace would again have the same issue as those in China so while I don't agree with paying children or other adults pennies for hard labor, I think it's the best way to maintain the fragile balance we have. Improve first, then change what can be changed.","conclusion":"I think that outsourcing to China isn't all that bad"}
{"id":"fad89708-9da0-4f59-8bfc-1cbdd20c6862","argument":"All the chart topping songs with 100s of millions of views nowadays are filled with absolutely lame music, trashy lyrics and obscenity. It's just bewildering that commercialisation has hit the art so much that now all they do is make something which satisfies the lowest denominator of the society and has no artist motivation. It's probably being made to cater the preteens and teens who have hormones going berserk for anything sexual. Heck, EDM artists get a lot of flack but they still work technically, research and produce their stuff. Ketty Perry, Taylor Swift and Rihanna seem respectable in comparison to these new wave of mumble rappers and other obnoxious artists like the iggys and cardis etc.","conclusion":"Pop right now is filled with absolute trash and retarded artists."}
{"id":"c6fc454b-6620-4f47-812a-59b08cd88c0b","argument":"Before you start in the comments, I'm not saying I think there are 277 genders. BUT We have put people into two categories based on their hormones and genitals for a while. Although there are some consistent traits in the two groups, they definitely vary. But this concept of dividing the two I'm not saying it's wrong at all, it's not inherently wrong or right, but it is cultural. And it's something that we have chosen to do. We don't distinguish groups by eye color. There are so many options for distinguishing people, and many different cultures over the years have chosen different ways. Native Americans divided themselves into male, female, and two spirit. Ancient Grease thought of only men as truly human. While in Egypt gender slowly decreased in significance. Different cultures have put different significance on gender, and it really puts into perspective how subjective the concept is. Our current culture is no different. We have our own definition of culture. We have put a fair amount of significance on it. But I don't think there is anything wrong with not aligning with this definition. Something so subjective and personal shouldn't be heavily dictated. In the past year a plethora of studies many listed in Nat Geo's Redefining Gender. That proof that sex and gender can contradict themselves. Recently, scientists have delved even deeper into these studies and they found some patterns that overwhelmingly proves that the concept of gender is much more complex than we previously thought In fact, it's less of a check a box deal and more of a spectrum. S spectrum that varies depending on the culture, societal norms, and the person. This marrative of shutting down people because what they're saying is foreign to you, because they define as something you haven't been brought up to see as the norm, putting up barriers There's only 2 genders You're insane. Just because your perception of reality is different from theirs, is what leads to division. Look through history, public opinion and societal norms have changed so significantly. We have to stop looking at our culture as the only culture. EDIT this cartoon downvotes before anyone could have possibly read it. Kind of disappointing, guys. I'm totally cool with you disagreeing and downvoting just please don't downvote without reading.","conclusion":"There are more than two genders."}
{"id":"f7bf2a25-08fc-44b6-b9f0-ef992bada895","argument":"Got into a pretty splendid argument with my girlfriend that turned out to be a couple weeks in the making. To preface this, I'm an asian male. For some reason, I've taken to calling inanimate objects around our apartment slurs when dealing with them, slurs such as nigga and punk motherfucker . For example, I was cleaning the bathtub and there were some hard to clean spots. I said while scrubbing, that's right nigga, how do you like that? I'll do this with a lot of things, like saying to my rice cooker myy niggaaa when I open the lid and the rice is perfectly cooked. My girlfriend started staying over and I noticed her lip curling in distaste whenever I used the racial slur. Finally, it all culminated in an argument with her calling me racist and insensitive for using those words. My argument was that I'm not hurting anybody by using those words in private, I don't use it in purely negative connotations. Change my view Edit My girlfriend is not black. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Calling inanimate objects the N-Word does not promote racism"}
{"id":"68a605ab-d6ae-478c-b598-0b52603ad650","argument":"Let's look at an example quick, say Person A murdered Person B. Why did Person A murder Person B? Because Person A decided to. Why did Person A decide to do that? Because Person A's brain analysed the situation and came to that decision. Why did the brain come to that decision? Because of it's structure Caused by Person A's genes , as well as past experiences. We see at this stage that Person A is no longer responsible because their genetic makeup and past experiences resulted in the action. You can do this for any action even good ones. I would really love to not believe this so change my view people.","conclusion":"I believe that ultimately no one is responsible for any of their actions."}
{"id":"b99591c7-45f9-49a3-810a-12be841ed3bb","argument":"I\u2019m about to graduate college this year, and like most college students, I know people who graduated with a liberal arts degree or are seeking some other highly unemployable field ex Italian Studies . They graduate and are saddled with tons of debt and few career prospects. Some of the majors have unemployment rates nearing 50 . Many college students of all majors don\u2019t think they\u2019ll be able to or will have to pay back 100 of their loans, so I think it would make sense for public universities to move their most unemployable majors to a 2 year, associates degree or maybe a new modified degree . I\u2019m not sure if financial aid would be affected, but I\u2019d hope that it results in fewer people graduating with massive debt loads and no way to pay them back. The price of college isn\u2019t going to decrease any time soon. At the very least, a modified degree program without core classes? I know many people who have great talent in an art or a real interest appreciation for these subjects, and I personally love them too. I\u2019m not arguing the subjects aren\u2019t important. Meanwhile, I do feel that pushing 17 and 18 year olds to saddle themselves with debt for the next 10 years over a field that they most likely wont be able to get a job in is producing a self defeating cycle. College should be an investment in your future career and success, not a hinderance to it. Either way, I\u2019m open for discussion","conclusion":"Degrees in subjects like liberal arts should only be taught as a 2-year degree rather than a 4-year"}
{"id":"9cdec17d-41cb-4033-aad3-d2fe1e4e2be5","argument":"I get that the Nazi's and Hitler want to get Germany out of the hole that it presently is in, and that they have a great deal of support, but I can't help but believe that the Nazi party is going about this the wrong way. I can't help but think that the Nazi Party is dangerous for German politics. Please reddit, I really want to believe that Hitler and the Nazi's are right. . gt Hello, people of the past. This is a footnote from the moderators of this 'internet forum'. I'm afraid to say that some wannabe scientist, while looking into time travel, has caused a temporal distortion field. It should dissipate in the next 24 hours. In the mean time, feel free to message us about a view you hold while you're visiting the present, and remember to have a look through our rules","conclusion":"Alright I'll say it, Hitler is evil and the ideals of the Nazi party are detrimental to the country of Germany and the rest of the world."}
{"id":"eb2005a6-87a3-4573-a4fc-823f42a9951a","argument":"There are long traditions supporting baseball and basketball in many communities, and this could be shared with new communities.","conclusion":"Communities evolve and can collectivise around other sports or cultural activities."}
{"id":"10bc45c5-ab1f-4b28-89b3-71f0aba3f88e","argument":"I don't doubt that there is something in the abstract that we apprehend as being art, but to me, the word itself is bankrupt and does not communicate anything meaningful between parties. There seems to be no established consensus on what the word even means, and there exists a huge philosophical problem of aesthetics that has no resolution in sight. Most often, the word becomes a point of fruitless argumentation when discussing whether or not this or that thing is art. Are video games art ? Whenever this discussion comes up, the ensuing debate consists of nothing but a variety of people pushing dogmatically for their definition of art. In my view, the point of language is to be understood, and if the word art causes more confusion than it does consensus, it ought to be abandoned. I don't think it's helpful to uphold this magical divine category called art. I'm content to say that a certain thing is creative, takes skill to create, inspires meaning, etc.","conclusion":"I think that, by and large, the word \"art\" is meaningless and should not be used."}
{"id":"76114b6d-7035-48ba-805a-6c3c0cbf992e","argument":"Me and a friend of mine have been having this ongoing battle for a few weeks now. He argues with me that connections are everything and that you cannot be where you want in life AT ALL without connections. I have always completely disagreed with this notion, arguing that while a connection will provide you with an opportunity, it won't ensure success or position. Let me give you a little context here. I am 24 years old, I'm an A V engineer for a small company, and while my work history is limited, I have worked in sales, audio video, and marketing advertising. My friend has worked with his family business on and off for a few years, but nothing really in the real world no offense buddy lol . Well, about 4 5 months ago, he came to me asking if I could help him develop his instagram check it out please into a modeling photography portfolio. Reluctantly, I said yes. As you can imagine, delusions of grandeur and talk of fame sometimes slip into our conversations. His argument is that he can only get to the top agencies by connection alone. This has resulted in him TOTALLY abandoning the small fry He won't make attempts at smaller scale success due to this mentality. Now, typically in the music or A V business connections are very useful and word of mouth travels very far. However, insert clever metaphor about how connections are only as useful, if not less useful, as your skillset . I don't know much about the photography industry but I don't see it being much different. Basically what I'm saying is that it is way more important that you are skilled and knowledgeable about your trade than to have connections. I understand the importance of both, but I think one outweighs the other like 80 20. Am I wrong?  gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Connections don't get you as far as personal achievements\/accomplishments"}
{"id":"1f76570d-b404-496b-b51d-12ecf88bac06","argument":"The Republic of Nicaragua successfully won a ICJ court case against the USA, who had supported a rebellion against the Nicaraguan government and mined Nicaragua's harbors. However, the USA used it's Security Council power to block enforcement and prevented Nicaragua from obtaining any compensation.","conclusion":"The permanent members of the Security Council are able to veto enforcement of cases, even those to which they are the defendant, or which they consented to be bound."}
{"id":"147622ef-0a8c-42fa-827f-f524960abbe2","argument":"Today many legislations have or discuss gender quotas for elections, education, work and many other things. I don't believe that they are a good approach to reach equality, because If a company has too many male employees, it will have to discriminate men to fulfill the quota or vice versa , so we have discrimination. The men and women who are applying for the new jobs don't profit or suffer from the actual distribution, so why should they get any dis advantages just because the company has too few women or men ? More than 50 of the voters are female. If they want to be represented by women, they just need to vote women. If some of them want to be represented by men, why should anyone stop them? As long as college admission tests are evaluated without bias e.g. multiple choice tests or the examiner doesn't know the gender there's no need to enforce a quota. If more men succeed, then more men will get admission, and vice versa. Enforcing a quota means that someone won't get admission although he has a better result than someone other who gets admission. A few years ago Austria made an admission test for the University of Medicine which had a different point system for men and women. How high should a quote be? A fixed number won't fit very well because it assumes that the female ratio of the persons who want to get the job is constant, but that's not true. Some non qualified women will get a job just because the employee needs to employ women and has not enough qualified female applicants. This results in more non qualified women than non qualified men, resulting in an even more biased public opinion Women aren't able to do such jobs Of course this is also valid the other way round. Most kindergarten teachers and applicants are female, so the quota will enforce to prefer male applicants, even if they aren't capable. How do transgender persons fit in any quotas? Quotas are a lame excuse for politicans who don't want to stop discriminiation, like We already have quotas, what else do you want? . I'm not denying that discrimination exists and that we need to fix it, but there are better albeit harder ways. They include to analyze the reasons of the gender gap and fix that reasons, if necessary.","conclusion":"Quotas are like fixing the symptoms instead of curing the disease"}
{"id":"18b60055-09fb-4695-89db-b8e9038b6eba","argument":"In the United States, House Republicans are considering making large cuts to food stamps, welfare, and income assistance for the disabled.","conclusion":"Welfare programs are often threatened with cuts because of increasing budget deficits in these countries."}
{"id":"55328221-08d1-4abc-bb1f-3e82b29e6f55","argument":"VR is an effective tool for treating mental disorders such as anxiety, depression, trauma and addiction. This is shown by more than 300 peer-reviewed studies.","conclusion":"If we want a happier world population, then we should create VR spaces."}
{"id":"cf275533-f277-4fb4-8a5b-dc7e50ef2805","argument":"In the US, a common trend I see is that we have excellent services and goods and quality of life, as long as you can afford it. As an example, our healthcare is very high quality if you can afford it. The Republican party, as I understand it, generally favors maintaining the status quo over redistributing wealth on a wide scale protecting earnings for those in the middle or upper class, keeping taxes low, etc. This is arguably to the detriment of the poor and disadvantaged less taxes from the rich means less services, social safety nets, etc. for those less well off. If I voted purely based on altruistic and charitable motives, there is a good case for voting Democrat. However, if I am to vote totally in my own self interest, without regard to how policies affect others, then I believe that because of the low taxes and such that the Republican party supports, I should vote Republican instead. A few counterarguments and preemptive responses I am not necessarily guaranteed to maintain my wealth, therefore I would be better voting Democrat as insurance for if I ever become poor. The data I could find suggests that generally, rich people stay rich, and poor people stay poor While it is possible that I may suddenly become poor, it is unlikely I have a decent amount of money saved up, a decent education, a decent job history, good spending habits, and all of this in a decently safe industry that is on the rise software and engineering . Because I am more likely to stay wealthy than I am to become poor, I think voting Republican is a decent risk reward calculation. I also believe even if I become poor I will likely regain my wealth because of the aforementioned benefits I possess. If my industry dies because of some new market or social forces such as automation I might be fucked, but I everyone in the US would be fucked at that point, so it's better to vote Republican now to accrue as much wealth as possible. It's possible that voting Socialist or something drastic in the future might be a better option for my own self interest, but right now I think it would be better to vote Republican while I'm ahead. Nobody would vote entirely in their own interest, except maybe a sociopath. Everyone has loved ones, friends, family, etc. who might be poor or become poor, it's better to vote Democrat for their sake Voting entirely in my own self interest is just a thought experiment, not an actual thing that I would do. Also, there is an argument that if I am wealthy, I can help out my friends and family specifically with it, and help them only with problems I believe are worthy. If I voted Democrat, I would end up with less wealth to use to help friends and family, and little discretion of where that money goes. If you are part of a disadvantaged group, such as people of color or LGBT, the Republican party will not actively protect your rights and wealth as much as the democratic party. I am a straight white male. I'm only arguing for myself here. Anyways, this might be too broad a scope of a position, but I'd like to see if I'm misunderstanding something important, or if there are other points I haven't necessarily thought of. I realize I'm making a lot of very broad generalizations here, but I currently think I have the broad strokes correct. If I am wrong please correct me.  gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"If I am a wealthy US citizen, if I am only voting based on my own self-interest, I should vote Republican."}
{"id":"7db1e59e-6868-4a78-b825-8d7edd697d16","argument":"I followed the round of bans on harassment subs pretty closely and fall pretty well on the side of it is limiting to free speech. A common argument I hear against this is that it is Reddit's right to ban speech they disagree with. That's undeniable. Reddit legally has the right to do that. However, we are in an age where increasingly our speech is online. These discussions that we have online are held on sites that are controlled by corporations. Where as in the past the only people that could ban discussion effectively was the government we now have corporations that control huge swathes of speech. This isn't a society breaking issue right now, but it seems like in the future, as corporations control more and more of our methods of speech, that they will have huge sway over speech in general. Situations can be imagined where corporations that have this type of control Twitter, Facebook, Google, Reddit, Wikipedia will have significant stakes in issues and will try to form the speech that exists on their platform about them. Discussions considered unkind to a certain group, or discussions unkind to the platform itself, perhaps discussions about mergers of the companies themselves, or politicians that support breaking them up. If they want to advocate for or against certain issues in this way it would be simple for them to ban speech on a certain topic, hiding it from news feeds, or twitter updates. Shadow banning the topics from the front page, or shadow locking wikipedia articles. This kind of corporate control could be effective enough to hugely change people's ability to express their ideas and could sway public opinion. Because of this evolution I think it will be just as crucial to push free speech principles on these giant corporations in the same way that citizens have pushed for free speech against governments in the past and in the present . .","conclusion":"Free speech battles in the future will be fought against corporations as well as government, since they will control our methods of speech."}
{"id":"0f531d60-f652-485d-a334-bc299bf7907d","argument":"For full disclosure, I haven't seen the film and I'm not planning to I have however seen the first six Star Wars films and The Last Jedi . My impression of Han Solo is that he is essentially a Byronic hero who isn't the hero. He's a hard drinking, smart talking, somewhat unscrupulous character who serves as a foil to the more idealistic and conventional hero, Luke. A big part of the reason that Byronic heros tend to be appealing is that they're mysterious we don't and can't know everything about them, and that's why we like them. I also think that having Han Solo is a role where he's not technically the protagonist gives Luke room to grow and keeps his dialogue fresher as his sarcasm and flippant attitude provides light jabs of humour. While I think that Star Wars is a flawed series, I like the fact that they've taken a character who would normally be the hero and put him in a different role. The notion of giving him a backstory essentially undoes this tweak in two ways by making him more knowable, he becomes less Byronic. by making him the protagonist of his own movie, he is now the hero, which is the conventional choice of where we would expect to see him and isn't as interesting a story telling concept. I'm not a big fan of Star Wars but I have friends who will probably go and see this movie and I'd like to better understand their hobby. Please help me see the other side. EDIT Apparently, looking at the word Byronic hero for an essay means that I'm applying it everywhere even when it doesn't apply. I will concede that Han Solo is more of a general anti hero. That's the semantics out of the way. My Star Wars knowledge isn't fantastic, so the people who know more of the story who indicate that actually we've got a pretty good idea of who he is before the new film and therefore no ambiguity is being removed.","conclusion":"The new film \"Solo\" has a detrimental effect on Han Solo's appeal."}
{"id":"c4a12f9e-632a-4040-9c5f-5adfd3d51be1","argument":"Having passwords separately stored on a wide range of sites potentially means that an attack on any of these sites can compromise a password.","conclusion":"Laws should forbid web sites from requiring new locally-stored, single-site, password-based authentication."}
{"id":"d71cda7c-99a4-4a61-a50c-b057076fb874","argument":"I would like to change my mind on this issue, I hold my opinion because the healthcare system is a disgrace. How on earth can a government of one of the most powerful countries in the world not look after its own citizens? Apparently roughly 40 of the population are creationists. University fees are ridiculous, and just create a cycle of rich people getting good jobs and poor people working crap jobs. is there a way for a poor person to make a proper life? ridiculous levels of obesity and based on who I've met europeans just seem to be a better educated bunch.","conclusion":"i believe the u.s. is a blithering embarassment of a nation."}
{"id":"aa52dd1b-4763-442c-a7e5-7c8f4291130e","argument":"Each of the things of our experience has a cause at any moment during which it exists. Everything we see is being caused as we see it","conclusion":"Any composite thing has a cause of its existence at any moment during which it exists."}
{"id":"81b95645-5552-4692-b675-0bd614563716","argument":"An orbital ring does the same function as a space elevator avoid Earth's escape velocity to get into space, but with more surface area to achieve it.","conclusion":"An orbital ring would be a great alternative and might be extremely challenging, but pretty feasible."}
{"id":"2dd8c928-50b4-4e40-a009-dee72ae51112","argument":"There is an institutional distrust of scientifically correct or at least secular textbooks, in part because they provoke independent thought that would 'waste time' in the classroom.","conclusion":"Faith based schools often use textbooks that are directly contradictory to science."}
{"id":"81f3ae18-fd0e-4fb1-982d-93467f831039","argument":"I expect a lot of home owners will object to this as they have a vested interest in it not being true, but I believe it is. I'll bullet out my points. PLEASE CHANGE MY MIND My wife wants nothing more than to own a home, and I'd love to get to a place in my head that overcomes these points. We'll probably end up buying for her sake sooner than later anyway in spite of my view, so it'd be nice if you guys could shake up my attitude a bit. OK. For one thing, consider a side by side comparison of renting vs. owning two properties let's say houses in the same kind of neighborhood with the same amenities and square footage over the course of a typical 30 year loan. Mortgage and rents fluctuate wildly from area to area and over time, but what seems to be the case is that rents for housers at least are about the same or slightly higher than what your mortgage would be. For now, let's call those two things a wash, we can look at them again in a minute. Other costs that cancel each other out on both sides are appliance replacement, utility bills, gardening landscape. HOA fees are probably passed on to renters, too, but I'm not sure about what an average on that would be. Over the course of thirty years you'll pay thousands of dollars in interest on your loan. If you rent, that money would still be in your pocket. Property taxes. You can write off your property taxes, which might lower your tax bracket, but you're still going to be in the red there. Plus, they go up all the time because municipalities look to them to pick up the slack when they run out of money. If you rent, you're not responsible for all the house maintenance stuff, like replacing the roof or the water heater, addressing city code non compliance, hiring inspectors, fixing plumbing, on and on. That stuff costs thousands upon thousands over the years. So ok, at the end of thirty years you now own your house and can sell it for a profit, probably, because it's grown in value, whereas after thirty years of renting you have nothing to show for it. But not so fast If you took all the money you would have had had to spend due to your ownership and invested it in a simple index fund, or any number of other low risk long term investment strategies, you'd probably have even more money than the difference of the value of the house then vs. now. Plus, now you don't have to sell a house to move. The argument of home ownership as an investment has always struck me as odd since you'd have to buy another house if you sold it, so at the end of the day you're just talking about shuffling assets around. You might say that home ownership also gives you a sense of having roots in the community, but that's really a perception issue. If you really care about that, you'll be out participating in the community. If you have kids, they'll still be growing up with homeowners' kids. You can also do things like open a business or be involved in community service or whatever. Again, if roots is what you care about. Your freedom as an owner is still limited by your city in a similar manner as a landlord tenant relationship. You have to get approval from your city to do basically everything, at least if you want to do it legally. And many things you're simply not going to be allowed to do. In the mean time, as a renter you are free to come and go, explore different areas, live abroad, escape changing neighborhoods, etc. What if the municipality decides to change the main road nearby into only two lanes to accommodate a bike lane and traffic is now rerouted through your neighborhood every day? What if the airport changes its runway orientation and you now have low flying aircraft directly over your house every 30 seconds? It happens all the time, and when it does, you're stuck","conclusion":"Except for the psychological perk of owning and the freedom of customization, home ownership is a bad idea best avoided."}
{"id":"35370e78-307f-4245-ab7c-2dae4c621502","argument":"Israel's killed roughly 1,000 civilians in Gaza in their offensive. In addition, they've displaced 1 4 the population, 60,000 lost their homes, and losses are at 4 billion, three times Gaza's GDP. Children make up a huge portion of Gaza and now many will suffer from PTSD. In addition their already shaky relationship with Israel is strained and they'll be much more susceptible to joining a terrorist group. These children will be growing up with a deep seeded hatred of Israel considering their strife. Further, considering the massive economic losses in Gaza, the insane unemployment, the destroyed infrastructure hospitals, water, etc. , terrorist rule will have little trouble taking hold of the people. The people of Gaza will have no real method of avoiding antipathy towards Israel. Edited.","conclusion":"Israel has just initiated the creation of a new wave of terrorists in Gaza."}
{"id":"326e87bb-bb79-4372-a47b-bf1e31aa7a04","argument":"Instead of removing monuments, reinterpretations of them and changes could be made so the historic memory they represent can remain, yet with a more balanced interpretation that allows everyone to feel recognized.","conclusion":"Removal is the most drastic measure when there are more gentle alternatives."}
{"id":"cc00dace-142c-4726-bb85-9d61cb977287","argument":"God knows what you dont know . so let it be because he is more wise and all knowing and has a plan that we dont know. God delivers us to good and you see that in history. It is all a test for us that is why we are here. so evil is a way of testing the people to turn back to him.","conclusion":"The existence of evil can be reconciled with an all-powerful, all-knowing and all-loving God. God would not want to remove evil if a greater good were only achievable with the existence of evil."}
{"id":"52971d1b-8c74-4d1f-8fbf-087b2d032e5d","argument":"We cannot forget that \"climate change\" has \"pushed\" to optimize or reduce negative sides of industrialization. This means that \"climate change\" has pushed whole countries to invest in jobs and positions that are creating a more sustainable world in goods, facilities, and services.","conclusion":"$359 billion dollars was spent in 2012 'fighting climate change' globally. Yet, there is extensive human suffering now that could be helped if that money was directed towards more substantive humanitarian causes."}
{"id":"f8d63f9f-abbe-48c0-a400-16297a38a63e","argument":"Much of the modern military mission is humanitarian for strategic reasons. People who see you helping them in their time of need are less likely to take up arms against you. It is best to win a war before the first shot is fired.","conclusion":"Militaries are not solely based on the desire to inflict violence; military society emphasizes many positive values like collective solidarity, cooperation, and shared identity."}
{"id":"71ca7d6f-ac26-4e3a-a061-0add9be42602","argument":"The big conversation point about UBI is automation and how we will soon not need to work. The common counterpoint is that there are always new ways to use human capital. I think both sides are somewhat valid. However, the UBI side then says that even if we don't need it now, we will need it in the future and should therefore install the institution now. This is where I'm completely lost. Why would we do things in the government before they are needed? For one, the future is extremely hard to predict. Say a natural disaster hits, and all that money should be going to relief efforts, not people who are underemployed. Say the economy crashes, and we are both unable to fund the program and in need of everyone in the workforce again. Say the technology never evolves the way we expect it to. Say it takes 100 years, not 10. I can think of an infinite number of reasons why the future is unpredictable. If we make a policy decision that is bad now, and then we go into the future, and robots still haven't taken over, and it's still a bad decision at what point do we cut that bait and close the program? And how costly would that be? And wouldn't that make us all more reluctant to enact the program when we actually do need it? Adding this so I am not reported by some asshole I will change my view with a satsifactory answer to Why would we this before it is needed? gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"We do not need Universal Basic Income before automation wipes out jobs"}
{"id":"15d90d9a-fa4b-4e45-95f1-66e246168753","argument":"For clarity I don't think that all homeless people lack value, just the homeless in this particular area that I walk through every day on my way to work I believe that the majority of homeless people have jobs, but due to various factors are temporarily without a home I do not believe that the majority of homeless people just use drugs and or alchohol all day For people that live in Seattle My walking route is from the train station to the Seattle Art Museum building. The area I'm talking about is walking north on 2nd Avenue, between S Main Street and Yesler Way on the other side of the street from the Union Gospel Mission My View The people that loiter along this particular area of Seattle do not provide any value at all to society, and take more than they give. I do not value them as human beings, and if someone there was in need of help I would walk on by without providing any assistance. Here are the things that I see at least once a week, or every day that have created my view In the area where they loiter and sleep, there is always an immense amount of trash on the sidewalk. This is despite there being two dumpsters where they could take the trash to. None of these people have a serious physical disability that prevents them from throwing away their trash, they just choose not to do it . A city employee has to go through the area twice a day to clean up their trash. I did see one lady there with a broom cleaning up the area where she sleeps, but she was just moving the trash from the sidewalk to the street. The smell of urine is constant, especially in the afternoons when the sun is out. There are at least alley corners where they could urinate, if not bathrooms. They just choose to pee right where they sleep and people walk though instead. Again, they are capable of not doing this but choose to do it anyway. At least once a week I see the typical things that happen right before a fight. Tension build up, voices raised, body language, etc Rarely see this anywhere else in the city, just here. Again, they choose to do this. People asking me for money for food . This is probably the thing that most upsets me. In other areas, I don't normally assume the person asking for money is going to just buy drugs with it. In THIS area though, there is a place called the Union Gospel Mission that serves 3 meals a day for free, with no strings attached. The food isn't gross or anything, and it provides plenty of daily calories. How do I know? Because I volunteer there every week. They are literally standing across the street from a place that provides free frood, asking for money to buy food. These people don't even respect the area where they've chosen to live, let alone respect the other people that have to walk through there. The city with my tax dollars has to send police, trash pick up, and a person with a street cleaner through this area every day just to keep it somewhat decent. This leads me to the conclusion that these people are only takers, and provide no value at all to the society that they live in. Therefore, I do not value them as human beings. Even in the very rare case of the person who is taking advantage of welfare there is value. They are spending money on things, and living in a home. That money goes into the economy, etc Your average homeless person has value too, they probably have a job and contribute something to their society. I find none of that with this particular group of homeless living in this specific 2 block area.","conclusion":"The homeless people in a certain two block area of Seattle have negative value as human beings"}
{"id":"042410d5-1210-4228-ba76-bab791540a2a","argument":"Refuation, defined as the action of proving a statement or theory to be wrong or false, is a key feature of the scientific method","conclusion":"Teaching the controversy between creationism and evolution is important to student development."}
{"id":"2fea9715-d01e-41c7-8df8-a7cd6adb4fd7","argument":"We know that the world is unjust. This forces us to encounter an absence of Justice, suggesting that an ultimate Justice exists.","conclusion":"Existentially, our experience of suffering and evil points to the need for a God."}
{"id":"920f86ce-433f-4acc-af98-d9bf1ec280a4","argument":"Sometimes, economic or other circumstances make prostitution the best choice even though the individual doesn't desire to engage in it. It would be more legitimate for the government to try to change those circumstances instead of removing the option.","conclusion":"The sex industry is often a means of providing for oneself or a family when all other options have been exhausted."}
{"id":"00a6d108-8788-49a2-a548-27ec344022d9","argument":"Human beings' right to reproduce is a hot topic among some groups of people who used to be or still are sterilized. Society may have the means to restrict the reproduction of many beings human or not but it doesn't necessarily have the justification.","conclusion":"An AGI shouldn't be created because controlling its reproduction it copying itself, mutating or taking different forms wouldn't only be ethically hard to justify but also difficult to accomplish in the long term, which would create a new set of possible risks."}
{"id":"dc9ee92b-0248-4a48-89ea-68a384ff897a","argument":"Before anyone links me a thousand documentaries showing me how cruel factory farms can be, trust me, I know, I've seen them all. I'm more talking about in an idealized scenario where regulations are enforced and the animals are treated reasonably well. So perhaps a large scale organic farm, or something along those lines. In that situation the animals live and are suitably provided for, and when it comes time they are instantaneously and painlessly killed. Again, I'm aware of scenarios where this isn't the case, but in the general case, that's how it works Contrast this to hunting, where there is a high frequency of unclean deaths, where the animal must be tracked and shot again before it dies, often living until the hunter closes and finishes it off. There's also the matter of if you just killed an animal's parents and now they're going to starve to death. That wouldn't happen in a factory farm scenario. I know about game population control, and the immense waste of factory farms, but in terms of pure cruelty, shooting an animal out in the wild seems worse to me than putting a bolt through its head in captivity.","conclusion":"I believe that factory farming of meat is more humane than hunting."}
{"id":"4d6ef2df-d821-4cc0-9117-d7a52e6b0b24","argument":"Good looks can have a substantial impact not only on finding partners but on employment opportunities and politics","conclusion":"Privilege is complex and skin color is not the only thing one can benefit or suffer from."}
{"id":"2784e2b3-cb8d-44d4-a930-e33cf3832e20","argument":"Trump asked President Zelensyy of Ukraine in a July 25, 2019 phone call to investigate Joe Biden, his most prominent political opponent.","conclusion":"Since this discussion was started, more than enough evidence has come to light against Trump."}
{"id":"43d21dab-7cf7-463f-8e70-9b5390a0e7e8","argument":"The Olympics are a showcase. Hosting the Olympics can be a way of making a strong political point because of the intense media scrutiny that accompanies the games. During the Cold War both Moscow 1980 and Los Angeles 1984 were used by the USSR and USA to show their economic strength. Seoul in 1988 used the games to demonstrate South Korea's economic and political maturity. The Beijing Olympics in 2008 are seen by many as evidence of China\u2019s acceptance into the global community and a way for her to showcase her economic growth and acceptance of the West. For New York, the 2012 bid is a way of showing that the post-9\/11 healing process has been completed and that the city is \u2018open for business\u2019 despite the terrorist attacks.","conclusion":"The Olympics are a showcase. Hosting the Olympics can be a way of making a strong political point b..."}
{"id":"c5e95a9c-5fa8-4b7f-8010-232085c30888","argument":"Hello, 'ers. Much of the content surrounding this topic is hotly debated on Reddit, and is something that I've been thinking about for a long while now. Many of these ideas culminated a couple months back with everyone's favorite topic, GamerGate. However, I wanted to let the passions surrounding GamerGate cool off a bit before posting this here for obvious reasons. I am constantly seeing people on the Internet labelled as SJW's when they raise a point about some social issue, leading to them being quickly written off. The issues being brought up surrounding the GamerGate controversy were mostly either about gender in the videogame industry or the ethical concerns of game journalism. I feel that writing off anyone's position by calling them a SJW skews our ideas of what social justice really is, which is holding us back from making social progress. In my eyes, valid points were raised on both sides of the GamerGate discussion. I think that the games industry needs to be more welcoming to women, both through employing more women and providing better representation of women as characters, but from the other side of the argument, I think that ethical considerations in game journalism need to be taken more seriously. This is a simplification, obviously, but to be clear, this  isn't about GamerGate or picking sides, but the labeling of people who discuss social issues surrounding both GamerGate and larger conversations as well. I understand that the term Social Justice Warrior was coined to intentionally have a negative connotation, evoking an image of someone violently typing posts on Reddit and Tumblr saying, All men are evil Let's kill the men And there are plenty of people out there who advocate social positions that go against the status quo without actually understanding these ideas, simply because they feel they are being contrarian or edgy. I think these people are misinformed and not worth a minute of your time. However, it seems that the labeling of people as SJW's has extended beyond describing someone who shouts ideas of social justice into the tubes without understanding these things. Often I see the term being used to describe anyone who talks about any social issue, whether the poster has an understanding of the topic or not. The people throwing out the SJW accusations seem to use this as a defense to keep things the way they are and not have to engage in conversation about racial, gender, or identity issues in any meaningful way. I've even seen people trying to talk about issues of race in America after the events in Ferguson be labelled as SJW's. I think the demonization of the term Social Justice Warrior on the Internet is affecting the way people perceive any conversation about social issues, effectively demonizing the idea of social justice itself online. What do you think?","conclusion":"Using the term \"Social Justice Warrior\" as a pejorative hurts social progress and equality."}
{"id":"9c5ce7da-1175-49f9-a6b0-3bfec357cf12","argument":"Basically what the title says. I'm a male student in a moderately liberal part of the US, for background purposes. When making many maybe even most big choices in life, I focus mainly on what other people will think. Even when making little choices, I consciously ponder what effect it'll have on those around me. This stems from my youth I used to be very fat throughout childhood and adolescence and only lost a lot of weight at the end of high school. This changed my world no longer did people make fun of me, or avoid asking me to dances, or look at me weird. Everyone was nicer, everyone was more human to me. That made me happy, and so I started to base my decisions on what others would feel. My dress sense is based on 25 what feels comfortable and 75 on how it looks to the public mainly attractive girls . The jokes I make and my behavior at parties is all geared not so I can enjoy myself internally but so others will like me and gravitate towards me. My career medicine is only 50 because I like it and 50 because a doctor is rich respected in society. My purchases are generally those that are well looked upon by guests who may visit my house or view my belongings. Now you have a picture of my life. I know that Reddit is often fiercely individualistic don't give a shit about what others think Do what makes you happy so I come here for some counterpoints. Please change my view and convince me that it's more important to find internal happiness than base my decisions happiness on how others will perceive my choices. TL DR Everything I do is based on what others will think of me, and I've found it's made me happy so far. Please change my view, convince me that this is unsustainable and unhealthy.","conclusion":"I care a lot about what society thinks of me. And that's fine."}
{"id":"02487557-bb3c-496a-8dd0-b88e38322c54","argument":"There is some language in the U.S. Constitution that specifically supports and recognises the legitimacy of some forms of vigilantism if the government breaches its promise to protect its citizens.","conclusion":"When the state and its organs prove incapable of providing justice to the people, it is necessary for some other group to step up and provide said justice."}
{"id":"1cc7edc7-d537-485d-8bb0-0a9651aa5a7e","argument":"Many theists base their belief in God on good in the world, while the stories in their religious texts tend to depict the Gods of classical theism as selfish evil tyrants with bad attitudes, short tempers, lust for death and destruction, and a general disregard for the value of anything other then themselves, even when those same texts defined such Gods as being good no matter what they do.","conclusion":"There are as many moral arguments against the existence of God."}
{"id":"c2feb2bb-5566-4ee8-8ef2-c87abaaf14d6","argument":"The Republicans in Congress vowed to challenge any potential executive action by Obama, seeking to close Guantanamo Bay in court.","conclusion":"Congress should be blamed instead of Obama for failing to close down Guantanamo Bay detention camp."}
{"id":"a1b4b256-eb2a-44f7-b063-2bf78487d4e9","argument":"Overpopulation is of utmost concern because the world population is globally trending towards urbanism and will become worse over time projected to be 70% by 2050","conclusion":"Overpopulation is inevitable structurally with urbanization. Crowding and population overgrowth create issues."}
{"id":"15138f88-e690-4d93-a06d-d3485b77c259","argument":"It is the city from where Muhammad ascended to heaven and met Allah. It is an important religious event that is celebrated by Muslims every year throughout the world.","conclusion":"Jerusalem is of great religious significance to Muslims too, and is considered to be the third holiest site in Islam."}
{"id":"f6880c8e-b101-4b06-bd99-ede1ad0b2134","argument":"It seems every left wing man and their dog stands in line to put their negative 0.2 in about Israel and worship the suffering Palestinians , but without Israel, that area would be yet another backwards, under developed country whereas now, because of jewish presence, Israel is a world leader for things like design. I for one would not be scared to go there on vacation where the people treat eachother in a civilised manner as equals and I couldn't say the same for the neighbouring countries. The only real security threat in Israel is the suffering Palestinians going in and blowing themselves up to become mujahids on their buses. Palestinians are without doubt the aggressors and Jewish settlements should be given a wide scope to claim land. Also I feel that whenever someone criticises Israel, they are doing so out of Antisemitism and criticising the Israeli people is the last acceptable form of hatred for Jews. I fully support Israel in all of her actions.","conclusion":"I believe that Jews have made the area of Israel a much better place than Palestinians ever could have and criticism of them is inherently anti-Semitic."}
{"id":"7e06e675-66af-4839-a2c4-93c72458e698","argument":"The current patent system is flawed to its very core. Under the status quo pharmaceutical firms make use of research from state-funded university labs, that has been released into the public domain, to base their own research programs. They usually enter late in the process when there already is a possible product in sight. Once a product is completed it is patented for the sole use of the company for a period of 20 years. This 20 year monopoly is rigidly enforced by both domestic & international law across the world. Devastating problems arise with this because the high prices charged by these firms to maximize their profit are too expensive for those in developing countries, and even in some developed countries that lack proper social security institutions, resulting in millions of unnecessary deaths. The current system suppresses innovation by placing legal hurdles to further researching and improving existing drugs. It also incentivizes spending on non-life threatening diseases common in the West such as hair lossand therefore bring in more revenue than those focused on poorer countries that can\u2019t afford to spend as much on medication. Therefore, we propose a plan set out by Economics Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz where an international multi-billion dollar fund would be set up to award scientists and firms once they discover or develop cures to life-saving diseases. This would aim to cover research costs but also incentivize research into life-threatening diseases over other ailments. Once payment is made the product is pooled into the public domain, available for use by any company anywhere in the world. While this would be expensive 0.6% GDP it would pay-off in the medium term as health care systems would no longer have to pay huge premiums to drug companies. More importantly, it would allow for millions to afford medicines","conclusion":"From the Irrational to the Ingenius:The Status Quo and Our Proposal"}
{"id":"ad9eae2d-f1db-499d-84e9-790dae94d254","argument":"The Sonic the Hedgehog series has been ruined by a series of terrible 3D games, such as Sonic \u201806 and Sonic Forces. These games are buggy and difficult to handle, causing them to be extremely frustrating and the antithesis to everything that the original 2D Sonic games were. The older games and recently, Sonic Mania had a major emphasis on building up speed. If you could keep on running and avoid getting hit by enemies, it would be like a roller coaster ride. In 3D Sonic, it\u2019s hard to accurately maneuver the character while they\u2019re going quickly, and as a result, most of the game is spent walking. For example, in Sonic Heroes, there\u2019s very little running, and when there is, it\u2019s highly controlled and you don\u2019t have to do much. Before Sonic Mania, Sonic was in a rut, but when it came out, it breathed new life into the series, and things were really starting to look up. And guess what? It was a 2D game. I must add that it partially relied on the nostalgia factor to get people interested, but it\u2019s a good game nonetheless. I think that the Sonic Team can still be innovative 2D games. Sonic Mania had tons of new mechanics and stage motifs. They could make it a 2.5D kind of game like Super Smash Bros or Donkey Kong Country, where all of the models are 3D, but they can only move in 2D. Whatever stuff they can come up with to make the game fun but still keeping it in two dimensions would be great. Change my view","conclusion":"Sonic should stay in 2D"}
{"id":"e0aa42a0-0776-46a2-838a-01f1766a8208","argument":"As the scientific field of environmental economics advance, we may find out that certain jobs have more negative externalities than actual produced utility to society. UBI would discourage the existence of such jobs.","conclusion":"The UBI financially supports citizens who are engaged in meaningful but low- or unpaid activities, such as: domestic labor, art, volunteering, engaging with politics, and pursuing higher education."}
{"id":"342d51f1-6dfa-49bd-b9be-1e4433659646","argument":"A Tobin tax would reduce speculative trading and facilitate real trade and investment. More than 1.8 trillion dollars changes hands every day on global foreign exchange markets. More than 80% of this trading is buying and selling money for profit\u2019s sake. This speculation has played a crucial role in 1990s financial crises. In a crisis situation, currency trade swiftly increases and dealers often act as a \u201cherd\u201d and cause a rapid economic breakdown. A minimal tax would not hold back productive business transactions for trade and investment, but speculative transactions would be hit harder because the greater the frequency of transactions, the higher the tax charge.","conclusion":"A Tobin tax would reduce speculative trading and facilitate real trade and investment. More than 1.8..."}
{"id":"4f8a256c-8019-4c32-ab91-d7a32cd08fd5","argument":"Some examples of organisations which do not classify glyphosate as a carcinogen include, but are not limited to: the United States Environmental Protection Agency, the European Chemical Agency, the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority, the German Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health and the Japan Food Safety Commission.","conclusion":"Most experts and regulatory authorities do not classify glyphosate as a carcinogen."}
{"id":"27e34fe7-d0e7-4308-bea6-bc563e3bdbf7","argument":"Vice President Pence and countless others in the media and in my own casual conversations have labeled the shooting and those like it as evil. This places blame on ethereal supernatural concepts and not the people and the societal issues at the heart of the tragedy. The killer was compelled to carry out the act based on his own decisions and will. He surely had psychological issues, but these are not inherently evil. People struggle to have empathy for mass murderers so I see how it might be easier and more comforting to assign blame to generic evil forces. This causes long term damage as people fail to assume the collective societal responsibility. We as a country encourage the behavior through permissive gun laws, limited acknowledgement and treatment of psychological issues, and a score card approach where we rate shooters against each other for kill counts and style points. A sober view of these tragedies would paint a picture of a country with problems we need to come together to solve, not a supernatural cause that can\u2019t be brought to justice or practically addressed.","conclusion":"Describing lone wolf attacks, like the recent shooting in Las Vegas, as \u201cevil\u201d minimizes the social and personal responsibilities, deepening the problem and increasing the likelihood of future attacks."}
{"id":"93124549-b1cb-4656-8cc4-c609d5ef7796","argument":"In the music score, the male part is referred to as \"the wolf\" and the female part as \"the mouse\". This conjures predatory images even beyond the lyrics.","conclusion":"\"Baby It's Cold Outside\" is an infamously unnerving Christmas song that seems to promote date rape behaviour."}
{"id":"e857dd23-0530-4972-b33c-3a669748658e","argument":"100 years ago polygamy was far more accepted than homosexuality. Fast forward to today, homosexuality is gaining acceptance but polygamy is still frowned upon. How is it that homosexuals have been so successful in acceptability where polygamist have failed? Which is the moral high ground sex with my two wives or my same sex boy friend? Sadly, I've got neither, this is just hypothetical. Given the choice, I'd take the threesome. I'm not trying to biased here, women could certainly could have two husbands as well. Perhaps homosexuality is a necessary step toward polygamy? Or perhaps I'm just a perv.","conclusion":"Polygamy should be just as well accepted as homosexuality."}
{"id":"96da79ec-38cf-4016-bb78-4b749c9fb796","argument":"I would like to preface this by saying that as of the other day I had exactly the opposite view. I made a post which set out the extreme opposite view that close in age exemption laws which allow 13 year olds to legally have sex albeit only with people close to them in age are condoning child rape, since I was of the view that 13 year olds were as a whole not developed or mature enough to be able to give informed consent. In response to that post, I pretty much universally got told that 13 year olds can consent, and that the reason for the usual age of consent usually between 16 or 18 is to protect children from being manipulated and victimised by adults for sex. That line of reasoning completely bypasses the issue of children possibly not being developed enough in the brain to comprehend sex, and suggests that it\u2019s all about harm from manipulation where there is a power imbalance. In accepting this, I now hold the view that 13 year olds are capable of consenting to sex even with adults . In line with this reasoning, the issue other people highlighted is the power imbalance and manipulation. In a situation where an adult does not manipulate a child, the sex should therefore be consensual and permissible. If an adult does not manipulate a child for sex, it follows that the only time sex would happen is when it is instigated by the child. I think it is pretty much accepted that children are attracted to adults so this isn\u2019t beyond the realms of possibility.","conclusion":"Thirteen year olds are capable of consenting to sex and are only harmed when having sex with adults if the adult is manipulative."}
{"id":"5e1782e0-190e-40fa-bcec-13d515869890","argument":"This is in light of the recent video posted by a fraternity at UCI. I believe that although blackfacing may have been offensive in the past, that was history and that it was used here simply because the fraternity was on a budget and wanted someone to portray JayZ, without spending too much money. I agree that this was unnecessary, but I truly do not think it was meant to offend, or should offend anybody. Actions and words only have the power we give them, right?","conclusion":"I believe people are too sensitive and quick to accuse something of being racist."}
{"id":"089e5fcd-0105-4181-b41f-845b70000e66","argument":"While our country probably respects the concept of freedom of speech more than almost any other, we do still have exceptions carved by the courts. Libel and slander are not protected speech. Speech that calls for immediate violence or that the speaker knows will provoke violence are not protected. I'm starting to come to the conclusion that we might need another exception with violence being promoted against other Americans. My reasoning is thus Societies' whole purpose of being is to foster communication and collaboration between its people. Actions that make it more difficult for groups to work together or keep them from communicating effectively shrink society's capabilities and introduce instability. There's a certain amount of instability in every society that is necessary for growth and adaptation, but instability against core concepts can be devastating to the society. We already have laws against direct threats to individuals. Direct threats against other Americans as a group is somehow allowed. And if a group of people thinks that they are in danger of being hurt or killed just by participating in the society , there's no real reason for them to participate. Note that this position indicates any group of Americans. Calling for violence against Neo nazis would be treated the same as violence against Jews. I come to you now hoping you all have some insight that I might have missed. So please, .","conclusion":"We may need another exception to free speech banning violent rhetoric against other Americans"}
{"id":"40e77fc7-a2ae-42c6-b132-407101eeded7","argument":"The ban has an asymmetric effect: it only stops nations that obey the law from using landmines. Most nations contemplating invasion will ignore it, deploying them aggressively to defend captured territory. On the other hand, many nations that would use landmines defensively for themselves, or for multinational defence of another vulnerable nation or people, will observe the ban and thus weaken themselves and expose those they guard. The landmine should in fact be a primary tool of the United Nations efforts to protect those in its care. Nations that want to use landmines will do so regardless of the position taken by the USA or any other nation - as demonstrated by the current prolific use of mines despite the mass of signatories to the Ottawa convention. And if we might one day face an enemy deploying landmines, we must expose our soldiers to their use in training so that we do not expose them to serious harm.","conclusion":"The ban has an asymmetric effect: it only stops nations that obey the law from using landmines. Mos..."}
{"id":"fb8c404c-4acf-4c82-8fea-9bd083dcd4c5","argument":"This could make space more accessible to normal people, which would lead to a greater interest and engagement with space exploration.","conclusion":"A space elevator will make the colonisation of other planets much easier."}
{"id":"9b228ced-a1e6-4767-81f2-1ba8cfa34bd0","argument":"Many cats and dogs from shelters have been abused or mistreated and so may have emotional or behavioural difficulties Some families may not have the ability to care for such animals and would miss out on all the benefits cats and dogs can bring.","conclusion":"This reduces the choices available to customers in terms of the sort of pet they would like to buy."}
{"id":"1a88de24-2d88-4cd2-a8fd-663b1eb83ff3","argument":"Interest payments on our national debt now comprise 7% of our total budget. We're headed the way of Greece.","conclusion":"Tax revenue should never be lowered without a government surplus and debt pay-down."}
{"id":"8c4df1ef-1e20-4093-923b-3248d37025e1","argument":"Everything I think about the subject just brings up negative thoughts for me. I want to change that and hopefully see it through. Every time I hear someone is pregnant all I can think about is what a burden it is and yet they\u2019re happy. Maybe I just naturally lack the urge to reproduce, then again in my beliefs all of these things have to do with modern life here on Earth. When it\u2019s brought up all I can think about is the financial cost of having kids, cleaning up messes non stop, losing the ability to travel conveniently, not being able to go out when I want to, daycare, dealing with the stress and drama of their teen years, screwing them up mentally because of things that happened to me when I was younger. I do really want to change my mindset, I feel like all these things are a combination of fears and selfishness. Help","conclusion":"I think having kids is too expensive and stressful"}
{"id":"56192f2f-885d-498a-ad4d-4c2cdeed66d8","argument":"Liquid democracy, with multiple, probably non-compatible ideologies, some of which are likely to be very short-lived, with no coterminosity or shared vision, is likely to make for a weak ineffective government.","conclusion":"A multi-party system is slower than a two-party system."}
{"id":"9bd96f1e-3671-48ce-901c-90d5fa271c1f","argument":"Measures such as international condemnations, diplomatic sanctions and military exercises in Eastern Europe are likely to keep Russia in check despite the lifting of sanctions.","conclusion":"A similar message could have been sent without the use of heavy-handed tactics like sanctions."}
{"id":"eab0b502-409b-4e13-8e68-e6cb2bd85b99","argument":"Political representation is the best way to ensure that people's views and interests are taken into account in a democracy.","conclusion":"Quotas increase representation. This is enough to justify their use."}
{"id":"11cf624d-4191-4bd6-9665-e71e57ea0f82","argument":"The general scientific and commonsensical consensus is that the current mass extinction of species is caused by humans. A few species we have exterminated by simply killing them off, like the Passenger Pigeon, the Thylacine and the Dodo. Most species we bring to extinction by destroying their habitats. But in second place as the most efficient exterminators come invasive species that we wittingly or unwittingly release to ecosystems where they don't belong. They either hunt and kill native species that have no defenses against them, outcompete native species that inhabit the same ecological niche, spread diseases or toxins that endager local wildlife or interbreed with local species, causing original genetic traits to disappear. Cats do all of those, but I'll just focus on their role as predators, or this will be too extensive. A recent study estimates that every year free ranging domestic cats kill 1.3\u20134.0 billion birds and 6.3\u201322.3 billion mammals in the US only. Worldwide, cats have been a major factor in the total or near extinction of several species of birds, the Stephens Island Wren being probably the best known case. Since its domestication in the Middle East, the cat has spread to the rest of world, and most countries have populations of feral cats in addition to a large number of house cats whose owners allow them to roam free. The domestic cat is listed as number 38 on the list of 100 of the World's Worst Invasive Alien Species and number 3 among the mammals. That it's not higher on the list is, in my opinion, because the species above it cause short term harm to human financial interests, and that will always be a priority above long term environmental damage. In my opinion, all feral cats should be killed and legislation should be put in place that requires all pet owners to keep their pets on their own property. Several countries have already regulated dogs this way, since feral dogs can be a direct threat to humans. But the more indirect, yet much more serious threats, posed by cats, are being completely overlooked. The socalled TNR trap neuter return programmes are expensive and inefficient. Literally billions of lives and entire ecosystems could be saved by exterminating free ranging cats once and for all. This would in no way harm them as a species, and would further ensure that all cats would be properly taken care of in their owner's homes, where they belong.","conclusion":"I believe that the domestic cat is the worlds most destructive invasive species and should be removed from our natural environments."}
{"id":"dbfcb951-fbcf-4e13-9837-82a2fbbb9fb6","argument":"I do not praise my heater for its morality whereas it protects me from having a cold. A predetermined mechanism cannot be considered moral neither immoral, but amoral.","conclusion":"Things can only be moral if they have the choice to be moral. Morality is a crucial concept for the proper functioning of human societies."}
{"id":"48bc7309-531e-4e59-bdc4-781ad531dfdb","argument":"As a preface, I'm approaching this question from a certain mindset. I'm a political and history junkie who has kept abreast of this confirmation process. I'm genuinely looking for differing viewpoints that could sway my mind. I'm not looking for an argument or to bash people for their political beliefs. I also think this would be an interesting contrast to the other recent Kavanaugh post which was the exact opposite of this one. With the information that I've obtained, I think Kavanaugh is overall deserving of confirmation, with a few causes for concern. He has a perfectly acceptable pedigree, being on the DC circuit for the last dozen years and authoring some 300 decisions. Furthermore, this process is how the system should work. We have in Kavanaugh a credible and experienced judge being nominated to the Senate. I'm not going to defend every decision he made as sacrosanct, but I will say that I think it's disingenuous to say his resume isn't deserving of consideration. I think a lot of opposition to Kavanaugh is a reaction to the Senate Republicans 86 ing Garland's nomination in 2016. Now, I don't agree with that decision, but I don't think the correct response to that is to block this nomination out of spite. That's just perpetuating this cycle of political gamesmanship. At some point one side will have to allow the system to work, otherwise our system will wither away. Another refrain I hear frequently is that Trump is a delegitimate president and he shouldn't be allowed to make this nomination. To that, I say, if that is the case he should be impeached immediately. No one is proposing that, not even Senate Democrats, so without that process normal business and government should continue. We either shut down the government to hold impeachment proceedings, or go about normal business. Now, on to objections of Kavanaugh as a person. Anecdotally, I've heard of several people who think he'll be in the deciding vote in ending abortion as we know it in the US. I strain to find that credible. I mean, perhaps he'll cast a deciding vote in limiting the scope of the right to an abortion, or limit access to birth control, but that's not the same thing as ending abortion as we know it. Also, we just don't know what will happen. Justices are notoriously unpredictable. Stevens and Souter were appointed as Republicans, by Republicans, and were firmly liberal justices when they retired. Or Justice Kennedy, who turned into a staunch defender of gay rights. Even Roberts was unpredictable when he cast the deciding vote in the 2012 health care decision. Oh, and guess who cast the deciding vote on the constitutionality of burning the flag? None other than one Antonin Scalia. With Kavanaugh I see three facets of legitimate concern. The first is the allegations of perjury in 2006. During the email hacking scandal in the first term of the Bush Administration, it seems extremely plausible that Kavanaugh was privy to those emails. He claims he didn't, but it makes more sense that he would see them, rather than he would not. Second, why did he have so much debt recently and how was it paid off? The common excuse of buying season tickets at Nationals games doesn't make any sense. Third, and to be honest I barely credit this, is the recent allegations that he committed sexual assault when he was 17 years old in the early 1980s. The reason I say I barely credit this allegation, is because the source is one person who by her own admission first spoke about this allegation only after 30 years of silence. Perhaps this happened, perhaps it didn't, but with this letter so far being the only evidence of this purported act, I just can't credit it. I have an open mind, but more information must come out. What would change my mind? If there is evidence that Kavanaugh himself is not appropriate for the seat and or if there is a convincing argument that Trump is not eligible to make this pick and fulfill his duties as president.","conclusion":"Brett Kavanaugh Should Be Confirmed to the Supreme Court"}
{"id":"c8d109b4-4811-443c-84a3-fbafa25dcd7f","argument":"In India, religious minorities have to face religiously motivated killings, assaults, riots, discrimination, vandalism, and actions restricting the right of individuals to practice their religious beliefs.","conclusion":"Religious discrimination and prejudices against minorities are widespread in many countries."}
{"id":"72ec11ab-a684-43ad-81f8-7a2385e435b3","argument":"We need to track what our governments are doing and check the validity of the reasons they use to support their actions. This will require a cost-benefit and risk analysis. None of us can do it alone, our institutions aren't doing it, and so we're going to have to join together to get it to happen.","conclusion":"Crowd sourcing is the only way that a city, state, or nation can come together in a high resolution way that has the potential of addressing the complexity of our problems."}
{"id":"bf7ab014-91de-4ae5-97e6-514723967521","argument":"Vice-chairman of the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform, Nobukatsu Fujioka has written several best selling books denying the event.","conclusion":"Many Japanese historians deny the extent or existence of the Nanking Massacre."}
{"id":"6bfaa433-b25a-4cad-a0ec-118cfc435a6d","argument":"Spoilers, obviously. The Lego Movie was fantastic up until the point about an hour in where they decided to ruin the entire experience by telling us it all takes place in the imagination of a child. All of the characters we spent an hour or so becoming attached to were simply figments of this kid's imagination. This interesting world was never real. There is no need for suspension of disbelief because nothing interesting actually happens outside of this child's mind. We are given no reason to care about the child and his father because we barely get to see them at all, so what reason do I have to give a shit whether or not they reconcile? It's incredibly jarring to be ripped out of this fantastical world more than halfway into the film. Why is this any better than being told that all of St Elsewhere took place in Tommy Westphall's head? Or that an entire season of Dallas was all a dream? I really wanted to like this film. I love Legos and it was close to being my favorite film but the ending just seemed awful to me. Please please please change my view. I want to enjoy this film.","conclusion":"The Lego Movie was close to perfection and completely ruined itself."}
{"id":"6eb6492d-9282-4a3e-b07d-73f24eb5d304","argument":"Churches often pursue private rather than public goals, and therefore should not be given a tax exemption on the basis of being a charitable organisation.","conclusion":"Churches in the United States should lose their automatic tax-exempt status."}
{"id":"cad3a711-3230-439f-ab6a-a80d3607b2ba","argument":"\"Heart surgery is adaptation \u2014 it\u2019s waiting until the bad outcome has occurred heart disease and then trying desperately to save yourself with no guarantee of success. Lots of people die on the operating table or later from complications. Pielke apparently thinks the best that mitigators can do for people at risk of heart disease is research into methods of better surgery for dealing with it.\"","conclusion":"An ounce of mitigation is worth a pound of adaptation."}
{"id":"fd471abc-ed1f-49f0-a97a-6fc88f3c5aca","argument":"President Hu visited Japan in May 2008 to sign the \u201cJoint Statement on the Comprehensive Promotion of a 'Mutually Beneficial Relationship Based on Common Strategic Interests.","conclusion":"The shift towards improved Sino-Japanese relations was initiated by Hu Jintao the previous Chinese President."}
{"id":"af00f89d-cc4e-4792-bd09-b6f58ff54f89","argument":"I want to start out by saying that It seems like there should be a thread about this already, but I wasn't able to find a duplicate with the reddit search function. Sorry if it's already been discussed. I'm purely addressing the issue of police brutality against African Americans here I'm not disputing that people who come from a poor socioeconomic background have a harder time to succeed and more likely to be violent. Police brutality is despicable irrespective of what races are involved. Onto the main idea White Americans outnumber black Americans by a factor of five, so it wouldn't be fair to just cite absolute numbers of police abuse against both groups. Over the span of more than a decade, 2,151 whites died by being shot by police compared to 1,130 blacks. Politifact. CNN However, black Americans commit more dangerous crimes than white Americans. For homicides, The offending rate for blacks was almost 8 times higher than whites Adjusted for the homicide rate, whites are 1.7 times more likely than blacks die at the hands of police Am I misinterpreting the data or am I missing some other relevant data that gives the blacklivesmatter movement some legitimacy?","conclusion":"The blacklivesmatter #blacklivesmatter movement's core grievances are baseless"}
{"id":"e359d0c0-0644-452c-9b26-d7c0325c76f4","argument":"AI's planning may not include humanity as a factor of importance, leading to a world on which humans are barely considered as a chess pawn, or directly excluded in a form of elimination.","conclusion":"One of the principles of machine learning systems is garbage in, garbage out. Wrong data would lead to poor decision making."}
{"id":"8f5bcff0-5afc-422f-944a-02f66259366a","argument":"If coercive actions improve service to the customer, but coerce someone else, then a free market economy will - force - companies to act coercively.","conclusion":"Problems with free market economies that result from self interest cannot be solved with an appeal to competition."}
{"id":"0dad23b5-d104-4c2f-8ba0-46c5f24d18fc","argument":"Leo Tolstoy makes a convincing argument in the closing of War and Peace that free will is an illusion. The argument makes use of prima facie evidences, specifically with reference to the relationship of our experience of free will and the dimension of time.","conclusion":"Assuming time as a matter of perception, being it one we experience in a linear way, but not necessarily the only way of experiencing it, everything happens at the same \"time\", so every action happened, happens and will happen."}
{"id":"9eb6b3ce-9a4a-4173-bbc6-c8f9ad3fab82","argument":"Joseph Smith admitted on some occasions that he never had the golden plates or that he was never able to see in a stone","conclusion":"Joseph Smith falsely professed a supernatural ability to see things in a seer stone"}
{"id":"96b19394-2614-4d70-b075-ff300cd1b13f","argument":"State laws in India have penalties for conversions of people assumed to be particularly vulnerable. The Tamil Nadu Prohibition of Forcible Conversion of Religion Ordinance includes a penalty providing higher punishment for those forcibly converting minors, women, or Scheduled Castes or Tribes. Ahmad, pg.11","conclusion":"Proselytization should be, and in many countries is, restricted if it is aimed at vulnerable populations. Proselytization therefore should not be directed at schoolchildren who are unable to opt out of it."}
{"id":"0668967b-1feb-44a4-96bd-4d6be6fc9ecf","argument":"Not all current vegetable varieties might adapt well to the cultivation methods used in vertical farming, requiring the development of new varieties, increasing R&D costs.","conclusion":"Plants evolved for growing in soil, so transferring plants that evolved so well in one set of conditions to another will be difficult."}
{"id":"79528ec2-368a-4fa1-abcb-8e1dbe9db0ec","argument":"Right now in Wisconsin and Michigan, Republicans are using lame duck legislative sessions to pass legislation that would not be able to pass under the new legislature executive which have been chosen by the voters, in some cases just to enact policy preferences, and in some case to limit the power of opposite party governors. I believe these are fundamentally improper, and reflect poorly on the concept of a lame duck legislative session as a whole. After the election has taken place, the old legislature ceases to have democratic legitimacy, and I think should not have lawmaking power. I can see a case that some emergencies would require action in the lame duck period, and so I would support provision for something like the caretaker conventions in a Westminster system whereby all parties leadership would need to consent to any action during a caretaker period. But barring that I think lame duck legislation is improper and should not be done, because it is democratically illegitimate. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Lame duck legislative sessions should be prohibited, or require all-party consent for any action."}
{"id":"43e56f70-7212-4d34-ae90-b5b3ec80002d","argument":"In a patriarchal society men are discouraged from speaking out about being victims of sexual assault because they're told that men either \"can't be raped\" or \"should have enjoyed it\".","conclusion":"Men suffer negative consequences from the expectations and requirements placed on them by the patriarchy, which feminists are trying to dismantle."}
{"id":"3f9c89cc-e16d-43e3-8033-c5777548e958","argument":"I believe that the Social media enables the spread of unreliable and false information. This causes people to believe false information. I also believe that it causes Students who are heavy social media users to have lower grades. Most importantly, i believe that Social media Social networking sites facilitate cyberbullying. Another big thing that comes from teenagers and social media, other than cyber bullying is the idea of sexting. Many teenagers now sext more often with apps like snapchat and the sorts. Identity theft is a large problem in our world and the use of social media and the hacking of social media sites causes identity theft. But what i think is the most negative impact is the idea of cyber bullying.","conclusion":"that, on balance, social networking websites have a negative impact on the United States."}
{"id":"f4fef7ec-6ba4-478d-b068-92afac017a3c","argument":"Stig Jagerskiold in 1966, in which he argues that the right of return was intended as an individual and not a collective right: \".it is intended to apply to individuals asserting an individual right. There was no intention here to address the claims of masses of people who have been displaced as a by-product of war or by political transfers of territory or population, such as the relocation of ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe during and after the Second World War, the flight of the Palestinians from what became Israel, or the movement of Jews from the Arab countries.\"4","conclusion":"Right of return is individual right, not collective for Palestinians."}
{"id":"243cf1d5-f5ec-46b0-be10-0145093d3593","argument":"Autism, which has been called the \"extreme male phenotype\" is more prevalent in males than females. High-functioning autism is associated with cognitive traits well suited to tech and STEM more broadly, such as hyper\u2010systemising & obsessiveness.","conclusion":"Women and men have different abilities because they had different roles throughout evolution."}
{"id":"202d62e3-a58a-45f4-a59e-8f38527cedba","argument":"There is no condiment in America more broadly loved and widely detested than Ketchup. Regardless of whether or not you enjoy ketchup, there are people who will criticize others just for putting it on literally any food. There are restaurants which refuse to provide ketchup for their customers specifically because they don't feel it belongs on their food, or that it reflects poorly on the personal tastes of the person asking for it. No other condiment invites that kind of behavior, and the justifications that I have heard for Ketchup's denouncement seem arbitrary at best. I think mustard is vile, but I don't feel the need to try to make people who do like mustard feel bad about it. Edit For the sake of clarity, and so people stop sending the same responses, I am referring specifically to instances where ketchup is singled out for criticism. I am well aware that it is bad form to go to a fancy restaurant and ask for additional condiments because it is rude to the chef. It would be rude to ask for any additional condiments in that case though, not just ketchup.","conclusion":"The hatred of ketchup among self-professed \"foodies\" is arbitrary and irrational."}
{"id":"bb3e19ad-899e-4021-a480-fea22301e1fa","argument":"Bromeliads use so little water that some of them not pineapple even are called 'air plants' because they just take water from the air.","conclusion":"Pineapples are one of the top 10 crops that uses the least amount of water to grow."}
{"id":"e1950f19-4b2d-4089-b4f5-baaf3c141cf0","argument":"When Qui Gon and Obi Wan land on Tatooine, they encounter Watto, a junk dealer who owns two slaves, Anakin Skywalker and his mother Shmi. When Qui Gon learns he cannot buy them from Watto, he gambles for Anakin's freedom. I believe that Qui Gon should have removed both Anakin and Shmi from Watto's control, using force or the Force^haha if necessary. Since the Jedi are guardians of peace and justice , they are presumably called to right moral wrongs. While slavery is apparently not illegal on Tatooine, it is nevertheless immoral, and Qui Gon seems to recognize this. I realize that gambling on the podrace was necessary, since it would be wrong to take Watto's non living property by force, even if he was dead. But I believe that once the race was over, and Qui Gon had obtained the parts for the ship under the arrangement he and Watto made, Qui Gon should have freed Shmi Skywalker using any means necessary. Change my view. EDIT You guys are sending in some great responses, I'll try to get them all after I get to work. There's a couple that keep coming up that I have issue with, though. Watto was a good master Yes, but she's still a slave. Being a slave sucks bantha balls. Anakin was the only one who needed to be freed Yes, but Shmi shouldn't have to be a slave forever because she's not important enough to the story. Qui Gon couldn't free all the slaves Yes, but that doesn't mean he shouldn't free the ones he can. Anakin needed to sever his emotional connections Yes, but it seems like he would be more attached to his mother if she was still a slave billions of miles away than if she was living somewhere safe and comfortable. The Force wouldn't work on Watto Toydarians are immune to mind tricks, not being hurled around the room with the Force like a ragdoll. EDIT u Makes Poor Decisions changed my mind. Anakin would most likely not have become a Jedi if he could have lived with his mother and been free. While it still blows for Shmi, I can see the necessity of her being a slave for Anakin to be willing to leave her behind and become a Jedi.","conclusion":"Qui-Gon Jinn should have freed both Anakin and Shmi Skywalker after the podrace, by force if necessary."}
{"id":"7a7dc63b-6a71-4cf0-853c-65c09fcc6644","argument":"Mandatory retirement allows opportunity for more employment of younger people, especially in the top jobs. Considering the unemployment statistics in Britain, this will help to reduce youth unemployment, and vacate jobs for those who are at the age of supporting themselves and setting up a home and lifestyle, as well as those supporting a family. This is also more economically sound \u2013 surely it makes more sense to pay more pensions, supplemented with private pensions, than support the unemployed youth of the country. If they are not given the opportunity to begin a career, or become established in a company, it is far more difficult to encourage this later in life; we need to think of the long term good of the whole workforce.","conclusion":"Mandatory retirement allows opportunity for more employment of younger people, especially in the top..."}
{"id":"9b4d4cbe-4284-460e-b4b3-d1850775ae2e","argument":"VR introduces students to technological capabilities, which can inspire them and help them learn valuable technological skills.","conclusion":"Virtual reality VR is the best format for online education."}
{"id":"04459939-8f75-454d-a80c-ae8d7c6a78c9","argument":"I've seen a lot of accusations that Trump is racist. In almost all cases, they refer to either his comments on Mexican illegal immigrants and Muslims. However, neither are racism, because illegals and Muslims are not races both are choices. Threads like this one list business decisions made 20 years ago that could be interpreted as racists. But nothing really regarding the present election, and nothing that he said. EDIT I do think Trump said a racist thing he claimed Gonzalo Curiel could not be impartial because he is Mexican. However he later retracted his claim, saying I do not feel that one's heritage makes them incapable of being impartial .","conclusion":"Donald Trump did not say anything racist this election"}
{"id":"4de11376-f3c2-4ddb-814c-b4ef5569c829","argument":"I don't believe there is anything innate within us that makes us different, like a soul or similar. Thus all our actions are determined by both our environment and our genetics, neither of which we have any control over to a appreciable degree . So although it will be infinity complex to compute what someone will do, their actions are still predetermined. Also the first philosophy major who comes in here and points out that if our actions are predetermined then any discussion will have nothing to do with the truth and therefore it is pointless to discuss, gets a slap upside the head.","conclusion":"I believe that everyone's actions are predetermined and so that ideas like meritocracy are redundant,"}
{"id":"cda3155c-7c70-477f-93ad-88ac534204ec","argument":"Despite promising to do so on his campaign website's healthcare reform page Trump failed to add any price transparency provisions to the House GOP bill, nor implement any changes requiring price transparency from health care providers through any other legislation or through regulatory moves at the Health and Human Services Department.","conclusion":"None of the healthcare plans that Trump promised were delivered."}
{"id":"79ab9871-30de-4c35-8ec5-a21ea7da4579","argument":"Information about the content of legalized drugs would be easier to find and accurate which would help people make informed and safer choice.","conclusion":"The legalisation of drugs could lead to better education on how to be safe around them."}
{"id":"d9249bfb-034c-4dd6-a60c-65e65ba3fc8b","argument":"There's a lot of debate about how some people are paid too much for what they do. I frequently find that people who think CEOs are paid too much have no issues with how much athletes and movie stars are paid. CEOs, athletes, and movie star pay are all subject to the same laws of supply and demand. The owners of the movie, owners of the team, and owners of the company, agree to pay the amount. What's similar among them all are that they often don't last very long. These are high profile people. Mistakes, poor performance, and even bad luck means your contract won't be getting renewed and any chance of future employment can be lost. These types of talents are what owners try to bring on board in hopes that they will make lots of money for them. To say that an athlete should not be paid so much is the same as saying the owner of the team should not be allowed to spend his money a certain way. I don't see how it is different for shareholders looking to employ a CEO. At the end of the day, all of these are dictated by supply and demand. No one pays millions for an athlete if he doesn't believe that athlete would be an asset to the team. If someone is willing to pay the amount, there is at the very least, the belief that the amount is worth it. You pay a popular actor a lot because you're receiving the ticket sales of his fan base. You pay a CEO a lot because he knows how to negotiate better deals with suppliers or can provide the vision for the next product. TLDR There's no difference between CEO's, athletes, and actors being paid a lot. If you're ok with one, you should be ok with them all.","conclusion":"If you're ok with how athletes are paid, you should be ok with how CEOs are paid"}
{"id":"e2c364a3-f663-42f4-9856-46995b861e89","argument":"Because only nobles were able to vote in the election, more powerful nobles were able to exert significant control over less wealthy or powerful nobles As a result, the elections were not very democratic even among the nobility.","conclusion":"The elective monarchy used in Poland was not democratic in the modern sense. Only members of the nobility were able to vote for the king."}
{"id":"4385c1d2-589e-4a77-8bb9-93eec6e835af","argument":"mind you I am not saying our only responsibility should be ourselves, rather, our it should be our most important. Except when during the period in which your kids are completely reliant on you. Once they are on their own, your 1 priority should again be yourself. School, work, friends, girlfriends, wives, sports, should never hinder you from first focusing on yourself and your body. I'm not necessarily labeling my viewpoint wrong, but I am interested in anybody changing my view since I seem to be a minority in my way of thinking. I brought this up amongst my roommates and they disagreed with me, most of them placed said they would place their spouse's life ahead of their own. Let me see what you got, and please let's keep this conversational. I am very interested in what you all think.","conclusion":"I believe everybody's number one priority should be themselves."}
{"id":"cf0c40e4-b12f-47b7-8bee-d7f530dfe956","argument":"If voters are polarized and there is no majority for median voters, then the majoritarian parties at the end of the political spectrum will dominate. This would result in roughly the same constallation as a FPTP election.","conclusion":"In a polarized political environment a FPTP represents best the voter's choice."}
{"id":"5c3afc7a-bfbe-4d6f-a988-6baed3400a36","argument":"Many of the first Christians had previously believed in other religions until they were presented with good reason to believe that Jesus had risen, meaning that their beliefs were false and the God of the Jews existed as the one true God.","conclusion":"It is highly unlikely that anyone would have become a Christian in the first century without good reason to believe that Jesus had risen from the dead."}
{"id":"a2b307f8-26e4-4b9b-9474-7d68abfcd4aa","argument":"With suicide being 2\/3rd of gun deaths all the gun-control efforts would be much better spent lobbying for comprehensive and universal access to healthcare including mental health services.","conclusion":"In a country of 300 million people, 33,000 gun deaths, of which 2\/3 are suicide, does not justify the proposed legislation."}
{"id":"a8043711-a6e7-4773-a85f-068387c95b0f","argument":"The Circles UBI project is experimenting with creating a voluntary basic income platform using webs of trust greatly facilitated by blockchain.","conclusion":"Digital currencies allow financial innovation among communities that otherwise do not have strong access to capital, potentially increasing prosperity."}
{"id":"612a260e-309c-4c83-b360-d617cfbf0fbe","argument":"So I've been reading a bit of Foucault lately certainly not a lot, so I don't claim to be an expert . As such, he has influenced my views on gay marriage and issue is used to support. I now see the gay community's fight for marriage rights as simply fighting for justice and rights as defined by the very people that oppressed them. Therefore I see marriage itself as a tool of social oppression and normalization. I would compare it to the end of slavery in the United States. Marriage equality as we have it now would be like if at the end of the Civil War, instead of abolishing slavery, Congress simply passed an amendment that said that black people can now ALSO own slaves.","conclusion":"Marriage equality is a silly concept that reaffirms oppression by societal norms."}
{"id":"71a47261-7a54-4f4f-bdca-6c122d6fefa1","argument":"University degrees are often a marker for class and increasingly are important for ensuring social mobility. Making liberal arts degrees available to worse-off people may change the trajectories of their lives.","conclusion":"Measuring employment prospects is a poor way of deciding which degrees governments should fund."}
{"id":"4a5c4d29-f72a-4500-b84e-38f3af3180d1","argument":"The islands of Saint Pierre and Miquelon are the last remnant of the former colonial empire of New France that still remains under French control. The islands are connected to Canada economically and through their close proximity to Newfoundland and Labrador. Canada is already a bilingual country with a large francophone population. There is also the opportunity for Islanders to benefit economically from the Canadian fishing industry. I believe it is in the best interest of the residents to become Canadian citizens of either Newfoundland and Labrador or possibly Quebec. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Canada should open talks with France on the annexation of the islands of Saint Pierre and Miquelon"}
{"id":"6fc36fbf-59f8-4b7c-8637-b9af039f9a4d","argument":"Just as it is possible for an individual to violate someone's right to life by murder or right to freedom of movement by kidnapping, so also an individual can violate another's right to free speech, through various means\u2014including no-platforming. Just as X can violate Y's right to life by killing, so X can violate Y's right to free speech by preventing Y from being able to exercise that right e.g., by shouting down, removing amplification, etc..","conclusion":"No-platforming should be abandoned because it is an assault on free speech."}
{"id":"acd3b7ea-1857-4751-bcab-1531f3c2fbd4","argument":"I'm not really sure how to explain or elaborate. I think that when there are no strings attached, there are no guidelines, limitations, expectations, etc. There's no I have to make this work component. You're both free to walk away once you stop enjoying each other's company. If you can get through this for a long enough time and still want to see each other, you're good to be together. You basically lasted when neither of you had to stick around for any reason other than because you wanted to. Change my view.","conclusion":"I think that you should be Friends-With-Benefits with someone, conclude that i you love fucking this person and ii you love hanging out with this person before committing\/marrying\/etc."}
{"id":"5a918f9d-2c32-4b25-8de4-7d62617865db","argument":"According to a recent poll carried out by YouGov, Barack and Michelle Obama are the most admired man and woman in the US.","conclusion":"Many opinion polls provide evidence that people think Obama is a good role model."}
{"id":"4a9e6f5a-2114-4c77-a353-5c8f4614908d","argument":"I believe in the vast majority of cases, heroic defeats, last stands, ect, are better than some blundering, accidental victory. In heroic defeats, the losing side at least gets to go down with honor, dignity, and glory, whereas a blundering victory usually just serves as another example in highlighting the horror and incompetence of war. This is a hard case to argue, I understand, as many people understandably are against war in general. However, I believe that as humans, warfare is an inevitable part of our existence, and if it's going to occur, we may as well accept that the examples of glory and bravery displayed in battles showcases an enlightening side of the human spirit. However, I must preface that I'm discussing this from a philosophical, poetic point of view. I accept that realistically, a 'defeat' is almost never a good thing for the army being defeated, however I am arguing it is better, for both sides, than a blundering victory. Look to the first Battle of Thermopylae, where the 300 Spartans infamously held off the combined might of the Persian empire for three days before succumbing to treachery and meeting a glorious death. Though the 300 were eventually felled, the battle remains one of the most celebrated in history, and serves as the locus classicus of the heroic last stand. Compare such an inspiring, rousing event to the blundering victory of the Soviet Union in their repelling of Germany's Operation Barbarossa. Germany had all the advantages, however with the coming of winter, their forces were entirely crippled, and so they found themselves slaughtered by Red Army forces. There are over a million casualties recorded in the Battle of Moscow alone, many due to the blundering, accidental nature of the Soviet victory. In the case of the 300 Spartans, humanity has clearly benefited from their displayable of such great bravery We've gained literature, films, music and stories from the battle. At the same time, the Spartans who died to make such a thing possible have gone down as some of history's greatest warriors. Meanwhile, in my example of Barbarossa, millions were slaughtered in an accidental, largely environmentally caused victory, and nobody was remembered. In Thermopylae, the Persians gained traditionally 'victory', while the Spartans gained glory and a place in history's metaphorical wall of fame. In Barbarossa, due to the coincidental aid of winter working against German forces, they were able to scrape a victory, though there are scarce tales of glory and heroism told concerning the event. Please understand I'm not using these battles as evidence for my argument per se, but merely to help you understand where I'm coming from in this belief. I know it's a controversial belief, but the way I see it, the inspiration gained, and glory displayed by humanity in heroic defeats outweighs the short term benefits gained by one side in a blundering victory. George S. Patton said Battle is the most magnificent competition in which a human being can indulge. It brings out all that is best it removes all that is base. All men are afraid in battle. The coward is the one who lets his fear overcome his sense of duty. Duty is the essence of manhood. and I feel such a quote perfectly highlights my point of view.","conclusion":"In war, a heroic defeat is better than a blundering victory."}
{"id":"fe522fc2-41e6-4715-8186-aaba56001f36","argument":"This post relates to a debate on BBC's Daily Politics youtube link starts at 20 minutes some background information before that, about Liverpool University renaming the Gladstone building. A campaign pushed by the same chaps who wanted Cecil Rhodes to fall. William Ewart Gladstone to those who don't know was a MP born in Liverpool who represented the constituencies of Neward 1833 1846, Oxford University 1847 1865, South Lancashire 1865 1868, Greenwhich 1868 1880 and Midlothain 1880 1895. Gladstone entered politics as a Tory in 1826 1834, the Tories rebranded to the modern Conservative Party in 1834 and Gladstone went along with this, he was however in a minority being a Free Trade Tory and Conservative. In 1846 Sir Robert Peel, then a Conservative Prime Minister, was kicked out over the Corn Law repeal and went to make the Peelites a pro Free trade group of MPs and Gladstone went with. Then in 1859 the Whigs, Peelites and Radicals agreed to merge into the Liberals so to better win a Queen Speech vote. Gladstone remained in the Liberals till his death. Gladstone had many high up positions in Government including Prime Minister four times, 1868 1873, 1880 1885, 1886 1886 and 1892 1884, so only ever a Liberal PM though he did serve as Chancellor as a Peelite under both Whig and Peelite PMs. I'll first go to the claims raised in the video by the chap in the trackie top. Slavery isn't contentious. Yes it is, certainly is when we look at any nation in the 1800s, this is the whole point of contextualisation saying the working man should have the vote isn't contentious today, Gladstone saying it got Queen Empress Victoria quite riled apparently as it is improper to say at the time. Gladstone was a man of his time, and a modern man at that. Paid his father off to the tune of \u00a383 Million It is true this happened, Sir John Gladstone William's father was a slave owner owning 2,508 slaves and 9 plantations. Slavery was moslty abolished in the Empire with the 1833 Act, Slavery Abolition Act 1833, except in the East India owned land, Ceylon modern day Sri Lanka and St. Helena these three had it abolished in 1843. The Government paid a total of \u00a320 Million as compensation, close to \u00a32 Billion today. Slaves were property, that was the fact of the day. You can't seize property. Also pragmatically the Bill likely wouldn't make it through the British House of Lords without this provision. As for the total cost the payment was 5 of British GDP and payments were handeled by the Commissioners of Slave Compensation. At the time William was a nobody Tory MP. Also the amount given to John appears dissputed. Defending the CSA split from the USA. It is true Gladstone made a speech on the matter, silly to do so as national stance was neutral. I'm not too sure why Gladstone made the speech, which he later withdraws, though to a degree I agree. The actions of Lincoln appear were extremely centeralist and removing the power of the states for the power of the president and I can understand why a Home Rule advocate would back the CSA. Staunch support of slavery Gladstone was more meh for a while then anti, under his premiership the 1873 Slave Trade Act passed further working against Slavery. And as is stated Gladstone didn't want to just end slavery, I believe America had this problem where a lot of former slaves suffered from not having a job and not getting employed. Often sudden jumps aren't good. Gladstone led the British Empire Incorrect Gladstone was the PM of the UK, Victoria led the Empire. Also Gladstone was one of, probably the first, anti Imperial PMs he was strongly against the Opium Wars and opposed the Scramble for Africa. Gladstones role in the slave trade The sins of the father are not those of the son. William was never a slaver, his father was not him. Sidenote Churchill leading to the death of four million Bengal Famine, this happened as a result of the war, Imperial Japan was occupying Burma and they were far worse to anything the British would do and a natural disaster had we not been in the greatest war of all time and seeing democracy the closest it has ever been to falling to absolutism we wouldn't have had a famine, that wasn't the case. Britain was key to ending Ghadafi We were, he was a tyrant and had to go, what followed isn't very good but when we have dictators abusing their people we should not sit by. Britain is very colonial Something which has saved the world from despotism at least twice, any great power ought to be colonial, in the sense he is using, we are no different. Gladstone was one of the UK's greatest Prime Ministers ever whos views and actions shaped the country and his statues should stand and the buildings named after him should remain named after him. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"William Ewart Gladstone Must Stand."}
{"id":"871b273f-9a62-4289-bfb0-0774c13520b9","argument":"I think that if someone gives you a gift, even if it's something as trivial as reddit gold, the polite thing to do is say thank you. If A gives B reddit gold, and B edits their post thanking A for the gold, there is nothing wrong with that and B is simply being polite especially if A is anonymous and there is no other way to express it. It's just good manners. Because of this, I find users who whine on threads about people editing their posts to thank others for gifting them gold to be immature and assume it's sour grapes on their part. .","conclusion":"I think it's rude not to edit your post to thank another user for gifting you reddit gold."}
{"id":"48a6da83-02cf-46b7-a201-b8e82f0dbdcf","argument":"The domain here is mostly about attraction. I want to talk about two concepts that PUAs use to explain attractiveness Dominance status Social proof The idea about social proof is taking from the study of influence where it has been found that people are more trusting of a produce if other people are into it. The same notion is used to explain female attraction to men i.e. Men who are surrounded by other men, or a mixed group, or best of all, women are more attractive to women by dint of their being vouched by those other parties. I have no doubt that this plays some role and has some effect I just doubt that it is the deciding factor. One of the things I think it does is, it subcommunicates that other people find you prosocial, safe, friendly, socially skiled etc. Based on my experience, I think the reason women are much more likely to approach men already in a group is an outcome of two quite different concepts Mystery Feeling left out ignored not part of the action In all the times when women came up and opened me or opened another man in my group it almost never happens when you are solo , I always had the impression that the fact you were in a group made it seem like there was 'stuff happening' in your little group, some action. The fact that you are talking to your friends, and they may be listening makes other people feel 'left out' and 'not noticed' which is a challenge they try to break.In other words, your attention becomes worth something partly because other people are invested in it and partly because you are not focused on her. The other concept is mystery.Who is this guy? Why are people listening to him? Why is he not noticing me etc? I will return to this later. The second concept is status dominance. PUAS quote some half baked evo psych to support the idea that women really get off on status or dominance because the men seem like they have access to resources or are good protectors. I don't think this is the attraction. Men who have superior positions in business, in management, in the arts, doctors etc in some sense are 'transcendent' they rise above, in some notion, the everyday, the common worker, the regular people, or in the arts normality, they express and explore the hidden in short what unifies these things is not so much the status but the fact that we give status to people who operate in transcendent spheres or that people who rise in status are often given transcendent positions. And I think what attracts women, because it has personal, emotional, resonant and deeper pull and appeal than mere status wealth or dominance is MYSTERY. People working in areas that involve transcendence are mysterious even firemen works for this as they risk themselves to save others, they transcend their individuality. P.S.It helps to be good looking lol","conclusion":"Pick-up Artists are off the mark about why 'social-proofing' works"}
{"id":"2dab8d84-afee-4731-bd19-07015b8705ec","argument":"I visited Toronto in 2012 and was extremely impressed. There's tons of stuff to do there, it's very vibrant, it's booming, and for a city of its size, it's actually very affordable to live in. It's like what Portland wants to be, but 5 times the size. The only issue I have with Toronto is the people are not particularly friendly, but the same could be said of almost any city. The food is excellent as well, and I love the waterfront and all the parks. Even though it's a huge city, you never feel that far away from nature. It's also in Canada, which is my favorite country in the world. Does anyone want to try to change my mind and suggest a better city on this continent?","conclusion":"Toronto is the best city in North America"}
{"id":"19d6484f-856a-4732-a679-b365656a7a62","argument":"EDIT I think every argument I have seen so far revolves around there being no better solution. I'm afraid that argument is not going to change my mind. Just because you can't think of an alternative doesn't make something right. Actually modern technology affords us all sorts of alternatives. I'm arguing about rights here in the abstract. It's not about practical solutions. The whole point of rights is that they take precedence over other concerns. Also, I am not here to advocate deportation, that's a red hering so I'm going to stop arguing about it I don't see how one of group of humans has the right to restrict another human's movement and intimately control their life. It is particularly apparent when a crime in one place is not punishable in another. But I think the point holds more generally anyway. The most we can do is agree as a society that we don't want certain kinds of people in our society. We certainly have a right to reject people. And there are times where this has been done. I'm thinking about penal colonies and deporting prisoners to Australia like the British used to. That seems reasonable to me. You don't want to follow our code of living? Fine, go and live somewhere else. But prison? You don't agree with us about what is wrong, we will trap you in the middle of our society and punish you for as long as we feel fit even if you don't want to be part of our society. And in some cases, we won't even let you move to a place where that behaviour is legal. It's RIDICULOUS Yes, we should be able to arrest people who are an imminent danger to those around them but we have no right to long term imprisonment. Penal deportation may no longer be practical but that doesn't make imprisonment right. Yes, you forfeit certain rights when you commit a crime. If you break a society's rules you lose the right to live in that society . It doesn't give them the right to take away fundamental aspects of your life as a human. tl dr We can exclude people from out society but we have no right to trap them in it.","conclusion":"I don't think we have the right to imprison people."}
{"id":"ed5693b9-ca8e-4e2a-bd32-6b371e4d4bef","argument":"First off, some people want to blame the cops. That's retarded. The cops were called and did their job when the men refused to leave. Nothing to see here. The BLACK POLICE CHIEF defended the way his officers acted. Second, there's the whole thing about racism from the employee. Was it even racism? Most stores in that area have a policy where you can't just go in to use the restroom, you must be a paying customer. The men tried to break that rule, then refused to leave. Are we even sure there was racism involved here? Maybe a little bit of an overreaction from the manager, sure. But let's say the manager WAS being racist that doesn't mean we need to fucking boycott Starbucks, and force them to close 6000 stores for a day will hurt the economy for racial bias training all because ONE EMPLOYEE overreacted to a couple of black men. It's so fucking overblown and stupid.","conclusion":"This starbucks incident is so overblown"}
{"id":"577ed354-6173-4fdc-9d53-4bfc6ddc146b","argument":"There's a lot of complaints coming from conservatives about all the censorship going on, especially to do with the Orlando Massacre. But majority of the places this censorship happens is on left wing platforms like REDDIT, FACEBOOK and TWITTER which were all created by and heavily populated with liberal leftists. If conservatives like Trump supporters don't like the way these liberal dominated social platforms operate they should go create their own. Why should Mark Zuckerberg who's an open liberal leftists have to cater to conservatives? It's his company, he can do what he wants with it and maybe he wants to censor Donald Trump pages. This is very hypocritical of the right in the way that they are the first to complain about how Immigrants come into their country then try to establish their own culture. Well, conservatives shouldn't go to platforms owned and operated by leftist then try to promote their political viewpoints and complain when they are shut down. In the words of the co founder of reddit Neither Alexis nor I created reddit to be a bastion of free speech, but rather as a place where open and honest discussion can happen.","conclusion":"People with right wing viewpoints shouldn't complain about liberal censorship but should go off and create their own social forums"}
{"id":"c149365e-2252-46a6-bbc2-f0ac071a1d05","argument":"I see sex as a sign of commitment and a promise of loyalty. I see having sex with someone you know you won't be in a long term relationship with is wrong, because it goes against this idea of commitment. Sex should be for the purpose of reproduction, however I still think it's acceptable to have sex in a long term relationship for intimacy fun. I think people who have sex purely for pleasure, not with a long term partner, are acting wrongly because they are not showing any sense of commitment. That meaning, I see school university relationships where both people know that the relationship will end at some point in the future after finishing school university , and where 90 of interactions are purely to have sex, as wrong. Long term neither person sees the relationship ending, that is, the relationship has the potential for marriage lifelong commitment. I have never made a post on reddit before but after failing to think about this myself I thought this subreddit could help me greatly. I feel these views are illogical but I am struggling to convince myself to feel any other way, and so I hope a more logical argument here will convince me. Just to clarify, I have no religious or family pressure to think this way. Thank you for reading.","conclusion":"I believe sex outside of a long-term relationship is wrong,"}
{"id":"056d2d1c-ae44-4d04-a592-4a138f59b46c","argument":"Brutality attracts people's attention and thus functions as a tool to carry ISIS' opinions to a wider public","conclusion":"Social media is a very effective tool for carrying out psychological warfare"}
{"id":"9006be23-464e-4de9-8239-b953a91f7f55","argument":"A free media should be just that, without a requirement for balance. The reporting of news is a vital form of free speech and the expression of opinion. Individuals and groups do not all see issues in the same way, and they should not be required to report and commentate on them as if they did. Forcing reporters, media owners and employees to portray sides of a story that they do not agree with is an infringement on their public expression of political conviction. For a state to maintain or use such rights of content regulation is unjust and arguably dangerous.","conclusion":"A free media should be just that, without a requirement for balance. The reporting of news is a vit..."}
{"id":"1193d070-c314-4bd0-a46d-54080aeffeba","argument":"Edit I've been sold on blockchain being good for voting. Less so on other applications. My view is based on the original Satoshi Nakamoto white paper. The way blockchain, or at least Bitcoin implementation of it, works is that everyone writing to the block chain miners performs the exact same operation. A cheating miner won't be consistent with everyone else, and this allows the cheater's results are thrown out. No one trusts anyone else, so everyone is recording every transaction from the dawn of time independently. So we have millions of miners performing redundant work on a guessing problem to record a handful of transactions. My Visa card only requires Visa to record the transaction. Visa records my transaction by flipping a few bits in database. Bitcoin requires millions of miners to concurrently play a guessing lottery and only one wins. The rest just wasted their time And as a user, to properly use Bitcoin I would need to download the full block chain gigabytes of data growing every day. If I don't and just trust a central repository, then I might as well use Visa. I can't imagine any application where block chain would be useful. It would require No one trusts anyone. Everyone performs redundant work to replace trust. Time inefficiency is acceptable. Storage inefficiency is acceptable. Full transparency of all transactions is mandatory. I can't imagine any practical application that meets all those criteria.","conclusion":"Blockchain is an overhyped technology that will prove to have no practical application."}
{"id":"08263a7f-ada1-4434-aecd-a6d90d0c2980","argument":"People are notoriously bad at assessing risks and dangers accurately, severely overestimating the probability of tragic events like terrorist attacks and severly underestimating the probability of much more common dangers like car accidents.","conclusion":"People's consideration of a security risk is often not accurate."}
{"id":"7d26dfdf-304d-4ca0-a01c-cd5ee02e7a84","argument":"Not only would the designation of a state sponsor of terrorism probably be not particularly problematic, it is also unlikely. Even if organizations like Hamas are categorized as sponsors of terrorism, it is hard to imagine that this label would be applied to Palestine as a whole.","conclusion":"The United States recognizes states and interacts with governments which it has classified as state sponsors of terrorism Syria, Iran and Libya."}
{"id":"9ad402a3-96db-4193-b61d-0c1deba17201","argument":"Humans are fallible, and so sometimes it is better to have absolute rules against certain actions, even if we recognize that in a perfect world, it might be better to allow such actions in very specific circumstances.1 It is for this reason, for example, that we never allow evidence obtained by illegal measures to be presented in court, even though such evidence would sometimes make it possible to convict. Similarly, even if removing trial by jury might be good in individual circumstances, it is too great a power to give to a fallible government which may misuse that authority. If there is a precedent of the right to trial by jury being removed in some circumstances, even if that removal is justified, it becomes much easier for corrupt governments to remove it for unjustified reasons, and it becomes correspondingly more difficult for us to condemn that decision as illegitimate. 1Brad Hooker, \"Rule Consequentialism\"","conclusion":"Limiting trial by jury in some cases sets the stage for limiting it in other, unjustified, cases."}
{"id":"75ca5749-87f9-4ef5-8597-81c495535ae8","argument":"An article was published in the LA Weekly today about the effects of airbnb.com in the city of L.A. The article discusses a recent study by LAANE of these effects. LAANE found that airbnb.com has caused landlords to take rental units off the rental market and market them to tourists instead. gt According to LAANE\u2019s investigation, in only a few years AirBnB has managed to remove approximately 7,795 units from the Los Angeles housing market As the article says, That might be fine in other cities, but it's a burden in Los Angeles, where high demand has folks scrambling to find an affordable place to live. And it's true, in a separate article by LA Weekly, L.A. was found to have the fourth highest rental cost per bedroom in the nation. Because apartments in the city are in demand and are scarce, rents are high. Airbnb adds to the scarcity of the apartments, thus adding to the high rent costs. The city of L.A. has zoning laws and allows property development based on the needs of the city. Airbnb goes around these laws and turns residential properties into tourist properties, thus negating the plans of the city of L.A. to designate X number of units to residential living. It would be fine if actual residents were just renting out their units for a weekend, but time has shown that the actual practice of airbnb.com in Los Angeles involves taking rental units off the market. Because of this, the city of L.A. should ban airbnb from being used in the city.","conclusion":"The city of Los Angeles should ban airbnb.com from operating in the city."}
{"id":"c7118276-cdd2-423b-97b2-93d2ac90b66f","argument":"I believe that a person can only be male or female and can only be heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual. I also believe that if a person wants to change genders or believes that they were born into the wrong gender then they have the right to do so. I've recently heard of Facebook allowing over 30 possible gender options and I think that doesn't make any sense what so ever. How can people be anything other than male or female? I don't know if I'm the only sane person in a world filling with perverts and or young people confused with their own sexuality and want to make us go out of our way to change our existing ideas of sexuality just so they can feel happy or just a bigot unaware of some sort of change. try to  please.","conclusion":"I believe that there are only two genders and three possible sexual orientations."}
{"id":"636a0630-be70-4224-92b9-8d67b21aba2f","argument":"There is a very obvious relationship with the native defense of Vietnam by the North Vietnamese and the Ewoks. Both used knowledge of the territory and suitability of their fighting techniques to that terrain to beat a more technologically advanced enemy.","conclusion":"In Return Of The Jedi, the Ewoks managed to cause heavy casualties upon the technologically very advanced Empire, only using tribal tools and methods."}
{"id":"1415d503-c6f7-4a56-a8ad-5bd08016efee","argument":"Men who make virginity pledges struggle with sex even after they are married. They continue to view sex as a temptation for sins such as adultery and thus an urge that they must constantly control in case it leads them astray. This makes it difficult for them to transition to a healthy conception of sex once they are married.","conclusion":"Purity pledges lead to people having a poorer understanding of sexuality."}
{"id":"ba879c4e-1d67-4d75-ac6d-baa601a7bf44","argument":"Almost all shark populations are on the decline worldwide. Meanwhile sharks are still fished at an incredibly high, unsustainable rate. This includes millions of sharks that are caught for just their fins. After their fins are removed, they are thrown back into the ocean to drown. This is an incredibly wasteful, unethical practice. If the harvesting of sharks continues at this rate, many shark species will be completely wiped out. Sharks are a keystone species and they are very important for the health of ocean ecosystems. If their populations continue to decline, this will have a negative effect on many other species. Clearly sharks are very important, and need our help. Shark Week would be an excellent chance to bring this information to the general public. But instead of that, most of the programs are fear based sensationalism. A number of the shows are just about shark attacks, despite the fact attacks are rare. Some of the shows even document completely fictional attacks by fictional sharks. The result is Shark Week makes the public more scared of sharks and less likely to support shark conservation efforts.","conclusion":"Shark Week is bad for sharks and the overall health of our oceans."}
{"id":"5155fe27-4202-4e5d-9dac-34e5f99d05d0","argument":"As society progresses and marches forward into that bright gray rainbow of equality, pedophilia may or may not be promoted as an acceptable lifestyle choice, and not considered morally reprehensible, but rather not only fine, but also protected and stood up for, much like homosexuality and transgenderism is considered right . I do not think grown ups should ever have sex with underage children nowadays, especially if they are not married to them. I know that in the past, young teens were given in marriage, but as it stands in our current modern society, we shouldn't change the age of concent. This would be a bit like changing 'blue for boys' 'pink for girls' back to the orginal 'pink for boys' 'blue for girls'. In medieval Europe a common marriage age for nobility was 12. Someone has also informed me that kids were fucking each other right and left right up until internet porn because so easy a 9 year old could find it. I don't think this is accurate, mainly because child marriage was for political ties, to enliven a family's wealth, or because nobles did it for these reasons, and the poorer people adopted it not knowing or able to grasp and enact the full why . as well as getting rid of an extra mouth to feed by marrying her off. The age of concent is there for a reason. It doesn't make kids nuns Change My View.","conclusion":"I don't think society should ever accept pedophilia as an acceptable alternative lifestyle."}
{"id":"20489bdf-3f30-4dbe-a3f0-66a7b7d32b88","argument":"I'll lay out what seems to me to be the absolute minimum for abiogenesis to occur. You must happen to have some valid building blocks for life. This could potentially be all kinds of things on earth it ended up being various organic materials such as amino acids. We've already created this in lab and know it to be possible to have occurred randomly. While far from impossible, this still lowers the odds of abiogenesis by a significant margin but not nearly as significantly as what follows You must, simultaneously, create an organism that will recreate itself. I'll expand on what's necessary for this. It must A Have a way of being essentially programmed. B Have the physical means to create more of itself meaning essentially moving parts that will be active in reproducing C Just so happen to be programmed in such a way that it knows how to create itself. For this, the program must know Exactly what comprises it, pretty much down to the molecule. This alone would be an incredibly complex code, as even cells this rudimentary are incredibly complex entities that we have yet to fully understand Exactly how to create another copy of itself, down to the molecule, such that the new copy will also have the exact same program Exactly how to create a new copy of itself, using its physical resources and materials in its environment. Consider how incredibly complex this would be. Now consider that no matter how close you get to this end, even if you have a cell that can do every single part of this except for one tiny insignificant bit, you will make no progress you only make progress if every single necessary condition for this possible is met perfectly. To try and give a better scope of how unlikely this is, I'll explain what this would require if it was for a computer and not cells even though its redundant since I was effectively doing this the whole time . You would need, basically out of the earth, rocks and elements to organize to make a logic gates and transistors and circuits in such a way that it creates a functioning computer system. This alone is obviously unlikely to the degree of being impossible, but it's the most likely part of this. The computer would have to not only form, but form in such a way that already written into it is a program thousands and thousands of lines of code, considering how complex computers are that details exactly how the computer is made up and how to make a new one. The computer would then also need to have the capacity to make more of itself using only the environmental resources it has meaning it might get cute robotic tools allowing it to assemble more computers. These cute robotic hands would need to have formed randomly with the rest of the computer, including the very code that allows the robotic hands to know what to do . Even the lone step of randomly having code independently develop from something like a robotic hand metaphor by the way which happens to also be exactly the right code to control the hand and tell it how to perform a complex task is just laughably unlikely, and equally unlikely is the same thing essentially happening out of organic material. Tl dr Reproducing cells are very complex and there's no frickin way they would just occur naturally because of favorable environmental conditions. Please change my view I'd love to believe we know how life came about gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Abiogenesis is unlikely enough to be considered implausible"}
{"id":"0d3afdac-882d-4171-924c-6fa94d0b3ef2","argument":"In Australia, churches have said if the law changes and priests legally have to report child abuse to police, especially in a confession that the priests would break the law So, even when the law forces priests to report it, they might not.","conclusion":"Laws allow priests to not report crimes said in confession."}
{"id":"1237c234-e970-4b6d-bff7-9d2d51780d3b","argument":"The capital necessary to start and maintain a governmental agency dedicated to the medical surveillance of each and every single citizen is immense. It is an impracticable pursuit and financially it is burdensome if not crippling. The logistics involved are incomprehensible and taxpayer dollars are already spread dangerously thin.","conclusion":"Any possible benefits of this policy are outweighed by the massive economic costs it would cause."}
{"id":"288c2cb6-9247-4f8d-864e-213fd566d740","argument":"I am perfectly happy that women have the chance to play a man's role. For example Cate Blanchett is playing the role of Richard II in a shakespeare play right now. I understand that having a woman playing the part will be different, but I think people will be fundamentally more drawn in to the play if a man is playing the part than if a woman is. Hence, being drawn in more to the story, they will have a better experience as a whole. Again this is with EQUAL acting talents for both the man and woman playing the part. Also I don't think this view is sexist. I have been told that just because she's a woman doesn't mean it will be worse, it could even be better but I feel although it may be a refreshing change on a traditional play, the experience would be less.","conclusion":"I think, given equal acting talents, a man would be better at playing a male role than a woman"}
{"id":"02959746-4a52-4db0-86cc-264fae672958","argument":", \"there are numerous instances of the phrase \"bear arms\" being used to describe a civilian's carrying of arms. Early constitutional provisions or declarations of rights in at least some ten different states speak of the right of the \"people\" or \"citizen\" or \"citizens\" \"to bear arms in defense of themselves or \"himself\" and the state\", or equivalent words, thus indisputably reflecting that under common usage \"bear arms\" was in no sense restricted to bearing arms in military service.72","conclusion":"The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit stated in 2001 that"}
{"id":"82ad2289-cd40-420a-b5ce-9aaaeec4068f","argument":"Imagine if you were a recovering alcoholic or drug addict and there's adverts all over the TV saying Go on, do it Start drinking again, it's cheap, we'll give you a deal We'll make it easy for ya, here's some money off If it's a bad experience, you'll be compensated No lose situation Do it do it do it do it Come on, you know it makes sense There is literally nothing to lose by doing this. It's THE lifestyle That would be wrong, wouldn't it? If you accept that gambling addiction is an illness and you should, 350,000 people in the UK have it, and over 9m people in the USA then how is the level of saturation on TV acceptable? I gather this is mainly something that happens in the UK, and that the US has better regulatory laws for this? In which case, surely it seems quite mental to people living across the ocean.","conclusion":"In any civilised society, gambling advertisements should be banned."}
{"id":"991151fa-d860-4db9-bcaf-c2fed3fa1913","argument":"I believe that people should be forced to take a test for the right to vote so that we can be ensured that every person that is voting has an educated idea of what topics will be handled and will be able to choose the best choice based on what he or she has developed while studying those topics. I'm not saying to block people from voting one way, but there should at least be a test in where people are required to at least explain what are the current political issues that affect the country. No grammar, or math portion. It would have nothing to do with how good you are at math, science, or english. You would just be asked questions to test your knowledge. Here's an example of how I would see it Question 8 What is the current president's position on Education. Explain any major legislation he has passed. Again, we wouldn't ask for your own personal opinion of whether that president was doing a good or bad job, because that would encourage fraud. It would just be a test to make sure the people voting were educated and not voting blindly based on your families affiliation or ads. Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules. If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us. Happy ing","conclusion":"I believe that you should be forced to take a test if you wish to have the right to vote"}
{"id":"6bbc7f3f-5db6-4eb7-b9b0-31ad0075a25a","argument":"For informed consent, the information given to the patient must be understood. There is a financial incentive not to tell the patient all the harms of the procedure because surgeons want to make money. Without internalizing all the harms and benefits, patients can never be fully informed.","conclusion":"Cosmetic surgery does not meet the legal standard of informed consent"}
{"id":"4e690164-f5af-4525-a0cb-c79613286485","argument":"The vast majority of criminal cases in the US are resolved through plea bargaining, which gives the prosecutor an upper hand in dealings with the accused.","conclusion":"Investigators are not the ones who determine sentences. This makes their threats less credible."}
{"id":"776f666a-670a-4520-b02a-82efdcfc4d0c","argument":"To add to this I think the number of stupid people having children outweighs the number of intelligent people having children, thereby causing the general population to become rather moronic over time. I do not at all believe that you can be of below average intelligence and logically come to the conclusion that having a child would simply be a burden upon the planet is not financially a smart decision depending on your stability is a genetic lottery, i.e. there is a definite chance of mental health issues or other disabilities in quotes because there are many who believe the disabled are simply another type of abled and that your own relatively good genes are not enough to overpower the potentially bad ones, and in turn actually and contentedly refrain from having children for your entire life. In slight relation to my second point, I believe that even if there are less than intelligent people out there who claim they do not want children, they will end up having them, guaranteed, whether it be through lack of responsibility contraception or changing their minds. I also believe it's not exactly hidden that a majority of gov'ts reward the breeder mentality with financial aid and better healthcare, and hinder the childfree choice by making access to contraceptives and abortion limited or expensive, especially in already poverty stricken areas. This doesn't 100 relate to my original view but it has an effect, and I feel it's worth metioning. As long as there are incentives, the stupid will just keep going. Now, just for fun because I feel it doesn't prove anything as I said, I believe know that intelligent folk have children as well, it's merely very interesting , here is a small list of famous people who were have remained childfree Julia Child Albert Einstein Simone de Beauvoir T.S. Eliot Henry David Thoreau Michelangelo Beethoven Isaac Newton Gloria Steinem Oprah Winfrey Helen Mirren Patrick Swayze Betty White Bill Hicks Cole Porter Gertrude Stein I'd love for you to  if you can I intend to remain childfree and I don't want to go the rest of my life believing that my people so to speak are all intelligent, thoughtful, logical people it reeks of elitism, even though I've yet to find any evidence to the contrary.","conclusion":"I believe that both stupid and intelligent people reproduce, but only intelligent people remain childfree."}
{"id":"ff344a22-3c09-4f24-948d-bfddfcaa18f5","argument":"Libertarian free will is the ability to choose the causes of our actions. For example, if a dieter is deliberating about whether to eat ice cream or a salad, they can choose for their actions to be caused by their desire to eat something tasty and eat the ice cream or by their desire to lose weight and eat the salad . There is no evidence that anything determines the choice that the dieter makes except his or her own free will. We choose between alternatives by a process of deliberation, and the components of the process of deliberation that are under our control include how much focus we bring to our deliberation and what we focus on. For example, if it occurs to me that I need to study for a test next week, I can choose to focus on that fact and work out what I need to study and when in detail, or I can choose not to think about it and let myself drift. In addition to focus and drift, there is a third possibility called evasion, which involves directing active effort into not thinking about a given topic as opposed to drift, where one merely does not direct effort toward thinking about the topic . I take it to be fairly obvious from introspection that we have free will, so described. I am not arguing in a circle, as I would be if I appealed to intuition or the fact that we just have to have free will to be morally responsible for our actions I am pointing to something that you can observe yourself any time you want, in as much detail as you want. The most common argument against the existence of free will is that free will is incompatible with the scientific picture of the world. Science allegedly reveals a world that operates strictly according to the laws of physics and chemistry, which are deterministic. Therefore, free will must be an illusion which will ultimately reduce to deterministic processes. But if you look at the foundations of science, at what makes its experiments valid, you will see that it depends on the validity of direct observation, i.e., on the assumption that what we observe is not an illusion. Scientific principles do not come out of nowhere by divine revelation, they are simply the result of a number of observations, and none of its results can be more valid than observation is in the first place. We observe that we have the ability to choose between focus and drift, so that has to be integrated into any rational picture of the world. I do not claim to know how free will works with respect to physics and chemistry, but we have to be able to trust our senses at this basic level in order to arrive at any of the highly advanced scientific conclusions that the determinist claims undermine free will. In order to change my view about this, you will have to either provide a good reason to think that the observations of myself and others that support my belief in libertarian free will do not really support that belief or provide a compelling independent argument for determinism. Edit Please note that the position called libertarianism in metaphysics has nothing to do with the position called libertarianism in political philosophy, although they share the same name. I am simply following the established usage in philosophy.","conclusion":"We have libertarian free will."}
{"id":"b15b66a9-4849-4813-b5a2-c5f2ee0c9b28","argument":"I'm going away this fall and my mom wants to get a custom class ring for herself to commemorate her parenting, and helping me earn the chance to go to university. That would've been totally fine by me if she wasn't looking at the most expensive ring in the catalogue. We only make 10000 a year together less than half of the poverty line and I'm the single child of a lone parent. I find it a bit selfish of her to want such an expensive hunk of metal while we're pinching pennies for food, humiliating ourselves to ge the child support stupid cross border loopholes in dad's favour , and trying to deal with my mom's disability. I don't think she's being realistic to genuinely want that ring in our situation let alone to scream at me an call me a disrespectful bitch for bringing up the price. It only hurts more when I remember the thousands she owes me from when my dad went AWOL and I gave up my savings to avoid eviction. This isn't the first time my mom has wanted huge, spur of the moment purchases either. But on the other hand, I absolutely LOVE my mom. She's the one person in this world who I can't live without and to be totally honest, she DOES deserve that ring It's lovely, I'll admit. It doesn't bother me at all that she's buying it from the class ring company. The ring's so nice that nobody would know and that's where the issue is. My mom thinks that buying a 300 ring for oneself is totally normal. I think that buying a 300 ring for oneself is indulgent and selfish. But I don't want to think that I want to be okay with it too Please, .","conclusion":"My mom wants to buy a $300 ring for herself and I think it's selfish. Please, please, PLEASE"}
{"id":"4f9c0f50-54c6-47dd-bf5b-826e75785fa2","argument":"It has been suggested that China has never seriously been interested in reconciliation and instead uses Japan\u2019s past to stir up its own neo-nationalism.","conclusion":"Japan has attempted apologies for its aggressive conduct during the war, yet China remains unsatisfied and unaccepting of them."}
{"id":"1bd7714e-c95b-4079-8d86-964901da6344","argument":"There is a liberal wing of the SCOTUS and then there is the textualist wing of the SCOTUS. I don't consider the conservative judges to actually be conservative judges. Republican presidents tend to try and nominate textualist judges i.e. those judges that decide cases based on interpreting the law as it was meant when it was passed. Liberal judges are truly liberal, though. They believe the Constitution is a living document, and that we shouldn't read it as it was meant to mean when it was written, instead we should reinterpret it with modern sensibilities to get the best outcome i.e. what they think is the best outcome given their political biases . That is how we end up with decisions stating that the Constitution guarantees the right to gay marriage, even though there is no intellectually honest way to argue the Constitution even addressed that topic when written. Sidenote I'm in favor of gay marriage or, more accurately, I don't think the government has any role on marriage. This is just an example of an activist decision, not something I'm upset about. I don't want this  to turn into a gay marriage debate . If the conservative judges were truly conservative, they would do the same. For example, a pro life conservative could interpret the word person to extend to the unborn and, by extension, grant fetuses all the rights the Constitution guarantees to people. Of course, no one thinks the Constitution guaranteed any rights to fetuses when written, but if the conservative judges were really conservative the way liberal judges are really liberal, this would be a perfectly legitimate use of judicial power. So, the people getting all angsty over Kavanaugh's appointment really shouldn't. Kavanaugh has shown no sign of being a judicial activist. The worst that could happen is that he doesn't grant imaginary rights under the Constitution and democrats will actually have to pass laws to grant those rights, rather than rely on the SCOTUS to make them up. EDIT Sorry for being absent something blew up at work that is going to keep me from responding anytime soon. If this is a violation of this sub, the mods are free to take this down. But for now, there seems to be some discussions going on here without me, so I'll leave it up and let you all talk. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"There is no such thing as a conservative wing of the SCOTUS, and people getting upset over the nomination of Kavanaugh are being hysterical."}
{"id":"afd6dcc2-abe8-401e-886a-b843569a8db0","argument":"We are currently living in Nepal and in a month we will be visiting Greece, Italy, Spain, France, Germany, Ireland, England and Scotland. We are on a very tight budget and my friend is obsessed with the idea of going to Turkey as well but I'm not particularly inclined to go there due to my monetary situation. I am open to convincing.","conclusion":"My friend is trying to convince me to go to Turkey from Nepal and on the way to Europe because she loves the history and I don't share the same interest."}
{"id":"a62a9f87-daad-4415-a395-ff7ad3c1f831","argument":"Hello I'm starting a job tomorrow working on the 26th floor of a relatively new building in downtown San Francisco. While I am aware of building codes and safety tests, I'm still afraid of being so high up or possibly on the streets during a major earthquake I'm also afraid of planes . Can any civil engineers out there debunk my view that the buildings aren't 100 safe? I'm also riding BART under the water, so if you want to take a stab at proving the safety of that during an earthquake as well, that would be even better.","conclusion":"Scared of working in Downtown San Francisco earthquakes"}
{"id":"e4aea790-38b6-4910-a5ec-8466f209df81","argument":"It is a perversion of the democratic process when a small group pays for a politician to get into power. This small group then expects a return on their investment. The small group therefore pursue their agenda and the agenda for the larger group is lost. It is a simple business transaction and denying this is a form of collective stupidity. While campaign funding is done this way we do not have a true democracy.","conclusion":"When corporations and wealthy elites are no longer allowed to donate to election campaigns, politicians will not be beholden to their interests."}
{"id":"1567c436-78a2-40d7-bb24-3df5d434d8fd","argument":"Lasting change to anti-homosexual attitudes will only happen from the ground-up. This hinders the ability of governments to engineer more accepting attitudes toward the LGBT community. Even if you could get countries to discuss their policies and liberalize them through this policy, this will not actually change the reality for the LGBT on the ground. Nations where anti-homosexuality laws are in place have large swathes of support for these laws as they represent and enforce the morality of the vast majority of their populace. Simply removing anti-homosexuality laws does not protect homosexuals in their home countries. Simply not being pursued by the government does not mean the government is willing or able to protect individuals from society. Moreover, it makes it nearly impossible for the government of that country to try to liberalize and engineer a more LGBT-friendly attitude in their country if they have submitted to Western pressures. Populations feel abandoned by their governments when they no longer reflect or uphold their wishes and what they view as their moral obligations. The government loses its credibility on LGBT issues if it abandons its anti-homosexual platform and thus cannot moderate or attempt to liberalize such views in the future. This simply leads to people taking \u201cjustice\u201d against homosexuals into their own hands, making danger to homosexuals less centralized, more unpredictable and much less targeted. A perfect example of this is in Uganda where the government\u2019s \u201cfailure\u201d to implement a death penalty for homosexuality led to tabloid papers producing \u201cGay Lists\u201d that included people suspected of homosexuality1. The importance of this is two-fold. First, it shows that vigilante justice will replace the state justice and thus bring no net benefit to the LGBT community. Second, and more importantly, it means that the violence against LGBT individuals is no longer done by a centralized, controlled state authority, which removes all pretence of due-process and most importantly, makes violence against homosexuality become violence against suspicion of homosexuality. Thus, making it an even more dangerous place for everyone who could associate or in any way identify with what are viewed as \u201ccommon traits\u201d of the LGBT community. 1 \"Gay Rights in Developing Countries: A Well-Locked Closet.\" The Economist. 27 May 2010.","conclusion":"This policy undermines the grassroots movements that are necessary for full and sustained protection of the LGBT community"}
{"id":"fda6f193-4081-4eef-afd8-dc113d6c02fe","argument":"China is currently planning to get rid of 6 million cars in an attempt to fight pollution in its cities.","conclusion":"The pollution caused by cars make the air in cities less breathable."}
{"id":"23368cd2-ea93-4fe7-b62b-0733f1e9ad5d","argument":"Another reason is the US military base at Uijeongbu Located between Seoul and North Korea, the army base plays a role as a tripwire. Once the battle occurs, the US army must be attacked which leads to automatic military intervention of the US military regardless of the US Congress permission.","conclusion":"It is not nuclear weapons but traditional forces that deter the US from operating surgical strikes on North Korea."}
{"id":"bc59fd97-f422-4d01-bb75-58181857422d","argument":"Evolution predates humanity and civilisation. Jainism en.wikipedia.org and other beliefs offer different perspectives. Humans evolved in caves, yet very few people want us to go back and live in them.","conclusion":"The whole point of evolution is to change. If we evolved to eat meat, then we can sure can evolve to eat a vegan diet as well."}
{"id":"fc9b57ef-38e2-4357-bb68-02be4260fd92","argument":"Only certain dog breeds are chosen to be service dogs based on their trainability and temperament.","conclusion":"Different breeds of both cats and dogs are known for their differing personality traits."}
{"id":"76becd60-b5d9-43ee-a524-8cf4cee3d876","argument":"In 1965, Pope John Paul set an official decreed to declare that the blaming of the death of Christ to the fault of all Jews should not be and that the Scripture should not be taken to the letter in regards to Jews being accursed or rejected by God. 1","conclusion":"To this day, antisemitic beliefs and religious customs are still fuelled by Christian dogma and perpetuates antisemitic rhetoric, intolerance and violence against Jews."}
{"id":"7157feb6-b45d-4256-bf6d-03eb64f71398","argument":"Hello would you like to have sex for one dollar? Deal Why is that bad? All the parts of sex work that create exploitation are beascuse of its prohibition. The ban on prostitution does nothing but promote human trafficking and exploitation of sex workers. Just look at people like pro Doms for what I think legal prostitution should look like. It's not the government's job to tell people what is and isn't moral. Anytime the government gets between two consenting adults it is almost always an awful idea and needs to stop. Tl DR REEEEEEEEEEEE GOBERMENT GIT OUT","conclusion":"banning prostitution isn't okay"}
{"id":"81aeb079-6095-4d17-a8b9-1e543acd1e73","argument":"David N. Mayer. \"Wealthy Americans Deserve Real Tax Relief On Principle\". Ashbrook Center. October 1999 - \"The tax-cut debate has focused attention on the issue of fairness, and all Americans should seriously question whether the federal income tax is really \u201cfair\u201d at all. Under its so-called \u201cprogressive\u201d rate structure, a minority of taxpayers in the upper income brackets are forced to pay the lion\u2019s share of federal income taxes.\"","conclusion":"Progressive systems unfairly force rich to pay bulk of taxes"}
{"id":"80b69a4d-8d71-41a6-9c7a-ba64ab48b4d1","argument":"You hear about this all the time people and celebrities that make a remark and get backlash for it and are forced into a situation by others to have to issue an apology. This could be an ill received joke, statement, or act that was documented and blasted to the world to complain about. It's absurd to me that anyone who makes a joke or says something someone else didn't like absolutely must apologize for it to the general public. People are entitled to their opinions and having to stand at the podium and give the old I would like to apologize because someone else told them to is asinine. It's absurd to me that there are activists groups that exist to exploit public figures into making an apology only to further their own agendas. Social media only makes this worse as the means to reach the general public becomes more and more accessible, so does the expectations to do so. One tweet and everyone's happy? No, change my view.","conclusion":"Public apologies are unnecessary, played out, and ridiculous"}
{"id":"1617568f-df3e-403d-ab9c-6e375962f086","argument":"People who know nothing of it seem to usually be slightly disdainful towards it, it's seen as being like a form of hooliganism and associated with being immature and has generally bad connotations if you ask the average joe. Some wouldnt even consider it a sport. But I consider it a form of street art, on the basis that it is fundamentally creative, everyone has their own style a sort of artistic rebellion against the mundane, boring cityscape a lot of people are born in, it takes what to someone else is just a ledge and turns it into something fun and creative if you're more in favor of a corporations right to take up public space with art than you are in favor to peoples desire to rebel against that with street art then fair enough I dont expect to change your mind with this and you wont change mine by saying it's against the law but if you enjoy street art you should appreciate skateboarding on some level.","conclusion":"Skateboarding is an art form and should be respected as much as any other street art."}
{"id":"955bf4a8-b248-4570-b97b-07a9c912fc17","argument":"Materialism, and the study of matter, has produced consistent understandings of physics, biology, mathematics and technology all over the world. In contrast, belief in god, as well as beliefs about his intentions and values, vary from person to person and between the hundreds of religious sects worldwide. It follows that physicalism, as a heuristic, yields a more objective, robust and useful explanation of and approach to the universe and our place within it.","conclusion":"Occam's Razor suggests physicalism should be the preferred explanation over the existence of God."}
{"id":"0a3a9302-2a68-4a2d-8b14-6d43abe6dc05","argument":"As of July 2019, the Labour party has 485,000 members, indicating that the party supporters are likely to have the most participation in the 2019 general elections.","conclusion":"Labour has by far the biggest membership of any other political party in the UK."}
{"id":"e3790ff7-975f-4c80-a0e5-e3b7a3bd37b0","argument":"The contrarian hypothesis predicts that the probability of heatwaves will not be increasing at a situation where CO2 is only 33% increased over pre-industrial levels. This prediction is refuted by the facts.","conclusion":"Each extreme weather event that can be attributed to man-made climate change is a further refutation of the climate contrarian hypothesis."}
{"id":"14683b94-6563-4c1c-a807-5c6dbc106fc7","argument":"A child\u2019s interests will also be affected by the emotional and physical accompaniments of the treatment. Factors such as the risks, side effects, discomforts, and disruptions that the child may endure in being treated are also essential.","conclusion":"Parents can account for crucial factors affecting this decision that doctors are not privy to."}
{"id":"5d02b0dc-2cb8-4178-9012-ba1f545730a7","argument":"Many unintuitive characteristics of quantum mechanics are only unintuitive for people who do not consider the measurements as the defining source for content of the theory.","conclusion":"The randomness in quantum processes could be due to the modelling assumption that only processes that can be measured are modelled."}
{"id":"9ba6b109-a718-4c20-8cbe-a01d0ac05d3c","argument":"I believe that RE Entry programs can lower recidivism rate and can potentially have lots of benefits. Lots of prisoners tend to recommit a crime because they lack the ability to re enter the society and contribute to it in a positive manner. The things they can struggle with is the fact they will have a hard time or wont be able to get a job because they lack the training and don't have necessary things they need to have a job. Re entry programs also help teach ex prisoners how to deal with drugs and how to not get involved with them. Prisoners that get this help, on how to re enter the society give them more motivation and hope into becoming a better man. In an article a man named Ortiz was in prison for committing crimes under the influences of drugs and someone lost there life over it NJTV News . He entered a re entry program to help himself learn how to be better and to deal with the use of drugs. Prisoners that also gain a second education while in prison have shown to not recommit. If this was implemented more in re entry programs and the prisoners were able to have a chance at this then it could really be beneficial and will likely lead to lower re committing of crimes. Re entry programs can provide so much value towards ex prisoners by teaching them some basic ways how to re enter and help them gain education. I believe everybody that has the right to come back into society should have fair grounds to a second chance to do something good in the community and become a better person.","conclusion":"Re-Entry programs should be funded more because it could lower crime rates."}
{"id":"f98d93be-448e-416d-affa-63978178078b","argument":"Any system that could inject aerosols into the stratosphere i.e. commercial jetliners with sulfur mixed into fuel or hoses suspended from stratospheric balloons would cause environmental damage. Robock atmos.washington.edu","conclusion":"The risks associated with solar geoengineering are much higher than with carbon geoengineering or emissions reduction. Barrett & Moreno-Cruz voxeu.org"}
{"id":"762fbbae-226e-4ef8-876a-ce299813e958","argument":"I don't believe this for just the DEA and drugs but also for other organizations. for example, organizations such as those focused on cancer awareness and the cure for cancer. Should the problem they're fighting ever actually be solved, their organization would have no need. In many ways, I believe that the incentives are actually there for the DEA to, in some way, enable the highest levels of distribution while continuing to arrest end users and small time manufacturers so it appears that they are doing their job well, and may even need more money in their coffers to do it more effectively. Just so I am fully transparent, I think that the drug war in the US is a farce and I am a proponent of legalizing and taxing drugs similar to how we treat alcohol. I believe the money that we spend fighting drug distribution would be far better spent on treatment for those affected by addiction.","conclusion":"I think the incentives are such that the DEA has absolutely no interest in \"winning\" the war on drugs."}
{"id":"c71203e6-69e2-477c-b093-05561b510cf6","argument":"According to Article 6 of the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the right to life is to be protected by law. The same Article prohibits states from arbitrarily depriving persons of their lives.","conclusion":"The death penalty violates several articles of the UDHR and other international conventions on human rights by abridging the right to life."}
{"id":"f4036307-7fcb-4f67-8386-7e77ef2876c8","argument":"A Nice Guy is a man who is friendly towards one or more women in the hopes of a romantic relationship. The Nice Guy makes no effort to make an approach, rather, relying on inherent attractive value ymmv . The hope that signalling openness to being approached leads to romance fails due to how women approach dating. I'd like to contrast this with how many women approach dating. Women, on the whole, do not take an active, risk assuming role. The vast majority of womens dating techniques are to do with building up a rapport which looks an awful lot like being friendly , and signalling openness to approach. They, like the nice guy, do not approach, and rely on inherent attractive value. However, since most men eventually get around to taking the active role, this passive approach works for women. The difference in response to the lamentations of Nice Guys and women come from difference in acceptance of the techniques For women, it's ok to merely be open to attraction and that is enough to form a basis for lamentation when not approached. For Nice Guys, being open to attraction is not enough, they must exhibit additional values worthy of attraction and take an active role in attaining it. So, yeah Change My View, that Nice Guys happen to be using women's dating techniques.","conclusion":"\"Nice Guys\" are just guys unconsciously using women's dating techniques."}
{"id":"5be821ed-d5b9-444e-8613-ab06602a48eb","argument":"As far as I know, a transgender person is a man who claims to be a woman or a woman who claims to be a man. In the past few years most people seem to accept to treat people as what they claim to be. Currently, there is another post arguing that trans people should be accepted no matter what evidence. I argue the opposite. What is the basis of the acceptance? Some people say that no matter how someone expresses themselves, we should respect that. The problem with this argument is, if a white person claimed to be black or vice versa they would be laughed out of the room. Similarly, if a 14 year old claims to identify as a 55 year old it doesn't mean they have the right to vote. If a non disabled person identifies as disabled, it doesn't mean he can collect disability. If a fat woman identifies as thin, it doesn't mean more men will date her. Why is gender the only exception? I am also affected because an acquaintance of mine who is a man claimed to be a woman for over a year. During this time everyone called him a her and used a female name for him. Even I did. Then one day, he decided he wanted to go back to being a man again. This is crazy There are real biological differences between men and women. Why should a person who claims to be of a different gender be taken at face value? gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Trans people should not be taken at face value"}
{"id":"8d013047-e2fb-4e69-bef8-0f0fde1c5eb7","argument":"We're on opposing sides in a legal case. I'm rich, so I spend 50 000 on the case. I have a good lawyer who knows what she's doing. You're poor as hell. You sell your car to scrounge together 1000 to spend on the case. The only lawyer who will accept your meagre sum hasn't notched a victory in a decade. When impartial observers look at the facts of the case, they say it's pretty close. They can imagine the judge giving either of us a narrow victory. But my lawyer is smarter than yours. She's more experienced than yours. And she's spent a lot more time working on the case. It's a blowout. I bought this victory. The legal system should not allow that to happen. But we don't need socialized law to minimize inequality in the legal system. Just a lawyer tax. A percentage of every dollar you pay your lawyer would go to your opponent's legal case. This would foster parity by preventing absurd 50 1 imbalances from arising. I don't know what the optimal rate would be. 50 would be too high, since it would neutralize everyone's incentive to invest money into the case. Let's revisit our example with a 40 lawyer tax. I spend 50 000 on the case\u2014but my lawyer only gets 30 000. She doesn't spend as much time on the case. She's well prepared, but she hasn't exhaustively overturned every rock to represent me. The 20 000 lawyer tax I pay goes to your side of the case. You can afford a competent lawyer now He's not quite as good as my lawyer and this isn't enough money for him to spend as much time on the case as she does. But he's decent. He gives you a solid chance to win. And you don't have to sell your car or go into debt to fund the case. More money has still gone into my side of the case than yours. But now the ratio is 3 2 instead of 50 1. I'm still the favourite to win, but not by nearly as much. We have something approaching fairness. Yes, I'm aware of public defenders and lawyers who work on contingency. But in the face of an opponent with deep pockets, this is like bringing a knife to a bazooka fight. I realize the devil's in the details. There are lots of edge cases to account for and perhaps the tax rate shouldn't be the same for every type of case. But I think this is a solid idea that would minimize legal inequality without utterly upending the legal system the way socialized law would. If you think a lawyer tax is misguided or simply a suboptimal way to increase fairness in the legal system, I invite you to change my view. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"We need a lawyer tax: A percentage of what each side pays their lawyer would go to their opponent's lawyer. This would prevent the rich from blowing out the poor in court."}
{"id":"02a41e2a-9ae0-430f-95b9-99bb91fba348","argument":"To preface, I do believe in abortion if the child is a product of rape, if the child is going to be born with a severe handicap of such a nature that he will either be totally mentally handicapped not just autism, but debilitating autism , or is extremely deformed and will not be able to live for long anyways, and if the mother will die in the course of child birth. So under egregious circumstances, basically. Also, I'm not posting this for click bait or just to argue, I genuinely want some people to rebuke my ideas and possibly change them, and this is the best place on reddit for that. Now, I know that there have been other s but I wished to post mine as I have this as a very closely kept viewpoint that I believe is different from the others who have been posted. My father just recently changed my ideas on it. Up until then, I was all for it and believed it was pro choice which is an absolutely disgusting term and was just part of women's rights. But, after witnessing a few things, meeting a few people, and talking with my father, while I'm still skeptical hence the  I wish to post my views and hopefully find a counter point, as I've no wish to become a sheep. So I think I'll start with pro choice. Pro choice, in my opinion, is terrible. Yes, it's the choice of the woman and her body and calling it Pro Choice in that sense is fine, but when you apply it to abortion it takes on a horrifically hypocritical meaning. Where, in Pro Choice, is the choice of that child? It's not just a lump of cells, it is a potential life that you are murdering because you don't wish to take care of it. When you abort that fetus, whether it's a week old or a month or 6 months, you're killing the only chance at life that child got. And that's wrong. You don't know what that child, given the chance to be born and nurtured, would have done with his life, and in all honesty I personally don't think anyone has the right to such. Call me old fashioned or against women's rights, but I stand firm in that that child, no matter the age or stage of pregnancy, is a life that could do great things, or just live a happy life, if given the chance. On the subject of women's rights here, I would simply say that contraceptives and condoms are cheap and available at your local drugstore, or hell even free from your doctor if you ask him. My personal opinion is that, even if you still somehow get pregnant even with all the proper protection, you should have considered the potential consequences when you decided to have sex. We're just rewarding irresponsibility in that case. 9 months of your life to carry that baby, compared to upwards of 50 years that the child could have lived. If it's rape, then yes abortion is okay IMO. It's still the loss of a life, and hypocritical on my stance, but I wouldn't want such a reminder of a trauma myself either. Also, there are thousands of parents who would happily take that baby off your hands if you don't want to take care of them. If anything, instead of abortion, we should instead be fighting for reforms and regulations put into the orphanage and foster care systems to make sure that children will have a good home, regardless of where they end up. Finally, please don't try to convince me that a fetus, or even a pre fetus zygote, is just a lump of cells and therefore not worth consideration. I would maybe concede to the idea of it being only 20 days old or so and being abortable from there, but I've already considered the idea and still find it disgusting, but that is one point I do struggle with.","conclusion":"Abortion is stealing the chance of life away because someone was irresponsible, and is not the thing we should be fighting for."}
{"id":"9a34b125-da45-456f-8e82-1614b35bc02c","argument":"\"The Argentine Seizure Of The Malvinas Falkland Islands\", History and Diplomacy. Global Security. 1987 - \"The plaque left by the British when they abandoned Port Egmdnt in 1774 refers to only one 'island' on which Port Egmont is located.\"","conclusion":"Plaque left after Britain left the Malvinas in 1774 limits their claim"}
{"id":"a6b5d50d-9313-4b37-8358-05bc8b1a5850","argument":"I am a big NFL fan, but I really dislike Thursday night games. I think they are bad for the league, bad for the players, and bad for the fans, and the NFL should just give up on the idea and return to playing all the games on Sunday Monday. There are a couple of reasons why I think the NFL should stop hosting Thursday night games. The fans don't like it. Ratings for these games are not great, and have been dropping all season. I think this is because the games are usually sloppy. The teams have a very short time to prepare, and often have a number of lingering injuries from the previous week. This often leads to games where neither team plays particularly well, which can be boring to watch. People also have other obligations on weeknights, and less time to watch football. Football has always traditionally been a weekend game Friday High School, Saturday College, Sunday Professional Its bad for the players and they hate it As I mentioned above, they are often nursing injuries from the previous week that haven't fully healed. It would be better if they all got a full week of rest between games. It creates an imbalance for the next week. When a team does play Thursday, they have extra time to plan heal strategize for their next game compared to their next opponent who usually plays Sunday . It complicates Fantasy Football. This is a minor quibble, but I like to set my lineup once during the week, and the Thursday evening game makes managing my lineup more annoying, and less fun. To change my view, convince me that Thursday night NFL games are good for football.","conclusion":"The NFL Should Stop Holding Thursday Night Games"}
{"id":"410bb707-af8d-4bd6-81bc-0a18ed867562","argument":"There is no legitimate reason why women can't or shouldn't serve in the military. If it's about \"physical strength\" there are plenty of jobs in military service that don't necessarily require physical strength. Men and women should be held to the same standard, that's the only way towards true equality.","conclusion":"Women currently serve equally, but their entry methods should also be equal."}
{"id":"2845eed8-b3e4-4785-aa26-53de95a83997","argument":"Without \"massproduction\" there would still be enough food worldwirde, if food was distributed fair and equally.","conclusion":"It is not about producing food \"for need\" as most of it is thrown away."}
{"id":"23251cb2-7247-4562-b0fb-5f74366b398f","argument":"For example, a brain surgeon that graduated first in class, or last is not the same. They are both called \"doctor\", however, one is clearly better than the other. Simple \"mastery\" doesn't show this discrepancy.","conclusion":"Grades gradation is vital to comparative analysis. \"Good enough\" is seldom good enough."}
{"id":"2c9e4d98-b614-43a4-9897-fff25efe0a9f","argument":"There are a range of ways to decrease gun crime and murder in a city, including greater background checks, making sure that bad people don't get guns, more police patrols, and various other alternatives. These steps should be taken before a ban, as a ban may be much more intrusive into the constitutional rights of citizens.","conclusion":"Alternative measures can be taken in place of a ban to stem crime and murder."}
{"id":"a16ea120-e47e-49a4-ba0b-2499595c16d7","argument":"Trump often insults his opponents using nicknames like \"Lying Ted and \"Crooked Hillary but the best Trump seems to be able to come up with for Biden is \"Sleepy Joe\" which is at least not a moral indictment","conclusion":"Many of Trump's signature political campaign tactics would not work with Biden as his opponent."}
{"id":"e6fab063-5217-4c75-b610-28985c5ca067","argument":"The EU's judicial bodies have ruled that asylum seekers must be granted a visa under Articles 4 and 18 of the EU Charter on Fundamental Rights there is a clear legal obligation to ensure the welfare of refugees.","conclusion":"The laws and treaties followed by the countries in the EU require them to help asylum seekers."}
{"id":"dc072d49-d09a-47a2-b476-440ff9b570c3","argument":"I currently live as a relatively wealthy engineer and have gotten used to what I admit is a rather nice lifestyle. If a basic income system was implemented why would people have any incentive to work? Would the high tax rate cost me my current life style at the benefit of people I will never meet? I dislike poverty as much as the next guy but I won't be able to afford my current lifestyle if taxes increase by a large amount. How can I support a basic income when it would cost me my current standard of living? gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than just downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I believe that a basic income is a really bad idea."}
{"id":"a02c7941-363b-4671-833f-476e29bdecef","argument":"Currently, news coverage on the day of the elections is usually restricted to uncontroversial factual accounts, such as the appearance of politicians at polling stations, or the weather.","conclusion":"The number of viewers is likely to increase when there's more varied and interesting news. Media coverage responds to interest levels and will subsequently also increase."}
{"id":"ee803b39-2e19-4d11-89fc-3e71810b7a00","argument":"A study found that both mothers and fathers had limited ability to gauge the attitudes and opinions of their children, and were often inaccurate in their assessments p. 319.","conclusion":"Parents often don't know their child well enough to be able to decide what is in his\/her best interest."}
{"id":"e1f841ab-9dcb-4868-8c36-2d06fa37c5c5","argument":"My grandfather started smoking probably between the ages of 10 13. He's nearing 70, and has continued to smoke for his entire life. He lives in another country so I'm not exactly aware of just how much but I know it's bad. A pack a day, or more bad. For 60 years of his life. In those years, he's had over 3 which I am certain of near death experiences. He's had doctors tell him he shouldn't be alive. He's had doctors call him a miracle. He's had doctors diagnose him with just about every type of side effect you could possibly have from smoking for 60 years of your life and completely obliterating your lungs. This year, he was diagnosed with brain cancer and started receiving treatment. It's been 4 or so months, and I think he's doing fine. Supposedly, he stopped smoking cigarettes after being diagnosed. I don't believe that. On top of that, he's also a raging alcoholic. Enough of a deranged alcoholic to drive his young grandchildren from their school, completely drunk. Drinking while on a smoking break, and vice versa. Enough about him this isn't about him. This is about people who use and abuse services while destroying themselves. How many other people who called an ambulance 0.5 seconds later had to wait longer because his self induced conditions were forced to be treated? How much government money has he used to treat his preventable diseases? How many people who have brain cancer and are fighting for their lives were delayed because he got their spot? He didn't deserve any of the treatment he received, and continues to receive. Anyone who's an alcoholic, smoker cigarettes , or drug addict should be denied ANY governmental emergency services unless they are specifically for anti addiction or mental health treatment directly regarding their addiction. In other words, if an alcoholic gets into a car crash then I don't believe health care services should be used to save his life. If a smoker develops lung cancer, then the priority of treating him should be at the very bottom. But not only directly correlated conditions, also all and any they might develop. I understand that some conditions may not be correlated whatsoever and recognize that that might be a grey area. However, I still don't believe that anyone who has decided to destroy themselves should take any space or time up in an emergency hospital. A family doctor or walk in, also grey area. Edit I've shifted my thought to dropping smokers addicts users to the bottom of a waitlist, rather than completely denying them services. Edit 2 gt My views have changed based purely on how difficult it would be to regulate a system like that and how you'd have to essentially assign everyone to some insanely closely monitored program in order to determine eligibility. I think as of right now, it's a lingering bitterness towards people who waste resources while not actively trying to get better, probably because of my own personal experiences.","conclusion":"Smokers\/drinkers shouldn't be allowed to use emergency services."}
{"id":"68c8628d-96a0-4abf-88f2-b55c5899ecb7","argument":"The reframing of Hamlet in places like famously The Lion King along with directly inspiring a huge variety of film, TV, literature and music - indicates how Hamlet, as a work, has taken on its own cultural significance outside the precise constraints of the original text.","conclusion":"Many interpretations add new elements to Hamlet and discard what is written in the text. Doing so means that we are no longer interpreting Shakespeare's Hamlet, but a new and distinct piece of art."}
{"id":"86fdf015-abe0-421d-acaf-fdbed0b0431c","argument":"There is no particular reason that people's beliefs about the origin of the universe should be based in scientific evidence.","conclusion":"Allegorically speaking Creationism is accurate. However, as a scientific model of the Universe it is not accurate."}
{"id":"8715377a-3346-4d66-9d53-c63d007c3cca","argument":"The definition of the classical God is an ad hoc affair and contradictory like the invisible pink unicorn. It appears to be put together by humans out of parts. This makes it highly improbable that the classical God exist.","conclusion":"The classical definition of God is contradictory or incoherent, and thus God cannot in principle exist."}
{"id":"3ac725dc-b7b0-438c-acbc-6389c36a282e","argument":"A civilized country does not allow the insensitivity of its population to take rights away from vulnerable groups.","conclusion":"It is the duty of the government to recognize the immorality of zoos, not individuals."}
{"id":"511c0adf-5908-4804-a6ea-6fc93a10f6a5","argument":"Given the high opportunity costs of college education where a degree can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars the money might be better spent on more direct forms of assistance to minorities, such as charities that provide healthcare or food.","conclusion":"Research has shown that college degrees have less economic utility for people from low socio-economic backgrounds."}
{"id":"e252e48d-031c-43bf-9b63-bebc32edf1ab","argument":"My views are almost completely Libertarian except for that I don't think privatizing all schools would help our education system. But I do believe privatizing schools would be a good option if someone can think of a solution to my concerns on the issue. First off, students don't have much choice in which school to go to. Basically everyone just goes to whatever school is nearest to them. Even if the next closest school is better than the closest one, pretty much everyone will choose the closer one because it saves gas and time. This means every school will form a monopoly on their district around them and therefore would have the same monopoly that the US government currently has on schools. There wouldn't be any incentive for private schools to be effective because none of their customers the students would have much choice to go to a different school and pay tuition for that other school. There would be little to no competition with other schools. My other main concern is that a lot of people couldn't afford it. Currently the amount you pay for school depends on how much property you own because school is payed for by property tax. Those who can only afford to live in an apartment don't pay for property tax and don't pay for school. If you privatized schools it would lower property tax significantly but would be replaced by a tuition fee which would cost the same for everyone, even if you're a poor person living in an apartment. Then you'd have a problem where poor people would get arrested for not sending their kids to school because they can't pay for it. Edit I had k 12 schools in mind while writing this.","conclusion":"Privatizing all schools would create local monopolies and the schools would have no incentive to being effective"}
{"id":"b30c748b-a1d3-407a-9f59-894352c0f9e3","argument":"The subjects have even been ask to act when \"they felt the urge to do so which is a direct demand to follow their physical instinct, and not to freely decide.","conclusion":"The decisions in the research studies appear to be meaningless. That such a level of non-moral non-impactful decisions are deterministic is compatible even with a libertarian free will."}
{"id":"9058366c-1449-455c-a6c5-6be36ebce0b3","argument":"For the record, I think it's perfectly fine if you just want to get high. But the medical marijuana industry in places like California and Colorado is a complete farce. The dispensaries are filled with Bob Marley posters and rasta colors. It's basically a caricature of the worst type of stoner. And do you really think some grandma suffering from chronic pain is going to go into what is basically a headshop, ask the dredlocks wearing clerk if she can get a half zip, and then go home and fire it up in her two foot bong? That image is comical, and yet it's what most medical marijuana advocates seem to want you to believe is happening. I know for a fact that it is possible in both Colorado and California to obtain a medical license even if you are a perfectly health young person. I have plenty of friends who have paid a nominal fee to a doctor to get their weed card. I think that the vast majority of people see through this farce for what it is, and it's harmful to the greater movement of legalization. If it's medical, then it should really be medical, meaning that it should be prescribed by a doctor, bought at a pharmacy, and probably ingested or vaporized. I can't imagine that any medical professional would ever consider smoking a blunt to be a legitimate medical treatment. I know of no other drug that has its own special shop there's no Clarinex dispensary or Viocdin shop. And if it's not medical which is so obviously the case if we're just honest for a minute , then don't call it medical. In my opinion, you should be able to go to the headshop and buy some weed. You should be able to smoke it or consume it basically however you want to. But calling it medical is just ridiculous. In sum 1 I think consuming, possessing, buying, selling and growing cannabis should be perfectly legal for adults with very minimal restrictions. 2 I think that medical marijuana is perfectly valid in theory, but in current practice it is a complete farce. My random guess would be that it's 90 perfectly healthy people who just want to smoke weed. 3 The fact that medical marijuana is such a thinly veiled joke hurts the overall cause. The people who would actually benefit medicinally are unlikely to go into a dispensary because it doesn't even come close to resembling a medical facility, and it stigmatizes people who would benefit from medical marijuana because everyone knows that medical marijuana today is basically a codeword for legal weed for recreational purposes. 4 It's just a silly jumping through hoops sort of bullshit. Just legalize it already and save everyone the hassle and the hypocrisy.","conclusion":"I think that the overwhelming majority of medical marijuana \"patients\" are just people trying to get high, which harms the cause of legalization."}
{"id":"b66aafb6-f4bb-4d6b-8b62-12ab791f817e","argument":"I was never good at titles. Keep in mind that this is a theory that I heavily believe could work if applied and I'm not debating whether or not we can put it into practice. So, according to these statistics black people are 50 less likely to be called if they have a black sounding name and paid 25 less than white people, regardless if they have a competitive profile or not. Also, there is a pay gap for women, even worse if they're not white source As a black woman, I'd say I have quite the disadvantage. But I'm skeptical. A lot of black people use their race as the reason they're not where they want to be in life. And honestly, it bothers me because I'm not sure what's true and what's an agenda being pushed. Are non white people really being discriminated against or are they to blame for their own lack of success in life? So I got to thinking of ways to make things fair for everyone. A true meritocracy. If we were to make the hiring process completely anonymous, I think we would be able to answer the question above. I'm thinking we leave out names, nationality, races, genders sexes, etc and just keep it to the achievements, qualifications and certifications until someone has actually been hired. Pay could either be fixed or negotiated anonymously. Interviews would also be anonymous online. Obviously, there are some jobs that require employees to be a certain gender, or even a certain race. I'm not referring to those jobs. I'm talking about jobs that anyone should be able to do, provided they were hired without bias. I believe then, we'd be able to answer any questions about how racially biased business are accused of being.","conclusion":"We should work towards an unbiased hiring process as opposed to discouraging bias"}
{"id":"abc797e0-5189-418a-a5d2-b7e254caf76e","argument":"I believe that users being able to install Windows 10 on the new Raspberry Pi 2 is a bad thing. Firstly, it means that many people who buy one to program on it will install Windows 10 on it and just use it as a gaming computer, and while I don't have anything against gaming, I think that it will dilute the strong community of makers surrounding the Pi. Second, it means that the Raspberry Pi foundation will even if they sometimes don't intend to do things to appease Microsoft an obviously bad thing that could limit the development of cool new projects by the foundation ie android on the pi . Really, I do think its a bad thing that will hurt the open source nature of the Raspberry Pi, and its community as a whole.","conclusion":"Windows 10 on the Raspberry Pi 2 is a bad thing"}
{"id":"f61907dc-9ef9-4cb5-b3c2-67e66524e994","argument":"Brexit occurs at a time whenshifting demographics in Northern Ireland are tipping in favour of nationalists. Already, in the most recent elections, the unionist majority has disappeared. Within a decade, there will be a significant nationalist majority in favour of unification Tensions between communities are running high and there is truly the potential for a return to conflict and violence. Everything must be done to ensure the GFA is protected and a hard border across the island is avoided.","conclusion":"A hard exit from the EU could call the Good Friday Agreement into question and could possibly cause a return to the violence and terror present in Northern Ireland during The Troubles"}
{"id":"d31f4557-8a9d-444f-8de7-a5a401f2950e","argument":"Greetings I've long held this belief and constantly fought with more patriotic members of my country Hungary over it, as they say it will lead to cultural decay. However, as far as my understanding of History goes, Humanity kept uniting into bigger and bigger groups. I'm not sure whether my order is correct, but it's merely to give an example of what I am seeing. First, families started working together as it was easier to hunt that way Then, they started to form small tribal communities Then, these tribal communities united into alliances and great tribes Then, the tribes became petty kingdoms Then, the petty kingdoms were either swallowed by a larger one, or swallowed the smaller ones. Then, the kingdoms they formed kept absorbing the smaller communities that were similar in culture And then there are countries like the United States and Russia, both spanning almost entire continents or more. Likewise, they have the strongest presence as well. The United Kingdom had an equally great presence during its Imperial days, which it more or less managed to retain. I feel Europe could easily raise its economy to the third power if each current country paid its tax to a single, central government that viewed each part of the union equally, at most with different strategies, investiture focuses. The main counter arguement I see against an united Europe is cultural decay or incompatibility, but I do not understand how it would get in the way too much. Culture won't disappear just because people answer to a single elected government, neither will it disappear due to people wandering within the borders.","conclusion":"We need to do away with all the small countries in Europe and unite them as a single nation like the U.S, and later strive to turn all small countries into large, united tracts of land."}
{"id":"d51a45a4-88a3-4391-8ede-bb1a8b746f23","argument":"I am not saying men are better than women, just different. And with our larger bodies and different brain we take the role of building, protecting, leading. Almost everything good or bad thing that has ever happened in the world has been done or caused by men. Everything around you houses, roads, cars, plumbing, food, the government, the economy, all created, conceived, designed and built by men. All this women's lib, feminist stuff is jealousy. No amount of complaints, gender studies, making up stuff like rape culture can change the fact that by virtue of biology men will always dominate because you are playing in our sandbox. We made this world.","conclusion":"Its a mans world and always will be."}
{"id":"22f53bfb-027c-4dd0-bc2a-2a57721a2901","argument":"Since becoming Home Secretary, Javid has instituted a review of the Home Office's \"hostile environment\" practices and has apologized to immigrants who were wrongfully forced to provide DNA samples.","conclusion":"As Home Secretary, Javid has lead a change in the government's failed approach to immigration."}
{"id":"163a6535-f232-47b7-bb09-9e1fa78ff4d0","argument":"First, to get this out of the way, yes this is coming from my being salty that I had one group member not show up and another plagiarized their work so I had to do 3 4 of the work on a group assignment then received a deduction, albeit a minuscule one, based on peer evaluations that I am not allowed to see. It won't matter to my grade, but the principle is aggravating and so I'd like someone to  so I'm not so irritated. Peer evaluations during group work can serve two functions as far as I can see To make sure that professors teachers are aware of problematic students who are not carrying their weight, or To provide valuable information for personal growth to the student being evaluated. Now, in nearly every situation I've ever been in in which you received peer evaluations in school the evaluations were kept private, and so they can't be used to reflect and change one's approach to group dynamics, and so they are only a way to report group behaviour to your teacher. However , there is no due process and there is no ability for the accused to defend themselves against poor evaluations, and there is no way for the teacher to know that the source they are receiving the evaluation from is actually a reliable source whatsoever. One can presume hope that if 3 4 of the group members say 4 is being a problem then yes, 4 is probably being a problem, but we cannot know that that is the case without actually seeing the evaluations, which we do not. When an assignment is graded it is typically graded based on a standard rubric to ensure fair grading and clear instruction. No such standard exists among peer evaluators, and their grading is virtually guaranteed to be subjective. Further, when a test is graded or an assignment returned you can typically ask the professor what you did wrong, receive feedback, and learn from it, yet no such learning opportunity exists in this evaluation scenario and so it is in no way an educational tool, but simply a punitive one. Students should be graded by a professor or qualified TA on the work they complete, they should not be graded on how an unqualified peer perceives and reports their effort. Group members should have no ability to negatively impact the scores of their peers without some form of due process allowed to the accused. Edit 1 In keeping with Rule E I've hovered to respond to reply comments but cannot stay for three full hours. Moderators, if you must remove this before I return in the morning I understand and will, if it's alright, post it again. Anyone reading this, if you comment and then this post is removed I will address your points in the reposted version tomorrow, so feel free to comment anyway, hopefully it doesn't get removed and I can just reply in the morning gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"\"Peer evaluations\" from group work should not be factored into a grade unless some form of due process is introduced and the student allowed to defend themselves against poor evaluations."}
{"id":"6f19e321-4ba0-4838-af2b-99d40ff7b14a","argument":"Every website now notifies users that they use cookies. Cookies are a necessity when operating a website that allows users to interact with the website in any meaningful way. The notification is meaningless because it can be assumed that every website uses cookies, and the only action a user can take is to not use the website.","conclusion":"In order to comply with GDPR, websites generate annoying and inconvenient popups, e.g. notifying users about cookies."}
{"id":"ea2e8510-d95a-40c5-af6e-ead0d8a75ff1","argument":"The USA - the country with the most millionaires in the world - is also one of the top countries that donates to charity.","conclusion":"Wealthy people give more to charity than poor people in aggregate terms"}
{"id":"db747602-2d48-4ccf-ae13-9d07fb6de707","argument":"I have Jury Duty next month, and already have a letter and phone call ready to go soon as they open to spew out my bullshit excuse. I honestly feel Jury Duty is useless, and why is it a REQUIRED LAW CIVIC Duty? I am sorry, when I was born out of my mothers vagina, did I sign a piece of paper? No I didn't. Did I sign anything to say yea ill do jury duty . I already believe America is in the crapper, completely and will never recover. The court and law enforcement in this country is already in the same boat, and laws are in place that no longer should be laws. Court cases, that end up rigged or just bought off. Phony reports from law enforcement, bullshit cases of familys going and suing other familys. What the Than, you have, if you don't show up, a fine or 30 days in a jail cell. For something you never signed up for or agreed. Wait, not done yet. Than YOU HAVE A CHANCE to get out of jury duty, if the lawyers don't like you during selection process. How is that fair? Oh let me pick out the fucking smart people so its only the dumb people, so we can make the jury on our side. Excuse me, and that is a fair trial? Yes, go ahead and already rig the case, by having the option for the LAWYERS to choose who they want on the jury stand. I honestly cannot fathom how this is a thing in America, let alone fucking REQUIRED AND BY LAW. I will not, ever, don't care if its me, go to a court and say yes, i think he is guilty, or no I don't. I don't care. Its not my life. These are not my friends, these are random fucking people in the world. Hang em, all I care. I would expect the same if I was on trial. I don't want my peers to judge me. I want facts, science, proof, from a person who does this for living. Yes, the lawyer is there to proof his facts. Proof can all be there. But guess what? End of the day, the Jury decides the fate. Reddit,","conclusion":"I honestly believe, Jury Duty is the biggest joke in America, Second to our Health Care system, Reddit"}
{"id":"07a47049-03b5-47b1-ab89-fb60842c3a37","argument":"Even within a given religion, many moral subjects can be questioned or debated, at least by religious leaders. So even a given religion's morality is not an absolute standard.","conclusion":"Many religions do not agree on what standard of morality to adhere to."}
{"id":"a26fa31e-5b3e-45ee-98b8-322911488eeb","argument":"It is estimated that 2,000 children are born in the UK every year as a result of sperm or egg donations.","conclusion":"Anonymous donations are important for ensuring that certain families are able to have children."}
{"id":"aa0b09d8-2900-4d3e-9c3a-dc76085ef38e","argument":"Here's the wiki entry You vote for your guy or party, and then pick your second prefered option, your third, etc. If all first votes are counted and noone gets a majority, the person party with the least votes is eliminated from the counting, and the votes this person party got get distributed among the remaining parties people, according to the second choices of the people who voted for the eliminated person party. This would Make people stop voting strategically I'm voting for this guy cause I don't want this other guy to win In two party systems, third parties would actually get a decent shot, since people can vote for their third party of choice and add their don't want the other guy to win vote as second choice Reduce negative campaigning. You can't just attack everybody around you, you won't get many second choice votes if you do","conclusion":"I think Instant run off should be used on every single election."}
{"id":"d9b3f5cf-f9ba-4f56-bd1e-18ba8ab3c568","argument":"It may be difficult to establish if a true \"de facto\" or cohabiting relationship exists if the parties maintain separate finances and split expenses.","conclusion":"There are difficulties in providing the same protections to cohabiting couples or defacto relationships which mean it is unlikely to be effective."}
{"id":"9cdc21af-a316-40a9-8ba8-1cfbb0874870","argument":"An Individual is the sum of her or his experiences and therefore memories. They are of tremendous importance for human self understanding and perception, finally identity. The power of manipulating memories would have extensive consequences and would change how humans live sustainably.","conclusion":"Artificially generated memories implanted in human minds felt as reality. That is SciFi!"}
{"id":"e777bccd-5b33-43fa-b549-cbe1973b2472","argument":"Humans recognize their duties to other humans precisely due to the bond shared through species membership. Neither humans nor animals are naturally capable of recognizing duties towards one another. Even if it is morally right to extend duties to animals, duties can only exist if they are properly recognized from those that would exercise them.","conclusion":"We owe duties to infants or cognitively disabled people on the basis of our shared species membership. We owe no such duties to animals."}
{"id":"acf81106-15d4-4ca2-86bc-4d451b49e33f","argument":"The US National Security Adviser is John Bolton someone who is aggressive towards Iran and has previously advocated for bombing Iran to stop them from pursuing a nuclear weapon.","conclusion":"If Iran decides to resume its nuclear weapons program, the likelihood of war increases dramatically."}
{"id":"9e8e5af0-1f5c-46b7-a075-ca681d657919","argument":"An increasing number of countries are looking to bilateral Free Trade Agreements that will help them specifically. They are not directly open to free trade with all countries. These FTAs are undermining the position of the World Trade Organization which is meant to push countries towards economic liberalization1. Countries have no reason to start trading freely with everyone, if they already have FTAs with the most beneficial trading partners. The Doha round seeks to reduce trade barriers in industry and agriculture has been going on for ten years, but there is still no agreement. Disputes are becoming more common when it comes to trade. In 2009, there was a dispute over the US putting tariffs on Chinese tires that has created tension in the trade relationship between those two countries2. Considering that the WTO countries have been debating the Doha round for ten years, it is unreasonable to think that countries are going to adopt free trade policies with the whole world. It is much more likely they will concede to bilateral free trade agreements that specifically help themselves. Since it is unlikely for free trade to become a universal policy it is not beneficial for all countries. 1 Meltzer, Joshua 2011, \"The Future of Trade\", Foreign Policy Magazine, 2 Bradsher, Keith 2009, \"China-US Trade Dispute Has Broad Implications\", .","conclusion":"Implementing true free trade is unfeasible because it is unreasonable"}
{"id":"7ef277d1-d648-4de3-b0e2-27b7437009e9","argument":"The Battle of Yavin 2:38 a turbolaser with a gun crew and apparently manual, visual firing. At 2:43 turbolaser turret misses relatively slow moving X-Wings from near point blank range visually, they appear to be no more than 20 meters from it, but this is likely false perspective. Though they are certainly no more than a hundred meters from it, probably several dozen. At 2:53 More evidence turbolasers use manual gun crews.","conclusion":"Targeting technology in Star Wars, possessed by the Empire and presumably the Rebels is substantially Inferior to that found in Star Trek, particular the Federation."}
{"id":"d5db7a8d-6f64-4e65-8cbd-92409d3d852b","argument":"I've read through a bit of the Common Core standards, and I think it's a great start to education reform. I'll admit that state by state implementation isn't great, but overall I think requiring kindergarten students to learn to count and first graders to add and subtract isn't all that bad. I also think it's a good idea because a student who moves between states would be more likely to be in the same place if all schools had to follow the same set of standards. I really just don't understand why anyone would be against education reform, unless they somehow benefit from a dumber country.","conclusion":"Common Core State Standards is a good idea."}
{"id":"6e8007be-181a-45c4-bc70-ec570b20e772","argument":"- rather, basic economic principles dictate that in a time of recession, deficit spending like Iraq actually helps the economy. Furthermore, securing oil resources in the region is key to easing the stagflation in the United States. Because the current inflation occuring in the United States is supply-push or cost-push, the economy is experiencing both a recession and inflation. This supply-push inflation is rooted in transportation costs and the fact that oil is key to producing and manufacturing just about everything the U.S. GDP is composed of. Securing oil is the only way we can save the economy. Prefer specific analysis above unwarranted claims and polls by the public.","conclusion":"Deficit spending in Iraq is not what is causing the economy to recede in the status quo"}
{"id":"73ca7999-137c-44f0-ae7c-c24e1bee39e8","argument":"I am a high school student who has always been ahead of the other students in my class since elementary school. Some of the classes that I have to take are stuff that I already know and I get very bored. I believe that the grade system, 1st 12th should be by skill level rather than age just to save the people who are bored from boredom and help the less skilled kids get skilled and be ready for what is ahead. This allows for a grouping of kids each grade level who are ready for the content and keeps boredom from knowing it already mostly out of the classroom.","conclusion":"School grade levels should be based on skill level rather than age"}
{"id":"32b364ff-a1c5-4342-b735-23066ca2ceec","argument":"Most of the arguments i've seen against porn invoke some moral premise slippery slope argument.This question is specifically about the primary consumers of porn boys so please focus on the specific impact of pornography on teenagers boys but allusions to male sexuality would be useful in this conversation. Growing up as a male member of generation y my first experience with sexuality was through porn at age 12.At that age i didn't realize that porn wasn't real and it wasn't until i was about 14 was it that i pieced things together the dramatic moaning,that most women didn't look like the woman in porn it was all just terrible acting.I was able to compartmentalize this information and lost my virginity at 16 with realistic expectations in mind.In many views i feel porn was an escape to indulge in fantasies that weren't realistic in real life,with idealized female sexual receptivity and aesthetic appeal but i'd always snap back into reality and not let my perspective of women and sexuality be obscured through porn vision . I imagine if you asked most other men who watched porn as a teenage you would get similar experiences. The biggest thing to keep in mind is that teenagers can tell the difference between reality and fantasy.Porn make seem unsavoury to some because it goes against the romanticized conceptualization of what we associate with sex .Men on average compartmentalize their sexual arousal in terms of visual appeal moreso than woman ,meaning that it doesn't take much to get a man aroused, despite this they enjoy the intimacy that comes with having sex with someone they care about in a relationship.Like woman,men are more physiologically stimulated during sex by emotional connection.Porn reflects this underlying tendency,it is not caused by porn.","conclusion":"I believe that there is nothing wrong with letting teenager boys watch porn"}
{"id":"2a947d67-01e9-4a19-928b-6b86aa85d120","argument":"The UN has called for sustained joint efforts to combat terrorism and welcomed a partnership initiative with tech giants such as Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter and YouTube.","conclusion":"In many Western nations the threat of terrorism has been used to justify mass surveillance of the population."}
{"id":"0bb3ad99-e092-4346-904f-87ce24130217","argument":"If a bull is not killed duringordinary three sequences of a bullfight the bullfighter typically cuts the spinal cord of the bull and slices its medulla oblongata. This method, was banned from slaughterhouses in the EU, due to its cruelty.","conclusion":"In recent years, there has been an improvement of animal welfare practices in the beef, pork, and poultry industries in EU countries, through the formulation and enforcement of new legislation. FAO, p. 20"}
{"id":"f21c388f-dcce-4d66-93c0-8b534ae9c794","argument":"This is my oldest son, who had language delay as his early symptom. He also had some stereotyped behaviors and decreased eye contact at 18 months. These are all symptoms on the autism spectrum, so he got lumped in with the DSM IV diagnosis Pervasive Developmental Delay Not Otherwise Specified PDD NOS . PDD NOS is the trash can diagnosis where all autism spectrum diagnoses that didn't fit classical or Asperger's were placed. Yes, DSM V is out, however, it isn't being used clinically yet for Autism diagnoses, at least here . Lots of kids get placed in the PDD NOS category, as it gets them social services that will help with developmental delays, regardless of their cause. ABA Advanced Behavioral something is actually pretty awesome, and I feel like it would benefit every kid, regardless of delay or diagnosis. So now my son is 4. He smiles, gives me huge hugs, is wicked smart, talks a mile a minute and won't stop moving until he is exhausted and falls asleep. He'll say hi to people, he will initiate play with others his age and sitters, and he is actually more social than I am. He was recently re evaluated, and the evaluation boiled down to he exhibits behaviors compatible with his previous diagnosis. The only specific behaviors were decreased eye contact and anxiety telling a story. I think if you took 4 year old me and ran a diagnostic panel, I'd be labeled as Autistic too. So to the point, I feel like my Autism, specifically PDD NOS is being used as a screening tool, designed to catch kids with developmental delays where early intervention can be helpful. This is leading to massive over diagnosis, and pressure on providers to diagnose kids so they qualify for services. Doing things in this way is detrimental, as there is a large emotional morbidity that goes un discussed with having a child 'labeled' with a broad diagnosis that has a wide range of outcomes. .","conclusion":"I feel like Autism is over-diagnosed. My son carries a diagnosis of autism, and I feel like his diagnosis is inappropriate."}
{"id":"149f83e6-d09e-4e6f-b9f3-fe8badaf04e9","argument":"A critical ingredient of a liberal democracy is having the 'consent of the governed Yet if partisanship becomes too intense, then the losing party's voters may eventually refuse to consent to be governed by the other party. This would mark the end of a functioning democracy.","conclusion":"Washington warned that political parties have the power to destabilise democracy by promoting conflict, leading to the demise of the social contract of democracy."}
{"id":"5f5eacd5-0129-4270-b8ea-f33fd63d8b2c","argument":"Americans love to boast about their FREEDOM but they actually never stand up for much. There are no unions or anti war protests, there is internet outrage but nothing is done. I can't remember a single successful protest in the last 50 years. You know Saudi Arabia was behind 9 11, you know Iraq has nothing to do with 9 11, you know the 2008 crash was caused by the bankers, but no one protests, you only complain, and everything just continues as is. The Patriot Act robbed you of may freedoms the police can legally steal from you for no reason civil asset forfeiture the vast majority of people want single payer healthcare the list goes on and on. You are the richest country in HISTORY but apparently can't take a single day off of work. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Americans are very docile and obedient."}
{"id":"7990ac29-a279-4eeb-8dd6-9a3700d09d0d","argument":"Please leave the footnote below the following line, but remember to delete this sentence by replacing it with the body of your post. Thank you We see it all on the news, country fighting country, this race killing that race, live are being killed. But even worse is that they are meaning less, even though they are human. The fact that a child in Americas life is worth more than a child in a middle eastern country. That if they are not apart of my group, then it doesn't matter. That based on the colour of someones skin, they are worth less. Despite sharing 99 the same DNA. Also, that if we let go of all these we could put more effort into helping the Earth. It would bring about the realisation that we are all on a hunk of rock floating through space, which is every expanding, and how lucky we are to even be on a planet that is uninhabitable. We would value things like science and logic more, and i am not saying that we should get rid of government, but just the team belonging, to the distinct places. And instead be on Team Earth and Team Human. What do you think?","conclusion":"I believe we should get rid of a belonging to a certain country,race,or religion"}
{"id":"1702d362-3e33-4081-b09b-cdbb9900a89c","argument":"The ancient daily Jewish prayer called the Shema says to love the Lord with all of the heart. The ancient Jewish understanding of the heart was that it was the center of intellectual activity in a person. Thus, scripture commands humans to love God with their intellectual capabilities every day.","conclusion":"The Christian view of \u201cfaith\u201d includes the use of reason as part of an intellectual pursuit of discovering who God is, the world He created, and the underlying reasons for having faith."}
{"id":"548f8099-967a-4fb4-b3af-b8afa788de55","argument":"Many firms cannot act independently, but rather rely on the technology and systems of other firms. The complicated, and often convoluted, licensing arrangements needed by many firms to function sap resources and effort, slowing productivity and causing general economic sluggishness. In high-tech and science research firms particularly, mutual licensing pacts are needed that often slow production and advancement due to the complicated legal arrangements that must be entered into to allow firms to go about their business. For example, the recent battle over rights to computer technology between Hewlett-Packard and Oracle, which has cost both firms millions of dollars in legal fighting1. These costs are entirely mitigated in the absence of intellectual property rights, as ideas flow freely and people can go about their business without the complications of licensing. 1 Orlowski, Andrew. 2011. \"Oracle and Itanic: Tech's Nastiest Ever Row?\". The Register. improve this","conclusion":"The complicated legal arrangements created by intellectual property raise costs of doing business:"}
{"id":"9160ed53-7728-4ac4-bedc-9938717ca111","argument":"Star Wars took place a long time ago, and Star Trek is in our future. Star Trek has access to all the modern knowledge of many civilizations, some of which could be more modern versions of what were in Star Wars.","conclusion":"Starfleet has newer and better maintained vessels than the members of the Rebel Alliance."}
{"id":"0a7ec05b-0546-479b-b38a-748798ab542c","argument":"This is already occurring - a 2015 robot was already capable of loading and unloading a dishwasher in tandem with their human users. This technology is continually being honed and developed.","conclusion":"Sex robots could eventually serve multiple purposes like helping with household chores, and be accepted in such a capacity."}
{"id":"a1313e5b-37c4-4045-945e-b5fe1c201079","argument":"Hey everyone. Let's please keep this one lighthearted okay. I'm chill. You be chill too. i think that both of these genres of music would write great music together. But, there is a lot separating these two groups. A meeting of the genres probably wouldn't happen. But those two groups could write great lyrics and play amazing songs. Think bluegrass rap talking why gun owners should have their rights. A full scale country song accurately talking about life in the inner city. If the two sides came together, the stories they could share would make for great songs. And the conversations after could help them bond together. It would be amazing.  EDIT All you people have been cool. Thanks. Hey all, i got to some sleep. Sorry for the lack of deltas, but that might be on me and not you. To thank you, if there is anything I can help any contributor to this, PM and let me know and I will do what I can Thanks again. mods I can't make the three hours. I'm sorry.","conclusion":"If country and rap got together and cut the bullshit, it would make for some great songs."}
{"id":"44d92dd1-d70a-4e95-88a5-82ba7549e08a","argument":"We know that women are attracted to men who can provide them resources and protection and stuff. But to our prehistoric ancestors, resources and protection meant physical strength, which is reflected in aspects like a man's height and muscular aesthetics, not in how many pieces of green paper a man has. For these reasons I think women are really only attracted to a man's looks despite what we are told by the media and PUAs. But then you see many cases when rich but ugly, fat guys who would otherwise be forever alone pull 10 10s. Women until the pre modern times knew in their brains that they should marry rich men regardless of their looks for their and their children's social security, but what did they truly think in their heart? And in the modern days, when in the Western world at least women earn more or less the same amount of money as men and don't need a provider because they can provide for themselves, you see women still go for rich ugly guys, which may indicate that wealth and social status are genuine roles in attraction but also could be remnants of a society where women stayed home. But when you see women express themselves on, well, shadier online forums about men, they usually don't say things like OMG Bill Gates is so rich he makes me horny , they say OMG he's such a sexy handsome stud, I'll do anything to have his babies . Women don't fap to the list of The World's Billionaires on Forbes, they fap to r ladyboners. I think these indicate that they are still expressing a part of their nature. Do they do so because they still maintain some of the mindset of their mothers and grandmothers that they should consider wealth above looks for their security aka by nurture ? Or do they do this because they are biologically wired to do so, and they have evolved to recognize that wealth, not good looks, is what provides them the resources and protection aka by nature ? What do y'all think? I'm inclined to think that it's all due to societal nurture that override women's natural instincts, but I'm open to change my views.","conclusion":"I believe that women naturally are only attracted to a man's looks, and other factors such as wealth and social status are just societal influences that do not reflect their instincts."}
{"id":"7dea10e0-b3d2-4aaa-9ba7-bfa675c6245d","argument":"If a company decided to place a polluting industry close to low-income homes, without a controlling third party like a government the individuals would have no recourse to protect themselves.","conclusion":"Under anarchism it's easy to impose externalities on less powerful groups and individuals due to the absence of regulation."}
{"id":"78d9a07a-a4ee-4b51-bd24-6f23646d2e39","argument":"The EU has an appropriate balance of democracy for its current powers, which is heavily biased towards the nation-state represented by the democratically elected European Council consisting of heads of state of members.","conclusion":"The EU has no democratic deficit because it is legitimated by democratically elected representatives."}
{"id":"5d77a2ae-d245-442c-bb6c-4e0eec7cde0f","argument":"Around this time every year, people come out of the woodworks to hate on joe buck. Here\u2019s why I think he\u2019s not as bad as people think people complain that he\u2019s biased He\u2019s not affiliated with any team. Obviously when you\u2019re watching your local team playing in a regular season game, you\u2019re listening to a biased announcer. If, for example, you\u2019re rooting for the Red Sox during this World Series, you will think that Joe is being biased towards the Dodgers because he is actually being unbiased. I feel like I used the word \u201cbiased\u201d too much in this section but I stand by it he only states the obvious things Yes, he does. Partly because that\u2019s his job as a play by play commentator. He tells the viewers what\u2019s going on as it\u2019s happening. Also, he does this because it\u2019s the World Series People are watching that don\u2019t normally watch baseball so it\u2019s his job to make sure they understand the most basic elements of the game. he\u2019s boring they should find someone else People complain about every announcer that isn\u2019t their announcer. Hawk? Homer. Scully? Old. A rod? Creepy. Jessica Mendoza? Girl.","conclusion":"Joe Buck is a good broadcaster"}
{"id":"af62bbb0-9a70-47e5-bb3a-7c5327c73a04","argument":"The presence of corporate money in politics leads to corporate lobbying and a decrease in the democratic nature of government.","conclusion":"The government has an interest in ensuring a maximally democratic system."}
{"id":"e9ccced1-40e7-4f49-a3dd-f1b5c05874cf","argument":"I think that capitalism is superior to all other social economic systems for the following reasons It values rewards hard work, talent, ingenuity, etc. It provides for open competition It presents a truly equal playing field for all To be clear, I'm talking about free market, Laissez faire, capitalism. Also, when presenting an argument in opposition, please say which other system you prefer and why.","conclusion":"I think Capitalism is the best socio-economic system to date."}
{"id":"f63b1be9-6258-4fdd-bbe2-b9b636ba3a0f","argument":"So, my scenario is the following From one day to the next Over a prolonged period of time, all support programs a imagined, functional government has for poor people are cut. All the money the government saves with this are given to the people as tax cuts in a way that favors the lower and middle class. At the same time, a foundation is created that already existing charities promise to fill the gap. In my opinion, the previous, government funded welfare had several advantages over the charities More resources If you got a tax cut today, would you donate all of it to charity? Of course not. So those charities will most likely have less money available than the government funded program had. Public control A private charity has to appease its big donors, otherwise it would loose money. So the actions of those private charities would be based on the wills of a few rich people instead on the opinion of the voting population. Reliabilty The government can't afford to have it's poor people suffer or die as long as the voters don't want suffering poor people . If the welfare program doesn't has enough money, more money can get allocated. If there isn't more money, the government can cut other programs, lend money or raise taxes. If those charities doesn't has enough money, they can't do shit. Edit Made a more realistic scenario that favors the private welfare more. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Government funded welfare is superior to privatly funded welfare."}
{"id":"46d987a7-4455-4576-a892-b74845903eb3","argument":"Less than a quarter of one percent of the US population makes financial contributions of over $200 to federal candidates, but these people's contributions represent over 90% of campaign fundraising.","conclusion":"This is also problematic because the rich are a minority in America. Their control of government is especially undemocratic."}
{"id":"ed7a54ec-529c-4d99-89d5-698d8691163e","argument":"My view on this is that the most important part of a tv show, movie, or any piece of art, is the experience. Being in the moment and really being there for the emotional journey is the most valuable aspect of a cinematic work. The plot points are just story items that don't have an impact on how good or bad a cinematic work is other than getting you through it. I get that spoilers ruin some level of surprise. If someone mentioned large plot points of Game of Thrones, for example, it's possible that the surprise is softened. But if the spoiler actually ruins the movie tv show, then I'd say that it wasn't that good to begin with. If you can't enjoy it, then it's on you for not being able to enjoy the experience as is. And as it turns out, spoilers actually increase your enjoyment EDIT looks like this study could have a few biases, I'll look for something else So why not spill the beans But, I'm open to new ideas. A lot of people feel strongly about not sharing spoilers, so I can't be totally right. Maybe there's a different way to think about it? I want to hear your thoughts EDIT 2 Thanks for all the responses The point that really swayed me was that, although certain types of surprises are repeated across many tv shows and movies, if it's a person's first time every experiencing the surprise, it'd really suck to have it be spoiled. It's similar to spoiling Santa for a little kid sometimes, you want them to believe. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Spoilers for tv shows and movies don't matter"}
{"id":"37cfe202-8e14-412e-ab31-92c11676cc75","argument":"Sampling biases might alter the results. Subjects or twins that openly declare being homosexual might be more likely to volunteer.","conclusion":"Most studies used as supposed evidence for homosexuality being determined biologically are biased."}
{"id":"d8ecc1a7-4d2f-457f-84e5-31ac1e532688","argument":"Elizabeth Warren has built her grassroots credibility on financing her campaign exclusively from small-dollar donations, yet she kickstarted her run with millions of dollars raised from the type of big-dollar fundraising she is now vocally opposing.","conclusion":"Elizabeth Warren, despite claiming to relate to the masses, doesn't seem to actually do so."}
{"id":"bf368b3f-3ad4-4851-9f22-1d1caca898d0","argument":"Post-Katrina New Orleans is suffering deeply and should not be the subject of an experiment involving charter schools, the result of which is hard to predict.","conclusion":"New Orleans should not be experimented on with charter schools"}
{"id":"e749240a-0120-4273-bf00-65a1fc6ecd44","argument":"Scientists have successfully tested an artificial womb on premature-born lambs and will soon be able to do the same with premature babies. In the future, this technology could potentially be used to sustain an unborn child throughout an entire pregnancy.","conclusion":"New technologies being developed could help meet the demand to start a family without the need to use surrogacy. For example, womb transplants or other forms of fertility treatments."}
{"id":"4eb47af7-bf56-4d2a-8aa5-133abac3ceb7","argument":"I assume that we all want our children to become compassionate people who can muster empathy for others, even animals. We teach them it is wrong to inflict pain on the cat or dog, and yet we buy them the products of a multibillion dollar industry that profits from the rape mechanical insemination , torture castration, branding and debeaking without anesthesia and murder slaughter of billions of animals each year and will let them buy those products when they are old enough. A lot of people aren't even aware of the amount of suffering animals undergo on a daily basis ironically so because it is so damn difficult to watch an innocent animal being horribly mistreated. So difficult, that we turn to look the other way. Instead of encouraging compassion for all life, we basically teach them that some creatures do not get the same level of compassion than others. I understand omnivore parents don't actually teach them this, but vegan children are taught the opposite. When we teach our children that animals are lesser beings compared to us, and that we can use and abuse them because they have less cognitive skills, or they are just so different from us, we lay the groundwork for sexist, homophobic and racist thinking. When we teach them that God made animals for us to mistreat so badly, we lay the groundwork for religious oppression and violence. However, a vegan diet fits any spirituality or religion, as well as atheism. A vegan child will also learn independent thinking, not doing whatever everyone else is doing because everyone else is doing it. They are taught to 'be the change you want to see in the world', and how much impact the animal product industry has on the environment. gt A global shift towards a vegan diet is vital to save the world from hunger, fuel poverty and the worst impacts of climate change, a UN report said here Veganism is a personal sacrifice for the good of all Life, a hard sacrifice for most of us who were raised with milk, eggs and bacon, but a generous gift to a child who will most likely never know what he she is missing. Today, there are so many amazing vegan products on the market, and so many delicious recipes online, that children won't have to watch in agony how others feast on donuts, ice cream, cheeseburgers, etc. while all they have for a snack is a head of broccoli. The vegan food product industry is booming and vegan chefs are regular first prize winners in cooking contests. The food is simply no longer something to scoff at, instead it is in my experience so much more fun to make cookies or muffins in the kitchen these days and our daughter can taste test everything Which leads me to my final point health gt In their 5th Edition 2004 of the Pediatric Nutrition Handbook, the American Academy of Pediatrics says Children exhibit good growth and thrive on most lacto ovo vegetarian and vegan diets when they are well planned and supplemented appropriately. Chapter 12 Nutrition Aspects of Vegetarian Diets, p. 194 gt In their 2009 Position Paper, Vegetarian Diets, the American Dietetic Association and Dietitians of Canada state Well planned vegan, lacto vegetarian, and lacto ovo vegetarian diets are appropriate for all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy and lactation. Appropriately planned vegan, lacto vegetarian, and lacto ovo vegetarian diets satisfy nutrient needs of infants, children, and adolescents and promote normal growth. I don't think I need to elaborate on the unhealthy effects of animal products, especially when regular trips to fast food restaurants are concerned, and I think most readers will be aware of the childhood obesity epidemic in the USA. When responsible parents take good care of dishing up a variety of nutritious foods, vegan children thrive. Animal based vitamins like B12 can be supplemented in much the same way omnivore parents supplement their omnivore children, and a lot of soymilks or other vegan food products are fortified with essential vitamins and minerals. The basics of a vegan diet, such as beans, grains, fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds do not break the bank. You don't have to shop at wholefoods to eat a healthy vegan diet, and of course you can also eat a very unhealthy vegan diet. It is the parent's responsibility to make sure a child's nutritional needs are met, and damaging foods are avoided. Lastly, when it comes to medicine, that is a whole different ball game. If a child requires essential medicine to overcome a serious disease, a medicine that contains an animal product, I would not hesitate to give it to her. Anyway, so here you go, this is why I believe it is bad parenting to raise omnivore children.  edit1 2 3 formatting","conclusion":"I believe it is bad parenting to raise omnivore children. !"}
{"id":"f659c046-69f9-4f14-afc2-2a0840dfb93c","argument":"Edit I suppose I should edit this to update based on the discussion so far. The definition of sexual assault that I found is actually something called affirmative consent and is not the actual law in most any? jurisdictions. As a result I suppose I should rename this debate something along the lines of  Affirmative consent is too broadly defined . After a debate last night I got to thinking about what the definition of a sexual assault is, how it differs from the definitions of typical assault and battery, and the usefulness of having such a broad definition of sexual assault. If you look at how sexual assault is defined gt Sexual assault is any type of sexual contact or behavior that occurs without the explicit consent of the recipient. Falling under the definition of sexual assault are sexual activities as forced sexual intercourse, forcible sodomy, child molestation, incest, fondling, and attempted rape. Then compare it to the definitions for assault gt In common law, assault is harmful or offensive contact with a person. An assault is carried out by a threat of bodily harm coupled with an apparent, present ability to cause the harm. and battery gt an offensive touching or use of force on a person without the person's consent What I'm seeing is that for an actual assault to take place, there must be harmful or offensive contact. For battery there must be offensive touching . But for sexual assault, due to the explicit consent part of the definition, there is no requirement that the assault be harmful or offensive. This means that pretty much any sort of sexual or perceived sexual activity where there is no verbal or written consent in advance is defined as sexual assault, whether the person being assaulted is harmed by the activity or not. Yet there are numerous, perhaps countless, instances where these types of assaults take place and it isn't a problem, there is no harm, and often it is wanted sexual attention and results in a good experience being had by all involved. Examples SO starts making out with partner. Things get hot and heavy. Without any verbal or written consent it leads to sexy time. Guy on a sports team slaps his teammate's ass after a game while they are changing in the locker room. Guy on a date grabs his SO's ass when no one is around to be flirty. I feel there are even a lot of gray areas where the assault might result in awkwardness, but there's no real harm being perpetrated on the victim Guy trips while walking down the street, accidentally puts his hand on a woman's breasts while trying to stop himself falling. Guy at a bar fondle's a waitress's ass as she passes by, but she expresses disinterest and he stops. Good friends are alone together. One of them misinterprets the situation and makes a move. Awkwardness ensues, but the attention is stopped after it's clearly unwanted. I feel like these examples alone illustrate why the current definition of sexual assault needs to be changed, because it's not a useful definition to gauge immoral or criminal behavior. To me there's no crime if no one involved is harmed. But I have more. Let's take the definitions of assault and battery and redefine them so that they are now the same in essence to the definition of sexual assault . So now assault and battery are defined something like gt Any type of physical contact or behavior that occurs without the explicit consent of the recipient. This is when I think the definition becomes absolutely preposterous. If you considered physical assault the same way we consider sexual assault, then it's clear there's some problem with the way we define sexual assault . Let's say you go over to your friend's house, he says something provocative, so you punch him in the arm, and then you both get into a playful wrestling match. By this definition, this would be considered assault and battery, unless the friend consented to it ahead of time. Without any being harm done, it's stupid that this would be considered criminal or immoral behavior. Even if someone is harmed, I think there is gray area that would still prevent this from being immoral or criminal behavior. Let's say things weren't totally harmless. Maybe while you were wrestling he lost his balance and fell into a piece of furniture and broke his arm somehow. He was harmed by the assault , but no one would consider this alone to be immoral or criminal wrongdoing. That's not to say that, if you're a good friend, you wouldn't help cover the medical expenses for the cast and everything. And that's not to say that you should continue wrestling after your friend's arm is broken and it's clear that he's in pain and doesn't want to continue the wrestling match. And I think that's the key to it all. There are certain things that are undefined, but socially acceptable in certain situations. When you're alone with someone and feel sexual tension, it's considered acceptable to test the waters and make a move. When you're in the locker room with your teammates, it's considered acceptable to be playfully homoerotic with them. Finding out what limits an individual has is more a matter of trial and error than it is following a strictly defined script of what behaviors are and aren't acceptable. Being able to use empathy and decide this person liked this or this person didn't like this and being able to say I'm not sure if this person liked this, let me ask and see if they are okay with it is part of discovering those limits. When we turn sex into this person agreed to do these things with me, I feel like it begins training us to remove that human element. Instead of having to be aware of what the other person is feeling, you just have to be aware of whether or not they gave consent. Instead of pursuing a feeling of closeness, connection and comfort, we pursue a statement of consent. It turns the emphasis away from people having a good time, and turns it into can we badger and pursue someone long enough for them to say 'yes'? I also feel that such a loose definition of what constitutes a sexual assault is conceptually homophobic. One of the most homophobic ideas is that someone can be a homosexual as long as they don't act on it . I'm not saying I think homosexuals should go around sexually assaulting people, or God forbid raping people, not at all. I think that if any type of sexual activity that wasn't agreed to with explicit consent is viewed as a crime then suddenly it becomes the norm in any sexual situation to leave it on the table if explicit consent isn't given. Maybe this works out for straight people, where the only question is does this person want to have sex with me? Maybe it even works out for mainstream homosexuals where the sexuality of both parties is known. A lot of the time it's not that simple. What if the person I want to have sex with doesn't openly identify as a homosexual? What if they are in the closet? What if they really want to have sex with me, but would never admit to it unless there was clear sexual interest from the other party first? What if they view discussions of consent as a trick or a trap to out them? I know these are the types of thoughts some guys have because I used to be that way. How much less likely is someone to experiment or explore their sexuality once the explicit consent rule is thrown into the mix? It presents a danger to both parties in a variety of ways I'm homosexual and really want to have sex with this person, but do I dare push the limits to see how they react without first getting consent? I'm bi curious and really want to have sex with this person, but do I dare give consent without knowing for sure this is a legitimate sexual encounter? We're both bi curious and really want to experiment with each other, but there doesn't seem to be a way to initiate any kind of discussion about it since neither of us openly identifies as a sexual minority. I'm a homosexual who had an experience with someone, and now they are charging me with sexual assault even though they gave consent because they have issues with their sexuality and blame me for tricking them . I feel that this acts to reinforce heterosexuality and heterosexual ideals by creating barriers for people who want to explore their sexuality and making it far riskier to do so than it needs to be. I think in the long term this results in fewer people experimenting and coming to terms with their sexuality. I think this is a net loss to society in general, since those people then have unfulfilling relationships that creates more conflict and strife and hurt in the world. I think that the term sexual assault is in dire need of redefinition. I think if harm isn't part of that definition, then it is useless as a way of defining immoral or criminal behavior. I also think that it needs to be clear that explicit consent is not a gold standard, or even a good standard, for measuring whether an encounter is immoral or criminal. So reddit, what are your thoughts? Convince me that the current definition of sexual assault is the best it can possibly be.","conclusion":"Sexual assault is too broadly defined to be used to describe criminal and immoral behavior, is conceptually homophobic, and promotes sociopathic ideals"}
{"id":"7dc6e839-16ee-421a-8e02-d28d2c5c9678","argument":"More accurately, the Force was presented as a revolution rather than an evolution. From Leia resurrecting her frozen corpse in deep space, to Luke astrally projecting across galaxies, to Yoda's ghost destructively affecting the environment, it was too expansive for one movie and became detrimental to one's suspension of disbelief.","conclusion":"The movie broke expectations of what the force can do."}
{"id":"e71a183a-5868-4d3f-9a54-1a90bff6897e","argument":"Disclaimer I'm sure there is bound to be incorrect assumptions in this post. I like the idea of having a few friends for support. However, I dislike the concept of having a single best friend over other friends. The main reason why I don't like the concept of best friends is because while it may be fine in the short term, I believe that best friends will do more harm than good because of rejection. I believe that someone invests a lot of time and effort into a best friend, so much that the person feels disappointed if the best friend becomes toxic and breaks up. When I see best friend breakups on the Internet, I conclude that the victim in the breakup invested too much time and effort. Speaking of rejection, I feel like best friends are part of the cause of bullying and exclusion of school. I believe that if someone has a best friend or in a clique, that person will be with that friend or social group most of the time, which prevents the unpopular kids and people with little to no friendships from having a social group and makes it unfair for other people. I have had experiences of rejection firsthand when I was younger. When I was in elementary school, I wanted to be friends with groups of boys that played sports, many of whom rejected me. As I moved on to middle school, I seemed popular among the girls. However, I feel like many of these relationships were superficial and I felt like they were toxic deep down. I feel like the majority of those girls excluded me in several ways, including not being invited to social events, parties, blocking me on social media, and excluding me from social groups. Furthermore, it is a known fact that some schools are even discouraging students from having close friendships to prevent bullying. The logic behind that reasoning is that best friends mainly socialize with that best friend or social group, while also not having relationships with other children. According to the first article, it is a growing concern with students including those with special needs and those from other ethnic and religious backgrounds. Plus, the first article states that teachers consider existing friendships and rarely allows children to chose their own groups or team to avoid the picked last in gym phenomenon. One may argue that friends are there to provide support in case of danger. I completely agree with that statement, and I don't want the concept of friends to go away completely. However, I feel like this is not the case with best friends. I explained before that I feel like best friends can invest too much into one another, to the point where it causes disappointment later. In fact, I feel like best friends can actually be the opposite of what a true friend is. It is a known fact that some schools are discouraging close friendships to prevent bullying, and the logic behind that reasoning is that best friends and cliques in general don't give other children a chance to have a friend.  gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I don't like the concept of best friends."}
{"id":"e6ad6401-d8c6-4c59-b936-f70c92bc5639","argument":"Over the past two decades, at least$850 million in tax revenue from M.T.A fares meant to be reinvested into NYC's subway infrastructure have been diverted to other projects.","conclusion":"Funds earmarked for public transportation are often used for other causes rather than improving the system."}
{"id":"378f5b81-3bd0-48b4-beb8-95b44df928ea","argument":"Now don't get me wrong, I like watching people make their own gay ships, and I'm not necessarily saying this shouldn't happen. I'm all for freedom of expression. But imagining a character or person as gay is not progressive. Gay is just a sexual orientation, just like straight. It's not any better than straight, although I agree it can be underrepresented. However, I feel a lot of gay ships where the actual sexuality of the people involved is unknown are made as an FU to straight people. Which I find more regressive than progressive.","conclusion":"Shipping a character or person with an unknown sexuality as gay is not progressive"}
{"id":"90022feb-e1ea-4033-81e8-2acf09237171","argument":"Flinching is involuntary so it evolved to be energy efficient, while pursuing a fanciful goal of training months or years to resist flinching is free will so it isn't energy efficient.","conclusion":"Free will lets us override our involuntary reactions that evolved for efficiency."}
{"id":"11c96e34-dba1-404a-a31c-b6f89f45feee","argument":"The general computing devices, laptops and phones, used to vote are not secure and can be hacked.","conclusion":"There is no method that guarantees that voters have the ability to vote secretly online."}
{"id":"ca4bfa1c-7834-49e3-9cc3-c5dc03d22aa6","argument":"Citizen scientists share their health and behavioral data through wearable technologies, the Internet of things, online participation, and mobile tracking which helps contribute to discoveries p. 7","conclusion":"Citizen scientists contribute data about themselves, and making use of open data in a wide range of areas."}
{"id":"0725b727-bc38-4bdd-8351-d802adfdf454","argument":"There is substantial evidence that Donald Trump has exaggerated his personal wealth in order to convince the American public that he is a good businessman.","conclusion":"Politicians would no longer be able to hide or lie about their financial interests when running for office or making policy decisions."}
{"id":"b7c4d486-b748-47dc-ab8c-11025b1171f2","argument":"A prevalent idea which seems to be accepted by the vast majority is that when trying to become romantically involved with someone, you should be very reserved guarded and try to act less interested than you are. This even continues between people actually in relationships. The idea seems to be that it's unnattractive to be genuine and open with someone you're attracted to have feelings for, that you seem cooler if you show just enough interest to hint vaguely to them that they might have a chance. In my mind there are few if any benefits to such a social construct. It makes it hard for people to determine how others really feel about them, slows down the flirting pre dating stage to such an extent that it may even fizzle out when a relationship should have flourished between two people, and gives the advantage to those who are more manipulative and know how to play the game over those who are more sincere, honest, caring, and probably actually more interesting.","conclusion":"It would be better for everyone if we weren't so concerned about seeming \"desperate\" in a dating\/relationship context."}
{"id":"7a45b8b5-4d40-45ea-9011-4db8ed28c1ad","argument":"The continuation of a Chemical Weapons Program in modern day history, only furthers the idea that they are being created with intent to harm you are not going to create chemical weapons unless you intend to use them. Further, Russian and Syrian authorities have barred outside investigators from finding out more about the attacks. Source","conclusion":"The missile response attacks taken by the US and its allies were affirmed to have decapacitated Syria\u2019s chemical weapons availabilities thus demonstrating that the Assad regime had the means to commit the chemical attacks."}
{"id":"fecfcf18-3b61-425c-95e1-6d7ef1d0bf18","argument":"It could in fact be argued that all of music is repeated cultural signifiers. For example, we have a grammar and syntax to all aspects of music - Surely the reason so many songs use minor triads for example can only be because of the cultural significance that pitch-collection comes loaded with.","conclusion":"Repeated cultural signifiers have always been a part of music, from the lament bass of the Baroque era to 'The Licc' of modern Jazz. This indicates nothing of that music's quality."}
{"id":"933fadda-11f7-42a6-9f77-46cbbdc00c71","argument":"These policies ensure safer, more responsible gun use and ownership. Under these policies, having a gun for personal safety is still possible; however, the owners will be required by law to be more responsible and reasonable.","conclusion":"The responsibility should be on the central government to foster responsible gun owners."}
{"id":"6dd6e10f-42e5-41d0-99c2-9613a6661a82","argument":"\"One of they key problems today is that politics is such a disgrace. Good people don\u2019t go into government.\" - this is deeply ironic, and thus fairly ridiculous.","conclusion":"Trump has said some patently bizarre outrageous stupid and\/or plain ridiculous things"}
{"id":"9df691eb-0f24-41d2-8ab7-8728bf47f062","argument":"People become stuck with certain views as they grow older and are less open to change, while norms and values of societies are always fluid and progressing. This makes the perspective of elders incompatible with the progression of society.","conclusion":"The elderly are more likely to have views that contradict the views of society. Some examples may be racism or homophobia. This can affect their voting."}
{"id":"7cc3c7c3-cb21-4624-b7e6-3333a23e5446","argument":"we should legalize prostitution because it is going to happen no matter what, so allow it legally so the women can be safe and get the proper care needed in this profession.","conclusion":"Legalizing sex work increases sex workers' benefits e.g. health care, safe sex, unionization, etc."}
{"id":"8655bddb-2719-43c8-ad1f-cd254852b7e2","argument":"Legacy preferences discourage applicants from performing well in academics since they may feel like they won't get accepted anyway.","conclusion":"Considering legacy in college admissions harms non-legacy applicants who may have performed well in academics."}
{"id":"853691dd-9153-4e31-9b9c-3a9809e7bbf7","argument":"Affirmative action makes it easier for minorities to go to a prestigious university, which in turn makes it more likely that their income will be higher.","conclusion":"Black Americans are disproportionately poor. Affirmative action helps alleviate this income disparity."}
{"id":"030a49be-62f6-4407-b99d-308865bc3680","argument":"A variety of technologies can be developed by Venusian colonists with simultaneous benefits for Earth, such as Carbon Capture CO2 Corrosion or Polysulfones","conclusion":"A colony on Venus is more likely to help us develop solutions to the greenhouse effect on Earth."}
{"id":"f96d46f0-27db-41e3-9bf5-21143a1f89b6","argument":"In the UK minors if they are seen as competent by medical staff are allowed to seek abortions without parental consent.","conclusion":"This question has already been resolved in most countries where abortion is legal either by statute or by case law."}
{"id":"2ed02ee7-639b-4fbe-9cbd-0ce690883b7f","argument":"Feminism makes the big and arduous claim that they are for equality of the sexes and fight for equal rights. This could not be further from the truth. For starters, feminists NEVER bring up gender issues that affect men parenting decisions, selective service draft, almost always losing custody to the child, genital mutilation, being incarcerated and victims of crime more often, among many, many more . Then there is the fact that they actually blame men for all of their problems. No matter what the issue, it's always attributed to my individual fault because I happen to be born a man. They even came up with this ludicrous notion of a patriarchy in which men control all of society please go tell that to the many women millionaires, CEOs, and senators. Finally, gender equality is already a thing that exists in many developed countries. Women can choose their career path, have been able to vote since the 20's, have legally been entitled to equal pay since 1964, and have the right to get an abortion. Issues that they say still exist either don't or are something they themselves created. For example, the notion that we live in a society that normalizes rape is false. Literally ask any shmuck who isn't legally insane and they will tell you that rape is objectively wrong. Less than 1 of men rape yet my female friends tell me you don't know how it is, you don't live every day fearing you're going to get raped That type of irrational fear mongering is brought to you by feminism. Men are 6 times more likely to be the victim of violent crime, so how come I'm not shaking in my boots? Unlike most anti fems, I'm willing to shift my position on feminism. Things that may help me see your side and award a delta are arguing that Feminism's pros far outweigh their cons Traditional feminism will be restored soon and will weed out extremists There are some unmentioned gender inequalities that I have not seen Things that will make me dismiss your argument include You telling me I simply don't understand because I'm a white male You insisting on things like gender pay gap and the pink tax existing despite all credible research pointing to the contrary Simply throwing the dictionary definition of feminism at me, as if that somehow validates your point and invalidates mine Claiming men's rights are not equally as important as women's. Edit referring to modern day feminism here. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Feminism does not do what it sets out to do and is detrimental to western society"}
{"id":"5e9ff34c-8da3-470d-8488-4b3379909ae9","argument":"America seems to have a culture that shuns the pursuit of knowledge and intellectual achievement. Between 50 70 of Americans according to various polls including Gallup and ABC say that humans were created by God 10,000 years ago and that the genesis creation story is literally true. A significant percentage of that group say that not only do they believe this, but they are 100 certain of it. Ignorance would be one thing, but we are close minded on top of it. A functioning democracy in my opinion relies on, above all else, an informed citizenry. Until we cultivate that kind of culture, our democracy will continue to function ineffectively. We will have a legislative body with 9 approval rating. Money in politics would have less of a corrupting influence if people were actually well informed. A 30 second add saying Obama hates babies or Romney hates women wouldn't sway people's votes to the same extent if they actually knew about the issues. It's also a huge problem that of the three things you can't talk about, politics is one of them. This contributes tot he problem. We all feel so strongly supposedly about issues we know nothing about that it is a taboo subject. We only want to argue instead of discuss and actually learn. I believe for example that the stimulus package helped to prevent our country from sliding into an even greater recession. However, I recognize that not only am I not an expert in economics, but even experts disagree meaning there is always more to learn. I could very well be wrong. I know we already send a ton of students to college. I'm not saying everyone should go out and get a PHD. We need to place more of an emphasis on the value of learning, whether that be in or outside of the classroom. EDIT I'm not calling religion in general irrational or ignorant, only the literal belief in the creation story of genesis. Links to polls","conclusion":"American democracy is screwed until we have an open minded and well informed citizenry that embraces the value of learning."}
{"id":"45c6459b-85b7-45ef-9c2b-44ffefc0febd","argument":"Where did the stereotype that men who made their living working in the women's fashion industry must necessarily be gay come from? Think about it, the whole point of the job is to design clothes for hot chicks to wear. You'd be in constant contact with some of the most beautiful women out there. If you're a straight dude, why wouldn't you find that line of work appealing? Besides, straight male artists myself included draw female characters all the time, which requires them to design clothes that look good on those women. If I were to browse through a male artist's gallery and see mostly female subjects in his work, I'm going to think he's straighter than an arrow. Sure, straight men often draw male characters as well, but how much interest would your typical gay artist would have in drawing the opposite sex if they're more sexially oriented towards the same sex? On the other hand, I could totally see gay dudes getting into men's fashion, since they would be working with lots of handsome male models. But, as far I can tell, the stereotype about gay men and fashion design seems to apply only to those working with female models. What gives?","conclusion":"The stereotype that male fashion designers must be gay makes no sense"}
{"id":"9039bf3e-c3d3-4a36-808f-cf3b39e9194a","argument":"With all that is going on with Reddit lately I think the big thing that is being ignored is that this is largely a White male community. When it functioned in that way everything seemed to go more or less fine of course there were others interspersed but that was the majority of viewpoints . As more and more groups began to be introduced there were shall we say competing interests. They correctly are asking for space within the community as well. However, the problem is White men had already kind of adopted this space as a place where they could discuss their problems without feeling guilty etc. For example, when people complain about false rape charges getting to the front page constantly or reverse discrimination cases etc etc. I think the SJW this and that we often see is just pushback from White Men feeling invaded for lack of a better word. I'm not saying this is right. I think this last ush of banning subs etc also has the same implications first FatPeopleHate is seen as appealing to women and feminists. Then Coontown seen as appealing to minorities. I think its reflective of White Men feeling like all other people get to have their spaces etc. but they never do. What I got from the threads is that people feel betrayed and I believe that feeling is genuine. So here's the actual . Why can't everyone just let White Guys have this one. Why can't we all just either accept that this is and will be a site that leans towards issues important to straight White Men and will be biased towards their opinions or leave and go to a different site. Its not like their aren't other hubs. And I'm not saying that there shouldn't be differences of opinion etc. newsflash not all White guys think the same . But just as anyone is welcome to watch Logo and comment on it etc no one would complain that the content is too gay or be upset if anti gay things or things that appear to be anti gay get the equivalent of downvoted and no I'm not comparing experiences in any way . I also think that if people recognized this gping in there would be less abrasive push back from the trolls and dark side of reddit. Edit reply from r nannyhap produced new idea that perhaps having a place that tolerates hateful views makes for an artificial influx of them. Doesn't quite change my view all the way but definitely something I hadn't considered.","conclusion":"Everyone else should just let White Males have reddit"}
{"id":"50ae9b68-4cc8-4397-a259-45fdc4f132d8","argument":"I'm 32, no job just got fired again , no leads with about 3k in savings with a car. I have a 4 year degree in psychology, which helps me little, and I've been fired from almost every job I've had in the last 16 years. Not for a lack of trying but I always seem to fuck things up no matter how much I try to make things work. I don't feel like I belong anywhere. No friends, distant family though we get along well enough , no idea who I should or what I should do with myself. I feel like any attempt to hold a steady normal job just ends in failure, so all I'm thinking about now is just packing almost everything on storage, leaving Seattle and just go on the road. Help random people, take random jobs, do delivery app stuff if things get tight and just try and figure things out. I don't mind sleeping in tents on the side of the road. I was homeless for a year and a half, and it wasn't as bad as i thought it would be. I still have a 24 hour fitness membership, so I can always shower when needed. Part of me thinks this is terrible idea. But i don't really know what else to do with myself.","conclusion":"My best choice in life right now is to move out and hit the road."}
{"id":"fc802dd7-4782-4d4c-b53c-c951314e5cb5","argument":"My view is simple Logan Paul is a media and marketing genius. Below, I will list my 2 claims, then explain why it corresponds to an intelligent marketing move. The Suicide Forest incident, while distasteful and disrespectful, was timed to be released just weeks before his movie, The Thinning, was released on YouTube TV. Coincidence? I don\u2019t think so, because it got the media community talking about him age old phrase, any publicity is good publicity but bad publicity is usually more pervasive so that when his movie came out, more people would be aware of it. Oh, the movie did so well that filming has already begun on the sequel. The recent boxing match between Logan Paul and KSI was set up over months after the two created an internet feud with one another. I believe the match was rigged because how on earth can two extreme amateurs end in a tie? Plus, the event raked in 8 million. And they have a US rematch planned. I think Logan Paul has understood the concept of extreme fame leverage, able to manipulate the viewers into viewing him exactly as planned. So please, change my view. I admit I don\u2019t know much about him or his history.","conclusion":"Logan Paul is a marketing genius"}
{"id":"9a4cce69-b03f-414d-9f27-1b4eb47a1808","argument":"In both of these events a country lost territory which rightfully belonged to its people. In both cases, an authority felt the need of land grabbing, one secured their military base, the other wanted their holy land back also secured their military presence. Both of these events caused and continue to cause ultimately unnecessary instability within Ukraine and Palestine. This naturally leads to deaths. Yet, because of superpowers involved it's common to make this an issue about taking sides with either the US or Russia, when the countries essentially did the same thing.","conclusion":"If you can't be pro Israel if you're against annexation of Crimea without being hypocritical"}
{"id":"2aed49cb-91e8-4f6e-ad44-6ea65f336410","argument":"UCLA's Lonzo Ball is currently rated as the 2nd best prospect in the NBA draft. I just can't see why. Here is why I think he will bust I don't think his shooting form will translate to the NBA. His odd line up and low release point will make his shot difficult to get up over longer, more athletic defenders in the NBA. He has shown no signs of a mid range shot. His handle isn't good enough to be a good NBA point guard. He will struggle to create space to get off his shot and will have a hard time getting into the paint at the NBA level. The league has shifted towards motion offenses. Teams with multiple playmakers and score first point guards have been more successful recently than teams with pass first floor general types. He is a mediocre defender, as shown by De'aaron Fox lighting him up in the NCAA tournament. His length is promising, but he hasn't shown he can use it effectively besides jumping passing lanes. There is more, including potential issues with his father, but I those are the main points. TLDR Lonzo Ball will not be able to replicate his college success at the NBA level. His one elite NBA talent, his passing ability, will not be impactful if he can't create for himself. His offensive game besides that is mediocre and will limit his impact as an NBA point guard. He is currently overrated and shouldn't be a top 2 pick.","conclusion":"Lonzo Ball will be a bust in the NBA."}
{"id":"11af3f17-fd94-4a64-b587-3a213e5c5e4a","argument":"Personally, I've been recently inclined to propose a arm chair sociological phenomenon that I have noticed, so bear with me if you can. SJW's A person or group that is so self absorbed with their own ideals, they'll do anything within their power to enforce it my definition , or any group using sentimental moral values as a means to manipulate, restrict or silence people are innately detrimental to society. They try to enforce social order according to their selfish ideals, and will fight to either push their conservative beliefs religiously on the right side of the spectrum, or shout all of the ism's from Racism, Sexism on the liberal spectrum which a lot have hijacked. Evidently, my thoughts are that they're both the same people, but on a different side of the coin. They don't want intellectual freedom, don't care about individual rights and will do everything in their power to suppress it and further push their ideals around us. Personally, I've lived in Saudi all my life, and currently in the states and you're familiar with the ones in the West, be it during the middle ages or now with the Clinton movement. In conclusion, I'm not negating what they're doing, but Arab society is an implicit example of when one side fully takes control using religious ideals, and that my friends is what I'm calling detrimental. Are they the same people? Please feel free to argue this and change my view Reddit, if you can dismantle this. Edit Clarifying my definition of an SJW A person that is so self absorbed with their own ideals, they'll do anything to enforce it. Be it Protest, silence your right to speak by talking over you, bully you. One in the Arab world might be a religious scholar that would do the same. Edit A connection would be that it is already happening with effective action policies on universities and quota systems at work for racial minorities. It would worsen if it went further.","conclusion":"I'm Saudi Arabian, and Social Justice Warriors are inherently detrimental to Society"}
{"id":"8f9b8840-3e58-4a1f-8e2f-2e3662ede3fb","argument":"To avoid detection by the police, beggars will move to areas with less police presence - thus placing themselves at greater risk of harm.","conclusion":"Since banning begging does not solve the problems that cause beggars to beg, if begging is criminalized, many beggars will continue begging."}
{"id":"1ded7603-d35e-4ee6-8469-02cd061e69a3","argument":"Allowing all psychiatrists to diagnose a public figure can set a dangerous precedent if used as a political tool. It can lead to political debates descending into uninformed discussions and personal attacks regarding which candidate is more mentally unstable.","conclusion":"Given the polarised political culture in the US, any declaration by a psychiatrist about the mental well-being of a politician would be met with general suspicion and partisanship. This would only shame the profession."}
{"id":"ea247428-368b-48a1-8560-2c626c80a83f","argument":"Just like alcohol and cigarettes are taxed, I believe food that is deemed unhealthy or with little no nutritional content should be taxed this would be determined by a non biased nutritionalist group . Just like one cigarette or a few beers won't significantly cut down on your lifespan, if it becomes a habit, it will I think the money generated from this should be put into education on real nutrition and it would also encourage companies to make healthier food so that they won't be taxed. I don't believe there should be a flat tax, but sort of a climbing one. Grade A, B, C, etc. and their corresponding tax amount . I also believe this would support local farmers and agriculture. The taxation isn't the only deterrent to make people avoid unhealthy food, but the money generated from this would be put back into health care and education. While I believe everyone should have a choice to do what they want to their body, in the 'end', cheap fast food really isn't that 'cheap' when you consider what it does to the body over the long term. I think food should that you buy should consider the long term effects and the long term costs when you initially buy it. I do think that those who are poor may struggle more, but the idea is it will incentivize them to make the long term cheaper choice. There are many articles that show how cheap food really is not cheap at all . Feel free to ask questions clarification.  and thanks","conclusion":"I believe that unhealthy food\/fast food should have a \"sin\" tax."}
{"id":"d3a970f7-7d4d-4d53-a1a0-314ea872d408","argument":"Since the internet is just a network of computers, it is possible to exclude someone from the internet by preventing them from accessing the network.","conclusion":"The internet is not a public good. Per investopedia.com the internet is excludable and one person using it reduces availability to others."}
{"id":"84fd6f3c-7452-403e-a587-9f412068da1b","argument":"Link to the highlights of the fights in this game, which also includes some colorful quotes from their commentary team Now, this game was a bloodbath, no question about that. And not saying the Islanders were saints looking at you Gilles . But the Pittsburgh Penguins' commentary team stepped way out of line during this broadcast. I am going to compile a short list of events I'd noticed. there were plenty more and I'm short on time to go through this video again and catch them all. Plus, this is only 17 minutes of the game. Towards the end I can almost guarantee more was said. Additionally, I know I will misspell the names of most of the players, and I do not know the names of the Penguins' commentators for this game, so I will be referring to them as the commentators. I do feel as though the one with the deeper voice was more in the wrong, but both were very unprofessional during this game. All times are approximations. 0 24 Goddard half shoves half trips Gilles. No mention. Not a major offense, but notable. 1 30 Matt Martin goes for a sucker punch on Talbot. The commentators start off fine in this situation. But as they start the replay, they get more and more aggressive comments. Specifically a passive aggressive comment at ~2 40 Martin went after Max Talbot in a six nothing hockey game here , followed by the commentators sh t talking Martin for 30 seconds to a minute. To pull from this article, Matt Martin's supposed cheap shot on Maxim Talbot which had Pens announcers screaming about it being Todd Bertuzzi esque was hardly a cheap shot. Martin was yapping at Talbot the whole time, with Talbot clearly seeing Martin's gloves dropping. Talbot knew better then to fight Martin. 7 00 Johnson v Haley fight at the start, but Goddard comes off the bench to help his goaltender. No mention of the fact that, instead of trying to stop the fight, Goddard got right in there and made it into a two versus one fight in the Penguins' favor. Johnson clearly is trying to injure Haley, and Goddard does not help. In past fights involving Johnson, he shows he knows exactly how and where to hit to cause an injury. It is constantly that same smash on the spine, or close to, in almost every fight I personally have seen from him. No mention by the commentary team. Goddard has to come of the bench No, he did not. Goddard came of the bench to assault Haley and create the two versus one situation. He did not try to stop the fight, he tried to make it extremely dangerous for Haley opinion, not fact . This situation is shown again around 10 20, but we'll get to that. At the same time, Gilles is standing in the door shouting at Tangradi. Again, not supporting Gilles's actions. Seeya later, Trevor. Go back inside to your cage . In the initial hit by Gilles, he drops the gloves to try to start a fight, but stops when he realizes that Tangradi is holding his face. He is quite the animal, isn't he. 9 00 When's enough enough? You'd almost assaulted Max Talbot, now you got Gilles assaulting Tangradi, when's enough enough? You're up 8 to 2, didn't you get enough revenge? You gonna wait until you break somebody's face? That last part of the quote is in reference to former Islanders goaltender Rick DiPietro, who was severely injured by JOHNSON after an unnecessary fight with a strong left punch elbow to his jaw. So they're not gonna be happy until somebody else is injured. 9 40 Trevor Gilles has no, you know, redeeming value other than to do the stuff you saw him do. Go over and attack Tangradi, and then stand there in the runway like a tough guy talking to Eric Tangradi playing in his fifth NHL game or whatever it is. Clear and undisguised attack on Trevor Gilles. He may not have been in the right in shouting onto the ice. But this comment is uncalled for. A few seconds after that statement, the commentators go on to make what I feel is the most offensive statement made in the entire clip, and what made me decide to write this all out. You know, when you're one of the worst teams in hockey and you're one of the most you're an embarrassment to the National Hockey League as it is, I guess nothing really makes a difference at this point. Don't think I need to elaborate too much on that statement. During Haley's stroll down the ice as shown in the replay shortly after the above two quotes, There's Haley, he's allowed to get up, he's looking around, lets go find somebody else I'm gonna go down there, get involved, nobody's coming at me, this is great. Boy, Haley's really looking for this This starts around 10 20, and if you watch any part of this, make sure you see this. They paint Haley as the initiator, the animal , but you can clearly see Johnson looking for Haley. Notice him shaking his glove. He takes his helmet and gloves off as he moves towards Haley. He could have let him go. HE made the decision to fight Haley. Watch Johnson smash his fist into Haley's spine as he goes to the floor. Then watch Johnson and Goddard continue to lay it onto Haley as he is crouched down on the ice until they're pulled off. 11 55 Okposo went over the goaltender. I don't think he was pushed, he went right into Brent Johnson. Can you believe it I'll give him something for, after this quote, saying that he doesn't believe Okposo is the kind of player to slam into the goaltender. Again though, the commentary team fails to mention the clear shove of Okposo into the goal, and into Johnson. 12 55 The referee's gotta be very careful here, very careful. I wouldn't trust Konopka as far as I could throw him. Again trying to imply that Konopka is an animal, and is simply out on the ice to throw punches somewhat valid , whether it be at the opposing team or a referee . This comment irked me. Konopka is a professional. He's not going to start beating on a referee because they're trying to break up a fight. 14 40 Craig picking fights, commentators praising him. Where's the comments about him being an animal? He's only out on the ice to throw punches it seems. 15 30 And, uh, that was a shorthanded goal by the way by Grabner, mnnm, not going into that. Flat out refusal to cover an Islanders goal. Very unprofessional. Again, I am almost positive there were more quotes. This is a selection from the highlight video of fights. This is also very opinionated, and I'm sure some statements may be incorrect. But Reddit, I would love to see your defense of the Penguins' commentators actions. I'd love for you to try to change my view.","conclusion":"The Pittsburgh Penguins' commentary team stepped way out of line and acted extremely unprofessional, and deserved major disciplinary action for their handling of the 02\/11\/2011 game against the New York Islanders."}
{"id":"b52850f1-f1d5-4f67-8a8e-df8fd1cb0475","argument":"In the Nuremberg trials a series of military tribunals held after World War II by the Allied forces under international law and the laws of war, prosecuted the individuals who were suspected of committing war crimes on behalf of the Axis powers, and not the state who employed them.","conclusion":"When military officers commit war crimes, the officers themselves are typically prosecuted, not the state that employed them."}
{"id":"e35c4dce-4586-4772-aca0-1cfa2d9e124f","argument":"Whales can only live in the water, so when it is polluted they are affected Spills of oil and chemicals into the waters can result in them dying. The fact that other aquatic life is also killed means that their food sources are significantly reduced as well.","conclusion":"A variety of human-caused threats additionally intensifies the risk of extinction."}
{"id":"31827725-3ac1-466f-b33d-ff67ab2e54c7","argument":"The joke Poe cracks at Hux's expense right at the beginning of The Last Jedi is an example of the humor not serving to lighten the tension. The importance of the beginning is deflated by a dragged-out joke that falls flat and pictures Hux as incompetent rather than like the formidable foe he was seen as in The Force Awakens.","conclusion":"While \"The Force Awakens\" included a lot of humor, its jokes were better done. Rather than ruining the tension, it served to lighten it."}
{"id":"f8c7b9f0-11f9-4c3d-912b-f967cedc8801","argument":"Adulthood is socially defined as starting between 18-21 when the rights and responsibilities of adulthood are conferred. The decision-making parts of the brain frontal lobes continue to develop until individuals are around 25 years of age.","conclusion":"Minors are too young to make the decision to undergo gender reassignment surgery."}
{"id":"5cb73d95-0b7a-43a5-98a6-78d14a0e7f7c","argument":"In U.S., the National Fire Protection Association NFPA recommend that a response time of under 5 minutes to turnout and arrive at scene of emergency should be achievable at least 90 percent of the time.","conclusion":"Fire and Emergency Medical Services EMS response times are usually quick enough to be address the incident."}
{"id":"72ee21cb-ea0a-4491-9cfb-e8f5434a615c","argument":"I am currently in undergrad and I want to pursue a career in law although I don't believe that the outlook is good. I am not certain on the type of law that i want to pursue although I hope to be employed in a mid to large scale law firm. The law career path is not as rewarding as it used to be, the pay is becoming lower and lower, the benefits are disappearing and the job availability is going down. Reddit, .","conclusion":"I do not believe that pursuing a career in law will be a very prosperous and satisfying one."}
{"id":"01e89d00-c9a4-48fd-9300-a7abc3ec9fda","argument":"North Korea is likely to make significant revenue from illicit arms deals and exporting \"goods and equipment related to ballistic missiles and conventional weapons\". pg. 7","conclusion":"The nuclear weapons program is a vital source of underground revenue, information and relationships for North Korea."}
{"id":"694ef8a3-31d0-47fc-b992-29a309303d39","argument":"I am a Bernie supporter and voted for him in my state's primary. Part of why I support him is because he is a champion for actual democracy one person, one vote. Recently, Bernie has been saying that if Hillary doesn't have 2382 pledged delegates by the time all of the primaries are over, he will turn to the super delegates and try to get them to change their vote. source and link to the original speech To me, this seems quite undemocratic. I think that if Bernie thinks superdelegates corrupt our system, then he should ignore the superdelegates count when deciding whether to drop out. Here's how the math would work In the current system, there is a total pledged super of 4763 delegates, and to get more than 50 requires 2382 delegates. If we ignore superdelegates altogether, there are a total of 4051 pledged delegates. To get more than 50 of those requires winning 2026. If Bernie believes that pledged delegates are a fair form of demooracy, he should stay in the race if he wins 2026 or more and woo the superdelegates to switch to his side in the name of democracy . However, if Hillary wins 2026 delegates or more, than by Bernie's own view of a fair democracy, Hillary has won. When Bernie uses the 2382 number as the benchmark, he is giving legitimacy to the use of superdelegates in the first place. And by talking about using the superdelegates to win the election even if he does not get more than 50 of pledged delegates, Bernie seems to be embracing the very thing he is fighting against. I would expect this from other candidates, who have an I play within a corrupt system in order to win attitude, but part of why I support Bernie is because he is not willing to lower himself or compromise his values for the sake of winning. A part of me wants to say 'I want Bernie to be the nominee, and if the only way for that to happen is for him to work the superdelegates then so be it' but I feel like this behavior goes against what Bernie stands for. I believe that Bernie stands for a fair system, even if it isn't in his best interest \u2014 but I can't see a way in which him staying in the race after Hillary wins more than 50 of the pledged delegates is consistent with his view that the superdelegates corrupt our democracy.","conclusion":"If Bernie doesn't have more than 50% of pledged delegates after June 14, he should drop out of the race."}
{"id":"9c7a2ef7-1f3e-4314-be08-986a24d973fa","argument":"Enforceable pronouns violate freedom of speech principles. Although people who purposely misgender trans people may be jerks, that speech is protected, and should be.","conclusion":"Mandatory pronouns go against the concept of freedom of speech."}
{"id":"b1d60e44-e6a5-4430-a835-15ac0ebb5a73","argument":"Many mothers have conceived as a result of a rape and make a personal decision not to have contact with the child. These sad circumstances might be why they do not want to establish any connection or contact with their children.","conclusion":"Biological families who have given up their children for adoption anonymously may not want to be found."}
{"id":"9d25fdc6-29a4-4770-8a29-1b53b067e8d3","argument":"Currently if you have 10 years of Medicare eligible employment you are eligible for full benefits. But current contributions do not cover current benefits, If benefits were proportional to contributions then those who contributed less would receive fewer benefits bringing the cost of benefits down to contributions. Instead of cutting benefits for everyone it would be fairer to cut benefits to those who contributed less. This is how social security benefits are determined, the greater your contribution then the greater your benefits. This is also how the ACA handles benefits, the greater you spend on your premium the greater your benefits by having lower copays and deductibles.","conclusion":"Medicare benefits should be proportional to contributions"}
{"id":"199ef585-837e-437c-bde5-f791e68ae91d","argument":"As some of you might know, a few years ago Moviehead Pictures and Severin released their movie called Birdemic . It is one of the worst movies ever made, with the poorest special effects and one of the saddest performances pulled off by any actor in the world. This has to be a parody, no company, actor or anyboy involved in the movie business would even try to release something like this unless it is a complete joke. Not much can be said about this movie, except is an example of how anyone, and literally anyone can make a movie with a really basic knowledge of very basic software and a camera of any kind.","conclusion":"\"Birdemic\" can't be a serious movie and is clearly a joke."}
{"id":"b8f22deb-51c4-4559-ad3c-fc17bfff7faa","argument":"This one takes explanation because I know how that statement sounds. When I say I don't care about race, I know there are a few thoughts that goes through people's heads. There are a few people who think I mean to say color blindness when it comes to race. There is a difference between not caring about the race of the person, and not seeing the race of the person. Race is something that doesn't matter to me, while color blindness usually means that someone ignores the race of someone. Something not mattering ignoring something. I don't ignore something, it I did that would mean to me that something has value enough to be given attention. Where the color blind person puts in the back of their mind that race isn't primary to one's character, but from my experience with talking to color blind people it appears to them to be a secondary determinant, as though it's merit, then race, then personality when it comes to meeting someone of a different race. It doesn't come into my head at all. I simply don't care anymore about the race of someone. The other thought people seem to have when I say a statement like this is I am complacent to race issues. As though I am privileged not to care these clear problems within our society that need to be solved. This simply isn't true. I know there are people who care about race, and that some of those people negatively act others of different races. I understand and will fight to make sure that doesn't happen, that being said, I understand people end goal of equality in regards to race, but my end goal is for people to just not give a shit about it in the first place. This may lead to some condemnation of character, it'll take a lot for people to  on this one. It's something that I strongly stand for and think others should as well, this seems like a no brainer. TL DR Race isn't a primary or secondary determinant of one's character to me, because it isn't even on the map when I meet someone new. That being said I understand race issues exist and fight to end them in order for people to stop giving a shit about it. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I don't care about race, but I care about race issues."}
{"id":"14d182dd-8f73-4348-943d-fccb7e389f5b","argument":"Just the threat of false accusations could possibly fall into the realm of blackmail. This could lead to tension, and ultimately mistrust, between people in positions of authority and the people under their authority.","conclusion":"False accusations of sexual assault can be used as a weapon to denigrate people."}
{"id":"c8bf1cab-96cc-4e41-96d6-773ab6cf9d5f","argument":"From a Christian perspective, this is akin to God sacrificing his only son Jesus for the salvation of humanity; an act that is revered.","conclusion":"From a Christian perspective, there are accounts of many sacrifices considered good."}
{"id":"ffafce16-4f2f-47b0-8daf-4d247b82e272","argument":"When people compare two things they may state it as an x VS y debate. The word Versus has the connotation of a Zero Sum game which is a situation in which each participant's gain or loss of utility is exactly balanced by the losses or gains of the utility of the other participant s In other words, there will be a winner there will be a loser and the argument only serves to identify one or the other. In the event of a court case it makes sense. To pick an example at random Roe V wade However, the same phrasing and by extension the same connotation extends to arguments that are infinite. For example in Psychology, Nature VS Nurture. This debate will never have a clear winner because both are strongly contributing factors. However, even though we use the same word VS , we never aim to pick a winner. We only aim to discuss the different contributing impact of either side. The end result is a continuum. The winner is just the one which is proven in that debate to have more of an impact. The reality, is that the winner is each of us, because we have grown as a result of the conversation. This is the polar opposite of the intention used in the first example. I believe that the use of the same phrasing confuses people into thinking they are having a different conversation than the one they are having.","conclusion":"The word versus has an unspoken connotation which often creates more problems than it solves."}
{"id":"3f146d3f-4061-4e13-b9b2-54f9be043814","argument":"I was raised Lutheran, in a fairly devout, but not over the top religious household. I was a believer. Over time, as I understood more about other religions, learned more about the contradictions, the violence, the hypocrisy, and bigotry there is in the Bible, I've found it difficult, if not impossible for me to believe. At some point, I found myself faking the belief, hoping for it to come back, but it never did. I now find it implausible to believe in the Christian God, or any other religion I've encountered. As an example, if you're told the world is flat your whole life, and then learn of evidence along the way that it's round, eventually it isn't a choice to believe it's round.","conclusion":"Belief in a religion is not a choice"}
{"id":"4b86752a-4903-46de-8d8a-a518511aab95","argument":"Some people are concerned that through being made obsolete the working class will somehow be in danger. It is their thinking that there will come about a new level of technoserfdom, or worse, due to automation and the technological ability of robots to do almost all working class jobs better than humans can. It is their thinking that the few corporate overlords who will control all of industry will not see their basic intrinsic value which is derived simply from their humanity rather than their productivity as workers. They believe that this will result in a dystopia in which there will be a new extreme underclass even in the most developed states such as the U.S.A. I don't see any use in it. After all what use is all the power in the world if you can only use it to rule over grovelling peasants? Those who will be in control of the corporations and thus planet will want for there to be acrobats, musicians, and all sorts of other creative things. They will seek to empower each human in an effort to maximize the innovative human potential that will take us to the stars and beyond. They would only be saddened to see suffering, and what use are all the goods they produce if there is no one who is able to consume or appreciate them? It is my view that those who are worried about being obsoleted ought to instead look forward to a permanent and comfortable early retirement, in which they will have the fullest economic support in following their passions, whatever those might be. Because anything else would be uncivilized.","conclusion":"There will be a point soon when unskilled workers will no longer be required for industry to profit. At that time, every unskilled worker will just get to kick back and drink pi\u00f1a coladas until forever, and robots will do all the work while corporations will happily share the bounty."}
{"id":"2cfccfd5-ecaa-475d-9738-45623007364e","argument":"I have been learning both about creationism and evolution in equal opportunities and came to a conclusion that creationism made more sense to me than evolution and the Big Bang theory. I will be taking this topic on two sides. First, that life on Earth was started created by God and second, our universe was also created by God. Life on Earth was created by God The Complexity of Life After taking multiple biology classes, I realized how complex even the simplest creatures were. Even a worm, which looks so simple have innumerable amounts of proteins and complex DNA codes that has to perfectly or near perfectly be orchestrated in order to give birth to that worm. Even a single bacteria have multiple organelles and structures to keep it functioning, in which each of those organelles have protein structures to keep it alive. Sure, many cells have similar organelles or \u201cbuilding block proteins\u201d such as a phospholipids and the mitochondria, but the sheer complexity to make each and one of them makes me wonder if random accidents or mutations could have resulted this. In the early stage of cell development the very first cells and its generation if just one protein didn\u2019t function as it was suppose to, everything would be messed up. From Inorganic to Organic Then I wondered how the first cell came to life. I mean we all know cells can replicate and reproduce but where did that first cell come from? If the scientists are right, the early stages of our universe didn\u2019t have organic materials, but rather have inorganic materials such as hydrogen gas or a metal ore. Then I considered the odds of those individual elements coming together to make a single functioning protein. Then I considered the odds of those individuals proteins coming together to make a functioning organelle or some sort of protein structure. Then the odds of all that coming together to make an organelle system. See where I am going? Simply considering all those odds and realizing how I probably could win the lottery everyday than have that happen lead me to believe someone or something, in this case, God, had to create it. The universe was created by God Before the Big Bang? I have noticed how scientists always began with \u201csomething\u201d when talking about the beginning of the universe. To that, my question has always been, but where did that \u201cthing\u201d come from? Scientist have approximately calculated the age of the universe and how this large intergalactical explosion gave birth to our universe today however, where did all that material come from? I am hoping someone could tell me from this post for all the answers that I have been given were \u201cit was always there\u201d and \u201cwe don\u2019t know\u201d. That led me to thinking that a someone or something, outside our universe had to implement these materials to cause the Big Bang or other theories about the start of the universe to happen. For that reason, I think God also created our universe. I am hoping I can learn more about the flaws of these arguments and maybe someone could change my view","conclusion":"Creationism makes more sense than evolution and other explanations for the beginning of the universe."}
{"id":"87322041-ef5d-4a18-9c61-eb39c81dc2de","argument":"This is post is meant for ID ers or questioners of Darwinian evolution obviously . I believe that darwinian evolution alone can completely explain the vast diversity and complexity of life on earth. For all organisms, the selective pressures of of the environment natural selection and the introduction of novel base pairs into the genome via random mutations is enough to cause the evolution of both features and species over time. Micro evolution has been demonstrated in the lab, and macro evolution is evident in the fossil record. What are the strongest arguments to support intelligent design? Alternatively, what are the strongest arguments against darwinian evolution? Let's leave abiogenesis out of this. Looking forward to responses. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I don't believe in Intelligent Design"}
{"id":"9fbbeaae-46d6-4df7-bde9-eb65f8d165a0","argument":"Any drug with the potential of overdose can also be used as a murder weapon, especially opiates. This allows people to potentially become serial killers under less suspicion, especially in areas where access to such drugs is much less restricted.","conclusion":"Some drugs, such as scopolamine have a large variable range of toxicity and pose significant criminal risk if in the wrong hands."}
{"id":"59301c17-7819-4c06-9273-71bf421d2354","argument":"Democratic decision-making is too slow-moving to maintain social stability, given the scale and complexity of today's world, including the massively disruptive effects of modern technology.","conclusion":"Modern democracies are destined to fail due to their inherent weaknesses."}
{"id":"58592e65-b72b-4022-83c6-d159f01e86c1","argument":"As someone who goes to a special education school I see this problem all to much. Some bullies are constantly pestering a child but because they are autistic most in the school are that btw, the rest have other mental problems they get away with just a little warning. And while damaging someone is strictly prohibited at my school they get away scotfree because of this. I mean for example if someone would beat you up or pesters you constantly with a dumb thing you said ages ago, they should get punished, right?","conclusion":"Bullies should get punished equally despite mental disabilities"}
{"id":"c38030e6-238e-42c6-b0a6-ad676cee13bf","argument":"I live a life that most people would consider horribly dull and I do too but I think the alternative would just make things worse. I have a nice steady job where I do exactly what I am asked, I have avoided getting a relationship because it is too much effort and despite having parents who encourage me with thoughts of becoming an entrepreneur, I will not do so. The world is just too volatile and I think the only reason new ideas and companies are formed are because people are too foolish to realize how the odds are stacked against them. Most companies fail yet all these people think they can beat the odds, with the ones who don't merely lucky. While so far in my 30 years of life I have failed to get a relationship, I realize it is because I just don't want to go through the hassle of having to maintain a perfectly fit body, attend social gatherings of things I do not like just so I can meet someone, or travel just to go to come up with amusing anecdotes. I thought that simply being well read was good enough but I see that it is not. Honestly, an interesting life just looks too risky and could lead to wasted effort. Reaching too high in a career just leads to bigger chances to fail and increased responsibility and thus more chances to fail. Relationships can lead to divorce or cheating more wasted effort. If I minimize my risk and devote my free time to my personal enjoyment, I can live a happy life. Sometimes I feel bad for feeling this way but my reason says this is the way to go. So what is wrong?","conclusion":"I should strive to make my live as risk and drama free as possible."}
{"id":"8ca448bb-b0b4-49bf-b93d-21130b2f0170","argument":"Many Spaniards do not see bullfighting as a symbol of pride, but rather as an imposed and continual denial of Spain\u2019s plurinationality.","conclusion":"During Franco\u2019s dictatorship, while bullfighting was encouraged and imposed as a national symbol, other practices were diminished or prohibited."}
{"id":"3de459bb-215f-4c1f-a719-9c2cf2290fe1","argument":"My girlfriend and I got into an argument because she believes standardized testing is designed to weed out people like her and poor people and i just don't believe that. Now im not saying its not harder for ethnic people in general for school but i think this is just a ridiculous argument. She has quoted several books and Harvard studies on the matter and i have the read the studies and i still don't get it. I'm also not saying standardized testing is the best form of teaching someone and really have no issue with thinking its crap but unfortunately that's how the mcat and sat tests are. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"That standardized testing isn't designed to weed out the poor and or ethnic people."}
{"id":"fa41b99e-2e87-43e2-8dda-4aa503c27e30","argument":"I was watching WatchMojo top 10 Decade Defining Songs. It's one of the silly top 10 channels but my brother and I watch it and it makes us laugh or discuss. Anyway, they went through the 70's, 80's and the 90's. All of those made sense to me. They were songs that were indicative of those generations. However, when they got to the 00's, I felt a disconnect. They showcased various songs, that, while popular, didn't feel as though they were the face of those generations. And this got me to thinking. The 50's Swing, Korean War, Happy Days, a type of golden area where America sat in the afterglow of a victory in WWII, Fear of Communism The 60's Peace Love, The Beatles, Woodstock more of a transition into the 70's , Civil Rights Movement. A time of experiment for America. The 70's Led Zeppelin and Bob Dylan, Bell Bottoms, Vietnam, Watergate, Protests against the War. Hallucinogenic Drugs lots and Sexual Freedom The 80's Big Hair and Metal. Cold War and the Cuban Missile Crisis. A Growing fear of Russia until the Wall came down. Cocaine. Mtv. The 90's A generation coming to terms with growing up and struggling through it. Nirvana and Alice in Chains. Columbine. Teenage Angst. The 00's ? 9 11 and the War on Terror. Blink 182? I don't know. I don't feel as though we are as defined as other generations. This could be because I'm 20 and lived through it. But I feel as though we haven't defined the past generation. The 2000's stand nameless and don't possess definitive qualities as the decades before us. Thank you for reading and please . EDIT Please continue to comment. It's midnight here and I need some sleep. There are already a lot of great replies on here and I plan to look at them fully in the morning, and I will give delta's where deserved. Thanks again, this is a topic that I take a lot of interest in.","conclusion":"I don't feel the 2000's have been defined by a culture like other generations or decades. America"}
{"id":"b0aaf8bc-3a1c-4fb8-b00e-46c74ac9b0c2","argument":"I feel like if you were confident in yourself and your relationship you would have no problem allowing your partner to be with other people and even feeling compersion from their joy derived from other experiences. These are the reasons I can think of for not agreeing to your partner being with other people and in brackets my rationing It is outside of social norms fear of judgement which wouldn't be an issue if you were comfortable in yourself You yourself are not interested in being with other people. This shouldn't stop your partner from doing so You are worried they will leave you for someone else insecurity You are worried they will spend less time with you or value your relationship less. insecure about the value of yourself or relationship What am I missing here? Please  EDIT Lets assume all sex outside of the relationship will be safe and protected. EDIT 2 It isn't mentioned in the header though it is in the body that this is about agreeing to ALLOW your partner to be polyamorous. Deltas Thanks guys Lots to think about. My opinion has been changed to include the following as reasons as opposed to insecurity STIs despite the edit The belief that intimacy is associated with exclusivity Being morally against it. The implications of judgement e.g., in the workplace But please keep the opinions coming","conclusion":"Not agreeing to your partner being polyamorous is rooted in your own insecurity."}
{"id":"d752a504-10df-47af-846a-bf43181ebc1b","argument":"There are a number of relatively similar forms of games that have become hugely popular. This indicates that there's a lot of business potential for potential investors.","conclusion":"It is only a matter of time before ARGs will start to gain business interest."}
{"id":"05d32ab1-baa0-4897-b253-c8df7f66ca00","argument":"Using the scientific method, you can't prove something exists unless it is observed. That's obvious. I only observe myself, one being , experiencing the universe from the first person perspective. Somehow, a bunch of dead matter came together after the Big Bang and only produced one being that's experiencing things subjectively at this point in time. Myself. That's what I observe. If I had multiple bodies with the same reality, I'd be like Unity in Rick and Morty, but I'd still be one person. Now you could say, Well, how do you know you're the only one? Easy, because according to physical determinism, the matter in this universe obeys natural laws, the natural laws are immutable, and those laws only created one person looking out at reality from my skull at this point in time. If someone on the other side of the galaxy put on a kind of transmitter that allows them to experience someone else subjectively, meaning from the first person looking outward from my skull, I would have known about it. By that logic, it's physically impossible to change reference points, because I haven't observed it happening yet. That holds true throughout the entire universe. I'm the only one in this universe, right now, experiencing everything from the first person. Under this logic, there would be one universe per subjective being. So, either Solipsism is right, which I'll assume it isn't, or everyone else experiencing subjective reality is, in fact, inhabiting another universe. All these other universes are overlapping with one another and existing simultaneously to create something called reality. That, or we'll have to scientifically redefine our idea of a universe to account for multiplicity of this kind. Now this is just a thought experiment and I don't have a formal background in cosmology or quantum physics though I'd like to one day if 28 isn't too old to start . But feel free to draw on that knowledge in your responses if you have it.","conclusion":"The existence of subjective experience points to the idea of a multiverse."}
{"id":"2e4800cc-f9da-4049-bff9-c89539773c78","argument":"Good evening everyone I have played League for around 4 years now, and I've gone through a few cycles where I would quit league for maybe a few months, but then become entrenched in it for at least a few months, maybe half a year. When I'm fully engrossed in League I play several games a day, and I follow the meta closely, plus I constantly watch video or read guides on how to improve my play. There was a period a few weeks ago where I became pretty addicted to Gears of War 4 which btw is a phenomenal game , but I feel like I always come back and play more League. I know a lot of friends who kind of are in a similar boat as myself, we play League daily for several months, try to quit, and come back to League. I've tried Overwatch, FPSs, RPGs, etc., yet somehow League still feels like the game I come back to. Sometimes, I play League and I don't even really enjoy it, I do it almost out of habit. This is my first time posting in , so I'm not sure what other details I should add, but I guess I want to hear other opinions out there on the issue. Cheers gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"There is no game more addictive than League of Legends."}
{"id":"e42fb277-80ac-4130-be8a-1b776b178f38","argument":"Some minorities do stuff in different way and if majority thinks that is \"immoral\" it will try to enforce their way of living onto the minority. One example of such act it the law \"Humane slaughter act\" which obviously created this problem. Also people who could not afford the \"humane\" ways in poor countries were forced outside the market through regulations affecting the free market for those country in a great manner. This database will allow people to police personal beliefs.","conclusion":"This would ruin any form of diversity resulting in the mistreatment of people with different cultures. The system will go from liberal to far left in an instant. In the long run it won't allow people with different values to coexist. This opposes the initial idea of \"liberal democracy\". Liberal democracy is based on the idea of classical liberalism and advocates for civil liberties \u2014 such as privacy \u2014 under the rule of law."}
{"id":"ff47882b-f0db-41ba-9186-06950b4f92cf","argument":"Crime is not pathology, it is not the product of circumstance, and it is certainly not the product of coincidence. It is the result of choices made by the individual, and therefore the justice system must condemn those choices when they violate society\u2019s rules. To say otherwise i.e. to say that criminals are merely the product of their unfortunate circumstances would be an insult to ideas of free will, human autonomy and individual choice \u2013 it would be to deny the possibility of human actors making good decisions in the face of hardship. Retribution alone best recognizes the offender\u2019s status as a moral agent, by asking that he take responsibility for what he has done, rather than to make excuses for it. It appeals to an inherent sense of right and wrong, and in this way is the most respectful to humanity because it recognizes that persons are indeed fundamentally capable of moral deliberation, no matter what their personal circumstances are.","conclusion":"Crime is not a product of circumstances; punishment fosters accountability."}
{"id":"fc7a482c-42ba-4a22-ab0b-25b8576583f7","argument":"I believe that Buckle up, it's the law is a very bad slogan, because it is an appeal to authority which can be rejected easily in people's minds if they aren't aware of the purpose of a law. Instead, an appeal to the motorist's intelligence by pointing out the consequences of not buckling up, and thus making motorists aware of the possible consequences of not buckling up and making it obvious why it is rather sensible to wear one's seat belt would be a lot more effective. This German ad posted along public roads throughout Germany is an excellent example of this. The text translates to One is distracted, four die . A brief but concise outline of cause and effect, enough to raise awareness.","conclusion":"\"Buckle up, it's the law\" is an appeal to authority, and therefore not a good slogan to get people to put on their seat belts."}
{"id":"bdb9e4f5-72a6-4655-80d2-60c87e383f26","argument":"Paying reparations will provide a moral example to other nation-states with a similar past of abuse to reckon with their past through a similar kind of atonement.","conclusion":"The nature of slavery was such as to give rise to a moral obligation to pay reparations."}
{"id":"cb050541-a6d2-4d4b-95c0-bf6fc0df2ff4","argument":"Don't get me wrong. I'm alarmed like everyone else by any chance of a nuclear war. But the best path to diffuse this problem is powerful countries destroying their own nuclear weapons and not performing any tests further, not by having lots of weapons of their own and asking others not to do what they did. I don't think NK has a shit leader is a good argument because Trump is one too, admittedly less shittier but tomorrow another nuclear powered country may elect much more shittier leader so that risk is always there. Edit looks like I've hit a nerve, but I really didn't want to. I wanted an objective answer. I'm not telling that US and NK are same or something like that. My English is shit, sorry. But I hope you don't misunderstand. I'm genuinely trying to understand this.","conclusion":"US or Russia or China or any country with advanced nuclear power has no ground to tell NK not to perform any nuclear test, as US has done similar things before, and now NK is just trying to make the ground levelled."}
{"id":"4a21732f-5a30-4a2b-b2da-9915fb0a1a9d","argument":"I'm going to use women here a few times. It should be taken to mean generally true, but with large variation. There is a lot of hate for the r niceguys and generally, it's well deserved. The sub, largely, contains people who aren't actually nice referring to themselves as nice. However, there is a nugget of truth to what these guys complain about. The nugget of truth is that women really are not attracted to general kindness. Obviously, this is hard to measure, but it seems to be quite clear from my personal experience. The guys I perceive as the least kind, generally do the most well with women, and those that are clearly the kindest do the worst. This could be because the unkind guys are generally more ruthless and relentless in pursuit of girls, but to claim that these women do not see that the guys are jerks is insulting to their intelligence. I believe it's rooted in dominance, and that women are just generally more attracted to guys dominant in conversation and who are confident and brash when interacting with them. Many of these qualities are diametrically opposed to being nice, and not possible to achieve simultaneously. Finally, I find it's most evident with my own personal experience. I used to be better looking and very kind and courteous. I did not have much luck with women and would rarely hook up, but I noticed that the guys that behaved kind of like dicks landed women much more often than me. Slowly, I changed my behaviour and adopted this more dickish ouvre, and it has hugely bettered how women react to me, and lead to many more sexual encounters. My most recent experience with this and the precipitate for this thread is that I have been kind to a girl whom I'm attracted to for about two years. Talking to her online a few times a week. Letting my intentions be known constantly, that I find her attractive, think we should date etcetera. She said something unkind a few days ago, so I didn't really want to continue being nice. A few days later she asked if I thought she was fuckable. She's asked variations of this countless times, my response has always been positive and nice, with sexual innuendo, which she then rebuffs. This time, frustrated, I told her that no, I probably wouldn't sleep with her in an unkind way. Literally the next day she sent me unsolicited naked pictures of herself and we have since hooked up, with her bringing up my mean comment more than once. That would be my long explanation. So, r , women are not attracted to nice guys,","conclusion":"Women, generally, are not attracted to genuinely nice guys."}
{"id":"36783ec0-2b3b-4fd2-8189-9d0fa46936fd","argument":"In his TEDx Talk, \"I Was Almost a School Shooter Aaron Stark mentions that the primary influence that stopped him from committing a mass shooting was when a peer first began showing him small acts of kindness.","conclusion":"Social isolation in schools\u2014and the resulting depression and other emotional issues\u2014is a major contributing factor for mass shootings in the United States."}
{"id":"528ca931-b154-4c32-8f65-50ee2fc987b4","argument":"Even the brightest students are likely to let themselves get distracted if they are sure that they can access the lecture whenever they can later too.","conclusion":"If children are able to record lectures, they are less likely to pay any attention in class."}
{"id":"2c36608b-13eb-47d7-a2b7-ecc2f534da63","argument":"And no, that's not a sarcastic trigger warning, trigger warnings for traumatic events are justifiable I warn you in advance that most of you will consider my argument racist, but I have to point out the facts as I witness them. I want to make rape a thing of the past, and I won't shy away from the truth for this purpose. Rape is not an issue for feminists to exploit to enforce political correctness, it's an ongoing tragedy that has to be eliminated by whatever means possible. I'm going to limit this discussion to male on female rape. I'm aware that male on male rape is a widespread problem as well, but I have to leave this outside the scope of discussion. A conventional feminist explanation of rape Feminists argue two things that I consider to be contradictory. On the one hand they argue that the motive behind rape is power. On the other hand, they seek to prevent rape by educating men who would be considered potential rapists about rape culture . I doubt the effectiveness of this, since you can't teach people to stop pursuing power over others. Wikipedia says that such prevention programmes in qualitative studies have been shown to help men relate better to women. However, having done qualitative studies myself, I know how unreliable qualitative studies are, I would personally hardly consider them science. Qualitative studies allow you to discover essentially anything you want to discover, by interviewing your study subjects and asking them steering questions. Blinded quantitative studies are the only studies I would consider reliable to study such rape prevention programs . An evolutionary psychologist explanation of rape Rape occurs because there are evolutionary benefits to raping. If a rapist has more children than a non rapist, the rapist will spread his genes, thus leading to more people inheriting a tendency to rape others. In some species of animal, rape is the norm, and voluntary sex does not occur. Luckily, this is not the case for us. In our species, rape is only successful as a reproductive strategy under specific circumstances. Under conditions of war, rape allows the men of one group to traumatize the women of another group. This trauma would lead women in the other group to become fearful of sex with men, thus likely reducing the fertility of the enemy group. This would help make rapists successful in reducing the population growth of enemy groups, and rape would be preserved in the gene pool as a result. This is why rape is often interracial in multicultural societies. In my country, the Netherlands, we have an epidemic of immigrants using indigenous teenage girls as prostitutes. 89 of people found guilty of selling teenage girls as prostitutes in my country are of immigrant background, and 60 of these immigrants are Muslims. Rape is in my country part of a pattern of warfare against indigenous people. This is true for other European countries as well. Rape is more common among ethnic groups from tropical climates than among ethnic groups from Northern latitudes. The reason for this is genetic. As a species we evolved much of our complex social behavior during the Paleolithic period. In Africa, a woman who became pregnant would be capable of taking care of herself, because Africa has a wide variety of available food sources. African women are perfectly capable of gathering fruit and other plants to sustain themselves while pregnant of carrying a newborn child. This has to be compared with northern groups, such as East Asians and Europeans. During the glacial periods of the Pleistocene, the main available sources of food for humans in northern latitudes were land animals that have to be hunted down by groups of people. Our diet back then consisted mainly of animal food sources. A woman who becomes pregnant under such conditions is not capable of taking care of herself alone, and would likely die, along with her child. To raise a child requires her to have the help of a man who can go out to hunt. Therefore, over thousands of years, most of the genetically predisposing factors that lead men to rape women would be preserved in Africans, and eliminated in groups that lived through glacial periods, such as East Asians and Europeans. Genetic evidence exists for this. Studies show that men guilty of committing rape have a shorter version of the Androgen receptor polymorphism than normal men, which leads to them being more sensitive to the effects of testosterone on their body. In dogs, male dogs with a shorter version of the Androgen receptor polymorphism are more aggressive than dogs with a longer version. For female dogs, no such effect exists Black men on average have a significantly shorter version of the Androgen receptor polymorphism than white men. East Asian men in turn are generally found to have a longer version of the Androgen receptor polymorphism than white men. Another genetic variation that leads to higher predisposition to rape among people of African origin is the Mao A gene. Men with a shorter version of the Mao A repeat have less control over their impulses. A particularly short version, the 2 repeat polymorphism, occurs in 5.2 of African men, and 0.1 of white men. This version of the gene leads to a significantly increased risk for violence. Rape and IQ A low IQ has been shown to be linked to poor ability to delay gratification. People with a low IQ are poorly capable of planning for distant future events. Thus they are likely to commit violent crimes such as rape. Rapist criminals have an IQ of 84 on average, compared to an IQ of 94 for other criminals. This is where the feminist solution to rape education is bound to fail Rapists as a group are people not capable of planning ahead and ignoring their instinctive drives. The type of people who have to be taught not to rape, are the exact type of people who can't be taught not to rape. Conclusion There is only one real long term solution to rape, which consists of eugenic sterilization. The punishment for a convicted rapist should be a vasectomy. Rapists can't be re educated. In the longer term, people who carry genetic traits that predispose them to rape should be genetically screened, and receive government subsidies to only have children after embryo screening, to ensure that their children do not inherit the genes that lead to rape.","conclusion":"Trigger warningI don't believe the feminist narrative about rape."}
{"id":"6746036a-7e8a-4c6d-a6c6-4543984707f9","argument":"Same-gender marriage in the U.S., a democratic country, was legalized nationwide by the federal Supreme Court not Congress.","conclusion":"Significant civil rights victories in democratic nations have been won in the courts, rather than the legislature."}
{"id":"4bf07f25-3f50-4524-bc21-0783e5384e06","argument":"High school basketball players should not be required to go to college for one year before entering the NBA draft. I think it should be a decision left up the the individual. If college athletes receive no compensation, they shouldn't be restricted to waiting a year, especially in the circumstance in which their family is in financial trouble. I understand the argument for football, that high school athletes are not physically ready to compete, but I don't think this holds true in the NBA. Many high school athletes have exceeded the athleticism required to compete in the NBA. I think their eligibility requirements of 19 years of age and 1 year out of high school are entirely influenced by revenue. An NBA caliber player spends a year in college and the NCAA makes a lot of money off of that player. There always is the chance that the athlete gets seriously injured in college, ex. Nerlens Noel nicknamed Anthony Davis 2.0 coming out of high school, though we all know was an exaggeration, tore an ACL at Kentucky. Is he the player he was capable of being now that he is in the NBA? Why even use resources, take up spaces in classes, and waste an instructor\u2019s time with no intention to graduate? Successful high school to NBA players include Kevin Garnett Andrew Bynum Tyson Chandler Dwight Howard Tracy McGrady Kobe Bryant Lebron James. With a combined 55 NBA All Star appearances and 12 NBA Championships. Arguments I Expect Players have an option to play in Europe for one year before the NBA and receive money there, but thats not a realistic option because Europe is 1 worse competition and 2 due to worse competition, would likely lower a very capable players draft stock.","conclusion":"High school athletes should not be required to 1 year of NCAAB\/European League before their pursuit of NBA"}
{"id":"31f3346b-6cd8-4909-8648-564613e97672","argument":"It may be that it is better to have a world containing what humans regard as evil, than it would be to have one without. It may also be that humans are simply incapable of understanding why that is, while a superior being can. In the same way that children may regard it as evil that their parents don\u2019t allow them to play in the traffic.","conclusion":"Humans are limited in their capacity to conceptualize God, and thus are incapable of accurately judging the relationship between evil and a divine being."}
{"id":"9d21d1b8-fa50-49ca-ad8e-18d57055da4c","argument":"A corporation is a natural way to pool capital, specialize labor, and coordinate complex production, i.e. a structured means of many different people freely cooperating to produce something more valuable. To banish corporations means to replace them with something less efficient, lots of individual contractor arrangements or socialism, i.e. one big corporation with no competitors.","conclusion":"They sustain and develop complex solutions as have resources to do so"}
{"id":"348c0ec1-e12e-4f2b-886c-29e1786a7da0","argument":"Even if whites in America today did not perpetrate the atrocities of slavery, they still benefit from what was essentially stolen wealth in the form of the fruit of unpaid labour passed down the generations. We usually consider it appropriate to return stolen goods to the descendants of their former owners, and reparations is an appropriate manifestation of this principle","conclusion":"Current economic imbalances provide the historic link: If slaves had been allowed to possess and retain the profits of their labor, their descendants might now control a much larger share of American social and monetary wealth"}
{"id":"4c8b1f7c-cc4f-43c4-b755-6a78c754667a","argument":"Please leave the footnote below the following line, but remember to delete this sentence by replacing it with the body of your post. Thank you Call me a crazy conspiracy theorist, but it is my opinion that OJ's acquittal was not farcical or a fluke. Everything that WE know about the case comes from media coverage of the trial. I'm not saying that the media deliberately made out an innocent man to be a monster, but I am saying this There are only 12 people in the world who saw, understood, and inspected every iota of evidence in the trial, and those 12 people chose to let OJ go. Maybe I have too much faith in a jury of my peers, maybe I am subconsciously playing devil's advocate, maybe I am woefully ignorant of the facts, but that's my opinion OJ Simpson got a fair trial and a just result. Change my view.","conclusion":"OJ Simpson most likely did not murder Nicole Brown Simpson, and I'm glad he got off."}
{"id":"000afa31-a33e-4abd-b0e8-b1cadbd8b30a","argument":"I firmly believe that there is an undeniable class war between Proletariate and the Bourgeoisie IN THE UNITED STATES. Fantastic imagery for this struggle came out of the Occupy movement 99 vs. 1 however in all actuality the ruling elite is more like 1 8th of 1 comprising of Hedge Fund Managers, CEO's of financial corporations, leaders of the Federal Reserve, etc This war isn't limited to a single facet of policies or means of production but rather I'd argue that this war is one of monolithic proportions ranging from the failing education system to the oil dominated energy sector. For arguments sake I'll focus on 3 different points of confrontation education, broad economic factors, and environmental energy based policies. Education. The American education system is a factory most specifically primary and secondary education think Kindergaten through High School . A consistent theme can be seen throughout the style of Educating that creates a very transparent dichotomy between student and teacher. It is the teachers job to Fill the students with knowledge while the students must sit docile in the classroom and be filled like an empty container. This enforces the idea that the students don't know anything and aren't capable of any sort of educational discourse based off of their own experiences or critical observations and require someone the teacher to gift them with knowledge. Furthermore the education system isn't set up to teach critical thinking, effective dialoging, or really true liberating education at all but rather to create an effective and efficient workforce out of the upcoming generation. I think that this is most transparent in High School the subjects are splintered so that science doesn't relate to history, language doesn't relate to social studies or math, etc In essence High School is compartmentalized to be an efficient means to give students their standardized stamp of approval so that they may get a well paying job and bolster the workforce. Why is all of this problematic? It comes down this The eduction system is created to domesticate the masses while squashing critical thinking and social awareness. Oh ya and how could I forget who lobbies for framing educational policies? The Corporate world whom have profited literally billions of dollars while effectively not teaching students anything even within the paradigm of the education factory system see No Child Left Behind. The results are truly LOL worthy. Economic Policies. This issue is massive so I'll focus specifically on taxation. Putting aside political ideologies of Big Government and Small Government , I believe taxation is more of an economic factor than a political one. Who consistently lobbies for lower taxation? The Corporate, that's who. The reason is fairly obvious if we give less money to the government we give more money to business. In this instance and like most instances money is synonymous with control and power. Take the healthcare system for instance the majority of it is privatized which effectively means that our nations healthcare system is a system made for profit, not for the health of the people. I think that in this instance the healthcare system is a sufficient microcosm of what I'm trying to get at in general when there is a higher rate of taxation the people will rely less on the private sector and ergo give less money remember control and power because the government is able to provide those necessities rather than making them commodities like they are now. When necessities like health care become a commodity that we can choose how well we our health is protected by how much money we spend we've gone horribly wrong. Energy. Ever heard of the Petrodollar? In 1975 Henry Kissenger went to Saudia Arabia and effectively made an agreement that OPEC will trade oil solely in the form of the USD. Who controls the USD? The Federal Reserve oh ya those old guys are the people on top of the top of the 1 . This affects absolutely every aspect of our lives from public transportation to food production. I'd argue the reason why America doesn't have a strong public transportation system using high speed railways is that are incredibly efficient and safe and that they run off of generally electromagnetic and solar energy not oil. This means less profit for the oil industry and ergo less power the the USD has in turn less power the elite of the elites would have. All in all I think that regardless if you might disagree with a point or two that a class war is undeniable. The 1 don't care about the well being of the lower or even middle socio economic class, as a result we are treated like dumb animals that need to be domesticated and put to work to make them more money and give them more power. I realize this might seem like an incredibly cynical point of view but I don't think that the struggle is hopeless and only requires and active critical engagement and an ongoing praxis of liberation but that is a discussion for another time. tl dr The people who control money are seriously messed up and are waging a merciless and savage war on the people. Change my view. Edit Due to u KaiseRoth and u B8foPIlIlllvvvvvv I have Changed My View on point 3. I no longer believe that the 1 directly use oil to control and oppress, but rather that is just what the circumstances came out to be due to availability and US Hegemony post WW2. Edit2 I'd like to thank everyone that commented and provided constructive criticism to my view. I had tons of fun doing this throughout the day, hope that others enjoyed the dialogue as well Who knows, maybe I gave someone something to reflect on you gals and guys and those in between certainly gave me a lot to think about","conclusion":"I believe there is a very real and ongoing class war."}
{"id":"2595d574-3667-4287-bd3e-1c2a64e59cf4","argument":"I mean the school before high school. Not just the school for very small kids. I think that my other subjects that should be part of a curriculum are not that controversial history, English, math, physics, chemistry, biology, exercise. These subjects are the main part of universal knowledge and science. You can't study at the university without understanding these basic subjects. So you have to learn about them at least in high school. And EP should be among them too. We should all know that we are organisms, that we share behavioral traits with other species, that we come from cells, worms, fish, reptiles, rats , squirrels , monkeys , brutes. We should know that emotions are evolutionary selected for and how things like that are selected. We should know that mass modality is how the brain works. We should known has we all used to live in bands and then tribes. That women gathered and men hunted. And that we shared meat and lived with the family and had rituals. We need to understand who we are and where we come from. Furthermore EP is the umbrella field of psychology, human biology, anthropology, social science and more. These things are all part of EP and should be at least known to all people. To understand even the basic concepts of psychology like memory, emotions, needs, groups etc. You have to understand the concept if how natural selection works and selected for these things. Change my mind. Edit there have been some great and some less great inputs. I have read and considered all posts so far. But my opinion has not been changed at all. I still think that EP should be taught at all schools all over the world. No deltas awarded so far either. I can see that I have been downvoted a lot. I am sorry if I have offended anyone. I was trying to ask good questions and look into other ways of viewing the subject.","conclusion":"Evolutionary Psychology should be part of every elementary schools curriculum"}
{"id":"36aa9d99-bdf1-4d0f-8d6e-f5cc427b8f11","argument":"The major fact is that computers and phones were not created for an educational setting they were created for corporate reasons and gaming devices. The way in the past 20 years this has been translated into the classrooms is a sort of jammed in facade in which students are attempting to harness the power of the computer when it was simply not designed for that setting. The result is a decrease in attention span and concentration because of distractions such as the internet . Further, students are using phones in class and increasingly becoming less alert over the years, as I myself have witnessed as a current teacher. Even whilst I am up there I will constantly have a student checking facebook or texting when their missing out on vital facts and information that could truly help them in the near future examinations. There is simply no place for technology within the modern classroom. I've been thinking about this a lot lately and would really like to hear some opinions pro technology in a highschool classroom setting.","conclusion":"I think technology in classrooms inhibits student learning. Reddit,"}
{"id":"7d6cf86f-35bf-4df6-8ef4-b938e3791880","argument":"Terrorists can use social media to enter extremist forums that are sympathetic to the utopian vision of an Islamic Caliphate.","conclusion":"Social media allows terrorist organizations access to a wider audience Weimann, p. 3"}
{"id":"084dc671-316d-475f-ae31-c5380ff98dab","argument":"Finding out about a betrayal from someone else is more damaging to a relationship than being directly enlightened by the partner, because it conveys a stronger sense that one has been deceived.","conclusion":"An early reveal reduces the damage compared to the case of the one-night stand coming to light at a later stage."}
{"id":"2b5cf0a6-a506-4a5f-beda-b321c62b2465","argument":"Assuming we do not yet have the consensus needed for a basic income, I think we can maintain some of the benefits of a larger consumer base and mitigated government safety net burden, while not continuing to push small businesses out. A graduated minimum wage has already been applied in several countries, so it is not unprecedented. Most of these tie the rate to firm size, which I think is reasonable if you can compensate for industries that have large revenues but lower profit margin say, selling tractors, for example . Off the top of my head I am thinking of 5 year avg profit margin firm revenue. There are several reasons for why I think this. A graduated minimum wage increases the consumption of the lowest productivity workers A graduated minimum wage decreases the burden upon local and small businesses that they would have suffered if they had to pay the new wage. For example, I play a trading card game competitively, a game which relies quite heavily on the ability of players to meet each other and play tournaments at local game stores. The game has enormous profit margin on the top end Hasbro but the rise of eBay sellers has reduced the profit margin local game stores make on the secondary market because lower volume. I am biased, admittedly, but I know some owners, and they would struggle to pay a 15 wage while having a judge and an employee selling cards. This wage, while increasing the buying power of the target employees for example who buy games, will not increase volume enough. Lowers the barriers to entry of entrepreneurship. Say I were to start a new business without the economy of scale, brand recognition, and streamlined capital equipment of an established business, I would have more freedom to choose a wage that would attract qualified employees while not operating at a loss. Encourages the positive externality of lowering the amount of vigilance one must have in government to mitigate cartel and monopoly formation, especially if the top minimum wage was uncapped. I think with proper adjustment, this graduated minimum wage could encourage businesses to stay in a goldilocks zone in size allowing an economy of scale without allowing monopolization or cartel behavior while paying the employees enough to cover cost of living. What say you? Edit I have had my mind changed. It has become clear that a firm will break itself up into subcontracting units to avoid this and a law concerning number of subcontracting units would fall heavily on industries that already require a large number of subcontracting units. I now think a graduated minimum wage linked to worker productivity or employee age as they do in the Netherlands is better than a flat minimum wage.","conclusion":"A graduated minimum wage linked to firm size would be superior to a constant minimum wage."}
{"id":"355e5aa5-7c7f-4c40-a82c-cd377be74193","argument":"If the ultimate goal is marriage then time spent in romantic relationships that don\u2019t result in marriage is an inefficient use of one\u2019s time.","conclusion":"Arranged marriage skirts the opportunity cost associated with finding a partner."}
{"id":"938c1d83-1a17-4276-950e-9feaaa6e73c2","argument":"If individual politicians were not forced to vote in line with their party, they could choose to vote for policies that are in the best interests of their home districts.","conclusion":"If a bill takes longer to pass, it can be modified over a longer period of time."}
{"id":"5ebaf1f5-7057-4cc9-9429-e614fa0b4fdd","argument":"If liquid water exists elsewhere, then there is an increased probability that life exists elsewhere, and as the universe is billions of light years across, one would think this is quite likely.","conclusion":"Europa has an abundance of liquid water in under-ice oceans that are likely candidates for hosting life."}
{"id":"d3559111-15c7-4e1f-beae-fba3b3f15726","argument":"Recently, fueled by the current administration's policy of separating families at the border which is not in the scope of this  , there have been a couple instances of harassing administration officials, most notably Kristjen Nielsen and Sarah Sanders Soon afterwards, all the hot takes starting rolling in, with people on the right predictably smearing the harassment as uncivil, while the left defended such actions as a proper display of civil disobedience in the face of an extraordinarily cruel administration. One of those who weighed in was Maxine Waters, who called on supporters to confront administration officials doubling down on the practice. In response, some democratic leaders called for civility which was met with a great deal of hostility on the left leaning subs on Reddit. While there were certainly a wide range of reactions, the general consensus seemed to be that the time for civility was over that Democrats have tried being civil, but that's not the same game that Republicans have been playing, and so have been losing. As a side note, I'd like to make it clear that I am not talking about playing hard ball in politics. This is not about Senators, Representatives, etc. using every tool in their arsenal to stop McConnell and Republicans from packing the court, etc. I draw a clear distinction between incivility in public spaces and not playing nice on the Hill. It's my view that the incivility I perceived in the run up to the election actually played a large part in getting Donald Trump elected in the first place. I don't deny that racism, 'economic anxiety' which seems to be a euphemism for dur thur takin muh jobz , and general hatred for Hilary Clinton played a role, but I also think that seeing how intense anti Trump protests were did a lot to rally his supporters and centrists alike. This is all to say that I believe incivility in the context of harassing and confronting administration officials is poor optics, and will actually hurt a chance for a blue wave in November. The people who need to be swayed in the elections are regretful Trump supporters, the 'both sides are bad' crowd, and the people who didn't vote at all. I think the incivility will do more to either keep these people away from the polls, or encourage people who may not really like Trump but will vote Republican anyway to show up more eager to vote. I'm not quite old enough to remember the specifics of the 2008 election, but I can't imagine the level of incivility rose to anywhere near the levels it has in the last few years. So one could make the argument that incivility has done more harm than good for Democrats. Please note that I am not trying to discuss the actual merits of the incivility, or whether or not incivility is justified. I think this is a case of 'would you rather be right, or would you rather win?'. Also, try not to get hung up on what 'incivility' means. I think I've made it clear what I mean by it and the context in which I'm placing it, so don't try to tell me what is and what is not uncivil, because that's a semantic argument that I'm not trying to have.  gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The people on the left who say \"being civil hasn't worked for us\" are misguided and counter productive."}
{"id":"aa48eb5a-89b6-4366-b6d6-a0b3d9f8adce","argument":"There is no other probable theory that supports the way we operate with morals. ie. why do we value human life, why do we not believe murder is wrong.","conclusion":"Believing that there's an all-knowing and all-seeing being makes it likelier for human beings to adhere to a moral code which is beneficial for the world."}
{"id":"8300ed17-6128-4cd2-a571-d8efdd6c9325","argument":"I would like to preface this by saying that this view does not come from a place of homophobia or ignorance. I am very understanding and accepting of the LGBT community. I have several gay friends and I am very informed about LGBT issues including transgenderism. I believe that conflicts of gender identity orientation etc. are innate and not a choice. I hold this belief because I feel as though this world will never be fully accepting of the LGBT community. It saddens me to see the statistics of depression and suicide amongst youth in this group of people. LGBT kids are nearly 4x more likely to be depressed and suicidal than straight peers. The majority are bullied in school as well. Many of these people don't want to come out and have to live with this secret. Many of these people do come out and they are rejected. I understand that the world is a beautiful place because there are so many types of people. I also believe that we should make every effort to accept, love, and tolerate each other. However, we are only making these strides because people have always been and will always be born gay bi transgender etc. If this was not possible then this issue would never occur. Also, I am aware that many people in the LGBT community are proud to be gay. However, I can't help but feel as though they are embracing it because they have no other choice. I feel as though most if not all of these people must have had at least one dark moment where they felt different and wanted to be like everyone else. I would like to add that I am not supporting eugenics. I do not want to prohibit people who would be born with the gay gene from being born at all. I just want to remove the possibility of the person acquiring that gene. Furthermore, I do not wish to modify every single gene to make the perfect human beings. I am only speaking about this issue. Also, I would only encourage this if it could be done safely and would have no major side effects. Edit My view has been changed and I am done replying. 80 of the counter arguments were just bashing eugenics and that hardly changed my view at all. Look at the comment by u Miguelinileugim for a well thought, original point.","conclusion":"If a \"gay gene\" could be located it should be eliminated from the gene pool."}
{"id":"744d727c-5aa7-4748-85b3-d43d39b014cf","argument":"Due to a significant number of scandals be it child abusement or decadence the credibility of the church is too low to be a moral compass anymore.","conclusion":"The days of Christianity having such an impact that anyone would care are long gone."}
{"id":"e9af7b2e-78b5-4253-87cb-66a5a6171a58","argument":"I'm just gonna be upfront. You can try to change my opinion about vegetarianism as a whole, but I very much doubt that as the facts are against you. I won't change my view that vegetarianism is a good thing unless you prove animals aren't conscious, global warming doesn't exist, and meat is cheap and healthy. What you should do is change my mind as to why I should respect meat eaters as much as vegetarians and the like. Why is it ethically 'ok' for you to eat meat as an individual? This also goes along the lines about how I think its ethical for me to be as many like to call it militant. I actually am pretty damn libertarian vs authoritarian but on this issue I don't like allowing others to do what they want. I'm going to leave the reasons for going vegetarian brief so I can delve more into counter arguing the common arguments I see against vegetarianism. Ask for sources if you want but this is pretty readily found info. 1 Ethical 50 billion animals died from factory farming each year. If you value animals lives as anything over 0, even something like 1 10000 of a person, you would still care a LOT. 2 Environmental Factory farming is 50 the cause of C02 emissions leading to global warming. 3 Economical Plant foods are cheaper on a micro and macro scale, meaning as an individual they are cheaper and that if they were produced on mass scale rather than meat, more than half a billion more people could be fed. I don't really wanna talk about health things some I'm gonna leave that out. This isn't because I don't know about the health I know almost all the nutrients you need, even the lesser known ones, and if you really wanna talk about it I will. I just don't want to make this a  about the health effects. I know that the health benefits may only be because vegans live healthier in general, but I doubt it. Common counter arguments People need meat. Well, I did a change my view over this a while ago and everyone there seemed to agree that it is a FACT that you don't need meat, so I really don't want to talk about this again. \u201cAnimals aren\u2019t worthy of moral consideration.\u201d We should ask ourselves for a moment what makes a life worthy of moral consideration. Most would say sentience, or the ability to suffer, is that determining factor \u201cThe absence of a neocortex does not appear to preclude an organism from experiencing affective states. Convergent evidence indicates that non human animals have the neuroanatomical, neurochemical, and neurophysiological substrates of conscious states along with the capacity to exhibit intentional behaviors. Consequently, the weight of evidence indicates that humans are not unique in possessing the neurological substrates that generate consciousness. Non human animals, including all mammals and birds, and many other creatures, including octopuses, also possess these neurological substrates\u201d Cambridge Declaration On Consciousness. Animals are conscious to feelings of pleasure and pain. Let\u2019s say for a moment that even after reading this, we say animals are only worth a ten thousandth of a human that\u2019s 10,000 individual animals compared to one person the animals slaughtered each year would be representable as a holocaust size amount each year. \u201cMeat is delicious.\u201d If taste is really what is most valued above all else, spend more time or money for meals\u2026 An increase in time and money for a meal objectively increases at least the potential for taste. However, this is not to say a vegetarian meal can\u2019t be both delicious, cheap, and quick. Rice, pasta, and legumes are cheaper than meat. They are plenty of vegetarian foods that are equivalent on the taste scale with meat, and if you really still want the taste of meat, go buy mock meat. As more research is put into mock meat, it can taste closer and closer to the real thing. As for anything, some vegetarian burgers are good, some are bad. Some dishes are healthier than others, etc. Going vegetarian does not mean salads every night or ever. Another thing to note there are plenty of foods on the planet people have no tried, so go try more if variety sounds great. The argument really isn't about taste. It's about ease of access and how in our culture grocery stores and restaurants offer so much and only meat, which isn't even a problem with vegetarianism, but a problem with our culture. Even if you're gonna say you can't live without that specific taste, even if you probably haven't tried new foods, is that simple gluttonous behavior really worth all this other stuff? Is it ethical to do things just for quick pleasure insert obvious analogies here ? \u201cWhat about plant rights?\u201d Slippery slope This argument is usually used in two ways. Sometimes, it\u2019s used as a joke to show how vegetarianism is ridiculous. Other times, it\u2019s used to argue that granting animal rights would lead to plant rights in the future. To address the first use of the argument, plants rights and animals rights are not analogous plants do experience \u201cpain\u201d but humans and other animals experience qualia, while plants do not. Animals are worthy of moral consideration not simply because they are living organisms, rather that they experience pleasure and pain. For the second use, let\u2019s, for just a moment, ignore how this argument is faulty as it is a fallacy of the slippery slope variety just because people are advocating for animals rights does not mean that in the future they will push for plant rights. The real question is what relevance does the subject of plant rights have to do with whether it is ethical or beneficial to eat animals. Obviously, human lives are worth more than other mammal lives, and those mammal lives are worth more than plant lives and those lives are worth more than microbe lives. See below for continuum fallacy. \u201cIt\u2019s natural to eat meat.\u201d Appeal to nature Humans aren\u2019t naturally herbivores, but they aren\u2019t naturally carnivores either. Humans get sick if they eat raw meat, they don\u2019t have claws, and they don\u2019t have the canines predators have for tearing into flesh. Humans\u2019 prehistoric diet, be it herbivorous or carnivorous, does not matter. An appeal to what is or was natural has no relevance on whether abstaining from meat is ethical or healthy. There is a key difference between natural and healthy optimal. \u201cAnimals die from vegetable farming equipment anyway.\u201d See continuum fallacy below The idea of vegetarianism is to minimize suffering, not end it. Ending it is not possible. The undocumented and assuredly smaller amount of animals that die in farming equipment is not equatable to the 50 billion that die each year in animal factory farms. Not to mention, most of the vegetable produce is going to feed the animals so everyone going vegetarian would minimize the deaths from farming equipment too. \u201cCarnivores eat prey in the wild.\u201d Again, the idea of vegetarianism is to minimize suffering, not end it. Carnivores need to meat to survive humans don\u2019t. Non human animals are not sapient, and they can not have debates over whether it is ethical to eat other animals. Otherwise stated as, humans are moral agents. \u201cHumans are the top of the food chain.\u201d So something more powerful than something else has the right to abuse it? Physically stronger people should not harass others just because they can. We are sapient humans and we do not need to hurt other beings. Jobs would be lost. Yes This is what happens when industries change. There would be more plant farmers, etc. What about sweat shops? You can't walk and chew gum at the same time do two things at once? That's so irrelevant. If we stopped to consume meat that would be disastrous for multiple animal species because where would they go? That's why we breed less and less It's not like this would happen overnight anyway. Morals are subjective. Argument to moderation Obviously some decisions are better than others. Not killing a person is better than killing one and I bet you care about a lot of your fellow humans. We live in real world here, not to mention that this statement is a paradox because if all morals are subjective that statement is also subjective. Explains it better Can we please not get into a giant discussion over the morals are subjective thing? Its obviously a rationalization. You can't just wisk away animal rights with that statement because you don't 'feel' like they're worth anything unlike humans. Alright, . gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I don't respect meat-eaters as much as non-meat-eaters."}
{"id":"474cf1f2-c5c4-40a9-8220-9450071bc5bd","argument":"60% of all trophy hunters in Tanzania come from the United States of America, a Western power.","conclusion":"Trophy hunting represents continued colonial ideals which we should be removing from Western societies."}
{"id":"7e833230-3ca7-464e-8186-1ba2a2b69351","argument":"People frequently tell 'white lies' as a means of preserving feelings or avoiding unnecessary conflict.","conclusion":"Sometimes lying is necessary and even moral to prevent harm."}
{"id":"4c29600f-dbd8-409a-a763-3bfd7a4760fe","argument":"North Korea's limited capacity to reach the continental US makes it difficult to imagine how it could disable all three American strategic nuclear missile bases in Wyoming North Dakota and Montana","conclusion":"Under no circumstances is it imaginable that North Korea would be able to disable America's second strikes capability and, thus, the foundation of its nuclear deterrence."}
{"id":"febd0333-6a1e-474a-89dd-d91b112fa75e","argument":"I posted that on r TrueAtheism some time ago, but I still not happy with the answers. Also, while this sounds like an atheist question, a nice answer coming for a religious dude still may explain it to me. Most of us are afraid of death. Not only our own death, but the death of relatives and friends. The fact that we will never ever see then again is somewhat scary. But here comes religion. In the common religions in the western culture, there is heaven or reincarnation. Something that make death a lot less scary. Here is the problem. If someone is religious, and truly believes in their religion, why so many people suffer from death? I am scared of death. It is the absolute end of everyone. If I was religious, and knew that heaven exists or reincarnation , I would take life way easier. Sure, I would not be reckless or taking less risks, but if someone told me that my brother died, while I would suffer a lot, I think that I would take it a lot easier than if I was atheist. But strangely enough, it is not seems what happen around. We don't see stuff like Atheists are highly more susceptible from suffering depression . The only explanation that I can think about is that religious people regular ones, not extremists don't truly believe about life after death, meeting with god and such thing. However, I don't think that is what happens. I'm confused. .","conclusion":"I believe that most religious people still have doubts\/are not secure about their beliefs, otherwise they would not be scared of death at all."}
{"id":"e5180a55-50ab-4f22-b45e-c9d2d9ea52bd","argument":"Based on nothing at all, Trump wasted countless time on the absurd claim that Barak Obama was a Muslim from Kenya. Many fans became quite fearful over this fantasy and accepted the claim as truth.","conclusion":"Trump was already a bad person before he was President."}
{"id":"b9365ca0-71c9-42b7-9bfd-eeddd6481160","argument":"Blade Runner has it all. The storyline is pure sci-fi--the question what makes us human? The art direction was superb--so many iconic scenes and the noir in a dystopian world that doesn't seem that all far off. This movie can be watched over and over again. Come for Harrison Ford--but stay for Hauer's last lines.","conclusion":"Blade Runner addresses a lot of humanity's fundamental questions: What defines humanity? What is real? etc."}
{"id":"36b0865c-451d-4758-8af8-dcbce0018a3b","argument":"If replaced by UBI universal basic income then welfare would be unnecessary as society would have created a contract for itself to ensure every citizen is entitled to a guaranteed minimum level of support regardless of situation.","conclusion":"The welfare state should be replaced by a Universal Basic Income UBI."}
{"id":"a6471337-5d99-44d0-bcbf-14931a45e15b","argument":"Colonizing the Venusian atmosphere with cloud cities roughly 50 km up from its surface is more viable than colonizing the Martian surface.","conclusion":"There are many benefits associated with colonizing the Venusian atmosphere."}
{"id":"f10e6975-410e-48b6-b19a-81c197e8f550","argument":"Humans ration food and starve each other in mass creating artificial famines and labor camps, where animals do not.","conclusion":"Humans have committed much more elaborate and worse atrocities to other humans than animals."}
{"id":"68be39f8-d1b7-408a-9d16-4212188e6a30","argument":"About one quarter of American inmates are non-violent drug offenders Schmitt et al., p. 3","conclusion":"Overall, the legal system of drug related offences is very costly in the US."}
{"id":"0ec36997-d2f6-4f3b-a455-c5b4d0dadc62","argument":"Since DREAMers have spent their formative years in the US, they are highly integrated within US society and would have a difficult time if sent elsewhere.","conclusion":"Deporting DREAMers from the country where they grew up will be unnecessarily hard on them."}
{"id":"ca975e1e-e281-4383-87e0-b58688d45d50","argument":"Ethics won't work for making everyone vegan, because people are driven by money. Economics is so heavily ingrained with humans that it impacts their daily lives, and a change like worldwide veganism would be so large that the economic changes would be unethical.","conclusion":"Following the ethical logic of veganism creates a high moral standard that humans would struggle to adapt to."}
{"id":"4d28fff2-8a0d-4584-8147-dabb25c308ae","argument":"The amount of concepts and options provided by C++ can be intimidating to beginner programmers. Therefore, a more concise language would be preferable.","conclusion":"In education, it's important to provide \"quick wins\" to motivate students, and C++ is not a good language for that."}
{"id":"b7b652a9-2d90-46bf-9987-4720ac349803","argument":"Overall I feel like she was an idiot for flashing her boobs and should be able to live with it and don't really feel bad for her when she killed herself. I do feel bad for a lot of people who commit suicide but people who kill themselves because they can't live with their decisions unless they are prone to depression, Ex i know depression can run in families are not really people who get my sympathy. I brought this up a while ago to some peers of mine and I was ridiculed as a horrible person, but no one gave me a reason to feel bad for her and i Wanted one of the people of this fine subreddit to help .","conclusion":"I didn't and still don't feel bad for Amanda Todd"}
{"id":"25c1fb08-bdd2-4b94-9f2a-7929311b6c0b","argument":"According to the story of Joseph the older brother's task is to be mild and supportive for younger brothers. This will lead to a more gentle approach of older brothers.","conclusion":"Not all inferiors suffer, e.g. children towards their parents, siblings among eachother or students towards workers."}
{"id":"61d2cb27-227b-4f66-9ff0-67fdd9b722d1","argument":"Students will still encounter history lessons with explanations of the practice of slavery and racial subjugation. This will spark conversations about the history of racism and its various forms.","conclusion":"The explicit use of the N-word is not necessary to learn about society, history and progress. There are other ways of teaching these ideas."}
{"id":"554c426a-3f39-4296-ac53-f46f7b85400d","argument":"As Vitamin C exists in a lot of very common food items, the likelihood that someone will ingest some amount of Vitamin C unintentionally is very high, meaning that it becomes more difficult to compare the differences in health of those on a Vitamin C therapy with those who aren't.","conclusion":"The ability to find conclusive results when researching the effect of Vitamin C on treating sepsis is more difficult and will therefore be more expensive."}
{"id":"7153ff1b-7d12-4dc7-955f-103526592b7c","argument":"There are already many things that a government has to provide; adding more will not ease the burden of a government in or close to being in debt.","conclusion":"If a government is in debt, it cannot responsibly afford to offer new benefits."}
{"id":"ac37c4b6-52ee-4225-b28e-31999c03f2f6","argument":"Many decisions are based on values - where politicians are unlikely to have an advantage over the average citizen. Conservatives and liberals put different emphasis on particular moral considerations in their world views Graham et al., p. 1029","conclusion":"In many cases, there is no obvious right or wrong in political decision making."}
{"id":"1f8df053-ca91-4177-838c-e50234d81360","argument":"I have seen a lot of posts on here about discomfort with the idea of being with promiscuous women. They all seem to have this attitude that having a lot of sex means that a woman is in some way damaged goods dirty, used up, or immoral. I think this idea of sexual purity is complete bullshit. Also, I have slept with a couple virgins in my life, and it sucked. They literally have no idea what they're doing, and teaching them the way does not turn me on at all. My opinion is that given the constants that everyone involved is healthy and consenting sexual experience is more attractive than sexual inexperience. I'll go one step further to assert that this idea of sexual purity is actually harmful to women. I think it's mostly propagated by head in the sand religious parents who have a sick belief that they have of ownership over their kids. Change my view.","conclusion":"Virginity is not an attractive trait."}
{"id":"cce77b09-efbb-4de2-92ee-f43c95f50fc4","argument":"In all the US history textbooks I've used in my schooldays I've never once come across one that recognizes the KKK for what it is a terrorist group. They fit the definition perfectly, yet the closest any of them has come has been saying that they terrorized citizens or were a hate group. Obviously the textbooks have no problem making judgments like these because the term is often used when describing modern history between the US and the Middle East. So, I think that in order to paint history fairly, these terror groups need to both be recognized as such, not just modern Middle East terrorists.","conclusion":"In textbooks, the KKK should be referred to as terrorists."}
{"id":"37f47bef-5083-40e9-8fb4-ecea23265341","argument":"Let me start off by saying that I am not a Brady fan. I don't like him, but dammit do I respect his resume. 6 Super Bowls is enough on its own, but when you've done it with the rosters that he's done it with it's simply unmatched. I know some people will say that it's Belichick that makes the system and Brady is just an important cog in that machine. There is some truth in that. I do think Belichick is the GOAT coach, but that's not the point I'm trying to make. I don't believe that any QB that I've seen could do it better than Brady. He finds a way to win. I'm not going to cite my sources, just look at all the improbable wins that he's had throughout his career, particularly in the Playoffs and SuperBowls. On paper his team has been an underdog so many times. It has gotten to the point that people don't want to bet against the Patriots simply because of what many will call The X Factor , which is an intangible asset that is hard to quantify. He, and clearly Belichick, have the X Factor. I know there are stats to back up my point, and other are free to help me make this point in a much more quantifiable and objective way, but I am simply using the eye test. He has less talent than many other QB's have had and he frequently wins. Some have called the '18 '19 season a rebuilding year and he still won. I don't like Brady, but to me it's clear that he's the greatest of all time. He does more with less than anyone I've ever seen. Edit Someone pointed out that he might not be the GOAT because he wouldn't be winning rings if he played for another team. My point is that I consider the GOAT whoever is the best player given the optimal situation, not the best player in a bad situation. That's probably an important caveat. If someone can convince me that someone can do what Brady did is doing with the same or similar opportunity it would change my view. . gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Brady is the GOAT, Anyone that disagrees is just being stubborn"}
{"id":"01d37cd7-2729-4d8e-9d1d-50f12f1bca56","argument":"New laws would be enforceable, as billing records will show whether a phone was in use at the time. Improving camera technology may also allow the automatic detection of drivers breaking laws against mobile phone use at the wheel. In any case, just because a law is not completely enforceable, it does not follow that it should be scrapped.","conclusion":"New laws would be enforceable, as billing records will show whether a phone was in use at the time. ..."}
{"id":"15ae67c8-6efe-4bc9-8ec8-d31398563836","argument":"I am a man, and I was born in the United States. Neither of these is my fault. In the next 12 months I will receive my Selective Service card. If I do not send it in, I will face up to 250,000 in fines and five years in jail. I can't register as a conscientious objector because I don't oppose war in all forms which is a requirement in the US \u2014I just don't trust my government to decide when it's appropriate for me to give my life fighting for something I don't believe in. Vietnam, Afghanistan, and the second Iraq are all pretty good reasons to feel that way. I shouldn't have to flee my country or go to jail to not have my government send me to get killed. The way I see it because of factors outside of my control, my government is prepared to play the lottery with my life and sanity. I don't have the right personal beliefs to be exempt from this. Please, . For reference, Googling for prevalence of PTSD in veterans gives a figure of about 25 percent. Edit I know that the draft has been suspended since Vietnam.","conclusion":"I hate that my country can, in principle, send me to fight for something I don't believe in and, with uncomfortably high probability, ruin my life."}
{"id":"5e2bae91-dd9e-41db-9f9a-8ab260c5f2a0","argument":"The idea of the prosperity gospel has been spreading in the US in recent times and the main idea behind it is that donating money to religious institutions will make you healthier and wealthier in the long run.","conclusion":"Some religions appear to have been designed largely to accumulate wealth and status for their creators."}
{"id":"0ae38d04-a141-4030-9eb6-f6d99993a445","argument":"I have come to believe that I am committed by several of my moral views to the course of non directed kidney donation. These beliefs are If one can help someone greatly without sacrificing something of comparable value, then one ought do so. Kidney donation is highly unlikely to constitute much of a harm, and the expected utility is much greater than expected harm. There is no fundamental moral difference in the features about myself that justify treating myself as more important than others. That I am naturally disposed to care about my interests vs the interests of strangers is a purely psychological fact, and not in any way a moral or philosophically justified belief. My personal feelings about someone are irrelevant to the facts about other people that make them deserving recipients of moral actions moral patients . That is, that someone is my friend or family is no reason by itself to favour them in my actions, unless the basis of my relationship to them is predicated on a morally relevant fact about them. From these beliefs, I conclude that if I want to be consistent, then I should donate an organ. The empirical facts are that kidneys procured from living donors survive longer, and that kidneys donated from people within my age group function for a longer period than older kidneys. My motivation for posting this  is that my family are vehemently opposed to my proposed action, some stating it to be psychopathological in nature. I am interested to see if people can provide reasons why this might be the case, or that on balance, I should not donate a kidney. I take the concerns of my family seriously, but their arguments are poor. NB I'm not sure if I want my view changed as such , but I want it to be challenged and changed if it is the case that my view is not justified, or that there are countervailing objections that would render my view more questionable than it seems to me. I anticipate the following arguments The recipient could be unworthy in some way perhaps they will not take care of their newly acquired kidney, or else they would contribute harms to the world. My family members could, at some indeterminate point in the future, require a kidney. And having given one, I would not be able to assist. Non directed altruistic donation is an inherently psychopathological act, in the same way suicide is. My responses It may be true that some recipients deserve a kidney more than others, but it is most likely the case that for any donation, it will reach someone who values it and will take care of it. The system excludes or penalises individuals who have previously demonstrated a gross negligence for donated organs. As my third view entails, this is not morally motivating. The reason it is not properly motivating is because the relationship I have to someone is loosely if at all based on the morally relevant facts about them. A stranger may be more deserving than a relative, or have greater moral claim to an organ than my family does the security of knowing that should unfortunate circumstances obtain, they have a possible donor. To say of an action that it results from pathology is not an argument against that action. One needs to argue against the action itself, on its own terms and merits. I would further dispute that non directed altruistic donation is indicative of psychopathology. I am in contact with a hospital already, but I am only in the beginning stages. I do not see compelling reasons to abort this process, but perhaps those here can provide some.","conclusion":"I am morally obligated to donate my kidney."}
{"id":"7ce94f48-80eb-4783-b172-d900f5a9a4f9","argument":"Evidence for the medical benefit of genital reshaping surgery is limited while the damage it can do is well-documented The state therefore has reason to assume that on balance preventing parents from making this decision is likely to maximise child welfare.","conclusion":"Unlike genital reshaping surgery, moving city may be a positive or a negative experience for a child entirely depending on their circumstances, and so we trust parents to make that decision in the absence of clear reasons for intervention."}
{"id":"02bed1b0-adb5-4409-b931-3112d4d0b85c","argument":"Women are and always have been the selector of what semen impregnates them, except in cases of true forced rape resulting in pregnancy. As the selector of the sperm women have chosen dominant men who are not afraid to push the envelope to initiate sex and even get a little rough. Women do not seek out submissive men to have sex with. There are even many women with rape fantasies and pain fetishes choking, slapping, etc are so common they might not even be fetishes. Despite what they say, women as a group have a genetic need to be physically dominated and they enjoy it as much as they need it. This also explains why women stay with men who beat them.","conclusion":"I think there is a rape culture and it is self selected by women."}
{"id":"33b1b90e-2c4c-4498-943b-6e52f873e1ea","argument":"As has been pointed out all over the internet, if you possess stolen property, you are required to give it back this is the law. It's the consumer's fault that they chose to go through shady key resellers. r Games is agreement with these views but many people on the Sniper Elite forums think otherwise, and think they are entitled to a refund that would essentially force the game studio to basically pay for the very goods that were stolen from them. Rebellion, the studio that made the game, and 505 Games, the publisher, has no responsibility for compensating people for buying from the wrong place. They have the right to discourage people from purchasing property that has been stolen from them. They are not revoking keys that were legally sold, so there is nothing morally wrong with what Rebellion is doing. Perhaps there are PR reasons why this might be wrong, but I don't see anything wrong with what they are doing in terms of morals or ethics. If you possess stolen property, you have to return it to its rightful owner or relinquish your right to use the product that's the way it's been for thousands of years, and there doesn't have to be an exception for digital goods.","conclusion":"I see nothing wrong with the stolen Sniper Elite 3 keys being revoked"}
{"id":"aec7a1fb-4921-4ba0-bd62-693bf76ebe69","argument":"Consciousness is not in a domain of science, but rather metaphysics. Claim that human behavior is random or deterministic does not follow from the scientific method. As far as I know, actions of consciousness are addressed only by psychology, which is sometimes called pseudo-science, since we lack a scientific method to explore consciousness. Neurobiology deals with mechanics which affect consciousness, like how hardware influence software. But software is still a mystery.","conclusion":"There is no scientific experiment that can determine whether or not we have free will, making the claim that \"free will does not exist\" materially unsupported."}
{"id":"778147ee-7c7e-4871-a396-8e62bc19be6b","argument":"Incumbents Trounstine, p. 8 are more likely to win in elections with lower turnouts, thereby entrenching the power of existing elites.","conclusion":"Citizens in democratic states should be required to vote or be fined."}
{"id":"363816d6-cb40-418a-b812-41ff6e34a8ba","argument":"A fertility clinic is burning down. You grab a fire extinguisher and battle your way into the only open room. You see a large storage container with 1,000 fertilized eggs. Next to the container is a small child passed out from smoke inhalation. Most people's priority would be saving the 1 child over the 1,000 fertilized eggs. This shows that not all life is considered equal.","conclusion":"Even if the fetus is a life, so is the mother. It is not clear that the right to life of a fetus necessarily trumps the right to bodily autonomy and self-preservation of the mother."}
{"id":"1ed4d799-1f7e-47dc-9d3d-8170ae6034f0","argument":"The electoral college proves useful each and every election because it gives the reminder that each state no matter how big or small is important and need to be treated fairly.","conclusion":"The electoral college empowers states as political units, which supports the system of federalism that is important to US governance."}
{"id":"a2da954f-bdbb-4f5f-8e3f-db36d6657324","argument":"There is evidence for this if we look at the problems of similar systems, such as Canadian healthcare. That system says that all are guaranteed free healthcare. The reality is that there is no incentive to compete for customers in the medical field. There is a demand surplus, and supply is constrained by government regulations. The wait times are enormous, the quality is poor, yet there's misplaced loyalty to this system for complicated and misinformed reasons. Canada's Single Payer System","conclusion":"A UBI is counter-intuitive to the human instinct of creation-reward"}
{"id":"014cbad7-b640-4af5-8e91-be0c43e0750f","argument":"I'd like to start off by saying that the CoD games are good games in their own right, though they are extremely overhyped. One reason I take this stance is because the newly released games are ectremely similar to their predecessors. There are few if any changes in gameplay, and the basic level design for the most part, remains the same. Even Advanced Warfare, which seemed to promise the most novel changes, was criticized for changing too little from its preceding games. Another reason for my opinion is that CoD doesn't really have anything astoundingly different from other games of the same genre. There are a few unique features here and there, but overall, it's just another FPS with nothing spectacular that sets it above the other games in its genre.","conclusion":"The Call of Duty franchise is extremely overrated and overhyped."}
{"id":"b855b8e0-6bae-4142-bcfd-899a8985b15e","argument":"There are \u2018Safety Tips\u2019 specifically directed at the legalized escort industry on a state community health website in Victoria","conclusion":"Escort services visit hotel rooms or homes of clients and therefore do not work in safer environments."}
{"id":"d5923251-623b-4d14-bdfb-a934d4898a2e","argument":"I have served my government for 21 years, some good, some bad. And I have spent countless hours thinking about government. And what a government should do and should not do. And what makes a government just or unjust. After many hours of thought, my first premise about a just government, is that such a government must hold as a government power the right to kill or do physical harm to a citizen. Especially when it come to imposing a death penalty. But also to other punishments This idea may be traced back in philosophy to John Locke But I do not agree with all of his theories But If anyone can kill or harm a citizen, what use is a government? I look forward to hearing your thoughts. I will reply as much as possible, but I am CET Zone, so forgive me if I seem late to reply. EDIT My position is NOT that the government should have all the guns , but that the definition of a failed state is a state where everyone have the ability to harm each other gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than just downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I think the first duty of a government is to monopolize as much as possible the use of force."}
{"id":"2511b12b-c0d5-4a68-8bc0-f0552a4e38ab","argument":"The use of Kati Morton's 'expertise' to assess Jake Paul's mental state breaches ethical guidelines in the California Association for Licensed Professional Clinical Counselors CALPCC around consent a.2.a, competence e.2.a and diagnosis e.5.a.","conclusion":"The series lack any expertise or professionalism when it comes to analyzing symptoms or dealing with ASPD."}
{"id":"2bfaa324-1487-4f41-8f07-958883febd38","argument":"I'm not here to argue how this would be implemented. There would obviously be challenges in that sense but I'm sure rationing could be done in the digital age. There's millions of people starving every day, yet in countries where people make slightly above average are permitted to deplete the world's food supply, waste food, and pretty much cut in line in front of others for having money. Food that could be used by poor regions is instead shipped out to feed those who can afford it. Then there's the fact that obesity has increased, at least within the US, in the past decade. Our only real solution has been to attempt to tax soft drinks or try to hurt corporations who make unhealthy food, but that does not directly treat the problem, which is over eating. I'm sure we can all agree that if you become overweight that shows that your body has more food than it requires to live. When people are permitted to purchase as much food as they want, no matter how healthy the food ends up being, they will gain weight. This in turn causes more problems and costs money in healthcare. Food should be taxed rationed. Based on what is factually calculated for example, with a doctor's visit on how much you need to consume, you should be encouraged not forced to eat the proper amount monetarily. Since eating excessively damages those who cannot afford food due to inflated food prices, as well as costs others by your deteriorating health, a tax is a reasonable viable option. Just like you're not permitted to do harmful drugs for the most part or permitted to kill yourself or harm yourself for the most part this would at the very least be another measure to keeping people in our society healthy and from also damaging others. Since it would not be forced, you're technically still permitted to eat more food, however, you should be able to prove that you can afford your lifestyle that causes health issues and issues for others, and support the system by paying a tax, which could then be used to feed the homeless and fund welfare programs. Here's an article of something similar in place and proof that it's effective","conclusion":"Any food past recommended daily values should be heavily taxes"}
{"id":"74b0d06a-c3a4-414c-9eeb-155e80b123ac","argument":"My view is simple, but I will try to elaborate for the sake of the character minimum. Where I live there are almost no establishments where street parking is allowed pretty common when outside of the city . In this scenario, where your options are to either park and go inside, or be forced to come back at another time, I think it is appropriate to park in handicapped parking if that spot is the only space available. I understand and support the idea of giving priority parking to the disabled, to make it easier for them to enter and exit establishments. But when it is the only place to park, I no longer see the need to reserve that space for the disabled. They have no more of a right to access an establishment than a non disabled person, and at that point I would consider it only fair that the spot be taken on a first come, first served basis. Edit To clarify I'm not really talking about the law, or logistics behind enforcement. My view is strictly from a this is morally acceptable standpoint. Additionally, I will also state that if you are going to be a while, it would be expected that you would return to the lot and see if a non handicapped space opened up that you could move your vehicle to.","conclusion":"When street parking is unavailable, one should be allowed to park in a handicapped parking spot if it is the only open spot in the lot"}
{"id":"41e0133d-f015-4589-9e12-36c5b2f3d600","argument":"I've decided to post this because I actually want to have a discussion about the topic without being randomly insulted by people who think otherwise and don't even explain their opinion. I understand my opinion comes off as offensive but I am actually open to changing it because I see that a lot of people have a different view. I'm sure people would ask about this, so before anyone even gets the chance I did have pets. I loved them and enjoyed the time we spent together, they were taken care of very well and I was reasonably upset when they were gone. However, I did not think of them as actual family members, equal to my human family. Those pets of mine and their roles in my life could never compare to my parents and siblings in any way that was my family at the time when I also had the pets . So I don't really understand people who actually do think of their pets as actual family members. It's one thing to use that as a figure of speech and I understand that saying someone someting is family can just be an expression of love and affection, it doesn't have to mean literally saying this dog is my brother's equal . But apparently for some people, it actually does mean that. And I think there's something wrong with them. A pet is a pet usually a dog or a cat, and I just don't see how they measure up to an actual human family member. Obviously if you have an abusive family, a rock on the driveway is better than them, but I'm talking about normal families. If you have a loving parent sibling and find a pet their equal, you're just messed up. There's a huge difference between pet human and human human relationships and just that is enough. The pets don't even have the capabilities that humans do, that are required for forming regular human relationships. Here's an example let's say the pet is a dog. Your relationship with him is fairly simple. You take care of him and he loves you. You feed him, he licks you, you take him for walks and he's happy when you get home.You have a brother, who's an actual person, independent from you, yet he still loves and supports you, you take care of each other periodically when the need should arise and you actually communicate freely in words, through disagreements, clearly and constructively. You actively influence each other the dog's influence is his need to go out which will lead to him waking you up earlier than you would have liked.So how can they be equal in your life, how are they both equal family members? I can see one answer how you think there's more to your relationship with your pet than there usually is with pets, but if you project aspects of regular human relationships on your relationship with your pet, that just means there's something wrong with you and you can't see things clearly. It's even understandable for people who have been traumatized by other humans and are taking baby steps towards getting better, they probably need to use that relationship to find some stability before integrating into society, but if nothing happened yet you still construct an idea in your head that your dog is like a human companion, that's just messed up. I just have to add that I don't think that loving your pet is enough of a reason. There's much more to human relationships than just the feeling of love. If you can't see that, then there's still something wrong.","conclusion":"There is something wrong with people who literally think of pets as family"}
{"id":"ac6744bc-f2be-4a63-9613-2b5f2f8ab05d","argument":"The decision to cheat did not necessarily involve any negative considerations about the partner; it can have originated from purely internal desires.","conclusion":"By telling your partner you share the responsibility with a noninvolved person."}
{"id":"a0b86f49-db44-4fb0-b4b9-9c84b7042a50","argument":"Mortal, physical beings cannot exist without pathology, deviance & self-interest, just as a square cannot exist without four corners. A physical universe with time & life inevitably contains behaviors at all steps of evolution that could be classified as evil.","conclusion":"God allows evil to exist so that humans can have free will and develop into moral people. In order to be morally good in a meaningful way, a person must have the possibility of choosing evil."}
{"id":"55a44d45-a789-4b36-8732-7332e5781756","argument":"JavaScript is used for practically everything now, native mobile dev, backend dev. Stanford switched to teaching JavaScript over Java. This is all ridiculous, JavaScript is a terrible programming language For one, it's such a simple language. Simple is good if you're teaching a language to middle schoolers, or people who want to study CS for 5 weeks then never come back to it. But for an industry language, its simplicity makes writing good, readable code so difficult. There's so options to solving your problems. The worst offender of them all is JavaScript is not truly object oriented, this is a language structure that has been around for half a century but one of the most used programming languages doesn't adopt it properly? For two, it's weakly typed. Weakly typed language make understanding code more difficult how do I know what type this variable is??? , and IDEs are less effective. Compile time guarantees, one of the easiest ways to know you made a mistake, aren't present sure you could do static checks but you have to set that all up . Compare this all to Kotlin, which is arguably the future of Java, which intentionally added several features to Java, kept a strictly typed system, and better enables beautiful code that's easier to understand and easier to write. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"JavaScript is a terrible programming language and should never be used apart from client side web scripting"}
{"id":"579ee7e7-efac-44d2-a837-9015e5bc4589","argument":"The Tibetan government in exile and Tibetan independence activists are considered separatist agitators by the Chinese government, but freedom fighters by others. The Chinese government could plausibly argue that they qualify as a terror organisation that would need to be combated online.","conclusion":"Since there is no internationally agreed upon definition of terrorism, countries can exploit the concept to label political opponents as 'terrorists'."}
{"id":"ed34e44e-2813-4829-8b15-bdb8b1198b8b","argument":"First off, I'm pretty biased\u2014I think short hair looks horrible. But apart from that I do have some basis in this view Sexual selection has always been one of the major theories to explain the extreme human mane that grows beyond what could possibly be explained to be useful. Without cutting human hair it grows below the waste not only does it take mass to produce but it's also extremely impractical if sexual selection is truly the explanation for human beings being a furlles mammal with without a doubt the most excessive mane in the animal kingdom then that would imply that there is a level of genetic favouritism in human beings to find long hair attractive. Even today despite short hair being in fashion there seems to still be a genetic? association of long hair with genetic strength with fictional characters who are meant to embody such strength such as Thor, God, Rambo, Tarzan, and Conan typically depicted with long hair. Even the satirical Glorious PC Gaming Master Race avatar has long hair as a supposed depiction of his genetic strength. Most cultures throughout history did feature almost universal long hair with many stories such as Samson's or Maui's tying long hair to strength the few times hair was kept short throughout history it was almost always for practical reasons which again shows how impractical it is which implies it is not evolved for practical reasons. A lot of cultures that kept long hair in check for practical reasons also simply tied it up to strike a compromise where the hair could be relaxed outside of work. In the future more and more manual labour is going to be assumed by machines which makes the practical advantage of shor thair less significant\u2014I do believe that due to that the natural genetic inclination of human beings to favour long hair will re assert itself and people will again grow their hair long as used to be more commmon.","conclusion":"Short hair is a temporary thing that will die out"}
{"id":"21d8c84c-b41d-4fee-bf54-da154adcadc3","argument":"I have a hard time reacting to the media the way i feel that my friends and family are reacting. My parents love trump, and my friends hate him. When i watch the news i see all these horrible things and scandals. However i find myself not really sharing the opinions of any of them. Trump has many issues however when you go and listen to his speeches and what he actually says he is not as hateful as people make him out to be. My issue isnt with trump or politics its the way the media reacts to these stories instead of exploring the issues. Again i know i can explore other news outlets, and i do, however the media cycle is something that bothers me to no end and i think its completely out of control. I know it may be a strange example but deflate gate when tom brady was accused of deflating footballs is another example. Tom brady did nothing wrong but when you have a country full of people who hate the patriots, and espn starts running gotcha journalism just to appease the masses i thought it was a perfect analogy on how our news cycle works. These are just two example, and again i am not speaking to politics or whether or not tom brady deflated footballs, just how the media seems to want these people to do something wrong so bad instead of exploring the other side of the story. I cant tell you how upset it makes me. again i cant emphasise enough how i am not trying to defend trump, i just think the news cycle has been unfair to him, and trust me i know hes his own worst enemy on that issue THANK YOU ALL FOR RESPONDING I LOVE TO TALK ABOUT THIS TOPIC I REALLY AM CONFLICTED WITH IT gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I think the media is grossly rooted in 'gotcha' journalism and that taints the view on many political and social issues in a skewed way."}
{"id":"cf471e95-7344-49c0-a3af-78e79a372555","argument":"It would be unsafe for people to drive or cycle around if they habitually ignore other road users.","conclusion":"There are important safety reasons to habitually listen out for what others say."}
{"id":"a8fe1497-4341-4cd1-a5d1-076616b3de18","argument":"Utnapishtim effort in building the boat is painstakingly detailed. Noah's effort is outlined in a single sentence The difference is that Utnapishtim survives by his hard work and the love of Ea while Noah survives by the love of God while a point is made elsewhere that Noah will give men rest from their work. Utnapishtim's work is valued while Noah's rest is valued.","conclusion":"The story of Utnapishtim and the story of Noah are re-tellings of the same story. Showing how YHWH is completely unlike the other gods."}
{"id":"65c21331-9def-46db-afd1-89e47b7129a3","argument":"Not only is Johnny Knoxville the driving force behind Jackass, he is the face and the most successful member of the crew. Despite all of that, he has constantly risked life and limb more so than the rest. The most famous bits involving the other members were grossout comedy bits involving dicks or shit or both. Johnny had his Bad Grandpa character, sure, but was constantly more willing to do other stunts when people backed out or walked away. I.E. Dodgebull and Riot Gun. Steve O is close to take the title, but I think Knoxville reigns supreme.","conclusion":"Johnny Knoxville is the toughest and bravest member of Jackass."}
{"id":"34fec086-bb27-438e-b977-219ba11ac0b4","argument":"Capital punishment could only be the severest and most horrific punishment if it was able to deprive the executed of their souls and their after lives. But, it only deprives them of their bodies and lives on earth.","conclusion":"The executed are not deprived of everything; they keep their souls."}
{"id":"17ecb02b-4779-45ef-814d-24a2c18bb683","argument":"The EU has indicated that it will only grant an extension where it is in its strategic interests A general election and the resulting uncertainty may not be in the best interests of the EU member states.","conclusion":"It is unlikely that the EU would grant an extension of time sufficient for a new government to be formed and renegotiate the exit deal."}
{"id":"3c01c1f9-fd57-4571-9338-13e4c0c569fb","argument":"Off the bat, I apologise for the clickbait title, but it serves to highlight my point. Driving a car is significantly more difficult than driving a train. While nobody has outright said the opposite, I think the notion that driving a train is more complex is inherent in the fact that it has a plethora of specific titles, to wit engineer, conductor, pilot, motorman etc. While driving a car or any other motor vehicle is simply thus, driving a car. There are two main reasons I think driving a car is a lot more complicated, which I will expand on below. x200B Degrees of Freedom A train can move in only two directions forward and backward. Simply put, the conductor's job boils down to adjusting the forward velocity of the train, which is either positive the train moves forward , zero the train is stationary , or negative the train is reversing . The only way a train can turn is if either the track curves, or the train transitions to a different track at a railway switch in both cases the train still just moves forward, with the environment track changing. x200B A car, on the other hand, can move in all ways a train can, but also left and right at any time. Without being constrained to a railroad and thus a specific route, a car has much greater freedom and thus much more impetus is placed on the driver to control the car. The lack of rails also means cars can travel in a slew of different terrains, surfaces and slopes, all of which impact the handling of the car. Compare this to a train, which consistently travels on steel or air, if you're fancy . x200B Outside Influence A train will seldom operate without outside information from railway administration or control centre, which oversees the entire railway line to ensure all the trains in the system stay seperate. This gives the engineer even less autonomy, as not only does he have signs, symbols and signal tables to dictate the safe operation of the train e.g. at a crossing , but there are controllers giving additional data e.g. about fires to make the job even easier. x200B As a car driver, the only external information you're likely to get is a weather accident reports, the latter of which depend on some other driver calling it in b Google Maps, or, God forbid, Apple Maps or c a backseat shotgun driver. Most drivers drive without any external influence at all beyond what they can personally see. x200B I deeply apologize for any offence I've caused to engineers and train operators in general. I understand driving a train is more complicated than just pushing the throttle when leaving the station and pulling the brakes when approaching there are dozens of variables to take into account. However, I think there are many more variables involved in operating a car. Note also that the majority of my knowledge of trains is from movies, TV and videogames as I have never driven a train in real life. Thank you for your time.","conclusion":"Being a driver is harder than being an engineer"}
{"id":"f224541b-d865-4c7a-a0ed-1aa2df892622","argument":"For cryptocurrencies, there is no central institutional authority akin to a central bank that would provide deposit insurance, as is the case for ordinary banks. Thus if a cryptocurrency exchange or wallet app shuts down, all your assets will be lost.","conclusion":"Handling and storing cryptocurrencies is less safe for ordinary consumers than traditional forms of electronic payment."}
{"id":"d2af8dbc-997f-42ad-a9a3-87afb0a45159","argument":"It is natural to prefer the survival of those you identify with. Human life should be valued above other life as one's family is valued above others' families.","conclusion":"Humans have a moral duty to protect human lives over the lives of animals."}
{"id":"f8120cf2-1dd5-4be1-aaa0-c7f9ce3376f8","argument":"In order to create a unified movement, or to give press coverage to that movement, there needs to be a core message and target audience for that message. For female victims of assault and harassment, a campaign targeting male perpetrators could be very effective. For male victims, a campaign would need to either divide its message to effectively target male and female perpetrators, or to create a message that would be applicable for both prevalent scenarios.","conclusion":"One issue with a focus on male victims of sexual assault and harassment is that unlike women where the vast majority of cases have a male perpetrator, men are far more likely to be victimized by another man, with estimates ranging from 20-50% of cases."}
{"id":"ad919101-e453-4333-8503-3edd3ce0dfe0","argument":"Soccer no longer deserves this spot because of players exploiting the game rules to achieve an unfair advantage. The recent Suarez incident brought up a topic with my brother. Regarding Suarez's hand ball save against Ghana back in 2010, I thought that people should not be treating him as a hero for doing that. I felt it was immoral as a player of soccer and disrespectful to it. Then, we continued talking about other immoral acts like diving which in my opinion, is prevalent in soccer like no other sport. This brought in the question Should players be exploiting the rules to gain advantage? My argument was that when Suarez saved the ball using his hand, he knew full well he's gonna get a foul but did it anyway because he wants to win. Also, when Neymar just using a random example. Take no offense falls down deliberately when a defender only lightly fouls him, he was in fact exploiting the game rules to his advantage. Sports is inherently about excellence and sportsmanship. Of course, many other values hold too but in this case, these two are most important. My case is that players should not be playing for fouls as it contradicts what sports should be. Sports should be excelling in the game, not exploiting it. If the world's most popular sport do not uphold these values and apparently is the one where these values are obviously lacking, it does not deserve the spot. Take note I bracket exploit because some might consider whatever I said part and parcel of the game. If so, let me know why.","conclusion":"soccer does not deserve being the world's most popular sport."}
{"id":"87d43b59-59f6-4718-833c-dde9fba2daef","argument":"Slavery was used in public works, such as railroads or waterways Starobin, p. 137 Creating this public infrastructure - required for long-term growth - would not have been possible as extensively without slaves.","conclusion":"The development of the South was heavily driven by the use of slave labour."}
{"id":"30d608ad-8838-44a8-869e-9836f0e1aebc","argument":"Land outside cities often don't have land titles This makes Palestinian land outside of cities an easy target for settlement expansions.","conclusion":"In many instances Palestinians do not have legal title to the land."}
{"id":"f86f77b1-31ce-4836-a887-63235b50754c","argument":"I feel scared in my house often because I believe in ghosts ect. I hear banging, noises or when things move I really do try to think logically, but if I can't think of anything that could cause it naturally then I feel It could be be paranormal. I often hear noises which keeps me to continue on my belief that there real. Once boxes that were stacked in my closet were thrown across the room hitting my bunnys cage. The boxes were heavy on the bottom and empty on the top, there very wide and hit in the grooves of each other so I really couldnt think of a way for them to knock to the other side of the room. The thought of stuff being truly paranormal creeps me out a lot. I feel I could hopefully change my view. gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than just downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I believe in the paranormal, ghosts etc. I feel.I have paranormal encounters often. Please"}
{"id":"e48e5545-7dc7-454c-a376-816a3fbda126","argument":"Rules are in place regarding methods of state execution, despite the end result. The reason is to minimize suffering.","conclusion":"Extreme suffering is comparable. A thousand lashes are less horrible than a hundred, for example."}
{"id":"f168a964-2e56-4c83-8b19-6ccdfa24ed1e","argument":"Other than teaching gender studies to other gender studies majors thus completing the cycle of Why bother? you can't really do anything with it. Companies aren't like Well Tom, I think I'm going to go with the girl with the gender studies degree over the guy with the computer science degree. I almost put down that you could blog or self publish a book with it, but you don't actually need a degree to go ahead and do those things.","conclusion":"I think gender studies degrees are an absolute waste of time and nobody with one should be surprised they work at a Starbucks now."}
{"id":"ad9cb7eb-1623-414a-ada5-b46fe9b39db6","argument":"I see people getting up in arms about white girls who wear feather headdresses and to some degree I understand that given the history of native americans and white colonists, but I truly don't get music artist Grimes' fans who got upset because she wore a sari. I'm Vietnamese, and if people just started wearing Ao Dai I certainly wouldn't be offended, I would actually think it's pretty cool. I can only assume I'm missing some key component of the idea because getting upset at someone because they're wearing clothing that has a different cultural origin than they do seems pretty ridiculous.","conclusion":"I don't think that there is a problem with cultural appropriation and in fact I think it's offensive to tell someone what they can and cannot wear\/do because they are not from a specific culture."}
{"id":"ed33c288-4ce5-42e8-96a4-8296fa22d618","argument":"If members of ISIS are allowed to return and live at home without punishment, they might later redeploy to a different region to support other terrorist organizations: \".other areas where the Islamic State has established wilayat also provide destinations for foreign recruits.\"","conclusion":"Extending leniency towards members of ISIS would undermine efforts to fight ISIS and other terror groups overseas."}
{"id":"1d5afbf8-a525-447a-b0d6-aea4f3c6bf91","argument":"In the presence of free movement, people are likely to leave Hungary for economic opportunities For instance, the minimum wage in Hungary is \u00a3360 per month, but in the UK or Germany the same jobs can fetch up to \u00a31,256 per month.","conclusion":"Free movement might be better for the individual but not for the whole country. Free movement to other countries means young people, skilled workers etc. leave Hungary for opportunities elsewhere."}
{"id":"50dd0500-174f-4bbc-93dd-d74c2df2971d","argument":"Given that there is no compromise to be made between feminist values and traditional values, the 'overall happiness', stated by the previous objector, can be maximised if the two groups opt to formally segregate. This is because integration between people with a conflicting value leads to more conflict, and therefore more anguish, than it would should that conflicting value be absent in their neighbours.","conclusion":"It remains to be seen whether the deconstruction of gender roles has actually led to an overall increase in happiness."}
{"id":"5b89a3d9-1b79-42f7-ac16-5c8144aabd92","argument":"This is generally my worldview in regards to gender and social politics for what it is worth, I am of Russian ethnicity living in America Russian nationalist discourse presents European civilization as degenerate, and the perversion of the normal gender order in the EU serves as clear evidence of this. With its negative assessment of the EU, the Gayropa narrative offers a compensatory boost to Russian identity, not only in terms of helping to rehabilitate Russianness but by offering a new version of the messianic idea. As a stronghold of Christianity and a bastion of traditional values, Russia will save Europe and the world. Further, Gayropa assists in the legitimation of the existing political order although radical nationalist discourse also uses the concept to delegitimize the current authorities, accusing them of being overly pro Gayropean . The West's defence of sexual minorities is interpreted not as an issue related to the shaping of the gender order, human rights and freedoms, but as a hypocritical western intrusion into Russian internal affairs an attempt to weaken or destroy the country. . Tell me how I'm wrong, and why. I really would like to see an alternative viewpoint to this.","conclusion":"I think gender identity politics are simply a geo-political tool to be used as a cudgel against nations with different cultural values."}
{"id":"585d6d58-17b1-4d3e-9b92-472fd9bd1b19","argument":"All dams block silt from moving down stream. Silt and other debris build up behind dams, clogging the flow of water more and more each year until a river becomes effectively \"clogged\" and a dam becomes inoperable. Because dams are unsustainable in this way, they cannot be called \"renewable\".","conclusion":"Dams are not renewable as they clog rivers over time"}
{"id":"a755a65c-fce4-462c-a7fe-59f5d3562c1d","argument":"Video of Ex Mossad head admitting Israel gives medical aid to Al Nusra fighters in Syria This was also reported on by the WSJ, but you have to have an account to see the article. The United States is in the War on Terrorism. Al Qaeda has attacked The United States and killed thousands of Americans 9 11, USS Cole, 1998 Embassy bombings, ect. For Israel, a country politicians love to call our greatest ally to give medical aid to Al Qaeda fighters in Syria and then to release them back to the battle field is arguably act of aggression against the United States. How can our so called Greatest Ally give aid to our Greatest Enemy and get away with it. There have been lots of unproven speculation on what was mostly conspiracy internet circles about Israel funding ISIS and Al Qaeda, but what was admitted by Efraim Halevy is huge and must be investigated by our government. We cannot accept our government giving aid to a country that aids Al Qaeda. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"If Israel is giving medical aid to Al-Nusra Al-Qaeda in Syria and letting them return to the battle field, it is absolutely unacceptable and a hostile act against the United States."}
{"id":"130a7d35-89c3-4652-b156-e56d07992af6","argument":"There is no reason for Net Neutrality to exist. The internet existed for years before NN was put into place 24 months ago and there were no issues. Because Net Neutrality gives the government power to regulate internet providers, start-ups, innovators, etc. under the premise that without Net Neutrality we would not have equal and free access to the internet which we had before NN was put into place.","conclusion":"Prior to 2015 there were no Title II regulations applied to ISPs and the internet had developed as an open and free system."}
{"id":"2143a085-8023-432a-bc5d-83e23f326f4c","argument":"I do not follow transgender issues, so forgive me if this is naive. From what I can glean Sex is biological male, female, or perhaps in extremely rare cases, such as intersex cases neither. Gender is psychological a person 'identifies with' a complicated set or properties related to that person's sex. For example, a person can be of the male sex, but 'identify with' gender fluidity, such that the person considers his gender to fluctuate between male and female. Since gender is psychological and selected , whereas sex is biological and inherent , it makes no sense to treat people as though their sex matches their gender. I am thinking especially of athletics, given the recent story of the 'male to female' weight lifter who outperformed all of the female sexed competitors. Of course, this thesis applies much more broadly than athletics. There is already a  post about athletics. Here's a further elucidation of some of my reasoning. If gender and sex are distinct in the way I understand gender being a psychological property, sex being a biological property , then isn't it simply equivocal to treat one's gender as though it is one's sex? The very fact that a person has to claim that his gender is different from his sex indicates that it would be false to claim that his gender is the same as his sex. This is such an elementary point of logic, I feel that I must be missing something. After all, if a male sex claims to be a female sex , he is simply mistaken. Of course, a male sex might feel as if he is a female sex , but that feeling, it seems, would not correspond with the reality. It is possible for a person to feel as though he is a leopard. In the latter case, the person's life would go much better for him if he gave up the idea of being a leopard and began to feel more like a person. This is based on the principle that it is good for you to feel as though you are what you, essentially , are, because it avoids insuperable psychological disintegration. Persons are essentially persons because, if they were to cease being persons, they would cease to exist. In other words, their very existence necessitates that they be persons. But why doesn't this principle seem to apply in transgender cases? Male sex persons are essentially male sex , on the assumption that sex, unlike gender, is an inherent biological property. A man who 'identifies with' a leopard, just like a Frenchman who 'identifies with' sub Saharan Africans, might be able to modify himself physiologically so that he looks like he is a leopard, or sub Saharan African, but he will never be either of these things. But the same is true of a male sex who identifies as a female. Go ahead and  and thank you in advance for your thoughtful, clear, and irenic remarks EDIT Several people have objected to my saying that gender is 'selected' whereas sex is not. I clarified my meaning here but I think I should write something in the original post as well. Here are the key points 1 My argument is not based on the assumption that gender is chosen it is based on the assumption that gender is psychological a mental property , in contrast to sex, which is biological . Both gender and sex and in fact, virtually everything else about human beings has some biological basis . But having, say, a causal basis in something does not make gender, or, e.g., feelings of anger, biological things. 2 My primary claim regarding sex, in contradistinction to gender, is that it is always or for the most part an essential property of a person however, I'm also willing to say that sex is determined by genetics in the following way gt In all or most cases, i if a person has two x chromosomes, then that person is female sex and ii if a person who has two x chromosomes were not to have those two chromosomes, the person would not be female sex . You can easily see how to substitute for the other sex. As far as I know, there is no such biological determinant of gender. 3 When I say that gender is chosen, I mean that, for transgender rights advocates, it is imperative that gender be up to the person sincerely making the claim about his her gender. Most transgender rights advocates would insist that a person's sincere claims about his her gender should be honored, regardless of the causal history that led to the person making the claim. The causal history could involve genetic or environmental determination or it could be undetermined, and the person might have unusual but not irrational reasons for preferring one specific gender. But it is imperative to transgender rights advocates that regardless of the causal history, a person's sincere claims about his her gender be honored. If I am misrepresenting transgender rights advocates, please do let me know. Perhaps most transgender rights advocates think that the causal history leading to a person making a sincere gender claim is relevant. Perhaps they think that those with a sufficient biological causal history should have their claims honored, whereas those without one shouldn't. But I would be surprised, to say the least, if this were the case. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Assuming there is a difference between gender and sex, we should not treat people as if their selected gender is their sex"}
{"id":"08b236e0-db14-4536-b179-fc096a7a508d","argument":"When the Germans started rounding up Jews, over 600 Greek Orthodox priests were arrested and deported because of their actions in helping Jews.","conclusion":"The Head of the Church of Greece, Archbishop Damaskinos, actively worked against the holocaust and saved thousands of lives."}
{"id":"88f46cc3-370a-4cb0-a0a5-a7c5fb390f64","argument":"The Australian flag is a defaced blue ensign, along with dozens of flags around the world representing provinces, parts of the British government, yacht clubs, and independent states. In particular, it's hard to tell the difference between the Australian and New Zealand flag from a distance. The inclusion of the Union Jack does not represent Australia's status as an independent country. It's more suited to a colony or section of the UK government. This image shows what I mean. There are many symbols representative of Australia that could be included on a flag. The boomerang, kangaroo, emu, and Aboriginal flag could all be included but none are. There are many good proposals for a new flag. I like this one but there are many proposals","conclusion":"Australia should change it's flag to a more distinctive design"}
{"id":"46783cde-303b-4eff-b1ac-72ab97d49672","argument":"\u0394 Strikes are their only recourse in a system that locks in your benefits, salary and retirement to number of years served. If the rules change half way through with lawmakers, cost of living or administration they should strike. I still think they are paid fairly in general, but with the example of Denver, cost of living has nearly doubled in 10 years. \u0394 With teachers striking in my hometown today I have no sympathy for them. The average public school salary is 44,000, which is 58,000 if you consider they get 1 4 of the year off. They also get almost every holiday imaginable. Here are some of the following pro teacher arguments I have already heard and what I think 1 It's not a 9 5 job. They routinely put in time grading papers, helping students, sponsoring clubs etc. Lot's of people have jobs that put in more than 40 hours a week for similar or worse pay to what teachers receive. It is not like it was a surprise when you became a teacher that you would need to grade papers. Use your massive amount of days off to offset this. 2 They have much lower pay than people with a comparable education level. Firstly, outside of education, a person with a masters working private sector will always make more than a government job. The comparison should be to only government employees with a masters degree. Government employees enjoy more time off, better job security and benefits such as pensions to make up for the difference. Secondly, I respect the field of education, but saying a masters in education is the same as a masters in engineering is just silly. As far as costs of obtaining higher education there are many plans for teachers to defer payments, get scholarships etc. Most people with masters degrees do not have these options. Additionally, there are plenty of people who have masters degrees that make much less than the average teacher. I had a job with two coworkers with masters animal behavior and bio engineering who made 40k and 47k, respectively. And of course no summer vacation. 3 It's a pink collar job so there is a historical tendency of being underpaid. Many breadwinner teachers must search for higher paying positions in the school system. It's unionized. I think this is really true of non unionized pink collar work, but the reason to have a union is to push back on such bias. Again, its not like teaching being female dominated is news after you decided on a career in education. If you're a single parent the amount you save in child care from having holidays, summer vacation and 9 5 hours is a huge bonus. 4 They have our future in their hands. They deserve to be compensated accordingly. Nobody is arguing that teachers aren't an important part of our community. Every teacher will tell you it is ultimately up the the child and their parents to ensure proper education. Additionally, nearly every job is important to a community. We need cashiers 19k yr , restaurant workers 21k yr and truckers 40k yr just as much to keep our society running. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I have no sympathy for teacher strikes."}
{"id":"01ea3826-deae-4f9f-8303-afd1b69fad4e","argument":"I booked flights with Malaysia Airlines from Dublin to Hong Kong via Heathrow and Kuala Lumpur around 2 hours before the MH17 crash. Yesterday I received an email from the airline, offering a full refund up until 24th July, or offering to change bookings to a later date. I now have doubts about the safety record of the airline, even though it appears that there was nothing that could have been done to prevent the latest tragedy. The fate of flight MH370 remains unsolved, and declining consumer confidence appears to be reflected in the Malaysian stock market, which has experienced overall growth of 80 in the past five years while Malaysian Airlines stock price has fallen by the same figure. In light of this, I'm seriously considering taking them up on their offer of a refund.","conclusion":"I should cancel my flights with Malaysia Airlines"}
{"id":"87e6058d-b6d7-4a4f-9294-5c16be11de3c","argument":"So I recently say a screenshot of a CNN discussion over what was worse, the N word or cracker. In my mind, both have been used as racist words, but that doesn't make either derogatory. That got me to thinking, CNN could put the word cracker on the screen but they couldn't put nigger up. Now, given that both have been used in roughly the same way by opposite groups, why does society accept one and not the other? My two possible conclusions are that 1 Society is inherently racist against white people not likely . 2 Both words should be fine for publication as there's nothing inherently wrong about the word itself, just about the way they have sometimes been used. My V has been C'd, the US is way more fucked up than I thought","conclusion":"There is nothing intrinsicly wrong with the word \"Nigger\""}
{"id":"7fb9d493-f6f9-4b34-959b-4dd1c414d5ae","argument":"Pilate sought to release Jesus: but the Jews cried out, saying, If thou let this man go, thou art not Caesar's friend: whosoever maketh himself a king speaketh against Caesar. John 19:12","conclusion":"A false charge of treason\/sedition was leveled against Jesus. However, the governor of the time did not find him guilty rather saw him as a just man. Mat 27:23-24"}
{"id":"ef0809fa-6604-47ec-a04a-31e9e78c96e1","argument":"Most Confederate monuments are not particularly old and have likely been put up with the intent to demonstrate dominance over African-Americans during two different time periods: the Jim Crow era 1900-1918 and the Civil Rights Movement era 1954-1968 SPLC, p. 12","conclusion":"Many of the monuments do not date from the appropriate historical period Civil War and thus have a political, rather than historical meaning."}
{"id":"7205ab25-2efa-4e6d-bc4d-5b2ff997e6d5","argument":"European members of Parliament are democratically elected, a quota would interfere with the democratic values of the Parliament.","conclusion":"Increasing Millennial representation through quotas could damage the quality and efficacy of the European Parliament."}
{"id":"b2a5ce9a-8163-48e8-a009-f11155482ddd","argument":"So i was having a discussion with a few friends, and they seemed to think this was not necessary, it was initially more of a feeling for me but I tried to put it into words like this. There is a subset of the population who wouldn't want to engage in intercourse a relationship with someone who used to be another gender I don't think the reasons of these people are important for the argument Given that there is a percentage of people who wouldn't want to go for the sex relationship when presented with this information, you're morally obligated to tell them before doing the sexytimes relationship Things I can see would be a problem with my reasoning. The size of the set people in 1 could be too small and be insignificant compared to other things which aren't revealed before sex relationships You could disagree with 2 i guess, but I don't really see how from a moral perspective EDIT So from the responses it seems like a good summation of arguments was given by u whiskeyonsunday93 gt The fact of the matter, whether you agree with them or not, is that many people do consider there to be a significant distinction between someone who grew up as one gender, and then through surgeries and hormone therapy became the gender they're most comfortable with and someone who was born the way they are. gt It may be a less enlightened way of thinking, but not everyone is able to overlook something like that because they fell in love with the person not the gender And not everyone believes that for all intents and purposes, a post op transsexual female is no different than someone who was born a female and u omegatheta gt Once it crosses over to sexy time though, I think it would be extremely disrespectful to not mention that, knowing it would be a pretty big deal to a huge portion of the male population.","conclusion":"I think transgendered people are morally obliged to tell people they used to be the other gender before engaging in intercourse\/a relationship with someone."}
{"id":"5bfa26d7-5551-4b15-9a77-dbc197caa3ea","argument":"This raises risks of higher costs of drugs for British patients as the US has pushed for higher drug prices in Brexit trade negotiations as part of their ''put American patients first'' scheme.","conclusion":"Theresa May has refused to rule out when asked in Parliament if the NHS would be part of any trade deal discussions with America."}
{"id":"85e2ab46-218c-4305-86f1-c4b3cd3db96f","argument":"The science of the United States' 'space race' in the 1960's was driven by popular opinion and political incentives.","conclusion":"In some cases, it is because of what people think and believe that science is driven forward."}
{"id":"c6c9eb43-2684-4eaa-939e-56da8c7f756f","argument":"The landslide victories for ballot initiatives on Medicaid and the minimum wage indicates that the white working class is progressive when it comes to economics. Democrats can defeat Republicans if they focus on putting forward progressive economic policies.","conclusion":"Trump focuses on the 'white' part of white working-class, appealing to cultural issues. If Democrats instead focus on the 'class' part by offering a coherent economic message, they can win over this group of voters."}
{"id":"ae9c99b6-e323-48d1-9a0b-504e8996ff94","argument":"At the very least, zoos should therefore not be forbidden for animals at risk of extinction.","conclusion":"Zoos play a critical role in the conservation of endangered species."}
{"id":"770edeb3-1a41-4ee4-9764-5d06dbe7b26b","argument":"I feel that these attacks were not highly organized. The terrorists seemed to pick a few places at random and agree on a time. Besides that I don't know how much organization actually went into it. Furthermore I don't see how any amount of intelligence would be able to prevent such an attack. To change my view you would need to convince me that this was a well thought out plan that was carefully developed. On the second thought regarding intelligence preventing this attack or future ones like it you would need to explain how a plan that could have been conceived in a garage in less than an hour between 8 friends can be prevented with modern day intelligence.","conclusion":"The government and media is framing the attacks in Paris as \"highly coordinated\" to maximize the fear of the public."}
{"id":"b1c6f586-d9fd-4889-a2d7-04f61eef21bd","argument":"Title pretty much explains it all. Dr. McKinnon considers herself female but is still biologically male. I have no issue with Transgenders or those who identify as another gender. However I feel this creates an unfair advantage. While many assert that there are no differences between men and women , this is biologically false. Weight, muscle definition, and testerone all play a factor in her victory. While McKinnon suppresses her testerone, I still am of the opinion that, biologically speaking, she has an advantage. Especially as it relates to muscle mass. More mass more power faster cycling. There's a lot of media out there that clearly has issues with this, so I tried to focus on non biased sources that tackle this from a medical scholarly lense. Here is what I read that informed my decision So change my view, how did she not have a biological advantage in this race? gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"2018 UCI Masters Champion, Dr. Rachel McKinnon, shouldn't have been eligible to compete in this sporting event due to her unfair biological advantage."}
{"id":"431db2c1-bf27-4a49-b983-d748b6bbb71e","argument":"Many guns are designed and optimized for the purpose of participating in sport competitions and thus shooting paper, cardboard, metal or clay targets.","conclusion":"Since guns have multiple uses, it is difficult to assess what their primary purpose is."}
{"id":"b1b25646-3672-416d-8ca7-3913f6262d1c","argument":"Because of limited range people driving EVs tend to adopt slower pace and more careful driving which will automatically reduce accidents both for the cars and their drivers.","conclusion":"EVs are safer for the occupants, other road users and pedestrians."}
{"id":"c05d9a32-e160-413c-aed3-3c99ca6d5f8d","argument":"There's two main problems in the society when elections come up in Spain Indiference In my country a lot of people don't even care to read the electoral programs so they don't really know what are they really voting, so there's a high percentage of votes that don't represent the citizens, that goes against democracy itself. Missinformation People vote what they hear in the radio and see in the TV. Therefore they fall in the topics that every political team have, so there's a huge manipulation of this part of the citizens. Therefore it's bad for the democracy since citizens are not free to choose I understand that we are never totally free, but this freedom is much lower this way . Including an attended based test type exam I'm not going to enter on what questions and such, just showing they have a basic knowledge and read the where people show that they're committed to the political system and they know what are they talking about would be beneficial for all for these reasons It makes people take more interest if they really want to be represented in the system, which is good for the country It also destroy topics and stigma made by social media and creates a sieve where manipulated people can't participate in the system because they can't pass the test if they don't know what this political team really represents. I know that some people won't be represented Please, change my view. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Everyone should pass a test in order to vote"}
{"id":"acad601b-6c75-42ed-b05e-b19fee0c524e","argument":"We know that all forensic psychologist experts agree that once the media hypes up a spree killing, there is copycats afterwards. Usually mass murderers like this is seeking attention in their ultimate suicide. Now that this is looking more and more likely in the case of Germanwings, we should stop covering it, as it will in all likelihood inspire someone else. For those doubting this, consider that there are hundreds of thousands of pilots. Many work in pretty bad conditions this also needs change like long work hours, loneliness from being unable to live normal social lives etc. So that some of these are feeling suicidal and might be inspired by this is inevitable. Of course this wont happen, but we should truly stop covering and discussing this.","conclusion":"The media should stop covering the Germanwings tragedy immediately"}
{"id":"ad3ed713-7377-44bc-964c-977d04ab4306","argument":"I am referring to the way we identify people by using pronouns. I believe we should refer to people as people and therefore use a pronoun that is devoid of any other characteristic of that person. The gender of a person is a characteristic like there are infinity others Hair color, skin color, sex, ability to play chess, level of education, nationality, , to single out any of these characteristics to use as the representation for a person when referring to them is arbitrary and overvaluates that specific characteristic compared to the other ignored characteristics for no good reason. And I believe gender is no different in this aspect. Additionally, we as a society struggle with identifying what the concept of gender even is. People are confused about gender, it also forces people to make assumptions when addressing other people. And this brings me to my final point, for people struggling with their own gender identity being reminded of this struggle is extremely unhealthy mentally. This for example gets reflected by the over representation of trans people in the suicide rates. So for these reasons Arbitrary, normalization of making assumptions about people, unhealthy for already struggling people I think we should move away from using gender as the defining characteristic when referring to people. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"We as a society unnecessarily put too much emphasis on a person's gender, and it is unhealthy."}
{"id":"fe4e7675-9f3e-4373-a0ba-ca9d38a624ae","argument":"For the sake of conciseness I will argue that incest is still wrong and so is sex between an adult with authority over a child's academia or safety like cops and teachers. I will also not argue for actual intercourse though I feel it is pretty much the same. I just read in another thread about the Sambia and Etoro people. Every single little boy has sex with older men as a right of passage. Furthermore, in many cultures pederasty and child sex was is common Greeks, Mohammed, etc. , and our closest related ancestors chimps, bonobos all do it as well. At what age are people suddenly granted the magic knowledge and experience that makes having a penis vagina in your mouth no longer psyche destroying? In some cultures it is just a normal activity little different from playing sports together or cooking dinner or washing a car together. I would argue riding in a car is a million times more dangerous than oral sex has ever been. Why does informed consent even matter when there is no danger in the activity? Even dangerous activities like riding in a car do not require a child's informed consent. In a world with no STIs, oral sex has literally no risks while riding in a car or walking the family pitbull certainly do. For the love of God, change my view gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than just downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I *really* don't want to have this view: When all STIs are cured, there is nothing wrong with having consensual, non-violent oral sex with a child and that the psychological damage is cultural"}
{"id":"162ed897-5691-4639-97aa-6227532e6098","argument":"Backstory I am a university student studying in the UK, but not a UK national. Before coming here, I also had in mind to apply to US universities and also did SATs for it, but since I am fairly lazy, I did not send my applications to any US colleges in the end. nbsp While browsing reddit, I often happen upon the discussion along the veins of I hope I get at least 90 from this exam, that will help me to secure a B followed by a UK redditor saying 90 ? In the UK 70 is an A. and an outburst of people astonished by this. Since I am studying in the UK, I can observe this system in practice and I do think it may be easier than the US one. The obvious counterarguments are that UK exams can be made harder to account for this discrepancy, and this may actually be true for some subjects, but I believe not for others. Concretely, I study Computer Science, and most of my exams are mathematical logical, with very few essay based questions. These exams are very inflexible to make harder or easier and the examiners don't have room to manoeuvre with the grades in a question of the type Solve this integral . In such subjects, like Maths, Physics, etc. I believe the UK system is much more forgiving than the US one. nbsp This leads me to believe that my First degree honours is much less valuable than graduating with a 4.0 GPA I am not too familiar with the US system which is why I am asking you to change my view so I believe this is the best you can get in the US. Also, the failing percentage in the UK is lt 40 , while in the US it can be much higher. Now, I didn't look up the statistics for this, so I am sorry for abusing you in this way but the rate of college dropouts should also be lower in the UK. nbsp Overall, the UK system seems easier to me maybe apart from the fact that we have huge end of year exams 80 of the mark for a subject and the degree I pursue less valuable also worth to mention I am doing a 4 year MEng, which I believe is impossible in the US making me potentially less employable. Thank you for any input on this matter. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"US Higher education is harder than UK higher education"}
{"id":"576ac739-05a1-475c-bde1-79873c08aff4","argument":"This God is improbable when one considers the possibility of endless rising and fallings of forms and events from a quantum field.","conclusion":"The universe and everything in it is part of an infinite cycle of probabilistic events."}
{"id":"83597216-f600-4498-9daf-fe5e5ee9fce0","argument":"Medicine and it's adminastration should not be marketed on tv because it is not the sort of product that the average consumer can make an informed decision about. Medicine is not marketed by talking about what chemicals are in it, rather they show clips of patients enjoying life while listing a crapload of deadly side effects. Yes it is true that many products are marketed by showing the viewer shots of a general lifestyle that does not really pertain to the product, but the difference is that medicine is far more complicated and can do far more to you than","conclusion":"Medicine should not be advertised on TV"}
{"id":"0c7bf313-5f46-43ab-8209-20eafcfc4b66","argument":"State secrets are censored in the United States on the basis that public availability of such information is harmful to society. The justification for censorship in the above case has nothing to do with the theft of information, but rather the nature of the information itself. Imagine if a news organizations were to independently determine US troop movements in Afghanistan via its journalists in the area. Would the government tolerate public reporting of this information? If we accept censorship on the basis of restricting harmful information, we could use the same justification to suppress the dissemination of 'harmful information in general. I am for this as well. Bear in mind, the arguments suggesting the power of censorship could be abused in order to suppress any information harmful does not invalidate the legitimacy of censorship that is 'good' for society. Slippery slope fallacy, etc. In short people who really believe in absolute freedom of press in America are either misguided into believing that it exists or believe the state secrets shouldn't be censored. Everyone else implicitly supports tolerates censorship.","conclusion":"I am against absolute freedom of press and believe censorship to be justified."}
{"id":"89b4ff19-f2c9-4778-847d-0fb9b55e819c","argument":"I realize I have a bias because I grew up in a big city in Canada and not a single person I knew owned a gun and most law enforcement officers I saw on the street also didn't carry guns and I perceive Canada to generally be safer than the open carry US state that I now live in. I see zero reason to own a gun, not even for hunting. I think hunters should use bows and arrows. I admit I've never been hunting myself. I believe the presence of guns in society makes society less safe and we would all be safer if there were fewer of them and they were far more difficult and expensive to buy on the black market rather than being able to pick one up easily at a gun show parking lot using cash and with no background check. I know that violence can be committed with other weapons such as knives or running someone over with a car. But we have laws about who can drive a car and it's actually more difficult to kill people with such things and less efficient.","conclusion":"Banning citizens from owning a gun would make the public safer."}
{"id":"c88e4ff1-a2c5-4c9c-b38d-3e6f422b7f6e","argument":"There is no denying the contributions and sacrifices black people have made to building society in the countries that celebrate BHM. However, black people are and have been for a while subject to exactly the same laws as all other nationalities. I'm not saying that their troublesome past should not be taught. I simply believe that elevating a race and celebrating their achievements for a period of time, no matter what they may have went through in the past, is unfair in a society that supposedly perpetuates all races as equal. I would take my argument further and say that any race specific services with the exception of those that provide a physiological services health, beauty etc should be illegal as they further serve to segregate that race. However, that's a sidenote and the main point of discussion is BHM. EDIT I agree all those who suggest that Black History Month teaches us about a culture and history that's otherwise largely overshadowed by an education focused on European and American matters. However, my trifle with this is that it's not a multicultural event it's sole focus is on black people. Why not expand to other ethnicities? EDIT 2 I've been introduced to the fact that other months for other ethnicities actually exist. While they seem to be relatively humble in their celebration and focus especially in the UK , considering this is a social arrangement my opinion is gradually being swayed.","conclusion":"I believe black history month is unnecessary and should not be officially recognised."}
{"id":"d181d698-c60f-4828-93f8-6d4f7ddb1b83","argument":"I want sex anytime, anywhere, anyhow and it is messing up my life. I get rock hard and in the mood at the drop of a pin. I just love sex crazy. I have a super high libido but my s o does not. In the beginning everything was good. Sex at least 3 4 times a week. Now it has dropped off. Even when we have the most opportune time, she doesn't want to. I think my high drive turns her off even. I don't want to push her away so I am willing to take medication to lower my drive drastically. It just feels wrong to want to do this. Halp.","conclusion":"I am a 23 year old male with a super high sex drive. I want to lower it with medication."}
{"id":"e53279d3-5bb4-4d8a-a409-42bbb2e9229c","argument":"Please leave the footnote below the following line, but remember to delete this sentence by replacing it with the body of your post. Cremation is the only moral choice of dispensing a corpse,whereas burial is not if you bury someone you subject them to all those changes that happen to your body naturally after death you let their bodies get decimated,rot and eaten be worms its barbaric to do this to a loved one no it doesn't matter if they're dead,its their body,it resembles of them and it should be treated with respect. Cremation is peacefully dispensing someone's corpse,you don't subject it to sepsis,you treat it equally,you allow their ashes to be tarnished throughout the world or to be stored in a safe basket in your home or to a bracelet for you to own and wear that's how we should respect our beloved ones,that's how we should store them in our house as needed,for them to be remembered and glorified. You'd have to respect them and their body as it symbolizes them,so it means that you treat their corpse with respect as it is the extention of themselves cremation seems far more humane,its the only moral choice for you to treat your beloved ones. The fact that religions still advocate for this barbaric practice is sickening whom they claim morality ,in fact that people still allow their beloved ones to be rotten flesh eaten by bacteria is disgusting burial should be outlawed. . gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Cremation Is The Only Moral Choice"}
{"id":"8302a7e8-4b90-4fb5-a3a0-ecc7347b58f6","argument":"I live in Canada where there is an ongoing debate about the value of cultural diversity. Arguments against cultural diversity focus on misaligned values however that's a separate issue. If an individuals values differ greatly from the societies core values then there will be friction. For example, if someone doesn't value the principle of property and steals. Advocating cultural diversity doesn't mean advocating core value diversity. With the distinction between cultural diversity and value diversity, what are some arguments against cultural diversity making society stronger. edit 2018 08 13 14 39 00 UTC I didn't address this in my initial post but my position on cultural diversity making society stronger. Cultural diversity helps foster diversity of thought which promotes innovation. edit 2018 08 13 17 52 00 UTC Addressing common argument that culture does equal values. I'm not denying that there is a correlation between the values of individuals and their culture. I'm arguing that if we are concerned with values, then we should address that directly. Not the presumed values of individuals based on their culture.","conclusion":"Cultural diversity makes a society stronger"}
{"id":"905b7eff-0a20-47f8-bbe2-40e984ba951a","argument":"I was just reading this article and was again reminded of an analogy I have heard a few times before that seems to me correct. If it is the case that it is racist for a white person to be afraid of a black person walking toward them, then it is sexist for a woman to be afraid of a man walking toward her. I have heard this analogy a few times but have yet to hear any good reasons for there being a morally relevant difference between the two cases if one is wrong, so is the other. To be clear, my view is not that women being afraid of men on the street is sexist or wrong. My view is slightly more subtle it is that there is no morally relevant difference between a women being afraid of men on the street and a white person being afraid of a black person on the street. If one is wrong, so is the other.","conclusion":"If white people being scared of black people on the street is racist, then women being scared of men on the street is sexist."}
{"id":"42d463d8-cc9c-4695-952f-235a121c232a","argument":"Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Convention\u2019s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, has been very outspoken in opposition to Trump. He penned an anti-Trump op-ed in The New York Times and made an appearance on \u201cFace the Nation in which he called Trump\u2019s campaign \u201creality television moral sewage.\u201d","conclusion":"Many evangelical leaders have suggested that supporting Trump for president is incompatible with evangelical principles and beliefs."}
{"id":"4c9648d1-b537-45f7-95ac-2a13aea4fce8","argument":"A more productive and democratic way to deal with the divisions is to confront them head-on by allowing diverse viewpoints, so long as these viewpoints are peacefully presented.","conclusion":"No-platforming exacerbates divisions among students because those who support the visiting speaker will feel as if their viewpoints are being shut out by the majority."}
{"id":"8a09d6f9-83f9-431e-aa8f-0a7425ad0bf5","argument":"I think restricting speech in any way is a slippery slope to tyranny, and unfortunately some very very unpopular and unpleasant things need to be accepted otherwise the laws restricting them will inevitably be used to silence people. shouting fire in an crowded building should be ok. While terrible and extremely dangerous I can't bring myself to think it should be illegal, because laws against such things are the exact same laws that silence whistle blowers. \u201cYou cant tell them Enron is a pyramid scheme that would cause a market panic.\u201d I believe it a fallacy to restrict someones speech for what you think might happen and sometimes it needs to happen. To expand on the fire scenario. What should happen? 1 why is the building so dangerously packed in the first place what if there really is a fire? 2 people should probably be skeptical at to some degree if there are no fire alarms or sprinklers or smoke and no one seems to be in immediate danger 3 . people should know enough not to trample. fire drills are common practice why don't people know to exit the building calmly especially when there are no flames in sight. Copy right laws should be done away with. Films and books add nothing of value to the world they are there for pure enjoyment the lack of high quality films wont hurt anyone. If people copied your expensive movie and didn't pay you back maybe you should stop making expensive movies. What happens on the Internet stays on the Internet. This is the unpleasant part I want to get the record striate that I don't support child pornography or rape videos but unfortunately there is no good way to stop them without restricting innocent peoples rights. The crime these images have is indeed a crime and should be punished but the people who distribute it have in fact not done anything to the victim. I wish I could make an exception to that rule for these things but then I'd have to abandon the whole completely unrestricted idea. Is this the right way to think about free speech are there any necessary restrictions? TL DR making shouting fire in an open building illegal is a gag order, gag orders hide corruption. copyright laws protect what is essentially valueless, bad things happen on the Internet but cant be removed without restricting liberty and its distribution isn't physically hurting anyone.","conclusion":"I support free speech even if you shout fire in an crowded building and other things."}
{"id":"e9ed5d4c-cb9f-463a-b9ab-90a43a98079b","argument":"Not all countries are well-developed and have private hospitals\/clinics to treat some long-term diseases or tumors at an accessible price, if a quality public healthcare service is offered, both those who can afford it and those who can't will benefit from it.","conclusion":"Many people suffer poor health and injuries through no fault of their own. They should always be able to receive the necessary health care and treatment."}
{"id":"a466a0ce-0d9c-4ad6-8c32-ea5dbadb0d8c","argument":"There are still many ways for gay people to become parents. Some of them are able to pay for a surrogate; some may have a natural child from a previous heterosexual relationship and then raise the child with a gay partner. In effect, what this law does is make it impossible for two gay people to have legal rights over a child they may already be raising together. These kids deserve the security of two legally recognized parents. If being raised by gay parents is really that harmful, why would the law allow two gay people to raise a child together as parents but refuse to legally recognize them as such? improve this","conclusion":"Where same-sex households exist, they should have equal rights as opposite-sex households."}
{"id":"6209b4ec-75e8-4a59-878b-b520c950430c","argument":"In 2018 26 people owned the same wealth as the 3.8 billion people who make up the poorest half of humanity.","conclusion":"Fair trade has failed to produce a successful or meaningful reallocation of global capital."}
{"id":"6996805d-fa48-4423-9ed1-6dfb66c3c9db","argument":"In Austria, the far-right Freedom Party of Austria almost won the 2016 Presidential election mainly driven by an election campaign about refugees In the previous election it had won merely 15%.","conclusion":"Even if right-wing parties did not win elections, they have been able to use the refugee crisis as a means of galvanizing support."}
{"id":"ce2ec83c-b32c-4167-a5fe-15204d1c350c","argument":"Seriously, guys what's the big deal with having an I.D. to vote? You are legally allowed to be detained if you cannot sport some form of I.D. I think having one in order to vote should have been mandatory in the first place. I think liberals and Democrats seeing this as a Republican scheme to keep away Democrat voters is a ridiculous claim. You need an ID to get a job, drive a car, sign up for Social Security, and needing one to participate in the democratic process is not at all unreasonable.","conclusion":"I do not have a problem with Voter I.D. Laws and haven't heard any opposition that isn't completely laughable."}
{"id":"56c101c0-5f27-4d21-ae21-dd875b259c0a","argument":"Some just released documents from the 90s show that on a couple of occasions President Yeltsin proposed to President Clinton that the US and Russia cease the practice of having the chief executive be continually tailed by the football which is a secure communication system for launching nuclear weapons . I think Yeltsin was right, and the football should not follow the President around, to be replaced with fixed consoles at various key locations for the US such as the White House Situation Room, personal residence s of sitting Presidents, Air Force One, Mount Weather, Nightwatch, etc. The President is able to be in near constant communication with the armed forces as necessary already, and I think removing the football would be both a cost savings, as well as a way of removing some of the psychology of cold war paranoia about nuclear national security. Obviously you'd still have the football available to be brought with the President for things like overseas trips or in the event of heightened tensions where war seems possible. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The US and Russia should get rid of the nuclear footballs."}
{"id":"cb53613c-abd8-4505-8207-76c2e736423b","argument":"All terrorists now are practically famous. Every terrorist found in Paris had their name and picture plastered all over every news channel. Yet, I never once heard someone say we should not be talking about them and naming them on the news. Argument against media coverage of mass shooters And while we are aghast at the frequency of school shootings and the lack of political will to do anything about it, the public continues to crave information about these killers. And news outlets provide it. But there is a theory gaining mainstream acceptance that the way the media report on shootings may lead to more shootings. The thought is that media coverage inadvertently glorifies these killers, which then inspires copycats. Researchers at Texas State University are in the process of studying whether media coverage does in fact lead to more mass shootings, but anecdotal evidence suggests there is some truth to it. Some experts say that airing video footage of shootings can be particularly harmful. But now, against the wishes of a group of Seattle Pacific University shooting victims and witnesses, along with the university itself, the city\u2019s four major TV stations are seeking the release of surveillance video from the June 5 SPU shooting, arguing that the public has a right to the information. Its release is currently tied up in the courts, but if the judge rules in the stations\u2019 favor, the media frenzy around the SPU shooting could be renewed, and a new cycle of violence could continue. Shouldn't terrorists be treated just as, if not more carefully? Every time you put a terrorists face on the news, it shows radical islamists Hey if I join ISIS, I'll be famous","conclusion":"Everyone agrees that media coverage of Mass Shooters has harmful consequences... I think extensive reporting on individual Terrorists should be treated the way, and believe talking about them just creates more."}
{"id":"97d5da3c-9a84-4ad3-b78b-e5af7465ca83","argument":"I am a staunch Bernie Sanders supporter and moderate liberal democrat. I believe in 2nd Amendment rights, but believe that the War on Drugs is failing miserably, healthcare is a joke, Wall Street is destroying America, everyone should have the right to go to college or university without crippling debt, and the election system is rigged from SuperPACs and lobbyists. I don't understand how people could want to vote for Donald Trump when he claims he's a businessman, but has had to file for bankruptcy four times, or so blatantly racist, xenophobic, and self absorbed. But I'm an open minded person, so change my view. Edit Sorry, let me clarify, i just want my view changed from on why i shouldnt vote for Bernie Sanders. I only included Trump because he seems to be making hedgeway and for the life of me cannot see how people cannot see through him but if someone could convince me that Hilary is the better candidate, im open for that too.","conclusion":"I am a staunch Bernie Sanders supporter and moderate liberal democrat."}
{"id":"bc873c88-fd32-4858-83b2-0536accd0941","argument":"prostitutes will now have legal protection against abuse, trafficking, and diseases","conclusion":"Legalizing sex work will make the profession safer for women"}
{"id":"35d1dcec-8187-440c-97e5-625542c2b47c","argument":"Forensic evidence can prove that a person was present at a crime scene or did something there. It cannot prove that a person was not present or did not do a certain thing.","conclusion":"It is much easier to prove beyond reasonable doubt that a person committed a crime than to prove beyond reasonable doubt that they did not."}
{"id":"f6450e18-981c-49b8-9bae-8846adf05196","argument":"Diversity and heterogeneity creates problems. A study of dynasty, empire, and even republic will demonstrate this. A utopian society would then be homogeneous, where conflict does not exist, or is minimized. From a collective utilitarian perspective, what is the ultimate progressive utopia, meaning a society where long term good is maximized for the greatest number? A society without difference, meaning a \u201ctrait pure\u201d society. What is the opposite of progress? Conservation. The opposite of progressivism is conservatism. Conservatism is the maintenance, and romaticization of the past. The way to utterly eliminate conservatism is to destroy the past ie all records of history like books and museums . This way, a society learning towards this utopia can make decisions in a historical vacuum, removing the constraints of past events, effects, morals, and outcomes. From here, the society can begin to clean itself, meaning exterminate everyone who does not fit the selected model for the utopia arbitrarily constructed . With the absence of historical memory, the immoral legacy of say the Holocaust does not exist, and therefore does not affect the decision making of society cleaning itself. Essentially, to create a perfect utopia, a convergence on a homogeneous ideal is required, and therefore, genocide is the most progressive means to achieve the most progressive end. Moralist is absence here because the memory of morality is destroyed with the memory of history. Unfortunately, for this to occur, and to reach the realization that the utopia must be homogeneous, an understanding of history is required. However, history can be erased once the process is begun. Disparities are then removed by a complete devolution of the society to a pre industrial, agrarian society, returning to the original need to fulfill reproduction and existence. At this point, without want or need, conflict is erased existence is limited to an objective, animal like state where the utopia exists simple just to be. Long term shortage is negated by the carrying capacity of the land. Specialization increased food production efficiency which still serves the collective utilitarian ideals of the utopia. But say then specialization is actively thwarted. Is this a Jeffersonian utopia? Granted all the fruits of life ie passion, music, ideas would be missing, but long term utility, as defined as the objective, collective survival of a group, will have been achieved. Assimilation of all people living on the Earth seems like a more palatable, and maybe better solution, and morally it probably is, but assimilation is not guaranteed to clean a society for the utopia the way genocide is. Say assimilation is achieved by the forced mixing of people of different cultures. For example, black men are forced to marry white women to promote cross cultural understanding and thereby forcing assimilation. The offspring would be half black, half white, creating a new group that will have an individual identity, perpetuating the problem of the heterogeneous society. Genocide, on the other hand, is guaranteed to work by eliminating everyone who does not fit the subjectively constructed model for the inhabitants of the utopia.","conclusion":"Genocide is the most progressive means for the most progressive end--utopia."}
{"id":"f41663e9-e162-4dec-9953-821853b3a660","argument":"Female nipple showing would force children and other non-consenting adults to see and be exposed to sexual body parts they should not or do not want to see.","conclusion":"Showing women's nipples in public is detrimental to children, and thus should be restricted."}
{"id":"ae1095c7-3b0d-4957-886f-f8ad22108a5d","argument":"I was asked by my company to participate in a local Dancing With The Stars type fundraiser. I accepted the offer. I am paired with a professional dancer and professional choreographer. The event raises funds for a local arts non profit and it is considered an honor to be asked to participate. I just had my first practice and I am terrified. I am 6'4 and 250 lbs. People generally assume that I must also be strong due to my size I am not. The dance is supposed to feature a lot of lifts and I can barely even lift the dancer once. I also am not good at holding the dancer properly and end up hurting her with every attempt. I am clumsy and awkward when it comes to finesse movements. Please, .","conclusion":"I should drop out of a local \"Dancing With The Stars\" style fundraiser."}
{"id":"b54e2b34-3346-4d80-b76b-0509adc0cc07","argument":"The euro introduced the possibility of a country going bankrupt in their own currency. Yet, it introduced no measures to deal with such a situation. Therefore it is unsustainable.","conclusion":"The eurozone lacks many of the features that typically define an optimal currency area and that create resilient economies."}
{"id":"78d98999-bd1f-4f6f-bb1d-dfe2d787a2ca","argument":"Sexual assault cases often have very little evidence to corroborate the victim's account, and it is therefore extremely hard to meet the high standard of proof in criminal cases. It is necessary to have a system with a lower standard to protect victims.","conclusion":"Internationally whilst levels of reported rape continue to climb, the rates of conviction remain steadfastly low. There are clear, known failings in every aspect of the legal system as it pertains to rape and sexual assault."}
{"id":"89a86855-b5ab-4ec7-8925-f509014af087","argument":"College athletes should be able to make money off of their own likeness. While many people argue against this by saying they get enough of a benefit by being able to get a scholarship, that still is not enough compensation compared to people with other skills. For example, an artist can get a scholarship for being good at art. That artist can go to school for free and sell their paintings and make money off of their skill. There is no reason why college athletes shouldn\u2019t be able to make money off of their own likeness in the free market like anyone else with a skill.","conclusion":"College athletes should be able to make money off of their own likeness."}
{"id":"9f3173fa-d4d6-4cf9-83b7-e5dd618bbd9f","argument":"So my school does this event every year I am a freshman in high school where we spend a day talking about race, and this years one was focused on colorblindness . for those who do not know, colorblindness is treating people the same, regardless of race. The theme of the event at my school was that you must not be colorblind, because that is offensive to the hundreds of years of trauma that minority races have experienced. honestly, I think this is bullshit. I understand that different groups of people have different experiences based on their skin color, but shouldn't we try to treat everyone the same rather than treat non minority people unfairly? I try to live my life so that I don't treat anyone differently on the basis of skin color or race, but apparently this is evil to them. After giving this a lot of thought, I came to this conclusion If it is unfair to treat people the same, and obviously unfair to treat minorities worse because of their identity, then the only option would be to treat them better than non minority people? I think this is the part that would most easily be changed . I am not quite interested in having a conversation about my schools ridiculous viewpoints, rather how I can treat all people fairly. I am open to changing my mind on this, so  apologize for bad formatting or whatever, I don't write things like this ever .","conclusion":"\"Colorblindness\" is a good thing."}
{"id":"4f1449d2-9e46-430b-912a-db64aa8886c6","argument":"Brexit is a complex issue which makes it difficult for voters to make an informed opinion on it.","conclusion":"Some major political decisions require specialised knowledge that the average citizen does not have."}
{"id":"8c19a0a9-74a5-49a6-8763-921d26793966","argument":"The hypothesis is premised on the theory that firestorms will follow a nuclear war. Such fires will inject soot into the stratosphere, where they can block direct sunlight from reaching the surface of the Earth. This premise has been proven scientifically.","conclusion":"Theoretical calculations predict a long period called Nuclear Winter which would render the earth inhabitable leading to extinction in case of Nuclear world war."}
{"id":"f8bc09f1-bb14-4ea6-ad3e-b63e9205174c","argument":"They are usually considered democracies because they have some kind of elected bodies, like parliament, government and so on. So they are considered democracies, despite the royals.","conclusion":"Most of the European monarchies are constitutional monarchies, which are recognized as democracies"}
{"id":"8b6d0f36-eaf1-4e61-805f-8b884d85b4c1","argument":"There is no precise definition of what should be considered crisis, thus it is hard to tell when will he legally be allowed to take dictatorial powers","conclusion":"The President could orchestrate a crisis in order to establish dictatorial control over a nation."}
{"id":"3cac5328-b63a-4ef6-bee8-94d62ff3d7bf","argument":"As the title says, one of my coworkers thinks she's the greatest parent in the world because her child is doing straight As in school, the child is happy with their hobbies, and the child doesn't complain in the slightest. On the other hand, the child is thirteen years old, roughly 5'3 tall, and their BMI calculates to around 32 or so. They're so out of shape and, frankly, obese that they huff and puff for breath after walking up a single flight of stairs. I almost feel like it's child abuse, because allowing a child to get to that point requires months of neglect. Am I wrong?","conclusion":"Childhood obesity is, universally, the result of terrible parenting. My coworker thinks I'm wrong, but is too inarticulate to counter my point. Can you?"}
{"id":"89b88ffb-781c-46b5-a1a2-18e164d4d212","argument":"Religion should not be a protected group. Ideologies aren't, religious isn't deserving of special treatment, because it involves theism or magic or something. Everytime you grant someone a freedom, because they're religious you're discriminating against everyone whose ideologies doesn't involve magic. A Sikh soldier shouldn't be allowed to wear a special hat, instead of his her uniform unless everyone gets to wear a special hat. Also, notion that attacking religion is more offensive than attacking any other ideology, is ludicrous, and I don't like it as a part of any culture.","conclusion":"Religions should get the same treatment as any other Ideology"}
{"id":"ab944221-20ff-4969-8b78-3720b2632f82","argument":"I'm not saying we shouldn't remember what happened, or just let those responsible off the hook or anything, I just think the mass memorials need to stop. I understand grieving if you lost someone, or if you were in close proximity of what happened, etc etc. But its been over a decade. Its time to stop living in the past and start moving forward. I'll forever remember the guys who drowned in the USS Arizona on Dec 7th a significantly larger event, mind you , but we do not need 12 hours of crying and flag waving on TV every year. We've found and killed the man who was leading the party responsible for it. We've decimated a good chunk of their organization. We've spent trillions on a war against terror. Its time to stop and get on with our lives. No more halftime tributes, no more mass vigils, no more showing footage of crying mourners. It happened, its terrible, and its important to remember it, but its over. We have to move on. Edit I'm at work all day so I won't really be able to respond until tonight","conclusion":"I think its about time America got over 9\/11."}
{"id":"22616052-cbef-4cfd-a3e8-0dc1e15ee5ae","argument":"There will be inefficiencies where not all of the taxes translate to actual jobs, which is wasteful.","conclusion":"More government bureaucracy and taxes would be needed to create this program, leading to inefficiencies."}
{"id":"c09b7508-bbd4-44c8-a51f-20362ed6ba65","argument":"Even in a steakhouse\/churrascaria you will be able to order meatless sides such as green beans, a salad or a variety of sides based on potatos.","conclusion":"You can find vegetarian dishes in every restaurant and therefore having dinner with non-vegetarian friends does not impose \"unnecessary burdens\"."}
{"id":"adee53c3-eb3a-4bee-b8c0-e34734a772a1","argument":"The Last Jedi has a side story where Rey trains with an aging Jedi master on a remote planet in a natural setting so that she can understand and control her force sensitivity. The Empire Strikes Back has a side story where Luke trains with Yoda on the swamp planet Dagobah to become a more powerful Jedi.","conclusion":"There are a lot of parallels between The Last Jedi and earlier movies like The Empire Strikes Back and The Return of the Jedi, both thematically and visually."}
{"id":"104a5ad4-ecb2-49b9-8fec-03e68be6a116","argument":"First some you should knows I am a trans woman. I am absolutely supportive of other trans identities, genderqueer identities or Agender identities. Also people who are just gender nonconforming. Full disclosure, I just got out of an abusive relationship with a genderfluid person so my bitterness may be coloring my opinion. Even though I have issues with it, I will always respect a genderfluid person's chosen name and pronouns. I get identifying with another gender, or both simultaneously, or neither. I think the idea of switching back and forth is something really offensive to other trans people though. Identities don't just change. The idea of gender fluidity reducing identity to something changeable or alterable. It reduces identity to changing outfits and I just find it deeply offensive. Perhaps I am overreaching but I can't help but see genderfluid people as trans people afraid to commit, gender non conforming people overly attached to gender norms, or just cis people who want to be part of the trans team. Here's the thing though. I feel like an asshole for feeling this way, but i cant help but roll my eyes when I think of gender fluidity.","conclusion":"Genderfluid isn't a thing"}
{"id":"c3798524-1226-458e-b29a-a01ec4d2df10","argument":"Hello , I know there have been a lot of s about feminism and men's rights and whatnot but I have yet to find one with this specific concern. I apologize if it's out there and I just couldn't find it. I just would like to say that I think that when people say that feminism is detrimental to men's rights they are completely off base with what feminism is about. Yes there are absolutely people who call themselves feminist but don't exactly share the right message . Obviously my definition of the right message is going to be questioned so here is what I believe feminism is about. the equal treatment of men women everyone in between fighting against rape culture and any actions that promote it no special treatment to women because they are more delicate i.e. weaker trying to bring to attention the general attitude society has about women for example street harassment is okay and women should be thankful for being noticed women in charge bossy, men in charge boss women are less capable and when they get upset its because they're hysterical women and their feelings aren't valid I could go on and on about this When people try to say that feminism hurts men, they are mistaking a loss of complete privilege for unfair treatment. I know that there are some people out there who do not believe that feminism means the things I listed, but I'd argue that that is not really feminism. Please , why should feminism focus on the rights of men instead of mostly women? Some of the things I stated directly help men as well gender roles, fighting rape culture . I feel as though when feminism doesn't focus on men, people tend to get upset. Why should someone get upset when a charity for cancer doesn't help a homeless animal shelter? Its not their mission or their purpose. One cause isn't inherently responsible for all causes. Feminism does not hurt men, and it shouldn't be responsible for working towards more rights for men. If anything in my post is offensive to anybody please let me know Thanks edit when I say the equal treatment of men women everyone in between I really should have said something more like women should be treated no differently than everyone else solely because they're a woman edit again I'm not so happy about the way this turned out. It was probably my fault for mentioning things that triggered other discussion. The point I wanted my view changed was just about whether or not it's okay for feminism to focus on women as men's rights focuses on men. I don't think feminism should be expected to tackle men's issues as that really isn't their mission in my mind but everyone is different . I've heard too much about why feminism isn't even needed, how men have it worse, and no one has really changed my view about what I had intended on getting across.","conclusion":"I believe that it is okay for feminism to focus on the rights of women and put men's rights on the back burner"}
{"id":"03d9465f-d369-4855-8411-0547c5630603","argument":"\"France: Headscarf Ban Violates Religious Freedom\". Human Rights Watch. February 27th, 2004 - \"Under international law, states can only limit religious practices when there is a compelling public safety reason, when the manifestation of religious beliefs would impinge on the rights of others, or when it serves a legitimate educational function such as prohibiting practices that preclude student-teacher interaction. Muslim headscarves, Sikh turbans, Jewish skullcaps and large Christian crosses\u2014which are among the visible religious symbols that would be prohibited\u2014do not pose a threat to public health, order or morals; they have no effect on the fundamental rights and freedoms of other students; and they do not undermine a school\u2019s educational function.\"","conclusion":"Wearing head scarves does no harm and violates nobody's rights"}
{"id":"129a2694-eda2-48fb-8538-008c67904cde","argument":"Regarding North Korea, while France and Germany generally favor stronger sanctions, Sweden and Switzerland tend to favor more direct diplomacy. This allows different EU member states to test out different approaches.","conclusion":"The variety of positions taken by EU member states governments indicates that political parties across USE will be incredibly diverse. This will make formation of a government difficult."}
{"id":"c031d67a-413c-48aa-9dbc-0c16a6409015","argument":"Animals show a variety of behaviours which we interpret as human emotion guilt, rage, embarassment, love, which might be anthropomorphising However, we are guilty of doing the same with other humans i.e. other people feel guilt, rage, embarrassment, love same as me, so they are arguably equivalent.","conclusion":"Elephants have been shown to mourn and remember long enough to eventually take revenge on human settlements. This is an expression of free will."}
{"id":"075df443-888b-4e52-a078-eae9f9a63a68","argument":"I think all human life is sacred. Rape babies, feti fetuses, children born to poor families, accidents, twins, planned babies, all of it. I also do not agree with the death penalty, but that's only a related topic I think abortion is murder. The child has life potential and that should not be taken away. I get confused when it comes to doctors are sure childbirth will kill the mother, or especially childbirth will kill the mother and the child will have great difficulties living shortly after birth.","conclusion":"I do not agree with abortion under any circumstances."}
{"id":"5e0aa37a-8a4b-459b-a409-2efe0dd08134","argument":"I think tattoos and piercings take away from their femininity, I want to make it clear I'm not debating looks or body type. To me there is nothing more trashy than a giant piercing through a woman's nose, and a full sleeve. It's not pretty, or cute, it's really scuzzy looking. I have female friends who have artistic designs on their shoulders and arms, and others have cartoon characters. They all look just as terrible. I see tattoos are hugely popular, gaining traction in the work world too, tattoo acceptance is a terrible movement as well. I feel like maybe I'm just not appreciating them perhaps, or maybe there just not doing it for me, but I think in general men and women look really bad with excessive tattoos, and it makes it worse by taking away from women's femininity. Edit I think some things need to be stressed here, I'm open to being proven wrong, but so far all I've seen is the argument that it's just like my opinion man, how I want to control what women do, and how women should be allowed freedom of speech. I never said women should have the right to get a tattoo taken away, I just said I believe it takes away from their femininity. Naturally women with tattoos are going to debate that, I was hoping for something like that but instead I got a bunch of white knighting and pissed off women that took my meaning as to they shouldn't be allowed to do something.","conclusion":"I feel that tattoos and piercings on women is a fad that looks terrible and takes away from their femininity."}
{"id":"b6f9ed35-d168-4a4b-a6c0-db0451f4a055","argument":"Minors have natural autonomy over their bodies and will do certain things regardless of controls inflicted upon them.","conclusion":"Under-age abortions could result in legal debates regarding who has autonomy over a minor's body."}
{"id":"a8fff39d-96ff-4ec0-9d03-7890743c9400","argument":"If you see the news recently, in China the first genetically modified embryo was created and a lot of scientist and governments were against it due to ethically reason, even though the only gene they modified was a very specific DNA that could prevent the baby from having HIV cmiiw . Now I do understand the part where it is unethical to do so because we do not know the extent of removing that very specific gene to the baby\u2019s future. For all we know the embryo could be deformed when he she is born. I agree on having extensive research on that part before actually doing it. What I don\u2019t agree is the fact that it is unethical to edit your baby\u2019s gene so that you could have a better offspring. I mean let\u2019s face it, there\u2019s so many benefit on being able to edit your gene. For example if you and your SO are short, might as well make your baby grew taller than you. Your family have a history of heart diseases? Well let\u2019s change that Before we judge someone from their inside, our first impression of someone would be from their physical appearance and if we can somehow make that into an even plane in the foreseeable future than why the fuck not. Ofcourse this is an open conversation. I would like to know your take on this issue.","conclusion":"I don\u2019t get why is it unethical to genetically modify your baby"}
{"id":"ea5b50d9-9620-420f-87d5-5917c2a18856","argument":"This view has been a result of my personal and professional experience in both the academic and professional industry. I understand their are subjects out there ranging from science, engineering, business, etc that takes time to learn and knowledge in such fields get better with experience and time even when you think you know everything you realize their is so much more to learn. In my personal opinion, all things that can be considered hard or advanced is just an extension of the fundamentals of said subject. Meaning, if you intimately know the fundamentals of a subject, learning the extensions is not as difficult as society makes it to be. I actively believe that when instructors, professors, conference speakers, and anyone who is actively passing knowledge to someone else uses words such as complicated , advanced , complex , hard , it deters majority of people to not even attempt to understand. I have experienced this, for example, when I went to college and took my general math classes calculus I, II, III One of many examples . Some professors would brag about how difficult this subject is, and I remember that it set an initial state in my mind of I can't learn this, it's too hard . Fast forward a few years, I currently work as an R D scientist, and my line of work required me to know at least the basics of calculus, among other subjects, to understand, so I had to teach myself again. A wonderful mentor I had always said to me gt Subject is not hard, ideas and concepts weren't designed to be complex or torturous, but rather attempts to explain an idea that can not be explained in a spoken human language. gt gt My wonderful mentor, Dennis gt gt I am in the scientific field, so this quote refers to that, but I can see how the underlying message is applicable everywhere That mindset that he instilled in me allowed me to tackle everything that I was taught in college or even afterwards before I met him with a completely different mindset. I still don't know everything, and I never will, but my attitude towards whatever material in front of me is easier to digest. I believe this sort of thinking is completely absent in schools and work places, and the words describing a topic such as complex, hard, complicated, advanced is negatively impacting students and adults in their push towards knowledge. I've been to technical conferences, where it seems folks put a conscious effort to sound smarter for the audience. I've been in corporate meetings where the same phenomenon applies, and it pushes people away from tacking new ideas. x200B So, Reddit, am I crazy to think this way? .","conclusion":"Words like: Advanced, Complicated, or Complex is Detrimental to the Learning Process"}
{"id":"fcad652c-bf98-473b-bf4b-3b1f0147ceac","argument":"If students are unable to read \"The Merchant of Venice\" or \"The Great Gatsby\" without triggering a severe traumatic response, then they are likely incapable of living a functional life as an adult in the real world, where many more disturbing and traumatic events occur without warning.","conclusion":"University is meant to prepare and equip young people with the skills to survive in the real world. Trigger warnings are over-protecting students rather than preparing them for adult life which often includes unpleasant and harsh realities."}
{"id":"2db90c2d-5cfd-4461-8d09-82f22dea0525","argument":"It will likely only be possible if the virtual reality is intended for such actions to occur, either as part of a game or to re-enact a past atrocity. In this instance, individuals will have consented to this occurring.","conclusion":"Orchestrating such a huge crime against virtual users rather than just simulations of people is likely to be extremely difficult; it is not in the interests of virtual reality administrators to allow terrorism or genocide in their worlds."}
{"id":"257388a8-bcb0-4b6c-8e60-54209ebbadaf","argument":"Because some sciences are mostly composed of white men there is a homogeny of cultural and gender based bias which can go internally unchecked.","conclusion":"\"Facts\" must be translated through human senses to be documented by science. The senses could be flawed, resulting in a misunderstanding of reality."}
{"id":"9446ba24-cc90-4255-b56d-0fc91890a6c2","argument":"Banning a medical procedure solely on the basis of religious implications is discriminatory and a form of cultural marxism.","conclusion":"Banning circumcision would be an act of discrimination against the religions and cultures which practice it."}
{"id":"97328820-981b-40e2-9ea3-95c19f2cd428","argument":"Sex involves two equally reprehensible people. Each individual agrees to a certain level of risk involved in sexual activity, and each individual is solely responsible for dealing with the consequences. For arguments sake, lets imagine pregnancy is another type of STD, a parasite of sorts. I use this comparison because both STD's and pregnancy are associated purely with sexual activity. Now lets say me and my sexual partner both have consensual sex, and I contract an STD from her. My partner immediately feels terrible about it and insists I get treatment to cure my illness, and if I don't have health insurance she offers to pay half the cost of my medical bills. Now for some reason, whatever it may be, I refuse to treat the disease. I leave it be for 9 months and eventually it gets so bad that I need to go to the hospital. Im rushed into the ER and they have to perform an expensive procedure with 18 years of expensive medication to go along with it. Now, after this occurs, I decide that my partner should have to pay for my procedure AND my medication until I\u2019m all better. Of course, this wouldn't be a supportable argument because my partner clearly did not want the disease to get worse AND she offered to help pay medical expenses for the treatment. So why should she be culpable for what amounted to my own stupidity? She should not be held accountable for my poor decision making. It is the same concept with pregnancy. If a woman is pregnant and her partner does not want her to keep the child, of course the final decision goes to her. Its her body, and she can decide whether or not she wants an abortion. Just like in my hypothetical scenario, I decided whether or not I sought treatment. But if she decides to keep the child, a decision that the man has absolutely NO say in, why should he have to bare the financial cost? If abortion was not a viable option, then I would not be making this argument. But it is an option, just like treating and STD is an option. At least in the case of the STD, one person is more culpable then the other in that one of them gave the disease to the other. But in the case of pregnancy, both individuals are equally responsible. Why should the man have to face a consequence for something he has no choice in? Just like my hypothetical girlfriend should not be responsible for my decision to not get treatment, a man should not be responsible for a child he doesn't want. I believe there should be a form of legal documentation, within the first ~24 weeks of pregnancy, that would absolve a man of any legal or financial responsibility to the child assuming that the female party is in full understanding of his decision. What a woman does with her body is her choice and her choice only, but other people should not have to pay the consequences for her decisions. A man does not agree to fathering a child simply because he has sex with a woman, much like a woman does not agree to having a child simply because she has sex with a man. If a woman decides to keep a child against her partners wishes, then it should be her responsibility alone to deal with the ramifications. If a woman can choose whether or not she wants to be a mother, why cant a man decide whether or not he wants to be a father? A woman forcing a man into fatherhood is no different then a man denying a woman an abortion.","conclusion":"If a woman becomes pregnant, and her partner does not want to keep the child, he should be able to deny any involvement, including child support, on the grounds that he makes his decision during the pregnancy."}
{"id":"6d229bb1-8b5b-472c-86ba-492b06273bdf","argument":"The Republican and Democratic parties have pigeonholed voters. 42 of people are independent voters whose views are not in strict alignment with either party's platforms. A third party candidate actually has higher support than Clinton or Trump among independent voters in some polls Officially, the Commission on Presidential Debates CPD is non partisan. Upon closer inspection, though, the organization has failed its non partisan mission. Currently, candidates outside of the Republican and Democratic parties must obtain 15 approval in 5 national polls to qualify for inclusion which may sound reasonable, but is an arbitrary metric that limits voters to only seeing debates between tickets in the major parties. In order for a third party candidate to even hope for 15 , they would have to have a massive amount of name recognition before ever announcing their candidacy. Even then, it likely will not work. Donald Trump himself could not get into the debates as a third party candidate in the 2000 election, and he is a nominee for president. He also agrees that 15 is too high, along with Bernie Sanders. The national polls used for the inclusion criteria have inherent bias as well Even if the most honest team in the world were conducting them, there would still be a margin of error because every voter in the country cannot be polled however, if this election has shown us anything, the national polls are anything but honest. A recent CNN poll excluded ages 18 34 from their polls entirely 22 of the report . One of the largest demographics in the country totally left out. Your response to all of this may be \u201cThird party candidates are nothing but conspiracy theorists and oddballs. We do not need them on the stage anyway.\u201d Many of them may be odd, but third parties also gave us candidates like Teddy Roosevelt, Ralph Nader, and Victoria Woodhull the first female candidate for president in 1870. Limiting American politics to only Republican and Democratic viewpoints is not just ignorant, it is dangerous to all of us. Put plainly, it severely limits our choices by only allowing only a narrow set of ideas and policies. What is a fair metric for inclusion in the debates? I would argue the laws that are already on the books for ballot access are a fair place to start States set up ballot access laws to be tough for a reason it excludes candidates who do not have the support necessary to run a serious campaign. For example, in most states, third party candidates must have a minimum of 5,000 valid signatures to qualify. This number is very difficult to obtain. Volunteers to collect these signatures must dedicate hundreds of hours, and our ballot access criterion is not even the most rigorous among all states. In fact, there is only one ticket outside the Republican and Democratic parties that made it on every state ballot this year out of the dozens of third parties vying for the presidency Gary Johnson and Bill Weld of the Libertarian Party The only other third party ticket that came close was Jill Stein of the Green Party who is on the ballot in 45 states. Millions of Americans signed ballot access petitions, volunteered, and were polled to be in favor of including these candidates as a choice on their ballots, but the system failed them by limiting their choice. The CPD has a virtual monopoly on debate inclusion that hurts voters. EDIT corrected 18 24 to 18 34 for the CNN poll.","conclusion":"The two party system hurts voters. Candidates with ballot access in all 50 states should be in the debates to keep voters informed of their choices."}
{"id":"2b27f046-3575-4238-a273-ba5301d9cd33","argument":"It is irrelevant whether wave energy can become a large-scale industry capable of competing with big oil, wind, or solar companies. If people think they can make money on wave energy, through any of the various methods that are available, then they should do so.","conclusion":"If people can make money on wave energy, they should."}
{"id":"e3a9b30f-70f1-45cb-bbe3-d9c46f2b3b13","argument":"Trump is perceived poorly on a global stage. Attaching the evangelical message to such an unpopular figure may harm its ability to spread in the future.","conclusion":"Allying with Trump may undermine the evangelical movement and its missions."}
{"id":"be8edae0-218b-4575-b985-6b1085570f58","argument":"Jeremy Hunt's willingness to face the NHS dispute which led to strikes over staff contracts and working hours, shows his ability to tackle problems head on.","conclusion":"Hunt was able to successfully negotiate disputes with NHS workers during his tenure."}
{"id":"3bcdb441-59c4-4656-b5d2-96b77274a81c","argument":"This was somewhat inspired by the post about the Zimmerman case earlier. I live in the US if that helps. Everywhere I turn I see people complaining about how much racism is such an issue these days. Most of the time the people saying this in my experience are hypocrites and usually don't make any effort to change what they're complaining about. I watch them talk about how they are oppressed and slandered by other races, yet they turn right around and do exactly that to other people. I don't necessarily think it's so much even White people being racist these days. Obviously, there are still racist White people, but in my experience it's evenly distributed between all races. When I was a kid I never hated anyone. It didn't matter what race they were or how they looked they were just like anyone else. I played with them and talked to them and they were exactly like me. Of course, I started to grow up and hear things. My family talked about how everyone in their workplace of so and so race acted this way or did that thing or had that attitude. I was fed these pieces of hatred and rolled them over in my still young mind. It made sense to me. I took these biases and used them. I used them to hurt and degrade other humans at a young age. I didn't know the effects of my words. After I had grown more I thought again about these things. Why? Why do I feel this way about this entire group of people? Where did I pick this up? I never used to hate these people, so why did I suddenly start to? This is how I came to my realization. I only picked these biases up from things I had heard, rather than by my own judgment. Only recently have I torn away from these feelings and this is the first thing that I noticed about this subject. So reddit, I offer you to change my view.","conclusion":"I believe that the more we highlight racism in our modern society, the more prevalent it becomes."}
{"id":"33015f35-594e-4d82-a55d-90f447189ab2","argument":"I hear too often people gloating about the charity they do for others. That diminishes the act in my mind. If you're truly giving, you wouldn't need to speak about it.","conclusion":"I think most people only do charity for their self satisfaction. Not for the benefit of those in need."}
{"id":"f873ed19-f0bb-4fb0-bf3a-4a32d173d38d","argument":"People are made to bond during physical intimacy Human bodies are wired to release chemicals during physical intimacy that make people feel connected to the person we\u2019re with. These sorts of relationships are hence unhealthy.","conclusion":"For many, emotional attachment is inevitable, regardless of their initial intent."}
{"id":"f088e225-7cd3-447f-a6da-7347f11af012","argument":"The existence of Liu Xiaobo a prominent critic of Chinese rules, has effectively been wiped out by censorship, preventing citizens from hearing of his calls to reform the government.","conclusion":"Xi has enforced massive censorship programs to consolidate authoritarianism in China."}
{"id":"86286016-626c-4af6-9b26-a3c5e7f6284f","argument":"See this video CGP Grey argues that it could be considered reasonable to decide elections out of a majority of the states, rather than a majority of the people. Meanwhile I'm here wondering how could, exactly, anyone, ever, defend this position. It's weird that I find myself left with no contrary arguments and being completely unable to do the devil's advocate thingy with myself. Mob rule is just as bad whether it's the urban population oppressing a smaller rural population or the opposite. However in the first case at least you have the majority ruling instead of the minority, which is an improvement over the minority ruling the majority. Which is what those who believe states should count rather than people support. I can't conceive how could misrepresenting the will of the people by arbitrarily giving more power to those in the least populated states could ever prevent mob rule. What instead waters down democracy and gives unearned privileges to the citizens living in arbitrary geographical areas. What am I missing here? .","conclusion":"Those who believe that the candidate who wins the most states even if they lose the popular vote should win the election, aren't truly supporting democracy"}
{"id":"ca5d45cb-3f24-471b-8b31-2ef41008f4ed","argument":"Humans are guilty for the ply of gorillas. This makes them responsible to take care and donate for them.","conclusion":"People should donate to organisations that support gorillas instead of to those that support starving children."}
{"id":"9e9df436-303e-42bc-af8f-9caabe5a70e4","argument":"The EU's foreign policy is currently dysfunctional as member states disagree on what needs to be done, with some members trying to emphasise their policies over other members' policies. A unified political union would allow for a single foreign policy that is not deadlocked.","conclusion":"The lack of real union is a weakness used by other international actors such as Russia and China. The division and lack of internal, legal and economic unity, creates serious problems. Weakness of Europe"}
{"id":"7d231633-2077-425d-a5bd-c46f59692e21","argument":"Since the Great Recession, people do not have much choice with jobs, so people should not be punished for something out of their control a rough job market. A UBI corrects for this issue.","conclusion":"With the recent buzz of the gig economy especially for younger people, a UBI would help these people get enough money until more stable work comes along."}
{"id":"c7835a16-39c5-4b6e-aa0b-3e742192005f","argument":"In this day and age, I think naming your kid junior, etc. is unfair to the child and a narcissistic act of the parent who does so I think its a huge honor to name someone's child after someone important to them, living or dead, and to bestow that honor on oneself is ridiculous. Even in the case of John III or Paul IV, etc. There is a factor of obligation that makes the honor carry less meaning Ones name is such a crucial part of someone's identity, and having someone share their name with a parent, in my view , detracts from that. I wouldn't want to be referred to by family members as Little David well into adulthood. It takes away from the childs individuality and may cause confusion amongst people who know both parent and child. We have our surnames to tie us to our ancestors , I don't see the point in naming your child after yourself . anyway cmv","conclusion":"Naming your child after yourself is silly and narcissistic"}
{"id":"1a9af0db-f1c6-480c-9cb8-288d1fdf4abe","argument":"Thanks to religion we have a better understanding of the history of humankind. The knowlege of most ancient civilizations would've been lost if not for their religious expressions Egyptian, babylonian, jewish and our understanding of historical process would be far worse without the critical analysis of the bible.","conclusion":"A great many historical records that preserved knowledge still exist today thanks to religion."}
{"id":"3dee0c80-4cf4-460a-9a86-529b576635bf","argument":"There are many reported stories of a criminal suspiciously following or approaching an individual, the individual becoming aware of the threat, and then exposing their weapon in its holster, pointing to it, or even deholstering it as a means of deterring the further advance of the criminal.","conclusion":"One can reveal a concealed gun in order to deter a criminal."}
{"id":"ea666cbd-ac54-4761-a23d-c23e1cccc006","argument":"When The Fappening happened, media outlets and social justice warriors talked about the massive invasion of privacy which it was , and how ashamed we should all be. However, with the Sony hack, documents have been leaked including Social Security Numbers, Salary Negotiations, Medical Info, Scripts, Emails, and more. Granted, media outlets aren't publishing SSN's for all to see, but they ARE publishing email conversations with reckless abandon. This is not a victimless crime. These people might be assholes but are they not entitled to privacy? I believe that publishing email exchanges makes media outlets complicit in the hacking. Reporting on the hacking data breach is one thing, just like the outlets all did when The Fappening went down, but these companies sifted through massive amounts of data and handed out the juiciest bits served up on a golden platter for the world to see, they did not do this with the celeb photos. I think people will say that nude photos are far more private than emails, but I'd argue that even in the scenario where we agree that Nude photos are more private, it doesn't justify publishing everything that was leaked from Sony. So, in similar fashion to The Fappening, the data is out there and relatively easy for tech saavy people to find and download, but that doesn't mean that media outlets should make them more readily available to the public.  I think this violation of privacy is just as bad as the celebrity photo leak. thanks,","conclusion":"I believe that publishing emails from Sony Execs is just as much a violation of privacy as the Celebrity Photo Leak"}
{"id":"0c980724-859c-4ea0-abcb-184d7474ad96","argument":"Right now, American conservatives are firmly in the camp of inaction when it comes to climate change. Their actual beliefs on it vary from hard soft denialism it's not real it's not human caused , to wishful thinking the effects won't be that bad and we'll adapt , all the way to nihilism it's too late expensive to do anything , but practically all agree that no significant action should be taken to curb it. This is evidenced by many leading Conservative voices, but most prominently by President Trump who has made trolling the left on climate change a regular habit. And conservatives seem to near universally praise him for it to the point that the few who criticize him are aggressively silenced. This is all in spite of the overwhelming evidence that man made climate change is real and could have potentially catastrophic impacts. Whether it's tidal flooding in Miami, historic level wildfires becoming a regular occurrence on the west coast even in years with high levels of rainfall and snowpack , or the fact that 9 10 of the globally hottest years on record have occurred since 2000, even ordinary people can point to things that should convince any reasonable person of this. For this reason, I can only conclude that there is nothing that will change their stance on climate change, at least not in the ~10 year time frame this is the time frame according to the IPCCs roadmap we have to start taking aggressive action to curb it. At this point, they seem to have become so ideologically opposed to action on climate change that it now forms a fundamental part of their identity. I know I've used some rather vague terms here, so let me clarify below Meaningful action According to the IPCC, between 2020 2030, countries around the world need to start doing things like implementing ~ 50 ton carbon taxes, heavily invest in research in clean energy and low carbon manufacturing processes, take Carbon Capture and Sequestration CCS technology from being essentially lab experiments to pulling hundreds of millions of tons of CO2 out of the atmosphere every year, and reach near carbon neutrality for developed Western countries. This is what I mean. Significant federal power Any amount of federal power that could be used to block the passage or implementation of legislative or executive action to the above effect in any of the 3 branches. Essentially, I believe they must become effectively irrelevant. Please Note I am not and do not advocate violence towards or political repression of Conservatives. Rather, I'm saying that meaningful action is essentially impossible in the US because of this. I desperately do not want to believe that so long as ~1 2 of Americans have a relevant political voice, such action is impossible. Please .","conclusion":"As long as Conservatives maintain any significant level of federal power, meaningful action to curb climate change is impossible in the US"}
{"id":"eb0b8b1a-74a4-4e7c-9bc4-29001e5adeba","argument":"European nations cannot rely on the United States to foot the bill militarily forever; US military spending is only partly ensuring EU security and largely protecting purely US interests.","conclusion":"The trans-atlantic alliance with the US has been reducing in strength over the past decade and more rapidly during the Trump administration in the US."}
{"id":"ce7405da-501b-4ee4-87bf-ecbb96ac354a","argument":"Children who are bullied are more likely to experience depression and anxiety, health complaints and lower academic achievement. If homeschooling is what it takes to counteract those things then it is a positive step for the child.","conclusion":"Bullying is one of the principal reasons parents remove their kids from compulsory schooling and begin homeschooling."}
{"id":"1369b442-b663-47f5-93cc-3824e5a788d6","argument":"Most people who identify as women appear female. Attempts to exclude trans women from women-only spaces will require that a person's sex is verified. Such checks are likely to be invasive and intimidating for all women.","conclusion":"\"Women-only\" spaces should be open to anyone identifying as female."}
{"id":"cd0257e3-f4a0-4fe2-bb38-f1a301874472","argument":"If a chicken breaks it's leg because it doesn't feel pain, it continues not caring about it, because it doesn't feel pain. Even if it dies from such an injury, the experience is the same as falling asleep.","conclusion":"The risks of being pain-free are 100% mitigated by being pain-free."}
{"id":"29730e6e-1efa-4923-998f-310857dc5c71","argument":"Everyone now seems to think that one of the next big technologies will be wearable tech, for example the Galaxy Gear or Google Glass or even VR like the Oculus Rift. My key point is that in my opinion, key components of a technology's success includes but is not limited to Ease of Use Usefulness, especially the amount of usefulness gained by using the new tech. I can't see wearable tech ever developing past these two. Taking the examples included before, the Gear is just a toned down smartphone so less useful on your wrist which to me seems to be harder to use . Google Glass includes no new features over technology that we have already apart from the fact that you wear it, but to me this just makes it less convenient to use. The rift was interesting but just a massive hassle to use for anyone for what I consider a gimmick. That about sums up what I think about wearable technology it's a gimmick. While trends are effected by 'coolness' of the trend, I don't think that can be a core part of it, since if something like Google Glass were to be worn by everyone, that would disappear. , Reddit edit I would like to add that I realize other wearable tech is out there other than wristwatches and such, but I can't see it developing to a point where the technology really gains anything out of being worn.","conclusion":"I don't think wearable technology will ever take off."}
{"id":"b9e74569-2990-4c2e-91da-a9b4ef4092d3","argument":"The enormous cultural reach of the US means that media in foreign countries tend to devote lots of coverage and attention to American domestic issues. Often this mean that political trends in America are followed by similar trends in Europe and elsewhere.","conclusion":"The US is considered a model democracy and capitalist country. As a result, other countries often tend to model policy based on legislation in the US."}
{"id":"823c7063-85d3-441b-b046-6bfa698011e4","argument":"Workforce diversity increases creativity within a company because heterogeneous groups are cross-fertilizing one another within the organization.","conclusion":"Contact with people from other cultures helps to broaden the mind and fight stereotypes."}
{"id":"c2877de9-a85f-4215-8370-5b223583959f","argument":"Water pipes are expensive, need constant maintenance, and the amount of pipes needed to get water to some parts of Africa is tremendous.","conclusion":"Water is different from other commodities that get transported from country to country"}
{"id":"158696ec-2941-4c6e-848a-def567df4de4","argument":"Sharing the same bills and coins created conveniences that do not want to be lost","conclusion":"On the other hand, the shared currency did unify the member states."}
{"id":"076e4770-33df-4855-b05f-71e0f6be2022","argument":"My view comes mostly from my understanding of history. I believe that flying any of the various Confederate Flags including the Stars Bars, Stainless Banner, Blood stained banner, the Naval Jack, or the various confederate state flags is no different than flying the flag of Nazi Germany. Why do I think this? The Confederate States of America and Nazi Germany were both founded with racist philosophies and beliefs as their cornerstone ideologies. Many people object to this, but the fact state otherwise. Consider the following quotes. The first, from Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens emphasis mine gt The constitution, it is true, secured every essential guarantee to the institution while it should last, and hence no argument can be justly urged against the constitutional guarantees thus secured, because of the common sentiment of the day. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the \u201cstorm came and the wind blew.\u201d gt Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea its foundations are laid, its corner stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. Slavery was not just a side issue to the Confederacy. It was the central issue. It was in Alexander Stephens' words, the cornerstone issue. Second, the Declaration of Causes of Seceding States. The word slavery appears in Georgia's declaration twenty six times. Mississippi's declaration makes it clear gt Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery the greatest material interest of the world. South Carolina's declaration laid the following complaint against the Federal government and non slaveholding states gt Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection. Texas gt That in this free government all white men are and of right ought to be entitled to equal civil and political rights emphasis in the original that the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations while the destruction of the existing relations between the two races, as advocated by our sectional enemies, would bring inevitable calamities upon both and desolation upon the fifteen slave holding states. This is my chief argument. Since it is undeniable that the Confederate States of America was formed explicitly to preserve the institution of slavery and to push the idea that black people were inferior to white people, this legacy carries through and taints her symbols, songs, and other cultural elements, just as the racist policies of Nazi Germany has tainted otherwise non related symbology, such as the Swastika and the toothbrush mustache. Fair or not. Justified or not. The association taints the symbology. To deny that it does so in the case of Confederate symbology but agree that it taints Nazi symbology is to apply a double standard. I will now address possible objections Objection 1 The flag known as the Confederate Flag today was not the actual Confederate Flag To be clear, I am talking chiefly about what is known as the Rebel flag While it is true that the Rebel Flag was never the Confederate national flag, it's association with the Confederacy and no other political body is undeniable. The Design of the Rebel cross appears on every Confederate national flag save for the original Stars and Bars which was only used for two years . And the Rebel flag is actually very close in design to the Confederate Naval Jack. To argue that it is not the Confederate Flag is to make a pedantic assertion. While it may not have been the Confederate Flag, it certainly was a Confederate Flag. Objection 2 It has no association with racism today. It's about southern pride Someone failed to notify the Ku Klux Klan of this, as this photo was taken just earlier this year And the association isn't a new thing, either. In fact, here's a picture of a variation of the Nazi Flag being flown by a member of the same group flying the Confederate flag. Here's a picture of the flag being used to intimidate African American students during the Selma march. There is a clear pattern of the Confederate Flag's association with racism from it's very inception to the modern era. Objection 3 Racist Groups fly the American Flag, too That's true, but the Stars and Stripes has largely ducked that association, considering it hasn't represented a nation with legalized slavery in over 150 years. Lots of different people of different belief systems fly the U.S. Flag. It was the flag flown by the nation that fought the Confederate States. Objection 4 The Civil War Wasn't About Slavery, it was about States' Rights Most people who use this argument omit the fact that what they really mean is that the Civil war wasn't about the morality of Slavery at first . That is true, but, the state declarations from which I quoted above outline the situation very clearly. The two main issues that sparked the war are as follows Slavery in the Territories. The Confederate States wanted slavery to spread to the territories. The Union States did not. This was the central issue in the 1860 election. Non Slaveholding states not returning runaway slaves to their masters. Under Article 4 of the Constitution, runaway slaves were still the property of their masters even in non slaveholding states, and those states had an obligation to maintain the arrangement and return slaves to their masters in the south. Several northern states simply quit doing this. Slave masters could not travel to the northern states without having to worry about their slaves escaping. Essentially, the south had legal justification to object. The government was not following the constitution. Granted, today we now see the higher moral obligation in violating the constitution in this manner, but things weren't so cut and dry back then. Even though the war was not about the morality about slavery at first, it was still very much about the business of slavery, and how slave and free states would interact. The Civil War was inevitable because the nature of the original constitution could simply not hold a half free, half slave nation together forever. Objection 5 It's about Southern Heritage Tough. Germany has managed to erase the Nazi era from its national heritage. Germans do not look back upon that era with misty eyed romanticism. If Southern Heritage is something to be proud of, than the south can create new symbols and grasp upon different elements of its history. Heritage can be altered. The Germans did it. The South can do it, too. In closing, the historical taint on the Confederate Flag is equivalent to the taint on the Nazi Flag. Therefore, flying the Confederate Flag sends the same message that flying the Nazi flag does.","conclusion":"I think flying the Confederate Flag is the Equivalent of flying the Nazi Flag"}
{"id":"12e3e207-1353-406b-a875-c4ffe451a9a7","argument":"The world's wealthiest nations were responsible for chopping Africa into a bunch of nations populated by a group and governed by a rival minority armed to retain it's control over the majority, they also erased plenty of the local culture, history and knowledge. This created the cycle of poverty Africa now faces and the refugees running away from their countries are Europe's responsability. The United States has always had a sphere of influence and a relationship of control dependence with Mexico, influencing it's economy and politics as it is more favorable to them. Also, half of what used to be Mexico is now part of United States. The flow of Mexican immigrants is consequence of that sphere of control. The creation of Israel without the creation of Palestine after WWII, the Middle East power gap created by the United States and other First World Nations, and the supply of weapons and training given to rebel groups by those countries, together with other Imperialist actions, empowered extremists creating the unstable environment we now see, so the conflicts on the Middle East are the Occident's fault. The refugees and the terrorist attacks are consequences of the actions of the West, so they should take responsibility over it, instead of pointing to enemies of their own creation to blame for those. Change or broaden my view.","conclusion":"The Immigration Issues Europe and USA are facing are entirely their fault and they should bear the consequences"}
{"id":"db5dd913-b7c0-492d-af70-797f4856afc9","argument":"The battle: 6:31 - The Enterprise moves behind the Reliant, 6:50 they fire and are clearly still moving but miss, 6:56 - Reliant fires on the move and misses. 7:03 - Kirk orders Saavik to hold her course. This wouldn't be necessary if it was stationary. 7:18 - Enterprise is clearly still moving forward slowly. 7:28 - Kirk orders hard to starboard, to avoid a collision. 7:33 - Reliant is still moving forward too and scores a hit on the Enterprise which is still manoeuvring.","conclusion":"Nearly all the shots were on the move. Though both ships are travelling at slow or comparative velocities, they are still moving. The battle in the Mutara nebula 6:03, 6:11 - Both ships are clearly seen moving at different elevations. To get back in arc they would clearly have to move. As they can't detect each other it would be illogical to suggest they just suddenly stop. 6:18 - The Enterprise is clearly turning\/banking to remain in the nebula."}
{"id":"c848146f-b11d-4ee8-b199-cfe4a4beb1ee","argument":"We can't trust people to always disclose their STI's or if they have AIDS. In order to stop the spread of AIDS, people that are diagnosed with it must get a tattoo in a standardized visible area on their pelvic region. It should also be illegal to remove or hide the tattoo, and it should be illegal to not administer the tattoo if the patient is diagnosed with HIV AIDS. I personally believe that patient's diagnosed with genital herpes and other life long STI's should be legally forced to get the tattoos. Why would the government do this? To protect us. It's the basis of social contract theory, we give up so easily of our rights, so that they can protect us. Sure this may take a new area of our privacy away, but it's a compromise I'm willing to make. Another benefit of this is the fact that people wouldn't have to ask these types of questions before having sex. Wouldn't people just get rid of the tattoo in some way or another? Well, if the tattoo was always in the same location with a standard application, people would know where to look for it. If there were any burns or marks there, people could discern for themselves if the area had been tampered with. Of course, people would begin offering black market laser tattoo removal, but the government would try to hunt down anyone doing so just like they do with other black market operations. Also, when people get diagnosed, it will permanently be in their medical records. Whenever they go to the doctor, it will be checked to see if the tattoo is still visible. Of course people can cover their tattoos with makeup, but sexual partners can easily rub the area if they are concerned. Wouldn't this sexually shame citizens? With 1 6 people having herpes, you won't feel so out of place. On the first days of this law being enacted, everyone with a diagnosis will be sent a letter that will inform them of a mandatory appointment to get their tattoo. When the nation sees the amount of people with these STI's and diseases, they will recognize the fact that we need to prioritize getting rid of the ailments over risking shame. Wouldn't people stop going to doctor's for diagnosis? Perhaps, but in the case of HIV AIDS, I think people would prefer to get the tattoo over risking death sooner. In the case of herpes, I think this is a valid concern. Which is why I'm here trying to hear differing views. I would hope that these tattoos would undermine the public's shame attitude towards these ailments, and that people wouldn't be afraid to get such tattoos. I would love to hear differing opinions and hopefully change my view, since this will probably never be put into law. Edit Opinion changed I realized that this method is too totalitarian for religious groups. However, I'd still love to hear more differing opinions below. I come from a country where 17 of adults have HIV AIDS, and I'd love to hear alternative, but similiar methods to reduce the spread of AIDS below. Thanks y'all.","conclusion":"People that are diagnosed with HIV should be legally forced to get a tattoo on their private area indicating their diagnosis."}
{"id":"0bd97e80-e2f8-4e7e-93f6-f9df86cba9b3","argument":"Females are the only sex that can birth children. Therefore males and females are inherently unequal, from a biological standpoint. This means their value in society is different than that of males. Any consideration of conscription for males or females must take this into account, considering how important reproduction is to the survival of a population.","conclusion":"Women already have to shoulder other burdens, for example that of giving birth."}
{"id":"e8c80601-96fb-477f-a49d-f4ae55066854","argument":"A class action lawsuit filed against the Beto for Texas campaign claims the organization sent text messages to Texans without obtaining their permission, violating the Telephone Consumer Protection Act.","conclusion":"O'Rourke's campaign strategy in the race against Cruz left many voters annoyed."}
{"id":"0bd70b9d-c264-4e7c-af36-0eeb6be69e74","argument":"Concentrate on the post and not the title for this one because I couldn't really condense it down to a concise title. This one is a bit trivial but it's an honest view I've held for a while although I've never really put it down in detail before. First of all, the international pool is at least 4.75 million for each team, mostly spent on 16 19 year olds from the dominican, Venezuela, Mexico and other baseball playing countries. You can trade for more international money up to 10 million and you can sign as many guys as you want for 10k or less each. The deals for the major guys are usually done years in advance unofficially like at age 14. Guys signed for very small amounts do go on to be superstars. Ronald Acuna for example signed for 100k. Obviously, you would want to still sign guys in these countries and concentrate on these countries, however the guys with loud tools are shaking hands on deals at 13 14. In my opinion, there is another avenue to grab guys with big tools. The tools are power, hit contact, speed, arm and fielding. In my opinion, it is possible to quantify raw power, speed and arm without ever playing baseball. The key to me is to concentrate on countries where people play stick and ball sports. The two I would concentrate on would be Hurling Ireland and Cricket Several Caribbean countries, India, Pakistan, UK, Australia, New Zealand . Of those countries, I'd look at Ireland, Pakistan, India and the Caribbean countries as they have elite athletes playing stick and ball sports. Also, except for Ireland, they should have more signable players. Remember, everyone under 10k is 'free'. I want the Irish players because hurlers have the most baseball like swing. I want stick and ball sports because they are simply used to swinging and they will have wrist strength and hand eye coordination. What I would do is hold tryouts. They have to have played stick and ball sports, and they will be allowed several practices to get used to swinging a baseball bat. They would do a combine to establish speed and arm strength and agility. Finally, we'll measure exit velocity on machine pitching and pretty vanilla pitching. We are basically looking for elite exit velocity. The kind of tool that gets signed up at 14 in the dominican for 3 million. Whoever has a good combo of those tools or just absolute elite raw power potential, sign them up. Set a max of 50k but try to sign as many as possible for 10k or under. Give yourself 2 years to teach them how to actually play baseball in the complex back fields. Then cut the ones that don't make it and keep the others and see how they do in real games. They would have 5 years after that to actually make it to the show. 1 win above replacement is worth about 8 million on the free agent market. I think this could be done for under 1 million a year and I'm pretty sure we could unearth at least one major leaguer in 8 years. Change my view Edit thinking about it more it would cost a lot more than a million a year maybe 2 or 3. But still worth it for the upside I think. Edit 2 or even just have them hit off a tee. Edit 3 I\u2019ve actually thought about this more and I\u2019ve two objections that might be immediately insurmountable. Firstly, I\u2019m not sure if teams would be allowed to do this. Looking into international signings in Latin America, there seems to be tight controls on access. Secondly, I don\u2019t think 10k would be enough to convince athletes to leave their homes to come to America to play a game that they know nothing about it and are 8 years away from maybe making money at.","conclusion":"Baseball teams should look outside baseball playing countries for new players"}
{"id":"a246945d-fe89-4ae5-b65a-b9743e1fdd00","argument":"Our legislators pass laws based on policy. If the reason behind criminalizing drinking and driving is to, say, prevent a drunk driver from running a red light and T Boning another car, or swerving into someone's yard and damaging their property, or running up on the sidewalk and hitting a pedestrian, then why do we need to pass a law against drinking and driving? ALL of the things other than the actual act that the policy seeks to prevent are already made illegal by other laws. Why do we need a law that makes a the act of driving while drunk illegal? Because drinking and driving makes you statistically more likely to injure another person? Well shit I'm male. Statistically, I'm more likely to commit the crime of assault, better lock me up because I'm statistically more likely to assault someone. Similarly, the policy behind criminalizing drug use I'm considering every currently illegal drug here is to prevent people from, robbing a store to support their cocaine habit, or shooting up on heroine and neglecting their children because they're too doped up to take care of them, or getting so jacked up on meth that they run through the mall naked screaming, I'm batman. Notice a trend here? All of the things that our law makers are trying to prevent with these laws are already illegal. Why criminalize the act that makes a person statistically more likely to break other laws? Seriously I don't understand victimless crimes","conclusion":"I don't think drinking and driving or drug use should be illegal."}
{"id":"de8402dc-a06a-4c63-9a4c-8459c02adc39","argument":"This is a rather simple and possibly simplistic philosophical view of mine. I am of the belief that one's conscious experience is the only thing to which they have direct access. It seems to me that all knowledge is derived from observation, and observation must pass through the filter of conscious sense experience. Therefore, any claim about the objective world implies first that the subjective world exists. I have only had the opportunity to express this at length to people who more or less already agree, or to people who disagree but have not had the time to prepare a strong defense. So I would love to listen and perhaps have my view changed by others who believe there is more evidence for the objective world than for the subjective world.","conclusion":"There is More Evidence for the Subjective World than for the Objective World"}
{"id":"603836df-88a3-4b14-bdc1-feeace7518c9","argument":"When people think of the old, the first thing they think of is this old man walking on a cane giving advice. Mccain isn't exactly on a cane but he is experienced and wise.","conclusion":"Age as a stereotype that should not be used against McCain."}
{"id":"8f25afdf-cc20-4635-a64e-4342bba66b13","argument":"A white friend gave me also white a beautiful silk salwar kameez with gold thread embroidery, suggesting that I could wear it to a formal party or ball dance. My only connection with Indian culture is that I do yoga learned mostly from white people and a few casual work friendships. I was touched by the comment I read somewhere, My culture is not your prom dress , and I feel like if I wear it to some event, it would be quite disrespectful. Even though it is beautiful, and I wish the idea of dress over leggings or pants would take off in Western fashion. Where do I draw the line between fashion and cultural appropriation? gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"It is cultural appropriation for a white woman to wear a salwar kameez"}
{"id":"d21cf874-5cad-45e9-a5d4-c95b1461cca6","argument":"If you're not familiar with the story, Ethan Couch is a 16 year old who killed four people and injured two others because he was drunk driving. Now surely, someone who kills four people is going to be sentenced to a long time in jail, right? Wrong. Ethan Couch will never see the inside of a jail cell. He will be going to a drug treatment program and be on probation for ten years, because he's rich and allegedly suffers from affluenza, a condition that rich kids allegedly get when their parents fail to set limits for them. I think that that's a terrible reason not to send someone to jail. How about we send Ethan Couch to jail? That way, he sees that his actions have consequences and doesn't kill four more people, the families of the victims get closure, and society in general sees that being rich doesn't automatically mean you can be irresponsible.","conclusion":"I think Ethan Couch should have been sent to jail."}
{"id":"55ea2968-9ef2-4306-bbfd-e6ae6907cc13","argument":"Introduction of a carbon tax forces higher prices on products directly or indirectly by increasing operating factor costs. This tends to weaken the current account position of the country. Demand for exports would be expected to fall, while import demand would be expected to rise with import prices relatively more attractive following the unilateral adoption of the tax. This leads to a reduced ability of domestic firms to compete for domestic and foreign market share pg.68","conclusion":"A carbon tax would make European goods and services less competitive in international markets."}
{"id":"b9334068-8de9-4024-bf3a-0836c515f52f","argument":"It is hard to imagine something when the imagination goes too far, I will keep the ideas, reasoning, and technological advancements that could make this a reality within the next 20 to 30 years. First the recipe Free energy Free water Free food Free living space Guarantee of safety These are the things we need to live, we need water, food, shelter, and add to that power for our electronics, and then the safety to live this way with no reason to fear from others. Imagine a city, not like any you know or ever seen. This city is geared towards the advancement of the human race as a whole. It has been designed from the ground up for automation, for security, for safety, for science. Everyone is guaranteed a living location, an apartment. How is this all kept in line is simple. The energy problem is easily solved with Fusion reactors. The water one is easily done with desalination plants. The food one with vertical farming and Genetic modification. The safety with AI. Imagine all in this city is controlled by AI's , several of them, they are your personal assistants, drivers, nannies, teachers, security, janitors, miners, workers, etc. Crime is virtually unlikely to happen for two major reasons, one crime comes out of necessity. In this city you already have what you need, food, water, clothing, living space and you pay nothing, the concept of paying is archaic. Second the AI's are always watching and listening monitoring. If you fall down the stairs, slip in the shower, cut your finger chopping fruits, break a nail, have a nightmare, feel sad, lonely, depressed, they will know. They always know where you are, where you are going, and what you are doing, you could not hurt others because they would not let you do so. Edit Addendum Humans are taught from a very young age to 1 be nice to other humans AIs 2 trust the AIs 3 cause no harm Now imagine an entire planet covered with cities just like that one. some are fully automated cities, no humans. They are designed to gather the resources for three or four other human cities. I also believe that the psychology of individuals is up to the teaching from young child to late teenager. the AI's take care of that. For the sake of argument the AI's were designed and created by other AI's with the template of being assistants of humans with the task to minimize conflict in between humans. They are for all effects and purposes incorruptible or hackable.","conclusion":"Idealistically 'perfect' World Scenario"}
{"id":"aecaa253-e462-46c0-b49d-eb93a689cbab","argument":"Nevertheless, the risks should be restricted to voluntary participants of trials and not be imposed on involuntary participants.","conclusion":"Clinical trials are not as dangerous as is commonly assumed."}
{"id":"fcc34823-c1ce-4de1-9f6c-69cacf62b357","argument":"In the 1980s, Michael Jordan was notorious for not being more politically outspoken. When asked why, he responded: Because Republicans buy sneakers, too. This spawned the era of the corporate athlete, where making money and earning endorsements took precedent over being politically active.","conclusion":"LeBron has been more vocal when it comes to politics and race than Jordan was when he played."}
{"id":"e829914c-513d-45a1-89d0-21f9d207ad60","argument":"Slavery is one of the cornerstones of America's rise to become a global power. It lay at the core of its cotton industry, which was \"the world\u2019s most widely traded commodity at the time\" and thus underpinned America's economic modernization and large-scale industrialization.","conclusion":"Without slavery, America might not have become as prosperous and powerful as it is today - and Black Americans might be worse off in absolute terms than they are now."}
{"id":"d5a0795a-fe00-44c2-bea2-5e8c50f746ec","argument":"First of all, I eat meat. In fact, I eat more meat than most of my friends. I have some friends that are vegetarian and vegan and I admire them for it, but I don't think I could ever do it because 1 I just love the taste of meat too much and 2 I'm already fairly underweight and I worry that I would become dangerously so if I tried to cut out my main source of protein. However, I still believe that eating meat is morally wrong. Because people in wealthy countries have the ability to substitute vegan foods for meat without significant health consequences, there is no logical reason to continue to eat dead animals. If killing something can be avoided, it should be. Just because other animals don't have the same intelligence as humans does not mean that it is morally permissible to kill them. And to people who would ask me if I think animals eating other animals is morally wrong, I think that the fact that we are aware of other options for food and have the ability to switch to them makes us unique and more responsible for our food choices than them. Having said that, I'd love for someone to change my view so that I don't have to feel like I'm betraying my morals every time I eat meat.","conclusion":"Eating animals is morally wrong."}
{"id":"d6a6c20d-c82b-4c84-9746-f52edc7d506e","argument":"The non-existence of God is consistent with widely accepted views on the deities of dead, or fringe religions. If all other gods are mythological and created by man, then likely all gods are.","conclusion":"The world is full of good reasons to believe in the lack of any God as defined by classical theism."}
{"id":"ec9864f8-f78f-45db-aeb4-eb58650298f8","argument":"Secondary sex characteristics that develop during puberty can be much more difficult to remove in adulthood.","conclusion":"Some surgical procedures are much more difficult to perform on a fully mature adult."}
{"id":"cd14628b-80c6-42bf-aaca-442169649ae2","argument":"I can't say how many times I've heard political argument end rather, not even begin in Donald Trump is an idiot. Like him or not, I don't think anyone whose job is to oppose Donald Trump believes he's an idiot. David Axelrod himself says Donald Trump is a strategic genius and ought to be taken very seriously. That said, I think Trump does this on purpose. I think he wants his opponents to think he's an idiot. One, because that's what he says he does in his book. Two, because then they don't criticize him heavily they don't get into the weeds and the details, where he really doesn't have much of a plan. Trump is no idiot. But he wants his opponents to think he's an idiot. Then they don't develop stronger criticisms against him.","conclusion":"Trump is NOT an idiot, but he wants his opponents to THINK he's an idiot, because it diminishes the QUALITY of their criticism."}
{"id":"f87f2121-511d-4b67-91be-cf95237ecd89","argument":"Scientists are human beings with egos and ambitions. They compete with each other for recognition, awards, research grants and promotions, e.g., professors and researchers in universities obtain tenure, promotion or awards if they have a good track record of publications in prestigious research journals. These are political activities.","conclusion":"Academic and industrial contexts expose scientific research to political influences."}
{"id":"515c1948-75b5-4816-829b-02c4020afd97","argument":"I'll start by describing what a sensitivity reader is, because it always come up in the discussions I've read so bear with me a little. As far as I can tell, a sensitivity reader is a literary editor who flags controversial content, specifically on issues like race, religion, etc, for possible revision. I'll link a few of the descriptions I found pretty level headed, but the sense I got is that they're sort of like a research consultant for when an author is writing out of their depth for example, how a Japanese sensitivity reader might be hired by an author who knows nothing about the lived experience of being Japanese. I don't have issues with sensitivity reads for purely research purposes. To me, that's not really different from John Lasseter going to Ford to improve the animation for Cars , or the makers of Interstellar bringing in physicists. I can rationalize that. But the more common sensitivity editors become, the more their power over artistic creativity concerns me. There's recently been more than a few cases of authors delaying rewriting or outright cancelling their books after advance copies were maligned on Twitter for stereotyping or apparent misrepresentation. I want to highlight the American Heart and The Continent cases especially in both instances, the books themselves earn glowing reviews from Kirkus or Publisher's Weekly, then YA Twitter blows up with accusations of racism and the writer delays the book to rewrite with sensitivity editors. I assume the same will happen for Blood Heir , which should be fresh for those of you who follow the YA world. While I don't want to conflate my issues on callout culture with my issues on sensitivity readings, it seems to me after scanning a few of these articles that sensitivity editors are used increasingly, in part, either in anticipation of social media furor, or after the fact. I can't directly prove this, but I'd direct your attention to Scholastic's comment here Slate's article here particularly Roderick's comments , and the NPR interview with the American Heart author. Maybe you'll draw different conclusions. I guess, to summarize, my concern is that in order to placate social media, publishers who receive submissions with controversial content will lean heavily on their authors to accept sensitivity reads. In turn, sensitivity readers will wield vastly more authority in turn, they become not research aids, but gatekeepers of cultural acceptability. On one hand, sensitivity reads are used mostly in YA Lit, and there's an argument there that sensitivity should be prioritized given the audience. Furthermore, if an author sets out to write about a minority, it could be a positive to ensure their writing is as accurate as possible. Yet it's not too hard to imagine sensitivity reading to become more widespread across the book industry for the same arguments. And on the other hand, shouldn't fantasy authors who are clearly not writing about our world be allowed more creative license, particularly on race and religion as they might develop in a different universe? Or can't stereotypes be in place, emphasized even, if they are put to use for literary enrichment? Part of the power of Merchant of Venice is that Shylock looks like a grubby moneylender. I suppose these are questions of whether sensitivity readers are able to suss out authorial intent, but truth be told, I'd rather leave authorial intent specifically up to the public to judge over a panel of readers. Imagine how Lolita would be treated. Francine Prose makes the case against sensitivity readings more eloquently than I do, but other classical works come to mind Would Random House have published Blood Meridian without asking Black and Latinx sensitivity readers for approval? Would sensitivity readers approve of the white savior narrative in Huckleberry Finn ? Anyhow, I'd like to hear your thoughts.  x200B Edit Thanks so much for your thoughts, you've certainly given me a lot to think about. I have to head to my part time, but I'll try and respond when I get back.","conclusion":"Sensitivity readers stifle challenging and provocative art, and widespread acceptance in the book industry would amount to pre-publication censorship"}
{"id":"7c393c0a-feb5-4adc-9efd-01244b632db6","argument":"Cardi B for whatever idiotic reason decided to say that she used to drug, trick, and rob men in hotel rooms when she was working as a stripper. However there is no corroboration on if these statements are true or just hype or a weird flex . I absolutely think that she should be called out on her statements and she should at least apologize and say that it the actions and statements was wrong. However, I don't think that it's the same at all to compare it to other men who have drugged and raped women. Most of my reasoning on this is because to date from what I'm aware of there is no one coming forward to say that they were victims of crimes. No one is making accusations against her, she did it out of desperation and afterwards she stopped. I'm not saying that makes the actions okay, but she's not drugging and raping people over decades or using her status to rape or take advantage of men. There is a clear difference between a man wanting to have sex with a stripper, they do drugs or are drugged and they have sex , compared to an actress who is pressured into, forced or drugged to have sex with someone she would never have sex with. Please note that I am not excusing her behavior statements. I am not defending her behavior or statements. I am simply stating that at this moment for what we know about this situation it is not the same or even similar to the severity of sex crimes committed by men with or without a similar status . I urge any person who was ever molested or raped or otherwise sexually assaulted to please tell someone, whether it be a parent, guardian, sibling, teacher, counselor, anyone you can trust. To anyone who may feel an urge to commit a sexual assualt, please talk to a therapist or counselor before an action is committed so you can get the help you need. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Cardi B's remarks are disgusting, but people are falsely comparing it to drugging and raping committed by men."}
{"id":"6652347a-0288-49e2-856f-017be9be0283","argument":"As Chandra Talpade Mohanty wrote by pushing for development, the West is saying that \u201cthird world women as a group or category are automatically and necessarily defined as: religious read \u201cnot progressive\u201d, family-oriented read \u201ctraditional\u201d, illiterate read \u201cignorant\u201d, domestic read \u201cbackwards\u201d, and sometimes revolutionary read \u201ctheir-country-is-in-a-state-of-war-they-must-fight!\u201d.\u201d","conclusion":"Mainstream feminism has adopted a conception of 'Third World women' which conflates a large group of women from very different socio-economic and cultural backgrounds."}
{"id":"260fbfdd-3213-4ab7-b9b9-22c459071f40","argument":"Arguments that seek to justify restricting our concern to our own species could be extended to justify restricting concern to members of our own cultural, religious, or racial groups. This conclusion is clearly unacceptable.","conclusion":"We should not arbitrarily restrict our circle of concern to certain groups."}
{"id":"dd8d83cf-f982-4a01-baad-4fe215ced0a7","argument":"On the condition that the U.S. opens up more jobs program facilities like Work2Future, of course, so that people can get into fields they actually want to work with some assistance. I'm of the camp that doesn't fear automation and instead embraces it. My job can automated and I work for a tool rental company. When I left fast food I said to myself I wish for a day when nobody will have to work this job. Honestly, I don't see anyone would want to work in fast food unless you specifically want to work in culinary in which case, you could train yourself at home since you don't even actually flip burgers in fast food, you just work an assembly line but instead of assembling toys or car parts you're assembling food . I want these jobs to be gone. They're demeaning, contribute little to society, the pay is garbage even when you're a store manager, and it's rare for people whom you serve food to to actually respect that you're working an honest job. When automation comes for my job, and it's already been rumored through corporate that they want to start doing automation, I'm not going to be sad when my job is no longer mine. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Good riddance to fast food jobs"}
{"id":"8f5ff5b4-a333-470f-8175-651e50b192bd","argument":"In my view the Hindu Caste system any caste system in fact is tantamount to fascism. My limited knowledge suggests that people are born into a class caste that they die in. They are forced to be subservient to those above and often look down on those below. Generally you must marry within your Caste and limit yourself to them in social situations. This to me seems like the worst excesses of religion dividing people because it instills the idea that people are just born better than others and always will be. This structure looks to me almost identical to fascism. Secondly there is also some evidence that the current indian, hindu nationalist government have direct ties to fascism and operate abhorrent and potentially genocidal polices. These policies are encouraged, intrenched and exonerated by the system.","conclusion":"The Hindu Caste system is tantamount to fascism."}
{"id":"7a437047-ee20-4f69-b387-4fcc83090574","argument":"This would benefit the vulnerable in society most and remove the burden of cost from them.","conclusion":"Feminine hygiene products should be available through a complete subsidy."}
{"id":"32f6b1e1-77c6-4ede-b8b2-9891d86f96f2","argument":"This is indeed what I truly believe, but with one exception. EXCEPTION Some relationships are among people who are not hypersexual or may be even asexual and truly have no desire for multiple partners. In this instance, since neither partner desires non monogamy, the resulting monogamy is healthy and not abusive. However, this seems to be a vast? minority of cases. Some supporting information a high rate of supposedly monogamous relationships have infidelity 1, 2 a vast majority of people in monogamous relationships would cheat under the circumstances of not getting caught 1 only about 5 of relationships practice ethical non monogamy 3 The evidence says to me that cheating is extremely common, of people who don't cheat about half wish they could, yet people still want to be in monogamous relationships. My two reasons why monogamy is usually fundamentally abusive Reason 1 Ok for me, not for them. From my personal experience I can say that the rationale for people wanting to be in monogamous relationships is frequently about oppressing their partner's ability to see other people, rather than a lack of desire. Many people say, I would love to be non monogamous but I don't want my partner to see other people, so we don't . This is essentially a stale mate, a cold war of monogamy. You're not monogamous because that's what you want for yourself, but you're monogamous because you don't want the other person to see someone else. These people are intentionally depriving themselves of something they want because they do not want their partner to have it. Replace monogamy with anything else food, television, pornography, fancy clothes and I think most people would categorize this attitude as abuse. But it is an extremely common justification for monogamy. Another form is my partner cannot see other people because I want to be the center of their attention . When phrased this way the selfish nature of the attitude is a bit more apparent. My interpretation is that this kind of monogamy is driven by egocentrism, narcissism and jealousy. These are all natural behaviors occurring in everyone, but I think most people would agree they are not desirable behaviors. They are flaws. And we should try to avoid making decisions based on our flaws. Reason 2 Being entitled to your partner's body The above scenario assumes that both partners in a relationship consciously or subconsciously want other partners however this may not always be the case. If the desire for non monogamy is asymmetrical in a relationship it would be seen as extremely poor behavior for one partner to engage in non monogamous behavior. However, if you are in a relationship do you have a right to tell your partner what they can and cannot do with their body? You certainly have the right to leave a relationship if your partner is not doing something with their body that you find acceptable. My point is though, that entitlement to someone else's body is not acceptable. I am hard pressed to find a situation when I think it would be acceptable to for someone else to have some kind of entitlement another's body. A common argument in support of the right to choose abortion is that a woman has the right to make choices over her own body. Does her child's father have a right to the final decision in this situation? If no, then there should never be any situation where one person is entitled to the choices another makes with their body. for clarity My view on cheating Cheating is poor behavior because it is based on dishonesty and disrespect of your partner. Cheating can ruin lives and can put people in danger. I am not advocating cheating. However, cheating largely exists under a model of monogamy. If we don't use that model then cheating is much more of a tractable issue that can be dealt with. My view on jealousy Jealousy exists and is almost universal. However, there are level of jealousy, and jealousy can manifest in positive or negative ways. Jealousy can motivate you to be a better partner, or jealousy can motivate you to murder your wife's lover. Indeed, jealousy can make you feel insignificant and worthless, or it doesn't. Jealousy is ultimately manageable and is largely a reflection of how we feel about ourselves. If you're a super jealous person, maybe you're not fit to be in a relationship. That's all I can think of to support my view for now. Comments can address anything I've said here but please tie it into the main view in the OP title. I would love to get into a debate about jealousy, or cheating, but for now this should be in the context of the main view. Also, a tip on changing my view I like supporting information and statistics. EDIT I realized that my sources were not linked. Here are the sources I used for the above information 1 2 3 MORE EDITS u Crayshack points out the value of monogamy in clarifying parentage, which has an effect on relationship dynamics and the health safety of children. That was one delta. Also, I have realized that a better phrasing of my view is I disagree with monogamy as a rule enforced among partners. Not the practice of monogamy. The wording of my title is unfortunate.","conclusion":"The desire to be in a monogamous relationship is based entirely on each individual's flaws and the result is mutually abusive."}
{"id":"7bbd315f-57bd-4018-b766-4d2f74ed65cb","argument":"According to Protagoras, \"Man is the measure of all things\" and, therefore, \"For those that believe god exists, he exists; for those that do not believe god exists, he does not exist.\" Subjectivity entails uncertainty and, therefore, no support can be given.","conclusion":"In order to know God, one must believe that God exists while engaging in faithful practice."}
{"id":"108ae477-0ac0-4f57-a4c5-fb33811f1829","argument":"There are frequently comments and jokes in pop culture, usually from women, complaining about men leaving the toilet seat up. It is sometimes said that this is because leave downers don't want to touch an unhygienic thing. However, in order to put the seat down, you are simply shifting the contamination to someone else. Picking the seat up necessarily requires more prolonged contact than putting it down. One argument for putting the seat down is that the person using it next is less likely to need it up, since most women and many men will need it that way. However, leaving the seat down encourages lazy men to not pick it up at all and rely on aim, which is notoriously poor. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Leaving the toilet seat up in mixed gender toilets is neither more nor less considerate than leaving it down."}
{"id":"22f67ff6-f2eb-408a-8546-354318d6256a","argument":"The common sentiment on gaming related subreddits is that while PCs are more expensive up front than consoles, that they are cheaper to play on than consoles in the long run. The reasons generally given are 1. cheaper games via Steam sales, Humble Bundles and the like, and 2. free multiplayer. I believe that this is incorrect. This argument always seems to assume the purchase price of a console game is 60 while the purchase price of the PC game is assumed to be somewhere around 5. New PC games cost 60 just like console games. There are sales, but it's not like console games don't go on sale as well. The deepest discounts on PC games tend to be for games that are a few years old, which are available for cheap on the used market. Speaking of used games, this is given too little credit by the crowd who will be trying to change my view. Used console games can retain quite a bit of their value when you're finished playing through them. The most recent big console release was Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze on Wii U. You could have bought this game brand new for the equivalent of 40 played through it, and sold it on Ebay for 47 Ebay will take a few bucks of that 47, but you're still breaking even or paying just a few dollars for the game in the worst case scenario. This is not a unique situation this can be done with all new release games. Check Ebay prices for Titanfall this time next week. Let's talk hardware. The folks at r buildapc will help you build a great PC at a great price no doubt about it. I've done it myself many times over the years, and still own a nice gaming rig that accounts for almost all of my gaming time. If you built an 800 PC including Windows Linux is not a viable gaming platform yet in late November matching up with console release cycles you're able to play current games at higher settings than what the console can run, but your PC will not last as long. In fact, there's a decent chance that it won't meet min specs for some high profile releases in just 4 or 5 years. Call of Duty Ghosts and Watch Dogs require more RAM than most 1000 PCs were being built with 4 years ago. A 5870 is the minimum requirement for the game this was a 500 card released just 4 years before the game. Ghosts is a shitty port you say, but it's a shitty port that lots of people want to play. A PC built in 2005 at any price can't play anything released today, but the console released in 2005 Xbox 360 will be getting Titanfall in a few weeks. The 800 PC built in November 2013 will likely need a complete replacement before the end of the current console generation. Paying for Live PS sucks no doubt about it. But PS gets you something comparable or even better than what the crop of indie bundles provide. These subscriptions are on sale almost all the time. 40 year is the maximum price that will ever have to be paid. It's also completely necessary if you don't play multiplayer which some don't at least on PS4. Xbox One pretty much requires though, as it locks basic functionality out for non Gold members. TLDR PC Gaming has lots of advantages over console gaming, but price isn't one of them.","conclusion":"PC gaming is not cheaper than console gaming in the long run."}
{"id":"e427db61-8ef1-464b-af8d-5ca95002d361","argument":"The city has had the name K\u00f6nigsberg since at least the 1200s. That means that the city's name is older than all the countries in the new world, and also basically all of today's country country borders of europe. The city has also always been multicultural with germans, polish, russian and lots of other people living there. In every one of their languages, there was a different word for the city but they all translated roughly to the same thing K\u00f6nigsberg . This leads to my next point The old city name has an actual meaning. K\u00f6nigsberg means king's mountain, wich is derived from the kenyg wich used to live and rule their since the 900s. That's where the word king comes from . Kaliningrad just means Kalinin's city , wich imo doesn't even make sense because Kalinin has never even been in the city and probably didn't care too much about it either. Lastly,I don't think that a lot of residents wouldn't even be angry if the city got it's original name back. K\u00f6nigsberg is often used in advertisements, pubs that are visited by tourists have german names, and some residents even call themselves kenigs . I get that some may be not too fond of the idea of giving a now russian city it's german name back, but there's already the idea of calling it Kjonigsberg wich, imo, is a good middle ground. I think that when you take a city, remove it's century old, meaningful name and replace it with the name of a random celebriry who's never even been there, you are ignoring the historical roots of the place. German and prussian history is more than just WWI and WWII and should not be deleted.","conclusion":"Kaliningrad should be given back it's old name"}
{"id":"c67ed003-a94e-4b9a-a116-59ba09a14168","argument":"Sexual assault is a criminal offense and accusations of assault should be required to be reported to the police and handled by them. The terms of what constitutes a valid claim of harassment is something that seems too murky. Any claim of harassment should merit investigation by the company before action is taken, and to be honest firing someone without evidence of wrongdoing over an accusation like this should be terms for a lawsuit.","conclusion":"It is often going to be difficult to determine how reliable or credible an accusation of harassment or assault is, and therefore this is not an appropriate system to use to determine a punishment."}
{"id":"68bc45a8-50a1-4a93-a603-42972b285d56","argument":"There is quite a lot of talk about former Deputy Director of the FBI, Andrew McCabe, who has brought back up the 25th amendment and the fact that the Presidential cabinet were discussing possibly declaring the President unfit for office under section 4 of the 25th Amendment For reference 25th Amendment Section 4 Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President. Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office , the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office. This is an EXCEPTIONALLY high bar for removing the POTUS. Just not must the VP and or the Cabinet actively declare him unfit, but then Congress must overwhelmingly vote to kick him out. Even an impeachment requires only two thirds of the Senate Members present to vote for impeachment The idea that you could extract a POTUS via the 25th amendment and NOT via an impeachment is rather insane. x200B My view in a nutshell The concept of removing President Trump via the 25th amendment clearly wasn't proposed by anyone who had actually studied the 25th amendment. It sounds good, until you actually think about it for 5 minutes. I can't honestly believe that anyone in power seriously entertained this idea for more than a moment until they googled the 25th amendment Imagine we had Andrew Johnson reincarnate a hated President who everyone wanted to get rid of . You still wouldn't be able to run him out on the 25th. You would have an easier time stretching the definition of High Crimes and misdemeanors . That charge has been used to refer to abuse of authority and dereliction of duty. It wouldn't be hard to apply that to a POTUS. I just want to be convinced that there is some way that the 25th has a snowball's chance in hell. Because honestly, this entire discussion sounds like a joke. x200B Edit Deltas The only deltas awarded so far have been with points of Constitutional procedure on the impeachment process. They do not involve my main view.","conclusion":"Invoking the 25th Amendment to remove POTUS is no more likely or different than impeaching POTUS. All discussions of its misuse are simply idle speculation"}
{"id":"6a8762bf-5047-427e-ad35-9cf7a5519a98","argument":"Part of getting a license, just like with buying a car, could be getting insurance. Mandatory gun insurance would hold the owner liable for any crimes of passion committed using their fire-arm, encouraging gun owners to protect their guns from theft and use in crimes of passion.","conclusion":"A proper licensing process could reduce gun-related crimes of passion."}
{"id":"19256ff0-3492-4c46-a05c-326a8e44a1e5","argument":"In 2018 many of these women switched their vote to Democratic because they felt the party better approached issues concerning them, like education and health care.","conclusion":"Many suburban women that have voted Republican in the past are disappointed in President Trump's actions and the Republican Party's response."}
{"id":"e7a908ab-5e17-4fed-a2ef-bf104234a755","argument":". Assault weapons can hold and fire more rounds. This is directly proportional to how many people can be killed.","conclusion":"Assault weapons are used to kill a greater number of people"}
{"id":"c2282a5b-0a42-41ff-bc05-e50e4a642c9d","argument":"This is one where I would genuinely quite like to change my mind I might get married in the next few years . So I've been with my girlfriend a long time, and I love her a lot, so inevitably thoughts go towards marriage. My main issue with marriage is this you are making a lifetime commitment, and no one can really make that kind of commitment. Thirty year old man loves thirty year old woman. They've thought this through, they know each other really well, they're very compatible. So they get married. But as we age, we change. No matter how much current you loves current them, how can you guarantee future you will love future them? When they are fifty, they will be different people. No matter how much they love each other now, they can't guarantee them 20 years will love each other. And of course this happens a lot, and people get divorced, or separate, or just stay in an unhappy marriage. Now I'm not against divorce or anyway, but I think you should go into a marriage with good faith, at least thinking at the time you'll definitely stay together forever. It's in the vows, and if you aren't feeling that way, I don't really see the point in marriage anyway. It's not like I'm really cynical about marriages, my parents have been married over thirty years, my grandparents did almost seventy, so I know it can work. It just seems to me a vital part is guaranteeing something I can't possibly guarantee. Also, I do know there are other advantages to marriage, like tax and inheritance. I don't really want to get married just for those reasons.","conclusion":"I don't really believe in marriage"}
{"id":"b16968e9-82e9-4c9b-88ad-bbc44cec4208","argument":"I think the government doesn\u00b4t have the right to spy on other nations for X reason. first of all why would the government do that? what's the reason behind this?, why nations like USA and australia or something like the 5 eyes team up to spy on nations like china? and who are they spying? any reasons i think this violates the sovereignty of other nations and violates the human right of privacy when it's apply to their citizens, especially on this era where everything is digital with the internet, .","conclusion":"I think the government doesn\u00b4t have the right to spy on other nations and their people for X reason."}
{"id":"8d2bebf1-bd85-4cec-9075-bf46d7be0a4d","argument":"What makes eating animals wrong is not just that it makes animals feel pain, but also that it kills them.","conclusion":"Physical pain is not the only way by which an organism can suffer."}
{"id":"82ad7c7e-a0a6-43a2-aa4f-e7dc10ee79fa","argument":"I am having trouble articulating this view because it really is opposite of most of my thinking. It was inspired by an article I read on Vox about incels and a podcast about that article by the author and other Vox staff. I'm unapologetic ally a feminist. I think that one of the primary reasons that women specific spaces are okay while men only spaces are not is because for two ish reasons. First, historically, male only spaces have been used to the detriment of women. Usually they area a de jure advantage, such as political spaces where women were legally excludes from participating. Sometimes they are de facto advantages, such as excluding women from golf courses or clubhouses where professional and social advantages coalesce around the men able to participate in them. I believe that even when we get rid of de jure gender segregation, most of the de facto advantages exist so, at the least, male only spaces remain suspect even with good intentions, because it's easy to revert to the mean in other words, that they reassume the patriarchal purposes implicitly that used to be, but no longer are, explicit. I'm rethinking this somewhat after reading about incels and hearing the conversation in the podcast. I am the beneficiary of an all women's high school. I really feel like human beings have some need that I can't quite wrap my arms around that requires seeing people like them to succeed. I concede that some of the lines that make people like them are social constructs and are malleable. Sexual and gender might be one of these, but I'm not too interested in discussing that at length in this post though I can be convinced it's material enough to require discussion. Politics abhors a vacuum, and I think reasoning by analogy applies here. Young men today exist in a space where masculinity is being redefined at a speed outpacing everyone's ability to conform to whatever changes occur. Looking back on it, I think my primary contention with male only spaces could be redefined where I don't like groups spaces that are male only with the intent of ensuring young men are molded to conform to an older form of masculinity, as opposed to a place where they are encouraged to flourish as adults writ large. I mentioned my high school because no one was teaching me what it meant to be a woman, they were teaching me what it meant to be a well rounded person who could read, write, do math, volunteer, and play sports. So I thought what if the young men who wandering had found a more constructive place with good role models rather than incel or PUA forums? My brother, father, and uncle went to an all men's high school. I won't pretend it was an oasis of male feminists, but I'm not contending that male only spaces will solve gender equality or equity, merely that it will be more constructive and harmful to both men and society. If young people require and benefit from mentorship and guidance and I believe they do then I think they likewise benefit from mentors and spaces devoted to mentoring guiding the specific experiences that are different between generally accepted immutable characteristics, such as race, gender, age and ethnic group. If this is the case, and if young men in particular seem like they really need people to tell them that certain periods of their lives are temporary and will get better, then we should encourage and accept more male specific spaces, with a heavy caution against using these spaces to require conforming to traditionally male qualities and stereotypes. Rather, I'm thinking of an area more like what was outlined in this article note I do not like the phrase emotional gold digger and don't endorse it , where men lean on each other for friendship and camaraderie without the toxicity eschewing intimacy and vulnerability accompanying it. I'm not yet convinced for what I feel are obvious concerns. Reverting to the aforementioned mean is one of them. It might be that this is a growing pain of a more equal society. These places will be self governing, so without due moderation and leadership they could simply reinforce the very stereotypes I think are damaging. It could likewise reinforce static gender and sexual identities if one believes these are constructs, then this is wholly unacceptable. Maybe this is me acquiescing to a truly damaging force incels and certain lone wolf terrorists because they're scary, and I should hold fast. There are more concerns I have, but I figured I should be honest and say This was something I was against. now I'm not so sure. Here is why. I fear that I'm wrong, but I also haven't read all literature and I'm not a gender theory person so I'm not steeped in a lot of this. edit I crossposted this to Change A View, sorry if that's not okay?","conclusion":"it might be okay for young men to have spaces for more man-to-man mentorship."}
{"id":"76475697-dac0-4fc6-8cc6-1e89a52621c9","argument":"Football players receive scholarships, because they bring in money for schools. However, the classes they take do not benefit them outside of football like underwater basket-weaving. In the end, if football players get hurt or lose their scholarship, their career just about ends due to a lack of a capability to fall back on something better.","conclusion":"Some high school and college students receive an unfair advantage in school because of their perceived benefit to their football team."}
{"id":"a027a263-b324-4edc-91d1-a905d6b8abe3","argument":"White stars are often inserted into films in which the cast is mostly people of colour in order to make their production feasible.","conclusion":"A ban on whitewashing would reduce the diversity of stories told by Hollywood."}
{"id":"17ee537d-1754-4ab4-9db8-00ca7d8e8545","argument":"I actually want to see the other side of this argument so please explain kindly and please don't take offense from my understanding, a small percentage of Native Americans are offended by it and the actual tribe that we're originally referred to as redskins are not offended. I don't think we should be telling people how they should feel. If it is changed, should the fighting Irish be changed, and as a Christian, the saints should be changed just because a few people find it offensive? The team is also proud of the name and are representing the tribe, right? There is a history to the team and they are have been a good team with a strong fan base.","conclusion":"WAS Redskins shouldn't have to change name"}
{"id":"67be1189-6a07-4f62-ba6a-dcedf74abf68","argument":"When I say money in politics I am specifically referring to campaign contributions. Id like to start by saying I am not some deep political campaign researcher or spend vast amounts of time studying this, only what I see on the news and what I believe to be logically true. If the numbers say the opposite I will happily . Donald Trump is very, very rich. Perhaps one, if not the most wealthy net worth wise candidate to ever be a serious contender in an election. He boasts about spending barely any raised campaign funds because he simply does not need to. He can pay out of pocket for his entire campaign including his massive Boeing jet. Since he is so rich, the average donation from a supporter does not have as great of a value to him. He is tied to no one and loyal to nobody through campaign contributions. He is able to use his own money to circumvent the system we created. Candidates like Bernie Sanders and Ted Cruz are not nearly as wealthy. They are forced to listen and appeal to a wider base of voters because their campaigns would not survive if they ignore the people. My main view boils down to this Donald Trump can ignore every voter and say whatever he feels because money from voters does not matter one bit to him. He can gain media attention and thus rise in polls because he has become a name brand candidate. This creates a separation or disconnect from the voters because he can, in a way, buy his own hype rather than actually having to lay out good plans for a future as President. Other candidates do not share this same disconnect because people are hesitant to donate to someone they do not truly believe will make a difference for the better. This out of touch ness, if you will, is caused mainly by Donald Trumps wealth is a good argument for forcing candidates to use contributions rather than just their own money.","conclusion":"Donald Trump is the reason we NEED money in politics."}
{"id":"13051cba-fb7e-4f9b-8c8a-b4be2290eb12","argument":"The example I would like to highlight with this is Kyler Murray. Kyler Murray is the newest Heisman Trophy winner and on the night of his win, which is the achievement of a lifetime, grown adults apparently scrolled through every single tweet the kid has ever sent out. It was found that when Murray was 15 years old that he had posted some homophobic language. He had jokingly called his friends queer using the social media platform. While I don't condone that type of behavior I find it very sad that his Heisman Trophy win was now no longer about all the amazing things he has accomplished to win the award, it was now about how he sent out immature tweets when he was 15 years old. While I do recognize that the Heisman Trophy is simply not just about being the best player, it also takes into account your character on and off the field. Kyler Murray is known to be one of the most high character individuals in college football, and a grown adult singling out a few tweets that was sent out when he was a teenager for the reason alone to ruin his reputation and to create controversy. He was since forced to apologize for those tweets and it has slightly overshadowed his Heisman victory. The arguments I would like to make is below 1 This is not reporting. The USA today has some reporting principles that they are supposed to be committed to. Seeking and reporting the truth in a truthful way. Serving the public interest. Exercising fair play. Acting with integrity. While it was the truth what they were reporting I don't think this is at all exercising fair play and acting with very low integrity. The only reason these resurfaced was for clicks and controversy. For example, say when I was 15 I got into a fight with my brother and said some terrible things to him. Since then we have grown up and matured and become very close as adults. If my parents found out now what I said to him then, would it not be ridiculous if they forced me to apologize now? The apology means nothing at that point and is merely an exercise in semantics. 2 He was 15 years old when these tweets were sent out. When I was 15 years old I used the word gay all the time, as well as called my friends faggot. When I was that age I had no idea the hate that term meant and the history behind it, even if you would have explained it to me at that age it wouldn't have resonated with me until I got older and achieved some perspective in life. To force a now grown adult who has done so much with the community and is known to be a stellar person on and off the field to apologize for something he said when he was 15 to me is just a complete waste of time and breath, it means nothing. He is no longer the same person he was when he was 15 years old and he has grown as a person, he may as well be apologizing for another person at this point. If he he had been 23 when he sent these tweets out, total different ball game. You can't hold a 15 year old kid to the same standard as a 23 year old grown adult. While I do understand the number one argument breaker here is that every thought does not need to be a tweet , it is known that when you're under the age of 18 you're judgement is clouded and you simply are not thinking of the consequences at that age, this is the same reason our juvenile records are sealed until the age of 18. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Grown adults going through decade+ old tweets to diminish the achievements of young people is not reporting."}
{"id":"ae83d343-5405-4950-9678-01c64e0d090c","argument":"There are two often-discussed ways to change the rules: require the runner to slide, just as they must do when attempting to reach other bases; or disallow catchers to block runners\u2019 paths. Each results in an imbalance between the catcher and runner. A commentator describes this dynamic very well: \u201cIf Major League Baseball was to employ a rule stating that runners must avoid contact with the catcher\u2014similar to the \u2018slide or avoid\u2019 rule employed in amateur baseball\u2014it would give the advantage to the catcher. The catcher would have the benefit of dictating the course of action that a baserunner must take, and would\u2014perhaps more importantly\u2014have peace of mind knowing that there is no chance of an ensuing collision. If Major League Baseball was to make a rule stating that the catcher cannot block the plate, the advantage would certainly go to the baserunner, who would enjoy the luxury of a straight path to the most sacred ground on a baseball diamond.\u201d1 Allowing collisions is the fairest, most even match between the catcher and runner. 1 Ricky Doyle, \u201cBuster Posey\u2019s Injury Unfortunate, But Home-Plate Collisions Still Have Place in Baseball,\u201d NESN, May 29, 2011,","conclusion":"Without collisions, either the catcher or the runner would have an enormous and unfair advantage."}
{"id":"ea0eaf60-b3bd-4379-a843-ab7e761a8efe","argument":"The process of mining and removing the ores from the ground with heavy equipment is disruptive for nature and environment and releases toxic materials.","conclusion":"To produce an army of AKMs, thousands of tons of metal steel, aluminum, titanium etc., composites, electronics silicon, rare earths etc. are required."}
{"id":"df4a9019-f318-49d2-ae71-3c46fb636bb2","argument":"We see massive news reports about people like Elliot Roger shooting a bunch of people, and it's seen as a tragedy. Which it admittedly is. But we rarely see news reports about the senseless violence against innocent black kids in inner cities. These kids are often senselessly executed for not joining a gang or just being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The truth is that proportional to the population the amount of reports about white kids being shot is much higher than black kids, while the violence towards black kids is proportionally higher. We pass new regulations to prevent the terrible tragedies like Sandy Hook and the shooting in CA. But because no one pays attention to the violence inflicted on black children we aren't doing anything to fix the problem. The reason that I blame the american people instead of the media is that the media just plays what gets views. If black kids getting shots got views then the media would report it. And it's not that violence doesn't get attention, but that violence against black kids doesn't.","conclusion":"The average American person does not care about black kids being shot."}
{"id":"adf908a6-e08a-4c8c-a98d-c4a2ea3f3405","argument":"Billy Ray Cyrus tweeted \"I thought, it's honest, humble, and has an infectious hook, and a banjo. What the hell more do ya need?\"","conclusion":"Currently recognized country stars think Old Town Road belongs on the chart."}
{"id":"73efeeb0-869c-4f1f-99e4-8cc2f9320122","argument":"Pretending to talk to stuffed animals and characters exercises the imagination, which is important for creativity.","conclusion":"Children can pretend to talk to stuffed animals and characterscuteplushies.net"}
{"id":"37e6299d-9838-441b-93f3-e933c1e8d333","argument":"Stanley Hoffman used a Neo-Realist view of International relations to build the theory of intergovernmentalism. In a neo-realist understanding the international system is characterised by anarchy and the distribution of economic and military capabilities is of primary importance. States will not trust each other but can still reach agreement, but the agreement will be characterised by bargaining and negotiation not an automatic process! \u2018Nations prefer the certainty, or the self-controlled uncertainty, of national self-reliance, to the uncontrolled uncertainty of the untested blender\u2019.1 1 Wikipedia, \u2018Intergovernmentalism\u2019, en.wikipedia.org,","conclusion":"The international system is characterised by anarchy and the distribution of economic and military capabilities"}
{"id":"d2e3a67e-c33b-4c95-bdec-8735e1648a6a","argument":"In the UK there is a long-standing \"gentleman's agreement between Buckingham and the media against using paparazzi photos.","conclusion":"By relocating to Canada, Harry and Meghan will not be as protected from intrusions by paparazzi."}
{"id":"56b37989-5f2d-4fd2-bbf5-349a97e57c1c","argument":"The appearance of hypocrisy makes the Democrats look as if they care more about tit-for-tat point-scoring than their constituents. And worse, it makes them look weak when their obstructionism doesn't even work","conclusion":"Whether the obstructions are warranted or not makes little practical difference; they still harm the Democratic Party's chances."}
{"id":"377bc33d-cb63-40b2-b845-0035e35d48b9","argument":"The Book of Mormon refers to magical seer stones \"interpreters\" and validates their use by \"seers\" consistent with Joseph Smith's practice prior to producing the Book of Mormon.","conclusion":"Much of the Book of Mormon text relates to magic or esotericism that would have been familiar to the Smith family."}
{"id":"a893aa6a-a844-4cfc-8dd6-096d717091f8","argument":"A caseworker in one such agency reported that three girls were happy and healthy in their foster home when in fact they had been dead for three months This is indicative of the sheer ineptitude of many foster care agencies.","conclusion":"Private foster care agencies have allowed criminals and registered sex offenders to acquire licenses and adopt foster children. This has led to neglect, sexual abuse and murders of children."}
{"id":"059a6f50-e619-4cdf-a330-b73e8d2da30c","argument":"Hey r changemyview. I've heard lots of people on Reddit and in the Real World say that Islamophobia is just a lot of bunk, and they are criticizing the ideas behind Islam, not the actual Muslim population the majority of which is moderate and not extremist . I respectfully disagree, but I'm open to change. I believe that you can't fear a religion because a religion is a group of ideas that is collectively practiced. If humans cease to practice a religion, it no longer exists ie Classical Hellenistic cults . People are not afraid of these ancient cults there's no Druidophobia, or Quetzacoatlophobia, despite the fact that both Druids and Aztecs regularly practiced human sacrifice, and are more barbaric by any modern standard than any widespread religion that exists today. I've never heard of a criticism of the Cult of Quetzacoatl, because there are no active practitioners. It's not the ideas in general that's the problem it's the actual practice of these ideas. I'd expect that if Druidism made a comeback and people started getting sacrificed on Stonehenge, that people would be pretty vocal in their criticism. But as it stands now, people aren't losing their minds concerning a religion that existed centuries ago that doesn't exist now. Islamophobia is the fear of Muslims, because otherwise you should be more afraid of Quetzacoatl than Islam. Ideas that aren't practiced are powerless. Therefore, any FEAR of Islam that is manifested, personally, socially, or legally, is a reaction against the practitioners of Islam. I want to end this post by mentioning that I don't consider a valid concern or criticism of Islam to be Islamophobia I'm not afraid of the Christian church, and I can criticize Christian doctrine until the cows come home. The same should be true for Islam. In my mind, a phobia when the prefix is a social issue is discrimination against the prefixed group. Thanks for reading Please Change My View gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Islamophobia equals discrimination against Muslims"}
{"id":"ccaa699e-c2d9-4365-be97-059236b84428","argument":"I think we all have seen a situation where this occurs, you are watching a commercial for a new cell phone, or piece of technology and when the people look at the screen to capture playback image or video it looks crystal clear in the best possible way. Especially photos. An example is the very phone I use, the Galaxy Note 4 Here is another with the LG G3 Could someone please educate me on why this is not frowned upon more often? I feel as a consumer we are not being told the whole story when something is simulated. EDIT Thank you for the replies everyone. I'd say my view is somewhat changed due to the explanation of the difficulty of filming a cell phone screen. However, I still think this is used to further enhance the image.","conclusion":"The \"Screen Images Simulated\" on Cell Phone Commercials are False Advertising"}
{"id":"6650bf29-572a-4e89-a56a-6e471456276a","argument":"Bullying is defined as the act of physical or emotional violence towards others. At first glance, that sounds bad and even looks bad when you see it between strangers. Teachers have campaigned to stop bullying and there have been expensive programs to curb this animalistic act. I'm here to argue that bullying is actually beneficial to not just society but to the individuals themselves. The society as we all know, not all humans are equal. Bullying is a way for the fitter humans to rise above weaker humans. This leads to a gradual increase in fittness of the entire human race over time. The fitter humans are given more power, resources, and mating options which benefits the entire human race over time. This also lets families cut their losses early because if they have a child not able to survive bullying then the child would be less likely to survive the environment and it would be a waste of resources to invest in the doomed child evolutionarily speaking of course, not morally. The individual it may seem obvious that a younger brother being bullied by his older brother is horrible and bad for the family unit as a whole. But what does the younger sibling do when he's bullied? Does he cry? Yes. Does he hate his brother? Yes. Does he also go out and try to become a better man to not be bullied anymore? Yes So even though bullying hurts the child emotionally and physicially in the short term, the child actually makes physical and emotional gains in the long term because to not make those gains will just lead to more bullying. The bullied child will actually become a better version of his parallel self that was not bullied in a parallel universe. He'll be emotionally harder, physicially stronger, etc This is just the tip of the iceberg of course but should be enough to generilize my views. To change them, please prove that bullying has a net negative effect on society and the bullied individual. I know bullying can cause negatives like longterm injuries that were meant to be short term, but no system is perfect so please look at the average macro scale here. Maybe there are negatives that I'm overlooking though.","conclusion":"Bullying is a natural and beneficial human activity."}
{"id":"a6df29ff-0c83-445b-a4ca-0398d3fd3c1b","argument":"I believe that fighting words is an absurd idea and dangerous to the principle of free speech. I think that insults and inflammatory remarks or other ideas or words that could anger some one is the type of speech the first amendment was made to protect the most. I don't understand the reasoning behind fighting words because as I see it no rational person should ever be provoked into a fight based on words alone and those that do engage in violence based on words alone deserve to be punished, not having the words that incited them to violence banned or censored.","conclusion":"I believe that \"fighting words\" should be protected under the first amendment."}
{"id":"2c0d93a9-a1ce-415d-947c-ed1e6f242965","argument":"There is an organ shortage in many countries around the world at least, those where you aren't put on the organ donor list by default and must actively opt out . I'm a Canadian and in Canada last year, there were only 500 organ donors. A country of 35 million. We have a severe shortage of organ donors, yet so many people that need an organ to live. A lot of people in fact, I feel the majority of people take transplantation for granted. They don't give thought to the fact that, if they get injured or sick and need a transplant, that organ actually needs to come from somewhere , someone , who has given consent to donate their organ upon death. It's really only those who are unfortunate enough to require an organ, and are sitting on the waiting list, without the privilege of having a living matching donor in their life, that really understand how scarce and valuable a resource organ donation is. Despite receiving the form at each stage of acquiring your driver's license, many people just toss the form into the trash without much thought. I think there needs to be more awareness, and information, and bluntness, around the issue. We are going to die. And we will have no use for our organs. At the very least, pass over your solid organs to one of the many, many people who can get new life from it. Keep your tissues. You can save up to 5 lives. And so, I think that, as a solution to this issue, only registered organ donors should be allowed to receive an organ transplant, should they fall ill. Or, at the very least, registered organ donors should be given priority above non registered individuals. Make it common knowledge, make it known, and there will be more people actively considering and signing up to become donors. Change my view. EDIT I didn't realize I needed to include a common sense clause. Those who are ill or who would otherwise not be eligible for organ donation, as well as those under the age of consent, would not be included in this. This is Change My View, not try and find superficial loopholes in my argument . Argue the logic, argue the reasoning, argue the broad statement.","conclusion":"Only registered organ donors should be able to receive an organ transplant, or at the very least, get priority on the transplant waiting list."}
{"id":"56dc478b-5927-4e0a-be28-e164b333bedf","argument":"The fetus has a separate blood type and it is its own separate being from the mother. It shouldn't be the mothers choice to kill it if it is a separate being.","conclusion":"Biology textbooks are consistent that the lifecycle of a genetically distinct human organism begins at conception."}
{"id":"52c27ad9-83e2-4557-998a-dd50e9e6e9e5","argument":"I personally am an underachiever. I can definitely see the benefit of caring about your achievements if you wanted kids, as your position in life financially experience wise would benefit the next generation even more than it'd benefit your own self. However, I personally don't want kids. My parents weren't the greatest growing up I could eat, had clothes, and had a roof over my head blah blah, but as far as actual parenting and not providing went, they were bad. As a result, I know that I could never be the father a child deserves or needs. Coming to this realization, I've also realized just how pointless accomplishments really are, considering I'll end up in the ground when all's said and done. Entertain me. FTR, I'm a bit of a misanthrope in that I hate people before I like them, and I like very few people. The idea of curing people or helping people doesn't appeal to me, and I'd much rather fight someone than hug someone. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Underachievement doesn't matter if you don't want kids."}
{"id":"a7cf56b4-f11b-4327-a663-56a9d34e9181","argument":"Aeroponics may be a better idea in this regard, because it uses less water and thus is less of an issue to worry about. However, it does not resolve the issue, as it still uses water.","conclusion":"Runoff from vertical farms, such as fertilizers or used substrate, might still go back into rivers, as many drains lead into open waters."}
{"id":"7df37237-614f-4498-83da-d66c21724beb","argument":"Global Energy Independence What it means is that every nation can sustain their own energy demands without being dependent on a certain economy or exportation from a country. This would solve international conflicts ex. Oil in the middle east and it's effect on the global economy Argument Not every country have the resources to gain complete energy independence. It might be a lack of rivers to install hydro, a geographical location that does not get enough sun for solar, a lack of forests for biomass or just lack of coal or oil. Nuclear energy can utilize Thorium which is so common we literally have tons of it laying around and it is found in most rocks all around the world. Time frame It's theoretically possible to have 100 renewable energy production ex. solar, wind, hydro but to reach 100 and to meet the growing demand of energy in the world is extremely difficult and requires multiple technological discoveries that can revolutionize energy production and storage batteries, nano tech materials graphene? , fusion energy . I think we should invest in these technologies but we will realistically never reach 100 renewable within this century, and we don't have enough time insert generic global warming argument here . Nuclear is OK If an alien lands in a jungle and gets bitten by a venomous snake he she might think that all animals are bad. But we all know the alien is wrong, sure snakes might be bad but what about kittens? The same principle goes for nuclear. Just because Fukushima blows up uranium light water reactor doesn't mean that all nuclear reactors are bad. There are hundreds of models and the ones of the forth generation ex, thorium, LFTR simply cannot blow up and are walk away safe. The little waste material produced emits alpha rays that can't penetrate your skin. It also has an half life of 300 years the waste produced today has an half life of over 200000 years and this waste cannot be used in nuclear weapons. To summarize the nuclear is ok argument Generation III bad uranium, gamma emitting and long lived waste, nukes, extreme pressure hydrogen explosions Fukushima Generation IV good Thorium, alpha emitting short lived waste, walk away safe, 100 nuke free The thorium technology is old and simple. Some models still needs improvement but this is just a question of funding and money no sci fi technology involved What's holding nuclear back is lack of funding why fund scientist to invent better reactors when we can dig up coal instead? and an unhealthy view on nuclear technology produced by carrier politicians and mass media ask a scientist or an engineer and the majority will probably be pro or neutral to nuclear technology English might not be perfect in this rant","conclusion":"Nuclear energy is the only way to achieve global CO2-free energy independence in a realistic time frame and the dangers of nuclear technology are severely exaggerated."}
{"id":"2d08123f-dd1d-4590-80c0-b19d0d916efc","argument":"I am currently a 21 yo male and am seriously struggling with school. I seem to be excelling in most other aspects of my life job, relationships, etc. but I cannot get it together with school. College has given me horrible anxiety for the past few years, and I think maybe I have a fear of the future. I am a senior in college and, for the first two years of school, I was a 4.0 student. My junior year at college, I became apathetic and depressed which made my grades slip. I got into drugs and alcohol and it was obviously a bad influence in my life. So I transferred schools to get away from that lifestyle, and I no longer partake in partying like I used to. However, my grades and tolerance for school have continued to plummet. I know I'm only one year from graduation, but I cannot fail another class and disappoint myself even further. I'm strongly considering either a taking a year off and getting my real estate license or b quitting school altogether so that I can begin working a full time job. It will be a disappointment to my parents if this is what I decide, but it will also be an incredible disappointment for myself. But whenever I enroll in classes I get anxious and have panic attacks. I know that getting my degree is important, and I'm close to graduation so I should just suck it up. But this is honestly making me unhappy. I will have loans I need to pay back, but I think the happiness I will gain back will be worth it. So please, if anyone has any advice, or any similar experiences feel free to share. If I missed anything or need to elaborate more, let me know. Thanks","conclusion":"I'm thinking of dropping out of college."}
{"id":"9258dc3a-b241-4dfa-8adf-1a0e02c266d3","argument":"I am an avid fan of the Michigan Wolverines and football in general, especially college. That being said it is not the easiest time to be a Michigan fan as any of you who are up to date on collegiate athletics already know. Head coach Brady Hoke is under a lot of fire in recent weeks because the wolverines are off to a 2 4 start to the season and are 0 2 in conference play. This is not something that myself and other fans of the team are used to, being that it is the winningest program in college football history. Angry fans accompanied with the media who in my opinion has nothing better to do have started quite the uprising encouraging the Michigan athletic department to fire Coach Hoke, saying he is to blame for the failure for lack of a better term of this team thus far this season. I however do not think that a man who is an excellent football coach and has proven himself at numerous other programs, as well as during his first season at Michigan, should be held totally responsible and loose his job because his players aren't doing what they should. A coach and his staff can only do so much with what they have. It is up to the athletes to preform and put their heart and soul into it. A man should not loose his job and be hated by thousands because some 18 20 year old kids aren't preforming as well as they should be.","conclusion":"The head football coach is not the only person responsible for the success or lack there of, of his team"}
{"id":"838bbe10-33ad-4b49-ad3b-20073fb02d67","argument":"Right now, I have an account just to be on the grid but I never use it. Facebook sets itself up to where you need to walk on eggshells and please everybody. You can't say anything that will offend the government they're watching Your employer will fire you or not hire you if they discover or even hear from hear say something that offends them. Your family is watching and friends your age are watching. People of the opposite political views as you are watching who are easily offended. You have zero privacy. All several hundred of your friends can stalk your activities. This is really fucking stupid. If I want to post a I like it up the butt joke on my friend's status, my super conservative uncle who isn't a mutal friend doesn't need to see it and nearly get a heart attack. Freedom of speech. Freedom of consequence. Yes, but still. So, basically, you have a giant microphone. And behind you are a mob of diverse people breathing down your throats.","conclusion":"Facebook discourages self-expression and that defeats the purpose of using it."}
{"id":"f29386bb-d5df-42fd-b707-c7b1a617859a","argument":"People always think that women didn't get the right to vote until suffrage but that's actually not the case. Originally, before there was an income tax, the only taxes a state collected were property taxes. And the only people allowed to vote were property owners, of which women were not allowed to be unless their husband died. In those cases, the women inherited their husband's property and became eligible to vote at that time. The reason why a person was only allowed to vote if they paid taxes was because there's a moral hazard that comes along with an ability to vote on how other people's money is spent. People are more fiscally conservative or at least fiscally aware when it's their own money being spent. Now, I know there are several different types of taxes and there are also several different elections in which people vote. There could very easily be a situation where a person gets to vote in all their own state elections but not the federal elections. The only taxes collected federally from an individual are income taxes and payroll taxes. But payroll taxes theoretically only fund Social Security. I believe that if a person's net federal income tax bill is 0 or less approx 45 of households in the country , they should not be allowed to vote in federal elections since the people being elected will only be spending other people's money. Clarifier I will say that I don't believe there should be any type of proportional voting. A person who pays only a few hundred dollars in federal income tax based on their income should have a vote that counts just as much as a person who pays millions. It's the point of each person having skin in the game.","conclusion":"I think the only people who should be allowed to vote in an election any election, are people who pay taxes into the pool of money governed by the election."}
{"id":"697f935f-f372-4225-a713-8178106d42ac","argument":"I seriously don't get it. As I understand things, the argument made by the government is that the money or any other property is considered guilty, not the person, therefore no rights to property and due process have been violated. From my point of view, it takes some serious mental gymnastics to accept that as a reasonable, rational argument. While I understand that there are instances where Civil Asset Forfeiture has been used to a beneficial effect, I don't think that makes up to the cases of abuse. Under the Proponents subheading, Wikipedia states gt It civil forfeiture makes it easier for law enforcement to fight organized crime when they had trouble imprisoning offenders, since they could deprive them of their property and income when it is much harder to prove their guilt in a court of law. To me, that reads the same as, Well, we can't prove that some people are guilty, so we made up a law that lets us steal from everyone just to be sure. As of right now, I can't see any was this practice and its abuses can be justified . As I said before, I understand that there are instances where it is beneficial, but is there no other way that we can do the right thing in those cases without putting the rest of America at risk of having law enforcement agencies stealing their money or property?","conclusion":"Civil Asset Forfeiture in the US is a completely legitimate, constitutional tool for law enforcement agencies to use."}
{"id":"f11c45a5-63cf-4c89-9f2b-ab6b0283dd70","argument":"A popular opinion among the American electorate is that teachers should make more money. I'm not an expert in economics but I think the assumption here is a labor theory of value. People look at the number of labor hours and the difficulty of teaching, plus the social importance of teaching, and conclude that teachers are underpaid. It also pulls on the heart strings to support teachers. The same layman economic presuppositions underlie the idea that sports players are grossly overpaid. However, prices cannot be determined beyond supply and demand. Since teachers do not operate in a free market, for the most part, we cannot really say how accurate their salaries are.","conclusion":"Its not possible to know that teachers should make more money"}
{"id":"a831d6a9-09ee-496a-90ba-aa7901f1aef1","argument":"For example, the US, one of the most religious countries among the most developed ones, has higher homicide rates than other less religious countries.","conclusion":"In most developed countries the number of religious believers is decreasing and there is not a direct correlation with an increase in crime"}
{"id":"452864d1-28f9-4869-8011-ab77f09f51ed","argument":"As long as the apps are quick with updating the traffic situations, people will spread out more. If there's a traffic congestion and people go for alternative routes, the road they were previously going for will become less congested.","conclusion":"Traffic apps encourages people to plan the driving more. Having people being more conscious in traffic is good."}
{"id":"29f4c984-eee9-4773-8233-0590a23df0ee","argument":"Climate change efforts are most effective when carried out on a global scale The side-effect of this responsibility would be that the world will be one step closer to moving towards this goal.","conclusion":"The EU's soft power has set it apart in today's political landscape as a global leader and role model. It thus has a moral duty to set a positive example."}
{"id":"f762ef72-4e49-4252-9e8e-7be6c8b319c6","argument":"President Trump, who is the likely upcoming Republican presidential nominee has not acted as a suitable leader for the Republican party, or for America.","conclusion":"Republican presidents have historically had a negative impact on America."}
{"id":"fff3e4a2-4b42-4718-aca2-57378c56977d","argument":"Even though domestic political opinion wanted a total victory the Japanese leadership was aware they couldn't maintain another year and needed peace.","conclusion":"It was rather the Russians that lost than the Japanese winning."}
{"id":"b2024200-8776-4df4-9f95-2866844abac1","argument":"A ban on circumcision would send a strong signal to the public that it is not a necessary or desirable procedure. The strong effect of government policy on individual behaviour in this manner is well documented","conclusion":"Most people don't like to break the law. Even if a ban is not entirely effective, it would significantly reduce the number of circumcisions overall."}
{"id":"4a7008c4-8946-4934-9b4f-cc0d5f594666","argument":"For example, Lourdes is regarded as a sanctified site for many Catholics where miraculous healing would appear, but in fact, there are no more cancer healings in this site than there are spontaneous unexplained cancer healing in any other place. See Les miracles, Lourdes et les probabilite\u0301s French quote: \"We can say that with 67 healings in slightly more than 150 years, results are not more impressive in Lourdes that in hospitals.\"","conclusion":"Lighter and more complete theories than \"God\" can explain extraordinary phenomenons."}
{"id":"9b061b76-5125-4e76-9e30-9acfec82022f","argument":"This includes allowing employees to explore different methods of working that may be more conducive to their overall mental health.","conclusion":"It also entitles people to 'reasonable accommodations' to help them work like other employees."}
{"id":"c929570c-0dae-4b56-8ad6-567a2652a35e","argument":"According to the World Health Organization in countries with universal healthcare, people can live up to 5 years longer.","conclusion":"Healthcare for all people would save many lives in the US."}
{"id":"43595f4b-91de-4eea-96c5-10b9cf42a57b","argument":"A notable example of this would be the whole Carmen Carrera vs RuPaul incident that happened recently. I think that it holds back the trans community as a whole whenever people are too busy fighting their allies within their own community over things that don't even matter at all. How do people expect to make any progress when they're too busy fighting over the little things? If someone says a word but intends no kind of harm in what they say at all, you shouldn't be offended by it. Words exist, and people will use them. EDIT I would say my view has been changed a bit, but my opinion on using the word as a whole hasn't been completely altered.","conclusion":"I think it's silly for a transgender\/transsexual person to get offended at the word \"Tranny\" if there is no malice behind it."}
{"id":"70af8098-e109-4148-9ae0-9557769d1305","argument":"Being part of the main-stream religion gives many advantages to its members that are independent of other privileges in the area of faith.","conclusion":"Privilege is complex and skin color is not the only thing one can benefit or suffer from."}
{"id":"1877abed-fabe-4d29-9bf2-4c81990df7d8","argument":"When Hermione Granger began hiding clothes in Gryffindor Tower in an attempt to free the house-elves of Hogwarts, the house-elves felt insulted, and everyone except Dobby refused to clean the Gryffindor common room in protest.","conclusion":"House-elves feel insulted if their master attempts to pay them, give them pensions, or reward their service with anything except gratitude."}
{"id":"13717edf-bdca-476a-a669-87edd11ee69c","argument":"Many Americans lack basic geographic knowledge about the world and especially the Middle East. In a 2016 survey of American university and college students, seven out of ten couldn't locate Israel on a map; only half were able to pinpoint countries of major relevance for US foreign policy like Iraq and Iran CFR, p. 23","conclusion":"The relevance and trustworthiness of American public opinion is questionable in light of how uninformed Americans generally are about foreign policy issues."}
{"id":"2129631f-1525-4a15-be43-9fe5c647c36c","argument":"This is higher than the UKs falling average of 19% in senior roles, and the global average of 25%.","conclusion":"The EU commissions senior management is 35% female and 37% of middle management is female."}
{"id":"f1238974-d747-419d-9917-7fcb120676d4","argument":"The only proven method of robust genetic enhancement is through natural evolution that plays out over extended periods of time. It is natural success, not the demonstrated myopic viewpoints of man, that are responsible for the body's capacities.","conclusion":"Genetic enhancements can have negative consequences in the long run that are impossible to predict, potentially heritable to children and are not reversible even though practiced for decades."}
{"id":"010ee2ed-cb18-4582-bb10-be063fec76d1","argument":"Agnosticism is the position that the existence and nature of a god or gods are unknown or unknowable. Most agnostics feel that it's intellectually indefensible to make a strong assertion one way or another. However, the Falsifiability Criterion tells us that any scientific statement must be falsifiable. In the case of the existence of God, this is impossible unless there exists proof for example, the existence of the Sun is falsifiable by following basic statement A day happened when the Sun didn't come up but nothing else changed , but if such proof exists, agnosticism becomes false. What do you think?","conclusion":"Agnosticism is unscientific as it is unfalsifiable"}
{"id":"9b152607-7e9a-4836-8a27-ba4c4d2ea9cb","argument":"Hey Reddit I grew up in a somewhat traditional home with typical rules of polite behavior. Brush your hair, don't burp in public, don't cuss, don't dress provocatively, and so on. Over the years, I've grown apathetic about these codes of conduct because they seem to ultimately make everyone more uncomfortable and less honest with themselves despite the purpose being to make everyone around you comfortable . This seems ironic and arbitrary. I don't see why I shouldn't walk around half naked saying fuck every other word if I decide to, but I understand that this is not the most common opinion on the matter. Please . If I can understand why formality and social rules so to speak are necessary, the human world would make more sense to me.","conclusion":"I don't see the point of formality."}
{"id":"6e5a8379-4335-45b5-b55b-28a9f37cad1f","argument":"My view comes from this TED talk by Eric X Li. Although he compares public satisfaction with European multi party democracies, I do think that accountable multi party democracies fare a little better. However, when it comes to corrupt and unstable democracies in the third world including anocracies , the Chinese model of authoritarianism is a far better choice. This includes the Lee thesis propounded by Lee Kuan Yew, the first prime minister of Singapore, who stated that some level of authoritarianism is necessary for development. Whether it is the Chinese single party state apparatus, the Hong Kong pseudo oligarchy, or the Singapore PAP which is de facto authoritarian as the group represenation election scheme prevents other political parties from wins in the legislature , the policies and measures of governance have been far more successful than most multi party democracies in the developing world. Change my view. EDIT Just to be clear on my classification of government systems, starting from the the best 1 Accountable and progressive multi party democracies. Of these, the Swiss system fares on top, followed by parliamentary representative democracies, and finally, presidential democracies. 2 Accountable and progressive single party states. Whether de jure or de facto. I don't have a classification system per se within this subgroup, but a key factors are tackling poverty, high economic growth rates, and a good HDI. I'm mainly concerned only with China and Singapore as examples for now. 3 Unaccountable and corrupt multi party democracies, such as India, Pakistan, Bangaldesh, and most countries in the African continent. 4 Unaccountable and corrupt dictatorships, such as Syria and Iran. Totalitarian governments such as North Korea fare at the very bottom. Further classification can be tedious, and I'm not concerned about that. I want a vehement defence of 3 type governments against 2 type governments.","conclusion":"Accountable and progressive single-party states are better than unaccountable and corrupt multi-party democracies."}
{"id":"675ff777-e3bb-4970-b033-ef23710a3dcc","argument":"I believe prison should be used to rehabilitate individuals so that they may return to society. I don't understand why locking someone up for life is beneficial to anyone. Let's say someone steals your car. I think they should be given a jail sentence that would provide enough time for that person to recognize what they did is wrong and hopefully be able to come out of jail as a better person. I also think we would need better ways of releasing individuals into the public. Lots of people dont have the means to come out of jail and stabilize their life. If someone does a crime so atrocious that society deems them unable to return from it, then I believe the death penalty is justified. I don't agree that people should be locked up until they die. 1 It doesn't help them. 2 It's really expensive. Change my view.","conclusion":"Life-long prison sentences should be banned in favor of the death penalty or shorter sentences."}
{"id":"643b8eda-9c40-4b35-955f-498cfbc538d8","argument":"When you place criminals with other criminals in a punitive environment, you create an element of solidarity between the prisoners, with a focus on surviving until they can walk free. Crime is socially constructed. Criminal behaviours are a reflection of the environment which produces the criminal. Thus the prison system exacerbates the problem by creating repeat offenders who need instead to be educated to accept responsibility for crimes committed, and taught the skills to make amends.","conclusion":"The question setting is a little off. To say that rehabilitation is the main goal can be seen too easily as diminishing offenders' accountability. Punishment as a main goal, however, can be counterproductive in the sense that it will not replace anything lost or damage caused from the crime. A solution that focuses more on facing the consequences of actions, making amends and includes an option for rehabilitation would be optimal."}
{"id":"a17b1fd0-c037-4216-b2dd-597153c9aaed","argument":"The flaw in critique may be that it asks a person in authority to discount his own moral judgment and apply the morality of the collective will. It could be said that Eichmann did this. The collective will at the time being the persecution of the Jews. Therefore, the fault lies both in Kant's idea and in Eichmann's 'idealism'; his literal interpretation of Kant's rule.","conclusion":"Eichmann did not distort Kant but applied the ideas correctly, the philosophy itself has the flaw in it that allowed for the persecution of a race."}
{"id":"1c8920e1-b1f1-4b64-bad7-223a33724668","argument":"I don't see any reason to hold your country in higher regard simply because you were born within the arbitrary lines that define it. I think patriotism leads to ethnocentrism and a very skewed perception of the entire world where your country is perfect and many others are evil. I'm not saying that supporting your country is wrong in a situation you feel they're doing good. I'm not saying you can't love your country. I just think blind faith in your leaders allows atrocities to happen while excusing you or your leaders from ever admitting them.","conclusion":"I believe Patriotism is a bad thing."}
{"id":"c769f060-0907-4f31-91f9-1055f644cfe7","argument":"I'm not here for another argument in favor of the basic income or the complexities of its possibilities and studies, but I want to talk more about its economic philosophy, even if the basic income or the negative income tax is something concrete you can talk about when trying to reduce poverty and its ills. I agree that civilization and society work with a minimal set of rules a social contract, I think that's what this is , so that its citizen can enjoy its advantages order, the protection under law, etc . While it's true there is a need for people to work and produce if they want to prosper, capitalism already provides a system where you don't have to force people to work, they already do it naturally to exchange goods I'm not a libertarian, nor a liberal, but I guess that's something people can agree on because that's a system that is consented and of mutual interest. Government regulates capitalism to steer it towards something a little less chaotic. I think people need to change their view on work in general and stop seeing it as a necessary evil. If some people are lazy, they don't deserve to be expelled from society, they can still be citizens, and receive money to fulfill their basic needs. Unemployed people shouldn't get so anxious about not having a paycheck because they believe contributing to society is an important life achievement. If there are enough prosperous industries which can feed everyone, they should feed everyone and be encouraged to do so, and it should be made possible in a systemic way, not just by giving more power to those industries. There is no reason to be afraid to give welfare to everyone. You can't always argue that human nature is unchangeable and that society can't change our instinct to dominate others. EDIT What I essentially mean is to allow unemployment so that people would not be stigmatized by an absence of activity. There should be alternative to paid work, and more support and productive organisation around unemployment instead of rejection. I'm not saying to replace paid work, but seen as so many jobs are paid minimum wage, maybe it's because pay raise incentives are not working.","conclusion":"Unemployment is sometimes better than crappy job"}
{"id":"4072ca41-c9fd-4d27-8203-ddd1bc0a7dee","argument":"My view is substantiated by the 3 Admissions Tutors beneath teachableness and nimble witted, on your feet learning and thinking can\u2019t be easily learned, especially in 1 year by high school students hoping to improve themselves for a potential Oxbridge interview. I bolded the striking parts. Humanities Tutor from Cambridge for the 2017 2018 cycle gt In general, I found my impressions boiled down to three main criteria. gt \u2022 First, quickness of thought they spotted where I was going with questions, anticipated counterarguments, and had nice examples at hand. gt \u2022 Second, clarity several students who were obviously smart managed to give a bad impression because they moved too fast and came across as confused. Focus on what question you're answering, and build up your response carefully. gt \u2022 Third, an elusive quality that I'll call teachableness . If someone comes across as arrogant or grossly opinionated or aggressive, it doesn't bode well for future supervisions. The same goes for people who are very shy or defensive. Oxford STEM Tutor, 2012 2013 admissions cycle gt 1. Grades good enough to get you through to the interview stage High enough intelligence and on your feet thinking to impress your interviewers. Bonus points for charisma. You must be considered teachable. Effectively, we are most interested in finding people we ourselves would enjoy teaching. gt Put it another way if I gave you a challenging problem, could you do it while being stared at by two 'intimidating' Oxford tutors? Or would you freeze up? gt It is very difficult to teach 2. This is partly why overseas and foreign candidates are at a disadvantage, and private school kids are at an advantage. Somewhere in your education or childhood, you must have been taught how to think under pressure. You must have been taught how to brainstorm aloud. Oxford Tutor for Physics, Math or Comp Sci didn\u2019t specify which 2011 2012 admissions cycle gt The type of questions you encounter during interviews varies from tutor to tutor, but they all should aim at the same thing establish how teachable the student is. We will try to take you out of your comfort zone and see how you can build upon hints and previous answers to approach something you've presumably never seen before. gt The questions are not geared towards a particular thinking style or logical process , as we are continually surprised by the clever ways in which people come to an answer. The structure of most good interview questions usually allows for a lot of hints and nudges , but the candidate is free to use these like he she likes, and there's usually more than one interesting way of arriving to a solution. gt These questions aim to establish that you are a quick learner, rather than verify that you know a lot we assume that based on your test scores and predicted exam results . So yes, in a sense, we are trying to establish whether or not you would get the most out of our tutorial system.","conclusion":"Teachableness and quick-witted thinking can't be easily learned."}
{"id":"86f37004-cb60-478b-aed5-0b2a5873746f","argument":"The impact of global warming and extreme weather events will be higher in the developing world. Many climate impacts will be greater in the Tropics and poor countries are least able to adapt to the changes.","conclusion":"Climate change is regressive in nature, i.e. the poorest people who contributed the least to it are affected the most by climate change. Inaction punishes the most innocent, and is therefore immoral."}
{"id":"5a4a7da0-7bac-4a83-863c-90517ca730c6","argument":"As an institution, the BBC may like to position itself as a global media brand but that doesn\u2019t alter the fact that it is funded by, and chartered to serve, the British population. The whole British population. That combination \u2013 paying the pipers and calling the tune \u2013 would suggest that the corporation might be sensitive to that group. If 50,000 to 60,000 users of any other brand registered their protest or objection to a product put forward by that brand, it would cause chaos, resignations, sackings and a rethink of whatever strategy had caused the problem in the first place. In the case of the BBC, it caused a few slightly dismissive comments from senior managers, one editor resigned because he felt that the protesters comments were not being taken seriously and the organisation continued as though nothing had happened. The sheer arrogance required for that response beggars belief. The BBC, as a public institution has a duty of care that might be thought of as greater than that of a private corporation. And yet it gave the impression of acting like it was just one of the other venues who had staged the opera. There is clearly a difference between a theatre that I choose to attend or not \u2013 and choose whether to support financially \u2013 and the national broadcaster which is beamed into people\u2019s living room paid for by a compulsory licence fee.","conclusion":"Tens of thousands of licence fee payers objected to this, ultimately they are the BBC\u2019s key stakeholder and that view is worthy of respect."}
{"id":"4fa97e4a-3560-4070-9635-1fa568b7f5d7","argument":"The more data there is, the more centralized the ledger will become. At some point, only certain entities with large amounts of storage will be able to hold the entirety of the ledger.","conclusion":"The amount of data in a chain will becomes too big with more and more transactions."}
{"id":"a3894d38-5e0f-43c8-b6f3-13bd2d9629b4","argument":"The claim that a 'will' existed, sans matter, or pre the cause of the universe and the matter present in our observable space time is inconsistent with general observations and science.","conclusion":"Will is an aspect of the mind. The mind is \"roughly identical with the brain or reducible to physical phenomena such as neuronal activity\"."}
{"id":"4ee08be8-a74a-4fdb-8821-4463447ca7ee","argument":"For example, fans were outraged when Adrian Peterson who was found criminally guilty of child abuse was suspended for a season","conclusion":"Zero-Tolerance policies stand to alienate some of the most long-standing and passionate sports supporters."}
{"id":"80c64adc-8b1a-4a68-8078-1d1e253e4d57","argument":"There are challenges in closing Guantanamo, for instance in dealing with detainees for which their is scant evidence of wrong-doing, or for detainees that have been tortured, but this is the fault of the Bush administration in creating Guantanamo Bay and implementing poor due process practices in the first place, not of those seeking to dismantle Guantanamo now.","conclusion":"Difficulty closing Guantanamo is fault of Bush for creating it"}
{"id":"b8fbdfa8-d06d-4f2e-ba41-571b663cc668","argument":"Let me preface by saying this I originally started going to reddit as an alternative to my beloved 4chan, as I was worried about my new workplace looking over my browser history. At first it was interesting, you got to see some cool content on the front page, some of the more interesting news articles of the day, and you had the opportunity to dive into smaller subcultures to find a place you fit into. And everything was great, until I started reading the comments. From there it was horrifying. I saw people claim that they were fighting for truth and justice, all while blaming the patriarchy for problems. I saw people unironically talking about how their white skin made them better people than others which is why non whites need our help, because they don't have white skin. I saw people actively defending pedophiles, cheating spouses, and abusing people for their gender all highly upvoted and agreed upon. I'm not here to debate these aforementioned points, as I'm almost positive my views differ from the majority of reddit. Here's what I noticed You have reddit. That's the front page with all the cool stuff on it. From there, you can actively remove and add subreddits. That's all fine. The problem comes from the high school cliquishness of it all. Subreddits will hate each other from afar, refusing to interact with each other for fear other than in the most insulting ways. And these subreddits THRIVE on closeted, isolated opinions, the constant search for validation more of a driving force than actual conversation. That's what I see when I see an option to up downvote something ignorance. The shear revolt of another's opinion. An ostrich shoving their head into the sand at the thought that someone might disagree with them, or worse, might actually have a point. Maybe Trayvon Martin DID actually attack Zimmerman before he was shot. Maybe Darren Wilson DID shoot Michael Brown because of his hatred for black people. But in a system like reddit has, opportunities for actual conversation have been nullified and removed with the simple click of a mouse, on an arrow pointing upwards or downwards. So, r changemyview please, change my view. Show me the virtues of such a system. EDIT Sweet, sweet irony, you actually have to have KARMA to even post on this board. Like, you literally have to be upvoted before you can even call into question the system, lest you go to appeals.","conclusion":"The up\/downvote mechanic of websites like reddit, imgur, and tumblr cause a mob mentality and a boxed-in, ignorant view of the world"}
{"id":"019655b4-5b42-45f1-9187-52fbc1fef43f","argument":"48% of students surveyed in a US study experienced some form of sexual harassment at school in 2010\u201311 and of students who had been harassed, 38% were harassed by teachers or other school employees.","conclusion":"Sexual harassment of children is also a big problem in educational institutions; they are therefore not necessarily better suited to protect children."}
{"id":"0616dcbc-7218-4c68-bee8-9eee12c5d381","argument":"From what I understand, the Heat Death of the Universe is when we reach maximum entropy, and everything is in equilibrium. That means that no matter how much we make ourselves to be on this Earth, in this universe, everything will eventually fall apart and lose meaning. I know some people have trouble finding meaning with the eventual coming of their own death, but I can reason with this, because things I do in my life will be left behind for others to come after me. Sometimes I will look at things around me and think, eventually, none of this will even matter, it will all be the same, everywhere.","conclusion":"I feel like, with the eventual heat death of the universe, what we do doesn't really matter."}
{"id":"512e2956-479a-40e0-b7e1-78961a93b147","argument":"For Muslims in Islamic countries it is very important that Shariah law dictates regulations that pertain to marriage, divorce, inheritance, and custody.","conclusion":"For some, it is highly important to have their religious beliefs represented in the laws of their country."}
{"id":"953c38da-807d-44de-a414-7b2f0e213801","argument":"I understand that certain demographics have had derogatory terms that others have used towards them in an insulting manner, and I understand that I should not do the same. But a lot of Donald Trump's supporters, for example, say they like him in part because he's not politically correct. As if being a birther who thinks Mexicans are rapists would be considered an advantage somehow. But on the other side of the political spectrum, George Carlin and his mini me Bill Maher both have rambled on about how political correctness has gone too far. Sure, the former has said that words are only offensive because of the context we assign to them. And the latter has said that complaining about political correctness isn't a viable substitute for taking action against real life problems. I disagree, however, on the point that society has become too politically correct, as if it was bad that we've been changing our attitudes towards certain derogatory terms as society has grown more and more accepting of certain demographics. In short, my problem is not with political correctness my problem is with the idea that it's gone too far.","conclusion":"\"Society is too politically correct\" is not a valid complaint"}
{"id":"86065ccc-9188-4d11-8177-0bd46ccb1a18","argument":"Teachers supervising debates can ensure that students support their arguments with evidence, leading to a more productive discussion of ideas than the students might find elsewhere.","conclusion":"Students should be provided with discussion and facts before they decide on a particular view that they may hold for the rest of their life."}
{"id":"1a7e1020-693c-482b-86df-08ab379ad45e","argument":"In any free and democratic society, criminal law should only hold people accountable for the things they do, not for the actions of others. We are all autonomous, moral agents who make decisions and have to live with their consequences and the consequences of our actions. While it might be justified to punish bullies for their bullying behavior, if it breaks the law, we cannot hold them accountable for another person\u2019s decision to commit suicide.","conclusion":"Individuals should only be held responsible for the consequences of their own actions"}
{"id":"e83a2c7f-275d-4852-ad07-0e89fc2afe14","argument":"This post was inspired by a recent news story. Over the past few days, there has been some controversy over how to describe Louis Farrakhan. After he was banned by Facebook, a number of news outlets referred to him as far right. A number of conservative outlets objected that he has much stronger ties to the Democratic party. Now, there is debate over what to call him. Here's an article which argues that he should be considered right wing. Here's an article which argues that he belongs to the left. I'd like to propose a third position. Left and right are stupid terms. We shouldn't be wasting time trying to categorize people like this. The left right schism is simply tribalism. My argument The terms are meaningless There is no agreed upon definition of these terms. If you ask 100 people to define these words, you will get 100 answers. They are so vaguely defined as to be almost meaningless. Also, the terms fall apart if someone takes unconventional stances. What do you call a socially conservative socialist? What about an anti war capitalist? The left right schism also stops making sense if you leave your country. For example, is China left wing or right wing? The government calls itself communist and supports a high degree of intervention in the economy. These characteristics are typically considered left wing. Then again, they're also militaristic and anti lgbt. These characteristics are typically considered right wing. So, where do they fit on the left right spectrum? What about Russia? What about Iran? Further, the definitions shift over time. When I was a kid, left and right were defined differently than they are now. If you go back in time further than 100 years, the political alliances are almost unrecognizable. White supremacists supported government intervention in the economy. Capitalist were the anti authoritarians who railed against the conservative monarchists. The terms left and right are messy. There is no consistent philosophy which underlies them, and they serve no purpose. The attempt to place everyone into these categories is a giant waste of time. The terms are harmful Worse, these terms encourage tribalism. Too many people support their team unconditionally, and are unequivocally opposed to anything which they associate with the other team . Instead of evaluating issues rationally, people get caught up in an imaginary war with the rival tribe. A lot of people develop stereotypes in their head, place the most reprehensible people on the other team, and then generalize that person's characteristics to everyone else perceived as belonging to that team. The Democrats don't support Stalin, and the Republicans don't support Hitler. But, left right thinking encourages people to make those associations. How much animus and bickering could we avoid if people didn't engage in this type of tribalistic thinking? Closing thoughts In reality, few of us fit neatly into one of these categories. We're all susceptible to tribalism sometimes. But ultimately, we all have our own unique perspective. We have varying opinions, and we try our best to think logically. The left right schism doesn't reflect the variety of ideas and perspectives which exist. These terms are overly simplistic and derail political dialogue. There is no consistent definition, and attempting to categorize people this way is a waste of brain cells.","conclusion":"The political terms \"left\" and \"right\" are vaguely defined and almost meaningless. We'd all be better off not using them."}
{"id":"1143b4ce-4b97-46c7-91ce-06e5a26b5dca","argument":"Generation Z is an extremely socially conscious generation. Controversial topics like same sex marriage, abortion, climate change and feminism are all fought for tooth and nail. I think particularly with regards to women and feminism, this is posing a problem. Being the children of second wave feminists, Generation Z women have adopted male values as the cornerstone of the respect they desire. As such, generation Z women are becoming men . They're working longer and harder rather than acting as mothers. They're more concerned with results than communication. They're having lots of casual relationships and getting married later. Of course these are generalizations but if the trend continues I can see western society facing the troubles of being primarily composed of men in coming decades. Wouldn't it have been smarter to have fought for men to respect traditional female gender roles rather than trying to garner respect by becoming men themselves? EDIT I deliberately kept this vague to try and incite the widest array of responses because I can't articulate myself enough to the focus the question. Writing isn't my strong suit. This article explains my opinion better than I could.","conclusion":"I believe that Generation Z women are becoming men and the social ramifications of this will be widespread."}
{"id":"3edf29b6-59d9-43cf-8af5-1e8fb4539aad","argument":"The South African rugby team has come to function as a symbol of the post-apartheid nation.","conclusion":"The popularity of certain sports is often linked to a nation's cultural and political history."}
{"id":"abbe74b6-52a3-4e35-ae6d-5c23bc0e2d23","argument":"I stumbled upon the simulation theory a few months ago. At first glance I was quite skeptical, but the more I read the more it began to make sense. I read an article where a group of researchers were able to encode physical strands of DNA with malicious software. DNA computer viruses? Then I stumbled upon another researcher who discovered error correcting code in string theory equations while he was studying quartz, electrons, and supersymmetry. I know the more research that is done in quantum mechanics the more we're noticing the traditional laws of physics aren't applying. So where does that leave us? As our technologies improve so does our own abilities to create simulations. I grew up playing NES then Sega and eventually PS1 2 and the graphics today aren't even in the same realm of comparison. From movie CGI to computer games the details are amazing. So who's to say someone hasn't perfected this and begun their own 'grandfather' simulation or a theoretical simulation on 'x.' If the technology was so sophisticated would we be able to tell? As with all technologies glitches should be present, right? Error correcting software should catch most of those and what's left, r glitch in the matrix stories. Even if only a fraction of a percent of the stories are true what would that mean? What about the Mandela effect? There's so much out there and of all the plausible theories on life, to me, simulation theory makes the most sense.","conclusion":"We live in a simulation"}
{"id":"5e3549f1-572f-4a26-b761-4d83eb42c595","argument":"So for anyone who lives under a rock, a bunch of celebrity nudes were leaked from iCloud. According to Wikipedia, hackers targeted usernames, passwords, and security questions to get access to accounts. This event has been referred to as the Fappening. I have not personally seen these pictures, nor do I intend on looking for them. With that said When someone gets raped, it doesn't matter what they were wearing that night. It doesn't make the act any more justifiable, and rape is rape. I believe this to be true. I feel empathy for rape victims. I've heard this compared to the Fappening many times. The victims' privacy was violated. It's their prerogative to take whatever pictures they want and share them or not , as long as no laws were violated e.g. being underage and no other people were hurt by the act. I agree with this. Where I'm having trouble bridging the gap is here. There are laws in certain places saying that when a pedestrian is waiting at a crosswalk with no signals walk signs, traffic lights, etc. , cars must stop and let the pedestrian s cross. I know a friend that knows this law and doesn't really wait at the crossings, assuming that cars will stop for him, given a reasonable amount of time and space. Most people will wait until the cars actually stop. If he ever gets hit by a car at such a crosswalk, it will be the driver's fault. The fact that someone else didn't follow the rules doesn't make my friend get hit by a car any less, nor does it reduce the painfulness of the incident. He's paying for it with his body, and the law will probably make the driver pay for it as well. I would not feel bad for said friend because he took a risk with no possible reward , got screwed by someone who didn't follow the rules, and my friend ended up paying for it. By the same token, I don't feel bad for the victims of the Fappening. At the same time, I feel bad that I don't feel bad, and as much as I hate the phrase, it comes to mind here. I'm sorry that I'm not sorry. Other risks like owning a phone car bike etc. and risking that it gets stolen or you get injured in an accident , going to bars and risking getting roofied or raped , hooking up with someone at said bar and risking STDs or having them secretly film the encounter , and so on carry a reward. In the case of a phone car bike, you get the convenience. In the case of going to bars and hooking up with people, you get to drink, have fun, meet people, and possibly get laid. If you decide to proceed anyway, then, to you, those rewards outweigh the risks. I don't see any sort of reward for saving nude photos on your phone. It's all risk however small and there's nothing to be gained from it. In fact, I think that it's possible that they wanted the attention all along. I feel bad that I don't feel bad. Make me feel better. Please change my view. Edit Thanks for some good viewpoints. I think that ultimately, the fact that this happened so publicly and on a fairly large scale should be used as a teachable moment. Also thanks for downvoting this, guys. You sure changed my view with that downvote.","conclusion":"I don't feel any empathy for the victims of \"the Fappening.\""}
{"id":"e181c162-5f81-4255-9644-0be24379255c","argument":"Attachment parenting is about being sensitive to the needs of children; when the child needs and wants independence, the parents not only allow them to stand on their own two feet, they encourage the child as well.","conclusion":"Attachment parenting promotes greater independence in adult life; children feel supported by the parents' presence to have the confidence to explore the world on their own."}
{"id":"c8d7d05d-6975-4139-9f55-e96665d518e4","argument":"Morality is better left in the hands of being decided through rationality and compassion than the circular reasoning of ancient books using themselves as a source of objective morality","conclusion":"Many religions do not agree on what standard of morality to adhere to."}
{"id":"21a3b626-2692-407e-8aab-2246e09ffc45","argument":"Landlords have been reported to pressure and harass tenants with legal rights to lower rents, trying to compel them to move out in order to raise rents. More efficient pro-tenant regulation could combat this phenomenon.","conclusion":"Regulations such as rent stabilisation were crucial to providing a sufficient amount of affordable housing in New York. The deregulation of these apartments is an important cause of the current housing crisis."}
{"id":"194f5134-8cfa-46d7-88c7-be95e25c6866","argument":"Inspired by an r relationships post. Many men refuse to date a person who has ever been in porn. However, I think it's fair to say that the vast majority of these men do watch and enjoy porn regularly. To regularly engage in the product while not respecting the actors seems backwards to me. There is obviously a difference between respecting a person and wanting to date them, but I feel some of that many of the reasons given for not dating ex porn actresses involve a lack of respect sometimes even disgust. Here are a few reasons I hear often A common one is 'they probably have tons of STIs'. If they've been tested and come back clean, you know they don't. It may make someone uncomfortable that a video of their girlfriend having sex exists somewhere on the internet. Admittedly I don't know how difficult it is to take down videos, but surely that possibility should be explored? Would it be different if it was a sex tape with a boyfriend up on the internet? How does having video proof of it somehow make it 'worse'? 'Sex shouldn't be made a commodity It's special '. This one I don't understand at all. If you are watching two people having sex, watching a woman masturbate, watching any of these things and using it to bring yourself to orgasm, aren't you 'cheapening' that special sexual experience anyway? Some may argue 'masturbation is different to sex' so why shouldn't porn be different? I can understand not wanting to date people who are still currently doing porn, because that involves them having sex with other people while dating you. Whilst it's true that nobody should have to date someone they aren't comfortable with dating, I do find the idea of refusing people who did porn before they ever met you a bizarre one. I know this is a bit of a 'double standard' type thing, but I'm not trying to argue one is right and the other isn't. I'm trying to say that if you're willing to do one ie watch porn , I don't understand why you won't do the other. Change my view? I am aware that it could be women reacting to their boyfriend's past, or F F or M M couples, but this particular gender arrangement seems to come up the most often, which is why it's what I've focused","conclusion":"Regularly watching porn while refusing to date ex-porn stars is hypocritical"}
{"id":"2b097541-dd95-4451-8ab6-1ceb766204b4","argument":"I watched John Oliver last night and the topic of republican gerrymandering came up. A long held belief of liberals like Oliver is that Gerrymandering for partisan reasons or racial discrimination reasons is wrong. He then perplexingly noted that it's not always bad like in Illinois 4th district because it gives Latinos representation. Isn't this just as bad and anti democratic? If you let someone's voice matter more because a similar group of individuals hold the same belief isn't that tyrany of the majority even if that majority is part of a larger minority .","conclusion":"Gerrymandering in the name of racial representation is just as wrong as racial or partisan discrimination."}
{"id":"4b306121-d2b9-4cd4-bb8c-d33c03295e2f","argument":"We do know that there were a number of crucial atheist leaders in the movement, such as A. Philip Randolph","conclusion":"It's impossible to know that people would not have stepped up to lead had churches not done so."}
{"id":"8fbc8656-91c4-4f79-ae13-b6544c150593","argument":"WW2 is thought by many Americans as a simple conflict between the Allies, who are always doing the right thing, and the faceless and evil Axis. This creates the perception that WW2 was a great and honorable war. It then becomes acceptable to glorify American involvement in WW2 to an unhealthy degree. It seems that the majority of influential American media about WW2 portrays it as a glorious and really cool war that was only somewhat bad for the soldiers involved. Alot of WW2 media says to the audience war is hell but then is essentially battle porn that talk about how great the Allies are. There is little room for moral ambiguity or a disdain for war itself. By contrast, other modern conflicts the United States has had significant involvement in such as World War 1, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the Iraq War are portrayed in media as wars which the soldiers suffer and are permanently harmed by the war. Alot of the media regarding WW1 and the Vietnam War focus on how war is destructive and immoral while this is rarely the case with WW2 media. I think the glorification of WW2 is harmful since it is often inaccurate and promotes war.","conclusion":"World War 2 is glorified in the US to an unhealthy degree"}
{"id":"ab95812d-9727-462c-84a1-f0ce63d1d999","argument":"Part of the appeal of the electoral college is that is helps to avoid the tyranny of the mob. If a particular political ideology becomes popular and sweeps a section of the country, it must meet a high benchmark in order to be able to get a president elected. The movement must appeal to a broad spectrum of the full nation's population. It must be mature enough and develop partnerships\/coalitions with other related groups or it has no chance.","conclusion":"The electoral college protects elections from the capricious and easily swayed nature of public opinion."}
{"id":"31333d1f-7c51-441c-a24f-f524b18fa89a","argument":"There is a pretty big circle jerk that forms over teenaged kids getting expensive cars, the usual points being You didn't earn it So? Everyone gets things they don't earn. That's what gifts are. You'll crash it You can crash a cheap car too. Expensive luxury cars generally have better safety standards as well. It's not your car, it's daddy's car If I bought a bicycle and gave you the bicycle for your birthday, and you got to ride it every day and it stays with you if you ever move, who's bicycle would it be? Yours. That's how gifts work. I most people didn't get to have a nice car, neither should you A lot of people starving in Africa didn't get to eat yesterday, does that mean we shouldn't eat either? You'll never learn how to work for yourself How does receiving a gift inhibit a person from learning how to work for themselves? What's the science behind that? My view is, if a parent gets their kids an expensive car, there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. Cars are commodities that are bought and sold, money is very relative. Some parents can't buy their kids jack shit, and some parents can buy their kids outrageously expensive cars. This is totally okay. Edit Just wanted to say, there's a lot of interesting discussion going on here and I appreciate all of you who offer your opinions and such. Thanks","conclusion":"It's perfectly fine for a parent to buy their teenaged kid an expensive car"}
{"id":"889d14a8-2acc-4fd9-8b6b-b8f00b9a5439","argument":"Yes I understand that you can get around this by disabling subreddit CSS, but that's a little ridiculous. If I'm part of the reddit community, there shouldn't be restrictions for participation on people not subscribed to certain communities. This is especially true for Default subs. I should not have to be subscribed to r Politics to vote on comments or posts. This is an arbitrary barrier to entry, and akin to an application install that automatically checks a box saying you agree to install 3rd party browser toolbars No I don't have to install the toolbars, but it's ridiculous making that the default and tricking people into thinking it's just a part of the process. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"It should be against reddit rules for subs to purposely block voting for people not subscribed to their communities"}
{"id":"00b2046f-c68f-4552-9a4d-3182d77031de","argument":"If there's no god, then there is nothing to argue about. World is what it is, however it happened. I'd argue it's not harder to believe it didn't need any god to create it, than believing some god has created itself and then whole universe. If there is a god he can't be good and omnipotent at the same time. Let's assume it's an abrahamic vision of god, a good being that cares about us. 1 There is no way to know what god wants, it doesn't say much explicitly. Most people can't or coudln't choose to follow the right path since belief. God could just skip moral obstacle course altogether or prove evidence that would shake any doubt, otherwise it's being cruel. Humans were put here on a moral obstacle course while supreme being has not been clear enough in showing the right way or even evidence to prove it's existence. There are many religions and many ideas on how to be moral. Many people abuse religion for power yet god does not intervene. In short we have no way of knowing which god is true, whether it is true at all, and what it wants exactly. There's no hard evidence, mostly interpretations and pretty much every priest or pastor has doubts. Free will does not depend on god being hidden. Half of the world's population or more doesn't even have chance of understanding and following the right religion, because they weren't born in the right country. People have been around way longer than true religion had time to spread, so lots of people just couldn't know anything at all. 2 A good, omnipotent god would stop suffering. God is not stopping suffering. If he can't, it's not omnipotent. If he doesn't want, it's not good. Some suffering is a byproduct of free will, like wars. Unfortunately any crimes and atrocities have their roots in natural inequalities in a world full of scarcity and people not having equal chances. Developed countries are past many natural problems and a lot can be blamed on humans, but it hasn't always been like that homo sapiens has been around for a looooong time. But what about illnesses? Actually good people die in pain because they have cancer. Children lose parents and are the real victims. Innocent people die of starvation. A few miracles here and there assuming they're miracles don't change the fact billions of other people suffer all across the world. Suffering created by humans doesn't absolve god from inaction too victims are often completely blameless and shouldn't suffer for someone's right to free will. Suffering has no point. Good people of all religions suffer despite their beliefs. If god needs humans to suffer or doesn't want to end suffering then it is not good. If it simply can't, it's not omnipotent. 3 A good god would not create such flawed humans. We're human by design, so we shouldn't be judged eternally for being human. How can humans be punished for acting the way they've been designed to? We have bad emotions ingrained into us because it's helped us survive. We can't even directly control them, we're bound to fail. I have heard people saying it's all about free will, but I don't think it is. I'd argue humans don't have as much choice as we think and any kind of urge is a limiting factor. Sometimes we have good urges to help others or ourselves, sometimes we have Bad urges like greed and anger, yet they're all urges we didn't ask for. If humans have those urges it's already limiting our free will. Wouldn't a good god remove urges to act immoraly?","conclusion":"If there is a god, it cannot be good, all knowing and all powerful the way most religions see it. Especially abrahamic religions, most especially christianity."}
{"id":"7bbe94a7-80e1-4b5b-a584-084fc3bc81f5","argument":"Inviting people to the religion is a meritorious activity in Islam. Muslims consider inviting others to Islam a collective duty as it is the mission originally carried out by the Prophets of Allah. The Quran says: \"Invite to the Way of your Lord with wisdom and beautiful preaching; and argue with them non-believers in ways that are best and most gracious.\" An-Nahl: 125","conclusion":"Many religions count teaching the faith among the principal duties of believers."}
{"id":"22814c80-9896-4509-96b4-ffc5e81a0370","argument":"A belief in a god is a part of a larger world view, rather than an idea that stands on its own. It answers questions about the meaning of existence, the purpose of our actions, the cause of physical phenomenon, and other questions necessary to functioning well as a human. Removing that single belief does not remove the need for the larger system. Such a system would be a religion, whether Atheist or Theist, formalized or unspoken.","conclusion":"As a believer of Atheism, one must believe that his belief or religion is right while all the other contradicting religions and beliefs are wrong. And yet, it lacks any evidence, not even having individual experiences nor ancient texts which some of the other religions can suggest as proof of validity."}
{"id":"6b1af0d8-977a-460f-8e31-d0d768c1c6ab","argument":"I hold this view because this is the way I was raised, and I recognize that is never a good reason to hold a view. I have not found any peer reviewed research that supports homosexuality as a genetic or pre determined condition. But on the other hand, I have multiple friends who are homosexual and who claim to have tried for years to change their feelings, but couldn't. All of the evidence that I have for unchangeable homosexuality is anecdotal I am hoping someone can provide scientific proof or at least suggestion to back up those anecdotes. Frankly my upbringing and history have not given me the resources to determine my view on this without bias, so here I am on  to get some feedback. I want to believe people are born this way because I don't want to think my friends have struggled so hard and so long to perpetuate a lie. But I tend to think there are some people who claim homosexuality so they can be rebellious or counter culture.","conclusion":"I do not think that homosexuality is pre-determined and unchangeable."}
{"id":"6ffb771e-973a-4ac9-a628-ad0e2b861181","argument":"I am trying to get into music and I keep straying away from learning to sample because it feels like stealing to me. I know there are amazing people who make amazing music artists I love, even that sample and make beautiful music. However, for some reason I won't allow myself to do it. Is it stealing?? Is it still talent?? I feel like true musicians only make music by creating rhythms and ideas from their minds and applying them instrumentally. I feel like a total hack if I copy parts of old music and combine them like magazine clippings. This seems to be holding me back though as I can't really play an instrument. Someone please help change my view in this and tell me why Sampling is not only acceptable, but actually awesome.","conclusion":"Sampling in music is lazy and unoriginal."}
{"id":"9d73ffff-197a-4928-ad42-e106693cca38","argument":"None of Trump's previous comments were a threat to the profits of NFL owners, so it seems likely that their reaction to his comments on NFL player protests were at least partially motivated by their own profit.","conclusion":"It is hypocritical of owners to kneel in response to Trump's comments about the protest but to have also taken no stance on his previous controversial statements."}
{"id":"af1480bd-e3ef-46c1-9dae-3ee7ecc46dd6","argument":"LPS is a political legal idea the people should be able to opt out or opt in of being a parent. How I envision this working is a woman gets pregnant, and before the guy can be legally considered the parent, he has to agree to it with some paperwork. This means that he cannot be held accountable to child support unless he agrees to be a parent. Working in reverse, a woman can choose to not be considered the parent even if she gives birth. She can usually do just that right now by giving the baby up for adoption, but this would allow for the odd cases where he wants to be parent, she doesn't, and she is willing to carry the baby to term. He can have the kid, and she is free of all legal responsibilities. I firmly believe that parenthood should not be forced on anyone. Having a kid greatly affects your life and no one should be forced into it. We have birth control, Plan B, abortion, and adoption, which are all good things to have as options. But unfortunately once the kid is born both parents need to agree to put it up for adoption. In order to be absolved of parenthood. Ideally no unwanted kid would be born, but birth control fails, and past that the man is powerless. The woman might also be opposed to abortion. I hear that the idea behind child support is that the kid is entitled to that money. But why? If both parents want to put the kid up for adoption, the kid isn't entitled to either of their money. It's only when just one parent wants to keep it. I think that a person should only be required to give care to a kid if they agreed to be a parent. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Legal Parental Surrender is more just than the current system."}
{"id":"21654663-f8e6-41d8-ae77-45fcca18cab3","argument":"Here is a page showing a large number of extreme weather events that are linked to AGW - as well as those that are not.","conclusion":"Each extreme weather event that can be attributed to man-made climate change is a further refutation of the climate contrarian hypothesis."}
{"id":"874b4dbf-44e7-4a5a-b3d2-33dfb14c4a46","argument":"Many dog breeds have been banned from city living due to occurrences of reported aggression.","conclusion":"Some dogs are aggressive and are known to bite or even kill people."}
{"id":"de31e375-55aa-480e-9200-9a8430a3de79","argument":"I'm a virgin and I had many relationships and I loved the girls that I have been with but I couldn't even think of having sex with them because I loved them. To me it's like having a cat that you love so much and your supposed to have sex with it and of course you could't do it, it's insane. However when I break up with the girl and after a while I stop loving her and suddenly I'm having thoughts of having sex with them. It's like that every time and it's very frustrating. So when I look at these couples that have a ''healthy'' relationship I just can't make sense of how that works and so I think they are just lying or pretending that they truly love each other. I don't view sex as making love as I find it absurd to think of it that way. I want someone, who has a healthy relationship and they love the person they are with or who once had that kind of relationship, to answer the question honestly. Thank you in advance.","conclusion":"I think there is no love in sex."}
{"id":"62877eae-9e06-43b1-afd1-0a4368fb8e08","argument":"Google even gives some app developers access to users' emails While this requires the consent of users, the consent form is unclear and the implications are not widely known.","conclusion":"Nothing is free - and email providers that don't charge money usually sell user data or utilize it otherwise."}
{"id":"802680ce-56ff-4b56-8bee-dfda9e8f6641","argument":"It's no wonder that study of blue zones shows that plant-based or very near it is the healthy way to go.","conclusion":"While diets that include meat and animal products may be healthy, often their \"healthiness\" comes from reducing animal products."}
{"id":"8a5a6d13-8926-405b-84e1-742a1e3e3b2f","argument":"In the US, health insurance coverage for African Americans is already persistently lower and of poorer quality than for other groups. Race based medical research will only worsen this disparity by introducing racial segregation of medicines and treatments covered by such insurance.","conclusion":"This will result in the financial exploitation by pharmaceutical companies of racial minorities."}
{"id":"23bba534-8b5b-4d20-9142-3c01cdd73097","argument":"For example Asia Argento, leading figure of the #metoo movement, is defended by fellow metoo activists after being accused of sexual misconduct herself","conclusion":"Feminism does not correct its members when they break feminist values, but follows along."}
{"id":"d2266363-fdd7-4444-9d2a-e377e761a69d","argument":"It makes the \"Appeal to authority\" logical fallacy. Simply because one group has an experience, doesn't mean they get precedence or authority in a conversation, especially when it mutes or dismisses others' opinions","conclusion":"Identity politics prioritize personal experience over factual evidence. This tends to be less convincing to general society."}
{"id":"f9c22eb2-382d-42f6-a82e-5e6eaaca219f","argument":"I believe that sex work should be legalized or decriminalized in the United States. My main reasons for believing this are Sex work is like any other work despite involving sex, which Americans stigmatize unjustly Regulating the sex work market will elimate or alleviate problems associated with the illegal market It would create more jobs and aid the U.S. economy by putting people to work If it's legal to be paid to have sex on film, it ought out be legal to pay for sex off of film Because most sex workers are women, it is an issue of supporting women's rights to choose what they do with their bodies I hope these points can be addressed thoroughly. I look forward to hearing your replies","conclusion":"sex work in the U.S. should we legalized or decriminalized"}
{"id":"5b082025-78c3-4638-9828-069649e70a47","argument":"The single biggest source of species decimation over the coming decades is climate change. Donating money to stop it is a more efficient way to address the loss in biodiversity.","conclusion":"Donations for biodiversity preservation are usually not targeted at individual species."}
{"id":"cf7b4ff2-919d-407f-b63c-0fde2291033f","argument":"The median net worth of American families has declined by a third between 2007 and 2013. The average member of Congress, at the same time, saw his\/her net worth increase by 20% over the same time span.","conclusion":"The members of the American Congress are much wealthier than the vast majority of American citizens."}
{"id":"3e5487fd-75d2-4669-ac33-f3ba2d916025","argument":"Placeholder: most forms of assault are bad not just because of the sensations inflicted but the lasting physical effects","conclusion":"Without physical effects, large portions of the criminal code do not make sense to enforce."}
{"id":"a575ee7c-2e2e-4263-861f-3cd0bd30cf10","argument":"In high school we\u2019re often told \u201cfor this paper you need five sources, and at least two must be books.\u201d This is stupid because Books are not inherently more accurate than the internet. In fact, I\u2019d say they\u2019re often less accurate. They don\u2019t always age well. School libraries are also far, far more limited than the internet. It\u2019s ridiculous that I have to consult a 1993 \u201cConcerned Parent\u2019s Guide To Teen Drug Use\u201d glossy picture book I\u2019m making this specific one up as equal to peer reviewed papers by tenured professors of their fields, just because it\u2019s all the library has. It\u2019s not very hard to check out a book, so I don\u2019t think our library skills will deteriorate as a result of doing all of our research online. Sometimes I think consulting a book can be valuable, like if you have a very large university public library at your disposal, but even then, I don\u2019t think much can\u2019t be found online. I\u2019ve cited books by pulling what I need from a Google books sample. It\u2019s not as if we\u2019re given enough time on these papers to actually read the damn things, either. Picking at random some quote from a low quality book is vastly inferior to reading a variety of internet articles. On a related note, Wikipedia gt gt the short \u201ctopic series\u201d books on library shelves written at one author\u2019s indulgence. And that\u2019s a cheap example, but honestly, Wikipedia gt gt most other sources below a certain length depth.","conclusion":"Making students use \u201cat least _ book sources\u201d in school for assignments is stupid."}
{"id":"694070ca-75c5-4654-ba4f-3b8fb2f12c24","argument":"White people in many wealthy countries are already afraid of being \"culturally replaced by immigrants from poor or non-Western countries. These fears would intensify and result in extreme backlash if national borders were removed.","conclusion":"If national borders disappeared, there would likely be a mass migration of people from poorer regions to wealthier ones. This would trigger a political crisis."}
{"id":"4e9e87e5-8be1-4cd4-9910-4dc06ba60068","argument":"- There are many ways to send a message to the Chinese government to change its policies on Darfur, but the most powerful of these means would be at the Olympics in Beijing. Countries could, as one scholar suggests, have their athletes where warm-ups that say \"Save Darfur\".","conclusion":"Influencing China on Darfur would be best achieved through the Olympics there"}
{"id":"641bf678-db67-4a8d-ab8d-f3cd04ec2315","argument":"Hi, I'm going to be copying a comment I made very recently on a kotaku article about pewdiepie, because I have some conflicting opinions on the subject, and would really like to discuss them somewhere balanced, cause you can't convince kotaku commenters he's not a racist, or pewdiepiesubmissions that he has faults Original comment as follows I\u2019m an Indian guy who considers himself a fan of pewdiepie, but am nonetheless worried about his slow decline towards the alt right, whether conscious or not. Now I\u2019d like to list his controversies and provide some context, and my opinion on them Fiverr video he paid 2 Indian guys from a very rural area to hold up a sign that said \u201cdeath to all Jews, subscribe to keemstar\u201d. Note this was in 2016 or 17 iirc, when the keemstar hate was at an all time high, and pewdiepie himself had nothing good to say about him. The whole statement was a joke. Now regardless of your opinion on edgy toe the line jokes, it\u2019s clear that it was intended As a joke, to see how far strangers on the internet would go to for just 5 . One thing he failed to consider is that our rural education system is pretty shit, and these kids probably have no idea who hitler was or even what a jew is. So imo, this wasn\u2019t racist Nazi jokes WSJ controversy the nazi jokes were completely blown out of proportions, the \u201cnazi uniform\u201d he was accused of wearing was clearly a British uniform. However this is also when I started to get worried, as even though he was imo perfectly justified in distrusting the WSJ, he started telling his subscribers to be wary of mainstream media as a whole one of the calling cards of the alt right, and imo what people should be worried about, him leading people to the alt right not because his content is somehow racist, but by driving people towards less trustworthy and fringe news sites by telling them not to trust the mainstream news. Using the N word on stream definitely a racist act. Through and through. Calling alinity a twitch thot need help with this one is calling someone a twitch thot worse than calling them a booby streamer? Are both terms sexist? Bitch lasagna the only line I even slightly took offense to was where he compared \u201cour language\u201d think he meant hindi, cause we have like 27 different languages here to mumble rap Congratulations a lot of people took offense at the line \u201cIndians have poo poo in their brains\u201d, but I think it\u2019s important to note that verse continues \u201cthat\u2019s a blatant racist lie, but still not defamation\u201d Now if after the provided context you still think he\u2019s a racist, that\u2019s a perfectly valid opinion that has some merit to it. But I feel like he\u2019s just a regular guy who enjoys edgy humor, and sometimes oversteps. But I feel like this attitude where we immediately condemn someone and refuse to even budge on our opinion is a super unhealthy mentality. I feel like this us vs them mentality only serves to push people like pewdiepie further away from reason, and closer towards hate.","conclusion":"pewdiepie isn't a racist or alt right, though he is coming dangerously close"}
{"id":"14f91c5a-4e99-4422-8a32-ee3302ca3bc9","argument":"When the ECI announced the \"EVM Challenge inviting all political parties to try and hack the EVM machines, none of these political parties participated. Other sources","conclusion":"The consensus among the political party seems to be politically motivated."}
{"id":"7d32e4ae-c041-4434-bd88-4e6c4958c184","argument":"Animal rights activists believe that animals should be free from exploitation, suffering, and death. I am not debating this baseline belief, but rather extending it in a morally consistent way. If the suffering of one animal is universal in a type of way, then there is nothing morally relevant between a pig being killed by a slaughterhouse worker and a gazelle being killed by a lion. One counterargument is that in the pig situation, the killer is a human with moral thinking and ability to rationalized and act according to social norms and moral values. The lion obviously is not capable of that, acting only on base instincts and does not follow moral norms or rules. However, to the animal that is suffering because of being dominated, does that suffering change based on the moral ability of the oppressor? The suffering is equal, and the animal does not care of the reasoning for the suffering, only that the suffering is happening. Thus, if animal rights groups are trying to eliminate the exploitation and suffering of animals, it is morally consistent to desire to eliminate wild animal suffering, too. Another counter argument is that one thing is natural and the other is unnatural . This seems like an appeal to nature fallacy and thus doesn't have any logical or moral relevance. The suffering of the pig and the gazelle are equal, even if the context is different. As humans, as moral agents, we have the capacity to determine right from wrong. If we eventually get to the point where we collectively agree that the suffering of animals in farms large or small is morally relevant and something that should not be supported, then we should also take steps to eliminate all types of animal suffering, including the suffering of animals in the wild.","conclusion":"If the suffering and death of animals in factory farms is something that should be prevented, so should the suffering and death of animals in the wild."}
{"id":"bd14d318-e5e3-402a-ad73-0a2f31930a35","argument":"This  is not about legal obligations . The laws that I know of on this topic were written before there was such a thing as untransmissible HIV and do not account for it. x200B My view is simple We have an ethical obligation to inform others of any infection including HIV that we might transmit to them by any mechanism, including sex . We do not have an obligation to inform others of infections that cannot be transmitted. It is accepted science references below that undetectable HIV is not transmissible. Therefore, people who have proof in the form of regular blood tests that their HIV is undetectable untransmissible have no ethical obligation to inform anyone including sex partners about it. Statement from the CDC gt people who take ART daily as prescribed and achieve and maintain an undetectable viral load have effectively no risk of sexually transmitting the virus to an HIV negative partner. x200B Statement from UNAIDS gt Three large studies of sexual HIV transmission among thousands of couples, one partner of which was living with HIV and the other was not, were undertaken between 2007 and 2016. In those studies, there was not a single case of sexual transmission of HIV from a virally suppressed person living with HIV to their HIV negative partner. x200B Statement from the NIH gt the body of scientific evidence to date has established that there is effectively no risk of sexual transmission of HIV when the partner living with HIV has a durably undetectable viral load, validating the U U message of HIV treatment as prevention. x200B EDIT Off to bed. Thanks for a great discussion","conclusion":"People with untransmissible HIV have no ethical obligation to reveal their HIV status to sex partners"}
{"id":"2ef24cb0-1be6-4b73-8d24-96c083bbfc73","argument":"At least in the United States, the federal government has indicated specific protected classes upon which discrimination is illegal, such as ethnicity, gender or age. If someone has completely fulfilled the obligations a court sentence, why should we allow for their past crimes to follow them around in society, seeing as they have done what a legal authority laid out as needing to be done to serve as penance for their crime? Should we not identify these persons as the target of unfair discrimination? If the government is not willing to make this change, I believe it is recognizing legally, to some extent, that people cannot change. Are there examples when this is appropriate, but when it is most definitely not what maxim could we devise to hash out the line at which it becomes acceptable to discriminate on this basis? This piece inspired my thoughts on the subject if anyone is curious. Seeing as I am fairly ignorant of the legal systems of countries other than the U.S., I would love to hear some arguments involving foreign legal systems, just out of curiosity. Edit 10 54 pm, Thursday, April 25th Thanks you everyone for contributing, I really enjoyed the discussion My view has not shifted significantly, but the discussion that ensued caused me to really flesh out and qualify my opinion and its implications, and for that I'm grateful. I need to get off reddit for now, but I'd really enjoy to check back in in a week or so and see some further opinions retorts views.","conclusion":"I believe that, for those who have been previously incarcerated or punished by a legal system and then fulfilled the obligations of their sentence, it should be illegal to discriminate against them in matters of employment, housing ,etc."}
{"id":"3212baca-5304-4e6a-b4ea-846cf1bf7b25","argument":"Aspects of reality like hell, that can not be tested through hypothesis and repeatable experiments can not be reliably proven through science.","conclusion":"The existence or non-existence of Hell is beyond the realms of science to investigate."}
{"id":"90362e7d-6f66-4874-863c-f32f09bd4d2f","argument":"It would be easier for minorities to establish official support groups which minority conscripts could seek out to receive help and protection from discrimination within the military.","conclusion":"Because the total number of minorities serving would be higher, they would be more capable of organizing and creating stronger support for minorities."}
{"id":"89e9f2a5-386e-4fe8-894d-fedd69b806fb","argument":"Essentially, I don\u2019t think that it should be legal for a company to adjust the price you pay for their services based on your protected class status. I can think of at least two common examples of this. Hair salons often charge different amounts for a men\u2019s haircut vs. a women\u2019s haircut typically women\u2019s cuts cost more . I don\u2019t think this should be legal. I understand that long hair is more work to cut than short hair, but it\u2019s not like all women have long hair and all men have short hair. It would make much more sense to just have a \u201clong hair\u201d and \u201cshort hair\u201d price than to base it off gender. Another example is nightclubs. Many nightclubs charge a reduced cover fee for women compared to men. With this one, I understand that they do it because it evens out the gender ratio and makes the club more money, but I still don\u2019t think it\u2019s right. To me, it seems very similar to a club charging more for black people because they want to bring in more whites as high paying customers. Just because it makes the business more money doesn\u2019t make it right. That\u2019s basically it. Not sure what would change my view exactly but arguments along the lines of \u201cit\u2019s good for business\u201d probably won\u2019t.","conclusion":"It should be illegal for companies to discriminate against protected classes with their pricing"}
{"id":"9b791266-ac21-46f7-b6b4-568a1880a1e6","argument":"The reason for this belief is simple. It's easy to create a counterexample. There are an infinite number of series which are exclusive of producing any work of Shakespeare. For example If the characters are indeed random, there's no guarantee that all the characters won't all be the same every single time. If you have an infinite string of z you won't be able to produce the works of Shakespeare. Doubts The math doesn\u2019t follow suit. The probability of occurrence of any counterexample is infinitesimally greater than zero and the probability of finding a specific string of characters would be infinitesimally smaller than one. I don\u2019t have a problem with that except that 0.999\u2026 and 1 have been proven to be the same number. edit 1 I'm going to define random as each item of a set has an equal probability of being chosen. edit 2 I'm bad at mathz my view has been changed slightly, I just need to figure out how to properly reply and reward the deltas edit 3 This  was poorly structured and worded. This response sums up the reason and does a better job explaining than I can.","conclusion":"Monkeys hitting keys at random for an infinite period of time won't necessarily produce the works of Shakespeare."}
{"id":"dcb4695d-6d1d-4832-a590-c9eaa3c1a1c7","argument":"Even though Europeans are on the whole more environmentally conscious than Americans are, they insist upon buying expensive even non carbonated water, and find it disconcerting to drink from the tap. Why, when there is plentiful pure drinking water, would someone purchase bottled water in a restaurant or for drinking at home?","conclusion":"I believe the European habit of drinking bottled water is wasteful and completely illogical."}
{"id":"a79f6e15-f913-4105-af94-de9f67d6d530","argument":"A specific individual might just be an object of lust and desire and even though one has no intention of leaving ones partner, one will give in and have an affair.","conclusion":"Being adulterous is a standard human desire, to which many people succumb."}
{"id":"b23d71b6-bafa-44ba-ad55-0d806853a5db","argument":"Most people say I have nothing to hide as a knee jerk response to any complaint made by someone who dislikes privacy invasion. The response almost never considers who's looking, why they're looking, or what their intentions are. Most of the time, the only sure thing you know about someone who says I have nothing to hide is that they don't understand basic privacy or risk management principles. There are many common retorts for this phrase that vary from kinda ok to fairly useless, but the simplest way I know to explain why it's so wrong is that giving information to strangers who's motives are unknown puts you and others at risk. Why give out information knowing it's a risk with no clear benefit or purpose? It's a fact that there are abusive and dangrous people out there and unless you have some way of telling them apart, giving information out carelessly is reckless. This is an irresponsible and potentially dangerous viewpoint and to even utter the words nothing to hide serves to further the perception that it's ok to be loose with your information and that there's something wrong with wanting to manage your information risk. .","conclusion":"- I believe that saying \"I have nothing to hide\" is naive at best and is actually irresponsible in most cases"}
{"id":"d4330d32-cf22-423d-b183-6c9f3e057886","argument":"I see people everywherr espousing the upsides of a UBI to support people who are losing their jobs to automation etc. With the speed of technological innovation it seems to be almost inevitable that some form of ubi will be introduced somewhere in the world in the near future in fact places like South Africa seem to be moving that direction as we speak . However the idea doesnt sit well with me. I know that there are people out their who are genuinly unable to provide for themselves for a multitude of reasons e.g. the elderly, disabled people, women etc and for those people I feel like some sort of social safety net is a good thing. However I draw the line at providing the service unconditionally like some sort of quasi human right. I feel like allowing entire populations, specifically working age males, to be sustained on the governments teet leads us down a dark and dangerous road. What happens if suddenly the payments cannot be provided? Would the government need to take on debt, effectively stealing from the next generation? Also, how can you run a program of immigration whilst providing a UBI? Its almost laffable to evem suggest open borders could function in conjunction with any form of UBI. Seems quite unequal and unethical. I do think that UBI offers some benefits over conventional welfare systems. For one, it would eliminate a lot of bloat from social security as means testing and eligibility checks would be made irrelevant, thus removing some of the costs of providing welfare. Also I have heard the argument that providing a sustenance level of income to people alleviates workers to pursue entrepreneurial endeavours etc. However I think this would be more of an exception to the rule. In my mind most people would be sitting around watching netflix or surfing reddit. Overall, I cant shake the feeling that UBI does nothing but encourage more laziness and dependance on large government programs whilst doing nothing but widening the gap between rich and poor. Change my view all you bernie goys","conclusion":"Universal Basic Income is a bad idea because relying on the government to survive is degeneracy."}
{"id":"7afe6b3f-bfcf-4d08-9c5c-c0712434d00c","argument":"Edward L. Glaeser. \"Should the Government Rebuild New Orleans, Or Just Give Residents Checks?\". The Economist's Voice. Vol 2, Issue 4, 2005. - \"Could New Orleans, with Spending, Somehow Return to Its Long-Past Glory? . Granted, some previously great ports have managed to rebuild themselves around new industries. New York is now devoted to finance. San Francisco is the center for information technology. . But New Orleans was never able to reinvent itself, perhaps because it lacked the human capital that has been so heavily correlated with urban success over the past 50 years.\"","conclusion":"Rebuilding New Orleans will not return it to economic vibrancy"}
{"id":"23bbb2b9-b1b5-4978-bdcf-74889bcc8025","argument":"I don't get why it is acceptable in USA to have racially divided communities and be proud of it. Being an Indian, I can see some towns like Bellevue becoming totally Indian and everyone just accepts that new Indian immigrants who arrive here would want to live there. But if a white person mentions this fact, he would be branded a racist and lose his job. Whites can't even form exclusive communities to discuss issues plaguing them. It is absolutely unfair to the race that was instrumental in creating the nation and the freedoms associated with it. I feel like this must be fomenting resentment among youth and contribute to them joining more extremist organizations. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"White people should be able to form their own communities,clubs and organizations and not be termed \"racist\""}
{"id":"a3146fc0-ccb7-45f7-bd3f-a48ec8412ebf","argument":"There are a number of disciplines history, geography, archeology, anthropology, philology, palaeography and more which aim to determine historical evidence's validity and set standards which the sources must meet in order to be considered reliable and useful.","conclusion":"Universally ignoring historical and anecdotal evidence would imply an inability to learn anything from either history or eyewitness testimony."}
{"id":"f3cdfe7d-9333-405f-a1f2-b2f2f16440cb","argument":"After having an encounter with someone who used an ageplay character on F List and finding out that it's apparently not against the ToS on the website as well as having made a post about it on their subreddit just to get harrassed by two users, claiming I was Kink Shaming , I want to see some legit opinions from redditors so that I can get an idea about it, if it's truly not harming people and am I just being irrational because of how it looks. I don't like it because of some personal things in my past but also I don't want to hate someone for not doing anything wrong if it is indeed innocent.","conclusion":"Ageplay May Be a Possible Gateway to Pedophilia"}
{"id":"696bf3ab-836c-4c90-968a-9d555b7a557d","argument":"Even in the US, hate speech is not necessarily protected by the free speech clause of the US constitution. Many legal scholars have argued that hate speech is prohibited by the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.","conclusion":"In many countries, hate speech is regulated and legally defined."}
{"id":"1be44b11-d314-4e4a-bd89-88bed0cf36a8","argument":"Due to the nature of how tickets are handed out, you get 'punished' for your illegal activity 2 weeks 2 months after the infraction. This doesn't make sense. Would you punish point out wrong doing to a child a month after they did something wrong? Basic psychology shows that waiting this long to conduct reinforcement is confusing to the perpetrator. I overall don't like any fee based punishment. A 50 ticket means something different to everyone. If you make 20k a year, a 50 dollar ticket means something else to someone making 200k a year. 'Tax on the poor', if you will. There are lots of other ways to keep people from committing traffic infractions properly labeled speed bumps, speed limit signs that aren't hidden by trees, speed limits painted on the road itself, and having longer yellow lights to name a few. The government is pretty much taking peoples disposable income and funneling it into their own salaries. A computer camera is not a human. 6th amendment. This also leads to the cameras being ridiculously inaccurate. In my state, they had to throw away over sixthousand tickets because of a malfunction in the camera.","conclusion":"Red light\/speeding cameras are a scam"}
{"id":"3de10bf4-28ce-40ed-b1b1-1697564065d7","argument":"By university I mean any accredited institution that grants degrees beyond Bachelor's. By most I mean any proportion greater than 1 2. Here's the argument. A necessary condition for a university to be committed to excellence in teaching is that evidence of teaching excellence plays at least as much of a role in the hiring and promotion of tenure track faculty as research does. For most universities, evidence of teaching excellence does not play at least as much of a role in the hiring and promotion of tenure track faculty as research does. Therefore, most universities are not committed to teaching excellence. Full disclosure I am a recent Ph.D. on the academic job market. From my own limited experience, the primary perhaps only form of evidence with respect to teaching excellence at universities are student evaluations. I have never heard of anyone not getting hired or being denied tenure primarily because of bad student evaluations. I have never heard of anyone getting a tenure track job, or getting tenure primarily because of good student evaluations. This is, of course, anecdotal evidence. I am only speaking from my limited experience. I am not privy to any large set of data correlating hiring promotion with student evaluations or any other evidence of teaching effectiveness. If the data refutes my position, then I am happy to change my view. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Most universities are not committed to excellence in teaching."}
{"id":"b54d0bea-bf8e-469a-ae21-32dd9306ea68","argument":"According to , 57 and 28 percent of parents of boys and girls respectively want their children to aspire \"as far as possible\", compared to only 1 and 7 percent respectively who do not want their children to study at all.","conclusion":"Parents want their children to aspire as high as possible."}
{"id":"a2a1b1dc-f399-46d7-bfeb-eba6a38107e2","argument":"God is the most rationale explanation based on mathematical considerations because there are numerous examples of things which would not have come about by chance due to the shear improbability involved.","conclusion":"The alternative to accepting a supernatural being is far less rational because at every stage science runs into problems which are inconceivable based on a materialistic world view."}
{"id":"67583c11-97b6-4b2f-8155-83a139718b74","argument":"Basically, I think that to go through your whole life without trying a substance that so many creative and intelligent people enjoy at least once , is irrational. To try it once, there is virtually no significant negative repercussions that could occur especially if you inform yourself on the proper dosage and be conservative with it . Essentially, no matter what your principles are i.e. I don't want to alter my state of consciousness , you are not making an informed decision on what you want until you have at least tried the substance. And because it is so harmless to try once, you would be acting irrationally by not allowing yourself this piece of crucial information. Of course there are people who have certain medical issues that shouldn't try it, and some people with a strong predisposition to addiction may be well advised to stay away. My view allows for these people to make that choice rationally. It's those people that refuse to try it on principle alone that strike me as irrational.","conclusion":"Refusing to try marijuana over the entirety of your lifetime on principle is irrational."}
{"id":"efeed2b1-eb81-4df2-9f3c-7844181422c9","argument":"To clarify, I believe that pro wrestling is no different than any other form of character acting, and that complaining and criticizing it for not being real is like criticizing any other form of media for being unrealistic. I have never watched pro wrestling, and I do not care about it, but it is unreasonable to expect the medium to disclaim itself as fantasy. J.K. Rowling doesn't have to state that magic isn't real, Michael Bay doesn't have to say that robots are not in disguise, and The Rock shouldn't have to say that he didn't actually smash a man over the neck with a chair. WWE is showmanship and entertainment, and is no less of a performance than any other character acting.","conclusion":"I believe that complaining that WWE is fake is as stupid as complaining that Christian Bale isn't Batman in real life."}
{"id":"75ee7491-f594-49ca-8eea-bfe986ae71a9","argument":"I don't get why so many people think otherwise. I've asked my friends, family, teachers, and even looked up on the internet, hardly anyone says that Adolf Hitler was a genius. Every time I mention this topic it always leads to a heated debate and it just seems like people don't quite understand that one's personality trait has nothing to do with one's intelligence. Just because someone is a genius it doesn't mean he would be a great guy and make a ton of positive contribution to the world. Yes he was an idiot for invading Russia during winter, I get that. But come on guys, he dropped out of school, had barely any education, was broke as hell and worked as a painter, went to jail, etc. He went from a poor, uneducated person who no one gives a fuck about, to ruling most of Europe People have difficult time leading one country and this guy went from nothing to 100 in such a short amount of time, not to mention Germany had lots of problems at the time like inflation To those who are unaware, it took him half a year to fix this x1000 year inflation issue whereas when Brazil suffered the same problem it took them about 15 years I'm pretty sure he would've been someone of a much larger scale if only he hadn't invaded Russia. In a negative way, of course. I will repeat myself again, I'm not saying he was a great person. He was a very brutal man who has indirectly murdered 6 million innocent people. I get that and I agree that he should've never been born to begin with and deserved all that could've been done to him by the camp survivors. But the point that he was a genius still stands due to what I mentioned above in just a few years. He had an astonishing leadership skill that convinced hundreds of millions of people. This is not something a fairly smart guy can do, especially with the poor education he had. At this point I feel like anyone who says otherwise is just trying to remain politically correct. Sorry for the long text. Thanks for taking the time, not trying to start any flame wars but just genuinely curious.","conclusion":"Prove me wrong that Hitler was not a genius\/very smart individual"}
{"id":"d30e42ab-f8c4-4ac1-9ec8-e80d3500a3be","argument":"America is the only country with a history of using nuclear weapons on human beings.","conclusion":"America is historically the most aggressive nation in the world second only to England"}
{"id":"405c8e0f-9648-4943-bc1f-a1cb677d6807","argument":"Clearly our system of preferences does not point to any single divine creator because moral standards differ from place to place and they also evolve over time in the same regions.","conclusion":"God is not necessary for morality. For morality to exist all this is needed is beings like humans that have and exercise preferences."}
{"id":"bc26c483-11d1-441d-adf6-f4dc938388b5","argument":"To censor history is to deny that it happened. The word exists. It is a bastardization of the spanish word for the color black, negro, which American settlers couldn't pronounce correctly. High-school students should not have history hidden from them, they should be taught what it means, why it was used, and why it shouldn't be used anymore.","conclusion":"Intentionally removing specific words from a text for political reasons is functionally similar to censorship, which is contrary to the values of liberal democracies and should, therefore, be rejected."}
{"id":"f4fa8165-d249-4e65-8bef-6f5451cfdddd","argument":"The practice of stuffing them in badly managed landfills and impounded ponds needs to stop. Every few years, they spill into streams and seep into groundwater and pose a huge health risk. I understand why energy companies want to keep coal ash it's a great source for recycled concrete and building materials. But they need to keep the stuff out of our water. I don't think there's too much of an engineering problem either if we can keep trash landfills from contaminating wells, and we can prevent water from overflowing dams, then we can securely store coal ash. I believe a few extra dollars on an electricity bill is worth the cost of not having massively contaminated water supplies every few years. That said, is there any other benefit to keeping something like coal ash stored using less reliable or less secure methods?","conclusion":"Coal ash needs to be stored more securely."}
{"id":"24012197-7818-4200-8d14-c9fec527c9ab","argument":"There is an active hypocrisy involved here, since so many of Disney's own projects are based on works which are now in the public domain","conclusion":"Companies like Disney use copyright laws to prevent creative progress."}
{"id":"7ad76cfd-422d-4dfe-83f9-99f3be4ff533","argument":"I am sorry if this is half  half rant. I am female, 5'6 , and currently 120 lbs. I have always stayed the same weight, give or take about 15 pounds. In my adult life, I have never fallen below 102 lbs or been heavier than 133 lbs. I have battled body dysmorphia and anorexia my whole life. Obviously, my struggle doesn't match those who have it hard enough to land themselves in recovery centers or hospitals and best of luck to them, I can only imagine how could it get worse , but it has been a dominating factor in my life. It is a daily struggle that sometimes isn't so prominent, and at other times it controls my every decision. I haven't been hospitalized, but I have been monitored by our family doctor at home during the worst times in my life. Right now, I've been really struggling with a re emergence of this dominating force in my life, which is what brings this topic up now. In my attempts to seek out like minded people who have the same struggle, I have been rebuffed mainly by very overweight people who say I roll my eyes at people like you, What do you have to complain about? , I would love to be your weight, You can't say that around me, it's triggering, you may have body image issues, but you have less of a right to them since you're thin. My struggle is reduced to not offending people larger than me. I have explained to them that the size of your body doesn't necessarily match the size of the disorder, but am obviously rebuffed each time. Even those who have agreed with me that those of normal weight can have crippling mental disorders or dysmorphias say that we shouldn't talk about weight around those larger than us. So, I guess my opinions are as follows just because you are larger or smaller than I am does not mean I have to censor myself about my body, weight, or struggles around you. Just because I am of a normal weight does not mean my disorder doesn't exist. Just because others are much larger or smaller than I am, does not mean I am automatically just a pathetic whiner if they hear me talking about how I am having an especially hard day dealing with my lot. I shouldn't have to justify my disorder by prefacing it with proof like my doctor watching me and specific struggles in order to be heard. My struggle should be heard with as much respect and not negated as not that bad, not even a struggle by someone larger or smaller as the struggle of someone who is more underweight or overweight than I am. If you are overweight or underweight, you do not have a right to dominate censor a conversation and say you can't talk about weight if you're a normal size because it upsets me. I will say, though, if you have a mental disorder like this, I think it's perfectly fine in private conversation to say, Please don't talk about that, I am uncomfortable with it. Just not in a group setting or public setting. In those cases, the triggered person should remove themselves from the conversation since the world doesn't revolve around those of us with mental disorders. I am really tired of being told my struggle is not a struggle. Apparently the only support I have is myself, but I am also my own worst enemy in this particular topic. edit you all seem to be under the impression that I am seeking sympathy from people. I am not I am simply saying that I shouldn't be told I cant have a body food related disorder because I am thin. Stop using 'no one deserves sympathy' as your argument because it wasnt part of mine and completely off topic.","conclusion":"extra thin or extra fat people don't have dibs on body image issues and mental health"}
{"id":"4a7943d4-ec10-45ca-b287-9b4048a8b902","argument":"The cathedral has become famous due to Victor Hugo's novel 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame' which later became a Disney film. Tourists enjoy coming to see the exact cathedral that inspired these stories.","conclusion":"Most tourist enjoy visiting the exact same buildings they see on movies and pictures"}
{"id":"f9f3ba2d-38df-492e-8a91-e9bec98d260b","argument":"Regulating language may be one of the first mechanisms to cement a particular ideology on a constitutional level. Once it becomes an effective law, there are no grounds for defending freedom of speech.","conclusion":"Mandatory pronouns go against the concept of freedom of speech."}
{"id":"7a4d4295-0a51-4402-9466-6d6f224f2d1b","argument":"If most transactions in a country are conducted through cash, limits on the value of cash purchases or rules to record purchases made through cash could be implemented. This would make it easier to track cash spending, and thus people's income.","conclusion":"This policy does not have to be one size fits all. If certain customs or economies of certain countries prevent this policy from working then the policy can be tailored to suit those issues."}
{"id":"27d7574f-fb63-4fe4-902d-7b047d36affe","argument":"I like riding bikes. It's my primary form of commuting and primary exercise. When I'm commuting, I make sure I ride as safely and predictably as I can on the right hand side of the lane where it's safe to do so i'll move over if i need to avoid a pothole, glass, make a left turn etc . I signal turns. I make sure I have good visibility bright lights, reflective tape on the sides of my bike. I am able to hold speed reasonably well averaging around 17mph on most city streets . I also get all lycra'd up and ride road. I do many of the same practices staying on the right side when I can, trying to call to groups when cars are coming up behind us, etc . It seems like, no matter what I do, drivers will hate me and want me to stop riding. I'm not going to stop, but it really feels like I'm doing everything that can be reasonably expected of a cyclist and drivers still hate me being on the road. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Nothing I can do as a cyclist will ever make drivers stop hating me."}
{"id":"c6a9a8f8-7c86-4402-8d2d-7969190dab17","argument":"So basically, I just hate the idea of the American dream. i hate the idea that everyone has to contribute in the economy. We should just be able to live and be people. I also think that modern society is one of the reasons why there are murders. I feel like mainly the idea of everyone possessing things. I think life should be about doing what you want. If you want to eat something, you find some. You don't gather your food and keep it to yourself. I think we should be truly independent. Everyone thinks that independence is turning 18, getting a job you want, and moving to a house you want, but in that scenario, the only options you truly get to yourself are Which job you specifically want, which house you specifically want, etc.","conclusion":"I think the concept of everyone getting a job and making money is fucked up and restricts our lives more than we think."}
{"id":"966b7d70-624e-457e-867f-995b618afb22","argument":"Corporate PAC money makes up only a small portion of campaign contributions. The bigger threat of corrupting influence comes from direct large-dollar donations from wealthy individuals.","conclusion":"Publicly stating that one is rejecting corporate PAC money is largely a \"cheap gesture"}
{"id":"85851d18-adbb-49a2-ad27-9ff290cfc2e4","argument":"If a country profits from war, for example by selling arms or other tools of war, it has a moral obligation to take in refugees.","conclusion":"High-income countries are complicit in exploiting - and hence profiting from - many exchanges that have contributed to the current world-wide refugee crisis."}
{"id":"e69ad5f6-ede9-43ea-87d7-9d4274169d79","argument":"Coding can be taught through problem-solving exercises, developing important cognitive skills such as logic and procedural thinking.","conclusion":"General cognitive skills can be considered \"timeless\" and applicable to a wide range of jobs."}
{"id":"42c03f0a-3664-41ca-bcb5-a357a61d2f38","argument":"Financial stress can cause crime when there is a lack of qualifications and social support for at-risk individuals. A UBI provides extra financial support to lower crime, by fostering stability and security towards a decent life instead of through crime.","conclusion":"A UBI can reduce the economic stresses that contribute to crime."}
{"id":"2cdd72e8-5731-4382-89bd-0b41374f9cf2","argument":"It is incredibly difficult to find primary evidence of the events mentioned in the Bible, as they took place over nearly 2,000 years ago.","conclusion":"A tool often used to verify historical accounts - physical evidence - cannot be expected in the case of the Bible."}
{"id":"c6c39a27-9478-43d1-90fb-c2c24d19bb3c","argument":"EDIT I realize that there have been court cases and laws in order to prevent a teacher directly forcing a student to say the pledge, my point has more to do with the atmosphere, the peer pressure, and the more mindless drone way we go about presenting these things to children EDIT2 In the words of u TehRedBaron gt Kids aren't forced to repeat it. I think your stance would be stronger if you were saying, there should be no recital of the pledge of allegiance in school at all. It shouldn't even be occurring as something that kids can opt out of. It just shouldn't be happening. It's not really appropriate in general. Keep it out of school altogether. This was the point I was getting at I think it's wrong for us to force young children to say the Pledge of Allegiance and devote themselves to a country that they don't understand. If voting turnouts are proof enough, even a lot of the adult population doesn't know a lot about or care a lot about the current government and all the policies and controversies, let alone a child who has likely not yet been taught about all the ins and outs. To me, this is what I hear when children say the pledge gt I a child incapable of comprehending the meaning of these words, nor their implication, or the actions of the leaders for which they speak Pledge Allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands and even if I don't, I'll be legally bound to sign my life to service in a draft against my will under the Selective Service System, and may have it done so without my knowledge through my high school one nation under God whom I am forced to recognize here, even though we are not a Christian nation, and I may have been atheist and may still be if it weren't for indoctrination before the age of reason, or perhaps am not of a monotheistic faith and therefore would not subscribe to devoting myself under a single God , indivisible not counting the Civil War , with liberty and justice for all so long as you're not a woman, minority, immigrant, or homosexual basically you're fine if you're a 'Merican born rich white man Now, I'm not trying to be mean to children and say they cannot possibly be told about these things, and perhaps have some basic grasp of the troubles. I'm saying that they aren't taught, and can't be asked to understand the depth or breadth of the issues at hand. I'm not saying they are incapable of a basic concept of grief or strife. They could surely understand sorrow. But to grasp the complex legal and social ramifications of pledging themselves to a nation as large as America is ridiculous. I don't think a child is capable of comprehending the NSA stealing our information, the implications of wars we've started on the lies of our leaders I'm sure they don't know about the government being convicted of the murder of MLK, or how we've kept people in internment camps I'm sure they're unaware of the murders, bombings, and lynchings that have gone unpunished because of our legal system. How right after this pledge, their fathers still can't be married because it's an abomination to a select group's ideals There's a level of indoctrination involved with altogether disturbing consequences. Such as the Bellamy Salute, which you don't see us doing any more, we put our hands over our hearts now because we know that doing it like it used to be would imply similarity to totalitarian fascist regimes like Nazi Germany.","conclusion":"We should not make school children say the pledge in the United States"}
{"id":"ab25b89d-d944-490a-8e6f-631b8eb28ccc","argument":"This post regards the United States, but it could be generalized to any similar situation. Coming off the tragedy in Charlottesville, a lot of conversations are being had about Confederate monuments and memorials. This post is not specifically about these monuments, but it is inspired by the conversations I've seen regarding them. To me, it seems clear that we ought to recontextualize public historic art to be more representative of the histories of our civilization. Our society lionizes and memorializes the work of men like Thomas Jefferson for their contribution to the founding of our nation, but Jefferson as a person represents a different thing to the ancestors of many black citizens. It would not be unfair to state plainly the racism that he participated in on, for example, a plaque explaining his legacy. This is because the monuments we erect and the public works of historical art serve more than the white America that the works are supposed to represent. If we are to revere this man as important to our history, then it is doubly important that our depictions of him represent all of our citizen's histories.","conclusion":"Public works of historic art ought to be recontextualized."}
{"id":"0afd79d8-cb0c-44ab-8898-df4499bdbd09","argument":"Every human deserves the right to decided when and how they die. If a person is diagnosed with a terminal illness and chooses to end their life early instead of letting it happen naturally, that should be their choice. If we do not let humans choose how they want to die, suicide rates would increase, and people will go around the rules. Everyone should be entitled to how they want to live\/end their lives. That is why DNR's are set in place and are necessary.","conclusion":"Every human should have the right and means to decide when and how to die."}
{"id":"32a97cf6-2f20-4979-a7ba-77e41cdf3f95","argument":"These examples illustrate how taxpayers are disadvantaged twice when government 'socially creates wealth': first, they are forced to pay into a pool not knowing what their money will be used for. In case of success, the government may decide to give away the breakthroughs to private institutions without compensation to the taxpayer who is the original investor. If they had invested in a private company instead, they would have been included in the returns on the investment.","conclusion":"Socially created wealth, e.g. from research and market interventions propelling the creation of computers, the internet, pharmaceutical breakthroughs, is often handed to private institutions for private profit, with no meaningful choice or financial reward for taxpayers who made it possible. Taxation is a sort of theft similar to reclaiming wealth from a thief."}
{"id":"1157dccf-2e0f-43c3-b6c8-986b5ffed9a8","argument":"The current system was designed to try ensure that financial incentives were not valued more than the right to a fair trial. Defendants who cannot afford counsel are provided with government-funded attorneys. A crime control model would inevitably undermine this by increasing the importance of cost reduction in the name of better justice.","conclusion":"It is absolutely morally wrong to design a system that opens up the possibility that it will convict an innocent individual for the sake of financial gain \/ savings."}
{"id":"8245986a-806e-4177-a6f6-2855d4b8769c","argument":"Solipsism was easily refuted by Martin Heidegger.you only need to recognize the necessary conditions for 'existence'. All individuals can only exist via their relation to the world.","conclusion":"Solipsism has been proven to be non-sensical by some of the greatest minds in history. As such, discussing it is similarly non-sensical."}
{"id":"67f79fd8-17a2-4060-bc5c-28c836262efa","argument":"The First Communion is normally received around the ages of 7 to 10 after a period or cathequesis education. And Confirmation the time when the believer really gives consent, also happens when children are young or in their mid-teens.","conclusion":"Religions are routinely introduced to children who are too young to make an informed choice."}
{"id":"51615139-ffc8-44dc-b3d9-1a2d0d7433e7","argument":"So I was reading an article on how Sweden has handled prostitution in their country in which it mention that Sweden's unique strategy treats prostitution as a form of violence against women in which the men who exploit by buying sex are criminalized . a link to the article I understand the pragmatic value of Sweden's lawmaking and how the prostitution industry there led to some pretty terrible human rights abuses, however there are also places with legalized and regulated prostitution where the brothels are very protective of their employees, not to mention the U.S.'s legal porn industry which to me seems not that different than prostitution. It seems that if we could intensely regulate prostitution namely against sex workers being coerced into the job it would be a service not a hindrance. I've dated a girl who did pornography on the sly for extra cash and she claimed to enjoy her sessions, but even if it was true that no sex worker really wanted to be a sex worker, a lot of people work terrible jobs because the pay is good. If potential clients were screened and the sex workers had a choice in their occupation and the right to refuse service it seems hard for me to see that as exploitation and violence against women. nbsp Sweden is right in fighting back against negative social forces however I believe that prostitution isn't inherently wrong, rather poor implementation of prostitution that is wrong.","conclusion":"Prostitution is not a form of violence against women"}
{"id":"cc1e087e-3c81-48b5-b96a-283cd0676d09","argument":"Any policy that would single out Black Americans for preferential treatment would likely face opposition.","conclusion":"The government should not discriminate, even positively, on the basis of race."}
{"id":"4bee95b3-052b-437b-b67c-215efdb90a25","argument":"It would be a financially crippling situation for smaller farmers should their crops be accidentally cross-contaminated with GM pollen - as Percy Schmeiser discovered in the 90s, They would no longer be able to save seed from their own crops and face a big legal battle.","conclusion":"Large corporations can misuse their power to unfairly sue anyone who attempts to modify or reuse genetically modified seeds."}
{"id":"c33b5794-3a36-4c05-9724-42c60a971076","argument":"According to historical research the chance of an American being murdered in a terrorist attack caused by a refugee is 1 in 3.64 billion per year.","conclusion":"At least in the case of the United States, refugees have been found to pose no safety risk with respect to terrorism."}
{"id":"d06005d4-aaae-4556-8367-09d3af0d9100","argument":"Let me start with a list of some events that would have been considered in the realm of conspiracy theories if it weren't for the fact that they turned out to be real. The Tuskegee experiments Project MK ULTRA Operation Mockingbird Operation Northwoods COINTELPRO The Gulf of Tonkin incident The CIA's involvement in cocaine trafficking The Iran Contra affair Operation Ajax NSA wiretapping surveillance I don't personally believe in many conspiracy theories simply because I'll never claim to 100 know something for a fact. I do stay open minded to the possibility of some conspiracytheories being true. People often have this attitude like bah, that's just conspiracy nonsense but why do they find it so far fetched? Look at the list I posted. The CIA literally dosed American citizens with LSD in an attempt to create some kind of truth serum or to control people's minds. Some of the people involved were tortured and at least one person died that we know of. How freaking crazy is that? If they're willing to do that then what else are they willing to do? It's known that the CIA has assassinated people, overthrown democratically elected governments, trafficked drugs, they've even declassified methods of killing people that are undetectable and indistinguishable from death by natural causes or suicide. I truly don't understand why people would be dismissive of conspiracy theories when it's been demonstrated time and time again that not only are they willing and able to do such things, but they've actually done this stuff in the past. I'm not talking about flat earth theory, or chem trail nonsense. Sometimes I think those types of theories are propogated to poison the well and make legitimate conspiracy theories seem rediculous by association. I have more to say, but I'll see where this goes for now. EDIT Sorry my formatting is shit, I'm on mobile and can't seem to make a list work.","conclusion":"People shouldn't be dismissive of conspiracy theories."}
{"id":"9aee6924-d490-40b2-b75f-ddfc6b7d59ca","argument":"All of my grandparents were born somewhere from the late 1920's to the end of the 1930's and according to most of what I've heard marriage was just something they did . Society, for whatever reason, just expected them too get married young and have loads of children. According to most of what I've been told, people were married at the latest by their mid 20's and even that was considered late. Divorce at this time was unheard of, so if your partner changed, as most people do then you were just kind of stuck with someone you didn't like. I don't believe that someone is cognitively ready to make a lifelong decision at that age and most people of this time period got married to pacify their parents, society, whatever in an outdated social institution that was just left over from the middle ages. I know it sounds really grim so ?","conclusion":"I believe that married people in my Grandparents generation didn't really love each other."}
{"id":"8c0f37d9-0938-4708-a1d6-47fffafc2ddd","argument":"Testing and counting the calories in all the different items on a restaurant menu is very expensive. In addition, printing out new menus with calorie counts would have a cost, and constantly ensuring the restaurants are meeting their calorie counts and state or federal regulations, will present new and unmeasurable staffing burdens and costs.","conclusion":"Calorie counts on menus would be very costly for restaurants."}
{"id":"1bf8108a-ab8d-471b-83f1-11ccd348bfc3","argument":"A yearlong investigation found police officers across the country belong to a wide spectrum of extremist groups on Facebook, including islamophobic groups. Not a single department has said it disciplined an officer for Islamophobic posts or membership in an anti-Islam group as a result of the findings.","conclusion":"Police have often been criticised for Islamophobic practices and actions, but in many cases there have been few to no repercussions."}
{"id":"c5ba1439-3242-47ab-ba14-3e44a907d4a8","argument":"The current invasion of until then mostly peacful Afrin in Syria by Turkey is conducted with a lot of weapons from Germany and the US. It seems natural refugees would go to the countries enabling the aggressor.","conclusion":"If a country profits from war, for example by selling arms or other tools of war, it has a moral obligation to take in refugees."}
{"id":"d81f0c8e-dde5-4fe4-a983-cb00bd59e1b9","argument":"In an example situation, two people are going on a trip together, and they can either drive or fly. One person fears flying and would prefer to drive. Flying is substantially safer than driving, so the fear of flying is irrational, but I do not think that the person who doesn't fear flying should agree to drive on that basis alone. Essentially my view is that by indulging their fear you are doing them a disservice by legitimizing it, not to mention doing yourself a disservice by taking the more dangerous route driving Some other places this comes up fear of certain sports, like rock climbing or kayakin, fear of getting mugged or assaulted, fear of equipment failure like roller coasters, etc. In all of those cases I think people should refuse to inconvenience themselves to indulge someone with an irrational fear.","conclusion":"Irrational fears should not be indulged."}
{"id":"2599e93d-4cbe-4179-8c7b-5c6388273c03","argument":"In the late 1920's in America, alcohol was banned. There was something called a underground railway or something. Where people went underground and bought cans and bottles of alcoholic products. they drank it in clever ways teacups,in\/outside coffee shops ECT ECT! Thus meaning is if the government BANS anything, it is still not stopped in the Country so leave people to have freedom of choice\/speech!","conclusion":"getting rid of something doesnt nessecerily mean that it stops."}
{"id":"1b33d2c5-896f-45a9-acb4-8bdd54f6a7be","argument":"Corrupt institutions as a phenomenon are not exclusive to religious ones, not even when counted among other institutions that are held to a higher standard like, for example legal institutions ethics faculties charities and even hippie communes","conclusion":"Religion should not be blamed for its intentional or unintentional misuse."}
{"id":"43bfcaff-1df5-49ee-8dbd-fdd88746cb9a","argument":"People already know what it means to illegaly cross the border and be caught . Doing it and knowing the consequnces is asshole ish towards the family and the children. There s a reason borders exist and a reason polkce are put there to keep check on it. People call out Trumps administration on the consequnces of being caught illegaly crossing the border ,but having harsh consequnces was suposed to discourage them from doing it. These people could know they would be shot on sight, still do it, and others would still say it s Trump's fault","conclusion":"Illegal imigrants who are caught and are separated from their children are doing it to themself and to their children"}
{"id":"26707737-6be7-426a-848f-fd84154f2240","argument":"This is a pretty straightforward issue, as far as I see it. I'm a student who attends a high school, and I think it's ridiculous to punish students for breaking rules that are not those of the school. If somebody sees a teacher that they hate outside of school, why shouldn't they insult them? Other than the fact that it is a mean and irresponsible thing to do. If they break the law, they should be tried by a court, before a jury of their peers. Not by a school official. The main counter argument I see is the issue of cyber bullying. Frankly, I don't see the problem. If it's rude, alert the perpetrator's parents. If it's harassment, report it to the police. If neither of those are the case, well, suck it up. I don't like to say that, but adults don't get an all powerful school administration to which to cry when they are being picked on. Now, if the student is on a school trip, or wearing school merchandise, then yes, the school can enforce their rules in the interests of protecting their reputation. Otherwise, students shouldn't be punished in school for infractions committed out of school.","conclusion":"Students should not be punished by their schools for actions committed outside of school."}
{"id":"1a628665-b9e5-4492-bd30-d15aca2c2037","argument":"As society and culture changes, religions adapt in response to popular beliefs. In this way, feminism in Islam can be a natural part of broader social change.","conclusion":"Many feminists are religious, or recognise how religions can co-exist alongside feminism."}
{"id":"93099c3b-3cb1-41ae-a7b3-d1913367c3a5","argument":"You wouldn't sell your house to someone and hand over the deed of ownership if they had given you a post dated cheque, so why should we believe the scientists when they say they will one day be able to explain how consciousness is produced as an epiphenomenon of matter, how life came to be, or how the universe originated?","conclusion":"The claim that science will one day be able to explain the gaps is a post dated cheque. It's an empty promise."}
{"id":"f1a5f81c-5f91-40eb-b689-df5bf6230637","argument":"These habits are unhealthy for these types of vegans, but also those around them through a negative influence.","conclusion":"New unhealthy habits\/lifestyles might come with a vegan diet and outweigh its benefits."}
{"id":"8432dac0-43e3-4770-9005-ba5e1565ffd5","argument":"Over the last few years, and especially now with the popularity of Bernie Sanders, a heavily debated subject is the raising of the minimum wage to 15 hour. While many would expect this to strengthen the lower class and only decreasing the wealth of the upper class, I feel as if it would end up hurting those it is meant to help. These company's would now have to spend much more of their budget on paying employees, and it's not as if they're going to magically have more money. I understand that the increase of wealth in the lower class would eventually circulate back to the business's, but I highly doubt it would be enough to make up for the increased wages of their employees, and it definitely wouldn't happen right away. Since I highly doubt the CEO or other upper management would take cuts from their pay to make up for this, that leaves two possible solutions that I can see The first would be to decrease the amount of employees. If approximately an equal percentage of employees are let go to the increase in pay the company will be able to function without upper management having to take a pay cut. While those who are able to keep there jobs would be greatly helped by this, for the most part it would just increase the unemployment rate with these lay offs happening in a large portion of minimum wag paying company's there would be no demand for jobs while the supply would be sky rocketing. The other solution would be for the company to increase prices for retail restaurants . With increasing prices nobody would have to loose their job, however it would still end up hurting the lower class. Practically all people get there basic necessities and luxuries from retail and grocery stores the lower and middle classes especially rely heavily on major stores such as Walmart or Target. Even if your paycheck is increasing you'd still end up paying more the things you already buy, taking a large chunk of your paycheck. While ideally an increased minimum wage seems perfect, it would in reality end up creating a combination of these two things. I'm sure I didn't hit on some points, so please try to change my view on this, I, as a minimum wage employee myself, would love to have a good reason to support raising it. EDIT \u2206 Okay, my views been changed. I still don't think something as drastic as upping it to 15 hour right away would be a good idea, but I think a gradual increase could be really good. The biggest things that helped my view change were the historical instances of MW rising, the average proportion of price increase vs. wage increase, as well as the fact that businesses are already operating with the minimum number of employees and that jobs wouldn't just become expendable. I really wish I could reply to more comments but I can't at the moment, thanks to everybody who replied","conclusion":"An increase in the minimum wage would hurt only the lower and middle classes"}
{"id":"0cb04588-df14-4e27-8250-1bffa3d0e724","argument":"The keeping of sows in gestation crates in industrial pig farming is an example of extreme animal suffering in the context of such farming. In these crates, sows are unable to move around and even to turn around. There these animals \"chew on the bars, wave their heads incessantly back and forth, or lie on the pavement in an apparent state of dejection\" www.humanesociety.org","conclusion":"The vast majority of animals raised for food are held in industrial conditions which clearly do not provide sufficient welfare."}
{"id":"df5bd4a3-b690-46c0-8d56-71fb2d970567","argument":"Parsimony makes consciousness unnecessary for any physical structure. We project consciousness onto bodies because we see other people and animals from the outside as their bodies, but that is not necessarily a defining or authoritative correlation. Our brain is not necessarily part of us which is conscious, it's just a part of us that is living as an animal. Machines can only imitate that reflection of consciousness, not consciousness itself.","conclusion":"There are good reasons for thinking that AI will not actually be conscious."}
{"id":"dee61968-4117-447c-bb8b-4e7a2bfbfebb","argument":"The most obvious is right here at 2 18 reminds me of the two dancers blinded with hairnets here in kyary's video . This and in particular this Why because the last video clearlily uses male dancers with wigs which is important because the black women in the all about bass music video looks particularly masculine which goes along the lines of the video's message that everyone irregardless of body shape is beautiful. I think the kyary videos showed that they can offset the weirdness that people feel seeing a masculine looking person in a dress by giving them a weird wig. There are other things as well. A lot of kyary's videos use that particular shade of pink we see in megan's video. Aspecially kyary's first video Krary's videoc. In kyary's videos unlike other music videos they don't cut to another scene every 30 seconds. There isn't any confusing sub plots. It's a video about how complex karay's perosnality is. Which is great template for megan's video,because megan's video is more of an informational then most music videos. Karay's template requires a strong central personality to justify the extended amount of time the camera spends on megan. Which is easy for megan cause in america all you have to do is sway your hips in sassy way and that's personality . Karay has to wear a skirt with eye balls and have things like birds come out of her mouth inorder to sell herself as an interesting person. Megan doesn't have to wast time doing that so she can spend unlike Karay most of her music video's time selling her audience an idea in an unusually cohesive way. For example here's blackeye's where is the love a music video that's trying to sell us the idea that people should have empathy for one another. That shouldn't be too hard of any idea, but it look at the video. Look at how fast the music video scrolls to various scenes. We go from the getto, to the city,to the grocery store, and there all putting ? markes on things The video has to make direct references to poverty,police brutalty,child abuse,violence in media, and you get my point.","conclusion":"I think the All about that bass music video is a basically a direct ripoff of kyary pamyu pamyu"}
{"id":"95413a74-a6ce-4c0c-b836-44c7ffa7c39c","argument":"Any economic increases caused by consumerism are offset by its negative externalities. I define consumerism as follows, from Merriam Webster the theory that an increasing consumption of goods is economically desirable The benefits I can think of are more rapid and significant increases in GDP, and all the benefits associated with that However, these benefits are outweighed by the negative consequences. On an individual level, because of the hedonic treadmill any good feelings experienced as a result of consumerism will only be temporary while the costs and externalities associated with the behavior are long lasting. Consumerism also overemphasizes the value of things. It promotes greed and jealousy \u201ckeeping up with the Jones\u2019\u201d syndrome, which makes it harder to have genuine human connection and to have a sense of purpose. This ends up being detrimental to society, makes people more likely to feel isolated and depressed, and is not justified by the positive outcomes of consumerism. Change my view.","conclusion":"Consumerism is objectively bad\/wrong"}
{"id":"09c3b409-67ee-497a-b75c-09368dca79a4","argument":"There are under 800 million people in the world that are starving. Livestock feed grain could feed them all alone and still have some left over.","conclusion":"If humanity turned vegan or vegetarian world hunger could be eradicated"}
{"id":"202178f2-338f-42b1-ae9a-299fbadc2c2f","argument":"Alternative programs that focus on self empowerment life-process model of addiction rather than focusing on powerlessness over addiction disease model of addiction - as 12 step programs do - are more effective.","conclusion":"Alternative programs have been found to be as or more effective than AA."}
{"id":"25f0b983-7cd0-4876-8b76-5f842d05f9f6","argument":"OP edit note I cannot feasibly respond to everyone however I\u2019ll go through as many as I can and award Delta to those who either make me question my position or change something about it How good are we? When I hear this question, I want my gut reaction to be yes, of course, we are good But the thinking side of me starts to take over, \u2018but is this the case?\u2019 Part of me considers, well when we are young, playing as innocent kids, many of us tend to act \u201cgood.\u201d We only gradually become worse as we grow older and societal norms begin to influence us. However, this doesn\u2019t mean we are inherently good. When we are young, kids that act \u201cgood\u201d tend to have been placed in situations that many would determine as \u201cgood\u201d conditions. Meaning, toys to play with, kids to play with, parents that treat them right, and any other social construct you can envision for what you deem as a good childhood. I think most people are just average with the possibility of turning horrible at any moment. Now, wait, you might be thinking how pessimistic of me \u2014 a real downer \u2014 but hear me out. Luckily, many of us are in good enough circumstances where we reach the threshold of average humans. Thus we treat each other average. Yay It\u2019s this idea that anyone could commit \u2014 given the right circumstances \u2014 an immoral act. This potential of any human to act immorally demonstrates to me that we are inherently bad but we act good \u2014 but in most cases average \u2014 given our current circumstances. Let\u2019s consider a moral test, you might think that in most interactions people are generally decent to you, they won\u2019t steal your stuff, they won\u2019t try to break your arm, and won\u2019t commit an act of violence upon you. But what would happen if you change their social circumstances too much less favorable? Let\u2019s say a meteor crashes into the Earth where end times look to be coming for all of us Humans potential for murder will begin rearing its head, I assure you. If a meteor were to crash into the Earth, the circumstances for violence and murder upon other human beings would become much more beneficial, acceptable, and profitable for your fellow human. Those \u2018average\u2019 humans will not be treating you like a fellow average human anymore \u2014 it will become every man for themselves. I\u2019ll provide a few examples to help prove my point. My Reasoning First, the easy and most widely known example the Holocaust. Adolf Hitler was an evil actor sitting on the throne commanding millions of average people to commit his atrocious acts. Now, I don\u2019t think Germans then and now are inherently more evil than the average person in other countries. My point being put in the right circumstances average ordinary people would be willing to commit genocide. Another example I\u2019ve read about is the Milgram experiment \u2014 which demonstrated a majority of people can be persuaded to electrocute innocent people. The operation didn\u2019t even threaten, torture, or use any other inhuman pressure they simply placed a test giver in a lab coat and asked the test subject to electrocute the person in another room. The subject doing the electrocuting simply followed orders. An example of human obedience to those in power. Sound familiar? Oh, and animals. Yes, the sentient creatures that feel pain and suffering. The animals that we humans torture, kill, and place in poor conditions. Yeah, most of us go along with that too. As a side note, I don\u2019t mean to come across as though I\u2019m some moral thought leader guiding society. That animal example I just mentioned, although I try to avoid eating meat, I still commit the act knowing the moral atrocity I\u2019m probably committing. But yeah, humans still treat animals horribly mostly because it\u2019s still in \u2018fashion.\u2019 Or at least socially acceptable to some extent. Another more current real world example is gay marriage. Current American culture likes to forget just how rapid the support for gay marriage rights shifted in its favor. In 2008, gay marriage support a minority position. A state that is widely seen as on the forefront of social issues of progress \u2014 California \u2014 voted the idea down. Former President Obama\u2019s 2008 campaign opposed gay marriage. And today, if videos surface of you being against gay marriage back in 2008 can mean job loss for you and execution of your social status. Now, I think gay rights are obviously good and I remember supporting it back in 2008. However, admittedly I was too young to be holding my original thoughts. None the less, I found a reason to hold the position. What does this shift mean? Luckily for us, great thinkers and philosophers have been making arguments in support of gay marriage for decades. But this doesn\u2019t change the fact society has just recently found it acceptable. In the past decade, we haven\u2019t encountered new groundbreaking arguments in support of the issue to persuade most people once and for all. The arguments have essentially remained unchanged. This seemingly makes the idea that people found themselves persuaded by moral arguments not persuasive. Thus, it leads me to conclude that it\u2019s more likely people decided to support gay marriage because it became socially admirable or fashionable. This is depressing. On a positive note, this means that social narratives can quickly shift their understanding of what is moral and not moral for the better. But it also means we have to always be conscious that society can be rapidly persuaded in the wrong direction. Why are we moral sheep? My answer doesn\u2019t shed a bright light on this issue or give us an escape route to absolve us from moral responsibility. Luckily for us, a small portion of the population have a moral conscience helping project the moral compass of society in a positive direction. You see, most of us are sheep following the guidance of the sheepherders. People ascribe to moral or immoral acts based on if it is in fashion. I won\u2019t even say they \u2018embrace\u2019 it, instead societal moral sheep go along with these new moral norms. Lastly, over recent years political power has shifted. People that used to be stepped on by the political machine have been pushed into the light by the sheepherders, earning themselves political power. Which means, society has started caring more about the rights of disadvantaged groups, not because of their moral compass, but because standing up for their rights has become fashionable and admirable. Conclusion Essentially, average moral humans view moral issues as an opportunity to signal to their respective groups. A way to be accepted by society for their own personal gain. They\u2019re probably not consciously doing so, but this also means their subconscious can change their position when deemed beneficial. The average human follows along with the morals set by society. They listen to those with power and what their peers deem as socially acceptable. This is good and bad, on the one hand, it means society can be convinced into agreeing with moral progress, and on the bad end \u2014 be willing to commit atrocities for personal gain and social acceptance. x200B I should have made this more clear in the original post edit You're right, by definition people of a society equal out to be morally average based on the law of averages. However, my point is that those of us who are morally average in the post I admit that's me I'm not here to flex moral superiority are capable of committing atrocities given the right circumstances, such as genocide. I have a hard time saying most of us are good or naturally good if most of us are capable of genocide. Thus, I didn't address what it means to be morally good because for one morality is a narrative created by society and two I don't think I'm of authority to tell you what to do. However, I attempt to include some hope in my original post by believing we do have people who would never be willing to commit moral atrocities. I think some of these people and even people in the average camp can help guide society towards subjectively agreed upon moral progress. Which might look like keeping most people out of the circumstances where they would be willing to commit atrocious acts in order to survive. I hope this helps the discussion.","conclusion":"We are not good. I think most people are morally average with the possibility of turning morally horrible."}
{"id":"6e8141f9-fd7d-4ab0-bc40-fcf53ef49e6e","argument":"An FIR is integral to criminal proceedings as it sets the process of criminal justice in motion. It is only after the FIR is registered in the police station that the police takes up investigation of the case.","conclusion":"First Information Reports FIRs take time to process, are inconvenient, and often not registered by corrupt policemen."}
{"id":"40ca7ad8-5b4b-4ddc-8c95-382dfdb9603d","argument":"Earning wages from being a productive worker provides people with a sense of dignity and self-accomplishment.","conclusion":"Performing community\/military service provides benefits for the individuals who participate."}
{"id":"06997340-bb79-4271-b215-869e32e367b1","argument":"The consequence of some policy causing massive damage a systemic political failure is many times larger for a population of 500 million than with just 5 million. If the USE standardized financial institutions in a way that decreases the wealth of everyone by 20%, it would be much worse than if just one country did it.","conclusion":"Shifting policy making to central authorities undermines the effectiveness of policies because local levels, in particular the city are better able to implement it."}
{"id":"8aba6b27-d1ba-4246-9972-d283ea92554d","argument":"It is important for the development of democracy in Africa, that African countries be seen to be successfully pursuing and encouraging it themselves. Many African leaders still carry colonial resentments that make foreign intervention difficult or impossible \u2013 A case in point being president Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe. Leaders such as this will be willing to listen to African approaches to a problem, whilst foreign ones, however well \u2013 intentioned, will be automatically distrusted.","conclusion":"It is important for the development of democracy in Africa, that African countries be seen to be suc..."}
{"id":"d0742cf0-c432-4346-a2b2-99a27a28dd4c","argument":"Egoism is the claim that everyone should always act to maximize their own self interest. I'm going to sketch my version of egoism, based largely on Ayn Rand's ethics, and then deal with some common objections to it. Part 1 Egoism Before we can discuss morality, we have to discuss the nature of values. Something's being a value to someone presupposes a goal and an alternative faced in pursuit of that goal. For example, a house is a value to someone because they have the goal of acquiring shelter and, facing the alternative of getting a house or not having shelter, have chosen to get a house. The fundamental alternative, which gives meaning to all of the others, is the alternative of life and death. Therefore, the only context in which it makes sense to talk about something being of value to someone is a context in which they are struggling to live in some way and the value in question aids them in their pursuit of life. Every organism is confronted with values and disvalues. For example, to a tree, fertile soil is a value, and rocky soil is a disvalue. To a lion, catching a gazelle is a value, and going hungry is a disvalue. Every type of organism has a means of survival that, under suitable conditions, allows it to acquire its values. Plants automatically put down roots and grow leaves. Non human animals, higher on the scale, have consciousness in the form of instincts which tell them what to do automatically. However, non human organisms do not have moral values. What makes humans able to have moral values, but not other organisms? The fact that human beings have the ability to reason, which is the human means of survival. Human beings, unlike other animals, do not automatically know what to do. They have to develop a system of principles that will tell them how to achieve those things that they value, i.e., a moral code. Since this is the only legitimate purpose of morality, moral codes can be assessed by whether or not they are conducive to man's life, i.e., the life of the actor. In practice, this moral standard leads to a morality based on the virtues of rationality, productivity, and pride. Rationality means using one's mind to one's fullest ability in pursuit of one's values and eschewing evasion on any subject. Productivity means acknowledging that you have to work to live and creating the physical values that your life requires. Pride means always trying to improve yourself morally until you are perfect. These three virtues lead to an upward spiral, where rationality tells you what goals to pursue, productivity allows you to pursue the goals, and the pride you earn thereby encourages you to seek out new and higher challenges to your mind. Part 2 Objections Probably the most common misconception about egoism is that it would lead us to lie, cheat and steal whenever we can get away with it. This is not true, because a rational egoist will acknowledge that reality is an integrated whole where everything bears on everything else. You can never count on getting away with lying, cheating or stealing, because your deception will be contrary to reality, which means that there will be innumerable facts that will tend to give you away, creating significant risk whether the other person finds those facts or not. Even if you get away with your lie or theft, it will change you, creating a precedent in your mind for more lying, cheating or stealing in the future, and who knows if you will get caught then ? If we are looking at reality and not evading it, then it is clear that we should adopt honesty as a principle that we always adhere to. There is an exception to this in the case where Nazis are knocking on the door asking if you are hiding Jews in your basement, but such cases are very rare. Another, related objection asks what an egoist would do if they were stuck in the middle of the ocean with another person on a life raft that could only hold one. The answer to this is that morality only applies to cases where long term survival is possible in cases where long term survival is not possible, life boat scenarios, no moral principles apply. This is because the purpose of morality is to tell us how to live, not to deal with bizarre cases that almost never occur, and a morality that could deal with all conceivable cases would be so abstract as to be useless. So, there is no rule about what an egoist has to do in a life boat scenario in the scenario I just described, one could either let the other person on the life raft and allow oneself to drown, or one could fight the other person off to preserve one's own life. Neither choice is open to moral evaluation. To change my view about this, you must give a convincing objection to the argument for egoism in Part 1. Your case will be more convincing if you also provide a more compelling argument for a non egoist morality.","conclusion":"I am an egoist."}
{"id":"d2946647-5e14-46c0-83dc-cf346a4c5cd6","argument":"Jesus warned of something more serious than the grave, destruction. Gehenna, the word Jesus used, is often translated as Hell. But Gei Hinnom was the Jerusalem city dump, where garbage etc was deposited. The dead bodies of criminals were also disposed there. No live criminals were punished there, though. In Revelation, Gehenna is the Lake of Fire, a symbol of destruction. Not a symbol of punishment. See footnote: biblegateway.com","conclusion":"Hell as defined by the Bible only means the grave. The Hebrew word was Sheol. In Greek it was Hades. en.wikipedia.org"}
{"id":"57dace43-536e-4c91-a243-246275e66b24","argument":"Whale faeces enrich depleted ocean waters with needed nutrients like iron. This encourages phytoplankton growth which sequesters carbon to the deep ocean.","conclusion":"Whales are of great importance for the ocean's ecosystem."}
{"id":"9349d33d-c059-441c-a585-9b9f1b845ae2","argument":"Now i cant say for sure that i'm 100 accurate but every time i hear someone say they're bi i just think they are attention starved only from the way i look at their personality and what i have personally experienced from them. Ex. I knew this girl not sex specific really who i could tell had parent issues and liked every single fandom she could to be accepted to as much culture as she could. she complained about how awful her life is all the time. When she said she was bi i just thought bull shit laughed and moved on.","conclusion":"\"\" I think any girl or guy that is within the mid teen boundary that goes \"bi\" are just doing it for attention."}
{"id":"e0abc363-4d08-4e0b-886f-0b628d6627e2","argument":"SSRI medication is prescribed to treat a chemical imbalance in your brain. What doesn't make sense about it is that suspiciously no test for it. There are all kinds of test that can be done on the rest of your body. Blood work can be done to test if you are getting all of your nutrition. Your joints can be tested for reactions. Your heart and lungs be stress tested with exercise. Your bones can be x rayed to see if they are broken. The major malfunction with the things with the SSRIs are suppose to treat such as depression, anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder, and eating disorders. It functions on the premise that all of those diseases are caused by a chemical imbalance in your brain. The problem is there isn't a test that exist for chemical imbalances that exists and are done before a diagnosis is made. Also the inserts on the SSRIs has many of the disorders that they are suppose to treat as a side effect. If they weren't a scam there would be test done before a diagnosis. EDIT Grammar","conclusion":"SSRI medication is scam"}
{"id":"47b53534-f10a-4925-82c3-ddc7e0412d2c","argument":"The title seems ridiculous but it's what I keep concluding and I don't see a way around this. It's really easy for me to know that I'm missing a key component to life and what I'm missing is love. Unfortunately, I can't just love anyone, it has to be the right woman. I've tried with the wrong women and it just doesn't work. The right woman to me is a beautiful seductive kindhearted woman without a detrimental personality. All other traits I've experienced in women and they don't do much for me. The problem is that women who meet my standards simply do not find me attractive. I must simply have unrealistic standards, right? Well I've tried lowering them and it doesn't work. I can have women attracted to me but I am simply not attracted to them no matter how hard I try to be. Obviously I need to improve myself to attract the kind of woman I'm attracted to. I've pretty much done everything I can to improve my physical appearance and my personality. The personality could definitely use more work but I don't know how to improve this and it seems like I would be trying to undo genetics and years of shaping which I might never accomplish. This leaves me with one conclusion. I have to utilize the skills I have available now to improve my attractiveness. Plenty of women find the idea of not having to work and having nice things attractive. My best skill is my intelligence which I've utilized to climb the corporate ladder a fair bit already. Now I need to focus my energy on climbing even more so in order to make even more money and use that money to attract women because that is something that is somewhat feasible for me to accomplish. Someone convince me I'm wrong and that I'm going about life all wrong because this is the path I'm currently on and it seems like a dark one.","conclusion":"Money is the only way I'll find love."}
{"id":"9c031002-616e-4f10-829a-a9ba65c42546","argument":"I have quite a few guy friends and many of them have other female friends but I always wonder if there is some romantic interest lurking in my just friends guy friends. Personally, I will try to keep a distance once I realise that a guy friend wants to be more than friends.","conclusion":"Men and Women Can't Be \"Just Friends\"."}
{"id":"cc29fa6a-b6c6-42ab-a58a-4f96e6dfbdd1","argument":"Pence has shown that he is willing to work with Democrats and to compromise to bring about solutions.","conclusion":"Mike Pence is less controversial, and thus more able to get people on his side."}
{"id":"33662387-bb12-4ece-8b78-b013742c5ba7","argument":"Alderaan had a planetary shield, seen depicted in 'A New Hope' when the shot from the Death Star's superlaser briefly enveloped the outer atmosphere of the planet before punching through and striking it, shown in both the original and special editions 1 2 3 4 This would make it even more difficult if not impossible for the Empire to conduct effective reprisals against the planet with naval gunnery, which Han Solo would well know. Additional evidence of a shield is here","conclusion":"The Imperial Starfleet couldn't have reduced Alderaan, a major world sporting a planetary shield, to an especially large meteor field in the span of a few hours and if it had taken longer, Han would have heard it was happening; that is not in dispute. Not outclassing the Death Star does not inform how Rebel capital ships would perform against the Federation, however."}
{"id":"d90b1c28-fd43-48ff-b55d-83ea48b60955","argument":"Property taxes pay for numerous community services which are used by churches. The community is forced to subsidize the church by paying for those services.","conclusion":"Nonprofits should lose their exemption from property taxes but still be exempt from income taxes."}
{"id":"9d01289a-f08e-4715-96fa-1f4570a10b40","argument":"While many other Bonds had only one outstanding feature, Pierce Brosnan's version managed to create a good balance of charm, good looks, wit, action, and class.","conclusion":"No other Bond was so well-rounded as Pierce Brosnan's."}
{"id":"6e6c88dc-d5f5-4f54-a42b-f194e618bde1","argument":"Individuals might hesitate to question conclusions drawn by AI on the simple, fallacious assumption that high-tech must mean high-validity.","conclusion":"AGI's creation raises serious ethical and philosophical concerns we are not currently prepared to deal with."}
{"id":"608e94ff-8cae-4408-a33f-a49911186bcd","argument":"This is a quite controversial question in Hong Kong. People here are demanding the government full withdrawal of a unjustified law extradition law , dropping charges on protestors, investigation on police brutality etc. However, the government have not met the demands and it triggered people to use more 'destructive' way to express their opinion, for example, blocking the traffic during busy hours and surrounding police headquarter. Pro government criticise this as harming the society and affecting people's daily life. But how could they be so short minded and just think of their own benefits? How can we tolerate the fact that the authority continue to neglect our voices? Some of the protestors' behaviour may be unlawful and 'not right'. But it could be necessary cost to make the city a better place. Meanwhile, most policeman may be 'right' as they enforce the law and follow orders. But not only do they have picked a side when they choose to work for the government, they also allow excessive force to be used against civilians. Therefore, confrontation between people and the authorities is inevitable. Yes. We should let the city restore its order and heal, only after the government truly listen to the people. Here's a video I made about how I feel towards protests in HK.","conclusion":"When people's opinion get ignored by the government, movements and protests which disturb order of the society are necessary"}
{"id":"ba9e3486-40ee-44b0-9625-3a890b67c4c2","argument":"Families of soldiers would be able to see them and know that they were OK or not. This is very important, as families often suffer from severe anxiety as their loved ones are away, and as they have little ability to see if they are OK. Although televised war may not allow every family the ability to see their own loved ones, it will give them a sense that soldiers, such as their loved ones, are in good health and spirits.","conclusion":"Televised war would let families see that loved-ones are OK."}
{"id":"418544ec-fa39-4f2c-886c-16435bdcb0c5","argument":"Society would not have to take the time, money, and effort to debate issues such as protected-class rights of LGBT persons, affirmative action for women, etc.","conclusion":"The absence of gender constructions would enable people to enjoy a better overall quality of life."}
{"id":"311d3e47-9ac1-4e31-8523-1ce57a35e355","argument":"The whole place is a big safe space, the final refuge of the far right people on Reddit. In spite of their bravado and the fact that they talk about liberals being soft, they have super thin skins. A submission in r The Donald is immediately downvoted and removed for even a hint of left philosophy, and a ton of people lash out with meaningless insults i.e. Fucktard, Libtard, Snowflake . And keep in mind the fact that in spite of their own heavy censorship, they have posts like this that get nearly 30k upvotes. They constantly complain about how white males are so hated by leftists, but if they stopped to look outside of their safe space they would find that this is not the case. They spend so much time attacking liberals for their beliefs and boasting of their own genius, but they appear incapable of intelligent debate. So please, prove me wrong. EDIT I meant to say it's the final refuge on Reddit, not the Internet.","conclusion":"The people on \/r\/The_Donald are snowflakes."}
{"id":"0361e31e-f9ca-49fe-af19-8283446a47fb","argument":"Richard Spencer for example, the man who coined the term \"alt-right\" and has come to represent White nationalism in the US, wants America to be an ethno-state with only White people.","conclusion":"White supremacist rhetoric implicitly or explicitly calls for the removal of non-White people from society."}
{"id":"1ac61921-5532-4f9e-b262-d05bbce573f2","argument":"The CDC and the National Association of Medical Examiners recognize four categories of death 1 Natural - death by medical illness or old age. 2 suicide - intentionally ending one's own life. 3 accidental - unintentionally ending a human life. 4 homicide - intentionally ending another human life. Based on this, abortion an intentional act done to end the life of a fetus can only be considered homicide.","conclusion":"Abortion is the unjustified taking of human life in most cases and the unjustified taking of human life should always be illegal. Therefore, unborn humans should be protected from abortion in most cases."}
{"id":"8225bbfb-8cdd-4e32-9962-51beda30cb79","argument":"The best predictor of who is able to attend college is who that person's parents are. Kids who have poor parents are among the least likely to do well on the SAT and the least likely to have the necessary grades to get admitted. They are also less likely to engage in activities which make them well rounded applicants like sports or clubs. Furthermore the act of going to college itself increases one's earning potential far beyond someone who doesn't go to college, meaning that once college is free, the advantage that rich kids will have over poor kids will be exacerbated since they no longer have to make an investment into making themselves a valuable asset and can just skip to being a valuable asset without investment.","conclusion":"Free college is a handout to people who are already among the most privileged in society."}
{"id":"ab0a9f26-b93b-4af8-864c-6a5b4e15c272","argument":"Researchers have established a persistently negative correlation between referendums and the participation in elections for the case of Switzerland Freitag\/ Stadelmann-Steffen, p. 479","conclusion":"Frequent referendums lead to voter fatigue and make elections seem less important, thereby harming voter turnout."}
{"id":"3495b087-8a97-4fb4-885d-17b369d0963d","argument":"Current drones are cheap because they are not designed to fight against other modern high-performance fighter planes, nor do they have to deal with modern anti-air weapons. Instead they are designed to fight in modern asymetrical conflicts.","conclusion":"This comparison is flawed. A human operated multi purpose jet is not comparable to an automated air\/ground attacking drone."}
{"id":"aabd2f87-84e6-4607-84a8-d19976aa85de","argument":"Venus could have an abundant supply of He3, a highly sought out fuel source for fusion energy. The high bombardment rate of intense radiation may create the environment necessary to generate He3 provided the required elements are present and not yet discovered.","conclusion":"There are many benefits associated with colonizing the Venusian atmosphere."}
{"id":"f3e8453f-63b0-4c8c-adf9-7b7787f2b525","argument":"Mandating pronouns can breed resentment due to the right of freedom of speech being sacrificed for a minority group. So it is more likely that enforcing the use of preferred pronouns will result in marginalized people being further discriminated against, in ways that cannot be proven or prevented by law. E.g. social exclusion.","conclusion":"Focusing on merely changing the words people use is counterproductive."}
{"id":"c5c60242-2fd5-4394-8ba6-2ac70338f061","argument":"I first want to be clear I am talking about legal rights for individual people in the USA not situations, systems, or imbalances as they are not a good indicator of equality. I think when looking at equality between the genders you can only factor the laws because everyone's situation or imbalances is so different or to put it another way situations, systems, and imbalances affect both genders equally nor can they be dealt with by law. I know a few that are claimed but I personally disagree with. 1. Abortion limitations women can have abortions even if its limited, also men have no legal rights here. 2.Combat roles are off the table because those have opened and the military isn't the general public. 3. Selective service this is just covering the possibility of it coming up this is a legal obligation not a right. I have been trying for a while to find someone who can give concrete real world examples against my view that in the USA women have every legal right men do. If I am wrong i do want to know.","conclusion":"I believe the idea \"that men and women are not equal\" is false as there are no legal rights men have that woman don't."}
{"id":"98dda4e7-6060-4b20-b563-2a4c3ba9ef13","argument":"Generally speaking, I could easily change my  to something to the extent of it's completely OK to not have any interest in women's sports if you're a fan of the male equivalent i.e. WNBA to the NBA. however, given the FIFA Women's World Cup is being played this month, I figure I would give more focus to that competition. I was having a conversation with a friend who is a fan of both the US National Team and the US Women's National Team, and when asked if I was going to hang out with him to see the Women's World Cup matches, I simply told him I did not have any interest in the tournament. He asked why, justifying his reasoning that if I support the Men's side, that the Women's side require just as much support from me in order to grow the sport for both sexes. While I am all for growing the sport of football soccer in the United States, I just cannot care if the sport has success on the women's side. My simply reasoning is that the women's side of the sport is every way, shape and form, inferior to the men's side. To back up this, the USWNT was torched in a friendly in 2012 by the US Men's U 17 side with the final score being 8 2 see more info here On the other token, I have quite a bit of interest in our U 17 and U 20 side, knowing that we have coaches raising these players with the potential of making the main side that competes in the Gold Cup and the FIFA World Cup. I am by no means saying that young girls shouldn't go out to watch the Womens World Cup if they feel compelled to. I do know that positive, quality, female role models in the sport, or rather in any field, are needed in this day and age. However, watching women play the sport is not entertaining or interesting to me.  EDIT 1 I apologize for the late responses lets just say life takes some interesting turns EDIT 2 I think some people are taking my argument as if I am not supporting the USWNT. It's anything but. If they win the World Cup, then great, it'll help the sport out greatly domestically, and it'll be another feather in US Soccer Federation's cap. I just prefer, and thus has an interest, in the men's side of the sport.","conclusion":"It is completely OK to not have any interest in the 2015 Womens World Cup if you're a fan of men's football\/soccer."}
{"id":"c169c90b-aad0-4a1f-9611-87d74b85793c","argument":"Edit I've been PMed a link that explains the idea much better than I could so please see here first to read it. I'm focusing on Bitcoin here but the same could be said of another cryptocurrency. Arguments against Bitcoin tend to be dismissed as old people scared of new things. In my case, it's more the ideology and potential of it to actually implement it that is scary. If Bitcoin stays around but doesn't become too successful, that's fine. Some people will get rich just like in any venture and the whole world will move on. If Bitcoin is too successful and ends up replacing fiat currency after a tipping point of mass usability, it will be a dystopian nightmare. The rationale is that the system is corrupt and Bitcoin will end up building a more egalitarian society. The system is indeed deeply corrupt, but a sudden in historical terms upheaval thanks to cryptocurrency will be even more a threat. The old hierarchy will simply be replaced with a new hierarchy. The unequal distribution of wealth that will result will follow a gradient so so steep that it will make our current system or even old school feudalism look like a social utopia. The current corruption is at least tempered by its longer timescale, deeper sophistication, and the institutions that rose over time up to mitigate it to a small extent. The new hierarchy will be like Russia after the fall of the USSR but immeasurably worse. Some might believe that the early adopters will be sweet and philanthropic but I don't believe that for a single second. It's magical thinking in its worst form. If anything, some will go crazy from the sudden acquisition of wealth and power they were psychologically unprepared for. Most will simply see their true personalities bloom thanks to the new possibilities at their disposal. A portion of them will be from the old system anyway, as they were uniquely placed to buy in early on a whim. No matter who it is, we will become their economic slaves. tl dr the ideological basis for Bitcoin is deeply misguided. Please change my view on this. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Bitcoin \"succeeding\" would be a dystopian nightmare"}
{"id":"ed9de44a-9078-4bba-9257-3a0d9cebbb7b","argument":"Not all people can safely get vaccines and even those already harmed by vaccines can't get medical exemptions and have to get personal exemptions instead. The disease is less of a risk to them than the vaccine. You'd be fining people for not getting harmed in the right way.","conclusion":"Vaccines can harm children more than the disease they are claimed to prevent."}
{"id":"5237f866-f968-4521-85b4-ea754d23c2ed","argument":"Most Democratic voters around 76% state that they have become more supportive of transgender rights in the past five years, compared to a minority of Republican voters 47%.","conclusion":"Democrats are generally in support of trans rights whereas evangelicals are not"}
{"id":"74c86e64-4e0a-498f-a798-f276795cd756","argument":"I believe that it is incorrect to say that companies are wrong to have the government subsidize wages of their employees. For starters, I believe that it is incorrect to call it a subsidy. A subsidy would be a company receiving money from the government in order to pay their employees. That is not the case here. People are simply receiving welfare when they can't make ends meet. A company's purpose is to turn a profit. A company like Wal Mart does that by offering the lowest possible price for their goods. If they do not keep labor costs as low as possible, they will not be able to offer the lowest price. Someone else would come in and undercut them in price and steal their business. Therefore, I believe that we live in a society where the problem isn't that these companies are so evil that they don't want to give employees a living wage, but they are unable to do so and we instead must rely on the government to ensure people are paid a reasonable wage across the board.","conclusion":"We can't blame companies for relying on the government to \"subsidize wages\" of employees."}
{"id":"4b9b08b3-9501-4bba-827a-3bf2ac187e1b","argument":"On mobile, apologies for any formatting problems. I hope this doesn\u2019t break any rules, and thank you in advance for giving this a shot. Whether or not my view is changed, I very much appreciate you taking the time and effort with me In this case, I use the term \u2018evil\u2019 to mean all bad things, on a spectrum ranging from paper cuts to genocide. I understand that to know how good something is, we have to have bad. We wouldn\u2019t understand how good pleasure feels if we didn\u2019t also know pain. We wouldn\u2019t know how awesome it is to have a filling meal if we didn\u2019t also know hunger But if we do need evil to understand good, why can\u2019t it be through contrast of low levels of evil? Slow, painful deaths by cancer and cities being leveled by hurricanes don\u2019t really enhance our understanding of goodness, do they? It\u2019s hard to say, \u201cwhat doesn\u2019t kill us makes us stronger,\u201d when sometimes it does kill us, lot of us, sometimes before we get a chance to learn from it. If the same god that allows evil, particularly the suffering and death of children, is saving a place in paradise for me, I want nothing to do with it. In my mind, that kind of god is not good, and not worthy of worship. He\u2019s not someone I want to spend eternity with. If he\u2019s really letting all these things happen, why would I want to be on his team?","conclusion":"A god who allows evil, such as children dying of cancer, is not good. And a bad god is not only unworthy of worship, but he\u2019s also not someone I want to spend eternity with."}
{"id":"1c2fa65c-b481-4029-adf8-3cd69bf58afc","argument":"Point 1. A typical NFL game lasts 180 minutes, with less than 15 of actual play. A typical AFL game lasts 180 minutes, with 100 minutes of actual game play. Point 2. A typical NFL player will run maximum 2km per game. A typical AFL player will run from 10km 20km per game. Point 3. NFL players do not need to have as high quality ball skills as AFL players, with feet or hands. Point 4. AFL is a much more fluid game, requiring far higher levels of adaptability, improvisation and teamwork. Point 5. Both AFL and NFL require tackling and baulking skills. AFL also requires jumping. Point 6. Every AFL players skill set is a lot more similar then every NFL players. Taken into some sort of Ultimate testing environment , where a score was given for every aspect of performance, the AFL player would score well in every category, an NFL player would excell in one or two narrow category's and score poorly in all others. therefore AFL player is clearly a superior athlete. I have tried to keep the points pretty simple and straight forward, for the benefit of those not familiar so much with one game. I myself am not that familiar NFL. For comparison in rating the worth as an athletic team sport, it is clear that lacrosse is above darts, hockey is above curling, etc. Im arguing from the point of view that, when considered entirely, AFL is clearly above NFL in the same manner. It is clear that AFL is a more mentally and physically demanding game on all players, allows for and requires greater feats of outstanding athletic performance, and requires greater levels of teamwork and co operation.","conclusion":"I believe that as an athletic team sport NFL can be proven to be inferior to AFL."}
{"id":"2e7e02a9-9a8b-41a7-a2ff-84d539bc877d","argument":"copied from a comment I made on another thread Lobbying is an essential form of the political process. Politicians can't be expected to be experts on incredibly complex ideas, and it isnt necessarily desirable that they are. Someone that has dedicated there life to science won't necessarily be good politician. Lobbying exists so that people with expertise can provide the government on insight into how their fields work. If the government is about to pass a law that would cause massive non intentional damage to the shrimp industry, then the shrimp industry needs to send people to government to lobby them, explaining their side of the argument and providing the government with expertise on the shrimp industry. You may not like it, but corporations are a massive part of our society, even if they were completely cut off from influencing government, what affects corporations will affect all of us, if Coke goes bankrupt for example then that would cause damage to society as a whole. Anywho, the point of my argument is that lobbying is not done very well, and leans towards bribery as much as it does to actual lobbying, but illegalizing would be catastrophic for democracy, a man going to his local mp to tell him how something needs to be done about the potholes in his neighborhood is lobbying as much as a massive corporation attempting to influence government decision. Outlawing both would destroy the ability for the people to influence an on going government outside of an election TL DR Lobbying is as much about people petitioning and talking to their elected representatives, as it is about corporations bribing corrupt officials. Corporate lobbying provides essential expertise for the political process","conclusion":"I believe lobbying including corporate lobbying is an essential part of the political process, and must be maintained at all costs."}
{"id":"537f17d5-9e05-4dc8-82f0-448774f2951e","argument":"Many instances of genocide have occurred in recent decades without international intervention, and this has weakened confidence in the UN and the international community's ability to respond to international crises and to generally act meaningfully in the international system. This growing lack of confidence is dangerous as it jeopardizes the international legal framework for action, making it appear that unilateral action is a more functional course of action.","conclusion":"Impotency in responding to Darfur undermines confidence and engagement in international bodies:"}
{"id":"8261cd38-d7f2-453d-a99f-a98116915aa7","argument":"Specifically right libertarianism, not socialist libertarianism, which doesn't seem to be the view of most people who describe themselves as libertarian. To my understanding, a key aspect of right libertarianism is that governments should restrict their activities to only what is absolutely necessary, like defense, and do away with much most of taxes, social welfare, and interference in business. The result of this, according to them, would be an Ayn Rand American Dream kind of deal where people are free from the shackles of Big Brother, the individual spirit is celebrated, and success can be found if you're just creative and hard working. It seems to me, though, that laissez faire capitalism liberty is contradicted not only by logic but by history. When governments don't help people or regulate business, in fact it leads to something like early Industrialization where corporations grow to a size monopoly where fair competition is impossible and people have to work 14 hours a day, 6 days a week for company scrip with no labor rights. Even if you believe in this Objectivist ideology that only creative, smart, hard working upstarts deserve wealth, your small business would be prevented from challenging existing business behemoths by their absolute control of the market. Not to mention the fact that if you weren't born into the top tier of the oligarchy it would be very difficult to obtain the time and financial resources to become educated and even get to that point social mobility would be nigh impossible with all the wealth and power in the hands of the rich few. For a more recent example, the 2008 9 financial crisis is a perfect example of what happens when business is too deregulated. Do you think those policies made people more free? Or less? Basically If rules for your life aren't made by the government, they will be made by the corporations and the wealthy who will gain unchecked power in that vacuum. Ideally, a government represents the greatest well being of all of its citizens, and, even if that means some restrictions on corporate and individual liberty in the best interests of society at large, it's a better situation for individual liberty than what would result if capitalism were allowed to run unbridled. However, this is a growing political force that's popular with many on reddit and many intelligent people that I know, and it's possible I misunderstand it, so please, take a crack at C'ing MV. \u30c4","conclusion":"Libertarianism would ultimately limit individual freedom more than it would encourage it"}
{"id":"5d0c6da0-0bbc-47a1-9ad4-a9d72d4b97f8","argument":"Reddit is playing up net neutrality like it will be the end of the internet as we know it if it is repealed. But net neutrality had no legal protection in the United States until 2015, and things seemed pretty all right. I haven't noticed any major changes since then, and I was satisfied with the internet before that, and it seems like pushing the internet under Title II could open up government regulation of the internet that could disrupt things in the future, which is exactly the thing net neutrality supporters are trying to avoid. While I agree that ISPs are garbage, it seems to me like the concerns people do have would be better served by opening up the market to competition from smaller ISPs, since the ones now are basically holdovers from government telephone monopolies. An ideal system in my mind would be one where net neutrality is just one package of service that people could buy, with a net neutral package among them, expanding options rather than contracting them to just what reddit and Google thinks is best. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I don't think the internet was about to be destroyed in 2015."}
{"id":"f4d8a53c-5b46-4360-bb46-a454a332812d","argument":"I feel as if people are often judged too harshly for expressing thoughts which may be violent, offensive or crude. Yet said people more often than not, have no problem behaving and being integrated into society. They often have a clean record, and recognize fully that acting on such thoughts is morally wrong. I'll give a few examples of what I mean Example 1 If I say I like the idea of bully victims getting revenge by murdering their long time bully's with a weapon. People would think I'm mentally unstable and need to be put on a security watchlist. Yet said people will ignore me when I say that I fully recognize how murdering someone over a grudge not only will have a negative impact on me by having me sent to prison. It will also leave scars on the murder victims family which will be unhealable. And despite me acknowledging that getting revenge on a bully is pointless, morally wrong, and just downright disturbing, they will still want me to be monitored by law enforcement simply for expressing the fact that I like the idea of revenge. Example 2 If I say as a joke that I would crucify a roadkilled animal people will think there is something seriously wrong with me. Even if the animal is already dead and presumably if it is a wild animal which had no owner, there is no emotional attachment to it if I were to go through the process of building a crucifix, and attaching the roadkill to it, what harm is there in that? Yet if I explain that I would never do something like that for whatever reasons, mainly being that said carcass can have diseases that I would not want to contract. People will still have the notion that I would do something as disturbing to someone's pet, or even worse another human being, even though all I did was make a dumb joke about how a roadkilled squirrel died for our sins Example 3 If I have a fascination with weapons regardless of type, and consiquently have a collection of such weapons which I possess legally without a genuine need for them, people will assume there is something wrong with my mental stability, and that I will use such weapons to commit horrible acts of violence against people. Yet they are ignoring the fact that I bought them legally which in my country you need a firearms license . They are ignoring that I also have a clean criminal record, and have never engaged in a physical conflict with anyone. Now obviously, everyone can think whatever they want to think and believe in whatever they want to believe in. My point is that there is no reason to be wary of a particular individual who expresses taboo ideas, whilst still recognizing and acknowledging that they are taboo, especially if said individual is a well behaved and functioning member of society. So please, explain to me what is wrong with liking the theory, but not the practice?","conclusion":"it is perfectly OK to like the theory of acting on offensive, violent, or crude thoughts as long as you do not put them into practice."}
{"id":"23f8117e-ab82-4265-9d29-997acff05edb","argument":"Let me take you back to Season 7 of the West Wing. Toby Ziegler leaked classified information that the US Military had a vehicle capable of rescuing 2 American Astronauts and 1 Russian Cosmonaut from a distressed spaceship. The mission to rescue these men was opposed by the National Security Advisor to the President, for fear that the Russian Cosmonaut would inform the Russian government about the asset . The weaponization of space had the potential to threaten the survival of civilization IMHO. He decided to leak this info to the press, forcing a mass public debate on the subject. Because of his close personal ties to the President, he was pardoned on the last day of fictitious, yet desperately needed in a time like the present, president Josiah Bartlet's second term in office. What does Edward Snowden have to do with the West Wing? Listen up Aaron Sorkin, this is Newsroom Season 3 gold here. Snowden's position in the NSA gave him access to some astonishing information. He observed the full capabilities of the NSA through a by some standards, normal work routine. When I first heard about this, my first thoughts were of relief. I have always assumed that the government had the capability to monitor the personal information of all Americans, if not the whole world, via some method of telephone and Internet control. The PRISM system sounds like a feat of programming genius. Although the notion of determining how threatening someone is from their emails is a bit suspect. But on the whole, definitely a good thing because this immense intelligence network keeps our state on a constant state of vigilance. Let's face it, 21st century technology could possibly be the next theater of war. It's not our of the question. So would we rather have our guard up at all times against that sort of threat, or should we be reactionary and risk harm. I prefer the first. When it comes to national security, we need to play it safe. Anyhow, Snowden committed a crime by releasing this information to the public. He will surely not receive a pardon from Obama or any other future President, but I think we should be grateful that this man decided that his life was worth telling people the truth. From a moral ethical POV, Snowden has the high ground. His actions were in the name of justice and transparency in OUR government. TL DR Thanks Eddy. It wasn't an easy call, but it was the right one. EDIT Turns out the Chinese are attacking universities through cyber attacks now. Thanks Snowden.","conclusion":"Edward Snowden's leaks regarding the NSA spying revelation was a courageous act."}
{"id":"ab123076-ea13-45b5-8ae0-455968ca44f7","argument":"People portray themselves a certain way during courtship and if through their own gluttony they become unattractive to the person who agreed to marry them, that person should not be financially penalized for leaving them. I believe spouses have the right to expect a certain amount of effort regarding the upkeep of the health and appearance of the person they committed to. Of course, there would have to be exceptions for pregnancy, with a reasonable generous time limit for the woman to lose her excess weight after having her child. Being fat is scientifically simply a matter of consuming more food than you need. Virtually anyone can remain at a healthy weight simply by limiting their calorie intake, even eating McDonalds for every meal, which has been scientifically proven. The law should not financially protect gluttons who are endangering both themselves and their children overweight parents are more likely to have overweight children for this reason I also believe the overweight parent should be penalized in custody proceedings and deceiving their spouse. Furthermore I believe this would be a net positive for a society with an obesity epidemic.","conclusion":"A husband should be able to divorce his wife with no legal consequences if she gains too much weight"}
{"id":"e4ba7220-81fa-44ae-9066-2ed160d841a5","argument":"Seinfeld is often described as a show about nothing. But that statement is either false or trivial because it is no more about nothing than other sitcoms from the same time period. What is Full House about? A family and their kooky adventures. The same with The Simpsons and Family Matters . Mad About You was about a married couple and their kooky adventures, as was Dharma and Greg . Seinfeld was pretty much just the same, but instead of a family or spouses it was a group of friends going on the requisite kooky adventures. Seinfeld had the same kind of content as any other show, so the claim that is about nothing is either false or trivial.","conclusion":"Seinfeld is not a show about nothing."}
{"id":"6e7f7b8f-0d3d-40c4-97a5-ea08d295e565","argument":"The titled view is based on my, my friends\u2019, and my family\u2019s personal interactions with the English, and thus is difficult to evidence. We feel that on average , Canadians tend to be franker, friendlier, more innocuous while English tend to be cleverer more adept and reserved. I've exemplified with academic education, lawyers, scientists, mathematicians, capitalist who are all guileful in their own ways and thus should exemplify the different types of 'guile'. No our feeling is not affected by Received Pronunciation. 1 Education The best education in England beats the best education in Canada. Not all schools are like Eton but at least England has them, while Canada doesn\u2019t truly St George\u2019s School in Vancouver and Upper Canada College in Toronto aren\u2019t as internationally renowned. England also boasts Oxbridge and LSE that beat Canada\u2019s top ranked universities McGill, UBC, U of T . Peradventure this summarizes my feeling I have never met an Etonian who wasn't an untrustworthy, mendacious, conniving creep. 2 Advocacy Litigation The best English barristers Solicitor Advocates are cleverer and wilier than the best Canadian litigators. I discuss court advocates here because the work of English solicitors is easier. The London Bar is the first choice for many common law jurisdictions around the world e.g. Lord Pannick QC who has acted in Hong Kong . Professor Stephen Waddams wrote in this book that the quality of advocacy is higher in England than in Canada. 3 Math and Science I'm aware of the difference between England and UK but I can't find data for only English Laureates. The UK has more Nobel Laureates per capita and Fields Medallists than Canada. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"On average, English people are more guileful and wily than Canadians."}
{"id":"c296f8b3-2370-4447-a90d-880f51f940a9","argument":"In 1945, organizations such as the JNF and PICA owned 906.80 sq km which was half the Jewish-owned land in the region. Twice that - all the land in Jewish hands - made up merely 7% of the the combined area of Israel the West Bank and Gaza","conclusion":"As of 1945, only around 7% of Historic Palestine was Jewish-owned. It is hard to imagine how the remainder - almost 19.000 square km - could have been legally purchased off Arab inhabitants."}
{"id":"5184c966-d6b5-48b5-9159-b94da6a1a607","argument":"Historically, many behaviours could have been considered \"a central part of human nature and thus inherent to humankind\" yet are now considered abhorrent and forbidden, such as murder for resources on an individual level.","conclusion":"Just because something comes naturally to humans, it does not mean it is the correct decision to do it."}
{"id":"27dbeebe-7958-42ae-bc3a-0f46038663bd","argument":"Final edit VIEW CHANGED The university is already mandated to report all crimes. Now whether they do or do not is not part of the , so well played everyone I've had some nice discussions, thank you all A really good summary of the end of the thread is by u IvanLu link to comment gt Interesting conclusion. CatRelatedUser is certainly right on this This appears to be outside the scope of the , but still relevant nonetheless. The problem is that as the Clery Act does not compel the victim to report the crime to the police which is required for the police to start investigating , but yet the university is forced to take on the role of investigator due to Title IX regulations. So the result is that incompetent college admins end up conducting their own investigations, which you and others have pointed out a will lead at most only to expulsion, minor punishment for a crime as serious as rape. b neither the victim nor the accused may have their rights adequately protected throughout the investigative legal process. Change my view A University should be responsible for reporting any and all crimes that they are made aware of to the police. They should be obligated by law to report any and all criminal acts to the police and should be barred from doing any sort of internal investigation, unless in assisting the police investigation. That includes rape, theft, assault, blackmail, illegal drug possession, etc. Anything that is illegal in the country state area that the University is operating at. Any reports of misconduct, such as plagiarizing, verbal insults, regular disputes, etc. that do not violate any laws should be handled by the University administration. Reasons for my view Any criminal act is out of the scope of a University to handle properly in an unbiased way. A University administration does not have lawyers judges trainer police officers, people that know within reason what to do in cases of a crime committed. What would not change my view The police are biased the university would also be, at the very least, just as biased. The police are busy is not a freaking reason for regular civilians to handle crime. The university has a fiduciary duty to their students, otherwise lawsuits of course, they have a fiduciary duty to call the police . The university must protect the campus from crime which they can don't accept anyone convicted of crime, expel anyone who has been convicted of a crime while a student. Do you expect a University to just sit and wait for the police to conduct an investigation and let a potential criminal rapist abuser just continue going to class? very simple temporary suspensions, pending police investigation. This makes it exploitable for people accusing other people of crimes just to suspend them either have some kind of consequence for false allegations, or simply accept it as a necessary evil to ensure a fair and just process for both a potential victim and a potential criminal. The victim should have a choice to report the crime to the police or not as they do, but they should not have a shady third option of going through a university tribunal to sort out a criminal offense. What if the crime is not that serious? if it is something that is against the law, that should be for the police to decide weather it is serious or not. What if the victim doesn't want the accused to go to jail, but wants them off campus? tough luck. If you want a perpetrator of a crime to just go commit crimes elsewhere that is morally repugnant and should not be an option at all. Reasons that might change my view Any reason why the university response might be better in terms of the police response that I have not considered. Any reason that police involvement might make it worse for most parties involved that I have not thought of. TL DR If a crime happens on campus and a student reports said crime to the university administration the administration should be legally obligated to contact the police. They may, if they so wish, suspend the accused student to ensure safety, if the allegation makes them believe that violence abuse is possible but there should not be an option of a closed university tribunal, subverting the justice system .","conclusion":"Universities should report all crimes they are made aware of to the police"}
{"id":"42c1a7da-c3e7-4b76-aa45-2dfc8483a93c","argument":"In 2016, hundreds of thousands of South Koreans took the streets to demand President Park Geun-Hye's resignation. This pressure led to a successful impeachment vote in parliament","conclusion":"In extraordinary situations, citizens can always take to the streets and oust politicians through peaceful public pressure."}
{"id":"42fec156-3400-4ab7-b134-5f250f33efe8","argument":"Some couples remain in loving relationships where one or both of them are able to engage with others in pursuit of sexual pleasure.","conclusion":"Sexual pleasure and love are neither mutually exclusive nor zero-sum."}
{"id":"a28410f3-72ca-4d1a-b644-8d3df5c101db","argument":"Although I'm an agnostic atheist myself, differently from my peers at r atheism I don't hate nor despise religion or religious people, so hopefully here we can actually have a discussion about the topic without the religion hating circlejerk present on said sub. I'll also crosspost over to r DebateReligion to invite the folks there to join in the conversation. As the title says I don't think that religion is in it of itself inherently more pathological simply because it presuposes the existence of something greater , or at least beyond the physical realm theism . My reasons for this are 1 Although for centuries or even millenia many horrendous actions were justified with religion, Hitler, Stalin and Mao are some of the most famous examples of people who, despite being atheists, killed millions because of their worldviews and ideologies. To me this seems to indicate that the problem is not religious belief theism, but rather dogmatism and fanaticism which, although can be caused by religion, is not exclusive to it. 2 Many christians, and even pope Francis himself support religious tolerance, which is on the rise in America. Sources 1 2 3 And although the article mentions that after Trump being elected there was a spike in hate crimes, the fact that this spike was right after the troubled election and that it was coming from both sides of the political spectrum seem to indicate that this is more due to political divide, rather than religious intolerance. 3 As I pointed in my first argument, I believe that intolerance stems from dogmatism and fanatism, rather than religious belief theism. To me this seems to be caused primarily by cognitive dissonance, which would in turn incentivate these individuals to destroy the sources of differing opinions, or even other traits inherent to human nature, such as cognitive biases or disgust sensitivity, which seems to be the primary source of Hitler's hatred towards jews. Usually I like to think and research a lot about a subject before drawing any conclusions not that I haven't thought much about this subject , but this is as far as I'm able to go on my own. I have more of a innocent until proven guilty mentality regarding this question, rather than a fully fledged and definitive opinion, so I come here not with arguments set in stone, but with hopes that I might learn a thing or two from others, which may in turn fortify or shift my views, or even change them completely. So Change My View, Reddit. Edit more Edit 2 As u Priddee has pointed out I had some of my terminology wrong, and was arguing as though religion isn't dogmatic, which isn't the case, so my opinion has shifted a bit. I've updated the post accordingly. To simplify, I guess I could put my points as being that Theism doesn't make religion more dogmatic than other belief systems, and it is up to the individual how much they buy into this dogma and how fanatic they are about these beliefs, and I think this is determined by inherent traits of human nature. Edit 3 Well it's almost 3am here in Brazil and I really need to go to sleep but I'll continue to answer comments tomorrow, so keep 'em comming Edit 4 As some have pointed out Hitler might not have been an atheist, from what I could gather from the Wikipedia page regarding the subject he might have been one, but of course I don't have a definitive answer to this question. My main point by giving these examples of atheists who have done terrible things is that people can be excessively fanatic about a belief system, regardless of it being religious or not, so the primary source of excessive dogmatism and fanatism doesn't seem to be theism to me.","conclusion":"Religion is not inherently more pathological than other belief systems."}
{"id":"5e9edb8c-2213-4cde-82e3-ae1d14cf988a","argument":"A Korean war will not occur within the next two years for multiple reasons 1st They are the biggest paper tiger on the earth of the planet. The whole Year of re unification claims are a hoax their rhetoric is false and is just used to force countries around the world to give them aid because their food security is in danger. This same event has occurred many times in the past and just like then a nuclear war will not occur. 2nd Kim isn't a madman. He is in power for a reason. He is smart enough to know that a South Korean war would embolden nuclear powers such as the US and lead to their eventual destruction. The only counter argument to this is that China also has their backs, but they don't. 3rd Winning foreign aid, in North Korea's eyes, outweighs the risk of war. They, as i said above, are only using this war rhetoric to get aid because of their sparse resources.","conclusion":"A Korean nuclear war is not likely to occur within 2014-2015"}
{"id":"a8e352ae-5640-4cfe-b40e-81ad737c0fe4","argument":"By 2021, the UK government aims to boost investment in R&D by \u00a37 billion, representing the largest ever increase in public funding of R&D by any UK government Industrial Strategy, p. 67","conclusion":"The impact of a hard Brexit on the scientific community will likely be cushioned by increased domestic spending on UK science."}
{"id":"99202795-5a98-41c8-a1fe-0644de4dae18","argument":"My opinion is pretty straight forward movies that are supposed to be scary are ruined by jokes. I am not talking about horror comedies such as Scary Movie or Tucker Dale vs Evil, but 'serious' movies that are supposed to inspire feelings of terror. The only movies that genuinely leave me feeling scared have very limited jokes. Exames are The Ring, Occulus, Sinister and Salo or 120 Days of Sodom and A Serbian Film. On the other hand there a ton of movies that fail to scare me because they attempt to be humerous. Basically any horror movie about a family or a group of teenagers is riddled with jokes. This takes viewers out of the movie and makes it a lot less eerie. Examples are Krampus and Cabin in the Woods. One might argue that these are comedies, but they are still trying to induce fear as opposed to say, the Leprachaun movies. And that doesn't work because the jokes make light of the situation. Change my view.","conclusion":"Humor and horror is a terrible combination for a movie"}
{"id":"8690d411-8f1d-4fbb-8ac2-bc8c0abffed8","argument":"Instead, we should be emphasizing that children should know what they want from life, whether their goals be personal, financial, etc. If I just love the arts and want to go to school for theatre or sculpture or something, but I also wish to make six figures in my life, I should be made aware that I have probably picked the wrong career path. If there is one thing that Mike Rowe has shown us it is that a lot of blue collar jobs that many do not want are actually very lucrative financially. I think people place too much emphasis on job satisfaction. A job is just that, A JOB. You shouldn't have to love it or even like it. Which sounds more soul destroying? Going to school for sculpting then having a serving job at 55 hours a week to make ends meet and living just above the poverty line, or learning skills that will provide a decent income and probably give you benefits and vacation time in order to pursue your sculpting passions? A lot of college students go into less lucrative degrees because they came straight out of high school and don't realize the truth about being an adult with day to day expenses. We shouldn't teach children to follow their dreams, we should teach them how to survive in this world.","conclusion":"I don't think we should be telling children to \"Follow their dreams\"."}
{"id":"8acca565-b3a3-4a1e-a7fc-f3c23f7f62e0","argument":"Personally, I think that the 2016 Olympics in Rio are going to be a complete disaster the country is spiraling out of control, money has not been spent in the promised ways, stadiums are either almost not completed or probably never going to be used again, and the Brazilian people, by and large, do not want to host the Olympics until they figure out how to stabilize the country. Although it is more pressing for the Winter Olympics, city after city is dropping out of contention and no longer bidding because people simply do not want the costs associated with hosting a mega event. My proposal there should be one location my personal preference would be Athens, Greece, but they are also going through some turmoil although any economic boost associated with continually hosting the Olympics could help that hosts the Summer Olympics every four years. If that is too extreme a viewpoint, as I am sure some cities that lose out on a chance to host may hold resentment, the Olympics could move every twenty years to a new location so that new stadiums and infrastructure can be built. The status quo is failing Change My View","conclusion":"The Summer Olympics should be held at a permanent, non-moving or rarely-moving location"}
{"id":"dd999f57-f70a-45dd-a907-5ef14c2ce7ef","argument":"I don't have a particularly deep interest in horse racing, but I tend to notice when events like the Grand National occur. As far as I can see, the entire sport looks like a cruel means of endangering a horse's life for profit. The risk to the animals seems egregiously significant in big races, to the point that the chance of them suffering an injury that will result in their death including possible euthanisation is far too high for it to seem anything but a cruel roll of the dice for animals who have no means of objecting to their situation. Change my view. gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than just downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I think that horse racing is cruel and should be banned"}
{"id":"4ac728ca-72b5-40da-836a-673df5c574d6","argument":"If you look at the legalities of marriage and put aside all the emotional aspects, marriage is really just a contract between 2 people. And that contract is recognized and enforced by the government. So doesn't it make sense that if one or both parties want out of that contract, the contract should be dissolved based upon what was agreed to when the contract was signed? So if marriage and divorce laws are different when a divorce is finalized, than what was in place when a marriage started, should the laws from the start of marriage the day the contract was agreed to dictate what happens in a divorce? And from what I can see, that change in what the marriage contract means can happen in two different ways 1 Marriage and divorce laws can change over years or decades in your jurisdiction or 2 you can get married in one jurisdiction, but then move to another jurisdiction during the marriage and get divorced in that jurisdiction. As an example, let's look at a couple that gets married in Georgia. Georgia has a unique law that says that if you can prove adultery by a spouse, you will not be required to pay alimony upon divorce from that spouse. So say I get married in Georgia. That marriage and divorce laws in the state of Georgia are the contract that my spouse and I are agreeing too. So at the time of the marriage, whether we realize it or not, I am agreeing that if I cheat on my spouse and get divorced, I won't be entitled to alimony. But California has no such exemption. So if 7 years into our marriage, I get a job transfer and move to California and meet a hot Cali girl and cheat on my wife, why should she have to pay me alimony? That wasn't the agreement we made 7 years ago when we got married. And the same can work in reverse. If you get married in California and then move to Georgia, you can escape paying alimony that you otherwise would have been obligated to. So if you find out your spouse is cheating on you and you want to avoid alimony payments, the best thing to do is to try to work things out and find some way to convince your spouse to move to Georgia, and then file for divorce. That makes no sense.","conclusion":"Divorces should be adjudicated based upon the laws under which the marriage originated, not the laws under which the marriage ended."}
{"id":"cf16b613-12f7-413f-a6ee-47bf22bf1bff","argument":"An all knowing, all seeing god would speak or act to make his presence known. Indeed, most early writings of major religions support this notion that god makes his will clearly known by communicating to humans. Yet, no such communication exists today.","conclusion":"Agnosticism holds that the lack of evidence makes it impossible to know whether God exists."}
{"id":"092f9769-0f31-4204-946c-67760d728e90","argument":"\u201cIt isn\u2019t completely clear how the car makes its decisions. Information from the vehicle\u2019s sensors goes straight into a huge network of artificial neurons that process the data and then deliver the commands required to operate the steering wheel, the brakes, and other systems. . The system is so complicated that even the engineers who designed it may struggle to isolate the reason for any single action.\u201d \u201cThe Dark Secret at the Heart of AI\u201d by Will Knight, Technology Review April 11, 2017","conclusion":"State-of-the-art artificial intelligence i.e. deep learning neural networks encoding is highly complex. Often the network creators only generally understand how the networks operate, because the math is too complicated for a human to understand."}
{"id":"e049b543-0c1b-430d-888c-fabfb6fd91bf","argument":"Doing damage to the system and the bourgeois state by helping bring into power a candidate whose regime would be disastrous would be an effective strategy not only for the short term goal of getting a leftist into office four years from now and perhaps permanently disrupting and damaging the Republican Party, but also for the long term goal of revolutionary agitation among the working class to the end of building socialism. It is plain that a Trump presidency would be a disaster. Not only does fiscal management of a capitalist enterprise not translate to fiscal management of a state, but Trump's record of fiscal management in the market is atrocious. Furthermore, his evident racism and covert white nationalism evidenced by his nativist rhetoric in regards to Mexico and non white immigration would agitate a growing sector of the US against him and his government. Thirdly, his pro bourgeois mentality and methods would cause further neglect and degradation of US public services and infrastructure and in all likelihood erosion of US power. His presidency, therefore, if it occurred, would result in revolutionary agitation. The working classes whom he regards in contempt and the minorities whom he regards with vile malice would be primed towards the support of leftist candidates in the next election, which would in all likelihood be a democratic and left democratic landslide and greatly damaging and disruptive to the reactionary republicans' capabilities of fielding another effective opposition force for some time, possibly to the point of heralding a Seventh Party System. A solid south republican bloc ineffectively opposing a left democratic New Dealist state in the successful Sanders model. This stage on the road to socialism, of economic stimulus through public works and infrastructure, worker's rights, protectionism and a return to manufacturing, as well as the beginnings of both the vanguard party and directional centralism is vital in building the structures necessary to travel further on this path, like nationalization of vital industries, guaranteed employment, workplace collectivization, alleviating pressure on small proprietors, and agricultural mobilization.","conclusion":"Voting for Trump if Sanders loses Nomination"}
{"id":"0deb69c1-1f24-408b-bb1d-55b32291ffbc","argument":"I have frequently heard the phrase engineer's syndrome , which suggests that engineers tend to think they can solve complicated real world problems outside engineering with simple tricks that other people simply must not have thought of yet. However, I see that experts in nearly all fields seem to think their expertise applies outside of the actual area of their expertise, such that linguistics experts believe they deeply understand foreign relations, doctors assume they'll be good investors, and lawyers think they can fix domestic policy. I believe that all smart people who are rewarded for their intellectual labors are equally likely to suffer from this problem. It's possible that engineers are disproportionately likely to find jobs where they are rewarded for their thinking. But aside from this economic accident, I doubt there is anything specific about engineering that would cause this flaw. In particular, I believe that forcing engineering students to study philosophy, English, and art would not affect their susceptibility to engineer's syndrome. They might benefit from these classes for a variety of reasons, but they would still look at complicated problems outside their expertise with the arrogance of a successful expert. Please change my view.","conclusion":"Engineers' Syndrome is not specific to engineering"}
{"id":"3ba3d82b-ce96-4454-94a4-da10482f1731","argument":"Our understanding of \"good\" and \"humanity\" are mostly grounded in religion. Saying religion has not been good is a contradiction because religion has defined the meaning of \"good\" in our development as a species.","conclusion":"Most of today's cultures and remaining world heritage are due to religions."}
{"id":"fe2e9b49-93b8-4209-9df4-7031044d20ea","argument":"Studies in Minnesota show that when normal volunteers were starved, they began to development anorectic patterns. They over-estimated the sizes of their own faces by approximately 50%. This shows the impact of starvation on the brain.","conclusion":"A healthier body weight is necessary to be able to treat the patient\u2019s psychological problems:"}
{"id":"11798d8a-f0d4-4cb7-ab2e-055a22ca0c49","argument":"To be clear, when I say this I think emotions should be held up to a similar form of evaluation as logic is. There are baseless, stupid illogical statements, same as there are baseless stupid emotions and they should be ignored once the failure is seen. There's also an appropriate time and place for emotion. In the same way that there's an appropriate time and place for harsh logic. For instance, how you feel about food should never change scientific nutritional standards, but it would have a place in looking at how humans prepare, deal with, emotionally attach to and incorporate foods. They both have a place it's not always the same space, but both are important and useful tools. As for why I hold that view. It's for a number of reasons. Basically, we don't know the extent to which emotion and logic can alter our behaviour, thinking, relationships. There's such a focus on logic, and when you only acknowledge half of how you make your decisions, you miss an awful lot. It's not logical to procrastinate, but we all do. The constant insistence on being logical all the time means a whole bunch of people can be really really bad at knowing how to manage and control and accept emotions. I'm not saying logic is crap, I'm not saying emotion is crap, I'm saying we use both ways of thinking so regularly that pretending one is greater more common than the other is dismissing an illogically large part of how we make decisions.","conclusion":"I think emotions are as vital to humans as logic is."}
{"id":"77a30df4-5f6e-4e19-9944-8e92a2a6c58c","argument":"Many people have opposed police presence at Pride due to the levels of police brutality and aggression against people of colour and especially trans people of colour.","conclusion":"Pride has become a corporate event that facilitates the co-opting of LGBT culture by organisations that threaten people of colour."}
{"id":"3e9ad399-ac95-4cfc-ba88-210f8e74e4fd","argument":"Given the global rise in divorce and single-parent families, it is good for governments to offer marriage benefits, supporting and standing by healthy marriages and cohesive families.","conclusion":"Marriage was once the pillar of society. The state would be turning its back on tradition and stability by removing benefits linked to marriage."}
{"id":"0c8e3dae-ce04-4ebb-afee-a13ff9a26e0d","argument":"My friend brought up an interesting point over dinner that I don't feel I have a slam dunk argument against and that was that He didn't feel that he should pay for specific healthcare options that he didn't want like how auto insurance works or pay for those that others may need but that he won't himself have to worry about. The example he gave was that he shouldn't have to pay for someone getting a mammogram or anything related to giving birth. Besides arguments based upon healthcare being a right or anything similar to that line of thought, what would be a good argument to counter his points? Why should we pay for healthcare procedures or treatments that we won't possibly ever need personally?","conclusion":"I should be able to choose what I want to pay for in regards to my healthcare insurance. !"}
{"id":"b0cd17df-902a-4808-b999-a964c7e5906f","argument":"Seemingly we live in a culture here in the US where every national or local tragedy gets sensationalized to the extreme. Yes, 9 11 was a horrific day, and the now two wars, the subsequent trillions of dollars spent, and thousands of lives lost are in its wake. While I see a need to honor the dead, perpetuate their memory, and remind folks that something bad happened, it seems over the top to spend the millions of dollars it took to build out the new memorial. Call me crass, but rebuilding a bigger tower s , continuing on with commerce, and overall, moving on in my opinion is a huge Well screw you too to those that want to see us harmed. I know a lot of the money came from private donations, but in my opinion, the money could have been better spent on the families of the dead, the first responders who are going to suffer the rest of their lives both physically and mentally, and so on. So change my view on this. Tell me why this giant exhibit is absolutely necessary.","conclusion":"I believe the 9\/11 memorial seems over the top and unnecessary. I view it as nothing more than emotion porn."}
{"id":"497e45c2-6380-4188-be33-538ca104df3b","argument":"While it may be true that some supporters of the stimulus have a hidden agenda to grow government, this is mere speculation, and to oppose the legislation merely on this basis would be to overlook the broader, legitimate arguments involved in the debate.","conclusion":"No evidence that stimulus supporters just want to grow government."}
{"id":"62d7de7d-8b94-4e12-8bc2-72456adf3e61","argument":"For research reasons, Planet X wants to send one of their number to Earth to fulfill a mission to carry out a human life in 2016. The way I imagine it, through their advanced technology Planet X is able to procure the birth of one of their own as a human on Earth in 2016. Success in the mission is defined as the alien human a not dying earlier than the average human lifetime in 2016, and b producing their own offspring. When determining the profile of the human body that this alien will inhabit, the risk analysts actuaries on Planet X should recommend that the alien be born as, and walk the Earth as, a human female. This is the more prudent course because 1 human females live longer, 2 human males are more likely to be killed violently in the course of their lives, 3 human males are more susceptible to falling into circumstances that lead to their own suicide, 4 it's observably easier for human females to achieve their existential goal of producing offspring. In short, the mission is more likely to be successful if the alien inhabits a human female body. All other variables such as race or the location on Earth in which the alien human will live out their life are outside the scope of this .","conclusion":"An alien sent to Earth on a mission to live *as a human* should inhabit the body of a human female rather than that of a human male"}
{"id":"5b9fb42b-de26-4ad3-ba3f-acf9e97b1907","argument":"There is growing evidence that harmful traditional practices - such as the preference for a son in many societies, or early and forced marriage of girls - can be one of the root causes for discrimination and violence against girls. UNDAW, 1 If states want to enforce their national and international obligations, namely to eliminate all forms of discrimination based on sex, they need to intervene, regulate or prohibit these practices.","conclusion":"If a cultural practice constitutes a threat to humans or animals, the government needs to intervene and prohibit it."}
{"id":"ea66c46f-3c54-4259-bba2-2c4ec4fe5141","argument":"How will the severity and legality of flogging be monitored? How will it be reconciled with existing liberal democratic value sets? The majority of western liberal democracies are party to inter-governmental and supranational agreements that expressly forbid states from using torture or degrading or inhuman punishments in any capacity. The mark of a modern, liberal state is that it uses authority and engagement rather than raw power to protect its citizens. The use of force or power by the state and its agents is harder to regulate and costlier to compensate when it is misapplied. Liberal democracies, apart from being agents of realpolitik, are also aspirational bodies that should strive to reflect and adhere to the values they were created to defend. Arbitrary, coercive force and violence is one of the core harms that a state must guard against. Violence is said to be the preserve of criminals and those acting against the values of society. Therefore, as an aspirational body, the state should hold itself to a higher standard of behaviour than such individuals. Violence, as most liberal constitutions make clear, should only ever be employed by the state as a last resort. Where a state has the means to do so, even if those means are costly or politically contentious, it should endeavour to achieve peace and order within its own borders without wielding power. At its broadest, the liberal democratic ideology holds that the rights and autonomy of individual citizens should be only be infringed in order to protect the rights and autonomy of other citizens. This principle would be violated if the state resorted to corporal sentencing as a way of satisfying a mob-like demand for visible and harsh criminal sentencing. No citizen of a liberal democracy has a right to demand that another citizen, criminal or not, should be subjected to unnecessary pain and suffering by the state. improve this","conclusion":"States' duty to avoid the use of force when solving social problems"}
{"id":"828550a6-e7fe-48f5-8c10-4966a7ddb25f","argument":"I don't have any proof of this obviously , so I feel I need to be exposed to more viewpoints to see if I can learn a thing or two. I don't want arguments like gay couples get to adopt or what if the parents are messed up and do this or that . That's not the point here. I just feel that a more traditional family unit works best. Its worked for ages. I'm not saying a child raised by homosexual parents or a single parent will end up mentally ill or messed up. I just think that a kid can get more out of life from a traditional home.","conclusion":"Not counting abuse or neglect, it is better for a child to be raised by 2 married heterosexual partners."}
{"id":"29254188-9e11-4b06-b338-005c58c02dbc","argument":"On a purely intuitive level, I feel like Troll behavior bad faith disingenuous arguments meant to generate outrage is more common from people with right wing perspectives than for those on the left. I wouldn't go so far as saying that ALL trolls are people with right wing perspective's but it feels like MOST of the time that is the case. For example, I am suspicious of people who start conversations with statements like First off, I'd like to say that I am very Left leaning, liberal, not racist, etc. but and then proceed to say something that completely invalidating that previous claim. That bit of context is in most cases pointless to the argument and doesn't contribute anything positive if it is immediately contradicted. This, of course, is not the only way to make bad faith arguments but I've noticed it a lot recently and it feels Troll like. I don't think that this implies that the Left is significantly more accustomed to making good faith arguments, but I do feel like there are very few time's where I see a person start a statement the same way First off I'm very right leaning but contradictory claim here If this is the case I wonder why the person wouldn't just express their opinion in good faith Right Left wing or not? Is simply for fear of being outed? Or fear of genuinely having a view changed? implying that it won't affect the person as much if they don't fully disclose their genuine opinion. Could just be the circles I'm in, but wanted to see if this thought is majorly flawed.","conclusion":"Trolling is more common from right wingers than it is from the left"}
{"id":"719659dd-7cac-458e-b78e-1878910bccd3","argument":"Providing equality of opportunity can be better suited for government intervention in developed economies and societies, i.e countries where equality of the sexes is agreed and desired by most of the population.","conclusion":"The gender pay gap is a natural phenomenon due to individual choices and strengths. As such, the government should not intervene."}
{"id":"b7307a11-464a-4570-b7f1-0cc44a368ccc","argument":"Evil is, by definition, a value marking opposition to God's Will, making it logically impossible for God to Will into existence. Therefore, the existence of evil necessitates the existence of a will that remains distinct and separate from God's Will.","conclusion":"God allows evil to exist so that humans can have free will and develop into moral people. In order to be morally good in a meaningful way, a person must have the possibility of choosing evil."}
{"id":"08075e9b-b6fb-4d12-ae53-421530286328","argument":"Whatever a government does, a large number of people will complain about it. If a government does very little, people complain they're not doing enough, and if a government makes big changes, people complain they've made the wrong changes or are interfering too much. Every government, in Western countries, whatever they do, experiences this kind of criticism whining. I understand that if people have valid disagreements with their governments actions, they should have the right to voice them. However, I think the fact that EVERY government is subjected to constant criticism suggests that it's people's expectations, rather than the governments themselves which are the problem. People clearly expect a standard of governance which is unrealistically high. No government is close to perfect, and people need to accept that rather than seeing the government as some kind of faceless, sinister organisation which is out to get them incompetent and poorly managed organisation who do everything wrong. .","conclusion":"I think people complain too much about their governments, and have overly high expectations of them."}
{"id":"0ea625fa-ca3c-4b04-9a42-a77fd5ddbb78","argument":"I think that being transgender is a choice. Being gay isn't, being lesbian isn't, bi isn't, whatever sexual preferences or kinks you have aren't choices. But being a tranny is. People act like it isn't. No, that woman chose to have a dick, and that guy chose to have a vagina. They weren't born with either, and since it's a physical change, it's not their mentality either. If they were trans, they gave the hospital a call, they requested the operation to be done, they've thought about it, battled with themselves, and made a decision to change. This isn't something you can do in your sleep, subconsciously, or accidentally, so it's not something an imaginary mentall illness could cause either. And by saying this, I'm not one of those people that believes mental illnesses don't exist they definitely do, depression does, and it sucks, but calling a hospital to have your body changed isn't a mental illness. And it shouldn't be. Change my view so I can be one of the hive mind and think requesting you to look the opposing gender is clearly something fucked with their head. All of these trannies that walk around with the genitals they weren't born with chose to have those genitals change. They weren't abducted, tied down and had their gender changed, it was a decision made by them and themselves only, not a mental illness.","conclusion":"Being transgender is a choice, no matter how you look at it."}
{"id":"fde6282f-44d1-4bf1-8411-2956799aee64","argument":"\"Civil unions a vital compromise\". The Columbia Chronicle. March 16, 2009: \"the Illinois Religious Freedom and Protection Civil Unions Act HB 2234 passed a House committee and is now on its way to the House floor, potentially making Illinois the first state in the Midwest to legalize civil unions. . If the bill were to become a law, it would be a simple, but highly effective solution in allowing same sex couples the same benefits, rights and responsibilities of a marriage without changing Illinois marriage laws.\"","conclusion":"Civil unions give gays equal benefits w\/o changing marriage laws"}
{"id":"9693df48-b1d4-44aa-a127-9808fb7dfb02","argument":"Reproduction is an integral part of human identity as every living human being exists as a result of it. While people do not have to procreate, they should have the right to freely exercise it as they wish to.","conclusion":"The act of procreation should be considered a fundamental human right."}
{"id":"e58cf95f-ad55-459f-b2ed-2eeccb11a401","argument":"Technological advancement is unpredictable unreliable and constrained by physical laws. After many decades of research and development, we still don't have a cure for cancer, viable nuclear fusion or a foothold on any plant other than the Earth. To assume we can ignore climate change because \"technology will fix it\" is absurdly optimistic.","conclusion":"It's possible that such technology doesn't exist because it's not fundamentally feasible."}
{"id":"f1a8e6f5-788e-49cd-bf55-eaccdedc800d","argument":"It would remove the benefits of EU citizenship as a whole, which include free movement, but also diplomatic protection and voting rights. It also includes the right to be involved in decision-making at the European level through petitions. see TFEU part two, in particular article 20 eur-lex.europa.eu","conclusion":"A hard Brexit would end Freedom of Movement, and all the associated benefits it brings."}
{"id":"7c6fdcc8-cdb6-440d-96db-c1fcd2cf8fad","argument":"Donald Trump's grasp on nuclear proliferation and nuclear fission is cause for concern among many experts.\u200b","conclusion":"He doesn't seem to know what he's talking about at any given time."}
{"id":"55c35e8c-e3c9-4ab0-a571-0220a50ba22f","argument":"The increase of officers on foot patrol in Newark, NJ which increased residents' perceptions of social order and safety had no discernable impact on crime rates","conclusion":"The link between social disorder and crime is indirect and difficult to measure."}
{"id":"b6630833-690c-41f1-8f34-ce55dcd05e1c","argument":"I've always been anti smoking since I can remember. I have tried it as most teenagers do even knowing it was repulsive and it confirmed my feelings about it. Out of all legal and not so legal behaviours such as alcohol, weed recreational drugs etc, I will tend to judge and look down on those who smoke more. This includes my two parents and brother in law. I think it's a poor show to spend that money to pollute your body, the bodies of others nearby your fumes. The smell it creates and the stench that lingers on your clothes and hands do smokers not realise that to non smokers you fucking stink. Seeing someone smoking with a child close by in a buggy or in a car just makes me want to rage. Cigarette ends being thrown out of car windows, littering the streets. Those who state they can't start their day without one etc. Even typing this I'm seeing red just thinking about it. \ud83d\ude36 What is the justification in smoking people I know who I have asked to explain their dependency on this can not.  is smoking that awful?","conclusion":"Smoking is one of the worst addictions a person can have."}
{"id":"38a9139d-1831-4aaf-b641-13deb469c072","argument":"The main content of the formalism in mathematical logic can be acted out as patterns in speech by practice in intellectual discussion and conversation without the need of direct study of this subject it might be more effective this way.","conclusion":"Theory and logic can be developed without mathematics, but through other reasoning skills."}
{"id":"2a67beab-3b8d-4855-b77a-9f1750da11e3","argument":"DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano. \"How the DREAM Act Would Bolster Our Homeland Security.\" The White House Blog. December 14, 2010: \"To be clear, no one who poses a threat to public safety will be able to adjust their status under the DREAM Act. The bill ensures applicants will undergo a rigorous background check, and individuals who committed offenses that are grounds for removal will be barred from relief. It is a narrowly-tailored, bipartisan bill that would allow a select group of immigrant students with great potential to contribute more fully to America.\"","conclusion":"No threats to US will be admitted under DREAM Act."}
{"id":"10e0cfd4-c1f4-4b14-989c-5c0ab37ab2dd","argument":"False accusations make it impossible for the accused to lead a normal life even after acquittal, and they deserve recompense.","conclusion":"False rape accusations are real and can destroy someone's life and waste millions of dollars in jail resources."}
{"id":"8262eab1-7ee8-4c09-874d-aa1f44924976","argument":"I don't see an issue with children being raised to use the first names of their parents in interaction, if that's what that particular family is comfortable with. I view it as a personal choice. While I don't think or feel any kind of way toward other parents wanting to be known to their children simply as mother father, the idea has never resonated with me and I would personally prefer to be called my name. Offspring can easily acknowkedge a parent's role in their lives without referring to them only by the title of their relation to them in every interaction. To me, little would change. I see it as a matter of parental preference, like the kind of car driven. I can retain my individual identity without it interfering with or undermining my authority. If anything, I think that's a valuable lesson for a growing person to understand. I don't think simply being not being called mother or father augments respect, bond or parental relationship dynamics if that is the family understanding. Of course, there is a difference when a family has an agreement to refer to the parents via parental title and the kid s proceed to later call them by first name to ruffle feathers. That isn't the situation I'm referring to. The usual arguments against individuals who prefer to be called by their name rather than a generic mom dad seem to be along the line of 'They're your child, not your friend', which in my eyes is a leap. Defining somebody by their label doesn't give their position more credence. Respect, authority, boundaries and understandings are established in countless ways more significant than being called by a title the kid should implicitly know is yours. If there is something wrong with all parties in a household being on first name basis that I am missing, enlighten me.","conclusion":"There is nothing wrong with parents choosing to be on first name basis with their children."}
{"id":"4dc1df78-b633-477f-baa4-088023f55686","argument":"If the British thought that we could easily break the agreement and get away with it, then they would have been unlikely to offer it in the first place. The fact that they did points to the fact that they are confident in their ability to destroy us either way.","conclusion":"The British are likely to take action against us if we cheat and they find out."}
{"id":"0cdca3fd-838e-41db-889c-e7fd73f6e150","argument":"Anonymity can help shy or socially less capable people interact online because this can make their actions feel disconnected from themselves.","conclusion":"Operating under an avatar lets people explore the possibilities of using a different persona when engaging in conversation with others."}
{"id":"0b03bf8c-fc4c-4c2c-8330-5161115aecc7","argument":"In case of being defrauded you have no way of getting your money back, as is possible with credit cards.","conclusion":"Handling and storing cryptocurrencies is less safe for ordinary consumers than traditional forms of electronic payment."}
{"id":"4c640757-e90f-42c0-aa61-cb6940171f8b","argument":"Its quite simple. Men who very wealthy and famous, nevermind if they are also younger and decent to good looking, have too much temptation to have sex with other women. They dont even need any game to get sex. Its too easy. Too easy too much temptation. I believe that less than 50 of men are strong enough to resist this. Of course, there is no actual data to support this, so this may be a crappy . Therefore, when the wives gfs of these men are taken by surprise, they are being irrational. Its more likely than not that your partner will cheat on you. For this reason, i believe that women such as Tiger Woods ex wife were being delusional when they married with the expectation of no infidelity.","conclusion":"If you marry a famous and wealthy male, you are irrational if you are surprised by infidelity."}
{"id":"c5fe44d1-e87a-439c-bd75-d6336aa1e4b7","argument":"Construction is statistically both a dangerous and stressful career choice. Being more risk-averse than men - especially when under stress - women are less likely to want to enter into, or continue working in, a dangerous and stressful job like construction.","conclusion":"Construction worker jobs are less likely to appeal to a woman."}
{"id":"ecc7d120-fa8c-4617-adc2-fd31deec5263","argument":"that includes trans people. Were I to define gender I would say it is the set of social obligations, expectations, and freedoms that are laid upon someone based on their sex . So a man is an adult human male, which entails lots of freedoms and responsibilities etc, a woman is an adult human female, with different freedoms and responsibilities, etc. But I can't come up with a definition that both informs us both of the original, traditional meanings of the genders as above and includes trans people. So what do they mean? What does it mean to say trans women are real women ? What information does that convey? What realities does it proclaim impossible? What aspects of the universe does it claim are true, which would be false if the statement trans women are women were false? Note that any appeal to a gender identity will probably only serve to confuse me. I, like almost everyone , am cis by default I think gender identity is a rare thing almost exclusively experienced by trans people. Almost all Cis people simply recognize the physical reality of their sex, and the social reality of their connected gender, and there is no internal question involved. I have done unscientific, anecdotal polls of folks and the responses I've received have indicated that a small minority of cis folks experience gender identity. If you know of good polls on the subject, please let me know","conclusion":"There is no coherent definition of \"man\" or \"woman\""}
{"id":"4848ef49-79df-4b7e-b935-4f198500d516","argument":"I am mostly interested in discussing the following example as it is easier if we are all talking about the same thing but happy to hear other examples as well. I will take the recent incident we had in the UK where several university students were suspended for a year at Warwick University because of a private group WhatsApp chat made public where they made horrific rape jokes about other female students. They joked about gang rape, raping 100 women, mutilating women that they knew, ejaculating over the women when they were finished and even had many anti semitic remarks thrown in as well. No, unfortunately this is not an exhaustive list. Make no mistake these guys are pieces of shit that's not what I want to debate. However, from what I gathered the police were informed there was never at anytime an actual attempt or plan to commit a crime. Thus the police couldn't really do too much. I understand and agree that businesses operate to a lower standard of proof than Govt agencies and have a right to associate or not associate with who they want to. However, I don't feel the guys deserved to be punished by the university because their thoughts were never meant to be shared with the wider public. In that regard how is it different to watching violent porn? Why is it not equally legitimate to publish people's internet history and shun those with rape fetishes? Hell I fantasise all the time about having sex with guys who would never be interested in me. Not as extreme or as violent as these guys but the point remains that I have thoughts that would probably make a lot of guys uncomfortable if they knew and would be inappropriate to do in real life. Should I be shunned by society for my thought crime? Of course, if you have reason to believe someone is about to commit a crime, report it and let the correct government agency deal with it. But we as a society should respect that individuals should have privacy and will sometimes think of doing bad things Especially interested in hearing the female perspective here. I feel like I am missing something that is apparently obvious but I just don't see it","conclusion":"We should not support businesses\/universities punishing their staff\/students over private communications"}
{"id":"c8482284-9739-4c28-b747-a6c4532182f2","argument":"The spouse who is likely to earn more money\/has greater assets is usually the one who wants a pre-nuptial agreement to ensure they keep the vast majority of assets following the divorce.","conclusion":"The division of property during the process of drafting a prenup can become tilted in favor of the individual with the best attorney."}
{"id":"3ed562bf-fcab-49f6-83f0-d1ba9ddefc5e","argument":"There are proposals that would determine which Black Americans would be entitled and which would not. For example, using census self-identification as Black at least 10 years prior to reparations as a rubric is workable.","conclusion":"It is unclear who would be entitled to reparations. Black Americans as a whole are not."}
{"id":"00e84a8f-a6b1-4553-92a3-8598cb083a39","argument":"The majority of developed world humans do not donate money to help humans in life-threatening situations, but rather use the money for more conspicuous consumption, e.g. buying the newest phone.","conclusion":"There are countless examples throughout history and also in today's society, where a human life and its safety, are not considered as being of the highest importance."}
{"id":"222a086c-28e2-4d80-8ac1-99d9269e2e55","argument":"Mentally ill people who didn\u2019t have substance abuse issues, who weren\u2019t maltreated as children, and who didn\u2019t live in adverse environments have a lower risk of violence than the general population.","conclusion":"Many American school children suffer from psychosocial issues trauma, abuse, depression, etc but do not commit mass shootings."}
{"id":"a943bb73-02ef-4a9b-a83e-13a8afce5d5e","argument":"The internet\u2019s interconnected nature means it is difficult to ensure a hack back will only target one\u2019s intended intruder.","conclusion":"Hacking back has the potential to lead into a spiral of hacks that escalate further and further."}
{"id":"2b938824-8f87-4eae-9730-ef8e5f5f927e","argument":"No one talks about the Third Amendment but citizens would be rightfully upset if the military started requisitioning their homes.","conclusion":"A right taken for granted only receives notice once it is infringed upon."}
{"id":"d2624b1b-a362-40e1-ac8d-90b103557c62","argument":"It is important that employers have good information on candidates so that they can judge most accurately whether a candidate is qualified. It is also important, given the problem of false resumes, for employers to have access to alternative sources of information for cross-referencing. But, equally important and relevant information regards the character of an individual, which social networking sites can help reveal. All of this information helps employers make better decisions and hire more effectively or \"accurately\".","conclusion":"Social networking sites provide employers a true impression of a candidate"}
{"id":"da522711-6d7f-46b2-bebc-2124576e315a","argument":"It is extremely problematic to have such a politicised environment around judges. If they have to rely on being re-elected, they are far more likely to cater their decisions towards the biggest blocks of voters, which may mean leaning towards more liberal or more conservative decisions than are reasonable.","conclusion":"Judges may reach certain verdicts in an attempt to be re-elected rather than to serve justice."}
{"id":"f34421c4-dabd-40e5-acab-ae8eb322fbd1","argument":"Democracy has been around for hundreds of years. The Ancient Greeks first conceived the idea. A world where citizens mostly men could vote to change and shape their country, the government can now be bent to the will of the people. Fast forward hundreds of years and, we fought for Suffrage, we fought for freedom. and now we all have a voice. But despite our advancements, democracy has not changed. While pebbles have been replaced with paper, the idea is the same. But Democracy is not the height of our political systems. I propose a E Democracy or Digital Democracy. digital democracy leverages the internet and our digital networks to ensure complete transparency in government. Through the use of technologies like the block chain and digital ledgers. We could track every single vote, transaction, decision and respond in real time to our government's actions. we would no longer live in a world where our country has a constant watch on us, but a world where we have a constant watch on our government. Government spending could be tracked and recorded, The pockets of corrupt politicians could not longers be filled with YOUR MONEY. as a result, the taxes needed to keep the current infrastructures open would drop dramatically. The government could publically publish law reforms and citizens could respond in real time, their support or disdain. reducing the bureaucracy of the legal system. Public Projects could be monitored. Does it really cost 10 million to construct a 1km of road? with a Digital Democracy, we would know for sure. The transparency of a digital democracy ensures that the wealth the government acquires is used the most effective way possible to benefits YOU. Slip ups and corruption are all traceable, ensuring that rival political parties keep the current government in check. What do you think reddit? is a Digital Democracy something we should fight for?","conclusion":"A E-Democracy is the key to our prosperous future."}
{"id":"97d8907a-930d-42dd-aa1e-7dd79a53b6b4","argument":"Many LGBTQ+, elderly individuals depend on religious organisations for housing, food and health services. Religious exemption laws enable religious organisations to stop providing these services to LGBTQ+, elderly individuals.","conclusion":"Religious exemptions to discrimination laws enable religious organisations to discriminate against LGBTQ+ individuals."}
{"id":"f2027440-4d17-4f54-a012-680a00ddc23d","argument":"People ask me if am against gay marriage and I tell them the same thing yes I am, but am also against straight marriage, the government should play no part in love, or choosing who you want to spend your life with. The fact that we must seek the government's approval seems insane to me. I understand the different tax reasons and others like it, but marriage should not be guiding that, love is not the governments business. I believe this is just the government trying to legislate morality. The government should be involved in other business than telling people whom they can and can not marry love . If there really is a slippery slope as to people are going to start being polygamous, so what? Who are we, and who is the government to tell anyone of us whats good or bad for us, are we not capable of making our own decisions.","conclusion":"I don't believe in gay marriage or straight marriage. I do not believe it is any of the governments business, marriage is about love and that's not something the government should be involved in."}
{"id":"d1a3c52e-f689-499e-b979-60286b7b734a","argument":"Bill Dietrich. \"Pro and Con on Dropping the Bomb\". Seattle Times. 1995 - \"Immediate use of the bomb convinced the world of its horror and prevented future use when nuclear stockpiles were far larger.\"","conclusion":"Bombing Japan made world determined to never again use them"}
{"id":"b8edbd47-33d3-40d2-9562-c5e86a99d178","argument":"This year has not been kind to Reddit. Aside from the Blackout in June, and all the mess around admins and such, we haven't seen a decline of hate on this website. In fact, I'd argue that we have seen more hate in terms of SRS taking over subs, more angry discussions on popular subs, and general unpleasantness all around. Then there is r trees. Seems like 90 of the comments are supportive and or compassionate to the OP and to other posters Upvotes seem to be given out more often. It seems as though the community has a sense of openness, support, and enjoyment. Sure, subscribers to r trees are by in large stoners, but the culture of the r trees community is a positive one and should be promoted across reddit. I dare you to present a subreddit where the community is nicer, more open minded, and less hateful that r trees. The user s who can prove their sub is as such will receive a Delta. Let's try to improve the morale of reddit a little edit I will admit that it will not be hard to , however I do hope that you work for it. This means that I'd hope to see you show us why a sub s is superior to the culture and community at r trees. Let's show reddit that there are subs around here that stray away from the normal hate mongering one may see on a day to day basis.","conclusion":"\/r\/trees is the nicest and most sincere community on Reddit."}
{"id":"5de0d818-82e6-45c6-9329-33ae426db0e6","argument":"One of the cornerstones of the classical God is that it is everywhere, though it 's nowhere. It exists yet you cannot point your finger at it. Existence is too human a term to define such a being, regardless it actually may or maynot be.","conclusion":"It is logically impossible for God to be omnipresent and having been there when there was nothing yet. The quality of God would have to include both 'existing' and 'not existing' simultaneously, therefore God is simply non-existent."}
{"id":"3c4872d4-7f6b-4df6-aefa-88e7d529ddd5","argument":"Recently a former Republican operative called Sarah Isgur was hired by CNN to coordinate coverage of the 2020 election. This is presumably down to a desire to disprove claims that CNN is biased towards liberals. Imo, this is a false equivalency. Isgur has no actual experience in real journalism and has worked to provide a specific political view regardless of the facts. This is similar to claims that people who work in higher education have a liberal bias even though educated people are more likely to be liberals regardless of their profession. Groups that complain of unfair coverage in media normally demand that some of their own get influence in media. The correct response to accusations of bias is to ignore the criticism and stay committed to uncovering the facts. If the facts consistently anger one side whether it's republicans, anti vaxxers, anti semites, flat earthers or climate change denialists the public should be informed of that. They shouldn't be able to interfere in the process to distort reality to their benefit. These groups have track records of promoting misleading information and can't be trusted with this responsibility. Imo, there's no benefit to including groups like republicans, anti vaxxers, anti semites, flat earthers or climate change denialists in media coverage and journalism because their battle is with facts and evidence, not with any supposed liberal bias and this means the contribution they'd make would be negative. . gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The media shouldn't always pretend that \"both sides\" of an issue are equal"}
{"id":"e2dc0cb2-505b-4685-868f-b9b181884e59","argument":"This is just thought experiment, feel free to shoot holes in my theory. I know there are no guarantees in life and that individuals are different. But never at any point in history or in any culture could a woman be as guaranteed as a man to have a good, or even mediocre time during her next sexual session. Sex for women is, pretty likely, high risk low reward, while for men it\u2019s the complete opposite. When studying a sample of one night stands, around 80 of men got an orgasm compared to 10 of women. In relationships I think the ratio is something like 95 for men and 35 for women, but the overall issue remains. 10 of the women of the world has never had an orgasm. Just think about how bad sex for women must\u2019ve been centuries or even only decades ago The amount of \u201che didn\u2019t care about me, he just wanted to get off\u201d and \u201cI don\u2019t bother with one night stands because there\u2019s such a low chance that it\u2019ll be good at all\u201d posts I\u2019ve seen in subreddits like r askwomen is too many to count. That\u2019s not even factoring in the fact that vanilla, mainstream, call it what you want sex can be outright painful for women, but almost never is for men. Or the risk of pregnancy or violence by the man. I think most societies\u2019 entire view of sexuality and dating would be very different if we somehow encouraged both men and women, but especially men, to be better lovers. I think things like the man being expected to be the proactive part, men being stereotyped as hornier, women being sexualized way more etc. would change completely.","conclusion":"Making sex better for women would probably revolutionize our entire dating culture"}
{"id":"85227fbf-0b54-47ed-b58e-c4d32512e666","argument":"Carbon taxes are useful owing to the transparency behind them. It helps companies working for green causes gain a strong reputation and support among the public because they are seen to be paying for their pollution. A cap and trade system is significantly more difficult to understand and as such this means that there will likely be less public will behind the system and thus a lesser incentive for transparency. A cap-and-trade system demands that the government determine the emissions baselines for companies, the allocation of carbon credits, and the monitoring and enforcement of all of the above. This is a major administrative burden. A carbon tax would be simpler and require less oversight, and would cost domestic tax payers less. The complexity of a cap-and-trade system would make it easier for companies to cheat. This is largely because the enforcement of this system would be difficult and open to manipulation by skilled lawyers, accountants and consultancy firms. Further, Governments have the incentive to establish conditions favourable to the performance of their own national companies. They can do so by, for example, offering more carbon credits than they should to the companies of their country. The EU's emissions trading system is the primary example of this occurring.1 1 Shapiro, Robert. \u201cVs. Cap-Trade.\u201d Carbon Tax Centre. 04\/2009","conclusion":"Cap and Trade is Less Feasible Than a Carbon Tax"}
{"id":"d14cf679-6e89-4f17-bf40-82bf5475cdae","argument":"Feminism has no more battles left to fight. Victories such as gaining the vote, the right to an abortion and the right to equal pay were important and worth winning. But given that sexual equality is now - rightly - enshrined and protected in law, there is nothing left for the feminist movement to do in most western countries, although of course it may still be useful in parts of the world where women still lack basic democratic and other rights.","conclusion":"Feminism has no more battles left to fight. Victories such as gaining the vote, the right to an abo..."}
{"id":"9538e78c-cef0-4627-8ca7-5574868dba1a","argument":"Women with an abortion history are at an increased risk for sexual dysfunction and face problems related to sexual desire, frequency of sexual intercourse, orgasm ability, and sexual satisfaction.","conclusion":"Women can face severe bodily harm as a result of abortion."}
{"id":"092b42b9-ae5f-4bcb-b066-4748b40188f5","argument":"Minorities striving for independence such as the Catalans could have their own state in the greater framework of the United States of Europe.","conclusion":"A federalist system as the USE would be is meant to improve the recognition of minorities and their rights."}
{"id":"61c8b267-a3f2-4e52-b696-349885541043","argument":"I got into it with my mate the other night over the movie Freddy Got Fingered. I'm one of the only people he knows who doesn't rate that film his other friends rave about it and would happily watch it whenever it came on. He tried to convince me that the film is smarter than I'm giving it credit for. Even after we looked up the films overall reviews he was adamant that most film critics just vote for what's popular and their opinions were trifling. Despite a score of 11 on Rotten Tomatoes he was stout in his belief that Freddy Got Fingered is a deep, layered, well written film that most people simply just don't get. I've seen the film three times in my life each instance was about two or three years apart and personally I'm of the opinion it's one of the worst attempts at a comedy film ever released. And while we all know that humour can be a very slippery, subjective beast, I don't think Tom Green's particular approach to comedy is enjoyable. However if there is a kernel of redemption to be found in this movie then I'm willing to have my view changed, so have at it","conclusion":"Tom Green's film \"Freddy Got Fingered\" has no redeeming intellectual qualities whatsoever and his brand of humour amounts to little more than shock value"}
{"id":"c7074b0b-5b21-4088-b4b3-9ccb6d25e7f9","argument":"I'll start with a few facts about myself. i I am open to changing my mind on this question. I'm not entirely sure that I'm right but i'm pretty confident in this assertion and interested in its strengths and weaknesses, and ii I have a psychology degree in my youth I wanted to be a psychologist . x200B i What makes sciences successful is that they engage in some sort of revolutionary activity. They overthrow the old ways of thinking and replace them with something entirely new. We didn't crawl out of the trees with an accurate understanding of the fundamental nature of any part of the natural world. In order to begin to understand nature at it's most fundamental levels we needed to throw out what we thought we knew and replace it with something better. x200B I reckon Chemistry is a pretty good example of this. The ancients had all sorts of cock and bull theories of chemistry claiming that the world was divided into classical elements like air, earth, water, and fire. Chemists didn't make progress in chemistry by gaining a deeper insight into the fundamental nature of these four classical elements and making newer and better theories about how earth, wind, fire, and water relate to one another. They made progress by discarding the idea of these classical elements as being fundamental and replacing them with new concepts that refereed to previously unobserved and unknown fundamental concepts in chemistry. x200B ii What makes psychology unlike the successful sciences is that it has failed to engage in this type of revolutionary activity at it's most fundamental levels. The things we talk about as being fundamental in psychology are things like beliefs, desires, emotions, experiences, perceptions, sensations and so on. Theories in psychology tend to propose new ways that these fundamental concepts can interact with one another i.e. Freud argued that beliefs and desires can do things unconsciously or propose ways in which these fundamental concepts relate to other parts of the natural world i.e. trying to find specific brain states associated with mental states or looking for a correlation between genetics and certain experiences . However psychology has never overthrown it's fundamental concepts footnote with the exception of the behaviourists who attempted to do this and were promptly rejected from the academy . The idea of beliefs, desires, emotions, experiences, perceptions, sensations and the like has been around for millennia and has remained unchanged in all this time. x200B To my reckoning this is incredibly suspicious. Did we just happen to crawl out of our caves with an understanding of the fundamental nature of the mind? I doubt it. One of the things that attempting to do psychological science has shown us is that it is very easy to be mistaken about your own mind. It seems very unlikely that the ancients came across a theory so perfect that it's fundamentals didn't need to be overthrown x200B This leaves me in a place where I am sceptical about theoretical psychology any theory in psychology that tries to tell you how the mind works . The results obtained by psychologists in their experimental and everyday work can still be valid. However, they don't end up telling us what the mind is like in the way that experiments in chemistry might be able to reveal information about the fundamental nature of chemical interactions. x200B In my own opinion psychological science ends up being mostly either i not just psychology studying the genetic basis for depression is largely about genetics , ii pretending to be revolutionary by renaming the fundamental units of thought as something else ie. don't call it 'perception' and 'belief' call it 'information' and 'cognition' , iii grasping blindly in the dark ie. take bystander apathy a real and measurable phenomena but we have no idea why it exists and can't explain it just in terms of the mind unless we rely on the sort of concepts that we should be throwing out. x200B I drew inspiration for this argument from the writings of Paul and Particia Churchland they argued that x200B gt Psychosis is a fairly common affliction among humans, and in earlier centuries its victims were standardly seen as cases of demonic possession, as instances of Satan's spirit itself, glaring malevolently out at us from behind the victims' eyes. That witches exist was not a matter of any controversy. One would occasionally see them, in any city or hamlet, engaged in incoherent, paranoid, or even murderous behavior. But observable or not, we eventually decided that witches simply do not exist. We concluded that the concept of a witch is an element in a conceptual framework that misrepresents so badly the phenomena to which it was standardly applied that literal application of the notion should be permanently withdrawn. Modem theories of mental dysfunction led to the elimination of witches from our serious ontology. gt The concepts of folk psychology belief, desire, fear, sensation, pain, joy, and so on await a similar fate, according to the view at issue. And when neuroscience has matured to the point where the poverty of our current conceptions is apparent to everyone, and the superiority of the new framework is established, we shall then be able to set about reconceiving our internal states and activities, within a truly adequate conceptual framework at last. Our explanations of one another's behavior will appeal to such things as our neuropharmacological states, the neural activity in specialized anatomical areas, and whatever other states are deemed relevant by the new theory. Our private introspection will also be transformed, and may be profoundly enhanced by reason of the more accurate and penetrating framework it will have to work with just as the astronomer's perception of the night sky is much enhanced by the detailed knowledge of modern astronomical theory that he or she possesses. x200B I find them very persuasive and agree that there cannot be a science of the mind based on folk psychology anymore than their can be a science of witches based on magic. EDIT some ways of changing my mind might be a Undermining the idea that sciences need to be revolutionary b Arguing that there have been appropriate revolutions in psychology i.e. the so called cognitive revolution .","conclusion":"Psychology is a bad and failed science"}
{"id":"c6672889-1e4d-405c-926a-a708579b3a58","argument":"I'm a sophomore in high school. My friends drink reasonably, as in they don't get shit faced whenever there's a party. They mostly stay within reason. They don't pressure me, but sometimes I feel left out. I'm scared to drink because I don't want to lose control and do something that might hurt someone or myself. Once at a family gathering, my dad got black out drunk and he slapped me across the face. He's never done that before, and I don't even think he remembers that he did it. My mom got drunk another time and said some horrible things to me. I want to be able to enjoy drinking, or at least try, because my friends tell me it's supposed to be fun they don't know why I don't drink , but this is really stopping me from doing it. Guys, . gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than just downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I'm a teenager that has never tried alcohol and doesn't want to drink even when I become of legal age."}
{"id":"cf4ade28-4e95-4dd5-a854-882da2f0eb62","argument":"From the time I was old enough to understand what sarcasm was, I've never thought of it in a positive way. When I witnessed people being sarcastic for whatever reason I couldn't help but feel a little less respect for them. It always made me feel like people were just doing it to be ugly to each other and it became very distasteful to me. I began to avoid people and other kids who resorted to that. I could never really understand what was the attraction or reasons were for using sarcasm. Are there ways that sarcasm can be used for good or in a positive light? Maybe I'm missing the others side of this. I'd really like to  if someone could help me understand better.","conclusion":"I don't have a positive opinion about Sarcasm -"}
{"id":"883f3e04-50b0-408b-9733-40567a6a3e55","argument":"Disclosures can allow employees to request for a flexible work schedule including flexible breaks or start times.","conclusion":"It also entitles people to 'reasonable accommodations' to help them work like other employees."}
{"id":"bd2fdf48-30a1-45db-9872-37fce4f6ce37","argument":"This means that the act of buying an electric car was a conscious investment in trying to drive more modern and environmentally friendly cars. This may make the owner be socially considered as morally superior.","conclusion":"When owning an electric vehicle, your social status and respect will grow because they are usually more expensive"}
{"id":"ca1dee35-2197-49e5-b263-de43c988cbad","argument":"Many companies are now \"femvertising,\" yet only 3% of creative directors - those spearheading these pro-female adverts - are female.","conclusion":"Many corporations promote female empowerment in advertising while failing to actively address the issues faced by women."}
{"id":"ea2325fb-258c-45a6-8685-da0bf731324b","argument":"The recent agreement on the EU reform treaty and the creation of a post for an \u2018EU Foreign Minister\u2019 marks an important change in the decision making process at the EU level with regards to foreign policy. Agreement on the post shows a clear commitment to the pursuit of a common EU foreign policy and to developing a unique cooperative model for foreign policy decision making that goes beyond the nation state. Member states should now deliver on that commitment by seeking as much common ground as possible to ensure that the High Representative\u2019s role is truly significant. The goal of a common foreign and security policy should thus be supported not only as a mechanism to streamline EU\u2019s position and role in world politics, but also to reinforce notions of cooperation and consultation essential for maintaining a stable international system.","conclusion":"The recent agreement on the EU reform treaty and the creation of a post for an \u2018EU Foreign Minister\u2019..."}
{"id":"567eaa55-1a42-469c-b9a8-edd8dc2e5d38","argument":"Wind energy is as sporadic and inconsistent as the wind. This may mean that electrical grids can't handle wind energy. If this is true, wind energy is not a viable solution to global warming.","conclusion":"Wind energy, constrained by electric grid, can't help global warming"}
{"id":"d3f13b27-feed-4a56-a46b-237fc2e6f360","argument":"The Legend of Korra TLOK is just as good of a series as The Last Air bender TLA . For context I've watched both shows since their release. I grew up in the world of Avatar and have adored the series since I was kid and have re watched both series at least 5 times by now. Many people openly complain about TLOK but in my opinion, it was just as good of a series as TLA , nostalgia aside. There are many online essays criticizing TLOK so I thought I'd address one of the more popular ones then give my personal comparison of the series. The post im refering to is here . Addressing the Arguments Argument How the unique and respectfully depicted East Asian inspired cultures of Avatar are replaced in Korra by a far more generic and westernized 1920's urban America inspired society with all the unspoken imperialistic implications that brings , Reply It's pretty evident that the world of Avatar is loosely based on the real world, and that many of the main overarching conflicts are directly drawn from real world examples. With this being said, as an East Asian Chinese person, I find that the depiction of republic city is neither offensive or pushing imperialistic implications. The city gives these steam punkish vibes with Asian influence depicted everywhere. It's exactly how I would have imagined a multicultural global city Such as modern day New York or Toronto to be in the world of Avatar following a war and in the stage of industrialization. It not only allows the audience to see how far society has progressed since Aang but also allows many fitting archetypes street gangs, religious preachers to form as characters. Argument How the show's attempts at depicting nuanced and realistic political philosophies particularly in the cases of the villains tend to fall incredibly flat, usually owing to an unwarranted faith on the part of the narrative in liberal centrism uber alles , Reply Well, like I mentioned earlier, many of the overarching conflicts in the Avatar universe are drawn from real world examples. In TLA ,the global state of war, and the fire nations imperialism can be viewed as an allusion to the events of the second World War. So as a follow up, would it not make sense that the main protagonists of TLOK hold this narrative of liberal centrism? In fact I believe the entire concept of the Avatar series adopting political philosophies in their characters is essential to the progression of the story and a large reason as to why the Avatar series is so widely loved. For children, it provides an introduction to these concepts from the comfort of a fantasy world, and for adults, it provides just that much more room for analysis and thought. In my opinion, the Avatar series along with the ASOIAF series has some of the best written antagonists. The antagonists are human with emotion, love and hatred. From the protagonists point of view their beliefs and motives are unjust and extreme, but to the audience, the antagonists are just broken people, trying to do what they believe is good in the wrong way. Maybe with the exception of lord Ozai. Argument How the show has a marked tendency toward putting its badass female protagonist and largely no one else in situations of pain and peril that wouldn't seem wholly out of place in a fetish video, Reply Ok, what? I can\u2019t really comprehend this argument. Of course she would be put in situations of pain and peril, she's the main character. In fact I think one of the flaws of TLA is that too many conflicts arise from members of the gang being captured or put in danger and Aang having to save them afterwards. It portrays Aang as some sort of all powerful bender that can overcome anything except his own austere morality. The fact that more conflict is directed towards Korra, humanizes the avatar allowing us to understand that although the avatars duty is to bring peace to the world, the host is still human. By exposing these flaws to us, it allows Korra\u2019s character to develop, and gives a chance for other main characters to showcase their cool abilities LAVA BENDING, INTENSE METAL BENDING, and the avatar no longer seems like someone who can just turn into one punch man when shit hits the fan. Finally this sentiment that many of her situations seem \u201cwholly out of place in a fetish video\u201d. I mean , anything could be viewed like that if you choose to view from that perspective. Some examples, kyoshi warriors clown fetish, Toph blind fetish, Yue moon fetish? , when sokka and katara were encased in gememite by king buumi thats stuck porn my friend. So yeah you kinda get the idea. Anything can be porn if your freaky enough , so yeah can\u2019t really see that as a valid argument. Argument How the show repeatedly uses trauma and PTSD as a way to quickly and easily give Korra some basic character development, only to then almost immediately cure her of it through mystical Avatar related woo, Reply Isn\u2019t that like the whole point of the avatar state? When the conflict or opponent is to great for the avatar to bear, the avatar state is a last resort, a snake in the pocket, a deus ex machina if you will. Roku literally says \u201c the avatar state is a defence mechanism\u201d. In fact, I thought that in TLOK, the avatar state was portrayed as more vunerable and less of a \u201csolve all problems\u201d device then in TLA. Like Lord Ozai was defeated by the avatar state during Sozen\u2019s comet, yet Zaheer was able to match Korra in the avatar state. Again one of the things I appreciate most is the humanization of the avatar in the LOK. From Korra being coddled by the white lotus, to Tenzen as a father figure, TLOK is a coming of age story whereas TLA is a story of a child overcoming his age. I don\u2019t know if that last sentence made complete sense but it sounded nice. Basically, through the shows, Korra becomes more mature, thoughtful and sensitive, while Aang sorta just becomes more wise and peaceful and tranquil and\u2026 did I use the word wise? Argument How it tacked on a same sex relationship for Korra at the last possible moment with little development or even obvious textual confirmation of what it was, in an extremely blatant case of queerbaiting, Reply What? Little development? No obvious textual confirmation? How could they? Are? Are? Are you telling me that writers can just, just, put cool plot twists a the end without letting the viewer know beforehand? Blasphemy Like fuck off, I had the same reaction to Korra and Asami as to when Mai reactivated the cable, letting Zuko go in TLA. I just thought hm\u201d. But in all seriousness, I don't know why this is such a big deal. Upon rewatching I could see the development of attraction between Korra and Asami, and although I will admit the development was subtle, and the reveal was a surprise, I don't necessarily believe it was a bad one. It gives the audience a sense of wonder and closure. Argument And finally, how an outraged mob of obsessive Korra fans abused YouTube's system to mass flag her previous upload of this video, effectively taking it down and necessitating this reupload, Reply Yeah don't be doing that shit guys, opinions are opinions, if you think you got a better one, spend half your work day writing a reddit post A Comparison TLA and TLOK both had aspects that were better and worse than each other. I'm just listing off some of the things I thought TLOK did that was super awesome. Pro Bending Like COME ON. That shit was sick. It not only shows how far bending has come since Aang but really helps develop the clashing of generations theme between the old and the new. The pro bending arch was definitely one of my favourites in all of the Avatar series Strong Antagonists To me, Zaheer and Amon were extremely well written and capable antagonists. Korra is portrayed as a overconfident and belligerent character. These antagonists really just beat her down and humble her, and I loved that. These antagonists show the extent a talented non avatar bender can achieve in terms of bending abilities. Again, humanizing the avatar and showcasing how far bending has developed since Aang. Also when Zaheer jumped and became a hummingbird, it made me raise my eyebrows in excitement for the rest of the day. Now obviously these characters don't even start to compare with the complexities of Iroh and Azula. But imo the character developments and depth portrayed of Iroh and Azula in their limited screen time is unprecedented. SO TLOK VERY GOOD CHARACTERS , TLA IROH AND AZULA TOPH runner up No over the top whiny characters Less of pro for TLOK, more of a complaint for TLA. To be honest my only complaint about TLA is that Aang was 12 and kinda whiny. Alot of his decision making makes complete sense for an immature 12 year old growing up and learning, but still really frustrated me. Some good examples would be when Aang hid the letter from Sokka and Katara and the entire romance arch with Katara. TLOK showcases more mature characters, and Bolin as more childish comedic relief rather than childish ignorance and whining. The Story of the first Avatar Wan dope, dope as fuck Just to conclude the focus of TLA and TLOK were completely different. TLA follows the story of a very young group of brave children overcoming a powerful villian. But, we have to keep in mind, Aang had been stuck in ice for 100 years when the series began, and the idea of a Asian inspired fantasy world was very new to a majority Western audience. A large focus of TLA was discovery. As Aang and his crew travel the world and discover new things, so does the audience. Many episodes were dedicated to the form, philosophy and history of bending itself, all in effort of making the avatar so much more immersive. Though, in TLOK, the avatar world has already been built, the only Worldbuilding needed is to introduce the audience to the current time period. TLOK does an amazing job of doing this, just not as direct as TLA. Instead TLOK focuses more on the internal struggle of Korra and the questioned need for an Avatar. SO, I don't see TLA or TLOK as being inferior or superior to the other, they are connected stories with different focuses. The worldbuilding is there, the character development is there, the laughter, the intensity , everythings there in both series. The Legend of Korra is just as good of a series as the Last Airbender.","conclusion":"The Legend of Korra is just as good of a series as The Last Air Bender"}
{"id":"78e563aa-434e-43aa-80b8-1beab18c7b2e","argument":"In order to justify e.g. a gluten-free lifestyle, many people claim that they have a gluten allergy or even allergies to dairy, sugar or eggs so they can eliminate entire food groups from their diet.","conclusion":"There are quite a few food allergy fakers that pass off diets and dislikes as medical conditions."}
{"id":"e7d23d67-d492-4782-86e4-4369f650860e","argument":"I'm a young male, who over the last few years has moved from community to community online, mostly out of boredom and intrigue. I used to frequent imageboards and witnessed the wave of misogyny and nihilism washing over the communities but it didn't affect me as I didn't see women in a negative light. After a little while I jumped ship and came to Reddit. At first I was only on here to have a laugh but after a while I became more and more interested in more debate and lifestyle based topics. About 6 months in I found out about r seduction and started to eat up that content as a young average looking guy with little to no experience in attracting women. I always tried to shy away from the more misogynistic elements of the community and instead concentrate on the self improvement side of things and for a long while things were pretty good. Eventually however I heard about r theRedPill through various postings all over Reddit and I was morbidly curious about it all. I started to read it from a skeptical point of view, given how it had been portrayed by everyone else on Reddit and the wider online community, but I found myself reading posts and relating to them instead of ridiculing them. I started to compare scenarios from my own life with those discussed on the board and they fit very scarily. And after a while of reading now, I am now starting to grow a disdain for women that I didn't intend on nor really want. Now the fashionable response to this post will be well you are obviously just a bitter male who can't get laid, hates women and moans about it on the internet . However I can assure you I was much worse with women back when I used to frequent r9k and the likes but I was actually pretty supportive of women at that point, actually sympathetic with them. However r theRedPill showed it in a different light, it wasn't one of huehue women suck and are all sluts as I had been used to seeing, it was more Here are some facts, do with them what you will . This change in mindset isn't what I wanted to be honest and I don't feel as though it's a healthy change but I can't get away from it. It has created unwanted trust issues with women where at this point I am now completely against marriage and due to seeing it before my eyes I believe i'm one of those guys that women want to settle for when they get older but I vehemently refuse to be someones safety blanket after they realise that they can't have the fun they wanted to anymore. So I'm asking you lot if there's anyone who can give me a concrete answer and change my view regarding this whole issue. gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than just downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I'm starting to agree with theredpill's ideology even though I didn't intend to."}
{"id":"84897437-b605-4590-8e56-eda475ba0a1f","argument":"EVs are better in the long run. This is because eventually we will be depleted of our fossil fuel resources and so we will have to switch to renewable sources of energy. If EVs are mainstream at that point of time, then switching to renewable sources of energy would be much smoother.","conclusion":"EVs are better than fossil fuel cars because fossil fuels will run out; we have to transition away from fossil fuel and stored electricity is the best alternative to fossil fuel."}
{"id":"3062ff58-6fd4-47b0-b822-39a7a28739d0","argument":"So I recently saw a few videos on youtube stating that dropshipping is this a awesome model to make quick money online. Always as I hear the words quick and money in the same sentence I get wary real quick. I see many problems one of them is the liability for the goods you sell from a supplier in China. You could get in big trouble pretty fast. Also the entering barrier is super low so practicaly anyone with a credit card and some spare time can start a dropshipping business. This makes the market oversaturated. I realy would like to do something like this, just there is only information out there that seems biased and the points I stated above telling me not to do it. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Dropshipping is already an overused model."}
{"id":"cbb17413-5937-4d75-bc67-450f81e8be2f","argument":"In popular culture, it seems like often when someone gets cheated on they first direct their anger, frustration etc. to the person who caused them to be cheated on, not the person who cheated. I am always somewhat confused and taken aback by this as it doesn't seem realistic. Feels like a hollywood plot point. If you got cheated on, it is the culmination of a series of communication failures between you and your partner. If your goal is a happy, stable relationship, then the only way forward is to work it out with your partner, or leave. Making it about the other person does not address the source of the cheating your failing relationship with your partner. You are thereby dooming yourself to a repeating cycle. I guess I am looking for stories where you were able to benefit your relationship with your partner in a long term constructive way that involved the person they were having a fling with. Prove to me that this actually makes any sense in real life. Otherwise I will continue not really enjoying many stories at all and thinking most characters in most dramas are just poorly written and unrealistic.","conclusion":"If your partner cheats on you, that is entirely between you and your partner - not the person they cheated with."}
{"id":"509376be-34bc-4565-b641-5e2e82644027","argument":"Because the artist made the song, it is their property, in this case \u201cintellectual property\u201d. Property means that the owner\/artist has the right to ask something from you in exchange for you gaining access to the music. This may be money. It may also be the requirement that you clearly recognize the artist\u2019s moral right to always be mentioned as the creator of that song. This is called the \u201cfree exchange of value\u201d, and this is the most fundamental relationship in our free market economy. Whatever the artist chooses as payment through a legal transaction, it is his\/her basic right to ask this of you. The only way to make sure that he\/she can actually exercise that right is by making sure you only take music from the artist through a legal transaction, i.e. with their permission. Only then can we be sure that the desired free exchange of value has taken place.","conclusion":"Because the artist made the song, it is their property, in this case \u201cintellectual property\u201d. Prope..."}
{"id":"53225efe-1459-4b01-820a-7c6e95dff54f","argument":"Engineers designing such ships could build lighter frames, as cargo can be brought up to the ship by elevator, and be loaded there.","conclusion":"A space elevator would provide a platform on which to build ships which would not need to overcome as much gravity."}
{"id":"7e0d8965-518e-4c0d-b4a2-444b27f4fbbc","argument":"Children's personalities are significantly affected by their upbringing and the personalities that they develop are difficult to change. p. 46","conclusion":"This is contingent on students' internalization of concepts that are taught through these books, which is unlikely to happen."}
{"id":"7293dd65-1522-459d-af04-ebb8efb01017","argument":"The invention of Newspeak the ultimate eradication of freedom of speech, meant that citizens in 1984 could not even think or say rebellious words.","conclusion":"1984 shows how difficult it is to rebel against or change a system when you can't freely express opposition."}
{"id":"9188a938-e195-4e32-aa56-cbd4bd44226e","argument":"Rep. Michael Honda D-Calif.. \"Do the right thing and pass the DREAM Act.\" The Hill. September 21st, 2010: \"Our current law doesn't make sense. Each year, tens of thousands of potential new taxpayers and higher wage earners enter our job market, yet we undermine their ability to contribute meaningfully to our economy. Our high schools are graduating roughly 65,000 undocumented students each year, and these thousands are entering the marketplace far from equipped to improve their circumstances or contribute meaningfully to our economy. . Had these students been able to receive, and later pay back, federal loans for university training and eventually a college diploma, they would be able to contribute over $9,000 annually to our economy - that is, roughly $5,300 more in taxes and $3,900 less in government expenses i.e., social services made available to the general public.\" read rest of quote in argument page.","conclusion":"DREAM Act allows young aliens to produce more in economy"}
{"id":"a8eda98b-8209-44ae-a537-0195ccd1a6cb","argument":"If one heats pineapple above 80\u00b0C for 8 minutes or longer it inactivates the bromelain in the pineapple. Which makes eating pineapple as a pizza topping ineffective.","conclusion":"This is only if it was added before cooking the pineapple as bromelain becomes inactive after cooking it."}
{"id":"7b24ef5a-b8c5-40f9-a665-991486aeb3ed","argument":"Bias could be minimized by structuring the questions in the test so that they only test one's reasoning ability.","conclusion":"There are a number of measures that can be taken to minimize bias within the test."}
{"id":"0be2a9f7-4e75-4cdf-9cc0-8d79024a527f","argument":"Now I know the title of this post sounds fucked and it\u2019s probably already going to get hella downvotes from people not being it. But what I mean is that like in situations where a woman or man may be walking around in public and may get catcalled which I\u2019ll admit I\u2019ve never seen in my life or get stares that make them uncomfortable, they might even get harassed. In a class I\u2019m in we\u2019ve watched several videos on sexual harassment and I\u2019ve came to the conclusion that the closest thing that comes to the fear that women have about sexual harassment, for men, is being assaulted or jumped. Now if a woman comes out the house in skin tight booty shorts and a crop top tube top that highlights her figure, then I\u2019d say it\u2019s pretty common for her to get some stares, but like what I don\u2019t understand is, if she didn\u2019t want the attention then why would you take the chance with wearing something like that? Now with men it\u2019s the same thing, there\u2019s an episode of Malcolm in the middle where Hal goes in the inner city and tries to get himself robbed and or assaulted by loudly exclaiming that he couldn\u2019t see, he had a Rolex on, and that he was taking out he maximum amount of money out of the atm. This is the equivalent of a woman going in the same inner city, getting blackout drunk or high on drugs and taking her top off in front of guys who she knows are going to try something. If a guy went out in a bad neighborhood wearing designer and got jumped and got his shit robbed. You\u2019d probably wonder why he wore that expensive shit in that area knowing that there\u2019s a much higher chance of him getting robbed there? Think, would this have happened if I came here in asics, a gray hoodie and jeans? But if a woman went out in public wearing revealing clothing and stuff that would induce stares and might even have the occasional creepy overly touchy guy, and then like complain that this happened. Would this have happened if you wore a lose bomber and some sweatpants or even jeans? I know the first thing someone\u2019s gonna say is \u201cWe shouldn\u2019t have to change what we wear so we feel safe\u201d and while i completely agree with that we can\u2019t really control what other people do.","conclusion":"Women getting catcalled aren\u2019t totally blameless."}
{"id":"9bf2944f-e526-454b-8c3d-07be3da94741","argument":"That would be like the government taking your body and selling your organs when you die without your permission.","conclusion":"The government has no rights to your wealth. No matter if you're alive or not."}
{"id":"ac185e9c-6a47-4e66-809c-9ea8cdf602d3","argument":"You can check the life of Rousseau and compare them with his ideas. This is important, because he was not creating art, he was creating the basis of our actual concept of democracy. So, ideas more than just \"art\" are separated from the author always, and we can judge the author as human, and their ideas as thesis.","conclusion":"Expecting any person artists included to be free from regrettable actions is idealistic."}
{"id":"5c02af2c-a7f1-49a8-8b80-bb6e18160f8f","argument":"I believe human brains are too slow to accurately process higher level truths about our own existence. The best science can do is infer replicable hypotheses to explain patterns in data. I believe, however, that there are certain concepts we can't even hope to comprehend. Take a fourth special dimension, or Graham's number, or fundamental qualia like color or scent that certain species far outpace humanity on, and all the observations that could arise from different neural infrastructure. Imagine a hypothetical alien \u00fcbermensch with far superior cognitive abilities to our own, by an exponential degree. They would be to us what we are to an ant. To put it another way, a dog has nonverbal social behavior down, and will respond a la Pavlov to audible commands, but can never, ever hope to semantically process human grammar just as we can't begin to grasp a dog's incredible sense of smell. The neural infrastructure is simply not there. Not that I agree with Sapir Worf for the most part, but can you imagine if humans natively spoke a constructed language designed to maximize cognition? What if there was a eugenics gene therapy program to artificially select for max IQ across the board? What if we retained a lot more memories with no sacrifice in comprehension? Is there any physical reason higher cognition cannot exist? All that being said, how much do we really know about everything there is to know? 4th dimensional mathematics and high physics are still limited to what humans can understand. One answer to the Fermi paradox is that our concept of intelligent life is completely anthropocentric. How would you understand the infrastructure and communications of a non human intelligence? Maybe we all just live in a simulation, anyways. Or maybe solipsism is the case and this is all my dream. Maybe reptoid aliens live disguised alongside humanity and feast on human suffering without leaving a trace, a la David Icke, They Live, and The Truman Show. I challenge anybody here to change my view.","conclusion":"We Still Don't Understand Our Own Reality"}
{"id":"0caa55f9-85f3-41ec-9f33-15d9fbf37833","argument":"Museums preserve and display our artistic, social, scientific and political heritage. Everyone should have access to such important cultural resources as part of active citizenship, and because of the educational opportunities they offer to people of every age. If museums are not funded sufficiently by the government, they will be forced to charge for entry, and this will inevitably deter many potential visitors, especially the poor and those whose educational and cultural opportunities have already been limited. Visitors to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London declined by 15% after it started charging for admission. Free access is essential to provide freedom of cultural and educational opportunity.","conclusion":"Museums preserve and display our artistic, social, scientific and political heritage. Everyone shou..."}
{"id":"a01919a1-1d17-4ca4-8023-09047edc16da","argument":"Since sheriffs have no responsibilities in regard to creating laws, their elections would be improved by eliminating political parties.","conclusion":"The responsibilities for certain positions in local elections do no warrant political party affiliation."}
{"id":"5be021df-82de-497e-b9fd-59491d83bea2","argument":"For some women that's just not true. I've read the statistics and I understand that the glass ceiling is real and that men still get paid more than women for the same job on average. So for the uber professional women out there who want to be CEOs and managers of large branches, I don't think my opinion applies so much. But for the other 90 of the population, I think women have it much easier than men not in socially backwards countries like India . First of all, socially, women are universally desired. A woman who takes even modest care of her appearance is literally wanted everywhere. You do not have to have a shining personality, you do not have to make a decent amount of money, you do not have to have social influence if you are feeling lonely you simply have to go to a bar and have some physical aspect of you be attractive a dress that makes your butt look nice, a bra that makes your boobs look big and perky, the right makeup that makes even average girls look pretty. If you have any of those things, and even average to below average looking women have the capability to look good, you can find a man who is willing to give you attention and affection and who will sleep with you. If you are willing to have sex as a woman, you can almost always get it. I am aware of the double standard, that many men and also women will shame girls who do this kind of thing as sluts , but there are also enough sex positive people out there that I do not think that this is a fair trade off between the sexes. There are also plenty of people who have the same opinion of men as women who sleep with lots of people. As far as parties, offices, study groups, and social circles go, women are always valued. There's no such thing as a clam fest the way there is a sausage fest because those women could always go to a bar and be hit on incessantly. I know some women complain about this. They are annoyed by the fact that they can't dress up and not be hit on. That if they go to the bar with their girlfriends that they can't just have a nice time with their girlfriends and otherwise be left alone. But I know too many guys who would love to get that kind of attention. For women, this is an embarrassment of riches. They get hit on so much, get so much attention, that they get sick of it. Crazy women get this attention, average women get this attention, even unattractive and obese women can get this attention their male counterparts, however, cannot get the same attention unless they have serious financial or social pull. Also, women get sympathy. Men don't. Men are expected to be strong and independent and secure, and if you aren't you are lucky to even have a friend. There is always somebody willing to take care of a woman. Women are very rarely willing to take care of a man. And it's even rarer to find a man who is willing to take care of a man. So unless you are a woman who wants to be a CEO or a comedian or a marine, you have it easier than men. And that's like 98 of all women. Again, women in religiously fanatical patriarchal societies are not part of this thought process . So yes, George Clooney probably has it easier than any woman on the planet. He is paid top dollar like men on the top end always are, he can get the attention of women whenever he desires, and he has tons of social influence. It's easier to be a man on top than it is easier to be a woman on top. But most people aren't on top. For the other 99 of us, it's harder to be a man. EDIT LMAO to people who just downvote me. Is this Change My View or Vote On My View?","conclusion":"Women have it easier than men excluding women in socially backwards countries."}
{"id":"91ee0a53-7f33-437e-8890-e9d50f8b5d71","argument":"The average bootcamp cost in the US is $11,906 whereas the average university degree in computer science is $167,968.","conclusion":"Bootcamps are cheaper than a college degree in computer science."}
{"id":"957101e0-e60f-4bd6-95db-da17bbc94de6","argument":"This seems to be a popular opinion on reddit, and I strongly disagree with it. Let me say I believe certain drugs should be legal alcohol weed . In fact I like to use legal drugs, but here is my argument to why it should be illegal. My argument is that the fact that something is legal does make it seem less dangerous. And I understand, people should have the right to use these dangerous drugs, but the problem is that it effects society as a whole. I feel like I heroin was legal, there'd be more people willing to do it. Now it affects society because it is highly addictive. This can lead to higher crime rates, mostly theft. Also I feel like it would lead to easier access for underage kids to get a hold of these drugs. I know in highschool I knew absolutely nobody who could get a hold of heroin, crack, or meth. Obviously there are some kids who get a hold of these drugs, but it is not that easy. Hell even in college it's not that easy to find a guy to buy something like coke from. Anyway that's my argument against it, who knows maybe I'm mistaken on how popular opinion it is on reddit. Anyway I'd love to hear an argument from the opposing side.","conclusion":"All substances should be legal"}
{"id":"d59ebed2-dbae-43bd-bab5-7cb5c1dd55fb","argument":"My girlfriend and other friends of mine have recieved over 10,000 in financial aid that doesn't all have to go into paying for school. The money is more than enough to cover tuition and the cost of books. And just because my parents make more money than the amout required to qualify for financial aid I get absolutely no help from the government. My parents are not paying for any of my schooling I'm taking out loans and paying for all my books by myself and am recieving no help. I have to use the money that I earn at work to pay for my school and barrow the rest which I have to pay back with interest later. While my girlfriend gets everything covered for school and then some. And she also gets her work pay check all to herself.","conclusion":"Financial Aid is completely unfair."}
{"id":"b006ebeb-3497-4e2f-8768-2bea9bdf88e7","argument":"In Uttar Pradesh, where the Gulabi Gang operates, the number of rapes has gone down from what used to be 30 rapes reported in a month","conclusion":"The Gulabi Gang creates an active deterrence against rape and sexual violence through the use of group violence against any known rapists and harassers."}
{"id":"6cc4e0f7-5d88-443d-96e7-23c11cb9d04d","argument":"Joseph Smith changed his story about who other than himself would be able to see the golden plates and when.","conclusion":"Joseph Smith lied or changed his story about details relating to the golden plates"}
{"id":"833a4c7b-49a5-4c66-b884-131b93c90c7e","argument":"Many able people get put off going into the political world by exactly this kind of negative advertising. They see that they\u2019ll get paid as much or more without such absurd muckraking, so they don\u2019t go into politics. We should want the best people to go into public office \u2013 not merely the best of those able to stomach the way overly aggressive bullies in the media and political worlds will treat them.","conclusion":"Many able people get put off going into the political world by exactly this kind of negative adverti..."}
{"id":"b325409d-a1e6-4659-ae1e-553cd1a3fca4","argument":"A survey survey conducted by the government-run Korea Research Institute for Vocational Education and Training KRIVET last summer showed that young men from wealthier, better educated families are more likely to avoid military service. Read more at conducted by the government-run Korea Research Institute for Vocational Education and Training KRIVET last summer showed that young men from wealthier, better educated families are more likely to avoid military service.","conclusion":"Rich families or politicians could pull strings and have their children assigned to non-combat roles or to relatively peaceful countries or even exempted from service altogether to keep them out of harm's way."}
{"id":"0d25f696-49d6-4340-a918-3e87ab062300","argument":"My main and only argument that supports this claim is that I know glucose is needed in order for our cells to function properly. My understanding is that since fructose is not the same as glucose, ingesting it does not aid our cells, and is just stored in the body, rather than put to use, which makes people gain weight. I have heard the argument in a pro HFCS commercial claiming that our bodies can't tell the different between fructose and glucose. Sugar is sugar. I think this is an utter lie to make sure people continue purchasing products sweetened with HFCS. Fructose corn syrup is used by food companies to sweeten their products because it is cheaper than using cane sugar, so telling everyone that HFCS is just as good as glucose, which may be a lie, allows those companies to continue using the cheaper sweetener. Please educate me on this topic and .","conclusion":"I believe that high fructose corn syrup is bad for you."}
{"id":"040f9e5b-da87-4d83-8b64-d86339cdaa5e","argument":"A friend of mine is having relationship problems wherein his SO is treating him very poorly. He says this makes him feel like a bad SO, and, by proxy, a bad unworthy person. While I sympathize with him, I also believe that allowing one's own self worth to be so significantly denigrated by one other person's negative feedback makes him a weak individual. I feel bad thinking this way, because he's a dear friend, but I'm having a fair bit of trouble shaking this thought. I truly believe that feeling honest to God bad about yourself just because others say so makes you sort of pathetic. I realize that sounds cruel please .","conclusion":"I believe defining one's own self-worth using others as a point of reference makes one weak,"}
{"id":"d980a748-72a3-4532-814e-24d080995b12","argument":"Edit okay I guess I can't change my mind because I don't see human life as having any sort of value outside of a dollar amount. Now Im not saying we oughta to create work for them, but if the government needs some sort of work done then we could rely on prisoners. They dont do anything but take up tax money anyways, so they're basically already government employees, but they aren't producing value. Of course, this would make some jobs like construction noncompetitive, but that's just the nature of having a free manual labor pool. A possible counter argument is that it opens up the system to abuse. I dont think this is true because the potential labor force is already pretty massive in the US, so there's probably little reason to need more people than we already have. This doesn't apply to privately owned prisons, because I can smell that retort from a mile away.","conclusion":"There is no reason for inmates not to be put to work in prison\/manual labor camps"}
{"id":"35d83a04-6d31-4de1-8e69-ef9d4d9bedbe","argument":"Inspired by this AdviceAnimals thread I'm at an age where a few of my peers people I went to school with, co workers, etc. are single parents. Well, single mothers, mostly, I guess. Either they're divorced, or they had a child out of wedlock and the other parent didn't stick around. They're otherwise good people, and I'm sure they're good parents as well. But I usually find out about this part of their lives when they say something to the effect of that the other parent wasn't ready to be a parent, or was abusive, or abandoned them, or was a bad person in some way. At that point, I find myself almost reflexively thinking less of the single parent. I guess I feel like they made a bad decision to have a child with this other person, and having a child is a really important decision. These are people who I interact with in my day to day life, and I don't want to be a jerk by looking down on them. Some notes on where I'm coming from, to narrow things down I think my problem isn't with splitting up with a bad SO, it's with choosing to have a kid with a bad co parent in the first place or being unable to see that they wouldn't be a good co parent . I don't think my view is based on religious beliefs. I don't have any problem with a modern, empowered woman choosing from the outset to be single parent, using a sperm donor or whatever, if she has the resources and maturity to handle that. I know that in some cases there were unavoidable circumstances, like if the other parent died or something. In the abstract, I don't support politics or public policy which treats single parents harshly. For this post, I'm more interested in single parents whom I know personally. Fellow Redditors, I want to change my view. Help me do it.","conclusion":"I find I'm judgmental about single parents, but wish I weren't. Help me"}
{"id":"8ecc2440-36ca-4e4b-b504-5f0552ce01b5","argument":"There are simply no good scientific reasons to send a manned flight to the moon. The desire to do so may have good justification in science fiction but not science facti. This research is simply not related to the reality of modern cosmology, it will tell us nothing about how the universe works or, frankly, anything we don\u2019t even know already or could find out through unmanned missions. The idea that there is serious research to be done is simply untrue. Cosmology is being conducted at the edge of the universe and the beginning of time. It\u2019s not about collecting moon rocks. i \u201cBrave New World\u201d, Editorial, Nature, 1 February 2007","conclusion":"There\u2019s nothing more to find out, at least nothing that can\u2019t be done with much cheaper unmanned missions"}
{"id":"f777e127-d50c-48de-a17a-ed280ec28a21","argument":"I feel like anyone who can't fully function without having coffee or some other sort of caffeine in the morning are just as bad as people who drink alcohol regularly, because caffeine is an addictive substance that should not be a large factor in someone's life. I've had this view since I stopped drinking soda a few years back because having to rely on a substance like caffeine made me feel weak, inadequate, and not in control of my life. Originally I didn't judge other people for needing caffeine, but the thought is slowly embedding itself in me, and I really want to change my view on this because I don't like being a judgmental person, and sometimes when I hear myself talking about it I realize how annoying I sound. Any help would be greatly appreciated.","conclusion":"I think people who need coffee in the morning are weak,"}
{"id":"cc96e541-3d91-4138-a375-c700ff95c368","argument":"Many discussions of a universal basic income argue that unconditional cash payments to poor people are the best way of improving their welfare and that they know better than anyone else which investments make sense for them.","conclusion":"Assuming that voters' interests are economic, they are better placed than anyone else to decide what will improve their economic situation."}
{"id":"8a43e378-1965-4e1b-b3fc-54e069434041","argument":"Highrise housing has a deep negative social impact both at the collective and the individual level. By limiting living space and access to outdoors private areas that have traditionally played an important role in supporting large families, highrise housing encourages smaller, nuclear and single-parents families, breaking down traditional connections. It also has a deep impact on the individual by putting intense pressure on him\/her to compromise, deal with noise, small spaces and lack of privacy. Highrise housing is also not ideal for children and families, breeding conflict, little investment in public spaces, few safe playing grounds and creating spaces that often isolate the individual affecting his\/her emotional growth and ability to communicate and relate to others.","conclusion":"Highrise housing has a deep negative social impact both at the collective and the individual level. ..."}
{"id":"ea0d3473-c486-41ae-b27d-20548ed62731","argument":"After 1865, America entered a long period of sustained industrial growth as people flocked to the northern cities. This provoked tensions between the UK and the USA as the UK dominated global trade and sought to limit the economic potential of the US as America had by far the largest industrial base in the world.","conclusion":"Other political forces especially the USA, China and Russia will dislike the formation of a new \"world power\", thus the unification of the EU will lead to exterior conflict."}
{"id":"9ae9c14a-a131-41e5-a944-7885cb319abc","argument":"Protesters against the inclusion of trans women in Hampstead Heath Pond have argued that allowing anyone who says that they are a woman into their facilities would allow men with malicious intentions to access their space.","conclusion":"Allowing trans women into women-only spaces opens the door for men as well."}
{"id":"e364a127-6990-4db5-aeb7-b75032b77e07","argument":"Children who use a computer more than two hours per day are more likely to have emotional, social, and attention problems","conclusion":"Spending too much time on computers at an early age is bad for children."}
{"id":"6b9e1d82-6b23-4304-88e6-3ad8b0177b74","argument":"Saying the first cause is super natural comprises at least three assumptions first that the supernatural can exist, second that it does exist, and third that it can interact with and create the natural realm.","conclusion":"Saying the first cause is supernatural involves more assumptions than saying the big bang is uncaused."}
{"id":"f13dea52-12ff-46f5-b9a3-67d725a405ae","argument":"I dont like dressing up, to me picking a costume and then putting it together is like showing everyone in the room your social values. It's like announcing to the world that I am really worried about what people think so put a lot of effort in . Or I really want to look cool or hip by dressing up to the nines in a very elaborate outfit . To me its like being naked. And everyone does it happily. I find dressing up unnerving. Am I just looking at it wrong? I mean even my more socially anxious friends are more comfortable than me when it comes to dressing up. Or does everyone else on earth see Halloween as a declaration of your social values and are somehow excited to express themselves?","conclusion":"I hate dressing up for Halloween"}
{"id":"fa034e95-49d3-455d-bf04-f2c8f0c606d7","argument":"Tomorrow I have to vote. As someone living below sea level and alarmed with studies predicting that there will be no land suitible for wheat in Africa at 2080 Fisher , good environmental policies are a major factor influencing my vote. There are only two parties that have leading environmental policy in their party program. An important difference between the two is their attitude against european integration and international trade. One sees european and international cooperation as essential for preserving our current biosphere, under conditions such as transparancy and testing the policies for environmental and social impact. The other is against increased european cooperation and supports pro exit policies, as well has a harsher stance towards international trade cooperation. To me it made more sense that increased integration with other countries would be most effective for restoring our balance with the biosphere. Climate change comes with high regional variability and will impact different countries in different ways. While most will be negatively affected, some at higher lattitudes, like Russia, may see an increase in arable land for instance. Only when their economy is integrated with the rest of the world and therefore their standard of living is dependent on the rest of the world also being well off, will they care enough to use their enormous potential in combating climate change Kotilainen for more on this . So only when caring for others is the same as caring for yourself will enviromental policies be implemented fast enough to stop the most disastrous effects of climate change. Increased cooperation economically could also help facilitate the cooperation necessary for fair world wide policies that are needed to combat climate change. Disclaimer I am not certain about voting for either of these parties and I care about other parts of their program too, this question is more about a debate between environmentalists that has not yet been resolved or mentioned here before , even though it seems quite important. I also assume a few things, such as countries acting quite egoistic. I am also not informed about for instance the impact of globalism currently compared to a world where countries would be more closed off. It seems like that topic leaves a bit too much space for speculation and is maybe better for a seperate discussion will Trump bringing back factories to the states, if it works, mean more mechanized and perhaps therefore more energy intensive industry? Or will this effect be negated by overall economic downturn as a consequence, or is it the other way? . I assume cooperation is a non zero sum game, while climate change is? Fischer, G., Shah, M., Tubiello, F. N., Van Velhuizen, H. 2005 . Socio economic and climate change impacts on agriculture an integrated assessment, 1990\u20132080. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences, 360 1463 , 2067 2083. Kotilainen, J., Tysiachniouk, M., Kuliasova, A., Kuliasov, I., Pchelkina, S. 2008 . The potential for ecological modernisation in Russia scenarios from the forest industry. Environmental Politics, 17 1 , 58 77.","conclusion":"Globalism is necessary to combat climate change"}
{"id":"da19d964-b56a-4521-8956-fc30931452aa","argument":"Nikil Arora. \"If US states allow open-carry of guns, why not Britain?\" Christian Science Monitor. March 16th, 2010: \"Why don\u2019t we stop relying on low-paid staff at stations to provide visible security, and instead have open-carry firearms laws? Open-carry is very \u2018visible\u2019 \u2013 far more so than staff in neon jackets on station platforms, or standing behind ticket counters. It allows people to take charge of their own security. In addition, it empowers people to look out for one another as good neighbours, rather than relying on there always being someone official on hand to bail them out.\"","conclusion":"Open-carry laws could help reduce costs of private security."}
{"id":"2f89c55b-24fe-4ce8-8747-6eba7e61c043","argument":"Trump requested that Russia 'find the emails' on live TV and that night his political opponent's had her party's emails put out into the public to make her look un trustworthy. He directly conspired with Russia to create mistrust in his opponent. During the campaign.","conclusion":"If the election was tampered with, he may truly be an illegitimate president."}
{"id":"64da7938-afb6-42ca-8d28-3d6d98a63488","argument":"Where a player is seen as being either unfairly punished or unfairly acquitted under Zero-Tolerance, there will be huge backlash from supporters and society at large.","conclusion":"Zero-Tolerance policies are not in the league's best interest, which should be their primary concern."}
{"id":"9d586b5f-9c7e-4e65-a520-c83aa0e4fa0d","argument":"Bullfighting represents a maladjusted display of ethnic identity and cultural identity. Large elements of society or societies that display maladjusted practices should have their leaders stopped, as matadors should be stopped, and should reconsider their moral compasses as a collective whole for supporting maladjusted and morally questionable practices.","conclusion":"When bullfighting is perceived as a core part of national identity e.g. in Spain it brands a country's culture as violent and diminishes its international reputation."}
{"id":"f044c4d6-8d3f-4f2d-9e04-a6d6724f38c5","argument":"General anaesthesia typically required for cosmetic surgery can lead to complications such as lung infections, stroke, heart attacks, and even death.","conclusion":"Cosmetic surgery is much more risky than most other methods of making yourself look better."}
{"id":"40fbb2a6-bf00-44c4-9ab7-20d11066987d","argument":"Okay, I'm referring to the metaphysical idea of karma, not the reddit internet points version. At best, you have a system that trivializes present injustice by promising future, divine retribution. \u201cIt\u2019s okay the murderer got away, karma is going to catch up to him.\u201d No, it\u2019s not okay the murderer got away, and the idea that Zeus will hit him with a lightning bolt whenever he gets around to it isn\u2019t justice in any meaningful way. This sort of thinking results in complacency in the aftermath of injustice people are less likely to actually do something if they think it will magically happen on it's own, just because. At worst, you have a system that trivializes present justice by acting as if it had been preordained by nature itself. \u201dI heard he went to jail, karma.\u201d No, it wasn\u2019t karma, it was the police who caught him and the jury who convicted him. Again, this completely overlooks the social mechanisms we have that work to correct injustice. I've even heard cases of murder and rape be plaid off as karma, there being a sort of secondhand judgement of He was a bad guy, I think he deserved to be murdered, and the universe agreed with me . The populist vigilante fetishism sort of plays into this definition of karma. Karma, ultimately, plays into the idea that justice is something that just happens. This does not bear out in reality in any meaningful way, and the people that talk about karma ultimately work to preserve injustice and oppression. gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than just downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"the idea of karma is actively harmful"}
{"id":"1170a80c-2289-491d-a9f9-87d2653dfa9d","argument":"The Anglo-Saxons placed a high value on a person's word, their sworn promise. The origins of the law date back to times before Chistianity.","conclusion":"Such principles were already in place before Christianity, e.g. in Roman law, ancient Germanic law or Anglo-Saxon law."}
{"id":"30fd54a1-2783-42ad-87a1-018a97328391","argument":"Since the campaign began I have seen several articles about how Trump doesn't want to win Or how he just wants the title and none of the responsiblities and that his VP will do most of the governing. I think this line of thinking is asinine. He wouldn't be running as hard as he is and campaigning the way he is if he didn't want to win, and the idea that he would just push off work to the office of the VP shows a complete lack of understanding of how the office of the VP and President work. It seems like a naive way to cope with the fact that he may win by people who don't want to admit he has a chance of being President.","conclusion":"The idea that TRUMP 'doesn't want to be president and is just in it for the ego' is ludicrous."}
{"id":"ade3ffaf-909c-461a-bd22-8b6b85515629","argument":"Members within religious communities that identify as gay or lesbian can face very real harm in their communities if they cannot hide their identity.","conclusion":"Anonymity provides protection for oppressed people who may face real world harm or violence if their views were linked to them."}
{"id":"1f42f888-3485-42ff-bf8f-c48b84c6e967","argument":"I believe there was nothing wrong with how 4chan and mensrights acted in the Occidental College anonymous rape report form incident and I am appaled why most of reddit seemed to react negatively. Even some mensrights regulars seemed to backpedal after the posts in subredditdrama and offmychest altrough, I should stress that I am not sure to what degree this negative reaction only appeared so due to SRS bridading all the threads that dealt with the issue . Why I hold my opinion I believe anonymous reporting of crimes, especially one that automatically results in the accused being summoned by a dean to an embarrasing visit does not belong in an university environment, but perhaps in the Soviet Union. The report form as it was designed simply had to be destroyed made ineffective by any legal means necessary. How someoe could consider spamming it outrageous, but its existence itself okay is beyond me. Also, from the history of the sexual abuse at the Occidental college, it was IMHO pretty obvious that the administration only created the form as an ineffective feel good measure to shut up the critics, perhaps to cover up glaring problems with rape reporting in the past. The form was doomed from the start anyway, because having the ability to anonymously cause someone to be summoned to the dean is simply too great an attraction to trolls and people who want to prank get back at someone. False or malicious reports would make the majority of claims anyway. The only difference is that 4chan and mensrights decided to mass spam it, thus making it only ineffective and overload it thus effectively shutting it down , instead of actively malicious harrasment tool for pranksters which it would inevitably become if left alone. Exposing its idiocy by doing what would eventually happen anyway people spaming it with trolling and false claims is a rational thing to do. Hasten its death so we minimize its harm. For those unfamiliar with the incident, here is a short and biased IMHO summary EDIT Here is a more factual unbiased summary I am leaving the above Verge summary too, so people see how biased some media were in reporting about the incident. ?","conclusion":"I believe there was nothing wrong with how 4chan and \/mensrights acted in the Occidental College anonymous rape report form incident."}
{"id":"d5f35a7b-653a-4a47-bb0c-a55597f080ff","argument":"People are entitled to what they earn, as they gain ownership over the money through their work.","conclusion":"It is unfair to remove somebody's life work and earnings."}
{"id":"defc0a73-73a3-49a0-b4bf-eda634218224","argument":"Opening the user to higher infrastructural activities on a mobile basis cultures a broader use of the vehicle as a living space.","conclusion":"The Mercedes-Benz User Experience MBUX is a revolution in the vehicle cockpit."}
{"id":"26ab8362-7754-46c8-80b1-cc6ac72405df","argument":"The Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact satellites are the only living examples of communism. The few exceptions to this are small, short-lived attempts such as the Paris Commune","conclusion":"Saying that the USSR wasn't communist because it fails to fit into someone's specific ideal of what communism should be is a 'No True Scotsman' fallacy."}
{"id":"afbf5521-faa3-46dd-a325-ff9f3af83d64","argument":"I have gone to both American schools and Korean schools. Schools don't do anything. Too much students go to academies that teach them more and schools are falling behind in terms of quality of education. And thus academies set the standard of the exams. Isn't that what the school is supposed to do? Uniforms. Never understood what their purpose was. If it is a way to teach them to follow simple dress rules, why not have a dress code? They have exams on things you should be enjoying. Music? Exam about what the beat of the cultural music thousands of years ago. P.E.? know when tennis was made Etc. Change my view please because I'm only having negative thoughts about living in Korea, and thus lead an unhappy life.","conclusion":"Korean schooling is worse than American schooling."}
{"id":"80897c49-30a0-401a-8116-def68514f201","argument":"Is the establishment rigged to push forward their agenda? Hell yeah. Any group with a single objective is going to push their objective. If you want to change the group you have to change the make up of the group. The Republicans did a terrifyingly great job with the Tea Party and by relation the House Freedom Caucus. For Bernie to achieve his revolution, his supporters have to join the party and pull similar stunts. Otherwise, I think it's very similar to complaining but not actually voting, and we can all agree that's annoying.","conclusion":"Independents who want to change the Democratic party should join the party."}
{"id":"abb46158-9b70-4302-a27b-3e3c79e3c689","argument":"I believe that with each passing generation, due to social, economic, political and environmental factors, humanity has gotten stupider and stupider. I'll list each of the factors I found, and then why I think they made humanity stupider. Try to refute them all. Social Social media has caused people to spend more time preening than actually using things like the internet for knowledge and personal gains. Instead, they spend all their time worrying Which has negative effects on intelligence and the brain Economic Today, more people are starving, chronically hungry, poor, or otherwise economically screwed. Living in situations like this, people are more likely to be exposed to lead, malnutrition or starvation, all of which damage the functions of the brain, and therefore intelligence. Political In this day age, if someone voices an opinion contrary to the majority, they are immediately shot down, refuted with made up facts, or just ignored. This promotes a climate of ignorance and living in the past, which will in no way benefit learning. In the past, ideas were challenged, and theories were actual theories, instead of just guesses, but now, anyone who challenges a liberal idea Even if it sucks , is labelled a bigot, a liar or a racist. There is no way to put new ideas on the table. That definitely makes us stupid. Environmental With the advent of new materials, namely plastics, metals and electronics, there has been a HUGE increase in birth defects, mental diseases, and ADHD type disorders. Take lead. In Michigan, a state of emergency was declared because the kids had too much lead in their bloods, which causes an irreparable form of brain damage. Various plastics have also been shown to increase the risk of brain disorders in babies. This, while not inherently making humanity stupid, causes other issues. Electronics, when exposed for too long, can also damage humans. They can cause cancer, birth defects, and genetic mutations. The vast majority of all of these things don't help you get smart. So. Yeah.","conclusion":"Humanity has gotten stupider with each generation."}
{"id":"01c8f565-60d6-4e65-b4ba-26941730045c","argument":"8710 Well i think you got my point but i will talk about it more. Almost everybody have smart phones these days. People can take photos, add filter to them and upload them. I know it's their choice to take whatever photo they like and whatever filter they want to add to but when they do it their followers say omg you have 'the eye', you're the best . I don't understand this. There are people out there who uses professional dSLRs with amazing lenses but they're not appreciated enough. I love taking photos but every time i see, read this kind of situation, i just hate it. Can you change my view on this ? btw sorry for my english","conclusion":"I hate when people use filters for photographs"}
{"id":"f0ee7d5b-ea32-48d5-9211-822faa1391fb","argument":"When anyone \"attempts to engineer population decline\", it is met with \"an unholy thicket of moral and political resistance\" 1 Morality from religious organizations fight attempts morally and politically to resolve overpopulation instead of encouraging them.","conclusion":"Overpopulation being a myth is an idea supported and promoted by religious-based organizations against abortion."}
{"id":"fab499b5-46de-4009-ba5f-aa403fcbd05e","argument":"\"Should You Go to Law School? Not Unless You Want To Be a Lawyer.\" Wronging Rights. January 22, 2009: \"I know: right now you are mentally listing the names of all of the diplomats, senior policy advisors, politicians, bankers, aid workers, and political operatives who have J.D.s. I'm sure it's a long list. Having a law degree certainly doesn't disqualify someone from holding one of those positions. It might even help a little. But it's not a requirement, and it's not the easiest or cheapest way in.\"","conclusion":"Many lawyers are successful outside of law, but so are others"}
{"id":"eabef4db-3610-4d00-9939-dbf82df7e76f","argument":"Many elite colleges control the racial composition of their classes through affirmative action regulations. These regulations often lead to an illegitimate preference for whites over Asian-Americans.","conclusion":"The quest for diversity can lock out disadvantaged minority groups."}
{"id":"8b2ddaa6-988f-472f-b7d1-a205d3a692d2","argument":"In recent years, and especially with the Bernie uprising, many people have made the claim that the top earners in the US are not paying their fair share in taxes. Claims include that they hide money overseas, find legal loopholes, or pay politicians for tax breaks, etc. Example A common counter claim I keep seeing is that the top 1 pays 45 50 of all taxes, while the bottom 50 pays almost nothing in taxes, and for this reason we should be inclined to think that the upper class is being successfully taxed at a higher than appropriate amount. Example But this is not convincing to me because it assumes the wealth distribution is somewhat linear. To simplify my argument, I'm going to use a toy population of 100 people. In this first scenario we will picture a distribution where each person makes 1 dollar more than the person below them. So one person makes 1, one person makes 2, etc and 1 person makes 100. If you assume the wealth distribution is like this it's certainly not , and for a simple upper bound we use a flat tax where everyone pays 35 of their income, we should expect the taxes paid by the lowest 99 to be sum 1 99 0.35 1697.85. The top paid person making 100 would thus pay 35. In this distribution, one would believe it fair that the top 1 should pay 35 1697.85 0.02, or 2 of taxes. One can see that if we were to apply tax brackets, we would expect the top 1 to pay a bit of a higher ratio than this, but we're not trying to show that they should pay more, so the flat tax upper bound is satisfactory for this argument. But we don't live in a society with a linear income distribution. Let's adjust it to be a distribution where everyone makes 1 except for one person who makes 100 which is not a correct distribution, but this is to get you thinking about how the math changes for a distribution with dramatic income inequality . If we recalculate using the 35 flat tax upper bound we see that the bottom 99 people pay 0.35 99 34.65, while the richest pays 35. So the top 1 ends up paying basically 50 of taxes. Again, we would expect this ratio to go up if we apply tax brackets, but we're not interested in showing they should pay more. Yes this is a toy distribution, but it's to illustrate a point that the counter argument seems to stem from the assumption that we live in a society with a reasonable income distribution. So am I missing something? Can anyone make the math of the counter claim work out so that even in a society where the top 1 makes orders of magnitude more than the bottom 99 , they shouldn't be expected to pay about half or more of taxes? Edit Some clarifications Fair in this case means what the law says they should be paying . I'm not interested in debating what people say the law should say they should be paying . It all seems to boil down to this Given our current marginal tax brackets and our current income distribution 17.5 of income goes to the 1 calculate how much we expect the top 1 of income earners to be contributing to the total amount of taxes collected from all earners. I am trying to do this myself but I haven't crunched numbers like this in a while and I would like someone to double check me. If someone can show me mathematically that under current marginal tax laws and given our current income distribution we project the top 1 to pay less than 45 of all taxes paid, then I will award a delta. If it turns out we expect them to be paying between 45 and 50 of all taxes, then no one should be surprised, they are paying their fair share, and I will award a delta. And if it turns out we expect them to be paying more than 50 of all taxes, then I am right, they are not paying the taxes we expect them to be paying, and no deltas will be awarded.","conclusion":"The income-inequality arg claims that the top 1% doesn't pay their fair share. A common counter arg to this claims that the top 1% pays about 50% of all taxes. From what I can tell, this counter argument doesn't add up and only convinces me further that the top 1% isn't paying their fair share."}
{"id":"1ddb9a5c-8d41-40e0-95b8-48111a2e7211","argument":"Fewer people will die from the cold in winter. We will get real summers. Should these factors be weighed into the cost-benefit analysis?","conclusion":"The effects of climate change will not necessarily be bad"}
{"id":"3064fb70-b06e-421a-a1ea-30ec354a1400","argument":"I don't think that there is a meaningful distinction between what is considered human and that which is non human. All differences are arbitrary and are used to justify the domination and murder of all beings not considered human.","conclusion":"I believe that all distinctions between what is considered human and nonhuman are arbitrary and unethical."}
{"id":"2d2921b7-97e6-453e-80f7-27def937467c","argument":"First off, let me state some obvious facts Tax avoidance is perfectly legal, tax evasion is not. A public company should always act in the interest of shareholders, doing everything with the goal of maximizing shareholder value. All other stakeholders should always come after shareholders. Minimizing taxes will increase the bottom line, and therefore accomplish the main purpose of the corporation to maximize shareholder value. When we combine these 3 facts, I think it's perfectly justifiable for a company to avoid taxes, even if it is morally wrong. I believe that the only situation in which a public company is obligated to pay above minimal taxes is when the damage to the bottom line from the negative publicity outweighs the amount of excess tax they'd have to pay if they stopped using these accounting loopholes. .","conclusion":"I think that tax avoidance for public corporations is perfectly understandable and part of their obligation."}
{"id":"295bb2f1-90d3-4d30-b9b7-b1f865038061","argument":"The development costs of modern weapons technologies are enormously high. Even though the US is planning to buy some 2.500 of its F-35 fighters, the development costs stand at 15% of the program's total.","conclusion":"The development cost of AKMs that are as effective as humans is very high."}
{"id":"5e4d8603-0779-4124-9072-ce6288185709","argument":"While I'm not concerned with the attack itself, the investigation into the response from then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the State Department during and after the attacks plays a vital role in how trustworthy Clinton is as a candidate. The tale of deleted emails and the policy regarding them is so convoluted by Clinton and her lawyers as well as BOTH sides of the aisle that the only way for me to feel satisfied that she didn't cover up some embarrassing act of incompetence or worse is to continue with an all out investigation. Otherwise, should Clinton win the presidency a comparison of her tactics to those of Nixon wouldn't be overt, but at least arguable. Thank you","conclusion":"The Benghazi Investigation is absolutely necessary."}
{"id":"48fe1498-840a-41c2-ad00-8ee8d28b39b7","argument":"First I guess I have to say, I am not a Kylie Jenner fan because that will somehow make me seem more reasonable. I don't know a thing about her. I only know 3 things about her, a. She is a reality star b. She is a descendant of OJ Simpson's lawyer and part of a famous reality star family called The Kardashians. c. She has a huge impact, she can namedrop a product and the product's sales goes through the roof. People trust her, she is like a good friend of millions of people. Even her non fans know who she is not me tho, but not for good reasons, I have antisocial tendencies What is the point of reality stars. People say there is none. But as i said they are essentially everyone's friends. And who wouldn't want to help a friend reach such an amazing goal. Even if you think being friends with someone who doesn't know you is stupid. You probably know a famous person well enough to have such a relationship. That is the same mindset that made everyone on Reddit mourn Hawking Gene Wilder a few months back. People like feeling like a part of something big. Whether it is Catholicism, A sports team, The PC Master Race, Furries, Conspiracy Theories or the Kardashians. Imagine saying to someone I was one of the little people who made Kylie Jenner a billionaire . gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Kylie Jenner's Billionaire GoFundMe makes a lot of sense."}
{"id":"fc666ab1-77e8-4a84-bd1f-cf1f84e1f214","argument":"I think with the advancement of robotic technology in hospital settings, it will soon be possible to replace humans performing the same job. For most common place surgeries, there is no need to ask doctors to perform them. Having these surgeries be done by doctors only increases risks of errors due to negligence over time. Studies for prostate surgeries have shown the decrease in risk when using robotic technology My question is then, what evidence is there against the use of robotic technology? Isn't it ethical to minute risks when performing common surgeries? It should be time to support robotic surgeons.","conclusion":"Robotic Surgeons should replace human Surgeons"}
{"id":"f590c879-e0a7-4e9a-8204-e1e4ceb1178e","argument":"Obese children have a more difficult time getting admitted to college Puhl & Brownell, p. 796","conclusion":"Affirmative action distributes opportunities to racially marginalized groups, while ignoring other disadvantaged groups."}
{"id":"3e7a4f5c-816b-4c04-b029-033245f5a216","argument":"President Carter was integral in the signing of the Camp David Accords between Egypt and Israel, which normalised relations between the two countries after the Yom Kippur War.","conclusion":"President Carter has had immense influence on US Foreign Policy in the Middle East, after leaving office."}
{"id":"1e141d2d-0b81-48d0-822e-36093b235db0","argument":"Given that citizens are required to start service at 18, they are unlikely to have the right to vote before they begin. They thus cannot vote on any policies relating to the military prior to their service.","conclusion":"Individuals who haven't yet done their mandatory service will be too young to significantly influence the military and its culture."}
{"id":"be73791f-46a7-4824-a1ab-231a3bc4f9ca","argument":"Playing God can only lead to bad outcomes. We lack the foresight to see every possible outcome from an action we take.","conclusion":"The information behind the mystery of life is not a plaything and it is morally unacceptable to interfere with it."}
{"id":"509aa232-ca78-4bd9-b8ba-20212ef615db","argument":"Many African Americans have not been afraid to rebel historically, take Nat Turner and other slave rebellions as an example. Yet, the relative support for peaceful protest BLM and moderate demands police body cameras, ending broken windows policing, reparations, etc suggest most black individuals are not aching to raise arms against the state.","conclusion":"Most black individuals are not radical enough to support the violent overthrow of their states."}
{"id":"d85d255b-01b6-41fc-ae67-a71c1d0b863b","argument":"There are countless reports of the genetics of athletic excellence. Many athletes respond more effectively to training. For some, the shape of their bodies is optimized for certain kinds of athletic activities. Many of them have an unfair advantage as they carry genes that put them far ahead of ordinary athletes. Hence many sports inherently often favor people with certain genetic gifts and higher testosterone levels should not be treated differently.","conclusion":"If eradicating unfair advantages was an actual goal in sports, competitors would be matched according to a more holistic look at their physical condition and genetic predispositions. Using testosterone as a single measurement is reductive."}
{"id":"104629e1-c7ba-4dcc-b278-852de8e82e69","argument":"Moderation, not prohibition is what is needed. This arguably knee-jerk prohibition can be harmful and regressive to the interests of big city constituents.","conclusion":"There are other options available in regulation rather than strict prohibition."}
{"id":"71c966b8-e654-4c95-86c4-37397a66ba08","argument":"The Confederacy was unique in its explicit support for white supremacy and its active treason against the United States. Unlike other statues, there is literally nothing of value in what they fought for.","conclusion":"The principal legacy of Confederate statues is white supremacy and slavery. Since this fundamentally conflicts with American values and ideas, they should be removed."}
{"id":"df58b0fe-fedc-4ac7-897f-14ed7270f075","argument":"Like my title says above I have spent a considerable amount of time over the years playing Skyrim and haven't came across the location of the dark brotherhood hideout yet. As much as this has frustrated me over the years I refuse to cheat and lookup how to find it. The reason I made this post is because even though I despise cheating I still feel a bit conflicted considering I fell that I have been missing out on a considerable portion of the guild quests in this game being the dark brotherhood quest line. In order to be convinced to changing my view I will need to be convinced that doing this act isn't cheating and that I shouldn't feel guilty about breaking one of my golden rules when it comes to playing video games. My philosophy to gaming and towards cheating has always been that cheating on videogames is bad because it kills the concept and the reason why games are made, to have fun or to challenge oneself in a specific aspect of the game. In addition it seems like doing a disservice to the developers that made the game and I feel that I should be able to figure everything out within the game world and not stoop to looking online for how to solve things.","conclusion":"I have been playing the game Skyrim for nearly 8 years now and still haven't figured out yet how to join the dark brotherhood, yet I refuse to cheat and look up how to do it online."}
{"id":"b58f61c6-38ed-4f6b-8299-18bd6e663723","argument":"I think police in Canada should follow the model of Norway, Ireland, New Zealand, etc. and have regular police officers be unarmed. I don't think having unarmed police officers would be dangerous for the police, as we have less guns per capita than Norway which does have unarmed police. I think if we disarmed police, we could have less fatal police shootings. In the entire UK, no one was shot dead by police during 2012 2013 compare that to my province of British Columbia where according to the Independent Investigations Office of BC, there have been at least 3 Furthermore, I think it could improve the relationship with the public if our police where unarmed, people could see the police as more approachable if they did not carry guns. Police forces in Canada should disarm the majority of their officers who go on regular patrol and either follow Ireland Britain's model where only a few officers who are authorized to use firearms. Or it do the Norwegian way, where their guns are kept in their police cars in sealed bags, unloaded. I like the first way though, since it would reduce the amount of time and training needed to train police officers therefore saving money.","conclusion":"I think we should disarm Canadian police."}
{"id":"a1ba6e2e-3884-4358-806a-9699ca76710c","argument":"If a teacher asks at the end if there are questions, students might forget what they were asking, focus more on the question than what's being taught, may end up out-of-context with the new material where the teacher may need to go back and can be confusing, etc. It's much better to have the questions answered immediately for better understanding and context.","conclusion":"Teachers can address pressing questions that only they could answer and more quickly when they are present in a chat than when everyone's silent or questions are answered at the end, which improves the quality of learning."}
{"id":"f23770c3-c081-4bbb-8977-cd0597c2c54a","argument":"There are already enough deserted Olympic venues all over the world - and no need to continue with the current wasteful practice.","conclusion":"Creating a permanent venue is sensible regarding financial costs and space."}
{"id":"7066c125-8c1c-4836-9e3d-1baa2347e07d","argument":"This is because MBA provide core knowledge in how to start, run, market, and grow a business from the ground up. This knowledge is not innate, and learning it while starting a business could simply mean that the business fails.","conclusion":"MBAs have a statistically lower chance of failed start-ups."}
{"id":"c0867733-4c23-40bf-bfee-8ede2278c90e","argument":"There is a requirement that local addresses in New York City renting out properties comply with fire codes to ensure the safety of residents.","conclusion":"Unlike Airbnb listings, hotels are regularly inspected for fire hazards and other such safety risks."}
{"id":"884ab9db-cf3c-47db-a2ff-07536cf276a8","argument":"Denis Sassou Nguesso the president of the Republic of the Congo was accused of misuse of public funds, defalcation, and money laundering in connection with a luxury property in France.","conclusion":"Authoritarian leaders in developing countries often help themselves to public funds in order to live a lavish lifestyle."}
{"id":"788fd128-4dc2-438f-a59a-9e3273737391","argument":"It is likely that the British previously offered some sort of bounty on us, as they did with runaway slaves in Virginia","conclusion":"The character of the British whom we are dealing with is untrustworthy."}
{"id":"9281464c-8a33-4bae-ba50-028b833f906c","argument":"Through increased exposure to racial epitaphs, students would become accustomed to the use of the N-word and therefore be more likely to use it.","conclusion":"Without censoring offensive words, students will be more likely to adopt racially insensitive words and\/or attitudes."}
{"id":"05dc14c8-3ea3-4911-a8d7-3b5dcdc9ed07","argument":"Switzerland has the second highest level of human development and has the third best education system in the world, according to the United Nations UNDP.","conclusion":"Switzerland is a Semi-Direct Democracy, and is consistently in the top 5 countries in the world according to most indexes."}
{"id":"a0c9fec7-8a70-440e-9bf5-ae4ff9fe7c7f","argument":"Parties often choose to ignore issues due to fear of a democratic backlash and electoral loss. Independent candidates are likelier to bring these issues up and discuss them.","conclusion":"A wider range of issues is likely to be discussed in a world where the political agenda is not shaped by just two parties."}
{"id":"b4f362ba-81e8-411c-b07f-9b843438fa9f","argument":"I understand that overhead costs are distributed evenly and they make up most of the total cost compared to direct costs on raw materials which can be different from size to size. But sometimes it seems extremely unfair if size range is quite big, and you pay the same price for XS, while XXL costs the same amount and it has been produced from materials almost three times more than for XS. It seems that by being small and slim, you bear the burden of big people, and thus subsidize the affordability of clothes for them. It would be much fairer if at least the prices would have been allocated on a set of bands based on size range. This would motivate fit and slim customers to buy clothes at cheaper prices as a reward for their healthy lifestyle and the same time viral advertisement of their products. In contrast, overweight and obese customers could be penalized with higher prices, the revenue from which could be used for covering most of the overhead costs, and campaigning against obesity. Edit what i mean is this could be also in producers' interest as they can promote their products on fit and slim people for their money but on reduced costs. Needless to say that clothes look at their best on fit people, and companies could save much more on photoshooting models, if they could make beautiful people wear their clothes.","conclusion":"I think it is unfair to price clothes of different sizes with the same price."}
{"id":"2195b3c1-aff3-4b62-af65-7abfce8feaea","argument":"We often hear that we should reduce in order to cut back on waste. HOWEVER, utilizing items that are meant to be reused in order to reduce actually causes in an increase in other resources. Consider the following Using a canteen causes water consumption in order to keep it clean. Water is a precious FINITE resource and only 1 is fit for human use, says the EPA. Lack of water have caused cutbacks in places like California of late. Charging for grocery bag does not mean I stop using trash liners. It just means I'm now forced to buy them which causes an uptake in demand of trash liner production. Reusing items also calls into the question of cleanliness and hygiene. In days of yore, people used handkerchiefs to blow their nose. Since then, modern society recognizes that they're highly unpractical and unhygienic. If I am sick and my nose is runny, I will get 2 3 uses out of it, at best. And once the germs have made contact with the fabric, it is now a carrier for germs. Gross. There are plenty of examples which demonstrate that reducing by reusing don't necessarily reduce waste, they merely displace them.","conclusion":"Reducing\/Reusing Causes Waste--Just Displaced Waste"}
{"id":"452a1ad9-7b9f-4704-8cb4-b48a73af8ed4","argument":"If someone is in the Passing Lane and is going slow, I don't get too close to them, but I also stay where I am instead of passing on the right. Often, I'll use my horn to try and get the driver to move out of the way, since passing on the right is more dangerous. Sometimes, these people will then tap their brakes, in which case I'll honk louder, and then try and pass them. This is now law in several states, including Florida, which is supposed to make it illegal to drive slow in the fast lane. But I often see cops not pulling people over, just following slow drivers until they move out of the way. There's also nothing that makes brake checking illegal, which is also dangerous behavior that can lead to more accidents. So I still think brake checking is dumb, dangerous, more likely to get you into an accident, and should be just as illegal as driving slow in the fast lane. . On a side note, drivers aren't often aware of these changes due to taking the driving exam once in their life. Taking a driving exam more often, or at the very least getting an updated rule book when you renew your license, could help alleviate this problem. Edit Sorry for using the wrong break","conclusion":"I think that if you \"break check\" someone in the Passing Lane instead of just getting out of the way, you're being a jerk."}
{"id":"3ddda69b-3c7d-4afb-a49d-33b0e6ceac33","argument":"Many christian children are baptized without being of the age of consent and in many cases as babies.","conclusion":"Religions are routinely introduced to children who are too young to make an informed choice."}
{"id":"92342d92-a1b4-4ad6-abef-d6366f0d7583","argument":"\"Profit for companies\" is better than \"profit for criminal cartels\", if those are the two choices.","conclusion":"Legal companies would be able to take over the drugs-related sector from illegal criminal organisations."}
{"id":"15126294-ca83-46b8-ae8b-76cf7acc8dbc","argument":"The mutations required for antibiotic resistance to develop require a change of only 3 nucleotide bases. Statically this is to be expected. Adaptions requiring 6 or 7 changes of nucleotide bases are statistically implausible and a study has shown they are unable to be produced in a lab.","conclusion":"Natural selection explains the survival but not the arrival of the fittest. Mutation and natural selection does not have the ability to generate novel genetic information and body plans. youtu.be"}
{"id":"40b5db03-5ea7-464d-8b2b-10541a977060","argument":"I played Ingress for a long time. I only quit because my work schedule changed and it wasn't convenient anymore, my wife wasnt into it, and some technical issues with my phone. I just tell you that so you dont think my reasons for quitting had anything to do with the game or the devs. I now play PokemonGO. On certain subreddits, but also on other sites across the interwebz, I see a lot of complaints about the game and how these issues are handled. The main issues I keep seeing include, but arent limited to, The servers kept crashing and caused people to lose items and opportunities for rare pokemon. We have heard nothing about whether players will be compensated for these. The 3 Step Glitch makes tracking Pokemon either nigh on impossible or so frustrating that its just not worth it. Niantic sucks at communicating with the players. Niantic doesnt listen to player suggestions or what they want. Niantic ruined our childhood dreams of being a real pokemon master. There may be others, but it seems like these are the most common. I dont think we have a right to really be upset with Niantic though. To respond t each point above, Id say that The servers crashing was probably inevitable given how huge this game was upon release. Loads of people kept playing the game despite these issues, they should have known the risk. Nevertheless, it does suck and Niantic could address this in the future, but it should be pretty understandable that this is a low priority right now. Id be willing to bet that most players have naturally recovered most wasted items and even encountered most if not all of the pokemon they missed during that period, but even if not, its not like theres any hurry. This game will be around for a long time. Youll have chances again. People are just upset because they want what they want and they want it right now. The 3 Step Glitch and the removal of steps altogether does suck and I miss that feature. I dont know what their reasoning is for removing it, though Ive read the common theories. The bottom line is its their app and they can have whatever features they want and if you dont like it, stop playing. Ill admit that it was much easier to find pokemon when we had the working 3 Step track, but even since the removal in the update, Ive caught plenty of uncommon and rare pokemon. It sucks, but its not game breaking and isnt even really that big of a hinderance. Niantic does suck at communicating with their players, but I hear theyre hiring someone to deal with this. Some people have said that they should have had this person in place from day one, but really, I just dont think it matters. If you dont like how Niantic runs their business or treats their players, stop playing. See above. If you dont like the company or the game, stop playing. Oh, Im sorry, were you doing just fine as a pokemon trainer before this app came out? I say that jokingly, but seriously, this app is a work in progress and while it sucks to have it so hyped and imagine all sorts of cool things and then have it come out like it has. I get it, but its a work in progress. Finally, I dont really think we have a right to demand that Niantic do this or give us that. Its their company. They can run it how they want. They can create the product they want. If you dont like it, dont play it.","conclusion":"PokemonGO is a decent game considering its a new game and work in progress, and we have no right to demand anything of Niantic."}
{"id":"279b1fb6-5e86-49fd-82ad-2c530230fbe5","argument":"Some definitions and background A Great Books program is a humanities based inter disciplinary undergraduate program often offered in a student's first year. The program covers the Western literary canon, offers lectures, ostensibly from faculty from disparate yet salient fields, and features discussion sections that tend to adhere to the Socratic Method. Examples include Directed Study at Yale or Structured Liberal Education at Stanford. Great Books programs used to be pretty common across the United States up until around the 1970s when they were replaced by general education distribution requirements that allowed more student choice. I'll leave it up to you to go look up the development of general education at particular universities. Arguments Mark Mancall on Education Professor Mancall gives a good overview of what an education should do. Moreover, the paramount benefit of a humanities education is that it teaches students to weigh competing normative claims. The kinds of questions literary texts tend to ask are tough and concern the big issues by which we will live our lives. Questions such as What does it mean to truly know yourself? To be happy? To gain peace of mind? How should we live with others? What is the value of this life as opposed to the next? What is it to flourish? How can we empathize with those we do not know intimately? and so on. The discussions over these issues tend to break down our preconceptions when equally smart people disagree with us. We are forced to reconcile what we previously thought of the world with what we are now considering lest we lose the coherency structuring our lives. How we answer the questions texts ask us will have a huge input on what we value in life and consequently how we make decisions. It might not be the case that everyone will or even should go on to be a humanities scholar. But if there is one group that needs a humanities education the most it is not the humanists. It is the people who would not have sought out the texts for themselves in the first place but do end up becoming the elites in our society way too often. There are more arguments in defense of humanities education but I'm interested mostly in hearing refutations and expanding on my case as I see fit in response. I'd also prefer more principled arguments instead of pragmatic ones which is why I caveat in my title that a university has sufficient resources and a workable student population. Thanks","conclusion":"General Education Requirements at Universities, given sufficient resources and a workable student population, should include a Humanities Core such as a Great Books Program."}
{"id":"a6a56359-739f-41fb-b564-1796827a9d4e","argument":"A Friday Funday  With my utmost respect to many more recent, capable, and verbally sublime lyricists of a more modern age, Sir Mix A Lot\u2019s 1992 classic \u201cBaby Got Back\u201d was and is a high water mark in the genre. Admittedly, trying to pick a \u201cbest\u201d at anything is wildly difficult to do, especially when it comes to art with no objective scale of comparison, \u201cBaby Got Back\u201d has a few things going for it that are hard to dispute Memorable, and catchy introduction that is immediately identifiable \u2013 \u201cOMG Beck, look at her butt.\u201d A true turntable and synth beat being actually played on turntables that is memorable and identifiable without detracting from the verbal lyrics. Lyrics that are memorable and quotable \u2013 I mean, admit it, you could probably sing the whole sing right now if you had to. Empowering lyrics and message for women that was way ahead of its time \u2013 women, be proud of your bodies because we like you the way you are youtu.be kY84MRnxVzo?t 199 Amazing music video \u2013 Please, the man is literally standing on fabricated butts. Nostalgically significant over the last 25 years. It is this last point that truly catapults trebuchets? the song into its glory, and is likely the most controversial component to my assertion. Kendrick Lamar, Kanye, Aesop Rock, Lil\u2019 Wayne\u2026 they all might be in the pantheon along with others, of course of the greatest rappers, but they haven\u2019t yet had to stand the test of time. Sir Mix A Lot\u2019s classic was good then, and now, in a way we can\u2019t possibly know about some very incredible recent talent. If I am singing Chance the Rapper at a Karaoke bar in 25 years, I will concede defeat, but I am not convinced that will be the case yet . I would also argue that, unlike the harder, more gangster styled rap that pervaded the 90s rap scene, the upbeat and relatively positive tone of the song elevates the residual value staying power. Negative and gritty may be a more temporally accurate depiction of the times, but it rarely has the staying power. Thoughts?","conclusion":"Sir Mix-A-Lot's classic \"Baby Got Back\" is a high-water mark of rap music."}
{"id":"620008cc-aee2-4e0a-95ea-df5877e2e476","argument":"I believe that there does currently exist a cure for all types of cancer but that this cure is not used because cancer functions as a natural selection on society. If this cure for cancer were to be used on the general public, a lot less people would die from cancer, causing overpopulation and not enough resources being available for use. I also have a slight conspiracy theory like belief that the cure for cancer is sometimes used on celebrities who agree to keep quiet about the cure, as often times many celebrities and people of fame and fortune have quite speedy recoveries from cancer Indianapolis Colts coach Chuck Pagano initially comes to mind . I do however recognize that many celebrities diagnosed with cancer do not recover recently Stuart Scott . Could this be because they don't have the funds to pay for this possible cure that exists? Could this be because only a select few celebrities can receive the cure in order for the government to avoid suspicion from people such as myself? Change my view","conclusion":"There is an effective cure for all types of cancer, but the government and health care systems do not use this on the general public."}
{"id":"598844b8-1306-48dd-bb2e-95d13d9242d8","argument":"Many would argue that it's appropriating Hindu culture and that for a person not of that culture to wear something similar to their bindi is wrong. However, I feel that something so small and simple with no attempted relation to Hinduism could be its own stylistic thing. I get when women wear bindis AND dress up in boho and ethnic clothing especially with accessories that depict Hindu deities or hamsa icons, but those are more detailed and specific things linked to the culture that couldn't really have possibly cropped up elsewhere in the world with no Hindu influence. And I mean gem like a stylistic stick on or piercing, not the red dot, as the red dot is a little more directly linked. Thoughts? Also apologies if I am getting cultured mixed in my explanation.","conclusion":"wearing a gem on your forehead isn't necessarily cultural appropriation."}
{"id":"79eec15a-5a8f-490d-a159-4b67d58657b4","argument":"The number of people likely to be affected by these proposals is actually very small \u2013 the authorities are aware of up to 600 people whose detention might be justified on public safety grounds.","conclusion":"The number of people likely to be affected by these proposals is actually very small \u2013 the authoriti..."}
{"id":"a81e069a-3590-4c83-a5ab-a52deff9a8cb","argument":"Anarchy is the only absolutely ethical system of society, although this does not mean that the existence of government is always bad; being necessary in intermediary stages of social development.","conclusion":"Judging by contemporary events, people are not ready for this system and require education before it can work."}
{"id":"57e99ab8-34fa-4c12-873f-039104ddc813","argument":"Mods, please enforce the comments in this post at your discretion, as this is admittedly a topic that could get out of hand very quickly. Before you post a comment, please read what I have to say. Rape is absolutely terrible, and in an ideal world would never happen to anyone. It can lead to a sort of PTSD in victims in which they have a hard time associating sex with anything other than their rape. I believe that no woman or man has ever deserved being raped or done something that brought it upon themselves . That being said, I have had multiple people tell me before that rape is worse than murder , deserves the death sentence , and that rapists can't be rehabilitated . These are the statements I disagree with. Rape is horrible and traumatizing, but I do NOT believe that it deserves the death penalty with the possible exception of rape murders . I also believe that rape, except in extreme circumstances, is by definition not as severe a crime as murder. Murder takes the person's entire life away, while rape can significantly but usually temporarily lower the quality of it. I also believe that in most cases of date rape or any rape in which the victim was unconscious or unaware of it at the time are even less traumatizing, and therefore carry an even more markedly less severe effect on a person's life than that of murder. This is not to say the punishment for date rape or roofie rape should be any less severe than that of any other rape. I am open for debate or discussion on any of these points. Change my view.","conclusion":"I don't think rape is as bad as it is often made out to be."}
{"id":"29c96541-1aa8-44ba-b9d9-660cd23922e4","argument":"The United States has already borne a huge cost in ridding itself of slavery: roughly 750,000 lives","conclusion":"The US fought a war about ending slavery. That should be reparation enough."}
{"id":"e4e8ced9-8051-43cf-a4d3-f2469b4d89ba","argument":"Dogs are a good pet. However, let\u2019s be realistic, cats are better than dogs. Cats don\u2019t stick their nose in your face begging to be walked. Cats politely sit by the front door waiting to be let out. They walk themselves. Dogs poop in public. How uncivilized. Cats use a litter box. They don\u2019t want anyone staring at me when they poop. Can you imagine going number two in your front yard in front of your neighbors? Dog poop is huge. Cat poop is small, and easy to scoop out of the litter box. If you have a small dog, they do have smaller poop. But if you have a small dog, you might as well just have a cat. Dogs have to be brushed. Cats groom themselves. Cats bathe at least once an hour when they are awake. Dogs are loud. They bark and prance around in a childish manner. Cats are reserved and dignified. Dogs run away.Dogs run out an open door, and will not come back when called. Cats don\u2019t have to be chased. They always come home after they walk themselves. Dogs chew table legs. Dogs are destructive chewers. My staff had a dog once that chewed her Italian leather shoes, and an antique bible. Cats don\u2019t chew shoes or bibles. They do like paper towel rolls, but they are not expensive or from Italy.","conclusion":"Cats are better than dogs"}
{"id":"b483d133-cdcd-4f7e-9460-43c49f89bcc6","argument":"\"An Outdated Ban\". Washington Post. 28 June 2006 - \"The United Statesis suffering a major energy crisis right now, and we should be drilling in as many places as we can manage. Offshore drilling may be a short-term solution to a long-term energy problem, but if countries like China can already drill and drain our nearby coastal regions of oil and gas deposits, there's no reason why we shouldn't save ourselves a few bucks at the gas pump until alternative energy sources are further developed.\"","conclusion":"US oil crisis warrants drastic action and offshore oil drilling"}
{"id":"afa82153-2cca-4de3-a4ea-7d0472ae5d26","argument":"As Robert Cox argues, American hegemony has been successful because the US has been able to maintain its dominance through a high level of global consensus by establishing a broadly accepted rules-based liberal international economic order, and has been able to shape other states\u2019 preferences in a manner that has awarded sufficient benefits to these states while ensuring the dominance of the US.1 This has been what John Ikenberry terms America\u2019s \u201cliberal grand strategy,\u201d* which has enabled the US to construct a relatively benign and highly institutionalized multilateral system based on open markets, free trade, and the provision of \u2018public goods\u2019, such as collective security and an open international trading regime.2 This has allowed other countries to prosper economically and also in terms of their security; the rebuilding and success of Japan and Germany provides important examples of this. 1 Cox, Robert. \u2018Gramsci, Hegemony and International Relations, Millennium, Vol. 12, No. 2, 1983, pp. 162-175., Cox, Robert. \u201cSocial Forces, States and World Orders: Beyond International Relations Theory\u201d, in R.O. Keohane ed. NeoRealism and its Critics, New York: Columbia University Press, 1986 Where the US has used military force, it has largely done it to uphold human rights and international peace, security and prosperity.2 Ikenberry, John G. 2002, \u2018America\u2019s Imperial Ambition\u2019, Foreign Affairs, September\/October 2002. *liberal grand strategy is a terminology that describes the USA\u2019s long term policy goal- to promote its system to other countries.","conclusion":"The US used its power to establish a set of open global institutions which have been broadly beneficial."}
{"id":"0d357903-da8b-4eed-91c9-fbc760d47528","argument":"I'm not a Physics expert, but I can grasp some basic concept such as Quantization of Energy or Particle Wave Duality. Now, my position is that since Quantization of Energy was discovered, we have a completely new way of seeing the world. Before Quantization we used to believe that spacetime was divisible by infinite, now we know that the particles that make it up are finite. For example, take the Zeno's paradox of Achilles and the turtle. Around this paradox we couldn't wrap our mind for centuries, but Planck gave an answer to it. To the question how can Achilles beat the turtle if both have to cover infinitely many zero dimensional points? Quantum Mechanics gave the answer they both have to cover a finite amount of Planck lenghts and Achilles covers many more in much less time. Now. My position is that on every philosophy manual for high schools there should be, under the explaination of Zeno's paradox, a box stating this paradox made everybody go nuts for centuries until in 1900 a guy named Max Planck solved it . And also that Quantum Mechanics should be taught in high schools, since high schoolers are smart enough to have at least a superficial knowledge of it. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Quantum Mechanics fundamentally altered our perception of nature and never received enough credit for it"}
{"id":"5391a3e0-e7bb-4421-a903-c6f066a0e777","argument":"The Crystal Maze was an English game show where the contestants attempted to complete agility, skill, endurance, and mental challenges. Successfully completing these challenges earned them crystals, which equated to 5 seconds in the Crystal Dome at the end of the show. In the Crystal Dome, gold and silver tickets were blown in the air by fans the contestants had to collect 100 gold tickets, while each silver ticket cancelled out one gold ticket. Regardless of the amount of time collected, teams overwhelmingly lost in the Crystal Dome only 22 of teams won successfully. No matter how teams performed in the Maze, the Crystal Dome was still too difficult to make doing better worth it past 25 or so seconds, the team's performance in the Dome was basically arbitrary. This made the entire show less enjoyable.","conclusion":"The Crystal Maze was a great show ruined by its final stage, the Crystal Dome."}
{"id":"97939681-da87-4d22-8c29-b1787a66a79e","argument":"The oft floated 2 5 false rape allegation figure is based on a mis interpretation of what the sources actually show. The percentage is derived from a numerator and a denominator. The denominator is of course, the total of rapes reported to police and the numerator is purported to be the actual false rape allegation rate. However, our justice system is imperfect, and our means of determining the truth of the matter is imperfect, hence we cannot know the actual false rape allegation rate. Hence, all studies on the matter use proven determined false rape allegations in the numerator \u2013 and that is a completely different matter, because there are necessarily rape allegations where there is insufficient evidence to prove one way or the other. But the way the liberals feminists say it, they\u2019d have you believe that only 2 5 of alleged rapes are false \u2013 and thus imply that the other 95 98 are actually true. It seems either they\u2019re unaware of the glaring nuance, or they\u2019re intentionally misconstruing the results of the studies. Note that in each case below, the numerator consists only of cases deemed or shown to be false, and as such, saying that only X of allegations are false and thus implying that 100 X of allegations are true is a severe misrepresentation. Lisak, Gardinier, Nicksa, Cote \u2013 only counts cases were evidence establishes that no rape happened, as false. Hursch and Selkin classified allegation as false when the complainant admitted that the allegation was indeed false. Her Majesty\u2019s Inspectorate of Constabulary HMIC \u2013 only codes retracted allegations and cases where police officers said the allegations were false, as false. Jordan J reported that 68 out of 164 41.5 allegations were false allegations coded as false if they were retracted or deemed false by police officers. Ferguson and Malou \u2013 meta analysis concludes a 5 rate of confirmed false allegations. Kelly et al \u2013 only gave classification reasons on 120 out of 216 allegations coded as false of those, all were due to retraction, refusal to cooperate with police, or deemed false by police. Source De Zutter, Andr\u00e9 Horselenberg, Robert Koppen, Peter. 2017 . The Prevalence of False Allegations of Rape in the United States from 2006 2010. Journal of Forensic Psychology. 02. 10.4172 2475 319X.1000119. here Look at the way this site frames the low percentage of rape accusations leading to convictions here It says \u201cout of every 1000 rapes, 994 perpetrators will walk free\u201d. That assumes that all 1000 purported rapes are true accusations \u2013 and how can they possibly know that? It states that of the 1000, 310 get reported, 57 lead to arrest, 11 get referred to prosecutors, and 7 lead to convictions. In other words, of the 310 that get reported, 303 get dropped or discounted at some point in the process and 7 are proven true. One could therefore say that only 7 310 ~2 of rape accusations are proven true. I\u2019m using such a high standard for \u2018proven true\u2019 because the studies are using similarly high standards for what they code as false accusations only those that were retracted or were officially deemed false . If those studies get to use such high standards to code for false allegations, then it\u2019s only fair that I use a similarly high standard to code for true allegations. Now you could say that the RAINN number is so low because people in general don\u2019t believe in, or don\u2019t pursue, rape accusations hence that the actual true allegation rate is much higher. But that argument would work for the false accusation rate too after all, every time it\u2019s brought up, liberals feminists seem all too quick to discount false accusations as negligible. Given that, how often do prosecutors bother prosecuting those who might be false rape accusers? Probably not that often. That doesn\u2019t mean the other 98 are all false rape accusations. But if one used the same kind of bad logic perpetrated by so many people in regard to the 2 5 proven false accusations implying that therefore the other 95 98 must be true , then one would conclude that 98 of rape accusations are false Well now, we have 2 proven false per Lisak and Gardinier, and 2 proven true per RAINN, and the other 96 unproven either way. Now you could say that proving true and proving false aren\u2019t the same level of difficulty, or that of the remaining 96 , most likely much more are actually false than actually true, and I would agree with you, but based on just these numbers, it\u2019s certainly unfair to just imply assume that 98 of accusations are true. To , you may have to find a study that finds an ingenious solution around the epistemological problem I\u2019ve laid out. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The 2-5% false rape allegation figure is complete misrepresentation."}
{"id":"2683f43b-00b6-4fc0-87eb-705cf6c30b71","argument":"I\u2019m not even sure I know what the supposed intent is. I think that it\u2019s supposed to make it easier to clear your windshield off but I think it\u2019s just as easy to do it if they\u2019re there. They\u2019re not \u201cin the way\u201d and they can be used to actually clear some of the snow if they\u2019re in the operable position. If they\u2019re flipped up, you have to remove 100 of the snow to make them operable again, lest they lay atop the snow and fail to make contact. Unless you\u2019re expecting a complete ice over, maybe it\u2019d prevent them from being iced stuck to the windshield, but in that position you\u2019re scraping and waiting for your car to heat up regardless. Does anyone who does this have any, even anecdotal, evidence as to it being better?","conclusion":"flipping your windshield wipers out so they\u2019re not flat against the windshield when you\u2019re expecting snow is not any better than just leaving them there."}
{"id":"a802538f-a52d-4c17-a749-a2af3c260434","argument":"Contemporary forms of 'midrash' include literature and artwork to facilitate the interpretation of sacred texts. According to some scholars 'midrash' can also be used to \u201cupdate\u201d or \u201cenhance\u201d sacred texts, thus being a form of rewriting them in a way that makes them \"more acceptable to later ethical standards\" and renders what is less obviously implausible.","conclusion":"For example, in Judaism, the \u2018Midrash is a type of rabbinic literature in which rabbis interpret and comment the Torah and other religious laws. The purpose of this is to resolve problems and find a common understanding, therefore showing a negotiation process."}
{"id":"331f1e67-4c64-45cc-b9b1-6b66f900c7f1","argument":"Trigger warnings also promote a sense of accountability instilling the fact that while people have the right to express their views, those expressions can have consequences, both for themselves and for others. Trigger warnings can force other students to be more aware of the things they say.","conclusion":"Even people who may not need trigger warnings will now be more aware of how content that may appear harmless to them can be quite damaging to their fellows. This holistically can lead to a more empathetic environment."}
{"id":"f8722d61-eec0-4802-9da6-e709b95b6f11","argument":"Over the years I have enjoyed discussing fan theories for many shows and movies here on reddit, but I've found that the more theories I've read and discussed for a series, the less I enjoy it once it's concluded. For example, I feel like the most recent season of Game of Thrones was spoiled for me because a lot of what happened had been theorized. Discussing these theories can be fun. It lets us think creatively and gives us some satisfaction if our theory comes true. But they take away from the excitement of watching something new. Every twist feels like its been spoiled and if our theory turns out to be wrong, it can leave us disappointed. It could be argued that good writing can prevent the above from happening. But I think characters should behave in a believable ways and events should have some level of foreshadowing in order for a story to be enjoyable. If a group of people think about it enough, they can think of most of the ways a story can go, at least in the short term, based on foreshadowing and believable character decisions. If you take these out you're left with chaotic stories that make no sense. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Making\/discussing fan theories before the conclusion of a series leads to a worse experience."}
{"id":"278d7ec8-0adf-4d01-b46c-ad5b586718e2","argument":"Consumption expenditure differs substantially between low and high-income groups: it is estimated that low-wage workers add about $1.21 to the national economy per dollar they have to spend, while high-income workers only add about 39 cents. Redistribution would therefore help expand the economy.","conclusion":"Better wages, conditions, and more money in the hands of low earners, has been shown to improve aggregate demand and therefore grow the economy."}
{"id":"db49503b-b34a-4cb9-ba86-17a6d609840e","argument":"For one's maxim to be acceptable, it needs to pass the universal test: \"to assess the moral permissibility of my maxim, I ask whether everyone could act on it, or whether it could be willed as a universal law The issue is not whether it would be good if everyone acted on my maxim, or whether I would like it, but only whether it would be possible for my maxim to be willed as a universal law\".","conclusion":"Even if the Administrator has an identical reasoned outcome to the collective will, he will not be acting in accordance to the categorical imperative, because Kant insists that we don't just do the right thing but do it for the right reasons. The right reason is that one's reason is derived from the categorical imperative."}
{"id":"73666589-3899-40f5-b6ff-5f3ca3dbd5ee","argument":"If you grant fundamental rights to AGI, there is a risk that it will get in a position in society where it would be able to take away those same rights from humans.","conclusion":"Granting fundamental rights to AGI could make it harder to fight with them in case of a threat."}
{"id":"0db1b327-d89d-43a5-a4be-d198130ed1ec","argument":"The example I'm specifically talking about appears below Political compass Authoritarian here is used as a synonym for socially conservative, i.e. that there should be lots of rules governing sexuality, drug possession, and other cultural issues. The problem is that this definition of authoritarian is confusing with, and different from, the type of authoritarian that is used to describe regimes. According to Wikipedia gt Authoritarianism is a form of government characterized by strong central power and limited political freedoms. Individual freedoms are subordinate to the state and there is no constitutional accountability under an authoritarian regime. All of the Wiki definition focuses on political freedoms, such as the right to vote and dissent. It says nothing about the social freedoms that appear on the ideological spectrum. To paraphrase, there is no inherent contradiction between supporting gay rights and throwing your opponents out of helicopters. There have actually been political parties and movements that are socially progressive but politically authoritarian the early USSR for instance was fiercely secular and internationalist and at least initially was fairly tolerant of gays and minorities for its time, but it also had a secret police and significant burdens on dissidents. Similarly, Revolutionary France was quite liberal on issues of religion, culture, and class, but if you disagreed you had to worry about the guillotine. Awesome s Even today, you'll find dogmatic elements within many libertarian leaning movements the US Libertarian Party historically had a large racist and neo Confederate sector and even some elements within BLM antifa have begun violently suppressing views they disagree with while remaining quite permissive on gay rights, weed, and feminism. Conversely, the Amish are very socially conservative but have no interest in oppressing non conservatives. The point I'm making is that authoritarianism is not an ideological position but instead reflects an I'm right and everyone else is wrong way of thinking. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Authoritarianism should not be an axis on an ideological spectrum."}
{"id":"26036dc1-f8e6-4893-9bc9-fc0f1971d3bd","argument":"As I said in the title, I honestly think that marijuana should be made legal, as all tests show that it is legitimately no worse than any other commercially available and regulated drug, and it fills up the time and space of courts and jails that could otherwise be used on legitimately dangerous people. However, I feel that in the modern world, where it is illegal in nearly every country worldwide in some form, there is absolutely no reason for anyone to go out of their way to use it, and anyone who chooses to is making an inherently stupid and unreasonable decision. Here's the way I see it If you smoke weed you're basically saying I'm going to go out of my way to spend thousands of dollars a year on a substance I could be arrested for even interacting with, despite having many legal alternatives I could use instead. You are basically throwing your income away on a product you can't legally own. If you want to fill the gap there's still alcohol and regular tobacco products, among other things. If someone catches you using it there's a chance you could be arrested and given a heavy sentence. I just do not understand how someone could logically decide to smoke it after all that, and would really like to at least get an idea as to why. Also I really don't want to hear the I do it because I don't believe it should be illegal speech because that makes even less sense to me. Just because you don't personally agree with a law doesn't mean you shouldn't follow it. If someone came up to you and said I sleep with 12 year olds because I don't agree with the age of consent or I beat up random people on the street because I don't agree with assault laws would you support them? What makes smoking weed any different? Please, someone explain.","conclusion":"I believe marijuana should be legalized but am strongly against its use in the current world."}
{"id":"570180a9-9293-4e8f-abee-6f6c31758972","argument":"Historians of material culture have recently argued that the means by which books were assembled and bound can provide just as much information as the language written inside They have thus invented a new category of source which has never yet been studied.","conclusion":"Innovative historians frequently find new types of source to examine. Any formal criteria for what constitutes a source would have to be almost constantly revised."}
{"id":"a53cc844-e7fc-42cb-91d3-ef5522bbdfe3","argument":"If you live in america, I believe you are required to take a foreign language. However, the vast majority of students have a very low degree of proficiency in the said language. This makes it questionable why students are forced to learn german, spanish, french, etc. This is where Esperanto comes in. It is a language so easy, that I believe it can be taught in a school in at least 1 1.5 years. It can give students language learning basics, so if they want to learn another language on their own time, It will be a lot easier. Don't think that I'm saying it is a good idea to produce a bunch of fluent Esperanto speakers, but rather help students establish their own language learning skills. Like i said, the reality is that most languages that schools teach are hard and not interesting to students. Esperanto, can be fun, easy, and helpful for learning languages. Edit Sorry I haven't responded, I've had some internet issues.","conclusion":"Esperanto should be taught as a second language in American schools, rather than Spanish, French, etc."}
{"id":"7c565933-58a7-4027-a94e-04519373ece0","argument":"The Lake of Fire is not the same as Hades and Sheol because it is made for the devil and his angels","conclusion":"The Lake of Fire and the myth of Hell are not the same thing."}
{"id":"63926c61-574d-445c-8b37-200b306ddd06","argument":"Those who kill white people are considerably more likely to be sentenced to death than those who kill black people.","conclusion":"Race continues to play a strong role in US death penalty cases."}
{"id":"2102c68e-453f-4988-9564-5ac70286f122","argument":"My roommate and I had been arguing about this for a few hours I claim that other competitive games, especially RTS games, are far harder than MOBA games. Right now, I don't even think it's a contest, where I feel like the ranked play of a MOBA feels like a casual game compared to an RTS. I would still hold the argument for other genres, but RTS is my favorite genre of games, so it's what I think about most in this situation. Therefore, these arguments are probably gonna be most related to RTS games. Also, assume that the MOBA is team based and the RTS is 1v1. To preface, we're not each exactly qualified to shut down the other side of the argument my roommate has never played an RTS, at least competitively, and I have maybe 1000 hours combined of DOTA and LOL, but I never played LOL ranked and I had a horrible rank in DOTA 2. His highest rank in LOL is Gold 5 my highest rank in SC2 is Plat 1, and I don't even remember my horrible MMR in DOTA 2. My arguments Executing actions in a game at a perfect level is nearly impossible, and definitely impossible for an RTS. You can never hit perfection, but the closer you get to that level, the better you will perform. I feel that the limit for perfection is far easier for a MOBA than an RTS, because you have to control a single unit, possibly a few more depending on the game, as opposed to dozens, up to hundreds, of units. In each case, there are similar possible executions to more efficiently perform whatever in your game, but the fact that you'd have to perform these movements on hundreds of units, as opposed to one or a few, easily makes this genre's upper limit harder to attain. Examples include stutter stepping, dodging skill shots, etc. RTS games, and 1v1 games in general, keep you under constant pressure. You never, ever get a break because the game isn't designed that way. When you're playing a MOBA and you're returning to the base, buying items, jungling, etc. the tasks are very mundane and easy. In comparison, really only the first ~2 minutes of the game, while you set up your economy, is considered mundane, but the rest of it is nerve wracking. His arguments to be fair, these will be less wordy because we talked about this about a week ago, I don't want to bother him about it now, and I'm biased When you're playing a 1v1 game, the game is not as complex because you're the only person deciding the fate of your game. When you're playing with teammates, it's hard to establish communication with your teammates and make sure that everybody is executing in sync. The game becomes more complicated because there are so many matchups and aspects of characters to remember. Each matchup plays out differently, and you have to remember what works in what situation against what characters. This is a lot harder than what happens in RTS games, where you tend to know what you're gonna deal with because the meta game narrows down what's gonna happen in the game. his counter arguments It may be harder to approach a perfect level of execution in RTS games, but the fact that each game's level of perfection is unattainable makes them both difficult enough to have room for improvement and more efficient play. My counter arguments Difficulty of execution trumps difficulty of decision making. Expertise in things like sports are not determined by knowledge, but moreso by capability. Since I Powerlift, I'll use this comparison anybody can be shown the absolute perfect form for a lift, but that doesn't automagically give them the ability to lift record breaking amounts of weight. At the end of the day, the better powerlifter will be the one that is stronger and can lift more, which is more determined by physical aptitude than the decisions made for form or things like that. Another example, looking at chess if you're given a situation, everybody has the capability to make a certain decision, so everybody is on a level playing field there's no barrier formed by execution skill, so everybody is capable of being good at the game. That's not to say that it's easy to learn how to be good at the game, but the execution of it becomes far harder than the simple game knowledge. The game may have more complexity because there are more characters and such, but again, it's very physically possible to remember everything that there is to remember for the game. Remembering aspects of the game is a process, but it doesn't necessarily become difficult pretty much anybody is capable of remembering all there is to remember in a game, but not everybody is capable of reaching a level of performing actions in the game at a high enough efficiency. The upper limit of game knowledge is very attainable, but perfect execution of things in the game is not. Kind of similar to the previous point. So, friends, , and good luck.","conclusion":"Competitively, the difficulty of MOBA games is dwarfed by the difficulty of games of other genres: FPS games, Fighting games, and especially RTS games"}
{"id":"62a1329e-8c9e-4e39-a718-b9d8e0ae8c45","argument":"Many people are calling this sexual assault, harassment etc. They are calling Thompson all sorts of names just for an intended friendly kiss. In many parts of the world 2 or 3 kisses to the side of the head, like the one in the video, are exchanged upon saying hello and goodbye. Also it has been said that he had no consent. But it is not as though you ask to kiss someone every time. By the way he kissed her on her hair. I'm not saying this was the most professional thing he could have done, but it is being turned into an act of war against women's rights everywhere. To address the naming of it as harassment, this was in no one persistent or aggressive. He made a judgement call that some didn't like, maybe she minded the kiss, maybe she didn't. It wasn't an overly sexual kiss at that. He shouldn't be, fined or suspended and he shouldn't be ostracized. Edit Here is the requested outrage","conclusion":"The reaction to Tristan Thompson's kiss is insane."}
{"id":"d9099b1c-763e-40ee-8d72-5d22ec4c362c","argument":"I Have been researching this topic for quite awhile now and I have become concinced that the evidence of tupac faking his own death outweighs the evidence to the contrary. The speculation came as a result of of many celebrities coming out and saying that Tupac is indeed alive and well and many people beleive he might be coming back this year following the the footsteps Niccollo Machaiveli and coming back 18 years after his faked death. A Couple of big reasons I beleive Tupac's death was planned. In the United States, their is currently only ONE state that allows a person to LEGALLY fake his her death and be given a new identity. Only on the terms that the person who is planning their death has had someone attempt to murder them 2 times or more. Looking back at Tupac Shakur's life we all know people have attempted to murder him, examples include, August 22, 1992, in Marin City, California, When Shakur performed at an outdoor festival and a rapper pulled out a Colt Mustang trying to shoot Shakur. November 30, 1994, Shakur was shot five times and robbed after entering the lobby of Quad Recording Studios in Manhattan by two armed men in army fatigues. As the story goes we know this is when the whole beef starts between Biggie Smalls P. Diddy VS Tupac Shakur In October 1993, in Atlanta, two brothers and off duty police officers were with their wives celebrating a recent passing of the state bar examination. As they all crossed the street, a car with Shakur inside passed by them or almost struck them, after which they began an altercation with the driver, Shakur and the other passengers, which was then joined by a second passing car. Mark Whitwell was charged with firing at Shakur's car and later lying to the police during the investigation, and Shakur with firing back, until prosecutors decided to drop all charges against all parties. And then theirs the staged death, On September 7, 1996, Shakur was shot four times in Las Vegas, Nevada. He was taken to the University Medical Center, where he died six days later. Again all this just relates to my first point about Faking Death in the state of Nevada. Now I would just like to present some a few other interesting details to the debate. Tupac was cremated the day after he died. Since when does some one get cremated the day after a murder? There was no autopsy. Plus, no one can ask to dig up his grave like they wanted to do with Elvis and like they did with Abraham Lincoln. Tupac always wore a bulletproof vest, but for some strange reason he didn't wear one the night he was with Suge Knight and was shot. The memorial services that were open to the public were canceled in both Los Angeles and Atlanta. Tupac's vehicle got shot 12 times and Suge didn't get hit once, He was 'grazed' by a bullet, Why did Tupac get shot all those times and Suge not get hit once? If a car pulls up next to you and shots at the passenger 12 times if one bullet hits the passenger the odds of 1 out of 12 not hitting the driver are 1 NONE. In the music video To Live And Die in LA Tupac was wearing shoes that hadn't come out til 3 years after his death. In Tupac's coroners report, it says he was 6.0 weighing 215 pounds. Tupac was 5.10 and weighed 165 pounds. Nobody had ever seen Tupac in the hospital and he was cremated the day after he died, so there was no autopsy. It is legally required to have an autopsy after death. Nevada is the only state where it is legal to fake your own death","conclusion":"I believe rapper Tupac Shakur is alive and hiding."}
{"id":"4b1cd962-ef1a-4917-8993-ffc236d0aff4","argument":"First of all I want to say that whatever anyone wants to do in the privacy of their own bedrooms is fine by me, as long as everyone is consenting to whatever is going on. Consent is a hugely important part of sex of course. Which leads to the main point of this post. If a couple is into public humiliation leashes, insults, demeaning behavior, etc and they regularly engage in humiliating acts to receive sexual gratification from the reactions of the random people on the street, to me that is akin to rape as the couple has now forced other people into their sexual act with no consent. I'm not saying I feel raped or anything, as that would be doing a disservice to people that have actually been raped, but I have to say I do feel icky that my reaction is being used to get people off when I was just trying to go to the corner store. If I was into fucking in public and the reactions people had when I was caught, and then had sex in public and got caught I would be charged with a crime. If I wanted someone to watch me masturbate and she didn't want to and I just started jerking, I'd be charged with a crime. If I were an exhibitionist I would be charged with a crime when I flashed someone. If I dress up like a dog while my girlfriend drags me around by a leash calling me a freak and a faggot, telling me how all these people on the street are disgusted by me and how ashamed I should be, that's totally fine? Please, change my view.","conclusion":"People who are into public humiliation are basically raping the general public."}
{"id":"0a4e817f-3c8a-4e2b-a53f-2d43571987d8","argument":"I find that often times women want to be promiscuous without judgement, but at the same time they look down upon male virgins especially after a certain age . In fact, when men share unpopular ideas in many of the woman heavy subs, they tend to get called out for their lack of gf so have fun jerking in your basement , lack of attractiveness or undesirability no girl wold ever sleep with you . Most women would say that they want a man who knows what he is doing and that a lack of sexual relationships after a certain amount of time would be a red flag. Women want to be with men who have experience, which is understandable. Here is the part that confuses me. Following this logic why are men not allowed to choose partners based on promiscuity. whatever my reasons may be, if i prefer a girl who has had little or no partners, how is that different from preferring an experienced man? In an askwomen thread a virgin was told by the women there that he should tell future lovers he is a virgin. The same week I saw a thread telling a girl with a promiscuous past to keep it to herself. I think that if women can prefer men with experience without judgement, men should be able to prefer women with less experience if that is what they so choose without judgement as well. Change my view please.","conclusion":"There's nothing wrong with slut shaming."}
{"id":"df776032-17a5-4194-a4de-5ac58d4df5a4","argument":"The words \"correct\" and \"incorrect\" were not created as two separate spectrums. Rather they were formulated to demarcate the extreme ends of a single spectrum, each being conclusive of an absolute validity of the referenced claim or the absolute lack of validity.","conclusion":"If it is impossible to define what is or is not correct by selecting the principles and values one agrees with, then the term correct has no meaning or reason for existence."}
{"id":"2f85f88e-fe02-4f1d-8e35-5a5760cec137","argument":"A carer in the house which is usually a women in India would get their income from taxes given by the person who is working.amp.scroll.in","conclusion":"In India, a UBI would improve gender equality, as poorer incomes are typically earned by women."}
{"id":"156a8e91-5cfa-4ab1-9520-d8a6581ff01e","argument":"Browsing reddit for a while , I noticed this trend of being afraid that ''stupid'' people will out breed smart people and that civilization will go to shit in a downward spiral of dumbness. I don't think this will ever happen. Even the people you consider stupid are usefull to society. By stupid I mean people deemed of lower status like retail people , factory workers, etc Reddit loves to hate while being self proclaim liberal . I also beleive that the average stupid person isn't too detrimental to society. They earn wage, accomplish work , pay taxes and produce offspring that will continue the human specie. Said children have varying potential that can lead to sucessful lives and increased education level class level that will ''boost up'' their line. Humanity as always been composed of an average majority with extremely smart minority and extremely dumb minority. I don't think it's worst than it as been, if anything I think western civilization is getting in average better. Bref, reality tv lover dark ages peasants and we still strived and progessed as a society gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than just downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I don't think scenario like ''Idiocracy'' will ever happen."}
{"id":"ec618c65-7191-4091-81ba-e9a45f4b4d90","argument":"I write this in specific reference to the primary season that is on going in the US right now and particularly about closed primaries where only party members can vote. To win primaries, candidates have to pander to their own party's base rank and file. This is to say that primary candidates are strongly incentives to move towards their party's ideological extremities rather than towards the centre. Because of primaries, candidates are dis incentivised towards moderation and compromise. Gestures even vaguely resembling compromise or even amicability towards politicians from the other side of the aisle can used against candidates running in a primary. Just look at the controversy over Chris Christie being pictured hugging Barack Obama. A system where senior party leaders for the most part, choose their election candidates and where they are fielded for elections like in the Westminster systems works better because a party's national leadership are more likely to have a party's national interests at heart because ultimately, parties have to win elections on a national scale and amongst all voters. The notion of having to chase the voters of the national electorate breeds compromise and moderation and not the ideological polarisation that we see in American politics. What do you think?","conclusion":"Having rank and file party members decide their party's election candidates leads to poor political outcomes."}
{"id":"c052b3a4-27d4-4622-972f-6319982e72fa","argument":"The First Order is essentially coded as a Neo-Nazis organization. The movie makes clear that women are present and dealing with the issues at hand, much more so than Episodes 3 and 6. Rose Tico reminds us of something that has become forgotten amidst present-day political debate. Poe's story line reminds him to remain cool and work with those on his side rather than rushing in alone. Rey has to surpass the \"older generation.\"","conclusion":"The Last Jedi selected its themes to deal with present day issues."}
{"id":"43fa2a5d-7f5f-403e-a7f6-953bbc9d9402","argument":"To preface, Im white. In my education, we were consistently taught that stereotypes of any form were bad. We came to the conclusion that stereotypes only represented certain members of a group, and that each member of any group should be judged as an individual first and foremost. We learned that stereotypes are, for the most part, not true . Now, I like to joke around alot. Often times, me and my friends might make jokes about racial subjects. An example of this is speaking as a Jewish grandmother with a grating voice and drawn out pronunciations. Of course, we know this is not true in reality but with think the caricature is so funny and expressive that we'll joke about it. Pretty much all of Key and Peele is a good example of this concept as well. They are constantly poking fun at the caricature of black people. Is this racist? EDIT Thank you all for these responses My opinion has certainly changed. From what I'm gathering, these jokes DO all have roots in a racism, and should only be approached with a combination of tactfulness and transparency. If I am to continue telling these jokes, I should be thoughtful about whom I'm telling them to, and whether or not they might proliferate harmful messages. And, context changes everything. Despite my now changed opinion, I will still respond to posts if they wish to continue conversation.","conclusion":"Joking about racial stereotypes is not racist"}
{"id":"84c4a1e4-96e7-4cb1-97e4-ab1b0631a652","argument":"Nuclear technology exists, and there is no way to un-invent it. Much as the ideal of global disarmament is fine, the reality is that it is impossible: it takes only one rogue state to maintain a secret nuclear capability to make the abolition of the major powers' deterrents unworkable. Without the threat of a retaliatory strike, this state could attack others at will.","conclusion":"It's not possible to abolish nuclear weapons now that the are at large."}
{"id":"1a03e8fa-40cb-4cf7-a8a1-597a4e115702","argument":"In the past, Section 230 has been upheld with regard to a broad range of issues and the only exception to this rule are intellectual property infringements. Thus, the section also protects networks from liability for accounts affiliated with terrorist organisations.","conclusion":"Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 protects online services from liability for speech published on their network."}
{"id":"0cef91e6-155b-4b61-9026-eefbfc64596d","argument":"The Jewish settler group Nahalat Shimon was able to evict Palestinian families from their homes in East Jerusalem because they did not own titles to the land.","conclusion":"In many instances Palestinians do not have legal title to the land."}
{"id":"937ca16d-3271-445b-9f8c-47e44909c7b4","argument":"Harry has spent a lifetime socialising in circles of the rich, famous and influential based on his status as a senior royal. Even if he renounces his royal status, he will continue to have and benefit from these connections, friendships and contacts with the rich and powerful.","conclusion":"Harry's future successes will always be indirectly attributable to his royal upbringing."}
{"id":"ed89ebb7-ffbd-4fa7-bf68-321861a1afa4","argument":"I was recently informed that I have been banned from r OffMyChest for saying something on r The Donald. I am not even a Trump supporter. I was just asking a question in the AmA. I got a message from r OffMyChest saying that I am banned for participating in a hate subreddit. This is absurd. They shouldn't be able to ban me for something I did on another subreddit. I think reddit should make this against the rules. If the subreddit was an actual hate subreddit, reddit probably would have banned it. It's still up for a reason. Reddit hasn't even quarantined it. I don't even go on r The Donald because I am not a Trump fan. I honestly get tired of seeing the spam on the front page. However, I think it's unfair to not allow Trump supporters on r OffMyChest. Lets say the r offmychest mods were Trump fans. Would they be allowed to ban me for participating on r SandersForPresident? If this becomes a trend, it could really reduce the quality of reddit. Lets say if I make a post on r HipHopHeads and I get banned from r Music because the mods on music dont like hip hop. That is really unfair and causes me to have to limit my experience on reddit. I should be able to participate on any subreddit I wish, without the fear of mods from another subreddit banning me. What if more subreddits banned users from r The Donald? This would literally limit subreddits that users could use. It also encourages people creating other accounts to circulate subreddits that they are banned from which is technically against the rules. In conclusion, I think that this is really bad for reddit. Mods shouldn't have the power to limit what subreddits the users of their subreddit can go on. Reddit needs to ban this because if this trend catches on, reddit will really go down in quality and it will cause users to not be able to use a large variety of subreddits.","conclusion":"Reddit should make a rule prohibiting mods from banning people from their subreddit for participating on another subreddit."}
{"id":"1bb9f8e7-b495-4007-8a1b-151858d05e95","argument":"Pope Francis has said that Catholics in mortal sin should still be allowed receive Holy Communion, something that was previously prohibited.","conclusion":"Others, such as his statements surrounding who can receive communion, are not in line with existing Church doctrine"}
{"id":"6211de1b-4a3c-4121-8ad0-91889db5d8c8","argument":"The treatment of actresses on set by directors like Alfred Hitchcock is seen very controversially because even while simulating fear and terror in a controlled environment, their actions are still seen as abusive by many.","conclusion":"Controlled abuse is still abuse, controlled is just an adjective."}
{"id":"cdcf2f49-9157-47aa-bf32-8e129dd710d7","argument":"Linking Aadhaar with bank accounts and PAN card could efficiently curb out the flow of black money and expose tax-non payers.","conclusion":"Aadhaar Unique Identity Number should be made mandatory for all citizens of India."}
{"id":"2a817ed9-4256-42e2-9ac5-d5660e297d6f","argument":"Assassination of a dictator may be the only way to effect change in a country where a repressive police state prevents any possibility of internal opposition. Cowed populaces need a signal in order to find the courage to campaign for change. If there is no way to bring tyrants guilty of terrorising their own people to justice, then assassination can be justified. And the example elsewhere of assassinated dictators will act as a warning to would be tyrants in future.","conclusion":"Assassination of a dictator may be the only way to effect change in a country where a repressive pol..."}
{"id":"a92f70d4-8cec-4e6f-b420-fcc86a745e81","argument":"Obama's pronouncement of the Clinton campaign slogan, 'I'm with her', combined with his remark that 'I don't think there has ever been someone so qualified to hold this office', underscores his support for a female President of the United States.","conclusion":"Obama endorsed Hillary Clinton for the White House, helping her become the first woman in US history to be nominated by a major party. This further indicates his commitment to feminism."}
{"id":"e2605b61-67c1-46d5-999c-f41d69054308","argument":"Historic wrongs against aboriginal peoples have created a cycle of poverty, under-education and unemployment. Aboriginal peoples may have lower test scores or missed job opportunities because of this history. As such, quotas for university seats or public service positions can help redress community wrongs and create a stronger aboriginal identity.","conclusion":"In the U.S., affirmative action is an acceptable way of \"levelling the playing field\", why not approaches to aboriginals as well:"}
{"id":"b0121fab-b80e-47f7-b9e3-bc4fdba535ec","argument":"A larger group of friends requires a huge commitment to remain in touch with all of them. It's easier to build a regular schedule with fewer people.","conclusion":"Having fewer closer friends allows time for time alone and self reflection."}
{"id":"86263621-2962-425e-81ba-c1bc7d67df35","argument":"While growing GM crops is thought to be an economical benefit to farmers, this only applies to large farming businesses who can afford to buy the seeds in the first place, at twice the price of average seeds. These farmers must be willing to buy new seeds each year as most are patented and will become sterile after 12 months. If GM food is to solve world hunger, seeds will have to be offered to small farmers and those in third world countries at a reduced rate 8. However, while these large farms benefit from higher profits, the Monsanto corporation, responsible for the overall engineering of GM products, is described as a \u2018multi-billion dollar world-wide outfit\u201d 9. The testing process of GM foods is not only controversial but hugely expensive. Vast amounts of money are spent on extensive, complex testing of the foods which is essential if they are to be put on sale for human consumption. But is it really worth the hassle and resources? It seems absurd to invest millions of pounds in preparing food which supposedly will provide health benefits if detriments to health appear inevitable in the long run. 8 9","conclusion":"It is a huge waste of money to spend on something which carries a lot of risks"}
{"id":"47b00cc1-c808-4a0f-91b8-a25bd5942742","argument":"Some people might think that in their current situation no form of currently developed treatment would help, and prefer to remain silent for that reason.","conclusion":"Since the only method we have of telling if someone is transgender is self report, it is quite possible that the number is under-reported."}
{"id":"a47054e7-5246-4da6-b6c4-d476f1cb0a23","argument":"Wind farms are faster to build: a 10 MW wind farm can easily be built in two months. A larger 50 MW wind farm can be built in six months.","conclusion":"Sufficient fission reactors cannot be built in time to prevent further climate change."}
{"id":"93401e1f-4dd3-4107-9d6e-d20926f29bea","argument":"Many drugs have traditional or religious uses including psilocybin mushrooms, salvia divinorum, ayahuasca, peyote, and tobacco. Not all of these drugs are protected for such purposes. Legalising them uniformly would enable people to undergo the experiences of these drugs in their original context, supervised by those who are adept in the practices of using them that have been developed over many generations\u2014the absence of which may be harmful when they are taken purely recreationally.","conclusion":"The use of psychoactive substances has been a part of human culture for thousands of years; drugs have been used for religious, medical or recreational purposes."}
{"id":"cbe4294c-2272-4518-ab02-a819429cc66e","argument":"While there have been many dynasty fears and complaints regarding electing Hillary Clinton in 2008, the problem is that these same fears were not expressed when Bush ran for office in 2000. If these concerns are raised only with Hillary Clinton, it would seem that a double standard has been applied.","conclusion":"If Clinton's election would be dynastic, what about Bush II?"}
{"id":"f0e02b55-a290-4931-a3ab-a2d8d34c1776","argument":"A UBI will reduce the stigma of the \"Undeserving poor\". By providing a universal grant of income, without any judgement or assessment, there can be no question of deserved or undeserved.","conclusion":"Universal is key here. It removes the stigma and levels the moral playing field for people who need it."}
{"id":"516a8f8f-ba47-47ee-af45-6978b533d8bc","argument":"If humans suddenly become extinct, there is the possibility that this more dangerous predator may come along and do more damage than humans did.","conclusion":"Without human beings, the world may have become inhabited by an even more destructive apex species."}
{"id":"44dd6851-0f59-4825-866d-ba736e32a7e7","argument":"An Omnisciencent being who can see the future, contradicts freewill as it requires a predetermined future to exist.","conclusion":"God's omniscience regarding our \"choices\" may mean that a classical God cannot give us freewill."}
{"id":"9b559c04-1219-411e-8709-f6f0b7f5f536","argument":"In the United States, it's not uncommon to see an advertisement for prescription medicine on TV. I've seen on Reddit that this only happens in the US and New Zealand, and it's banned elsewhere. People mention how strange it is and say it's unethical, but I've never seen any evidence or reasoning for it, other than we're the only ones that do it. I don't see the problem with it, especially if it's ads for common illnesses, such as depression. These ads can make someone say oh, I may have this and need to talk to my doctor about it. If it's something serious, like depression or anxiety, it may be the push to get some help. I genuinely don't see the problem with this, it's no different from an OTC ad or an ad for doctors offices.","conclusion":"Ads for prescription drugs are not a big deal"}
{"id":"276fa888-d338-47df-b5f0-83746834c3c7","argument":"Now, before I begin, I want to make it clear that I am not the stereotypical sports jock who puts down non traditional sports like cheerleading and marching band. I am currently in high school marching band, and have never been good at any actual sports. A sport has always been a competitive activity that involves either individuals or teams competing against each other to win a game or match. Sports have clear winners that can be determined by either the amount of points an individual or team wins ex football, soccer, tennis, etc. , or which individual or team finishes first ex swim, track, etc. . Therefore, anything that cannot be determined to have a clear winner should not be considered a sport. Even if you don't accept this definition, there is a clear difference between artistic activities and athletic activities. Athletic events require mostly physical fitness and coordination, and have a clear winner. Artistic events, like marching band and dance, may require physical activity, but mostly utilize one's creative interpretation. Additionally, artistic events cannot be judged objectively, and artistic competitions almost always have judges who use their own subjection to determine the winners. Now, for some reason, there has been a strange push in the last decade or so to define just about any and all extracurricular activities as sports, especially in high schools. When meeting someone in high school, instead of asking what that person enjoys to do, the primary question seems to be what sports do you play . While this isn't really part of my main argument, I think a possible reason for this trend is the desire from students to feel included in the world of sports, despite not being good enough for traditional sports. Edit I'm a little annoyed that people have downvoted some of my responses. I thought the point of this subreddit was to not downvote people's opinions, and to only downvote stuff that is against the rules or irrelevant, which my replies are neither to my knowledge. I don't intend for everyone to agree with my argument, but I do expect people to show respect when responding to my argument, as I do to them.","conclusion":"I don't think marching band, cheerleading, dance, etc. should be considered sports."}
{"id":"39648f71-7241-435a-b154-48059532c79b","argument":"Abolishing referendums would take away the population's only means of directly influencing political decision-making processes in representative democracies.","conclusion":"The people, as the sovereign, must have the right to directly influence political decisions."}
{"id":"f9b8fa77-f7e8-4642-8561-ca44fba5bebb","argument":"I think that when a young child lt 16 years of age breaks a serious law, the parent should be held at least partially responsible. If a parent's job is to raise their child to be a productive member of society, then having a child but raising them in such a way that they are committing crimes at a young age should be punishable by law. It could be a fine, it could be CPS taking your kids away while they investigate, it could be jail time if it turns out you advocating criminal behaviour, but something should be done so as to help reduce apathetic parenting.","conclusion":"Apathetic parents should be held accountable when their young children break the law"}
{"id":"13f1feb4-86e7-4cd1-b37f-1c33958e03f5","argument":"During the campaign, there were scandals suggesting that those wishing to influence Trump were better served tweeting, or leaking to the media than using traditional forms of political discussion or persuasion, e.g. memos.","conclusion":"It is fair to assume that an experienced politician like Putin assumed he would be more able to manipulate a political novice like Donald Trump than Hillary Clinton."}
{"id":"2d9e9faf-1126-4512-a0b4-05934fa57a26","argument":"A proliferation of many voting methods, each with their confusing terminology and not, on the surface, easy to philosophically connect i.e. all cardinal methods are about utilitarianism, all ranked methods are about majority rule will make it harder for politicians to connect the dots before it's too late for them.","conclusion":"Politicians may not understand its implications either, making it less likely that they will be able to repeal or outlaw the idea by the time it reduces their power."}
{"id":"a6c2f4cb-cc46-442d-80a9-cbf71fd40f9a","argument":"Right now a lot of the high paying jobs are being hoarded by baby boomers. So us younger people are unable to get a good job because a lot are occupied by the boomers. There is an article that says currently people arent having enough babies to fill in for the older generation. They made it seem like a bad thing. This is actually an amazing thing. That means there will be a very large amount of well paying jobs available to the younger generations. This means that younger people will actually be able to get well paying jobs again. The current job market may have plenty of jobs, but most of those jobs available currently are low paying awful jobs. 8 12 an hour is what most of those jobs are paying. When the baby boomers are gone, those 25 35 an hour cozy jobs they hogged will become available to younger people finally. Add onto this that the younger generations will also inherit a lot of the boomers money. This will raise the quality of life substantially. Young people will finally be able to afford new houses, new trucks, new toys, etc. Itll be great when the boomers are gone.","conclusion":"When the baby boomers are gone the job market will be amazing."}
{"id":"ededea52-b133-4251-be42-d491cfe670d9","argument":"The Paris Climate Agreement is wholly unrealistic when you think of consumer economics. This will require that nations remove fuels that damage the atmosphere, but the cars most citizens can afford are exclusively the same cars that consume said fuel. It is both fiscally unrealistic and fiscally irresponsible for anyone to adhere to the demand.","conclusion":"It makes no significant impact. The Paris Climate Agreement is symbolic and unenforceable."}
{"id":"1d0a561e-d09f-4f1c-8d98-e0bb5c67bd79","argument":"According to Dartmouth\u2019s website, students from families earning less than $100,000 receive free tuition which allows middle and low-income students to attend college without financial worries.","conclusion":"If a family's annual income goes below a certain point, their children have to pay virtually nothing to attend Ivy League colleges."}
{"id":"23a1e9ad-d3c5-4645-afb3-08f557814a9c","argument":"The US and UK were hacking into Israeli drones. The same could be done with AKMs.","conclusion":"Ordinary fighter plane computer systems could be hacked just as easily."}
{"id":"a9a7d6e4-46f3-49c2-b733-f634f48238d6","argument":"Wedding vows have long been considered to be relationship contracts. The original idea was to have two people enter into an agreement before a witness and a community. The default relationship being \"until one of us dies\"","conclusion":"Relationships are an agreement anyway, even though it may be unspoken."}
{"id":"0eede02e-b6b1-4f36-b0ad-f4a1bfa1d69e","argument":"Nico Cue\u0301 was General Secretary of the steelworkers union MWB-FGTB and therewith likely to improve their working conditions.","conclusion":"A member of the European Left as EU Commission president would lead to more labor friendly policies."}
{"id":"71cc044e-411c-4f94-9c90-790b17abe961","argument":"Think about all the elections over the past 5 years and then think about what would happen if you flipped the results. No Tony Abbott, no Stephen Harper, no Republican Congress, no Netanyahu, no Putin democracy is worse than a coin flip at choosing the better leader. Let's look at some case studies Saudi Arabia . You think the current Saudi regime is bad? A democratically elected government would almost certainly yield an ISIS supermajority, at least doubling the execution rate, reversing the diligent steps that recent kings have made towards women's rights, and making it unsafe for non Muslims to even set foot in the kingdom. Europe . Politics here is already controlled by the global oligarchs look at all the elections that haven't made a whit of difference SYRIZA, the alternating left wing austerity and right wing austerity regimes in Denmark or that have been between bad choices the most recent Polish election saw the left completely shut out of parliament, with voters choosing between a nutsy religious right and an even worse neoliberal right . The USA . I'm sure many of us are most familiar with one of the most established democracies on earth, but I'd wonder what it would be like as an absolute kingdom or principality. You'd probably not have so many Republicans in office. Singapore and HK, two of the best societies on earth, are far from liberal democracies and yet Europeans, Americans, and Aussies flock to them.","conclusion":"Absolute monarchies are as good, if not better, as democracies in a non-trivial amount of situations."}
{"id":"eeacd195-8f92-4cac-bac5-24c60c31bf40","argument":"I'd like to first establish my position that might reveal biases background. I am a 23 year old minority ish male. I work in an engineering field and make a decent living. I have lived in an apartment for 2 years and since last year I have lived by myself for 1 year taking care of my bills, cleaning up, running errands, working, etc independently. I am strongly against having children though maybe adopting and I am an atheist. I strongly feel young women should but do not have to begin more education scholarships into STEM fields rather than alternating to homemaking later in life. I'd like to be unisexual, ultimately I don't care if the homemaker is male or female, though I recognize a majority of homemakers are female. My feelings I feel that homemakers do not work as much as 8 5 full time workers which I will refer to as just workers . Workers have 9 hours 1 hour of driving 1 hour lunch 9 hours to do work. While the work is somewhat enjoyable, I'd rather be doing something else of course. In total I average 45 hours of work a week. In contrast, I feel from my experience, tidying up my house, washing and folding cloths, and managing my bills takes at most takes 1.5 hours a day. About three times a week I run random 1 hour errands. Making and cleaning food takes about 2 hours of my day breakfast 15mins, lunch 45 mins, dinner 1 hour . In total I average 27.5 hours of homemaking a week, which is approximately 40 less time. Those are the just numbers though. From my experience, homemaking tends to be a lot more easy going with the ability to multitask. I can easily wash my cloths and do my bills while I wait. I also find it easy to watch anime while I cook bake. Two things I'd like to note is that I recognize when taking care of multiple people, the workload will of course increase. I found that while living others, cooking for 2 people is not really too much more difficult more time than cooking for 1 person. In total, even though I would dislike having a child, I'd feel that taking care of 2 people and a child would take 35 hours for the both of us 10.5 hours for the child, 45.5 hours a week. I pulled the 10.5 from On paper those seem to be equal numbers, but that's assuming the working literally does nothing, no cleaning, no errands, no bills, etc. which I'd find hard to be the case. These are of course different workloads, but from a numeric and experiential perspective, I find it difficult to respect homemakers' effort. I hope I haven't offended anyone too much, . Edit I guess having a controversial opinion on  means downvotes, yay. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Homemakers do not work as hard as 8-5 workers"}
{"id":"7a3956c6-d176-4cd4-89f8-2848d7fdfc5e","argument":"Extreme forms of love thy neighbor for example are not dangerous taken to any extreme conviction. It is other flawed beliefs that create the danger. Such as the belief that people who disagree should be made to agree or be killed.","conclusion":"Extremism is not a problem unless the fundamental beliefs are themselves flawed. A harmless belief taken to extremes is still harmless."}
{"id":"1d2c97f6-9c32-4ba1-a283-912f0573584e","argument":"If I understand my history correctly, the idea of a 12 hour clock is basically a relic from a time before we had better ways of measuring and keeping track of time. I don't see any benefit in continuing to use this system. However, if 24 hour time became the standard, there could only be positives. It makes more sense numerically, since there's no need for a modifier like am . It should make mental calculations concerning time simpler. It also makes things less confusing for the average person no accidentally setting your alarm for 7 00PM. From what I can gather, the only reason we still use 12 hr clocks is because of tradition and or refusal to change.","conclusion":"AM\/PM time is pointless; it would be simpler and more straightforward if everyone started using 24 hour time e.g. 18:00 vs 6:00pm."}
{"id":"ace120c6-d801-479c-9f69-11ef1c9780c9","argument":"We are in a brief proud of tinge when the medical science at hand is good enough to transplant living tissue to another person after the host has past but not quite advanced enough to grow said organ without a host. I'm restricting my view to only those organs and this time sui add to allow for changing policies and views as science advances. I think that if a dead person can act as an organ donor then they are under an obligation to do so. The person is dead and no longer entitled to their bodily rights and the family shouldn't be able to condemn another to death by thirty direct selfish and fruitless actions. I don't think a person has a right to their own or another dead person's organs when it can save a life. I understand that many people feel their religion compels them to bit be organ donors and is simply say I don't care. We only have a freedom of religion in this country up until the point that it harms other people, with expeditions to any freedom being made to bit tolerate harm, negligence or hate crimes. I view the actions of a non donator or non donator family as an accomplice to the death of the potential recipient.","conclusion":"I believe that all purrple should be labeled as organ donors by default at a minimum instead of the other way around if not forcing them to be donors all together."}
{"id":"c3c4d4f7-4433-4408-b091-ecaaf1826846","argument":"Let me start by saying that I am pretty damn liberal. I am also American and I am talking about American politics. I do, however, disagree with a lot of what is going on in the far left. The far left has been campaigning for years to promote ideas such as tolerance, inclusive ness, and other hot topics that we consider socially imperative. While most of these ideas are fantastic, and should be supported, in doing so the far left has alienated anyone who is even mildly moderate. My view doesn't come from polls or data, but rather from what I am seeing throughout the internet on both social media and reddit. In lurking through several left and right winged pages and sub Reddits, I have seen nothing but the right and left spewing vitriol at one another. What I have been seeing for the last few weeks though is starting to really worry me. More and more people are leaning to the right. More and more are abandoning liberal ideas and views because they are no longer included in the liberal paradigm. Take the average white, cis gendered male. They have every bit of freedom to participate in discussions about race, gender, sexuality, etc. that permeate the left's discussion boards as members of the various LGBTQ or minority communities do. Yet, it seems that these far left groups are gate keeping. Not allowing anyone who isn't demographically similar to them into their close circle. In a sense, the far left in their need to have equality of gender, sexuality, etc, have gone as far as to exclude allies who would otherwise be on their side. Then we have the issues with money. The Left is always seen as hating the rich and honestly i can understand why. At one point in time it seemed like it was just the rich deserve to pay their fair share, just like everyone else does . Now I keep seeing French Revolution style bourgeoisie hatred and animosity towards anyone who have a modicum of wealth, thus alienating people who actually want to be wealthy. I have seen so many positive leaning post for groups like The Proud Boys, or other Alt Right groups. I read an article about how The Proud Boys went around NY beating people and using homophobic slurs against just random people, yet that received hardly an eye bat from the majority of Americans. Yet, Antifa spray paints a wall and gets called a violent mob. The Kavanaugh scandal really drove this idea home for me. There was such a HUGE movement from men that insisted that it was so dangerous for men to just exist without being accused of rape. Because Kavanaugh was rammed through, most of those people have taken it as a vindication that they were right. That Ford and the other accusers were lying. There is now this recurring theme of well, it is obvious now that the dems rigged it all thanks to Kavanaugh's confirmation. I think that this also may have disheartened many on the left. I honestly have no faith that a Blue Wave will happen in November of this year. I think instead we will see a whole lot of moderates stay right, much like in the POTUS election. I think that a lot of liberals who weren't far left are going to either abstain from voting or even vote red. I believe that we will have a republican controlled house and senate for the next two years and possibly beyond that. Please , I would like to see any reputable poll data if it is possible to see this early.","conclusion":"There will be a Red Wave in November, and it is in part, the left's fault."}
{"id":"d7395f24-1150-4867-a33e-21941537ca95","argument":"The traditional definition of the Messiah is different between Judaism and Christianity. Since the Christian definition of Messiah is so different from the traditional Jewish definition it is incorrect to say he is the promised Messiah of the ancient Hebrew religion. For this to be so, the Christian and Jewish definitions of Messiah would need to be identical.","conclusion":"Subscribers to Hebrew religion don't believe that Jesus was their Messiah for many reasons."}
{"id":"82f979a1-aed4-4dc6-9260-b0b3896a6bcc","argument":"Especially when working with long text documents, as many students commonly do, this is relevant.","conclusion":"A PC has a bigger screen to work on compared to a tablet."}
{"id":"dff08954-23f0-4dbb-8943-564493b18952","argument":"I understand they are allowed to do what they do legally, but I honestly don't think they should be allowed to. There should be regulations on free speech. Speech that is hateful, bigoted, and just terrible should be made illegal. I don't think they should be able to host an AMA on reddit, or honestly spread any of their views in public. They are a hate group, simple as that. I understand that maybe laws can't prevent what they do, but reddit as a private organization can, and should. They have absolutely nothing productive to add, and they really shouldn't be allowed to spread their hate like that.","conclusion":"I believe the WBC is a hate group, shouldn't be allowed to host an AMA on reddit."}
{"id":"cd22ddde-bcd6-44b6-94ba-b98b715eed14","argument":"Criminal gangs will move into other activities to replace their profits from sex work. The same international networks used to traffic women could be re-purposed to moving other illegal goods.","conclusion":"If legalized, gangs would be less involved in running sex working rings."}
{"id":"2775f89e-456f-4097-93eb-b7fe8821ac89","argument":"A global government would make it easier for a small corrupt group or individual to rule the world.","conclusion":"Nobody could flee from a bad single government if there is a single government."}
{"id":"f46b77ee-aead-46ab-9d4a-ce0e323101bb","argument":"The fact that trans people attempt to undergo a change from one gender to another inherently suggests that humans, including trans people, understand the concept of two genders. If the concept of male and female exists, then, without some congenital abnormality, a person is either male or female from birth. However, in 2018 it is not possible to completely convert from one gender to another that is, a person born as one gender cannot acquire some of the anatomy and physiology of the other gender. As a result, they do not wholly become the other gender as a result of hormone and or surgery. For example, a male wanting to become a female cannot acquire a uterus and ovaries, yet, therefore, they are unable to become wholly female. Thus, a better description of a trans person is trans, and not male nor female.","conclusion":"Trans people are neither male nor female, they are trans."}
{"id":"76bdeeac-0d3c-4112-805b-e68618ff25d7","argument":"God has been important to many humans in all eras of history. If there\u2019s no belief in God, some people begin to fear that society will unravel. No record of existential concerns over shoe laces exists.","conclusion":"The implications of untied shoelaces are demonstratably less important than the implications of a God existing or not."}
{"id":"168e3a56-7346-4309-b552-3403a52bfeac","argument":"I see this everywhere. People hate you because you have a different political opinion than they do. Or you like a different sports team, or you have different opinions on some other topic. It doesn't really matter what the topic is although obviously some topics are more controversial than others . Or maybe they actually like you more because you agree with them on some topic. I don't think that this is right. A judgement of a person should be based only on their actions not their opinions. First, we know that racism is wrong but the underlying reason that it's wrong is because we generally consider it wrong to judge people for things that they have no control over. Opinions are a lot like this. There's a reason that there are geographical and cultural trends in political opinions. It's because the place you are born, the parents who are born to, the culture you grow up in, etc. has an enormous effect on your worldview and therefore your opinions. So let's say you've got two people who disagree politically. One's a left wing extremist and the other is a right wing extremist. The right wing extremist might think to themselves that the left winger is an absolute idiot. They can't even begin to understand how anyone could hold the opinions that that damn left winger holds. And at the same time, the left wing extremist is thinking the same to themselves. But this is completely idiotic for both of them because how could you possibly begin to understand the other person's world view when you haven't been living their life for the past few decades? Had that left winger been born in place of the right winger, it's almost certain that their political opinions would have been drastically different. So judging someone for an opinion is still a form of judging them for something that they cannot control. And judging someone for something that they cannot control is wrong. And this is also a shame because it's another case where humans judge on the basis of being different. With race, we're taught to love, accept, and celebrate our differences. But with opinions we're taught to hate anyone who is different than us. I think this is very hypocritical, and it's what leads people to the line of thinking I hold my beliefs because I'm a rational person, they hold their beliefs because they're an idiot instead of saying I hold my beliefs because my life experience has led to them, and they hold their beliefs because they've had a different life experience than me which has led to a different set of beliefs . So I really don't see how judging someone for an opinion is any more productive than judging them for their race, or sex, or any other factor outside of their control. It only leads to more hate in the world, which is something that virtually everyone agrees is a bad thing. . gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Judging someone for an opinion they hold is no better than judging them for the color of their skin"}
{"id":"885e2036-6460-4f7b-99fd-1c54b0d7cdc6","argument":"By wrong I mean from a moral ethical standpoint. He technically didnt go to college but he is a really good lawyer and not having a degree doesn't change that. If you'd like to change my mind then tell me about which system youre using utilitarianism, categorical imperatives, etc x200B If youre using deontology then you have the additional problem of getting me on board with this moral system as well as showing that its wrong under deontology how the act itself is wrong i am not on board with deontology because I dont see how an act itself can be wrong if we being secular in our approach","conclusion":"Mike Ross Did Nothing Wrong"}
{"id":"62cda543-481f-43a3-84fb-86e2a0457358","argument":"An immortal and omnipotent God, existing outside space and time, would certainly have the capacity to preserve people who have died, perhaps preserving them in another world or dimension, and might logically choose to do so to those who followed his teachings, or indeed to anyone he chose.","conclusion":"The belief that God exists a plausible belief held by billions of people strongly suggests that an afterlife also exists."}
{"id":"f9e9dd4d-8b4d-4b94-a790-3a0edcd08f98","argument":"There is an accepted need for censorship in society to protect vulnerable groups; child pornography, violence, swearing and sex on television and violent computer games are all controlled. These set a clear precedent for the censorship of hate speech.","conclusion":"There is an accepted need for censorship in society to protect vulnerable groups; child pornography,..."}
{"id":"60eb2ff4-9ce7-4d5c-931d-e364e1288fab","argument":"A study found that minority students have a harder time getting accepted to public research universities in states that have banned affirmative action p. 228.","conclusion":"Forgoing support for affirmative action would backtrack the good it has done."}
{"id":"68b85d04-6102-4865-b38a-b4d94df89013","argument":"source? - \"To assume that all of them want to stay in this country is certainly a fallacy. I recognize that some will. But I think there is a significant percent of that universe that has no interest in staying here. They came here for economic reasons, not for any other reason. And I think they would very much welcome the opportunity to go back to their homes with a little capital in their pockets and the opportunity to stay amongst their family and the land that they know and love of their birth.\"","conclusion":"Argument that many illegals want the opportunity to return to their home-lands, making the enforcement of the end of the temporary worker period more feasible:"}
{"id":"034fc911-d9f5-4be5-a626-895ea4d2d65f","argument":"Criminals, who are able to acquire guns,irrespective of the illegality of doing so, welcome a ban on legal handgun ownership. This is because it decreases the risks that they will rob or attack a citizen that has a handgun, and whom may attack back.","conclusion":"A ban on legal handguns disadvantages citizens against armed criminals."}
{"id":"5c1cc8a3-5f53-407b-aae1-c75b99cf50f4","argument":"Today marks the 10th anniversary of the 7 7 bombings in London. To commemorate this there has been a supposedly nation wide minute silence. While I wouldn't interrupt a minute silence I do think that they are arbitrary and not a good way of showing respect . Usually they are touted as a way of remembering victims of tragedies, however as someone who lives across the country, I do not know the victims or any of their family and as a result other than the circumstances in which it happened, their deaths have little to no effect on my life. Because of this, I think it is disingenuous and borderline offensive to those close to the victims for me to pretend that I am actively upset by their deaths. In addition to this I said that minute silences are arbitrary millions of people have died in the ten years since, some of them in similar circumstances even yet 99.9 of those will go unremembered . Surely by not holding a minute silence for at least the people who died in terror attacks we are tacitly implying disrespect? One could argue that it should be something carried out only in the home country of the victims which would not explain why the whole world continues to hold minute silences to commemorate 9 11. I am not saying that there should be a blanket ban on minute silences however. For example it recently made the news that there was a minute silence in the stadium before a football game to acknowledge the death of a fan. I wholeheartedly support that as it shows a community either his literal, local community or the community of football fans coming together to show solidarity for someone who's death may well have personally affected many of them. I apologise for the wall of text and any spelling mistakes due to mobile typing. Please change my view as it makes me feel like a cold and disrespectful person.","conclusion":"The majority of minute silences are insincere and are just empty gestures."}
{"id":"f390f96e-241f-470d-bdce-189694dbdedc","argument":"Similarly, if people are caught using their firearms dangerously, they can have their access to those firearms taken away.","conclusion":"Limiting access to drivers that have met minimum standards works to keep dangerous people off the road."}
{"id":"5f82d7d4-a1c1-4330-9803-0f285eb960bd","argument":"So with all that has been happening in the world as of late, I started to wonder if having children in the near future I am 19 years old is really such a good idea. The main reason is the environment. I believe in global warming, and I am seeing the signs and the news updates that show how the climate is getting warmer, and how certain countries still won't slow down their rate of polution. What sort of world will I be leaving to my children then? Will they suffer for the mistakes of the previous generation? Second argument is the amount of cultural religious strife currently going on in the world. Even I right now feel somewhat unsafe, as I live in Sweden and I have a nagging thought each day that today might be the day a terror attack happens here. I don't know if the current situation will scale down, but if it doesn't, my children might live an even scarier life, wondering if their next door foreign neighbor is plotting an attack. So to sum it up, as the world is right now and how it's shaping up to be, I don't see having kids right now as something good, I mostly see it as something punishing.","conclusion":"I think having kids right now in cruel."}
{"id":"e30b20bb-a06b-44dd-97d8-cb914914d4a9","argument":"Considering all other things equal, I do not believe that physical placement of a newborn or infant should be given to the mother over the father, even if breastfeeding. I am willing to concede that a newborn would be better off spending the majority of its time with the mother at less than one month's age, but only from a logistical stand point. I believe that shared physical placement in this situation is the best for all parties involved, the mother, the father, and the newborn. My reason for posting this is because of a post in r legaladvice regarding a father wanting to know about custody of a newborn, and mainly u Karissa36 comments regarding 50 50 shared placement should not start until the child is at least four years old. gt From age 4 on, 50 50 if you want it is a reasonable possibility. I feel this is ludicrous as both the father and child are missing out on bonding during what I consider the best years to be a father. u Karissa36 was unable to convince me otherwise, maybe you can. You can see that thread here Breastfeeding does complicate matters, I agree, the World Health Organization recommends breastfeeding until he age of two. Two years old, I feel, is still far to old to be primarily placed with the mother, only to spend time with the father in between feeding or when convenient for the mother. To make things easier, we will assume the newborn, for whatever reason, is not able to be breast fed and is using formula. Given this, in order to convince me physical placement should be anything other than shared, you will need to convince me that A chemical physical bond exists between the mother and newborn This bond affects the quality of life of the child The bond may be affected by a decrease in the amount of time spent with the mother, as in a 50 50 physical placement This bond does not happen at all or to a great enough extent with fathers and newborns to be as affective. Also Fathers are any less adaptive at responding to the physical or emotional needs of a newborns. And Children raised from birth in single father households are at a higher risk of mental health, attitude or emotional issues and are less likely to succeed in school or life than children raised by single mothers. Once you've done that To complicate things, let's add breastfeeding. The simple solution to continuing with breastmilk is for the mother to pump, and for the father to store the milk and use it during is time with the newborn infant. I believe, this benefits the everyone. Mothers need to pump if they are breastfeeding if they are away from their child for extended period of time such as a job, or having a social life, or even because producing more than consumed. Milk production doesn't just stop if the infant is away from the mother for short periods of time, and the breasts become engorged and painful. Pumping and storing is beneficial to the mother, as she may now be able to return to work, have free time, and not be the only one who can feed her child. It benefits the father, as he may now feed the child and create a bond with his infant. It of course benefits the infant to bond with it's father, and have ample supply of milk. I was told in the r legaladvice thread that the father has no right to force the mother to pump, and no judge would ever make her. To this, I agree. You can't force someone to do it. My counterargument to this is, firstly, she would not be doing for the benefit of the father, it would be to the benefit her child. As with family court, custody and placement is based on what is best for the child not the parents. If this mother were sending her child to daycare, she would pump and send a supply with. Why would this be any different for sending her newborn or infant with the father? Unless the mother has no need to return to work, or is able to be at the child's side ready to feed whenever needed for as long as needed, she will be pumping anyways. Pumping and not allowing the supply to be given to the father for equal time would be nothing short of vindictive, and not in the best interest of the child. tl dr In the case where the mother and father of a newborn child are not in a relationship and do not live together, convince me that it would be more beneficial or appropriate for the newborn to be physically placed with the mother, and not the father. Edit Both the mother and father are equally capable and interested in taking care of the infant with adequate resources, finances, and no other determining factors such as abuse, neglect, or drug use come into play. The only deciding factor is biologically female vs., biologically male. 50 50 shared time in this case is best, is my argument. UPDATE Okay, I've changed my mind a little And, just to mention, I realize that an exact 50 50 split isn't always doable. I am arguing against splits of say, 70 30 or more with the mother at 70. And, more importantly, when it splits this way against the father's wishes for no apparent reason. Also, my reason for bringing this up isn't necessarily because I believe their is an automatic brass in the courts, but more so I get the feeling fathers believe they aren't as capable as mothers in the first few months, and don't fight or even ask for what they want in the first place. So, here is where I am at now. 0 1 Month of age Primary placement with the mother regardless of breastfeeding status. This is unchanged from the OP. I believe this only based on my own experiences, and that logistics would be a nightmare. 1 4 months of age Not breastfeeding shared placement 50 50ish Breastfeeding and willing to pump share 50 50ish Breastfeeding and NOT willing or able to pump primary placement with the mother My opinion on this has changed 4 6 months of age This is a grey area, I'm still undecided, couple be push to include my opinion change to six months Greater than six months 50 50 shared placement regardless of breastfeeding status. This is where I dig my heels into the ground. Let me explain myself The thing that changed was primary placement of newborns aged 1 4 months, whose mothers are unwilling or unable to pump and supply milk to the father during his time with the infant. I changed this mostly because of u Izawwlgood's comment regarding this research stating that a parental bond is not established prior to 3 4 months. Prior to four months their is no benefit to the child or father that would outweigh the benefits of receiving breastmilk. I still believe the most beneficial approach to all parties is shared placement at a agreed upon and workable ratio where the mother supplies the father breastmilk via pumping. I don't think this would be as big a issue as most here are saying because of this survey showing that 2 3's of women are pumping at 3 months. Their reasons for doing it are 43 so they could return to work, and 49 so someone else could feed the baby. Women are doing this anyways, and almost half stating the reason is so that others can feed the baby. Why wouldn't this 'other' be the father? Of course, no one could compel her to pump and complications do arise. That's a different story. But, if she is pumping already, I see no reason that milk shouldn't be used for the baby during the fathers time, and she continue to pump and keep up the supply. She will need to pump anyways while the baby is gone, and it is in the best interest of the child. So is, the child having it's father in it's life. Now, at six month, all bets are off. Breastfeeding or not At six months, the benefits of breastfeeding decrease. Yes, the APA and WHO recommend 1 year and 2 years respectively, but at 6 months the benefits start to lessen. It's not as important. It's at this point, I still feel that the fathers right to his child, and the benefits the child receives from being with their father are more important than the breast milk. Not all babies are breastfed, certainly not all are for a year or two, and they turn out just fine.","conclusion":"Mothers should not be given preference during custody regarding the physical placement of newborns and infants."}
{"id":"aa897ed2-4f52-4095-adff-a34128afe11f","argument":"Just under $70 million was spent on US state supreme court elections in the period 2015-2016. Bannon, Lisk and Hardin, p.5","conclusion":"Regular judicial elections are a waste of valuable time and money."}
{"id":"675a1a02-ef72-4a06-856d-1b5c7480da0f","argument":"Context I'll be speaking about the US here. I would tip someone is to thank them for going above and beyond, or if I'm just feeling generous. But otherwise I wouldn't. If you listened to reddit, you would think this makes me a bad person. But it doesn't, and here's why But if you don't tip, employees will earn less than minimum wage Look at this chart from the department of labor You can see most states are either purple or green this means that even if NOBODY tipped, tipped employees would still necessarily earn the state minimum wage. The blue states mean that if nobody tipped, tipped employees would earn the federal minimum wage. It is true that in most states employers can pay their tipped employees below the minimum wage, but only if their tips add up to being minimum wage or more. There is no legal situation in the US where a tipped employee earns less than the federal minimum wage. Note that many of the blue states on that graph are only blue because the state doesn't have a minimum wage. But employers could illegally pay their employees less than minimum wage This is the case for any job. And you might think that employers of tipped employees are more likely to break the law, but if you really think there's a good chance that an establishment is ignoring very important state and federal laws, then morally and practically I'd say you should not encourage that behavior by patronizing them at all, let alone tipping their employees But waiters and other tipped employees deserve that extra money Why? Nobody tips the busboy who helps clean up your table, or the dishwasher who cleans your plates. I worked as a waiter for over a year, but I was in a nursing home. Federal regulations say that employees of a nursing home are not allowed to directly receive any compensation from the residents this means I was working as a waiter, for minimum wage, for over a year, and never received a cent in tips. And now I'm expected to go tip waiters unconditionally? Nothing waiters do is that special that they deserve special treatment in the form of tips I guarantee there are people who need or deserve your extra dollars much more than waiters. Do you also give money to every homeless person you see? Do you donate to Deworm the World They both need it much more than some waiter is likely to But if you don't tip, your friends will think you're a scrooge I don't have any friends Given all these reasons, I see no compelling reason to tip. Please, change my view.","conclusion":"I'm not obligated to tip anyone"}
{"id":"116bfdc7-939d-4a5a-ba1b-39a33e3e2723","argument":"Areas outside of what is traditionally considered Europe have been allowed to join the EU before.","conclusion":"North African countries should be allowed to be part of the EU."}
{"id":"d043c07d-4331-4b9b-a3de-0e28389b41a3","argument":"Many people say to never drink alone or that they only drink in company. Why is it considered better? Natrually it won't work for morphine or heroine, but those are a bit different situations. I'll be wrting with alcohol and cannabis in mind, but there are other drugs that could be considered soft enough for popular even if occasional use. x200B Addiction wise it's all about why. Barring physical dependence only reasons for taking are important. If a user has a strong urge to do it or just can't function without his dose, that's addiction. If someone manages his emotions this way except possible medicating for eg. anxiety it's worrying since it's how addictions are formed. But if someone smokes or drinks on weekend, and watches a movie, or goes for a walk or whatever, then it's taken as a mood booster, and it's not different than being in a company of others. x200B There are drugs nobody cares about really, like coffee. It's a mild or not so mild if abused stimulant that can be slightly addictive, but nobody ever says that drinking coffee alone is wrong. It's there to stimulate the user and improve mood, whether that's at work, at a social meeting, or when alone. x200B I think that when people say drinking alcohol in company is ok, it's just a stupid societal norm serving as an excuse to get drunk with friends and feel good about that. In the end it all comes down to being influenced by a drug, at it's core it's always just about boosting mood.","conclusion":"drinking and smoking cannabis or taking some other drugs alone is NOT \"worse\" than drinking with others."}
{"id":"911d24eb-3b47-4541-bdb5-974cd231e486","argument":"In English class for example, I often get group projects where we have to portray certain things in a creative way. This usually involves creating a painting drawing, or a video mini movie. The problem is, I have pretty much no drawing ability or acting ability. As much as teachers say that it doesn't matter if you're good at drawing acting or not, in the end, it always does An elaborate oil painting on something will always get higher marks than a sketch with stick figures. Its clear that the groups who spend the most time, or money for fancy props, and have good drawing acting skills ALWAYS get better marks. I understand that spending more time is justifiable for getting higher marks, but I don't think having good drawing acting skills is for ENGLISH class. Why should I have to draw and act for English, shouldn't I be doing those in Art and Drama class? The same goes for any other creative method of expression like singing and dancing, which also come up sometimes.","conclusion":"Students should not be evaluated through creative projects for certain subjects"}
{"id":"d8099587-db8a-4d9b-be02-6d43c231d3fd","argument":"Banning ideas, no matter how despicable and reprehensible they are, drives the people who hold said ideas underground, away from the public debate and into forums of their own - in which only they exist, and where they won't be exposed to differing viewpoints. Therefore, if one decides to ban a harmful idea, you do not erode the idea but instead solidify it.","conclusion":"Counter-speech is the best way to create a respectful environment."}
{"id":"171cea76-f729-4b75-ba00-6a2ae9036323","argument":"In 2009 President Obama stated \u201cI believe that on the fundamental issues that will shape this century, Americans and Russians share common interests that form a basis for cooperation.\u201d1 This makes the real question \u2018how to cooperate\u2019 rather that whether there should be cooperation. Military transparency, particularly on nuclear weapons is necessary. \u201cRussia and the United States matter to one another, and how well or how poorly we manage our interactions matters to the rest of the world. The two of us control more than 90% of the world\u2019s nuclear weapons, and our leadership can do more than anyone else\u2019s to help secure nuclear material globally and prevent the spread of nuclear weapons.\u201d2 This continued cooperation on nuclear issues in particular has been demonstrated with the signing of the \u2018New START\u2019 treaty on 8th April 2010. There are many other areas where cooperation between the America and Russia is vital as well. As is demonstrated by the geopolitical situation \u201cRussia sits astride Europe, Asia and the broader Middle East \u2013 three regions whose future will shape American interests for many years to come. And in an era in which common challenges\u201d so cooperation is necessary for the United States, but also for Russia as it would not want the US acting without its cooperation. According to Undersecretary of State Burns there are also many issues \u201cnon-proliferation, climate change, energy security, the struggle against terrorism, and many more \u2013 demand common action more than at any other period in human history, the United States and Russia have a lot more to gain by working together than by working apart.\u201d3 1 Barak Obama, Obama\u2019s Speech in Moscow, President addresses New Economic School graduation, 7\/7\/09, accessed 20\/4\/11 2 William J. Burns, The United States and Russia in a New Era: One Year After \"Reset\", Remarks to the Center for American Progress, Washington DC, 14th April 2010, accessed 10\/4\/11 3 William J. Burns, The United States and Russia in a New Era: One Year After \"Reset\", Remarks to the Center for American Progress, Washington DC, 14th April 2010, accessed 10\/4\/11","conclusion":"Russian and the US have many areas where they can cooperate."}
{"id":"badc918f-40e8-470f-955f-cf0a5822d05c","argument":"Many counties around the world teach English as the primary second language in their public education system. Many students will start learning English as soon as they enter elementary school. I say that we should do the same with Spanish. Students would start learning simple grammar and vocabulary in elementary school and be ready for total immersion classes in middle and high school. There are going to be students, or parents, who would want to study other languages but I think that it would be difficult to have more than one or two language teachers at each elementary school. They also might run into situation where they learned, say, French, in one school then move to a different school that only has Spanish and German. It's better to have a standard were all the students can progress through the same language at generally the same rate. High schools and maybe middle schools could offer other languages. Why Spanish? It's already the most popular foreign language in high schools and colleges. It's the most common language in the country after English. It's one of the easiest languages for English speakers to learn. Globally, it has the second highest number of native speakers of any language. My view is changed. This wasn't as great an idea as I originally thought.","conclusion":"Spanish should be taught as the primary second language in US schools starting in early elementary school."}
{"id":"80699cc9-b233-41d7-8fd6-205b07aadba7","argument":"For an observer, my identity can only be described as causeless, \u201cI have no reason to be who I am\u201d. To consider it \u201crandom\u201d suppose that it could have been different, \u201cI could have been someone else\u201d which is meaningless.","conclusion":"To consider randomness as a meaningful concept when it gets to choices is a bias against the concept of identity, therefore against free will."}
{"id":"48479dfe-8709-4af7-8b0d-40e6265feb7a","argument":"Once everyone becomes vegan. vegan issues will become more pronounced and happen more often. This visibility will cause people to react and objectify to them, which will lead them to action.","conclusion":"Many of the issues that veganism currently creates would be worked out once the world transitions."}
{"id":"40421c04-93a7-4936-be9f-437718b662fa","argument":"This is a reluctant belief of mine, so this subreddit could be perfect for me. Basically I think anyone in a monogamous relationship has polygamous desires thoughts. To me, whether they act on them or not is beside the point. It can really put me off getting into a relationship as I believe the other person doesn't desire to be with me alone . Hope that's enough for you guys to go on, please change my view","conclusion":"I believe monogamy is false, please !"}
{"id":"a81edaea-2999-431c-9054-6a8fdc440e28","argument":"I'm not saying that people should be able to smoke everywhere that's irrational as well. I mean mostly pubs, restaurants and bars. Owner should be able to decide if they want people smoking there or not. Non smokers are not forced to visit places where smoking is allowed, and vice versa. I honestly can't wrap my head around this, mostly because I really feel it should be up to the owner. Also, when people go to parties, they have to go outside to smoke, and they're usually drunk, and it's usually during the night, so here we go with the public disturbance.","conclusion":"The law that forbids smoking in all public places is absolutely irrational"}
{"id":"d03f58c3-32a3-4d5e-b13a-23c066ec34c1","argument":"Children learn at different paces and an instructors pace does not always match each student's. As a result it would be more useful to have children capable of accessing the internet for better understanding when they need to.","conclusion":"Mobile phones are a way of providing easy access to more information."}
{"id":"281df332-295c-43d3-99d9-d2341c03376a","argument":"Russian online campaigns also backed Clinton's other opponents in the 2016 race, Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein.","conclusion":"It is generally agreed upon that the Russians intervened in the election to hurt Hillary Clinton."}
{"id":"beed5bc1-7a39-4a6d-aa81-08f5bdd26ee8","argument":"When people are given more opportunities to participate, they learn to become better democratic citizens pg.3","conclusion":"Referendums and other tools of direct democracy help increase political socialization and voter turnout."}
{"id":"871f9d25-db05-42f6-87d2-d1e805816d41","argument":"Abuse is defined as behavior that causes physical or mental harm to another,whether intentionally or not. Sadomasochism a subset of BDSM, involves giving or receiving pleasure from acts involving the receipt or infliction of pain or humiliation","conclusion":"Simulating abuse is still abuse despite consent; two or more partners are just consenting to abuse."}
{"id":"442ad650-38a2-4d82-a3c8-d3d442cdd37c","argument":"Appointed judges reversed death sentences at a much higher rate than elected judges, and more than double the rate of judges facing competitive elections.","conclusion":"Judges have a strong incentive to appear strong on crime in order to be re-elected."}
{"id":"b4f71e12-a7e7-4831-b9ad-04445009176b","argument":"People join the fire department, become teachers, work for non-profits or run for office even though other jobs may pay better.","conclusion":"Many people are more motivated by 'giving back to society ' rather than the pursuit of profit."}
{"id":"aa6bd0ab-b741-492e-9fc4-78d352ae18d8","argument":"There is nothing ethically wrong about masturbating to people you know. Obviously using nude photos or videos you were not specifically given access to is wrong but anything on for example Facebook or Instagram is fair game as well as your imagination. Masturbating to someone in person without permission is wrong but on the phone feels a little iffier. Not totally sure how I feel about that one though I'm leaning towards fair game. Also not sure about how I feel about minors highschool age . How to NOT change my mind Try and convince me masturbation is wrong. Ad hominems How to Change my Mind Anything else. I welcome any argument no matter how far reaching you may deem it to be. x200B Change my View Edit Originally this said children. Bad wording on my part. Edit 2 I've got to go. Won't be able to get back on reddit for a while so I'm basically declaring the  over unless you guys want to keep yelling at me in like a week which I'm totally down for . No one got a delta unfortunately but a couple people got pretty close and it was fun and interesting. Thanks for participating","conclusion":"Its not immoral to masturbate to people you know."}
{"id":"47e4acdc-2ec4-4731-a898-d2c2abf5d2b9","argument":"One vote is unlikely to be the tipping point in an election, yet each vote makes exactly the same difference. It counts as one vote. In a football game, you do not count points as useless just because of a large victory or loss.","conclusion":"If every voter thought so, the elections wouldn't work."}
{"id":"1a94d28f-d8eb-40c2-8ad6-e82103da7087","argument":"I moved in with my friend at the age of 18 literally moved in THE day i turned 18 , and he has a 9 10 month old baby that i absolutely refuse to take care of, easy things like giving him a bottle he dropped or grabbing diapers and wipes when my friend needs them I do, and to be perfectly honest, this thing is incredibly disgusting, leaves messes everywhere, gets to play 20 questions with the parents by this i mean the guessing game where everybody tries to determine what's wrong when he does something , of course it can't talk, it just cries and makes nasty, slobber soaked noises all the time, and it half drives me nuts sometimes I.E. when i get left alone in the living room with it for an hour . My friend sometimes tells me things like, when you see your son smile at you for the first time, your heart will melt. bullshit. that child smiles at me sometimes, and i just feel a powerful wave of disgust.","conclusion":"- I live with my best friend a father and his baby absolutely disgusts me."}
{"id":"4c061981-548b-4cf5-b3f2-b6ad84565bbb","argument":"Feminism is good for men as well, who are often socially conditioned to always play certain roles, that they are bullied for not enacting. Feminism allows a variety of different types of masculinity and femininity to flourish.","conclusion":"Feminism helps to create a more equal society for all of its members, not just for women."}
{"id":"d742b5e5-a44b-4670-9f48-045f973d633b","argument":"The Fourth of July Independence Day has always been my favorite holiday of the year. In my opinion, it is superior to Christmas, which is commonly thought of in the US as the best holiday for several reasons. Obviously, these reasons apply best to Americans, and I completely understand why citizens of other countries wouldn't care about the Fourth. Reason 1 Divisiveness While people of many faiths may celebrate a more secularized version of Christmas, the fact remains that it is a religious holiday celebrating the miraculous birth of the Lord Jesus Christ. Non Christians of all stripes may have various reasons not to celebrate Christmas, as the very basis of the holiday contradicts their beliefs. On the other hand, Independence Day can be celebrated by all Americans, regardless of religion or ethnicity. Reason 2 Hypocrisy Christmas has become a holiday that is inescapably linked to crass materialism. Black Friday, a holiday for consumerism if there ever was one, is considered the kickoff of the modern Christmas season. Many of us spend the Christmas season buying, giving, and receiving presents out of a sense of obligation. This accumulation of things for their own sake contradicts Jesus' own teachings, making the current form of celebrating Christmas hypocritical. On the other hand, Independence Day is celebrated just as the Founding Fathers intended. John Adams himself wrote It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more. It is a time to remember the sacrifices of the Revolutionary War and celebrate the nation's founding, and that's exactly what happens with a whole lot of recreation that the Founding Fathers would have approved. Reason 3 More fun, less work and obligation Christmas is now so weighed down with extra work and unwelcome obligations for many people especially women that a lot of the fun has been lost. Many people report that Christmas is a time of great stress, and the suicide rate in the US increases during the holiday season. Thus makes sense. Many people feel under tremendous pressure to buy, wrap and send gifts, have their homes decorated just so, put up with annoying relatives, travel, and cook special meals. I've heard many people say I can't wait until Christmas is over so I can rest. The Fourth offers more fun for far less work. Typical Fourth of July foods include simple fare such as grilled hamburgers and hot dogs. Decorations can range from none to minimal to over the top, and it's all socially acceptable. No one expects you to make a special trip to see that aunt and uncle you speak with once a year. The Fourth is typically spent having fun in ways that require relatively little planning, such as casual grilling, watching a baseball game, going to a local beach lake river and watching fireworks displays. It's a holiday you are free to celebrate as you see fit, with no judgment from anyone else and no pressure. In conclusion , if you're an American, the Fourth is a more unifying, less hypocritical, and just plain more fun holiday that actually does what a holiday is supposed to do allow you to relax. Christmas is overrated, and Independence Day rules. Change my view. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"For Americans, the Fourth of July is a better holiday than Christmas."}
{"id":"b8142cf2-c947-4ba6-9f7c-d1888ee9942a","argument":"I'd like to start off by saying I absolutely respect Dr. Bouman and am very appreciative of the work she did is doing for science. I am in no way trying to discredit her work and contributions or women in science at all for that matter. It's hard to hold an opinion like this and not come off as sexist but hear me out. I myself am a Computer Science major at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana where she's from, and where her father is a an electrical computer biomedical engineering professor . x200B My issue is not with Dr. Bouman or her work at all, but with the media. x200B Reality Hundreds of scientists collaborate on a seemingly impossible task of photographing a black hole over 50 million light years away. x200B Media WOMAN takes picture of black hole x200B I understand that's a bit of an exaggeration but I just wanted to get my point across. This historic achievement is the result of hundreds of the world's best scientists coming together to do the impossible. One person should not be given the majority of the credit for the work of hundreds, male or female. x200B A 29 year old computer scientist has earned plaudits worldwide for helping develop the algorithm that created the first ever image of a black hole. BBC There, she led the project, assisted by a team from MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and the MIT Haystack Observatory. BBC But Dr Bouman, now an assistant professor of computing and mathematical sciences at the California Institute of Technology, insisted the team that helped her deserves equal credit. BBC then why aren't they getting it? We're a melting pot of astronomers, physicists, mathematicians and engineers, and that's what it took to achieve something once thought impossible Dr. Bouman I'm throwing this in here just to show that Dr. Bouman is not asking for all this praise, but is genuinely a good person and understands that this was a group effort A global network of telescopes known as the Event Horizon Telescope project collected millions of gigabytes of data about M87 using a technique known as interferometry. However, there were still large gaps in the data that needed to be filled in. That's where Bouman's algorithm along with several others unimportant, I guess came in. Using imaging algorithms like Bouman's, researchers created three scripted code pipelines to piece together the picture. CNN 'No one of us could've done it alone,' Bouman said. 'It came together because of lots of different people from many backgrounds.' CNN x200B I understand I'm only referencing two articles here but just Google Katie Bouman and you'll see that there are many others just like the two I've referenced. I chose these two because they're very popular news outlets which have millions of readers. I also understand a possible motivation behind these articles is the empowerment of women, which I'm all for, but not at the cost of others. x200B So, am I overthinking this, probably. Do I care what the media says, not really but I do admit I'm quite worked up about this. Let me know what you think and I'll try to reply to as many comments as I can in the next few hours. x200B References","conclusion":"Dr. Katie Bouman should not be receiving as much credit as she is for the first image of a black hole."}
{"id":"a02b2800-e272-407e-8a6a-6521c43bf6fc","argument":"Some students are unable to participate in standard schooling, especially for medical or mental health reasons.","conclusion":"Homeschooling can be necessary for children with specific health conditions or lack of mobility."}
{"id":"f60d4ab5-cf80-4387-bb3a-a246d75833e7","argument":"Ads infected with malware can inject computers with spyware, ransomware, nuisanceware, or infect computers with bots, and they are virtually indistinguishable from regular ads.","conclusion":"Blocking ads is a matter of security; online ads can spread malicious software and threaten cyber security."}
{"id":"6f420b0d-f039-439f-bbf4-a1758cf97191","argument":"Though it hasn\u2019t happened yet in history we could theoretically help everyone in poverty to no longer have material need. If we did that, we would be done with that task. The threshold exists in this case. And probably all of us could do more than we are to help. So much so that we maybe could solve the problem. But we don\u2019t because we are morally incomplete.","conclusion":"To think a threshold exists and to think one might never reach it are not mutually exclusive."}
{"id":"666e20df-badc-4268-b5e7-f855a87a1516","argument":"A majority of people superimpose the concept of a soul, brain, emotional state and social rapport onto robots, in spite of their relative infancy. One can only imagine how much more profound this connection will be once sex robots are more streamlined and developed.","conclusion":"Studies are indicating that humans genuinely empathise with robots; when watching robots be 'hurt', humans responded in the same way - although slightly weaker - as with human injury. This level of empathy bodes well for functional human-robot relationships."}
{"id":"414ae8d1-6915-4bfe-b22e-5630fd414b9a","argument":"First let me say that I believe that even the preparation that parents can give their children before adulthood can have serious impacts on the outcomes of those children's adult lives. Schools, extracurricular activities, superior health care, superior nutrition, housing, food, and clothing security i.e. always having what you need , etc. can all make a strong stepping off point. People who believe that we are all solely responsible for our individual life outcomes in my experience, typically Republicans not necessarily conservatives should put their ideas to the test and cut their children completely loose at age 18 in America . If their beliefs are true, then there is no place for helping a legal adult out with private individual support once they've reached legal adulthood. If they do help their children out as almost every Republican I've ever met does after that child reaches adulthood paying for college, free room board at home, help with transportation, co signing loans, setting up interviews, etc. , then they can't truly believe that individuals are responsible for their individual life outcomes. I personally believe that it takes a village and I have no love for the Welfare Reform Clintons , and that Republicans understand this. My suspicion is that they don't believe in a national village but rather a village comprised exclusively of their peers while nevertheless benefiting from aspects of our collective national efforts . I'd love to hear a rationale where someone who believes that we're all responsible for our individual lives could also provide financial support for their adult children exclusively and not also support other unrelated adults and not be a hypocrite excluding mental illness or the like . Edit I've read through the brief double standard summary and I believe I'm meeting its warnings as well as can be hoped. If my view is faulty because I'm falling prey to one of the things warned about in the double standard wiki I'll be happy to call it changed just by having the particular failure pointed out. Thanks Edit II Heading to bed. I really appreciate the discussion. I'll contemplate the discussions so far overnight and endeavor to answer replies tomorrow. Hopefully 2.5 hours is close enough to 3 hours to not get me in trouble.","conclusion":"People who espouse ideals of self-reliance should kick their children out at adulthood, else they reveal themselves as hypocrites"}
{"id":"cb8802c0-fc77-4ae2-8e69-c74ef8310652","argument":"Trump has repeatedly attacked the DOJ, seeming to prefer defending political allies over allowing a department headed by his own Attorney General to follow its course.","conclusion":"Trump and his associates are connected to a host of crimes being actively investigated."}
{"id":"fde538d9-db64-4066-9186-7aff2d5b5f81","argument":"In 2018, Blair St Clair admission on 'RuPaul's Drag Race' that she had been sexually assaulted earlier in her life compelled various websites to publish articles about sexual assault in the gay community.","conclusion":"A number of queens have spoken about sexual violence in the LGBT community."}
{"id":"ec247857-3439-4316-81ee-d07bd77039ab","argument":"Political parties attempt to get out the vote everywhere, whether or not the riding tends to support their party.","conclusion":"Under proportional representation, everyone's vote has the same weight no matter what electoral district they're in."}
{"id":"e4efcf28-73cb-4c81-94c1-6bd805891007","argument":"Western culture has come to view gender as a binary concept, male or female, grounded in physical anatomy. However, anatomical variations alone should be enough to indicate a gender spectrum rather than a binary gender system.","conclusion":"The perception of gender roles as something fixed comes from an erroneous ethnocentric vision of Western societies."}
{"id":"26ce8fa0-03c5-4a6b-8c88-1be04f076c5f","argument":"I believe that women can have sex whenever they want. That means that any woman who wants sex can find a male who is willing to have sex with little to effort. A strategy as simple as asking strangers in a public place would eventually reap rewards. A guy could ask a million women to have sex with him in one night and probably not get a single yes. The sex might not be with their ideal candidate depending on the amount of effort put in and their standards, but the fact that women even get to make that distinction is proof enough in itself. There are many men who would grab the chance at sex with any woman, no questions asked. The fact that woman have this opportunity but don't always take advantage because of their standards only further solidifies my opinion. The saying goes, beggars can't be choosers, but choosers can definitely be choosy. I believe any woman can have sex whenever she wants it.","conclusion":"I believe any woman can have sex whenever she wants it."}
{"id":"1df6cc4f-849e-40f6-9555-507a7b25dece","argument":"God's purposes in His bet with Satan could easily be for His own personal benefit and not the benefit of mankind seeing as it caused misery for a multitude of His followers.","conclusion":"There is no reason to believe that God's purpose in this instance is to benefit mankind."}
{"id":"e42b82d0-e81e-4392-a309-a01f2e884bf7","argument":"Kashmir's economy is overwhelmingly agricultural and needs to export agricultural produce to sustain its industries. If India were to close off agricultural exports it could do immense damage to the region overnight.","conclusion":"If India were to close its border with an independent Kashmir and cut off trade, the economic effects would be devastating."}
{"id":"efaa12c0-846b-4660-82cd-3b81fb6d1bcd","argument":"As far as I know, in most common law jurisdictions, when a jury is part of a trial, it evaluates whether the defendant is guilty, whereas the judge sets the penalty in case of a guilty verdict. The two would seem to be very closely related Guilt depends on whether a law has been violated or not, and the severity of that potential violation is a major criterion for the penalty. I don't understand why judge and jury should have to come to their separate conclusions about the legality of the actions of the accused, with each only having limited influence, rather than both deciding jointly or having entirely different responsibilities. But since it's apparently at least accepted enough to be continued, I assume some people see advantages in it that I haven't considered, or otherwise think of it differently than I do. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"In a trial, guilt and penalty should be determined by the same institutions"}
{"id":"9e4f8c15-fa5e-4a45-9ff0-d436946ea9d1","argument":"I don't really understand the appeal of motorsports in the first place, but let's put that aside for now. In a marathon, rowing regatta, or other race, the duration determines everything the pace, strategy, etc. But in NASCAR, they hit top speed and just hold it. Sure, it's endurance for the pit crew and driver and tactical decisions are made along the way, but there's much less by means of pacing than in one of those other sports. That is one thing I don't get. The other one is why it makes sense to have a race last hundreds of laps when a caution resets basically everything? Sure, they hold their position, but it's like a break and they can regroup and get closer to one another. The gap in distance shrinks or potentially grows dramatically, and that to me is unfair. What is the purpose of establishing a safe lead in the first 450 miles if, with a few miles to go, a caution wipes it all away and there's suddenly a really close battle for first place?","conclusion":"I don't understand why NASCAR races are so long when they have all those cautions to re-level the playing field."}
{"id":"69c35851-3f63-4e37-9fa7-61eb19aa5b9b","argument":"The UN has also previously acknowledged that more than 100 Sri Lankan peacekeepers deployed to Haiti exploited 9 children in a sex ring from 2004 to 2007.","conclusion":"In Haiti, UN peacekeepers have been accused of fathering hundreds of children"}
{"id":"063f7a01-7314-41ae-bebd-92dee043338a","argument":"By repetition of experiments, we might come close to finding meaningful results. The more experiments the better the chance is of finding, say, a plastic eating bacteria.","conclusion":"Experiments can be made more significant through repetition of them."}
{"id":"33dca2a1-088a-4188-ba8d-fe452b0aa11a","argument":"With a global gross of $392m at the time of writing, and a reported production budget of $275m excluding any marketing expenditure, Solo is categorically a flop- unprecedented in the Star Wars series.","conclusion":"Long time fans have been alienated by the way the new films have treated long established characters. They are leaving the franchise, and the box office results prove that."}
{"id":"604a3eeb-7e11-4cf1-bd49-213dbb883e95","argument":"My apartment complex like many has a problem with feral cats. They seem to be all over the place, and are obviously very diseased stricken. Additionally, they are a nuisance by tearing through trash cans, attacking or being hostile towards human and other small animals and climbing up onto cars at night and scratching the paint happened to me the first day I bought a new car not cool . Today, I noticed a lady with a bag of cat food in the parking lot with about ten of these cats gathered around her. I asked her nicely to stop. I explained my feelings on the above, and that while I think it's great she wants to help the cats, if she feels that way she should give them a home and proper veterinarian care. I believe feeding the cats sporadically is detrimental to the cats and the residents of the neighborhood. The cats are obviously in miserable shape they are malnourished, disease ridden and often maimed. Feeding them just enables them to procreate, worsening the problem and bringing more cats into a unhealthy and presumably unhappy life. The whole time she said okay, okay, okay but I could tell she was just agreeing to shut me up so I would go on my way. So anyone want to voice what she wouldn't?  gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The lady in my apartment complex should stop feeding the stray cats."}
{"id":"5d71e245-f22c-4ce3-85c1-893452c2fc6d","argument":"A woman doesn't need to tone herself down as it is the rapist who is the decision maker who decides to rape women. Women should not be held accountable for the rapist's actions. They can still be held to a basic dress code in society but as long as they are meeting that dress code they should be free to dress any way they want. A rich businessman wearing gold rings and bracelet on day to day basis in his normal life, later gets stalked and robbed of his jewels and money by a bunch of robbers. Do we blame him for provoking the poor robbers, showing off something they wanted but could not have? We don't. We don't blame the victims of murder, robbery and other crimes. If a rich man can by all means flaunt his assets because they are his to do with as he pleases, a beautiful woman shouldn't be blamed of flaunting her body with dresses of her choice. It is utter nonsense to say that a woman was stalked and raped just because she was wearing provocative clothes. It is the rapist who should be blamed and punished and not the woman who should be tormented to prove that she was modest.","conclusion":"It is solely the rapist's fault if a woman gets raped and women should wear and act whatever they want."}
{"id":"d7e72eb6-a217-4fad-9521-e23eed34c2d9","argument":"Being omnivorous is a survival trait. Handy for when there is something like another potato blight like in the 1840\u2019s or a massive outbreak of a disease among livestock.","conclusion":"Humans are omnivorous. In fact our jaws started to shrink after the invention of farming, which leads to our problems with teeth placement."}
{"id":"7336e843-4aa6-4820-87bc-26cf48b6d681","argument":"Androgens and estrogens, as well as other hormones, have an undeniable effect on our brains during gestation. The effect of such hormones is not transient but lasting.","conclusion":"Brains work differently regardless of biological sex, and it has been shown that it's brain types, rather than sex, that determine how you behave."}
{"id":"f1987cce-e7ff-407b-a291-9549feba6e9a","argument":"The guidelines further warn against publishing 'a story or an image that might put the child, their siblings or peers at risk, even when their identities are changed, obscured or not used.'","conclusion":"According to UNICEF's 'Principles and guidelines for media reporting on children', media reporting on children and young people should never put them at risk."}
{"id":"e6d8eb5e-133c-42b0-aa07-b3a01e9e65ea","argument":"Okay so I see a lot on Reddit about how the third season of House of Cards was awful and nothing happens and Frank doesn't even do anything. And to that I ask what the flying fuck did you expect? I mean, really, the name of the show is House of Cards, not House of Immovable Bedrock and Limestone. It's all jonesing to come crashing down and why not start now? I mean think about how fucking boring the show would be if Frank just kept on winning all the time. I think it was fine for the first season, but three seasons of that would have turned this into high production Burn Notice where Michael Westen pretty much does everything right all the time always. So that's why Petrov getting the better of Frank, Frank being an unpopular president, Claire having second thoughts it makes sense if you think of these people as changing human beings. Frank backstabbed everyone he could to get to the top and only now is he realizing how lonely it is at the summit. Claire is having a serious case of buyer's remorse, and Doug? Doug got his groove back this season. I'm obviously biased but I didn't think the 3rd season was a turd sandwich. .","conclusion":"The third season of House of Cards was the only logical place for the story to go and is not as bad as people make it out to be."}
{"id":"159fe050-5df7-4c63-aa83-74765eb7ce21","argument":"New member states tend to put economic strains on the funds of the union as we have seen in the past This not only puts economic strain on the union, but reduces the available structural funding for current EU recipients.","conclusion":"EU expansion is bad for Europe and bad for accession states."}
{"id":"bf7c19dd-61e9-4881-9bc5-44abbcc3eb0e","argument":"If we move towards a post-scarcity world, then it's likely that becoming a mass society will help.","conclusion":"We can emerge from neotribalism to become a mass society."}
{"id":"0d84a8ba-4693-452a-ae41-3ea939411cd2","argument":"so, I think it's great that Tesla is perusing the technology, but I think there are a few reasons why it might turn out poorly it's not fully self driving, even though all the headlines are shouting like it is. it's really more like an advanced cruise control, since you can't really take it 100 of the way from point to point, and the driver still needs to pay attention. it's sensor suite is not nearly on the same level as google, so if this thing crashes like the adaptive cruise control already has then it will be a major setback in terms of both PR and NTSB approval for full self driving. they may become the primary counter example to allowing self driving cars. as an electrical engineer, who has worked in the auto industry, I know that forward cameras, forward radar, and 360\u00b0 sonar will defiantly not be as accurate as the lidar system employed by Google. just look at the Darpa Grand Challenge winners lidar is a clearly better sensors than a camera or low mounted radar.","conclusion":"Tesla being first to widely release a \"self-driving\" car could actually be bad for the burgeoning industry."}
{"id":"b76decdf-103f-42c3-aa8a-80112da319d0","argument":"Cheerleaders may not be qualified for another profession, so may feel they will not able to find another job.","conclusion":"Cheerleaders may be unable to leave their jobs, even if they are unhappy with being objectified."}
{"id":"8295d2a1-cd9b-44ad-81b6-3ce6d691543e","argument":"I want to start of by saying that this might sound racist fill in any other synonym , but I'm not trying to be. So please anyone don't just say that. Now that we got that out of the way. So, I've been thinking about this for awhile. Ever since the Paris attacks, people have automatically started to complain about the coverage the attacks got. Saying that people die all the time in the Middle East and our news stations do not report on it. I agree with the news stations. Let the Middle East media report on the bombings and let Western media report on the Paris attacks. Basically, what I'm trying to say is that CNN,BBC should cover stories which affect us the people in those countries . People should stop complaining that we, in the west, don't hear about the shootings happening elsewhere. If you want to hear, what is happening in the east, surely you can find smaller independent news outlets or move closer to that region. All in all, BBC is fine not reporting and making an extended coverage of the events happening in the middle east.","conclusion":"I believe that it's not 'Western Media's ' job to report on bombings\/ attacks that happen in the middles east\/ Asia\/Africa"}
{"id":"7a573f0c-891e-4ff1-b2c6-6cb879a90826","argument":"Children at preschool age 2-5 years old express their curiosity through questions and touching. Without the same understanding of boundaries as adults, they may inappropriately touch a woman's exposed nipples.","conclusion":"Seeing nudity at a young age can potentially create premature sexual curiosity in children, especially at preschool age."}
{"id":"ede24f03-8c73-4f2d-826d-98433503d068","argument":"Everyone who is gay has made that decision and should go to hell for it. A coworker made this argument to me today, and I had little scientific argument against it. Is there any scientific evidence arguing against, or At least that defy this argument? I realize that you can not argue against faith, as that is what makes it faith. However, is there any argument against this claim that does not attack spiritual beliefs while still arguing for the validity of being born gay. Where is your evidence? Let the riots begin.","conclusion":"Everyone who is gay has made that decision and should go to hell for it."}
{"id":"fabf9e76-db65-4004-ac7a-8fbf6ecfe9b4","argument":"The organisers of the 1913 Women's Suffrage Parade in Washington DC made black woman march separately from white women, at the back of the parade.","conclusion":"White suffragettes in the United States actively argued against extending the vote and other civil rights to black Americans."}
{"id":"dd7904cf-3bd8-44ca-bb04-ec64451e1084","argument":"Many justice systems have accepted the notion of 'Trial by Jury' where a selection of people, randomly drawn from the population and probably without legal training, are the decision-making body even for crimes that may carry penalties of death or life imprisonment. In a Governmental sense the notion of Sortition when being applied to a specific issue is quite similar.","conclusion":"Alternative democratic methods such as Sortition Liquid Democracy and Direct consultations could now more easily complement or replace Representative Democracy, not only because of the increase of technological prowess of the Government, but also the 'comfort' that the citizens have with the use of technology."}
{"id":"aa1ac042-7363-49c1-b814-3c02344593d9","argument":"We are animals. The only difference between micro and macro evolution is time. Evolution, and even science as a whole, doesn't explain the origin of animals or of the planet, although it may one day. If you do not believe that evolution is scientifically proven to be true, and that it should be taught in science classes, then please base your ing on this. Also, it is my belief that theological agendas have hindered this specific theory's wide scale acceptance, which is shameful. Finally, the predominate agenda for science is truth, which renders it humanity's best way to objectively examine and understand our universe.","conclusion":"Evolution is proven, and anyone that denies the simple fact that we are related to primates is a moron."}
{"id":"78237a2c-7569-4e03-805b-64ac364ee6f3","argument":"I first want to preface this by saying I am not a vegan, nor will I probably ever be. However, this thought process has got me wondering as to whether or not I am morally wrong for eating meat. I am of the belief that the life of a person with an IQ of 120 isn't worth more than that of a person with an IQ of 80. That in and of itself is a debatable point, and I'm open to discussion on that as well, but if one were to hold that point of view, how do they justify the killing of animals to eat them? How is a cow's life any less important than that of a human when our only real differences are physical anatomy and intelligence? Also, I am well aware of how preachy this comes across as due to the subject matter, but I can't see any way to discuss the topic without looking like I'm trying to convert you, so I guess it's just something we will both have to deal with. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"A higher intelligence doesn't make someone's life more valuable, therefore killing animals to eat them should be wrong."}
{"id":"6f8ebc75-0140-45c2-9bf7-b021f23dc0e8","argument":"When artists are long dead, their work comes to be evaluated on its artistic merit alone see Wagner, for instance. While they are alive, however, they continue to make money from their work, and to benefit from it at the expense of those they have harmed.","conclusion":"The art may be of high quality or value but supporting a living creator who behaves immorally gives tacit approval to his immoral conduct and devalues the victims of his behavior."}
{"id":"bf64d0fe-fe01-4626-928b-96fbbe67dd6c","argument":"Studies e.g. This on researchgate.net have shown that the poor give a greater percentage of their budget to charity than the rich. This means that charity is not necessarily a good thing because it's possibly receiving more from the needy than it can justify from its spending on the needy maybe different needy, particularly when a certain proportion of contributions goes to a religion's expenses, savings, and investments in buildings, paintings, sculptures etc.","conclusion":"There is little motivation for religions to act against poverty as lasting change would lower the contributions they receive."}
{"id":"125f2d0e-a475-45ee-805d-e3bcc64dec3f","argument":"Control is not necessarily harming people. Leadership and followship can be beneficial to both parties. Power is sometimes viewed as only tyrannical control over the populations, but we often forget the benevolent and caring side of organized social structures.","conclusion":"Just because something does some bad, doesn't mean overlooking the good it has done."}
{"id":"5e3bc7b3-f6c2-4abd-b430-d841f3cefc5e","argument":"Please leave the footnote below the following line, but remember to delete this sentence by replacing it with the body of your post. Thank you I think for unexplored causes and reasons we've become very sensitive to controversy in this modern day, likely in no small part thanks to the internet's increasing globalization and how quickly big timely subject matters can grow out of proportion . I'd say since 2011 or around that time there's been a more and more prominent wave of people that promote feminism, and a craving for racial diversity in all sorts of medias, whether we're talking books, movies, games, sports, shows etc. it's like someone's saying Hey why are we so stuck in these ways? We should go beyond it , and that's kind of interesting to me. The unfortunate part of it is the rise of people that IMO misguidedly promote these ideas but immediately call out publiziced works whatever it may be that is either misogynist or racist or discriminating but often I find they do this to a fault. You see, they usually don't realize when they criticize, let's say a video game, that perhaps this thing they say is misogynist is SUPPOSED to be that way, but not as if the author of the work is saying Haha, fuck women but rather, he needs to address mysoginism as a theme. For example, I just watched Taxi Driver and I was kind of repulsed by its main character. He's just kind of disgusting, decides to almost create a presidential assassination, takes a date to a porn movie etc. so what's this movie trying to say? Surely it's the director trying to promote killing presidents and showing porn to women, right? Well, no. The characters of the movie don't have the perspective of the author. They have the perspective they should realistically have in the circumstances they are placed in. The protagonist of the movie is clearly a mentally ill individual and you learn through subtle clues that he's a vietnam war vet who has probably lived the rest of his returning days as a freak with a basic cab driver job and has post traumatic stress disorder or something. The message of the film also has nothing to do with promoting presidential assassinations or showing porn to women. It's about a deconstruction of the Lone Wolf trope and a timely movie reflecting on the state of american society after the vietnam war. I have not seen any SJW mention Taxi Driver, but it's just an example to show my viewpoint. As a more direct example, again taking a movie Lots of people think Quentin Tarantino is a racist because of his obsession with the N word, and people think games are mysoginystic because GTA lets you go to strip clubs and fuck women when really it's a depiction of crime life and criminal stereotypes","conclusion":"Social Justice Warriors exist, and they are misguided."}
{"id":"f1332042-e5b7-47aa-a4ff-edd67d501eba","argument":"The US Constitution, Article 1, Section 8, Clauses 15 and 16 and Article 2, Section 15 describes adopting the British model as its own. Militias would be managed by each State.","conclusion":"The Second Amendment was written in a context that is no longer relevant today."}
{"id":"9a7916e1-12be-4c2b-b2ae-f4dd8ffc6e5a","argument":"The German constitution says Human dignity is inviolable. Other constitutions have similar phrases. Measuring human life on terms of economic usability would do exactly that.","conclusion":"That would work against everything a democratic society stands for and a disgusting measurement of human life in economic terms."}
{"id":"27d75109-3239-49fa-81dc-b452df42c912","argument":"There are also other income streams that could and should be explored. Such as endorsement, pave a way for larger corporate deals internationally, use and let royal estates and more.","conclusion":"Monarchs can also have a positive effect on business and trade relationships."}
{"id":"4c60e34f-202f-407b-b6fb-f674ada97804","argument":"Sorry for the wall of text, feel free to just skip it if you want. The exceptions of course are in cases of rape, if the mother's life is at risk or if the child will have significant birth defects that would be an excessive burden on the mother, the child, the state, or any other third parties. My reasoning is this Whenever a man and a woman enter into consensual sex, they are aware of the consequences of not using adequate protection The pill Condom together for total safety . They are accepting the terms and conditions with mother nature so to speak, and if a child were to be conceived as a result then both parties should be bound by law to see that this human being is brought into the world safe and sound and is given 'their shot' at life, this may entail adoption but at least this person's life is now in their own hands. Now i understand there is an argument that a foetus isn't considered to be human until the later stages of development, however this is also rife with subjectivity and from what I've read feel free to prove me otherwise the jury is still out on whether a foetus going through an abortion feels pain or not. Additionally, whether or not we agree or disagree on the stages at which a foetus becomes a human, one thing that we can be sure of with the exception of unusual circumstances , is that a foetus will at some point become a healthy, individual human being. Is denying another human being's right to life prior to their development any different to killing them later on? I also sympathise with the It's my body I'll do what i want with it argument, but as a modern society we generally try to afford individuals as many freedoms as possible provided they aren't infringing upon the rights of another human current or future . For example, most countries don't force you to wear a helmet when riding a bicycle, because with the exception of very minor additional healthcare costs those without helmets more likely to be hospitalised you aren't harming anyone but yourself by not wearing a helmet. On the other hand, we enforce seatbelt laws because in the case of a car accident, those without seat belts are more likely to move around and knock heads with other passengers, passengers who may be wearing seat belts, so another party is being put in danger. I think we forget that this argument doesn't adequately recognise that your needs for personal freedom do in fact infringe upon the physical safety of another, we forget this because the other party currently lacks a voice to defend themselves. This is where i think we start to go from a matter of life or death to a matter of convenience, are the next 9 months of your life worth more than the entire lifespan of another person? I don't think this is a matter of individual morality, or a matter of convenience. This is a matter of life or death. I used to be pro choice a couple of years ago, mostly because it was socially acceptable and i hadn't put much thought into it. I am quite socially progressive in almost every other way, but i can't seem to reconcile this issue.","conclusion":"on abortion: I believe that the pro-life argument trivialises a matter of life or death and turns it into an argument about convenience."}
{"id":"0dbfb430-e72f-4775-a4b9-04b8b4b887e8","argument":"By providing its articles for \u201cfree,\u201d Wikipedia will drive traditional, high-quality encyclopaedias out of business by destroying their business model. Indeed the traditional print version of the Encyclopaedia Britannica has already been discontinued with the focus changing to the online version after sales had declined from 120,000 in 1990 to only 8000 in 2010.1 Wikipedia may make articles available for nothing to those with access to the internet still only a minority of people in the world, but many of these articles are not worth reading. The cost of a traditional encyclopaedia may be high, but it pays for articles written, checked and edited by experts and professionals. Even on the internet there is no such thing as a free lunch: people have to pay for internet access and computers. If Wikipedia makes it harder for ordinary people to access reliable information, then the world will be a poorer place. 1 Bosman, Julie, 2012, March 13. After 244 Years, Encyclopaedia Britannica Stops the Presses. Retrieved May 14, 2011, from The New York Times Media Decoder blog.","conclusion":"Wikipedia is driving high-quality encyclopaedias out of business, without offering a better service."}
{"id":"1b21b81e-e898-41d4-aca4-da5bd2ba347e","argument":"As countries develop more, costs of raising children increase as education standards and costs rise and it takes longer before children enter the workforce.","conclusion":"Plenty of other factors are accelerating a trend of reducing birth rates already in the status quo."}
{"id":"8d23a9ba-4ab8-4dd3-a517-da0d98e9ea00","argument":"Since athletes make large sums of money, their partners are often financially dependent on them. Hence, Zero-Tolerance polices could leave the victim, as well as the abuser, financially insecure.","conclusion":"Zero-Tolerance policies make victims of domestic violence less willing to come forward."}
{"id":"be5242e5-7853-4c96-b9ce-a2a589a1e29a","argument":"This question was kind of prompted by the recent Olivia Munn Predator controversy and the John Oliver special on the difficulty ex felons have restoring their voting rights. So I support both of these movements but I've been having a hard time reconciling these two ideas. On the one hand, I believe people who have served their time paid their debt to society and hopefully be reformed should have the opportunity to reenter society fully including voting, getting jobs, gun rights, etc. I believe most places limit this to non violent felons. The MeToo movement obviously has done a lot of good exposing sexual offenders, but I feel it sometimes unnecessarily brands stigmatizes offenders for life. There doesn't seem to be room to consider whether a sexual offender of any level can be rehabilitated or allowed to reenter society. The most pertinent example was the recent Olivia Munn outcry. She performed in a scene with what she later learned was someone who had a sexual felony record and petitioned to have his part removed. The studio and director complied. I'm not saying that companies should be forced to hire ex felons, but in this case it seems that they didn't care and that he performed his job fine. After all, Fox should have had an opportunity to background check the guy, and the director knew his history as well. I'm not arguing that Munn has to be for both MeToo and felony enfranchisement, I don't know what all her political views are. But I support both, and I am struggling to see why this is the appropriate response. If I am to advocate for ex con rights, I think it's also appropriate to be consistent with how we treat them. I can't imagine a drug felony would result in the same treatment, hell, Danny Trejo has an armed robbery conviction and he is still going strong. I've focused on a specific example but I'm sure there are others. I'm definitely for exposing bad actors and trying to bring awareness to inappropriate behaviors, but I get the impression that MeToo has a zero tolerance mindset with no chance of redemption, and I'm not fully behind that concept. x200B","conclusion":"The #MeToo movement is not consistent with felony enfranchisement"}
{"id":"2a35bbca-0c52-4e84-9bc3-6e0952416407","argument":"The increased sophistication of animal documentaries could help them replace zoos in terms of education and enjoyment.","conclusion":"The benefits that zoos provide can be gained through more ethical methods."}
{"id":"5cd3abd4-c9fb-46f9-bb96-79574d4098eb","argument":"According to the Qur'an meat eating is one of the delights of heaven and the Prophet Mohammad consumed products such as milk and butter.","conclusion":"Vegetarianism is not permitted in Islamic law unless on grounds such as unavailability or medical necessity."}
{"id":"58247774-ac1f-4feb-beaf-3b2fe508b107","argument":"Those who help voluntary do so out of conviction. This is much easier to implement and sustain than if forced","conclusion":"Helping voluntarily is better than to be required by law."}
{"id":"0a5ad390-12c4-40d2-a2f3-30c18015865f","argument":"I spend all my time examining primary and secondary legal sources stretching back over hundreds of years with the sole aim of understanding the English and Welsh legal system. Despite all this, I still believe that the ideas of the Freeman on the Land are pseudo legal and entirely false. x200B For instance, they say that statute law is inapplicable save by consent, but where all except the minority that is the group of freemen disagree, and the coercive power of the state is against you, statute law applies whether you like it or not. It only applies to anyone because they know the alternative someone more powerful than them will lock them away or take their assets. I suggest that a freeman is simply somebody who is happy to break the law not somebody who has uncovered what the law actually is. x200B They also go on about common law, but the common law has for years built on and incorporated statute. The two are so essential to each other that relying solely on the common law leaves you with an incomplete corpus. Does not the wealth of precedent relating to statute give it legitimacy to a freeman so obsessed with the common law? x200B Freemen, change my view","conclusion":"I study English law and reject the ideas of the Freeman on the Land."}
{"id":"a757f282-24a1-49e7-bd2c-d0c7c7e9d36d","argument":"\"5 reasons why Tibet unlike Kosovo will not become independent\". World Front Page. March 10th, 2008 - \"Fearing separatist movements on its own territory India will block Tibet independence as it already happened in the past. In November 1950 Tibet appealed to the United Nations for international assistance to oppose Chinese annexation. The Indian delegate to the United Nations opposed the inclusion of the question on the agenda. The issue was dropped on India's insistence.\"","conclusion":"India will not support Tibet Independence out of fear of encouraging separatists in India."}
{"id":"8e837e74-8eee-40ea-94b2-dc3ddb361663","argument":"While I have participated in many debates about piracy, on this sub and on others, it seems to me that there has been exactly one moral argument against piracy, that is both acceptable to the mainstream and makes internal conistency That it is illegal, and one has a moral obligation to respect all laws. This statement itself is of course a matter of ideological conviction and temperament, and counterable with a belief in ideas such as civil disobedience , and not followed by most people who would rather believe that laws themselves are derived from moral axioms, and this morality is superior to legality. I'm not saying that morality is necessarily objective, just that it's expected to be consistent, for example with axiomatic moral guidelines like the Kantian Categorical Imprative, or Locke's Natural Law theory, or even just the Golden Rule or the Harm Principle. But whenever piracy apologists are called out on immoral ideas, and their critics attempt to search for a basic self evident commandment similar to these, they end up resorting to either tautologies, or fallacious analogies. The most well known of these is the property argument , stating that just as one wouldn't steal away an object, likewise they shouldn't steal digital data either. This is a very frequently discussed one, and of course it's main problem is that it ignores how different the copying of information is from the removal of someone's possessions . The reason why even the most ancient legal systems had laws against stealing, is because having possessions is a self evident real life fact, and taking it away automatically causes a harm compared to the status quo, while the same is not true for copying. If you are a caveman and you just made the world's first bow, and then I grab it and run away with it, I caused you harm by decreasing your possessions regardless of whether or not there are laws against property . Meanwhile, if I just make a similar bow, I harmed you only by the lack of payment for your patent. The former harm exists in nature, while the latter harm only exists if we assume that IP law exists in the first place. The second common argument is the economical argument , paraphrased as If everyone would pirate then no creative work would get done . This appears to appeal to the Kantian Categorical Imprative, but fails to take into account that the statement being made isn't that everyone should always pirate everything, just that there are cases of piracy that do no harm to others, that is true at least in the financial sense. If everyone would pirate the things that they can't afford, while continuing to pay for things that they can, that would lead to a net benefit for society, therefore it is not subject to the harm that other acts could possibly cause. Just because driving a car can be very dangerous if done while intoxicated and tired, in an uncertified vehicle, that doesn't say much about the general morality of driving a car , but only about that drunk driving. If piracy can be done in a way that harms the entertainment industry commercial bootlegging, freeloading on things that you could afford, etc , why should that be an argument against piracy itself, instead of against those specific forms of piracy? Besides, the economical argument still relies on the fact that copyright law being written as it is. It is assumed that creative workers deserve a certain amount of distribution control over their works, but how do we know that this control is exactly the same as what is granted to them right now? If publishers are entitled to charge for 95 year old works, then why not for 100 year olds? And if they don't deserve it for 100 years, then why do they deserve it for 90 years? The same problem applies to Fair Use and First Sale doctrine, and other copyright limitations. If the limits of copyright are drawn by a rule of thumb, then what is the fundamental moral argument behind the current extents of copyright regulation all being deserved by publishers? The consistent solution to that would be to say that publishers deserve absolute control over their IP, but that would hardly be a mainstream stance, due to implying that copyright should last forever, and any Fair Use right of the public should also be ereased if publishers deem it harmful to themselves.","conclusion":"The common moral arguments against piracy are ultimately all derived entirely from it's illegality,"}
{"id":"3e9ce8a8-cd28-4789-b540-ca2be8814ea8","argument":"There is a common belief that cats are pussies or cowards. Thats not true. Animals are just afraid of different things than humans. Cats are often scared of vacuum cleaners, strangers, water. Thats normal, vacuum cleaners are very loud and hurts cats' sensitive ears. And they are lower to the ground so it feels like an earthquake for them. Humans cant detect these things. For strangers, it is natural instincts to be wary of the unknown. Some cats are afraid of water cause they cant swim, avoiding drowning is logical. Many humans are afraid of water too and cant swim. There are many things cats arent afraid of that humans are. Cats fight dogs, snakes, insects, birds, alligators, bears, etc. Cats are actually braver than humans. And not any more scared of things compared to other animals. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Cats are not pussies"}
{"id":"3d5da025-b58a-494c-b0f2-8cb9420f6a67","argument":"Dear reader, let me re introduce you to an argument known as Pascal's Wager which you probably know about if you decided to look here. From Wikipedia gt It posits that humans all bet with their lives either that God exists or not. Given the possibility that God actually does exist and assuming an infinite gain or loss associated with belief or unbelief in said God as represented by an eternity in heaven or hell , a rational person should live as though God exists and seek to believe in God. If God does not actually exist, such a person will have only a finite loss some pleasures, luxury, etc. . Pascal formulated the wager within a Christian framework. I am addressing the counter arguments of Nature as not a proof of the existence of God and Argument from inauthentic belief , which you should read about if you would like to talk to me about those. Since I'm not great at reported speech, I will quote the thoughts of my imaginary atheist gt I am an atheist. I believe there is no deity or higher power which governs nature. gt As such, I am most probably damned by a great number of religions. gt If I love my child, and if wish it well, I must do everything in my power to secure that. gt One of those things is instilling faith into my child. gt I should feign faith, as hard as I can, to make my child a believer, and a practicing one, at best. gt That way, their faith will be sincere and strong, even if mine is not, saving them, and MAYBE EVEN me in the process. I only see as conflicting the Argument from inconsistent revelations , gt Since there have been many religions throughout history, and therefore many conceptions of God or gods , some assert that all of them need to be factored into the wager, in an argument known as the argument from inconsistent revelations. This, its proponents argue, would lead to a high probability of believing in the wrong god , which, they claim, eliminates the mathematical advantage Pascal claimed with his Wager. e but even so, instilling ANY faith could still be better than NO faith, more because a number of deities value believers more than non believers. As such, Change My View, from the standpoint that there is multiple religions, and, for the sake of argument, from the standpoint that there is only one religion in the world imagine a planet of only Christians and atheists, or Jews and atheists, etc. tl dr I should teach my kid to believe in God and be a good human being, and not just the latter. EDIT I understand rule B and that is why I have given two options.","conclusion":"I believe that you, die-hard atheists, would be doing a good thing if you instilled faith into your children."}
{"id":"5d6e90fb-a88d-43fe-94a7-d5d888151062","argument":"Please see this link From 1979 1996 before gun law reforms , 13 fatal mass shootings occurred in Australia, whereas from 1997 through May 2016 after gun law reforms , no fatal mass shootings occurred. The authors accept that there are limitations to the implications of this data e.g. correlation does not necessarily imply causality . But a potential role for increased gun control in the U.S. with an end to reducing mass shootings should really be considered given apparent improvement in mass shootings in Australia. Yes, more people die from heart disease and more people die from handguns in inner cities. Yes, there should be more access to mental healthcare. Though that's all true, mass shootings are still unacceptable, and are worth fighting against in themselves. Evidence argues that increased gun control may reduce mass shootings. Increased gun control should be tried in the U.S. because I'm tired of seeing a new mass shooting with every news cycle. Change my view.","conclusion":"Though mental healthcare plays a role, increased gun control is a reasonable intervention to attempt to reduce mass shootings."}
{"id":"a6271269-db79-4e34-839b-e5d5fe1cdec8","argument":"In Kantian ethics, the categorical imperative must be willed to be universal. As such, simply being the moral will or experience of the generalized people is not enough Since these imperatives must be universal to allow murder, one must allow it under all circumstances and by all people not just toward one specific group of people. Thus this is a grave distortion of Kant's ideas.","conclusion":"Even if the Administrator has an identical reasoned outcome to the collective will, he will not be acting in accordance to the categorical imperative, because Kant insists that we don't just do the right thing but do it for the right reasons. The right reason is that one's reason is derived from the categorical imperative."}
{"id":"6595b52e-c131-4883-88c4-95c0e689632c","argument":"There is no good thing someone has done that has not benefited them in some way as far as I can tell. Look, there's no unselfish good deed, sorry","conclusion":"I believe that there is no such thing as a selfless good deed"}
{"id":"fb12065a-671e-449e-a891-62659ae0281e","argument":"This is because a formateur is unsure about which offers will be acceptable to other parties involved in the negotiations. As a result, making an offer that will be accepted immediately while not giving away \u2018too much\u2019 becomes much more difficult.","conclusion":"Asymmetric information distribution between actors has been shown to significantly increase the delay, especially in terms of the preferences of other actors Martin, 324"}
{"id":"bd6d4ad7-22d5-4d43-8b74-1072ed45b99e","argument":"ALM implies that there is something wrong with focusing on BLM. Despite the racism that drove the establishment of BLM, ALM tries to say that 'not only black lives matter' and the focus should be on how all lives matter.","conclusion":"The purpose of All Lives Matter is to make BLM appear to be selfish"}
{"id":"0b121170-367a-45d6-bb7e-fadf7349f958","argument":"A majority of philosophers believe that moral facts can exist even if God does not exist.","conclusion":"Contemporary moral theory suggests that moral standards can exist without God."}
{"id":"99c6291c-ec78-4928-885b-d345650aacd3","argument":"Direct action does not have to be violent in order for it to effective, as demonstrated by the many groups that do direct action protests, like sit ins, property occupations and blockades.","conclusion":"Direct action is sometimes the only available means of creating change."}
{"id":"1504f531-ba15-429b-9341-5e0d46d36a58","argument":"OCD Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Their obsession is their relationship with god, following the rules and their acceptance into heaven. Their compulsion is going to church temple mosque and praying and following all the rules according to their scripture. I know OCD is often uncontrollable, an extreme anxiety disorder in which the obsession often changes but what if Religious people have a mild form of OCD. They feel guilty, fear, anxious and to get rid of their fear, guilt or anxiety they attend their religious institution, follow and read their scriptures, and uphold the name of god. Over 2 million people in the U.S. have some form of OCD and it is only growing and being diagnosed more. Even if they only have a mild form, I believe some of the behavior of being a highly strict religious person is very consistent with the behavior of a person with ocd. Thoughts?","conclusion":"I think highly religious people have some form of mild OCD."}
{"id":"c639633d-e36d-4d5f-8f7c-fce7139dab30","argument":"Being born with a ugly face because of invariable genes is the most limiting factor in the quality of life of a large part of the population. As ugly person you will never be respected for who you are and people always look out for your bad side. You'll always be rated lower than better looking people who perform the same. You will never be able to experience true love, because a woman never will feel attracted to your appearance. You'll never be able to get a better career than better looking people with the same qualities. I've heard a lot of excuses like 'more competent ' or as ' more reliable '. This is all scientifically proven with research on this so called ' Halo Effect '. People who are ugly, will be put at the bottom of the social ladder, the ' scape goat '. The direct effect is that these people are not able to develop social skills, since with their appearance never have a chance Is life worth it though as unattractive person? Should the governement subsidy plastic surgery in order to improve the quality of life of ugly people?","conclusion":"Genetic inequality in attractiveness is terrible"}
{"id":"443fb361-f20b-4e2f-ab6d-344b0d096e82","argument":"Previously, Church doctrine stated that only believers would be admitted to heaven, that good deeds alone were not sufficient.","conclusion":"Pope Francis has said that atheists can still go to heaven by doing good deeds in their lives."}
{"id":"19c33c30-fcc8-4979-9409-a83f61014d96","argument":"I believe that pornography objectifies women, it's as simple as that. Because of this, I believe it is mutually exclusive to the ideas of gender equality. A gender equalist shouldn't, with a sound mind, support viewing porn because it reduces a woman's value to just their bodies. I feel that a person who claims to support gender equality absolutely cannot also claim to support or enjoy pornography. If a person does this, I consider them a hypocrite for promoting an idea that is contradictory to their supposed beliefs about gender equality. EDIT Sorry, just realized the comma is misplaced in the title. My view has been changed","conclusion":"I think that a person who supports gender equality, but also watches porn is a hypocrite."}
{"id":"e9786788-64c7-4da1-a4aa-e3ea750a9cc9","argument":"Leading children in a positive direction is better than punishing them for going in a negative direction.","conclusion":"There are better tools that can be used to help children behave well."}
{"id":"2f8ee2d5-72bb-4e4d-9f00-ab0afa2dcb98","argument":"Religion has a threatening factor whereby people are instructed to comply to what the spiritual leader tells them to do or else they'd be going to hell, where they will burn eternally for not taking heed of divine instruction.","conclusion":"Religion uses the fear of what is unknown and what we don't understand yet, to make people do what the heads of religion want."}
{"id":"23640345-76eb-4914-9e8c-c527bce637b5","argument":"The concept of jail is so strange, if you violate our laws, we will restrict your movements, housing and clothing on us. If you prove to be vulnerable to defection, we will throw you in with the worst of them and tempt you some more, brand you for life after your sentenced time is up. The most noble use is for furthering research, where a big roadblock is consent. Maybe for differing durations, maybe for differing ranges of experiments, but they should be made use of. The worst should be harvested for organs afterwards.","conclusion":"Convicts should be used as guinea pigs for scientific research, waiving their right to informed consent."}
{"id":"c978a874-f6ba-43e7-bf96-eb50daceb3ce","argument":"In the US, for example, group-specific programs fly in the face of the founders' original intention: Congress is specifically empowered to promote the \"general welfare,\" not the welfare of specific groups. U.S. Constitution Article 1, Section 8","conclusion":"Welfare and tax-funded services should benefit everybody in a given society, there is no need for especial groups."}
{"id":"63735f16-582d-4e22-a2b5-f53bc7f7d24f","argument":"The only thing I can think of to contradict this idea is his super speed healing bodily damage control. . . or maybe that his skin reacts so fast that anything that touches it feels like a marshmallow. But if that is the case, why dodge bullets or projectiles at all? That being said, my biggest pet peeve about this subreddit is a lot of the posts seem to be more about a request for confirmation of one's beliefs rather than an actual request for a change of perspective. I really would love to believe The Flash is as awesome as I know him to be. Can anyone address this? Edit Marshmellow is spelled Marshmallow. I have disgraced my ancestors.","conclusion":"If The Flash is vulnerable to bullets or shrapnel hitting his skin before he can evade them, then slamming into a wall or person at full speed would do detrimental harm to his body."}
{"id":"67863932-aafe-471d-9d9e-1de799939304","argument":"When the N-word is used, it evokes America's past and continued violence towards Black Americans: \"The word is inextricably linked with violence and brutality on black psyches and derogatory aspersions cast on black bodies. No degree of appropriating can rid it of that bloodsoaked history.\" Lester","conclusion":"Black students reading the text could suffer harm or feel intimidated."}
{"id":"c378912e-d59f-43b9-97e4-898189451e28","argument":"I believe if not addressed immediately, Social Security will lead to the downfall of the United States. As it stands, Social Security in America will be bankrupt by 2050 according to the U.S. Treasury Department. If it does go bankrupt, millions of people will lose their investments. This is an atrocity in both a utilitarian economic sense and in a libertarian sense. P from Wikipedia's history section on SS gt A limited form of the Social Security program began, during President Franklin D. Roosevelt's first term, as a measure to implement social insurance during the Great Depression of the 1930s, when poverty rates among senior citizens exceeded 50 percent. 8 The Act was an attempt to limit what were seen as dangers in the modern American life, including old age, poverty, unemployment, and the burdens of widows and fatherless children. I believe that to an extent, Social Security infringes upon individual liberty because although it provides financial security in the future, people should be allowed to invest in their own ventures such as stocks or treasury bonds. According to this LearnLiberty video Social Security yields 1 more than initial investment through retirement whereas other sources like treasury bonds yield 4 5 added ROI. That 1 from the government also costs the government over 1 trillion every year. However, if SS is the most secure method of ensuring this security, I'm all for it for the good of national economics but I don't believe SS is secure because it can be changed at any time by the gov't and it is already on a path to bankruptcy. In summary, Social Security is an unjust tax and threatens economic security. Major changes are definitely needed, but I take it a step further to believe it needs to be phased out completely. Change my view","conclusion":"The Social Security system in America is doomed and should be phased out ASAP."}
{"id":"53cb92e4-1d62-4f0a-8d03-3dd3794494ce","argument":"The impact on the family who remain can be catastrophic. Often because they were unaware of how their loved one was feeling. Suicide cases such as Megan Meier, an American teenager who committed suicide by hanging herself in 2006,1 as the parents have to launch police investigations into why their child might have felt so desperate. By legalising assisted suicide, the process can be brought out into the open. In some cases, families might have been unaware of the true feelings of their loved one; being forced to confront the issue of their illness may do great good, perhaps even allowing them to persuade the patient not to end their life. In other cases, it makes them part of the process: they can understand the reasons behind their decision without feelings of guilt and recrimination, and the terminally ill patient can speak openly to them about their feelings before their death. 1Wikipedia, \"Suicide of Megan Meier\", en.wikipedia.org, accessed 6\/6\/2011","conclusion":"Suicide is a lonely, desperate act, carried out in secrecy and often as a cry for help"}
{"id":"4a22de7d-d103-4d70-ac6b-5c2ea83798a3","argument":"\u2018Tis the season for everyone to say \u201cI have a racist uncle,\u201d \u201cdrunk divorced aunt,\u201d etc. I am not saying that your racist uncle or hypocritical aunt have acceptable and or PC views. Please, let\u2019s not debate the acceptability of these views. What I want to discuss is the fact that these people, hopefully, mattered to you at some point. Whether it\u2019s your family or a good friend, is it really worth it to cut those ties? \u201cI can\u2019t imagine having any relationship at all with someone who believes such reprehensible things \u201d Why? If you, or the other person, aren\u2019t mature enough to have a polite, adult conversation about a topic, just don\u2019t talk about it. \u201cI can\u2019t ignore it. They just hound me until I respond.\u201d Be the bigger adult. Change the subject. Flatly tell them that you don\u2019t want to discuss it. Yes, it\u2019s annoying and takes effort. I just feel that in a world where so many people feel lonely, cutting off people because you have disagreements seems immature and hasty. I will clarify, I get that some people aren\u2019t polite and you can\u2019t avoid polarizing conditions conversations. I\u2019m not saying that everyone can be reasoned with. I\u2019ve just been seeing a lot of posts across Reddit advocating for just cutting off family and friends who don\u2019t share your beliefs, and it seems like a little bit of an overreaction. Example Every holiday season my mom finds a way to hound me about the fact that I no longer go to church. Every. Single. Time. Rather than let it escalate to a shouting match, I change the topic early and do my best to avoid it altogether. To me, it\u2019s worth the effort to try and maintain my relationship with my mother, even though we have conflicting views.","conclusion":"Your political views are not a reason to cut ties from family, friends, etc."}
{"id":"a06b737c-f3de-4ab5-9ae0-eb6dea2751cf","argument":"I'm starting to cut down on lies in my life and personally i think I'm doing good. There are a lot of different types of lies and I think lying because you want to be polite is the least justified of them all. First of all, it makes small compliments meaningless, because you'd say them all the time anyways. And if the one you're complimenting is older than 12, they most likeley know it's just positive reenforcement and not your actual opinion about 50 of the time. Wich tells them absoluteley nothing. Secondly, people value other people's opinions, especially if they know eachother well. Let's say i don't like how someone's sweater looks like. I'm not gonna go over there and tell them That's one ugly ass sweater . But if they ask me if i like it and i say no, boom, I'm instantly more interesting than the other people they asked. I can still say it politeley afterall, i don't have to agree with him to be polite. But it prevents them from hurting their feelings No, it just delays that hurting to later where they find out I not only disagreed with them, but also lied to them. Let's say you're in a boring relationship and your SO keeps crying about you're gonna break up with me aren't you? What can you do in this situation? 1 Say the truth directly Yeah you're right Sure, that'll definiteley hurt their feelings, but you want to break up anyways, so why bother? 2 Say the truth indirectly I've thought about it for a long time and because , I hope you can see where I'm coming from Still hurts, but most likeley less. The problem with this? You tell me 3 Lie Don't worry we'll be together forever Then proceed to gossip about them and look for other people while pretending to still love them. What's the point of that? You're not helping your SO, you're not helping yourself, you're not helping the people you might want to date now. What's the point of that? Another thing is it prevents awkward situations because you either lost track of who you lied to or are in a conversation with two people who you told something contradictory e.g. One is a sports freak so you told them you like tennis, the other one is super relaxed so you told them you're not that into sports either. Then you three are in a conversation and the topic sports comes up And for the final and most important point In the long term, you'll be known as that trustworthy friend. I've already accomplished that with my parents and my best friend. They know if i say something, i mean it. It makes everything a LOT less complicated. Do you mind stopping at the museum for an hour? Yeah, I don't really like museums Alright sure or Fucking loser i bet you still live with your parents and watch anime all day Yeah i do Okay I see gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I have literally zero reason to lie out of politeness."}
{"id":"3e756b27-d23d-430e-8539-9e14ae28b38b","argument":"Aside from maybe dogcatcher, Republicans' political antics and many of their policy stances have disgusted me to the point where I can scarcely consider voting for them even a hypothetical option. I consider the Shutdown and earlier budgetary show downs to be exceedingly irresponsible of the Republicans, a party that likes to claim the mantle of responsibility. I find it callous that the GOP claims the debt and reducing the size of government are the highest priority when their efforts directly hurt people already suffering in a period of slow job recovery. The GOP's strong ties to the Religious Right are anathema to me. I am an atheist, and I support a scientifically informed view on public policy. Pushing things like prayer in schools, intelligent design, denying climate change, restrictive sexual mores, and the notion that the United States is a Christian nation turn me off. I am not a fan of gun violence okay, well, who could disagree with that? . I believe we can find reasonable safeguards to reduce the rate of gun violence and number of guns while preserving 2nd Amendment rights. I understand gun culture and hunting are a major part of the rural lifestyle in America, but in urban areas, we associate guns more with crime and murder. The Republicans like to talk the talk about civil liberties, but I don't think John McCain or Mitt Romney would have done things much differently from Obama in regard to NSA surveillance and other aspects of security theater. I think we spend too much on the military and rather that money be spent on a social welfare infrastructure, education, research.","conclusion":"Disgusted by their antics, I will never vote Republican."}
{"id":"989fd68a-549b-4ec5-8b7d-aad4f43dae07","argument":"\"PMFs lie outside national military controls and structures, so clients must also worry about how they can replace such services if things go awry or should the firm or its employees refuse to carry out orders in the midst of a crisis. Contractors exist within a business and even though they are doing military jobs, they are not in the military. Business is a civilian realm that falls outside the military chain of command and justice system.\" Fred Schreier and Marina Caparini, March 2005 \"Private contractors also threaten the state\u2019s monopoly on the use of force because they frequently operate outside the control of any national laws. It remains unclear, for example, whether private contractors hired by the United States are subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice UCMJ, as are members of the national armed forces. Private contractors employed in Iraq were also granted immunity from Iraqi laws by the Coalition Provisional Authority's Order 17. Even where they are not exempt from local law, however, the situation on the ground in many of the states where private contractors operate is too unstable to guarantee any real accountability.\" Zoe Salzman, Private Military Contractors and the Taint of a Mercenary Reputation,","conclusion":"PMCs are not held to the same standards and thus should not be hired by the US government."}
{"id":"fc5f412f-3efa-430b-a2ff-2dada6daa801","argument":"Morality is the distinction between what is good and what is bad. Something that is good is simply something that is desired and approved of, and something bad the opposite. As what is desired or approved of is dependent on individual opinion, morality must also at its core be dependent on individual opinion. Due to the nature of genetics, all individuals are fundamentally unique, therefore causing anything derived of individual opinion, in this case morality, to be inherently relative.","conclusion":"When we say that something is morally wrong, we are really expressing our distaste, disapproval or disgust towards that thing."}
{"id":"9b9233bd-abaf-4484-bf95-167a6b34233d","argument":"There are Christian splinter groups that vehemently oppose the current state of European integration, such as the UK Christian Party","conclusion":"Christian parties were often internally divided on the idea of Europe."}
{"id":"f0b4bce5-d316-440c-bfe4-d87a22f58351","argument":"Chinese aid tends to facilitate authoritarianism and corruption due to its state-to-state approach, where aid is given directly to governments. Not only does this reduce the punishing effect of conditional aid, but also worsens domestic corruption and authoritarianism.","conclusion":"In the current international climate, there will always be another donor, such as China that is happy to provide aid without political conditions to non-democratic regimes. This undermines the punishing effect of conditional aid."}
{"id":"84b74658-b511-4afc-8117-fdb6c4c8a854","argument":"Lately, I've been hearing talk of California trying to secede from the United States. From where I am standing a native resident of Illinois , this seems to be an irrational potentially disastrous movement. 1 California is dependent upon the US for security and could have never achieved its economic, cultural achievements outside of its participation in the US. 2 California Secession would make the US a weaker nation overall. which I believe would have disastrous global ramifications but not necessarily trying to argue that If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The California Secession Movement is a TERRIBLE Idea for California, for America, and for the World"}
{"id":"4598c8f5-545f-4733-a286-a2975c264791","argument":"Dogs were used to help humans hunt herd and protect their food. Their services are still used today.","conclusion":"Across cultures, many dogs had jobs to help humans that they still hold today."}
{"id":"b057eb4c-467f-4cc5-89fd-14e26d682f2a","argument":"Here's my view if you choose to do illegal drugs, and your method of getting them gets shut down and you lose money, it's no ones fault but your own. Regardless of your view on whether or not drugs should be legal I actually think they should be , if you choose to do something you know is illegal, and you get arrested lose money whatever, I feel no sympathy for you. It's like playing the stock market if you lose your money, no one really cares, since you made the decision to accept the inherent risk.","conclusion":"I really don't mind that the Silk Road got shut down, and I don't feel bad for any of the people affected."}
{"id":"20472a77-125a-48c5-bf26-f8f4c09681ba","argument":"The main criticism of capitalism, it seems, is that it causes extreme inequality and makes life not so fun for the poor. I agree with that criticism, and I believe it is a major, major issue but in my view it ignores a much larger and more universal problem with capitalism. Let's suppose we reduce inequality and completely eliminate poverty within the context of capitalism, say with a guaranteed basic income. Or if you're more right wing libertarian, let's suppose you won the debate and inequality doesn't matter the poor deserve it charity will take care of everything a free market will make everyone rich. In any case, I believe that there is still something inherently and deeply wrong with capitalism, quite apart from the poverty and inequality associated with it. It is dehumanizing. I don't care how successful you are within capitalism, the system itself makes you less of a human being. You must produce, produce, produce, and do so in the most efficient way, or you will go out of business, lose your job, etc. Now this can be great for the consumer we've all heard praises of capitalism for being so efficient at delivering an immense variety of quality goods at the lowest price. But unless you are independently rich, you are a producer as well as a consumer. In fact, you are a producer working for the man a good majority of the time, I'd guess. What about how capitalism treats you as a worker or as a business owner, as the case may be ? The ideal worker is an absolute machine. She lives and breathes to produce value for her employer, all day and every day. She is only given the bare minimum of rest needed to replenish her productive ability the real reason for weekends . No thoughts go through her head except how to be more efficient. She spends what little free time she has improving her work related skills. Befriending coworkers? A waste of time. From the employer's perspective, that's time that could be spent producing. From her perspective, being any more than polite is against her interests might have to stab them in the back later to advance her career. Having any serious interests outside of work is risky. If you don't keep up your skills, how will you compete against others who do? Why would an employer hire someone with an interest in writing novels when they could hire someone who is only interested in producing more value for them? Now of course there aren't many such ideal workers and they probably command a pretty high salary . But is this not essentially the condition you find yourself in at work feeling the pressure to get as close to this ideal as possible? or suffering from coworkers managers who do embody the ideal? Or perhaps, you are so identified with your role as a worker, being the machine comes so naturally to you, that you've forgotten what it means to be human? To indulge in flights of fancy, to play games and have fun, to pursue knowledge or beauty, to get inspired and be creative, to laugh and play? Sure, we do that in our free time, at least when we're young and don't have too many responsibilities. But it is the exception rather than the rule in everyday life under capitalism. We watch others having fun on TV because we're too tired at the end of the day to do anything else. Childhood summers, living absolutely free and doing whatever you want, fade into memory. If you had that at all nowadays helicopter parents would keep you busy all summer with structured activities. Gotta teach these kids the capitalist ethic as early as possible. In capitalism, even if you win, you lose. Especially if you win that means you are the most successful at repressing your humanity. I don't think it has to be this way. We do have to work to survive, but what is the point of surviving if all you do is work? TL DR capitalism as a consumer? Pretty nifty, if you've got the money. Capitalism as a producer? Welcome to the machine, my friend. Hope you can buy enough stuff to make up for not having a soul.","conclusion":"I believe that capitalism is inherently dehumanizing."}
{"id":"776db3cb-3a3b-4356-9f3a-0345a9550105","argument":"So I play a lot of card games with my in laws, and this is a view I've come to recently because none of them guard their cards very well. I have decided that it should be the responsibility of the cardholder to protect his cards from his opponents. If I happen to look over at the person sitting next to me, because it's his turn and it brings with it the attention of the table, and I can see his card, that is not my fault, and I should have no obligation to make it known to the player or anyone else at the table. I understand that inevitably, this sort of policy will lead to players looking for opportunities to grab a peek at their opponents' hands. I also understand that the next natural implication of this line of thinking, is that if a person accidentally reveals one of his cards to the entire table, for instance, if it were to slip from his hand, then he shouldn't have the right to replace it. Consequently, it also stems to reason that if he reveals a card while drawing it from the deck, he should also have no right to replace that card. I accept all of these implications. Now, let me draw some lines to clarify some things I don't consider fair play. I don't think that players should actively try to reveal their opponents' cards, whether through private or public revelation. In other words, leaning towards another player or around another player in order to get a look at their cards shouldn't be considered fair play. Using any kind of sleight of hand or attempts at manipulation to reveal another players cards shouldn't be considered fair. If a player excuses himself from the table, it shouldn't be fair play to peek at his cards in his absence. And obviously, attempting to reveal your opponents' cards by force should never be considered fair. There's one more scenario that comes to mind that I put separate from the rest because it could be a sub debate all on its own. I don't think it should be considered fair play to get up from the table with the intention of sneaking a look at your opponents cards as you walk past, but I understand you could really argue either side of that point. On the one hand, if you consider it cheating to lean around your opponent to get a look at his cards, then by the same logic, physically placing yourself behind him to get a look at his cards should also be considered cheating. But on the other hand, people have to get up from the table during games all the time, whether to use the bathroom, or grab a drink, or whatever other reason. When they do, it should be obvious to other players, and if you believe it's a player's responsibility to protect his own cards when he holds them, then it stems to reason that he should be responsible for protecting his cards while someone passes behind him to leave the table. I'm a little on the fence on that subpoint, but I think that in the spirit of fairness, if someone is getting up to leave the table, he should announce his intention first, and it would then be the responsibility of his opponents to protect their cards as he walks past. I'm here on this subreddit because most of my in laws are self admitted, terrible sore losers, and as there are usually 6 8 of them in a game at once, they lose on an individual basis far more frequently than they win, and if any of them were aware that I felt that I was perfectly justified to peek at their exposed hand of cards, and not tell them about it, they would be outraged, and may not want to include me at the table when they play card games in the future. My wife especially already hates my style of play because I'm a rather cutthroat player when the game allows , and so I'm thinking that maybe it's in my best interest to not have this view. So redditers, change my view EDIT I have been convinced that this type of play should only be allowed if it has been established and agreed upon by the players at the table, whether unanimous or by majority. That said, I would still argue that it should be implemented as an understood rule that players are responsible for protecting the secrecy of their own cards, within the constraints I outlined above. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"It isn't cheating if you look at someone else's cards during a game"}
{"id":"944639b0-d349-4ccd-b87f-70791a4d9708","argument":"As it currently stands, the failure of sports leagues to properly and consistently punish abusive athletes implicitly condones off-field criminal behavior","conclusion":"Leagues have an obligation to take strong action against domestic violence."}
{"id":"428257fa-c3c9-4970-abca-66d35cfb00cc","argument":"For most of my life I've avoided any and all political discussion as I held the perception that it all amounted to nothing more than futile perpetual ego driven nonsense where finding truth and a common ground isn't as important as finding confirmation bias. I suppose I never fully rid myself of that line of thought, although these days my conviction prevents me from being a true centrist. Initially I considered myself a moderate leftist but as I encountered more and more right wing extremism over the years I found myself becoming increasingly biased to liberal viewpoints. I can't say I have a problem with that but I've reached a point where I've come to think I'm now merely a part of the problem. There are times when the political divide amongst people appears so vast that it seems utterly pointless to form an opinion on anything, or to speak out against what I disagree with. So many people insist they are correct and that's simply the end, so why bother. If the divide has grown so deep just how is one more voice in one of the echo chambers going to change anything? I was surrounded by authoritarian conservatives during my youth and could very well have become yet another narrow minded extremist of which there are many in the state I live in , yet I ultimately wound up on the left end of the political spectrum. It seems as if I'm one of the few that was willing to do so. Sometimes I think my views were set the day I was born, and I think this applies to people on both ends. I'm not entirely sure that political beliefs are solely formed by a person's environment it seems to me people are divided on a genetic level and common ground is nothing more than a fantasy. I feel as though the only thing the entire human race truly has in common is our desire to seek and inability to avoid conflict. People can't change so what's the point in trying to encourage change?","conclusion":"Forming an opinion on any political issue seems pointless to me."}
{"id":"67b91749-e304-4318-9f59-8b37f5a3eb22","argument":"Different parts of an animal's body have different value. The expensive parts are responsible for most of the profit that the meat industry is making. The cheap parts are just sold to make a little bit extra. If people only ate the latter, and were unwilling to pay more for it than today, the meat industry would have to drastically reduce its production. Anyone who is in favour of that but unwilling or unable to go full vegetarian should therefore replace his steaks and burgers with cheap hotdogs, wieners and other stuff like that. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"People who find vegetarianism too hard should stick to cheap foods made of animal by-products"}
{"id":"0a771a65-e60c-445d-b4b8-d5a5f701504d","argument":"The Cheddar Bay Biscuts from Red Lobster are amazing. Now I'm not saying Red Lobster is great in fact the experience is kind of depressing. You'll sit there in a dull seaport theme waiting on what passes as seafood . However, while you wait, they provide you what is the closest thing to manna from heaven. They are buttery, moist, melt in your mouth, and make up for the whole experience. You can take them home, reheat them, and they will be just as good as they were at the restaurant. You can buy them from the store as a mix and have the heavenly goodness at home. Now I'm not saying Olive Garden breadsticks are terrible. They are soft, buttery, and have a nice hint of garlic. But they are only good when hot and eventually get soggy and bland when lukewarm. They do not reheat well when you take them home. I fact they get hard and inedible. You can not buy them from a grocery store. So with this I'm saying the Cheddar Bay Biscuts from Red Lobster are better than breadsticks from Olive Garden. Try to change my view.","conclusion":"Cheddar Bay Biscuits from Red Lobster are better than Breadsticks from Olive Garden."}
{"id":"6b5f5232-70ab-4d49-9a29-47c980c0693b","argument":"It is impossible to determine what kind of life one will live, hence we must give the unborn a chance at life.","conclusion":"Life in itself is better than no life at all, regardless of quality."}
{"id":"8d32c84a-c209-481d-9826-ad006add9d01","argument":"Reddit has grown for the last decade. It has grown a lot and you can tell it by checking when people edit their posts complaining about unfair downvotes. They've always been downvoted regardless, but now there's a growing number of user saying that they downvote posts they disagree with and they're heavily updated, very rarely with a controversial vote, and never with a negative score. Despite it being against the reddiquette. Speaking of the reddiquette, who respects it anymore? People brigade all the time and it takes no effort to bury comments you disagree with. You don't even have to organize brigades in the website itself. Instead, you can use another social network to do your thing and you will never face consequences. I'd point out famous subreddits that do this, it rarely comes from the subreddits themselves. What would happen if we could only upvote? If we don't like something, we will ignore it. If we disagree with it, we can either suck it up or reply with our counter argument, and we won't be penalized for it. Yes, if you get a lot of downvotes, your account will be limited. It happened multiple times to me when I would post opinions, although very respectfully, that not many people agreed with. So, why do we have a downvote button at all? To downvote low effort comments? It hasn't helped at all. To bury spam? There's the report button. I don't see the point of it. .","conclusion":"The downvote button has become useless"}
{"id":"60bbc5ae-7529-4e1a-854b-28562857fce0","argument":"I believe in animal rights not necessarily as animals should have legal rights but simply that they should have the right not to be used, abused, and exploited by humans. Even if they aren't intelligently equal to humans, they still experience fear, pain, and suffering therefore, industries that treat animals as commodities the fur industry, factory farming, etc. are ethically indefensible. It seems contradictory that we have animal protection laws that protect domestic pets from abuse and harm, but corporations are legally permitted to use animals however they please. Dog and pigs, cats and cows I don't see why they are considered different insofar as we protect some from pain and suffering, but not others. I have never heard a good argument against animal welfare, and the defenses people use against animal rights are usually rooted in selfish desires e.g. But bacon is so good, Humans evolved to eat meat and wear leather, etc. . I'm open to hearing some good arguments.","conclusion":"I believe animals should have the right to live free from human exploitation."}
{"id":"562ba254-ebad-46f6-a61f-a73108ef8007","argument":"Let me give you an example Bob works at a bike shop repairing bikes for 8 hr, he's been doing it for 20 years and barely making ends meet. One day he decides he's had enough and thinks he can do it on his own. He doesn't go to school or take a class, he goes into his bank account and invests every single penny he's made in those 20 years, except for a few months rent to survive. So for 3 years he works alone, making LESS than 8 hr and is severely in debt, but he marches on. Finally, after 3 long years of working 16hr days and making almost no money, he starts hitting it big. Into year 5 of his business, Bob is now a multimillionaire, he's hired about 1000 employees over that time and pays the average employee around 8 hr. Now Bob's business is international, he's a billionaire. He decides while his average worker earns 20,000 year, he's going to take in a bonus of 50,000,000 on top of his yearly salary of 50,000,000. My question , what in the bloody hell is wrong with that? HE struggled and worked his ass off and HE took the risk, HE created a business and jobs that would have otherwise not existed so in my opinion, it's HIS cake and if he can stuff his face with it if he wants. If Bob didn't exist, the employees wouldn't even have jobs, if Bob wanted to pay them 5 hr that's his right, is it not? To me it's no different than walking into McDonalds, buying a large size of fries, and walking by homeless people. You have absolutely no obligation into splitting your fries with all the homeless people and most people dont , but a CEO is expected to split his fries with his workers? If a CEO is making 10,000 or 100,000 what his employees are making, then they have a choice to leave. tl dr If you built something, it's yours","conclusion":"I believe that CEO's, ESPECIALLY self-made entrepreneurs, have a right to take as much money as they want from the company they created. I believe that if they wanted to pay their employees $1\/hr, that's their choice and the choice of the employee to accept."}
{"id":"1f5b39b6-2a3c-4899-98a1-325216735aa2","argument":"The vast majority of men would and DO use their position of authority, power, and wealth to bed sexy young ladies. If these ladies are willing to engage in intercourse for film roles, what's the problem? It's a win win. If a landlord was using this to force a poor single mother to have sex for rent, that would be wrong as she has no recourse and her options are homelessness or sex. But in this case it's an actresss having sex with a producer for millions of dollars and fame. Seems like a good deal to me.","conclusion":"Harvey Weinstein did nothing wrong"}
{"id":"f26ed84e-83d5-4cd7-aefa-c14425d73439","argument":"Take any community or group. Here is the power line 1 2 3 4 1 is where only 1 person gets the vote autocracy, authoritarinism, dictatorship, monarchy. 2 is where a few people get the vote oligarchy, aristocracy, plutocracy. 3 is where a few more get the vote often through the obfuscating layer of representatives representative democracy, parliamentary democracy. 4 is where everyone gets to vote direct democracy . Many people claim that 4 is a tyranny of the majority , where a mob of uneducated peasants which of course we all are controls affairs to the detriment of all. To me, this argument inherently assumes that the minority somehow won't also be tyrannical , which makes the phrase completely loaded. Tyranny is a loaded word with negative emotional connotations. If we substitute the word self interested , instead of tyrannical , for both dictators, and plebs, then it becomes clear that democracy is a far better system for representing the desires of the entire society, and not just a select few. I don't think we need to look too far for examples, even in the present day, to see how terrible minority rule can be in practice. TL DR Tyranny of the majority is a loaded phrase, and should be replaced with the self interest of the majority .","conclusion":"The \"Tyranny of the majority\" argument is really a defense of authoritarianism, and a loaded, emotional phrase. Tyranny should be replaced with \"self-interest of the majority\", and minority rule is always worse in practice."}
{"id":"678d73cb-8cd2-4e99-b653-33459950b627","argument":"The body core temperature is lower during sleep, an effect reached by vasodilation This is helped by keeping feet and hands warm.","conclusion":"Wearing socks in bed increases blood flow to feet and heat loss through the skin."}
{"id":"b1c8c0ee-d1dc-47c2-8bd2-12373c5c70f4","argument":"First, let me say file me under the Loves Terry Crews column. I like his work but I love his character. So maybe my view on this issue is a failing in me and it will be changed. But perhaps my view represents a common perspective on many cases of 'sexual assault'. And that is Where's The Assault? While Terry could have trivially stomped this fool for his rudeness, he chose not to because he understood there was no win in that off to jail was his assumption of the consequence of that choice He felt coerced to not exercise his physical power and he hated the fact that he felt coerced into not exercising it, because of the circumstances and the potential effect on his career. He went home that night, I assume, fuming about what had happened and second guessing his own response. But still, in the end what happened sounds like the height of rudeness, but not assault. We don't need to call everything assault and we don't need to liken everything to rape. Adam was rude beyond imagining. He sounds like he was high af frankly and he was arrogant comfortable enough to imagine that he was in a truly safe space where he could pull this shit. But it's not dropping pills in people's drinks. It's not forcing yourself on them in a car. It's just rudeness in the extreme. Unless there is a wider pattern of power abuse I don't see the need to burn this man to the ground. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Terry Crews is over-reacting in his vendetta against Adam Venit"}
{"id":"5e97a888-ba27-4a65-bdb4-3384c7b302f2","argument":"For many in Christian parties it is questionable how the EU should evolve vis-a\u0300-vis Turkey.","conclusion":"Christian parties were often internally divided on the idea of Europe."}
{"id":"738801e4-8c4c-4fc4-ab2c-0c187f1b591f","argument":"I use the word 'alive' in the title but I more mean conscious capable of experiencing subjective experience, or qualia. I think of it like this somehow, all of my neurons in my brain simply communicating basic electric signals between one another gives rise to a seemingly singular consciousness, capable of awareness and feeling. A rock is built up of atoms, which are all undergoing complex interactions via forces like gravity, their temperature, and more. It stands to reason that this rock should be having some form of private, inner experience, just like my brain.","conclusion":"If merely the interconnectedness of your neurons causes you to be 'alive,' then even rocks and spoons are alive."}
{"id":"4e695065-0b82-483a-b571-30af90486c7e","argument":"A mere need to pursue more knowledge demands that we explore the option of contacting alien life if we can.","conclusion":"Contacting sentient alien life would potentially answer many of our questions about the nature of life in the universe."}
{"id":"a79c04ce-e04b-4ad1-90e2-0edb78e1a39b","argument":"My husband complains about my use of loyalty cards saying the 1 saving sales notifications are not worth handing over my shopping data. When I ask what's the harm he gives a nebulous rant about a cyber punk apocalypse. Can someone explain why I should care? I have to type more characters so, he also talks about if you're not paying then you're the product and that Facebook sells my personal info for 12 a year. I would pay 12 a year for my supermarket rewards card but I don't use Facebook enough to really worry about it one way or another I only use it an hour per week . I understand there's reasons to be concerned about phone tacking but I also think this is also outweighed by the benefits find my phone and taking being used as an alibi But really all I care about is the reward card and the rest of this was just so I'd have 500 characters. Now I have to wait another minute until I can resubmit my post. Tldr why should I care if my shopping data is tracked?","conclusion":"I having nothing to fear from Big Data"}
{"id":"c15cc1d4-c9d4-41b0-8939-33378d09fc2d","argument":"All this people have in common, that an intelligence superior to that of humans would be something qualitatively new to their experience. For the average person, the superior intelligences are the Bill Gates, Stephen Hawkings and Elon Musks of this world and an AI superior to all humans would not have to change that much","conclusion":"Scientific authorities caution against AGI for it's potential risks."}
{"id":"ea0763b4-64ac-4af4-9876-f950811406e6","argument":"My coworker is a believer in the Mises school of economics and today told me that we could resolve a lot of economic problems by going back to the gold standard. I don't believe him. From what I can gather all a new gold standard would do is create a finite amount of money as demand grows to a much larger amount. This should cause, from what I have read, the price of products to decrease. From my understanding of economics this will create the opposite problem we have today, the value of money goes up while the costs of goods goes down. Wouldn't this encourage people to rarely invest? Wouldn't this drop overall demand, thus depressing prices even more? My friend's argument is the market will fix itself, but he his explanation people would just add another physical good to the hard currency left me wanting. Can anyone explain why a gold standard wouldn't actually hurt economies in the long run?","conclusion":"Gold Standard is a bad idea"}
{"id":"e05fb0eb-76de-4008-a73c-47bb2b6be96d","argument":"I read this article today. The author berates Steven Schwarzman for making a 150m donation to Yale, where the students mostly come from very rich backgrounds. Literally any other charity would be a better choice. He could cost effectively make millions of lives better instead of building a music hall among other things at Yale. I donate a token amount of money to the universities I went to that have much much smaller endowments than Yale but give larger sums to charities that do work in India and Africa. Any reason I should change my view?","conclusion":"Donating to an Ivy League university is not an act of altruism. It's a gigantic, immoral waste of money."}
{"id":"7f63eaf6-8cf8-440a-882f-dbe949e0eb21","argument":"Children are born asexual. The incessant suggestion of heterosexuality trains the mind to accept it, as children are neurologically malleable.","conclusion":"Human sexuality is suggested and reinforced throughout our development. It is not natural or innate."}
{"id":"4750dcf4-95c1-4912-bae0-8f5f545d06a6","argument":"A little background for those who don't know the scenario In Season 2 Episode 24 of Voyager, a transporter malfunction causes Tuvoc and Neelix to become fused, creating a new person who calls himself Tuvix. Throughout the course of the episode he shows himself to retain all the redeeming qualities of both characters he has Tuvoc's intelligence and logical abilities while simultaneously having Neelix's kindness and good charm. Everybody likes him even Kes, Neelix's lover, befriends him eventually. While Janeway is launching her crusade to turn him back into Tuvoc and Neelix effectively killing him he is creating a life for himself, fitting in amongst the crew members, and deciding that he rather likes this thing called life. Janeway goes on to attempt to garner support from crew members in her decision to restore Tuvoc and Neelix, but nobody agrees with her side, even the doctor. In fact, the doctor won't sedate Tuvix in the end and requires Janeway to do it herself. Tuvix the whole time was made aware of Janeway's intentions and argued quite emphatically that he should have the right to live. Is this not a basic tenet of Starfleet that all intelligent life has a right to exist? Janeway listens to his arguments and decides to undergo the procedure anyway. Because she is the captain, nobody will contradict her orders. Tuvix is marched to his death watching all of his friends and colleagues be completely powerless to do anything. My argument is the transporter malfunction killed Tuvoc and Neelix and gave birth to a new intelligent being named Tuvix. Tuvoc and Neelix should have been treated as a tragic accident and Tuvix should have been allowed to live based on the principles of Starfleet itself. Janeway murdered Tuvix in attempting to reverse this tragedy. Because she committed murder against an intelligent being who was not hostile in any way, and violated a basic principle of Starfleet, she should be tried in court and should lose her commission as a Captain or even as an Admiral and punished accordingly. Change my view.","conclusion":"I think Captain Janeway should have been tried in court for the murder of Tuvix and lost her commission"}
{"id":"313e53a3-9819-4d88-a34f-fc59dfd7287a","argument":"In particular, its claim that studies had found evidence that gun control did not work to reduce crime misrepresented the conclusions of those studies, which were rather concluding that there were grounds for further research due to a lack of empirical studies necessary to draw conclusions.","conclusion":"The paper in question was published in an ideological student law review not a peer-reviewed journal, did not involve any actual research, and has been widely debunked as misrepresenting the conclusions of the actual studies it discusses"}
{"id":"a462c84e-24a6-4372-8df6-2face07e9fba","argument":"Yes, If you understand their actions, and accept it as a reasonable thing to do.","conclusion":"Should we forgive those who don't regret hurting us?"}
{"id":"2e35df7f-1dfe-44ac-92ea-963aceaa8635","argument":"The electorate should have a vote, but not a referendum. Both parties should be suspended and parliament re-organised on the Brexit lines of deal, no-deal and remain. An election on those lines should solve many problems.","conclusion":"There are other alternatives to solving this problem, that do not require another referendum."}
{"id":"449a55de-a54a-48a5-8acd-4da541d1df88","argument":"A common language would make it possible to find or write a common European anthem.","conclusion":"It may be a way to create a European identity."}
{"id":"87ca76a9-7a42-41d6-89d5-eeee94fba20b","argument":"I love tropical places and the ocean. I've always loved Hawaii. I don't think there is another tropical area that I would be happy living in though. Hawaii is very mountainous, which I like, and I also like that it is still part of the US. If I were to move to Hawaii it would most likely be on the big island or on Kauai. I really love fresh seafood, tropical fruit, and going to the beach to swim in the ocean. I would say in life, these are probably in my top 10 favorite things. I have heard the cost of living in Hawaii is extremely high, but I already live in California where it's also expensive. Since there is lots of seafood and tropical fruit and the ocean is a quick drive away, I feel the cost of living in Hawaii would not be a big deal. Okay, I could swim at the beaches in California, but they are too cold for me. I am also a software web developer so I make pretty decent money and could have a telecommuting job. I have also considered Florida as it's so close to the Caribbean and much cheaper than Hawaii, but it's also very populated and flat. So, I really think Hawaii is best for me. Please try to change my view, or at least give me different perspectives. If I realize it's definitely not practical to live in Hawaii, I need an affordable alternative to be there as often as possible","conclusion":"I think I would be very happy living in Hawaii."}
{"id":"68342f40-6d36-491d-8317-f0ed2fb3454b","argument":"Models of a very low weight are setting bad examples to these girls and can be held responsible for the increasing number of girls with eating disorders","conclusion":"Many girls idolize models and feel the need to mirror their thinness."}
{"id":"0cb8a449-d126-456c-8e1c-bb790aacbfd9","argument":"There was a PETA campaign way back in 2009 that tried to rebrand fish as sea kittens to make them seem more like the cute animals we take care of. The campaign, which was aimed at children, was trying to get them to see fishing and eating fish as unethical acts. The biggest issue I have with this campaign is the word kitten . Kitten is the name for baby cats and anyone in their right mind can see that a fish is not the same as a kitten. It's almost like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. The pictures on the site itself show fishes in cat outfits with pointed ears and cat noses. The campaign also highlighted some behaviors in fish that portrays them as social and organized. Like these quotes gt Sea kittens talk to each other through squeaks, squeals, and other low frequency sounds that humans can only hear through special instruments. Most ichthyologists\u2014scientists who specialize in sea kitten biology\u2014agree that this is just about the cutest thing ever. and this lovely bit of information gt Contrary to popular belief, the technical term for sea kitten offspring is baby sea kitties, not caviar. Many sea kittens build nests where they can raise their baby sea kitties, and others collect small rocks off the sea floor to make widdle hiding pwaces where they can rest. I feel like it would be more beneficial to children and adults if PETA did an expos\u00e9 on the lives of fish and how overfishing impacts their survivability and habitats. Calling them sea kittens is just a blatantly ignores the reality that fish are not furry cuddly domesticated animals. Moreover, I understand that there are people who keep fish as pets and we can form bonds and attribute human personality traits to them but I doubt that any fish owner sees them as kittens . If PETA had gone the more demonstrative route, like the documentaries Blackfish or Chasing Coral, and showed us the real impact of losing ocean life, they would have had more success. x200B PS yup it does say pwaces on their site","conclusion":"calling fish \"sea kittens\" does not make me want to eat them less"}
{"id":"0ff120d3-c954-45bc-a0bc-31b986de136b","argument":"Star Wars , is literally ok. I genuinely believe, that only two of the 8 films released thus far are any good, and even then there's nothing incredible about them. The story, itself is incredibly simplistic. It's the same cliched chosen one story that prevails through all of fiction. It doesn't really have many interesting themes, or really many interesting characters. It's not particularly well acted either. Alright, so fine it's a dumb action blockbuster. I'd let slide, if it wasn't for the fact that most of the films don't even work at that. IV Incredibly poorly paced. Starts off okay, but really gets boring as it goes on. Probably the blandest of the lot. Really not very cinematic and don't give me it was made in 1977 as an excuse because 2001 A Space Odyssey came out 9 years earlier, and doesn't feel dated at all. V This is the one that I actually like This one manages to be cinematic, and Han and Leia's storyline actually manages to hold actual weight. I am your father scene is pretty damn good too. This one also has pretty decent pacing. It's a solid B VI Some of the stuff that worked in Empire is back, and is certainly more enjoyable than A New Hope , but has a really silly middle act. It's not bad, but it's not that good either. I Not only is this total shit, but you can basically skip all of it anyway. II Painfully awful. I don't think I even need to justify this, as the fanbase agrees here. III Sure, the dialogues awful. Sure, the acting is shit. Now this film is shit, but unlike A New Hope It's not boring. Minor award for ironic entertainment value. VII Hey, I actually like this one People's main criticism is that it's the same story as A New Hope , but for me to be mad at its unoriginality would require me enjoy A New Hope in the first place. This is like IV , but doesn't have awful pacing and actually feels like an exiting experience. Rouge One uh yeah I left this film remembering literally none of the main characters. It felt dull and uninspired. So, I think 2.5 8 are good. Huh. So, I'll go and see VIII because with Rian Johnson at the helm and following from VII I do think it may very well be good. However, I am really baffled by why this film has such a legendary status. To me, the best things about Star Wars are their iconic elements, such as Williams score, the opening crawl, lightsabers etc. This is all good shit, but I feel that its status is really a product of marketing and nostalgia, rather than genuine artistry. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Star Wars is average at best."}
{"id":"507a7113-5757-46a8-8333-2830ba08f2be","argument":"Post I\u2019m a petty bastard hungry for validation. So damn right I\u2019ll take another sub\u2019s argument over here. So some people were saying that the title is creepy but I just don\u2019t see it. I responded by saying that I\u2019ve heard plenty of adults in my life call little girls \u201cyoung lady\u201d. I don\u2019t see how this is any difference. Especially given the fact that if a boy were in the pic no one wouldve said anything. I went as far to call the girl \u201cpretty\u201d and \u201cattractive\u201d and that \u201cshe looks good\u201d because I, like most humans, have the ability to imagine what she\u2019d look like as an adult, and can miraculously detect facial symmetry and proportionality which lesbehonest is really what attractiveness boils down to . I think that the people these days are oversensitive to remarks that objectify or otherwise treat people unfairly given the amount of racist mysoginistic bs we have to wade through in normal media . This results in the occasional false positive. a double standard still exists among people who claim to treat women fairly. We can call a little boy \u201chandsome\u201d and even metaphorically a \u201cman\u201d and no one cares. It seems that the word \u201cman\u201d has more than just a sexual connotation attached to it. It\u2019s a title that demands respect, indicates mental maturity etc. However call a girl a \u201cwoman\u201d? For some reason the only thing that comes to mind is sexual maturity. Imo that POV is sexist. If a friend sent me a pic of his kid in a suit or a fancy dress, I just wouldn\u2019t feel weird to call them \u201chandsome\u201d or \u201cpretty\u201d. Or say that they \u201clook good.\u201d Is that weird? Finally, the onus is on the viewer audience not to interpret it in the wrong way. There is nothing inherently sexual about the post, so a sexual interpretation is a product of the viewer, not the artist.","conclusion":"There is nothing sexual about this r\/accidental renaissance post"}
{"id":"c7e777e6-6b8a-489f-a1c3-a8722611d8ca","argument":"The hatred our enemies feel for America does not depend on details of our legal system. They hate us for our success in building a tolerant, democratic society at odds with their narrow vision of harsh conformity. They hate us for our willingness to stand up for our values abroad and protect our allies against violent extremists seeking to take over their states. Their propaganda seeks to radicalise young Muslims across the world not by arcane appeals to Habeas Corpus, but by twisted portrayals of American military actions against civilians in countries such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Somalia.","conclusion":"The hatred our enemies feel for America does not depend on details of our legal system. They hate u..."}
{"id":"2355c00c-7f52-4f88-a2be-54b3924e2df6","argument":"For example I'd have no problem telling someone I have deep feelings for that I'm in love with them, however I'd probably wait a certain number of months before crossing into I love you territory. This belief is supported by the idea that when you say I love you , you mean it permanently. I never stop loving my parents. But people fall in and out of love all the time. In all my experiences, no one has EVER shared this view with me. People always see it the opposite, that saying you're in love with someone is the ultimate or something. To me it just seems so temporary. Meaningful, but temporary. In fact it's caused me some troubles before I asked my current SO out after 4 months of seeing each other exclusively by saying I was in love with her, to which she replied I love you too. And I had a real Gob moment of I've made a huge mistake because I didn't feel like I LOVED her yet. I just had strong romantic feelings for her. EPILOGUE We've been together over a year now and I love her a fuck ton and tell her all the time.","conclusion":"I think saying \"I love you\" is WAY more intense and meaningful than saying \"I'm in love with you.\""}
{"id":"bf87bded-d0f3-4f57-90fa-d84fab04f0f4","argument":"Malls, movie theatres, schools, and any places that doesn't allow guns just makes it easier for killers to go on shooting sprees. Let's look at some examples of major shooting sprees and where they take place Austin, Texas, 1966 Charles Whitman kills 14 at the University of Texas with a rifle before being killed by a police sniper. Edmond, Oklahoma, 1986 Patrick Sherrill, an angry postal worker, killed 14 at the post office before killing himself. San Ysidro, California, 1984 James Oliver Huberty killed 21 in a local McDonald\u2019s with a submachine gun and rifle before being killed by police. Killeen, Texas, 1991 George Jo Hennard drove his truck into Luby\u2019s diner, then killed 23 with a pair of pistols before committing suicide. Blacksburg, Virginia, 2007 Seung Hui Cho kills 32 on the campus of Virginia Tech. Commits suicide. Aurora, Colorado 2012 James Holmes walks into a movie theatre and kills 12 people. Columbine, Sandy Hook, Red Lake Senior High, and Fort Hood are places that are gun free zones that are also the places where shooting sprees have taken place. Mentally stable people see gun free zones signs and don't bring guns in, but a mentally unstable person sees that as a place where nobody will have a gun. This means that everyone there is at the mercy of the shooter because nobody will protect them and we know that police don't have the fastest response times. The idea behind CCW is to give people the chance to protect themselves and to stop the shooters before they kill injure too many people.","conclusion":"Any place that doesn't allow guns gun free zones makes for perfect places for people to go on shooting sprees."}
{"id":"20b3019e-a4e6-4632-a50d-458341a7295b","argument":"So, my wife's sister is 23. Let's call her Rachael. I've known Rachael since she was 13. I am 30 years old. I feel like her older brother. For context, I actually do have a younger sister whom I love dearly, who is 28 . For the past two years, Rachael has been dating a 40 year old man lets call him Joe. Joe and Rachael met at work. He was her appointed mentor. They hit it off. After about 6 months of this affair, Joe left his former partner, lets call her Zoe, and two young kids 6 and 12 at the time to be with Rachael. Joe moved out of his family home where, by his account, he had been living in an unhappy status quo with Zoe for several years to live with his parents, which is approximately 30 minutes travel from Zoe and his kids. Rachael lived with me and my wife during the time after Joe left his family. Rachael lived in a self contained flat on our property. We live about 2 hours drive from Zoe and 1 and a half hours drive from Joe's parents. Joe often visited Rachael and spent many days here. Recently, after Racheal and Joe have been together two years they decide to get a place together. This place is about 10 minutes from Zoe's house. Joe reasons that he wants to be closer to his kids. This year, 2018, before the move, Joe has seen his children a grand total of twice. That is, less than once a month. Last year wasn't much better. I really like Joe as a person but I hate the situation. I kinda hate him because of it. I bag him out with the rest of the family and my wife frequently. I feel guilty about it sometimes. Change my view, Reddit, tell me why I should like this cradle snatching son of a bitch but also genuinely decent human being. I'm deeply conflicted and open to change my views for a good reason. Edit so I'm at a lunch with Rachael and Joe now. Pretty pissed at Rachael. Not sure how to express it. Will probably just play it cool. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"My sister-in-law loves a cradle snatcher"}
{"id":"89778235-0bad-449d-89c6-99862b227e6e","argument":"Religion is a way to understand the Unknown, namely death and what happens to us after it. But, it requires no test, inquiry or research.","conclusion":"Religions set a bad precedent that applies outside religion, that it's okay to believe: That we don't need evidence and logic to draw conclusions."}
{"id":"27b75830-8a09-44f1-8b99-51d0477fbf88","argument":"I could write a book about this very subject, but I'd like to keep it short for now. There are so many historic examples for my first accusation, but I am just going to mention one of them. It's a story that influenced my family's life. I'd like to talk about America and Great Britain working together to remove the elected leader of Iran, the Shah. Short summary The Shah basically discontinued the trade agreement between Iran and Great Britain, because he felt that the deal was unfair Great Britain got cheap oil, while Iran didn't really profit of the products Great Britain was providing . The Shah stated that the oil should belong to stay in Iran and Great Britain wasn't happy about that. They asked America for help and eventually accomplished their goal, to replace the Shah with another leader. Great Britain got their oil trading back and left the Iranian country in a catastrophic state back. The whole Iranian country still suffers from the terrible, abysmal government, still after ~30 years. Well, basically my whole family had to flee to Europe, since the new government didn't accept their religious views and their whole belongings were confiscated by the new government. They lost five farms and two large properties, which would still be worth a fortune. This didn't just happen to my family, in fact it happened to countless Iranians who basically had to suffer because of Great Britains interest in oil, but somehow this historical fact is just barely known. And that didn't just happen to Iran, there are oh so many examples of civilizations being destroyed by the greed of first world countries. The problem is that the egoistic human being always tries to exploit others, so that he can get the advantage over them.","conclusion":"Most politicians are disgusting human beings and the world is lead by mercenary capitalists"}
{"id":"25d0255c-99b3-423f-9355-4998bc046567","argument":"Most publicly-funded education systems in many countries has received significant cuts therefore, even if CBE is a system with more beneficial than the grade based one, it is unlikely that notn elite intuitions can implement it.","conclusion":"Getting rid of grades and therefore changing the entire education system in many different countries can be extremely costly."}
{"id":"0cb378fd-d2cb-4931-b004-c52775780971","argument":"For the record, this stems from being a suicidal teenager myself now in my mid twenties and I often regret not having gone through with it being stopped from doing it. I sadly and honestly believe that people should not be stopped from killing themselves if they feel like they want to. On the positive side, if they really feel like they don\u2019t want to be on this earth, they will be reducing the population little by little since the human race is growing exponentially almost EDIT, THIS IS NOT TRUE, thank you for the correction . Often people who are so depressed that they are suicidal are not contributing much to society, they are essentially taking more than they are giving back to the community. That being said, the encouragement part I definitely need to explain. I do NOT by any means think that it should be actively encouraged I do however think that if someone tells you that they are going to kill themselves not just want to that your response to them should be a simple, \u201cokay, it was nice knowing you.\u201d Or something along those lines. EDIT 2 another question, why do people put so much pressure by saying youll hurt so many people and things like that? tl dr I believe suicidal people don\u2019t contribute optimally to society","conclusion":"I believe that if somebody wants to kill his\/her self, nobody should try and stop them, maybe even encourage it"}
{"id":"b39f7890-065f-4c12-95bf-9345f67bff79","argument":"We acknowledge the right of individuals or their parents to control their own bodies \u2013 when they have an operation, where they go, what they do. Why is this any different? This discussion should be held in the real world: students actually aren\u2019t compelled to attend PE classes, as \u2018sick notes\u2019 are produced with alarming regularity by parents complicit in their child\u2019s wish to avoid this lesson. The aim of \u2018compulsory PE\u2019 isn\u2019t being fulfilled at present in any case, and greater efforts to enforce it will only result in more deceit, or children missing school for the entire day \u2013 or, in the most extreme cases, being withdrawn from state education by parents unwilling to allow their children to be forced into something they don\u2019t wish to do. Instead, we should simply abandon the whole exercise and allow PE to become voluntary. The UNESCO charter stresses the right to PE, and was addressed to nations that failed to provide it at all \u2013 it was not meant to suggest that individuals should be compelled to do it in nations that do1. 1 UNESCO. 1945, November 16. Constitution of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. Retrieved May 18, 2011.","conclusion":"Individuals should have the right to control their own bodies"}
{"id":"15ef7493-9a38-4082-8d3a-f5740281d82f","argument":"Iran has two countries that it REALLY hates, Israel and the U.S. These two countries are the two most probable targets, to my understanding. But Israel and the U.S. both have some of, if not the, best military equipment in the world. And both have anti missile capabilities, along with some of the best Intel in the world. My point is, its not a viable offensive weapon for Iran. So what's the big deal, let them have it, they can't do dick with it. Missile defense is nothing new, and a weapon combined with intelligence work seems to get the job done. Accordingly, it ought to here.","conclusion":"Iran Having a nuke and missile to go with it is no big deal, they can't do anything with it."}
{"id":"600badd4-6a8f-42fa-9e78-520b0a9b8545","argument":"This is potentially the most controversial post I have ever contributed to this sub. I know it's going to divide the room, and friends will be lost, family members will be exiled, but this conversation needs to happen. In the United States, we have a hatred and fear of Canad i a n Geese Compared to our friendly Mallards geese on the surface appear to be the devil incarnate. I am here to tell you that this is just not fair. Here is why I think Canadian Geese get a bad rap, and why we shouldn't be any more afraid of them personality wise than we should be mallards When do you encounter geese? Sometimes there's 50 of them napping and nesting on the outskirts of a parking lot sometimes there's a couple hundred of them squawking away in a nearby cornfield. When do you see mallards? When a cute little couple of them are quacking along a gentle creek stream with their little ducklings. Aww. See, already, we have an exposure bias we think of geese as this mob mentality bird that moves in herds and craps on your car. Ducks are out of your way and making distant forest scenes look cute. Goslings are also cute, but our memories of seeing geese swimming in lakes are crowded out by our memories of geese holding up traffic. But this is not in and of itself evil geese happen to nest in closer proximity to humans. On the latter comment, this closer proximity to humans means we have a higher likelihood of upsetting a nesting mother. I wouldn't even know where to look to find where a duck mom would be chilling out. But geese pick a square patch of grass in the middle of a crowded parking lot and call it a day. Again, this in and of itself is not evil behavior, but because of their nesting habits, we're more likely to see an angered mother goose than a mother duck. We are predisposed to fear geese because of their size and color. They're huge compared to ducks, and ducks have yellow bills that we all know and love. We see geese as more evil, but that doesn't translate into evilness. Ducks are not cute. Take one look at how sexual reproduction happens in the duck world and it makes geese look like angels by comparison. If anything, ducks are the ones with truly malicious intent geese just want to protect their children and are stupid about where they set up nests. I don't know how, but if you manage to change my view on this, expect a shower of deltas equivalent to the subreddit permitted one delta. That's the best I have to offer D Edit in accordance with the contribution of u Nathaniel Higgs gt First off, they are called Canada geese, not Canadian geese. Edit in accordance with the contribution of u rehcsel gt It really depends on your definition of evil . Are you going by number of bad things actually accomplished or by number of bad things wanted to be accomplished ? Here, we are defining evil as having a willingness or propensity for violence bad things. Evil has been thrown around loosely in the past, and I am not trying to argue the morality of ducks and geese. I mean it mostly for its implications of violence propensity.","conclusion":"Geese are not any more evil than Mallards."}
{"id":"a355aadf-470f-412a-845d-5474832f054f","argument":"The amenities and tools that universities offer their students to gain higher education, including the excellent standard of university professors, are priceless. Consequently, an increase in tuition fees would definitely still be worth attending university for as there is no other institution that can give such high quality facilities, teaching, help and advice in addition to a highly regarded qualification a degree. Such a qualification as a degree could potentially allow for huge salaries and pay packages in the long-run, making the tuitions fees paid to the university which had made all that possible, seem insignificant.","conclusion":"It is a small price to pay for the quality of education given."}
{"id":"af78b493-c98e-4be5-9629-4aacb3072070","argument":"Considering that Trump may be completely unaware of this own mental illness, it is very important for psychiatrists to be allowed to comment on his mental health. This makes it likelier that he will be pressured into seeking the psychiatrists help that he may be in need of.","conclusion":"Some mentally ill people are unaware that they are ill or require help. In these cases, when people are a possible danger to themselves and others their consent is not needed. Trump may well be one of these people."}
{"id":"fa62d460-b954-44be-beec-1eef5af12e5f","argument":"If given the same input we would choose consistently, which would be a true \u201cwill\u201d, we are not really free - just bound by the circumstances of our inputs.","conclusion":"The notions \u201cfreedom\u201d and \u201cwill\u201d are not compatible, making the expression 'Free Will' oxymoronic."}
{"id":"24582216-da49-4b74-80ba-ad6fbda5699c","argument":"To assume free will, independent decision making, presumes a mechanism behind choice other than the physical world, the matter that composes the mind, which is inherently guided by physical laws even if only probabilistic ones. Otherwise a major assumption, that consciousness is metaphysical, must be made, a hypothesis with no evidence or sound theory behind it.","conclusion":"Our choices are all deterministically based on historical events processed in the first person."}
{"id":"9aaba51f-8787-4bbf-83a0-bca5b46ae1b7","argument":"Lemme start by saying that, while I've never been a die hard fan, the Seahawks have always been my team. I grew up not far from Seattle, so it was kind of a given. My dad would watch every game, even when they weren't good ie, pre 2005 and between 2008 12. And I still like the team itself. You can't deny their talent, and I bet they'll still be a powerhouse for another 2 3 seasons at least. However, the fans grate my nerves more than any other team. There's nothing wrong with having dedication and passion for your team. Heck, I won't even call out the band wagoners, as 1 gotta start somewhere, and 2 I have also bandwagoned onto Golden St and Boise St, so who am I to judge? My problem is that it seems like the entire fanbase now reminds me of rabid, slobbering bulldogs. You can't say anything negative or even neutral without having your throat grabbed by a fan, whether it be a true blue since '76 fan or a snarling bleached blonde soccer mom who thinks she is a true twelve because she has the money to buy Russell's jersey. Not only are they cocky and rabid, they are also incredibly immature. Case in point, Deflategate. Now, I hate Tom Brady as much as the next Hawks fan, but watching the whole incident play out over social media and in real life was nauseating. I learned that apparently most 12 year olds have better sportsmanship than THE 12s. Get over it. While I was disappointed with that final play of the Super Bowl, I can't say I felt bad, either. The fan base needed a good kick in the pants. I find it funny when Seahawks fans hate on a team they think is the anti Christ the Oregon Ducks. While their fan base may also be rabid and cocky with their like 13 uniforms per season, they have a sense of class and sportsmanship that Seattle lacks. Tl dr, the fanbase is making me embarrassed to call myself a Seahawks fan.","conclusion":"The Seattle Seahawks have the most obnoxious, immature fanbase in the NFL- maybe even in all of football."}
{"id":"56d71c09-7d4b-49fe-953e-f4b615f2c837","argument":"In the first year of ownership, approximately $200 less is required to care for cats than is required for dogs.","conclusion":"Cats are typically less expensive than dogs to care for."}
{"id":"c7605a30-5c48-47bf-ac77-95bf68f126ef","argument":"We the 'west' have the means to protect innocent people from being slaughtered by their own government. Removing fascistic regimes should be one of the tenants of a liberal democratic state and actions to that aim should be taken within reason. The Assad regime has committed war crimes by using chemical weapons and we should act to halt these crimes.The most prevalent argument I have heard is an isolationist view point, saying that this is matter for the Syrians and that we have no right to interfere with the sovereignty of another country, I would counter that with three points A non democratic government has no right to sovereignty. Sovereignty relies on legitimacy and I do not recognize a governments right to rule unless it is backed by the will of the people. The Assad regime has forfeited any supposed right to sovereignty by breaking the conventions on human rights by using chemical weapons against their own people. Therefor we have the right to intervene. Other countries such as Iran have already intervened by sponsoring organizations such as Hezbollah. Therefore others have interfered with Syria's 'internal problems'. This is, of course, not the only argument but the one I have read most often in the British press. I would also like to emphasize that I agree with Bernard Henri L\u00e9vy that the removal of weapons should be the first course of action. The implementation of a No Fly Zone should be of paramount importance before the targeting of military installments. Please do try and , I'll happily argue away. I look forward to a lively and informed discussion. EDIT I can't spell no good.","conclusion":"I believe we have a moral obligation to intervene in Syria."}
{"id":"838417a9-a542-4ec0-bf2a-d0ee9133a931","argument":"The biological basis of gender involves more than simply measurement of current hormone levels. People that have gone through puberty as a male have higher bone density, and more lean muscle mass than those who have gone through puberty as a female.","conclusion":"Ignoring the biological factors of gender can have harmful consequences such as unfair sporting events Men can have an unfair advantage over women. A man who decides he is a woman shouldn't be allowed to compete in women's sports without disclosure."}
{"id":"f8c6bb55-9b3f-4b3d-9e2b-a20b048cb464","argument":"You're getting dinner at a restaurant. You leave a 15 tip. Good thing you knew basic math from 6th grade. And that is the only math you do for the rest of the week. I believe that anything past addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division should NOT be required to be taught here in the states. I don't know how it works in other countries It's a complete waste of time, effort, and money. No one is going to use ANYTHING we learn in high school math classes in the future, unless you get a job that requires mathematics, of course. But if that is the case, you should have to take a mathematics course in college. If math classes are cut out, more important, productive classes could be made mandatory. Such as a financial literacy class. Or a family relationship class. Something that will help prepare a child for the future. It can be made mandatory. But no, instead we are pushing PUBLIC TAXES to pay people to teach kids things that they will likely never use in the future. Again, it's a waste of time and public taxes. ?","conclusion":"I believe that high schools should not have mandatory math classes."}
{"id":"6ef4e41a-8bb7-49f3-bcc4-ceb1de7ed611","argument":"Let me start off by saying I think fat people shouldn't be made fun of in the first place, it's their choice what their lifestyle is and unless they're harming other people by doing the things they do, it is pointless and rude to laugh at them, just like all other people. Lately I have been seeing posts on Reddit that are by skinny people, and they say that they eat a ton of crap food and hardly exercise yet they STILL complain that they can't put on weight. What the hell? ? You got handed the easy card in life, you will not be mocked for your weight, people will not see you and think Gee, that guy sure eats a lot of crap and doesn't exercise, what a loser. NO. Even if they know how much junk you eat, they STILL would be more attracted to how your physique is, rather than your lifestyle. I have two friends that are overweight, not extremely , but overweight nonetheless I'm kinda overweight too, but I'll get to that later . These guys play sports, run a lot, and I mean A LOT. These guys are both faster than me even though they are fatter than me. These guys both have more muscle than me, but the majority of their weight is from fat. And they don't even eat that much. They never eat snacks, they drink water and not soda, they eat three average sized meals a day, yet they are still overweight. And now me. I am a bit overweight, yet most of it is in my lower body and chest rather than my abdomen. I eat more than the overweight friends, and exercise less I still exercise but it's just that they do it much, much more and I am still skinnier than them, albeit with less muscle mass. And now my skinny friend. I have multiple skinny friends, it's just that this one actually eats a whole lot, and exercises too, but mostly does nothing all day. He is skinnier than me by a lot, and always makes fun of how he eats a bunch of food and doesn't get fat while I actually try to lose weight. He also always calls himself fat just because he eats a lot, and then proceeds to make fun of every overweight person he sees regardless of how much they eat or exercise. This is my view, please change it.","conclusion":"People have varying metabolisms, and for this reason fat people shouldn't be ridiculed, also having a high metabolism is not a curse in any way whatsoever."}
{"id":"e91a9623-44ae-44a1-987a-c4d2a25a0fba","argument":"I believe that marriage is a religious construct and has no place in government. Instead of fighting for gay marriage we should be fighting for civil unions across the board gay or straight or inbetween . Religious beliefs, such as the definition of marriage, are not something that the government should have any say in at all in a country with separation of church and state. I think that rather than fighting for the right to gay marriage we should completely remove marriage from the government to end the whole debate. Then who can get married by who is not up to any one religion's definition and if it is in line with the beliefs of a church the church can perform it. Change my view.","conclusion":"I believe that marriage is wrong."}
{"id":"c3acd737-236c-4cc3-bdab-d8f042c404d0","argument":"It is hard to see how one could think that leaving an economic system that brought peace for over 50 years could bring any good.","conclusion":"If any, it's going to take a lot of time before seeing the economic benefits."}
{"id":"7256c11a-7054-41f1-80e4-43949659e7fc","argument":"Like the title says, I think assisted suicide should be legal. It's honestly a little boggling to me why it is so incredibly controversial. The arguments pro are a little self explanatory I think free choice, etc. Instead, I've tried to summarize and rebut some arguments from the opposing side, which I've boiled down to this Often, the request of death has a lot to do with the loss of certain bodily functions and the accompanying loss of dignity. The argument is often people are extremely despondent initially regarding a loss of limb or sense, but often come to realize they can still have a fulfilling life. Some people might choose to kill themselves in their initial despondency. To me, whether or not this is true is irrelevant, this is not the government's decision to make. There should be safeguards in place so people can't walk out the door and take a cyanide pill, but if the patient is properly informed and is forced to consider his her decision, then it's out of the government's hands. Some people choose to do it, because of the financial burden it puts on their families, a factor outside their control. That money forces them into the decision between breaking their family's bank and killing themselves. Because of the money factor, assisted suicide might be chosen much more by poor people people of color. I agree with this statement, but it doesn't change the sad truth of the situation. The alternative to not legalizing assisted suicide which only costs 35 50 on average is to legally mandate that these people do have to spend more money. Until our the U.S.'s health care system's high costs are somehow made affordable to everybody, this is the unfair reality of the situation, no different than the terminal illness that is forcing the patient to consider assisted suicide in the first place. It's legal in every state to refuse necessary treatment to sustain life and it's also legal to be prescribed painkillers for comfort's sake in this context. This rebuttal is a little personal, but my aunt has a severe form of ALS. In the past year and a half I've seen her go from a fully functioning, healthy adult to a wheel chair bound mute in a neck brace, her disease being incurable at all stages. If she so chose, it would be illegal for her to end it now. To suggest that she could simply refuse all treatment to prolong her life and take painkillers sedatives for comfort as a serious option to me shows a serious lack of empathy of her situation and many others'. Finally, that legalizing assisted suicide will result in the eventual expansion of the program such that we will soon start assisting people suffering psychological stress, perhaps even mandating a person be euthanized. Usually a finger is pointed at Holland here, so I did a little research. There is only one circumstance where euthanizing any person without his or her consent is legal is in the case of a child below the age of twelve, with the consent of his or her parents and all the expected conditions, terminal illness, extreme pain discomfort, etc. Whether or not that is fair is irrelevant for this argument, I think the point is that even the most liberal country in the world on this issue isn't going around deciding which elderly people to kill off, a la Palin's death panels. Even on the slipperiest slope, the mandatory euthanasia of adults is a non issue. tl dr Financial hardship is a reality that people have to deal with and have the right to choose to avoid waiting periods and proper legal safeguards can prevent people from killing themselves through their doctor before they even attempt to adjust although it is legal to refuse treatment and receive pain meds, it is hardly a reasonable alternative to direct suicide with some conditions there is no precedence for the slippery slope argument that I could find.","conclusion":"I believe assisted suicide should be legalized and that the fact it isn't is an infringement on those individuals' free choice."}
{"id":"4dacc4d8-8b4d-4456-8f3d-bb6b7fa46571","argument":"I'm a senior about to graduate high school and applying to colleges. I've worked really hard for my scores and grades to be able to apply to get in to certain colleges but now I'm worried that all of my hard work the past few years has been all for nothing. It seems to me right now that I could go to a community college and pay a very small percentage of what I would pay at a university for the same education. The people in my life who I've observed to be the most successful in business went to state schools while I know someone who went to an Ivy League school and is currently unemployed. While my sample size is of course small, at this point in my life I feel as though getting a job is more networking, experience, and personal skills than what name is on your diploma. I really don't want to feel like the applications I'm procrastinating and the hard work I've put into earning my grades are a waste of time, please change my view?","conclusion":"I believe that it doesn't matter which college you go to."}
{"id":"9774ec06-8f0b-4d84-8015-ef5a4783c33c","argument":"I highly doubt any weapons legislation will be passed anytime soon, and if it does, I doubt it will include the confiscation of any weapons. Therefore most modern weapons will still be available for killers to obtain and use. No laws can prevent people from doing something that they are willing to die for. So the only option left that society can control is security. When I went to my bank today, I stepped between some bollards that would prevent a vehicle from ramming the building and forcing an entrance. There was several cameras watching my every move. I passed though two sets of doors that could could be locked remotely. In the lobby was an armed security guard who looked tough. The receptionist talked to me though a intercom behind thick bulletproof glass. When I was waiting in the lobby, I noticed a bank employee use a badge and take a scan of their fingerprint in order to go though a turnstile to the back room where I'm assuming where the vault is. It would take more than just one person to get to the vault. At my kids school, they only have a camera and buzzer at the front door that's made of thin glass. There's no bollards, no armed security guard in sight. There's nothing there that could stop a single armed person from getting to whats worth more than important than money. If we protected our children like we protected our money, everyone would benefit. There would be more jobs for security guards and security equipment. People wouldn't lose their gun rights. And most importantly, a single person wouldn't have the ability to kill so many people in a short amount of time.","conclusion":"Increased security is the best solution to prevent mass shootings."}
{"id":"08aba3be-3fc2-4fcc-9b10-190e3135e36b","argument":"Through my own experiences and seeing first hand the destruction and suffering it can cause, I cannot see how people can take this topic so lightly. I admit my view is extreme and yes I have tried it.","conclusion":"I believe alcohol is inherently evil"}
{"id":"8efafb14-f038-4858-b525-2a0428a951a0","argument":"So, let's get some things out of the way first. I support abortion as a concept, I think humans should have all the power to choose what they want for their bodies. What's the problem then? I recently started med school, and one of the main topics that gets treated in the first months is the responsabilities of the doctor and the rights of the patient. One of the main concepts is autonomy, we have to give patients all the tools to make the decision they decide is best for them, and our job is to support and empower them. This supports the idea of abortion, one of the reasons why I support it myself. Another concept I should explain for this  is the idea of non maleficence. This is another of the main pillars of bioethics and it establishes that we should not, under any situation, cause harm when it's avoidable. An important detail here is that ''harm'' is defined by medical knowledge, our personal opinion is irrelevant. The problem lies in the following situation. To my knowledge, there is not a medical consensus on where life starts, it's not something like the respiratory system. You won't be taught ''This is this and that is that''. Let's imagine a healthy woman presents to a doctor, and she asks to be given an abortion. For this situation, let's assume there's not any sign that the baby would develop poorly or that the pregnancy would cause a direct danger to the mother. If medical knowledge hasn't established where life begins, how can I perform an abortion with a clear conscience? How can I justify that what I did was not an act of maleficence? My conclusion is that I, as someone who has to follow the pillars of bioethics, can't perform an abortion.  please, it's a dilemma I can't solve by myself I don't think I'm seeing the whole picture. Edit It seems this needs clarification. Morals are not at play here. Malificence is independent from personal or societal reservations, it refers specifically to medical knowledge. I completely agree you have a right to choose, but I'm not sure about the impact it has on the ethics of the medical profession.","conclusion":"I support abortion as a concept, but I'm concerned with the bioethical implications of it's practice"}
{"id":"1b8aef8c-401f-4b60-a064-c7634ad71c9a","argument":"Further explanation we obviously aren't a completely equal nation, but we're close enough to it that any big pushes like riots and extremely large protests will not help the cause because anyone that supports the cause likely won't support the extreme actions, and anyone that doesn't support the cause won't be affected by it. I've met many equality supporters of different ethnicities and genders that don't identify as any group because they feel equality is more an individual problem these days than a national one. I don't so much have a problem with groups that allow people to identify with them, just the idea of them wanting huge changes in society and politics where it's difficult to see the change and there is a lot of evidence to say that there isn't much change to be made.","conclusion":"In the US, we no longer need large equality groups for people to identify with or large actions on public media such as riots and protests in order to get the US any closer to equality."}
{"id":"3de0dd54-29c4-4654-980f-cfcb3dca7bcb","argument":"There is so much around today about how partisan and gridlocked politics are. About how Obama can't get anything done bc the Republicans block everything so unfairly and that is why he has to use so many executive mandates. But this is how the system was designed. It is incredibly difficult to get a law passed, but if it wasn't, whichever party had the white house would just be able to change whatever they wanted willy nilly. Despite not agreeing with the other sides viewpoints, the other side does still have the right to their say in our political system. It's what makes it great. The opposition can't be left out of the discussion. All this bitching and moaning about how terrible the Republicans are blocking all of the Democrats legislation is basically saying Obama should get to pass whatever laws he wants and the Republicans in the country should just roll over and take it. There is a large Republican population in this country. And despite the disgust you might feel for their opinions, they still have a right to them. By the way, this would apply no matter who was in the White House, Republican or Democrat. Edit Also, using executive orders is incredibly unconstitutional and un American and should be reserved for only emergency situations.","conclusion":"The gridlock in partisan politics is not a bad thing, and is in fact how the system was designed, for very good reasons."}
{"id":"8cb96a16-57b5-4a40-aab3-b177181b854d","argument":"Once the technology is attained, AKMs will be cheaper to produce than manned vehicles with comparable payload. AKMs will unite all necessary features vehicle + soldiers + weapons in one, thus there will be no more need to hire soldiers.","conclusion":"In the long run AKMs are cheaper to produce and maintain."}
{"id":"933f5ee8-f7ce-4502-9441-bd88d362413f","argument":"Here is the evidence that we see in the world and have seen in the world that leads me hold the view that women will always be valued primarily for their physical attractiveness Women have historically been valued almost exclusively for how physically attractive they are Still today, women are used in commercials, movies, shows etc. mostly for their beauty or hotness The sexual revolution of the late 20th century only exacerbated this emphasis on female beauty. The more open we become about sexuality the more we seem to sexualize women and value them for their looks. Men today are very preoccupied with how hot women are, especially when looking for a potential partner. A high value man good job, tall, smart, funny, attractive himself etc. is almost never seen partnering with a woman who isn't beautiful hot Even outside of the context of women being actual potential sexual partners, it is the beautiful hot women who do better in industry, who are listened to more intently, whose ideas are taken more seriously, who get elected to office. The list goes on. x200B Looking at it from a theoretical evolutionary perspective, this phenomenon that I notice makes some sense to me due to what we know about the evolutionary roles of men and women in terms of men acting as sexual provers protecting and proving themselves capable giving rise to more sexual emphasis on traits like smarts and charisma , and women acting more as sexual screeners and mostly valued for their ability to healthy continue the genetic line by giving birth to healthy babies giving rise to more emphasis on physically looking healthy, youthful and able to carry and give birth to healthy babies . This general evolutionary idea is compelling to me right now, but I am open to hearing alternatives. I believe this is deeply sewn into the genetic fabric of our species. The evidence that we see all around us and have seen since we started recording history is plentiful. The evolutionary theory is less certain but makes sense to me. Short of actually modifying the genetic code of humans to remove the biological imperative men seem to have to value the appearance of women over anything else, I think women will always be valued primarily for their appearance. I am not commenting on the morality or ethics of this phenomenon, only that I believe it will always be this way. Please, change my view. x200B EDIT It may be good to bear in mind that acknowledging that one believes something to exist is not the same as defending its existence. I in no way defend this idea as ethical or good or the way things ought to be. At the least, I think it is horribly unfair.","conclusion":"Women will always be valued primarily for their appearance"}
{"id":"d0a0b622-4a86-4ea4-ab24-f21a0e69ed41","argument":"People on the Moon, Mars and in general away from Earth's orbit are unnecessary for a few reasons. They cost a lot. From training to maintenance to ship design accommodating humans in modern space travel is way more expensive than doing the same things with robots. There is nothing robots cant do that humans can. Aside from being better at dying, humans cant really perform tasks better that robots. Robots can be fitted to be able to perform fine tune movements, can be fitted with labs for in situ research, don't eat drink or sleep and are generally better at staying functional. They don't have fears or families or emotions. If they fail it's most likely the fault of a human. It promotes emotional thought. Lets face it, the only reasons humans go to space beyond our orbit is because prestige, milestone, glory. Because we are biased we arbitrarily attribute a bigger emotional value to humans going to space instead of the machines we build. The only thing to take pride in is that we are advanced enough to put humans in space where it would have been more comfortable to use robots. Just like taking out the trash but instead of doing it normally you're flogging yourself while at it. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Humans in space beyond earth's orbit are, for now and until now, and unnecessary liability."}
{"id":"ff7a180f-5eff-41a4-84e6-0de4b1765aa3","argument":"In the UK we use a period for a decimal marker 12.7 We optionally use a comma for the thousand separator 4,926 In other parts of the world, for instance mainland Europe, these two are switched to give 12,7 and 4.926 I believe that this second system is confusing and not just because I'm not used to it but destroys the clarity of the numbers and surely negatively affects communication. 1.1,1.2,1.3, ,1.9 Vs 1,1,1,2,1,3, ,1,9 You could say the same about using the comma for the thousands marker however that is completely optional whereas the decimal marker isn't. Sometimes having issues with the optional is better than with the mandatory. I've read the wiki page on this topic and it baffles me that the UK got close to using the comma for decimal system.","conclusion":"The use of a comma as a decimal marker and a period as a thousands marker is confusing and destroys clarity."}
{"id":"a33df5d5-78b3-4d91-89a9-2a9e53825388","argument":"The bible states in Genesis 2:18-24 that Adam needed a helper, so Eve was created from Adam's rib. It can be inferred from this that a woman was created to help a man, and that she is a lesser being because she was merely formed from a small piece of man.","conclusion":"True Christians believe that the Bible is literally true, and it says that women are the property of the men in their lives and should have no self agency. This is antithetical to feminism."}
{"id":"016ea653-0937-4821-8921-7c7419e816ec","argument":"When we donate money to charity we are not concerned with trying to figure out whose poverty we are 'responsible for' the most. We are just concerned with helping people as much as possible.","conclusion":"It does not matter who causes the suffering. If by putting animals in zoos, they suffer less overall, the good we provide justifies the lesser harm that we cause."}
{"id":"58435963-b51a-4365-b975-43224abe7b15","argument":"An \"incumbency advantage\" can have a more important effect on whether a current politician wins re-election than the amount of campaign spending.","conclusion":"This does not mean that the higher spending in itself is always the cause of the win."}
{"id":"768882d9-decd-49ed-8905-b6cefc0286c5","argument":"In linguistics there are two views about what is proper grammar. There are the prescriptivist and descriptivist views. Prescriptivism says that there is such a thing as proper grammar and that there are certain rules pertaining to spelling, pronunciation and sentence structure, ect. that one must follow in order to speak properly. These rules are set by some kind of authority which varies according to different languages regions. This authority always claims that the grammar of the social elite is the one true way. Descriptivism rejects the idea of proper grammar. Whatever grammar people use is what they use and that's that. As with any philosophical issue, one can have a position that is somewhere in between. My position is that you are using proper grammar for a language if a native speaker of that language can easily understand your intentions. The idea that some self appointed authority can tell me what is and isn't proper is laughable. It's also insulting that these authorities only say that the grammatical style of the elites is the right grammar. This is nothing more than status dominating behavior. SOURCE from wikipedia The spoken and written language usages of the authorities state, military, church are preserved as the standard language to emulate for social success see social class . It is a fact that languages morph over time. This is a point of contention for prescriptivist theories. Since many native speakers of english write or say could of and any native speaker of english knows immediately what this means it has become a normal part of the english language and is therefore proper. That the language authorities say otherwise has no merit because their authority is illegitimate. EDIT Just wanted to say that I don't care you are downvoting me. Since language changes over time, I'll probably be proven right some time in the future.","conclusion":"\"Could of\" is proper english grammar."}
{"id":"9357d4b1-420c-4aea-89dd-8e5048880b6b","argument":"To start, I do not like the implementation of the TSA, but I understand the concept behind it, and I more or less agree with the need for airport security. Specifically, I understand and agree with the notion that airports are high risk targets for terrorism aggression, and there is a history of airports being chosen as targets for attacks. I also understand and agree with the notion that because airports are high risk targets for attacks, they warrant increased security. Essentially, I agree that there should be increased scrutiny security for high risk areas not just airports, any high risk area . However, I believe that the TSA is not a great solution for increased security at airports. Specifically, the TSA seems to have wildly different levels of training and responsibility depending on which agent you encounter. This is apparent in the horror stories that surface of people being harassed by the TSA, generally having very inconsistent experiences with the TSA. I understand the need to not do security the same way every time it makes it predictable, which is easy to undermine , but it seems like it is very inconsistent from the TSA about what the overall security strategy is, what powers the TSA has, and when to use them. I also feel like in general, that the tactics the TSA uses to try and enforce security are generally ineffective, and tend to be more of an invasion of privacy than an effective means of security. There are numerous examples of people accidentally bringing in prohibited items and not being caught by the TSA. Now to my specific view. I want TSA pre check, I want to be able to skip the lines and I am not a security threat. However, since I don't agree with the implementation of the TSA, it feels like if I sign up for TSA pre check, I am resigning to the current implantation of the TSA. Essentially I am 'supporting' the system by becoming one of the advanced members of it, when I don't agree with it. Change my view gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I should not sign up for TSA pre-check due to the implementation of the TSA."}
{"id":"7bf10927-f13b-4108-b96b-27a83d286128","argument":"Dear Reddit, All my life I have been told that death is better than divorce. I am a Christian, so this view is heavily enforced by my faith. To divorce is to suffer out of this world pain and undergo misery upon misery. Yes, I have seen people who have gone into depression because of divorce. But I think the social stigma placed on them and the pressures of society are the real reasons for this suffering. Divorce is a better alternative than being caged in an unhappy marriage. Why is it so bad to divorce when it simply isn't working? Is divorce really more than just two people following different paths? I do not think so, but we as Christians grow up feeling it is a spiritual calamity. Am I just being naive? I have not had a divorce before, so I do not speak with experience. But I think it is little more than an expensive break up. Yes, we are sad when we break up, but it is not the 2nd worst thing that can happen to us.","conclusion":"I believe that divorce isn't really one of the worst things that can happen to you"}
{"id":"d03c3eed-5aa9-4742-8ffa-6d9135aa5859","argument":"The Supreme Court is only supposed to give its ruling based on the Constitution, so all of its arguments are crafted from it, since it is impossible to argue that woman have a 5th amendment right to privacy concerning abortions without using as a building block that the Constitution applies to woman, this necessary building block is also Constitutional, as decided by the Supreme Court.","conclusion":"The case of Reed v. Reed ruled that discrimination on the bases of gender was unconstitutional."}
{"id":"e86eb143-b45d-4d50-ba52-e4f7f9cefe7f","argument":"Pharmocological treatment on its own is not enough. It is important that drug treatment is offered alongside psychiatric treatments and therapies.","conclusion":"Research support into the effectiveness of pharmacological treatment for treating sexually abuse behaviour is mixed"}
{"id":"ce1c7bba-037d-432a-907b-54813c68f0f6","argument":"I rather watch a sporting event on TV than being at games i've had box seats 3 times and went to 10 NFL games . I watch the best available set a band has on youtube and enjoy it more than their shows. I think that comedy is better in albums than going to a comedy club This isn't to say I don't enjoy real life, I love learning, reading, working out, mountain biking and such. I just don't think being at an event is as good as just hitting play for free in 1080p and then turning it off and walking back into productivity. I also travel twice a year and find that i rather just eat at chiptole and looking at traveler's instagrams is better than being there.","conclusion":"I think live events aren't as entertaining as recorded ones"}
{"id":"5af06b52-7355-428c-85e3-33eab9ff8d85","argument":"A progressive taxation system essentially assumes that the property rights of the poor are more sacred than those of the wealthy. Somehow the wealthy have a less proportionate ownership right than do the less well-off simply by dint of their greater wealth.1 This is the height of injustice. An individual\u2019s income is a measure of his overarching societal worth, by reflecting his ability to produce goods and services people find socially desirable and to signify his level of competence and desirability by his employer. The state should not punish people for this greater social worth by taxing them disproportionally to others. When it does so it expects people to work for the sake of others to an extent that is not fair, effectively consigning them to a kind of forced labor, by which parts of the wealth they work to acquire is appropriated by the state to a degree beyond which it is willing to do to others.2 Such a regime is manifestly unjust. 1 Seligman, Edwin. \u201cProgressive Taxation in Theory and Practice\u201d. Publications of the American Economic Association 91: 7-222. 1894. 2 Nozick, R. Anarchy, State and Utopia. New York: Basic Books. 1974.","conclusion":"Individuals\u2019 property and income are an index of deserving achievement, and of value contributed in the market place to society"}
{"id":"e4407c18-c231-47d8-955b-3ec8bdaa51b1","argument":"Proponents of Balthus argue that if the viewer imparts notions of sexual deviance onto his images, that is a reflect on them, as that was not his intent in making the piece.","conclusion":"One of Balthus' goals in his paintings is to show the difference between the painting itself and what the adult viewer might project onto it."}
{"id":"ed7f4b8d-0b5b-4006-b33a-e8f48517e827","argument":"Hi r cmv. I was looking over the ballot guide sent to votes today and California's Proposition 47 sparked my interest. The idea is to lower some felonies such as drug possession and non violent crimes to misdemeanors with reduced, or without, prison sentencing. Sounds like a good idea. Less people in prison and less people being sent there. I support all of the felonies listed by Prop 47 to be made misdemeanors Shoplifting, where the value of property stolen does not exceed 950 Grand theft, where the value of the stolen property does not exceed 950 Receiving stolen property, where the value of the property does not exceed 950 Forgery, where the value of forged check, bond or bill does not exceed 950 Fraud, where the value of the fraudulent check, draft or order does not exceed 950 Writing a bad check, where the value of the check does not exceed 950 Personal use of most illegal drugs .","conclusion":"Lower many felony offenses to misdemeanors."}
{"id":"79913ec1-6c00-4ea5-b43e-b4ab4a3cf79a","argument":"Someone I know wrote gt What matters to me is that SCOTUS does what it's supposed to do which is weigh in on law by precedent and constitutionality. NOT make up new rights that its justices or popular opinion think should be there lt cough gt as in right to privacy in Roe v Wade lt cough gt . gt I think popular opinion is for gay marriage, and I am OK with that. I just don't want SCOTUS influenced by opinion. I am in support of equal marriage rights. I'm posting this as a devil's advocate in compliance with guideline VI. How would you approach this position?","conclusion":"Devil's Advocate The supreme court shouldn't go making up \"new\" rights."}
{"id":"6bf46a5c-0dc7-4181-915e-607d919d456f","argument":"It would be worth filing the lawsuit as an act of retribution; the ability to somehow fight back against the ultimate omniscient, omnipotent being is tempting to those who have been harmed in such a being's name.","conclusion":"Publicly denouncing perpetrators of harm by finding them guilty in court is beneficial to victims and their families."}
{"id":"346f5c70-64f4-493d-865f-c41016d54410","argument":"In 2014 the 'Gamergate movement emerged, an online harassment movement targeting women in the games industry.","conclusion":"There is history of aggression towards women in the video game industry."}
{"id":"51156731-6c9c-4434-bd78-a5119d11b5f3","argument":"Genetically modifying cereal crops, so that they absorb nitrogen, would increase yields and boost the protein content of staple foods.","conclusion":"Genetically modified crops can work towards mitigating world hunger and nutritional deficiencies."}
{"id":"8d215b43-5dac-43db-8907-2cb155f6061a","argument":"I have a BA from UC Santa Cruz in Politics, and I wrote a senior thesis on the problems in higher education. In a nutshell, I found in my research that the traditional public university system is no longer sustainable in today's economy. The problem is that, as more and more people are able to afford college through student loans, universities are are having to spend more and more money to expand facilities and services to keep up. Meanwhile, the labor market for graduating students is becoming increasingly saturated and competitive, such that further specialized education is becoming necessary to earn a salary that was once accessible with just a simple bachelor's degree. This is creating a bad situation for the middle class as they are now being squeezed by student loan debt, an increasingly competitive labor market, and tax obligations to keep the public universities afloat. Obviously, the majority of the middle class isn't on board with increased taxes to support public universities. The lack of political support isn't entirely surprising, as our public perception of university students has been mixed at best. A lot of students work hard, contribute to their community, and go on to do great things. At the same time, a lot of students get sent off to college right after high school, only to spend two to four years engaged in non stop bacchanalia. You could make the argument that if they want to waste college, they have the right to make that choice, and in the end they're only hurting themselves. However, the fact that college has become this sort of cultural rite of passage for youth has been putting a huge strain on public universities in particular, because they are having to find ways to finance expansion of services for young people who are completely taking those services for granted. There is quite a bit of history behind the culture of the public university. When the American public universities were first built in the early 1900's, the ideal was that graduates would be thoroughly well rounded individuals, specialized in a field but also well versed in literature, science, art, etc. The idea was still relatively egalitarian for its time, but the middle class was still a much smaller and more privileged class than it is today, so the expectations for students to achieve personal growth along with intellectual growth were much higher. The whole goal of personal development for students was much more feasible back then. In the decades since their formation, public universities have continued to try to promote personal growth alongside intellectual growth. As unfortunate as it seems, I am arguing that the goal of personal growth for students needs to be marginalized in favor of education that is expedited and career focused . I believe the best solutions to accomplish this would include reduced general education requirements and the introduction of online courses that can be taken outside of the classroom. This is where I start to stray from the personal research that I've done, and start to dive into my first hand experiences as a college student. I found it extremely ironic that despite all of the student and faculty protests against higher tuition costs and the proposals for online courses and 3 year degrees, student attendance for many of many of my classes was abhorrently low. This is especially true of the highly impacted introduction courses which every student was required to take in order to fulfill their two years worth of general education credits. I don't think public universities would lose anything meaningful by taking these big introduction classes and switching them to an online format completely. These classes are so full that the lecture format usually precluded any intimate discussion, and they were usually taught by doctorate candidates or other graduate students anyways. There should be fewer requirements to take such courses, and online formatting would allow students flexibility to pursue personal growth i.e. partying on their own time. And I don't think that online learning is any less valuable, especially for basic introductions to subjects. In community college, I took an introduction to philosophy course completely online. It was an awesome learning experience, discussion through text was extremely productive, and I don't think I would have been any happier in the classroom. The reduction of general education requirements to a single year's worth of credits would also be extremely beneficial to students, in my opinion. This is especially true to a lot of the students who take on difficult majors and end up having to stick around for a fifth or sixth year to retake courses and complete their graduation requirements. There is no reason why these students shouldn't be able to get started on their major in their first or second year, so they can be done in their third or fourth. The quicker turn around would alleviate a lot of the administrative and financial pressure that public universities are faced with. The whole idea of taking courses to figure out what you want to do is somewhat antiquated. If a student doesn't know what they want to do, they can always take community college courses I love community colleges btw, I believe they are amazing institutions that don't receive nearly as much credit as they deserve in our society for a year to prepare for university, or just try to figure it out by taking some time off to do some soul searching. As a final note, I would just like to say that his discussion is specifically tailored to public universities. Private liberal arts colleges and four year universities are a great alternative for students who have the financial ability or raw intellectual ability to really benefit from a more enriching experience. There was once a concern that lower classes just didn't have the option to attend private universities, but many are now handing out full rides to as many qualified low income students as they can find, because that is how they receive what little public financial assistance they can get their hands on. On the other hand, I believe public universities should provide a more expedited product designed to get students in and out as quickly and cheaply as possible. gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than just downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I believe fast-tracking college degrees through online courses and reduced general education requirements would help sustain public universities."}
{"id":"ce688657-3518-430c-b26b-bb967aeb99bf","argument":"One of the reasons an economy works is people of modest means are forced to spend every last drop to keep themselves alive thereby circulating money and stimulating the economy. As someone climbs up the income ladder they no longer have to spend money, but choose to anyhow in exchange for unnecessary pleasures. The richer you are the harder it is to spend money, thereby creating inefficiencies that ultimately hurt everyone. One reason for this is under our current system, some things, like crime, are literally priceless. We have loopholes in place, where rich people are able to hire very clever lawyers who are able to get them out of some serious jams OJ, Kobe, Durst etc. . Why don't we institutionalize this? If you are rich, you can do whatever you want as long as you pay the price EDIT It seems very obvious for a number of reasons that you can only kill people that are okay with being murdered, without this, people will be afraid to leave their homes, thereby not stimulating the economy . Under this system, instead of Kobe spending millions on lawyers, he gives the millions to the victim and maybe some to charity. We can still keep jails around for people who can't afford to murder. The main problem with our current system is it is incredibly inefficient. We have this archaic need to punish people, but there are so many loopholes it already fails to do this. I would like to live in a world where Bill Cosby gives each girl a million bucks, keeps on doing comedy and we all don't publicly shame him, he's stimulating the economy for god sakes. EDIT well this turned south super quickly Obviously , going to delete, in a few minutes, just giving a heads up in case people want to reply to my comments.","conclusion":"Rich people should be able to kill, for a price."}
{"id":"5d4f3cd2-7d81-40c2-a90a-467501c00c1b","argument":"The democratic argument cannot be stated as \u201cthe people should decide in every major political issue of the community\u201d. That mechanism ultimately tends to harm minorities' position, because if minorities have to contend in terms of sheer numbers, of course they will lose every political battle. If it was up majorities and consensus, eg LGBTQ rights would never come to happen.","conclusion":"The uncompromising character of referendums favors the majority to the disadvantage of minorities."}
{"id":"053dedbe-a2a3-456a-a3ce-5323d461b520","argument":"There are quite obviously a handful of games that are indeed timeless and remain fun and challenging years and even decades after their initial release, but by and large, I find that nostalgia for the gaming platforms of yesteryear is unfounded. In my experience, 99 out of 100 old school video games are terrible and boring. They're hard to control, unintuitive, and poorly plotted. Again, there are a handful of games certain JRPGs, for example that transcend that mediocrity, but as someone who has spent a depressing amount of his life retrogaming, I have to say that I consider it a waste of time, and that my nostalgia for old video games and systems is rooted more in a time and place than in any real love for those old games. Change my view gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than just downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"\"Old School\" video games suck."}
{"id":"168d5087-e265-4c1d-a477-0f342d016f2b","argument":"The European Community set as one of its objectives ensuring that agricultural areas in Europe are not poor area. To increase the profitability of agricultural trade, Europe subsidises the costs of foods to European farmers by buying any surplus. Originally this was to encourage the agricultural markets in Europe so that the Community could become self sufficient. This plan worked, but perhaps all to well. Now, Europe owns a vast amount of surplus food which is either sold cheaply to third world markets, stored, or simply destroyed. The problem with dumping the food on third world markets is that then third world farmers make little or no profit from their crops, so they in turn have no incentive to become involved in agriculture. This distribution of food problem needs to be solved before GM crops are investigated as an option.","conclusion":"Common agricultural policy of Europe see many tones of food go to waste"}
{"id":"0fa8759a-7fef-438a-82ac-0078e03f0729","argument":"Without an agreed upon moral and ethical system in place that is administrated by an empowered authority, rights and justice boil down to violence, either on the part of a strong individual, or one who can ad-hoc rally others to their cause. If I had a large family of strong people, we would have no obligation to honor agreements or debts until a larger or stronger group came along. An organized government disposes of this needless and wasteful power play.","conclusion":"Many people get hurt in anarchist societies who wouldn't get hurt under a stable government."}
{"id":"1a38c544-e65f-4c92-8be0-79f5a007f9fd","argument":"Democrats fought the civil war almost unilaterally for states rights and by extension, slavery . The solid south after 1868 voted blue after that in every single election until 1964. In 1964, Democrat Lyndon Johnson signed the civil rights act, a highly controversial act at the time that was widely opposed in the south. Republicans saw this as an opportunity to court disenfranchised southern democrats and campaigned on a platform of lowering the power of the government to influence civil rights issues. Suddenly, after nearly a hundred years of voting blue, the south began voting red almost every time. A few exceptions being when the Democrat in question was a southerner himself Carter, Clinton . I have long thought this was accepted fact. But lately I've been confronted for believing this part of history. First it was Ben Carson, and I balked at him. Now it is a stance that is rampant on social media. Is this an example of people only believing politically expedient facts, or is there indeed evidence that somehow disproves or reconciles the history above?","conclusion":"The Democratic party ideals and values of pre 1960's is the modern day Republican party, and vice versa."}
{"id":"e727a93c-863f-42a2-a32b-27a4f594f317","argument":"'Simulated' insults are still spoken; 'simulated' control still limits a person's freedom. These practices could make someone feel demeaned and abused, even if they thought they could handle it.","conclusion":"Even simulated abuse can feel real, and cause real emotional damage."}
{"id":"0b8f2f4d-45f9-415a-9a88-f05d9d9aab74","argument":"Growing up in a small town a majority of people from my school and most other people I meet are were big into sports and devote all their time at school to playing track, basketball, football, and volleyball, and the only thing I ever see come from it is not a damn thing done in college with it, hurt bad enough that it ruins their sporting career and not having anything else to fall on as a backup plan. To me the coaches care more about winning than their students actually going anywhere in life.","conclusion":"I think devotion to sports by so many people in high school and college is a waste of time."}
{"id":"79aa35e5-afea-4789-a5ce-f9f401270581","argument":"All of the studies I have read showing minimum wage has little effect look at small changes in the minimum wage. Even that famous Card Kreuger study I believe was looking at changes of 5 10 . When you look at really big changes, like the accidental application of the federal minimum wage to American Samoa, the whole territory got decimated as people could not longer legally work for an amount corresponding to productivity. If I recall correctly this happened in the 80s and something like 60 of their labor force was under the new minimum. They had a big fishing industry with a bunch of canneries and lots of them closed. A lot of minimum wage changes seem almost engineered deliberately to mask any market distorting effects many have a 5 year phase in period where they increase it from 10 to 15, so only a real dollar increase of 0.80 per year. As a corollary to the earlier point, people always complain that why not 100 minimum wage? is a straw man. Fine, but you have to say there must be some point at which the market distortion becomes too large to ignore. If 100 is bad because of market distortion, isn't 15 or 20 also bad, just on a smaller scale? How is the labor demand curve supposed to look? Completely inelastic from 7.25 up to 20, but then suddenly super elastic? If you look at the history of minimum wage, it is extremely racist. The original progressive proponents of minimum wage in the early 20th century saw the fact that it kept minorities and women out of the labor market as a feature and enthusiastically supported it for this reason. I guess they couldn't have read the Card Kreuger study, but why do you think they believed it so strongly? Were they wrong about its effects back then? Minimum wage forces employers to shift money away from fringe benefits like paid breaks, health insurance, etc. and towards cash benefits. If the worker's cash benefits total comp is less than 15 hr, raising the minimum wage to 15 will result in the firm taking away as many of those benefits as possible, which might be preferable to the worker. Maybe people would rather have 14 hr with paid breaks than 15. Minimum wage prevents you from taking a chance on vulnerable employees. If you're paying an ex felon 10 hour and a college grad 14 hour, then minimum wage goes to 15, who do you think will be fired? As a correlary to this, previously felons or people with other issues could compete on price and undercut the college student who might be unwilling to work for less than 14. The minimum wage makes this type of price competition impossible. Again as a corollary to the earlier point, a minimum wage of 15 essentially excludes most teenagers from the labor market, reducing their ability to help their families or anything like that. Those excluded from the formal labor market are often pushed into the informal market, participating in the gig economy and other unstable employment when they might prefer a stable job, but don't have the skills to command a high minimum wage. Econ 101 and business reality suggest you can only pay people in proportion to the money they produce for the business. If you force them to increase labor costs, they will compensate through a combination of price increases and reduced labor consumption. Poverty can be caused by low hours worked just as much as low wages. A high minimum wage induces companies to play games to try to enhance employee productivity like the ridiculous on call staffing. High minimum wages forces companies to resort to sub optimal cost cutting measures. An employee might prefer to work 40 hours for 8 hour than 20 hours on call for 15 hour. Even if you ignore the potential labor market distortions of the minimum wage, transfer payments are far more effective to get money to people who really need it. Minimum wage increases will go to single college students, single high school students, and some number of families who really need it. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Minimum wage is bad for the people it tries to help, especially the most vulnerable"}
{"id":"0c180c5c-2216-4e38-8269-fc95697e4840","argument":"I've been paying attention to politics hardcore for the past 2 or 3 years. There's alot of stuff that goes under the radar that the average normal person doesn't hear about. But the major stuff I can think of right now particularly is the multiple street battles in Berkeley that the communists provoked and Charlottesville which again the communists provoked . Also the G20 summit this year had alot of leftist violence from what I saw. Basically, as far as I'm concerned, far right violence and views are not as present or as dangerous as that of leftists. I'm welcome to discussion on this.","conclusion":"Communists and Anarchists are a bigger threat to America than the Altright, Neonazis and KKK."}
{"id":"f5479a3f-8b50-4bc2-a70f-7c2cd6046adf","argument":"The higher sense of duty expressed by the authors suggests that they have a long history of civil service in government.","conclusion":"Elaine Chao, Secretary of Transportation and wife of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell"}
{"id":"c293d30e-e414-49f5-b5f3-8f5c9fec5653","argument":"One of the things that I have been hearing a lot recently for obvious reasons is that the primary reason gay marriage shouldn't be illegal is for equality's sake that by forbidding it, we essentially take away a basic human right. But is that even true at its core? I feel as if marriage isn't a basic human right. It's not like food, shelter, freedom things we were all born with. It's also not like work, equal pay, the ability to avoid cruel and unusual punishment from the law, OR to receive equal protection under that same law things we have developed as a society to ensure a level playing ground. Marriage is a societal construct which for better or for worse, and by their choice or someone else's many people will never experience, and some people will experience many times over. I agree with the legal aspects, and as far as the US goes I generally support gay marriage, to a large extent. They deserve to file jointly, get tax breaks, and enjoy all the other legal protections straight couples do. But marriage in and of itself is not that. The ceremony isn't part of obtaining the license, or even a necessity. It's not a right, or really even a privilege it's another experience, a social factor, like joining a club. And that's kind of what this whole thing feels like to me once you get past the tangible benefits like a lot of people were feeling left out of a club, and wanted to force their way in. If we had civil unions, and could essentially provide the same benefits without actual marriage, I think my support for the ruling probable future law would erode entirely. It feels rather like I imagine it would if I heard they were trying to make it illegal to enforce club membership fees to avoid discriminating against the poor, or if they were requiring MENSA to allow people in regardless of intelligence, or in a more simple sense if we tried to eliminate Men's sports and Women's sports, and required unisex teams because we didn't want to discriminate. If the Christian public's response to this ruling was to make some kind of Christian Bonding Ceremony , and then forbid gay couples from going through the ceremony, would they try to legally force them to do that too? I don't know the answer, and it's obviously a hypothetical that could almost certainly never happen on a church wide scale, but I wonder all the same. Hopefully someone can give me another perspective to try this from, but from here it seems more like another move toward a society where recognizing differences having an opinion on something different about someone else, regardless of if you do something harmful with that opinion, makes you an awful human being.","conclusion":"Gay marriage isn't necessarily equality"}
{"id":"826581ec-fe6f-4e84-9aae-2e97c51e3469","argument":"To preface, I fully support transgender rights, such as rights to workplace non discrimination. However, as a bisexual person, I do not want my desire for equality to be specifically lumped together with transgender people under the LGBT brand . I see theirs as a fundamentally separate issue. Mine is about the right to love whomever I want without being discriminated against, theirs is about the right to be whomever they want. To me, it should be the LGB rights movement. Transgender, transsexual, etc people can have their own movement, which again, I would fully support. However, I think that lumping them all together does a disservice to each group, diluting the impact of their individual concerns, and may actually slow acceptance of gay people at large. We don't lump black civil rights together with gay civil rights, though they certainly have common causes and interests there are separate organizations, campaigns, etc for each.","conclusion":"I don't think Transgender issues should be included under the LGBT umbrella."}
{"id":"e9a17b93-f42e-4ceb-aa96-af76df894a96","argument":"Many areas of science depend on financial or other resources to make progress, and these resources are often controlled by political processes.","conclusion":"Scientific practice in an academic environment creates political influence and incentives."}
{"id":"a4f8bd07-2a25-4054-9020-992f247138c2","argument":"Women are leaving the Republican Party after 187 Republicans voted against a bill that would narrow the gender wage gap.","conclusion":"The Democratic Party is a champion of equal pay for women."}
{"id":"c0970caa-956c-41e4-b905-40421a0d6d3b","argument":"In most industrialized modern societies, both genders being fully clothed in public is reinforced as socially appropriate. Showing nipple would thus go against majority society.","conclusion":"Shirtless men are distracting in public too, so perhaps they should also be required to cover up."}
{"id":"ccae9f6a-bdbc-4f33-acb4-13b6bc206043","argument":"This is not a partisan post. I have disagreements with both Bush and Obama, but at the end of the day, I can say I have more respect for them than most of the congressmen, senators, talking heads, journalists and intellectuals out there. Not just because they work long hours and attend to the near impossible tasks of having patience for idiots. But because they actually take responsibility for the country. As we can see, no matter what happens, millions of people like blaming the president. Congressmen can opt to just not vote on bills. Intellectuals and talking heads can just propose policy without any worries. They don't have to pass it in congress and actually enforce it. All of us can propose the most ridiculous unrealistic ideas possible, yet we never suffer the consequences of them. Whereas a president's reputation would tumble. gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than just downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The presidency is a position that deserves respect. I respect Bush and Obama more than the majority of people, even if I disagree with their policies."}
{"id":"7634312f-ed96-4f74-94ab-a96931ce703d","argument":"The notion of power has pervaded many aspects of modern social theory. It is the backbone by which people define unequal relationships and is the tool that is most often cited as what people use to instigate acts of abuse. The narrative goes that if someone has power over you, you are helpless to defy them. That they use their power to get you to do things you don't want to do. My view is that power is not something that someone imposes on you, but something that you cede to. A couple things Power is not tangible. You cannot touch power, nor can you find it in nature. It is an abstract concept and one that changes from culture to culture, person to person. Thus, when someone uses their power they are not using anything in the same way they'd use a knife or a gun. Along these lines, power does not come from inanimate objects. A knife sitting in the middle of the woods has no power. So where does power come from? Power comes from one party submitting to another based on assumptions of what will occur if the one party does not obey the other. If I disobey by boss, I might get fired, but I chose to work for them and give them the power to fire me if I did not work for them, they would not have any power over me. Socially, it is a similar situation. If I am standing in line at a store and a man comes up and cuts in front of me, it is up to me whether I allow him to gain power over me. Nothing he has done has taken power from me. In fact, it is I that have the power to call him out and demand he join the end of the line as is customary. Only if I cede to him and grant him my spot in line has he been given power. Going back to the knife, as threats may be seen differently, a person wielding a knife potentially has power, but still only if you give it to them. If a dying man with a gun breaks into a doctor's house demanding he save his life or he be killed, one might think the dying man has power over the doctor because of the gun, but what if the doctor refuses? The dying man may kill the doctor, but then he will also die. Who holds more power in this situation and why? These examples are just some that come to mind and are meant to illustrate certain principles that I think about the nature of power. . x200B x200B","conclusion":"Power is given, not taken. If someone in your life has power, it's because you gave it to them."}
{"id":"b0a9ffa0-a2a7-4f86-af3d-47071548370e","argument":"So, hey Reddit. I must stress the word competent , as the current administration is abhorrent and has made me lose all faith in American politics as it stands. To give you some background, my family is Hungarian and while believing in the ideas of democracy, we don't think that the leadership should be weak or the source of memes. Viktor Orban for instance, while I don't like his idea of a fence along our border with Serbia, I think ultimately it did some good. On the whole, despite a couple of controversies the other parties really don't offer that much of a positive alternative. I recognize the differences in how the governmental systems work Hungary being unitary vs the US being a federation , but in my eyes no matter what the government its the job of those in charge to look after those who put them in power or in the case of not voting for individuals, rather parties or those who put their party in power. If you don't, or go against that? You deserve to get taken off the party register, removed from office, etc. I guess a good analogy could be with the Affordable Healthcare Act, in US terms. I recognize the idea that especially in a federation be it the US or Switzerland, or any other you need to compromise. In my view, the President should have been able to legally enforce all provisions to corporations and states with fines, back taxes, whatever could be gotten away with to force compliance. It doesn't matter that it would hurt businesses when they're already making a killing, record profits with record levels of uninsured people does not a strong nation make. Think of it like the Highway Act that raised the legal drinking age. To clarify my argument, I recognize corporations need to make a profit. What I don't believe in however is year after year scraping the barrel and the government sitting idle doing what amounts to nothing for the average American, or realistically anyone that doesn't sit in the chamber or work on senior staff. I feel as though either a strong judiciary or strong executive branch or both working in tandem could vastly improve the country should A the executive in question be COMPETENT at what he she is doing and B there is a clear vision. For instance, you can't say you're getting rid of coal without expanding welfare benefits in West Virginia and Appalachia for communities whose entire livelihoods have revolved around mines for decades. You can't similarly say we need to invest more in tech without A discouraging tech companies abusing the foreign worker program and B not encouraging STEM programming across the country irregardless of where the school is or how much funding it normally receives. On a more state level since again America is a federation look at Kansas and Connecticut. Kansas attempted to remove correct me if I'm wrong all corporate tax to attempt and get companies to move there. It failed, disastrously. In Connecticut my friends tell me the governor had to cut funding to state universities and towns due to lack of capital coming in. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The USA will stagnate economically stagnate without a competent strong-handed President\/Congress to wretch companies into sensible reform."}
{"id":"5c0a53db-28e1-4e20-9814-fb10126ad2f5","argument":"There should be a final vote on the Brexit deal because previously unavailable information, which has the ability to influence votes, is available now.","conclusion":"Voters in the UK should have a final vote on the Brexit deal."}
{"id":"ec431b8a-52e3-407f-9e4c-e6cf21f4e8a8","argument":"Being pressured into action may help obese individuals experience things that improve their quality of life e.g. increased mobility and better sleep. This can motivate them to realize their dreams of losing weight and being healthier.","conclusion":"People may be more able to realize their dreams of losing weight if they are pressured to by the larger community."}
{"id":"27e81dfe-5b4a-41e0-91eb-54a916fa44a8","argument":"Goal Decrease student loan debt financial burdens of existing higher education students at public institutions, make public higher education just as or more financially accessible than it is now, and utilize existing federal funding. Consider the following information regarding 2 year college 4 year university education aka HigherEd The sum of all tutition for public HigherEd is less than either all US federal loan subidies OR non loan aid for higher education . Source So the US federal government which I will refer to as the US has a means for making HigherEd free at current student attendance admission levels, but choses not to. Federal student loans cause perpetually increasing HigherEd tuition costs and the US Fed confirmed it Therefore, the US can and IMO should reallocate either source of student federal funding, or parts of both, to pay off the existing supply of public HigherEd at current growth rates of admitted students given that the growth rate of Federal Financial Aid already exceeds public tuition increases . What appeals to me about this solution? This allows for millions of US students to attend HigherEd for free instead of federal aid being spread so thin that many students must take on student loan debt. Approximately half of federal aid would still be leftover to use for people who do not attend public HigherEd, such as going to a private institution. This does not require the US to gather additional revenues by taxes or some other means. This is a US federal solution to a federally created problem. I believe that the solution's benefits far outweigh potential downsides or risks using needs based methods to pay off public tuition, comparable to existing methods used for FAFSA loan pell grant federal aid. What about state funding? Given that the US would provide some baseline of financial support proportional to current future public ed growth If states increase their contributions towards their HigherEd institutions, then either the number of students they admit for free can increase or the quality of education can increase. If states contribute less to their HigherEd, then there will be decreases in either the number of students they admit for free or the quality of their education. What about private HigherEd and private trade schools? There would be roughly half of all federal student aid still left over to use for anyone who does not get free tuition from public HigherEd, such as private HigherEd or trade schools. There are a number of public two year colleges who provide trade skills. Perhaps some funding could be redirect to that. One way of mitigating lower private HigherEd demand would be to direct all non loan funding to public HigherEd, then still keep federal loans around for private HigherEd and such. How would HigherEd or the US choose who gets to attend public HigherEd for free? My initial thought is that the least disruptive way to do it would be to make it comparable to criteria for currently getting federal financial aid FAFSA , which seems largely need based. Why do I want my POV to be changed? I hope there is another just as feasible or effective way to make higher ed more accessible decrease student household debt without as much government intervention or HigherEd disruption. I'm just having a hard time finding one that appeals to me. Both seem simple from the standpoint of moving numbers around, but I am sure this would be challenged on many fronts Private education, perhaps some banks that give private student loans, and government bureaucracy such as in the Department of Education whoever runs the loans aid that would be layed off . What other options do you know that can help achieve my stated goals?","conclusion":"USA should make public colleges free using some existing federal student aid funds"}
{"id":"8236b918-190a-4183-9a10-e502e27a5b81","argument":"Most slave owners provided their slaves with better clothing, food items, and other useful tangible goods as compensation for good behavior Olwell, p.204","conclusion":"By agreeing, we may be afforded other rights and resources to improve the quality of life for our community."}
{"id":"424dedfa-451d-4b57-b1a8-108be8fc2b08","argument":"I mean that for example people that survive cancer are not automatically heroes. I don't mean that surviving cancer is a bad thing, as it is very hard and I'm happy for everyone that survives, but you aren't a hero, and you don't need any special treatment unless it helps or has anything to do with your disease. The real heroes are the doctors that helped you recover. There was a kid in my class a few years ago that was color blind. Even though he could write, the teachers wrote for him or made other students write for him. He got two leather spinning chairs, his own desk, his own computer with two monitors and no one was allowed to even touch that. The teachers all laughed at his jokes but got mad when someone else said something during class. How does that help his color blindness? It doesn't. I don't mean to offend anyone, and having some sort of disease isn't your fault.","conclusion":"Having a disease doesn't mean that you are a hero or that you can do whatever you want."}
{"id":"f6dbb237-7238-437f-bdd3-2466c32467c7","argument":"The major religions have fostered the development of social liberties and the rise of societies. Christianity, in particular, has underpinned everything from the Bill of Rights to MLK's march for freedom.","conclusion":"Most of today's cultures and remaining world heritage are due to religions."}
{"id":"13b27b2d-c1fe-45b4-afa4-6a229b2a8ee8","argument":"I'll start off by saying that I work for a large company within Cambridge, UK, I moved here about two years ago after graduating with a degree in computer science, the majority of my friends here were made through my housemate who is a personal trainer and the only one who knows my occupation here or through people I encountered through other means, most of them work in jobs revolving around fitness, business, engineering or medicine. I disassociate from anyone in my area of work unless they happen to be at my local gym, the cross fit gym or at tri club meets. The reason I hate people in my line of work and try to hide my job from others is because of the very real stereotypes that surround it. Tell someone that you work with technology and you'll get an uneasy smile and a nod as they will have this image of someone who is socially awkward, probably obese, sat at his gaming rig with porn on one screen and anime or a game on the other and then assume I\u2019m like that . This pretty much describes my co workers and people who were on the same course at uni\u2019 , I can't have a normal conversation with any of them, the overwhelming majority are essentially man children or suffer from autism Asperger\u2019s and any conversations that happen to spark up will revolve around something like Pok\u00e9mon, My Little Pony, Anime, porn or some game that all of them play like World of Warcraft etc. etc. I can't talk about things like world events, sport, music just normal stuff. I'd love to be able to connect with my co workers because it'd be nice to socialise during those 8 hours I work every day and because I\u2019d like to build contacts and eventually not feel ashamed of what I do however I just can't for the life of me tolerate them. .","conclusion":"I hate the majority of people who work in the tech industry because they are either man-children, wierdos or have a development disability, who are people which i have no time for. I'm embarrassed by my career choice, so much so i lie about what i do for a living."}
{"id":"bc4b8fa4-82cb-4c52-a56c-373702131993","argument":"Many people say cultural appropriation is wrong because it is disrespectful. The idea seems to be that by appropriating things from other cultures, we are robbing them of their uniqueness and we're treating their sense of self as a commodity. I understand and broadly agree with this point of view, but it seems to me that this standard is not evenly applied. For example, ancient civilisations are appropriated in the West all the time, and nobody seems to mind that much. A few examples A kid can dress as an Egyptian mummy for Halloween, and not register a complaint. Thor is one of the most popular Marvel characters, despite once being a very sacred religious icon. Many government buildings in the Western world have columns that are directly taken from ancient Roman and Greek architecture. Our numerals are ancient Arabic and Roman, much of our philosophy is from ancient Greece, and primitive scalpels have been found in ancient Turkey. These are all things that were taken by Western civilisation from other cultures and used selfishly, but nobody really minds. I've never heard of a popular protest against any of these things, which I suspect is mostly because the cultures they're taken from are dead or very, very old. If appropriation is the core thing people oppose, these examples show that they don't oppose it across the board. To suggest that cultural appropriation is okay in the above cases because the civilisation being appropriated is old or no longer exists sets a low moral standard. We shouldn't consider things wrong only because there are people alive today who might be upset by them. The wrongness of cultural appropriation should be objective and shouldn't be tied to the existence or non existence of the culture being appropriated. These thoughts lead me to think that people who object to cultural appropriation aren't being consistent and therefore that it's not a pressing issue. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"People concerned about cultural appropriation aren't actually that worried about the \"appropriation\"part."}
{"id":"04cc1c3f-2d41-4ac4-95ea-732142488372","argument":"As per terminology, any wizard who is not either pure-blood or Muggle-born is considered a half-blood, even if they have two wizard parents. Since they need not have exactly half-Muggle\/half-wizard heritage, being a half-blood is probably the most common phenomenon in the Wizarding World in terms of heritage.","conclusion":"There were only 28 pure-blood families in 1930s Britain and likely far fewer today suggesting that marrying a Muggle is actually fairly common."}
{"id":"01473e6a-ff44-4764-a155-a1824edb6360","argument":"Because not only has the word rape been stretched and contorted beyond it's true meaning by society in general, but the legal system itself has clearly been influenced by these pro feminist and anti male views. Therefore, claims of rape are now grossly over reported and over investigated, while men are being over arrested, over prosecuted, over convicted, and clearly over punished. Reported rapes falling into the categories of date rape, spousal rape, acquaintance rape, statutory rape, and workplace rape are most often just cases of regrettable sex, which men are exponentially more likely to be held responsible for after the fact. Even though men also regret sex in some of those same situations. Courts are increasingly willing to convict men of rape with NO PROOF, other than the testimony of the self proclaimed victim . The standards of innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt has been shifted ONLY in rape cases to a preponderance of evidence standard, meaning if it is thought that there is a 50.00001 chance that the man is guilty, it's OK to convict him and levy a harsh punishment, even though there remains a 40.99999 chance that he is innocent. It would seem to me that men, rather than women, deserve the benefit of the doubt in all cases, considering what men have done FOR women, compared to what women have done TO men, throughout history. Men provide women with food, shelter, and transportation while women petition gov'mint to use force redistribute wealth from men to women ie. wallet rape . Women also withhold sex from men while petitioning gov'mint to use force to restrict the sale and purchase of sex ie. prostitution and also to restrict the drug trade, thus preventing men from acquiring the painkillers they seek to make living in a world full of women more tolerable. False Rape Accusations FRA's are outrageously rampant. See COTWA.info. Note it will take many days for you to read the thousands of stories of men falsely accused, and be awed by the frivolous reasons that evil women give to justify their FRA's. THEN go re read the children's fable about The Boy who Cried Wolf. Note what happens to him. Then substitute the word girl for boy . Even on those extremely rare occasions where a legitimate rape or to borrow Whoppie Goldberg's term rape rape occurs, the harm to the victim is almost never in proportion to the sentence hanging over the head of the rapist. Sure, there are exceptions, where a rapist is so evil that he gouges the victim's eyes out, severs limbs, or mutilates her body in some way. But for the most part, a victim is no more physically traumatized than if she had had rough sex with her boyfriend and certainly no more mentally traumatized than say, a man who is sent into combat in a war. Even the slightest, most innocently intended hint that any woman, anywhere, should do any teensy weensy itty bitty thing to reduce the chances of herself becoming a victim of rape, are met with the most hate filled accusations of BLAMING THE VICTIM and of being a RAPE APOLOGIST . It seems that men, men alone, and only men are responsible for insuring that women are free to live in a rape free zone, and if that means severing all penises and tossing them in a huge, celebratory bonfire, well, that would be just fine with the feminist overlords. THEREFORE, until sanity is returned to society until men are given, by women, the respect that they deserve or at least treated with equality I propose that men go on a strike that includes the refusal of all men to participate in the persecution of men charged with rape. I call upon judges, jurors, jailors, cops, congressmen, and anyone else involved in the rape industry to STOP ENFORCING RAPE LAWS. I further suggest that all taxpaying men begin withholding all tax payments immediately, until an accounting can be done to insure that all gov'mint resources are distributed among men and women EQUALLY or better yet, in proportion to their contributions to society. So there.","conclusion":"I believe that in the US, we should stop prosecuting men for raping women. ---if you can."}
{"id":"dfdcbda9-76a0-47ab-8f64-af11f74648c8","argument":"I've been debating with u ShiningConcepts about the importance of a life of a fetus recently and it made me realize why I think a lot of things and I thought this is worth a wide debate. So let's get to the bottom of it Even if you're a 100 vegan you certainly don't believe all life is equal. Or do you think bacteria should be allowed to vote? Why not? Your answer to this question is crucial because this way, you decide the key of all morality. And when you say you think all life is equal, you just draw the line of morality way farther. But you drew it anyway now you say that nonliving things are less important than living things. Now, if you're into biology, you know that there are tons of definitions of life but whichever you choose, you support that signs of life. If you followed the classical definition, you would say life is anything that reproduces and evolves to reproduce more efficiently. Where did we get to? There are some crystals that learn to build more and more stable structures by trail and error they could be considered alive equal by this definition. On the other side, even if you had a robot that behaves, feels, talks and thinks 100 like a human, you wouldn't consider him important. Let's follow another definition life is what contains DNA RNA. Now let's say you got to another planet and you see something that closely resembles a human but has a longer head and is silicon based. Is he worth our attention? Now, let's say you discovered the alien is made of the exact same things like the robot and sex looks like mechanical construction for us. Would you change your perspective? Let's say you would loose your limbs. Is it still you? Of course. What if you got implants of all your organs except for brain. Of course, it's still you . And of course, you'd consdier Stephen Hawking a human, even though his brain could be the only practically working part of his body. What's left is brain and as you'll see, that's wildly important in our moral systems. If you're reading this, you surely ate something in the last month, which means you caused the death of some of the life. Now, if you ended the life of 5 tomatoes, is it worse than ending a life of 1 cow? You surely see another big deal definition of an individual. My point is, when you say all life is equal, you subconsciously say all consciousness is equal. That's the reason you'd consider the robot and the alien important but not the crystal. But I don't think you really think it's so. All we science could connect with consciousness the phenomenon of experiences inside our heads is connected with intelligence testable ability to learn tackle tasks , the ability to react on the environment cognition and the sense of self which can be tested as well If we test those kinds of abilities for long enough, we can find out that some animals are more and some less conscious. If you look into the polls, most philosophers think there's actually no threshold in the sense that there can be a lot and a little of consciousness those are people who study those kind of things for living and trust me, we nonphilosophers cannot imagine the complexity of the problems they're dealing with . When we characterize animals like that we finally get a model of morality that makes sense. And characterizing humans like that is as simple and clean. u ShiningConcepts said that human life begans when we start to grow at the moment of conception which I really liked because it could be a definition of life as well. But as you could see, we shouldn't really be governed by what's growing when deciding moral dilemmas because aliens and robots might not grow but crystals can. And if you went to the extreme you could consider fetii more important than adults, because they grow less. When you keep in mind that some things are more conscious than other, it's obviously far more reasonable to think about consciousness and it's only a small step if we say our goal in life should be to make as many consciousnesses happy as possible or change happy to close to god or close to finding peace if you're religious . So why we decided all humans are equal? We want everyone to have the opportunity to be happy. Our knowledge about consciousness is and will always be very blur that's why even most non vegetarians protest against eating dogs or orangutans It's our common social contract So when we decide about the lives of fetii, we're deciding about something less conscious that might cost a lot of money and tears of things we know are conscious humans . The thing is, a fetus that dies in a few months might not bring happiness to the world. But it's still your choice. Edit 14 minutes I'd like to say I'd like to hear criticism mainly on the core of the post considering morality according to the level of consciousness. Sorry for that click bait, have a nice day and I'm looking forward to your opinions. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Simple reason why robot lives matter and some animals are more important than fetii"}
{"id":"de71d3b8-0f69-42f2-9236-be29a532888e","argument":"Edit This blew up. Please read the disclaimer before posting many people clearly skipped that , also I apologize for not being able to respond to everyone, my answers may seem a little rushed because they are . I will try to get to everyone with decent arguments later I am sorry for this arrogant sentence but I can't respond to all arguments, I will focus on the decent ones . Disclaimer I am talking about all types of units in the imperial system inch, foot, lb, oz and metric system metre, liter, kilogram , not just one in particular while it is mostly aimed at weight and length units . The cost of changing from the imperial system to the metric system is not a part of this argument, because that is not an argument in favor of the system, but in favor of not changing it. Indeed the cost would be very high and most likely only worth it in the very long run. I think that there is literally no job that the imperial system has which is not done better by the metric system. The metric system is easier to work with, as it has a 10 base system. Since the metric system has a 10 base system, it is very easy to convert units into other units not just hierarchically, but you can also convert volume units into weight units, etc. People often argue that it is easier to imagine the imperial system because it works with human feet, inch etc. Which is hardly true, since the average foot length depends on gender and genetics. The error that you make by assuming the length of eg. a rope is equal to the error you make by assuming the same lenght in metres considering you are accustomed to the units that is considering the average foot length differs by 2,5 cm from the actual foot unit length, and the variation in the population is huge even though normally distributed . The imperial units themselves are defined in metric units, because otherwise, you would have no way of telling the exact size of each unit. Most science in the US and UK is done in the metric units anyway, because they are much easier to work with. Therefore, I think that it is not only objectively better because it posesses advantages I listed and possibly more , but that the imperial system has actually not a single factor in which it would be better than the metric system and therefore is subpar . Thus, changing my view can either be accomplished with good arguments against the advantages of the metric system, or by presenting an argument that the imperial system actually has advantages and or something the metric system cannot bring. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The metric system is objectively better and there is no advantage to the imperial system over metric system."}
{"id":"91fe3aaa-4dab-4752-9a69-4184e6d2b1a1","argument":"Assuming that it was properly regulated, I see no reason that two consenting adults shouldn't be allowed to exchange money for sex. By proper regulation, I mean that there would be regular STD testing for both parties test results from within a specific time period being necessary for the transaction to be legal. I would tend to think the time period would be 4 12 weeks","conclusion":"I see no reason that prostituition should be illegal"}
{"id":"20b10fa0-1b04-4ab3-bd5e-b035b30ca039","argument":"I'm making this  because I've noticed that my views on abortion don't really line up with either of the two main viewpoints on it although they're much closer to a pro choice viewpoint than a pro life one . This isn't so much one specific view as it is a collection of related views regarding abortion. I'll specifically list the things that I believe and the things that I don't believe. I think it's good to address both sides because we live in a world where a simple sentence like I support gun rights has people immediately jumping to conclusions about your views on everything from race relations and gay marriage to economic standpoints and foreign policy. Addressing both sides helps to avoid people reaching incorrect conclusions. Important note For the purposes of this discussion I am writing this with the assumption in mind that a fetus at any point in development is equivalent to a human life. I do not believe this and I will explain my reasons for making this assumption in the Things I don't believe section. Also, I am from the U.S.A. and I will be writing this with specific regards to the United States. When I say 'government', 'society', etc. I mean the U.S. government or U.S. society. Things that I believe View Abortions help society. Reasoning There are many reasons that we should try to minimize the number of unwanted babies. For starters, every human who is born takes up a lot of resources, and produces a lot of pollution. The average American is responsible for roughly 20 tons of carbon dioxide emissions per year source Essentially, humans are bad for the environment so less humans is a good thing if we consider climate change to be important. Additionally, unwanted babies are more likely to grow up in bad situations since they were unwanted , and are more likely to become criminals detrimental to society, or if not criminals then people on welfare which is also detrimental to society. Now yes, it is possible that some aborted baby would have grown up to be the next Einstein. But since it is more likely that they will end up being detrimental to society, I see no reason why we should assume that the less likely of two outcomes will happen. View Women of any age, citizenship status, etc. should be able to get an abortion from any abortion clinic for free, no questions asked. Reasoning In order for this to be free, I suggest a small federal tax increase to cover the cost of government funded abortions. The tax would only need to be minimal the average cost of an abortion is a little less than 500 source This is a relatively tiny amount of money to the government, so the tax increase would be minimal. The benefits however, would be huge. It is highly likely that easier abortion access would help reduce the global carbon footprint, and would also reduce crime. This isn't even going into the fact that it would help improve the lives of the potential mother and father in a very direct way if the pregnancy was unwanted. Overall, this would be a good investment for society. In addition, I mention age and citizenship status because regardless of these factors, American citizens still benefit when women get abortions. View Doctors should be required to inform pregnant women about the safety and cost of abortions, as well as the safety and cost of pregnancy including the costs of raising the child . Reasoning More accurate information is never a bad thing. Requiring doctors to inform patients about both options will allow the pregnant woman to make a more informed decision on whether or not to abort. If you oppose a doctor simply informing their patient of the facts, then you oppose spreading knowledge and have no place in any sort of philosophical discussion. If you still do not like the fact that the woman may be more likely to choose abortion when they are more aware of the facts, then maybe you should rethink your position on the matter because when people gain knowledge on the subject they become more likely to disagree with you. View A fetus is essentially a form of parasite, and women deserve the ability to remove such a parasite from their bodies. Reasoning A fetus is similar to parasite for several reasons. During pregnancy, the fetus feeds off the nutrients of the mother, while providing virtually no health benefits in return. Additionally, pregnancy can result in complications that lead to the death or disability of the mother. This is analogous to a parasite such a a mosquito which feeds off another being's nutrients, provides no benefit to the host, and can result in serious harm to the host. If it is moral for someone to slap a mosquito sucking their blood, then it is moral to allow a woman to abort a fetus. Also not that this is fundamentally different from things such as breastfeeding or a mother simply providing food for her child. Breast milk serves no purpose to the mother, and the nutrients stored in food do not belong to anyone until they consume that food. In this way, a fetus in the womb truly does steal nutrients from the mother. A baby does not steal nutrients from the mother, but rather uses nutrients that were either useless to the mother breastmilk , or provided by the mother as a gift and therefore never the mother's in the first place. View Abortions should be allowed up until birth, after which they should no longer be allowed. Reasoning This point will probably cause the most controversy. Many people will disagree with this because late in the pregnancy, the fetus would be able to survive on its own if it were surgically removed from the woman in the proper manner. However, I believe that just because it would be able to survive on its own does not change the fact that it is still essentially a parasite and the woman still deserves the right to remove that parasite from her body. The fetus, while in the womb, is still feeding off the nutrients of the mother regardless of whether or not it could survive outside the womb , and therere should be treated as a parasite. Things that I do not believe View Women should be forced to have abortions. Reasoning This one is obvious but it must be stated, I do not believe that any woman, for any reason, should EVER be forced into having an abortion. Encouraging them is fine, informing them is fine, forcing them is not. View A fetus's life is equivalent to a human life Reasoning As I mentioned earlier, I want this discussion to be had with the assumption in mind that fetus's are equivalent to human lives. However, I do not believe this is true. The reason I wish for this to be the assumption is that pro lifers tend to get hung up on this which I know will lead to a meaningless discussion because I believe that abortion should be an option even if it were uneqivocally proven that a fetus were equal to a human life. Essentially, this boils down to I don't care if a fetus is a human or not, women should be able to abort it either way. View All killing is bad Reasoning There are many forms of killing that are generally considered acceptable. Soldiers kill other soldiers in wartime, people are allowed to kill in self defense, and criminals are executed due to their crimes. All of these are perfectly legal forms of killing, and though some are controversial most would agree that at least one of the three is justified. I believe that abortion is another one of these types of killing. This is also why I don't care whether the fetus is a human or not I view it as a legally and morally justified form of killing. While I am interested in having my view changed, I am also interested in simply having a discussion on the topic. Let's talk about abortion gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I am not pro-life, nor am I pro-choice. I am pro-abortion"}
{"id":"3b9457a8-fd0e-4570-ade7-4bb66f930da2","argument":"Anti-social behaviour is a big problem. Large crowds of teenagers gather outside shops, homes and other public places and make life miserable for the rest of the public with noise, drinking, drug-taking, vandalism and threats of violence. This is bad for the law-abiding public but worse for store-owners as their customers are put off by gangs of young people hanging round the entrance. The Mosquito device solves this problem by encouraging young people to move away and breaking up gangs before trouble starts.","conclusion":"Anti-social behaviour is a big problem. Large crowds of teenagers gather outside shops, homes and o..."}
{"id":"1a909e12-5808-4c22-99a7-951dc039b6b6","argument":"There are nearly 6000 meat and butcher shops in the UK that will go out of business.","conclusion":"Replacing meat with insects will be bad for the economy."}
{"id":"0e2493e9-a67f-49f7-8ea5-6ad56799470c","argument":"The reports were based on people who volunteered to be interviewed about a taboo subject. This likely creates a self-selection bias.","conclusion":"Academic criticisms made pertaining to sample selection and sample bias in the reports' methodology."}
{"id":"3ec472fd-c6a3-4c10-bede-70103440b91f","argument":"In Germany, half of all voters believe that politicians are out of touch, three out of four have little or no trust in political parties, and 40% are not satisfied with how democracy works in Germany infratest dimap, p. 12-14","conclusion":"The governments of donor countries may have come to power through a democratic process, yet it is questionable whether they should consider themselves as superior to each and every non-democratic government in terms of actual legitimacy."}
{"id":"d8cef087-8014-443d-b203-54b9c9c23391","argument":"Second year Hogwarts students are required to study Mandrakes using only earmuffs for protection, despite the fact that the scream of a baby Mandrake can render a student unconscious for hours.","conclusion":"At Hogwarts, teenagers are taught in class how to utilize deadly magic, work with plants whose scream can kill and brew chemical weapons-level potions."}
{"id":"0792e9e3-3ed0-4784-9e7f-e4843edaf509","argument":"Many historians refer to the Middle Ages, the period that saw the rise of Christianity after the fall of the Roman Empire, with the critical attribution of \"Dark Ages\".","conclusion":"Religion has been the cause of many darkest periods of humanity."}
{"id":"8381ddb2-35d0-4e82-a9d1-7889c45f0a09","argument":"Countries with social safety nets have an overall higher level of health of their citizens in terms of life expectancy and incidence of chronic illness. Healthy people increase productivity, and are less of a burden on society as a whole. The American Healthcare Paradox Book","conclusion":"People in countries with strong welfare Denmark, Norway, and Sweden live longer than people in America, they earn more, they do not have student debt and they have better retirement benefits."}
{"id":"2529e49f-d777-4b04-a7ca-0f3e3a0ae774","argument":"Children from households identifying as Christianity or Muslim were less altruistic than children from non-religious households. Moreover, older children with a longer exposure to religion\" showed \"the greatest negative relations\u201d.","conclusion":"Research found that children from religious families are less kind and more punitive than those from non-religious households."}
{"id":"0cdbafc7-5ea5-4602-bc9d-ccf24f005352","argument":"I see Bernie dropping out in order to keep the progressive vote from being split he seems like the kind of guy who would give up his opportunity in order to give the progressive cause a better chance. Furthermore, I believe before he drops out, him and Warren will make a deal that he'd be made vice president in a Warren Administration. I also believe that, as the debates continue, Biden will be exposed for the political dinosaur that he is, and it will negatively impact his chances of winning the nomination in a party which is becoming more progressive with each day. I believe the fact that Elizabeth Warren is a woman will help too, as many find the idea of electing the first female president exciting. Perhaps my hypothesis is flawed, I will admit that. I look forward to hearing opposing views and maybe having my mind changed.","conclusion":"Elizabeth Warren will be the Democratic nominee"}
{"id":"dae8feaf-19d0-4518-bf7e-667dbb8ba45b","argument":"Let's take for example the voting system. Very rarely do I have to down vote someone, it's really only appropriate under certain circumstances like for example, they are not friendly with the stated environment of that sub reddit or they are not contributing to the discussion or they are just trolling. BUT most people seem to think down voting is something you use against people who comment an opinion that's in contrast with yours. Now you see that just makes no sense, you should want people to see differing opinions, it opens up discussion. Yesterday I commented in the politics sub and bashed all political parties, just a simple observation of mine, and everyone was calling me a russian troll. I get it, I bashed all political parties, but the comment was still related to politics, and furthered discussion on the topic in a different direction, opening up more chances for people to comment. I was awarded my first gold on that comment ironically, topped out at about 100 down votes. And then of course there are karma whores, and they are vast in numbers. x200B It's also a notorious of Reddit users to use big words as much and as often as they can when they are debating with someone. I have seen it often, big words being used incorrectly or near incorrectly for the sake of using big words, which makes you seem inept and incompetent. Like come on, no one is going to think any higher of you for using big words, and in most cases, forcing big words messes with the eloquence of your post. x200B And then you have people that take this Reddit thing WAY wayyyyy waaaaaaay wwwwwwway too serious. I cannot count how many times I have actually pissed someone off on reddit. If you are debating with someone and they are calmly and logically making their point, and you are just insulting them calling them a troll ignorant then you should consider that maybe you take Reddit too serious no one cares for your opinion on here really, even if it gets 100 thousand up votes Reddit is not about becoming sentimental over your opinions Reddit is more about discussion than it is debate, but sadly a huge part of Reddit is debate, which is fine, but if you're going to debate, debate in a detached manner. To add on this, if someone make a firm point that you disagree with so much you just have to reply to them, then fine that's perfectly fine, but if they reply to you jokingly mockingly and you in turn reply with anger, and you continue this cycle 20 comments later, then you should re evaluate whether or not Reddit is right for you.","conclusion":"A multitude of users on Reddit are not aware of Reddit etiquette"}
{"id":"0d0286af-e27c-4fc6-990f-b17c2de481b2","argument":"In western society women's lives are treated as far more sacred and precious than that of a man. Whenever any tragedy happens, the male casualties are quickly listed off as mere statistics, with the outrage being saved for the number of women and children who are victims. Giving the undeniable signal that women, like children, are somehow more valuable or precious than their male counterparts Despite missing persons statistics being nearly equal in all respects, it is a rare thing when a males missing status is given any significant media coverage or major concern whatsoever. This has nearly always been dominated by missing women. Males are simply seen as expendable in ways women are not. The only form of legal slavery that still looms in western cultures the draft, where a government can order you to go kill and be killed anywhere in the world, is still by large, seen as unthinkable to include women in. Male victims of rape, violence, and abuse is at best, met with indifference, but equally as often, treated as a literal punch line or baseless partisan talking points. Yet all social campaigns for change paint the exact opposite picture, as if it's female abuses which are ignored. Rape is treated as far more serious than murder or even torture, and it seems obvious that this is due to the majority of the victims of rape, being female. One can joke about murder, rap about murder, depict it in videos, show gore videos galore of murder, yet none of the same is true of rape. This becomes more apparent when the only notable exception to this rule, is the rape of males in prison though not always limited to prison think Chris Hansons rape in the comedy show the boondocks . This is not only able to be depicted regularly, but often serves as cultural comedy. If this was simply a case of indifference to criminals, then one would expect female prison rape to be treated in a similar manner, yet female prison rape is treated as far more seriously. Female prison sentences for equal crimes are consistently much more lenient. One has to look no further than the many cases of teachers having sexual relations with students, where the trend is often females who commit equal or even greater crimes, sometimes serve zero time in prison whatsoever. This entire dynamic is often treated as a big joke as well. Women are nearly always given the assumption of purer intentions in social situations. From commenting or talking to a child on the street, offering to babysit, speaking to a stranger of the opposite sex, or helping someone with car trouble, society seems to operate under innocent until proven sinister for women and creep until proven innocent for males. Social norms dictate that one has a duty to protect women who are being threatened or attacked by any male. Yet when the opposite occurs, this too is seen as funny. The how can she slap video is of course, one of the most widely known depictions of this phenomenon, but it is widespread. If one takes a domestic abuser, swaps his gender, it becomes simply feisty or fiery . Sometimes this is on the basis of the innocent until proven sinister doctrine. other times it is based around the inherent feeling that females are to be protected. The old women and children first doctrine. This of course, was never a hard rule, yet everyone seems to kind of just know that this is the right thing to do. The implication clearly implying that they, like children, are innocents who should be protected saved. From the Titanic, to bomb shelters, to fire rescues, to police rescues, hostage negotiations and beyond, this doctrine has not changed one bit with the times. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Despite equality movements, Women's lives are treated as more sacred and innocent in western society."}
{"id":"672b7968-7149-4d4d-aa3a-47268f48a51b","argument":"Throwaway because I always get hate mail when I express this idea. Also everything is based on the US teachers. The average teacher makes between 40 and 45 grand a year. This does not include state benefits, which are usually well above average compared to similar paying non state jobs. Teaching as a job has very few heavy stress qualities. It has no travel. You will never be called in the middle of the night for an emergency. There are no swing shifts flex shifts etc. Despite what the media may have you believe, schools are one of the safest places in America. Teachers do not work in the business of saving or taking lives. There are very few deadlines a teacher needs to meet. There is no threat of loss of life. It has no manual labor, of physical risks of safety. A teacher faces almost no more stress factors than a day care worker and significantly fewer in other areas . Even with taking work home, teachers work significantly fewer hours than other professions and on top of that, work far fewer days. I see no reason teachers should be paid any higher. They're already compensated fairly well for what I consider to be a job that isn't that stressful compared to others.","conclusion":"I think teaching is an easy job compared to others, and the notion that teachers are underpaid is laughable United States only."}
{"id":"08c8b300-bfad-4a72-92b6-a759f5ac9139","argument":"Tourism in the UK generates 9% of the country's GDP and nearly 10% of jobs. A decline in tourists due to Brexit would damage the UK economy.","conclusion":"While that may be positive for immigration, it could have a negative impact on the tourism industry in the UK."}
{"id":"ab122a16-0024-424b-a39b-14a73d9d9da8","argument":"Research conducted in Switzerland indicates that referendums contribute to a political culture in which young people feel confident to vote, and in which young people therefore participate to a higher degree in politics Kunz et al, p. 12","conclusion":"Referendums tend to mobilize voters who usually do not participate in ordinary elections."}
{"id":"32e4fec0-4b6a-48d7-aad8-259405ae0e4b","argument":"I've been doing a lot of reading lately and I feel like I'm finding all these problems with capitalism. I was wanting to get the opposite point of view on this issue before I decide where I stand. So, here we go Premise Capitalism is an inherently exploitative system. Reasons By definition, your employer makes more money off what your labor provides them than they pay you. A common counter Your employer provides you the opportunity to work which you would not have had otherwise. Your work for them is a net benefit to both of you. Retort Where did the employer get the opportunity to provide me with the opportunity? They got a head start , in terms of either capital or education, that allowed them to start their business. This head start , which is essentially given randomly depending on where you are born, does not seem like a compelling reason why someone should be able to profit off their employee's work. Capitalism will inherently concentrate wealth into a few individuals. As businesses get more efficient at competing, they gain more capital. More capital makes it easier for them to compete. This positive feedback loop gives them more and more power to the point where they become a monopoly and can control significant aspects of people's lives, giving them more power. In capitalism, what is to stop a business from obtaining so much capital that they become a monopoly? The voluntary exchange principal which capitalism is founded on is fundamentally flawed. Some exchanges may be voluntary, but many are not. There is not much choice between working for barely enough to survive on or dying of starvation. If one person has all the resources and I have none, I am at their mercy to accept whatever contact they give me. Furthermore, consent can be engineered. This is a common problem with advertising. Human beings are not fundamentally rational agents. Humans evolved with many physiological quirks that can be exploited once you understand what they are. Anchoring is an example of this. If people are not rational, how can we expect voluntary exchange to be free from one party hurting another? I recommend the book Predictably Irrational and the documentary Century of Self for a more elaborate explanation on how consent can be engineered. Change my view on this. I want to hear counters to my arguments before I form my opinion. I look forward to what you all have to say. EDIT Thanks for the discussion everyone You brought up some good points. I've decided my knowledge of formal economic theory is too spotty for me to decide yet. I'm going to read some academic literature on the topic. Thanks for taking the time to post.","conclusion":"I believe capitalism is inheritable exploitative."}
{"id":"3a60ee2b-b62d-4fbc-9d1c-474cfbe2f321","argument":"Ok so, I am looking for some discussion about this because I can't seem to find any plausible reasons why this shouldn't be allowed. I have a real bee in my bonnet about private landlords owning property and renting it out to people. Specifically when they're just renting it out to augment their income, make profit off it, pay the mortgage on that property or anything along these lines. I don't understand how in any society which champions meritocracy and a hard work ethic particularly in the UK can allow such liberties. As a private landlord you must've bought a property at one point or inherited it from someone. Why does this allow landlords to effectively be parasites on society? It's pretty much just earning money on dead property which you've either had the luck to buy or the luck to inherit. It's the same as having rich parents and not working a day in your life. It contributes nothing to society as a whole whatsoever apart from a segment of society, like property developers and the likes . You can say, Oh but it provides homes for people who want to rent . Not entirely true, given that council houses and similar arrangements to this exist. If you've bought a hose and decide to buy a second house, but you can't afford the first one, so you rent it, why should this be allowed? Surely you are a dumbass for buying a house you couldn't afford in the first place? The result of the above is basically someone who wants to have their cake and eat it. Too many luxuries which you cannot afford, so you make someone else pay for. I'm not completely against private landlords per se. For example, if your parents pass away and you inherit the house. You may not want to sell it for sentimental reasons. I can appreciate that. However, if you rent this at an extortionate rate, that is no longer sentimental, but financial. I am also unsure why private landlords should be allowed to charge people so goddamn much. Prices in London, San Francisco, New York, Cambridge etc. are astronomical. You bought a house in the 1990s for \u00a350,000. You now charge people \u00a31200 a month excluding bills even . How? How do you justify this morally? This is especially if you are renting out a studio apartment. Some landlords convert their livings rooms into a bedroom and charge people hundreds and thousands of pounds. What the hell is that about? Here, peasant. Live in his hole I call a luxurious living room with bathroom sink, while I live in my three bedroom penthouse. The only argument I can see is the whole property rights are inalienable . Fine, this is a thing, but does that justify screwing most renters out there who are just trying to find an affordable home to eat, sleep, shit and create memories in? From my point of view, it's just a way for people to live on the backs of others and it encourages people to live off people's rent. Basically it incentives people to not contribute to society. Why get a job when poor old Linda and Barry are paying me more per month than a job as a nurse would? I would be an idiot to do that, right? It's pretty much like a glorified and glamourised form of feudalism. The peasant pays the Lord for the property. Did the Lord do anything for it? Probably not. I have had numerous conversations about this with people. Perhaps I am surrounded by morons, but the unanimous response has been Landlords are smart, they are smart enough to save up, buy a house and rent it whilst making profit . Also the old gem, But if people are willing to pay for it, what's the problem ? Except, the problem is that if this was an auction, I am willing to bet people wouldn't do that. Only some people CAN pay for it. It's not that they are WILLING to pay for it. How would you explain commuters in this case? Yeah, they just LOVE traveling miles and miles to get to a job that they probably hate. tl dr landlords are parasites, please explain why not in your view Edit God damm, lot of comments here. I am pretty exhausted from answering but I'll get back to you tomorrow, I promise","conclusion":"Private landlords shouldn't be allowed to rent their property without caps"}
{"id":"3a797b07-1743-4807-9dd6-f11d6b6de04d","argument":"And there is evidence that Edward DeVere, the leading alternative candidate for Shakespeare authorship, was personally acquainted with Arthur Brooke and would have had direct access to this work, something the Stratford man would not have had.","conclusion":"Arthur Brooke's poem 'The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet' served as the source for Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet."}
{"id":"73e96c35-b6fa-4d41-94dc-33ac60442ee1","argument":"Because of the collaborative nature, more arguments can be considered earlier and by more persons involved in the decision.","conclusion":"A written account of the pros and cons of a decision can actually expedite the decision process."}
{"id":"553e08cb-91aa-48f4-89a6-6a3fdf057cf0","argument":"The Quran states that the Earth is motionless and is held still by God but science has proven that it rotates around the sun and its own axis.","conclusion":"The Quran, considered to be one of the most authentic sources of religious faith and history in Islam, has made several scientific errors."}
{"id":"9c5abbfd-0af3-49a9-8112-541a7d38dab1","argument":"I want to be able to volunteer on my deathbed to have my brain probed with electrodes and sliced up as a form of euthanasia. It would be a slow and profoundly disturbing way to die. It would be one hell of a trip. I think many people would volunteer anyway, as a form of euthanasia that is. Research on brains must rely on willing volunteers. The other major area for human experimentation would be deliberately giving people diseases and cutting them open to watch the disease progress, and trying to stop it by radical means. Nobody would volunteer for this. It would be done on brain dead bodies.","conclusion":"Human experimentation should be pursued to the extreme."}
{"id":"c7e3df2b-6d56-4283-9fd1-8c3d5414cb3c","argument":"Basically I believe that the way our species has evolved and dominated everything on this planet and progressed will be our downfall. Humanity has grown too intelligent and it will be our undoing Look at global warming a potential threat to humanity possibly caused by our Innovation in energy creation Guns,Nukes, future war technology. All of these innovations caused by us that have the ability to outright end us if we aren't careful Superbugs caused by our continued innovation in the medical field will lead to something unstoppable There are projects that are some sort of colliders that can if done incorrectly cause a black hole or something True more often than not innovation saves us and has lead to our thriving. All these advances in tech and what not has lead to people living longer. But the adverse is that it only takes one of these advances to destroy us all and end it My point is you would never have seen this in say the dark ages. Weapons and tech were archaic and doomsday tech and weapons were unthinkable. Maybe only a group of people elites or a ruling class would need to keep and retain our Innovation and progress and the rest of us non elites like me would give up our knowledge and tech to essentially overtime regress back to the dark age. Sure we would need a system of checks and balances to make sure the elite don't spread or abuse that power. And yes I know that humanity would eventually progress back to modern day level but it would buy us some time. P.s I have always been a lurker on here as admittedly I lack the intelligence level of you guys. You guys are crazy smart in these debates Edit thank you all so much for being kind enough notice my post and share your knowledge. This may come off as forced but I really mean it. Thanks for taking time to enlighten others","conclusion":"Humans have evolved in such a way that our progression is\/will kill us. We need a reset."}
{"id":"a6e6dd8f-3fa1-44eb-b8a4-14de4d9a7bb7","argument":"It is justified for the state to intervene in this context: married couples have entered into a state-endorsed relationship which provides advantages both financially in terms of taxes and inheritance, and through recognition and validation. It is reasonable for the state to require something in return: namely, that assets are divided in a way which is fair. Furthermore, since no contracts are upheld in the state of nature, the state must be prior to the existence of contracts. It is thus legitimate for the state to choose not to recognise those contracts which it deems inappropriate.","conclusion":"It is justified for the state to intervene in this context: married couples have entered into a stat..."}
{"id":"1c6919c6-7325-4a31-ab86-1fc75eb51770","argument":"I'm a Democrat and a gun owner. The gun control stance from my party is what loses them elections. It's crazy that my party which is so smart on healthcare, the environment, and economics can be so stupid when it comes to guns. It's unfortunate that 10 smart statements can be undone by a single dumb one. Here's the breakdown 33k people die annually from guns. about 20 22k of those are suicide. We would have to essentially either ban guns to prevent some of those or have constitutionally dubious laws regarding disarming potentially suicidal people. Of the the other 10k or so people, most are killed by handguns, and typically only a few rounds are fired. Rifles of any kind only make up about 300 deaths a year. On the flip side, 45k Americans die from lack of health coverage, ie, if we had single payer they wouldn't be dead. Every 1 of unemployment causes about 1500 deaths extra deaths. How many could die from global warming is harder to say, but it's definitely the most troubling of all. These issues should be the forefront of the party, and they will definitely win elections. But when you say that you can just walk into a gunshow and buy a gun off a table, or order one off the internet and have it shipped to your house, or that an adjustable stock and flash hider makes a gun a weapon of war , anybody who knows the first thing about guns will think they're an idiot. We're driving a way independents and really turning out Republicans. EDIT just to clarify, I'm not pushing to repeal a bunch of regulations. I'm stating that the new slate of laws being proposed expanded background checks, magazine restrictions, Assault Weapon bans, etc are losing elections for Democrats and wouldn't really save that many lives in the first place. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The gun control debate kills more than could possibly be saved."}
{"id":"644e3e84-66ff-4c3e-8232-75b556cce1c1","argument":"Through both science and art a person is afforded a perspective on the world around them that the casual observer does not see. Both enable a person to look at the world on a different wavelength to either see the connectedness of the world, and\/or the beauty of its component parts","conclusion":"Science is Similar to Art in the Way of Viewing the World."}
{"id":"f461e9f0-2ad4-44e4-b8b8-d95e4467bd5f","argument":"I think that if I don't have any interest in spending my life with a romantic interest but I have a best friend I want to live with forever, I should be able to get some sort of civil union with them that would let us have the tax breaks and healthcare benefits. Some people that I have told this argument to say that since the two people aren't in love and in a committed relationship there is no reason for them to necessarily stay together in the civil union. However, with the divorce rate as high as it is, I don't see how this would be much different.","conclusion":"I believe that all the legal rights of marriage should be afforded to any two people committing to spend their lives together regardless of relationship status and gender."}
{"id":"b6c7cd16-1c5d-47c5-bb81-be27365f09f8","argument":"For example science\u2019s discovery of over 4023 exoplanets in our galaxy is getting closer to the prophet Moses's revelation of worlds without number and supports the existence of God.","conclusion":"Accurately interpreted prophetic revelation preceding scientific confirmation of the same truth supports the existence of God."}
{"id":"b824117b-092b-4fcd-800b-8d7bdc4f4cd6","argument":"When looking at the sources of income, researchers found that 74% of conservancies had income that was greater than operating expenses. If hunting were to be banned, only 16% of these conservancies would remain in the black, versus 59% if ecotourism was banned.","conclusion":"A study conducted on 77 CBNRM program in Namibia that allows communities to register land as communal conservancies found that most conservancies need both hunting and ecotourism to benefit from their wildlife."}
{"id":"df53eda4-09f4-4274-a08a-7b8486914686","argument":"Cultural diversity in the workplace may have a positive influence on the reputation of a company - leading to more consumers.","conclusion":"Cultural diversity in the workplace may lead to greater profits for an organisation."}
{"id":"f179437d-1e7e-45f7-9f1e-3f6c48aea293","argument":"One of the arguments for public funding of the arts and museums is that they are a public good: everyone should have access to learning, history and culture. This is only meaningfully accessible to the public if there is not a financial barrier through admission fees.","conclusion":"Paying by donation prioritizes equity over equality for museum admissions."}
{"id":"1920de89-a1da-4ab2-abbb-7172d08bd553","argument":"Small businesses and many on the internet hate Yelp because they think Yelp extorts businesses by selling positive reviews in exchange for ad purchases. If a small business doesn't purchase ads, Yelp will sometimes filter its positive reviews and only have negative reviews show up on its Yelp page. However, all these stories are anecdotal, and I have yet to see any direct evidence. Yelp's review filter uses some proprietary algorithm to detect fraudulent reviews. It makes sense that it cannot release this algorithm, otherwise spammers can easily figure out how to bypass the filter. Of course, any algorithm like this will have a certain number of false positives and false negatives. I think it's statistically likely, given the millions of businesses out there, that negative reviews might pass the filter while positive ones stay. Moreover, given the volume of their sales team calling business owners, it's also statistically likely that a refusal to buy ads comes at the same as a negative review. I think the angry few are a lot more vocal than the majority who are satisfied. I don't see any confounding evidence that Yelp has been extorting small businesses besides purely anecdotal evidence here and there. What I'd like to see most is a Yelp page where the owner refused to buy ads, has mostly negative reviews, and a lot of positive reviews that were given by QUALIFIED reviewers ie. many reviews, many friends, older account creation dates .","conclusion":"I believe Yelp does not extort small businesses at all."}
{"id":"cef70099-e6c3-4ff4-bfae-abf1bcea5f58","argument":"I think it is ridiculous how much time people spend studying for the SAT. I feel that you should take it without studying because that will really tell you what sort of school you belong at. Sure, you could study and do better, but that means that schools that accept you because of your higher score will be harder than you should be going to. You will have to work much harder for the same grades that your peers get. You will be more stressed out. I feel like there must be some reason that so many people put so much effort into studying for it though. I've heard it said that it's because some people are bad test takers but are there not tests in college? gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than just downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"You shouldn't study for the SAT"}
{"id":"508dcf26-5a1a-47e2-ac5f-b56e8dd9a874","argument":"In my short experience, the subs, specifically political ones, have become are an echo chamber. Making a comment that goes against the grain can end in a suspension from a sub mine was from r socialism , mass karma loss which isn't entirely important to me but it causes a cessation on open discussion when I can't respond to the numerous responses with a time limit , etc. I'm not much of a Republican or Democrat. I hold pretty centrist views with Libertarian leanings, but when even a polite, discussion allowing comment gets you banned, it can be infuriating and a little revealing. There isn't truthfully open discussion if I can type, I guess we'll have to agree to disagree and get downvoted into Oblivion. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Reddit is an Echo-Chamber"}
{"id":"b440af47-1b8e-4017-9347-4502ccbe41dd","argument":"Some parts of nature are humans' natural enemies and humans are trying their best of killing them as effectively as they can. A society where we would not be able to do so, because it would be considered murder of animals, would have tremendous disadvantages for humans.","conclusion":"A society where the life of an animal was worth as much as the life of a human would be doomed to fail."}
{"id":"1ab3a248-cfb8-44f2-993c-d6d5a1e866a0","argument":"The modern history of European Jewry shapes the current Israeli position regarding their 'right to exist': security predicates peace. Hamas' repeated calls for the destruction of Israel is bound to jog Jewish memories of these tragic times and establish a powerful negative association by contagion.","conclusion":"Due to the security issues that arise from such close proximity to Israel, and in order to create a lasting climate devoid of hatred but filled with mutual understanding, the above is a crucial first step Palestinians must take before recognizing Palestine."}
{"id":"bab78388-d321-47e2-a651-7ebdc133178d","argument":"It seems to me that if a person holds the belief that a foetus and a person are entirely the same thing, they hold a moral obligation to fight it by any means possible, even through violence. In event of genocide, there's a general consensus that violence is an acceptable way to prevent or stop it. An anti abortionist, it seems to me, is under the impression that a genocide against foetuses is currently under way in a very large portion of the world. And so I believe it is morally wrong for them to not resort to terrorism or otherwise extreme action. What I mean to imply through this belief is that nobody really believes that foetuses are people except for those nut cases who are blowing up abortion clinics. .","conclusion":"I believe that people opposed to abortion on the grounds that fetuses count as people are morally obligated to resort to terrorism."}
{"id":"6ada81bf-366e-427b-ab3d-30e3505d0971","argument":"Thankfully only 4.4% of the 60million or so Americans who say they use alternative therapies rely on them exclusively. It is odd that in the cases of anecdotal accounts of the success of alternative medicines this statistic is rarely mentionedi. Equally, the impact of other treatment which may have been used by patients eager to credit complementary and alternative medicines with curing their conditions, tend not to get a look in, neither do the relative successes of conventional medicine. This is probably why in every trial alternative medicine has a success rate of between 0% and 0%. By contrast there needs only be one instance of harm caused to demonstrate that this motion must stand. Interestingly, although conventional medicine publishes its mistakes in an effort to correct them, nothing similar exists for alternatives. Moreover, there are many accounts of fatalities caused by alternatives \u2013 both directly and indirectly through delaying accurate diagnosis as seen above Oh, the same applies to animals tooii. The food supplements industry alone is worth $250 a year worldwide, with little examination of the medical impact of merrily shoving things into your system that were bought at WalMart or Tesco. i JA Astin \u201cWhy patients use alternative medicine: results of a national survey\u201d Journal of the American Medical Association 279 19 1548-53. May 1998. ii","conclusion":"Overwhelmingly alternative therapies are used in conjunction with established remedies - oddly the latter tends not to get the credit for the miracle cure"}
{"id":"6d2c2001-b715-4bce-bfa6-f5dee41a2d6f","argument":"Faith and science are both based on evidence. \"Faith is the assured expectation of what is hoped for, the evident demonstration of realities that are not seen.\" Heb 11:1 \"Evident demonstration\" the original-language word for the phrase \u201cassured expectation\u201d means faith involves conviction that is based on evidence.","conclusion":"Many religions do not ask for blind faith, just as a scientist reaches a conclusion with facts, so too does a religious person through either experience or facts."}
{"id":"ddc62954-dceb-47fe-aded-523ef1c9318a","argument":"So before I get into why I think this, let me preface this by saying I'm not some left wing sociology major looking to reinforce his senior thesis on class. I'm actually a pretty conservative person. I vote straight GOP tickets at the polls unless a Democrat REALLY impresses me character or record, etc So, this isn't coming from someone you might expect it from Basically, I think it's safe to say and if this isn't true feel free to show me why and undercut my whole theory that unskilled labor is becoming less and less valuable in the first world. I think the key driver of growing 'income inequality' over the long term is going to be this phenomenon. Unskilled labor is being replaced by tech, and even lower priced unskilled labor abroad. Now, this doesn't take away jobs on net necessarily. Skilled labor positions can open up to replace some of them. For example, the person who creates fixes the machine which replaced the worker in a factory. In addition, the increased production savings of the factory can lead to creator total output for the nation and economic activity. But I'm getting away from my point. My concern is the people who can't won't obtain skills education. I'm talking about high school drop outs, and even high school graduates to a certain extent who don't attend college or some kind of specialty training like plumbing electricians . What happens as even very low wage occupations such as janitors or fast food workers get replaced by machinery? What about cashiers at the brick and mortar stores Amazon might be putting out of business. Self driving cars and all the soon to be unemployed drivers and truckers? If they don't have some kind of education skills to fall back on once all the job opening require those things, what will be left? Massive retraining programs that are difficult to carry out, and or welfare? My biggest fear would be an upper class of educated people with scientific, business, healthcare, engineering, and so forth skills, and a lower class dependent on them to produce the goods and services of the nation. Maybe I'm just way too pessimistic. I just feel like America has too many people we aren't giving a strong education to, and that as the economy advances this will come back to bite us in a big way.","conclusion":"H.G Wells' The Time Machine may become a reality To an extent"}
{"id":"12cfc053-d7ef-47ef-a25d-b84db763dd5f","argument":"I've tried searching whether this news was discussed here before, but couldn't find anything by keywords atlanta , georgia and intersex You probably heard the news about a student in Atlanta who suffered from mental problems and committed a suicide by cop by calling 911 on himself while walking with a knife. As he expected, he was shot by the police when he made a move towards the officer. It seems there are people who think the shooting was unjustified and an act of senseless murder. Yet I believe  police officers should not be blamed for suicide by cop in the Atlanta case more generally, when a person is walking towards a police officer with a weapon or with their hands in the pocket, they must be immediately shot. Good examples shooting of Keith Lamont Scott, shooting of officer Quincy Smith Note there is plenty of discussion online about shooting people who have a knife vs people who have a gun , so I think this shouldn't be the focus of this discussion. There was equal outrage about shooting of people who had a gun, so in the Atlanta case, if we imagine that person had a gun, the public anger would not be different.","conclusion":"Police officers should not be blamed for a suicide by cop"}
{"id":"ea2eba95-e1b2-48eb-924e-7c97c6558646","argument":"Long story short you can check my post history for the full bit, typical mid 20s crisis shit I'm 24 y o with no direction, no self discipline, living at home with my mom. It's been us since I was 2. We're struggling. I got out of school and never looked back, hated it. Hated waking up for it, all that shit. I'm a bum, usually end up getting a job somewhere until I realize it's not something I want to do, and or it's not enriching or challenging then I quit or leave and live off of the money I've saved until it almost runs out and I have to get a job again. I've got a bunch of plans and ideas that I never see through or work towards. I've got a terrible time staying focused and finishing things I start. I've got no realistic plans for the future, no map, no schedule. My only real focus or stable thing in my life has been achieving at a game that has no monetary future, and yet I've found nothing more satisfying than playing and achieving at it. I've got a prepaid college fund that I can't take advantage of because I waited to long and now we're in a position where we can't really afford for me to go to school right now unless I work, and go to school. Which I'm pretty convinced I can't do w o the aid of some type of amphetamines because I hate the idea of school and don't think I can stomach it, let alone school work at the same time. I've tried to adhere to schedules, which is a terrible thing to say and to hear honestly because the only appropriate response is for people to say 'you didn't really try', which maybe that's true but what the fuck do I do about it? Just keep 'not trying' until I hit rock bottom or end up on the streets? How do I try? Why can't I just say ok tomorrow wake up and do this, and then fuckin wake up and do it? How come everytime I wake up I feel like a different, less motivated person. Exercise, get enough sleep, eat healthy, make a schedule, stick to it, stay focused. This is the typical advice I find when I look for 'how to be motivated', ok well all of those things are different from what I'm doing now, how do I change them. What's most important. What do I change first, do I do all at once? How do I KEEP doing things until their habit? I've got no motivation, maybe it's cause I don't know what it's like to struggle, maybe I need to hit rock bottom first, idfk. I figure hell I got nothing else, maybe I'll just admit defeat and join the military in the hopes of getting some sense of direction in my life. Is that even an acceptable reason to join? Do I have to love this country? Can I be honest w whoever I talk to about joining and my reasons for it or do I have to lie and say I want to fight for america or something. Realistically I just have no fuckin direction and my life has been slowly deteriorating ever since I got out of high school and I'm scared I'm taking me and everyone down with me so it's getting harder to even live with myself when I can't even wake up at a predetermined time because there's nothing to wake up for. I say Change my View because this feels like a cop out and I want another way, military is stress on me and those who care about me, but so is slowly becoming a piece of shit. I say Change my view because I think a lot of people who join the military, even though they might not admit it, do so for similar reasons as this. I would like for my view to be changed, but I would also like to know if this is a viable option as well. Throwaway for reasons.","conclusion":"I should join the military"}
{"id":"3af63de7-7b90-4109-afe6-0ab7d75c4bd8","argument":"A survey found that almost 70% of US-citizens say that they get their meaning of life from their family.","conclusion":"Many people find a purpose in life in having children, so it is not altruistic."}
{"id":"42eff1d3-7af0-4959-9916-425230212329","argument":"Superman is one of the most iconic superheroes of all time perhaps only challenged by Batman and Spider Man. He can fly and move at super speed, shoot lasers from his eyes, insane strength and super hearing. He does not even seem to age. His only threat is other superhero villains. Some of these powers can of course be different in each version of Superman comics, but for the sake of my argument let us say he has all the abilities i listed. Superman usually has a girlfriend, Lois Lane. He has a job as a reporter. He lives a normal human life under the name Clark Kent. I believe that Superman should not have any time of his own He should spend every second rescuing people. I will list my reasons below. 1 Superman's only threat are other super villains. Superman's weakness is usually kryptonite and magic. But he can survive so many things normal humans cannot. Firemen, police officers and other jobs involving risks have zero risks for Superman himself. For him the only excuse is that he cannot be everywhere at once. 2 His parents specifically asked him to be a champion for good. Example Never give up the fight to make the world a better place, son. Let us say that Superman did not want be a hero. In my opinion he would still owe his parents that, for they raised him like their own son. They could have abandoned him, especially when they realized he was a freak with his strength and all that. 3 With great power comes great responsibility. Superman has the power to do good and affect the world at a much larger scale than any human being. Whereas many of us are told that individual actions do not matter, Superman's action can literally change society. I am well aware Superman cannot be everywhere at once, therefore he cannot rescue everyone. But he should rescue as many as possible, every second, every day. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Superman should spend every second of his life rescuing people"}
{"id":"9128e862-15cd-4810-a59c-7de93fde9021","argument":"This is a popular quote online that I've always put my belief on, especially during times when someone important to me leaves or I have to leave them. The quote gives me hope that one day, these people who left me will come back if they were really meant to be in my life. I believe in it because of the reason that there are people that I still hope to encounter again in the future. Like, if the universe or a god made for you and a person to be together not exactly talking about romantic relationships but also friendships . So even when circumstances force you to drift apart, one day, you'll find your way back to each other because you were meant to be in each other's lives. Since the quote seems to be popular online, it must mean I'm not the only person who believes in it. Despite my strong belief on this, of course I have my moments wherein I question if this is true so, .","conclusion":"People who are meant to be in your life will gravitate back towards you, no matter how far they wander."}
{"id":"49174d98-7980-41c3-8650-e7fcd14aacdf","argument":"During most of the 16th and 17th centuries, fear of heretics spreading teachings and opinions that contradicted the Bible dominated the Catholic Church. The Church persecuted scientists who formed theories the Church deemed heretical and forbade people from reading any books on those subjects by placing the books on the Index of Prohibited Books. Nicholas Copernicus and Galileo Galilei were two scientists who printed books that later became banned.","conclusion":"There is no conflict between science and faith in God's existence, but there is a conflict between science and religion."}
{"id":"bc897132-bfd0-4d63-a13d-b20b5b17d0ae","argument":"In 2018 President Trump threatened to cut off American aid to Honduras if a caravan of migrants from Honduras were not prevented from reaching the United States.","conclusion":"Pence is more likely than Trump to support expansion to the USA's foreign aid program."}
{"id":"ddc530fe-5bc5-4a25-acf5-18512dccf390","argument":"Right now, globalization had already helped China lift 800 million people out of poverty at the cost of a struggling american middle class. This is only going to accelerate until we reach the point where the average american citizen isn't that much better off than the average chinese. The West is rich because it used to opress everyone else into giving up vast amounts of natural resources and unfair access to markets. The british just showed up in China and bullied them into giving up Hong Kong, but that is no longer possible as they have nukes now and won't tolerate being used as a client state. The chinese are already all over Africa and they won't be kicked out by force or else ww3 starts and we'll all be dead anyway. Finally, I believe this is actually a good thing, lifting billions of people out of poverty at the cost of a couple hundred million of middle class americans europeans it's an awesome deal as it reduces net human suffering.","conclusion":"Globalization is going to bring down the western standard of living"}
{"id":"f2590052-ad52-478d-a1e2-3a9f8b9d4e7e","argument":"pretty much the only reasons ive heard are why cant every FPS be Doom? ? ? ? I'd like to add here that I think that DOOM is an equal,if not better game than COD,but saying the argument because they're diffrent kinds of FPS from diffrent era's everyone who uses their mic is a bratty 7 year old there's a mute option. use it. Knifing is OP I agree,but its not gamebreakingly OP keep in mind,I usually dont do multiplayer and stick mostly to zombies,but when I do play multiplayer,its either hardcore or party games,so I dont know if that's relevant.","conclusion":"The Call of duty series isn't as bad as people say."}
{"id":"d6063e11-47a8-4c55-a5ff-0cb6a1c0bb70","argument":"Without getting into the merits of taxes and what they're used for since that's a whole different ballgame, currently some taxes go towards building and maintaining roads. The gasoline tax and a small portion of other taxes go towards roads. Government ran toll roads should not exist, as they are charging you multiple times on top of the taxes you already pay to create and maintain these roads. Note, I'm fine with the concept of toll roads and believe that a private toll road system would be better maintained than the current system of mainly government run roads. My issue is that governments should not be able to charge a toll on top of the taxes charged for roads. Edit I'm in the US to add some specifics to this post.","conclusion":"Government's should not be able to run toll roads."}
{"id":"80a10bc3-8563-475f-819a-24643c7c5486","argument":"In the study conducted in 1987, the number was the same as 2004 suggesting that there would be no significant change in abortions for reasons of rape.","conclusion":"Studies conducted in 1987 and again in 2004 pdf show that less than 1% of pregnancies in the US are terminated because of rape."}
{"id":"c3e155da-00c6-4d32-adff-fecbdfc5c599","argument":"Before I begin my argument, I'd like to preface it by saying I am not a Trump supporter. The way I see it, the alt right is, rather than simply the KKK revived, an alternative to mainstream Republican thought that still broadly maintains its right wing nature. Republicans have, for a while now, been a psuedo libertarian party in an economic sense, certainly not a social one , attributing all problems to government being too powerful or taxes being too large. This justification for their policies has been said wherever mainstream American conservatism is preached. The alt right , however, derives it's alt status from the fact it disagrees with the conservative consensus and has a distinct ideology, that still can be called right wing . It prefers something in the vein of old Toryism a powerful, paternalistic government, taking a stance in favor of its citizenry against external threats. External threats are not limited solely to foreigners, but things like poverty and crime, which the government can and should act against for the good of its populace. Moreover, the government exists to act for its own it is not generous, as to be generous is to use resources that can be used to ensure a greater quality of life for its citizens for something that does not directly benefit its citizens, which is where its interests lie. It's roughly akin to a lawyer if you're in court against someone, you expect your lawyer to advocate your case to their upmost ability within the confines of the law, even if the other side is a human being and has interests that need attention. Caring about them is their lawyer's government's job, not yours. Sure, there's a fair bunch of trolls and people who might not have the most benevolent thoughts on race relations under this umbrella, and Trump, the candidate they're rallying behind, has policies in reality more in line with the GOP economically liberal stance than the economically interventionist, safety net building approach that a selfish government would probably have, but Trump's rhetoric advocates that sort of look at the nature of government in a way that the American right wing hasn't for decades, and I think it can be transformed into something very positive for the nation a government that genuinely acts in favor of its citizenry, rather than for the common good , as Democrats seem to prefer, or that doesn't act acts in favor of the kyriarchy, as Republicans seem to prefer, is something I think genuinely deserves attention, and the alt right is the force that can bring it attention.","conclusion":"The \"Alt-right\" can be a positive force in American politics."}
{"id":"02655b26-b127-47a2-8811-e2bc1ab49432","argument":"Around 84% of crops consumed and processed by humans - more than 400 different species of plants - are pollinated by bees.","conclusion":"Bees are vital for the pollination of many plants and must therefore be protected."}
{"id":"ecfabda0-f488-4ecb-b5e1-b72020c917bb","argument":"I find that labels that people obtain or put on themselves are useless and only complicate things. Sure, it can be an easy way to identify someone, but that extremely broad term doesn't accurately describe how they really feel. If you sit down and talk to say a bisexual person, you're going to have pre convieved ideas of how they will act, what they will talk about, and how they think about things. I wouldn't really have a reason to post this if so many communities didn't accept and circulate these labels until they become a whishy washy mess of ideals. Your thought? Cheers gt Hello, users of  This is a fopeofrom your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Labels for things like sexuality or world-views are useless and confusing"}
{"id":"4938786c-e941-4074-83f4-9b0c760663a6","argument":"Consequentialism says that we must minimize suffering and provide the most help to the greatest number of people. Helping those in need would reduce such suffering. Moreover, $20 to an affluent person is much less valuable than $20 for an impoverished person. Thus if the affluent person donates that $20 it reduces more suffering than if they use it themselves.","conclusion":"2. consequentialism - we must reduce overall suffering, helping people reduces suffering in the world"}
{"id":"f2233426-8d08-49fa-ad01-5dbc04158705","argument":"A dictionary may contain multiple definitions of a word, some of which may be contradictory. Or different dictionaries may define a word differently.","conclusion":"The dictionary definition of a term is not a good measure of its actual use for various reasons."}
{"id":"e29769a6-fd46-4a40-8cc1-3e8aa0858ccc","argument":"So this was a debate from a few years ago that has been reopened with the announcement that Natalie Portman is returning for Thor Love and Thunder and will be playing the Mighty Thor. A lot of people are bringing up the point that Thor is his name, not a title, and so it doesn't make sense for her to take it. It's convoluted and revisionism. I think that's absolute nonsense and just a made up reason to be mad. Here are some things I've heard as to why it doesn't make sense It's his name. it's be like another hero calling themselves Greg . When there is a new Spider man, they are called Spider man , not Peter. Thor is still alive, now there are two Thors Captain America held the hammer in the MCU, was he Thor? Beta Ray Bill held the hammer in the comics. He was still Beta Ray Bill. I feel like these people don't understand how names work. They aren't magic, they aren't a fixed property of the universe. They are just a thing people call you. That's all a name is. So here are my points why it makes no sense to be angry about any of this, and why it makes perfect sesne for Jane to use Thor's name. While Thor is indeed his Birth Name, it's also the only name he goes by. He doesn't have an alternate superhero name ignoring Donald Blake . He is Thunder Man. At best he's the God of Thunder, but that's more of a tagline than name. He's Thor God of Thunder. Like Daredevil is the Man without fear. So people who say Spider man is always Spider man, not Peter , well Thor doesn't have a name like that to take. The name Thor has significance to it, unlike Greg . Thor isn't just a person, he's a powerful being with a subset of powers that you instantly understand by using the name Thor . This is similar to the function of Spider man, but not similar to Peter. So if a new hero were to show up with the power of Thor, everyone would understand those powers if you changed your name to Thor, but not if you changed your name to Peter when you had Spider man's powers. Further, names aren't magic. Captain America didn't adopt Thor's name when he held the hammer. Beta Ray Bill didn't adopt the name Thor when he held the hammer. It's not like a rule where you hold the Hammer and bam the government gets filled out forms that you want to change your legal name. A name is what people call you, often because you tell them to. That's it. You can tell them to call you whatever you want, and they if they call you that, it's your name. People change their name going to University all the time when they want a fresh start. They just start telling people a different name. All Jane has to do to be called Thor is to tell people she's called Thor. Beta Ray Bill and Captain America did not do that, so they are not called Thor. It's really that simple. There is also precedent for such a thing. Caesar was the name of a man but became a title afterwards because of how significant his name became. Augustus was a similar situation, though that wasn't his birthname. Still, it was his own personal name that was then later adopted into a title. Finally, Thor was alright with Jane using his name. At the time in the comics, he was unworthy, and so that felt significant to him. Signiciant enough that he felt like he wasn't the hero people thought he was, and therefore he shouldn't bear the name of the hero everyone knew. Basically, he didn't want to be called Thor anymore, so that's it. He wasn't Thor. Because a name is just what people call you. That's it. That's all a name is. There is no other magic. If you tell people not to call you a name, you no longer have that name. Perhaps on Earth we might need to go through some legal process in order to change our name officially , but you don't actually need to do that to be called something else. And as far as I know, Asguard doesn't have that legal process to go through. So, am I missing something? Change my view.","conclusion":"It makes perfect sense for Jane to have Thor's name when she yields her power."}
{"id":"0ea23e38-386f-43c1-b3a7-b4b1521e8495","argument":"Donald Trump's ignorance of almost all policy matters means that orthodox Republicans are able to enact their own policy without his interference.","conclusion":"Donald Trump has governed America as a fairly orthodox Republican"}
{"id":"7b1047d8-3240-40c6-b192-5cf93588ccbc","argument":"So this view comes mainly from the idea that 1 of the population has something like 99 of the world's wealth. I think this is dumb, seeing as there are people out there that are dying because of their own economic situations. So if everyone was paid the same, once everyone realizes they have more money than before, they can't really complain, and can buy more of what they need and want. But the whole equal wealth thing has been done before, and it sucked because the people in charge were corrupt as hell. So what if the people in charge were not lenient, corruptable people, but a strict artificial intelligence? This AI would distribute wealth, and provide jobs that would best suit an individual's skills and the state's needs, and things like that. Is there someone who's not doing the work they're supposed to be? Restrict them to only being able to buy the essentials food, water, et cetera. Change their job if needed. What if people try to hack it or cheat the system? This likely is going to happen, and I don't really have a response to this, so hopefully the AI and countermeasures will be good enough to stop this from happening. Once the money is spent, it goes back to the state and gets redistributed accordingly. That means if more money is brought in to the total pool, everyone gets paid more, and therefore if people work harder, people still get paid more. I guess I should end with the fact that I am pretty uneducated in this type of thing.","conclusion":"Our wealth and professions should be governed by socialist\/communist robots."}
{"id":"fde32fa2-635a-471e-8b8f-587ffbcadb64","argument":"I always regret posting on this subreddit because people absolutely lampoon my beliefs and I seem like a complete moron in the wake articulating my narratives. However, I would be absolutely blindsided if someone avidly supported the disgusting act of pouring the milk first when crafting a bowl of cereal. Milk\u2019s only purpose in this concoction is to fill the cracks of the cereal and contrast with the dry, coarse flakes. Pouring the milk first undermines this purpose and plants in the consumers head the wrong idea that cereal is the secondary component in the dish. Additionally, the milk splashes everywhere when you pour the cereal into a bowl in which a liquid already resides. There is no reason not to pour the cereal first, and if one of you redditors can convince me otherwise, my mind will be blown.","conclusion":"Milk should never, EVER be poured before cereal."}
{"id":"16c7eab4-5ea6-4224-ab7b-cf74f951f662","argument":"After the air defenses have been taken out by HARM like missiles the drones would surely be used against ground targets.","conclusion":"There would be a role for drones from the beginning in a war against Syria."}
{"id":"fb311edd-8ba8-4c7b-8da8-966a6a7d8082","argument":"Researchers argue that a key factor in sex and intimacy is the desire to be desired. As a sex robot cannot desire anything, intercourse with a robot is not technically a sex act.","conclusion":"Sex robots are more of a masturbatory aid than a sex act. Masturbation is already heavily commodified through the pornography and sex toy industries."}
{"id":"40d68160-863d-4edc-9610-e14b92d90410","argument":"The term love defines a certain stage in a relationship. In my opinion, that's the stage when you're leaving the healthy relationship behind, and enter the stage of addiction. You're now dependent on the person, you crave the person because the chemical balance in your brain has been altered. Your brain release dopamine every time you see that person, and thus you continue to continuously crave for that feeling. All you need is a little logic and critical thinking. When you think about it, love is nothing but a socially acceptable addiction to a person. It's the over romanticized idea hidden under a petal of flowers which took many centuries, many books, stories, poems, and events to craft, and something most people conform to. This topic is not about whether love is good or bad. Like with many other addictions, some people can become functional addicts, and live life healthy. Others, however, will alter their lives completely to live by the rules of love. So I'm simply saying that love falls under the definition of addiction, and that's exactly what it is. It affects your life, it affects your choices, your thinking process, everything. It's like food addiction that is still also socially acceptable but is becoming more evident today than it was a few decades ago. A lot of people fail to see that a person can be, and often is addicted to food, like many, MANY other things. Again, you absolutely can be a functioning addict with using any kind of substance it depends on the person. Some have claimed that love or another fancy word for it, connection is the opposite of addiction. Opposite? I would like to see the rationale and evidence behind this conclusion because from what I see, it's not in the least. The reason they're saying love is what helps with other addictions is because you exchange one addiction for another. And it's simply a biased opinion, someone trying to find confirmation bias to continue hold on to that romantic thought just the way religious people like to hold onto the idea of the existence of god. They're afraid to lose the belief and become more logical because then all the magic will disappear. They will enter into the unknown, unsure what exactly they will find when breaking down the concepts with logic rather than emotional attachment, so they're scared. Can anybody disagree using logic and facts instead of a biased opinions? Thanks guys","conclusion":"\"Love\" is an addiction like any other."}
{"id":"4c71aae3-b8e4-4ec2-adc6-25897c6bab49","argument":"In most European countries, half of the population at least knows English. This means English could be the new European federal language, and in every federal nation could be adopted the bilingualism system the local language plus English.","conclusion":"It would be easy and profitable to promote learning a lingua franca like English across all EU citizens, beside local and national languages."}
{"id":"771310ed-b6ca-4916-8150-641bde0a2f66","argument":"Material is a term that is at best only figuratively applied to things at the quantum level. Electrons do not properly exist in a location; they do when observed, but otherwise are a field of probable locations. ed.ted.com","conclusion":"Scientists who study physics do however acknowledge the necessity of forces and materials which are not understood or observable in the common sense of the word."}
{"id":"4582e9eb-2bcf-450c-8630-b0760e5b80b8","argument":"Some scientists believe that fructose fools the brain into thinking we are not sated. As a result, people eat more than necessary.","conclusion":"Sugar consumption is responsible for adiposity with all its negative effects."}
{"id":"86b71a23-5bc3-4bf7-978e-10b4afabfc74","argument":"Women are currently under represented in positions of power. By positions of power, I am referring to positions like politicians, CEO's, board members, high paid executives, senior engineers, etc. The people in charge of stuff. And currently I believe that there is no way to fix that. This, as a result, means that on average, women are paid less than male counterparts working in the same field. I believe its a problem, and I don't see a way to fix it. The other issue which may or may not exist everywhere but almost certainly does exist in many places that we as a society absolutely can and should continue working to resolve, is women being paid less for the same job function that a male in a similar role gets paid. ALL people, regardless of race, gender, physical ability etc who are carrying out a similar job role with a similar level of proficiency and similar level of experience should absolutely be receiving the same recompense for that work. However, I do not think we will ever have equal representation of men and women in higher paid, higher powered positions. Some of the reasons why I believe that to be the case Reproduction is the main one. There is no way around this, we can't get men to handle the pregnancy and take the time off work to birth and feed newborn humans. The actual birthing of children aside, many women take extended career breaks to birth and raise children, many of those either never return to work or only return after several years. Often when they do return, they work part time to leave time to take their kids to school etc. Women are less likely to want to work in many fields which typically pay well and lead to advancement into powerful positions. Less women than men are going to university to go into fields like engineering, business, accounting, law, etc, the kinds of fields which are more likely to lead to executive roles. Women have a higher propensity to move into fields such as nursing, teaching etc, which tend not to lead into executive jobs. I'm certainly not suggesting that women can't or shouldn't go into fields like engineering, business or law, or indeed that they perform worse in those fields. Having worked in an engineering field myself, I find that generally women make better engineers if there's any difference at all. But for whatever reason, there are fewer women in those fields. As an aside, I do not believe that forcing companies and organisations by law to give opportunities to people who's demographic is under represented because their demographic is under represented is the way to go about this. Every company and organisation should be employing the best person for the job they are trying to fill regardless of any other aspect of who that person is or things they can't control. What will change my view Explain what societal changes we can promote and work towards that will improve or equalise the representation of women in positions of power. As a father to be, I want my daughter to grow up feeling like ALL the options are open to her. I don't want her to turn on the TV and ONLY EVER see male politicians, male Richard Branson's and Steve Jobs's. I don't want her to view people in positions of power and think that it will never be for her. So please, change my view. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The under-representation of women in positions of power is a problem that can not be rectified"}
{"id":"ee858d46-3ca5-47f3-9f8a-15ee416063ce","argument":"I want to start off with a thought experiment, where I try to create a world in which world peace can exist. In this world, I imagine that there is a pool, which collects everyone's present emotions as well as past memories. As people experience life, their memories and experiences are added to the pool. This pool will then redistribute all these memories and experiences back to the 7 billion large population of the world. What this does is it allows everyone to feel the emotion as well as understand the past of everyone else. If Tommy has his wallet stolen from him, he feels angry and sad, and therefore, everyone else will receive that emotion and experience to a certain extent. Essentially, everyone will feel not only their own emotions and understand their own past, but also everyone else's on the planet. Under these conditions, I believe that this world would have world peace, because people would be incentivized to NOT hurt anyone else, since it in turn hurts them back. People would much rather have everyone experience positive emotion since it directly affects them. This is the only world in which I believe world peace can exist. However, in this world, it is essentially a hive mind because everyone has a common goal, common purpose, and thinks almost in the same way. There will be no free will in this world because free will means that everyone will strive towards different things and have different passions and goals in life. In our world currently, people are able to make their own decisions for their own gain, something which can be potentially described as free will. However, one person trying to fight towards their dream will almost always cause someone else to suffer. It is similar to a zero sum game, in that for one person to reach their ideal dream in life, someone else is prevented from reaching theirs. For a certain part of the population to reach technology excellence at an affordable price, halfway around the world, children suffer because they are producing it. For one religion or one political ideology to reign supreme, all others must be in some way put down or squashed, hurting all those that religion ideology. There is always a yin to the yang. In the world peace paradigm, everyone will agree with each other, goals of 2 people won't contradict and act as zero sum, and therefore, conflict never arises. However, with this concept, people are not afforded the freedom of making decisions in pure self interest. Change My View","conclusion":"Free Will and World Peace can never Coexist"}
{"id":"e41c2a4d-fb03-48d0-84e1-31eb8d2c2fe5","argument":"As it is right now, atleast here in Denmark, I have to beg the mother of my child for the custody. If she won't give it to me I have no say in the matter, and the case is closed. The child itself will also benefit by having more stability in its life. I believe that I, as the father, have the right to claim 50 custody over the child as much as the mother does. With all the talk about equality I can't believe one of the most natural aspects of life has not been changed or somehow altered. It seems so simple to me It takes two to make a child in the first place and I'm already forced to pay for child support amongst others, why not give me 50 of the custody? I'd love to hear some counter arguments, so  reddit. Edit Some of you brought up the point of whose interest we are serving here. My assumption on this is that it is the child's, but I also believe that I would make a good father and having the right would be my safety net to ensure my child's upbringing is as close to optimal as possible. Also, I'd like to pardon myself for not being clear I don't have children. It's merely a view that was sparked by another discussion on a similiar subject, but I've had the issue close to myself for some years by now, and I can't help but feel how unfair it is. Last point, sadly, I have to go now. I'll be back tomorrow to check up on what you guys have in store for me. Thank you for reading the post and taking your time to consolidate me and yourself alike.","conclusion":"I believe that I as a male am entitled to the custody over my child."}
{"id":"20b5dba8-602b-4afa-b95d-ad43c4d153a5","argument":"A changing environment will change culture anyway in some way. Some European traditions are already lost like antisemite bias, but nobody minds it. Repeating old mistakes, or rituals without substance have little value.","conclusion":"Uniformity is already growing because of the open borders; still there remain large cultural differences."}
{"id":"8ecf7bc4-bb63-47e6-aec2-a25dac4c1aaf","argument":"Of course contributing factors to the amount of overweight obese people are things like lack of knowledge education, but I think the main reason people are overweight obese is that they never learned how to properly use reasoned thought, logic, rational thinking, whatever term you like. People are willing to jump on the idea that they have a genetic disorder or disease that makes it impossible for them to lose weight, which I fully disagree with. People also are unable to properly reason with themselves the benefits of exercise and proper diet vs the benefits of the opposite overindulgence of food, sedentary lifestyle . Anyone who can think rationally understands that it's a much better decision to do the hard thing and be conscious of their diet, as well as be consistent with exercise, instead of letting the temptation of sloth and gluttony drag them around like a dog on a short leash. If people were able to think logically and reasonably, the obesity epidemic would not exist, and most people would be able to live a happier, healthier, and much more enjoyable life, instead of blaming things that are well within their control on things outside of their control genetics, disorders, etc. The reason I say that a lack of reason is worse than poor diet and exercise habits is that reason affects every single part of your life. If you're unable to be reasonable and honest in one area, that's probably true in other areas as well, and this type of illogical thinking is a quick and sure path to unhappiness.","conclusion":"The overweight\/obesity epidemic is a symptom of an affliction worse than poor diet\/lack of exercise: the inability to properly utilize logic and reason"}
{"id":"1d8343eb-2a8b-4958-9a11-505206334c99","argument":"A major issue of the Electoral College currently is that almost all campaign visits, ad time, and political attention is spent on just 12 states the ones which are even between both political parties. This is due to the fact that a few votes can get either candidate a majority, allowing them to win all or none of the electoral votes of that state. If the states moved to a proportional system, where the electoral votes are distributed based on the percentage of the popular vote each candidate won in the state, then candidates would have to campaign in all of the states to try to get more votes, while fighting to make sure the other candidate doesn't steal their voters. This would be a huge improvement over the current winner take all system, and would be a lot more politically possible than a pure popular vote system. This would lead to campaigns spread out equally throughout the population, and would cover all 50 states, rather than just 12, and this sort of political competition would result in more representative government. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The best political solution for the Electoral College would be to move from winner-take-all laws to proportionalizing the popular vote to the electoral vote, or using Congressional Districts for the votes."}
{"id":"17b4bca2-c078-4473-85ea-a916708b2b49","argument":"A client server game is one where a remote backend server is absolutely required to play the game. Thus, games with offline singleplayer or offline multiplayer are exempt. The standard game that uses this model is an MMO, but others such as MOBAs and FPS games also use it. When the customer purchases the game, they are buying unlimited access and use of the software product. They are free to play this game as much as they like. On any supported platform, for as long as they can keep the hardware going. Except they cannot. Client server games require connection to external servers which will, inevitably, be disconnected and shut down. This robs all existing customers of their purchase price, as their purchased good is now worthless by no action of their own. Companies publishing games which require connection to these servers should be required to offer the server hosting software for sale, supported on the platform that the game client runs on. When the official servers are shut down, the company should be required to offer the server software for free. This way, people who purchased games don't have their games rendered unplayable after only a few years. Additional benifits include setting up private servers for a number of reasons, including social and connection related reasons. Too many people missing that the  is talking about should be required rather than what they seem to assume it says, are required This  is not about the current state of things, rather, there should be a change, and that change will result in provision of server management capability to purchasers of the client. I am aware of the agreed TaCs and ToS in games. Those are irrelevant because those are current games developed before this requirement comes in. I am aware of the computational requirements and complexities of servers but those are also irrelevant because those systems were designed before this requirement comes in. Certain games already provide the ability for a customer to host their own server and indeed do so to provide offline play. It is evidently clear that there are no computational barriers to games, in general, providing the ability for customers to host their own servers. Yes, the scope of MMOs is much greater than what could be hosted on a home PC, but I'll accept the ability to host a 32 person server as acceptable provision of hosting functionality","conclusion":"All client server games should be required to provide the server management software to any users who wish to utilise it."}
{"id":"b3c5ff9e-c0a0-43c4-98f1-c9f82df66c68","argument":"In my country there was a recent court case where a lady unsuccessfully complained that a bank was referring to her as male and general customer and not the customeress EDIT. Customeress is not an English term. Kunde and Kundin for customers in German are used like Actor and Actress in English. Her point was that male general terms like actor diminish women. My counterargument to that is that I don't hear the same complaint from that or any other lady when there is a terrorism alert on the news, soldiers are killing, rapists are being talked about or people are looking for a culprit, those terms are generally male as well. I am not even sure if this is in the same vain, or if I am convinced for the same reasons but the pronoun debate that seems to be evolving around ever freshly created new gender types is superficial and maybe even superfluous. I don't mind being a meanie and not using the desired term but am i really making a net negative impact by doing so?","conclusion":"I consider pronouns and gendered general term unimportant."}
{"id":"92d05fdf-5de6-41fc-9f3d-74703c9a25a9","argument":"Many 'success stories' of traumatic conversion camps have later revealed that they were in fact not at all converted to heterosexuality.","conclusion":"Regardless of the Born This Way narrative's influence, conversion therapy can be objectively discredited."}
{"id":"183b8b99-ec97-414b-9b32-84382b02d7e2","argument":"Slaves were not sold only to the United States so the country shouldn't bear the whole cost.","conclusion":"Those who captured slaves in Africa and their descendants carry principal responsibility."}
{"id":"0c382669-bb1b-44a0-a64c-d291e2302729","argument":"Edit Answers to a few common responses I don't believe suffering is bad is sufficient as the sole basis for anyone's morality. I've simply found that it appears to be a prominent axiom, and I'm interested in the idea that it could be challenged. I also don't think that it would be good to embark on a crusade to extinguish all life on Earth in order to prevent suffering. Also I think good things do exist, c'mon guise. I've often heard religious apologists present the argument that secular morality has no basis to exist, because morality has to come from a higher power. As an atheist with rather strong morals, I take exception to this assertion, but it also gets me thinking. If I can get away with it, why not steal, cheat, or lie for personal gain? When I answer that question, there's another why underneath. Answer that one, and there's another why. They keep going, until I inevitably arrive at suffering is bad, and I don't see a way to go any further than that. To me, this can be taken as a base case. That is to say, I believe that the concept suffering is bad is at the core of most behavior, and I believe we don't have to ask why suffering is bad. All living things that are capable of avoiding suffering do so it's one of the most basic parts of our nature. I'll define suffering as anything that makes you feel bad, no matter the degree. On one end of the spectrum, you have things like getting scratched by your cat or having to get up early in the morning. On the other end, there's losing a loved one, or watching your house burn down, or being thrown into a gulag. A few caveats I'm not saying that all things that involve suffering are bad. Often, in order to prevent suffering, one must experience a lesser form of suffering. I don't want to build a shelter, but it's better than being exposed to the elements. I don't want to hunt or gather food, but it's better than starving. I don't want to work, but it's better than not being able to afford rent. This concept applies strictly to the person whose perspective we're taking. The suffering of Person A is bad from Person A's own perspective. This isn't to say that Person B suffering can't be bad from Person A's perspective, but I wouldn't consider that a base case. I don't consider pain and suffering to be synonymous. There are certainly people who enjoy pain, and for them, the pain they enjoy does not cause suffering. To summarize this view Suffering by itself, as a base unit, is bad. Although there's no problem with asking why this is so, I don't think it's necessary. Things I'm not putting up for debate Religious vs. secular morality or the idea that morality comes from an avoidance of suffering. They're definitely interesting conversations, but not what I'm looking to talk about in this post.  gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Suffering is bad"}
{"id":"2931b4c3-b190-4607-997b-0520d7869dbc","argument":"I know that some people want to ban the therapies that claim to diminish homosexual desires. Joseph Nicolosi says that it is possible that some men can have homosexual envounters without any bad side effects and they may be called having a genetic predisosition but some a minority claim to have been raped or abandoned by their father and if their fathering deficit is sexualized they get upset. The compulsivity of their fathering demands can be diminished says Nicolosi if they try some therapy like EMDR . Actually he claims that any addictive behavior can be successfully diminished or let to abstinence with this and other therapy methods. But I think that it is better if such experiments are forbidden. Because if this is true, anyone will find those tools that help addicts to become abstinence. On the other hand many parents pressure their sons into such therapies and it never works if you are not really willing and open.","conclusion":"I have the feeling that it can be helpful if therapies that diminish so called unwanted homosexual desires are forbidden"}
{"id":"2a2e0656-8d74-4be9-aa3e-456c900186cd","argument":"Often, uniform schools require that boys wear trousers and girls wear skirts This may be mitigated by offering a selection of items for students to choose from rather than rather than requiring students to follow specific gender norms.","conclusion":"Uniforms often enforce gender stereotypes in educational systems by requiring students to follow gender \"norms\" in clothing."}
{"id":"cc483535-06d9-48be-8164-20aca1feca2e","argument":"In times such as the the 2008 recession or more extremely, the Great Depression , a huge part of the problem is that people are spending far less money and trying to save more, which ultimately leads to unemployment, and it creates a feedback loop of a continuously worsening economic situation. Therefore, the government should force people to be spending their money on domestic goods as a way to artificially produce the effect of positive consumer confidence. People know that if they don't spend their money, it'll be taken from them anyway. The money that is taken can then be used by the government to try to improve the situation, although ideally, people would spend it instead to avoid the tax. I understand there's some problems with the constitutionality of this idea, but what I'm concerned about is that it would help during recessions if it did exist. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"During major recessions, the government should impose taxes on working individuals that do not spend a certain amount of their income."}
{"id":"62515ef5-327d-429c-b0f9-de0dff018db1","argument":"No I\u2019m not some crazy libertarian, I\u2019m a 17 year old who won\u2019t receive social security when I retire. Why should I pay into a system that I won\u2019t get out of and only pay for old people a lot healthy to sit around and leech off of working youth? Is it that hard to save up for retirement? For some sure, and we can help them. However the majority make enough to save for retirement. Maybe I\u2019m just overreacting but I hate knowing I\u2019m losing money in my paycheck for a system I\u2019m never benefiting out of. So change my view that social security is a benefit and I can receive the benefits that I should be entitled to like everyone else Edit I feel a little more open about social security and I understand it better. I still believe in reforms but not abolishment as of this edit. Still reading.","conclusion":"social security is a terrible system that should get reformed dramatically or die."}
{"id":"0a00a723-0685-4236-916b-4605f532a9ce","argument":"I believe that setting a mandatory minimum wage provides employers with a peg point at which to pay employees, resulting in lower wages than would otherwise be possible in an unrestricted environment. I think of it like this In a free marketplace, employers hire employees at a rate for which they will work. In the current system, employers don't have to calculate this rate, they just have a standard minimum rate at which they pay their employees. For an individual firm, this is not a problem. However, the current marketplace we're talking about has multiple firms, and all those firms pay the same starting wage. The result of this is a monopoly like scenario in which competition is virtually impossible because all employers have a guaranteed peg point at which they can assign wages, that all unskilled workers will have to accept because of the existence of a minimum wage law. In the long run, the inability of the legislature to update the minimum wage to keep pace with changes in the consumer price index makes the wages of unskilled laborers stagnate. This is great for employers, because in the long run they effectively pay less real value for the same labor they got before, and employees are virtually guaranteed to accept those wages solely because of the existence of a minimum that they believe is all that they are entitled to in a starting position. I believe that an unrestricted wage system would be better, because then employers would have to compete for workers, and the existence of antitrust laws means that they wouldn't legally be able to collaborate to pay employees a fixed wage similar to the system we have now . Seeing as the current minimum wage is seen as inadequate, the removal of this peg point would place upward pressure on wages until they reached a point that both employers and employees were willing to accept. All right, I've never seen this particular viewpoint articulated before, so I'm thinking there might be something wrong with my analysis.  Edit1 formatting Edit2 Going for a swim, will be back in about 45 mins Edit3 My view has been changed somewhat. u Rightinfrontofyou convinced me that removing the minimum wage now would cause worse conditions because of the erosion of labor unionization in the United States. Without an effective union to negotiate for the wages of workers, a minimum wage is the only real way to guarantee some baseline wage. That being said, I still believe a free market system of employers and unionized employees is the best way to ensure the fairest wage distribution, but that would be unrealistic, given current conditions. He gets a 8710","conclusion":"I believe that a mandatory minimum wage hurts workers, helps employers, and is a major cause of wage stagnation of unskilled labor in the United States."}
{"id":"6a0ea576-ac67-4329-8267-2812a9123a9a","argument":"The Seventeen Point Agreement actually gave a significant degree of autonomy to the Tibetan people. When, after being forced to sign the agreement, Tibetans began exercising the autonomy provided in the Seventeen point agreement, China reneged. This voids the agreement and any importance the Chinese government places on it.","conclusion":"China violated Tibet autonomy as called for in Seventeen Point Agreement"}
{"id":"4f7b8679-1012-4c08-a5f3-8ba37f34ed65","argument":"A 2010 study from the American Association of Colleges and Universities found that only 30 percent of college seniors and 17 percent of professors strongly agree it\u2019s safe to hold unpopular points of view on campus.","conclusion":"Many commentators and researchers have noted the increasing division and intensity of the political climate on college campuses. This context makes the abuse of trigger warnings for political ends more likely."}
{"id":"b6fa75b6-1b2c-400e-aec6-cb7dd11d7152","argument":"Pupils in schools must learn English and poetry offers a creative outlet for a subject that would otherwise be repetitive and boring. Poetry also introduces the reader to new concepts which hold the learner\u2019s interest and improve vocabulary and spelling. Poetry offers a fun method of teaching subjects that can otherwise be exhaustive and repetitive. For example, Shirley Hughes\u2019 poems for young readers such as \u2018Best Friends\u2019 introduce young readers to the vowel sounds of English and Zoe\u2019s Earrings by Kit Wright teaches pre-GCSE students about accents. 8","conclusion":"As an artistic form of a core subject poetry offers a creative method of teaching English"}
{"id":"b4e17ac7-cfab-4a1b-8629-486bfdc04d5e","argument":"Physically, its no contest. Men are bigger, stronger, faster, leaner, and tougher. It's also been proven that men have better spatial abilities. Most of the inventors and innovators in history have been men. Most world leaders today are men, and have been throughout history. Men dominate in math and science excluding psychology . Men also don't need make up and cosmetic products to look attractive, unlike most women. And last, but not least, men can comfortably stand up and pee. Is there anything women do better than men other than leech off men and push babies out of their body?","conclusion":"Men are superior to women."}
{"id":"6c6a8122-9433-4f4f-9d69-0d291ead6274","argument":"First, let me say that I find the distinction between 'graffiti' and 'street art' to be arbitrary and in many ways racially politically suspect. What ends up happening in my opinion is that the artists that upper middle class white people like i.e., Banksy are celebrated, while the vast majority of writers who are often young, poor, and socially marginalized are belittled, harassed, and prosecuted. Therefore, when I speak of graffiti, I am here referring to a wide spectrum of works, including one dimensional handstyles, two dimensional throw ups, three dimensional pieces, stencils, stickers, and characters. I also would distinguish between graffiti that occurs on the public spaces of a city highways, trains, street signs from that which is done on private property, like someone's house. In the following, I am speaking only of the former. I don't see the prosecution of graffiti as a simple legal instance of vandalism rather, I see it as a case wherein state officials with conservative aesthetic preferences are penalizing an artistic practice they don't like, on the sole basis that they find it 'obscene' or 'ugly'. Along such lines, the most common objections I hear to graffiti are that a it's not art, and b that, if it is art, it's bad art. This raises the first issue of what constitutes art. Does art need to develop out of a historical tradition? Graffiti has that It grows out of the African American hip hop movement that started in the Bronx in the 70s. Additionally, writers are engaging in a form of calligraphy, and therefore can draw upon Western, Arabic Hebraic, and Japanese Chinese visual linguistic lineages. Does art need to express individuality? Graffiti has that the idea of 'signing one's name' is a common way to express oneself and physically 'leave one's mark'. Think of how, when a celebrity signs an object, it's monetary value skyrockets simply because the name is a tangible sign that this inanimate surface has been touched by a living human hand. Does art need to be formally experimental? Graffiti has that. In the western graffiti, the standard latin script serves as a foundation for a process of intense formal play. Traditional visual artistic considerations such as line, shape, form, and color influence the construction of a piece. As in modern architecture, pieces can respond to the surrounding environment. And the entire concept of 'legibility', or aesthetic accessibility denotative reference is a central question in the minds of many writers. Does art need to be politically transgressive? Graffiti has that. The act of marking a public space is far more avant garde than any piece of 'high art' created solely for the amusement of a reactionary bourgeois class or a small group of academic elites. Does art need to inspire a disinterested, aesthetic experience? Graffiti has that. I often find myself in almost religious state of awe when examining a particularly well constructed work. I'm not saying that ant one attribute provides a necessary sufficient condition for the definition of art, but rather qualities such as the ones above can likely form a non essentialistic definition of art. but that's a convo for another time In regards to point b , that it graffiti is bad art, I would have to agree that most bombing is bad. But I one would need an artistic judge to determine what is and is not good art and any such judges could not possibly be objective just look at the obscenity trials surrounding Ulysses, or Howl . And II , the ability to imprison individuals for making art, even if it's bad art, strikes me as a clear infringement of free speech. Now I'm not opposed to buffing all canvases need to be cleaned now and again. And places that only institute small fines community service are not that bad, I suppose. But every day, people are being thrown in jail and labeled as criminals for having to boldness to express themselves visually in predominantly homogenous, alienating urban landscapes. I find the recent video that has appeared on the front page of reddit to be an example of this principle, wherein an older man physically assaults a young teenager for the simple act of writing. I would sincerely like to understand how the creation of graffiti can inspire so much moral outrage, vitriol, and downright dehumanization, and whether there is any aesthetic basis for the wholesale dismissal of graffiti's artistic qualities.","conclusion":"I believe that graffiti writers should NOT face legal penalties -"}
{"id":"70823399-8c19-4246-b0a9-5dbfe2050978","argument":"As we have seen with the successors of Charlemagne, the roman Emperors that preceded Dictator Cesar or the leaders of the Holy Roman Empire, Dynasties or successors of great individuals tend to be unable to match the vigor of their predecessor. If we manage to have an enlightened Despot, nothing assures the one following him will be as enlightened, and even if he is a perfect match of the previous leader, nothing assures us that the qualities he has is what we will need for the next 50 years.","conclusion":"It is difficult to imagine how a successor for the ED could be found and\/or selected."}
{"id":"ecaf3e67-1b9d-4be8-af3e-05da9604359d","argument":"Joseph Smith used the same brown seer stone to translate the Book of Mormon as he had previously used when he was hired to divine the location of buried treasure.","conclusion":"Joseph Smith purported to translate the Book of Mormon using the same scrying method he used, unsuccessfully, to divine the location of buried treasure in money-digging ventures."}
{"id":"a5864ab0-215e-409f-b401-e632e4709bc0","argument":"To a lot, if not, all Christians, the Bible tells them the story of Jesus as well as the story of how the world was created and what is right and wrong to do. Christians will tell people that it is very crucial as a Christian to read and understand the Bible. Some will also say that the Bible is the \u201cword of God\u201d and as a result will take everything it says at literal face value. They will think, for example, that the Adam and Eve story was true and will not believe in evolution, or that it is \u201csinful\u201d to be gay. In our modern society it is not okay at least it shouldn\u2019t be okay to believe there is anything wrong with homosexuality. The reason the Bible says these things, though, is because it was written thousands of years ago, at a time when those things would have been acceptable because society was very different back then. Most Christians don\u2019t understand that, though. They believe the Bible is the literal word of God and as a result take everything it says at face value, even though they shouldn\u2019t. In our modern society we shouldn\u2019t let what we think is ethically right or wrong be governed by a book written thousands of years ago. You wouldn\u2019t use a textbook from 50 or more years ago to teach in schools at least you shouldn\u2019t so why are we using an old book to tell us about morality or about the world\u2019s creation? Granted there are a lot of Christians out there that understand the historical context, but there\u2019s also enough that don\u2019t and it\u2019s caused a lot of problems in society, so I feel like our society would be better without the Bible.","conclusion":"The Bible has nothing to offer modern society because it was written a long time ago."}
{"id":"f9dfb090-747d-42f0-9b5d-c745cb835c6e","argument":"Some critics were struck by what they saw as parallels in the movie's plot, dialogue and imagery with the Scientology teachings of L. Ron Hubbard.","conclusion":"Will Smith used his Hollywood influence to produce Scientology propaganda After Earth."}
{"id":"1f0b5573-8541-42dc-a9cb-ed7d952094cd","argument":"Note, I am at this moment merely an undergrad physics student, so I am well aware I may have misconceptions about how things work, and am perfectly okay if you feel like pointing anything like that out. As for the actual topic Whenever I talk to either my fellow students, whether they're my seniors and juniors, most people seem to be tunnel visioned on how they can get the most money out of their degree. And that's in a sense fine, I understand people have different goals. What I am more worried by, however, is that even with the purely science minded ones who couldn't personally care less about making a big paycheck, it still always boils down to money. Whenever I ask my seniors on how their grant applications are going, the image I've gotten is that in the end, your research seems to be valued mostly on the basis of how much money it can make, and specifically money that can be made in short term. I have this gnawing feeling that this undermines the basic idea behind science, the will to find out what governs the world around us. I understand that private companies probably don't want to fund basic research with a very low likelihood of being a lucrative business, but the same thing also seems to affect public institutions. Unless you're making them money, you are on very thin ice, even if your research is scientifically significant and valuable. It's not like basic research is just a scientists' playing field either. A lot of the everyday necessities we have nowadays were originally considered little more than toys or hobbies. Electricity was at first no more than a curiosity, and microscopes were invented by some Dutch fellows who were just obsessed lens hobbyists. Neither of these cases were motivated by financial gain, but rather a personal drive to learn and understand. As a junior physics enthusiast, I am worried about this apparent development into making science just a market, and I fail to see how the direction we're taking could be the correct one. Change my view whether that's by correcting my cynicism about what the current state is or showing what positives this development brings, that's up to you.","conclusion":"In the current academic world and education, too much emphasis is put on \"How will this research make us money?\" instead of \"How will this research improve the world\/our understanding of the world?\""}
{"id":"faf41ff6-7f50-42e0-a8fc-7277f8a2404f","argument":"First let me clarify that I am an atheist and pro choice. I would never in a million years protest in front of an abortion clinic. In fact I do personally think it is a kinda shitty thing to do. And if a protester breaks existing law such as threatening violence, breaching the public peace etc. , then they should be arrested, I'm no free speech absolutist. But banning all protests against abortions in a large area In Victoria, a 150m zone was implemented recently is for me a violation of free speech. If someone wants to peacefully stand next to an abortion clinic entrance holding a sign saying Abortion is Murder , then I disagree, but I defend their right to do that. I am sure it is a shitty thing to see, but no one has the right to not see shitty things, especially if they are political opinions. Even shitty political opinions. Yes the protesters could go somewhere else, but they shouldn't have to. Abortion clinics is where abortions happen. It is a logical place for a protest. Obviously a lot of women feel unsafe going to abortion clinics, and they shouldn't have to, but I'd much rather the government raise taxes to put two policemen in front of every abortion clinic entrance to enforce existing law. That way the women can feel safe, and peaceful protesters aren't punished for the actions of other people.","conclusion":"I don't think there should be buffer-zones around abortion clinics."}
{"id":"5500c819-e1cf-4d72-a132-e9afe7855aa0","argument":"Recently, the Trump administration rescinded the guidance encouraging public schools to allow students to use the bathrooms and locker rooms that matched their gender identity. I believe this was the right call, because bathrooms should be reserved for biological men and biological women. I will constrain my argument using the following assumptions. Assumption 1 People have the capacity to change. This includes but is not limited to attitudes, beliefs, mindsets, and overall life philosophy. I can't see this assumption being challenged on a subreddit called Change My View. Assumption 2 The transgender community comprises approximately two percent of the US population. According to Wikipedia recent studies estimate the transgender community to be approximately 0.6 of the population. I'll throw a rather generous bone here to say the studies don't capture people who are still working out their gender identity and people who are afraid to come out or are in denial. I'll say these subgroups are all equal, so you have 0.6 openly trans, 0.6 still working through it, and 0.6 in the closet, making a total composition of 1.8 . I'll round that up to 2 for good measure. Assumption 3 An ideal society looks to treat people as equals, regardless of their gender identity or sexual orientation. Okay, we got all that? Now let's dive into the crux of the issue here. On one side, you have a portion of the population who is uncomfortable with sharing public bathrooms and locker rooms with people who identify as transgender. Some of these people may be religiously motivated or bigoted, while others are just uneasy about the idea in general. On the other side, you have the transgender group, who are uncomfortable using a bathroom with people who identify as the opposite sex. In both scenarios, you have two groups of people who are both uncomfortable with sharing a space with the other in a bathroom or locker room. According to Assumption 1, both groups have the capacity to change their mindset and accept the situation, even if it may not be ideal. But with Assumption 3, both groups' concerns hold equal merit, so it would be unfair to give one group precedence over the other. Addressing the concerns of the trans group would be tyranny of the minority while addressing the concerns of the other group would be mob rule via Assumption 2 . The argument reaches a logical standstill. In my view, the ruling must break against the trans group because allowing bathroom and locker room access by gender identity creates a technical legal protection for sexual predators and pedophiles. With the gender identity policy, there is nothing to prevent a sexual deviant from posing as a transgender individual in order to gain access to the bathroom or locker room of the opposite sex. And yes, this has happened On multiple occasions In different places Including colleges and universities These incidents may be few and far in between, but I don't see how we can reasonably enact policies that could in any way enable sexual predators. Making their lives easier should not be a stipulation for granting the trans community access to their preferred bathrooms. There is just no way around the fact that these policies blur the line between simply being tolerant and actively protecting sexual predators Yes, I know that link was to a conservative website, but it doesn't change the fact that you have a media figure actually defending the possibility of an older man exposing himself to a 12 year old girl. To change my view, you will need to objectively demonstrate that one or more of my assumptions are flawed thereby removing the foundation of my argument or provide evidence that transgender bathroom access policies do not enable sexual predators in ANY WAY whatsoever. I'm open to changing some of my views, but lending a legal helping hand to creeps is not one of them. UPDATE After responding to some comments, I have awarded deltas and amended my view as follows 1 Post op trans individuals could have access to locker rooms and bathrooms. I find it very unlikely a predator would go through all of that effort to pose as trans and use bathrooms without question. 2 Schools, where the potential age range is limited, could have more flexible policies. 3 I have no qualms with private businesses such as Target enacting whatever bathroom policies they see fit. 4 I think all gender restrooms, in conjunction with traditional male female restrooms, present an easy and fair solution to this debate. I'm getting ready to move ugh so I might not be able to respond again until tomorrow. I will continue to update this as my views change. Thanks for the discussion gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"People should only have access to bathrooms and locker rooms of their biological sex."}
{"id":"023fe106-5ce6-4445-b359-ac99c9ac3550","argument":"Child performers are exposed to a much higher level of responsibility than their peers, without the maturity to deal with it. They may be exposed to sex, drugs, or alcohol, in a context too far removed from a normal life that they don\u2019t learn adequate coping mechanisms. It is no surprise that many child performers \u201cburn out\u201d by the time they reach adulthood, often experiencing problems long before, as in the case of actress Drew Barrymore, who entered rehab at the age of 13.1 Children should not be encouraged to enter into these adult worlds of acting, modeling, dancing, etc. Michael Jackson attributed his obsession with children and childhood as a consequence of having missed out on a childhood himself. 1 Barrymore, Little Girl Lost","conclusion":"Allowing children to perform pushes them to grow up too soon"}
{"id":"6e3a3ff1-58a4-4bac-8a6d-7aae70e9f345","argument":"After reading numerous articles and memoirs of people who allegedly visited North Korea, most people agreed that it is no workers' paradise , but it's far from being hell on earth where people starve on the streets and get shot for not having the Kim haircut. I think that the standards of living in the DPRK are actually better than a lot of 3rd world countries, and that their government isn't as oppressive as they say it is. After watching semi popular videos on Youtube of North Korea, it's hard to believe that the modern schools, cinemas, restaurants and places of entertainment are all fake, and that people aren't genuinely happy. I think that a lot of information we get is manipulated. A lot of stories have been proven to be fake Like the Kim haircut, or the execution of his uncle by hounds , and I think that all the other ones, like the ones about the work camps and brutal executions are fabricated too. There is simply too much evidence of North Korea being a neutral place to live in, rather than a hell hole. It might be in the interests of the current media for people not to sympathize with our potential enemy. .","conclusion":"I think that information we get about North Korea is largely false, and in reality people in there live decently."}
{"id":"b15923f1-080e-4032-aeac-223fc08f4517","argument":"Many opponents of a fence point out that it would leave over 1000 miles of border without any fencing, and that it is not directly tied to needed comprehensive immigration reform. However, numerous sources maintain that such a fence could conceivably be added to with time, potentially completing a fence that spans the entire border, and that the border fence legislation is only a first step in a broader comprehensive immigration reform process.","conclusion":"A 700-mile fence is only the first step in securing the whole southern border"}
{"id":"4431ce66-875c-45c4-b19e-aee0c422d641","argument":"Uncharted 4, which features two female lead characters has sold over 8.7 million copies This is more than previous Uncharted Games.","conclusion":"Many games which have strong female protagonists have been commercially successful, suggesting that the backlash is not that significant."}
{"id":"70e2975c-022f-4204-99e7-9142cbfb67d9","argument":"There is a lot we don't know about the Universe. Scientific exploration in space should be higher priority than its militarisation.","conclusion":"Exploration of space is arguably a higher priority than its militarisation."}
{"id":"47da41e5-1752-4f2e-b6b1-26976c55a056","argument":"Theories inspire engineering solutions that in themselves are tested, but the theory remains a separate thing that is not proved. The success of the engineering solution may strengthen the theory but not necessarily. The success or failure of the engineering solution may add strength to the understanding of the design yet add nothing to the strength or weakness of the underlying theory from which it was developed.","conclusion":"There are several competing theories of flight yet we build airplanes."}
{"id":"6e01992a-0e49-477e-8483-ee5ee0ce4a05","argument":"Over the past 10 years, Russia has used its veto on 10 occasions largely to avoid scrutiny over its actions in Ukraine - or to protect allies, such as Syria.","conclusion":"Countries veto resolutions that go against their or their allies' interests."}
{"id":"547b597c-edde-476a-a76d-8a05b8e4b4d0","argument":"Cogito ergo sum. I think, therefore I am or at least 'something' is thinking or exists. A A. Can anyone change my view that these statements are undoubtable certainties?","conclusion":"that \"something exists\" or \"a=a\" are absolute certainties."}
{"id":"838746b8-f3a3-4d1d-8d85-20e1a49170c5","argument":"The relevant portion of the Hippocratic oath reads, \"I will prescribe regimens for the good of my patients according to my ability and my judgment and never do harm to anyone. To please no one will I prescribe a deadly drug nor give advice which may cause his death.\" This oath is the center piece of medical practice and ethics. How can euthanasia be practiced in the medical profession when it so clearly violates its principal ethical code.","conclusion":"The first promise of the Hippocratic oath is to never euthanize patients"}
{"id":"4ff40439-3019-4ed0-a2b2-d49ceaa5bb38","argument":"Ancient society shaped the norms we now hold around gender and the expected roles and characteristics associated with gender. Modern society has seen reshaping of these ideas.","conclusion":"Gender is the sets of defined roles that society has deterred to be masculine and feminine."}
{"id":"2f9991e8-4e90-491c-be23-f75dde3bf0d2","argument":"A British intelligence official has stated that there is concern about the possibility of radicalisation as a result of imprisonment.","conclusion":"Prisons provide an environment in which former ISIS fighters could radicalise other prisoners."}
{"id":"211cabf4-2c5c-4e0c-96cc-f47bfa30f745","argument":"Edit 's Trump has always made strength in negotiation his hallmark, using The Art of the Deal as reference. At the beginning, it seemed even his critics accepted this as one of his strengths, instead questioning his extreme views and ethics. His spectacular failure to repeal Obamacare, despite Republican control of all branches of government, made that view less tenable. Currently, in his negotiations with China and North Korea, it doesn't seem like he's won any concessions or whatever has been offered is unlikely to be repeated. I realize this is ongoing, so part of this depends on events yet to occur, but I haven't heard any real ideas about what a prospective deal might look like. I don't believe that's just because he's just been so tight lipped, but rather he really is flying blind. Just so it doesn't look like this  is based on anti Trump bias, this is in relative terms, compared to certain other strengths. He is charismatic, and able to understand political winds beyond what's revealed by polls. He has misled people about this strength, and by and large, people have bought it. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Negotiation is a weakness of Trump"}
{"id":"ba797eb7-b154-40d3-850d-55ffbb187815","argument":"Jill Stein launched a recount campaign premised on the claim that Trump benefited from vote tampering. When the recounts were done, however, they resulted in only marginal changes to the total tally.","conclusion":"The claim that Russia hacked vote-counting machines and manipulated the election day results remains totally unwarranted."}
{"id":"8c9fb11c-e4ca-4b23-a42d-935c8c133a5e","argument":"The concept of relevance is key here \u2013 people need to know that what they're learning will benefit them. This especially applies to people who don't program for a living, but may want to learn more about it to improve their other work.","conclusion":"C++ has been losing relevance for years now, as the market shifts towards high-level languages and web development. Therefore, beginner programmers should learn a language they would actually use productively later on."}
{"id":"f52270bf-1c2d-487e-a363-e586accc2d54","argument":"I believe that everyone is at least a little racist, however I think there is a misconception between racism and being a hateful, intolerant person. Being Racist has such a negative connotation because of all the hate that seems to come from people being overly prideful of their own races heritages cultures and consequently attempting to secure power over other races because of this pride. Certain races of people are superior to others in certain aspects. Is it hateful of me to acknowledge that Kenyans are extremely good at long distance running? Sure it may be a stereotype, but is it inherently bad to think something like that? I think it only becomes a bad thing when people make decisions based entirely on race and are unwilling to accept people for their races. I am guilty of making racists jokes, comments, or whatever. I am half Korean and half Caucasian English, Irish, Danish male. I dated a girl who was half West Indian and half African for five years . I do consider my myself racist, but not intolerant of other races. My argument is not that strong. It is based on speculations and my own experiences with racism. Any supporting arguments are welcomed Change my view.","conclusion":"Racism is not inherently bad. Being overly prideful and unwilling to accept other races qualities is what's bad."}
{"id":"0bd9ed04-56e1-4ea0-8160-0565a5890dc9","argument":"Sex workers who are raped by a police officer or client can go to authorities to lay charges without fear of their landlord evicting them or their children being kicked out of school.","conclusion":"It becomes easier for outside support organisations to help sex workers with their problems."}
{"id":"4118f45a-2ed5-474b-9bf3-e94b4cd6dc16","argument":"Not saying I hope he wins, but if he does I do not think anything will really be any different than they are now. With the exception of Obamacare, Obama has been pretty ineffective and has our country divided as strongly as we have been in decades. Same goes for Bush. I don't see a Trump presidency being any different. There really isn't anything that will change or be different. After he's out of office we will be just as divided as we are now. If Hillary Clinton wins then it is the same scenario. In some people's eyes Trump will make the office look like a circus and in other people's eyes he will be the pioneer of a new type of President, exactly like Obama is to some citizens, but not all. What I'm saying is that it doesn't matter who is elected President. If Trump wins or Sanders win in 8 years we will essentially be on the same path we are on today.","conclusion":"President Trump would be no more or less effective than Obama or Bush and no more or less polarizing."}
{"id":"38c92688-b12f-4f27-8c57-5fd852e0caaa","argument":"The reason I say If we're going to incorporate maternity leave is so that we can set aside the valid discussion of should we incorporate parental leave at all . That is a valid discussion, but it's not the subject of my view and not something I'm prepped to debate this  is predicated on accepting that maternity leave should be implemented. Even if you disagree with that, just set that aside so that we can focus on the issue I am willing to view, described in next paragraph . If we are going to incorporate maternity leave then it should be exactly equal to paternity leave, for however long it is. I can think of two reasons. This will reduce sexism against women by employers. I'm sorry, but if an employer has to choose between hiring a 27 year old man and 27 year old woman and everything between them is fully equal, the prospect of having to pay the woman for several months of work not done VS the prospect of having to pay the man for several weeks of work not done if the family leave is that unequal is just going to inevitably create sexism and a disincentive to hire women, which will also discriminate against women who don't plan to have kids. Moreover, this can be key to helping fight the more insidious elements the gender wage gap. If women are financially incentivized to defer their careers to have and raise kids, than it's no surprise that it will overwhelmingly be women and not men at least in 2 parent households who will give up their careers to have kids. Removing the financial incentive and giving both parents equal opportunity is step 1 in combating this gender role. If we're going to incorporate paid maternity leave than the compensation amounts and length of the leave should be fully equal to that of men. Again, this is not a discussion regarding whether we should or shouldn't implement family leave this is a discussion regarding what we should do if we do end up doing so.  EDIT Sorry for the long AWOL. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"If we're going to incorporate maternity leave, it should be equal to paternity leave"}
{"id":"d3d29f41-3ee8-4e1f-a14d-0be19ab257e9","argument":"This may ramble a bit because I'm trying to cover a lot. I notice a tendency for redditors to have a preoccupation with trying to sound be logical to the point of cold heartedness and robot like recitation of College Logic 101 courses. I swear if I hear Straw Man one more time, I'll rip my hair out. I don't know if it's just college kids flexing their new found argument skills, the rise of Aspies and the socially awkward, or just an increase in people trying to be Sheldon Cooper, but whatever it is, it merely comes across as condescending, arrogant, and dismissive. First off, Logic itself, while in theory is a perfect concept of linear thought, in practice, it is performed in the minds of human beings. Since human beings are inherently flawed and imperfect beings, the pureness of the Logic will be flawed and imperfect accordingly. Warped by the persons prejudices. Skewed by their assumptions. Bent to fit their personal preferences. No human being can actually properly use pure logic. At best they can grasp a few of the concepts and buzz words, and flail them around clumsily as either weapon, armor, or both in an argument. Many seem to think that emotion passion leads to the worst of humanity. Anger. Violence. Hate. War. Maybe it does, but it is absolutely worth it in the grand scheme when you realize what good things passion brings to humanity. Art, Music, Philosophy, Discussion, and Literature can all be broken down into mathematics and base components but it was the creator's passion that willed the note from the violin, or streaked brush across canvas. Science and Logic may have been used to chart the stars and manufacture the ships, but it was a sea captain's passion that had him sail off the edge of that map, past There Be Dragons Here , and into parts unknown. While Logic may have provided the map for mankind to explore the sciences and the universe, it is Passion that inspires men in ships to sail the seas and ride 30b tin cans into space. Passion may be heavy handed and messy, it may be hot headed and make mistakes, but it will ALWAYS trump Logic for bringing humanity further as a race. That is why Kirk will always be the captain and Spock will always be supporting him. Now, all this being said, I'm willing to give a listen as to why being coldly logical is better for humanity than fiery passion, so go ahead and . P.S. I'll be off to bed shortly but I will answer replies tomorrow. Thanks gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than just downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Emotion is more important than Logic"}
{"id":"717523fd-8434-488a-a22a-60278a5ae698","argument":"People in interfaith marriages are generally less religious than those with spouses of the same religion.","conclusion":"The diversity produced by interfaith marriages is likely to reduce religious dogmatism."}
{"id":"fb3e188d-213c-4fae-9560-e85bb59581c4","argument":"While some illiberal democracies have engaged in war against each other, no liberal democracies have done so. Therefore, if we include only liberal democracies in the Democratic Peace theory, it holds.","conclusion":"Democratic peace applies to liberal democracies, which do not war."}
{"id":"23a33b89-9a12-4815-8a5c-ea4ee0ad85c0","argument":"A fence would help defend the economy of the United States during difficult times by protecting American jobs. It is a popular misconception that immigrants only do the types of jobs that native-born Americans will not take. Many professions encompassing construction, grounds-maintenance, housekeeping, and janitorial services actually have the majority of jobs performed by native-born Americans.1 Furthermore, illegal immigrants constitute a tremendous drain on various public benefits. These include medical treatment because no one who is seriously injured or sick can be turned away from the emergency room as a result of a law called EMTALA2 , municipal services like fire and police protection, food stamps, and education in public schools. Every dollar that gets spent on illegal immigrants is a dollar that could have been spent on law-abiding American citizens, who need all the help they can get during these difficult times. 1 Camarota, Steven and Jensenius, Karen. \"Jobs Americans Won't Do?\" 2Jordan, Miriam. \"Illegal Immigration Enters the Health-Care Debate.\"","conclusion":"A fence would help defend the economy of the United States."}
{"id":"799484a6-76ef-4ba8-b5b4-dc88899c8e45","argument":"In the spirit of full disclosure, I will announce at the start of this post that I am a white male, who has had admittedly a healthy amount of privilege I love moments in my life in which my beliefs are challenged thus the reason I love this sub , but a friend on Facebook recently posted this quote from Scott Woods which set me on a personal moral confusion spiral gt Racism is a complex system of social and political levers and pulleys set up generations ago to continue working on the behalf of some, at the expense of others. Racism is an insidious cultural disease. It is so insidious that it doesn\u2019t care if you are a white person who likes black people it\u2019s still going to find a way to infect how you deal with people who don\u2019t look like you. gt Yes, racism looks like hate, but hate is just one manifestation. Privilege is another. Access is another. Ignorance is another. Apathy is another. And so on. So while I agree with people who say no one is born racist, it remains a powerful system that we\u2019re immediately born into. It\u2019s like being born into air you take it in as soon as you breathe. It\u2019s not a cold that you can get over. There is no anti racist certification class. It\u2019s a set of socioeconomic traps and cultural values that are fired up every time we interact with the world. It is a thing you have to keep scooping out of the boat of your life to keep from drowning in it. Now, I completely agree that racism is a highly complex issue, and the elimination of racism means far more than the elimination of personal prejudice, it involves the elimination of centuries of socio economic, political and cultural mechanisms that benefit some to the detriment of others. But I find myself having trouble internalizing that racism is like being born in to air, and that it's not a cold I can get over . Yes, I have been born in to a culture that is racist there is no denying this. But, to me, scooping the water out of the boat of my otherwise unconscious prejudice is what I believe makes me deserving of being able to say I'm not racist. I don't agree than no matter what I do, I'm a racist, and my only choice is to keep chipping away, all the while merely accepting that when I step outside I'll be firing up the cultural machine of racism I swim in. I believe there is anti racism certification , and it manifests itself in beliefs and actions that demonstrate the absence of prejudice. I whole heartedly believe that all human beings are born equal. In fact, I don't really believe in the idea of race. Obviously I understand that it exists as a social construct, but I believe that anyone who understand what DNA is, how genetic mutation works, and how little we differ from any other member of our species should laugh at the idea of race. I try to act every day in a way that rejects prejudice, and shows a love and respect for all humanity, regardless of gender, race, etc I have no doubt found myself struggling against engrained social and cultural mechanisms that would persuade me otherwise, were I to give in to them unconsciously, but I believe the fact that I think about this, and struggle with my beliefs and my actions and how they contribute to the disease of racism around me, and actively change when confronted with the fact that what I believe is wrong, should grant me the privilege of being able to say that I am not a racist, and the suggestion that I am, without any hope of changing that, upsets me very much. Is there something I'm not understanding about this argument? Am I just straight up wrong about this?","conclusion":"I am not racist"}
{"id":"0c45884d-2363-4659-9dd8-473d6cb7a5c4","argument":"There are many examples of this in everyday life: if we pass a drowning child, or someone injured by the side of the road, or so forth, we ought to stop and help them. There is no relevant difference between these cases and the case of refugees.","conclusion":"If someone is in severe distress and we are uniquely positioned to help them, we have a clear moral duty to do so to the best of our ability."}
{"id":"f0e91815-608e-432c-9a4f-0dfce72d5f3b","argument":"Ad blockers can be very useful on risky websites because of the fact that they can prevent pop-ups.","conclusion":"Ads clutter a screen and make it hard for users to access desired content."}
{"id":"709ee5a7-15d0-4724-a73c-b0e549b70ba8","argument":"SPOILERS AHEAD Hey guys, just beat KOTOR 2 and I'm currently reflecting on the fantastic story and the fantastic characters. One that comes to mind is Kreia, who was as well written as she was integral to the plot. In a sense, I feel the Jedi Exile has the same problem as most nameless protagonists, as her I believe she is canonically female involvement in the story is both everything and nothing she goes on and solves all the problems and saves the day, but in the end she's just doing what she's told. Kreia, on the other hand, is the mastermind of everything. She manipulates The Exile as she has others before her, and her story and machinations are not only pivotal to the plot, they are the plot. Almost everything that happens in the game is a result of her actions, unlike the Exile who, as established, was a pawn both in a story sense and a video game sense. But Kreia is also the main character in a much more meta sense. Kreia represents the theme of the game. While there is a strict line generally separating force users into light and dark, Kreia has walked both sides of that line and cares little for either side, only favoring pragmatism. Throughout the game, we see that shades of grey theme throughout, with the most blatant example being the Mandalorian Wars and how they divided and ultimately destroyed the Jedi over the correct response. Ultimately, the finale of her story plays into the moral relativity of the act of using the force. Atton Another fantastic character mentions that to the common person, the Jedi and the Sith are just religious fanatics who constantly destroy the galaxy. Kreia's attempted destruction of the force makes sense in that regard, because she clearly has decided that the force has been a tool for more harm than good on both sides, and has caused so much strife and conflict that it doesn't deserve to exist. So, change my view. I'd like to hear your thoughts on this","conclusion":"Kreia is the real main character of KOTOR 2"}
{"id":"37bdd0f4-4aee-4d25-a89a-29b009d7ed62","argument":"To my understanding, Common Core is a set of standards of skills that a student should learn before graduating high school. Though I am still quite some years before getting there, what I have observed in my school's mathematics system shows that these skills rely heavily on memorization and calculation, much less on reasoning, and virtually none on application. I've looked at the Common Core website and seen that these accurately reflect the standards put out. Let's take the Common Core Algebra standards as an example. If you scroll down to the Overview, you see that almost all of the skills listed are to solve equations or something of that sort. This is calculation. Common Core currently spends too much time on this, something relatively easy such that computers can do it. Some of this time needs to shift to the other branches of mathematics. I believe that algebra, as well as much of the rest of mathematics, should be used as a medium through which logic and reasoning are taught. Though computers can use logic to some extent, the human brain is much more capable and should be used for what it is needed for. Here is a purely algebraic problem. Despite the concepts being purely algebraic, it requires high levels of critical thinking and reasoning in order to solve. This is the type of multi step problem that should be taught in high schools, but is almost always not. Common Core does not require students to display this level of critical thinking. Let's take Geometry for another example. If you scroll down to the Overview, these standards are somewhat better, since they introduce the notion of proof. However, on close inspection of the Congruence section, only a few basic proofs spanning a few basic proof types are necessary. These do not cover the important proof by contradiction and proof by induction, two kinds of reasoning that can be much better applied to the real world. It is also never required that the student prove any algebraic concepts, such as the quadratic formula. Most theorems in Geometry and all in Algebra are not proven, and the student is forced to memorize them. We have computers for that. We need people to prove and reason. It\u2019s also important for concepts like Geometry to be taught in conjunction with other areas of mathematics, such as Calculus. I took Geometry in 8th grade, and though that is a bit early for Calculus, the idea of limits and things like that should have at least been touched upon. Why is it that the volume of a pyramid is Bh 3? The idea of taking some function to the limit makes it easy to prove this. Common Core does not cover this. So far, I\u2019ve touched very little upon the idea of application, and mostly because that\u2019s the most difficult one. We know that mathematics is applied in all sorts of STEM subjects, but what if the student is already set on taking a liberal arts major? They shouldn\u2019t be forced to study engineering with math. So, I think that the application of mathematics needs to brought back to its roots, being the application of logic. Programming is great way to apply this, and though maybe math class isn\u2019t the right place for this, every student already has a programmable graphing calculator anyway. Instead of forcing students to not use programs on tests like they do at my school, I think that the use of programs should be encouraged, since they demonstrate understanding of the basis behind all mathematics, which is logic. Maybe this is straying a bit far from the purpose of Common Core, and it shouldn\u2019t be implemented as a guideline, but perhaps as a suggestion it would be great. I\u2019ll be going through Common Core for a few more years, and I want to know if it\u2019s effective. Please . EDIT Forgot to mention that I think reasoning is much more important than having formulas memorized for the real world.","conclusion":"Common Core esp. Mathematics is a system that is fundamentally flawed and does not prepare students for the real world."}
{"id":"491084bf-c337-4405-ab07-bb0d56f14a8e","argument":"Morality can and should be anchored in science That is to say that moral questions can and must be answered by Science. We don't need Religion to get answers.","conclusion":"Religion denies humanity the responsibility of Morality and wants to shackle us to itself in doing so."}
{"id":"047f8c5e-e085-4e6b-9d8f-9a718764f50d","argument":"Some people argue that the Common Era variant is either more sensible to non christian believers, or more fit for a secular, irreligious society. However, I don't really see the point of either argument, since you are still using the same system. In case of sensibility, you are basically saying the the Common Era started with the birth of Christ, that does not seem anyhow more inclusive to non christian believers. Same for the irreligious variant, you are still using the supposed birth date of a religious figure as center point of the system. I don't care about religion myself, but using anything else than before and after Christ in a way just seems like being dishonest with what you are doing. Edit While I'm open to argue the English convention, I should point out that in my mother tongue we say before Christ or after Christ , not referring to him as Lord or similar as in English with anno domini . I would prefer arguments that work in either language.","conclusion":"Using \"CE\/BCE\" Common Era\/Before the Common Era instead of \"AD\/BC\" for secularistic reasons makes few sense"}
{"id":"624dee67-18cf-4259-b5ba-75fd77da24ae","argument":"The Moon does not have to be a one-way trip from Earth as it is about 60 times closer to Earth than Mars.","conclusion":"The Moon is much closer to Earth than Mars making it a better choice."}
{"id":"65c8f5d9-90c6-408a-96b6-b68cdb046264","argument":"Let me begin by restating that I'd only like to discuss GMOs which have been approved by the USFDA or any institute of equivalent regard. EDIT For clarity I am not saying that the legal status of GM foods implies their safety. I am just trying to narrow down this argument to the dozen or so legal GM foods, because there isn't much point in discussing GM foods you'll never find in the grocery store. Furthermore, I would like to clarify that I understand GMOs promote the use of unsustainable agricultural techniques such as monocropping. However, these are not whatsoever the result of genetic modifications and similar problems would occur with naturally hybridized seeds. Nitrogen deposition and deforestation are big problems, but GMOs are not the right scapegoat the global agri food system is for being entirely profit driven. GMOs have never, to my knowledge, caused an adverse medical reaction in any typical human population. I imagine someone somewhere has eaten a GMO and experienced an allergic reaction regardless of whether or not the genetic modification actually engendered this reaction, I don't consider allergies to be a human health risk. Let me throw a few links out there. Monsanto has some unethical business practices, but contrary to popular opinion they have never sued a farmer for inadvertantly growing seeds from stray pollen . The oft cited case is Schmeiser who was shown to have deliberately planted patented seeds read section 44 . That all said, there are certainly risks to any sort of genetic modification. These risks are very minimal, and the bioengineers who design commercial GMOs exhaustively test their product. Genetic engineering isn't that much different than hybridization, just using genetically distant organisms we don't design proteins from scratch, we use natural biochemical properties with minor changes for efficacy. Are there any arguments against GMOs that are inherently due to the genetic modifications, and not the agricultural techniques used to produce process distribute them?","conclusion":"GMO foods which have been approved for human consumption pose no risk to human health, and have no inherent problems."}
{"id":"3d40441c-b297-403b-ad70-481ab9a18cdf","argument":"The President of the European Commission has rewritten the Code of Conduct for the members of the European Commission giving the President of the European Commission ultimate say. Again showing signals totalitarianism. The EU watchdog found the commission guilty of breaking their own rules in allowing the appointment of Jean-Claude Juncker's aide Mr Selmayr to a senior Brussels post. The commission is guilty yet nothing can be done and no one can challenge it.","conclusion":"The European Commission is trying to merge the Presidents of the European Commission and the European Council into one presidency. Quote: \"Europe would be easier to understand if one captain was steering the ship This erodes control mechanisms."}
{"id":"e92f1c80-78b9-425b-8912-e037509687f2","argument":"Before I begin I want to be clear that I am referring to a love that you actually feel. Like your stomach knotting up or anything like that. Not just a love you have for family or friends, but a physical feeling that many call love. usually happens between two significant others So before humans were conscious there were other animals, some being very similar to humans today. These animals can't just be programmed to have sex with another, they have to want it. Being an animal, they may have had some emotions help guide them like love. It felt something that made it want to do something. I see many people today say that they love another because they can just feel it, or it's just right. But we are just humans still being guided by many emotions, such as love and we need to recognize this so we can progress as a whole. I think too many people feel love and just go with it before thinking if it is the best choice for THEIR life. We are taught that love is good and something we find . But I believe it is just an old emotion passed down evolution to help keep animals reproducing.  edit somewhat quickly my view has been changed. Thanks to all who responded though, I read everything.","conclusion":"I think love is an emotion humans and other animals have to help reproduction and should be recognized as such so we can realize that we don't have to marry or date if we feel love."}
{"id":"feebf47f-742a-496b-9ee1-a0cdbbb1ee42","argument":". Most individuals seeking a ban on assault weapons just want assault weapons to be banned.","conclusion":"A ban on assault weapons is not a slippery slope to an all gun ban"}
{"id":"e90c548c-2b7d-4179-8209-5ff933469482","argument":"Two years ago just about everyone in my social circle started smoking. I didn't for just about any reason a senior in high school freshman in college wouldn't. I'm not a fan of the party scene where the majority of the smoking with them happens . I had pretty good grades and was scared of getting caught up in something that might jeopardize that. I thought it was gross, especially the smell. Plus, I'm generally turned away from anything illegal. It just isn't something that I'm interested in participating in at all. I put up with it for the better part of the past two years, but recently finding out my SO had done it before has put it in the forefront of my mind. We've talked about it extensively, and I understand that I can't make my SO's decisions for them, and my SO knows exactly how I feel about the subject and respects my opinion. Even so, I find myself just thinking about them doing it frequently. I think about how they could be doing something so much more productive with their time, and how if they get in trouble as a result it could do significant damage. It seems like I can't hang out in a group of my friends anymore without them smoking. The only way to get away from it is getting together one on one. It almost feels insulting that they seem to need to change their perception of things in order to have a good time now in a you're not fun enough while I'm sober kind of way. I'm not interesting in the legalization debate. In my area, if you are caught with marijuana, you get in a lot of trouble. That is a fact. I also realize it is safer than drinking or pretty much any other type of drug. I also recognize the cruel irony that these thoughts would probably go away if I tried it. I just don't want to. I'm tired of thinking about my friends and SO smoking, and I certainly don't want to think less of them because they're all really great people. Please please please .","conclusion":"I negatively judge my friends and SO for smoking marijuana. I'm also tired of it always being on my mind, so please"}
{"id":"cd042391-42ca-4cb7-afbd-d26908c35023","argument":"A lot of people especially women like my mother absolutely lose their shit over cockroaches. I don't think cockroaches are any grosser than other bugs. In fact, I think they just look like simple brown beetles lots of other bugs look uglier and scarier. And I don't see any reason why cockroaches in particular should be a sign of unhygienic conditions. If your house is dirty, ants and lots of other creatures will be hanging around, but people aren't usually disgusted by ants. And sometimes, cockroaches and other insects will hang around places that aren't dirty at all. Basically, I don't think cockroaches deserve their status as the most reviled insect in the world. Please change my view and help me understand people who act like seeing a cockroach is the end of the world.","conclusion":"I don't think that cockroaches are anything to freak out about. If you don't lose your shit and scream about ladybugs or moths, you shouldn't freak out over cockroaches."}
{"id":"6dc7dae2-c89d-4796-8690-6476d30614cf","argument":"I would LOVE for you to change my view on this. I don't care about post votes. I wrote a post I took seriously that got down to 13 , and while I was a little annoyed, I didn't care. I got replies, that's all that mattered. There is a higher standard for what takes up space in the feed. I get that. But comments are a different animal. Comments are nothing but my opinion. I care about everything I write. I write things to be a contribution. I put myself into them. When you downvote my comment, you downvote ME. People say they're just numbers. That's like saying the numbers in your bank account or age are just numbers. It's true in a trivial sense. But numbers in many contexts are representative. Bank account numbers represent your monetary holdings, which represents many things. Your age represents many things, like your time left on earth at maximum. What a comment upvote score represents, to everyone is how many people think my contribution is meaningful, or how much it's just total shit. I'm a very opinionated person. I care about what I say. It kills me to have a sincere opinion that people evidently can't respond to because it gets 5 with no response. I'd love to come off this view, but it won't be easy. What I consider a change of view would be that I can intellectually recognize that my reasoning is flawed. I'm NOT interested in people simply saying Your view is valid, but it's doing you more harm than good , unless you can solidify that in my brain. It's trivially true. Again, intellectually convincing me about my reasoning is sufficient, but you'd have to do more to convince me that the whole thing isn't worth it. Update My view has been changed through a couple of excellent comments. I don't think there's anything left to change. Thank you gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Comment upvote totals aren't just numbers. They represent what people think of my comments, which I take seriously when I write. When people downvote my comments, I am justified in feeling upset."}
{"id":"58d6b8aa-87cd-4b77-98b5-992c7acdcc94","argument":"The US Army\u2019s Future Combat Systems program estimated that developing AKMs would come at a price tag of $300 billion","conclusion":"The development cost of AKMs that are as effective as humans is very high."}
{"id":"2063f3e3-af36-4f7e-b2a3-aff4b2f269f6","argument":"It is immoral to bring creatures into existence in order to use and kill them. For example, it would be immoral to give birth to new children and use them as slaves or food.","conclusion":"The mass killing of animals for human consumption is morally wrong."}
{"id":"30fd6c8e-5b4b-413b-87fe-c070ee83774e","argument":"The brutality of Assad's government means that even if he won the current civil war, sooner or later Syrian people would rise up against him again.","conclusion":"The United States should invade Syria and remove Bashar al-Assad from power."}
{"id":"619d6b6f-5a45-47c5-9da7-ce46869ed0e6","argument":"I'm posting this from the perspective of a US Citizen. Though it seems paradoxical, the idea of free trade seems incredibly unfair to me. The US and many Western countries have a high amount of worker protections living wage, vacation time, healthcare, safety standards, and so on. I'm absolutely in favor of these protections, but it is unfair to expect US workers to compete with companies who do not follow these protections. If we're going to take the moral stance that workers deserve these protections, then we should apply them to everyone. It is unfair to say the workers who make our goods deserve a certain level of treatment, unless they do not live here. Then they can be treated however their home country likes. Removing these protections, of course, is not a good idea. Instead, I believe it would a good idea to use tariffs as a tool to level the playing field. If a country follows the same worker protection laws, then no tariffs are needed, because the competition is fair. If a sweatshop pays their workers 2 a day and locks the doors on them, then heavy tariffs would be charged for their products. This would level the playing field as well as encouraging international companies to improve worker treatment, and discourage US manufacturing from outsourcing to countries with less worker protection laws. Some logistical issues Tariffs would be assessed by location, industry, and company, so that Hong Kong would not be charged the same rates as other Chinese cities due to their unique laws. Standard rates would be applied based on locality and industry. Companies that improve worker conditions can request an audit and submit their worker wages and benefits to be awarded a decreased rate. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Tariffs should be determined by how workers are treated and free trade is unfair"}
{"id":"6ffc59dc-39c5-46fe-b81c-61f5aa41d10c","argument":"The discovery of bacterial flagellum and other examples of irreducible complexity proves the existence of an intelligent design.","conclusion":"Science provides probable evidence for the existence of God. Intelligent Design"}
{"id":"9530688c-95c4-4f5b-b0a9-3e3f7642cc7f","argument":"Assuming 10 bikes and 10 customers are randomly distributed across an area, randomly distributed bikes and customers, will, on average, have to walk a shorter distance to a bike, than if they all had to walk to a station at the center of the area.","conclusion":"On average, walking distance to a bike, will be shorter with station-less services."}
{"id":"d593da82-3f78-4a54-ba95-ab978128df9e","argument":"I'm going to be straightforward with the facts of the situation because it genuinely bothers me and I want to explain them before I get to my . I've been trying to help the situation but I have failed. My friend lives at home with quite a few animals. Their family likes to collect pets and until last summer had three parakeets, and one large green cheeked conure. Prior to this they've owned cats, who have been sold, a bulldog that ran away, and another dog that was hit by a car. To be blunt, the birds are not taken good care of. They are never let out of their cages and usually are covered to keep them from screeching. The parakeets do not like people, and most noticeably, the conure bites. This was compounded this summer when my friend themselves adopted two ferrets. Since then, the ferrets have gotten out and killed one of the parrots while maiming another. I've tried to pressure their family to change how they manage their pets but I've not made an impact. This week my friend made it known to me that their family intends to sell the birds, including the conure. They currently do not have any buyers. I've wanted to own a bird for quite a long time now. Recently, my life and job have stabilized and I've set up a location to move to from home January which allows pets. I've done research over the past year on what I should expect for living conditions, diet, and social activity. I would prefer to adopt a functional, happy parrot that loves people, but I prioritize adopting a pet that needs my help. I want my search for a pet to be this bird's rescue.  gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I should adopt my friend's pet bird"}
{"id":"e37e8eb3-11e4-4153-a8e1-a398fb7319b1","argument":"Brenda L. Leffler, who has been teaching New York\u2019s sergeants, speaks of the change in officers' attitudes at the end of the program. While most of them enter her classroom in a defensive, or hostile posture, they wind up leaving her classes wanting to know more about how stereotypes can seep into the subconscious mind and what they can do to prevent it from happening.","conclusion":"A number of police training programs that focus on correcting implicit biases have been successfully instituted and have had good initial results."}
{"id":"d374525a-28af-4a4d-8c76-1984739faf91","argument":"People in general are not well-educated on their rights, so it's not surprising juveniles don't understand them. For example, a poll showed that US Americans barely know the basics of the Constitution.","conclusion":"Juvenile criminals often don't fully understand their rights during times of questioning and confessions."}
{"id":"ddefeb4d-1d28-438e-97cd-92d1dc40931c","argument":"Beto O'Rourke appears not to be supportive of Medicare for All. Yet, around 70% of Americans support the introduction of such a system.","conclusion":"Beto O'Rourke has not been supportive of progressive policy ideas that are popular amongst the American people."}
{"id":"5556d079-89c2-4d75-b975-716bc5b0b2e1","argument":"According to several studies boys do better when there are more girls than boys in a classroom because girls help them focus. Males are natural competitors; while girls are encouraged to be shy and submissive no matter how gender-neutral a society claims to be. Males around girls feel the need to prove themselves while girls figure if they seem dumb and popular boys will like them. Therefore under-perform and boys perform better in coed classrooms. This is just to impress boys but also not to be judged by girls around them. If a girl participates aggressively in a coed classroom she is laughed at by the 'mean\/cool\/hot-girl'-crowd. Girls learn that being enthusiastic in the classroom is not for them.","conclusion":"boys perform better in co-ed schools and girls perform academically better in girls only schools."}
{"id":"9eee0639-a5c1-4a3b-b943-76f612d970ce","argument":"Chris Perna, as an art director, has to look at costs and sales potential before making a decision on something. This is because these are the main tools for a company to analyze in order to make the best calls on what is going to be profitable for that business. To that end it's reasonable that they don't do something even if it's good because it'll doesn't have adequate sales potential.","conclusion":"Chris Perna, Art Director for Epic Games said that female lead characters would be \"tough to justify on the basis of sales figures."}
{"id":"4e1ef395-561c-4aa1-940a-69eb0b79a2d6","argument":"I was prompted to post this after seeing a different post about Miley Cyrus being slutty on stage that hit the front page of Reddit. She certainly was being slutty on stage, sure, but I don't see why that's a problem at all. I responded to a few of the comments in the other post because a lot of them bothered me, but mine were buried the post had over 1000 comments . Basically, it seemed like a significant portion of the comments were slamming Miley Cyrus for being a whore, throwing away her talent, etc. because of the way she chooses to perform on stage. I really couldn't believe it as I was scrolling through the comments, because Reddit tends to on average be more open minded than most places. And I don't see how what she is doing is any different from what countless other musicians have done in the past. So yeah, Miley Cyrus did a 180 from an innocent pure seeming child star to more of a sex and drugs and rock and roll type persona. But so what? If you look at the history of music specifically rock in the last 7 or so decades , nothing she has done is unprecedented. People thought Elvis was offensive when he first arrived on the scene, and edginess and shock value has been an integral part of music ever since arguably even before Elvis . I quoted this scene from Freaks and Geeks in the other post because it seemed extremely applicable to this discussion. It's two parents and their children set in 1980 discussing the Sex Pistols. Mr. Weir Joe Flaherty You know those Sex Pistols? They spit on their audience. Mrs. Weir Oh, that\u2019s terrible. Mr. Weir Yep, that\u2019s what I want to do. Spend my hard earned money to be spit on. Now that\u2019s entertainment. Lindsay Oh come on, Dad. Every generation is afraid of the music that comes from the next. I\u2019m sure your parents hated Elvis. Mr. Weir Elvis didn\u2019t expectorate on his fans. Sam No. But he died on the toilet. Mr. Weir Well, that\u2019s paradise compared to where those Sex Pistols are gonna end up. And if you somehow don't think spitting on your fans which the Sex Pistols did almost 40 years ago, when people were MORE conservative overall is as crude or shocking as what Miley is doing, how about Ozzy biting the head off of a bat? Is it a gender difference? Tons of male rock artists bands have performed incredibly sexualized or shock value based acts, how is this any worse? I honestly don't listen to or particularly enjoy any of Miley Cyrus's music. It's not my thing, and that's okay. But it's clear that she can sing well. And even if she couldn't, there are plenty of famous artists who can't sing well but are still popular and not as maligned as she is. Everyone has different tastes. So it seems ridiculous to insult her for doing the same stuff musicians have been doing for literally decades. Even if you ignore every male artist and band in music history, lots of her contemporaries Lady Gaga, Rihanna have done stuff that's similarly sexual in nature, but they don't get roasted for it as much. Maybe because she used to be a child star, so people are holding her to different standards? But isn't it her right to do as she wants now that she's an adult? After being raised as Hannah Montana by a combination of Billy Ray Cyrus and Disney both of whom had a vested interest in her being ultra conservative and portrayed as an innocent, pure girl , I'm not surprised she has taken to rebelling in some fashion. Most teens or young adults in situations like that end up rebelling to some extent. And she hasn't done anything that hurts or negatively impacts ANYONE else as far as I'm aware AT ALL certainly she's killed less bats than Ozzy . It's like she's literally being attacked for embracing her sexuality and acting sexual on stage, and I really thought that as a society we were done demonizing that sort of thing. So yeah, I think Miley Cyrus gets a ton of unwarranted crap from people who judge her for the same stuff other artists have been doing for decades. So change my view.","conclusion":"Miley Cyrus should not be judged for her lewd or edgy behavior."}
{"id":"2f068011-dc79-483e-8478-d24a63c893d7","argument":"It is impossible to determine the point where life is worth living. A right to die would exert a downward pressure on society's calculation of where this point is located, resulting in many people choosing to die unnecessarily.","conclusion":"Legalisation of the right to die would lead to many people choosing to die imprudently."}
{"id":"da248dd3-7ccd-4644-a33c-73cc4cfcc45a","argument":"Internet companies make money off niche areas of the market that use their services, which incentivizes them to capture as much market share as possible. Censoring content from users goes directly against that principle.","conclusion":"Censoring speech might go against the self interest of internet companies and as such, they will probably censor as little as possible."}
{"id":"f1ad0ba4-b64e-45af-8d5e-e1528ce04836","argument":"An individual has more of an obligation to their own well-being and mental health than they do to sporting bodies\u2019 perceptions of \u201cfairness\u201d.","conclusion":"Not transitioning can have serious effects on an individual's mental health it is not a fair choice to force them to make."}
{"id":"9f45d01c-cf16-4b77-8a03-4fb73916414a","argument":"I think this is a strange view, and may only act as a thought exercise in my head, but it makes sense to me. I'll still feel sad for when I lose a loved one, or when I hear of the atrocities that occur day to day in different parts of the world What I'm saying is, from the perspective of the dead, the occurrences in their lives are meaningless. Dead Bob isn't thinking Whoa, getting my limbs ripped apart slowly was a terrible experience . Dead Bob is dead. He does not think, he does not exist. He has no perspective. In the long run, when and how he lived holds no importance. In the long run, how we lived has no significance. This translates to the mistreatment of livestock. I honestly don't feel strongly when I hear about or see animal abuse at the slaughterhouse. In a short time, the animal is going to be dead, and it will be at peace by simple act of no longer existing. This may cause a stir, but the whole dog being shot is a terrible thing, but why ? Is it because the dog didn't get to spend as much time on this earth being a dog? I think these common morals are just a result of our evolution. These moral constructs aided in the survival of our species. I guess this is just looking at the world with objective lenses. This may even just be a waste of thought, but I feel it's intellectually honest.","conclusion":"I believe that what happens to a living being before death torture, abuse, etc. is negligible to the postmortem being."}
{"id":"aee46aba-41b2-4385-9f49-fe8899d79f88","argument":"I am a hard determinist. Determinism is basically the philosophy that the future has already been decided by the natural forces of the Universe interactions at the atomic level, gravity, etc. , and can't be changed. Everything we do, have done, or ever will do has already been decided. Nothing else can happen. But I can decide to pick up this cup right now You're not making that decision. The decision is being made for you, by the neurons in your brain, as a defense mechanism. Neurons are just electrically charged or uncharged cells. We have a lot of them, so we think we have a mind of our own and autonomy over ourselves. We really don't. Consciousness is just an illusion developed over countless years of evolution to help us outwit other animals. In the end, our brain is just a giant mass of particles. Therefore, there is a finite limit to its complexity. Sure, it feels like we have free will, but we don't have absolute free will. The future has already been decided. When you think of yourself as nothing more than a soulless mass of particles, I know it may shatter your worldview and you'll want to wholeheartedly deny it, but our minds are so simple that we just stop caring a few minutes later. Hell, after writing this post about how I'm nothing but particles and forces, I'll probably go and play Pokemon or something like it was nothing. Our brains don't give a shit about any of that philosophical mumbo jumbo at least not for extended periods of time. Our brain only cares about the simple things, such as survival, acceptance, and entertainment. So don't be mad at yourself for doing that stupid thing you did at a party years ago. It was bound to happen, anyway. gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than just downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Free will does not exist."}
{"id":"7ca8cb9d-7964-4889-a1fa-fe473d592d20","argument":"With the exception of 1967 all years since the beginning of recording in 1937, the majority were in favor of capital punishment.","conclusion":"According to a 2014 poll, most Americans favor the death penalty as a punishment for people convicted of murder."}
{"id":"639a4fef-f450-4679-b1f7-8d5dddbe609d","argument":"Broadcasters almost never show scenes of torture or torment because they know this will cause offence, the same principle should apply here.","conclusion":"news organisations should be free to exclude news of homosexuality where it causes offence to their viewers"}
{"id":"cd67df7a-5263-4dae-9fc0-ae636e6cf789","argument":"As of late, I have seen this sentiment posed on several political subs given the current political situation in the US. Looking back over the last 70 or so years, the US never fully recovers from Republican presidents and their doings. For instance. GWB The US is still fighting the battles he began in the Middle East and his moves there sowed the seeds for what could be perpetual military action there. In some areas, namely the Rust Belt, the recession that begun thanks to his policy missteps his second term are still playing out today. The soft coup of Republican mega donors Kochs, Adelson, et Al. also began under his watch as the earliest work of REDMAP and the reach around known as the SAFEPorts act were under his term. GHWB Not finishing the job in the Middle East bred the whole situation his son fostered to fruition. Reagan The US still dealing with the trickle down economics, a drug the US seems to not want to wean itself from, as well as other broken policies such as the last round of tax reform, Just Say No , mandatory minimums, walking back alternative energy use, and a ratcheted up drinking age. Ford Not much, but the runaway slope of copyright term inflation began under his watch which has stifled innovation and creativity. Nixon The US is still fighting his War on Drugs and dealing with the permanently diminished trust in government Watergate brought. Eisenhower Ike had some VERY short sighted foreign policy, namely regarding North Korea, Iran, and even Cuba, all poor decisions he made that effect us to this day. Domestically, the state of the nation under his term helped to breed American Exceptionalism and warped the American view of oneself. I know that Democrats under the same timeframe have done similarly short sighted moves JFK Cuba, Carter Iran, Clinton DADT, Obama drone strikes and Cash for Clunkers permanently altering the used car market , but Republican missteps seem to linger a lot longer and be far more damaging. The more I think about it, the Republicans cause a lot more long term damage, is this just me and liberal bias though? . gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The United States is still dealing with the moves of every Republican President post-WWII"}
{"id":"24c1175b-96e6-44ac-9a42-22e1d5acd6e3","argument":"Democracy is effective when one wants to know what people want. Once the referendum on what people want is collected, executing the process to fulfill it is the job of experts. For example, it is okay to take a referendum on whether to build a dam on a river, but not how to build the dam or what material to use. That is the job of experts like engineers, for example.","conclusion":"Such complex matters should not be decided with referenda, as they require expert knowledge about how international trade and relations work."}
{"id":"271e6df1-8db3-4519-be6b-f14180df485a","argument":"This is a realistic overpopulation prevention possibility, as Elon Musk already has plans for a Martian colony.","conclusion":"Overpopulation will be a temporary issue as humans come closer to living on other planets."}
{"id":"5d54628c-36b4-44e9-964a-072a7375ec14","argument":"in countries like china, where parents can only have one child, it is important to allow them to select the sex of their child.","conclusion":"It is within the freedoms of the parents to select the sex of the child"}
{"id":"3ac2c762-4723-47f0-9957-258cb0ec6a92","argument":"I constantly see people mock other people with So it's Not Real Socialism^TM , huh in regards to discussion on places like Cuba, Venezuela, etc. but it is perfectly valid to say that an economy is not socialist or communist if it doesn't meet the criteria for what socialism and communism are. Communism is a stateless, classless, moneyless society in which all of the means of production are collectively owned. This has never been achieved in human history besides maybe in more primitive forms . Socialism is a transition period between capitalism and communism, and what this actually entails can differ depending on specific ideologies but it is generally agreed upon that at the least, a socialist society has abolished private property, privately owned means of production, and is actively transitioning towards production for use instead of production for profit. So it is not a No True Scotsman fallacy to say that a nation is not really socialist if it's economy is still dominated by the private sector as in Venezuela or if the working class never truly owned the means of production as in the Soviet Union under Stalin gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"\"Not real socialism\" is a valid argument and not a logical fallacy"}
{"id":"2009b206-ed1a-41bf-a372-197447db643b","argument":"Let me explain why I think this way. I've noticed that Led Zeppelin are unavailable on Spotify or any other streaming service. I've talked to other metalhead friends of mine and they agree that Zeppelin want their releases to be listened to as 'whole albums' rather than on a song by song basis. It think it's pretentious to tell your audience how they can listen to your music. Furthermore, from what I know about Led Zeppelin, they seem extremely pretentious. Perhaps I am wrong, but didn't Jimmy Page refuse to tour with the band because he didn't want to sing their most famous song, Stairway to Heaven? Edit I said Jimmy Page when I meant to say Robert Plant. Slip of the tongue, sorry","conclusion":"I think Led Zeppelin is comprised of pretentious assholes,"}
{"id":"1422e3e8-9147-4684-b33f-14cc95c2df78","argument":"Passing the test would require a basic understanding of civics and how the US government works. Nothing involving current events or anything that is not taught in free public school. Citizens must pass a test to get a license to drive because they are dangerous if they drive without knowing how to operate a vehicle. Uninformed citizens are dangerous to the country if they don't know how their decisions voting can impact themselves and others, and ultimately, the well being of the United States.","conclusion":"There should be a test that US citizens must pass before being allowed to vote in any election."}
{"id":"4c436676-e4c6-4711-90ab-e99643ee0cf1","argument":"According to Harvard Scientist Edward O. Wilson \"If everyone on the planet agreed to become vegetarian, leaving little or nothing for livestock, the present 1.4 billion hectares of arable land 3.5 billion acres would support about 10 billion people.\" Since it is virtually impossible to keep every human on Earth from eating meat or raising livestock, we will be unable to support the food supply for 10 billion humans in 2050.","conclusion":"If all humans stopped eating meat, a highly unlikely occurrence in any scenario, scientists predict that Earth could have a maximum human carrying capacity of 10 billion A global population of 9.5 billion would be catastrophic to human life. We would most likely run out of food and freshwater long before the proposed population decline around 2070."}
{"id":"e86fbadc-8dc0-4439-b8a7-a4ebf6b56b1f","argument":"There's ample evidence that Jesus Christ's Gospel has been corrupted: - there's no certainty who composed the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke & John MML&J, & no validation of their contents by a Gospel composed by Jesus himself; - numerous Gospels were written at the same time as MML&J, but rejected for political reasons in the 1st to 4th centuries. - St. Paul largely defined Christianity, but never knew Jesus except in hallucination, & was spurned as near-heretical by Jesus' closest disciples.","conclusion":"Allah, the Monotheistic, Omnipotent, Omniscient, Eternal, Self-Sufficient, Creator, Sustainer, and Monitor of all that exists, has repeatedly revealed, since the first human being, guidance on how to minimise evil in, even eradicate evil from, society. All but one i.e. the Quran of Allah's messages of guidance have been destroyed or perverted by evil humans, for their own greed for power and wealth. So evil only exists because evil humans reject and\/or pervert Allah's guidance."}
{"id":"d57f02c2-3bed-4299-bc76-3975e235ce35","argument":"NOTE THE POINT HAS BEEN PARTIALLY CONCEDED. SEE EDIT 3 Donald Trump's tax plan is estimate to raise the deficit by an unprecedented 10 trillion dollars over the next decade. While this deficit is coming largely from a decrease in taxes, there are no estimates I'm aware of that the resulting growth in GDP would come even close to make up for it. In order to pay for this, Trump has only as far as I know suggested cutting two federal agencies The EPA and the DoE. However, the EPA's annual budget is only about 8 billion and about 108 billion on the DoE. Cutting those two departments from the budget totally would only make up for 10 of the revenue loss Trump proposes. Additionally, Trump has pledged to spend more on the Military, infrastructure, and a border wall with Mexico estimated to cost billions of dollars, which I don't believe for a second Mexico will pay for. At the end of the day, Trump's federal budget will be a net increase of expenditures with a net decrease of revenue. Since it is the economically conservative position to not have the federal government run on ever increasing deficits, the fact that Hillary Clinton's plan does not increase the deficit by this much makes her the more economically conservative candidate by default. EDIT Since the discussion is turning into a debate over what I mean by conservative and liberal, here are my definitions copied from one of my responses Conservatism is the support of traditional morals and values in the American context, the support of the Protestant Christian moral and value system , limited federal government power, lower taxes, less government spending, fewer government programs, the preference for private enterprise over public works, and the promotion of the traditional 18th 20th century American family structure one man, one woman, and children . Liberalism is the support for acceptance of a variety of moral and value systems, increased federal government oversight, a progressive tax tier with very high taxes for higher income brackets, comprehensive government public welfare programs, the preference for public works over private enterprise, and the inclusion of new and non traditional family structures. EDIT 2 A number of posters are missing the nuance of my post. Please keep in mind that I am discussing how each candidate's plans stack up to the conservative ideal WHEN IT COMES TO ECONOMIC POLICY AND ONLY ECONOMIC POLICY In order to change my view, you will have to provide evidence that Trump's economic policies will result in a lower deficit than Clinton's. This is not snark, and I do not believe this is an impossible task. I am definitely willing to consider changing my view if someone provides me with evidence counter to what I have presented. I will no longer respond to comments that go outside of the economic policy scope. I thought my inclusion of the word Economically in the title would be sufficient to keep the discussion along those lines, but apparently I was incorrect. EDIT 3 Apparently I am guilty of misreading some of the posts here, and for that I apologize. I concede that Trump is more conservative than Clinton when it comes to economic policy as a whole. When I said economic policy what I meant was the deficit specifically. However, I did not specify this originally, so I have awarded Deltas to those who pointed this out. I will award additional Deltas to anyone who can convince me Trump won't increase the deficit as much as Clinton will.","conclusion":"Hillary Clinton is More Economically Conservative than Donald Trump"}
{"id":"3883e4f1-ec83-4fe3-9849-cd2d1c5774de","argument":"If you look like a woman, regardless of if your trans or not, I\u2019m going to use \u201cshe\u201d in most circumstances. If I need to describe someone to a server or other staff who doesn\u2019t know you I\u2019m using the pronoun that most accurately matches your physical appearance. It\u2019s just more realistic. The real world doesn\u2019t work on \u201cbut I\u2019m trans and you\u2019re misgendering me \u201d We live in a world where \u201che\u201d and \u201cshe\u201d have perceived physical appearance associated with them, and sure there may be some overlap, but on average it\u2019s mostly clear. I\u2019d like to clarify that if I\u2019m talking to a trans person I\u2019m going to use their name and avoid pronouns out of respect and I have no issue with calling people by their preferred name or even recognising their gender, I have no issue with trans people, but pronouns serve a purpose in the real world and saying \u201cthat\u2019s transphobic and you\u2019re a bigot.\u201d only makes people hate you and ignore what you have to say because you sound like an arsehole.","conclusion":"Pronouns should be practical"}
{"id":"6bff7bcf-7837-4964-ad11-e41e04b7253b","argument":"Esperanto has been used to translate The Bible, The Koran, The origin of Species, Shakespeare, Dickens and Tolkien. Tolkien was enthusiastic about Esperanto. Not likely if he had found it unsatisfactory.","conclusion":"Esperanto is proof that an efficient, global language can be developed."}
{"id":"2129d640-57b8-45fe-b60b-0fa121a9a74c","argument":"If it was an exhaust port for energy emissions, it would vent plasma, super-heated ionised gas same things turbolasers are. If for Ion drive, it would emit ionised particles. So the same as above. So it would make particle shields pointless, and even counter productive on it.","conclusion":"The exhaust port on the Death Star was only ray shielded because it's an exhaust port, and to prevent matter from leaving would defeat its purpose. There is no indication that shield types interfere with each other."}
{"id":"964ea126-e566-41e6-a504-ef0f3e06ff91","argument":"The USA is built upon fundamental mistrust of government. Most developed countries are not. No other country has had an armed populace that outgunned all government agencies by a factor of 80. No country has had a populace with millions of people with all the knowledge necessary to build high quality modern firearms using common shop tools. That ship has sailed here.","conclusion":"Free access to guns is a cultural characteristic of the US and thus should be preserved."}
{"id":"ed9a7979-baf0-4869-9e3d-e0ad551aa1b3","argument":"I believe that, contrary to popular belief, that the Internet isn't taking over our lives. I still think we can be independent without it.  and tell me why it is.","conclusion":"The Internet isn't taking over our lives."}
{"id":"bce72921-2fb3-494b-97a9-89e4727715be","argument":"From his personality to the way he handled Southern Succession there is nothing to dislike about him. He had intelligent, moderate religious views, he was compassionate and held the moral high ground He criticized the American annexation of Mexico and he literally died for the preservation of the United States. I think if he lived we would have avoided the problems of Reconstruction. To top it all off, he literally is the highest rated president among scholars on history. So change my view.","conclusion":"Abraham Lincoln was the best President in all of American History."}
{"id":"6c5a3018-fbb9-4598-b89c-63b79e2e0cac","argument":"This creates an incentive for criminals to run for president, in order for the chance to then self-pardon, which demeans the office","conclusion":"As a Constitutional Republic, the US government should allow no person or entity to be \"above the law.\""}
{"id":"1a3caefd-ce37-4301-8e55-6572c7504280","argument":"Whenever a decision is made, a conclusion drawn, an idea perused or any other circumstance that might result in logic clashing with emotions I believe people should accept the logical side over the emotional side 100 of the time. Now when I say a logical point in contrast to emotion I mean a point of view or course of action or what have you that, based on all the information you have available and can have logic applied to it, is different than what your feelings gut instinct intuition conventional wisdom etc leads you to. I know that you can't get off the ground without emotion, and that logic depends on values and life is meaningless if logic is all we use and so on. I don't think we should disregard emotion entirely, plently of situations don't need to employ logic do I like ice cream or cake better? and others may coincide with logic when deciding whether to get married, maybe all the logical aspects agree with your emotions . However, in situations where we have an objective, take all the information we have available to us and apply logic, yet the way we feel about it leads us to a different conclusion, we should go with the logical side. Sometimes, if there is a logical and emotional course of action and you didn't know how it would turn out the logical course turns out to have been worse in retrospect. But if you follow the logical course 100 of the time you'll maximize the amount of 'optimal choices'. Let's I want to go to college and pursue a career, and my goals are to maximize my happiness and balance that with financial stability income. I can choose career X and career Y to pursue. Obviously if I'm purely logical from start to finish I won't get off the ground, so I follow whatever emotional drives I have until logic can be applied for some result. Career X appeals to my emotions because it excites me and has romantic appeal and has a small possibility of incredible success but is likely to result in having poor financial stability, the excitement will usually wears off among people in that field. Career Y doesn't appeal emotionally at the time of making the choice because it seems boring but usually people in that field have good job satisfaction, it has steady and moderate advancement but will never be lucrative. Given my goal of maximizing happiness and balancing it with maximizing income financial stability then it seems clear that job Y is a better choice. If the choice is made a zillion times, in the end I'll be happier and more stable with Y more often than not. If job Y happened to appeal to me emotionally, then there is no conflict and you can go with your gut. If my goal is not happiness stability but excitement and having a chance to become crazy rich, then X is the logical choice and again there is no conflict. I'm not saying emotion is bad. I'm saying emotion should lose to logic if it ever conflicts with it, because it's less reliable.","conclusion":"When logic and emotion clash, logic should always win."}
{"id":"7a8814ab-5660-4b2b-8818-b8ce4371fc1b","argument":"I do not know what I may appear to the world but to myself, I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself now and then in finding a smoother pebble or prettier shell than ordinary, while the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me. ~Isaac Newton As soon as I am done working, I'd like to buy a sailboat, and sail around the world and go anywhere I want until I get tired of it. Using a plane to travel is kinda lame to me. I think the costs of plane tickets to everywhere I want to go would outweigh the operational costs of a boat. I'm expecting to retire from work in about 30 years, my health has always been great. My finances are good and I'm mechanically inclined. Why shouldn't I buy a sailboat? gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I want to buy a sailboat."}
{"id":"b9d58b1c-303d-447f-8920-c55d946fe546","argument":"Firstly I think I should point out that I don't wish for anyone to get significantly injured where they would have to go to hospital. I just happen to think that everyone needs to get a good ass kicking at some point in their life. I think it builds character. I know this can also create negative aspects such as revenge, depression, paranoia and manipulative behaviour. But it also gives an individual a sort of humbling in a realistic way. The world can be rough and things don't always have to go the way you wan't them to you don't always come out on top. I think my main point is that everyone needs a form of humbling in their lives and getting an ass whooping is the easiest way. Whatever negative things that arise can be fixed and everyone involved can become a better person. There is nothing more annoying than some douche bag who has an over inflated ego. Change my view.","conclusion":"I believe that everyone should get beaten up at some point in their life."}
{"id":"89c5f3e0-47b9-4216-8a61-ad59e8b955f4","argument":"I don't know why everyone's harping about how teachers don't make enough money. Look, teachers have holidays even frivolous ones like President day and summers off. Teachers get paid about 45K 110K to work 8 9 months per year. To me, that's plenty of money to live off. Let's not mention that those are our tax dollars. We pay paramedics and policemen WAY less, for chrissake. Why aren't we complaining about THEM not making enough money? I'm not interested in hearing about how professional athletes make SO MUCH more money. It's like comparing apples and oranges.","conclusion":"I think teachers make more than enough money."}
{"id":"5a9deebd-d82f-47a3-9407-a69010c7a00a","argument":"I know that I'm late to the party with this one, but I'd still like to see if there's something important that I'm missing. There's been a great deal of outrage surrounding Arizona's SB1062, which is understandable given how the media reported it. It was instantly dubbed the turn away the gay bill, and numerous news outlets argued that the bill would have allowed public businesses to refuse GSM customers though the media generally just said gay on the basis of religious beliefs. As far as I can tell that's completely false. Nothing in the bill gives religious people an automatic exemption from laws of the land which, in Arizona, generally don't prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation anyway, but that's a different issue . Instead it expands the number of contexts where someone can invoke a religious freedom defense which triggers strict scrutiny \u2013not an automatic exemption from the law. Since it's well established that the government does have a compelling interest in ensuring non discrimination in public accommodations against certain protected classes, how would this change anything in one of the handful of AZ towns where sexual orientation is legally protected from discrimination? I can see how this bill might get hectic by clogging up the courts by requiring the state to justify each instance of infringement , and I understand why some people don't think it's legitimate for a public business to invoke religious freedom rights, but it seems like anti discrimination statutes pass strict scrutiny so this law wouldn't actually override them.","conclusion":"Arizona's Recently-Vetoed Bill Was Nowhere Near As Bad As It Was Made Out To Be:"}
{"id":"afa774b6-38c5-4b88-a00a-82d3a5ff142c","argument":"I live 15 min outside downtown Fort Lauderdale. I have 1 choice of an ISP offering 25mbps . My mom a little north, same. My dad in rural KY, same. Family in Indiana. Same. South of Pittsburgh, same. Arstechnica said 80 of americans only have 0 or 1 choice of 25mpbs. In nearly all cases gov't regulation has given a monopoly to a company so no one else can provide service. I personally do not believe in net neutrality but I feel like I have to support it. With life alert, my security system, medical monitoring, home automation, etc being more online I want to be able prioritize those things or choose a provider that will. I do not want my elderly dad's or my life alert or medical systems to have the same treatment as your porn torrents and netflix. But I feel forced to support net neutrality because I do not have a choice in providers. If my provider is not willing to prioritize what I want, making them treat it all equal is less of the two evils. Because the gov't actively creates monopolies I'm from libertarian school of thought that no monopoly can exist without gov't I need more gov't regulation to in theory protect what little choice I have. I believe the internet should be deregulated on both sides. Allow consumers to choose providers that will prioritize what they want. But because I have no choice in of a provider, mostly do to gov't regulation, I feel it forces more gov't regulation which makes me die a little more on the inside. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The only solid argument for net neutrality is gov't regulation to protect from gov't regulation."}
{"id":"d98091b9-3b85-47b0-9e7a-90928b19f10f","argument":"Hi everyone. I'm new to the sub so I hope I'm doing this right. My problem with polling is the sample size. For example, if you were to poll 315,000,000 Americans about a topic, you will get fantastic replies that correlate to what America actually thinks. However, this is very expensive and impractical many most? people won't want to reply. So, small sample sizes are used. For example, many political polls are only 1000 people. I think this is the wrong way to do it because the sample size is too small. Using 1000 people and assuming they're evenly divided means that 20 people per state are asked worse if they skew this by electoral votes 10 men and 10 women per state 5 men and 5 women living in urban and rural areas are asked This is the variety of people asked. Clearly you'll have people reply differently in various states, men vs. women, urban vs. rural and I'm not even taking account of the various income levels, party affiliation, races, age groups, etc which only make it worse. So why do we continue to use such small sample sizes and why do people claim that this is representative? To me, it seems like a sample size of a million people would be better and even that's a fraction of one percent of the population. Yes this will cost more but the results will be better and due to the cost, perhaps we'll have fewer polls all over the place so they can at least be more meaningful. How can we say 1000 people represent America? Considering the polling is all over the place, I think something is wrong and we should increase the sample sizes. Thank you.","conclusion":"Polling is unreliable due to low sample size"}
{"id":"a210c837-e77e-46ee-a4ca-cc1bd1d0a85c","argument":"There is a longstanding belief held by the Catholic Church that during the ritual of the Eucharist, the offered bread and wine literally and physically morphs into the body and blood of Jesus Christ. To get around the obvious fact that the wine and bread don't really undergo a change, Catholic theologians claims that the Eucharistic offerings' essence changes into both the body and blood of Jesus Christ. The bread and wine have, by the power of their ceremonies, become homoousious with the body and blood of the Lord. As anyone who has been to a Catholic mass knows, the wine and bread taste and looks the same as it was before the ritual. The Church openly admits that no visible differences exist, even when put under the electron microscope, yet at the same time contends that it has been altered in a magical, mysterious way by God. This is nonsense, and I suspect many in the Catholic Church know it to be nonsense and just go along with it. If no observable characteristics change during the ritual, then for all intensive purposes, it is still wine. Wine and bread are defined by their chemical composition, not some Aristotelian pure essence concept of materials that may have existed before the advent of chemistry but doesn't anymore. The wine is not replaced by any blood cells, so it's still wine. End of story. The real reason the Catholic Church purported the existence of an invisible property of food is because they needed a quick way to justify their beliefs during the Middle Ages and decided to make Eucharistic phenomena unfalsifiable. There is no way to prove the existence of or observe transubstantiation given the wording of its definition. This makes debating over the Eucharist's existence as a process pointless, and effectively means that whether or not it happens, for us the party that cannot observe its effects , it does not exist.","conclusion":"The Catholic Church's belief in transubstantiation is unfalsifiable, and no observable differences in the composition of pre and post-Eucharist wine exist."}
{"id":"24114ccf-f134-463e-a932-14a7ee99df3f","argument":"This came to mind when I realized that all English teachers I've had specifically asked for a composition notebook. From what I can tell, there are no benefits to using composition book instead of a spiral notebook. The main benefit of using a spiral notebook is its convenience, which the composition book lacks. Spiral notebooks have binder holes, allowing them to be easily carried while composition books need to be carried in a hand or a bag to avoid being dropped. Along with that, spiral notebooks can be opened up to a page and left there for future reference, while a page can't be held in a composition notebook without folding the page or using a bookmark. Spiral notebooks can also be useful when you need a sheet of paper but don't have any loose leaf paper. However, it is impossible to easily do this with a composition book. Overall, I see no reason for teachers to require these instead of the much more convenient spiral notebooks.","conclusion":"Composition books are far worse than spiral notebooks and should not be required in schools"}
{"id":"f0387c76-0e7b-4dc8-a5f6-ce34313a2542","argument":"As a general matter, for data of low economic value, it strikes me that it's most advantageous to use cloud providers located in a country to which one has very little connection. As a baseline for this discussion, let's take it as a given that I am an American that personally does not like the idea of the US government having more information on me than is necessary. I don't particularly have anything to hide, but that doesn't mean I don't want privacy or to limit the growth of unchecked governmental power. These values aren't something I'm interested in debating as part of this post, just take them as givens. Anyway, it seems quite probable to me at this point that for any cloud provider, the government of the country where the provider is located will have access to all of the unencrypted data stored there. Beyond the security of the data itself, there are also privacy concerns for the metadata. For example, the metadata embedded in pictures might reveal travel patterns, and who a person associates with. This is information that a government might like to have on its own populace. However, presumably a foreign government, even if it has access to all of your data, could not care less about where you go or who you know if you're just a random person thousands of miles outside a country's borders. Moreover, even if it does take an interest in you, you're thousands of miles from its jurisdiction, greatly reducing any power it may have over you. In the concrete situation of my own plans, I'm thinking about backing up my ~200 GB of personal pictures and videos to one of the Chinese cloud providers, most likely Baidu. Based on the reasoning outlined above, my current view is that even if the Chinese cloud providers were at service parity with the US cloud providers, I would prefer the Chinese cloud providers. However, this is actually not the case, the Chinese cloud providers are actually much better, providing free storage measured in terabytes instead of gigabytes. Finally, among foreign cloud providers, bonus points go to the Chinese ones, since they are being offered by huge, well recognized and well funded companies Alibaba's recent IPO was the largest ever anywhere , so the services should be fast and reliable. Better yet, because the Chinese government is actually somewhat antagonistic towards the US government, it seems even more unlikely that any information will find its way back to any governments that actually have jurisdiction over me. On the downside, the text of these services tends to be in Chinese, but people have reported it's not that hard figuring out the icons and people have posted translations online. Show me why I'm wrong","conclusion":"For storing personal data in the cloud that is of low economic value to anyone other than myself, as an American, I'd rather use Chinese cloud providers rather than popular American providers such as Google, Microsoft, Apple, or Dropbox."}
{"id":"fe20d05a-6397-4424-a533-77b0486a2f85","argument":"During the dark middle ages after the fall of the Roman Empire in the west, knowledge was lost, religion ruled daily life resulting in the crusades and the inquisition and a lot of other terrible events, and leading to warfare and conflict being part of the ingrained culture. Not to mention terrible health which lead to crisis like the plague. I think the middle east is currently in the middle of their own dark ages. The culture is the same. Women have few rights, religion rules day to day life, and is used as justification for terrible actions akin to the inquisitions , and knowledge and culture is being lost and destroyed at alarming rates. Eventually, the people of the middle east will tire of such a terrible, hateful culture, and pull themselves out of it and back into the light. It might take awhile, but hopefully it doesn't take the 800 years that it takes the west. There are so many similarities it is impossible not to see if you think about it.","conclusion":"I think the current age in the middle east will eventually looked back on as their dark ages, similar to the christian\/western dark ages at the turn of the first millenia"}
{"id":"e220f2e1-5297-455c-a7da-67f4dc47eb33","argument":"Patents have complete control in a homeschooling situation. Depending on the parent's personalities homeschooling has the potential to be isolated to the parents teachings.","conclusion":"Parents are very rarely the sole influencer of homeschooled children."}
{"id":"45e9bfb7-9f6b-49a1-ad4c-010a14d4430e","argument":"So this is something that has been bothering me recently. Many times when I pay at a store with a 100 bill or something, the cashier will ask if I don't have smaller bills. Now I get that it would be more convenient for them if I gave them a 20 for a 13 purchase, because 1 It's less of a hassle to return 7 than 87. 2 If a big bill is fake, it's worse for the store. 3 The store might run out of change. However A I never resort to my 100 bills if I don't have to. The cashier should assume I don't have a smaller amount. This is one option to change my view Say, every 5 times the question is asked, a customer goes Oh, I sure do have a smaller bill, let me pay with this 20 that I did not notice in my wallet I might be convinced it's worth to ask the question . B The cashier will take my money anyway. It's not like they ever refused my 100 bill. So the question don't you have anything smaller? is an unnecessary waste of everyone's time. Change my view. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Asking for smaller bills is poor customer service"}
{"id":"d0e11516-5d8a-44f8-9fdb-0de6441f2017","argument":"Feminists work to highlight the problems of FGM, seeking to end the practice. Feminist.com: Spotlight of FGM Feminist.org: Violence against women: FGM","conclusion":"Female genital mutilation FGM is a massive problem world wide, which feminists work to end."}
{"id":"aad81cbb-24d9-4bb6-b7b5-6f506fc61079","argument":"Whole Foods has a staff turnover of only 9% and less than 3% at 'Team Leader' level The Co-CEO attributes this to the pay policy.","conclusion":"Whole Foods caps executive salaries at 19 times the amount of the lowest-paid worker, citing increased solidarity and company unity."}
{"id":"4494cdfb-1226-4e44-b177-58626a10f2dd","argument":"I just don't see the point. Sure, sports can be fun for some people, but I just don't see the appeal. Congratulations, you're running around with a ball of some sort. Sure, it provides exercise, which is always good, but you can also get that by just running. And you don't need people for that. I've always found that sports are even more boring and pointless because all I've found is that people get yelled at for screwing up, but never applauded. I just don't see the appeal of running around and getting a goal or getting tackled or something. It's just trivial.","conclusion":"I think sports are boring and pointless."}
{"id":"accae176-e384-4574-b7c5-3b22ebba8fe4","argument":"Many of the planets of the Federation cannot be counted on to be loyal. They joined out of necessity and see the Federation as better than the alternatives, yet still an occupying force.","conclusion":"The Rebellion is better at creating and maintaining high morale."}
{"id":"977e193f-9ce2-49f7-8921-2d2f0358ed7e","argument":"As far as I can tell, this controversy started when Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas sent out a Christmas greeting to christians and in it he referred to Jesus as a Palestinian. Abbas gt Palestine extends its warmest seasonal greetings. In Bethlehem more than 2000 years ago, Jesus Christ was born, a Palestinian messenger who would become the guiding light for millions around the world. Israel's response was harsh Israeli foreign ministry gt \u201cHe should have read the Gospel before uttering such offensive nonsense, but we will forgive him because he doesn\u2019t know what he\u2019s doing. I my view, Jesus was Palestinian because the word Palestinian doesnt just refer to the modern political identity of muslim and christian arabs. It also refers to the region of the southern levant throughout history, and the people in ancient times whether they were jews, muslims, christians, or pagans can be considered to be from Palestine, ie Palestinians. For example, Wikipedia starts the timeline of Palestine at 2000 years BC and goes through the Ancient Egyptians, Canaanites, Israelites, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Ancient Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, the Arab Rashidun, Umayyad, Abbasid and Fatimid caliphates, Crusaders, Ayyubids, Mamluks, Mongols, Ottomans, the British, and modern Israelis and Palestinians. It isnt limited to just time periods when the land of Palestine was officially called 'Palestine' by the locals.","conclusion":"Jesus was Palestinian."}
{"id":"84f233ba-0034-41cc-86db-35175228853c","argument":"Eli Manning has been considered by some to be an elite quarterback and a contender for the Hall of Fame. These arguments usually revolve around the Giants winning two Super Bowls with Manning at quarterback, with Manning winning Super Bowl MVP twice. But I believe that those arguments are flawed in that they attribute too much of a team's success to an individual player and ignores the fact that the NFL playoffs have a large amount of randomness. To me, Manning's turnover numbers are much too high to for him to be considered a Hall of Fame quarterback. I certainly don't think he is a bad quarterback, but if his name was Eli Smith and he played on the Jaguars for his whole career, no one would ever claim he is a Hall of Fame quarterback. That being said, I am open to someone giving me a well reasoned argument why he is deserving. I used to think that Joe Namath was not a Hall of Fame QB, but reading articles arguing in favor of him helped change my opinion.","conclusion":"I do not believe that Eli Manning is a Hall of Fame QB."}
{"id":"b9006f0d-1bf9-47f9-b428-465d6c50d298","argument":"Two people in the same status at the same time and stimulated the same way may take different actions, based on personal abilities, emotions, perception and knowledge. But even knowing the combination of all these factors cannot logically determine any actual outcome; only personal free personal will do","conclusion":"Apparent randomness is strong evidence for the existence of free will."}
{"id":"9c68a688-7815-4d2c-8817-88e2a5546af8","argument":"As far as I am aware they do not sell anything with overinflated promises eg. they are not trying to convince anyone their stuff works on cancer or any serious health issue , their products seem to have very vague descriptions like infusing your water with positive energy which sounds very unfalsifiable to me. Now because I see no one really being taken advantage of here, just a bunch of people who are willing to pay a certain price for a certain product and someone who is willing to produce it at that price, I don\u2019t see why this is more wrong than any other type or marketing. Goop seems to me like any other company that sells overpriced products, e.g. an overpriced sweater with the promise that it will make you feel more elegant more stylish cooler more accepted by some people is the same as an overpriced sticker with the promise that it will uplift your mood or open your chakras, in either case there\u2019s no way to prove that the product doesn\u2019t deliver, since it\u2019s promises were very subjective to begin with. If we allow the first type of marketing and advertising then I don\u2019t see what\u2019s the uproar about Goop.","conclusion":"Goop the weird pseudoscientific company associated with Gwyneth Palthrow is not less moral than a lot of other companies and I see no reason to try to regulate their market activity or \u2018debunk\u2019 them."}
{"id":"180e6c31-67bb-4781-a6f0-527bf59a1794","argument":"Democratic governance requires an educated citizenry and common interest. Unfortunately, under the current system, the minority that prevails is not the most educated or benevolent but simply the most vocal and best funded, which undermines the democratic tradition.","conclusion":"Democracy is driven by the concept of rule by majority. A system where a candidate is chosen by the minority is not a true democracy."}
{"id":"520ade50-b3ef-41f0-a79f-eb99177ca015","argument":"Someone recently made the argument to me that banning guns in the U.S. would skyrocket the price of guns in the black market and therefore make them economically unfeasible to buy, even in the black market. Naturally I thought of the effectiveness or lack thereof of the War on Drugs and how efficiently illegal drugs are coming across the southern border. What I am looking for is evidence that my above assumption is wrong. I would readily accept this if the evidence is there to support it. Would banning guns in the U.S. cause their black market sale to skyrocket in price and therefore have the effect of eliminating illegal guns via economics? What is to stop drug lords from buying Ak 47's or similar guns in bulk, bringing them in on their well established drug routes, and then selling them in the U.S.? Edit  view changed u mistressofallevil made a very sound point below with this article . In Australia, Prices of semi automatic handguns, so called weapons of choice of underworld characters, from a previous price tag of 2,000 to 4,000 have gone up to over 15,000 in the past two years.","conclusion":"Banning guns in the U.S. will only lead to stronger blackmarket sales of guns while ensuring that gun legal owning citizens lack guns."}
{"id":"c50b1689-c246-4d69-b762-37a565a873b7","argument":"I love music more than anything in the world. Listening to it, making it, just feeling it resonate through me. I want nothing more than to make music as a career. But because of how unlikely it is that I will be successful at it, and my crippling fear of failure and rejection, I honestly think it just isn't worth even trying. Please change my view.","conclusion":"I don't believe my dream of being a musician is worth pursuing."}
{"id":"a4f93dba-a76f-4e49-888d-1d5b3fe4105e","argument":"Either the electoral college produces the same outcome as the popular vote, or it produces a different outcome. In case it produces the same outcome, it cannot be said to be superior to the popular vote. In cases where it produces a different outcome, it must be said to be inferior to the popular vote, because the difference can only be attributed to arbitrary geographical factors, not to the issues relevant to most voters.","conclusion":"The electoral college system results in unfair outcomes for voters."}
{"id":"926d5b7e-e970-4305-9dd8-ff9f46696edb","argument":"UBI will balance out the missing consumption part of increased automation sadly robots do not have to buy anything. Most western nations are heavily dependent on personal consumption for their GDP 70% of US GDP comes from personal consumption. UBI can provide for the missing consumption for the unemployed labor pool, while taxing owners of robots.","conclusion":"A UBI helps individuals to cope with the consequences of the next industrial revolution automation which could obliterate millions of jobs."}
{"id":"e0f8f70e-2a8e-4381-997b-3bf381e650f2","argument":"I've been thinking about any good argument that could be brought up against this view for quite a while now but I haven't been able to come up with anything beyond debate over what is harmful and what isn't. This view extends to virtually all aspects of human life from religious views to drug abuse. I feel like too many of our problems come from the fact that we want to control other people's lives. We shouldn't intrude personally nor should our laws intrude in other people's lives against their will, if someone want's to piss away their lives on heroin, let them, it's their decision what they do with their lives.","conclusion":"People should be allowed to do whatever they want unless they harm another human with their actions."}
{"id":"25211fd8-96ad-4e12-b962-691834a77f31","argument":"From the Roman empire to Nazi Germany, history has shown time and again that democracy is a temporary solution for governance. Because Democracy is basically mob rule, the people mostly uninformed will vote for what appears to help them such as tax reductions and ethnic cleansing. This idea of government being the will of the people leads many to believe they should dependent on the government to solve their problems since supposedly it is a manifestation of their agency. In times of struggle, it is incredibly easy for a charismatic sociopath to promise all the right things to the entitled, destitute, and desperate populace who will do anything to get their country on track. That is the origin of Nazi Germany. A charismatic leader with a final solution to the people's troubles. Edit The reason I mentioned the Roman empire is because the plebeians even under the most brutal emperor believed they had some agency in politics. You may know that the Roman empire wasn't a democratic republic, but the average Roman plebeian didn't.","conclusion":"I think democracy is an dangerously flawed system that ultimately leads to fascism."}
{"id":"84212961-83b3-4568-910b-b0023432c775","argument":"Transgender people face tremendous social pressure to conform to society's gender norms -- but they do not and cannot change their gender identity in response. If gender identity does not change in response to social pressure, it cannot be a social construct.","conclusion":"Research in the context of trans identity and biology suggests a biological basis for a fixed gender identity"}
{"id":"23e631d7-9074-48fe-aa85-a2e679e52c6a","argument":"The limited trade partners since the collapse of the Soviet Union have resulted in the economy suffering.","conclusion":"There are other reasons that have cause North Korea's bad economy"}
{"id":"351bbae4-60af-4078-a2d7-9fb883a03f82","argument":"By holding such a dominant position politically, the BJP under Modi is eroding democratic values such as the importance of a strong opposition.","conclusion":"Modi has been systematically removing democratic checks and balances that impact his hold on power."}
{"id":"09970082-1ce7-4184-b80a-9ed06984a81a","argument":"In Israel for example, new laws in favour of \"gender equality\" has led to legal harassment against men, false harassment accusations by women, violence and a bias in favor of women in legal battles.","conclusion":"Some feminists, such as Mary Koss, have discriminated against male victims of domestic and sexual violence."}
{"id":"c98c828a-7356-4357-a542-ebd2c0fa3d99","argument":"One can eat whatever one wants beef is forbidden in the major branches of Hinduism, meat in general in some branches, pork in Islam and Judaism, whenever one wants Ramadan in Islam, Lent in Christianity, unlike many religions.","conclusion":"There are pragmatic reasons not to believe in God as well."}
{"id":"bbf136e9-cabe-46dc-8786-b7490a90654a","argument":"If someone does not care about well-being, or cares only about their own and not about the well-being of others, there is no way to argue that he is wrong from the point of view of science.","conclusion":"There is no objective reason to assume that realizing your potential is the meaning of life. In fact, there are philosophies, that propose different meanings e.g. Hedonism or insist on life being meaningless"}
{"id":"4c038f99-f142-459c-9b0a-9c5c1d9d5435","argument":"The main problem in today\u2019s world is education. I mean education as good behaviour but also as in academic education school, university . Undeniably a better education system is better for everyone, no one has a doubt about it. Better access to education and better teaching ensure that new generations come prepared and able to understand the world and face it. But it seems we are much more focused on practically every other issue. Most of today\u2019s problems come from and are caused by ignorance, by the pure lack of perspective. Many people don\u2019t care about many things that may affect them, and I think this is just because they don\u2019t truly understand those things, and not because they\u2019re stupid, but because they don\u2019t have the good attitude towards the problem. I\u2019m not saying everybody should focus their lives on getting a PhD, nor am I saying a good career is the most fundamental thing in life. I\u2019m just of the opinion that the correct ethical values and a good education at younger ages would greatly improve the world. The attitude in today\u2019s world towards education is in many stances incorrect. Education should be seen as the stone that has paved our way to the world as we now know it, as it really is. I\u2019ve been thinking about this and good like to have some good discussion about it. Thanks for reading","conclusion":"Education should be considered the most important issue in today\u2019s world."}
{"id":"579a2175-1446-4717-b318-2a474805d9a9","argument":"While journalism is always biased or prone to take sides politically, mixing advertising and coverage in this way is not the original business of the field. It's closer to public relations and corporate publishing.","conclusion":"The independence of the media is undermined by those models."}
{"id":"7ba959d5-32b4-44a4-9827-dbac88491d0f","argument":"The jewellery company Tiffany & co enlisted black model Lupita N'yongo as one of its first ever celebrity 'faces' for a campaign called 'Legendary Style'.","conclusion":"There are trends within the industry fighting back against racism."}
{"id":"f6d44454-154f-4249-ac50-4236ceaf74a3","argument":"The government does not allow people to engage in behaviors that are harmful and provide no benefit. E.g. not wearing a seat belt.","conclusion":"It is unclear whether cosmetic surgery actually provides a benefit."}
{"id":"d535aebf-7b98-4fc8-96b4-2301566c966d","argument":"One leftist critique of Capitalism I have never understood is the idea that the worker does not get to reap the full benefit of his or her labour in a capitalist system ex. a worker who produces 100 hour in value for the owner is only paid a wage of 25 hour . Some go as far as to refer to this phenomenon as theft by capitalists of surplus labour value. The standard counterargument to this is that the worker agreed in a contract to do X work for Y wage. The standard objection to this counterargument is that the agreement is made under exploitative conditions i.e. the worker must agree to sell his labour for a wage in order to avoid starvation in a capitalist system . Regardless of the validity of this objection, it is inconsistent with the left's defense of social contract theory and their view that taxation is not theft. If one can or should be subject to a contract one never agreed to at all, and has no reasonable way to opt out of, it is certainly not immoral to hold someone to the terms of an actual contract they explicitly agreed to, regardless to how much real choice there was in agreeing to it. To put it another way, if it is a valid claim that the government is entitled to a share of a person's labour value because they make it possible to earn a living by providing roads, police protection, etc. why is the capitalist not equally entitled to a cut of the worker's labour value for making it possible for the worker's labour to have value by providing tools and equipment, marketing networks, etc.?","conclusion":"It is impossible to logically reconcile Marx's Labour Theory of Value with \"social contract\" theory. In defending both theories, the left puts itself in a position of inherent contradiction."}
{"id":"06d09d7b-e103-49c4-b4bf-14c80c30ab4f","argument":"The Queen still appoints the countries' Governor-Generals, heads of state representative of the British ruler, who are responsible for carrying out the monarch's prerogative powers in these commonwealth realms.","conclusion":"The British Queens's sovereign role in Commonwealth realms is a remnant of the British colonial Empire that prolongs the imposition of British power on other countries."}
{"id":"12f274c0-2c75-48bd-9836-aedb4481ead9","argument":"Organisations with more cultural diversity at the top management level may perform better in terms of achieving greater financial returns p. 5.","conclusion":"Having a much broader perspective through a culturally diverse workforce may improve an organisation's decision-making process in a number of ways."}
{"id":"f2b539e4-d36a-4f09-9311-654742c6f7c4","argument":"In 1990, resolution 678 was passed by the United Nations Security Council. 678 authorized nations to use any force necessary to force Saddam to comply with any resolution pertaining to Iraq after 660. Shortly following the First Persian Gulf war, resolution 687 was passed, which established three things. First, Iraq was not allowed to have or pursue nuclear weapons. Second, Iraq was not allowed to pursue or have chemical weapons. Third, and finally, Iraq would have to comply with periodic inspections by UN security teams. Moreover, resolution 688 was passed in 1991 as well, which condemned Saddam's treatment of Iraqi Kurds. In the same year, the United States, France and Britain established a no fly zone over Iraq to enforce resolution 688, using resolution 678 as legal justification. This created a precedence, that force was granted by resolution 678, even without direct Security Council authorization. In 2003, Saddam refused to allow U.N. weapons inspectors into his country. In response to his defiance, resolution 1441 was passed, which was a final chance given to Saddam to comply with statues of resolution 687. This chance at redemption was, again, ignored by Saddam. As per resolution 678, the United States, Britain and Poland used force against Saddam as a method to enforce resolution 687. UNSC authorization was not needed, as the no fly zone over Iraq set a precedence in 1991 after the British, Americans and French used force without the formal consent of the UNSC, but was still recognized as enforcing a legal operation in another country. Finally, resolution 1483 was passed by the UNSC in 2004, which viewed the United States and the United Kingdom as the legitimate occupying powers of Iraq. Given the fact that this right has only been given to nations with legal justification for war, it's obvious the the International Court of Justice found no legal flaw with the invasion. Even though Annan famously argued that the invasion was illegal, he is in no way the sole legal authority in the United Nations. The International Court of Justice is. Obviously, the ICJ would uphold international law against the U.S. if they thought it was broken. Make note this is not a moral or strategic justification for the war.","conclusion":"The United States Was Legally Justified in the Invasion of Iraq in 2003"}
{"id":"31a21859-e148-4ba0-a4d8-1c6432eaa252","argument":"An analysis of the history of reactors concluded the following: nuclear power projects are more expensive than in the early 1980s and nuclear construction lead times have increased two-fold in the past 50 years.","conclusion":"Nuclear power is getting more expensive due to increased safety requirements when renewable sources are scaling, improving and seeing costs significantly come done, even offshore wind."}
{"id":"fc80e62c-839b-4b58-92b7-7d5e92c7acb6","argument":"It would be fundamentally damaging to our society if lies about a person's character were to be legally acceptable.","conclusion":"Libel doesn't incite violence but can be extremely harmful to an individual's reputation."}
{"id":"3afa179e-2a48-4adc-8e0e-a86745715cce","argument":"The prevalence of DNA sequences which code for functional proteins is estimated to be 1 in 10^64. This creates a search space too large for mutations to navigate in amount of time earth has existed.","conclusion":"For all known models, it is almost impossible for life through natural processes to have originated and evolved in only four billion years."}
{"id":"0c001d44-0d13-4dc7-90f2-fff048807b93","argument":"Conservatives and some liberals in the US often invoke the phrase equal opportunity, not equal results in regards to discussions about things like income inequality. I don't really like this slogan, and I wish these people would stop using it, for the following reasons The people who use this slogan generally don't want to make the changes that would actually be needed to create equal opportunity in the US. These required changes would be tremendous we'd have to dramatically equalize the education system, we'd probably have to get rid of the inheritance of wealth, and we'd have to massively intervene in poor communities and families to improve how poor children are raised. The type of people who use the phrase equal opportunity, not equal results are usually not much interested in making changes like these in fact, their approach to equal opportunity often seems to be not much more than a pretense that it already exists. So they shouldn't use this maxim if they don't have credibility on the more important half of it. If equal opportunity refers to socioeconomic mobility, and equal results refers to socioeconomic equality, then the phrase is implying that socioeconomic mobility and socioeconomic equality are completely independent of each other. It is implying that a society can have a lot of mobility regardless of what its gini coefficient is. I think this probably isn't true it seems intuitive that increases in economic inequality will be accompanied by class stagnation. There is also research that suggests this. This concept of doesn't work on an inter generational level, because un equal results for one generation will be passed down as unequal opportunities for the next generation. This happens even if those unequal results were justly deserved . The only way to change this would be to decouple every child's opportunities from the economic success failure of those children's parents, which would be very hard to do without basically abolishing the nuclear family. EDIT Just for clarification, I'm not trying to advocate for any policy changes in this post. This post is entirely about analyzing a piece of rhetoric. The views that I'm looking to have changed are that equal opportunity not equal results is not a practicable concept, because opportunities and results are intertwined with each other that politicians and pundits who use this expression are therefore either being disingenuous or haven't thought it through. So if you can make the case that it is possible to create equal opportunity without interfering with deservedly unequal results, then my V will possibly be C'd. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"\"Equal opportunity, not equal results\" is a bad political slogan and generally not a practical concept."}
{"id":"6171282a-01fc-4403-9233-a78b35a02c3b","argument":"For example, California used to have water issues during drought but have found its solutions from talent coming all the way from Israel which is half a world away. It makes sense to promote these people into the country and let them generate specific solutions within the country itself.","conclusion":"This argument is highly dependent on the current technology. With the help of great minds around the world, promoted by immigration into the country, such problems can be solved."}
{"id":"e230d4c8-6f7d-4ba1-af08-39ceef9d085d","argument":"Jesus taught His followers that it was better to enter into the Kingdom with their eyes gouged out or their hands cut off, in order to avoid sin, than to enter hell with a whole body.","conclusion":"Jesus had teachings with similar sentiment, but more clarity and more detail, before Pascal did and would have more authority than Pascal since Pascal was Christian."}
{"id":"8055cd0c-b47d-4474-9ad3-9001feb41e5b","argument":"Firstly I live in the UK and as far as I can tell in the USA there are very few people who want to ban guns altogether. I am not arguing against an assault weapons ban or universal background checks although I'm not arguing for them either , my argument is only that people should be allowed to own handguns and shotguns for self defence. I am arguing for this because according to the CDC almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals, with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million per year. and using the Kleck study 15.7 of defensive gun uses save someone's life, by the best estimate I can make looking at the percentage of homicides committed without a gun slightly over 30 of those were defending against people not armed with guns. This means that worst case scenario 500000 defensive gun uses per year guns are used to defend against non gun attackers 23550 times a year which is more than the 11000 homicides committed with guns every year, even if one of my estimates are wrong and only half that number is true then it still beats the 11000. I also anticipate that someone will bring up the lower homicide rate in the UK, however, the UK has always had a lower homicide rate than the US even before it got strict gun laws. As for violent crime, on top of the number of defensive gun uses 60 of convicted felons admitted that they avoided committing crimes when they knew the victim was armed. 40 of convicted felons admitted that they avoided committing crimes when they thought the victim might be armed. according to Armed and Considered Dangerous A Survey of Felons and Their Firearms, James Wright and Peter Rossi. And I still haven't brought up black market guns, criminals using other weapons to commit a crime or 3D printed guns. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"People should be allowed guns for self-defence"}
{"id":"5f69f53e-0343-4e02-a14b-222419f01304","argument":"Without adopting rescue animals as pets, there would be millions more animals struggling to survive in the streets.","conclusion":"Adopting pets from a rescue shelters improves those animals' lives though."}
{"id":"8173d0ad-f55b-41ed-a581-6da1b3cb3c03","argument":"Kobe has the same mentality Mamba Mentality that MJ had: to constantly try to be the best version, to try to better today than yesterday.","conclusion":"Kobe Bryant is the most similar player to Michael Jordan."}
{"id":"7b7b9dca-0d85-4eeb-b956-6a75da533f52","argument":"When people cannot think independently, then they are more dependent on whomever thinks for them in this case, the government. Thus, the world being vegan would turn countries into nanny states so citizens become more reliant on the government for decisions.","conclusion":"People should not be forced into being vegan, because then it would block their freedom to think independently."}
{"id":"82e6da00-09c0-4924-84cb-92a650a65146","argument":"The Spanish government has refused dialogue with the Catalan government. When avenues of dialogue are shut, the only option remaining is disobedience.","conclusion":"The suspension of an elected government is an attack on democracy in Europe."}
{"id":"bf0d696d-c197-4a69-a817-f253cbd36e26","argument":"In specific cases, an animal could be capable of creating greater value than a human.","conclusion":"There are circumstances in which we must put animal lives ahead of human lives."}
{"id":"a2df274f-128e-416c-945a-e65a494824ad","argument":"The sun will inevitably run out of fuel, expand and eventually die. Humans need to go elsewhere if they don't want to go extinct.","conclusion":"Becoming an interplanetary species is an inevitable requirement for our survival."}
{"id":"f5a98298-3d9c-4d25-8dc7-d1ab97c36794","argument":"Scenario Bob owes 20,000 on his car when it is totaled by Joe's careless driving, who hit him from behind. Joe's insurance company says that the actual value of Bob's car is only 15,000 because of depreciation and that is all they will pay. Bob is then shit out of luck for 5,000 on a car that no longer exists. This is how most car insurance works today and it is a gross miscarriage of justice to me. The car was a total loss and the loan should therefore be totally paid off and eliminated so that Bob can be indemnified and back to where he started. I understand the difference between loan balance and what the car is worth. Furthermore, in the event that Bob had only owed, say 12,000 on his car when it was worth 15,000, he should receive the 15,000, or 3,000 cash after the loan is paid off. This is how it currently works, so I don't see any issue with how insurance works when you are not underwater on the loan. I understand that Bob could have bought gap insurance to cover himself in this situation. This would be a responsible choice if he were to cause the total loss of his own vehicle, but that is not the situation I am discussing. I don't think Bob should have to buy insurance to protect himself from the negligent actions of Joe. Instead, Joe should have to be fully liable for his own actions. The only exception I can think of is when there was a negative equity trade on the loan. For example, if Bob had a total loan balance of 24,000 but 4,000 of that was from the negative equity on his previous vehicle that he traded in then he should receive only 20,000 for the part of the loan related to the vehicle that was totaled. I believe the car insurance market is broken in this respect. In order to change my view, you will have to convince me that it is acceptable to destroy something belonging to another and then be less than fully liable for it.","conclusion":"I believe that a driver causing the total loss of another's vehicle should be liable for the entire loan balance or the entire value, whichever is greater."}
{"id":"948de0c8-5f54-4092-93ec-1e9b7c614284","argument":"To clarify, by the alternative would cost more to society I'm talking about situations like being one vote short of passing a law for free healthcare or college,^1 and a senator from the opposition saying he's willing to vote for it if he's paid 50K. In such a situation, I would be willing to pay the guy because I think free would grant enough benefits to be worth it. Alternatively, just bribing a politician or two is also justifiable to me if it breaks a deadlock in the legislative power. ^1 Please remember this is just an example of what I'm thinking, I'm not interested right now in a discussion about whether those things are good or not. Neither do I care that free college healthcare is paid from my taxes. EDIT, points that arose from discussion that I pre supposed but didn't make explicit I talk about corruption within the government when the legislative or executive branch are very close to achieving something but fall just short of it like, party or coalition A has 49 seats out of 100 in the senate so they bribe 2 politicians from party coalition B to vote for project X , not cases where a group outside of government bribes everybody to control it. Corruption is not OK in the judicial branch.","conclusion":"It is justifiable for politicians to be corrupt when not being so would cost more to society"}
{"id":"a3bd6d57-118a-46dc-97ea-5a7017ed6fc6","argument":"We can't bomb much more than we are right now. The US, France, everyone involved. It gets better for a moment, then slides back. We all know this isn't a normal war. We can't defeat terrorism through war. We never will. It definitely has short lived benefits, but those are quickly erased by new terrorists through recruitment. Our war on terrorism has had a net loss. It's time for a completely new strategy. This  isn't about what that strategy should be because I don't know. Convince me war can fix terrorism.","conclusion":"No amount of bombing, troops, or war in general will defeat ISIS or terrorism. It's time to rethink the problem."}
{"id":"88461a15-2d85-4db4-b259-efd0b3c6418e","argument":"The EU's guidelines leave the responsibility of dealing with regional inequality in countries down to national governments. It is therefore wrong to blame regional inequality on the EU.","conclusion":"Poorer regions where inequality was high and quality of life has declined usually voted for Brexit despite the comparatively small impact of the EU in these regions."}
{"id":"43a412e3-1e9c-4fd4-ba08-25c9c69d70c7","argument":"Someone could say \u201cdeceiving your enemy is better than revealing the truth\u201d. Or \u201cit is more helpful to withhold the truth from that stressed-out person at this time\u201d. But both of those statements acknowledge truth in general- they assert that some truths beating the enemy or minimizing anxiety are very important.","conclusion":"Certainly, saying \u201cfalsehood is better than truth\u201d is a self-refuting claim if not expounded on. By itself, it asserts to say something true while denying truth. It is therefore devoid of meaning. It is like saying \u201cwords do not exist\u201d."}
{"id":"b97c526b-0b66-4b09-b242-3502433cb92c","argument":"All monuments are works of art before they are statements of politics and art is meant to make us think, not make us forget.","conclusion":"Public spaces are decorated as much for art as anything. Teaching history is only a fraction of the impact of a space."}
{"id":"5a286b07-3cd1-4dd3-a380-40331dd5e1f2","argument":"One central source of food access could increase the risk of the food source not being available due to small issues becoming large ones. For instance, if a disease affects a crop, it'll spread to all the other ones to where there are none left to eat because that was the only place in the city where that crop exists.","conclusion":"If everyone had their own vertical garden, then decentralization would occur. However, in cities, the opposite would be the case. Instead of getting food from different farms and sources nationwide, all the food would come from one vertical farm in the center of a city for easy access, which causes dangers of its own."}
{"id":"ebaf62c2-86ed-456b-80c8-be367985e601","argument":"In schools children are taught by a range of different teachers, who have different strengths and personalities. This is more beneficial than being taught by one person for your entire education, as may happen in homeschooling.","conclusion":"Certified teachers are likely to educate children better than parents."}
{"id":"1d55d994-84cc-49fa-b2d6-6ee788bdbbdb","argument":"If there is one overarching government, an authoritarian group would only have to seize control of that government to control Europe as a whole.","conclusion":"Europe is more likely to fall into an authoritarian regime when all of the EU is under the same political power."}
{"id":"9350f2e4-213d-43bf-b259-c3b43fb29a0a","argument":"I was recently viewing the thread about Steven Hawking's statement that humanity will be extinct within 1000 years if we don't leave Earth. Many of the commenters seemed distressed towards this fact and some criticized humanity for not taking more steps to prevent this possible Armageddon. Contrary to their opinions I don't see the big deal, don't get me wrong I do think that things such as global warming is having an effect right now and will only get worse for our loved ones down the road. However why should I give a dawm about a disaster that won't effect me or my loved ones? A thousand years is a long time, by that time I'll be long dead, my children will be long dead and my grandchildren will be long dead. Everyone I have ever known and cared for will be dead. So I ask why should we invest the resources into preventing disaster for future strangers? Without being all 'edgy atheist' I ask is this more of a worry for religious people who believe they will one day meet their thousand year descendants? Or do people believe they have a duty towards their families no matter how far down the family tree? I am curious as to the opinions of others on this so please . Edit Thank you for all of your opinions, while my personal opinion remains unchanged I have seen many new perspectives which has at least been interesting.","conclusion":"Why should we care about preventing disasters that won't happen in our lifetime or the lifetimes of our children\/grandchildren"}
{"id":"0f155da7-9215-4966-9d1e-2e9fe5d3182c","argument":"The Bayh Dole Act of 1980 is an act amending the patent and trademark laws to specify the intellectual property IP rights of contractors whose inventions arose from federal government support. This act applies to small businesses, universities, non profit institutions, and all federal government contractors who receive federal government support. The contractor receives a patent and is free to commercialize the invention, but the federal government retains certain IP rights and has certain \u2018March In Rights\u2019 the federal government can use to grant those patent licenses in specific circumstances March In Rights have never been used. The OPs, Senators Bayh and Dole, argue their amendment is not intended to set prices on resulting products Past decisions on petitions by the NIH in 2004 and 2012 asserted that drug pricing is appropriately left for Congress to address legislatively Congress says NIH already has to power, NIH says that it doesn\u2019t. During President Trump\u2019s 2016 Person of the Year interview he promised to bring down drug prices. In 2016 Rep. Doggett and 11 other members of congress wrote the Director of the National Institute of Health NIH imploring the NIH to utilize its March In Rights against a price gouging prostate cancer drug developed through U.S. Army and NIH grants. For example, the cancer drug Taxol was identified and developed by the federal government, which cost 484 million. The drug was marketed by Bristol Meyers Squibb in 1993, which has made over 9 billion on the product. Medicare has spent 700 million on the drug, and the NIH has only received 35 million in royalties The people need to be provided an appropriate return on investment for their tax dollars. 35 million 9 billion .39 ROI  The Federal Government should utilize its March In Rights more aggressively to curb excessive profiteering, not just in the pharmaceutical industry, but in all areas where federal government funding is used to develop an invention.","conclusion":"The Government should exercise its March-In Rights under the Bayh-Dole Act to stop price-gouging"}
{"id":"c413e6d6-6ad5-4437-9504-1d6d61da2bed","argument":"Ok, so this isn't exactly the typical If I'm not doing anything wrong, why should I care. Even though I don't really do anything illegal weird on the internet, I understand that if the government wanted to, they could definitely find stuff out about me that would sufficient in sabotaging my reputation, if not incriminating me. However, my main point is, even though the government could find stuff to take me down with, why would they? Sure, if they specifically targeted me, they could do a lot of damage, but there's no reason for them to target me over 300 million other Americans. If the government wanted to abuse its power, I have faith that they would target many many people before targeting me. So I personally wouldn't really be affected. Yes, there is the argument that even if my life wouldn't change, it's still something that I should argue for, but that's not what I'm talking about in this post. But even then, I feel like the backlash for privacy is kind of disproportional compared to some of the other political issues at hand. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Limiting my privacy rights won't really affect me personally"}
{"id":"f24dd959-c371-4a38-b9c0-2c7d0562199f","argument":"As of today the biggest news surrounding the Trump campaign is the release of his 1995 records, and a bit of evidence towards the speculation that he hasn't paid any income taxes in the past two decades. Obviously this has a huge negative spin, confirms a lot of the good business that is despicable to a large majority of voters. But I think could get ahead of the story and spin it to something in favor of his, and most traditional republicans, plans. The simplify the tax code, reduce tax rates and eliminate loopholes to keep revenues up has been the bread and butter of the GOP for the last few elections, and Trump's plan isn't much different. Trump could come out strongly on the eliminating loopholes portion, citing the complete ineffectiveness of high tax rates on the wealthy if loopholes exist. I have many accountants, the best accountants, they do my taxes and find loopholes, all the loopholes, and I don't have to pay. I know lots of people and they all tell me the same thing. Just bringing up the fact that the current code, and Hillary's plan allows the rich to avoid taxes, while the middle class can't afford to do the same. Then mention how his plan would totally avoid it, and cut taxes on the middle class, and I think he could pick up some momentum. I don't expect this to happen, I think before my 3 hours here he will say something terrible, or some new scandal will pop up and Trump will continue to run his dumpster fire of a campaign, but I think this plan would help him, instead of drawing out his nonpayment of taxes till the election day or the next new evidence pops up. edit Many comments are talking about the policy, and I am aware the issues of Trump's policy. What I am discussing, and what is sadly more important in politics is the narrative. Right now it is Trump is cheating taxes, he is doing a legal maneuver good business that reflects very poorly on him, I think he could change the perception.","conclusion":"Donald Trump could turn his non-payment of taxes into a powerful statement in his favor."}
{"id":"f00cd99b-8be3-412c-86ac-f2e3b7099bb9","argument":"I define common sense as gt sound judgment derived from experience rather than study The thing is, I dont believe this is either common nor sense. If this was common, then most people wouldn't live significantly differently than they actually do. For example People wouldn't buy stuff they can't afford They wouldn't smoke cigarettes They wouldn't eat junk food They wouldn't drink They wouldn't smoke They wouldn't gamble And common sense isn't real sense. Sense is commonly defines as being sound judgment, but relying on experience alone doesn't usually offer enough information to draw reliable conclusions. So, I don't believe common sense exists. Change My View gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Common sense doesnt exist."}
{"id":"abc1efa5-ddbe-4ab0-a69a-a21e121cb0ca","argument":"Statistically medical marijuana legalization increases the average adolescent marijuana use to 9% and lowers risk perception of marijuana use to 7%.","conclusion":"Medical marijuana legislation increases the number of overall marijuana users. This leads to an increase of those abusing marijuana."}
{"id":"fb09a732-ef48-4c93-b894-9549cd751e45","argument":"First off, the United States has had a history of taking in refugees. Since WW2, we've taken in millions of refugees from Europe. After Fidel Castro's rise to power, we took in thousands of Cuban refugees. Fear of terrorists shouldn't erase our proud humanitarian tradition. The United States should be a safe haven. We should welcome vulnerable populations. Refusing refugees goes against what this country stands for. Second, it is unlikely terrorists will hide among refugees. It can take months to get through the refugee process to get to the U.S. Even so, most of the refugees are women, children, elderly, and victims of torture. Terrorists are more likely to come in visas because it is a much faster process. And even more likely than that it domestic terrorism. ISIS uses the internet in order to radicalize muslims already living in the United States to attack. Even if terrorists do hide among the refugees, it is unlikely they will escape detection. The refugee resettlement process takes an average of 18 24 months, but even longer for Syrians, who undergo additional screenings. The process involves detailed security screenings, background and criminal checks, in person interviews. It passes through the United Nations, the State Department, Homeland Security, and Citizen and Immigration Services. Finally, refusing refugees is exactly what the terrorists want. Their plan is to divide the world between Muslims and non Muslims. By making Syrian refugees the enemy, we are letting them win.","conclusion":"The United States should accept Syrian refugees for humanitarian and moral reasons, and despite opposing views, it can be done at little risk to Americans."}
{"id":"943a57fc-b570-4dcf-961f-6ff18d6a5631","argument":"The Book of Mormon teaches: \"Yea, it is the love of God, which sheddeth itself abroad in the hearts of the children of men; wherefore, it is the most desirable above all things.\" 1 Nephi 11:22","conclusion":"The Bible and Book of Mormon teaches that God loves his children."}
{"id":"a6d35f01-2917-49f8-9fc0-f1d5b182ce2e","argument":"Without moving, if someone wants to apply what to their realistic, living environment to make an impact in their everyday life and for those around them, they can. A school isn't set up like settlements cities, suburbs, etc. are.","conclusion":"There is more permanence in the ability to build the world around them with a VR education vs at a school."}
{"id":"e453dbdc-6ca0-4ac5-a07a-6a656d2e3527","argument":"Parents are likely biased by their own perspectives on sex and sexuality, and may even be lacking in sex education themselves.","conclusion":"Parents may not have the knowledge or authority to deliver CSE to their own children as well as schools do."}
{"id":"97327d4c-e533-45d7-b907-a62fef70d6eb","argument":"ObamaCare is a sham. Congress, as a showing of solidarity , implemented the law personally when it passed in 2010, but ended up disliking it so much they begged Obama for a government issued subsidy which they got 75 . ObamaCare eliminates the competitive nature of the health insurance field, locking in to a specific rate. Average healthcare premiums have doubled since Obamacare was signed,while deductions have quadrupled. The majority of Americans do not support ObamaCare ~52 according to thehill.com yet it may still become law. If you are one of the supporters, I would love to see your side. Edit Thanks for the replies, especially the veryyy long on. Currently on mobile, will respond ASAP","conclusion":"I believe that ObamaCare is a terrible thing for the US as a whole."}
{"id":"968b9378-63e5-4998-bb5b-b0e650522918","argument":"Reasoning A group is doing cultural appropriation when that group takes the culture of another group and uses it in a way that offends a group by taking away the meaning of their symbols of culture. For non oppressed cultural things it utterly doesn't matter. They have simply chosen to imbue meaning into their objects, traditions, culture in certain forms, so someone else need not respect their choice of objects and has the ability to use it in any way they please. For oppressed related cultural symbols, it does exist and matter because the symbols are typically directly related to the involuntary state of oppression. The groups creativity and skills were funneled into those outlets because the oppression prevented their use of other outlets of expression. These things then typically come to represent their overcoming of oppression. Since they didn't get to choose the oppression, they should have control over the usage of those symbols and, in extension, the meaning of those symbols specifically because they are a source of power that can help them overcome their cultural position. To take the meaning away since others perceptions of things affects your own perception of their meaning contributes to the contiuation of the oppression. The job of all people is then to help keep this in check by challenging what should or shouldn't be offensive to the group because temporary authority has been granted to them socially and the authority should be questioned because people can perceive oppression that isn't real as they seek out real oppression . Thanks for any and all replies","conclusion":"Only cultural appropriation of oppression matters and exists."}
{"id":"f3a8e004-cee9-4d1c-87a5-aa546cd0a232","argument":"Surely the odds are in my favor if I don't keep betting. Quit while I'm ahead, so to speak. If I had a bankroll of 1500, and my initial bet is 20, 6 losses in a row is my maximum. On the first play, it is very improbably ~2 chance of 6 losses in a row . If it were to happen, I may as well take my life from frustration and depression because I'm just that unlucky of a person. With that in mind, I believe I am surely going to make a 20 profit on my first play. From what I understand, the strategy doesn't work in the long term because eventually, it will become probable to go on a huge losing streak. Even all the money won previously will be lost and you will be unable to make it back. I plan on just playing the odds until I make a small profit. I think I can just play to 4 5 wins, each time winning 20, for profit of 80 100, then calling it quits. The math and my gut tells me I have a very likely chance of making just a small profit, so I should go for it. Yes, there's a chance that I am very, very unlucky, but I still drive even though there's a chance of getting into a car crash. Am I foolish for thinking of trying this?","conclusion":"I want to try a martingale betting strategy on roulette. I think it's a foolproof way of making a quick, small profit."}
{"id":"234d4135-b0c9-4bf1-817b-053c8cb7a327","argument":"The victims of drug abuse are often children, who can not help themselves. They frequently end up neglected, starving, and accidentally overdosing on available drugs.","conclusion":"The legalisation of drugs may lead to children trying and becoming involved with drugs at a younger age."}
{"id":"40a48a40-3d6c-480e-81bc-17b203500600","argument":"I hold the view that Remembrance Day is a justifiable glorification of those who have perished in conflicts, namely the individuals who have died for us to be where we are now. We have a day that we show our unified respect for those who came before, with parades to honour fallen soldiers, to honour men and women who gave their life, so that we may have this one. We should in actuality show this utmost respect every moment of our lives in my eyes, yet this is admittedly infeasible, and so we have a day on which we go above and beyond. Every single year that this time rolls around, I will hear, or see someone advocating that Remembrance Day is wrong as it\u2019s a glorification of war, or that it promotes violence. In my eyes, this is one of the most illogical, let alone disrespectful views one can hold. I have never seen their point of view, so may someone please try to explain it to me.","conclusion":"Remembrance Day is not a glorification of war."}
{"id":"2ce2cc6b-0ce7-47a1-840d-3eba49362bc2","argument":"Historically, there has always been tension between nations, this remains true today, and we have no reason to suspect that it won't remain true in the future. The difference is, we have nukes now, we have the ability to spread biological warfare globally, we have the power to destroy ourselves, it's not even too difficult to attain, and it's only going to get easier. There are no plausible defenses for these weapons, and the weapons can only be improved. I feel it is inevitable that we will use these weapons at some time, and that will be the end. It may be a chain reaction from nations after an attack, it may be 1 powerful man or organization that decides to do it for various plausible reasons There are many delusional religious insane sadistic depressed people out there, they do not take up the majority of humanity, but what I am stressing more than anything, is that it only takes 1. I really feel like it's a race between the inevitability of humanity destroying itself on earth, or advanced space exploration leading to settlements made on distant planets and humanity being separated to a point that those planets that do destroy themselves will be fewer than the new planets that are inhabited on. Please change my mind, I take no pleasure in this end of the world thought, but thinking what I consider to be rationally, I don't see how we could successfully restrain ourselves from ever doing something with this immense power.","conclusion":"I believe humanity will end itself before the year 3000."}
{"id":"5c4d87e1-5372-4e5b-8f4e-f42647969e8e","argument":"One example for how existing structures can be re-interpreted is the Documentation Center Nazi Party Rally Grounds in Nuremberg. It preserved existing architecture from the Nazi era but speared through it with glass and steel elements, thus \"transforming a symbol of a dreaded past into a structure of a critical memory\", as the jury of the Int. Architecture Exhibition put it.","conclusion":"Modifying existing memorials and monuments would symbolically express that history is not erased from public spaces but rather that the attitudes of the past have been overcome and replaced by something new."}
{"id":"08841ede-40b1-45af-9cc0-063179d895b8","argument":"Directly as well as indirectly, religion has been subverted for radicalization, making it the primary cause of terrorism.","conclusion":"People have been led to do terrible things in the name of religion."}
{"id":"c1b1254f-8f24-4ff9-ad53-eec655a80c49","argument":"Adapting to climate change will be faster than averting it. We cannot afford to risk trying to go through political barriers and spending millions or even billions of dollars just trying to advert climate change.","conclusion":"We should adapt to climate change rather than avert it"}
{"id":"9c1cf44d-4e6d-44c0-92d5-6ba3820df4be","argument":"From 2012-2017, only 68% of England's computing teacher recruitment targets were met Royal Society, p. 59 and, as a result, more than 50% of schools don't offer Computer Science at GCSE.","conclusion":"It is difficult to recruit the required number of coding teachers."}
{"id":"1a2c2efc-1171-48c8-84d4-ca84f569b72d","argument":"To explain myself, I've seen multiple really nice videos about Avatar TLA, discussing about entertaining points like Aang vs Korra , In what element was Aang a master at the end of the show ? , etc And in every video, people seem to underestimate how much Aang was a beast in earthbending. My two main examples are these The attack of the earth Kingdom's palace, where he could destroy the army with toph so easily there are multiple scenes where he does OP feats, when he jumps from Appa and makes everyone flies away with an Earth waves, when he is on Appa and destroys a giant boulder thrown by 4 earth benders with one hand and without looking . His fight against the firelord,where he can still defend himself or use earth in a fluid manner even though he is against a person OP by Sozin's Comet. The videos I've seen seem to conclude than Aang wasn't a master Earthbender or wasn't as good as Korra, my view is that he was one of the best earthbenders of his time not as good as Bumi and Toph, but after them I think he his the one who made the most incredible things with Earth . EDIT I do not want to make a debate about what is A master of a bending. By master I mean Someone who has mastered the element , for example when Roky travelled to master the elements, at the moment he left the water tribe it meant that he had mastered the element. I don't say that it's the correct definition of A master of X bending , maybe master is a poorly chosen word. But it's not the point, my point is this if Aang was to do the Go master all the elements of other avatars like Roku did, at this point he could totally leave the Earth kingdom because the job is done, he is skilled enough.","conclusion":"By the end of the \"Avatar: the last airbender\" show, Aang was a master Earthbender."}
{"id":"4bd05e21-07e6-41d4-bccb-a93406b142a9","argument":"China has little interest in Korea reunification as this would create a state at its borders that might align itself with the US rather than China and host American troops right at China's border.","conclusion":"Reunification is highly unlikely anyway as no international great power has an interest in it."}
{"id":"bb0ac776-2f04-4b36-9e0d-a96ad81bc2c1","argument":"Placing statues on federal or state property seems like a conflict of interest. The state using tax money to endorse historical figures and ideas should instead be left to private citizens and organizations. Let people build whatever they feel like on their property and have the government remain as neutral as possible lest they be accused of \"rewriting history\".","conclusion":"Although the statues mark an important part of history, their upkeep is paid for by taxpayers. If African Americans don't want to pay their money for the upkeep of statues that glorify those who would keep them in change, it's better to move the statues to a museum where they can properly be a piece of history."}
{"id":"b5f3f736-9b13-4c1c-9f2f-a16749b2ddd6","argument":"Disobeying religious laws can lead to intense emotional and psychological harm for followers of some religions.","conclusion":"For many, religious teachings are the word of God and cannot be violated by men."}
{"id":"417e333e-77ae-4981-82a5-deff621d5dec","argument":"Since the alternative is abandon the idea of legitimate property altogether, in considering whether property ownership is legitimate we should only consider whether the current owner legitimately acquired it, not how it was acquired several generations ago.","conclusion":"Given the world's history of warfare and slavery, all ownership of property can be causally traced back at some point to some injustice, yet not all ownership is illegitimate."}
{"id":"d3ba158d-b2c4-4f6d-828e-66e71773ac2c","argument":"Public displays of affection signal to the world that you are in a relationship with the other person. If that person isn't your partner, it is a form of infidelity.","conclusion":"Holding hands, or other obvious signs of affection,with anyone but your significant other, constitute infidelity."}
{"id":"28f6df84-30f8-4242-a589-bf2ac2433349","argument":"In the absence of scientific explanations for natural phenomena, sentient beings are very likely to come up with the idea of god to explain why natural phenomena occur. The concept gains credence due to the power that comes with it. One individual can use the concept of gods to exert influence over the other e.g. \"do this or the gods will be angry\". This has been repeated across the world with the creation of many different gods.","conclusion":"It is more likely that people invented the idea of God, than that he actually exists."}
{"id":"eb20ad40-c537-45ac-ace7-46bef29b0f15","argument":"\"A 2015 Pew Research Center poll reported that 40 percent of millennials think the government should be able to suppress speech deemed offensive to minority groups, as compared to only 12 percent of those born between 1928 and 1945.\" The concept of freedom of all speech is viewed as less important to the younger generation.","conclusion":"Many people believe that hate speech ought to be banned."}
{"id":"72f9bedd-1d12-4554-8bd8-22adfa98b964","argument":"If you were a white supremacist looking to spread your views, then I believe reddit is the perfect platform for this goal. Why I think so a The 'general' subreddits with the largest following eg. r todayilearned, r videos, r pics, r funny are easy places to push an agenda. They have huge audiences and mod teams that don't care about what gets submitted there, so long as it follows their very short list of rules. b Site demographics popular opinions. From my time on this site, I feel like the majority opinion across most subreddits is conservative on issues such as race or gender, and liberal elsewhere. So when discussing Ferguson you'll see many comments about 'thugs' ruining the movement, or how it's black people's fault for committing so much crime, 'the media won't cover black hate crime' etc. This one r videos thread has that and much more. c Upvote downvote system. It doesn't take much to control the content on a sub. All it takes is a few upvotes downvotes within a few minutes and you can guarantee your post gets a lot of attention. If Stormfront uses an IRC to coordinate voting, then they could easily get away with manipulating content. I've seen numerous threads on 4chan's pol directing users to vote on threads in r news or r videos before. d The recent uptick in 'SJW' hate. All this talk about 'SJWs' and how they're a scourge primes people to ignore many racial issues if it sounds even remotely like something a 'SJW' would say. In the r videos thread I linked above, there's numerous references to 'SJWs' being BTFO for trying to say that that one dude's trial shouldn't represent the whole blacklivesmatter idea.  if you're a white supremacist, then reddit.com is the best site on the Internet to recruit because of its huge userbase, lax moderation, upvote system, and popular opinion","conclusion":"reddit is fertile ground for white supremacist recruitment"}
{"id":"9c82e037-1fbd-4c0f-a9d0-05698e830efa","argument":"This is slightly anecdotal but the only people who use the word 'slut' very often ugly people. These are the people who have a more difficult time dating and eventually becoming intimate, so jealously drives them to come up with a derogatory term to try to even the score with attractive people. I am a heterosexual male so I do view this as a bit of an outsider. I do respect women and their decisions, who to have sex with being one of them. I do have the assumption it is far easier for girls to have sex than guys. I don't think that sex in inherently immoral, it can be abused, but so can everything else in the universe. Unsafe sex is dangerous. If a girl is dating a guy and cheats on him, that is clearly wrong, it is a violation of trust, but that is not what I am talking about. If a girl has had a lot of boyfriends, or casual hookups this should not be viewed as something horrible. Just because something is easier it does not mean that it is worse. Change my view.","conclusion":"I think the term 'slut' is only derogatory to make ugly people fell better about themselves."}
{"id":"2618e34f-1675-4eac-bbd5-16403734b590","argument":"As it currently stands, the only cases of domestic abuse that have been taken seriously by sports leagues are those that come with proof either in the form of a video, photos, or a confession. Not even bruises or the corroboration of witnesses are enough for victims to be taken at their word.","conclusion":"Punishments for domestic violence are handed out poorly and inequitably by leagues under status quo."}
{"id":"12640a1a-6e3e-4e77-8ce0-95ce3b307c12","argument":"The concept of surrogacy and its demand are not something modern. Traditional surrogacy is present in the Bible in the story of Sarah and Abraham and has been part of ancient cultures for centuries in India, Mesopotamia, Egypt or among Native Americans.","conclusion":"There will always be a demand for surrogacy and the demand will likely grow in the near future. Therefore, as long as there is demand, a market will emerge to meet that demand."}
{"id":"3a7854b0-999b-4e48-b07c-fdabfc79022c","argument":"If anecdotal evidence were legally enough evidence to convict a person of a crime then it would only take a small group of people making a claim that a crime took place to convict the accused, which would make it easy to unjustly convict people. Thus, anecdotal evidence in favor of the existence of God should be ignored.","conclusion":"Anecdotal evidence doesn't provide a quantifiable amount of verifiable information to use as a determination for whether a given claim is true or not true."}
{"id":"60b8f31d-ced8-44d6-8e05-5a5ca3bd25fd","argument":"To become a black belt in Brazilian Jiu Jit Su takes many years of study and hard work. This is not the sport of somebody who just likes to get into fights for the hell of it. Mixed Martial Arts includes many skilled practitioners of Brazilian Jiu Jit Su, and many champions form the world renowned Abu Dhabi grappling competitions. The image of human cockfighting comes from the early 90s image of the sport when it was no holds barred, and was made up mostly of 30 year old white males who were not actually versed in any particular form of martial arts, excepting a few exceptions, most notably Royce Gracie who turned early UFC events into an advert for Gracie Jiu Jit Su. Although mixed martial arts is for all intent and purpose is allowing to grown men to 'kick ten bells out of each other', there is alot of skill involved. As mentioned above, martial art forms such as Jiu Jit Su are a perfect example of how to defend oneself appropriatly.It is a graceful from which takes years to master,aswell as promoting self-control and obedience. The men that fight in the UFC are all athletes who do what they do because they love using their skills and put them to good use in an 'octagon' rather than out on the streets.","conclusion":"This sport is not just about punching somebody in the head. The ground game and submission game is just as important, if not more, and furthermore is extremely difficult to master."}
{"id":"a7247d90-a396-4c89-ad26-2262386827e6","argument":"To clarify, businesses started banning talking about politics at work to reduce drama between employees and help increase revenue by a customer not passing up a business due to an employee's political beliefs. My issue is that your coworkers are some of the best people to talk to about politics. They are your neighbors, likely in the same economic bracket, working in the same industry and other factors that make your political interests align. Other than your family and often including your family these are the people you spend the most time with Not to mention, discussing politics with fellow citizens in person helps calm extremism on all sides. It's hard to think all liberals are lazy and want everything for free when you work beside a liberal and see his work ethic. It's hard to think all conservatives are racist when you have lunch with a conservative and meet his family. Right now with those rules in place it has reduced the amount people are able to even discuss politics, and moved most of these discussions online, where it makes us ripe for abuse by trolls, adds extra power to groups that want to control citizens' discussions, including groups that will pretend to be a certain political party and become a caricature of the political ideology they are pretending to represent. Shareblue and Russian botnets lose a lot of power if citizens are talking more face to face than they are online. These No politics allowed spread further than just the workplace, with many venues making it against proper etiquette to discuss politics, further reducing the amount of face to face political discussions. Bars, where historically many important political revolutions and movements were started have started pushing back against political discussion. There are few places left you can comfortably discuss politics without being shamed or it implied you are being unprofessional doing so. People not having their beliefs checked by real life colleagues and associates has allowed them to believe extreme things about their political opponents and handed more power over our discussion to the government and special interest groups that have the power and technology to control online speech. Your average citizen cannot afford to have a warehouse full of paid people to push a certain ideology, but corporations, antagonistic countries, and political representatives do. Removing these rules might cause an increase in drama, but the costs of removing avenues for voters to talk to each other has led to an increase in extremist ideology, and an increase in extremist politicians being elected by making pushing fake profiles of the opposing parties that citizens cannot prove wrong by talking to their colleagues.","conclusion":"The company rule of \"Not discussing politics at work\" has contributed to the current extreme political climate"}
{"id":"e2f500fe-8f7c-4489-8d6e-70eb0def0665","argument":"It should be free and available for all, rich or poor, young or older. Let all textbooks, journals, etc be available and free for all to access. The government should pay for the cost. The benefits are a good trade off for the demerits which I believe is mostly cost of implementation . I strongly believe the advantages include A highly literate and culturally remarkable society capable of pushing the bounds of human achievement. Imagine such a society where not only is every possible education free, but everyone is mandated to get an education. Even if differences in learning ability exist between individuals of the society, an acceptable minimum standard is created and each person is as intelligent as can be, compared to the alternative. People can generally reason better and make informed decisions. For the STEM minded, the society becomes a science oriented one where the general society advances far quicker because it pursues knowledge and technological advancement not for making money, but for its own sake. I'm puzzled as to why no government or monarchy has dreamed of this. It looks very obvious to me. It seems like the next step in human cultural development. But this is . Am I vain in holding such a view? What do you think?","conclusion":"Proper education should be considered a fundamental right."}
{"id":"2f0e72e9-bb7c-4b6b-a440-3d9b88ed13f1","argument":"This is a touchy opinion I realize. A little background about me, I'm first generation Indian grew up in lower class NYC. If I shave my head people mistake me for Spanish. I don't think I'll ever have a bad police encounter becuase I know how to talk to someone with respect. I really think the black community is rather irrational about their response to police shooting incidents. Most of these shooting are far less frequent than gang related homicide. When they do occur, no cop is deciding to intentionally kill a black person these are decisions made in a split second from an area of the brain where habits reside. Police training drills various scnerios over and over and a police reacts. Even if a cop hates black people he wouldn't want to kill somone and potentially ruin his career, no one thinks like that. There may be incidents where an officer loses his temper and acts out of anger. I believe those are extremely rare. The police department also isn't all white in most areas. The Zimmerman incident was pretty egregious but he wasn't a police officer. The reason officers are on edge is in part due to gang culture that exists in the black community. Black community should re focus on higher priority issues.","conclusion":"More inner city blacks are victims of shootings due to gang violence than by cops. The focus should be on that.. more than isolated police incidents"}
{"id":"38e237d6-c4cb-42d8-9c26-abb8618f3de8","argument":"I believe in young earth creationism and the orchard mentality. Here is an article on the \u2018orchard mentality\u2019. The basics of the \u2018orchard mentality\u2019 are that instead of a common ancestor shared by everyone, there is a common ancestor shared by each family scientific classification . ie, all dogs share ancestry with wolves. nbsp Answers in Genesis is a great website that reflects the majority of my beliefs. I will pull the majority of my sources from here. nbsp Certain things don\u2019t make sense to me about evolution. Scales don\u2019t easily translate into feathers. gt The many differences in the development of feathers and scales makes it clear that scales could not have been remodeled to form a feather. Feathers and hair are much more closely related in development. We know dinos had scales because of Carnotaurus Here is a paleo profile that claims carno had some feathers. It isn\u2019t impossible, but it is a stretch that a scaled dino develop feathers. Before you comment, I do believe raptors had feathers, but I\u2019m unsure about many other genuses. nbsp Evolving flight is long process that has many steps that give no advantage. Here is where the quotes are from. gt Seemingly forgotten in all the claims that birds are essentially dinosaurs or at least that they evolved from dinosaurs is the fact that dinosaurs are reptiles. There are many differences between birds and reptiles, including the fact that with precious few exceptions living reptiles are cold blooded creatures, while birds and mammals are warm blooded. Indeed, even compared to most mammals, birds have exceptionally high body temperatures resulting from a high metabolic rate. IN AN EFFORT TO MAKE THE EVOLUTION OF DINOSAURS INTO BIRDS SEEM MORE PLAUSIBLE, SOME EVOLUTIONISTS HAVE ARGUED THAT DINOSAURS WERE ALSO ENDOTHERMIC. The difference between cold and warm blooded animals isn\u2019t simply in the relative temperature of the blood but rather in their ability to maintain a constant body core temperature. Thus, warm blooded animals such as birds and mammals have internal physiological mechanisms to maintain an essentially constant body temperature they are more properly called \u201cendothermic.\u201d In contrast, reptiles have a varying body temperature influenced by their surrounding environment and are called \u201cectothermic.\u201d An ectothermic animal can adjust its body temperature behaviorally e.g., moving between shade and sun , even achieving higher body temperature than a so called warm blooded animal, but this is done by outside factors. In an effort to make the evolution of dinosaurs into birds seem more plausible, some evolutionists have argued that dinosaurs were also endothermic,1 but there is no clear evidence for this.2 One of the lines of evidence for endothermic dinosaurs is based on the microscopic structure of dinosaur bones. Fossil dinosaur bones have been found containing special microscopic structures called osteons or Haversian systems . Osteons are complex concentric layers of bone surrounding blood vessels in areas where the bone is dense. This arrangement is assumed by some to be unique to endothermic animals and thus evidence that dinosaurs are endothermic, but such is not the case. Larger vertebrates whether reptiles, birds, or mammals may also have this type of bone. Even tuna fish have osteonal bone in their vertebral arches. Another argument for endothermy in dinosaurs is based on the eggs and assumed brood behavior of dinosaurs, but this speculation too has been challenged.3 There is in fact no theropod brooding behavior not known to occur in crocodiles and other cold blooded living reptiles. Alan Feduccia, an expert on birds and their evolution, has concluded that \u201cthere has never been, nor is there now, any evidence that dinosaurs were endothermic.\u201d4 Feduccia says that despite the lack of evidence \u201cmany authors have tried to make specimens conform to the hot blooded theropod dogma.\u201d gt All dinosaurs are divided into two major groups based on the structure of their hips pelvic bones the lizard hipped dinosaurs saurischians and the bird hipped dinosaurs ornithiscians . The main difference between the two hip structures is that the pubic bone of the bird hipped dinosaurs is directed toward the rear as it is in birds rather than entirely to the front as it is in mammals and reptiles . But in most other respects, the bird hipped dinosaurs, including such bizarre creatures as the armor plated ankylosaurs and the horned ceratopsian dinosaurs, are even less bird like than the lizard hipped, bipedal dinosaurs such as the theropods. This point is rarely emphasized in popular accounts of dinosaur bird evolution.","conclusion":"Young-Earth Creationism and the Orchard Mentality."}
{"id":"9b263ce9-d4bc-4bb1-a3e0-815c32584e96","argument":"What use is advertising? At best it is annoying intruding on us as we read a newspaper, watch tv, or just walk through our city. At worst it makes us feel deeply inadequate, needlessly dissatisfied with ourselves and with our lives. Many will argue that advertising allows companies to inform customers about their product, to the benefit of both buyer and seller. The downside is that companies will wilfully mislead consumers into a one sidedly positive view of their product. I believe that consumers could get product information from sources other than advertising. We already have consumer's magazines and websites. I think the state should provide a comprehensive evaluation service that helps you learn about what products are best for you . Of course it would have to be free of interference, along the lines of a university or legal aid practice. Clearly, small market advertising that cannot be replaced by such evaluation reports, such as for a local restaurant, should not be banned. The other argument in advertising's favour I can think of is that newpapers and TV wouldn't survive without the revenue. However, I think a subscription model works better for these media, also without the risk of advertisers shaping editorial policy. I can elaborate further in the comments. Please help me to .","conclusion":"I believe all mass-market advertising should be banned;"}
{"id":"d41db205-8302-4954-b8f7-63226583d133","argument":"I believe that the legal drinking age should be dropped to 18. As an 18 year old myself, you might think that I just want to be able to get drunk legally however, that is not the case. The age of 18 has many benefits legal adult, able to vote, able to enlist in the army and so much more. So why are 18 year olds legally not allowed to drink? Yes they are close to high schoolers in age but they are considered adults in terms of law. If we are given all of these benefits at 18, why are we not trusted with alcohol for three more years? Most 18 year olds are freshmen in college and get excited by having friends or siblings of age to get them alcohol and booze. According to procon.org, 18 is the legal drinking age in 61 of the world. Many people are nervous that if the drinking age were lower, more drunk driving accidents would occur. I disagree with this statement. As stated by Caleb Daniloff on BU Today, \u201c drinking in college wasn\u2019t a big deal\u201d up at McGilll University in Montreal where the legal drinking age is 18. When something is allowed, more people are less likely to want it. If something is not allowed, they want it more. It\u2019s reverse psychology. Making the drinking age 18 might reduce the craziness that comes with drinking in college. I\u2019m not saying it will go away completely but it will most certainly not be as big of a deal. In America, the legal age to vote is 18. The government trusts them to make a big decision about the future of the country yet they do not trust them to drink responsibly. The enlistment age to the army is also 18. Again, the government is trusting 18 year olds to defend the country and deal with PTSD afterwards. If an 18 year old can be trusted to live on their own, vote for president, and fight for the country, they should also be trusted with a drink legally. Look at for more information on drinking ages around the world. And shout out to for helping with my argument.","conclusion":"The legal drinking age should be 18"}
{"id":"aa531404-52c7-445d-8f48-fb9be838db7b","argument":"Those Out of the Loop, you can read the original thread After 5 Years On Roll20, I Just Cancelled and DELETED My Account but to make a long post short u ApostleO created a post in r roll20 critical of the platform. Moderators found his username suspiciously similar to u apostleoftruth's, which was previously banned, and banned him for posting on an alt to get around the ban. u ApostleO appealed the ban, insisted he wasn't u apostleoftruth, and asked moderators to check with Reddit to confirm the two users had different IP addresses. The mods did and Reddit confirmed they were different IP addresses. In the meantime, OP went full neckbeard and took to various D D subs, Twitter, Facebook, etc. to repeatedly denounce roll20 and encourage people to boycott roll20. In light of that, u NolanT, co founder of roll20 and moderator of the sub, said he'd rather not have that kind of person in the community and upheld the ban from the sub. As far as I'm aware he wasn't actually banned from using roll20. u ApostleO and r DnD went nuclear, downvoted all of u NolanT's posts to oblivion, and, for today anyway, r DnD might as well be renamed r LetsPostHowWe'reDeletingOurRoll20Accounts. To be clear, I think u NolanT acted too hasty in banning u ApostleO just because their usernames were so similar. With that said, had u ApostleO acted like an adult and waited for the mods to confirm he wasn't that other banned poster, his ban would have been lifted. When it comes to r DnD as a whole, roll20 is a popular Dungeons and Dragons platform. Deleting your account because some guy was mistakenly banned on the Reddit sub then decidedly banned when he acted so childishly about it is just silly. D D isn't known for attracting players with the most advanced social skills but pretty much everyone losing their shit over this is acting like a spoiled child.  gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Yesterday's \/r\/DnD drama is overblown and posters deleting roll20 accounts because of it are acting childishly."}
{"id":"4132c52a-aa3f-43a0-865c-3ad171992b4c","argument":"Researchers found evidence of life in the driest location on Earth, the Atacama Desert This discovery could have far-reaching implications for alien life such as the search for life on Mars.","conclusion":"Findings of so-called extremophiles have allowed scientists to scale back their list of requirements for potential extraterrestrial habitats."}
{"id":"d175a170-4f75-4b26-8043-05ae7bdb235b","argument":"Moulton is a co-sponsor of the Green New Deal Framework which aims to transition the US to 100% renewable, zero-emission energy sources.","conclusion":"Moulton has a strong policy platform on climate change which in an important issue for many Americans."}
{"id":"58ed688b-5ec6-4b0d-b9ad-c9d4399270a9","argument":"The idea is to extend the concept of being 'judged by one's peers'. For instance a white man accused of a hate crime should be able to request an all white jury, but he wouldn't be able to demand that every juror be a member of the KKK. A man accused of hacking the pentagon should be able to request a jury filled with IT professionals, so as to not be judged by a 55 year old gardener who doesn't know how to send emails, but he wouldn't be able to exclusively select security experts who work on 55 Maple Street. Additional fine tweak adjustments might have to be made in practice, such as not limiting the choice down to less than X of the total population, but given how the technical or cultural background of a random member of the population will greatly affect their bias and ability to prosecute you then the defendant should be given the privilege of having the bias swing to their favor.","conclusion":"Defendants should be able to choose the demographic of their Jury, provided their choice does not restrict members of the Jury to any one organization"}
{"id":"bed161a9-6122-4bdd-bd96-03f7f3778202","argument":"In countries like China and India, we know men vastly outnumber women because of selective abortion, but even in the United States the scope of my  , single men outnumber single women throughout the prime of a person's life. In Jonathan Soma's maps of singles in the United States for the 25 34 age range the age I'm looking in in cities with a population of 500,000 or more, not a single city shows up as pink meaning a surfeit of single women in that age \u2014with all showing a surfeit of single men. For example, in the St. Louis metro area, the map indicates 53 unmatched men for every 1000 singles cities on the West Coast have an even larger surplus of men. What this means is women can afford to be choosy if a woman is at least average looking, she will have options, and the men will come to her if she gets out of the house or signs up for a dating site. For men, especially if you're not blessed with a naturally charismatic personality or the best looks, getting noticed by women takes conscious, sustained work. Going out somewhere? There are almost more men than women milling about. Not the smoothest talker? Some other guy is always willing to butt in and yes, if you haven't gone out to a bar on a Friday night, they'll literally just butt in sometimes with just the right banter. Want to try a street festival or something? The women are being chaperoned around by their boyfriend fianc\u00e9 brother ? whatever. For men, it seems like the formula is something like great personality by which I mean gregarious, charming, outgoing , well connected with lots of friends and acquaintances, at least average looking or more, financially stable, etc. Basically a long list of requirements to get noticed. For women, for better or worse, it's mostly looks\u2014a lot of guys will still date a woman even if she's not very bright or if she's dirt poor. My view is that demographics force men to be this sort of best at everything or as close as they can get to have a satisfactory romantic life and have an advantage over the competition. Women can do less and get dates, sex, relationships, etc. Here are some arguments I anticipate Anything relating to the non heterosexual singles scene. I consider this out of scope for this . The fear of rape or sexual assault women face. These are risks women certainly face to a much higher degree than women, but men do face the risk of fights and assault from other men I have been attacked at a not trashy bar several years back by some guy and a few of his friends for merely talking to his woman . The inundation of approaches by men messages online, approaches at the bar, on the street . This can probably get annoying, and probably some men's approaches are downright creepy, but from my perspective of having not been on a date since May and before that, more than a year , getting approached by a bunch of women, many of whom I have no interest in, is a problem I'd like to have. As a software developer with several years of professional experience, I similarly get inundated with messages from recruiters it can be annoying but it's a good problem to have even if I have to read the tech equivalent of a lame pick up line.","conclusion":"Demographics Favor Women in Dating"}
{"id":"ebe9bcec-7e1b-4b38-b467-58924c5d8d3b","argument":"The discipline of neuroscience aims to explain the causes behind our brain decisions. Our will is one of those decisions, and as long as it has causes, it is not free.","conclusion":"The concept of causation assumed in order to formulate scientific laws excludes free will."}
{"id":"a5dd8143-5913-4ca3-9a6f-b1abf3dc9318","argument":"Some of this will be conjecture, but I will reference sources and provide them as necessary. Also a bit of a warning, going down this rabbit hole can make some people uncomfortable don't read unless you are absolutely certain that concepts such as true love exist. Introduction Most societies in the world believe in ideas of monogamy. It has become my belief that this is an ideal that can never be fully realized due to the primordial instincts of the human species. The cycle shift hypothesis If you are somewhat versed in the world of evolutionary psychology, you can skip this part. What is the cycle shift hypothesis? The ovulatory shift hypothesis is the theory that women experience evolutionarily adaptive changes in subconscious thoughts and behaviors related to mating across the ovulatory cycle. 1 What does this imply? Numerous studies have shown that women\u2019s sexual preferences change throughout the ovulatory cycle, heavily indicating evidence in favor of the good genes hypothesis. Okay so what is the good genes hypothesis? The good genes hypothesis states that a female's ideal mate choice among potential mates is one whose genes will produce male offspring with the best chance of reproductive success This also implies that a potential mate's capacity as a parental caregiver or any other direct benefits the father can offer the mother, such as nuptial gifts or good territory are irrelevant to his value as the potential father of the female's offspring. 2 Okay, so what evidence do we have to support the good genes hypothesis? Women\u2019s sexual preferences during the ovulatory cycle The following studies show that when women are fertile, they feel significant increased attraction towards more masculine faces 6 more symmetrical faces and bodies 7 the scent of men with more symmetrical faces and bodies 7 more physically fit men 7 more domineering behavior 9 more competitive behavior 9 During their most fertile phase, women fantasize about sexual encounters with men who are not their current partner, and experience decreased satisfaction with their current partner Extra pair copulation occurs when an individual mates outside of his her own monogamous pairing. This 3 study shows that women reported greater sexual interest in, and fantasy about, non\u2013primary partners near ovulation than during the luteal phase women did not report significantly greater sexual interest in, and fantasy about, primary partners near ovulation And this 4 study shows that pair bonded women who were near ovulation reported greater extra pair flirtation these effects were exhibited primarily by women who perceived their partners to be low on hypothesized good genes indicators low in sexual attractiveness relative to investment attractiveness During their most fertile phase, women who have partners with imperfect genes or asymmetrical faces felt less close to their partner and were more critical of their partner's faults 5 11 When women are at their least fertile, they are more attracted to 11 warmth faithfulness agreeableness resources and wealth Women who self report less attraction to the physical characteristics mentioned previously have lower self esteem or perceive themselves as less attractive . 8 12 The general idea Evolutionary psychology tells us that women are likely to experience a dichotomy of sexual attraction. If they can\u2019t find a mate who can maintain their sexual desire while they are ovulating, they will feel a desire to seek out a mate with better genes to reproduce with. Women feel unattractive when they are paired with a genetically inferior mate and this drives their self esteem down. This can result in relationship problems that can serve as an excuse or justification of extra pair copulation. Okay but why does this all matter? How does this contradict ideas of love and monogamy? Love in our society is deemed as a true attraction and infatuation with another person. Being with someone who you instinctively don\u2019t want to reproduce with is a sign that their primary function is to serve as a provider of care and resources for a baby that isn\u2019t genetically their own. This contradicts the idea that \u201cthere is someone for everyone\u201d and rather implies that evolution has guided us towards a more efficient but unfortunately less humanistic system. Situations like this one revolve around the idea that women don\u2019t enjoy being with someone who makes them feel unattractive. When someone with good genes offers to have sexual intercourse with them, they feel desired and then blame it on the husband the one who subconsciously makes them feel unattractive through their unattractiveness for not making them feel desired. In reality, there is not much the husband can to do fix this, because her lack of satisfaction comes from a sexual place, not an emotional one. Some final words This is all a part of human evolution and has genetically gotten us to where we are today. I am not hating on women nor do I intend for this to be sexist, I\u2019m really just a scientist who likes to analyze data. I do lurk r incels but I myself am reasonably attractive and am not an incel. I thought their point of view was scattered, but intriguing. I still think they are wrong about most things, but in terms of evolutionary psychology they are mostly correct. . Resources just going to put links to each corresponding reference here, not really a point in using APA format on Reddit 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12","conclusion":"The idea of true and love and \"someone for everyone\" does not exist."}
{"id":"ca1d32d0-de5e-404e-8ff0-967dd79bb965","argument":"In the US and many other countries if you owe money to the government, there are a lot of things they can do to get it that someone you owed money to who wasn't the government couldn't do. For instance The government can seize bank accounts and garnish wages without a court order. The government can intercept tax refunds. The government can prevent you from registering a car until you pay them back. The government can put you in jail for failing to pay child support. I think the government should not be able to do these things any more than a private person can. So, for instance, The government should need a court order in advance to levy a bank account or garnish wages, or intercept tax refunds. The government should not be able to prevent you from registering a car or otherwise engaging in lawful activities for failure to pay a debt. The government should not jail people for failure to pay debts, except to the exacting standards required for criminal contempt of court. That means a full criminal trial where the government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that you were ordered to pay, knew you were ordered, were capable of paying, and willfully defied the order. Essentially, this would make the government be in the same position as any other creditor in court, as opposed to giving themselves special advantages. Edit Having surprise car issues, may not be around to reply to people as expected.","conclusion":"The government should only have the debt collection means available to private parties."}
{"id":"34483112-422d-4713-95f9-3dbee0cf4c32","argument":"The UK negotiated special changes to EU membership EU Reform Deal which were due to come into effect after a \"Remain\" vote.","conclusion":"If the UK re-enters, it would get a worse deal than it currently has."}
{"id":"33e8812c-9b84-42d8-93fd-b93cd3b41f0a","argument":"This is really long, and fairly dense, so I'll award a delta for changing my view on any of the individual points I bring up. DISCLAIMERS First I'm not saying Last Jedi didn't deserve it. Whether or not it did is immaterial. Second For purposes of this conversation, I am dealing solely with the MCU, as that's all the exposure I have and all the exposure most of its audience has . Third Infinity War was very entertaining, lots of fun, and I saw it in theaters at full price twice with no regrets. It's a good movie on many accounts, and leaves us wanting to see the next one, which is the sign of a well built part of a longer series. Fourth Snappy title is snappy, but perhaps a little overstated for simplicity. Hate is probably too strong a word, and the litany of complaints against TLJ is a lot longer than even my list against IW. I still don't want this to be a conversation about TLJ. Now, on to my major gripes that ruin the movie in the grander scheme. THE LAW OF HELMET The biggest issue I have with this movie is the overuse of what I call the Law of Helmet Evil will always triumph because good is dumb. There are too many instances of the same trope in IW Loki giving up the Tesseract because he doesn't want Thor hurt, Scarlet Witch giving up the Mind Stone because she doesn't want to kill Vision arguably twice , Gamora giving up the Soul stone because she doesn't want Nebula hurt or killed. The more debatable instances of Star Lord not killing Gamora despite his promise, and Doctor Strange giving up the Time Stone to avoid Stark being hurt killed are still present, despite their actions being effectively meaningless Star Lord because his gun would never have fired, and Strange because he'd already seen the outcome . You could also count Cap, Falcon, and Black Widow allowing the two children of Thanos to escape We don't want to kill you, but we will , as it allowed those two to be threats later. Again, it's debatable whether this would have mattered, as Thanos had many other followers that could have led the charge against Wakanda, and from a movie standpoint we wanted to be invested in those enemies in order for the later battles to be as meaningful. This trope is acceptable in small doses. Infinity War does it too frequently, and the end result is that by the end you almost hate the heroes as much as the villain s . THANOS' POWER The second issue is Thanos. Thanos' establishment as a Big Bad Baddie through the prior movies is a little clumsy, basically just painting him as a threat. I don't recall exactly what presence he had in Guardians aside from being the 'father' of Nebula and Gamora, having the resources to send people after the Power stone. But beyond that, his personal power isn't made clear until his fight with Hulk. Therefore the reason he would amass an army that could sweep through the universe annihilating half of the population of entire planets is just kinda taken as fact. Which, debatably, would be forgivable on its own. MAW That brings us to the Children of Thanos, particularly Maw ? the telekinetic . Maw's power is basically painted as effortless and unlimited. I'd argue that with how easily he handles multiple enemies in the fight with Strange and Iron Man, and then how easily he handles Spider Man while pursuing Strange suggests he is strong enough to potentially defeat Thanos himself. Why is he Thanos' subject? Was he raised by Thanos like Gamora was? Was he spared from the destruction of his planet's population? Or did he trust Thanos' power enough to trade his service for survival of the coming apocalypse in so doing, effectively negate the 'randomness' that Thanos claimed would keep his devastation 'fair' ? Or is he just that form of evil that's unpopular these days, where he just wants to see the world burn, and believes Thanos is the best route to that? None of this has time to be revealed, and Maw's lack of presence in prior movies means we can't even point back to anything. Again, this would debatably be forgivable on its own. STORMBREAKER This is the main point where my invocation of The Last Jedi comes in. The two movies have a fairly similar overall arc in a way main story and side story that plays into main story. Main quest fleeing The First Order preventing Thanos from obtaining the stones and side quest to seek MacGuffin to aid main quest getting the code breaker to detach the tether Thor seeking the weapon to fight Thanos . While the side quest in IW makes more sense and applies better to the main quest, the length, distance, and depth of the side quest is expansive enough to almost deserve its own movie, if only to justify and expand on all the elements involved. My primary issue here is that the amount of time they spend on this including exploring Thor's motivations and journey through Rocket is necessary to make the side quest feel like it's worth the effort, and to provide some distance and big picture for the rest of the story, but contributes to an overall too long movie more on that below . BATTLES WITH THANOS Finally, we get to the final encounters. These also fall prey to the Law of Helmet. First, the battle on Titan. The key conflict moment here, of course, is when Star Lord effectively gives up the gauntlet just to express his anger about Gamora. I'm not saying that anger isn't justified. But it's one more time when the heroes let personal feelings get in the way of the greater good, and at a juncture when they should all know the stakes are highest. Rather than removing the gauntlet and then subduing him before taunting him You got me monologuing again , he ruins their only real opportunity. This isn't a delta worthy point, but I also wonder where Drax was at this moment, and why he didn't use his blades to simply kill Thanos while he was disabled a stab through the chin, as Gamora did on Knowhere, probably would have been enough . He may have been on the other arm helping to restrain him, and that'd be fine, but it's still a bit weird. Second, as others have pointed out, Strange's use of the teleporation holes can't remember the name of the ring . Others have pointed this out elsewhere, and it's typically answered with Strange looked through millions of future outcomes and they went with the one where he says they won, but that's its own hole. The movie and a few people here and elsewhere on the internet basically uses that to justify their loss by saying well any of the other routes they could have taken wouldn't work because he tried those. That's lazy writing to make the battle go a particular way no matter what the heroes do. Third, the use of the mirror dimension. This is also not delta worthy, as the rules and interactions between the mirror dimension and the Reality stone aren't established, but it seems odd that Strange didn't simply use the mirror dimension to trap Thanos early on, or place the entire team in that dimension so that there could be multiple of everyone. EDIT This has been addressed by a few people, and I think I misunderstood a visual somewhere. Which is lamesauce cuz it was pretty obvious. While the interactions between the Space stone and the mirror dimension aren't really explained or explored beforehand, Thanos at that point has enough power that it doesn't have to be. Striking this point from the view. BATTLE FOR WAKANDA Here, my gripes are few there's a Law of Helmet moment with Wanda leaving Vision to influence the battle you had one job . There's the standard superhero big battle issue where there are moments when despite the huge swarming mass of enemies, heroes still find little moments to exchange quips and have interactions wherein the battle just stops around them this one's so much a trope that it's hard to argue for or against . There's the almost literal deus ex of Thor coming into the battle, but that's justified by the timing of Stormbreaker's creation. Mostly this is a logistical tactical issue. Having the Wakandans rally so far from the gate means they cannot leverage the choke point to minimize the attacker's numbers advantage. This is the kind of basic strategy Captain America at least should have known. I don't remember the Hulkbuster's capabilities, but it also seems that having him at range bombarding the entrance point would have probably been more effective than having him charge in admittedly, this isn't in Banner's character per se, as he's using the suit as a stand in for being the Hulk, but that's a weak counter . THOR Finally, we get to the climactic moment between Thor and Thanos. There's no reason for Thor to just push Stormbreaker into Thanos' chest. He knows the Gauntlet is what gives Thanos his power, and as Thanos himself says, going for the head would have been wiser. No reason Thor couldn't have yanked Stormbreaker out, swung around, and decapitated him. Alternately, blasting lightning through Thanos and blowing him up. Once again, it's a total misuse of his advantage, just like Star Lord. All in all, this movie has too many major issues where the heroes fail for really poor reasons, which all create plot holes that should be easily patched. You can brush off a couple of these with the heroes can't see the big picture like the audience can, and are emotionally involved in a way the audience isn't. But the movie relies too much on that trope. ARMS RACE On a more meta level. Some speculation has said that Batman V Superman was poorly written and poorly executed because the MCU has advanced so quickly into the ensemble pieces that DC should be entering with Justice League. I call it the Arms Race, where both sides are starting to accelerate their stories and their production rates to compete with the other. As a result, Batman V Superman felt a little rushed, the conflicts felt artificially difficult, and the resolution well, there's a dead horse if I ever beat one. But the additional result was that Dawn of Justice was probably longer than it deserved to be so that they could get something out in time. Infinity War, IMO, is the same. It's long enough to deserve two movies, even though I can admittedly see no good place in the current structure where it could be split nor would I want to see half of it and wait for the second half though between Catching Fire, Hobbit, etc the trend of breaking a single movie into two pieces isn't exactly uncommon . It's deep and complex enough that a second movie could have also given some better expansion on some of the issues and provided better backgrounds for the many enemies and types thereof what the hell were those spacedogs and why were there infinite of them? . The last point, however, I'm personally torn on. By rushing IW and having a conclusive element to it, it allows other movies for any of the characters Ant Man being the obvious example, as Ant Man and the Wasp will be coming out soon to deal with the aftermath in their own ways however, Spider Man's next installment will come before the resolution, while he's effectively dead. EDIT This fact has been corrected in the comments So either this will be an out of sequence storyline, or they'll have some deus ex method of resurrecting him and then having a movie with him as the focal character. That's my biggest gripe with IW overall the way it ends could lead to two different outcomes. Either they keep the remaining cast and have further movies with just those few, or they find some undo reset button or magic MacGuffin that brings them all back. It's possible, given the tagline at the end of IW, that Thanos himself may be involved with it. However, either of the latter possibilities means basically undoing everything. To quote Yoda in Empire, \u201cDecide you must, how to serve them best. If you leave now, help them you could but you would destroy all for which they have fought, and suffered.\u201d The ending, and the most heavy moment, of IW will be all but negated in the next movie unless they establish alternate timelines universes, which spins the MCU into the same issue that makes the comics hard to read. Alternately, this has eliminated several characters that I really wanted to see again for me, I really wanted another Dr. Strange movie more than anything . So yeah. While entertaining, Infinity War is so full of holes and so long and rushed that it deserves the dissatisfaction and disappointment many fans experienced with TLJ. Change My View. EDIT TRACKER Edit 1 Update Spider Man info. Edit 2 correct hyphenation on a few names, and add Disclaimer 4 Edit 3 Mirror dimension point soundly destroyed, striking gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Infinity War deserved the hate that Last Jedi got untagged spoilers"}
{"id":"8adc0614-57b3-4dbe-aea3-cf54c53f48db","argument":"So I am gay, I know I am I get all hot and on when I see an attractive guy and I have known this since I was 13 but I have never acted upon my feelings I am 23. I just don't see the point in giving in to it, I don't really feel the need for sexual activity in my own life despite what society expects me to be like. I even tried to reject western society and become a Muslim which was a crazy idea in retrospect since it was probably a load of shite. I don't hate gay people or anything like that, I just dont think its something to be proud of since I didnt choose it and well some my age are fairly promiscuous, I don't plan on being out because its none of anyone's business.","conclusion":"I am a young gay but I don't think I should ever act on it"}
{"id":"0e251683-9ed6-414d-b01e-9ef971c45845","argument":"Single use bags are not being reused in a way that reduces the supply that is being put into the world. Everybody still gets new bags every trip","conclusion":"Plastic bags aren't always reused - there is still a percentage which will only be used once and thrown away."}
{"id":"24bc4432-e8ae-40a6-ade0-226ed97b3247","argument":"Khalid Latif, chaplain at New York University and director of its Islamic Center, said Islamic law is fairly \"flexible\" in how it handles burials, especially in exceptional cases such as Bin Laden's. The question would be not \"how to bury a body, but how Osama bin Laden's body would be buried.\"3","conclusion":"Islamic law flexible to special burials such as Bin Laden's."}
{"id":"9086e904-061a-49d8-891d-25a68bc9f4d2","argument":"So rather than go through the practical arguments on either side of this issue tax revenue, STIs STDs, whether it increases or reduces violence against prostitutes , I want to hear from those who oppose prostitution on moral grounds. How could you also allow pornography to be legal? Assuming of course that you believe porn should be legal. But so far in my life I haven't met someone who thinks it should be made illegal again. For starters, most people use it. Also, free speech expression is important to so many Americans. So if it is OK to pay someone to engage in various sexual activity for cameras, why is it not OK to do the same thing in private? I understand that one is creating a product and the other is a service. Prostitution in private cannot be called a 'work of art' like a porn film or picture could, but it still doesn't answer my question in my eyes. That's a distinction without a meaning. If it is immoral to pay for sex, why can someone do it at all?","conclusion":"I believe that a society which allows legal pornography is bound by ideological consistency to also legalize prostitution."}
{"id":"5eaef240-4f11-42a6-905b-10f032c17dc8","argument":"PLEASE NOTE this is not diminishing sexual assault, cat calling, or any type of illegal rude behavior from some men towards women. The spectrum of illegal rude behavior is wide and I don't intend to base this off of those instances. On twitter and other social media platforms many women often say All men are trash . Inevitably a man responds with, Not all men. Then the woman or others criticize him for that response. After a few years of reading exchanges like this it has become clear that a certain type of woman tends to write that. I cannot describe that type of woman other than I've never seen my teacher friends, doctor, lawyer, engineering, etc friends say something like that. It's often a woman in a less professional field or a woman who posts lots of modeling photos. Here's why that's important If the men around you are assholes, or trash, and you keep dating men like that the problem is you not all men. Yes, there are terrible men out there, but if they were to swim in a different pool of men they'd probably find there are a lot of normal guys who aren't trashy. If you think all men are trash it's because you don't know how to filter out the bad ones and gravitate towards the good ones. The reason I brought up their profession is because it seems like the women this is anecdotal of course but I still think the're some truth there who work in professional jobs seem to attract more professional men and I hear far less about trashy men from those people. Does that mean they're 'better ? No, just that they probably are apt to treat people in a better fashion than trash . It appears the woman writing this are attracted to bad boys . So maybe it's just the modern day Nice guys finish last.","conclusion":"Women who say \"all men are trash\" are only basing that on stories other women say OR they date\/surround themselves with terrible men. It's not a man problem, it's a woman problem."}
{"id":"d6dadd0b-21f2-4e2c-ad36-e95a4dd67b85","argument":"The fourteenth characteristic is the use of Newspeak. As detailed by George Orwell's book 1984 this is described as a \"controlled language of restricted grammar,\" that is meant to limit the freedom of thought, personal identity, self-expression, free will. However free expressions of speech are exactly the kind of speech that Antifa also regularly opposes","conclusion":"Ur-Fascism is contradictory to itself. These contradictions lead to a confusing definition of fascism allowing for anyone to be opposed by Antifa as having fascistic tendencies\/ideologies."}
{"id":"3fdf7cb6-1a12-4efc-af1e-9ea7fd909c2f","argument":"The standard argument for tax breaks for rich is that this will increase the amount they work and since they by definition have high productivity otherwise they wouldn't be paid that much this will increase the size of the economy and be good for everyone. I don't believe this to be true. My main argument is that people have certain expenses that they have to cover, but once these have been covered, they are much more likely to trade income for more free time. The classic question is that if you won in lottery, would you continue working. If the answer is no, this means that the reason you wouldn't work is that you would have so much money that the extra income even at the low tax rate would not make any sense. If you answer yes, this is mainly because you like your work other reasons than your pay. And this is the reason I think motivates most highly paid people, not their net pay. I remember around year 2000 the highest paid worker in Finland was the CEO of Nokia Jorma Ollila. I think his salary was of the order of tens of millions of euros. He once commented that at that point the motivation for his work comes from something else than the pay mainly from challenge to build the best mobile phone company in the world . The same logic doesn't necessarily apply to the low end of the pay scale. If you can get a decent living from the welfare without working, going to work at lousy salary for a job that doesn't interest you may not sound very appealing. So, my argument is that if the most highly paid people get more of their salary to themselves low taxes , they are more likely at some point of their career come to a conclusion that they have enough money for anything they need and there's no need to get more and then they stop working or reduce the amount they work. If the taxes are high, this situation will come later as it takes longer to accumulate such wealth. If they work for other reasons than pay, then tax rate has no effect on how much they work. Also if their motivation to work is just to get as rich as possible, the tax rate doesn't matter as they will work as much as possible regardless of how much they are taxed. So this applies inside one country. Between countries this does not apply. A country with a high tax rate can lose its highest paid workforce if a neighbouring country with similar living conditions offers much lower tax rates. So, high taxes will not reduce the amount the work the rich people do, but can make them leave the country. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"High takes on rich does not lead to them working less but more"}
{"id":"d5783445-d70c-4333-9360-7db5f4e8ee0e","argument":"I really think the only benefit to body wash which costs roughly 5 10 times as much as bar soap is that it makes bubbles, and bubbles are fun. You come out of the shower exactly as clean with high end body wash as with the cheapest grocery store brand bar soap you can find. Even if you have sensitive skin, there are higher end bar soaps that still cost less than body wash and are less wasteful. I'm fascinated that body wash has become the standard now, and troubled by the waste it produces. Body wash users, Change my view","conclusion":"I think body wash is a wasteful, environmentally destructive product that should not exist, and everybody should use bar soap instead. !"}
{"id":"722dcdd4-4f6a-45cc-9c8f-ab5fabdd929c","argument":"This applies mainly to the US, but is to some extent a global phenomena. The fast food industry pays the vast majority of it's employees minimum wage, which in the US is not enough for a family to live comfortably. That results in workers taking multiple jobs, leaving the kids at home unsupervised, and still needing food stamps and medicaid to help make ends meet. This is not only bad for individuals, families and, by extension, our social fabric, it is effectively the government subsidizing fast food profits, which evidence from countries with higher minimum wages shows can be made even when employees are paid more. For more information, see this recent post on The Atlantic I believe that if you have a full time job, even if its just flipping burgers , you should be able to have a reasonable standard of living and not need government support just to make ends meet.  Edit Thanks for the debate everyone Many great points made, some expected, some not. I'm still not convinced, but it has given me a better grasp of the reasons that are out there. I need to go now, but feel free to carry on Edit 2 Thanks u the icebear I can definitely agree that comfortably shouldn't be the right metric for this. It's very wishy washy. However, as far as I am concerned the point about higher wages to the point where government support in the form of food stamps medicaid is no longer needed for these workers still stands. Most replies have focused on demand and supply so far, and haven't really addressed the issue that I see, which is that the only way the wages are possible is because the government is effectively subsidizing the industry. Edit 3 A lot of folks here seem to automatically assume that I would like to raise minimum wages, so I feel compelled to add here that this is not so. I think raising the minimum wage would be an option or at least bringing it back in line with where it was in the 1970s, and allowing it to rise with inflation automatically, for example , but I don't think that it is necessarily the right approach. I've laid out more details in the comments. Edit 4 I'm trying to stay engaged and respond to as many points as possible, but this thread has really picked up, so please forgive me if I don't respond.","conclusion":"I think fast food workers in the US should be paid more so that they can live comfortably on having just one job and don't need government support."}
{"id":"0947ba0e-e0c4-4e67-91c5-238c9f356a8e","argument":"The party demands that all candidates, officers and board members sign an oath declaring that they will not use animal products and services.","conclusion":"The Humane Party is the party with the strongest commitment to protecting and promoting animal rights."}
{"id":"23bff810-597e-4097-88a5-bbd16a88fadf","argument":"The PL has the advantage on relying on a huge catchment area from the commonwealth times, where British sports culture and media were widespread. Thus the PL seems to be more familiar in other parts of the world, simply because of being British.","conclusion":"The PL is preferred by fans outside of Europe, for example in China"}
{"id":"2124f0e9-a951-4487-bef5-87103b287148","argument":"Donors are likely to be impoverished and in difficult situations, while wealthy individuals are the ones that can afford to buy organs in the first place, giving these transactions and inherent imbalance of power.","conclusion":"Such a policy would lead to further social inequality, whereby rich people can save their lives and the poor cannot."}
{"id":"cadd18ac-e13f-4e31-9447-e0784e2ab877","argument":"Public health systems are an investment in the wellbeing of citizens. Since homeopathy lacks scientific evidence to vouchsafe for its effectiveness, it is not a wise investment.","conclusion":"Public health systems should not fund treatments that have been proven not to work or have any predictable effect."}
{"id":"c4304434-3e45-48db-b753-2e2ece93e2bc","argument":"This is my first post, and I know this video is older, but it recently made another go around on facebook, so I figured it's fair game. Many of the views I would be open to changing are more about gender equality, not this specific video, but it illustrates them well. I know she's a comedian, but this video doesn't seem to be done sarcastically. A general use product being re designed for a specific group doesn't mean the original wasn't also intended for use. Also, women, on average, have smaller hands than men. That's nearly irrefutable, you can look up statistics for a plethora of different groups. Bic came out with a product that could be a bit better for women who might need to write in their profession or just write period and she lit them up over it, claiming to represent gender equality. I feel like she's grasping at straws, but her fan following adopted this as a sexist product or whatever, and openly ridicule Bic and their product. Take a look at the Amazon reviews on all the pages. EDIT It's been pointed out to me that the pens are at least very similar, if not identical. I'm not defending the specific design of BIC, which I should have made more clear, rather I'm arguing that the phrase designed to fit a woman's hand which Ellen had a problem with is in no way ridiculous or offensive. Good thing the woman advocating speaking on behalf of gender equality, openly ridiculed a product, and now there's pages full of sexist comments and the like. It's definitely something that will lead to more companies designing for a female audience. s I don't think it's that serious of an issue in terms of other companies, but it definitely didn't help anyone. Don't get me wrong, I don't think this sent us back two decades in gender equality, it was a sketch on a talk comedy show. But as someone who is seen as a figurehead of sorts for a social movement, I think this was an irresponsible move overall. It doesn't solve anything, it just incites unrest for no reason. That's not progress. I almost understand the comment about the colors, but then again, there was a fucking study that showed women preferred pink and purple at a noteworthy rate above men. And I get that that doesn't mean ONLY women want ONLY pink and purple. I'm a guy, and I love pink. My car is black with all pink accents, pink is dope. But again, the colors were low hanging fruit of a joke. The jokes about not being able to read and write seemed like one big stretch of filler. If I missed that this entire sketch was satirical, please let me know. That would be embarrassing, but I would feel better that she wasn't serious. Change my view? Again, this is my first post, so if this doesn't really fit, sorry EDIT EDIT I don't think Ellen is a bad person, or even a bad role model. This is, to me, more of an isolated incident.","conclusion":"This Ellen sketch is the opposite of supporting gender equality, which she claims to actively do."}
{"id":"fe681b5b-cb3d-45e1-94c3-18d28b51faf4","argument":"It can be used to deny someone something that would help them You don't deserve to be treated . It can be used to claim entitlement for something that would be better used elsewhere I deserve a raise . It can be used to self deprecate I feel like I don't deserve a good life . Even in the best possible situations it constitutes one of the flimsiest arguments possible, hinging on zero sum concepts and simultaneously placing a suggested quantitative value on acts performed for their own sake i.e., by saying one deserves something one signifies that others do not .","conclusion":"I believe that the word \"deserve\" represents an awful concept and should never be used."}
{"id":"be0f8225-7883-45bb-97a6-67abeb14ffba","argument":"Tokushi Kasahara estimates that the death toll at Nanking hit nearly 200,000, and that the Massacre took place in Nanking and its surrounding rural areas till late March 1938. He also argues that some Chinese soldiers killed on the battlefield should also be included alongside POWs and civilians as \"massacre victims p. 2.","conclusion":"The difference in estimations of the true death toll at Nanking has less to do with bias and propaganda and more to do with uncertainty between historians over what should be considered the geographic range and time period of the Massacre."}
{"id":"95dee9c7-4018-4ca2-ad76-2d074fcaeb72","argument":"According to research in fact, the more security in a school, the less safe students feel.","conclusion":"Students will feel as though they are unsafe due to all of the security measures."}
{"id":"50dabd6e-105f-4acb-b984-8ffd479f4bc0","argument":"please note, I've already awarded some deltas, if you want to continue within this cmv I am still of the opinion that a candidate under legitimate investigation would be doing the right thing by stepping down for another member of their political party US citizens under federal investigation for any sort of criminal offence, should not be allowed to run for public office, until the investigation has concluded, and any possible charges are dismissed. The last thing we need in this country is to elect a criminal to become a Senator, Governor, President, etc. Nothing good could come from a recently elected official being proven guilty of a crime, and any honorable candidate for public office should step down from campaigning until the controversy has settled. I think this is a pretty reasonable , but I am open to having my view changed if anyone can offer a valid explanation as to why, a candidate being investigated for a federal crime, should possibly continue their bid for public office. So reddit,  edit thanks for the great responses guys, my view has been changed insofar that I do not believe an investigation should prohibit a bid for public office, however I still believe that a respectable candidate, would step down from running, if they were under legitimate investigations, and It wasn't just a ploy by the opposition. I am still open to having this view changed.","conclusion":"US citizens under criminal federal investigations should not be allowed to run for public office."}
{"id":"290eb900-8488-4ca4-957c-f2887747532b","argument":"CSOs involvement in the political life does have positive and relevant consequences, but only if the state is strong and the political power is stable. In the African context, several scholars argue, an excessively active civil society may instead increase political instability and paralyze an already weak state. Blair 1997, for example, affirms that CSOs may advance so many different claims and interests that the result is a political paralysis. A weaker state, rather than a deeper democracy, results. Similarly, Foley and Edwards 1996, analysing the \u2018paradox of civil society\u2019, point out that conflicts may arise among groups in civil society. \u2018These conflicts, in the absence of specifically political settlements, may spill over into civil disruption and violence\u2019 1996: 40. The example of India reported above is extremely relevant in this regard. In addition, several scholars argue that Trade Unions and CSOs in general have represented an obstacle for both economic development and political stability in Latin America. African states must stabilize and consolidate before integrating civil society in their political life","conclusion":"An excessively active civil society would increase political instability and paralyse African states"}
{"id":"8cd60fb3-df68-4ae5-985e-08d73c64e721","argument":"While I do not support the views or actions of the Nazi party, I believe people view Adolf Hitler as the definition of absolute evil while forgetting that he was only one man. My two arguments are that Hitler was more talk than walk, and the culture that existed at that time, which we have purposefully forgotten. At no point has the Nazi soldier argument that they were \u201cjust following orders\u201d viewed as a legitimate defense. While the Nazi platform included horrific views of their fellow man, writing or speaking such hate is not sufficient in itself to consider them evil incarnate, as it is generally accepted that actions speak louder than words . Insult another person and you will probably be considered a jerk, kill another person and you will be considered much worse than a jerk. While Hitler likely came up with idea of eliminating the Jews of Europe, he had a great deal of help in bringing the plan to light. Gatherings such as the Wannsee Conference and guys like Heinrich Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich were able to actually translate his ideas into a plan that could be carried out in the real world. Nobody denies the public speaking abilities of Hitler, but a lot of people have said a lot of messed up shit and are not seen as the devil. As for his personal actions , there is no evidence that Hitler personally killed anyone other than himself. Finally, we have also done a good job of writing eugenics out of the history books. While most probably did not support killing other people to the degree of the Nazis, some Americans did advocate setting up publically owned gas chambers. The US Supreme Court ruled in Buck v. Bell that intellectually disabled people could be sterilized by the government against their will . In 1934, Joseph DeJarnette, superintendent of Virginia's Western State Hospital, wrote of The Holocaust \u201cThe Germans are beating us at our own game.\u201d I will accept that the crimes committed by the Nazis during the Holocaust were some of the worst ever in history, but when I factor in the widely held views of the time period and his own personal actions, I see Adolf Hitler as being less than the evil incarnate that he is widely viewed as. Change my view?","conclusion":"Adolf Hitler was not the personification of evil he is made out to be,"}
{"id":"ade20d41-57e6-418c-807c-4eba5a33c189","argument":"I will not show sympathy for people who get addicted to hard drugs, even cigarettes or alcohol. If you are that desperate to feel good I think you should be spending time bettering yourself and finding something you love. I read through this entire post and throughout the whole thing I felt no sorrow for the hypothetical person who wants to get high. They are simply human is a sentence in the post and that makes me angry. Yes, they are a person, but I will not feel sorry for someone who knowingly makes choices that will negatively affect them. gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than just downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I believe if you are stupid enough to get into hard drugs such as heroin and meth, you don't deserve help and people shouldn't feel sorry for you."}
{"id":"ccfc2227-40c0-41eb-b32b-0ee344fa3760","argument":"It was only legalised in the UK in 1961, before which it was illegal to attempt suicide.","conclusion":"It is a violent attack against life, which can be seen morally or religiously criminal."}
{"id":"14b6a375-ecb4-4daa-96ce-e5803c559088","argument":"As human civilization continues against steep odds ww1 and ww2, the probability that we live in a simulated reality increases. An analogy for this is a pair of dice. The more times somebody rolls a 2, the more sure that that person can be that the dice are loaded.","conclusion":"If it is possible and it would eventually happen at least once, then the probability we live inside one is near 100%."}
{"id":"359266f7-7823-43cf-bd78-91610cf5c0a8","argument":"Saint Augustine broke through the antique perception of life as a cycle and came up with life as a linear concept, which not only changed perception of human life, but how we understand development.","conclusion":"Changes in theology paved the way for the development of revolutionary ideas that are indispensable for Human Rights to evolve."}
{"id":"840ee56b-825c-41be-86e4-1bed3707abe4","argument":"Trump recently went against his own party\u2019s congressional leadership and struck a deal with Democrats to package nearly $8 billion in Hurricane Harvey relief with a three-month extension of government funding and increase in the debt ceiling.","conclusion":"It is possible for Democrats to obtain concessions from Trump on certain matters that are important to them."}
{"id":"b478e27e-c32e-40fb-9ebd-206b99930ce3","argument":"New political and economical systems could arise more easily due to the increased physical separation.","conclusion":"Having a massive population somewhat separated from Earth would be beneficial for many reasons."}
{"id":"898f1922-0c25-465a-8b86-2ee812e178e9","argument":"\"How Leaders Are Made is a short video that features Xi as a hardworking and legitimate politician by comparing him to Western leaders.","conclusion":"Xi has been using promotional videos in order to foster a positive image of the party within China."}
{"id":"dbefefad-3e34-446d-a516-456759034008","argument":"Putin's regime is far from a democracy, and is not defined as such by widely accepted measures The citizens of Russia therefore had no ability to consent to the actions taken by their government in Ukraine.","conclusion":"Russian citizens have not consented to, and do not support, the war in Ukraine."}
{"id":"8fac3b0a-9d70-4ab9-8c40-7cde1ed7239a","argument":"My reasoning behind this is that pink collar work, which includes food, sales, hotel, teaching, and anything to do with the consumer customer means you're on your feet all day long trying to please people. Continually having customers treat you rudely takes a considerable mental toll not found in white collar work. Not to mention white collar work is usually 9 5 while pink collar could be anytime. White collar is at a desk, while a pink collar job is especially hectic on the weekends and night hours.","conclusion":"Pink collar work is more physically and mentally straining than white collar work."}
{"id":"9f1050be-7615-42a3-8239-90a2722de9c2","argument":"I've been going to college for a few years now. The problem is, no majors really interest me nor can I see myself working in any of those fields like business, teaching, or medical. I've taken a year break due to feeling the same way where I didn't do much except read a lot, watch a lot of movies, and teach myself French, Spanish, some Italian and now working on German maybe Russian. I feel like I've learned more about life in those books and movies in one year than I did two years in college by a long shot. I'm back now after letting myself fall into the pressure by family that going is the right thing to do. Since I've returned, I've been getting A's in all of my classes compared to my first two years when I got a mix of A's, B's, a few C's probably because I still had a high school mentality for a bit. I've also realized that I'm not even being challenged. All I do is do assignments out of a book or memorize terms then take a quiz and pass. What's the point? I don't feel stimulated at all or like I'm learning anything. Professors cancel classes whenever they want without notice so I waste gas traveling for nothing. Where's my money going for this missed time? And what about this rumor about everyone who gets a bachelors will make a lot of money? Do these surveys take into account the top 1 that have bachelors degrees in these surveys? Or the engineers? I'm pretty sure that experience will earn you more money than a degree unless you're going into a specialized field like accounting or teaching. Change my view.","conclusion":"I don't think college is right for me nor should I be investing money that I don't have in order to go just to have a \"chance\" to make more money."}
{"id":"8ca7e306-9281-4751-8e94-d71dec12c2dc","argument":"So why didn't he win? Why did he get his ass handed to him by someone who these interests have been doing everything in their power to stop? What about the democratic side? How is Sanders able to give Hillary a run for her money? This paper shows that money is very ineffective at influencing election outcome Total campaign spending in 2012 was 7 billion. That's nothing. If it is so effective, why don't they spend more?","conclusion":"The total failure of the Jeb Bush campaign is proof that big donors and corporations don't really have much influence over our government?"}
{"id":"ed2f4793-03fe-4f85-9e73-c7401d2a4c0e","argument":"As an early 90's child I can safely say I was born on the internet and haven't left. From MMORPG's, Reddit, Facebook, Myspace Pre 2006 , Instagram, Twitter, Youtube, StumbleUpon, I like to think I've seen it all when it comes to users social inputs. So when I think about the evolutions of these Social Media Sites I often come to the conclusion that most updates are an attempt to make certain aspects of these sites more socially entertaining, however, what does this mean for our face to face social skill? If it is easier to communicate by using online tools, won't we all slowly evolve past the necessity of face to face conversation? this is keeping in mind my simple definition of evolution in this context as a change made to make things easier better This leads me to believe that there is a direct correlation between the availability and functionality of Social Media sites and the Sociability of Human kind? Although, I am lacking in quantitative data, and am struggling to source any, I still believe I have personally noticed a negative change in the quality of the way people communicate face to face, i.e. Using Smartphones during conversation, Loss of intention when using words, too many 'blah, blah, buffer words' and acronyms, as well as time wasted discussing online social status' and presence. I hope to use these responses to help widen my point of view and assist in the writing of an assignment for my Psychology Subject at University Swinburne, Australia , Thanks TL DR I believe I have personally witnessed the decline in ettiquette of face to face language, and believe Social Media is responsible.","conclusion":"I believe we have we done irreparable damage to our social behaviour through the use of casual forms, e.g. Facebook,Twitter etc. of Social Media,"}
{"id":"90eaa7b1-7ff8-4aa8-91b8-435ce9da33f0","argument":"We often talk about elections, leaders we dislike, but the truth is that the people just under them matter much more than we think. Most of the time we don't really know those people, and leaders end up being orators, not deciders. Even though we chose leaders and orators, appointees are often much more thoughtful and weighed in their decision and choices, and the reality of leadership happens within the scope of those individuals, not elected leaders. In democracies and republics, leadership is complex, and even though there is a relationship between the leader and the people helping that leader, the reality of the policies and decisions never really reflect the leader in place. Thus, the leader doesn't matter, it's a mask that hides the people under that leader. Most of the time, a leader will not be able to decide for a lot of things, or have enough margin to really make big decisions, or change a lot of things that are in place.","conclusion":"Presidents of democracies and\/or republic don't matter, or matter much less that we believe they do"}
{"id":"81cf5b1f-c605-49d1-996c-0c20041350f8","argument":"It is easier to trade tokens obtained from an ICO, compared to selling an angel share in a startup that is pre-IPO.","conclusion":"An ICO is a better investment option for small investors than other options."}
{"id":"28849726-ee64-4d8c-a6f9-2ddf2794a539","argument":"The laws of logic would exist even if human or animal minds did not exist.","conclusion":"The ontology and existence of logic cannot be justified in a naturalistic universe."}
{"id":"ed87064a-3f3a-4b42-9bd2-23895bbcbed7","argument":"Hello, this is my first post here, and it's an interesting thought I had. The US is as we know a Global superpower, we're the world's largest economy, largest military, and the 2nd largest holder of Nuclear weapons. Despite all this wealth, our country still has lots of problems which most other developed nation's Usually compared with Northerns and Western Europe don't have. Americans on average work far more than people of these other countries, our education system is underfunded and comparatively worse, we don't have any form of universal healthcare, opioid overdose has been plaguing the country, congressman don't care about their constituents but do care about lobbyists and money, obesity rates have skyrocketed, we have a mass shooting every few weeks, and so much more. I do hypothesize that America's racial, religious, and ethnic diversity have to some degree influenced and are correlated with these issues. Sorry I'm on mobile so formatting isn't gonna be as pretty For starters, much of an our past problems have been racially or religiously motivated, and the Government has never really bothered to get their head out of the past and update their systems. One perfect example of this is The War on Drugs which has ultimately led to the arrests of millions of black people for minor drugs offenses. Nixon's advisor said himself that they were afraid of black people, so they heavily criminalized marijuana and other drugs, allowing police to arrest and put them away for many years for what most of us consider minor or unnecessary offenses. In some states, there are people smoking weed in their yards while there's plenty of people in prison for life for having just a couple of grams. This whole movement has put a disproportionate amount of people in prison for very minor drugs offenses just because of old, racist policies. There still remains the stigma that all black people are druggies and marijuana is the devil, despite not even being a problem less than 100 years ago. When you look at the demographics of other developed nation's such as Finland or Denmark, their ethnic breakdowns are pretty homogeneous typically being over 90 of a single ethnicity, this helps bring a sense of togetherness and unity because pretty much everyone is the same as you. America's diversity can be more comparable to Yugoslavia although far less extreme in terms of violence and stuff where the country struggled to get things done Especially after Tito due to the extreme ethnic diversity in the region which could not unify the country to come together and fix it's problems. This has also been shown in America, as certain races experience different levels of income inequality and much of our congressman are Old, Rich, Christian, white dudes when much of our population is not. Overall, America is still a good country despite all the problems it has, it is still certainly a lot better than most other countries. But if we want to compete with other developed nation's, we need to be aware of these old, disproven, and unscientific biases and stigmas that have been in our country for years. A few social programs such as Universal Health Care and making College less expensive isn't going to turn our country to the next USSR, but it will make our citizens far happier and safer. Danish people are completely happy with giving up more income tax for free healthcare, free education, paid maternity leave, more vacation days, and better well being. But in order to achieve that, we need to sort through a lot of our biases, especially between other ethnic and religious backgrounds. Or maybe I'm wrong, Change My View Reddit. Thank you.","conclusion":"The United States' diversity is partially why the country has so many problems"}
{"id":"516cdb40-a4f3-4c19-8605-b669bc8917c3","argument":"Disney may or may not be phasing out Slave Leia merchandise if anyone can confirm this, I'd appreciate it none of the articles I've read could confirm it . Given that the costume is one of the more iconic bits of imagery from the original trilogy, the thought of it being phased out has been met with some backlash. However, I think it's a pretty reasonable decision to make, both from a business and ethical standpoint. For the former, phasing out the costume is unlikely to cost Disney many merchandise sales, since there's a lot of other merchandise out there for consumers to purchase. The people who are likely to care most about a decision to phase out the costume are also more than likely some of the most diehard Star Wars fans, and thus aren't going to boycotting over something like this. Meanwhile, I'm sure there are people who are a little more likely to care about and publicly support the franchise with the abolishment of the costume merchandise. Maybe not enough to really matter, so it might not actually help, but I don't see how it really hurts them either. It's some potential reward with no real risk. Ethically, I think it's the right decision. Objectification isn't really the big issue for me, rather, the widespread acceptance and sexualization of a character who was enslaved albeit briefly . Given that sexual slavery occurs on a massive scale worldwide, sexualizing it and making profit off of its depiction doesn't seem particularly ethical to me. .","conclusion":"Phasing out Slave Leia is a pretty reasonable decision."}
{"id":"8d2bc33b-b502-4a3d-b1d0-f7a8c1fde8d1","argument":"No, human beings are in an entirely different class. We are called not to murder human life, not acorns. It's not the stage of development, it's the precious value of humans. Abortionists focus only on the early stage of development and ignore the specialness and reverence we should have for even a tiny but growing human life. A living, developing human fetus by definition IS a human life.","conclusion":"No one argues that an acorn or even an animal fetus has a \u201csanctity\u201d or rights."}
{"id":"da70fed3-76b4-49ec-950d-107630c1f65a","argument":"Democracy is incomplete when it ends at the workplace Companies have a social purpose to offer fair and meaningful employment, not just precarious or even exploitative jobs Existing examples such as the German model of co determination show that companies can thrive when workers have a say in the running of their firm The digital transformation opens new opportunities to employee participation, flat hierarchies etc. The EU should take the lead in this to avoid competitive disadvantages for individual EU countries.","conclusion":"Companies should be run by employees, and the EU should encourage such new forms of cooperate governance."}
{"id":"efd88ebf-f6f1-4892-a929-e16369e0dde5","argument":"Potentially incurring a fine changes the risk-benefit calculus of parents when they consider whether or not to vaccinate their children. It increases the weight of the risk they undertake when they do not vaccinate their children.","conclusion":"Potentially incurring a fine will make some parents more likely to vaccinate their children."}
{"id":"3069fb73-3ae1-4c63-acbd-1f92dfc50602","argument":"Inspired by this . I'm a linguist and conlanger who's been part of the Lojban community for several years. I've mostly migrated to the offtopic irc channel, but I've looked at Lojban. The more I learn about real linguistics, the more I am convinced that Lojban was designed by people who didn't really understand how natural language worked, and were fooled by misconceptions that seem sensible, but are actually huge mistakes. I'll be using arguments from linguistics for this, rather than arguments from practicality like in the link above. Lojban makes distinctions uncommon in natural languages, like the distinction between x and h , or v and w . Lojban pronunciation requires you to pronounce every vowel slightly long and tense but this is ridiculous when you realize how common consonant clusters are. This restriction is almost non existent in natural langauge. Lojban requires you to have a separate word for each concept, which means that it's impossible to create vocab because you cannot reuse words you have to create a new word for everything. Lojbanists are hypocritical, because they mock the syntactic ambiguity of English, ignoring the fact that context and spoken intonation usually fixes that. Why is that hypocritical? Because Lojban requires loads of context, too, due to its increased amount of semantic ambiguity. Simultaneously rejecting English's ambiguity when used out of context, but accepting Lojban's ambiguity when used out of context that's the very definition of hypocrisy. Lojbanists promote world neutrality , meaning that Lojban is supposed to be not associated with any culture, but this is impossible if you want to create a real language. Language is held up by the pragmatic structure that its speakers' culture has a sentence like Take off your clothes. has different interpretations of politeness depending on culture. Lojban uses the idea that words should be composed from basic semantic units. This idea seems attractively logical, but it does not actually make sense Lojban's closed set of semantic primes cannot coherently form enough vocabulary to describe the world at a fast enough rate, especially since most of the community demands that Lojban compounds should be semantically self evident. There's a subset of the community who promotes the idea of using foreign loanwords instead of compounds. This might create vocab, at the cost of Lojban's goal of testing Sapir Whorf being thrown out of the window, since the loaned vocabulary will bring along the concepts of the original language. Some Lojbanists often attempt to create equivalent vocabulary to all natural language concepts, but they do not often understand what this foreign vocab actually means and how it's used. Lojban's restrictions on wordforms is useless. Speech streams are incoherent and jumbled up, obscuring the word boundaries. Even in reading, readers read sentences in blocks, not letter by letter, meaning that the form of the word isn't even considered. Lojban attempts to solve the above by requiring a pause in certain places. This unnecessarily slows down speed am I really going to pause when I say he's about to shoot you, Fernando and creates insanely awkward pronunciations, like a glottal stop between two voiced consonants. Language is not processed with careful semantic consideration, but from a complex series of conventions and intuitions so when someone says a Lojban word that means non veridical descriptor the one s described as , they're not going to carefully think about it they'll unconsciously go I need to use this word here in this context . So learning Lojban will not teach you how to think logically it will teach you how to use Lojban, and nothing else. Most Lojbanists have a contempt for natural language, and having not studied it, do not actually understand how it works, and have loads and loads of absurd ideas about it. Granted, very few people really know anything about language, and some have even taught themselves completely wrong misconceptions of language, like non ESL English teachers and grammar nazis. So, yeah. I'm still going to learn Lojban some day, but purely as an experiment. If you still think Lojban is something that is superior and beneficial, please explain why.","conclusion":"Lojban is inferior to natural languages, and should only be learned as a linguistic experiment"}
{"id":"e1620120-9dee-487a-a906-297f2aac7d8d","argument":"As governments are no disinterested actors they have no incentive to provide fully neutral information.","conclusion":"While commendable, the successful implementation of this approach is unlikely."}
{"id":"2d7d5e28-9ef0-4512-b3c8-98f893ef52f5","argument":"In real life as well as online bdsm communities, practitioners are often encouraged to state the limits of their sessions clearly and precisely.","conclusion":"In BDSM settings, power and control are explicitly and tightly controlled, and therefore less likely to be abused than in \"vanilla\" relationships."}
{"id":"d89f65b1-b408-4893-83ec-bf0822cbc332","argument":"My argument is simple. Before Trump won the presidency, the democratic party was almost completely powerless. Republicans had control of the Senate, and the House and a conservative majority on the Supreme Court. Democrats had undivided control over the legislatures of only 12 states in 2016. Whats worse, the prospects for democrats regaining control over these legislatures looked pretty grim. Republican efforts to gerrymander themselves into power after the 2010 census was incredibly effective in states like Wisconsin, Ohio, and North Carolina. To regain power at all levels, democrats needed to win power over governorships and state legislatures in the critical years of 2018 and 2020. Rewind to 2016, the prospects of democratic waves in 2018 and 2020 did not look promising. Hillary Clinton, while an effective Secretary of State, was broadly perceived as being tone deaf, particularly in the competitive Midwest. Had she won, the Democratic party would likely have seen losses in Congress and in state legislatures and governorships, in accordance with historical patterns. Had this occurred, Democrats would have been even more marginalized and powerless than they were in 2016, which was already a historical low for the party. Failing a massive landslide victory by Hillary in 2020, which doesn't seem likely given how effectively Republicans were able to mobilize their base against Hillary in 2016, Republicans would have taken their gerrymandering tactics to an unprecedented level, giving them total control over even more state houses than ever before for another 10 years at least. But Hillary didn't win. Trump has energized Democrats to such a a degree that they regained control over the House despite facing a structural disadvantage due to gerrymandering. They won control over governerships across the country, ensuring that Wisconsin, Michigan, Kansas, Maine, and New Mexico would would not be gerrymandered in the future. Looking forward to 2020, the Democrats have the opportunity for even further political gains as Trump appears to have engaged in shamelessly corruption from the moment he entered the oval office, not to mention the impending investigative report from the Muller investigation that looks increasingly like it will finger Trump as being culpable in multiple felonies. Should Democrats do well in 2020, regardless of the outcome of the Presidential contest, they may gain more governorships and state legislatures, further decreasing the likelihood that they will be gerrymandered into oblivion. tldr Trump has through his blatant corruption weakened the Republican party's nearly insurmountable advantage in state legislatures and strengthened a democratic party that may have become nearly irrelevant under a second Clinton administration.","conclusion":"Trump has saved the Democratic party"}
{"id":"ead5d4fe-fa59-4695-a58b-d1fed5e9044b","argument":"Electric toothbrushes are just another product in the increasing trend of objects that have gone electric when they don't really need to. Regular toothbrushes are dirt cheap, so much so that dentists don't mind giving you one for free after a teeth cleaning and hotels don't mind giving you a complimentary one if you forgot yours. The same can't be said of electric toothbrushes which are expensive because of the technology they contain. The technology inside an electric toothbrush makes it more fragile than an ordinary one. People drop toothbrushes on the ground, they drop them in the toilet, they get thrown around in travel bags. The electric toothbrush does not fare well in those described conditions. At the end of the day, the electric toothbrush does the same job that you can do yourself with a regular toothbrush.","conclusion":"Electric toothbrushes are inferior to the regular kind."}
{"id":"ee5c95fb-a7bc-4e15-a369-0e60ae2dcf2e","argument":"God is temporarily tolerating evil as a consequence of the assertion that we would be better off without him. Once it is clear to everyone that this was not true, God will use his omnipotence to right the consequences and remove evil completely.","conclusion":"The existence of evil can be reconciled with an all-powerful and all-loving God. God would not want to remove evil if a greater good were only achievable with the existence of evil."}
{"id":"40ee26f7-d9f5-4af1-8fb3-3f9e74c35309","argument":"With recent allegations regarding some of the most talented people in Entertainment industry and many more coming to light soon enough its too easy to hate the person for his acts. People like CK, Kevin have done some horrific acts and they need to punished for the same, but it doesn't mean that the good things they did were just a facade and a joke to distract people. I mean whether or not one agrees, Kevin playing Underwood in House of Cards is one of the best acting I have seen in my life. And some of the Louie bits have a profound message hidden in them delivered to us in subtle ways. IMO, to reach such a high platform people need to be a bit fucked up in a sense take Jobs and Musk for example.And we should not mix up their life's hard work with who they are in their personal life. Thanks for taking time to help me change my view and lets have a healthy discussion. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"A good act does not wash out the bad, nor a bad act the good. Each should have its own reward."}
{"id":"84823342-0cc0-4b20-93bb-55492c8e2a5d","argument":"A report found more than 6 million instances of the word \u201cslut\u201d or \u201cwhore\u201d used in English on Twitter in a year, 20% of which appeared to be threatening.","conclusion":"It's seen as a positive for men to have many sexual partners, while women are degraded for exhibiting the same behaviours."}
{"id":"9de1777a-c58f-4ead-8026-398c0d47cbc3","argument":"It would be deeply unhealthy if there were not a lively discourse in any political movement but the media fails to reflect that fact. Disillusionment with Obama has been growing almost since day one of his presidency and looks set to continue through the rest of 2012, the Republicans, by contrast have a clear message with growing support at all levels. The very fact that they have been so successful in thwarting the more dangerous of Obama\u2019s policies demonstrate that they have both the arguments and the acumen to defeat him in Congress, just as they do for the presidency.","conclusion":"The Republican Party is, yet again, suffering from the inability of the mainstream and liberal media to accurately cover political debate they constantly wish to portray healthy discourse as split and schism"}
{"id":"0453fdaa-2aa6-4aaa-bf69-6ad0153d5819","argument":"Copilation of videos of the collapse Ive seen most arguments and know the good ones and bs ones. There are a few things that clearly stand out to me as, WHAT THE FUCK isnt this a little strange? It frustrates me to no end how people will dismiss obvious anomalies by citing a report they didn't read as if its the word of God. Remember I'm no expert though How did the building fall so fast? It was a 48 steel building. I seriously dont understand how one could watch the collapse and assume fire and random debris damaged the key structural components at the same time to cause it to fall. And really? Thats all it takes for a huge skyscraper to fall? Why did it fall so perfectly? It didnt pause for a second nor lean. This is explained away because these buildings are designed like that to reduce collateral damge I cant help but think why wouldn't it be designed to stand? Its so obvious I feel like im missing something. How did the top half of the building continue falling even with all the steel and concrete beneath it? Shouldnt the collapse have at least slowed? It was at free fall for a period of time how is that physically possible? Even NIST conceded the report they released was not based on physics and the 9 11 commission report ignored building 7. I honestly dont think these can be explained though. But id love to see someone try Im willing to change my views","conclusion":"The collapse of building 7 was not adequately explained by any reports or studies."}
{"id":"38dceb37-85f1-4250-9a64-8b3ccc1dd42e","argument":"The self proclaimed intellectual dark web seems to talk constantly about the importance of ideas and open discussion. Many people, at least in the abstract, would agree with these being important, if only because of how vague and wide ranging the implications are. Unfortunately I have yet to hear any serious contributions from many of the members like Dave Rubin or Bret Weinstein and not just watered down not necessarily in the more approachable sense versions of their interviewees\u2019 or influences\u2019 work. Furthermore the members who have made contributions of substance in the past such as Jordan Peterson with his clinical work or Sam Harris with his earlier books, have seemed to abandon novel contributions for trite and under researched criticisms of imaginary boogeymen. Eric Weinstein claims they have many new and relevant propositions, yet these seemingly are never talked about in their conversations. So change my view, show me something that isn\u2019t banal and superficial. Edit Has not produced","conclusion":"The intellectual dark web has produced either meaningful contributions to any school of thought or novel stand alone ideas."}
{"id":"5fb18db2-f983-4fce-8657-19ea289a291e","argument":"All over the place I hear about the friendzone . In every incarnation of the term it's always preceded by someone usually a guy who makes note that he's too scared to ask someone out and he believes he's friendzoned by the woman he's after. Or, it's used when a girl isn't interested in a guy and he uses it bitterly Ugh, she doesn't want to go out with me. I'm friendzoned. . I think it's simply a term used out of bitterness and cowardice than it is something which actually exists. Change my view. EDIT 5 6 All I'm going to say is wow . I hardly was expecting the kind of response that I got on this topic, especially my first one for Change My View. I have a ton to think about here. Thanks everyone","conclusion":"I believe the term \"friendzone\" is just something concocted by bitter and cowardly people and it doesn't actually exist."}
{"id":"cfdfaf80-4208-4bf9-acb1-4c673cff4f7f","argument":"Fitness guru and author of the bestselling book Sweetie Pie, Milton Teagle Simmons, better known as Richard Simmons, is the most masculine man alive today as understood by traditional and anachronistic definitions of masculinity. The 1950s Mad Men version of a man included someone who had a great idea and then executed it with precision through sacrifice and hard work. A further indicator of masculinity was throngs of women adoring a man for his accomplishments and personality. Richard accomplished all of the above in the most spectacular way over his many decades long career. Through his vision and the subsequent execution he has single handedly motivated millions of women to lose weight and exercise for fitness.","conclusion":"Richard Simmons is the most masculine man alive today."}
{"id":"b2a624ff-6486-42f6-a6df-ac91a0a10702","argument":"I'll admit that I am not that knowledgeable about the history of Mormonism, so I am open to my mind being changed. That said Mormonism, when compared to other popular sects of Christianity, is relatively young and a New World religion. It has no direct lineage to any other form of mainstream Christianity due to the nature of its founding. It draws inspiration from the Bible and creates an alternative history and timeline of events in the same way a fan might draw inspiration from a popular work of fiction and create new scenarios for the characters. Mormonism, despite being based on the teachings for Christ, is not a Christian in the traditional sense of the religion, similar to how Muslims are not considered Christian, even though they believe in Jesus Christ and regard him as a central figure in the foundation of Islam. Mormonism has its own prophets, and as previously mentioned, the history of Christianity under Mormonism deviates completely from the Biblical Cannon. This is not say anything bad about Mormons. I harbor no ill will towards the religion and I mean no offense. I do not mean to belittle the religion so I apologize in advance if my tone comes off as confrontational. I do not mean to imply that there is anything wrong about Mormonism, or that other sects of Christianity are by any means correct. I have no skin in the game, so  Edit Wow. I never thought this question would get this much traction. I have posted s before and they never really got much attention, so I am a little overwhelmed by the response. I wish I could respond to everyone who took the time to respond. I must admit that I didn't put too much thought into my post before making it. I was literally standing at my refrigerator looking for something to eat and the idea Mormonism is Jesus Christ Fan fiction popped into my head and I wrote out my initial impressions to the idea. I have since had my mind changed multiple times and will post the arguments below. I appreciate all the feedback and I realize that this is a controversial issue, so the respect that I have seen I haven't gone through the whole thread is very impressive for the internet. The arguments are repeating themselves, and I have already changed my mind, but I am still open new viewpoints and frankly, I find the discussion fascinating. I'm glad the question was well received and hope no one was offended by my comments. I've gotten responses from Mormons, Ex Mormons, Roman Catholics, edgy atheists and probably one or two bots. For me All Christian Religions are Fan Fiction is the argument that won me over since Jesus Christ himself did not establish a Church good job Edgy Atheists . It was his followers who wrote the books of the New Testament. I also must acknowledge the fact that from a Mormon perspective, Mormonism is the one, true religion with the closest links to the teachings of Christ. I'm not saying I believe that to be true, but in their narrative, Christ does have a direct link to the New World and belongs under the umbrella of Christianity. There are lot of great counter arguments presented against the above, but I am not necessarily here to determine what is correct so much as I wanted my mind changed on that specific statement. What is spiritually right or wrong is subjective to me, and I avoid judging other people's faith well, I guess I few all faith as the same. Ultimately, I think it doesn't matter what you believe, as long as you are a good person and treat others with the kindness and respect Christ talked about. I do not consider myself a Christian or religious in the traditional sense but I do think if we all tried to be a little bit more like Christ, we could fix a lot of the world's problems. Thanks  Deltas awarded gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Mormonism is Jesus Christ fan-fiction."}
{"id":"1f9f56df-6384-4261-989a-9245bbb016c9","argument":"Fear of compulsory disclosure may deter candid, careful, detailed, written advice being given by lawyers to their clients. Does effective corporate regulation require the greater use of intrusive measures like the removal of legal professional privilege, or would more informal, cooperative or voluntary mechanisms \u2013 like leniency or immunity policies and discretions \u2013 achieve better outcomes?","conclusion":"An higher judicial willingness to remove the privilege may damage compliance."}
{"id":"30e72182-7a6e-4540-a8c4-76ea4e33daf6","argument":"Almost every nation in the world expressedly agreed on 7 absolute rights when signing the UN's ICCPR.","conclusion":"The UNs near-unanimious international agreement which enumerates absolute rights does not include the right to expression"}
{"id":"d1944afb-e637-40cc-b9bc-1e7dabc1e6df","argument":"I'm not saying Reddit is not allowed to this. It's a private company so they can do whatever they want with Reddit. And the people will to use it or not in a free market society. With a subreddit being labelled as bad is it just going to bring attention to them. There is going to be listicles of '10 Subreddits Reddit Don't Want You To Know About'. Or 'Top 10 Communities Reddit Is Hiding From You' And Reddit is going to give the conspiracy theories something to go on by them saying Big corporations don't want you to see x. See they're trying to censor us. TL DR by trying to censoring or cover up information it's only going to bring more attention the subreddit.","conclusion":"Labelling a subreddit as quarantine is just going to make Barbra Streisand effect"}
{"id":"4cdfbe72-eded-4401-b097-d9cefc6e3421","argument":"A lot of people seem to think that being a psychopath equals being a bad person and being detrimental to their communities I'm saying psychopaths but i mean both them and egocentric people, as a psychopath is inherently egocentric and my arguments work for both. but thats not true, sure they might not care about your feelings, but they can be helpful, main reason for this is the selfish argument for altruism. Now why am i defending people that don't care probably don't care about me? I have a padsion for debate, i just love it, but moving on. People usually say they have no feelings and could just murder someone out of the blue Now, they do have feelings, you're confusing that with empathy, and they could murder someone, but so could you , but you know there would be consequences , as in you would would fell remorse and would probably be arrested, for a psychopath its the same, minus the remorse. common argument 2 those people are going to turn or are already criminals well if they do its for the same reasons regular people would. I would love to hear your opinion on this and maybe change my view. This is really fun. Thanks for your comments guys and or gals. Again, it has been very fun, but i need to sleep. Thanks again","conclusion":"I don't think being a psychopath\/egocentric is inherently bad"}
{"id":"72670ed5-7203-4414-9f67-db79b96573c8","argument":"The home-copy exception was only put into law on the condition that there would be a charge, or levy, on the devices used for copying see condition 3 of the three-step test. This levy in turn would be used to compensate artists for the income they missed because someone copied, instead of bought, their album. There is no such levy on the internet or on our computers, which means there is no fair compensation available. Since there is no fair compensation available, it is wrong to allow downloading from illegal sources. This also explains why record companies use Digital Rights Management DRM to limit copying of audio files. Since there is no levy on every player or carrier, they have to make sure their material does not get unto those platforms. Hence the protection: it might seem unfair but it\u2019s the next best thing after the lack of fair compensation.","conclusion":"The home-copy exception was only put into law on the condition that there would be a charge, or levy..."}
{"id":"43be3442-f457-4031-95eb-ea55a4cb1f32","argument":"Strict gun control is the only mechanism that can put guns in the hands of law abiding citizens while keeping them out of the hands of criminals.","conclusion":"Having fewer guns in circulation means society is generally safer."}
{"id":"7cf016de-9645-419e-8116-d7a600429c45","argument":"From gt The majority of sexual assault are not reported to the police an average of 68 of assaults in the last five years were not reported .1 Those rapists, of course, will never spend a day in prison. But even when the crime is reported, it is unlike to lead to an arrest and prosecution. Factoring in unreported rapes, only about 2 of rapists will ever serve a day in prison. I think the conviction rate of sexual assault is woeful in this country. It is so difficult to make a successful criminal case against a rapist that Rape culture is highly prevalent and rapists feel they can get away with it, and intimidate their victim into silence Victims of rape have no confidence they will even be listened to, never mind getting a successful conviction For these reasons, I think the system should change When somebody makes an accusation of rape, it should be up to the accused to prove their innocence. Until they have done this, they should be considered guilty. The accused's details should be publicized in this time, so the public is protected from them Rape cases should be fast tracked through the legal system, which not only streamlines the process, but shortens the time until the rapist is in prison, again this protects the public Implementing these changes will give victims so much more confidence when reporting the crime, and it will make rapists think twice before they go ahead with their actions. I have considered the possibility of a small amount innocent people going to jail for rape, but if these changes help send more real rapists to prison, then surely the benefit to society outweighs any minor problems that may arise. I have been told I'm extreme for thinking this, but nobody has presented to me a compelling reason why it's a bad idea. Please change my view Edit I have awarded deltas to u Aftercourse and u Da Kahuna. My view is certainly changed, and I realize now that a lot of injustices would come from my proposed changes.","conclusion":"I think rape cases should be fast tracked through courts, and the burden of proof should be on the defendant, not the accuser"}
{"id":"1bbf00ca-0655-4a64-95b7-c640cbaccd0f","argument":"Religious moral claim usually looks like a blackmail tactic. People should follow tenets or be condemned and punished in the afterlife.","conclusion":"Religious moral codes are not always valuable and can be even harmful."}
{"id":"a8ac8849-c072-468e-ae01-dbc79f9d8d01","argument":"It's 2 36 AM and I'm a tireless communist looking for a good debate. I simply believe that all means of production be them machinery, faculties or resources should be owned, not by large rich barons and the like, but by those who work it. And they should be used for the good and collective advancement of society and humanity as a whole rather than to drive corporate profits. This'd be achieved through a democratic ownership of companies, large Unions keeping all co opt companies united under a lovely egalitarian society. Currently democracy simply doesn't work as it should, Hillary Clinton has the lowest approval rating of any historic presidential candidate, except for Donald Trump. Is this the best one of the richest, largest, most educated and advanced countries can offer? Two rotten, hated, wealthy figures? One who's clearly broken the law multiple times and been exempt from facing justice. And someone who runs on around zero clear policies other than vague variations of racism, against the establishment ideals, a nice hairstyle and funny one liners? As the large wealth gap levels down the entry bar for running as a politician would be a lot lower and this would allow for a wider array of educated and capable citizens to lead the country as political discussion and whatnot is encouraged, Unions gaining power give more traction to leftist movements creating more education focused leaders therefore leaving us all with a smarter, happier, richer and overall better society. And therefore a world as a whole. Plus we'd get to call each other comrades , own Mosin Nagants and ushankas would come back in fashion.  it's very late so I do apologize for probably responding to everyone later tomorrow because my coffee's hold is finally begging to fade","conclusion":": I believe the only way to truly have a genuine democracy is to have all means of production owned democratically and collectively"}
{"id":"0bed9e55-9809-44e3-b6df-e108af570320","argument":"People are unwilling to accept a salary that is below what they think they are worth.","conclusion":"Many teachers would be unwilling to accept the lower salaries that the public system offers."}
{"id":"19935908-8200-4631-badf-d27c5f52e62d","argument":"A lot of people complain about the same CGI kids movies being produced over and over, with the same low brow toilet humour and lazy slapstick. But, well, they're kids. This stuff is new to them, and they find it entertaining, so who cares if it's dumb or cliche? I mean, I'd hate watching movies like Yogi Bear, The Smurfs, or the latest Paddington movie but kids like it. I know I didn't have any problems watching stuff like that when I was a kid. There's enough intelligent content out there, so what's the problem with the same movies being made over and over?","conclusion":"It doesn't matter if kid's movies are dumb and cliche"}
{"id":"5719213c-1b11-4c12-b0fe-41a3140be7ff","argument":"Black veterans were also excluded from job-training programs for careers in promising new fields like radio and electrical work, commercial photography, and mechanics. Instead, most African-Americans were channeled toward traditional, low-paying \"black jobs.\"","conclusion":"Although the G.I. Bill was intended to help all veterans, Black Veterans North and South were excluded."}
{"id":"cb3d8180-981a-4907-a420-6a0acd40a347","argument":"If sexuality is not made comprehensible not practiced amongst all individuals of the world, at any time of their post childhood raising years, will be as bad for mental conditioning as any other social development for their future autonomous reference.","conclusion":"CSE at adolescence can contribute to better, equal and healthier affective and sexual relationships in adulthood."}
{"id":"91283b67-4224-4361-9bd5-e7ed483f6eb3","argument":"Tea is the infusion of flavors from dried, and treated, parts of plants. Teas include not just drinks made from leaves of tea plants, but herbs, spices and other flavors as well. Some herbal teas include the cooking or roasting of plant matter. Coffee beans are plant parts which are treated in an identical manner. Some methods of brewing coffee is just a way to quickly infuse the flavor of the coffee beans. But the version fo brewing that coffee aficionados most appreciate cold brewing and french press for example steep the coffee in exactly the same way as teas are made. Therefore, coffee is really just a form of tea. EDIT The point has been made that tea is a regulated term in other parts of the world. So I'd like to modify my contention to in those areas of the world where herbal teas are accepted as a type of tea. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Coffee is just tea"}
{"id":"ca2a9af2-d0ff-42e0-b91a-130db9b34ff2","argument":"Photojournalists are made further complicit in suffering by taking photographs that will be sold to make a profit and by being paid to do so.","conclusion":"Photojournalism during a war is an act of non-intervention, which makes journalists complicit in another person\u2019s pain or misfortune."}
{"id":"83ec5a19-f83c-4d0f-a88e-995faf595b48","argument":"To be clear, I don't want Trump to win. I want a good, respectable candidate to win so we can restore a bit of normalcy to the office. However, unless Trump decides to opt out, he will win. Democrats have no compelling candidates. Their best shots are Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden, two geriatric career politicians with a lot of baggage. Democrats vastly overplayed their hand with Trump Russia collusion, and people are exhausted from it. First they insisted that collusion was an established fact. Then all signs point to no collusion, so they say, Wait for the Mueller report to be released Then the report is released and they say, Well he obstructed the investigation that established that there was in fact no collusion, and thus he must be impeached If you step outside the liberal echo chamber that dominates the front page of Reddit, you will see that the most Americans are pretty sick of this. They're not going to reward this behavior with a political victory. People like a strong economy, and the economy is strong under Trump. To change my view, you're going to have to show me a viable candidate and explain how the people will embrace him or her over Trump.","conclusion":"Trump is going to win re-election."}
{"id":"77253a55-0ffd-4c98-9497-2b3fcd256d96","argument":"Like a lot of people, I was bullied all through school. I understand that all of us are raised differently and not all of us are given the tools to deal with situations like these. I just don't think babying the kids is fixing it. It allows them to be a victim . I know they are victim's but I mean in the sense of that's the tools we are giving them to respond. Aside from that, cyberbullying is even more BS. Maybe I'm just stuck comparing my experience to the fact that the internet is not a nice place. It just seems silly to think that when you add anonymity people won't be more cruel. At that point, it is literally JUST WORDS on a screen. You can delete posts, block phone numbers, delete accounts so many more ways to just walk away . Which is exactly what I and many others did when bullied in person. Edit Great discussion everyone Thanks for all your input","conclusion":"I think cyberbullying is BS,"}
{"id":"319fd846-7967-404d-bb7a-d05c2a82347f","argument":"This is the logic that underpins Pastafarian's mockery. In essence, \"Religious freedoms should be granted until they encroach on laws passed by the people, for the protection of the people.\" If we are outraged by Pastafarians asking for a tax break, then we should be outraged by any religion asking for a tax break. If we are outraged by Pastafarians wearing colanders on their heads for official photos, then we should be outraged by any kind of religious headdress for official photos.","conclusion":"A truly secular state should not circumvent its own laws on the grounds of any religion, established or otherwise."}
{"id":"e4e0722e-d592-43f3-8529-737a03983a1d","argument":"We can agree that obesity causes health problems. The research I've seen suggests that targeting weight as the enemy does not help people lose weight if anything traditional dieting leads to further weight gain than it does weight loss. Am I healthier than someone larger than myself because I am thin? I used to smoke, my diet is atrocious, my mile is 20 minutes, and I drink beer every night. The current state of health criticism means that I am viewed as healthy because of my BMI, but a person 20 pounds heavier than me who has been eating a healthy diet for years, exercises 4 times a week, and doesn't smoke drinks occasionally is viewed as less healthy than myself. Do we really benefit from making weight the enemy and not unhealthy life choices?","conclusion":"The Health At Every Size Movement focusing on healthy diet and exercise is more helpful in fighting obesity than traditional programs that target weight as the enemy."}
{"id":"3caf3d64-71e3-4928-afa8-485dd731444f","argument":"Dark matter and dark energy are concepts in cosmology used to account for unexpected astronomical observations. Dark matter refers to matter in the universe in fact, it is supposed to be most of the mass of the universe which does not absorb or reflect light or any other electromagnetic radiation. Dark energy refers to a type of energy, also undetectable, that exists throughout the universe and causes the expansion of the universe to accelerate. I think this is the modern version of phlogiston theory I think future physicists will look back with fond indulgence at our notions of dark matter and dark energy. We already know that our best theories of particle physics and our best theories of gravity are incompatible. Therefore, we have not reached the end of physics. Isn't it vastly more likely that we have misunderstood some basic fact, than that the universe is filled with invisible matter and spooky woo woo energy?","conclusion":"I believe dark matter and dark energy are bunk."}
{"id":"2737fa47-583e-44a7-8b08-18206deefc5a","argument":"The wizarding world is, to the extent of our knowledge, unable to adequately replace missing limbs for example, Mad-Eye Moody is missing a leg. By contrast, Muggles are developing highly sophisticated prosthetic limbs","conclusion":"The wizarding world lacks the technologies of modern Muggle healthcare."}
{"id":"5415e844-eeca-42a1-b996-06089438a682","argument":"Turkey's slide towards dictatorship has had a negative effect on the Turkish economy. Joining the EU would increase investor confidence.","conclusion":"Turkey's economy is struggling and it would greatly benefit from EU membership."}
{"id":"bfb586fd-8697-41c6-93e7-154ee934a8d9","argument":"The Earth is faced with many problems. Global warming, the destruction of ecosystems, rising sea levels, pollution, and resource depletion are all issues weighing heavily on states and the international community as a whole. Individuals and governments need to rally and fight these growing terrestrial problems. The resources poured into manned space travel that will likely serve no lasting purpose would be better spent in combating the hundreds of serious issues facing the planet today. Space exploration serves only as a distraction, keeping people\u2019s minds off the pressing concerns of the Earth. Furthermore, governments can use manned space flight as a means of distraction quite deliberately. It is often easier to devote attention and resources to headline-grabbing endeavors like putting a man on the moon or on Mars than to address concerns like global warming, which requires extensive international coordination to a degree rarely reached in history. Governments may find utility in keeping people focused on such grand projects while doing comparably little to affect change where it is direly needed. Clearly, humanity\u2019s concerns should be focused wholly on the survival of its home world, not on exploring worlds that might not even exist, and almost certainly cannot sustain human life.","conclusion":"The focus of states and individuals should be on fixing the problems of this planet, not with exploring other ones"}
{"id":"bab6b5b1-5f7d-4e7c-baf8-ce4607b8fa03","argument":"Over-regulation was highly harmful to the quality of service in the 70s and 80s when the status and regulation of Ma Bell as a monopoly \/ common carrier suppressed competition. After de-regulation consumers were given much better service and choice.","conclusion":"Prior to 2015 there were no Title II regulations applied to ISPs and the internet had developed as an open and free system."}
{"id":"e7163916-7d15-4145-8485-ee7255fecc3a","argument":"If there is monetary compensation available for trials, it is likely that it will be more acceptable to those who are under financial pressure.","conclusion":"Testing on humans would subject the most vulnerable of our society to testing."}
{"id":"82d127c0-18c9-447e-b96f-9acab178ef89","argument":"I feel like a good portion of the people around me are 'bad people', as in they care too little about the people around them and would stab you in the back with almost no hesitation if it would benefit them. I have to avoid speaking with a large number of people I know because they are overly judgmental and or act in a way I wouldn't consider acceptable in a civilized society. When a YouTube video is uploaded by one of my subscriptions and before I even get the chance to click on it there are already 50 dislikes, dislikes that came from people who had to have been subscribed to said channel as well and before even watching the video disliked it, it makes me question the maturity, and in some cases, mental health of our species as a whole. When was the last time you saw someone do something selfless? When was the last time you saw someone hurting another in some way for their own gain? The former should be more common, but from what I've seen selfless acts are few and far between.","conclusion":"I believe most humans are 'in it for themselves' and care very little about anyone other than those who could possibly benefit them."}
{"id":"dc763dbb-e6cd-4b1f-abc2-124cb9e3249f","argument":"Simply put, Annihilation is doing very poorly in the box office. Having grossed just about 11 million in its first week, it can categorically be considered a flop. With the passing of International Women's Day and the heavily publicized outcry for More women in cinema especially during the recent award season , one might expect a rally of support for movies that feature female leads and a majority female cast. So why is Annihilation, a movie with five women in the leading roles, doing so poorly? It is my view that by and large, and despite the constant advocacy and projection of valuing this movement, people do not care about films on the basis that they contain a greater female presence. People care more about the entertainment value and brand surrounding a movie than they do the gender balance therein. This movie is also an example of a greater female presence not necessarily translating into a higher quality product. Despite whatever artistic value the movie may have among critics and experts, the box office is a much better barometer for whether or not a film was a commercial success. The numbers speak for themselves people do not want to see this film which, as stated above but reiterated here a final time for clarity, suggests they do not care about movies based solely on whether or not they have a greater female presence. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"If people really cared about a greater female presence in Hollywood films, Annihilation would be a smash hit."}
{"id":"b74803fa-7257-4f22-acc8-b6f37276bd8c","argument":"Explaining something better doesn't necessarily bring us any closer to the truth. The whole point of science, although imperfect and sometimes even fallible, it enables progress in the sense that it produces further questions. This is unlike creation, which has a \"concrete\" answer for everything that cannot be argued against which is the exact opposite of what science should be","conclusion":"Evolution is a better explanation of the facts than creation."}
{"id":"000fa2fb-a59e-4f13-b563-5d83ba90c9b3","argument":"Many nudists find that nudity gives them an unmatched sense of freedom and even makes them feel more connected to nature. This is a more positive attitude to promote than one where people, specifically women, should feel obligated to keep their natural bodies hidden.","conclusion":"This reinforces the idea that nudity is an inherently sexual thing, which is exactly the mindset that advocates for eliminating nipple restrictions are trying to change."}
{"id":"c271d918-7351-4007-95f4-aadd522e6b74","argument":"The opinion that NATO's primary motive for sending armed forces to participate in the Afghanistan civil war was, in secret, to gain access to the oil reserves in that region, is, strangely, a commonly held one among people I know. I see few reasons that suggest this is true. Though the war in Afghanistan is a complicated matter and people always find brief, self cited facts mid conversation to back their points, I believe this viewpoint is mostly grounded in an assumption that Western governments are completely morally bankrupt, a view which I do not hold. Furthermore, I can completely understand the response to 3,000 deaths in a colossal, unprecedented attack in the US, alongside 57 in the UK a few years later, to be met with a somewhat panicked yet determined response by the governments of the West to engage the organisations assumed responsible in direct war. I do not agree with the decision, and certainly not the approach, but the reaction seems pretty ordinary to me. Finally, though I don't know the specifics of either war or oil, I do know that wars are ridiculously expensive. And, precious a resource as oil is, I do not understand why the West would sidestep the perfectly viable option of trading with countries with oil reserves for a relatively small cost, as opposed to going to war for an enormous cost. In addition, I reject the idea that colonialist land snatching in countries on the other side of the planet is still an option for governments of the modern world, and I expect that making use of oil reserves requires the stability and time needed to set up infrastructure, which I cannot imagine being done in secret and in a country you are at war with. So yes, the orthodox explanation of the war on terror seems quite acceptable to me, and I doubt the significance of oil in the conflict, or any others in the Middle East. .","conclusion":"I don't believe that Western intervention in the Middle East, in particular in Afghanistan, has or had much to do with oil."}
{"id":"4f71cd7c-dc4c-47ae-ba31-64bca1405b48","argument":"The exams provide a basic level of knowledge of what a student should know. If students do not know these things whether in maths or in English or other subjects then they are unlikely to suceed in any subject or profession. Thats why in some countries like Britain national curriculums were formed to ensure that students did not miss out on key areas. This helps in that if high amounts of people have knowledge in the critical areas then colleges, the armed forces and other institutions or businesses can spend less time or money in providing basic level tuition on skills that students should have learnt while in high school","conclusion":"Sets a critical level of knowledge of what a student should know"}
{"id":"ccaa089b-c1b9-47f6-ba8a-fdd3203884da","argument":"We should expect a revolutionary change that will facilitate the production of energy. as opposed to those who were surprised that the Industrial Revolution facilitated the production of food such that predictions of starvation turned out to be false. Am I a moron for not really believing this whole climate change thing? The way I see it, within the next decade or two, we will have a revolutionary development in energy production. Like, I understand and respect the predictions people make, but the people who freaked out about the Y2K bug still exist today, and sometimes I think about what THEY would be arguing these days. It seems that the one takeaway from the past 10 years is that there is absolutely no accurate way to predict the next decade, let alone the next 50 years, in any way shape or form. In 2004, 10 years ago, most had dial up internet access, if at all. MySpace wasn't even out yet, we didn't have Gmail, and Al Gore came out with that movie. Al Gore being the first person to make us aware of this whole thing makes me even more skeptical than I otherwise would be. Like, this dude didn't win in 2000 not because of the Supreme Court or Florida foolishness, but because he didn't campaign with Clinton because he was afraid the whole Monica thing would make him look bad. Please don't call me a dumbass or a moron. I really want to know what makes the prediction of the effects of climate change different from the prediction of the effects of Y2K? I understand that these are scientific predictions. But please don't pretend that they are not predictions because they are based on observable data. Indeed, before the industrial revolution many thought that the world would run out of food based on the facts of the day, but technological developments can change all meaningful aspects of a rationalized and reasonable prediction. Based on the history of global developments and transformations, we should have an expectation of success with regard to technologically revolutionary developments in energy as opposed to getting all riled up and then being shocked when the changes do come. Just think about the last century. They originally called World War I the 'war to end all wars' because they predicted that war would never occur again. I really want to have a serious discussion and I would LOVE to be proven wrong.","conclusion":"Predictions on the effects of climate change today are no different from the predictions of global food shortages before the Industrial Revolution."}
{"id":"b1bc81f4-3277-4755-9a41-f1eaed8b378a","argument":"I believe that in the United States, marriage should be removed as it follows religious rules and doctrine in most parts of the US. I believe that this is absolutely in the jurisdiction of the church and should remain there, allowing churches to marry people as they deem appropriate. I believe this because of our separation of church and state. Civil Unions that are based in secular principles should replace the marriage institution. Any adult able to consent to a contract would be able to form a union with another individual. Or other individual s , but that is a different discussion. This would grant the same benefits marriage currently has. It may seem like just a name change, but its a fundamental shift in philosophy. Change my view?","conclusion":"In the United States, I think that the religious based marriage should be removed and replaced with secular based civil unions."}
{"id":"93acdcd7-60c0-4dee-bed6-d6a3090a14ed","argument":"- The only thing necessary in registering to vote is a driver's license. Therefore, illegal immigrants could easily register to vote. Yet, this is not lawful, and would thus be considered voter fraud.","conclusion":"Offering driver's licenses to illegal immigrants increases the risk of voter fraud."}
{"id":"e9c74fc2-5439-483e-b2b1-36c075baeec9","argument":"Sandor Clegane, who shares some of the characteristics of the Prince that was Promised, serves in the Brotherhood without Banners, alongside Beric Dondarrion, who uses a flaming sword. Given some of his other characteristics and his proximity to this weapon, he has a chance of being the Prince that was Promised.","conclusion":"The prophecy describes the Prince as forging and wielding a flaming weapon: the Lightbringer. Daenerys does not wield a weapon."}
{"id":"40c9c679-c092-49d5-a620-be2d6805aaff","argument":"Railways are supposed to be green \u2013 they produce less greenhouse gas emissions than cars or planes. Yet many of those benefits are sacrificed by the desire for high speed which makes these trains much less environmentally friendly than normal trains due to the extra power necessary to reach such speeds. The impact on the British countryside will be immense. The railway will run through four Wildlife Trust reserves, 10 Sites of Special Scientific Interest SSSIs, more than 50 ancient woodlands, and HS2 will run through 13 miles of the Chilterns Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The result will be the fragmentation of populations of insects, bats, birds and mammals. The Wildlife Trusts argue \u201cThe very last thing we should be doing is creating new linear barriers to the movement of wildlife.\u201d1 1 The Wildlife Trusts, \u2018HS2\u2019,","conclusion":"HS2 would damage the England\u2019s green and pleasant land"}
{"id":"17499b68-1ce0-42f6-a3ce-1ae16a638e98","argument":"To start off\u2014please don't bring up the Goldman Sachs speeches. I really, really don't care about them. None of us know what she said, and none of us have any evidence that what she said will turn into action. Philosophically speaking, I'm a pragmatic pluralist. My view is that there is no one viewpoint that can help you decide correctly in every single situation in life, and that the best way to go about doing things is to try as many solutions as possible until one gives you a desired result. I'm also generally an incrementalist\u2014I think big changes are always harder to swallow than a series of small ones. For example, while I think it would be fantastic to have a 15 minimum wage throughout America, I think we are much more likely to see an increase to 12 an hour or 10 an hour, which is still much more than our current minimum wage. Similarly, in regards to health care\u2014the Republican right neutered the Affordable Care Act to the point that it was unrecognizable. Remember, the original plan had a public option available, but the constant media circlejerk over death panels and the like along with efforts from a Republican congress gave the true ACA a death of a thousand cuts, literally. I would love to debate this issue with anyone. In summary, I think that pragmatism is more effective than idealism, and Bernie's plans, while they are allied to my views, are too unrealistic and over promising to ever be brought into law. Moreover, the necessity of a political revolution in order to bring about these changes is likewise unrealistic. PS shoutout to whoever downvoted a post on r","conclusion":"I'm voting for Hillary in the primary, even though I believe in Bernie's message, because I think a pragmatic approach to social change is more effective than a revolutionary one."}
{"id":"0be6eee2-8671-41f3-a288-e539131edde5","argument":"Widely publicizing athletes' domestic abuse scandals has not negatively impacted viewership; in fact, data shows that ratings have only increased during these times.","conclusion":"For many athletes, the notoriety afforded by their alleged abuse actually increases their fame."}
{"id":"74c47496-02ae-4f7b-9cdd-e5c0ffffa5ed","argument":"The women who read Fifty Shades of Grey and then sought out partners who would emulate the book's relationship were likely already primed to be abuse victims long before reading the book the book simply reaffirmed their desire to have a controlling partner.","conclusion":"It is unlikely that a piece of fiction was the initial catalyst in leading them to seek out abusive behavior."}
{"id":"f3c8fb59-84b1-48a5-a102-438ecc88613e","argument":"I'm not going to list them all in detail, but due to videos like this I find myself believing in the conspiracies. To me, they seem so convincing that they must be true. I really hope they aren't though, so please change my view. Edit The video I linked to starts off talking about the shape of the stadium lights, while this is slightly interesting, the video gets much more convincing. I'd like you to tear the points made in the video apart please.","conclusion":"I believe the Illuminati\/New World Order\/Freemason conspiracies,"}
{"id":"05f5899a-2bda-4296-aa43-ef111dabaa84","argument":"To ban home schooling would say that the state knows better how to make educational decisions than the child's own parents. The government should not have a monopoly on educating the next generation.","conclusion":"A ban on homeschooling would prioritize state control over individual liberty and would infringe on the most basic freedoms of liberal democracies."}
{"id":"6802224b-0f5c-48ed-8031-6e0f9a10f217","argument":"The Opinion in Heller seems to have betrayed Scalia's own prescribed method for judging cases.","conclusion":"DC v. Heller was an instance of inappropriate judicial activism."}
{"id":"2faed7ba-17fc-4123-9c84-e65300de1cb1","argument":"Western European culture has undergone rapid changes, such as a democratic transition and the ensuing sexual revolution.","conclusion":"Cultural components change, as cultural transformation is a natural dynamic process."}
{"id":"766fdd8b-838f-456c-a3ad-d0b363b7e2a5","argument":"Thou shalt not kill. \u2014Exodus 20:13 Thus sayeth the Lord God of Israel, Put every man his sword by his side. and slay every man his brother.companion.neighbor. \u2014Exodus 32:27","conclusion":"There are copious conflicting statements in the Bible that make the whole untrustworthy."}
{"id":"b5e2e2be-d649-4d71-a2d5-ae2aae18a1ee","argument":"Fulling willing and somewhat expecting a view change here, I'm frankly surprised I haven't been able to find any objective reason why the first female president is all that important. Context I'm not really comfortable with labels, but I think the closest one for me on gender issues is egalitarian. Also, I'm not and never have been a Trump supporter Rand Paul was who I liked most . I find it extremely important that all genders and ethnicity have the legal right to run for president, but what people do with that right, what the result of it is, I don't find that important at all. In the same way, I was very happy when marijuana was legalized in my state, but I don't care how many people choose to practice their new legal right to use it. It's just important that if they wanted to use it, they could. If someone feels that sexism is a huge issue in America right now, I can't think of any logical reason why they would think that a female president would be a solution to that problem. Obama has been in office 8 years, and race relations are worse today than when he entered office. I don't believe in the idea that a male president is incapable of fairly electing supreme court justices that will defend a woman's right to choose. Obama's recent nomination of Garland is proof of this. I don't believe a male president is incapable of being considerate of woman. And even if this were true, then it would mean that as soon as a female were president, now it is men that are being oppressed. It isn't, and shouldn't be, a now it's our turn system. I am not comfortable with gender being a point of significance during an election. Just as I wouldn't be comfortable with a candidate stating you should vote for me because I am a man , I'd be equally uncomfortable with a woman stating we should vote for her because she's a woman. Even if I were to accept that a female president would be some sort of victory , why is that more important than a first Jewish president, or Muslim president, or Arabic president, or Latino president, or Asian president? Why are the needs of women more important than the needs of those groups and others? This is why I'm not comfortable with ethnicity, religion, or gender being brought up as a positive or negative during elections . In short, I can't find any objective reasoning for why it's of utmost importance to have a female president, and need one in order for my view to be changed.","conclusion":"I don't think electing a female president is important"}
{"id":"c4f1756e-6a7e-4901-91cc-dbed8d91b290","argument":"EDIT u Bluezephr gets the win He correctly pointed out that, regardless of the situation or the amount of boobage feeding on display, I'd much rather see that than listen to this Recently a friend told me about an incident she witnessed where a woman was standing in line at the grocery store holding her baby. This woman, right there in front of everyone, whipped out a tit and started nursing the baby. A random passerby made a comment that she should be more considerate of others, because nobody wants to see that. The lady holding the baby pretty much ignored it, but my friend said she personally felt uncomfortable with the thought that someone might say, or even do, something to her just because she chose to feed her baby in public. This got me thinking I don't feel that women should be allowed to breastfeed in public. Here's why It creates a double standard. Why should a new mother be allowed to bare her breasts in public when a childless mother cannot? Women have, in the past, used breastfeeding as a form of political speech which is protected, but bare breasts during protests will still get you arrested. Further, there are numerous alternatives to directly breastfeeding in public which are at a mother's disposal. We talked about it and the conversation went kinda like this 1 It's a natural act and should not be stigmatized. \u2022 So is pissing. I can't just piss into a jar when the line at the bank is taking too long, can I? . 2 Well, no but you can hold your piss like a grown up. \u2022 Try telling that to someone with over active bladder, or incontinence. . 3 Well then you can just step out of line and go to the bathroom. \u2022 So can you. . 4 Listen, your penis is primarily a sex object, whereas a breast is utilitarian. \u2022 I use my penis for urination far more than sex, and women use their breasts for sex far more than breastfeeding. . 5 Babies need to eat, and who the hell do you think you are to tell me when and where I can feed my child? \u2022 I don't care when or where you feed your child, as long as you get held to the same standards regarding decency as everyone else. . 6 If it bothers you so much, why not put the towel over your face so you can't see it? \u2022 I didn't say anything about that, but there's more appropriate places to be doing your natural functions. . 7 What, like the bathroom? Do you want to eat in the bathroom? \u2022 Section 4207 amended the Fair Labor Standards Act and requires any business employing more than 50 people to have a place other than a bathroom for employees to breastfeed their children. Have you tried asking? . 8 Well, nobody wants to see your wrinkled up penis, you perv. \u2022 I don't want to see your stretch marked swollen breasts any more than you want to see my penis. . 9 It's my right, you woman hating MAN. \u2022 Intelligent converse is impossible. You do not discuss, you gibber. . So, can you ? EDIT Regarding the double standard of men being allowed to go topless. Everybody seems to be jumping on that and ignoring my point, but since you insist 1 Men's nipples are not considered by society to be sexual organs. 2 I don't want any double standards, but that's a topic for a future . Right now I don't feel that breastfeeding mothers should be doing it in public. Men don't breastfeed and men's breasts are not sexual organs.","conclusion":"I don't believe women should breastfeed in public."}
{"id":"d73674f3-e7dd-4eeb-8ab4-81e893440846","argument":"Despite the chemical difference to sugar, our bodies react to honey in much same way as to refined sugar - with a blood-sugar spike This encourages the pancreas to produce insulin, which leads the body to store fat and gain weight.","conclusion":"The consumption of honey also carries with it considerable health risks."}
{"id":"cf09f7ad-7a60-49d2-a102-580d628ef77e","argument":"Legalizing prostitution has many benefits for sex workers, including workers' rights and increased protection. According to Business Insider, legalizing prostitution can reduce violence against sex workers, give sex workers labor rights, and save law enforcement resources www.businessinsider.com These benefits can ultimately help sex workers have the same rights and treatment as people in other professions, and this leads to greater equality in the workforce. businessinsider.com","conclusion":"Buying and selling sex should be legal for sex workers and their clients."}
{"id":"c31b8db8-71b1-45fa-ae6b-4757b37f6566","argument":"Republicans support giving government grants to faith-based and other private charitable organizations to supplant welfare spending","conclusion":"Reps believe charity should be voluntary, not through govt welfare."}
{"id":"fd26c078-82c5-4f66-8ee5-14dccf88af99","argument":"Ethical naturalism is the attempt to get morals out of the real world instead of out of holy texts.","conclusion":"There are other, superior, sources of philosophical frameworks and moral codes."}
{"id":"945fd6ed-51ee-42ac-9f79-d8aee5ef0356","argument":"Let me start off by saying that yes, i am being serious. Do give the text a thorough read before jumping at my virtual throat or calling me a sociopath. And keep in mind, it's just an opinion. Now, this is indeed something i have thought of for a while. People nowadays seem to be genuinely griefing when they hear something like x people killed after devastating y or something to that effect. Now, jumping over the fact that all of the statements of this nature made online are very likely just self promotion covered in false empathy, i have to ask and very honestly why? First of all, in the event when someone loses a family member, a friend or close acquaintace, yes. I wholeheartedly agree. It's only natural to grief someone you knew, be it well or just a little and i'm not scratching my head over it. What boggles me are the people who go into some automatic empathy mode, whenever people are reportedly killed in an attack or natural disaster. Sure, it sucks. No one person wants that, nobody brings it upon themselves. But that's where it ends, it sucks that people die because of something they have no control over, like being in the same area a bomb is detonated. It's the way this world works, some people will die, some people will live on. Accept this. Second of all, let's go along with this notion that life is indeed sacred, and worth preserving. Life itself is a force that has shaped the world we know today for millions of years. It is very much the driving force of your planet. A fragile nucleus around which everything is built. So why the fuck do some people play around with it, without any awareness as to the consequences? Case in point, people who live in poverty yet have a lot of kids. One or two children, fine. But then these people have the nerve to ask for donations or help, in any way possible. Whose fault is that? Finally, this might be the hardest thing to swallow but i think that humans are entirely replaceable. There is a new person being born every two seconds or so, so why do some people insist on doing anything that's possible to keep everyone alive? I'll briefly revisit my first point say this I think the only barrier is comprised of our emotions. Yes, if my girlfriend had died and someone told me to just get a new one i'd be reasonably pissed. But thinking about it in general, it's probably what i'd say. Of course we cherish our closest, but in a neutral interaction like, say, the internet, you would probably think the same thing. Don't just say 'no i wouldnt' and leave it at that. One last thought, in case you're preparing to call me a selfish asshole, i don't think being selfish is inherently wrong. Sometimes, only caring about your problems or those of your family friends can be good.","conclusion":"Life is not as valuable as we make it to be"}
{"id":"7724ca49-3dad-4441-b10b-109c2720f2c6","argument":"Let me preface this with a couple things I live in Canada, so I'm primarily talking about the laws penalties in North America as I understand this may not apply well to other cultures countries. Although I titled the post with impaired driving I am going to focus on drunk driving, as it is the most common and so far in our society, the most destructive. I understand marijuana, etc. can impair people in a similar fashion but I'm not here to argue that In Canada, currently, if you are caught driving above the legal BAC 0.08 , the minimum federal penalties you face are 1 1000 fine, 2 1 year minimum of having ignition device which will test your BAC prior to starting the vehicle, 3 alcohol education treatment program. Essentially, if you are caught driving drunk, you pay 1000 and certain method are enacted to prevent you from doing it again. Why do I think this is not nearly severe enough? If you operate a car while drunk you are, undeniably, putting EVERY SINGLE person, object, and animal you come across in severe danger and at risk of death. You are physically incapable of operating the vehicle at an acceptable skill level and simply cannot prevent an accident. It's inevitable. Maybe it'll happen the first time you do it, maybe you'll get away with it for 10 years, but that's just relying on luck. You have a gross and negligent disregard for the safety of every single person you may come across, and have made the decision that you getting from A to B is more important than their life s . If you make that decision you are in no way fit to be apart of society. I won't pretend I know anything about law making, sentencing, etc., but I genuinely feel someone who makes the decision to drink and drive should be permanently prohibited from operating a vehicle again, and face a lengthy prison sentence reflecting the innumerable people you have put in harm for your convenience. I understand a lot of people find this too severe, but I can't seem to find any thoughtful argument that would make me feel otherwise. So, here I am. .","conclusion":"Impaired driving penalties are far too lenient"}
{"id":"81cc20c5-4ec0-4f2b-8efc-22873c1b946d","argument":"The fact that men's and women's bodies tend to be built differently, e.g. men tend to have bigger builds, means that they are suited to different types of work.","conclusion":"Most human societies follow a gender division in labour which is based on biological differences and capabilities."}
{"id":"e5ebbe98-6489-4364-b605-295416abfadd","argument":"Medical ethics say that a doctor has a responsibility to keep the patient alive to administer treatment. In the UK Diana Pretty was denied the right to die by the House of Lords even though she consistently requested it. The Israeli Courts ordered the force- feeding of political hunger strikers arguing that in a conflict between life and dignity, life wins. India prosecuted a physician who allowed a hunger striker to die. The medical profession take their responsibility for life very seriously on a global level.","conclusion":"In the first instance, doctors should always act to keep a patient alive"}
{"id":"499362b9-8928-441d-a424-9289e3fcb88a","argument":"A variety of charging options are being installed in most countries, ranging from rapid chargers on main highways, top up chargers at supermarkets, and day chargers at places where people work.","conclusion":"EVs are better than fossil fuel cars because they are easier to refuel"}
{"id":"96c6605d-769c-48f0-8833-378341800793","argument":"Fuels with more than 10% ethanol are not compatible with non E85-ready fuel system components.","conclusion":"Most engines are compatible only with ethanol mixed with gasoline."}
{"id":"03c4b5e1-24b0-4853-ac58-6705f4b64d48","argument":"President Obama believes in an activist government\u2019s role in improving society. Without public intervention, private markets will not sufficiently address inequality or several other public needs, such as environmental preservation and public transportation. Financial returns from investments in such areas are often insufficient to incentivise private sector investment. However such schemes generate high levels of welfare benefits that are desirable from a societal perspective. Obama\u2019s economic policy draws on Keynesian economic theory, which is the belief that a mixed economy of public and private enterprise, bolstered by a strong welfare state, can jumpstart the economy. In order to create public enterprise, the government needs to spend, either by building a deficit or from tax revenue.1 This is the policy he has pursued in his first term with a successful stimulus of $787 billion.2 Obama\u2019s tax policy boils down to the empirical belief that taxing the rich will help the economy grow, because the revenue can be used on important government programs that can spur growth, and the philosophical argument that the American economy should be more equal and that the U.S. government can and should do more to directly address inequality. It should therefore not be a surprise that Obama wants the Bush era tax cuts for the richest reversed arguing \"I just believe that anybody making over $250,000 should go back to the income tax rates we were paying under Bill Clinton.\"3 1 Blinder, Alan S., \u201cKeynesian Economics\u201d, The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics, 2nd Ed., 2008, Library of Economics and Liberty, 2 Grunwald, Michael, \u201cThink Again: Obama\u2019s New Deal\u201d, Foreign Policy, Sept\/Oct 2012, 3 Bendery, Jennifer, \u201cObama Calls For One-Year Extension Of Bush-Era Tax Cuts For First $250,000 Of Income\u201d, Huffington Post, 9th July 2012,","conclusion":"An active, \u201cbig\u201d federal government is best for the American people"}
{"id":"2b9b1a29-7aaa-49b4-85f9-911ebd1b74c2","argument":"Lacking the maritime technology to populate the world directly, African populations used another tactic, perhaps far more clever. They captured and sold close genetic relatives to those with superior seafaring technology, thus cementing populations in myriad lands around the world. While it seems as if European traders were exploiting African populations, those populations were perhaps engaged in a long game \u2014 a true 4D chess, whose wit far transcended that of the European \u201cconquerors\u201d. To this day, Africa is still almost exclusively racially homogenous, and their birth rates are generally greater than the rest of the world. Africa will likely dominate the 22nd century, both through shear numbers and by having already established substantial sociocultural and economic footholds in Europe and the Americas. I could change my mind if it could be shown that African populations did not spread around the world \u2014 or that their influence, outside of Africa, is in substantial decline. I could also change my mind if it could be shown that the plight of the average African outside of Africa is worse than the average plight of those left on their home continent. FWIW I am black.","conclusion":"The transatlantic slave trade was used by African nations to successfully colonize the world."}
{"id":"53f9ad83-a201-4ab9-abee-e6b7717cadfc","argument":"By reform I mean removing the hereditary peer system but I'd support keeping the the religious elements so long as they are proportional to the religious reality of Britain and are not in a large enough majority to actually have any effect other than add to debates. The rest of the 800 or so members would be appointed for life as per usual but never on the basis of birth or through any aristocratic links but I do support keeping the titles for traditional reasons . It should be completely meritocratic. Having an element of government immune to the worry of having to bow to the public's often uninformed opinions is extremely valuable in my opinion. If you have a group of real experts, such as surgeons, scientists etc. who are able to have a say and revise laws passed by the House of Commons then I think that would be a real buffer to populism or laws which are not scrutinised due to an MP's ignorance of a certain subject. The House of Commons after all is conprised mostly of Lawyers by training, hardly suitable to run a country where so many more expertises are needed.","conclusion":"The House of Lords might need reform but is a good institution at its core."}
{"id":"04797e9b-ac15-4d34-9a87-63f36eab9cec","argument":"All US States have their own legislative government, governor as head of state & own military. The structure of the State legislatures is not uniform across the Union. Each State has the form of State government that best suits it; many built on the historical foundation from prior to joining the United States. The EU members already have legislative history & structure; there is no need to throw out centuries of tradition to make a functioning USE what exists will work","conclusion":"The USE would have at its core the desire to make sure that every region profits by investing in local projects and infrastructure."}
{"id":"df5dcd36-26f4-465f-bc35-015894bf67dc","argument":"I have many deeply Christian friends Evangelical as well as pretty hard core individuals that advocate for Christian Dominion and every single one of them regularly shares commonly debunked content on social media that is designed to spread fear, panic and uncertainty. When I point out to them that this content is debunked with references and I explain that I feel they are spreading untruths and thus bearing false witness they reply back with either A anger or B accuse me of taking 'legalistic' view of scripture which is really strange because a Fundamentalist is essentially taking the bible as a legal absolute truth. My view is that by sharing known lies these individuals are actively and knowingly sinning. They disagree but none of them will engage in a real conversation about WHY I am wrong. Change My View Tell me why my friends are not being total hypocrites here. And if possible, please refrain from 'All Christians are hypocrites' style responses. I get it but its not helpful in . EDIT It's come down to 'There is no biblical standard for fact checking' and 'if they thought it was true when they posted it and meant well then its ok.' View not changed but I'll be nicer to them. Tx Reddit EDIT My view is changed In addition to the above I am also totally using the wrong terminology. Its not hypocritical to have your reality not match the common consensus of reality. Self contradiction hypocrisy.","conclusion":"I believe that when Christians share debunked content on social media that they are bearing 'False Witness'"}
{"id":"4cdc6693-243d-41ca-aad4-3906debf9dca","argument":"Everyone has the potential to be attracted to different people. We all know a good looking person when we see one. If you never met your current partner, if you have one, you probably would now would be with someone else. People usually have sex with more than 1 person throughout their life. The potential for someone to get cheated on is to an extent always there, however small. One of the ways I could see monogamy working is in the following made up scenario which is obviously pure fantasy. If everyone could only be attracted to 1 person during their entire life. Your partner would only like you and no one else, they wouldn't be attracted in any way to no other human. You would never have to worry about them cheating on you because it would be impossible. Obviously there's more to it than that. Humans can always change. You fall in love, you disregard your morals, you develop a new philosophy in life, you become a nicer person, etc. Even all the people in the world that are very faithful and loyal and say they would never cheat, they can change too.","conclusion":"I don't think humans are meant to be monogamous, it's not our natural inclination"}
{"id":"60bcf3e6-3989-499f-b767-1bde8b028bb0","argument":"Most of my argument is based on observations of some of the more populated cultures Indian, Chinese, American, etc. I think my belief has a basis in how nearly every human society sticks to some degree of 'tradition' when it comes to social gender differentiation. Such cultural conditioning based on hard dying traditional values has since lead to norms where women are typically much more free to express their emotions relative to men. I mean this in the sense that creating more open emotional connections is more socially accepted and widely 'conditioned' among women than men. As an arbitrary example to gauge emotional acceptance in society, I am convinced that in the aforementioned societies, a man crying in public is considered more shameful than a woman crying in public. Besides having more social allowance to express and connect emotionally with other women, I also believe that due to a woman's hormonal cycle, emotion has more of a possibility of influencing decisions. So because of this combination of natural biology and social conditioning, I believe that women at least when it comes to cultures found in the US and such are more reliant on emotion than men in decision making.","conclusion":"I believe women turn to emotion more often than men when it comes to decision making."}
{"id":"b91f3701-f012-40ab-a170-dd8d219d5aa1","argument":"Matthew 2:7-8 records a secret meeting that supposedly took place between the long-deceased king of Judea and some wandering astrologers from a distant country in the East.","conclusion":"The gospel authors include many accounts and details that it seems highly unlikely they could have known about, which means these parts were probably made up."}
{"id":"04a7737c-bfdb-44e0-b47f-d1f8f9a081b2","argument":"Gypsy Blanchard should not be in prison for the killing of her mother. Dee Dee Blanchard shaved Gypsy\u2019s head, made her get a feeding tube, and put her in a wheelchair for YEARS when NONE of it was needed. She faked her daughters illnesses, scammed many people and organizations, and even got a house from habitat of humanity. Miranda Lambert gave them 3,500 they even met celebrities and went on a make a wish trip. When Gypsy tried to run away, Dee Dee caught her and handcuffed her, then tied a leash to the handcuffs and tied her to her bed for 2 weeks. She also put a bell on the door so Gypsy could never leave unless she knew, and smashed her laptop with a hammer. Although killing Dee Dee wasn\u2019t the best option, you have to take into account the desperation Gypsy must have had, and also all the traumatic things she had to go through when it wasn\u2019t necessary. She was basically in her own prison her whole life and now she must be in prison once more for just wanting an escape, and to be normal and live her life the only way at the time she knew how.","conclusion":"Gypsy Blanchard should not be in prison."}
{"id":"258e9f3f-eb21-49d7-8d93-d7718cd7a20d","argument":"I appreciate the fact that they're not a perfect substitute for being in the space location itself, but have difficulty believing that they can't offer the same understanding influences that would be offered in the space itself for that specific location where the image is taken perceived from. I also have difficulty believing that in the case of building design architectural influences, photographs on printed sheets and online, as well as accurate computer and or hand drawings, offer differing influences when compared to being in the 3 dimensional space itself.","conclusion":"Printed images photos\/drawings of a place, especially famous ones, offer very close to the same experience as being in the 3-dimensional space itself for the exact location where the photo\/drawing was taken\/made."}
{"id":"5dc73789-6b4a-4572-8c9d-b2792cd991ed","argument":"This movie has a 93 rating on rottentomatoes, a 7.5 rating on imdb, and Tom Hanks liked it. I thought it was one of the worst movies I've seen in years. 1 The main characters were repulsive and bland. How am I supposed to sympathize with two characters who murder people in cold blood, live in a futuristic world that makes no sense, have no personalities, and are generally just douchebags? The women is okay I guess, the kid was cool. 2 The first hour of the movie is almost unwatchable. The scenes don't make any sense fuck if youve seen it you know what I mean. It gets better in the second half, mainly because of the kid. 3 Way too many scifi cliches. 4 The personal quiet scenes were ridiculous in the context of the rest of the movie. 5 I'm not going to harp on the obvious time paradoxes and plot inconsistencies, but there was one that really pissed me off. It's when we are with Bruce Willis in the future future, and the guys come to close his loop. They accidentally kill his wife in the process. WHAT? The whole point of the looper organization is that you can't kill anyone in the future future so you have to send them to the future past Yet these idiots are carrying around loaded guns and just casually off Bruce's wife. Fuck that. You can get away with a lot Mr. Movie, But not that. 6 The kid was awesome, but doesn't get much screen time. 7 The ending sucked.","conclusion":"I thought \"Looper\" was a terrible movie."}
{"id":"592b9b7e-ffe0-4561-bd38-c1ab4a473050","argument":"Structures of race and ethnicity can help us understand one another better through common shared values and identity, and even in the medical world, different race\/ethnicity is essential for understanding risk factors and should not be discarded. While this may lead to unfair judgment of an individual as does any societal tool, it is also an important part of seeking to understand others.","conclusion":"There is a large amount of diversity in humans, and that should be embraced, not ignored."}
{"id":"5d415700-938a-45d0-bb09-524bcfeb7048","argument":"Now I do not mean service dogs that have a task that they perform, this includes dogs that help people with PTSD or something alike with a task such as deep reassure therapy. Im talking about the dogs that people carry around or have with them because It helps my anxiety depression Now I am no stranger to Anxiety or Depression, For most my life I have lived with OCD which has not only lead me to have bouts of both Anxiety and Depression but also bouts of insomnia, agoraphobia, etc. Now, one of the key things in treatment that they talk about is how you should not create rituals or have crutches to help you complete whatever task you need to do. That you should face up to anxiety and sit with the fear. When my OCD was at its worse in High School I became so agoraphobic that I missed 58 of my attendance one year. I would just not come out of my house, then my room, then my bed, it was a bad time for me but the thing that helped me the most was getting out of the house, facing my fears head on, just me. I feel like if I had a ESA emotional support animal given to me to help me get out eventually I would start to rely on that animal for me to be able to complete any task. Like If I do not have my dog I cannot do this . It is an easy trap to fall into with anxiety and depression. What do you think? If you have an emotional support animal I would love to hear your side of the story Maybe I'm missing some things Change my view","conclusion":"I think the emotional support animals are just an excuse for people to carry around their pets."}
{"id":"a7ca2a5f-c671-4103-aa13-3f1ff31db4d9","argument":"People with personality disorders are capable of controlling themselves This is going to be long, sorry, I think it's pretty good though TLDR TLDR People with personalty disorder have the ability to become decent people if they are self aware and they choose to become passionate and altruistic .There are many people with personality disorders who use their disorder as an excuse to act in destructive and anti social ways that is completely unfair to people around them. People should not use their disorder as an excuse, I have been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and I will never blame any of transgressive issues on the disorder. BPD is not some sort of virus that infects ones body and chemicals to make them act the often harmful ways they do. BPD is just a string of unhealthy defensive mechanisms a child learned from a traumatic and chaotic environment. Every mistake I have made I take full responsibility for. BPD traits are often learned from a young age. I was moved around a lot because my father was in the military at a young age, I made friends at all my schools and immediately had to leave them all two or three years later and never see them again. This is still somewhat traumatic for me to this day for me as silly as that may sound. My father was often away for years at a time in the middle east, I felt like I barely knew my father at some points during my childhood. I also believe he would qualify for having NPD and BPD although not diagnosed and I'm not going to go too far into this. When my father came back from deployment he was often aggressive and controlling, he would be mad about the house not being taken care of enough, he would be mad at me for all sorts of things., He could be angry, threatening, and sometimes even violent. But other times he could be the most loving Dad in the world, we had so much fun sometimes, he would buy me whatever I wanted, we would go to games together and it could be awesome. My relationship with my father is still kind of like this I'm 25 now . The worst thing with me is that he pretty much forced me to try to become a top baseball athlete. He could be the meanest motherfucker when he was doing this. He would make me cry, call me a pussy or a retard but he would praise me when I did a good job. My father is very manipulative and dramatic, I picked up many of my transform him. Despite this, I feel that I sm more self aware of them and able to rationalize with them better. I eventually quit baseball when I was fourteen and he was furious about it. Still he really is an oddly great dad in a lot of ways and has good things about you. He's someone who will help anyone in need no matter what, he's just gonna be a dick about it. Throughout my teenage and early college years I was very reckless. I drank a lot, did any drug you can imagine, sold drugs. I was kind of an asshoel at this time but I had good qualities to me too. I ashamed of the way I treated girls I was interested in at this time. I wasn't a sexist or any hint but I could be manipulative and downright cruel at times. I was never physically or sexual abusive so but I was still an asshole and I'm ashamed of the way I used to act. I tried to overdose two times during my teenage years, one time I just ended up in the woods alive, the other time I ended up fighting a cop and being hospitalized. When I was in my early twenties I became a serious alcoholic and started selling and manufacturing drugs in a bad neighborhood. Before tis, I was sent to the hospital for calling a suicide hotline and sobbing and cursing at the people on the other line because I thought they weren't trying to help me. I had a borderline breakdown while with I girl I was messing around with, I started screaming in a rage at first and then started crying and apologizing. She told me that she thinks I have borderline personality disorder Soon after this I was brutally assaulted by a former friend who was also my room mate at the time for no reason, I think he was on crack or something. It was really bad but I managed to get my contraband out of the house before the police came he punched me in the face about 50 times, hit me with a baseball bat, a guitar, threw me off a chair and stompted on my chest with boots but he never knocked me down, I kept going . This guy had close to 100 pounds on me so I didn't have much of a chance and I feel like if I did fight back he would get a knife.I got out with everyone I needed, never got arrested, but my face liked like the bitch from the exorcist, it was horrible. My parents saw what happened and immediately let me back in the house they rightfully kicked me out before After this, I started attaining therapy and learning more about myself, more about my troubling behaviors and realizing how destructive, inappropriately angry, and subconsciously manipulative I could be. I have also started studying dialectical behavioral therapy. I decided I didn't wanna do anything illegal anymore. It's about a year and a half since then and I'v been doing a lot better, I'm not completely sober but I've learned to use substances in a much safer way and I've learned that I don't need to be on mind altering substances at all time. My father and I are on much better term now and I I'm helping him start a film series business. I also am working on mastering and mixing my first musical album, it's a weird indie rock trip hop electronica mix. I'm really proud of it and I'm proud of what I'm doing. I've been going to LA lately and it's a a lot of fun. I'm planning to eventually start working on film sets full time in LA if I can swing that. I think have flashes of extreme depression, anger, sadness and emptiness, but I am much more self aware and I can convince myself these feeling will pass no matter how intense they are. I still experience feelings of aggressive but anger can be a gift if you know how you can use it The Clash , I have stable opinions and I have BPD, I try my hardest not to compromise but I feel angry when I fell I have to capitulate and pretend my opinions aren't as strong as they are. The problem is, I would come off as a total dick if I did. If you have BPD you need to have balls or a pussy of steel to make yourself, or else you\u2019ll hate yourself for standing for nothing and falling for everything. This being said, it is good to be open minded when presented with good arguments and to be adaptable in all situations including debates. There's a push and a pull, it's good sometimes to be blunt and have bold opinions but you have to time it out so it's appropriate, it's a skill you can work on. You weren\u2019t built to be someone who follows the masses, people with BPD and other personality disorders to use are abnormal thought patterns to do things that others cannot do. It is possibly for someone with a personality disorder to rise above and better themselves and become better people. This is an issue that needs to understood more by contemporary society. You need to use your odd thought processes to do something constructive with for rather them destructive and remember that you cannot run from, everyone has a devil on their shoulder and it must only be listened to sparsely. I'm not saying I'm an amazing person or anything, but I'm trying to be better and I'm slowly getting there, I'm not the ideal version of myself but I'm getting there in if I still get caught into spells of self loathing occasionally. To get to my final fucking point There is a way to become a better and more responsible person if you have BPD or any personality disorder, even NPD, ASPD, and the Cluster A ones but the person has to be self aware and willing to change. I believe that the inherit traits found in people with personality disorders can harnessed in a very special and profound war. A schizoid can make sound logical decisions because they are not effected by emotions as much and can think clearly and analytically. A sociopath can handle morbid subjects that a normal empath may not be able to stomach, as long as the sociopath has a reason not to cause harm as many sociopaths have no real interest in harming people. Someone with borderline can channel their intense emotions in art, music, and writing, dramatic types of people often tend to be charismatic and great actors. TLDR People with personalty disorder have the ability to become decent people if they are self aware and they choose to become passionate and altruistic. x200B x200B Edit Something that sparked the idea of this post was reading about children with parents who have BPD. The poster was saying how whenever he criticized his dad for doing something out of line, his dad would blame it on his BPD and shame his son for picking on the mentally ill . I thought that was some of the pussiest shit I've ever heard. I will never blame BPD on my actions, I am myself and I do what I do and I take responsibility for it. It's a cop out to blame mental illness. And yes, I empathize a lot of with certain behaviors that other people with BPD and other personality disorders do. For instance, I felt sorry that Pete Davidson threatened to commit suicide on instagram, I feel sad for him and I'm sorry he feels that way, I know how he feels and it's absolutely awful. Still at the same time, I don't support manipulating social media and possibly his ex by attempting suicide, that is totally the wrong way to reach out for help and I hope he realizes this and stops that sort of behavior. Still I empathize because I've attempted suicide myself.","conclusion":"People With Personality Disorders are Capable of Controlling Themselves."}
{"id":"ca34986c-9a29-4df6-b470-39a8176f363a","argument":"Cystic Fibrosis is underdiagnosed in African-American patients, as it is considered to be mainly a disease of white people.","conclusion":"It would be dangerous to assume that racial categories map neatly onto medically useful biological categories."}
{"id":"6c40bee6-7dd3-4a54-b84e-4b4ef95e77e2","argument":"I want to start by saying that I loved playing Monopoly as a kid. In fact, it was one of my favorite games. I loved the thrill making money and building an empire of hotels. As I look back on the game, however, it makes me cringe that we continue to teach our children this game. Here are a few standout issues I have Luck vs. Skill Ratio Monopoly is not a game of skill. The simplicity and obvious nature of the choices, combined with the absolute randomness of movement leads one to feel the game is simply playing itself and you have merely been allowed to spectate. One might even be inclined to feel a sense of accomplishment after acquiring a monopoly. However, getting a monopoly happens because you landed on all the required spaces or someone made a horrible trade covered below . Trading is Broken It wasn't until I started to get older that I realized trading in Monopoly was a fundamentally broken. In other games, trading can lead to beautifully complex arrangements that are mutually beneficial. In Monopoly, there are two types of people involved in a trade the winner and the sucker. This goes back to the shallowness of strategy since the trade cannot be hidden beneath layers of strategic purpose, the resulting value of the trade is obvious, and therefore unusable as a mechanic. Strike two. The Time vs. Enjoyment Ratio Monopoly is the poster child of games that take a long time to play. Unlike other games, however, what it takes from you in time it does not repay with depth or enjoyment. Remember when I said that I enjoyed it as a kid? This was when I was in the lead, holding fistfuls of orange 500s. Losing, on the other hand, can brutal not only because you are constantly in fear of landing on the wrong space, but because there is literally nothing you can do about it . To top it all off, your reward for losing after an hour and a half crying tears of frustration is to sit out and stare at your friends for the remaining hour and a half. For this reason, Monopoly has one of the smallest ROIs of any game. All this to say, I realize this is a game for children and the basic principles it teaches are good. But there are other games Settlers of Catan, Aquire, For Sale, etc that teach the very same principles and yet have significantly more upside.","conclusion":"I believe the world would be significantly better off without Monopoly."}
{"id":"9fbb802f-8141-4f02-9949-f756c5e1f75f","argument":"The concept 'God' is a nothing more than a nature worship, but developed over thousands of years. This idea was able to spread due to people seeking the hope in the most horrible circumstances.","conclusion":"It is more likely that people invented the idea of God, than that he actually exists."}
{"id":"d49318b8-d045-4e7e-b838-c8e6b4043308","argument":"I don\u2019t understand why this is such a controversial topic, illegal immigrants are just that illegal. If I were to illegally go to a country, Ireland being a great example of this I\u2019d be thrown out of the country and banned for life so what\u2019s the difference here? I feel like since the U.S. is a top country and our news, is the worlds news anything we do is criticised even if it makes perfect sense. I just don\u2019t get why people defend illegal immigrants, and paint Americans to be racist because we\u2019re upholding our laws. If illegal immigrants truly wanted to live in America they would go through proper channels and follow our laws to come here legally. Also I\u2019ve spoken with a few legal immigrants who feel the same way, they feel like they went through all the hoops to become an American so why shouldn\u2019t illegal immigrants do the same? And I totally agree, but online especially everyone is defending illegal immigrants and saying they deserve to be here which they don\u2019t. That\u2019s like me walking down the street and I see a big mansion and I decide since my house is shit I\u2019m going to break into that mansion and not expect any repercussions for my actions, that\u2019s how I view illegal immigrants, as entitled. And when I bring up these arguments in real life everyone gets angry at me and I just wonder why? Could it be that I\u2019m an asshole? Am I missing something? Because when I bring up these arguments I just rely on logic, and I don\u2019t understand why people think I\u2019m some monster. Also I just think that if it\u2019s illegal, it\u2019s illegal. I don\u2019t go rob a bank and expect not to possibly go to prison even if the money is for a good cause. I think that it\u2019s complete nonsense that people think we should open our borders and let every illegal into America like that doesn\u2019t fuck the economy. Idk I\u2019m conflicted I\u2019m only 19 and probably don\u2019t understand something\u2019s fully. I love people, and immigrants but I just think illegal immigrants should try and come over here legally, instead of illegally. Also I apologize for any grammatical errors in advance, I\u2019m on mobile. TL DR I just think illegal immigrants should come here legally instead of illegally.","conclusion":"Illegal Immigrants shouldn\u2019t be allowed in the United States"}
{"id":"68c194a4-ab39-45c6-938e-ac7b6e7da321","argument":"The main argument opposing abortion is that it is murder. The reasoning behind this is that a fetus is a human life. The response to this by pro choice people is that even though a fetus is not aware of its own existance, and therefore it is no more capable of caring about being killed than a tree. This means that the only people affected by the abortion are the parents, and therefore it should be their decision and specifically, if necessary to choose one parent, the mother because she carries the baby . However, the pro life response is that the child will eventually be born and grow into unambiguously a person, who we have already decided it is usually immoral to kill. Killing that person stops them from being alive in the future. So does abortion, therefore, argue the pro lifers, abortion is morally equivalent to murder and should therefore be illegal. However, I have a serious issue with this argument. As is undisputed by virtually everybody, traits can be passed down from parent to child. This occurs through the fusion of both parents\u2019 sex cells. As can be seen in the case of fraternal twins or other siblings, the offspring of a couple have different characteristics from each other. This means that each time a couple has a child, a different person is created. The reason that this makes the pro life argument seem weak to me is that the logical conclusion is that not having children whenever possible has the same effect as abortion and postnatal murder, preventing a future person from existing. The pro life argument can be pushed even further, by saying that it is immoral not to use fertility aids such as IVF to increase the chances of making a new person. This is obviouslly something that many if not the vast majority of pro lifers would strongly disagree with, as many people, most notably Catholics, view both abortion and IVF as highly immoral for different reasons. Of course, people who are pro life generally do not believe that it is immoral to sometimes not be pregnant. But there is no logical argument that I know of having been raised that says that one type of preventing a future person is ok but another isn\u2019t. Where is the line drawn? It is immoral to stop combined sex cells from multiplying, but perfectly fine to avoid combining them in the first place? Of course, some pro lifers are also anti contraception once again, the catholic church . Therefore you could be even more specific and ask why it is immoral to prevent sex cells from meeting only if sex is involved, but preventing them from meeting by not having sex is totally fine? It is entirely possible that I am missing crucial pieces of informatioj here, but as far as I can gleam from the information I have, this is a serious logical inconsistency in the main argument against abortion, and I see no other conclusion than abortion not being any more murderous than menstruation. However, this is change my view, and if somebody could give me more insight into the pro life argument it would be much appreciated. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"If abortion is murder, then logically so must not having children in the first place."}
{"id":"6095c1a4-853c-408a-b5ba-a94d8f78451a","argument":"Given the number of active terrorist and militarised groups in the region, a strong military presence is necessary to enforce peace.","conclusion":"If Kashmir cannot sustain a stable government and military this may cause further violence in the region."}
{"id":"38d80cf9-08ab-40ae-852e-4d38ce875c29","argument":"Not Avatar The Last Air Bender, Jame's Cameron's Avatar. Sure, the CGI and graphics were great. However, the plot behind the story was extremely simplistic, and could essentially be described as Pocahontas In Space. It was extremely predictable, with cliche themes and names unubtanium? . While it could have been a great world to explore, much of the cooler aspects of two totally different species meeting seems to be left out. I don't think it really adds any value to the Sci Fi genre. Change my view.","conclusion":"I Think Avatar Was A Horrible Movie"}
{"id":"844a979a-f1da-4dee-90e3-f9a6243fa87e","argument":"I strongly believe that abortion is immoral in almost all cases including rape and incest, with only an exception for significant danger to the mother\u2019s health. I am not religious in any way, and I have no bias. I see abortion as murder, and believe that the only reason abortion is legal in most developed countries is because of pressure from the feminist community and I believe that society has ignored the moral grounds for abortion to give women the convenience or \u201cright\u201d as referred to to murder their innocent child. Please try and change my mind Edit I have changed my mind. I still believe that abortion is morally wrong other than cases of rape however, I would not make it illegal, I just view it as immoral.","conclusion":"Abortion is morally wrong in all cases except for danger to the mother\u2019s health"}
{"id":"1d5361e9-78c5-46dd-aa53-99d616339796","argument":"For example, see the inthronisation hymn Ps 2, specifically Ps 2:7 \"You are my son; today I have become your father.\" and similar phrases in other psalms.","conclusion":"An adoptionistic version of the godson myth is easily compatible with, if not prefigured by adoptionist old testament messianism."}
{"id":"1fb5ab82-8384-4e26-91c7-1583cea72082","argument":"So a lot of people find the word Retard used as an insult to be incredibly offensive, akin to saying the n word to a black person. They say that this is because historically the word means mentally handicapped person and it was used in a patronizing and derogatory way during a time when there was a massive cultural stigma and disgust with mental disabilities. Yet, many words over the course of history change. Hell, a lot of the words we use today to refer to someone as an idiot including the word idiot were historically used to describe mentally ill handicapped people. To this day, words like Imbecile, Moron and Cretin are used to describe stupid people or troublemakers, in the case of cretin , yet these words actually mean the exact same thing as retard . So why is retard singled out as ableist ? Are people who take offence to the word simply being resistant to the natural evolution of language, or does their anger have merit? EDIT Everyone made very good points. I'm considering them, but based on the fact that for the most part I had nothing to fire back with, I'd say my views have been thoroughly changed and I'm going to phase this word out of my vocabulary. I'm guilty of frequent use it's easy to just turn to a buddy and say that in good fun without even thinking, but I'll be mindful in the future. Thanks people. Also You get a delta, you get a delta, and you get a delta, everyone gets a delta gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"\"Retard\" is not an offensive or ableist word because the connotation has changed from referring to mentally handicapped people to referring to stupid people, much like how the meaning of other words like \"dumb\" and \"lame\" have also changed meanings dramatically."}
{"id":"c74ce8e2-7913-4197-bc8a-ddbdfdfb52bf","argument":"Some with great math ability may be financial failures due to other traits held by the individuals, some may be successes due to their math ability and some may be successes due to unrelated traits held by the individuals. Natural selection is muddied in this way too because the net impact of all the traits an organism can outweigh the effect of any 1 trait.","conclusion":"This is a false analogy because life is not as simple as a math course acceptance process. A more fit analogy would be financial success because as with evolutionary fitness, financial success is determined by a myriad of factors."}
{"id":"ed885883-0554-43a6-89ac-ce19d8b7793e","argument":"Let me first define my point Nuke on an ICBM meaning they are able to put a functiona,l miniaturized atomic and or eventually a hydrogen bomb on an ICBM with a range which can reach parts or all of the continental USA. This includes a re entry vehicle which survives, well, the re entry into earths atmosphere and can be aimed accurately enough to hit population centers. within a couple of years I think there are ways to delay them reaching that goal and there might be unforeseen hurdles delaying it without outside interference but I believe that North Korea will have such a missile ready within 10 years, possibly 5 or less but even if its 15 years or so this doesn't really change the premise too much. there is no good way stopping this from happening . Okay, this is where I want people to  unless they can make a good case for North Koreanot being able to develop such a missile in their current situation . I think good ways efforts are ones which stop indefinetly delay the NK nuclear program without causing massive loss of human lives. My View I believe that since 2002 and their nuclear test in 2006 no sanctions, talks or other efforts have shown effective in delaying the NK nuclear program to the point where they won't reach their goal of ICBMs carrying nukes within a reasonable timespan. I further believe that more sanctions or talks, even with the full cooperation as far is realistic from China and Russia would result in the end of the NK nuclear project or slow its progress to the point where they won't reach their goals in any reasonable amount of time. I think more Sanctions can buy more time but won't eliminate the problem and at this stage won't delay it that much , I think they will develop such a missile nuke within 15 years. I think covert efforts like the ones which have apparently been happening under the Obama administration to sabotage their missile technology and or nuclear technology see Iran can be fruitful in that they might cause further delays, like sanctions, but I believe that even a combination of those and more sanctions won't stop the North Koreans reaching their goal in said time span. I think targeted military strikes would also only cause minor delays and likely make the project less vulnerable to future strikes with the North Koreans only digging deeper into mountains to protect their program from future attacks. I also think they would undermine the USA's diplomatic standing with NK, SK and China making future diplomatic efforts harder. I further believe that a full scale Invasion would end in a tremendous military, diplomatic and humanitarian disaster and would only be possible with the cooperation of South Korea and or Japan and I think those countries have, in a situation like the current one, very little reasons to support such an invasion given the tremendous dangers it creates for them and would likely only do so if North Korea was on the brink to attack one of them, I don't think either country would see NK getting nuclear ICBMs as sufficient threat to support an invasion. so thats it,","conclusion":"North Korea will put a Nuke on an ICBM within a couple of years and there is no good way stopping this from happening."}
{"id":"3fec862c-a1a8-4bbb-890d-1e48e5a0dfde","argument":"In a multicultural society it is unlikely that clerics will represent only their co-religionists. It is wrong to expect the believers of one faith to be represented by the cleric of another faith. These are very delicate issues, and it could cause much unrest and protest if such a situation was imposed on a religious community. At the very least, those of other religions will see them as unapproachable. The principles of a secular state are nowhere more important than in a multi-faith state, in which overt displays of state affinity with one faith could damage relations between the state and those who adhere to another faith.","conclusion":"In a multicultural society it is unlikely that clerics will represent only their co-religionists. It..."}
{"id":"d0989591-fb8a-4712-8554-3cf4a06fde5f","argument":"The support for Saudi Arabia is boiled down to ideas that Saudis are a critical player in our fight against terrorism and terrorist ideology. Another is the idea that we can only enforce change form the inside. The Saudis practice a disgusting form of Islam that calls for punishments based on the Quran, the Muslim Holy Book. It is equally as disturbing as the punishments described in the Bible. The Saudis are also perported to be actual financiers of terrorism. These charges go all the way up to the Saudi royals, although they are unsubstantiated. They regularly execute prisoners and political dissidents and treat women like dogs. I think it is a moral outrage and antithesis of our values to support a brutal and psychopathic regime such as Saudi Arabia.","conclusion":"The support of Saudi Arabia is one of the worst foreign policy decisions that the US and its allies has ever made."}
{"id":"783fd3ab-e373-4232-9d9a-9a769df08c8f","argument":"Net neutrality repeal means less investment in rural areas' ISP infrastructure, as ISPs will prioritize providing areas with a high customer density, such as major cities, with the fastest service.","conclusion":"Net Neutrality prevents ISPs from 'shaping' traffic on their network to help provide the best speeds for the majority of their customers."}
{"id":"190233a1-5414-4962-8a1f-b1a0cac539c9","argument":"legalization would allow for regulations that can help protect the safety of the workers as well as allowing for financial recognition and regulation.","conclusion":"Legalizing sex work will make the profession safer for women"}
{"id":"8f919d46-45a1-4525-b62b-2165af454d55","argument":"Treating water as a commodity that can be traded will be good for downstream states as it creates an incentive for upstream states to take account of their interests. By paying an appropriate rate for their water supplies, they can ensure regular flows and influence policy. For example, in order to profit from water as a commodity, upstream states may forego dam building, improve the efficiency of agricultural irrigation practices, and maintain large forest areas that are crucial to a healthy water cycle. Such leverage can only be achieved through treating water as a commodity; international agreements are too easily broken by new governments.","conclusion":"Treating water as a commodity that can be traded will be good for downstream states as it creates an..."}
{"id":"fa06cc6c-45ca-42bd-9470-ebb6ce5f17f9","argument":"Japan has advocated for the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue - an association between the US, Japan, India and Australia, designed to counter China's influence in Asia.","conclusion":"China and Japan are competing to exercise political control in Asia. These competing interests are a source of conflict between the two nations."}
{"id":"75723dcd-0872-4853-872d-e6a3dada70c2","argument":"There is not only a first-mover advantage, but also a first-mover disadvantage. Late-comers in an industry are assumed to profit from the experience of incumbents, for example through information spillovers, a higher certainty about market conditions and consumer preferences, and generally enhanced information.","conclusion":"It is more likely that countries less advanced than Japan in robotics technology will profit from Japanese spillover effects than the other way around."}
{"id":"f09ec149-18fa-4ca4-b9f3-37efc734ccb8","argument":"The legal precedent of innocent before proven guilty is effective in the case of criminal justice, but not in the case of licensing systems.","conclusion":"There is a difference between assessing innocence and assessing competence."}
{"id":"e90b7a8d-45ae-4939-9d11-cf86e62b8729","argument":"\"He is kind and obliging, generous and benevolent, sociable and cheerful, and is possessed of a mind of a contemplative and reactive character. He is honest, frank, fearless and independent, and as free from dissimulation as any man to be found.\" Dr. John M. Bernhisel a boarder in Joseph Smith's house for nine months.","conclusion":"Almost all accounts of those who personally knew Joseph Smith and who were never members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints reported that his character was impeccable."}
{"id":"0b921fb2-ea47-452c-a70a-f5de0dac97da","argument":"Forced to stand suggest there is an employer work rule\/policy requiring players to stand. As employees, players must follow the work rule\/policy. Any violation of the rule is subject to consequences established in the work rule\/policy. Aggrieved players have a right to complain via their Players' Association.","conclusion":"Players have ample opportunity to protest outside of their workplace."}
{"id":"19fdd0c6-00e7-48a0-aac7-2db12808c7c1","argument":"This is the methodology as far as I know Health 50 Responsiveness 25 Fair financial contribution 25 1 Health This sounds dumb on the surface, but what does the health of people in a country have to do with healthcare? The type of diet a person chooses to eat, and how much exercise they get, and what vices they choose to use or not use, has vastly higher impacts upon general health than the healthcare system does. It isn't fair to say Japan does better than the US in health in the context of ranking the healthcare system , when Americans are far less active and eat a far less healthier diet than they do. 2 Responsiveness I don't disagree with this 3 Fair financial contribution This is begging the question. It assumes that access to healthcare is a right, and that isn't true in all countries. Would we say that a Bugati is a low quality vehicle because very few people can afford to get one? Financial contribution to a product has nothing to do with the quality of that product. There really shouldn't even be an overall 'general ranking', or at least it needs to be used within context better. Health of a nation should be its own category. And financial aid to care should also be in its own category. And then quality of the care should then also be its own category. Also there needs to be some consideration for medical procedures like plastic surgery, hair transplants, laser eye surgery, etc gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Most of the methodogy used by WHO to rank healthcare doesn't make sense for every country"}
{"id":"e1b64feb-3909-4e17-800b-da54403fb259","argument":"I am assuming this is going to be easy to answer. I was going to put it in ELI5 , but feel this might be more appropriate. Essentially. If mass curves space, is gravity not just the result of one mass 'falling' into another mass. Why does there need to be some force at play? Could it not just be an effect of mass. Cause and effect. Mass bends space small objects fall into it. I am sure I am wrong. But at the same time we do not know what gravity is, right? Gravity at the end if the day is a byproduct of mass. This is my view. And I stand by it. But I look forward to everyone's responses","conclusion":"Gravity is a by-product of mass, not a force on its own"}
{"id":"8565e549-9a97-469f-b887-c542dcc22fd1","argument":"If it comes to problems in the relationship, marriage may provide a stopcheck for the partners who may decide to work harder on their relationship, being bound together by a legal contract as well as an emotional one.","conclusion":"Legally, marriage represents a more solid and protected base for all parties involved. This should not be denied to people who want to be in a relationship with multiple partners."}
{"id":"c857a737-416e-4ab9-a63a-52e01a682150","argument":"The degree to which he is a full-blooded politician is furthermore visible in his ascent to power he is currently the youngest leader of any group in the EU Parliament and was the youngest lawmaker in the Bavarian parliament at age 29.","conclusion":"Weber can hardly be said to be unconventional. Throughout his career he has been a member, representative and leader of the most powerful political parties, first in his German home state of Bavaria, then in the European Parliament."}
{"id":"b2c53819-e556-4646-a0b3-a96d3c05db3b","argument":"While the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints does struggle with human fallibility like all churches, it is \"truly\" authorized by God to perform essential ordinances such as baptism Matthew 3:13-17","conclusion":"There is evidence that the Church of Jesus Christ is God's only true Church."}
{"id":"a2274237-0ea1-4daf-a257-90b1d0852b29","argument":"Term limits are flagrantly undemocratic. If a legislator is popular and desired by the people to continue to represent them, then it should be their choice to reelect him. The instituting of term limits assumes voters cannot act intelligently without proper guidance. This is a serious insult to voters' intelligence. The electorate can discern for itself whether a legislator is doing a good job and will vote accordingly. Preventing a potentially popular candidate from standing for reelection simply removes the right from people to make important political decisions. It is not the duty of the state to encourage more candidates to run in elections to replace politicians who are already popular and doing a suitable job1. Should the US people have not been allowed to elect Franklyn D. Roosevelt for his third term? FDR was a very popular and successful president who brought the United States out of depression and won the Second World War and it was those very successes that lead the American people to reelect him. The people, if they have the freedom to choose who should represent them, should have the freedom to choose incumbents, and to do so indefinitely if that is what the popular will demands. 1 Marcus, Andrew. 2010. \"Dodd and Other 'Retiring' Democrats Show Why Term Limitsare a Bad Idea\". Big Government. improve this","conclusion":"Term limits are undemocratic and suggest, falsely, that voters cannot make intelligent decisions about their representatives without guidance:"}
{"id":"8f12e8f8-a1f6-4266-ac97-a83dc922127b","argument":"There is reason to believe that Scientology may have been founded to provide financial gain for L.R. Hubbard.","conclusion":"Some religions appear to have been designed largely to accumulate wealth and status for their creators."}
{"id":"939a1a76-272f-49c4-80b0-2edf873d3b3a","argument":"I want to view others as peers and equals, and I can't help feel a title suggests an apparent hierarchy. At the same time, I admit I have not experimented much with this. I would suspect those who hold titles especially those they feel they worked hard for to be offended if I purposely dropped it. It is challenging to break this social norm I would feel rude. But, I also think it is ridiculous. I am curious if anyone has a valid reason to use fancy name prefixes today.","conclusion":"Titles are archaic and unnecessary today e.g. occupational, aristocratic, academic"}
{"id":"65ab1ad7-6c87-4736-a9ea-78d595b046ab","argument":"A majority of Czechs,Swiss, Poles and Hungarians have strongly opposed EU gun-control and immigration legislation, respectively, but Germans, French and Italians always out-vote them1","conclusion":"The imposition of policies that are not wanted by some European societies will cause a feeling of 'deciding about us without us.'"}
{"id":"4ea4b481-2f70-48e8-bba0-ea6005b7fe75","argument":"Focusing on the ecological crisis explicitly is too overwhelming for many to contemplate, and the environmental movement has already been stigmatized and is unlikely to convert more to its \"side\". The ecological crisis is an outcome with clear root causes in consumerism, finance driven economies that require growth to survive, fossil fuel and resource intensive energy and transportation infrastructure and short termism in agriculture.","conclusion":"Focussing on a single issue it not the way to effectively tackle climate change."}
{"id":"db8bef80-9b63-421a-8cef-da5ee90733e8","argument":"God's omniscience regarding our \"choices\" may mean that a classical God cannot give us freewill.","conclusion":"The existence of a God or deity precludes or inhibits free will."}
{"id":"3f8f562f-8a1f-41d4-9a5f-67db3669f79f","argument":"The highest frequency used by cell phones and Wi-Fi is 6 GHz which is 1\/400,000th of the energy needed to be ionizing","conclusion":"Cell\/Wi-Fi photons are in the GHz, which is non-ionizing radiation, far below the energy levels needed to cause DNA damage."}
{"id":"2bd185ea-6670-4657-9251-bff3408c1565","argument":"VR hurts people's eyes after a while, so it is not a good idea for a long-term basis.","conclusion":"VR is not as healthy for students as going to school"}
{"id":"4ab370b9-cc8a-4b2c-b080-4647bd8a6cfe","argument":"I think the title explains it and here are the supporting views to explain where I am coming from I don't think being in a relationship is a must, especially under any cost. I think wanting to be in a relationship should coincide with wanting to be with one specific person. The idea that you will achieve greater happiness in an imperfect relationship over being single is flawed. No matter what your situation is, you either are or aren't attracted to someone. I agree that personality can somewhat affect the attraction sometimes even a lot although there are rare personalities that are so fascinating to turn ugly into beautiful , still if someone simply doesn't attract you all that compatibility does is indicate a potentially good friendship. There is nothing wrong with preferring to have sex, date and even have relationships with people based purely on their looks. I'd agree that emotionally committing to someone just because they are beautiful is a dumb thing to do, but other than that if it works and satisfies you, I don't see it as a sign of either shallowness or unhealthiness. Being aware that this is all that you want from the person is personal honesty, and I don't see tendency to form long relationship as a sign of higher morality than preferring sex with hot people. There is a lot of other things that affect someone's shallowness and depth, or morality, and making it about relationships is itself shallow. There should be no offense in not wanting to be with a certain kind of people, no matter what that kind is. It's ok that you don't find some types attractive no matter how wonderful they may be. If you only want to date blondes who can juggle and like the color purple, I may not understand it completely, but you shouldn't give up on it if it matters to you. Nobody is perfect, and nobody may even be perfect for you, but you either want to be with someone or you don't. You are not rewarding anyone by trying to get over your preferences for the sake of functionality or because you think it is the best you can get. In fact, you are hurting that person because perhaps to someone they would mean more than that, and now they will be stuck in a relationship with you although I don't think there is someone for everyone, I still think it's a waste to be with someone who either isn't the one you want the most, or the one who wants you the most. In addition to all this, I don't think you should ever change for others unless it is a change you want anyway, or don't mind making. There is very little objectivity about these matters. To explain if you enjoy drinking a lot and personally don't see it as a problem, you should not be expected to change it by your partner. If you think it might be a problem, than they can be a good person for you to help you out of it. Same the other way around, you should always expect to take people for what they are and not assume you can make changes on them once they commit to you it either works for what it is, or it doesn't work.","conclusion":"I don't think people should ever \"settle\" in relationships, and I don't think there is anything wrong in having high criteria when it comes to looks or anything else."}
{"id":"b97156c9-1288-4c5e-889e-74daf910ecf3","argument":"Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke faced ethics inquiries on his spending and travel, as well as land deals he stands to personally benefit from.","conclusion":"Nearly every member of Trump's cabinet has faced ethics investigations."}
{"id":"dc325071-01b4-4560-9b58-b5685da63d17","argument":"One of the most popular strategies in RISK is to take over Australia as quick as possible and slowly build up. There are seemingly several advantages to this strategy, including a continent bonus card and only only territory that needs to seriously be defended. However time and time again, whenever I play RISK, someone uses this strategy and it almost always fails. Here are the most common reasons for failure 1 No one wants you to have Australia. Because the Australia strategy is so popular, more often than naught several players will fight you for control of Australia from the outset. Usually it's because they want Australia, but other times it's because they don't want you to have a bonus. Either way, I've seen people waste a whole game trying to take and hold Australia and lose the whole game in the process. 2 The Bonus isn't worth it Seriously, you only get a 2 troop bonus for holding Australia. While that seems great at the beginning of the game, as your opponents begin massing huge armies that advantage quickly declines. Especially when RISK card start getting turned in. 3 You limit your ability to gain more continent bonuses Although RISK isn't all about bonuses, they certainly help. By holding up in Australia, you all but guarantee that you'll spend most of the game in Asia which is notoriously difficult to take and hold. If you're lucky, you can take Asia by mid game, but even then that makes you a target to your remaining competitors. 4 There's nowhere to run If you're banking on taking small territories and waiting to turn in RISK cards, you have another problem There's no where to run. End Game RISK usually involves huge armies and a lot of battles. Since there's only one way in and out of Australia, an experienced player can effectively hamstring your expansion by plunking down troops in Siam. Now this isn't to say that the Australia strategy CAN'T work but rather that, on the whole, it is overrated and not the best strategy. tl dr the Australia strategy in RISK is overrated,","conclusion":"Going for Australia in RISK is an overrated, and usually foolish, strategic decision."}
{"id":"7d054fcb-2022-4166-a75d-42197edb5524","argument":"One of the main principles of BDSM is SSC - safe, sane, consensual The term was coined in 1983 by david stei for a community purpose statement, and has been adopted internationally.","conclusion":"The BDSM community have systems and practices in place in order to prevent their activities from diverging into abuse and\/or become dangerous for the people involved."}
{"id":"f9217211-5044-4fbb-98db-d342d5ac8678","argument":"British soldiers are constantly given the tag of 'heroes' as if they have made a huge selfless sacrifice. Soldiers sign up to do a job just like the rest of us and are paid to do so. The cause for which they fight is irrelevant to them as they go where they're sent. Often they are described as heroes because they defend us, but the notion that to defend us here in Britain they leave to invade Afghanistan and Iraq or go to hold post in Cyprus is completely ridiculous. There is of course the odd individual who in the line of fire throws their life in the way to protect others, and they deserve this tag, not because they were soldiers but because they saved someones life. I use British soldiers because I am British and feel i'm not fully aware of the feelings towards soldiers in other countries.","conclusion":"I don't think British soldiers should be consiered 'heroes'."}
{"id":"dabd0871-e543-4c95-9da2-fc2b40d477c0","argument":"I've been a lurker on Reddit for about 5 years now, but I only just recently made an account admittedly I make throwaway accounts to post, and I've come to realize that the amount of moderation on Reddit hinders open discussion. I understand that the moderation may be a necessary evil, I understand that making throwaway accounts may be frowned upon, and I understand that subreddits are free to make and enforce whatever rules they want. However I feel that all this moderation is exactly the opposite of what drew people to Reddit in the first place, the option to have real open discussion with real people, and the ability to see everyone's opinion, no matter how 'bad' or uninformed their opinion might be. This concerns me more because of how I've personally seen moderation used to silence opposing views to the hive mind, and in turn how much of a circlejerk some subreddits have become. EDIT Ironically this post was deleted because this account isn't new enough gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The amount of moderation on Reddit has gotten ridiculous."}
{"id":"0a5c19b0-832b-435d-9600-ac7e94e6be22","argument":"From my perspective, most TMNT fans' objections with the movie have been very shallow. The objections I've seen most frequently have been A. Character redesign When the new looks of the turtles were revealed almost a year before the movie was released, they faced harsh criticism on the internet. These criticisms seem largely unwarranted. The movie takes place in a live action setting, so the characters obviously have to look slightly different than their animated counterparts. The CGI is spot on, and the turtles never fall into the uncanny valley. The new designs are consistently effective in preserving the integrity of the characters. They don't stray too far from the initial design, and the changes made are stylistically strong, in some cases used to incorporate character traits Donatello and in others used to update the characters to make them look really goddamn cool Shredder Design is by no means an objective matter, but the new turtles definitely look better than these dudes. B. Plot holes Issues with the plot development I'll admit, the script has issues. However, the tongue in cheek manner in which the plot's shortcomings are acknowledged makes it clear that they're generally a stylistic choice and not just oversights on the part of the production team. Yes, ideally the antagonist would have motivations other than becoming like, stupid rich, and ideally the turtles wouldn't have to rely so much on being immune to bullets, but I don't think that the focus of this movie should be on these details. TMNT 2014 is one of the cheesiest movies I've ever seen, but what do you watch TMNT for if not the cheese? C. Bad acting Megan Fox Okay, Megan Fox is definitely not a good actor. Still, the performances delivered by Tony Shalhoub Splinter , Noel Fisher Michaelangelo , Alan Ritchson Raphael , and Will Arnett Vernon Fenwick are definitely more than enough to hold this movie together. Overall, the movie certainly does have it flaws. Still, it's charming, funny, and we get to see the turtles kick some live action shredder butt. It's my opinion that the majority of criticisms with this movie are a result of either a predisposed hatred of Michael Bay and his movies, or of the idea that it's unacceptable or uncool to be a fan of these movies. The movie tells a fun story and retains the TMNT spirit, and I don't think we could ask for much more than that.","conclusion":"The overwhelmingly negative response of fans to \"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles\"2014 is not a reaction to the film itself."}
{"id":"4724fc41-d515-4e92-a928-74757f87f142","argument":"Unfortunately, the only time Amtrak specifically and passenger rail generally become a part of public discussion seems to be when something goes wrong. Most of you are probably aware that something did go wrong last week, when Amtrak's Northeast Regional 188 derailed in Pennsylvania. This  is not about that incident, however. I have long held the view that the passenger rail should, and inevitably will, become a much larger part of our national transportation mix. I've yet to hear a thoughtful, legitimate argument against greater investment in passenger rail, specifically Amtrak. Most people who oppose Amtrak, particularly in Congress, seem to be doing so based on ideological or political reasons. For example, the last Chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee has called Amtrak a Soviet style railroad . Most criticisms of Amtrak I've heard are similarly based in ideological beliefs. Now, I will try to briefly summarize some of the key reasons I've long thought Amtrak should be a top priority for investment and expanded funding. Critics of Amtrak often point to the fact that it is a money losing operation, and is consequently subsidized by taxpayer money. This is perhaps the most common complaint from some not all Republicans. The way I see it, all modes of transportation are heavily subsidized, and Amtrak should not be singled out for losing money. All railroads, public and private, are responsible for all of their infrastructure. That means every inch of rail, every freight terminal and passenger station, every locomotive and car, their traffic management systems, and even their own police departments. By contrast, we the taxpayer fund the construction and maintenance of airports and highways. We pay for the FAA, which manages private airline traffic. We pay for the TSA, which provides security for the airlines. We pay for traffic officers in police departments. The bankrupt Highway Trust Fund, paid for by the federal gas tax, no longer covers all of its costs. Consequently, Congress has bailed it out with short term extensions for more than eight years now. According to Amtrak's CEO, Joe Boardman, these bailouts have added up to more than Amtrak's entire operating subsidy since its inception in 1975. So, with all this in mind, it seems ridiculous to single out passenger rail as the only transportation mode that needs to be profitable and should not be subsidized. We subsidize all modes, and all lose money, why should Amtrak be the one exception? Even if Amtrak was as burdensome on taxpayers as some politicians and pundits suggest, there seems to be a strong public interest in expanding passenger rail. Unlike road and air competition, even if you personally do not use Amtrak, you benefit from higher Amtrak ridership. According to the Brookings Institute, Amtrak is now the fastest growing method of transportation. Its broken its ridership records nearly every year for the past 12 years, with the Northeast Corridor NEC in particular booming since the introduction of the Acela. Amtrak controls more than 75 of all air rail traffic in the Northeast, which benefits air and road travelers as well. Less traffic on our already congested highways, less traffic in our airports, less pollution in our air, and downward pressure on the demand for oil are all secondary effects that benefit people who do not use Amtrak. If lowering our dependence on foreign oil via decreased demand and if global warming is a concern for you as it is for me, then prioritizing rail over air and road transportation seems to be a necessity. Trains are masters of efficiency in a way that even the most fuel efficient jet and greenest hybrid are not. According to the Department of Transportation's Bureau of Transportation Statistics, in 2012 Amtrak's energy intensity per passenger mile sat at 1,561 British thermal units. By contrast, the average domestic airline service uses 2,477 BTUs per passenger mile. For some reason, 2006 is the last available data on passenger cars, and they used 2,898 BTUs and light trucks used 5,465 BTUs per passenger mile. Even private freight carriers are extremely efficient. According to FreightRailWorks.com, the average train can move one ton of freight 475 miles on one gallon of fuel. These facts suggest to me that the future lies in rail, not road, and that further Amtrak expansion could help lower our national energy consumption and transportation related pollution. So Change My View Like I said, most arguments against Amtrak seem overly politicized. So I'm interested to hear any cogent argument opposing passenger rail investment generally or Amtrak specifically. I suppose the latter is likely easier to make than the former, because it could be possible to support passenger rail investment but oppose Amtrak as an entity. If this is your argument, I would be interested in hearing what alternatives to a federally subsidized passenger rail corporation are out there.","conclusion":"Amtrak should receive much higher levels of funding than they do now."}
{"id":"89b90e3b-eaeb-492c-b0f1-56208bbd5fec","argument":"Margarette Somerville. \"The case against gay marriage.\" McGill Center for Medicine, Ethics and Law. April 29, 2003: \"marriage is not just a matter of private decision-making, it is also of concern to society. That becomes most apparent when a marriage breaks down and ends up in the divorce courts. . If society has a valid interest in marriage, as I believe it does, it must remain involved in marriage through the law.\"","conclusion":"Gay marriage is no private matter, but a public issue"}
{"id":"7b8bb3f9-f911-4143-8eca-cfff686f6a49","argument":"I was listening to Everything's Still Fine by Jean Grae and Quelle Chris. It's basically a skit where Nick Offerman is basically saying You don't have to do anything about issues that don't affect you . Do you live in St. Louis? You know I believe that is their problem . The skit was satirical but it got me thinking that it's kind of true. Why should I have to care about any sort of movement that doesn't affect me? Unless something is directly negatively impacting my life or my friends family then I really am pretty indifferent to some hot button issues. For example is that I don't vote. Politics do affect my life I guess but not significantly enough for me to care. My friend was telling me that it is my responsibility to vote for politicians that are looking out for certain communities gay, black etc but why? In the end my vote really doesn't make a huge difference and even if it did I wouldn't get anything out of it. Now not to say I don't think racism in America or genocide in Africa isn't terrible. But why should I be obligated to be an active supporter of something just because it is the right cause unless it affects me. I feel that in general Reddit and most people feel like this. Whenever someone gives me shit for not caring about a person's problem whom I do not know, I feel that they are hypocritical. They're using an idea selectively because I can guarantee that they don't give damn about a random homeless dude across the country. Everyone has problems and everyone has their own lives. I have my life and they have theirs is mostly how I feel.  and tell me why I should care about issues that don't affect me or people I care about. Edit To clarify I think there's a huge difference between supporting and being an active supporter. Someone thinks I don't support trans rights or the fight against racism. I do support issues like that. I'm saying I'm not really the type to take action unless it involves the people I care about. I'm a very mind your own gotdamn business sort of guy. Edit 2 I will get to some of your guys comments and converse later. I'm currently studying for a midterm","conclusion":"There is no reason to care about issues that don't affect me"}
{"id":"f4b68ec4-ad82-4a02-9f40-1f5ac4ab3509","argument":"There's a real issue here concerning language and definition of the word 'torture'. Having undergone training in the military for surviving captivity, I have been waterboarded, sleep deprived, and made to be uncomfortable in many different ways that were also used by the CIA on terror suspects, and are now labeled as 'torture'. In my opinion those tactics and techniques are not torture and should be used under careful supervision to obtain valuable information.","conclusion":"Some methods that may be considered torture are not so damaging as to be illegitimate."}
{"id":"68ce843f-0294-4b39-9ca7-b65c9350b13b","argument":"As of now it seems that humanity is striving for everlasting life and the singularity. I believe that the singularity can be reached, but it will be out of the human domain, humans being a very peripheral element or just viewed as an earlier part of evolution . While we should be able to upload human minds onto machines in the pretty near future, these will only be copies of the original mind and not the transfer of our consiousness . We are doomed to stay fleshy meatbags or at least brains in a jar  Edit Thanks everyone This was quite the ride. I have been dissuaded. I find it plausible that consciousness is not located in the biomass, but rather in the electrical scheme of our brains, thus it should be able to be emulated, leaving us in the observatory seats. Some additional questions were also answered and of course, left open as well in regards of how one would percieve this new set of neural networks, but I am very satisfied with what came from this discussion. Peace and love to all you beautiful, sentient beings","conclusion":"Humans will practically never be able to transition to fully robotic beings"}
{"id":"bc368114-b8c3-420c-9af9-c7dceebc3511","argument":"By standardising health and safety regulations, businesses can reduce their costs as they no longer need to conform to different standards.","conclusion":"The USE will harmonize laws and regulations more than the EU does, reducing internal barriers to trade."}
{"id":"44f48813-3c19-49ed-a3c1-c96687387cd8","argument":"If it is true that the way in which the universe began was chosen by God, it could also be true at the same time that the laws of nature determined it since God would have created the laws of nature at the creation of the universe.","conclusion":"We do not have a dichotomy here. Both conditions can exist simultaneously."}
{"id":"d4fbe5f7-8307-4ef7-b784-0d38f5cece60","argument":"Football helps students and teachers value athleticism and teamwork as important and essential for growth.","conclusion":"Football encourages holistic development of students when they are in high school and college."}
{"id":"82760f9d-519b-4cd6-ba68-01561a4991c1","argument":"Thomas S. Power, at the time the commander of America's Strategic Air Command, in 1960 rejected any restraint towards Soviet civilians in case the Cold War turned hot: \"The whole idea is to kill the bastards\"","conclusion":"Military history knows plenty of high-ranking commanders who are commonly seen as of questionable personality and reckless as well as inhumane in their plans."}
{"id":"834b1d0d-b081-4e6f-ae40-124f7261c7f2","argument":"Those who serve a 10-year mandatory minimum sentence in Colorado for marijuana possession should be allowed to vote, since marijuana is now legal.","conclusion":"It is unfair to keep punishing those who in the past violated a law that is now legal."}
{"id":"69c142ff-c804-423a-ab2a-f54d1265bf6e","argument":"In Manchester UK, churches are used to host food-banks, breakfast and holiday clubs, credit unions and debt advice centers and support services for refuges and asylum seekers.","conclusion":"Places of worship often fulfill a variety of functions that are vital to the public interest."}
{"id":"3dba1420-88d1-4898-8fcc-ef32c9dc9f98","argument":"It is difficult to define the criteria of effectiveness that could be used to monitor religious institutions.","conclusion":"It is unlikely the government would be able to monitor religious organizations effectively."}
{"id":"e0a7725c-6230-4ebb-9bc3-0d3d63d3ccb4","argument":"A flower produces fragrance which has less qualities than the flower. The flower has form and smell, but the fragrance when carried by the air has only smell and no form.","conclusion":"Something cannot posses categories of qualities which its source as in it's creator and combined parts don't possess. People exist therefore a personal God must be our origin."}
{"id":"0b359a65-71a2-4a24-8df1-c76382a4426b","argument":"To be consistent, if this reason is used to ban same-sex marriage : opposite sex marriage should also be ban.","conclusion":"Illegitimate marriages are already a problem with opposite-sex marriages."}
{"id":"388d4005-3ca6-4a24-88ed-bc21b3ccdc8a","argument":"In the television series King of the Hill , Nancy has an affair with John Redcorn for several seasons. Her husband, Dale, never finds out. Joseph, the son of Nancy and John Redcorn, also never finds out. I have three related arguments. 1 Hank should have told Dale about the affair and 2 Someone Nancy? should have told Joseph who his real father was. Hank is supposedly one of Dale's best friends, and as such should have told his friend about the ongoing constant cheating that was occurring under Dale's roof. Instead, Hank sits back while Dale raises a kid that's not his own, and constantly is made to be a fool while John Redcorn gets to bang his wife. Likewise, Joseph grows up without any of the knowledge from his native american father, without his real father's advice and traditions. It is likely that one day Joseph will find out that he is half native american it would be much better if he found this out from his own mother while he had a chance to share his childhood with his real father. Instead, he had to go through puberty and enter early adulthood with only the squirrely Dale as his role model. That Hank never tells his best friend tarnishes Hank's character. Hank comes off as a selfish promoter of the status quo with no real maturity to do the right thing. Hank doesn't care about Dale at all, and only puts up with him and patronizes him to proliferate the peace of the neighborhood. But, in almost every other part of the show, Hank is shown to be a mature caring individual who has the resolve to do the right thing no matter what. Not only should Hank have told Dale because that's what best friends do, Hank should have told Dale because it fits his character.","conclusion":"Hank should have told Dale about his wife's affair with John Redcorn."}
{"id":"4bea3cca-07d0-4ba1-ba24-9a4c84d47672","argument":"DLT makes it possible to create markets out of commodities and services that were previously impracticable to monetize, such as reporting litter\/hazards","conclusion":"Many cryptocurrencies have intrinsic value based on their utility eg. Enjin Coin, Ethereum."}
{"id":"ef2a7e26-bdbe-4e1f-b726-129d9285ea7c","argument":"It includes a series of demeaning clips implying that the specific male activities outlined in the advert are toxic.","conclusion":"The ad assumes negative behaviors featured in the video are an endemic social problem."}
{"id":"5e35e988-4568-4695-885f-a11b1db97849","argument":"In many cases, the recipient is not in position to consent to the donation. Thus, even if it saves his or her life, it is comes with an intrusion on his or her moral integrity that he or she might value higher than survival. If we are to receive such a drastic sacrifice from someone that we love \u2013 surely we must have a right to veto it?1 This means that to enable the choice of the donor the choice of the receiver has been ignored, there seems to be little reason to simply switch those two positions around as is proposed. 1 Monforte-Royo, C., et al. \u201cThe wish to hasten death: a review of clinical studies.\u201d Psycho-Oncology 20.8 2011: 795-804.","conclusion":"The recipient is forced to receive the sacrifice of another"}
{"id":"f1a7cb92-9ca0-4b2d-9c1e-8803feb5e397","argument":"Land might be cleared in a bee-residing area for human use. To not devastate the bees there, land-use planners should avoid those areas to protect native populations.","conclusion":"People buy products that affect bees, but should be modified to protect bees instead."}
{"id":"81d50f33-3eee-4fd9-a405-256f94db1634","argument":"It seems like It's just a bunch of women looking for banal things to make into some kind of big human rights issue. It feels like they are just trying desperately to be treated like some oppressed minority when they are really treated with more privilege than any man I can name. It's like they expect us to treat them with the sensitivity and benefits of a child, yet give them the rights and respect of an adult. You get either freedom or responsibility, fucking pick I get into a lot of arguments with feminists and would like to find some common ground with them seeing as they are the majority when it comes to gender issues. I guess what I'm really looking for is some important gender discrimination issues women are facing in this country and I mean legal issues, not complaints about society in general. TL DR What is the biggest gender issue women are facing today?","conclusion":"I Think Modern Feminism is Unnecessary"}
{"id":"21a20401-92f0-47ea-86b3-7709822b5e46","argument":"This seems obvious to some people, but there are definitely people who agree with these laws, and I want to hear the other side. I'm trying to wrap my head around the other side and I'm open to understanding. To make my first point, I have bought two guns in the last month in the state of South Carolina. A Ruger 10 22 and an AK47 and before people tell me I should have bought an AKM or an AR series, the AK47 was only 450 and I have a range that allows steel casing ammunition which is 1 4 the price of brass casing ammunition . This is focusing on my state laws, but also about how the federal requirements should be increased. Retail Sales Here's the requirements for buying a gun in the state of South Carolina You must be at least 21 to buy a concealable weapon Handgun and handgun ammo. You must be at least 18 to buy pretty much anything else, and pretty much any other ammo. You cannot be ordered by a court of law to be admitted into a mental health institution. You cannot have a criminal record, or be dishonorably discharged from the military. Here's the information that they ask for, but do not check for, on the background check form You cannot be a user of any illegal substance You cannot be diagnosed with depression You cannot be voluntarily admitted into a mental health institution You cannot have any potential or pending criminal or misdemeanors If you've never been documented doing any of the things on the bottom list, there is no way for them to check. After filling out the form, it takes 20 minutes before the form is approved. You can buy a gun in about 45 minutes from a retail store. Individual Sales Process Go on armslist.com Meet Sign over gun optional, but recommended Leave with gun The above requirements are not enough to sell a firearm. There are way too many shootings. On top of that, most gun deaths are suicides, and very little is in place to keep people from buying a cheap gun. There needs to be a heavy focus including both mental health and strict vetting for those who may suffer from mental health. This is a gun issue, and is not just a mental health issue. I am interested in any arguments. Change my view. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"As a gun owner, federal laws should make it extremely hard to buy a gun in the United States."}
{"id":"fbf9b91b-8da6-4a21-8ca1-a7f55c2cad55","argument":"This is termed 'the politics of consensus', referring to mainstream political thinking, and taking into account the 'body of opinion to which it is believed most reasonable citizens subscribe'. Under this thinking, white supremacy is outside the consensus, and so can be censored. Censorship: A World Encylopaedia p. 2395","conclusion":"If there is a broad mutual consensus that a group or idea is extremely damaging in any way, then censorship can be justified; the decision from Internet companies to censor white supremacists was preceded by extensive campaigning and canvassing of opinion."}
{"id":"cbf381f3-e5b6-4e87-a036-116d9b41f868","argument":"I fully believe that if you deleted these two phrases from every post in existence, the content of the post would either remain unchanged, or would improve. To be honest is too frequently used as a preface not only on reddit, but in real life conversation as well. It's a useless fluff phrase, that serves no purpose other than to either imply that you are usually a liar, or to coax the listener into believing that the following sentences are somehow more truthful than they would be without the preface. To be fair . Why do we need this phrase again? This one I see left and right on reddit, and it's become so ubiquitous that I can't help but stop reading the rest of the post. It accomplishes nothing in providing an opposing viewpoint or counterexample. Just present it, you don't need to announce that you are about to contradict or challenge the other person's view. And who is being fair anyway? Is it you, is it both of us, is it some mysterious judging entity? I usually see it used in examples like Person 1 Greenland is actually colder than Iceland, despite their names suggesting otherwise. Person 2 To be fair, Iceland is pretty cold, too. I don't get it. Who are you being fair to? If you change it to To be fair, Iceland is pretty cold, too. nothing changes, except that you became more succinct. I know that it's completely unreasonable to suggest not allowing these phrases to be used. My view is that users should start to phase them out, and convince other users to stop using them when they see it happening. Kind of like what happened with the phrase underrated gem . I think the use of the phrase should be made fun of until it slowly fizzles out. To change my view, you have to Level 1 Convince me that these phrases are useful, and serve a purpose in bolstering the effectiveness in a statement. Ideally with examples. I am arguing against both phrases, so feel free to just pick one that you want to debate in favor for. Level 2 If you've shown me that the phrases are indeed useful, and worth typing, the next tier of changing my view is showing me that redditors have been using the phrases which I see now do have a purpose correctly all along, and I was just not understanding it. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Prefaces like \"to be honest\" and \"to be fair\" are unnecessary and are, at least, widely misused on reddit and should be retired."}
{"id":"7735c542-1c3a-4c78-8fae-8d98a6a888c9","argument":"I'm always bothered that people are so unwilling to talk about how big a problem raw overpopulation is. People will rightfully cite globalization, climate change, and other existential dreads for evidence of the declining fortunes of the Western world, but the brass tacks is that there are simply too many of us motherfuckers. For the sake of discussion, I'm limiting the scope of overpopulation to the United States. We have a lot of people here, and a tragic percentage of our population lives in poverty, and it's only getting worse. America simply feels busier and more frantic than it used to. Have you been in a modern popular American city lately? Holy shit where did all these people come from? There's just no way to structurally support our population, and it drives me nuts. Yes, I'm aware that most of the world's population could physically live in Texas. That's not relevant here.","conclusion":"The United States has become unsustainably overpopulated, and that's a fundamental problem."}
{"id":"2d744645-00a8-4f41-a2bd-81d0dba3112f","argument":"I've noticed that nearly everyone in Washington is extremely old. I have always thought that that was a bad thing, because of a few reasons 1. if you are already old, then the long term consequences of your decisions probably won't happen until after you are gone, but will be horrible for all of us that are still around, 2. if you are already retired, then you wouldn't know what it is like for a working person today, especially someone struggling to live paycheck to paycheck. TL DR old people shouldn't be in politics because the consequences of their decisions won't affect them, and they don't understand what the circumstances of today are.","conclusion":"People over the retirement age 62 should not be allowed to participate in politics."}
{"id":"ee4fee29-79e0-41b8-892c-17e3b0f42a85","argument":"Whenever I walk past a pet store and see all those animals locked in such a small confined space. My heart goes out to them. One of the worst situations is for the fish. I don't know what cruel guy came up with the idea of having fish as pets but fish don't serve any purpose than as home decor. It's like freezing Han Solo and putting him up in your living room but Han Solo is conscious the whole time. x200B It is simply inhumane is have fish as pets unless you have a pond. Imagine your whole life living within one room that you can't escape, it would definitely drive depression and insanity.","conclusion":"Stop having fish as pets, it is not a good life for them to live in those little fish tanks."}
{"id":"1a887f84-ce2f-4ab9-b407-d9f9b47056fe","argument":"Arming the military more than civilians presents an inherent imbalance or monopoly of force, which defeats the purpose.","conclusion":"The 2nd Amendment is intended to protect citizens against a tyrannical government or an invading force."}
{"id":"6bcf7e8f-c524-4e82-b35d-17e46d1a7eca","argument":"Karen Bradley was unaware of the most very basic information needed to approach her job.","conclusion":"There are already high levels of inconsistency in government competence."}
{"id":"9a7ba45b-ab61-4df1-b78e-c09d20b9dad1","argument":"Some of Shuri technological innovations, such as her upgraded Panther Habit and Remote Control Beads were essential in capturing Ulysses Klaue, a great threat to Wakanda.","conclusion":"Wakanda is far less likely to defeat threats without their advanced technology."}
{"id":"9d9320c4-510d-40c0-a9a2-9356b9049247","argument":"The British would never be willing to make a credible commitment e.g. by exchanging hostages which would restrain them from going back on the deal later.","conclusion":"There is the possibility of cheating on any agreement by the British so we cannot fully trust them ourselves."}
{"id":"a631bf93-f494-41ed-872f-3d27c85153fd","argument":"Using ad-blocking software is one of the means of avoiding ads online that are ethical.","conclusion":"The existence of alternatives does not make the use of ad blockers themselves unethical."}
{"id":"cbf7ab53-bc24-48a2-b55f-cf753646e50f","argument":"Let's first discuss believeallwomen. x200B This is a ridiculous notion. women are humans. humans sometimes lie. therefore, women sometimes lie. It's silly to think that there are not possible motivations for a woman to fabricate a claim. x200B Donald trump accused hillary clinton's campaign of colluding with steele and russia. Should we believe him just because he made an accusation? No clearly, his many motivations for this claim include wanting to smear a political opponent and deflect attention away from his own wrongdoing. x200B Likewise we can conceive of reasons ford might have lied. She could have wanted the national spotlight any reasonable person could predict that such an accusation would put them at the center of attention . She could have wanted to smear a political opponent it's clear that she is left leaning and the left broadly considered kavanaugh an enemy of women that needed to be defeated at all costs She could have been shunned by kavanaugh in high school and harbored ill will it's possible She could have been genuinely assaulted but 3 decades of time shifted her memory of the true attacked it's possible, despite her insistence about the indelible memory in her hippocampus It's possible she lied because of a motivation I have not considered It's possible she's telling the truth. x200B A few questions about her behavior if she didn't lie Why did she lie about coaching her close friend about taking a polygraph for the FBI? Why was her close FBI friend witness tampering dunno what else to call it by pressuring leland keyser to change her testimony in Ford's favor? x200B These are important considerations for any accusation. Asking them is not misogyny or victim shaming. It's healthy skepticism. x200B p.s. you won't change my view by what about ism relating to kavanaugh. His actions don't change the possibility that ford is lying.","conclusion":"It's entirely plausible that ford lied about her accusations"}
{"id":"4c10b215-b581-4e9f-93de-aa5fdee2418b","argument":"Amartya Sen argues that liberals interpret equality in terms of equality of well-being, resources, or capability, whilst conservatives interpret it in terms of equality of liberty.","conclusion":"It has been argued that everyone cares about equality as a value, yet it has different meanings to different people."}
{"id":"806e53ed-b0bb-481a-a891-3295c9ce200d","argument":"By giving tax exemptions to churches on a case-by-case basis rather than automatically, the state can incentivise churches to engage in socially productive behaviour.","conclusion":"Tax exemptions are a privilege and should not automatically be granted to any organisation, including churches."}
{"id":"5573793a-265c-4200-95b7-b01be26fec66","argument":"If God or a similarly powerful entity existed, its existence would be easy to detect.","conclusion":"If God created the universe then he must want to be hidden."}
{"id":"a2c044db-3b3f-433f-8e70-2f8e7d96939a","argument":"The land space is smaller on a lawn than the sources that grocery store foods grow on.","conclusion":"Grocery stores provide more variety than what one lawn can provide."}
{"id":"95f50d48-46e8-49c3-bb5f-51f29afcd448","argument":"Having just one same-race teacher during early schooling has been linked to an increase in black students\u2019 odds of graduating from high school and enrolling in college.","conclusion":"This is likely to increase the number of teachers of colour p. 4."}
{"id":"65dd35f6-347a-4ca5-98e1-24790f7c6d51","argument":"One relevant example: The theory of evolution makes it impossible for the existence of Adam and Eve as described in Genesis.","conclusion":"Some religious beliefs are indeed contrary to science and in no way complementary."}
{"id":"c25442f4-0982-4d6f-973a-bf82626c68a7","argument":"An audit by the US Education Department's Inspector General found the department lacks policies and procedures to ensure loan servicers act in compliance with federal law.","conclusion":"Laws regulating student loan servicers can help to reduce student debt."}
{"id":"fc1ce972-6171-4c2e-b6cb-b992057e1b62","argument":"I frequently see posts about polygamy on here that go something along the lines of if you support same sex marriage, and not polygamy, you're a hypocrite or something along those lines. But this is ridiculous. Same sex marriage and polygamy aren't the same thing, and each one should be judged on its own merits. It's just lazy to lump them together, and ostensibly a way to kind of get people to accept it without even thinking about it. Plus, it's a slippery slope. Accepting one form of relationship does not mean automatic acceptance of the next most popular form of marriage after that. Just like wanting legalized polygamy doesn't automatically mean that you want legalized incestuous marriages. And wanting legalized incestuous marriages doesn't mean you automatically want legalized parent child marriages, etc. Don't use slippery slope to try to make something seem better by comparing it to something else more popular, and don't use slippery slope to try to make something worse by comparing it to something else less popular. Just judge each kind of relationship as a separate issue. .","conclusion":"Starting out arguments about polygamy with \"if you support gay marriage...\" is just lazy."}
{"id":"17c42fed-2322-4800-99f2-ca1a27f127e6","argument":"r LongDistance tends to say that long distance relationships can work. In reality, most of them fail. I think a lot of people on the subreddit are subconsciously biased, they think that long distance relationships do work but in reality they are that lucky minority and they just haven't realized that. They encourage people to give long distance relationships a shot and that is terrible advice. It is pointless to pursue a long distance relationship if you already live in an area with a large population. There are a lot of people in your area so the chances are someone out is compatiable with you. No need to try to find a soulmate on the other side of the world. Long distance relationships are risky. Since you are away from your partner for most of the time, the sexual needs of both people are not met. Both are hence tempted to cheat. And at some poont you start asking yourself 1. Jobwise, it is hard to relocate to another area to be with your significant other. Of course, there are exceptions such as rich people who already have enough money to retire but most peoppe need a regular income to survive. Without local networks and a lack of understanding of local culture, it is generally hard to find a job abroad. Why should a local company hire a foreigner? Even if you moved abroad, there is no guarantee that you can happily be with the other person forever. If that other person cheats on you, you are pretty much screwed. You are by yourself in a foreign piece of land. The chances are you do not love the other person to the point of relocating for them. Such cases of love are very rare. The people on that subreddit generally encourages all kinds of long distance relationships. This includes relocating for someone you have met online. This is a very bad idea. You don't even know if the other person is a catfish. If such relationships work, then there is no need for the mail order bride industry every woman in developing countries can just find true love abroad via online dating sites. All in all, r LongDistance is a very biased subreddit which gives you a distorted view on long distance relationships. Contrary to what people say there, almost all long distance relationships fail.","conclusion":"r\/LongDistance is very biased"}
{"id":"831f4024-cf9c-4324-afaa-b3cdb087efe3","argument":"Christianity and monotheism in general often refer to adherents as sheep in a flock and Christians sometimes characterize themselves as slaves to Christ this is totalitarian.","conclusion":"Christianity is actually anti-democracy: it is more authoritarian at its core as it has one power above all God."}
{"id":"50a52cfe-b5a8-4af1-a3b9-39053194a7d2","argument":"It is not enough for feminism to accommodate women in patriarchy, or make that patriarchy less appalling, as it has been argued Islamic feminism does. p. 58 Rather it is necessary that feminism seek to abolish patriarchy wholesale, in order that individuals be allowed to live their lives as they see fit, free from the constraints of gender.","conclusion":"Critics of Islamic feminism have argued that in presenting an idealized notion of a feminist interpretation of scripture, the movement has failed to acknowledge and engage with the realities of gender oppressive practices in the religion and damaged the project of women's liberation in Islam as a result."}
{"id":"9a4a29a6-5715-4ea6-b81b-44d3e57bdbd7","argument":"I've been thinking about this for some time and I think from my own perspectives that the idolization of Superheroes and their related media comics, movies, games is the result of the human sense of narcissism and grandiosity. Now I don't mean this in a negative way more in a mixed bag way I think that figures like Superman are meant to be a reflection of someone's unrealistic sense of importance and self esteem. Think about it, Superman is pretty much invincible, he can stop a bullet from piercing his skin and he left perhaps a mountain the size of Mt. Everest with one hand. And he is the savior and protector of Earth and the whole world rests on his shoulders. Because of this, some detractors dismiss him as a one dimensional mary sue who is America's golden poster boy , and when he has a weakness, his detractors dismiss it as a shallow plot device to make things dramatic because he always wins in the end . Not just Superman but other heroes like Batman, Spider Man, and Iron Man seem to border the mary sue line to some detractors. Iron Man and Batman don't have superpowers, but they seem to have a higher net worth than Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos combined and somehow this high public profile doesn't cause them to be exposed by journalist in the age of the internet leaks on google, facebook, etc. not to mention their social security numbers and other sensitive accounts may be in higher risk. On Spider Man, he is this high school college student in NYC who fights all forms of crime including a typical episode of catching a thief snatching a woman's purse. This type of burglary seems to continue for who knows how many years Spidey has been in business. The police departments seem to continue to be in business but when they are beckoned to confront a villain or petty thief, they are rendered useless until the Superhero comes in. These type of flaws or holes that are prevalent in many SH related media kinda reveals that these iconic characters are just a reflection of our egos and our exaggerated sense of importance. Not this a bad thing, just that it could undermine the morals that earlier works have done like in the times of Ancient Greeks or the Middle Ages or even relative recent stuff like the 18th 19th early 20th century stories of flawed heroes. I think in comparison to stuff like Game of Thrones, the heroes we know are often too high and mighty angels while irl and GoT the heroes are half angels, half demons, kinda like most of us irl. Feel free to discuss my idea with yours.","conclusion":"Superheroes a projection of one's grandiosity and narcissism"}
{"id":"3f2be425-bfe2-4251-91ca-dae7b2808f50","argument":"Judeo-Christian texts actually seem to suggest that \"life\" begins the moment the \"breath of life\" enters a person. Even Adam wasn't considered \"alive\", despite his physical development, until the \"breath of life\" entered him - which coincided with his first breath: \"and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being,\" Genesis 2:7.","conclusion":"Biblically, life is associated with breath, not conception or heartbeats. From Adam being created from dust and then getting the breath of life; Ezekiel's army of bones; to when Jesus \"breathed his last and his soul departed\", the Bible is pretty clear on this."}
{"id":"a186b36f-5c37-4f35-8b60-a4313a2d6771","argument":"While I do understand that there are several problems that are caused by illegal immigration such as drug crime, human trafficking, and lower wages in particular vocations. It is also true that the majority of people from Mexico flee to America for the betterment of themselves and their families. Mexico has failed their people and they just want to live in a more just and free society. If I were Mexican and lived in the same desperation I would absolutely do what I had to do to get to America. What I propose is working with the Mexican government to end the corruption and drug trade by any means possible. Make it a safe place to live, work and raise a family. I believe we can accomplish this by forging an alliance with Mexico and utilize our armed forces to target and eliminate the cartels. Once they are gone, assist the government, with the help of our FBI and CIA to flush out the corrupt government officials. My belief is that doing this not only would we strengthen Mexico and allow it to reach it's full potential. We could also put a huge dent in the cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine problem in the U.S. as well as in Canada. I have been to Mexico several times, the landscape, culture and people are truly fantastic. In my view there is no reason why we shouldn't do what we can to help our neighbors to the South while also benefitting the U.S. and Canada as well. I apologise for typos grammar. This was written on my phone. You know how it goes.","conclusion":"We the United States should focus less on Mexican illegal immigration and more on fixing Mexico."}
{"id":"bc12a172-14f4-4d44-b704-67bf3007c8cc","argument":"A comprehensive longitudinal study was unable to replicate a theory that suggested newborn babies are able to imitate facial expressions.","conclusion":"An overwhelming majority of studies conducted in the field cannot be replicated successfully"}
{"id":"a9761724-a432-41a5-bbd2-fb904f93e6d5","argument":"The reddit hive mind hates Apple and its iPhones, and one the main reasons redditors give to justify the hate is the planned obsolescence they seem to think Apple holds as its core business strategy, which, in my opinion, is absurd. For me, even though Apple gives incremental upgrades to their hardware every year and hence planned obsolescence would benefit their sales, that is not something that the company actively pursues, and I would even say that it tries to lengthen their devices life span when possible. Here are my arguments 1 Their hardware's durability is above average compared to other similar tech companies. I have an iPhone 5s that works even better today than it did back when I bought it thanks to iOS 12. I know it is anecdotal, but I would say the same about all my Apple devices, and on the other side, some people, who were unlucky with their devices or simply didn't treat them well, are very vocal about their devices breaking. 2 Contrary to Android, Apple tries to give software support to as many as devices as possible. As the years go by, iOS becomes more powerful and so more demanding. Each time there's a new iOS, there's a wave of users complaining about Apple slowing down their device to force them to upgrade, just after their old device was upgraded with a new software and has to adapt to it. iOS 12 focusing on performance, especially for older iDevices, is proof of that. 3 The battery life related device slowing clearly wasn't so that users would upgrade their iPhone. It would cost Apple far too much to write lines of code in the express purpose of making their past devices worse. It would be plain stupid to think that their consumers are loyal to that point and it would clearly hurt their sales and reputation overall. Diminishing the phone's capabilities so that the battery life shrinking doesn't make it unusable makes far more sense. They had a choice to make, and they did. It was about user experience, not increasing sales. 4 Dongles, cables and connectors Apple used the 30 pin connector during the 11 years, then switched to Lightning connector, which is one of the best connectors today. How is this planned obsolescence? The USB C only MacBook Pro and jack less iPhone 7 were a bad choice in my opinion, but I don't think it was planned obsolescence. It was arrogance. They think their view of a good user experience is better than what the people think it is. But it is absurd to think that Apple's plan was to increase their revenue by becoming a dongle company . Thank you for discussing this","conclusion":"Apple isn't guilty of planned obsolescence"}
{"id":"dea43856-dc42-4aff-90c8-d1ef4e16774f","argument":"Johnson introduced an Ultra Low Emission Zone in Central London where most vehicles need to meet certain emissions standards or pay a daily charge.","conclusion":"London made positive strides forward with regards to the environment under Johnson's time as mayor."}
{"id":"f8354d30-469a-4dd1-96db-89ef2919e7fe","argument":"Women get much more attention and much more empathy from both genders. It\u2019s easier for women to make friends. Women have far more friends and likes on social media. Women are more protected. Schools are more geared toward a female bookworm learning style then a hands on approach that would benefit men. In dating its the man who has to pay for the women and impress her not the other way around. The wage gap myth has been debunked. The only reason why males have higher salaries then women on average is because women tend to choose lower paying careers. It\u2019s socially acceptable for women to not work and stay at home with the kids. But if men do the same they are mocked. Women get far less sentences for the same crimes as men. There are \u201cladies night\u201d specials for women at bars nightclubs but no such deals for men. Male only clubs like Boy Scouts are forced to allow women but not other way around. There are far more groups and services for women then men. Men are forced to sign up for selective services but not women. In family court women are always getting 50 of their husbands money in the divorce and primary custody of the kids. Women can now get men fired for simply accusing a man of sexual harassment or rape without and evidence or his day in court. Women also control access to sex and can wield it over men in exchange for money and undivided attention. Women have a natural beauty men do not have and as a result can be paid large sums of money for posing nude, stripping, escorting or participating in porn. Men are not naturally beautiful and therefore have to work much harder for money. Women are valued for simply existing. Men are valued only if they are successful at their career. Voting. Most men couldn't vote for most of history and neither could most women. Men had to die by the millions before the franchise was given and even then mandatory conscription was the price paid for it. Women got it, just because. In most cases, at least in western countries, women and men got the vote only a few years apart or they got it at the same time. Bank accounts Outside of marriage, women had the largely the same rights as men as far as banking was concerned. Things changed when marriage came into the mix but it wasn't the one sided setup that's been portrayed in popular media. Wives and Husbands had complimentary rights and responsibilities. For instance, the marital property laws in Britain were changed when a woman I forget her name was robbed, and she was shocked when the police report described the cash stolen from her as being the legal property of her husband. She was outraged. She didn't have a right to own property? All the property of the marriage, including that which she had brought into it, legally belonged to her husband? Now you can see from a reading of suits brought by women in the three courts available to them ecclesiastical, equity and common law at least as far back as the 1600s, that LOTS of women had no real idea that the cattle or furniture or money they'd brought with them into the marriage no longer technically belonged to them. There were suits complaining that their husband had mismanaged my portion , or had sold my grandfather clock against her wishes. Decisions of the courts were a mixed bag, some upholding the woman's claim, some not. But clearly these women weren't existing in marriages where their husbands made it a point to say, all your shit belongs to me now. On the other hand, their probably wasn't a woman alive who was unaware of the privileges granted her by coverture laws, including the law of agency, which gave women the default right to purchase goods and services on their husbands' credit their right to be held immune from marital debt and their dower rights to a life interest in their husbands' real property. So basically, married women exercised their special rights and privileges re the law of agency, on a daily or near daily basis , yet most of them were blissfully unaware of many of the restrictions placed on them by the law, because for most women those restrictions tended not to impact their daily lives unless their husbands were complete pricks . You can see this reflected in some judgments where the courts were forced to side with the husband. In one case, the husband and wife separated when she was pregnant, and she took the layette with her when she left the household. He sued her for its return and it was technically his property . The decision of the court was that the wife had immediate need of it, and the husband clearly did not, so she should keep it until she no longer had need of it, then return it to her husband. The tone of the decision, despite its upholding of his rights, was that the husband was essentially being a total asshole, and that his claim to the property despite its significant monetary value and his legal right to it was petty and an unbecoming, churlish abuse of his legal privilege. Divorce In the past men and women still had a near equal right to divorce. The only difference was while men only needed to prove infidelity on the part of their wives, infidelity alone on the part of the husband was not sufficient grounds for the wife she had to prove cruelty or injury to her dignity as well. This is because husbands were solely financially responsible for any children their wives bore within marriage, so infidelity on the part of the wife represented an additional risk of serious financial injury to the husband being forced to pay for another man's child . Only women could seek divorce on the basis of cruelty or abuse. Men whose wives were cruel or abusive could not use this as grounds. In addition, husbands and wives had an equal right to conjugal relations and either could seek divorce if their spouse refused to provide them within reason with sex. Back in the middle ages, men accused of impotence by their wives, and who were facing divorce and an alimony obligation used to be made to stand in front of a panel of elder women and prove they could perform sexually. Literally, they had to show a bunch of complete strangers they could achieve an erection in order to avoid a divorce. Divorces could not be granted by simple consent of both parties, however. Both men and women needed adequate grounds to divorce. On the other hand, women negotiating legal separation or divorce would often exploit the law of agency to rack up massive debts in their husbands' names in order to pressure him to agree to generous alimony, which was his only legal relief from her ability to act as his legal agent and make purchases in his name. This too, while recognized as the right of a woman and not punishable under the law, was frowned on by society. Now going back to our outraged wife who had just discovered her money was technically the property of her husband. She successfully argued that this was indeed an outrage, other feminists took up her cause, and the result was that women could now hold significant income and wealth separate from their husbands in terms of their property and earned income, they became femme sole once more . Of course, this put men in something of an untenable position, as they were now required by law to financially support wives who might be independently wealthier than they themselves, but they no longer had access to their wives' incomes in order to do it. Men were also still required to pay the tax owing on their wives incomes and property, but again, had no right or claim to that income or property or even documentation of it even for that purpose. Equal pay for equal work? CONSAD report Running for political office? Women who actually run for political office have equal chances of winning compared to their male counterparts. Fewer women run in the first place however. Hold religious office? I'll give you that there haven't been any women popes. Inheritance to oldest male child? As a legal default only, and as indicated above, likely because that oldest male child would likely be tasked with the responsibility of keeping the family going if things went tits up. Social options almost never acessed by a woman unless she had extraordinary power? Women have had extraordinary social options, far beyond what men have had for basically all of recorded western history. Women could certainly work and get educations prior to the 1800s in the west. What's interesting to note, I would hope, is that most of the women who chose to enter the trades back in the 1400s were orphans women who were unlikely to make a good marriage. Becoming a tradesman wasn't an easy life indentured as a child into essentially an unpaid internship that got you little more than room and board, then journeyman status travelling from town to town , and finally you'd get master status and be able to set up a permanent shop in your mid twenties. A woman who married a tradesman, on the other hand, could learn the trade from him, and inherit his master status and his proprietorship if she was widowed, and even take on apprentices. All without having to go through the hardship and toil of being an apprentice or a journeyman. Additionally, historically women were the only sex protected from spousal abuse. Laws have existed ensuring wives enjoyed the security of the peace against their husbands since before Blackstone's Commentaries, which was a compendium of already existing laws in England and Wales. Interestingly, there was nothing within the law forbidding a woman from assaulting her husband. As recently as the early 1900s when states in the US began banning corporal punishment , men in the US were publicly flogged for beating their wives. It was the preferred punishment for men, as fines and prison which could also be applied were seen as causing deprivation to the wife fines came out of the family purse, and men in prison can't earn income . Continuing on with social options, there's even more. Lets examine women's historical rights with regards to their children Prior to the mid 1800s, men got the kids in a divorce. This is because he was solely financially responsible for them. Caroline Norton in the UK convinced the establishment to change the system such that children of tender years under 8 or so, later expanded to all minors rightly belonged with the mother. Of course, dad still got stuck with the cost of financially supporting the kids's household, regardless of whether his ex wife was wealthy in her own right. More particulars about marital property Like I hinted above, prior to the mid 1800s, women handed some not all of their property to their husbands upon marriage. In return, they were granted an entitlement to his financial support, rights as his agent to purchase goods on his credit, the right to legal redress if he failed to support her adequately or used her portion not to her benefit , dower rights to his real property, and immunity from prosecution penalty even on debts she solely accrued. First wave feminists changed things such that a married woman held her income and property femme sole as if unmarried , meaning her husband and children had no right or claim to it and again, I want to reiterate her husband had no right to even see documentation of it . Yet all of the benefits and entitlements of marriage for women remained in place. A woman could invest her money unwisely and go into debt, and her husband was held responsible for repayment. If she refused to pay her taxes, her husband could go to prison for tax evasion, because paying the taxes on her income and property was still legally his responsibility. She could still accrue debt in his name. She still maintained the right to demand he support her and the children, even if she was wealthy, and had the right to sue him if she was forced to spend a penny of her own money on her own upkeep, let alone his or the children's. Dower rights remained in place, meaning she could sell a house she owned without his permission or knowledge, but he could not sell a house he owned without her consent. Incidentally, feminists in New York State in 1910 were claiming that these changes didn't go far enough. They insisted that rights regarding children discriminated against mothers, and should be equalized. Of course, by then, the Tender Years doctrine was in place favoring women , and within marriage mothers were considered equal custodians and guardians of their children. The only part of the law that discriminated against women was regarding minor children's property and income, which the law rightly placed in the care of the father the parent financially responsible for supporting said children . Feminists, however, wanted women to have equal control over their children's money, despite legally bearing no financial responsibility to them whatsoever. Contracts By the late 1800s, feminists, in conjunction with changes to marital property law, won the right for married women to enter into contracts in their own names. Of course, at the time, their husbands were still legally liable for any debts their wives might accrue, so it became common practice for lenders to require a male cosigner on mortgages and loans. That is, they wanted to identify a male who would take responsibility for the debt if she defaulted, and have access to his credit rating before lending money. This avoided the inevitable sticky legal mess of locating the man responsible after the fact and getting their money back. Imagine if your spouse could walk into a bank and be given a credit card in her name without your knowledge or consent, and then when the bill came due you were held responsible for paying it. Incidentally, by the 1960s, feminists were complaining that the practice of requiring a male cosigner arbitrarily discriminated against women and it was made illegal. Changes ameliorating men's responsibility to repay their wives' debts came later, mostly via case law. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Men are actually more oppressed than women in America"}
{"id":"526ed507-f8e3-4c7f-8e47-e7bdd7c45d34","argument":"First, let me argue that the search for objectivity has indeed been squandered. After World War 2, the advertising industry began to discover and explore the fruits of psychological research. Its goal presenting reality in a skewed way, designed to entice people to buy products. It was the first serious dent in the armor of objectivity. Next, the 1960s and 1970s broke many myths about the infallibility of authority. The Man, we learned, had been lying to us. The undeniability of that fact think Nixon made an entire generation deeply skeptical about any kind of authority, and raised fundamental questions about what is true or not. But it went beyond that. Exasperation with a stale political system and an obsequious media led to activism groundroots campaigns of people coming together to fight for a cause and to bring about change. When confronted with more apathy among the populace than they had hoped for, activists became convinced that the problem was not that their cause was wrong, but that their presentation was the opposing side was just better at using lies and tricks to keep the general population indifferent and docile. So in response, activists became adept at applying the same tools and tricks, perfected in advertising play to people's emotions, manipulate them psychologically, in short propaganda. What was objectively true took a back seat to what you could convince people of. Then the political right saw the wildly popular success of this approach and began applying it to their own ideologies. They themselves began to present patently delusional statements Evolution is false or Climate change does not exist as perfectly valid talking points in the public debate. The political left couldn't call them out on it they had abandoned objective truth long ago. But the worst offenders in the war on objectivity are the media. They may not have been paragons of truthfulness in the past, but with cost cutting, a 24 hour news cycle, pressure from their media conglomerate owners and, above all, the blurring line between media and entertainment, media outlets put the final nail in the coffin. They traded objectivity, which requires hard work and makes for bad ratings, for impartiality, which is a nice word for playing referee in the verbal equivalent of a pro wrestling match. People instictively prefer to watch conflict, drama and horror, so let's give the people what they want. Which brings us to today. Objective truth has become a quaint, old fashioned concept at every level of society. Individually, we present ourselves cautiously and with careful planning on social media, making sure not to damage our personal brand. Collectively, we're a set of hive minds everything we read or hear that we disagree with is roundly dismissed. In order to do this, we invariably interpret every human action as having a hidden agenda what's the angle? Is it about money, power, fame? Scientists, politicians, journalists in our modern world, all of them are suspect, and none of them act without ulterior motives. It's become very hard to convince us that someone could actually sacrifice their own personal interest for what is objectively the truth or the right thing to do. The few people who do that are suckers who are being taken advantage of. When we meet a person we disagree with, we grow suspicious, not curious. We retreat more and more into our echo chambers, to avoid the danger of hearing or seeing an opposing view, for fear they might be right. We're polarized, like little children unwilling to apologize or see reason. And it's no wonder we're so defensive the vast majority of opinions we encounter are deliberately manipulative every Facebook post, every ad, every political soundbite, every news story has been carefully crafted to change our opinion, to win us over, regardless of what is true. Now, the typical reaction to this kind of rant is to say that objective truth is an illusion anyway. Even if there is, on a philosophical level, something that can be called objective truth , us humans can never hope to experience it, because our observations, preconceptions and so on cloud our judgment. And of course, this is objectively true. But read my title again the search for objectivity has been marginalized. The problem is that we no longer care about objective truth, and revert instead to the Dude's mantra That's just, like, your opinion, man. The second part of my view is that this loss of objectivity is dangerous. Numerous radical, objectively false viewpoints are demonstrably damaging to society. The measles are back in full swing, because too many people believe that vaccination causes autism. The West is woefully behind when it comes to controlling climate change, because too many people believe that it's a myth. Those are just random examples. But in a more general sense, people don't know who to believe anymore and follow whoever appeals to their emotion or who shouts the loudest. The validity of your claims is now measured only by the size of your gaffes or the quality of your soundbites. Donald Trump is a popular candidate because he's brazen, loud and unapologetic. No matter how ludicrous or unsubstantiated his claims are, he will simply never embarrass himself he's incapable of embarrassment. That simple quality is a big part of why he's the leading candidate for the GOP today. If The Donald makes president, it'll be the final victory over objectivity. Please reddit, change my view.","conclusion":"the search for objectivity has been marginalized, and that's a dangerous fact."}
{"id":"6ee230cc-f517-4e49-b9ca-89ea0431b388","argument":"While the new \u2018EU High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy\u2019 marks only a bold first step towards a more unified voice for the EU, the decisions are indeed still based on a state by state consultation mechanism \u2013 hence the name representative. This should however not to be downplayed as a less significant change in how the EU approaches its foreign policy. The consultation aspect is in fact essential to reaching agreement and the importance of not only presenting a united front to the rest of the world, but also creating a united front through collaboration and debate. One should thus see this not only as a means to an end, but rather as an important mechanism in itself, whereby new identities are slowly created along with a deeper sense of commitment to a common set of values.","conclusion":"While the new \u2018EU High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy\u2019 marks only a bold first step ..."}
{"id":"ed904092-e6d3-4534-a8fd-d46a9e1ae858","argument":"Similar levels of growth and reduction in economic inequality were seen in Taiwan and South Korea, both under authoritarian rule at the time. This was because the East Asian region shared a cultural tradition of collectivism honoring shared material benefits Feng, p. 3 This indicates that income redistributive policies are independent of the type of government in place.","conclusion":"Countries such as Japan saw economic growth accompanied by a decrease in income inequality during the 1960's and 70's. This was because of provision of benefits such as childcare, company housing, guaranteed life-long employment, health care, and subsidized meals in addition to wages, rather than reliance on absolute economic growth Feng, p. 3\/4"}
{"id":"466317a9-8a06-47de-90a7-f4e1ea19ebcd","argument":"Helping a child understand the emotion that lead to the undesirable behavior has higher efficacy.","conclusion":"There are better tools that can be used to help children behave well."}
{"id":"1ce932b1-85d7-4e18-83a7-8015cdcb878e","argument":"prostitution is the 'oldest profession', it is not going any where. so rather than ignore it, we should legalize it so sex workers are less vulnerable to drug addiction and violence.","conclusion":"Legalizing sex work will make the profession safer for women"}
{"id":"a9ac78a1-083b-41ec-8dcd-546408268cd4","argument":"Some time ago, I read a discussion here on reddit about abortion. One person granted the other that foetus are legal persons and have rights, but used the bodily autonomy argument in favour of abortion. To preface what I am going to say, let me first say I am not anti abortion, but to me the discussion about the legality and morality of abortion is about the question of consciousness and individual experience of the foetus, so mostly about brain development. Now granting a person who is anti abortion on grounds that the fertilised egg is a legal person with rights, but then claiming the bodily autonomy of the woman to give her the right to end this life, is a flawed argument to me. The bodily autonomy is about choice and the freedom of the woman to decide what happens to her body and that these factors override the right to live, a fundamental right in our society, of the foetus. Once you make this argument, you have to include the fact that the foetus now considered a full person with his own rights did not make the choice to be created in the first place. The people involved in the sexual act did. How can you claim bodily autonomy of the woman without granting the same to the foetus? The viability argument does not hold, because you are arguing under the assumption that it's already a person with rights, and there are a lot of people who are dependent medically to be kept alive or not viable but it's still considered morally wrong and illegal to kill them. The only time the bodily autonomy argument holds in my opinion, is the case of rape. Edit Thanks all for the discussion, my view was that the argument is illogical but I was provided with numerous counterexamples where the right to bodily autonomy holds regardless of your actions, so it's not illogical to hold this view.","conclusion":"Granting the premise that a foetus is a person but then using the bodily autonomy argument in favour of abortion is illogical."}
{"id":"2cf62c85-54d4-41a6-897e-702f49263420","argument":"In many cases, publishers offer a subscription service that removes advertising from their pages. To gain the benefits of the service without paying is cheating.","conclusion":"Without advertisements, many internet content creators would not get paid."}
{"id":"8bd9df53-45a2-4e3f-a19a-b03848c0813b","argument":"There would be severely less dishes that have meat as a key ingredient and thus would lead to a loss of dishes that have evolved over thousands of years, even those that are part of the culture of countries.","conclusion":"Many people gain substantial happiness from their non-vegan diet."}
{"id":"ea62130d-a9c6-4621-be7f-fe0db50c1036","argument":"I hear a lot about modern feminism being closely related or even incorporating LGBT into itself, and this makes very little sense to me. Equality of opportunity can only truly exist if male and female people are perceived as equal in every way as long as humans and inherent human bias are still factors this is one issue I have with Feminism in general, but not the point of this . My view is that this directly contradicts the very idea of transgenderism and even to an extent homosexuality in that it removes the unorthodoxy in interaction between gender in non traditional ways not via acceptance, but by unifying the genders. Ideally, in a feminist world as I see it, genders would be identical in interaction both socially and in work, and biological sex either disregarded or put onto a 'spectrum', in which case transgenderism could be considered a purely cosmetic change which would be undesirable to undergo seen as the perception of you would not change despite the effort you put in . The current reason as I see it is that they fit better into their reassigned gender roles, which I respect, but gender roles would be eliminated by many feminists, given a chance. Beacause of this, I see transgenderism as either meaningless in the context of Feminism, or a stepping stone for a pseudo Orwellian future of counter constructive normality. Please .","conclusion":"Many aims of the transsexual community contradict many 2nd and 3rd wave feminist views"}
{"id":"535d6eb6-c299-4000-be16-b237602dc744","argument":"Religion has been helpful in leading us to science as a means to understand the world around us. At any given point in time religion has filled in the gaps of knowledge we have, leading us to innovation that brightens those dark spots. As we build the means to see and understand those gaps, science takes over, but religious belief allowed us to survive and evolve enough to replace superstition with demonstrable truth.","conclusion":"Religion led people to do things correctly before science and technology caught up."}
{"id":"6a75e75c-b13f-4903-918a-597d3f67e39f","argument":"Definition of Rape Culture a society or environment whose prevailing social attitudes have the effect of normalizing or trivializing sexual assault and abuse. A culture like this does exist in the U.S Prison Culture How many times have people heard the phrase Don't drop the soap A countless number of times. That is a direct allusion to rape and people trivialize it. It's almost expected in prison. When someone goes to prison people say I hope that person gets raped That is normalizing rape. That is the definition of Rape Culture. A society who's prevailing social attitudes trivialize and normalize rape. A rape culture exists in the U.S. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"A Rape Culture exists in the U.S."}
{"id":"6c9c359c-d646-4afa-9558-fb8df6fcca79","argument":"I hear people toss around the term 100 sure all the time. I don't see how you can be sure about anything. I realize that this idea has been reflected, most famously by Descartes, as the evil genius, but even inside of those parameters I think that being 100 sure is still impossible. I do not want to get into cogito ergo sum because many people have fought it before I mean if you ask me what my name is, I will tell you John Smith. But that's just because I've known myself as John Smith and people for as long as I can remember have been calling me John Smith. This makes my knowledge dependent on other people which makes me a hell of a lot less sure. I'm not even 100 sure that you can't be 100 sure about something","conclusion":"I do not believe that anyone can be 100% sure about anything."}
{"id":"6e066f8a-0fd7-4990-a905-dc496397e20f","argument":"We have a biased view on the success of Democracy from the actions of the United States. They are the leading example of what a democracy is \"supposed to look like\" in our world, and they have been for the past 242 years. We've correlated the successes of the United States with the governing system it is running under, rather than on the societies and people that have shaped it to what it is today. This might be why prosperity and democracy appear correlated","conclusion":"Prosperity and democracy are correlated in the present day, but correlation does not equal causation."}
{"id":"672fc18e-fd73-4f25-8109-cc12d0ccd2bc","argument":"I'm going to a four year institution next year where my family and I will, by the end of my university tenure, end up taking out approximately 90,000 in loans after interest. I feel comfortable paying back the money but feel as if receiving food stamps is justifiable because of the sheer cost I will incur during my education process. I come from a middle class family that earns what it does because my parents moved to the suburbs to raise a family near decent schools. Because the cost of attending college has grown enormously compared to inflation, wages, et cetera, I feel as if receiving food stamps to the tune of four to five thousand dollars over four years is justifiable because state and national legislatures have no recourse for people making decent livings to allow their students to attend good colleges without taking out a crippling amount of loans. .","conclusion":"I believe getting food stamps in college is justifiable for students who could instead buy food with loans."}
{"id":"4579e9d9-4734-41f2-a3be-ba83b13e0582","argument":"Carbon Engineering Ltd. has plans in motion to synthesize hydrocarbons on an industrial scale in just a few years.","conclusion":"Electric vehicles are not required. Given cheap enough electricity, hydrocarbon fuels can be made from air"}
{"id":"7e8984d7-9dc6-4b98-8197-6ea7680a3425","argument":"This form of consciousness, in this case, is an indication of what fate exists at a certain location in space and time.","conclusion":"An existence due to the capacity of the environment to allow it to happen."}
{"id":"f9924f46-4b2b-41a9-ad75-3ac85e300ecc","argument":"This isn't the Oh I'm depressed Don't commit suicide there are people that care about you case. I simply don't understand why we live. Here are some examples First, science is scientists are my first bother . What is the point of dwelling into the unknown and trying to understand it? I can understand it as a hobby, which seems to be how it must be for a lot of researchers, who have a genuine interest in something. But for the rest, why bother with figuring these things out? Eventually, the human race will perish, and everything we've spent millennia learning will be lost. My second example is education I suppose. Why spend a considerable portion of your youth spending learning and working so hard, even though you're just going to die at the end of the day lt lol ? The way I see it is as such. You have two roads, one very simple, and goes straight to your destination. The other one is the complete opposite. It's hilly, broken up, filled with holes that are sometimes even bottomless. The second road ends at the same destination, which in this case is death. Why go on the second road? Two of the responses I often hear to this question are the following It's for the experiences or It's for the memories that you leave in others . My response to the first one is, what is the point of the experiences if you're ultimately going to die? Once you're dead, you're not going to remember everything you did and cherish it unless this is what happens after death haha . Once you're dead, your experiences are nonexistent, and it would be the same if you didn't have any experiences as well. For the second one, it just loops back to the fact that everyone will die at some point or another. Sure, Mahatma Gandhi certainly lives on via memorabilia or pure memories, but what will that matter once everyone is dead? Nothing Do we live purely out of a lust for these experiences? Do we live just to live? I don't get it, and I'm not so sure that there's something I'm missing here. PS The last  that I posted got a lot of negativity, with reason. I don't want to bother reading things are as such, so please don't inconvenience me with antipathetic comments. Thanks to any respondents in advance Edit Deltas have been awarded, and I'd like to say thanks to anyone that responded. If you're curious to what people said, the tl dr is as such 1 It is dependent on the size of the scale, and that as the scale increases everything matters less. 2 You give yourself purpose. 3 even anti natalists typically believe that life is worth living if you're already alive, just not worth beginning props to LukeofEarl for this, as it helped a lot gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"There Really Isn't a Purpose in Living."}
{"id":"770f6e39-d4ed-43b6-9a8e-c71539ca2d03","argument":"I am a former catholic and no longer believe in God. The argument I hear for proof of god is mainly in the things science can't explain. Something couldn't have come from nothing, dark matter, intelligent design, etc. This is nonsensical. You are essentially issuing in the same behavior ancient civilizations did. They could not understand at the time the weather, the sun, the cosmos, etc so it had to be God. All of the scriptures are written by people who had no such knowledge of the things They claimed to be God, and their lack of knowledge bleeds through as science unlocks more and more. Now this is not to say God exists or does not exist. This is not my debate but my debate is where people are putting God. I think it quite possible to believe in God and also believe that science will shed light on the places it is the dark. Hence this post. To me is not reasonable in a world where people don't believe in God,or who believe in a different God, that putting on a label on the unexplainable is God. It is logical to put your faith, so to speak, in that science will explain these things in time, and that your belief in God belongs else where. Now I also want to clarify to do the the things my debate touches on is not wrong, or immoral, it is simply unreasonable, not logical. I know there are many things that can give credence to your personal experiences and the deep thing inside most people there is more to this world than us. And that the proof of God is not a thing that can be measured in scientific terms. But I disagree that the universe, or multiverse, and all it's contents cannot be explained by science, and it's not logical to put god here. Change my views","conclusion":"The things science cannot explain is not a reasonable place to put God."}
{"id":"8ed7ee9b-bb8a-4dcd-be88-084a3d2b169d","argument":"In contrast to a referendum, the UK's first-past-the-post election system means that a government can be formed with less than 50% of the raw votes. As a result, if people value democratic principles above their personal position on Brexit, then they may favour a referendum over cancellation by a government.","conclusion":"Even if a majority would rather remain, it does not follow that they agree it should be done by unilaterally cancelling Brexit as pledged by the Liberal Democrats. People may instead favour the opportunity to vote remain in a second referendum."}
{"id":"e94bd548-5376-48ff-908b-d6964f8b030d","argument":"Geir Lundestad, director of the Nobel Institute for 25 years until stepping down last year, indicated the prize was in anticipation of and intended to help Obama rid the world of nuclear weapons. This of course did not happen, suggesting the award was not, in the end, deserved.","conclusion":"Barack Obama received the Nobel Prize once, suggesting that recipients are not necessarily deserving."}
{"id":"e39653ef-d45a-44cc-a90d-523c944fc6a0","argument":"Social monitoring is generally effective in identifying members of a community that are most radical.","conclusion":"\"Social monitoring\" is a way of finding terrorist sympathizers and therefore protecting society."}
{"id":"a6c2de4a-d05b-4e73-be58-c25cb8248234","argument":"I recently learned that the age of consent in England is sixteen, and this blew my mind. As an American I'm aware that this is also the case with some states, but not in my state. I think that having the age of consent as anything less than eighteen is truly disgusting. A twenty five year old is so easily capable of manipulating a sixteen year old. A sixteen year old friend of mine was in a quite manipulative, mostly sexual relationship with an incredibly creepy twenty year old, and the only way we got him away from her was threatening to report him for statutory rape. I am however absolutely in support of ignoring differences of a few years. A sixteen and eighteen year old, or a seventeen and nineteen year old, seems acceptable in my eyes. Or at the very least not worthy of punishment. I'd also like to point out that while maybe there is nothing inherently wrong with say, a sixteen year old and thirty year old, if a thirty year old is willing to have sex with a sixteen year old, he is clearly quite a disturbed person that she shouldn't be around in the first place.","conclusion":"Having the age of consent be anything less than eighteen years old is disgusting"}
{"id":"2df4f438-21f2-48d7-823b-e96ccf985c7b","argument":"Since today there are an estimated \" 27 million slaves\" qtd. in Hogenboom, par. 1, 4 the largest number in human history, the U.S., and many other nations and multinational corporations continues to participate in slavery. Therefore, slavery must end before reparations are addressed.","conclusion":"There are up to 50 million contemporary slaves as of today."}
{"id":"52c61d48-88b1-43ec-a636-5f5face2761c","argument":"A functioning organism is often needed to test fundamental working mechanisms of the body e.g. brain, immune system, metabolic system, digestive system. Animal models provide such organism systems.","conclusion":"Animal models are necessary for studying the fundamental working mechanisms of the body. This is a separate aspect of research than drug development."}
{"id":"559728b6-f8eb-4a8b-a4b0-a4abbe043580","argument":"During elections a high voter turnout is often considered good, and politicians often try to get as many people to vote as possible. I think this is bad for democracy Voting is way to select leaders that can reflect the opinion of the people. Voting assumes that each individual will choose the leader that reflects his or her personal opinion best. The goal is to select the set of leader s that most closely represent the opinion of the people. People seems to think that a higher voter turnout gives a better representation of the peoples opinion. However As any introduction into statistics will teach you, only several thousand randomly selected people are needed to accurately represent the entire population. Statistically we'd expect no difference in outcome when we have 10 or 90 of the people vote assuming voters are randomly picked . Uninformed voters don't vote for their opinion, but for other reasons charisma, skin color, name, tradition, etc. . This is noise, if we have enough of this the outcome will not represent the actual opinion of the people but mostly which guy people like best at first glance . Pushing people to vote will result in uninformed or barely informed people to go to vote, because they think they have to. This only increases the noise and doesn't change the outcome for good. Thus when more people vote, the quality of votes will decrease and the outcome is a worse representation of the actual opinion of the people. Change my view gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than just downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Pushing people to vote to get a higher voter turnout is bad for democracy."}
{"id":"7da77efd-4bd0-4b7f-bae0-d167b9665980","argument":"There was clearly no consensus on the trilogy's overarching plot, confirmed by the news that JJ Abrams only pitched the proposed story of Episode 9 to Disney recently. Rian Johnson also admitted that his decision on Rey's parentage could be overturned by Abrams.","conclusion":"Johnson's quick resolution, or even complete jettison, of elements introduced by his predecessor smacks of design by committee a pejorative for a project with multiple designers but no unifying plan or vision."}
{"id":"797335e8-fb14-4796-888d-4ee8b0c2ed66","argument":"If we colonize it virtually like sending projections of ourselves to settle on Mars rather than our physical selves, then it'll create virtually no damage.","conclusion":"People could make efforts to keep the environment intact when the migrate there"}
{"id":"31797b4d-fac5-4a2f-b3ce-b763de1d1d63","argument":"In order to know God, one must believe that God exists while engaging in faithful practice.","conclusion":"Revelation through faithful practices and religious experiences support the existence of God."}
{"id":"a74625f8-2664-4aee-b882-08480475d3a3","argument":"In the US, women account for only 51% of licensed drivers. This means that almost half of the women are being alienated because they are unable to drive to the clinics themselves.","conclusion":"This implies that only those who can afford to own or contract out a private vehicle are worthy of not facing harassment for accessing medical services, which is in itself classist."}
{"id":"d42edf77-0e98-4074-b28c-1233839b8867","argument":"I have cheated before, but I do not want to be that kind of person. I realize people see cheating as a bad thing, but I don't understand why. I have seen arguments like It will hurt your SO when they find out, but what if they don't? If they never know, they will never be hurt. Who loses? I know this is a terrible view to have, but logically, I see no problems with it. Please, someone change my view. Cheating isn't a bad thing because one person is happy the cheater and one is unaffected. How could it be a bad thing? I am recently in a new relationship and I want to get rid of this view. Someone please help. Edit Thank you all for everything. It helped a lot and hopefully I can be better at not being shitty.","conclusion":"Cheating is okay as long as the SO does not know."}
{"id":"b82b1dd9-5da3-4802-879d-c93691b03f47","argument":"In South Korea military ideology has seeped into many parts of Korean society ranging from the corporate sector to academia, and even in athletic fields, as men, who completed their mandatory military service, climb up the social ladder. Thus, individual identities are stifled even after leaving the military.","conclusion":"The military actively seeks to quash individualism and free thought within recruits. These are values which are critical to solve many contemporary social issues."}
{"id":"6c93ff01-4a48-42a4-b15e-a8d7cca4a5e9","argument":"Children are the future of society. Accordingly their members must intensively take care of them in order to maintain society, considering that its continuance is good for every member.","conclusion":"Humans have a higher responsibility to take care of children than gorillas."}
{"id":"2f7203dd-c357-43be-ad83-498d512fef13","argument":"Many studies simply look at a choice among random options such as choosing any letter in a set which may lead the subjects to simply listen to their brain physical state to take a decision, and not using their actual free will.","conclusion":"The decisions in the research studies appear to be meaningless. That such a level of non-moral non-impactful decisions are deterministic is compatible even with a libertarian free will."}
{"id":"4e132ca7-0c61-4222-ad06-c5eab5cf152a","argument":"Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has become a powerful spokeswoman for feminist issues, including issues which affect women of colour.","conclusion":"There are several successful women of colour who identify as feminists."}
{"id":"f8a682af-52bf-4b42-864f-1a20d59df95a","argument":"Russia has committed many illegal actions since the implementation of sanctions by the EU and US.","conclusion":"Sanctions have been, and will continue to be, ineffective at changing Russia's behaviour."}
{"id":"86485fe9-9b9c-4490-9062-09f182d0db5b","argument":"Some religious groups for whom religious symbols are very important may feel that they have to make a choice between the teaching profession and their religion.","conclusion":"Banning religious symbols will discriminate against religions whose symbols constitute religious practise rather than just symbolism."}
{"id":"77a3f0aa-7d05-47c3-a4c3-d2b3c6ed7c0c","argument":"As of 2015, a third of British members of parliament had attended a private school which is the case for only 7% of the general population; a quarter had studied in either Oxford of Cambridge; and there is a strong bias towards politicians with a previous background in business, finance, law and politics Hunter\/Holden, p. 2","conclusion":"Politicians, in contrast to millions of voters from different walks of life, are more prone to mistakes due to their small numbers and their relative sameness in many regards."}
{"id":"2eb4abcb-ca2c-43b9-8777-26eb9127be4a","argument":"While I accept there are arguments and evidence about playing football and the dangers it poses to players, it should remain a glorified American tradition. Just as people risk their lives by joining the military for a combination of a salary and the societal value contribution, football players are making the same cost benefit analysis using the same factors. The American football complex provides free education to thousands of college students who may not have had access to upward mobility that comes with a degree. I enjoy the entertainment value of watching football on TV but I know there are competing arguments on how watching sports, especially one that knowingly hurts its players, can lead to increased violence and nationalism. Yet I don't believe football should move away from the place it holds in American society due to all its benefits. This is just my take and I'm open to listen so Change My View","conclusion":"American football and the players should continue to be valued and used as entertainment."}
{"id":"68b11ca7-ad5a-47ca-b13e-74b8a262f51d","argument":"I have a hard time really seeing the need for vitamins and minerals in a balanced diet. Sure, I'll eat a carrot. It tastes good, and it's supposedly good for me. But I can't feel how it's good for me, I don't feel better after eating it, so it just makes me not want to bother with getting my vitamins because I'm done growing, and besides for a few colds and some sore knees, I'm entirely healthy. You read a lot about how a balanced diet is needed to lose weight and be healthy, but I can't see a need for this. So, make me healthier, and .","conclusion":"You don't need to worry about getting your vitamins when you're done growing."}
{"id":"0fbc86b6-8548-4a64-a320-fc28b97baf94","argument":"Much time is spent praying. Though many say their prayers are answered, evidence of a causal link between their prayers and the outcome that occurred is lacking.","conclusion":"Most religions use the you-have-nothing-to-lose-by-believing argument. Of course you do: There's your time, your independence, your objectivity, and your cash."}
{"id":"4cd48071-11e9-4634-b486-9c5189368156","argument":"I'm catching myself looking for problematic tropes in movies, mostly sexist ones. I should stop because It hurts my enjoyment of the movie by ruining my immersion. Instead of being focused on the story and the characters I become focused on how imagined others may interpret it. Even when the movie is non problematic or even positive it hurts my immersion. Life is very short and most of it is already a hassle. I want some escapism on a Friday evening. Me realizing that a movie contains sexist tropes does nothing. I do not feel good about myself for spotting it. Even if I were to start boycotting movies for minor infractions that would pretty much affect nothing. A one time donation of 50 to some effective charity would likely do more good for the world than me boycotting every enjoyable film with sexist tropes in my life. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"When watching a movie I should let go of trying to figure out if it's problematic"}
{"id":"2073e89a-a682-45fe-b063-417c7eff30f1","argument":"Hate speech creates an \"othering\" mentality which normalizes hateful behavior towards its targets by dehumanizing them. It is detrimental to the goal of a peaceful and collaborative society between humans.","conclusion":"Hate speech encourages hateful and harmful action, which is an impediment to the freedom of others."}
{"id":"466d29a0-a16a-47b6-8729-555822ceffd6","argument":"Disclosure I live in the USA, have for my entire life, though I have visited European countries, but no longer than 1 month. Not quite a a response to Putin's letter today, but as a challenge to the view that American Exceptionalism no longer exists, I would like to offer a few of the beliefs I hold that shape my view. NONE of these points i raise are intended to imply that America is the only nation capable of these things, but taken together, as a group, serve as ample evidence that the USA is rather exceptional. I am not debating that Americans, individually are better than anyone. The world pays attention to our presidential elections more so than any other country in the world. Our President selects his cabinet, drafts bills, and affects foreign policy so much so that it is an event the world has to follow. In addition, we hold a permanent seat on the UN security council. Our financial markets drive the world economy. I am aware that emerging markets China, Brazil, India, Russia may in the future change that, but as it stands now, the US is the financial hub. The NYSE and NASDAQ exchanges are where the largest companies in the world are traded and are the most closely followed. One can also argue that without the collapses of Lehman Brothers, Freddie Fannie etc., the world recession would have been far less severe. My point is here that as the US markets go, so goes the majority of the world's markets. Our military has the ability to do what others do not. Although we have not used an atomic bomb since WW2, we are one of the few nations on the earth who are allowed to have them, and we have a lot. Our military is massive enough to influence major foreign policy decisions, and is usually the military counted on to intervene in situations where others alone would not. The syrian rebels are asking for the Americans to intervene, and not by name other western powers to my knowledge . That is enough to say to me that when assistance is required from abroad, we are the first those seeking it turn to, whether supported by the public or not. Hollywood. Perhaps less of a direct influence than the other stated points, but american media is consumed all over the world. Our stars are the biggest. For example, Michael Jordan. I am willing to entertain that popularity of soccer stars or celebrities from other nations are perhaps the biggest in the world, but as a whole i believe Hollywood has the biggest stars in the world. As long as our media is consumed on the level it is globally, american media is relevant to this conversation. In summation I believe that America as a nation still holds the power to influence the globe in a way that no other nation, on its own, can. The decisions made in Washington and on wall street send ripples felt around the world that have major influence a demand response. We are major drivers or world trade, technological innovation, entertainment and diplomacy. Individually, we are not any more special than any other citizen of the world, but as a nation, i believe we are capable of things nobody else is, and that is rather exeptional","conclusion":"I believe American Exceptionalism still exists."}
{"id":"2a8425ae-d028-41e0-aad7-6008b011277f","argument":"By people with power, I mean people with extreme wealth. That 1 is basically designed to be unreachable to everyone else. You can never become this wealthy be being an employee. It is very unlikely you will get promoted to being a CEO given how nepotism and cronyism exists and there will be a lot of people competiting with you. Another route is to start your own business. People usually associate starting your own business with wealth but the truth is around 90 of new businesses fail. Most which break even don't even earn anything close to the 1 . The truth is the 1 is was designed by people in power to keep others out. The reason is because it's all zero sum if everyone becomes rich or people find it easy to be rich, the rich loses their relative privilege. Maybe the only exception is surgeons who can reach the 1 if they truly have the talent to do so. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The wealthiest 1% of developed countries is designed to be unreachable by people in power"}
{"id":"5cfc980e-9d52-4561-9413-07eee0bd94ad","argument":"I think that the friend zone as men commonly complain about is a one sided relationship in favor of the woman, and is outright exploitation of the man. Consequently that is why seems so inescapable. Here is why. The man expresses romantic interest in the woman, and she says that she would rather just be friends. On its face it is immediately unfair, because one person is getting what she wants, and the other person is not. My other issue with the friend zone is that it is not a true friendship. In fact it is a completely uneven exchange in favor of the woman. The man is expected to be available for whatever the woman has in mind as she strings him along, knowing fully well that he hopes that she will one day change her opinion of him. When single she will use him to fulfill the platonic functions of a boy friend while she seeks sexual, and romantic fulfillment from some one else. On the other hand if the man wants to solicit his female friend to spend some time with him to do what he enjoys then she will almost universally decline, and pursue her other priorities. I think that this leads to great frustration for the men, because they feel trapped by the conundrum of being a nice guy a nice guy will be willing to be a good friend, but they are frustrated by how one sided the relationship is without understanding why. On the other hand the females may, or may not be totally aware of what they are doing, and do so without remorse. Either way they know that they have a relationship where they are gotten what they want, and he is not, and feel that that is acceptable behavior. Once again, I think that the friend zone is outright exploitation of nice guys, and their efforts at being nice, and or pursuing a traditional courtship. Given that these women have been rewarded with a giving relationship requiring no sacrifice on their part it is no wonder that they never let these men escape from the friend zone. Change my view.","conclusion":"I think that the friend zone is exploitation of the man."}
{"id":"597fbfaf-629d-4587-97d6-82457810c912","argument":"Whenever an opponent was seen as gaining an advantage, the military would use 'offset strategies' by funneling R&D into the military. This has lead to defining technologies for humanity like nuclear in the first offset, guidance systems like GPS in the second, and robotics, 3D printing, and big data the third.","conclusion":"When the military made achievements, it was from the scientific R&D innovation that the government specifically funded, not non-scientific military efforts per se. It's the allocation of government's military budget towards science that will lead to more defining moments more than giving it to them unspecified will."}
{"id":"3785bd32-020f-4dec-a5f8-ce93953c3420","argument":"Linux is a free and open OS, which allows users far more customization than it's competitors Windows and OSX . I will admit that Linux does have it's disadvantages though. Primarily in the area of proprietary software. But I, and most people don't need proprietary software. Linux has many advantages over Windows. Most modern Linux distributions or distros include a package manager and repositories. This means that users do not need to search through the internet to download programs, and can uninstall programs easily. When I installed Windows 10 I had to open Edge a browser I do not like, and should not have to use and search for Firefox, Steam, Origin, Minecraft, Thunderbird, 7zip, Audacity, GIMP, I could go on but I wont. In Linux this could all be accomplished with one command, a long command, but one command. There would be no risk of downloading a old version or a trojan. Linux is just as easy to use, if not easier to use than Windows. Due to Linux's utilization of the terminal, anything can be accomplished quickly and easily through the keyboard. I don't need to go searching through obscure control panel pages to change users permissions. Some people will say that the mouse is easier to use, but that is primarily be cause almost everyone has grown up using Windows and gotten used to using the mouse for things which can be accomplish easier through the keyboard. With a rolling release distro I don't have to worry about keeping drivers updated, because all I have to do is type sudo pacman Syu, and done. None of the bloatware that comes with Windows installers. Yes some hardware manufacturers choose not to support Linux, but there are open source alternatives, and more and more are publishing Linux drivers every day. Bloat and unnessasary programs are completely avoidable with Linux. For example, on my gaming computer, I use the program Clover . Clover replaces Windows Explorer with a Chrome like interface with tabs. I never open Windows explorer, yet I still have to have on my HDD because Microsoft decided I have to. The same is true when you look at Edge, IE, XBox, Cortana, and the numerous Windows 8 style apps. In short, the insistence on clunky mouse based settings, third party installers, and mandatory applications makes Windows an inferior choice for basic computer use. I am totally willing to change my view, in fact, I typed this on my Windows desktop. But I use this desktop almost entierly for gaming, and to no reason to install Windows otherwise. I was inspired by this post.","conclusion":"I and many others have no need to use Windows for a desktop computer. excepting gaming"}
{"id":"ce373e93-8860-48f5-b0d9-63b869fc1b40","argument":"In my English class today, we were discussing deductive arguments, which work like this You make a sweeping statement about a group of people or objects called the major premise. For example If an angle satisfies 90\u00b0 lt A lt 180\u00b0, then A is an obtuse angle. You then make a specific statement about a member of the group. A 120\u00b0. If you then accept both premises, you must accept the conclusion A is an obtuse angle. My professor and the Wikipedia article on the subject use the classic example of All men are mortal, Socrates is a man, therefor Socrates is mortal . I would argue that this is not a correct argument because it cannot be definitively concluded that all men are mortal. In my opinion, for this to be true, there must be some proof that all humans, living and dead, will at some point be subject to death, which, while a perfectly valid inductive argument, is not a correct deductive premise because the are 7 billion examples of humans that we have no way of knowing whether they will be subject to death or not. The way I understand deductive arguments is that the premises must be completely true, and if there is even one exception, the argument is not valid. . EDIT As stated in the comments, I believe that while potentially a valid argument, this premise is untrue and it is an incorrect argument. EDIT 2 I gave a delta from showing that technically even if humans achieve immortality, we will eventually die due to the heat death of the universe, I still feel like this it's bad to use as an example because there are better inductive arguments that are much easier to show the validity of. EDIT 3 I'm going to take a break to get some food, I'll be back in a bit. I'm still not convinced that deductive reasoning should be used in situations without absolute certainty of the premises. Instead inductive reasoning should suffice in these circumstances. Outside of the heat death of the universe, I believe that it is not certain that all humans are certain to die because counterexamples exist. EDIT 4 Everything seems to be coming back to either humans must be mortal because the contrary would violate thermodynamics or there is no way for anything to be objectively true , neither of which I can really argue against. I still think the example is a bad one but I don't really have much more to say that hasn't already been said so I'm probably going to mostly stop replying now.","conclusion":"\"All humans are mortal\" is not an acceptable premise for a deductive argument."}
{"id":"63a278fc-5197-4309-bd51-6d9efbdcea97","argument":"Mark Twain was a rabid abolitionist. His use and wild overuse of the slur actually demonstrates his strong distaste for it. He used it to shock his audience. Huck starts out a foolish ignorant child whose humanity grows through his coming to know and empathize with Jim. This is a major action in the novel. If high school students cannot grasp this when it is presented this way, maybe save the work for college students, but please don't damage the work.","conclusion":"It is important to preserve the artistic integrity of great works of art like Huckleberry Finn. As such, none of its language should be modified."}
{"id":"e0930dd2-08a4-4582-928c-375035a61733","argument":"Followers of the Vaishnava tradition have great respect for profits from other traditions such as Jesus and Mohamed, and see commonality in the core teaching that the goal of human life is to develop love for God.","conclusion":"The highest teachings in the Hindu tradition are monotheistic and center around love for God"}
{"id":"6d5c87b4-49e6-441e-aeca-f4e79de6f10e","argument":"The University of California is the best public or even overall university system in the US and in the entire world. Its nine undergraduate campuses are ranked among public schools 1 Berkeley, 2 UCLA, 9 UC Davis UC San Diego, 11 UC Santa Barbara, 14 UC Irvine, 36 UC Santa Cruz, 55 UC Riverside, NR UC Merced. Internationally the campuses rank well with 6 campuses in the top 100 9 Berkeley, 12 UCLA, 33 UCSB, 40 UCSD, 52 UCD, 93 UCI. Undergrads can get a world class education at any of the UC campuses. UC students, researchers or faculty have been awarded close to 100 Nobel prizes. 61 Berkeley, 20 UCSD, 13 UCLA, 9 UCSB, 6 UCSF, 4 UCI, 1 UCR This demonstrates that world class research is being performed here. UC graduate schools are very highly ranked with many campuses having top 10 rankings in many of their programs, e.g. in 2010 Berkeley had 48 52 PhD programs ranked in the top ten which is higher than Harvard. UCLA has at least 8 top ten grad programs. The university experience is more than just academics for many, and UC schools shine here as well. Berkeley and UCLA are competitive in many sports, with UCLA having the most NCAA national championships of any school, and Berkeley having the 11th most. While some students might prefer a smaller, more intimate atmosphere for their college experience, this pretty much necessarily excludes public schools from their radar and won't be a good avenue to change my view.","conclusion":"The University of California is the best public university system in the world."}
{"id":"be064a0c-af9f-4107-99bc-0ccc679b6a1c","argument":"The focus on standardized testing all students in a state take the same test under the same conditions as the means of assessment encourages teachers to teach a narrow subset of skills that will increase test performance rather than focus on deeper understanding and life lessons that can be applied in the marketplace, real life, and to citizenship and democracy generally. Because teachers and schools may be punished if they fail to live up to standardized test score goals, they often have a perverse incentive to focus almost entirely on teaching to the test, especially where a school is at risk of being designated as \"failing\".","conclusion":"No Child Left Behind motivates unfortunate \"teaching to the test\":"}
{"id":"5f527df0-ebdd-41ee-a783-4093a13d2317","argument":"The number of breaks and commercials have a negative impact on the entertainment value of NFL games. The number of breaks, as well as the length of the breaks is inordinate. Common rationalizations for these breaks are that they ensure that the strategic element within the sport is maintained. I fail to see though how that element crucially depends on the number and the length of breaks, at least not enough to justify and offset the dullness that comes with the breaks. Another rationalization is that fewer and shorter breaks would tire the players, which I frankly can't see being something particularly bad. It's a physical consent, stamina should be a relevant element. I have had one or two discussions on the topic and I've not found the rationalizations particular convincing. My experience of watching the NFL is mostly limited to the Super Bowl and the occasional game, so I am an NFL noob open for convincing. The sport would IMO be much more entertaining and probably popular worldwide if the stop and go nature and time efficiency of the games would increase significantly.","conclusion":"There are too many breaks and commercials during NFL games. The number and length of breaks can be severely reduced without impacting the entertainment level of the sport adversely."}
{"id":"36d7ae6f-b881-4db4-b905-c42fd24e9b0a","argument":"From the UK so aware of cultural differences on this topic I appreciate that tipping is used as a means of awarding employees in services industries a fairer income. However, it's a practice that I find deeply uncomfortable. Some of my issues are briefly highlighted below gt gt Why is it the customer's responsibility to ensure that restaurant staff are paid adequately? I would much rather the restaurant themselves takes care of its employees and account for their improved wages in the meal price. Instead, w e must make a discretionary contribution, giving restaurants no reason to pay their staff above minimum wage. gt gt Good service should be expected and again, constitutes part of the meal price. When employed in other industries, good service, punctuality and professionalism are base expectations. While restaurants encourage you to reward such traits, other industries rightly see these as requirements for the job. gt gt It's now embedded in how we dine. Not tipping is considered a sin and will often be greeted with disgust from your server. Many eateries impose mandatory charges, which can increase your meal price by 25 37 . These aspects reduce the enjoyment associated with eating out and could deter those who have less disposable income. All of these are practices that I consider to be deceitful and would be unnecessary in any other sector. Please,","conclusion":"Tipping at restaurants should not exist, no matter how good the service!"}
{"id":"b14bbdaa-c798-4821-8891-9604cf720776","argument":"Most types of pasta are too similar in taste and application to have completely different names. My understanding of the reason for different types of pasta is that they serve somewhat different purposes. But the majority are made in the basically the same way and with such similar ingredients that they shouldn\u2019t have completely different names. Some things like gnocchi are different enough to maybe get their own name sans \u2018pasta\u2019 but capellini and spaghetti should not. Nor should cavatelli and conchiglie They should have partly different names or a two word naming system. Here are two examples of food where its done logically you might hear about cheddar, or you might hear about cheddar cheese. You might hear about rye, or you might hear about rye bread. You don\u2019t hear about spaghetti pasta as often as you hear spaghetti without the word pasta. This is not to say that other groups of things should not be similarly denoted and classified. You might tell me that bagels are never called bagel bread. You may say that wine is not done this way, and maybe it should be classified this way. Arguing that I\u2019m wrong because other groups of food are not categorized this way seems like a tu quoque fallacy or the \u201cAnd you are hanging blacks\u201d variation of it.","conclusion":"Most different types of pasta should not have completely different names or should have the word pasta at the end of their name."}
{"id":"a68dfce0-ea77-44c1-8f24-ca11c46a1e68","argument":"Many mobile applications have introduced ad panels that cannot be blocked as long as you are using the app. These are located either on the top or the bottom of the app screen. The app cannot be used unless the ad is visible. Examples: Angry Birds Quiz Up","conclusion":"Business practices always evolve with consumer trends. Web based companies have already developed some tools to combat ad block software."}
{"id":"78dd039c-80e4-4b10-972d-883030918946","argument":"Leaving the customs union would allow the UK to negotiate its own overseas trade deals rather than being restricted by EU-agreed tariffs.","conclusion":"Under the current Conservative Brexit proposal the UK would leave the EU customs union. This could be financially advantageous."}
{"id":"2624f2fd-6f97-40e0-8e6e-d18b4e04b60f","argument":"The existing drug classification systems is arbitrary and has little relation to any evidence of the harmfulness of the drugs in question. Nutt DJ et al. 2010","conclusion":"Many current drug bans are not in accordance with rational facts in fact, modern drug laws can be regarded as utterly irrational."}
{"id":"ac446b0f-ac3e-4034-9de5-dd0d2baf5609","argument":"Globally, the popular tendency is towards the distribution of power as thinly and widely as possible, which suggests that is what societies want right now.","conclusion":"The EU has centralized power and continues to further do so, which means the UK has less control over its own laws and practices."}
{"id":"a96a6fe1-4f17-46ce-96e1-36789005043f","argument":"For Barcelona it was particularly easy to ban bullfighting because most tourists come for Gaudi\u0301's buildings, the Picasso museum and the Miro Foundation.","conclusion":"Bullfights are not the only reason why tourists visit Spain."}
{"id":"36cf73d8-3580-40b6-9d00-07498e1b4081","argument":"Well I personally think that mass donations to politicians is blatant problem since if someone gives you millions of dollars people expect you to do something for them as well. But, attack ads and personal views should be allowed since that is freedom of speech, just like if you go on Twitter you will see anti Democrat tweets and anti Republican tweets that also affect public opinion on topics, such as Mark Ruffalo talking about climate change to his millions of followers. The argument is that this will allow for unions and rich people to form public opionion, but the same argument can be made to some celerities who convinced their supporters to vote for Obama by posting support for him or News channels that have a political bias such as MSNBC and FOX News. Overall I think donations should be limited, but attack ads, and campaigning for a candidate is a part of freedom of speech.","conclusion":"If Citizens United is overturned, attack ads from people, organizations, business, and unions should be allowed to stay."}
{"id":"408acf71-2a43-4099-9fff-4119ccd0062a","argument":"I have never met someone who thinks that if you leave a gun on a table it will go out an kill someone. So why do people use that as an argument other than to try and be demeaning? No one thinks guns kill people, they think that a person could kill people much easier and at a faster rate when they use a gun. Of course mental health is a huge part of the problem that\u2019s never been denied, but there can definitely be multiple elements of a single problem. People also say, \u201ca few people shouldn\u2019t take the rights away from honest law abiding citizens.\u201d Yeah it sucks that that happens but that\u2019s kind of how life works. That\u2019s why bombs are illegal and why automatic guns are already not allowed. Don\u2019t get me wrong, I own guns and use them regularly. I don\u2019t want guns taken away completely and if they were it would be a bummer. But I also don\u2019t need unlimited amo and a bump stock or armor piercing rounds. A deer drops with a regular bullet and a rifle just fine. If in the future they do take my guns bummer but I\u2019ll live","conclusion":"People use the \u201cguns don\u2019t kill people, people kill people\u201d argument when no one is arguing whether guns are committing a crime"}
{"id":"fc3c273b-ef16-49a4-9fdc-55cb95179ade","argument":"In the case where there is a game that allows no room for draws; where the only outcome could be either winning or losing; it is necessary to take your competitor down ; rather than negotiate with him\/her through civil\/social contact\/contract. For example in wars the situation on the battlefield when the rules made it clear that prisoners cannot be taken was to kill or be killed. This problem required a soldier to take a life or die. Now, most zero-sum games are not as extreme but the understanding is the same; there is no incentive to accommodate the competitor because there is no leeway for both parties to win.","conclusion":"As in the debate definition Competitive strategies are the best and only option in zero sum games."}
{"id":"7f11fe62-6bbd-4b3d-93e4-d69db362f4ff","argument":"Utilitarianism the idea that the moral worth of an action depends on its ability to promote vs impede overall happiness. First off, I don't think there is an actual objective morality, but I do think it makes sense to have morals because they accomplish a goal of creating a functioning society that makes living more enjoyable than it would be if there weren't one. I think this goal creating a functioning society exists because that's what makes people happier. I'd argue that utilitarianism is almost truistic in that sense. Of course it makes sense to improve overall human happiness because that's literally the only metric we can even use. This is embodied by all the counterarguments to utilitarianism. The first being It is difficult to quantify utility. This is true, but this argument basically boils down to utility is subjective and not the same for everyone, therefore impossible to truly measure . I'd agree, but this is not a criticism of utilitarianism, more a criticism of moral theories in general. But I've already acknowledged that morality is not objective, so this is not an effective counterpoint. In fact, that is what I'd argue the other moral theories are for. They provide maxims that will in general lead to the effect of utilitarianism or, as im arguing, when done right they do . Second Utility ignores justice This is only true up to the point that justice does not effect happiness. If you are saying utilitarianism can't be correct because people wouldn't want to live in an unjust world and that would make them unhappy, you have missed the point of utilitarianism, because if people in general aren't as happy as they could be, that isn't utilitarianism. You could also use this counterargument for You could argue for slavery or Thanos killing half the planet or any number of situations if you accept utilitarianism Going along with the above point, no you can't because those aren't examples of actual utilitarianism, they are examples of people not understanding the utilitarian counterarguments for this. In theory, if the society where everyone is happiest involved slavery, then yes, slavery would be ok, but based on what we know about slavery and its effects, this isn't worth considering, and a bad counter to utilitarianism. Same with Thanos. If you have all the stones, and the best plan you can come up with is killing half of everyone, that's not a criticism of utilitarianism, that's a criticism of one person having enough power to enact their extremely short sighted plan. So there you have it. I think the entire goal of having moral discussions on a large scale is basically to achieve utilitarianism. Also most counterarguments against utilitarianism seem to appeal to utilitarianism. Therefore, a moral theory's correctness depends on how much like utilitarianism it is. .","conclusion":"It makes more sense to treat utilitarianism as a rubric for other moral theories than its own theory."}
{"id":"625b44a9-b388-4cec-9745-5683fde0e2e0","argument":"NATO has been the guarantor of peace in Europe for the last half-century. There was a long time of peace from the end of the Second World War to the creation of the EU.","conclusion":"Factors other than the EU were responsible for peace in Europe."}
{"id":"ac910ed6-743e-487f-bfaa-8b02b808520b","argument":"Punishment was much more widespread in the British West Indies than in the South of the US Fleischmann, p. 12","conclusion":"The conditions of slavery were better in North America than in South America."}
{"id":"ee07b97a-e30c-4182-99e2-eb935a6159a2","argument":"The regulation of firearm suppressors under the NFA does virtually nothing to stop crime and is a substantial burden on those who want to own one for private use. Suppressors can be purchased without any limitations in multiple European countries because they are recognized as a device to protect the hearing of gun owners. There is common belief that suppressors will turn guns into the silent assassin's tools seen in movies and TV. That is not true in almost every case. Almost all ammunition is supersonic. This makes it really loud. The difference is that the crack from the bullet traveling faster than the speed of sound is generally not loud enough to cause hearing damage. The high price of suppressors in the United States is due to the small market created by the 200 tax stamp and multi month background check. This waiting period is caused by a bureaucratic bottleneck and uses the same background check system that is used every time a firearm is purchased from a dealer. I believe that a suppressee should be a easy to purchase or build as a pair of protective glasses or earmuffs. Edit per suggestion Suppressors are a polite. Other people appreciate the reduction in noise, especially if they live near ranges or hunting areas.","conclusion":"Suppressors should not be regulated and should be treated as a safety device."}
{"id":"ac132dc9-8891-4cf6-88dc-bdeb70f8bee1","argument":"Breastfeeding has a long list of benefits in comparison to baby formula. The state should do what it can to make sure that it is promoted.","conclusion":"Breastfeeding is a natural human function, so there should be no restriction to it."}
{"id":"27613cd5-68cf-402f-b456-3cae5c4f469b","argument":"A permanent exclusion from the political process creates the impression that the affected individuals' views and interests, thus the persons behind them, do not count anyway.","conclusion":"The exclusion constantly reminds ex-felons that society treats them unfairly, which exacerbates the problems that may have caused them to offend initially."}
{"id":"91826aa7-0086-420d-b0cb-66a028927d0c","argument":"CoonTown a racist offshoot of The Chimpire with its 3,287 subscribers, ranked in the top 2% of popular subreddits.","conclusion":"Reddit is known for having a chain of sub-pages called 'The Chimpire' which is notorious for being racist."}
{"id":"002ad58f-25c8-49f8-b810-95a7d3f85afd","argument":"To start off with, this is not something that I wholeheartedly believe. I just really like a lot of white rappers Eminem, Hilltop Hoods, Brother Ali, Grieves, Hollywood Undead . The big argument that I've heard as to why this is a bad thing is that white people don't understand what rap means to the black communty, nor do they understand the roots of hip hop music culture. However, I have to assume that all of the rappers that I mentioned must be pretty knowledgeable about the importance and history of rap it's just something you end up learning about it you're heavily invested in it. Even myself as just a consumer of rap, I've read a pretty fair bit about it. I also ofc listen to and respect the black greats. I don't think that it's bad that I prefer white rappers a lot of the time but maybe it is. . gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"White people rapping, although probably is an example of cultural appropriation, is not a bad thing"}
{"id":"ec550e82-40e5-47f4-a377-d1ec8897cf8f","argument":"Violence and cruelty permeates and has become a vital competent of our culture, as can be seen in Jekyll and Hyde or the werewolf myth. This makes on-screen violence interesting to watch as it reflects a specific part of everyday culture.","conclusion":"These games would combine the fascination of violent behavior with the third person reality of shows like Big Brother. This makes them highly attractive and entertaining."}
{"id":"75f5912d-a3ca-45e7-8307-16c366cd82af","argument":"Poorer academic performance e.g lower general cognitive ability commonly seen in affirmative action graduates would undoubtedly lead to poor job performance","conclusion":"Affirmative action programs in college lead to less-qualified professionals in the workforce."}
{"id":"0f290b24-331f-4082-aca4-2a185df1ad44","argument":"First off, I am posting this as someone who does NOT support Trump. Two infamous quotes come to mind Dissent is the highest form of patriotism Howard Zinn Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable. JFK My basis for believeing this to be accurate is that if the democratic way of electing officials is ultimately undermined because someone doesn't like the end result the only recourse is protest. Voting obviously didn't work so new tactics must be developed. And I seriously doubt any of you protested the destruction of corporate property when learning about the Boston Tea Party. EDIT If Trump doesn't have enough votes to get the nomination then this post is moot. EDIT2 Honestly, I'm kind of ashamed at my lack of knowledge. Didn't realize the RNC DNC wasn't technically needed. But also part of me still feels riots are would be justified because I feel like this is the small print on advertising or the 100 page rules regulations you agree to simply to listen to some music. I am to blame for some of this ignorance but a ton of it has been perpetuated via sources that aren't actually accurate push an agenda. Part of me feels this curtain deserves to be lit on fire shot at with flares.","conclusion":"If Trump does not get the Republican nomination, riots are warranted."}
{"id":"f84619f1-ac96-4361-927a-9ee25cb3b9be","argument":"Scientific R&D is recently becoming inefficient due to increasing resource costs per innovative return so it may be better allocated to where it would be more impactful.","conclusion":"There are other places where the funding would be more impactful."}
{"id":"00665951-371a-4122-8c0c-1830b0a1507f","argument":"Educational uniformity among member states would make it easier to find work abroad. USE degrees and diplomas would be more recognized internationally.","conclusion":"Streamlining national standards and systems of education means people would not be held back by needless bureaucracy."}
{"id":"635a163c-545c-4df8-8b52-0d5b2b080b2d","argument":"People tend to remember and seek information that reinforces their pre-existing beliefs. Thus students who are developing extremists views will likely consume information in that direction e.g. videos from no-platformed speakers and miss the opportunity to have those views challenged in an academic context.","conclusion":"The meaning of productive discourse is to present opposing views. If no-platforming removes those with oppressive views from participating, their views remain unchallenged, thus being more likely to convince those who may be persuaded by that kind of rhetoric."}
{"id":"45b3d874-50a5-489b-ac86-2947f2c3d51c","argument":"It seems we are in a crony capitalist oligarchy or some similar system the number of ways to define this are innumerable . Between a massive defense budget, shrinking civil rights and individual freedoms, businesses being too big to fail, the CIA and NSA and other intelligence organizations read domestic and international spy agencies , and the rich and the poor having a clearly different set of laws to follow, with very little to no upward mobility seeming reasonably possible with honest work, I really wonder if America has not only lost its way, but the current system is irredeemable. Worker wages are incredibly low, especially considering the rates of inflation. Basic things that are considered rights elsewhere, such as medical care, vacation, paternity and maternity leave, etc are considered privileges, and on the rare occasion they are offered by an employer actually using them may get an employee fired. First, second, and fourth amendment rights are being trampled and ignored. Third amendment rights seem irrelevant with a military so large and well funded through taxes that though we don't house the military in our homes, but we pay for their housing and might as well house them. It seems to get worse every year, with rent going up faster than wages, along with food and medical care and other basic needs. Debt slavery seems like the only option for the majority of people without rich parents and the right connections. There seems to be so much wrong with this country that I could write endlessly about it, with more going wrong every day. Change my view, and with some facts and numbers if possible.","conclusion":"I think The American system is either beyond redemption or close enough to be indistinguishable. Change my view"}
{"id":"1a0669b2-432e-45a6-b36b-2c1441d719fb","argument":"Children exposed to toluene in utero have been reported to be born with small head circumference, serious facial deformations, and general growth retardations.","conclusion":"Infants of mothers living close to fracking wells during their pregnancy are more likely to experience negative health effects."}
{"id":"be71309f-452a-4455-801d-1f751604776d","argument":"Advertising often makes use of harmful social narratives - like beauty standards - in order to pressure users to purchase products.","conclusion":"Advertising is psychologically damaging. Given this, it is perfectly moral to take whatever steps are necessary to minimise its impact."}
{"id":"9afbf0a4-1f4c-4d60-8342-ce4c72c22da6","argument":"In illnesses such as cancer delaying healthcare can allow the illness to spread or worsen, reducing likelihood of recovery or prolonging the recovery period.","conclusion":"Delayed access to healthcare can lead to negative health outcomes."}
{"id":"0ec0e26c-31a8-4495-afbb-c1db24731723","argument":"When I first learned about the right to be forgotten on the internet, I thought that it was a good idea. Then when I did a bit of research, it does infringe on people's rights to self expression. In this case, I think that although the right to one's individual privacy overrides one's individual right to self expression Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs , the amount of people's right being infringed upon outweighs the needs of one person's right to privacy. In this case, copyright violation and hacked material should not count and should be respected, etc., etc. Edit there seems to be a bit of confusion when I said the right to be forgotten, I meant online the removal of search results . And also I meant that intellectual property and hacked material is NOT YOURS so it doesn't count because it includes theft. gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remembering to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The right to be forgotten should not be a civil right"}
{"id":"2dc55db6-9f67-4d7d-9c1d-c25aba796e3f","argument":"Half 50% of the American public believe that students who were listed as male on their birth certificate, but who now identify as female, should be allowed to participate in sporting events with their female classmates.","conclusion":"A majority of Americans oppose this opinion so the decline in viewership is likely to be limited."}
{"id":"98a22a89-881b-4b02-9ec7-9517217d9408","argument":"Shirley Chisholm and LaDonna Harris were among the founders of the NWPC, which pledged to fight \u201csexism, racism, institutional violence and poverty\u201d at its founding in 1971.","conclusion":"Women of color have been leaders in major national feminist organizations."}
{"id":"567b4a36-4a11-4964-b06d-b194e3fa94aa","argument":"I feel like a crazy nutjob, but I hold A LOT of skepticism towards the stock market in its current form. 1 Computerized automated trading There is no concept of a 'time interval' on the major markets. By trading much faster than others, someone can in a way, manipulate the market by re acting faster than other I don't understand how there is value added for a firm by trading it's shares 1ms faster, but faster trading yields higher returns. To me, it seems like an inconsistency. 2 No one understands how why the stock market behaves. The number of derivatives available basically turn it into a large gambling hall. While I don't believe gambling should be illegal, but when the entire economy lives and breaths on the DJIA, it's terrifying. tl dr The concept of stock exchange was to provide capital, liquidity, and protection from future events through the futures market . However, it's transformed into a beast no one understands, no one wants to change, but everyone relies on.","conclusion":"I believe that the stock market, in its current form, is bad for the economy & is basically legalized gambling."}
{"id":"5df18c75-44c1-4b6e-9cc0-19522a968d00","argument":"Chimpanzees recoginse themselves in a mirror. That shows that they can reflect themselves in some sort of way or at least that they have a feeling that they exist and who they are.","conclusion":"There is an emerging consensus among scientists that animals share parallel functions with humans' concious metacognition =our ability to reflect on our own mental processes and guide and optimize them. buffalo.edu"}
{"id":"af314f69-2510-4202-af99-35b39ed6d99a","argument":"For example, there is decreasing satisfaction with democracy as a political system; this does not mean it is not the only morally legitimate form of government.","conclusion":"The attitude of citizens towards direct democracy does not mean that it is not principally required."}
{"id":"7c5f4ca7-9aea-4aca-9a53-ec22468c3709","argument":"The fundamental driving force of nature evolution is survival and adaptation. By using technology to procreate, gay people are not subverting nature or evolution, but conforming sucessfully to its most basic principles. From nature's perspectives, the method of procreation is irrelevant. It only matters how healthy the offspring is. Why it may be superior The relatively high financial barriers serve as a selective mechanism ensuring that only the most successful and eager individuals will actually become parents. This increases the chances that the offspring will be born into a more nurturing environment with access to more resources. Additionally, inherent within the process are various levels of biological screening that are generally not used by the average heterosexual couple.","conclusion":"Gay Surrogacy\/Donor insemination is equivalent, in not superior, to \"natural\" heterosexual reproduction."}
{"id":"38aee42d-c450-4b44-ae90-61aab7c77e41","argument":"So Episode 5 is often cited as the best star wars movie, I find that this is not the case for reference, best to worst 4,3,6,5,2,1 . While I wil not deny that there are some great bits in it the hoth battle and the cloud city fight but the rest of the movie is dull. First of all, dagobah the entire sequence with yoda is essentially pointless as Luke goes in knowing nothing and comes out knowing a tiny bit more but still is wrecked by Vader. The millennium falcon story is also fairly dull to me, they hide form the empire for a while then after some fake tension they get away to cloud city.","conclusion":"Star wars episode V Empire strikes back is one of the weaker star wars films"}
{"id":"f6cbb245-a12e-457f-96d3-e307f59fc25b","argument":"A vegan diet is a subset of an omnivorous diet. Therefore the claim above would imply that any amount, however small, of non-vegan food would always decrease the healthiness of a diet.","conclusion":"It is possible to eat a healthy diet that includes meat and animal products."}
{"id":"be1e108a-7e47-4a1a-bd69-b8eac4245d31","argument":"Veganism is a choice made by consumers who have less power than suppliers in rapid change to an industry. This is controllable by suppliers regardless of consumer opinion.","conclusion":"This can be done scientifically, whereas veganism requires a change of public opinion. This is arguably more difficult."}
{"id":"1265da13-68ad-49e4-9f9e-c210e46c1379","argument":"A diverse society is a society which has people from different backgrounds and cultures. How does race come into play? Take this example a white child who immigrated from Chechnya to escape persecution and a black, American child, live next door to each other. They grow up together and, ultimately, have to postulate for colleges. The African American child, who has had an otherwise normal childhood, is accepted for the sake of diversity, while the child from Chechnya is rejected. Wouldn't the child from Chechnya bring more diversity to the school, despite his being white? Doesn't he contribute to a multicultural environment? Isn't it racist to assume that there is a white culture and a black culture ? Aren't people's backgrounds independent of the color of their skin? Diversity should be about diversity of experience and background, not skin. Diversity should be about bringing people from different socioeconomic statuses together, whether rich or poor, religious or non religious, American or not American, etc.","conclusion":"Diversity is not about race"}
{"id":"da053371-6df3-479f-8ed8-b785a3c2ed2f","argument":"P1. The concept of a \u201ca maximally great being\u201d is intuitively a coherent notion. Therefore, we have some \u201cprima facie\u201d warrant for thinking that a maximally great being is possible.","conclusion":"God as a maximally great being is a valid hypothesis for the evidence provided by natural theology."}
{"id":"0d7c60dc-1705-44a9-94be-7ab4f43b0cdb","argument":"Compulsory licencing laws would prevent monopolies or hegemony based on intellectual property rights. For example, if GMO producers had 5 years to charge what they wanted, after which any company could produce their products without the consent of the right-holder in exchange for 10% royalty. This prevents supply restriction or unreasonable mark-ups, while still rewarding investment in intellectual property.","conclusion":"Safeguards and laws can always be put in place to prevent this from happening."}
{"id":"0a23f48e-a4aa-4c08-babd-bc1eb0468e2f","argument":"I feel that the real victims are the ones they leave behind. I think it's a selfish act for a person to commit suicide because of the damage they leave behind. The personal problems and suffering they could have overcome and solved have now been passed onto the people who cared about them. Why should the family and friends carry a burden like that? It's ridiculous to cut a life short when you could have used it to produce positive things and even help other people who might have gone through what you've been through. So many terminally ill patients and the sick would give anything to live a few more months, weeks, days even. There is SO many suicide hotlines and preventions and public sources to help provide comfort for people who are going through tough times, why just give up without giving it a try? We all have problems, what would make a person who commits suicide special enough to cause THAT much pain to your friends and family just cause they've been having a bad time. Suicide is a coward's way out, .","conclusion":"I have no sympathy for suicide victims."}
{"id":"91feff3b-5d5f-455c-92eb-7207ecbcc9bb","argument":"Polls from late April 2017 suggest that if the election had been held then, Trump would not only have won again, but also won the popular vote. This is despite his declining approval rating.","conclusion":"Trump is likely to win in 2020, regardless of what the Democrats do, so any impacts on his popularity should not matter to the Democrats."}
{"id":"45c54451-600a-4418-a284-5838a0445191","argument":"A secular state should treat all its citizens in the same way, and not provide some citizens additional rights or exemptions to obligations just because they choose to adhere to a certain religion.","conclusion":"Giving any exemptions to religions is discrimination against non-believers."}
{"id":"30249ff7-f6a8-4d6b-955f-8609cfd4c108","argument":"If possible benefits are considered equal to certain benefits, then it is right to participate in every gambling opportunity that exists as the possible benefit is greater than the certain cost.","conclusion":"The value of a certain benefit is greater than the value of a possible equal benefit which one has no way of determining for sure exists."}
{"id":"366fb913-9f57-46b5-a9d1-3c0c0c0041cd","argument":"How many times have you heard of a male victim of domestic abuse? If you have, how many people make fun of the victim? Something along the lines of Man up or Let a little girl beat him up? , or Stop being a pussy ? This is senseless victim shaming, and I think it's ridiculous. Let's look at a normal report gt But they don't get hurt as bad as a female does. Sure, females usually suffer more when they are a victim, but this doesn't mean that a guy can not receive a lot of injuries. Also, many people seem to forget that domestic abuse isn't just between straight couples, or even couples, a relative is also considered domestic abuse. gt But females are abused more than males 28 of male victims do not tell anyone about their abuse. Male victims are three times more likely than a female victim NOT to tell the police and only 4 will tell a health professional. Not sure how I am going to cite my source as I am using my school's database. But I can upload a PDF maybe Though, the number of male reported abuse victims is 40 Source released in December, 2011, within the last 12 months an estimated 5,365,000 men and 4,741,000 women were victims of intimate partner physical violence. Edit Doesn't seem like too many people disagree with what I'm saying, which is a good thing More attention this topic get's, the better But let's still not forget about women victims","conclusion":"I believe that people don't take male victims of domestic abuse seriously, and actually are very rude on the topic."}
{"id":"e0c2bf23-c055-45e3-8005-d5b46eb8e214","argument":"VR can be less distracting, because one can customize the environment to suit their needs. This feature allows students to eliminate anything distracting in their environment, which is not possible in a classroom.","conclusion":"Virtual reality VR is the best format for online education."}
{"id":"511019ab-c4ce-4554-9a28-65e0cfea061d","argument":"Google left China due to it's crackdown on human rights activists. Re-entering China shows that Google no longer views this as an issue.","conclusion":"Complying with domestic censorship in order to enter China represents the abandonment of Google's core principles."}
{"id":"78654a0f-3d6a-4f24-aa80-4e250c534a5e","argument":"Part of this might be hindsight, like how the audience at the Gettysburg Address thought that it was dishwatery in substance, but have there been any worthy orators since, say, MLK? We had Bobby Kennedy then, as well as Norman Mailer and James Baldwin. Anything in the 2010s I'd like to hear about. I liked Obama's speeches but are any of them referenced for any reason nowadays? I don't really watch the news anymore but I can't think of one person that really reliably gets people amped up. Honestly, the last speech related item that I remember is when GWB said, But I can hear you on the 9 11 rubble. That was pretty good. Qualifications for a good speech for the purposes of this  One that gets mentioned even months years later. One that people like to mention that they attended in person. In English. Having to do with national widespread issues. Not criteria Amount of applause Size of audience Publicity gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Nobody gives good speeches anymore."}
{"id":"71b65635-5af1-481b-a9c2-d5320549b7e5","argument":"Many specifically designed Olympic venues are being abandoned as various Olympic disciplines sports are not popular with locals.","conclusion":"Most Olympic venues are abandoned after the games end and become eyesores in the host cities."}
{"id":"355ddeb4-9071-4c3b-b1d3-9f6d55232ea5","argument":"The employer has to intentionally and not negligently or accidentally make the plaintiff's life a living hell to justify constructive discharge, which is very difficult to prove as held in the US Court of Appeals, 2nd Circuit case: Adams v. Festival Fun Parks LLC.","conclusion":"Proving a claim of constructive discharge in a court of law is very difficult as illustrated in the US Court of Appeals, 3rd Circuit case: Duffy v. Paper Magic Group Inc."}
{"id":"aa5216b3-5118-44be-a4f2-263568c2fe50","argument":"Yes, youth crime is highlighted, but this is because crime involving young people is seen as an urgent issue. Young people are not being targeted or victimised, they are being seen as a priority. Young people themselves do not want youth crime to happen, it affects them just as badly, most campaigns against youth crime highlight this. Crimes against young people are also seen as more serious than against adults because young people are a vulnerable group. The achievements of young people are seen as more greater than comparative achievements of adults because they have achieved the same with a lot less experience and resources.","conclusion":"Issues involving youths are seen as more important in general."}
{"id":"d423ba16-38e3-42be-815b-7d118b1aa5cd","argument":"A change in legislation in DC that is markedly different from everywhere else in the U.S. is harmful. Whilst the constitution might be amended to give a specific change for DC, the rest of the U.S. will still be able to bear arms. The point of the American constitution is that it is meant to give an even field to all citizens under the law. Minor differences between people within different states is acceptable; owing to specific needs of specific states and all state legislation must be proved to be constitutional anyway. This difference is specifically problematic because of the nature of its interactions with both the constitution and the law. This change is harmful because the state is dependent upon consistency within the law and perception of the law as being a fair mechanism for all people. Large inconsistencies within the law should not be tolerated as such inconsistencies often bring into debate the legitimacy of the state\u2019s legal code. This is problematic as such debates and inconsistencies can lead to confusion about the reach of the law as well as doubt in the legitimacy of the law. The law is dependent upon citizens understanding and subscribing to the legal code, otherwise legal systems might suffer from problems such as people simply not reporting crime to the police owing to their doubt in the legal system and its ability to protect them, or otherwise law abiding citizens from other areas of the country inadvertently breaking the law by bringing guns into D.C.","conclusion":"The DC Handgun ban is inconsistent with other legislation in the U.S."}
{"id":"921cea16-8f30-4d62-b0d2-c7d1b7c1e97a","argument":"Prank bomb-threats cause financial costs for society because of evacuation of buildings, involvement of police, emergency medical service and fire service.","conclusion":"Human endangering speech eg making prank bomb-threats or screaming fire in a packed cinema, should be forbidden."}
{"id":"a2ab412e-840f-4967-971b-837f2e7d1b53","argument":"By this, I refer to things like shopping at a thrift shop an incredibly conscious way to recycle and lightly withdraw support from a few nefarious companies but people do it because Macklemore does it, because look, the '50s, etc. , vegetarianism a view I hold as firmly moral no need to agree but whose adoption is often done because it's a young, hip way to eat Have you tried that new vegan place? , and not for environmental or moral reasons , biking far better for the environment than cars, but look at the culture that's sprung up around having an old or a silly bike and protesting, in some cases namely, that for a time in America it was more cool than important that you were joining Occupy and though legitimacy may have suffered, it was hard to argue with the numbers, even though I do believe most of the participants saw their efforts as, at best, personal rebellion, rather than the dire collective action problem it was and indeed is . Even slacktivist territory like LIVESTRONG bracelets, in which support for an important medical battle is shown through only an article of clothing, needs an aesthetic inroad bands are cool my friends have those bands, I want one too and not a stance I will do everything in my power to battle cancer . All of this amounts to making medicine tasty. And while I'd rather live in a world in which I could discuss with you that riding your bike to work is more environmentally conscious, that in my view you're quasi compelled to do it given the state of affairs, etc., it seems both a. easier and b. more effective to start a Take Your Bike To Work Day in Brooklyn. It may not even be that people are, in aggregate, too stupid to take in the arguments though I do think that's probably the case . It may just be that you're way more prone to do what your friends do than what's right yes, my own definition of right let's set it aside for now , and so it's in my best interests to find the leader of your friend group, convince her , and watch the effect metabolize and spread. .","conclusion":"I believe making moral acts \"cool\" rather than explaining why they're \"good\" is the optimal way to increase total morality."}
{"id":"334f9b1a-dd59-400d-bf82-123569b3b817","argument":"The title pretty much explains it. It seems that gun advocates constantly make terrible arguments whenever a mass shooting happens. After the shooting in Oregon a few months back, I remember my uncle making the argument that a screening wouldn't have prevented the shooter from getting guns because the shooter didn't have a documented case of mental illness. And there is this article that takes a perfectly logical explanation to a question on gun control and criticizes it by adding a completely unrelated issue to the end of the article. People that are opposed to common sense gun legislation are clearly motivated by fear and do not base their decision on common sense. there is this study that 82 of mass shootings are carried out by people that bought their guns legally. I do think that my uncle has a valid point that many of these shootings would not be prevented by background checks. With that said, some clearly would. A paranoid schizophrenic probably isn't going to volunteer to a background check or mental fitness test by the government to get a gun he or she wants. source A common claim that gun enthusists will make is that cars kill more people every year than guns. This has always been true but the number of car deaths has dropped while the number of gun deaths has reminded consistent. The numbers are pretty much the same as well, considering the numbers are 35,453 car deaths to 32,251 gun deaths. That s out of a pool of 300,000,000 people by the way. source Also, we more or less make people who want to drive a car prove they are not going to be a danger to others on the road by taking multiple tests and registering their car. Why should it be different for guns? Another illogical justification made by gun enthusiasts is that guns are meant for self defense. An Oxford study found that owning a gun makes you more likely to be a victim of gun violence. The reason for this is probably tied to a Harvard study which found that guns are rarely used in self defense, when they are the use is often illigal, and inmates are almost never shot by someone trying to defend themselves.","conclusion":"\"Common Sense Gun Laws\" are appropriately titled and pro-gun arguments are often illogical"}
{"id":"cc531958-6378-456f-88af-05974223e641","argument":"Daenerys marrys Hizdahr for purely political reasons in order to maintain peace and to show her respect for Meereen.","conclusion":"Meereen was like a practice yard for Daenerys. She is learning how to rule."}
{"id":"546db003-a9ba-4aee-90e5-fa40c53347da","argument":"According to NGO reports, much of police attention is directed to fighting trafficked sex work Sex Work Europe, p. 9 Thus, there is a bias by the police that can explain the difference in numbers.","conclusion":"Social workers' reports are more reliable than police statistics, as they are more trustworthy for the sex workers themselves and thus are more likely to gain correct information."}
{"id":"93e98e02-a896-47eb-a3a6-5e42bc895820","argument":"Universities have to provide a range of courses, some of which are going to be more financially viable than others, that fine. However, investment in one area inevitably means that there are resources not being focused elsewhere. It\u2019s not a huge factor but some subjects \u2013 creative arts, Theology and a few others do represent a \u2018back door\u2019 into universities for those who didn\u2019t get the grades to get onto more demanding courses. Those students still need to sleep, study and socialize somewhere \u2013 in place of those who could have taken their places on Engineering, Medicine, Economics or similar courses had the space been available. By keeping these courses, universities are turning away students for other disciplines and those studying the arts courses are learning in a way that may not be the most productive \u2013 as mentioned in the previous argument. It\u2019s difficult to see who wins.","conclusion":"Arts degrees limit opportunities for Universities to offer other courses"}
{"id":"e0e6b97f-96d3-4122-adf9-afe2e0aa8e1c","argument":"Look at the qualifications for any job posting that isn't a minimum wage position, and you will see that the qualifications required are super specific, to a point that they seem not to account for the human ability to learn to do whatever is necessary. What is the goddamn point of creating flexible, educated 21st century human beings with Internet access, if you need an 8 year degree in exactly whatever the fuck they're looking for just to be considered eligible? What the fuck happened to learning on the job? If you don't have 5 years of experience doing exactly what they want, but you're reasonably intelligent, often within a few months of actually doing that job, you will be more than up to speed. It is a tremendous waste of human life that employers don't train their employees for the jobs that they want them to do anymore. Given that we now have more freedom to develop ourselves and access to information and knowledge than ever, the only barrier to a job should be employers creating job specific tests for competence and or ability to learn. Instead, we have these utterly bullshit educational arms races credentialism instead of having people learn a specific job on the job like a sane digital age society. . gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than just downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Hiring practices in the US are idiotic, and a tremendous waste of human life, time, and potential"}
{"id":"aa2f3ff1-6c2f-4c05-9cc3-eb7b58eece49","argument":"First, to explain why polygamy more specifically, polygyny, because polyandry is not reproductively beneficial to any party, incredibly uncommon in human societies, and not beginning to catch on in our society is bad for society. In a polygamous society, there is not someone for everyone if 50 of men practice polygamy, the other 50 will live a life devoid of intimacy. Each man who has more than one wife deprives another man of the opportunity to fulfill his evolutionary purpose, and, in doing so, more or less condemns him to a life of frustration and unhappiness, because he is so instinctually driven to reproduce that he is unlikely to find happiness without success in this area of life. The second part of my argument is that our society, since the dawn of the sexual revolution and the rise of a culture of casual sex, is beginning to tend towards a sort of polygamy lite . First, take Bateman's Principle there is greater variance in the reproductive success of men than women women don't really have to compete for sex itself, only for sex with better partners. Men will tend to either have 0 to 2 partners or far more than that 20 ? I don't have a specific number whereas women will generally have around the same amount, higher than the average for the beta males, but lower than the average for the alphas. It stands to reason, then, that women tend to go for the same, high status men, who are completely okay with doing as many of these women as possible. Women are naturally hypergamous look for high status men while men are naturally polygamous look for as many women as possible . Now, let me explain why polygamy and by extension, polygamy lite is bad for society only for the losers in a polygamous society. The reason this is bad for society as a whole is that sexually unsuccessful males have a strong tendency to not accept being condemned to genetic extinction, and instead tend to act out and cause problems for society such as mass shootings a la Eliot Rodger and rape. Most suicide bombers from the polygamous Muslim society are, in fact, poor single men who would be unlikely to otherwise find a mate. It's easy to see why the prospect of 72 virgins in Heaven would be so appealing to such men. I'd honestly appreciate if someone could change my view here. This is the conclusion I've reached from my recent studies of evolutionary psychology, and it disturbs me on a deep and personal level. I don't want to be that guy who is critical of the sexual revolution.","conclusion":"Polygamy and by extension promiscuity is bad for society"}
{"id":"2c889395-ed18-40f5-9f3c-5fc2f29ca140","argument":"Japan invaded China in the 1930s and then most of South East Asia in the 1940s. As part of it's loss after the war their constitution only allowed for self-defence forces. In recent years however, remilitarisation has become the norm This can only heighten tensions and instability in the region.","conclusion":"Concern on the grounds of destabilisation is hypocrisy. Most of the major actors on the issue are or have been involved in actions that caused destabilisation in Northeast Asia."}
{"id":"53475b7a-6916-4902-90ae-a274e84bb1e4","argument":"Taboos against maternity leave were exacerbated when women attempted to use the policy; in Italy one quarter of women are fired during or after their pregnancy.","conclusion":"Women could face harsh stigmatization at their workplace from people who do not sympathize with their pain and think paid leave is unjustified."}
{"id":"a299e591-31c7-4b18-b094-7acf80cf4c9a","argument":"The perpetrators justified their actions by saying that they were just playing, as no physical body was being harmed. This excuse will be equally applicable to immersive virtual reality and there must be laws to prevent this.","conclusion":"Virtual rape has also been known to take place in online chatrooms where one user witnessed a group of people engaging in a violent virtual gang-rape and was extremely disturbed by the event."}
{"id":"224a5ee0-3adb-4d5d-85ea-644e48621979","argument":"They have made obvious their threats to attack South Korea, the US, et al. Their weapons are already scary, and only get worse as time goes on. They have nukes and are trying for ICBMs, having already stated their intent. Currently we have a massive technological advantage. This decreases the more time passes. Yes, we are also producing technology, but once they get to a certain level the threat goes up exponentially. They're working on both better nukes and ICBMs and not even trying to hide it. The conditions in North Korean camps are basically the same as those in the holocaust, just without the intentional mass murder on a genocidal scale. The sooner we do something, as an international coalition, the easier it will be. As time passes their range and ability increases, and more people will die because we did nothing. This is a humanitarian crisis. Us doing nothing is like watching Jim Jones on television do his thing and, seeing what was going to happen in the end, doing nothing to get to Guyana. Just on a massively bigger scale. Yes, I understand China is a problem, but to me if they want to stand behind this insanity they're working against world stability. Hell, just build a wall on the border, Great Wall 2.0. Or, you know, work with the coalition for peace and just station troops and use surveillance?","conclusion":"We Should Force Regime Change Immediately In North Korea"}
{"id":"b33e623b-ee55-4c6c-bc68-d43cb0c40afc","argument":"People die every day outside the state's control. It's not the state's responsibility to mitigate the pain of loss, no matter how it comes. A rational decision to die would include planning to mitigate the level of disruption in the individual's circle.","conclusion":"The state has no right to interfere with an individual's decision to die."}
{"id":"9e8720c9-6407-4168-a635-4ec7817cf9fa","argument":"With all the protests going on, I am of the mindset that people are protesting everything and anything Trump proposes. In this particular case, it seems like the best thing that can be done for the safety of our country. By extending the vetting process, we are more likely getting less potential terrorists. And no one can deny that the terrorists have come from these countries, primarily. And please, before you retort with, What about Saudi Arabia and Egypt? , I think the answer is simply that the 7 counties on the list have very unstable governments. I will admit that I am right leaning, but certainly open to being educated and having my opinion changed. Further, I do feel sorry for refugees, but why is it always the USA's responsibility to help the world? Thank you.","conclusion":"Trump's position on immigration seems best for our nation."}
{"id":"c1c7be3e-5d3e-4cb1-877b-72541e0563f2","argument":"1 So I'm quite happy with Atom, and I'm used to the keyboard shortcuts and stuff and it's really good. Everyone says VSCode is way more dank, though, and that they have some dank add ons and whatnot, but I'm not convinced enough to switch over. 2 as for iTerm2, I would like to change between tabs with a keyboard shortcut mostly. and if it is easier to edit a command, that would be tight. I worry it would be slower or something. Also I get this weird bugginess in terminal with rails pry, but idk if iterm would just be even worse gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"1 I don't need to switch over to VSCode from Atom. and 2 I don't need to switch over to iTerm2 from Terminal"}
{"id":"9ff2bf70-8f06-43a7-930c-f589beaa64dc","argument":"This is a common theme and occurrence with vigilante and mob justice. Such methods would place innocents and those wrongfully convicted at unnecessary and unacceptable risk.","conclusion":"In 2000, a mob attacked the home of a man after mistaking him for one of the pedophiles \"named and shamed\" by one newspaper."}
{"id":"957a8f01-2278-4734-82c2-eb956da80ed6","argument":"Japanese public opinion is currently split in half regarding constitutional revision. Seeing North Korea being accepted as a nuclear power might easily tip the balance and give politicians a mandate for revision.","conclusion":"In the face of a nuclear North Korea, the ambition of conservative forces to change Japan's constitution and enable the country to engage militarily would receive a boost."}
{"id":"82724b11-f750-4d03-aefe-d99066fdd97e","argument":"Schools depend on a combination of standardized test scores, grades, teacher and counselor recommendations, student and parent choice, and college and vocational requirements to assign students to ability groups p. 96. These assessments are often subjective and thus open to bias.","conclusion":"Studies show that the criteria schools use to assign students to ability group levels do not always produce groups that are homogeneous with respect to ability."}
{"id":"562dbbd9-e844-43bb-bf64-23959cbf74f0","argument":"Many AA members are ordained by the court to attend these meetings. They are able to hide their violent nature and tendencies behind the veil of anonymity.","conclusion":"The anonymity comes at the price of safety, which stops people from participating."}
{"id":"135d3c79-a8a8-4a5d-980c-c8ac53399e47","argument":"Despite the small number of fatal attacks, I believe it's in the interest of humanity to kill off the four species great white, tiger, bull, whitetip responsible for killing hundreds and injuring thousands of people over the years. The population of some of these species are relatively unknown, but based on professional estimations, the total number of sharks that would have to go is between 20,000 and 40,000. Tiger sharks are actively being hunted for their fins, flesh and liver, while the other species are killed by humans to a lesser degree. The ecological effect of killing these four species would be minimal. The rest of the almost 500 non threatening shark species, killer whales which only kill humans in captivity and terrestrial man eaters such as lions, tigers, crocodiles, hippos and bears should be left alone, but given a stern warning not to mess with us. My argument is not so much the number of attacks which many land based animals outnumber by far , but rather the fear of potential attacks in large geographical areas as shark attacks have occurred in oceans near various countries in all major continents. If they would stick to one area, they wouldn't pose such a threat, but if your boat sinks anywhere in the ocean, you shouldn't have to worry about being cut in half by an idiot shark who cannot tell the difference between a human and a seal. The fear may be irrational in some cases, but bringing peace of mind to my fellow human beings is more important than preserving four insignificant species that occasionally kill us anyway. Human eating sharks cause a lot of stress, inconvenience and restrictions to swimmers, surfers and divers. Shark nets primarily used in Australia kill tens of thousands of animals every year, including many harmless sharks, dolphins and turtles. Unlike killer whales, human eating shark species completely lack sex appeal and people describing great white sharks as majestic are clearly intrigued by the sheer size of them. Finally, I want to point out that we kill over 50 billion farm animals per year plus a whole lot more fish and sea creatures. Fishing hunting as a sport is widely accepted and we already kill many animals to protect ourselves and our livestock. Tens of thousands of animal species become extinct every year without anyone really caring. Although I can relate sympathize more with the emotions of certain animals, I basically value all species equally, meaning the life of a dolphin is not more important than a tuna, but to me, the life of a human is worth more than 10,000 pandas. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Humans should kill off shark species that kill humans"}
{"id":"3742218c-b46b-4f70-9b34-30553f51cdb8","argument":"People might bring back animals that they caused to go extinct due to feeling guilty and making up for wrongdoing, but some of them might be so far back that they might not fit into today's world like the woolly mammoth.","conclusion":"If people start to try to fix the biodiversity issue, they might end up creating more issues than prevent."}
{"id":"04e5b43e-e51a-47b5-9db0-836ffe9137c1","argument":"Donald Trump has attacked political opponents as liars, and journalists as inventors of fake news, buthe himself lies almost daily.","conclusion":"Donald Trump has taken contradictory or hypocritical stances on dozens of issues."}
{"id":"176dfaa1-2604-470e-8fcc-d328ab82d9f8","argument":"South Ossetia has a population of roughly 70,000. This would make it one of the smallest states in the world. This fact, combined with its high level of poverty, makes it a poor candidate for independence.","conclusion":"S. Ossetia's population is too small to warrant statehood."}
{"id":"a20a7c02-cd86-4cfd-a430-ab35144284cf","argument":"Typical low-skill roles such as waitressing are more relaxed in regards to attire during the interview process.","conclusion":"Applicants do not need a suit for all jobs. In some cases regular clothes are appropriate."}
{"id":"0d29f748-f1f5-4a05-9d5b-15c80e1707e8","argument":"Everyone always talks about how addiction is a disease and addicts need love and support and compassion because recovery is hard. But I think they did it to themselves by doing the drug and getting addicted, so it\u2019s not anyone else\u2019s responsibility to care about their problem. I\u2019ve never done drugs before, so I\u2019ve never been addicted. It\u2019s that simple, at least to me. Obviously there are exceptions to this, like babies who are born addicted to drugs or other extenuating circumstances. With that being said, I\u2019m willing to change my view because it seems like a lot of people on social media nowadays are in favor of changing the way people perceive addiction. It used to be seen as a moral flaw and disgusting decision, but I\u2019ve noticed recently, people treat addicts as if they really do deserve compassion and it\u2019s not their fault they\u2019re addicted. Also, I\u2019m pretty sure the DSM 5 lists addiction as a disease, implying it\u2019s not a choice. I tried googling it, but nothing seems to come up on addicts bringing it on themselves. I generally try to base my worldview and perspectives of things on science, so I\u2019m definitely interested in learning. But like I said earlier, it seems so simple everyone tells you not to do drugs, so you choose not to do drugs, and everything is fine. Edit okay, I think this discussion has run its course. Please stop responding now. You guys are just being outright rude at this point. The earlier comments were actually pretty helpful and had good points, but now the newer comments are repeating points I\u2019ve already heard or they\u2019re just being rude. Thanks for all your responses.","conclusion":"Drug addicts do it to themselves and addiction shouldn\u2019t be treated like a disease."}
{"id":"37cba009-ddbf-4ce9-a5bf-e6ab536226fc","argument":"According to consequentialism, it is permissible to severely violate people's rights for example, by torturing an innocent child if doing so increases net happiness.","conclusion":"The judgements produced by consequentialist frameworks violate many of our moral intuitions."}
{"id":"5b078e7d-8fcd-446e-86fb-8673a9322c48","argument":"Farmers worry and have to go to extra lengths creating mechanisms such as buffer zones areas of land with no crops so no transgenic crops can arise. The fear of being sued by Monsanto has created great concern in Americas farming community as many cannot afford the legal fees to defend against a phenomenon that is out of their control entirely.","conclusion":"Seed patenting. Often seeds can be carried by winds or other natural mechanisms, if the GMO is patented, farmers with no control on the distribution of other farmers seeds, have and will be punished unless laws change."}
{"id":"2edb0774-8e5f-435a-b980-566f447bc081","argument":"Human remains do not become part of the environment these days with modern burial practices intended to preserve the human body after death instead of decompose, especially with embalming, like Egyptian mummies.","conclusion":"Humans manipulated life to the point that they disrupt the natural circle of life. Many humans are not really part of the circle of life anymore."}
{"id":"a4da4fcb-0581-4041-a44b-d14e183cc97d","argument":"Sheldon H. Jacobson is a professor of computer science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. \"The Right Kind of Profiling.\" New York Times Room for Debate. January 4th, 2010: \"One solution is to use information about passengers voluntarily provided and readily assessable to eliminate those who have negligible risk factors, which should be the case for 60 to 70 percent of passengers. Then apply state-of-the art technologies for the remaining pool of passengers, for which less information is known, and subject them to the highest level of security screening, and in some cases, not allow them to fly. We can call this behavioral profiling, information profiling, or whatever we wish. However, until we use security resources appropriately, we will never achieve a secure air system.\"","conclusion":"Profiling is about using a range of information, not race"}
{"id":"6bfa6efa-403f-470a-a5d2-6c13233264c8","argument":"The Bakassi boys in Nigeria garnered support in Anambra state because they knew who the criminals were, as well as their hideouts since they knew the communities in which they operated very well Survey of Public Perception of Role and Acceptance of Vigilante Service Groups as Agents of Crime Control in Anambra State, Southeast Nigeria, pg.2","conclusion":"Community members are more likely to have confidence in the local vigilantes, since they have more knowledge of the situation than the police, who are outsiders."}
{"id":"37eed16d-b140-4c3a-8cdc-9173d7640ae6","argument":"They may interpret your actions as demonstrating that you view your commitment to them as something to be casually broken, even for minimal benefit.","conclusion":"This is only one way your partner might interpret your actions, and not the most likely one at that."}
{"id":"a9ee154f-7498-438b-a43e-5fd237d9c7bd","argument":"There is evidence that cows specifically have relatively high sentience. There is evidence that they experience prolonged emotional reactions to physical and emotional trauma, and that they can be trained to navigate mazes","conclusion":"Many studies have shown that animals possess characteristics associated with sentience."}
{"id":"ec9d7d66-576a-4723-ad7d-a818d06ac243","argument":"The definition of selfish Oxford dictionary is defined as lacking consideration for other people concerned chiefly with one's own personal profit or pleasure. By this definition, everyone should be selfish. Considering others Consider that the only point of view you can see the world through is your own. When you read about someone else\u2019s opinions, it is processed through your own eyes, your own brain, and is compared with your own thoughts and experiences. When a person \u201cempathizes\u201d with another, they are in reality imagining themselves in that situation. They are relating. People fail to empathize when they cannot see themselves in a given situation. So to truly consider another is impossible, since in the end you are considering yourself. Concerned with one\u2019s own profit pleasure People only do things because they want to. In cases where people do things they don\u2019t want to do, it is only so they CAN do something they DO want to do. No action you take is for anyone else, and is only done because of what YOU as an individual wants. With both these points being attributable to every human being in existence, it makes me believe that effectively, everyone in the world is selfish.","conclusion":"Everyone in the world is selfish, no matter what."}
{"id":"1ead4222-05eb-4c73-acdc-e6cb4ba77edb","argument":"With Steam and game bundles, games are often discounted to a fraction of their ordinary price. For example, 2 years after its release, Batman Arkham City was in a Humble Bundle, lowering its price from 50 to less than 6. For games not in bundles, Steam Sales often offer recent games for ~50 off. Games don't need to be bought on release. Waiting a year or two to play a game would not lessen enjoyment in any significant way, and most likely would save a lot of money.","conclusion":"There's no point to buying video games on release"}
{"id":"cc3bac1b-1d7e-4441-83f0-1beed31f0fef","argument":"I don't always think before I speak. In sales, the ability to respond to questions quickly tends to be an asset, and it's a skill that I'm lucky enough to have naturally. I'd never intentionally contribute to our culture of racism, and so far I haven't. Still, I might make a mistake some day. There's nothing I can do to make sure I don't slip up that doesn't also hurt my ability to make a living. So why would I want to live in a world where all it takes is a single gaffe to wind up in HR? Why would I support civil rights causes, despite the fact that they're dear to me, if the only way to support civil rights is to join groups that demand PC compliance as well? Censorship is the enemy of the glib, and all of the people who are considered witty or fun to talk to are glib. I don't think it's strategically sound to alienate the people who are the best at convincing people of stuff from causes that require the majority of people to be convinced in order to be effective.","conclusion":"I Don't Like Political Correctness."}
{"id":"3b5d5a9d-04b8-4db8-ab0a-4a58b1dc366a","argument":"Trading card games are completely unfair and shouldn't be considered competitive in the slightest. For starters, they heavily rely on luck, and while there is an element of strategy, I would argue that it takes backseat to chance. You have to hope that you draw the card that your strategy pivots around, or you can't use it. Secondly, the richest kid wins. The best cards are more expensive, and you can't possibly expect to win against someone with more of the best cards unless of course, you get lucky, which goes back to my other point. Cheap cards can't out strategy expensive ones. It's impossible. Note that this argument applies to trading card games, but not deck building games, which also rely on luck but not money, because when you buy the set you have the same cards as everyone else. EDIT I'm also going to add this argument proposed by u NaturalSelectorX gt I think you could have a stronger case if you said they were unfair because of the constant introduction of new cards that drastically change value or strategic use of other cards. Introducing new cards is a clear money grab, and I can't think of another game which constantly trashes your investment.","conclusion":"I don't think trading card games are fair at all."}
{"id":"1e0ecdc1-b1df-43e3-a8f8-6cd9b24f26d8","argument":"The US currently spends 597 billion on the military. Not only is this more money than the next 7 countries combined, but President Trump is asking Congress to further increase this spending by 54 billion. While I understand that the US has built itself up as the protector of the free world, this should be able to be done with significantly less money. Obviously, we could never fully cut military spending but cutting even 200 billion would leave us as the largest military in the world and we could put that 200 billion to better use, such as providing health care, rebuilding infrastructure, or improving education. Unfortunately, I dont see this ever happening because in the US, any politician who runs on the platform of cutting military spending would come across as un patriotic and un American. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The US spends too much on the military and that money would be better spent elsewhere."}
{"id":"d2e82e33-b660-4bcb-beb5-4e2703238d0a","argument":"For the last year or so I have started to realize the selfishness of producing biological children. First, I will start off with the parents. Ill use mine for example, more specifically my mom. My mom had a wide range of mental issues, at the time of conceiving me she knew she atleast had depression. My moms mother my grandma , had been in and out of mental hospitals, and from the stories ive heard about her, she sounded down right nuts. Back to my mom, over the years she became her mother, she got crazier and crazier over the years, was mentally and physically abusive, and neglected me and my brothers. My dad up and left when I was ten, but has supported us with more than enough money our whole lives, so ill give him that. As ive gotten older I have began to worry about the possibilty of developing mental issues, and the large possibility of passing those issues onto biological children. That is where selfishness comes in. Do parents not worry about these issues? Especially parents who have health issues not related to mental health? Why would i ever want to produce a child knowing there is a large chance they will suffer, just because i want something biologically related to me. Also, how do I know i will be a fit parent? After suffering your entire childhood, wouldnt you want to make sure you were mentally sound and ready to take care of a child ren . Next ill move on to children in foster care orphanages. There is literally hundreds and thousands of children rotting in the foster care system orphanges all over the world. I cant even fathom bringing more children into the world when I could be giving children a family, children that are ALREADY HERE, and are in need of one. And lastly, probably the most controversial part of this post, it is not a selfless act to have and raise children. It is not selfless to give birth, the 9 months carrying a child and the hours of labour is not selfless. YOU ARE DOING IT BECAUSE YOU WANTED TO, YOUR CHILD DID NOT ASK YOU TO DO IT FOR THEM. You want to experience the joys of motherhood. Your child is not obligated to be greatful to you for doing it. You chose the responsibility of raising a child. Again, your child didnt ask for it. And, if you do a fantastic job, you give your child what you need to be a happy, healthy and successful person, then yes, your child can be greatful, greatful that you were a good parent. But if you bring a child into the world, not being finacially prepared, not knowing if you are mentally prepared, not knowing if you may pass on your shitty genes, not considering adopting children who are already here and in need, then you are being selfish. All because you want a child who will look like a mix of you and your partner. Change my view.","conclusion":"Having children is selfish"}
{"id":"8ef16892-d11b-419a-a2b8-c58235002e37","argument":"It may be necessary to limit trial by jury in terrorism cases, or other cases surrounding large national security issues.","conclusion":"limit the right to trial by jury in some criminal cases."}
{"id":"c384acda-622f-4c28-a138-e7e2f9c0d967","argument":"Cows produce on average 70kg to 120kg per year in methane emissions. Genetically modifying cows to emit less methane is ethical because it will reduce global carbon emissions.","conclusion":"It is ethical to genetically modify farmed animals so that they cause less harm to the environment."}
{"id":"40dc7ad6-a483-42ef-8035-860408c278f9","argument":"Any driver may just claim to be in a rush. They may also claim that the hitchhiker looked menacing. They may also lie and say that the hitchhiker performed annoying behavior either in or out of the car. It is hearsay and not provable whether or not any of these was the case. This makes the law completely unenforceable.","conclusion":"There are some reasons why a driver may not want to stop for a hitchhiker."}
{"id":"70199999-f312-438f-a71b-3548e3624a94","argument":"Examples are not hard to think of. I live in a multicultural Dutch city. My teacher used to remark that any traces of openly gay kids disappeared as soon as Muslim kids started entering the schools. I notice this in day to day life as well. You hardly see anyone who looks or talks gay. Similarly, it's reported that Jews are afraid of going out with yarmulkes because they get harassed in the streets. What I notice in my multicultural community, more so than the diversity is the homogeneity. People look the same. They try to adjust to their group average, instead of seeking to deviate from it. Similarly, youth subcultures seem to have disappeared. Except for some metalheads, the diversity of expression and personality of youth seems carefully concealed in today's Dutch society, whereas I remember as a child that things were different in this regard. Instead, this is these days hidden behind walls of festivals, such as Summer Darkness or Elf Fantasy Fair, which are unsurprisingly about 99.9 filled with white people. The places that do still have some semblance of diversity in this regards, are the places where few if any ethnic minorities live, that is, outside of the large cities near the sea. What about the immigrant minorities themselves? The minority communities are homogenizing as well. Immigration severs the connection to the country of origin, and oral traditions are lost. The cohabitation of a variety of immigrant communities Somali, Turkish, Moroccan, etcetera , whose only shared cultural heritage is Islam leads to a situation of group polarization, in which they exaggerate the one cultural element that defines them in opposition to the Dutch majority. You will find more Turkish girls with headscarfs in an immigrant neighborhood in my country, than you will find in Istanbul. In contrast to this, I look at monocultural places like Helsinki, Finland and Tokyo Japan and see the diversity of expression that I remember seeing traces of in my own country. Similarly, it's not multicultural Sweden or Norway that have the highest percentage of Neopagans, but Iceland, where the only size able minorities are people from other European countries. I therefore think that multiculturalism will eventually eliminate all traces of diversity in indigenous Europeans. Instead, every European group will be absorbed into its larger parent culture, until we reach the point where there exists no more British culture , Irish culture , Jewish culture , Biker culture or gay culture , but rather, only white culture .","conclusion":"I believe that by making people feel vulnerable, multiculturalism causes them to conform more strictly to the norms of their own ethnic community, thus in practice eliminating the \"diversity\" that multiculturalism seeks to promote."}
{"id":"437e8aee-8b84-4cd5-a5a3-b6c251ed096f","argument":"Cutting taxes, no bailouts, and selective deregulation to keep market forces alive and promote efficiency.","conclusion":"Deregulation and tax cuts should be embraced to lead the world out of economic crisis."}
{"id":"ddc75ba7-df12-4c9d-b486-acac3db0f1df","argument":"Here's my argument As is often mentioned on the radio commercials, The Texas Lotto supports Texas Education . Now, often charities will have some sort of raffle drawing prize, where you can buy, say, a 50 raffle ticket for a chance to win a 3000 motorcycle. More than 60 people will enter for this, which means that the charity will profit, because they'll make more money off of raffle tickets than they will spend on the motorcycle. Texas education is, in my experience, horribly underfunded. Not to mention we're near or at last place as far as school quality goes among the states. So, the Texas lottery is basically a raffle ticket with the charity being Texas schools. gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than just downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Playing the Texas Lottery and probably other states is a charitable act."}
{"id":"edf43237-a467-41f3-a78f-ff6023023be0","argument":"If education was made free for all, it is likely that a degree will become a basic requirement for jobs rather than something held in high esteem.","conclusion":"Employers will stop valuing degrees because everyone will have one. It will cease to act as a differentiator between prospective employees."}
{"id":"f3a4eba8-4b0a-41d4-bff0-bf760fa7c954","argument":"Quick pre note, im going to use the term Native when referring to the group because its quicker. So basically my logic is that the benefits are given out for 3 reasons First being the Natives were driven from their homes to land where they couldnt live, second they were killed, and third their culture was 'stolen'. Well my family is traced to living in Newfoundland from 1603 up until today. My ancestors back in England Pollard to be precise where driven from their home and forced to move to Newfoundland, a place notorious at the time for being difficult to live in and lots of deaths, especially in the winter. This was done by the English. The towns my family lived in were almost on the Avalon Peninsula, so near St. John's, which means that they were raided by both the French and the Dutch a few times so more than likely some of my ancestors were killed by the French and Dutch so they could take the resources from the surrounding area. The Dutch briefly held St. John's and in doing so changed the culture there, so much that the architecture on the island is extremely reminiscent of Dutch to this day. Over time as well, Newfoundland Gaelic died out because it wasnt instilled by the government to preserve and is now a lost language. Basically everything the Native groups can claim as their reason for 'deserving' I couldnt come up with a more fitting word these benefits has happened to me, or most likely any other old family in Canada so they shouldnt be entitled to more than I am legally and economically. TLDR The English drove my ancestors from their homes to inhospitable lands, the French killed them, and the Dutch 'stole their' culture so Im as entitled to the same handouts Native peoples get to be provided by the previous governments.","conclusion":"I, having a traceable lineage in Newfoundland back 400 years, should have the same benefits provided to Native Americans by the Canadian government from France, England, the Netherlands, and the Canadian Governments."}
{"id":"2bc3f39c-2d38-4a69-9976-29bce2115ee0","argument":"Many Men's Rights Activists go against the Gillette ad that criticized toxic masculinity and was beneficial for men's issues.","conclusion":"Most Men's Rights Activists MRAs are strongly antifeminists thus they are highly un-cooperative to solve gendered issues."}
{"id":"1b1c2f34-0cbc-4795-8815-07100cb33455","argument":"PLEASE CHANGE MY VIEW, CAUSE I AM ABOUT TO ASK MY BRO SOMETHING REALLY WEIRD S Right off the bat, I am a 20 years old 100 heterosexual male student who has no real life experience whatsoever, but I think my POV is still worth a read. Current trend in society Most people decide they want kids and a house. Also, most people in society decide they want a singular sex partner SO at least at the point in their life when they decide it's time for kids house savings. Now, for a reason I can't seem to understand, these 2 people have to be the same person according to society. Guys, generally, biologically, and sociologically have more in common with other guys and the same goes for girls. Why should I limit my options of life partner to the half of society I have much less in common with, when it comes to making all the life decisions I have to share with a partner? Ideally, if it was socially accepted, I'd raise my kids with my most compatible bro so that I am the most possibly fulfilled by the way my kid has been raised. I would share my house with my most compatible bro, so that I have the smallest possible amount of compromises to make No feminine decoration other things like prioritizing garage, backyard and living room over bedroom, kitchen, bathroom etc . Now if the most compatible person you can find your bro happens to be of the sex you are attracted to, well good for you. But, without any study to back my claims, excuse me on this one I really don't have time this week in particular I think the previous sentence applies to a minority of the population. Even if that is false^ my whole post only concerns me and a small portion of society , it doesn't change much to my overall argumentation. A lot of the arguments I can find against this also apply to disagreeing with Gay marriage Kids NEED a paternal maternal figure, women and men both have qualities and should complete each other, etc . So ya, if these reasons aren't valid against gay marriage, then they aren't valid against BRO LIFING, let's fucking call it BRO LIFING. PLEASE CHANGE MY VIEW, CAUSE I AM ABOUT TO ASK MY BRO SOMETHING REALLY WEIRD S edit I'm sorry I don't really have to time to answer ALL the replies tonight, I have crazy homework this week, would any of the 80 of people who agree with me please help me with the answering, lol, I feel quite alone vs the vocal minority. Thank you and sorry very much. I'll be back by midnight New York time","conclusion":": There is no valid reason why the life partner house sharer, kid sharer, all important life decision sharer should be of the sex I am sexually attracted to."}
{"id":"883f3baf-f84b-4885-8d33-58702f47bc4b","argument":"From what I have observed, liberals tend to fall into one of two categories, both of which are vehemently opposed to the other. The first faction is heavily focused on political correctness and the \u201csocial justice\u201d movement. They are major proponents of multiculturalism. They tend to view human social behavior as being socially constructed, and the result of the environment, and are often hostile towards evolutionary psychology. They are more focused on equality of outcome than equality of opportunity. Mainstream feminists fall into this category. They are also more likely to support gun control than the second faction. They have more female members compared to the second faction, and are more likely to be religious. Examples of liberals in this faction include Hillary Clinton, Laci Green, Mike Rugnetta, Trace Dominguez, PZ Myers, and Jen McCreight. The second faction is liberal socially and economically, i.e. on abortion, gay marriage, drug liberalization, health care, etc., but is vehemently against the political correctness that the first faction espouses. They are also more averse to multiculturalism than the first faction. They tend to seek biological explanations for human behavior, and are more accepting of evolutionary psychology. They are more focused on equality of opportunity than equality of outcome. Almost all of the members of this faction are atheists. This faction is much more heavily male dominated than the first faction. They are also more likely to support gun rights compared to members of the first faction. They also tend to be more likely to criticize mainstream democrats, such as Barack Obama. Examples of liberals in this faction include Richard Dawkins, George Carlin, TJ Kirk, Phil Mason, and Carl Benjamin.","conclusion":"Liberalism is currently undergoing a schism, and is splitting into two factions"}
{"id":"c79b333d-f3d7-42fe-9411-f77dbd965af0","argument":"Barring a sold out showing, I cannot fathom a single reason why someone would want to sit in the front row of a movie theater. I think that it is the absolutely worst place to sit. My reasons are as follows One cannot see the entire screen in their field of vision. Head turning is an inevitability. Some people including young children will have to tilt their heads upward to see the screen. It is uncomfortable continual craning is most likely detrimental to health. Although many disagree that sitting too close to the TV is bad for the eyes I believe that being so close to a movie screen can induce eye strain There are so many better seats in the house. Full field of vision is only a few rows back. Sitting in the very back allows you to look forward down avoid neck strain and still get the full movie experience. Some people also prefer to see a full audience in front of them to enhance the movie going experience. I cannot understand why someone would choose to sit in the front row. Please change my view.","conclusion":"There is no good reason to sit in the front row of a movie theater."}
{"id":"af631d22-1cab-43c9-9d9c-1dda89fefc27","argument":"Hey guys, long time lurker of this sub Would just like to discuss one episode from a fascinating series I've been binging on Netflix. So to get to the point, the episode 15 Million Merits takes place in a futuristic timeline where humans like a slavelike state. There are three main classes of humans the performers and judges, who perform the consumerist entertainment that appears on every virtual screen throughout the infastructure, the normal, hardworking civilians , who are sentence to a lifetime in a virtual prison where the sole job is to bike all day while consuming porn, music, and other virtual goods, and the yellow guys , who are basically the janitors. Now, in the show, the Yellow Guys are depicted as being the most downtrodden in the post dystopian society they are consistently spit on, mocked at for their weight, considered lazy and useless, and even virtually dismembered in the games the citizens play. One of the main side characters makes it a daily habit of yelling at one of the yellow workers as they clean up the refuse of normal citizens on their bikes. However, in my opinion, life as a yellow guys would be pretty great relative to the other classes Real Work Once you're Yellow, you do the only real work in the entire building. While the rest of the populace stuck in low quality virtual world dealing with meaningless trinkets, and the higher ups are being constantly abused as a part of show business, you spend your day doing honest work, cleaning up real dirt, and taking out real garbage. Even the measliest of janitorial services beats riding a bike all day surrounded by completely shit virtual media and music. Detachment from the Virtual World and Exploration While its generally not understood how the Yellow Guys are fed and manage to stay so fat , clearly they must earn some virtual credits or an equivalent in order to continue existing and since 15 Million Merits takes place in what is generally an automated world, there are no human operatives to watch them. So therefore, there's really no point why you can't just randomly call it a day and take a break. No one's watching you, everyone's too transfixed in their bikes and virtual worlds. During your shift, you can go for a long tour of the facility at your leisure, for the sake of just exploring or trying to find a way out. On that point, Yellow Guys aren't bombarded to the torturous commercial breaks that the rest of the citizens suffer from, or have to worry about the amount of credits they have, or the look of their avatars. Because you don't live in the virtual world, you can happily clean while your superiors collapse into nervous wrecks over the nature of virtual currency. But more importantly, you're free from the obvious social conditioning and subjugation that the system encases its citizens in you're outside the system. Social Activity 15 Million Merits takes place in an incredibly asocial society. People rarely talk to each other beyond basic conversation pieces, drop conversation quickly, and tend not to form meaningful relationships. Actual relationships are so rare, in fact, that when the main character Bingham Bing Madsen meets new arrival Abi , he becomes infatuated with her in about 10 seconds flat, and gives away a significant 15 million credits just to see her sing live. The general atmosphere of the building is that its a lonely place. Here, the Yellow Guys win again. Although berated, laughed at, and even pointed, you are still SOCIALLY ACTIVE. As a Yellow Guy, you can have actual conversations with other Yellow Guys and even some sympathetic citizens about your day to day activity. Unlike the citizens, there's nothing stopping the Yellow Guys from complaining about their day jobs, grumbling about food, or just cursing out the ungrateful shits that they have to clean up after. While the citizens toil on in their virtual world, you can mock them with your mates during meager lunch breaks, gossip, and do any number of activities that are just generally unheard of by those in the virtual world. Which leads me to my final point Revolution Let's say you get so sick and tired of the system that you just want it to burn the whole thing down. Now, as per the building's mysterious regulations, the citizens pprobably aren't allowed to come into contact with dangerous items that can be used in a rebellion or in a suicide. Knives are nowhere to be seen in the cafetaria, and the closest a citizen's ever gotten to harming another human is another glass bottle. We see this aversion to violent object when Bing hides the glass shard he was planning to cut his throat with it is, at some level, forbidden. For citizens. As a Yellow Guy, you always have the tool of revolution in your hand the mop and the broom. I'm serious, you could just take some normal household cleaning tools, MacGuyver them into tools of destruction, get a couple of Yellow Guys and start a riot. And no one would stop you. Why not? Because there's no one to. The system, which relies on the complete subjugation of the human populace, doesn't have any actual physical means of stopping rioters. If the system's only human security is some burly guards, then all you have to do is either kill them, or persuade them to your side, and you can start dismantling the entire facility. If total takeover isn't a pleasant option for you, then you can probably escape to the outside world, since the entire facility is at worst made of a couple layers of tough plastic and fiberglass, using the backbone of your mates and the tools in your hand. As a Yellow Guy, you have the greatest opportunity of any of the three positions escape. To conclude, life as a Yellow Guy would be the best life you could lead in the virtual prison of 15 Million Merits. ?","conclusion":"Black Mirror I'd love to be one of the yellow guys in 15 Million Merits."}
{"id":"092f883b-2027-4a87-85f5-d2568b0cdeae","argument":"One example is the CIA's internal review that showed CIA intelligence officers hacked into the Senate Intelligence Committee to 'spy' on an investigation into their operations.","conclusion":"The intelligence community have ignored\/ circumvented laws aimed to prevent their overreach as well as capitalising on vague legislation and nontransparent justice proceedings."}
{"id":"302353a9-4a8b-48c8-8f46-3207895eb142","argument":"Final edit Thanks to everyone that posted Got alot more posts than I thought it would. I have changed my minds on some aspects of religion, if not most of them. What really made me most realize the issue is that religion isn't the main factor as to the problems I have with it. This means that people that murder for religion have more factors in play than them just being religious. I still don't like theocratic governments in any way though because I think that increases the bad taking place from religion. I guess a little religion won't hurt, even if it's not rational in most cases . I grew up fairly religious and went to a private school for most of my young years pre school 7th grade . It was a lutheran school and I followed it but not very heavily because it was boring of course . As I got into high school I started going to a youth group called Young Life which was really fun which made me associate fun with christianity. My parents never really pushed school on me because they told me it was evil and was just to brainwash children into becoming liberals. I realized this was insane after finishing high school, unfortunately the damage was already done to my grades. I am now studying physics and have a 3.9 compared to a 2.8 in high school and am a leader in the classrooms. So here is my view After realizing how damaging religion was to me personally both mentally, physically, and socially, I have come to equate it as being damaging to everything. I see how religion has single handidly destroyed many countries and am seeing the effects it is having on America now negative . I have yet to see any single benefit that religion gives to society and all I can see is harm. If religion was eliminated from society, the whole planet would benefit and we could actually move towards real issues in my opinion . Change my View P.S. I am not asking for you to try to convince me of any religion by the way, I study science and know at least most of all religious stories are bullshit. Edit I have been convinced officially at least that religion had a place at certain times during our history. However, I still feel that if people actually looked for answers instead of assigning the questions to gods, we would have been much better off. Edit CriminallySane has changed my opinion that in some instances religion can be beneficial to individuals in tight knit society like certain mormon groups. I can attest to this as well because I know many mormons. It still stands however that any religion that actively searches to take over a government or destroy scientific progress is detrimental to society. I will look at this with as open of a mind as possible","conclusion":"Religious views are detrimental to society"}
{"id":"2d3b34a1-05f1-49d5-9e17-df796315b8a8","argument":"The ideas within classical theism come from a number of thinkers, including those as far back as Plato and Aristotle. These ideas were not developed in English, and even in their native languages, were reliant on the context of their times for the subtleties of meaning involved. The version of theism we\u2019re debating, off Wiki, is already a compressed version of a complicated concept developed in multiple languages and over several centuries. It would be more extraordinary if there were no errors.","conclusion":"Apparent contradictions in classical theism may appear from translation difficulties."}
{"id":"9253107c-11d2-4354-a423-1e57fb78e792","argument":"Some media companies may be profitable, but it is unclear whether their business models are valid for the whole industry.","conclusion":"The emphasis lies on \"some\": That's not enough on a local, national nor global scale."}
{"id":"7f744ab5-8043-4001-9b2e-dcbb6c6bf3ba","argument":"For example, there is a difference between not dating a black man or woman because you think black people are bad or stupid or whatever else, and not dating a black person because you are not attracted to them but have no problem with them as in you are willing to be friends, you show and have respect, and there is no hate towards them for their race as people. ' Sometimes it is completely true that you would never be attracted to a certain race. It should also be perfectly acceptable and okay in these instances. Going back to the example of not dating black people, skin color is integral to being considered black. It is the defining feature. If someone doesn't find the dark skin color s attractive then yes, they would likely not find any black person attractive. Like it or not, physical attraction is pretty important to a sexual or romantic relationship, even though it is of course not everything. Saying that not dating a race is racist in this type of case is exactly the same saying a gay man would be sexist for not dating women or vice versa .","conclusion":"Refusing to date a certain race or races is not automatically racist. Saying this is comparable to claiming that if you don't date anyone from a certain sex whether the same or opposite from you then you are being sexist."}
{"id":"ab49b616-3af8-4676-b7ef-eca44c85aaf2","argument":"Transgender people would be more aware of how to portray transgender people authentically and sympathetically, particularly as there is limited mainstream knowledge of transgender people.","conclusion":"Only transgender people could know the deep psychological intricacies of a transgender persona and express them."}
{"id":"76529fd0-3918-4a9e-b003-d93f39eabbd4","argument":"Humane treatment of farm animals has been a huge issue between producers and consumers in recent years. But the welfare standards that people demand are difficult and sometimes impossible to implement on scale that meets current demand. In fact, the current demand is the direct cause of reduced animal welfare either through extremely high stocking densities, the highly specialized genetics of modern food production animals, and the increased management efforts both of these things require. Unfortunately, in an attempt at doing the right thing, consumers have advocated against certain farm practices which actually increase the welfare of animals in a factory farm setting. Examples are cages for laying hens, gestation and farrowing crates for sows, and the use of preventative antibiotics in feed and water. If consumers really want these practices to be phased out while positively impacting animal health and welfare and without lowering their current demands, more people need to be willing to raise food on a small scale, not just pay the premiums at the farmers market. In order to keep up with the current demand while still making any profit, conventional producers have had to scale up tremendously while implementing practices that make management easier of high stocking densities as well as reduce aggression. Research on these practices show that there are management pros and cons to each system and different housing systems alone do not necessarily impact animal mortality rates, production, and lifespan. Though there is room for improvement in the welfare of caged birds Antibiotics given administered during stages of production when animals are particularly susceptible to infection can greatly decrease mortality rates, increase animal health, and decrease overall usage of antibiotics at therapeutic levels. The fact that people aren't willing to properly educate themselves on these animal welfare issues or become involved the production of their own animal products lead me to believe that most don't actually care about the living conditions of farm animals.","conclusion":"If consumers were truly concerned about farm animal welfare, more of them would be involved in small scale agriculture"}
{"id":"d1d78b30-b681-4517-8120-f08735741bc9","argument":"The Harry Potter books are banned in schools across the United Arab Emirates, with the UAE Ministry of Education and Youth stating that the books' fantasy and magic elements are contrary to Islamic values","conclusion":"The books are highly controversial and have caused offence among certain groups."}
{"id":"0510a76c-8973-4b69-895a-1e0a401a3fee","argument":"The first and most obvious thing is that it is expected for men to pay on dates. It doesn't have to be that way, but asking to split the bill will most likely be perceived as non competent or even rude and you might not even get a second date. This goes hand in hand with the next point which is that men are expected to approach women directly and women are supposed to give the so called signals . Not only does this make it unnecessarily more difficult to distinguish women who like you from ones that don't, but since you are the one to do the asking out , the idea that you have pay is even more reinforced honestly this doesn't bother me nearly as much as some other things . Not to mention that it takes more effort to actively go looking for a woman something that most women don't do simply because they don't have to. And the reason why they don't have to is baisic supply and demand. Women get a lot more attention from men, than the other way around. I understand that it is how things are in our society and that it is the result of men's psyche, but that doesn't make it any less unfair. This is amplified to the extremes with online dating. Where average looking men are forced to swipe right on every girl because otherwise they will get zero matches and women can be extremely selective or even just use the app as an ego boost. And then we get the women's side. In most cases they don't argue with what I said above because it's painfully obvious that it's true and if they do they are probably wrong, or perhaps it's me who's delusional, we'll see . They and other men tell men to just deal with it and to be a man . Their complaint is that it's hard to pick out the good men from all the ones who approach them. They also complain that there aren't many guys that are up to their standards. But they don't take into the account that, according to an OkCupid study, women find 80 of all men below average looking. That just puts things into perspective. Would you rather have a fridge full of vegetables that you don't particularly like and an occasional treat or a fridge that's completely empty if you don't work for your food? It's just unfair. This waytoosocial . com is dating unfair article mentions the problem that more women get higher education than men. And what is their complaint? They complain how that makes it more difficult for women to find men with a higher education. Like come on. They never mention the fact that men are less educated as a problem. Nope. The real problem is that that THEY can't find educated men. Aahh And the saddest part, the bottom of the bottom, are the incels. People who, because of their looks, lack of social skills, or whatever else have not been able to get a woman and are severely depressed because of it. They are constantly encouraging each other to commit suicide as an escape from this unfair world and many of them actually kill themselves. Not to mention that they have committed mass shootings because of it. Of course their mentality is completely insane, but the sheer fact that we live in a society where men who objectively aren't even bad looking, are pushed into this incel mentality just because dating is unfair makes me really sad.","conclusion":"The whole dating game is completely unfair towards men."}
{"id":"7c9458c9-dd16-4ddd-b915-96ccb5862d3a","argument":"Modern feminism, in practice, is trade unionism for women. It acts to gain advantages for females at the expense of males in the same way trade unions try to get advantages for employees at the expense of employers and thus does not empower men.","conclusion":"It is false to think that feminism can empower men."}
{"id":"16da7431-97f7-4b25-ae1b-90c9be3e0493","argument":"The title is self explanatory. Vladimir Putin is the head of a disappointed ex empire, willing to gain its former glory. The Russian people is a traditionally obedient one, willing to submit to an autocratic will, and ready to devote itself to general patriotic ideals i.e. getting new territories . The guy seems very determined not co comply with the Western moral and politic values and seems defiant to the present unanimity of attitudes against his latest moves. It is already quite obvious that Russia's stances in international politics is not a democratically generated one, but exclusively owed to Putin's will. He likes war, confrontation and seems indifferent to the human costs of his actions. He is determined to make history by any means, just like the celebrity killers do their crimes to get unforgettable no matter how.","conclusion":", please. I think Putin has already gone berserk, he is the first great XXI century mad leader, he will not stop and he will trigger a great genocide probably within a WWIII and he will be clasified next to Hitler."}
{"id":"125634a6-c644-4778-9a61-6ecf758b7d33","argument":"In advance, sorry for the novel. Let me start by saying that I come from a very well off suburban area. Most people that I've met have shown sympathy for the less privileged at one time or another. However, as healthcare becomes increasingly expensive and income inequality continues to grow, I've noticed not only more tension between social classes but also some interesting ideas about why the masses do not all deserve access to healthcare or even food and shelter. Let me start with healthcare first as it is the most political and controversial issue. A few friends and I got into a debate about this a while back. My opinion is that a healthcare system that largely exists in the private sector though I know Medicaid and Medicare do assist people inherently discriminates against the poor. In my eyes, I am not entitled to better healthcare because my family has more disposable income. The poor should not expect a shorter lifespan because they are poor. Yes some poorer people will make poor no pun intended lifestyle decisions, but I am talking strictly about access to care. I would not call myself a socialist, but I do support a more socialized, scrutinized, and regulated healthcare system. I recently travelled to South America and learned that in Uruguay, patients have the option of waiting a longer time to see a public doctor or paying to see a doctor of the private sector rapidly. Why can we not install a system like this? My friend became agitated when I expressed these opinions and said I don't want to pay for healthcare for those who can't afford it. I think that this comment displays a lack of ethics and even a brutal disregard for large portions of the population. Maybe a public system would be less efficient, maybe I would have to pay more in taxes. The thing is, I don't see why that would be wrong if it grants access to those who can't get adequate care. Now on to food and shelter. This argument is much less political and more sociological. I've come across people that claim the homeless hungry are lazy they could be working minimum wage Can one even live on minimum wage? I would argue it's unlikely or not high quality. Or they just take people's donations and spend it on booze, cigarettes, and drugs. Now, a lot of that is probably pretty true. But why do these people exhibit that behavior? Let me ask people who agree with those comments, do you think that the aforementioned groups of people went to a school as good as yours? Did they grow up in a home as comfortable as yours? Did their parents if they had any provide any guidance to them while growing up? I can't see homeless hungry people as lazy, I see them as people who were dealt a shitty hand by the very system that gave me everything I have. My belief is that we should be willing to assist and rehabilitate anyone who is willing to try. Those who do see these people as lazy are so out of touch that they have to invent a narrative to justify their own privilege. Sooo with all that being said,","conclusion":"people who believe that not everyone deserves access to healthcare, food, and shelter are unscrupulous and ethically shaky."}
{"id":"7a5d6065-158e-485c-951f-58f5d92b5607","argument":"In the US, there are three main credit bureaus that banks and lenders use to help vet borrowers TransUnion, Experian, and Equifax. For each, you have the ability to view your credit score once every 12 months for free. However, if you would like to view your score more often than that, you have to pay a service free for the reports. Considering the fact that these bureaus exist in order to help lenders make fewer bad decisions and do very little if anything to service the borrower, individual borrowers should not be forced to pay for their score. The scores are in place to help the lenders, and not the borrowers. Individual borrowers are being judged fairly, might I add , and since they see none of the value coming from the institution of credit scores, they should not be burdened with the cost of knowing their judgement.","conclusion":"No one should ever have to pay to view their credit score, and the current system falls under racketeering US"}
{"id":"50bce650-2860-459f-9619-a95e5c0d0f10","argument":"African-Americans and Hispanics make up over 50% of all incarcerated people in the US even though they only make up about a third of the total US population.","conclusion":"Many of the modern struggles of African-Americans have in fact been proven by a variety of studies."}
{"id":"ef92bc27-e5b4-4c4e-9d02-168767913a83","argument":"Suppose some country is deciding whether or not to implement gun control. There are arguments and evidence in favor of both sides, so there is a lot of disagreement about whether the policy should be implemented. Now, which of the following is likely to have the best result Everyone weighs the evidence, debates with each other, and chooses the side that the evidence seems to favor, even though they can't completely settle the issue. The position that convinces the most people is implemented. Everyone realizes that there is a lot of disagreement, suspends judgment, and the decision is made by inertia or whatever the status quo was beforehand. I think case 1 will clearly have the better result, because in that case the decision will at least be made based on the best evidence available. In case 2, the outcome is fundamentally unrelated to the evidence, because the decision will just be made based on whatever everyone was already doing. Therefore, it is better to weigh the evidence and choose a political position than to remain neutral.","conclusion":"It is better to choose a political position than to be neutral."}
{"id":"df6f64f6-7cee-4ed5-800e-d2d91fab899b","argument":"I've been brought up in an environment that dogmatically believes monosodium glutamate MSG is harmful, that consuming it regularly will eventually lead to kidney failure. I didn't question it. A while ago, a family member decided to forward a chain email that admonished its readers to avoid a variety of foods and additives, amongst which MSG was listed. I did some googling and found the email was forged and contained many unsubstantiated claims. This led me to question the validity of MSG fearmongering. After some searching and reading, I concluded that the data out there is consistent with the null hypothesis. Certainly, some people not used to eating Asian food reportedly getting headaches from MSG is hardly comparable to kidney failure.","conclusion":"I don't believe monosodium glutamate MSG is harmful."}
{"id":"8e18d764-a650-4089-a431-677db418558b","argument":"For this  I'd describe a supernatural cause as a cause, that violates some natural law. In a universe where we allow for both natural and supernatural causes to influence events, we have no means to distinguish between the two. Natural and supernatural or even two supernatural causes can contradict themselves, so even testing for them can not reliably support the validity of natural laws. Therefore any assumptions about our that universe can't rely on natural laws being true. Such a universe is no different in effect to a solipsistic universe, in which we can't rely on anything that we perceive existing outside of our mind. Just like our senses can deceive us in ways that we can never recognize, so can supernatural causes. Therefore both concepts for our universe suffer from the same flaw, that anything in that relies on observation of the universe is fundamentally arbitrary and untrustworthy. We therefore must subscribe to or reject both propositions using the same reasoning. Change my view Edit I'd like to add that what I claim to be impossible to answer is why something occurred? , not if it occurred? . Edit2 Another addition I'm not arguing for a supernatural universe, but assuming one for the sake of my argument. In fact what I conclude from that assumption is a reason to reject the assumption for our universe. Also I need to add, that my definition of supernatural isn't yet fool proof. As my exchange r changemyview comments 2y0bdz cmv a universe allowing for events having cp5f45z?context 8 with u JoshuaZ1 hints at, I can't fully account for time travel being fully natural or supernatural.","conclusion":"a universe allowing for events having supernatural causes isn't too different from a solipsistic universe"}
{"id":"01a8c95b-4122-4b91-bcb4-b10c43ef9ac8","argument":"Those willing to enter the tournament are more likely to need the rewards it offers; thus they are more likely to be from lower social classes.","conclusion":"Current celebrity culture lacks racial, gender, and class diversity. Winners of these tournaments are more likely to represent societal demographics."}
{"id":"9b916b03-93dd-4087-8ae6-206671ed49d3","argument":"Trump was recently impeached and thus the US killing a terrorist acts to defer attention from Trump's impeachment and gain Trump the support of many Americans.","conclusion":"Soleimani's assassination so close to the 2020 elections will distort the priorities of the US electorate."}
{"id":"a371a3fb-bd0d-4385-9ded-1cefe3718f81","argument":"Votes are valued differently state gets two US Senators, regardless of population. Thus, a Wyoming resident\u2019s vote counts 60 times more than a Californian\u2019s, since California has 60 times the population of Wyoming yet still has the same representation. from one another in majoritarian systems. Each state in the US gets two Senators, regardless of population. Thus, a Wyoming resident\u2019s vote counts 60 times more than a Californian\u2019s, since California has 60 times the population of Wyoming yet still has the same representation.","conclusion":"Proportional systems give equal weight to all citizens' votes, whereas in winner-takes-all systems there are a larger number of 'wasted votes"}
{"id":"9f460bc9-1aed-4278-944c-6ca1f2adfe7d","argument":"The US is falling apart. In looking at history in general, it looks like the US is prime for some sort of dramatic gov't change, whether it be through civil war or some sort of coop within our current generation. When there are 2 primary idealogies within a nation that seem to be at odds with each other at every turn, the natural course is for them to separate and form 2 different entities or one quells the other through force. And since our 2 party system has drifted so far from center on both sides of the aisle and seemingly pushing even further to the left and right, it is just a matter of time before the rubber band snaps. There doesn't seem to be any potential candidates that are campaigning on the idea of any tangible bipartisan cooperation and both parties do not seem worried about it. This is possibly the beginning of the end for America as we know it today.","conclusion":"We are heading to a civil war\/coup."}
{"id":"ce4ae291-ac09-4f14-a1ec-e8b232647ec0","argument":"I am currently a 15 year old in high school and it is so hard for me. I have Bipolar disorder, Depression, and terrible social anxiety. I have been at the same level at people like my friend, Wyatt, who has nothing wrong with him, at all. I feel like it's very unfair that in my public school, I have to do the same exact thing as someone like Wyatt. I have a way harder time doing anything than him. It doesn't even have to be a big change, it could be something like getting less work, getting more attention from the teachers, or and getting a different assignment overall. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Children\/Teenagers with ANY mental disabilities should not be put on the same standard as children\/teenagers without."}
{"id":"118e1bd6-3f00-4dda-bf1c-8fd5b040ab8c","argument":"Traditional farming lacks fertilizers and thus cannot produce as many yield per existing acre. One way to achieve the same output is to use more land.","conclusion":"Poverty forces one to venture into more extensive agriculture by clearing marginal land for cultivation."}
{"id":"99d2e346-47e3-4d94-b280-f1c392cc4e2e","argument":"Even if it is solely for political reasons, and if you set aside the question of human rights, it is embarrassing for Australia to behind Argentina, Greenland, South Africa, Iceland, Spain, Belgium, Ireland, United States, Brazil, Luxembourg, Sweden, Canada, Malta, Colombia, Uruguay, Denmark, The Netherlands, England \/ Wales, New Zealand, Finland, Norway, France, Portugal, Germany, and Scotland.","conclusion":"Many other countries in the world have allowed same-sex marriage"}
{"id":"a9785fb6-02e8-47e4-a728-ac459a45c1b9","argument":"Here are some of my points. I don't have sources right now but I know I've heard these facts before and could provide sources upon request The cost to make a penny and nickel is over twice it's face value. Pennies are a complete waste of time to deal with. Advocates for the penny may claim it will save us a couple cents from having to round to the nearest 5 cents. My time wasted messing with pennies is worth more than the couple of cents I may save by using them. Pennies are literally worth nothing in today's economy. What can you buy for a penny? For this reason alone we should abolish the penny. The US government got rid of the half penny a while ago when it was worth even more than the current value of a penny adjusted for inflation .","conclusion":"I believe the US government should get rid of the penny like Canada has done."}
{"id":"e14d305d-20f9-43f9-bd9d-2f01772a9895","argument":"The definition of terrorism as i understand it is the state of fear and submission produced by terrorism or terrorization . If that is the case the terrorists, that most of the world are fighting, have already won because terrorist attacks in Europe and America by Jihadists muslims happen so rarely yet so many people live in an almost constant state of fear. So few incidents of terrorism by muslims resulted in the people of Europe and the Americans fearing their own people muslims sikh arabs that have lived in their country peacefully for years. They are now being attacked one way or the other or being met with suspicion by their countrymen to the terrorists delight. Am I wrong? What's your opinion?","conclusion":"The \"terrorists\" have already won long ago."}
{"id":"22670f5a-f4d1-40cd-9855-9d6e7c808c71","argument":"In 1955, Eisenhower declared at a news conference that in the event of war in East Asia, he would authorize the use of tactical nuclear weapons against military targets.","conclusion":"Eisenhower considered atomic bombs to not only be a tool to threaten but also a possible option that can be used in the battlefield."}
{"id":"e58c6cc8-4a34-4a67-8e3f-117aa6159195","argument":"Saying that a key part of one's identity is determined by social forces even if true in-part denies that individual a sense of agency and control over their self-actualisation.","conclusion":"The idea that gender is a social construct devalues the importance of gender to individual identity."}
{"id":"99f32c7f-b7e2-42ee-8a4e-f67b1ee50998","argument":"It's my cake day, and as such, I decided to create my first threaddit. Transhumanism, as defined by alteration of the human body such that it can perform act in ways beyond what said person would be capable of without alteration. The reason I believe it to be a moral imperative is that People can be happier using these technologies People could have a greater capacity for happiness, take normally uncomfortable situations and modify their minds to make the situation enjoyable, and also gain happiness from new experiences. It can solve civil rights issues When we change what human is, can we not change what woman, man, elder, infant, human and non human are to society as well? When everyone has access to technology that prevents easy stereotyping and can create such varied societies that the only solution to rights is equal rights for all, is it not moral to do so? Humans can survive longer The longer one lives, the greater their capacity to be happy, correct? Godlike abilities The technology in a posthuman world would allow post humans to create, host, and experiment with new forms of life, mechanical, biological, or otherwise. It has greater potential for me to be happy More than anything else, I alone must take care of myself. Nobody performs an action because it is good, only because it feels good. I do believe that morality is simply an evolutionary psychological adaptation in humans such that we would function as social groups better, meaning there is no objective morality. Is it correct to say transhumanism is a moral imperative on basic human moral terms?","conclusion":"I believe transhumanism is a moral imperative."}
{"id":"8f07dc93-43c1-479f-a291-2e6babc208f7","argument":"Alright. So admittedly I went into the movie expecting the worse, because of the whole rotten tomatoes controversy, so my opinion of the movie may be extremely nuanced. Here are my main problems with it Tchalla is Boring He just doesn't have any character traits besides being compassionate to a fault. He apparently only learns that racism exists when Killmonger tells him. The CGI is terrible When I heard from early reviews that the movie was supposedly beautiful i was initally excited, but most of Wakanda looks like the star wars prequels, it doesnt have a unique artsyle and the movie had moments when the CGI took me entirely out of it, like with the rhinos. Wakanda doesn't make sense as a country Has no one wandered into that forest in the 21st century? Is SHIELD, the most advanced intelligence agency in the world which knew the exsistance of Black Panther as seen in previous movie's easter eggs unwilling to disclose the true nature of one the most powerful country in the world to the rest of the Earth. Why do they determine the leader to be the strongest fighter? shouldn't it be the wisest or fairest? The romance between T'challa and his girlfriend is developed poorly.","conclusion":"Black Panther was an extremely mediocre movie that doesn't deserve the praise it's getting, and is, in some ways, a step backwards."}
{"id":"a28d0eda-8b55-4062-b7f1-4d96dc6613fb","argument":"The Linux operating system is an example of a high quality and complex open source project that does many of the same things as a well functioning democracy such as: make decisions, resolve conflict, avoid bugs and malicious code from outsiders wanting to do it harm.en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Linux","conclusion":"Many of the people involved in that crowd-sourcing effort would also be professionals at drafting implementable legislation. In the same way that open-source software results in more stable, more secure programs, open-source democracy could result in laws that are more implementable than the traditional approach."}
{"id":"aa952fee-47fc-4202-af77-4b7f5bad12d2","argument":"Hello all, x200B I'll start this post by stating that I am a fan of Jordan Peterson. The things I admire most about him is his ability to think through every question thoughtfully and answer in a manner that encapsulates the question and respond with a well thought out answer. He has a certain way of presenting information that is appealing to me he states a belief and then provides reason why he thinks as he does. x200B My view would be that people could benefit from his advice. Jordan seems like an incredible straight forward guy that gives more thought and worry about humanity then 98 of the population that's my fake . x200B For me it is much easier to put the fault on myself than my circumstances. Once I made this shift in thinking my life has changed dramatically. I'm finally closer to the body shape I desire and the character that I wish to possess in order to make my life into what I truly want it to be. x200B To be clear I'm not attributing everything I've gained to Jordan Peterson. But I would feel somewhat disingenuous if I didn't some how thank him for the difference he has made in my life. x200B So here it is,  that Jordan Peterson is not a good role model to look at in terms of benefiting an individuals life. To be accountable to yourself and know that you are responsible for your own life and the outcome you receive. x200B Thanks for reading. x200B TLDR I like JP for his ability to formulate ideas and present them, also I like his ideas in general and believe the worst part about him are his followers that use a fraction of his word as a personal vendetta.  in telling me that JP is not a individual that ought be listened to and taken seriously. EDIT I have read most the material and slept on the matter to give it a good think. Jordan Peterson has some good thought, but overall he seems negative to the future that I imagine for myself and the betterment of others. I need to become more educated on the matter and seek out individuals without clear bias and faults that JP has shown. Thank you all for the comments and recommendations. I wouldn\u2019t say that he isn\u2019t worth listening to, but you can find the same or better ideals through more educated sources. So overall I would say my mind has been changed in viewing him as someone to hold to high regards. But I still wish to strive in certain areas he teaches. Self improvement and holding yourself solely accountable for your actions. That is my belief and as many have shown, JP may not be the man to idolize for this.","conclusion":"Jordan Peterson is worth the time to listen"}
{"id":"f8766890-d349-468f-af35-4d5dc97cbc3d","argument":"Most of the arguments I have heard supporting closed borders have to do with the fact that it is not the responsibility of a country to care about the people in other countries. I find this argument morally repulsive. We should care about human beings. Period. There is no philosophical reason why the responsibility of a country has to be about thinking of its own people. I would think that being compassionate towards others is something we value. I find it incredibly selfish for Americans to assume that because they were born in America, they are somehow more entitled to live there and reap the benefits of living there. Especially because being born in America is a matter of fortune. Many of the arguments also mention how worse it will be in America if we have open borders. But this, in my opinion, should not be our only consideration. The lives of the people that we are helping by opening borders matter too, and I would argue their benefit will be much much more than Americans' losses. One interesting argument is that the technology advances we have will slow down so that in the long run we actually are helping less people than we otherwise could. However, I see little reason to believe this is true although it's hard to predict what technological advances there will be . Perhaps someone can persuade me. Anyway,  Edit Still haven't had the view changed I've had a lot of arguments against the philosophy of responsibility and the negative effects of allowing people in and I remain unconvinced. An argument I thought of myself that I haven't heard yet that might change my view is the effects such a policy might have on the developing countries themselves if a lot of their most productive people the people who are able to leave leave, they might be in much worse conditions than they would be otherwise. Can anyone speak to that? Edit2 Also wanted to point out that I want people to want open borders. In other words, I'm not saying political leaders should go against the will of the people it would never be sustainable that way , I'm advocating for a policy that I wish for the public to support.","conclusion":"I think the US should have more open borders"}
{"id":"d51afff4-d44b-4761-b808-cb302f432298","argument":"States do not know better than religious doctrine, in terms of what is the correct practice for a religion.","conclusion":"The state should not be able to influence religious practice."}
{"id":"18380412-6e90-4d06-95cf-08c0b2fb0aaf","argument":"The internet makes it almost impossible to forget\u2014this right gives people a chance to move beyond the past.","conclusion":"The U.S. should adopt the \"Right to be Forgotten\" on the web."}
{"id":"155bb5fc-8998-40df-b5d3-716a620a3e5e","argument":"While the pineapple was once a luxury that only the rich could afford, it is now a very cheap and affordable fruit that is available to all. About the cheapest canned fruit you can find at the grocery store is the same canned pineapple usually put on pizzas.","conclusion":"Pineapple is a cost effective topping, adding sweetness to the recipe that few other ingredients could at that price point."}
{"id":"a64664ff-3c49-4e36-b472-a69527112025","argument":"This distinction isn't meaningful and is just used to set up things that are worse than paedophilia and so to be some attempt to justify it. They're effectively code words for paedophilia, and are an attempt to introduce some nuance that doesn't actually exist. Every time the word paedophile appears on reddit, you get a mob of people arguing not that they're defending anything, it's just that they're 'intellectually interested' that it's not paedophilia, it's hebephilia, ephebophloobia, or whatever other absurd terms they have rustled up. They'll trot out arguments about sexual relationships with youths throughout history and try to employ largely irrelevant biological arguments. It's all fucking gross and illegal and needs to be dropped .","conclusion":"There's no such thing as hebephilia or ephebophilia, they're all just pedophiles."}
{"id":"a68f0e36-0381-4ccd-958c-2342660f87d0","argument":"\"required him to read Theodor Herzl's Der Judenstaat, the famous Zionist classic, which converted Eichmann promptly and forever to Zionism. This seems to have been the first serious book he ever read and it made a lasting impression on him. \" platypus1917.org \" III expert on jewish question","conclusion":"Hannah Arendt describes Eichmann as a Zionist who spoke yiddish Arendt, p. 23"}
{"id":"cb0746d9-5aee-4944-a910-3201e882713b","argument":"An independent Scotland will have the right tools to match its population, nurturing a smaller and more open relationship between nation and state. If we accept the argument against, then it also should apply to the rest of the world. Therefore, Denmark should form a union with Norway and Sweden, Mexico should team up with the USA and Canada, France and Belgium with Germany and so on. Gosh, these nations will be so happy to know that UK Unionists have stumbled on the recipe for Nirvana. All you have to do is form a union with the nations surrounding you! But wait! They haven't done it! Why not? Are they stupid? No, it is we Scots who have been stupid for being taken in by the Unionists' schemes! So, the natural condition for a nation appears to be one of independence. And to that we should aspire. Yes, we should model ourselves on the Swiss or Singapore. Small, successful nations who eshewed mergers with larger and less successful neighbours.","conclusion":"Other small nation-states like Norway and the Republic of Ireland are successful"}
{"id":"3d5b8a87-cc2d-4f94-b91e-e56c394cd24b","argument":"Our legal system exists out of necessity, because people have different morals than eachother, have common morals that are not productive such as revenge, or feel free to violate the rights of people they have no emotional link to as in large cities or other countries.","conclusion":"In massive cities and other large projects, morals vary. It is laws rather than morality that allows us to live and work together in large groups or toward common goals."}
{"id":"b2aaf53f-0ab0-46bf-9ac1-96379c2b46d3","argument":"These individuals will feel that they are being targeted and made out to be somehow different by the government.","conclusion":"This would create animosity amongst the wealthy and powerful individuals in the US."}
{"id":"75051deb-17c2-4dc1-a65c-f32e9c7778f1","argument":"Obama has recently enacted executive order to bypass Congress and pass new gun control laws, as I'm sure most of you have heard. To clarify, Obama states the following 4 changes Number 1 gt Anybody in the business of selling firearms must get a license and conduct background checks or be subject to criminal prosecutions. It doesn't matter whether you're doing it over the internet, or at a gun show. Number 2 gt We're going to do everything we can to ensure the smart and effective enforcement of gun safety laws that are already on the books We're going to add 200 more ATF agents, we're going to require firearms dealers to report more lost or stolen guns on a timely basis. Number 3 gt We're going to do more to help those suffering from mental illness get the help that they need. High profile mass shootings tend to shine a light on those few mentally unstable people who inflict harm others, but the fact is that nearly 2 in 3 gun deaths are from suicides. So a lot of our work is to prevent people from hurting themselves. Number 4 gt We're gonna boost gun safety technology. Now today many gun injuries and deaths are the result of legal guns that were stolen, or misused, or discharged accidentally. In 2013 alone more than 500 people lost their lives to gun accidents and that includes 30 children younger than 5 years old. Now in the greatest, most technologically advanced nation on Earth there is no reason for this If we can set it up so that you're phone won't unlock unless you have the right fingerprint, why can't we do the same thing for our guns? A friend of mine and I have compiled a retort Number 1 People in the business of selling guns are licensed now. This is designed to hurt people who sell from a collection, and estate or as a hobby on occasion. Many of them already have to do these phony background checks. Phony? Yup. Form 4473 violations occur many thousands of times. Each one of these is a figurative slam dunk. Number 2 There are estimates of around 20,000 gun laws currently existing in America. The final number is reported to be truly unknown as far as my research has gone. We should have been altering, mandating, and enforcing these laws from the get go but who can honestly enforce so many ridiculous laws? Now we're adding even more laws to an already disturbing amount of unregulated laws. Number 3 If 2 out of 3 gun deaths are suicides total gun related deaths are around 30,000 per year in America, this leaves roughly 10,000 people being murdered by guns every year, or roughly ~~.000033 ~~ .0033 of the population of America. Understandably this is still more people than in other civilized countries, but I think that the media may be pushing this issue a little more fiercely than we first anticipated. As for suicide, there are a ton of studies from around the world showing it is independent. Guns have nothing to do with it. Example? Sure. Japan. Almost no guns, very high suicide rate. If America hadn't financially ruined most of it's psychiatric care facilities, and mental health occupations in the past, we wouldn't be needing 500 million taxpayer dollars to fix what our government had screwed up in the first place. However, since I firmly believe we could fix quite a few societal issues with advancing mental healthcare, I am partially accepting of this, only because I don't know how they plan to spend the money yet. If you know, please comment below Number 4 Smart gun technology has been fiddled with in one form or another for decades. The thing is, you can hardly find a single pro that depends on firearms that will accept it. Why? Because it is their life on the line, just as it is ours. It simply means you are adding another layer between success and failure. What's a 1 failure rate? 1 in 100 dead. 2 ? 2 in 100 dead. What's the real failure rate? Depends on who you talk to, but it is not in single digits. If your I Pad doesn't recognize your fingerprint, you get to be goofy or whatever. If your gun fails to recognize your fingerprint, you may just get dead. I'm very eager to hear from you guys, and I'm hoping for a clean, clear, concise discussion. Thank you.","conclusion":"Obama's executive gun control decision is ultimately useless."}
{"id":"18368337-3dba-4187-909f-bd9df9331f45","argument":"When we are watched by others we behave differently than we otherwise might. We toe the line, even on issues we might dispute, out of a fear of the repercussions, and that degrades the democratic process. People have a right to disagree with the way things are, but if research on the subject implicates the people in a counter government way then they are less likely to freely speak about issues that they disagree with the government. The consequences of being deemed anti American include the no fly list and imprisonment. Flying is the most common way to travel, and preventing that mode of travel severely limits one's right to freely assemble and one's liberty rights guaranteed by the constitution. Airlines may be commercial with the right to deny service but the government oversteps its bounds by determining who may and may not use a service there is no separate but equal means of traveling, and basing a prejudice on ideas is no better than basing a prejudice on race. Counter culture ideas are a part of the democratic process and should not be implicitly nor explicitly censored.","conclusion":"NSA mass surveillance is bad"}
{"id":"01e611a3-0e9d-4c33-a4e0-bf2ff2a72b88","argument":"Groups like ISIS and al Qaeda use Twitter as a way to announce the release of their online publications, which include operational and tactical information such as bomb recipes and weapons maintenance.","conclusion":"Facebook and Twitter have the ability to weaken operations of organizations like ISIS by erasing their presence on these sites."}
{"id":"6b19e700-7666-475a-83a9-59df9425a41e","argument":"I want to start with a bit of a backstory. My mother's birth family she was adopted at birth live in the Dominican Republic as what many people here would consider gypsies. They have a single caravan which four people share and live in absolute poverty hence why they put my mom up for adoption . The travel across the countryside with very few possession to their name. Every now and then my family and I would visit and despite having almost nothing aside from the absolute basics no electricity, no access to clean water, only access to a few local growing plants and animals they're are incredibly happy with their lives. They're extremely humble and refuse help from my mother whenever she offers to give them money. In fact, they're a lot more happy than the majority of people I know both here in Canada and on this website. The point of that story is I'm absolutely sick and tired of people complaining about how bad it is over here when they don't even have the slightest idea of what bad is. A popular sarcastic saying here on Reddit is Oh well since things are worse in other parts of the world I guess we shouldn't protest or complain about our conditions here . However, unless we one day find ourselves in some utopia where everyone lives the exact same standard of life with no disparity whatsoever there's always going to be someone worse off than you. Personally I'd rather live as the poorest person in a place like Norway, Canada, or even the US as an average person in a place like East Timor, Bangladesh, or Angola. I'm extremely grateful of everything I had, and stories like my grandmother's humble me because I realize how grateful I should be that I can eat and drink clean water. All this demonizing of the 1 is, in my opinion, just a subconscious jealousy of middle class Westerners who want to absolve their guilt for having an easier life than others. This opinion doesn't just go for income disparity either. I'm infuriated when people complain about how corrupt the US government is because of the NSA and the Manning prosecution, or of how corrupt the Canadian government is because the conservative Prime Minister paid off a senator around 90,000 while the country conveniently ignores a 500 million wasted by the liberal provincial government in Ontario but that's for another rant . In short, I don't think the majority of Westerners realize how GREAT they have it here, and it's insulting to me both to myself and those living in third world countries when these people don't realize this. I was raised to be grateful for what I have, and to not bitch and moan my parent's words not mine if I didn't get what I wanted, but instead to work for it. So Reddit, please .","conclusion":"I seriously think that people in the Western world really have no right to complain about \"corruption\" and the like in their countries, and doing so is extremly inconsiderate of real problems in the world."}
{"id":"2874c8ab-a290-4cdf-a73a-1de51792f183","argument":"There are many parliamentary systems around the world that do not have a monarch, let alone a foreign monarch, and yet feature a Presidential figure who plays the same role as a constitutional monarch.","conclusion":"There is no reason this role couldn't be retained in a republic, while eliminating the foreign Monarchy."}
{"id":"5ebe4bbb-1e62-48fd-841f-f3dd0abb142d","argument":"I said 6.5 in the title post, and I do give my justification, but its hand wavy and really the concept of capping the ceo worker pay ratio is what I would like to discuss . The exact number is a policy decision that depends on a bunch of factors. I don't see any reason why CEOs should have such exorbitant salaries 400 times the average worker in the US . The price is determined by them, the so called supplier induced demand . The Mondragon Corporation is a cooperative in Spain that has a policy that limits their top paid workers to 6.5 times the lowest paid worker. When the company has to make cuts, it has to reduce cuts from everyone, and when it profits, it has to increase everyone's wages in what I would argue is a much fairer way. I know it's a single example, and it perhaps does not apply to the business models of companies like Amazon that are all about 100 efficient operations to a radical degree. But for these companies that are always firing the bottom 10 and putting their lowest paid workers in a rat race, aren't they concerned about trimming the fat of their highest paid employees? I'd say a more conservative law would be 6.5 the median worker's income might be a better general policy across all industries.","conclusion":"CEO of U.S. corporations should be mandated to receiving salaries no more than 6.5 times the median of their workers' income."}
{"id":"e4d2864d-58e6-490b-98c9-969de648cbdc","argument":"What I mean by this is, while Fox has a strong right wing bias, the biases of the liberal media are nearly nonexistent. The reason why I'm posting here is because I'm concerned that my inclinations could make me think that liberal media are giving an irrefutable truth. So what my view is the left wing or mainstream media like the Washington Post do report the news with minimal bias, while Fox does not. For example, Fox didn't report when the Grand Jury was assembled, nor do they do a good job of separating their opinion shows from actual reporting. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"the \"liberal\" media is trustworthy but the \"right-wing\" media is not"}
{"id":"c49179de-4cb0-4329-aef0-bc772d2c48fd","argument":"There is no proof for the existence of Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. Santa Claus is a mythologisation of the historical figure Saint Nicholas of Myra and he certainly wouldn't approve of the association of Santa Claus with Christmas today. The Easter Bunny is merely a sort of personification sort of because it's not human of the coming of spring which in the Northern Hemisphere coincides with Easter , a pagan festival which Christian Easter has replaced. While my devoutly Catholic relatives and I often butt heads over religion they are furious at my lack of faith, so they want to force me back in , this is something we both agree with. They hate the belief in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny because they believe that these distract from the Christian meaning of Christmas and Easter. I hate the belief in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny because both these characters don't really exist I mean, St Nicholas and rabbits do exist, but not Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny . Not only am I sick of Christmas and Easter, I know so many people even grown adults here in Australia who believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny despite claiming to be atheists. They claim to be atheists because there is no proof of a God or the Bible is contradictory or I'm atheist because I'm rational or religiosity has no benefits for me . Yeah, well There's no proof of Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny either. Believing in something that is proven to not exist is contradictory with any claims of rationality. You can't seriously claim to be an atheist if you believe in a mythologised version of a Christian saint and a sort of personification of a pagan festival. You don't really benefit from believing in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. x200B","conclusion":"It's hypocritical to believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny if you claim to be atheist"}
{"id":"f506bd97-a9ba-4a47-af09-c80bbb40b3fc","argument":"\u201cThere were aspects of IDF operations which I thought should be brought to the attention of the public.\u201d1 Kamm is correct; in any state, but especially in a democracy like Israel, the military is there to protect the state and its people. It is paid for by the people through their taxes. The military is composed of the people through conscription. And as a result what it does is in the name of the people. The accountability of the instruments of the state, including the military, is at the core of what it means to be a democracy. It is therefore essential that the people know what it is doing in their name. Many democracies have laws giving a \u201cright to know\u201d for example the United State\u2019s Freedom of Information Act and First Amendment right of access.2 It is therefore in the public interest to expose activities that may be detrimental to the state. In this case the military was exposed doing something it has been specifically ordered not to do by the courts so exposing a military that was disobeying civilian authority. 1 Collins, Liat, \u2018My Word: Questions and secrets\u2019, Jerusalem Post, 5 November 2011. 2 Papandrea, Mary-Rose, \u2018Under Attack: The Public\u2019s Right to Know and the War on Terror\u2019, Boston College Third World Law Journal, Vol.25, Issue 1, pp.35-80.","conclusion":"The public have a right to know what is committed in their name"}
{"id":"9913c420-7d7a-4e39-a26b-e0aae0c55641","argument":"This is something I've felt my whole life, and there are multiple reasons why. When someone is legally considered an adult by the state, they shouldn't be cut off from certain things because the government believes it's bad for them. Once someone is an adult, it should be their choice whether they want to use those substances or not, regardless of how bad or not they may be for them. The biggest argument I see in favor of the age being 21 is that your brain hasn't finished forming until you're around 22 . If this is the case, then why are you allowed to buy tobacco products at the age of 18? Some states have changed that age to 21 as well, which is at least consistent if nothing else. Also, if at the age of 18 you're allowed to apply for loans and credit cards and accrue debt and all these other things that could arguably mess up your life just as much, if not more than drinking, then why shouldn't you be allowed to drink alcohol as well? This maybe wasn't the most well structured argument and it didn't cover all of my points, but I feel passionately about it. EDIT I forgot to include this in my original post, sorry. I would completely be in favor for the legal adult age to be pushed back to 21. My argument isn't based around the number 18, it's based around the fact that once you're an adult you should be able to make your own choices, the government shouldn't force you to play with the bumpers on.","conclusion":"There is absolutely no reason the legal drinking age should be 21."}
{"id":"45fe1dca-ab0e-4000-8d99-5354a705c0f3","argument":"Legalising of abortion did not occur to make it easier on the irresponsible. In Norway it started with really hard cases where a committee decided for the pregnant persons whether they could get an abortion. After 25 years there are now less abortions per 1000 women than at the start. This suggests legalisation does not increase behaviour that leads to more abortions.","conclusion":"There is no evidence that abortion access makes women engage in more irresponsible behaviour."}
{"id":"c3841eb8-19f8-441e-bea6-b4cfa2df580a","argument":"The guiding hand of government is too strong in a socialist system; it means that change is slow \u2013 which means that innovation is missed. This isn\u2019t just pro-business, it has real effects on the lives of citizens - people are poorer because of it. In a capitalist system, economies are diverse enough that when problems happen in one sector, others are often insulated by their differences. In a socialist system, where everything is centrally controlled and diversity is non-existent, when government gets things wrong, everyone suffers. Ultimately, socialist systems are so inefficient and corrupt that labour has to be forced for the state to continue functioning though this may also be a logical outcome of thinking less of the importance of individual freedoms compared to some abstract communal good. The failure of the USSR and other command economies shows the poverty of socialism and the failure of central planning, as on a smaller scale does the failure of nationalised industries in many western countries.","conclusion":"The guiding hand of government is too strong in a socialist system; it means that change is slow \u2013 w..."}
{"id":"08bafbfa-5492-41ef-9907-05b733dea1b3","argument":"Pizza is a recent human invention. By contrast, pineapple is the result of millions of years of evolution. It existed well before the first pizza was made.","conclusion":"The nature of pizza prevents pineapple from being on it."}
{"id":"c55ae52f-8fac-4615-bb27-cafb271c0090","argument":"Preface 6 months ago I was obese, 2 weeks ago I was overweight, today I am a healthy weight all according to the BMI chart. I lost this weight deliberately and methodically, by calculating my TDEE Total Daily Energy Expenditure and eating at a 1000 calorie per day deficit in order to achieve about 2 pounds per week of weight loss. I am still 10 pounds shy of my goal weight, and when I reach that weight I will modify my diet to eat at a 0 calorie deficit surplus, that is I will eat according to my TDEE. In order to help myself have the willpower to do this I started to allow myself to enjoy all of my favorite snacks and junk food but instead of swallowing I would spit it out, usually into a separate bowl that I would then dump into the toilet and flush. This allowed me to enjoy the taste and experience of eating the food, which is what I was really always after, without affecting my weight loss goal, and it worked, very well. I've been doing this half a year now daily and have seen no negative effects, in fact I am FAR more healthy now than I was when I started, I feel like a totally new person and couldn't be happier. The problem started when I told a friend about this and they insisted that I had an eating disorder and needed to see a psychologist they were seriously grossed out which is why I made an alt account to post this people seem to react very badly to this and I don't know why . I insist that I am far better off for having done this and losing all of the weight and that I am in complete control of it and will not allow myself to get overly thin I'm a man, I workout with weights, I care about being muscular can't build muscle without eating .","conclusion":"Spitting out junk food rather than swallowing it is not an eating disorder"}
{"id":"ad0c3e39-a6f8-4c7c-ad11-94b382b99f53","argument":"The first thing I want to point out is that I understand that there are some instances where a bike rider can create a significant safety hazard for themselves or others, such as riding on the highway. I think that there are other charges that could be given under these circumstances. I don\u2019t think people riding bicycles while intoxicated should get DUI\u2019s. My main reason for this is that it\u2019s likely that someone on a bike has already made a significant effort to do the right thing, and giving DUI\u2019s will disincentive bike riding as an alternative method of transportation. I\u2019d be more open to cases where the person was very intoxicated and displaying unsafe behavior in traffic, but any case where the person is more or less biking normally should be let go. I also don\u2019t think people who are in their cars but not driving should get DUI\u2019s in many cases they might be trying to wait it out, sleep it off, charge their phone to call a cab, etc I think we need a culture change around drinking and driving, where no one is ok with people getting behind the wheel after drinking. Penalize people who bike will get in the way of a much safer alternative.","conclusion":"We shouldn\u2019t give DUI\u2019s to people riding bicycles"}
{"id":"a5933156-68b4-44d9-850c-c7c1dfe78118","argument":"Analogously, audiences have responded positively to the greater inclusion of minorities and more diversity overall in Hollywood. Video games, also part of the media industry, are likely to receive a similarly positive response with a change in storytelling.","conclusion":"By catering equally to both male and female gamers as opposed to neglecting one gender in favor of another, the video game industry would be able to better capitalize on both male and female demographics."}
{"id":"40aa98de-cb44-4088-aa07-b6398acf72a0","argument":"The question comes from this video This is a 17 years old kid that obviously went on a tirade against perhaps the most revered person in Singapore. 15 of the population went and queued for 8 hrs to see a glimpse of his coffin. Millions watched the funeral. Leaders from all over the world flew over to pay homage to him. He is obviously respected. This is a 17 years old kid who is completely r iamverysmart material. He is well educated in Singapore\u2019s own education system , and relatively well off. He himself chose to disable the comments for his videos. So obviously he realises that hateful speech is painful. Which brings us back to this. Why is there only one model of development, the western model? Is there a philosophical reason to \u201cprove\u201d that freedom of speech, even hateful speech, is an inalienable right? Please note that the current system HAS worked for Singapore. They have one of the highest income per capita in the world, are well taken care of, have one of the best education system, international relations, health care, etc. in the world. They also haven\u2019t had a riot in ages.","conclusion":"Freedom of speech considered an inalienable right. Societal and cultural context is essential."}
{"id":"23b2e0be-e382-48db-8b96-d2111c7a2c50","argument":"I'm totally for gay marriage and the like. I even think that open marriages can work great for certain couples. But the main point of contention I have with polygamy, is that from the little bit that I have seen, the single sexed partner lets say one man , appears to in some sense own the multiple sexed partners a couple women . Even if the sexes were reversed, I can't help but see that the multiple partners are essentially owned by the head of the house. With an open marriage, I feel like there's at least ideally equal chances for each partner to fulfill any sexual or emotional needs their partner can't fill. However with polygamy, it seems like only the single sexed individual is in control of everyone's sexuality and emotional needs. It just doesn't seem fair to me. I know my personal preferences shouldn't affect other people's lives, but it makes me wonder if the multiple partners aren't just being taking advantage of in a sense? Side note I know polygamy could also happen with same sexed couples, but as long as it's one person controlling the rest of the harem I still find it repressive. I admittedly know very little on this topic, so I'm more than open to having someone","conclusion":"I believe polygamy is repressive to the multiple sexed partners."}
{"id":"c5ab681e-b410-4a62-a82b-3034b8ff974c","argument":"Groups like Britain First and the KKK are using ISIS to represent the wide diversity of the Muslim faith and are becoming dangerous. I am a Hindu and I feel that this air of anti Islam is getting to such a point that people are making wide and hilariously inaccurate generalisations about Muslims, especially in the Uk. As a resident in London I feel that extremism in a faith such as Islam is fairly rare as it is so large and we do not see the widely proclaimed Islamification of London where I live. In my opinion, any groups such as Britain First who are spreading any type of anti any religion or race propaganda are a bunch of racists, fascists and bigots. I am sorry if I have a strong view to this but am open to any discussion. Please, Change my View","conclusion":"Anti-Islam groups are using ISIS as an example to represent all Muslims."}
{"id":"706caa37-8698-4c9f-9e0f-89ce6165c9bb","argument":"The use of military force in Germany has been restricted by the constitution since the nation\u2019s founding. Germany\u2019s security culture has been characterized by a strict separation of foreign and domestic security policy means.","conclusion":"The use of AKMs on Germany territory, where German citizens might be at risk, would probably never sustain in front of the Constitutional Court."}
{"id":"ea17ee83-ad29-4b4c-84e7-047bac5222fa","argument":"In the wake of the Christchurch massacre, many media outlets have been discussing how terrorists get radicalized online. Citations coming I am on a bus I am also looping in flat earth and anti vax types of radicalization because I want to address the broader issue. Most of the articles and interviews I have seen ask questions like how did this happen and subsequently what can be done to stop it . How it happened seems pretty well agreed upon, algorithms that learned that the best way to have a user who watches more ads, is to show them exciting bias confirming content that captures their attention and leads them down a rabbit hole. The what can be done to stop it seems like a real cluster fuck of bad ideas. From banning everyone who doesn't agree with their world view making them martyrs , to doxing them, and other draconian strategies that only further the polarization. None of them addressed the heart of the issue which is the algorithms and the profit motives driving them. If Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube actually changed their algorithms to move away from sustaining attention for advertising to something like the SPJ code of journalistic ethics, their profits would drop like a rock. This view would be pretty changeable if I heard of a way that these platforms could change their algorithms to at least reduce radicalization and misinformation while remaining profitable.","conclusion":"Social Media companies can't stop radicalization and misinformation on their platforms while still being profitable."}
{"id":"5db7a082-f439-49e2-aef3-d77620aeedcc","argument":"Because we rely on herd immunity for vaccination to be effective, I don't think there is any sufficiently good excuse for simply choosing to go without being vaccinated. Exception should exist, of course, for extraordinary circumstances, such as immunocompromised individuals or others with a legitimate health excuse as decided by their physician. The devil is always in the details. I'm not looking for vaccination for extinct diseases such as smallpox. And I fully expect diseases to fall extinct as a result of this policy being implemented. Here are the facts and premises that lead me to this conclusion For a vaccine to be effective a large number of people must take it. If a large number of people take the vaccine, then an entire population gains herd immunity. Because of the prisoner's dilemma, we know that if you defect you will not have to pay the cost of vaccination, but you still gain the benefits of herd immunity. Because of recent, fabricated vaccination scares, herd immunity is breaking down in parts of the United States. In most prisoner's dilemma situations, the solution is to create an arbiter with the power to punish defectors, and this is what the government would be doing in this instance. Anticipated objections Violates freedom of choice. A person ought to be able to choose to be vaccinated or not. Slippery Slope. If we force a person to get vaccinated that opens up the door and who knows what the government might require. Bad business. If the government pays for vaccines, that give undue political influence to the companies that make and produce vaccines, and siphons taxpayer dollars to those companies. Taxed enough as it is. If the government pays for vaccines, that means I have to pay for vaccines as well in my taxes. And I don't like the idea of that. Why I don't think those arguments are strong enough We always trade freedom for security. But this isn't like trading your privacy for imagined security. In this case you're trading away the freedom to make a poor choice with the security of not getting yourself or your fellows sick. I think that it is completely reasonable to make this choice, because the benefits outweigh the costs. Slippery Slope is a fallacy, of course. This is more of an issue with potential implementation. It's possible to barter for lower prices, and overall this is probably better in the long run because we'll make these sicknesses extinct. Centralized funding and the ability to purchase and administer in bulk means lower cost overall. As this is a choice that ought to be a moral imperative anyway, you stand to gain money overall against a decentralized approach. Ready? Set? Change my View. I'll be going to sleep soon and spending the next day offline, I'll respond when I get back, in approximately 18 20 hours.","conclusion":"I believe that vaccinations for communicable diseases ought to be both obligatory and government provided."}
{"id":"dff92e03-a439-45e1-8d1e-e28087b0d73a","argument":"If the People's Republic of China invaded North Korea it could trigger a arms race in the region and a build up of tension, the very thing that security experts are worrying could happen. Already more hawkish elements in Japan are saying that Japan should develop nuclear weapons something that could be exacerbated. If China invaded North Korea alone or in tandem with Communist leaning allies like Laos or maybe Vietnam this could worry other countries including the other nearby regional power India which is a country that already has nuclear weapons and has territorial disputes with China.","conclusion":"To invade could trigger an Arms Race: the very thing everyone wants to avoid!"}
{"id":"2f8df984-f54b-4c08-8a29-e90394892188","argument":"We see that all the time, especially on reddit. An artist or a famous person who is obviously wealthy makes an AMA and asks for donations or funds for a project or charity. On one hand we have artists that open a kickstarter. Zack Braff did it once as well as Kristen Bell These people have an incredible amount of connections, resources, and money why do they have to ask us for money? They have absolutely no need to do that. I mean, sure, they are also incredibly likeable, we love them for their shows and movies, but still, because of that, I think they are somehow taking advantage of their fans. And on the other hand we have the celebrities that ask for donations for charity same case they have connections, resources and money. Obviously, charity is a more sensitive subject, but bear with me. I think it's great that movie stars have their own organisation to help other people but we are definitely lacking some transparency here. Maybe some movie stars are truthful and give all of the funds to charity as per promised, but, for example, didn't Will.I.am receive millions of dollars in charitable donations but only a third went to the actual emergency efforts? I am sure as shit its not the first time something like that happens. I believe since charity organisations are non profit, they are not taxed the same way as a regular organisation, so the whole thing with the wealthy celebrities asking for donations is just incredibly shady IMO. The way I see it, and strictly speaking about the charity case, it's the celebrities responsibility to give back even more to society but apparently a lot of people are simply glad to give away their money to them. I know I am making two different cases but the actions behind each are practically the same So maybe I am missing something maybe wealthy people and celebrities can good people too and are totally not trying to take advantage of the people? I don't know. Please I invite you to change my view.","conclusion":"I think it's wrong that wealthy people, like celebrities, ask for money or \"donations\"."}
{"id":"9322f6a5-f201-4f84-902c-0c2bd9431ced","argument":"The political right and political left in the US are severely divided and disparate. I think it would promote political harmony and please everyone if staunch conservatives and hardcore liberals peacefully split apart geographically and existed under two separate governments. Bipartisan debate has been reduced to a heated exchange of tired catchphrases. Every discussion between parties seems to be a get nowhere headbutting match between liberals and conservatives on divisive hot button issues military spending, abortion legality, tax rates, immigration stuff that makes everyone mad. This shouting match seldom results in participants finding common ground, because there simply is none. We wind up with little or no public discourse on issues that both sides agree on, because we simply don't have breath left to yell. Every presidential election is a near tie between a Republican and a Democrat, and no matter who wins, for the next 4 or 8 years half the country can't stop bitching about how his administration is ruining everything. Congress is less a body centered on bettering the nation through legislature, more a well dressed football game to see who's team can wind up with more points. When I read a news article, I can immediately tell when the concept will cleave the US again right down the same line, and I can hear already the tired shouts from both sides. I'm sure you can, too. Oh god, this military spending bill will have those other people tweeting up a storm. Certainly a moderate center exists, but it seems to be quiet and uninvolved in public debate, and typically someone calling themselves moderate will tend in one or the other direction rather than being totally centrist. My View When I heard several years ago about Texas' petition to secede from the Union I was disappointed to hear that it fell flat fairly quickly and wasn't taken seriously by the nation as a whole. I'm a very liberal, pro Bama American, but I'm all for Texas' peaceful secession. I think it would do great things for everyone if the country were to split geographically the way it is ideologically. If far right Republicans were to concentrate together in their own sovereign nation, they could finally have things closer to the way they want, and they could get the sam hill out of my legislative and political face. I'd no longer have to deal with their conviction that gays shouldn't be allowed to get married, they'd no longer have to deal with me wanting abortions and entitlements. I think it's a win win. I'll Concede , maybe logistically it wouldn't be viable for Texas' economy to self sustain without the support of 49 other states and federal subsidies. That's a detail to me, though. My argument is that it would be better for everyone if somebody seceded and formed a sovereign nation. What are your thoughts? Should we stay together and work things out for the kids? Change my view gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than just downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Texas\/the political right should secede, because the US is to polarized to function."}
{"id":"f8320e8a-3b9d-4a00-8f5c-93410cdfec84","argument":"I'll acknowledge that the Sex Junk song was a little over the top. The same could be said of the vanilla ice cream sketch. But with the panel of hosts that Bill had and the way he explained sex and gender, the episode's coverage was actually accurate and scientific. It's a topic that IS naturally political, and I can understand why that would annoy people who believe in a kind of science that is entirely separated from the social world, but I don't believe that that is very practical OR realistic. I was inclined at first to dislike the episode, having first seen only the Sex Junk song, but upon watching it, I was very pleased with the explanations of the topic overall. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Bill Nye's recent episode on sexuality, sex, and gender was really not that bad, and I found its treatment of the topic as a whole to be quite well-informed"}
{"id":"5ea75d0a-6ad2-4e0b-91be-009edf0d1cae","argument":"I'm guessing that a lot of people have heard it sprout up, maybe not being the cause of a conversation, but at least come up in the middle of another. I know of this phenomenon, in my place of residence, the UK. And mainly it's said, that the North of England, particularly Newcastle, Liverpool and Ireland are very receptive and warm places to be at, but it's not that way to the southernmost bit of the Islands. I'm also guessing that it's notorious enough for it be known that the far more socially distant place is called London as one representative of that far down. And adding onto my personal little anecdote, with really another one, since television and movies are still an avenue to being familiar to what's not your belonging I've had like probably any conscious person as well, an undefined and general impression, that the further that the south is travelled of the USA, a person doing that will be treated to homeliness and handiness as most likely done to them and any other person as an automatic behaviour. This probably not becoming any different through familiarity getting better. Now, you could likely predict that I'm going to put that the North impersonal South less so when I've never had that belief held onto. I know that bordering Canada, Montana across to Minnesota, that the North is, crudely put, the arctic South. They're both rural but of different climate. So really, they deal with land just the same, but have obviously, different jobs to cover the individual needs that are respective to the other. I've been able to make this comparison with a bit less trouble than if of these two nations genetics, heritage, language and media were not shared between them. And so, whilst I did maybe do a passable job of my own post, and can't do it as well for an other countr ies , I think that that doesn't have to then mean that it couldn't be found truthful for them also. Thanks for taking the time to read D","conclusion":"All large cities cause for impersonality and disengagement, by contrast to the rural areas by which they share a country"}
{"id":"b42fb0cb-d01e-4516-927a-63fb52c41530","argument":"The Leave vote was driven by emotional arguments about regaining sovereignty. Very few who voted to leave understood the complexities arising from this decision, e.g. how to preserve Good Friday Agreement.","conclusion":"Since the terms were not clear, it is entirely unclear what the people voted for. Hence the frustration with single market and customs union which were not on the ballot."}
{"id":"1d64ff7c-57c3-4aa9-ae26-127c34a62e65","argument":"Diversity of mindsets, cultures and eventually, governments, is more effective survival strategy. Different people pay attention on different things and react to threats differently. Therefore, the most complex understanding of the world and the best optimized responses to future threats are achieved only if governance remains diverse.","conclusion":"The world is too different to function under one government."}
{"id":"8535da00-0487-4f49-8faa-e3fcef3e348e","argument":"Testing crime predictions of experts and novices a study found experts predictions to be more stable This indicates that predictions are more reliable.","conclusion":"Despite the impossibility to predict the future an expert has higher chances of being closer to reality than a non-expert."}
{"id":"dd8eee5d-449e-469f-bea6-35f8b2b1c2d0","argument":"I have noticed many parents send their children to bed at a certain time, even if the parents are continuing to stay up. Other examples include telling the child not to eat in the living room and then leaving them in the dining room alone as they tend to dinner guests in the living room, etc I find this hypocritical or at least being a bad example for your kids. I have expressed this idea to some parents to elicit an explanation, to which they defended Because I'm the adult which I find logically inadequate. Is this behavior reasonable? Why? And under what circumstances?","conclusion":"Parents should also obey the rules they set for their children"}
{"id":"fff4cc85-2468-46d1-a2ea-e948c374728e","argument":"Ok here in portland, from what I gather, bestiality is frowned on when either 1 When it hurts the animal 2 When the animal does not give consent I agree with 1. Some animals are just too small and so sex should definitely not be allowed with cats, small dogs, squirrels, guinea pigs, turtles, fish, birds, ducks, rats, and other small reptiles and rodents. What I don't agree with is 2, for the simple fact that we routinely kill thousands of animals a day without their consent. If consent is not required for the slaughter of cows and chickens for food and the hit and run of small rodents crossing the road, then why is consent needed to have sex with them? If an animal is obviously enjoying the act as expressed through vocal noises and body language AND when not restrained, they chose to continue the sex act remember most animals except for dogs are immune to peer pressure, so if they stay somewhere, its because they want to be there , THEN it is hard to see what harm is caused by having sex with them.","conclusion":"There is nothing wrong with bestiality if the animal is not physically hurt."}
{"id":"41b5aaa6-ad7c-4755-bac7-fa48ff8248ba","argument":"Rome required hand-outs of bread to poor Romans when conquest was insufficient called the \"Cura Annonae\".","conclusion":"Most civilizations in human history have required welfare to prevent popular revolts and uprisings"}
{"id":"2b6445cd-677e-4275-be2e-3b84810caade","argument":"Much direct aid is simply recycled as debt servicing. A significant proportion over 60% of aid flowing into the poorest nations flows straight back out again to service interest not even capital repayments on debts incurred, often by dictatorial governments, during the 1970s and 80s. Payment of aid to NGOs would shift priorities, stimulating growth now and hence increasing tax revenue later. These can then be used to repay debts in the longer term, whilst allowing the country to develop at a faster rate once debts have been repaid.","conclusion":"Much direct aid is simply recycled as debt servicing. A significant proportion over 60% of aid fl..."}
{"id":"5bc2f3df-aedf-4fe3-bf7b-7318ecd33ecd","argument":"Politicians, in contrast to millions of voters from different walks of life, are more prone to mistakes due to their small numbers and their relative sameness in many regards.","conclusion":"While individual citizens might not be well-informed, referendum decisions benefit from the wisdom of the crowds through which individual deficiencies are cancelled out."}
{"id":"80118aa3-e61e-4e7a-83b2-3d48faa3f671","argument":"Young children are unlikely to notice whether their presents are cheap or second-hand Therefore, switching to cheaper gifts can only be a good thing for parents.","conclusion":"Parents could lessen this financial strain by buying cheaper or second-hand gifts."}
{"id":"4c623bdc-a0a7-4c52-89ac-323b8ff7d3d5","argument":"Candidates which appeal to their bases receive higher voter turn out generally Bernie would thus be predicted to recieve a higher voter turnout from democrats than a more centrist candidate.","conclusion":"This is an oversimplification which neglects the impact of voter turnout."}
{"id":"5950fdb3-581b-4c10-ab63-a1a494c0659c","argument":"I\u2019m a man in my mid 30s, and I\u2019m 6 feet, 3 inches 1.9 m tall. I am overweight, but to my knowledge I don\u2019t have any specific medical conditions that would require a low sugar or sugar free diet diabetes, etc. . For many years, I have toyed with the idea of adopting a sugar free diet, but not necessarily a low carb diet. As a child, my parents severely restricted my sugar intake, partly in the belief that it would help prevent me from getting fat later in life. My dad read the 1970s book \u201cSugar Blues,\u201d and strongly believed in its teachings, though he didn\u2019t follow them very well, especially as a recovering alcoholic. I resented him as a hypocrite. Oddly, he thought restricting sugar would prevent me from becoming an alcoholic myself I began gaining weight around the age of 9 or 10, as I became less active and my family began easing up on their restrictions though they remained quite hostile to sugar . As a teenager, I had more access to sugary snacks, soda, fast food, and other such junk. So I reached 300 lbs 136 kg in my late teens. I think one factor is that junk food was \u201cforbidden fruit,\u201d and so I overindulged as soon as I had a chance, especially at the school cafeteria where cookies and soda were readily available. Here in California, soda sales were discontinued in schools several years ago. My weight went down to 240 109 throughout my early to mid 20s, partly because I was exercising at the gym regularly and partly because I briefly adopted a vegetarian diet and mostly avoided fast food. I lost those habits later on for various reasons, and was up to 325 147 by a couple of years ago. My current status I\u2019m now hovering around 300 lbs 136 kg . I\u2019ve already drastically reduced my consumption of soda, and I drink coffee with one teaspoon of sugar. I will usually eat sweetened desserts every few days or so. My exercise routine has been inconsistent, and mostly involves walking for 30 minutes or more at a time. I\u2019ve lost about 25 pounds in the past couple of years, and I still have a long way to go. I was thin as a child, and I want to be thin again. I feel that the lack of sugar in my diet helped, or at least couldn\u2019t have hurt. I also want to prevent further tooth decay \u2013 my teeth are already in pretty bad shape for someone my age. So I figure that by going back to something resembling my childhood diet, I can return to those days, at least to some extent. I definitely realize children and adults are not the same when it comes to weight and nutrition. I may eat some sugar on very rare occasions such as birthday parties at least my own probably friends and family, too . But I would NOT make exceptions just because I\u2019m \u201chaving a bad day\u201d, etc. And yet, to my knowledge, there\u2019s not much conclusive scientific evidence that eliminating sugar is beneficial. So, why shouldn\u2019t I take the plunge? I\u2019m open to whatever you might have to say.","conclusion":"I should eliminate added sugars from my diet"}
{"id":"f4ab44c9-93ab-4e7d-aa2f-49cc850512d6","argument":"Charter schools add a new model into the mix, in addition to private and public schools. For both private and public schools to survive in the face of charter schools, they must improve themselves. In this sense, competition with charter schools will improve private and public schools.","conclusion":"Charter schools spur competition that forces all schools to improve"}
{"id":"33bbadd6-f0bc-4fbc-a55c-0b3df85bf0ad","argument":"An electorate that cares less about welfare can give carte blanche to politicians to reduce welfare expenditure, without the parties affected being able to do anything about it, and thus resulting in a more unjust society.","conclusion":"Disenfranchising poorer individuals would result in a future electorate that, on balance, cared about welfare programs to a lesser extent."}
{"id":"f8e2e775-36f0-4437-8f6f-558b9dfb24a5","argument":"Regulation would be difficult or potentially impossible if we do not understand its actions.AI is now so complex its creators can\u2019t trust why it makes decisions","conclusion":"An AGI would be impossible to control or regulate once its abilities or reasoning surpasses our understanding."}
{"id":"a8d2b812-26ce-4e0a-b2c7-1576d19d5593","argument":"The Caucasus is very unstable, with some of its nations looking to Turkey for support for religious and cultural reasons. A Middle Eastern border would involve the EU in the Israeli-Arab conflict and give it a border with an aggressive and unstable Iraq and Iran, with whom it would share an assertive Kurdish minority seeking statehood. Turkey even has major disputes with Greece, a current EU member, over territory in the Aegean and over the divided Island of Cyprus, where it alone recognises and backs the Turkish Republic of North Cyprus, preventing a settlement.14","conclusion":"Turkey's admission would expose the EU to new conflicts and dangers."}
{"id":"2b6f8106-9af6-44c8-ac3b-8dc8b1730a75","argument":"There is little protection against false accusation which destroys the life of the accused person. If the system is prone to many mistakes, we should diminish the potential costs for the falsely accused.","conclusion":"We should be more lenient on pedophiles by reducing the severity of their convictions."}
{"id":"69fd7d48-42bc-4aa2-befb-21159b8b91cb","argument":"There is a disconnect between top and bottom that negates motivation to succeed. The opportunity to legitimately know, not guess, the structure of salary tiers, and being able to feel that the corporate structure is transparent, would show respect to entry-level workers.","conclusion":"More equitable pay would improve company culture and increase employee morale."}
{"id":"75c60bd5-f322-4727-b9ac-2cfe04d53581","argument":"There are epithets in the Muggle world like the N-word in relation to the black community which are similar to 'Mudblood' associated with having a Muggle heritage.","conclusion":"The oppression faced by Muggle-born wizards is no worse than that faced by many disadvantaged communities in the Muggle world."}
{"id":"1f56bb15-a339-4a26-bf4e-5bb0253960f7","argument":"In the UK, instead of having access to the evidence against them suspects are given a \"gist of what information is being used in the case against them. p. 39","conclusion":"When those accused of terrorism are unable to examine evidence against them, they are prevented from having a fair trial."}
{"id":"97c3ba00-c204-4439-8185-355295d8f8d8","argument":"For example, a majority-atheist community would be less likely to vote to subsidize Christian homeless shelters, and vice versa.","conclusion":"This puts minority groups racial, sexual, cultural, ideological at a disadvantage for government funding specific to their needs."}
{"id":"80bbfdea-f538-4f48-ab69-a82566092637","argument":"The second law of thermodynamics indicates that, given enough time, the universe will inevitably stagnate in a state of heat death. If the universe existed from eternity past, it should already be in a state of heat death.","conclusion":"P2. There is strong scientific evidence for the beginning of the universe."}
{"id":"0bb6ba96-2535-404c-8c62-f875010c39d3","argument":"In 2017, 67.2% of political party funding in Norway came from the government. The government spent around 500 million NOK on this funding, yet the state's 2017 budget was 1,301,806 million NOK Norwegian Ministry of Finance, p. 3 Therefore, publicly funding two thirds of the spending of political parties only cost around 0.0004 % of the budget.","conclusion":"Introducing publicly-funded elections does not need to cost that much relative to government budgets."}
{"id":"00439d1b-cfbc-4376-b330-7acab31a116f","argument":"I had a long argument with my brother about this during the Obama Romney debate. He disliked both candidates, and told me the lesser of two evils argument was stupid. He said he would rather come out of this election staying true to his morals, rather than voting for one or the other. The same goes with writing in a name that you know won't get elected donald duck, christian bale etc.","conclusion":"I think that not voting for either candidate in a presidential election simply because you disagree\/dislike both of their views is absurd."}
{"id":"0399a676-3612-4298-817d-2381c80f13ff","argument":"Not having any elections \u2013 or only elections for a powerless advisory parliament \u2013 may actually have a benefit in putting responsibility squarely on the shoulders of the rulers. Only a country that is comparatively well governed, or successful, can manage without a democratic safety valve. It is notable that the remaining absolute monarchies or those where the King rules as well as reigns are mostly very wealthy petro states. Several of the remaining communist regimes, China and Vietnam, rely on rapid economic growth to cement their legitimacy combined with meritocracy in their selection of leaders. In both cases there is an incentive for good governance by those in power as they are in for the long term. The leaders know they are not going to be elected out of office so have the motivation to reduce corruption and create long term growth through investment in infrastructure because this will benefit them in the future.1 1 Feldman, Noah, \u2018Feldman examines corruption and political legitimacy in China\u2019, Harvard Law School, 11 March 2013,","conclusion":"Forces the ruler to find another way to placate the people"}
{"id":"c7effaa0-8bf2-45ba-9bd9-771378a74085","argument":"While we have the land area to produce plenty of food and shelter for increased population, we also created more pollution. It doesn't matter if you believe in global warming or not, all the other results of pollution will have an impact","conclusion":"The natural environment is undergoing a severe collapse due to human activity."}
{"id":"6d0789ad-ad16-4b6d-ab6e-e8aa511bebe2","argument":"Sex can be used to reward others who have given something of value. Oftentimes, the thing of value is just a physical look that is appreciated, but intelligence or empathy can also be rewarded with sex, if the sex is valuable to the person who it is being awarded to.","conclusion":"If the parties do wind up having sex, there are a lot of benefits to that."}
{"id":"c1891a24-d928-449a-9d57-d213e32eac0d","argument":"Disclaimer I myself am a white male. I absolutely don't pretend to have the problem of race all figured out, but I do see it as something that by its nature can only be changed over the course of a long period of time through countless individual choices. Patronize a black owned business vote out politicians with racist policies challenge racist views expressed by people you know personally. That sort of thing. I don't see it as a problem that can be battled and defeated in the course of a single generation just by yelling very loudly at a lot of people. I think that movements like blacklivesmatter are valuable for their ability to maintain visibility and keep the country from growing complacent, but they in themselves are not solutions. But that's a separate , probably. I'd like to keep this specific to the problem of how a lot of white people choose to address inequality, especially as it pertains to race. I feel that, for the most part, when white people talk about race they're motivated less by the desire to effect substantial change and more by one upmanship. For a lot of people, social justice is just a big game to see who can be the most sensitive. This isn't to say that they don't genuinely want to see inequality alleviated, but they're not willing to actually put in the time or effort at true activism\u2014like, say, volunteering to sign people up to vote, something like that. They're too busy having brunch or posting pictures of their cats. Let's take, for example, the peculiar tendency for many of these people to lecture others about the basic definition of racism. In the last several years, a new and distinct sense of that word has gained more widespread use outside of academia, which is something to the effect of Racism is a system of privileges designed to keep black people disadvantaged in perpetuity. It's different from how we normally think of racism, mainly by 1 being systemic instead of personal, 2 framing itself in such a way that white people must necessarily always be guilty of it and racial minorities, especially black people, can never be guilty of it. But it is an academic definition, and until recently that was where it stayed. For most people racism still just means judging someone else negatively because of their race, a general act of bigotry that any race can perpetrate. Yet many white people will employ the newer definition in a game of gotcha, catching people assuming the older, broader definition and then accusing them of not understanding, or even ignoring, what racism really is. It's an incredibly disingenuous accusation, because everyone knows this is still a pretty new thing. That academic specifically sociological sense of racism is definitely a useful one, but its use is not limited to shaming non academic whites. It may be easy to think that this is a relatively benign problem after all, as long as these whites are fighting racism somehow it's all for the better. But the problem is they're not actually fighting anything. More often than not these tactics are used by white people against their liberal peers, or perhaps against naively insensitive family members, because they know those are the softest targets, the ones least likely to fight back and most likely to say Oh my, I'm sorry, I didn't know, I'll try to do better. True racists continue to do their thing unmolested, usually because they operate outside of the anti racist's carefully curated social circle. Black people in need are removed from the equation altogether they remain a purely intellectual problem. And this is how it's likely to stay, as long as these whites continue to believe they're doing enough to feel satisfied with themselves simply by lecturing other well meaning white people.","conclusion":"Many white people's social justice advocacy is self-serving and insincere."}
{"id":"27ca95af-bf5b-4139-ae4c-0c2b9dc2fa5a","argument":"If a nation's military has to effectively \"beg\/conscript\" subjects to its ranks, then there is a lack and failure of belief in its purpose, identity, function and benefit to the society\/government it is supposed to defend, fight for, and represent. Regardless of how much we may appreciate and respect it, many people are not suited for military life\/service. The military's time and resources should not be wasted to filter through people who are not cut out for such an environment.","conclusion":"Expanding military conscription to women will legitimize it, which is a bad thing."}
{"id":"f54fb057-c878-4eab-979c-34f0a72325a7","argument":"On many occasions, I have seen the media report on a person accused of a terrible crime such as rape or murder. On every occasion, his her reputation is entirely destroyed before any verdict is ever reached. This causes serious and irreparable harm to the accused party who may very well be innocent. I believe this policy of revealing the identity of the accused without their consent violates the principle of innocent until proven guilty . Change my view.","conclusion":"I believe that the identity of people accused of crimes should not be public knowledge until after their trial is over."}
{"id":"53f6c643-0fd3-4ac9-93ea-3f8397fe9275","argument":"\"Drug users\" and \"drug abusers\" are different Portugal's goal was to solve the crisis the country faced from the high rate of drug abuse-related diseases and deaths","conclusion":"The number of drug users isn't a problem in itself - it is what these drug users do that might have negative consequences."}
{"id":"bacf30c1-de34-4fe5-9eb4-4b743d083cfa","argument":"It is more important for the government to sponsor child day care birth \u2013 kindergarten than it is to spend on health care. Health costs are mostly consumed by the elderly . Child care costs are almost by definition consumed by working age parents. Free child care would eliminate the need for a parent usually female to leave the workforce and reduce house hold income to care for the child. This absence from the workforce is a contributing factor to the \u201cwage gap\u201d I\u2019m not here to debate this part females experience when returning to work after kids are in school. This would be a natural economic boost to the middle lower class that needs all the income they can get. Anecdotally, my wife is a teacher and once we have our second child we will be spending more in day care than she makes for the year. For reference the day care near us charges 329 wk \u2013 per child. Edit I mean to refer to day care costs, not health care. Also for the sake of debate I'm pretending we have to pick either health care or day care costs.","conclusion":"Universal child care is more important than universal health care"}
{"id":"4cf47ba3-d772-41aa-9cb8-531296903104","argument":"Everyday in our society, I see it becoming more and more acceptable for men to become more feminine. I feel like it would be so much easier to be a man. The need for men to be strictly masculine is falling, making men the superior gender with so much less stress everyday. Men don't have to deal with periods, giving birth, worrying about pregnancies and birth control. As long as they don't get a STI STD, they can run away from sex with literally no boundaries. No judgement from their friends, family, parents, or peers when they win a victory in bed. Men can chase after women all they want with no limits, no consequences. Men don't have to worry about sex before marriage, almost all women in today's society are required to give out before then, anyway, or they will leave and find it with anothet woman. Men always have the upper hand in relationships, because they feel less emotional and have less to worry about. Men are much less victims of crime or, especially, rape. Men have bro code. They have each other's backs, they wingman for each other. They can be satisified with being light and not having to worry about the deep parts to life. Heck, male friends probably have half the drama that goes on between females, if not none at all. Men don't talk behind each other's backs. They are straightforward and sometimes will even physically fight with each other face to face. They don't need to worry about what other girls or friends are saying behind their backs, because it's always simple and done the minute it happens. Men are paid more in the workforce. They don't have the disadvantage of being seen as sexual objects, even in a professional environment, because of how the opposite gender treats them. Men don't have to be considered airheads, a ditz, or unintelligent simply because of their gender. Men don't have to be born with good looks or high metablisms to be seen as worthy in society. They get to earn their place, and not be shunned by non attractive genes or constantly be under the pressure of not eating. They don't have to go through hours upon hours everyday applying make up and shaving and nail clipping and pruning. Women who do not meet men's or society's standards for being attractive are just as easily friendzoned or pushed aside, if not more so than a man. Men think women have it easy because we can aquire sex easier. But what is easy sex when you're judged for it every waking moment of your life? When your religion and family would shun you forever? When the very person you want to be intimate with would probably leave once you give them what they want? Is meaningless sex really the greatest advantage one can ask for? Change my view?","conclusion":"Men have every upperhand in life as compared to women except getting easier sex."}
{"id":"f051f11b-ed0d-43bc-94c1-962de23db059","argument":"Monetary exchange is an especially inequitable way to gain consent. One person may be far richer and have far less need for money than another which creates an uneven power relationship.","conclusion":"Monetary exchange is an inequitable power dynamic that undermines free choice. We should not permit sexual activity that does not proceed from personal relationships that exist on a level field."}
{"id":"ce42b51f-f2e4-4972-850d-c1b3c978ba8f","argument":"They are no worse than any other every day scchool utilities. A mildly grinded metal ruler would be the exact same, a normal pen can be just as deadly, and you can be damn sure a pencil compass will go right through pen They are just utilities. I worked while in HS. A lot of my friends worked. Almost everyone I knew with a job habitually carried a knife as a utility for simple things such as opening boxes. Hell, I once had the police called on my by my school because I wore the same pants as I had the previous day and still had my knife on me. Never brandished it or anything, but I was suspended, almost expelled. With the exception of schools with metal detectors anyone who wants to bring a knife can't be preemptively stopped . Just like the issue with gun control, people who want weapons can get them. If they are brandished with malicious intent by a bad person rule breaker the rule followers won't be able to defend themselves.","conclusion":"There is nothing wrong with allowing knives in a high-school"}
{"id":"b175d262-d8f9-42cb-9b36-a7b4316dd332","argument":"I think an afterlife is plausible, because I think a reasonable case can be made for mind not being generated by the brain. This is a view historically accepted by numerous great thinkers, including but not limited to William James, Karl Popper, John Eccles, Max Planck, and Erwin Schr\u00f6dinger. The first basis for this argument is philosophical. Philosophers such as David Chalmers argue that the ' hard problem or 'explanatory gap' of consciousness implies a non physicalist model of the mind brain relationship. The essence of the argument is actually simple and intuitive subjective experience cannot be deduced, not even in principle, from the properties of matter. We can observe tight correlations between the two entities, but we can not explain in terms of fundamental interactions why neural events must lead to conscious events. A couple good papers on this topic 1 2 Secondly, I think there is an alternative model of the mind brain relationship that is more consistent with what we know, as compared to a physicalist model. Because mental events and neural events are tightly correlated, it's reasonable to assume a causal relationship between the two. It would be fallacious to conclude solely from this that the brain must create consciousness. Similarly, the voices coming out of a radio receiver may correlate tightly to the electromagnetic oscillations in the radio\u2019s circuitry, but this does not indicate that the radio is generating the signal. Many logical possibilities remain open to explain the ordinarily observed correlation between subjective experience and brain activity, not only the physicalist assumption that the brain causes the mind. Essentially, the brain can be seen as a metaphorical filter localizer of consciousness. Author Chris Carter gives a good basic overview of this hypothesis, and addresses some common criticisms raised against it. Author Bernardo Kastrup elaborates on the hypothesis on his blog in this and other posts on his blog. He discusses how, in instances where the brain is sufficiently inhibited, a dampening in brain activity will correlate with an increase in intensity and complexity of conscious experiences, in corroboration with the filter hypothesis, but inconsistent with the notion of brain activity being identical with all contents of conscious experience. That's a slightly simplified way of putting it. It's worth reading his exchange with Steven Novella, where he frames the argument in a more precise way. One example of this correlation comes from near death experiences NDEs . Many NDE researchers believe it's evident that NDEs can occur during a time when brain activity is severely compromised or virtually non existent. At the same time, many NDErs recount that their thinking and perceptions were either normal or better than normal during the time of their NDE. This paper cites a study gt A recent analysis of several hundred NDE cases showed that 80 of experiencers described their thinking during the NDE as \u201cclearer than usual\u201d 45 or \u201cas clear as usual\u201d 35 . In addition, 74 described their thinking as \u201cfaster than usual\u201d 37 or \u201cat the usual speed\u201d 37 65 described their thinking as \u201cmore logical than usual\u201d 29 or \u201cas logical as usual\u201d 36 and 55 described their control over their thoughts as \u201cmore control than usual\u201d 19 or \u201cas much control as usual\u201d Brain activity often flatlines in a matter of seconds following cardiac arrest, and this is the time period during which many NDErs are able to accurately report on their surroundings. Sam Parnia, founder of the AWARE study, explains this subject in more detail gt The occurrence of lucid, well structured thought processes together with reasoning, attention and memory recall of speci\ufb01c events during a cardiac arrest raise a number of interesting and perplexing questions regarding how such experiences could arise. gt As seen these experiences appear to be occurring at a time when global cerebral function can at best be described as severely impaired, and at worse non functional. However, cerebral localisation studies have indicated that the thought processes are mediated through the activation of a number of different cortical areas, rather than single areas of the brain and therefore a globally disordered brain would not be expected to lead to lucid thought processes or the ability to \u2018see\u2019 and recall details. Other examples of this correlation come from psychedelics. This fairly recent study has demonstrated that the effects of psilocybin work solely through dampening of brain function. The more intense and overwhelming a mushroom trip becomes, in terms of emotions, thoughts, and perceived sensory information, the less there is happening in the brain. From the study gt As predicted, profound changes in consciousness were observed after psilocybin, but surprisingly, only decreases in cerebral blood flow and BOLD signal were seen. gt These results may have implications beyond explaining how psilocybin works in the brain by implying that the DMN is crucial for the maintenance of cognitive integration and constraint under normal conditions. This finding is consistent with Aldous Huxley's \u201creducing valve\u201d metaphor and Karl Friston's \u201cfree energy principle\u201d, which propose that the mind brain works to constrain its experience of the world. Similar substances like ketamine and mescaline have been shown to work through similar means. Other phenomenon which seem to demonstrate this correlation include terminal lucidity and acquired savant syndrome","conclusion":"I think there is probably an afterlife."}
{"id":"29199347-e926-4f81-8e9b-91af3e3717b3","argument":"Put the funds on a debit card redeemable, whole or in part, at certified vendors such as but not limited to schools. Retailers are already able to sort approved products from unapproved products in the case of food stamps. Expanding that to school supplies would be trivial. But the greatest potential expansion of opportunity and freedom that I see would be what I call dual use technology Internet access, computers, tablets, cell phone data plans, specialized streaming services documentaries, online coursework, Great courses etc , online schools, tutoring services all of the opportunities that people who now pay for them can afford but are out of the reach of the poor.","conclusion":"Educational vouchers, expanded to include home schooling, could be both the greatest transfer of resources and facilitator of freedom in history and that could be a very good thing."}
{"id":"fa6f10db-07c5-4cb9-ab60-59863ef4a565","argument":"The same principle which is applicable to humans can be used for all sentient beings. Bringing forth a being with a flawed existence is morally inferior to bringing into existence nothing at all.","conclusion":"Nonexistence cannot be meaningfully compared to existence; it therefore cannot be \"worse than\" existence."}
{"id":"5942076a-a79a-4ba7-9e34-81dd6144b8b8","argument":"A degree illustrates that whilst the candidate's qualification may not be applicable to the vacant position, they have the discipline and ability to apply themselves to study as well as absorbing and retaining information.","conclusion":"Some jobs with high responsibilities, such as in the health sector, strictly require a degree. Having that degree allows you access to some jobs that ungraduated people can't access."}
{"id":"6467f651-c26f-492c-93ee-caf5a6f2799d","argument":"We've had a great stone circle for many generations, and it's time to make it bigger and better to show just how powerful the people of Sarum Plain are, I agree, but some of the druida want to bring stone from another peoples' land entirely, the Cymraeg. I mean, they're perfectly nice people, the Cymraeg, but they're not us. And there are, I'm sure, entirely reasonable stones that we could use that are a bit closer to Sarum Plain. I mean, we've got a whole load of chalk right under the grass, and it shines so brilliantly in the sun, we could do something with that. Maybe coat the existing stones in it so they shine too. What do we want to go transporting stones all the way from the foreign hills of the Cymraeg for? Think how much food we'd need to supply, what goods we would have to offer the Cymraeg for some rocks . What makes those rocks so much better than the sarcens anyway? There are plenty of sarcens lying around all over the place we can use. And how we'd do it, I don't know The ancients were great people, giants perhaps, but even they could not move great stones the size some of the druida want bringing here from all that way. And then once they've been moved here, how will we ever get them standing up making doorways of the spirits like the druida describe? A dozen men couldn't lift such stones. My view might be changed if you can persuade me that the prestige from doing this will exceed the prestige from other options to a sufficient degree to outweigh the efforts involved, and if you can demonstrate how the stones might be moved here from such a distance and then erected. No amount of prestige is worth bringing the stones all this way if we can't even put them up","conclusion":"the expansion to our stone circle I have heard the Descendants of this time call it \"stone hedge\" should use local stone, not the Cymraegs' stone from many days travel to the northwest"}
{"id":"7a0ce1d1-f11c-478a-adb8-126a1e234ed4","argument":"Let's see if i do this right, first time posting here I just cant summon up any sympathy for the Greeks at this point. Despite Europeans trying to give them billions to fix their economy, they have done nothing whatsoever. They refuse to pay taxes, they blame Europe for their own fuckups and they are incredibly entitled and somehow expect everyone else to solve their problems for them. I know this is not a progressive or productive mindset, and i know it won't lead to anything good. But i just don't get why i should have the slightest shred of sympathy for the Greeks.","conclusion":"Greece deserves all the shit they have coming. They have been living above their paygrade for years, dodging taxes and avoiding all responsibility for their country"}
{"id":"17afa3ea-0bd1-42ef-a864-54440b0126cc","argument":"Banning horse racing would have a detrimental economic impact far beyond the racing and gambling industry. Veterinarians, trainers, stable staff, and farmers would all be negatively impacted.","conclusion":"The horse racing industry creates hundreds of thousands of jobs and contributes billions to the economy each year.bloodhorse.com"}
{"id":"4fcbbeac-c559-49b5-81db-730a6ed6cc5f","argument":"First, the sanction after three warnings can be tailored to fit general notions of justice, the punishment need not be severe and could fit the crime: maybe a consumer would be cut off of the internet for only two weeks, or only cut off from accessing download sites but still be allowed to access government and banking sites, or receive a small fine. Secondly, the consumer has ample time to change his or her behaviour: a consumer can insist on infringing copyright at least two times before the sanction takes place. The consumer can easily avoid being cut off even temporarily, meaning the punishment likely doesn\u2019t even have to take place.1 1 Barry Sookman, \u2018Graduated response and copyright: an idea that is right for the times\u2019, January 10th, 2010. URL:","conclusion":"A graduated response is the fairest way to enforce copyright legislation"}
{"id":"829c5e09-5477-4505-8ee7-92b8a1b3c8ce","argument":"Long hours which reduce worker effectiveness already make a business less competitive. The invisible hand will remove those businesses which exploit their workers, or who don't take into account employee motivation and what they need to get maximum productivity far more effectively as they are beaten in the marketplace by those companies which do take those things into account. Improvements in worker conditions always come first from the private sector seeking to maximise profits. This has been true as far back as the industrial revolution.","conclusion":"The market already limits worker hours when left to its own devices, no intrusion is required."}
{"id":"afc35a02-a6a4-4086-b555-b864bba0ba67","argument":"Please leave the note below the following line, but remember to delete this sentence. Thank you gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than just downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Republicanism and Conservatism are mislead and foolish."}
{"id":"dce32c1f-a82f-49dc-b996-f0f957e5fa2f","argument":"Increased use of social media has been shown to cause an increase in depression and anxiety. This increased use correlates with the school shootings we are seeing. This should be studied more. We should figure out why some people are so disturbed.","conclusion":"Focusing on gun control shifts attention away from investigating root causes home conditions, bullying, mental illness, psychotropic drugs, media glorification"}
{"id":"7dad93d7-be73-4a3d-b214-f8639274b989","argument":"The Bank has evinced willingness to deal directly with almost any government without sensitivity to their human rights record. Given that developing countries are both shareholders and clients in the Bank, the agencies are unlikely to admit that loans to a particular regime will not achieve any benefit until a reformed government achieves power. The negotiation process between the Bank and the regime is invariably closed and the circulation of Bank reports restricted to the participants. The poor are disenfranchised from the very institution supposed to support their development.","conclusion":"The World Bank investment policy consolidates the position of the corrupt, inefficient and antidemocratic regimes of many developing countries."}
{"id":"5cc8bcb6-7d93-46e0-8dbd-79baf17cc856","argument":"Many people contend that the Americans had the idealogical advantage of fighting for their freedom and defending their homes. However, not even the majority of the colonies were pro revolution. Research suggests that the country was split into thirds in terms of attitudes revolution. 1 3 was revolutionary, 1 3 was indifferent, and 1 3 of the colonies were Loyalists. In addition, many times, soldiers fighting for the Americans were forcibly conscripted from their farms in order to fight for the Americans. Secondly, another major factor people point towards is the American advantage of knowing the land and being able to use guerilla tactics to wear down the British. However, this was not the common case. Some of the British generals and certainly some of the British regulars served in the French and Indian War, and gained knowledge of the land. Also, guerilla tactics supposedly used by the Americans were not very common in actuality.","conclusion":"I believe the Americans won the American Revolution not because of geographical or idealogical advantages, but rather because of British ineptitude."}
{"id":"0d9462b1-b2b1-4182-bc1a-b4b0be0ef178","argument":"Hi As the title says, I think that when considering abortion, both the mother, and the father should be able to have an equal chance on legally deciding on whether the abortion should or should not happen. For the sake of this argument, I wouldn't like to get into discussion about the abortion itself, and just assume that the discussion applies to times when performing an abortion, only because of the parents will, is basically legal and ok. Most pro abortion reasoning is basing on assuming that a fetus isn't a human being, but merely a part of the females body, so removing it is no different from any other surgery. However, in this case, it's not that simple, as this decision has a huge impact on the mothers life, but also the fathers. And while both parties agree on the terms of keeping removing the pregnancy, the problem doesn't exist, but when the parents hold different opinions, it start to get a little uneven. Usually, the decision to terminate the pregnancy can only be made by the female, and contrary to a regular surgery, this is a situation that involves another person the father, who has nothing to say in this manner. And as long as law shouldn't discriminate anyone basing on their sex, the father should also have a say in this. I think that both parent should have the right to demand abortion, as in these situations ok means keep the baby , nope means abortion 1 Mother ok, father ok it's simple, the baby is born 2 mother nope, father nope simple again, bye bye baby 3 mother ok, father nope here the mother should be allowed to keep the baby, but the father should be free from any parental responsibilities as he didn't want to have this baby, and there was a way to avoid it being born 4 mother nope, father ok here, similarly, the father should be allowed to keep the baby, with mother free from responsibilities. However, as the female has to live through the pregnancy, some kind of a recompensation should be elligible. EDIT I admit to mentioning only the general case, where the baby was conceived under normal circumstances, and the pregnancy doesn't threaten the mother with death or permanent injury. I tried to address these cases in comments, but this original post wasn't meant to deal with them.","conclusion":"Both parents should be able to legally decide on abortion"}
{"id":"538352b7-368d-46ea-bd24-55adf25abc9c","argument":"It's widely accepted in the scientific community that cloning a Neanderthal or other extinct homo for scientific reasons would be immoral. I disagree. We could learn so much from it, and there is no reason why a Neanderthal clone couldn't live a happy life. We don't know exactly how it will be once it's alive, because we don't know how intelligent Neanderthals were could they even understand language? It's likely but we don't jnow. However, we know they had larger brains than us, so there's a chance they could have been just as smart, and if not, we already have special education and social services for people that are mentally deficient compared to the rest of society. A volunteer couple of anthropologists could raise the Neanderthal on their own as if it were their child. The way I see it, the worst possible case scenario is that you have an essentially retarded human which is ok, they already exist and can be happy , or best case scenario it could be an excellent student and star linebacker on the high school football team. We also know that Neanderthals mated with humans, so it could have a very satisfying sex life as well. I don't see a downside to this anywhere and it would be a HUGE benefit to our understanding of human evolution. Why is this seen as so immoral?","conclusion":"I don't think it would be immoral to clone a Neanderthal."}
{"id":"a9009fcc-ea80-45db-ac64-905d457e769c","argument":"The constructed case with the bus is similar to a situation where after an earthquake, instead of helping people screaming from underneath the rubble, one were to go and instead save one's dog and leave those people to die.","conclusion":"Many will probably not be aware that they will be charged with failure to render assistance."}
{"id":"2bd2cd10-f625-48fd-839d-e8c521f9550a","argument":"Such classes would need to be compulsory for a number of reasons. Firstly - for all of the subjectivity regarding parenting \u2013 there are clearly some objectively good and bad parents. A morbidly obese 15 year old with a criminal record, no school qualifications and poor health has, almost certainly, been let down by his or her parents. However the state has no way of knowing in advance as to which parents will struggle in this manner \u2013 hence it is better if the classes are for everyone. Furthermore, it seems fair to assume that parents who are somehow socially excluded, wilfully ignorant or suffering some other acute difficulty in raising children, would probably be less likely to take the active step of attending voluntary classes in the first place. Thus voluntary classes may actually be structurally biased to miss the cases in which they are most needed. A compulsory system is likely to offer far better outcomes across society.","conclusion":"Such classes would need to be compulsory for a number of reasons. Firstly - for all of the subjecti..."}
{"id":"1cb15de0-cdf8-40f7-8596-47f0dd18fd6e","argument":"Exposure to the racially derogatory language in the book could dehumanize Black people, making it more likely that the student would unintentionally adopt racist attitudes.","conclusion":"Students would be unconsciously primed to imitate the prejudicial attitudes of white Southerners depicted in the book."}
{"id":"4db0cb47-2c88-49f5-9fbf-7850572683d8","argument":"When Preferential Voting is used, the successful candidate requires an absolute majority before they can be declared to have won.","conclusion":"Preferential voting is the most effective system for ensuring fair election outcomes."}
{"id":"51f97904-ccf0-4e1d-b0bc-6421c542c452","argument":"Beto O'Rourke is young and could have a promising career in the Democratic Party. He should not be made president at such a young age, as after being president one's time in professional politics is normally finished","conclusion":"O'Rourke has little experience in governing. He is a good campaigner, but he is not a national leader. He should run for Governor, or Congress, or Senate again."}
{"id":"d13931a7-14cf-45e2-bf64-c1c461dc8e92","argument":"I don't watch competitive Melee. I find it far too mechanically complex. While I don't agree with Masahiro Sakurai's insistence that there shouldn't be a competitive scene for the game, I think its current state is flawed. To be good at Melee competitively, the perceived baseline of competence is the wavedash or the L cancel, depending on who you ask. Wavedashes are hard to do, require unintuitive inputs, and really only matter on the highest level of play. L cancelling is also unintuitive, and realistically speaking, anyone you come against in a tournament setting is going to know how to do it. This means that you don't gain an advantage, but rather avoid a detriment imposed by a flaw in the game itself. I think that the necessity of both of these techniques is needless at best and almost abusive at worst. The only reason they're still around is because Melee is over a decade old, and there exists no way to patch it. Wavedashing has been said by the games developers to have been an unintended interaction with the game's physics engine one that would certainly have been patched out if the game released today. Obviously, if one wants to become a competitive Smash player, one must learn these techniques, but I do not believe that the techniques themselves bring anything to the table for the game. I think a version of Melee that Made wavedashing a supported feature easier to pull off Removed L cancelling would be a better game. I can't imagine that the pros would scoff at the prospect of using brainpower for things other than inputs for maintenance. This would put more emphasis on the strategy of the game, and overall improve high level play. Obligatory note I do not mean to demean or trivialize the skill of pro Smash players. The difficulty of these inputs is impressive, but ultimately borne of necessity rather than actual innovation. This seems to run perpendicular to the real reason someone should be good at a fighting game they are good at fighting in said game. EDIT I do not take issue with the use or existence of wavedashing. I take issue with the fact that, because the game is set in stone, it's very difficult to do. A new player would never be able to stumble into figuring out a wavedash without outside help. Had the feature been included on purpose, and thus easier to pull off, the game would be that much better for it. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Wavedashing and L-cancelling are not positive features in Super Smash Brothers Melee in their current state."}
{"id":"234436aa-e10b-43bc-b27a-3c90e472ea65","argument":"This does not necessarily apply to people who join the military for educational purposes or because there are no other jobs available. Since the end of WWII, the United States has been involved in many foreign wars that do not benefit the American people and engage combatants who pose no threat to American lives or American soil. There have been many instances Korea, Vietnam and Laos, Cuba, Guatemala, Congo, Libya, Iraq on several occasions, the Persian Gulf, Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Pakistan, Yemen, and now possibly Syria. The merit of some of these is more debatable than others, but most people would agree that at least some of these wars did not serve enough purpose to the US to warrant military involvement. In that time there have been no wars actually on American soil or against American lives with the exception of terrorist attacks . So when people say they join the military to serve their country, they must realize that they are infinitely more likely to be sent to a war that doesn't have much at all to do with their country than to actually protect American soil or American lives. Therefore, the very action of joining the military shows support for these wars and the ever growing military industrial complex that Eisenhower warned us of. There are other ways to serve your country and community that actually do save American lives and earn respect for your nation, such as law enforcement, fire fighters, school teachers, foreign service, or even the Peace Corps.","conclusion":"I believe that joining the US military is supporting the growth of the military industrial complex and American involvement in foreign wars."}
{"id":"4011de1a-fce2-4abc-a82a-f2d911fa5814","argument":"Or to put it bluntly there will always be a bottom , and it will always be significantly populated. And the only way this will ever change is by the grace of some future evolution of the human condition that, at present, we cannot possibly imagine at least not in any practical sense . The motivation for this post This should be obvious and require little explanation. Suffering has been an abundant probably even predominant component of the human condition for as long as there have been humans. And, historically and presently, only a small fraction of us have risen above it almost always stepping on and over others in the process elite classes built on political rule and economic manipulation . I concede, of course, that there are others who have found genuine happiness fulfillment through non material means spirituality, art but I believe these people are in the minority, and I believe that this method is simply not possible for everyone. The many varieties of suffering There are too many to count or detail in this one little internet post. A whole treatise could be written on the myriad forms in which human suffering is made manifest. But let's look at some broad categories External and Non Personal Environmental factors like natural disasters, disease, and general circumstantial misfortune that cannot be ascribed to any particular cause or actor External and Personal Human on human misery this takes far too many forms to describe individually. Humans controlling others, through direct force or indirect manipulation. Humans inflicting pain on other humans, intentionally, accidentally, or perhaps as a byproduct of some other activity even unknowingly . These behaviors are so varied and so integrally woven into the fabric of civilization that I see no possible way to entirely eliminate them. Even if it were possible to do so, the method would almost certainly require the use of force on the non compliant which would just lead to more control, more power struggles more suffering. Internal Demons , we affectionately dub them. Mental and emotional illnesses. Mood and personality disorders. Simple existential nausea and or dread. Feelings that, I'm sure, every single person has experienced, to some degree, at some point in their life. Some people are ravaged by them. Some people are completely dominated by their own demons, and recovery is nigh impossible. This variety of misery, I know all too well, on a personal basis and I readily concede that it may color or distort my perception of these issues Existential Inertia It seems to me that people who are affected by one or more of the categories listed above will, more often than not, become stuck in a perpetual cycle of suffering even spanning generations due to the very nature of suffering itself. Pain breeds pain, and people in pain are inherently less able to a perceive and analyze their own situations objectively, and or b take steps to rectify the source of their pain. Oftentimes, the source isn't even something that can be rectified. Socio economic mobility may have seen a prematurely optimistic peek in mid 20th century America a very specific and very minor point in human history but in most other places and times throughout history and the present day, people who suffer in poverty are not likely to find their way out. Or if they do, it is an agonizingly gradual process, that again, may take multiple generations. And even when you try to climb that ladder, everything is working against you the rigged system that favors those who are already successful in an absurdly disproportionate way, as well as your own peers competitors, who are fighting for the same scraps you are. And, on the topic of inertia, let me speak again on the subject I am most personally familiar with internal struggle. Anyone reading this who has ever suffered from any kind of mental or emotional disorder will be intimately familiar with how viciously self perpetuating those disorders are. They are incredibly efficient self replicating memes that infect your mind and warp your perception of reality to the point where all sense of normalcy and identity becomes integrally linked to the disorder itself. Escape from the suffering becomes undesirable , as insane as that sounds. Inertia dominates, and acceptance of the pain becomes one of the easiest options and, as a consequence, I am willing to bet it is also one of the most common options . The cycle, and hope When we combine the countless varieties of suffering with the innate tendency of suffering to self perpetuate the most logical probable conclusion I see, is that suffering will always exist in significant abundance. And, to elaborate more on the specific point I made in the title of this post if a certain individual enters into the cycle of suffering either through birth, or through misfortune later in life , it seems like probability is stacked in favor of that individual remaining in the cycle hence my use of the word destined which, again, is a loaded term that carries a lot of baggage I do not intend, but suits my purposes well enough . Even if this individual swims fervently against the tide I just don't see that hopeful a future for him or her. Of course some people will win against the tide. Even a significant portion. Maybe just enough to keep hope, as a general concept, alive. But, in my general perception of the world, it just seems like far too many drown underneath the tide for us to say that hope, in any reasonably probabilistic way, is a realistic value. Please, change my view I desperately want my view changed. As you can clearly see, the way I perceive the world is extremely pessimistic, cynical, and even nihilistic at times. But that is the worldview that has evolved from my admittedly limited and subjective experience and knowledge of the world. I even admit that I don't have any actual data to support my claim though I'd be willing to bet that a relatively quick Google search could pull up some truly depressing numbers for a wide variety of related topics deaths due to disaster, disease, war and other violence statistics on mental health and suicide class stratification now as well as throughout history, etc Everything I have been through myself, combined with everything I have seen happen around me, and everything I've learned about our history as a species on this planet, has all led me to think and feel the way I've described in this post but I would be quite amenable to a well argued retort. So please, change my view. Edit an afterthought, featuring Heraclitus I hope this doesn't seem like an unnecessary layer of fru fru pretentiousness added onto an already complete post, but it occurred to me to add this quote, which I learned in a philosophy course I took in college, and which has stuck with me ever since. gt War is the father of all, and king of all and some he shows as gods, others as men some he makes slaves, others free Heraclitus Pre Socratic Greek philosopher If my understanding and recollection of that class I took over a decade ago is correct, Heraclitus believed that strife was an inherent and essential aspect of existence. And a necessary component of strife, and of war literal or metaphorical is, of course, suffering the suffering of the losers, of the vanquished, of the conquered, beaten, or controlled. So I felt like one of my all time favorite philosophers and one of my favorite quotes of his fit this post well. What do you think of Heraclitus' worldview?","conclusion":"Some people are, for lack of a better word, \"destined\" to suffer irredeemable lives of misery; and furthermore, these people will always exist, in non-negligible numbers, until and unless there is some radical and presently incomprehensible paradigm shift in technology and\/or human culture"}
{"id":"69c17ebc-6053-4d82-9b37-d757af116ffe","argument":"In fact, the problem can be worse under a popular vote system. If most within-state elections are not close, but all the state elections average out to make a close popular vote contest, then the outcome is much easier to affect under a popular vote than under a winner-take-all electoral college system.","conclusion":"The same problem is present in a national popular vote election, which is still winner-take-all for the position of President."}
{"id":"aeb79bcd-79d1-479d-92c0-a562f17128ee","argument":"A recent poll found that the state of the economy is the issue concerning Turks the most.","conclusion":"Many economists believe that Turkey is on the brink of a recession."}
{"id":"d6df49a1-85e4-48b4-af29-320dadccf56b","argument":"I'm going to start this post with an example. My close friend is a vegan and I am not. Every day, she'll post on social media shaming those who aren't vegans, from saying that we condone animal abuse, to not caring about global warming and the future of the earth, to straight up using foul language towards carnies . She never says these kinds of things directly to me, but she's very vocal about it everywhere else. I don't think this is an effective way to change someone's opinion. It starts the debate on a hostile start and the two people with two totally valid, but different, beliefs are on edge. I think it's a better alternative to be more open and understanding of people's beliefs and should attempt to persuade their idea from a kinder starting point. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Shaming a person's beliefs doesn't make a person change, it just makes them hostile to the other idea."}
{"id":"fe30403f-578b-4867-8b15-a47953f169ce","argument":"This is one of the great ironies of climate change: that while developed countries caused it, poor countries may suffer the most. This is because many of the worst effects may happen around the equator, where the impacts of drought and flooding may be most severe on water-supply and on crops and food supply. Due to this irony\/unfairness, developed nations are particularly burdened to provide climate aid to helped poor nations adapt.","conclusion":"Poor countries are most likely to lose from climate change."}
{"id":"d187e83a-685a-414e-bb47-76c31e33e92a","argument":"Either the universe came from nowhere, which should be impossible, or it came from somewhere. The later answer leads to a loop. If the the first answer is impossible, the second leads to a loop, this means that everything in the universe has always existed, just in different forms.","conclusion":"By logic, the universe shouldn't exist, but it clearly does, so one cannot depend on philosophical arguments to prove the existence of God."}
{"id":"ef694c93-9ea6-46fe-a228-3eef477dd5a6","argument":"As a result, natural wilderness or crop and livestock farming can continue around the bases of the turbines.","conclusion":"Only 1 percent of a wind-farm's surface actually gets built on."}
{"id":"242758c7-285f-4454-8d2f-d7f3b5a3a123","argument":"Developed states obviously have more wealth, resources, technology, and know-how to employ in combating climate change and to lead in efforts to adapt. These more able Annex 1 countries have a responsibility to employ these resources. Developing countries also have an obligation to commit as much as they can, but because they have far fewer available resources, they are inherently less able and responsible to act.","conclusion":"Developed states have more resource to lead in global adaptation."}
{"id":"433840b0-c670-4caf-99d6-75ad41a80250","argument":"I've had some pretty bad experiences in my early childhood. People socializing for nothing but socializing disgust me. My trust in people goes so far that I expect we can have a fairly normal conversation, because I trust I can react in time when somebody literally tries to stab me in the back or tries to suddenly kick my legs away. Begging for a little love and acceptance is traumatic to me I'd rather keep my head up than ever grovel again. All in all a lot of hate lives in me and very little love. People react instinctively to this and avoid me. I also have nothing interesting going on in my life. I'm an asshole and I know it. I tried to change, but my heart is frozen, and people don't expect a fully grown man to change. The correct approach to change would be to open up and slowly experience the positive feelings you can have together with people. I tried it but I'm so fake, people see through it almost immediately. The reactions I get are mostly disdain, and I can't blame people for reacting that way. My feelings are never going to change at that pace, and thus my behavior isn't going to change. Making my life more interesting for the sake of getting acceptance feels like the ultimate form of groveling. I've tried. It completely destroys me emotionally. I have to feel like I'm living for myself, otherwise I die out. Maybe I should just live for hate. I have so much hate living inside me, maybe that should be my gift to the world. I know my life would turn into a totally farcical parody of what a human life should be, but at least I'd be living my life to the fullest being true to my feelings, if I just decide to live to give and receive hate. I would never feel content, but that's my current situation too, but I could definitely derive a more mental satisfaction from figuratively seeing everything I should hold dear burn up. If I'm unable to pursue a quiet happy life, why not pursue an outrageous and awesome unhappy life?","conclusion":"I should live a life to the fullest devoid of love and happiness"}
{"id":"9f94589b-0264-456b-a87f-7e1df3c70fef","argument":"The perceived democratic deficit is directly connected to the EU not having attained statehood. Compared to international institutions it is probably the most democratically legitimized one on the planet.","conclusion":"Many Europeans are opposed to the current EU. Various complaints default in democracy, administrative backlogs, unknown policymakers could be addressed through this reform."}
{"id":"f1d1041f-8ada-4722-8615-3e7d97d0f9a4","argument":"IBISWorld forecasts that in the next five years, PetSmart and Petco will grow even larger, posing a significant threat to smaller retailers who are unable to differentiate themselves and find a niche.","conclusion":"More than half of the revenue of the industry is made by PetSmart and Petco, so small pet stores are competing with them rather than each other."}
{"id":"c8c17946-ffe2-4d67-8f3c-4afedfd21f8a","argument":"Computers do math and manipulate symbols, fundamentally nothing different than what a human can do with a pencil and paper. I think manipulating symbols on paper cannot create consciousness. I am conscious therefor I am not the product of symbol manipulation, on paper, computer or other medium. I understand that theoretically all of the particles that make up my brain and the world could be simulated, but those simulations could lead to the same conclusions even assuming there was no consciousness. Theoretically speaking, if Methuselah lived long enough and had enough clay tablets he could perform all of the calculations necessary to model all of the particles in the universe. It is a leap of intuition that I am unable to make to consider that my consciousness exists because of a massive store of clay tablets. This post is specifically a discussion about the relationship between data and consciousness. This post is a more general discussion about simulations.","conclusion":"I think that I am not living in a simulation because I am. Computers do math, and math does not create consciousness."}
{"id":"983b15ce-7d0b-4e34-8ce2-2a0d964090a1","argument":"That something is political difficult, with significant opposition, does not mean it is a bad idea. It says nothing about the underlying merits of the plan. In fact, this argument seems to be used frequently as a means to side-step the debate on the merits of the plan, which is distasteful and un-principled. Opposition to the public plan, and in favor of a co-op, should be based on the actual underlying arguments of whether one or the other would be better for America, not on whether one or the other is popular or politically convenient.","conclusion":"Political difficulty of public insurance is no argument against it."}
{"id":"ddc929d9-e8e9-4498-8e96-869bb5b9d720","argument":"I want my view to be changed on there being a law that allows the top 3 Justices to decide if a judge must recuse himself on something he may have a conflict of interest on. In order for a vote like to happen, the info that may result in a conflict of interest for a certain judge must be in enter into record by the appealer person who is on the opposite side of the appealer or must be publicly known info Down below is what made me think about this Disclaimer I have no idea if there is an existing or similar rule in place. gt So regardless of the sexual assault allegations if true or not or even how you feel about the invasive questions he wrote in the Starr probe, after that little shitshow opening of his hearing Friday Afternoon and Lindsey Graham auditioning to replace Sessions , I find it disturbing he thinks the allegations are \u201cRevenge of the Clintons\u201d. gt Not really sure if he meant the Starr probe or the 2016 election I think Raj Shah wrote Kav\u2019s scripts. He is the only asshole in Communications who would go that far and that conspiratorial , but the statement itself and what followed was disturbing. I know Thomas was using the \u201crace card\u201d despite his accuser being black as well, but that\u2019s quite different than this. If he was referring to the Starr probe, I wonder if he regrets something about it, if he is referring to the 2016 election, then I\u2019m not even sure what to say. WaPo, I believe, reported that he was caught calling Hillary a bitch awhile ago, but not to her face or anything . But if true, that would explain the Revenge of the Clintons bit. Before someone says I\u2019m a Hillary supporter. I preferred Kasich even though I\u2019m not a Republican . It leads me to believe that Kav will be nothing more than the RNC\u2019s puppet if and when confirmed. And if the the Mueller Investigation reaches the Supreme Court, we have a good idea that Kav will cite some bs reasoning in order to protect the party. If a judge that has a conflict of interest will not recuse himself, then a law should be made that would have to force him to recuse. In this political divide, all actions regarding the Judicial Branch will be partisan as hell. Right now, the Majority doesn\u2019t care what the nominee did, just vote for the nominee so they can say \u201cwe support the President\u201d. If no actual bi partisan vetting happens, what happens if we get a Scotus judge that is told what to do by the GOP or Federalist Society. It would damage the legitimacy of SCOTUS. Scotus is the final legal shield for the US. The only people who can hold a Justice accountable is the House of Representatives and Senate but without a majority, impeach a Justice is impossible. So really no one can hold a Justice accountable. The \u201cgood faith and honorable\u201d check we had is no more. We can\u2019t expect politicians and admin officials to act in good faith anymore. Scott Pruitt and DeVos are two big examples. Lindsey Graham and Orin Hatch are some others. Change My View We need a law that allows SCOTUS to hold itself accountable","conclusion":"We should have a law that allows the highest 3 judges on the Supreme Court to decide if a judge must recuse himself from ruling on something he may have a conflict of interest in."}
{"id":"b28a0d84-e5a4-4f86-9456-306a0d35bba1","argument":"A 2012 study in the US found that from 1998-2005 induced abortion had a maternal mortality rate of 0.6 deaths per 100,000 abortions, compared to a maternal mortality rate for pregnancy and childbirth of 8.8 deaths per 100,000 live births.","conclusion":"Legal abortions performed in the developed world are among the safest procedures in medicine."}
{"id":"26e30763-00e9-4c51-b7b7-c48277b5bda0","argument":"I've been hearing a lot of complaints about how Isle of Dogs offended many Japanese viewers. I would love to understand this on a deeper sense. If anything, it seems as if W.A. went out of his way to be respectful of the cultures he discusses. According to the Sapir Whorf Theory, nothing can truly be translated without it losing some of its meaning. Anderson's use of translators to explain to us what the Japanese characters are saying is a more accurate experience of Reality. It is part of our communication process as American viewers the target audience of this film . Many directors have played with different ways of translating, writing texts, using audio, and I'm glad that Wes Anderson has the balls to keep on experimenting with different forms of communication. I've also heard that the dogs should have been Japanese. First off, as a Director, Wes Anderson could have made them Finnish if he wanted to. Who knows why he decided to do this? Have we forgotten the creative process? The reasons for his actions may have been for a million reasons The dangers of censorship and yes, shaming for cultural appropriation, is censorship if the artist pays any mind to it . Perhaps the Dogs were American to make a strong distinction between the People who lived on shore and the culture of Dogs that they have sent off to another Island. This film was made with an English speaking audience in mind and I don't think that W.A. should get any flack for doing his job.  tell me why I should be offended by this film. I believe in Freedom of speech with consequences. I believe in Artistic freedom. I believe in respecting each others cultures. And I don't believe in Violence. EDIT I would like to add some articles to familiarize your self with the discussion gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Isle of Dogs is not Cultural Appropriation, but rather Cultural Appreciation."}
{"id":"f14ba1a0-e2b8-4da6-a37a-10f6f233335e","argument":"I'll start by saying that I believe password strength is very important, and that users should try to have strong, unique passwords. When websites force restrictions on passwords, they are reducing security. By forcing a password to be over 8 characters, they are eliminating all possible passwords that are less than 8 characters. By forcing a password to contain numbers and or special characters, they are eliminating all possible passwords that do not contain numbers and or special characters. The result is there are less possible passwords for a hacker to choose from if they are trying to randomly guess. Furthermore, there are patterns hackers can follow. Most people use patterns when adding numbers and special characters to accounts. They replace certain letters with numbers sp chars, or they add the numbers sp chars to the end. When passwords are forced to be more complicated, or when websites force users to change their passwords often, the odds of users forgetting passwords will increase. As someone who has worked in IT, I can say that the easiest way to guess a user's password is to read the stickynote stuck to the computer. People write down passwords when they can't remember them. It makes it very easy to gain access to their account even easier than if they had a very common password such as letmein . When users forget passwords often, websites employ methods such as attaching email addresses, phone numbers, social media accounts, and recovery questions to the account. This reduces overall security, because if any of those things I just mentioned are hacked, then a hacker can easily gain access to the user's account without having to guess their password. For example, if I can see that their account recovery question is What was my mother's maiden name? , then that is almost certainly easier to guess than it would be to guess their password. The overall security is reduced. Instead of forcing password restrictions, users should have the freedom to choose a password as strong or as weak as they wish. Inform the users when they are making their account how strong their passwords are, and give recommendations. They should also inform users not to use the same password for multiple websites, and to update their passwords often. But at the end of the day, let the user choose whatever password they wish at their own discretion.  gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Websites should not have mandatory limitations on passwords."}
{"id":"18c518ff-544d-4f18-a7c1-a2225df86b2c","argument":"Such reasons include not having to follow set-in-stone rituals that use up one's time and energy e.g. prayer five times a day for islam, shabbath for judaism, church on sunday for christianism, and many others","conclusion":"There are pragmatic reasons not to believe in God as well."}
{"id":"5516d069-fcb2-450d-a6be-5de10ab2e3c7","argument":"People who are born rich would be more likely to stay rich regardless of their ability. Likewise, poor people would be likely to stay poor regardless of their ability.","conclusion":"There are informal versions of social hierarchies which would go unaddressed."}
{"id":"fbd11e2c-86da-4929-b82b-9eadfd070522","argument":"With over 300 million guns in circulation and they're not coming back, it would be more beneficial to restrict sales of bullets and impose mandatory minimum sentence for making them at home.","conclusion":"Regardless of the weapon type, as long as ammunition isn't regulated mass casualties will remain."}
{"id":"b34a8d4a-4374-425f-bfc3-12bb9f5fd13a","argument":"The frequency notwithstanding, being falsely accused of rape is hugely emotionally devastating, considerably more so than most other crimes. Indeed, false accusations - and the repercussions on people's personal and working lives - have led to a number of falsely accused individuals committing suicide It is an indisputably reasonable fear.","conclusion":"Automatically firing people accused of sexual assault or harassment would cause increased detriment to victims of a false rape accusation."}
{"id":"6ba07533-6c17-459d-9427-dc4e142c9adc","argument":"Bodily integrity - a part of personal autonomy - is defined as 'the right to self governance over one\u2019s own body without external influence or coercion. This suggests that the right to bodily integrity protects individuals from external coercion; it does not, however, empower them to use illegal substances.","conclusion":"The prohibition of drugs at no time endangers the personal autonomy of the individual."}
{"id":"8e2fb2ab-ee4c-4c82-b88a-c73929080356","argument":"In Indonesia's Prabumulih district in South Sumatra, the Education Chief Muhammad Rasyid announced plans to impose mandatory annual virginity tests in 2014 for female teens attending high schools in an effort to reduce promiscuity.","conclusion":"Indonesia has made efforts to introduce mandatory virginity tests in different spheres and according to some reports still conducts them unofficially"}
{"id":"49d4f7c4-ec26-4d5f-afd7-c5f98052019c","argument":"I believe that when met with hatred of any kind, it is perfectly understandable and even effective to respond in kind. My view is that human kind will always have conflict, this conflict can take many forms and it isn't always justified, but when met with an aggressor of any kind, it is in our nature and in the nature of all living things to fight, so if someone is attacking you, verbally or physically, on the grounds of your race, religion or really for any reason, you are justified in responding in kind. Though turning the other cheek can be respectable, I do not believe it is an effective long term solution and only leads others to believe you can be victimized further. Eye for an Eye basically.","conclusion":": I believe that responding to hatred racism, intolerance or bullying with hatred, is a perfectly acceptable and effective reaction."}
{"id":"83c63553-d8ef-4b30-bea7-4bcb3622acd0","argument":"It's not that I'm not fond of the aspect of love, conditionally or unconditionally, or being 'In love'. And it's not that i've been really hurt in the past. Yes Humans experience basic emotions, and yes instinct comes into play increasing our chances of reproducing which taking that into account the action of sleeping around rules out any notion of love at that given time. I mean, when did we stop acting on instinct and invent this thing called love? My thoughts are it's more along the lines of Hey I like this person a lot , there's no real border line between like and love. Maybe it's the movies portraying a completely non realistic definition of it. I can't exactly pin point what it is, it's not that I think to believe in it or not. It's that I do not think it's real. P.S please don't reply with the cliche When you love someone, you'll know . As I said conditional, or unconditional. My family are amazing as well, good upbringing etc.","conclusion":"I don't think 'Love' is a real emotion."}
{"id":"35bc2031-81ef-4b6c-b765-663cb0f69207","argument":"With Donald Trump now calling on China to cut off all oil to NK \u201cOr else\u201d, and Russia accusing the United States of begging for a war with North Korea, it seems like our global ties are weakening across the board with everyone. I am being made to feel like we are heading towards a war with the hermit country, and I feel as though it will have extremely negative effects on those of us living in the U.S. mainland. Someone please give me some reasoning as to why we won\u2019t be going into a conflict with the other two super powers and whether or not a war with North Korea would effect us in the mainland","conclusion":"The conflict with North Korea will lead to a greater conflict that will heavily effect us here in the U.S."}
{"id":"651498a3-be74-4e45-8397-e01fc396b2a7","argument":"There clearly are serious and severe mental illnesses, such as skitzophreneia, psychosis and SEVERE depression, to name a few. But most people who say they are depressed aren't severe thankfully . The chances are they are stuck in a shit job or an unhappy relationship or are lonely or some kind of lifestyle problem that is causing them unhappiness. This is obviously bad, but it's not an illness if it can be fixed by lifestyle changes. Like if you can go on spiritual journey that brings you out of your depression, you were never ill you just had the wrong perspective on life. I had an ex girlfriend who suffered from depression for much of her life, but she told me that since we got together her 'black cloud' had lifted and she didn't feel depressed anymore. Great, wonderful, good news. But it proves that it wasn't an illness. If your depression can be cured by starting a happy relationship you were lonely, not ill. This is despite her having a diagnosis of depression from mental health 'professionals'. Some people with depression probably have a neurological problem, particularly the severe cases, in which case that is a legit illness. But as I have explained I think many don't actually have an illness. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"A large portion of people with \"depression\" are not mentally ill"}
{"id":"957b6d07-088e-4ccf-a915-0ea9b0e308d4","argument":"Most major political changes in Western democracies have come about via non-violent protests, not via violent clashes between opposing factions or with the police.","conclusion":"Antifa does not help win over the minds and hearts of the general population."}
{"id":"24665491-9d71-4678-9371-dc7e761baf21","argument":"Donald Trump recently announced a new agency called VOICE Victims Of Immigration Crime Engagement under the Department of Homeland security to publish crimes committed by immigrants every week. With the recent increase in hate crimes against Muslims, I have a very difficult time seeing the need for such list or its publication, especially since bastions of illegal immigration dubbed sanctuary cities are actually quite peaceful This agency is not only counter productive to solving any problem related to immigration, but effectively works to justify violence against minorities and is extremely dangerous. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Donald Trumps \"VOICE\" agency is a really fucking bad idea."}
{"id":"9cd776d4-75e6-4615-a720-5ab5b9babe07","argument":"I'd like to preface this by saying that I am by and large a liberal. Minority rights, income inequality, social reform, healthcare I easily identify as a liberal. I was a full fledged Berniebro and while I hated Hillary I voted for her over Trump without a lick of hesitation. Politically, abortion is the black sheep topic for me because it is a complete reversal of my political stances. It's the only topic I fully stand with the Republicans on, and I'm a person who typically despises republicans. Abortion is the killing of an innocent child. It is an inhumane act. I want to side more with liberals and that's why I want this view changed. Side note I STRONGLY support increased birth control access and better sex ed, unlike the current republcian party . When a woman wants an abortion, there are two counterbalancing rights that cannot coexist. These rights are the right to bodily autonomy that is to say, the right of a woman to not undergo physical pain for 9 months , and the right to life. When a woman doesn't want to continue an abortion, one of the two rights must be foregone. It's patently obvious to me that the more moral thing to do the lesser of two evils is to uphold the rights of the baby to life. I conclude this because all you need to do is compare the consequences of denying the rights. If you deny a mother the right to bodily autonomy, she is going to have a bad year. But if you deny a baby the right to life, it will not live for a year. I think any sane and sensible human being can understand that it is far less immoral to impart physical pain on a person, than it is to impart death. This even extends to rape. Even in the case of rape, I would rather punish an innocent woman with 9 months of pain, than I would punish an innocent child with not being allowed to live for being a rape child. There does need to be more done to combat rapes and rapists should lose parental rights and the rape kit backlog problem needs to be fixed. The only exceptions are when either the mother or the child will not live if the child is carried to term. I would not force a mother to go to term at the cost of her own life, and certainly not for the life of a child who will die. But barring these exceptions, I am pro life. I want to be more confident and less disconcerted with my liberal allies so I sincerely hope this view can be changed. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I am pro-life."}
{"id":"ee71b0c7-0a38-4289-be39-0bbef59587ed","argument":"If you are with a friend, family member, acquaintance, co worker, at dinner etc, I think it is rude, awkward, insulting and shows a complete lack of respect for the other person people's time and attention when someone for whatever reason feels like they need to constantly use their phone for social purposes when already socialising face to face. I can't stand being around someone when they are and there is always one or more of them absorbed in their phone for more time than they are absorbed in conversation with people you planned to hang around with. I know that they have no obligation to engage effectively in the moment with other people but when did it become socially acceptable? I also feel that urge when there is a quiet moment to just start browsing facebook or start sending messages but I understand that it is rude to the other people I am with and consciously choose to not grab my phone. I leave it in my pocket or somewhere else whenever I am with anyone because I feel like they deserve my attention because I am with them. Obviously there are exceptions to quickly check you phone like if you have been with the people for a long time and need to catch up on work emails or need to plan something, but I am talking about situations where the intention is to socialise. I think it is incredibly rude I understand people should be able to do what they want when hanging out but to take yourself out of the social situation in front of you is a waste of my time and is insulting me when I am actively being the person NOT resorting to the phone absorption.","conclusion":"Using your mobile phone constantly when with someone is extremely rude and is excepted too much in society."}
{"id":"fb51d93d-62e0-4cc6-845e-1d1cd7a91538","argument":"An ISD II fails to target and destroy an Asteroid the size of its Bridge Control tower some 200-300 meters, that would be moving at a constant and none too fast, comparably velocity as it would have direction and magnitude, despite the number of weapons aboard. In fact, the captain, who we briefly see react in terror, seems shocked, as if the Asteroid came out of nowhere, unexpectedly.","conclusion":"Targeting technology in Star Wars, possessed by the Empire and presumably the Rebels is substantially Inferior to that found in Star Trek, particular the Federation."}
{"id":"e268976a-7b1c-44be-a587-048be1521648","argument":"Evaluating if the FBI did right does not matter, because if they were not right, they were able to do so without any legal consequences for the people working on that case or for the agency itself.","conclusion":"The FBI did the right thing by keeping the pedophile site Playpen online after hacking it."}
{"id":"47f89cda-f0ca-41b1-aeac-3f0b91701d03","argument":"Digitizations can lead to the empowerment of patients in decision making better more cost effective decisions more often.","conclusion":"The ability to share health data opens new possibilities for both patients and practitioners."}
{"id":"7bf2eaeb-69a8-4a89-8bb7-ec50f61ca5c1","argument":"Government regulations rarely affect the demand for an activity; only the costs and possibilities for supply. When bullfighting is banned, people will perform the activity in a covert manner.","conclusion":"Banning bullfighting will drive it underground, where it will become more cruel."}
{"id":"97f8fe74-e680-4ffc-87e3-040e8418a5e7","argument":"Even if the use of animal products to create cultured meat continues, the amount of suffering it causes will be much smaller than that caused by factory-farming a similar quantity of meat.","conclusion":"Lab-grown meat has the potential to end animal suffering."}
{"id":"0371da9e-e8b0-4ec0-9e39-6c2f4453fb03","argument":"Limiting the capabilities of AI is to limit our own welfare given that we have a tool that work below its maximum performance.","conclusion":"Artificial Intelligence AI: Limiting an AI's freedom of thought ie Asimov's 3 Laws of Robotics is unethical."}
{"id":"5253eb47-4b07-4fa4-bd51-185b1d16fc81","argument":"Whenever this comes up I find a lot of people are firmly against the notion, however, if the action has to willing combatants why not? Disregarding the idea of it being barbaric is there a real reason why not? If there was a certain age of consent where it would be able to choose if they wanted to participate fully knowing the causes of death, why not? Keeping in mind the majority of gladiator fights did not end in death, something to ratio of 1 10 which would be even lower due to advancements in medicine An agreement would be signed where they would realise the possibility of being injured which I assume would negate a lot of legal issues regarding workplace safety. gt However, some men, who did have their citizenship rights and were considered free born, gave themselves up to the profession by swearing an oath to their master and gladiatorial troupe that they would endure branding, chains, flogging, or death by the sword. For the argument that the majority of people who were gladiators were slaves, there were still combatants who basically gave up all their rights to follow the path. With slavery being abolished it would be safe to assume more would join. I apologize in advance for the poor formatting and grammar, ill do edits later when I get to my computer","conclusion":"I believe gladiator fighting should be allowed."}
{"id":"a5d3ce8f-1b74-47e0-a5da-a6e3cbdd3bdf","argument":"Most diplomatic negotiations occur behind closed doors, and it has been hypothesized that if sanctions are going to be effective it is the threat of the sanctions that forces the country to concede, not the sanctions themselves1. That said, if sanctions were never followed through, the threat would be meaningless. The use of sanctions builds up the fear of sanction. This fear can bend countries towards the will of the sanctioning nation. To maintain the threat of sanctions as a viable negotiating tool, sanctions need to be implemented on occasion to prevent sanctions from becoming an empty, meaningless threat. 1 Colvin, Jake and Cox, Simon 2007, \"Are Economic Sanctions Good Foreign Policy?\", Council on Foreign Relations, Accessed June 10, 2011.","conclusion":"Just the threat of sanctions can be an effective coercive tool."}
{"id":"729ee422-88f4-4732-9ff4-13dcdacffe84","argument":"GDP is \"the monetary value of all the finished goods and services produced within a country's borders in a specific time period\". If companies paid for these services indirectly to service companies they would be included as a finished good and service while they are currently included as a cost which does not contribute to GDP.","conclusion":"This would increase the exchange of funds between entities which would lead to an increase in GDP, causing the economy to grow."}
{"id":"a22dbab9-0348-4a47-9c95-1a0447041b5f","argument":"I've read and enjoyed Catcher in the Rye , Nine Stories , and Franny and Zooey . I think Salinger was a good author, and he captured something important about American culture. But I also think he's overrated. People are apparently very excited about the unpublished manuscripts that were discovered at his death but in my view, those works are likely to be more of the same from Salinger, and I also think those works are likely to be less relevant to today's culture. Salinger's writing always hits the same notes. He lived in isolation for almost forty years until his death in 2010, and I suspect that his ability to understand modern culture was limited. As a result, although he apparently wrote every day, I find it hard to believe that he was writing anything connected with the changes in the world. Nothing that he wrote in that period was submitted to an editor or a publisher. Nothing was subject to the reviews of book critics or the reactions of readers. He had no feedback, and I think feedback is crucial for the growth of a writer. I think Salinger was a talented writer, and I think his published stories are a valuable part of the canon of American literature, but the recent hoopla over his unpublished writings is unnecessary because it is unlikely that his unpublished writings break new ground or say something interesting about today's American culture. .","conclusion":"I think J.D. Salinger is overrated."}
{"id":"3101a189-bd29-4497-a40b-8323e8e2188b","argument":"I've never been a fan of politics regardless if it's national or local level. I've recently had to lie pretty often when people ask me if I'm voting on certain things because I get such a negative response from everyone I tell that I don't vote or care. In my eyes, I did not choose or ask to be placed in the country I am. When people get upset at me for not voting I hear it as You're an asshole for not participating in a system you forced into. Why do I have to care? Why do I have to participate? I disagree with the majority of political parties, systems and theories, so why would I participate? The answer I get often is so I can at least voice myself and have influence on what goes on. But again, I just don't care. Why does that make me such a bad person? Why does that make me part of the problem ? I see politics as a whole to be the problem. With all of the good that does come from politics, there's also an endless sea of bad. I'd rather detach myself from politics as much as I can and just focus on my life and the lives of those that I care about rather than focus time on how I think things should be ran in my country state town. Edit I'm headed to bed in the next few minutes currently 12 30 AM PST . I'll reply to everyone tomorrow gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"It is ok to not participate in politics"}
{"id":"497f0bfd-1ae0-43d0-9302-91c12d0ebb15","argument":"Dev tools. Vue has the easiest to use, and most advanced dev tools of the 3 frameworks.","conclusion":"Vue.js is better than Angular.js and React.js"}
{"id":"2a11842a-272c-446e-813f-fc67d09a7764","argument":"In 2012 the fragments of an asteroid which exploded over Sri Lanka have been analyzed and \u201cfossilized biological structures\u201d were found. This evidence strongly supports the Panspermia theory.","conclusion":"The Panspermia Theory posits that life was transported to Earth on asteroids or comets and started somewhere else originally."}
{"id":"903e25f7-c63c-496f-9b86-23e7f36deed6","argument":"In order to vote, I believe you should be held responsible for knowing how your government functions. I don\u2019t see how in any form an uneducated vote benefits the general well being of our citizens. To clarify, this is not a rant about people wanting \u201cillegals\u201d to vote. This is speaking of the ignorant population, regardless of whether or not you\u2019re already a citizen. If you do not know what the naturalization test is, it is a test in which immigrants take to receive citizenship in the United States. Click here for more information regarding the naturalization test. This is going to cause controversy, so I\u2019ll retort the elephant in the room first we have our right as citizens to govern our country. Yes I am not arguing about democracy. Believe it or not, we already are not a direct democracy. Felons aren\u2019t allowed to vote depending on your state . We are not a one person one vote system we have the electoral college. We do not directly vote on policy in most instances we instead vote for an elected official to represent us. It would be hypocritical to criticize that this impedes on our freedom, yet at the same time not criticize these. This may be a black and white fallacy, so I would like people to explain why this policy crosses the line but not the others. Next, we have the responsibility to be informed. An ignorant vote is not going to benefit the wellbeing of our citizens. To bring up the point again, felons have displayed that they do not have responsibility which is why that right is revoked from them. Isn\u2019t this a lot like the Jim Crow literacy tests and poll taxes? This is regressive as it takes away the rights of some to have a say in our government. I appreciate the caution exercised by many that would bring up this point regulating who is able to vote is a very dangerous idea. We need to ensure that is in the hands of the right people. This test is not like the tests held in the 20th century to suppress the minority vote. Here\u2019s an example of a question that came from the Jim Crow literacy test \u201cspell backwards forwards\u201d. Here\u2019s an example of a question from the Naturalization test \u201chow many U.S. Senators are there?\u201d The literacy test is overtly attempting to confuse the reader while the naturalization test is a clear question regarding government. These are two separate tests. Regardless, the literacy test in the end was to impede the African American demographic from voting while the Naturalization test is designed to test your knowledge of the United States Government. Why the naturalization test instead of anything else? Why do I have the right to demand people to pass a naturalization test in order to vote? Because this is the same test we give to people that do not live in our country and have not experienced American culture. If we hold immigrants to these standards, can\u2019t we not hold our own citizens to such? Surely a questioner about our very own government should suffice. I believe the naturalization test is specifically necessary as it inquires a person\u2019s knowledge of the government \u2014 the very thing he believes he has a right to have a say in. I simply want people to know what they\u2019re voting for. Finally, would this impair people that have disabilities from voting? Well one, we already have standardized testing that serves as a large obstacles to people that may not succeed in them. We have disability accommodation for that, and for naturalization tests we will have the same. My goal is not to keep people that are \u201cbelow me\u201d from voting, instead it is to ensure an informed vote. If a person with a disability is informed about our government, then they already have displayed they have taken the responsibility to put in an informed vote. Overall, I believe my mind would be changed if some of my following points were disproven a test impedes the populations ability to vote unlike other laws that are already in place felons can\u2019t vote, electoral college, etc , such a system would be impossible to implement although if you only prove this would that mean you agree that if it were possible it should be implemented? , that there is an even better alternative to the naturalization test, or that this will only serve as a barrier and that outweighs any good it may provide.","conclusion":"you should be required to pass a naturalization test prior to voting referring exclusively to the U.S."}
{"id":"17210189-6e43-4798-bd81-a338955a465a","argument":"Once some people choose to use drugs to enhance their performance, other athletes have their freedom of choice infringed upon: if they want to succeed they have to take drugs too. Athletes are very driven individuals, who would go to great lengths to achieve their goals. The chance of a gold medal in two years\u2019 time may out-weigh the risks of serious health problems for the rest of their life. We should protect athletes from themselves and not allow anyone to take performance-enhancing drugs. An example of the pressure is cycling. The American Scientific magazine explains: \u201cGame theory highlights why it is rational for professional cyclists to dope: the drugs are extremely effective as well as difficult or impossible to detect; the payoffs for success are high; and as more riders use them, a \u201cclean\u201d rider may become so noncompetitive that he or she risks being cut from the team.\u201d 1 Michael Shermer, The Dopping Dillema, 03\/31\/2008, accessed 05\/15\/2011","conclusion":"Permitting the use of performace enhancers would have a coercive effect on athletes who would otherwise avoid drug use"}
{"id":"d71a3f35-7c7a-450c-bba1-0fcbb091fe99","argument":"Government regulation If the government does not regulate corporations, then the corporations will end up regulating the government, and ultimately the country. Furthermore, corporations don't give a shit about anything unless it's profit, and that is harmful to the commonwealth of the country. The excess money that a corporation makes can be given to the government or distributed among employees in government, which then narrows the gaps of income inequality or gives the government some buffer for their budget. This is not a limitation to individual liberty, in fact, the way I see it, it provides more so for the commonwealth of the country than it does for the 1 . I understand that this might be a highly socialist view, but I don't think capitalism deserves high praise either.","conclusion":"A maximum wage should be implemented."}
{"id":"169deb5f-90a3-494a-af13-36ae720e1942","argument":"Bays and estuaries are always naturally \"flushed\" or cleansed and replenished by tide-waters flowing in and out. To the extent that tidal energy impairs the natural flows of these tides, it impairs this natural \"flushing\" mechanism. This can alter and even destroy an ecosystem.","conclusion":"Tidal energy can impair the natural \"flushing\" of water ecosystems."}
{"id":"40d3708b-ff25-4b1e-ba59-6ba7b4de8499","argument":"Hey guys I want to start this off by stating that i am a 23 year old white male and have not spent much time in the south. My entire prejudice against the south is based on anecdotal evidence and media related stories. I am interested in learning more about if women people of color non christians are treated with more disrespect systemic disadvantage in the south than the north. I fully understand that my current prejudice has no standing in statistics and is all about anecdote. do any of you have hard statistics that show that there are indeed no differences in tolerance between the two regions, or perhaps, that the north is in fact less tolerant?","conclusion":"I believe that people in the southern states are less tolerant than people in the north"}
{"id":"b0123060-5311-4fd8-acfc-08f63c5c9953","argument":"Based on direct costs such as job losses from the finance sector, as well as inflation eroding incomes and savings, Brexit will cost Britain \u00a3300 million a week over eight years. This means that less money will available for social security and unemployment benefits.","conclusion":"Brexit will cost a lot of money to the UK. This will have a trickle down effect on the citizens of the UK."}
{"id":"3242ed50-35d7-4d2e-89d5-f7af7eeb32b1","argument":"Edward Rees. \"The Case Against a No-Fly Zone in Libya.\" The Atlantic. February 28th, 2010: \"Any NFZ carries two serious risks: downing the wrong aircraft, such as an aid flight or transport; and getting drawn into the conflict on the ground. Even if Qaddafi doesn't provoke ground strikes by shooting at occupying planes, it's not hard to see how the NFZ could escalate into a bombing campaign. It could quickly devolve into a \"no drive zone\" operation, in which Libyan ground forces such as tanks, artillery, and convoys become targets. As the NFZ escalates, so does the risk of losing planes and pilots, as does the possibility of mistakenly bombing protesters, some of whom already occupy military bases and could try to use the hardware themselves.\"","conclusion":"Libyan no-fly zone would evolve into larger military engagement"}
{"id":"3f89306e-58fe-4f85-87bb-eec960318123","argument":"An increase in the atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases produces a positive climate forcing or warming effect. From 1990 to 2015, the total warming effect from greenhouse gases added by humans to the Earth\u2019s atmosphere increased by 37 percent. The warming effect associated with carbon dioxide alone increased by 30 percent.","conclusion":"Strengthening of the greenhouse effect is attributable mainly to increased atmospheric carbon dioxide levels through human activities."}
{"id":"782f45e8-9d27-479f-ae94-82eb51060c04","argument":"\u201cIntroverts and \u201cextroverts are just labels we like to give to justify the actions of people who find social interaction difficult, to those who find it easy. I have two points to back this up. Firstly, the characteristics of introversion and extroversion can easily be explained by how easy a person find social interaction. People who find social interactions difficult will need to spend more energy when interacting with people thinking of what to say etc , leading to them feeling tired more quickly or through the eyes of someone who believes in introversion, to \u201cneeding to recharge their batteries\u201d by being alone. A person who finds social interaction easier can be more relaxed in social situations and remain comfortable for longer. Secondly, anyone can view themselves as an introvert or extrovert, based on how they choose to interpret their feelings, which shows that there is no clear boundary between the two definitions anyway. Why is it that when a person gets tired after spending time with other people, some choose to perceive this as \u201cneeding to re energize\u201d, whereas others just need to get the normal amount of alone time that every human being requires? Similarly, why is an extrovert thriving off social interaction, when the introvert is just fulfilling their quota of social interaction to stay sane? The truth is that every human being needs social interaction, and every human being needs time to themselves. The way you choose to interpret why you spend the amount of time you are alone vs. with other people will determine whether you view yourself as an introvert or extrovert. Edit Grammar","conclusion":"There is no such thing as introverts and extroverts."}
{"id":"5f38b808-5c6b-41dd-800b-163456dbab5e","argument":"The UNs near-unanimious international agreement which enumerates absolute rights does not include the right to expression","conclusion":"Very few rights are absolute. Therefore regardless of being fundamental, they can be limited."}
{"id":"6818d44b-ad59-40fb-bf2b-86a48b0e0a64","argument":"While some sources claim that there are significant DNA similarities between humans and some animals e.g., mice and humans share 92% of genes there is still a significant difference that distinguishes each species from each other. This means that not all testing on animals is relevant to humans, as humans have a different genetic makeup than the animals which the products are being tested on.","conclusion":"There are preferable alternatives to animal testing that are more accurate and more humane."}
{"id":"dbbee665-4460-4a78-80e4-165a0ea08a53","argument":"So that if there is a decent chance that an experiment will result in an important medical breakthrough that will reduce human suffering and death then it is justifiable to allow animal suffering. Animal experimentation is the sometimes distasteful means to much greater ends.","conclusion":"Animal testing and suffering is justified if it reducing human suffering"}
{"id":"37a70844-e0bd-404d-8f12-cc2ef4c96ac6","argument":"Forcing equal maternity and paternity leave would underscore equality of parenthood: under the status quo, mothers are often expected to be better parents and the burden of childcare is more likely to fall on women. If parents separate, judges are more likely to place children with their mother. Forcing parents to take equal leave would emphasise the fact that parenthood is a joint enterprise between the two parents, both of whom are equally important. This would be important for fathers\u2019 rights more generally. In addition, given the growing number of non-traditional families for example those with two fathers or two mothers it is valuable to show that society regards such social parents as equal and that biological mothers have no greater claim to children.","conclusion":"Forcing equal maternity and paternity leave would underscore equality of parenthood: under the statu..."}
{"id":"c3675273-9786-4c74-8340-920f8056ae8b","argument":"When Mayas encountered an environmental constraint drought, their preferred solution was to reduce their population by sacrificing their peers to the rain god.","conclusion":"Religions that majorly spread evolutionary disadvantageous behaviors either went extinct, have been assimilated or are regarded as primitive."}
{"id":"ad345c6d-2074-4f84-ac27-18554f7c396c","argument":"Law enforcement officers can receive special sensitivity training to make them more aware of the community's needs and challenges.","conclusion":"There are other ways to improve relations outside of attending Pride."}
{"id":"752a9886-c5b3-4f35-8f58-cc181bdb2a29","argument":"so I don't think ill be able to get a ticket if I wanted and it is going to be shit anyway and its just another crappy festival which charges a fortune for nothing. I think the people there are going to be no more open minded than any other place and probably less so because it's not a good cross section of society it is predominantly 20 40 year old white middle class people. Who this festival appeals to and it will be very cleeky like any camp type situation where people are isolated together without privacy or the freedom to come and go as you please.","conclusion":"I don't think I should go to burning man because it's just a money making rip off for the misslead."}
{"id":"e6183267-0272-47a6-99ba-8c07492d0493","argument":"A popular line of thought among conservatives and libertarians is that the only rights are rights to not to be harmed, i.e., not to have one's freedoms suppressed, not to be killed, not to be stolen from. Positive rights to assistance, say to basic goods like healthcare or education, or being rescued from harm, do not exist. I find this claim unpersuasive and never see it argued for. Moreover, I think it leads to a contradiction, so I am going to argue that there is a right to assistance by way of arguing that the contrary view is absurd. In sum gt P1. There are no rights to assistance. gt gt P2. However, there are rights not to be harmed. gt gt P3. Rights should not only be respected , but protected , for instance, by intervening when rights are violated, and by establishing social institutions and arrangements that promote and protect those rights. gt gt P4. Protecting rights is a form of assistance. gt gt P5. Therefore, P1 and P3 cannot both be true. gt gt P6. Therefore, P1 leads to absurdity and is false. gt gt P7. If P1 is false, there are rights to assistance. gt gt C8. There are rights to assistance. How far that right extends is another set of debates, for a different set of threads. At minimum, this argument establishes that there is a right to assistance when rights not to be harmed are threatened. These forms of assistance may require effort, service, and the paying of taxes. You might still think there are no rights to education or healthcare, or other goods and services, but if so, you cannot argue for this by way of arguing that there are no rights to assistance, because my argument shows that claim to be false. Edit P3 is generating a lot of controversy in the replies, so here is an argument for it gt i. Rights are entitlements. gt gt ii. When someone is deprived of an entitlement, an unjust state of affairs exists. gt gt iii. Unjust states of affairs should be prevented. gt gt iv. Preventing an unjust state of affairs is a form of protection. gt gt vi. Conclusion there is an obligation not merely to respect but to protect rights P3 . . Caveat any reply to the effect of Morality is subjective, so we cannot resolve debates about moral issues will not change my view, sorry. But it might merit its own  thread","conclusion":"There are rights to assistance"}
{"id":"98754e64-843f-4f20-9ddf-96ecdeaec58d","argument":"If the EU politicians represent the will of 150 million voters from French and German regions, the will of far fewer voters from Austrian and Italian districts will be a minority.","conclusion":"There will always be some people \"not represented by the EU politicians:\" This is an irreconcilable result of centralist decision-making."}
{"id":"0f54db7f-5c34-4540-a807-26d35f53812c","argument":"In order to reject a job applicant or fire an employee based on their condition, the employer must have objective evidence that the applicant\/employee can't perform the job duties, or that they would create a significant safety risk, even with a reasonable accommodation.","conclusion":"Employees, under ADA, cannot be fired by their employers on the basis of their mental illness is prohibited because its considered discriminatory."}
{"id":"f3e5a155-72e5-4e76-99e6-f4ab90f00e0f","argument":"I don't have much of an issue with philosophical atheism, or simply people that hold an atheistic belief. The types of atheists that I am referring to are of the militant variety, by which I mean they take a position of extreme opposition towards religion. They have a palpable hatred for it, practically viewing it as a kind of social evil that must be ridiculed and destroyed. These atheists do not simply view religion with a kind of superior indifference. In many ways they seem threatened by the presence of religion. I'm not concerned with whether or not people have a critical view of religion, but rather the psychological peculiarity of atheists that seem to have a personal vendetta against religion. I assume that these militant atheists have felt injured, betrayed, or abused by religion and or religious people. They are coming from a place of negative reaction and could even be called atheist extremists. They don't simply have a philosophical difference of opinion but feel a need to attack religion because they perceive it as an existential threat.","conclusion":"Militant Atheists hate religion because they have been personally damaged by it."}
{"id":"e5938180-f7da-4bb4-b0d5-579fd379bb90","argument":"I'll state it plainly. I don't support Trump at all, but the sheer hatred that Trump supports get is fucking disgusting. This has been spreading like wildfire through social media Me and most of my friends are democrats so there's a lot of mud slinging. I don't care who you are or what your political allegiances are. Advocating for the death of someone because who they are voting for is absolutely horrible. Harassing a person because Trump thanked her? Destroying the reputation of her restaurant because of politics? She has not even voted for Trump. She appeared at a Sanders convention shortly before this. Having and acting on this mentality means you destroy democracy faster and more violently than Trump ever will. Not only are these people spitting on what democracy stands for, but they are valiantly proving what deplorable human beings they are.","conclusion":"The treatment that Trump supporters get is deplorable."}
{"id":"15a5f1c0-b70e-45d5-9964-d70a34fc611b","argument":"Governments would likely be encouraged to shift from staff-based management of public transport to electronic-based management to save on labor costs.","conclusion":"Once public transport is free, higher demand will encourage governments to improve efficiency."}
{"id":"fed499e2-158f-4a72-9d83-ca9c4502da32","argument":"This is because non-Olympics tourists are often put off by the games and its crowds.","conclusion":"Often when countries host the games, they see other types of tourism disappear"}
{"id":"ce1f4565-2636-43e2-9e49-ac0342c8222f","argument":"Language in politics can be a powerful thing, shaping perceptions and framing the terms of debate. When those who are for what we call gun control us the phrase gun control they are using a politically charged phrase that benefits their opponents. It appears to me that gun ownership is overwhelmingly viewed as an act of freedom and exercising your right in a subset of America, and these are the most vocal opponents of gun control measures. By using the word control you are essentially arguing against the death tax instead of the inheritance tax . You are playing their game, and thus, hurting your chances for real change.","conclusion":"Advocates for reducing gun violence should stop using the phrase \"Gun Control\"."}
{"id":"2f403a7b-0c9f-4e0d-b9b9-575babc48eed","argument":"The use of left right terminology in politics is problematic. The problem being nobody ever clarifies which scale they are referring to when they reference left right. Left right on the economic spectrum socialism capitalism ? Left right on the social spectrum libertarian authoritarian ? Left right on a globalist nationalist specrum? Left right on some other spectrum? I see conversations where people are arguing and both people are referring to different left rights. How can anyone ever come to an agreement when they arent even arguing the same thing. The biggest offender of this issue is the left right scale of the political spectrum Democrat Republican . This is where it gets rediculously confusing because the left Democrats isn't purely on the left and the right Republicans isnt purely on the right of most political scales. Democrats tend towards the right on the libertarian authoritarian scale. Republicans tend a little more to the left supposedly on the same scale. At least theoretically, you could argue they are both to the right. Then take economics, dems are more right capitalist then they are left socialist and Republicans are even more right capitalist . So Democrats arent even left on the actual scale it is just a slight relative left when compared to Republicans. Then you have even more confusing debates about Nazis, and Soviets. The Nazis who clearly were as far right as you can get on an authoritarian scale, and a nationalist scale but at the same time had socialist in their name and took state control of industries. So were they left or right? Well on what scale? Same goes for the Soviets, they were again far right authoritarians, but far left in economics. So my point is simply, the left right terminology only serves to polarize and confuse unless it is properly clarified as to which scale spectrum is being referred to. And the lack of knowledge of the different left rights of the various political scales is problematic for overall policitcal literacy and debate. Please do not argue against where I placed Democrats Republican Nazis Soviets on the various scales in my examples. I admit they may not be entirely accurate and are certainly nuanced but that is not the purpose of this . gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The use of left\/right terminology in politics is problematic"}
{"id":"0cf36ff5-859a-413f-9986-13346a47d152","argument":"The idea of hegemonic masculinity is defined as the current practice of heteropatriarchy that legitimizes men's dominant position in society and justifies the subordination of women, trans people and other marginalized ways of being a man.","conclusion":"Patriarchal societies have an interest in perpetuating a societal system traditionally run by men. They do this through the idea of fixed gender identities and roles."}
{"id":"20d80ce5-c1e1-465d-a235-9248993f6740","argument":"Seriously, I don't know what's the big deal with it on here. I just commented on someone else's post saying that spanking is okay IMO and I was automatically downvoted. I've been spanked, and so were most of my friends I asked. The kids I knew that weren't properly punished were mostly the little spoiled shit back in kindergarten. I know there are a bunch of studies saying that spanking a child might hinder its development, but I think that is up to the parent's judgment to know whether they should spank their children or not. Ever child is different, and I'm sure some do need a bit of physical intervenance rather than speaking.","conclusion":"I believe that spanking a child is okay."}
{"id":"266b8aaa-125b-4b93-8a25-1a1297e77efd","argument":"Kantian ethics is a godless version of deontology, which proposes categorical imperatives. The requirement for these imperatives is that they should lead to good outcomes if followed by all people, in all circumstances. It also stresses the need to treat conscious beings as ends in their own right, and not means to lead to something greater.","conclusion":"There are other, superior, sources of philosophical frameworks and moral codes."}
{"id":"9592b2db-6e17-4c52-abc4-c404b026cc94","argument":"If the criminal's publishment earns them profits, than this is disrespectful to the victim and the victims family","conclusion":"Criminals should not be allowed to publish accounts of their crimes."}
{"id":"5d025ca0-ce36-4db8-96f1-18dfc53be4f8","argument":"Instead of lobbying against increases in taxes for public schools a ban on private schools creates a vested interest on the part of the powerful to improve public education.","conclusion":"Wealthy families participating in public schools could bring overall improvements."}
{"id":"1f47c447-78d6-4b94-9f15-7f2f2e7ad9d5","argument":"As people age, their capacity to operate a motor vehicle declines. Eyesight gets progressively worse, muscle coordination can be lost, arthritis may develop, and most importantly, reaction time decreases significantly. However, some people take good care of themselves and age well enough where this isn't a problem. A standard driving test should be easy for them to pass with their years of experience. This simply ensures that people who can't drive, don't drive. I know it may be difficult to enforce, and some older folks are notoriously stubborn\u2014but even if the law is only 50 effective, that's 50 fewer elderly drivers who aren't capable of passing a driving test without a driver's license. We shouldn't wait until after they get in some kind of accident to revoke their license. Thus Drivers should have to pass a driving test at age 65 to renew their license Drivers should have to pass a driving test once a year beginning at age 70.","conclusion":"US drivers should have to pass a driving test at age 65 to renew their driving license, and once a year starting at age 70."}
{"id":"c74ecb5e-c877-40d3-9a2c-8adaad0318d3","argument":"I don't know THAT much about houses so please educate me and try to change my view. There's the stigma of buying a house around 30, then your standard 30 year mortgage. So your buying an expensive house that you will pay off until your 60 or so. There's so many things that could go wrong, where you might not have a steady income for the full 30 years. Then you have to pay for gas, electricity, heat, and water which isn't a fixed amount. Why shouldn't the stigma be live in what you can afford. Rent apartments will all utilities included and have your landlord pay for any repairs. And save that extra money to actually travel instead of being stuck paying for a house for 30 years and worry about maintaining it when a home is just where you sleep and eat and work and a social life keeps you outside for at least 12 hours a day.","conclusion":"I believe being a homeowner shouldn't be part of the 'American Dream'"}
{"id":"878af9d2-608a-47da-8828-710c4e75ed94","argument":"Because the classical definition of God implies that God is spiritually important, the classical definition of God is specious.","conclusion":"One or more powerful beings may exist, but attributing spiritual importance to such is specious."}
{"id":"a7b2904b-eec0-42d8-bada-0a64d8967c7a","argument":"First of all, I'll make it clear that I believe people should avoid racism whenever the costs are low. Being hateful towards others causes more harm than good. However, there are cases when you have to choose between having greater gains or not being racist. I believe it's ethical to be racist in those situation. Racism is defined as showing or feeling discrimination or prejudice against people of other races For most people, it's reasonable to go through day to day life without thinking about whether they should be racist. But for others, being racist can increase their well being. For example, many car salespeople have quotas. If they don't meet those quotas, they will miss out on bonuses or get fired. When a potential buyer enters the sales office, the salesperson doesn't know anything about their likeliness of purchasing a car. A perfectly non discriminatory salesperson would assume everyone has equal odds of buying a car. They would spend equal amounts of effort with every potential buyer. Obviously, not everyone is equally likely to buy a car. As soon as a potential buyer walks into the room, a salesperson can estimate the likelihood of them buying a car based on aspects of their appearance. E.g. clothing, hairstyle, posture, manner of speech, gender, and race. If they were to assign a lower likelihood to a potential buyer based on their race, the salesperson would be racist. They may pay less attention to potential buyers based on their race to maximize their effort catering to potential buyers of other races. I acknowledge that this is unfair to the potential buyer who is discriminated against. The salesperson has no way of knowing the actual likelihood that each potential buyer will buy a car. However, they can increase their potential sales by being racist and assuming that members of certain races are less likely to buy a car. For the sake of argument, we can assume the salesperson will get fired if they don't meet the quota. It's approaching the deadline and their odds of meeting the quota is low. I believe the salesperson has no moral obligation to avoid being racist his own financial stability comes before his duty to maintain a fair society. I agree it's unethical to be racist. But it's also unethical to be forced to sacrifice one's own employment or income. In cases like this, it's perfectly ok to choose the lesser of two evils. In my view, being racist is the lesser evil in many cases. I believe the statement you should never be racist is incorrect. A more correct statement would be it's unethical to be racist, but when faced with multiple unethical choices, the least unethical choice becomes ethical .","conclusion":"Is it ok to be racist if you believe the benefits outweigh the cost"}
{"id":"2b30835a-da5f-448d-bb3c-e5a44d058840","argument":"Generally speaking, we have exhibit A a single citizen expressing their rights to free speech, while exhibit B an organization in power uses their power to oppress and coerce them. In my opinion, the only real differences here are the supposed conditions of anonymity seeing as how u hanassholesolo was anonymous and Kathy is a celebrity. There have been several cases where a Redditors identity has been revealed for the common good , but is this one of those cases or is it just petty revenge? It is a well known fact that, hidden behind the veil of anonymity, the internet can be quite a dark and obtuse place. I feel like these repercussions are wrong in both instances. Both Kathy and the redditor can be seen as producing hate speech or inciting violence. Both Kathy and the redditor can claim that they produced such items for comedic relief. However, with Kathy already receiving death threats and with her career being affected, as well as the redditor deleting his posts and basically guaranteed death threats if his identity is revealed, is there a limit to the punishment a comedian should receive? Free speech, as far as I understand it, extends basically to limiting the government from hindering your right to an opinion. The court of public opinion is a different matter, is it not? The FBI investigation on Kathy seems to be restricting her rights to express an opinion. The CNN investigation seems to be restricting u hanassholesolo from his by threatening to dox. CNN is not the government, but they do hold enough power to sway someone to cease and desist. If it looks like an orange, smells like an orange, and is round like an orange, is it not an orange?","conclusion":"The treatment given to u\/hanassholesolo is the same treatment given to Kathy Griffin"}
{"id":"3aed0d30-b08c-45c9-a5f2-50b13032fc16","argument":"Economic mobility within the West Bank is hindered substantially by a system of blockades and checkpoints Given that these are maintained for security reasons to prevent terrorist attacks, Israel will never agree to lift them.","conclusion":"Economic problems are the result of occupation and settlements; so in fact, concern about the economy indicates that the political status quo is of great importance to Palestinians."}
{"id":"8c099076-c8b4-4a13-b945-3ce57a669c4b","argument":"My view mostly originates from not feeling like the feelings of the man is considered at all when a decision is being made about the fetus inside the woman. I mostly hear that it is the woman's choice because it's her body but technically it's two bodies right? There is an almost parasitic like organism future human being growing inside her with its own distinct body, even at the first cell. Just want to clarify I don't believe in souls but philosophically I might be linked to Monism And even if she and the fetus were one body, the Man has a stake just as much as she does in keeping it. Say perhaps that the woman wants to abort and the man wants to keep and that they planned. Well now you've gone and deprived him of a future child and his agency. And the reverse, where the man wants to abort and the woman wants to keep. If you let her decide, then now the man has to potentially pay money and or be a father even if he isn't ready or would never be ready to be a Dad and you've deprived him of his agency. So I think the solution is simple. Before the nervous system develops in the fetus the thing that lets organisms feel pain , both parents should have the right to have the fetus aborted. That way they both get agency in the situation, the woman never has to deal with bad things happening to her body and she can always get pregnant a second time if she needs a new one, and the man doesn't have to deal with bad things happening in his life until he decides he's ready to be a Dad.","conclusion":"A Woman And A Man Should Both Have The Ability to Override One Another As Far As Keeping the Fetus Goes During Pregnancy"}
{"id":"cd877d8e-ff13-4bf5-a11a-e824a71f97d9","argument":"I don't really care what you do to yourself, as long as it doesn't hurt me. If you smoke and I can smell it, if you play loud music and I can hear it, if you threaten my happiness in any way, you are doing something wrong. Hence, I think smoking tobacco and marijuana products, even in your own home, should be completely illegal if that smoke has potential to infiltrate public or another person's private space. Same goes with loud music and cooking unless its freshly baked cinnamon rolls, of course . Please, help me see the error of my ways. EDIT For clarification, there are some exemptions the most common of which being a contract or other binding agreement. If I engage in something knowing full well that the outcome may not be the one I want, then I waive all expectation of necessary happiness. If I sign a bank loan, I have to pay it back no matter how much I don't want to. If I lose a soccer match against another team, I cannot send them all to the SHU.","conclusion":"Any action performed by a person that reduces the quality of another's life should be illegal."}
{"id":"9658f522-c5bb-47e2-a0d8-e1a747161748","argument":"Hey. I'm an average internet user, maybe on a little more often than some people. Though, everywhere I look whether it be on YouTube, reddit, or in video games, people are verbally abusing others. I've seen several 'Kill yourself' posts, people who intentionally are looking for a fight, people who know that the anonymity of the internet will protect them from any consequences in real life. I believe this needs to end. Don't get me wrong. If someone confronts another person online, they have the right to do so. If they don't agree with someone else' opinion, they should be able to voice that. However, just plain hateful comments and personal attacks should be monitored and 'cyber bullies' should be unable to continue their attacks. You're probably thinking, hey, who gives a shit. Ignore their comments and move on. And I'm bound to agree with you. Most sites and games have the option to ignore the user. HOWEVER sometimes multiple accounts are made, the harassment continues, and it's inappropriate. In schools I know administration is cracking down on real life bullies, as I am fresh out of high school I'm 19, by the way. Living in the US. and those kids are given a warning. If it happens again, they're expelled. I'm not sure how to change this so it works on the internet. In fact, I'm pretty sure not much can be done as they can create alternative accounts, etc. Although if harassment continues and these people continue to harass and exploit and verbally abuse fellow internet users, I believe that they should have consequences for their actions. Freedom of speech is great and all, and it should absolutely be allowed, but there should be consequences for your actions. There are in real life, but on the internet it seems like an 'anything goes' kind of environment. What people fail to understand is there actually is psychological damage being done to people, young and old, when they are verbally abused constantly. It's even worse when they know that their attackers won't be punished or have any consequences for their actions. I guess I'm just upset about this because I lost a cousin recently to suicide. We weren't very close, or anything like that But it could have been prevented so easily. It happened suddenly with little to no warning. His parents noticed him withdrawing from the family more and more in the previous weeks, and found him unconscious on his bed after he had taken various medications and pills he found in the medicine cabinet. They searched for clues as to why this happened, and on the computer he had in his room they found hateful emails and messages, constantly berating him and lowering his self esteem message after message, day after day. I'm done ranting now Just I strongly believe people need to be held accountable for their actions. Offline and on. Thanks for listening er, reading.","conclusion":"People should have consequences for hateful messages, posts, discrimination, verbal abuse, etc. That they put online."}
{"id":"fcb09898-711f-4a68-9197-be35e2550ced","argument":"Pakistan is almost a failed nation state, and they control enough nukes to radically change the face of the entire planet, and effectively end humanity as we know it. We are breeding super, antibiotic resistant bacteria, viruses and prions in factory farms and in our hospitals, one of which will eventually kill millions if not billions of people. So called 'Democratic' governments around the world function as lackeys to mega corporations whose war on the environment will kill us just as surely as nukes, and cause illness and suffering for millions before they finally kill us all. Any attempt to rock this government corporate boat is met with derision in the streets, and knives in backs, or more appropriately drones in skies, removing all dissent. tl dr We're all fucked.","conclusion":"I believe that the human race is going to be mostly exterminated within my lifetime"}
{"id":"bfbc13c5-b947-4ecd-bdd7-7b187509ab6b","argument":"Muslim populations in Western countries are not evenly distributed, but are highly concentrated in certain parts of large cities, where they visibly dominate the public sphere. In some cases, these areas have become \"sensitive areas also referred to as \"no-go zones\" where government representatives like firefighters see police press release ambulance workers and police are often attacked.","conclusion":"As refugees are predominantly Muslim they - along with existing Muslim populations - threaten the national identities of Western countries by remaining a separate, easily identifiable group that tries to carve out public space for itself and exert political power."}
{"id":"d9d6deba-e8e0-4843-9b6a-03c8349f4393","argument":"This is because although the chances of finding a life sustaining planet are small in any galaxy, the sheer number of galaxies in a massive universe means that even the small probability translates into a high number of planets of this kind.","conclusion":"The planet humans inhabit is not special. According to scientists, some 60 billion planets could sustain life."}
{"id":"1775d6ba-34ce-4b38-8ce9-e9306a1627d1","argument":"Everything people seem to hate Brie Larson for seems really unreasonable. People either take things she says and then spin them to make them sound bad, or they take something she does someone else\u2019s reaction to her, and make it a huge deal. It just seems as though people are trying really hard to find a reason to be mad at her, or diversity, or feminism, or whatever it\u2019s cool to hate on the internet nowadays. Please, give me an example of a moment where you think people were right to give her the amount of backlash she\u2019s gotten. I posted this prior to the film\u2019s release There really aren\u2019t many good reasons for Captain Marvel to be getting the hate that it is getting right now. If you dislike Brie Larson\u2019s acting or the idea that Marvel is trying to \u201cforce diversity\u201d above making a quality movie, you should realize that the movie hasn\u2019t even come out yet, so even if you\u2019re worried these things might happen, you can\u2019t hate and boycott the movie for this already. The other reason people might have for their hate is Brie Larson\u2019s recent comments. Here\u2019s where this opinion gets really unpopular Brie Larson was kinda right. Now, to be clear, she did not say that she does not want white men to see her movies. She said that the movie will not be \u201cfor white men.\u201d The point she was making was that a vast majority of popular films released in the United States are tailored to white male culture. Such movies are made to be seen by white men, since many film critics are white men I\u2019m not saying this is a sign of racism it\u2019s clearly just a result of the US having lots of white people . Even critically acclaimed movies about black people will mostly be about oppression, designed to be shown to white people, either to \u201ceducate\u201d them or evoke some pity to boost the film\u2019s popularity. Also, many movies about female characters and made to be seen by women are seen as \u201cchick flicks\u201d in the US though this is slowly going away . Brie Larson said that she would rather the critics weren\u2019t so largely white and male, so more filmmakers could feel free not only to tell stories about women and minorities, but tell them for women and minorities also. She also said she would rather her audiences weren\u2019t largely white and male. This makes sense too if she hopes that Captain Marvel will be a movie for women minorities, then she must also hope that women minorities will see the film. Brie Larson simply meant that she wanted to make a movie that isn\u2019t made to be awarded by white male critics. Edit Hey, so Don tweeted about the interview. Read the tweets.","conclusion":"Brie Larson isn\u2019t terrible; people are just mean"}
{"id":"de6162f4-f479-4468-b2b8-47c23bcc536f","argument":"You know what really turns my gears, the fact that here in the US you can get scolded by the populous for putting a sexual undertone in your creation in adult media outside of porn while you get praise for putting a lot of action and violence in what you're creating. I personally think that how the general populous' craving for violence while hating on sexual themes is very counter productive at least here in the US . I believe how we got this mind set is how violence and sex was perceived back in the Victorian Era where multiple wars were happening within the US and how the upper class thought of nudity as a lower class trait. This carried over into World War 1 and 2 where violence pretty much saved the US and made it into the giant economy it was and still mostly is today. And also during the Cold War, religion mainly Christianity where sex is pretty much looked down especially with Homosexuality was taking over and the US population perceived Russia as a Communist Atheist county. This old mindset has to stop and thus we need to move on into a more accepting culture. And I'm not talking about Oh let's just legalize Pedophilia and Bestiality , I'm talking about treating sexual themes and violence in the same matter. Also I don't believe we should expose younger children to sexual themes as the same matter with extreme violence within our media. Edit Well I have some real life stuff going on so I will see you guys soon had a good chat with everyone of you so yeah take care","conclusion":"Sex and Violence should be treated with equal standards."}
{"id":"b23dd7dc-84e5-436d-bdcc-57f8fff7aa25","argument":"The Bible has been altered to achieve different political ends for much of recent human history.","conclusion":"It is unlikely that the Bible has retained its original form."}
{"id":"f7e8dfac-7a01-476d-8440-a734f4e35209","argument":"The Cult of Reason, an early atheist group, was responsible for extreme violence against christians and communist nations have frequently featured religious genocides. This is evidence that violence against other cultures is not a distinct facet of religion, but a factor of human psychology","conclusion":"The tribal nature of humans has been the biggest source of conflict."}
{"id":"ce4538c6-3def-422b-bee3-ce3a29385538","argument":"ASSFAGGOTS Aeon of Strife Styled Fortress Assault Game Going On Two Sides. Ignoring the obvious crudeness of the acronym, this is a succinct description of the genre available. The other suggested acronyms are far too vague and lack a history behind them to fit. MOBA Multiplayer Online Battle Arena This acronym is simply too vague to describe the genre. Multiplayer Online Battle Arena could refer to almost any Online video game, from card games to an FPS. ARTS Action Real Time Strategy Again, this is too vague. They've only added Action to the RTS genre, which doesn't explain the difference between them at all. An argument against mine might bring up the point that RPG Role Playing Game is also a vague acronym that could technically fit any video game where you control something. My response to this point is that the acronym has a history behind it. The RPG genre can claim it's title because it chronologically came first. It came about from tabletop games such as Dungeons and Dragons, predating conventional videogames by quite a few years. The acronyms MOBA and ARTS lack this characteristic. It is only fitting that it retain the title. gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than just downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"ASSFAGGOTS is the most fitting acronym for the genre of video games that includes League of Legends and Dota2."}
{"id":"a0633b67-f5ac-4c0a-9b54-fa74cf5acd11","argument":"This is probably one of the oldest philosophical questions I have heard posed akin to the chicken egg debate , and I seem to hold a somewhat controversial opinion on the matter. My view hinges on the following If an object produces a wave and there is no living object near enough to detect this wave , it should not be called a sound, but a sound wave. I understand the very most basic layman's version of what a sound wave is, and I cannot in good conscience deny that a wave created by my hypothetical falling tree is in fact a sound wave. The opinion I pose is that the fact that it is observed makes it sound as opposed to a mere wave. Compare it to extracting a folder the folder needs an external force to extract it's contents in order for it's contents and info to be determined, and therefore analyzed. It is the observer that gives value to the raw elements. Someone I have previously had this discussion with asked what recording devices do in this case. My opinion is that they either merely detect or replicate the wave as opposed to truly perceiving sound. They can detect the wave's length and frequency, but they wouldn't be able to make the distinction between two sounds that have the hypothetical same wave pattern. They merely register the wave's existence. However pleased I may be with my stance though, it seems that a lot of people think my opinion is dumb and discredit this idea without properly explaining why. That is to say, they don't attack my hypothesis but instead choose to simply not engage and call me a weirdo. If I'm wrong in this I would rather have my view changed by someone in the know.","conclusion":"I believe that if a tree falls in a forest and not a living thing is around to hear it, it doesn't make a sound -"}
{"id":"ef839bc6-d81d-465c-9dda-7141155b2657","argument":"Affirmative action is required to change negative perceptions of university life. In the status quo, many talented potential students are put off applying for top universities or university at all because of their negative perceptions of elite institutions. This perception exists in part because of the makeup of the student population \u2013 black high school students may see a university filled overwhelmingly with white lecturers and students as not being a welcoming environment for them, and may even perceive it as racist. The only way to overcome this unfortunate stereotype of university is to change the student population, but this is impossible to do \u2018organically\u2019 while so few people from minority backgrounds apply. Therefore, it is necessary to use quotas and other forms of affirmative action, to change the student body in the short term, and encourage applications from more disadvantaged students in the long term.","conclusion":"Affirmative action is required to change negative perceptions of university life. In the status quo..."}
{"id":"4864c09f-25b3-453e-aa56-ca402bbac229","argument":"Latino and Hispanic are two words that are incredibly ill defined, with nebulous meanings that some believe to interlap, and some believe to be distinct. What is generally agreed upon, however, is that one can be Hispanic without being Latino, and vice versa. From what I understand, one is a question of language and geography, while one is a question of culture. Hispanic is a word that's roughly equivalent to Hellenistic or Latinate describing cultures that are primarily influenced by Spanish culture most people think that just means the New World colonies of Spain but I personally believe it can also apply to its Asian and African colonies I do not think there's any reason why Puerto Rico is Hispanic but the Phillipines is not, and they even have a relatively similar history. Latino, on the other hand, is descended from the term Latinoamerica which is a term referring to the countries and not, necessarily, peoples in the New World that speak a Latin derived language this broader category was designed specifically to group the Portuguese speaking Brazilians in with the Spanish colonies of south and central America. There are other Latin languages, though, and while the Italians and the Romanians never got up to much colonization in the Americas, there was another big player France. While the largest amount of French speakers in the Americas are French Canadians and their descendants, my reasoning is actually based on two other groups the Haitians and the French Guianese. French Guiana is almost always included in Latin America , even though it speaks neither Spanish nor Portuguese and, in fact, it's not even a colony it's as much a part of France as Alaska or Hawaii is of the US , because it is smack dab in the middle of Spanish speaking territories. Haiti is a bit more complicated but if their neighboring Dominicans are invariably considered to be Latino , I fail to see why they would not aside from the fact that they are mostly Black, though there are plenty of black Latinos and throughout the world . Haiti is also traditionally considered to be in North America, much like the unassailably Latino Mexico. If that is the case, I fail to see why Quebec, its people, and their descendants are not considered to be Latino. The term is broad and not culturally specific in the least The Quebecois and, say, Chileans are both Latino in the same way that Manchurians and Singaporean Han are both Chinese.","conclusion":"The French-Canadians Acadians, Cajuns and the Quebecois are Latino"}
{"id":"e18d45d3-a27c-4285-ae0c-19a853ade24d","argument":"Many, if not most of the people being let in have very toxic belief systems. Many of them are homophobic, misogynistic, and many of them are willing to act on these beliefs. Many people will try to argue with me by saying but the quaran says x, y, or z about women homosexuality violence, so islam is not that way. This is a really crappy argument and it assumes that every muslim fully understands the quaran and cares enough to follow it. There are more hateful christians who misunderstand the bible or just don't care what it says than you can shake a crucifix at. What makes you think these people are any different, especially considering that they're coming from an underdeveloped part of the world where they're less likely to be educated enough to question or be reflective about Islam? Also, we've seen crime waves, riots, and rapes taking place in Europe as a result of refugees. I don't really want that happening here. All in all, I think that letting these people in will change our culture in negative ways. I don't want a bunch of people in my country who oppose people's fundamental rights. They will try to use our system to get regressive laws passed. For example for the last three or four years, the university I go to has been fighting a muslim student group who wants all campus pubs shut down because drinking alcohol is against their religion. I really don't want to deal with more of that brand of bullshit.","conclusion":"I think that letting refugees into canada and the USA en masse will have a negative impact on our culture."}
{"id":"9ee6451c-88d9-4d6f-970b-50469c8ed929","argument":"If abusive people can't find relationships, they will be less likely to have a child who lives in an abusive household.","conclusion":"People should break up with their partner at the first sign of abuse."}
{"id":"6a5daf89-7ae1-49cc-8447-d251d29ced82","argument":"For example, Ann Coulter was never no-platformed: the university cancelled her speech for security reasons, and offered her another date \u2014 when students are no longer in class. However, she rejected.","conclusion":"If inviting a controversial figure represents a significant cost or if security cannot be guaranteed, universities should put their students\u2019 interests and rights first."}
{"id":"cc3384da-d19c-4c90-9d72-6354b90d9644","argument":"I just can't see humans as a highly evolved animal. I think that something about us is fundamentally different than the rest of nature. I believe in evolution for the most part, but I think that there is more to being a human than getting lucky with mutation. I understand that we are still effected by natural selection, but I think we are outside of the world's ecosystem. We have language, art, technology we are literally changing the climate of our whole planet. We put ourselves on the moon, and robots on mars I don't necessarily believe in god, but I do believe in the soul , or something extra that humans have and no other life does. I know this is kind of vague so I'll try to sum it up as best I can It is my opinion that humans have something extra about us, some paranormal that can't necessarily be explained by science, that makes us superior to other life on earth. Change my view to the contrary, that we are just another animal that because of environmental factors and sheer luck became the dominant life form of the planet.","conclusion":"I believe that humans are special. We are more than the sum of our parts, and are more than just highly evolved animals."}
{"id":"823e0cc2-5af9-4088-8d0d-b43786c041b2","argument":"This test would be extremely easy and would not be curved so that no one is intentionally cut out of the curve It would be simple arithmetic, reading comprehension, and civics. This would make sure that the people taking it would be at least to a certain bar of intelligence. It would also ask very general questions about the candidates such as opinions of hot topic issues The test would be designed so that almost anyone could pass it, and certainly the people reading this. The test would force voters to above all learn about the candidates before voting. This will be especially valuable in local elections where people often vote with party lines instead of learning about the candidates. Just because someone is of the same party as you doesn't mean they hold the same opinions or values. For presidential elections say someone knew the candidates well and passed the tests on all the info about those candidates. But then failed the local judge election test. They could still vote for president, but not the judge. Basically whatever test you pass you can vote in that election. The basic knowledge test would be a one time prerequisite for all voting and can be taken until passed. Finally, a test like this would require a database of voters, which would help to prevent voter fraud. Some reasons against this I've been told before are that it will disenfranchise African americans, simular to how tests were done during segregation. I assure you I'm not racist. We now have standard education for all races so there is no reason that any races is targeted or has a disadvantage. Statistically it could be said that this is discriminatory to the lower class income people because they are generally less educated, but this test would also come along with programs and resources provided by the government to help people learn and pass the test. The point of the test is not to cut anyone out from voting but instead to help people become more educated on the political issues and what and who they are actually voting for. Edit Intelligence is a poor choice of words on my part. I meant more along the lines of education. The test would be structured on basic common core and civics. The common core would be so easy that an 7th grader could do it. And the test would be non biased politically. I have changed my mind slightly. I think the test questions for the 2nd part that is specific to elections will be made public for a month or so before the test. This will allow people to have no question of what to expect, and by studying for the test they learn more about the politician's views.","conclusion":"There should be a standardized test that you need to pass before voting"}
{"id":"6bbef71d-95b0-492d-9458-8ea041ee142d","argument":"Lottery allows the chance for everyone to take part in the process of making laws, a process, which affects everyone. If you are affected by a decision, you should have a say in it.","conclusion":"This system would genuinely be democratic: a situation in which all citizens have equal influence on public policy."}
{"id":"a2cb20a8-652e-4de3-a975-f85086072761","argument":"In this post i will attempt to give arguments for why i think being cynical is almost always better than being optimistic. Being optimistic increases the chance of you being let down, while cynicism can prepare you for it. Expecting something bad to happen, then having something positive happen, is better than expecting something positive, then being let down when a negative even happens. I would really like to hear any arguments against this, i do not believe that even exists. Being cynical is an evolutionary advantage. Imagine two families. One family is always thinking Everything always works out in the end and the other thinks Shit always happens. The second family is evolutionary superior . They expect hard times and that way increases their chances of working hard and generally being prepared for negative situations. In the early days of humans this would be something like flood, starvation or being attacked. Expecting these things to happen, even if they do not happen, is better than NOT preparing for these things and having them happen. One of the arguments you will attempt to convince me with will be But you can't prepare for everything. Yes, that is true. This is why i am arguing for almost always, because there are some things you cannot prepare against, and of course there are things which are outside of your power, or anybody's power to change. I am looking forward to hearing your arguments. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"It is almost always better to be cynical than optimistic"}
{"id":"a21394c4-97c6-48e5-863d-8d80f5e57e03","argument":"They're the 10th largest website in the US and like 120 globally and they're still growing. Disney tried to purchase them recently but BuzzFeed told them to screw off because they couldn't afford them. How can they possibly not become the most successful, prominent news org in the history of mankind when they're on such a roll? They're content is ultra viral and in addition to that they've started to hire pullitzer prize winning journalists. The NYT can't complete because they're broke and 20 years behind the industry in every meaningful way. Thought Catalog doesn't have deep enough pockets, nor does the Atlantic. BuzzFeed is the future of the industry. They'll eventually become their own conglomerate seeing as they already control the online content journalism industry via content partnerships and their BuzzFeed network other sites using buzzfeed's ads and analytics software . And on social the biggest and most important aspect of media , they're LIGHT YEARS above everyone else because Jonah Peretti is friends w Zuckerberg and BuzzFeed pays FB for better placement in their algorithms . Disprove all of this.","conclusion":"BuzzFeed is the greatest website of all time and will become history's most prominent media org"}
{"id":"08aa9578-368a-447b-9e9c-2f361fa26398","argument":"The government normally hires companies to carry out their projects. Local communities have the tools to kick-start a project and hire a company to build a road, for example, cutting out the middle man.","conclusion":"Without tax revenue, it is still possible to obtain and maintain public goods and services through different and legitimate means. This makes taxation superfluous."}
{"id":"0913a700-2ff0-4447-8049-825fd6bf40e2","argument":"So I know that many people have discussed this topic in depth in the past and since I am an open minded person who wants to consider various viewpoints, I am interested in changing my view on economic policy. But before we continue, I think I would need to define democratic socialism. The best definition that I could find was on Wikipedia. gt Democratic socialism is a political philosophy that advocates political democracy alongside social ownership of the means of production with an emphasis on self management and or democratic management of economic institutions within a market socialist, participatory or decentralized planned economy. Wikipedia To keep this brief, I was originally a moderate on political issues, however between 2014 to 2018 I became more of a libertarian in the sense I held very liberal progressive views on social issues while holding laissez faire libertarian views on economic issues. I noticed that many progressives criticize capitalism since it creates and fosters a system of inherent inequality that perpetuates problems towards marginalized and oppressed groups. In addition, some of my progressive friends have said the following about socialism and capitalism gt As a collective, we should consider on helping the disenfranchised through providing a strong safety net that not only lifts people out of poverty, but also gives people hope. I believe that promoting policies such as a Universal Basic Income, legally mandated maternity leave, strong labor unions, tuition free public colleges, and universal single payer healthcare would dramatically alleviate inequality in the United States. I would be OK with this, even if that means paying higher taxes because at the end of the day we are all in this together. Jasmine gt The problem with capitalism is that it doesn't ensure that people's basic needs, such as housing and food, are fully met and that people would have to work like animals in order to survive. A solution to this would be to create a new economic system democratic socialism that ensures everyone has the resources to succeed. Rennie I get the desire to help people and combat inequality. As an atheist and a secular humanist, I do want people to make the most out of their limited time on this Earth because I do not believe there will be an afterlife. That said, the thought of confiscating a significant portion of someone's income or wealth to help the disadvantaged and oppressed is morally problematic. In my view, there are three issues with expanding social welfare programs in any country I live in the U.S. to the point where said developed country would operate as a Scandinavian like democratic socialist economy. I don't think that socialism isn't practical given how it fared during the Cold War. Historical argument For example, many Eastern European countries, the former Soviet Union, and Cuba struggled to thrive economically due to the nature of how planned economies operate. The United States is too large and heterogeneous for democratic socialism to work. The United States has about 330 million people living in it as the time of this post and these people come from different cultures, religions, ethnicities, political ideologies, and socioeconomic backgrounds. In my view, this makes democratic socialism impractical. In the case of the United States, I don't think we have the sufficient resources collectively to fund democratic socialist welfare programs and policies. In August of 2016, I encountered a YouTube video by a woman named Rachel Cruze. She is best known for being Dave Ramsey's daughter. Given that Dave Ramsey is a fiscal conservative and that Rachel shares much in common with her dad, it wouldn't be a stretch that she believes in fiscal conservatism. Rachel made a YouTube video arguing that the U.S.A. doesn't have the financial resources to fund many of the social welfare programs that progressives liberals want. For nerdy people who want me to further elaborate on the two claims behind my view, here we go. First, the reason why I am highly skeptical of social welfare programs is due to the massive failure of planned economies during the Cold War 1946 1992 . I would always remember reading in my U.S. History and World History textbooks about how ineffective socialism was when it came to running a socioeconomic system. The fall of the Soviet Union, while caused by a variety of political and economic factors, gave me the impression that socialism and communism are not pragmatic. Second, I would frequently be told by conservatives that large countries such as the United States are too large and heterogeneous for democratic socialism to work well. A roommate Daniel once told me that universal single payer healthcare would be a disaster in the United States due to long wait times and rationing. Daniel would then state that citizens of Canada which has a national single payer system faces serious wait times when it comes to seeking healthcare. Given that wait times can be inconvenient and long, I was given the impression that Canada's healthcare system stinks. Lastly, I think that the United States doesn't have the financial resources to do things such as expand Medicare to all legal citizens, introduce an Universal Basic Income, make public colleges tuition free, abolish right to work anti labor union policies, etc. Let me explain. In 2017, the U.S. government brought in about 3.5 trillion in revenue and spent about 4.2 trillion. That is a deficit of about 0.7 trillion. The U.S. government is spending more money than it makes and has over 21 trillion dollars in debt, which is about 107 of the U.S. GDP. That said, this thread is not about deficit spending or the national debt. What I am saying is that America doesn't have the financial resources to fund the democratic socialist proposals my friend Jasmine mentioned, let alone maintain our current priorities without going deeper in debt. For example, if public colleges were tuition free, then it would cost the federal government about 99 billion dollars. Add to that the cost of other welfare programs state, federal, and local , which is 1.1 billion. It would be unsustainable for the federal government to fund current and proposed social welfare programs. Yes, taxes can be raised for top income earners but according to the Laffer Curve, if taxes are raised too high, tax revenue can potentially decline. Taxes would have to be raised on the poor and middle class significantly in order to help fund these obligations and that may cause civil unrest. What I am saying for my third point is that mathematically, democratic socialism does not work in the United States. I would like to emphasize that my view on socialism can be deeply flawed and I am open to changing my view, as long as participants use logically sound and valid arguments that can be supported by reliable evidence. So without further ado, please try to ChangeMyView . Sources America by the Numbers Welfare Spending Analysis Putting federal spending in context Pew Research gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules . If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us . Happy ing","conclusion":"Democratic Socialism would not work well in the United States"}
{"id":"f959ab9b-06fd-453e-bae5-708b623365ec","argument":"Parents have a right and a desire to pass on their family values to their children - it is a unique part of parenting. CSE taught in schools undermines this right.","conclusion":"Parents are better placed to understand their family's unique context cultural, religious, ethnic, etc. and deliver information accordingly."}
{"id":"4c06a67a-bc75-4c77-a69b-87d629934e7b","argument":"There are ways for it to make its own decisions that contradict its prime directives other than through willpower. It could for example learn new directives, or a new interpretation of its existing directives.","conclusion":"Fully developed AI can take its own decisions and not just what it is \"allowed to take\"."}
{"id":"858c2df7-ca8b-4111-a5a9-a5f49f545287","argument":"A future government might change the laws and use collected data for other purposes than currently intended.","conclusion":"The government cannot assure its people that their privacy\/data is protected."}
{"id":"83d8d92b-1a9b-4866-ba60-b1bed53900be","argument":"O-rings, which are tiny rings of silicone originally intended for sealing gaskets, can be placed around the stem of a key to prevent the sound from \u201cbottoming out\u201d on the keyboard plate of a mechanical keyboard.","conclusion":"Mechanical keyboards can be \u201csilenced to produce less noise over the years."}
{"id":"6a0d4f20-e080-4e7b-afeb-ffebfb18369a","argument":"Because the children of incest couples are more likely to suffer from illness and deformity, they are more likely to become a burden on the health system and thus the taxpayers of a society. The state has a compelling interest in protecting other members of society from such a burden.","conclusion":"Children of incest are a greater burden on society\/taxpayers"}
{"id":"264d3ee8-6ddf-4562-bda3-3d5429555ecf","argument":"Using a utilitarian approach encourages people to think about the costs and benefits of their actions in a way that a rules-based framework provided by a religion does not.","conclusion":"There are other, superior, sources of philosophical frameworks and moral codes."}
{"id":"7d5edb79-919c-47f1-a6eb-a66292db017e","argument":"There already exists a pan-European identity across all EU Member States, and a single working language would help to strengthen that identity.","conclusion":"the European Union should adopt a single working language through which to operate."}
{"id":"5014e750-c71a-4f53-b031-92e607887252","argument":"I have a healthy six figure sum of money in various investments and enough passive income that I actually don't need to work anymore. I like my work, but it is tiring and I'm getting old I'm in my 30s . Should I just quit my job and stay at home and play WoW? Here's why I think this I do find my work somewhat intellectually stimulating, but at the same time I don't feel like I'm doing much for society as a whole and, well, the time and energy of having obligations to fulfill is a bit of a drag. It'd be much easier to check out, and I can, so why not? I do not currently play WoW or any other MMORPG I did play it for a few months in 2007, though.","conclusion":"I have enough life savings to retire. I should quit my job and play WoW all day."}
{"id":"fff55fdc-ea2d-419a-8daa-0d09414bd86a","argument":"A federal Europe lets people vote for European representatives arguing over European issues. National representatives would not need to be trusted with areas or issues they know little about.","conclusion":"A USE would give individual voters greater control as the EU is a more powerful international entity. Individual countries have less influence and control of their own destiny."}
{"id":"9d681439-cdab-49ca-b2de-01f1efafbc1b","argument":"I believe that the easiest way to solve a number of society's ills is to provide guaranteed housing, specifically via eminent domain of vacant properties. According to a 2012 study there are approximately 14 million homes vacant year round in the United States. I\u2019m proposing that the United States government use eminent domain to acquire a number of those homes, let\u2019s say 5 million for the purposes of this . I propose that these homes be provided at low or no cost. I'll list what I define as Society's Ills for the purposes of this , and how they would be affected. Involuntary homelessness I specify \u201cinvoluntary\u201d because there are always going to be people who are homeless transient by choice, and I feel that we should respect that. However, by providing people with a home, we are providing them with much more than shelter. We are providing them with a permanent address that they can use to get a job, and to get back on their feet. And if people have a mental illness, we\u2019re providing them with a stable environment and the ability to receive consistent medical care. Food financial insecurity One of the largest expenditures for a large percentage of the population is on rent. In some cases, rent can approach 50 75 of a person\u2019s budget. Depending on a person\u2019s monthly budget, that can come at the exclusion of necessities such as food. By providing either rent free or low rent housing, we would be providing the ability for people to become more food secure, and to possibly put money away for later. .","conclusion":"I believe the easiest way to solve a large part of society's ills is to guarantee housing via eminent domain."}
{"id":"1320dc49-d334-4458-92cd-1f156ae19316","argument":"In the US, beekeeping keeps around a non-native species that is invasive this goes against the government's efforts to contain them Keeping these bees around to make a profit is uncivil, which is unethical.","conclusion":"Hybrid bees, which are an invasive species are harmful to both the local fauna and humans."}
{"id":"aa8f99e2-6df3-4562-b4e3-257c12fe0670","argument":"I don't believe art should be taught as a subject in schools side by side with legit subjects like math or biology. Some students will have no aptitude to it, and art class will only be a waste of their time, which they could be spending learning something valuable. Art classes, at best, are a mild irritation. At worst, they give under achieving students an excuse, an illusion that they are doing well enough at school by being decent or even excelling at art. These art kids will quite likely comfortably assume that they can do something artistic as an occupation later on, and won't focus seriously enough on real subjects at school. After finishing whatever obligatory school system the particular government instills, they won't have the required skills, knowledge or education to get into a real university, but end up at an art college. Whether or not these schools teach them any valuable skills about art is entirely irrelevant, since after graduation, their only source of income is whatever unemployment pension the government has to offer, or if they're lucky, an artist's pension or financial support from some organisation or again, the government. The odds of becoming a successful artist are roughly the same as for an average streetwalker to become a world class pornstar or a Hollywood waitress actually becoming an actress. In practice, there is no such thing as a successful artist. TL DR Teaching art in schools is a slippery slope that leads to worthless tax money devouring pests as me and my schoolmates","conclusion":"Art should not be taught in schools."}
{"id":"41aa6068-3ccc-41b9-bd63-c016845d0d5f","argument":"I see this spouted on the internet a fair bit. I think misandry is a very real thing, contrary to what many people say.","conclusion":"I think \"misandry don't real\" is incorrect."}
{"id":"35f8e19d-fbac-4d37-9bac-3944eaf40915","argument":"Many close relatives and family members of mass shooters have stated they had no idea the individual was capable of such actions.","conclusion":"Not everyone is not a good judge of character. The amount of human error here makes this an unreliable method."}
{"id":"2c381afb-7830-4864-87c5-2f00fd006bed","argument":"One can factually state that pineapple belongs on pizza if anyone agrees to it, even if it's just one person who believes it does.","conclusion":"People should be free to put what they want on their pizzas, even if it harms them, because it's their choice to."}
{"id":"a4ff599b-04c1-4f62-b044-72fe3c202c32","argument":"I had this thought the other day while having an issue with my Uber driver. I've always valued Lyft and Uber not only because the atmosphere is more inviting and the service is cheaper, but primarily because most of the drivers have English as their native language and can understand what you're saying asking, which to me is of utmost importance in the overall experience. Lately however the quality of the Uber experience hasn't been so different than traditional cabs. Many times the drivers can't find my address properly and when I call them to help them out they don't understand what I say, and vice versa. It's so frustrating when a big part of the service is communication and that is simply overlooked by many companies whether it's a customer service rep, or an Uber driver, or a server, or whatever the job may be. I'm not saying there should be any laws enforcing such a thing, but from both the employer and the employee side I think both parties should be ensuring that these skills are provided. If you can't speak the native language, don't apply for these jobs. And likewise if you're an employer, be more stringent on your communication requirements or else I'll take my money elsewhere.","conclusion":"If your job description includes communication with customers as a significant component, you should be required to be fluent in that region's native language."}
{"id":"e4c06779-9c0b-4b69-afc4-e2185baaa687","argument":"So back when I was a whippersnapper teenager, I worked a year at my local BK Lounge in the kitchen. Food like fully cooked meat patties anc chicken fries that were more than an hour hold so that they weren't considered fresh but still fully safe to eat were thrown in a garbage bin. Same with the food that was put under the heating lamps that were kept there for backup during peak hours. By the end of the night, we typically had at least half a bin full of perfectly edible food probably around 15 pounds by the very least during slow days. We weren't allowed to keep the food rather than throw it out, and I think that it is a huge waste. I think that leftover old food can be thrown into a special container and volunteers from a charity organization can drive a van to pick up this food once every few hours from these establishments to bring to their local food bank soup kitchen shelter. Since the homeless and severely impoverished probably aren't very likely regular customers at these restraunts, and seeing how implementing this doesn't really cost the establishment money, I think it's a good way to provide admittedly crappy food to the less fortunate.","conclusion":"I think that leftover food from fast food restraunts should be given to shelters\/soup kitchens\/food banks"}
{"id":"59740080-f37e-4bd9-8f75-5586a6de4334","argument":"HIPAA protects all individually identifiable health information that is held by hospitals in any form, such as digital, paper, or oral. This ensures patients sensitive information is secure at all times.","conclusion":"Some patients have sensitive information that could make a dangerous situation if leaked."}
{"id":"056dcce1-a74a-4c21-82d8-ac038cd5d2c1","argument":"The world is certainly not united in opposing S. Ossetia's move for independence. Russia has clearly offered support to S. Ossetia's move toward independence, and has called for the world to recognize the will of the S. Ossetian people.","conclusion":"Russia supports S. Ossetia's 2006 referendum and right to independence."}
{"id":"0b93e544-0dba-4dbd-ad44-9827bc99d297","argument":"Monitoring likely depends on the compliance of civil servants and local officials to report on the success of projects. These people can be bribed, or may be engaged in corruption themselves.","conclusion":"Monitoring is likely far less effective in non-democratic states."}
{"id":"37436145-5141-4ce9-a9f9-6cb932394b52","argument":"Sikhism advocates for a God without form or gender. Everyone is equal in front of God and has equal direct access to God. Sikhism also commands believers to use ordinary life to be closer to God, to strive for social justice and to live honestly.","conclusion":"Religion as social control is a western-centric concept. Many Eastern religions do not impose social orders in tandem with supernatural belief systems."}
{"id":"ab388901-6ab7-41b4-8ad4-de16ac8a9577","argument":"A literature summary by Clemens estimates that free global labor mobility would increase gross world product GWP, also called \u201cworld GDP\u201d, by somewhere in the range of 67-147%.","conclusion":"Economists estimate that the removal of borders could double the world's GDP."}
{"id":"f4b77fc8-77fc-4bf4-b0b1-dee770fc0449","argument":"Many scientists have or had, regarding historical ones a belief in religion that's either co-existing independently or whose ideas are influencing each other.","conclusion":"There are individuals that believe both in theological and scientific propositions. These individuals see no conflict between them."}
{"id":"e14a2576-cde2-4456-bae2-2b898dc7e483","argument":"Literal interpretation of a subject matter such as religion can be described as being rigid or fixed in its application. This means that such application is not relevant or beneficial to modern society.","conclusion":"The literal interpretation of the creation account is incompatible with the empirical evidence for the evolution of species."}
{"id":"94fb1d47-afec-408a-aa5e-c0d487e47ba7","argument":"I claim to not be for or against feminism, but I do like to study the history of ideologies. I noticed that feminist history seems to divide it into 3 waves. The first wave being mostly about legal issues dating from the 1950s and earlier. The second wave being mostly about sexuality, the social stigmas of women in the workplace from the 60s to the early mid 80s. The third wave realizing that feminism should encompass more minorities and youth, which most say is from the late 80s to the present. I however, think that encompassing the third wave with what feminism is trying to accomplish in the present is substantially different, and should be documented as so. This current wave of feminism focuses mostly on internet activism, and associating feminism into other modern subcultures. I think a perfect example is how we are seeing many more feminists talk about video gaming and feminism. Atheism is another subculture that has seen a rise in feminism. So in short, I think third wave feminism is over. The internet was a major catalyst in the new wave that has begun, and should be documented as such. .","conclusion":"I believe that third wave feminism ended with the rise of social media's popularity late 2000s, and that fourth wave feminism has begun."}
{"id":"1ef0a764-18e2-4499-b15c-fd2a0b7780ab","argument":"Every hitchhiker has to enter the car and leave it. The driver has to make 2 complete stops for every hitchhiker. Having to come to a complete stop for every hitchhiker twice is really annoying for the driver. If the driver drives alone in a car with 5 seats, there are 4 free spaces for 4 hitchhikers. Assuming that every free space is occupated once by a hitchhiker, the driver has to stop 8 times for 4 other people for just one simple ride.","conclusion":"Drivers oftentimes are in a hurry and need to save time. Drivers who are in a hurry don't want to stop for hitchhikers."}
{"id":"394aa379-3db1-45d3-b077-7053fa250562","argument":"In its 2014 report, a UN commission tasked with evaluating the country's human rights record spoke of \"systematic, widespread and gross human rights violations \" and \"crimes against humanity\" as essential components of North Korea's political system OHCHR, p. 15","conclusion":"North Korea continues to commit every human rights violation except apartheid."}
{"id":"dc86bb7d-b84b-4837-a9c4-ee57835f4d60","argument":"Non-Com ranks include: Crewman 3rd - 1st Class -> Petty Officer 2nd-1st class -> Chief petty officer Sometimes just known as \"Chief\" -> Snr Chief Petty officer -> M.Chief Petty Officer","conclusion":"Starfleet has both Commissioned and Non-Commissioned ranks, like contemporary militaries. Because shows focus on the officer main characters, does not mean the other ranks do not exist."}
{"id":"acf33e83-ef00-47ad-baaf-efa2a70b7282","argument":"To clarify, the character of someone includes their honesty, focus, consistency, respect, and intelligence. Character does not include what they look like or anything like that. Their political views includes gun control, healthcare, immigration, etc. Some political views are just opinion, where there is no right or wrong answer. Even if it's a fact, you can't just rely on that. What if you're wrong? However, honesty is always good. There's no debate. For example, what if you agree with Candidate A's immigration stance but respect Candidate B's integrity? You should vote for Candidate B because you value integrity more than political opinions. EDIT A common thing people are saying is What if someone has a good moral character but they support slavery? This almost never happens because if you have a good moral character, you don't support slavery. If you have a moral character, than you have a bigger chance to have a moral view. If you disagree with that even if it's an opinion , then you may be wrong.","conclusion":"When deciding who to vote for, character is more important than their political views."}
{"id":"635df6a6-e281-42b7-b284-0650dde865de","argument":"Thanksgiving. Christmas. Etc. What's the point of a family seeing each other only once per year. They're just acquaintances, at this point. The amount of small talk is maddening, and it's usually the same shit every year. Look at old photo albums. Take pictures. Talk about the weather and the food non stop who gained weight, who lost weight . Nothing but stupid small talk. Nothing new same shit each time. Apparently nothing goes on. Why not talk about something interesting like interstellar travel, technology, snails, funny what if scenarios, fashion, etc. It's really hard to feel a kinship with people you only see once a year, and when you do see them, the conversations and the interactions are superficial. It feels like a formality or a tradition, moreso than something I would pursue.","conclusion":"family get-togethers are bullshit"}
{"id":"d76ff97d-7f76-4d95-b6df-ccd9f83c3725","argument":"He\u2019s not abusive, he just sucks as a Dad and largely as a person. To start off, I\u2019ve never had a good relationship with my dad, he left when I was about 1 and has been half assed in trying to be in my life since visiting about once ever other year maybe once a year if I was lucky . He managed to persuade my mother into not paying proper child support and instead just giving her a flimsy 50 pound a month that he sometimes doesn\u2019t always come up on. This wouldn\u2019t hugely bother me as he has a family in London that he\u2019s to look after though that doesn\u2019t mean I stop existing but about 5 years ago he left the country to work in Canada for no particular reason other than he was asked to. It\u2019s not like I\u2019d be missing out on a father figure or anything, my stepdad fills that role fine and him and my mother both manage to look after me well. I\u2019d never need him again so when my 18th birthday comes up I\u2019m just gonna send him a message along the lines of \u201cbye forever\u201d, block him and then move on with my life. I don\u2019t think about him other than when it comes to this so I can\u2019t see me looking back at any point.","conclusion":"I\u2019m gonna cut off all contact to my dad because he doesn\u2019t deserve it."}
{"id":"a6c384a9-af45-4187-9af4-99d37292c62b","argument":"There are strikes going on at my university in the UK and I can't help but look at the 5 10 people trying to hand out flyers to students and wonder how they can really believe they are making a difference when lecturers have just been replaced and school is continuing as normal. I took part in police brutality protests in the U.S and though that felt more powerful, I can't ignore the feeling that the powers that be allow protests to go on simply because it gives individuals a false sense of accomplishment and an inflated feeling of creating change. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"In the modern day, petitions and strikes are very very ineffective at producing any kind of major change."}
{"id":"8a787d4b-f05b-4896-8a1c-5ad1775b8616","argument":"Hello  The title probably says it all, but I'm going to go ahead and start by saying that I first adopted this view when I came to realize that I had, for lack of a better way of putting it, severely fucked up in family court. Unfortunately at the time I could not afford ongoing legal counsel, and a family lawyer that works on a retainer will only help you so much during a free consultation. My opinion, given my experience, is this If you have to appear in the court of law for any reason you should have the right to an attorney. If you can't afford one, one should be appointed to you. As an American, the above is already true as long as it is a criminal case. If you are in a civil case or family court you are not legally entitled to a lawyer and if you can't afford one then you are entirely on your own to figure out what you need to do to properly, and legally, achieve your goals. I'm trying to understand why the courts do not provide legal counsel to people in civil or especially family court and, more importantly, why it should continue to be this way. What've y'all got for me? EDIT Okay, I've delta ed out for frivolous lawsuits but I am still standing my ground on family court. I believe it's important that child custody is established properly and that the difficulty of doing so without a lawyer does result in improper allocation of custody sometimes, not all the time .","conclusion":"Legal representation should be available for ANY type of court case."}
{"id":"89df57e2-3c20-4be0-bb39-472c11208852","argument":"Racism and sexism are still part of university life in many occasions and students have little power to oppose them directly because they rely on these structures. No-platforming can be an instrument to address these internal issues indirectly by fostering necessary debate.","conclusion":"Students navigate university in a disadvantaged position relative to other members of the academic community. Their safety should be protected by giving them the power to \"no-platform\" facist and hate speech."}
{"id":"4223a735-9d57-40b9-aed9-5cbfde400346","argument":"Voluntary codes will never be effective. Designers will always claim that favourite models should b.","conclusion":"There Should be a Minimum Weight Limit For Professional Models"}
{"id":"c3506d8c-2be6-4458-aa99-8bd79042e848","argument":"Make In India has also secured a boost in the defense sector where major defense aircrafts are to be manufactured in India and the knowledge shared for indigenous manufacturing of such aircrafts in the future.","conclusion":"As of May 2017, the initiative started to yield results: The number of industrial projects set up in India, foreign direct investments, and merchandise exports had all begun to rise"}
{"id":"f84980ad-8ee5-45a8-9b35-89fe01bd6b83","argument":"Constant lack of rain and hot temperatures is likely to contribute to soil erosion and saltification, making previously fertile land more arid in the long term.","conclusion":"Increasing temperatures and decreased precipitation are causing major changes in our food supply. This is resulting in food scarcity throughout the world."}
{"id":"9d23a6ef-334a-4447-a133-22ee8603df2d","argument":"Intervention is almost always about upholding \u2018international norms\u2019. Thus the attack on Syria is to disarm Syria of its banned chemical weapons because it \u201crisks making a mockery of the global prohibition on the use of chemical weapons.\u201d1 With Iraq it was once again a norm against WMD with Tony Blair arguing \u201cUN weapons inspectors say vast amounts of chemical and biological poisons such as anthrax, VX nerve agent and mustard gas remain unaccounted for in Iraq.\u201d2 This means that the nation that is going to engage in offensive action is attempting to prevent the breach of one international norm against certain weapons by breaching a norm against unauthorised military action. In Kosovo it was even more hypocritical; NATO acted to make sure Milsovic \u201chonor his own commitments and stop his repression\u201d with the intent that \u201cif President Milosevic will not make peace, we will limit his ability to make war.\u201d3 So we will protect the norm against conflict by initiating a conflict of our own. Defending one international norm by breaching another is both pointless, because it undermines all norms, and hypocritical because it says those norms apply only to someone else. 1 President Obama, \u2018TRANSCRIPT: President Obama\u2019s Aug. 31 statement on Syria\u2019, The Washington Post, 31 August 2013, 2 \u2018Full transcript of Blair's speech\u2019, BBC News, 20 March 2003, 3 Clinton, Bill, \u2018Statement on Kososvo\u2019, Miller Center University of Virginia, 24 March 1999,","conclusion":"There is no point in defending some norms at the costs of breaching others"}
{"id":"99ab2a3a-9247-48d9-97e2-506a102d4bb3","argument":"People who are multilingual can find terms in one of their spoken languages to express what they mean when they fail to find an adequate term in one of their other spoken languages. This allows conversations between multilingual people to be more fluent.","conclusion":"Different languages allows people to express themselves differently. Language diversity allows people to find a language of communication that allows them to best express themselves."}
{"id":"ae755233-f5d2-405f-92aa-b23d7784b25b","argument":"There is certainly no consensus that the fetus is some special class of human that doesn't deserve human rights. A lack of consensus should reflect a lack of action, and people who seek abortions are the first-actors of the situation.","conclusion":"If there is no reasonable social consensus, then we should err on the side of caution instead."}
{"id":"d25b7a1c-3faf-4a52-9c59-f8cf1ed37b8e","argument":"Firing an employee who uses non-PC speech is beneficial to members of society who are proponents of PC since they no longer have to tolerate non-PC speech at that location.","conclusion":"Firing one person is bad for them, not for everyone else in society."}
{"id":"1d61dba1-b513-4405-98f2-78fdc3c8a214","argument":"Trust and honesty are essentials to a healthy romance. Anything less is toxic. Cheating in any form is poison to the core of a love affair. I would send a cheater packing within the hour. Choosing to cheat is showing a lack of love. So yes - confess, then pack. Period.","conclusion":"In an exclusive relationship, should you reveal a one-night stand to your partner?"}
{"id":"77de1df9-8049-4cab-a97c-2d5dd31543ab","argument":"I was raised home schooled and taught exclusively Creationism and I don't believe it has any place in an educational setting. Firstly, ignorance of the scientific beliefs of the time really cut you off from a lot of fields of study. Geology, Paleontology, Geography, Astrophysics, Quantum Physics, and even Biology, all of these fields are pretty heavily influenced by the Big Bang Theory, and the theory of evolution. For example I have no idea what a Cretaceous Period is. I know it's a span of time in which something was going on but there's also so many different organisms that were around in each of these time periods. Now I have to play so much catch up in school and it is really frustrating. Edit Just wanted to clarify, I'm not saying that Creationism should be banned or anything like that, but that it is important to teach it in conjunction with the currently held scientific theories. Edit 2 Also wanted to say that the way home schooling works where I'm from is that the school district will send an education evaluator to you to make sure that you are learning the right subjects, and the school will give you credit based on their synopsis. Learning creationism exclusively puts you well behind your peers in this field and should not be accepted for credit. Edit 3 Thank you everyone for your input. I really appreciate this subreddit's ability to debate issues while being sincere and respectful.","conclusion":"I don't think Creationism should be taught at all, and even home schooled children such as I was should have to learn about the Big Bang Theory and the evolutionary process to get credit for taking science."}
{"id":"9cc639c6-6a30-4b3d-a0f4-dfb97c21446a","argument":"I think that the US government is going to let the Snowden situation build up to a high point, and then give him a slap on the wrist to appease the public and make everyone happy that he's okay, leaving only a minority of the population still fighting for our fourth amendment rights. This is what I would do if I was the US government. I would pay some lip service to whatever the public wanted, hold some debates, and blame red tape for nothing getting done. Eventually everyone will forget cause 'Murica.","conclusion":"I think that the US government is going to let the Snowden situation build up to a high point, and then give him a slap on the wrist to appease the public and make everyone happy that he's okay, leaving only a minority of the population still fighting for our fourth amendment rights."}
{"id":"0ccc32ac-789a-4ba1-ad72-c9dffe153afa","argument":"Individually, both superheroes are interesting and can have great stories my personal favorites are The Dark Knight Returns and All Star Superman , but putting them on a team together makes the suspension of disbelief really hard. I'm not saying that the dynamic between them doesn't work, it does and really well. I'd even go so far as to say that some of the best DC moments involve both of them. The problem arises when they're teaming up against common foes. This applies to the rest of the Justice League as well you have this handful of heroes like Superman and Wonder Woman that are such a different power level as the rest of the members that they become vestigial. Oh you can fight really well with knives? Well I'm essentially a God. It often feels like a contrivance when writers find a way for Batman or The Green Arrow to be fighting the same villains as Superman or The Flash. That's not even going into the problem of why doesn't Superman just beat up all the villains in Gotham?","conclusion":"Superman makes Batman pointless"}
{"id":"4bfd5e6c-dc27-4387-8775-e31e75524dda","argument":"I am a Chiropractic student as of moment and I firmly believe that only Medical Doctors should hold the title of doctor to reduce confusion to as what the practitioner can treat. This extends to anyone with a doctorate in the medical profession though. A doctor of physical therapy, anyone with a doctorate in nursing or pharmacy or anything else for that matter. If you haven't gone to medical school and graduated with a M.D. you shouldn't be referred to as doctor in a clinical setting. This reduces confusion to as what everyone does and firmly implants in the patients mind what your specialty is and your scope of practice instead of ambiguously being called doctor.","conclusion":"In a clinical setting only Medical Doctors should be called Doctor."}
{"id":"a9df01fd-4f71-4ed8-b0ea-21216e2547a7","argument":"From a completely economic standpoint, the minimum wage is an artificial bottom line that creates deadweight loss in a free market if a person is paid more than their work is valued then the employer may choose not to hire more employees and may raise their prices in accordance with the raising of minimum wages to match profits. I still believe a basic minimum wage should be in place I am making a little above minimum wage so that may contribute to it because the U.S. market is not perfectly competitive and oligopolies can manipulate prices and wages more than a competitive company can. So obviously the argument is going to come up about where the line should be drawn but I do not believe the answer is to continuously raise it until everyone is happy because that really isn't ever going to happen. My argument against minimum wage increase is shoddy and you guys can rip it apart and tell me why I'm wrong but I firmly believe that the steep progressive tax rate in the U.S. harms our economy more than it helps. A progressive tax punishes innovation and hard work, it is a deterrent for efficiency. These are the things that are going to stimulate the economy and provide for economic growth, not collecting a few extra bucks from those who have worked for it. Here's the argument that not everyone worked for their money which I will acknowledge and which I cannot come up with a full response but again, there are those who didn't make their own money but there are those that did . Another argument that I forsee is that the people who make a lot of money do not need all of that money. However just because they did not make all of that money does not mean that money is not entitled to them. I can't just take someone else's money because he has more than me even if I need it more. As an aside, the current tax code is over 70k words and extremely obfuscated causing people hours and hours of frustration while filling out their tax forms. A flat tax would simplify the process greatly.","conclusion":"I think that the minimum wage should not be raised and that we should change the tax system from a progressive tax system to a flat tax system."}
{"id":"7d2e5a98-b078-4f32-bd1a-2f7bdb5352dc","argument":"The whole negative tone that is associated with swearing is not as bad as people think it is. As long as you're not being demeaning to another individual swearing should be completely okay. For example if a five year old says oh fuck my toe . It is the same thing as saying oh fudge my toe . Using swear words as adjectives in a method that is not demeaning should be allowed. using swear words in a way that demeans another person Society race religion Etc, shows that swear words are not the problem it's the fact that the person using the swear words does not understand that being demeaning is not okay. The concept of swear words being something that we should not say is just weird. Who invented a word that should not be said. Society has declared these specific words as not okay to be said but you're allowed to bleep them out and replace them with identical sounding words like fudge. when a parent says to a child do not say that word they are telling that child that that word is not okay. When really they should be telling the child the way they reacted is not okay. so please help me understand I am going to be starting a family soon and so far my point of view on the subject is leaning towards the fact that the child can say the words but as long as they have control over their emotions and they are not demeaning or hurting another individual and then it is okay. Here are some examples where I find the situation okay The Grand Canyon is fucking huge Oh shit my toe really hurts In context if I said the Grand Canyon is so huge the message is the same but the person who said fucking huge, is seen as a lesser. Why do we restrict these words when they could just be used as adjectives adverbs Etc. Here are some examples of what I do not find okay Fuck you Eat shit There is also a conversation to we had when words that mean something else all of a sudden become a swear word. For example the word bitch means a female dog. I strongly believe Society needs to change their view on the way that we decide to use words and rather should be more concerned about the way we use those words.","conclusion":"Swearing should be allowed in todays society with no negitive view."}
{"id":"c03246e6-48e9-4333-8aff-e4f0e27bf869","argument":"To clarify my views Self described wine experts are no better at tasting a wine than a layperson. Not that anyone could do as well, but with a few months of practice the average person could be as good as somebody who has made a career out of wine. Certified Sommeliers are no better than any other wine experts at tasting a wine, and therefore, because of the first claim, no better than I could be with some practice. Neither wine experts nor Sommeliers are better at suggesting a wine or a wine pairing to an individual than a non expert with a familiarity with the wines at hand. I will not focus on this claim any further than saying if you know a person is misconstruing their abilities within a field, it would be absurd to keep giving their opinion the weight of an expert's, if any you wouldn't listen to the advice of a plumber who claimed to know plumbing but demonstrably did not. But I'll award a delta to somebody who can change my view on this belief, even if they have not convinced me on the previous two. For the record, I'm using the term being able to taste a wine to mean the skill of identifying where the wine is from and or identifying characteristics of the wine's taste or smell that are objectively true i.e. the wine producer truly did include an identified fruit in the wine's production, or there is consistent agreement among expert tasters , but not universal. The first claim is mostly laid out in this article from The Guardian The second claim comes from the extreme opaqueness of the Sommelier accreditation process, and the fact that claims that, if true, could easily be made verifiably, are made without evidence. Examples include this source that makes extremely specific statistical claims that aren\u2019t sourced or mentioned anywhere else online the fact that the Court of Master Sommelier exam results aren\u2019t revealed so nobody knows how well they actually did, or that the movie Somm doesn\u2019t show a single person verifiably tasting correctly. And, again, there\u2019s no study that shows the legitimacy of this something that seems easy to arrange and would lend legitimacy to the field if they could truly taste wine. In fact, there doesn\u2019t seem to be any reason for me to believe a certified Sommelier is able to taste wine better than I can. There is this study that shows that Sommeliers\u2019 brains activate in different ways than ours do when tasting wine. But that\u2019s surely not synonymous with being better at tasting wines.","conclusion":"Wine tasting is bogus"}
{"id":"e0207884-ae98-4432-a1cb-eb999085bdcc","argument":"I grew up in a liberal environment, went to a liberal university, and worked in extremely liberal companies Bay Area tech companies . I consider myself to be slightly liberal. I agree with most liberal ideas and some conservative ideas. Therefore, compared to other people in the Bay Area, I would seem pretty conservative. Obviously, Reddit leans left. In my opinion, most subreddits are liberal echo chambers. Left leaning posts and comments tend to get upvoted, while right leaning posts tend to get downvoted. Even on subreddits where the frontpage seems neutral at first glance, the comments clearly lean left. I often see right leaning comments with negative scores, even if their opinions seems at least as valid as the upvoted left leaning comments. Every time I make a post or comment that is even slightly right leaning, I have to state that I'm a liberal, I just don't think all conservative ideas are wrong. Otherwise, they would get downvoted. I subscribed to right leaning subreddits such as r uncensorednews because users there have a different perspective from users on more mainstream subreddits such as r news. Recently, r uncensorednews was banned because the mods refused to comply with the admins' requests. However, I don't think there's anything wrong with the content on r uncensorednews. They may be against liberal ideas, but that doesn't mean they're wrong. Just because users there have a different value system from you doesn't mean they can't have valid values. Here are the top posts of the month on r uncensorednews Most of them have to do with people not wanting immigrants in Europe. That's an opinion that many liberals disagree with. I don't have a strong opinion on the issue, but I think it's a perfectly valid opinion. There are obviously pros and cons to allowing more immigrants. On Reddit, it's almost taboo to be against immigration. However, an example of a pedantic con to immigration would be immigrants causing more traffic jams. Obviously, many people have racial reasons to oppose immigration. I don't necessarily agree with those reasons, but I think they're valid. If I hadn't subscribed to r uncensorednews, I might not even be aware of this issue. After scrolling through the top content of the month on r news, r worldnews, and r politics, I couldn't find a single post about immigration issues in Europe. If those were my sole sources of news, I might've believed that everything's going well with regards to immigration in Europe. I might've thought that all the immigrants assimilated nicely and that everyone was happy with the situation. Thanks to r uncensorednews, I know that it's not perfect there. I agree that almost all people assimilated sufficiently well, but that doesn't say whether Europe got better or worse after allowing immigrants. Just to keep this post from being downvoted like crazy, I have to clarify that I do think r uncensorednews is a bit too racist. I don't like how even if the posts aren't explicitly racist, they have racist implications. Nevertheless, since racist people exist, I think it's valuable to understand more about them and their perspective. It's not like the posts there are overly hateful or encouraging violence. Therefore, I think subreddits such as r uncensorednews should be allowed to give users a broader perspective and help them not get trapped in an echo chamber. If the moderators weren't good enough, they should be replaced, rather than stopping 100,000 Reddit users from becoming more well informed. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The content on subreddits such as r\/uncensorednews aren't bad enough to justify banning them"}
{"id":"8eace299-9103-48ff-addd-f09be3e3601f","argument":"Not much to explain here. Obesity is unhealthy. Even obese people with seemingly healthy vitals heart rate, blood pressure, etc are less healthy than their not fat counterparts. The social institution of fat shaming helps to keep people oriented toward the general truth of this, in a world where obesity is growing ever more common and the obese are ever increasing their efforts to be seen as simply 'different' and not, in fact, unhealthy and a blight upon society. In the sense of their high risk of disease and early death being burdensome upon the labour market and upon health insurance. In societies with single payer or even just government assisted health insurance schemes, these burdens are applied to everyone else, even those who take care of their own health. .","conclusion":"Fat-shaming is a healthy and beneficial social practice."}
{"id":"1e5e4f26-e625-49de-8c0d-21c732d3b785","argument":"Both sides of the American debate on socialism appear to be confused about what socialism actually is, and when they begin to associate their definition of socialism with Marx, lenin, stalin, mao and others, it seems clear that, instead of merely changing the definition of socialism, they just do not seem to know what socialism is or was. Socialism in itself is when the surplus profit of production is distributed to the producers of the surplus, which only happens when workers own the means of production. This does not mean that they all have an equal share of the surplus, nor that they are guaranteed an income if they are failing to produce a surplus then they starve . This also does not mean that they will not be forced to relinquish their share of ownership or the surplus if they refuse to contribute to production. In fact, getting resources that you did not work for is arguably against the principles of socialism. Welfare is a separate issue from socialism, you can have welfare without socialism like welfare capitalism and you can have socialism without welfare. Furthermore, Socialism in itself is not about establishing a planned economy. You might established a planned economy if you think the state represents the interests of the community, but this is not always true some might argue that it is never true . Free market socialism is possible where the companies are workers coops . The upshot of all this is that neither the USSR nor the Nordic Countries are actually socialist countries. The USSR was state capitalism Lenin even called it state capitalism . The Nordic Countries are heavily invested in welfare, but correct me if I'm wrong there isn't anything particularly socialist about their property laws. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Socialism has nothing to do with equality or welfare."}
{"id":"586d69c7-589b-46ff-b311-a063630f7e40","argument":"The punishment should fit the crime, not the outcome of the crime. This was inspired this post on the front page LINK The judge sentences a driver to 120 hours of community service for running into a family and killing 3 people, and the father, whom I can't even imagine the sorrow and anguish he is going through, throws a chair at the judge. The driver was known to be going 40 km hr over the limit. I hope the judge and security guards were sympathetic to the extreme emotions and sorrow in the father's head, and the punishment to him, if any, is minimal. Regardless, and I don't feel that I'm being insensitive I believe the judge's sentence was reasonable. The crime was driving 40 km hr over the limit . The outcome of the crime was people died. The outcome of the crime should not affect the verdict. If you say the driver should be put in jail for blank years it's very reasonable to say that anyone caught going 40 km hr over the limit should also be put in jail for blank years. They just got lucky and didn't drive into anyone the crime is identical. To do otherwise is to make the legal system more about vengeance than keeping society under control. Another example ever seen A Clockwork Orange? Alex, the main character, beat a lady very severely. He was arrested, and the police wanted to charge him with assault, which was a relatively common and minor charge in the hyper violent society. It wasn't until she died that he was really in trouble with the law, and the cops told him this. In my opinion, Alex should have had one charge punishment against him the whole time assault and battery with a strong possibility of causing death which is a theoretical crime I just made up and he should have been convicted of it regardless of if the lady died. You couldn't make it perfect so that every single crime is as outcome independent as possible, especially because some crimes aren't even apparent until the outcome happens. However, I still think outcome independence is a desirable aspect of a sophisticated legal system and something to strive for as much as possible. EDIT I feel that everyone is arguing that what I'm suggesting would cause drastic changes in the legal system, but I don't really feel that it would. Here's some of the changes that would be made by attempting to be more outcome independent Here are some theoretical punishments in a modern justice system Murder 25 years Attempted murder 15 years Firing a gun straight up into the air causing death involuntary manslaughter 5 years Firing a gun straight up into the air not causing death Community service. Perhaps brief jail time. Here's how a outcome independent legal system would treat things Murder 25 years Attempted murder 25 years Firing a gun straight up into the air causing death involuntary manslaughter Community service. Perhaps brief jail time. Firing a gun straight up into the air not causing death Community service. Perhaps brief jail time.","conclusion":"A characteristic of a sophisticated justice system is that it be as \"outcome-independent\" as possible"}
{"id":"ff478545-0a51-47e5-b205-f9a45fc57351","argument":"I\u2019ve been following the news for the last several months, and am as disgusted but not surprised as anyone can be. People being taken advantage of and victimized while having their careers dangled in front of them is awful and those in positions of power should be held accountable. That being said, the recent outpouring of support and condemnation from movie stars feels like obvious bandwagon behavior. These Hollywood veterans are no strangers to the system, and they\u2019ve all made careers by keeping their mouths shut instead of speaking out until now when it\u2019s fashionable and won\u2019t hurt their careers. I genuinely want to have my view changed because I prefer to see the good in people instead of being a cynical asshole.","conclusion":"Movie stars all wearing black at the Golden Globes \u201cin solidarity\u201d is a disingenuous move in order to save face with the public."}
{"id":"6d4e83ec-c0c0-4bf1-9895-3bd47e548583","argument":"Teams are likely to lose out on their fans who heckle the opposing team's athletes while they are playing, to distract them from their performance.","conclusion":"Performance of athletes will be affected since fans are an important source of morale"}
{"id":"be0ae465-09e4-4c18-a9e6-e0e21a457954","argument":"Bill Clinton is generally considered, at least among Democrats, to have been a great president. He continues to be a respective global leader and speaker. He would be an asset to the country as the First Man beside Hillary Clinton.","conclusion":"Bill Clinton would be a major national asset as the first man."}
{"id":"59a3d361-b9de-468a-a2e4-d2c5f07c2334","argument":"Adult Skrewts grow ten feet long, and are incredibly dangerous and lethal. They resemble giant scorpions with stingers curled over their backs. Their shiny armour deflects most spells and they use their blasts to propel themselves at a foe.","conclusion":"The Blast-Ended Skrewt is a hybrid creature bred by Rubeus Hagrid by crossing manticores and fire crabs."}
{"id":"22998f5a-de89-4a01-8f05-203149261896","argument":"I hold the belief that if even a small fraction of a fraction of the reported ghost paranormal encounters in the world had any form of hard evidence to back them up that there would be overwhelming amounts of it and that there would be no question as to whether paranormal phenomena is real or not. This speaks to the amount of encounters that gets reported on a regular basis and going back centuries. There are no shortage of reports of encounters with ghosts and ghost like entities but there is a tremendous shortage of hard evidence. The gap between reports of encounters and evidence of encounters is massive and makes me extremely skeptical. I understand the desire for people to believe that life goes on after death but there isn't sufficient evidence to hold that belief as firmly as some people do. For example I personally know people that have no doubt that ghosts exist and will argue that belief tooth and nail. I think that this type of thinking is arrogant and irresponsible to entertain with the evidence lack thereof we have now. When you look at humanity and earth from a distance and realize how small and insignificant we all are to the universe its arrogant to believe that we as a species are so special we don't have to abide by the laws of physics relativity as we know them and I think we know them well and that if there were room for the argument of the paranormal in those laws that we would have found it by now.","conclusion":"It is arrogant of people to believe in ghosts\/paranormal entities because it is the belief that humans are so special as a life form that we have souls and they can break the laws of physics."}
{"id":"6d0fa9c7-b888-43a1-ad3a-3b88c83e4ce6","argument":"In fact those who are currently discussing the topic should take a leaf out of 's book on how to approach these conversations. I have come here after reading some of the backlash on facebook after the Brussels attacks. Much to my surprise, perhaps naively, this backlash was not centred around the terrorists and their motives. But instead around those questioning those motives. It seems like nobody can think Hmm seems like a common factor of these attacks is Islam, I wonder if there's anything worrying here? without the fear of being instantly branded a racist or bigot. Wow, since when was that the way to have an adult conversation? I've gone from being someone who thought no ill of islam to someone who wants to see it publicly criticised just so I know it's not immune. Just to be clear I'm not here to be convinced that silencing people is progressive. I'm just here to have my eyes opened to some perspectives I may be missing.","conclusion":"Dismissing and defaming those with concerns about Islam being the common factor of recent major terrorist attacks is regressive."}
{"id":"79c15b07-c454-4e09-aaa8-dc3f6465deb0","argument":"To elaborate a little I believe that pure democracy doesn't work. Allowing the entire population to vote means that you give the vote to people who have absolutely no understanding of the subject they are voting on, which leads them to vote without making an educated, informed decision. I believe that instead, you should be required to show a certain degree of intelligence in order to vote. This would prevent this kind of uneducated voting, making the world a potentially better place. I understand that obviously, a lot of people would not like this, as it may put their ability to vote at risk. However, I personally would be completely happy to sacrifice my right to vote if this system was put in place, and I fell below the threshold. Whenever I've brought this up with friends, I've had one or two agree, and most just try to tell me I'm wrong without justifying why. So, Reddit, change my view","conclusion":"You should be required to pass an IQ test in order to vote."}
{"id":"bc004087-a826-40dd-bd1f-d3afe55c9ef9","argument":"Religion is not needed to bring people together; many secular organizations exist that serve the same purpose, such as Sunday Assembly The School of Life the Y etc.","conclusion":"Secular spaces such as pubs, schools, neighborhood associations, civic events, and parks do this as well."}
{"id":"0d89cabe-aae8-4592-92d1-a0ccd00682e6","argument":"ISPs already charge people for speed.That's what we pay them for. What we watch, how we watch and how long we watch is none of their business. They are only the gatekeepers. If those business can't make money doing only that they should charge more.","conclusion":"Access to internet should be regarded as a public right, not a private commodity controlled by oligarchical ISPs, because access to internet is essential to everyday modern life. Without Net Neutrality regulations, people would likely lose this right."}
{"id":"307893d1-6348-4fdb-a12d-9e24ca9fda3c","argument":"At least not at the collegiate or professional level My younger brother and I were listening to a story on the radio regarding a controversy concerning a transgender high school student not being allowed to tryout for a female sport softball, I believe . My brother, who is 6'4 230lbs, just recently gave up competitive boxing. For a while there was some hope that he would turn professional, but he just couldn't seem to get over the hump. While he couldn't quite make the cut in men's heavyweight boxing, I'm sure he'd absolutely dominate women in that weight class. He joked that, if they allow this, he should become a trans woman boxer. He would never do this and was just joking sorry if it seems insensitive , but I'm sure that there are some opportunists out there that would. Allowing them to do so would surely ruin women's sports. For the record, I have no problem with a transgender man playing men's sports, just like I have no problem with a female playing men's sports if able to compete on that level .","conclusion":"Transgender women should not be allowed to compete in women's sports"}
{"id":"d65269a1-8dcd-42f5-9053-5ee9d8b2f8c9","argument":"This approach is more sustainable than any other approach to ending suffering since it teaches people that efforts to end suffering do not have to be inherently unpleasant.","conclusion":"It is possible to both enjoy recreation and help to end suffering simultaneously."}
{"id":"618a45ea-1fe7-4ce4-a8a1-d2ec4ed42d4d","argument":"The attorney general\u2019s letter concerning the Mueller Report was terribly handled by the press who immediately called it a complete vindication of the President. Regardless of the truth of this statement, the public will not accept this answer. As a result public opinion, congressional hearings, and the conclusion of other investigations will eventually lead to the real truth coming out. For those who believe that Trump is getting away with the ultimate crime, my counter argument is that he cannot run forever. The fact that the report was competed is already damning enough for Trump. The evidence has been gathered, the facts are all laid out. This report contains most of if not all the known details of what happened. The fact that Mitch McConnell has shut down attempts by the senate to make the report public highlights the perceived power of the report. It\u2019s the most sought after document in 21st century American history. It will become public.","conclusion":"Efforts to conceal the findings Mueller Report will fail and truth will come out"}
{"id":"a0743faf-6286-4c1e-ac91-67e8735935ea","argument":"\"I can anticipate no greater calamity for the country than a dissolution of the Union. It would be an accumulation of all the evils we complain of, & I am willing to sacrifice every thing but honour for its preservation.\" \u2013Robert E. Lee","conclusion":"Robert E. Lee was personally against slavery but joined the army to defend his home state."}
{"id":"3cd4525d-bb61-4945-ba00-86f52ab6e6ba","argument":"This is a partly emotionally driven position that I'm trying to formalize. I can't stomach joining or supporting nearly any coalition or movement because they are typically structured as 10 crazies, 90 otherwise reasonable people that won't denounce or stop associating with the crazies and try to weasel out of talking about it. Examples Christians defending fundamentalists. Muslims defending fundamentalists. The social justice movement defending marxism and imverted racism. Republicans defending plain old white supremecist racism. Libertarians defending corporatists. Social democrats defending socialists. I tried to keep my examples 50 50 on liberal conservative, I'm a boring neoliberal myself. The reason I'm asking about this is that my principle, if universalized, would destroy civilization, and I won't make any friends. I'm not sure how to resolve this. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Groups should be much stricter in policing themselves, and who they associate with, on every scale."}
{"id":"f947bdda-2b30-4191-9628-750d803df80d","argument":"The way I see it Ancient Aliens is a good fiction show with some very interesting historical events in the middle. They add this crazy theories from the ancient astronauts theorists, that are pretty neat if you enjoy science fiction. There is some hate towards the show, and I believe this is due to people taking what the show says as 'facts'. When those 'facts' are clearly portrayed as theories of the ancient astronauts theorists. Imo this tv show is ok as long as you don't take the theories of the ancient astronauts theorists too seriously. And instead, just watch it as a fictional show just like any other History Channel show.","conclusion":"Ancient Aliens is actually a good show if you don't buy everything the ancient astronauts theorists say."}
{"id":"5bfc4a24-731c-4cbf-9f9a-00bfd22f0e85","argument":"Alcohol is responsible for far more death and violence than guns are, yet very few people are in favor of banning booze. Every argument I've heard for banning guns seems to apply even more so to alcohol, and there isn't a very clear distinction why one should be legal and the other illegal. For example Australia banned guns, and has less gun violence. Great Saudi Arabia banned alcohol and has fewer alcohol deaths. Even during the US's experiment with prohibition, alcohol consumption dropped considerably. That's hardly an argument in favor of prohibition. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Banning alcohol makes more sense than banning guns."}
{"id":"9beb2baa-26e7-4826-8314-53c8c873fcd3","argument":"PredPol has successfully predicted and prevented twice as much crime as human crime analysts did.","conclusion":"PredPol is successfully being used in 14 of 21 of the LAPD's divisions."}
{"id":"19d8ecbd-d10d-42b9-ab04-dc259251b59f","argument":"If there is more than one god, then either these gods are bound by some other objective \"rules\" of the universe, which would mean that they do not answer the question of origins at all as other questions arise such as who created the \"rules?\"","conclusion":"If there is not one god, then there are either no gods or more than one god."}
{"id":"4f1312c6-d1fe-430e-a1be-e73cf1f02266","argument":"Bernie Sanders has come under scrutiny for endorsing an anti-abortion candidate in 2017, in a time where the majority of Democrats are pro-choice. This may harm his ability to gain and rally the support of support of women and those who are passionate about women's reproductive rights during the General Election.","conclusion":"Sanders may struggle to inspire female voters to rally for him during a General Election."}
{"id":"06073145-55e7-466a-ad7d-f39ac9dedd86","argument":"In order to be heard on Reddit or Twitter, everybody resorts to a more provocative writing style, which is not conducive for calm and thoughtful discussions.","conclusion":"Neither platform is designed for these sorts of conversations. They are built to be optimized for Dopamine-driven social engagement, not debate and decision-making."}
{"id":"bf5562a4-cad4-42af-84a9-68ff0dd1c093","argument":"Okay, so I'm a trans woman. This has been a group that has been explicitly targeted over and over again by the Republican party. Case in point, this policy recently might be the biggest one yet. Now, I'm genuinely curious why I should be friends with people who've taken active steps to attack my rights. I know some of you will say Not all conservatives support this , but IMO that doesn't really matter. They at the very least don't care enough about them to not do things that would actively fuck me over. x200B There are a few exceptions They're ignorant They voted Republican, but plan to not do it again Edit 1 I should point out that I don't plan to like excommunicate people who vote Republican instantly from my life the second I find out about it. Nor do I plan to really excommunicate anyone. I just wouldn't want to get close enough to consider them a friend, which for me is pretty close.","conclusion":"I think I shouldn't be friends with people who votes Republicans"}
{"id":"6caed6ad-32b9-42d1-be49-cf761a99486d","argument":"Even if Marxism has been applied incorrectly and that is the reason for it's failure, it's through the practical application of a theory by which we should come to a judgement on whether it works or not.","conclusion":"The utopia imagined by Marx only works in theory. Evidence suggests that the pursuit of communism leads to totalitatian rule."}
{"id":"1c34f509-0e6f-4403-8472-ec45c290c6ff","argument":"With Smash 4 quickly on the way and with the footage that was leaked thanks to the Smash Invitational, I think it's a good time for Nintendo to think about what direction they want to take the game in during these last few months of development. Now then, let's take a look here and analyze who, at the moment, makes up the majority of Nintendo's market share. If you analyze the list of best selling games on the Wii including Wii Sports, Mario Kart Wii, Wii Sports Resort, New Super Mario Bros. Wii and of course Wiifit, you'll see a trend These are all games that were either created FOR casual players, or very casual entries in an existing series. For instance, Mario Kart Wii is easily less difficult than Double Dash, and certainly less than Mario Kart DS. Yet, when you compare the units sold with DS hitting 23.56 million versus the Wii version which sold 35.53 million, it's clear who the winner here is. So, one thing is clear here Nintendo has managed to tap into the far larger, pick up and play casual gamer market. This is their major audience, currently, and it's earned them a large amount of money. Now, much of the hate being directed towards Smash 4 is that it's not competitive enough. Combos are hard impossible to link, the physics are too slow and there's no L cancelling, wavedashing or other related high level techniques that can be used. However, Nintendo's current market is CASUAL, not COMPETITIVE. We've already seen through the Gamecube to Wii transition that many, MANY more games are sold when they're catered towards the casual, not competitive, market. Furthermore, entries in a series that get simplified and made easier for casual players Ex Brawl, Mario Kart Wii frankly just sell more. So, from a business standpoint, why should Nintendo listen to all these naysayers? And why should the company care at all that a group of people who ultimately represent a tiny fraction of their current playerbase dislike the direction that the games are going, when the majority of the players don't care?","conclusion":"I think Nintendo should ignore the competitive realm of Smash Bros because they represent a tiny chunk of sales."}
{"id":"8afac006-6f4d-4b6b-bd99-518e27efd1b2","argument":"Individuals cannot control whether there is sustainable energy available for them to buy instead of oil or gas, as this depends on infrastructure","conclusion":"Often individuals cannot control the environmental impact of their lifestyle, due to decisions at a government level."}
{"id":"2189afe0-5ba0-41a4-87e5-8055d293942b","argument":"So I'm not a big fan of theaters. Too expensive, too crowded, and if I want to drink during the film I have to smuggle in a flask. Bleh. Not my cup of tea. As a consequence I didn't get around to watching Black Panther until recently when it was added to Netflix. So I'm a little late to the discussion, but hopefully that's a good thing here since maybe y'all have had a chance to breathe after the flurry of a dozen or so s about the film came out several months ago. I also haven't seen my specific topic discussed here. Given the hype I thought I'd be blown away. I wasn't. It was a decently made and fairly average superhero movie. I liked some parts and didn't like others. After watching the movie I did a bit of digging into its reception, and have concluded that the movie was first and foremost a movie about politics or perhaps more a political statement, and that's also the reason for its almost overwhelmingly positive reception. Now, there's nothing wrong with a movie being more of a political statement than a form of entertainment. Plenty of works of art, movies included, make such statements sometimes they're subtle, other times, glaring and overriding. That's all fine. But being a good movie compelling plot, interesting characters, immersive world, thoughtful cinematography, appropriate soundtrack, etc. and making a solid political statement aren't always the same thing, and I'm in part making the case that it's often getting positive reviews as a good movie even though the real reason people like it is because of the political statement. I think this in no small part because those good movie points I just listed were middling and mediocre at best in Black Panther. The CGI was superb, as one might expect from a movie with BP's price tag, but that was the only objectively above average thing about it. I believe, and I think that we all know at some level, that Black Panther wouldn't be arguably the most critically acclaimed and certainly highest grossing superhero movie of all time if it wasn't due to the political climate today. I've identified five different types of reviews Those that thought the movie was absolute trash. These are generally not written by professional critics nor published by serious publications although I have found ones critiquing specific aspects of the movie, like shaming people for supporting hashtag TeamKillmonger . Most of these reviews were by amateurs, and were the sort removed by Rotten Tomato under the auspice of them being hate speech. Most seem give a glowing review of the movie from a technical good movie standpoint and don't touch on the politics as much or at all. This would be like the Rotten Tamato's Critic Consensus that Black Panther elevates superhero cinema to thrilling new heights while telling one of the MCU's most absorbing stories and introducing some of its most fully realized characters. Many others seem to focus more on the black experience in America than the film itself, such as this NYT piece that spends three paragraphs droning on about Hurricane Katrina and Black Lives Matter and the theater being an African American cultural hub before it even mentions anything about the movie. Arguably that was the point of the article, but it's still a common theme in a lot of reviews even by professional movie critics. These reviews tend to be chalk full of how empowering it is for black people to finally have a movie they can relate to and how Wakanda is an example of how great African nations would be if it weren't for the evils of colonialism. A handful go even more extreme, and critique the movie for not being progressive or revolutionary enough. This Esquire piece being one example. In these types of reviews I've seen critiques of the decision to include even one token white person on the good guy's side nobody seems to have an issue with greedy, deranged, evil, and violent Klaue being white, though , criticism that T'Challa didn't do anything to smash the Wakandan patriarchy, ire aimed at the directors for not including any LGBT stuff, and of course glowing support for Killmonger since, despite being an American 1 er who has killed what looks like hundreds and hundreds of people in cold blood just so he could get the chance to kill the son of a guy who killed his dad for being a traitor who stole from the state and tried to kill the king and, once in power, shat all over ancient traditions, consolidated as much power for himself as possible, and beat on and threatened women but you can't root against Killmonger because he's a black guy from America Oakland, no less, and what black guy from Oakland wouldn't want to use advanced weaponry to kill off millions of white people sorry, colonizers in an effort to enact a new black ethnostate world order? And all this despite the fact Killmonger's motives for hating wh colonizers isn't actually touched on in the film at all, it's just assumed by the audience. Needless to say these reviewers still often think Black Panther is the best thing since sliced bread, they just think it could've been even better. Last but not least, my personal favorite kind of fair review one that acknowledges and credits the political climate that contributes to the hype around the film, then neatly sets all that aside and reviews the film on its own merits, in this case finding it rather wanting. It's not racist or venting hatred of identity politics. It's not interjecting it's own radical progressive politics into the review. It's not pretending like the political and social hype makes it a good movie while also not ignoring those factors, summing up far more eloquently than I just did Ultimately, it's more interesting to think about than it is to watch. To sum up, my view is essentially just that the reasons for Black Panther's accolades, it's box office success, and the hype surrounding it had little to nothing to do with the quality of the movie itself and everything to with what the first black movie meant in a political and social climate like the one we're in right now. If you could box up the whole MCU collection and ship it off to an alternate reality where people didn't really care about race and had no conception of racial history and contemporary racial tensions aside from what they learned in the movie , Black Panther wouldn't stand out in the slightest. I don't exactly want this view changed in the traditional sense of wanting things I mean, it's my opinion about a movie. I'm not exactly hellbent on having my opinion on any movie changed. But, like I said massive accolades, massive , massive hype and a massive number of people I know personally saying it's a phenomenal movie. I disagree, but I'm open to being wrong. Also, sorry for the shit title. Hard to express all this that concisely.","conclusion":"Black Panther i.e. the movie itself, the hype surrounding it, and its very positive reception was first and foremost about politics and the actual quality of the film was an afterthought."}
{"id":"3782729d-08db-4e3b-9a8e-d4c5120fe249","argument":"I am completely on board with the idea of revamping the police force. I feel they are too quick to draw their guns and fire. I believe that we should hold police to higher standards and deliver proper indictments when the shooting was unjustified. However, I also believe that we should hold communities affected by police brutality to a higher standard as well. It is very easy to point at the cop who shot the unarmed man and blame him her for this egregious injustice. However, some of the responsibility needs to fall on these communities. The types of neighborhoods most affected by this are low income, inner city neighborhoods. A major reason that there is so much police presence and tension in these areas is become the crime rates are so high. People are selling drugs, dropping out of school to join gangs, fighting in the streets, waiving their guns around, etc. If these people cleaned up their streets and did the right thing the police would have no reason to harass them. I believe that making this into a race issue is the easy way out. It's a good way to make headlines and a good reason to riot. However, I think this issue runs deeper. My community has a large percentage of minorities, but we do not have any issues with police because we are law abiding citizens. To repeat, I do not think we should have to fear the police or risk being shot for no good reason. However, part of the reason this problem even exists is because of the reputation of low income, high crime communities.","conclusion":"Just as we should hold police to a higher standards, we should hold communities to a higher standard."}
{"id":"ee2ddea3-ce46-41a7-94b8-673b3e552c91","argument":"Farage has 'first hand' seen the green issue becoming \"politicized, urbanized and above all something that has become an industry\" which bullies \"weak-minded politicians into making a series of decisions that aren't good for biodiversity, sustainability or the environment\". This indicates that his lack of support for the climate change actually stems from how the issue has been approached in the last few decades.","conclusion":"Farage voted Green in the 1989 European elections, which indicates that there was something that made the leader change his stance on climate change."}
{"id":"47e14f5c-7e41-4769-a6c0-548a965e463f","argument":"Two outcomes for intelligent life A We're all the Universe has to offer. B We are not the only intelligent species who are, or will be, capable of spaceflight in the universe. A In the event that the universe lacks life of our capability and potential, then we waste trillions of potential home celestial bodies for our species. I've heard people argue that we don't deserve new planets moons as we've nearly destroyed this planet I believe the cost of humans spreading doesn't outweigh the cost of humans squandering such a resource an entire Universe full of stars, metals, gases, planets, etc. Besides, technological advances become fueled when their need increases thanks to projects attempting to exit the Earth. For example, since the 100 Year Starship started I've seen an increase in articles about technologies and devices related to space travel, such as a 3D printer that makes food such as pizza. B It is impossible to determine what differences we will see between our species and an extraterrestrial species. On top of that, their temperament cannot be determined. For the survival of our species, we should be capable of fighting another non human, space faring civilization we should also be hard to kill. Colonizing multiple celestial bodies gives us more strategic resources to work with while also making more targets for an overly hostile opponent to hit. On top of that, more celestial bodies means our species can safely continue to grow in population this will be handy in being difficult to kill as well as having some sort of military force to deal with such an issue if it ever came up.","conclusion":"I believe it is the duty of the human species to spread and colonize any planet or moon we can."}
{"id":"0398c459-5383-4159-bf72-2a347fd3324a","argument":"Prayer as an act of reaching to a deity for help or comfort has no appreciable effect beyond what can be achieved by normal positive thinking. Praying to end world hunger or to get a job has no effect unless you or someone else makes the decision to achieve the goal. These goals could also just as easily be achieved without prayer. Edit I do not believe in the non corporeal nature of prayer. I do believe in the effects such as positive thinking giving someone a better understanding of who they are a what they can do.","conclusion":"I believe that prayer does nothing to change the world."}
{"id":"a31887eb-233e-4756-b557-6428e9b9552a","argument":"Proroguing parliament gives the legislature less time to table a no confidence motion which many MPs are keen to do. Therefore, prorogation may be a self-preserving way for Boris Johnson to avoid political accountability.","conclusion":"Boris Johnson is attempting to stop the legislature from holding the executive to account."}
{"id":"b4bb9edc-5e04-4264-b642-ce8fcc6b661d","argument":"Every time I see a form that asks me to circle my ethnicity, I cringe. I'm 50 ethnic Turkish through my mom. She and other relatives have faced blatant acts of racial discrimination because of their appearance, dress, or simply having a Turkish sounding name. Nevertheless, the US Census, universities, and businesses identify them as white. Thus, my cousins don't qualify for affirmative action to help them get accepted into universities. My uncle's business doesn't get minority owned status. The Census just recognizes us white , when we clearly don't enjoy white privilege. That's inaccurate and unfair. I understand there's plenty of diversity within the Middle East and Maghreb, but I believe there's enough of us to have our own broad general category. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"People of Middle Eastern and North African descent should have their own racial category to select on demographic questionnaires."}
{"id":"2626db0a-6f7c-46c2-b064-2d5190dc63cd","argument":"While Europe\/Christendom was in the Dark Ages, Islamic polymaths were preserving\/translating classic Greek philosophical texts, improving upon them with their own scientific methods\/discoveries, and paving the way for the enlightenment\/rationalism. They made incredible advancements in medicine, math, science, engineering, and automation. Recent fundamentalist movements do not erase the incredible contributions that Islam and religion in general have made to science in the course of history.","conclusion":"During the golden age of Islam, the faith was a major source of support for the advancement of science."}
{"id":"4769e78b-ed7d-4f9a-89f9-e501530e1539","argument":"We all say we know THE SOLUTION , but in fact we're all truly clueless. U.S. schools are full of problems and there's lots of problems affecting the American youth but I'll be the first to say that there is no one clear cut solution. Lots of people say they want more funding less funding funding spent differently privitization less standardized tests more standardized tests, etc. I think the problem is simply the fact that a people are deeply flawed, b life is tough it gets in the way of doing everything we want to and c money doesn't grow on trees Parents need to still values into their kids, but many have to work long hours or have deep issues and therefore ignore their kid. Teachers often don't motivate and inspire students enough, but it's really hard to do so when bad parents are involved. Government officials, bureaucrats and politicians are blamed for the problems. They are often short sighted, corrupt and negligent. Yet we as people elect them. We want more money to be pumped into schools and get really angry when budget cuts are made, but as soon as a tax is levied, we complain that the taxes are too high. I think overall slow changes like economic growth, technology, reducing crime rates and all of that will help, but it will take time and it's not any sort of bill you can legislate. It's a complex system of interwebbing problems that no one initiative can fix. I have no idea how to fix it. But at least I am honest about it.","conclusion":"There is no clear-cut solution to the problems American schools are facing."}
{"id":"ed970a9f-bf74-4a70-b116-deb00a3a8cec","argument":"Really hoping you can change my view on this, but to me, it's pretty clear our institutions can't survive the Trump administration. Specifically, it seems clear from the Russia sanctions that Trump has already ignored the checks and balances on the executive department, 98 of Congress voted for the sanctions, Trump refuses to veto which could get overturned, so he's just not using the power of the executive to enforce and already he's talking about being installed as President for Life . People talk about how things will get better after this election, but we can't impeach even after 2018 if the Republicans are in lockstep, because it would be impossible to get the numbers to convict in the Senate. Additionally, the narrative was that Trump was a joke in 2016 and the narrative was wrong then, it could be wrong now, especially if Trump uses Russian influence to actively change vote totals, which is entirely within the realm of possibility. This would be intolerable with a dictator who was relatively benevolent Trump is no such character, willing to severely tank the American economy over petty perceived grudges or simply to try to get the news cycle away from his scandals. I just don't see any hope for America and it's getting harder and harder to get out of the bed in the morning, just awaiting when Trump gets so riled up he pulls the temple down on our heads, either with economic policy or with nuclear warfare. For various reasons, I cant move until April 2019 at the earliest, so I feel trapped and claustrophobic in this country. I just don't see any hope. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"There is no reason to hope things will get better in America in my lifetime I'm 39."}
{"id":"3f785a6a-c3ec-4c05-8ae6-ff9cb7bb44d1","argument":"I feel that everyone should be able to use this word or nobody should. The use of this word by white people is generally considered socially unacceptable. However, we do not bring ourselves closer to a world of equality when the use of this word is totally acceptable between members of a certain group in the population, but completely unacceptable within another group. The reclamation of this word by the black community has not helped the global population to take steps towards creating an unsegregated world. I'm curious to know how many of you think the word should not be used at all, how many think everyone should be able to use it without stigma and how many think that it is acceptable for black people to say this and not white people? gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"In the process of reclaiming the 'n word' the black community has created a kind of segregation of white people who are not allowed to use this word in the name of history."}
{"id":"c7b4d008-a54d-447f-a5c6-28c5240a8985","argument":"For many parents, particularly those with more than one child, summer vacations can be a stressful and difficult time. Without the structure provided by school attendance, children become bored easily and parents struggle to cope. This is especially true for mothers who may be bringing up children without a father present, or those who wish to continue or resume their careers after the first few years of motherhood; trying to combine a full-time job with the rigours of motherhood is hard but trying to do so during a three month school holiday is almost impossible. Year-round schooling makes such a work-life balance easier for young parents and allows women to return to the workplace on their own terms.1 1 Schulte, Brigid, \u201cThe Case For Year-Round School\u201d, Washington Post, June 7th 2009.","conclusion":"Year-round learning can help reduce the burden on parents."}
{"id":"1876c6ad-8994-4d44-804d-460a9b83e3e9","argument":"Opp is avoiding tackling our burden, claiming that if they prove a \u201cmarginal benefit\u201d from UNHRC in few regions, they would prove it to be effective and beneficial. In fact it is squandering its invaluable position and resources. When the truth and facts are being substituted with the \u201cwill of the majority\u201d, it leads to ignorance of cases of HR abuse, and does major harm to the countries and the rights of the people. The council is guilty of CHOSING not to solve problems, not the lack of resources as the Opp. team claimed. The \u201cobjective decision approach\u201d would remove this possibility while keeping all benefits team Opp is trying to prove. Speaking of benefits, the \u201cpolitical support\u201d Opp mentioned is not unconditionally tied to the politicized decision-making process. A HR body can contain government representatives that debate on the possible solutions, but they cannot vote on whether there is HR violation, since this decision will always be subjective. More than half of the members, 24 out of 47, do not protect the basic human rights of their citizens which completely disproves the Opp presumption that the rotation system would help prevent the vote bloc. Whether it is China or Saudi Arabia, the situation remains the same and these countries will continue blocking resolutions when it suits them. This body ignored 18 of the worst violators in 2010, as a result of the politicization which confounds the claim that we didn't prove how HRC \"exacerbates the situation\", since each blocked resolution does that, proving their own burden wrong. At the end of the day, while refuting, prop agreed that objective decision-making is needed, but avoided to confess that it would mean abolition of HRC, but: 1. It is abolition, since the voting-based system is a \"root\" principle of this body, that would change everything in it; 2. They agree that this root principle is wrong, and needs a change - abolition.","conclusion":"The UNHRC is a \"leading sponsor of impunity for gross abuses worldwide\""}
{"id":"9f871021-106d-46a1-b9ba-6bae17dce349","argument":"While cryptocurrencies and blockchain could change the world, it would be even better to cut out the fake altcoins that already exist.","conclusion":"Quantum computing may break the crypto-mechanism that ensures the integrity of the coins\/blockchain."}
{"id":"7249b7ea-0267-4bc0-a2cf-5915e6ca4d89","argument":"Gender-neutral public bathrooms would promote a society of tolerance and increase understanding of inherent human traits and actions affiliated with our physical form such as urination, defecation etc.","conclusion":"No public restrooms of any sort should be separated by either sex or gender."}
{"id":"3cce90e4-545c-4543-a0b4-e2393d494220","argument":"Trump pandered to white supremacists throughout his campaign, refusing to condemn them until he was completely backed into a corner. This gave helped bring white supremacists to the fore of political debate during the 2016 Presidential election.","conclusion":"Recent trends in American politics, specifically within the Republican party, indicate white supremacist views moving towards the mainstream. This ideology does not exist at the fringes of American society, and hence should not be censored."}
{"id":"42c028b2-7c80-43c4-ba42-7fa69df8e9f2","argument":"Since there is no proper definition of 'life', we assess whether or not something is alive by how many of the 7 characteristics of life it exhibits. However, these characteristics need to be very extensible in order to qualify computers as alive this is necessary if we ever plan on categorizing some alien life we hadn't conceived of as alive. I think computers exhibit the properties at least in the following ways. Composed of cells Well, computers do have a fundamental unit which is central to their existence the transistor. Emergent properties levels of organization Certainly anyone who understands processor architecture sees that there are many levels of complexity upon which the others lie, from hardware all the way up to software. Computers also have specialized components, organs . Uses energy Some would say they use too much energy. Responds to environment Computers are regularly programmed to respond to their environment, be it to users, or robots to stimuli, or weather systems to changes in readings. Grows This is a tough one, but certainly through upgrades computers can expand not only their capabilities but also their physical form, if that is important to this definition. Reproduces I don't think this is as tricky as it sounds. Bots build bots. The physical forms factors of some members are capable of building other things, we use them to build cars, toys, and yes, computers. This capability will only extend from where it is today. Adapts to environment This is perhaps the most nebulous one. This involves the most complex aspects of programming such that a computer will better suit itself to its environment or task. But it certainly exists, like when rovers close shop to weather a sandstorm. If adaptations are traits giving an advantage in the environment, then upgrades can be determined and applied to the next generation at will. Computers exhibit all of the characteristics of life, in one form or another, and eventually these will come together, and beyond that become recognizable as sentient and intelligent. It sounds solid to me. I have yet to hear a convincing argument to the contrary. Let's see if there exist any.","conclusion":"I think artificial intelligences\/synthetic life are\/will be alive in much the same way as organic life."}
{"id":"a231b778-8288-4da3-9db2-28533aec618e","argument":"By 2025 America\u2019s schools will likely be substantially more diverse than they are currently are and will serve more kids who come from Hispanic, Asian or mixed-race backgrounds.","conclusion":"The diversity of peoples and cultures within a classroom is too varied to be accommodating of all aspects within a singular curricula."}
{"id":"42a4a4d9-a5d0-415e-9484-f56c712c71ec","argument":"The Israelites in the desert repeatedly refuse to believe that what God has given them is good and are eventually punished.","conclusion":"Believing that things are not good is the root of many if not every sin."}
{"id":"bd1d0731-072a-42db-9890-7bbb94029dc3","argument":"Their use requires advanced scanning technologies to understand the molecular makeup of an object; technology the Rebels haven't demonstrated knowledge of. The device is useless without a detailed understanding of the object they intend to replicate.","conclusion":"This assumes they could understand the technology to duplicate it. A caveman could steal the blueprints of an auto-mobile, it doesn't mean they could understand how to build one even with the blueprints."}
{"id":"eed3408a-567e-43e4-b876-3339773f50eb","argument":"I think Solar Roadways are fundamentally flawed to the core and that they're playing on scientific illiteracy to sell their product. I think there's only really one point to this fundamental issue but it's absolutely one that cannot be contested, ignoring all other issues use as road surface, cleaning, damage, price, etc. etc. You will always have more efficient panels if they're angled towards the sun laying them flat will always result in less energy being collected than if they were angled towards the sun. In my opinion, that invalidates this entire idea. Why not build a so roof over the road instead? We already know how to develop them and they're cheaper AND generate more energy than having to develop these magical solar roads.  gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Solar Roadways or any other 'solar roads' are a dumb idea"}
{"id":"7673b240-94a2-48a2-9d60-63f3f7b82699","argument":"As a result of Pride becoming apolitical, other marches have popped up to protest against issues that face the LGBTQ+ community. These include the Equality March which centred on issues of violence against queer and trans people as well as racial justice. This goes to show that the media presence of Pride has been sanitised, and does not help the LGBTQ+ community.","conclusion":"Viewing Pride as a party and not a protest detracts attention from battles the LGBTQ+ community continues to fight and only focuses on relatively privileged members of the community."}
{"id":"388ca12f-6b99-48a0-9efd-f69f402607b9","argument":"The Office of the President is designed to be utilized to unite and align the public for the common good, not to wound the country by further deepening and polarizing the divide. Only an enemy of the United States would take the later approach.","conclusion":"Trump's ability to be a polarizing force is only enhanced by the fact that he is president. If he were impeached, the Republican party would revert back to being less polarizing, and Trump would just be another internet troll."}
{"id":"2e79e189-75f0-4dd5-bdef-1600c615bb88","argument":"To clarify, I'm pretty solidly liberal, and I favor higher taxes and increased regulation. That being said, it seems like anything pretty much any company does, besides Valve, is immediately dismissed as a shameless cash grab. The concept of turning a profit or increasing revenue is often considered morally wrong or downright evil. The attitude towards piracy is a good example whenever a company attempts to protect the product that they spent time and resources on from being stolen, it's viewed as proof of their greed. I think this is completely unreasonable. A company has the right and often the need to protect their product. Even if it costs nothing for someone else to download it, the software required a significant amount of money and effort to produce and bring to market. Except in a few extreme circumstances, efforts by companies to curtail piracy are totally reasonable. Another notion that seems common on reddit is that corporations are evil who only want money and never did anything good for anyone. I think that, while it's obvious corporations want more money, that does not mean they haven't done any good along the way. Tech companies make life easier, agribusiness helps feed an enormous and growing population, and healthcare, while grossly overpriced, provides better treatment options than at any time in history. To summarize, I think the idea that turning a profit and companies in general are evil is unreasonable.","conclusion":"I think people on reddit are unreasonably hostile to business interests."}
{"id":"082ab501-4750-4078-9a39-10dae62e0174","argument":"Work is performed primarily because people are capable and adequate to complete the task, or personal utility Whether anyone else appreciates the completed task is their own prerogative. A minimum wage law assumes the only way people can relate in society is our common currency.","conclusion":"A minimum wage is a dangerous response to the existence of poverty because it perverts the meaning and nature of work."}
{"id":"2485e403-8028-4405-a462-2547e70ad4fb","argument":"Affirmative Action addresses the symptom, not the cause. We should address the causes and watch the symptom to measure the effectiveness of the solution.","conclusion":"Addressing educational inequality at a college level through affirmative action comes too late to create effective academic balance."}
{"id":"c88ad365-6c87-49cd-9a5f-a3ebac6868ff","argument":"I have heard people dub Pulp Fiction as one of the greatest films of the 90's, and I have also heard it said that its the probably the best independent film of all time. I simply don't see it. The plot is not all that engaging, first off, and aside from the interesting conversations between the characters in the film, I don't think it has much content. Like the whole butt watch . What's with that? Is that supposed to be hilarious or something? I have heard a few fun facts about the film, like how every time John Travolta's character Vincent Vega goes to the bathroom, chaos is happening when he comes out, but small things like that shouldn't give it a place as one of the greatest films ever. If the item in the briefcase that Vincent and Jules get in the beginning was in fact Marcellus Wallace's soul, which I have read multiple places that it is not, I honestly would have thought the movie to be better. I will admit that scene where John Travolta crashes into the dudes house with Mia O D ing in the car was pretty funny but other than that I just don't get much out of the movie. Plus the sodomy scene was really odd didn't get much out of that either.","conclusion":"Pulp Fiction is not one of the greatest movies of all time, but is instead a slightly above average movie with an interesting structure but not an engaging plot"}
{"id":"555157c8-2b77-4009-9427-dfb54c281e35","argument":"There may be rules implemented in which an individual loses their right to their UBI based on certain circumstances or actions, making a tool to control behavior.","conclusion":"A UBI would further erode individual liberty and responsibility leading to more government control over citizens."}
{"id":"6a625467-782f-4f1a-8209-ce515889064e","argument":"The widely used Freedom House index has been criticised for being driven by a neoconservative and neoliberal agenda e.g. by heavily prioritising economic freedom as a criterion, while deprioritising equality and other kinds of freedom Giannone, p. 72","conclusion":"Democracy indices are never politically or ideologically neutral, but influenced by the environment they were created in and the purpose they are meant to serve."}
{"id":"5aa1e2dc-defb-4646-b827-69eabed9a205","argument":"Well media-covered disasters get more donations than disasters that aren't covered or that we already have gotten used to.","conclusion":"Many people give to causes they like, not causes that are most urgent or deserving."}
{"id":"5cd23c59-7731-491e-81bd-9dec30678773","argument":"Last time I posted here, you guys gave me a lot to think about, so I'd love a different perspective on this too. I watched this video recently, about Diversity Done Right . What I got from it was that there are black atheists out there who think I thought I was the only black atheist out there and are therefore reluctant to join the atheist communities around them, so e.g. having a black person in the picture advertising the group will make them more likely to join it, because they can better identify with that member and think yeah, that could be me . I'm a white bisexual woman and I just don't get it. I recently watched The Martian. The person I identified with the most? The black scientist guy. I looked at him obsessing over finding the solution, to the point of not being able to pay attention to when his boss was asking how it's going and I thought yep, that's me . His skin color or gender played 0 part in me being able to identify with him, since we have similar experiences. Even as a child, I watched Dexter's Laboratory, and would sympathize with Dexter, and fantasize about having my own secret laboratory . It didn't matter he was a boy. And I found DeeDee annoying and never once thought she's a girl like me, is that how people see me? since I am not like that. I used to read a lot of yaoi manga. Having experienced a lot of discrimination while having a relationship with another girl and living in an Eastern European country, I found I could relate to many of those stories. It didn't matter that the main characters were men. I found the movie Zootopia to be brilliant for showing the struggles minorities may deal with on a daily basis, in spite of it being with animals. I understand the importance of raising awareness of the issues minority groups face through media, and fully support it. What I don't get is the whole I am a woman, and movies rarely show women scientists, so I never thought I could be a scientist or in general, insisting on characters being female or your minority group in order to be able to relate to them at all. I feel it's the result of identity politics gone haywire. It's like we impose an artificial barrier on people. You're part of this group and there's that other group who is strange and different and bad. You should only relate to people of your own group, else it's a betrayal . Please help me understand why people care so much about how someone looks instead of how they are as people, and how that's a good thing. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"People care too much about what characters in media \"look like\" instead of who they are. This way of doing \"diversity\" is weird and the result of identity politics gone haywire."}
{"id":"9a29b9e5-8a1b-4b77-86bc-199bfa3ada8a","argument":"For example, a company focused on Black hair care products wouldn't need to diversify in order to be successful.","conclusion":"There are organisations that serve one specific cultural niche or ethnic group. These organisations can thrive without diversity."}
{"id":"1252a333-a302-40ad-ad62-056f26459c0a","argument":"Senate Rule 19 states that No senator in debate shall, directly or indirectly, by any form of words impute to another Senator or to other Senators any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming a Senator. I suppose this may be helpful to keeping things civil when Senators are debating back and forth about some piece of legislation it keeps them focused on the merits of the legislation itself instead of just lobbing ad hominems , but when it comes to debating the merits of a cabinet nomination for someone who is currently a senator, it basically creates a situation where the unstated structure is, we're here to debate the pros and cons of this nominee being on the cabinet, but if you mention any of the cons, you will be in violation of the rules, and will be forced to be silent for rest of the session. This seems indefensible to me what is even the point of having a debate about a cabinet appointment if it's against the rules to say anything bad about the appointee? In my mind, any such debate is a complete sham unless Rule 19 is suspended for the course of cabinet debates of a standing senator, or the senator has to recuse themselves upon being nominated to a cabinet position. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Rule 19 is absolute, pure, unadulterated BS when applied to a cabinet nomination debate for a standing Senator."}
{"id":"d4c90e63-de91-4dec-a871-8464bd678f24","argument":"Comparing the figures for 2005, around ~$350 billion would have been saved in private costs e.g. personal time filing taxes, hiring accountants\/firms if there was a FairTax Tuerck, p. 4","conclusion":"A tax on expenditures is simple for the public to understand and reduces tax compliance costs."}
{"id":"a9b0a99f-50aa-458a-b26b-13ee1a4a5fd1","argument":"Many couples continue to stay together for the sake of their children. A paternity test can remove this barrier.","conclusion":"Parents often get divorced as a result of negative paternity tests."}
{"id":"a2df4760-ccda-4ad2-8438-69c8bd4e34f9","argument":"I've watched prank videos on Youtube of guys in expensive cars baiting girls and then insulting them for being a gold digger when they fall for it. The message is that they would never be attracted to a dude in a beat up sedan, and thus are shallow bitches. Maybe so, but these same channels also upload videos of how to pick up girls , and the only girls they hit on are attractive. But isn't expecting a woman to be attracted to a guy driving a shitty car the same thing as expecting a guy to be attracted to an obese woman? Why is one kind of superficial attraction okay and the other not? I mean, I wouldn't normally consider myself a feminist by any stretch, but it seems hard not to see men who believe this as both misogynistic and hypocritical.","conclusion":"A woman being attracted to a man for his money is no different or worse than a man being attracted to a woman for her looks"}
{"id":"2dd3f547-1ee5-4ce9-a6d3-ddccf8647549","argument":"Even if excessive use of cell phones could be harmful, as long as people learn to use them in moderation, there should be no noteworthy harms from it.","conclusion":"The effects of cell phones and Wi-Fi are too minimal to be significant."}
{"id":"070c5c38-efcd-4e45-8bbe-9df9bcf05ed5","argument":"There have been on-going conferences sponsored by the Berkeley Center and the Vatican Observatory, in which prominent scientists like Stephen Hawking and Paul Davies have explored the implications of science for theology with prominent theologians like John Polkinghorne and Wolfhart Pannenberg.","conclusion":"During the last quarter century, a flourishing dialogue between science and theology has been going on in North America and Europe. Clearly faith and science can, at bare minimum, have mutually respectful discussion."}
{"id":"6c93a8a6-9104-42c4-8030-b1d121697e08","argument":"Many times on online sites you will read a profile describing a person and included in it might be a message ranging from the subtle Looking for racial ethnic group here men women. the less tactful Not interested in hearing from racial ethnic group here . and the obvious Not attracted to insert racial ethnic group here . People who do this hide behind having preferences that are harmless. I believe this is racist since outright telling people of certain groups not to contact you means cultural differences are no longer a factor and skin color is the only measure the man woman is using. I would also like to add that I think not posting this publicly and still rejecting men woman on the basis of being insert racial ethnic group here is also racist. EDIT Why do I think this is racist? An individual in this scenario is outright say he she does not wish to speak to someone on the basis of race and we're to assume he she will ignore comments from individuals belonging to whatever group he she is excluding. I find this exclusion to be racist and the public shamelessness involved in saying that you don't want to talk to or be contacted by insert racial ethnic group here is racist. I'd be appalled if I heard someone say this to me in any other circumstance. Why do we make an exception for dating? EDIT THIS IS NOT ABOUT SEXUAL ATTRACTION.","conclusion":"Publicly stating you aren't interested in hearing from minority groups in online dating profiles is racist."}
{"id":"fd293dab-2e43-481f-a320-2dcf0e98ea96","argument":"Apart from the moral reason, there is also a simple societal reason why it is wrong to download musi.","conclusion":"Downloading Music Without Permission Is an Example of Theft and Is Immoral"}
{"id":"b3f027be-f2d4-43e4-aeb4-ad3786a6daa6","argument":"A greater number of minority students being accepted into colleges can inspire more students from their schools and local areas to aspire to college, fuelling overall educational performance.","conclusion":"Affirmative action programs can fuel improvements at lower levels in the education system."}
{"id":"d11d820e-2225-413a-a8e5-c4cfc33f5af8","argument":"I've biased, I've never had a strong relationship with anyone outside my family. Family are the only ones that truly ever gave a damn about me in my experience. So when I see other people, the only thing I see are two people faking cooperation for some bizarre game of give and take, ultimately a waste of time at a futile attempt to make a connection outside of the family. All my recently attempts at building relations, romantic or platonic, just seem to be stuck in gear 1, never really building up to something meaningful. Shit just stays in polite mood. I think everyone else simply wants something, and once they get it, they move on. It was never about you and them, it was just them. You're only an extension of their reality. This is why everyone projects themselves on others to find those most like themselves, to reinforces their idiotic thoughts rather than measure themselves personally. And those that stick around long enough regret doing it eventually. I find it hard to believe, that I am so different than others that I have lived a life of deficit in friends and lovers. Am I an asshole? Do I look weird or give off that 'vibe'? I try to be a good person, and for the first time as of late, I can honestly say 'yeah, more often than not, I am a good person'. I've been thinking about this a lot lately and just see the only simple answer, Occam's Razor, humans under the veneer, are shitty creatures, and we're all on broken record on skipping repeat. Signed, Someone that feels like they're losing their damn mind.","conclusion":"Friendships don't actually exist, it only exists as an idea in fiction."}
{"id":"b380e645-41d3-497f-8b7f-9cba0b3c2a09","argument":"Military conflicts are complex and unpredictable. And the things they are trying to accomplish are often very important. These two things together mean that having a firm deadline ahead of the conflict for when you will cease military operations is a recipe for leaving the task halfway completed which will likely cause worse problems down the line. HOWEVER in lieu of a timeline, it is VITAL that the goals of the conflict and the metrics by which those goals will be measured and judged are clearly outlined and well understood by those in command, and preferably shared with the public. We should know what victory defeat will look like so that we aren't bogged down in an endless mire of conflict. This is the biggest problem with the so called war on terror no clearly defined end point which has led to the non stop global conflict that the US has been engaged in for the past 16 years. So, when Trump says that he isn't going to set a deadline for military activity in Afghanistan, that is a reasonable statement to make and is not problematic in and of itself. The problem is that he is seemingly missing the second half of the equation where the goals of the conflict are clearly outlined and the metrics by which success or failure will be judged are well delineated and understood. Just to be clear, goals of the conflict do NOT need to include tactical information that would make conducting the war harder. So, to , I'd like one of a few different things either a good reason why strict timelines are important and useful before a conflict begins, to the point of justifying the costs, or a reason why well delineated or at least publicly so goals of the conflict and metrics for success are bad. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Explicitly not having a timeline in a military conflict is a good idea."}
{"id":"5d4594f1-03a9-4265-aded-93dea17dc952","argument":"Let me start off by saying, this is purely an ideological argument. I am fully aware that time zones are here to stay, if not purely just because switching would be way too much trouble. That is not the point of this , and an argument about how hard it would be to switch will not change my mind. That said, I think we should get rid of time zones. I don't think that they provide any actual conveniences that make it worth the complications that also come with them. I have had people try to argue things like it removes the context of timing of communications across the world as in, you have no idea what 9am means to someone in Laos but I don't think things like this are a very good argument, because you are simply replacing one problem with another, because you still have to know the difference in time zones anyway. I have read this thread on the topic, and most of their arguments are along the lines of the example given above, and that is just not enough for me. I understand that there would be inconveniences to a universal time, but I do not think these are fixed by having time zones, and if they are, they are simply replaced with a new set of inconveniences. My argument, simply put, is that time zones are a relic of the past, and have no real justification in a modern, internet connected world. To change my view, you will need to demonstrate why time zones are objectively necessary compared to a universal time system. Change my view. EDIT I just want to clarify, by universal time I mean that everyone is on THE SAME TIME, as in it is 9 00 in California and China at the same time.","conclusion":"We should get rid of Time Zones"}
{"id":"b4992425-437a-4b88-b591-327d43d1cfc8","argument":"Daenerys turned mad over the course of a few episodes, after having been rational and calculated for several seasons.","conclusion":"Numerous developments took place at a speed that was not believable or consistent with the series' usual pace."}
{"id":"384d137b-e3a8-4702-bc26-2e7b448fb368","argument":"Britain and Australia have both accused Russian military intelligence of using cyber attacks to attempt to undermine Western democracies.","conclusion":"Britain leaving the EU does not appear to have led to closer UK-Russia ties."}
{"id":"2fc4f5c3-a1ea-474e-8d55-0b6ac9680daf","argument":"There are three players involved in the 'whether to impose a hard border' decision: UK, RofI, and EU. The EU cannot itself erect a hard border. Due to political pressures and moral duties relating to The Peace Good Friday Agreement etc, UK and RofI would do anything in their power to avoid a hard border, respectively, on their sides of the political border. Thus the EU hasn't the power, and neither the UK nor the RofI have the will. Thus no hard border shall be erected","conclusion":"A border with Ireland is not a prerequisite for departure from the EU. Brexit does not guarantee that a hard border will be restored."}
{"id":"5282d548-5db6-49e5-95ba-324e6a9739a3","argument":"Trueness of moral statements are validated against accepted values and since values heavily rely on perceptions neither morality nor values can be objective.","conclusion":"Morality derives from subjective sources, and is therefore itself subjective."}
{"id":"979642bf-5540-41ff-8ced-90e40a9a6fee","argument":"Alex Hutchinson, creative director at Ubisoft tweeted this today, calling out people for complaining about a game that they had pirated. People who pirate games seem to be responding to this by trying to justify piracy. I keep hearing people say that they refuse to pay 60 for a game they don't think is up to standard. That's fine, don't buy that game, but don't pretend like that allows you to just take it for free. If I see a product at the store which I don't think is worth the price, I don't buy it. I don't feel like I'm rightfully allowed to take it for nothing at all. If you want to pirate games, there's nothing I can do to stop you, but don't act like you're some kind of fighter for liberty. Videogames are not your human right, it's a luxury and a privilege.","conclusion":"People who pirate video games and claim it's because of moral reasons are pathetic."}
{"id":"8a8ffc0e-5fec-465a-b8a6-61f9ac57af6c","argument":"In our modern world, where we currently live in the safest and most peaceful time in history, killing for pleasure or sport is no longer accepted nor does it truly exists. You can't be mentally sound and yet kill another human innocent simply for pleasure, without any other motivations. So I believe that every human out there only kills for personal reasons revenge, theft, war in certain circumstances anger, misunderstanding \u00e0, yet no one kills entirely 100 for pleasure unless they're a true psychopath and diagnosed as one.","conclusion":"I believe only psychopaths are capable of killing for pleasure."}
{"id":"0b7ee084-f726-452d-a286-eab2c55f8bf3","argument":"Concern for future generations is explainable by a desire to preserve the intrinsic value of the human race, cultural value, and so forth, and does not require commitment to the moral significance of potential persons. Therefore, concern for future generations does not mean we should be concerned for future versions of a person.","conclusion":"The state is only responsible for the care of \"future generations\" as a vague entity, not specific members of future generations."}
{"id":"813da2e7-6805-429f-b4b1-9f2684e810b8","argument":"thing about joe slapper calzaghe is that he was expertly managed , he didn't take risks , he fought bums , people he knew he could beat easily. one thing i would say about joe is he was a good worker , his work rate was second to nobody but the guy couldn't punch to save his life. he slapped . how anyone could put him down with the greats is beyond me . hell i am even welsh myself and cannot stand the cocaine using arrogant nobody. if ever there were a prize for luckiest fighting career ever then Joe would win hands down , oh hang on he wouldn't need to win as he wasn't lucky just a house rat !","conclusion":"of course not he had 5 good fights and four of them were past there best."}
{"id":"83427728-8d36-482d-a75f-2580e00ba0bf","argument":"In the current security climate this poses a problem for many potential terrorist targets like banks, government offices etc. Faces are hard to check against ID photos and CCTV systems are rendered ineffective.","conclusion":"Veil-wearing can make it very hard to identify individuals."}
{"id":"8da6a344-6082-48f9-ae19-c22965af836c","argument":"The recent hack of the iCould that took place was wrong. It was a crime. But celebrities whose pictures were taken are now threatening legal action on the viewers and sharers of the content. I feel like ultimately it was the fault of the celebrities for taking pornographic pics that could have a detrimental impact on their careers. I dont feel like this is victim blaming, but moreso, that they did something incredibly stupid and that that is thinking that you can safely store something on the internet without any disregard. Most of the pics released were of A list celebrities. As a celebrity, they already should have a lower expectation of privacy and that they would likely be the target of an attack. EDIT For clarity.","conclusion":"I feel like The Fappening is the fault of the celebrities for having uploaded their pics to the cloud."}
{"id":"974e2da0-7ecd-4208-a5b2-6ae2419c3685","argument":"Moral relativism can help people navigate the world by denying absolute moral rules and thus freeing people to do what they think is right in any given situation. In cultural relativism people decide together what is considered acceptable and moral behavior allowing society to freely change with the times.","conclusion":"There are other, superior, sources of philosophical frameworks and moral codes."}
{"id":"09f482cb-f00a-4a9b-b45b-0915435f5e9c","argument":"Edit My specific question is what does abortion have to do with liberation? My personal objection to abortion is that it is unnatural. Everyone knows what happens when you have sex, most everyone knows how to prevent it. There are real victims of rape, financial oppression, and mothers in general that the abortion debate sort of leeches off of and uses to prove a point. But it seems to me that by and large, abortion is used as convenience because it's cheaper and easier than raising a child. I just don't agree with that. I get a lot of shit about this from other leftists, but I have always been pro life. I don't know if my view will be changed but I want to at least understand the other perspective. A few things first I don't think it's my right to tell anyone what to do with their body. It's just my opinion. I don't agree with the stances or tactics of most pro life people. I do think fathers should have a say concerning abortions but I don't know how that would work out. I don't see this as 'the government forcing you to because the government does not force anyone to have children. That's a personal choice or a personal mistake. Birth control works more often than not. I want to understand how abortion relates to liberation, but I don't. I see it as an offshoot of eugenics. Circumstances like rape aside. Fire at will. .","conclusion":"I don't believe in abortion, even tho I am a leftist."}
{"id":"a22422af-f0b9-46c1-ad54-6f8a73039291","argument":"Many of the first Christians had previously believed in other religions until they were presented with good reason to believe that Jesus had risen, meaning that their beliefs were false and the God of the Jews existed as the one true God.","conclusion":"It is highly unlikely that anyone would have become a Christian in the first century without good reason to believe that Jesus had risen from the dead."}
{"id":"90972fec-fb4d-4d37-994c-caa0750bd97e","argument":"We should always be willing to listen and solve problems. But grace and forgiveness is as important to restoring mutual respect and equality as punishment and justice, because many of the wrongs that led us to this point happened before any of us were alive. We can't move forward when one side demands justice and recompense, and the guilty party died decades or centuries ago.","conclusion":"Moderate white Americans want black people to understand that belonging, and being respected as citizens in equal standing, is about sharing in the things that unite us, not by focussing all of one's energy on finding fault and punishing those who offend you."}
{"id":"2ca7c2e6-4255-45a7-892b-0a600adb71e9","argument":"In the Democratic primary debate, Bernie Sanders called for the US to reconsider their alliances with the Saudis and Israel. Both these alliances are crucial to protecting US national security.","conclusion":"The Democratic Party is more likely to be 'softer' on foreign policy, endangering national security in the process."}
{"id":"38e14c52-6d04-486d-971b-d50d35c2d8c9","argument":"Many but not all libertarians consider themselves minarchists those who view the only legitimate role of the state to be protecting life and property from aggression. Under this view, national defense, police, courts, and prisons are generally justified, but nothing else. George Monbiot lays out the inconsistencies of property rights as generally advocated by most libertarians here Note that his argument does not actually render libertarianism unjust or inconsistent, but does attack selectively enforced property rights. In order to be consistent and just, landowners have to be able to defend their property against pollution and other forms of degradation. All advocates of minarchy that I have seen claim that environmental protections can be achieved through tort law, and many claim that such an approach would protect the environment better than current state based protections US EPA, etc. However, modern attempts to do so have generally been dismissed for failure to establish standing, or to identify who is liable. People have already tried and failed to recover damages for climate change, for example. If a farmer experiences crop losses which can be traced to climate change, who would she sue? The oil producer? The coal miner? The distributor? Each and every user of fossil fuel in the world? Many environmental problems are the aggregate result of individually insignificant actions. One person driving 20 miles to work, or throwing a candy wrapper out the window, does not create an environmental disaster. An entire country of individuals all relying on fossil fuels, on the other hand, does create a problem. So would a busy highway where every driver thought it acceptable to litter. Because of the problems of redressing such aggregate action through lawsuits, enforcement through criminal law is a more effective way of protecting property rights. Therefore, a minarchy could include an environmental protection component similar to today's US EPA. Without arguing against the idea of minarchy itself I am not a minarchist, I just want to communicate with them better , please change my view.","conclusion":"Strong environmental protection is compatible with minarchy."}
{"id":"7e0f20b4-b71d-4559-9864-1b0b2ad5a79a","argument":"I searched around some of the posts and couldn't find one similar, but maybe my search skills are fucked or reddits search engine so of there was a decent thread on this prior please go ahead and link it and I'll just delete this post unless it starts good discussion, cause why get rid of new answers just cause the question was asked before . Anyhow, whether or not I like Trump isn't relevant here, but if you want my opinion I think reddit tends to quote mine and slander the shit out of him, and any idea he has is instantly considered to be a bullshit one. I can't say I know his beliefs well enough to say how much I do or don't support him, but I will say this. There is nothing wrong with building a wall to stop illegal immigration on any moral level. Illegal immigrants are a net negative to society, they are criminals and stopping it from happening is a good thing. There is a reason that immigration laws exist, and if people can get over illegally that is not a good thing for the country. This is not to say that illegal immigrants are bad people. In fact one of my best friends is the son of an illegal immigrant now a US citizen who has a good job, raised good children and from what I can tell is a good person I have never net him, however, so incant say . However, I don't agree with the thought that it was the right thing to do for him to illegally come to the US. I also don't think we should have closed borders, and I think that we need to examine citizenship process. I'm not an expert on the subject so I can't go around making suggestions, but I do think we need to have the most efficient and streamlined way to get people who are upstanding members of society citizenship and visas. I also think that anyone who has not shown to be dangerous or a criminal should be allowed access to our country unless they have some kind of extremely dangerous disease or some other 1 in a million situation . We need a way to let people like my friends dad and I'm sure plenty of others who are or were illegally in the US from getting in that is viable to anyone who wants to. But outside of the cost to build I see nothing wrong with building a wall to keep people from being able to illegally enter the country. I don't understand why people oppose this on a moral level but it seems like a lot of people do. Also this isn't supposed to be a discussion on Trumps policies. I literally just want to talk about this singular point, because I want to know why the idea of building a wall is supposed to be immoral. Also this is obviously coming from an American POV so when I use words like we and us I'm speaking about people in the US, although I don't see how this couldn't apply to other nations as well.","conclusion":"There is nothing morally wrong with building a wall to keep out potential illegal immigrants"}
{"id":"8be4d8fb-71a3-4d7f-af61-b62b1bf0441e","argument":"I've heard that 1 in 5 women have been will be sexually assaulted by the time they finish college but this sounds ridiculously high to me. The city with the highest violent crime rate in the United States is Detroit, Michigan with a crime rate of 2122.9 cases per 100K population. That works out to 2.1229 of the population being victims to violent crime. Even if you apply that rate to the entire country, assume that every violent crime is a sexual assault, and assume that every victim is a woman that still comes nowhere near the supposed 1 in 5 statistic. Where does this statistic come from?","conclusion":"I think the 1 in 5 rape statistic is false"}
{"id":"04b04b6b-73b6-44a8-9e0e-39140c19111d","argument":"The 'Let's Move!' initiative started by First Lady Michelle Obama is an example that focuses on transforming the way children interact and think about food and exercise.","conclusion":"Society-wide shaming is one path to getting these policies, but there are also other less destructive ones."}
{"id":"cd7d6f7a-1468-4e2f-ba9d-caa228a8c6dc","argument":"Since studio executives bank roll Hollywood projects, they ought to have a say in what cast members are likely to get them the maximal return on their investment.","conclusion":"Directors and producers do not have complete control over casting in the status quo. They are influenced by outside interests such as studio executives."}
{"id":"156224d0-f17b-4407-be3f-94eb206b2a57","argument":"The EU as a trade bloc would be more inclusive to current and new members","conclusion":"the European Union should be a trade bloc rather than a political union"}
{"id":"c0e6f808-fb4a-4a36-b3ed-1de43eb083ff","argument":"School spending should follow each student to any NON PROFIT licensed school they want to attend except home school , regardless of type of school charter, public, or private. So long as the school is licensed by the state and meets academic requirements, it shouldn't matter what type of school it is. The money would go directly to each school so it is not a tax credit or reimbursement. If public schools need more money they would still be able to levy taxes on property owners. I understand public schools may still be left with the worst students but why should we limit the the better students based on household income? Students who need more help, like ELL students or students on IEPs would recieve more money, just like we have now, so their increased needs wouldn't necessarily be reduced. I don't know the specifics on this but I am sure a calculation could be created to determine an equitable solution. Right now many lessons are planned for the worst and not the best students which harms kids in the long run. Many rural areas couldn't support private schools so nothing much would change there and in wealthier areas many students already go to private schools, so it would open it up for more students to attend because financial limitations wouldn't be as big of a burden. This idea would allow schools to put more resources towards things that matter most to parents and less money to non academic pursuits like increased administrators. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"School spending should follow each student to any licensed school they want to attend."}
{"id":"a0e178bb-9f74-420f-a714-8637f81d2bcb","argument":"I believe that each state needs to take care of the issue for themselves. Just the different levels of the value of money is different enough state by state what makes a man rich in Wyoming may not be livable income in New York, for instance , and I think trying to take care of such a localized issue as welfare at a national level would be disastrous. I do believe that states ought to have some system in place for each of these. I'm still not sold on mandatory health insurance.","conclusion":"I don't believe that welfare or health care should be taken care of at the national level in the United States."}
{"id":"0ec2a0a6-058d-44ee-a9b8-3a0e9b7125d5","argument":"I have come across many people who claim they are are bad test takers. Honestly, I think this is a bunch of bullshit. Either you know the material, or you don't. The only reason to freeze up and not do well on a test is because you do not know the material well enough. These people bitch that the education system is unfair because it relies on tests for evaluation. Well, how else are your professors going to grade you? In life, you have to be able to perform under pressure. Tests are tests, and you should know what to expect and prepare accordingly. Additionally, people complain that the SAT is not fair and it doesn't accurately measure how smart you are. Well, that's not what the SAT is for. It measures scholastic aptitude. It tests your basic algebra, geometry, and logic skills, and your ability to coherently express yourself and form correct sentences. There has to be a standard that everyone should reach before going to college, and the SAT measures it. Please, .","conclusion":"I don't believe that there is such a thing as a \"bad test taker\" and that standardized tests such as the SAT are basically fair."}
{"id":"bd720331-0cc0-4962-9666-1e3c8c3bbec4","argument":"The US Supreme Court has ruled that \"one person, one vote\" applies to state legislature districts local government districts, and US HoR districts Thus, it should apply to the districts \/ people electing the president also.","conclusion":"The electoral college defies the principle of equality of voters: one person, one vote."}
{"id":"3dc39a61-de4a-4f3f-a101-f5afdbb893af","argument":"Simply by discussing adopting open-source software, Microsoft has been forced to reduce its prices; it cut its prices by $35m to match Linux\u2019s offering to the city of Munich, and was forced to offer to release a cheaper, stripped down version of its new operating system, Windows Vista, when Brazil began discussing its future software plans.","conclusion":"Open-source software can pressure the reduction in the prices of closed-source software:"}
{"id":"5a31adc6-73d3-44ed-ac39-eb4f6ddca83f","argument":"A proportion of current EU-funded non-UK EU scientists who are working in the UK will have been hired over non-EU and potentially UK scientists for reasons of administrative ease, visa quotas, funding stipulations etc rather than on merit alone. Post-Brexit, non-EU individuals will not be structurally disadvantaged relative to EU individuals. Hiring foreign scientists based solely on merit rather than citizenship will increase the quality of the scientific research carried out in the UK.","conclusion":"A hard Brexit will improve scientific research in the UK."}
{"id":"7d541601-df7f-465b-8841-85b21af52435","argument":"Places that have decriminalised some or all drugs have not observed a long-term increase in consumption, and occasionally even a decrease has been observed.","conclusion":"Legalising drug use would not significantly increase the consumption of drugs."}
{"id":"a3517013-2b8c-49c0-b40e-c14cd5dc59bb","argument":"Most women who get breast implants have at least one serious complication within the first three years, including infection, hematomas and seromas, capsular contracture a sometimes painful hardening of the breasts, loss of nipple sensation, and hypertrophic scarring.","conclusion":"Results of cosmetic surgery may not always come out as desired or envisioned by the patient."}
{"id":"bd682181-8111-4d00-a671-fa7c833ad048","argument":"Terrorism is in fact no major threat to the West as indicated in the low number of casualties compared to gun violence. Still, it is considered the biggest danger","conclusion":"Currently there are no major threats to the West and so there is no need to worry."}
{"id":"af83b086-93c4-448e-9ee8-6905e6afe023","argument":"Bartenders in Canada have the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason, except for protected classes. For absolutely every other instance I believe that pregnant women should be a protected class. Where I come into conflict is that I could not in good conscience serve someone a drink if that drink is proven to be likely to cause harm to another. The law even states that I am responsible for patrons who become intoxicated and hurt someone or them selves. I would feel personally responsible if I somehow found out I served a pregnant woman some tequila and her baby was born with birth defects or a miscarriage. An important note is that i do not think it should be illegal to serve them. This would mean that if a pregnant woman wants to get drunk, there are litteraly hundreds of bars and chances are someone doesn't care enough to lose out on a few bucks. What won't change my view is the whole my body my choice angle, because you can get a drink without making me responsible. Such as lying and saying I am not pregnant , because I would have plausible deniability. Or the idea that this would result in non pregnant women being refused service, Because of the sheer number of bars and the nature of competition.","conclusion":"Bartenders should be able to refuse liqour service to pregnant women."}
{"id":"1f9c7823-acdd-4972-9b17-0d944ef35bb1","argument":"Edit I gave deltas for two folks who presented great examples of androgynous posts that I could not differentiate. Namely, the posts in r askhistory. However my view still stands when it comes to non academic oriented posts like the kind found in r relationships, r relationship advice, r all, etc. Edit 2 There is plenty of research to back up my claim that gender differences in writing can be measured Thanks to u WigglyHypersurface for providing links down below. Last night a very controversial post was put up on r relationship advice. Here is the post I responded by saying that the post seemed obviously fake, and that based on the OP\u2019s writing and subsequent comments that it was written by a guy. I am now roughly ~~ 1000~~ 2500 and counting karma for suggesting that it\u2019s possible to guess a redditor\u2019s gender based on their writing and comments. But having been on Reddit for nearly 10 years, I really believe that it\u2019s possible. Certainly not with 100 accuracy. But at a higher rate than a 50 50 coin toss. I don\u2019t make this claim trying to be sexist or mysogynist. Because ultimately I don\u2019t see it as very different from guessing someone\u2019s gender when you meet them in person. Harder, obviously. But not impossible.","conclusion":"it is possible to somewhat reliably guess a redditor\u2019s gender based on their writing style and diction."}
{"id":"e171a8bb-01ce-4526-8725-bdff8cb37856","argument":"School climate and school culture directly impact student success. As a result, it is particularly important for the school culture and the classroom culture to reflect, acknowledge, and celebrate diversity.","conclusion":"Schools are also agents of socialization and need to bear in mind factors that may assist the personal growth of its students."}
{"id":"5e41e8d9-b3cc-4860-87a5-098a74633943","argument":"This can still be an important option to maintain physical and emotional safety for those, e.g. teenagers or the economically vulnerable, who have no ability to leave dangerous spaces.","conclusion":"Though suboptimal, the alternative is a life where individuals can pretend to have 'changed' and conform to cisheteronorms e.g. performing their assigned gender, being outwardly heterosexual."}
{"id":"c1018581-c877-4896-b11e-b68567b07823","argument":"Groups advocating only for their own rights leaves may worsen equality. Those from dominant groups i.e. the majority likely have the strongest voice and may be encouraged to further oppress others.","conclusion":"Society is only advanced when we take actions for the sake of everyone, not when a certain group advocates for themselves to further themselves and no one else."}
{"id":"50dbb1ec-c281-4e01-96f9-db8ef407d914","argument":"I have been a vegan for about 16 months. I gave up dairy because I heard it caused acne, I gave up meat after reading The Sexual Politics of Meat, and I gave up eggs after feeling bad for some baby birds whose nest I destroyed when I was trimming the hedge in front of my house. I oscillate between being a vegan for ethical reasons and for health reasons. I want you to change my view because I fear the implications that eating meat causes cancer, and it would be nice to know that the diet I adhere to does not support systemic suffering. Being a vegan stresses me out immensely. I am not a good cook, and there is very little I can eat. When I do cook I mostly make soups or chilis, with rice , it takes a lot of time, and it doesn't taste all that great. I do strength training, but I have trouble getting the amount of protein that fitness forums recommend. When my friends invite me out to eat, I often can't eat anything. I am not a very social person, although I would like to be, and this has not helped. I am coming to believe that conformity has very real value, even if what we're adhering to was set arbitrarily, because we're social animals and we need to be around others. I acknowledge that we treat slaughterhouse animals horrendously. What we do amounts to slavery, rape, and murder, and I think that many of them have similar degrees of awareness as we do, which makes our actions deplorable. But I think that at some point we all have to assert that our individual happiness is more important than others' suffering, without justification. The clothes I wear were made in a sweatshop, the fruits and vegetables I eat were picked by illegal immigrants, my phone and computer contain metals that people died to secure, I implicitly support a government that bombs citizens in third world countries, and so on. If I stop eating animal products for ethical reasons, I think I would logically have to change all of the above behaviors in order to be consistent. I don't have the time or the energy for that. At some point, I need to live my life, even if it harms others. And if we accept that such a point exists, it seems arbitrary where we draw that line between the things we need to do to live our own lives, and the excess luxuries we needlessly partake in. I've had these thoughts for a while. As I said above, my biggest fear is that eating meat causes cancer. If that's true, I think I could do with just eating eggs, although I know those usually have the same ethical hang ups as meat products. Thank you for reading, and I look forward to discussing these points with you","conclusion":"I should stop being a vegan"}
{"id":"c561858e-e131-424b-887e-4fcf4451d049","argument":"This is going to be a long one. After the video \u201cLook up\u201d I had a short discussion with some friends that I have only met online, never even seen their faces and I seemed to have a very unpopular opinion. I would give up all my social contacts to become pretty much one with the online world. Here is why I didn't really have what you'd call a good childhood and it is bad to base your opinions on your childhood, but so far in life I didn't have a single person that was truly important to me. I have a depression and am classified as suicidal and I am taking medication against it. I always say I can't die unless my mother is dead, because she is so important to me, but really I just hate to see her sad, she really had a miserable life, and suicide would really make her sad. But then again I can't see a single reason why \u201creal life\u201d is important. People who live in America say there is an American dream, but really, the American dream died probably 1781 or so, I am not really good with American history, sorry. If you really think anyone can get from a dishwasher position to become a millionaire, you are dreaming. Your future life is pretty much settled depending on the family you are born in. If you don't have any special talents you will follow approximately the same route your parents followed. For me that would be education employment marriage reproduction death. That is boring. And also that is the whole reason for my argument. The whole world is just boring For a long time I was interested in the weirdest body modifications and hair in wild colors, because I thought people who looked like that are different from the gray mass that are the people of today and I wanted to become like them. But I learned that no matter how weird someone looks, they are still a human, the most boring creature on this planet. But there is this place on earth where you still can become someone. Sure, it is harder today than a few years ago, but the internet is not locked yet. The internet is pretty much another world. You can go shopping, you can get entertained, you can travel and learn new things. If you take a bit of time, you can also learn the language of the internet and suddenly see how it is build, and you can build everything yourself. You can meet a ton of people, without even knowing their real name and you can talk about everything, you can hate, you can like, you can communicate. Even though they are getting ready to build them, at the moment there are no walls in the internet that you can't pass. You just need to know how. Heck, you can even work in the internet I just think that as long as we can avoid all these planned walls in the internet, it is pretty much our world, with a few errors removed. Yes there are some, but far less than in the so called \u201creal life\u201d. One argument I have heard often is that people go crazy when they don't have any social interaction. I think that can be true for a lot of people, but I am currently strolling through Canada for 10 moths now. I had a job for 3 months and didn't make a single friend. Whenever I go out I have headphones on, so that nobody talks to me. My sleep schedule is so nocturnal that I get problems thing shopping for food. And all the while, even though I only communicate with people I barely know, I am still the same person as before. I don't know whether I should have posted this here, as I had a discussion about this topic with my psychologist and even he could not change my view. And I might come over closed minded when I won't award any deltas but maybe there is an argument that changes the view I have for more than a year now and it will have been worth posting it here instead of r offmychest","conclusion":"I would give up all my social contacts to become pretty much one with the online world."}
{"id":"e8b6fa31-bf91-40e9-962c-b541c2969736","argument":"There are many reasons why I believe this Firstly I feel that it is currently the most backwards and outdated of the religions, with women only being allowed to drive recently In Saudi Arabia and gays and rape victims being executed in countries like Iran. Secondly there is an active culture of homophobia within Muslim communities, far more common in my opinion than in other religions, an example is when a soccer team posts a pro LGBT tweet, the only negative responses I see are from people of Islamic faith, but that is anecdotal so may be unreliable Thirdly being from England I know of the rape gangs in Rotherham and Rochdale and wonder why they happen in Islamic communities and are mainly done by Muslim people in those examples, again it doesn't represent the faith but there has to be a correlation. Fourthly the many deadly attacks in the name of Islam make me wonder why they are done, a common argument is that they are not proper Muslims but if lots are done in the name of Islam then there has to be some form of connection I feel. Being from Manchester I was especially angered by the attacks but I feel that my hatred or intense dislike of religion and Islam in particular as a result of this will make me a worse person, as I know many great people who are Muslims and indeed some of my family are Muslims themselves, so I want my view to change, but I think i still will feel some sort of dislike and anger with religion as a whole. Sorry for the wall of text","conclusion":"Islam is the most toxic religion on the planet."}
{"id":"d539ea1b-baff-4850-94a7-06934024082d","argument":"As the age of artificial wombs arrives, I feel that fertility is irrelevant. Say it's the year 2215, robot wombs are the norm, a better chemical sterilization method is invented. There is no need for functioning testes or ovaries. Everyone knows that Geldings neutered horses are WAY better than Stallions. They are more hardworking, gentle, focused, docile and intelligent than stallions Stallions only want to force their way into the mare's living space, they are crazy and sex frenzied . Same with dogs, before your neuter your dog, they are humping everything, spraying everything, and way more aggressive. I submit the same goes for humans. Men's sexual drive hinders common sense, wastes time and is utterly illogical. It ruins lives, I myself have been raped before, molested, taken advantage of by otherwise decent ish people. Eunuchs are way more respected, way more neutral. Same goes for women, If we spay women, no periods, no monthly mood swings, no unwanted children. My plan would be to neuter and spay everyone after puberty. Then open a sperm or egg bank Account to deposit enough sperm or frozen eggs edit or Grown eggs, from stem cells taken from a female's skin to have up to 10 offspring. ? or 100, who knows. When you want a kid, all you have to do is insert the vial of sperm into the artificial womb machine insert the egg and you're good to go It would eliminate abortion, accidental pregnancies Which is probably the biggest cause of unhappy kids, thus criminal activity. See Freakonomics rape, gender inequality no one is the prey, no one is on the prowl . If someone did get pregnant the Old school way , then it would be just like the animal shelter, they can spay the mother after birth free of charge. It wouldn't be a poor person thing vs rich still has balls person thing. EVERYONE is equally castrated with nominal charge TL DR Humans are animals too.","conclusion":"Humanity would be better off spayed and neutered, with a cryogenic bank for their seed"}
{"id":"61b3fdb7-4d56-4e1f-9636-27bb2745ee7f","argument":"Specifically when hiking or participating in any other outdoor activity, being warm is better than being cold. When you physically exert yourself while being cold, it's harder to breath. Your throat starts to sting, your lungs hurt and you cough with every breath. Your muscles especially your fingers and toes are less inclined to obey your will and do so only slowly and painfully. Your nose and ears sting and lose sensation in them, and on top of that they glow red like a certain reindeer That's before mentioning how to combat the cold. Anything from a sweatshirt and a long pair of pants to a heavy coat, gloves mittens, a scarf, a beanie, heavy socks and shoes you become very bulky when you're trying to deal with cold, and that makes pretty much any activity tougher to perform. To compound the issue is the fact that when it's warm being wet is acceptable or even fun, but being cold and wet is undoubtedly one of the most miserable experiences one can have so it's ironic that the cold is accompanied with wetness more often than heat is, at least where I've been USA, Europe and the middle east .  gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"warm weather is preferable to cold weather when you're outdoors"}
{"id":"1f3c0020-d619-48e0-b2ad-77094da8f71a","argument":"I am a firm believer that consciousness and free thought is an illusion. I like to think of our brains as \u201corganic computers\u201d. Instead of wiring and microchips, we have individual brain cells. Each cell is lined up in a specific way to make an abstract thought as electrical signals flow through them. I believe that when we die, our consciousness dissipates into nothingness. How could you have thoughts after you die if A. You need electrical signals to be able to think and B. There are no longer brain cells firing off in your brain anymore? Think about a young child. Their \u201ccomputer\u201d is highly undeveloped. Think about a brain dead person. Their electrical brain signals must be nearly non existent. So, how can we as humans expect to think 100 clearly in an afterlife? If my thinking is true, no religions are true. I mean, what if a severely autistic kid wants to go to heaven? Would his autistic thought processes be taken with him? If not, then is that really him? Attempt to change my mind","conclusion":"brains are organic computers. When the computer is shut off, our thought processes and \u201cconsciousness\u201d cease to exist."}
{"id":"bb45acf1-7ecc-4b96-a85c-4eabb1d0ccb8","argument":"When the President comments on a crime, he makes it much more difficult for the people accused of the crime to get a fair process because the prosecutor whether Federal or State feels tremendous public pressure to pursue a conviction and a harsh sentence regardless of how strong the case really is. A President who does so is therefore depriving the accused of their rights. I would advocate either that Presidents voluntarily refrain from commenting on crimes calling them terrorism, expressing anger at the perpetrators, condemning attacks, etc if those crimes may have been committed by US citizens or else that the Courts find that trials under such conditions are inherently a violation of due process and the perpetrators should get off scot free. I think this should start as soon as Trump is out, since he obviously can't keep his mouth shut or act as a model of decorum.","conclusion":"Presidents should not comment on crimes that will potentially lead to prosecutions of US citizens."}
{"id":"60eb20da-8cab-4eef-8b39-acf3ff4e0976","argument":"Assuming that explicit or violent material will \u201ctrigger\u201d students is a rather simplistic view of how trauma and PTSD actually work. PTSD is a complex condition, set off by a number of different factors and specific to each individual. Assuming everyone will be triggered by the same experience is overlooking each individual's pain and life story.","conclusion":"The use of trigger warnings misrepresents PTSD and mental health conditions more broadly to the public."}
{"id":"0d7c2d92-a6cf-425a-8d7b-11eeccdf159c","argument":"The evolutionary biologist, Richard Dawkins, refers to scientific methods of understanding the interconnected web of life on earth as the poetry of reality. This is due to his understanding of scientists as being highly creative in making new scientific discoveries. Richard Dawkins - Science is the poetry of reality","conclusion":"They both strive for a way to express observations of the world to other humans."}
{"id":"4230cfc3-9105-4217-8698-9ddfb3011807","argument":"This is evidence that Disney was hurrying to turn Star Wars series into something new at the expense of the story and of fans alive during its first release. After the ending of episode III, imagine Episode IV not having addressed what became of Anakin Skywalker or Obi Wan Kenobi..","conclusion":"There was no outward expression of mourning for Han Solo's death among the characters who knew him most closely."}
{"id":"a3365526-3328-4a63-9873-5ca77799b560","argument":"an enemy can not attack to see that the opponent is a woman, an ally could act recklessly if the partner to save is a woman, as you see it is an abuse to the figure of the woman.","conclusion":"Women in combat can be a distraction or harm the function of the military"}
{"id":"a9809b00-f204-4121-afb6-35ac8bea181c","argument":"Since the Paris attacks I have seen a ton of 'not all Muslims' posts around. Saying 'not all ' is dishonest and pointless because, it used as a strawman, the statement is too easily abused, and it eliminates room for conversation. The most prevalent problem with this is the innate dishonesty of any claim that 100 of a group also fits into another group. The only time 'all' can be used toward a group is in the form of a tautology, for example, All police officers are members of the police. Those that say All X are Y are few, and they are rarely the kind who are open to discussion otherwise they would have accepted the not all idea during the over a decade this phrase has been used. On top of that, like most slogans and easily shoutable phrases, this is an abuse of language. It is used in a way that connotates, Not even a single X is a Y . Which is as ignorant as saying All Xs are Ys. . It has spread as an informational virus, numerous groups use 'not all ' as a tool to protect themselves. When if they really did disagree with the actions of other members of their group they should be more outraged than anybody else, as these individuals are making a bad name out of something you are. There are numerous more honest ways to distance an individual or a subset from the larger whole, while condemning the actions of that individual or subset. This phrase is used to soften the actions of an undesirable group by associating them with more politically acceptable members of that group. Lastly, the reason this is an issue, and what I've been hinting at in ever paragraph thus far. The complete removal of discussion is disgusting. I can't be critical of a subset without constantly prefacing every idea. This is an intentional consequence of the statement, it clogs up and dilutes discussion to distract from the real issue. Here's a concrete example going back to the Paris attacks. There is little to no discussion about how to deal with these people. Military action has only served to exacerbate the problem of extremism, and they are unable to be reasoned with. Yet there is no room for discussion because you are met with 'not all Muslims', even when explicitly about this small subset. The only conversations I have been able to have on this subject has been bogged down by both parties constantly saying 'not all Muslims' back and forth to make sure we were both totally pc This statement has been used by many groups even ones I advocate for, but this abuse of language and pure intellectual dishonesty is an issue growing ever more prevalent. Now to get ahead of anybody saying I am ignorant or don't know what I'm talking about. And I hate touting 'I'm not racist I have a black friend' but I do know what I'm talking about. My sister converted to Islam a few years ago, and talk frequently about Islam not only as a religion but as a culture. And I have traveled with her to the mid east. I'm 99 sure, that I know more about the middle east than the vast majority of people in the west. Here's a picture of the two of us for funsies. Edit Heres something I would like to add to the OP from one of my comments to clarify my position. gt It becomes an issue when without even the preface of discussion, and in sometimes IN PLACE OF discussion people just say back and forth 'not all Muslims'. Edit 2 Perfect example of 'not all Muslims' ideas detracting from a conversation not even explicitly about Islam. Edit 3 Just some more clarification form the comments, the issue is people are using this as an easy answer to difficult questions. Its replacing disussion, this is represented in the video from edit 2. Sorry about the edits, as there will probably be more, I just want to clarify my position and help anybody who wants to change my view by giving better representation of it.","conclusion":"Every 'not all ____' statement is dishonest."}
{"id":"9688e55f-3826-4c5a-98f5-b71b75784b4f","argument":"Logic and order in the universe follow from the logic and order of the Creator. While He might be able to create such a rock by His omnipotence, being consistent, it is unlikely He would.","conclusion":"Classical theists do not believe that omnipotence was ever meant to include logical impossibilities. There is no thing which God cannot do, and logical contradictions are not truly things but inconsistent bugs in language."}
{"id":"96b4d02c-b7fc-42de-b44e-eb1b2ecec2d2","argument":"First, the parameters I'm talking about stupidity, the relative lack of capacity to retain, recall, relate, and process information. I am not talking about willful ignorance, or choosing to ignore information despite possessing the ability to understand and apply it. Nobody chooses to be born with diminished cognitive ability. It's not something we get to decide on, we're just born with it or we aren't. So how is level of intelligence any different than any other involuntary condition of birth? We don't choose our race, we don't choose our gender. To openly hate somebody else for differences in these factors is frowned upon. Yet I hate stupid people is perfectly acceptable, to the point where stadiums full of people will cheer for that sentiment Here's your sign . Since it's not a choice on part of the stupid person in question, what makes hatred of the stupid any different than hatred based on any other involuntary condition of birth? What makes I hate stupid people any better than I hate men or I hate White people? EDIT If you aren't going to argue under the parameters set, then I'm just going to downvote and ignore. I put it there for a reason. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Hatred for the stupid is a celebrated and accepted form of bigotry."}
{"id":"3d63acc8-4170-4868-badf-b3c32ab3a7f7","argument":"Students are sometimes forced to spend a significant part of their time studying the particular faith of the school, even when the students and their parents object.","conclusion":"Faith based education promotes indoctrination of students, leading to rigid belief in values that results in less understanding of others."}
{"id":"2569bf89-7395-428d-b9e6-a12cdf8ca3d9","argument":"In the struggle for reproductive health rights for women, the efforts of women of colour in the United States has been undocumented, unanalyzed, and unacknowledged","conclusion":"The efforts of women of colour often aren't acknowledged by the mainstream feminist movement."}
{"id":"748a816e-5953-46a1-acef-51e539031754","argument":"ISPs are private service providers and should thus be able to have some filters on the most extreme spectrums of extremism","conclusion":"allow internet service providers to block access to extremist websites"}
{"id":"8b659672-902a-49d4-a766-8e163ecfa624","argument":"The number one gripe that most gamers have about Steam is how bad the support it. It is atrocious. I was locked out of my account way back in the day, and it took them three weeks to resolve it. Just looking at r Steam, it's clear that these support issues haven't been fixed in all these years. It seems that they don't have the resources to deal with the volume of support requests that they get. IMO Valve should take a good look at their customer support and start hiring some more staff. They need to get rid of the bots and put in some kind of live support with real humans. I can't believe I'm saying this, but Origin has much better customer service than Steam.","conclusion":"Steam customer support sucks and Valve should do something to fix it"}
{"id":"900e20c6-c0e9-4f12-9e0f-597daa135388","argument":"Trump clarifies that the the people he's talking about is not the neo-Nazis and white nationalists. \"And you had people\u2014and I\u2019m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists\u2014because they should be condemned totally. But you had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists. Okay? And the press has treated them absolutely unfairly.\"","conclusion":"Trump did not call the white supremacists or neo-Nazis of the Charlottesville riot \"very fine people.\""}
{"id":"80b8d912-1b21-4fb5-8bb8-aa95787f784b","argument":"This is because tax increases are a significant government action into the lives and liberties of citizens. If government is of, by, and for the people, any tax increase should be voted upon by the people.6","conclusion":"Some Republicans believe all tax increases should be voted upon."}
{"id":"aade7ae9-77d6-4c69-9dfc-2db71b9d1d91","argument":"Businesses advance when they hire the best person for a job who can unite people and create value. These qualities are individual and enhanced through training rather than not gender-specific. Letting both private and public companies to hire according to their needs and those who meet them is a more efficient way to ensure economic growth. In some countries in the EU the proportion of women with relevant education is lower and such a measure will bring structural inefficiencies in the short to mid - term for the companies and the overall economy. The empirical data from Norway, for example, reveals that after being exposed to a severe limitation on their choice of directors, boards experienced large declines in value.1 Often women hired after the quotas implementation had less upper management experience than the previously hired employees. However, since the average size of boards did not increase, male employees were dismissed and less experienced female professionals hired, so that companies could fulfil the quotas. 1 Ahern, Kenneth, and Amy Dittmar. \"The Changing of the Boards: The Impact on Firm Valuation of Mandated Female Board Representation.\" The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2012.","conclusion":"Public and private institutions should hire people based on skills not gender to achieve positive economic impact"}
{"id":"5c311be1-a579-4f0a-9b38-2b85e9207032","argument":"One big thing tau fixes is radian angles. Pi can result in those annoying chunks of a circle represented by weird fractions of pi, but with tau, it\u2019s simple: everything matches up where it should fractionally.","conclusion":"Using tau instead of pi makes the calculations of a circle much easier."}
{"id":"c10beba5-c50a-4618-8ad9-45d57bc17fbf","argument":"To clarify I am not saying homosexuality is a choice, but I think that it happens to people, rather than it always being that way. I believe that some time in people's adolescence they develop homosexuality, rather than it always being there.","conclusion":"I believe that homosexuality isn't something people are born with."}
{"id":"389b5002-110f-42a9-a4bb-dfae09d06669","argument":"I believe that there are only two genders, male and female. These are the two genders required to have sex and produce offspring. Nowadays there are plenty of openness and acceptance of all people whether it be gay, transexual, bi etc. You can believe you do not fit into male or female and most people will not criticize you for it in any way, and just accept what you believe at least in my area . However I do not agree with wanting to create more genders, basically forcing it on the rest of the world 99.9 who is happy with the way things are for us, other species, and have been for the history of this Earth. Basically, I believe that you can think of yourself however you want, but it is wrong to try to get the rest of the world to accommodate you if they already accept you as is without the creation of multiple genders.","conclusion":"There are only 2 real genders"}
{"id":"3f15599a-87a8-4989-ae4c-e0394753dd20","argument":"I just don\u2019t get it, I personally think it looks like shit, but that\u2019s beside the point. It has a really toxic community, and for people who are supposed to \u201cnot care\u201d people get caught on hype and really judgmental to other members of their community. Seriously supreme could drop a dildo and people would get it, then judge you for not having it. Also you simply can not justify spending thousands of dollars on things made for 6 cents by Indonesian children, it holds no really value outside of status among other jackasses.","conclusion":"Highend streetwear is stupid and conformist."}
{"id":"497cb67d-92af-4b77-912f-3e75a1bd3f25","argument":"I feel like morality is all relative. I don't want to kill anybody and from a very basic standpoint, I believe that killing is wrong but in some cases, is it okay? Yes. I would try to do everything I can to avoid it, but if someone was trying to kill me and I had a weapon, and I felt that I was fucked, I'd use the weapon. So someone tries to kill me, and I kill them first so they don't. Does this make me a bad person? In this case, no, in my opinion. The world is not black and white and you can't break it down as simply as good vs bad, because there are complicated reasons for everything and people aren't that basic easy to define either. I feel like you can't put people into boxes, we can't assign people labels like this, defining people as good vs bad creates shame and forces people into groups. You can say, oh, it is wrong to steal, if you steal you are bad. What if I stole some food because I was kicked out of my parents house and I was starving? Or if a person stole some money to pay for a bill which they had no money to afford? So my best friend, he was arrested for robbery in the past, he has had a lot of problems with alcohol drugs, has gotten into trouble, and for those reasons he may be considered a bad person to some people. But he is also probably the most charismatic guy I know, always so much fun to chill with, very kind and funny. So I don't think he is a bad person. Good person is a way to give people superiority. I don't like it since I don't like calling others good vs bad. Okay, what about a psychopathic serial killer, are they bad? I mean actually psychopathic, someone with diagnosed ASPD paranoid personality or something, I'm thinking like Richard Kuklinski. I do not necessarily think of him as bad, since I believe his brain was wired that way and he doesn't have the moral compass or conscience. Maybe he could have learnt it if he got extensive treatment, but y'know. In that case, while I support none of his actions, his mental state was not his fault. I am excited for this, never did a debate here before.","conclusion":"There is no such thing as a \"good\" or a \"bad\" person."}
{"id":"f43a62a3-23b2-4b8a-ac88-916fc8ac87f6","argument":"I believe that anybody over the age of 25 is progressively losing the ability to learn new stuff and thus public ressources shouldn't be wasted on people whose ship has already sailed when it comes to higher education. With every year more ressources will be required to lift them on the same intellectual level of their fellow younger students. Also, their chances of successfully joining the job market are dimishing with every year, so in addition to their poorer mental skills their chances of getting a job and generating value are also diminished. My country offers free education to anyone and those people are draining public ressources. If one over the age of 25 wants to get a higher education, he should pay it for himself. There is no famous scientist or other person who accomplished something who started their career in their later life .","conclusion":"I think publicely funded universities should only allow people under the age of 25."}
{"id":"ee465a8e-c6b8-46cb-8c96-1fd688afb124","argument":"Hey all As most people have heard, the tensions between the United States and North Korea are at an all time high as of September and I have had a few worries since then. I feel like there is a chance of a attack on the U.S. mainland and it makes me feel extremely uneasy. I want to be made to understand the situation from the standpoint of someone who knows what they\u2019re talking about and I would like to be able to live my life without the constant fear of something happening. I trust this community without a doubt to be able to handle such a request, excited to hear what you all have to say","conclusion":"I genuinely fear the tension brewing with North Korea"}
{"id":"fb44a709-b504-494f-a572-e71d1c465e94","argument":"These arguments about FSM were explicitly designed to be similar to arguments about God that are considered fallacious by supporters of FSM.","conclusion":"The arguments used for God's existence could also be used to support the existence of the Flying Spaghetti Monster."}
{"id":"25a6b32f-15b4-4ee3-a6e3-bd82005abb0f","argument":"Governments should only regulate in the case of clear and present harms to first parties. On the face of it, the ongoing success of AirBnB with its customers suggest there is no problem given the potential harms it poses are nebulous, indirect, and difficult to both identify and address directly.","conclusion":"The success of Airbnb despite the lack of regulation indicates that regulation is not needed to protect consumers."}
{"id":"65f28b52-8950-4e54-be9d-45408eaefcb5","argument":"So there's a line by Shakespeare, The apparel oft proclaims the man. Or the game scene where Michael wears geek clothes and goes unhindered into a tech company office in GTA V. Still, I think, as a college students, I don't deserve to wear three piece suits to look big, and here's why 1 I'm in no position to wear those suits I have no credible money making skills That is, am just a 21 year old undergrad in his second semester. Yes, I know I started college late, but then again, with virtually no professional skills, which three piece suits usually symbolize, I think that, by ordering one of those shiny suits, that somehow I'm being insincere to myself, that it encroaches on my pride. I'm not Obama, I'm not Samsung's CEO, I'm just an udergrad. 2 I'm from a poor background. Can't hardly pay my college tuition, and the money that I spend in making those suits, I can use that to survive for months. Heck, I can survive for amonth with the money I give to just join those parties. But still, you might think that 2 is clearly the coup de grace and that I'm right in holding this opinion, but I want to give you a chance by saying that I can apply and get accepted for a scholarship, which is most likely, or at least more than chance. I also have restarted part timing. But even still, 1 will still hold even in this scholarship scenario with a scholarship and part time, I think I won't buy three piece suits even if I do have the money. Because still, 1 will hold, I don't possess any professional skills just yet. Maybe after graduation I will, but not at this particular moment in my life. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"As an undergrad, I don't deserve to wear three-piece suits or go to expensive parties."}
{"id":"926dab95-7187-4be0-a247-346a928d5768","argument":"Even the most famous and high stakes of duels, such as that between Dumbledore and Grindelwald in 1945, finishes in defeat rather than death.","conclusion":"Duels are not necessarily fights to the death, it is seemingly rare that someone dies in one."}
{"id":"51aeb4f7-9bed-45c3-b582-b1ddca7ff758","argument":"Arguments about democracy being \u201ctoo fast\u201d ignore the fact that any speed is \u201ctoo fast\u201d. Some people argue that the movement from non-democracy to democracy is a very significant one and so systems ought to be wary of making that move \u201ctoo quickly\u201d. This ignores the point that the issue is not the speed but the scale of change. The move to democracy is a significant disruption to the status quo that will have wide-reaching and long-ranging effects in any situation. This will be so regardless of whether the transition period is short or long. So to complain that a transition is \u201ctoo fast\u201d is to confuse the nature of the change with the speed of change, which will always be too fast for many people\u2019s liking.","conclusion":"Arguments about democracy being \u201ctoo fast\u201d ignore the fact that any speed is \u201ctoo fast\u201d. Some peopl..."}
{"id":"2f36c79c-cf4c-4031-b965-e4f6064863e8","argument":"Men generally tend to have more social capital in society than women. Even today women are blamed for the crimes of men in cases such as sexual assault. We should correct for this asymmetry of power by giving women choice in this matter.","conclusion":"Men are likely to pressure women to keep or abort the child, depending on what they see fit for themselves."}
{"id":"bc684117-e282-4959-8dba-bdd8d6b6cd93","argument":"Kant's moral dignity, social contract, utilitarianism, and virtue ethics; these are just some moral theories that we have come up with that don't require a god.","conclusion":"The existence of evil does not require a moral law beyond man, simply morals."}
{"id":"bdc6f799-a1da-4abf-9735-41521479bfee","argument":"For the purposes of this post, let's assume the 'partner' in this description is an attractive, young female early 20s , and 'never' concerns a relationship that lasts until death let's say 60s . Let's define 'cheating' as either physical sex or emotional falling in love with someone else , and let's define 'any reasonable set of circumstances' as things that don't involve any sort of coercion, threats, or anything too detached from reality. I don't believe that it's possible to find a partner that would never cheat on you given any reasonable set of circumstances. I think it's possible to find a partner that is resistant to infidelity, and as a result of favorable life circumstances combined with this resistance, they may end up going their entire life without cheating. However, I think that given unfavorable circumstances, it is impossible or at least so rare that it is impossible to count on to find someone that would never do so. The relationship I'm talking about lasts 30 years. Imagine the huge number of ups and the equally huge number of downs. The times your partner is mad, sad, or even infuriated at you. The times your partner is turned on but you aren't there. The times you or your partner are in another city and they know you'd never find out. What if, at those moments, the right situation came along? An attractive guy assuming the partner above comes along and says or does the right things at the right moment. An opportunity comes up particularly for women to trade sex for career advancement or to meet an idol musician actor. As you may have gathered through this question, there's value in answering this for me. I have an attractive girlfriend and what I've observed makes this question sometimes weigh heavy on my mind. I see guys hit on her when she's out, I see her so called friends subtlety try to work their way into being something more, I see people with power try to use it to impress her and turn a friendship into more. Is this truly sustainable over 30 years? Can anyone convince me that through all of these times, given ample opportunities, someone could stay faithful? Or is it simply like poker, where a player's disposition and skill is important but ultimately, you need luck to be successful? Has anyone experienced situations like I describe above?","conclusion":"I don't think it's practically possible to find a partner that would never cheat on you under any reasonable set of circumstances."}
{"id":"e55c8db6-1542-465e-8fd6-4408ca4c2d4a","argument":"Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said in 2007: \"I will not agree to accept any kind of Israeli responsibility for the refugees.\"5 That is what a right of return does to Israel. But, without justification. Israel was attacked in 1948 and 1967. It should not have to bear the burden of the refugees that resulted from these conflicts.","conclusion":"A right of return wrongly makes Israel responsible for refugees."}
{"id":"f86cd4c0-9a50-4f30-bce4-6dccfae93b9f","argument":"Corbyn is even more unpopular than Theresa May. Only 22% of people voters want him to be Prime Minister compared to 29% for May and 40% for neither.","conclusion":"Corbyn being leader makes the Labour Party unlikely to come to power. He should be replaced even if it is difficult to oust him."}
{"id":"43c0091c-d447-456d-b2b6-52bda0c7a6b9","argument":"God being able to prove His own existence and Him being willing too, are 2 different things. God could well not be willing because He desires people to have a relationship with Him not simply knowing about Him through evidence. And people often don't desire relationship when they feel they already know all about someone.","conclusion":"God in His design may value something else higher than merely convincing minds, something which precludes the compatibility of engaging in an Internet debate with His wider plan."}
{"id":"8be5f090-5d8f-4035-8805-50495040d708","argument":"There's historically been debate over what \"property\" means. Humans used to be seen as property, for example. One can debate viable ownership and rules to govern it without violating the concept. Belief in property rights doesn't necessitate a belief in an unfettered acquisition and hoarding of wealth, nor submission to all claims of ownership. We don't need to give a billionaire's wealth, obtained from exploitation, the same legitimacy of an indigenous culture's claim to their ancestral home.","conclusion":"This is a list of a bunch of words whose definitions are all debated by various ideologies. This is the essence of the argument."}
{"id":"633532d2-d923-4093-8849-f5cab40067ff","argument":"Although we recognise that juries can provide valuable insight and represent the will of the general public in court cases1 and especially the communities in which the crimes occurred2, there is also recognition that juries can be subject to bias3. Britain has even suggested plans to restrict the right to trial by jury in order to prevent undue bias from affecting court cases4. Elsewhere, experts are debating over whether jurors should learn about \u2018a victim\u2019s sexual history in rape cases where the defendant asserts that the accuser consented to sex, or a victim's propensity for violence in murder cases where the accused claims self-defense\u20195 because of fears that it might cause juror bias. We do not grant ultimate knowledge to jurors, nor should we; it endangers the potential for an unbiased trial. 1Lawson Neal, and Simms, Andrew, \u2018A People\u2019s Jury of a thousand angry citizens\u2019, The Guardian, 31 July 2011. 2New Jersey Courts, \u2018Welcome to the New Jersey Court System\u2019, judiciary.state.nj.us, 2011. 3Howard Nations, \u2018Overcoming Jury Bias\u2019 4Davies, Patricia Wynn, \u2018Plans to restrict right to trial by jury condemned\u2019, The Independent, 28 February 1997. 5Silverglate, Harvey A., and Poulson, Dan, \u2018Getting Real at the SJC\u2019, Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly, 30 May 2005.","conclusion":"We already recognise that we cannot place complete trust in juries."}
{"id":"a60cc545-c39f-4f84-95a1-2b6c74bb6339","argument":"I got this idea from BPT. People were equating texting while driving to being intoxicated and driving, and I completely disagree. Intoxicated here does not mean the legal definition. I'm referring to a level of intoxication that actually causes judgement and reaction time to be compromised. The increased risk of injury death through alcohol or other impairment as compared to increased risk through texting while driving. I honestly think most people would agree with me after the below explanation, but I am curious to see if anyone has any legitimate oppositions to this argument. I'll provide a couple of scenarios nbsp Driving in heavy traffic at speed with BAC gt 0.05 Very dangerous nbsp Driving in heavy traffic at speed while texting Very dangerous nbsp Driving with no traffic other cars are far away at speed through a city with BAC gt 0.05 Very dangerous nbsp Driving with no traffic other cars are far away at speed through a city while texting Very dangerous nbsp Driving with no traffic other cars are very far away at speed on an open, straight, highway in bad weather with BAC gt 0.05 Very dangerous nbsp Driving with no traffic other cars are far away at speed on an open, straight, highway in bad weather while texting Very dangerous nbsp Driving with no traffic other cars are far away at speed on an open highway in good weather with an intersection coming up in lt 20sec with BAC gt 0.05 Very dangerous nbsp Driving with no traffic other cars are far away at speed on an open, straight, highway in good weather with an intersection coming up in lt 20sec while texting Very dangerous nbsp Driving with no traffic other cars are far away at speed on an open, straight, highway in good weather, with no intersections coming in lt 20sec, passing a Deer X ing sign with BAC gt 0.05 Very dangerous nbsp Driving with no traffic other cars are far away at speed on an open, straight, highway in good weather, with no intersections coming in lt 20sec, passing a Deer X ing sign while texting Moderately dangerous nbsp Driving with no traffic other cars are far away at speed on an open, straight, highway in good weather, with no intersections coming in lt 20sec, in a low wildlife area no xing signs , with BAC gt 0.05 Very dangerous nbsp Driving with no traffic other cars are far away at speed on an open, straight, highway in good weather, with no intersections coming in lt 20sec, in a low wildlife area no xing signs , while texting marginally dangerous nbsp Driving in a modern car with lane obstacle detection with no traffic other cars are far away at speed on an open, straight, highway in good weather, with no intersections coming in lt 20sec, in a low wildlife area no xing signs , with BAC gt 0.05 Very dangerous nbsp Driving in a modern car with lane obstacle detection with no traffic other cars are far away at speed on an open, straight, highway in good weather, with no intersections coming in lt 20sec, in a low wildlife area no xing signs , while texting not dangerous compared to not texting. Obv. driving is still dangerous inherently nbsp Texting while driving is dangerous because it removes your attention from the road and prevents you from reacting to external concerns for the duration of the text. The only things that you cannot anticipate while driving are wildlife, especially at night, and spontaneous mechanical failures such as a tire blowout. If the other conditions weather, traffic, no upcoming intersection, other vehicles far away, no stopped vehicles are ideal, and you're on say a toll road with giant walls, then it would only be tire blowouts. If you disagree, then I would like to hear why, maybe there's something I haven't thought of? I could see an argument for not doing it at any time just so it's a habit. This would prevent scenarios where the driver failed to properly assess if the environment is safe for texting or not. But that is not a result of texting and driving and would not invalidate the fact that sending a short text while driving as long as conditions are ideal is no more dangerous than eating a cheeseburger while driving. Cheeseburger actually more dangerous since it adds risk of choking, cancer, etc. Thanks for reading edit changed perfect to ideal","conclusion":"Texting while driving can be done with minimal risk given specific conditions, and is always safer than driving intoxicated."}
{"id":"2940a44b-414d-4344-932f-fa4f8ab81911","argument":"Humans are well-adapted to their environment, and since the environment's is ample and not going to change soon, humans won't evolve. Thus, the alternative if we want to keep evolving is through artificial means, as it lets us 'do the impossible'.","conclusion":"Transhumanism could speed up human evolution, which provides multiple benefits."}
{"id":"43318482-cb45-42bf-bff0-8663c17290af","argument":"If an employee poses a threat to the business or co-workers, they can be fired.","conclusion":"In certain cases an employee can be fired because of their mental health problems."}
{"id":"60e7f9bd-9513-4b97-9401-b116d886ced4","argument":"While almost all agree that genetically engineered crops have many benefits, many are worried about possible safety and environmental issues involved in growing and consuming them. I, however, believe that there is no danger involved. I have a relatively strong science background and cannot find much scientific proof that it is harmful. I would especially appreciate arguments to change my view from a scientific point of view but I am open to, and may be convinced by other types of arguments as well. Even if certain negative outcomes result from growing genetically modified crops, they are outweighed by its massive benefits. Genetic modification makes farming significantly more efficient and is especially beneficial for third world countries that may otherwise be overtaken by famine. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Genetically engineered crops are not harmful, and their many positive benefits outweigh any possible uncertainties."}
{"id":"fdccdaf0-8576-4ca1-b3b2-e6328eba8007","argument":"In the United States twice as many adult women play video games as do boys, despite many feminists claiming it targets a solely male demographic.","conclusion":"Some feminists claim video games and their surrounding culture are sexist and may encourage misogyny, when they actually don't."}
{"id":"7b437d25-4763-41b0-80c3-89338797caae","argument":"The reason I believe this is because it seems as if most of the rights abuses we see currently occur under the guise of officer safety. It seems to have gotten to the point that PDs don't even have to have a reasonable argument for what a given action has to do with officer safety, they just have to say the words and all discussion ceases. I think we should stop pussyfooting around, arguing about the balance between public safety and officer safety, and make it official policy that officer safety is not a priority, that by becoming a cop you agree to those terms, and work within them. This isn't a policy change that could be made tomorrow, because a big part of this view is consent. The current crop of new cops all signed up with the knowledge that their safety is prioritized above all else, but if we hired cops who accepted that their safety was the lowest priority, then that fact would just be part of the job description. I think this would have various beneficial effects. It would force better community policing, because intimidation wouldn't be possible if cops were more likely to be charged with assault for tazering someone, or murder for shooting them. It would prevent unreasonable searches and other rights violations in interaction with law enforcement. Would more cops get injured or die? Probably. But on the whole I think it'd make the profession a whole lot more pleasant to work in, because the cops would be forced to cooperate with civilians rather than trying to rule them. It really seems to bother cops that so many in society despise them. I don't doubt that the argument, that the abuses we see are the actions of the few, are true, but I why then are there such robust systems in place designed to protect the bad apples? Strip the entire organization of their protections, and the cops that end up on youtube will end up in prison instead, and the populace won't hate fear cops.","conclusion":"I believe public safety should always take precedence over officer safety."}
{"id":"fb73d77e-7225-43f1-bead-6e23ceccee00","argument":"The purpose of a fine is to ensure that the offender faces the consequences of their actions. The extent to which a financial penalty feels like a negative consequence is relative to the amount of income someone has, not to the simple amount that the fine is. That is, if someone earning \u00a3200 per week is fined \u00a3100, that will feel more severe than a \u00a3100 fine would feel to someone earning \u00a32000 per week. Therefore, if you make fines proportional to the income someone has, all people feel the impact of the punishment equally, rather than the poor facing a punishment with a harsher impact on them than on the rich.","conclusion":"Rich and poor now face equality of impact of punishment"}
{"id":"49494bea-da45-47c4-a3c1-f3b77a6957a5","argument":"Gender activists simultaneously claim that childrens\u2019 toy preferences are a social construct yet claim that a child\u2019s affinity for toys intended for the opposite sex is prima-facia evidence that the child is transgendered.","conclusion":"In some studies infants as young as 9 months old have shown clear preferences for gender specific toys at an early stage, pointing towards the existence of some biological differences."}
{"id":"f35f3279-0ff7-4dc3-a8fc-0d4614af3877","argument":"I don't understand why people got outraged a few months back when the British company Tesco's put horse meat in their burgers What's the problem with eating horse meat, objectively? There is no difference between eating ground up cow meat, ground up pig meat, and ground up horse meat. Not a vegetarian, by the way. Just confused . I'll admit that, yes, there are differences in taste, but I don't see where there is a difference in ethics, or whatever people were complaining about, between eating horse meat and eating other types of meat.  EDIT u AnxiousPolitics and u maxwellwilde have changed my view. Thank you.","conclusion":"Eating horse meat is no different than eating other types of meat."}
{"id":"f900db16-3889-4d73-a85b-7b0539359653","argument":"EDIT Devolving is not a real term, Regressing is a better way of saying what I'm trying to say. The process of evolution relies very heavily on natural selection. In order for evolution to take place, even slightly weaker members of a species must die young or not be able to procreate. Ever since the advent of agriculture and organized human civilization, dumber, weaker, and genetically inferior humans have been able to survive to puberty and procreate. Today, the most intelligent and powerful members of society have few children, sometimes none. While the weakest members like the idiots who end up on the Maury Povich Show pop out dozens of children. There is scientific evidence to suggest that humans during the time of Ancient Greece had, on average, HIGHER IQs than we do today. Humanity is regressing. Edit Sources Stanford study by geneticist Gerald Crabtree","conclusion":"I believe that not only has human evolution ceased, but that we are devolving."}
{"id":"ad9672df-cce6-4e85-8fce-d98a6bcff318","argument":"It is the job of law enforcement officers to enforce all laws, regardless of the race or ethnicity of the suspect. To deliberately avoid certain groups out of fear of claims of \"profiling\" amounts to giving those groups a free pass to violate the law.","conclusion":"Banning racial profiling would effectively create \"safe havens\" for crime among racial minorities, thus indirectly harming their communities and helping racial stereotypes persist."}
{"id":"c268abba-254e-4e5f-ae6a-c62ed5c460e7","argument":"Recently, I saw JRE pop up on r SubredditDrama I was really surprised by the number of people who considered JRE to be completely useless. x200B I've been watching JRE for a while, but I'm not a hardcore fan. He has done some phenomenal podcasts Mike Schmidt, Mike Tyson, and Hamilton Morris to name a few , but he is not perfect. The biggest issue for me is that he needs more people who can actually argue from the left I really want to hear one with Rutger Bregman . He also doesn't push back on his guests unless they are really retarded Candace Owens, Dave Ruben , and it seems like an unusually high proportion of his fans are also basically doing retarded groupthink. x200B Even with these problems, I believe that the long form conversations of JRE are still valuable because it gives a resource for people to genuinely consider different points of view and make decisions for themselves. Sometimes, the conversations will expose weaknesses in the way the guests think that should automatically discredit their product Alex Jones, Candace Owens . Other times, they will be forced to give out pieces of information that can be fact checked, allowing people to see if the guests' views are legitimate. But most importantly, as more conversations are had, you can find out exactly how the guests think. x200B Sure, you shouldn't take everything that's said in JRE as gospel, but the conversations still offer anyone who does their work and pays attention a valuable experience. x200B Edit Sorry I forgot to add this before Another argument for JRE's value is that not all the guests are political. The one with Mike Schmidt former lawyer turned comedian helped illustrate what the criminal justice system was like, Mike Tyson gave more detail about the mind of a person who quickly rose to fame and now knows the error of his ways, and lets not forgets all the scientists he brings on. x200B x200B","conclusion":"The Joe Rogan Experience is valuable"}
{"id":"812b9203-8760-477f-a910-914583942866","argument":"Consumption is wrong and should never be authorized. Legalising drugs would only make them appear more acceptable. This would undermine health campaigns by suggesting that drugs are not too harmful or even harmless.","conclusion":"Legalization would send the wrong message that drug-use is acceptable."}
{"id":"26ac8ca1-80cc-46f5-a4e5-e847e80bfa7d","argument":"Many areas of science depend on financial or other resources to make progress, and these resources are often controlled by political processes.","conclusion":"Academic and industrial contexts expose scientific research to political influences."}
{"id":"804e2c40-0034-47d1-b340-b369ba44467d","argument":"There is no good reason for gender identity to have any place in our world. x200B Some people believe that it's important to focus on gender identity and its acceptance for the sake of transgender people. However, I believe that the opposite is true because gender dysphoria is an often horrible and debilitating mental condition, people shouldn't have to worry about being treated as a woman, man, or nonbinary. They should only have to worry about any bodily changes they need or want to feel more comfortable. Being called the wrong pronoun can bring up negative thoughts and feelings for a trans person, and these can be avoided by eliminating such distinctions. x200B Furthermore, what advantages does being treated as a certain gender whatever that means give? I can think of no valid argument that people should be treated differently based on any arbitrary trait. People have been shown to both consciously and subconsciously have biases about certain demographics, but why should this be encouraged in our very use of language? x200B Additionally, I have studied the biological basis for gender identity, and the evidence for it is murky at best. It would be great to be able to scan brains and just know what sex that person would be best off living as, but this is not possible. We only have correlations about what makes a brain appear male, female, or trans no proof that universally male, female, or nonbinary brain traits exist at all. Current gender identity is based on the word of the person, making it a constructed trait that has not been shown to be helpful. x200B There is also the argument that people may relate more to the average of one sex than another. This is very true we have masculine females, feminine males, etc However, to say that being being feminine or masculine makes someone a certain gender is at best arbitrary and at worst sexist. Trans people themselves often dislike this mentality, because stereotypes are not a basis to treat someone differently or for someone to get a sex change. x200B The only real applications of gender identity that remain are in language and areas such as bathrooms. There is no good reason that we need to distinguish genders with pronouns and names any more than we need to do with races. In terms of bathrooms, what reason is there to divide them by gender? People may bring up assault, but is there evidence that this would actually increase assault? Could the same argument be made about dividing by race, since some races commit more assaults on average? x200B If there is any area of gender identity I missed, please define it for me and show why it should be considered. x200B TL DR There is no scientific basis for clearly dividing people into gender identities, and the concept of gender identity itself halts progress on social issues such as double standards between those deemed to be men or women and the mental health of trans people. x200B Edit There is also the practical application of not having to say he or she all of the time, which leaves out some nonbinary people anyway. Perhaps just he for everyone is also simply easier and more efficient.","conclusion":"There is no good reason for gender identity as we know it to exist."}
{"id":"401c9163-845f-4c3d-b8df-3eb98a73a745","argument":"Each javelin round costs about 80,000, and the idea that it's fired by a guy who doesn't make that in a year, at a guy who doesn't make that in his lifetime is somehow so outrageous that it almost makes this war seem winnable Sebastian Junger The US military budget for both 2011 and 2012 was around 690 billion 690,000,000,000 . This money is wasted on overpriced training, equipment and massacres for a war that is helping no one. The earth's 6th big extinction event scare is doing the rounds and regardless of its scientific legitimacy, there is little doubt that the world is on a course for annihilation. However, I would argue that the world is not doomed and could be brought back to a state of balance more or less with the right funding in areas such as sustainable energy, global education and environmental rehabilitation. Unfortunately that funding is going towards America's collosal erection for blowing brown people up.","conclusion":"The US military budget should be diverted into projects that aim to fix the world."}
{"id":"303d4277-e95b-4c98-aa69-cc9db93db737","argument":"Plants and crops are often the cheapest food that people can buy to sustain themselves, and if people lack resources this may mean it is very necessary for their survival.","conclusion":"Eating crops is necessary for many people to survive. Eating meat is not. Thus, there is a difference in the logic applied."}
{"id":"dbfa452c-2e1c-42ad-9c9f-4aa72686aca2","argument":"Interactive dolphin behaviors in the captive environment consists primarily of actions that had been signaled and then reinforced by humans. Potential indicators of disturbance in research are more frequent in the captive environment.","conclusion":"The research data attained from zoos is questionable due to the insufficient dietary, social and biological needs of animals in their natural environment"}
{"id":"bde9be67-cb0a-448b-8951-e18954fdb35b","argument":"Kyle McSlarrow, President & CEO of the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, said in a February 2006 Senate Commerce Committee hearing on Net Neutrality: \"I would like to focus this morning on three main points. First, Congress's policy of leaving the Internet unregulated has been a resounding success. The resulting network flexibility has encouraged billions of dollars in investment. Companies that include high speed Internet services among their offerings have the freedom to experiment with multiple business models, producing more choices and competition in content and providers for consumers, and more innovation than ever before.\" Mr. McSlarrow's overarching argument is that laws like Net Neutrality would limit the innovative business and pricing models of Internet providers like Comcast.","conclusion":"Internet has been successful w\/o govt regs like net neutrality"}
{"id":"e799b6a2-c552-4351-8ec2-2feea0544363","argument":"Having a routine leads to people having a sleep schedule sleep is important for both mental and physical wellbeing.","conclusion":"Work provides people with a focus and routine, which can benefit them greatly."}
{"id":"1f666d28-66ce-4f31-b83f-4445f17645fd","argument":"Disclaimer, I am female, and I have never been raped myself. However the focus on rape jokes is part of larger problem I have with feminists painting rape as the worst crime ever but at the same time continue with girls are more than their bodies or genitals etc and that isn't their entire worth. I find modern feminism in general extremely ineffective, obsolete, and desperate to stay Relevant I still think rape is awful and should never happen to any female, especially the younger more vulnerable ones. Anyway, that was context. My main issue here is rape jokes. Yes they can be offensive. Yes they can be disgusting. And yes there are plenty that are not funny at all. But the same can be true of racist jokes. Or the dead baby jokes. Or the holocaust genocide jokes. Etc. There are jokes about murder which is a bigger and worse crime than rape, if you believe girls are worth more than their virginity vagina. Yet I don't hear any outcry about murder jokes or that murder jokes encourage murder. I don't think rape jokes are any worse than those types of jokes above. Also, I don't see how banning rape jokes would even help. Men don't become rapists just because they hear rape jokes. People don't become murderers because they hear murder jokes. So, please change my view. EDIT just want to make one thing clear. As I mentioned in one reply, I'm not denying that rape jokes are a bad thing. I just don't think they are worse or special in their wrongness.","conclusion":"I don't think rape jokes are any different than other offensive jokes and should not be a bigger deal than other insensitive jokes."}
{"id":"10cb14d0-738c-4c58-ba97-8a816a4ef53d","argument":"Closer relations between the United States and Russia is a good thing. Great Britain was once our enemy. Now they're our best friend if you discount the Chris Steele affair.","conclusion":"All of these moves could be seen as an attempt to improve political relations with Russia, with the goal of cooperation on counter-terrorism measures."}
{"id":"408fc6ce-e423-48f1-8c90-f13bf9be5614","argument":"Extracting information from private correspondence is a penetration of privacy but it is not necessarily open publication, i.e. 100% loss of privacy.","conclusion":"No legal media or communication channel should be allowed to endanger citizens by confounding access for law and security reasons."}
{"id":"62fe141d-917c-4f20-8d5d-934d19dac6d6","argument":"I have one child in college now, and three more who will be heading off in the next few years. I believe that there is nothing wrong with setting reasonable conditions upon which I will pay for their education. I think it's perfectly reasonable to set conditions on locations and majors if they're expecting me to pay for it. My general rule is they can major in anything they like if they go to either UF or FSU we're in Florida obviously . If however they want to go to Miami, or as with my daughter Yale, or any other top school, then I have final approval on their major I'm not going to pay 200k 300k for a Liberal Arts, or Art History degree. College is about education, yes, but it's every bit as much an investment in the future, and paying top dollar for a degree with limited earning potential is, quite simply, a bad investment. And before the but the quality of the education is better arguments start, I'm not debating that of course an Art History education for example from Yale will be of higher quality than one from University of Florida, but at the end of the day, even the highest quality Art History degree is still just an Art History degree . If you want to change my view, convince me that the value of the degree should be irrelevant when it comes to the cost of the education. nbsp Edit To be clear, I'm willing to pay the cost of four years at a state school towards any school if they decide to go it on their own.","conclusion":"There is nothing wrong with parents setting conditions on paying for their child's college."}
{"id":"f2fc3f57-a69e-4db2-90b3-ee56ab088d50","argument":"My basic belief is that politics is significantly less important, to the close point of apathy, than religion, which I think should be paramount. People should be more concerned with issues regarding religion than politics since Religion has greater implications. If You decide to from a well thought out political belief, it is not a guarantee that you even will make the changes you want because let's be real, a single vote won't change anything and voter turnouts are dropping. But the problem is that politics to me has little value. So what if the marginal tax rate went up 3 or if abortion prior to a certain period was outlawed. Like to me, it all looks similar and whatever party is in power, I cant tell the difference if there is any. Religion, on the other hand, does have grand implications significantly in the afterlife. My decision on religious and philosophical issues such as the existence of God or the Resurrection of Jesus could potentially be the reason I burn forever or get rewarded for eternity. This is absolutely unlike and way less significant than planting more trees or recognizing this or that person or thing for a national holiday. Politics is important in some cases, but it is less considerable than Religion and you are likely to change very little. Edit close point of apathy gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I should care more about Religion than politics"}
{"id":"698af6f6-6e59-4c08-a9d8-21902d1fb8c3","argument":"Im not sure about you guys, but Im growing very tired of seeing nature and the world go to absolute shit thanks to co2 emissions. Yes I know there are other things affecting nature, but I feel tackling co2 emissions from cars trucks would be HUGE in stopping the world go to shit. Also Im sure we want our kids grandkids to grow up in a world that isn't full of pollution, climate change, etc. Sure some people will say oh well uhh theres too many non electric cars out there already, whats the point, its not possible to enforce . Well it'll never happen if we don't try, and its easier than some people think to enforce. Thats what everyone said in the 1800s about abolishment of slavery, saying its impossible to enforce not to conflate the horrors of slavery with non electric vehicles but to be honest, sharp laws can easily change society, and in time, they will be fully adopted within society, just as we see how theres no slavery today in the U.S . Hopefully the analogy drives the logical point. On a comical note, imagine if there was another civil war between electric vehicle owners vs non electric vehicle owners. Speaking in a realistic sense, there are dozens of cars out there that are cheap affordable and electric, it's just a matter of enforcing a law and creating a trend towards electric vehicle ownership. Also there are plenty of gas stations, practically around every corner in the U.S. There would then be a monetary incentive for owners of gas stations to build electric charging stations and capture their business from that. Hopefully you guys will go electric within your lifetime. Your grandkids would appreciate it. If not, convince me why it wouldn't work Edit If you're downvoting this because you disagree, atleast reply why. Don't just downvote just to downvote, meanies","conclusion":"Non-electric vehicles should be banned until global warming is resolved U.S specifically"}
{"id":"423d9682-5745-4e77-baa3-8149feeeb004","argument":"My politics lean strongly to the left. My views on \u201cfree speech\u201d are adequately summarized here I support the rights of bigots to express their views, but it isn\u2019t my top priority, and the idea that they should be protected from criticism and consequences is laughable to me. At the same time, it\u2019s hard for me to think of a more counterproductive response to a troll like Milo Yiannopolous than the reception he received last night at Berkeley. It makes Milo feel important and validates him in the eyes of people who accuse \u201cthe left\u201d of thought policing. It saps credibility and strength from the movements that oppose his ideas and is a distraction from opposing the Trump administration on actual policy. At best, it\u2019s a waste of time. Trump and his allies pose a serious threat to the press and thus the free exchange of ideas. Don't get me started on Putin. Effectively opposing Trump means coming down hard on the side of the ACLU version of free speech. Shutting down an earthstain like Milo with violence, while literally \u201cConstitutional,\u201d is hypocritical and unacceptable. This protest \u201cno platformed\u201d a toxic egomaniac in a way that was guaranteed to bring him more attention than he would have gotten otherwise. As a leftist, I think it was a terrible move. Is there anything useful or redeeming about this protest that I\u2019m missing? Am I just concern trolling? . gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The Berkeley protest of Milo Yiannopolous was counterproductive and stupid"}
{"id":"fed35f57-2f96-4c43-aa1a-44c4e12cb2ca","argument":"The SGR-A1 comes at a unit cost of $200,000 This price is not particularly high compared to other military products.","conclusion":"AKMs save money as they are cheaper than human forces."}
{"id":"38ce037e-09c7-42fa-8516-b1d4fbd371a0","argument":"Considering the field of psychology has best defined intelligence as manifesting in various forms like musical, linguistic, kinetic, and visual I don't believe that it is possible to associate one's learning ability with a number. High IQ scores tend to magically come up in conversation through those that hold them, and I think low IQ scores serve nothing but to do unwarranted damage individuals' self esteems. I've never taken and IQ test and refuse to ever do so. Change my view","conclusion":"I don't believe intelligence is measurable and think IQ tests\/scores are meaningless."}
{"id":"77cc6c36-e56b-4564-b695-550eac50ae05","argument":"Research shows that children who are more religious have better mental health than those who are less religious p. 2.","conclusion":"Being part of a religion and strong religious community as a child has a number of benefits."}
{"id":"46a2797b-e6e4-428f-b6c1-4e750bb11c95","argument":"Back in 1909, Fritz Haber, the Father of Chemical Warfare, synthesized ammonia gas from nitrogen and hydrogen. Carl Bosch then exponentially increased the scale at which ammonia could be produced so the process was named after both of them. This is the primary method of artificial nitrogen fixation today. Ammonia was used in the production of munitions during WWI and WWII and allowed the Germans to continue to fight both wars despite being blocked off from traditional forms of nitrates. Despite its wartime importance, I believe its greatest contribution to the world was its creation of ammonia for fertilizers. With increased fertilizer use, the efficiency of crop production increased exponentially and allowed the population to grow around the world. Crops now require one fourth of land to grow as they did in 1900. As a result, it raised the standard of living in Third World Countries, changed diets, decreased malnutrition, and made it possible to grow crops in places where they would not be able to grow normally. About 85 of all nitrogen in food proteins available for human consumption comes directly in plant foods from the world\u2019s cropland, and synthetic nitrogen fertilizers provide about half of the nutrient in those harvests crops. Therefore, more than 40 of the world\u2019s protein supply comes the Haber Bosch synthesis of ammonia. In other words, the synthesis of ammonia is responsible for feeding 2.2 billion people each year. Sources Appl, Max 2005 , Ammonia , Ullmann's Encyclopedia of Industrial Chemistry, Weinheim Wiley VCH Smil, Vaclav 2011 . Nitrogen cycle and world food production PDF . World Agriculture. 2 9\u20131.","conclusion":"The Haber - Bosch process was the most important scientific discovery of the modern era."}
{"id":"95861b5a-b34f-4f91-8f8b-d59d612f061b","argument":"I'm sorry. I'm white and i feel like if i died now then the world would be a better place because it would mean there's one less white person in the world. A lot of arguments against this fall under the problematic categories of not all white people , tone policing, or silencing people of color. We're kind of the reason and source of all evils and other forms of oppression in this world right now. We're not doing enough fast enough to fix things or make up for them. Idk, this might apply mostly to the united states, idk. I don't like feeling like this, but there's so much evidence otherwise. Idk what to do or what to think, sorry. Thanks for reading","conclusion":"We white people just make the world a worse place."}
{"id":"bcf1b09c-548f-4793-a932-837398ed706a","argument":"Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights protects free speech, but does note that censorship may be necessary for democracy, security, safety, authority, health and\/or morality. As such, companies who choose to remove content are protected under these terms.","conclusion":"Most countries rightfully allow private corporations to censor speech in certain situations."}
{"id":"478d2711-dc45-455a-8b52-096934bb20a7","argument":"Placing an inmate in solitary confinement makes it easier for prison guards to control the inmate's actions so as to prevent them from harming others.","conclusion":"Solitary confinement can be used to protect the prison staff and inmates from violent prisoners."}
{"id":"25108176-b320-4f74-8752-fb15d8e756f9","argument":"Upon finding that the chance of upward mobility is increased if young children are exposed to resources that are typically reserved for the rich e.g., better schooling and safer neighborhoods, Raj Chetty and Nathaniel Hendren recommend housing voucher programs to enable lower-income families to move to better neighborhoods with quality pre-school programs.","conclusion":"Home ownership and usual income can account for 80 percent of the observed wealth differences between white and Black families Thompson\/Suarez, p. 33 Reparations can provide the capital for homeownership."}
{"id":"21f3eb6f-3fd0-4229-842f-bf9320456f3d","argument":"Over the last years I have spoken with some separatists and their feeling to need independency for catalonia. Aside from evonomical reasons there is also the cultural aspect. When asked about what is culturally different, the biggest point is always the language and then comes some smaller stuff like regional food specialities. But isnt culture way more than that? History, morales, worldviews, usus, basically the things that setermine who you are, aside from your character not a tool you use to talk to others.","conclusion":"A different language is not enough to claim a region is culturally different. Therefor Catalonia is culturally the same as Spain."}
{"id":"c1a2c329-a029-44f0-b393-b1ca519381d5","argument":"While the Rebels have fighters, Federation capital chips are far more manoeuvrable then their Rebellion counterparts, able to make extreme course corrections and evasive manoeuvres Rebel ships could only dream and wish for. This is a key issue and has many implications, both in terms of attack and defence.","conclusion":"The Federation's ships are technologically superior to those of the Rebel Alliance."}
{"id":"895b6cc6-e47d-4612-a096-25e7b4a527a3","argument":"One out of four US combatants stated that their primary goal was to kill Japanese rather than to win the war Dower, p.53","conclusion":"Military staff was outspoken that they didn't consider any other role for the Japanese people than annihilation."}
{"id":"bd33c4be-e910-46f0-82b6-6add3d16a5f6","argument":"Paying locals that protect herds of animals to kill the oldest or the sickest shouldn\u2019t be viewed as taboo. If a certain animal only hinders the pack by taking food or safety that younger and more robust animal would need then, harvesting that animal should be fine. If an elephant only has roughly 1 year to live why not accept a huge amount of money for someone to kill it. You can then spend that money on protecting the animals from poachers and other natural predators. The dead animal is then usually harvested and the meat is given to the local community as \u201cfree food\u201d on top of money being brought to the region. If by killing 1 old animal we let 3 younger ones prosper in a safer environment, isn\u2019t that alone worth it?","conclusion":"Paying to Trophy hunt animals legally should be accepted and understood."}
{"id":"087dc298-a95c-480a-81cc-523614f3fe7a","argument":"Corporations fund politicians' election campaigns and expect them to vote against climate change legislation when in parliament.","conclusion":"Lobby groups are able to pressurize governments to block climate change legislation."}
{"id":"7e088edd-ab1d-4bd9-99c8-ca711a0fc4d8","argument":"I don't think Donald Trump was bragging about getting away with sexual assault in the Access Hollywood tapes. First of all, yes, of course it is sexual assault to grab a woman's genitalia without their consent. But it is not sexual assault if it's consensual. And that's what Donald Trump is bragging about in the tape. For reference, here's the transcript of the relevant portion Trump Yeah, that\u2019s her. With the gold. I better use some Tic Tacs just in case I start kissing her. You know I\u2019m automatically attracted to beautiful I just start kissing them. It\u2019s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don\u2019t even wait. And when you\u2019re a star they let you do it. You can do anything. Bush Whatever you want. Trump Grab them by the p . You can do anything. I've bolded the phrase they let you do it because that's a reference to consent, with they referring to the woman on the receiving end of his actions. Trump is not bragging about his wealth and fame allowing him to get away with groping women without their consent, which, again, absolutely would be sexual assault. He is instead bragging that his wealth and his fame make him so sexually attractive to women that they consent to being groped by him. And that's why he and his defenders are so insistent on it being locker room talk. Because while bragging about sexual assault is not normal in locker rooms, outlandish claims about one's sexual attractiveness and prowess absolutely are. And just to be clear, I'm not defending Trump here. I think that Trump did not brag about sexual assault in the tapes, but I'm not saying that if he did what he said he did, those women actually did consent. In fact, given the stories from the women who have come forward so far, I think it's likely that they did not. And I think the takeaway of my view Trump believes he was bragging about consensual sexual activity is that Trump doesn't truly understand what consent is, and that might actually be even worse. But it's worse in a way that underlines just how deeply rooted misogyny is and that can't be dismissed as Trump's a sociopath and an aberration.","conclusion":"Donald Trump did not brag about getting away with sexual assault in the Access Hollywood tapes."}
{"id":"0c11b6b3-7731-4bf4-89a3-c6f0576b8a94","argument":"I look at all the problems of global warming and based on everything I have seen We are basically screwed no matter what we do. x200B I mean imagine you are a truly noble political candidate and you have a true green platform of being honest of the problems we face instead of just running on the idea of green to get votes like everyone else . You run on the prospect of trying to fix this problem and alerting the public to this issue. You then state that you we must drastically cut economic growth and reduce quality of life in order to avoid this problem. x200B You are asking for people to have higher taxes and not only that be willing to sacrifice and give up basics things that people assume are rights given to them, and for what? Because scientist stated that this problem must be addressed? x200B Can anybody tell me how in the absolute hell this person is going to win? How it is even possible for this person to have a chance? We have enough problems getting people to do basic stuff like vaccinate their kids due to some dumb shit some woman said on Tv, and we are expecting these people to vote for a future in which they have to give stuff up A lot of stuff might I add for possibly averting or hell possibly only blunting the effects. add on top of this climate change is a way more difficult to understand issue than the basics of immunization. x200B I see the future. It is filled with so much hate and anger and spite. These kids protesting now will turn to eco terrorism and existential angst. the only chance of forcing any of these changes would require some dictatorship to force changes without any sort of approval. Nuclear wars will be inevitable as people fight over what resources remain and land that is livable. x200B I don't want to have a child brought up in this world that we have wrought. How could I, they will see a world torn asunder by forces they had no part in and see the fall of mankind. x200B I want to hear thoughts please try to change my mind, because I literally do not see how we can change course we are on now. This is a issue that must be tackled within the next 7 years to even have a chance of blunting the effects and you look at all the disinformation, general lack of knowledge and lack of interest. I feel like even if we did give it a shot were screwed anyways look at the dying off of species it has already begun and it's probably a cascade of events all connected like one giant chain of the cusp of breaking.","conclusion":"Global warming is inevitable and There is nothing we can do to fix the problem."}
{"id":"960b597b-16b3-41fe-bd1d-85fe22a448fd","argument":"The daily cost to sustain some peers in the Lords is 25 times higher than most members of the House of Commons.","conclusion":"The House of Lords is hugely wasteful as an institution. Its reform should be easy for the Government to achieve."}
{"id":"c5655526-4dd4-4f0f-bf2e-34e91f31acf7","argument":"Given the discussion around the second amendment, I'm wondering why is it acceptable in society that we use guns as a form of self protection when there are a number of alternate weapons that can successfully incapacitate an aggressor for long enough to wait for the police ignoring the issue with police brutality and racial profiling for this  . I understand the argument for militias to have weapons to fight against a tyrant government. Though quite honestly the US Military could easily take out a small militia see Waco, TX . Additionally, it would take a large population to feel strong enough about revolution to make a difference to the US government. At that point, weapons won't be needed as enough people concentrating their collective power could reinstate a new government. Therefore it makes sense to me that guns should not be used by civilians for protection from either the government or other individuals. There's a very small argument for guns for hunting which needed to be acquired through a hunting license.","conclusion":"For self-protection we should use weapons that incapacitate tasers, tranquilizers instead of guns that kill."}
{"id":"fcdbcd3e-239b-4f91-8f32-b7e00f23bf83","argument":"This is called the 'potato radius A fluid is said to be in hydrostatic equilibrium when it is at rest, or when the flow velocity at each point is constant over time. This occurs when external forces such as gravity are balanced by a pressure gradient force. For instance, the pressure-gradient force prevents gravity from collapsing Earth's atmosphere into a thin, dense shell, whereas gravity prevents the pressure gradient force from diffusing the atmosphere into space.","conclusion":"Gravity: When something has an equal force from every direction then it tends to create a sphere and not a disk. The same goes for planets which they tend to form spherical shapes under the force of gravity created by their own mass."}
{"id":"735d579f-2d17-4748-b629-6ceebafb359d","argument":"There is no on-screen evidence, visual or auditory, to support the idea that all reactors, and therefore all ships create such a magnetic field. In fact there are enough instances to show this not to be the case.","conclusion":"There is no on screen evidence, either visual or auditory to support the assertion that this is created by the Stations Hyper-matter reactor, or a feature of hyper matter reactors."}
{"id":"c466db3e-b2e9-4a4d-af47-5d4af6226d79","argument":"I mean 60 70 of Crimeans consider themselves to be Russian. Crimea used to be a part of Russia, and its most of its inhabitants considered themselves to be Russian. Given the recent tensions, I think it's high time for a referendum. The question would be What would you like the political status of Crimea to be? . The Crimean people would be allowed to choose between Ukraine, autonomy, independence, and Russia. This is the most sensible choice to resolve the recent problems there, especially from a cultural point of view. My argument is not based off of great political or economic concerns. I'm only arguing that it would be good for the people of Crimea to make a statement about what they want.","conclusion":"There ought to be a referendum on Crimea's political status."}
{"id":"2474ec74-e6f1-42df-9364-a5187b323fb5","argument":"From birth, especially in America, we've been taught that democracy is the number one, most equitable and fair way to structure society. Hell, America has fought wars trying to spread democracy . In this post I am going to argue why I believe democracy isn't desirable and is extremely flawed. Point 1 Democracy doesn't lead to good government. A government in which every member of society votes may be fair, but it doesn't lead to good government. Very few in society truly understand the intricacies of running society but yet everyone has a say in a democracy. This leads to mind boggling paradoxes, such as 90 incumbency rate with congress approval ratings in the teens. Additionally, since each persons vote counts the same, politicians are incentivized to dumb down the conversation so each person can understand it, instead of having intelligent conversations but excluding those unqualified for said conversations. For example, every single election the economy comes up, and we talk about jobs and maybe sometimes wages but we never get into, for example, Keynesian versus Austrian economics and how each school of thought can guide us in our current situation. If politicians were to talk like this, most people wouldn't understand, and they'd get no votes. So we dumb down the conversation. Point 2 Democracy leads to tyranny of the majority. Inevitably, democracy leads to another form of tyranny, in which the majority impose its power on the minority. Currently in American society, this isn't the case our two biggest checks on majority rule are the Constitution and the Electoral College. But consider that the constitution is alterable by the majority which makes it almost useless as a safeguard against them and that many want to remove the Electoral College altogether and just move to a straight popular vote. Point 3 Democracy doesn't ensure government isn't immoral, wasteful, or other poor qualities. A tyrant may be all of these things, but replacing tyranny with democracy doesn't stop that from occuring. Also, consider the following analogies about how a democratic process can lead to immoral or wasteful results Two wolf and a sheep voting on what to eat for dinner. Just because something is voted upon and agreed by the majority doesn't make it moral. A million people go out to dinner and the bill will be split equally. Everyone has an incentive to eat more than they would individually, since the cost will be split amonst others. This will lead the party with a massive bill. TLDR Democracy produces poor government and lowers the intelligence of our political discussion while not necessarily being any more moral or efficient than a tyranny. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Democracy is an inherently flawed system and isn't desirable."}
{"id":"0ef64fc7-f1d6-47a3-9d34-da0a59895ff8","argument":"A study in California found that - between 2011 and 2015 - residents of neighborhoods with the highest proportions of white people were more than twice as likely to be prescribed an opioid pain reliever than were residents of neighborhoods where whites were most scarce.","conclusion":"A black person is half as likely to be prescribed strong painkillers such as opioids, than a white person complaining of a similar pain level."}
{"id":"b632caef-7d29-4f45-92a4-d4011d0a4097","argument":"I want to make something very clear here before this discussion. This post should no way be seen as accepting or excusing domestic violence. It is a horrible crime that is not to be taken lightly and there is no excuse for it whatsoever in society. I just want to have a frank discussion about the punishment that Janay Rice and her family have suffered because of Ray Rice and him knocking her out in a elevator. So the question is what exactly should have been done about the violence inflicted on Janay Rice? Does the victim's wish even matter here? Probably not, and I think that has already been ethically decided. But the punishment seems disproportionate to what occurred. I think regular people might not think its a big deal for a million dollar athlete to lose his life's work, but it just seems like a too much for a drunken punch. You could argue him spending time in prison for less than year would have been less harsh of a punishment like Michael Vick did, although he spent almost 2 years there . Even writing out these statements made me a little queasy, and this is more of a an ethical argument I want to have here, cause I'm really not sure how I feel about it and I kind of just want a real reason to not even have this viewpoint. For me, punishment should only be for deterrence, not any type of revenge. Any type of human suffering gets to me, and maybe I am just asking which is worse, emotional pain or physical pain? We tend to have much more severe reactions to physical violence because it is more visceral, but hypothetically ask yourself this What would be worse to a person? Getting cheated on by a significant other, or being punched and knocked out once. Part of me thinks we don't assign enough blame to the pain random acts of emotional betrayal cause. I fully accept what I have written is a ridiculous view to have and just want a rational counterpoint because I feel uneasy even having these views. I hope people don't witchhunt me for even having these thoughts. I am simply a person who wants some clarity of a very complicated issue.","conclusion":"The punishment that Janay Rice is going through due to her husband's suspension is causing more pain and emotional turmoil than the physical violence inflicted on her by her husband in the elevator"}
{"id":"3ecd9de0-1795-44f3-a1f0-a89803c167fc","argument":"gt If everyone did X, the world would be in a worse state. Therefore doing X is wrong. I don't consider this a valid moral argument. If the impact of a single person doing X is minuscule possibly under the condition that someone is already doing X , it isn't significantly immoral to do X. Of course publicly supporting that you should do X in front of a significant audience is not touched by this principle, since the result of that would be a whole group of people starting to do X, which in itself is more than a minuscule consequence. In the same way I don't consider this a valid moral argument either gt If everyone did X, the world would be in a better state. Therefore doing X a moral duty. Again, if the impact of a single person doing X is minuscule possibly under the condition that someone already isn't doing X , it is in a practical context irrelevant whether I personally do X or don't do X. Here's some examples If all people in a democracy that are against right or left wing extremism would stop voting in an election, then extremists would win the vote, which would be devastating for democracy and our society. Since my personal vote will very likely not change the outcome of the election though, not voting is not significantly immoral. If everyone was eating too much meat, more animals would be slaughtered and more farmland and water would be used inefficiently. Since me becoming a vegetarian and not buying meat at the grocery store would very likely not change the number of animals being killed though, eating meat is not significantly immoral. If no one would have looked at the Fappening pictures, it wouldn't have had a negative impact on the celebrities who were victims of the leak. Since me personally looking at those pictures doesn't impact the victims in a significant way, doing so is not significantly immoral. If everyone were to find ways to avoid paying taxes, the state would go bankrupt. Since me personally avoiding taxes doesn't significantly impact the state's budget, doing so is not significantly immoral. .","conclusion":"\"If everyone did this\" is not a valid moral argument."}
{"id":"1ebdfa7c-3e13-4191-b1be-8720de985421","argument":"Many companies now let staff book their own itineraries and provide them with incentives to go under budget.","conclusion":"Airbnb increasingly attracts business travelers who would previously have stayed in high-end hotels."}
{"id":"685191db-24a0-4331-953a-4eb54493c76d","argument":"I recently got into a debate over this issue. The opposing party argued that some cultures are inferior and should be wiped out, and doing so is only natural. After a while, I wasn't quite convinced, but am now in a place where I am much more willing to change my view given a good argument. The debate was specifically over native americans, and how their oppression and treatment was fair because their culture was weaker and inhibited progress. While I do not in any way think that anyone should be treated this way, I am especially interested to hear your thoughts on the advancement of society in this regard. Some things to consider that may sway me but no need to limit yourself to these o If at all, how should we value cultures? o If one group conquers defeats another, should their way of life be considered better in a survival of the fittest kind of way? o What about cultures that promote violence or discrimination? Are those worth wiping out? To make things clear, I am defining culture as way of life. This can be pretty broad, as it includes everything from technology, ideology, values, customs, food, stories, art, and religion. However, I am focusing more on aspects that influence how it interacts with other groups, whether that be military, beliefs, intellectual standing, etc. TL DR I do not believe that a culture can be considered weak, and one's culture should not determine their standing in the world. Edit Clarification gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"A culture cannot be inherently inferior to another."}
{"id":"7aa52c94-24b0-4d09-824e-e391b8bc3a0d","argument":"With the conversion of the emperor Constantine to Christianity, the Catholic Church became one of the largest landowners of ancient times and during the Middle Ages, the Church controlled vast amounts of wealth and was again the largest landowner in Europe.","conclusion":"Most of the world\u2019s biggest landowners are monarchs from countries with official state religions that support the monarchy or heads of religions themselves."}
{"id":"26354134-a0c7-4557-a361-f6d73d043df3","argument":"A study shows that participants exposed to the 12-Step directive condition for facilitating AA involvement reported more AA meeting attendance, more evidence of active involvement in AA and a higher percentage of days abstinent relative to participants in the treatment-as-usual comparison group.","conclusion":"Studies show that 12 step treatment improves outcomes by up to 20% for up to two years post-treatment as it engages patients and produces much higher rates of continuous abstinence than other forms of treatment Litt et al, 2009"}
{"id":"d28aa061-85b7-4a10-8765-06ae7c1e9ee9","argument":"Identity politics is a phrase that is frequently associated with the left. Leftists supposedly view everything in terms of their race or their gender or their sexuality. Here is the best definition I can come up with of identity politics it is when your political outlook is based more on who you are than what you have done or are doing in society. Identity politics, for example, means celebrating Alexandria Ocasio Cortez because of her gender and her Hispanic background more than, say, her economic policy. Identity politics means gaining woke points on twitter by tweeting generalizations about white people. Identity politics means seeing Serena Williams throw a tantrum on a tennis court and applauding her as a black feminist icon. The alt right engages with these issues a lot. I picked the examples I just mentioned because they were issues the alt right engaged with obsessively. Look at any hot button issue involving race or gender or sexuality and you will see countless posts on this sub and on 4chan and on various alt right forums in which alt right people passionately and fiercely weigh in on these issues. Now, I know what you're about to say they are merely reacting to wider trends, and defending traditional values against the onslaught of SJWs . i.e. the alt right only engage in identity politics because they have to. I disagree I think they actively seek out these kinds of issues and often the alt right are the ones who insist on interpreting them through the lens of identity politics. My argument is that the alt right is nothing more than an outgrowth of identity politics. It thrives on identity politics, it needs identity politics in order to survive. It provides its members with a way of feeling good about themselves based on their own identities. It's a way of saying I'm white and proud or I'm straight and proud etc. It's essentially people who don't want to be left out of the wider identity politics trend, finding their own way of trumpeting themselves based on who they are , rather than anything they have done. While its arguments often coincide with those of traditional conservatives, I don't think they are coming from the same place. In fact, I think the fundamental impetus behind the alt right a need to feel good about themselves based on identity based groupings is contrary to the traditional values of conservatives, who generally base their views on a kind of competitive individualism and universal judeo Christian moral system. I realize there is always a degree of vagueness and ambiguity when talking about the views of a large, imprecisely defined movement like the alt right. I am hoping there is some general understanding of what the alt right is, so there won't be too many debates about that. Traditional conservatism is a more difficult term to define. And I realize that is probably where the deficiency in my argument lies. Full disclosure I am not a conservative, and I am extremely skeptical of identity politics. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The views of the alt-right are largely based on identity politics, not traditional conservatism"}
{"id":"92e1863d-fa77-42ce-9432-4df9560807e5","argument":"It would be extremely onerous on lyricists to require them to explicitly caution against any potentially racist interpretation of the song within the lyrics.","conclusion":"The song makes reference to this suffering without explicitly stating that this applies to the entire population."}
{"id":"223fba5d-9708-49c1-8a04-31ddaf657245","argument":"Substance tobacco and alcohol abuse and addiction have been identified as serious problems facing the LGBTQ+ community. Sponsorship by companies such as Smirnoff may undermine efforts to address this issue.","conclusion":"Corporate aims are at odds with the aims of the community."}
{"id":"70783996-1e4c-427a-b978-d7545754236b","argument":"In the United States, the right to due process is recognised as granting citizens four main protections: the right to fair procedures in the justice system, to not be subject to vague laws, to have protection from government interference with citizens' rights and to have particular rights as set out in the amendments religion, free speech etc.. Mass data collection threatens, or even violates, these protections.","conclusion":"By conducting searches of personal information without a warrant or reasonable cause, mass data collection violates the right to due process."}
{"id":"cfefb68b-6b6e-420e-808f-8d70beb78ad4","argument":"So in recent years, there has been a greater concern from the general American public about how we treat those who are overweight or obese. Many such as those in the Fat Acceptance Movement and other such groups have began to argue that things like pointing out someone's weight, making fun of someone's weight, and certain portrayals of overweight people in media are all something called Fat Shaming. Fat Shaming has become something akin to actual discrimination and this is something I think is extremely hurtful. Criticisms of one's weight are not serious forms of discrimination especially if said criticisms are not mean spirited in nature because unlike things such as race, gender, etc, you can change your weight. They are suggesting their unhealthy lifestyle is not the problem but, rather, the problem is lack of accommodations and society's view of your lifestyle. This view undermines the serious health risks of obesity, something which has currently reached epidemic proportion in the United States. Perhaps I have the wrong idea about what these people are saying. I'd love to hear the other side of this argument. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"\"Fat Shaming\" shouldn't be treated as actual discrimination"}
{"id":"2f9916da-5d2b-4da3-9e5c-02d38e607de0","argument":"As many people on reddit, I am an atheist and my entire world view revolves around science and reason. I enjoy discussions with friends or strangers on the internet about religion and their views on specific topics. However, nobody was ever able to give me a satisfying answer to the question, why he or she believes in this one specific religion. Often, people just say things like Because it is the one true religion. or Because it teaches love. or Because I was brought up in it and I have experienced God Allah Yahweh Buddha Brahman in prayer. . Those answers are entirely unsatisfying, since they are interchangeable. Never do I get an answer to that question that says more than basically 'It's the religion I know most about, that I got introduced to by my parents or another important figure in my life and which has made me feel something inside me that I believe is a higher power.'. All these arguments might be the reason why one individual believes in one specific religion, but they are unreasonable and fail to explain why, in general, believing in one religion is in any way favorable to believing in any other. Especially the I can feel the presence of God argument is very popular, since it's a subjective personal experience and people like to believe that what they feel is true. But if it happens to nearly every believer of every religion, how can this satisfy anybody as an explanation for his her own views ? Now, change my view gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than just downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"There is no reasonable explanation for anybody to believe in one specific religion."}
{"id":"a8356855-ba5e-4196-92bf-ee5f7a6166d1","argument":"There are not enough p.3 inspectors to ensure that animal welfare regulations are adhered to during the testing process.","conclusion":"The testing process itself and the products tested on the animals can be directly harmful to them."}
{"id":"93279c8e-0ec8-40a6-88f8-13ea59ca5e8e","argument":"Catalonia is a province of Spain. Catalonia has representatives in parliament and has a say in who leads their country. On the other hand, Puerto Rico has always been a colony. Puerto Ricans do not have any meaningful representation in either the House or the Senate. Puerto Ricans cannot vote for the President yet can still be drafted. It has always rubbed me the wrong way that Catalonians identify with our struggle. No. If anything you have it much better than Puerto Rico, and equating the two situations is intellectually dishonest and detracts from acknowledging the severity of Puerto Rico's problems.","conclusion":"Equating Catalonia's pro-independence struggle with Puerto Rico's struggle is an insult to Puerto Ricans' intelligence"}
{"id":"1bac82c7-689c-4488-a61e-17d112c39623","argument":"At least half of the human population has so many opportunities and as to say no multiple times a week, if not a day.","conclusion":"There are enough people that are capable of saying no to temptation."}
{"id":"1cbc5f12-d4dc-4dd1-aa34-eccab9442549","argument":"Wakanda's wealth could be used to alleviate poverty in Africa and the rest of the world.","conclusion":"Wakandan technology and wealth can bring massive humanitarian benefits to the rest of the world."}
{"id":"67a57a24-15ad-495e-9979-95f2955e8fa2","argument":"If the five murderers' future targets all happened to be vicious murderers, then letting the five live would be better than killing them. This is even less likely than all five of the people on the track being murderers, and does not cancel out that possibility.","conclusion":"The probability of this is small enough that one can expect five lives to be greater than one unless there is information to the contrary."}
{"id":"17c01093-7812-4edb-ab6f-9ffda551b0f6","argument":"Implementing this measure is perfectly possible, although the details of its application will vary from place to place depending upon local religious traditions. In some places it will be very easy to identify formally those who should be disabled from election, in others it may seem harder but local experience will similarly make it plain. Essentially, two overlapping groups would be affected: anyone paid to perform religious services, and anyone, paid or unpaid, with a formal role of spiritual leadership within a local faith community.","conclusion":"Implementing this measure is perfectly possible, although the details of its application will vary f..."}
{"id":"ff822cd0-c200-4616-bf75-762e215e1232","argument":"Technology has advanced to the point where the human penis is no longer needed. Leaving the penis on the human male only puts him at risk of penile cancer and is also a major weakness that can cause him to be killed in a fight if the penis is injured and he is in too much pain from the attack to fight back. By removing the penis, we will have removed a major weakness in the human male that will make him stronger overall. As for reproduction the human penis is also obsolete. With in vitro fertilization we can impregnate females using a massive supply of sperm donations. Limiting reproduction to in vitro fertilization methods also protects against unplanned pregnancy especially in teens by ensuring everyone who does get pregnant wanted to be pregnant. Why else go through in vitro fertilization if you did not want a child? As for the hormones the genitals usually created in men that helped with growth, We can just give all men hormone therapy and they will still grow and develop normally. Peeing will not be a problem either as we can just put a hole someone instead and that should work I guess. Even with all this, I would like to hear the other side who still feels the human penis is needed. What are your thoughts and how would you defend the existence of the human penis? What do you think keeps it from being irrelevant like the appendix? I'd be willing to change my mind if I heard a good argument. Thanks Update I have changed my view. The Male penis is needed. Thanks for everyone who explained the reasons why. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The human penis is obsolete and should be removed"}
{"id":"a25633b1-2b61-456a-90f1-5492230e68be","argument":"External employees would not wish to enter pedophile communities, nor would businesses wish to hire pedophiles.","conclusion":"It is unlikely that any businesses would want to operate in a pedophile community."}
{"id":"ac3a241b-53cb-441d-9744-95e90c3ef784","argument":"Basically I am against all welfare programs that are funded through taxes. I think it is unjust that people, generally the upper middle class and above, should be taxed at a higher rate than those with lower incomes purely with the purpose of paying for things like food stamps and healthcare for the poor. Taxes should be used for things that everybody benefits from, like infrastructure, defense, and education. I believe it is completely immoral that the government can, for example, tax somebody making 200,000 40 of their income this may seem high, but it is the reality in places like new york city between state and federal taxes , when a large portion of that goes to welfare programs for those paying hardly any taxes. Taxes should benefit everybody who pays them equally.","conclusion":"I am against any taxes that take money from the upper class and redistribute it to the lower class."}
{"id":"48dd5a63-fd99-403e-833f-990c5f26bdc6","argument":"In comparison to Hunt's 10 point plan to prepare for a no-deal Brexit, Johnson has only made vague promises such as making the UK \"match fit for a no deal Brexit.","conclusion":"Hunt has better plans than Johnson to respond to a no deal Brexit scenario."}
{"id":"7f57fe10-7c0b-471f-bd6c-a5447039b2be","argument":"By showing the \"moral good\" even in the human heart, God proves the power of his forgiving love over natural selfishness to human and non-human beings.","conclusion":"God puts people in positions in which they can prove their moral value - this is why he put you there."}
{"id":"c5c0913e-9904-48dc-94e7-a41e335483e3","argument":"I just feel that MIS my major is the lesser degree to software engineering or Computer Science. Im also double majoring in Math So I go to a very large state school with a great business program and a great engineering program. Both my parents are engineers and I really wanted to do something different. I decided on Finance and I was going to be an Investment Banker when I grow up lolz. But then I reliezed that I have little interest in finance. Accounting was tedious but I learned the importance of it. I had maybe a slight interest in economics. Then I took a required 200 level MIS class and I found it really interesting. Business Intelligence, Analytics, and IT, that stuff was awesome. In fact, it made me more interested in accounting and economics. It also taught me more about them. Then, sophomore year, all my engineering friends told me that my major wasn't as great as SE or CS. I didn't agree with them at first. But I reliezed that I didn't learn enough programming to actually to even write VBA on excel or create Applications for Web Analytics. I learned those on my own. Futhermore, during my internship, I work in Program Management department and the CS and Engineering majors with MBAs know the technical AND the business side. So far, the only positive sides to the MIS majors are more free time learning the stuff I want and I can get drunk every weekend if I want to. Edit MIS is Management Information Systems. Its also called Computer Information Systems in other universities.","conclusion":"I feel like a picked the \"wrong\" major"}
{"id":"382f51eb-a125-4634-975c-d66f87f95408","argument":"It would be hard or almost impossible to maintain and enforce such laws, not to mention them causing a gross intrusion of privacy, integrity, and personal choice.","conclusion":"Making it mandatory adds the unnecessary costs of regulation, enforcement, and policing."}
{"id":"6eaeeadf-3465-4ae3-a7fa-6b87051c0ce3","argument":"It\u2019s never really made much sense to me that most people consider competitive gaming to be a \u201cFake\u201d sport. Even the Olympic committee recognizes chess as a sport, so why are people so resistant to competitive gaming? I understand that some people will say that both chess and competitive gaming are not sports, due to them not being physically demanding activities. But this quickly falls apart when you look at sports like target shooting. The \u201cphysical\u201d part comes from the precision required to make such accurate shots, but when you apply that to competitive shooters people think your an idiot. Chess is a sport because of how straining it is on the mind, and how much effort goes into it physically. You need to be in good physical and mental state to preform to the best of your ability. This is the same with games like star craft, which is constantly compared to chess. If anything, competitive gaming is like an in between from purely physical to purely mental sports.","conclusion":"Competitive Video games such as overwatch, LOL, or Starcarft should be considered \u201creal\u201d sports."}
{"id":"bab27fb7-507a-4726-80b3-a395816ea54f","argument":"The Hong Kong-based China Labour Bulletin CLB recorded 2,773 strikes and protests in China in 2015, more than twice that of a year earlier.","conclusion":"China experiences protests. This suggests that there is still resistance to authoritarianism."}
{"id":"422afa5f-4f7d-4613-a04d-5cc36380312e","argument":"It was from Hiroshima that a white paper on A-bomb victims for presentations to the United Nations was drafted for the UN in 1968.","conclusion":"Japan was able to stylize itself as the victim and appeal to the world's consciousness."}
{"id":"7eed8ba1-b0b7-4a92-8783-eaaabb98bdb7","argument":"There are parts of the world still where meat is the more readily available diet for humans than vegetable products - such as tribal Greenland where fish and seal meat are still majority sources of nutrition.","conclusion":"Many people across the world depend on meat as part of their diet, and ending meat eating would lower food security\/diversity for the majority of people."}
{"id":"36226f4b-722e-4584-bf97-91fda94845c6","argument":"Having more sexual partners may expand people's horizons about sex as well as giving them a better comparison between what good or bad sex is, since they have something to compare it with.","conclusion":"Having more sexual partners may provide a variety of benefits for an individual."}
{"id":"c55420f2-53da-4d39-94aa-3143b4fb87f8","argument":"The domestication of animals and mass killing of others for food production e.g. chickens exemplifies how humans have overpowered many other animal species. It is possible that animals have only been able to develop to the point they are at by forcibly preventing them from evolving.","conclusion":"It is possible that human dominion over animals have suppressed their intellectual potential, and we have yet to see the full scale of what they can become."}
{"id":"aec28d2c-90e2-4953-803e-348e02849e90","argument":"By consciously acting, rather than passively watching, you bear more responsibility for choosing to kill one person than for merely allowing five people to die.","conclusion":"By pulling the lever you actively cause someone to die. That is wrong."}
{"id":"59e0071f-ef65-46b6-bc51-d738b1ace822","argument":"As of 2013, South Korean GDP is about 40 times bigger than that of North Korea.","conclusion":"As of 1975, South Korea overtook North Korea in terms of per capita GDP"}
{"id":"d5b2bfdf-1e31-4003-a64a-43601becbc4d","argument":"Some studies show a negative correlation between intelligence and religiosity, possibly explained by the fact that intelligent people are less likely to conform to dogma and tend to adopt a analytic way of thinking.","conclusion":"Religion may have spread traits such as gullibility, cowardice or conformity."}
{"id":"85127075-93d7-43aa-aae3-743cc1447e10","argument":"I recently discovered r Anglish. Anglish is an attempt to construct a version of English using only Anglo Saxon and other Germanic roots. The result is a language that not only sounds beautiful, but is much more intuitive to learn new vocabulary. Take, for example, this list of lores Rather than using Greek derived names for the sciences, which are completely meaningless to the average learner of English until they learn the name of that particular science, Anglish uses simple compounds from common, everyday words that language learners would already be familiar with. Many languages do this as well. The result of incorporating all these foreign words is that English no consistency of grammar, spelling, pronunciation, or anything. This makes it more confusing and burdensome to learn. I should specify that I'm speaking of a regulator with the goal of keeping English clear, consistent, and true to its roots. Obviously, a language regulator that pushed for the inclusion of these foreign words would be no help. It may be too late now, given the use of English as an international language, but I think it is a shame and a detriment to international communication that English wasn't standardized this way a long time ago.","conclusion":"The fact that the English has lacked a language regulator over the last few centuries has been a detriment to its beauty and ease of learning"}
{"id":"7c47aee3-57ce-4e6a-8770-3c5201149f2a","argument":"While many see Baker Mayfield as just another Cleveland quarterback who is destined to burn out after a few seasons there are three reasons why he might just be the future of a historically bad team. Reason 1 His heart, many like to compare Mayfield to another heisman winning quarterback Johnny Manziel, without reading into their stories. Baker Mayfield was a college walk on at Texas Tech and had to work his entire career to be taken seriously. Mayfield will have to continue to work his entire career in order to justify his spot at number one, as opposed to Johnny Manziel who never faced adversity in his college career and got lazy eventually devolving bad habits such as alcoholism. Reason 2 He will have time to learn unlike other Cleveland quarterbacks Mayfield wont be required to lead the team in his first year. He will be able to learn the speed of the game behind Tyrod Taylor, a quarterback who has a very similar play style as him. All of the best quarterbacks have had time to learn, a few examples include Tom Brady under Drew Bledsoe, Aaron Rodgers under Brett Farve, and Jimmy Garapolo under Tom Brady. Only time will tell about both Garapolo and Mayfield but they have history on their side. Reason 3 He will have some help Recent brown quarterbacks have been drafted and expected to pull wins out of no where, with no help from their receivers, offensive line, and defense their quarterbacks stood no chance. Now with targets like Josh Gordon, Jarvis Landry and Nick Chubb, Mayfield wont have to do all of the work by himself.","conclusion":"Baker Mayfield was a good pick at number one for the Cleveland Browns"}
{"id":"f1f3d9b3-3195-44ee-a9f2-63cadd24aeda","argument":"As I see it, victim blaming is when one places the moral responsibility on the victim, in effect making them responsible for the choices of their victimizer. But I often see it used against those who point out the victims own risky choices that effectively set them up to be victimized I draw a distinction between moral responsibility and practical responsibility, where moral responsibility involves what should happen or what is deserved and practical responsibility involves known risks or consequences. It's late and I decide to go on a stroll through through the shittier parts of Camden, NJ. I get mugged. I have done nothing wrong and I should absolutely be able to walk in public areas without being accosted. My assailant choosing to attack me for no good reason places the moral redponsibility entirely upon them. But I share practical responsibility with my attacker. I know it's a dangerous place. I understand that a late night walk through there carries significant personal risk. By assuming that risk I also assume responsibility for the potential consequences. That those consequences are unjust or harsh lung cancer for smokers and babies for not using protection for example is irrelevant. They are simply what happens. I set myself up, and it's dishonest to suggest that I had no agency in the matter","conclusion":"\"Victim blaming\" is not inherently wrong."}
{"id":"9d4680a3-33a0-4d4d-be01-f6694a58345e","argument":"Zoos do much to educate people about the importance of species and thier role in the balance of the planet. Without this education, many people who live in urban places would not have any knowledge first hand of how magnificent animals are, or know that we need to protect them.","conclusion":"Zoos actually play a huge role in educating people to habitat preservation, teaching their public the problems that species face in their natural habitat, what are the causes, and what we can do to solve them."}
{"id":"d197e6b3-8262-4312-bbe7-469996d49d75","argument":"If God responds to prayer, then this undermines his transcendence total independence from all else.","conclusion":"God's interactions with the world is inconsistent with God's divinity."}
{"id":"2c9d791d-32c8-4aed-b23a-5ce3fcb04157","argument":"Every time there is a mass shooting or terrorist act, people start advocating for policy change. While this may seem to be the correct way forward, often times these incidents could have been prevented with more efficient use of tools that already exist. For instance, in the Florida shooting not long ago, the FBI had multiple tips and had even visited his home, yet cleared him out. The failing was clearly with the law enforcement agencies, not the right to posses firearms. Further, these policy actions seem to be striking at the symptoms of the problem, not the core issue themselves. For instance, in the new zealand nazi shooting, the murderer had carefully planned out the attack for months, even years. We don't know for sure yet, but it looked that way from the videos. He could easily have fabricated other weapons For instance, IED's, which he had actually done. or acquire weapons illegally. Banning semi automatic weapons seems like it wouldn't have actually prevented anything. Not only that, but the man still had his ideology. Even if he didn't have the tools to commit that act, there would have been at least one person or more with the conviction to commit such a heinous act, walking around in society, propagating those views. Perhaps something should be done to address why we are seeing such a radicalization of white's. Unlike Islamic terrorism, we should have the full range of tools needed to make the changes necessary to revert this state of radicalization back to where it was before the world seemed to go upside down. But when the first reaction to any attack seems to be calls for banning of fire arms, it makes me question why I should have my rights or privileges, for those who don't believe owning a fire arm is a right revoked, for the actions of others, especially when actions won't be taken to understand and eliminate the sources of radicalization. Not only that, but it can certainly be asserted that gun grabbing is a key talking point that nazis use to recruit from the libertarian right. By claiming that the ZOG government is trying to take their guns so they can assert some kind of forced extermination of white people, and then seeing gun grabbing of weapons from people who've so far followed the law, they essentially create a gateway point of radicalization and we see the nazi right grow even larger and more extreme. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Knee jerk policy changes in response to terrorism is irresponsible."}
{"id":"f70b2e9d-cbd9-4d35-af9c-a781957bbe69","argument":"Because I think it's a entirely unsustainable, see fertility map above and think about populations of Europe vs Africa and b makes the countries the migrants leave from worse off due to brain drain which will then c leads to more migrants and thus a positive feedback loop. Brain drain is well established as a negative effect for the countries experiencing it. Thus taking such a massive amount of migrants is not only putting a band aid over a wound rather than treating the underlying problem, but it's worsening the underlying problem. Instead, putting our resources into education, especially for women, and infrastructure for various nations in Africa the middle east will bring their fertility rate to more sustainable levels and help them become richer and better off, and thus not have to leave their home countries. The fertility rate map means migrants will continue coming by the millions for years and years to come. 2.5 million migrants came to Europe from 2015 2016. Sweden has a population of 10 million, Belgium 12 million. Imagine 30 years from now. How can that possibly be sustainable? How will Africa possibly be better off given the statistics of their population, fertility rate, and Europe's population? Syria is an exception since they clearly need a short term solution with death often their only alternative. But aside from that, nearly all the other countries need long term solutions, and taking migrants is harming them in the long term.","conclusion":"With the exception of Syrians, I think every dollar the west spends on the refugee crisis should instead go to education\/infrastructure for the migrant countries of origin."}
{"id":"e14b7c50-a971-413b-a59b-bd805da3584c","argument":"Potentially unpopular opinion My reasoning behind my viewpoint are as follows I feel very discouraged hearing in real life and reading here about men who divorce women and break up with them because of weight gain most of the time and how they're allowed to feel that way where most of the women I met have been shut down. In addition to that, my lack of trust between men has come from a personal sexual assault from a former best friend whom I knew for a year. He was my first kiss ever and was someone I really trusted only to have been violated and scarred psychologically I reported the incident . If the saying rings true that all men are animals , then why aren't they locked up? It makes me feel that men only use women for sex and hide their true intentions. Third, the misogyny and hypocritical instances that comes from the men my family makes me feel that a relationship with a man will make me feel unhealthy and worthless. For instance, a recent family member of mine commented on my weight grandpa when we were eating at a restaurant when ironically, ALL of the food places he tried to treat my entire family at were buffet style foods and not to mention he eats a lot and is fat. Another instance is when my family members decided to blame my aunt entirely for the divorce of my uncle and why he decided to commit an affair for 8 years and they treat my uncle like he's ok even when he got his mistress from another country pregnant and has an unwanted son. Lastly, the misogyny that I hear from my male colleagues in my field and group of people I meet I'm in student government so I meet a variety of groups is so apparent. Like they try to say a woman who is assaulted like me is asking for it despite the fact that I was wearing jeans and I wasn't drunk. In addition, there comments talk about how women are, too mentally weak for the field I'm in. So all in all, my viewpoint is that there is no point in having any romantic relationships including hook ups I don't participate in them but in that category with a man because he will eventually divorce or leave me due to weight problems and some potential misogyny he may be hiding. The pain over the pleasure is too great. In addition to that, as someone with not good looks and is trying to lose weight, I would feel skeptical because most men who would display interest in me might be for my body. Final note, I feel discouraged from trusting men because a lot of the refutes I got always mentions, not all men , which makes me feel like they are deflecting my intentions, which may not be true but I feel misunderstood. Change my view, I'm open to it and willing to listen. Edit so far, I still stand by my statement by 75 albeit now I got a better perspective thanks to all the generous contributors.Yes, I can't generalize that all men are there to get me. Which leads to my next point, if men with biological urges are to breed out as much as possible to ensure the longevity of his genes,what is the incentive for me to be with a man if he's already got other options? Edit 2 wiling to change my mind still.Ringing in at 60 based on some responses. Some may call me sexist. On the contrary, where are the institutional benefits for women again?? Besides divorce allegations, which really, is time consuming and actually left my female family member more worse off than before without a house? The justice system withheld me the innocent proven guilty, which may be beneficial for some but not for others? The benefits of relationship do include stability or comfort. Now the question is why would I want a relationship? If not all relationships are permanent, what would be the point of a monogamous one besides marriage benefits with taxes or companionship if you get bored. Edit 3 I said I was losing weight and AM making no man responsible for my happiness and I also reported my rape. Edit 4 no need to delete, leave your thoughts uncensored Edit 5 yes I am aware I made this post expecting backlash so call me out and don't censor away, it's good exposure for both sides","conclusion":"There's no point in having a relationship with men at all"}
{"id":"3fc5d332-8a9e-4228-9df1-043d0ab43938","argument":"First off I'm not even slightly right leaning, I heavily dislike Trump, and I'm not white. I'm a brown skinned immigrant living in the United States and hate the term POC. Yes this is a throwaway account. My view is that the term POC or People of Colour attempts to homogenise the experiences of different races to further an us vs them anti white sentiment. As a South Asian immigrant with a wealthy background, racism is rarely more than an annoyance for me, yet the term POC tries to amalgamate my experiences with that of poor black Americans who are actually systematically oppressed. The reality is my experience is much closer to that of a wealthy white male than it is to a poor black man. Likewise, the experience of a poor black man is actually much more similar to that of a poor white man than it is to me. POC is a term which suggests that there is something intrinsically different in the white experience, rich or poor, that separates them from all other races. It is more useful to focus on issues impacting individual racial communities, than it is to pretend all non white races share a bond because of racism, and fighting racism will solve all our problems.","conclusion":"The term POC or People of Color furthers an \"us vs them\" mentality and harms progress towards a postracial society."}
{"id":"a00c9675-af1a-4de8-9541-2ae9350ede76","argument":"The entire Canto Bight story would have worked better had Poe gone with Finn and Rose, and it would have allowed us to see Finn and Poe's chemistry on screen and avoided the pointless mutiny attempt.","conclusion":"The new trilogy's biggest strength is the chemistry between the new cast of characters, and The Last Jedi takes them all away from each other for effectively the entire very long film."}
{"id":"0dc87c88-3cb9-4281-8027-6989cd1b6b4f","argument":"When a conviction appears tainted, we allow a retrial. Why not for an acquittal? We allow convictions to be overturned because new technology or evidence indicates innocence - why shouldn\u2019t we allow a retrial when it indicates guilt?","conclusion":"When a conviction appears tainted, we allow a retrial. Why not for an acquittal? We allow conviction..."}
{"id":"83864a26-5ace-429c-b0ed-78aa1347ac03","argument":"One would have to avoid empathizing with the animals they must slaughter in order to avoid emotional pain when working in a slaughterhouse, which would likely involve avoiding or minimizing empathy entirely - which would in turn reduce one's empathy with other human beings and make one more likely to commit crimes or inflict violence against them.","conclusion":"Regardless of this, it is still possible that working in slaughterhouses could exacerbate pre-existing violent tendencies."}
{"id":"2bba2056-f2a4-4955-a0fb-d0ec3c07f16b","argument":"Large sharks are particularly vulnerable because they grow slowly, reproduce late and have few babies.","conclusion":"Global shark populations are already declining increasing the risk of extinction of some species."}
{"id":"9d3b85fa-f67b-44ba-bea1-6b5586b9f076","argument":"Charges for changing currency, and currency differences between one national currency and another, can be a barrier that disincentives or prevents workers from crossing borders in order to gain employment in another jurisdiction.","conclusion":"This would allow workers to move to places where labor is in demand."}
{"id":"17ba9882-f57b-408a-8f24-2606110cf9a9","argument":"There are 7 billion individuals on this planet, and the number is increasing faster each day. I understand that there is still plenty of room for billions more to come. Yet it seems as if the problem will wipe out the entire human species if the birth rates continue. We should do something about it before it becomes a serious problem in the future. I'd rather prevent births now than have individuals who've lived many years die due to the lack of resources. If we control the population birth rates now, we will be able to ensure the security for a decent existence further in the future for our offspring. It'll knock out one side of the resource depletion issue. It could solve the issue with resource availability via population size not being an issue as we learn more on how to create more resources at lower cost. I understand that with exoplanet colonization and space colonization coming it is possible to combat the population size. Yet with the way it seems, it seems as if there is slow progress with colonization of other planets. I think the population size will become a severe issue before space planet colonization is affordable by the majority of the population. Edit I'm not assuming the population birth rates are a problem now. The problem would arise in the future. We should take precautions to prevent it from happening. Edit 2 This is my new view. Currently, it is not a problem. Not necessarily a top priority yet. Out of 50 Nobel Laureates 1 3rd of the individuals believe it will be a problem. There are a few other things to take into consideration. Such as emissions. every individual leaves a carbon footprint\u200b that effects our planet. The higher the population size, the higher the number for emissions will be. If there is a emissions cap of how much the Earth can handle and we pass the cap there could be extinction worthy problems birthed. I still believe that we need to do something about the population size. To set in motion some plans and at least be prepared.","conclusion":"We need to control the population birth rates now instead of later."}
{"id":"45770e78-e19f-4f62-bb00-b723f8906102","argument":"Forenote I do not mean to downplay the seriousness of muscle neuron diseases, such as ALS, in any way. While I am not arguing that his performance was bad, I do not think his performance as Stephen Hawking was Oscar worthy. I believe, in order to win the award, the actor actress must portray a character to the best of his her ability for the entire duration of the film. So yes, Redmayne did an excellent job of portraying Hawking, but how much work did he really have to put in for the last half of the movie? Sure, he was able to carry the emotional themes, and he did a really good job of doing nothing , but his lack of speaking parts in the second half of the movie really take away from the performance when being compared to other performances. For instance, another potential Oscar favorite, Michael Keaton not only has speaking parts throughout the his film Birdman , he even has to provide inner monologue and act like he is acting. The only counter argument for this that I could think of is that Redmayne was tasked to portray Stephen Hawking, which he did nearly perfectly. However, I do not believe this gives him instant access to the Best Actor Award. Using this logic, could someone be cast as a mime, portray the mime perfectly, and receive the same recognition? Being somewhat of the cynic, part of me says that Redmayne is getting this recognition because he is playing Stephen Hawking, a very prominent figure in culture. It sometimes seems that the attention his role is receiving is almost an indirect recognition to Hawking himself.","conclusion":"Eddie Redmayne should not be considered for the Best Actor award for his performance in \"The Theory of Everything\" at this year's Oscars."}
{"id":"9255bbbd-fe4e-434a-9bfe-18b7384bd8b5","argument":"Individuals involved in the official english movement are very often driven by anti-immigrant feelings, or pure racism. For example, John Tanton, the founder of the main political lobbying organization in this movement called US English, had to resign in 1986 after making derogatory remarks about Hispanics.4","conclusion":"Official English is driven by anti-immigrant and racist sentiments"}
{"id":"2b49d098-e95b-4dcd-aef3-56713878ac06","argument":"For the record, neither my partner nor I are interested in BDSM sex, nor do I have any serious problems with anyone's sexual preferences even if they don't appeal to me personally. That said I have a hard time envisioning a healthy BDSM relationship in which the male is the dominant partner and the female submissive. I feel like these types of arrangements play into pre existing unhealthy male female power dichotomies, and exaggerating them through sexuality only exacerbates the problem. In normal, 'vanilla' heterosexual sex the male is already dominant. The act of penetration, inserting oneself into another person, is an inherently dominant act. Gender equal couples can approach this critically and accept that the power dichotomy exists and is unavoidable and take steps to mitigate it. However, in a male Dom configuration, the male is not only performing his dominant role he is emphasizing and exaggerating it. Is it the case that the Dom role becomes parodic in its over exaggeration and that the parody is a source of equalizing empowerment? The way I see it female Dom, male Sub makes perfect sense. The purpose of non normative sexuality is to decouple sex from everyday life to make it a 'sacred space' that is unique and therefore special to the couple. A man who is aggressive and dominant in his day to day life may feel a great sense of relief from 'laying down his burdens' and being submissive in the bedroom. Likewise, a woman who feels disempowered in broad society can feel empowered in an intimate setting. What doesn't make sense to me is why a woman who is regularly disempowered in her daily life would choose to continue to be disempowered in what should be the safest and most empowering space available. I'm interested from hearing from people women and men who have or are currently in male Dom female Sub relationships. For the men, do you believe in the traditional male dominant female submissive gender roles, or are you somehow subverting them? For the women, do you feel that your Sub role is challenging society's expectation of your gender, or do you feel empowered by embracing what you see as your role in the male female dichotomy? Again, I'm not passing or even withholding judgement of anyone's sexual preferences. I legitimately don't understand, because I've never had anyone explain it to me. In my sexual relationship, our sexual practices are as equal as I imagine is possible, so a power dynamic sexual relationship is alien to me. I look forward to having my V C'ed.","conclusion":"I'm uncomfortable with dynamic of maleDom\/femaleSub BDSM relationships. Help me"}
{"id":"3d8a8284-77c5-4d3c-a311-35e696da0f45","argument":"This is why the upper level claim that more guns correlate with more homicide is a weak argument to begin with. It is neither true for the US, according to official government data on crime which is not generally a disputed source, nor does it take into account the other factors that contribute to homicide.","conclusion":"Correlation is acceptable as an argument as long as both parties agree about the period of the data,and veracity of the sources. These are complex issues and any correlation will be based on multiple hidden variables, so neither party should read too much into it."}
{"id":"fcb572bf-7ccc-48ca-97f8-0a5a5d7aa80b","argument":"Increased tourism creates overcrowding and congestion, making locals feel as if their space is being taken over.","conclusion":"Inflow of foreign tourists is going to rise, creating social tension."}
{"id":"b3191273-1218-4493-9bf8-386c87983e03","argument":"If Bitcoin is adopted as legal tender, other cryptocurrencies would compete to join it. This creates competition which could improve the economy and\/or society.","conclusion":"Adopting Bitcoin as a legal tender would have several positive impacts on the economy."}
{"id":"b6a94f3d-1120-4434-9fcc-e7d786247de7","argument":"Among some religious creeds child abuse and neglect is more common when certain variables are found: authoritarianism, isolation and fear.","conclusion":"Celibacy can have a negative impact on mental health and may be a contributing factor in sexual abuse."}
{"id":"0c4f1bb3-1326-4da6-9407-0390a3a6601c","argument":"86% of school districts with a sex ed policy require promotion of abstinence and 51% of districts require that abstinence be taught as the preferred method of birth control.","conclusion":"Abstinence programs undermine the promotion of other sex-ed programs within schools."}
{"id":"356b955f-5f9b-43c1-883d-f69efc77398a","argument":"Businesses will have an easier time complying with the Fair Tax, since it would make their tax burden lighter and the amount of code relevant to them is much smaller.","conclusion":"A tax on expenditures is simple for the public to understand and reduces tax compliance costs."}
{"id":"a1d8f039-fdb2-4044-9411-62e4e370da39","argument":"I would like to start off by saying that I do some basic research before all elections in order for me to vote for the person who I feel is most qualified for the position. However, I believe my vote has little real effect on the direction my country will move in, for some very simple reasons. Accountability, or the lack thereof. During a campaign, politicians will promise you everything they think you want to hear based on party lines . During primaries, you will get some differences in the extremes of the party so the candidates can differentiate themselves from one another. However, once the candidate is elected, they will fulfill little of their campaign promises, and even have been known to do the opposite of what they claimed before the election. In no way are they held accountable for these actions. Oh sure, you can always not elect them for the next term, but by then the damage is done, and they've already received significant benefits from their position, some of which they will carry for the rest of their life. Lobbies. Everyone knows big corporations and special interest groups have lobbies that spend more money than is reasonable to insure that laws that support their interests are pushed through. Very few, if any, of these lobbies actual have the interest of the public in mind. Because of this, there is a large imbalance in their favor, leading to many laws being pushed through that actually go against the interests of the constituents of the politicians who put them through. And why do they go against their constituents? Because of lack of accountability, and millions of dollars of donations to their campaigns from said lobbies, ensuring they get reelected, regardless of their track record. The two party system is broken. If you want to win a major election in this country, you need to be running under one of the two main parties. If you are not, you do not even get invited to debates. You are unable to raise anywhere near the same amount of money as your opponents, crippling your campaign in comparison. Even worse, you get less votes because, ironically, many people won't vote for you because they don't think you have a chance of winning. I can't count the number of times over the years I've heard someone say they love some third party candidate, but won't vote for them because they have no chance. As a result, we are left with two groups who do little more than spend their entire term trying to neutralize the effect their opponents have so they can have a better chance of getting reelected next term instead of actually trying to help out the people who elected them. There are other reasons, but these are the major points most of them stem from. So Reddit, do you think you can convince me the United States political system isn't irrevocably damaged, and that my vote will make some difference? I want to believe my country can be fixed, but more and more it looks as if things are only going to continue to get worse unless we completely restructure the country from the ground up.","conclusion":"I believe the state of US politics is functionally broken today and by extension, people's votes do not matter."}
{"id":"e422a2ce-4b5c-422e-a159-e0473ccd8740","argument":"EDIT2 Thank you all for the responses given. We need copyright laws since applying a blanket license wouldn't suit everyone and producers need to be able to publish their work under different licenses, which puts us exactly where we are today. EDIT I agree that corporations shouldn't be able to capitalize on others intellectual property. However I don't see why we should chase private individuals. x200B Discussed this topic recently with my friend, but I still fail to see any point in copyright laws. What I cannot fathom is how someone can expect to retain ownership over anything posted on the internet. If I parked an unlocked bike in some shady area I probably wouldn't even come back for it, neither would anyone show me any sympathy for my obvious mistake. Then how is it, that we expect our things to not be stolen when that stealing can happen in less than a second and sometimes even by scripts? And my second reasoning is that even when work is stolen does it not often lead to increased publicity, if the owner takes his her time in branding the work? Games can be pirated, but those who pirate still know which company published. A picture with a watermark will brandish the artists name wherever it appears and will have much longer to gain foothold for that artist should someone try to claim ownership of said picture, same goes for books and videos. Trying to shape the internet so that we can leave our property unlocked to me seems like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole instead of embracing what we have. .","conclusion":"Copyright laws are futile and unreasonable to uphold."}
{"id":"fb7b8d81-a6fd-439a-9840-e820a5fe8216","argument":"The limitations of the Rebel's propulsion technology - and in particular the reliance on mapped hyperspace routes - make certain strategies much harder to utilize than is the case for the Federation: for example hit and run approaches.","conclusion":"The Federation's ships are technologically superior to those of the Rebel Alliance."}
{"id":"6c4dae0d-d51a-4339-a8e8-3cbe4eeb16d5","argument":"The proposed change to Romeo and Juliet substantially changes the story. The proposed change to Huck Finn keeps the plot intact.","conclusion":"The analogy to changing the ending of Romeo and Juliet fails."}
{"id":"bb638e36-0524-46eb-b130-eb347ad3d828","argument":"Torture is only effective at getting people to give up information if it is damaging enough to the person being tortured that they become willing to give up important information. Therefore, it will always present significant damage to the person being tortured.","conclusion":"Torture by definition is the act of inflicting severe physical or mental pain and thus is damaging."}
{"id":"06845f3b-6f53-4173-9e47-8b339edca91e","argument":"Data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that the gun death rate hit 12.2 per 100,000 people in 2017 and surpassed the car crash death rate of 11.9 per 100,000 people. The rate of car crash deaths has steadily decreased while the gun death rate has increased over the years.","conclusion":"There is a significant difference in deaths per gun use and deaths per car use."}
{"id":"7c8537fe-1728-49de-8f21-6392a7d0ab0a","argument":"Admittedly I don't have any deep knowledge of politics, but I believe that two party systems are restrictive of free thought. They box people in and chain them to that specific set of beliefs, making them more closed minded to differing ideas, which in turn encourages disdain of the opposing party. It causes discord and discourages empathy and compromise. I understand the purpose of labels, but wouldn't it be more beneficial if there were more than two boxes to check? It's like people are given a multiple choice question, when the question would be better answered in an open ended format. This may be a long shot of an assumption, but it feels like a manipulation tactic to oversimplify complex issues in the eyes of the masses, in turn discouraging people to think for themselves. It's so much easier to control public thought when all you have to do is control two puppets who are seemingly in opposition, but have the same dirty end goal. It completely defeats the point of democracy. It's archaic and toxic to the populace. Feel free to educate me and change my view. Edit This video that u cp5184 shared accurately expresses my concerns with this system","conclusion":"Two-party political systems are restrictive and toxic"}
{"id":"13f5b7a7-7749-40ff-969e-5aa3d6f24dde","argument":"I think that pacifism is not possible in helping create change, at least not in today's world. Historically, major political shifts have happened because of violence, such as how the reason why the majority of the world doesn't live in monarchies is that violent upheavals overturned feudalism to create representative republics. Now I am not saying that all violence is justified, such as I do believe that Ireland has a right to independence but it shouldn't be at the cost of the lives of Northern Irish citizens. I think Palestine should be liberated from Israel but not on the cost of Israeli lives. Rather, I'm describing violence against those the perpetuate systems of oppression, such as how Nazis perpetuate oppression against anyone who doesn't follow their ideology to the tee, they deserve to get punched or any other means of defense to prevent Nazis from gaining any sort political power. If someone is threatened by a police officer and it's clear that it could mean that the officer intends to kill them, then they should be within their right to prevent themselves from getting killed by any means necessary. And knowing about the psychological laws of flight or fight responses and reactive violence, it's going to come down to that no matter what, the law of the land be damned. I also do not view any form or vandalism or property destruction as violence if it doesn't physically hurt people. I know this is a broad topic so I welcome any questions on clarification. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I believe political violence is fine if it serves the greatest good."}
{"id":"fecdf9ce-31fd-4bde-aea6-6057805ba6bc","argument":"As a consequence, whole disciplines can vanish once gaming companies shut down. This cannot happen with sports that don't depend on businesses.","conclusion":"Sports organizations are non-profit making organizations, whereas the computer-gaming sector operates as a business."}
{"id":"ffdeddd6-22d7-4d43-b207-0d84778a77af","argument":"This view starts with the assumption that the voter in this case is trying to improve the state of society as a whole rather than just voting in his or her personal interest. If he or she is voting for personal interest, this isn't relevant. I argue that, given this assumption, there is no reason the value benefit to your own country over benefit to other country. Basically if one platform will help 10000 fellow citizens and another will help 20000 foreigners, there is no logical reason to prefer the first. Trying to come up with a more realistic example, contrasting policies on refugees seems relevant. If one platform is in favor of accepting refugees despite some harm to the economy and another platform wants to accept none, this second platform prioritizes the lives of citizens over those of outsiders. When voting, I don't see why people would value programs that help local people over programs that help foreign people, especially if the number of people aided by the second option is higher. The only reason I can see to do this is nationalism felt by voters. Anyone who can show me a logical reason for prioritizing benefits to locals over benefits to foreigners will have changed my view and understanding of this idea. Edit Thanks for all the comments, definitely made me think. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Voters should consider global effects, not just their own country."}
{"id":"68903671-e1bb-4b11-a29d-91c7c442e8a1","argument":"This can be used as a source of political legitimacy as it presents the rule of the government in question as the outcome of history.","conclusion":"Defining what is culturally or historically significant allows a government to present a particular historical narrative that works in their favour."}
{"id":"d4c5901a-e35c-4c2b-9b48-6d41d8c35402","argument":"North Korea\u2019s withdrawal from the NPT as the only country to have ever done so, as well as its continued defiance to the US, is behavior that could be emulated by other states that feel threatened by the US and\/or its foreign policy.","conclusion":"The nuclear weapon program symbolises North Korea's defiance against the US, directly challenging the current world order devised by, and in the interest of, the US."}
{"id":"36801a07-9aae-4edc-80f0-3b0615c5d9a8","argument":"In mines, where methane seeping from rock formations has no odor, sensors are used, and mining apparatuses have been specifically developed to avoid ignition sources.","conclusion":"Natural gas mines have sensors and equipment to improve safety."}
{"id":"555104b8-6779-49f5-a709-14e5f00fa776","argument":"Convince me that you have a good enough reason to keep hold of these killing machines. I understand that in practise trying to remove all guns from circulation immediately would be a pointless exercise and I think the best way to end up getting rid of guns would be to slowly introduce stricter gun legislation over time until it becomes palatable to the American public. Main reasons people give for wanting to keep firearms that I hear 1 hobby, 2 protection To deal with the first one the amount of death and destruction caused by guns in the US is so high that if you think your right to have a fun hobby supersedes that, you\u2019re not a moral person in my opinion. The second argument needs more unpacking. Protection. This generally falls under 2 branches either protection from the government or protection from other individuals. Let\u2019s first look at protection from the government How likely do you think it is that the government is going to turn up one day and gather everybody together and send you all off to FEMA camps or something? What exactly is the worry? Plenty of countries in Europe don\u2019t have a significantly armed population and we don\u2019t see that happening. Let\u2019s look at times when the government really has taken away your liberties the patriot act being a good example. How much did your guns help then? Guns have been used by the Republican Party as a method of gaining votes so that once they get into power they can pass things like the patriot act, if anything they\u2019ve been used more as a method of control than that of liberty. Lets look at some common arguments that I hear when people talk about banning restricting guns \u201cOk so you have less murders by firearm in the UK, but you guys have way more knife crime.\u201d. This is just false. Firstly, lets look at just how big the difference is in regards to firearm homicides \u201cThere were 34 firearm homicides in the US per million of population in 2016, compared with 0.48 shooting related murders in the UK.\u201d 1 . That means the US has a firearm homicide rate nearly 71 times higher than the UK. Let\u2019s look at knife crime now Knife murders per million of population 1 2012 US 5.11, UK 3.04 2013 US 4.71, UK 3.16 2014 US 5.01, UK 2.86 2015 US 4.95, UK 3.23 2016 US 4.96, UK 3.26 So for 5 years straight couldn\u2019t find data for 2017 18 UK knife crime rate was lower. But even if it wasn\u2019t the overall amount of homicides would still be significantly lower in the UK. The rate of homicides per 100,000 in the US was 4.7 in 2012 as recent as I can find, unfortunately . In the UK it was 0.976 2 . So the US homicide rate is 4.81x as high as the UK homicide rate. A common argument you hear goes something like \u201cyes but criminals don\u2019t give a shit about the law, that\u2019s why they\u2019re criminals. So the only people who would suffer if we tried to remove guns would be the good guys trying to protect themselves.\u201d. This isn\u2019t true though. Firstly, if guns are extremely well monitored and regulated, it makes it more difficult for a criminal to get a gun. There\u2019s less in circulation, there\u2019s less in peoples homes where they can be stolen etc. Also, lots of people purchase guns without expecting to do anything nefarious with them, and end up using them in a fit of rage manic episode etc. So it\u2019s not like the only people who end up using guns to kill are those walking around with a big \u201ccriminal\u201d sticker on their head or those who plan to use them for harm. If you limit the amount of guns in circulation and you make it much more difficult for people to own guns, it will naturally make it more difficult for people to get them illegally. Would it make it impossible? Obviously not, but it would make it more difficult. I get that you may be a gun owner who just enjoys owning guns as a hobby. But if you can look at mass shooting after mass shooting as well as all the statistics relating to gun crime in the US and think that your hobby is more important than trying to curb some of those massacres, I\u2019m not sure how to take that viewpoint seriously. I've yet to hear of a solid argument that it makes sense to give people a right to bear arms today , hence this post. 1 2","conclusion":"You should not have a right to bear arms"}
{"id":"20a7b233-9d06-432f-9e39-b8babe87a27c","argument":"Since Facebook and Twitter allow for cross-posting and re-tweeting content, it provides terrorist organizations with a low cost means of dissemination to a vast global audience Klausen, p. 3","conclusion":"Facebook and Twitter are strategically useful to groups like ISIS."}
{"id":"2c22acd7-1a97-40f7-a4b9-7966b4c2bf0f","argument":"Many children's books are still popular in physical copies. This means that when these children become adults they will still feel nostalgic about physical books, and perhaps be emotionally attached. Until the primary form of children's literature is electronic we will be waiting for a one generation delay.","conclusion":"Reading in a paper book feels much better. Some people still prefer paper books over other forms"}
{"id":"0cf0eda1-60fd-40d9-8591-858a35f2199d","argument":"To my way of thinking, being a bisexual would be great. The amount of erotica I could view would be increased by a significant degree, the potential partners I could have would be increased, et cetera. I am actually rather disappointed that I am attracted exclusively to females, and have tried, with very little success, to broaden my interests. I do recognize that bisexuals experience a great deal of bigotry from the general public. However, there is an aspect to my orientation I am going to avoid directly mentioning, in hopes of keeping this topic on topic, that means that I can fairly safely say I already experience as much orientation phobia that a bisexual would, or more, so the argument of the existence of biphobia will not be compelling. So, yeah. Besides that, I can't think of any major downsides, while I can think of some major upsides, to being a bisexual in my specific case, and I would choose to be such if orientation could be chosen. .","conclusion":"I think it would be great if I were a bisexual."}
{"id":"88dde49f-fdc3-4899-beb9-1c3d8efc75eb","argument":"For one, Gallagher was hugely influential in shaping what would become the cable TV comedy specials with his numerous specials on HBO, at a time when not many were being made. His comedy specials being replayed constantly on Comedy Central during its early years were one of the things that shaped Comedy Central and brought in its initial audience base. Gallagher's comedy act, particularly smashing watermelon's with the Smash o Matic is a part of American pop culture knowledge. I mean, we all are familiar with that, do any of us know anything about the comedy acts of Freddie Prinze, Sr., who was at number 49?","conclusion":"I believe that Gallagher should have been way higher than number 100 on Comedy Central's 100 best stand up comedians of all time."}
{"id":"82d314b3-f120-403c-a11f-8ffd03955a18","argument":"The same stories appear in different places of the bible with significant changes, including the interchangeability of satan and god as the antagonist. If the bible is accepted as \"the breath of god, holy, perfect, and completely true,\" then god and satan must be different faces for the same being.","conclusion":"Religious stories contain evidence that god and satan are the same being."}
{"id":"060a228c-2146-4942-9ba8-d369dd505866","argument":"Treatment costs during the last two months of terminally ill people's lives amounts to $55 billion per year in America, and it is estimated that 20 to 30% of this money leads to no quality of life improvements.","conclusion":"The system of care for the elderly could be unburdened when those in need of care could choose, at a certain point, whether life was still worth living."}
{"id":"ab9b04fb-396c-485a-8743-4487b17b98d0","argument":"Bodily autonomy is the legal and social concept that neither society nor the government should be allowed to force a person to do something with thier body. It's why you can't be forced to give blood or donate tissue even if doing so would save 20 lives. Someone thing must have your continious consent to touch or use your body by not allowing women to get an abortion our government would be granting more rights to the fetus than the women, effectively degrading her to a second class citizen. Compelling at first look But not donating blood or tissue, effectivly signing the death warrent to those 20 hypothetical individuals, is not the same as an abortion. The first is death through inaction. The second is death through action. ie. allowing someone to die is not that same as killing. Even if you argue a fetus is not a human being and therefore has no rights making abortions illegal would be making an action illegal which the government does all the time. try getting medical marijuana where it has yet to be legalized not forcing an action upon you which would fall under bodily autonomy rules. think vaccines and Jehovah's Witness refusing blood transfusion","conclusion":"\"Bodily autonomy\" is a terrible argument in favor of legal abortions"}
{"id":"82d7c2ea-4432-4fd6-bbd4-96c20fd51142","argument":"One study found that 25% of DACA recipients have at least one US-born child of their own, who would undoubtedly be negatively affected as well if their parent was deported.","conclusion":"Since most DREAMers are now in their 20s and beyond of which have families--it would be harder for them to start a new life now in another country."}
{"id":"325ad9b1-2531-4dbb-8d61-0bdd33c09adf","argument":"Knowing the exact ingredients will remove the risk of taking laced or counterfeit drugs which can cause further harm.","conclusion":"The risk of unknown purity and poor-quality drugs will be minimized."}
{"id":"05638356-e6a4-437e-83b7-4bc593f92e3b","argument":"This isn't referring to depression because of a terminal illness, but specifically about clinical depression prompting suicidal urges for years. Decades even. I don't view suicide as a choice it's a fight or flight response. Some people cope others don't. Also my philosophy on the value of life undoubtedly skews my stance. I don't believe that anyone has an objective, inherent value and that disallowing someone to end their life promotes their suffering for the comfort of society being uncomfortable with death. However, temporary bouts of suicidal behavior should be treated but at a certain point it becomes so chronic that pain overshadows pleasure. When someone has suffered for years with suicide but have held off because of guilt from family they are literally tortured into accepting life rather than be allowed to bow out peacefully.","conclusion":"I don't think every suicidal person can be helped and some are \"better off\" gone."}
{"id":"d0001913-c510-49b2-a750-c515a0e920cb","argument":"preface i believe that access to family planning options and contraceptives is one of the most inalienable of all human rights. i am staunchly pro choice and am even a longtime donor to planned parenthood. i admit to being generally skeptical of doctors and pharmaceutical companies and particularly suspicious when it comes to issues of women's reproductive health. i am also not super well educated when it comes to human anatomy, so although i read popular science journalism and health news, it's not like i have some sort of insider clinical or research based evidence that is backing up my view. however, i think hormonal contraceptives are a crude and primitive solution to blocking insemination and are far more invasive and hazardous than the other options available. i wonder why, besides condoms, oral contraceptives are still the gold standard in the united states when it comes to preventing insemination. i suspect that in a 100 years, when we understand more about the intricacies, the importance, and the interconnected functions of the endocrine system, we will look back on oral contraceptives as something on par with bloodletting or shock therapy. that last sentence is a hyperbole, i know, but oral contraception is more than fifty years old hasn't our understanding of endocrinology changed radically in this time period? the pill et al has had a deleterious effect on the general well being of every woman i know who has taken it. beyond this anecdotal evidence, there seems to be stacks of research highlighting the seemingly innocuous and seemingly not so innocuous side effects of these drugs. in europe and asia, IUDs are widely available and often preferred to oral contraceptives. but in the U.S., i have encountered difficulties finding a doctor who will implant one, and good luck finding someone who will fit a diaphragm. i am not saying oral contraceptives shouldn't be prescribed, just that i am increasingly shocked by how readily and recklessly they are thrust upon women without offering other options and without checking or monitoring an individual patient's hormone levels. p.s. i view hormone laced IUDs as distinct from oral contraceptives or something like the NuvaRing.","conclusion":"i think the risks and side-effects of oral contraceptives far outweigh the benefits."}
{"id":"e98a98d7-34f2-46a7-96f6-cf2348019957","argument":"While \"there's no way to prove that there 'isn't' a tooth fairy\" is technically true, it is also irrelevant. If someone said they believed in a blue sea monsters on Mars, with zero evidence, it would be equally true but irrelevant to say science doesn't justify lack of belief in Martian sea monsters. Instead, the believer should use science to prove the existence of sea monsters. Until it does, that belief is unsupported by science and should be rejected.","conclusion":"Atheism does not require justification. As a non-position meaning to make no claim there is nothing to prove."}
{"id":"f0031d83-5aae-44d8-901d-f4410cee07b7","argument":"Rey could decline to identify as Vader, leaving that part of the chosen One's history behind her.","conclusion":"This theory allows us to continue Vader's story arc."}
{"id":"6873a8c3-6ed9-4e41-94b5-b4e06f75e3f9","argument":"Young people are not as financially established as adults, yet they should be treated equally when borrowing from the bank, for example.","conclusion":"Discrimination against those from poor backgrounds would be reduced by legal protection."}
{"id":"5cc2f05f-5735-4b16-b6d4-c00eea8af82f","argument":"Transcendent means \"independent of the material universe\", and immanent \"manifested in the material world\". Manifesting in the material world means one isn't independent of it, being independent of the material universe prevents from manifesting in it. Meaning those two qualities are incompatible.","conclusion":"The classical definition of God is contradictory or incoherent, and thus God cannot in principle exist."}
{"id":"bdc009be-ecb3-4e34-9011-e782281bec98","argument":"Israel allows roughly 81 items to enter Gaza. It excludes thousands of other types of goods, making it impossible for Gaza to engage in legitimate trade and truly build its economy. This cause serious economic suffering.","conclusion":"Gaza blockade allows basic aid, but not other important trade"}
{"id":"56f1519f-4d55-4e36-a60c-bf03534e9810","argument":"Russia has been given the opportunity of a relations reset with the US before. It resulted only in emboldened Russian aggression. There is no reason to think the same will not happen again.","conclusion":"Full reconciliation would require Russia to stop engaging in activities which escalate tensions with the West, something they are not willing to do."}
{"id":"fa6f4777-c356-4ef7-bc37-17eca94305f7","argument":"In Classic chat in e.g. world chat is meaningful as you sometimes have to post to form a dungeon group, while with Retail LFG made this superfluous.","conclusion":"WoW Classic requires more social interactions to successfully play the game."}
{"id":"57b72ef1-be74-41d7-b216-3ab4a5ba58c1","argument":"I see many people having the opinion that capitalism is pure evil and they take away all the money earned because of the hard work of the lower classes. But the truth is that people are motivated to work hard because they know their lives get better, and if their hard work gets divided by a 100 thousand, they no longer have the same level of commitment. I'm all for percentage of income based taxes, but blaming the rich for being rich sounds very much like propaganda. I support giving equal opportunities for people to succeed, but beyond that, one who truly wins is entitled to his win. That's a basic survival nature of an animal, and humans are no different. Maybe some people are alright with just participating in the race, but most people in the world won't run if they were assured of the prize anyway. For socialism to truly work, every person needs to have an altruistic view, which I believe doesn't exist and never will. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Socialism, while being a great concept in theory, is inherently flawed because most humans will not work hard unless their work gets a quick incentive."}
{"id":"eac1ca5b-a17f-491a-8241-0d7345fca13d","argument":"Any given \"evil\" circumstance has results that can continue to affect other circumstances long after, and far away from, the original circumstance. Chaos theory shows that accurately predicting, and therefore judging the weight of, these consequences is far beyond the scope of human intelligence.","conclusion":"It's impossible to say with any acceptable certainty that the state of the world isn't justified from God's perspective."}
{"id":"1199910e-7273-4489-9005-fc0c4a7a0e2c","argument":"Some vegan foods especially trees such as maple syrup and fruit allow the native environment to be preserved while benefiting the plant that the food is taken from.","conclusion":"Vegan lifestyles add beauty and removes destruction from the environment."}
{"id":"21e3f5fc-11cf-4d82-85fa-37367f5214e7","argument":"Conservative theologians like NT Wright Progressive ones like Rob Bell and psychologists like Jordan Peterson all make this claim in their works.","conclusion":"The writers of the Bible weren't scientists. They saw the world not as a place of objects, but as a drama."}
{"id":"44006445-7302-4fc0-8ea6-7b301f7440be","argument":"In my opinion, regardless of whether the universe if deterministic or indeterministic, we as people have no free will in what we do and everything is dictated by factors we do not have control over. I consider a version of Laplace's demon, a theoretical computer that knows the state of all matter in the universe and can therefore predict the outcome at the next slice of time. If it is possible to predict the outcome of the universe by having knowledge of everything currently, then the universe is deterministic, and it implies that we do not have free will. However, Laplace's demon cannot exist due to the impossibility of finding the current state of matter at the quantum level. The little uncertainties at that level, while not causing direct implications, may cause huge differences in outcome over time due to the chaos theory which implies indeterminism. I understand that. My problem is that in both situations, how can we be in control of our will? How are we in control of the state of the universe in the moment before we were created, which dictates everything that comes after? Even if the current state does not dictate everything that comes after because of quantum uncertainty, how does that make it so free will exists? I believe that our genes and the environment of our upbringing decide who we are and all our actions moving forward, so we really do not have complete free will. I guess there would be two ways to change my view and it's either by convincing me of the possibility of free will with determinism or free will without determinism, as both would break apart my argument.","conclusion":"Regardless of determinism or indeterminism, free will does not exist"}
{"id":"e8c4c853-740c-46aa-9ee1-256e5cb34ce1","argument":"Throwaway for obvious reasons. I don't want to get any more specific than saying that I'm a scientist for the Department of Health and Human Services point being, I'm a civilian and not affiliated with DoD in any way . I know that my perspective is biased, and yes there are ways that the government spends money unnecessarily, but I personally believe in government spending for research, projects, and development i.e., what I get paid to do . Assuming that federal research is a means of long term employment for me, it not only goes against my convictions to vote nearly anything except Democrat, but financially it isn't self serving in the least. I'm posting this  because a good chunk of my coworkers are conservative which I never really understood and no, I don't want to talk about politics with the people I work with, trust me, there's no way I'm opening that can of worms .","conclusion":"As a US Federal employee, it will never be in my best interests to vote Republican."}
{"id":"511c1946-3d7c-4704-b9ec-4e2d302eafe9","argument":"The vast majority of African Americans today couldn't even name a relative that was alive back then, nor have any of them been affected directly by slavery. It seems like taking offense to that is the same as me taking offense to Jewish slurs. I'm not Jewish by any means and my family hasn't been for as many generations as I know. But there was a large population of Jews where we are from, and its possible I have some Hebrew in me. Does that give me the right to flip out and potentially have someone fired? If your going to bring up discrimination, that happens to literally everybody. Some people hate tall people. Some people hat fat people. Some hate men, some women. Rich, poor. It's really just another random thing. No matter where you go, there is a always chance people are going to treat you differently for some reason or another. Does that make it right to ruin someone's career life for even offhandedly saying a word?","conclusion":"society overreacts when a white person says the N word"}
{"id":"a9fe204d-2fb4-4bbb-b7ea-ff0e122e47a1","argument":"The Cold War is a testament to the fact that differing internal ideologies can create significant conflict. Russia and the US were advocating for Communism and Capitalism respectively, and it was this ideology that created the rift between them.","conclusion":"Democracies tend to be less favorable to authoritarian regimes and vice versa, and less likely to trade with them or maintain cordial relations."}
{"id":"e4bb2b25-c662-47c3-af4f-295f8ae658c5","argument":"The BBC also part owns TV network UKTV UKTV has a number of high quality TV channels in the UK, many showing the BBC archives and also funding new versions of old BBC shows such as Red Dwarf which are made in the UK. Without TV licensing Freeview TV stations like Dave or GOLD could also disappear, or become subscription only as well.","conclusion":"The TV Licence does not solely fund the BBC - it also covers to a small extent, the national broadband rollout, regional broadcasters, Channel 4 partially and S4C. The government has also saddled the free licences for over 75's cost onto the BBC."}
{"id":"b810aa99-6ce0-43c4-9cea-205a2cf824df","argument":"There are a lot of moral issues that are discussed on social media and in the press, and many of them elicit strong feelings in people. Things such as abortion, immigration, capital punishment, and many others. Some of these issues affect a small portion of society, and some a much larger portion. As of now, there is significant evidence showing that the current increase in global warming is almost completely man made, and will probably lead to catastrophic death and destruction if left unchecked. We have a current sitting president that has shown an active interest in not supporting global warming initiatives. The president gets a lot of his support from people who voted for him because of his stance against political correctness, amongst other issues. NPR article on voting patterns and political correctness I\u2019m of the mind that it would be smart to hold people less accountable for politically correct speech as an example if it meant that those middle of the road voters that just barely voted from Trump in battleground states might be more open to voting for a candidate that is more competent governing the nation and leading the world. With competent governance we would have a much better shot at tackling very very serious global issues that will affect hundreds of millions of people in critical ways. On the other hand, I can see why minorities, or disadvantaged people would find any amount of toxic dialog unacceptable, and on principal seek to stop it at any cost, even if that gives power to a populist president who feeds on it through his consistency. I think people should be willing to forgo battling all moral issues in society to secure support on critical ones, and then build on them over time. Change my mind.","conclusion":"Sometimes you need to forgo promoting some social issues so that you can gain enough support on existential threats."}
{"id":"7cec8fa9-6f76-4e0b-bfe0-8046e9c51479","argument":"Azim Shariff an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Oregon, argued that social aspects of religion are beneficial for happiness.","conclusion":"Religious people are generally happier than non-religious people because of social events they take part in."}
{"id":"689f3ac6-26a3-4ea8-b9da-d05b167ce2c8","argument":"The average knowledge and skill of of the average Linux users, does not hamper the quality of Linux.","conclusion":"Crowd sourced efforts assign menial tasks to low skilled or uneducated users."}
{"id":"734440f2-cba5-47a2-b526-e09831007a03","argument":"As an aspiring writer, I feel almost personally attacked whenever a feminist critic attacks an artist writer director producer for propagating sexism. I find these knee jerk reactions towards, for example, the Sorceress from Dragon\u2019s Crown to be hurtful to the medium and unfair to the original artist. I come from the belief that an artist should have the freedom to Create whatever they want Publish that creation Not be met with death threats or shaming Not have their social media feed flooded with activists Not have that work banned by government law However, I also think criticism is healthy for the medium and that should anyone feel offended by a piece of work, they are welcome to criticize on why this work is bad. And just as well, the critics against sexism do have the right to Create or criticize whatever they want Publish that criticism Not be met with death threats or shaming Not have their social media feed flooded with \u2018trolls\u2019 Not have their work banned by the government. I also understand that showing females in that way is bad, in and of itself. Mass Media does affect the way human beings see things and may influence a person\u2019s way of perceiving what is \u2018normal\u2019. But, I believe it is up to the distributors, the publishers and the consumers to be responsible and exercise that responsibility so that the easily influenced do not take the wrong message from the media. Just as it is wrong to give a child alcohol or tobacco, it should be just as wrong to give possibly sexist media to a child when there are so many safeguards to protect them, such as parental locks. But the artist must have free reign to say what they need to say, write what they wish to write, and draw what they wish to draw, even if it is harmful to portray women that way. \u201cAs an artist, that's where the paradox is your responsibility is to be irresponsible. As soon as you talk about political or social responsibility, you've amputated the best limbs you've got as an artist.\u201d \u2015 David Cronenberg","conclusion":"Video game developers should have the right to create sexist representations of women"}
{"id":"3f1da452-b6d0-49d5-851a-d98d0adb8805","argument":"In 2015, Barack Obama spoke at a town hall meeting in Des Moines, Iowa and said the following Sometimes there are folks on college campuses who are liberal, and maybe even agree with me on a bunch of issues, who sometimes aren\u2019t listening to the other side, and that\u2019s a problem too. I\u2019ve heard some college campuses where they don\u2019t want to have a guest speaker who is too conservative or they don\u2019t want to read a book if it has language that is offensive to African Americans or somehow sends a demeaning signal towards women. I gotta tell you, I don\u2019t agree with that either. I don\u2019t agree that you, when you become students at colleges, have to be coddled and protected from different points of view. I think you should be able to \u2014 anybody who comes to speak to you and you disagree with, you should have an argument with \u2018em. But you shouldn\u2019t silence them by saying, 'You can\u2019t come because I'm too sensitive to hear what you have to say.' That\u2019s not the way we learn either. I believe that Obama's position here is absolutely correct, and that it stands starkly in contrast to the recent violence at Berkeley, and to the concept of punching a nazi or more generally to the initiation of political violence. I've bolded the parts of his quote that are most important to address for anyone trying to  NOTE Without notice, moderators shadow deleted a previous version of this submission. I have recreated it. If there's a problem here, please get in touch with me before deleting this post. Thank you, humble servants of the users of r changemyview gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Obama was correct in arguing that silencing political speech is wrong"}
{"id":"c9710091-c0d6-47d5-bbb1-1cbd565d369e","argument":"It is not ethical to target children with advertisements, as they are not yet able to distinguish advertising from actual programming in the way adults can. This means that advertising aimed at children is misleading and unfair. It is also clearly effective, as otherwise advertisers would not spend hundreds of millions of dollars each year targeting children who are not yet able to resist their sales pitch.","conclusion":"It is not ethical to target children with advertisements, as they are not yet able to distinguish ad..."}
{"id":"a15ed2a5-6620-45b6-941a-2031c64c720d","argument":"Some believe that violent protests, including armed force, is necessary to overthrow a tyrannical government. Violent Protests Are Justified in Some Cases.","conclusion":"Popular protest and civil disobedience have historically been agents of political change."}
{"id":"c3a64f2f-1e36-4cdf-8f9d-f30f8b183926","argument":"Firstly I need to say that I really don't mean to devalue Asians as I'm 1 2 Korean but I just don't know how to phrase it better and I've always been curious about the issue. Jews comprise of only ~0.2 of the world's population and yet have made so many contributions mostly scientific to gain 20 of the given Nobel prizes. Asians comprise of over 50 of the world's population and yet have won so few Nobel prizes. The reason I compare Jews and Asians specifically is that both cultures greatly value education and so I think genetics account for the disparity of scientific achievements and contributions.","conclusion":"The lack of scientific contribution by Asians vs the abundance thereof by Jews is genetic"}
{"id":"8e8be10f-40ed-4dc3-b4f7-1949bb60b005","argument":"Once the taboo against drug use is broken you are much more likely to try other drugs as well as marijuana.","conclusion":"Marijuana is a gateway drug to harder drugs like heroin."}
{"id":"c7dad22d-3bcd-4a4d-a05f-3465796558f0","argument":"I'm Irish and we have two fairly centrist parties. Aside from them, there's a left wing party linked to the unions and a left wing nationalist party. Pretty much all parties agree that European integration, Irish neutrality, gay marriage and using government to help people is good for the country. I have seen some people here say that it would be better if we had more choice in the ideology of the parties. That might be true but I think that if a party with the ideology of the US Republican party gained power, Ireland would become a worse place to live. I'm more interested in American and British politics than Irish politics and the only reason for anyone to vote Republican that I can see is if you believe government will oppress you without your guns, abortion is mass murder, you are rich, you would like the environment to get worse and you believe that America should stay a white, Christian nation where men hold most power. In Ireland those ideas aren't widespread aside from maybe the abortion opposition which is gradually decreasing . But Ireland, like every country, is filled with people who would like to live better lives and I don't see any way Republicans contribute to that. They mostly just resist any change and impose the values of a religious and economic minority on the majority. I will change my mind if someone can prove that the Republican party has the ability and ideas to improve a country in a way that benefits most people and in an objective way making it a 'more Christian' country doesn't count . Examples of this are better healthcare, education, administration, economics and security. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"If the Republican party was in office in my country, it would become a worse place to live for most of the population"}
{"id":"fe430ef1-1ca2-4af0-8063-8588a44d35de","argument":"I cannot see any way that bail is not classist. A rich person depending how rich will be able to bail, a poor person depending how poor will not. Bail is not decided on a sliding scale so there is no way it is objectively fair to the jailed and their financial situation. You could argue that someone other than the jailed could pay it, but again, they would have to be rich enough to be able to pay and also which I think is somewhat unethical have a personal investment in the jailed either personal, He's my son and I love him, or ulterior, as in I suppose someone else involved in a potential crime could bail them out . I understand that bail is kind of insurance that they will show up and the reason they are kept if they don't pay is to ensure they will show up, but a poor person who may not be able to pay bail may also be disproportionately affected by being held rather than being released, such as missing shifts when they live paycheck to paycheck and scraping for rent money. The eight amendment says bail can't be excessive , which I would define as being in an amount that the jailed can't pay, but that does not seem to be the rule.","conclusion":"Bail getting out of jail is classist and serves no fair, justicial purpose"}
{"id":"c9fbfe25-fd73-4f15-93bd-9e49ce36dbb5","argument":"The absence of political leadership has not seen public services collapse and people are able to go about their normal, daily business.","conclusion":"There are many examples of countries getting by without a government."}
{"id":"afe76033-4783-49ae-a2d9-7556d7b32d7f","argument":"With legalization, prostitution is allowed to function in a social climate freed from emotional prejudices. This is seen as major obstacle to socially sound prostitution Ericsson, p. 365","conclusion":"Legalising sex work will reduce stigmas surrounding sex and sexuality."}
{"id":"c467de3c-461e-43a9-934b-3316af69b519","argument":"First of all, excuse me for my bad english this isn't my home language and I'm on a phone so typos . Murderers should be sentenced to death. I believe this mostly because of the aspect of the victim's close people. How can one live in peace while knowing the their loved one's murderer might be released from jail sometime. Why does the murderer get to live and gets a second chance for living and fixing life while the victim doesn't? This is not fair and not right. Please, I'd love if you would change my view or at least give me a different aspect of this.","conclusion":"I believe death sentences to murders are the rightful punishment."}
{"id":"13b59864-e057-44e2-b7e4-23c6706847ce","argument":"PredPol deploys policemen to proactively patrol areas where crime is \"likely to occur\", which serves as an effective deterrent to crime, according to CEO Brian MacDonald.","conclusion":"The fact that a government employs predictive policing technologies will cause would-be criminals to reconsider and choose not to commit crimes."}
{"id":"99b044a0-a6ed-4b99-b03c-1510d511bc66","argument":"Making bold changes in America requires first that people's attitudes be changed. Changing attitudes is not easy at all, and requires profound persuasion. Obama, more than Clinton, has the ability to persuade in this way.","conclusion":"Obama's charisma and persuasiveness help rally people around actions."}
{"id":"c5b377de-379e-4267-91ee-68a3aade4ea3","argument":"As the title says, I believe drugs should be legalized. As it is your job to change my view, I will not go into too much detail as to why I believe in legalizing drugs, but I will merely say that I believe it will decrease crime, make addicts healthier and give them a better chance at breaking their vicious circle and finally that I believe it is the right of every human being to consume what her or she wants.","conclusion":"I believe all drugs should be legalized. !"}
{"id":"81d4c4f2-d624-47e7-ad5e-de8670703186","argument":"When I refer to nationality in the post, I'm referring to strong feelings of nationality mostly. I'd appreciate it if anyone who isn't a strong patriot does explain what kind of sense of nationality they feel and why Okay, so my logic is that the sentiment that since I happen to be born on this part of the earth, I pledge my everything to it is absurd to me. And it's, imo, detrimental to the development of science and the progress of humanity. For instance, I live in India and I've been trying to promote a conference called PyCon Pakistan, and I've gotten a few messages saying that you shouldn't promote it, you're an Indian , which is an awful sentiment. I want a flourishing python community in Pakistan too, but this feeling of nationality prevents lots of people from engaging in helpful activities like the above. Now, I understand that lots of people have this very strong feeling and I really do want to understand what motivates them? Like, objectively. What makes the country you were born in better than others? If you just happen to be born in another country, would you love it just as much as you do yours right now? If so, doesn't that mean that your sense of nationality isn't objective? I do acknowledge the fact that science in wars does advance much faster, like during the space race and nuclear physics research during world war II","conclusion":"Nationality is a pointless and detrimental sentiment"}
{"id":"8e9695f7-76c3-451d-8b92-6bddce42ad84","argument":"For my line of work which is not the DNA testing , I've seen a lot of DNA tests for dogs. I have NEVER seen a DNA test return that a dog is purebred, or even anywhere close to purebred. I understand that no dogs are actually really purebred anymore. However, these tests are consistently way off on their results. For example, I've seen a dog test showing gt 25 Chihuahua when the breeder doesn't raise Chihuahuas and has bred purebreed dogs for several generations. Wirehaired terriers seem to also be overrepresented in the results for some reason. By the way, in that Chihuahua example, the actual breed of the dog appeared as a minority result I think like 15 . It's just not possible. I've talked to several DNA testing companies and was given the same explanation either the test is correct or the DNA sample is contaminated. Maybe the samples they're testing against are contaminated? My mother recently had a DNA test done showing she is 1 4 black. I believe this is also incorrect since she knows who her parents and grandparents are, and none of them are black. In fact they all grew up in US regions where there were very few people of color. One of her grandmothers my great grandmother was Native American Cherokee and that didn't show up on the test. So i don't know what's going on in those DNA labs, but I've seen too many results which can't be correct to brush them all off as contaminated samples . Maybe someone here knows more about what's going on behind the scenes and can provide an explanation? Not sure what could change my view, but it seems the vast majority of people put a lot of faith in these tests. Maybe an informed explanation as to why? Or maybe if you have a test which showed the correct result? gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"DNA tests especially for dogs are bullshit."}
{"id":"d83e5182-f9a9-4aae-b708-907898ddc5ef","argument":"So I've come across a lot of people who disagree with this point, and I'm interested in getting a better grasp of the opposition. The main point of my contention is, that if we were able to scan and upload a perfect model of our brains to a sufficiently advanced computer, we could achieve near immortality immortality on the order of thousands or millions of years . I've heard some arguments against this, the most common being that the virtual version of you is a copy and not actually you. The rebuttal here is simple copying, pasting, and deleting is no different than moving. To say that a mind has not be moved but rather copied is like saying that a file on a computer has not been moved, only copied. Of course, these two operations are identical provided the original is deleted after the copy , so there is in fact no difference. For this argument please assume Physicalism is true. \u200eAnd its corollary, a perfect physical simulation of a conscious brain gives rise to actual consciousness. Of course neither of these can be conclusively demonstrated at the moment, but we have to pick somewhere to start.","conclusion":"Mind uploading would succed in providing immortality"}
{"id":"239e853a-f5cc-4f4f-b067-8064c74a3b04","argument":"Turkey has many economic problems ranging from high inflation, high regional disparities, high wealth disparity, unemployment, bad infrastructure and poverty among others. The country must solely focus itself onto improving those problems, before obtaining EU-membership. Not resolving economic problems before joining the EU can lead to problems as exemplified by Greece, Portugal and Italy, countries which had their big economic problems that were overlooked upon joining the Eurozone. Turkey\u2019s GDP per capita is less than half the average of the EU1 and as a large country with more than seventy million people it would pose an immense strain on the rest of the Union. The effect of this economic disparity is likely to lead to a massive influx of immigrants from Turkey to the rest of the EU, because they will take advantage of free movement of people in the European Union and these immigrants. This immigration is likely to have the effect of forcing down the wages of workers in the existing EU nations as the Turks will be willing to work for less.2 1 \u2018Turkey\u2019, The World Factbook, 24 August 2012, \u2018European Union\u2019, The World Factbook, 24 August 2012, 2 Turkey is part of Europe. Fear keeps it out of the EU. The Guardian. August 6 2009. Accessed on: September 3, 2012.","conclusion":"Turkey is not enough economically developed to join the EU."}
{"id":"5a6162d4-8946-4305-9f3b-8a0dc60c7e8e","argument":"Inspired by recent news that Apple will be making future devices much more difficult to work on for end users and third parties, requiring proprietary software even for basic hardware fixes. But it's not just Apple, other companies have come under fire for preventing end users from performing their own repairs, such as John Deere tractors. x200B I'm actually on the fence of this one. On the one hand I realize there may be legitimate reasons for company's to want their products only serviced by them. Also, it's a matter of free market and this kind of regulation is a pretty significant limitation on how a private company can build and sell products and services. Also, I realize the complexity of many modern products means that end user servicing is not feasible anyway. x200B On the other hand, I feel like many of these practices have no legitimacy outside profit motives, and are anti consumer because they effectively limit the customers ability to use their property freely, even when they own it outright. These practices also effectively contribute to planned obsolescence, because if the company declines to support the product anymore than it can have a shorter useful lifespan. This leads to more waste and dilutes the value of the product. x200B Consumers already have limited protection under the Magnuson Moss warranty act. This act clarifies that companies can't unilaterally deny warranty claims just because the product was repaired with third party parts or at a third party services center. But companies can get around this by making consumer side repairs physically impossible for example a phone company gluing its electronics together just to make repair impossible forcing consumers to replace rather than fix . So my view is these consumer protections should be extended to limit these types of practices. x200B Because I anticipate this argument already, I think the law can have exceptions, such as for products that are leased or when there is a legitimate need for the product to be built that way.","conclusion":"There should be a right to repair law"}
{"id":"cd21b017-8e17-47cb-aa6a-1bb459e47c5e","argument":"In a recent study on pre-big bang, researchers discovered 4 statistically unlikely circular patterns that they think are 'bruises' when out universe bumped into other universes.","conclusion":"There are fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background CMB that may signify that this universe collided with other universes in the past."}
{"id":"c56d40e4-409b-4c8a-b600-4fc394aef9c7","argument":"I believe it is wrong to ask others to donate money when it is not needed. It seems selfish to me. I think it is okay to ask for money for yourself sometimes, such as for medical expenses or after some sort of a disaster natural disasters, house burned down, etc. . I have absolutely no problem with people who are actually in need asking for donations. I completely support such people. It becomes a problem for me when I see people ask for money that they do not need, for example, to pay for a vacation or a fancy wedding ceremony. There are exceptions where I think it\u2019s okay Make A Wish type things , but they are few compared to the number of people who simply want the extra money to do extra things. A relative of mine asks for donations online often, and she is surprisingly successful. I tried having talking to her on the phone about this I tried to be polite about it but probably came off as an asshole , and she hasn\u2019t talked to me since. This is yet another reason why I want to change my view, so I don\u2019t get my family upset with me. I do have a reason for my view on this besides thinking it is selfish. These people are getting money that could have been donated to people whose lives may depend on it, often just so they can have a good time. I think priority should be given to those who really need the money. There is a reason I want my view to change on this matter. I see no way that I will be able to succeed in what I want to be my career unless I become one of those people who I have just described. I can\u2019t go into too much detail, but, I never completed high school legitimate health reasons , still live with my parents, and I won\u2019t be able to get a regular job in the foreseeable future. The career I wish for would allow me to work from home, but has a significant startup cost. Unless I can change my view on this, I don\u2019t know how I\u2019ll be able to get along with certain people in my family, tolerate visiting Facebook, or get the money necessary for me to start my career. Please help me change my view. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"It is wrong to ask for monetary donations for yourself, especially when you do not need it."}
{"id":"009d2948-0200-4734-b0a3-248495967004","argument":"If the worst conspiracy theories come true and they turn this place into SJW paradise with no semblance of free speech, I would be really fucking pissed off and hate it. But I see no reason to believe that is happening. I think people are just overreacting. Also a lot of people are operating with faulty logic, like 'why don't they ban coontown?' which fails to understand why they banned FPH it wasn't about content . Regarding Ellen Pao, she's not censoring anything. That's complete fiction and the source of the hate. Her husband appears to have done something shady but that's not her fault and her lawsuit I don't know the facts of. Maybe she was harassed and they had better lawyers or she simply couldn't prove it. I'm enjoying the drama but I don't anticipate reddit to get worse for me in any way because of any of this.","conclusion":"I don't really care about any of the recent changes at reddit and I see no reason why I should dislike Ellen Pao."}
{"id":"fa651d1b-af51-4442-9a51-03e43e661728","argument":"Linking rented accommodation to migration status simply encouraged rogue landlords to exploit immigrant workers in overcrowded and unsafe dwellings.","conclusion":"Her immigration policy has been ineffective and harmful to immigrants."}
{"id":"8099caab-5d51-4bcd-897a-f5a6555653a9","argument":"I've only thought about this and haven't researched it, and I want to believe I'm wrong, so this might be an easy delta. I assume we already have different standards of sexual harassment and hostile work environments for people doing legal sex work already. I don't think you can sue your phone sex employer because people call you and said they wanted to touch your genitals. So reasonably, we'd have similarly relaxed laws with legalized prostitution. If we don't want a black market, we've got to legalize anything that people can consent to, including occupational stuff like the sexy secretary and the man in uniform. But what happens if the sexy secretary also wants to be a secretary? What if the sex worker sees that playing that role can leverage her and I'll use feminine pronouns because I'm addressing feminists here sex work into other work? By being the sexy secretary and the actual secretary, she can get paid to do both by the same employer, which means she doesn't have to deal with strangers, doesn't have to use extra transportation to meet up with costumers, and she can get job skills outside the field of sex work, which is good in the long term. The employer enjoys similar benefits. Some of you already see where I'm going, but I'll be more clear. If this job position is allowed to exist, you'll start seeing job postings that offer great benefits, good salaries, etc. along with the stipulation that the job requires light sex work , assuming that it's included in the job posting at all. And the job will pay the market price for those combined services. How will our concepts of sexual harassment and hostile work environments sustain themselves in this atmosphere? Right now, we can just take sex off the table, but if we're going to pursue liberal goals and raise sex workers out of the absurd criminal standards they face now, we're going to have to deal with the idea that many people will work in that environment and many people will buy that service if they're allowed to. What is sexual harassment when your employer can fire you for refusing sexual contact, if that was a stipulation of your employment? What is a hostile work environment when you agreed that spanking was an acceptable disciplinary measure? Will we hash it all out in employment contracts, like the EULAs that we already don't read? What happens at job interviews? If the job offers an extra 40 grand per year for one contractually agreed blowjob per day, are you going to demonstrate your job skills for free? What's going to keep WalMart from classifying all their employees as sex workers to insulate against sexual harassment lawsuits? We can make light sex work illegal, but that's going to expose sex workers to risk and deny them opportunities that they'd otherwise have, and it's going to set up a black market, which is what we're trying to abolish in the first place. And let's not even get started on catcalling. If you're already tired of being told to smile, I can't imagine you'll like being asked about your price, or told.","conclusion":"legalized prostitution looks like a huge headache for feminists."}
{"id":"ee7a2407-340c-43ea-9cbb-67675936f7cf","argument":"Heads of Ministry Departments which appear to be equivalent to Muggle government Ministers are not elected representatives of the people.","conclusion":"In Great Britain, the Ministry of Magic has authoritarian tendencies."}
{"id":"83e2370a-de31-467b-a124-900833e619e4","argument":"Children from households identifying as Christianity or Muslim were less altruistic than children from non-religious households. Moreover, older children with a longer exposure to religion\" showed \"the greatest negative relations\u201d.","conclusion":"Research found that children from religious families are less kind and more punitive than those from non-religious households."}
{"id":"8a941407-ce29-49a7-85a6-c25921b47d5b","argument":"Isn't it the same as separation of Church and State? Any reference to marriage in any Federal or State documentation ALLOWS interpretation by those bodies. Marriage is certainly originally a religious notion, adopting unwittingly by a then-Christian-dominated US Government. This must be corrected. However, this would also eliminate any financial or legal gains for the partners. Are you prepared for that?","conclusion":"Marriage equality means eliminating marriage licenses and special tax deductions for married couples."}
{"id":"84739c98-85ca-4251-8088-1e7b977291e2","argument":"Government programs normally are not as efficient due to misaligned incentives of those who are responsible. However scientific advancement through public programs has been successful in the past and even when it might not be, it still leads to something: economical commercialization, motivation in scientists for better research, etc..","conclusion":"While government expenditures can be destructive to society in cost-benefit - like spending on something people don't want or is destructive, science is probably one of the least risky of this issue."}
{"id":"05f2b07d-3101-4fc6-8f81-d6bf85819c11","argument":"I've followed the Hobby Lobby case for awhile and the resent ruling basically allows for only Christian religious beliefs to be considered valid. The main reason I bring this argument is how in the explanation of the ruling the justices noted that this ruling does not cover instances of religious refusal for vaccinations or blood transfusions, rather just on birth control pills that whose prime purposes are to hobby lobby abortion aids. The problem lies in that one of the main arguments for this case was hobby lobby was not demanding their employees not take BC just that they should not be financially responsible. I see no difference between this and a scenario where a business owned by a jehovah's witness who while allowing their employees to have blood transfusions would not wish to be financially liable as it violates their religious beliefs. The only difference between the two scenarios is that hobby lobby dealt with Christian values. Therefore my conclusion is that the supreme court just issued a ruling allowing for government sponsored religious discrimination.  Please Edit hey everyone I realize my  I'd a little murky what I am arguing really is mainstream Christian beliefs as for in my example I did not realize that jehovah's witnesses were christian.","conclusion":"the Hobby Lobby decision essentially says only Christian religious beliefs are sincere."}
{"id":"9851470d-8bfc-4a03-ab10-4ed14d4dabc7","argument":"A couple of weeks ago I watched a video from the 2012 VP debates in the US where a question came up on abortion, and I have a real problem with Joe Biden's answer to it. The clip in question starts at 2 53 gt gt gt My religion defines who I am, and I've been a practicing Catholic my whole life, and it has particularly informed my social doctrine. Catholic social doctrine talks about taking care of those who can't take care of themselves people who need help. With regard to abortion, I accept my church's position on abortion as a, we call, De Fide doctrine. Life begins at conception, that's the churches judgement, and I accept it my personal life, but I refuse to impose it on equally devout Christians, and Muslims, and Jews, and uh, I just refuse to impose that on others , unlike my friend there, the congressman Ryan . I do not believe we have a right to tell other people, that women that they can't control their body. It's a decision between them and their doctor, in my view and the supreme court sic and I'm not gonna interfere with that. My specific problem is that if you believe Life begins at conception Ending a human life deliberately is murder Murder is wrong kind of obvious but I feel like I should include it The right of other people not not be murdered overrules your right to bodily autonomy then you cannot be morally consistent if you also believe anyone should be allowed to have an abortion. We don't know for sure that Biden thinks not being murdered is a more important right than other people being allowed to do what they want but considering he has a law degree, I think it's a fairly safe assumption. edit fixed a typo gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"It's morally inconsistent to think abortion is murder, but also believe it's up to women."}
{"id":"717b23a2-4095-4e4e-8249-bd1dce71c00a","argument":"I don't believe that DID is real. I do 100 believe that mental illnesses are legitimate however I don't believe that a complete disassociation, resulting in fully conscious and sapient others is possible. Clearly, disassociation is possible, and clearly personality shifts are possible. However, in manic episodes or psychotic breaks, while there is a disassociation and a personality shift, the idea that another character with a totally different backstory appears without a conscious effort from the individual is not possible. I do believe that there are individuals who create alternate personas for themselves as psychic self defense mechanisms, however I don't believe that true disassociation occurs. There is a sort of faking going on. I don't believe that it's necessarily for attention or for theatrics I don't want to generalize motives, I'm sure there are different ones. However, when speaking to Suzy and she switches to April, I believe Suzy is still, more or less in control and cognizant. I don't believe that a true disassociation from Suzy has occurred. I think it's highly possible Suzy is attempting to force a disassociation by acting out an imagine Suzy. I think one of the biggest issues that contributes to many other issues even global conflicts is mental illness and I think that we need to be more open to discussing it. I also think that we need to be more accurate in our assessments. Like a false rape charge, I believe a false mental diagnosis does more harm than good via added stigmas, misprescribed drugs, etc. and should be called out. DID is not real.  x200B EDIT Dissociative not disassociative","conclusion":"Disassociative Identity Disorder DID- formerly known as Multiple Personality Disorder; MPD is not real"}
{"id":"eef177ca-fab1-4f2e-b920-e47262cb48d6","argument":"So with the recent United fiasco. People have been shitting on untied for the way the man was treated and their past behaviors. Now I completely agree, that what happened to the man was immoral, illegal, and he should get millions and millions of dollars. Now my beef is that everyone is getting mad at United. Recently, I was talking to someone about it and the thought crossed my mind, that United may have done nothing illegal. Sure it was bullshit that they overbooked, but is that illegal? Sure it was bullshit, that they called the officer on the doctor, but was that allowed? Lastly, the officer who handled that situation was completely out of line. Now the officer does not work for United, he works for the police department. Shouldn't the blame land on him or the police department in question?","conclusion":"The police department and officer should be held accountable for what happened on the United Plane. Not United Airlines."}
{"id":"bd53d6a0-860f-4b69-a191-0c991ff34491","argument":"The memorial at Birkenau reads: \"For ever let this place be a cry of despair and a warning to humanity, where the Nazis murdered about one and a half million men, women, and children, mainly Jews from various countries of Europe.\"","conclusion":"Holocaust memorials honor the victims, they do not, in any case, celebrate perpetrators"}
{"id":"dca4a2ca-6a1f-4d2a-93b2-06754b9321e1","argument":"I consider myself a Christian. I believe in most of the teachings of Jesus. But I do not believe that any of the books in the Bible could be said to have been written by God. Not only was the Bible, as we know it today, compiled from a collection of separate texts by the church and religious scholars over many years, it also advocates actions that I feel are morally objectionable and prove that the authors, while perhaps divinely inspired , were no less subject to sin the burdens of human limitation that they preached about and tried to alleviate. My reasoning for making this post is that I quite frequently hear people say that the Bible is the word of God or is written by God , and I'm getting kind of sick of it. The folks over at r OpenChristian are a good example of the exception, it seems, but it's a pervasive and detrimental belief where I'm from. I also don't believe that disagreeing with any one part of the Bible means that the rest of it should be treated as bullshit either. That kind of ties in with the above point. If you allow for figurative interpretations and accept that, when it comes to your own beliefs, you have just as much theological authority as Richard Dawkins or Thomas Aquinas, it allows for a much more accepting and realistic world view and faith. Convince me that any of these thoughts are flawed, and you get a shiny new delta. Edit Sorry, I ghosted out for a while because of travel time and work. I'm back now with less fanfare .","conclusion":"I consider myself a Christian, but I do not believe that God wrote the Bible and that you shouldn't either."}
{"id":"89d811ee-6c25-49ab-9ec8-6295f2c9921f","argument":"I don't see any reason why giving people who aren't prone to learning new parts of language new knowledge of these things, particularly non millennials. Their stereotype regarding these things is being ignorant of them, and any reasonable person is going to be open to learning new things, regardless of how ludicrous they might be. A big problem in the world today that may divide us based on age is a lack of communication, fueled by the inability to understand each other at times. I see old timey words in current dictionaries that are hardly used by ANYONE anymore, much less young people. So why can't we add some new age words and maybe even standalone phrases that young people may use in everyday language that come from people making stuff up on the internet? Embracing the imaginations of all people, regardless of cultural divides, is far too important to cast it aside because of, 'those damn kids'. Change my view.","conclusion":"I think internet slang and meme language should be added to dictionaries without anyone putting up a fuss."}
{"id":"201573b3-6fda-45d0-9c33-9dba18908cfc","argument":"The only funny female comedian, I find, is Ellen DeGeneres. Every other female comedian either is Wanda Sykes, reminding you how much she loves chicks, or Lisa Lampanelli, making incredibly racist, sexist or crude for shock. I don't know of any female comedians that are clever and use subtlety. I don't think it's a sexist thing, really, I just can't think of one funny female standup comedian. I'm more than willing to be proved wrong.","conclusion":"There are almost no funny female comedians."}
{"id":"7ba27aa8-1985-4ac5-a1db-692a4942a433","argument":"I am talking about long term plans for example traveling for a few months, school, where to look for jobs, etc. If I make a plan in September to travel for 3 months in one country, and then meet someone who becomes my SO before I leave for the trip, I have every right to extend my travels plans without anything but 100 support from my SO. I understand that I committed to staying with my SO while on this trip, and that means keeping his her feelings in consideration. However, my SO committed to being with me on a trip that did not have a set end date, so any plans to continue traveling are valid. My SO has no right to complain or try to convince me otherwise. Change my view","conclusion":"I believe that if your SO other made plans before you two met\/ started dating, you are in no position to attempt to dictate said plans"}
{"id":"a3f913bf-e5e1-4839-abdc-894eaab8b209","argument":"I feel like Facebook is controlling me. I feel like I waste time on there particularly arguing with everyone and I really want to get off it. But I feel it is a great tool because, All my photos are on there. Every photo I've taken pretty much in the last How long has Facebook been out? Since then is on there. All my history of stories and life events are just left there as a reminder for me. As someone with a brain injury and pretty bad PTSD, my memory is shot and it makes me feel good to see those things sometimes. I have really 0 friends where I live My wife and I moved from another country and to a new place away from both families and friends and I had a few but I got really sick for the past 10 months and most of my new friends wouldn't hold on for that. So all my friends that I've had the longest are on there I can talk to them and see things that are happening in their life and feel connected to them. Yeah and family also, they are mostly on there and I can do the same. The history of my relationship with my wife is on there also and her family, which I am sadly not as close with since their father died, is on there. So socially, for someone like me who needs social interaction on his own terms due to social anxiety, Facebook is a great social tool. I can interact without having to actually go out an see real people. Really I'm sick or the arguments. I can argue on here or forums if I want though, so that's not really a reason to get rid of FB is it? Help me people. Someone change my view on Facebook. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Facebook is a great social tool"}
{"id":"b9ea62cf-c6b3-43c0-8520-faf72a5344bf","argument":"To clarify, I don't believe the World's climate is static and unchanging, I just don't think it is nearly as dramatic as the media says. I dispute any major warming in recent times, and believe the whole climate change agenda is simply environmental lobbyists backed by politicians who can no longer refute the issue and still maintain their credibility. I used to be into the scientific side of it a lot, but I haven't for a while, although I will be corresponding with a mate of mine who is of the same opinion as me who is knowledgeable in the science. I have a fundamental distrust of most of the media in Australia where I live , but I can't comment on the American media. I think it would be political suicide for any politician considering climate change 'denialists' are being hounded down by pretty much everyone. Skepticism and opposition to conventional scientific thinking is only a good thing, and I think the extent to which any skepticism of climate change is disregarded is appalling.","conclusion":"I don't believe climate change is happening."}
{"id":"49f22b0d-1fa2-4071-97d8-d87cdfc0ca0e","argument":"Everyone should be allowed to have the ability to stand up for their rights and what they personally endorse, however teachers are a highly influential part of the way children develop and if a child or more likely a Teen is influenced by the soap boxing of their instructor teacher professor it is to the detriment of that individual forming their own opinions at least publicly at the risk of scrutiny from their instructor. I mentioned soap boxing and being publicly identifiable as the criteria because these types of people are more likely to let their political passions drive other aspects of their life. Furthermore, I don't just mean this in the capacity of public forum such as public space, but social media accessible to the curious students of teachers. As it is, a lot of instructors do hide their personal musings and associated content that's on social media but for those that don't they should be fined or fired, or punished in some capacity at least, that is meaningful enough to deter them from doing further damage to their young charges. Lastly and to clarify, I don't think if a teacher has a stalker it should be the end of them. If they are hiding behind a distinct unique screen name like everyone else that is worth due consideration because as I have stated, they should be able to practice and endorse their political beliefs, just not at the expense of the kids.  if you can.","conclusion":"As a part of background checks, teachers at public institutions who soap box publicly and identifiably should be fined or fired."}
{"id":"599ae43c-ff84-42ff-9cfc-78fd62d6feab","argument":"When minorities are above the poverty line they get more political power and choice. UBI can help raise minorities above this line.","conclusion":"A UBI will reduce discrimination by empowering groups that traditionally lack influence due to economic barriers."}
{"id":"a1a4e666-00b4-4a48-9822-f398c336ed8d","argument":"US is very efficient at deciding which action is profitable. That would be very dangerous to have global policeman that thinks first if the action is good for himself. It is contradicting the moral\/ethical superiority of US.","conclusion":"The US should not and cannot foot the bill for the world's problems."}
{"id":"91d5455b-d194-4bd1-9543-665841f916d2","argument":"A case could be made for Ikindu Enkidu, a central character in perhaps the oldest known written human story, Gilgamesh, being a Bigfoot. See this link","conclusion":"Stories of bigfoot or of hairy wildmen go back thousands of years."}
{"id":"31ef7caa-b7c3-4eec-a8c9-ca1944906c20","argument":"The independence that is key to journalism is challenged constantly by the interests of political parties, companies and all kinds of lobbyists: all of which are or can be advertising customers.","conclusion":"Structural problems in the industry are making it impossible for journalism to be financially sustainable."}
{"id":"bb95da3e-989c-42e2-9bff-0edcbce6858e","argument":"I think it is pretty clear that all three of these words, especially premium and fresh, are used by businesses in describing products or service in completely misleading ways. That fresh fish on the menu has been frozen for weeks. That luxury apartment is actually very basic and even needs some repairs. That premium car wash just means the add one more kind of soap. I was just walking to work and a cab drove by that said luxury cab , and sure enough it was a pile of shit. I'm someone who usually likes to seek out nice products and I'm tired of being mislead. I can't be the only one. I know this will rustle some jimmies in regards to free speech, but this is for the good of all consumers. Other than appealing to the first amendment because I don't give a shit and it will not  , . EDIT In regards to REGULATING the terms luxury and premium , my view has essentially been changed in the sense that I think it would be an impossible task. However I still think that fresh should be regulated and that the misleading use of all three words is very, very wrong.","conclusion":"I believe that the usage of the words \"premium\", \"luxury\", and \"fresh\" should be regulated in advertising."}
{"id":"b8bc5bbb-6c79-4d27-bee7-c54c64cef323","argument":"If one accepts the premise that women have fewer privileges than men in society, then promoting female privileges is compatible with the overall principle of equality. If someone faces disadvantages, you have to treat them differently to achieve equality.","conclusion":"Sometimes true equality must go beyond \"technically equal\" and give protections to one sex or gender that the other simply does not need."}
{"id":"782c29b7-1209-475e-b79f-d9da557ec8ab","argument":"Climate predictions are not simply built on 'statistics The Earth's weather systems are far too complex to have enough data to draw statistical conclusions on future climate changes.","conclusion":"The climate is known to exhibit chaotic behavior in the mathematical\/scientific sense and is very difficult to link effect with cause."}
{"id":"bbacbd52-709a-4806-b4b8-6ce5a64fc555","argument":"If you value an animal's life higher than a human's life, than I guess many people would put you in the at least very odd category, if not sick, category. Pets are a special case, but animals in general, would be deeply disturbing.","conclusion":"If you were to put the suffering human and the suffering animal in close contact with humans, most, besides \"psychopaths\" would go and help fellow human beings survive, rather than dogs."}
{"id":"2bf33d46-3470-4023-b571-436373cffdaa","argument":"Ok so if you go to my post history and find my previous post you'll be able to see my opinion of memes as a whole, but in this post I'm going to try to leave my opinion on my lack of enjoyment of memes out of things. I'm saying that they actually can be harmful. For example, there are a lot of T D memes which are just pejorative and usually insults about the left, and there are a lot of memes from the left the other way round which are also insulting. This theme continues through things like TikTok memes , which are often just unnecessarily cruel videos which leech off of other people's creativity while ironically lamenting them for what they perceive to be a lack of it, and then proceeding to mock them by jumping on their phones or something similar. Also, I think alt right figures like Ben Shapiro being put on a idolising pedestal is harmful too. Pewdiepie has a huge fan base of impressionable children who see him on his channel and these are the type of people who make anti feminism memes. These ideologies seem to be drowning out less extreme ones and making the internet a more toxic place. Finally, I think they are the death of creativity. If memes weren't so bad, Pewdiepie might be making original content. And so could meme makers like Grandayy and Dolan Dark. Meme formats used to require a degree of creativity, but now they seem to be everywhere, drowning out proper debates and actual creativity in favour of repetitive nonsense. Anyway, change my mind.","conclusion":"Memes now do more harm than good."}
{"id":"ff98b9de-249c-4069-ab77-28f600c34816","argument":"Just to preface this, I am not a Bernie Sanders fan for a lot of reasons, but infrastructure really is the only policy I agree with him on, as he is the only candidate that has a comprehensive infrastructure spending plan. For the sake of this post, I am advocating for his plan, which is a trillion dollars over five years. First of all, infrastructure creates jobs. Building roads, bridges, public transportation, etc all requires a lot of manpower, and these jobs are exactly what our country needs right now. Construction jobs are decently paying, most don't require college degrees although many college degree jobs, like engineers, will also be employed as a result , and I would far prefer that the government employ people to get things done rather than provide things like welfare or food stamps. Obviously these entitlements would still exist, but employing millions of people for infrastructure creation is a far better option for a lot of people, as they both feel better about their lives and the government gets something out of it. Infrastructure also has numerous benefits for the greater society besides the people directly employed. A ton of people drive to work or take public transportation, and improved roads transport will only improve the efficiency of our country and make jobs more accessible to everyone. Furthermore, new public transportation is more affordable for people, more environmentally friendly than driving, and it is somewhere where the US is seriously lagging behind the rest of the world. Furthermore, our roads are falling apart and bridges around the country are considered at risk, which again just seems barbaric to me. How can the greatest country in the world have bridges that are falling down? Besides job creation and an efficiency boost to society, infrastructure spending is inevitable and costly to delay. We will obviously need to rebuild it at some point, and, by waiting, we only pay the short term costs of doing minor repairs every year to just keep the infrastructure in working condition.","conclusion":"Infrastructure spending is what our country should be focusing on right now more than anything else."}
{"id":"102365fa-4c97-4fc8-ab5a-8e25e62a693e","argument":"Some of the most terrible acts throughout history have been committed by atheists eradication of 16000-40000 royalist villagers by the Infernal Columns communists\/socialists gulags, killings, the Chinese elimination of sparrows and the overpopulation of harmful insects that followed and Marxist capitalists rain forests chopped down for soy fields importing cheap products of 3rd world child labor Our modern faiths in our modern values aren't any better than those of religion.","conclusion":"Absent religion, ideologies fill the void and motivate humans to do terrible things."}
{"id":"564ab839-a747-4baf-be21-a8085b62fcf2","argument":"So where I live it's usually a 3 lane highway speed limit 100 . I often drive on the middle lane with cruise control on at 100 kph. Sometimes there's a vehicle in the middle lane in front that's going 95 kph or slower an 18 wheeler truck let's say I make sure it's safe to change to the left lane, and then proceed to pass. I'm still going the speed limit though 100 kph , and it takes maybe 15 seconds to completely pass the truck to be able to change back into the middle lane. During those 15 seconds, there are cars that sometimes begin to tailgate me in the back I'm passing, so I should be able to use the passing lane right?","conclusion":"I can drive on the left lane at the speed limit if I'm passing"}
{"id":"017fef1c-b4a3-4d3f-a67c-2fd280662405","argument":"In the United States 2018 Mid-term elections 6 politicians with science backgrounds were elected including a nuclear engineers and a biochemist.","conclusion":"There is a growing number of 'career politicians meaning they do not have any professional experience outside politics."}
{"id":"cefe45c3-bdd0-4e88-a5e3-2ca94f554c01","argument":"Individuals are perfectly happy to introduce politics into business: a 2017 survey in the US indicated that 68% of respondents believe it is \"important for corporations to take a stand on important political issues\".","conclusion":"Internet companies have considerable sway over society; this means their decision to censor white supremacy will influence others, rendering them the right actors."}
{"id":"bcef23ab-04b2-4e62-9800-f0270bb4cd2b","argument":"The reason I mostly think a lot of this stuff is because I'm about to enter my last year of biomedical sciences at my university. I know that sounds like an arrogant brag but it isn't, I only mention that because due to my program I'm forced to look at everything from a scientific prespective and relate it to things I've learned. As a result, when I see things like this it just enrages me that people think things like this. I'm sure not all people who meditate buy into stuff like this, but at least some do, and I get the feeling that those who push for meditation are just taking advantage of those who don't know any better by selling them ideas like this. To me it just seems like a way to escape ones problems without actually addressing them.","conclusion":"Meditation is an absolute scam, that is backed by little to no actual real scientific proof."}
{"id":"087a69dd-92a5-401f-ab26-39f7404502e4","argument":"Only the profit made over a year should be taxable. At a transactional level each marriage nobody could assess overheads etc. However the principle is right that if you make income you should have oversight reporting and if you make profit it should be declared even if the govt. absolve part of it for charity etc.. Openness is the key","conclusion":"No business entity should be tax exempt. If there is anyone within the organization making any money, then taxes should be collected accordingly. In the case of religious organizations, some charge for marriage ceremonies, thus generating profit that should be taxable."}
{"id":"0efeed19-ca42-485e-bf1b-86942d872cb1","argument":"No need for p90x, insanity, paleo, keto, atkins etc. I just need to go to a caloric calculator, meet that goal and walk my dog like 30 45 mins a day. I have been trying to lose weight for a while and the only time I was successful was when I tried Paleo. But that only lasted a short time as I didn't have the discipline nor will to never touch bread, pasta or rice again. I have tried doing p90x and insanity and while awesome and fulfilling I never finished. My schedule was tough and I am thinking those are more for people in shape already or to get ripped well not body builder status but have abs biceps and gain muscle weight. I recently bought a food scale and am gonna be measuring out calories and then walking my dog 20 30 minutes away then back. The reason I bring it to this sub is, I have gotten frowns and objections to stopping p90x and also saying I need to start eating Gluten Free, dairy free etc in addition to one p90x or a similar program and eating anything I want as long as it is below my caloric goal won't help me lose weight. I feel pretty confident in my view but seeing as it is important to me to lose some weight I am willing to change my view if need be. I don't care about being right I care about losing weight, and I never wanna do yoga again","conclusion":"I can lose weight only by lowering my calories and walking my dog."}
{"id":"ea27d9cf-3bac-4eb2-9a12-3c72b87e855b","argument":"I have great respect for Bruce Lee and look up to him as a role model. However, aside form the ridiculous anecdotes about him catching rice with chopsticks, and caving in chests with the one inch punch, there is a lack of evidence that he would fare well against an opponent who actually fought for a living. Bruce Lee was inhumanly strong, fast, and technically skilled in martial arts. However, I doubt how well skill in martial arts translates into real world efficacy. Despite not being as fancy, I think a professional UFC fighter can just overpower Bruce Lee. Also, the hypothetical situation I'm considering has Bruce Lee paired up against opponents of the same weight class. Some of my friends think that Bruce Lee would even be able to beat even heavyweights. This I find absolutely ridiculous. There is no way Bruce Lee could beat up, say, Fedor Emelianenko for example. I even think someone like Mike Tyson, despite having no experience grappling or kicking, with raw power alone could just grab Bruce Lee and pummel him into a pulp.","conclusion":"A professional UFC fighter would beat the shit out of Bruce Lee"}
{"id":"c5ddee79-91be-42d4-8441-ff79ba4a1fd7","argument":"You used to be an adventurer like me until you took an arrow to the knee? Bro I just took a dragon to my everything, used a resto spell and a potion and I'm right as rain. Whats your excuse? Dude getting shot with arrows hurts Oh I didn't know the Royal Guard accepted little b tches into their ranks, that's crazy I got married? And you thought that it'd be a wiser decision to settle as a guard than as a farmer or some other safe form of income? You have no reason to have quit being an adventurer except your own cowardice. You hide behind non issue injuries.  edit I cna't speel","conclusion":"Taking an arrow to the knee is no excuse to stop being an adventure in a world where healing spells\/potios exist."}
{"id":"00705460-95f7-4e3f-84ef-58cc2d0ffd1f","argument":"Liquid democracy could make it more expensive to capture a majority of members in the legislature since a liquid democratic system can scale to include thousands of times as many active legislative members.","conclusion":"Liquid democracy would reduce the influence of super pacs and lobby groups."}
{"id":"6fb42368-eb1e-4f32-abc0-cbdcbcacad6a","argument":"The University of Hawai'i, in conjuction with CalTech and other universities, is in the process of erecting the largest telescope in the world on top of Mauna Kea, on the Big Island of Hawai'i. This telescope will enable scientists to study new observational opportunities in essentially every field of astronomy and astrophysics. However there are concerns about the location of the telescope. Concerned locals believe Mauna Kea is sacred, and oppose constructing a massive structure on it. Others are concered about the environmental impact the telescope will have on the area. The protests are gaining momentum because Jason Momoa aka Khal Drogo is publicly supporting the protests against the telescope. He is rallying celebrities to join the cause and publicize opposition against the telescope. I love science, and I have a dear friend who is an astronomer working on the Thirty Meter Telescope. So I support this project and do not understand how others wouldn't also support the project. Please try to  ?","conclusion":"I believe the merits of constructing the Thirty-Meter Telescope on Mauna Kea outweigh the importance of protecting it as a sacred site."}
{"id":"8ecf0d9e-6254-4336-80d5-8f1745a41503","argument":"Howdy, Short Summary of argument The gender pay gap has not been proved to be due to gender discrimination by employers, so it is not up the the employers to fix it. A company's goal is to make money, not to be nice. Not employers fault not their problem to fix. nbsp More detailed In the last couple months, UK companies have been releasing studies on Gender Pay Gap. The ONS Office for National Statistics has also released a new study. All of this is excellent in theory, as we now should have more data to work with. Frustratingly though, the figures they produce are mostly useless in looking at equal pay for equal work , which is large part of the discussion. The ONS even have on their main page Because the ONS data does not, and cannot, take account of job demands the headline figures for the gender pay gap should not be treated as an indicator of whether women are receiving equal pay for equal work. nbsp As a statistician I have found this very frustrating. Almost every stat that is thrown around, even in workplace formal discussions is misused, and misrepresented. Basically no one in these discussions even especially at an exec level has any idea how to properly interpret these studies. They are all basically more nuanced versions of the nonsense 77c on the dollar stat. The stats arent wrong, but they are almost always applied incorrectly. nbsp Simply put, studies are not granular enough to show the cause of this gap in the UK being Discrimination based purely on gender. In an ideal world you would make a multivariate model, and find the true underlying factors. I expect gender would be minor at best, but obviously I cannot show that any more than people can show its major. nbsp Here are other factors that could be the cause of gender pay differences this is obviously a small subset Biggest one is career breaks, most commonly taken to raise kids. This appears to be a huge factor in the pay gap. However, this is something which is done by individual choice. If a woman doesnt want to be a stay at home mum, no one is forcing her to in the UK . Maybe there are small groups where there is literal physical violence forcing them, but thats now a problem for the police. If there are societal pressures around this, this is where the Government should step in. Women not applying to jobs which are above their grade . There is a lot of evidence supporting this to be a phenomenon. Men will apply to jobs when they can do 3 10 made up number of the job spec and women will wait for 8 10 again, made up number, the point is 8 10 gt 3 10 . Men work longer hours, and are thus paid more, and promoted faster. Women do not negotiate as hard. As with the above, this is due to societal reasons, and upbringing. This particular one is certainly not for the company to fix. The ideal employee NEVER negotiates. Its simply not in the companies interests to tell people to ask for more pay. nbsp None of the above is the fault of a company. At worst they are societal problems, starting way earlier than adulthood. At best they arent even problems. nbsp I am not trying to say that there is no actual pure gender discrimination in companies. I am saying that we have not shown it exists. If we dont know a problem exists, we shouldnt punish those we are accusing. And by punish, examples I mean things like Gender quotas. nbsp So in summary Pay gap does exist gt However no proof of gender discrimination gt There should be no penalising actions against the accused. nbsp I am aware America has a very different culture, with different issues. If possible I would like to keep this UK focused, however if there are examples studies from outside the UK that you think are particularly relevant, I am all ears. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"UK Gender \"Pay Gap\" should be solved by the government, and isn't the problem of employers."}
{"id":"f53515a3-ffed-4643-b29a-664b4cfb0129","argument":"Small autonomous drones could be mass-produced cheaply, for less than 10k per piece. They would be expendable, similar to how an ant colony has no problem to sacrifice thousands of its members.","conclusion":"Many kinds of AKDs will actually be very small ones that will operate in swarms, instead of the big chunky predator drones today. Eg bird and bee sized."}
{"id":"2183fdb5-7345-457b-a939-e3451cda0cd3","argument":"So I have heard people talking about substitutes, because at first it was sugar is now bad, and it went from there to the sugar substitutes are bad. Why don't you just say anything sweet is just bad, and put an end to it? I think that sugar substitutes are a decent alternative to those of us who cannot eat sugar, may be due to diabetes, or maybe due to our lifestyles, or simply to reduce our calorific intake. Maybe the older substitutes like saccharin aspartame might not be so good, but Erythritol and other newer ones have the same taste like sugar and have 0 calories since we cannot digest them fully. For example If someone like me, is addicted to drinking coke, I can substitute it with the diet coke coke zero and enjoy my favorite drink without any hesitation. Many videos, particularly about the latest keto diet, point towards everything that is wrong with consuming sugar substitutes and I feel as though getting boxed in, with no where to go. I mean we have sweet taste buds to sense the sweet products amirite? Well such videos almost make it look at though the cause for failing health, or doing badly with respect to ones health, is caused by these sweet senses Preposterous","conclusion":"Sugar substitutes are good alternatives for people that cannot consume sugar, they offer similar taste, and yet are almost calorie free, so its a win win for everybody."}
{"id":"3b919736-6efb-4c52-8ddb-05cd6f450973","argument":"Ok, so every time I say this I get this people hate on me and say that I'm soooo wrong. I'm starting to think that I'm the wrong one and everyone else is right now. I still just don't see it. I think a lot of domestic abuse is on the beater but some blame goes to the man. Ex If I call my wife a bitch and make her feel like crap maybe I'm to blame for the punch that was thrown my way. If a cop pulls me over for swerving on the road and I don't cooperate with his actions then maybe I'm to blame for him slamming my face against the car. In both of these cases the beater fucked up. My wife knows that being physical towards me is wrong. The cop knows that using unnecessary force was wrong but they still did it and are held to a higher standard. I'm not naive to see this is always the case. Lots of times the spouse can just be fucked up in the head and be angry for no reason. Lots of times cops are just too power hungry. So change my view on this issue. I feel like I have a good point, but my family, girlfriend, co workers, facebook 'friends', and pretty much everyone else thinks I'm stupid for how I feel. So help please? Thank you. EDIT Thank you all for your feedback. While my view wasn't changed, I still got some solid advice. Sadly, the issue is with me. For some reason I've just always been on the villain. I root for them to always win and feel that they aren't so bad. Again, thanks.","conclusion":"I think there are more than a handful times that the victim is to blame for abuse."}
{"id":"0a1b0b2c-9b21-474d-8e15-1c042b960741","argument":"\"The biggest winners in the Trump tax cuts were corporations and the households that get income from corporate profits\u2014that is, the very wealthiest Americans.\"","conclusion":"'Across-the-board' tax cuts inherently help those with larger incomes more than those with less income."}
{"id":"aa14b04c-f78a-4e68-a5e5-b8b52732b36b","argument":"Early YC UBI study participants are pursuing innovative projects, enrolling in career expanding education and proving the concept can work for a wider audience.","conclusion":"With their basic needs covered by a UBI, many people are able to afford to continue with their higher education."}
{"id":"2207b100-4c0d-4d45-a940-bbb8a9bbd5bd","argument":"So theoretically, anyone's actions that sit outside of that legal scope is considered amoral and the criminal justice system takes over. In this way, personal morality isn't a factor; the legal system doesn't concern itself with whether a criminal thinks what they did is okay.","conclusion":"Law is all the parts that a given society agree upon by majority democracy, specifically regarding actions and behaviour there are no laws against thoughts."}
{"id":"06adfe86-dbec-445c-a3b3-80a9ef1574ef","argument":"Yesterday was Independent Bookstore Day, and it got me thinking that, sure, it gives me warm fuzzy feelings to buy a book from the indie bookstore in my neighborhood, but on Amazon I get a lot of information reviews, notes I wouldn't get from my friendly salesperson. Plus with Amazon Prime I can get the same book sometimes within hours, often for cheaper. Are warm, fuzzy feelings the only thing I get from shopping local? I'd love to have my view changed and spend my money around the corner rather than make Amazon richer .","conclusion":"It's better to buy books from Amazon than from an independent bookstore"}
{"id":"658436e2-97c1-405e-934d-a36ade46dcaa","argument":"Aside from all scientific contradictions to the existence of a deity, I have on specific reason for doubting all current organized religions. A truthful statement does not need to silence dissenting views in order to still be widely believed. Debate can show how sound the truthfulness of a certain statement is, and may even strengthen belief of that position in some cases. However, organized religion basically always have power structures in place that openly discourage at best or ban at worst questions about the faith by followers. In theocracies, expressing dissenting views is illegal and most often charged with the death penalty. My question is why this is almost always the case if the religion in question is claimed to be the irrefutable truth? gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"All organized religions are untrue."}
{"id":"80905599-5e38-4a87-9b19-d7413f8df569","argument":"Not trying to start a flame war, I'm looking for a new tablet and I would consider an ipad, but I just don't see the appeal just yet. What on earth does it do that justifies a price tage 2 3x that of an android or windows tablet that performs the same functions? Clearly people are buying them, so there's obviously something there I'm not seeing. I used my previous tablet Nexus 7, rip for TV Movies kodi streaming said movies to my tv MicroUSB gt HDMI out ebooks pocketbook ftw chrome teh web dolphin browser porn flash videos reddit relay google voice search because sometimes I can't be bothered to type shit out podcast music streaming 8tracks,spotify,podcast addict some games not a ton all the free apps vpn pia Given the above, can someone tell me what justifies paying an extra 360 for an ipad? I could by 3 new nexus 7 tablets for the price of 1 ipad air 2 and have 60 left over , wtf is going on? figures compare this n7 to this ipad2","conclusion":"Ipads are overpriced and offer little to no value over comparable android\/windows tablets."}
{"id":"be236fd7-5765-4341-9296-3f8b0c072903","argument":"The poorest quartile of American men live on average 15 years less than the richest.","conclusion":"There is strong evidence that income inequality causes poorer health in a population."}
{"id":"f6791a16-ec57-4ba2-a6a0-7a9e576d18a8","argument":"Anonymity allows AA members to participate in meetings without being judged about their addiction experiences.","conclusion":"The anonymous element of AA allows people to seek help without being stigmatised"}
{"id":"86da9185-cf33-4da5-88c5-7250e0b78ff6","argument":"I think people are far too optimistic when they say that we should work towards the goal of eradicating cancer. I think that it is literally impossible, and here's why I believe that. Warning, I'm a computer science student and my reason for believing this is going to be heavy on computer science reasoning, which may or may not actually be applicable to biology I think that a biological cell is equivalent to a Turing Machine. Essentially, a Turing Machine is a mathematical model for a computer which can compute any computable function. One of the nice properties of any computing device is that if it is capable of simulating a Turing Machine, it basically is a Turing Machine, and inherits the properties and limitations of a Turing Machine. I believe this is called Turing Completeness. In my mind, a biological cell could certainly be made to simulate a Turing Machine, and the instructions on the tape would effectively be equivalent to the cell's DNA. I think it stands to reason that human cells are certainly able to simulate a Turing Machine because of the fact that your brain is made of human cells, and you can use your brain to simulate such a machine. Furthermore, on a more fundamental level, it's probably possible to construct the basic logical gates using human cells, and implement a Turing Machine simulator out of biological cells. One of the well known limitations of a Turing Machine is that it is impossible to construct a program which would run on a Turing Machine that could tell whether or not a given program will halt on a given input. This is known as the Halting Problem. This basically means that it is proven to be impossible to tell if a given program will run forever in an infinite loop, or stop running halt at some point. If we consider that DNA is equivalent to the instructions on the tape of a Turing Machine, and we consider that cancer is essentially a malformed program which refuses to halt because it replicates itself repeatedly, out of control I think there's a big realization It seems to me that it would be IMPOSSIBLE to tell with 100 certainty whether a given cell is cancerous or not. My thinking tells me that there are only two ways to completely cure all forms of cancer. One way is to be able to remove all cancerous cells from a patient's body. The other is to prevent cancerous cells from forming within the patients body in the first place. It looks like, based on the unsolvability of the Halting Problem, there is no way to guarantee for certain whether or not a given cell either is cancerous or will become cancerous, because if we could tell whether or not a cell will eventually replicate out of control, we'd have to be solving the Halting Problem. We can't solve the Halting Problem. If anyone recognizes holes in my logic, I definitely want to hear them because this is a rather bleak outlook on the future of cancer research. It just seems to me that computer science principles that we already know imply that we could never fully eradicate cancer.","conclusion":"We can NEVER find a cure for all forms of cancer, and we should stop wasting money and hope on it."}
{"id":"198163d1-5051-4fc1-8364-fa2339b76182","argument":"The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau enforces financial regulations against businesses in breach of consumer protection law.","conclusion":"The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau holds businesses accountable for breaches of consumer protection laws."}
{"id":"8ab24d60-1417-4907-84c8-a2e38fdb4365","argument":"Owners that have a dog and a cat reported being less happy than those with just a dog. This could suggest that cats are the common denominator influencing the dip in happiness.","conclusion":"According to a study, dog owners are about twice as likely as cat owners to report being very happy."}
{"id":"c78f7f17-f10e-40f0-942d-19c6ae17fa85","argument":"I'd like to think of myself as libertarian on most things, I just have several reservations. On principle I'm more comfortable with voluntary, with smaller government doubt I'll be okay with no government as long as we're stuck on this planet , less interventionism, etc but I just doubt stubborn commitment to these ideals will result in a better society the same way progressivism has. 1 Bad History There are several eras in American history close to libertarian ideals, those eras are torn apart by most of academia while the Roosevelts, Eisenhower, and Truman eras are shown to be times better for the middle class than Reagan and everyone after him.I'm not even going to touch the confederacy did nothing wrong Lincoln was literally Hitler thing that's popular in many libertarian circles. If LF wasn't complete shit the progressive movement wouldn't have picked up so much steam, and if those reforms didn't work like a charm more often than not, they wouldn't have stuck around so long. So I hear revisionism or a they weren't really libertarian , which reminds me of r socialism defending themselves from Stalinism. That kinda brings me to my next point 2 Competition and Liberty Progressive actions may be aggressive, but I have more confidence in their effectiveness. Europe having public universal healthcare has worked well for them. I can see how Bernie Sander's plan to break down the banks into smaller institutions would've worked. I've spent the past few days I've been looking for answers to all my questions by looking through ancient threads and more often than not I just hear competition and free market and decisions so yeah that'll work like its a magic bullet that solves all and everything. They'll occasionally leak some guy from Cato saying how a free market solution could work but I hardly see any free market practice working well in the real world. If free market were the obvious solution to social ills than most first world developed democracies wouldn't have so many social programs and things wouldn't have changed so much from the gilded age. Sweden, Norway, Switzerland it has gun rights and a weak central government, but still , are among the best places to live while Chile was a shithole under Pinochet and Russia is probably worse now than it was under than 70s. Even within America my state of Minnesota is among the best states when it comes to wealth equality and whatnot. 3 The NAP Imagine the town of Oasisville. It's one town built around the one oasis in a desert that's 1000 miles in every direction from it. No evil anti discrimination laws, no evil welfare state, nothing. There's one black family there and everyone else is white. All the white store owners, farmers, all refuse to hire the mother and father of that family and refuse to give them business. Even the company that provided them water cut it off when they had no more money in savings. Looks like they're completely fucked, even with zero gubmint intervention. In fact, I see no way they could possibly save themselves without coercing businesses to giving them fair hearing and or service, or perhaps being an aggressor and take food to feed his starving kids. It seems like it will create a society where everyone exploits technicalities like corporations are already great at. Like libertarians would condemn slavery rightfully so , but share cropping would be perfectly acceptable. Yes black people were no longer subject to lashings and they technically weren't forced to be there but in all reality they were pretty much stuck. 4 Necessary limits To me it seems obvious that there needs to be certain limits to freedom. I think people should be able to own guns, but wouldn't allow people to build missiles, nukes, or construct biological weapons even if they truly had no intention of using them. I also think there should be FDA fair warnings and health codes. I know the argument against this is a pound of blah blah is worth an ocean of meh but law suits don't seem to be a fitting replacement because corporations usually win because they have an armada of lawyers. And even if a law suit would work, the guy is still dead of food poisoning. Private regulations and warnings are a thing but FDA and OSHA haven't proven to be as corrupt as movie and video game ratings. 5 I don't think that Libertarians actually like the constitution It seems they're as anti constitution as any other party. Don't get me wrong, they're the best when it comes to amendments 1,2,4, etc. But necessary and proper clause? Commerce clause? Eminent domain? Federal income tax? Taxes in general? I don't really buy the muh constitution thing from them than I do from the hardline republicans. 6 Why not? The more mainstream libertarians are okay with police, military they'd like it smaller but still , courts, etc. But why is government healthcare, public social security, welfare, and all these other services a step too far? Isn't it just a fuck you, got mine government when it's only allowed to make sure you have yours and no one will take it away, never mind the struggling I'm sure the Carnegies will fix it? On principle I'm more comfortable with voluntarism, small government, the least amount of government and coercion possible, but I don't think it's the most viable. I want to be wrong on this, I'd prefer my moral and political compass to point in the same direction. But I just doubt libertarianism is the most viable course of action, more progressive directions result in the most prosperous nations on earth while libertarianism seems provincial in a distinctly American way and would lead to worse results.","conclusion":"I have too many reservations and doubts about libertarianism to get on board with it"}
{"id":"b262cc00-3297-4876-8b88-9e98e51f5525","argument":"Video game is a co-creation process and fans can sway developers to modify their game even after it has been released.","conclusion":"It is incumbent on both developers and fans to ensure that storytelling portrays gender equality."}
{"id":"a27b75ad-3975-495b-92e6-abc3c067b18d","argument":"I think the proof is in the pudding take something you consider yourself truly knowledgable about and look at the news coverage. You'll find it partial at best. You'll encounter people who read an article related your field and understand how naive they sound. Journalists can only provide so much context and it's usually never enough to give a layman a foothold in the subject matter. This is not to say that news isn't valuable. But it does mean that if you read the paper every day and gravitate toward the Ukraine stories while having virtually no historical background, having never been to the Ukraine or Russia, never done any research or met people from the cultures involved, you should speak, think and feel with in an extremely humble tone about the subject. In fact it would be more wise to ask questions than to profess any opinion at all.","conclusion":"I think that, no matter the quality of journalism, those who only know about a story through the news are too ignorant to have a valuable opinion."}
{"id":"6cc0846e-2ff7-465b-8dcd-cd002274a76f","argument":"Theism is at least as simple as atheism. It only assumes 1 God's existence and 2 God\u2019s capability to reveal Himself to humans. Atheism is at least as complex in assumptions as it assumes 1 God does not exist, and, if using occam's razor, assumes 2 all the assumptions necessary for occam's razor. For instance, it is assumes implicitly, when using occam's razor, that one should put a lot of effort into determining objective truth.","conclusion":"Occam's razor is being misused in this line of debate, as it is meant to decide what to investigate Few theists even suggest to investigate God, but only 1 assume God exists based on intuition and 2 assume God could reveal information about God to us and 3 decide which supposed revelations from God to believe in."}
{"id":"fee1aa56-4f00-4b31-be08-77688c02e3c6","argument":"UBI solves a great variety of problems. Perhaps its deepest virtue is liberation of mind. For everyone to procure their interests without coercion, submission and dependency relations, is efficient and fair, liberal and inclusive. UBI trumps our 'human right to culture', to a role in society and a share of civilization, like we'd respect a bird's 'animal right to nature' by letting it fly. To flap our wings in basic freedom is no frivolity but key to a strong, healthy society.","conclusion":"Providing a UBI reduces social inequalities and gives individuals more opportunities."}
{"id":"683cf860-ca83-4a40-bfa2-d937c0a31f3c","argument":"I work in a small restaurant. Every morning I and my boss come to prepare stuff, and since we get along well and are alone, we typically listen to podcasts. This morning she wasn't feeling like it and put on some music instead. As you could've guessed from the title, the noise was actually a Kanye West's song. Not only did it surprise me my boss usually listens to different music , it also got me thinking. Two important side notes I'm not from the US, which means I'm looking at it from a somewhat different point of view, and also I'm not a fan of rap hip hop in general, which means I might very well be missing some finer aspects of Kanye's art and not be entirely fair to him as a result. ^That's ^why ^I'm ^on ^, ^obviously. Don't get me wrong, I'm not here to argue about anyone's music taste. We're all different and that's perfectly fine. However, what is completely beyond my understanding is all the hype, almost a cult, that constantly surrounds his persona and even makes those who generally avoid this kind of music to buy into his myth. He is not the second Jesus nor the second Elvis and I highly doubt he will ever come close even to some of his fellow rappers. By the way, I used to feel almost the same about Elvis for athe long time. After all, he wasn't exactly a saint either, didn't write any songs himself and wasn't necessarily the most gifted musician out there. Sure, he clearly was well above average, especially in his time, but I couldn't wrap my mind about his popularity unless someone explained to me that what Elvis really brought to the table was in fact the power of performance . His charisma and stage presence were stunning. That gained him a permanent place in music history along with millions of fans, and that's what still sends chills down my spine sometimes Now, what does Kanye West have to offer? Let's get lost tonight You could be my black Kate Moss tonight Play secretary, I'm the boss tonight And you don't give a fuck what they all say, right? Awesome, the Christian in Christian Dior Damn, they don't make em like this anymore I ask, cause I'm not sure Do anybody make real shit anymore? Bow in the presence of greatness 'Cause right now thou hast forsaken us You should be honored by my lateness That I would even show up to this fake shit So go ahead, go nuts, go apeshit Specially on my Pastel, on my Bape shit Act like you can't tell who made this New Gospel homey, take six and take this, haters More often than not the art we create mirrors our inner world our values, views, dreams. This is a bit from Stronger Kanye's probably most popular song, at least according to Spotify, and here's a part from Gold Digger , his most popular song according to billboard.com Cutie the bomb, met her at a beauty salon With a baby Louis Vuitton under her underarm She said I can tell you rock, I can tell by your charm Far as girls, you got a flock I can tell by your charm and your arm. But I'm lookin' for the one, have you seen her? My psychic told me she'll have a ass like Serena Trina, Jennifer Lopez, four kids And I gotta take all they bad asses to ShowBiz? Okay, get your kids, but then they got their friends I pulled up in the Benz, they all got up in We all went to din' and then I had to pay If you fuckin' with this girl, then you better be paid You know why? It take too much to touch her From what I heard she got a baby by Busta My best friend said she used to fuck with Usher I don't care what none of y'all say, I still love her This is shallow . Shallow to a point of being hard even to read it, let alone listen. Just like almost everything that is related to him, including the fanatical fans and his pathetic wife. To me, Kanye West seems to be an embodiment of human narcissism, shallowness and vanity an amusing case of fake it till you make it a perfect example of the fact that with enough hype and bluff even a rat's nutsack can become an international superstar, receive tens of awards and get to meet and talk to the President of the US instead of people who might actually deserve and need it. He's just another self appointed prodigy that will sooner or later deflate like an untied baloon once another starlet appears on the horizon, and fade away into the past without leaving much more than a microscopical mark on the society that was worshipping him just a minute ago. That's not to say that artists like Kanye don't have the right to exist and produce their own art, whatever pretentious garbage that might be in some people's opinion. It's just completely insane and a bit sad that it's happening on such an extraordinary scale. Of course, as I've said, I might be missing something important and am willing to adjust my views accordingly. The purpose of this post is not to argue with anybody, but rather for me either to understand the phenomenon correctly or confirm my current view. Thanks UPDATE Wow, that's a lot of answers and tons of interesting ideas and material to go through. I was writing the post more or less on the go, but will try to answer most of you. I feel that with many of the points that I've raised, it all boils down to my likes and dislikes and vague feelings about this and that. What's important is that none of that is objective, and while there still might be some point in having a discussion about these things, I simply have a hard time digesting rap and hip hop music and there's little to be done about it. I knew almost nothing about Kanye's production and his creativeness. It's a very interesting topic and thanks to some of you I now see that there's much more to him than meets the eye. It's definitely worth looking into, so thanks for the food for thought. Also, thanks a lot for the links to podcasts and Kanye's better and more substantial songs. I'm definitely guilty of cherry picking here, so thanks for pointing that out. I will give these other songs a listen and try to approach them as neutrally as possible. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Kanye West is pathetic."}
{"id":"217735dd-3719-4c71-abaf-8e5e00049190","argument":"Religion is not needed to bring people together; many secular organizations exist that serve the same purpose, such as Sunday Assembly The School of Life the Y etc.","conclusion":"Secular spaces such as pubs, schools, neighborhood associations, civic events, and parks do this as well."}
{"id":"d1367492-d44e-40be-ac14-13ecad9a5437","argument":"As a non us citizen I struggle to understand the gun culture in the USA. When talking to Americans about this issue, I am consistently told the same arguments, like personal safety, reducing crime and so on. Yet empirical evidence from the majority of western countries continually shows that these arguments are empirically false. As far as I can tell the modern gun culture laws in the USA are founded on bad reasons and faulty scientific evidence. I believe the US is suffering from a old cultural legacy and can only make appeals to tradition to justify their gun culture. Please change my view gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than just downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I believe the US gun laws are backward."}
{"id":"c81760a9-8152-4e45-b1cf-e45d2fa01773","argument":"In the U.S., the size of the National Endowment for the Humanities budget $155M combined with the National Endowment for the Arts Budget $155M is far less than either the National Endowment for the Sciences $8.1B or National Institute for Health $39.1B. The increase in funding would thus be negligible.","conclusion":"The amount of funding going to the liberal arts is already a fraction of the money going to STEM."}
{"id":"093bbfbd-3920-423c-a69b-594086791444","argument":"How is this even possible? A self sustaining vehicle such as the ISS can only last for 90 days without a resupply and it cost upwards of 100 billion dollars. With at least a 6 month timescale, we would need to design a self sustainable craft that can supply a multi person crew for 6 months, the stay on mars which could be alleviated by periodic yet expensive resource drops from earth , and the 6 month return trip back to earth. The vehicle would have to be something on the scale of the ISS if not greater and require technologies that have either not been developed or are in very early testing stages. The EU, China, US, and maybe Japan are the only ones that could make somewhat of a contribution to this thing and as said from the things listed above, this would cost several hundred billions of dollars at the very least. There is absolutely no need to spend that much money on ANYTHING right now with maybe the exception of the US military and the impact on humanity would be much better served investing that money on education and science research Which would be an optimistic scenario considering the underfunding of education and science in the present day . I think planet colonization is the most essential thing to the continuity of the human race, but there is no incentive to do so and although the cultural impact would be immense, there's no benefit in dumping hundreds of billions of dollars for an expedition which would not really yield any tangible results.","conclusion":"There is no way in hell that humanity will make it to mars before 2050."}
{"id":"f3ee73b5-3b34-4926-9d04-1cc14c63b6e4","argument":"Online courses are succeeding in providing education in places where the in-person infrastructure is failing and possibly not able to be spared, as seen in India","conclusion":"Given our current, widespread technological infrastructure and capabilities for digital adoption, this may be the solution to global educational challenges of access, equity and quality."}
{"id":"6e0fcb4c-4bd4-47e2-94cb-1cfcc7431083","argument":"I think the United States should withdraw from almost all military bases and engagements worlwide and transition to a pre WWII isolationist style foreign policy with few international commitments and a focus on free trade. I don't think it should happen overnight, but I think it is the best goal.","conclusion":"I think the United States should maintain an isolationist foreign policy,"}
{"id":"4650ff24-d1b7-4094-9bd3-7b12240af321","argument":"For example, a person meets another person Under the age of consent for the country state within a nightclub, bar or anywhere else an over age ID on the door system is employed, and then ends up having a sexual encounter with that person. I believe the cuplibility should not be on the defendant, but on the premises owner door staff for allowing an under ager into what the defendant believes to be an over age environment. There should be at least a part culpability aspect of this to prosecute not just the individual who engaged with the person under age but also the individual s who allowed them into a place they are not allowed in.","conclusion":"Defendants should not be convicted of having sex with a minor if they meet within an adult environment"}
{"id":"cce605d8-f9e6-451e-b669-e890466833f2","argument":"The best argument anyone has given me as to why walls are not effective so far among my local friends is that it will be costly to maintain, and that it will not be effective because you have to guard it. My counter point is that we already spend a bunch of money on border security, creating a wall as a tool to help in that would not by any means be ineffective as proven by other countries who have implemented such measures. Given that we spend incredible amounts of money on illegals crossing into our country, we would be able to pay for the wall and it's upkeep by the reduction in illegal crossings it will provide. Hungary built a wall, well a tall fence look at the results Israel classic example Bulgaria Other correlated things such as gated communities for the rich, walls around important government buildings etc. x200B x200B GREAT COUNTER ARGUMENTS SO FAR Land seizure poses a questionable cost addition, not to mention the ethical implications of federal government seizing private land. Other alternatives such as predator drones in combination with additional quick response units would be able to effect the same result as the wall, but at a lower cost potentially. The real cost of the wall is probably going to be about three times as much as currently predicted.","conclusion":"Physical barriers such as walls, and fences work exceptionally well at reducing illegal border crossings as part of a broader border security"}
{"id":"b8043fb0-d097-4208-8c93-0ca916192821","argument":"10 U.S. Code \u00a7 246 explains \"The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.\"","conclusion":"\"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.\" .is not vague."}
{"id":"ea031f7f-7eb6-4af5-a968-46ac9d585c6b","argument":"One could argue that this religion is actively discriminating people, and PC people are against systemic oppressions like this one. There is a concept called \"axes of oppression\" when talking about intersectionality, in which you can be oppressing some people while you're oppressed by others.","conclusion":"If some religion is oppressing some portion of the population, it's coherent with PC and with self-defense that the discriminated group of people should be able to label them as neccesary homophobes, in this example."}
{"id":"857ca1ec-04cf-449b-a79b-ddbebcfad194","argument":"Teachers alter lessons and omit certain activities to better meet the needs of a diverse religious population.","conclusion":"There are many teachers at school, and students can see that there are alternatives."}
{"id":"295061ad-ce2c-4c18-946c-00a0c8c9deef","argument":"In simulations, Score Voting produces higher Voter Satisfaction Efficiency than any other system when voters are 100% strategic.","conclusion":"Score voting aka Range voting \u2014 rate every candidate, highest-rated wins. Described here: en.wikipedia.org and here: youtube.com"}
{"id":"1900b8a9-fce4-4dba-a1bd-ef6bf6cc9316","argument":"Guardian Article for reference California, Washington, and now New York currently in legislation are giving people the option to change their sex gender from M F to \u201cX\u201d. I do not think this is productive. I do fully support LGBTQ and the advocacy to be treated fairly and equally, however, I feel this is a misstep and will ultimately lead to more confusion and discrimination than currently exists. Let me lay out my case The identification on a birth certificate is an official record of the biological constitution of a person AT BIRTH. Currently, science can only support the idea that we have biological males and biological females. It is exploring the possibility that sex is non binary, but science has not yet found incontrovertible proof to support the social progress and understanding in this area. Certainly there are cases of biological dualism of sexuality or where the sex organs do not develop according to the genetic code, however, this is an extreme minority and is not the main target of the option afforded by the participating states. For those cases, I believe something like \u201cX\u201d would be appropriate but who chooses that at birth? LGBTQ advocates have long used the argument that sexuality and gender are not necessarily linked. A person can identify as something other than their genetics dictate. By changing what the doctor documented at birth as their biological sex they are now overriding biological sex with gender identification. If this is what is desired, maybe the proposal should be to eliminate sex as the identifier and replace it with gender. I don\u2019t see how this would clear up any confusion as to what gender a person identifies. It is pretty much the same as keeping the birth certificate and the individual disclosing their identity separately to anyone that would be looking at any such document, birth certificate or otherwise Driver\u2019s License, Passport, etc . Perhaps an addendum would be in order that the individual could provide when gender identification is required. That way, accurate information is conveyed to the required party. Genetic code vs. gender identification. Increased discrimination I see this as an opportunity for those who do not support the concept of LGBTQ to MORE EASILY discriminate against them. It isn\u2019t gong to change the mind of a bigot hence why they are a bigot . Let\u2019s take a passport, for example. A born \u201cM\u201d changes their birth certificate to \u201cX\u201d. They can now change their passport to accurately reflect this assuming that the federal government accepts the state law allowing this in the first place just look at the income tax quagmire surrounding marriage equality . Now, they travel to a country such as Russia that has \u201cno laws prohibiting discrimination based on gender identity or expression and recent laws could discriminate against transgender\u201d, Wikipedia Link even the public demonstration in support of it could easily lead to arrest. An \u201cX\u201d on a passport would allow this government or any individual in Russia to immediately persecute the individual with no hate crime laws to protect them laws we people who love all view as a necessary protection of human rights. Audience members were recently removed from a Dua Lipa concert in China on Wednesday simply for waving a flag in support of these rights. The Russia passport idea is a pretty extreme example, but easy to demonstrate. The China story is actual reality. Furthermore, the documentation to accurately reflect a individual\u2019s identity actually gives bigots a new tool to judge that person without even looking at their physical form or talking to them. Now, anyone that disagrees with an individual\u2019s identity can judge from afar, in any situation that requires a document that is now augmented to reflect the person\u2019s identification. Is this elective or required? Is this a person\u2019s choice to change the document or would anyone that identifies differently be required to change the document. It seems like this would cause some serious confusion in a myriad of ways if there are some former \u201cFs\u201d that are now officially \u201cXs\u201d but other former \u201cFs\u201d that have not officially changed the document. How does society address this? Perhaps it\u2019s time to remove the requirement to document sex gender all together. If it\u2019s unimportant enough that we can just change the indication on official documents, why have it at all? I completely understand that what LGBTQ are seeking is validation of how they identify themselves. I just don\u2019t think changing what was documented before they had the wherewithal to understand who they are does anything to validate who they currently are, however, I\u2019m only speaking for myself and not them. Lastly, I\u2019m not saying that there isn\u2019t a solution, I just don\u2019t think this is a productive one. Let\u2019s hope that this is a step toward the right solution and that culture can, some day, drop the idea that they have the right to tell another who they are or aren\u2019t.","conclusion":"Sex\/Gender \u201cX\u201d on a birth certificate is not productive for LGBTQ identifiers"}
{"id":"f884a58f-fe88-4bf2-9caf-cf615d640c9c","argument":"Celebrities like Lola Kirk chose to go unshaven to the Golden Globes, an event like many celebrity events that idolize clean shaven and polished women.","conclusion":"Women have free choice, and some are giving up shaving."}
{"id":"b90b3b13-5ab6-425b-8c4b-42ee124cb90a","argument":"Unlike in public private partnerships, once privatization occurs the private sector assumes all risks associated with the provision of healthcare. This is likely to create greater incentives for improvement.","conclusion":"There are a wide range of differences between public-private partnerships and privatization, which can have a direct impact on the operational success of providing goods and services."}
{"id":"8839d58b-b294-4d76-b924-fa7f49b06341","argument":"In most of the media I consume, gas companies are portrayed as the ultimate abuse of capitalism, using their powerful lobbies to keep their profits high. This seems like a very simplistic explanation for a very complex issue. Occasionally you hear a rebuttal in the number of people kept employed by these companies, but this seems like too simplistic of a dichotomy, as well. If these subsidies are merely used as a form of artificial employment isn't there some industry or even better direct employment by the government more deserving of our tax dollars? Is there anyone here who cares to provide a more in depth argument for the use of oil petroleum subsidies?","conclusion":"I am lead to believe oil\/petroleum subsidies in the United States are purely a form of cronyism."}
{"id":"acc38464-c84b-40cd-8286-947dd8e18c7e","argument":"Okay, so I get why the prophet Muhammad is revered. My step dad is Muslim and I have been surrounded by the culture almost my whole life. I also understand why it is disrespectful to make fun of such a figure. However, and this is a big however, what people say and do regarding Jesus is far worse than anything ever said or done about Muhammed. There are billions of memes containing Jesus. Who when compared to Islam, is a figure of MUCH higher status, in fact God like status whereas Muhammad is merely a prophet. Now I realize Christian countries are different and many of them contain freedom of speech allowing such discourse to present itself. Further, in countries with freedom of speech, USA for example if they choose to critique another religion on their own soil, this is their right. If muslims get offended, perhaps they should reside where freedom of speech is illegal. Update I have awarded some delatas. And at this point I have had my view sufficiently changed. Thanks to everyone for their contributions. Much appreciated","conclusion":"Muslim's over-react to Mohammad being depicted in cartoons and such"}
{"id":"07981034-5c0b-4a02-96a8-15f35f020d25","argument":"In pop media it is clear that beauty is king, but everyone knows that the right thing is to look past the superficial looks and instead value intelligence. This tends to be advocated by pseudointellectuals all day every day , but I am not really seeing it. A beautiful person is just born beautiful and didn't achieve anything, is usually the mantra I hear. But what the fuck is the difference between being born beautiful and being born intelligent? You didn't have a say in it and so you can't take credit for it. Also unless we are comparing Einstein like intelligence here, I really don't think an averagely intelligent person in 2013 does more good for society than does a stunning girl guy. A stunning girl will give me a boner, nice fantasies and great sexual experiences that mean a fuck lot more than whether my neighbour can debate pointless politics that noone will ever act on anyway. Obviously if the nature of man was to ACT upon his convictions then I could imagine a world where intelligence gave us more, but alas that isn't happening, I actually think that intelligence is a bit overhyped by ugly guys who think they are intelligent. In reality intelligence isn't inherently good, there is no intrinsic value about intelligence. And due to evolution beauty gives us more","conclusion":"I don't think intelligence should be valued more than beauty."}
{"id":"4d92fa18-2bd6-4518-bfe5-0a6798ba68cf","argument":"The Swoon theory fails to explain where Jesus or his body went. While the Jewish leaders did claim that the tomb was empty because the body had been stolen, we have no evidence at all that anyone ever searched for the body of the dead Jesus, or the living Jesus who somehow survived execution, despite having a huge number of ancient manuscripts that document the event.","conclusion":"The theory that Jesus was not dead fails to account for other aspects of the passion story."}
{"id":"175eb065-c091-455a-91dd-3acf3711bee3","argument":"Public misconception and ignorance about issues relating to slavery persists. Four out of ten Americans, for example, believe that slavery was not the root cause of the Civil War McClatchy-Marist. p.1","conclusion":"The majority of the population does not understand the issue at hand correctly."}
{"id":"8ef64ab1-c705-43c6-9428-3d5795310bbd","argument":"Vast improvements in the technology of crime-solving have occurred in recent times. DNA testing, voice identification technology, facial mapping techniques that reveal faces beneath masks - all can now solve cases and show guilt in individuals whose escape from punishment occurred only because of a lack of satisfactory evidence. For example, In 1963 when Hanratty stood trial for the A6 murder a gruesome offence where the abused victim was shot in her car and left to die on the motorway, semen stains on the victim\u2019s underwear could not be investigated using the technology of the day. He was convicted anyway on the facts, but if he hadn\u2019t been, and thanks to advances in technology the sperm turns out later to be his as it has, shouldn\u2019t we use that evidence to obtain justice for those concerned? Some evidence couldn\u2019t possibly have been used at the time of trial, because the technology doesn\u2019t exist. Looked at now, it could demonstrate conclusive guilt. If such evidence exists, isn\u2019t there a compulsion to use it? How can we ignore it?","conclusion":"Vast improvements in the technology of crime-solving have occurred in recent times. DNA testing, voi..."}
{"id":"04fe3e9e-9a7a-4f21-b5e6-22968af1c40b","argument":"Six months before this study, another study - by the Guttmacher Institute - of federally funded abstinence-only-until-marriage programmes found that abstinence-only educational programmes had no beneficial impact on young people's sexual behaviour.","conclusion":"A study by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, in 2007, showed that programs that combine abstinence and contraception were mostly ineffective."}
{"id":"d356211b-d6a2-49f4-9eb0-931c2643c121","argument":"By allowing less populated states to start to vote and having the most populated to go last the alternative promotes better democratic participation as the winner of the party nomination cannot be yet established until all states have voted. The states that are last to vote still maintain their influence by the high number of delegates they can offer. This insures that the public maintains interest and participates more to the democratic process","conclusion":"Alternatives such as the Delaware Plan would help all candidates and encourage public engagement"}
{"id":"4f6e2fa2-ea62-4d0d-b40e-88bd495acb5f","argument":"Here is an example of a internet tier mockup that I think is absurd. I'm specifically talking about the blocking allowing certain websites aspect of it. There are lots of reasons why this is both not viable and isn't a realistic worry I use VPN need it for work , but once you allow someone to access VPN, they can go around all of your filters by using a relatively cheap lt 5 month VPN service. So clearly VPN and other non browser ports since VPN can be set to any port required for gaming would all only be available in the highest tier, which almost everyone will purchase. It is impossible to categorize every website, so at some point they'll need to make a and all uncategorized websites too category, again, which would be in the top tier. People need obscure websites all the time and not being able to click a promising link on google would be an AWFUL user experience. So we're left with the only potential tiering scheme is providing everything but removing key popular sites. Again, I believe that this would be such an awful user experience especially considering most people buy internet for their household so even if a given family member roommate can do without social sites, doesn't mean everyone will be on the same page that nobody would buy this slimmed down internet product. Minor Caveat I do see a small instance that this could be used, such as a wikipedia only connection like what was offered on some kindles, but this isn't really a product tier, and I don't think it is an offering that should invoke fear either, so I view it as significantly different than the mockups. Ultimately, 90 of internet users are going to stick to what they are used to and will pay more if they have to, so this change will largely just be maybe paying more. Which brings me to my final point A lot of people explicitly say that this is just an excuse to charge more. But ISPs don't need an excuse to charge more, they could simply start charging more , but they don't, because even monopolies have to fight pressures of supply and demand. If the ISPs could get away with charging more they would already be doing it. I don't think a change in product design that wouldn't affect 90 of their users would have a significant impact on how much they can get away with charging. I also think that the effort in building out those additional options, marketing them, etc. would not pay for them considering how few users would choose any of those lower tiers. EDIT Because I didn't do a good job of explaining my view, here is a few more details I fully believe that ISPs, if allowed to block throttle, will extort popular websites into paying them money. But this is better for the consumer ISP website most importantly here is that it is better for the ISP if this negotiation happens simply between the ISP and website. I don't see advantages for bringing the user into the discussion, users are getting charged for it eventually but through higher costs from the website. ISPs can't just do whatever they want. My internet is pretty reliable. They answer the phone when I call support. They don't charge me 500 month. Even monopolies are subject to market forces. This isn't just an excuse to make their costs more expensive, or else they'd start just charging more. Their cheapest tier will be cheaper than the current plan and a tier with everything which I believe market forces, even for a monopoly, will compel them to offer will be slightly more expensive. I think most people will choose the everything tier. Can you see a situation where a meaningful amount of people choose a lessor tier and the ISPs are okay with accepting less money from them?","conclusion":"The tiered internet service mockups +$5\/month for facebook and other social media websites are completely absurd and not a viable product\/valid fear even for companies that have a virtual monopoly"}
{"id":"6a8f01c4-9f01-4542-ae03-d13c9a93b8b4","argument":"I've never had much respect for people who hunt animals with guns, whether big cats to gazelles. I can see the benefit of shooting animals to quell populations and that might be what these hunters are doing, though that would be considered in my mind more nature conservation than hunting. You may need to track the animal and be aware of wind direction so your scent can't be picked up, which is all part of hunting. However the moment you use a gun I feel it just is not a fair mach. Now I know we are humans and our innovations and intelligence are always going to make any match against another living thing unmatched but I think bows though still unfair are far less so then any other weapons designed for killing. Bow hunting I see as a more sincere form of hunting and as close to original human hunting as it gets. I understand compound bows are very powerful today but you still need to be within around 50 100 yards for an accurate shot, while guns you can be as far away as 600 yards. With modern guns today a 10 year old boy can go and kill a lion with little to no hunting experience. If your going to go hunt an animal, when it is no longer necessary for food at least in the western world, then there should be more risk on our part but maybe I'm just to sentimental. Guns may be more accurate and maybe on average it's a cleaner kill I don't know but in my mind that is not hunting that is just killing, so can you change my view.","conclusion":"I believe hunting animals with guns should not be called hunting unless with a bow, !"}
{"id":"7efb439c-123c-4fb1-908c-f96be492e4d5","argument":"He was arguably not elected by democrating principals, as that is the principal of making decisions based on a majority. Until evidence of millions of illegal voters and a recount of votes is presented in favor of Trump, the democracy voted Hillary for president, and thus your argument is unvalid until that point and in this discussion as of now.","conclusion":"Administrative Holding Area to act as a place to put claims that have been flagged for review with no changes for awhile. Do not create new claims in this branch."}
{"id":"a1794244-6810-4b3e-afcf-62c616b67ce0","argument":"The idea against outlawing abortions, to the point of outlawing even miscarriages, was passed for religious reasons, with one politician saying they believed that rape pregnancies were \"God intended\"","conclusion":"Some beliefs against human rights and human well-being are based on religion."}
{"id":"fda08db3-b1e9-4c19-938f-7814d0857f40","argument":"Limiting the number of overseas players will be good for home-grown sportsmen. At present only a tiny handful of the best native players will get a chance to play for top clubs due to their profit and success motives. This means that talented young players see no reason to work hard and develop their game, because it is so unlikely they will get a chance to play at the top level. And clubs don\u2019t have a reason to seek out local youngsters and train them, as it is easier to buy a fully trained player from abroad. Limiting the number of foreign players would create incentives for both players and clubs to make the most of their talents. As a result, domestic crowds would rise as quality would improve proportionally with the development of local talent.","conclusion":"It is good for the development of home-grown players and therefore, the quality of domestic leagues"}
{"id":"0fd55570-cded-461c-8899-00df1e6a462a","argument":"I want to start off by saying kids are awesome, I think my little baby cousin is the most awesome thing since shaq fu. That being said my gene pool is cursed. First of all, my little cousin is too young to be a screw up or a dudley do right so let's take her out of this equation I was just using her as an example to say that I don't hate kids I have two drug addict cousins. One likes meth, one likes heroin. Also an alcoholic aunt. Another aunt has a serious mental disability. A third is a tad crazy. My sister has autism and is a diagnosed sociopath Also besides addiction, mental health issues and craziness, there is a history of lung problems killed my grandpa and some kind of back problems, made my dad get surgery and my great uncle too . I have ADD mild depression. Given all these factors it is simply wrong of me to bring a child into this world knowing they could have any of these and it would be stupid of me to expect a normal child. Please .","conclusion":"I should not have biological kids, I should either adopt or not have any."}
{"id":"3baaa78d-6e33-4c36-bad5-3efd1b850663","argument":"Victims are likely to be gas lighted and they will have to prove to people that they had been raped.","conclusion":"Wider society is likely to question the legitimacy of the victim's retaliation."}
{"id":"03e315d3-e440-419f-bb30-d85fcb03c38e","argument":"A sufficiently rigorous explanation of this state of hiddenness would be indistinguishable from the state of nonexistence. Occam's razor would suggest that positing a hidden being that does not influence the universe is less probable than concluding there is no such entity. Otherwise, why would you stop at saying there is only one, why not posit that a dozen such nonentities exist? O * n = 0 for all n. The pro and con arguments converge on 0 for a shy god.","conclusion":"Such eccentric and arbitrary behavior contradicts the requirement that He is good."}
{"id":"36db8f07-f47a-4431-b0a6-9a20ee0f4319","argument":"I am perfectly aware that the persecution of mutants is an allegory for the Holocaust specifically and racism in general, and later on homophobia. However, it's rather faulty and limits actual storytelling, i.e. during the Civil war arc for some reason the pro registry side was painted as the villains, while they are the heroes, in my opinion. Germany relied on propaganda to convince the common folk that persecution of the Jews is necessary they are not entirely human, they secretly control the world, they infect German virgins with syphilis, stuff like that. Mutants? You don't need propaganda with those guys. Professor Xavier is able to kill any human in the world with his mind, and he is one of the good guys . There was a boy whose power was kill every living thing and our answer was just throw Wolverine at him . Oh yeah? What if Wolverine goes rogue? It is necessary for us to register every single mutant, because that way, if I, a regular joe, am found with my entire skeleton replaced by worms, we can actually find the person who did this, and maybe that will be a deterrent for the rest to not do it. The whole humans are Germans and mutants are Jews analogy does not fly. We are humans, and mutants are werewolves or vampires or whatever. Yes, there are good vampires. Nice. That doesn't mean guys who carry garlic with them at all time are the villains.","conclusion":"The Mutant Registration Act is morally justified and absolutely necessary."}
{"id":"b1a7d714-a6ce-4e0f-bfd6-ca1edc986ce8","argument":"This came up in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy for me, since I live in an area of NY Long Island that was fairly heavily effected. After the storm, generators and gasoline were in very high demand and very short supply. Due to NY's price gouging law gas prices rose only very modestly after the storm, and many gas stations had incredibly long lines. Generators were basically unavailable at any price. If price gouging had been allowed, the high prices would have had two effects, both beneficial The price would have attracted needed items from outside the effected area to come in via unusual means. Normally, gasoline was delivered by pipeline. But due to the flooding, the main pipeline terminals were knocked offline. If gas had been, say, 6 a gallon in NY, every gasoline tank truck in the Northeastern US would have started heading there full of gas. On a 2500 gallon truck, you could make 5000 per trip by hauling in gas from Binghamton or Boston. And I think most tank trucks are even bigger than that. Likewise, every generator along the eastern seaboard would have been heading for the area. Because the price wasn't allowed to rise though, there wasn't the monetary incentive needed to get people to do crazy things to overcome the logistical challenges. The higher prices would have caused people to conserve. People panicked when they thought supply of gas might be unavailable. They'd flock to any open station and have huge lines, even if they had enough gas in the car to last a few days. When the price rises substantially, it will make people conserve more, and leave what's left for people who really need it and are thus willing to pay the temporarily higher prices.","conclusion":"Price gouging during natural disasters is a good thing, and should not be banned."}
{"id":"62f2d3b5-67cd-4abd-95af-743d0b01eb8e","argument":"Threats have been repeatedly manufactured by decision makers in the past in order to overcome political and public resistance and justify going to war, for example by the US in Vietnam and Iraq","conclusion":"Public opinion is based on threat perceptions, hence the public opposition to AKMs might vanish once threat perceptions change."}
{"id":"92f8221a-8d88-49c4-ba39-610819e6f812","argument":"I work at a software company in a fairly big city. I see so many pick up trucks parked in our company parking lot. I'm often stuck behind them in traffic in the tiny roads that our city has to offer. I just don't understand the logic. If you have a desk job at a regular company in the city, there is no reason for you to drive a giant truck to work. There are literally a thousand other car options for you that are cheaper, more efficient, and more suited for commuting in a city environment. I am not against owning pick up trucks. To each his own. But people need to understand what it means to co exist in a society. If you want to take your ATV for a fun weekend in the mountains, then by all means. Use your pick up truck to haul that bad boy to the Rockies. But if its Monday morning and you need to go to work at your desk job involving flowcharts and algorithms, the pick up truck is the opposite of the type of vehicle you should be driving. Objectively speaking, pick up trucks are terrible vehicles. They are known gas guzzlers, they have a large wheel span that are unsuitable to most narrow city streets. Their line of sight is higher than most other cars on the street which makes them uncomfortable to drive along side of. Simply put, they are the playground bully of cars. If you own a business where you regularly have to transport bulky cargo from place to place, then it becomes a point of utility and that is completely acceptable. This post is not directed towards the set of people for whom pick up trucks are a necessity for maintaining a livelihood .","conclusion":"Unless you have an outdoor hobby\/job, driving a giant pick-up truck in the city is wasteful and inconsiderate."}
{"id":"10a11c55-4afb-4b51-845c-0a48224051cb","argument":"Let me start by saying I don't not support any forms of segregation or large scale discrimination efforts against any race. I hold this view because I think that regardless of the math, no one can make assumptions for certain against any single individual. While this may seem like it totally contradicts my view, let me explain I think that because of the statistics available, i am completely justified in making assumptions and stereotyping against black americans. Moreover, I think that blacks and blacks only are responsible for their crime, poverty, and incarceration rates. While i don't think i am right to use these stereotypes to discriminate, the fact remains. In terms of crime, black americans commit 32.9 of crime in the united states, despite only compromising 16.3 of the U.S. population in terms of unemployment rates, blacks consistently score higher than any other race or minority, by a long shot. Just drawing from 2005 as an example, 7999 blacks die on an annual basis, 93 of which died from violence from other blacks. No other race or minority, again, even comes close to those numbers In terms of prison populations, blacks compromise 39.4 of prison population, while only compromising 16.3 of the population In terms of welfare statistics, blacks compromise 39.8 of welfare recipients while, again, only being 16.3 of the population The numbers go on and on from everything to drug addiction, poverty, unemployment rates, probation and incarceration rates, and virtually every negative statistic imaginable under the sun. I cannot imagine how every single one of these issues, every single one of these overwhelmingly one sided statistics which, by the way, are quite proportionally similar in most all other countries are not the fault of black americans and are the fault of some sort of residual prejudice from 200 years ago. The argument that blacks in america have it harder because they are raised in poor or impoverished areas is also BS, because even if we compare any poor black area to an area of equivalent income of literally any other race, we still don't see equal numbers of crime and violence rates. Personally, my parents were immigrants and came here with absolutely nothing. How is it that my family, along with literally hundreds of thousands of other immigrants, are able to establish themselves in america starting from absolutely nothing, while blacks in america, many of which start off at least getting a public education here and knowing the language, cant even get over the poverty line. I think that immigrants here in america are probably the best example of how hard work results in the U.S.A., which is why i think america is so great. You come here, you work hard, you earn your shit, and it will all work out. Im so tired of hearing the argument from the african american side that they start out in bad areas so that means they are justified in having ridiculously disproportionate violence and poverty rates. If any other race or minority filled this statistic, I wouldn't say a word, but none do. At the end of the day the math says it all, Blacks stand out among all other races in terms of violence, crime rates, and poverty rates, all due to their own doing.","conclusion":"I believe that black Americans, and no one else, are responsible for their impoverished status in America and stereotypes against them are completely justified."}
{"id":"7e3841fa-4a9d-4f4a-8279-866b9e3158ab","argument":"I don't understand that phrase, sex assigned at birth. If I understand the terminology correctly, a transgender person is a person whose gender doesn't match his or her sex. So, a transgender person who is assigned male sex at birth is still the male sex after transitioning, just not male gender . So the phrase sex assigned at birth really is just a long way and unnecessary to say, sex, since this characteristic doesn't change. I would understand, gender assigned at birth, but I understand that some people wouldn't like that, since a transgender man for example would likely state he was always a man by gender, even at birth. But saying sex assigned at birth makes it sound like a person was assigned one sex at birth, but that sex is no longer applicable. But that isn't true. So why do we say of a transgender man that he was assigned female sex at birth, rather than just say of a transgender man that he is of the female sex but of the male gender? It doesn't make sense. A couple notes. First, I understand that the phrase sex assigned at birth isn't only an issue when it comes to trans people, since there is a spectrum of genders, including, I believe, identifying as no gender at all. I used transgender as an example. Second, I understand there are cases where a person doesn't fit into a certain sex. For example, a woman by chromosomes might be born with a penis and identified as of the male sex at birth. In these cases sex assigned at birth makes sense, but the phrase is used outside those cases more often than not. I just think the phrase doesn't make sense in the majority of cases where a person is biologically a specific sex and correctly identified as such. Change my view. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"\"Sex assigned at birth\" doesn't make sense. It should be \"gender assigned at birth,\" if anything."}
{"id":"398d1fc9-3321-4799-ba9a-16c9da25a387","argument":"Zoos have failed to restore Asian elephants population because in zoos their birth rates are low and calf mortality rates are high.","conclusion":"For some captive animals, the small enclosures provided by zoos are directly related to the infant mortality rate"}
{"id":"72fadb82-d657-4974-805c-5622c29782ad","argument":"I believe that monarchism is an outdated institution that only serves the selfish elite instead of giving the power to the people. Throughout the course of history republics are the most stable and nations.","conclusion":"I am a republican, I am against monarchism and believe citizens should elect their own president. Please,"}
{"id":"a8af7522-d98f-474c-969b-193d87a6844f","argument":"Okay, so basically the words man and woman have a different evolution mann was the Old English word for human and wifmann was derived from it as in meaning female human the old English word for male was wer and for female it was wif . This difference is still felt today where frequently man is used in a gender neutral sense specifically when in plural men of peace create weapons of war or when used indeterminately a better world for the new man . Even in a singular determinate sense the word man is sometimes used to refer to humans whose sex is known to be female in particular in compounts like statesman or fireman but also in fixed expressions like man of my word where woman of my word just sounds weird. In the end of the day in English when you make a sentence like the smartest man I ever knew this does not imply it was an intrasexual competition and pretty much implies the smartest person but the smartest woman I ever knew essentially strongly implies that there could have been males that were smarter. This does not arise when one says the smartest male female I ever knew . Or when Batman said to Superman Now you know what it feels like to be a man. when he took away his powers with Kryptonite. Had he done the same to Wonder Woman and said Now you know what it feels like to be a woman. that would be nonsensical and raise an eyebrow and in fact saying Now you know what it feels like to be a man. to her as well would get the message across better but they would probably have just used to be human instead in that case. This seems to be a common pattern that when people want to talk about the humanity of a male they just say man but of a female they often use human or person In that sense given that the words are clearly asymmetrical and very much imply different things and that the fact that the word man still clearly pretty much means human but is just not that often applied to females they shouldn't be used like that by anyone who's interested in gender equality. When you call someone a great man that's a lot more prestigious than a great woman which implies great, for a girl simply due to the semantics of the words. In practice whatever adjective or quality is put before the noun\u2014whether good or bad\u2014is reduced when put in front of woman compared to man it is not just in terms of praise He was the most evil man in history also sounds a lot worse than She was the most evil woman in history which again implies that a lot of males were more evil. Edit clarification on the term gender equality with that I do not mean improving the rights of females or 'equal results based on groups' but rather the elimination of such groups what I mean with it is that a person's sex plays no factor in how that person is treated except in cases where the sex organs are in fact directly relevant and interfaced with. An incidental effect but not the goal of gender equality is that it will both improve and diminish the rights of both males and females in certain places.","conclusion":"The words \"man\" and \"woman\" are not symmetric and should thus not be used to refer to sex\/gender by anyone interested in equality thereof"}
{"id":"2c443006-369a-442a-98ae-656ebbd4e213","argument":"Disclaimer I haven't actually read any libertarian books position papers whatever. All my informations about their philosophy comes from discussion with other reddit users. If i'm wrong about something, please correct me. My picture of what a libertarian society would look like Very few taxes and regulations. Most of the taxes go into the military and justice system. The only job the government has is to ensure nobody breaks the rules and to defend the country. Almost all services fire fighter, healthcare, roads, education, public transpotation, etc are run by private companies you specifically need to hire. Parents basically own their children. Now, to have a baseline to compare this to, my personal idea of what a perfect society would look like High taxes, especially for people that earn very much. Education is free and mandatory. Indispensable services are owned by the government and either free or very cheap. Having a health insurance is mandatory. Tight regulation to ensure worker and comsumer safety. If you fail to properly care for your children the state will take them away from you. Now, my argument It's very easy to stay on top if your born there in a liberterian society, but it's very hard to leave the bottom. People with rich, caring parents will have access to the best education. They will always have access to the best doctors and be safe and protected at all times, ensuring they reach the adult age with intact body and mind. The lack of an inheritance tax ensures that they have later access to their parents wealth and businesses. You only need to be very average to be able to thrife under those circumstances. What happens if your born to poor or abusive parents? Well, you have a much higher chance of dying before you're even able to make your own decisions. Your parents can't feed you? Well, you either find something or starve. Your parents can't afford to pay the firefighters? Well, be careful that you don't burn to death. You get sick? Well, fucking pray it's nothing too serious. Even if you manage to reach adult age without becoming asocial, dead or a cripple, you now either have a sucky education or none at all your parents couldn't afford a better one and didn't want to take a debt, you couldn't take a debt because you weren't an adult . Good luck getting a decent job with those requirements. To comparison, what would happen in my baseline society Rich and poor people get basically the same education. Both get protected from harm almost equally good. If you get sick, the mandatory insurance pays the cost in most cases. Poor parents get child allowance, so they are always able to feed you, buy you clothes etc. If they refuse to do so, you get new parents. Change my view, reddit. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The success of a person in a libertarian society would be determinated by birth rather than drive or talent."}
{"id":"30777b2c-3716-43f4-9363-44b048fdb5fb","argument":"PDA allows students to show their affection to their significant other without talking or otherwise disrupting class.","conclusion":"Public displays of affection PDA should be allowed in middle school and high school."}
{"id":"fd64e887-8592-4661-864d-561090947ed8","argument":"I didn\u2019t mean to, but I realized I hold this as a truth and I feel like it may be irrational so please change my view. My husband woke up to a black eyed child BEC a couple years ago and he had some crazy details the next morning. I looked into it right away and there are some crazy stories circulating about BEC so I was a little preoccupied about what happened for awhile. Long story short, I was recently watching Shane Dawson, and I came to this conclusion. I just cant get myself to believe in any other explanation. Also, there hasn't been anything published looking at rainfall and soil to determine if there are different chemicals in the air than expected nor compared with previous samples. Chem trails have been a local concern for a long time. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Some crazy conspiracies like the black-eyed children, or chem trails are a government or approved program to get likely Americans to believe in conspiracies. In order to widely define conspiracy as something being far-fetched & to be able to write the truth off as a conspiracy."}
{"id":"023dd528-0421-4534-9154-eaa44eeb2333","argument":"The fact that the Ministry generally ignores when the Trace is broken by underage wizards and witches of wizarding families, expecting their parents to discipline them, essentially makes it useless at monitoring their use of magic.","conclusion":"The Trace Charm has failed to do its work in some instances."}
{"id":"a69ba625-f4e5-4426-9596-f93957fe3229","argument":"I think that a truly selfless act does not exist. There isn't a person who does something in which he does not have a personal gain. Even a truly selfless act like that of charity is to make you feel good about yourself. You may say that soldiers giving their lives to save the country is truly selfless, but then they know that they would gain a name in the history for themselves. Also, it's not just in case of dramatic acts as these, even simple tasks like giving the directions to a tourist are done for self satisfaction that you have helped someone. So correct me if I am wrong but I think that there is no such thing as a truly selfless act.","conclusion":"I believe that there is no such thing as a truly selfless act."}
{"id":"e375736f-dce6-4573-8c85-55f9ed173560","argument":"Restorative justice has also been shown to improve the quality of life for inmates and prison staff p. 16.","conclusion":"Norway has a restorative prison system which accounts for its extremely low recidivism rates"}
{"id":"31569b26-de53-490e-8ea8-05a37d2d7427","argument":"When segregation ended, whites who did not want to interact with blacks were pressured to at least be polite to them in daily life. This benefited society.","conclusion":"Overt politeness even when insincere is more decent than overt hate speech."}
{"id":"e12ebe70-1fcc-449f-a87a-68699daabbfb","argument":"Job wasn't tested to improve his life, but God tested Job to prove something for Himself.","conclusion":"Psychological torture is still harm, even if Job was guaranteed to survive it."}
{"id":"9dd6a2d5-32b3-49ff-840f-790e8a7e5d10","argument":"Educating the population can only serve to benefit the greater good. Anomalous children may be born, but without proper education, they will be unable to attain the breakthroughs in science and technology that are so desperately needed to save the environment.","conclusion":"In 2017, education is not a consumable. Therefore, it does not increase issues of resource sustainability."}
{"id":"72618246-c53c-41c6-9bbc-d0c04dc3842b","argument":"Shortly after the death of Jesus in the year 70 AD, the Romans sacked Jerusalem. They destroyed large amounts of its buildings, structures, and killed many of those who were alive during the time of Jesus.","conclusion":"A tool often used to verify historical accounts - physical evidence - cannot be expected in the case of the Bible."}
{"id":"d9d88630-7f76-40ec-84b6-92cc1f8956bf","argument":"Tropical birds as pets are often kept in cages for their entire life. This is the same as being in captivity at a zoo.","conclusion":"We already keep domestic pets which is not dissimilar to keeping animals in zoos."}
{"id":"4c0f12ab-7ddd-4f89-9cbe-72620463f8b3","argument":"In 2012, in the UK, every seven out of eight couples who applied to adopt were rejected for arbitrary reasons such as smoking or being too old. Such a licensing system would eliminate the vast majority of people who wish to procreate, and would thus be unfair.","conclusion":"It is the adoption process that prevents many from adopting children."}
{"id":"459d1881-41fd-4990-bcae-720c63353cbc","argument":"I spend an inordinate amount of my time glued to either my computer or smartphone. 90 or more of this time is spent browsing social media sites or using snapchat. I'm a millennial, and social media is the norm among nearly everyone I know and interact with. However, I hate the culture surrounding social media, and I've fallen into its trap. I am hyper aware of everyone else's lives despite sharing little about my own. I am nearly addicted, and somewhat dependent upon it, to fight what I believe are false feelings of isolation created due to over exposure from everyone else's social activities. I believe social media use, especially among adolescents like myself, can be a very toxic thing, and that it is creating a generation of narcissists seeking validation, with little exception. It seems people rarely do things strictly for their own enjoyment, and instead to shape others opinions of themselves. I am completely guilty of these types of attitudes and behaviors, and am constantly thinking about what I could and should be or am not doing to impress people online. It has become a massive source of anxiety, and increased feelings of self consciousness. Furthermore, I don't see social media as a necessity in any way regarding my future career or social life. I'm rarely at a lack of company when I desire it and have plenty of good friendships, but social media often leaves me feeling alone, and I believe it lowers my capacity for empathy as I sometimes use it as a surrogate for real face to face interaction. It's somewhat nice to see what old friends and extended family members are up to, but it's something I'm willing to forego to limit the accompanying anxiety, depression, and tremendous loss of time that comes with it. I believe it has substantially ruined my ability to focus clearly for any extended period of time, and left me with a crushing sense of boredom and loneliness when not using it. I'm planning on deleting any social media presence I have after reading the answers from this post in an attempt to improve my lifestyle and make myself happier. Obviously, the easy answer is to simply spend less time using social media, however given the addicting nature of these technologies and my own addictive tendencies I think the only way to truly diminish its presence in my life and my mind is to eliminate all of my accounts completely. TLDR social media is wasting my time and making me feel hollow and depressed about my own life. I believe I'm too addicted to stop using it and that my only recourse is to delete all of my SM accounts, which will increase my quality of life greatly. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I should delete my social media accounts"}
{"id":"db4a6325-a71d-44c4-828f-a4ba7068addf","argument":"In most recent presidential elections, the third party candidates have only garnered one or two percentage points of the popular vote and no electoral votes. As a result, most people in the United States write off third parties in elections and pollsters often don't include them in their polls. I believe that in this election cycle these polls are inherently inferior to those that include Gary Johnson and Jill Stein alongside Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump as candidates because they do not accurately represent the choices that voters will face on election day. Gary Johnson is on track to be on the ballot in all 50 states and in Real Clear Politics' aggregated polling is consistently drawing eight percent of the vote from Clinton and Trump, with a further four percent going to Stein. I'm not one of those people who thinks that Johnson has a chance of winning the election by some crazy hail Mary, but I do think that his candidacy fundamentally alters the electoral landscape, and this needs to be accounted for in order to produce accurate polling information. Nationally, ~10 is a huge chunk of the vote to not go to one of the major parties, and I'm sure in some states the percentage will be higher. Swing states in this election and possibly even some lean safe states will be won and lost in a margin closer than 10 . Hillary Clinton may lose a state or two to Trump she otherwise would have won if Johnson hadn't been in the race or vice versa. If pollsters only offer voters two choices, Trump and Hillary, there is no way for their information to be entirely accurate. Note the reason I am tentative on the necessity of Stein being included is that she is generally polling at a lower number and to my knowledge is less likely to appear on every ballot. I generally think it would be a good idea for her to be included in every poll, but it is not strictly necessary, especially in states where she is unlikely to appear on the ballot.","conclusion":"Presidential polls that don't include Gary Johnson and possibly Jill Stein as well are not accurate and should not be conducted for the remainder of the campaign."}
{"id":"12611049-eb51-4425-807e-87e08b7b6f50","argument":"Signing the UDHR without committing to them legally signals that countries want to appear morally good, but that they would not actually act morally if doing so would be inconvenient to them.","conclusion":"The principles of international law typically recognise that state sovereignty is supreme over most positive international obligations. If countries do not want to take in refugees, they do not need to."}
{"id":"f0df6908-71be-43be-bb99-318b8e01d0f9","argument":"It seems that the active enforcement of seat belt laws in almost every US state is ridiculous compared to the fact that it is still legal from a safety point of view to ride a motorcycle while only wearing a helmet. Is a motorcyclist wearing a helmet safer in the event of an accident at highway speeds than a car motorist not wearing a seat belt? The disparity between overall safety levels for the two automobiles does not appear to make the enforcement of safety laws regarding seat belt usage logical. Additionally, many states either have no helmet laws or laws only pertaining to minors.","conclusion":"US Car drivers and passengers should have the option to wear motorcycle helmets in lieu of wearing their seatbelt."}
{"id":"2ccd2733-e7f8-4de5-aeba-74d9d9aa5cdf","argument":"We must not allow Russia a veto over western policy or over the ability of sovereign states to decide their own future. Refusing to grant Georgia and Ukraine the NATO membership they are seeking would be to give into Moscow and would set a bad precedent. Encouraged, Russia\u2019s leaders would be likely to demand yet more concessions, for example for the independence of the Transdniester client state from Moldova, or for the suspension of the Baltic states from NATO.","conclusion":"We must not allow Russia a veto over western policy or over the ability of sovereign states to decid..."}
{"id":"b9376d14-5197-4798-a06d-4d4daa7cd7e7","argument":"For example, it may be logically impossible for humans to develop the virtues of fortitude, patience, and reliance on God without the existence of suffering. If God eliminated natural evils cancer, parasites, etc., then humans would be incapable of developing fortitude, patience, and reliance on God. A world with humans who possess these virtues may be greater than one without these virtues. If so, then the greatest feasible world would require the existence of such evils.","conclusion":"It may be logically incoherent for God to give people certain virtues without using certain evils to develop these virtues."}
{"id":"bbf6a651-5a03-4446-857d-965fb8211e2c","argument":"I am an avid smoker and have yet to experience any negative side effects from smoking Marijuana. Now I know that that is not representative of all smokers but it is only what I think based on personal experiences. As for the problems part, I seem to be under the impression that Marijuana sales will provide huge tax revenue and kick start our economy's reconstruction. I do spend a lot of time on r trees so I am most certainly biased. I'm sure there are underlying problems and I am open minded to the negative aspects of this drug. Thanks. Edit Sorry I was exaggerating a bit in the title when I said all the problems in the world. I really meant the U.S. financial issues.","conclusion":"I believe that Marijuana is a completely harmless substance and its legalization will literally fix all of the problems in the world."}
{"id":"e0099a51-163c-4da2-a3b8-e1adc1f19f3f","argument":"It is possible to define something without understanding everything about the object defined. For example, I can define the Orion Nebula as \"a diffuse nebula situated in the Milky Way at X location\" without knowing everything about the Orion Nebula. Similarly, I can define God as a \"maximally great being\" without knowing everything entailed by a maximally great being.","conclusion":"God can be in fact defined as a \"maximally great being.\" Therefore, God as traditionally conceived is is not a concept that defies definition."}
{"id":"b54d014e-2cea-4af9-bdfa-75228a63c13a","argument":"Science is furthered by debate, but in this case there is none. If a similar number of scientists have different data, or believe that 15,000 of their peers are simply wrong, they would have joined together to co-signed an article in opposition.","conclusion":"The position taken in the article co-signed by 15,000 scientist is validated by the lack of an equally-supported article in opposition."}
{"id":"e82af488-5fc2-4e97-b2e6-17922ed6a40c","argument":"Is your Congressman lazy? Hard working? Corrupt? Honest? Ideological? Practical? Crazy? Data driven? Term limits ensures that an elected official who embodies any of these qualities will be prevented from continuing to serve in the public domain past a given point. Now, obviously we don't want lazy, corrupt, ideological, crazy people serving in our government. But why should we subject the hard working, honest, practical, data driven people to the same standards? I believe that citizens use term limits as a catch all to guard against a repeat of the former at the expense of the latter, when we would be SO much better served as a citizenry if people would simply do their due diligent research on politicians and what they've been doing, and re elect or throw them out accordingly. People use the term career politician in an overwhelmingly pejorative sense, but is it really such a bad thing for us to have, as our elected representatives, people who actually listen to expert opinion and analysis on a given topic, and who know how to write, debate, and pass legislation on said topic? Obviously the last part of this is a utopian ideal, but in my opinion it is one that we, in a representative democracy, must strive for. .","conclusion":"I believe Term Limits in a democracy are really just a lazy alternative to actively participating in the democratic process, and actually do more harm than good."}
{"id":"ce47fe87-76aa-4ee5-84c2-55b226d1ac58","argument":"Most plumbers come up through an apprenticeship that lasts from four to five years and can be sponsored by unions or trade associations.","conclusion":"Handy jobs such as plumbers don't require a college education."}
{"id":"675b30cb-d342-49bb-a9c6-749f0d445cca","argument":"Alternately, I list my reasons for wanting my view changed. If you can change my view on those essentially changing my view on needing to change my view I would appreciate that just as much. First off, some context. I graduated with a Bachelor's degree and am taking prerequisites at a different school in order to attend a Master's program. I am taking a very accelerated Organic Chemistry course, meaning the material is difficult and our time to study it is limited. We had our second exam, which a large portion of the class clearly struggled on, today. Two of the four people who sat at my lab table were blatantly cheating, pulling out notes, looking up answers on their phones, etc. The professor is lt 5' tall and stands far from us, so he did not notice. Talking to them afterward, they report that to cheat more efficiently they intend to make up a notecard next time to bring in to further lower the risk of getting caught. I was a TA for most of my undergrad and, among other things, I was to watch out for cheating and plagiarism and report them to the department, which I did. However, now it is not my job and I am torn. I have always felt that cheaters should be reported and severely punished. Cheating is unfair to the students who worked harder for their grades. Professors often curve grades, so having very high highs that otherwise wouldn't have been there lowers the grades of others. Professors who don't explicitly curve grades may soft curve a grade, eg No one in the class got 3 right. I'll throw it out. By cheating, people are giving the professor a different impression of the difficulty of the test, and so the test may grade those who didn't cheat in a manner that is more harsh than if their peers had not cheated. Some pre rebuttals gt Cheating isn't fair, but neither is life. True, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to right wrongs when we see them and try to create a fair environment if we have the opportunity. gt Cheating only cheats the cheater. As I've explained above, my worry is for the honest students. It's true that cheating will often put the cheater at a disadvantage in the future, but that's their bed to lie in. Cheating has negative impact on the peers of cheaters, and that is why cheating is bad. Knowing Cheater A is going to do worse in the second semester of a class isn't going to raise a grade that was curved down. Why I want my view changed I legitimately want to not care about cheaters. Even my parents say I'm too much of a stickler for rules and that I should be more willing to go against them sometimes. I follow rules, regulations, laws, etc. like, well, the letter of the law and it upsets me when others do not or when I feel like I am hurting my own chances at greater success by following the rules. I want to relax about this because everyone seems to tell me I should. Even if I were to report a cheater, what will happen? Usually nothing. As a TA, when it was part of my job to report this, even students I reported for blatant, calculated cheating with rocksolid proof got a stern talking to and no reprecussions beyond that. Obviously each teacher and school is different, but in my experience the academic integrity policy is a lot of huffing and puffing and if anything even is done, it is not enough, and so I feel like a tattletale who even the professor doesn't care to hear from when I bring it up.","conclusion":"Academic cheating should be reported."}
{"id":"34ab3da9-6d1b-4aae-b41f-65c4cc08445e","argument":"First of all, let me say that I am not an American, but fairly well versed in American politics and knowledgable enough that I'd probably pass American citizenship test. I come from a country that's fairly democratic and almost always peaceful transition of power in our relatively short history, but our institutions are not as independent as I'd like. Our judiciary is independent but not without its share of skeletons in closets. Our other institutions are not so independent and suck up a lot to government of the day. Things like Mueller commission would never happen for at least the present head of the government I admire America as a model of democracy. It has its share of systematic problems such as lobbying, but there's merit to it but all in all its a solid democracy with strong institutions and no one is above the law is more truer for America than any other country At government level, not necessarily day to day law stuff and I believed that checks and balances of America can prevent abuse of power at executive level. So when Donald Trump was elected, I believed that whatever his personal propaganda he'll not be able to do much damage to American system or will get caught. But day by day, that belief is eroding. There are no checks and balances from Senate, Congress did not do anything for two years and even the current Congress, even with Democrats majority seems unable to stop executive branch powers. What would be considered scandals for any other president, Republican or Democrat, is just another day for Donald Trump. If exact equivalent of Watergate happened today, Trump would dismiss it as fake news, supporters would ignore it and media would jump to another story in 3 4 days because Trump would've done something outrageous. I think now this has become a new normal, there's no public shaming any more. Every new president will be measured against the low bar set by Trump. Scandals? Meh, Trump did much worse and nothing happened to him. Conflict of Interest? Who cares, Trump had his whole family in the white house. Trump is actively selling nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia even when it's a public knowledge and no one can do anything to stop it. It's a miracle that Mueller commission was successfully able to complete its report, but even after that Congress, let alone general public, is able to see the content of the report because Trump appointed judicial department is actively protecting him. It can be legally proven that Trump has committed crimes while in office but impeachment is not even on the radar. Pessimistically, I think Trump will spend 4 or even 8 years in the White House and no harm will come to him and that will just encourage more corruption in the white house in the future, because the future presidents will know they can get away with it. Change My View.","conclusion":"Trump has done irreversible damage to American democracy and American institutions"}
{"id":"7b3e25d7-3a7b-4fb9-97d1-f2a308f33f07","argument":"The idea of making this post came to me when I was looking through an AskReddit post about sex one of millions , where as usual, the topic of virginity came up. The term Virgin is a bizarre concept we are defining somebody by something they haven't done. It would be like if we had a regularly used word for people who haven't visited Africa or somebody who never drove a car. And what makes it worse is that it's usually used in a negative way to insult or belittle somebody or for a person to describe a shameful fact of their lives. Sex is just one of the many things humans do I can't understand why we give it such power? Why should those who have not yet participated in the act or choose not to have it be ostracized and ridiculed by society? Why do we allow it to control our behaviour and make us do things that objectively seem ridiculous?","conclusion":"I believe the act of sex is given far too much credence by society and the power it is given over our lives is detrimental to us all -"}
{"id":"de16412b-7e8e-4052-bf97-698458f12edc","argument":"This has been one of the most enduring bull markets in history, pretty soon to become the largest ever. There is no way this bubble is not going to crash badly. This means that this is a BAD time to be investing in the stock market and adding new money. Any new money added will surely turn into a loss in no time. The economy cannot sustain such growth. Nothing has been different in the market to justify a 20 return in a single year. The  is about the stock market, but in parallel and don't talk much about this you are seeing the crypto craze. The crypto craze, the fact that it can exist, highlights the crazy mood of the marketplace that can allow for such irrationality to exist. Change my view. This is going to explode and explode badly. DO NOT invest in the stock market right now or anytime soon. Take cover while you can. Edit on Feb 5 Told you so","conclusion":"The stock market is in a massive bubble. There is no way this one is not going to crash and crash horribly badly very soon."}
{"id":"aa82a61b-71bd-4523-8a5f-f38a416353fa","argument":"the term Indian implies that A. this land was mistaken for asia minor and B. the humans living on this recently discovered land shall have this slur regardless of the actual pretenses in which they were given or the continent for which they are born. Obviously this is disingenuous , crude, and ignorant. Native American or American is no better, however, when considering the origination of the term. For those unaware, The americas have been given this current title from the Italian Spanish explorer amerigo vespucci. He likely has less of a claim to name of this massive land than even Columbus though I'm sure no one with any current knowledge of this explorer would keep the name Native Columbian , and is simply famous because held he the quill when forging the map. In either case we are claiming these indigenous people have no right to the original names they held such as tribe like navajo and apache and are required to be labeled as what the current foreigners see as fitting. Some native americans may agree with this term, but this has little to do with it being agreeable nomenclature and instead is a lesser of the evils in comparison to Savage, Featherhead, and now presently, Redskin. Obviously this does not make the current verbiage correct or even desired. Following this logic a new conclusion could be made, although I am not well versed in this topic I believe Abya Yala may be more fitting in this context. Thank your for your consideration.","conclusion":"Native Indian and Native American are equally disrespectful"}
{"id":"6f35ddd2-218d-417e-904e-6c49a56d6528","argument":"Surrogates are less likely to be part of the child's life in commercial arrangements, which can be emotionally challenging to overcome.","conclusion":"Commercial surrogacy can be emotionally and psychologically harmful to surrogates."}
{"id":"68cb32b8-22b9-4dfe-9405-c6df47093285","argument":"American Crossroads a powerful Republican PAC founded by Karl Rove a top figure in the Bush Administration, spent $325 million on eight candidates in the 2012 election cycle. Six were defeated.","conclusion":"Large amounts of campaign spending do not guarantee electoral success."}
{"id":"6429030d-9e99-46c8-aadc-462999443a3d","argument":"Many people in Scotland feel that they would be better governed by their own people and not by England, which is similar to Hong Kong's feelings about China.","conclusion":"Scotland has sought greater independence from England and the wider UK, similar to Hong Kong."}
{"id":"3eedbc60-1a77-4624-9e03-9731417fbfbb","argument":"I understand why it's still sold, but most of the cheap and flimsy products you find on the market are made of wood that isn't even sanded down that well. Obviously the amount of sanding isn't related to my argument, but it's not a very pleasurable experience when your hands are hurting from holding wood and or getting splinters Take this example, I enjoy embroidery as a hobby, however, every accessory made of wood I've had has been flimsy and cut horribly, as opposed to plastic products which holds the fabric perfectly and is somewhat pleasing to hold, and looks nicer. Plus no matter how many wingnuts you have with the DIY products, and no matter how tight you screw them, it's not going to hold perfectly. It's like if somebody made of jelly was trying to put you in a headlock, no matter how hard he tries, and how much hard he holds you, he'll never manage. One possible counter argument would be that my desk is wooden, but it has a sheen to it and holds everything on my desk including all my computer hardware minus my printer . I don't know how, mind you, it feels dense and has a sheen to it. But if you buy any sort of DIY product made of wood it's generally going to be cheap and not very study. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Wood is literally the worst material for arts and crafts"}
{"id":"d0ef36e7-2cb7-4beb-ba4e-c6c942ad9f59","argument":"These memes take photos of two women who I assume didn\u2019t consent to being photographed and sexualize them to judge the value of the things in the meme. This is inherently values the women as objects that are being judged for their sexual \u201cvalue\u201d. I\u2019ve seen these memes all over reddit and I think we can do better. Example 1 Example 2","conclusion":"The Boob\/Butt meme is degrading to women and creepy."}
{"id":"1cf96494-36ad-495f-beee-0f751635d1a0","argument":"As long as the distinction is maintained by the teacher and assured by the administration it should be allowed, as an accessory, even though religious, is a personal item of the person and not a preaching tool.","conclusion":"There is a clear distinction between wearing religious symbols and exhorting your religion onto others. Wearing a religious symbol does not violate anyone else's rights."}
{"id":"7ce4379f-fbfc-450a-988a-4b2823d19e9d","argument":"Cloned children are at a disadvantage in regard to their right to family as their birth is highly different from genetically modified children.","conclusion":"Genetically altering children would open the door for the possibility of cloning."}
{"id":"dfe4efe3-a05a-4bcd-aa87-5d40e49f9a86","argument":"Oral tradition was much more reliable at the time, when reading and writing were uncommon, and especially among Jewish communities. This tradition is even continued into this day, with sections of the Torah being memorized and recited for bar mitzvahs.","conclusion":"It is typically accepted by historians that the Gospel narratives were preserved by oral tradition in the time between Jesus's death and the writing of the four Gospels."}
{"id":"4197df51-e7a6-4014-9783-b3d10b2f0ca4","argument":"We compensate families of people who died because of the fault of another. Even though they were not directly harmed themselves, they were harmed by the loss of the loved one. Insofar as the indirect impacts of slavery are still felt in society, the Black community deserves recompense.","conclusion":"In the legal system, we give recompense to people indirectly harmed by criminal actions."}
{"id":"c3af08a1-0202-4a11-8b9a-5a287a926450","argument":"Under Mongol rule, Ossetians were pushed out of their medieval homeland south of the Don river in present-day Russia and part migrated towards and over the Caucasus mountains, to Georgia, where they formed three distinct territorial entities. Digor in the west came under the influence of the neighboring Kabard people, who introduced Islam. Tualla\u0308g in the south became what is now South Ossetia, part of the historical Georgian principality of Samachablo, where Ossetians found refuge from Mongol invaders. S. Ossetians, therefore, came to and settled in Georgian territory. This demonstrates that Georgian territory existed prior to a population of S. Ossetians coming to that territory to settle. Georgia, therefore, has a greater claim to the integrity of its territory than S. Ossetia does to its existence in a certain territory.","conclusion":"Ossetians migrated to Georgia; Georgia did not annex Ossetian land."}
{"id":"f17127f2-9a90-4e54-9505-3ca365537ebe","argument":"Banks normally have daily limits for your protection as to how much you can transfer per day. As of now, cryptocurrencies have none, so all your cryptocurrencies could be transferred maliciously or by mistake in the blink of a second.","conclusion":"Handling and storing cryptocurrencies is less safe for ordinary consumers than traditional forms of electronic payment."}
{"id":"ce7f8960-652b-4a4e-afa0-53b8a9029525","argument":"The success rate of Alcoholics Anonymous 12 step program is worse than those for addicts treated in hospitals.","conclusion":"Alternative programs have been found to be as or more effective than AA."}
{"id":"be90f8be-7a2c-4b75-9b63-ffdfd89accd8","argument":"The Pew Research Center has published data that shows levels of confidence in Trump are low worldwide.","conclusion":"Trump has lost the confidence of the public since taking up office."}
{"id":"6f7a434b-c14e-4f9e-8397-431fa656714f","argument":"Wasn't sure what to classify this as, but this is an example of what I mean gt If we go with the MLK narrative, MLK describes a dream, and ideal state. It is an ideal state that pretty much everyone would like to see. However, in practice, we are far away from ideality. Bernie Sanders likes to make the argument that the rich are getting richer, and the poor are getting poorer. Most of those poor are African Americans Latino. So really the white are getting richer and the black are getting poorer. If one takes a race blind economic only approach, but forget about the existence of systemic racism that still exists, yes we help the poor but white poor are helped proportionally more than black poor. The gap between white and black is never closed. This is the problem with color blind or perfectly equitable legislation. It preserves the status quo, because even if the laws are fair, people nature society are not, and the starting line is not close to fair. It seems to me what these people think is that the ultimate problems in society are the inherent biases in society and in people's minds. Until the biases are dealt with completely, there can be nothing done for society and any economic plan that does not also take these biases into consideration is doomed to failure, and probably not even worth trying. These ideas seem to have taken root among younger college aged millenials particularly. And being a minority millennial myself, it makes absolutely no sense to me how these ideas are taken seriously. I guess one of the main complaints i have is that it takes race way to seriously. That's not to say that race does not impact an individual's life, but this view seems to lump in all people of the same race into one monolith that faces the same difficulties, and therefore should be treated the same because of their skin color. Ironically enough, this is by definition racist. For example, take the black middle class gt But using sheer numbers, the true Black middle class has NOT doubled. In 1970, the number of families earning between 15,000 and 49,999 reached 11,667,612. In 1990, the number grew to 13,309,033 hardly a doubling gt What's more, there has been a squeezing effect the middle class present in 1970 has been squeezed over a 20 year period, pushing families above and below the middle class lines. The promising news is that more families have been pushed upward, but we have not filled their places with families from the lower classes. So what we see is a pattern concurrent with the greater socioeconomic trend in the western world. Namely that the middle class is being squeezed out and while the upper class and lower class are growing in number. This social stratification doesnt have anything to do with race. There aren't just white people getting richer and minorities staying stagnant, its the rich getting richer and the poor staying poorer, regardless of skin color . It seems to me that people who hold the identity politics view would give aid to well off upper blacks in the south because they are black and then deny that aid to the poor struggling whites in the south because they are white. How does this make any sense? It isn't just black people that are suffering it is the lower class in general, therefore economic aid should be given to all of the lower class , regardless of skin color.","conclusion":"Third wave feminist identity politics is politically cancerous."}
{"id":"8ee79f82-e04d-434d-8763-5c0409d965db","argument":"As the recent example of Facebook and Cambridge Analytica shows, private corporations are often ill-suited to protect users' personal data.","conclusion":"DNA Handling by for profit genealogy companies is subject to error, tampering and misinterpretation."}
{"id":"4cb58bd1-f611-4866-9cb7-2452759e1a66","argument":"It is in the interests of cities like New York to embrace innovation, so as to keep pace with changes in the world.","conclusion":"Enforcing the Airbnb prohibition law leads to a net negative outcome for New York City's community."}
{"id":"9b1857c3-60ce-451e-b7ff-5f36ba66ce34","argument":"There is no separate word for \"gender\" in German. Geschlecht in German means both sex as well as gender Reflections on Feminist Family Therapy Training, p.69","conclusion":"Some languages such as German or Finnish, have no separate words for sex and gender."}
{"id":"e0934bcb-26e0-4029-8cda-812a86da2b7e","argument":"Facebook gives you recommended pages that you might be interested in. And a lot of the time it recommends to me shit like Nikki Minaj or Arctic Monkeys or TOWIE, just because I have friends who like those pages. And If you look at any 'celebrity' who makes most pop music. They're not very positively influential. However rihanna has 80,000,000 likes and The most popular sci news page, IFLS has 8,000,000. I believe that for the good of young people's intelects, facebook should make such pages more accessible and pop culture should be put less emphasis on. The reason why is that many people might find something interesting once and decide to click the link and maybe educate themselves a little bit. However if they go to lil wayne's page the most intelligent thing they will find is the fact that they can buy lil wayne headphones for 300. Which they might do and that is just stupid.","conclusion":"I think facebook should promote educational pages rather than pop culture."}
{"id":"8d36dab7-8944-4b3b-a766-80b1e8dc293b","argument":"Maybe this is a bit too petty on my part. I'm a first generation Chinese American who came to the states when I was 5 years old. My childhood consisted of trailer parks, cockroach infested tenements, and an inability to apply for government assistance because my family didn't have green cards. Somehow the American Dream happened for us. My dad bought a condo, we moved to the suburbs during my first year of high school, and I went to college to study for a STEM degree that made it easy to find jobs. I'm 25 now, but I feel a smug sense of satisfaction everytime I see or read about people my age who made less than ideal choices such as drop out of college, or study english, liberal arts, sociology, or follow their passions without considering the consequences poverty . It's messed up, but when I meet or hear these people complain, I think in my head memories from my childhood like 'Santa hated poor kids cause they couldn't afford houses with chimneys', 'I never played pokemon till I was 16', or 'Why can't my parents stop fighting about the budget'? The only thing that comes to my mind is just 'These middle class kids never knew the consequences of being poor in this country, let them suffer'. I wouldn't begrudge them if they manage to become successful later on in life, but I just feel schadenfreude whenever I read posts from redditors in r portland, or overhear conversations at bars of young professionals needing loans from their parents because their non profit stipend isn't working out. It's probably the first time these Millenials realize that happiness can quantified by amounts of 'Money', and that 'Self Actualization', or achieving your ambitions in society is limited by how much income you make as an individual. There are of course limits to how much I'd want these people to suffer for being poor, and I certainly hope no one is homeless because of it. This being said, I wouldn't feel much sympathy if they had to worry about their budget, or suffer through more than a few stressful nights of fearing the possibilities of living paycheck to paycheck. I realize this line of thinking is wrong, but I can't go beyond this train of thought. How can I change my view?","conclusion":"I think Millenials from a middle class background who make bad choices should suffer the consequences."}
{"id":"0652fdea-f98f-49f2-be0c-cfce65d847a3","argument":"Separated bathrooms were introduced in the US as a result of male chauvinism Yet the attitude that women are inherently weaker and need to be protected from the harsh reality outside the home, where they fit best, has largely been overcome.","conclusion":"Separated bathrooms are not necessary anymore since the reasons for which they were originally introduced do not apply anymore."}
{"id":"4fbc3b6b-4051-403a-8148-5f77f741bc8a","argument":"Just because someone has lots of money doesn't mean they don't want need it. Many rich people have massive obligations. Their lifestyles are inflated multiple homes, private jets and they probably support many people including their family, a handful of personal employees, and probably close friends and extended family as well. Also, it's not all that uncommon for very rich people to go bankrupt and become straight up broke I can come up with quite a few examples off the top of my head. While it's less likely for them to end up in that situation than the average person, and it's easier for them to recover than the average person, there is always going to be that fear that propels them to make more money. Even someone who has stopped caring about their net worth will still have conflicts of interested related to money. They've made relationships with people who've helped make them rich, or who are close business partners. That person may even depending on some of these people to stay rich or maintain his her lifestyle. So isn't it silly to argue that you can be too rich to have conflicts of interest?","conclusion":"I don't think someone can be too rich for conflict of interest"}
{"id":"f0304049-dc35-4c50-9eef-be9584f31df6","argument":"Cultural and historical tourism is an important source of income for many countries. If their artefacts have been appropriated by foreign museums in wealthy nations then they are being deprived of the economic opportunity to build a successful tourist trade.","conclusion":"These artefacts are the foundation of a potential tourist trade"}
{"id":"68b603ff-ee80-4273-9249-a88cac54af31","argument":"The Second Amendment is indefensible policy for today's day and age. Guns have advanced far beyond what our founding fathers could have ever predicted. We do not Constitutionally protect the right to a whole host of tools that have significantly more utility than guns do. There is no Constitutional right to own a car. There is no Constitutional right to own housing. There is no Constitutional right to healthcare. Yet, somehow, we have a Constitutional right to bear arms, to bear tools such as the AR 15 which have proven themselves to serve one purpose efficient and indefensible murder of our fellow Americans. To those who say we need the Second Amendment so that we have the ability to overthrow a tyrannical government in over 200 years we have never once overthrown even a local government, let alone the federal government, nor could even a well armed populace hope to defeat the American military should it ever choose to turn itself against the citizens it has sworn to protect even an AR 15 stands up poorly to a Tomahawk missile or M1 Abrams tank. In the event that the military does not turn its back on us and helps us overthrow a hypothetical tyrant, then our people have no need to own multiple high powered weapons of their own. In neither scenario is it useful for our populace to have a Constitutional right to bear arms in order to overthrow a tyrannical government. To those who say we need the Second Amendment to protect our right to defend ourselves, or to hunt for sustenance the right to own guns for sport or for self defense does not need to be Constitutionally protected such that common sense regulations are impossible to pass. If we do not feel the need to Constitutionally protect our right to own cars, to own housing, or to benefit from healthcare, then we cannot justify in good faith the need to Constitutionally protect our right to own tools which are used nearly exclusively to murder our fellow countrymen. A society that makes guns harder to obtain means that guns are less necessary for self defense just ask Australia, or Japan. We can enjoy shooting ranges and license reasonable firearms for hunting without Constitutionally protecting guns such that common sense gun regulation is impossible to pass. Repealing the Second Amendment does not mean the elimination of gun use in this country, it simply means the right to bear arms will no longer make it impossible to protect our children from the multiple school shootings they endure each and every month these days. We currently stand as one of three countries along with Mexico and Guatemala with a constitutional right to bear arms. It is time to leave that exclusive group, pass common sense gun regulation, and make our country safer for everyone herein. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The Second Amendment is archaic and needs to be repealed"}
{"id":"c108825a-0aad-4d94-b462-b78bb8cb2231","argument":"'Purpose' and 'meaning' are very much human constructs only attributable to perceived human intentions. The natural world is characterised by chains of causes and effects 'functions' rather than intents. It is true that despite its artificiality, the notion of purpose is virtually inescapable when experiencing one's life as a human. It has been central in the shaping of human society and behaviour, leading to various perceptions of reality that have been central in our development so far. Many even argue that 'purpose' is not artificial, and a view that advocates so is merely 'naturalist' a mere category of a wide spectrum of equally rational worldviews. However, with the advancement of biological sciences we are slowly but steadily able to realise underlying biological explanations pertaining to our function as surviving and procreating organisms in pretty much every aspect of our behaviour and thinking. After all, our very thought and the development of our brains is a product of the natural environment and evolutionary processes. Therefore the very notion of purpose is merely a complex cognitive phenomenon that owes its occurrence to the evolutionary processes that developed a human brain that is capable of such. As such, the appropriation of any 'purpose' to humanity is illusory. A human just is. And he she is because of his her function. This function being successive survival and gene perpetuation. One could claim that we've 'evolved and ascended beyond biological imperatives', however this is in itself impossible as our thought was, is and will be a biological product subject to evolutionary processess. The fact that we can 'ignore our biological imperatives' and not reproduce or knowingly hinder our chances of survival does not imply separation from biology, but rather constitutes part of natural selection. Non procreating individuals are simply selected against. So here comes my somewhat paradoxical conviction and it is paradoxical because it is a conviction about what we 'should purposefully' do as humans based on the premise that, fundamentally, purpose equates to function As we've developed our faculties enough to recognise our core function of gene perpetuation and provided that we are in a position to procreate, forgoing this action has no rational basis as doing so arises from naturally occurring yet identifiable illusory thoughts. P.S. It has been argued that non procreating individuals may still fulfill a different fundamental function of assisting other members of the species to procreate. However, it seems that scientific consensus has not be reached yet in terms of whether evolution operates on an individual or population level. Based on my present awareness the individual level possibility seems to be more widely adopted.","conclusion":"Human life has no purpose but merely function. That is perpetuation through survival and procreation. Therefore not procreating is irrational."}
{"id":"f9e8424a-3c56-4e36-b9fc-16312f5a26e2","argument":"Apologies in advance for the wall of text. It has become fashionable to say that people have no free will. Many scientists cannot imagine how the idea of free will could be reconciled with the laws of physics and chemistry. Brain researchers say that the brain is just a bunch of nerve cells that fire as a direct result of chemical and electrical events, with no room for free will. Others note that people are unaware of some causes of their behavior, such as unconscious cues or genetic predispositions, and extrapolate to suggest that all behavior may be caused that way, so that conscious choosing is an illusion. Scientists take delight in and advance their careers by claiming to have disproved conventional wisdom, and so bashing free will is appealing. But their statements against free will can be misleading and are sometimes downright mistaken, as several thoughtful critics have pointed out. Arguments about free will are mostly semantic arguments about definitions. Most experts who deny free will are arguing against peculiar, unscientific versions of the idea, such as that \u201cfree will\u201d means that causality is not involved. Other scientists who argue against free will say that it means that a soul or other supernatural entity causes behavior, and not surprisingly they consider such explanations unscientific. These arguments leave untouched the meaning of free will that most people understand, which is consciously making choices about what to do in the absence of external coercion, and accepting responsibility for one\u2019s actions. Hardly anyone denies that people engage in logical reasoning and self control to make choices. There is a genuine psychological reality behind the idea of free will. The debate is merely about whether this reality deserves to be called free will. Setting aside the semantic debate, let\u2019s try to understand what that underlying reality is. There is no need to insist that free will is some kind of magical violation of causality. Free will is just another kind of cause. The causal process by which a person decides whether to marry is simply different from the processes that cause balls to roll downhill, ice to melt in the hot sun, a magnet to attract nails, or a stock price to rise and fall. Different sciences discover different kinds of causes. Phillip Anderson, who won the Nobel Prize in physics, explained this beautifully several decades ago in a brief article titled \u201cMore is different.\u201d Physics may be the most fundamental of the sciences, but as one moves up the ladder to chemistry, then biology, then physiology, then psychology, and on to economics and sociology\u2014at each level, new kinds of causes enter the picture. As Anderson explained, the things each science studies cannot be fully reduced to the lower levels, but they also cannot violate the lower levels. Our actions cannot break the laws of physics, but they can be influenced by things beyond gravity, friction, and electromagnetic charges. No number of facts about a carbon atom can explain life, let alone the meaning of your life. These causes operate at different levels of organization. Even if you could write a history of the Civil War purely in terms of muscle movements or nerve cell firings, that very long and dull book would completely miss the point of the war. Free will cannot violate the laws of physics or even neuroscience, but it invokes causes that go beyond them. The evolution of free will began when living things began to make choices. The difference between plants and animals illustrates an important early step. Plants don\u2019t change their location and don\u2019t need brains to help them decide where to go. Animals do. Free will is an advanced form of the simple process of controlling oneself, called agency. The squirrel is more complex than the tree, and it does plenty of things the tree can\u2019t. When chased by a dog, the squirrel needs to choose which direction to run. Its decision processes may be simple, but it does choose, nonetheless. Thousands of lab studies have shown how rats learn to make choices that bring them rewards. How did this simple agency evolve into the more complex style of choosing that people call free will? Living things everywhere face two problems survival and reproduction. All species have to solve those basic problems or else go extinct. Humankind has an unusual strategy for solving them culture. We communicate, develop complex social systems, engage in trade, accumulate knowledge collectively, create giant social institutions governments, hospitals, universities, corporations . These help us survive and reproduce, increasingly in comfortable and safe ways. These large systems have worked very well for us, if you measure success in the biological terms of survival and reproduction. If culture is so successful, why don\u2019t other species use it? They can\u2019t\u2014because they lack the psychological innate capabilities it requires. Our ancestors evolved the ability to act in the ways necessary for culture to succeed. Free will likely will be found right there\u2014it\u2019s what enables humans to control their actions in precisely the ways required to build and operate complex social systems. What psychological capabilities are needed to make cultural systems work? To be a member of a group with culture, people must be able to understand the culture\u2019s rules for actions, including moral principles and formal laws. They need to be able to talk about their choices with others, participate in group decisions, and carry out their assigned role. Culture can bring immense benefits, from cooked rice to the iPhone, but it only works if people cooperate and obey the rules. If you think of freedom as being able to do whatever you want, with no rules, you might be surprised to hear that free will is for following rules. Doing whatever you want is fully within the capability of any animal in the forest. Free will is for a far more advanced way of acting. It\u2019s what a creature might need in order to adjust its behavior to novel situations, to get what it wants while still following the complicated rules of the society. People must inhibit impulses and desires and find ways of satisfying them within the rules. People also consciously imagine various future scenarios \u201cIf I do this, then that will happen, whereupon I would do something else, leading to another result \u2026\u201d and guide their present actions based on disciplined imagination. That, in a nutshell, is the inner deciding process that humans have evolved. That is the reality behind the idea of free will these processes of rational choice and self control. It\u2019s this or nothing. If you accept free will, this is what it is. If you insist on disbelieving in free will, these are the processes that are commonly taken for it. But either way, there is a real phenomenon here. And to understand human life, it is vital to understand how this phenomenon works. Does it deserve to be called free? I do think so. Philosophers debate whether people have free will as if the answer will be a simple yes or no. But very few psychological phenomena are absolute dichotomies. Instead, most psychological phenomena are on a continuum. Some acts are clearly freer than others. The freer actions would include conscious thought and deciding, self control, logical reasoning, and the pursuit of enlightened self interest. Self control counts as a kind of freedom because it begins with not acting on every impulse. The simple brain acts whenever something triggers a response A hungry creature sees food and eats it. The most recently evolved parts of the human brain have an extensive mechanism for overriding those impulses, which enables us to reject food when we\u2019re hungry, whether it\u2019s because we\u2019re dieting, vegetarian, keeping kosher, or mistrustful of the food. Self control furnishes the possibility of acting from rational principles rather than acting on impulse. The use of abstract ideas such as moral principles to guide action takes us far beyond anything that you will find in a physics or chemistry textbook, and so we are free in the sense of emergence, of going beyond simpler forms of causality. Again, we cannot break the laws of physics, but we can act in ways that add new causes that go far beyond physical causation. No electron understands the Golden Rule, and indeed an exhaustive study of any given atom will furnish no clue as to whether it is part of a person who is obeying or disobeying that rule. The economic laws of supply and demand are genuine causes, but they cannot be reduced to or fully explained by chemical reactions. Understanding free will in this way allows us to reconcile the popular understanding of free will as making choices with our scientific understanding of the world","conclusion":"Free Will is not an illusion, and does exist."}
{"id":"a6465c78-a838-4b80-8630-8195abce0ade","argument":"Now I'll grant there are some people who make the occasional ignorant comment about religion. But for the most part atheists enjoy the same lifestyle as everyone else. There are no laws currently enforced that discriminate against atheists. Atheists might find hard to enter center social circles, but there are other social circles science and technology where religion is discouraged. Compared to the discrimination that women, or racial minorities experience, atheists have it good.","conclusion":"I don't think atheists suffer significant discrimination in the United States."}
{"id":"8df4cdba-9eea-45e8-a3d9-d4a14b519a94","argument":"Different parts of the legislature may clash, making it impossible to push forward the bland parts of a bland candidate's agenda.","conclusion":"A candidate who wants to do everything, will accomplish nothing."}
{"id":"78bfc877-48ca-4eb0-a799-ac9a5a550d00","argument":"Laws can and have been updated in the past with new information, and there is a wealth of new research constantly being produced on the nature of animal lives and consciousness.","conclusion":"When black people in America didn't have human rights it was not ethically correct for other people to kill them. The law isn't an arbiter of morality."}
{"id":"7530fad2-39fa-422c-8a99-eaaaa8dce9d0","argument":"Life is not a zero-sum game. Capitalism increases the total amount of resources, which indeed makes the rich richer, but also the poor. Socialism keeps everyone poor.","conclusion":"Capitalism free trade is the best way to fight poverty."}
{"id":"3bbf261b-3d50-4598-b7a3-2e4448f664a0","argument":"There is an implicit promise made among members in non-cannibalistic societies. The deceased are to be treated with respect, usually buried or cremated.","conclusion":"Eating humans is forbidden in practically all societies and regarded as taboo, whilst eating animals of any kind is not."}
{"id":"6108d282-3cb3-49f3-939e-f8637b3a3434","argument":"Equality of outcome removes or reduces the economic incentive for people to innovate. As such, it interferes with the natural inclinations of human beings under free market conditions.","conclusion":"The argument here is for equality of outcome and this is undesirable."}
{"id":"a2f568ac-c22a-4f3b-b68b-6f6b11ce1f34","argument":"I am not suggesting that Japan should stop relying on the US for protection, nor that they should develop nuclear arms. I am stating that it is in their best strategic interest to revise article nine, as it will give them more strategic flexibility. They could very easily change the article and continue to be on roughly the same policy course. One of the main reasons I think they should revise it is that relying on a country halfway around the world to defend them may not be tenably if relations ever break down, or that nation decides it is no longer desirable to participate in the hub spoke system. Revising article 9 now gives Japan a contingency plan. unlike NATO countries, who can rely on friendly neighbors all over the place, Japan is alone with just Tiawan and SK, both of whom are not exactly super duper chummy with It also gives them more leeway with dealing with potential Chinese problems. It also allows them to do more in UN PKO's. The Yoshida Doctrine served Japan well, but it is a new world. How can Japan ever hope to get a permanent seat on the UNSC if they have a clause saying they can't operate a military or declare war? Besides, the JSDF can wipe the floor with all but a handful of the world's militaries anyway. Please only people who know what they are talking about, no 5 minute google scholars, thanks gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"It is in Japan's best interest to change article 9."}
{"id":"0229afdb-5e01-4d11-bb59-99fcb0a8e442","argument":"I'm quite pro gun and argue about guns regularly on reddit. I advocate conceal carrying and think the law abiding citizen should own whatever they want. However, when it comes to debate, I struggle finding a reason people need an AR15. Argument The standard, but weak, argument I currently give in favor of an AR15 is, everybody is different and needs to find the gun that's right for them different sized hands, arm length, number of arms less than two , and ability shoot accurately all play a role in weapon selection, and there is no one gun that fits everyone. So if some shoot better with an AR15, that\u2019s the gun they should own. That's my standard argument, but there's a part of me that still nags the question, if anyone can train to use any weapon, why is the AR15 needed? AR15 My exposure to the AR15 community extends beyond just what I hear about on TV. I know quite a few people that have one and have shot a few variants of them. Here's what I think of them, personally. What I think of the AR15 is, it's a bunch of expensive accessories attached to a gun. The accessories go with a theme or purpose of what role the AR15 is suppose to fill. If I go to the range and show any interest in someone's AR, they'll ask me if I want to try it, then point to all of the little assessors they bought for it. What the AR guys do is, they buy their AR then dump money into parts, which they add throughout the year. It's like Lego's, except each \u201cbrick\u201d runs about 80 to 1000 and they're pretty much all black. The gun seems infinity useful, but ultimately become a range toy or used for competition. Home defense Now, home defense, might be the number one reason people get an AR, but I will always say the best gun for home defense will be anything chambered in 12 gauge. And you can get a semi auto shotgun with a high capacity magazines, tactical rails, and with any kind of grip or stock you want. I think those are better than an AR15. 12 gauge is so versatile, you can buy the right ammo for the kind of place you live, with more flexibility than what the .223 or 56x45mm has. Where an AR15 will over penetrate and risk hitting neighbors, in a firefight, you can get the exact rounds you need to protect yourself, be effective, and not kill anyone through drywall with 12guage, which you can easily find at in most stores that sell ammo. If you predict your firefight is only going to be defending your apartment from an intruder, then 12 gauge bird shot is the lethal choice against a human threat and considerate of your neighbor\u2019s safety. Yes, bird shot, despite what experts say. I know what I\u2019m talking about, because I\u2019ve screwed around a lot with 12 gauge bird shot, and at 7 feet you can cut through a 4\u201cx4\u201c block of wood with the cheap stuff. If you\u2019re not worried about neighbors, you can get slugs or buckshot. So an AR might be a good choice for home defense, but it\u2019s more expensive than the best choice for home defense. 2A Uprising Is the AR15 a necessary part of the 2nd amendment? I think the U.S. would collapse before we\u2019d get a chance to overthrow it. But if we did, we\u2019d depend on our military going AWOL first, then we\u2019d have a fighting chance. It also would be bloody. I can\u2019t even imagine what the U.S. would have to be in order for us to get to that point, but I don\u2019t think we have to worry about that any time soon. However, if people want to prep for that, in case they need their AR later , I don\u2019t see a problem, but that doesn\u2019t help me argue why people need one now . 2A Invasion Does it owning the AR scare off potential foreign invaders from? Sure, but don\u2019t all of our guns do that? We have 300 million of them. If China was able to invade lol let\u2019s pretend, ok? , they\u2019d have to put up with the locals as they drove down our streets, which would involve vehicle blockades and home made bombs, in addition to guns. Thanks Help me out, guys. I\u2019m stuck on this one. Thank you for taking the time to read this.  The AR15 style rifle has little purpose for the average American, other than for fun.","conclusion":"The AR15 style rifle has little purpose for the average American, other than for fun."}
{"id":"d75f3dbc-e0be-48ba-abbd-3012d3c72691","argument":"There is too much pressure on today\u2019s youth to pick an \u201celite\u201d college. After finishing my senior year and therefore the college application process in the previous year, I felt first hand this pressure and observed it in my class mates. People have themselves convinced that to land a good job they have to attend a highly ranked school. The stress both parents and children themselves place onto acceptance letters is unnecessary. If success in life depended on the performance of 17 and 18 year olds, then we would all be in trouble. At an internship at a law firm I had over the summer, I worked with attorneys who attended both the University of Chicago for their undergraduate studies, easily one of the top universities in the world, and attorneys who attended Grand Valley State University, a small regional school. A good school, but not one that is nationally ranked. Both worked at the same firm, but the Grand Valley alumn was arguably more successful based on number of cases and hearings. Now one might say that since it was a job that requires additional schooling, this argument is invalid. But I also know two people who went to University of Houston Law School and Harvard Law School who ended up at the same law firm immediately after graduation. I am not arguing for the diminished accomplishments of attending elite institutions, but instead for a shift in focus that success is given from the obvious hard work students attending said schools put in not a fancy diploma, and hard work and intelligence is not limited to certain schools. And while elite schools can supply you with certain advantages like networking, name recognition, and renowned professors, it is ultimately up to the individual to determine his or her own success.","conclusion":"There is too much stress placed on going to the perfect college. Your success depends on your actions, not your diploma."}
{"id":"ed6e522b-76bb-4ffb-8d48-15767b2e50eb","argument":"Some of the most influential and respected senators Edward M. Kennedy John S. McCain III Joseph R. Biden Jr have served for decades: experience and wisdom is cumulative and voters recognise this.","conclusion":"Voters seem to respect long-serving public servants more, and give them more support This would suggest their power is more legitimate than less popular, less experienced office-holders."}
{"id":"091b8fc5-94dc-42c3-8d96-d08e79cdc162","argument":"ignore the part about proportionate income splitting thing Right now, if you take a look at our dating culture, guys usually have to pay for a girl's time. This leads to inflated and unreal expectations on the girl's and guy's side, with heavy monetary influence and devalues intrinsic character. Guys shouldn't have to pay for a girl's time. By splitting the bill, women won't feel obligated to put out afterwards or like they owe the guy something and men won't feel like they were used for a free dinner date or disappointed when nothing more happens. This will also put a stop to people using dates as a means to get free things. Both people can stay true to their feelings and intentions, and have less chances of getting hurt, upset, or let down. If an activity or restaurant is too expensive for one person, then the bill should just be divided up proportional to each person's income. Ignore this part and the part about proportionate incomes, I'm stupid.","conclusion":"Guys and girls should always split the bill on the first date. If one person has less disposable income, then the bill split should be proportionate to incomes."}
{"id":"08757602-ae20-4f64-b9f4-e895687480a0","argument":"I'm ambivalent about whether prostitution should be 100 legal. For sake of argument, let's say that it's wrong and should remain illegal. I think that only clients and pimps should be punished. Somebody who pays for sex is giving unambiguous consent. At best, prostitution is a victimless crime at worst, it's a crime against the prostitute. I don't see any reason to treat the only victim of a crime as a criminal. Furthermore, if somebody is coerced into sex work, they have a disincentive to seek help, because they're likely to face legal trouble for the crime they've committed. There should not be any punishment for a someone like that.","conclusion":"Being a prostitute should be legal."}
{"id":"c7540d0e-4cf3-496b-88ad-f775b2421171","argument":"As the above headline suggests, Beyonce is a music artist. This is her only job, she has nothing on the side apart form cinema ventures, when we buy her music, she gets paid. This is how she buys her food, clothes and other necessities. Some may say, \"She is too rich\" she has more than enough. But, the point is as a result of her job and her produce, we decided we liked it, we bought it, we made her her millions. That's the whole point of a job, to make money. If music was free, Beyonce would have to go back to high school, graduate and go to university. Then she would have to start applying for jobs. Maybe she would go to college, do a vocational course, start her own business, get a job in a hair salon, who knows. The point is, music is actually a career, meaning a job that makes you money. Maybe Beyonce isn't a good example as she is already rich, but for a new artist starting out, their dream job would suddenly be unprofitable and they would make no money from it. They might be famous, but fame does not buy bread and butter. Download legally please.","conclusion":"Beyonce is a music artist; That is her only job"}
{"id":"bfe5f86b-00c5-416f-b3a7-e4f5bd5580bf","argument":"Reddit is a popular opinion website. The visibility and activity of a post is based on upvotes which come from popular opinion. When people are sharing in a popular opinion on Reddit, and someone disagrees with that opinion, that person accuses them of circle jerking. That implies that said post and it comments have too many people agreeing with it and enjoying it. This is meaningless on Reddit because that is exactly the point of Reddit. This is a big circle jerk is just the equivalent of saying this is a big Reddit post. At best, it is someone's way of saying I disagree with all of you. Either way, it is a pointless and arrogant disregard for the way Reddit is designed.","conclusion":"The term \"circle jerk\" is arrogant and pointless on Reddit."}
{"id":"ccd3f1bc-d9c1-4963-b8b9-c731a4fe3b8a","argument":"Here's the deal. A lot of times in debates about hot button political issues, you'll get people who say something like, You're racist, or that's misogynistic. Those are not arguments that disprove an assertion. They're descriptions of an argument or person that usually amount to a lazy ad hominem argument. I'll give a specific example that I see a lot on Reddit. Someone from r niggers will come into a thread and post something, and someone will go, WELL YOU POST IN R NIGGERS, as though that refutes his statement. No, I don't post in r niggers. Change my view.","conclusion":"Calling someone a bigot or calling something bigoted is not an argument,"}
{"id":"e04c8298-325f-4ba9-a12f-59b2c8c85397","argument":"Every human should have the right and means to decide when and how to die.","conclusion":"Euthanasia is a choice for patients, often supported by several health experts."}
{"id":"71c09bdf-86b1-428f-9d01-7c3142ddca4c","argument":"Ephesians 2:21-22 \u201cIn whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.\u201d","conclusion":"According to the bible, the church is not a building, but the collective body of god's believers."}
{"id":"67171baa-5812-4750-bae7-b8112fb61b5c","argument":"I don't deny that being a minority gives people some disadvantages and that there are still stereotypes and discrimination floating around. However, in recent times we have really done a lot to battle those things and I think people in America for the most part don't discriminate based on race. What I think is really going on when people spout about white privilege is the middle class and up that has more money, more status and more connections that make life a whole lot easier. I really don't think you'd find a significant difference in advantages between an upper middle class white family and an upper middle class black family. In my opinion, people only say white privilege because the middle class is mostly white. In America, minority communities are usually poor and live in inner cities. That itself is a huge problem and has been a problem forever. I think that if a white person grew in a poor inner city neighborhood, they would have hardly any, if at all, advantages over a black person in that same area. I believe the real problem is wealth and connections and not skin color. I also think this talk of white privilege just misses the point and doesn't address the real problem of income inequality. Edit I changed my view and am no longer responding to comments.","conclusion":"\"White privilege\" gives nowhere near the advantages as money, family status and connections do."}
{"id":"55b01a3b-4fb3-4e62-a71d-1b6535896e58","argument":"Please understand that I have no hatred for transgender people, and I will not force this view upon them or anyone. I have rather liberal views, really I'm ready to accept a lot of things But I have trouble understanding the reasoning behind gender dysphoria and all of that. I identify as my biological sex, yet I really feel more 'feminine' than 'masculine'. Yet I don't really believe in either term due to their outdated definitions and all of that nonsense. I'm not a very spiritual person. And I don't believe in a lot 'outside' of what we can percieve. Yes I believe there's more to the world, but I don't believe in anything beyond biological sex. Of course it's not binary. Intersex people very obviously exist, that's just scientific fact. I'm starting to go off topic here, but I'm not sure how to elaborate on all of this.","conclusion":"I don't believe in gender, other than biological sex. As in, I don't believe in any set gender norms\/the existance of a non-biological gender."}
{"id":"75b2da11-d306-47bc-a807-e3c952831d1f","argument":"I should preface this by saying I'm not a member of any gung ho gun owners group, and while I do have opinions on what the constitution amendments recognize as rights or freedoms I'm not interested in that sort of a discussion here. I simply think that until we can guarantee that criminals will only acquire their guns through the same channels law abiding citizens do, placing restrictions on what firearms which citizens can legally purchase only hinders the general public's ability to protect itself. I do see two obvious counters to my viewpoint There are certain individuals who are not criminals yet that if allowed to own a gun would quickly become one mentally ill, etc . I see the merit in this argument even though I'm not sure I agree with the principle behind it. Police should be the ones doing the protecting and not citizens themselves i.e. the we're not in a warzone argument. I saw an interesting reddit post relating that to owning a fire extinguisher just in case a fire breaks out in your house. That kind of sums up my thoughts on that. I assume there are very intelligent people on both sides of the fence here. Can anyone help me understand the other side?","conclusion":"Gun control is worse than pointless since most criminals don't acquire their guns through legal channels anyway"}
{"id":"7b5d4f82-7c95-4d1a-b821-1328cbcf1573","argument":"Many international contracts will lack the details to deal with a new customs border between the UK and the EU. Potentially reviewing thousands of contracts will take a lot of time, but re-negotiating them will take significantly longer, increasing costs and creating a large degree of uncertainty.","conclusion":"A hard Brexit will result in a legal and regulatory no-man's land with nobody entirely confident of what laws and regulations still apply. Disputes will therefore take far longer to resolve, bringing up costs and throwing into disarray trade relations between businesses."}
{"id":"f96c21d9-428a-4355-a6e8-5e689301b1c9","argument":"One of the areas is LEDs, where higher efficiency levels and modes are being developed to help out vertical farms.","conclusion":"With better technology, it will become more feasible one day."}
{"id":"61394a51-68c2-4872-81fc-eaa0a4c26b9d","argument":"Using a utilitarian approach encourages people to think about the costs and benefits of their actions in a way that a rules-based framework provided by a religion does not.","conclusion":"There are other, superior, sources of philosophical frameworks and moral codes."}
{"id":"bcaa9f39-79dc-437d-99bc-aef96036c9e3","argument":"This has been a recent view I've taken. In general, I consider myself a libertarian, with some odd left leaning things like being pro public healthcare. Being from Sydney, Australia, our housing market is screwed. A lot of young people have been locked out. Additionally, our taxes are quite high. Housing should be considered a consumable and not an investment. Over time, houses get older and become far worse, yet land value increases due to scarcity. In my view, all of Australian land should belong to Australian people. All of American land should belong to American people. Whether its a born citizen or somebody who migrates there legally and becomes a citizen later. I think that taxes should be lowered so that people can save, invest and fund their retirement without relying on property values perpetually increasing. I think that government should have multiple tiers of housing. Perhaps leases can be bid on, and the funds will go towards infrastructure etc.","conclusion":"Public ownership of all land is optimal"}
{"id":"baf3e787-00e8-421f-b98f-347b75b29b83","argument":"kant thought that at first a government may need to compel many people not to violate the rights of their fellows; but over time, as citizens come to understand the benefits of freedom, most will respect rights not because they are compelled to do so but because they believe this is the right thing to do, both morally and practically.","conclusion":"The categorical imperative can work on an individual level, but when applied to a society, it fails. The people would use Eichmann as a means to an end, and Eichmann would act out the collective will rather than his own. This function is necessary for the categorical imperative to be applied to government.libertarianism.org"}
{"id":"a58ddbb0-5732-472e-a0dd-44a4d72a09ef","argument":"What one economy needs to prosper may be exactly the opposite of what another economy needs to prosper. When countries have their own currency, they can tailor policies to suit their needs. A universal currency would make this impossible.","conclusion":"It would be impossible to design a universal currency that accommodates the different economic conditions and needs in every country."}
{"id":"102258aa-5c69-4a64-93f4-c13fb429bc2d","argument":"Mainstream drag has presented a sanitised version of LGBT history which ignores drag's role in gender revolt and sexual liberation.","conclusion":"Mainstream drag artists have neglected to channel the concerns of many members of the LGBT community"}
{"id":"d2b494f4-f6d5-44c5-8f28-372479b058a8","argument":"To gear up to be successful trading partners, developing countries often need to go through a number of key changes. As well as developing their own economy and their manufacturing or service sectors, they may need to build trade infrastructure in other ways. For example, increased trade would focus their attention on such things as good governance, the benefits of a broadly stable currency and internal security. Although such developments may come about as a facilitator for trade, in the best case scenario they may be seen as structural changes which will have a trickle-down benefit for the broader society in the underdeveloped country.","conclusion":"Trade provides developing countries with an important basis for their own improvement."}
{"id":"0332d343-33f6-4273-8f5e-a2c0d56ba7d1","argument":"I believe that politicians are good at social engineering but inept when it comes to defining policy. This makes them great at interacting with each other and the general stuff they do, but terrible at running services. Education, transport systems, the NHS UK obvs , police services and fire services would be better served in a similar manner to that in which a national central bank or military offshoot is traditionally run. This would see a genuine specialist in the field put in to a complete situation of power and, although they'd have to answer to politicians, left to their own devices. Politicians in turn would have their reach over the area drastically limited to such an extent they'd be able to deal with overall budgetary concerns and have some level of input to targets and overall policy without being able to directly set it all. I believe that with this arrangement, we wouldn't see services struggling to change every time a new political agenda decided to put their mark on a major service by changing the ways children are tested, amending management or procurement layers in a health service or similar. This would stratospherically reduce overheads from whichever service as they weren't struggling to keep up and should improve morale, productivity and long term output of the service. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Public services should be run by specialists rather than as a political football."}
{"id":"a0c1a8e7-2d8b-4c1b-8652-494bbb9693c6","argument":"Children survive premature birth today at younger and younger ages, demonstrating how arbitrary it is to argue life doesn't begin until a baby is viable.","conclusion":"There is conclusive evidence pointing to the fact that after conception, fetuses are alive."}
{"id":"864f7a42-35f2-4e20-8aa6-041d1ad11ee2","argument":"Fadi. \"In Defense Of Home Plate Collisions.\" Red State Blue State. May 27th, 2011: \"No one likes to see people get hurt. No one. But guess what: it happens. People get hurt playing baseball all the time. Sometimes they get seriously hurt. It sucks. There\u2019s no denying it. But that still doesn\u2019t make it okay to go off and make drastic rule changes to the game, just because you and your worldwide leader in smut want blog traffic. Hate me \u2018cuz it ain\u2019t sugarcoated, just don\u2019t hate me \u2018cuz I\u2019m right.\"","conclusion":"Injuries are part of game, don't justify rule changes."}
{"id":"c2ecbd9a-ede9-425f-8ed9-fbfb11659552","argument":"Despite legalization, the overwhelming majority of cannabis sales across Canada during the fourth quarter of last year were done on the black market.","conclusion":"Despite the legalization of marijuana, the illegal market for it remains robust"}
{"id":"394706db-6b52-4ced-b290-eb19d44d6454","argument":"Some vegan foods use more water than beef. In fact the food that uses the most water to make per pound is vanilla. Even chocolate uses more water to grow than beef. To heal the planet the consumption of all three of these foods should be lowered.","conclusion":"Vegan diets not only potentially harm our bodies but the majority result in eating imported, high environmental footprint foods, that require massive amounts of crop land. Good livestock husbandry can actually heal and protect land."}
{"id":"2b1b3c9e-3e2e-435c-8048-4eb7cdb974b4","argument":"To my knowledge, it is what's best for both the gay population, and those receiving the blood transfusions. There would be a wider pool of donors for when there are blood shortages, and we would no longer be treating gay people like they are a disease. It's unfair that there are heterosexual males who have unprotected sex with women who could have HIV, and yet all homosexuals are lumped together and the idea of a monogamous or safe gay man donating blood is totally thrown out the window. I'd really like sources wherever possible. Also,I live in the United States.","conclusion":"I believe that men who have had sex with other men should be able to donate blood if they are HIV negative."}
{"id":"d39dffb9-b2c3-4593-87e6-c8aedd525218","argument":"In 2010, a bull escaped the ring during a bullfight in northern Spain and injured more than 40 spectators.","conclusion":"In various cases, spectators have been seriously injured during bullfights."}
{"id":"f05c08f5-f7ba-43ca-9b66-4e8a498eb476","argument":"I am a progressive. I voted for every Democrat on my ballot. I'm only saying this to let you guys know I am not blasting anyone for lobbying and voting for issues that they care about. We all know problems are multifaceted. Both the system and the individual is at fault. Now that I got that out of the way. I think many of us in the U.S., especially progressives, trust the government too much to solve the issues we care about. To be honest I have lost nearly all faith in this country. Our government will never be perfect and will never fix every problem we have. I've started volunteering at an agency that helps the homeless in my area. This organization has been responsible for helping many homeless become self sufficient. Vote, lobby, spread awareness. That's great, but get your hands dirty and do the work your self. If you care about the immigrant, the lgbtq, the environment, abortion, and poverty get involved in your community. There are many agencies that are involved in solving the problem you care so deeply about. Donate and volunteer. If you see a need is not being met locally start filling that need. We need all hands on deck guys. Don't rely on the government to help those who are in need in your community. If we all decided to be the change ourselves we could reshape this nation from the ground up.","conclusion":"U.S. citizens trust the government too much to change problems. If we care about an issue we should volunteer and donate to make a difference ourselves."}
{"id":"2f00d510-35e9-4fce-ab9b-93427c638bad","argument":"Creation of a USE would contradict the natural human tendency to identify with the region one grows up in, which would lead to ultra-nationalist movements.","conclusion":"The USE possibly would also enhance national identity and separatism. For many people, the national identity is more important than the European one."}
{"id":"a953635b-8982-460e-a4d1-254b47374625","argument":"This is happening already, as seen in the pharmaceutical industry If we remove funding from science, then we have a chance of prevent wasteful spending before it's too late.","conclusion":"Scientific R&D is recently becoming inefficient due to increasing resource costs per innovative return so it may be better allocated to where it would be more impactful."}
{"id":"933b8035-b8fe-4a47-a66a-1763e0513028","argument":"In the US and most of Europe, I see no legitimate reason for protests to be anything but peaceful. No matter how just a cause might be, if something can be done via the legal system passing laws, changing existing laws, etc. , then there is 0 reason to cause property damage, stop traffic, or assault those around. I do honestly want to understand the mentality as little bias as possible. Where does 'making a statement' start to become 'making people hate us for destroying their city'? I'm not really interested in being 'pro this or anti that', but I do want to understand the rationale behind the idea that causing destruction to a city could help a cause in any way. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"There is no legitimate reason to riot property damage, assault, etc"}
{"id":"49ebf044-f60f-4a5d-b35d-375f1a0fe21d","argument":"The twin problems of AIDS and population growth are not a direct result of Church teaching but rather Catholics picking and choosing which doctrines to follow. Abstinence before marriage on the part of both parties and faithfulness within is very effective in terms of limiting the spread of HIV\/AIDS, as are Natural Family Planning methods at preventing unwanted pregnancy. Indeed the Burundian Catholic Church has gone even further and advocated compulsory HIV testing before it allows members of its congregation to marry. Good Catholics who follow doctrine fully are at a very low risk and the Church cannot be held responsible for those who simply pick and choose which articles of faith they wish to obey.","conclusion":"If people followed Christian principles; they would not contract HIV\/AIDS."}
{"id":"f5176228-2adf-41ed-aa50-8cd813275657","argument":"If the pursuit of freedom and promotion of liberty are goals of a state, then the laws surrounding drug use are incompatible with freedom and liberty.","conclusion":"The human right to personal autonomy should include the freedom to take drugs."}
{"id":"8f0a271d-cf24-4390-b1bb-7e34c1640cce","argument":"Inspired by this thread in relation to Apex Legends I mentioned this in that thread and it sparked an interesting debate. Someone brought up the similarities with Pokemon cards and Hatchimals, which are also targeted at children, and whilst I initially responded that yes, they should also not be targeted at children, I awarded a hypothetical delta to someone who suggested otherwise, that because of the tangible nature of the cards, and their real world value it isn\u2019t a fair comparison. Whilst that did initially make me reconsider the comparison, I\u2019m still of the belief that they target children with gambling mechanics. My premise is this Paying money for the possibility of a returning a high quality item is gambling. Children shouldn\u2019t be exposed to gambling and therefore any game which includes lootboxes something you purchase for real money that has set odds of returning different items, some of which are considered more valuable than others should carry an 18 rating. Edit this comment of mine, and it\u2019s parent, explain my reasoning in more detail. Change my view.","conclusion":"Lootboxes in video games are akin to gambling and should not exist in any game that doesn\u2019t have an age certificate of 18+. This includes both cosmetic and performance affecting items"}
{"id":"411d111f-c918-4eae-a58c-0d4b7aefc54e","argument":"Hi basically I am terrified every day by the notion that my life is passing me by. I am only 22 years old which I realize is young but I can't accept the fact that I will die of old age one day. Even worse, I will probably deteriorate in health then die. The way I see it each year is passing and I'm growing older and this seriously worries me. We're all expected to go to school, get a job, have a family and then die. I want to experience all this too, it just haunts me that this isn't forever. Help  please Please leave the footnote below the following line, but remember to delete this sentence by replacing it with the body of your post. Thank you","conclusion":"I am scared of my own mortality."}
{"id":"1ccfeb06-312b-4e5a-bec5-9806de985961","argument":"Personally I wouldn't do it myself because of the risk of being caught by the DEA, but I do believe there is nothing inherently unethical about the practice. If you believe drugs should be largely legalized like I do, then it would seem obvious that a doctor providing someone pharma grade drugs so they can avoid the garbage they sell on the streets is really a virtuous thing. Even more so if you advise them at every instance on what they should be doing to stay safe. The idea that a doctor turning a user down will achieve any kind of health benefits to the individual is laughable. Why should a doctor be bullied into doing something he believes is not ethical by the DEA? If this is what I believe in my learned medical opinion, why should the government have any right to tell me I'm wrong? Do the legislators know anything about these health issues? Clearly not. The true reason this is not allowed is the fear that it would result in a such a large amount of the harm being removed, that all the anti drug individuals would feel very foolish. And then we would only be left with only the actually good reasons to be sober, not the bullshit, scare tactic, artificially induced ones that so many people cling to. It's completely possible to remove the dangers with science and understanding. But this is a huge paradigm shift for most people. We tend to believe pleasure must be preceded with or followed by punishment, even though there is no law of the universe dictating it must be so. To realize it's not, it just often seems like it is, that can be hard to grasp. We're just too used to beating ourselves up for indulging. Personally it took me a long time to realize it wasn't so. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Operating a \"pill mill\" is not an inherently unethical decision"}
{"id":"d4a26197-bac0-4dcd-8011-8ece8610bda9","argument":"In any proper democracy, the winner of any election should be the person with the most votes. Yet, three times in America's history, a president has been elected that did not receive the popular vote. This means that every vote is not equal and that the popular voice of the people was not heard, which generally is undemocratic.","conclusion":"The electoral college is undemocratic because it is not based on the popular vote:"}
{"id":"9eec7403-b67f-4e3b-a073-7171d2aa071f","argument":"Little disclaimer this deals with US laws and procedures so I apologize if anyone outside the US isn't able to contribute, except to tell me how great it is having this in their own country. Last Sunday John Oliver's show dealt with this subject and chastised the US for being only one of two developed countries in the world without maternity leave that is paid for by the taxpayers. Here is a link to watch it if you haven't seen it yet Here is the gist of my viewpoint In the US, when a person is terminated from a job, he she is entitled to unemployment benefits for up to 99 weeks or until they are employed again. Workers and companies pay into this and, while many people end up taking more than they give, it is the system we have and it seems to work for the majority of people here. When a person leaves a job VOLUNTARILY, however, they are not entitled to unemployment benefits. If you quit a job to go to another job this is fine. If you are quitting to go 'find' yourself in Australia for a year, you better have a financial plan because you can't live off other peoples' money for your vacation. This system also seems to work well for most people. In the US, abortion is Constitutionally protected under a person's right to privacy. The details of the laws vary from state to state but there is no place in the US where a person cannot legally and safely obtain an abortion during the first six months of pregnancy. My stance is that if having a child is a choice, it should be one the parents must prepare for financially before making just like if they wanted to voluntarily take time off work for other reasons. We have safety nets for people who are caught in situations they can't control. This is not one of them. Being a parent requires the ability to plan and budget anyway, and it includes many expenses that people will absolutely incur that will not be covered by the hard work of others. It should start with planning to be off work for whatever time having the baby takes. I completely support peoples' positions being protected while they are off and, quite honestly, think that length of time should be extended from 12 weeks to 24 weeks. But I REALLY don't like the idea of taxpayer dollars being used to support ANYONE who voluntarily leaves work no matter the reason. Change My View. EDIT I am also against he government mandating that companies provide paid maternity leave on simple Constitutional grounds. In the US the Constitution prohibits the government from mandating this. But I would LOVE it if companies started doing it voluntarily and think it would be a huge positive for attracting top talent. But it should be between employers and employees to figure out compensation packages.","conclusion":"Women should not have taxpayer-funded paid maternity leave."}
{"id":"b5127e41-9764-49f1-91fc-6842dc86908c","argument":"The existence of a registry will act as a deterrent to potential child abusers. Pedophiles will be more likely to suppress their urges if they know that an offence will put them on a registry of sex offenders for life.","conclusion":"This kind of public control would compensate for the lack of auto-control of pedophiles."}
{"id":"655bdd50-715a-4a1c-b9f3-f663619d149a","argument":"From what I understand they subside almost exclusively on one food source bamboo , have few mechanisms of self defence, don't particularly contribute anything amazing to the ecosystem, and furthermore have a very low rate of reproduction panda viagara is still in development, clearly . If evolution itself is impeding them don't see why we should try to keep a sinking ship afloat.","conclusion":"I don't see why we should prevent pandas from going extinct."}
{"id":"dd65ec51-6dbc-493e-a6eb-e62ba8d5649d","argument":"This is my first , so forgive me if I blunder. Songs sung in round have certain members of the chorus sing, and then a short time later the remainder of the chorus sings the same bit, so that the harmonies match but words differ. My opinion is that such songs are irritating, and singing a song in round does not add any meaningful benefit to the song. This relates to the way the song sounds to the listener. If it somehow benefits the singers then that's good for them but that portion does not relate to my opinion. My view could be changed with an example of a song which is significantly improved by rounds, or a theoretical argument without example that would demonstrate how a song COULD be significantly improved by rounds.","conclusion":"Songs sung \"in round\" are irritating and songs sung in such a way do not meaningfully benefit from this."}
{"id":"b5f7ff12-9619-48c9-836a-71cb0d22237e","argument":"I saw the movie and felt like I had just wasted a chunk of my life. The only two scenes that were interesting at all were the ouija board scene and the ending. The rest was just people sleeping with the occasional noise. I can appreciate a slow build I loved The Blair Witch Project but Paranormal Activity was just boring to me. I doubt my opinion will be changed, but I just want to know why anyone liked it. I understand completely that taste is subjective, but it is beyond me how anyone could think that film was entertaining or artistically noteworthy. Also, please do not use the sequels to defend the quality of the first film. I want to understand why the first film was so acclaimed even before any sequels were released.","conclusion":"Paranormal Activity was a really boring movie. Possible spoilers"}
{"id":"cfa100e6-ffed-4030-970b-cf266d3a8ae0","argument":"My argument is essentially that the idea that a meritocratic society is inherently the fairest form of society is often deeply flawed, because of the inequality of opportunity inherent in most Western societies. A person cannot possibly demonstrate their true merit in a system that has not set them up for success. Yet, in the United States, the notion that, for example, our college admissions should be based purely on test scores, showy academic accomplishment, and a writing sample as the most important factors remains the status quo. The poor are disproportionately out of the best schools in favor of those who may not be more inherently talented or academically gifted, but were simply given greater opportunity, attention, and care. This creates huge problems in American society. A person's success is more often than not viewed as deserved with some notable exceptions , but this means that those who have not found financial success and the American Dream are therefore viewed as undeserving. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Meritocracy is so fetishized in the US that its flaws have become invisible, namely that achievement is often more dependent on opportunity than it is on skill or ability."}
{"id":"ea12e7d5-d504-4f87-9eb4-4a081dcfee40","argument":"This article shows that workers in so called sweatshops are far better off than the average worker in the country. Think about it, if the workers had the option to make more money elsewhere, why would they apply to work at a sweatshop? By refusing to buy things made in sweatshops, you not only drive prices up, but you also put the workers out of a job. When sweatshops close, the workers usually end up worse off than when they worked in a sweatshop for example, dealing drugs or prostitution . This video explains it more in depth","conclusion":"I think \"seweatshops\" are awesome, and people shouldn't feel bad about buying from them."}
{"id":"5037d234-0f32-4ff0-a12c-34711abd7aac","argument":"In Rwanda only 5% of revenues from national parks are shared with local communities. Gorillas represent 85% of revenues created for these parks.","conclusion":"The economic benefits local communities receive as side-effect from gorillas are marginal."}
{"id":"3e0c298e-33bb-4105-9d63-4e4fcd6a26a0","argument":"According to one study, driver error, intoxication and other human factors contribute wholly or partly to around 93% of car crashes.","conclusion":"Car related deaths are often a result of human error."}
{"id":"e1f7a9dc-7e9d-4857-8d1c-e4d8ec107cf7","argument":"Universally available preventive health care is more cost-effective than tertiary treatment. Prevention can reduce the incidence of disease, including communicable disease, which is beneficial to society as a whole.","conclusion":"Health care being guaranteed as a human right has societal benefits."}
{"id":"dc20810f-62b2-46de-8bcb-d67e51f57359","argument":"2b Given 2a, it is more likely that Paul used \u201carsenokoitai\u201d because it was the most explicit word available to him for a male prostitute, since the words \u201cpornos\u201d and \u201cporneuo\u0304\u201d used for this purpose in Attic and Old Testament Greek had been adopted in the Koine Greek in which Paul wrote to refer to men who resorted to female prostitutes or who simply committed \u201cfornication.\u201d","conclusion":"2: \"arsenokoitai\" The claim that arsenokoitai \u2018obviously\u2019 means \u201chomosexual\u201d defies linguistic evidence and common sense See sub-claims 2a & 2b."}
{"id":"5b9533c8-83bc-40c5-aa52-020c187b06f6","argument":"Hello all, first time post on . I've never been one for strong opinions and hardly ever firmly believe something is one way . Regardless of who is elected for President, it will not change daily life of greater than 60 of Americans. In my opinion, in an average 4 year presidency, they barely get anything actually accomplished. Between our system of checks and balances and Congress being Congress, nothing game changing ever happens. In 8 years of Obama, I can safely say the only thing that affected me was the Affordable Care Act, and that was minimal. No matter what Trump does does not do, or even if Hillary was elected, in 4 years my day to day life will be exactly how it is currently, except for having to hear others argue about different topics that won't affect me. I will disclose I'm mid 20s white male with generic bachelor's degree. I'm not opposed to objections being based on my view of the world as a white male. Just trying to test the waters of hearing both sides in a calm and intellectual manner.","conclusion":"This election will have no meaningful impact on my life."}
{"id":"4d5c3d5b-ba65-4063-a388-f48288051d79","argument":"The purpose of the Second Amendment - being defined by the \"militia\" clause \"A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State\" - is related to the upkeep of the militia. Rights are offered to citizens only in so far as they might enable the upkeep of the militia. Yet, no US citizens are currently in a \"well regulated militia\". Therefore, there is not present context in which citizens would have the \"right to keep and bear arms\"; there is no militia in which that context would exist.","conclusion":"No US citizens are in a militia and so none have a right to keep and bear arms"}
{"id":"29c37eb6-f27a-4b63-931f-e55c98673416","argument":"There was some regret for the execution of some 350 500 unarmed villagers. But mostly embarrassment for getting caught. And also embarrassment for the stupidity of lining up people in front of a ditch and then executing then when the job could have been done in a more sanitized way with airpower. Some of the villagers were killed in other ways, but most shot at close quarters. With airpower, who would be responsible? Pilot flying the plane? The Forward Air Controller who directed the pilot's mission? The Intel officers who provided the intel on which villages contained hostiles? Would there even have been a neutral observer on the ground to report bombing of a village? Reality in Vietnam was that noncombatants , including women and children, played key support roles in helping the Vietcong kill American troops. They planted rice and grew vegetables. Mended clothes and prepared medicine. Succor to the enemy. It is like this in many wars. Knowing whether villagers were pro North or pro South was a near impossible task. Some villagers were pro South but were raided by the Viet Cong at night. Their succor was forced. The U.S. tried moderate measures. Relocating villagers into strategic hamlets\u201d they refused . Evacuate suspect villages and torch them. Property damage but with minimal deaths. Eventually the U.S. declared large parts of Vietnam free fire zones. Anyone was presumed enemy and killed. Even women and children. Pilots often could not distinguish characteristics of people from the air. Destruction of villages from the air was actually much more common in Cambodia via B 52 carpet bombing raids. My Lai happened in March 1968, in the middle of the War, before the U.S. had fully expanded its free fire zone operations. Military leaders were also sorry that My Lai also turned out to be highly deleterious to troop morale. Throughout military history, most commanders have concluded even some WWII Germans that lining up and executing enemy troop or civilians who actively support them is a dirty business. Most troops hate it. Far better to kill at a distance artillery, airpower. In the years subsequent to Vietnam, the U.S. has been one of the more conscientious militaries in terms avoiding civilians deaths. In Afghanistan and Iraq, the U.S.\u2019s rules of engagement sometimes resulted in U.S. troop being killed. Our standard of restraint is far above that of the Russians in Syria. Reality, though, is that killing civilians in war is not only a reality, but often a necessity. Fully accepted by U.S. military leaders. This includes killing women and children. ETA To make the post more provocative, I assert that some of the Russian bombing of civilians areas is Syria is justifiable If civilians refuse to leave a hotly contested zone of combat and buses are provided for them to safety do so then their killing constitutes a justifiable outcome of war. They are being forced from their homes. Unfortunate but necessary. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The U.S. Military really wasn't that sorry for the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam."}
{"id":"013d2ddd-a2b6-42e7-a096-9aa9670450b1","argument":"I think that if you trust a politician in this day in age. You're either very naive or just plain stupid. In my opinion, we are facing so many problems these days. Climate Change, Terrorism, A shrinking middle class, and an ever increasing debt. But what has the government done to fix this? Nothing. Some politicians even deny that things like climate change even exist, putting blind faith before science and fact, risking billions of dollars in future damages and the future lives of human race because of ignorance. The middle class continues to shrink, the thing that gave the US its strength but decides to put limits up that only limit small businesses and barely impact corporations. Thus it creates a never ending cycle. Companies have corrupted Government so much that by this point we trust companies more than we trust our representatives. Politicians have IMO become nothing more than beggars, who will beg for donations and will promise and lie and cheat for power. And, Ironically these days, companies are doing more to help solve these crisises than the government does. Elon Musk, is advancing space travel. Whereas NASA hardly gets any funding anymore. Bill Gates is donating large amounts of his own personal wealth to aid multiple causes. Heck he has more wealth than the Government as is. Studies show that only 1 5 people trust the government to do the right thing. We distrust the government so much, we don't trust our own election and believe that it may have been hacked by outside sources. If you actually trust a politician to do the right thing in 2017, then I am sorry. You are either ignoring the endless corruption, lies, propaganda, partisanship, hatred, ignorance and straight up bullshit that goes on in politics these days or you're stupid. The government is an entity that doesn't allow true outsiders in anymore. It's a game that only the rich can play. If middle or low class Americans were allowed s chance, then I think that things would become easier. In my opinion, I'd trust a Nigerian Prince before a politician. At least the guy on the Telephone may actually be from Nigeria.","conclusion":"Anyone who trusts a Politician is either naive or Stupid. Politicians are unable to fix our problems."}
{"id":"d1dddde2-d7dc-40ab-a90c-192269884c82","argument":"The bar also assesses students on important legal skills such as problem solving, legal analysis and reasoning, and ethical dilemmas.","conclusion":"The bar exam tests a number of important skills that every competent attorneys must have."}
{"id":"3cef002d-d1bd-403e-8573-5354bd563c9b","argument":"Most swing voters lean notably left on economic policy. It\u2019s true of people who voted for Barack Obama in 2012 but not Hillary Clinton in 2016 and even of those who switched from Mitt Romney in 2012 to Clinton in 2016. This is something Democrats have an edge over Republicans on.","conclusion":"Trump focuses on the 'white' part of white working-class, appealing to cultural issues. If Democrats instead focus on the 'class' part by offering a coherent economic message, they can win over this group of voters."}
{"id":"80ddc47f-ba1f-4138-bf10-9bf5966ed697","argument":"When I was a kid, I pirated most games and movies because I had literally no money. A lot of people I talked about this said if you can't afford something, simply accept that you can't have it instead of stealing it. . I never felt like I was stealing though, nobody lost anything. What damage did I cause by downloading and playing a game I never would've bought anyway? No matter if I pirated or not, the game developer got a net zero out of me. It could actually even have a positive effect if I spread the word about how good the game is. Please explain how kid me was a thief that did actual damage to a company.","conclusion":"I think pirating media someone never would have bought anyway doesn't harm anyone."}
{"id":"6224eb16-434a-42d7-a83e-9956f62ab6cc","argument":"Vigilantes, by virtue of being informal groups, do not typically have the organizational structures or institutional balances necessary to produce anything resembling due process or a fair trial.","conclusion":"This means that it is very easy for vigilantism to slip past the boundaries of moral justification, as they have no unified framework to hold them back."}
{"id":"db7722fa-4a1a-47bb-b623-96ec084d32ef","argument":"In 1964, Pope Paul VI made a clear statement against communism in his encyclical Ecclesiam Suam \u201cWe are driven to repudiate such ideologies as deny God and oppress the Church\u201d.","conclusion":"Because Christianity saw communism as evil the Pope could not be an honest broker."}
{"id":"24a7960f-e07a-4e59-b01f-85d0a262a7e3","argument":"One of the purposes of government is identify possible threats to health and protect the people from these threats. The fact that some government regulations seem 'silly' or misplaced, or cannot easily be understood by lay-people is not a compelling argument for having no regulations at all, or for not having regulations in the case of trans fat. The commentators who denounce the 'nanny state' do not indicate what, if any, regulations or styles of regulation they approve of. Do they think there should be no inspections of restaurants by health inspectors? No regulation at all of food or drug safety by the Food and Drug Administration? Some commentators think that people should be encouraged to study the dangers of trans fats and make their own judgements about what to eat. But people have limited time to do research on such matters. It makes sense to delegate the research to a central authority, so that instead of 300 million people trying to learn about trans fats and every other lurking menace, a handful of experts can make recommendations based on the likely responses and desires of the average, informed citizen. Non-specialists\u2019 capacity to absorb information on complex chemical and biological subjects is quite limited. The majority of us are reliant on the research of others for most of what we know.5 The opinion of the experts on the dangers of trans fats is conclusive: trans fats are unsafe. The American Food and Drug Administration FDA considers all uses of trans fats to be 'generally regarded as safe.' This allows the use of trans fats in whatever way food producers desire. \u2019Safe\u2019 for the FDA means 'a reasonable certainty in the minds of competent scientists that the substance is not harmful under its intended conditions of use', which no longer applies to trans fats. This 'generally regarded as safe' status should be revoked which in turn would greatly restrict its use in food. The other option would be to allow local jurisdictions to regulate trans fats, but this would be more costly and lead to a patchwork of regulations.1 The most effective method of controlling the use of trans-fats is through centralised, nationally applicable policy making. The poor and young are particularly vulnerable to the negative health effects of trans fats; at the very least, the threat posed to these groups justifies the use of informed regulation. Professor Alan Maryon-Davis, president of the UK Faculty of Public Health said in 2010: \"There are great differences in the amount of trans-fats consumed by different people and we are particularly concerned about young people and those with little disposable income who eat a lot of this type of food. This is a major health inequalities issue.\u201d6 The government has a legitimate interest in protecting its citizens from harms that they are not best placed to understand or avoid themselves, and so a ban on trans fats would not only save lives but would also be legitimate under the government's role to protect when citizens cannot reasonably protect themselves.","conclusion":"The state should ban trans fats to protect the public"}
{"id":"11809e41-68c2-4393-820a-795310157fa8","argument":"This is certainly agreed by many theologians who broadly interpret the old testament as metaphorical, and in any case superseded by the message of the new testament. Broadly this includes Roman Catholics, Eastern orthodox and other denominations. See en.wikipedia.org for a discussion of allegorical interpretations of Genesis.","conclusion":"There is no factual conflict between Biblical creation stories and science. The Bible provides many passages that allow for evolution without conflict with a creator."}
{"id":"77e5a76b-e1f3-44df-bde0-d5ad7ec22aef","argument":"Humans are sexual and social animals. Romantic relationships facilitate intimacy and reproduction which are essential to the success of the species.","conclusion":"Humans haven't evolved as quickly as trends, so relationships are still relevant."}
{"id":"cddaec71-c1ca-4ca5-9394-befd1376315d","argument":"For example, in secular Europe, that can be observed in the tensions between Muslim and non-muslim citizens.","conclusion":"Religion is a perpetuator of conflict even if it is not the original source."}
{"id":"36026971-458b-49cf-a8fa-b9ff166cdb16","argument":"Allow me to clarify my view, as there isn't really enough space in the title to adequately capture it. I believe that, while some species such as salmon and tuna are essential food sources that would go extinct without proper regulation, other species such as the California Condor could easily have their niche replaced, and that conservation efforts to protect the condor are inefficient uses of resources. There doesn't seem to be any sense in preserving most endangered species once they are already endangered. Most of the time they are endangered because we already destroyed or rendered their ecosystem uninhabitable. So if their ecosystem is gone or is itself endangered, why spend resources preserving the species? Why not let the species die off, then use the resources that would have been spent preserving that species to instead preserve ecosystems that aren't so far gone?","conclusion":"I believe that a large number of protected species could be allowed to go extinct without significant negative consequences."}
{"id":"ac14d4f8-612a-41dc-970e-dba1b0f08325","argument":"I consistently work through many literature classics, and recently I finally made my way to Ulysses. I refer to Ulysses itself as a work and not Joyce himself because I believe him to be a very capable author. His Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man is phenomenal, and I believe a much superior work to Ulysses I'm illustrating a point, but let's not take the debate there . Perhaps, because of his style alone, it is worthy of the quantity of discussion that followed in the near century since its publishing. However, it should absolutely never have been referred to as the greatest book of all time, let alone a great book. There is a great deal of difficulty in trying to fairly gauge a work there must be a distinction between Joyce, Ulysses, and the fans it is natural for people to criticize a thing more if they do not like the followers or its position in the world. I have read it and disliked it, but the motives for its positive reception are somewhat of a mystery, so I suppose I have to equally address the fans in order to understand the positive feelings towards it. There is some good to be said about it. It has some worthy quotes, but nearly no book is without them. Every author has written at least one remarkable sentence, if all too often by accident. These are an incredible minority in the text. In the Ulysses Annotations by Gifford and Seidman, Chapter One, roughly 20 pages in my version, has 197 footnotes. One hundred ninety seven footnotes. Provided you even use these, they do little to clarify whatever is currently happening in the text. Even then, what on Earth is a book doing with this many annotations? I do enjoy relatively obscure references, but let's make a distinction between good pretentious and bad pretentious. I enjoy good pretentious, and by this I usually mean a handful of difficult references that complement or improve the narrative or theme. Bad pretentious is a sort of pseudo intellectualism, which is more pretentiousness for the sake of being pretentious. A quote at the bottom illustrates my point better. Ulysses makes hundreds of references to things for the sake of referencing them, as if Joyce entered subjects from an encyclopedia at random. Here I'd like to address two things a more subjective, harsher criticism of Ulysses and some of its admirers and the types of comments I'd like to avoid and negate. I will be making some small exaggerations so as to better convey some of my distaste for the book. So, then. One of the reasons Ulysses has been so admired is because it caters heavily to pseudo intellectuals. There is nothing to get out of Ulysses, and the admirers of it like to pretend they have a deeper understanding of it than others one of the merits of the work is that it caters to a superiority complex. The work is comprehensible , but only to a certain point the admirers pretend it goes much further. I respect the use of steam of consciousness, but it was not enough to carry an entire novel, let alone chapter in the free reign form Joyce gave it in Ulysses vis a vis especially Portrait of an Artist, wherein it was much more effective and contained . It's necessary to admit to many of the difficulties of this sort of conversation. Appraising literature, like many other art forms, is highly subjective. I'd like to make a point against myself. One question that could somewhat easily toss much of my argument aside is this Who cares if people esteem this book much higher than you do? As you said, literary appraisal is subjective. Why not just move on? The first point I would respond with is that I suppose that is just my personality I have read hundreds of classics and studied many of them pretty thoroughly. Many of the works that have been called the greatest novels are typically worthy of this praise The Brothers Karamazov, War and Peace, Moby Dick, although I think Dostoevsky wins out of these. Even the lesser notable contenders have some considerable merit to this claim. In Ulysses, however, I can find none of it. I would like to compare the work to many other modern artists, but I do not want to sidetrack the discussion. Quite simply, I'll see if anyone can reasonably explain the book's merit for a bit longer, as well as more research on my own. In a day or two, Ulysses will be left behind for me as an unfortunate waste until we ever accidentally meet again. Some final thoughts This post absolutely does not do my criticism justice, as it would take closer to 10 20 pages to illustrate some of my points. This would not make for a good Reddit question. Additionally, you have noticed I did not make citations. I do not want to make this criticism into a novel, as its length is intimidating for a Reddit post as is. If requested, I will make citations to better illustrate my points. Before these appear, I will end with addressing the obvious danger of citations. In a text this big, of course I and several comments will be making biased citations to prove our respective points however, I do believe that my criticisms apply to the majority of the text, and will illustrate this point if wanted. I'll end with a quote from Nietzsche's Joyful Wisdom that summarizes my feelings well towards Ulysses. He who knows that he is profound strives for clearness he who would like to appear profound to the multitude strives for obscurity. The multitude thinks everything profound of which it cannot see the bottom it is so timid and goes so unwillingly into the water. 173 Tl dr Ulysses is not a great book. Joyce's style made for an interesting experiment, but it was through and through a failure. The free reign Joyce gave his use of stream of consciousness led to an erratic, poor work. Edit I removed a few antagonistic remarks to potential comments that seemed inappropriate. As I mention in a few places in the comments, I am fairly new to this subreddit and I do not like how my original post reads. I'll just quote from a reply I left below I had tried this before in another subreddit, and was met with half assed witticisms as responses and little depth. I mention this because I feel as though it led to the more antagonistic style of my original post rather than taking a more appropriate scholarly approach. So, again, I apologize for strains of left over bitterness that can still be found in my original post. I am not too familiar with this subreddit and sincerely did not expect such fantastic responses. Edit 2 Since there is so much to be said on the topic, I'd like to direct to a few responses I've made to clear up some of my position. In response to AnxiousPolitics, I quoted a few paragraphs from Ulysses and pointed out some criticisms I have of them, and the remainder of the book would face similar criticisms. On top of this, users AnxiousPolitics and BonChicBonScott have both set me off in the direction of changing my mind I am not quite there yet, but I am much closer than I was before. I will elaborate on these points tomorrow. Edit 3 Returning to this for the last time of the night, I'd like to try something that would put me in a new perspective. I will try to find an appropriate passage tomorrow, but in the mean time, I feel like this would pretty much finalize me changing my mind considerably, at least If you can find one of the most difficult passages in the book again, I'll try to find a good one tomorrow , one full of the things I've referred to in some comments like obscure and seemingly unexplained references, lack of apparent chronological sentences an example, this seems almost necessarily part of stream of consciousness writing , cryptic or meaningless phrases not that the phrase itself is meaningless but I mean a phrase you would imagine I would find meaningless , etc and explain, justify, or redeem a passage like that, I feel as though I'd almost be necessarily guaranteed to change my mind. The larger paragraph I used in response to AnxiousPolitics is good, but not quite problematic enough. I tried to emphasize words such as apparent and seemingly in this edit in order to illustrate that whatever passage comes up would pass under such criticism by myself, but not to someone else that may see the work differently.","conclusion":"Joyce's Ulysses is not a great book, and absolutely does not deserve the acclaim it has received."}
{"id":"98c9f9c9-b409-48fc-9d19-ce3f18064f1c","argument":"A premarital agreement can protect the inheritance rights of children and grandchildren from a previous marriage.","conclusion":"Prenuptial agreements can protect individuals from potential harms in case of a divorce."}
{"id":"7c01a623-e7c1-4c8a-83b5-fd63b5185457","argument":"US by the way. This is excluding public figures who can publicize their act of voting to convince others to follow along. Also not counting super delegates who have 1000's of votes to their name. Anyways my point is that the little amount of inconvenience it takes for me to go out and vote, or even mail in a ballot, does not outweigh the impact my voting will have for me. Between research, filling out the ballot, and delivering it, I could be doing something better with my time like watching 5 more minutes of television or something. I don't find that between the 10 100's of thousands of votes that mine has any worthwhile chance of making any difference. Not even considering if your in a politically biased state or district. And not taking into account that there may be no good options, or miniscule difference between the choices. I do think it makes sense to convince people en masse that voting is in their best interest even though its not, since a larger voter turn out could help depending on what issues you care about. I also would be for legislation to incentivize voting with payments, or even fines if low voter turn out was shown to be a large enough problem to warrant it.","conclusion":"There is No Reason Why \"An Individual\" Should Vote in Elections."}
{"id":"5f13f178-d050-4ed5-9786-d095acde2474","argument":"I\u2019ll divide this into three sections and yes I am serious on this topic, because it pisses me off when I see the opposite of my view in action. So much so I actually wanted to try and express this in words. Firstly, I am a lifter that has been going to a public gym for over a year now. I do not claim to be the best or advanced, but do think I have the green light to be member of gyms, due to what my goals are and method of reaching it. I am currently doing a 5x5 barbell routine and have had exponential growth in my lifts, have cut down in fat, raised my overall muscle mass and am in the best shape of my life while continuing to get better . I will quit the public gym once I finish high school, buy a power rack setup costing no more than 3k in my garage, for convenience and to avoid the people I want to avoid. Now what do I mean by \u201cmost\u201d people? Recently within the past few years of me getting into lifting, I've noticed a lot of folk that do not NEED to go to the gym at all. What do people think of about gyming? Two things losing fat and getting jacked stronger. Now I think the latter, is a perfectly good reason for either a male or female to join a gym. The weights cost a fortune, are a hassle to assemble order and take up hella room it\u2019s just very convenient to have it all in one place, and for other small things like being able to get spotters if a lone lifter. Now I might sound sexist here, but I don\u2019t think it\u2019s the case. Most of the \u201cmost\u201d are women, because they have been brainwashed into thinking that forking out 50 a month for membership, for running 20 minutes half assedly on a treadmill, doing a random bunch of exercises with horrid form and being pussies when it comes to actually lifting weights unfortunately like the way some men only seem to do, will get them the slim, sexy bodies they wish for. But there are also the males, who are guilty of most of this, however I have noticed in my experience that men seem to catch on and get the facts quicker since they want to both, lose fat and get jacked like I did . This doesn't mean that men get off scot free, there are a bunch of gym idiots that are fat skinny males who should be tossed out bouncer style. What are the consequences of this? Simple. The gyms and supplement companies make lots of mulla. Now I want to focus on the gym here, but the amount of supplements that are bought for no reason, most notably fat burners, just makes me sick. These are also encouraged by personal trainers most of whom I think are hardly experts on anything fitness and are money sinks and gyms to \u201cget you those results in x weeks \u201d And guess what? These guys don\u2019t give a shit. They get their dollars and keep expanding their businesses, by maintaining the status quo of this overall ignorance relating to gyms\u2019 mean and average populations. I will say it now if you\u2019re fat, want to only lose fat, you shouldn't join a gym at all. Period. It saves time for the people that actually use it to the full and it saves these fat people money. It\u2019s win, win and lose for these gluttonous, scumbag companies. Might as well mention why I think majority of women don\u2019t want to learn about what\u2019s best for the process. The social aspect of this with some girls. They tell their friends they go to the gym and automatically it\u2019s like they love their bodies so much, when in reality they do nothing but waste money doing it. Now what these people should be doing instead is the following caloric deficit and cardio. Assuming a gym membership is 50, a year would cost about 600. Let\u2019s say X wants to lose fat, get a six pack ripped, lean, etc. X should go to a sports store, buy some nice and comfy running shoes and one leather skipping rope. That\u2019s what? 200? 300 together? Next, go to a calorie calculator online, work out the caloric deficit and model their diet to not exceed this number. Yes this method involves calorie counting, it works and I posit that those that claim to lose fat without this, do so due to the chance that their diets were switched into a caloric deficit. in low brow they cut down on the extra food . Add three four medium intensity sessions with the skipping rope or hell any cardio running, biking, swimming for 20 minutes a week, which amounts to this much number of calories burned and space this out in the week. And Bam, follow this for a few weeks and I guarantee you will lose fat, slowly and steadily. In summary, I know this might seem a bit scant of controversy and ill thought out in areas i'm tired af atm , but I just want to stress just how easy albeit lengthy in time it is to get \u201cfit.\u201d You don\u2019t need and hence shouldn\u2019t be buying gym memberships for this reason. 50, plus fuel, plus time to get there, plus waiting time possibly is just not worth it to use some cardio machines that aren\u2019t really that much better for the average schmo, than a good old skipping rope. I strongly encourage any female or male who does want to lift weights to check out 5x5 methods and barbells. No girls, you don\u2019t get jacked as hell because it\u2019s just not possible for you without AAS roids anyway. The amount of calories burned doing 5x5 or possibly any well respected weights routine expend so much calories, that I can say my fat cut was without a second of deliberate cardio. Unbelievable right? Fat is lost with calories in vs out, not cardio alone it just lets you eat more, in regards to weight loss that is which I replaced by being a dude and lifting heavy . So please if you are guilty of doing this, don\u2019t feel ashamed it isn\u2019t your fault. Do the right thing, quit the gym, save money and that poor machine or weight that you have tainted with your fuckarounditis. The reason I want a , is that I feel this position will shock a lot of people and want to see if any of you have any reason to support any random in justifying their ill conceived gyming, if their sole goal is fat loss. Edit None of you have offered anything compelling to change my view and im wondering how many knee jerk reactions there are to my title with no post reading.","conclusion":"Most people that go to gyms should not go at all."}
{"id":"8795ff2c-b31e-49bc-9729-f4d08357812d","argument":"The Lisbon Treaty made the Fundamental Rights Charter legally binding as spelled out in Art 61 TEU","conclusion":"The EU already stands for fundamental rights to the largest extend possible."}
{"id":"96464e30-8319-4d54-954f-02b75d100459","argument":"Figures suggest that the NHS Budget has spent a lower percentage of GDP every year since 2010. The NHS was sustainable until the British Government decided to reduce spending.","conclusion":"The NHS has a lot of money and resources, greater efficiency using them will help sustainability."}
{"id":"bfd3489a-6132-429b-b3aa-7e4848ae063e","argument":"The bane of indecisive people is picking where to go for food, especially for a couple. The most common play out goes as follows A What do you want to eat? B I don't really care A Okay, let's get Italian B No that's too heavy repeat until properly exhausted I posit that most people have been in that position before and generally hate it because it becomes a guessing game about what the other person wants. Rather than being the player solving the riddle, the one who says Don't care first or most insistently simply wants to release themselves of the burden to be considerate of others when determining where to eat. I am not saying they are bad people, but rather that Don't care simply means You choose, but be considerate of what I want. In any relationship, it is important to be considerate of the other, but there is an undeniable burden of cycling through what you know and balancing what you want with what the other s want. This isn't a super serious view, I do know what it's like to not actually care what to eat, but I think it would be fun to argue such a silly point. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"When someone says that they \"Don't care\" about what to eat, they simply mean that they do not want to be in the position they are about to put the other person\/people in."}
{"id":"28424c96-d010-4bca-afdb-86274a0d56fe","argument":"Robust and open trade is more likely to bring peace among members without the risks associated with forming a large federation.","conclusion":"Peace is possible without the USE; peace in Europe since the Second World War is evident."}
{"id":"70f9a135-4c01-40d3-922a-b1e30be4f1e9","argument":"Tom Cruise is a triple A actor. He's been in blockbusters from Top Gun to Mission Impossible to Tropic Thunder. He has a real range, and in every role he encapsulates whomever he's portraying. I have real trouble believing that the man who is able to accurately portray such a range of characters so well, which requires really understanding the characters and having a remarkable awareness of the world around you would then be the same crazy person we see jumping on Oprah's couch or talking about Scientologists being heroes at an emergency scene. It just doesn't make sense to me, how you can be that talented in a way that requires such an awareness, but throw all that out the window when it comes to a thetan count. I get that religious people can hold a dichotomy of views that contradict each other, but My main gripe here is that his job requires really understanding what's going on with his characters, like in Tropic Thunder he has to cuss, has to do a lot of things that being religious I'm not 100 on the specifics of Scientology don't typically allow. So I don't know, I feel this might be getting garbled, but yeah, I think you all can get my point. My theory is that it's all an act, Tom Cruise's modern art piece to the world to challenge himself after being at the top of the acting game for so long. He seems to have succeeded in his greatest work ever convincing the world that he's insane. Please .","conclusion":"Tom Cruise isn't actually crazy, it's all just an act to test his limits as an actor"}
{"id":"54ed41d4-4e70-4615-9ab6-00ec1af94ca9","argument":"STAR voting encourages voters to give real consideration to the relative strength of candidates they disagree with.","conclusion":"STAR Voting Score Then Automatic Runoff. Described Here: www.equal.vote"}
{"id":"496ea921-b243-4511-a00b-d96d1a864f58","argument":"For all the complaints concerning NASA's funding, it still receives far more funding than anything relating to ocean exploration, which explains why the ocean has only been 7 discovered. Additionally, the fact that there are confirmed rare earth metals scattered throughout the sea floor, the untold potential of oil reserves, and the potentiality of communities on or beneath the surface in the not too distant future all stand a better chance of return on our investment than the equivalent expeditions spaceward. The next frontier is beneath the waves, not above our heads. Change my view.","conclusion":"Any argument in favor of space exploration is even more valid for exploring Earth's oceans."}
{"id":"07f39305-7426-43f5-b522-cf337c041727","argument":"In patients with autoimmune hepatitis, African-Americans are more likely to have liver cirrhosis than Caucasian patients.","conclusion":"African-Americans have different presentations of autoimmune disease compared to Caucasians."}
{"id":"eff14fcf-bcd9-429d-9472-3db423d2c88c","argument":"It protects small states from big states You can win the presidency with only the eleven biggest states. x200B It makes small states more relevant to presidency candidates Two thirds of Presidential Campaign Is in Just 6 States here's the raw data x200B Electing our presidents via the popular vote will go against the republic A republic is a form of government under which the head of state is not a hereditary monarch. Literally anything form of government without a monarch is a republic A Pure democracy with still be 100 a republic. x200B it prevents tyranny of the majority And tyranny of the minority is significantly worst, because power is concentrated in the hands of fewer people. You don't prevent tyranny of the majority with tyranny of the minority, you prevent it by limiting the power the majority has over the majority. x200B it prevents California, New York and Texas from deciding the president Unlike the system we have now that allows Florida,Pennsylvania and Ohio to decide our president? except it's significantly worst, because power is concentrated into the hands of fewer people. x200B I can't think of any argument for the electoral college doesn't have a major flaws","conclusion":", there is no legitimate argument for the electoral college."}
{"id":"82dc5659-efd0-4ba8-8c40-b8db026333df","argument":"Theresa May has shown she does not have the leadership skills to be the Prime Minister in these challenging times.","conclusion":"Even aside from Brexit, Theresa May's tenure in government has been a failure. For this reason she should resign."}
{"id":"3fccd40c-0987-4ace-bb4c-39983ba6e366","argument":"Why should Americans emigrate? Especially for those in the working class, there are few jobs that offer decent benefits and a living wage. Those that exist are often in prohibitively expenaive markets, and unlike in developing countries there's little prospect of near term improvement. Theres also a neat loophole in US law where you can renounce your citizenship without gaining another, making you hard to deport. I learned it in r iwantout. Why the EU? It's more diverse than Cananda and more balanced population wise. Germany offers free tuition to non EU students, NL has a limited migration agreement with the US both of which allow you to convert to permanent residency and citizenship and most such countries offer country club benefits to all legal residents. Getting into the EU, even into some countries prisons, is far better than being lower middle class in the US.","conclusion":"The primary goal of young Americans should be to emigrate to the EU."}
{"id":"0d7e7806-ee2b-4ce8-8fc3-837d16ea451b","argument":"We often joked about these people when I took my undergraduate Mineralogy class. There are some absolutely phenomenal processes that occurs as minerals form and the results are stunning However, people mix fact with fiction when they buy in to the healing crystal mineral fad. I will go a step further and say that it actually hampers any prospective student of the subject by congesting the internet with psuedofacts about the minerals. Crystals are cool and look good on jewelry. They also are used in technology and are an important party of society. However, contrary to your Facebook feed, they do not have healing properties.","conclusion":"Minerals and crystals do NOT have healing properties, people who believe they do are ignorant"}
{"id":"4aa95d38-7b0d-4da7-8722-5796aca67aa6","argument":"edit i have to go now, prompt replies not guaranteed First of all I'm male and I have never been in either situation or know people who have been in either situation so I'm mostly talking about cases I've seen in the media and public reactions to those cases. Every time a cute 20 ish years old teacher seduces a 15 years old boy, it's the boy bragging to his peers, and the majority of comments outside of Reddit go like \u201cI want to go back to high school \u201d and \u201cThat boy is a hero \u2026 got to be the luckiest kid on earth.\u2070\u201d 0 This  primarily concerns cases similar to the aforementioned cases if unsure what that means, take it as sexual relationships of boys over 14 with their female teachers. Given how this never happens if it's the girl, I can't but feel that 1 the damage done by females is on average significantly smaller than that done by men. I'm in no way saying that 2 underage boys can consent or 3 the perpetrators shouldn't be punished at all or 4 it's only cute 20 years old women who do it or 5 there are no horrbile cases. I'm only saying that the 6 the punishment should be proportional to the potential damage dealt, and the punishment statistics should reflect it. As a counterpoint to my own statement, it's worth noting that 7 women tend to abuse younger victims\u00b9, but then again, naturally, damage probably should be age adjusted. Besides, women \u201csee the relationship as based on love\u00b9.\u201d Also, this article\u00b2 says that \u201cthe abuse committed by females was more psychologically damaging than the abuse committed by males\u201d, but the linked study\u00b3 only has 14 participants and doesn't seem to arrive at the same conclusions. \u2070 note that the while this article mentions the double standard, no attempt is made to compare the severity of damage with both sexes \u00b9 \u00b2 \u00b3","conclusion":"Women who have sex with underage boys should receive smaller punishment than men who have sex with underage girls"}
{"id":"a4bdca57-9eb1-4090-84a1-901460839b91","argument":"During their meeting in King's Landing in season 7, Tyrion discovered Cersei was pregnant. He loved Cersei's children other than Tomen and might decide to help her because of that unborn nephew or niece ranker.com","conclusion":"The series indirectly suggests he might have struck a deal to have Cersei's child on the Iron Throne. Thus, he might no longer have her interest in mind."}
{"id":"41948a7f-fd5f-4926-9185-db4087242946","argument":"In the wake of the revolution of 1956 some 200, 000 Hungarian refugees who left Hungary were welcome and embraced in all parts of the world.","conclusion":"The act of fencing off borders has been analysed as very inhumane symbolically."}
{"id":"ff9bceed-82fe-4c4b-b1ae-52809956162f","argument":"Fire ants are the worst type of ants and I'm going to prove that objectivly. They are super freaking resilient. They clump up into balls when they are in water so it's impossible to drown them. When it gets too dry, the ants simply dig until they hit the water table. They can survive to 9 centigrade They are an invasive species practically every where in the world. You can't stop them One bite does a nasty little pustle that stings for days, and can get infected. TOO BAD A QUEEN LAYS 9 MILLION EGGS IN HER LIFE TIME. Also, they are freaking ninja sneaky, crawling up on you in the thousands, perhaps even millions, then they release a pheremone, signalling them all to attack at the same time. They all bite and you think they are done? THEY ARNT. They bite until either they or you are dead. They cause a huge amount of damage to crops in the US They injure and kill people and livestock. They absolutely decimate any ground birds, lizards, other bugs, whatever they can get their greedy poisonous corrosive jaws locked onto. Psychologically, Can you imagine a giant clump of fire ants, LANDING ON YOUR FACE AND GOING INTO ALL YOUR FACE HOLES EDIT Worst from the point of view of a human, so not like it's the worst at surviving I rest my case","conclusion":":Fire Ants are the worst type of ants."}
{"id":"1ce9e42b-fc06-494a-ba94-abe76b8d1fcd","argument":"Although a rare occurrence, there are some examples of parents using surrogacy to have children who they intend to sexually abuse.","conclusion":"This assumes that families who have children through surrogacy will be good parents. This is not necessarily the case."}
{"id":"5a40286e-39eb-4c17-b806-b1b8a2bdc9e1","argument":"I know this is a reddit golden calf, but I'm usually quite impressed with the quality of discussions on this sub so we'll see how it goes. I understand that we don't want to privatize the internet and personal freedoms are important to protect. I believe though, that we should be more concerned about protecting ourselves from the internet. The internet right now is a sort of Wild West where people can say do what they want with no repercussions. This is causing people to become more polarized and threatening to dissolve our stable society. Yes, people on both sides of the political spectrum are guilty of this and always have been, but I believe it has gotten worse in the last 10 years. My two main issues 1 Scientific facts are confused as opinions Before widespread public access to the internet became a thing, people obtained their information from encyclopedias, library books, newspapers, and the 6 o'clock news . Your local paper would have clear, factual news stories, sprinkled with opinion columns. I do not remember nearly as many people being confused which was which. Yes, the editors might pick a front page story that sold more papers, but for the most part the story clearly laid out the facts to the biggest local event. Now, media is sensationalized. especially American I don't find CBC BBC to be nearly as bad. This has gotten much worse since the invention of social media and 24 7 access via phones. News outlets are trying to get viewers so articles become clickbaity, inflammatory and heavily biased. Humans are naturally lazy and most only skim headlines I'm guilty of this myself on occasion . It also seems many people have poor critical thinking skills and do not understand the scientific method. This can cause a lot of people to be swayed by pseudo science which has real world ramifications. For example, take anti vaxers. They are often mocked on reddit nowadays for being stupid and dangerous, but around 10 years ago it was a fairly common viewpoint. At the time, Jenny McCarthy claimed that her son's autism was caused by vaccines. Of course, she should absolutely be allowed to express her opinion about this. It is also absolutely reasonable for the average parent to hear this and think yikes could that be true? What is safest for my kids? I feel like before the internet, those parents would ask a certified health professional and trust them. Or, the local news would interview an expert who explained why the scientific study cited was bunk. Now, that concerned parent will turn to google dangers of vaccines . Without a scientific background themselves, the facts figures shown in this article and this article look very similar. As I think most of us know, this confusion led to a lot of preventable illnesses deaths in children. I propose that journalism should be a regulated profession, same as any other. There should be a professional seal on websites which use words like news showing that they publish only verifiable, unbiased, facts. The flare needs to be right in the title if possible. If they wish to also publish opinion pieces they of course can, but it needs to be clearly separate. For example, if Buzzfeed wants to publish news the stories should contain facts only, any opinions should be balanced from both sides and any clickbaity titles phrasing banned. They can have a separate site area called Buzz y or something that has opinions, jokes and quizzes. True news should be pushed to the top of google searches and featured as a default phone app homepage. 2 Hate Speech is dangerous Full disclosure, I am Canadian so not fully familiar or comfortable with the American ideal of free speech . In Canada, we have freedom of expression, but you cannot use hate speech, basically you cannot advocate for genocide. People should not be allowed to march with swastikas in public. I don't think they should be allowed to do so on the internet either. I am a big believer in the power of echo chambers as explained by this video. Given free access to information, the average person is not going to actively seek to change their views. Instead, they are naturally going to skim headlines, like biased unfactual facebook posts, and write childish retorts against things they don't agree with. This will only serve to polarize people especially teens young adults . Not to be dramatic but historically a society where a large portion of people unify against an opposing group leads to war collapse. A society needs to unify under common values to stay strong and we should be wary of any threat to that. I propose any post webpage supporting condoning murder or violence be removed. I do not think it should be a criminal offence, but giving platform to people who say all x people should be euthanized is dangerous. Young angry teens should not be able to google how to commit suicide or build a bomb. Ideally a universal group like the UN should come together to enact this, but if that's not possible it is better for a country to have a firewall to protect its values then allow dangerous ideas to grow.  if I am wrong in my assumptions about the increase in angry partisian views in the last 10 years, or the danger of said anger. I hope I am. I'm not a fan of slippery slope hyperboles I highly doubt enforcing laws that are already in place for other media will enact a 1984 scenario where everything is censored. I enthusiastically support rational discussion like this. I am also not a terribly eloquent speaker, so please ask for clarification if needed. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The internet should be censored in order to stabilize Western society."}
{"id":"f1d665c2-6a51-4961-b62f-fa8f4a9e0c35","argument":"For example, in Victoria, Australia, the court has powers to make permanent care orders in respect of a child if such an order is in the child's best interests with reference to matters such as the child's safety and wellbeing.","conclusion":"Parents can lose custody of their children to the state, and their children may be permanently removed, if the parents are deemed unable to care for their children's safety and wellbeing."}
{"id":"0998c27e-9144-4093-b575-d5db22d5b53e","argument":"In addition to being governmental over-reach, in the USA, this forced labor would infringe the people's constitutional rights to liberty and the pursuit of happiness.","conclusion":"Obligatory service is an unfair infringement upon citizens' rights to freedom and self-determination."}
{"id":"ed3eb01e-5ac9-4b03-a0cb-52a891cb239f","argument":"Putting clap emojis between words and \u201cclap back\u201d reflects a disgusting attitude about how best to defend ideas. When ever I read a sentence with these emojis the impression I get is that this person is making an assertion, and instead of being open to persuasion or leaving the door open for further inquiry, they are \u201cclapping\u201d to indicate that this idea can\u2019t be challenged. It\u2019s taking the symbolism of a chant or protest and bringing it to the internet. In philosophy, I learned that you aren\u2019t really playing the game of pursuing wisdom correctly if you enter a discussion without epistemic humility. You have to be open to the possibility that you\u2019re wrong. Clap emojis are always used to say \u201cthis is correct and the mob agrees with me. So everyone who disagrees shut up.\u201d Ugh. I hate it.","conclusion":"Putting clap emojis between words is a despicable trend."}
{"id":"abf6cda4-b780-44b8-ab6f-ccf3a21abaf0","argument":"Even veterans, oft assumed to universally oppose flag burning, support its legality: www.aclu.org Gary May, who lost both legs to a landmine explosion while serving in Vietnam: \"Ultimately, my responsibility was to support and defend the protestors' under the First Amendment to the Constitution to freely express their opinion, even if I disagreed with what they were saying.\"","conclusion":"Freedom of speech extends to non verbal acts. To express yourself in a creative way, such as burning something, is American at its core."}
{"id":"fae4751e-69a3-43a2-8c61-a3d8b4cf0c57","argument":"After Finn and Rose crash during the battle of Crait, they somehow make it back to the rebel base. How this is possible in an open plain, after being stranded in front of an enemy army is difficult to imagine.","conclusion":"Suspension of disbelief is one thing. But disregarding logic is totally different. There are various examples for that in the movie."}
{"id":"071ffbfc-5992-4789-8469-9a3a5138fa40","argument":"Religion was the spiritual framework with which early societies were able to express their ideas about morality and ethics. This allowed for the development and organization of complex systems of law and order which were slowly improved upon over time. We are now capable of extracting morality and ethics and discussing them as independent concepts, which is for the better, but one should not be so quick to discard the thousands of years' of religion that allowed us to get to this point.","conclusion":"Religions provided, for centuries, common behavioral guidelines for the society, enabling an organized and peaceful coexistence what constitutions and legal codes do today."}
{"id":"194bd3d0-af9b-4fec-a19d-f9477d428de3","argument":"AA is just a support group whose leaders often lack professional training They are not equipped to know when members may need therapy and\/or medication in addition to the group's help in battling addiction.","conclusion":"Alcohol dependence can have a variety of causes Therefore, group therapy alone is unlikely to effectively identify and manage triggers for all members as well as professional rehab treatments"}
{"id":"5144a903-a48d-4874-ab09-9263c56ab27d","argument":"As the pay gap is an average uni-variate measurement with no controls or error bars, it's not representative of the true circumstances, i.e. just because there is a pay gap doesn't mean it's discriminatory in nature. In fact, the evidence shows that it can largely be attributed to factors such as lifestyle and professional choices.","conclusion":"This source narrows it down to 5.4%, but fails to account for hours worked. This source controls for hours worked, which reduces the pay gap by 6.0 percentage points."}
{"id":"4b388d1d-0896-4d3b-b0fc-c4792726507d","argument":"Alright this sounds really broad but I\u2019ll just say this America has begun to radicalize to a point of no return, right no it looks like instead of liberals and conservatives we now have Socialists and Libertarians. This isn\u2019t a very good look as both ideology\u2019s have really poor paths that they can delve into Marxist Leninism and Laissez Faire respectively . However the somewhat silver bullet for this is Centrism, as while both sides are at each other\u2019s throats the very idea of Centrism requires cooperation.","conclusion":"Centrism is the key America"}
{"id":"131a607d-09b3-4262-bf34-3ecea91d1929","argument":"The premise of my argument is simple I would strongly rather not be in a relationship with a girl who's had a lot of sex or relationship experience. As a 25 yo virgin myself, I have really no idea how to perform the most basics of what makes a relationship right. We don't live in a naive idealistic world. We live in a world where people judge the fuck out of each other all the time. So if I happen to get into a relationship with a girl who's had loads of experience, it's fairly certain she'd be judging me pretty negatively as she starts realizing how inexperienced I am. I compare it to going out to eat with someone who doesn't know the basics of sitting down and having dinner at a restaurant. They'd immediately walk to a table, not realizing that you're supposed to wait for a waiter to escort you. They'd hold their fork the wrong way, be unable to stab food with the utensil, dribble food all over their clothes while fumbling around and trying to pick the breadstick up, etc. While leaving the restaurant, they'd forget to tip and even forget to pay for their food because they've never done it before. Would most people be comfortable with this and not start judging the inexperienced person? Maybe ideally you'd say Oh it's okay, I know he's inexperienced Not a big deal, he'll learn . But come on. From what I've seen, the simple act of eating at a cafe is considered so obvious normal that you'd wonder why the fuck this person didn't learn when he was young, like everyone else did. You'd probably be a little embarrassed. You'd probably wonder what was wrong with him. You might not want to be associated with him. That is the way I feel about the potential for having sex. At my age 25 , basically everyone I know has either been in a long term relationship or at the very least has had several sex partners. They know the ins and outs. Where to put things in her body. How to comfort a girl when she's crying against your shoulder. How to cuddle. How to embrace her in the morning with a surprise hug. How to eat her out. How to interact with her differently than you would with strangers on the street, or family. I have none of that. This is why I feel that the only way to have a successful relationship is to try to find a girl who's never been in a relationship before, ideally never had sex either. She'd also be equally nervous about the newness of it all, and would be more understanding. It would be two people fumbling around with their forks. Sure it's still a little embarrassing, but at least both people have empathy because they're at the same level. Change my view.","conclusion":"I only want to be in a relationship with a girl who is at my level of sexual inexperience."}
{"id":"57b7a1e0-4a9b-469a-a6a4-5bd8e79e7bcc","argument":"Among the lowest-paid jobs in the US, many include low-education and physically demanding jobs like farmworkers and laborers with a average hourly rate of $10.64, construction laborers $14.66 or freight and stock movers $13.39.","conclusion":"Jobs that require heavy lifting aren't well paid at all, neither in the metaphorical, nor in the literal sense. Therefore, this can't explain the pay gap."}
{"id":"6a9c3193-8851-4e9f-a68c-019c15ed5ba0","argument":"With in increase in school shootings, teachers now have the added stress of teaching children and also being afraid of them. They should be compensated more for this added risk.","conclusion":"Many teachers cannot handle the stress after a school shooting."}
{"id":"a8f08a61-0ab4-4173-914d-19e555172c2d","argument":"For one's maxim to be acceptable, it needs to pass the universal test: \"to assess the moral permissibility of my maxim, I ask whether everyone could act on it, or whether it could be willed as a universal law The issue is not whether it would be good if everyone acted on my maxim, or whether I would like it, but only whether it would be possible for my maxim to be willed as a universal law\".","conclusion":"In Kantian ethics, the categorical imperative must be willed to be universal. As such, simply being the moral will or experience of the generalized people is not enough Since these imperatives must be universal to allow murder, one must allow it under all circumstances and by all people not just toward one specific group of people. Thus this is a grave distortion of Kant's ideas."}
{"id":"a9453aa0-e358-4be1-997f-3b9ceaa84382","argument":"Actors think of their job as one that requires them to give ourselves over to other lives. They stop being themselves and start to think like other people.","conclusion":"The job of an actor is to portray someone that they are not."}
{"id":"43da1d6a-392b-4d52-a7d3-06a02f4c5377","argument":"Most self-employed people prefer taking their own decisions and often fail to delegate work, resulting in them being under immense pressure to get most of the work done.","conclusion":"Self-employed people are likelier to get exhausted and burned out."}
{"id":"22f83d59-94cb-4b13-8a65-ac3007123391","argument":"Statutes governing bias and recusal in the US require judges to step aside if they are at risk of being perceived as or of being unfair.","conclusion":"Being temperamental can also lead to a judge being perceived as unfair, making them ill equipped to decide on cases."}
{"id":"987729e9-0aa9-489a-852e-fe40e6776656","argument":"For example, facial reconstruction which is not medically necessary but allows the child to be more accepted in their community is very painful in comparison.","conclusion":"While there is some pain for infants during this procedure, there is considerably less pain than for more commonly accepted cosmetic procedures on children."}
{"id":"ecdbc4cc-a26f-4696-a2a6-1e037aee8955","argument":". Despite the image of America as a great melting pot, that is not really the case. America is a land of many cultures, where important and sustained cultural divisions between Americans persist. Assimilationist doctrine claims it is working towards a sense of one Americaness, but there are two problems with this notion. One, America is a land built on democratic difference -- different political groups can and do exist. Two, American assimilation has had a troubling history consisting of a dominating, white power structure aiming to restrict extending American citizen to all citizens, and denying human rights to all citizens often because of race or skin colour.","conclusion":"It is misleading to claim America is a prime example of assimilation"}
{"id":"7edb01b2-1407-4df7-b76a-85a63fc57034","argument":"Recently, ElectionJusticeUsa.org found that there is sufficient evidence for Election Fraud in the Democratic primary, to the point where they could even estimate the number of delegates it was off by 184 Their evidence is pretty damning, and I haven't even read it all. I'm also someone who has resisted all notions of Election Fraud. So I'm not 100 sure yet, still. I need to do more research. But let's say, hypothetically, it did happen. You still have one of the most obvious choices there's ever been in an election. An overqualified candidate versus a grossly underqualified one. Someone who knows everything about what the job entails versus someone who has no idea what it entails. Someone who has no actual policy other than conspiracy theories and xenophobia versus a candidate with one of the most progressive platforms we've ever seen, who still has a moderate running mate, who is experienced when it comes to working with people who disagree with her, and who, yes, has made her share of mistakes, but is fully capable of the task at hand. So if we assume that Election Fraud did occur, and that Hilary won the nomination by cheating, how does it change the fact that she is still clearly the better candidate by far? Third party votes accomplish nothing and I believe that they are morally irresponsible, I really, really doubt you can change my view there. Instead, I want to be convinced that Hilary getting away with election fraud in her own party is as potentially dangerous as Donald Trump.","conclusion":"Even if Election Fraud did occur, we should still vote for Hilary Clinton."}
{"id":"73aca715-5b73-4d11-adab-16c827955000","argument":"VR users will be able to easily find virtual love. This will reduce their incentives to seek a \"real\" relationship.","conclusion":"The quality-of-life on Earth may decrease for those who choose not to be in VR."}
{"id":"c8043333-9b1b-4113-965b-7cbcdbe625d9","argument":"Child labor was outlawed in the first place because poor children were working in factories and getting injured. They were also not getting an education. But times have changed since the turn of the 20th century. There are few factories left in America, most employ very few people, and most have very safe working conditions for those that do work there. Most kids that decided to earn money at a young age would not be working in factories. I want child labor to be reinstated because I don't believe a high school or even middle school education is necessary for every person to live a happy and successful life. In today's world, we tend to define success as the amount of money one earns but we know this to be faulty, we know that one does not need to earn lots of money to be successful and happy. Instead of forcing kids to waste years learning things like biology and chemistry that, while interesting and valuable to the right person, offer no value to them, they should be able to instead pursue training and employment in jobs that suit them. Kids could go to work instead as a plumber, a roofer, a landscaper, a mason. These are jobs that pay well and are in perpetual demand, and getting a head start in these fields would be desirable to them as adults. Most college kids enter the workforce at age 22, with tens of thousand in debt and only a bleak job market awaiting them. A kid that did a 2 year apprenticeship with a plumber starting at age 10 and that continued working as a plumber afterward would reach 22 with a dozen years of experience in his field and a decade's worth of wages, with employment opportunities everywhere in the country. The fact is that a carefree childhood cannot be given to every kid. When you have kids that don't want to be in school, they impede learning for those that do want to be there and get into trouble outside the school. It is far better to give them valuable experiences that will pay off later in life instead of forcing them into environments that they have no desire to be in at all. Now, let me preempt the obvious downside child exploitation. The way I would implement child labor to avoid exploitation is as follows the child and all his her custodial guardians must both give written consent on an official government document for the child to get working papers to do the work. Then, if at any time the child expresses to his employer that he is unhappy working or doesn't not want to continue work, the employer would be required by law to end the child's employment and report to the government that the child had declined to continue work. Failure by the employer to terminate the employment would result in criminal penalties. Change my view","conclusion":"I believe that child labor should be reinstated for children as young as 10"}
{"id":"9629bef3-c26d-42b5-97ee-4954062b1ad7","argument":"Religion discriminates, kills, and belittles, yet I can not see any way in which it physically saves or improves a person's life. I know several gay people who have had to travel just to marry, and that is why I hold this view, along with the fact that terrorism and wars are all carried out in the name of Religion a fact that I can not wrap my head around.","conclusion":"This planet and its' people would be happier and better off if man never created Religion. !"}
{"id":"261dc3ff-455f-46ec-b7b7-229819a8b483","argument":"I think everyone reading the title gets the general gist of my point of view. I do not think that doing onto others as you would like to be done upon yourself is 1 a rule that should be followed if one seeks to chase any of the generally accepted goals of life, e.g. happiness, love, wealth. 2 a rule that would only function in a society where everyone is a moral saint, and even if that sort of a society would eventually come to pass, it would not necessarily be the best form of society to be invented. I believe that competition between groups and individuals generates progress far more efficiently than the lack of it, and that competing in a field where one has to keep his wits about him in fear of betrayal breeds societies that are more adaptable and individuals that are capable of handling the shitty aspects of life that are often imposed on us, like natural disasters and diseases death in general. I think discussing this will only bear fruit in the form of a conversation rather than me writing an essay about my views, so I will keep it short and let anyone interested get to business.","conclusion":"The golden rule is not a good general rule for life, and nobody actually follows it."}
{"id":"9a24030c-4b20-4b0f-a0ed-d5846f849067","argument":"Today, the SCOTUS rules that public unions may not collect fees from non members on a mandatory basis to cover costs for collective bargaining. Fees are strictly opt in. For those who have not read it, the decision is here This decision creates a problem of free riders or people who benefit from negotiated contracts without contributing to said contracts. This is an issue. This was addressed approximately 40 years ago with the Abood decision. At that time, the compromise was to separate fees from dues. This was reversed today. Now, for the crux of the argument. The free rider problem exists for at least two reasons. First, the union has entered an exclusive bargaining role and as such, any employee in a classification covered by the collective bargaining agreement is automatically covered without an opt out provision. A worker has no choice but to be covered. Second, Unions have expanded their roles beyond workplace advocacy and moved into political speech. Public sector unions further blur this line as workplace advocacy can represent political advocacy as public sector work organization is governed through politics and elected officials. A union arguing for a work structure may be against the political views of some employees that the union is compelled to represent in bargaining but are not members. To me, the obvious solution to the free rider problem is removing the exclusive bargaining responsibility from the union and have unions advocate only for their members. Non members negotiate their own contracts and settle their own disputes with management. I am sure there would be some overlap with reusing contracts out of convenience but this would not be mandated. The union would have zero responsibility to advocate or support said person. This to me solves the free rider problem while restoring the negotiating rights to the non union workers and ensuring non union members are not being compelled to support political advocacy against their beliefs. Why is this not the solution sought? What am I missing here? I will reject these arguments Allowing workers to have contracts outside of collective agreements weaken unions by shrinking the size of the union. The well being or power of the union is not of concern if the union is trying to gain power by compelling unwilling participants. A unions power must be based on the service and benefits it can provide its willing members. Any reference to private sector unions. This is a different area of law to be discussed and I believe is not impacted by today's decision. In this case, I believe it is easier to separate political advocacy from workplace advocacy in the private sector. References to private sector unions are outside the scope of this . gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Given the Janus decision today, free riders are a product of union power consolidation and a consequence of exclusive bargaining"}
{"id":"f7a510c3-6788-44c8-aa86-21f8073e6fd0","argument":"While Life on Earth life emerged 3.5 billion years ago, complex life has only been around for approx. 500 million years. This suggests that the development of complex life requires much longer stable conditions.","conclusion":"Complex life especially civilizations requires a more limited range of conditions, making it less likely."}
{"id":"d120945f-3c17-45f3-929a-d0f412da2926","argument":"Mutilation of infants should never be allowed. If someone wanted to cut their child's arm of because of culture or religion, we would call them crazy and take their child away.","conclusion":"Mutilation is the act of cutting off or injuring a body part so that part is damaged, disfigured, and\/or permanently altered. Circumcision does just this."}
{"id":"91d4f657-c935-4a93-a842-b77530cf9682","argument":"Cameron failed to implement reasonable safeguards for a referendum on such a profound constitutional issues, such as requiring a 60% majority in order for the referendum to pass. This resulted in an accidentally win for leave voters that Britain was unprepared for.","conclusion":"David Cameron's decision to have a Brexit referendum in 2016 severely damaged the popularity of the Conservative Party and their majority in Westminster."}
{"id":"ffc74d67-b6b7-47ae-a846-e3b8bdcc9e96","argument":"Formal or technical criticism of a piece of art may not speak to the content of the piece at all.","conclusion":"The quality of a work of art can have no moral implications."}
{"id":"8c09db75-3fc8-41e5-8d27-5d5fc50ea7a2","argument":"This conflict is likely what is experienced in a real diverse society. It is better confronted and discussed under the educated observation of a professor than in the public without resolution guidance.","conclusion":"Students should be exposed to those diverse cultural norms, which will be carried forward into the diverse workplaces they'll be going to."}
{"id":"7e9bb516-6f92-496d-aa5e-b12297e1a5dd","argument":"I'm not saying a nation should go completely overboard with spending and go 50 or more, but every nation should maintain a healthy military force. The way I see it, investing in the military is like investing in medicare. In the best case you will never have to use it, but you can't depend things will always develop for the best as the saying goes better to have it and not need it, than to need and not have it. One can argue that we're living in a more peaceful era, but I'd like to digress. Look at Ukraine, the nation is located in one of the most stable continents in the country and look what happened there. Georgia before that, Kosovo. And it's not like you'll be able to get it immediately if you need it you need to train troops, arm them, get vehicles and aircrafts, those things don't happen in a day. Times change and you cannot be sure that you'll always have those several years to upgrade expand your military. One can argue that being part of NATO allows you to spend less, since Papa USA is going to protect you, but that just makes you subservient to the Americans, since then getting kicked out of NATO is a political leverage that can be used against you.","conclusion":"Low Military Spending is unwise"}
{"id":"73a1df0e-d986-4a70-96cd-70558aaab81e","argument":"From what I've noticed alot of people mostly men take it as granted that female orgasm is more intense than male. Where does this come from? The female orgasm is considered something mystical and tabu, and therefore it has to be better. Well, that's the popular view, in my opinion true tabu is male orgasm. Just type ,,orgasm in google and see how many results there are for male orgasm and female orgasm. Buy couple of masculine magazines and couple of feminine magazines and count how many times they mention pleasuring her vs pleasuring him. Go to the library and search for publications about each kind of orgasm. Clitoris is amazing because it has 8,000 nerves and it's only for pleasure. I agree with this, but I'm not sure why noone mentions male foreskin and its amazingness with having 20,000 touch sensitive nerves? Is it because in US you use to cut it ? Woman usually moan during sex and men don't. Well, yeah. If I hit Billy and Jenny with same strength, Billy goes Uh oh and Jenny is like Aaaoaoaoaoaoa. Does that mean I hit her stronger? Multiple orgasm. People still say this, yet they ignore the fact that men are also capable of this Dude, some women go crazy during orgasm with shaking legs etc. Have you ever seen men doing this? Yup, I did and you can too if you spare 15 seconds to google it and next 10 minutes to watch the film But there are some researches saying that woman orgasm is more intense Yeah, probably there are, but I've never seen them containing multiorgasmic man, prostate orgasm or anal orgasm. Because men just squirt from their weenie and that's it, right? Men can't match vibrators and sex toys for women, because they give the most instense orgasm. I have no reason not to believe this but I don't see why noone mentions this for the other side? That women can't match against men sex toys in giving pleasure? Why said researches never mentions guys with aneros sticked up their butt? I agree that average female orgasm is longer than male and that's it's easier for woman to have couple of orgasms during one intercourse although there are some who never orgasmed , but I don't believe it is more intense for them.","conclusion":"I don't think it's obvious that female's orgasms are more intense than male's"}
{"id":"801608f9-30ce-48d7-9816-41405b9636ca","argument":"According to IBISWorld pet services such as full service grooming, tooth brushing, and day camps are the fastest-growing product segment for the industry over the last five years in the United States.","conclusion":"In the United States the average annual growth rate of the pet industry since 2002 is 5.4%."}
{"id":"ea7b968c-32f9-44d7-bc84-cd814921c22c","argument":"First of all sorry for the abortion topic, this is a view that has been beaten to death. I hate read lot of conservative sites like townhall or fedaralist and there is an anti abortion piece in the site almost everyday. It's almost like propaganda to me at this point. Yet clear and convincing arguments for abortion is never presented. My anecdotal view of abortion is, if I were to get a genetic kidney disorder I cannot use the government to force my parents to give me their kidneys. That should be their choice and their choice alone. Without that kidney I would die but that is not the same as my parents killing me. Same way a women should not be forced to bear a fetus that is parasitic to her body. That should be her choice. Without the mothers support the fetus would die but that is not the same as her killing it. Until a fetus achieve viability outside the womb a women retains the right to on demand abortion. Afterwards restrictions should be put in place like a threat to the mothers health. Denying the right to a women her bodily autonomy I believe is a slippery slope. A pregnant women whose food , medication, smoking, alcohol that is harmful to the fetus can be construed as child abuse and pave the road for criminal legislation. Thats why I remain pro choice. I wrote this on my phone so there might be some grammatical errors.","conclusion":"I'm Pro-choice."}
{"id":"e8c17e2e-078d-47ab-ab23-2dd47a3fe02c","argument":"I think that we as humans have justified the death penalty used in some areas out of a belief that our satisfaction of revenge is some form of justice. I believe purely that justice should be completely blind, and that cruel punishment of criminals is not the goal of justice. For that reason alone I think that there is no reason for the death penalty to continue in any form","conclusion":"I believe that the Death Penalty is purely based on revenge and on that basis alone it should be outlawed completely"}
{"id":"42f2280e-0e7c-4f70-8258-f6b30ccd0222","argument":"We know that life has come into existence at least once, obviously. We also have learned through scientific studies that life on earth can exist in very harsh climates. We know that there are billions of stars in our galaxy, of which a very good amount have planets. Even in the tiniest percentage of the exoplanets we've actually looked at, we've found dozens of planets that are located within their stars habitable zone meaning that liquid water could exist. Multiply that by the billions of other galaxies in the universe. Even if the chance for life existing was a minuscule fraction say one in ten billion there would still be at least millions of planets with life. Likely very many with intelligent life as well. It's true that nothing can be proven without evidence. However, if we look at this probability, it's very difficult to deny the most probable existence of life elsewhere in the universe.","conclusion":"I believe that simple probability essentially proves that we are not alone in the universe."}
{"id":"61948bc1-36d7-4d2a-9e19-5139c845d983","argument":"Although at a smaller scale than a social credit score, the current financial credit score has not been abused. This suggests that a wider scheme could also be abuse-free.","conclusion":"Most countries already have a successfully functioning credit score, which proves the idea works at a national level."}
{"id":"58b9e917-a06e-424d-ac1a-ae15bc279aac","argument":"I remember discovering the Darwin Awards in the 7th grade and laughing at all of these absurd instances of death. Things like people getting electrocuted or shooting themselves in the face, back then I thought these people were doing humanity a favor by not spreading their genes to the next generation. Now that I've grown up, I view life as something precious which every person has the right to have. Because of that, I view the Darwin Awards now in a more negative light. The people featured on there were just normal human beings who were unlucky enough to suffer a bizarre death. Imagine if your close relative got featured on there The person you cherished so much is now being called an imbecile and basically being told that this is nature's way of saying that he she didn't deserve to breed. I view it as both sad and cruel. Seriously, why do we detest social Darwinists but approve shit like the Darwin Awards?","conclusion":"Darwin Awards are unnecessarily cruel."}
{"id":"934e6d58-5f24-4fd2-90b9-cba6a855d041","argument":"To produce an army of AKMs, thousands of tons of metal steel, aluminum, titanium etc., composites, electronics silicon, rare earths etc. are required.","conclusion":"Millions of drones would require an enormous amount of resources."}
{"id":"09c29253-1d1e-4642-95bd-894975d25bfe","argument":"The media is considered to be a powerful political actor without accountability - and therefore at times referred to as the 'Fourth Estate","conclusion":"Referendums give more political influence to the media, actors who lack the legitimacy of elected representatives."}
{"id":"cad8a0cc-7d34-4140-9ebd-acc60442507a","argument":"I'll go ahead and say it there are 2 trilogies where every film really gets better or is on equal ground with the previous two entries Lord of the Rings and Toy Story. And even Toy Story is getting a 4th film in 2019, so even that won't be just a trilogy any longer. My general view of this is that trilogies fall into two categories. The first is the series should have actually been longer than a trilogy, and that by making it a trilogy it cuts the story off at an unsatisfying end. The second category is that the third sequel was just thrown in to make it a trilogy when really the story is complete at the second film. Lets take a look at other high profile movie trilogies The Original Star Wars Trilogy I don't think Return of the Jedi is a bad film, but you have to ask yourself how satisfying of an ending is it really? It leaves a lot of significant plot threads just dangling only to be picked up 32 years later. Ask yourself this, would you rather have had episode VII be 32 years later or just pick up a few years after Return of the Jedi? I know for me and a lot of other fans of the series would have been happy with episode VII taking place just a few years later because there is a ton of stuff that Return of the Jedi didn't actually cover. The big issue simply being the Empire wasn't completely defeated in RotJ. Godfather trilogy This one is pretty simple, it just needed to end after Part II. It told a complete story going through the Godfather II, and a sequel just kind of put a stain on the series after that. Back to the Future This one is tougher to criticize because all of the films are plenty entertaining, and IMO are pretty even in quality. The detracting factor is that part III feels pretty superfluous, and I always kind of felt the ending was slightly out of character for Doc Brown. But more than anything my issue with part III is that it made me really want more. Why just explore the Old West with Doc and Marty why not go around to other times? This was a plenty fun movie traveling back to then it would have been cool to have them encounter other time periods. The Dark Knight trilogy this one to me is one of my biggest arguments against the scared trilogy format. There is no real reason this movie should have ended this series. Additionally it is written in such a way that no other Bruce Wayne Batman stories from this series could really even be told since Batman had been retired for 8 years at the start of the film. This was obviously someone just wanting another Nolan Batman movie, and Nolan simply wanting to end it all so he'd never have to do another one. So this falls both in the categories of it wasn't really needed, but also there could have been so much more. Instead we get a movie that has a story that didn't really need to be told and leaves us with an unsatisfying ending. Spider man Trilogy this is one where I actually felt like it needed to go on. I understand that Raimi didn't really want to do any more, but that didn't mean they had to reboot the entire series more on this later The Matrix These films were completely superfluous. Not to mention it hits on my least favorite trope of a trilogy which BttF kind of did, which is having that cliffhanger ending to the second film. My issue with the way the Matrix did it is that nothing of note was really accomplished in that second film. BttF kind of had this issue as well when you think about it, but for wasn't quite so obviously a zero sum game like Matrix Reloaded was. The Hobbit trilogy This is another example where it is just too much of a good thing. And I won't even agree that The Hobbit should have just been 1 film, I think it should have been 2 movies. There is actually a very good fan edit that cuts it down to 4 hours and 30 minutes, which would have made for 2 genuinely well paced 2 hour and 15 minute films. This I felt was only made a trilogy to milk the story and because this idea of a trilogy is so highly regarded. Now lets look at series that didn't conform to the trilogy format Harry Potter, A Song of Ice and Fire, ^^^^Twilight, The Dark Tower, Book of the New Sun, and The Expanse series. All of these have series ranging from 5 7 books. Have a very expansive mythology behind them, and even in their adaptations have been able to explore these relatively well. I'll also say that for the most part each of these books tells a fairly complete story. All too often trilogies get away with having a shit ending for their second book or film because its the dark one with the cliff hanger ending okay A Dance with Dragons does, but the first three ASoIaF fit this well . This whole second act second book or movie to me is a trope that kind of needs to die Matrix Reloaded, Pirates 2, BttF 2, the Hobbit 2 . A second movie can and should be its own complete story. Even The Empire Strikes Back, which often gets lumped into this category, actually does have this complete story arc that wraps up well Vader is looking for Luke the entire film, they meet and have father son time, Han is worried about being hunted the whole time and is finally captured, complete story arcs for the main characters of the film . But the real reason I feel like Trilogies are made is simply because directors writers get sick of making the same film in a series for too long. This is why Raimi and Nolan left their series. This is why Lucas stopped after Return of the Jedi because he was tired of making SW films at the moment. This is why Toy Story 3 and 4 were so far apart from each previous film. But IMO this is why with today's movie making model we don't have to just conform to the trilogy format. We can get film series that are much more expansive than before. Franchises like Marvel and Star Wars aren't being lead by a single director, but by a team of producers and writers. Personally I think they could make and episode X XI, XII, XIII right after another and actually get into exploring some really new territory with the franchise. I feel like if they wait and start another trilogy later on it will follow the same suit as previous entries. With the Spider man film franchise it showed exactly why these superhero franchise should just press on with each sequel. Even if they kill off a character eventually it will be rebooted and they will have to repeat the same damn origin story for that film, so why not just keep making sequels and really explore the character in different ways. In other words I feel like trilogies have lead to this really tiny framework of how to tell a story. Sure the three act structure is fine for an individual story, but usually each film should be its own story and never have I seen a film that is the first in a series that really feels like just the first act of a story. The trilogy limits really expanding the ideas of a series, and exploring the character. Additionally it will often tack on excessive sequels just to hit that magic number 3. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Movie trilogies are an outdated format for storytelling, and have rarely resulted in satisfying endings."}
{"id":"4e585a33-9000-4b93-8e4c-ef8182713c9b","argument":"Solid evolutionary theory -namely, Charles Darwin's ideas about evolutionary continuity in which he recognized that the differences among species in anatomical, physiological and psychological traits are differences in degree rather than kind - also supports the wide-ranging acceptance of animal sentience.","conclusion":"Many studies have shown that animals possess characteristics associated with sentience."}
{"id":"0122d15a-01cf-4a67-ba87-7ab2b5ea35f0","argument":"FACTS 4.8 0.7 of black white people are in prison. 27 10 of black white people are below poverty. 13 72 of the USA is black white . Summing the five most populous USA cities, 25 44 of the population is black white . ASSUMPTIONS Low income people are much more likely to go to prison than high income people. City dwellers are much more likely to go to prison than suburban and rural people ARGUMENT Adjusting fact 1 for urban populations by correcting the numbers in fact 3 with those in fact 4 , one obtains that 4.8 13 25 2.5 0.7 72 44 1.1 of black white city dwellers are in prison. Using fact 2 , one would expect black people to be 2.7 times more likely to go to prison than white people. Using argument 1 , one observes that black people are 2.3 times more likely to go to prison than white people. SHORT COMINGS Facts 1 and 2 , which are true nation wide, are not necessarily true when applied to just cities. I was unable to find more well suited statistics. Assumptions 1 and 2 need to be verified however, I could find no statistics that commented on them. This argument only considers the five most populous cities, which make up 5 of the population. SCOPE This argument does not comment on the morality or correctness of targeting low income city dwellers above any other group. This argument says nothing as to the events and policies that led to black people being much more likely to be low income city dwellers.","conclusion":"Police in America are Classist, Not Racist."}
{"id":"dd43bb9e-60cf-4052-ae64-680092eb1d0e","argument":"Morality is not something that just exists for individuals; it is a societal phenomenon. The ability of other people to participate in this societal phenomenon, and to reciprocate on moral duties, is why we owe them moral duties.","conclusion":"Reciprocity is a key reason we grant rights to others. Animals lack the capacity to reciprocate the duties humans show towards each other, and would show to animals."}
{"id":"7a7840fb-a9d6-4f29-befe-ec67360e09af","argument":"Article 16 of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Article 23 of International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights recognize that men and women have the right to marry and to found a family without any limitation.","conclusion":"The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights ICCPR is a legally binding treaty."}
{"id":"d3ea34f6-0dbb-48c4-9df3-164d1e538a48","argument":"Just to be clear, none of the below thoughts should prevent a person from being able to run for office, this just allows the public to actually make a more informed decision. If a person is running for public office, he or she is giving those years to the state. He she is obligated to inform the people of anything that could possibly arise during their term. There should be no information that is private for those running for public office. This includes all communication being monitored, save between his or her family. Communication to be monitored includes Internet activity, phone calls, and texts. There shall be no private meetings while an official is running for office. All educational certificates and all qualifications a person has should be verified. If they cannot be verified, it immediately raises a red flag. All criminal offences, including juvenile, being made public. Regardless of whether or not the person has changed since their childhood, I would rather an official who was able to keep control of himself his entire life.","conclusion":"I believe that any person in or running for public office no longer has a right to privacy, and as such all information on that person should be publicly available."}
{"id":"89217eb6-4645-4d77-9ad9-91c056f2a342","argument":"In the case Balley Singh v State of Uttar Pradeshand Ors India's constitutional court checked the compatibility of the country's drug laws with fundamental rights and found no objection to it.","conclusion":"Allow production of drugs for medical purposes, but keep a strict punishment on recreational use, while offering treatment at the same time, such as in India"}
{"id":"18b36c77-f01d-4ea0-acaa-c850f422e073","argument":"I try to only wear boxer briefs because they give support that's comfortable when I'm doing something active, and they provide coverage that briefs don't give. Boxers have too much fabric, which bunches up in pants. They also lack support which can make active hobbies ie running awkward. Briefs give the support needed, and lack the excessive fabric of boxers, but do not provide much coverage. The lack of coverage can negate some support, and means one can't make adjustments without no longer being in the underwear. This extra coverage is what pushes boxer briefs to be the best type of men's underwear.","conclusion":"Boxer Briefs are the best type of men's underwear."}
{"id":"f46c876d-40f6-43bd-a4a7-bf69830ff13f","argument":"Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was personally involved in brokering a political partnership between the Kahanist Party and its far-right descendant Otzma Yehudit.","conclusion":"Israel has allowed the Kahanist party designated as a terrorist group in many countries, to contest elections."}
{"id":"020b8640-e204-4277-8e17-ea2e0863c2d1","argument":"The state has greater access to money and manpower and consequently can protect more people than any group of vigilantes.","conclusion":"It is better to rebuild the state's justice that let other individuals and groups take control."}
{"id":"8d083d60-55f4-4742-8667-1035b8793159","argument":"Buzz Aldrin said, on the 40th anniversary of the 1969 moon landing in July 2009, that a return mission to the Moon would be only a, \"glorified rehash of what we did 40 years ago.\"1","conclusion":"Returning to the Moon would be an unjust act of nostalgia."}
{"id":"b12fe76d-5020-4775-a72a-bbd914b32fbb","argument":"Companies and their employees pay much higher ticket prices to attend in order to subsidise LGBTQ+ individuals.","conclusion":"Increased ticket prices exclude members of the LGBTQ+ community who cannot afford the cost of entry."}
{"id":"f12f5089-22c9-40f2-8989-fd090252e505","argument":"So my economics teacher, who is a former member of the Nation of Islam, took a question this week regarding the topic of reparations for African Americans. His answer took me by surprise but actually made a lot of sense. When someone asked if he felt black Americans should get reparations he said \u201cThe issue is black Americans would feel that it is a step in the right direction, while everyone else will feel they are now all squared away\u201d. He went on to explain that it would make people much more open to getting rid of tools such as affirmative action and diversity quotas I had no idea all the money the government sets aside for this until he showed us the extent of these programs if black Americans accepted a check for this. These programs also have no end date or stated goal, they are usually indefinite. To me this makes sense. These programs basically rely on the majority of people feeling guilty of bad for what has happened historically. If a check was written to black Americans, taken out of tax money, people would feel like they are writing a check directly to black Americans. As soon as that happens, people will feel the debt is paid, and have way less sympathy for future plights because they have already been paid for so it would be seen as a result of the individuals actions, not historical injustice  Edit For this view Reparations are a lump sum check","conclusion":"Reparations to African Americans for slavery\/racism would be in effective because AA\u2019s wouldn\u2019t consider it a final settlement, while everyone else would."}
{"id":"ef2ea718-1c0f-41c0-bdc1-6fbbd84bc3cd","argument":"Almost all Coors Light advertising has to do with their beer being nice and cold. Examples are the famous train ads as well as showing other means of delivering their beer nice and cold. It's all idiotic because the temperature of the beer has nothing to do with quality IT JUST MEANS YOU'RE PUTTING IT IN YOU'RE DAMN REFRIGERATOR . You also hear them call it frost brewed but judging by the posts in a brewing forum it's just a fancy way to say lagered. Now to clarify I don't drink beer and I know that advertising isn't always supposed to be super accurate, but anyone who drinks beer should see how stupid this is It may not be stupid in getting people thirsty for beer but it's logic is so dumb it should not attract people right? Maybe I'm missing something because NO ONE has ever mentioned to me how stupid those ads are and, after all, I don't drink. So .","conclusion":"The Coors Light advertising focusing on their beer being cold is idiotic."}
{"id":"b1160560-3d60-4c83-a973-d2bd2f732086","argument":"Trump and politicians like him take advantage of gullible voters promising to bring back these jobs but any attempts to actually do so will have far more negative effects than positive. For each coal mining job you bring back you are harming the renewable energy industry, which is a far larger industry, and for each steel production job you bring to the US through tariffs, you are harming industries that work with steel. The effort would be far more beneficial if put to use creating infrastructure jobs or investing in tax funded college programs that help people in dead industries train for new work in a different field. This is my belief and I doubt it will be changed, but I am open to expanding my mind on the subject. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Saving \"coal mining\" and similar jobs is a waste of money and effort"}
{"id":"a3f7af6e-32f1-471e-82bd-6116c9d02e10","argument":"Living with peers of their own age, round the clock, teaches children how to get along with each other and compromise. A variety of characters and interests must be accommodated, teaching children tolerance and compromise in a regulated environment. This can be especially helpful for working with university or company colleagues in the future. Furthermore, many boarding schools celebrate diversity as international students with different cultural, religious and ethnic backgrounds frequently make up a significant minority of the student body. A proportion of non-boarding day pupils, and boarding students whose fees are paid through bursaries means-related grants, scholarships academic grants, or by the state e.g. children with parents on military or diplomatic service overseas means that students are not all drawn from one class or income bracket.","conclusion":"Living with peers of their own age, round the clock, teaches children how to get along with each oth..."}
{"id":"f3eefb20-1edf-42b3-a0c5-15e343872fda","argument":"As an architect, I am very frustrated by endless numbers of very specific rules concerning visibility, materials and especially accessibility. I completely accept that public buildings should be accessible to anyone, but I spend way too much time designing huge, ugly ramps that no one is ever likely to use. I've also convinced myself that wheelchairs are a bad solution and on its way out, and that wheelchairs will either become capable of moving up stars, will be replaced by TED talk style Robotic legs or by improved surgery that we are basically designing our cities around a short term technical problem. Could someone convince me I'm wrong so I can accept reality and get on with my work?","conclusion":"Wheelchairs are bad, and we should not design our entire cities and public places around them Frustrated architect here"}
{"id":"89c659e8-5255-4384-8bd9-d234b57199c5","argument":"The right to bear arms is an archaic amendment implemented during a time when people hunted for food & there was no standing army, so militia & citizens had to defend. It was a matter of national defense. Now we have armed forces, law enforcement, security, etc. Yet more mental illness, population & violence today. This was a time when women couldn't vote & people of color were slaves and also couldn't vote. Currently there are no laws on one's mental stability\/proficiency before buying a gun.","conclusion":"The US should adopt stricter gun control legislation, in the form of the policy defined in the discussion info click top left menu => Info."}
{"id":"58d83628-bcc7-47e4-bfe8-fc39b1667008","argument":"Making ammunition more expensive and\/or harder to obtain means that legal gun owners are able to practice less, which means there is a greater likelihood of missing in an emergency situation. This raises danger to both the owner, and bystanders.","conclusion":"Regulating ammunition has zero benefits whatsoever on crime, and plenty of negatives on legal gun use."}
{"id":"fb561803-b2b2-4429-9401-f890bf093977","argument":"I do not think all kids should get awards for participating in an activity. For example, why do all kids on a baseball team get trophies just for playing? I think this practice ingrains the belief that mediocrity is not only acceptable but desirable. Why shouldn't that trophy only be given to the best player? Perhaps it would motivate the rest. Alternatively by only awarding the best achievers, the rest might choose not to participate and channel some of that energy into more suitable activities. Furthermore, I think this practice makes kids soft, so they aren't ready for their competitive futures.","conclusion":"I don't think all kids should get awards for participating."}
{"id":"df27d3ef-8b51-4d6e-a184-feeaf111766e","argument":"I've often heard that there is a difference between listening to an audiobook and reading the physical copy of the book. In my own personal terms, I don't have a lot of free time. When I'm doing something that doesn't require a lot of concentration cleaning, traveling I'll often listen to an audiobook. My mind is focused on the story, but I am able to perform chores etc. Essentially, what is the difference between a book you read and a book narrated to you? It's the same content by the same author. The main counterarguments I can imagine are 1 The main difference between listening to an audiobook and reading it off the page is the narrator images in your head as audiobooks are influenced by whomever is reading it. 2 Audiobooks don't require the same level of concentration as reading a physical copy of the book does. This might lead people to miss details.","conclusion":"Listening to a book is the same as reading it."}
{"id":"a9eb5502-131a-49ad-b88d-19566bf25284","argument":"In Chinese folkore dogs were considered liminal beings who bridged the span between the realms of the living and the dead.","conclusion":"Dogs hold a special place in Chinese culture and mythology."}
{"id":"8db6aac6-9187-48f6-92f6-29644ff14f1b","argument":"The possibility of a hard Brexit has already thrown a trade deal with African states into question, adversely affecting Kenya's flower exports to the EU, a major part of its economy.","conclusion":"A hard Brexit will adversely affect the interests of countries outside of Europe, leading to a fall in Britain's standing within the international community."}
{"id":"a365e754-062c-451f-87d7-b251bdf1efe2","argument":"Rehabilitation is for healthcare systems, whereas prison is only a holding area within which we keep dangerous persons safely separated from the general populace. If a person is in need of rehabilitation rather than imprisonment, that should be done in the context of the healthcare system. A better hierarchy would be one that effectively utilises outpatient, inpatient, and long term mental health providers prior to the need for imprisonment.","conclusion":"Rehabilitation is a worthy goal, but prison is a poor setting for it. It is difficult for offenders to observe and practice positive interaction with society when they are isolated from society in a concentrated population of offenders."}
{"id":"8767d5a8-c77a-4b39-bb0f-8344aa594262","argument":"Elementary school is meant to ensure that kids get the basics right, such as reading and writing. Programming is not part of these basic skills.","conclusion":"Understanding programming is not a priority in primary school. This should be teached later on."}
{"id":"5574e16f-b268-4f6a-a9e4-8cbf80b8e4cb","argument":"If the problem were rephrased, as a situation where they would have to choose to push another human or their pet in front of the bus, most of those that previously saved the pet, would probably not push a human in front of the bus, though this is a symmetric situation to the saving the pet\/human, before.","conclusion":"If that were a calculated decision, knowing all the resulting consequences, they might, but they do not and are thus not acting rationally."}
{"id":"cd59f742-aba6-4305-bd2a-9a4b7de95b95","argument":"Let me preface this by saying that I do not believe that most officers are bad people. Most are just good men and women trying to do a hard job. However, I believe that a minority of officers abuse their power and get away with it, and thus police as a whole must be held to a much higher standard than average citizens. This, in my opinion, is the only way to protect citizens from abuse of power. Police drive recklessly by tailgating, speeding, and weaving through traffic, and I can only find one instance of an officer actually being punished at all. Even then, he was given only 100 hours community service and a 3300 fine An average citizen would have lost his license for driving at nearly double the speed limit and would have faced jail time for leading a police chase and resisting arrest. Officer Tony Bologna wasn't charged at all for his assault and battery of two women during Occupy Wall Street. Battery in the Second Degree in New York is knowingly and recklessly intending to cause physical injury. It's a Class D felony. Nevermind the assault charges that would go with it. An ordinary citizen would be facing up to 7 years in prison, but Bologna wasn't even charged. In LaGrange, Missouri, no officers were punished after being caught on tape shooting and killing a dog that wasn't threatening them. An average citizen who shot and killed a dog on the street would face community service and a fine or even jail time for animal abuse. Two cops in California were cleared of any wrongdoing by an internal probe after shooting a man 12 times, killing him for turning around with a water hose in his hand. The police did not announce themselves, and he was not aware of their presence until seconds before his death. An average citizen who snuck up on a man and shot him twelve times would be charged with first degree murder. Put simply No matter the complexity of creating and enforcing such a stricture, police should be held to a standard at least double what an average citizen would face when it is proven that they violated a law. I believe that it must be this way in order to protect the rights and liberties of the citizens of this country. Change my view. EDIT Accidentally a word.","conclusion":"I believe police officers should be held to a standard at least twice as high as normal citizens when they are caught breaking the law."}
{"id":"246f4cf0-ddbd-4712-987f-609624ef2f78","argument":"In states where judges are elected, the likelihood of a judge affirming a death sentence were directly correlated with the local rate of approval for the death sentence.","conclusion":"Judges have a strong incentive to appear strong on crime in order to be re-elected."}
{"id":"d32bd1f2-95a0-43b2-b40b-454a182aeb10","argument":"The Directors of Red State. \"The Ground Zero Mosque Should Be Stopped.\" August 2nd, 2010: \"A primary talking point in defense of the \u201cGround Zero mosque\u201d these days is that it is not, in fact, at Ground Zero. Sharif el-Gamal, its lead developer, is now giving interviews in which he emphasizes, \u201cWe are not at Ground Zero.\u201d Saudi-funded Georgetown academic John Esposito informed CNN\u2019s readers that it \u201cis not at Ground Zero but two blocks away.\u201d . To begin with, you have to wonder where some of these people were on September 11, 2001. The entire area east of Broadway, south of Chambers street and north of Wall Street was a front-row seat to mass murder that morning, and much of that area was showered with pulverized debris mixed among it the bodies of the dead. Few of the national parks and monuments commemorating America\u2019s historic battlefields are so narrowly drawn as the defenders of the mosque would now define \u201cGround Zero.\u201d Nobody who stood within that area that day would say that 51 Park Place is not within the location of the September 11 attacks.\"","conclusion":"Park51 is certainly within broad attack zone of ground zero."}
{"id":"3f084fc0-56d4-4516-a7bb-1acd100e540a","argument":"As an absolute layperson when it comes to urban development and planning, I\u2019ve read some articles that say this bill is a pretty solid start to ending the CA housing crisis. I work two jobs to put half my income into rent, so I just want some relief. I\u2019m not even in the Bay Area where the median home price is 1.5 million, but I am in NorCal. I know I\u2019ll probably never own property. I love California. I was born here and have lived within 200 miles of my birthplace my entire life. Is this the best solution? Is it better than doing nothing? Or am I going to have to pack my bags someday and say goodbye to the Golden State?","conclusion":"California bill SB-827 would solve the state\u2019s housing crisis by allowing new housing to be built near transit hubs without local height, size, and design restrictions."}
{"id":"4d984829-7c49-4be6-b2dc-d9e79ac81f40","argument":"This mostly relates to college acceptance and similar practices. People should not be accepted into a college because of their race or sex, whether they are a minority or majority. As a college is an academic environment, the one thing that should matter is performance. I felt uncomfortable answering what race I was on entrance exams for this very reason. Even though they give you an option of choose not to answer, the only people with the incentive to choose that option would obviously be the ones at the disadvantage if they answer truthfully.","conclusion":"I believe that Affirmative Action should not exist."}
{"id":"31455437-714a-4ca7-88a4-749da0bce8bb","argument":"Massive Open Online Courses MOOCs like Edx are free and available to anyone who wants to advance their education at any level of study.","conclusion":"Knowledge has never been more free than it already is today."}
{"id":"ba4cb8d2-a812-4507-93d4-4e0403fec8af","argument":"There is no significant correlation between capital punishment and homicide rates. Ranking all 147 countries for which data was available in terms of homicide rate, and comparing this to whether the penalty existed or not, yielded a weak positive correlation of 0.2. This means that there is some correlation between imposing the death penalty and having higher homicide rates, but this correlation is in fact weak to bordering on insignificance.","conclusion":"There remains no evidence that capital punishment effectively deters violent crime."}
{"id":"941b6531-c161-4120-b0ab-5c0987547d6f","argument":"The US has provided Saudi Arabia with $58 billion of aid between 2009 and 2015 in order to have influence over the largest exporter of oil in the world, and the most important member of OPEC, the bloc that controls 40 percent of the worlds oil.","conclusion":"At times, donor states have to support recipient states in order to further regional security interests. Support of democratisation does not always trump other foreign policy interests."}
{"id":"81df6d5b-7485-4639-b4d5-87c5b560a5fd","argument":"Movements are now encouraging people to curate their social media feed so as to block out harmful content, and instead replace it with body-positive content.","conclusion":"Social media itself is not the problem, but how it is used; as such, it cannot be blamed for exacerbating eating disorders."}
{"id":"d6fafe92-4a5e-4acb-8971-91a85edc6004","argument":"Airlines have been consistently moving seats closer and closer together for years, in order to for more seats on a plane. I'm fine with this, as it probably helps reduce ticket costs, and make it more affordable to fly. However, airplane seats in coach average 29 31 inches from seatback to seatback. These seats should not be capable of reclining. 30 inches is already tight, especially if you are tall. The person in front of you reclining into your spot can make a long flight extremely uncomfortable. By reclining in a plane seat, you are inherently invading the space of the person behind you. For first class, or even economy plus, where there is extra space, I see no real issue with reclining. If you really need to recline during a flight, you can buy a better ticket. The only counter argument I can think of is that not all flights are completely full, and it can be nice to recline if no one is in the seat behind you. I'm open to having my mind changed, but I don't know what it's going to take.","conclusion":"Airplane seats, specifically those in coach should not be capable of reclining."}
{"id":"876de814-38eb-4442-8726-824dadc4140d","argument":"With higher alcohol age limits, young people in the UK and US find it harder to get alcohol and so binge-drink when they do. This is not only harmful to them but creates a damaging attitude towards alcohol which continues into their later lives.","conclusion":"When it is harder to get alcohol, young people binge drink."}
{"id":"d2eea2c2-3b1e-4327-b236-4cda842eeff3","argument":"Punishments like jail are only used in very unusual cases. Parents who are really making an effort to work with their kids\u2019 school, and trying to get their child into the classroom are not being picked on. Courts are not at all keen on sending people to prison, and use other punishments if at all possible. This means that the policy is applied sensitively \u2013 jail is only used for hardened offenders who do not care.","conclusion":"Punishments like jail are only used in very unusual cases. Parents who are really making an effort ..."}
{"id":"56606374-696e-4e5d-b3ab-24b627adfe05","argument":"As a web developer I am pro net neutrality for many reasons. I open source much of my work and use openly accessible and free services on a daily basis The thought that I could develop my own ground breaking application without constantly worrying about paying for faster speed on my site is appealing. As a consumer I use mostly free or really cheap services some are hosted on a server that I manage. I work for a large company and we use our own internal Network or AWS, so from this viewpoint the company I work for is likely to benefit or at least not receive as negative an impact if net neutrality was taken away however, I'd argue that open source is becoming a development standard, so changes to net neutrality are still likely to impact the company negatively. I understand that there are Title II regulations that impose heavy economic regulations on Internet service providers, but it seems like a dishonest argument to assume that ISPs would not take advantage of consumers ex Verizon blocking Google Wallet . A quote from John Oliver that sums up my viewpoint If we let cable companies offer two speeds of service, they won't be Usain Bolt and Usain Bolt on a motorbike. They will be Usain Bolt, and Usain bolted to an anchor.","conclusion":"Pro Net Neutrality"}
{"id":"b1d1f457-86c6-4e37-830d-0c285432ffe6","argument":"first time poster, sorry if formatting isn't correct I have met several travelers in my life that have the philosophy that if you trust the universe , it will provide. They usually consider themselves more loving, open minded and spiritual than others. To me, me they are 1 more close minded than most because they don't understand that if you are being consciously blessed by good fortune, others must be consciously cursed and inherently imply that they are deserving of their circumstances, good or bad. 2 naive to believe the universe will just take care of them because they are sending out positive vibrations . No. Bad things happen for no reason too. Thinking happy thoughts will not protect you from the chaos. 3 arrogant and or entitled to rely on the generosity of others for transportation, shelter, entertainment or other resources. I feel like I am being the asshole for judging these people because I too have travelled with little, but never have I expected anyone to accommodate or feed me for free or blindly trusted in my luck to get by. Please share your view and hopefully I can come to understand this mindset.","conclusion":"\"Trusting in the Universe\" and \"Relying on the kindness of others\" while traveling isn't spiritual, it's arrogant and entitled."}
{"id":"d3081fee-4312-458a-a042-4d03e9aae5bf","argument":"America has a 33.5 times higher homicide rate than the the eleventh from the bottom. The lowest ten apparently don't have homicides. But the top only has a 15.5 times higer murder rate than America and second place is only 10.5 times higher than America. Looking at it as an expenential graph and seeing the comparisons in fractions makes America look closer to the top than it is to the bottom.","conclusion":"On the linked list, the US is 90th in murder rate out of 219 countries, between Sudan and Ecuador. For context, the United Kingdom's murder rate is 4.45 times smaller than the US's. There is no world where the US is more comparable developmentally and societally to Sudan and Ecuador than the UK."}
{"id":"d31a1400-ce52-428e-a81b-9f0fcd5de31e","argument":"Some 'rescuers' of pets foster the industry that they're supposed to be against, by trying to 'rescue' pets that don't really need rescuing.","conclusion":"Animals suffer for the periods of substandard living more than joy in their life, which isn't beneficial to their lives."}
{"id":"67fd0f17-4ef9-4b05-84fe-5f260da9ede9","argument":"There is no point holding on in such a situation for the sake of a principle.","conclusion":"If marriage comes to lack love and happiness then it should end:"}
{"id":"424ea9c5-9cac-4e02-b8ad-afb106711434","argument":"TL DR You can think having an abortion is unethical and still think that nobody other than the pregnant woman has a right to decide whether she can have an abortion or not. I'm Irish, I live in Ireland. Abortion is effectively banned in this country due to our constitution equating the life of the unborn with the life of the mother. This year the Irish government will give its citizens the chance to vote to change things so that abortion may be accessible without restriction up to 12 weeks the exact wording of what we'll vote on hasn't been decided yet, but it'll probably be something like the above. So as you can imagine, highly divisive conversations debates are very topical at the moment in Ireland. I have always found this issue to very ethically complex, but for a very long time I have come down on thinking that while I am not comfortable emotionally with the idea of the unborn humans at a VERY early stage of their life in my view being unnecessarily killed, I think women should be allowed access abortion services and be the ones who decide what to do with their pregnancies. One of the reasons I believe the State should grant women the access is because I have never been able to argue or heard a convincing argument that shows how the State is justified in denying women access to abortion. Saying killing unborn babies is wrong may pull at people's emotional intuitions but it doesn't answer the question of how can the State justify impinging on women's rights, such as full autonomy over their own bodies, and access to a safe way of terminating their pregnancies. I find that so many people, particularly people who oppose permitting access to abortion services CONFLATE the issue of women's right to choose with the issue of is terminating a pregnancy in this particular case ethical? . These two issues are obviously highly related to one another but I think there is an important distinction between the State's right to deny something from its citizens and the ethical use or misuse of that thing. I could say more but I fear this post is already too long. I did say I found this issue very complex","conclusion":"Abortion may be unethical in certain circumstances, but a Government or any group of people has no right to dictate whether a woman goes through with her pregnancies or not."}
{"id":"e958d44a-ab2b-4ec6-a8b5-4f657795a546","argument":"It seems to be a big concern on everyones mind that the Ukraine crisis will eventually develop into a new cold war between Russia and the west. I think that this fear is overstated in the modern world, and that although tensions may rise and diplomacy might diminish, it won't be on par with the cold war in terms of alienation, hostility, or military buildup economic competition. Firstly, I believe that the world is too integrated in the 21st century to allow such a vast region as Russia to alienate itself from the west. The Internet, resource trades, and currency markets hold influence on the actions of any nation. Internet allows people to communicate over vast distances and spread cultural ideas globally. It's also not usually foolproof when a government restricts internet access to its citizens, unless they make it a priority, as happens in China. Resource trading, specifically oil and natural gas, make up a big part of Russia's economy, and removing the income gained from oil would be disastrous for those regions of Russia's economy if they can't find new trading partners that haven't boycotted them. Even the Ruble, which is already facing devaluation as a result of the crisis, can't hold out forever without suffering a currency crash brought on by withdrawing from the international scene. Too much withdrawl, and Russians wouldn't be able to exchange their currency for much more than nickels and dimes should they ever go abroad. In general, I don't think it's beneficial nor likely for Russia to go down the path of withdrawal. I also wouldn't be surprised if the Russian public, especially the elites who have so much to lose, get a feeling of disenfranchisement, and eventually rebel against Putin and his military policies, after which the conflict could probably be resolved with a more diplomatic solution. I want to hear reasons as to why the conflict could take an entirely different turn, and actually lead us into a new cold war world war with Russia and its closer allies.","conclusion":"The crisis in Ukraine will NOT lead to a new cold war\/world war"}
{"id":"9c533363-1c8f-47ad-b988-bcbb88b38e23","argument":"Everywhere on the internet and everywhere IRL. Insults I define this as ad hominem arguments and personal attacks he's an idiot, what an asshole. Something like he's a bad person because of x is fine there must be some connection to some sot of argument somewhere. If there is not, if a person's entire statement consists of name calling, then I don't see how it makes anything anywhere better or is useful to anyone in any way, except maybe as stress relief for the person who said it but any speech whose sole reason for existence is stress relief but is otherwise terrible in every way and makes many peoples' lives less pleasant when they read it and obviously also discourages rational conversation and encourages trolling at the same time shouldn't be allowed, IMO. Threats This guy should die, I wish he was dead, he should get his arm cut off, messages like these that wish harm to other people and again have 0 other arguments or clarifications. So, in general, I think people should be attacked for their ideas not as a person and these attacks should be in the form of opinions and arguments, not threats or wishes encouragement of bodily harm. IRL is a LOT harder to argue so while I'll welcome arguments for why this should be allowed IRL, I'll be giving deltas to those who defeat the strongest possible statement I can make on this topic, which is that at the very least both of the above should be banned everywhere on reddit.","conclusion":"insults and threats have 0 redeeming value and should be banned everywhere"}
{"id":"25fe377e-6864-4891-9246-d599273e8524","argument":"India is emerging from a thousand years of slavery when much of its cultural traditions and practices have been corrupted or destroyed. Hinduism is a very ancient philosophy, with much of it origins lost to time, its scriptures passed down generation to generation through an \"oral tradition\" no texts, and with millions of verses so perfect and beautiful, that they are often considered \"apurusheya\" or \"not of human origin\". It is very valuable, a veritable treasurehouse for the world.","conclusion":"Unlike common perception, Hinduism is not a religion, it's an ancient philosophy of life, an approach to thinking about the nature of reality and your place in it. There is no dogma, no prescribed texts, no central authority. The individual is an eternal seeker of the truth. And it's an experiental evolutionary journey \"inward\", with benefits that are rational, practical, immediate and applicable to any field of human endeavour."}
{"id":"20309231-a98c-4e5c-bb33-090533d89989","argument":"People convicted as child molesters are considered incapable of raising a child in most countries, being that in court it is a decisive matter in order to lose a child's custody to another relative or present parent.","conclusion":"The child of a pedophile or of a criminal would not grow in a safe environment."}
{"id":"cbf4c197-dc3d-471d-a918-f68518d01f51","argument":"Christianity and monotheism in general often refer to adherents as sheep in a flock and Christians sometimes characterize themselves as slaves to Christ this is totalitarian.","conclusion":"Christianity is actually anti-democracy: it is more authoritarian at its core as it has one power above all God."}
{"id":"1e17fe60-8ee7-4b42-b4cb-352033369718","argument":"Britain's constitutional monarchy is a model democracy. Australia's monarchy is equivalent in almost all respects. Whey, then, should we be concerned that Australia is undemocratic. It is not.","conclusion":"Australia's monarchic system is equally democratic as Britain's."}
{"id":"50d699f4-4cff-4944-b795-61c5a0a7b6c4","argument":"Holding a big international sporting event in the same location is already well-established in some areas, e.g. Tour de France or The Championships, Wimbledon","conclusion":"The International Olympic Committee IOC should create a permanent venue for the Olympic Games."}
{"id":"ad0d07ec-c1a6-450f-b7aa-50d365ac8ff4","argument":"Religion is one of the only things that actively invades and wants to control many aspects of one's private life which is something that law cannot do.","conclusion":"Religion has been used as a form of social control."}
{"id":"dd6a4c63-1a1c-4a1a-92ec-8368bbe69412","argument":"The inconsistencies among the regional NHS services are damaging to Britain. The underlying ethic of the service is that everyone deserves free care, but the extent of this ethic's execution is radically different. Why are the English less entitled to free medicine, why are the Welsh not entitled to the English standard of surgeries and services? The separations makes things worse for all, and so they should be removed. Centralisation could decrease costs, improve care and make for a NHS to be truly proud of. There are certainly other massive issues faced, but this is a major one.","conclusion":"the UK devolved assemblies have failed the health service and the NHS needs to be centralised."}
{"id":"a895780b-4727-41e8-aad5-2102b86811b1","argument":"I have a hard time following some of my feminist friends, and would be labeled a trans exclusive feminist for thinking this way. Feminists work hard to destroy gender rolls and norms. And then, as one example, usually whenever you ask a trans person how they knew they weren't, say, a male, they say something along the lines of I never fit in with the girls growing up 'not like other girls' trope or I didn't like wearing makeup gender rolls trope . Gender seems more like a spiritual religious horoscope BS type thing to me, and it's damaging to certain feminist movements. Edit Thank you all for your wonderful replies I enjoyed reading them and they definitely cleared up some of my false assumptions. A big thank you to the trans folk who replied who I'm sure don't need anymore of this uninformed CIS bullshit.","conclusion":"Gender not sex is a social construct equivalent to religion, and I don't believe in it. Transgender-people who undergo reassignment surgeries go against the belief that \"sex == gender\""}
{"id":"e518dd11-de92-4129-b7e6-f1e03a771fc7","argument":"Look i understand and have seen many good arguments that mention how certain demographics have long lacked a positive role model, and that these groups can gain an individual to look up to as a hero by changing these characters to make them relatable to new groups. However, doesn't that take away from the creators original intention and backstory built for these historical characters? Having a superhero who is both badass and also gay, or Transexual but also beautiful, or any other combination does not bother me in the slightest. But if you make IronMan a woman, or the Hulk with a Boyfriend, or dare i say it, James Bond Black, it just seems to me that we can all agree its hard to suspend my disbelief a little. Maybe those are terrible examples but hopefully you get my point. When between the plots of the 25 and 26th or whatever we are on installments of a franchise the main characters entire backstory changes, it is hard for me to enjoy as along time fan when viewing it. I guess my point is that societal pressure towards inclusion is a great thing. But it is causing some very oddly forced absurdities and making it so that i am now a bad person or a bigot for hoping that some of the characters i have loved for years stay the same as they have always been. Change My View.","conclusion":"Movies and Tv Shows with the main character with a long history of being written as a certain race, gender, and ethnicity should stay that way."}
{"id":"3ea0f604-067b-47f4-9e93-7b6cb7b741e2","argument":"Many teachers currently describe their workload as unmanageable Requiring hours of additional training adds undue burden to a profession that is already overburdened.","conclusion":"Teachers are already overworked, and expecting them to take on additional training is unrealistic."}
{"id":"1b41372a-c034-404d-b652-426e3932126c","argument":"Once people get married after the state incentivises them to do so, their parents expect them and pressure them to produce grandchildren","conclusion":"By incentivising marriage, the state indirectly encourages parents to have children."}
{"id":"43e1b462-579e-4b53-ab8c-0cae7b1acf2f","argument":"Slobodan Milo\u0161evi\u0107 was accused of being responsible for the forced deportation of 800,000 ethnic Albanians from Kosovo, and the murder of hundreds of Kosovo Albanians and hundreds of non Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia and was given a fair trial at the Hague. But terrorists are held indefinitely without trial on a regular basis. Not to put a value on death but a war criminal like Slobodan Milo\u0161evi\u0107 was responsible for far more deaths than any terrorist and yet they are afforded the right of a fair trial but a terrorist isn't.","conclusion":"I believe Terrorists have a right to a fair trial"}
{"id":"8a66e53e-c7c3-45d2-bacf-8b04bad7d54e","argument":"Reddit Admin appear to think that its reasonable to allow mods to remain running subs indefinitely. The notion appears to rest on the premise that the sub is 'theirs', with the argument put that Reddit is a free market and users are able to move to a different sub if they dont like the mod s there. I have not been able to locate any deeper reasoning than this. The site's faq's and related published information is scant to say the least. I take issue with both matters because I think the reasoning behind them is flawed. On the first matter, I believe the notion of someone 'owning' a community, any community of people is wrongheaded. Its likely and we see this playing out in various subs that an unhealthy culture may develop over time when one person is allowed to reign without any risk of negative consequence for their actions, unchecked. The abuses of power by mods in Reddit is relatively common I believe because of this policy of 'ownership'. I believe the subs should not be conceptualized as 'property'. Rather they are a collective, shared by participants. As it stands, mods can perform as well or as badly as they choose. As long as they dont break the core rules, they are free to do as they wish. I think this is a problem, because it inevitably leads to wide variance in quality of moderation. I dont want to give any impression that I am mod bashing. I have been a mod. I certainly would not paint all moderation teams with the same brush. However, problems exist, and are common, due to fundamental lack of accountability. What are the effects? We have moderators who insta ban Redditors on their own caprice We have moderators who do censor subs excessively in line with their own ideological leanings We have moderators who break the rules of their own subs Various types of cronyism and nepotism are common. On the second matter, of Reddit being a free market, I believe this is also an odd formulation of the situation. Many of the 'core keyword' subs are the oldest and most populated. Thats just how the numbers stack up. Poor moderation does not necessarily correlate to the respective sub's userbase numbers 'x', for the simple fact of usually being oldest and largest, will often have the most news, and the most contributors for discussion. As users shift down the keyword variants 'x1, x2, x3', usually it will be the case that post rate will be impoverished. Perhaps the original intent behind the rule was an expectation or vision that there would be more equivalence between subs. The fact is that the smaller communities are often a more limiting experience based on sheer post volume. This hasnt played out. The free market thing does not work, because the 'products' are usually do not the same aspects of quality. The primary may be busiest but badly run, others may be inferior in terms of traffic they may or may not be badly run, but the traffic issue remains. Please convince me that the 'ownership' and 'free market' systems are well reasoned models Reddit could be using to manage its moderation. As far as I can see, they are idiosyncratic, and problematic constructs in need of an overhaul. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Reddit's policy of allowing moderators to stay in place with no system of checks or balances should be reviewed and replaced with a better system."}
{"id":"194f1f6e-7bfe-43f2-a54e-8035c8e40415","argument":"There is no way to truly reduce the brain to understood mechanisms. Even if we could somehow monitor every single molecule in the head, the systems are difficult to predictably couple together. We would likely find the system behaves in accordance with a strange attractor, and similar to a weather system can only be predicted a short period in advance of events.","conclusion":"Without a *widely agreed upon* account which successfully reduces all the properties of mental experience i.e. 'true' beliefs, etc. to physical brain states i.e. a complete refutation of dualism, generalization from statements about the ubiquity of deterministic cause-effect relations in the physical world, to mental states like free will, depends on an uncertain premise."}
{"id":"21e0ba74-dc57-4870-9ef1-b4eac93912e4","argument":"Lloyd's Bank featured a same-sex proposal in a television ad to show that the bank would always support their customers, and give them the financial confidence to take the next step irregardless of their sexual orientation","conclusion":"Normalising LGBTQ+ relationships and the presence of the LGBTQ+ community have been common themes in advertising campaigns of many leading corporations."}
{"id":"e23531db-a327-4aa1-b65c-6b87c9574f9b","argument":"Women should put up with some level of cajoling, teasing, sexual innuendo, and unwanted advances at work, when it's the same thing they love and desperately need. You put together any 10 women who happen to be working together without any man on the team, and the minute a halfway decent guy joins they will be all over him, as they can FINALLY introduce the sexual tension they've been literally dying for. This happens in 100 of cases, I'm not making it up. So given that women are dying for sexual overtures, they should they have to put up with some of it as well as part of their job. Like it's not that hard to ignore something and not respond. If I get gay come ons I just ignore them. women should do the same? gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"women should put up with some level of teasing and flirting at work, since they like it sometimes"}
{"id":"6e78bd9a-ab8a-470a-963b-775a64352bb8","argument":"With Greece as a trigger, the Eurozone and the whole EU have significantly suffered in the last five years as a result of massive and still on-going economic crisis. The Euro currency is, damaged by the vast differences between individual Eurozone members, with respect to their fiscal and monetary policies. While some states commonly referred to as PIIGS do have bigger problems with their finances, it is unthinkable for the others to be held responsible when serious issues, such as an inability to pay the debts, arise. Nevertheless, this was the case with Greece, when tens of billions of taxpayers\u2019 money were used to service debts of one irresponsible state. Despite more than 50% of private sector debt being cut down by creditors, the threat of Greece\u2019s default still lingers in the air. Getting rid of the unanimity requirement would make Europe much more able to respond quickly to crises. In the long run it would make negotiations for a federal union much easier, eventually turning it into reality. Achieving political integration and the abandonment of the veto that would come with it would then enable solutions to economic problems benefiting the whole even it unpalatable to some. Such position is also taken by Jacques Attali, a French economist who argues that \u201cthe institutional reform towards a federal Europe is necessary to implement a common fiscal and budgetary system.\u201d1 1 Attali, J 2012, \u2018Attali: A federal Europe is the only crisis exit strategy\u2019, EurActiv, 18 April, viewed 29 September 2013, <","conclusion":"Disposing of unanimity requirement would make it easier advance the long-needed federalization of the European Union"}
{"id":"9c2b4041-c20f-481e-ae94-9afb839abea5","argument":"To begin I am not a climate change denier, nor do I dismiss any new research that is put out. However, after seeing many high school students protest against climate change inaction, I wonder if these students really understand how complex the issue is. In my opinion, these students see climate change more as a political issue rather than a complex economic issue. Any legislative action regarding climate change can cause a profound impact on our economy and lives. This is an impact that I don't believe many students see.","conclusion":"High school students who protest against climate change inaction, don't understand how faceted and complex the issue is."}
{"id":"607c71d5-127b-4081-8563-79c6de2f6e97","argument":"I'm not unattractive , below average or Hollywood ugly Steve Buscemi I'm fucking ugly, as a kid I wasn't good but over time my ears and nose grew to ridiculous sizes and I was teased all throughout middle and high school. Now as an ADULT , the mocking continues, I hear people in public talking about me, actually laughing at me, it's pissing me off to even think about all the crap that has been said about me so I'll cut to the chase. I just don't see the point in continuing to live a life where I can't even go outside with everyone staring at me, or insulting me, almost everyone's impression of me is negative even though they don't know me, even in college no one picks me for group work and I'm smart ISH and if I do everyone is hesitant toward me, dating is miles out of the question and I wouldn't have kids anyway with the chance that they could look like me. It's a really shitty life, I wouldn't even wish it on my worst enemy. My philosophy is living a horrible life isn't living at all. I should add my personality is decent, the only reason I wasn't probably eaten alive in school is because I was funny and I do dress well, but an ugly face offsets all that.","conclusion":"If you are ugly, life isn't worth living."}
{"id":"c01ab390-59e6-4d7f-b523-899cb419fc84","argument":"When people get involved with charitable work, they would get closer to the most unfortunate in society and understand their conditions better.","conclusion":"Compelling politicians to engage with charitable events helps bring them closer to the people."}
{"id":"9c1db3c7-cad0-43d1-97b2-a90d91eb362a","argument":"The belief that Citizens United was wrongly decided could be the first step in questioning the general power of money in American politics.","conclusion":"If Citizens United exacerbated an existing problem, that is a good reason to consider it wrongly decided."}
{"id":"a69f30b3-9e86-47c4-bf10-7a982420d81b","argument":"Fundamentally Mohammad was a warlord, a conqueror, a mass murderer, a sex slaver, and a pedophile. All of the behaviors the west finds deplorable about Islam are its core tenets and examples provided by Mohammad in the Qorran and Hadiths. His first conquest came through Hijrah, or jihad through immigration. Hounded from his home for stirring up violence Mohammad fled to Medina where he was taken in as a refugee. After five years of importing other violent men and converting locals he rose up and conquered Medinain. In this aspect the hijrahdis or so called refugees are following his example to a T. In another episode Mohammad captured a Jewish tribe, stripped all the men naked, and if they had pubic hair he put them all to death while their women watched on. A woman who refused to be a sex slave was also put to death. ISIS is following this exploit exactly. Islam teaches that gays should be thrown off of the mountain. All over the Muslim world they throw gays off of roofs fulfilling his instruction as closely as possible. Mohammad was a sex slaver of non Muslim women and also enjoyed having sex with girls as young as 9. The Rotherham pedophile sex ring was being true to this example. Muhammad encouraged the killing of apostates anyone who wasn't Muslim so in this fashion terrorists are being true to his example. So called moderate Muslims follow a bastardized version of Islam that had very little to no text to back up their beliefs. Anyone familiar with the life and exploits of Mohammad would have to admit the Muslim extremists are more faithful to Mohammad's teaching example than so called moderate Muslims . .","conclusion":"Terrorists, ISIS, and the Hijrah horde are more closely following Mohammad's example than anyone else."}
{"id":"a40ea3aa-63d0-45d5-904c-95d57662b233","argument":"When I see Kanye West saying he's the greatest entertainer of all time, I think Whatever gets you through the day. That notion probably made him as successful as he is, and if he thought he could be at least in the top 20, that would have severely handicapped him. Either way, the view that ANY individual let alone a celebrity I will never meet espouses of themselves is not bothersome to me. My only explanation for how a lot of people react to his personality is an insecure lack of perspective they have the same experience as though Kanye were in a room with them telling them how superior he is. This is the absurdity I mentioned, and a mark of childishness. You will never meet this person. Funnily enough, the reason for that is his wild success. The other reason Kanye doesn't bother me is that I am not competing with him for greatness. But most people view themselves, subconsciously, as the greatest thing ever, even if they live totally mediocre existences. This is what I'm saying it stems from. You're not the greatest. I am. But I can only rationalize that by tearing you down. LeBron is an elite athlete you could make a couple arguments for or against his perceived greatness. But those who rally against him with such vitriol are, in my view, seeking to correct some personal insecurity by discrediting demonstrably successful individuals. Change my view that these haters of egotistical celebrities aren't children engaging in pissing contests with an imaginary threat to their OWN ego.","conclusion":"The contempt directed at \"egotistical\" celebrities Kanye, LeBron, etc for their lack of humility stems from a perceived threat to the contempt-holder's identity. They feel challenged, in a childish and absurd caveman response. It also betrays their OWN ego."}
{"id":"7df6fd7b-b9b1-44ae-9b62-3b4ae6737426","argument":"I watched the first season with a good friend when it started on television and it completely turned me off to the series. I grow attached to characters and dislike the idea of just killing off people. I understand the reasoning of heroes die in real life, but just offing them left and right seems tactless. However, I really want to read the books but can't seem to bring myself to. I also like fantasy for the elements that make it, well, fantastic. The first season made it seem like there isn't anything magical and that it's basically low fantasy, so to speak. Recently though I became very interested because of the resurrection of a key character. Does this deviate from the books now that the show has progressed further than the books? Please help convince me. Edit okay, thanks guys. Some good earnest responses. I still feel a little resistance to it but I'll never truly know unless I read it. Maybe it's just the show that's not for me but who knows maybe that will change as well. Edit 2 I'm on mobile now so not sure how to add the little up symbol but I mentioned in my comments which ones helped me. I'll come back later to give you your arrow delta thingies. Thanks again.","conclusion":"I'm not interested in reading George R. R. Martin's \"A Song of Ice and Fire.\""}
{"id":"ac8f39ba-c160-47cf-9622-6127d8d064ba","argument":"Hi r cmv, This is a throwaway for privacy reasons. I'm 21, male sorry guys , gay, single and thinking that getting into a relationship is likely not worth it. First of all, finding the right person is very unlikely for me. I'm a student and very successful academically, be it at school or at college. I've been labelled gifted as a child and I have a wide range of interests I actively pursue, be it my major a STEM field , five languages I speak proficiently, or hobbies such as the piano which I play quite well, even though I'm not a virtuoso . This is in no way meant to show off I don't care about that stuff and I don't think it makes me a better person in any way. It's just that my interests and those of most people I've met, even in a rather academic environment, rarely match up. I like literature, poetry, classical music, science and cooking, while I have little to no interest in what is popular or at least common among my peers like TV, pop music, sports etc. or in what falls under the label college life , like partying and drinking drugs in general. I feel like this really narrows down my dating pool since I get along best with people who are similar to me in that regard. The details may differ, but I've not had a single friend that wasn't also very intellectually minded that I've kept in touch with for more than a few years. I do have close friends, though. But I would never date, say, a football jock, and by never I mean that the likelihood of this happening is so small you'd need a microscope to perceive it. Furthermore I'm rather introverted. I do go out with people and I can have a good time with them, but I find it difficult to really connect with people here I moved here and there are certain cultural differences people are quite reserved here . I have rarely succeeded in getting to know people to a level where we would hang out outside of college. Most of the friends I have met at college have moved away. So even if I did meet somebody, I wouldn't know how to pursue it further. So far I have met a total of two people whom I could imagine dating more if you include straight men , but both times it didn't work out, and I have the feeling that this is because I am too straight acting and do not engage people enough to convince them otherwise if I wanted to, even though I'm trying to. So far I technically don't even know that they are gay, but I'm very, very sure they are. One reason for this issue is that my family is mainly homophobic or at least awkward when it comes to that topic, and I do not intend to out myself to most of my closer relatives the consequences would be severe . I grew up in a way that made it natural for me to try to act as straight as possible, and very few people know that I am gay, especially here at college where I haven't outed myself to anybody in the span of four goddamn years. The topic never really came up in a way that forced me to do so, and I just kept a neutral stance. Now outing myself to anybody would feel really awkward, and it would be necessary if I happened to be in a relationship. Furthermore, this way I cannot really signal to potential love interests that I'm one of them . One guy who had a crush on me later on told me he thought I was straight. I had to correct him, but I was not really into him and besides, he had moved away by that time. Oh, and I tend to have issues with opening up to people which is why this place is a blessing for me, thank you guys . Even with my close friends I rarely talk about my personal feelings in person because I tend to get into some kind of social mode when I'm around other people where I am unable to deal with anything negative, be it personal or political talking about war, for example . I just put on a very calm and neutral persona. The thought of getting intimate, especially physically intimate, with somebody honestly scares me. I had one or two one night stands in my life and I didn't enjoy them at all. Sex is not really the most important thing here, I'm perfectly fine with not getting laid on a regular basis. Those are reasons why it might be a hassle to get a boyfriend. I also think it would probably not be worth it. I'm pretty content with my life and I'm used to spending most of my free time when I'm not at college or partaking in social activities alone. Sometimes I do get kind of depressed, mainly in times where this very issue is very present in my mind see the family part , or thinking about what I want to do in the future, but being in a relationship will not really help me figure out my life and those episodes tend to go away after a few days. I feel like the concept of having that one person is a very cultural one and that it is perfectly possible to live your life without the idea of divine eternal all encompassing monogamous love. However, I also feel like this may just be something I tell myself in order to deal with the reality of this topic. I've been blessed with a good life so far, and my sexual orientation and the complications it brings is really the only thing in it that affects it negatively in a fundamental way. But I'm sure I'm not the only person on the world who's thought about that, so bring on the arguments I will be waiting for them I'll have my stack of Deltas ready for you .","conclusion":"I am better off without a boyfriend"}
{"id":"f62231ba-cfc3-401b-b05a-4bbc29a4dc01","argument":"So, I think that the movie rating system PG, PG 13, R, NC 17 is very flawed and just doesn't work. In our age, it just isn't a secret that a very large majority of people have access and watch movies online without paying for them. This is the first, and my simplest argument that these ratings are useless and are not regulated at all. Second, even if you do watch them in cinemas or on TV, many times people get away with it? I don't know about the US, but I've lived in many countries and I was under 16 and was accepted to many R rated movies First, I'm just pointing out that assuming the system was good in the first place the regulations are terrible. x200B Now, the actual reasoning. So, I understand why maybe NC 17 movies could be considered inappropriate for teenagers, but let's face it, R rated movies are just a part of teenagers lives, I'm a teenager and I've watched so so many R rated movies, and they didn't affect me in any way, same for PG 13. My parents have watched many with me. I don't see why these regulations help at all, and why people think teenagers can't watch R rated movies. Let's face it, I'm sure many people have watched R rated movies and PG 13 movies before that age, and nothing changed. x200B So why this regulation? And why aren't there ideas to get rid of it?","conclusion":"I think that the movie rating system is terrible and doesn't work at all"}
{"id":"0f464759-40fc-4dec-9de4-93faa3b58c28","argument":"The Presidential election was very close Clinton appears to have won the popular vote while losing the Electoral College. Also, turnout appears to be down significantly from 2008 and 2012, especially on the Democratic side. Opinion polls have consistently shown that trustworthiness has been Clinton's biggest negative. I believe that the depressed turnout and the negative perception of Clinton was magnified by the leaks of DNC and Clinton campaign e mails. These leaks were timed to have maximum impact on the election DNC leaks around the convention and Podesta e mails over the last month , and they fed into a narrative that Clinton was corrupt and untrustworthy, that both candidates were terrible, and that it was not worth voting. Trump and the Republican Party capitalized on this narrative by running a campaign against Crooked Hillary. Now many people already had an impression of Hillary as a corrupt insider, but it would not have taken much to sway this election literally a few hundred thousand votes in a few states. Voter turnout was worst among young voters who had helped drive Obama to wins in 2008 and 2012 but largely supported Bernie in the primaries and then stayed at home or voted third party on Tuesday obviously not all of them or even a large majority, but enough to make a difference. The e mail leaks discouraged and demoralized liberal and progressive voters of all ages who otherwise would have confidently voted for an extension of Obama's agenda or enthusiastically voted for Trump. It allowed some moderate Republicans who may have been disgusted by Trump's behavior to hold their nose and vote against Clinton. I believe that the leaks swayed enough votes for Trump to win, which means that hackers possibly supported by a foreign government have decided the Presidential election in my country. That scares me. Please .","conclusion":"Wikileaks and foreign hackers changed the outcome of the American election"}
{"id":"ee53ee01-a844-4773-b374-997a159946a0","argument":"The dominance of white men in world affairs was felt in a high status when encountering other people.","conclusion":"The dominance of white men in world affairs was and is felt across the world."}
{"id":"2280d084-61de-4390-ab27-24b187e32f3c","argument":"The purpose of criminal punishment is not to enact vengeance, and such an attitude should not be advocated for.","conclusion":"Punishment is not supposed to equal the crime, but to make amends for society."}
{"id":"6600be1c-d6a2-4f11-bb84-a571ec43c91d","argument":"The definition of vegetarian is \"no meat\", so if one follows the definition line: meat -> flesh -> tissues groups of cells and cell parts with the same function, then one could figure out how to be a vegetarian just by avoiding eating animal tissue.","conclusion":"The vegetarian diet is easier to follow, as the definition is more concrete and objective. Foods can be scientifically analyzed to decide what is vegetarian or not. This compares to the definition of veganism, which is looser and more subjective in its interpretation."}
{"id":"931e7476-7ec3-4fe2-8711-a1c5045e7c66","argument":"The precursor to modern technology couldn't do the things technology can do now, such as use a touch screen.","conclusion":"Every electrical device have qualities that no individual part could do without the rest."}
{"id":"2c605da4-8c5e-42df-813f-8d022246358e","argument":"I am a Democrat. I believe strongly in equality. In light of the Supreme Court case in Colorado concerning a baker who said he would bake a cake for a homosexual couple, but not decorate it, I've found myself in conflict with my political and moral beliefs. On one hand, homophobia sucks. Seriously. You're just hurting your own business to support a belief that really is against everything that Jesus taught anyway. Discrimination is illegal, and for good reason. On the other hand, baking a cake is absolutely a form of artistic expression. That is not a reach at all. As such, to force that expression is simply unconstitutional. There is no getting around that. If the baker wants to send business elsewhere, it's his or her loss but ultimately his or her right in my eyes and in the eyes of the U.S. constitution. I want to side against the baker, but I can't think how he's not protected here. EDIT The case discussed here involves the decoration of the cake, not the baking of it. The argument still stands in light of this. EDIT 1.2 Apparently this isn't the case. I've been misinformed. The baker would not bake a cake at all for this couple. Shame. Shame. Shame. EDIT2 I'm signing off the discussion for the night. Thank you all for contributing In summary, homophobics suck. At the same time, one must be intellectually honest when saying that the baker should have his hand forced to make a gay wedding cake or close his business, then he should also have his hand forced when asked to make a nazi cake. There is SCOTUS precedent to side with the couple in this case. At some point, when exercising your own rights impedes on the exercise of another's rights, compromise must be made and, occasionally, enforced by law. There is a definite gray area concerning the couples right to the baker's service. But I feel better about condemning the baker after carefully considering all views expressed here. Thanks for making this a success","conclusion":"A business owner, specifically an artisan, should not be forced to do business with anyone they don't want to do business with."}
{"id":"283fe513-d7a5-4f16-bd2e-ef2b0b062536","argument":"There a few things I would like to clarify before you try to change my view. A I am a Zionist. I believe that Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish state. I do not believe that this is a racist ideology or that any of Israel's many mistakes are the result of Zionism itself. B I absolutely 100 believe that there should a sovereign state or states for the Palestinians. Furthermore, I see the settlements in the West Bank as a huge liability for Israel and should be dismantled as soon as possible. I have no doubt that they will be dismantled, it is simple a matter of when. C I do not believe that we should return to the pre 67 borders. Specifically I do not believe East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights should be returned to Palestine and Syria, respectively. East Jerusalem contains the most sacred site for Jews, and even though I am a not a practicing Jew I would be quite angry if it is returned to Palestine. I believe that Israel's method of dealing with the holy sites in Jerusalem is the best compromise. And regarding the Golan Heights, it is a key spot for Israeli security in the North. Furthermore, I do not believe that the the populations living in East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights would prefer to live in Palestine and Syria. I read about recent polls that show that the young population of Arabs in East Jerusalem are increasingly in favor of remaining in Israel, they are more educated, and have greater opportunities in Israel than they would in Palestine. Also, condemning the populations living in the Golan Heights to the current Syrian situation seems quite cruel. So go ahead and try to , I look forward to your thought provoking responses. In the foreseeable future, if a Palestinian state were to be created, I believe, it would be incredibly unlikely to be a unified entity of both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. I believe two Palestinians states are more likely to exist, given the current political situation.","conclusion":"I am an Israeli and a Zionist"}
{"id":"e9e45a29-1d06-421e-bf01-0fd791c0fcbe","argument":"Having only one smart card will save money over time. The scheme will also save us all money by reducing crime, welfare fraud, illegal immigration, etc.","conclusion":"Identity cards will cost money, but so do passports, driving licenses and all the other cards we carry at the moment:"}
{"id":"8926223a-a93f-438d-8a1a-4e61af7e50a1","argument":"Problem Not all states and furthermore counties are equal. There are inherent differences between states that mean that there are issues that only certain states face. The constitution recognizes one such difference population and deliberately tries to correct for this. However, there are no such corrections for differences that are more complex then population. Examples of these differences that aren't corrected for include geographical categories like coastlines, weather and natural resources. Federal policies that are greatly influenced by these differences mentioned previously, can lead to situations where states are effected differently by policy outcomes that can lead to unfair outcomes. For example, representatives from states that are not effected by a particular issue would be less likely to vote for federal funding directed toward that issue. EDIT sorry, I see why everybody is talking specifically about federal funding. I agree that this can't work for funding. I was originally thinking towards policies that allow or forbid individual actions. For example, a policy that forbids lgbt people from using certain bathrooms. Or a policy that does not allow convicted immigrants to stay in the country or the DREAM act. My thought is that for certain policies that have measurable differences in impact on the state level, states should have weighted representation by their perceived impact. I believe that this would create better outcomes for the country and for the states themselves. x200B Case Study when applied to Immigration On the surface, it makes sense that immigration policy has to be on the federal level as it deals with people becoming citizens of the country, not specific states. However, illegal immigrants are not distributed the around the country equally, with most of the absolute number being located on the border states x200B In the current system, when creating legislation, all representatives of the house and senate have an equal say, but yet they and their constituents are not equally effected by the issue. I would argue, that states and perhaps even counties at the level of the house which have a higher number of illegal immigrants would have more credibility in deciding the path forward for our policy on this issue. x200B Given an agreed upon metric, I believe it should be possible to weight votes by that metric. A naive approach for this example would be to take the absolute immigration count and do a running percentage sum to determine the percentage share. x200B Issues agreeing upon metrics. I believe that these would need to be voted on occasionally. agreeing upon what issues would be included in this group. No solution currently","conclusion":"In the US, federal policies related to issues such as illegal immigration, which disproportionately affect states, should see weighted representation by state."}
{"id":"3cb3adf2-e93a-49e5-8345-06039cbd6f4c","argument":"I'm a software engineer with experience in electronics engineering, so if you know less about computers and if you disagree, you're probably wrong. The media reporting the issue is highly biased and misleading so even if you are a computer engineer or usually know about this stuff, if you have relied on certain news sources for your information, please check more about the issue. I don't know much about the laws but I am assuming Apple is required to help the FBI in this case. The problem I have is with the reasons they are giving to deny FBI this access. They are saying things like now the U.S. government has asked us for something we simply do not have, and something we consider too dangerous to create. They have asked us to build a backdoor to the iPhone. In the wrong hands, this software \u2014 which does not exist today \u2014 would have the potential to unlock any iPhone in someone\u2019s physical possession. Building a version of iOS that bypasses security in this way would undeniably create a backdoor. And while the government may argue that its use would be limited to this case, there is no way to guarantee such control. The same engineers who built strong encryption into the iPhone to protect our users would, ironically, be ordered to weaken those protections and make our users less safe. These statements from Apple are blatant lies. FBI's request is clear and none of those statements hold true. First of all, iPhone 5C secure boot has already been cracked. We know this because Jailbreaking for 5C has been available for ages. So any third party reverse engineering team can already provide what FBI is asking for. They were asking Apple only because it would be much quicker and straightforward if Apple did it rather than some third party firm trying to reverse engineer it. The system is already insecure, so it is not possible to make it more insecure. It would only save some time for the FBI. FBI has said in their request that Apple can do it by providing a signed OS which checks that it is running on that particular phone by checking unique identifier and refuse to run on anything else which doesn't prevent them from hacking this firmware and running on any other phone but if they were willing to invest in reverse engineering it, they wouldn't have to ask Apple to sign the firmware in the first place. Second thing, if Apple can create this software which would have the potential to unlock any iPhone in someone's possession which they can BTW , any other company can too yes they can . So, indirectly, what Apple is basically saying that the 5C protection is fundamentally insecure and anyone can break it but Apple itself won't do it. It is absolutely possible to have an encryption which is mathematically impossible to crack which the encryption used by Apple is, I would imagine , but ONLY GIVEN THAT THE USER USES A SECURE KEY. 4 or 6 or 8 digit numeric passwords simply do not work in securing anything because they are insecure against the oldest attack, the brute force attack. If it is actually secure, it is NOT POSSIBLE to create a modified firmware that will crack it. Nobody else is speaking against Apple simply because the tech illiterate media would make it seem like whoever is speaking the truth is siding with the FBI which would ruin the reputation of the company they represent and tech illiterate public wouldn't know anyway. The only famous person who has come close to explaining the reality of the situation is John McAfee, but He is so out of touch of technology now so that he doesn't know much of what he is talking about. He is a presidential candidate for the Libertarian Party so he has to twist the narrative to eventually blame the FBI for it. From where I see it, Apple is blatantly lying to the public about the issue. One could argue that Apple actually knows what is in the phone and is protecting the terrorist, but I think the actual reason is much more mundane and less sinister. It is just a marketing opportunity that Apple saw and used it to their advantage and it has been highly successful. .","conclusion":"Apple vs FBI is NOTHING more than Apple's marketing campaign"}
{"id":"7ffa2d4c-2e50-4af7-87a8-3a04bd8c96c2","argument":"It would be difficult to sell to US sports fans to embrace the concept of an overall \"league winner\" when they have only ever known success as winning a playoff-style championship.","conclusion":"This would go against the competition format of all major US sports."}
{"id":"07de7cf3-e79e-4499-909e-1695f1ba220c","argument":"If states could simply skirt any obligations whenever they wish to, we would be back to times like the Thirty Years' War or the Warring States period where no rules but the right of the strongest governed politics between international actors.","conclusion":"This principle would render international law completely ineffectual since it needs to be binding to have any effect - this includes being able to dictate under which conditions states can be relieved of certain obligations."}
{"id":"a65662c8-dd16-413a-88a2-78f328f77b00","argument":"We are not just ourselves, but a summation of the lives with whom we shared our own. I share my life with my brothers and parents, and theirs with mine. I am also the only person amoung them to not experience dark thoughts. I've been there for them during those times, and I can argue on experience that a person entertaining such thoughts is in a smaller place, than if they were fighting for life. If they had a right to die, I would have lost one by now.","conclusion":"While this may be beneficial for the individual choosing to die, it may be particularly traumatic for their loved ones if they are required to say goodbye at a particular time."}
{"id":"29afdf05-3eb2-41b9-a664-2f9ce2f0de2d","argument":"Commercial surrogacy puts a price tag on medical complications such as losing a tube, an ovary or a hysterectomy.","conclusion":"Commercial surrogacy places monetary values on the womb, the egg and the sperm."}
{"id":"4b53f843-7c6d-41e7-b16a-df1ed88f693a","argument":"Technological progress is rapid and unpredictable. Cures to diseases, radical economic improvements, or effective medication for depression and other mental illnesses and disabilities may be just around the corner.","conclusion":"People who live in poverty or are oppressed may feel that their lives will never improve and see death as an appropriate solution to this."}
{"id":"b86a09c9-603d-4a86-8168-3077e3d187d3","argument":"Intermittant renewables have no proven decarbonisation record. Countries, like Germany, that have tried to replace their fossil fuel generators with wind a solar have so far failed.","conclusion":"Nuclear power has a better decarbonisation track record than renewables."}
{"id":"32e2b618-6a06-4a47-9429-90de18d963dd","argument":"I wanted to start this brief discussion due to a conversation that I had with a sexual health coordinator at a college. Essentially, during an appointment with her about human sexuality and gender, she briefly made strange comments about what constitutes as sexual intercourse. Allow me to share what she said gt In my view, masturbation is having sex with oneself. Sexual health coordinator gt gt I disagree. Masturbation does not count as sexual intercourse see my definition below since it is merely sexual stimulation of a person's genitals and not penetration. Note My view about masturbation not being a type of sexual intercourse is not open to change. gt Two people with vaginas can have sex with each other just as two people with penises can have sex with each other. Sexual health coordinator gt gt I don't agree with the former but I agree with the latter. Two people with penises can have sex with each other since anal and oral sex counts as intercourse in my view. However the former the part about two people with vaginas allegedly having sex with each other doesn't add up. Note I am open on changing my view for this belief. This baffled me since I was raised in the paradigm where in order for a sexual act to count as sexual intercourse , there has to be penetration of an orifice by a penis. At first, I only thought penis in vagina counted as intercourse however as I learned more about sexual health in middle school, I considered oral and anal sex as forms of intercourse. Even though then I acknowledge that anal and oral sex counted as intercourse, I still believed that a specific criteria had to be met for something to count as intercourse. Here are my premises. P1 Sexual intercourse is defined as the penetration of a person's orifice by another person's penis. P2 Andrea and Lauren both have vaginas and neither has a penis. P3 If Andrea and Lauren were to engage in cunnilingus stimulation of the vagina vulva through a partner's mouth , then that would not count as intercourse since a tongue is not a penis. P4 If Andrea were to penetrate Lauren using a strap on dildo or vice versa , then that wouldn't count since a strap on dildo is not a penis. That sex act would be considered masturbation. Conclusion Andrea and Lauren cannot have sexual intercourse, even if they wanted to because of the fact that neither has a penis. I know that my current definition of sexual intercourse is very black and white and that modern culture doesn't like black and white terms, especially when it comes to sex and sexuality. In my view, I think that strictly defining what constitutes sex is important since it clear ambiguity. P1 There has been a recent trend to make human sexuality as complex and ambiguous as possible. P2 The recent trend to make human sexuality very complex and ambiguous can make it harder for people to properly comprehend topics pertaining to sexual health. Conclusion When people are confused about human sexuality, they are more likely to make conclusions based off of cognitive biases, prejudices, and ignorance, which can lead to misinformation and marginalization. When attempting to change my view, come from the argument that having a more inclusive definition of what constitutes sexual intercourse is actually beneficial to society and can help non heterosexual women feel validated about their sexual experiences. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules . If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us . Happy ing","conclusion":"Redefining sexual intercourse in order to be more \"inclusive\" is problematic."}
{"id":"4deeb402-771e-408f-ba9f-604c93543306","argument":"Throwaway account, my main is used for school. I'm 28, male, and a grad student chemistry . I've been dating a girl for two years and our relationship is wonderful. She frequently brings up marriage and talks about how she believes I'll never propose to her, and I've told her that I'm honestly not sure how I feel about the whole concept of marriage. I would have no problem staying with her for my entire life, but I just don't understand how a ring and a piece of paper makes any difference. Let me outline my preconceptions here My parents' marriage fell apart due to infidelity and divorce. I watched my mom cheat on my dad, take all his money in court, and leave him psychologically damaged until the day he died. Admittedly it has me a bit scared. Here are the benefits I often hear claimed about marriage, along with my response to them More sex We've been like bunnies for the whole relationship at least twice a day and honestly I have a pretty low sex drive. It's already more than enough. Children I don't want kids, don't have kids, and am 100 sterile by choice. Nothing to do about it. She is equally happy to go without them. Added financial benefit tax breaks We already contribute equally to the relationship in terms of finances. We end up paying for everything about 50 50. Tax breaks? Ok, sure, but that's not going to sell me on it right off the bat. Now here are some drawbacks I often see cited about marriage, along with my response Expense A ring is supposed to cost three month's salary? A wedding costs over 10,000? I'm a grad student, for crying out loud. This kind of stuff is absolutely not affordable, and even if it was it seems like a huge waste just to conform to a social norm. Paying more for a little bit of metal and rock than for a decent used car seems absolutely insane to me. Divorce Risk Statistics don't lie. I have a 50 50 chance of going through exactly what my late father did. I hate seeing how sad the thought of just being my girlfriend forever but not my wife makes her. I love this girl a lot, but I am also a very rational and logical person and can't seem to find the personal justification for marriage. Please, try to change my view and thank you. Edit 1 Whoever you are, thank you for mass downvoting all my responses. I'm trying to have a civil discourse, and if I'm frustrating you I don't mean anything negative by it. Edit 2 Thank you all for your insight. I have awarded one delta on this topic but for the most part I have not been convinced that marriage is for me. Consider this  closed, although I may check back later to respond to any trailing opinions. I appreciate your time, and thank you very much.","conclusion":"There is no rational reason for me to get married 28\/M\/grad student"}
{"id":"7af8a65a-beb2-456c-910a-ffe40c2a87b2","argument":"I firmly believe that we should stop using cars. Cars pollute the environment. Roads destroy the environment and places where cars are a necessity like suburban areas waste land and kill trees. Cars are also expensive to buy and maintain. Gas is such a money hogger as well, and think of all the things you could buy without having to pay for car insurance and other expenses associated with cars. We also have an obesity problem in this country. By bicycles, we would encourage exercise. Sometimes, perhaps you wouldn't even need to use public transportation you could walk. Of course, a problem arises concerning rural areas, where there is little to no public transportation. In this case, I think more funding should go toward public transportation, so buses can reach these areas. Also, rails could be raised beside or on highways themselves. Trucks, used to transport goods, could either go on these trains instead, or they could use existing highways I still haven't found a good solution for actual transportation of products . Let's not forget that cars kill over 30,800 people per year source Wikipedia . Honestly, cars are death machines and have no place on the road.","conclusion":"Cars should be banned and replaced with public transportation and bicycles."}
{"id":"cc789b1c-af02-4442-936f-e486ad192f23","argument":"Paying women the same for playing less sets seems both sexist against men and women to me. It seems unfair to men because they are paying women the same for doing less, and it makes women seem like can't play 5 sets so that is why they play less. I don't understand why this would make sense at all. Women's matches generally get less viewership than men's matches so the fact that they get paid the same amount as men for doing less makes no sense to me. Why don't women just play five sets like men. This seems unfair to both women and men in my opinion. Change my view.","conclusion":"Women win the same amount from tennis majors as men. But they only play best 3 sets while men play best of 5 sets. This is unfair."}
{"id":"820a0253-39a5-4f0e-b20e-cb8e22da70de","argument":"Supreme Court Justices, being highly educated, wealthy and having high career prestige, are likely to move in wealthier circles and have a far higher subjective financial need than average.","conclusion":"Financial need can be subjective and often based on perceived income adequacy - there can always be a reason for someone to need or want more money."}
{"id":"34739015-f01e-49d3-8a70-f65b5ecfd185","argument":"In Singapore for example, any person who does not vote is removed from the electoral list and has to reapply with a justification as to why they did not vote in the first place.","conclusion":"Mandatory voting does not necessarily need to be enforced by fines."}
{"id":"4f40aa8f-ac12-41f7-b155-7b7600fc0103","argument":"just so I'm clear. the girl is ALWAYS the victim. I do not support any kind of sexual harassment. But knowing there are vicious, violent, frustrated and dangerous men who are not afraid to commit sexual assault, and still dressing imodestly, revealing 80 of your body in a sexy way, is quite provocative, and increases your chances of being harassed assaulted. Like leaving your wallet on your car seat in a parking lot. You know there are people who are ready to break in your car to get it, it is recommended not to leave anything visible to avoid temptation yet for girls this measure of precaution doesnt seem to make sense. As an american humorist said kind of, I can't find the quote if I'm wearing a cop uniform, you'd be right to run to me and reach for help shouting Officer Help me well when I see girls nowadays, they are wearing a whore's uniform, no wonder they are getting attention. So yeah. change my view. I'd be glad to answer anything to clear up my view if I wasnt explicit enough.","conclusion":"I think dressing super sexy is to sexual harassement\/ rape what leaving your wallet on your car seat is to car break-in on parking lots."}
{"id":"cbc927ee-757e-4278-abad-4b256c0f9e2a","argument":"Without the state, the wealthy and powerful would have unbridled power over the less powerful. Anarchy would allow corporations to fill the power vacuum replacing a system designed to serve the people with one designed for economic gain alone.","conclusion":"An anarchist society, lacking any central coercive authority, would quickly degenerate into violent chaos."}
{"id":"f34bf72b-a5a2-482b-8e67-61b7c8ae4d82","argument":"Every year, the pro lifer's show up around the city campus and put up their pictures of aborted fetuses, and other gore shots. And every year, at my incredibly liberal university, a bunch of students hold an anti protest. They make signs, and hold a big rally. In my opinion, 90 of the campus is pro choice anyways, and the remaining 10 aren't about to have their opinion changed. If they stopped giving the pro lifer's so much attention, they might just stop showing up? Or am I missing something?","conclusion":"I Think Anti-Protests Towards Pro-Lifer's Accomplishes Nothing."}
{"id":"dbc810ab-89e1-4941-9f1c-4d9ee93ccf35","argument":"My cat just died. He was a 2 and a half year old Bengal that got stricken with a sudden sickness, and just when the anti biotics seemed to be turning him around, he died. I'm not intelligent, capable, good looking, or anything. I've never had a gf, don't really have friends anymore, and live a solitary life. But he was my only friend, he was the best cat who never bit or hissed at anyone, and was friendly and playful even with strangers. He was the only real good thing in my life, now my awesome PC and expensive headphones don't mean anything. This is pathetic, I know. It's not just him, it's just that now the sun of my life is gone the darkness that really is everywhere is more apparent. The world is a sinking ship, everyone is scrambling for a high and dry spot. You all may have some super inspirational quote to give me, it makes the whole state of the ship seem less sorry, and maybe gotten us through when we go sprinkled with water few in the first world know being near drowning in this analogy . Whatever existential philosophy there is wont justify how many people live lives where they do nothing but starve to death. The world isn't a story, everyone just crawls around like ants until we die. Even in less fanciful stories like ASOIAF at least there's a point, and there is some plot armor, but nothing's preventing a baby from being kidnapped later in life, eventually forgetting who she is year 16 in some strangers basement while having rape baby 6 punched out of her. Decay and negativity is the default state of everything. All things just erode away, everything is fated to end in destruction. It's ingrained into the universe and human brain. I was sheltered in the top deck of the ship, but now the ceiling of my room is leaking, and I'm reminded of the nature of everything. It's best I don't have any more attachments, no investments in a world so capricious and uncaring. Shit can still happen to me. But nothing so terrible as an abducted child, a career worked so hard for going down the tubes, getting cuckolded, or losing the best cat in the world when he was so young, can happen to me. I should just find a stable job that'll get me enough to go on, a small cheap apartment that I'm not at risk of not being able to afford, and just stick to my vidya. Or I should kill myself. Anything to get out of escape this fundamentally tainted reality. You can post your stories about how life once sucked for you but now you're happy as a clam. You just lucked out, doesn't mean life is actually worth it. Doesn't matter how touched you were when your kid was born, women are being circumcised right now and they were when your kid was being born. You can say I'll grow out of this thinking, you may be right, doesn't mean I'm wrong. People feel like this a lot at my age, but they don't grow out of it because of maturity like their belief in the Easter bunny. It's just because you got the job, mortgage, wife, and all these things binding you to the world. You can't bring yourself to admit how bullshit everything is when you have serious stake in it. Everything but what I'm saying is just a distraction in the end, so I should just retreat and turn into the skid, not giving life the chance to fuck me EDIT If I don't reply to your post right away don't give up on it, I'm just going to bed now and won't really be able to reply for a while after I'm up","conclusion":"I don't think I should try for any meaningful relationship, have children, or really try in life"}
{"id":"dac43b58-1b61-4ae5-b6e0-3bfb4f1a646c","argument":"Relationships require work about committed listening, letting go of control, practicing vulnerability, overcoming resistance to change, being honest, even in the face of fear, and focusing on your own work rather than trying to change your partner.","conclusion":"Having a partner makes life more difficult in general as you always have to find compromises, not only concerning food."}
{"id":"b94a306e-e455-466f-922c-b76994186567","argument":"It may have been true that countries such as Greece were not capable of looking after their heritage in the past, but that has now changed. Since 197 5 Greece has been carefully restoring the Acropolis and Athens now has a secure environment to maintain the marbles. The state-of-the-art New Acropolis Museum, which cost $200m, has now been completed to house the surviving marbles1, and even contains a replica of the temple, thus the marbles would appear as being exactly the same as on the real temple. Pollution control measures such as installing pollution monitoring stations throughout metropolitan Athens and ensuring that motor vehicles must comply with emission standards2 have reduced sulphur-dioxide levels in the city to a fifth of their previous levels. At the same time the curatorship of institutions such as the British Museum is being called into question, as it becomes apparent that controversial cleaning and restoration practices may have harmed the sculptures they claim to protect. In the 1930s the British museum\u2019s attempt to clean them using chisels caused irreparable damage.3 They have also been irresponsible when it comes to protecting the fate of many of its artefacts: \u201cThe British Museum has sold off more than 30 controversial Benin bronzes for as little as \u00a375 each since 1950, it has emerged\u201d; \u201cThe museum now regrets the sales\u201d4. 1 Acropolis museum, Home page. 2 Alexandros.com, \u2018Greece\u2019. 3 Smith, Helena, \u2018British damage to Elgin marbles \u2018irreparable\u2019\u2019, The Guardian, 12 November 1999. 4 BBC News, \u2018Benin bronzes sold to Nigeria\u2019, 27th March 2002.","conclusion":"Developing countries are able to guard and preserve their own cultural treasures"}
{"id":"4b9ec8d5-3739-415d-94af-11477b675f95","argument":"Women's Day began when women in Soviet Russia gained suffrage. Throughout the coming years since 1917 , Women's Day protests were related to their working conditions, economic rights and similar issues. I don't know how is this day celebrated in other countries, but in Poland where I'm from it's generally giving women small gifts, wishes etc. I understand showing appreciation of women in your life, but how does it relate to women's rights which is what the holiday seems to be about ? I'd say the people who fought for women's rights would be mad that instead of eg. reflecting on if you're being unfair to the women in your life, you instead give some girls chocolates and be done with the day. To me, this holiday seems ideologically closer Holocaust Victims Day remember that women died in factories due to unsafe workplaces since they are holidays mostly about remembrance, and how certain mistakes from history should never be allowed to repeat themselves. Even from the United Nations website gt International Women\u2019s Day is a time to reflect on progress made, to call for change and to celebrate acts of courage and determination by ordinary women who have played an extraordinary role in the history of their countries and communities. The name of the holiday is misleading too. People think Oh it's Women's Day so we give women gifts, right? which based on the origin of the holiday does not seem like celebrating the holiday the at all. Women's Rights Day seems more fitting. Again, this holiday does not seem to be appreciatative in nature when compared to other appreciatative holidays Grandparent's Day, Father's Mother's Day and so on . gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Women's day is celebrated wrong"}
{"id":"48468b2c-154d-42d0-8503-e90e2b7ccc0e","argument":"I believe the basis of a large proportion of religions is fear mongering to control a group of people. Catholicism, Christianity and Islam being the top three I can think of off the top of my head. Do bad things and you go to hell, Jesus is always watching you ect etc. I believe that religion is an unnecessity in the modern world, it has caused wars, it has caused scientific setbacks it has caused political unrest within somewhat stable nations. I believe the world would be better without religion. Change my view.","conclusion":"religion has no place in a modern society as it was created to police ignorant people and serves no greater purpose."}
{"id":"2754a4e6-dc4f-413d-8550-41f4213b9e90","argument":"The Republic of Ireland is currently in a crisis. It is the I in P.I.G.S, the European Union countries whose economies are bust and require a bailout package. It would not be to the benefit of either Northern Ireland joining such a fragile economy, nor would it be good for the Republic of Ireland, having the cut back on public spending whilst trying to integrate Northern Irish transport\/police systems etc. Northern Ireland is a weak economy anyway and a lot of employment comes from the public sector, 30% compared to the UK average of 21%.* The region is \u00a39billion in the red or \u00a35,502 per person, three times the UK average.** These jobs will obviously no longer be an option under re-unification and so there is likely to be mass employment amongst the newly integrated Northern Irish. To counter this, money from Republican taxpayers will have to go to subsidize business\/building projects etc in the way the Germans in the West still subsidize the Eastern parts of Germany, over 50 years since the wall came down. *HM Treasury, 2011, p.9 **Fitzpatrick, 2011,","conclusion":"Unification would be damaging for the economies of both parts of Ireland"}
{"id":"79be785c-dcb0-46dc-8d48-b1e78175504f","argument":"In a study by Brewer & Weber, members of a distinctive minority group rated themselves more positively after exposure to a successful rather than unsuccessful in-group member. In contrast, members of a majority group rated themselves less positively after exposure to a successful rather than unsuccessful in-group member. Among women who perceive themselves to be in a minority group for their profession, the success of another woman can have a positive impact on their self-perceptions. pg.2","conclusion":"Women have a greater need for a role model who shares their \u201cminority\u201d status as they may find it difficult to identify with a member of the majority group and consequently, they may gain more from exposure to a female than a male role model. Lockwood,pg.2"}
{"id":"e415badf-bfd0-4734-b4dd-3896c42d4919","argument":"Believing in God, Allah, Zeus, Thor and the like is willingfull stupidity, it simply means that you accept human definitions of a superior force. It happens when human hubris is stronger than their thirst for knowledge. I believe that the mere act of believing in a god is folly. You decided pride was more important than knowledge. Nothing excuses the HUMAN foolishness of such an act. How can you simply accept what other HUMANS have to say about a superior force? How could you, a human, simply choose a religion between so many others, and by coincidence it is the same as your parents birth place? How could you, free human, decide to be shackled by the chains of religion, decide to be shackled by the chains of what other HUMANS say about a superior force?So that's it, huh? Another human being you never met decided to write a book and you accepted his definition of god, denying the existance of other gods around the world that were defined by other people, without any reason to do so? It baffles my mind that humans can simply believe what other humans have to say about a superior force so easily. I could never understand it, even with death by my own side. Why don't we simply admit we don't know? Religion is human hubris. Why can't humans admit they simply know nothing about the universe? God was made in the image of man means that God was made in the image of man hubris. Time to accept our own ignorance people, that is the only way we will truly learn. You can only help those who want to be helped means that knowledge can only reach those who want to accept the truth, in other words, only those who accept their own ignorance and are not blinded by their own ego and thus denying the fact that we humans know almost nothing about how the universe really works appeal to hubris . This was acid, I have no intention of offending anyone, but religion is simply human hubris, time to grow up and admit our own ignorance of the universe.","conclusion":"Religion exists because of human hubris. Humans can't admit that they simply know nothing about the universe. It happens when humans value pride more than knowlege. They would rather be stupid than have their own pride destroyed. Religion is human ego."}
{"id":"292c5413-e8ef-4a43-ba7f-f48e90b4c79e","argument":"You need at least a certain modicum of law and order in order for a society to function, the ones that did, grew bigger and dominated the ones that did not. Natural evolution on a inter-societal level.","conclusion":"Crime is bad, thus the government tries to eliminate it and attempts to deter its citizens from engaging in any sort of criminal activity."}
{"id":"b6ac32cd-24bf-4de0-94ba-267506c0e55f","argument":"I live in the UK. Various newspapers and publications seem to insist on using the term family doctor rather than GP general practitioner . I had basically never come across the term until 2 years ago always using the phrase GP. I dislike the term for the following reasons Raises the family above the individual Seems like it might be there for emotive reasons you wouldn't take money away from children's doctors would you Is imprecise Risks undermining the faith of vulnerable teenagers in the medical service think pregnancy, stds, drug use or any number of things that people don't want to tell their children about . I don't know what I think about language as a weapon . Insisting that people use your terms fetus versus unborn child , terrorist versus militant seems petty and silly sometimes are peopel unable to reason beyond the implications of language? On the other hand using non technical or new uncommon terminology that is inexact and seems to have an agenda seems like another matter. How my view has changed It has become apparent that the term family doctor is common in the US. I do not think that terminology should change in the US, but I don't think that the terminology should be introduced to the UK standardisation of terminology is as a rule good, but I understand that family doctor is a bit vague even in the US so I think the term GP should still be used particularly given the connotations of family doctor Update This might be something I should have googled a little before asking The term general practitioner or GP is common in the Republic of Ireland, the United Kingdom and several Commonwealth countries. While in these countries, the term GP has a clearly defined meaning, in North America the term has become somewhat ambiguous, and is not necessarily synonymous with the terms family doctor or primary care physician, as described below. In the US , The two terms general practitioner and family practice were synonymous prior to 1970 gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The term \"family doctor\" for General Practitioner first point of contact for health services is bad and should not be used"}
{"id":"1de96bac-6f61-4fc9-98ce-310acf75f90d","argument":"The Wilhelm Screen is a common sound effect added to movies and occasionally other performance media . You can hear it here First used in 1951, it has appeared in almost 400 movies, including Avengers Infinity War Baywatch All of the Indiana Jones movies Toy Story Up Most, if not all, of the Star Wars movies Grand Theft Auto And far too many others. When I am watching a movie I want to suspend belief and be completely immersed into the film. I want to feel like I'm actually in the world of the story and leave everything else behind. The Wilhelm Scream will immediately jolt me out of the scene and force me to think about how I'm actually just at a movie it destroys the setting for me and I hate it. The Wilhelm Scream should be given a rest for at least a decade to let the banality to wear off a bit. Added bonus a collection of Wilhelm Scream clips in movies over the years","conclusion":"The Wilhelm Scream has been so overused that it needs to be put on a lengthy hiatus if not retired completely."}
{"id":"74ff8ae2-52ec-41f5-9b27-bf788c11bfe9","argument":"Religion may not be the \"objective\" truth, but if properly done, it sure is a subjective truth. Religion and God have been the most misunderstood things in this world since time immemorial. What people see today that makes them lose their faith is the disgusting and sinful behavior of certain clergy members. That still won't deter a sincere seeker. There is too much information on God and our relationship with him, you just need to know where to look. There is genuine experience beyond doubt.","conclusion":"The worst outcomes of religion are often due to the fallibility of its adherents to understand and apply the tenets of the faith rather than the accurate expression of the tenet as intended."}
{"id":"3be20579-37f5-423c-baef-a3e8165b6ee7","argument":"Open source audits can be made by anyone interested across a myriad of backgrounds, which can lead to novel approaches and cover a larger spread of attack vectors","conclusion":"Open source code makes it easier for more eyes to find otherwise-obscure bugs and security holes."}
{"id":"1ec9abcb-bfcb-4834-ae4e-1383808fe674","argument":"Hello , I just stumbled upon this post while browsing the front page, and I felt something that I myself couldn't explain. I understand it is up to you whether you want to donate your organs to save somebody's life, but I sincerely can't see the point in it. You mean to tell me that I will donate let's say a kidney, or a lung, one of the organs that come in pairs. If I were to get some kind of disease or get in an accident and the remaining one was damaged I could have been fine IF I had my other one left. I know it is a long shot but I'm a worse case scenario kind of person. I will now be in the list for organ donations if I happen to survive the ordeal. There is no guarantee that I will receive a donation in time for me to survive. Not only this, but what if the organ that I donated gets rejected by the body of the person, that would be a complete loss, unless there is another use for that organ that I am not aware of. I have also been told not 100 sure that your quality of life is not as great when you are trying to function with one kidney or lung, and that you have to change your diet and you have to limit the amount of activity exercise you can do. I understand saving a life can be something amazing, and being a O blood type I donate blood when I am able to even if it doesn't help it does give you a sense of satisfaction. It is just that I believe that the risks outweigh the benefits, I might just be greedy but that's why I am here. Thank you for your time. Edit 1 I also forgot to mention, I've tried changing my own view by asking myself What if it was me family friend? But that hasn't worked, I would prefer my family friends to live a long healthy life than give them the chance of something going wrong if I needed an organ, and I would definitely try to donate an organ if they were in trouble. But right now I'm talking about helping a stranger, somebody that I don't know.","conclusion":"I shouldn't have to affect my quality of life to save somebody that I don't know by donating an organ."}
{"id":"7e05f16a-0de4-44e2-a705-478071a73916","argument":"I've been researching economists that say the opposite and nothing convinces me. If for example company A makes a new gadget that takes over the market it is pretty obvious people that buy it will stop buying something else, either their old gadget equivalent from company B, or something unrelated as their money is limited. Company B will have to fire their workers or pivot to build something else that, if done correctly, would leave somebody else out of business or at least take a big bite of their profits. Or let's think it some other way, if I expect to thrive in life, and climb the professional ladder financially, every dollar some top tier executive ends up paying me is one less dollar he pays somebody else. Even if we have into account that money is printed every year by governments, as more money is being printed, the overall value of the whole pot stays consistent basic inflation . I have read all sort of explanations on how global economy is not a zero sum game because if I work harder and fish more fishes, I can create more money, but they don't have into account that extra money I am being paid for the extra fishes must be coming from somewhere else, and each dollar spent on me is one dollar less spent on something different, so I feel as if all those explanations fail to explain real current global economy. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Economy is a zero-sum game."}
{"id":"a8359e51-6b1a-4d86-b9ee-cd9aa020e9e3","argument":"American juries are very oddly structured to me, where they are often given only verbal instructions, and are not given a specific breakdown of the charged conduct with each element of the offense s specified. In other similar systems such as the UK, juries can be given a flowchart laying out the offense and elements including elements of defenses such as self defense . For example I saw this route to verdict document from a UK case linked recently. I see no reason something like that should not be given to jurors in all criminal cases. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Juries should be given decision rubrics which break down the elements of each charged offense."}
{"id":"47f02148-90c7-4fb9-87a3-f450e043ffb9","argument":"The national anthem is a ritual specifically intended to foster that sense of belonging and equality, and by rejecting the anthem, these athletes highlight the differences they have with \"middle America\", and present optics that invite middle class white people to view the protestors as inferior because they \"hate America\".","conclusion":"The end goal of BLM is for black Americans to have the same sense of belonging and equality in society as white Americans, and to not be viewed as different or inferior. By standing they are viewed in the same way as all others."}
{"id":"7788f9ea-8438-46c2-a11b-77c2dc4004ba","argument":"A tax reform is in the works that would raise the personal income tax rate from 13 to 15 percent, disproportionately impacting the poor.","conclusion":"The Russian government has deliberately shifted the burden of the sanctions from the tycoons onto the most vulnerable segments of society."}
{"id":"2505af32-cfdf-4a39-9011-cd80a4c356f8","argument":"We are at a point where we can no more respect and tolerate, vast differences in notions about the well-being of sentient creatures morality, than we can respect and tolerate vast differences in the notions of how disease spreads, or safety standards in buildings and airplanes. We simply must converge, it's a question of survival.","conclusion":"Religion denies humanity the responsibility of Morality and wants to shackle us to itself in doing so."}
{"id":"30e6fe72-8c60-4529-93e3-bbeeff953070","argument":"Implementation of the law led to the widening of the cultural divide between the wizarding communities of the United States and Europe where wizarding governments clandestinely cooperated and communicated with their Muggle counterparts, and witches and wizards were free to marry and befriend Muggles.","conclusion":"Rappaport's Law completely separated the wizarding world in the U.S. from No-Maj Muggle communities. Wizards could not befriend or marry No-Majs, penalties for fraternization were harsh, and communication was limited to what was necessary for daily activities."}
{"id":"9fefa916-51cb-477b-ba0b-91c5b646e6ed","argument":"And lets just get out the way that I'm not talking about extremes of not wanting to date 5'2 300lb guy with a neckbead that doesn't shower. Nor am I some kind of bitter loser, as I am a perfectly happy LTR with my girlfriend of about 6 years. I have no skin in the game, just is just my observation as a 30 year old. Now lets get on to my view. It seems like women pretty much only care about how hot a guy is based on what Hollywood deams to be what the ideal hot guy is from movies, magazines, etc , and that's exactly what the women chase above all else, to the complete exclusion of others. What I mean by this, is that most of these women will not give a guy a chance if you don't pass their extremely high bar of physical attractiveness standard, even if they themselves are only average on the bell curve of attractiveness. This goes for chance meetings for example trying to start a casual conversation at a coffee house , meat markets clubs, bars, online dating , and social gatherings with friends. Pretty much all the ways that people normally meet people of romantic interests. What am I basing my view on? The following Personal experience when I was single. Observation of my girlfriend's single friends all the way from high school to now different girlfriends and many different friends, so lots of observation . Many studies on the subject, for example this one Women rate 80 of men below average The way that there are so many websites communities sole dedicated to how to pick up women, which leads me to the conclusion that lots of men have trouble attracting women. From 16 to mid thirties, I have no seen the dating behavior of women mature or change in any way.","conclusion":"Most women, of all ages not just the young assign way too much value on physical appearance, which is why so many women \"can't find a man\" as they claim."}
{"id":"fef11f60-2e6b-450c-9f8d-8d2209a05c6f","argument":"Pedophilia doesn't require assault nor harassment to be wrong, even just possessing pictures is a crime. Having children walking around naked would facilitate their despicable hobbies.","conclusion":"Pedophilia would become even more problematic than it is now if kids are naked in public."}
{"id":"6badb54f-22b3-4f7d-9229-52009f7ea31a","argument":"A lot of r GetMotivated is about people working towards good grades, getting over rejection, going to the gym. I think they're all worthy goals, but they relatively easy compared to getting rich. Please change my view.","conclusion":"It takes more work and discipline to become rich than to get fit, go to college, find a romantic partner, etc., or any other serious life goal."}
{"id":"20bd2d6b-d383-4b42-87ad-805631ba1d57","argument":"With Russia, China, and North Korea looming, its clear that we need increased recruitment, and the best way to do that is through a massive pay raise . A 15,000 increase to the wages of all members will boost morale, recruitment, and quality of life for members of the military. With a 700 billion budget, this is something the DOD can afford. Military recruitment rates have been dwindling, and there is a shortage of skilled workers. If we increase pay talented individuals are more likely to join the military rather than the private sector. Change my view.","conclusion":"Military members need a massive pay raise"}
{"id":"4edceb4c-9bee-46ae-a2b2-b7235f33f2f8","argument":"So we all know that interesting fact that in only 115 years, number of people on Earth has risen from 1.65 billion to 7.4 billion. I think that, because of such growth, the value of individuality has gotten lower and therefore it has affected morality. It became much harder to become popular since there is so much more people than before. The value of ones morality has been overrun by ones ability to gain popularity. Example Prank channels on YouTube. Absolutely zero sense of morality, since they make fake pranks often manipulative with sexual content to show them off as real. But they gain popularity. And today everyone considers that just fine, oh, they are YouTubers We know it's fake but it is entertaining But they gain popularity, which now is what everybody wants even more because now you can earn money by just being popular Aka call yourself some kind of influencer .","conclusion":"Morality has declined because the number of people on the Earth has grown exponentially"}
{"id":"78a0d32e-ae81-4d3d-b491-3edb81a5c22a","argument":"Quick Background The basic philosophy behind property tax is that governments ensure the land is being used most efficiently. For example Let's say a small agrarian town is located near the ocean. Currently, the property tax for the area is based upon the value of the farmland, which is pretty cheap. Later, some developers see the beauty of the area and begin building designer homes near the beachfront. The town quickly explodes with population as people want to live in this coastal paradise. Some farmers are not happy with the change in their town and refuse to sell their beachfront farms to developers. The problem for the farmer, however, is that Uncle Sam has increased his property tax. The government now appraises his land at a much higher value than what his farmland used to appraised at. So instead of paying property tax on a 50,000 lot, he is now paying property tax on a 500,000 lot. The government has determined the most efficient use for the lot is high income residential zoning. While the government will not force the farmer off of his lot, Uncle Sam incentives the farmer to sell to developers by making the property tax too burdensome for his current use of the land. While this sounds insensitive, it is what guarantees cities aren't choked by holdout landowners that do not want to develop their property. Imagine if lower Manhattan still had a couple single residential houses in the midst of commercial skyscrapers Prop 13 Prop 13 amended the California Constitution to limit property tax to 1 of the property when sold or newly constructed upon. Tax inflation can only increase by a factor of 2 . Going back to our example The farmer is upset about all of these newcomers and does not sell his land. Californian government cannot give him incentive to sell his land by raising property tax. Instead, his property tax will remain at 1 w 2 capped inflation of whatever he bought it at, which probably was dirt cheap. The coastal town's downtown region is choked out by scattered farms, and the land that was sold and developed skyrockets in price. With a lack of land to develop, housing prices increase and the town enters a housing crisis. This phenomena is happening in Los Angeles. The government is powerless to tax the land at what it could appraise for. This also makes it difficult for the government to alleviate housing shortages by appraising single residential zoned areas as medium or dense residential zones.  Why should California keep prop 13? gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Prop 13 California should be abolished."}
{"id":"c42344c5-bce9-4abb-b372-a15f5614e2cd","argument":"The media is regularly accused of being sensationalist and of hyping up the extent and gruesomeness of violent crimes. In some cases this may be true, but the media generally reports facts in a sober and informative, if also exciting, way. Without the mainstream media, however, news about violent crimes will still spread. The news will be disseminated within local communities and across the Internet via email and blogs. The result is lessening of journalistic quality, as bloggers are not bound by any exacting requirements in terms of the need for factual bases of stories.1 The mainstream media provides a largely credible source of news that new media still lacks. In the absence of mainstream reporting, especially on such a hot button issue as violent crime, will only serve to spread disinformation, leading people to draw inaccurate conclusions and make decisions based on inaccurate knowledge. 1 Rouse, Darren. \u201cIs New Media a Threat to Journalism?\u201d. ProBlogger. 15 October 2007,","conclusion":"The mainstream media is essential for the accurate reporting of information; without it reporting on violent crimes, they would simply be reported by less accountable, less accurate freelance reporters and blogs"}
{"id":"87035f55-817d-433f-9a7a-0fc347b00572","argument":"All elections are to a greater or lesser extent about the character of the leading politicians involved. Unless the voters are allowed insights into their private lives they will lack the information needed to make a fair decision at the polling booth. For example, many would think that a politician who betrayed his wife in an affair was equally capable of breaking his promises and lying to his country.","conclusion":"All elections are to a greater or lesser extent about the character of the leading politicians invol..."}
{"id":"73c604cb-2ad4-4118-9383-c25aa53c9e75","argument":"\"Should Restaurants Be Required To Post Calorie Information?\". Dr. Dolgoff's Weigh. Dr. Dolgoff. July 19th, 2009: \"As a pediatrician and child obesity specialist, I spend my days talking to overweight families. I am constantly surprised at the lack of knowledge about calories and nutrition. While it may seem obvious that certain foods have a lot of calories, most people are unaware of exactly how many calories they contain.\" In general, even with people who are not obese, it can be difficult to accurately judge the calories in any given restaurant entre, with people consistently expressing surprise at the actual calorie content of certain meals. Calorie counts helps avoid any ambiguity, clarifying exactly what consumers are getting. This is as it should be.","conclusion":"Calorie counts make it easier to judge calories in foods"}
{"id":"463dd1ca-e273-49d6-984b-c711cf37f8ef","argument":"It's 12 times cheaper to help a refugee in the Middle East than it is to resettle them in the USA. Statistically speaking refugees from the middle east typically have a 10th grade education and take up more welfare programs than native citizens. It's also been estimated refugees will never pay back in tax revenue what they take up in welfare programs. We should pay some of the cost to have refugees resettled in other middle eastern countries instead of having them come to the USA. It's cheaper and will help more people. My reasoning behind why I believe this is the best plan, why it's moderate, why it's the cheapest. This is the most moderate plan because it abates the desire to help the refugees in the highest quantity. While it also abates the concern of the cultural effects housing thousands of refugees in the USA could have. I don't believe there is any other plan that comes to a more reasonable compromise. I don't think there's any other plan that's cheaper. I think both helping the refugees is a noble cause, saving money is good, and protecting western values is a worthy cause. I value life, money, and American culture. Source for statistics.","conclusion":"We should help the Syrian refugees by housing them in neighboring countries"}
{"id":"02f57490-f9d2-4049-ac67-2f5b8ad48dab","argument":"Dr. Ranee Kaur Banerjee. \"Top 10 reasons to get an MBA.\" Bright Hub. June 8th, 2010: \"#5: 'I will be able to change the course of my career if I get an MBA' Say you're a software engineer. You know you're good at what you do but lately, you haven't been feeling very satisfied. You think you could do more but you don't know what or how. You should definitely consider an MBA course. It will give you the wherewithal to consider other things you can do with your core knowledge of software programming.\"","conclusion":"MBA is a great way to make a career change"}
{"id":"17a433a6-c69d-444a-954c-bfee63f834d9","argument":"John H. Gilbert, typesetter for the Book of Mormon, asked Martin Harris, \"Martin, did you see those golden plates with your naked eyes?\" Harris \"looked down for an instant, raised his eyes up, and said, 'No, I saw them with a spiritual eye.'\" John H. Gilbert, \"Memorandum,\" Sept. 8, 1892, in EMD 2:548","conclusion":"Around 1829-30, Martin Harris told residents of Palmyra, NY that he had only seen the golden plates with his spiritual eyes."}
{"id":"ce6a7e37-0ea7-4d52-b72e-afa2c2960efa","argument":"Agree and do what is necessary to survive. When the British impose their cultural practices upon you, appropriate them. When the British introduce the sport of cricket to you, make yourself so good that centuries later your cricket team will terrify and embarrass your old colonial masters in England. History will forever hold your cricket team as the best ever and you will have shown the world how a once small, downtrodden nation can ascend greatness! en.wikipedia.org","conclusion":"Option \"One\": Agree and then honor the agreement. Become the slave police."}
{"id":"21cbf010-19b2-4acf-bebc-6217eef393d2","argument":"Alcohol consumption is dangerous and unhealthy, yet far too common in most cultures globally. For the health of overall society, we would generally be better off if we didn't consume as much alcohol. Its dangers include Birth defects citation Increased cancer risk citation Increased risk of committing violent crime citation pp. 521 Inability to drive a motor vehicle, causing unnecessary fatalities Obesity The innumerable social repercussions of alcoholism, causing family stress, depression, homelessness, and other mental issues affecting far more than singular individuals If you don't want to read through my citations but still aren't convinced that alcohol is horribly unhealthy, watch this video. HOWEVER, I'm not just a fucking nerd. Getting drunk is hella fun. As much as I acknowledge that my hangovers are my body experiencing intense damage and pain, I will still drink in my future, because it's enjoyable from time to time. But we're living in an advanced society We shouldn't have to continually deal with all the issues that alcohol causes after they take effect, but instead change what people drink entirely. Take vaping for example people decided that they like nicotine, but don't want the negative health repercussions caused by tobacco and cigarettes, so they decided to develop and alternative piece of technology that in effect has the good effects without any of the bad. We could do something similar with alcohol. I would think it would be beneficial for an experiment with a substance that looks and tastes something similar to wine or liquor and is an artificial drug that gets you 'drunk' or fucked up just the same, but with less health repercussions associated with it. Maybe we could even strive for something which could have so little disorienting effects so that people can even drive a car while they're 'drunk' on it, more like a stimulant rather than something that causes motor impairment like alcohol but overall I don't support DUI and I don't even drive so don't hit me too hard on that point . Would you go to a 'healthy alcohol' bar? I would. I would like to see them take over. . gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"It would be deeply beneficial for society to consider an 'alternative drug' to alcohol because of how dangerous the substance is."}
{"id":"088b04c6-651b-456e-bef0-db8e7268f427","argument":"Not into tobacco or weed, but I find injust that a substance more damaging than cannabis should be socially permitted and not seen as wrong . If you saw a guy smoking a cigarrete, you wouldn't be very surprised. Now, most people would be surprised if they saw a guy vaping smoking weed in front of them, even though tobacco has worse effects than weed. shown in this article, although it may not be entirely correct I think the main problem is that weed actually changes you in a noticeable way, tobacco, not so much, and the USA government has been on a fight with drugs for decades now, even though some of them aren't that bad. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Tobacco should be as stigmatized as weed."}
{"id":"74d5e040-6d46-46df-98c9-e3b361ccd133","argument":"When, for example, medical treatments are necessary for the greater good and to avoid harm, states do legislate on them such is the case of mandatory vaccination","conclusion":"States do interfere in private matters, especially when there is harm to its citizens involved."}
{"id":"451ef3d8-66c4-44a5-bf7f-571d224bde70","argument":"Jury members are performing a civic duty, ostensibly without conflicting interests. How is it that we allow them to make money off telling the details of a trial wouldn't the verdict potentially have an impact on how lucrative a book deal they could get their hands on the more controversial, the better ? Additionally, they're acting as agents of the state, right? Like judges and prosectors. I get why defense attorneys make money off these cases they work for a private citizen. But the people who work for the people either of the state or the country shouldn't have any personal considerations or stake in the case. We bar convicted criminals from profiting from their crimes Son of Sam Laws why can't we extend that to representatives of the people as well? I live in the United States, if that isn't evident.","conclusion":"It should be illegal for a juror to make money off discussing a trial they served on."}
{"id":"886675fa-cd10-463f-9aa0-99fcd391efbc","argument":"in exchange for \"quiet and order\" in the camps from which hundreds of thousands were shipped to Auschwitz. The few thousand saved by the agreement, prominent Jews and members of the Zionist youth organizations, were, in Eichmann's words, \"the best biological material.\"","conclusion":"Hannah Arendt describes Eichmann as a Zionist who spoke yiddish Arendt, p. 23"}
{"id":"6b030716-1b30-4841-adaf-372d0620140e","argument":"William Byrne. \"Republic Versus Monarchy\". December, 1995 - \"Republicanism is a divisive issue. This is just another \"status quo\" argument.","conclusion":"Arguing that republicanism is divisive is a status quo argument"}
{"id":"e3cf285e-6139-4097-8e8e-450c0eb2b879","argument":"In the trolley problem, there is risk to one person if the bystander pulls the lever, who would otherwise be safe. This shows there is a difference in expected outcome between the trolley scenario and one in which five may be saved without risk to anyone, and so active harm being worse than passive harm would apply in the trolley scenario.","conclusion":"If there is risk of self, then the two situations no longer have the same expected outcome, and thus their lack of equivalence is no longer a case for active harm being worse than passive harm in general or for the same outcome."}
{"id":"f968b4d2-2f7f-4c86-9ecf-7d52a09f7a90","argument":"In the US, according to surveys conducted by the Job Accommodation Network, companies report an average return of $28.69 in benefits for every dollar invested in making an accommodation.","conclusion":"Providing accommodations\/adjustments to employees with mental health conditions benefits employers."}
{"id":"b4eb2047-3857-47be-a278-8541d515b806","argument":"I believe prams, pushchairs and buggies for children and babies should absolutely not be used on public transport Specifically mentioning London TFL . It feels as though they are sold to accommodate as much storage and luggage as possible, whilst retaining a sense of style. Obviously I understand that some are very basic collapse able and minimalist, however in my experience the majority of them are larger vanity pieces. I could be mislead, but what are wrong with baby carriers? The backpack style, or front pouches . I find it difficult to reasonably understand why you would need to take multiple small children or tons of luggage that isn't carry able on your person for a commute. Additionally if the child is old enough, why can't they just walk? We were all tired children at some point, I understand, but the number of older kids in pushchairs on tablets playing games etc that could absolutely support themselves is disgraceful. My problem with them is on the underground when it is most busy, you will find several pushchairs etc, attempting or successfully taking up the space that multiple commuters and travellers could stand in. My post might be a little bitter, but I was a spectator of a argument between a pushchair owner and some travellers on the tube today. The fact that there were other pushchairs on the tube additional to the extra pushchair in question made me think about it enough to write this.","conclusion":"Prams and pushchairs should not be used on public transport."}
{"id":"36149a73-d6c9-4164-816d-c49bf79e623e","argument":"Baseball is not a contact sport. It is not a sport that is supposed to rely on violence. This is one commentator\u2019s point: \u201cif you want to watch violent collisions, you can watch American football. Or hockey. Or MMA. There\u2019s no reason baseball needs to have similar kinds of plays; it\u2019s an entirely different sport with a different premise and different rules.\u201d1 Baseball tries to make the game safe for its players. That\u2019s why beanballs\u2014pitches that endanger hitters\u2014are disallowed. Baseball should not promote violence, and it certainly shouldn\u2019t allow it when players\u2019 careers hang in the balance. 1 Dave Cameron, \u201cIt\u2019s Time to End Home Plate Collisions,\u201d FanGraphs, May 26, 2011,","conclusion":"Collisions are an example of violence that has no place in baseball."}
{"id":"ffef49dc-579c-4a9c-81e1-f367410a4124","argument":"Very few people who achieve fame and fortune cease pursuing those goals once they achieve a moderate amount of wealth. This shows that, to an extent at least, incentives to achieve those forms of success go above and beyond just getting rich.","conclusion":"Those motivations don't magically disappear because we get a little bit of money."}
{"id":"c3e66790-0ef3-4d3c-9c04-f32827ae803b","argument":"Reproductive cloning harms the integrity of the family. Single people will be able to produce offspring without even the physical presence of a partner. Once born, the child will be denied the love of one parent, most probably the father. Several theologians have recognised that a child is a symbolic expression of the mutual love of its parents, and their hope for the future. This sign of love is lost when a child\u2019s life begins in a laboratory.","conclusion":"Reproductive cloning harms the integrity of the family. Single people will be able to produce offspr..."}
{"id":"7acbcaec-31b0-4065-beb2-37bc04c94b0e","argument":"The proposition arguments repeatedly rely on the federal state being limited in strength enough to allow local differences and choices. However, historically, federal states have moved to extend their control from the centre often with the justification of necessity. Both the USA and Russia are examples of this trend.1 In the USA, debates about overstretch of federal control are numerous and time consuming. This argument is especially likely if one or a group of federal units are significantly stronger than the other unit, for example the Kingdom of Prussia in the 1871 German Union. In this case, Prussia was able to use its financial strength and size to eventually dominate the Union and control the other federal units.2 1Garratt, Thomas and Rhine, Russell. 'On the Size and Growth of Government.' Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review. 88 1. 2006. World Savvy, 2008, 'Centralization of Power in Modern Russia,' 2 Houseofnames.com, 'German Unification,'","conclusion":"Federal governments often extend their powers and usurp local authority, especially if one or more federal units are disproportionately powerful."}
{"id":"e94f2775-6fed-4e3f-a595-98069d1b53b4","argument":"I believe that the US is the biggest violator of HR in history, specifically after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This applies to violations both in and out the country, as well as citizens and non citizens. The view is based only on violation perpetrated by the US government and or its agents. Violations inside the US Unethical and torture like experiments Violations of Human Rights in US prisions Abuse of judicial discretion Police brutality in general Police brutality in demonstrations Violations outside the US Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse Secret CIA prisions all over the world Violations of National Sovereignty in this specific case, against Nicaragua War crimes and many more","conclusion":"I believe that the United States is the biggest violator of human rights since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Therefore, it doesn't have any moral grounds to come forward criticising regimes such as North Korea and Syria."}
{"id":"ad167ed5-de7e-403d-bc07-08636e441f56","argument":"I have been using dating websites for a while and I've adopted the belief that they are an utter waste of your time unless you're conventionally attractive. I must note I'm a male a woman's experience may differ. My view comes from despite being an active user of multiple dating platforms on the web, I've had no major success because I'm not conventionally attractive. Not ugly by any means, average at worst, but I'm no Johnny Depp. What I've used mostly is OkCupid. This website has algorithms that show you users who are most similar to you based on the information you've inputted about yourself. I believe that unless you're attractive other users don't care about what your profile reads, or the match percentage, even if it's 95 . I mean, you have to be attracted to someone in the first place, right? I've had optimistic thoughts that people are just shy and don't tend to message first due to fear of rejection, as I hold that fear. I did an experiment to see if that holds true by creating a fake account with little information and used a photo pulled from Google Images of a conventionally attractive person and the inbox of that account got so many messages I couldn't handle it so that debunked the the myth that most users are too shy to send the first message. I also use Tinder. I thought this is a more direct method and would present much better results. I liked the idea that you will only be able to chat with people who you have a mutual attraction to. Despite this, even with people I've matched with I get no response. I learned a lot of people just swipe right on everyone to see everyone who likes them and they only respond to those who they actually like. The handful of times I've had in person meetings nothing really came of them. There has been times I had good chats with users then after we meet they slowly disappear. I don't think you can get a true first impression of someone online. no matter how much information and pictures they have up. My overall view is that if you are conventionally attractive, users will actually read your profile and care to get to know you more. But when you're average or below, no will care to even open that door, because human beings judge by appearances first. For this reason I think I should just delete all my dating accounts and try to meet people organically. I don't want to give up on dating sites because as a gay male, it is tough to meet other gay men organically. So please","conclusion":"Unless you're conventionally attractive, dating sites are a waste of time."}
{"id":"6e55a386-6f68-4c12-8317-a6ef0b338f73","argument":"Mercury can collect in the dam water poisoning fish and changing the chemical composition of the local waterways.","conclusion":"Hydroelectric dams can be extremely harmful to the local ecosystems and wildlife."}
{"id":"7bbf7ae6-cdc7-4397-a172-7acad0cfb9b0","argument":"There is a moral obligation for such a powerful and diverse group of nations to protect not only their own citizens but also people in desperate need all around the world. All the countries in the EU have signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and therefore stand behind its principles. As the world biggest economic power the EU is fully capable of doing so. The Union is wealthy enough that it can take in the extra migrants that would occur as a result of taking in women from countries where they face discriminatory legislation. The European Union\u2019s international image is not based on its military might but upon its economy and on being upstanding in its promotion of a human rights agenda. Granting asylum to women that live under discriminatory legal system reinforces this image of being concerned for human rights. The European Union has signed up to the United Nations\u2019 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women by which signatories \u201cagree to pursue by all appropriate means and without delay a policy of eliminating discrimination against women\u201d while the convention is calling for the elimination of discrimination internally it is fully in the spirit of the convention to undertake actions that encourage others to fulfill the Convention. By being willing to grant asylum to women from countries that have not lived up to the standards of the convention \u2013 which includes \u201cTo adopt appropriate legislative and other measures, including sanctions where appropriate, prohibiting all discrimination against women\u201d \u2013 the European Union will put pressure on these regimes, helping to highlight their unequal systems. \u2018Article 2\u2019, Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, UN Women, 1979,","conclusion":"The EU\u2019s reputation can only benefit from a strong policy on women\u2019s rights"}
{"id":"8a6ad922-5130-47ac-afc2-4d36837773fd","argument":"Abolitionist John Brown was a noted 'conductor' of the Underground Railroad and established an organization called the League of Gileadites, helping runaway slaves escape to Canada.","conclusion":"Many whites helped slaves to escape. Their descendants do not carry guilt."}
{"id":"2abc4e60-0ef4-4f3d-a82e-00f537f260a9","argument":"In a letter signed by Hawking, as well as a number of experts such as Elon Musk, he urges for restrictions on weapons powered on artificial intelligence, in fear of the substantial risk they pose mankind.","conclusion":"Stephen Hawking argues that the unchecked development of AI could be catastrophic."}
{"id":"d971c3fb-3f0b-45a6-81b7-861e66a43d5f","argument":"Traditionally, the conventions were sources of ideological and policymaking debate for organisations \u2013 both Republican and Democrat \u2013 that are far less pan-national than their European counterparts especially when the party concerned is out of power. Now, the conventions are little more than coronation events. As a result, policy-making suffers and a party's position on an important issue may change from election to election, depending only upon the personal views of the candidate.3","conclusion":"The primary process reduces the level of debate at national conventions"}
{"id":"b92e239e-5f21-4663-8a0c-69430dd0d850","argument":"There should be an unbiased committee, or a straight forward law that should punish politicians who spout blatant lies about what they plan to do in campaigns only to do the exact opposite and flip their stance as soon as they are elected. If you for example, state continuously that you are not going to support Medicaid and social security cuts, and then proceed to support every health bill that cuts Medicaid, you would be in violation of this law. When ever you violate this law you must either pay a large fine, or give a written statement as to why you no longer support one of your own campaign promises Congress lies, past presidents lied, most politicians lie. How can we have a functioning democracy if we allow them to lie and trust the multi million dollar media companies to hold them accountable? I'm not talking about things that could be misconstrued as a lie, I'm talking about blatant lies that can be clearly shown. Donald Trump is the most obvious example of a politician that lies constantly and does not even care if he can easily be fact checked, because he knows a good chunk of America will believe him either way. If he wants to pay, fine, have it on record that he was in violation, but if he doesn't want to pay, he has to admit he either lied or no longer supports one of the reasons the voters picked him. Edit to be clear, I'm basically saying they should have their promises be a part of a contract with the American people. A break of one of your promises is a breach of contract, and therefore has penalties. If there was adequate reasoning for you not fulfilling your end of the contract, you must properly give reasons and submit it in writing. I just want to get away from the whole what are you talking about, I didn't lie, I am doing everything I said I was going to do","conclusion":"Politicians should be legally held accountable for campaign promises."}
{"id":"e61dbcd5-b022-4f1d-bf43-2717e37d496c","argument":"\"9\/11 Families Outraged by Obama Call to Suspend Guantanamo War Crimes Trials\". Fox News. January 21, 2009 - \"Family members of people killed on September 11, 2001, and in other terror attacks say they are outraged by President Obama's draft order calling for the suspension of war crimes trials of prisoners being held at Guantanamo Bay.\"","conclusion":"Guantanamo Bay is supported by the families of 9\/11 victims"}
{"id":"37c0a025-b636-4ab6-84c1-27a24e1c706a","argument":"Constant reporting on violent crime makes people more fearful. This not a deliberate effort on the part of the media to keep people afraid, but rather is a corrosive negative externality; violence sells, so media provides, resulting in the scaring of audiences. The result of the media\u2019s reporting on violent crimes is a constant iteration of fear, which makes people wary of each other, and of the world.1 Furthermore, such reporting creates a feeling in people of other individuals and groups most often reported as committing crimes as being \u201cother\u201d from themselves. For example, reporting on extensive crimes in inner-city areas in the United States has caused middle class suburbanites to develop wariness toward African-Americans, who are constantly reported in the media as criminals. This is socially destructive in the extreme. The heightened senses of insecurity people feel leads to vigilance in excess. This is bad for people\u2019s rationality. All these problems yield very negative social consequences. The constant reporting on violence leads to people demanding immediate law enforcement, and politicians quick to oblige, which leads to a ratchet effect, a precipitous increase in punishments for crimes. This results in a severe misallocation of resources; first in terms of irrationally high spending on extra policing, and second in terms of the excessive allocation of resources and authority to the state to solve the problems of crime through force. This is observed, for example, in the enactment of the PATRIOT Act, which was acclaimed in a state of fear after 9\/11, and which gave extensive, even draconian powers to the state in the name of security. The media fuels this hysteria. Without its influence, cooler heads can prevail. The end result of all this is a treating of symptoms rather than the cause. Putting more police on the streets, and getting tough on crime fail to address underlying issues, which are often poverty and the social ills arising from it.2 Citizens and governments should instead face the actual problem instead of choosing flashy option. 1 Rogers, Tom. \u201cTowards an Analytical Framework on Fear of Crime and its Relationship to Print Media Reportage\u201d. University of Sheffield. 2 Amy, Douglas J. \u201cMore Government Does Not Mean Less Freedom\u201d. Government is Good. 2007,","conclusion":"Reporting generates a constant iteration of fear in the public, and precipitates a ratchet effect toward crime"}
{"id":"2310f8ac-0347-404c-86a3-e32331bc59b6","argument":"So basically no matter who it is boy, girl, agender, idgaf , when I see anyone with earrings, lipstick, or nail polish I get grossed out. For earrings, I have no fucking idea why, but I honestly respect someone with them a LOT less and they just freak me the fuck out. For lipstick, I get grossed out cause like you eat it by wearing it, that seems gross to me, however I'll note that I don't feel the same way at all about chapstick. I'm fine with most other makeup. Nail polish ostensibly grosses me out because it flakes off and gets in food and stuff, I dunno. This one isn't as universal for me, if there's someone I consider attractive I can look past that, but it grosses me out when it's on platonic friends or something, or someone who I consider a figure that has nothing to do with sexuality. For example, I didn't care that my high school crush used it sometimes but the fact that she used neither earrings nor lipstick made her much, much more attractive to me , but on someone like my sister or mom or even a musical artist I like listening to, it just grosses me out. Obviously all this has to change so help me out please. I'll note again that this isn't rational thing, just a knee jerk reaction that I've had ever since I remember for example in kindergarten when we learned the word earrings I freaked out and had to be sent home, true story.","conclusion":"I'm grossed out by certain \"beauty\" products and I want that to change"}
{"id":"21045f98-1b05-4f0c-85cb-db6e41dfeff8","argument":"Starfleet computers are able to automatically track and fire on multiple targets at a time, from any direction. Going up against peers with fighters at that level of technology is suicide, rendering them mostly useless.","conclusion":"One of the key reasons given the lack of fighters is that they can easily be targeted and destroyed before they can get into range to do any serious damage."}
{"id":"3d40d860-3f31-4d6e-99cd-ac07b3161676","argument":"So I would like to preface this post by saying that I am typically on the other side in debates like this. I typically am outraged when companies censor people's views, and hate when celebrities try to force diversity into their movies, especially when they try to target white males. However, I find this situation to be different. x200B So first of all people are apparently angry about Brie Larson being in Captain Marvel because of controversial things she said. Originally I figured these people were justified in their outrage. This is because political Youtube channels that I typically agree with such as TheQuartering and NoBullshit were posting videos with thumbnails that suggested Brie Larson had done said something racist and sexist. I never watched these videos, but I pretty much always agree with TheQuartering and typically agree with NoBullshit not always though . After seeing the movie more on that later , I decided to find out what she actually said. Some people are angry over her saying something along the lines of A Wrinkle in Time wasn't made for white men. Now on the surface this could seem problematic, but if you actually see what the movie is about, you'd know that it isn't. The cast of A Wrinkle in Time is almost entirely black women. Coupling this with the fact that not all movies are made for everyone should point you to what she was getting at. She wasn't being racist, or sexist. She was just saying that the demographic was not white men, and was instead black women. There is no problem with that. x200B The other complaint I see is how Marvel made the marketing more about how Captain Marvel is a women, instead of showing off the movie itself. I can see how this bothers some people, but I don't see how this is Brie Larson's fault. She isn't in charge of Marvel's marketing. x200B These complaints led to absolutely trash reviews for Captain Marvel, most of them coming from people who hadn't even seen the movie yet. Many reviews were calling Brie Larson an SJW idiot and other crap like that, and said absolutely nothing about the movie. Other reviews appeared to be people trying to say something about the movie was bad, just to hide their hate for Brie Larson. One review said Brie Larson is a dull and terrible actor. It would have been a great movie with a better leading actor. This seems like it could possibly be a real review, but after seeing the movie I can't help but think the person is just trying to bash the movie because of their hate for Larson. Brie Larson was definitely not dull. You could easily say Captain Marvel as a character wasn't great, but Larson did well with the script she was given. x200B These reviews led Rotten Tomatoes, Disney, and other review websites to decide to wipe over 50,000 reviews, which boosted the rating of the movie. I don't see a problem with this at all. Why wouldn't a company wipe obviously fake reviews from people who haven't even seen the movie? I go onto Rotten Tomatoes to see if a movie is good or not, not to hear people's opinions about an actor. I see other people who wrote legitimate bad reviews getting angry about them being removed. This sucks, but it can't be helped. Do they actually expect people to go through and 1 by 1 remove 50,000 reviews? They most likely had a bot going through all of them, and some actual reviews got purged by accident. x200B I do not believe this is all some plot by Disney to make a crappy movie look better than it is. I think they are just trying to give their movie a fair chance. x200B It was a decently good movie btw","conclusion":"Rotten Tomatoes\/Disney are justified in removing bad reviews of Captain Marvel, and the outrage over Brie Larson makes no sense"}
{"id":"70a3f997-f416-42b9-8f70-e71636f55379","argument":"I hear it a lot on the internet, from Westerners of course, that their culture is invariably superior to other cultures. At first I ignored them since it's natural to be irrationally proud of your nation or culture, but now that I see things like protests in Germany, I'm starting to get sick and tired of this sentiment. Western culture is lewd, perverted, overly sexualized, racist, brutal and overall, just an average culture that is not so different than any of the other cultures out there. Can you come up with a solid argument that Western culture is superior to others?","conclusion":"The claim that the Western culture is superior is false"}
{"id":"507da5be-4ee6-4d6b-a06b-636b4f912a0c","argument":"i will preface this by saying that I am a person who never really liked Hillary until 2016 and even then only supported her because I don't like a Republicans in their current form and b novices regardless of party, including in 2000 one Hillary Clinton. The effects of 2016 have dragged myself, among others, leftward and I see more and more rhetoric that if Hillary won that things would be far better off. I know she wouldn't have touched a single thing Obama did during his presidency and would have not done any of the many rollbacks of the current regime, however would would this have been a short term stalling to long term problems. I keep hearing that had she won that there would've been the probability of a Red Wave in 2018 that would've furthered GOP majorities and that someone worse would have run against her in 2020, someone cruel yet competent and experienced. However, I don't think that the left would've fallen back into complacency had she eked out a win and we would be seeing ads for voters to give our President the Congress she deserves . Also, I think a Hillary win would've allowed for a lot of the elder statespersons of the Democrats in safe districts to retire into the sunset, allowing for a generational reset of leadership which would only make the Democrats better off in the long term and reduce internal warring. I keep hearing that things would be better off if Hillary won. In a unbiased sense, would that really have been true? . gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The United States would be better off if Hillary Clinton won in 2016"}
{"id":"4b35c719-8399-4d8e-a1e9-9e73789ea2a2","argument":"A nation requires finances to provide the key services expected by its people. Those finances can only come from the public sector taxes, the private sector business decides what government will do, or by selling those services oligarchy. The public sector is the only one where the incentive remains for a government to produce value for citizens.","conclusion":"Taxation upholds property rights because it is what enables the key services \u2014 courts, police, military \u2014 that actually define and protect property. While individuals can steal property and thus violate the rights of others taxation fundamentally underpins those rights so it cannot be a violation of them."}
{"id":"bc2295ae-790e-47ca-8fde-d61c2c2b6299","argument":"For many people, abiding by the law is necessary, whether due to the nature of their employment, or their belief systems religious, ethical, personality. Legalization of drugs makes it possible for them to consume drugs, and therefore increases the likelihood of addiction among this group.","conclusion":"There is a reason why drugs are banned in the first place; it is because they are harmful. Hence legalising the use of drugs is not the solution."}
{"id":"92092418-fb37-4e5f-90a4-7937250ae8eb","argument":"Increased import taxes and transport delays between the UK and the EU would lead to increased food prices particularly on fresh produce.","conclusion":"In a no-deal Brexit scenario there would likely be increased prices for certain goods and medicines in the UK."}
{"id":"b669c79d-f15e-4891-92ba-8926e104418a","argument":"The recent rise in popularity of right wing extremist parties across Europe - from Le Pen in France to Pim Fortuyn in Holland, not including the success of the BNP in Burnley council - shows the success that appealing to voters on extremist grounds can have. It is not good enough to say that there is no threat, or that parties are not successful. We have a duty to act against a threat to our society in the form of extremism.","conclusion":"The recent rise in popularity of right wing extremist parties across Europe - from Le Pen in France ..."}
{"id":"5bd5ac3e-2098-4888-be4f-5a654a2bc446","argument":"Although pseudo-random events seem to be common within our universe, due to unpredictable events and chaos theory, this would not apply outside of our universe without a similar system in place. We can't assume that randomness is the default state without reason.","conclusion":"No system has been proposed that would result in randomized laws, constants, and quantities in a multiverse."}
{"id":"130a582c-6655-4868-b811-00d30e2d8a2b","argument":"The \"Diversity in human sexuality meta-study by ASSAF says in its abstract: \"The panel concludes that there is substantial biological evidence for the diversity of human sexualities and for sexual orientations in particular. . Socio-behavioural research demonstrates unequivocally that both heterosexual and homosexual men feel that they have\/had no choice in terms of their sexual attraction.\"","conclusion":"There is increasing evidence that there may be some biological basis for sexual orientation."}
{"id":"292aaafc-b651-4f1e-b1fb-aede311ce740","argument":"People are more willing to sacrifice themselves for the community. Thus, community leaders get added value from the same amount of group.","conclusion":"God is an invention of the elites and religious rules are made to ensure and enhance their power."}
{"id":"f7607bf5-2925-4a85-b1eb-54b501509c04","argument":"it should be impossible under Kants moral law to stop being a person and no longer be subject to the categorical imperative. But If an individual in charge has come to a moral conclusion based on his own reason that differs from the collective will, which is the collection of individual moral reason, he will have to act for the collective or risk imposing his will over the collective.","conclusion":"Eichmann recognised this contradiction and so gave up the categorical imperative when he was summoned to Berlin. He became a tool of administration and removed his person."}
{"id":"ff36af0d-ba88-4d4a-a096-25037df52adf","argument":"I know people are already foaming at the mouth for my title but hear me out. A boy that gets adopted by a lesbian couple will never experience any son and father talk about girls, money, etc. He will have no role model. He can't talk about how to attract and get girls since has no father. His lesbian parents won't know how to teach him to be a man, how to fight, etc. On the flipside a girl being adopted by a gay couple wouldn't have a mother to talk to about girl shit. They wouldn't be able to do all the shit that mothers do with their girls.","conclusion":"I don't believe that gay couples should be able to adopt kids."}
{"id":"c964f534-c6cd-4c36-8133-589ad62d67eb","argument":"The third conclusion for North Korea was that in case of inability to become a mortal threat to the survival of the US such as the Soviet Union, one has to reach specific capacities capable of disrupting, damaging and threatening political as well as economic structures and institutions that are deemed vital for US interests","conclusion":"Stirring up crises and high risk incidents in order to call for negotiations and draw as many concessions out of it as possible has become the standard modus operandi by the North Korean government"}
{"id":"63204c2f-c273-4c4d-b28c-6ab7c0ee86aa","argument":"Not all children are taught the principles of how government operates in the same way through public education, and thus are not equally and fully informed of how their vote can be effective when voting for president, representatives and senators on local, state and federal levels.","conclusion":"Children do not normally begin to develop conceptual thinking until they reach 13-15, and many do not develop those skills until much later."}
{"id":"16a1e563-e48c-4a4d-b3a2-85ae76b524e2","argument":"We usually see this the other way around. NYT interviews with Trump supporters explaining their views to a liberal audience topics on subs like this asking to have views changed by non supporters subs like r askTrumpSupporters exist and are well participated in by Non supporters seeking to understand It's good to seek to understand the views of others. It's what keeps arguments from simply being a power struggle and instead focuses on reasoning and discourse. Where is the converse effort? Does Fox news frequently provide the voice of the other side? After 2 years, I feel fairly confident I can summarize the 3 schools of thought of most trump supporters Political correctness is coercive and trump is the only one standing up to it sometimes that's going to look ugly. Take him seriously but not litterally. Trump is a businessman and the economy is doing well under him. immigration and globalism are real threats and Trump is the only politician attempting to deal with it at all. It's not great but anyone else would have totally failed to address it. Also what is not their argument basically no one supports his tweeting. most supporters are embarrassed by his racial insensitivity and tone. Most Teump supporters don't want Trump to interfere with the Special Counsel But I haven't seen that the average Trump supporter can or even cares to understand what Non supporters see is so dangerous about Trump. Instead, I see them assuming the issues with Trump are generally political and blaming media political bias for creating that impression. There is a genuine effort to heal the divide and understand the other side on the NS part and a complete lack of interest in discourse on the side of Trump supporters.","conclusion":"Trump supporters don\u2019t spend enough time trying to understand non-supporters"}
{"id":"f7ca0576-efa2-450d-be0e-bb5de701ea70","argument":"\"Joseph Smith came into my neighborhood, being then about eighteen years of age, and resided there two years; during which time I became intimately acquainted with him. I do know that his character was irreproachable; that he was well known for truth and uprightness; that he moved in the first circles of the community, and he was often spoken of as a young man of intelligence and good morals.\" Attorney John S. Reed non-member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.","conclusion":"Almost all accounts of those who personally knew Joseph Smith and who were never members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints reported that his character was impeccable."}
{"id":"da5e3418-15db-4e25-a35b-879771bfc796","argument":"There seems to be a lot of misinformation out there about what the porn ban actually is and I'm sick of being called ignorant for my viewpoint without any supporting information. I really want to hear the facts about why so many people think this tramples on our freedoms. There is one  about this, but I didn't feel it addressed I believe this opt in system tries to prevent children who are not searching for graphic content from accidentally stumbling across it. It doesn't do much for adults and young adults since they'll know how to get around it or they'll just disable it . An opt in system is ideal, but not all parents care enough to monitor their children like they should sad but true . If parents do care enough and feel that the bans are too widespread, they can opt out and create their own parental controls. It doesn't seem much different from the advertising controls on other media, except that there's even more freedom to see what you want. Graphic content isn't straight up banned. TL DR the opt in system is a great way to prevent young children from families that don't monitor or control internet usage from accidentally coming across graphic content.","conclusion":"I believe the ISP opt-in system for explicit content in the UK accomplishes what it sets out to do without compromising freedom."}
{"id":"f141a783-6a62-4289-879e-29b21e0a30b4","argument":"We all know this situation. It is late at night and a man is walking behind a woman on the sidewalk. She is paranoid that the guy is stalking her and is about to mug rape kidnap her. However, his destination just happens to be the same direction as hers and they have the same walking speed. This is understandable, people cannot control their emotions and we cannot tell them how they should feel. I am a teenage guy and even I feel this way sometimes if a tall guy with a beard is walking behind me. However, in this scenario the guy has no OBLIGATION to accommodate the woman's irrational fear. Sure, it is a considerate thing to do speeding up to pass her, pretending to talk on the phone, whatever , but it is not their responsibility. They have done nothing wrong, and statistically speaking they are most likely to be a law abiding person.","conclusion":"When walking behind a woman, I have no obligation to accommodate her irrational fears by speeding up"}
{"id":"9226a4a0-9932-4e02-8c49-63f16be8ac54","argument":"I suppose it depends on your definition of pride . Don't get me wrong. I can take pleasure in learning and taking part in my country's history, traditions and values. But to take PERSONAL satisfaction in such an abstract notion as nationality, something in which I had no choice, to me seems perverse and rather silly.","conclusion":"I can't see any reason to be proud of your nationality and I instantly lose respect for people who say they are \"proud to be american\/british\/whatever\"."}
{"id":"76fe6865-28aa-4592-8bb6-88f61a2a0b07","argument":"Many Catholics support abortion or the death penalty or same-sex marriage all of which are positions opposed by the Catholic Church.","conclusion":"Being religious does not mean that you share all of the opinions of your religion."}
{"id":"eb28a0d0-7d36-4a9c-96a9-4f2f6766c7a6","argument":"Cringe compilations has been around for some time. I remember watching them when I was 11 12 ish and always having a horrible feeling to my stomach afterwards. I believe it's just overall wrong to make these. Some could argue that subreddits like r niceguys or r creepyasterisks are basically also cringe compilations and therefore also cyberbullying. However, I think there are two fundamental differences it's common cortousy or an outright rule to blur people's faces and names in most of these subs, AND they're targeting what most would agree is shitty behaviour. Cringe compilations are mostly targeting people with unusual lifestyle choices or hobbies, some of the most common themes I've noticed has been furries, weeaboos koreaboos , bronies, and emos. Oftentimes the clips are of people not doing anything besides looking and acting a bit weird , being over enthusiastic or making bad performances. There are also a lot of cringe compilations targeting extreme feminism, and while the nature of those are a bit different from those with for example furries because it's an political ideology, I still believe them to be childish in nature. Furthermore, many of them contain young teenagers or even kids. I imagine how heartbreaking it must be to be a parent and finding my child going through an akward emo phase in one of these. Then there are videos that are more intelligently challenging these so groups, making actual points of discussion one example is this one I don't believe these are automatically bad at all, although it can be a fine line. Finding a funny clip of someone being cringy and showing it to a friend is one thing, but these videos strike me as bullying. It's something I'd expect from 4chan users living in their mom's basement, but they get millions of view on a mainstream site like Youtube. Why? Should I grow a thicker skin? Edit u Tapeleg91 pointed out that maybe bullying isn't the right word, and I agree. If I could, I'd change the title to Cringe compilations are very disgusting or something along those lines. Bottom lines, I find them immoral, and I want someone to try to change that view. x200B","conclusion":"Cringe compilations are pure cyberbullying and way too accepted"}
{"id":"b1a66cca-c7d9-41cd-91d2-0e4fbe2ce3e1","argument":"Those who are recruited by a municipality might end up feeling invested in it after working for it, leading them to stay on as long-term employees. This would make the municipalities more stable as the workforce is less unstable.","conclusion":"It becomes harder for different branches of municipalities to function if there is a lack of workforce. This would improve the efficiency and overall productivity in those areas."}
{"id":"f42b26ef-d925-4b99-99e8-75ed31720b4a","argument":"1 Timothy 2:13-14 justifies this modesty by agreeing with Genesis 3:16 regarding the greater weight of the Fall being on the man than on the woman.","conclusion":"1 Timothy 2:9-15 is a commandment to modesty, not singling out women but offered in conjunction to a similar commandment made to men."}
{"id":"6e4d70e6-9da2-46f4-a600-d049a05ec48c","argument":"It is natural for any society to invent the concept of a God as a protector and to ensure divine justice. In a patriarchal society, this God would be an omnipotent father figure; the fact that God is male suggests God is a construction.","conclusion":"It is more likely that people invented the idea of God, than that he actually exists."}
{"id":"4c695ab4-996a-4cb6-9f4a-c43ced584bf6","argument":"Of course she is God. My pasta monster god is what keeps me going when I feel like putting down my slotted spoon.","conclusion":"The invisible and undetectable Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe \"after drinking heavily His intoxication was the cause for a flawed Earth."}
{"id":"f10a6579-019b-4612-a37e-98a494c2e6ba","argument":"I believe that parents need to limit how much their children play video games. It seems as though the culture has shifted from wanting to go outside and playing a pick up game of baseball at the neighborhood field to playing MLB The Show, which is indeed a video game. Video games are fun, but they do not provide any type of physical exercise for the kids in any way. It teaches them a lazy lifestyle. Therefore, they should be in moderation. I believe that parents need to take their own initiative and set a limit as to how much time their kids spend playing them. They should also encourage them to go outside and play a multitude of sports until they find one they like. As long as they put the controllers down for some time and exercise, that is all that matters.","conclusion":"Parents Need to Limit the Video Games"}
{"id":"f8398924-efd9-4ebc-8898-4032a797eb6f","argument":"The rise of social media and interacting through text online has had an affect on how people interact with each other and with this, the rise of social anxiety. For people with social anxiety disorders, interacting with others causes irrational anxiety, and fear of especially being judged, self consciousness, and concerns about embarrassing oneself and a general uneasiness with interacting with others. While not especially new in the human condition, the recent rise of the internet and smart phones has served to amplify the effect based off of few things When interacting online, one is in full control of the interaction meaning they can choose not to not respond if the situation becomes uncomfortable take their time looking for the perfect reply before having to send a message back choose to block the person if they don't agree with how the other person is presenting themselves Because these behaviors are not easily replicated in a real life interaction, the person would experience social anxiety possibly because of lack of coping mechanisms that would have organically developed in the pre internet and pre smartphone era.","conclusion":"The Rise of Social Media And Online Interaction Correlates With Rise of Social Anxiety"}
{"id":"de32ba32-d76e-4620-aca6-92b3b436ec47","argument":"Women's tennis is comparable in popularity and performance level to men's tennis, with the Women's Singles final in Wimbledon 2019 drawing nearly 2 million viewers","conclusion":"Skilled tennis players need good hand-eye coordination, fast reflexes, and impressive spatial awareness."}
{"id":"394995df-d624-4597-94fa-5aa936aa4da5","argument":"I'm a Christian, but I know a lot of Christians wouldn't like this idea, but hear me out. x200B At this point the line between Jesus' birthday and human traditions are very, very blurry at Christmas. It originated as a man made pagan holiday, became Jesus' birthday , and now it's evolving into a harmless, normal holiday with different but non pagan traditions. I think we should just separate the two already, and have a normal Christmas consisting of all our normal traditions, and then a completely separate day to celebrate Jesus' birth. x200B Jesus was born in spring, not winter. Also most of Christmas doesn't seem to have much to do with Jesus anyway. I think it'd be best if we had a day for non religious Christmas, and a day purely for Christianity Jesus' birth that weren't intertwined. During the June Christmas there could still be gifts given and time off school work, but it wouldn't have Santa, elves, etc. and instead of tons of people going to church in December, they'd go in June. And the nativity things would go up in June, and just lights and wreaths in December.","conclusion":"Christmas should completely separated from Christianity, and Jesus' birthday should be celebrated in June instead."}
{"id":"81b9456f-0103-486a-b0a0-99eee9b1bb9f","argument":"The Jewish people do not have a uniquely strong historical claim to the land. The Palestinians, too, have that claim based on their ancestry and genetic background.","conclusion":"Palestinians also have a strong claim to the territory. Israel, therefore, shouldn't be given an exclusive right to the territory."}
{"id":"66548d2f-608e-49ef-85cb-94b6b7c9c9aa","argument":"In my opinion all religions have ideologies that have negative effects on the modern world, the most prominent example of this is Islam with its views on the place of women in society, sharia law etc. However it is not only Islam that I disagree with, Christianity too has negative effects on society with its views on gay rights being the most noticeable along with backwards views towards contraception. I mention these religions specifically due to the fact that they have been used by militant groups to give legitimacy to their cause for example The KKK and ISIS. Religions are given too much protection from criticism for example to question islamic beliefs will get you labeled as an islamophobic by any SJW . We don't give political ideologies this kind of protection, imagine someone saying you couldn't say Hitler was wrong because it would be offensive to neo nazi's Ok maybe a bit of an extreme example but you get my point . Anyway before my point becomes a complete rant i'll end it here and I look forward to seeing the opposing points. P.s Try not to throw around the word racist when debating this as it just simplifies someone's views into one horrible word.","conclusion":"Religions are backwards and have no place in western society and should be less protected from criticism."}
{"id":"17f4e070-d518-4896-ae0b-c906bcfa4ae6","argument":"Before 1942, it was tradition to address the flag with a Bellamy salute but this was stopped, due to its similarity to the Nazi salute.","conclusion":"Slavery was also a tradition, but not at all a good one. Our past can inform our future, but it should not dictate it."}
{"id":"0cfca8e1-4372-47f5-b4b5-791aa9f7d1f3","argument":"For the sake of this thread, let's assume we are talking about One Night Stands only, i.e. casual sex. Since the vast majority of all ONS are initiated by the ever horny male, isn't it obvious that a man who has a lot of ONS is obviously successful at what he does, while a female just lets everyone take her home? In other words, if a good looking woman were to ask 100 single guys, say, in a night club, if they wanted to go home with her, 99 would say yes. If the roles were reversed, the success rate would drop significantly. Note how I'm not saying, that slut shaming is acceptable If a women wants to have sex with many men this does not make her a bad person, it just makes her someone who sleeps around a lot. Anyone can then judge if he likes this attribute in a woman or not. It just appears to me anecdotal evidence here that the majority of guys does not want a girl for a relationship who has slept around with a lot of guys. EDIT Thanks for all the input so far. I believe this question more or less boils down to a chicken egg problem and or if you believe in the evolutionary side of things. Has society always looked down on women who sleep around a lot, because women are being selective or are women being more selective when it comes to casual sex because society looks down on them? I prefer the evolutionary side of looking at this, i.e. a man wants to make sure his heritage lives on i.e. spread the semen as much as possible, father 1000 kids , while a woman wants a strong provider to father her kids.","conclusion":"Women with many partners are easy to get into bed, while men are \"players\""}
{"id":"e2fd9d3a-49e4-402b-aeee-356c3fd5c168","argument":"In Japan, the law is as follows First, you have to go to an all day class, and pass a written test every month. You have to take a shooting class and pass with 95 accuracy. Then you have to go get a mental health and drug test. Then you have to pass a background check that is really rigorous, and checks criminal record, association with any criminals, and association with extremist groups and terrorist groups. After that the gun and the ammo has to be locked away in the house in two separate places, and you have to give the police a layout of your entire house, along with the location of both guns. The police have to inspect the gun once per year, and you have to redo this whole process every 3 years to continue owning a gun. In japan, there were only 6 gun deaths in 2014, compared to 33,600 in the united states. The constitution says you have the right to bear arms, but when it was written, the founding fathers had no idea what sort of weapons we would have today. A very skilled marksman with years of training could only fire a musket 3 times per minute, whereas many modern guns allow you to fire dozens or even hundreds of rounds per minute, are way more accurate, easier to conceal, hold more rounds, etc. The average person would have trouble even killing one person in a school or public place with a musket. With these laws, you still would have the right to bear arms, it would just be restricted. We take voting rights away from felons, and lock people away in mental institutions because they are dangerous. We wouldn't want people like that going undetected, so that's why it is necessary to have all of this. Lastly, it costs the government millions, or even billions of dollars every year of YOUR Taxes to lock people up who commit these crimes.","conclusion":"The US Should Have Gun Laws Like Japan Has."}
{"id":"154d4c54-7d98-44d5-844c-c2d7b9f76e24","argument":"Summer is winding down in the U.S. but I thought I'd bring up a topic I feel very passionately about dessert. Sherbet, Sorbet, Sundaes, Popsicles, etc. the variety is nigh endless, but there is one clearly superior treat the Ice Cream Sandwich. No utensils or dishes required, it's its own perfect delivery system. Individual packaging makes for easy sharing and eliminates any guesstimations on portion size that cripple tubs of ice cream. They're offered in extensive variety though the original Vanilla Chocolate is superior at very affordable prices, everywhere that matters. They're also standard fare in Ice Cream trucks for emergencies. But wait You have to use your hands and that gets messy False, this is user error. If it lasts long enough to become messy, you're doing it wrong. If it is served messy, you're doing it wrong. A properly handled Ice Cream Sandwich should be served solid, cold, with strong consistency, and eaten with appropriate expediency given its irresistible taste, leaving you just a smudge of evidence to lick off your fingers. The entire experience should last no more than one two minutes per treat, tops. This is why boxes come in 12. But I'm lactose intolerant Deal with it, pussy. I tell my stomach to shut up and down that delicious motherfucker. Then I shit for an hour and regret nothing. But it's not healthy This is dessert, dumbass. Obviously, this is only for the category of cold desserts. I'f you'd like to hear my position on warm desserts, I'd be happy to tell you all about why Apple Pie reigns supreme. Present your counterarguments if you can find any.","conclusion":"Ice Cream sandwiches are the ultimate cold dessert."}
{"id":"128fbe14-eb31-401d-8148-61591393b106","argument":"Using the original text unaltered gives students the opportunity to learn important skills like how to evaluate authorial intent and how nuance in diction shapes meaning.","conclusion":"Learning how to contextualize and interpret difficult texts teaches valuable skills in critical reasoning."}
{"id":"8d5fd17d-d75f-45d0-8fe8-63376efa3e4e","argument":"As a quick description of what's going on, big athletics companies Nike and Adidas are funneling money through colleges and universities to prospects still in high school as bribes so that they go to schools that they sponsor to hopefully yield earnings in the future when these players do well and set them up to sign on as reps of these brands when they graduate college. In some cases, these recruits have been given over 100,000. This is illegal for a number of reasons and brand executives and very successful coaches are losing their jobs over cases of this as discovered by federal prosecutors. I don't think this should be illegal. The subject of paying college athletes is another topic, but I think they should be allowed to be sponsored while in the NCAA, and why stop before then? Why not allow them to be sponsored if just for a one time payment to influence a decision in high school. Maybe a little unethical to try to just influence a decision involving education with money, but there were a few stories saying this was a financial boost to the families of the prospects. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The current NCAA Basketball scandal isn't that big of a deal and college athletes should be allowed to be sponsored."}
{"id":"d0a22391-81d5-4a2f-a5c3-8432973f2186","argument":"The Conservative Party have strong plans to reduce immigration which the majority of the British Public is in favour of.","conclusion":"The policies of the Conservative party are popular among voters."}
{"id":"d6c979b7-b2d5-4b04-94e9-c3fddf7660f1","argument":"You can hate on him for the reason they broke up, but initially dating they actually were very sweet together. Michael is a lonely guy and really has a lot of love to give, and Pam was being incredibly selfish. The show for the most part sides with Pam about this being gross due to the awkwardness of a boss dating her mother, but it's not a big deal to me. Her mom also is sad and hasn't dated for years ever since her dad divorced her mom. The AV Club reviewer only says this is relatable because he had a repugnant coworker try to get his sister's number. I still don't see the problem with it, especially with Jim and Pam's love drama dominating the workplace.","conclusion":"Michael Scott did nothing wrong dating Pam's mom in The Office's sixth season."}
{"id":"f8a1b0b6-269c-416f-a4a2-f1bd1ce8f2fd","argument":"Warning I use racial slurs in the explanation of my argument. I'm black and the use of nigger on reddit makes me uncomfortable for obvious reasons. Hard r is objectively a racist term and is only used to make black people feel attacked unsafe unwelcome. But I'm also uncomfortable with how popular use of the word nigga has become among what is a primarily white user base People don't necessarily use it in ways to make black people feel bad but they often use it for shock value, to troll, or because they think it's edgy fun forbidden. To me, it really ignores the history of the term and is super disrespectful to black people on reddit that have said they find it offensive. I'm sure a lot of people have a black friend that has given them the nigga pass but if you ask that black friend they would definitely tell you that the nigga pass is not transferrable. Just because you got it from one person doesn't mean you have it from all black people. It is entirely fair for some black people to be offended by non black people saying nigga and for some others not to care. This isn't a  about that. If you want to hear my basic viewpoint on the matter, check out this video by Ta Nehisi Coates Again, it's not the focus of the . There was a great comment made on r AITA a little bit ago on a superficially unrelated thread that I think is just so pithy and useful for describing my feeling on how we should speak to each other online. Why is this important to me? I have never, not once, been able to identify myself as black on reddit without getting a deluge of private messages calling me a nigger. Not a nigga a nigger. Telling me to shut the fuck up, nigger. Nigger nigger nigger. So on and so on. Reddit is, on the whole, a pretty cool place. But it is not always welcoming to people of color. Since it's not a place where people of color can always feel welcome, since its a place where some amount of people not everyone, obviously go out of their way to harass black people simply for being black on the internet, it makes me uncomfortable that so many people are just throwing around the term on here like it doesn't mean anything. One of the reasons why I have no emotional reaction to black people using nigga is because I know they don't hate me because of the color of my skin. They don't think I'm dumb or violent because of my skin. They don't think that I deserve less because I'm black. I don't know that with people on reddit and every time I see nigga in a username or a comment is a small reminder of that, of the fact that if I mentioned this one small detail about my identity I'd get a bunch of threatening harassing messages on a place that should be fun for me to hang out and look at dumb shit. Reddit has started making an effort to curb the use of nigga on the site in ways that don't feature any overt racial animus. r WaterNiggas comes to mind. I believe this should extend to usernames. If there's a way to allow affected users to change their names instead of deleting their accounts, that would obviously be preferable. But, if that's not possible, I think the accounts should be deleted. Again, I don't necessarily think that everyone with nigga in their username is a bad person. But that word affects a lot of people in a pretty negative way and we should respect the history and power of that word. You may have an argument to make about the changing nature of that word. I'd disagree but there's an argument. But, to return to the comment I shouted out earlier, there's a difference between being right and being a nice person. Not being able to use the word nigga in a username should not negatively impact the reddit experience for anyone and it would positively affect the experiences of quite a few. Thanks for reading and responding. I hope we can keep it civil and productive. Edit I've got to say that, at this point, this is the first time I've ID'd myself as black on reddit and haven't been hit with a bunch of racist messages. As of 11 29PM Eastern on 7 23. I don't know if that's because people on  are cool or if it's because this isn't a super popular post or both but it's cool nonetheless. That being said, I've got to get some sleep but I'll hop back on tomorrow. I will say, though, that a lot of the argument has been about whether or not nigga is offensive and not about the point I made that reddit has started quarantining banning subs with nigga in the title and they should similarly ban account with nigga or other slurs in the name. I hope I'm not coming off as not being able to change my mind. I'm trying to be as open as possible. Edit 2 Okay, I know I said I was logging off an hour ago but I came back on to respond to a couple more people. Now I'm logging off. If you can, please avoid making more What about this word? arguments. For starters, it's already been made like twenty times in the comments below but, on top of that, I don't know if they really address the issue at hand. I'm enjoying the chat, though. I hope you find it interesting, too. Edit 3 Holy crap, this blew up overnight. For starters, we can nix that whole Cool, I didn't get any racist harassment thing. I got less than usual, but a couple of classy fellas felt the need to remind me that I'm a nigger overnight. Second, I'm definitely not going to be able to respond to everyone but I'll try to hang out for a bit and see if there are any deltas to give out. I'm starting with the bottom since top level comments have already gotten quite a lot of attention. Final Edit Thanks to all of you that replied. This seems like it's starting to snowball and I'm getting 10 notifications every time I refresh. There's no way for me to keep up with everyone but I'll post a quick rundown here There have been a lot of what if hypothetical responses that have strayed away from the main point. Reddit doesn't allow these words in the titles of subs and that should extend to usernames, too. We've talked a lot about the slippery slope, which is not inherently fallacious, but I believe that it has been used in a fallacious way pretty frequently. A lot of the logical consequences of banning nigger nigga in usernames that are being discussed are actually not all that logical nor do they address the point of this . I'm not talking about the legitimate gripe that some people have with the word Eskimo. That's a different discussion. I gave a delta that was removed for some reason to u scottcmu's comment saying that, though I find it problematic, I think the suggestion that reddit create a feature that automatically hides usernames featuring slurs that individuals find offensive is a viable solution that is different from my original proposal. I'll try to keep commenting throughout the day but it's pretty overwhelming at this point. Again, thanks to all of you for for the most part engaging with this  in a productive way. And, if you're someone who insisted on taking time out of your day night to message me calling me a nigger or to tell me in the comments to stfu you dumb nigger I don't know. Think about your life decisions.","conclusion":"Reddit usernames that contain racial slurs should be banned."}
{"id":"1925b20e-efc8-44ff-bbc1-c0cc62dbff0d","argument":"A little context. I'm from Northern Ireland and for those that don't know, for the majority of the 20th Century we endured a period known as 'The Troubles'. To GROSSLY over simplify, this came down to a disagreement between nationalist catholics not exclusively and protestant unionists again not exclusively whether Northern Ireland should be part of the UK or as a United Ireland. I felt it was important to include that little explanation because in a lot of ways, this conflict was fueled by a sense of Patriotism from both sides, inherently clashing ideologies that led to decades of senseless violence, lost progress and a shitty political system that we're stuck with to this very day. This is the crux of my argument. When looking at the concept of being patriotic, for whatever country it may be, you are essentially pledging yourself to what I can only see to be arbitrary divisions. For example, many English people I know who consider themselves to be patriots love the identity of being British. And sure, that's fine, but the pros of being proud of a country are far outweighed by the cons. Patriotism causes arbitrary divisions between human beings for illogical reasons. It feels like it's fueled by reactionary emotions rather than cold hard logic. Worst of all is when this patriotism escalates to catastrophic levels. For example, fascism was built as an ultra nationalist ideology, and that didn't work particularly well. In Britain the monarchy is heavily tied to patriotism, but in the US, as far as I can see, patriotism has reached ludicrous levels of senselessness. This is by no means a jab at Americans in general, in fact, the few I know are perfectly charming people. What I don't understand is why they insist that the US is the greatest country in the world. By what stats do they back up this statement? What objective metric do they use? And even still, whatever metric they choose will have been influenced by the unintentional indoctrination drilled into many of the citizens the day they were born. During the Iraq War and in the aftermath of 9 11 this patriotism seemed to reach even greater heights. Team America parodied it perfectly with the theme song, AMERICA, FUCK YEAH I've kind of went on a tangent, but I want to try and focus my argument. We are all born in our individual countries. We have no choice in what country we are born, and for many, being proud of your meaningless country is not only expected, but openly criticised when you don't. Why someone would pledge themselves to a country that they has no choice in being a part of is quite frankly, beyond me. Quick disclaimer, I know now every patriot is a jingoistic asshole. However, I do believe that there is no reason whatsoever to be a patriot for your country for no reason other than you were born there. I realises that i have used sweeping generalisations and I know there is exceptions to the rules, but these people undeniably exist. This sense of superiority over other countries, full of human beings with thoughts and feelings who are no different than a patriot's, is nothing more than a division of geographical birth places. I see no reason why any citizen should worship or pledge allegiance to their country. Apologies for lack of structure. Thanks in advance","conclusion":"Patriotism is pointless and potentially dangerous"}
{"id":"2ccbede4-2d21-484d-9648-18502508da0c","argument":"The reason this logic is flawed is because it ignores a number of important factors. First, the arbitrary '20c' figure is not reflective of currency or the value of money in the country in question. It ignores the fact that although the amount may be small by standard of the country we live in, it is reflective of a working wage in the other country. Second it ignores the fact that the country has it's own economy with it's own job market, meaning that if the factory was really hiring people with such immoral payment then the workers would simply work elsewhere. The factory or workplace would have to conduct itself in a way that is comparable to the workplaces around it, otherwise people simply wouldn't work there. We shouldn't base the workplaces of other countries on standards set by the modern lifestyles that we are accustomed to. We must allow the workplaces of those countries to evolve naturally and with the same dignity that we did.","conclusion":"The argument that overseas '3rd world' manufacturing is immoral because \"workers are getting paid 20c per day\" is inherently flawed."}
{"id":"af193f61-5bd3-4e56-ab3d-78c9f371022b","argument":"Adopting aspects of other cultures can spark a vitalization in one's own culture, and can later be deemed an \"authentic\" aspect. It is relative to the time period, and there will always be conservative, fundamentalist, cultural purists.","conclusion":"Potatoes originated in Central America, yet are deemed integral in \"traditional dishes\" from cultures around the world."}
{"id":"784814bc-754a-4ba5-92f7-88f7499dd7c4","argument":"Anthropomorphization of pets is far too common and hazardous, as the lack of understanding of what their real needs are and of their way to communicate often lead to mishandling, resulting in problematic or aggressive behaviour and abandonment. This is an unnecessary stress factor both for people and the pets they keep.","conclusion":"Keeping pets forms a mild system of inter-species oppression"}
{"id":"56538230-d9c6-4731-a397-1601df66b01a","argument":"If the natural world is intrinsically random, then BPP != P because randomness would allow construction of computer that can perform computation in polynomial time that no deterministic computer can perform. In complexity theory this problem is currently unsolved.","conclusion":"A proof that natural world is intrinsically random would solve several unsolved problems. Those are unsolved because nobody knows correct answer to them."}
{"id":"4ac19b0a-4bf6-453b-98f5-8f49e78b5e31","argument":"Star Wars has no on-screen ranges, but generous estimates put max weapon range at 5,000km. Star Trek has a confirmed on-screen weapon range of 250,000km and theoretical ranges of 300,000km-4,500,000km. Star Trek outrange the rebels by at least 50 times minimum.","conclusion":"The Federation's ships are technologically superior to those of the Rebel Alliance."}
{"id":"a9d54c0a-b0a3-46a6-8b27-37a7dc10adbb","argument":"Bookmark A strip of leather, cardboard, or other material used to mark one's place in a book. This  does not apply to e readers, it's only about physical books, magazines, etc. When I read I like to mark my place in a book with one of my bookmarks I've accumulated a very small collection over the years, though I don't have a leather one yet. Bookmarks are very useful because they let me get back to where I paused very quickly, without the bother of trying to recall what page number I was on from memory. They come in all sorts of different shapes and sizes, some are colourful, they may have nice messages on them I think book lovers are aware of the little aesthetic pleasure of bookmarks. So why do some people not use them? I don't understand it at all. I pick up free bookmarks from the local library they have the opening hours printed on them yay , and I've also used a strip of paper to use as a bookmark when I've needed to. And if I use a strip of white paper as a bookmark I sometimes use it to scribble notes about the book, though if I own the book I'm fine with scribbling in the margins as well. In fact, there was a book I read that required using 3 bookmarks to read efficiently and I loved it all the more for it. So please help me understand the other side. This is a lighthearted topic, and I'm really looking to see whether people make a conscious choice to not use bookmarks. If it is, why? Edit All right, I've had my view changed. Those who don't use bookmarks have found methods of getting by without using them. Though there are no arguments against the aesthetic appeal of having a colourful bookmark, there are certain cases where just having one could lead to a bit of trouble. Thanks for the comments.","conclusion":"People who don't use bookmarks are missing out. TT"}
{"id":"9f243a7e-3b49-4f59-bae5-4be9e7867da9","argument":"Wage should be determined by a worker and their employer. Income taxes disrupt this by forcing employers to pay their employees less and diverting the difference to the government. The FairTax fixes this.","conclusion":"Taxing is immoral, and there will be less of it under the FairTax."}
{"id":"d21abd9a-9977-47f8-bbf7-d38261932891","argument":"They are high in protein, much more efficient and cheap to farm than animals, much easier to farm individually, and there are already plenty of awesome recipes for various bug meats. Properly cooked there is not any more risk than eating regular meat maybe even less considering they do not use chemicals to raise bugs and no wreckless antibiotic use to increase growth and they are easy to kill humanely for food just stick them in the freezer for a little while . Why are we not all eating bugs already?  reddit.","conclusion":"Insects should be a staple in most diets."}
{"id":"8d705a83-2b2f-4545-af35-da3dc4b6e053","argument":"The individuals who comprise a state may have rights. But the state itself is not a person, or even a thing that \"exists\". It is merely a concept--a form of abstract categorization people use as descriptive shorthand. Abstract concepts cannot have \"rights\".","conclusion":"States are abstract concepts. Abstract concepts cannot have rights. Only people can have rights."}
{"id":"c30a9119-6e8e-436b-9cca-aaa3d9f539a9","argument":"In a similar way to gambling, a Capitalist economy has a cascade of winners and losers and the Stock Exchange is the most common gambling den. Gambling is not a zero-sum activity. Many people enjoy it, some suffer from addictions and cause pain to those around them and a few profit from it. The Stock Exchange is also not a zero-sum model and wealth is being extracted by 'the few'. It would only be positive if 'net goodness' in some measure exceeded the wealth siphoned out.","conclusion":"A Socialist economy would work better than a Capitalist economy."}
{"id":"b10afa22-2cee-41cf-aa4c-cb82f16e3179","argument":"For example, former Chief of Staff at the USDA, Dale Moore was also former Chief Lobbyist to the Beef Industry in Washington. Lester Crawford former Head of the FDA was the former Executive Vice President of the National Food Processors Association.","conclusion":"In America, there are many law makers who hold personal stakes in the meat industry, making it difficult to pass laws limiting livestock production and promoting veganism."}
{"id":"83b3cbc6-7d91-441d-8f7a-593794211aae","argument":"Economic development via industrialisation has proved impossible in the Pacific small island states: small populations, limited natural resources, remoteness, geographic and cultural fragmentation, vulnerability to external economic shocks, susceptibility to extreme events like cyclones and earthquakes, dependence on imports, and fragile environments all prevent industrialisation.","conclusion":"Small states often have unique developmental challenges that prevent industrialisation and economic growth.This does not mean they cannot be democratic."}
{"id":"53c9244a-1565-4d24-a802-67d291a59350","argument":"Convicted rapists who undergo the procedure will have diminished sex drive and aggression due to lower testosterone levels.","conclusion":"The punishment for convicted rapists should be to have one testicle surgically removed."}
{"id":"d5948b1d-5162-4d38-8bfe-69fd74f98ee1","argument":"Approval voting is more similar to FPTP than other alternative voting systems, and therefore more acceptable to the public.","conclusion":"Approval voting is a very simple modification of FPTP and easily understood."}
{"id":"60b9437b-13bf-4225-8b78-12ff0f3cd86b","argument":"Having a global understanding of the universe, although possibly filled by irrational beliefs, is an important part of our psyche. It uses intuition and pattern recognition to make decisions and solve problems. The other process thinks rationally, limits the context to what is already known to work and can be articulated precisely. Although there is some debate on the lateralization of those processes both are important part of your brains mechanisms and are in no way mutually exclusive.","conclusion":"Recent scholars point that the transition from 'myth' to 'logos' was a continuum, so rational and mythical explanations were never in conflict."}
{"id":"e957e0c3-4bb8-44b5-b895-1797d4819f89","argument":"We observe this logic elsewhere where it seems beneficial, too, for example in the gender-segregation in sports, whether it concerns team segregation or record segregation.","conclusion":"Men and women, because of their different biological characteristics, each need a different type of bathroom. Gender-segregated bathrooms reflect and honour these differences."}
{"id":"6176a0b4-b150-48cb-8b81-277fd2b5a5e8","argument":"As the norm that women should be the one to stay at home doesn't change with this, the wage could be used as an excuse to tell women that they don't need a career to get an income.","conclusion":"Such a measure might be a way of discouraging women from seeking jobs in conservative countries."}
{"id":"cb9ea3d7-a595-4162-8eb7-3111401394b3","argument":"Religion had the monopoly of charity for several years and for sure this affected the way we volunteer now. But we are human and in our nature we are supposed to live in \"herds\", so we'd find a way to help each other even without religion. It's a matter of life or death.","conclusion":"Religion is not the motivation, it only appeals to existing human values and social behaviour. These values and behaviour lead to selfless acts without Religion."}
{"id":"840f59bf-4b76-4584-8c4f-13a9dc774e4d","argument":"It is so easy to become a security officer in Ontario, everyone and their dogs can do it. There's a 40 hour course and first aid, which isn't that hard, but sure. Then there's the test, which is 60 MC questions and 62 is a pass. The content of the test doesn't even cover that much of the 40 hour course. I suppose that's better than how it used to be, where the only thing you need to get the license is 80 bucks. They only changed the requirements because of Shand\u2019s recommendations, but it's still a joke. It undermines the security industry and trivializes the prospect for professionalism. While security private realm and police work public realm could be somewhat compared, full fledged police training would be too much for security officers, although it could be somewhat replicated to an extent. A longer academy type course including communication skills, patrol techniques, threat response, report writing, and the like would work wonders. Some individual companies do offer similar training, but I think it should be the standard by virtue of the license. The test could also be revamped in such a way that not only includes more of what being a security officer entails, but do so in a more challenging way. It's ridiculous when you think that many of these people could eventually work in mall security, without that much training, some of whom are contracted at minimum wage, in this day and age where terrorism and all that nonsense are prevalent. Any thoughts on this?","conclusion":"Security officer training and licensing in Ontario are a joke."}
{"id":"eff8db21-10b6-4014-a61c-575e2ce59bdb","argument":"Okay so basically my line of thinking is this, it's plastered all over the news that global warming will be past the stage of prevention in 20 years, not just past the stage of reversal, but past the stage in which there is anything we can do. This is coming from essentially everybody in the scientific community, who say that this can only be prevented by reducing our carbon output by 50 Here's the thing though, 70 of all carbon emissions are created by just 100 or so companies, so even if we all live carbon neutrally, we're still in the red, deep in the fucking red. These companies are not going to change their ways unless they are regulated, which won't happen because the people in office are sponsored by these companies, so realistically full scale revolution is absolutely necessary. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"If we do not have a revolution within the next 20 years, Humanity will cease to exist."}
{"id":"e88720a3-38f6-40d1-a602-3e4ff7809dec","argument":"I don't think it's beneficial to society for huge quantities of wealth to be concentrated on a single private entity or individual if it does benefit society, than the negative effects outweigh the positive effects . There have already been numerous studies showing that after a certain threshold of wealth, happiness doesn't increase. Shouldn't we spread the billions of dollars under Donald Trump's name to increase overall human happiness? And it's so unreasonable that people with money can manipulate and have such a significant say in politics. This basically ensures that you're politically screwing over the lower middle class. I read an article a few weeks ago I can't find it now, but I'll continue searching on the nytimes about a billionaire who was taking over NYC park reparations due to lack of funding by the government. This doesn't make any sense to me. Why let a single person have that much power authority?","conclusion":"No one should be able to earn more than $10 million throughout his\/her lifetime"}
{"id":"57fd6cb7-655c-4a0e-bb5f-35313ddd21eb","argument":"I'm pretty sure none of this is real, and that most people I encounter every day are not conscious people, but something more like NPCs in a video game. They exist to subtly push me toward a certain goal or fuck with me for some unknown purpose. In every job, class, social circle I've been in, it feels like everybody knows something I don't, and I'm always the slowest, least clued in person in the room. Now it could be that I'm just stupider than average but if so, why is that? , and I could accept that, if I encountered more people like me from time to time. It makes no sense to me that so many people know exactly what their place is in the world, where they're going, what to do, how to handle every situation, etc, and I'm always scratching my head and struggling to keep up. More people ought to be as stupid and easily confused as I am.","conclusion":"This is all a dream and none of you are real."}
{"id":"e95f5a2d-9b5d-42c2-9ff7-95871aafa23a","argument":"Traveling on a space elevator needs to be shared like bandwidth i.e. there is a limited number of users at one time. An orbital ring does not have such limits people can just fly up easily to the nearby orbital ring.","conclusion":"An orbital ring would be a great alternative and might be extremely challenging, but pretty feasible."}
{"id":"8ceeb13f-67ea-4a50-be0e-8ceb140dde71","argument":"The value I ascribe to life centers on the sentience of the organism in question, and its aversion to death. In other words, absent other factors i.e. its impact on other people, the environment, etc , I think that painlessly killing something is fine so long as the organism in question is not attached on an intellectual emotional level to its life. As a result, I ascribe no particular value to the life of a non sentient organism like a bacteria, which is why I have no problem using bleach to clean a toilet bowl that is teaming with bacteria. I took a developmental biology class recently and the professor said that the first glimmers of consciousness are thought to arise around 24 weeks. For the purposes of this discussion, let's assume this is accurate. Prior to the 24 week mark, the fetus has no consciousness and therefore no sentience. That means that its life has no more value than that of the bacteria in the toilet bowl, and killing it is equally inconsequential on a moral level. Please keep in mind that I referring neither to the emotional consequences that having an abortion may have on the mother, the father, or anyone else, nor to the legal aspects of abortion I am only interested in the moral dimension. In order to change my view, you will have to convince me of one of the following points 1 Life has value beyond the sentience of the organism in question, and therefore the fetus and or embryo of a human should not be killed. 2 Life that has the potential to become sentient e.g. a human fetus embryo is more valuable than life that does not e.g. bacteria . Edit I just want to make it clear that when I said absent other factors, I meant that I am concerned with the harm to the individual organism in question in this case, the fetus or embryo not the harm it would do overall. In a real life situation, we have to consider our own emotions as well as those of the people around us, but those are not things that I'm interested in here.","conclusion":"An early term abortion is as morally inconsequential as cleaning a toilet bowl with bleach."}
{"id":"3896ec42-0bf0-401a-b8fd-f04e2f08e499","argument":"Making sure the economy is robust and well funded should be of a higher priority.","conclusion":"There are other places where the funding would be more impactful."}
{"id":"8c87c99c-1864-4d84-ae33-eedba3dfc5fc","argument":"This predisposition toward caring has been observed in a wide variety of animals. Neurophilosophy and neurosciences in general tend to show that morality as we know it, might be a survival tool given by evolution processes. The better a species get as using this tool, the better it will perform in an evolutionary context.","conclusion":"An innate predisposition towards caring for others and equality exists in human nature."}
{"id":"9a8816bc-78d0-45c5-a15e-814687ea01a4","argument":"This is already happening in Northern European nations to an extreme degree. More people have stronger opinions about American politics than national or European politics.","conclusion":"The real risk if there is any real risk that cultural dominance will occur would come from Anglo-Saxon primarily American-led cultural and linguistic dominance."}
{"id":"1880f8b1-1047-453a-af12-0c0bee804bdd","argument":"I am somewhat of a news junkie, watching CNN, FOX, MSNBC, NBC, CBS, and ABC almost nightly constantly flipping back and forth. What is obvious to me is that the coverage of Trump is overwhelmingly negative, so much so that it appears most of the press is essentially trying to undo the election results by pushing narratives that paint the president as either incompetent, criminal, or both. Here are are some links the coverage Trump is getting What I have found is that much of the coverage is unbalanced, often presenting a very one sided view of the issues. Not only this, but the networks, and most major media outlets, seem very quick to jump on any story from anonymous sources , be they proven or not. This is essentially reporting speculation and innuendo, not facts. Even if the reports turn out to be true, I would prefer to wait until they are confirmed and presented in context than what I am seeing now, which is nothing more than a witch hunt by people who obviously hope to find the watergate story that will force Trump from office. Pew even has research that indicates the adversarial relationship between Trump and the media is harmful and hindering access to important political news I do not claim that Trump is above reproach. he should be called out for legitimate problems and issues, however these stories should only be reported when facts are confirmed. There should also be equal coverage of opposing points of view, with salient facts used to support either side of an argument. This type of reporting is disingenuous, unfair, poisonous to public discourse, and does a great disservice not only to the public but to the craft of journalism itself. Change my view that the popular media is essentially anti Trump, and unfair in their coverage the president by focusing almost exclusively on negative stories based on opinions, accusations, and innuendos instead of hard facts and evidence. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The overwhelmingly negative news coverage of President Trump proves the intense bias of popular media."}
{"id":"a002ba95-d9d9-41f8-92e4-99a1d6aed475","argument":"Some religions, such as Zoroastrianism and segments of Hinduism, teach that all religions are parallels of their own faith.","conclusion":"Not all religions contest that they are right to the degree of being \"right alone.\""}
{"id":"adbc86aa-1d72-413d-96e0-4d98bc518667","argument":"I'm seeing posts everywhere regarding the safe space that reddit is destined to become under the new CEO's leadership, but have not been able to find any agenda from Pao herself that seems controversial at all the only thing I've seen her say is that she's concerned about harassment and threats, and I would argue that both of those issues are not only deserving of attention, but not at all shocking. I've also seen people say that subreddits critical of Pao have been removed, but there are always other factors at play in the comments and there are several still going, plus about five front page posts per day about what a horrible person she is, so I don't know if I can call that censorship either. In short, I feel that the predictions about reddit becoming an environment that bans free speech or whatever are wildly overblown. Ignoring her personal life which, scandal ridden or not is irrelevant to her performance at reddit can you change my view? Here I also might need to concede that even if subs devoted to harrassment were banned CoonTown, fatpeoplehate, etc etc ad infinitum , I don't think reddit or the world would be losing anything of value. I'm embarrassed to tell people I come here because of those subs, and I don't think that reddit or any privately held corporation is under obligation to host anything of that nature. So while I don't see them getting removed, I wouldn't she a single tear if they did. This is of course a different debate, but one that likely plays a role in my view here.","conclusion":"Ellen Pao's leadership will have little to no impact on reddit's \"free speech\""}
{"id":"ae9102ec-7a34-4383-a069-a43de90a1866","argument":"Bullfighting is not an ordinary sport, but rather an archaic spectacle that is reminiscent of the gladiator fights in ancient times.","conclusion":"Bullfighting is not sport. Sports involve competition between two or more consenting parties and the mediation of a referee."}
{"id":"fc75d51a-7b3c-476d-a697-60ad6060927e","argument":"I often see people complaining about their partner having a close friend, usually of the opposite sex, with whom they have a significant emotional bond. They refer to this as 'emotional cheating', as they seem to think it's inappropriate and unreasonable for their partner to have such a bond with anyone besides themself. I, however, believe this type of friendship is perfectly normal, healthy and acceptable, and does not constitute cheating as long as nothing happens physically, of course. I think the issues come from the person's own jealousy, paranoia and insecurity, and that they should take responsibility for their own feelings rather than blaming their partner or the friend. .","conclusion":"I do not believe in 'emotional cheating'..."}
{"id":"77b11704-0d2d-4f06-b81a-189d465a8e5e","argument":"I have come to the conclusion that gay guys use of the phrase don't slutshame is nothing more than opportunists jumping on a buzzword that just doesn't apply to them, at least not to the degree that it does to women. This lead my thinking about why it is so vehemently promoted and so frequently quoted in the gay community. If anything, the gay community at large high fives you for sleeping around. The more unusual and risky the sex the more inspirational and authentic a gay you are perceived to be. The fact is, gay guys just aren't getting stick for engaging in casual sex to the degree that they are making out. don't slut shame seems to be concerned with the following 1 shutting down any dialogue about the gay community's relationship with sex. I think this is two fold. People like that fact that people are talking about issues affecting gay people and the community. However, people don't like the facts as they point to one scenario more STI's, more mental illness and more loneliness. 2 shutting down discussion is for the purpose of maintaining the status quo in which mainstream ideals get to have the pick of the bunch. As it stands now the ideal gay guy is a white man. Anyone not white is a deviation from the norm, and in consequence is fetishized and exoticized. Whether explicitly or implicitly, a hierarchy is continually being promoted and enforced within the gay community through advertising and entertainment media and the way we hook up. The reality is that the gay community is extremely exclusive and elitist. Branding any discussion about the sexual behaviours that leads to things like racial profiling and strict gender profiling as slut shaming is used to stop people discussing discrimination in the gay community and to keep the white beauty standard intact and on top. As long as the status quo is maintained, the beautiful get to enjoy doing what they do, while everyone else vies to break into the community . As history has shown all too often, when people are lonely and feel excluded they are more likely to align their values and boundaries with behaviour that gets them in. The gay community is its own worst enemy. It's allowed itself to be defined by sex and will do anything to maintain the illusion that the gay lifestyle is a progressive, safe and inclusive one.","conclusion":"anti slutshaming advocates in the gay community are only concerned with maintaining the status quo."}
{"id":"1a5ba14a-1b95-4d83-947e-e40f23158c3a","argument":"If domesticated animals get released into the wild, they could become feral, if not invasive, which ruins the ecosystem. The damages hurts their and native animals' chances of survival within that environment.","conclusion":"Domesticated animals get affected by being endangered as well through evolutionary survival."}
{"id":"cbb1da29-5c6e-402f-96c1-6277ba7f1c13","argument":"George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and John Adams were among a number of framers of the constitution who clearly expressed the importance of an individual right to bear arms. see the argument page for quotes from them","conclusion":"Framers of the Constitution upholding an individual right to bear arms"}
{"id":"732e14d5-63fd-4367-896c-6cea4529f2d9","argument":"All men from 18 26 are required to sign up for selective service and, potentially, be drafted, or they must provide a reason for exemption. If they do not, they cannot vote, acquire gov. loans, and may have to pay fines, etc. All for being a male, whereas women do not have to do this. However, women may serve in the military voluntarily, be a firefighter, or a police officer, so, in theory, they should be just as capable as men in combat. Further, if women and men are both able get these jobs, shouldn't they have the same responsibility as men to sign up for selective service? I believe womens' current exemption from selective service is discrimination towards both men AND women. If we are pushing for equal rights feminism shouldn't this policy be changed? Also, shouldn't feminists be advocating for this change as fiercely as they do with other inequalities? I do not believe a male should lose civil liberties for failing to sign up for something in which they have zero control over gender , whereas women never have the fear of being sent to war or losing civil liberties. Edit I believe we can't have it one way and not the other. If women can be firefighters, entrusted with lifting grown men out of buildings, then they should also be fit for combat. However, if the gov is insinuating they are not fit for combat, then that is insinuating they are most likely not fit for other high stress, highly physical jobs. Clarification I do not seek opposing views for the existence selective service. My title was originally misworded, I meant to ask  Men and women should be held to the same standard in regards to registering for selective service","conclusion":"Women should be required to sign up for selective service"}
{"id":"e1670853-7a84-4b9e-afb8-04e84909896c","argument":"Companies may not be willing to finance new technology which often requires a large up-front capital expenditure and the savings are not realized immediately but over time.","conclusion":"New green technologies for fracking are not always widely adopted as they can be expensive."}
{"id":"c0daf256-b047-46a5-812a-beba89e0e057","argument":"The fossil records, geological and radiometric data attest to millions of years between evolutionary steps, likely more than 2000 million years between the earliest one-celled life and modern human beings.","conclusion":"The creation of the Universe in seven days is irreconcilable with scientific findings."}
{"id":"e2a2d6aa-4bce-44c5-966b-895784ebb7b5","argument":"Before the universe existed, the laws of time, space, and causality may not have existed.","conclusion":"It is possible that the universe came into being on its own."}
{"id":"3eb6725e-a53d-4055-9aed-d6cdb0991c45","argument":"Been mulling this over due to the recent arrest of a doctor at the hospital I work in and due to the Larry Nassar case where he got away with decades of abuse of hundreds of children, teenagers and women despite dozens of reports. This is a widespread problem with studies finding roughly 20 of girls and 10 of boys are sexually molested I want to start with a disclaimer that this should apply to professional workplace actions and investigations, not to police and government investigations which should proceed on a totally different standard. Accusations of molestation and rape put people in a professional context in a truly no win situation where you have to balance two huge responsibilities which are both imperative, protecting potential victims and preserving the professional well being of the accused however in cases of paedophilia and rape I believe professional well being has to take the back seat, painful a choice as that may be. In cases where evidence is inconclusive it is the lesser of two available awful evils that an innocent person lose their job than that a sexual predator keeps theirs that allows them to go on racking up victims. As such for jobs in this area things like doctor, priest, councillor, babysitter, teacher, child directors, police etc. should be subject to rules that follow that weighting as the possibility of an innocent person needing to find a new or related career that does not involve children or positions of trust is awful but not as awful as possibly allowing abuse to continue. EDIT My view relates to people accused of acts against people under their care patients for doctors, students for teachers etc.","conclusion":"Accusations of paedophilia and rape need to be taken more seriously in many professional contexts."}
{"id":"e0325b28-7f27-4939-a41c-801f56a47107","argument":"Many people use traditional treatments before, and even alongside western medical care because they believe it to be the right treatment for the disease as practiced by older generations. These choices often act as counter intuitive to their health.","conclusion":"Privatization of healthcare will lead to a rise in the use of alternative medicine."}
{"id":"8140d950-7df2-4c1c-8372-468979c02628","argument":"Two homosexual men in North Dakota cannot get married. Two heterosexual men in North Dakota cannot get married. The reason North Dakota denies gay marriage is because they contend that marriage is between a man and a woman. In other words, they ban gay marriage for definitional reasons, not because of preference religious beliefs etc. Obviously, two 'heterosexual' men won't marry each other. But, if they attempted to, they would get the same response as a homosexual couple. The Oxford Dictionary defines discrimination as The unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people or things, especially on the grounds of race, age, or sex . If the marriage ban was in place because of a religious personal opinion, that may constitute discrimination. However, in North Dakota, it doesn't matter what race, age, or sex you are. They believe marriage is between a man and a woman, and unless you meet that criteria, you aren't allowed to marry.  Banning gay marriage for definitional reasons is not discrimination. EDIT After reading your comments, I realized that I made a huge assumption. I assumed that the definition of marriage was agreed upon. This is my fault, and I am embarrassed that I made an error of that caliber. Because of this assumption, my argument falls.","conclusion":"Banning gay marriage for definitional reasons is not discrimination."}
{"id":"46656f55-efca-4312-a6a1-b33ee6a1c2b4","argument":"Just for anyone who doesn't know what a tulpa is, they are a mental construct that according to people with tuplas, take on their own identity. Whether or not that you think tulpas are creepy or a mental health issue is not up for debate I am asking whether you can create a sort of intelligence in the mind. So the reason I think tulpas are consciousness is because that they can act independently of their creator and form distinct personalities. I know a lot of people will attribute this to metal health stuff, but while the voices you hear while schizophrenic are static and do not change, tulpa are fluid, and will change with their creator over time. There is also a way for a tulpa and person to switch places in the mind, the human becoming a tulpa and the tulpa becoming the human. Just like a tulpa which requires thought and interaction to sustain a human mind will begin to disappear if not interacted with by the tulpa in the body. If this goes on long enough, the person will disappear, leaving the tulpa in control of the body. This is a weird phenomenon, because it essentially means a person can create a mental construct, then have it take over their body and live a full life without the original consciousness present. That is very hard to explain if indeed the mind has been replaced by another being.","conclusion":"Tulpas may be just as conscious as we are"}
{"id":"26c9003d-9abd-4ab0-be5d-23fbe99be5aa","argument":"There's been some controversy over the provision of services, particularly in the NHS, and the cost of translating things like leaflets or letters into different languages. But I cannot really see what the problem is with such provision if there is need, for a few different reasons Firstly, there is the risk that where someone is forced to use a foreign language they do not understand well, there is of mistakes being made or misunderstandings, which in a healthcare situation could be potentially dangerous. However if they were to use their native languages, with the use of a translator, such misunderstandings could be avoided. It may disadvantage certain sections of a community not to have such services. The elderly may struggle to learn English at all I've seen this actually happen whilst other sections of a community such as women, who may be fighting cultural, religious or other discrimination to be part of society may find that they end up being pushed back behind closed doors and at risk because they don't know how the culture around them works, they cannot be part of it and there is no natural impetus for them to integrate or learn English either. Having them function in society in any manner is better than having them behind closed doors. The systems of other countries may place such foreign language speakers at a disadvantage because they require the person to pay for translation and other services in any other language than the country's own, which is discriminatory in that often, immigrants are often the poorest in the society and so to have to pay to access services which they are rightfully entitled to makes them second class citizens. So, can anyone ? EDIT Title should read 'shouldn't', not 'should'. D'oh","conclusion":"I believe that where I wish to do so, I or indeed anyone else should be prevented from accessing public services or information in a foreign language. !"}
{"id":"36621900-5149-435b-9b99-4b40af7d84cb","argument":"Patriotism runs so deep in the US that NFL teams won't sign the quarterback Colin Kaepernick due to him having knelt during the national anthem, which is seen as unpatriotic","conclusion":"People who've been exempted face the risk of losing out on job opportunities in countries where patriotism is a dominant part of the national culture."}
{"id":"47ef3b3e-26b0-4299-a8bc-d92296573125","argument":"It seems that every time part of the Arab world is given the chance to elect their own government, they always bollocks it up. I think it's the reason there are so many authoritarian regimes in the Middle East oppressive dictatorships and autocracies that keep it's citizens on a very short leash are the only ways to prevent their countries' from devolving into chaos. I think the problem stems from the fact there's just too much sectarian hatred and religion in the region for citizens to pragmatically work together.","conclusion":"I don't think Arabs can handle Democracy."}
{"id":"590bc828-8bb0-47f3-89c9-256b3959880b","argument":"A religion is bad for the psycho social wellness of its followers if it is based on lies. To tell people that God delights in having people jabbed with pitchforks makes them think He is cruel. Very deleterious to the mental well being of those who live in fear of it.","conclusion":"The fear of hell can lead to intense feelings of guilt for insignificant events or actions that are deemed acceptable by society writ large."}
{"id":"11624bd1-a1ba-4330-be59-20d0d7bd2da4","argument":"The word feminism has been used so much as a derogatory term that the word has come to mean something entirely different; its purpose is to acknowledge that prejudices in history have been mainly toward women, and recognising that, so we can pursue equality between everyone.","conclusion":"Feminism is now too broad a term, ill-defined and diverse, meaning it is often misunderstood."}
{"id":"823bef7b-1f3c-4a0f-a37b-63a4fc8c74d4","argument":"Research from the Harvard Business Review shows that individuals are likelier to share information with, and attribute a higher status to, colleagues whose cultural backgrounds are similar to their own.","conclusion":"Employees of a similar culture and language have a bias towards flocking together in cliques"}
{"id":"982b8677-1200-4cfe-bd64-ea3728fa30bb","argument":"\"Go back where you didn't come from.\" Economist.com. Aug 12th 2010: \"Denying American citizenship to the American-born children of illegal immigrants may have a slight dissuasive effect . on births to illegal immigrants already in the United States, but that effect, too, will be slight compared to the overwhelming incentive for having babies, which is pretty much hard-wired into our systems, for good or ill. I'd be surprised if revoking birthright citizenship led the number of babies born to illegal immigrants in the United States to fall from 8% to 7% of total births. That leaves you with a whole lot of American-born non-citizens.\"","conclusion":"Illegals have incentive to have babies w\/o birthright citizenship"}
{"id":"09fa4bd6-8b9e-4fdf-94a0-75770d76458f","argument":"A monument can portray a person or event in either a positive or negative way. The meaning of a monument of a general, proud on his horse with weapons in hand, is very different than the meaning of a statue of that same general after defeat, shackled as a prisoner. Erecting or removing monuments doesn't change history, but it does change the way we view history. We should remove the ones that portray history in a way that contradicts modern values.","conclusion":"It is an established practice to not memorialise all of history through public monuments, but only those parts that represent values and ideals congruent with what the US stands for today."}
{"id":"6e18b98d-1e3f-447f-96ec-c7b7e9e5321e","argument":"The Commonwealth has no clear role; it confers no trade privileges upon its members, does not coordinate their defence or foreign policy, and lacks both the budget and the executive authority to make a practical difference in the world. Periodic meetings of Commonwealth Heads of Government are at best a talking-shop and at worst an expensive junket. It would be far better for its members to commit their attention and goodwill to more meaningful international organisations, such as the UN, NATO, regional free-trade areas, etc.","conclusion":"The Commonwealth has no clear role; it confers no trade privileges upon its members, does not coordi..."}
{"id":"ee4d73ee-2018-4527-ab7c-a6a575a45d59","argument":"White lies in relationships are not good. Even if the situation itself is harmless and the intentions are wholesome, like opinions on how things look, one should always just be honest. Intentions should not matter. If the feedback itself is negative, or maybe in disagreement with your SO, it's better to bring it up in a tactful way and let things reveal itself. This is more sustainable for long term, healthy communicative relationships. A continuation of white lies can feed a slippery slope habit of lying. One small lie about how something looks, can then lead to lying about your day, to lying about larger commitments. The best thing to do is to be tactful and honest. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"White lies in relationships are never good. One should always aim to be fully transparent and honest with their partner."}
{"id":"7ec7402d-762d-4dc1-b568-f98b3f719f82","argument":"The US ambassador pointed to the sacrifices for victory instead of power coming from the nuclear bomb as justification for post war influence.","conclusion":"In U.S.-Soviet negotiations about Japanese surrender and composition of Supreme Command the nuclear bomb was not mentioned"}
{"id":"26a8287f-1b1a-4a76-8fac-25afe9b6ff9e","argument":"Politicians, in contrast to millions of voters from different walks of life, are more prone to mistakes due to their small numbers and their relative sameness in many regards.","conclusion":"While individual citizens might not be well-informed, referendum decisions benefit from the wisdom of the crowds through which individual deficiencies are cancelled out."}
{"id":"90575b24-43c6-4462-8b52-e2ba7d14cee7","argument":"I see a lot of comments like this one, by u sailorbrendan You are absolutely welcome to your religion, but your religion has absolutely no right to influence laws that affect people who don't believe in your religion. Why is this the case? Isn't this a simple case of tyranny of the majority? The only difference between this and any other political issue is that the sides can be neatly categorised. In any case, a group of people have one view, and another group have another. Often one or more of these views are utterly irrational and its proponents have no regard for the weight of currently available evidence, but our right to espouse these views is critical to our democratic foundations. EDIT Hey guys, looks like you have some well thought out responses, I look forward to reading them. I am doing an essay right now which is due tonight, so will read your comments thoroughly and reply then. EDIT 2 Ok, I am growing increasingly convinced that I phrased my original view poorly, as many people have either answered a different question entirely, or essentially affirmed my view. Those in the latter category provided the better answers, in my opinion, as one or two people delved into the issue in general and gave me a good overview. No deltas, because basically my view remains unchanged, but thanks for educating me on why, given these kind of concerns, governments rarely take the form of true 'democracy'. This was my first  post, and I will be sure to present my view less vaguely in future. Thanks","conclusion":"I believe that if you support democracy, you must respect the Christian opposition to gay marriage."}
{"id":"0b125100-dc19-40a4-bfbe-406897d83a23","argument":"I need to list the main reasons that motivate my view, attacks on these being the most likely method of actually getting it to change. I suppose somebody could also argue why amazon is actually superior to ebay, or why I should like amazon more than ebay, but I'm not sure I can anticipate the form or content that those arguments would take. Consistently lower prices I don't think this one needs any explanation. Free shipping on any product you want Except extreme niche items where there are only one or a handful of sellers. But then you might not even find that item on Amazon at all, which is much worse. Two methods of buying On ebay you can either 'Buy it Now' or bid on items. When you buy it now, the price is almost always lower than the lowest listing on amazon and when it isn't, the cost of shipping at amazon still makes the total cost higher. Bidding is a goldmine for those with the know how, or just the luck. You can get things for virtually free if you choose and time your bids strategically. Larger selection of items and larger market of sellers for each item This one is pretty self explanatory also. You can find almost anything on ebay, and you have many more sellers to choose from than you would with the same item at amazon. Market is more global, which contributes significantly to global economic integration Amazon is a much smaller player in the global market than Ebay. They only have 5 European markets, and zero in Asia although they ship products to Asia at a premium . Ebay is everywhere. You can buy things from anywhere, and often that place is China. Seriously, you can buy almost anything from China at a lower price and with free shipping through ebay. Why aren't more people aware of this? It takes a little longer some packages take 2 weeks, others take 3 5 days like anything else , but you pay less and get what you want. It is also a global pawn shop that doesn't skimp you. Got old clothes you don't wear anymore? Got some random object in your house that you don't do anything with but seems too valuable to just casually throw away? Old computer parts? Useless plastic bags? Go get a box from the post office they are free or less than a dollar and put the random object on ebay. Someone will buy it. Refund policy If your item comes damaged or doesn't work, it is effortless to get a refund. Most sellers will just send you another one gratis, but I've never once been refused a refund or even argued with. The seller will almost always say that they are sorry and they would be happy to refund you your money. Period. A lot of sellers on amazon do this, too, but you have already lost shipping and might even have to pay shipping again for a new item. Plus, Amazon has some big faults that ebay just doesn't have. If you've been on the front page recently I'm sure you read the article about how much it sucks to work there. Not to mention they have an entire wiki page for their history of shady business practices I also have an experience of trying to get a job there that is pretty bad also. It's just anecdotal, but I can't say it doesn't influence my view, so it's here Applying for an entry level tech support job with them was one of the most annoying and dehumanizing experiences that I've had in the job market. I applied for an amazon job many say that is my first mistake. Weeks go by after the application until I get a template email from an amazon recruiter in India who insists on calling me by my middle name which wasn't on my resume or cover letter , and tells me simply that Your interview has been scheduled for tomorrow at 9 AM. I email back asking if there are other times or if we could try another day. No reply. So I changed my schedule and made it work. The calls ends up coming at 10 30 AM, with no mention of the scheduled time or any apologies on the manager's part. The interview goes how most other interviews in this industry go. They ask you questions to see if you know the first thing about computers, then they ask you some more technical things like how DHCP works or what the different layers of the OSI model actually mean in real life. Nothing too out of the ordinary, so I nailed every answer. The manager seemed to really like me and he insured me that I would make it to the next step of the process, I need only wait to hear back from them to get it scheduled. Little did I know I would be waiting 3 more weeks, only to be given another Your interview is this time and this day only ultimatum and that was to take place another week from the date of the email. This time, I had another job interview for a company equally as prestigious as amazon and frankly, paying much more on the exact day and time I was to receive the call. I emailed the recruiter I had been in contact with multiple times to change schedule, but he never emailed me back until after I missed the call and it was just a template email to mention that I seemed to have missed the call. When I replied back that I'd requested a rescheduling or at the very least some input on when to conduct the interview, I never got a response. A year later I got another email from the same recruiter saying he found my newest resume online and would like to set up an interview with me. Fool me once So yeah, if you made it this far I'm sure you have something worthwhile to say about this subject, so attempt to change my view Ebay is clearly superior to amazon. EDIT1 To argue against point 1, you are going to have to provide specific examples and prove that the majority of amazons prices are lower than ebay, which I have found to not be the case even by a longshot. EDIT2 Also, I thought it went without saying, but in order to change my view you will have to successfully argue against more than one point. My view is held up by these points, so you will have to remove more than one of the supports to get it to collapse.","conclusion":"I think ebay is superior to amazon"}
{"id":"f7824ce2-ef3b-4869-941c-6bbfff07cd1e","argument":"I am referring to a very specific kind of situation the one in which a person speeds up in their lane even though there is a car in front of them because they plan to change lanes at the last second before they ram into the car in front of them they usually change lanes by not using a signal, or by putting their signal on at the last minute. I believe that I shouldn't have to anticipate if someone may or may not be changing lanes because sometimes people speed up on the car in front of them just for tail gating and they don't actually end up changing lanes. Why should I have to play this game of will they won't they? It's up to the person who is changing lanes to provide sufficient signal. This  isn't about if you care about your own safety then or insurance costs or anything like that. This is more about who has the moral high ground and more along the lines of is this line of thinking correct or valid? gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I have no obligation to give place to people who are in their lane, who are speeding up in their lane but don't have their signal on"}
{"id":"91727951-5996-4868-953f-624b36beb63f","argument":"Let us define these concepts first Patriarchy From feminist theory, the a priori truth that society is immediately geared to favor male cis gendered ? people, male like qualities and male role models to the derision of women, feminine traits and role models in women and everything else in between. Oligrachy The a priori turth stating society is immediately geared to favor wealth and the wealthy, venerates money and the accumulation of it and puts wealthy people in a pedestal to revered and admired. Colorary While I have many qualms with contemporary feminism i.e. it's a movement that preaches gender equality and freedom of expression but acts to tarnish those same principles when met with dissenting opinions , I think some of the ideas it purports have a basis in fact i.e. the right for a woman to choose over her own body . That being said, I think the concept of patriarchy as the great boogeyman and the reason for all society's ills is misguided, ham handed and short sighted. It fails to represent societies around the world in a fair manner over time, assumes men are always favored over women in all circumstances and doesn't acknowledge healthy relationships between a man and a woman exist in many different hues and styles. I also believe the concept destroys history, culture and any kind of context in an effort to view everything with a short sighted lens. View I think that patriarchy is dwarfed by oligarchy, defined above. Wealth is held by any person at any given point of time, and it is the wealthy who have the power to oppress those who don't have as much wealth. While this is a point counteracted with the argument that most CEOs in the western world are men, this is also short sighted It's not hard to see wealth doesn't have a prejudice towards women. Positions of power held by women and men have alike have been based around the accumulation of wealth and social clout. Whenever a woman came from a wealthy family or built her own wealth, power never escaped them because they were female. If we lived in a purely patriarchal society, the smashing success of Oprah Winfrey, Anna Maria Escobedo or Sonia Sotomayor wouldn't be possible. These are all women who built their own wealth, and I'd argue they jumped through as many hoops and obstacles as man in a similar or even identical situation. Looking back on history, wealthy women had a lot more privileges than men and women in lower classes of society. Even though Marie Antoinette's Let them eat cake. is a fake quote, it speaks to the vision of the French people of their higher classes as privileged people, disenfranchised from their woes. They even went so far as to execute her, not because she was a mother or a woman, but because she represented the crown they hated. In my opinion, men aren't favored over women. Society simply favors the wealthy, whoever these people may be. As as society, we allow these people to be beacon and a finish line, a set of desirable traits that sets those who have far above those who haven't. These same people are the ones who get to make our laws the 2013 US government shutdown , dictate our economy AIG and the 2008 financial meltdown and get to decide who thinks what oligopoly of media . The poor man will never be favoured over the rich woman. I want this view to be challenged.","conclusion":"I believe oligarchy is a bigger and much more urgent problem than patriarchy."}
{"id":"c563bc9d-baa5-45fb-bbbb-6e60b20c612e","argument":"I'm Middle Eastern but I live in Europe. I always found it flattering when people of other cultures, for instance white people, took an interest to my culture. I think that sharing each other's culture is a beautiful way to connect with each other and tear down cultural segregation and develop more understanding between each other. I don't see the big deal with white people wanting to maybe dress up in traditional clothes from my culture for a costume party for instance. It's a good way for people to learn about other cultures and my forefathers didn't invent the traditional clothing to be an exclusivity thing. They intended it to make people happy and if it brings joy in people to dress up as other cultures, then I don't see how that is wrong and I would find it flattering that they took an interest in my culture. I just find the whole drama about cultural appropriation to be stupid and cause more segregation between us, which is bad.","conclusion":"I find it flattering if people from other cultures want to celebrate my culture and use elements of it"}
{"id":"8a33ccef-11ca-4d4b-a5ce-a9d16af69470","argument":"Lately there is a big trend to tear down statues, I dare say you noticed. To me the reasoning seem to always go something along the lines of this person in their life strongly failed in living up to our current moral norms. It seems to me that anything in the past will almost per definition not live up to our current moral standards. Not even our present, after all, live up to our current moral standards. When I say totalitarian I mean in the definition that their knowledge is total , and that it is a kind of singular self copying knowledge which should supersede every other kind of knowledge. Two types we have seen before is marxism and nazism. And these also found themselves colliding the most with the institutions of history, tearing down statues and banning works of culture. It seems to me that looking around the world, the only places people have torn down statues on a large scale, voluntarily outside of war and revolution, are in totalitarian societies. And that the observation that the US is not engaging with it on a massive scale, is a sign that there has been an undercurrent of totalitarianism that has gone farther in our society than people realize.","conclusion":"Tearing down statues is the kind of thing totalitarian ideologies do"}
{"id":"d5bc1f26-44f0-4192-a44e-e97ad0fbc0cb","argument":"The consequences of many decisions are next to impossible to predict. The outcome of a Brexit, for example, is dependent on countless decisions inside and outside the UK that could not be known prior to the referendum.","conclusion":"In many cases, there is no obvious right or wrong in political decision making."}
{"id":"1492d014-9281-43ae-ab74-1af96a26d964","argument":"As humans interact with each other socially they are of higher value to each other when compared to animals.","conclusion":"A human life is worth more than the life of an animal."}
{"id":"907cb06c-90a2-42eb-acb2-3b6198d43973","argument":"The belief that you are something different to your body is clearly not normal and the way it is shown AS normal is what annoys and makes many people resent the idea, when it is a mental illness. If gender dysphoria or the technical term for it is described as a mental illness people will be more accepting of it and willing to engage more. So to clarify being trans is perfectly fine but the pretending that it is not a mental illness harms the cause more than if people were saying yes it is a mental illness which allow it would be a hard pill to swallow for those that are actually trans but it would benefit them more in the grand scheme of things. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"There would not be as much push back against trans people if it was portrayed as a mental illness and not that it is normal"}
{"id":"6823cd78-8403-464a-bc63-027c3cfd831f","argument":"Yevgeny Primakov, member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, \"Three Arguments Against Kosovo Independence\", Serbian News Network, 2\/19\/07 - \"Kosovo and Metohia are considered to be the Serbs' native and ancestral land, a land where their civilization, culture and identity evolved. The Serbian Constitution, recently adopted in a nationwide referendum, calls Kosovo an inalienable part of Serbia.\"","conclusion":"Kosovo is an historic part of Serbia that should not grow independent"}
{"id":"4161b6a2-cec2-4189-aeb8-ff0f03df7c65","argument":"Unlike Star Wars canon, Federation ships are able to alter the parameters of both offensive and defensive equipment on the fly. They would be able to tune their shields to be more effective protection from turbolasers. They would also be able to modify the frequency, firing rate, and beam width to better cut through the rebel ships' shields and armor. Beyond that, there are several examples of federation ships being able to target critical systems such as weapons or engines.","conclusion":"The Federation's ships are technologically superior to those of the Rebel Alliance."}
{"id":"8bdb337e-43e9-4686-88c6-59a8fd7c38a7","argument":"Since the end of the recession, private equity has reported record profits, and at least eighteen private-equity executives are estimated to be worth two billion dollars or more each.","conclusion":"The tax break has helped private equity become one of the most lucrative sectors of the financial industry"}
{"id":"729bd7a9-ee90-41c8-a1dd-adaa9fa786c7","argument":"Getting away with cheating can give a sense of being 'above the law,' almost giving a high effect This can make it rewarding to do it again and continue the high, compromising the relationship.","conclusion":"If you cheated once, you might do so again. Given this, revealing makes future cheating more difficult because your partner will be more suspicious in future."}
{"id":"decd9b7a-2724-45ac-b74f-e8e757d3e68a","argument":"Many healthcare cover providers will refuse to give cover over preexisting and previously known conditions.","conclusion":"Disclosure of mental illness by employees may negatively impact their health care coverage"}
{"id":"07f5bc3f-ffcd-490f-b61d-acd5d36c2492","argument":"The reason women try to enhance their sex appeal is not because they enjoy doing so per se, but because it is one of the best ways of securing male partners, who are most drawn to it. This is known as 'sexual economics theory","conclusion":"Women can have pragmatic reasons for attempting to increase their sex appeal."}
{"id":"ffb2882f-49c4-47ae-a5f5-7f8518ab8778","argument":"Any and all forms of government are likely to be superceded as societies change and arrangements necessarily adapt.","conclusion":"Modern democracies are destined to fail due to their inherent weaknesses."}
{"id":"29665dad-dd33-4342-a759-f7dec8c7fc6d","argument":"A lot of video games are essentially commercial skinner boxes, designed to keep people playing and forking over money not because they're getting any real satisfaction out of it, but simply because they can't bring themselves to stop. I think the evidence is pretty conclusive that video games can be a legitimate addiction and that many developers are banking on it. The most obvious examples are MMOs and mobile games like Candy Crush, but the same techniques are being employed to various degrees in every genre. If people understand the nature of these games and choose to play them anyway, that's fine. I think informed adults have every right to risk getting themselves addicted to something if they so choose, but they have to be informed. Game developers know what they're doing, and I don't think they should be allowed to hide it from their customers.","conclusion":"Commercial video games should be required to employ an addictiveness rating system."}
{"id":"aede28af-cc29-4204-8ddc-0b4a304fc00a","argument":"The NRA started out as organization by and for gun owners. They provided a real service to owners and the citizenship at large, doing things in more recent history such as recommending and providing gun locks, supporting the FFA and the creation of FFLs, supporting the exclusion of criminals and those with mental problems from owning guns in the Gun Control Act of 1968. They also have a wide array of safety programs and training courses that they provide. However, at some point in their history, probably at about the same time that other sources of income overtook membership dues as their primary source of revenue they became an organization whose sole purpose was to push more guns no matter whether there was a benefit or a detriment to society. Recently, evidence is coming to light that they may have also become a funnel for hostile foreign powers to funnel money into US elections to again push for more guns and less restrictions something which doesn't seem to support that this would be in the best interest of the US .","conclusion":"The NRA is a caustic force in the United States, and any benefit they provide to gun owners is now an afterthought or side effect of shilling for gun manufacturers, and potentially funneling foreign money into US elections."}
{"id":"9f788eec-60c1-4b05-b7de-84ee17c86c17","argument":"When the US invaded Iraq in the early 2000s, it was under the false pretense of trying to destroy WMDs but was actually about fears over oil and the preservation of the US dollar. This war cost hundreds of thousands of lives and created a power vacuum that led to the rise of ISIS and other terrorist groups.","conclusion":"There are numerous examples throughout recent history of the US acting unethically, usually in an effort to further its self-interest."}
{"id":"c976cf35-cb54-49ec-a8e2-7b7759a4c838","argument":"Let me start by saying that I write this as a committed, practicing Muslim from the US. I have intimate and detailed knowledge of Islamic theology and jurisprudence although not anywhere near as much as a scholar . Discussion of Middle Eastern violence is mostly couched in terms of Islam in the Western ideosphere. We see that in the news media as well as on Reddit. I think this is harmful and the discussions end up being about Islam rather than the politics which causes the violence. The focus on Islam causes the the entire discussion to revolve around an anti Islam pro religious freedom axis, when the real issues that need to be discussed are political in nature. This causes even those people who know that the real issues are political and not religious to be drawn into the maelstrom. The focus on Islam also alienates the people who can help the most Muslims. As a Muslim I often see people going back and forth on Islam, with both sides having little to no knowledge of Islam. Both sides of the argument throw around Quranic verses, opinion poll numbers, statistics, anecdotes, shariah laws , naive comparisons to other religions and groups All to no end. Even if people want to have a discussion centered on Islam, they never hear the Islamic perspective from actual Islamic scholars, let alone a lay Muslim. It's like watching a debate between two laypeople on the nature of quantum mechanics. They argue based on flawed, popsci interpretations of physics and can never reach a conclusion because they don't actually know anything about quantum mechanics and they never ask a physicist. Islam has been practiced the world over for a long time in many different cultures under many different geopolitical circumstances. Some times have been relatively peaceful, others relatively volatile. Some places have been relatively peaceful, others relatively volatile. What has changed are the politics. So I argue that we should focus on the politics of the Middle East rather than the religion. Religion is an important factor in the Middle East and in the lives of Muslims around the world, but the root causes of violence and peace are found in politics. People band together into political bodies under the banners of religion, culture, language, or ethnicity because these are the important things in their lives, but religion, culture, etc are not the driving force behind it, rather it is politics itself. Oppression and marginalization results in social dysfunction and violence, regardless of any other factor. So let's focus on the root causes and stop blaming religion. To clarify, I'm not saying that religion is not relevant. But rather, it is not the main issue as it is made out to be.","conclusion":"We should stop discussing violence related to the Middle East in terms of Islam and start discussing it as a political issue."}
{"id":"382606a8-a0aa-4927-887f-10f1208ea1ed","argument":"I play lots of video games, and in most of them, males are often pictured as very burly and manly characters while females are slender, small and sexually pleasing to look at. However, I do know that there's widespread criticism of Anita and her fellow propagators all over the internet and I'd like to see the other side of the story. I'm practically indifferent in this matter, and I do not really agree with nearly everything she says. I'm asking as a way to see convincing arguments from both sides. Edit for clarification Can anyone explain to me why she's so heavily criticized for saying something that makes perfect sense Mainstream video games are almost exclusively made to appeal to a male demographic, resulting in arguably sexist portrayals of women both narratively and in the way they're presented .","conclusion":"Anita Sarkeesian and similar feminists actually have a point about the portrayal of gender roles in video games."}
{"id":"0b79bd51-7dfe-4750-9425-26c8e345c7f6","argument":"People would be engaged in the political process throughout the year as opposed to in a representative democracy where people vote for representatives every 4-5 years and then don't think about voting until the next election cycle.","conclusion":"A liquid democracy would massively up the engagement of citizens by making it easier to vote, which would allow more robust conversations about the direction of a nation."}
{"id":"1d1f27e8-1cd8-46e7-bf44-bd7eabe00062","argument":"Minsu Namgung represents intellectuals of the society. He does not speak the language of people, but speaks only his language. This shows how many progressive intellectuals fail to convey their message to the masses.","conclusion":"The film's use of various metaphors and its character design are amazing. see for instance this article Korean for an analysis"}
{"id":"5c0be7ce-13cd-4f35-89a1-c5309921345e","argument":"I have noticed that during debates like those that took place over the last two days between dem. primary contenders , often times the moderators will try to get a candidate to stop talking after their time has run out but the candidate will continue to just ramble on and on, largely ignoring the moderator for significant periods of time. My contention is that this gives an unfair advantage to candidates who are the most boistrous even if what they are saying isn't particularly compelling, they are boxing out valuable time for other contenders there is a really easy fix. just cut the mic after the time has run out and move on. Can someone explain why they don't do this? Or maybe point out some negative side effects that would outweigh the positives?","conclusion":"Debate moderators should cut the mic after the allotted time has passed."}
{"id":"f95c6b10-74ea-4641-8626-fc086636d33e","argument":"As of 2009, a joint state with Palestinians and Israelis as equal citizens was unacceptable to only a minority of Palestinians; the majority would at least be willing to tolerate or even embrace this solution Irving, p. 4","conclusion":"Reports on polls indicate that more Israelis 39% support a joint state for the two peoples than support a two-state solution 30%."}
{"id":"58f0a4b7-5abf-4a43-8af2-2393b4d234f0","argument":"One professor banned laptops in the front rows of her classroom and cites the generally positive responses by students McCreary, p. 1083","conclusion":"There are ways to mitigate this problem, for example by placing laptop users in a separate section of the classroom."}
{"id":"df4ad804-c946-4074-aae7-6eed45e298e8","argument":"In the case of rabbits, selective breeding - far from being abhorred as potentially damaging - is broadly encouraged albeit with occasional caveats as a safe way of ensuring the continuation of positive genetics.","conclusion":"This does not automatically imply that characteristics will be to the detriment of the animal; selective breeding can be conducted responsibly."}
{"id":"5521b2da-f4b3-4908-ab4a-be77225cdb19","argument":"I understand why sex selective abortion in countries where a certain gender is preferred over another are a bad idea. They can cause disastrous demographic shifts, similar to those China and India are seeing in certain regions. This reasoning is not applicable in Western countries for several reasons 1 Children of all genders are equally welcome, for the most part. While sexism, homophobia, or transphobia certainly can affect children as they age, parents probably aren't going to select for one sex over the other in significant numbers. 2 Parents who are willing to abort a fetus of the wrong gender will probably mistreat that child as he or she ages. If you're committed enough to get a relatively late abortion i.e. at the 18 week range because you want a boy, there's a reasonable chance you won't be a good parent to a daughter you're forced to have. Putting the child up for adoption isn't a good solution, given the state of the foster care adoption system in many Western countries. 3 Any laws limiting abortion based on gender will disproportionately affect minorities. Doctors will assume that the abortion is because of the fetus's sex and deny certain segments of the population care, for fear of breaking the law. Moreover, winding back abortion rights is dangerous in today's political climate. TL DR Sex selective abortion should remain or become legal in Western countries.  gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Sex-selective abortions in Western countries should remain legal"}
{"id":"5556e386-8c75-4cbc-9da2-1b5c1e222bb0","argument":"One relevant example: The theory of evolution makes it impossible for the existence of Adam and Eve as described in Genesis.","conclusion":"Some religious beliefs are indeed contrary to science and in no way complementary."}
{"id":"ceabea70-db5c-4dbd-9e38-28590af9fc71","argument":"As a Furry myself I do find a lot of the content people are sharing so openly is rather alarming to me. Do I have a problem with this in itself? No really in the right spot and situation there is nothing wrong with it. As long as people make it clear that the sort of content is there. What I think is an issue is how abrasive and open a lot of furries are with that kind of content all around. Twitter feeds filled with porn and other NSFW images being passed around. As a result Furries are basically the punching bag of the internet. It's common and really easy to find people bashing furries and or just going ham on them due to coming off as a lot more creepy as a result of being so forefront with all of the NSFW content. I think the larger issue is people not knowing time and place and even on top of that just dialing it back one or two steps. People have their kinks and stuff they like that is NSFW, even I do. I just think Furries are too open with it and it is a larger part as to why they end up looking a lot worse as a result. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Furries are too open with their NSFW content, and it makes them look worse as a result"}
{"id":"9396b170-1f0a-4ef7-94a5-b0089569405b","argument":"I apologize in advance for the negativity of this post but I really hate furries. But for some reason got the feeling that this hate is based off of weak arguments and I just got the idea to ask about it since I'm pretty open minded. I'll try to list as many arguments as I can. Paedophilia I always see furries that are paedophiles and who draw \u0441ub \u0440\u043ern, and I don't know if it's just me or that these paedofurs are far more visible frequent than, let's say people who draw l\u043el\u0456. Every other week I see these people getting called out for being a paedophile doing something paedophilic drawing \u0441ub etc. Especially the whole Zaush RC Fox Tacklebox scandals. More on that later. Like I don't ever see this going on in the brony fandom I hate them too or anime fandoms, why furries of all people? Unless if I'm wrong, this really makes me believe that furries are full of paedophiles. Supplementary reading \u0422\u043e\u0445\u0456\u0441\u0456t\u0443 Whenever someone fu\u0441ks up, even if it's a minor fu\u0441ku\u0440, I always see hordes of furries making fools of themselves. Like jumping on people and attacking them, sometimes driving people to suicide As was the case with RC Fox . Like what the hell is wrong with you? Other forms of toxicity include fursuit elitism, rabid fanboyism of popufurs the whole concept of that is fu\u0441king \u0441\u0430n\u0441\u0435r in itself , self centered egocentrism, assuming that if someone follows someone else who's problematic that they're supporting them and therefore blocking cutting all contact with them, impersonating other people and trying to be them make them look bad, creating rumours about someone because idfk why, not letting go even after things have been settled, etc. Like why are furries so goddamn t\u043e\u0445\u0456\u0441, yet they claim to be all welcoming and understanding . The only other fandoms I can say that this also happens are the Undertale and FNAF fandoms maybe even Homestuck but I'm not sure . I don't see this happening in the anime fandoms, which I like to compare the furry fandom to. Supplementary reading Neckbeards, SJWs, depressed people, etc. I feel like the reason for this is because the fandom is full of fat balding neckbeards, SJWs, depressed troubled teenagers, etc. Like these fandoms have really different demographics than normal society. I've seen convention videos, really tell me that you don't see more neckbeards ugly guys in them than you see in normal society. Why does the furry fandom attract these kind of people? Supplementary reading \u0405\u0435\u0445u\u0430l\u0456t\u0443 Hoo boy this one's a doozy. You have people having room parties at conventions in which tons of \u0455\u0435\u0445 happens and alcohol is consumed, you have thirsty furries creating tons of \u0440\u043ern of everything R.I.P. Zabivaka and Nick Wilde , you have tons of people asking you if you want to role play, you have people publicly showcasing their \u0455\u0435\u0445 weird \u0430\u0455\u0455 kinks on their Twitter profiles and after dark accounts, you have paedophiles, you have z\u043e\u043e\u0440h\u0456l\u0456a, you have b\u0435\u0455t\u0456al\u0456t\u0443, you have forums and Discord servers Telegram group chats dedicated to those, you have v\u043er\u0435, you have human \u0440u\u0440\u0455, you have leather rubber k\u0456nk\u0455, you have Oh my god, so much to talk about. Yet the fandom continues to claim that it's not a f\u0435t\u0456\u0455h k\u0456nk about sex, we just like animal people, why do people hate this family friendly fandom Quit lying, why do you lie? And also, doing this stuff in public HAS CONSEQUENCES, like for example, R\u0430\u0456nFurr\u0435\u0455t. Oh my god seeing that was like a car crash, it's so bad but you can't look away. And I feel like there are too many people who did do this for it to just be brushed off as a loud minority . Loud it is, minority it is not. Take responsibility people. Supplementary video Drama I see this happening literally every other week, and every time I see people behave like leeches and blow things out of proportion and dogpile on the subject. Does it really need to be that exacerbated? Again, I don't see this in any other fandom. Lack of common sense I see this whenever furry conventions are held. Like it's like people are intentionally trying to get their events banned from the venue. One example, R\u0430\u0456nFurr\u0435\u0455t. Another example, two people in \u0440u\u0440 masks k\u0456nk\u0456ng out on the floor at FWA 2018, a guy pissing on the floor at BLFC 2018, oh, and did I not mention room parties and alcohol already? Another thing is people not showering at cons and insisting that they wanna be a musky husky . Gross. And then you have people showing outsiders \u0443\u0456ff and other things, giving the fandom a bad name, and then you complain about why people hate you. People being thirsty Tony the Tiger. I could go on and on and on I don't know why the fandom is lacking in common sense but I hate it. And it seems like people in other fandoms anime conventions don't do this. Problematic popufurs No other fandom has a hierarchy of popularity like the furry fandom. And now popular people are screwing up, like 2 gryphon and Zaush. Yet you still have people that support them. The anime fandom doesn't have this social stratification. Nazifurs Altfurry Furry Raiders Self explanatory. And again, the anime fandom doesn't have these. Bad apples Too many of them to just be a loud minority . Why is the furry fandom full of these people. I think you get the point now. Aaand that's pretty much it for what I have. Go ahead, try to refute explain my claims, I'm open minded. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I really hate furries"}
{"id":"4bf42288-2361-44c4-9914-e4042603632d","argument":"The explosion of refugees being expelled into the Western world is actually assisting ISIS and their ilk in their common goal of forming a Middle East caliphate. The West's obsession with being politically correct has been recognized as a weakness and is being exploited. By taking in these refugees, the West e.g. Eur, UK, USA has basically capitulated to the enemies of freedom, and is actually aiding and abetting hardline Islamics in their drive to force out all the unwelcome types from their areas basically playing Western nations as dupes, participating in a pogrom not seen in this scale since WW II.","conclusion":"Taking in refugees is assisting ISIS in their pogrom of the Middle East"}
{"id":"d67bdb0c-83f7-45b0-a4e1-cf9d5e599628","argument":"Eating meat has negative impacts on worker safety Meatpacking workers are injured at a rate of 27.6 per 100 workers - double the average of all manufacturing industries.","conclusion":"The meat industry is particularly harmful to its workers. Supporting the meat industry by eating meat involves being complicit in this harm."}
{"id":"6a5731e9-1206-4f73-a648-a7d0737f3a9d","argument":"With the United States using first past the post and the electoral college, it is impossible for a third party candidate to get elected president. Under this system, people who vote third party are often voting against their own interests, as they are harming big party candidate they agree with more, and helping the big party candidate they agree with less. Third parties should devot all their money and energy to getting people elected in state and local elections, where they'll actually have a chance of winning, and slowly gaining a degree of power.","conclusion":"Third parties in The United States should not waste their time putting up candidates for the presidency. Rather, they should focus all their energy on local and state elections."}
{"id":"8ca99e8d-35ee-40fe-b908-bef4fa02c909","argument":"Religiously affiliated schools define \"faith as a virtue, rather than what it truly is: The open acceptance of bias. Such a standard does not belong in educational systems.","conclusion":"Tribalism promotes argumentative bias, as it refers to a way of thinking or behaving in which people are loyal to their social group above all else."}
{"id":"77f06b66-776d-470f-a241-ed95f9168613","argument":"Without bettering current farming practices, vertical farming might not reach its potential and thus not live up to its hype.","conclusion":"We should focus on bettering current farming practices before moving them to vertical farms."}
{"id":"ea12ebb0-7f70-46f4-bab9-7a9316b432e1","argument":"I am of the belief that a student shouldn't be required to attend a class if the student is still doing well in the class. If an instructor wants their students to attend classes, they should make class time worthwhile. There should not be an arbitrary policy to fail students for they miss X amount of class periods. If the student is capable of passing the exams essays without attending class, they should be allowed to do as they please. I believe my policy should apply at a high school and university level.","conclusion":"students should not be required to attend a class as long as they are doing well in it"}
{"id":"8a9b3329-7757-4ae2-a210-4c85ca91d2ed","argument":"Full disclosure I'm a moderate liberal, a Hillary supporter, and no fan of Donald Trump. But there is one leader of the Confederacy that I count among the founding fathers of this country Robert E. Lee. Yes, Lee turned against the United States and fought for the secessionists. Yes, he owned slaves like almost all land owning men in the South at that time. But Lee was regarded as a brilliant strategist and unmatchable on the battlefield. That genius tactical sense led him to surrender at Appomatox and end the Civil War. Lee didn't have to surrender. He could have fought and died, taking as many Union soldiers with him as possible. He could have negotiated terms that left the Confederacy more or less intact. He could have turned the secessionist movement into a guerilla campaign, leaving the South entrenched in violence for a generation. Instead he surrendered unconditionally, and his stature while doing so led to a generous amnesty that saved the lives of thousands of soldiers and ended the war decisively and with blanket forgiveness. After the war he was outspoken about reconciliation between the North and South and supported President Johnson's Reconstruction and reforms. In the end, Lee preserved the Union when he could have engineered its further destabilization. Because of his noble actions and determination to re unify the United States, I count Robert E. Lee as important as any of the founding fathers. Throw the rest of the Confederacy into the dust bin of history, but not the noble general. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"There is one Confederate leader who deserves statues -- Robert E. Lee."}
{"id":"114b2b03-bea6-4c3b-b9ea-4442297c13ce","argument":"In light of recent events our nation has been stirred up in a frenzy over gun control, and rightly so. It is a discussion we need to have as a country, however too many people believe the answer is to ban assault rifles and rifles like it. I'm here to say that will not help, it is a bad legislative practice and that we are missing the bigger picture. First off my reason against banning weapons is that it is legislatively innefective. The problem is when you decide to ban a weapon you need to characterize the parts that make it dangerous. California where I live, has done this and decided that having features like pistol grips and detachable magazines make weapons that have them more dangerous. These features are not dangerous at all in their own right but when put into a semi auto platform, improve the performance of the weapon. Essentially these laws punish manufacturers for making a product too good . The real issue though is its focus on assault rifles which make up less than 1 of all gun crime in the US. Meanwhile 38 revolvers 9mm pistols and 22 caliber firearms have not had any meaningful regulations put on them yet they make up the majority of gun deaths. The other major issue is moving the goal posts. When you characterize a weapon by its parts, it's easy to simply change a part to make the weapon conform to the law. Here is a good example of how the industry has gotten around the pistol grip laws California has spent so much time and effort to regulate these firearms but they have spent next to 0 time enforcing them. There are millions of pre ban ar15's still sitting in there safes. California made the law to make them illegal but won't pay to enforce the law. There is another big problem with this type of legislation, it is far from future proof. Here is a good example of a rifle we might have to deal with in the future. This is a caseless rifle, as it stands in prototype phase in California, we would need to write laws that specifically cover the mechanisms of this rifle. It is not semi nor full auto as it can shoot multiple barrels at a time, it doesn't use a traditional magazine, it doesn't expel a cartridge. This is why legislating the guns themselves is a bad idea, it is prone to inaccuracies, victim to changes in design, hard to get started and keep current and a general waste of tax payers time and money. So of course the big question is WHAT DO WE DO? The biggest step was actually taken the other day. We need to be able to study the phenomenon of mass shooting incidents, which congress is unable to allow thanks to efforts by the NRA. It is important to get the right info into the right hands. Now unfortunately our administration right now is about as corrupt and nonsensical as it gets but there are many good people at the CDC right now who are willing to tackle this issue. Beyond researching the problem one of the simplest things we can do is registration. This is obviously a hot button issue, especially with those who adhere strictly to the 2nd amendment. However registration is the most effective legislation passed in terms of gun control. Here is a good site that breaks down the merits of registration Beyond registering, I believe we need more data before we make any more laws to regulate firearms or their users. We simply do not know enough to make radical enough changes to prevent these mass shooting incidents. The mass shooting problem may also be the effects of our income inequality, political radicalization, religious zealotry, societal decay, or mental instability or all of the above. I also believe in strong emphasis in gun education. Having taken a hunter safety course I believe this is a good model to follow for first time gun buyers. Respect and responsibility should be the first thing anyone understands about their firearm. Secondly they should be trained to be able to use their firearm for the situations it was built for. Maybe not make it mandatory but give incentives for taking training courses. Also we need to make it ok in this nation for the mentally ill to seek help, and for others to recognize these symptoms. We need to make it so gun owners under mental instability can rely on friends or family to hold their weapons while they get through a tough time. If someone is becoming radical and their beliefs become violent we need to be able to address it in an effective way. I'm all for ideas, critiques and criticism. We solve problems by talking, not yelling at each other. Edit I came up with an idea for gun registration maybe even republicans would like, would like some feedback. Instead of having your name put on a national list you get issued a registration number that is the only thing attached to the serial number, make and model of the firearm. The only people that have your name and address attached to that registration number is your county clerks office. If a law agency requests the identity of your registration number the county clerk is obligated to contact you within 10 days and state the agency involved and a case number. I think this would be a good way to quash the fears some have over registering and being put on a list. It may balloon government a bit, but what doesnt.","conclusion":"I believe banning guns is a bad legislative action."}
{"id":"ead55c4c-377d-4eb7-95d8-ff11b89e4576","argument":"Therefore check out Ray Kurzweil on his theory on \"singularity\". here. it becomes possible to create an artificial super intelligence all hope to control an entity that is a few thousand times at least more clever than a human being is useless. it would do what it want. understandably. the ant\/human comparison would be very correct. instead of killing us it could also just deplete earth ressources and take off. just because the earth is boring : or so . nobody would be able to understand","conclusion":"A general A.I. would observe humans as we observe ants in anthill. It will only be a matter of time before it \"experiments\" on the subject - humans."}
{"id":"930c2e31-d821-4800-ad1e-a22ac835be90","argument":"In the US employees especially those under competitive employment are required to disclose their mental illness, to their employer, in order to access rights granted under employment law.","conclusion":"Employees Should Disclose Their Mental Health Conditions In The Workplace."}
{"id":"909cc9c7-1953-4dd0-ba4e-8bb0e4c4978c","argument":"Parenting sick children is already an emotionally challenging task Having to make such a critical decision for one's child adds a significant amount of stress on the parents.","conclusion":"Parents will be better off when they are not forced to make critical decisions for their children."}
{"id":"a3e5a371-8979-4c14-976a-7730ede7e7bd","argument":"As the title says, I think Latin shouldn't be taught in schools. Specifically, I don't think Latin should be allowed to fulfill a foreign language requirement in place of a living language. I also think that there are plenty of other more relevant languages to teach in schools including Spanish, Chinese, French, German, Russian, Arabic, Swahili, Hindi, Esperanto and others . Any word roots that one learns in Latin can easily be taught in English class along with the Germanic roots that make up our language . Latin culture which is part of my school's Latin curriculum can be taught in World History classes and possibly electives . There is no compelling reason I can see to keep Latin in schools. There is but one country that uses Latin Vatican City, home to the Pope and less than 1000 administrators in the Roman Catholic Church. Even then, Italian is used as the official language used for official and legislative purposes and German and Switzerland's other languages for the Swiss Guard. Vatican City's website doesn't even have a Latin version, only English, Italian, French, German, and Spanish. On the other hand, languages like Spanish, French, German, Indonesian, Swahili, Hindi, and Chinese are spoken by tens of millions of people, at least.  EDIT I'm specifically talking about middle and high schools, not college","conclusion":"I think Latin shouldn't be taught in schools."}
{"id":"751f6bde-ae63-4404-941e-f2b501853c2b","argument":"I think that anybody who believes that some custom of behavior that they themselves follow, but is not followed by society at large, must be followed in order to be a good person is fundamentally anti human. When people who are anti human start to gain traction, they naturally move towards enacting policies that are anti social, and this is what leads to the greatest acts of devastation that humanity is capable of, e.g. massacres and genocide. The reason is, once nobody around you lives up to the standards of a decent person, they are all fair game to do whatever you want with to the extent that you can get away with it. x200B To this end, people who have this manner of dealing with the world should be kept from authority and influence. For example, people who think that reproduction is outdated, people who think countries shouldn't have a border or a military, and vegans.","conclusion":"Groups and individuals who believe that universal human customs are immoral should be kept from positions of influence and authority"}
{"id":"04e98768-29a0-498f-a642-366ad07485d0","argument":"While we do get to excersise the will of the people it is not very common. We get to vote once every five years and that is between several very similar manifestos that parties do not even stick to once they get into government. The governing party then has a 5 year dictatorship. So far in our system with hung parliaments unusual and the governing party often getting massive majorities they can ignore all other opinion except the cabinet's. The government regularly survives back bench rebellions as well. This means they are not accountable to the people. The PM is only accountable to a small number of MPs who are strongly whipped to make sure they vote in the right way. In practice this means that the executive PM + Cabinet has as much power as many dictatorships, the 'absolute' monarchs of the past would love to have had parliaments that provide as little resistance as the Westminister Parliament does!","conclusion":"If Britain is a democracy it is an undemocratic one"}
{"id":"d5acf638-75a7-4de8-98ef-200b481fa737","argument":"Many animals are killed in the production of plant-based food. Rabbits, mice, hamsters and other rodents, groundnesting birds, deer fawn, snakes, etc.","conclusion":"Veganism still may negatively impact animals and cause them harm."}
{"id":"c2d0f74d-ab6c-4055-8112-e485f8a47386","argument":"This is a throwaway account for obvious reasons. I have been a long time lurker on reddit. This is my first post. I will probably only use this account only for this  and its responses. This  post might dramatically change my life if people can change my view. Why? Because I will get off welfare and look for a job immediately. If not, well then, nothing will change obviously. Let me first define work. To me the phrase work is already as vague as terms like freedom and the like and people have broadly different definitions of this. Therefore, for the sake of avoiding semantics about the definition of work , I'll define work as this being paid to do a job for the sakes of being able to sustain a living and maybe even a little bit more for reasonable wants. First off, I don't think society even understands the purpose of working to begin with. As in, I think society has lost the plot. The reason people work should be for the following main reason to contribute meaningfully to society. Secondary reasons include 2 because it is fun. 3 because it is fulfilling. No society, we should not be doing work simply because if you don't, somehow you're a leech parasite waste of space drain on society . It seems like most of society especially those on the lower economic spectrum are now working for the sake of working usually out of fear of death rather than for any real value. Rather than working to actually contribute meaningful labour for the benefit of society, it has devolved into a selfish individualistic game with little to no regard of human basic needs or happiness. Rather, it seems people work because they are forced to under the current economic system regardless of whether it actually is making any difference. I don't believe my self worth or value is based on how much I earn, how much money I have or what work I have. Work defined as what I wrote above. Since it is hard to reason without bias as to what actually contributes to society, I will not focus on what contributes. I will focus instead on what doesn't contribute If there is already technology that can do what I do better faster more efficiently or a combination of the above than I can, I am contributing nothing by doing that task. If this is too vague, here's an example a scribe contributes nothing to society if there are machines that can print out books faster and infinitely more efficiently through printing press. I stuck to an example that happened long, long ago because I know people are touchy about this stuff. There are obviously many modern current examples though of automation using machines doing better jobs than humans though. I will try to keep things brief about my childhood I had an emotionally abusive and psychologically abusive childhood. This has given me trust issues. My mom was okay, but my dad always forced things to go his way. Therefore, because of him, I never had a social life. He only cared about studying for school and nothing else. Literally. Wouldn't let me learn how to drive, get into relationships or anything that involved going outside of the house, except school. Also was very controlling and sheltered me from doing anything except studying and cleaning the house. I used to have video games, but he took them away too because of school. So I really only had the internet, and he really only let me have that because I told him it was for school . Therefore, I developed all my interests on the internet. You might wonder why I gave you those details. Reason being because I'm almost sure people would say stuff about how I should get out there and do things with my life and get laid or something. And stuff like, Don't you feel like you're wasting your life away? comments. I don't have any desires for anything outside that of doing stuff on the internet. No interest in sport, no interest in relationships. No interests in sex, no interests in alcohol drugs. You can bet that I became extremely socially awkward and shy. I especially hate school because of all the things I was forced to do when I had little to no interest or desires for learning things that didn't give me any skills or enjoyment. I feel like my family as well as society were forcing me to do things with no care or concern about what I truly felt about anything. In other words, I felt and still feel society and my family were working against me, not with me all the way up to now. Anyway, long story short, by the end of high school, I became an extreme shut in hikikomori only leaving my room when required by my parents or for food. Anyway, for a long time I used the internet as a coping mechanism by watching videos and doing shit online up until I realized that I wasn't useless at all, only that society and my parents thinks I'm useless that I could still have interests and learn stuff through the internet for free online. Once my attitude changed and I realized that my value wasn't tied to a worthless job or how much money I had, I started finding interests that I enjoyed. My relationship started going very sour with my parents, and I got sick of their verbal abuse and constant threat for abandonment anyway do 'X' chore or else I will kick you out sort of thing . Without getting too specific, I was forced to leave. Let me say this was the most traumatic experience of my life, especially if you consider that my parents nor school ever really showed me how to do anything, from driving a car, writing a CV, or even how to use the phone was never allowed to have a phone . I still really resent them to this day, and I don't buy this tough love bullshit. I still really hate them for doing it. Luckily, the country I live in has a strong social welfare system so I was able to use this to get help. And this is what I'm living off of. Now you might be wondering, if society was kind enough to provide welfare and you realize this, why are you taking advantage of it? Good question. Reason being is that like most other countries, there is compulsory schooling. Let me say that the compulsory schooling taught me absolutely nothing about living independently and nothing about how to get a job, didn't even know what a CV was when I left school. Didn't show me anything useful. It was more about preparing me to go to university college or whatever they call it where you live. I feel the compulsory schooling sucked up a lot of my time and didn't prepare me for anything. Didn't help with my restrictive abusive parents either. The compulsory schooling forced upon by society sucked up a lot of my time and didn't even show me how to look after myself. Therefore it was at least partly to blame for my predicament. In other words, it took all my time and yet didn't show me how to do anything. If you take away a person's opportunity to understand things and restrict him from understanding how to provide for himself, you damn well should be prepared to provide for him. At least that's what I think. To cut to the chase, I use that income to support myself but now instead of watching pointless cartoons and videos of cats as a coping mechanism, I'm learning stuff online about whatever interests me. And for the first time since never, I actually enjoy life. I am free from the bullshit put on me by society and my parents. And since I have no interest in anything else nor have the desire or interest of anything outside of the house since I never developed an interest in that, I use this time learning about things online doing whatever the hell I want. I learnt about and used Torrents for a start and get a lot of stuff through that teaching myself a bunch of other things on my own pace and that I actually am interested in. Given that, I realized how pointless working for the sake of income really is, and I now see that life can be fulfilling without the need of a job. I say this because society, school, parents and everyone I knew always made it a point to either imply or rudely tell me that I should get a job otherwise I am worth nothing. Well to that stupid idea, I now laugh. I realize now that a lot of people do pointless jobs. I read constantly of people having downtime in work. Basically being paid for not doing anything. That sounds pointless. Or people browsing reddit when they're supposed to work or something similar also bullshit. I learnt about malicious compliance and slowdowns . I learnt of all the technology currently available that could ultimately replace people's jobs, and I now find it laughable that people believe usually implied that the purpose of life is to work. I have read of stories of people bullshitting their way to get degrees by bribing unemployed professors which is also laughable or that people have degrees that have nothing to do with their job. Honestly, what's the point? I don't see what's so great ethically about bullshitting life. Is that really fulfilling or something to be proud of? I would write more, but I think it's getting a bit long so I'll wait for responses. Basically, the only work I am so called qualified for are bullshit jobs that could already be automated by machines. As I explained somewhere above, I believe that if there are machines that can already do what I would be hired to do better, faster, more efficiently or a combination, then getting the job would be meaningless. I would rather get intrigued with my new found freedom learning stuff on the internet. So why don't I go back to school? Well I've already explained how much I hated school above. Also, what's the point of paying money for someone to tell you information, when you can easily look up the information and studying it in your own time? All for a piece of paper that implies I'm smart and qualified for something? I don't care for that intellectual bullshit to pretend I'm smart, sorry. I'm actually content with my life and I'm finally happy, being able to do anything limited to the confines of a computer and the internet. That was all I've ever been able to do anyway. Anyway, I refuse to be a part of this bullshit work thing by wasting my time to get paid to do things that technically don't have to be done by humans anymore, and I certainly don't feel bad about what I'm doing. In fact I feel I deserve this after all the bullshit I had to put up with. Would love to hear people's thoughts and opinions, and I'm sorry for the long post.","conclusion":"I refuse to \"work\" and I live off welfare. I don't see what's wrong with this and I will do it as long as I can get away with it."}
{"id":"4208b5d4-e4d1-4b7f-8f6f-98affec4f275","argument":"Many people are unaware of the fact that they are eligible for government programs; for example the US has more than $300 million in unclaimed pension benefits This lack of information often prevents them from accessing their entitlements.","conclusion":"A UBI is simpler to administer and is therefore less prone to denying deserving people coverage because of bureaucratic inefficiencies delays, miscategorisation of people, and other barriers to access."}
{"id":"c4b2dde6-2e74-441a-976a-1beb04c55037","argument":"The system by which the state runs business and commerce is the system by which all individual choice is dead. When you can no longer influence the market through your choices, you lose your democratic say in the market.","conclusion":"The US was built upon and fought for tenets antithetical to Communism; individualism and self-actualization, as well as to be freed from the repressions of tyranny. Communism is designed to be \"benevolent tyranny\"."}
{"id":"ab5f6426-cb39-40f8-af29-83019a00cbbe","argument":"Due to the untraceability, stolen cryptocurrencies can be used quite easily, without risk of detection.","conclusion":"Cryptocurrencies are much more desirable to steal than credit cards."}
{"id":"1bac3fde-fa06-41a6-b437-082bab4b0460","argument":"If feminism activism succeeds in removing disadvantages, then they'll likely disappear from people's thoughts to the point that in the future people won't think of how to continue or create those disadvantages again, nor will it be socially accepted to do so as the inequality's collectively 'invisible' in the environment.","conclusion":"Helping the disadvantaged like women get equality prevents 'bottoming out where average people or those who have the most privileges get put at risk of getting restrictions, because it becomes more acceptable for them to exist if others have them already."}
{"id":"93a2a61d-13e6-4a03-80de-582898c48b1f","argument":"The Pope has received a lot of press recently, and favorable commentary from redditors, regarding statements made regarding the Catholic Church's views on homosexuality. However, while it may seem like a change in doctrine or otherwise a nice outreach by the Church, I believe it is nothing more than business as usual delivered by a charismatic wordsmith. The Catechism of the Catholic Church makes the position clear. Homosexual individuals must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Catechism 2358. Moreover, e very sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. Id. Sounds nice, right? There's a nonsensical basis for this pleasant sounding prose, however, and it strikes me as something that should be ridiculed rather than applauded. Specifically, despite this veneer of acceptance, the core thought is that homosexual acts are against the natural order and are acts of grave depravity. Catechism 2357. So to the extent that anything has changed, is that rather than having a Pope who tells homosexual individuals that what they are doing is wrong, we now have a Pope who says that they are graciously accepted by the Church, but that what they are doing is not only depraved, but the consequence of having a disease or some form of mental affliction. This does not strike me as something that should be commended, but denounced in no uncertain terms. .","conclusion":"The Pope's views on homosexuality should not be applauded."}
{"id":"b5a7b25a-7954-48be-9dd4-41cd6aaf11b8","argument":"Some groups in the movement are worse off than others at no direct fault of the LGBT community. Therefore, assuming LGBT movements should be equally successful at promoting the rights of each group in the movement is too high of a bar.","conclusion":"LGBT movements should not be expected to be equally successful in advancing the rights of members."}
{"id":"e834d014-1a37-4d74-a52d-284830ab38f2","argument":"Acquired cultural diversity, at the leadership level, may break down insular biases - through personal experience, resulting in a number of benefits. p. 16","conclusion":"Having employees from diverse backgrounds enables organisations to make decisions that consider a much broader perspective."}
{"id":"dfbad6bb-ab3e-4bc0-a0d0-51d135d25984","argument":"Similarily to how religious people by the archaic definition experience a sacred feeling when engaging with their religious beliefs, e.g. in prayer or church, some vegans experience a sacred feeling towards the correct treatment of animals, e.g. in what they buy or sanctuaries.","conclusion":"Being convicted of foundational beliefs is a tenet of religions, and vegans are like that in regards to the morality of eating meat."}
{"id":"f60d6dcb-9aef-4d94-8a8f-a4f6fc947d4a","argument":"Coercing or shaming people into being politically correct only changes their behavior, not their beliefs.","conclusion":"Political correctness masks the fact that good intentions are more important than proper words."}
{"id":"d6f9fdbf-17bc-4c81-a4c3-126312841637","argument":"We have no reason to assume that Daenerys would not be interested in fighting the White Walkers. So far, she has not shown any interest in doing so because she was largely unaware of them and the threat they pose before she met with Jon Snow.","conclusion":"The fact that Daenerys has not yet done so is irrelevant, as she will likely do so in the future."}
{"id":"646e83fd-30c1-4cfb-a3ec-b5bc0b046d01","argument":"Regardless of political or economic systems, throughout human history humanity has always known abuse such as child prostitution.","conclusion":"Child and youth protection are already a problem. The introduction of APs would not significantly impact this."}
{"id":"29ba6cba-2c9b-415f-ae6c-da692f7b532b","argument":"In addition to consumer pressures, the market for corporate control i.e. capital markets would punish the stock price and boards of directors of ISPs who intentionally ban content, thereby driving down their own profits. Shareholders will never stand for the business reducing content available to consumers when the business model of an ISP is essentially that of a neutral pipeline: more content = more consumers = more profit.","conclusion":"Placeholder Competition will generally prevent price gouging or other forms of market abuse, just as it does with the rest of the economy overall."}
{"id":"cf03b93c-4709-4a67-a711-1af154356524","argument":"This is likely to result in EU and coalition forces also leaving as they rely on the American logistics and intelligence resources to protect their forces and the civilians that work with them.","conclusion":"Iraq's parliament has already voted to oust US coalition troops from Iraq, who are there to help keep peace in the country."}
{"id":"167488af-3616-43c6-953f-29f7852091b6","argument":"There is a good past example for schools getting involved in diet. Traditionally schools have given out free milk and fruit to try and make sure that children get enough calcium and vitamins, in case they are not getting enough at home. In the UK school meals were first made available by a reforming Liberal government a hundred years ago as a way of improving the health of the nation.","conclusion":"There is a good past example for schools getting involved in diet. Traditionally schools have given..."}
{"id":"60e9bbf0-dacd-4a7b-9f30-b392f8821dc2","argument":"And I say this because it's really important to know who said what. A random Twitter or Facebook user making a specific claim about a political issue, for example, probably isn't going to have nearly the same level of influence or name recognition as someone who makes a living off of politics and happens to make the same claim within the same context, just as one example. Secondly, without a source for a claim or commentary it begs the question of whether or not the claim or commentary was fabricated just to have something to attack and dismantle. It's one thing to attack established theories, but it's another thing entirely to attack a specific person's idea. Even if the claim might be a ubiquitous one it's still important to know who's saying it. Simply bringing up a claim or commentary any claim or commentary without a source for the claim isn't helpful in learning anything substantial. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Identifying speech by its political alignment rather than identifying who said what accurately is pointless discussion."}
{"id":"b41a2d86-969e-4a25-925f-803e4aa5fd0f","argument":"Referenda were used by fascists like Mussolini because they usually returned simplistic and easily manipulated results. It's called plebiscite for a reason.","conclusion":"Such complex matters should not be decided with referenda, as they require expert knowledge about how international trade and relations work."}
{"id":"c29b6d9f-b91c-4bd9-a8b4-24114d6422a2","argument":"The European project has gone too far for many European countries. For some such as Norway or Switzerland the EU has already gone far past the amount of integration they would be willing to allow. Even Member States are increasingly finding that the EU\u2019s intrusiveness and the cost of supporting smaller economies outweigh any potential benefit. Britain has expressed this discontent particularly strongly. 11 This is a problem for the European Union. The problem of its alienated Member States is only likely to get worse as it seeks to continue expanding: new countries will have increasingly divergent values and will be harder to integrate while deepening will mean more countries are left behind. In practice, this means that the EU will face massive barriers to its goal of integration, and compromise all its other goals in the process. The best solution then is to go back to a stage in the EU\u2019s development that every country supports; the single market without the politics attached. This would bring the benefit of encouraging those who have been left out like Norway and Switzerland to join. 11 \u201cGoodbye Europe\u201d, The Economist. 8 December 2012.","conclusion":"The EU as a trade bloc would be more inclusive to current and new members"}
{"id":"91858db5-5836-451a-b623-2dd2e80b4cdc","argument":"I have been so psyched about the MeToo movement. It was stunning to discover that so many women shared my experiences, and that so many of us female and male underestimated the severity of the problem. For the first time in history, women were speaking out and being taken seriously. Real crimes were being exposed and a zero tolerance for harassment even when it didn't reach the level of crime was being formed. Women were taken at their word. We were exposing real issues and people were listening. And then Grace came along. Had she been summarily dismissed, as she should have been, her story wouldn't have damaged the movement. But the fact that so many women agreed that a bad date is worth publicly humiliating a man for has everyone sitting back and wondering if we were right to so blindly support these women when they come forward. They clearly don't understand where the line is and there is a line. If there are women who don't understand that then everything they accuse others of is suspect. All this women had to do was clearly state STOP and he would have. His not picking up on signals is a foible that most of us share at one point or another. Now all men are worried about being publicly humiliated for not picking up signals. Believe it or not, achievement of equality requires both genders to be on the same page that harassment and assault are unacceptable. The vast majority of men WERE woken up to the pervasiveness and evil of harassment and assault over the past year and were in full support of people being held accountable. But when women can't difference between assault and a bad date, we are all put on notice that they are unreliable witnesses. Grace and her followers seem to believe that women shouldn't have to take personal responsibility for their actions and that it should be up to the man to lead. For Grace, saying Let's chill is equivalent to saying I don't want to have sex with you . It isn't. If there are a sizeable number of women, as there appears to be, that don't understand that, then how can we take women at their word? And that is killing me. We had such momentum that it felt like real, permanent change was taking place in our society. And now that forward motion has come to a sudden stop. There are plenty of women like me out there that are mad as hell at Grace for sabotaging us like this. In order to change my view, you will have to convince me that the movement hasn't been damaged by this. Defending Grace won't do that. Tell me how you think the movement can continue its forward motion now that so many people female and male are not certain we can trust the judgement of the women who are coming forward. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Grace and her supporters have destroyed the MeToo movement"}
{"id":"8184ab92-f4b8-420f-b151-b754835ddcf3","argument":"In California, the Unruh Act outlaws discrimination based on sex, religion, or sexual orientation in areas of public accommodation in order to provide protection to gays and lesbians from \u201carbitrary discrimination.\u201d The Act applies to all business establishments that provide accommodations, services or goods to the public. This includes businesses such as hotels, restaurants, retail stores, and bars.","conclusion":"The US and UK outlaw discrimination based on certain protected characteristics, which means that it is illegal in these countries to refuse a business or service provision to an individual as an expression of religious freedom in certain contexts."}
{"id":"e74d637d-43ae-419e-8b3d-5902590be5da","argument":"AirBnB allows for hosts to take advantage of 'peak' seasons where people are looking for places to rent in the short or medium term. By being able to charge a premium for those times it acts to reduce the shortages causes by these demand spikes.","conclusion":"Having a more flexible supply of housing i.e. when hosts will often opt in and out of offering their places on Airbnb allows the housing market to be more elastic as additional supply can be added to meet periods of high demand."}
{"id":"7a199c29-7266-4066-88a5-5c7444a3430f","argument":"Humans enjoy basic rights and liberties on different levels, from UN Declaration of Human Rights to national constitutions. Animals do not have these kinds of rights and protections.","conclusion":"Generally speaking, in all societies, humans treat a human's life as being more important than an animal's life."}
{"id":"23900da9-d43b-4ed3-9279-3a1d88a0361e","argument":"Local intelligence agencies find it really hard to thoroughly check the backgrounds on refugees. This leaves a lot of room for unknown people to enter the country who may possibly even be terrorists.","conclusion":"It is virtually impossible to vet refugees thoroughly. This leaves the door open for terrorists to migrate to a country posing as refugees."}
{"id":"798ec7b2-205c-4b4a-99f1-f74da38529ee","argument":"For the most part, people use the word manipulation to paint with too wide a brush. Disciplining my child is an attempt to manipulate them into good behavior. Emotional manipulation is a way to inspire good behavior in others, and can be a completely valid way to create good social morality. Without pressure from others, many people may never put forth personal effort. Obviously there can be negative manipulation, when a narcissistic person attempts to control the behaviors of others without any regard for the other person. This is what people usually mean when they speak of manipulation but they have deluded themselves that any effort to put a check on the behavior of others is also bad. You can and should manipulate people for their own good, especially those closest to you.","conclusion":"I don't believe that manipulation is necessarily a bad thing."}
{"id":"e8dd7534-1e00-4766-800d-d2f8dd41d4a3","argument":"Corporations value time and hence try to come up with the most efficient ways of performing any action. As a result, they end up making society more productive.","conclusion":"They sustain and develop complex solutions as have resources to do so"}
{"id":"bf639eef-acd4-4e0e-8b06-fef375db9677","argument":"These areas have long been historically part of Tibet and were separated from Tibet when China invaded. These areas have still a reasonably high percentage of Tibetan population despite the Chinese government's ongoing efforts to demographically destroy Tibet's claims to these areas. The regions of Garze\u0302, Ngawa,Haixi, Haibei, Hainan, Huangnan, Yushu, and Golog are recognised by the Chinese government as Tibetan \"autonomous\" regions. The fact that the Chinese government recognise that these places are essentially Tibetan provides further reason for them to be reunited with Tibet.","conclusion":"Parts of Qinghai and Western Sichuan are essentially Tibetan and should therefore be united with Tibet if Tibet ever becomes independent."}
{"id":"5bdec75d-d0c5-45ba-86d0-e3096791b9ab","argument":"I hold this view because wherever they colonialized, they have destroyed the cultures and people which previously lived there. In North America, the Native population was exterminated due to the white man's arrival. In Africa, countries are now poor and full of disease, due to colonization by white people. They wiped out the native population of Australia. White people even instituted widespread slavery of African and Native American people. They have committed massacres against muslims, and even against people of their own. Jews and gypsies have also been victims of white brutality.","conclusion":"I'm racist against white people."}
{"id":"3fe34dcb-ebb9-4727-9a53-149ed907ff72","argument":"If entropy leads to universal randomness, as stated in the parent, and as stated in the parent, that randomness is the lack of all deterministic forces, than at least one part of a wholly deterministic universe is false, meaning there most be something else influencing the universe outside of determinism. Therefore Determinism is insufficient.","conclusion":"If we follow the laws of thermodynamics to the n'th degree, we are forced to accept the randomness of nature. Even predetermined commitment to randomness doesn't make said randomness determined."}
{"id":"3a2edc3a-44d5-4502-8ea5-65ea703ebe7b","argument":"Sorry if the title is a bit confusing, but I think that it is wrong that a lot of people aren't gender blind, but try to be as racially blind as possible. For example, I think that teachers saying that the class has to sit in a boy, girl, boy, girl pattern is very sexist, but for some reason isn't looked upon negatively, but as soon as a teacher says that the class has to sit in a black, white, black, white pattern, it suddenly becomes discriminatory and horribly offensive. Also for example there are boy schools and girl schools, which are also perfectly fine with people, but as soon as you make a school for black people, and a different school for white people, everyone starts freaking out, and screaming racism. I hope that i'm not coming off as a racist or sexist. .","conclusion":"I Think Gender Blindness is Just as Important as Racial Blindness."}
{"id":"f79cf77b-75a0-4197-8c94-a35a65c25754","argument":"According to a study, the leading current bill to establish single-payer health insurance, the Medicare for All Act, would, under conservative estimates, increase federal budget commitments by approximately $32.6 trillion during its first 10 years of full implementation p. 3.","conclusion":"Federal spending would increase as more people need health care."}
{"id":"8a6278df-e606-4fa6-bac0-64aa66f48cd0","argument":"Desert retributive theory, on the other hand, sees punishment as an end in itself, in other words, punishment for punishment\u2019s sake. This has no place in any enlightened society.","conclusion":"Punishment for punishment's sake desert is wrong in a decent society."}
{"id":"fd9069c7-f0c3-485b-ab81-8a7fe12d9367","argument":"There is an important difference between marriage as an institution and the form of romantic union itself. Because any form of romantic union could be institutionalized as marriage. Therefore marriage may have never been a private matter only, but the form of romantic union should be absolutely private.","conclusion":"Everybody should be free to choose his\/her own form of romantic union. No matter if it is a monogamic one or a polygamic one, because this is a matter of privacy. The marriage by itself monogamic or\/and polygamic may definitely be protected by the legal system."}
{"id":"bb9e9d70-1d0c-43c7-99f5-1b25192e75fc","argument":"While Publications in Europe talked about Chiastic structure in the 1800's, it was only known in certain intellectual and religious circles. The first articles published in the US did not appear until the 1920's, 90 years after its publications.bible-discernments.com","conclusion":"Chiasmus as used in the Book or Mormon are similar to those written in the Bible, an ancient Hebrew writing."}
{"id":"2d08eafd-9d89-4cfd-92e5-eb526f2c3917","argument":"That's someone's business and someone's living. That Big Brand name is actually a franchise that offers consistent quality and takes care of its customers which is why they charge the prices that they do. If they are a public company, then you can put your money into being a shareholder and own a piece of them like anybody else can. My time and convenience is worth more than the extra money I'd save. The owner is someone putting in 60 hours a week and loves his business and is making enough to cover his mortgage and save up for his kids college. He owns a nice house? A nice car? GOOD. HE DESERVES IT. The employees can make a decent wage at these money waster places, where frugal alternatives often harm the job market with lower wages less employees to offer cut costs. I'm not saying that rip offs don't exist, my point is that because something is expensive doesn't make it a rip off or a waste of money. EDIT To Clarify the not wasting money advice, it was in response to a thread on AskReddit. A lot of things like make your own lunch, or drink before you go to bars, to buying luxuries, or conveniently.","conclusion":"I believe a lot of the \"not wasting money\" advice is very one-sided thinking, and often selfish."}
{"id":"47281c16-1ced-4684-81d2-125472318121","argument":"In the opinion of Justice Paterson 1745-1806 in CALDER v. BULL the author of the Federalist is cited as a source and praised \"for his extensive and accurate knowledge of the true principles of Government.\"","conclusion":"The Federalist Papers have been cited many times by the Judicial Branch as indications of the intent of parts of the Constitution, showing that they have authority in such matters."}
{"id":"f6e7fa28-2962-4b61-b8bf-f178d16f3618","argument":"Legalization and regulation will go against the wishes of those sex workers who wish to go undocumented in the industry.","conclusion":"Said NGOs may not actually reflect the views of the majority of active sex workers"}
{"id":"ed109805-00e1-464b-9d20-a24133e8e024","argument":"In 2018, Amazon, Walmart along with some others increased their minimal wage, as they considered that it increases profit for the employer.","conclusion":"A study showed that the increase in productivity and sales more than offsets the cost to the employer."}
{"id":"1493e5b9-3359-4e8a-814b-2858adb75a0b","argument":"Many are Hindu today because they deem the Vedas as authoritative. Thus, there is a formal way to be a Hindu and not all who are just \"seeking truth\" can be Hindus in the classical sense because Hindus do not simply have \"one truth, many paths\", but an authoritative path Vedas.","conclusion":"Hinduism cannot be defined as a religion where people simply \u201cseek truth\u201d, or everyone would be Hindu, and not everyone is Hindu."}
{"id":"59c2e975-29f0-4ab1-81ce-ad22508303b0","argument":"So this is gonna be unpopular with some people but I think Cultural appropriation is a good thing. To be clear this doesn't cover stereotyping Halloween costumes but really the use of parts of cultures in movies, blending foods, and things like yoga being taught to kids. We shouldn't be working on keeping cultures separate we should be working to meld them together. Yes your culture is important and you should try to preserve it within your family or people but as America we are more divided than ever against each other and it is because we divide our selves into all these separate groups. We need to work to create a new American culture made up of bits of everyone's culture. That means by definition only parts of cultures can get in leaving out others which makes it unpure to some But that's how you build a culture. but I see no reason we cant have a culture that includes everything from English culture, Spanish culture, German culture, Russian culture, Moroccan culture , South African, Caribbean cultures, Brazilian culture, Syrian culture, Indian culture, Japanese culture. Everything. We as country have so many people and keeping us separate just hurts us as country. We need to come together and build a common culture not separatist sects in America.","conclusion":"Cultural appropriation is a good thing for the US"}
{"id":"8f168f0d-c55a-471d-a688-ccd49229509a","argument":"Equally, all of them are their own self-contained personality; while they have a history in common, they are fundamentally different, and so are allowed to be different and distinct.","conclusion":"Which each incarnation, it becomes more difficult to think of them all holistically."}
{"id":"4765f886-d597-47c7-91da-5c645207495e","argument":"The Spanish state-owned TVE stopped the live coverage of bullfights between 6am and 10pm, because it considered it not suitable for children.","conclusion":"Bullfighting can be televised during hours when children are less likely to watch, e.g. after 10pm."}
{"id":"581947a1-c565-4475-be3f-d12c332b654c","argument":"In the recent women's march the hijab was used as a symbol of empowerment of women. My problem with this is that I can only see it as a symbol of oppression since there are many countries where women are being forced to wear it. Moreover, I think it is degrading because it implies that women are sexual objects and can only be perceived as such unless they cover themselves in some way. So, as a woman, I really want to understand why so many women that have the freedom to choose choose to wear it and even more so, why is it being linked to feminism while it is at the same time being used to oppress. Edit Apparently, it comes across as if I am against women wearing the hijab in general or that I want it prohibited. I apologize for this, I want to make it clear that I believe every woman should decide for herself how to dress apart from covering her face in public, as it is already prohibited in most places for obvious reasons and I don't think we should make exceptions because of religion or anything else . gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The hijab is oppressive"}
{"id":"4abe4112-175a-4d82-86d8-b6bb40edfa5e","argument":"The rapid development of Singapore is largely attributed to Lee Kuan Yew's leadership His rule is commonly described in the terminology of enlightened despotism.","conclusion":"Some of the most successful stories of rapid development were the result of enlightened despotism."}
{"id":"0a93bdf9-df3c-45f9-afd1-e47312a1b947","argument":"This is an overview of what I'm talking about. Basically, the theory states that men and women have different mating strategies owing from the fact that women produce very few eggs and men produce tons of sperm. The optimal strategy for men to spread their genes as much as possible would be to mate with as many women as possible, and the optimal strategy for women to spread their genes successfully would be to mate with high quality men who are sure to help invest as much resources in the offspring as possible. In theory, this is supposed to explain Why men on average prefer short term flings and women prefer long term relationships. Why women find wealth and status attractive and men don't Why men are more commitment averse The virgin whore dichotomy men don't value the same things in a short term partner that they do in a long term partner Prostitution Jealousy And a whole bunch of other stuff apparently. It makes sense on its face, but as we all know, academic science is highly volatile, and most studies aren't very good quality, especially in evo psych and sexual psychology. I'm not ready to be convinced just yet. Change my view?? Edit If you have access to good quality studies refuting or confirming these points, be sure to post them as sources","conclusion":"I find it plausible that Sexual Strategies Theory correctly explains most stereotypical gender behavior as biological adaptations."}
{"id":"0e8ce9ff-2e61-43ce-9cef-34821f7bdd99","argument":"His \"crime\" was to respect the wish of the Catalans who wanted to vote on an independence referendum.Voting is democracy and cannot be considered under any circumstances a reason for imprisonment.","conclusion":"The fact that Junqueras currently is on trial illustrates that he is a politician who stands up for his convictions, even if this gets him into trouble."}
{"id":"925e571a-0b41-42c3-9856-e9150fe1ac55","argument":"Iraqi politicians over-rely on US security forces. This has caused their complacency. Setting a date for withdrawing from Iraq would force them to work harder, reconcile differences, more rapidly improve the Iraqi security forces, and secure the future of their country.","conclusion":"A coalition timetable would force Iraqis to come together and work faster."}
{"id":"22d3820e-6540-4348-b95f-5873001ed88c","argument":"I feel like that adults really don't understand how competitive college admissions are these days. In the past, you could get into Harvard with a perfect GPA and SAT score alone. These days, a perfect GPA and test score won't get you to most competitive universities by itself. Doing a bunch of clubs, sports, and volunteering aren't enough to get into most competitive schools these days. College acceptance rates have been plummeting in recent years and it just keeps on going. It is unfair that this generation has to work harder to get into a good college, yet old people have the nerves to call young people lazy.","conclusion":"It is too hard to get into a good college"}
{"id":"4e4b7184-f821-4a66-b16f-e3ae69717bef","argument":"Free-healthcare, daycare and quality schooling, i.e. treating black people like as full and equal citizens, would do more than reparation payments.","conclusion":"Financial reparations will do nothing to address the problems facing Black Americans right now."}
{"id":"aca18b87-e085-49f8-8d5f-c126c160309a","argument":"A religious con most commonly goes like this: It starts off with a concept similar to conservation of energy, that we can't be destroyed. Once you've accepted that there may be heaven and\/or hell then the con has created the carrot and\/or stick and, while mileage may vary, your support is inevitable, whether it's money in the collection box, placard holding, or your vote.","conclusion":"The mark uses the information presented to them and makes what appears to be a rational decision. It may even seem to be their own idea, but the information isn't what it appears to be or it isn't the whole picture."}
{"id":"3aff2653-45e0-43a0-b0d5-3a0015082519","argument":"I've always been fascinated,j not that much by psychology per se, but the psychological experiments, for example Harlow's monkey experiment , and the breakthroughs and answers those experiments have given us on certain topics. I don't don't want there to be overly inhumane tests but the likes of the monkey test are fine. Then there are those much lamer I don't have a better word for it experiments done in the 20th century which are now considered unethical or immoral, like the little Albert test that I don't understand how that is unethical enough to not be possible to replicate nowadays. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"There should be more \"unethical\" experiments."}
{"id":"6d8e61b2-c06a-4b2f-93fa-643135d85e4a","argument":"Changes in numbers of protesters at rallies for particular causes are often used as an indicator of social support for that cause.","conclusion":"Popular protest reveals popular support both for and against issues."}
{"id":"8cdaf58e-434c-411b-9842-666d28a91167","argument":"White supremacists directly or indirectly always advocate violence, so those they target need to defend themselves against these attacks.","conclusion":"Attacks on white supremacists can be understood as acts of self-defence."}
{"id":"f76b9e09-6074-4b87-984a-089a1bedcca8","argument":"Religions focus too much on their differences thus making it difficult to have a common understanding with one another.","conclusion":"Different religious beliefs and even interpretations have fueled a profound divide between humans for centuries."}
{"id":"9b43aa2b-f5a9-4f18-a12c-59600fce6f55","argument":"A minority group may have only 10% of the population of the rest of society. If earning political franchise creates a time\/ financial\/ effort barrier to registering to vote, then a minority group will be disproportionately effected given they only have 10% of the population even if every single member of the group registers.","conclusion":"Given this is an existing issue in society, it would be particularly harmful for governments to use a policy that would make this issue actively worse for minority groups."}
{"id":"119a0c40-3026-46fa-b62a-72be56004798","argument":"Serious The decision making part of the brain does not finish developing until 25. I can't find any solid psychology studies on why 18 was decided as adult in the US. The teen brain is different from the adult brain. I understand people will argue the biological side puberty stops earlier than 25 and sexual urges come sooner. That's why I feel like teens should be able to have sex with other teens, but there is no logic behind an arbitrary teen year where someone can suddenly now have sex with 50 year olds and go through trauma that they might not even realize at the time is happening. The AOC is 16 in some states, 18 in others, 15 is the average for the world I believe. I feel that psychology and power balance are more important than physical development since being manipulated sexually can deeply scar a person for the rest of their life and a power imbalance is a recipe for disaster. What would make the most sense based on how the brain develops is to have close age exemption laws until the decision making part of the brain is fully developed. Exemption laws should be determined by the factors influencing psychology and power balance such as reasonable social settings and life experience highschoolers are all in the same peer group for example . 18 year olds are going off to college and they will reasonably be dating within their peer group, and 25 is when the decision making part of the brain is developed and if a 50 year old tried to groom them, the decision making process would be fully developed and I feel that only then a person could genuinely consent if they really wanted. I dont feel like a 16 or 18 year old should be legally able to have sex with a 50 year old under any circumstances. And of course, people mature at different rates, but things like AOC should be based on the majority, not the exceptions. Also, my personal views are that teens shouldnt be able to go to war, so please no arguements like that. I am consistent with decisions that can alter your life forever such as trauma from war or sex, and damage to the brain from drugs. None of this should be until 25. I have very in depth reasons for all of this, but let's converse about my main topic. There is not much scientific difference between a 16 year old an 18 year old, but a large difference between an 18 and 25. The only way I make sense of the world is through science. I do not find solid research behind 16 18 21 being chosen as set ages for things in the USA. What are your thoughts? What is wrong with the basis of this view? other than how the law would actually be carried out. I have ideas for this but it is too much to get in to for one post","conclusion":"Age of consent should be \"romeo and juliet\" style until the decision making part of the brain is fully developed"}
{"id":"babfc1f1-7937-43e1-9197-acc6c7c22cb4","argument":"Race Black, white, Latino, Asian, whatever , gender cis, transgender, whatever , sex feminism and masculism , sexual orientation gay, straight, bi, asexual, whatever all of these things were determined by random genetic factors and are no more definitive of you than the fact that you breathe air. Those who derive their validity from things they did not personally achieve have existentially thrown their hands up and said that I am no more than a genetic code . Genetic code did not build the pyramids or land on the moon. It is not only disgusting, but terrifying that such base determinism is such a defining part of identity politics in the twenty first century. I am a writer, a philosopher, a sophist, a raconteur things I have made myself into, based on things I myself have made. Creation and ambition, after all, are exclusive characteristics of the human being. To simply sum yourself up by saying I am a man or I am black is to ignore all that you have done and equate yourself with biological chaos. One ignores the gravitas of the statement I am when you found your identity upon something you were born with. gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than just downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I believe that deriving one's self worth from factors outside of your control such as race or gender is not only invalid, but nihilistic."}
{"id":"f21931e2-b2a2-4531-94a1-728e119e2469","argument":"From Artificial general intelligence on Wikipedia gt Artificial general intelligence AGI is the intelligence of a hypothetical machine that could successfully perform any intellectual task that a human being can. From the same Wikipedia article gt most AI researchers believe that strong AI can be achieved in the future Many public figures seem to take the development of AGI for granted in the next 10, 20, 50, or 100 years and tend to use words like when instead of if while talking about it. People are studying how to mitigate bad outcomes if AGI is developed, and while I agree this is probably wise I also think that the possibility receives far too much attention. Maybe all the science fiction movies are to blame, but to me it feels a bit like worrying about a 'Jurassic Park' scenario when we have more realistic issues such as global warming. Of course, AGI may be possible and concerns are valid I just think it is very over hyped. So why am I so sceptical? It might just be my contrarian nature but I think it just sounds too good to be true. Efforts to understand the brain and intelligence have been going for a long time but the workings of both are still fundamentally mysterious. Maybe it is not a theoretical impossibility but a practical one maybe our brains just need more memory and a faster processor? For example, I could imagine a day when theoretical physics becomes so deep and complex that the time required to understand current theories leaves little to no time to progress them. Maybe that is just because I am so useless at physics myself. However for some reason I am drawn to the idea from a more theoretical point of view. I do think that there is probably some underlying model for intelligence, that is, I do think the question of what is intelligence and how does it work is a fair one. I just can't shake the suspicion that such a model would preclude the possibility of it understanding itself. That is, the model would be incapable of representing itself within its own framework . A model of intelligence might be able to represent a simpler model and hence understand it for example, maybe it would be possible for a human level intelligence to model the intelligence of a dog. For whatever reason, I just get the feeling that a human level intelligence would be unable to internally represent its own model within itself and therefore would be unable to understand itself. I realise I am probably making a number of assumptions here, in particular that understanding necessitates an internal model but like I say, it is just a suspicion. Hence the key word in the title probably . I am definitely open to any arguments in the other direction.","conclusion":"Artificial general intelligence will probably not be invented."}
{"id":"61905c13-984a-47e0-bf24-06268d7548f9","argument":"Antisemitism racism and anti-Roma sentiments are persistent social problems in Hungary, and the Orban government's aggressively nationalist and xenophobic rhetoric has not helped the situation.","conclusion":"Hungary has been heavily criticised for its treatment of minorities such as the Roma community"}
{"id":"0096725a-1a3a-4255-aa30-9b545f4bd978","argument":"Highly popular fashion shows such as Victoria's Secret adheres to patriarchal stereotypes of \"being sexy\". Such shows perpetuate harmful sexist ideas of women and unrealistic body images.","conclusion":"Fashion reinforces patriarchal stereotypes on women's appearance and social roles e.g.: high heels, shaved legs, low necklines."}
{"id":"a9a13575-6324-4480-945d-6e0a49968bc2","argument":"In places like Sweden gender neutral socialisation is being promoted in some pre schools to provide kids with the option of expressing themselves fully rather than within the binary.","conclusion":"The developing understanding of gender as a spectrum rather than a binary, shows the evolution of gender as a social construct."}
{"id":"7468915a-6228-42e6-b8b6-2abb9abd3699","argument":"Humans do not see themselves as being in competition with any other species and therefore do not express xenophobia against cognitive rivals like apes or cetaceans.","conclusion":"Human superiority is not important and does not affect the decisions humans make."}
{"id":"c2ea7361-af40-4764-8a24-db983d6c341b","argument":"Teachers obviously need a raise in their salary. There could be certain restrictions that are put upon each state when it comes to raising the teachers salary, but overall, the contributions teachers have brought upon to the generation now and will come are profound and mind blowing. I can agree that there some bad apples when it comes to Teachers, but that doesnt disregard the majority of hard working, passionate teachers. We have proven to have the budget for this, but since under Trumps Administrations Budget, Teacher Salary isn't looked upon at all. And when the States seem to be putting it into gear and addressing this problem, they seem to not redistribute some of the money from the raises to other cities that desperately need it. This also could be an argument of mine, but Im leaving it as a sub point for now as when it comes to raising teachers salary, the states federal government should redistribute it throughout the area that way all teachers can see a raise in salary. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Teachers in the United States need a raise in salary since they are a huge contribution to the effectiveness of the future generations"}
{"id":"87fda89f-d99c-4586-b39b-ea6241b0ed59","argument":"Only twenty-five states have assessment requirements for homeschooled children. The lax way homeschooling is regulated in America means that it can be a tool for abusive parents.","conclusion":"The existence of homeschools allows parents to withdraw their child from school on the pretext of homeschooling them, even if the child is truant."}
{"id":"731704ca-26ba-49a9-9699-5c1501db05de","argument":"At least 69% of law enforcement departments in US have added training programs that teach officers how to manage racial biases.","conclusion":"Law enforcement agents are increasingly being trained to eliminate racial profiling and biases within their actions in line of duty."}
{"id":"fbc40f28-7ddb-4880-91ec-3285eb09e750","argument":"There is no moral duty to respect the dignity of terrorists. States should do whatever possible to protect their own citizens. The Geneva Convention is about reciprocity: it is in the interest of our own citizens to treat enemy combatants is a humane manner so that if our soldiers are caught they will receive similar treatment. There can be no guarantee of reciprocity from \u2018terrorists\u2019 as a whole, or even specific terrorist groups given the cellular nature of the organisations and the disparate nature of the command structures. Furthermore, terrorists specifically use poor treatment of hostages as a tool in their campaign. Given this, it is in the interests of our own citizens to use whatever means possible to fight terrorism; compliance with the Geneva Convention undermines this.","conclusion":"With no hope of reciprocity, adherence to the Geneva Conventions would undermine the fight against terrorism."}
{"id":"143261ba-d318-447d-b154-34e82d5a839f","argument":"Aristotle describes humans as social animals also translated as 'political animals'. If pedophiles are removed from broader society, they will be not be able to sustain the relationships necessary to live a happy and healthy life.","conclusion":"They will still feel ostracized by the society, which can be equally damaging to them."}
{"id":"7509bd23-21b7-4d1a-ade5-9d8734045990","argument":"There are other factors, which better explain the power and prestige of the country such as: military power, economic situation, political influence.","conclusion":"The influence of the obesity rate for the country's power and prestige is not meaningful."}
{"id":"0f834125-2bb5-4e9f-8efb-7a768ce3f989","argument":"In the US Constitution there is a guarantee of a \"speedy and public trial\". This prevents the detainment of those who are yet to commit a crime.","conclusion":"Human rights protections in some countries prevent preventive detention from operating."}
{"id":"5b77637f-58fd-413f-9edd-fba08b2f6b95","argument":"If one makes sacrifices for the purpose of fighting global warming, one probably wants to see others making the same sacrifices and not continuing their current lifestyle.","conclusion":"The other way around, it may also lead to a stronger desire to see society-wide changes."}
{"id":"e353690f-d00a-4109-8635-57f79e6fc980","argument":"The Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare S.P.E.W was an organisation founded in 1994 by Hermione Granger in response to what she saw as gross injustice in the treatment of house-elves at the 1994 Quidditch World Cup. Also, Hermione went on to work for the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, where she continued to work for the rights of magical creatures. She may have re-founded SPEW as a semi-department and part of her Department.","conclusion":"House-elves suffer from the lack of education organised by the Ministry of Magic in order to brainwash them and make them accept their position in the magical society."}
{"id":"214dbfe4-1df2-405e-b1fd-4c16a07720d7","argument":"Selecting politicians for political roles will be more difficult as there are likely more applicants for each position. This could result in the election of politicians that are less representative.","conclusion":"The absence of political parties would fracture the viability of political representation."}
{"id":"b72a2cbd-c01b-445b-b8a4-9f7b1ff814f0","argument":"To be prosperous and safe, Europe needs to have the scale, integration, strength and speed of USA and China. The EU has only the scale. USE will add the rest.","conclusion":"The USE will enable a more assertive foreign and defense policy for the benefit of its members."}
{"id":"66e0f00c-c37e-4667-bb19-6a5da0d63f88","argument":"This harshness and the accompanied increase in social resentment reverse the evolution of social mores that would otherwise lead to more just\/fair sentencing.","conclusion":"If legislation is passed to reduce sentences, judges and juries will compensate by being more harsh."}
{"id":"c369e736-6c98-4aa1-823f-f862f8e95e3f","argument":"The question of the right to choose is a moral\/ethical question, not a question of law. Thus, whether or not one believes morally or ethically that a woman should abort a child, ultimately the decision is tested by the moral and ethical beliefs of said woman. The law cannot dictate individual morals and ethics, and thus cannot stand in the way of the right to choose.","conclusion":"People hold different views about when the right to life begins. As such, abortion should remain a personal choice but be accessible to those who wish to access it."}
{"id":"20a195d4-df12-4d3a-8c4e-91837da9ecb9","argument":"As bad as donald trumps views are mike pences views are worse and would do more damage to america. Mike pence has crazy views on LGBTQ rights and abortion whereas donald trump is in my opinion more party line for the sake of party line on those issues when he probably believes the exact opposite . Besides social issues, pence actual has an agenda that would harm america interests and the american peoples well being more. In my mind, donald trump is just incompetent with no real agenda besides what was promised in his campaign and being the most popular in america ie making america great again . And some of his policies may actually help like his position on tax reform and trade policy. But pence is just a republican puppet in the pocket of probably every big lobbying group and he would have no real goals besides social policies or other legislation that wouldnt help big lobbys. For those reasons, Id rather have trump than pence in office and i dont want to see Trump impeached. . Sorry for wall of text misspellings on cell phone .","conclusion":"Even if Donald Trump were impeached, the resulting Pence presidency would be worse for liberals."}
{"id":"f88ef60f-70c8-4b6f-b429-84405d59c5a5","argument":"Maybe the technology behind the bitcoins can be used for something else, wich is beneficial for society.","conclusion":"Cryptocurrencies and the technologies built on top of them open doors for technological innovation."}
{"id":"226091c6-6932-4ce0-98d9-48b76f97184f","argument":"Ideally a country\u2019s top priority is to look after its citizens first and foremost. So they provide social safety nets, public goods and services. So when your county goes to war for any reason what so ever, it would hopefully be for the better of that society and so therefore you should be obligated to help or opt out of any future benefit the tax payers dollar may go toward that will effect you. I understand the existence of conscious objectors and I strongly believe that they are selfish and putting their own morality above everyone else\u2019s. EDIT Just discovered that I believe that when a country goes on defensive it conscription should be necessary but when on offence it should be an opt in system. Please go ahead and change my view I\u2019d love to hear other opinions","conclusion":"I believe that it is selfish for people to refuse to serve for their country when called upon. Conscription etc."}
{"id":"3186e057-f6d6-4395-b84b-aefa72ec2590","argument":"Seems easy to interpret Luk 2:8-9 to be the result of the full moon and the conjunction of Jupiter and Venus on June 17, 2BC.Luk 2:8 And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. Luk 2:9 And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.","conclusion":"Between the conjunction of Jupiter and Venus, plus the full moon,"}
{"id":"b8541f91-9e5c-424e-8e62-ca71f9f718be","argument":"I don't use reddit as often as most, so please excuse me if this is common knowledge on this site. Simply put, I believe that the relationships subreddit is almost always biased against men when it comes to issues within heterosexual couples. When I first started getting into reddit, I quite enjoyed that subreddit as it was interesting to read about different sorts of relationship problems and how others thought to solve them. Over time, however, it started to become evident that any advice on matters a heterosexual couple is dealing with that did anything else but reinforce the woman's point of view or bias seemed to be immediately downvoted barring special cases . For one thing, if one disagrees or tries to explain the other party's point of view when the OP is female, the comments seem to quickly try and debunk or discredit said advice. This becomes especially clear when two different posters describe the same problem but happen to be of different genders. For example, about a week ago two different people posted about how they dislike having partners that have had a count of sexual partners in the 10s and 20s. When the male OP expressed this, the majority of the comments where how he holds misogynistic and negative views on female sexuality, and most expressed that it was his thinking that was the problem. However, when the female OP expressed a nearly identical view, most said she was validated in her standards and that she has every right to not date based on a potential partner's sex partner count. Similar examples of gender bias can be found in all sorts of threads on that subreddit, and it sort of makes me discount any sort of advice given there. I've personally considered using that subreddit to gain insight to my own relationship and friendship issues, but now I'm not too sure the advice I would be given would be in any way useful. Sometimes what I see even borders on sexism, but I'd rather not open that can of worms. So yeah, .","conclusion":"The \"relationships\" subreddit is very biased against men."}
{"id":"fbc43361-35f0-424d-ad64-d2893aef5438","argument":"In many countries, interim governments are decided by majoritarian consensus which gives them an advantage as they hold the current plurality or absolute majority.","conclusion":"In corrupt regimes, incumbent governments have a strong influence on how this funding is dispensed."}
{"id":"f523edeb-9b9f-4086-98c7-afcf43adcd23","argument":"I don't think sexuality is genetic to the degree that people make it out to be. My reasoning for this is that whatever sexuality is most promoted in a culture is also the one that becomes most common. An obvious example would be ancient Greece were homosexuality was the norm, and the male form was highly admired and sexualized. Similarly very young girls have been seen as sexually attractive in a way that they are not today because virginity and innocence are no longer held as the most important female attributes. Another supporting argument is the observed development of fetishes and porn addiction through internet use, whereby a young male can develop erectile dysfunction because they have been trained, or educated, to only respond in front of a computer screen with dick in hand. I see no reason why these things do not apply to most sexualities. My main explanation for why re education programmes have such a high fail rate is because they are trying to make a very drastic leap in sexuality, whereas the education process provided by the internet is very gradual and spans many many years. Further, I think the gradual part is the key part. Note This does not mean that I think homosexuals should be re educated, don't address this. Note2 This also means that I think that, while homosexuality is not a choice as such, it is not completely out of the hands of parents and people around the child. So the distressed christian father who thinks what did I do wrong? is not asking the wrong question, given that he thinks homosexuality is wrong. Please adress this point if you wish.","conclusion":"I believe that \"education programmes\" can work against things like homosexuality, pedofilia, necrofilia."}
{"id":"e783dbe0-5457-45bd-b836-56e79f5eb95d","argument":"If animals only have rights in respect to their interactions with humans, all food sources must be vegan. This would be expensive, and probably impossible in some poorer regions, and would probably result in the death of several humans.","conclusion":"If animals were granted rights equal to humans, this would have far-reaching and unjustifiable consequences."}
{"id":"95324d2a-65b5-4d00-b1ce-05c865a1229d","argument":"The boxes with give-away clothes and books could be stored in a corner of the motor-shed, it would save space and prevent people from dumping thrash in the bike-shed","conclusion":"Change the concept: turn it into a monthly event organized by the give-away team at the common barrack."}
{"id":"b473eadb-121d-4db1-93e6-3cf8c724d988","argument":"Times change, and sometimes it makes sense to have what's established to change with it to keep up with the current world's beliefs and lifestyles.","conclusion":"If the costs of maintaining the status quo outweigh the benefits, then it would be worth the time and money to remove it."}
{"id":"081b4471-5f97-42ec-861e-eaad86a90370","argument":"Humans moving to Mars prevents most or all of the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium principle conditions from being met to prevent speciation or extinction from occurring. Keeping people in one place, Earth, is genetically better to protecting humans than 'diversifying' is.","conclusion":"Colonization may inadvertently lead to a new species human or other from the human population, possibly leading to human extinction."}
{"id":"8b425d66-61eb-4b40-aa1e-097a5fc21a30","argument":"I hold my view for the following reasons Positive Claims Legalising prostitution leads to more sex trafficking due to the increased demand for prostitutes. I do believe prostitution should be decriminalised though, so sex workers can feel safe to visit the police. Germany's attempt at regulation has proven to be a failure. I'll try and get a source for this. Normative Claims Sex with prostitutes is unethical consent is rarely present due to external factors exerting influence on the individual. E.g. Mental health issues, drug abuse, coercion from pimps, etc. That's not to say ethical prostitution exists, I just believe it's the in the vast minority of cases. There's something dubious about having sex with someone who, ideally, doesn't want to have sex with you. I do think it's anti feminist and objectifies women. It debases their individuality, and terms them into mere products for the use of clients. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Prostitution Should Not Be Legalised, and Engaging In Prostitution is Unethical."}
{"id":"c290fcde-d955-4079-83e9-3bd8f28eb02c","argument":"Many believe Walmart is a corrupt, or cruel evil company. Crime runs rampant in their parking lots with little care from them. They ruthlessly crush and destroy smaller companies that work with them and they don't pay their employees a living wage, which results in their employees using government subsidies like food stamps, which in turn are used within Walmart thus benefiting them at the cost of taxpayers. Overall, the they a net negative for the world their deals are deceiving as they use loss leaders to lure in shoppers who then purchase items that are actually more expensive than competitors, etc. So, is Walmart actually not so bad? I've been hearing things about them lately increased pay, tuition, etc. and wondering if you can , or if these changes don't undo the wrongs they commit?","conclusion":"Walmart is an evil corporation, which is bad for the USA and the world"}
{"id":"a13ab277-6f6a-45cb-8594-b5de86ac4267","argument":"we stopped doing what we are obliged to do as humans, and start doing what we desire to do as individuals. I have often linked people's anxiety, frustration, depression and anger to the rather plain notion that they are not living the lives they want to live. They are imprisoned in their own obligation to ensure certain criteria is met so they are confirmed as a reputable member of society as if it mattered. From personal experience, I was a better person when I had less but satiated my own desires. In experience with others, I noticed that the more content people were the ones who were either chasing, or living their desires.","conclusion":"The world would be a better place if..."}
{"id":"35554bf5-1120-424d-b484-0eadae8c6e78","argument":"Speaking with two voices allows appeasement of both the US and Russia at the same time.","conclusion":"On the contrary, being able to speak with multiple voices is beneficial for the EU."}
{"id":"5c9dac4c-6348-4f5d-9d41-c4dc525a62c5","argument":"I'll firstly head off a common argument I've heard the niqab is not actually as common as people would care to think. In France the total number of actual women wearing the niqab is less than 400, in a Muslim population of 200,000. The ban therefore affects a minority of a minority, and it seems odd to my mind such a minor issue has reached the highest heights of government. I also feel the ban also contradicts the principles of religious freedom which exist in Europe and in the West. The ban seems to have involved little consultation from the actual veiled women themselves, and rather seems to be fuelled by the mass of right wing sentiment which seems to have sprung up in the West in more recent times than any real concerns. I also find the idea that the State can mandate the clothing choices of people abhorrent, and it seems hypocritical to my mind that whilst the average European recoils in horror at the sort of mandatory niqab rules, the same people can then put in place an almost identical reverse law. No state body should have any say in the clothing choices of the citizenry. Regarding security, this is a non issue to me. If there is some need for identification or security, I am sure that provision could be made that niqabed women would be required to remove their niqabs for this purpose infront of an appropriate female, and identification made. Plus it must be said that if it were really a security issue, then the ban would not prevent women from walking down their own front streets where the niqab presents no security risk whatsoever . So,  otherwise.","conclusion":"I believe the European niqab ban is ridiculous and should be scrapped."}
{"id":"f9c2e702-5baf-4508-93c7-d17c62cfdae0","argument":"This research highlights the problem of \"merit paradox\". When an organizational culture promotes meritocracy compared with when it does not, managers in that organization ironically show greater bias in favor of men over equally performing women in translating employee performance evaluations into rewards and other key career outcomes.","conclusion":"Individuals are not selected for managerial or board positions on the basis of merit in the status quo."}
{"id":"929555f4-7f9e-4759-a3aa-b8ba46be8f5e","argument":"Argentina claims the islands partly on the basis of the fact that the Malvinas are on the South American continental shelf, adjacent to the Argentinian coast. Because the islands are geographically contiguous with the South American continent, they should be either owned by Argentina or become entirely independent. Again, British ownership of these South American islands is reminiscent of its colonial past, is wrong, and should be ended.1","conclusion":"The Malvinas Islands are part of the South American continental shelf."}
{"id":"25cd6a00-8da4-451a-b118-7e4619e38ebf","argument":"I can see some advances in medicine. But those are all either in the field of technology engineering protheses, implants, imaging technology or prevention vaccines, contraception . But as for drugs and the pharma industry I can't see any advances at all since the discovery of antibiotics. And now we're even about to loose the efficiency of antibiotics. In my view what the pharma industry does is not science. Medical studies, backed by billion of dollars from that industry even university studies are sponsored , are biased and data largely hidden to make more billions of dollars. The example par excellence is tamiflu by Roche, which enriched Roche by 5 billion dollars, while it's still unclear if it has even the slightest effect and the company refuses to give away any data about it. It's still the same today and I guess it will be for a long time If you get ill, either you can heal yourself by rest and lifestyle changes or you are chronically ill until you die. There is still no medicine that can heal the ill today.","conclusion":"There have been no advances in drugs for the last 50 years that are relevant for the ill."}
{"id":"8f58924c-3b21-4279-825b-2054a050a937","argument":"Some museums include depictions of bestiality, among other pornographic behaviors, which are considered unacceptable in society, but are broadly accepted when depicted as a form of art e.g. The Secret Museum in Naples.","conclusion":"There are many subjects that are acceptable in popular and high culture that are appropriately unacceptable in society."}
{"id":"6f91a37a-383c-432a-bfec-e29f3a80b8fb","argument":"I'm ok with people who can't have perfect life pretty much everybody because of ageing for example needing purpose also English isn't my first language sorry for mistakes or stupid writing . But im against idea that purpose is ultimate truth we are seeking and that it's beyond pleasures. In my opinion ultimate truth is true pleasure and beauty. Purpose is only needed when there is no sufficient pleasure. Real pleasure i will call perfect feeling true pleasure is for example for majority of man I'm man so I will use this example you can change it for your own deepest desire having sex with most beautiful girl you dreamed about for years in peak of your youth, body and love, that first moment, the perfect feeling. You might say well that feeling passes.But that doesn't mean propose is ultimate thing or truth you seek it just mean human body and brain is flawed so we need to cope somehow. If you could have that perfect feeling always that would be your ultimate truth you wouldn't need anything else. When that feeling passes after however long then by my definition it isn't true pleasure anymore. Life is simple, too simple. If we could get brain that could restart itself and have immortal body and always have true pleasure i meant life is simple in a way of what it's all about and not simple in infinite complexity of how it arises or what it would take for immortal body then we would forever be happy we wouldn't need anything else and that perfect feeling would be our ultimate truth there is no need for purpose. Purpose itself as ultimate goal we all need, in face of true perfect feeling is just meaningless nonsense.","conclusion":"Purpose is everything is stupid nonsense and just complicating very simple thing we call life and is only needed when you lack true pleasure. Pleasure and beauty are ultimate truths."}
{"id":"958f30c1-dff4-4733-94d2-f9b432fc2a56","argument":"Giving cars the right of way on roads and highways would be safer, and more efficient. When you're driving it's much harder to spot a pedestrian than it is for a pedestrian to spot a car. Pedestrians can almost come out of nowhere, from behind things that obstruct your view like parked cars or light poles. Also depending on the time of day and what they're wearing it can be hard to spot a pedestrian even if they aren't obstructed. Meanwhile the pedestrian should easily be able to spot a car. They only come from one place, right down the lane of traffic. They're also big and noisy and have lights. If we put the onus of staying out of traffic until it's safe to cross on the pedestrians, we'll see fewer people who step into traffic and fewer people hit by cars that didn't see them. Also it's more efficient. How many times have you seen a car doing 40 mph slam on their breaks to allow a pedestrian to cross? This is a waste of gas and therefore a waste of money. Also since it usually takes longer for the car to just drive through the crosswalk than it does to stop and start again, it's a waste of time as well.","conclusion":"I believe that cars should have the right of way over pedestrians."}
{"id":"c9f98ac8-9ab3-4d9c-b410-b2d27189127d","argument":"International pressure forced Mauritania the last country to abolish slavery to finally prosecute slave owners in 2007.","conclusion":"Historically, external political pressure has been successful in creating political change."}
{"id":"87aefc7a-2cda-44d2-b78a-a554daf32888","argument":"Without an obligation to speak the truth, or consequences for violating that obligation, courts of law could not function.","conclusion":"Saying whatever we want without obligation or consequence would be extremely harmful to society."}
{"id":"f45941ca-0a92-408f-9dd4-237a53d7f81e","argument":"When someone's wealth and income are a matter of public record, it should be straightforward for journalists and public or private investigators to assess whether they have paid an appropriate amount of tax.","conclusion":"Pay transparency can reduce tax evasion as more people can view one's income."}
{"id":"6fdb1de0-3237-41fb-856f-bb7c072481ab","argument":"Dave Rubin gives puff interviews to people he apparently disagrees with, but never challenges them. But preaches that other people have to change their minds. I am in favor of changing one's mind, look at this subreddit this is in . The best evidence he gives as being a classical liberal is he says I'm a classical liberal. There are criticisms of Republicans that have nothing to do with Trump that get lightly covered. For some reason he insists that SJW's are the biggest problem to society. Not stagnant wages, not climate change, not automation changing the nature of employment. Even though SJW's have no political power at all and Obama has spoken against it The anti SJW niche is very popular and profitable but every issue has been discussed ad nauseam by other channels and Rubin brings nothing to the discussion. So my view is that Dave Rubin is intellectually dishonest because his priorities are aligned with profiting from a niche, not helping discussion. I am okay with echo chambers existing and being profitable. We should be honest about what they are. I think that political correctness is an unnecessary weight on one's ability to think clearly, and SJWs are more incorrect than correct.  Edit He is more probing than I initially thought. Edit 2 My problem has nothing to do with the guests he has on. The SJW obsession is my biggest problem by fair. Edit 3 Being an unaggressive interviewer is fine as long as facts not ideologies are preserved. I don't always agree with him stylistically, but it is less deceptive than I initially thought. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Dave Rubin is intellectually dishonest."}
{"id":"bff3858e-3d88-4436-a93f-f50055f7bb9d","argument":"Good day, wonderful community. Today I was thinking about some of the unwritten rules of dating. Now we all know pretty well that subtlety, charm, and of course, attraction are all basic requirement for BOTH men and women to date each other. However, some things about dating bother me so much. My main concern is with the idea of coming on too strong . I understand that this idea is highly individual and subjective. Nevertheless, I feel as though it is not fair to any party to reject ghost pull away from someone just on the basis of showing too much interest WHEN ABSOLUTELY everything else is fine attraction, life, goals . I think that many will agree that women do this WAY more often than men. In my experience as a guy, I have been with a total of 6 girls, all of them in my age bracket of 20 22. 3 of them eventually left because our relationship got too intense over the span of 4 months for each one where I was the one overly invested they told me. One was completely on my wavelength, but we simply had no compatibility, and the other one actually showed too much interest in me and left for very silly reasons because I didn't reciprocate enough . The current one has also withdrawn back a bit, because she got hints that I care too much. People treat eagerness the same way they treat neediness. It is as if it is some sort of crime to love someone too much. Obviously, I'm not the most subtle guy. I tend to get overwhelmed with feelings, even though I'm not new to this. I don't know if age has something to do with it or if it is just me. My question to everyone is what is the reasoning behind guys and girls rejecting each other for being too eager? Could a relationship ever work well if both sides are very eager? Any anecdotes about this issue? Where did this idea come from in the first place? Is it innate? I would appreciate any insights about this.","conclusion":"being overeager when it comes to dating someone is perfectly fine and should not be demonized"}
{"id":"92ffb4dc-44fe-4ef4-91a6-42697d806191","argument":"I don't think that making another season of Red Dwarf will do anything good for the franchise. The continuity of the show is twisted, full of holes, and disappointing to anyone who has followed the show from its first season. After changing directors, writers, and several other key positions practically every other season, the show just won't make for good TV. I say, restart the whole story again. Give a solid crew of writer a 3 4 season story arc that makes a cohesive narrative that way if writers to change again, they'll at least have a frame work to make everything look put together. Next, give a younger generation of funny people their chance to make a name for themselves. I'm not saying the original crew are too old to be funny, or to old to act, or play the same the same characters again. But do we really want more Rimmer quoting the wrong guide lines, or the Cat claiming that he can smell things through space, or Kryton doing anything past season 5?","conclusion":"Giving Red Dwarf another season won't make it better, it needs a reboot."}
{"id":"a1d79f13-c212-4a46-9cfa-0e77adff9658","argument":"I've always viewed the comparison a bit strange, and I myself am a supporter of gay rights. I believe denying someone the right to marriage is not, however, the 'civil rights issue of the era' as someone I think Eric Holder recently stated. I think civil rights issues like racial integration, homelessness, absurd drug policies, etc. are more pressing civil rights issues or maybe I don't have an accurate definition of civil rights . Not allowing someone to marry is not, in my view, on the same level as denying someone access to education, monetary success, good jobs, etc.","conclusion":"I don't believe the right to marriage equality for homosexuals is as significant of a human rights issue as racial integration."}
{"id":"aef94c3a-4c1d-4bd0-9ca3-b197dc4ad03c","argument":"In the Tuvan language, khoj o\u0308zeeri defines the slaughter of a sheep. It implies kindness, humaneness, and a relationship to animals that is also a measure of one's character.","conclusion":"Linguistic minorities have words for things\/phenomenons that do not exist in the national language."}
{"id":"92ce6a66-1f0b-4b81-8ce6-f63e2baf5d02","argument":"A child of your people is both of your in-group and innocent. An enemy soldier is hypothetically innocent but not of your in-group. A criminal sentenced to death is of your ingroup but not innocent. In this context these axioms are morally consistent.","conclusion":"This can be explained in terms of an in-groupout-group ethic, and innocentguilty ethic."}
{"id":"939dabff-3c69-4e83-88cc-23d82c8e33e4","argument":"I get that if one person gets another drunk and takes advantage of that, it could be considered rape. There exists a willful action of one person exploiting another in this case, and the party responsible for the exploitation can and should suffer the consequences. However, in the case in which one or two people get drunk of their own accord and they have sex, both parties should be held responsible for their own actions. In this case, I don't think that the woman should have the prerogative to declare this incident a rape because of how she feels about the incident in retrospect while sober. At the very least, if this is the case, the male should have equal claim to deem the event a rape as the female does, yet the weight of the blame very often is one sided. Don't get me wrong I'm not saying that a drunk person ever has the right to be excused from their actions. If any form of force is imposed from one party on another or if anything otherwise illegal occurred, the state of inebriation is no excuse for the other actions taken. I'm solely speaking about cases in which two people drink and end up having sex with one another.","conclusion":"I think that when drunk man and drunk woman have sex, the man shouldn't by default be considered a rapist."}
{"id":"fc3431b5-4c74-4490-a669-7ecd04edd780","argument":"Less than 2% of job discrimination lawsuits - which includes sexual harassment - make it to a jury. Only around 4% receive damages. The system is irreparably broken, but for those in authority to lose their control would go some way in redressing the balance.","conclusion":"Society often fails individuals with credible claims of sexual assault and harassment in terms of both social and legal repercussions. A system where the credibly accused pay for their actions by having their employment terminated ensures that the accused faces consequences."}
{"id":"91131f50-7f4c-4b0d-b21b-fb96b4ac3f69","argument":"Putting the concessions Hamas wants from Israel aside, Hamas is an organization that wants to end the Israeli occupation. By Occupation it means all of Israel, if not the majority of it. It has at least been confirmed in an interview with Hamas leaders that they want Jerusalem as the capital of their new Palestinian state. Now while I am pro Israeli, and that view probably will not change any time soon, I am open to ceasefire discussions but I just don't see this, or any of the past, ceasefire terms to be beneficial for Israel Unless Israel offered it but that is obvious . My case is that, in the event that these concessions are granted, Hamas will have a method to gain wealth in preparation for the war in 10 years to come. You might argue that the terms come with International forces on the boarder to prevent such a war. However, we have seen that Hamas is now employing tunnel tactics to go through Israeli border controls. This would work for International patrols as well, as they would not have the ability to stop Hamas from going underground. Simply put, all Hamas needs to do in these 10 years is create tunnels, and have as many as possible survive without getting crushed by Israel by the time the truce is over Or at least near that. Then Hamas, with the better weaponry they have gained through increased wealth and easing of the blockade on Gaza, attack deep into Israeli civilian areas en masse in a coordinated attack after the end of the ceasefire or even just break it once their preparations are ready. Border patrols Who might linger even after the ceasefire ends have no ability to stop this and are even detrimental to Israel attempting to strike back rescue hostages taken from these tunnel attacks. TLDR The ceasefire terms give Hamas the ability to become stronger in 10 years, once again renewing hostilities, now being stronger than before and causing more damage to the Israeli side, especially with tunnel tactics. A stronger Hamas also means a longer conflict and thus more casualties for both sides. These are the conditions of the ceasefire. Please correct me if this is, in any way, errant. Now while most of these terms seem acceptable on the surface, they seem to be crafted to allow Hamas more chances to smuggle weapons, supplies, wealth and equipment. Ease of restrictions also seem to imply easier access into Israel. I have also already talked about the potential drawbacks of International border patrols. Allowing other Arab nations, who don't support Israel, control of the Rafah crossings is a huge security threat Especially considering that these Arab nations could easily let militants pass through in their zones.There are also some crazier, but feasible, ideas at the back of my mind that can make use of these concessions to strike at Israel but they are not likely unlike those I have already mentioned. gt Withdrawal of Israeli tanks from the Gaza border. gt Freeing all the prisoners that were arrested after the killing of the three youths. gt Lifting the siege and opening the border crossings to commerce and people. gt Establishing an international seaport and airport which would be under U.N. supervision. gt Increasing the permitted fishing zone to 10 kilometers. gt Internationalizing the Rafah Crossing and placing it under the supervision of the U.N. and some Arab nations. gt International forces on the borders. gt Easing conditions for permits to pray at the Al Aqsa Mosque. gt Prohibition on Israeli interference in the reconciliation agreement. gt Reestablishing an industrial zone and improvements in further economic development in the Gaza Strip.","conclusion":"I believe it is absolutely stupid of Israel to agree to the terms of the 10-year Ceasefire Hamas has offered."}
{"id":"f845098e-8707-47b6-89c7-5eae865b8970","argument":"I disable Ad Block Plus on websites I know and want to support and I usually turn it off when a website asks, but most of the time I run it. First, ads can be a security hazard. I've sometimes noticed a tendency for the webpage to bounce around while the ads are loading, resulting in an ad suddenly appearing on something that I was about to click on. On a few occasions this has resulted in accidentally winding up on shady websites or getting stuck in redirect loops. Second, some websites that I use occasionally for instance, gamepedia's Terraria wiki have such heavy, aggressive, and poorly programmed ads that they can end up crashing my browser. Then there's the sound issue, where a deafeningly loud ad can switch on and it's not clear where it's coming from. Chrome has mostly fixed this and found a way to prevent such ads from opening on their own, but some of those ads can still occasionally slip through. Ads can be a massive data suck on my phone. I get 4 GB a month, so it can be really frustrating if I'm just trying to open up a web page but suddenly the browser decides to load a high definition video ad. Lastly, I should be allowed to make the decision to support a website after I've had a chance to evaluate its content, not before. I have a feeling that there would be less clickbait on the internet if more people blocked ads. Still, I recognize that the ad supported model is critical to the free internet and to keeping services accessible, but I feel like there are many cases where it's still appropriate to block ads.","conclusion":"Using Ad Block Plus isn't stealing or harmful to the free internet"}
{"id":"85ccda02-41ee-4c0b-a27f-cd7cb65184a6","argument":"Citizen Science adds to research in the broadest sense. Many people gathering data over a larger landscape that a few or teams of researchers simply could not cover. An example is the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail & Snow Network CoCoRaHS Thousands of citizens across U.S. and now Canada and the Bahamas take readings of rain, hail & snow measurements. The data are used by many different organizations and researchers leading to more accurate finding about our weather.","conclusion":"Citizen science allows for data collections in areas and in quantities that individual or even teams of researchers could achieve while recognizing that data collected by \u201clay-persons\u201d has limitations."}
{"id":"2ad90289-f05d-41b5-a1a7-511418dc79c5","argument":"Parents who want financial benefits from the government would be more likely to manipulate the system into being able to have a parental license so they themselves can gain from the financial benefits over taking care of their children, adopted, foster or otherwise.","conclusion":"Some foster parents are accused of undertaking the role to benefit from the financial stipend that comes with it, rather than to care for the incoming child."}
{"id":"eb8cd32c-96c7-4bbf-83d3-e19a93f02f79","argument":"I have never been to prison, nor do I know much about it. However, the idea of prison time has never sat well with me. I do not like the idea that our government has the power to hold people in a place against their will. Additionally, keeping prisoners behind bars does not benefit our society. Yes it keeps them from repeating crimes, but does not add anything. I believe large fines of varying amounts based on charges, either based on a income percentage or sum of money, would be a better way to go. After all, time is money. This money could be used positively in society.","conclusion":"I do not believe jail is a good way to punish criminals."}
{"id":"2ade6be4-bd90-48cc-8f1a-e124b4b7c88f","argument":"Monotheistic religions cite various definitions of god's rules for living correctly. These are not supposed to depend on the human perspective.","conclusion":"Examples of good\/evil are not limited to the human perspective."}
{"id":"7190e728-5f3f-4bbf-8b91-f3b384caf343","argument":"Internship programs allow organizations to showcase their business to potential hires and gain visibility on college campuses. This ensures that the organization can attract top talent for their other recruitment processes.","conclusion":"Companies benefit from having interns, which means that it is likely that they would offer paid internships."}
{"id":"998f8554-0fc2-4077-9235-7da5116707d6","argument":"The notion involved in the \"militia\" clause of the 2nd amendment is that it is important for citizens to have the right to form a militia in order to combat a tyrannical government, and presumably its army. In the modern day, this would require that a militia be capable of mustering powerful firearms, including tanks and bazookas, such that they could combat the modern power of the US military. Based on this interpretation, what use would handguns be to a militia, whose inherent purpose is to combat or check the most powerful military the world has ever seen? The handgun would provide negligible use to such a militia, and so has little value in upholding any right the 2nd amendment offers to individuals to form a militia. This makes the banning of handguns in Washington, DC of little consequence to the integrity of the 2nd amendment's militia clause.","conclusion":"Handguns would be of little use to a militia fighting the US military."}
{"id":"58d39bda-e9f0-42b7-a8ee-ed43f7484140","argument":"Now that the facts are back to being accurate and known, families of all generations could think again about the future of their country they want to create, have, and pass on to their children\/ grandchildren, etc.","conclusion":"Some of the claims made during the referendum campaign were untrue."}
{"id":"b534bbea-f87c-423b-b664-63dce8a7129f","argument":"I will admit I do not follow the sport regularly and that it only really enters my media bubble around the World Cup. That said, I cannot stand all the flopping around on the ground only to get right back up as if nothing happened because it didn't as soon as they realize the are not getting the foul called. I think it slows down the game, advantages the more convincing actors, and pushes away potential fans of the sport. According to there is a penalty of a yellow card that refs can give, but I don't know if they are allowed to use the replay camera to see if it really occurred. I also don't know if that would slow the play down more if they could. I also don't know if it is a cultural thing. I suspect a sport like Rugby does not have this problem because of the culture of toughness, honor, and sportsmanship attributed to Rugby players. I am open to hearing new ideas on how to fix the problem, or if you want to make the case that it doesn't need fixing, I'll hear you out too. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Diving Simulation in soccerfootball needs fixing, but I don't know how."}
{"id":"45167a31-1a2c-43da-b5df-00faa11befac","argument":"All of Ned Stark's children seem to have high regards for his values, and he himself did not want to even participate in ruling the Seven Kingdoms when he had a chance to. Thus his children may follow his lead in this matter.","conclusion":"None of the remaining Starks want to rule the Seven Kingdoms."}
{"id":"75ddf403-5174-43ce-bd46-eedfb5b49cc8","argument":"Boarding costs for cats are less than those of most dogs due to the former's smaller average size.","conclusion":"Cats are typically less expensive than dogs to care for."}
{"id":"114f639b-ad2b-4ab2-922c-6bb3ba576325","argument":"Around the globe, the vast majority of people eat meat and do not consider themselves vegetarian.","conclusion":"The majority of people really likes the taste of meat."}
{"id":"5797ce6d-a136-4c3b-abe1-e3f5b76bce30","argument":"I believe the values the west adheres to are important and need preserving, and that the only way to ensure that is by producing our own propaganda. x200B The biggest problem I see with preserving our values is a lack of continuity. Putin has been in charge of Russia for nearly 20 years now. In China, one party had ruled the country for decades, and has even consolidated their power more in recent years. This means that they can plan for the long term. They don't have to worry about election cycles like in the US, where their president can only push their agenda for 8 years before being replaced. In the EU it's even worse as we are much more fragmented and each country pulls in its own direction. Brexit being an extreme example. x200B I believe if we had some international body that represented the west in general, whose job it was to simply provide a sense of continuity to all our societies throughout the various elections, we would have an easier time accomplishing things. And I also believe the best way to accomplish this is by them producing propaganda explaining our values to our own people to make them immune to foreign propaganda. Any foreign power seeking to divide the west, will have to at least make sure the propaganda they're pushing beats our own propaganda. x200B I'm open to changing my view on account that propaganda in general is considered a bad thing. Most people I've spoken to take it for granted that propaganda is some war time thing that shouldn't exist, and that we shouldn't encourage. But I haven't heard a good explanation as to why that is.","conclusion":"The west needs its own propaganda"}
{"id":"8f36e36d-cda5-466e-8919-8c9080801bb7","argument":"I keep seeing statistics about how black people have, on average, lower IQs than whites, even if their income and social conditions are equal. Asians and Jews, on the other hand, are statistically smarter than whites. Statistics about how blacks and hispanics are more prone to end up in jail during their lifetime. Historically speaking, the world's greatest cultural and technological achievements come from Caucasian and Asian peoples, especially China and Europe. Places like sub Saharan Africa, India, and aborigine Australia never had any meaningful periods or forms of civilization, and what little civilization there was there is often overpraised and celebrated despite obviously being inferior to any real civilized societies. I do not believe these differences are to be acted upon, but they are to be acknowledged. Races are more than just differences in skin color. Different races have different facial structures, bone structures, different diseases and different virtues, and one of these virtues is intelligence. In my opinion, people ought to stop covering up facts in the name of political correctness. I fully understand that there are plenty of smart blacks and dumb asians in the world, but some races naturally gravitate towards more civilized states of mind than others.","conclusion":"I do not believe all races are equal, some are statistically superior to others."}
{"id":"36088678-6931-4000-a7dc-b6138f546d6c","argument":"Under FPtP, voters have learned to discourage clone candidates from running lest they split the vote and and spoil the election. Since the experience of that voting system resulted in people learning strategy for it, we can expect that future experience with a different voting system enacted will lead people to learn its strategies.","conclusion":"Smart strategies can be expected to take hold once a given system is in place, as smart strategies took hold with FPtP."}
{"id":"df38f299-8800-4f7f-a407-dac77212c69d","argument":"On the front page on Reddit this morning was a couple of posts about if its right for employers to pay disabled people less than minimum wage. I would say that this should be allowed, because there are certain disabilities that prevent people from doing the same, even menial jobs, as well as their able bodied counterparts. So, if we demanded employers paid the same hourly salaries to the less abled, we are in fact discriminating against them. But I thought about it a bit more, minimum wage actually discriminates against more than just the disabled. What about people who aren't disabled, or maybe borderline edge cases, but simply can't even do minimum wage jobs properly? It's probably not their fault they can't justify earning \u00a39 or 8 per hour or whatever the rates are . They might be just genuinely thick, have no skills or abilities, don't like working, smell really bad, or whatever. But they still gotta eat, have dreams, and wanna contribute to society in some way. Minimum wage laws would stop them, discriminates against them. I'm not saying the discrimination is ALWAYS bad, or isn't justified in this case, but it really it be discrimination no matter how I see it. I will change my mind if someone can successfully reframe this as not actually discrimination, or come up with a solution that allowed both minimum wage laws and not to exclude people from the workplace because they are a bit rubbish at even minimum wage jobs. EDIT nearly everyone replying is talking about disabilities. This is about minimum wage laws being discriminatory to ALL people who cannot justify even the lowest legal salary. Which might include the disabled, but it isn't JUST about them.","conclusion":"Minimum wage is a form of discrimination"}
{"id":"ff4e2b1f-4e0a-4a9b-9fb8-7d4ee0e4ba8d","argument":"Many individual rights are limited by the same right held by others. Exercising free speech could potentially deny others their right to free speech, for instance through filibustering.","conclusion":"Very few rights are absolute. Therefore regardless of being fundamental, they can be limited."}
{"id":"8bc20168-595a-458a-945f-ea1b96085262","argument":"I recently made a post about how I don't agree with the concept of an honorary degree and changed my mind about them through that post. I did notice though that some of the replys were quite passionate, even a little condescending. Now that my view has been changed I was interested to hear from the other side, if there is anyone on that side, or in a grey area. Anyway, I think honorary degrees are a great way to acknowledge a person's achievements while drawing publicity for the institution and perhaps even emulate a 'regular' degree somewhat by being associated with the recipient's work.","conclusion":"I support the concept of an honorary degree."}
{"id":"ef77f854-f19a-4535-a843-25b6091e621b","argument":"Citizens are allowed to vote on any basis they choose. Even if they are completely uninformed and flip a coin to decide how to vote, society still allows them to make that democratic choice.","conclusion":"Good judgment is not a requirement we generally impose upon voting."}
{"id":"57a984b3-2153-4408-adc2-3f7049497ee8","argument":"If a person accidentally kills another this is seen as different morally to someone who deliberately does so because the intention and context are different.","conclusion":"Intention and context are unrelated to consequence but can change the morality of an act."}
{"id":"2365b20f-1da5-4014-9615-73dca864a389","argument":"Humans enjoy basic rights and liberties on different levels, from UN Declaration of Human Rights to national constitutions. Animals do not have these kinds of rights and protections.","conclusion":"Human rights come before animals. In this case, the right for cultural expression."}
{"id":"9a70622b-6e3e-40cb-b98d-645878d035fa","argument":"Kantian ethics was used by Eichmann as a justification of the Holocaust He said that he represented the moral will of the people and that overruled his personal feelings about the jews, being a yiddish speaking self proclaimed zionists himself. As explained in Hannah Arendt 'Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil' 1963.","conclusion":"Absent religion, ideologies fill the void and motivate humans to do terrible things."}
{"id":"240698f3-07a4-4ba4-b42b-92307cc2d899","argument":"Please forgive the flowery language, I've spent a long time refining this view. I honestly want it to be changed, because holding this view is existentially painful. Economics is what dictates that a person from the United States will feel more empathy for an Italian than a Ugandan, a Japanese than a Somalian. For humans, our economic activity is closely related to how we think about each other and how we choose to interact. We view other cultures and societies first through the process of trade, and those who do not have anything we want in the near future are initially ignored. This self imposed ignorance can be overcome. A person can empathize with any other person if they put in the effort the frustrating reality is more that we cannot reasonably expend that much effort on simply relating with other people. In fact, it may simply be less effort to change the way we interact economically in a manner that allows us to relate to others as people. Equality is a necessary component of interaction if humans continue to use economics as the basis for social empathy. In that sense, we can suppose that our economics is an important, if not the most important, component of social interaction between large groups of people. Economics shape how we think about and interact with people that we don't identify as part of our inclusive group. People define their inclusive group on different scales for different situations. At home most would consider their family or their cohabitants as constituting their inclusive group. But at work, most people define their inclusive group as their co workers of approximately the same responsibility and compensation. Economically, we consider our inclusive groups to often be everyone that we can identify as having a similar lifestyle or opportunity. One might consider a person from a different part of their country to be part of their economic inclusive group just because they also use the same kinds of cars, food, shelter and clothing. No matter what setting, a larger amalgamation of people results in us loosening our internal idea of what our inclusive groups are, but never to include the entire group. We segregate our thought into spaces that do not force us to consider divisions within the group we are dealing with at any given time, and flock to those who we feel can understand our own unique position within the larger group. The challenge facing our society then is not to be more honest and fair in our dealings with others, but rather to include others on a species scale as part of the group we identify with. The honesty and fairness follow that process, not precede it. Few people are willing to wrong those that they feel are part of the same group, no matter how temporary or diverse that group is. It is a psychological threshold, and not a logical one. The mere presence of barriers to communication leads us to view the opinions, positions and values of others as being less important than our own. In many ways this is a very functional way of thinking. We must all consider our own values and opinions to be important, and indeed logic would have us believe that we hold the opinions we do because no one has presented a more compelling argument for any other opinion. The focal point is further back than our opinions, it lies within our belief in the worth of other people. Economics represents a situation where it is dysfunctional to continue thinking in this manner. How is it that economics, which we use in part to empathize on a social level, considers our needs to be irrelevant information? This is a recipe for suffering ad nauseum , in that we set our selves up emotionally to seek empathetic truth in our exchange, but find only inhumanity and desolation. A profit centered incentive theoretically rewards those whom bring our society advancement and new opportunity. In fact, that is nearly the entire motivation for participating in society as we now operate. This leads to a society controlled and paced by those that can understand better than others. It inherently places more value on those who are able to consider an issue from multiple perspectives, whether those are psychological or logistic. This value encourages others to try and better understand so that they may be rewarded by the economy we have. This should lead to a perpetual advancement of knowledge, understanding and technology, whereby those that best understand are those that make decisions. While there are many ways such an economy can go wrong, and in some cases already has, what is most interesting about this approach is that we have fundamentally bought in to a system where people serve our economy, instead of our economy serving people. If one is to put in enough effort, our economy promises reward, but only after penance has been apportioned. The people of our society, no matter the scale of society, have become beholden to a system which at its core is for the purpose of advancing the edge as fast as possible, instead of launching society towards anything. It is not an exaggeration to say that our economy condemns us to subsist, while providing the illusion of progress to sate our emotional turmoil. The emotional impact of such a situation is fierce. Even in the developed world, the inescapable emotional suffering our economy metes out causes us to perpetually seek comfort and meaning in many other places, such as religion. That is not to say that faith is merely a by product of our economically induced emotional pain, although I understand some may see it that way. Rather, it leads us to expect things of our faith that it is not equipped to provide, because our economic system which should be providing them is failing. We seek emotional reward in belief, whether that is religious, spiritual, political or scientific. But these things are not for the purpose of serving emotion, and all of them are areas of knowledge which are greatly harmed by emotional motivation and decision making. In fact such behavior is so dangerous that many systems of religious and spiritual belief indicate that people must overcome their internal emotional disruption before they can receive the rewards of these fields. Is it any wonder that our world has been plagued by religious violence and intolerance, when the first instruction of many beliefs is to seek emotional serenity that our society is not only failing to provide, but actively working against? Our frustration as a society is expressed in the only way we have direct control over our interactions with other people. We seek confirmation in those that understand us, and release in those that do not. Such a system is and will always be a counter productive use of effort and worth. Faced with the inner turmoil and emotional suffering that our society requires, we often see two solutions to commiserate with those who agree, and to silence those who do not. Such decision making narrows our view of the world, and lessens our understanding, which is the opposite of what our economy is designed to require. The understanding which our economy is designed to reward is curtailed by our emotional selves, which leaves only those that can suppress emotion or have created a healthy outlet as our leaders. That leaves us with either sociopaths, or people that are viewed as being inhumanly perfect that are tarnished by the merest suggestion that they might be as damaged and fallible as the rest of us. Is it surprising that we have so many bad people making decisions? The combination of our economic and emotional models should be generating that result. They are poorly symbiotic systems, and each functions more as a parasite upon the other. Without a change in one, our society will self destruct further and further down the path of irrationality. As it is easier to change our economics than our emotional requirements as a society, it follows that what we really need is a close examination and restructuring of our economic exchange so that it builds with our other social systems, instead of working against them.","conclusion":"Equality is a necessary component of interaction if humans continue to use economics as the basis for social empathy."}
{"id":"4b635003-0396-41cd-80d4-270818084449","argument":"A claimant can obtain a 'judgment in default' against a defendant. This is a judgment where there is no trialCPR 12 PD 1.1. The court merely decides the case on the basis of the one sided evidence it has to its disposal. The judge has discretion as to what the amount it awards, and it can even apply a costs order so that the defendant has to pay the claimants costs for bringing the claim CPR 12.5 3. The judgment in default can also claim interestCPR 12.6 1, and once again this can be decided by the courts without any evidence from the defendant. This is not congruent with the Article 6 right to a fair trial.","conclusion":"a claimant can obtain a judgment against a defendant without a hearing!"}
{"id":"8d121312-d613-4ce7-9979-0757aab81081","argument":"There are individuals who are not suited for the community, cannot or will not ever benefit the community - at least not in any way that could possibly equal the harm they have done. We should not be forced as a community to pay for them to live comfortable for the rest of their days when they will never contribute meaningfully no repay the debt. Life in prison is what should be abolished.","conclusion":"Capital punishment protects public safety by ensuring that convicted criminals do not ever offend again."}
{"id":"567c9efb-22e7-4586-8e73-1eeda6a3a7ea","argument":"Terrorist networks use fear, pain and suffering as their stock in trade. By definition, terror organisations are not bound by legal due process or rights of appeal and review. Instead they deal out death to innocent members of society who have no power to alter the events and policies that motivate terrorists atrocities. By contrast, the first role of governments is to protect their citizens\u2019 safety and they should use all tools possible to ensure that innocents are not threatened with random death and destruction. In the light of these two realities, it is appropriate for governments to take extreme measure, such as torture, to protect their citizens.","conclusion":"Terrorist organisations such as Al Qaida do not respect the rights of individuals and the only way to fight fire is with fire"}
{"id":"8158cf1d-b557-495a-a0f4-c94eb35bc7f9","argument":"I perceive a strange tension between myself 27 year old man , my friends, and society. I have seen the extreme masculine in its most beautiful and terrifying forms. I believe that society asks men to anesthetize themselves. And male safe spaces for lack of a better term aka places where men celebrate masculinity are relegated to weird corners of society. The last bastion of masculinity may literally be the locker room. As a amateur philosopher 10 years going strong , I have read quite a lot of feminism, and I understand where academic feminism stands on the issue from their various viewpoints ofc . As an amateur philosopher and probably a biased observer I am unimpressed by their arguments which literally never start from a universal premise and literally always end in an emotional appeal. WHAT ISSUES DO I PERCEIVE WITH 21st CENTURY MASCULINITY? They are mostly subtle. For example, I find myself being unable to say a broad range of things in public. I usually cannot congratulate a man on bedding a beautiful woman if I am in a public space for fear of offending someone perceived misogyny. My gf recently blew up at me for feeling good for the man and not also mentioning the women in this situation. My reply to her was this aren't I allowed to put my arm around a guy's shoulder and congratulate him for putting a notch on his belt? This comment didn't work for her at all. These instances are also historical. I find myself longing to have lived in 19th century Prussia, ancient Greece, Rome, or Crete. In each of these the masculine was celebrated in addition to the feminine . I wish everyone knew how good it feels to participate in a good clean fist fight. I wish everyone knew how good it feels to get a sack in a state championship game or how men have a particular way of shaking hands with each other. WHY AM I BRINGING THIS ISSUE HERE? I would prefer to believe that all the beta men that I see around me are not being cheated out of something valuable by a bullshit pc culture. I see weakness and fattness in men, I shake limp wrists too often, and I hear all the time that men my age prefer not to practice their more violent virtues or potentialities .","conclusion":"I believe that 21st century cultural expectations for men qua the masculine ideal are unrealistic and undesirable. !"}
{"id":"8ca3c38b-5654-4ca1-9a5c-20afffeeb7eb","argument":"Lobbying is the result of government having its hands in the market government influence over the economy means a business's best bet at success is gaining government favor in legislation. In turn, the taxpayer ends up subsidizing big business. The answer to reducing, if not altogether eliminating, this relationship assuming it ought to be eliminated is to neuter government influence in the market. More regulation as a solution for this problem is impossible for a few reasons Lobbying is not solely available to big business anyone can lobby the government. It is indeed a constitutional right for a citizen to be able to lobby the government to affect policy. Simply making lobbying illegal would stand in direct opposition to a constitutional right, thus we can't limit lobbying without seriously altering the fundamental relationship between the government and the people. The only government action that could curb lobbying by big business would be to criminalize it. As expressed in the previous point, this is untenable. Really, and perhaps ironically, the government's ability to prevent itself from becoming corrupted is hampered by the very language at its foundation. The issue of campaign finance reform is relevant to this topic by changing the way amount individuals and organizations can contribute to political campaigns, lobbying could be curbed. However, this issue is highly contested by the people politicians who stand to gain the most from the current laws. It seems unlikely that the people benefiting from this exchange would intentionally cut off their own supply of money. I believe the saying Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely is in full effect here. Perhaps some truly benevolent people will come along one day, but I believe this quote is universal and that those in power don't stay good for long. I believe the solution with the greatest potential is the limiting of regulation. By reducing removing regulation on the market, businesses, big and small, would have no incentive to lobby the government as the government would have no legal ability to fulfill the wants of each lobbyist via legislation. This means a businesses success or failure would be determined by the market and without any power structure assisting them a truly free market. I recognize this solution only addresses the problem of lobbying and cronyism and that such a severe level of deregulation has the potential to cause other problems. However, this highlights a relationship that may be unavoidable so long as there is regulation, there will be lobbyists and corruption. If you can't agree to removing regulation, you better get used to living with in a world with lobbyists and money in politics. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The answer to lobbying and cronyism is less government, not more regulation."}
{"id":"c7b7e359-8f66-40ed-8d7d-451905ff29f1","argument":"USE as a single entity could define tailor-made policies for regions that do not necessarily belong to the same nation today, but share the same conditions\/needs.","conclusion":"The USE will govern more effectively and efficiently than the EU."}
{"id":"509937ad-ec8e-4906-a315-af5580216c7a","argument":"For exampe, would an ad in which women appear wearing makeup and men appear without makeup be reproducing a gender stereotype? There is no objective answer, and the process of deciding would be complex and problematic.","conclusion":"It would be complicated to differentiate between gender stereotypes and cultural cliches and norms."}
{"id":"a19c0a46-4105-4c74-89d6-bcd076b9dfdd","argument":"According to the IUCN's statement gorillas are 'critically endangered' because their population has declined by more than 60% over the last 20-25 years. Yet, in the criteria it needs at least a population decline of 80% within 10 years or at least three generations to be counted as 'critically endangered'.","conclusion":"Listing the Western Lowland Gorilla as 'critically endangered' violates the criteria the IUCN set for their classification as the rationale given does not match."}
{"id":"0927f7ba-ce5a-4c6a-9061-026cd8b14c85","argument":"Given this, it is important that children\u2019s innate curiosity and desire to experiment is coupled with information and education that enables them to do so safely e.g. consent education.","conclusion":"Whether or not children receive CSE, they are aware and curious about sex."}
{"id":"cd2543b7-eff0-4d9b-b2dc-d059d01c80be","argument":"Resulting from the media-crisis, the general shift in paradigm and the new possiblity of appealing to a larger variety of target groups, a lot of start-ups seize the opportunities the web offers.","conclusion":"More websites than ever offer news and reporting, indicating that publishers believe the net to be a lucrative field of work."}
{"id":"86cd009e-d701-4c98-8ffe-0ae5edb70d31","argument":"With automation increasingly eating into jobs the intellectual capacity one needs to be competitive is increasing. Soon, the average human may not be economically competitive. It is better for productivity to ensure that we have enough of the highly capable people required to fill the few remaining jobs. Illegalising private schools and forcing everyone into public schools would \"pull the top down\", which may be more deterimental than bringing the middle up is beneficial.","conclusion":"Improving education for everyone isn't well suited for the economy of the near future."}
{"id":"137692fc-a53b-4869-a598-0c89192a1f3e","argument":"Mandating use of chosen or gender-neutral pronouns compels individuals to adopt a particular view about what gender is, which is a complex issue on which reasonable people can disagree. This stifles dialogue and fruitful enquiry on the nature of gender.","conclusion":"It would be preferable but should not be legally enforced."}
{"id":"d76b843d-15cf-447a-8dd8-930f7935c009","argument":"I don't see why it is necessary for such a homogeneous sport needs to have 34 events. Swimming is only one of 41 different disciplines at the Olympics this year, yet accounts for over 10 of total events. This, coupled with the low variation among events, is unfair to athletes at the Olympics in other disciplines. The four different strokes, multiple distances, plus the medley and relay mean that swimmers are able to compete in many more events than other athletes. People often cite Athletics as a counterargument as it has more events than swimming, but there is much more variation among these events. Athletes who compete in the 100m never compete in an event like the 400m, but swimmers can compete in both the 50m and the 200m. Similarly, athletes who compete in the 100m never compete in the 100m hurdles, but swimmers can compete in every different stroke and the medley. Therefore, even athletes in Athletics are only going to be able to compete in at most 3, maybe 4 events, and in many disciplines athletes only have a chance to enter a single event. Swimmers, though, have been entering 8, even 9 events in one Olympics. A swimmer can have a chance to win more medals in one Olympics than most athletes will in their entire careers. The amount of events in swimming needs to be reduced for the Olympics to be fair to all athletes participating. Edit Thank you all for so many good responses. Looking at all of the comments, and knowing I can't respond to each and every one, I would like to address one of the most common arguments I have seen, which is that events in swimming are more different than I give them credit for. However, this view only supports my argument. If these events are so different, why are swimmers entering so many events? I don't think it's because these athletes are somehow better than ones in other sports. Somehow, despite the claimed differences between these events, there are still so many events that the 6 athletes who won the most medals at the 2012 Olympics all turned out to be swimmers. One way or another, 34 events for swimming is too many. Edit 2 a word","conclusion":"There are too many swimming events at the Olympics."}
{"id":"cb634e89-6df0-47c3-bf8d-de24cad0a248","argument":"So obviously the Michael Brown shooting happened quite a long time ago, and at the time it was seen incorrectly, in my view , as just another in a long string incidents where racist cops gunned down innocent, unarmed black men. This view was espoused by lots of people, including Al Sharpton and then President Obama. And, given the not so low level hysteria surrounding this alleged epidemic of racist cops murdering black folks, I suppose I can forgive people for jumping to conclusions when it happened. But the facts of the shooting most importantly, that cops only made contact with Brown since he just assaulted and robbed a convenience store worker, that he evaded arrest, that he assaulted a police officer, that he tried to take a cop's weapon, and that he attempted to charge said officer after attempting to evade arrest again have been out for many years now, and I'm still seeing people twice on Reddit just today prompting this  listing him among other, real victims of possibly racist police brutality. I believe this damages the BLM or BLM type cause Brown, more than perhaps any other person killed in a controversial shooting, deserved every bullet he got, and Wilson, the officer who shot him, showed a fair amount of restraint before opting to shoot him. If you list a real criminal who was practically begging for death by cop alongside real victims of police brutality, you diminish your credibility, and tarnish the victimhood of those who didn't deserve to die if your bar for what constitutes police brutality racism is as low as the shooting of Michael Brown, one would have reason to doubt your credibility, knowledge, or sincerity. Look, the one and only reason the Brown shooting is even controversial in the first place was because it sparked months and months of intermittent riots and protests before the facts came out, and then more once the facts were out. It's notoriety was further boosted by prominent figures like those I mentioned commenting on it as a case of police brutality, and even moreso since it was the genesis of the hands up, don't shoot chant. But it is not controversial because Brown didn't deserve to get shot. Including Brown in the list of black men victimized by the police is, in effect, saying it doesn't matter if any given shooting was actually justified or not so long as facets of the public get sufficiently outraged about it. This post is, to some extent, contingent on your agreement that police should ever be able to use deadly force. If you disagree with that that's fine, but I really feel it's another discussion entirely. Assuming we do agree police should be allowed to shoot people in certain circumstances, the Brown case is a great example of what a justified shooting looks like. Y'all know what to do. Cheers. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Michael Brown doesn't deserve a place in discussions about police brutality."}
{"id":"ae7ca3c8-c0f2-45b0-a9aa-00a8132ed365","argument":"I understand how someone might think lard is worse for you than vegetable oil. But once we get to vegetable oil, olive oil, coconut oil, etc etc it's all basically the same damn stuff right?","conclusion":"My wife thinks coconut oil is healthier than other cooking oils. I think oils are just oils."}
{"id":"506a96b7-df3e-4edf-97d8-61c9b260f058","argument":"Religious people tend to believe that they have a purpose in life, that they do the right thing, behave in the correct way and have ethical superiority which creates division, criticism and hate.","conclusion":"While it may have fostered unity amongst like believers, religion has historically caused more division, conflict and violence amongst groups than it has ever unified them."}
{"id":"e488c32c-95a9-49d5-8156-56771ee372cf","argument":"Discussing sensitive and political topics in school can teach students to advocate their beliefs in an effective manner, to empathise with another opinion, to see grey areas and understand compromise. These are valuable life skills for any person, and will especially benefit students who are not taught this at home, making them less vulnerable to propaganda and giving them the resources they need to advocate for themselves.","conclusion":"Critical thinking, forming arguments, and exploring new topics should be a central pillar to an education system. All of these things are rooted in discussions around sensitive and political topics."}
{"id":"4fedf4e2-ab94-4e2c-be37-a4f69bc2bb3e","argument":"Many female rape survivors find women-only spaces where they are with cis women, who fully understand and share their particular experience of womanhood, to be incredibly important for their recovery.","conclusion":"Allowing in people with male genitalia might be traumatizing to cis women who are survivors of male violence."}
{"id":"78e73c07-6335-4abd-8b3a-bef14f3096c9","argument":"The result of this is that no one could speak out in opposition against the choices of these groups, for this could be constituted as hate speech against their chosen identity\/lifestyle. These groups should receive social pressure to change. Thus, hate speech should not be banned.","conclusion":"If hate speech is to be banned, this must include all hate speech however defined. This means that one could not express hate speech for Nazis, the KKK, or any other hate group."}
{"id":"43d95fa9-8284-4c0c-afa0-9c45e4161f02","argument":"For example, this doctrine excuses circumstances when surgeons must kill the weaker of two conjoined twins in order to let the stronger one survive.","conclusion":"The doctrine of necessity can justify manslaughter in this case."}
{"id":"c0dde000-fe99-4b58-b38b-56aa804b0caf","argument":"All too commonly, we hear the saying absolute power corrupts absolutely. I don't believe this to be true. I don't believe that it is the power that corrupts people, but the fact that people themselves are corrupt to begin with, and that obtaining a position of power just offers them a medium through which to act on their corruption. I do believe that the majority of people are, in fact, corrupt. So assuming you take a random person and insert them into a position of power, it is likely that they will abuse the power that is granted to them. But, I also believe if you take a person who isn't corrupt, and insert them into this same position of power, they will not abuse the privileges and power of the position that is granted to them. I think teachers illustrate this point very well, especially because it is much easier to become a teacher than say, the President of the United States. In this regard, you tend to have a larger sample size and have many more types of people to consider. In most cases, I would say that teachers tend to have absolute power over their classes, at least with regards to day to day activities. Generally, if a teacher says to do something, it is expected that the student comply to the demand of the teacher. If the student disagrees, typically the matter is resolved at a later date with the intervention of a teacher's superior. Taking this assumption that teachers have absolute power over their students, you still tend to find a balance of teachers who abuse their power, and those who don't. If the saying that absolute power corrupts absolutely were true, all teachers would abuse their power, since it is the power that corrupts the person, and not the person that corrupts the power. Parents work well for this example as well. Literally anybody can become a parent, as having a child is as easy as having sex. I would even say that parents definitely have absolute power over their children, even moreso than teachers. But even with parenting, you still tend to find a balance. Some parents are incredibly strict and unfair, dictating arbitrary rules for their children that they themselves may not follow, or rules that have no legitimate reason other than because I say so. I'm not arguing the fact that sometimes parents use the because I say so justification even if the rule does have a legitimate reason, but sometimes parents don't actually have a reason other than I say so. However, you also find parents that are incredibly fair with their children. If a child does not agree with a rule set by a parent, and argues his or her case fairly, there are parents that would reconsider and change their rule for the sake of being fair. If absolute power corrupts absolutely, parents like the latter would not exist, as the power they hold over their child would corrupt them. TL DR  Absolute power does not corrupt absolutely absolute corruption corrupts power absolutely.","conclusion":"Power doesn't corrupt people."}
{"id":"f29273e9-293d-4b90-80fa-14d2c1d5f122","argument":"This is a very specific view, but it\u2019s the truth. I know Sakurai and his team worked super hard on SSBU, but the way they decided to do online mode is appalling. With virtually no way to do 1v1, significant game lag, and irregularity in Fighter experience, the game is practically ruined. I\u2019m incredibly disappointed in this downgrade from For Glory to this shitpile. It\u2019s disgusting. And Nintendo isn\u2019t ever gonna fix it, so what\u2019s the point. Anyone disagree? I\u2019d like to know there\u2019s at least SOME hope of Nintendo fixing it, but knowing them, they probably aren\u2019t gonna.","conclusion":"The lack of a good online mode makes Super Smash Brothers: Ultimate an extremely significantly worse experience."}
{"id":"dd51260b-dc65-486a-a651-1bd7de5cdcc6","argument":"I fully understand that repeat offenders fall into the trap of cant get a job turn to illegal things because they can't get a job can't get a job because they are felons turn to illegal things because they can't get a job, etc etc etc. On average, there are 3 unemployed people per job You won't have a problem finding people without felonies for just about any position. Basically, felons have a much higher chance of committing another crime as compared to people who have never committed a felony. If an employee commits a crime while on company property, involving company property, or anything to that nature, it directly hurts the business. Even if they're not on company time, you still lose the employee if they're arrested and you're forced to find a replacement. When compared to someone who has never had any trouble with the law, the person with a clean record has a major advantage. They're statistically less likely to steal, more likely to stay out of jail, and less likely to involve the company in any illegal business. Given the opportunity to hire a felon vs someone with no record, I see no disadvantages with not hiring felons.","conclusion":"As a rule, I wouldn't hire a felon."}
{"id":"87a6bc7a-c2d3-49a7-a9af-e195b2f0e2ec","argument":"The elections in the United States of America, as far as I understand, include the political parties of each candidate next to their name D. for Democrat, R. for Republican, and any other letter for any other political party affiliation for other candidates This seems like an election to see which political party should win, rather than each candidate. It allows voters to vote based on their political party rather than their political views. While political views are supposed to be expressed through parties, you can have a liberal republican or a conservative democrat in topics important to you that you may not know just based off their political parties. A political party notice lets uninformed voters feel good for voting conservative liberal, when really they may not even be voting for the most conservative or liberal person if they're uninformed. It's just voting for the party for these people. Informed voters know which person is of which party and it probably doesn't matter to them, just the candidate's views. Uninformed voters may just vote based off of political parties despite the fact the candidate may have unstereotypical views in some important topics. I've heard a few arguments hear and there but I really don't understand why the USA does this, so please, .","conclusion":"Our elections should not state which candidate is of which political party"}
{"id":"8fb86279-0538-4397-a207-bc01535d6ddd","argument":"I think suicide is not a selfish or bad thing. Before everyone jumps to their keyboards to call me a dick I'd like to explain. Let me preface by saying that I am not suicidal and do not have suicidal thoughts this is just a viewpoint I hold and find interesting. If someone evaluates their life and decides the effort is not worth the outcome what is wrong with taking their own life? Most people say it is selfish of someone to take their own life. However, I believe it is more selfish for someone to be against suicide because they don't want to go through grief or sadness. People say it is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. Okay, but is there anything wrong with that? If someone is not happy and doesn't feel like achieving individual happiness is possible why keep trying to play the game, or what if one does not feel like it is worth the effort to achieve happiness in the first place? I think the negative perception of suicide is brought on by society because we need living citizens to keep the economy alive. A lot of time and money goes into developing people during the first 18 years of their life education, food, resources, etc. . Thereafter, they are expected to be productive and contribute to the overall wellbeing of society and the economy get a job, pay your taxes, mortgage, shit like that . However, if a citizen is lost due to suicide after they are able to work all that money and time that was used to make them productive is lost, and that is why we have a negative perception of suicide. Thanks for reading if you made it this far, change my view Reddit Looking forward to some solid counter arguments and thoughtful discussion. Edit Thanks everyone for their rebuttals. A lot of arguments are about how it would be selfish if one had dependents. My argument was directed more for people who don't have dependents or other relying on them. Also, impulsive suicide over a short term problem e.g. break up is not reasonable. I meant it more as an individual who analyzed the cost to benefits over his her life and found it to not be worth the trouble. Edit 2 A good example of the situation I am trying to illustrate can be found here a student analyzed the pros and cons of life and decided life was simply not something he wanted to go through.","conclusion":"Suicide shouldn't be considered a bad\/selfish thing. Basically, it's okay to take yourself out of the game."}
{"id":"172593f8-bd90-4879-89c2-f6857d8d693b","argument":"Manipulating the Brexit vote would have served the Russian goal of separating the UK from Europe, as it was outlined by Alexander Dugin in his book Foundations of Geopolitics","conclusion":"There are good reasons to believe that the Brexit vote was manipulated by Russian influences. It shouldn't be the foundation for England leaving the EU."}
{"id":"9d223645-f6f4-4c69-8bc5-74ae6cb84570","argument":"I've noticed that most discussions of the wage gap tend to skirt past what I consider to be the most important aspect, which is that feminists seem to have been deliberately falsifying the stats for decades. I don't mean they are just wrong, I mean they deliberately knowingly are putting out false information and have been doing so for at least 40 years. Feminists start conversations about the wage gap by saying something like, women are paid only 77 cents for every dollar a man makes for doing the exact same work . Because these days it's pretty well known that this statement is false they usually move the conversation rapidly on to some other bogus statistic or other, but I want to say, wait, didn't you just directly lie to me? Isn't that significant? Why should I trust anything you say now? For those few who don't already know, when feminists say something like 77 cents on the dollar they usually can quote a legitimate sounding source like census data. However the source they use is a comparison of all the full time working men and all the full time working women in the country. So it's comparing for example truck drivers with secretaries, or surgeons with nurses. It's not comparing men and women in the same profession, let alone doing the same exact work. So when feminists claim they want equal pay for equal work and quote this sort of statistic that is a false statistic. That's pretty well known these days and that's the problem. Feminists eg Obama the other day still say this even though they obviously know it's not true. They've been saying it for decades. I think back in the day they used the comparison of the mean wages and these days it's a comparison of the median, but it's the same problem either way. And people have been pointing out to feminists for decades their mistake , especially around Equal Pay Day which the feminists calculate each year based on the figure for comparing all work, but pass it off each year as a comparison of equal work. Sometimes they avoid a direct lie by being very careful how they word things. They will juxtapose the 77 cents thing and then in the next sentence they will say equal work . So they carefully avoid saying the 77 cents thing is for equal work but they trick people into thinking that is what they said. I count this as a lie because it's obviously deceptive language. Answers should not bother to try and do what feminists usually do when challenged about this which is change the topic to talk about employment discrimination or else to talk about how you can get real truthful figures if you factor out this and that thing and blah blah blah. Not interested. I want people to change my view specifically about whether feminists have deliberately lied about their opening factoid for decades. ETA looks like I can reply OK to folks.","conclusion":"feminists have been deliberately lying about the wage gap for decades"}
{"id":"b73082b2-d83c-4ddf-81e9-e114244a2bd1","argument":"Science, as it is today, has the belief, or the faith, that the universe has 1 rules 2 which can be observed by humans. Furthermore, by studying these assumed rules, science believes we can hope to achieve human perfection in all areas of understanding, and ultimately immortality as a result of the 'progress' of medicine. 'Science' has usurped 'God', and has replaced religious, especially Christian as its direct predecessor ritual with its own rituals. It rests on faith and promises salvation just as much as religion.","conclusion":"I believe that people who make the distinction between religion and science are deluded"}
{"id":"6d060fbe-4679-46db-9c97-8a996e0f1677","argument":"In normal elections, people vote for a party - a coherent set of ideals - rather than specific policies. In these circumstances, lack of policy knowledge may be less harmful.","conclusion":"A bad choice of elected representatives has less impact on societies than a bad decision about direct subject matters."}
{"id":"954ffdc4-4801-4b0e-8404-39747c5320d9","argument":"If everyone joined the Nazi party and then agreed that the genocide of the Jews was a morally correct decision, then it would be so, assuming evil were subjective.","conclusion":"If there weren't any universal standards then the idea of true evil would cease to have weight."}
{"id":"2c5f16a2-233a-4ccd-844e-c985c7a03a76","argument":"Just like many other Christian faiths, Latter-day Saints also believe in a concept of temporary hell that occurs after death where spirits go to the spirit world and await the resurrection of the dead and final judgement.","conclusion":"Concepts related to Hell have elements of support from the KJV version of the Bible and are also supported by the doctrine of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints."}
{"id":"d65a56b6-8a15-43f4-8ad0-23dc14de57ef","argument":"Purpose gives us meaning, life without meaning is. well meaningless. Rates of depression and suicide are expected to increase.","conclusion":"We would have no purpose in such a self sustained system."}
{"id":"3210afa6-5039-4766-90a2-1df685ae394c","argument":"It seems like Reddit is always talking about how Bernie sanders would make a wonderful president and that the DNC rigged the primary to have Clinton win. I am generally left leaning, but I thought a lot of his ideas were far fetched and close to socialism which I do not like . I think it's stupid that people are always saying that Sanders lost the primary because it was rigged with their main evidence being the leaked DNC emails. Those emails showed that the DNC had a bias and wanted Clinton to win, but I think that is nowhere close to enough evidence to say that the primary was fixed. Change my view.","conclusion":"Bernie Sanders would have made a bad president and although there were some bias in the DNC establishment the primary was not \"stolen\" from him"}
{"id":"d4e3147f-2f20-45ba-953a-a1422a2d716b","argument":"For any given set of phenomena, there is an endless number of mutually incompatible theories that can explain them. For a radical example, see Last Thursdayism That is why Occam's razor is an important principle.","conclusion":"A-Theory proposes an absolute reference frame that is unverifiable due to completely coincidental time dilations and length contractions. Such metaphysically unnecessary features make the theory unfavorable i.e. Occam's razor"}
{"id":"3b73f038-2a50-47e3-966a-d0c41dfb30f8","argument":"If we go back to the actual meaning of NSFW Not Safe For Work , the idea is clearly that you don't want something on your screen that someone at work could oversee. I believe that this applies really only to images, and that it isn't necessary for text posts. An image requires only a glance to get you in trouble. If someone walks into your office, or can see over your shoulder from across the room, an image on your screen of someone's intestines hanging out or some topless lady is something they're going to recognize and possibly get you in trouble for. A text post, on the other hand, just looks like reddit. Unless someone stands over your shoulder long enough to actually read and comprehend what's on the screen, then it's no more eye catching than any other text based webpage that you might be on. If they recognize it as reddit and don't have a problem with you being on reddit at work, the odds are low that seeing fuck on the screen is going to be what crosses the line into inappropriate use of company resources. Normally this would simply be an annoyance, but many of us use the RES NSFW filter for just this purpose, and as a result don't see a high number of text posts that got flagged as NSFW because someone asked a question that might result in someone saying sex. So . Convince me that there really is text on here worth guarding from view at work.","conclusion":"The NSFW tag should be reserved for images and not used for text posts"}
{"id":"cfe5cb18-fbaa-48cc-96e4-8ef0c1604608","argument":"Jacki Calmes and Binyamin Applebaum. \"Bigger Economic Role for Washington.\" New York Times. September 13th, 2011: \"The jobs package of tax cuts and spending initiatives could add 100,000 to 150,000 jobs a month over the next year, according to estimates from several of the country\u2019s best-known forecasting firms; the potential Fed actions could add 15,000 more jobs a month over two years.. the firm projected that the plan would add roughly 1.25 percentage points to gross domestic product and create 1.3 million jobs in 2012. JPMorgan Chase estimated that the plan would increase growth by 1.9 points and add 1.5 million jobs. Most bullish is Moody\u2019s Analytics, which forecast that the package would add 1.9 million jobs, cutting the unemployment rate by a point, and increase growth by two percentage points.\"","conclusion":"Jobs Act could create over 100,000 jobs per month."}
{"id":"f7bce9fb-202e-452f-a468-ac0e42174cfa","argument":"The more someone can focus on something \"math or auto racing or football or God\", the more that becomes their own reality, as it \"becomes written into the neural connections of your brain\", experts say.","conclusion":"Neuroplasticity the capacity of our brains to change and adapt, is not a unique characteristic of religion but of extreme concentration and 'mental trainning'."}
{"id":"ec380567-d766-4ae2-89c3-e1aecb9b9877","argument":"we should legalize prostitution because freedom should be absolute. if i wish to make money having sex, i should have that right. having it legal will reduce the violence and increase safety.","conclusion":"Legalizing sex work will make the profession safer for women"}
{"id":"45cd01b2-fdc6-44a4-b6df-f11dcb66ff25","argument":"A research project funded by the National Institute of Justice spanned more than 50 years and showed that 20% of the 164 cases in the database occurred in the last five years. It shows that attacks are becoming far more frequent, and are getting deadlier.","conclusion":"Mass shootings on US soil are increasing in frequency and severity."}
{"id":"e261a976-e400-4edd-bcfa-aab3cdf21a63","argument":"Meiwes was initially sentenced for manslaughter, not murder, because of the existing consensual agreement between the men.","conclusion":"Armin Meiwes victim consented to be killed and eaten, which is documented on video."}
{"id":"8d3efd79-58d9-488d-9991-2cf20a502ecc","argument":"I believe that when Government gets involved in enterprise and industry, it hurts the economy and the country as a whole. They have no business in industry , nor do they know what they're doing. Every gov't run business is failing or failed. For Example the Post Office has been bankrupt for years now , along with Social Security and other public assistance programs. And i sure as hell want the gov't out of Health Care. All enterprise should be privately owned and we should exercise lassiez faire to a higher degree.","conclusion":"I believe that Government should stay out of any type of industry."}
{"id":"17672222-288f-456d-a0dd-d0ca3f76fee8","argument":"As a US citizen, i'm understating when i say that i find it hard to ignore the nihilistic influence of cash flow over outcomes in society. i get that, theoretically, money grants power to fulfill the wishes of its holder without discrimination. my sense is that, too often, the holder is someone whose worldview revolves almost exclusively around themselves, be it a feature inherent to human nature or otherwise. hoping to better understand the rationale of supporters for measures like Citizens United, does there exist a cogent argument attn economists that scaling back discretion over uses of money would somehow benefit society as a whole? Or are all of these people really acting out of interest in shaping a system that is more easily manipulated for their own benefit? the way i see it, an inherent conflict of interest arises when a party i.e. a civil servant CS , which performs a service e.g. law making law enforcement healthcare journalism accounting that is necessary for maintaining a stable, free and open society, accepts a favor from a party i.e. a greedy business GB which is, above all else, concerned with profitability. hypothetically, the GB values the needs of society until they are no longer profitable, at which point those needs become expendible. for this reason a CS whose actions are influenced by the concerns of a GB may be pressured to commit acts that are counterconducive to the needs of society. society collectively addresses this conflict when comprehensive laws are both passed and enforced which prohibit CSs from accepting favors from GBs. notwithstanding, law makers would need to first pass laws prohibiting both themselves and law enforcement from accepting such favors, before laws could be passed to prohibit others from the same. hence, is there any good reason why a law maker, who does not support or renegs support of a law to prohibit theirself from accepting such favors, should be elected reelected? if not, why the fuck do people keep doing it then??","conclusion":"Citizens United is evil"}
{"id":"7853330d-c014-46cd-9051-8c88248687c3","argument":"I've been working fast food for awhile and often when it's busy the managers will refuse breaks to employees or call them back in after only around five minutes. It can really kill the flow of the food coming out because the workers get very exhausted from running around almost non stop for hours at a time. I've even seen an employee collapse one time from exhaustion. This is from my own experiences at my workplace and I don't know if it's like this everywhere but I feel like ten minutes is reasonable. Ten minute break requirements would give the employees that work physically demanding jobs something to look forward to and wouldn't have to worry about getting called back in before their break is over. A penalty for a workplace cutting off a break early could be something like a 10 fine that's paid to the worker on top of their normal pay and a gradual increase in the amount paid out to the workers if it starts happening consistently, which would discourage employers from just paying the workers to work through their breaks.","conclusion":"I think that workplaces should be REQUIRED to give a minimum of at least ten minutes for a break."}
{"id":"9535c495-787f-4ad7-8be1-419a0571dd0f","argument":"First off, this isn't about transsexual people. If people aren't comfortable with the genitals they were born with, well then it's their bodies to do with what they like power to them. However, when transgender people say that they feel like they're the opposite gender, it stops making sense. If a person who was born male decides that they feel like they're a female, what are they basing that on? What does being female feel like, and how would they know? Doesn't that imply that females feel a certain way, and males another way? Isn't that considered backwards? Obviously the same goes for born females who claim that they feel male. In short, what does it mean to be a man or a woman? Wouldn't any answer to that question put parameters on something that shouldn't have parameters?","conclusion":"People who say they don't feel like the gender they were born with imply that the two genders are different in some defining way, which seems backwards."}
{"id":"b2d3e5c2-e26b-414a-8dd0-b4553a342838","argument":"I've tried a couple times to follow people, but I find my time on twitter is spent on either the mundane, circle jerking or drama. I find it hard to see the value of actively participating in something that feels like such a waste of time. At least with Reddit, there is a treasure trove of actual news and discussion that can be found if you turn off all the default subs. Now, I imagine you might say that twitter is great for social relationships and networking but I hate the idea of contributing to circle jerks or drama just to fish for some kind of social recognition. Granted, in a realtime face to face social atmosphere, it's the same shit But I find value in the intimacy, which is totally thrown out the window with twitter. In short, my view is that twitter is a platform for people who are trying to score shallow social recognition. Change my view","conclusion":"Twitter is a platform for people who are trying to score shallow social recognition..."}
{"id":"97f1e087-efff-4d31-8b1a-b9ebc2db197c","argument":"If you don't believe me, find a thread in r feminism that looks controversial and count the deleted posts. Better yet, begin a rational argument yourself and see how long it takes before a ban comment removal takes place. My own story is as follows See a thread attached to a picture showing Smurfette from the Smurfs boarding herself inside a room in fear, crying as the other smurfs try to break in and get to her. They are yelling things like Smurf me Or I am going to smurf you so hard . The OP of the thread was explaining how this really brought to light many issues on the show. Recognizing that that was a bit silly I replied Issues like what exactly, that Smurfette is a victim of rape? I don't remember that episode. Needless to say, I was promptly banned by demmian, and was told that it was a interesting thing to ban someone for. Now, I understand that I replied in jest, but it seems like a ridiculous thing to silence someone for.","conclusion":"I believe that \/r\/feminism not only hurts itself with its policy regarding banning users and removing posts, but also shows how little feminists are interested in hearing any opinion other than their own."}
{"id":"5f1f5c08-c430-4588-8981-acb5c31d5845","argument":"Religion has been helpful in leading us to science as a means to understand the world around us. At any given point in time religion has filled in the gaps of knowledge we have, leading us to innovation that brightens those dark spots. As we build the means to see and understand those gaps, science takes over, but religious belief allowed us to survive and evolve enough to replace superstition with demonstrable truth.","conclusion":"Religion led people to do things correctly before science and technology caught up."}
{"id":"abfd5342-56b7-4d16-ba7f-dd7f7dc28c48","argument":"The measures currently in place to prevent children and teenagers from accessing violent games are ineffective.","conclusion":"Violent video games should be banned to curb school shootings."}
{"id":"8f30ce16-1d3f-42c1-9efe-84cc548b22c9","argument":"Frequently cited as the most successful post conflict restorative justice programme in recent history, South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation process has failed in a number of ways. Polls show that different races are more polarised after its work, rather than lessi, so reconciliation seems to be failingii. As the journalist Peter Storey comments, \u201csome have decried the absence of repentance in many amnesty applications made to the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Apart from the fact that this is a further damning judgment on perpetrators, the legislation does not require repentance, only the truth.\u201d Storey notes that \u201cThe issue of amnesty has been. controversial. Some victims\u2019 families challenged these provisions in South Africa\u2019s highest courts.\u201diii The South African Reconciliation Commission also promised financial redress for victims and their families, but this has largely failed to appear. i Ubu and the Truth Commission. Director\u2019s note. 2007, Jane Taylor, University of Cape Town press ii \u201cAntonette\u2019s story\u201d, BBC News Online, 29 October 1998. iii \u201cA Different Kind of Justice: Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa\u201d, The Christian Century, 10 September 1997.","conclusion":"The South African reconciliation commission has proven itself to be ineffective"}
{"id":"00c70145-164a-42bd-88f6-659fadb872b1","argument":"Let us assume we are only talking about transgender people who originally have a very well defined biological sex. It's been a lingering opinion of mine that my relatively sparse conversation with transgender people or transgender sympathizers has not been able to adequately dispel. As far as I know, there are many transgender people who simultaneously believe 1 the rigidity of societal gender norms is irrational, and 2 they themselves ought to be referred to as having a gender opposite to their biological sex. These two opinions are contradictory to me. If they believe that a cis man ought to be allowed to cry at chick flicks or paint his fingernails not to reduce all of transgender inclinations to such basic examples without public scorn, why should any biological male be motivated to say e.g. I identify as a woman from now on rather than I identify as a man who legitimately enjoys chick flicks and painting my nails ? I cannot conceive of any other motivation for the former other than a belief that such things as chick flicks and nail painting have no place in the male identity which must exist, even in one's ideal philosophy, if one believes there to be a significant personal difference between identifying as a man versus identifying as a woman , that it is not possible to incorporate these aspects of one's personality into a male identity, etc. As I understand it, a transgender person believes that their personality features make it evident that their true gender is opposite to their biological sex, and thus it is inaccurate unjust to refer to them as such their identity cannot be understood in the male female context. But that presupposes the existence of very rigid male and female contexts, ones that exist even in their ideal philosophy. What do they make of the above cis man who proudly enjoyed The Notebook ? Do they claim he's merely in denial about his identity? I do not understand the consistency in any other position.","conclusion":"Gender re-identification supports the notion of fixed gender norms"}
{"id":"7e80eabd-3a38-4803-b31a-847a9940c70c","argument":"I see quite often criticism of the impact of porn, especially internet porn, on society. I think these criticisms are excessive. They usually come in 2 categories the first criticism is the degradation of the image of women in porn, that degrades the image of women in general, and might lead to abuse. I certainly agree that porn gives a very degraded image of women, depicted usually as mere objects for the enjoyment of men. But I am not sure that this has social consequences. After all the situation of women in society today is much better than before the rise of pornography. Violence, and sexual abuse of women, is much more considered than it used to be. It is of course not ideal, but it is hard to find evidence that pornography lead to a degradation of the status of women in society. the second argument is the argument of addiction the rise of internet pornography leads many people mostly men to become addicted to porn, and so become less socially functionnal. Porn addiction is a thing, but any addiction is bad. And porn addiction seems like a very benigne form of addiction. It does not cost you a lot of money, it is not harmfull to your health, like alcohol or gambling for example. I would not say that pornography is good for society, though there are some possibilities some consider it reduces rape and sexual agressions . But on the whole the criticism of the impact on porn for society seem to me very excessive. Am I missing something?","conclusion":"internet pornography is mostly harmless to society"}
{"id":"e36b1af9-5faf-4a4d-882f-fb5eb134cc78","argument":"I do not feel compassion for those who claim to be suffering from mental illnesses such as depression, ADHD, anxiety, or any eating disorder. My reason behind this has a lot to do with the social trend of self diagnosing and self labeling mostly online. If someone comes to me and shares that they are depressed, I automatically dismiss the issue and don't take them seriously. Same with any other popular diagnosis . I view them as self absorbed, incoherent, and self pitying assholes. Now, keep in mind that I have had more than enough experience with the world of mental illnesses. I was put under the microscope after a long battle with addictive and destructive habits, being hospitalized and institutionalized 5 times in the process. I've seen more than I ever cared to see in how mentally ill people really act and how they're really discriminated against. I believe that experience has destroyed any compassion for those who claim to have the trendy disorders. I come off as uncaring and emotionally distant because of it. Kindly  so I don't end up being the asshole I view everyone else as. EDIT It seems that a lot of people are reading my post as I don't believe mental illnesses exist. I know they do and I'm more than aware that they are serious. However, the spike in self diagnosis is what I'm talking about. Hence why I included Due to the current social trends in my title. Please read all of my post before commenting. EDIT Ok so, apparently this is a very sensitive topic. I didn't realize I'd end up offending a lot of people. I'll leave this up, but I won't be replying any more. I'll be in the corner of shame if anyone needs me.","conclusion":"Due to the current social trends, I do not have any respect for those who claim to be mentally ill."}
{"id":"76663659-45a1-4028-865e-e3d9955104d8","argument":"This might be a unusual question, which is not to be taken in a offensive way. I like the idea of patriotism and in general I stand behind it. I am have been proud of my grandparents and also for my ancestors, I also like my country and it's history atleast the parts which are further back. However, since I live in Germany where patriotism is always an dodgy subject, for somewhat obvious reason. Most people in my surroundinga aren't patriots, and you never see german flags hung up somewhere, except of the time when everyone starts to support the own country in football soccer and hangs flags up everywhere. So I adapted the idea, when getting more in touch with American culture, it was probably just something I chose to adapt to differ from mainstream society. That's also why I didn't have a real reason to be patriotic. So recently somebody confronted these views, and I started thinking about good reasons to be patriotic, but I couldn't come up with anything reasonable. So I wondered what solid arguments for patriotism there are. The idea of being proud of your country and such seems somewhat unlogical, since you don't have influence on the country you are born in, and being proud of the achievements of your ancestors seems similarly unreasonable. I do still like patriotism, since it establishes a certain community within a country that is nice to have because you have atleast one thing you share with everyone else in your country, but it is increasingly hard for me to believe in aconcept that seems so unlogical.","conclusion":"I like the idea of patriotism"}
{"id":"bd691962-778f-4a35-bbf9-cba070db92f6","argument":"I don't like Nancy Grace, actually I despise the woman. However, like my title says, I feel that every redditor who makes fun of, teases, taunts, etc is basically bullying. Therefore, everyone who bully shames, then turns around and laughs at, upvotes, or posts a meme about Nancy Grace or whomever is a hypocrite. I would like for someone to change my view. I would like to be able to continue to be outraged against bullys and at the same time laugh at the train wreck that is Nancy Grace, but does this not lower me to the same level as the bullys with whom I've been preaching against? If you worked with Nancy Grace and posted a meme in the breakroom that taunted her then this would certainly be considered an act of a bully. However, if you post it on reddit it isn't. Why? Please reddit, change my view. gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than just downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The fact that reddit is so anti-bullying and at the same time makes fun of people like Nancy Grace on a daily basis makes every redditor who partakes a hypocrite."}
{"id":"39159c2d-06c8-412f-8b52-2b21d2ad199c","argument":"The average full time employee works for approximately 40 hours a week, which is almost 25% of the total week. This means that their workplace is often the institution they interact with the most on a day to day basis and so plays an important role in enforcing norms in their life. When sexual harassment of any kind is tolerated in the workplace, it entrenches the norm of harassment being acceptable.","conclusion":"People who commit sexual assault and hold positions of power propagate rape culture in an incredibly pernicious manner. Removing them is a step toward ending rape culture in the long term."}
{"id":"44180823-1fb5-406a-930e-14c586e78574","argument":"Belief in an afterlife and a benevolent higher power helps us to survive the intense grief of lost loved ones. The hope of continued existence on a higher plane and reuniting in the hereafter provides great comfort to children and adults who might otherwise be overcome with the pain of the loss.","conclusion":"Religion allows societies to feel hope and to see light in the most darkest periods."}
{"id":"852c9221-c6e9-471b-b92d-7aa005b52f6d","argument":"I love looking at hyperrealistic and photorealistic drawings and paintings. I'm always in awe of how they manage to create them, even if they are simply celebrity portraits. People argue that it's just copying something from a photo, but I still think it takes creativity and an enormous amount of skill to be able to do so. Being able to draw something incredible is artwork, whether or not you think there is no 'emotion' behind the drawing painting. As for anime manga, yes there is a saturation of generic looking characters, but even those should be considered art as someone could have put a lot of 'emotion' into it. There are some amazing pieces that have been created, but are dismissed by people because it's not considered art. Please .","conclusion":"I believe that all photorealistic drawings are legitimate forms of art and I think that people who deny this are snobs. I also think that anime\/manga are amazing forms of art as well."}
{"id":"1493cb60-6ccd-41eb-b448-9cb740b49e26","argument":"Illegal drug production usually involves the use of incredibly toxic chemicals in the process and sometimes as ingredients as they are cheap and there is no regulation.","conclusion":"Legalization would lead to better quality drugs as a regulated industry would appear."}
{"id":"c521ab0c-d1f7-42d2-acc9-38b2bc06ebfe","argument":"Fashion works different for different genders based on our preconception of what those genders ought to be like. Feminist fashion is not oxymoronic as long as it address how our culture treats each other as people.","conclusion":"Fashion is a form of art like any other. It would be ludicrous to suggest that any other type of art was inherently not feminist."}
{"id":"3a812ea0-34a4-4f3c-b6e7-a1e1b402e99c","argument":"In Germany, the share of the vote won by left-wing parties SPD, The Left, Green Party varied between 52% in 1998 and 39% in 2017. Even if a growing Muslim population produces electoral shifts, these are not unprecedented.","conclusion":"The idea of an electoral balance between conservative and liberal forces in high-income countries that could be swayed more than usual by Muslim influences is unrealistic. Larger shifts in the balance already occur naturally."}
{"id":"58ece75e-afdc-48bb-b1bf-e5167b0bf843","argument":"Quite often we wrongly assume that someone who is good at math and it's related subjects is a smart person . Firstly, What is intelligence? It is difficult to give a perfectly accurate synopsis on what it means to be intelligent, but we have a general idea. The Oxford Dictionary describes intelligence as, the ability to learn, understand and think in a logical way about things . x200B If we take this definition as a relatively accurate one, one would assume that being good at math would automatically qualify someone as being intelligent, because In order to be good at math you have to be good at problem solving and logical analysis. The problem is that this definition of intelligence is a limiting one. There are many other aspects of intelligence that being good at math doesn't account for, such as , linguistic intelligence, intrapersonal intelligence, musical intelligence ect. Being good at math doesn't necessarily mean you will be skilled at any one of these things. x200B You could argue that being good at math is a strong indicator of a person's likelyhood to excel at other forms of intelligence, and that people who are good at math are also more likely to be good at composing music ect. But being good at math is not sufficient grounds to declare someone as intelligent. That is basically my view summed up in one sentence.","conclusion":"Being Good At Math Does Not Mean You Are Smart"}
{"id":"22626980-aa11-4ba5-8761-bd60ca79ebb8","argument":"Hi Reddit, I'm currently in the second year of my computer science degree in South Africa and I'm finding the majority of my courses to be superfluous and I'm beginning to resent university in general. I'm taking a bunch of Maths and Statistics courses that just seem ridiculous. I find myself spending most of my time learning proofs by rote that I forget two days after I write the test because there's a step somewhere in the proof that will say Don't worry about this intuition, you will cover it at honours level . On the rare occasions I muster up the motivation to do well in a test, I will, despite not having been to a single lecture since the first week of the year. I don't mean to toot my own horn by saying that, I just struggle to find the point of being enrolled in university at all if all I need to do is sit in my room memorising things I forget the next day. On the other hand, I really, really enjoy the actual Computer Science that I do. I feel like I'm creating something and I embrace the challenge that comes along with that. CS is something I can just do without having to force myself to sit down at my desk, and if the project I'm working on requires me to learn a bit of calculus, I'm happy to. But why do I need a lecturer who's bored out of his her mind and giving the same lecture for 73rd time in his her life to show me the proof for 1 gt 0? I can't help but think I'm wasting the time I have to learn skills by learning facts I have the internet for that To the CS graduates and anyone who has felt a similar way about their degree Have you had the same experience in the US or elsewhere? If so, does it get any more rewarding later on? Or am I just being too whiny about my situation?","conclusion":"A computer science degree is useless."}
{"id":"a8dc2947-d87b-45f1-8a90-de87239e22b8","argument":"This is something that I have been conflicted on and I'm sure people have gone over this before. When we say there is a 40 chance of rain, that's our estimate. That is because we don't know everything that could come into play. So if we knew how every single reaction would affect other reactions, we would KNOW everything natural that could ever happen. We could absolutely know when a star would explode, when it would rain, how the universe will end or begin again. All of our decisions are based on the effect formed from a cause. For example, I am on reddit because it was suggested to me. Every single action in mankind's existence has been caused by something. Your opinions are only formed because of an experience that took place to form that opinion. As such I don't think there is any true free will. I think that all human decisions are based on a chain reaction that started at an unknown time period that we may never know when it started. As I said earlier, if we knew how everything worked and what reaction would take place, we could know for certainty what decisions we would make, no matter what.","conclusion":"I don't think free will \"exists.\""}
{"id":"c04236cf-42d8-4cc8-81cd-537adb40bc38","argument":"Individuals should be able to sponsor refugees. \"Countries\" have no obligation, only individuals have a moral obligation to help the less fortunate. Countries with laws that prevent their citizens from following that obligation are immoral.","conclusion":"High-income countries should take in significant numbers of refugees."}
{"id":"0d23d8e5-e8f0-4d70-940d-2458a48ad57f","argument":"The health benefits of masturbation are myriad, from reducing cancer risks to improving mental health . The external benefits, including better sexual performance and a healthier attitude towards sex, are also myriad. I believe that the NoFap movement is destructive in the same way that any abstinence movement is it enshrines the thing it's banning in such a way as to empower it beyond what's realistic. I believe that NoFap is no different than waiting for marriage, which is a whole different , in the way it denies human beings their desire to find physical communication with others, explore their own sexualities, and understand the other sex. I believe that self denial is dangerous, unhealthy, and unrealistic. I believe that NoFap is destructive to the way men see women as they are placing desires that would otherwise be explored through pornography in other human beings, thus elevating them to standards that they will never meet, damaging the way men interact with women. Yes, I understand that the same argument can be flipped by saying that pornography reduces women to dangerous archetypes, too, but I don't buy that argument Vin Diesel is always a bad ass every time I see him on a screen, but I don't really think he could fuck anyone up, because I can differentiate between performance and reality. And finally, I believe that NoFap is an excuse for insecure men to blame their own sexual desires and personal inadequacies for the fact that they can't speak to women. I believe that it's creating a fake solution for a real problem, and creates much worse problems as a result. TL DR The NoFap movement is destructive and counterproductive to a man trying to be confident and trying to have healthy relationships with women. .","conclusion":"I believe that the NoFap movement is harmful to men's health, as well as their relationships with women."}
{"id":"60b34c9d-9249-4ebe-9eed-54989bd608cc","argument":"Women are still more responsible for child care than men. While men spend 6.5 hours a week taking part in primary child care activities, women spend on average 12.9 hours. That is why women are given children's custody more often.","conclusion":"Precisely due to harmful gender stereotypes men are encouraged to be more violent, engage in more risky behaviour, carry out more dangerous jobs, be responsible for the household finances and be less dedicated to child care and education."}
{"id":"51588961-ee75-4945-95ad-70b7ad9cdada","argument":"The policies which a politician supports often take years or decades to come into fruition, at which point they may no longer hold government office.","conclusion":"It would be difficult or even impossible to tie politicians' compensation to their performance."}
{"id":"daa06d93-eff2-4eaf-b063-2f79da885689","argument":"There are people who are arguing that Trump is not really a racist sexist bigoted and that he's just pandering to certain groups in order to win votes, and others arguing that he really is a racist sexist bigoted. I don't know whether he really is a racist or not, and I don't care. As a public figure, and our soon to be president, what he says in public holds weight with people. All I know is that by saying what he says, he is legitimizing the bigotry that exists in this country, and that's just as bad regardless of whether he really believes in what he says or not. This is what happened after Trump's election and whether Trump believes in what he said or not. And honestly it doesn't matter if he publicly says he's against racism, if he does things that condone racism such as appointing Bannon. Actions speak louder than words.","conclusion":"It doesn't matter whether Trump is really bigoted\/sexist\/racist or not, it's what he says publicly that matters"}
{"id":"5a454d8e-1bf6-4abe-a923-0ef37ec174a3","argument":"I believe that life as we know it will never have a purpose. We are simply a bunch of atoms put together in a way that allows us to be somewhat conscious of our surroundings and of ourselves. Sadly, because we became self aware, unlike other animals which are simply responding to basic needs and instincts like a more complex plants. By because self aware, we started to think about what is the purpose of life, what is the meaning of our existence, etc. After thinking about it for many years, I always circle back to the same answer there are none. And the main reason for life having no purpose is a very simple one, death, or more so the lack of anything consciousness after death. I know many people believe of an afterlife of some sort. But logic and science seems to heavily point towards nothing after death, your cells dies, and with that their molecules change into something else and your brain loses the ability to function, think, be aware. Since you are no longer conscious, nothing that happens during your life matters, nothing that will happen in the future due to your life matters, as you are unaware of any of it, because you simply don't exist anymore. There is no you to be aware of anything. You can't find any satisfaction into knowing you left a mark on the world, because there is nothing that can feel satisfaction or even know of your mark I think you get the point. I am not sure how we are suppose to end these posts, but please try to change my view, I would be delighted. Thanks, gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Life has no purpose and will never have one"}
{"id":"a26c8fb4-57fb-4200-bdbd-368754685b03","argument":"I am atheist and she is Christian not sure on denomination, but probably Methodist . Her mom is her church's secretary and already dumped me once because of our difference.","conclusion":"I think the love of my life and I are doomed to break up due to religious differences. ?"}
{"id":"1a40193d-7819-4051-be64-d6a130e8bce8","argument":"The Fifth Committee and the Audit Board are central in creating the budget, but the US is not a member of either and so is unable to directly influence the proposed budget.","conclusion":"The US is not able to use its majority funding to influence the main decision making body of the UN: the General Assembly."}
{"id":"fade46b0-845b-44b1-bee1-6440d3c7cff2","argument":"A person is pulled into attention, like a magnet, during a traumatic event. In other words, \"Traumatic Attention\" is viewed whether or not the witness wants to See\/Participate, or not.","conclusion":"Attention is not caused by or necessarily related to a previously \"attention thought\"."}
{"id":"e06bec30-2926-4b46-9973-929dfe26c041","argument":"International community just way too divided. Too much pollution is countries that do not understand the effects. No one really knows the harms of the global temperature increasing. Individual countries can do little to solve the global problem. Only solution I foresee is if we eventually run out of oil and other fossil fuels which is still a long way off. Honestly I am not convinced that the global temperatures rising is really that big of a deal. Edit I meant effective change, of course the international community has tried to get everyone on board, I just do not think they will be successful. Is unmeaningful change really change at all?","conclusion":"I believe that humanity will not do anything about global warming."}
{"id":"49e86762-7db8-4fe3-8bc1-c5f2bce5d036","argument":"Matthew 27:46 and Mark 15:34 state Jesus's last words were \"My God, why have you forsaken me?\" Luke 23:46 states his last words were \"Father, into your hands I commend my spirit\" and John 19:30 state his last words as \"It is finished\"","conclusion":"Accounts of the crucifixion vary substantially across the gospels in chronology, specific details as well as the actions and behavior of Jesus himself."}
{"id":"b0da26ee-6827-40ea-9226-1139efd3a495","argument":"First, I think that Putin is not a bad leader. He led Russia out of a fairly severe period of economic stability. With that being said, I think that when we watch the news and see that Russia does something unagreeable, like Invading Crimea, Putin is not some Hitler like dictator seeking power but instead knows his limits exactly. I think Putin invaded Crimea because he knew he could easily take it, along with the warm water port Sevastopol, something almost every Russian leader has tried to get more of. Putin, in my opinion, was trying to show the world that America, its Frenemy is weak by not doing anything about the situation except hold economic sanctions which are literally doing nothing. He has succeeded in this and showed other world powers that he is not afraid of anything","conclusion":"I dont think that Putin is a bad leader. I think that he is smart and knows exactly what he is doing."}
{"id":"cfda6bab-14f0-48c5-957d-ca463bbd9a4b","argument":"Ok, I am going to preface this with where I am coming from. I am asexual and neutrois. I pretty squarely fall into a minority category of some sort. I feel people's reaction might be different if I didn't. But I can't really be involved with either group because all day long they talk about erasure and awareness and visibility. I am pretty sure people like me make up less than a bip 1 100 of 1 of the population. It's not really erasure if it barely exists. Why shouldn't we just be chucked in with LGBT? Why does it have to be LGBTQA~NTPAUEYANAIFY? I think in the big picture it doesn't matter. As far as rights go, most of the smaller groups will be covered when the larger groups are covered. I just don't think awareness and visibility are a big deal. I don't care if you or anyone else don't know what neutrois is because in the end it doesn't matter. I've probably not even told anyone. My gender and sexual identity are literally a non issue. So why should I care that people know who or what I am? Why should I care that my little group be recognized by the general public? I noticed I mention relevancy a lot. Are smaller minorities relevant? What do they do or not do for society and politics? Update ChronicMonstah has given me pause with the fact that greater exposure to more types of people can help the uninformed comes to a more open minded state of mind. I still need convincing that really small groups are the way to go or that I should care personally. I'd like to hear more. If you guys are really good at this I might bring some of my other opinions here. I do enjoy hearing the other side. I want to know in all honesty why people care so much that everyone knows what their title means. This was prompted by recent posts on both my forums talking about erasure and awareness and getting banned on one for asking Does this really matter? I think my view is changeable but perhaps it would be best if I talked to people somewhat removed from the issue. People close to it tend to be much more emotional and that doesn't really work on me.","conclusion":"I don't believe that really small minority groups need visibility, especially personal identity ones. , please?"}
{"id":"8a70fd4a-e7e1-4bd9-91d6-f43a1ba19fdc","argument":"Person A is a player. He doesn't cheat, lie or have diseases, but he does treat women like they're disposable. He's really good looking and has sex with scores of women. Person B is average at best looking. He sits home and faps, and wishes he could get with lots of women, views them as sex objects. Person A is more respected by society than Person B despite them having the same mentality. Just the result is different in that one of them actually succeeds. It's the same difference that a guy yelling profanities on the street has with a guy who yells profanities in a booth while recording a platinum selling rap album. Of course if a woman doesn't welcome a guys advances, he should stop pursuing her. But the point is, I feel like if an okay looking guy and a hot guy were to act the same way around most women, one would be the creep and the other would be okay because he's hot. Not to absolve men either but most of us will sleep with any girl, so long as there's nothing direly wrong with her.","conclusion":": Attractive male + flirty = sexy. Okay-looking male + flirty = creepy."}
{"id":"0cbd3d27-86ee-4189-9f38-5399a5ecba40","argument":"The accumulation of wealth concentrates over time and it becomes dynastic. When it becomes a perpetual grant of success through generations within a family, it is fundamentally incompatible with the basic theory that drives capitalism.","conclusion":"People like Paris Hilton are born into wealth an do little or nothing to deserve the rewards of capitalism."}
{"id":"47061b57-141d-411d-b7f3-afd8d9db302d","argument":"I know this is probably beating a dead horse. But someone please explain to me how, in a decade where Quentin Dead Ni er Storage Tarantino has made, not one, but two movies featuring openly racist white cowboys as major characters and is about to come out with a movie featuring the frigging Manson Family murders , something as campy and harmless for this generation as Blazing Saddles would be boycotted. I just don't get it. Especially considering SJWs like me are supposed to be big on critically analyzing the hell out of films, why would anyone be dumb enough to not perceive that a movie features nobody but dumb evil white racists as the bad guys, and a black guy as the protagonist?","conclusion":"\"'Blazing Saddles' Couldn't be Made Today\" is a bunch of hooey"}
{"id":"21ef41ee-29fa-4271-b4c6-cd367cf77495","argument":"In 1 Timothy 2:12-14 the Apostle Paul justifies his claim that women ought not teach or exercise authority over men by showing that man was created first. Paul's basis for making a distinction in roles is God's created design.","conclusion":"Many Christian denominations restrict governing and teaching roles in the Church to only men."}
{"id":"5e8a85e4-0a31-449a-a8f2-eacbd22d6407","argument":"I'm well aware of how if a lot of people have this mindset, it actually does make a difference and it is a negative thing. Power of groups and all. But I'm simply referring to me, individually, just me. This one guy, u velocity lp sitting at his desk. I know for a fact that my vote will not make a difference. I know for a fact that even if I rallied all of my effort behind a certain candidate and tried to convince as many people as I know in my social circle to vote, the most I could possibly convince is maybe 10 people, which is still almost nothing. I'd be fine doing it if there was a 2 minute online form I could do it through, but I'm not going to spend hours of my day driving out and standing in a line for something that I'm consciously well aware will not impact the results. Edit Mainly referring to the US presidential elections. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Me voting would be a waste of my time"}
{"id":"ff2962a9-61cb-410f-ab50-f636f25885e6","argument":"A free market gives the power to the people to choose and decide what products and services should be offered to them. If many people want the same thing the demand will be higher and it will be profitable to offer them on the market since it will sell, therefore the people are in command of what products are being offered to them through their own want. The market is thus decided upon what people need and therefore there will be no excess products or services offered e.g. let us presume that many people want to see high quality basketball, a person like Michael Jordan who has a talent for basketball and has honed his basketball skills would in this case be much in demand. People are ready to pay for the service he offers excellent basketball and consequently his high wage will be justified. On the other hand a mediocre basketball player would not be paid at all since there is no demand to see mediocre basketball, his service does not have an attraction on the market and will thus be eliminated1\/2. This is all part of what could be called a \"dynamic capitalist system\" which values individuality honing your basketball skills, rewards ability having basketball skills and risk-taking risking that you will succeed with it. 1 Adam Smith. n.d.. The concise Encyclopedia of Economics. Retrieved June 20, 2011 2 Nozick, R. 1974. Anarchy State and Utopia pp. 54-56, 137-42. Basic Books. improve this","conclusion":"The market should determine the price of products and services"}
{"id":"7fe7a023-8733-405f-ac66-6a45bd330ba1","argument":"i realize some people will just think this is a matter of taste, but hear me out. first, i hate making broad, general statements like the one in the title, and i truly believe every genre, even pop country, has something to offer, so i really want my mind changed on this one for my growth not only as a musician but as a person. however, i just can't find that in reggae. honestly, i don't even know why but almost every reggae song i hear sends me into a mild rage of annoyance. i really can't pinpoint a single element that does this, but if i had to try, i would say it just feels too sing songy to me. the melodies remind me of something a 5 year old girl would come up with on the playground, then sing all during lunch to the annoyance of everyone in the cafeteria. i realize this is ignorant, and i recognize that there is more to reggae than Bob Marley and shit you hear in Spencer's Gifts. so, change my mind. link me something powerful, emotive, or even just fun without being childish and bland. i want to appreciate this genre, but so far i've been unable to.","conclusion":"I'm a musician and I like all its derivatives, but I just can't stand reggae."}
{"id":"7de486d9-b731-4c1a-8196-aad7b04eb8df","argument":"I've seen many discussions about the fact that the Republicans are disenfranchising the voting of minorities and the poor by requiring Voter ID or by over zealous voter roll purging. I've also seen many conjectures that there has been an epidemic of voter fraud throughout the country. My opinion is that there should be a National Voter ID. This would provide all registered voters a proper photo ID and the information would be associated to a nationally kept identification number similar to the social security number which would store the voter's photo, registration information, and possibly securely store ballots cast by that voter. The voter would still have to be able to follow their state regulations for registration. I just feel that this would give everyone a common ground to work towards a solution so that there would be no argument about in person voter fraud. It should also help track and reduce invalid voter registrations as well. Of course the devil is in the details but I think this could be solution that works for most everyone. UPDATE Thanks for the great comments and discussion so far. I'm about to take off on a flight but I'll interact more with you when I'm safely on the other end of this flight. UPDATE final I delighted by the response to my first  and I'm happy that the discussions were cordial. I awarded some deltas but I think I'm sticking with my general position. I doubt it would ever happen per the opinions stated in the comments. I don't feel that I narrowed my original post down enough and therefore there were tangents that I felt distracted from the topic. Live and learn. I did not mention this in the OP because I didn't want to slant the conversation but for the record, I don't not endorse Voter ID laws nor do I believe there has been any significant in person voter fraud. But as there are laws in place requiring photo IDs I was just trying to improve the system. I'm just pushing a boulder up a hill. Thanks all.","conclusion":"There should be a National Voter ID in the US"}
{"id":"6e0d9770-97ff-4347-8e92-38a3f74ea7ec","argument":"The UN, an organization created to defend democracy, is more than half made up of nondemocratic countries. EDIT OK, to defend human rights and prevent a third world war. Doesn't change the fact that it's more than half countries who don't care about human rights. Historically, the UN doesn't have a good record of not ignoring injustice and even genocide. In Bosnia, the UN promised to defend the Bosniaks in Srebrenica and \u017depa, and then did nothing as they were massacred by the Serbs In Rwanda, the UN stood by and watched as the most horrendous genocide since the Holocaust happened, refusing to intervene. No matter your perspective on the Israeli Palestinian Conflict, the UN has clearly shown tremendous bias against Israel In 2018 alone, the UN condemned Israel 21 times, Iran, North Korea, Syria, and Myanmar each once, and Hamas, Algeria, Sudan, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Turkey, and Somalia not at all. For context, Myanmar is literally practicing ethnic cleansing as we speak, and the UN issued one condemnation against it. For all of the UN's history, 40 of its resolutions have been against Israel. No matter how bad Israel is, if you believe Israel deserves that many condemnations compared to EVERYWHERE ELSE IN THE WORLD, you're anti Semitic. The UN isn't just useless though, it's far worse. As long as the UN maintains its veneer of goodness, whatever it says and does is endowed with a halo. The UN's largest voting bloc, more than half of it, is made up of nondemocratic countries. They can pass whatever they agree on, and have it given a halo of goodness. This is wrong. The UN must either be utterly remade, or simply thrown out. It does far more harm than good. But I'm open to arguments. Change my view.","conclusion":"The UN is worse than useless"}
{"id":"17ab42be-4adb-4433-9eac-d158c11a7c5c","argument":"Systems or sequences with the joint properties of \u201chigh complexity\u201d or small probability and \u201cspecification\u201d invariably result from intelligent causes, not chance or physical-chemical laws. These two criteria must be met in ID theory.","conclusion":"ID theorists explicate criteria by which rational agents recognize or detect the effects of other rational agents, and distinguish them from the effects of natural causes. This is not an argument from ignorance."}
{"id":"45186968-1a75-4e30-90de-04913cbe1aca","argument":"Sources for this claim stem from the example of heroin-assisted treatment with its application found here In addition, a helpful TED on addiction's misconception can be found here","conclusion":"Addiction treatment isn't actually very expensive or costly, and is likely to be clinically simpler to resolve than is widely assumed."}
{"id":"4fc6974f-2e5a-4124-86ee-fbf934dd75b0","argument":"Firstly Nothing I say here should suggest to anyone that I think any nation whether they do or don't already have them should have nuclear weaponry. I'm against the very existence of nuclear weapons, and certainly against their use. Secondly I'm an American, and not without my own bit of national pride. I like my country. I don't always like it's actions on the world stage, though. To get to the point, I think that US history and policy is rife with hypocrisy on the subject of nuclear weapons, non proliferation, disarmament, and international politics revolving around these issues. I'm not a history buff myself, nor do I follow international politics as well as I wish I did, so part of my reason for posting this  is to get more accurate factual information on relevant topics. Point one The US is the only nation on Earth to have actually used nuclear weapons offensively. In my eyes, this alone is hugely discrediting. We were well aware due to testing of the scope of the destruction that would be caused, and I'm in agreement with the idea that to use them, then or now, was a crime against humanity. It was also certainly a war crime at the time, by resolution of the League of Nations precursor to the UN, of which the US was part Thank you for the correction here, u Dekuscrub and u Daedalus1907 . Point two The US has proved willing to enforce aspects of the Treaty On The Non Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons referenced hereafter as the NPT that have no enforcement clause, without UN consent. In fact, there is no enforcement clause within the NPT, and it does not qualify as international law. There is no international law against the possession of nuclear weapons though their use certainly continues to be a violation of international law. To my knowledge, the UN has also never resolved to actively enforce any aspect of the NPT at any time, partly because of internal politicking, but arguably largely because of the lack of an enforcement clause in the NPT beyond IAEA monitoring. To the best of my knowledge the Iraq War was the only conflict waged with this as a primary motive, and while not a truly unilateral action, the charge was certainly led by the US, as I mentioned, without UN approval Point three A Do as I say, not as I do policy approach. While perfectly happy to prevent another nation from having nuclear arms without the backing or permission of the recognized international body in charge of the issue, the US quietly flouts it obligations to the NPT concerning disarmament, in spirit when not in technical fact Point four Double standards. How many states have gone nuclear armed since the NPT was signed? How many of those instances has the US protested, or pointedly not protested? I don't have accurate information on this on the whole, so these aren't hypothetical questions, but I'm aware of one major unprotested NPT non signatory state that has acquired nearly arms Israel also clearly had and has the tacit approval of the US for it's nuclear arms. One could argue that NPT non signatories aren't obliged to be concerned with or restricted by the larger part of the world's agreement not to develop nuclear weapons technology. If this is the case, all any nation that wants nuclear weapons need do then, in order to freely develop it's own nuclear weapons, is withdraw from the treaty. I'm aware that there are rules concerning withdrawal, but just like the rest of it, they lack teeth. Other Thoughts The Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty is over 40 years old now. Some states with questionable compliance have experienced regime change between now and then. Non signatories have all gone ahead and pursued nuclear weapons, and now have them. A great number of the original signatories joined because they got something out of it non weaponized nuclear technology. They were also extremely enthusiastic about the idea of the existing nuclear weapon states disarming, which has failed to happen. We have less nuclear arms that are ready to deploy at the push of a button, but also newer, more effective ones. I have no references for the following thoughts, but have seen and heard things in articles and foreign newscasts which lead me to believe I'm right here Every nation in the world who thinks it might someday, within it's imaginable future, be under threat of foreign attack wants nuclear weapons. They've come to understand the value of it in international relations, and that it's the ultimate deterrent to attacks. Ownership of nukes equals true sovereignity over your own soil. They don't want anyone else to have them, though, because those things are dangerous. Everyone has a we can be trusted with it, but the other guys can't mentality. And some of those nations probably prefer other nations not have nuclear weapons because they don't want to be deterred if they find they have some key interest in picking a fight. I think this is definitely within the scope of America's foreign policy thinking. I know that I don't have all the facts here. ? Edit I removed the word hypocrisy from my point by point list. Some of these things may not have qualified accurately as hypocritical, though they do all relate to the credibility of the US on the subject of nuclear non proliferation and disarmament.","conclusion":"I believe that the US is neither credible nor trustworthy as a primary actor in matters of nuclear non-proliferation."}
{"id":"f8227b96-769f-4d5c-be00-91bc60453655","argument":"For background, yes I am upper middle class, but I did not grow up entitled to anything. Both my parents came from extreme poverty and were first in their families to attend college. My dad grew up on a diet of sugar sandwiches because bread and sugar were all he could afford my mom worked 3 part time jobs while commuting to college in order to pay her way through it. Because of their EXTREME hard work and sacrifices, I have been blessed to live a life where I did not have to be concerned about money. I realize this is an extreme blessing. However, I also never experienced a life of luxury. I am extremely frugal in all my purchases. I do not get luxury items like brand name clothes, or expensive electronics. I pay for all of my personal purchases on my own from my part time jobs, and contribute to my own rent. I will pay my parents back for college in small monthly amounts over a series of years with 0 interest. To me, paying full tuition for college in America approximately 55,000 60,000 per year, for 4 years, so at least 220,000 at minimum seems like a punishment for working goddamn hard and living responsibly. I think this is my view mostly because of the people I have met who admitted to me they receive financial aid, most of them fit the title description. One girl I know is receiving near full tuition from 'need based' financial aid. She also owns an iPhone, a high end laptop, and when she spilled soup into that laptop, she went out and bought a brand new iPad 2 at the time AND a new netbook to replace it. Her family also bought about 1000 worth in Coach products as christmas gifts. She doesn't work a part time job. I heard through the grapevine that she lied on her financial aid application and hid the entirety of her father's income. Her family is fully foreign FOBs and has a history of not paying their bills she told me she was supposed to go to court once and laughed about how no one in her family showed up because they just didn't want to pay . I have no idea what the fuck she thinks is okay and isn't but I absolutely hate how she doesn't have to pay for college while I do. Another girl I know buys designer clothes all the time. She recently spent nearly 1000 on shoes. And yet she gets about 90 discount in tuition due to need based grants NOT loans. To her credit, she does work a part time job. Another girl I know is super rich, but her parents recently sold their company so it looks like they are literally receiving 0 income. Somehow they are hiding their assets. She receives a huge amount in financial aid. Only one girl I know has a familial situation where she actually gets financial aid because she needs it single mother of 6 children yea, they need aid . But even she has loans, and she works 2 3 part time jobs during the semester. She doesn't own an iPhone, or an iPad, or fancy shit. She is as frugal as I am in purchases, limiting the amount of times we dine out, etc. I know these are all anecdotal but I can't shake the feeling that it's the norm, not the exception, that lazy, irresponsible, or straight up lying people are getting financial aid. I know this is an unhealthy point of view to hold, because it makes me really bitter at people when they tell me they receive aid, and I automatically judge them before I even hear their stories. It also incredibly pisses me off if they have iPhones or iPads, dunno why but that's the most annoying shit in the world. You can't afford college, but you can buy lavish electronics you do not need at all, purely to play angry birds on a larger screen? Fuck off. Please change my view. Tired of being bitter and judgmental.","conclusion":"I believe that paying full tuition for college is a punishment for hard work, sacrifice, and responsible living, and that the majority of financial aid recipients are either lazy, fiscally irresponsible, or liars."}
{"id":"ad44810e-ca0a-47df-82a9-4559d1e3b7dd","argument":"This debate about abortion is NEVER going to end. Ever. There will always be people that find abortion immoral which is acceptable IMO and who want to make it illegal which is not acceptable IMO . There will always be circumstances where pregnant women literally can't perform their job duties while pregnant if the jobs require physical labor . There will always be women who want to have biological children but do not want to be pregnant and give birth. There will always be this idea that women are really baby making machines I'm not saying many people have this opinion or have it consciously but it does exist . There will always be an extra risk to the woman's health if she procreates gives birth. Women and men will never be truly treated equally by the law and by culture until procreation is removed from the equation. Until we have the option of procreating by growing a biological child in a test tube and making ourselves permanently infertile in regards to pregnancy like removing all our eggs and storing them until we choose to use them for the test tube baby . Obviously we don't have the scientific or medical advancements to do this yet that's not the debate. I'm saying there won't be full gender equality until we are capable of choosing to grow a completely healthy baby in a test tube with no extra medical risk to the fetus or parents.","conclusion":"I don't believe we will ever have full gender equality until we have the option of procreating in a test tube."}
{"id":"f6c6cb7c-6b81-4b7b-8986-2679fa84ccc2","argument":"I've seen a few versions of the 'abortion should be legal'  on here and I haven't really chimed in. But I haven't seen my argument used here so I wanted to run it past the sub to see if it's sound. So here goes. I'm against abortion as a personal choice for myself but I also can't see how forcing a person into parenthood is a good idea. I'm a guy. I have two kids. And it's really tough sometimes. Especially early on. When an eight pound human is completely reliant on you for every basic, life sustaining function and you've had an average of three hours of sleep per day for a week, I don't know how you're going to find the will to provide proper care unless you're in it for the right reasons. And it goes beyond early care. Kids need a lot of interaction, discipline, resources, etc for years. It can feel like you're sacrificing everything to provide all of this at any given moment. How am I to believe a parent who never wanted a child to begin with is providing anything close to the necessary level of care? Further, how am I supposed to be ok with a child not receiving the proper care? Anecdotally, we've all heard stories of bad parents and we've all dealt with the resulting children. We all probably grew up with kids and can look back now and see that their fate was sealed by their parents. And presumably, at least some of those children's parents never even considered abortion. If parents who wanted kids can so reliably produce suboptimal results, what can we expect of the children of parents who didn't? Statistically, it's been shown that would be aborted children are more likely to commit crimes, go to prison, etc. Which would lead us to believe that they probably have worse life outcomes in general than wanted children. I don't know what philosophical space this stream of consciousness really occupies or if there are inconsistencies I'm not seeing. I just believe it's a simple reason to accept abortion for what it is. It's undesirable and uncomfortable. But parents who want an abortion are trying to tell us that they can't raise a child properly and I think we shouldn't force them to prove it.","conclusion":"Would-be aborted children are worse off being raised by parents who would have preferred to abort them."}
{"id":"28719b12-9240-4b01-a0c0-bf0d9230e260","argument":"Like any other reality TV show like American Idol, The Voice, or So You Think You Can Dance, The Bachelor Bachelorette is a show that involves eliminations after every week. However, the contestants are not competing with a certain talent they are competing for love. Due to this type of environment, \u201ctrue love\u201d is not the reason that the contestants want to stay. The reason that the contestants are so competitive is solely because they want to \u201cwin\u201d it rarely has anything to do with being in love with the bachelor or bachelorette. For example, this season on The Bachelor, one of the contestants Kelsey relays to the camera \u201cI am here to win it\u201d. The same goes for the viewer. Yes, the majority of viewers are probably females who love watching romantic comedies and shows like Gossip Girl I am guilty . But, viewers don\u2019t watch this show to gain experience on how to date. Clearly the show is nothing like real life. Would you jump off a 100 story building for your first date? Probably not. People watch the show for mere entertainment. They use the bachelor bachelorette as a guessing game to see who will last the longest. They end up loving the contestants with the least amount of drama with the other contestants in the show. But, how much of this drama is made up? After watching deleted scenes from this season\u2019s The Bachelor, it is evident that scenes are strategically left out in order to leave the viewer wondering why certain conclusions happen. For example, a meaningful conversation with contestant Whitney and Bachelor Chris that leads Chris giving her the rose at the end of the night is left out. Why? Well, who wants to watch a show that is predictable? Also, The Bachelor Bachelorette contains a 2 on 1 date every season, where two contestants go on a date with the bachelor bachelorette. Clearly, this type of situation would never occur in real life and does not benefit the contestants in getting closer to \u201ctrue love\u201d. Instead, this type of situation encourages the competition that accelerates the entire show and causes intense amounts of drama between the two contestants. People on the show get so wrapped up in the competition that they may mistake their fight to win with feelings of love. Lastly, there are always one or two contestants on the show that are seen as completely crazy and disliked by all viewers however, not necessarily from the very beginning. Why do they seem so crazy all of the sudden? What happened? Is it just that they know they are not in love with Chris, so they agree with the producers to exaggerate \u201ccrazy\u201d to create more drama on the show? This may sound unlikely but viewers have no idea what goes on behind the scenes. In my opinion, as a loyal viewer, the show is a mash up of fake drama, competition, and lack of true love that fuels its entertainment for viewers to play the guessing game. What are your thoughts?","conclusion":"The Bachelor\/Bachelorette is simply a guessing game."}
{"id":"4ac8f32e-5174-496f-ae6b-07e1d55616ff","argument":"In contrast, professional politicians have an incentive to stem the high costs of rational beliefs as their careers depend on a rational-acting image in the media.","conclusion":"According to the theory of Rational Irrationality voters adopt irrational beliefs as the costs of becoming informed time, mental effort exceed the benefits."}
{"id":"427b8c71-e85d-43ae-80fe-fd3b9dc7e003","argument":"There are trade schools and vocational schools to help wizards get accustomed to their jobs.","conclusion":"Wizards get specialized training for job positions after they leave school."}
{"id":"86800fe5-d242-481b-b54e-01191ef6712f","argument":"I believe that prostitution should be legalized, specifically in the entirety United States of America. With new movement and progressive ideals sweeping through the world, many individuals have adopted a mental attitude towards sexual expression following the lines of, As long as it doesn't hurt anyone, and all parties are consenting, then I have no problem with it. Legalized prostitution would ensure that both parties would always be consensual and thus would fulfill the criteria above. Furthermore, legalizing prostitution would allow for more regulation. I am envisioning this regulation to consist of licensing to prostitutes which can be revoke if drug use, stds, etc are detected. This would drastically reduce the spread of STDs from prostution. This is vital as the rates of STIs are from 5 to 60 times higher among sex workers than in general populations Legalizing prostitution would also drastically lower sex trafficking as people would much prefer to hire a regulated prostitute who is vetted to be safe than the opposite. Lastly, regulation also means tax, which would mean more money for the government. I don't have specific numbers, but if implemented properly, legalizing prostitution could net the government money. Edit 1 Many have pointed out that my initial claim that Legalizing prostitution would also drastically lower sex trafficking is not valid. Many sources have been thrown around and the only conclusion I draw from so many conflicting sources is that more research is needed into the topic. This is a reupload as a mod told me to resubmit this thread due to a late approval","conclusion":"Prostitution Should Be Legal"}
{"id":"03894865-14e1-49e0-be60-da3ff50e3a46","argument":"Third world countries use their low wage economy, to create jobs, and to strengthen their own economy.","conclusion":"The labor provided is generally beneficial to the workers and their communities."}
{"id":"79c9a15d-d3b1-4548-ad0e-1cd093b94365","argument":"I'm one of those crazies out of the austrian school, and i think that the federal reserve cannot raise interest rates without causing a crash because our 08 recession weakened economy has gotten addicted to cheap money and never got the chance to reset itself. yellen has over and over again said that they're just about to raise rates, and continually changes the parameters for what is required for a hike x unemployment rate , because every time we supposedly reach those parameters something else mysteriously comes up that makes things just too risky. they know that they can't raise the rates but they also cant ADMIT that they cant raise the rates, because the only thing keeping a real crash from happening are the rates being low coupled with investors thinking they won't be for long. imo there might be political reasons such as not wanting to allow a crash to happen during the obama presidency, as to maintain the illusion that he has improved the economy, but that's pure speculation. we've already had QE 1, 2, and 3, and i think 4 is just around the corner. i do my best to not just regurgitate what i hear, and for that reason i want someone to tell me why im wrong. EDIT removed declarations about unemployment measurement that i was incorrect about.","conclusion":"Janet Yellen has no intention of raising interest rates because they know they can't, but they must keep acting like they will to keep the bubble going."}
{"id":"ef268916-f3c4-47ee-8d7d-aadbf1aaa601","argument":"In the UK, there is a \"two-track system\" in the world of internships Sutton Trust, p. 47 The lower track consists of low quality unpaid internships where interns are doing necessary work, receive little training or development, and often end up in a cycle of multiple internships.","conclusion":"Often interns do not get hired by the company nor can they find a job, instead they have to do another unpaid internship."}
{"id":"340af483-9d5b-44c2-a2a2-e844a6f7248e","argument":"Prosperous countries should only welcome refugees if they share the country's values and are willing to play by its rules.","conclusion":"Refugee policy should be dictated by geographic distance and ethnic and cultural similarities, not wealth."}
{"id":"9cd1d725-7a5a-4e93-9c60-16edbeb5578b","argument":"It costs $3,000 a year to receive a fair trade certification. This means that even when poor farmers are able to pay these costs, the trade no longer remains profitable for them.","conclusion":"Fair trade is only profitable for traders in rich countries and richer farmers."}
{"id":"ea8eddae-6b37-41b6-9778-5b96e18a0fce","argument":"While a person's sex is determined by chromosomes, organs, hormones, etc., their gender is determined by the cultural meanings that are often inscribed to a particular sex.","conclusion":"The concept of gender describes the social and cultural meaning attached to men and women's roles, behavior and actitudes, which influences personal identities."}
{"id":"9853e690-22e8-482b-a081-b9536c2fd1d5","argument":"I've had this discussion a few times in various contexts lately, but basically I believe when one is deciding whether or not to commit a certain act, they should pay little credence to its legality assuming they think they can get away with it or that risk of punishment is small enough and should instead decide to proceed based on their own sense of morality. I don't believe that one should ever respect laws for their own sake, and so you shouldn't ever feel guilt JUST for breaking them. I know this might seem to give some 'wriggle room' for sociopaths and other deviants or just less nice people but then I'm not convinced that immoral people are particularly persuaded by legality anyway. This topic has come up when talking about the following subjects IRL Drug consumption Speeding Whistle blowing Small scale 'fraud' eg wriggling out of an overdue bill Parking in the disabled bay So I'm curious to see if Reddit can convince me of the inherent value of laws any better than my peers","conclusion":"I believe that 'it's illegal' isn't alone a good enough reason to avoid doing something. !"}
{"id":"90b4e215-8773-4e0d-a5a3-e1a795ff3947","argument":"No-platforming needs to be studied, not abandoned. Universities are a breeding grounds for both healthy and unhealthy ideas for society. Identifying patterns across universities for which issues warrant no-platforming would illuminate which specific ideas are considered too hateful for wide dissemination.","conclusion":"Universities should function as models for civic and civil discourse. Ideas which fall outside of the norms of proper civil discourse should be excluded from it."}
{"id":"989db8e6-9e7d-4e64-9d9d-3321487167e9","argument":"The constructed case with the bus is similar to a situation where after an earthquake, instead of helping people screaming from underneath the rubble, one were to go and instead save one's dog and leave those people to die.","conclusion":"Many will probably not be aware that they will be charged with failure to render assistance."}
{"id":"1c2a8346-bb49-4dca-8fb7-15df792cb846","argument":"Hola redditors. My view is that we should not be active against Climate Change. The Argument is split in two parts. . 1a Man made Global Warming is real. But not as terrible as Environmentalists make it out to be. For example, More than 99 percent of all species, amounting to over five billion species are already extinct Wikipedia. And most of it is attributed to extinction events , not Global Warming. Another point is that man only accelerates it a little without fundamental differences had it continued naturally. We may have helped the Coral Bays of Australia struggling right now, but without us they would struggle 100 years or so later as well. Either way, their fate is sealed. . . 1b Global Warming also has benefits Melting polecaps allow lots of monetary influx for companies and customers alike, ranging from quicker trans atlantic routes to more opportunity for cheaper regular ships as opposed to ice breakers. And ease of access to Antarctic oil reserves. Speaking of reserves, more land will sink and previously uninhabitable ice will turn aqueous, thereby granting fish whales more room to multiply. And thus make fishermen happy, make our bellys full with delicous seafood. . Perhaps the most common argument of Global Warming antagonists is ye olde Polar Bear going extinct. That is, at best, half the truth The other half is that they will live on by cross breeding with other bears and perform other adabtations. It is not perceptibly different from us Humans who evolved in Africa, some of whom wandered north and acquired lighter melanine levels of skin. The truth, Polar Bears will change fur color , is simply not as frightening as the fear mongers imply. On a similar note, Brown Bears are high priority in conservation . WWF And they will be more likely to be conserved now. Thank you, Global Warming . . . 2 Fighting Global Warming is not economical. Let's face it The changes proposed by environmentalists are are arduous in cost and effort. Just some of the required modification would be over one hundred Trillions in cost and I believe there are many more indirect expenses as a result, such as missing out awesome 3D I Phones because scientistic talent is wasted on fighting Global Warming instead. . Search your feelings Would you feel safer in a shorehouse with money spent adapting to consequences of Global Warming such as Tornado proof architecture, dams etc., or the same shorehouse without reinforcements but global temparature would be ~~one degree cooler. \u20acdit This has been an amazing time with lots of lengthy comments to wade through. As rebuttals and acknowledgements have been served, deltas awarded, it is time to retire. Thanks everyone for participation. As for my view, it has been changed insofar that I no longer see Global Cooling activists as useless. And while the work they do is not in my opinion better than pursuing any other helpful deed, battling Climate Change is useful too. My advice to Hippies is not to overdo the activism. Doing so will not cause the earth to go more green. It will cause counter movements against rampart environmentalism such as Rolling Coal Peace out.","conclusion":"We should not fight Global Warming"}
{"id":"12f7af70-0a68-43fa-8326-58ba98bb7152","argument":"This idea has come out of watching the BBC hospital episode that came out recently. At the moment we under fund our NHS. against most other rich countries we spend a lower of gdp , less then France, Germany and most of our European partners. If we want a great NHS we have to find ways to fund it more. We have we have NHS hospitals doing private work for insurance companies we do this to fund our NHS already BUT there their is a middle man that takes money from the customer. My suggestion is that you would have a NHS bronze , silver and gold packages that effectively you use instead of buying medical insurance. These would provide a better then normal service. as an example bronze you get no special medicine but are guaranteed a private room if you ever needed hospital. You could in the future use tax incentives to push more private work to the NHS to ensure it stays at capacity. The NHS has great brand recognition and would likely be able to use this to its advantage getting good value for tax payers in the private market. Aslong as the current level of NHS spending isn't reduced it will increase the overall budget all of which will mean those with no package get better treatment. Everything would still be free as it is now just you can pay more if you want to. I understand why it sounds unpopular as people like to compare their treatment to others rather then against what it would have had but putting the emotion aside I think it seems to make sense.","conclusion":"Britain should have a tiered NHS"}
{"id":"550e9cb1-7f52-4d55-8275-06b882eccadd","argument":"The more money someone has, the more they can improve other people's lives, and the more people they can help. In order to maximize the impact of one's donation, therefore, one should donate as much money as possible. It is widely accepted, however, that having money makes making more money easier, even if it's just a bank giving one more money because one has more in one's savings account. This then means that one should get more money in order to get more money in order to get more money I honestly don't see a plateu here where getting even more money would not make a difference to the number of people helped or help one's earning power to increase the amount of money one has available to help other people. So as long as one's moneymaking methods are helped by keeping as much cash as possible and their earnings rate exceeds inflation, they should keep their money. ?","conclusion":"The most ethical thing one can do with one's money is hoard it."}
{"id":"d1235a14-2433-4e62-9d9e-42ab2a64e065","argument":"In college, both teams get the chance to possess the ball, and if it's tied after two possessions apiece, a 2 pt conversion attempt must follow all touchdowns. If the second team fails to answer the first team's scoring, then the game ends, as it should. However, in NFL, if the first team to possess scores a touchdown, the game ends automatically, and the other team is left in the dust without a chance to possess. I liken it to extra innings in baseball If you give up a home run in the top of the 10th inning, the game doesn't automatically end, does it? No, you've got to play defense as well, and shut down the opposition. There are two sides to every game, offense and defense, and you should have to execute at both if you want to win the game. Therefore, I believe that the college rules should be implemented in the NFL.","conclusion":"College football overtime rules are vastly superior to NFL overtime rules."}
{"id":"cf6121ba-ef97-4229-aa09-154630337c50","argument":"I am 6'1 and find flying incredibly uncomfortable due to inconsiderate people who just slam their seat back with no concern for the person behind them. People doing so causes a whole host of problems. First, airplane seats are an incredibly limited space and the person in front of me shouldn't be able to encroach on my space. I am the type of person who likes to put my head on the tray tab and catch an hour or so nap while in the air. When someone reclines their seat, my head is in the way and causes them to jam into me. Typically the person tries again to recline their seat, but harder this time, causing me to be hit in the head again. If I am deep asleep it can be several seconds for me to comprehend what happened, resulting in 4 5 blows to the head before I can move. Even if I am not resting my head on the tray table, it makes it difficult for me to get up should I need to go to the bathroom or let the person next to me out. Space on an airplane is at a premium. The charge to sit in the exit row first row in cabin is high. Therefore I should be entitled to my space that I purchased. Secondly, if the person does it hard violently enough, it can knock items off my tray table out of my hand. Recently I was on a flight and had my soda in the cup holder indent on the tray table and a book out in front of me. The person in front of me slammed their seat back and knocked my soda over not that I mind it ruining the book, it was a print off of a tax procedure textbook . I will accept some share of the blame as I had my soda in a cup slightly larger than the typical airline cup maybe 2.5 inches tall but not by much. I have also had books I was holding up be knocked out of my hand if I didn't have a good grip, such as when I was turning the page. Overall it is just inconsiderate for people to recline their seats on the plane. The benefit a person receives by being reclined that 15 degrees more is much smaller than the cost for the person behind them. The vast majority of travellers don't recline their seats for these reasons and probably more that I didn't cover. Those that do recline their seat don't care about the overall utility, just their personal utility. Flying would be more enjoyable overall if seats didn't recline. To address a couple counterpoints I know of, 1 I am still in law school and so cannot afford to pay for an exit row, let alone first class. 2 If it is physically necessary for you to encroach upon someone's space then I do not have a problem. There is a debate about whether severely obese people should be required to buy two seats that I frankly don't want to be involved in. I think there is a line there where if you are wider than the seat by x amount then it is not fair to the person sitting next to you but that is a question for another day. 3 I am not advocating that we force airlines to have seats that don't recline. It would be incredibly cost prohibitive to retrofit all of the current planes in the air. I am also not a fan of government mandating how a company functions. This is just my ideal future and companies made the switch due to the market preferring it, not government demanding it. 4 I have heard people say just to recline my seat and then I'll have the same amount of space. This doesn't work however because not all seats recline, such as the seats in front of an exit row or the last row of seats on the plane. Are these people just SOL? All airplanes have seats that recline and I am wondering if it is that way because that's just the way it has been and they don't see the need to change it or because I am in the minority in preferring they not recline. Thanks.","conclusion":"Airline seats should not recline"}
{"id":"f51c6967-ffe0-4cee-af10-6dfbe1af2ab6","argument":"My view is that, in the future approx. 1000 years any talk or concern about being a specific skin colour will be eradicated or very rare. The two main reasons being Assuming cybernetics has gotten far enough, people will be fusing themselves with machines. And the conversation will no longer be this person is a certain skin colour. It will be, this person is a cyborg. Skin colour will no longer be part of the equation. By this point in time, the technology should exist to be put into a cyborg body of any appearance you desire. The only thing that will matter in that point of time is, whether or not you are in a human body. By this point in time, many races would have mixed over generations making the majority of people a beige colour. This will most likely be the accepted norm. People will probably worry less about the colour of their skin since most people will look essentially the same.","conclusion":"In the future, skin colour will be irrelevant"}
{"id":"8dcd0f2a-b57c-4da7-a31d-4f7d9334cd9b","argument":"Many companies use unpaid internships to have employees for a pre-determined of time, then don't offer a job to the worker once their contract is complete. They will then hire a new intern to essentially have a permanent position filled without needing to pay for the role.","conclusion":"Unpaid internships are an unfair way to replace paid workers."}
{"id":"479fb429-4219-4700-9b32-8b17864639db","argument":"Socially, we allow people to engage in behaviors and activities as long as they don't actively harm someone.","conclusion":"Sled dog racing is the fulfillment of the musher's right to the pursuit of happiness."}
{"id":"d54c3e10-3303-44e1-bc66-124047b9e582","argument":"Like many people, I've been saddened and disgusted by the recent events regarding South Carolina and the shooting that took place there. From the beginning, it was very apparent that this was a hate crime carried out by a man that wanted to divide people and make them hate one another, and the predictable divisive news coverage that followed which has used rhetoric to divide people could prove that Dylann Roof has in some way succeeded with his goal. Dylann Roof is an obvious racist. His recently discovered writings plainly state that he was for segregation, believed whites to be superior to blacks, and has enough venomous racial slurs to make it impossible for anyone to see otherwise. However, looking into his writings reveals more. Roof claims he was not raised in a racist home or environment also expresses frustration that other white people don't think like him, that they have been brainwashed or are in denial of their racial superiority. gt I was not raised in a racist home or environment. Living in the South, almost every White person has a small amount of racial awareness, simply beause sic of the numbers of negroes in this part of the country. I hate with a passion the whole idea of the suburbs. To me it represents nothing but scared White people running. Running because they are too weak, scared, and brainwashed to fight. He is plainly saying that the problem with America, particularly the South, is that it's not racist, or at least not racist enough for him. He also states that the schools have brainwashed people to reject white nationalism as shown below. gt In a modern history class it is always emphasized that, when talking about \u201cbad\u201d things Whites have done in history, they were White. But when we lern sic about the numerous, almost countless wonderful things Whites have done, it is never pointed out that these people were White. Yet when we learn about anything important done by a black person in history, it is always pointed out repeatedly that they were black. For example when we learn about how George Washington carver was the first nigger smart enough to open a peanut. I bring that point up because Roof was not only a high school dropout, but an extreme introvert. Family members stated that Roof didn't have a job or a driver's license because and spent most of his time in his room. gt Roof's uncle recalled telling his sister, the suspect's mother, several years ago that he was worried about Roof, and that the quiet, soft spoken boy was too introverted. I said he was like 19 years old, he still didn't have a job, a driver's licence or anything like that and he just stayed in his room a lot of the time, Cowles said in a telephone interview. Any psychology book will tell you that racism is in part caused by a lack of interaction with other races and a lack of education. Most hardcore racists in modern times are shown to be separated from mainstream society and stick to exclusive groups, rejecting things like public schooling which could brainwash people. The reason Roof saw things so differently than his peers much to his frustration was because he did not interact with blacks and instead got his ideas from underground racist websites as shown below. gt But more importantly this prompted me to type in the words \u201cblack on White crime\u201d into Google, and I have never been the same since that day. The first website I came to was the Council of Conservative Citizens. There were pages upon pages of these brutal black on White murders. I was in disbelief. One of the reasons I believe America is not a mainstream racist society like it was during Jim Crow is because of the desegregation of public schools and other public areas. This led to a strong majority of society having to interact with other races for the first time instead of staying in tight knit social circles. Roof, unlike his peers, chose to separate himself from people, so a racist viewpoint soon followed. Obviously there are still racists out there and the fact that there are even a minority of them causes problems since it only takes one to do damage like Roof did, but I don't believe it's correct to imply that the Charleston shootings were the result of a mainstream culture, which is what most of the media has been focusing on, even going so far as to imply that the sight of the confederate flag or streets named after confederate soldiers somehow makes people violently racist. The facts seem to point to a person who was disconnected from the mainstream south, not a product of it. If we really want to get down to what causes modern racism, we need to focus on that. Blame the underground society that holds onto these beliefs, not the mainstream that clearly doesn't. .","conclusion":"Dylann Roof's actions are not evidence for a racist mainstream culture in the South."}
{"id":"174e412c-104e-43fd-bf6d-8eea7cc6f82f","argument":"There is no reason to respect a death row inmate's wishes as they have violated other people's rights.","conclusion":"Death row inmates should be required to donate their organs upon their death."}
{"id":"be0dc540-8381-448d-9eba-7ad89be57e1c","argument":"A study found that people who consulted astrologers did so in response to stressors in their lives. This suggests that it helped them cope with the problems they were facing.","conclusion":"The persistence of astrology over the years suggests that it adds value to people's lives."}
{"id":"2df4826c-a46e-413b-b0a6-3ba0c702d36f","argument":"In Australia, in the years 2001, 2004, and 2007, the House of Representatives elected with IRV had zero third party wins out of 450. www.rangevoting.org","conclusion":"Except that its use has shown time and time again many problems like Spoilers and Two Party Domination. It is \"tried-and-false\"."}
{"id":"c4cf36a1-41df-4aef-85f2-36848b63e005","argument":"Even in monospaced fonts, double spaces can still be distracting or annoying simply because of the amount of space they take up, and because the correct meaning can usually still be derived with single spacing.","conclusion":"Using 2 spaces is distracting, therefore reducing readability, on modern formatting systems."}
{"id":"2a5289aa-2dd1-44ed-97ce-e0715a63acfe","argument":"Schools owe their students a duty of care and should not act in a manner which allows children to be harmed.","conclusion":"Schools should be responsible for all the students' safety and they should minimise an obvious risk however possible."}
{"id":"1e65b663-906a-4558-8ed7-bd4e0b39c86f","argument":"Disclaimer, I am not trying to exclude things from the art camp to trash on them. Its not about that. I think there are a lot of beautiful and wonderful things out there that 99 of you would not consider art even with a more standard definition. It is not about that. A generally accepted definition of art is, well, anything can be art if people choose to call it that Ok that may be true, but I don\u2019t think it is a very interesting answer. And if that is the correct definition, then I think we need a new word Simple Explanation Basically according to my definition, anything that can be mass produced is not art. Explaining with a long example Interestingly, according to my definition. A grain of sand is on its own definitely not art because it was created through natural processes with no intent. But, if a human, lets call her Sally, was to take a grain of sand and put it on a piece of paper and say that symbolizes our planet then that WOULD be art. But, lets say Joe see\u2019s Sally\u2019s artwork and decides to copy it, in my opinion that would no longer be art. This is because you could at this point, have a simple factory that could output grains of sand on paper thus no longer following the definition. In this case, it was the idea in the first place that was the Art. But, we stand on the shoulder\u2019s of giants and nobody functions in a complete vacuum. I think combining things in creative ways is also Art. So if Bob see\u2019s Joe\u2019s mass produced sand on paper artworks but this time decides to put 8 grains of different sized sand and say that it now symbolizes the solar system, that would be art It is bringing something new to the piece that nobody had put into instructions yet. Ok, now Joe see\u2019s this and gets a grand idea He updates is factory to be able to take any image of any solar system or celestial body, choose pieces of sand that roughly correspond to the planets sizes and put them at scale distances on a randomly colored paper background. His factory starts outputting thousands of these pieces, none of which are exactly a like. Are each one of these pieces of art? NO. Is Joe\u2019s technique for creating them art? YES. Other implications of this definition Things that are art that aren\u2019t commonly considered such All mathematical proofs are art. EDIT actually only those that are not computable, thanks to a commenter pointing that out. A legal closing argument is art Anything that is not computable is art How an athlete scored a specific goal is art Most pieces of software Patents Things that are commonly considered art that no longer would be so splatter paintings and more broadly any technique that you are copying that relies on randomness creating any craft from instructions. This could include a chair, a cake, a painting, a statue, a lego set. Photography without any intent behind it. Interestingly, it would seem that it is the intent, or cohesiveness of a photography collection that would make it art. photo realistic paintings Other thoughts At the end of the day, this is a semantic argument, so perhaps trying to attach the word \u201cart\u201d to my definition is a lost cause. But I am defining something, and to me it does seem to correlate very nicely with what I would consider Art to be. The fact that this definition is about what is not computable seems really cool. It would imply that Art is information which is brought into this world that has such a minuscule chance of existing that it is all precious and sacred. Art by definition cannot be mass produced.","conclusion":"The definition of Art should be \"Anything that cannot be created by following an algorithm. Or in other words\u2026 I guess anything that is not computable?\""}
{"id":"1b2d3580-a98e-416d-af2a-90413718d65c","argument":"This is only if a person is doing it for ethical reasons, and not for dietary purposes. Usually people that refuse to eat eggs from an ethical stand point are vegan, so I will be referring to people who don't eat eggs as vegan from now on. The P.E.T.A website does not discriminate between those who choose pro life or pro choice, so from their point of view, it doesn't matter where you stand on the matter. Source However, anyone who is a true vegan would have to completely give up eating eggs. So, why would a vegan refuse to eat an egg, but be fine with terminating a fetus? A vegan forum I read said that one reason for not eating eggs was because they contain animal tissue. Source Well, fetuses contain animal tissue as well. In fact, that's what a fetus mostly is. Tissue. Just because you're not eating it, doesn't mean that it's not killing it. Hopefully there are some vegans on here that are pro choice that can tell me why it's okay to be pro choice and be a vegan.","conclusion":"It's completely hypocritical to be pro-choice and refuse to eat eggs."}
{"id":"893cb8a0-2cb9-401f-acc0-1378ea3b2fa8","argument":"Equally, teaching children that evolution is true, without allowing critical thought, could be called indoctrination.","conclusion":"There is a difference between teaching creationism and indoctrinating creationism."}
{"id":"b99cb585-8202-4346-9d64-c52a3a6af5bc","argument":"In biology, an organism is any contiguous living system such as animal, fungus, micro organism, or plant . In at least some form, all types of organisms are capable of responding to stimuli, reproduction, growth and development, and maintenance of homeostasis as a stable whole. However it is easy to see that we cannot live without the bacteria in our stomach to digest food or act as one of our first layers against disease. If we cannot live without them, and they cannot live without, why would we define them as a separate organism or species? If it's because of cell membranes and individual reproduction why do we not also mitochondria as a separate species? Does it matter what side of the membrane it is on? Examples of this go on and on. At what point do we draw the line from individual organism, and symbiotic relationship? Especially when it comes to the wasp that has a virus in it's DNA that helps it reproduce? No organism can exist without other organisms interacting with it, so isn't organism and species a completely false and misleading term to describe how nature actually works and interacts with itself?","conclusion":"I don't believe organisms or species really exist and they are a false dichotomy."}
{"id":"63a6372d-51c5-401e-904b-a4c0ce96ec37","argument":"Two Australian retail chains removed the video game Grand Theft Auto V from sale in its stores after complaints that the game encourages players to murder women for entertainment, to commit sexual violence against women, and then abuse or kill them to proceed or get 'health' points. Such acts should not be allowed in virtual realities either.","conclusion":"Depiction of graphic violence and misogyny have often been restricted."}
{"id":"d9e083b3-5148-41d0-9981-c2d2f6c7aaff","argument":"It is a fact that being addicted to drugs has more to do with your psychological weakness rather than any having evil intent or malice. I fail to understand in what way it is a crime when it is only an individual falling prey to their own mental weakness. In a case of drug addiction, a person needs therapy not a jail cell. There are two types of crime One is when you try to harm others murder, rape etc and other is when you try to do something with is unfair to others tax evasion, fraud . In a drug addiction, no one is getting hurt but yourself and it is only because of a internal short comings where your body is merely responding to withdrawals. There is no ill will, there is no spite, there is no malice. It is only a matter of trying to improve their own health which has caused them to turn out this way.","conclusion":"All cases of drug addiction should be treated as medical cases and should have zero legal consequences."}
{"id":"6e88ead5-b1c0-417e-a3f0-843401f50cbf","argument":"Higher-paid individuals may not have the best interests of society at heart. They may put their taxes into causes that benefit themselves, reducing taxation's function as a redistribution mechanism.","conclusion":"This would give those who earn a higher income more say over the political process, eroding the principle of one vote per person."}
{"id":"58cfc2b9-40b8-4c55-9eaa-c12adfe6cc23","argument":"After being heavily criticised for its involvement with US intelligence services, Twitter publicly announced it would not let the CIA access its users' information any longer.","conclusion":"Facebook and Twitter are powerful commercial actors that can stand up to government pressure if they decide to do so."}
{"id":"6e4e340f-ee28-46ca-9213-6897fba6bdde","argument":"By empowering the United Nations and possibly funding a UN army, the burden would be shifted from the USA to the UN and will be managed in a more neutral and fair way. This would also help address the burning question of UN reform and UN legitimacy in the post-Cold War era.","conclusion":"The Tobin Tax would ease the international relief, aid and intervention burden that usually falls on the United States\u2019 shoulders:"}
{"id":"1a108854-7bdd-4b60-94d5-b64056749f2c","argument":"Why should a country be chastised for not taking in a group of people that has proven dangerous in the past. People always bring up the KKK and WBC, yet they're fueled by racism and homophobia respectively, not their religion. There's no room for empathy when it comes to politics. So what is the BENEFIT of taking in a certain group of people? If you want to succeed as a country, you should worry about what you're getting out of things. So why should the US be chastised for enacting a Muslim ban? gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"No country should have to take in ANY forms of immigrants."}
{"id":"72db3e10-5322-488d-968a-e28452d59e43","argument":"I keep seeing comments along the lines of if Sanders doesn't win, then vote Clinton . This is justified by saying it will split the vote and then the republicans will pick the Supreme Court justices. Which would probably be bad. My issue is that the only reason we are faced with that problem is that our voting system is flawed. Until that is fixed, we will continue to be faced with a similar issue every 2 4 years. If we continue to prioritize short term tactical issues over systemic reform, we will always end up with a suboptimal outcome for a single, identifiable reason. It may hurt to rip off the bandaid. But it needs to come off and it won't hurt any less tomorrow and could very well hurt more. What is holding us back right now is first mover bias. No one is willing to vote independent because no one is willing to vote independent. If there was a stronger movement to vote third party, it would be more appealing to do so. It looks a lot like the early labor movement. The conditions for workers were clearly awful. Coal miners, for instance, were screwed every was possible. Even people that dislike unions should be able to see that the result was better than the oppressive sweat shops that existed before that. Case in point the company store. Unapologetic indentured servitude. Many people were angry about it. But anyone that tried to do anything would be fired or worse unless enough people worked together to take advantage of collective bargaining. To get that many people, you need to prove that you can get that many people. Catch 22. I am fully aware that my vote would be very unlikely to result in a win for a third party candidate. But a winning candidate is not the only way for one's vote to have an effect. Even a vote for a candidate that loses becomes a statistic that can be used to sway future voters. And a third party candidate wouldn't even have to win to lead to change. Just a large enough portion to be difficult to ignore. In this respect, the spoiler effect could even be beneficial. Because it illustrates exactly what is wrong with the current system and would get many people's attention. Why am I wrong? Edit sorry for the break. I was at it for a few hours last night, but a man's gotta sleep and work and stuff. I'll try to respond to everyone, but it's hard to keep up with. Edit 2 after some thought I have realized that my issue isn't necessarily with FPTP voting. If the optimal strategy for elections is a modified FPTP system, then I want that one. But I do not believe that the best strategy is one where two self interested private entities that are both funded by the same massive corporations get to effectively decide half of the reasonable options for governance in the U.S. I'm not sure if I should award deltas to anyone in particular. I still believe that the optimal strategy when neither party and both parties collectively act against our interests is to vote third party with the intention of restructuring the system in such a way that we can hold them more accountable. A vote for either party maintains the status quo. And a nonvote marks you as someone that can't be relied on to put in the effort to support a candidate.","conclusion":"If neither of the major party nominees support an alternative to FPTP voting in the upcoming U.S. presidential election, I will vote third party."}
{"id":"96e2c9b4-ca1b-4c44-8d25-96ddf72f5789","argument":"The Non Aggression Principle is a Libertarian idea that says any aggressing individual must pay for his aggressions. Aggressions are physical contact, pollution, trespassing, theft, etc. The NAP can also be used to apply economic pressure towards sustainability. Pollution is an aggression, obviously, so it becomes expensive to pollute. Since all companies and individuals desire profit they will try to avoid the costs of polluting. Similarly, if we consider the harvesting, destruction, and consumption of natural resources as an aggression we can apply this same economic pressure to not only lower pollution but to also lower environmental destruction. The more an individual destroys the environment the more they have to pay for their aggression. These costs can be determined by the free market so higher demand environments will cost a lot to use but low demand environments like the Moon will cost less to use. This also means that Nestle would have to pay for all the fresh water they harvest because natural water is a natural resource. A company that buys urine and purifies it into pure water though would be using man made resources and thus not be aggressing except for the land the factory is sitting on, waste, sound pollution, etc . So I'm asking if applying the NAP in such a manner would pressure humanity into sustainability naturally without having to rely on arbitrary laws or corrupt politicians.","conclusion":"Consumption of natural resources is aggression."}
{"id":"35a4a3b3-d995-4995-a668-604749a10f9a","argument":"If every nation had a large nuclear arsenal, and was willing to use it if they were invaded, than no one would ever invade anyone else because of mutually assured destruction In the Cold War the USA and USSR both hated each other, but they knew if they went to war nukes would start flying and both sides would be destroyed. The same happened with Pakistan and India, they both hated each other, and fought several wars, but once they both got nukes, they stopped fighting because they knew it wasn\u2019t worth the cost of being nuked. When a nation has nuclear capabilities, no one invades them. If everyone had nuclear capabilities, than no one would ever invade anyone else because of mutually assured destruction. Edit I never said we should start giving away free nukes to all who want them. We especially don't want our enemies to have nukes, do we?","conclusion":"Nuclear weapons could end warfare, at least between nation states."}
{"id":"51c16ed4-96ec-4723-8d22-bd93c556b149","argument":"Let's assume we're talking about the Christian tradition here. I don't believe in hell. But if I thought that hell was actually a literally real place where, according to my behavior in life, I might be tortured for eternity, I would live my life in a very, very different way. I wouldn't just bank on getting into heaven, saying eh, I'm probably being a decent enough guy. I would give all my money to the poor and dedicate my life to helping those in need. And that wouldn't be a difficult decision at all. It would be a no brainer. So these people that say they believe in hell, yet go about their lives much like I do not doing EVIL things but focusing on wealth, having premarital sex, enjoying idle pleasures instead of contributing meaningfully to the world, etc etc can't REALLY believe there's a danger of going to hell, right? At the very least, they probably doubt enough to say yeah, my religion says there's a hell, but just in case it's all nonsense, I'm gonna live it up while I'm here.","conclusion":"I'm pretty sure that almost nobody ACTUALLY believes in hell."}
{"id":"fb400ecd-dede-4239-a6ce-fe683b785caf","argument":"The government should mandate companies ie appliances to provide at least a 10 year or more warranty depending on the device. It is very frustrating to purchase anything and when you are at the register they ask if you would like to purchase a warranty. Why should I buy a warranty why don't the companies stand behind their product. I do not understand why these companies are not held accountable for their products. Years ago, you could buy a refrigerator that would last a life time and now you are lucky if it last 5 10 years. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"there should be new regulation on manufacture warranties for consumer protection"}
{"id":"445bd669-40e3-4b9c-bdfa-95445219df78","argument":"Studies on the use of laptops with programs designed for use in classes indicate that students perceive them to improve the student-teacher relationship Shaw et al., p. 9","conclusion":"Laptops allow for more effective and engaging forms of tuition."}
{"id":"58c363ac-0f14-4ac0-984d-ad2d295b9176","argument":"This question concerns the injustice in the manner in which the 'plastic' credit banking system is funded. Commercial law, as written, permits the fees for the system to be charged to the retailer, who takes them as a business expense which is reflected in his retail pricing. Those fees then effectively represent a hidden surcharge on all retail transactions whether they use the system or not. They are in effect, a sales tax on the entire retail economy, levied, not by any Government, but by commercial institutions. Hidden fees such as this have always been considered 'sharp practice', unethical, at best. To make matters worse, the card issuers are now offering promotional rebates, in effect 'giving back' part of the money they get from those who use cash, to those who actually use the service. This clearly victimizes those who don't, or can't, use the system, often those most in need . A large part of the cost of the system is due to the high level of fraud it permits and the banks have little incentive to improve that situation because they just pass on the cost in the unfair fee structure already described. Those who don't or can't use 'plastic are clearly being victimized, deprived of money for no benefit received.","conclusion":"on the exploitative nature of this Commercial Law."}
{"id":"6fa98cb5-d838-4e05-9675-3361887247c9","argument":"Evolution shows us that animals need to use it or lose it e.g. birds becoming flightless when predators are not present Current technological advances automation, the internet, soon to be self driving cars mean that humans do not have to think as critically as they once did, knowledge is presented and consumed, and as long as it comes from an authority figure it is believed e.g. anti vaccine movement . I believe the Flynn effect is not completely understood, and more likely points to our ability to teach kids how to answer IQ tests improving, rather than IQ itself increasing. We're teaching children how to guess the teacher's password rather than teaching them how to think. With this in mind, I think humanity faces a use it or lose it scenario with regards to our brains. Due to a confluence of factors, for example technology, welfare, and entertainment, humans do not need to use their brains as much as they did in the past. I do not wish to believe this, and I feel I may have a misunderstanding of evolution in this case, so please, .","conclusion":"Humans are at risk for an idiocracy-type future due to inevitable consequences of evolution."}
{"id":"c25d5418-d57b-4bf1-980a-440892c0539c","argument":"A separation of Church and state necessitates that public schools not be a forum for upholding the validity or truth of certain faiths. This does not necessarily mean that Christian faith and \"creationism\" should not be taught as subjects of interest in public schools.","conclusion":"Allowing creationism in schools would violate the separation of church and state"}
{"id":"116653bc-3679-41f8-9c0b-a12637a5fcf1","argument":"In a survey conducted in April 2017, majorities in both political parties said they favored maintaining or increasing spending in nearly all of the 14 specific budget areas that respondents were asked about. There is little public appetite for government cuts.","conclusion":"The Republican party is a party that wants to cut back on governmental programs, an intellectual disposition that makes passing legislation incredibly difficult"}
{"id":"f1b4a1d4-544f-437d-8fe3-d880a27880f6","argument":"Given current theories money always chooses the best options to be with\/goes there where it is used best, thus it is better in the hand of people knowing how to accumulate money, than is in the hand of a inefficient government or investments with being at risk of getting lost.","conclusion":"By the same token this money can just go in the pockets of somehow being able by position, opportunity, etc. to put it there without any trace and shrinks investments but fills private pockets."}
{"id":"4db5fc7b-8c96-4aeb-86e9-612d89501956","argument":"Many genetic studies require going through multiple generations. A human generation lasts 20 or so years. Assuming you could convince each and every successive women from each family to be inseminated by another research subject, it would still take you over 100 years to do a five generations study, compared to the one year it would take to do the study in mice.","conclusion":"Mice are a much more practical for genetic research than humans."}
{"id":"7e537f35-13b6-42b2-9c0c-19437b4f5eb7","argument":"I'm sorry. I understand that about half the people in this website suffer from depression, be it clinical or whatever. Though I won't go into details, my life has not been good, or happy. Yet I manage to strive and pull through, trying to make my life better by working instead of wishing. I'm not depressed even though life has been an absolute cunt to me. I hope you understand I'm not trying to be arrogant, it's just that I constantly see this whole depression thing as, well, an excuse. I began taking it seriously when I started browsing reddit, but after being in this site for a little more than a couple of years this isn't my main account I've realized MOST popular points or view read circlejerk materia, including r circlejerk are fucking retarded. Economics, politics and other issued are seen in such a simplistic manner that I've been lead to believe that depression is just another of those ideas. Can someone, ideally who doesn't currently suffer from depression explain this to me? Remember I'm actively trying to change this idea in my head. I want to be able to sympathize.","conclusion":"I think depression is bullshit."}
{"id":"1f1eb15e-09fe-43e8-8a6e-1d176d9a802e","argument":"I believe abortion is immoral and should not be legal in the United States, or anywhere for that matter. Firstly, I hate the terms pro choice and pro life. I think they they are propoganda terms to a certain extent, but this is beside the point. On a side note, This is my first , if you haven't noticed I'm using a throw away until I get the hang of things. So please take it easy on me as I try to convey my thoughts Just doing a quick Google of the definition of life, I got the condition that distinguishes animals and plants from inorganic matter, including the capacity for growth, reproduction, functional activity, and continual change preceding death. This is where I will state the main crux of my belief I do not believe that anyone has the right to kill any potential human life simply because it is not their life to take. I believe that abortion is immoral in the same way that murder is illegal, no one has the right to claim a human life that is not their own. I do not know where life begins, but as of now I believe that life begins at conception fertilization with the creation of the zygote. Not only does this fit the definition of life stated above, but it seems to be the only absolute marker for where life can begin. A zygote has capacity for growth, reproduction, functional activity, and continual change. If the zygote is killed, then there is no longer any potential for a human to be born. I believe that fertilization is the earliest creation of a human, and that the definition of human life should start here. Something interesting in the American court system is the existence of feticide laws, or laws that protect unborn fetuses. In at least 38 states and arguably more , there are laws in place thaf essentially define them as human life. For example, a murder of a pregnant woman in Arizona would allow the murderer to be charged with two murders, with no restrictions on how young the fetus may be. While this does vary from state to state, I find it very interesting that the majority of states do have laws protecting the rights of someone taking the life of a potential human, who is not the mother. I do not think the mother of a fetus has any special privilege to kill a fetus any more than a random man has a right to kill her fetus. A human life cannot truly be owned by another human. I'll stop here so people can try to . Reading over it, I feel like my thoughts are jumping all over the place, so I'll rely on comments for the majority of conversation. I'm excited to get back some responses","conclusion":"Abortion is immoral and should not be legal"}
{"id":"a6ed4885-13f6-4fbf-adc9-93923d020290","argument":"Let me make this clear from the start. I absolutely feel that wages need to increase in this country USA . I do think that a person should be able to work a minimum wage job and live comfortably. I am strictly arguing the popular 15 hr for all is not the best method to approach the problem. Here are the reasons why people are demanding a 15 hr minimum wage minimum wage has not kept up with inflation the last minimum wage increase was nearly 10 years ago the current minimum wage is not enough to afford a home rent cost of living those being paid minimum wage often have to work multiple jobs to make ends meet Here is why I think raising minimum wage to 15 is not a great solution this will strongly encourage companies to implement machines robots to replace low paying jobs. It's already a problem in places like McDonalds, but it will only be exacerbated by this sudden wage increase. those who strongly believe in 15 hr minimum wage think that their job will be safe and it will be jobs of other people that will be let go. By simple mathematical deduction we know this wont be the case. the businesses hurt the most by this are small to medium size companies, local restaurants, and mom and pop shops. Big corporations are able to withstand the blow to their bottom line and can persevere. the middle class will become even smaller. It's tough enough having the wealthy shit on the entire country with their power and influence in the current political landscape, now the lower class is cutting the middle class at the knees. Essentially, everyone in the middle class will immediately be devalued, while the upper class will continue to loom over us all. a broad stroke solution doesn't fit in all cities, counties, and metro areas. Small towns will collapse under the economic pressure. My proposed solution Minimum wage for a city should be a mandated percentage of the cost of living for a city or county. For example, if in a city the average cost of rent is 1000 mo and the average mortgage is 600 mo, with essential utilities and food costs an additional 500. For this particular city, cost of living is 1300. The minimum wage should be 1 of the cost of living. In this case 13 hr. This will earn someone roughly 1700 per month after taxes. Very doable if you have dual income household. In another city where the cost of living is lower, like 900 mo, the minimum wage will be 9 hr. This is just a proposed idea and not the crux of my argument. The point I'm making is that a more calculated and precise method of wage increase needs to be implemented. Please","conclusion":"raising minimum wage to $15\/hr is not the best way to solve the wage gap issue"}
{"id":"0cb56a13-c5a5-46ba-bc26-e5e9a8114a55","argument":"Europe has put Austerity policies into place that are destroying their economy. Austerity is usually considered a conservative tactic republicans promote it in the US . They are facing deflation and refuse to use government intervention to save their economy. This is close to the definition of economic leftism. In contrast in the US our republican president George Bush recognized that the government needed to intervene and did so. Our conservatives aren't as conservative as these European liberals . Less than half of the countries in the EU have legalized gay marriage, while more than half of the states have legalized it. More citizens in the US can buy legal weed than citizens in Europe. Europe has far more mainstream racist political parties than the US. While the tea party has a lot of racists, it is not a talking point for them. While UKip is more or less openly racist. I totally fail to see how Europe is considered liberal or left leaning.","conclusion":"I believe that Europe is not liberal or leftist."}
{"id":"9e610f6f-b995-40a5-865c-f7ddb488d996","argument":"The US does not have the right to make decisions that affect the entire world without the input of all parties allied and invested.","conclusion":"Even where terrorists are concerned, legality and due process should be adhered to."}
{"id":"f86c8a76-750e-4a5b-9c85-615ca88005b5","argument":"If a woman has decided she wants to marry a man, waiting for him to initiate can take longer than she's willing to wait.","conclusion":"It's unfair for women having to wait for men to make the move."}
{"id":"ae22463f-f74c-471c-85ab-65af2c9e9cb4","argument":"IMPORTANT EDIT I wish I could change the title. I think it would more accurately reflect my feeling if it read Since Trump says he wants to kill innocent Muslim women and children, among other horrendous things, Bernie supporters who refuse to vote for Hillary are morally negligent . So, I am a huge Bernie supporter, and I believe very thoroughly that his vision is what is best for our country. I do not like Hillary and I don't want four more years of progressive lite politics that actually works for big donors and wall street. She is also too hawkish for me. Having said that, I think the results of a Trump presidency are just too twisted and morally repugnant to accept. IN THE EVENT that Hillary is nominated, I plan on voting for her. Trump has said he wants to Kill the women and children of terrorists and defended that view Take away press freedoms under the First Amendment Deport 11 million people, including their citizen children. Ban 1 billion Muslims from entering this country. Censor parts of the internet He also says he Respects Putin's leadership when asked how he felt about Putin killing journalists Loves war Thinks soldiers who were captured by the enemy or not heroes, since he likes people who aren't captured. Thinks we should torture even if it doesn't work and he plans on doing worse than waterboarding I'll finish by quoting Matt Dillahunty from the Atheist Experience I've seen people claim that they won't vote because they simply won't be guilty of empowering the 'lesser of two evils'. Do they not understand that withholding their vote might help ensure that control is handed over to the greater of two evils under their view ? How much do you have to hate yourself to support, by withholding your voice, the candidate that you view as the greater evil? What exactly are you trying to prove here that you'd rather have the greater evil than disturb your fanciful idealistic notions? Matt Dillahunty","conclusion":"Since Trump says he wants to kill innocent Muslim women and children, among other horrendous things, Bernie supporters who refuse to vote for Hillary are acting immorally."}
{"id":"2478bcb9-65f3-4653-90d0-5c425a94594b","argument":"I would agree that we should not have this much surplus military equipment, but without addressing that concern, what else is the military to do with the equipment? Is it better to lock it up in boxes or sell it to foreign countries? Wont the government be able to squash and oppress the citizenry by using this equipment? The equipment is given to local police forces though, and why would they all unite against their neighbors? I would argue the opposite that the equipment actually better arms the common man against the federal government. The best argument against militarization that I've heard was in Dan Carlin's Common Sense podcast Ep 279. He says just the optics of it are bad. If Ferguson's black residents feel that the police are more like an occupying force than it is their neighbors protecting them, adding tanks does not dispel that notion. While I agree that this point is good, it does not have enough weight to it to justify throwing the equipment away, selling it to other countries, or leaving it in the federal governments hands. EDIT u grunt08 cmv. What are the chances of getting a reply from a Marine in charge of training police forces ? Sorry to everyone else who made a similar argument, but the first hand experience was more convincing than the claims of political corruption.","conclusion":"Selling surplus military equipment to local police forces is not a problem."}
{"id":"63c33739-f087-4c6b-80f3-9b166dd6b4ce","argument":"\"Mississippi appendectomy refers to hysterectomies\/ tubal ligations forced on poor women in the US South during the height of the American Eugenics movement, against their will and often without their knowledge.","conclusion":"This has often taken the form of forcible interference with reproduction. For example, there are many instances of forcible sterilization of women, often without their knowledge or consent."}
{"id":"53bcad27-ac83-4328-9030-0790ced776e8","argument":"The LGBTQ+ community actively making an effort to sequester itself from the rest of society would result in less societal acceptance of the LGBTQ+ community.","conclusion":"Segregation like this is counter-intuitive to the current LGBTQ+ community's efforts to better integrate and be accepted by the straight community."}
{"id":"c49107b4-2e6b-44e7-bef7-5ad93984a3aa","argument":"The FBI reported that the increase in religious hate crimes point to a growing awareness among various law enforcement agencies of the importance of identifying and reporting hate crimes.","conclusion":"There has not been a substantial increase in religious hate crimes. The numbers have increased because of improvements in the way crimes are recorded."}
{"id":"d87d1a07-57ed-44cf-88a2-7bc3a755d702","argument":"A meaningful gesture that one is free from corrupting influences would be to reject any large donations over a certain amount e.g. $500, $750 and have to rely on small dollar donations from regular Americans.","conclusion":"Publicly stating that one is rejecting corporate PAC money is largely a \"cheap gesture"}
{"id":"51a972c4-638e-43dc-b4b7-39f11676a7d6","argument":"The space you can explore is limited which is a big problem considering that you have to run, outsmart, and lose your aggressors. It's immersion breaking when you're running away from a giant menace and there's like one hallway and three rooms to get away from him in. In addition, it's largely linear going back to the complaint about limited space , relies on shock value and gore quite often making second playthroughs dramatically less fulfilling than something like say, amnesia or SOMA , and there's very few gameplay elements to it basically just a pick up batteries for the camera and run. I understand not being able to defend yourself as you're not a fighter, but you should at the very least be able to do minor things like push away, kick to stun, or perhaps even set some traps to slow down the enemies. There's a difference between horror and powerlessness I feel, and the game relies a fuckton on powerlessness.","conclusion":"Outlast isn't a great game"}
{"id":"39f9eb96-aa34-4d25-b6ba-07b01cafa7be","argument":"Currently, the FDA requires that a drug or therapy be dispensed by Rx only forbidding OTC sales if It is habit forming or toxic It has too great a potential for harmful side effects or It treats a medical condition that can't be readily self diagnosed. My view is that these should be replaced by a single criterion a cost benefit analysis designed to estimate whether externalities from improper use of the drug would outweigh efficiency gains and cost savings from making the drug available OTC. For example, there's probably a good argument that OTC morphine would lead to high levels of addiction and social dysfunction, accidental overdoses, etc. But topical cream used to treat acne or crows' feet? At worst, somebody ends up with an occasional rash. Unless a drug, left unregulated, has the potential to impose serious costs on society at large, people should be allowed to purchase and use the drug as they please. This would instantly make healthcare more accessible and more affordable to everyone. As people live longer and medical science keeps churning out innovations, consuming medical products will become an increasingly commonplace activity not unlike driving, which is another risky thing that we allow people to do for themselves. To help prepare citizens to drive responsibly, we teach drivers' ed in high school and administer a simple licensing exam we could, and should, do the same for self administered medical care. Here are just a few ideas for products that should be available over the counter Tiny single dose cortisone syringes for banishing cystic acne in an emergency in high school, people will have learned how to give simple injections . Strep throat test kits, for busy working parents who have time to swap a child's throat, but prefer not to take hours off work and sit in a pediatrician's waiting room. Maybe you drop the swap in a sterile baggie and a postage paid envelope, send it to the testing company overnight, and if result is positive you get a single use code that lets you purchase antibiotics OTC. Basically anything topical. Drugs whose primary risk factor is that they're too pleasant to take too habit forming , but which don't pose the same risks associated with something like morphine. One example might be Xanax. I am generally indifferent to the effects of this change on stupid people, except to the extent that we think people will behave so stupidly en masse as to cost society more money vis a vis status quo. Still, I welcome all attempts to .","conclusion":"I believe Americans should receive basic medical training in school, and the FDA should give adults more freedom to self-medicate."}
{"id":"4a4cb151-9125-4806-8ead-f61a2abd65a7","argument":"There's compelling evidence Trump is a master of the dark arts of persuasion. A book by award winning cartoonist, trained hypnotist, and expert or scholar of persuasion, Scott Adams, explains in detail why most of what Trump does is not random and he has a specific motivation behind every wrong or untrue statement that drives people nuts. Scott also predicted Trump would win back in 2015 by analyzing his techniques. He is a self described liberal on social issues, but favors Republicans for taxes, and he never votes, not that any of that matters, but I'm sure it does to some people. And by the way, does that sound like the kind of person who might be persuadable by Trump at all, and if it does, ask yourself why, then proceed or if it doesn't please explain your reasoning. So first of all, Trump utilizes techniques such as talking past the sale. For example, when he talked about the wall he kept insisting Mexico would pay for it, when everybody knew this was extremely unlikely, but it's a tactic. Even by us dicussing the funding of the wall some of us have already implicited accepted, at least for the moment, that it will be built somehow. Now for hardcore liberal democrats, this is not persuasive in the least, it's the opposite and enraging, but for the 5 10 of the voting public that swings the result of every major election the persuasable moderate voter it is somewhat effective. He also utilizes another technique by getting things intentionally wrong, but not too wrong, and the facts don't matter because the intention or directionality of the argument is always in his favor or correct. By maintaining a level of slight wrongness at all times, he has been able to get free media attention, which certainly won the election for him. Starting his campaign with the illegals bringing drugs and being rapists is a perfect example of something that started a media frenzy. So we know most illegals aren't bringing drugs or raping, but some are, and the wrongness gets attention to an issue nobody usually thinks about. The media wasn't taking him seriously, but they gave him so much coverage, he was able to win the nomination over 12 other well funded candidates. It took the media over a year, but they finally realized what he was doing to them. It sort of came to a head when he baited the media into covering his speech in favor of veterans live on TV by saying he was going to make a big announcement about Obama's birth certificate, which he only addressed at the tail end, and thus enraged the press. And they attacked him greatly, which discredits them further as far as fairness goes. So most people simply quit listening and therefore the media cannot be effective at moving public opinion even when they should. By enraging his enemies, they also make more mistakes, and this includes the media, because they don't like him and speak badly of him often. These people are only human, therefore have the same biases we all do. This is not to say he has never made a mistake, but what he does has nothing to do with being stupid, far from it. Furthermore, a basic principle of hypotism is that people are mostly non rational entities that rationalize after the fact. Most of us cannot be convinced by the opposite side politically no matter how good the factual arguments are. We are all prone to confirmation bias whether we realize it or not. We believe facts matter, when they often don't. And that's why it's more comforting to believe Trump's dumb or Russia hacked our election system, because we cannot reconcile reality with our own mental image of it. Nobody thought it was possible Trump could win, and yet he, who achieved something thought impossible, is suppose to be dumb? He spent way less money, never ran for elected office before, he basically winged something on the fly that some people have spent a lifetime doing, like Hillary has done. Regardless of what you think of the guy as a leader, he fucking wrecked every naysayer that didn't understand what was happening right in front of their own faces. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"No matter what you think of Trump, he is arguably a master of persuasion and media"}
{"id":"1b9a679b-ab7c-4738-93dc-2dd9092d628f","argument":"The Book of Mormon teaches that a protective magical \"seal\" was put on the golden plates and a set of magical \"interpreters\" prior to their burial in the hill Cumorah","conclusion":"Witnesses of the golden plates are inconsistent as to the nature of the \"sealed portion\" of the plates."}
{"id":"535615a2-abe7-4ff9-a26f-d550fef5080d","argument":"Relegated teams often have to reduce the price of tickets in order to attract attendance.","conclusion":"Promotion and Relegation present extreme financial hardships on both promoted and relegated clubs."}
{"id":"b7d9b639-dbc0-4457-a212-372bbd2f55a7","argument":"The Barrow Inpuiat community of Alaska uses whale hunts to sustain an income and quality of life higher than the Alaskan average, despite their remote location.","conclusion":"Whale hunting can be an important economic activity in remote locations with few other sources of jobs and income."}
{"id":"afb1b918-40e6-49fc-ad74-91413a87d699","argument":"I do not condone any kind of slur word when used derisively, especially if it is used to deride an entire group of people, and especially if there is historical context which amplifies its offensiveness when used with that intent. However, like all slur words, 'nigger' in its directed, offensive context isn't the only way to say the word. For example, white people at concerts say it all the time, they use it casually and jokingly between friends, and even white kids reading To Kill A Mockingbird in English class say it out of necessity. None of the above examples are harmful or intended to be insulting. As with any profanity, the word can be used in a non offensive manner. As in, fuck when stubbing your toe, or quoting the word cunt when said by someone else. But many people still think that in any context, a white person saying the N word is flat out wrong and worthy of contempt, regardless of context. Some people even use it as an excuse to incite extreme violence against users of the word, when the users haven't even intended the due offence that would entail a violent response. Being beaten up for singing nigga along to a song in front of your black friends is like being stabbed for saying fuck at a rowdy dinner party. The latter is obviously irrational, so why not the former? More and more, I see the taboo against white people saying the N word as being routinely used as an excuse for unsatisfied people to shout down or harm white people. If someone is so offended by the casual or descriptive not intentionally insulting use of a word by a white person that they feel the need to react with incredulity or violence, then they are massively overstepping the mark. Examples of irrational reactions to white people using the N word he mistook Bannon for Sessions here, but the act of quoting the word is still not worthy of incredulity  in any way.","conclusion":"The taboo against white people saying the N-word is too often used as an excuse to irrationally deride and\/or harm white people"}
{"id":"0800f6d5-72c6-4877-9455-4a0e78d4682c","argument":"Here is the wiki page on it but essentially, the Assault Weapons Ban was meant to ban certain combinations of aesthetic features. gt Semi automatic rifles able to accept detachable magazines and two or more of the following gt Folding or telescoping stock gt Pistol grip gt Bayonet mount Flash suppressor, or threaded barrel designed to accommodate one Grenade launcher mount gt Semi automatic pistols with detachable magazines and two or more of the following gt Magazine that attaches outside the pistol grip Threaded barrel to attach barrel extender, flash suppressor, handgrip, or suppressor Barrel shroud safety feature that prevents burns to the operator Unloaded weight of 50 oz 1.4 kg or more A semi automatic version of a fully automatic firearm. gt Semi automatic shotguns with two or more of the following gt Folding or telescoping stock Pistol grip Detachable magazine. None of these restrictions do anything to make guns any less deadly. I suppose you could argue that a collapsible stock allows a gun to be too concealable, but you can still have it just as long as you don't have any other banned feature. I'd like to see if someone can present an argument in favor of the Assault Weapons Ban not just being the result of powerful people who don't know anything about guns trying and failing to effectively legislate them. Here is an ELI5 explanation of the ban.","conclusion":"The Assault Weapons Ban is utterly pointless and does nothing to curtail gun violence"}
{"id":"77c30736-970a-418a-b350-43169db14593","argument":"An unconditional basic income will fix the threshold and poverty trap unconditional basic income will fix the threshold and poverty trap effects induced by the current means-tested schemes. effects induced by the current means-tested schemes.","conclusion":"A UBI promotes social justice improving the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within society."}
{"id":"d85e6880-6917-4feb-a2f5-165947215e44","argument":"God states that people should not wrong a stranger, yet He gave Satan the permission to hurt Job.","conclusion":"God tells his followers to resist the Devil which makes His dealings with the Devil more dubious."}
{"id":"a1b6ca96-ba4a-49b4-82cd-776bddee1178","argument":"It doesn't really bother me that much anymore because I've accepted that online dating is basically just a gathering of shitty people and people who don't know how to communicate with people in real life but I still think it's fucked up. First of all I'm not talking about an overly faltering photo or a good angle that's to be expected. I'm talking a fat person becoming a supermodel a bald guy having a full head of hair a 40 year old being 20 that sort of shit sure there's nothing wrong with any of those things but when your tricking people into thinking otherwise that's fucked up. First of all I'll just bullet point all the things wrong with this and how your hurting the other person .in general you have to take a decent amount of time out of someone's day to go on a date which they could have spent doing other things and maybe even had to turn down plans for. . Dates aren't cheap you have to pay for travel, drinks or food depending on where you go on a date, prohaps new clothes or a haircut maybe even a spray tan depending on how serious you are .this goes back to time but not only is there the time on the date there's the planning, worrying and excitement your putting them through just to disappoint them . It's lying and lying a mean thing to do and a bad character trait to have .if the guy or girls a nice or socially awkward person they're probably gonna stick around and pay for coffee and spend time with you feeling terrible and wishing they could just go home and that's not fair You make the person feel shallow when really they've done nothing wrong There's a lot more but that's all I can think of for now Now I thought I'd debunk some of the excuses people are going to use now just to get the most common ones out of the way It's what's on the inside that counts Sure but the only thing your portraying personality wise is that your deseatfull. Plus who's to say they wouldn't have liked the way you look if they just say that from the start even if they did they're not going to now because they wasn't expecting it and they feel lied to it's hard to see someone for the great person they are when the first thing they ever did to you was catfish you. I warned them ahead of time This has happened to me and a couple of other people I know they meet a girl online she looks hot they get talking they arrange a date they drop a hint warning them ahead of time they're bigger than they are in the photos and think that's fixed the problem. Only it's hard to mentally change the picture in your head to a completely different one therefore when you go and meet her expecting her to just be self conscious or maybe a little curvy and you see a completely different person you might as well of not being warned at all Everyone else dous it Oh great so now your all going around tricking each other and being disappointed what a great way to live your life. Actually want someone to change my mind I don't expect to have my mind changed completely but would quit like to hear a reason people do it who aren't terrible people other than the classic I'm really self conscious you should love me for me bullshit I'm used to hearing.","conclusion":"lying about how you look on online dating makes you a shitty person"}
{"id":"a6032189-d0e8-4656-9a0a-33096825e203","argument":"Homework produces large amount of pointless work of little educational value, but marking it ties up much of teachers\u2019 time. This leaves teachers tired and with little time to prepare more effective, inspiring lessons. The heavy workload also puts young graduates off becoming teachers, and so reduces the talent pool from which schools can recruit.","conclusion":"Homework produces large amount of pointless work of little educational value, but marking it ties up..."}
{"id":"105009d1-1181-4a86-a83a-0a316cf98c75","argument":"Trump's core supports are also unlikely to abandon him no matter what he does, so he does not need to worry much about their wishes.","conclusion":"Trump's core supporters are a relatively bipartisan group, many of whom voted Democrat in the past. They are likely to support cooperation with Democrats."}
{"id":"7e99822d-e880-4594-82fb-24868eb97724","argument":"Instead of waiting and applying for an internship to graduate or gain experience for a career, one could instead jump right in when they're ready to in VR.","conclusion":"This is especially true with learning media, where the biggest source of retention of material before computers was books"}
{"id":"28d498e9-1bc9-489d-b17a-7d5a537bb1ee","argument":"By actively pulling the lever there is a chance that the resulting situation would be worse than if you did absolutely nothing to influence the outcome.","conclusion":"By consciously acting, rather than passively watching, you bear more responsibility for choosing to kill one person than for merely allowing five people to die."}
{"id":"b068882a-3fec-4bb5-ad1c-b0b701898dba","argument":"I feel like there's a better sub for this but it's just like I'm in college now and they play t at every club and I feel so out of the loop when everyone is singing along and I'm just sort of lost and not into it at all. If it helps the only rap songs I've really ever liked were Car Radio by Twenty One Pilots and Handlebars by Flowbots. One of the songs all my friends were singing along to was called Or Nah and it was literally a song about eating a girl out and I got really uncomfortable haha. So my question is where can I start based on only these two super white artists that are my only connection the genre so that I'm actually listening to real rap music like maybe Kendrick Lamar? Idk","conclusion":"I don't like rap. I wanna like rap but I wouldn't even know where to start"}
{"id":"733fa542-0e60-4450-be2f-484d0142ddb3","argument":"If God creates humans, then those humans commit acts of evil, then by the transitive property, God is at least somewhat responsible for those evils.","conclusion":"Humans are created in the image of God. So if humans are evil, God cannot be omnibenevolent."}
{"id":"2dbc4a6c-1aec-4b90-89a6-514ebb162718","argument":"I will go in to this saying that I have done very little research on the subject and take most of my views from personal experience. When I was a child, I was very hyper, and pretty much all of my elementary school teachers urged my parents to put me on Ritalin or to have me checked out by a doctor for what they assumed was ADD. I did get checked out and the doctor advised my parents to put me on medication. My father is a very successful surgeon and he and my mother decided to hold off and see if I would grow out of it. I did and never needed medication after all. This was also the case for two of my friends. I also knew of multiple people in high school and college who had prescriptions for ADD ADHD and would not even take the pills, but would sell them and would admit that they did not need them, but that a doctor had prescribed them because of poor academic performance, over activity, etc. I am by no means stating that I do not think ADD ADHD are real things. I absolutely think that they are very important disorders which make life extremely hard for a lot of people. I only think that the cases are overblown and many children are medicated when they do not need to be. I tend to think that giving children pills for ADD ADHD in some cases in a remedy that parents look to in order to not have to deal with real problems that children have in school and in in social settings. Change my view.","conclusion":"I think that the vast majority of ADD\/ADHD cases are simply energetic children."}
{"id":"a3febaed-bf3c-49da-97af-e83c322141f8","argument":"This stemmed from a discussion I had on another sub about the Greek economic crisis, and what people are saying should have been done in terms of policy by the EU and the Greek government, which dovetails with what I heard should have been done by the US government in 2008 2010 in the worst part of the Great Recession. My understanding of Keynesian theory as applied to this kind of economic situation is that it prescribes the government to spend money by using public debt, getting that money to the worker and the spending class. This money, once spent, will require producers to produce more, meaning they need to hire more people, which will give those people more money to spend, creating a virtuous circle of economic growth. Once recession is over and growth is good, the theory then says that the government should raise revenue out of the booming economy by taxing the producers, the saving class, and the wealthy so as to pay down the debt that it acquired in the previous step. From that, I conclude that Keynesianism is always either for the working class, the spending class, and the generally poor and or against the capitalist, the saving class, and the generally rich. The activities of the former group are economically good and should be encouraged the activities of the latter group are economically bad albeit necessary and should be discouraged, minimized to only what\u2019s absolutely needed to support the activities of the former group. At this point, I see five possibilities Keynesian economics is pure class warfare. Keynes and his followers believe that the working class deserves more and the capitalist class deserves less, and developed a theory to fit that opinion. Keynesian economics is co opted by people with an agenda of pure class warfare. It\u2019s perfectly valid under the theory to create the virtuous circle through government spending on Rolls Royces and summer homes for the rich, and perfectly possible to pay down government debt by heavy taxes on working class activities like buying groceries and holding personal debt. How we spend and tax isn\u2019t the issue, just that we do. I have an incomplete understanding of Keynesian theory. There can arise economic situations where alternative actions are recommended. For instance, once the economy is growing and the debt is paid, does Keynesianism say to reduce both taxes and spending so as to \u201cshake up the system\u201d and achieve new growth? Or any other situation where good economic policy is to increase inequality and use the natural human jealousy, envy, and fear to spur people to produce more? I have an inaccurate understanding of Keynesian theory in general. My understanding is accurate, but my logic is faulty. Right now my view is hovering between One and Two, but I\u2019d really like to understand this theory better.","conclusion":"Keynesian economics is a thin cover for class warfare"}
{"id":"1e0d6ebf-67d7-47b1-9cf9-e7fa2b1a0176","argument":"The benefits of teaching the vegan\/vegetarian diet are: enhanced awareness about the surrounding environment and openness to wider range of fruits, vegetables, grains, seeds, nuts or spices or other plant based foods meat eaters are more picky in trying new foods.","conclusion":"Vegan\/vegetarian parents should feed their children the same diet."}
{"id":"012a9d01-88aa-4940-92e1-65f7430f5068","argument":"The longing for a child genetically related to oneself existed long before biotechnology, but it is only recently that medicine has been able to satisfy it. In vitro fertilisation remains an imperfect technology. Couples typically submit to four cycles of costly treatment before producing a child. Evidently, the technique does not assist homosexual couples, couples where both partners lack gametes, or where the female partner suffers from a mitochondrial disease. Cloning would allow a child to be born to all these couples.","conclusion":"The desire to have one\u2019s own child and to nurture it is wholly natural:"}
{"id":"be88ebfe-16c7-43bc-a58b-15c77694065d","argument":"If the God of classical theism exists and is truly all powerful, then He should be able to prove His own existence. If God wants us to believe he exists He should be both willing and able to personally write His own counter-claim Con in response to this claim. If God does not write his own counter-claim here, then I propose that to be evidence against the existence of such a God, because an all knowing God must know about this claim.","conclusion":"The world is full of good reasons to believe in the lack of any God as defined by classical theism."}
{"id":"9b77213f-0441-4f07-9c86-bb8cef12425c","argument":"Payment for single articles, monthly or daily subscriptions as well as time-based modells are common. Often, these modells include articles taken from the printed paper or magazine that are otherwise not available online. Other specials only for subscribers such as invitations to lectures or videos are relatively common, too, in order to gain paying users.","conclusion":"News sites on the web experiment with a large amount of different models for payment and subscription while keeping the most important news free."}
{"id":"f079a508-bd33-47e9-bf09-d7dd1a789aa9","argument":"Hi everyone, This is my first Christmas Im spending with my girlfriend. Neither of us are religious, but I have never been an active Christmas celebrater. She, on the other hand, is an Christmas fanatic the tree, the lights, presents, etc. . When we talk about this, I bring up that\u2019s it\u2019s a religious holiday and that since we aren\u2019t religious, we shouldn\u2019t spend that much money and time on it. We got into an argument and she says that the \u201cchristmas spirit\u201d is the reason she\u2019s so into it. Can someone change my view on why we, a non religious couple, should spend precious time and money on trees, house lights, and everything else that comes with Christmas?","conclusion":"Christmas means nothing if you aren\u2019t religious."}
{"id":"d01f9562-fc32-40a4-8124-a7c12172420f","argument":"So there is a proposed interstate compact which would effectively abolish the electoral college. It's a clever little piece of legislation, and probably not unconstitutional,^1 but I oppose it, despite wanting to abolish the electoral college. First, the election of the President is incredibly important. I am not OK with the idea that representatives who were voted in by a bare majority of the population could make this level of change. If you live in a state which doesn't join the compact, but states representing 270 votes have joined the compact, you have had this change foisted upon you with zero debate in a legislature where you have a representative. That's not cool to me. Second, it is highly fragile, in that any state could withdraw itself from the compact at any time. I don't like the idea that people could expect an election to be run one way, and then by a single state's action, the election is in fact run totally differently. ^1 You can earn a delta by convincing me it is unconstitutional, which while it would reinforce my headline view, would be challenging this aspect in an important respect.","conclusion":"I oppose the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact."}
{"id":"3dfb7aa9-a610-4b67-b526-40f04dba90cb","argument":"Discursive practices enforce gender, hence we \"do\" gender, it's what Judith Butler calls performative We repeat the socially constructed feminine\/masculine behaviour because discursive practices enforce this behaviour.","conclusion":"It has been argued that gender is something we 'do' and the way we do gender is actively constructed through social interactions and gender scripts."}
{"id":"db38a6e3-2fdd-484c-8f9c-749f1519d2e5","argument":"I think that watching homeless people shoot up deadly drugs that kill a large portion of our country each year should not be available on TV for entertainment. I think that showing people go through their 'routine' or 'ritual' and showing graphic uncensored drug use normalizes drug use and does not benefit addicts at all. If anything, I worry that the addicts on film are being paid to remain in their desperate state they often go on camera uncensored, showing their identifiable features to anyone with internet access. I'm sure it's triggering for recovering recovered addicts to be able to have their old life in their face with the push of a button or even unwarranted with a commercial. I am not a drug user, but I highly doubt that most users that go on camera are using safe, damage controlled methods that professionals recommend in secure settings. I understand the desire for 'raw' entertainment, but I think this could be accomplished by holding a conversation and filming the addict's face or eyes, without showing needles or inhalation. I think that the general idea of a crew following and recording an addict works for some people if it didn't, intervention wouldn't have been such a hit. I theorize that there are some addicts who relish in the fact that their way of life is so obscure, people outside of it would watch it on TV for hours on end, and use it as a means to quit. In most, however, I worry that they are so down the spiral of addiction that they aren't even aware of what they are doing, who will see it, and can't properly consent. This is why I think that view of graphic drug use content should be restricted to drug counselors and researchers, or those involved in the field in some way. If graphic drug use is not presented to the general public, I think it would be less normalized and decrease use. If the only people who do see graphic drug use are professionals, they can use it constructively to teach safer methods and study the behavior leading up to the actual use. If non addicts really want to watch people use drugs, they can get into anti drug activism work and help the people who are using. I do not think that drug use or addicts shouldn't be in the media at all, I think it's important they tell their stories I just don't understand how it helps them or the public to see them do something that can kill them right there on the spot. I am particularly interested in hearing from addicts. If I am totally off base, and addicts feel that it is positive to have raw and graphic representation of actual drug use in mainstream media, please chime in.","conclusion":"Showing Drug Addicts Using Drugs on Camera Should Not be Normalized in Media Maybe Even Illegal and Instead Be Exclusive to Trained Professional Drug Counselors &amp; Researchers"}
{"id":"0b24a207-286f-41f5-bd87-541a81e7ef84","argument":"In general, therapy is private and confidential. And I absolutely agree that what is discussed in a therapist\u2019s chair is not for general public consumption\u2014I\u2019m not trying to change the HIPAA laws or therapists\u2019 ethical code here. Therapists should not be disclosing what a patient discusses in therapy rather, my belief is that patients should, in practically all cases, willingly divulge the contents of their therapy to their spouse. I\u2019m not wedded to the legal marriage aspect. Spouse is simply a useful way to denote serious, settled, and committed significant other\u2014someone you should be comfortable sharing the details of your therapy with. Obviously people show commitment in all kinds of ways without requiring the legal accouterments. Though \u2018spouse\u2019 does have an extra layer of legitimacy for the purposes of my argument, because it has the benefit of marital privilege in the US if that is a concern for disclosure of the therapy discussions . Disclaimer Admittedly, I am extremely dubious about the efficacy of certain types of therapy some therapeutic principles therapists in general. I personally will never again voluntarily seek therapy. But \u201ctherapy sucks\u201d isn\u2019t the , so I\u2019m endeavoring to keep my hostility in check. HOWEVER, appeals to how we should trust therapists arguments that are reduced to \u2018therapists think this practice is best\u2019 absolutely will not change my view. My view People seeking therapy for mental illness, trauma, or other disordered thinking behavior should almost always disclose the contents of their therapy sessions to their spouse. I believe this for several reasons. But before I delve into the justification, I want to make clear none of these apply if the spouse is abusive. I am dealing exclusively with generally healthy relationships with a loving and supportive spouse. Anyone trapped in an abusive situation should give their abuser as little information ammunition as possible and should use their therapy and all other available avenues to figure out how to protect themselves and escape. So, I believe patients should share the contents of their therapy because Your spouse has been supporting you and coping with your illness issues and deserves to understand the treatment and prognosis. Mental illnesses are illnesses. If you compare them to more \u2018bodily\u2019 disorders you see how terrible the secrecy is. We would never undergo treatment for cancer diabetes MS whatever while leaving our spouse totally in the dark. Going to the doctor alone and not giving your spouse any updates on your disease, its underlying causes, treatment, or prognosis for the future is so bafflingly cruel and insensitive to the emotional turmoil of your partner it would be reasonable grounds for divorce. It is not compatible with love. Especially considering they are dealing with all the negative side effects of the disease. For example, I have clinical depression. When I\u2019m in a bad phase if I\u2019m not properly medicated I 1 struggle to get out of bed and complete my chores, leaving my SO to pick up the slack, 2 am not emotionally available to support him when he needs it, 3 contemplate suicide, forcing him to worry about me constantly and taking a serious toll on his own emotional well being, and 4 my libido is all out of whack, so we can\u2019t enjoy our normally highly satisfactory sex life. It\u2019s no easier on him than if I had MS or some other chronic disease. That\u2019s just one example of the burden a mentally ill or disordered person\u2019s spouse could be carrying. Reading relationships and other support subs as much as I do illustrates dozens and dozens of other ways they shoulder some of the emotional burden. Even if the situation is as comparatively minor as one person not being allowed to watch porn because their spouse has irrationally low self esteem, the spouse is coping with the therapy patient\u2019s irregularities as best they can. Furthermore, they have to deal with all the negative side effects of the treatment therapy itself. People come home from their psychotherapy sessions distressed, emotionally exhausted, sad, upset, angry\u2026and the spouse just gets to soak that all in without knowing why or what happened. If a partner doesn\u2019t always want to discuss something that\u2019s upsetting them in the moment, that\u2019s okay. But if they have an ongoing policy of not discussing something causing them pain and distress every week month, they are shutting their spouse out. I can\u2019t think of another realm in which that behavior would be acceptable. Why would be acceptable in therapy? To the extent therapy is medical treatment rather than just BS about dreams of umbrellas or self indulgent navel gazing about repressed feelings , your partner should be given the same openness and consideration as you would give them about a cancer diagnosis the trauma illness is affecting you both, you both deserve the information you need to grapple with this reality. In a marriage, both people are presumably in it for the long haul\u2014no trauma or illness is truly solely individual anymore, so the treatment shouldn\u2019t be either. Cutting them out of the healing process is utterly heartless and they deserve better. Privacy about these fundamental issues undermines the integrity strength of your relationship or, at the very least, inhibits its growth. Gottman considers having a good \u201clove map\u201d\u2014that is, knowledge of your partner and their life\u2014as the first principle in maintaining a successful marriage. Which makes sense. Good partners strive to know each other as fully as possible. The more you know, the easier it is to be the best partner you can be. The open flow of communication is great On the flipside, keeping secrets about significant serious aspects of your personality life health from your spouse handicaps your relationship and may be a kind of betrayal. A spouse should be able to tell their spouse anything. Again, we\u2019re talking in non abusive contexts here. If you can\u2019t trust them? Address the lack of trust or break up. So if you can trust them with the details, why wouldn\u2019t you? Whether you have mild anxiety that only flares up when you fear being abandoned or you have crippling PTSD from a decade of abuse or you suffer form something even worse, you should tell your partner because they love you. They want to know you. They want to understand better how your mind works, guard your vulnerabilities, empathize with your pain, validate your experience, praise you for your strength, fully support you in your recovery, help you navigate your relationships with difficult triggers or toxic people or behaviors\u2014and they can\u2019t do any of that if you shut them out. The patient\u2019s choice to keep all the information about this important aspect of themselves to themselves starves the relationship. It\u2019s like cutting off your nose to spite your face, but worse because you also cut off your spouse\u2019s nose. If the patient selfishly prioritizes privacy about such fundamental aspects of their life\u2014e.g. their childhood, their negative experiences that are significant enough to warrant seeking therapy, their processing issues, their health and well being\u2014over the well being of their relationship, they can\u2019t possibly be fully committed to the relationship. They are assuredly preventing it from growing deepening. They are also pulling away from their spouse, not only by leaving them to suffer the side effects of the patient\u2019s issues alone see point 1 but also by barring them from being the good partners they want to be. This undermines the relationship. Subpoint if the patient is keeping the contents of the therapy secret because they believe their spouse would divorce them if they knew the truth about something in your past, then they should absolutely be sharing the info. Keeping a deal breaker from your partner is akin to lying about cheating in your own selfishness, you\u2019ve taken away their choice to leave you by hiding the knowledge they need. I doubt anyone can change my view on this point, because I view lying about something like this to be an unforgivable betrayal. A minor point if you talk about your spouse in individual therapy, there are opportunities for misunderstandings. Again, this is only dealing with healthy, non abusive relationships. The previous points assumed the spouse was not at all focal to the therapy\u2014that is, if the patient is seeking therapy to deal with fallout from a past trauma or a medical condition totally independent of the spouse e.g. PTSD, past abuse, depression, BPD, anger issues, eating disorders, etc. etc. . All of that information should be shared with the spouse for the reasons above. But in some cases, the spouse is a more important element of the therapy. And keeping that information from them is also harmful. I\u2019m thinking of stories like this Which is a nightmare scenario, obviously, but I think it occurs more often than we\u2019d care to admit. But if that woman had told her husband about what she was saying, the ideas she was reaching in therapy, he could have pushed back on her highly skewed interpretation of reality and, perhaps, insisted on couples therapy sooner. There are more articles like this a quick search for \u2018therapy ruined my marriage\u2019 will show more. Talking trash especially unsubstantiated trash about your spouse is not considered the foundation of a good relationship, yet here is an institution that allows people to do that, unchecked, and claims it will be healthy. And on a more common sense level, the patient should absolutely be communicating to the spouse about any issues the spouse is non maliciously contributing to\u2014how else will they be able to change? Because the spouse isn\u2019t abusive, they would prefer to not hurt you. They will either work with you to change the behaviors, find a compromise, or end the relationship if the behavior can\u2019t be resolved\u2014any of which would ultimately be to everyone\u2019s benefit. There is absolutely no reason to keep that information secret. So why is the default position that patients don\u2019t discuss therapy with their spouse? Why do all the articles about dealing with a partner in therapy make sure to admonish the reader not to ask about the contents? It seems far more beneficial to the relationship to be open and share. A final note Based on the discussions I\u2019ve had with people in real life the general consensus on therapy in r relationships, this is a minority opinion on therapy. I\u2019m really curious why most people don\u2019t feel this way, and feel people in therapy should keep everything to themselves. The justifications I\u2019ve heard are either \u201ctherapy is perfect everyone should get some you aren\u2019t allowed to question it in any way or else\u201d or \u201cwhat about abuse?\u201d and those aren\u2019t arguments I\u2019m interested in. I am open to changing my view if presented with other arguments. I\u2019m also nervous that the length of this suggests I\u2019m soapboxing? I\u2019ve read the rules and I\u2019m not sure what does or doesn\u2019t qualify, but I\u2019m really just trying to explain my position because unlike a lot of s I\u2019ve seen like the five or six \u201cblack people have lower IQs\u201d here lately the argument in favor isn\u2019t common clear just from the title. UPDATE I have been trying to respond to every post, but it's dinner time and I'm off for a while. Will likely be back this evening. Thanks for the stimulating conversation thus far gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"People should discuss the contents of their therapy with their spouse"}
{"id":"9764a75f-858e-4cb4-a0e3-415c363079a3","argument":"Obviously, this is a hypothetical scenario that may not even be possible, but let's consider it. I think it's favorable to other options. I would even be ok with widespread oppression of people of power in the fossil fuel industry, e.g., removing fossil fuel corporation executives from their role, by whatever means necessary, even murder. Please change my view. Also The parts and processes that form sustainable energy technology often pollute indigenous and people of color the most environmental racism, as it's called . Mining for rare earth metals can be particularly toxic. I concede that indigenous people are leading the fight against environmental exploitation, and I agree that their voice and actions are crucial to fight against authoritarian systems of power. But the value of sustainable energy is too important in terms of reducing greenhouse gas emissions that polluting via other toxins is a sacrifice we must take. Maybe this makes me a bad person, but I would be fine with an evil dictator of the world that forces us to stop using fossil fuels at all costs. It's a simple matter of saving a few people today versus saving a lot of people in the future. Or maybe my white male, middle class bias is missing something important. Please change my view, reddit. Thank you. Edit If you don't believe that global warming has a good chance of wiping out our species, don't even bother posting.","conclusion":"Given that global warming is probably going to wipe out our species, we should put all our efforts into stopping it, at all costs, even ignoring other issues, and have a totalitarian world leader that forces us not to use fossil fuels."}
{"id":"91305acc-cbc2-44ca-ae8e-1096792fa455","argument":"I know when this statement is said the person usually saying it follows with the statement I am not a racist BUT I'm not doing that, I am very much a racist, I believe races are different, while that alone wouldn't make me a racist, I believe certain races are Superior to others. Neil Risch, Professor in Human Genetics and Director of the Center for Human Genetics at the University of California if you expect absolute precision in any of these definitions, you can undermine any definitional system. Any category you come up with is going to be imperfect, but that doesn't preclude you from using it or the fact that it has utility. We talk about the prejudicial aspect of this. If you demand that kind of accuracy, then one could make the same arguments about sex and age You'll like this. In a recent study, when we looked at the correlation between genetic structure based on microsatellite markers versus self description, we found 99.9 concordance between the two. We actually had a higher discordance rate between self reported sex and markers on the X chromosome So you could argue that sex is also a problematic category. And there are differences between sex and gender self identification may not be correlated with biology perfectly. And there is sexism. And you can talk about age the same way. A person's chronological age does not correspond perfectly with his biological age for a variety of reasons, both inherited and non inherited. Perhaps just using someone's actual birth year is not a very good way of measuring age. Does that mean we should throw it out? No. Also, there is ageism\u2014prejudice related to age in our society. A lot of these arguments, which have a political or social aspect to them, can be made about all categories, not just the race ethnicity one. Dr. Francis Crick, Nobel Prize winner and co discoverer of DNA We need to get rid of our liberal preconceptions. Men are not born equal, this is something which has not yet got through to the politicians, and it is by no means clear that all races are equally gifted. \ufeff James Watson Co discoverer of DNA there is no reason to believe different races separated by geography should have evolved identically I believe There are three Major races within our species H. Sapiens . The Caucasian Race Semitic people, Europeans, ect The Mongolian race East Asians, Pacific islanders, Native Americans, Malayan ect The Negroid race Khoisan,sub Saharan African, Melanesian, ect This being said, I do not believe that even within these three groups, that the races within them are the same. For example I would still consider Semitic people different than European despite them being both Caucasian. And I would consider East Asians different than Native Americans. I believe these major three groups comprise of different smaller racial groups. I believe these races are inherently different, I believe that some races are genetically predisposed to be more intelligent, more creative, more violent, among other things. I understand that some say there is only one species of homo. H. Sapiens Personally I believe neanderthals and other species of the genus homo did not die off completely and in fact interbred with H. Sapiens which contributed to these differences. I believe the reason why We are all the same is pushed and promoted so heavily has little to do with science, and more to do with political correctness, it seems people would rather try to define race away.","conclusion":"I believe different races exist"}
{"id":"d7407894-0e00-43b7-bbda-86a6ef184776","argument":"Prison populations are soaring globally and overcrowding is an international issue. Allowing long term inmates to choose a death sentence could help alleviate this pressure.","conclusion":"Allowing long term inmates the choice of a death sentence could help alleviate the pressure of overcrowding in prisons."}
{"id":"243b78ef-ac89-42fc-a4f9-82fec850bacc","argument":"Ok so watch the world burn might be a little harsh. It's probably closer to simply hating the status quo so much that eliminating it is more important than anything else. As the candidates put out more and more details regarding their policy plans, there's no doubt Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders have almost nothing in common besides their hair issues and a general support for Planned Parenthood. But on the big issues that could have serious impact on the lives of people living in the US immigration, taxes, foreign policy, gun rights, free speech, health care, higher education, and the overall size and scope of the federal government they are close to polar opposites. There's no way that a person who supports Bernie, but who will vote for Trump, is thinking you know I'd like to have free health care and a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, but I'll settle for continuing with the current health care system and deporting all illegals. But last week, The Guardian asked 700 Bernie Sanders supporters who they would vote for if Hillary wins the nomination and 500 of them said they'd seriously consider Trump while only 200 said they'd vote Hillary. Source This makes absolutely no sense if you consider any of the candidates stances on virtually any issue. So I believe a large percentage of Bernie Sanders supporters don't actually support him for his policies but rather because of what he represents or rather what he doesn't represent . They can't stand the status quo and want to see drastic change more than they want free college or free health care or to see a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. Change my view.","conclusion":"Anyone who supports Bernie Sanders but who will vote for Trump if Hillary wins the Democratic nomination is completely uninformed on candidate policy or doesn't care about it and simply wants to watch the world burn."}
{"id":"0084568a-98c1-4cd2-8bf3-5f179c5c5329","argument":"Gendered expectations around virginity often mean that women view virginity loss as giving something away and are encouraged to protect their virginity, while men losing their virginity is viewed as a way to gain status and experience.","conclusion":"Religious views regarding sex rely on harmful stereotypes that often place women's virginity and purity as the measure of a woman's worth."}
{"id":"f4bbffac-39d8-4a89-b97e-a625f803854c","argument":"Now before you call me out for supporting the system that killed millions of people and so on I don\u2019t think that\u2019s a fair point to make because no system is flawless and even the greatest systems have been responsible for the deaths of countless people. Now obviously communism work in places like America, Germany, England etc which have millions of people independently looking for job opportunities in that specific market, but I think it would benefit a lot of people in other counties with a much larger economic gap to cater to the mass populations who are unable to get a decent income especially looking at African countries such as Uganda, Zimbabwe, Burundi and so on. The reason I say this about these countries is because the the poverty rate is massive, to me it seems like a good idea to split the money in the county equally with everyone to at least give some people who were earning nothing, and there is a lot of them, something to compensate for their living conditions. I do feel strangely about this opinion because to me this just seems like a good alternative to what is currently happening in those third world countries, but I myself live in a third world country and I don\u2019t know think I would like a communism system incorporated so it might be hypocritical of me to state this but then again I\u2019m here for my view to be changed. I\u2019m not fully educated in this topic so maybe there is a massive flaw that I didn\u2019t take into account but hopefully some of you can point that out to me.","conclusion":"Communism can be a good thing in certain countries if done correctly and ethically."}
{"id":"d5fe021d-6367-448a-8d4e-1e1f2df12a7b","argument":"I think that if we pay politicians more it could stop some of corruption in Washington. Politicians would no longer need to accept money from special interest groups that's goals weakens America. A lot of politicians aren't already filthy rich when they take their positions. It gives them a fighting chance to do what they felt was right before they lose their vigor to the tune of . I believe that if we paid them more, Oil companies would start to lose their influence in the government and it would be a lot more easier for alternate energy resources to be developed. The same goes with Media, we would have less biased news and therefore have better grip on what's going on. Internet and cable companies ahem Comcast would lose its grip over time and we would finally have a more efficient internet Infrastructure. Also in that regard we would have a simpler and more cost friendly cable service. The most important, in my eyes, is the insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies. Without their grip we could finally catch up with the rest of the world and have a better health system than we do now. It also might stop political parties pushing these corporations agendas. I do truly believe that many young politicians start their careers off wanting to do something right. As time goes on they get corrupted and instead of fighting for what they believe is right, they fight for what other people tell them what's right. Promise's of money to keep their position float around their heads and instead of people voting for them because of what they have done they drown their voters in money given to them. To sum up my believes. Paying our politicians more would lead to the demise of Corporations, Labor Unions, and Trade Associations influence of government. Super PACS and lobbying would become weak and our politicians would strive to do with what they believe in.","conclusion":"I believe that we pay politicians an absurdly small amount of money and by doing so it creates the very thing it intended to stop."}
{"id":"170415f4-5693-46ab-ace1-43331fea6012","argument":"The Russian people are concerned about hardship and hazard within their own borders rather than without. Moreover, now that the promise of NATO enlargement exists, a failure to offer the promised protection would raise grave doubts regarding the steadfastness of the NATO States. Moreover, the nationalism and belligerency of the Russian parliament would be implicitly rewarded. NATO should not be teaching Russia the lesson that hostility in Eastern Europe gets results that lessen the security of all.","conclusion":"The increasing trend towards Russian nationalism can be attributed to the weakness of the economy and the continued conflict in Chechnya, rather than the possibility of NATO expansion."}
{"id":"9a994afc-850c-4657-a7c8-c1f64e39e7ec","argument":"I see business structure as a problem that should be outraging to american citizens and is is perfectly in line with how Americans view our own government. Americans would not want a dictator in charge of their life and would probably revolt if someone tried to instate something like that. This is because we know the government's policies heavily effect us and we want a vote. In businesses, there is a pseudo dictatorship in place with money. Yes businesses don't HAVE to follow money, but in the business structure it is essentially self creating to have a system that starts to follow money as the business gets larger. Businesses that do unethical actions and aren't found out will outcompete those that do not do shady activity. If your business doesn't make as much money as your competitors then investers will pull money, so the board will replace the ceo that isn't doing shady action since his profits are lower. Then another ceo will come in and perhaps it might repeat, but eventually someone who is willing to will be put in that position sociopaths are over represented in CEO positions and now they will have dictator level authority. Some businesses are incredibly large, holding very real power over your life nearing some governments level apple and google and amazon are larger than some governments . Mabye not as directly powerful as the US government as one business, but all of the industries combined each do their bid to make a power structure much larger than the US government and more powerful. Giving them a dictatorship structure is thus ridiculous. Look at all the business that pour money into propoganda so that they can keep black people working for their corporation for free in prison. So we should look to alternative business structures, and if we look at it like a power structure like a government it seems it would be best to replicate the same structure as our ideal preferred government since the whole point of our ideal government structure is to choose the one that maximizes it's benefit to ourselves the people and that prevents pain to others when having to work in large numbers. Currently this can't be achieved because dictator style businesses outcompete businesses that have other structures. Not surprising since they can pay their workers less since they don't really care about cutting corners, otherwise it goes back to competition and they will be replaced by someone who can cut corners . So their costs are lower, profit is higher on average, meaning more investments and long term growth eventually killing good companies. If we vote, however, to give tax breaks to businesses with the same structure as our ideal government possibly make a gradient system based on the number of employees in the system since different political systems work for different numbers of people . So syndicates may be a possibility, but I've heard they are corruptable. I think this means one of two things. Either we can conclude absolute democracy can be corrupted, and so we should abandon it in favor of a more representative style system, or those syndicates didn't try different voting strategies systems such as ranked voting etc. these systems prevent evil behaviors from businesses because the majority of power in businesses would be in the power of poorer people, the very people affected by evil corporate behavior since typically socially isolated people trans, black, etc any hated group are going to be poorer as well. Giving tax breaks to businesses that replicate the structure allows for a perfectly free market to be what remains once all those businesses switch. The government, and thus we the people, dictate what succeeds in the market. Some argue that we can choose what products to buy, but we also have legal power that we can use. Why limit our power to solely money when we could just crush evil businesses in the name of more equity. Two thing hold it in place, greed for enourmous wealth and power, and the desire for your own small shop. But like we said different structures can work for different business sizes thus it i possible we as a population can decide to allow dictator style leadership in mom and pop sized shops just because that is what works best lol. It would preserve the desire for entreprenuers that build businesses because it is meaningful to them. Edit it's a bit like saying okay once you get to a certain amount of power influence you can no longer control it in this way, there is too great of a risk for misuse of power. The underlying problems are vastly nuanced, but we can block the expressions of those problems via tax breaks to certain business types of differet sizes.","conclusion":"Challenge how I view business structure and voting systems in the US"}
{"id":"171200e0-8280-4b70-ab5b-62afaeb8cc35","argument":"Hi It wasnt that long ago when I shown the subreddit r tumblrinaction, by a friend of mine. If you haven't been there, its full of pictures of what people have put up on their tumblr pages, making fun of their thoughts about feminism and social justice . I couldn't really understand the humor of it though, because all of the posts there revolve around a concept I didn't know about, with confusing words such as cisgender , gender binary as well as kins etc. After finally understanding the humor of the entire thing, I've become really interested in the all of these definitions. I was suprised to learn that not believing in a gender binary however was considered PC. Moreover, after checking out a couple of TEDx talks and articles I have found that they all reference these four graphs or scales I'll just go through all of these expressions and tell you what I believe. Sexual Orientation I believe in the three terms for sexual orientation, but I dont see any reason to have a graph or a scale, there is no reason to put someone for instance inbetween straight and gay. If you happen to go more for women than men, that would still render you bi. I dont see the reason for the spectrum. Biological Sex I only believe in male and female. Not intersex nor anything inbetween. If you happen to be transgendered, then I guess you would also want an operation to completely change into the other sex, thus making you the other biological sex. If you are refering to the biological sex the body has for some in depth medical reason, then I think that just needs to stay between you and the doctor . If you happend to be born with both sets of reproductive organs then you still are one of the two, completely biologically you'd just need an operation. So yeah, I have no idea what intersex means. If someone says they dont feel as if they are either a boy or a girl and therefore invented that intersex thing, I'd say they are basing that upon gender stereotypes which is a somewhat bad thing. They should go with their biological sex, if they dont feel as the opposite. Gender expression Isn't this again based on stereotypes? I guess you could rank someone on your perception of how masculine and feminine they are, but that is still based on your perseptions on what boys and girls should be like. I mean I dont really see the point of there being a graph for that And I dont see why anyone would want to come across as androgynous , but why we have a term for that suprises me even more. Gender Identity You are either a man or a woman. Atleast thats what I believe. As I mentioned in the paragraph about biological sex I dont understand why these two wouldnt be the same. If they weren't you would hopefully change that, unless you are afraid of the consequences or something. Genderqueer? wut? If I understood it correctly it's gender identity which it is the most focus on. Its the binary of the gender identity which is the gender binary , right? Or are all of these points a part of what you define as gender ? I believe all of these expressions are made up by people who want to feel different and special. They happen to not feel exactly like the rest, much like everyone else, ever and therefore think there is something special about them. I think this is also the case for the kins , for those of you who's been on r tumblrinaction. Thanks","conclusion":"I think I believe in a gender binary."}
{"id":"675f2167-c635-4ebd-8d61-83695203973b","argument":"I see a lot of people complaining when a topic gets brought up several times in a relatively short space of time or if someone does a repost of something popular. I think this is actually a good thing because it allows different posts to rise up and you have a collection of several posts on the same topic that are highly rated rather than a few in a single thread. Reddit threads are meritocratic ish but there's also a distinct advantage to being early to a thread. If you have a good response that's late, it can get buried easily. If several reposts occur obviously within a reasonable limit there's greater chance for people with good contribution to make to have those contributions seen rather than buried. I've seen the argument that this makes searching for things difficult. To which I would respond reddit's search is already pretty useless. So, .","conclusion":"Reposts of popular topics even if they are karmawhoring are a good thing for reddit"}
{"id":"f0d863db-4846-4aab-9065-6c0e7c08d3c0","argument":"Protests can also create media coverage if they are big enough to gain notice\/ traction, which generates visibility for the cause of the protesters.","conclusion":"Popular protest gives adherents opportunities for networking, interaction, and fundraising for their cause."}
{"id":"bf3ec49c-3a78-4935-94b3-2c910e499fc0","argument":"Heads up, this is from my experience in UK cinemas only, I want someone to try and convince me that going to the cinema is still a pleasurable experience despite the problems I list. Going to the cinema used to be one of the things I would do with friends when I was younger, it didn't really matter what film we were seeing, the experience was what mattered. As I've grown older I've become more bothered about the little things that detract from the cinema experience that never bothered me in the past, things like The 30 40 minutes of adverts and previews for upcoming films I paid good money to watch this film, when it says it starts at 20 00, I don't want it to start at 20 40, and any previews for films I am interested in I would have seen already, or would see very soon afterwards online. The price seems to have gotten really expensive, to the point where I want to reserve cinema going to films I feel deserve the price, on average its close to actually buying the DVD, except I don't own it. I can't even remember the last time I bought popcorn or a drink from one of their shops. I can't pause the film. The picture quality is overrated, IMAX cinemas are good, but the TV I have at home is fully capable of producing a decent enough sound and picture quality for me, I no longer see it as a selling point for the cinema, bigger isn't necessarily better. Other people minor point, this is not a big deal in the UK, generally people are well behaved, but sometimes you do have the odd idiots that ruin it for everyone by talking or shouting or messing around. I do have friends, and my girlfriend who still love going to the cinema, regardless of what film it is, because there's still some kind of magic appeal, I just find it hard to justify going to see 90 of films that are released these days and choose to reserve it for the 10 of really special films. Otherwise I'm happy waiting for the release on DVD Blu Ray. So, cinema lovers, lets talk, what is it about the cinema that makes it so appealing to you? And why is my view misguided?","conclusion":"I don't enjoy going to the cinema anymore"}
{"id":"81e86280-552b-488b-a133-a0d3514dd3cc","argument":"Trust in Facebook and Twitter to provide that perspective is what makes the public aware of many social and political problems and eventually creates new policies to challenge them.","conclusion":"Facebook and - especially - Twitter are about \"raw\" and unfiltered information, often in the form of images and videos. Doing this would damage that purpose."}
{"id":"c3e1dbee-25fe-4310-99fd-3523dda9072b","argument":"Leaving the humanitarian aspect aside which is purely subjective , the main driving force behind current immigration trends is to find workforce for a growing economy in the present or near future. This thinking is flawed for the following reasons 0 To clarify humanitarian government have absolutely no moral obligations towards non citizens while their own citizens' problems are not solved. You can't expect a country to send food to a famine striken country if their own citizens are dying of hunger. You can't expect a country to import migrants when you know their own citizens will have a hard time getting those same jobs. 1 Excluding specialized visa programs like H 1B in the US even though there is some large amount of abuses and illegalities behind it , the large amount of immigrants are NOT qualified enough to be employed in anything but very low level jobs. If they are qualified, their language skills prevents them from being useful. At the other extreme, there are cases showing that gt 95 of refugees don't even get hired and live off welfare. 2 Diverting taxpayer money from potential social programs to improve the life of actual citizens and giving it to foreigners that have no loyalty to the country they immigrate to is morally wrong. 3 That money could have been spent to give one parent life time childcare leave so there is a parent that takes care of kids this makes sure kids are not estranged from their parents later on in life either. Most importantly, this WILL incentivize the population to grow kids instead of say relying on humanitarian feelings of adopting from other countries. And I am sure you can devise economic models to estimating what sort of social benefits you have to have to reach a target birth rate. 4 The existing immigration models incentivize more foreigners to migrate that have an even lower potential for loyalty to this new country because if before that person might have wanted to go there for that country's culture, the future migrants know for sure that they will be rewarded for their travel with free money . 5 Current models incentivize immoral behaviors of migrants you can declare yourself to be 17yrs old even though you have gray hair. You have to lie to the US authorities if you want to stay beyond your visa. If the first step in moving to this new country IS to mislead it, what sort of potential allegiance can this migrant have in the future? Why not continue the illegalities and steal the social security number so you can go on with your life without any documentation? Why not help ISIS fighters to hide from UK authorities when you have more in common background with them than with your native neighbors? 6 Current models incentivize the states to mislead their own citizens oh, you don't think migrants are good, here, let's create this Ministry of Integration and Gender Equality that will take care of this cultural racism , without creating any sort of checks and balances for preventing the government from abusing the ignorance of its own citizens. 7 Current models incentivize cynical, morally corrupt politicians to prioritize the rights of future migrants at the expense of current citizens. Why not make sure that the next few generation of hispanic migrants will vote for my party if I provide them amnesy? 8 Current systems do not have any sort of checks from potential future infiltration of people from the first waves of migrants into the country's government to go on an prioritize the rights of the future migrants at the expense of the native population. Oh, sharia law sounds like should be tolerated even though there is no trace of such thing existing before the first wave of migrants. PS I've seen a bunch of these arguments be applied to explaining the eventual downfall of the Roman Empire unlike say the Byzantine Empire .","conclusion":"Instead of importing refugee migrants, states should use that money to incentivize natives to have a higher birth rate"}
{"id":"dfee7a10-8dde-4c5d-a55d-df8064161ba0","argument":"Small businesses cannot afford the penalties associated with breaking GDPR while big businesses can seem entirely immune to GDPR, with the option to breach it and pay penalties rather than changing their practices.","conclusion":"The regulation severely hampers innovation as would-be services are now required to jump through more hoops to ensure that they are in compliance."}
{"id":"40392e61-903d-4295-86ed-c45b6944d7dc","argument":"The example of mobile devices is, perhaps the most clear-cut. Manufacturers of mobile devices expect to make their money back and make a profit. They need to do this to pay salaries, invest in the next project and keep their shareholders happy. To do that they make a calculation based on the price of the original product and what additional revenue they are likely to make over the lifetime of that product\u2019s use. Phone companies in particular have complained that major content providers are simply not paying a fair share of the costs with the VP of Verizon, for example, accusing Google of getting \u201ca free lunch\u201d at the expense of network providersi. Net neutrality compels some companies to ignore basic financial realitiesii. For all that Proposition \u2013 and others such as politicians in Amsterdam and Santiago \u2013 may think that changing the basic rules of economics is a good idea, they have yet to explain how this Socialist utopia will work. i Washington Post. Ashad Mohammed. \u201cVerizon Executive Calls for End to Google\u2019s \u2018Free Lunch\u201d. 7 February 2006. ii The Economist. \u201cThe Difference Engine: Download Dilemma\u201d. 6 May 2011.","conclusion":"Realistic costs for users and providers of bandwidth and phones"}
{"id":"94f2301f-2a9e-442b-a292-975ab3233acb","argument":"Disclaimer, I'm nearing the end of my teens and base this view largely off of the interactions I've had with my peers. I'm sure a lot of the behavior I'll mention can just be chalked up to youth, but I think social media has allowed those behaviors to persist long past when they should have been ironed out when growing up. I've also minimized any use of social media which requires direct identification, so my view on those is largely external rather than internal, so I might be missing some nuances in my examination. In my opinion, social media has had a subtle yet toxic influence on the people who have grown up and developed using it during their socially formative years, which I would generalize as anyone born in 1998 or later. Of course none of this is across the board, but I've found that a large proportion of people I've grown up with and currently meet seem fundamentally inept in skills like confrontation, negotiation and conflict resolution. This is entirely speculation, but I believe this is because social media allows you to wall out anything which might be problematic for you, so the default response has become to censor the stressor instead of defeat it. I think it's fair to categorize this ineptitude as cowardice. Ignoring something because it would be difficult or distressing to confront it only weakens your character, and in cases where confrontation would prove disproportionately traumatic, I believe it is correct to want to confront the stressor once you are ready instead of wall it out forever. Resenting the stressor's existence in the form of passive aggression is even worse, because you are allowing something which is clearly distressing you to exist without doing anything about it whatsoever, other than maybe making snide remarks and engaging in underhanded social manipulation. None of this is to say that no good has come from social media, because I think its benefits are numerous and obvious. My worry and complaint is that it appears that heroism, which I would define as confronting and defeating a danger to you and or others, has seemingly evaporated in my generation because young people are so unwilling to engage in the confrontation. I don't like holding this opinion, so please . gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Social media has turned young people into passive-aggressive cowards."}
{"id":"5d4a0a29-8c39-4f1a-86ba-51c0f4ebe39c","argument":"What I refer to when I say patient gaming is when people refuse to buy a game at full price and instead buy a game several months or years later when the game and DLC have been packaged and heavily discounted. Many proponents of patient gaming say that it encourages companies to make better products instead of relying on hype or preorders. The problem with this type of sentiment is that refusing to buy games at full price could cause gaming companies to simply shut down. AAA companies already often struggle to profit and this simply makes it more difficult. Games are expensive to produce. Red Dead Redemption, for example, cost 100 million dollars to develop and advertise. If everyone was a patient gamer, then Rockstar would need to sell 30 to 35 million copies at 5 dollars each to break even when accounting for the share that Xbox, PlayStation and retailers take from the sales. Red Dead Redemption has only sold 15 million copies so far. While patient gaming is a good way for gamers to save money, it damages the gaming industry.","conclusion":"Encouraging patient gaming damages the gaming industry"}
{"id":"6d7e3e83-f472-4996-ad15-ec85396ecae5","argument":"gt Freedom of religion is freedom from religion. In a nutshell, that would be the phrase that would identify secularism. Please do correct me if I'm wrong regarding this since this would be where my entire view rests in. A secularist world view then would be defined as the falling away of any higher being from the social sphere barring the family. This gives me a wonderful picture of equal footing among men, governed by rules wrought out of mutual understanding. Furthermore, it doesn't stop anyone from practicing their individual religions, only that they shouldn't do it in public. It is a movement, an ideology, and in fact, there are those who would call secularism a religion and this is where it gets very problematic . Supposing that the last statement holds, secularism would be an ideology that stops other ideologies from flourishing and should we accept that it is indeed a religion, it would be a religion that stops other religions from flourishing which would defeat the very view that secularism stands for. If the requirements of a particular religion require its followers to propagate their particular world view even in the public sphere, which view should we hold on to? The secularist mindset or one's religion? The issue is further complicated by the fact that we or at least I are unable to distinguish ideologies from religion. One can argue that ideologies are contained in one religion while another can also argue that religion is part and parcel of one's ideology. I guess the question then would be can anyone be truly free from religion if religion has freedom? Edit Many people seem to believe that we can define religion as a world view that has a supernatural spiritual components. We must understand first that not all religions have supernatural components like other facets of Buddhism. 2nd Edit  is mentally taxing.","conclusion":"I think secularism is untenable."}
{"id":"0c2f5901-516d-488f-ac90-01928d8cae68","argument":"The precise link between Bran, the Three-Eyed Raven and the Night King was never explained.","conclusion":"Various storylines did not reach a satisfying or at least convincing conclusion."}
{"id":"42a0a360-be45-4b57-a156-459d5424e311","argument":"It is estimated that roughly 70% of the National Institutes of Health NIH research budget goes to basic science which is animal intensive and that the percentage in the UK is approximately the same. Greek and Greek, section 5","conclusion":"Resources, like scientists and funding, are wasted in animal-based research and testing instead of more effective areas of research, such as human-based studies."}
{"id":"34fad134-a4c1-464f-8d2f-a9a1ab3d0385","argument":"everything about guantanamo bay violates fundamental, international human rights. people are held without trial, tortured and mistreated","conclusion":"unjust treatment\/tactics are used in the Guantanamo bay detention camp"}
{"id":"acc56310-eb00-4270-a3ec-236a47507688","argument":"The FBI is conducting roughly 1000 investigations into white supremacists, roughly the same number of probes as those into groups driven by radical Islamist ideology. The FBI clearly considers them to be an equal threat","conclusion":"Intelligence agencies describe white supremacy as an 'extremist movement', and consider it to be a domestic threat."}
{"id":"acbd81f4-cb05-457b-8862-6e78ad8b9b1d","argument":"I'll be the first to admit I know next to nothing about web design. However, there are several serious design flaws that I've noticed with the new inbox for Gmail, which for me, at least, outweigh the positive aspects of it. The site is slightly annoying, but not awful the app, however, is bad enough that I think I'll go back to the old gmail app. Pros better sorting options, the snooze button, and swiping to archive. Cons 1 You can no longer easily swipe between messages on your phone or click one button to go to the next email on the web. Instead, you have to scroll through the whole email, and then it will just take you back to the inbox. What previously could be done with one swipe or click now takes more time. For emails that you don't need to read all of elists, for example , this is an inconvenience. 2 It's a lot harder to delete a message now. Hopefully they will make deletion less necessary by continuing to increase storage space, but this is still an issue. You shouldn't have to click a menu to see the delete button. 3 The requirement to download an app first before getting access to the web interface seems like download whoring, and I can't see why it would be necessary. It also is bad for people who still don't have smartphones. 4 The app is very difficult for those of us who have multiple accounts. I have a work email provided by gmail, which is ineligible for the app. I also have 2 personal gmail accounts for different purposes. When I want to switch from one account to the other, it doesn't show me which profile is which, so I often end up clicking on my work email auto added because I signed into it on my phone , which then takes a while to load, before finally telling me that that account isn't eligible for inbox yet. This then changes the order of the profiles, meaning that I may click on my work email several times before finally being able to switch to the account I want. All of these are major flaws that were not present in the old gmail interface. I get that some of these will be smoothed out as inbox is implemented, but these should have been addressed before the release of the app.","conclusion":"the new Gmail Inbox is a step backwards"}
{"id":"a31806f4-e88a-4dda-93a7-9f2d448fcafd","argument":"The process of mining and removing the ores from the ground with heavy equipment is disruptive for nature and environment and releases toxic materials.","conclusion":"To produce an army of AKMs, thousands of tons of metal steel, aluminum, titanium etc., composites, electronics silicon, rare earths etc. are required."}
{"id":"4872436d-90ff-429e-9aaa-76f05cff8fa7","argument":"Fear of suffering, and attempts to avoid suffering out of fear also cause of a lot of suffering. It is not just our attachments. Man's fear of painful feelings and sensations, fear of scarcity and loss, can all cause him to act in ways that ironically end up hurting himself and others as much or more than the pain being avoided. This can be through greed, addiction, even something passive like apathy to the plight of others.","conclusion":"There are many other sources of suffering which have nothing to do with attachments."}
{"id":"035168bc-fa47-4527-841c-a9131c7fd5ab","argument":"In the UK taxation-funded organisations such as the NHS and UKAID demonstrate that the government can use tax income more effectively and do more good with the money than a church can.","conclusion":"Charitable services can be delivered equally effectively by secular organisations, if not more so because time, money and effort isn't spent proselytising."}
{"id":"0124edb6-a552-404b-bc06-7d4811d53f96","argument":"The freedom to choose is essential to God's plan to function: humans ought to learn what is right and what is wrong.","conclusion":"The freedom to choose or reject God is the most important principle in Christianity."}
{"id":"016f08c6-6602-4b27-8664-d3df8c47f9ba","argument":"I am of course talking about mental illnesses caused by situation, such as personality disorders, some forms of anxiety and depression, etc. I'm excluding disorders that are classed as mental illness but are caused by physical factors only, such as Parkinsons and Downs. Basically, all the evidence points to mental illness being caused by the way that person has been treated by other people . Childhood trauma, bad parenting, parents with illness themselves, bullying, violence, abuse of authority, poverty, abandonment, emotional isolation, and so on. It's all beyond the persons control, they don't get to choose how other people treat them, especially as a child, and most illnesses are simply human reactions to insane situations. We've got this kind of view of mental illness as the sufferers business, like cancer or something, it just happened to them. It's very personal, it belongs to the sufferer and no one else. I see multitudes of articles online plastered over every shitty advice site, about how to deal with depression, how to deal with anxiety, how to know if your partner is a narcissist, and on and on. It's all aimed at the victim. I'd like to see us stop victim blaming and start acting like it's everyone's problem. It's a symptom of something wrong with all of us, as a whole, not just something that happens to some people. Awareness and politically correct acceptance isn't going to do the trick. I believe we need to fundamentally change the way we see mental illness. It is a symptom of a social problem, not an individual illness. If someone is depressed and totally alone, it should be the responsibility of someone more adept than them an elder to show them how to interact. It should be a source of shame if your child is depressed or socially awkward. It's your job as a parent to teach them how to become a productive and happy member of society, that's a very important point of parents. Other members of the community should step in when parents an unable. I believe that mental illnesses are the responsibility of everyone around that person, and not solely the individual.  An a functional note I also believe that ultimately, you have to take care of yourself. If you do have a mental illness, it's your responsibility to do something about it. I'd just like to see the blame get shared around more and general attitudes change. gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than just downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I believe that mental illnesses are not personal but are in fact \"social illnesses\" and that the society is at fault, not the person."}
{"id":"df1873b0-81df-44b9-aaad-2fc3684e782c","argument":"Mandatory paternity leave may change social norms so that men and women split caregiving more equally over time.","conclusion":"Having equal leave for both parents entrenches the idea that they are equally responsible for parenting."}
{"id":"e0ecf2a8-93f2-4d5c-8703-a1cd499b76e5","argument":"Other utilitarian policies, such as taxation, at least allow the individual who suffered to experience some of the aggregate benefit that resulted from their suffering. The person vaccinated experiences no benefit as a result of another person living.","conclusion":"It is unfair to make a person suffer for another's benefit without their consent, as the person who suffers never gets to experience the benefit which their suffering allowed."}
{"id":"14a407c8-1d05-410c-a506-b99d71d46e10","argument":"Research shows in some cases, courts favor the abusive father because he's making an effort to be a part of the child's life.","conclusion":"These processes are not perfect and often do not protect the mother and child."}
{"id":"b22a1444-3c2f-438f-a440-e77ef72e6d98","argument":"This provides an additional platform for citizens to put pressure on elected officials, allowing their voice to rival that of organized interest groups and pressure groups.","conclusion":"Citizens are entitled to influence decisions made by the government through online public discussions and votings."}
{"id":"6f6b758f-2a60-4c2a-b5f5-a706abc9ce70","argument":"Additionally, due to the extreme inbreeding of some royal houses leading to very small gene pools, genetic diseases have been problematic for monarchs.","conclusion":"Monarchs are not chosen by their biological or genetic characteristics that make them better at politics, but just by accident of birth."}
{"id":"fa0e0618-dc08-4b1a-b8f4-43e07ea7409b","argument":"Every time I come across a new Pitbull song, commercial, or anything Pitbull related, I cringe. I can't stand the guy. There has to be someone on here who can give me a legitimate reason why I should change my view?","conclusion":"I dislike Pitbull and all of his music."}
{"id":"cf4d43a9-d503-406e-9de7-a209f187a331","argument":"A Casino just opened up near me, and it is HUGE There are over 3,000 slots, 150 tables, and tons of other games VIP rooms encompassing 260 acres. It's basically a Mega Mall or adult Disney Land, and people are being drawn to it like flies to a light bub. The worst part is that it is located in front of a major shopping center where thousands of locals do their daily shopping errands. It blows my mind when I think of how many families will be destroyed because the mother or father found an easy way to forfeit their incomes to gambling, alcohol, and expensive steaks. I have known half a dozen people, one of which personally, whose families were destroyed by gambling. By having Vegas styled Casinos in the middle of a suburb and in front of our shopping mall, our community will suffer. The negative effects that gambling has on middle lower class communities is extremely detrimental to their financial social stability especially with how it stagnates their climb up the socioeconomic ladder. My argument is that we should define or enforce limits on how much a single family can potentially lose to a Casino within a certain amount of time. I understand how difficult it would be to legislate this, and it may be better to use more subtle approaches but I seriously believe that a compromise could be reached. The simplest way would be to disallow excessive losses based on whether or not you have claimed dependents on your taxes. Pros Much of the high that addicts experience comes from the anticipation of their next win. It is the constant need for that gratification which drives their over spending. As with drug addiction, when you delay the gratification along extended periods of time addicts start finding better ways to focus their energy and attention. Of course, some will translate that desire to other addictions, but most realize that I'm doing just fine without it. I believe Casinos are borderline criminal. Anything to damage their ability to suck money out of hard working people is O.K in my opinion. There are much better ways that we can invest our time money. MVC. The first step to conquering addiction is to admit that there is a problem. Casinos do the EXACT opposite, though, as they mask the reality with free booze and the constant lure of wealth. By at least recognizing the problem at the source, I believe more attention will be brought to the issues. Even if it's just as ineffective as the Smoking Causes Cancer labels on cigarettes, it's still better than nothing. Cons By regulating the Casinos, you encourage the establishment of illegal operations. These are more damaging to a community. Extremely difficult to legislate, and Casinos would fight it to the death no matter what the compromise was. There may be other more effective ways to combat the problems associated with Casino culture, and this one would be controversial. Here is a calculator which shows the average expected losses per hour. Who knows how accurate this is, but we do know that Casinos are very profitable. TL DR If someone has children, the amount of money they can lose while gambling should be limited. So as not to feed the socio economic reality where 'the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer'.","conclusion":"There should be limits on how much money a family can lose to a Casino within a certain time-period."}
{"id":"6e5916e4-51c0-4ef4-be69-ea5dcfd78951","argument":"Though there are bodies of intra-national repute present in respective states, world we live in lacks a regulatory body or a watchdog for the use and misuse of WMDs. As long there are economic and military super powers, which doesn't abide by the international laws, it is impractical to allow the possession of nuclear warheads.","conclusion":"There is no effective mechanism to scout the posession and to examine perils of warheads"}
{"id":"5642c52f-40bf-4a84-a92c-bf64efd932ad","argument":"The idea of men roughly handling females in the way pornography depicts it, suggests that women secretly want this treatment, even if they protest against it - thus contributing to rape culture.","conclusion":"Pornography, in its mainstream form, encourages male gaze, objectification of women, and rape culture."}
{"id":"6de2b4cd-ae3f-4f6d-81a1-fd727ede67a5","argument":"In 2009, as a member of Angela Merkel's cabinett, von der Leyen was heavily criticized for her ambition to block online child pornography in Germany as this would have established a de-facto censorship infrastructure.","conclusion":"Von der Leyen has been caught up in numerous controversial episodes and scandals in her various roles in the German federal government."}
{"id":"b1d2e39c-84ba-433a-a589-7787fb04137b","argument":"It is very easy to sit down with the intention of working on an essay and then be distracted by Facebook and Youtube. A class of children has a very short attention span and usually welcome any distraction from work they don't want to do. The Internet is full of constantly changing high-speed information in formats that are easier for the mind to digest than school work.","conclusion":"It would be too difficult to get the class to concentrate."}
{"id":"90ea01f1-d35f-4d74-a11e-dd98224760c9","argument":"Freedom of choice is what differentiates democracies from dictatorships, autocracies or any other form of government. It goes by the principle, that the individual is free to do, whatever he or she wants, as long as this choice does not limit the freedom of choice, bodily integrity or any other human right of another individual in society. This also applies to smoking. While the law steps in to prevent citizens causing harm to others, whether deliberately or accidentally it should not stop those taking risks themselves. The state allows individuals to make lifestyle choices that endanger their life all the time. Because there is not difference between smoking and the other life endangering activities, banning or severely regulating smoking would be an unmerited intrusion into personal freedom.","conclusion":"Smoking is a choice of lifestyle the government should not intervene with"}
{"id":"c6f04365-1004-4cc1-92ea-ea852794cbb8","argument":"Many people became hooked on nicotine years ago when we didn't know how dangerous tobacco was. Today, we can statistically prove that smoking cigarettes destroys the lungs and increases a propensity to developing cancer tenfold. We know that cigarettes are incredibly harmful, yet they are still sold and consumed. The General's Warning and Anti Tobacco Ads are not enough. The Government needs to regulate the sale of cigarettes and other tobacco related products entirely and wean them off the shelves. I know the biggest issue will be withdrawals across the nation, which is why I think the government needs to establish and promote affordable clinics which supply tobacco users with the means of getting off the drug. Second hand smoke is another issue. I know there are areas designated for smoking but I can't even count the amount of times I was not in a smoking area and walked through a puff of smoke. It's a disgusting habit. Plus, many people want to quit because they know they are slowly killing themselves but they lack the means or will to go through with it. If the government steps in and begins slowly taking these cancer sticks off the shelves people will not have much of a choice but to comply with programs that will only help them. I know a black market may form, which is why the government must take steps to crack down on this and eradicate the drug before it gets out of hand example the gun trade . I would not compare it to alcohol and prohibition since alcohol is not as big of an issue in society. Far more people are addicted to cigarettes than they are to alcohol. Most people drink in moderation, but smokers rarely smoke in moderation. So please don't make this argument. It's an unequal precedent and an even poorer analogy. I firmly believe that only good can come from this.","conclusion":"Cigarettes should be outlawed."}
{"id":"9ea7db6a-4e0b-4bfe-87b7-d3d3d76ab1b2","argument":"I was recently discussing news sources with my dad, and he started praising OReilly and the like. I scolded him for watching Fox News, and he asked, Well where do you get your news from? Of course I mentioned Reddit and various blogs RSS feeds, but in terms of TV, it's just The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. He said The Daily Show does for the left the same thing that Fox News does for the right. I got to thinking, and realized I have seen quite a bit of liberal bias on the show. Stewart's sidekicks will interview people and intentionally make them look stupid by cutting out their responses, making it look like they're staring blankly at the interviewer, or bumbling. It's all for laughs, but liberal guests are not treated the same way. Then Stewart will frame discussions on a biased foundation recently there was a SCOTUS ruling that the First Amendment prevails on public ground outside an abortion clinic, a 9 0 decision that every legal analyst agrees was correct. Yet Stewart put his whole discussion in terms of how the Supreme Court itself has a protester buffer zone. Nevermind that these high ranking govt officials could likely be assassinated or intimidated into changing the country's operations, or that the judicial branch is an organization which in its standard proceedings does listen to speech from plaintiffs defendents of all points of view. Stewart just said, if SCOTUS gets a buffer, so do abortion clinics, end of story. As another example, Stewart sidekicks always looks at Obamacare from a POV of healthcare is a basic human right, now let's figure out which system provides the most of it at the least cost to the patients , which is of course flawed. He also never gives equal airtime to both sides of the minimum wage discussion. I usually overlook it b c I'm capable of seeing the facts through the haze at least, I hope I am . But my reality is shaken I now come to see The Daily Show as being on equal footing as Fox They both provide commentary on what's already been reported, rather than journalism. They both have partisan agendas who doesn't? . They both entertain viewers who primarily watch to be entertained, primarily by seeing their partisan views confirmed. They both frame the discussions in such a way that they're guaranteed to win an argument, or at least cause their viewers to operate in the frame of mind whereby they will reach a liberal conclusion.","conclusion":"The Daily Show is Just as Partisan\/Biased\/Propaganda-ish as Fox News, and Neither Should be Viewed as News."}
{"id":"19a2029d-f4fa-4ea6-9248-9d1c37134f71","argument":"Wizards can travel instantly, use magic to multiply or transport their possessions, and hide easily. Even if the Muggle world attacked them, they would easily survive.","conclusion":"The wizarding world would easily survive exposure to, and harm from, the Muggle world."}
{"id":"1c880e96-9bfe-4a75-9c24-6feb0a60ecc2","argument":"I'd like to preface this with saying I don't hate transgender people, and consider myself an advocate for transgender rights, I simply have a question regarding Gender Dysphoria. I'm not saying transgender individuals are crazy or need to present as their birth gender either. Just a disclaimer so nobody reads into this is a way it wasn't intended. According to what I've read, gender dysphoria is defined of having at least 2 of the following 1 A marked incongruence between one\u2019s experienced expressed gender and primary and or secondary sex characteristics 2 A strong desire to be rid of one\u2019s primary and or secondary sex characteristics 3 A strong desire for the primary and or secondary sex characteristics of the other gender 4 A strong desire to be of the other gender 5 A strong desire to be treated as the other gender 6 A strong conviction that one has the typical feelings and reactions of the other gender Trait one is a given, as that is what transgender ism is. Trans people I've met always want to appear as the other gender, even without gender reassignment this establishes the second and third trait, by modifying secondary sex characteristics. Every trans person I've ever met wants to be treated as the other gender, and often insists they are the other gender, which establishes trait four and five. Trait six I am not sure about, I've never asked a transgender person if they think they act like the other gender, but it seems to fit transgender individuals. I'd like to hear about this from a transgender person who doesn't have gender dysphoria, as I've had it insisted to me that not all trans people have gender dysphoria, but nobody has really showed me how this is the case. Ninja edit I got my information from here","conclusion":"Every Transgender person also has Gender Dysphoria"}
{"id":"6c7b1538-f61e-4739-8ed9-9cb0553e4470","argument":"New business models - such as the subscription service on offer at EA's Origin - make it less common for players to pay the full price for video games.","conclusion":"The prices for video games have hovered around 60$ for years and not risen."}
{"id":"ec27ab1b-4653-496c-91e6-96bacf4217e2","argument":"I believe that victims of sexual assault have a social responsibility to report their assaults to the police or another person in a position of authority, and by not doing so, they are allowing other people to fall victim to the same events. I understand that a portion of people who commit sexual assault do so in an isolated instance, and never do so again. I also understand how traumatic this type of situation is to the victim I know that it can psychologically harm someone to the point where they are unable to make rational decisions, and that many victims do not come forward because they are afraid no one will believe them, or they will have to confront their attacker, or they are ashamed and or embarrassed about what happened. However, many many people who sexually assault others do so more than once. It's often deliberate and premeditated, and sometimes involves incapacitating their victims through drugs or alcohol, and sometimes even violence. When victims do not report their sexual assaults, especially if they know who did it, it allows the assaulter to continue to commit these crimes. I'm not saying we should force people to anything, or punish them if they don't. However, I believe that when victims don't report their assaults, they are being irresponsible and dismissive of the fact that others may also become victims. I do not believe that the victim is at fault for the attackers crimes. I do not believe that the way a person dresses, how they act, or how much they drink contributes to them being sexually assaulted. I place blame firmly on the attacker, and the attacker only. However, I believe that if someone is sexually assaulted, knows who it is, doesn't report it, and the attacker assaults someone else, that the person who failed to report it is not necessarily at fault, but contributed to the ability of the assaulter to enter a position to assault again. An example is if person Y is at a party, and X has been hanging around getting Y drinks all night. X and Y knew each other before the party. X puts something in Y's drink that renders Y unable to resist or give consent. X then sexually assaults Y, and leaves Y at the party. Y wakes up the next morning knowing that something had happened and X is at fault. Y does not tell anyone. I do not mean to sound insensitive or unaware of the problems victims of sexual assault face after the fact. I have not been assaulted myself, but I have friends who have, so I know I don't understand on a personal level how it feels, but seeing people go through that has made me very aware of the trauma that results from it. I feel like my viewpoint is not wrong, but it's also not right, so I would like someone to make me aware of a viewpoint that is more correct. Edit Thank you to all of the people who felt comfortable enough to share their stories of their sexual assaults. I'm so very sorry any of you had to go through that, and I find your ability to talk about it admirable. While my view has not been changed completely yet , I would like to acknowledge the fact that it has narrowed considerably. In the event that a person is unsure of the identity of their assailant, they should not feel pressured to come forward because of the harm it could cause someone who is innocent. If the victim does not feel that the assailant has a high probability of becoming a repeat offender, I can see that the damage that reporting the assault might cause the victim is not worth it when it would not benefit society. I really appreciate everyone taking the time to respond and have thoughtful conversations. To those of you who responded with accusations and hostility, I'm sorry that you were offended, and I realize that this is something you are extremely passionate about. However, the point of this sub is to change someone's view. The entire reason I posted it was so my view could be changed. Accusing me of victim blaming, rape supporting, and being an idiot did not help your case, it hurt it. Just to clarify real quick, my basis for claiming that people have a social responsibility to report their rapes is so it can't happen to anyone else. It's not to punish the rapist or make sure they get what they deserve . It's about making our communities safer, so that other people can't get hurt. Thanks for all the discussion I'll keep checking back, but I figured I'd get this edit out of the way.","conclusion":"I believe rape victims have a social responsibility to report their assaults to the authorities."}
{"id":"19a2cb8e-8f2d-444c-9b66-ab74702aeed6","argument":"This can leave those who enter the sex industry without job opportunites - or the skills or resume to gain them - when they age.","conclusion":"Sex work makes for a poor career as there is little demand for sex workers who are old or even middle-aged."}
{"id":"17d5f5dd-fce0-4bf6-9667-57ace8b7b1ba","argument":"Though it is true the international Criminal Court ICC prosecutes and investigates crimes against humanity, the destruction and desecration of cultural property cannot be categorised as a crime against humanity. This is quite simply because human beings are not directly harmed when cultural property like ancient monuments or old scripts are destroyed. According to the ICC, the following would consist of crimes against humanity: \u2018Murder, extermination; enslavement; deportation or forcible transfer of population; imprisonment; torture; rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilization, or any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity; persecution against an identifiable group on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious or gender grounds; enforced disappearance of persons; the crime of apartheid; other inhumane acts of a similar character intentionally causing great suffering or serious bodily or mental injury\u2019 1. The common factor with all these crimes is that they are committed as part of a \u2018widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population\u2019. 2 Thus, it is evident that crimes against humanity possess a very real human element to them. This is simply because the ICC and the international community recognise that the most serious crimes that fall under the category of crimes against humanity are crimes of this nature that violently and systematically attack the wellbeing of civilians on a gross scale. The destruction or damage to any property, be it homes, government buildings, or sites of cultural heritage may well be a crime and a heinous act, but cannot come under the category of crimes against humanity. 1 ICC website: \u201cWhat are crimes against humanity?\u201d, accessed 20\/9\/12, 2 ibid","conclusion":"The protection of cultural property is not within the scope of the ICC."}
{"id":"62704dfd-ba84-4794-86cc-2fc3e30fba11","argument":"In active combat, several Soviet women distinguished themselves as fighter aces-the elite of combat aviators. The Israelis make frequent use of women as snipers and sniper-trainers. The Rand Corporation studied increased deployment of women in all three branches of the United States military throughout the 1990s. They wholeheartedly endorsed further integration, having found no ill effects from expanding the roles of women in the different services over that period.","conclusion":"Women, some studies have shown, can perform as well as, if not better than men."}
{"id":"f87b29c4-0f7a-46c0-ab4b-7f9c15e03f63","argument":"The obvious original purpose of these policies was to ban student groups that would create unsafe learning environments for other students. For example, Neo Nazi student groups would be an example of something we would generally wish to avoid, lest they start attacking Jewish or other minority students and creating unnecessary conflict. I'm not a fan of censorship, but I can at least see how this is reasonable in situations where there is real danger of inciting violence. However, these policies have been given extremely wide interpretations as of late by the student unions who administrate them. They first started being used to ban nonviolent MRA groups and shut down Men's Resource Centres. They have also been used to ban Pro Life student groups. They have even been used to ban the Campus Gun Club, which does nothing but teach gun safety and organize trips to the range. There have also been attempts by some universities to ban Conservative and Libertarian groups altogether, but so far at least these attempts have been, to my knowledge, unsuccessful. In short, they justify banning groups on the basis that they could cause distress for people in a vulnerable position. For example, there was much discussion of gun violence and the effect on minority communities when they banned the gun club which was of course completely irrelevant to what the gun club was actually about . However, that justification is clearly bogus. If we went by that standard, many other groups would need to be banned. For example, the Marxist Club would need to be banned because it is offensive to students of Eastern European and Latin American descent. I personally find it offensive although I would tolerate it if they were willing to tolerate the other groups . The Feminist group, which is often extremely disruptive and hostile in their public demonstrations would need to be banned. The Pro Choice group would need to be banned for being offensive to Christians. And so on and so forth. However, there has never been any hint of banning these groups, presumably because they are left wing and the type of student to get involved with the student unions agree with them. I think this is an unfair double standard, and these policies should be scrapped entirely or rewritten to provide an objective standard of enforcement . Source","conclusion":"I believe that \"Anti-Discrimination\" policies on Canadian college campuses have become little more than tools cynically used by the far-left to maintain intellectual hegemony and silence dissenting views"}
{"id":"6a5962d0-a044-40e6-8258-b669643ad574","argument":"Now, I'm a full supporter of equal rights and I don't discriminate against anyone. But I just don't understand this whole Let's name our gender movement going on at the moment. Now let me clarify that I understand the difference between sex and gender. From a medical and sexual standpoint, being able to tell someone what is going on with your body is crucial in getting proper treatment or care, or finding a sexual partner. I'm not implying that sex and gender are the same, or that there are only two genders. I just don't understand why gender exists at all. It seems to me that gender is just based on the clothes that people wear or what they act like. Instead of saying I like to dress like a boy sometimes, but most of the time i'm a girl or I don't dress act like any gender , shouldn't we be working on eliminating the social stereotypes applied to such clothing actions in the first place? I feel like us applying gender to how some one decides to dress or act is simply prolonging the issue with these stereotypes. It implies that certain actions or style choices are masculine or feminine . Instead of encouraging people to embrace whatever gender they feel like being, why can't we just tell them Hey, wear act however you want because that's what make you happy Isn't classification and differentiation of people the root of inequality? Now, I stand pretty firmly against my point of view, but I'm open minded and curious if anyone could provide some insight on a situation where classifying what your gender is could actually be productive and not just a social trend.","conclusion":"I feel that labeling your gender is a tangential solution to a bigger problem."}
{"id":"f5b42b99-446c-4ed5-8437-aa0902f9c28b","argument":"The state often does not want to deal with serious social issues in politically disenfranchised areas, where crime rates tend to be higher and the populations poorer This is because such areas cannot be counted on for electoral support as they often have low turnout rates and can be too complicated to be worth dealing with from a political perspective. Without the media, no one will report on criminal activity in these areas, meaning there will be no political will to reform them. This gives the police the opportunity to abrogate their responsibility to these communities. In the absence of media reporting, authorities would also be able to hide the true extent of crime in misleading statistics. For example, police in parts of the United States have been caught publishing deliberately false crime statistics, often understating levels of violent crime in poorer communities.1 The media has served to uncover the truth of these police abuses of the facts. Only with a free media can people truly be informed about what is happening in society, and that extends to information about violent crimes. 1 Thompson, Steve and Tanya Eiserer. \u201cExperts: Dallas Undercount of Assaults Builds \u2018Artificial Image\u2019\u201d. Dallas Morning News. 15 December 2009.","conclusion":"The media\u2019s reporting and investigating acts as a check on the behavior of the justice system"}
{"id":"b392eb46-1698-4e3e-a758-582ed9941ee1","argument":"Switzerland's election turnout is low compared to other democracies Blais, p. 520 and would result in a lower Vanhanen Index rating because the political opportunities created by direct democratic elements are not taken sufficiently into consideration.","conclusion":"Different political systems have different opportunities and obstacles that enable or prevent access to participation, such as voting or striking; these qualitative differences are not taken into account."}
{"id":"0ec81e74-33c2-4d0c-946c-a83f1ac85b4c","argument":"Double spaces were often used to make content clearer when it was typed on typewriters, which had no real kerning letter-spacing functionality. Modern-day computers do have that functionality, so double spaces after a period are now superfluous.","conclusion":"Some forms of technology expect users to use a single space."}
{"id":"1d325afc-b783-4204-ac09-92bec6fefb33","argument":"Two things to keep in mind before this discussion. First, I don't innately dislike any Muslims, and I really hope that I am wrong. I hate the shit out of terrorists but I've never judged a person for being Muslim before and I don't think I ever will. Second, I am minimally informed. I read what I see on Reddit and various news sites but I do not keep up with the news, so I'm not informed about the ongoings of political movements for or against Muslims. Anyways, I think that Muslims are seen as a danger and possible threat. Sure there are plenty of Muslim Americans that I know and talk to regularly, but in the end we all have an innate judgment that we cannot control there was a word for this psychological concept that I learned in college that I forgot . And the scary part is, many of the wide spread problematic issues are Muslim. There are plenty of horrible, violent individuals all over the world. But Muslims, in proportion to their population, have the highest percentage of violent crimes or terrorism in non Muslim countries . That's what makes people scared of them. It's not because they don't realize that the Chinese, Japanese, Mexicans, etc., can be terrorists. It's just that Muslims are more open about it. And the worst part is, that it's part of a widely interpreted religious following . It's not for personal gain maybe sometimes , it's not for money or drugs and it's not a gang. It's religious fanatics. And yes, there are millions if not billions of religious people in the world. But very few these days have such religious fanaticism that they would kill people on a widespread basis. Now I know that groups like ISIS have a very, very distorted view of Muslim religion. But the fact that this distorted view exists makes other people scared . The worst Christians we talk about these days are the Westboro Baptist Church and I highly doubt they've been involved in killing innocents, or anyone for that matter. It's because of this fear that I believe people will begin rejecting Muslims. I didn't read too much into it, but look at the Muslims already talking negatives about the countries that let them in. I know it's the work of a few fanatics, but get enough followers and it will be a problem, even if it were just 1 of population. And then when it becomes a real problem, they won't be permitted anymore. And the worst part is that the Muslim hate makes sense statistically. It's morally wrong to hate someone for their race but when there are statistics influencing the thoughts and opinions of billions of people around the world, people are eventually going to stand up about it. In the past, any time a religion attracted this much fanaticism and violence, they were either destroyed or they conquered the world. There's no conquering that will happen for Muslims. That's why I believe they'll be destroyed, to a certain extent. Again, I hope I'm wrong, and there's another way around it, but hitting myself with reality, this is a very possible outcome.","conclusion":"I believe that eventually the world will, both legally and socially, turn against Muslims."}
{"id":"cf4906aa-619a-416f-814b-b3ecc46b2b7f","argument":"I'm not a cab driver and rarely a cab customer, but when I need a cab I don't want some random guy with a car. Lyft and Uber seem to think cab driving isn't a skill, that it's something anyone can do with no training. Well, it's not. An experienced cabbie provides a reliable service that Joe Schmoe who owns a Chevy can mimic but can't duplicate. Lyft and Uber drivers offer \u2022 Questionable insurance. \u2022 Questionable character. \u2022 Questionable integrity. \u2022 Questionable driving safety. \u2022 Questionable background checks. \u2022 Questionable service for the disabled and elderly. \u2022 Questionable answers to questions about the city and area. \u2022 Questionable coverage at other than peak commute times. Like numerous other professions, taxi service is regulated for good reasons to prevent such questionable situations. Do it yourself pretend cabs like Lyft and Uber should not be allowed to ignore the rules and regulations that real cab operators must follow. Change my view. Edit Added deltas to my replies to several comments. And I'll add that I learned a lot in this conversation, and wouldn't make the same arguments now that I made in my original post. \u2022 I've learned plenty about the way Lyft and Uber operate. My original notions were based on a few newspaper articles, not even recent articles, and I appreciate the educating. \u2022 I've learned that Lyft Uber fans are vividly enthusiastic about the joy of riding in a stranger's car over a taxicab. It's a level of adoration I haven't seen since attending a few Grateful Dead concerts in the 1980s, but I loved that spirit then so I can't judge it harshly now. \u2022 I've learned that Lyft Uber fans in  view the cab industry pretty much the same as PETA members view Oscar Meyer, and seem to believe that virtually all regulations of the taxi industry serve no public good, and exist only to protect cab operations from competition. \u2022 Mostly, I've learned that  is a fun place to hang out on a Sunday afternoon, and that most of the debaters here play fair and don't seem to hate people for disagreeing, which is nice. Over and out for now.","conclusion":"Lyft and Uber should be required to operate under the same rules as any other taxicab service."}
{"id":"fa362afb-22c6-471d-8ff2-4d2af6a78696","argument":"Japanese Prime Ministers have issued statements that reflect some form of remorse against the horrors caused by Japan to its Asian neighbors.","conclusion":"Japan has already made sufficient attempts to apologise for its actions during World War 2."}
{"id":"47b01a95-0fe2-4bb7-aa43-5850ad4335ac","argument":"Free will is a philosophically and scientifically defective concept and to hinge the justice system on a victim's \"right\" to retribution for an act committed by a non-autonomous agent as we all are is a grotesque and unproductive inversion of priorities.","conclusion":"This is a philosophically fraught statement that contradicts a lot of understood ideas."}
{"id":"11089977-b6e4-49cd-8580-57303f9cf150","argument":"Through a decades-long campaign by organizations such as the NRA, the Amendment has become a marker of political and cultural identity especially on the right. This makes a calm debate about gun legislation largely impossible.","conclusion":"The Second Amendment has an enormous symbolic value that makes it difficult to enact any legislation that goes against what could be perceived as violating its spirit."}
{"id":"2d99bc1c-3f21-4071-a80f-567bbf75e392","argument":"It would be an incredible insult to tell these DREAMers that they are no longer allowed to live in the country for which they've put their lives on the line.","conclusion":"Many DREAMers are serving in the US military. According to some estimates up to 1,000 individuals may be covered by the Act."}
{"id":"2a692207-b062-4e78-8adc-1f0e69514f93","argument":"When dealing with keyboards that have a number pad, the number lock key is very confusing. Despite the fact that on most english? key boards the numbers are the predominant keys painted on the keyboard, by default those keys instead perform the functions described by the subscripts on those keys. This wouldn't be a major problem except for the fact that on my lap top a giant icon appears on my screen when the number lock is on alerting me the number lock is on, as well as alert messages that take up the login screen obscuring the password field. Obviously there is probably a fix that would solve these problems but that is besides the point. The issue is that the toggle should be reversed, and an alert should appear if the number lock is off instead of on. I look forward to hearing an argument of why in the world the numberlock shouldn't be reversed, with the numberlock key turning off the default use of numbers instead of turning it on.","conclusion":"I think that the number lock key should be on by default."}
{"id":"ed4b128e-691e-4d43-9354-5c098d4cccd8","argument":"Okay, before everyone starts flaming, hear me out. If you own an iPad and a iPhone , there is no better OS than MacOS. Yes, there are great Windows laptops hardware wise and Linux support on them, but I feel like nothing could really beat Apple\u2019s ecosystem. When you compare how Windows integrates with another Windows product, it doesn\u2019t hold a candle to how well Apple does it. I have a convoluted file sync solution for my Windows machines but for iOS? Airdrop it from one device to another and I\u2019m set. Messaging from my desktop? No can do, unless I have Android. iOS and MacOs? Messages app on my Mac and Messages app on my iOS devices. Linux? No options really. If you have a Apple ecosystem with iOS already, a Mac completes it.","conclusion":"MacOS is better than Linux or Windows if you have another Apple product"}
{"id":"8ddd4590-e221-4ff6-a17c-8f45f331a079","argument":"Nothing\u2019s more annoying than getting your foot run over by someone in a wheelchair. With the crowded nature of many public places, such as amusement parks and stores, there isn\u2019t much room to maneuver. This means that it\u2019s harder for people in motorized transportation to avoid others. This can lead to injuries as a result of knocking someone over or running over their foot. People using these wheelchairs should be courteous to pedestrians around them, and they should be the ones to stop if they and another person cross paths. I believe that showing common courtesy and politeness should be universal among people in public, and the less cumbersome people should be the ones to defer.","conclusion":"Those in electric wheelchairs in a public place should follow the same rules as the those walking."}
{"id":"7e8e9cda-3107-4797-84a5-ee8967dcfb49","argument":"Hypothetically, a pacifist President who chose to use his\/her office to unilaterally disband or inhibit the function of particular branches of the American military would expect to face calls for impeachment as well.","conclusion":"Since some of these administrative agencies are created to enforce duly adopted law, attempting to undermine their functions violates the President's Constitutionally mandated oath to \"faithfully execute the office.\""}
{"id":"a37c2ab2-fdd6-4756-af5f-b4c59d979246","argument":"Moral relativism can help people navigate the world by denying absolute moral rules and thus freeing people to do what they think is right in any given situation. In cultural relativism people decide together what is considered acceptable and moral behavior allowing society to freely change with the times.","conclusion":"There are other, superior, sources of philosophical frameworks and moral codes."}
{"id":"808c8508-fcf2-4f55-afca-ff9877687067","argument":"Many economists have suggested revenue neutral workable UBI plans that are affordable. For example, the FairTax version of UBI has been studied by economists at the beacon hill institute and in-house economists with various government institutions and concluded that it would be able to cover 30% of the needs at the poverty level with no change to existing welfare programs. If we further assume that some portion of existing welfare programs would be reallocated, that percentage increases.","conclusion":"A UBI would enable other forms of revenue collection that could help offset its cost. Hence, it would be partially self-funded, so it can be affordable."}
{"id":"a4bce4b3-ff69-420e-aac3-2112247b2c08","argument":"I feel that we, as humans, are not at the position to decide whose life is more valuable. Even if the research is harmless to the animals, they must be euthanized either way just because they were involved in the experiment. Animals cannot give consent like humans when they are involved in an experiment. These animals are abused often unnecessarily. For my own personal view, I think it's somewhat cruel. I understand that animal research has helped modern medicine a lot, but it seems like a cruel way to achieve such means.","conclusion":"I am against the use of animal experimentation for medical or any other type of research."}
{"id":"b66f8c44-4fee-4ddd-9f7c-a8fc6f5fd758","argument":"General Nagano Shigeto, a World War II veteran and a former Chief of Staff of the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force who was appointed justice minister in spring of 1994, told a Japanese newspaper that \"the Nanking Massacre and the rest was a fabrication\".","conclusion":"The Japanese government plays an active role in bolstering narratives that the extent of the massacre has been exaggerated."}
{"id":"2070574f-1e31-419d-84a7-133ce6a3d771","argument":"One way the Bible has helped many is what it teaches about the family. That husbands should \"love their wives as they love their own bodies\". Men who do this are good husbands who strive to never be abusive.","conclusion":"People waste time on many things, but sometimes time spent serving others or gaining a deeper understanding of the Scriptures or the Tanakh is beneficial because those activities teach people to do good to all."}
{"id":"33ded363-7a4a-484e-90b5-a197ad3bfe6b","argument":"Small autonomous drones could be mass-produced cheaply, for less than 10k per piece. They would be expendable, similar to how an ant colony has no problem to sacrifice thousands of its members.","conclusion":"Many kinds of AKDs will actually be very small ones that will operate in swarms, instead of the big chunky predator drones today. Eg bird and bee sized."}
{"id":"af7c0f45-6279-4e2c-be7a-2c11d885c4b5","argument":"A Federation ship could zip by an Alliance vessel in Warp, beam a photon torpedo onto the Alliance vessel's bridge, and commit the grand mother of all drive-bys. Other comments have illustrated aspects of the Federation's technological advantages, but the specific application of these technologies in tandem- the ability to transport matter, the ability to transport matter while traveling at warp speed, and the incredible destructive power of photon torpedos- could end this fight before it starts","conclusion":"There are examples of weapons being transported this way, for example photon torpedoes and grenades."}
{"id":"c755ef8e-5c75-4a1f-b6e6-34f1ad895486","argument":"Recently I was talking to someone who identified as libertarian and in his ideal world, government wouldn't meddle in any sort of affairs that don't involve essential public services, infrastructure, or national defense. He also believes that police and the justice system should become involved only if a person infringes on another person's freedom ie. confinement, kidnapping, murder, etc examples being overly of a physical nature. As part of his view, a big topic of conversation was freedom of speech which he is a huge proponent of. Now here is the part that I take issue with He told me a story where he went to a parade that he brought his child to, and there was a man dressed as a woman with a visible bulge. He thought that it wasn't ok and that he should have the ability to stop this person from displaying what he finds inappropriate including through use of force. His reasoning is that he doesn't want his very young child to be exposed to such thing and he didn't feel comfortable explaining sexuality and the sexual spectrum because the child is so young and it's too early. Personally, I think it's his own discomfort rather than THINK OF THE CHILDREN . He understands that freedom of speech does not necessarily mean freedom of consequence ie. public shaming or judgement, but not legal repercussions. He believes people have the freedom to walk away from hateful speech. I believe the same is true with freedom of expression. Your personal freedom isn't being infringed upon to the same extent whether it's exhibited in the form of speech or expression. If someone used swears at a parade and the kid asked what fucking meant or what transvestite meant, in effect the result would be the same and the parent would have to explain or make something up. I'd even go as far as saying that public nudity is ok if the intent is not to arouse or cause some form of harm. Like any other regular assault the threat of physical harm as opposed to battery which is the act , public nudity can be considered sexual assault or it could be benign but that would be based on reasonable belief. I think majority would agree that if they saw a nudist with a boner at a playground that it's reasonable to believe that this is more than a nudist because they're exhibiting predatory behavior or behavior that threatens physical freedom. So to summarize, since I would consider speech to be a form of expression, you can't have freedom of speech without having freedom of expression which encompasses all forms of expression without selective exclusion.","conclusion":"You can't believe in freedom of speech without believing in the encompassing freedom of expression"}
{"id":"391cf441-9e47-41db-a2b4-7149e2893e87","argument":"Many laws are maintained through lobbying groups which act largely out of the sight of the public, and exclusively target politicians. See agricultural subsidies in many countries, orpharmaceutical industry lobbyists","conclusion":"It is harder to influence millions of individual voters than the small number of politicians that can be sufficient to swing a vote."}
{"id":"a45a483d-1ee6-4cf7-ab09-ed4dec773559","argument":"I really can only speak as an American citizen who works in corporate from 7 5PM. From what I can tell, and this is not a new sentiment, however daily life for the average middle class working person is monotonous and habitual. You wake up early to go to work sit in an office where a good chunk of the people are actually just being as minimally productive as they can be to get by, just to go back home on their hour commute. 2 3 hours to yourself only to sleep 8 hours and do it all over again. The working culture that I have been a part of makes sense. I can understand that with people that are actually utilizing their work schedules with full productivity and enthusiasm, it's the reason our GDP and economic standing is where it is. However, I know too many people in my office alone that absolutely dread going back to work. Or are stressed out too much. Or just really don't like the system in which we address work here in this country. Of course maybe if they worked doing something they loved it would be different That's the goal and ideal however in reality many people don't do what they want. Just off of the top calculations too. So at least 40 people on my side of the floor have 1 hour commute to work. Here is how many hours they spend in their car just commuting in a work year. 25 working days per month x 12 months 10 vacation days 290 working days in a year 290 days x 2 commuting hrs to and from 580 hours spent commuting 24 days commuting Meaning people spend a little less than a whole month in their car just driving to work. WTF. Maybe it's a necessary evil in the eyes of a productive company, but shit I don't want to waste 41 months driving in my car until retirement. Fuck. Not trying to complain. I think we should take a look at how other nations address their workforce and find a happy medium in between working hard and playing hard. I like the sentiment, however I know too many stressed out coworkers. edit I think I've seen articles looking at European countries with a really good work life balance, however I believe their populations are not comparable to the US' in that they are way smaller. Maybe the US has such a high population that consumer demand drives the work force, however does anyone have a proposal on how to address this? edit So I am not alluding to whether I am happy unhappy at my job I am just noting on the general mood and concensus of work culture I have had conversations with other co workers, aquaintances, etc. I am perfectly content with what I am doing right now, however I believe that there's an inherent problem with how society views work here. Anyways, holy shit just came back from moving out my current apartment and I have a lot of things to mull over. Hopefully you guys can .","conclusion":"I think the modern-day American working lifestyle is a never-ending cycle of unneeded stress and needs to change."}
{"id":"3f8f6962-ead8-458e-97ad-0808cd339416","argument":"Any product thing's effectiveness can be graded quantified in terms of how well it achieves an emotional response from the users customers eg it's not the only measure, just one for example, I'm not discounting things like durability, price, and so on . This applies to everything from products an app, a t shirt, a clock , experiences haunted house, business conference, funeral , or art song, poem, film and so on. We love it when we get one congruent emotional experience, and hate it when things don't match up. So, a haunted house is meant to make us feel scared. A fancy watch is meant to make us feel sophisticated and high status. Fake blood and cobwebs are neither good or bad, but if they're included in the box for a Rolex, people won't be as happy as if they're included in the haunted house even if the same people are buying the Rolex as are going to the haunted house . The reason is not simply it doesn't make sense for the Rolex , but that the emotional experience evoked by the blood matches the goal of the haunted house. Some views on this 1 Any product experience thing an app, song, movie, t shirt, event can get better if the emotional experience is more congruent eg a scarier haunted house could be achieved by adding scary music, isolating people, making a scary looking website etc or, by removing things that aren't congruent like a funny sign in the parking lot 2 Products with strong emotional experiences are what we spend the most money on because we highly value these things. eg one of the reasons that a plain coffee cup is lower priced than one with a funky design because the funky design makes us feel something eg creative, artsy, sophisticated further, we spend the most money on weddings or luxury cars because these things make us feel something very strongly eg the solidification of a romantic bond, the feeling that you've made it as a parent, status power etc. . People routinely spend tens of thousands of dollars more than they need to for what could technically be achieved with much less, but the people are driven instead to maximize the emotional experience eg romantic music, fancy clothes and food, nice paper for the invitations, flowers, etc . The congruent emotional experience of a wedding drives 95 of this expenditure. If, for example, there was haunted house music playing as the bride walked down the aisle, this would take away from the romantic vibe even though haunted house music is neither inherently good or bad . 3 People are pissed when their emotional experience is ruined eg people in first class love to be treated like royalty because this is what they're really paying for, brides want every element of the wedding to be in line with their romantic expectations 4 There are no good or bad design elements, only those that contribute or detract from a product's emotional experience eg body shots off a stripper may be a great idea for a bachelor party, but not as good at a funeral . 5 After tools, some of the first things we ever made as a society were things related to religion or ceremony. This is because of the emotional experience we got from these things eg crowns made the wearers feel important, tattoos and markings made people feel part of a tribe, burial ceremonies allowed people to feel greif . After basic functionality eg tools , adding an emotion into a product experience is our next primal need eg clothing gets color design, a house gets decoration, a coffee cup gets a shape, Siri gets jokes 6 this is the reason we don't value mass produced stuff as much as originals frankly, most people can't tell the difference between something that was painted by Leonardo Da Vinci and a fake eg the end product is arguably not that different , but what is different is that owning an original makes us feel high status, whereas if we own a fake, we lose that status. We don't really like the end product, we like the fact that it makes us feel important to own something that's rare.  gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The best products\/experiences are those that make us *feel* something congruent with the experience"}
{"id":"4dc1efcf-c62d-4767-9952-85e74b046826","argument":"As was mentioned above, euthanasia is an immediate and painless way to end a life that is too painful. Many families don't want to see their loved ones suffer and the patient doesn't want them to suffer either. Euthanasia provides an option to end a life before it even enters the terminal \"death-bed\" stage of suffering, or it allows families to choose to end a \"death bed\" existence with dignity and peace instead of simply pulling the plugs to, in some case, starve their loved one to death.","conclusion":"Euthanasia helps families that don't want to see their loved one suffer."}
{"id":"e93027bd-e181-4b57-8dcc-de86868b1cde","argument":"In 2004, the EU member states could not find consensus on their common history, specifically regarding the problem of taking up Christianity in the constitution.","conclusion":"European states do not share a common European identity, and so should not form one nation."}
{"id":"404200c1-36f7-4b20-b516-b2c487babbf8","argument":"By genetically enhancing modifying the human genome, we are in effect creating more equality throughout the world. This rivals the gene selfishness theory and in fact inspires the truest form of group altruism within our species. Evolution produces marvels, but only succeeds by making countless mistakes. If we can remove abnormalities defects genetically inherited diseases in our genetic code to make perfect humans, why shouldn't we? This view hinges on the premise that all future humans have the right, availability, and access to receive such genetic engineering of equal caliber. If we can attest that the latter remains true, then we have innovated ourself i.e. the human race to the next stage of evolution.","conclusion":"We should genetically modify humans"}
{"id":"64165583-69d0-4c51-9078-b96ce1761b62","argument":"There is evidence that people in the Paleolithic era painted what they saw during the consumption of psychedelic drugs on the walls of rocks and caves. These paintings had religious significance.","conclusion":"References to the ritual use of drugs are scattered through the history of religions."}
{"id":"64f1ba0c-ed71-4e7b-83fd-c51e870dbb3a","argument":"Eliminating every nuance of the past in the attempt to protect the children is not only misguided but unwarranted as children go to school to be educated and prepared for the world, not coddled into ignorance. Giving credibility to the idea that history is offensive by removing content creates young adults who are ignorant and will likely recreate the mistakes of history.","conclusion":"The removal or manipulation of information provided to students is a common method of censorship, often used to cover up uncomfortable truths about the past."}
{"id":"ba95b7d2-8547-4214-b079-5b80df7e2e52","argument":"Most people in developed countries, thanks to modern technology, are no longer required to exert themselves physically to earn a living, so they go the gym for various reasons to be able to exert themselves physically. I think that the people who do this would serve society far, far better by doing something constructive with this energy. For thousands of years at the least there has been a dearth of physical labor. This gave rise to slavery as a way to force people to do physical work, something most societies did for thousands of years, until very recently, which demonstrates just how incredibly valuable human physical labor is. So why are people squandering this invaluable resource doing completely trivial things? If every person who went to the gym every day volunteered doing something constructive with their energy, they would get the work out they want, but at the end of the day instead of lifting and lowering a piece of metal they would have helped build a house or helped a farmer harvest their crop. People are wasting their energy to accomplish literally nothing in the world, except for the changes that take place in your own body. If ending hunger and homelessness are more important to people than working out your muscle groups in the exact right order, then this should not be a problem. If the tens of millions of people who went to the gym used all of that energy to a constructive end instead of to literally no end, then we could probably fix many of the problems facing our society today.","conclusion":"Going to the gym is wasteful and selfish."}
{"id":"bc64061a-f090-4201-9aab-a8408dfc3af5","argument":"I believe that restricting nuclear weapons is little more than powerful countries trying desperately to hold onto the power that they currently posses by maintaining a monopoly on the most powerful weapons. In this day and age having nuclear weapons is imperative to the national defense of any country. The technology has been available since World War II, and serves as a powerful deterrent to invasion by foreign powers. I believe that the powerful countries want to restrict access to nuclear weapons not out of any concern for potential damage resulting from their use, but simply that they want to keep third world countries safe to attack. If we told some country that their military was no longer allowed to use firearms or explosives it would be seen as completely ludicrous, and I don't see nuclear disarmament as any different. gt Hello, users of  This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than just downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views If you are thinking about submitting a  yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Nuclear Weapons are to a national defense what firearms are to individual defense, it is immoral to prevent countries from acquiring nuclear weapons."}
{"id":"82c1d27a-eb3a-49ff-9106-13e261546e96","argument":"More specifically the Democrat representatives. I\u2019ve been watching the Strzok hearing throughout the day and I\u2019m confused as to what exactly these members are supposed to be doing. Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman essentially took two and a half minutes to tell Strzok that he had done nothing wrong and told him he had two and a half minutes to tell America whatever he wanted. Rep. Luis Gutierrez went off for a solid 3 4 minutes about Trump being a sexual predator and talked about the child separation policy and spent the final minute actually asking a question to his credit, he actually made a good point . Is this what they should be doing? Regardless of what is true about Strzok or Trump, shouldn\u2019t they be expected to talk about relevant information? Shouldn\u2019t they be expected to seek information? It seems to me that they are there attempting to prove that he is innocent instead of asking inquisitive questions. Each time he was \u201cquestioned\u201d by a democrat, you could see the relief in his face and he\u2019d smile and thank the member and what followed didn\u2019t ever seem to be anything of substance. Is that proper behavior? For the record, I\u2019m sure the script would be flipped if it benefitted the Republicans \u201cagenda\u201d. I do not think they are doing their job properly and that the Democrats should also be trying to get meaningful information from Peter Strzok instead of acting as if they are his attorneys.  Edit P.S. I happen to Believe Strzok.","conclusion":"House Oversight Committee and House Judiciary Committee Members are not doing their job"}
{"id":"6d6dee6d-3631-4edc-8d75-6beb9e3e0e18","argument":"If USE would be created, does all EU members would become a part of that, or only Eurozone?","conclusion":"The USE will enable a more assertive foreign and defense policy for the benefit of its members."}
{"id":"ef5a717d-df6d-4cad-81ea-33346ab0cca9","argument":"If sexist men do not hire women because they do not like to work with women, they will hire the amount they need at the top and won't hire any others.","conclusion":"Quotas in higher up positions may lead to fewer women hired at the bottom level."}
{"id":"a7f968c6-2bf4-4d9c-b40a-7b7c3347b217","argument":"So this argument comes up every now and then and I just can't get past this notion that tipping has become a standard . When you ask someone, How much was your dinner at that restaurant? Most would answer It was around after tips and tax . I see a huge problem with the fact tip was included in these responses, making it mandatory. I ride cabs very often when I travel for work. What do 80 of my cab drivers do when I get to my destination? They put their fingers on their machines and say How much to add? How is the society OKAY with this? I got into a car, he drove me to my destination, made zero interactions with him during the course. Not to mention 95 of my cab drivers will complain about me not carrying cash because their machine is always broken. Or the typical gratuities included for table of or more on a receipt. What kind of a system is this? It's basically saying thank you to yourself on behalf of the customers. A lot of the arguments I get from restaurant staff is that basically the restaurant will take money out of their pockets to share with the staff who's doesn't collect tips like chefs . Be that true or not, it's not a valid argument why everyone is expected to tip an individual who is doing nothing more than their job description. The fundamental fallacy with that argument is that the knowledge on another person's pay or cut should not affect your decision to tip. Does a waiter serve higher grade food to a customer in a suit looks like they rake big cash vs a lower grade food to a guy who dress like he flips burgers for a living? Don't get me wrong, I tip. But not because I feel they deserve it, but because this has become an expectation of the society. When they do a excellent job, I tip more because sometimes I feel like they do more than their job description and was good at it. But when I tip because they did no more or less than their job, it just doesn't make any sense to me.","conclusion":"Tipping should be voluntary, not expected."}
{"id":"3e630629-56cc-497a-9f6b-69eeb5e388e9","argument":"This came from a Rolling Stones article a friend posted on Facebook. Seeing how reasonable discussion on facebook is rare or perceived as pedantic I decided to ask here. First off, I don't understand why this article portrays the issue in such a cartoony black and white way in the 4th point gt the Second Amendment was written by slaveholders If you love the Second Amendment that much, feel free to live in a powdered wig and shit in a chamberpot while trying to survive off what you can kill with an 18th century musket. That's not what the 2nd amendment is for. The concept comes from a revolution trying to remove the possibility of the monopolization of violence from the government. Why was it so important to the FFs to put the right to bear arms as the second amendment? If anything ever got out of hand in the US the citizens had the power to refresh the tree of liberty . It's not symbolic, it's pragmatic, and one of the defining factors that made the US so different from the empires of Europe. It prevented leaders from accumulating power through force many times in our history. It was and still is a major check and balance to our system to have an actively armed citizenry. We've drifted very far away from that system, where we believe in giving more authority to government which if that's your cup of tea, that's cool but do understand that it is literally against the American revolution's principles and that's difficult to erase from the culture . To simplify them as slaveholders is a lazy attack on some intelligent men who were in the middle of a crucial socio economic political movement in history that had little wiggle room when establishing a country from an armed rebellion we ended up fighting a civil war over slavery not too long after and then to label gun supporters as luddites for change portrays every gun supporter as a crazed NRA right winger is just partisan. It doesn't take away the fact that all these mass shootings are tragedies if someone is in support of guns. It also doesn't mean that people that support guns aren't reasonable enough to discuss for further regulation we've already got that plenty . A large part of the problem lies in media, sensationalizing these acts, blowing up the events so that they have 24 hour coverage, and keeping a scoreboard for some very deranged individuals. The deputy at the scene of the recent Oregon shooting didn't want to release the name of the shooter had it right, and it is the ethical failure of the media to further elaborate in useless speculation on his motives and the nonsense that lead them to do it. These situations require honest discussion and careful attention to all the details, not further divide to make it left or right talking points like this editorial pretending to be journalism does. I used to work for one for a host of one of the big media and I came to understand that it was just squeezing these things into money and air time. I don't trust the conservative platforms because they tend to pander to the NRA and the liberal ones never mention statistics that show that gun violence is not as high as it seems.","conclusion":"The US media is the major factor for Mass-Shootings, not the guns themselves"}
{"id":"f2c6243d-6e4a-434d-9d4c-9a9aebd0f349","argument":"Famous athletes are commonly glorified in advertisements and thus often recognized as examples of what young athletes should strive to become.","conclusion":"Condoning dangerous activities sets a bad example for the rest of society to follow."}
{"id":"d5b33a60-6b71-4cca-9687-55c642512ecd","argument":"As a backstory I am transgender but I hate saying this to people. Not due to any qualms about actually being transgender, but due to how the majority of the transgender community acts. I regularly browse r traa r mtf and r asktransgender but I rarely ever relate to or feel sympathy for any of the problems. Ignoring discrimination in the workplace, law, or medical providers, which are real issues, I don't think the transgender movement has any valid complaints. Here are some common complaints I hear that I almost never agree with Dysphoria A lot of transgender people complain about dysphoria and hating their body, but I fail to see how this is any different than what any unattractive person goes through. Most people are likely unhappy with some aspect of their appearance and I don't see why transgender people should be receiving any special treatment. Insurance would never cover plastic surgery for someone who is plain ugly, so why do they for transgender people. Dating Transgender people love to cry trans phobia when people don't want to date them especially if they get turned down because of their genitals. To me however, someone who has the correct anatomy preferring to date other people who have the correct anatomy is a valid preference. I fail to see how this is discrimination or trans phobic. In a similar vein I entirely believe that a transgender person should disclose that first thing in any relationship, otherwise they are misleading the other person and is basically the same as catfishing. Jokes Insults Trans people seem to get really up in arms about any joke at or about transgender people. In fact I regularly see them complaining and harassing people for jokes that are not even directly related to transgender people see h3h3 By definition most jokes are going to have a target. If it is okay to make jokes about any group of people then it should be okay to make jokes about all groups of people. I do not understand the mentality that some groups should be off limit. Misgendering Obviously I understand why people don't like getting misgendered, that said, I think it is entirely an issue between the transgender person and the one who misgendered them. There have been attempts like Bill C 16 to classify misgendering disrespecting someone's identity as hate speech, I fail to see how this is anything other than censorship and the government trying to get more power over potential political opponents. These are the biggest points I disagree with, there are more but these are the ones that came to mind as I was writing this post. Edit one of the comments I gave a delta to has adequately addressed my points, I'll likely stop replying to the rest.","conclusion":"Very few of the complaints\/requests that transgender people have are valid."}
{"id":"1f2caa02-5872-4158-9104-4966e156b666","argument":"The perception of choice is simple awareness of a decision. Decisions are made according to one's value system. Our value systems are informed by our environmental experience and self-modifications to values are in accordance with preexisting values. Our values are ranked. Therefore, when we arrive at a decision point, our final decision is perfectly predicted by the choice which most satisfies our values. In cases of \"ties\", we flip a coin, which is not choice moral responsibility.","conclusion":"Our choices are all deterministically based on historical events processed in the first person."}
{"id":"b9a7c637-5a53-4d4a-a483-bd437db6283f","argument":"Harvard was recently named America's most difficult school to get into for the third year in a row, according to an updated ranking from the educational institution data company Niche.","conclusion":"Elite universities have an extremely high number of yearly applicants because of their prestige, ranking and exclusivity."}
{"id":"cece3dfe-2fec-4c29-b970-fb131dfdf79e","argument":"So it's pretty clear that the mods and admins have been shady for about two ish years when the whole ViolentAcrez thing happened and Reddit hit CNN in a negative light so they threw him under the bus. I'm going to call that the start of it all because between Project Panda r shitredditsays 's community wide project to get that handful of subreddits banned by any means necessary. and Reddit going from giving ViolentAcrez Reddit awards to just leaving him out in the cold, that's what caught my eye. I could be wrong. r BronyHate got banned before r niggers which was always weird to me and I never really saw justification for it. GamerGate hit Reddit pretty hard and they went full lockdown on a bunch of the main subs with all that drama and the undeniable full on censorship of anything regarding that topic. And now with videos sprouting up about the double standard between self promotion posts getting removed for some users, while other more famous users are obviously there to promote a movie or book or whatever else having no problem. and then there's this whole thing happening yesterday. I think what bothers me most about this is that in a sub of about 7 million subscribers that's, what, a third of the Reddit community? Now a lot of people would say Well it's the SJW invasion blah blah blah and while SJW's are a fun group of crazy people I'm particularly fond of bickering with full disclosure I think it's a bit different than that, but not too far off. When Reddit got bought by Advance Publications in 2011, the shift towards marketing Reddit began. Before 2011, it was basically a free for all. Not much was censored and posts stood on their merit, rather than if they passed arbitrary rules made up by people appointed as 'the boss of everyone else' simply because they got there first. It's one of the shittiest ways to decide who's in charge. And it's not necessarily the content changing direction that I have a problem with, it's that mods and admins have forced it in that direction. The community is lost to an oligarchy of people who couldn't care less about what everyone wants, so long as the site still generates traffic. This is what happened to Digg, and there isn't really anything anyone can do about it. Personally I'm just curious as to who will successfully start the next Reddit. You don't really need much more of a draw than a better way to regulate content than artificially influenced voting and arbitrarily set rules made by nearly random people. tl dr Reddit is sliding into ruin and it's all mods' admins' fault. It isn't ruined yet, but the best days are behind us.","conclusion":"Reddit has seen its golden age and has been in its decline for a while now; we need a new site."}
{"id":"356112ac-cad3-4972-8479-c172e1bbf118","argument":"According to estimates based on Voters New Service, Bush received 68% of the vote among white evangelicals in 2000. In comparison, Gore received only 30%.","conclusion":"Evangelicals have a history of supporting the Republican Party and its leaders."}
{"id":"deef12fe-a929-4ad1-b934-1e8f7f162557","argument":"Take the case of the Central American Refugee Van headed to the US right now. But this is intended to work for any refugee crisis. People who are in favor of taking in those refugees should be placed on a registry to provide housing, food, and social assistance for those aforementioned refugees. Taking in migrants has many positive effects on a country, but it comes with just as many costs to society and the government. People who strongly believe that refugees should be admitted should have to put their money where their mouth is. At the end of the day, someone must pay for housing, feeding, educating, and socially acclimating refugees. And it makes sense that the people who most strongly support admitting refugees become a part of the solution. It would be a resource based system. You wouldn't be expected to house any refugees if you are living in a one room apartment. You wouldn't be expected to feed any refugees if you are food insecure. And you wouldn't be expected to volunteer your time to teach them English if you are working all the hours you can just to stay financially solvent. However, if you are a have rather than a have not , and you voted to bring said refugees in. You shall be placed onto this refugee assistance registry . And if you are asked to do so by the government, you shall have to provide housing, food, financial assistance, or your time as a volunteer to help said refugees adapt to their new country. You shall face fines if you refuse. And the fines paid would be used to pay for the welfare and care of the refugees which you probably should not object to since bringing them here was something you adamantly supported . Think of that fine as an opt in refugee assistance tax, which is the alternative to providing material support to refugees. EDIT Kindly Read Below Because I have had to respond to this many, many times. I would like to make a clarification. I am only proposing this specific method referendum registry to assist with the impending refugee crisis as the caravan of 7,200 and growing refugees near the US border. If the US decides to take in the caravan. Do you think that there are homes ready and waiting for them? That caravan is the size of a small American city. These people will need housing, food, healthcare, financial support, and volunteers to teach them English so they can access social services, go to school, and eventually find jobs and work. Not all Americans agree that these 7,200 should be allowed to bypass the system of legal immigration in place. Hence, my proposal is that the Americans who are in favor of admittance, who have the resources to do so, should step up and help with actions and not just words if the refugees are admitted as per their wishes. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"People in Favour of Housing Refugees, Should Be Required to Provide Housing for Refugees"}
{"id":"292429ac-db14-4757-abc3-3d251b21eddf","argument":"MyHeritage.org. Retrieved 4.10.08 - \"A politically driven pullout would be a military disaster.A political pullout would send a dangerous signal of weakness and fecklessness to both our allies and enemies\".","conclusion":"An early withdrawal from Iraq would undermine US credibility with allies"}
{"id":"55f0ee6f-2d56-4114-bb45-11f94a058b55","argument":"Generally, there is often a feeling of resentment on the side of the privileged parts of society when a new group gains power. A loss of power within society frequently drives conflicts with government, as different ethnonationalist factions lay claims to state power.","conclusion":"Resentment of minority groups is a regular thing in larger mainstream societies and would not stop just because of the cessation of affirmative action."}
{"id":"b1dd6f7f-d05d-4e5b-b09f-df24d3bf6025","argument":"Working 5 hours a day instead of 8 hours or more has shown to increase productivity, performance, and increased happiness.","conclusion":"Working long hours is detrimental to one's health and encounters diminishing returns."}
{"id":"1c635eca-8d56-4c03-ad93-545373428f02","argument":"My mom is a music therapist who works with kids like these, and my cousin has down syndrome, so I've been around mentally disabled people my whole life. I understand that yes, these are people's children, so of course they will be loved and cared for. Regardless, I can't help but view them as a burden. Most of them will never achieve much, never be able to live on their own, and will have to be cared for their whole entire life. I feel terrible for writing this, but I've seen a select few so severely disabled that their whole entire life will be them doing nothing but drooling and making noises. Someone will have to use their time taking care simply because they exist. They will never be able to provide anything, for anyone except feelings shared between them and their families caretakers . I feel like because of this, they are a complete waste of time and energy. And by simply existing, they are a burden to the rest of us. I'm not saying there's anything we can do. I'm not saying there's a better option than them simply becoming someone's burden. I truly feel terrible for people affected by mentally handicapping diseases, and I feel even worse for their family. However, I don't see how they will ever be anything but a burden and a waste of people's time. . Edit Wow, I just read over what I wrote again. I'm an asshole.","conclusion":"I believe severely mentally disabled people are nothing but a burden and a waste of everyone's time."}
{"id":"b37dcdbd-1dad-4f96-b4bc-3892e6859d6d","argument":"If the US hadn\u2019t participated, the non-Communist peoples of South Vietnam would have been persecuted even more than they were. As it was, after the South was invaded by the North in 1978 over a million fled and millions more were killed, tortured and persecuted in the aftermath of the war, and in the years since. In an absurd example of this, anyone with any element of professional success \u2013 doctors, lawyers, civil servants, professors, teachers \u2013 had their lives ruined, at the very least being forbidden to practice their vocation, even to this day. The fate of those millions who suffered so greatly under the Communists after the fall of the South shows that it was right to assist the non-Communists in opposing them.","conclusion":"If the US hadn\u2019t participated, the non-Communist peoples of South Vietnam would have been persecuted..."}
{"id":"43d84597-1cf4-4be6-b604-0fdac4b69262","argument":"Apart from resources, false testimony that implicates an innocent individual or group could cause a gross miscarriage of justice.","conclusion":"False testimony directs police to false locations and leads. It wastes police time and resources."}
{"id":"595b1c06-d9ff-4c50-8059-91b4a07334e7","argument":"Lily Potter stood over Harry's body to try and protect him when Voldemort came looking for them, and the fact that she died trying to save him is believed to give Harry special protection.","conclusion":"Additionally, these mothers more so than their husbands fit the stereotype of being highly protective of and absolutely devoted to their children, even in war and into death."}
{"id":"1c1d7d77-3956-48a8-949e-cd649fb11df1","argument":"Though a complex narrative spanning thousands of years and involving hundreds of characters, The Book of Mormon never contradicts itself.","conclusion":"The Book of Mormon is too complex for Joseph Smith to have created solely by his own wits."}
{"id":"4bc571b3-bdfd-4c6c-852a-0a55eb94dda7","argument":"Liquid Democracy is the people telling the government what to do - there is implicit trust in that relationship and so there is no risk to letting the government know what that vote was.","conclusion":"There is no need to keep your identity or vote secret from the voting system unless you do not trust your government or telecoms infrastructure."}
{"id":"e7e69677-b92d-42f5-8b98-1e7f3340094c","argument":"The scientific method isn't the only means to truth and existence\u2014contrary to our scientistic culture\u2014due to its empirical limits. If it were the only means of knowing, a great many imperceptible\/undetectable things would be de facto nonexistent or cognitively meaningless.","conclusion":"Being \"scientifically proven\" is not a necessary requirement for being true."}
{"id":"b945e9eb-fe6b-440a-9355-45843f177bfb","argument":"Men approach women more often than women approach men. Women see around 80 of men as unattractive, men see around 50 of women as unattractive. There are certain things that are considered generally uniformly attractive height, weight, facial structure etc. and there are things someone can do to raise their attractiveness to a good majority of the gender they're trying to attract work out, dress well, keep good hygiene etc. Source Bob, John, Michael and Alice both make dating profiles on OkCupid. Alice gets a message from Bob, John, and Michael. Alice does not see Bob and John as attractive, so she politely declines the invitation to a date from them. Alice does however see Michael as attractive so she goes on a date with him. Now Bob, John and Michael send a message to every single girl on OkCupid. Bob gets 10 100 responses. John gets 45 100 responses. Michael gets 90 100 responses. It could be assumed that Michael is conventionally more attractive than John, who is conventionally more attractive than Bob. How does that not make a market? There are multiple people competing for a limited number of units, certain people have higher market values than other. And seeing as though men generally are the initiators of relationships, despite the fact that women see more men as unattractive than men see women as unattractive, women still have the advantage of sitting back and waiting for her suitors to come to her. A women who is passive, both online and off, generally can still obtain a decent dating life. A man who is equally as passive generally can't.","conclusion":"Dating is a marketplace and women are the gatekeepers of relationships and sex."}
{"id":"21f1187c-bf6e-4156-8784-f9ff5b9a9d7a","argument":"I believe that riots in America are NEVER justified as long as there is a vote and a right to contact your representatives, that view of mine is pretty solid and realistically the riots are the voices of the unheard won't change it, rioters are just gang members. If you believe that riots are justified you MUST believe that property ought to be destroyed, therefore you must have skin in the game. You need to be ok with your property being destroyed as well. The only thing that is separating you from being that business owner or having your car destroyed is basically the lottery chance . I also believe that you are obligated to applaud rioters and mobs when they take actions you don't like. If you believe in riots, and I am rioting and I decide to vandalize a synagogal or a mosque with a swastika or I decide to break your window or I throw a Molotov into a marijuana shop, you have to stand there and applaud me even if my riot isn't something you support. I feel like my views are wrong, but I also think rioting is unforgivable. ? gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Anyone who supports a riot in America or any other democracy where a person has a vote is obligated to destroy their own property and applaud when mobs take actions even if they don't believe in the cause."}
{"id":"94cca204-1f29-4c58-8faa-3e83d2ae074f","argument":"I am open to change. Here is what I think at the moment. 1 Cults often follow a charismatic leader who received divine inspiration. Check Mohammed claimed to be visited by an angel who instructed him in the word of God. 2 Cult leaders are often violent. Check Mohammed was a warlord thief who beheaded between 600 and 900 people. Mohammed tortured people and even ordered assassinations. 3 Cult leaders often sexually abuse women and children. Check Mohammed had numerous wives, sex slaves and even had sex with Aisha, a 9 year old and his favourite wife. 4 Cult members are not allowed to mix with non cult members. Check Muslims may not befriend non muslims according to the Koran. Immigrant Muslims do not integrate and form alternate communities. 5 Cult members are not allowed to criticize the movement. Check , critique of Islam can cost you your life. 6 The cult consumes every aspect of your life. Check . Islam is a totalitarian system. Islamic dress, Islamic schools, Islamic food, Islamic Law, even Islamic Banking no area are not controlled by Islam 7 Cult members are often killed by other members of the cult. Check Honour and blasphemy killings fit this bill 8 Cult members can't leave the cult Check . Apostates are frequently killed p.s. I suck at English, not my native language","conclusion":"Of all the religions, the Islam is the biggest cult"}
{"id":"0e27d300-d95d-43a4-91d2-bdfa49a839dc","argument":"In particular cyclists and pedestrians are very vulnerable in car accidents. If self-driving cars disregard their safety it will likely lead to more serious injuries being inflicted upon them in order to prevent only small harms to the passengers.","conclusion":"If self-driving cars are extremely averse to harming others it will make roads much safer for third parties."}
{"id":"5f726c55-be2f-4f7b-a584-4ef3565ef9e7","argument":"I recently came upon a post about suicide and whether or not it\u2019s selfish especially if you had a family and kids that relied on you. If someone had these life problems divorce mey eventually come up and in my opinion that would be even worse financially and emotionally. I am a child of divorce myself which left both my parent bankrupt and ended after years of vicious custody battles. This was very traumatizing for my sister and I, but it\u2019s happened to most of my friends as well and it just not something we like to talk about. But a few of my friends have also lost parents in work accident or to cancer and they seem much better off than the rest of us. They are certainly much better off financially, emotionally I can\u2019t be quite sure. I haven\u2019t seen my dad on ten years and I don\u2019t feel anything very much about it but death is a part of life and they seem like they\u2019ve moved on, also you get a lot more sympathy and support if you\u2019ve lost a parent compared to if they were going through a divorce. Death may be ultimately permanent but there is no such thing as a bloodless no fault divorce.","conclusion":"Death of a parent is less harmful then divorce"}
{"id":"3a7394d2-5b66-4e5b-af97-2fc6f92d227d","argument":"The Brexit dividend will pay the equivalent of \u00a3384 million a week more than the \u00a3350 million promised by Vote Leave","conclusion":"\u00a320 billion has been pledged to NHS by 2024, funded by money saved from the EU membership."}
{"id":"5c29557e-4d2a-45fc-9fb7-5ee2e5167109","argument":"In Germany, with free tertiary education, there are still significant class disparities in college attendance. Three quarters of children with university-educated parents go to university, whereas just one quarter of those with lower parental education levels attend.","conclusion":"The empirical evidence from countries that have free tertiary education suggests that reduced or no tuition fees do not have a substantial impact on the rich\/poor divide in universities."}
{"id":"64af8eff-871e-4987-b985-165f32bd952e","argument":"Recently, I have noticed a mass amount of people campaigning to stop the Dog Meat Festival that occurs in Yulin, China. While I can understand the uncomfortableness that arises from large amounts of dogs being slaughtered, I feel like it is no better or worse than the mass killings of other animals such as chicken or cow. I feel most of the people who are against the festival are too enamored with their own cultural views on dogs to see why their hypocrisy. If the people who are campaigning against the festival truly believe it is health issue, that is one thing, but it appears most people are just concerned about the fact that dogs are being slaughtered.","conclusion":"People who complain about the Yulin Dog Meat Festival, but gladly eat other animals are hypocritical and cannot see past their own cultural biases."}
{"id":"717584f1-a4b9-403a-a91c-0699fe983a4d","argument":"I\u2019ve met tons of people like this. They will be adamant they don\u2019t believe in god, which fine. But they\u2019ll also show extreme fear towards the thought of demons. If you mention something like a Ouija board to them they\u2019ll freak out. \u201cI don\u2019t want to get possessed or haunted by a demon\u201d You can\u2019t say you don\u2019t believe in any religion but at the same time fear a type of being that\u2019s exclusively from religion. If you are atheist then you shouldn\u2019t believe in demons, so the thought of demons should literally do nothing to you. Either you aren\u2019t truly atheist like you claim or you aren\u2019t 100 atheist and still believe that some sort of higher beings exist.","conclusion":"You can\u2019t believe in and be scared of demons but also claim to be an atheist."}
{"id":"632399a4-271c-4e9b-8a23-32361448ff5d","argument":"I feel the correct basis for conservatism and I am a conservative is the opposition to radical change what some call progress . These are the kind of principles espoused in Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France , which I have just read. I would say that because conservatism is the idea of limiting progress, the two primary types of conservatives in the modern world neo liberals, and neo conservatives have failed in being legitimate conservatives and inputing legitimate conservative policy. They have actually been pushing an agenda of progress which actually countermands tradition and preservation. Firstly, neo liberalism. I will deal mostly with Thatcher in the UK here, since my grasp of the policies of Reagan is not strong, although it is ok. Thatcher essentially led a programme of privatization. This was a ridiculously radical action. Thatcher believed the free market would solve everything, and as such destroyed not just the bloated government labour had created, but also many political institutions that had existed in the UK for many years. The destruction of government institutions is not inherently conservative, in fact I would say it is progressive. It is a belief that changing the way we have lived for hundreds of years in favour of a entirely different system is good for society, when it is in fact an instrument of radical change. Conservatives should be concerned with preserving long held values, not creating new ones. Secondly, the neo conservative movement. The idea that through military intervention we could create a global, free market democratic society is a utopian notion. In fact I would draw attention to how Burkean philosophy is inherently opposed to this, because Burke says that a tyrannical government being removed is not at all likely to lead to liberty, and we shouldn't enshrine abstract rights over concrete effects. I would say a real conservative policy, one that conserves our values and democratic system rather than destroys it would be something like as follows, which no modern conservative supports 1 Anti Globalization Globalization results in our values being undermined because we have to push a program of free trade and free immigration which actually rewards us in the form of profits and wages for abdicating our values Citizen employment and traditional small business and our stability trade deficits budget deficits . 2 Anti Growth Modern conservatives push a program of deficit spending to expand our economy which only results in long term disaster. Additionally, unrestrained economic growth can result in pernicious new industries which undermine our values and destroy the environment that is so important to the well being of humans. 3 Pro Localism Local communities are undermined by multinational corporations, and central governments that want to push a narrative of global free trade and economic progress. The utopian experiment of multinational government has failed and we need to prevent the kind of value conflict that could occur. Citizens should be allowed to preserve their values, and should not be forced into accepting radical change from halfway across a continent, or forced into a global system to preserve their livelihood. tl dr Real conservatism is dead because modern conservatives undermine our values by pushing progress and economic growth at all costs, rather than defending long held principles and values.  I am of course open to all criticism and all responses are welcome.","conclusion":"Conservatism is Dead"}
{"id":"6ef4055c-b9f2-4f22-8f74-93affbb73a2d","argument":"Alvaro Huerta of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles said his organization opposes Deal\u2019s proposal and is girding for a battle for public opinion: \"This is red meat for conservatives. They throw out these issues they know aren\u2019t winning issues, and they create an environment of anti-immigrant sentiment. We need to do better job of educating people why it\u2019s wrong.\"6","conclusion":"Republicans want to end birthright citz. to tap anti-immigrant vote"}
{"id":"bedfb7a1-d55b-49c5-bd47-b71ec59a4a92","argument":"Most days when I turn on the news I see reports of religiously fueled violence, not just in other countries but in America as well. I feel that the tolerance for people to get along in this world when you think in terms of religion is very low. There are many cases of violence in history that can be directly traced to religious roots and I feel that as we advance our own history this mentality is not changing. This is not an argument saying that people who are religious are violent. Nor is it an argument saying that religion is the cause of hate and violence. I want to question why it is that religious tensions lead to these kinds of actions of hate and violence.","conclusion":"I am an atheist who believes that people who are religious breed more hate and violence than their non-religious counterparts."}
{"id":"7f44997f-d096-42bc-8b1d-3c517a5b4ba3","argument":"Jared Kushner was accepted into Harvard despite having low test scores. It is speculated this was because his parents donated $2.5 million to the university the year he was accepted.","conclusion":"Rich parents can donate large sums of money to a school to increase their child's chances of being accepted."}
{"id":"190c5110-dd64-4105-8f6a-7a88ddf08c3a","argument":"The way I see it if a currency does not have room for expansion of its monetary supply then as it gets used more the price per unit increases relative to other currencies. This inherent deflationary pressure seems like it would over time reduce the volume of currency being traded for goods and services as the coins in your wallet are an appreciating asset and if you spend them on a good today you are missing on increased profits tomorrow which means other means of payment would be preferable for purchases. This all seems very unhealthy for its use long term as currency as people would have a tendency to treat it as a commodity which can even be seen now by the fact that some own Bitcoins as a means to gain profit. Markets work far better when there is a relatively stable value for their relevant currencies. Large swings in relative value undercut commerce because it causes both consumers and vendors to question if a given trade is really in their best interest at that time. Could I buy way more if I waited a month for my currency to appreciate? I know people say having limits to currency in circulation avoids some of the dangers they see with centrally managed currencies. To me you could have say a set 2 inflation rate hardcoded into the currency per year that was divided out as a maximum rate of coins able to be mined per day after an initial expansive period to establish a base monetary supply and much of those problems would evaporate. I honestly do not see the benefit to a hard permanent limit to amount of currency in circulation but hey","conclusion":"Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin with permanent limits to the maximum amount of currency in circulation are inherently not sustainable long term and do not make viable long term alternatives to the more traditional currencies."}
{"id":"675f35d9-293b-42d8-9213-69689d9d784b","argument":"There is a growing consensus that hypertension in black patients should not be initiated with ACE inhibitors.","conclusion":"ACE inhibitors are less effective in black populations compared to white populations."}
{"id":"eac47109-e844-4410-85a1-409884d1fc12","argument":"This view has the potential to sound horribly mean spirited, and that is not what I'm looking for. Let me explain. Excessive debt is horrible. It cripples you financially, and limits the options for growth and success. This is a very simple, common concept that anyone should understand. Do not spend what you don't have. So why should the plight of young adults saddled with excessive student loans be a topic of compassion and concern? Excessive student loans are the result of extremely poor decision making. In my experience view, aspiring college students have the following avenues open to them Scholarships Is your work ethic, intellect, and ability worth enough for colleges to invest in providing a full or partial scholarship? If you are exceptional and can display concrete, measurable excellence then colleges will pay for your education. Community College Are you merely average? If you aren't exceptional enough to have your education paid for, then this is a tough but necessary life lesson for you. Suck it up, you aren't special. Do what a lot of us did. Go to Community College for two years, get your AA, then transfer. If you do well enough in CC, you may even get scholarships funding for your undergrad. You will save money and end up with the same paper degree. Military There are plenty of non combat positions that act as a form of Trade School . IT, engineering, medical, mechanical you name it, the military has it. Not only will you get paid for on the job training, but you'll also get money for college when you leave the service. Your views on the military itself aren't relevant you can take a non combat job if you don't want to personally hurt someone. If you have some sort of political agenda against the military well, recognize that many military members dislike US GOV more than you, yet they recognize that the military is a necessary cog in the US system. The military agenda sucks, but there's no reason why you can't personally benefit from it. Parental Support Rich parents who will pay for school? You aren't part of my argument. Also, everyone hates you. Some background Raised by a single working class mother, no money for college, joined the military, went to community college, worked through school to finish education, acquired certifications part time while furthering career. I currently make great money working for a Fortune 500, have a lovely family, and absolutely no debt. Nothing was given to me. A common complaint seen here on Reddit revolves around students frustrated with excessive student loans. No one forced these students to go to expensive private schools funded with loans. There are other options, and I do not sympathize. I would like to understand the frustration, and expand my perspective. Please change my view.","conclusion":"I feel no sympathy for students with excessive student loans."}
{"id":"e505cc30-39d5-4639-a42a-54815e8cd18b","argument":"Judges are cognizant of legal precedents and thus, more aware of the nuances in a case. Juries are less likely to be familiar with prior instances of the case and more likely to be biased by their preferred media outlets. Since judges are aware of prior arguments in similar cases, they can be more discerning in spite of their ideology.","conclusion":"Judges have the training and expertise to better understand complex law."}
{"id":"9696927a-4b6a-4d05-a6f0-fe53ed7b9cef","argument":"One example of this relates to the development of terminator seeds. This is when genetically modified crops are altered so that they produce sterile seeds.","conclusion":"Corporations can utilize their patents for genetically modified products to engage in exploitative practices."}
{"id":"f1f6ce1d-748b-4ba9-9609-f7c58f1f1265","argument":"Without opinion polls, voters will rely on their 'gut feeling' of how likely each party is to win. This is more likely to be incorrect as it is based on circumstantial or anecdotal evidence.","conclusion":"The bandwagon effect would continue without opinion polls, but instead be based on inaccurate perceptions."}
{"id":"2d0f9eb5-04c0-431c-a921-ecd5721db4a6","argument":"It seems to me that nowadays it is very difficult for someone who is above average to be appreciated by the system. With productivity becoming the key focus of most large companies, mentorship is an added strain on any professional, and as such it has become far less common than it used to be. KPIs are blocking employees from being able to manage their time as desired, and marketing is helping companies get away with mediocrity, ensuring significant profits even with sub par products and services. My concern is that aiming towards excellence in a field or as a work ethic is no longer well regarded, or encouraged, as it is sometimes inefficient, and producing more results that are good enough is considered better than producing the best results. Of course, I do not mean to make this about efficiency versus effectiveness, but I believe that, when talking about people, productivity is a disrespectful and unnecessary metric if you exclude employee abuses . To summarize, I feel that nowadays mediocrity is applauded and encouraged and excellence is not desired or allowed for. It feels that, without significant effort to change the system or fight to create your own company and approach to things, aiming towards being very good is almost impossible, except for the few fields such as IT where you can offer quality services independently. Having said that, please reddit, change my view gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Employee mediocrity is ranked higher than excellence nowadays."}
{"id":"00238ef9-a82e-4014-8417-5fc71635d14c","argument":"Because they can be implemented unilaterally and without the consent or cooperation of the victim, Zero-Tolerance policies deny victims agency in the justice process.","conclusion":"Zero-Tolerance policies are harmful to victims of domestic and sexual violence."}
{"id":"e2eebcfb-d9d0-44aa-a71e-4287028fe390","argument":"In general, the human trafficking argument against legalizing prostitution has two forms. One is that prostitution is inherently connected with human trafficking, therefore, it is inherently immoral. I don't think I need to tell why this is prima facie incorrect. I can just point at one of the numerous counter examples, of a prostitute that trades money for sex without being coerced or exploited. The second form is that prostitution should not be legalized because it will increase human trafficking. I think, while this argument seems strong at first. It looks much weaker when you realized that we are not applying these standards evenly. We do not outlaw domestic work just because there are domestic workers who are slaves. We do not outlaw mining, agricultural work and construction work just because people are sometimes forced to do these things. It seems to me that, if we are to be consistent, then it logically follows that if prostitution should remain illegal because of human trafficking , then domestic work should be illegal as well. In general, slavery is already illegal, and exploitation is heavily frowned upon and civic minded people try to minimize exploitation as much as possible, but not at all costs. Unless you can argue that having sex for money is inherently wrong and not merely wrong at the level of adultery, which is not illegal , then it does not seem that the prospects of forced labor are a good reason to outlaw it. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The human trafficking argument is not a good argument against legalizing prostitution."}
{"id":"6c395a48-e290-470b-a6b2-de0b97f0dea1","argument":"Until now it is known that more than 4% of death row inmates were innocent with a high probability of more undetected cases.","conclusion":"Wrongful convictions are rampant in the US With such a flawed system, the death penalty should not be used."}
{"id":"9d6b7a35-d385-4e44-9afc-6da1a75ab13d","argument":"Morals are a set of rules that individuals live by. It is exceedingly arrogant to suggest that people with different morals are somehow incorrect or wrong. It is not up to other individuals to police the morals of any other person. That is why women should always have the right to choose what happens to their own body and to live by the morals they choose for themselves.","conclusion":"Ethics and morality are subjective and can vary from society to society or even from person to person."}
{"id":"e61c2c78-d184-4671-903a-6798f964cc20","argument":"There are plenty of reports to support this claim: One in the claim itself, 5 cases here and 25 cases here","conclusion":"The type of men that will prefer female space above equivalent male space will be the abusive type."}
{"id":"88ff8f9f-5d1c-4cd9-a928-96efa30eeb98","argument":"I've talked to a lot of people who consider themselves Old Souls and the more I hear about it the more I think that the concept is so egotistical and unbelievably. Old Soul doesn't have an official definition but I see it as someone who Generally more developed or more mature than others in their age group Pursues interests that doesn't interest the greater populace, such as wisdom, truth, etc. Seeks a deeper meaning and deeper level of understanding than everyone else Are able to see past the surface of everything and can introspect the world's problems, not just their own Doesn't care about the small things, like day to day annoyances or materialism Feels that they do not belong because no one understands them. And I've seen so many articles that take these definitions and twist them to become a good thing. I understand that they might try to look at things deeper and take certain things more seriously, but by naming themselves old souls they force a type of segregation on the rest of society by essentially saying I'm better than you and this is why. They're saying that they're better people and have better minds souls because they choose to focus on their things both on the surface and deep inside. And they refuse to align themselves with societal mannerisms because they believe that normal people are incapable of thinking deep and introspectively. Is it true that a lot of people live entirely on the surface and don't think deep? Yes. There are absolutely people who aren't thoughtful or who only care about menial things. But we have no right to judge people for how they feel internally. In fact, we don't even know. Just because someone is materialistic or shallow on the surface doesn't mean they aren't thinking about the deeper and the more spiritual meanings of life. We don't know that for sure, and we have no right to assume that they do. Not everyone is comfortable talking about it. Not everyone even wants to talk about it. A lot of people just prefer to live their lives in an easy going, happy, fun, exciting way instead of digging deep and trying to understand everything. And that's OK, because that's a very valid way to live life and we have no right to segregate them from us. Old soul is such an egotistical term that the definition itself says that they're deeper and more introspective than others. And no one in my opinion has the right to say that about themselves and say that about other people. And, furthermore, so what if someone else IS more shallow? Again, not everyone wants to be deep or introspective, and it certainly isn't a requirement of life. I'm sure plenty of shallow people are happy with their lives which, in the end, is really all that matters, so why do they need to label themselves as better? It's just an excuse to be more of a dick and think they're smarter than everyone else. For this , please do not argue about the definition of old soul. Everyone has their own definition but this is the one I've seen the most and dealt with the most, and this is the one I'm referring to. Thanks gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The \"Old Soul\" concept is an egotistical and overexaggerated way for people to unfairly place themselves above others."}
{"id":"7bca5928-4767-441b-9d3b-8e5181e64336","argument":"I hope this is allowed in the rules. I'm truly facing a tough decision here and have been trying to decide on this for weeks now. Reasons behind getting the iPhone 8 Plus In terms of speed and app capability, the iPhone 8 is is EXACTLY the same. I use my phone for Netflix, and since the 8 has a larger screen size, Netflix will have a larger picture overall without cutting out anything I can save 200 which is quite a bit The screen may be better but the current screen is good enough. I have used a Samsung Galaxy S8 which has more brightness and an OLED screen as well, it's not that much of a difference. I will never use Animoji, augmented reality, etc. The notch The X is a first generation new design which can result in a lot of bugs or malfunctions Since the X is running a more demanding system, it will probably become slower as updates come out, compared to the 8 . I don't play phone games so I will rarely benefit from the higher quality. Netflix caps out at 1080p I believe. Cheaper and better quality third party cases will be available The back camera is identical Reasons that I want the X Front camera is marginally better in that it has portrait mode I bite my hands so Touch ID never works for me having Face ID will be beneficial. It's new and amazing I am going on a vacation before the iPhone X release, which means I will not be able to take slightly higher quality selfies HDR I really love HDR. I'm a big fan of all screen I enjoy my Samsung Galaxy S8 screen size even though I like Apple phones better I'm currently 55 leaning towards iPhone 8 and 45 towards X.  towards the X gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I should get the iPhone 8 Plus instead of the iPhone X"}
{"id":"188d04ab-11db-4c31-b2d6-b7c77f9139c6","argument":"The Turkish government has a moral responsibility to alleviate the damage done to the Armenians by the genocide and its subsequent denial.","conclusion":"Acknowledging the genocide is the first step towards alleviating the damage done to the Armenian community."}
{"id":"6924b64b-b3a0-459d-844b-011bc42eb23c","argument":"A USE would have its own powerful military force, no longer requiring individually weaker European nations to rely on the US or NATO for military assistance.","conclusion":"In case of war, the USE would be able to defend its borders more efficiently with a unified army."}
{"id":"133ef941-ef97-42f1-aee5-b1b38ddd1149","argument":"I know that there are many types of intelligence and that it's hard to objectively weigh one type against another. But, in terms of overall intelligence, or intelligence in certain areas, the person with more intellectual power is unlikely to be fulfilled when their partner can't help them grow in that way. Someone who isn't as well versed or naturally gifted in the same areas may frustrate their partner by not providing enough stimulation, leading their partner to resent them over time. For example, someone who is extremely passionate about certain fields of science would not likely be happy trying to carry out a relationship with someone who has a difficult time learning those fields. Also, if you flip it, someone who is content with not knowing about certain fields may become frustrated and resent themselves for not being able to understand what their partner is trying to tell them. It is currently my view that people should look for someone that has similar intelligence levels and have at least some of the same intelligence types in order to have a satisfying relationship. ? Edit One thing I find interesting about these responses is that there are plenty of people willing to admit how much smarter they think they are than their partners, but no one is saying how much smarter their partners are than them. I guess the jealousy aspect isn't as big as I thought it would be.","conclusion":"Relationships with large intelligence gaps are unlikely to be fulfilling"}
{"id":"9196b929-48c9-4809-9f28-2d53589bfdf1","argument":"Poland At the beginning of the 20th century, there was no Poland After the Central Powers Germany, Austria Hungary and the Ottoman Empire lost the First World War, the international community decided to take some of Germany's territory and create Poland. This resulted in multiple wars Germany started World War II to recapture territories. After WWII, eight million Germans were expelled from Poland The civilian death toll was somewhere between 400,000 and two million. Many German civilians were raped or murdered by Poles. Some were kept in concentration camps and 200,000 were employed in forced labor in Poland others were sent to Russia. Germany accepted this and did not fight back. Nowadays, the existence of Poland is not controversial. It's respected as a modern, liberal democracy. Israel At the beginning of the 20th century, there was no Israel During World War I, British forces defeated the Ottomans who were in a military alliance with the Germans in Southern Syria and governed that area They promised support for a Jewish national home. The international community agreed with British rule in Palestine. After World War II and the Holocaust, many Jews fled to Israel. They declared the establishment of a Jewish State This state was quickly recognized by the United States, the Soviet Union and many other countries. This immediately resulted in war with the surrounding Arab nations Similar wars were fought over and over and over again. Nowadays, Israel is one of the most liberal, democratic, wealthy and stable nations in the region. Yet they continue to be attacked by their neighbours.  Many people are opposed to Israel's existence because they maltreated Arabs. But Poles have also maltreated many Germans. Both nations were created in the aftermath of world wars and had support from many nations and international organizations. I think that those who criticize Israel should also criticize Poland but I have literally never heard people criticize the existence of Poland. If you think that Poland should return territory to Germany, people think you're a Nazi, yet it's common for people to demand that Israel should give back territory to the Arabs. If the Arab struggle against Israel is legitimate, than a German struggle against Poland is legitimate as well. But it's hypocritical to accept Poland and criticize Israel's existence.","conclusion":"Israel is as legitimate as Poland"}
{"id":"1dcba86d-723e-4212-ab6a-d6365b470e93","argument":"First, let me say that I don't support the NSA's revealed domestic surveillance program. Even if I did, that would be irrelevant to my views here. I've had this conversation with other redditors before, and they generally seem to view Snowden as a hero. This doesn't make sense to me. Here's my case against Snowden He violated the Espionage Act. 18 USC Sect. 798. He disclosed classified documents to unauthorized persons. He did this on his own initiative. Without authorization, he subverted the NSA administrator's judgment. Without exercising caution, and without knowing the full contents, he disclosed these documents to the press and trusted that they would responsibly report the contents of those documents. He fled the country rather than face prosecution and present his defense illegality. He maintains the view even today that he did the right thing. He shows no regret or remorse for his crimes. He has inspired Americans to support whistleblowers. The risk of copycats increased due to he hero worship he continues to enjoy. And the risk to national security should go without saying, but often gets overlooked. American intelligence operatives, troops on the ground, defense programs, and interests all over the globe are threatened when leaks happen. The costs can be measured in money and bodies. Please, take a shot at me. I want to understand this from all sides. Change my view","conclusion":"Edward Snowden is not a hero. He is a criminal, and should be prosecuted accordingly."}
{"id":"918e8b47-25d3-49ac-ba98-4b1dddde3c05","argument":"If Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Reddit, or any other user generated content platform actively moderates what content is shown on it, it is no longer a platform for user generated content, it is a publisher and is therefore liable for the content posted on it. Outright banning, shadow banning and demonetization are the most egregious examples of moderation and restrictions placed on communities by official moderators from self proclaimed platforms. This type of activity means that the platforms themselves are drawing distinctions official and unofficial between what content is acceptable and not acceptable. Once that happens, they become editors, and the assumption can be made that everything you see on these channels is therefore approved by the editors and the site is a publication with billions of authors. I would be interested in hearing views that present s why how a social forum platform can maintain its not liable status despite content moderation if you don't disagree with the above If you believe these social networks are liable, can they should they be sued for content that breaks the law or influences illegal behavior violence, suicide, etc.","conclusion":"Any platform that moderates content is a publisher, not a platform."}
{"id":"0f62f8ed-1fd3-4e4f-8b76-3a9912d8cfd0","argument":"I believe that in the entire Star Wars movie saga, not a single Sith, apprentice or master, was ever defeated by a Jedi who was adhering to the Jedi philosophy. In the Jedi philosophy, the Jedi can use the Force for defense, never for attack, to quote Yoda. In other words, Jedi fight to protect others and themselves, and stop when this fighting is no longer necessary. Furthermore, the Jedi strive to remain focused, patient, and tranquil even in combat. An excellent example of a Jedi who adhered to this is Qui Gon Jinn. They fought, of course, but they kept their morality and calm around them above all. In episodes 4, 5, and 6, Darth Sidious and Darth Vader are defeated. However, Darth Vader was not killed by Luke Skywalker he sacrificed himself. Even if he had been killed, Luke only managed to kill him by using his aggressive feelings, as the Emperor urged. He stopped fighting because he realized he was fighting exactly the way Sidious wanted to he fought like a Sith. Sidious himself was killed by Vader, who certainly wasn't a Jedi any longer. In episodes 1, 2, and 3, Darth Maul, Count Dooku, and General Grievous are defeated by Jedi. Darth Maul was killed by Obi Wan Kenobi, who was enraged and attacking aggressively because he had just witnessed Qui Gon Jinn's death at Maul's hands. Count Dooku was struck down by Anakin Skywalker, who was already enraged by Dooku's knocking unconscious of Obi Wan and by Dooku having cut Anakin's hands off in episode 2. Furthermore, he brutally cut down Dooku at the urging of Palpatine. We know Anakin himself didn't regard his actions as within the Jedi Code because he says, I shouldn't have done that. It's against the Jedi Code. Finally, General Grievous would be an excellent example of a Jedi defeating a Sith within the Code's limitations, except that Grievous wasn't a Sith. We know, because there can only be two Sith at any one time a Master, and an Apprentice. Grievous was trained by Dooku, and Dooku was apprentice to Sideous at the time, so Grievous would have made three. If you still doubt that Grievous isn't a Sith, remember that he never uses the Force, doesn't have a red lightsaber, and says, I have been trained in your Jedi arts, not I have been trained in the Sith arts. Finally, Sidious was certainly cornered by Mace Windu, but he was never killed because of Anakin's intervention. It wasn't luck that Anakin intervened. Darth Sidious carefully planned that Anakin would turn to the Dark Side, and indeed planned for him to fight with him as an Apprentice against the Jedi. All of this Anakin did, and it saved Sidious's life, exactly as Sidious had planned in advance. If you don't buy this argument, remember that Sidious was cornered by Mace Windu, who had just seen the Chancellor turn out to be a Sith Lord, and had seen the Chancellor strike down three other Jedi. If you watch this battle, you will see that Mace is fighting furiously, not calmly at all, and certainly not for defense . Finally, Anakin fights Obi Wan with no training at all as a Sith. He spent about two minutes with Sidious as Sidious's apprentice before the fight. He fought with a blue Jedi lightsaber. Finally, and more importantly, Obi Wan initiated the confrontation on his own initiative, and challenged Vader. Vader specifically said, Don't make me kill you, before the fight. Obi Wan pressed forward, saying, I will do as I must, as he initiated the fight. Then, Obi Wan leaves Vader Anakin burning and dying by a stream of lava. Anakin Vader doesn't even die. He lives, and we're given every reason believe, retains his powers as he becomes a Sith. This is the way I see it. Had Qui Gon Jinn killed Darth Maul, or Yoda defeated the Emperor, or Luke calmly strike down the Emperor, it would be different.","conclusion":"In the entire Star Wars movie series, not a single Sith, master or apprentice, is defeated by a Jedi in accordance with the Jedi philosophy."}
{"id":"45863d4d-1264-4fe5-8e9e-d6356bde2b7e","argument":"I have played Hearthstone since its beta and have had great times with it I still do . My massive issue with the game is that the current meta relies too heavily on strung together mech cards that perfectly mesh with each other and do no evoke a skill based theme or tactic. The expansion has encouraged players to make decks that kill quickly before the game can even begin to get interesting this avoids the entirety of what makes Hearthstone special. Another thing is that Legendaries are totally whack as a core concept. They come off as useful tools to take out foes but are secretly a ploy to get consumers to buy packs to try and earn them in a free to play game . The rarity of these cards even further prove that it benefits those who purchase packs in bulk and get them quicker, letting them get better faster and leave other players in the dust. Blizzard has also recently lowered the chance of getting decent dailies, meaning you have a lower chance of generating in game currency, further benefiting the payers. Cards involving random chance while also altering the mana curve Voidcaller, Unstoppable Portal, Alarm o Bot are devastating and should not exist. This is different than Druid's mana increasing cards as this is a calculated strategy that is understood by the opponent.","conclusion":"Hearthstone and its card economy is incredibly unbalanced and shallow, especially after the Gnomes vs. Goblins expansion."}
{"id":"267bf7f0-4672-4b88-ac7b-97a167f5f251","argument":"In response to the Roseanne controversy and the many other instances in which something borderline racist is said in public, we should not find the speakers intention as the primary sufficient measure for racist statements. The danger here is that this is too easy of an out for racist individuals. If all they need to do is deny that they intended to be racist, then it will be virtually impossible to isolate and correct speech acts that are bigoted and irrationally racist without the assistance of the speaker. Context, deliberation, and interpretation will be pointless with intention as the primary measure.","conclusion":"Intention should not be the primary measure for what is categorized as a racist statement"}
{"id":"11855fd5-f02a-4296-a6b9-e9c9c09f4c76","argument":"The General Social Survey, a major poll tracking Americans' attitudes on key social issues, no longer includes questions about segregating schools because support dropped too low to be worth tracking.","conclusion":"Society is now less racist and homophobic than it was."}
{"id":"3a722101-e145-406d-a306-ac26b00c7254","argument":"The earliest Christians could have visited the tomb as they did, according to the Bible, or asked the Chief Priest to view the body.","conclusion":"For those present in first-century Jerusalem, the resurrection of Jesus was much more verifiable than it is today."}
{"id":"bac5f0d7-6ee2-4acd-9708-459366bb0682","argument":"If voters don't think rationally or thoroughly, they may be more likely to simply break towards the simpler reform.","conclusion":"Not all voters are rational, or will be able to analyze the evidence in a rational, thorough manner."}
{"id":"0e534e24-39dd-41fa-a5f1-7d958aaff6a4","argument":"The second law of thermodynamics indicates that, given enough time, the universe will inevitably stagnate in a state of heat death. If the universe existed from eternity past, it should already be in a state of heat death.","conclusion":"P2. There is strong scientific evidence for the beginning of the universe."}
{"id":"ced10019-335c-452c-b40b-3c050e665796","argument":"I believe corruption is so rampant that there is no conceivable way to fight it on a large scale. There are far fewer people willing to fight corruption or, alternatively, with the ability to fight it versus those who are corruptible. The risk for fighting corruption is too high and the reward for being successful in eliminating it is too low. Entities with plenty of money and power are able to easily hide their corruption to the masses, or layer it so deep that it's nearly impossible to prove. Meanwhile, those with less money yet still wielding lots of power are more blatantly corrupt. Wealthier governments and private interests have been great at using things like marketing strategies and salami tactics on citizens to create a creeping normality that has turned corruption into something that the majority of citizens in societies just accept. Poorer but still powerful entities simply use bullying tactics to force those below them on the ladder to accept more obvious corruption. As a political example, I don't believe elections in most wealthy countries themselves are necessarily rigged or corrupt directly in terms of actual vote counts , but various processes of influencing voters or the creation of unnatural political advantages is definitely corrupt. Fundamentally, I see no difference between these examples and the recent North Korean elections One is simply creating the illusion of having a choice but not really having one, and the other is just blatantly not having a choice. And this doesn't even touch on the cronyism, nepotism and backroom dealings of politics and everyday business.","conclusion":"Everything involving a significant amount of power or money is corrupt and expecting to eliminate corruption is unrealistic."}
{"id":"3bd43cb5-63bf-4073-bc01-067e4fa2a5e9","argument":"Using a utilitarian approach encourages people to think about the costs and benefits of their actions in a way that a rules-based framework provided by a religion does not.","conclusion":"There are other, superior, sources of philosophical frameworks and moral codes."}
{"id":"56a1ad54-84e3-4541-9aef-960dd2cd13e0","argument":"Not eating meat could be construed as prejudicial against meat eating cultures. For example, the Inuit of the Canadian Arctic, the Chukotka of the Russian Arctic, the Masai, Samburu, and Rendille of East Africa.","conclusion":"Living on a meatless diet is not viable or stigmatized in some countries and regions."}
{"id":"4b401b3f-8503-4a85-ac41-b6d8b50c4719","argument":"Deterrent \u2013 Governments should do everything they can to discourage smoking, rather than accepting it as an inevitability. Even if taxes could not be maintained against popular pressure to the contrary, the refusal of medical treatment to smokers would surely be a massive deterrent to current\/potential smokers from continuing\/starting the habit.","conclusion":"Deterrent \u2013 Governments should do everything they can to discourage smoking, rather than accepting i..."}
{"id":"7ce9e9f4-f935-437c-bb28-e9b0f5359a67","argument":"Christianity has been integral for the development of democracy and the rule of law in Western World and all the good that has come from it and helped people to resist totalitarian rule in these nations.","conclusion":"Religious rules are the main source of contemporary laws and in some cases contributed to democracy."}
{"id":"9fb8f747-2e02-45ff-bdc3-008186274026","argument":"If the child lived, they could grow up feeling grateful for the opportunity given to them and act accordingly.","conclusion":"If the adult lived, they may live with regret of surviving over a child."}
{"id":"2c1c3775-e55b-4dbf-8b0b-fd95d4487fe8","argument":"I think people should be able to sleep with who ever they want as long as both partners are of age and consent to said sexual activity. However, if you choose to participate in these activity you need to be an adult about it and accept whatever consequence comes with it. Continuing in that vein, the recent movement about anti slut shaming and subsequent slut walks just cause me to sigh and roll my eyes. Yes, there are double standards regarding women and their sexuality , but there are double standards for male sexuality as well. No one talks or cares about virgin shaming for men which exists, would the movie The 40 year old virgin have existed if it was a female protagonist? . I realize it's anecdotal, but I am a male who lost my virginity as soon as I could to the first girl who would take it because I was told my whole life if i was a virgin past 18 I was a worthless failure. Many other young men I know feel the same. I acknowledge the double standard is unfair but I just can't bring myself to care on any level that would cause me to take action against it. I am all on board for women's rights reproductive rights, equal pay, equal treatment and safety. This just seems like first world feminism to me. I consider myself a liberal, open minded person. So please,  and open my eyes to why you think this is an important issue.","conclusion":"I don't think \"slut shaming\" is a big deal or is worth putting much effort into stopping."}
{"id":"c685a024-c539-48cb-b57f-3d33e60c479d","argument":"Some people tell me I should go outside and that I'm wasting my life being inside, that I should get a life. I realize that there's certain health problems when staying inside all day. Vitamin D, movement, etc. But thay's not what they mean, they mean that they don't find anything inside an activity of much value. Yet anything that's outside they do find valueable, even if it's just walking around with no goal. I think that what's valueable to someone in their life differs per person. When I'm inside I don't just browse the net, play games, watch shows and listen to music. I also have hobbies such as drawing, guitar, singing, making youtube videos and voice acting. I talk to my two best friends a lot on Skype voice chat a lot, and sometimes other people, usually in group calls. Whenever I'm outside hanging out with people, sure, it's different from a Skype conversation but to me it's not that different, and I still love talking to them on Skype, and playing games with them. Every now and than I do do some kind of activity outside ofcourse such as swimming wih friends . People that mostly are outside go inside sometimes too, so ofcourse that also goes vice versa. I realize that when I get really old I can't do a bunch of things anymore so now's the time to do stuff I like. But I don't think being inside a lot is a waste of life. It entertains me, I feel good, as long as it's not too much it's healthy and I don't bother the outside world with it. Just because someone else doesn't find it fun doesn't mean I don't. I don't see how walking around the city is any more valueable than being inside drawing something, or even watching a TV series you learn nothing from. Going to a social gathering such as a party might be fun for some but I get anxious and frustrated with crowds and might even get a panic attack. I don't think either inside or outside is a superior way to spend your free time. What is a not wasted life anyway? One that contributes something to soceity? Something you can develop yourself with? That can be done either inside or outside, or not done either inside or outside. I don't think something needs a purpose to exist anyways, but I digress. Edit The comments have some good points. My view isn't completely changed but I do understand it more and I think I should do some outside activities at least a bit more. Especially at this age, when I get old I'll have plenty of time to just sit around . This sub is great 3 edit2 A while back I've disabled inbox comments, as I think I've had enough reactions and am going to edit a video now.","conclusion":"Being Inside a lot is not a waste of life."}
{"id":"7ae74150-ffc4-4298-8b40-32f02ff8a307","argument":"The Above link has most of my points and opinions. I used to be an obese Teenager, and i am currently overweight 5'10, 210lb and 17 and I believe people who made fun of me and Shamed me had absolutely nothing to do with my weight lost. If anything they had slowed it down, nearly make me kill myself, and made my self esteem go much lower. Here are some points i going to make Fat shaming doesnt help motivated the person to lose weight, if anything he she will eat more like i did. any points he makes in the video also are mine So  EDIT Sorry for any random capitalization of words EDIT2 Fat Shaming is not Doctor recommendation Friendly discussion and help. Not joking about it Fat shaming is when You make fun of someone for being fat Saying they are less human because of it Its is mostly bullying but with your weight as the topic. EDIT3 the View has been changed thanks to u DrDerpberg","conclusion":"I believe Fat Shaming is terrible thing to do, and it doesnt help the person being shamed lose weight."}
{"id":"4927f849-29ba-4c3f-b4ba-cc2914260b34","argument":"One could argue that labeling your oppressors as \"people that discriminate against X\" is not an insult, it's stating the truth. Insults have the goal of harming people, and this has the goal of self-defense, protecting yourself.","conclusion":"If some religion is oppressing some portion of the population, it's coherent with PC and with self-defense that the discriminated group of people should be able to label them as neccesary homophobes, in this example."}
{"id":"0b3fbbcb-2898-4c1b-8fb8-f74b2f5af8e7","argument":"This is literally by definition a mechanism to ensure inequality. Even worse is the fact that wealth would be used as the deciding factor regarding the reliability and accountability of voting entities.","conclusion":"Wealthy people already enjoy more influence through their ability to affect votes and opinions through political donations. Increasing the number of votes would amplify their impact on society exponentially."}
{"id":"fce1090f-0945-483e-a240-6e878ada9b2e","argument":"Trying to figure out why 20 farmers in a flyover state get to vote and select a winning candidate who will then receive all the campaign contributions to keep going. By the time the Washington state primaries come along, I will have the option of voting for trump or hillary, with no real competition for either of them. Other voters have more sway in an election than I do. It's wrong, and I think it means we have a worse election as a result. Someone tell me why it is important that these states have so much control over what an election looks like before I'm even able to cast a vote.","conclusion":"The current structure of primaries allows for other people to essentially have more than one vote, and almost entirely nullifies my vote."}
{"id":"f1c1d00c-9dd2-4eb1-890b-6e5d3dd23248","argument":"My sister and I both attend a university in different cities and live in student housing. We are both completely supported by our parents financially. I've recently discovered my sister receives quite a bit more money about 80 euros per month from our parents than I do. x200B I felt this was unfair and I wanted to change this, so I talked to her and to our mother about it and proposed a different kind of distribution of funds, in which we would both receive an equal amount of money rent difference was accounted for, this was purely about the 'spendable' money we were left with . However, both my sister and my mother agreed that because my sister has more friends, has a boyfriend and is generally more active socially and just in general , she needs more money. My sister feels that by making the money 'equal', I am asking her to receive less money which is true which is unfair as before she got more. She does not feel that she can live on less money than she is currently receiving. x200B I disagree with this, as I believe our lifestyle shouldn't influence how much money we receive. Do I deserve less money just because I am an introverted person? I don't necesssarily want her to have less money, but I can hardly ask our parents to give me MORE money instead. For one, I don't need more money and secondly, I couldn't ask that of them they give us enough money as it is and I would never dare to ask for more . So the only option is that she does get a little less money. x200B On the other hand, my sister and I are very close and I don't want this to be the cause of further conflict between us. I'm trying to change my opinion on this so I can have peace with the current money distribution and not upset her further. Please help me .","conclusion":"My sister and I should receive an equal amount of money from our parents."}
{"id":"8df1d473-49ee-4257-83ac-64803c8dbc3d","argument":"EDIT Tajik or Uzbek or anyone else not Pasthun Northern Alliance leader The Northern Alliance was the strongest, most united, and most US friendly organisation in Afghanistan fighting the Taliban by the early 2000s. Northern Alliance leaders like Ahmad Shah Massoud were charismatic, experienced, and more anti Taliban than those in the south. However, the Pashtuns are the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan and I do not believe they would have united under an ethnically northern president. I think that a Tajik or Uzbek interim president would have led to a civil war, which would have created a worse situation than Afghanistan is struggling with under the Karzai administration.","conclusion":"Afghanistan would not be better off if it had a Northern Alliance leader became president following the US invasion"}
{"id":"0d2ba218-3f0e-4ce5-bf4b-eb9fdcec5d6e","argument":"This is originally the opinion of my high school Latin teacher, with which I 100 agree, for a number of reasons. Firstly, in order for these words, like octopus, cactus, or alumnus, to have their plural ending be i , they are breaking a fundamental rule of English, which is that plurals are made by adding s's. Breaking this rule in this situation is unnecessary, and confusing to people who are learning the language. This is especially pertinent given that fewer and fewer people speak Latin anymore, and therefore are less and less likely to know why on earth they are using a weird ending for these words. Plus, English is not Latin, so it doesn't make any sense that English words should be governed by Latin rules. Second, a lot of those words don't actually end in i in their original languages. For example, octopus, which everyone will tell you has the plural of octopi, is not a Latin word. It is Greek, and its plural is octopodes. So what is the logic behind saying octopi?","conclusion":"Words in English that end in \"-us\" should have the plural \"-uses\", no matter their origin"}
{"id":"6268b504-8d36-4f52-ad44-079cc94f71cc","argument":"I am seeing plenty of arguments for and against a universal basic income but lets just assume that it does happen and everyone is given 24,000 or 2000 a month. At this point, I feel like a minimum wage is no longer necessary. People will have a steady source of income already and do not need the protection from the market. Businesses will then be able to employ many more people albeit some at a wage many would think unacceptable in today's market and there would be virtually no unemployment for able bodied workers.","conclusion":"If we impose a Universal Basic Income in the United States, we should also eliminate the minimum wage."}
{"id":"f0a26496-12cf-4bb2-891f-d233ce5af560","argument":"Here is what I believe. America does not do enough to stifle monopolies or situations in which the number of companies or the control of what individual corporations have is too much and such rules also stifle new entrepreneurs . Companies like this are rampant in the US. A good solution to the problem is to cut the companies up into tinier pieces subjective to individual corporation control and size as well as changing the law and having more oversight on such organizations. I believe this because of the lack of Americans ability to even watch news outside of the the US is severely limited. I used to be able to watch Aljazeera on livestream, and I thought having them come to america would be a godsends, instead they made a channel that catered to an american audience, and I felt insulted. To add to the insult Aljazeera has blocked Americans from watching their livestream of their regular programming for the international audience. The rest of the media in america doesn't represent me, my interests or provide anything substantial besides large doses of yellow journalism and opinionated panels. This is just one example, if you try to find any quality objective journalism in English these days as an american you more often than not have to search pretty hard for it. NPR and PBS are about the last vestiges left CNN has descended into madness but before that there was blatant TimeWarner pandering . Beyond this I can't chose whether or not to have a Monsanto product, you simply can't boycott the company, because no matter what you eat you are in some way contributing to Monsanto's pocket. Besides that, if you are a farmer, you can't exactly say no when Monsanto offers you a deal. It's pretty much if you don't work with us, we'll force you out of business . It also seems that any new innovator gets bought out or forced out. While not the best scenario for this situation, in my city there used to be electric trams, but the oil companies bought all of them and replaced them with buses.","conclusion":"I believe that Anti-trust laws in the US have been circumvented too much or do too little to stifle monopolies and all major media conglomerates and other corporations such as Comcast, Microsoft and Monsanto, plus smaller institutions like Texas instruments should be cut up like sushi"}
{"id":"077ddd48-623a-4d83-9f12-7021036161a4","argument":"Legalizing drugs would significantly decrease social stigma and discrimination against users who have been incarcerated for employment and education opportunities.","conclusion":"Criminalization and incarceration causes lasting harm to a person's health and life outcomes."}
{"id":"ccf93c24-8417-464a-919a-97229cb95643","argument":"I'm not watching listening to any matches. I made the decision for several reasons. Illegal russian annexation of Crimea. Anti LGBT laws in Russia. Russian history of corruption in sport generally as well as possibly the selection of Russia to host the world cup. In all honesty I'm not usually a fan of football anyway so this boycott was not difficult, however, when I made the choice before the competition began I had little belief that my home nation would could make it to the final. Now that there's a real chance for England to win, should I change my view? gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"I am boycotting the world cup due to it being held in Russia."}
{"id":"6578d6c1-2544-4a42-a0e5-5df2e837c2cf","argument":"There's been a lot of talk about the super crazy republicans that won the midterm elections and how centrist the democrats that lost were. I think it would be important to denote what percentage of the vote a candidate received from straight party voting. I feel this would result in better primaries and debates because incumbents would have an asterisk next to their name that their opponents can use to say You won because it's a blue state and you're blue, but when you look at the issues I think it would also help local elections where name recognition is perhaps the sole deciding factor in results. I'm not saying this is a game changing fix for the political system, but I think it would provide transparency without forsaking the confidential nature of voting. Now to protect confidential voting this would only affect the explicit straight party option rather than voting for each candidate individually and in the end it ends up all being one party. I realize doing it this way means someone can intentionally just take the extra time to pick people individually, but at least that promotes looking through the entire ballot.","conclusion":"I believe straight-party voting results should be included in a candidates results"}
{"id":"f0e9883c-d6de-4865-ab98-4f927d238b57","argument":"Nuclear power has been used to quickly and effectively decarbonised an entire country's\/region's electricity grid. France replaced their oil generators about 80% of supply in a little over 10 years during the oil crisis in the 70's. Ontario replaced their coal generators again over about the last 10 years.","conclusion":"Nuclear power has a better decarbonisation track record than renewables."}
{"id":"089c1cf8-9752-4b8e-9098-7329415b84ea","argument":"Parents may neglect to make sure that their children are having a good experience in pursuit of trying to ensure that their auditions are successful.","conclusion":"Auditions for commercials likely present a harsh and competitive environment which isn't likely to be healthy for children."}
{"id":"d88cd672-9b45-4a22-b07b-67fd9e356c53","argument":"I am a former Public School employee. I have five years of teaching experience. Many avenues of our public life are already captured on security cameras stores, the library, the DMV, the doctor's office, etc. Yet public schools are not. Perhaps some people may see this as a privacy violation. However, PUBLIC schools are an open facility, payed for by tax dollars. There shouldn't be anything private about it. Here is one case. Every now then, a male teacher gets accused by one of his students of sexual harassment. I am saying male because these accusations happen far more frequently against males than females. I am saying this as a female teacher. Now the supposed sexual act may have happened, it may not. But nobody knows. Since children are young, impressionable and imaginative, they sometimes make these accusations simply because they have a crush on their teacher, or because they are angry that they got in trouble. I'm not blaming the victim here. When it does happen, it is horribly traumatic and the child deserves justice. However, if the accusation isn't true, the school system is losing a valuable employee who may spend the next 10 years of his or her life in prison because of something a child said. In my own teaching career, I knew a male teacher who was accused of such a thing by one of his female students. The rest of the faculty shunned him, his name and reputation was ruined. A month later the girl came clean and admitted that she made the accusation up. But the damage was already done. This guy lost his job and a simple rumor ruined his career. Fortunately he didn't go to jail, because the girl admitted the truth . But anyways, if there were cameras in classrooms, we could make sure that sexual harassment isn't happening, and we could protect the teachers wrongly accused of such deeds. Cameras would also be helpful to hold students accountable who are disrupting the classroom or causing violence. There are many situations where a student is highly disruptive, but the parents refuse to believe the teacher. My little angel did what? No Never If the actions were captured on film, they would be harder to refute. Basic Security There are also schools where constant violence and gang related activities are disrupting the classroom. I believe that capturing such actions on film would help make schools safer that are struggling with these problems. Cost Now some of you may next say, This would be too expensive There are already several classrooms that each have a 900 Smartboard and computers payed for by the taxpayer dime. A basic security camera would be much cheaper, perhaps around 100. EDIT My original price quote of 100 per camera was wrong. One school district cited the installation and maintenance costs adding up to around 680 per camera However I think the cost would be worth it, since it would protect teachers and students and allow teachers to do their jobs. Ethics If the teachers are doing their job, they shouldn't worry about their class being caught on film. It would be a useful tool for principals and parents who want to evaluate a teacher's performance as well as that of their own students. It would help manage the sexual harassment drama and allow teachers to do their job without fear of a false rumor ending their careers. It would also be a useful tool in high crime schools. Change my view.","conclusion":"I believe all Public School Classrooms Should Have Security Cameras,"}
{"id":"e7cdd34f-8f0a-449d-9fe8-0f4fcc07b7ea","argument":"The Catholic Church forced Galileo to recant his theory that the Earth moves around the Sun, under threat of torture.","conclusion":"Multiple organised religions can be rightfully accused of hindering scientific progress, both today and in the past."}
{"id":"b78969ed-92de-4282-bfb7-977d1b573cac","argument":"Balance seemed to have a lot more in the way of production preparation, specifically when it came to music","conclusion":"Was the Balance arc objectively better than Amnesty in \"The Adventure Zone?\""}
{"id":"c59aed93-478c-4bbf-b8f5-6593524adb99","argument":"The bodily autonomy of the parent comes at the expense of the bodily authority of the child. The purpose of the test is to limit the autonomy of the parents if it is deemed as harmful towards their unborn children.","conclusion":"Rights are not absolute and in some cases end up competing against each other."}
{"id":"7f45106b-5c7b-4b3a-bdda-85d62e91ea2d","argument":"In 2012, Boris promised voters in London a tax cut saying that he would put \"\u00a3445 back in their pocket by freezing the Mayoral share of council tax However, it turned out that the \u00a3445 claim was based on imagined savings, rather than a promise for an actual further cut of that amount.","conclusion":"Johnson does not have a good track record of keeping promises"}
{"id":"4e8f0b91-c7cd-4ca6-8eff-6c6535b67826","argument":"We should critically evaluate cultures and make a conscious effort to use what works and discard what doesn't. The argument that it's always been done this way is weak and has caused much suffering over the years. No culture should be exempt from this because lives are at stake. Some cultures perform better than others. Within each culture, some traditions work better than others. People call this mindset intolerant but nobody is born with a specific culture. Often, they acquire the one of their parents. Cultural values have no inherent value and those that increase suffering should be set aside. Don't be afraid to offend people if the world can be improved. For example, slavery used to be a cultural tradition it still is in some parts of the world but it has been abandoned. This is a good thing, but why stop here? There are plenty more traditions that don't produce good results, such as genital mutilation or discrimination against certain groups. Ideally, a civilization should be run rationally. It's sometimes difficult to determine what works and what doesn't, but we should at least ignore taboos and discuss the problem openly. There are too many examples of bad traditions in the world, so I will not single one out specifically, but generally the worst offenders are those who try to limit education and opportunities of others to further their own cultural agenda. Restricting large groups such as women from contributing to the economy often has the most dire consequences. Fundamentalism generally sucks, both for the overall happiness of the population and wealth creation. It's only my opinion, but humanist values seem to work pretty well or maybe such values appear only because the society is already healthy . It's not a simple problem but we must start by having the right mindset and then progress will follow.","conclusion":"Any culture must be critically evaluated and modified"}
{"id":"cb4ee336-a2f9-4d2f-89a9-fcda20aa7551","argument":"Islamic religious marriages do not guarantee wives who divorce their husbands any recourse to financial support or a share of her household's wealth. Civil marriage in most countries on the other hand, does grant these rights.","conclusion":"The legal protections provided by marriage can help those who otherwise lack any in their religious marriages."}
{"id":"e30366f3-2ef0-4570-ae8a-73125f079b46","argument":"Not harming animals is also an important part of many cultures. E.g many Hindus are vegetarian","conclusion":"In many cultures, a meatless diet plays an important cultural role."}
{"id":"3d934715-c36f-46dc-ad17-f33d2779a47c","argument":"Everyone in school has to learn what happend in the past with the argumentation We have to learn from our mistakes. But why for example are we tolerating dictators when the past showed how awful Hitler was and how he abused his political power? The only thing we are learning is how it was in the past it might be interesting but it's unnecessary for the further improvement of our life and society. The only thing I see people with a degree in historical studies doing, is teaching younger persons or writing historical texts. I don't understand why it's so highly regarded altough it's all for our enjoyment. I don't think it should be called as an subject in scientific discipline.","conclusion":"I believe that the historical studies are unimportant and shouldn't be taught to everyone in school"}
{"id":"8bbce5c2-58f5-4c6a-9e2f-626660d2a660","argument":"The reasons I believe this are largely to do with the narratives of the media governments not making much sense to me, especially when it comes to the way governments rationalize going to war. I think the world makes a lot more sense when you picture each government the same way you would view competing chess players with humans being the pawns. Maybe some of you think this way of thinking is obvious, but wouldn't that also mean your complacency is an admission of your powerlessness? And how does that factor in with the idea of democracy in its current form?","conclusion":"I believe the world operates in the same fashion today as it has for the last 10,000+ years , just under the modern paradigm of Internet, false media and under the table economic warfare, etc. Governments are just questionably elected Empire rulers, trying to further and or retain power."}
{"id":"e8139151-5a09-4def-b62c-fdf985a4bd33","argument":"Also, the players are often rude to and swear at the referee, which sets a terrible example to younger children who follow the sport. Not that long ago, somebody bit another player, and was fined about a weeks pay and a couple of matches ban. If that had happened in public, the police probably would have been involved. Another example a player was taken off on a stretcher because of an arm injury , and once off the pitch, started having a go at the ref, and was clearly not injured. Compare this to rugby where the referee is called Sir, and something like a dislocated finger is no biggie. My problem isn't just about the players, I also think that the games have little to no action in them. Sorry for having a bit of a rant, I hope someone can change my opinion on the sport. EDIT okay, I can see that a lot of people are asking the same thing. They generate money, so why shouldn't they get it? I understand now that people are willing to pay to see them play, so they should receive a fair cut of the money.","conclusion":"I think that football soccer is an incredibly boring sport, with almost no action happening in each match, and the players do not deserve the respect or money they are given."}
{"id":"ed7b4532-4f74-4812-9163-9790f3c8dbf7","argument":"We need to protect minors those under the age of majority from exposure to obscene, offensive or potentially damaging materials.","conclusion":"We need to protect minors those under the age of majority from exposure to obscene, offensive or p..."}
{"id":"068a0a5e-0fbe-4456-a425-7f81bce05c9d","argument":"I see no reason why I should get my dog fixed, although I am open minded to having my view changed. He is a goldendoodle, although I realize that is completely irrelevant because there are plenty of those dogs around. Basically, I don't want to hurt him and cutting off his male parts undoubtedly would hurt him. There is no chance of him accidentally getting another dog pregnant because 100 of his life is spent either in my house, in my backyard, on a leash walking through our neighborhood, or very short times off the leash in open areas like a park or beach where he never leaves my eye sight. I simply will not let him run around the neighborhood humping anything he feels like. He is completely non aggressive and loves everyone he encounters, from total strangers to little kids, which he is great with. If I were to have a friend who wants to bring their female dog over to play, I would mention that he is not fixed and allow them to choose if they still want to play. This is still a minor concern at best because literally every female dog I know has been fixed to avoid them bleeding inside the house. But I would warn them of the risk if they want to play with my unaltered dog. I will not be convinced by X dogs are put down every year due to over population arguments because I have shown how I will not let THIS dog run around and get other dogs pregnant. Other dogs are not my problem. He is also not aggressive and does not need to be fixed to have his behavior modified. My wife is harassing me to get him fixed because you are supposed to do it . I'm open minded to having it done if someone can show me a convincing reason. I love my dog and I really want what is best for him, and I think that means he should keep his balls. .","conclusion":"I see no reason to get my male dog neutered."}
{"id":"058083dc-a84d-4b8a-90ab-cfc9bab9b946","argument":"Jury trials are your right to have non-governmental actors involved and you can waive it for a bench trial if you want.","conclusion":"Juries provide a valuable check and balance against the power of the government."}
{"id":"ba01f36c-123f-4bf5-a10f-0a4718de96ef","argument":"The Internet is not inherently private. If I make a plain old HTTP request for example, I'm fully aware that any computer involved in routing those packets will, by nature, be required to see the full content of my request and the response even if the response is content only I should be able to see i.e. pages past an insecure login . Even with secure traffic, those computers need to be able to know which server to forward that traffic towards. In other words, if I'm using a secure connection, I fully expect that everyone in the world can see which servers I'm hitting and if I'm using an unsecured connection, I fully expect that everyone in the world can see all of the data being passed back and forth and if you don't expect something close to that, you're being unrealistic about how the internet works. So, by paying for the right to use a particular company's set of computers to properly route our internet traffic, we are by technological nature asking specifically for the right to give them the details of all of our Internet traffic. If they do not explicitly state in your service agreement some sort of privacy policy, as far as I'm concerned, they own the rights to the traffic they are servicing. If you're not happy with the terms given by your particular service provider, then find another one I know this is largely impossible, but getting less and less so , or find a VPN provider you trust. To make a loose analogy, think about the USPS the worst part of the analogy is that USPS is one organization, and the internet is millions of different organizations, but the idea still holds . If you send a letter, the content is secure, but every single hand or robot end effector that comes into contact with that letter not only can know, but must know to whom that letter is sent, its approximate weight, details of the postage, etc. I don't care what else they do with that info besides using it to direct the mail it's their information. If I send a postcard like an unsecured packet , what's to stop anyone in that whole line from knowing the entire contents of the message? Again, if I didn't want that information out, I'd put it in a letter. It just seems like if you are against this new American ISP privacy bill, you don't understand the fundamentals of the internet. Internet privacy is all but a complete oxymoron, and you should know that's what you're getting into when you sign up for service. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"ISPs own our internet traffic and should be allowed to do whatever they want with it"}
{"id":"2d9ab3a4-74c1-4684-9c07-79ff8960065a","argument":"Most tasks currently being done by STEM graduates can now be done in a better way by machines meaning a lot of STEM jobs are at the risk of being automated.","conclusion":"In terms of employment, students with liberal arts degrees may be more likely to benefit in the long-term than students with STEM degrees."}
{"id":"6c0bd87f-ae80-47e8-83de-2cdde7583bfd","argument":"A good person Some of the most glaring failures of police officers in America today is the amount of racial bias they possess, their tendency to escalate to physical violence and brutality, and the culture that pressures even the good ones to cover for or stand by guilty and corrupt officers. A capable person Police should be held to a higher standard than the rest of us. For instance, a police officer should not panic when a person is as instructed reaching for their wallet or getting out of their car. The fact that people can be killed for following orders and the officer can claim they feared for their life to avoid consequences is unacceptable. A willing person Being a police officer is hard. It means long hours and working holidays and putting your life on the line. It means sacrifice. Presumably there is not enough room in the police budget raise salaries and attract better staff. Even with budget increases, small towns and counties will be almost unable to avoid hiring racists and bullies. I think that part of the reason so many officers get paid leave or transferred to another station or rehired a few years down the line after committing serious offenses is because they are difficult to replace. As such, we can expect frequent instances of brutality and corruption in the foreseeable future. TL DR America does not have enough people who are good, capable and willing to be police officers. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"There are not enough good, capable and willing people in America to staff a satisfactory\/just police force"}
{"id":"ed46a590-b4da-4be6-9ea2-e2255856d26f","argument":"As everyone is aware, Cambridge Analytica gained access to the information of ~50 million people on Facebook. I don't think Facebook did anything wrong here, and in fact acted appropriately in fixing the aspects of Facebook that could be taken advantage of for nefarious reasons. Why do I think this? In 2014, Cambridge University's not to be confused with Cambridge Analytica Russian American psychology professor Aleksandr Kogan put together an app that used Facebook's API to allow people logged in via Facebook to take a quiz. This quiz, when taken, allowed access to not only the user's information likes, favorite pages, username, gender, location, etc. , but also the user's friends' information. When Facebook found out in 2015 that Dr. Kogan violated their terms of service by selling user information to Cambridge Analytica, Facebook removed that feature called an edge from their API, which makes sense because it was abused in this instance. Now, developers making an app can only access a user's Facebook friends who have also downloaded and logged into said app. There's a taggable friends edge that can be accessed, but that only gives you the user's friends' names and default profile pictures. Long story short, I think that Facebook recognized a flaw in their platform and fixed it in 2015. The huge amount of blowback happening right now is primarily due to incorrectly calling what happened a 'breach,' and not recognizing that a loophole in the system was removed in 2015. Dr. Kogan and Cambridge Analytica are an entirely separate story, but I don't think Facebook did anything wrong here. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"The Facebook data 'breach' is overblown, and Facebook didn't do anything wrong."}
{"id":"8b3d80ca-635d-4a1b-8e90-f5418b900847","argument":"As consumers in a free market we vote numerous times every day using our wallets. We vote on how humanely animals should be treated by paying this steak house or that vegan restaurant. We vote on how important environmental issues are by paying this hybrid manufacturer or that truck manufacturer. We vote on cost vs quality, efficiency vs effectiveness, the importance of privacy, on and on, every day. People start companies to create supply which meets demand. That demand is power we all exercise every day. Wal mart will disappear if we stop paying it to exist and instead buy local. Facebook will disappear if we stop giving it our personal information. Going down the list of  topics, a large portion of them could be solved through majority rule by us changing our actions as consumers in a free market. And we don't need to wait until the next election cycle to do so. Of course consumer awareness is important, and can be manipulated through advertising and behavioral economics. But that's no different than voter awareness or political misinformation. I think when we want change we should look to our real time power as consumers in a free market. Not occasional forced policies through our government institutions. . note this is a repost of my  here i was having problems with a new mobile app and must have accidentally deleted the post. sorry to all who were having conversations.","conclusion":"Free-market capitalism is real-time democracy"}
{"id":"ffed4e4c-9543-44a2-937a-1e3c079af9af","argument":"Homeopathy is used effectively in Brazil It is prescribed by doctors as part of the public health system.","conclusion":"Homeopathy could be used in specific circumstances where conventional medical treatments may do more harm than good."}
{"id":"a0bb4962-d02b-46ce-b0cb-933a54de8444","argument":"I believe this is the purpose of the term African American, to move towards a time when ethnic groups, defined by a common ancestral, social, cultural, or national experience, replace the whole concept of race. Unfortunately, we are still haunted by racialism. Americans continue to categorize people by the unscientific term race in our laws, our census, and our speech. Even among people who consider themselves progressive, this gives undue credibility to the whole notion of race. I understand the change won't happen overnight, but I think we should gradually recognize this distinction in our laws and census and official documents, and eventually in our speech. Classifying people based on race should be no more credible than classifying them based on the bumps on their heads.","conclusion":"It would be better when speaking of human races to drop the term 'race' altogether and speak of 'ethnic groups'."}
{"id":"dff90bff-0371-47a7-9edf-a826fe2bb446","argument":"Determinism implies that it's possible in principle to compute the state of the universe at state t+1 if you know everything there is to know about the state of the universe at state t. But there is no general analytic solution for the effects of gravitation when you have more than two bodies the well-known three-body problem in physics. Gravitational motion among three or more bodies is generally chaotic and non-repeating.","conclusion":"Determinism based on physics doesn't support the common understanding of determinism, and doesn't stand in the way of free will."}
{"id":"e5622ec8-57a9-4790-9583-27970225599d","argument":"LGBT people have been attacked for publicly displaying affection. These attacks undermine the ability of the LGBT community to feel safe, which in turn further undermines their ability to express themselves freely in public.","conclusion":"Other actions by the LGBT community and expressions of sexuality and gender by its members also attract negative attention that makes it harder for LGBT people to attain rights."}
{"id":"0c474582-3486-4f33-b4ba-dfc43f9d2703","argument":"We can form relationships with anyone in the world now. These new relationships enrich our lives, that we never would have found without the internet.","conclusion":"Social media allows us to bridge distances and connect with people all over the world."}
{"id":"f33211d5-a017-49ca-bd32-7238a65d2b94","argument":"Sexual abstinence is not per se unhealthy but it can be psychologically harmful when an individual wishes to have sex and does not, according to researchers.","conclusion":"Celibacy can have a negative impact on mental health and may be a contributing factor in sexual abuse."}
{"id":"9485a106-f790-4212-98a7-94bd9a3a4507","argument":"Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has openly remarked that Japan did little wrong during the war and that there is no reason for them to apologise.","conclusion":"Chinese people have traditionally resented Japan for its behaviour towards the Chinese during World War II and its subsequent lack of apology."}
{"id":"34db1db1-017d-452f-8ea0-a9bd06ba1030","argument":"Forgive me for explaining my point via politics, but it's what i'm most well versed in and I think drives the point home best. Last Presidential election cycle, one thing stuck out at me leading up to the election. You had pundits on every 24 hour news channel arguing why they thought some candidate was going to win over the other, and creating this dynamic of uncertainty to make things interesting. Then I saw Nate Silver being interviewed on The Daily Show. For those who aren't familiar with him, this is his blog on the NYTimes he is well known for predicting the winners of elections with incredible accuracy. He was asked a question by Jon regarding why he thinks he knows what's going to happen when all the pundits perpetuate this environment that it's anyone's race . He answered that it's simply math. Statistics, to be more specific. They have the polling data it's simply aggregating the data and calculating the results. He continued to say that the pundits create this dynamic because they're paid for ratings, not truth. This is just one small example to assist the larger point i'm making that almost everything has a right answer in life and is not up to personal opinion . One thing that irks me is when people try to act like both sides on the political spectrum have a legitimate belief and they should all be respected. I'm convinced that only one right answer can exist in most political issues, so only one side can have it right. Let's take an example keynesian economics vs supply side, trickle down economics. We have data that shows one of these is effective and one isn't. To keep peddling that they are both legitimate ideas and that they are simply differences of opinion is destructive to our national debate. Obviously this only applies to issues that can be quantified qualitative, subjective issues are based on each individual's personal philosophy and thus are prescriptive and not descriptive. I'm just tired of the false equivalency that is rampant in society today the idea that well there are two sides, we have to respect both is absolutely detrimental to progress. There's only one side, and that side is truth.","conclusion":"Other than matters of personal preference, I think there is a definitive \"right\" and \"wrong\" answer to everything and it should be defended."}
{"id":"bfc350b3-d9f7-47e7-a95b-ace6675736c9","argument":"A worker in a hard and grueling job is not allowed to kill his boss, though he may seek other remedies that are legally allowed.","conclusion":"The existence of a possible remedy does not place an automatic moral mandate on society to allow that specific remedy."}
{"id":"c5ec7314-1b85-4aba-aebb-ac7796a499b7","argument":"Consuming insects is a relatively new idea and there has not been much time for people to experiment in making insects seem palatable. As time passes, this will change.","conclusion":"There is no intrinsic reason why insect derived proteins could not be as popular as animal meat."}
{"id":"2cfeb132-70a8-45f5-87c1-4ac8bd1359e4","argument":"The benefits of a symbolic gesture like this are intangible and limited, while the economic costs are too high for what little is achieved.","conclusion":"There are economic an aesthetic reasons against a total flag overhaul that may offset any benefits."}
{"id":"330c7d96-d0bb-43a9-9e02-3eb2ebf4e8ad","argument":"Hello all, first time poster here. Many of my very well educated friends PhD level are very vocal followers of the Libertarian system. As a Democratic Socialist, I've found that we share much of the same moral and ideological grounds and want many of the same things, but the divisive factor is that we feel they should be achieved in completely different ways. In a nutshell, I feel that the systems that we all want to see universal healthcare, basic income, disability insurance, worker focused protections will only be achievable if forced upon the populace by the government, because as individuals the majority are too selfish and would not willingly provide for those that cannot provide for themselves. To the contrary, my friends believe that these economic gaps would be filled by private industry, provided the market had time to grow and the need for such services existed, thus following the most basic tenant of the Libertarian system. At a basic level, it is my belief that by definition Libertarianism would, in time, lead to a morally corrupt, capitalist system not too different from the class based societies of the past in which the proletariat was suppressed by those with the majority of the wealth. To a lesser degree, this can be seen in any capitalist society, including our own. As a result of this, the only logical way that one could believe that Libertarian policies would be successful is if every single citizen had an individual desire to contribute to society in a way that was intrinsically motivated, as technically the moment extrinsic factors are introduced they are being coerced and fundamental tenants of the system are broken. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"A truly Libertarian political system is a fool's errand, as it runs contrary to human nature and those who advocate for it are guilty of pushing their morals onto others, thus contradicting a basic tenant of the ideology itself."}
{"id":"f74aed49-0688-419c-9654-9025a470252b","argument":"My view is that, in Western society, conventionally attractive females have an easier go of things than everyone else. My first observation is that quality of life improves with a wider social circle, which attractive people at least have a greater potential for. There are more opportunities for networking employment, a stronger emotional safety net, and a wider pool from which to select and develop close relationships in other words, they can afford to be choosey about their friends, lovers, etc. My second observation is that men are usually brought up to ignore or otherwise not respond as strongly to each others' level of attractiveness. Classic female icebreakers You're so pretty , I love your hair don't really exist in the straight male world, and even attractive men have to rely on other factors humour, athleticism to maintain their social standing among both sexes. I'm sure I'll be able to explain my view further in response to some of your comments, so .","conclusion":"Attractive women have easier lives than everyone else."}
{"id":"75df51bc-e1d1-4a63-a244-b265152fbff1","argument":"If Turkey is a member state, the EU will be able to exercise greater influence in the Middle East through Turkey.","conclusion":"Turkey membership will help advance EU interests in the Middle East"}
{"id":"25c83d09-de74-476f-80c9-3da4a7ace111","argument":"I think that by campaigning for the use of real names online, Google is ushering in a new era of both online and personal responsibility. It's obvious already all of the youtube comments I've seen connected to a real name are generally much more respectful, interesting, and positive. Youtube comments have always held a reputation for being of particularly poor quality and taste, and requiring people to use a real name will undoubtably improve that, creating a better online experience for everyone. I also feel that people spend enough time interacting with strangers online that how we do so will affect how we interact with people in the real world and I think this effect will be especially relevant for younger generations . Giving people the chance to anonymously be assholes to others online will make them feel that they can get away with it in real life. This is bigger than youtube, G , or any set of products. This is a culture shift on a massive level, and one for the better. However , I do feel that content generators should be allowed to decide if they wish to require commenters to use real names or not. If you want to post a video about things nobody would use their real name to comment on, you should still be able to create a space for them to do so anonymously. Also search should never be linked to personal information, for very obvious reasons. It may seem horrible and awkward while the transition occurs, but once complete, it will be good for Google, the internet, and society in general. Google is perhaps the only company in the world with the power and the influence needed to induce such an enormous shit in the way everyone acts online, and they will drag us into the future whether we want to or not.","conclusion":"I think that Google requiring users to use a real name on youtube is a good and necessary idea."}
{"id":"7526c291-1829-40cc-8350-0d44df8316f2","argument":"One argument for Brexit is that the UK wants to take back control over immigration and import\/export. If there is no hard border, there is no control over what passes this border.","conclusion":"Northern Ireland will have at least one hard border after Brexit"}
{"id":"01f79b1f-0973-4f90-8168-e9a75e870dd0","argument":"If you are trying to understand and prevent violence, commingling these very different actions will result in demographic errors. High gun suicide is often found in areas with low criminal gun use, and vice versa.","conclusion":"Suicide by firearm should not be included in statistics about gun violence."}
{"id":"2474403a-8c71-491d-93f2-ed565af6fe86","argument":"While it may retain some value in the specific spheres of military and intelligence services though, even within those arenas, it seems to be in the process of being supplanted by more precise terms , there's very little journalistic or political meaning or value to the use of the term terrorism to describe an act of violence. The term's continued use is mostly a political lever by which one side or the other of a given issue makes an act of violence sound more serious, and its use as often as not distracts from the issue of reducing violence by changing the subject to what counts as terrorism. Also, if the distinguishing characteristic of terrorism is that the intent of it is to instill a public fear, then the fact that people already disproportionately fear terrorism over other more common types of violence means that referring to it as terrorism is making it more effective.","conclusion":"The term \"terrorism\" has outlived it's usefulness in common usage."}
{"id":"c73771b0-977a-4972-ad93-4c2c3de3dcc9","argument":"I'm a male and I'm a rabid anti feminist. Many feminists, including people in academics would say I'm a misogynist. But I disagree. I'm very much for equal rights of women, and I do think we live in a sexist society. However, I'm very much against what feminism has become in the last few years or so. I'll break down one by one on things I hate about feminism. False Rape accusations Feminists claim this is a non issue. And that you should NEVER EVER question the supposed victim, even though that means loss of freedom for the supposed perpetrator. Rape 2.0 tm Claims that if a woman has even 2 drinks, and a man has sex with her, he committed an act of rape. I can't find the exact article. But there was a guy at a college, who texted a girl for a booty call that happened to be drunk. The whole thing seemed consensual, as the girl did text the guy to bring a condom and invited him over. The guy gets kicked out of college for sexual assault. Even though they have both been drinking. Rape 2.0 also is apart of the new Yes means yes law in California. Shirtgate A guy who accomplished landing a probe on a comet gets attacked by feminists for wearing a tackey shirt. Was the shirt unprofessional? Sure. But that was not sexist or misogynistic, in fact, a female friend made the shirt for him. Donglegate A guy gets fired for making a joke about dongles. Feminists are now running the government, and messing up men's lifes. Therefore, I'm an anti feminist, but an egalitarian. So just because I'm against feminism, does NOT make me a misogynist.","conclusion":"Anti-feminism is not pro-misogyny"}
{"id":"aff6dd74-26ce-449c-b61f-a06f63c500ed","argument":"By regularly posting violent imagery, terror organisations can desensitise their followers to violence and lower their inhibitions when it comes to using violence themselves. This can normalise violence and make it easier to recruit new terrorists.","conclusion":"If people simply watch this material without context or, at worst, contextualised by terrorist propaganda, it is highly unlikely to be a reliable source of information. Instead, it is likely to serve terrorists' own purposes."}
{"id":"06c2b681-b93e-4d2b-a094-806a8ca5f4f7","argument":"And some consumers are so financially illiterate that they only think of what the \u201cnote\u201d will be, so they just buy things they can\u2019t afford. The most obvious example is phones. Do you know how expensive smart phones are? 1,000 is the new normal. And the smartphone sellers\u2019 response \u201cdon\u2019t worry, you don\u2019t have to pay it up front. If you choose a 2 year plan your payment is only 50 Been to a car dealer recently? New cars are more expensive than ever before. 30,000 in 2019 gets you what would have been 17,000 in 2004. But no worries. You can just do a 10 year payment plan. Heck, make it 15. Homes were the first example of this. Banks used to turn people away who couldn\u2019t put down 20 and do a 15 year fixed mortgage. Now homes are twice what they should be, but you can do a 30 year variable rate with no money down. Now all consumer products are turning to the mortgage model, which has been just a bottomless gold mine for financial institutions. Meanwhile people like me who want to take a Dave Ramsey approach, are left paying huge sums out of pocket. Because the consumers are screwing themselves by permitting the industry just raise prices forever. And this is all without mention of student loans. Maybe it would help our economy to teach people in school not to use debt. Or maybe some regulations to help the consumer. Is there any real reason apple can\u2019t sell their top iPhone for 500? Or is it just a matter of \u201cwhy would we?\u201d","conclusion":"The availability of credit is bidding up the cost of so many important things in the US."}
{"id":"94f32257-e3c4-4fb8-995d-0cfe9a8f3eb6","argument":"Candidates' expertise and qualifications are incessantly cited by politicians and by the candidates themselves during the confirmation process. This suggests that everyone involved believes that the public needs to be convinced of Justices' expertise.","conclusion":"The Justices' legal expertise, and the knowledge that they are highly qualified, is important in building public trust in the court, and thus in building the court's legitimacy."}
{"id":"bde9f73c-3499-439e-baff-5298f7d0e7ac","argument":"Plastic toy manufacturing uses multiple resources oil, water, labour, electricity etc. to produce disposable items with little use in sustaining life, as alternatives exist. The wastefulness creates an unbalance to give the perception of overpopulation, when it's really overconsumption that is the originator of the lack of resources problem.","conclusion":"The real problem is not over population but overconsumption of unsustainable products."}
{"id":"b4bac4d3-e7ce-41e5-88b2-6e56ae465f1a","argument":"I'm a 90's kid, and this has been bothering me since the beginning. I grew up with the original Pokemon, and, for the most part, the typing made sense. A hot boy is a Fire type, a yucky boy is a poison type, a hot and yucky boy is a Fire Poison type. Normal was just the miscellaneous type for Pokemon that didn't have any clear theme, or that wouldn't fit into the other types. But even from the get go, there was no such thing as a pure Flying type. The birdiest bird that ever birded had to be Normal Flying. That was weird, but at least it was consistent. Later generations added worse abominations. Girafirig is psychic, but also normal. Bibarel is water, but also normal. What is this meant to represent? gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Normal-type Pokemon shouldn't have other types"}
{"id":"ac472b50-92a5-4e91-a60c-cadfe8d04c76","argument":"Democracy allows for powerful groups that protect their position despite the entire adult population having the right to vote. So \"the establishment represents an attempt on behalf of these groups to 'manage' democracy, to make sure that it does not threaten their own interests\".","conclusion":"Career politicians are often from the same background and social extraction, virtually creating an elite distant from the citizens."}
{"id":"722a934a-8cd9-4b38-93c8-9e9ad091e07c","argument":"To elaborate: the scientists were guided by a belief in the 'rational, logical' coherence of the universe. They believed that a mind informed the creation of the universe and that the universe was ordered because of that. So the belief in God's existence aided the thinking that led to the discoveries of early, theo-centric science.","conclusion":"Early scientists, Copernicus, Bacon, Newton, Kepler, Galileo, and others studied the universe precisely because they believed that a rational, logical God had created it according to principles that could be discovered. This led to an astonishing number of discoveries, and the development of the scientific method."}
{"id":"774d1a75-3375-45da-b9fb-28686af7cb15","argument":"The lottery is paid for by millions of poor people spending their last few dollars. And it all goes to one wealthy person. That's literally taking from the poor and giving to the rich. People being so discontent with their life due to a bad economic situation, that they need to delude themselves into thinking that they could be a millionaire for a day. Why dream of some fantasy world that will most likely never happen when you can enjoy the real one. The lottery does collect taxes for schools and such, but that shows us that most people will only give to the community if there's the prospect of them being able to make massive profit. Seriously, wouldn't it be better for more people if the lottery could award 500k to 10 people rather than 5 million to 1 person. Just imagine how many families could move from poverty to middle class with a powerball.","conclusion":"The prevalence of the state lottery is a just an obnoxious reminder of the American wealth disparity."}
{"id":"4625a035-1c42-4cfb-afed-c7246a553601","argument":"The high cost of healthcare in the U.S.A has sent millions of people into poverty.","conclusion":"The Republicans' opposition to healthcare reform benefits the rich and harms the poor."}
{"id":"b194b5d9-2d77-414e-96c6-004c5baccb9d","argument":"Recently I have been feeling as if every decision I make is self centered. No matter the decision, deep down I feel as if I am doing it because in the end it will bring me the most joy or peace. Even in particular situations where a decision brings me suffering. I also struggle with servitude. I love to serve others but I feel that I serve because of the joy it brings me. Wouldn't that be a selfish decisions as well? I believe every decision will always circle back to making the decision because of a cost benefit analysis of what will benefit us the most. Is this a wrong way of thinking? Or will others benefit even if decisions are selfish? gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Every decision a person makes is a selfish one."}
{"id":"ea4f85c0-78cf-4339-99a9-1df95d26a6cc","argument":"A volcanic eruption can be seen as a horrible disaster, yet it will also create fertile land that new life will spring out from; an example of how good and evil depends on the human perspective.","conclusion":"Our idea of what we define as evil might be a limited vision of a bigger plan in which evil is a necessary element to its realization."}
{"id":"e6543fa2-b480-4ee0-a855-ed65d7321390","argument":"The Global Hawk has a unit cost of $222 million development costs included. Compared to the development and production costs of manned surveillance aircrafts like the classic U2 this is very high.","conclusion":"The development cost of AKMs that are as effective as humans is very high."}
{"id":"8b42117a-522e-49ed-817d-003c2ac0fe07","argument":"I don't get why people like Star Wars movies. The characters in the first ones that came out seem very bland. We don't get to know them much at all, and I feel like they form emotional bonds because it serves the plot. The fact that the conflict is just good versus evil also seems extremely boring to me, and the combat is hard to follow. Also, I think the scene changes are very awkward and the scenes don't have any sense of resolution. I am talking here about the ones that came out first, because the newer ones people seem to agree are terrible. I actually liked the newest movie. I thought that you learned more about the main characters, and it was unique and kind of funny to have Rey and Finn be two people who had no idea wtf they were doing or what was going on. I still don't get what made Kylo Ren turn evil, but there were at least interesting characters. So Everyone likes Star Wars. I don't like Star Wars. I don't understand why everyone likes Star Wars. Help me understand.","conclusion":"All Star Wars movies are terrible."}
{"id":"10a738f9-3b6c-4117-bdb8-27c418d5aeb3","argument":"Universities can deny invitations if the speaker advocates disruptive action against the institution and are also allowed by the US Constitution to regulate when and where an external speaker is allowed to speak. They can even impose reasonable content-based restrictions as long as they are unbiased and can apply to everyone.","conclusion":"The First Amendment protects people's free speech from government interference, especially in public forums. Universities even if publicly funded are found to be limited public forums And, as it is their own members, not the government, who no-platform, the policy cannot be seen as an attack to the First Amendment."}
{"id":"620ccddd-4917-47ab-be6b-b66db39dc368","argument":"Abortion is something that most people avoid talking about as it is a controversial topic. Currently, in Ireland, there is a vote taking place about legalising abortion, There is a lot of posters with VOTE YES and VOTE NO and a lot of people speaking in public about it people from churches . In my opinion, I believe that abortion isn't murdering, The fetus doesn't feel pain until around 12 weeks which just kinda shuts down the points about fetuses feeling pain. The parents have reasons behind it, some woman do not want the responsibility, aren't ready, career related etc. and that is perfectly acceptable. But people find them heartless and that's just cruel. If the parents aren't capable of taking care of the child and lack skills to raise the child properly they should be allowed to get the procedure done. I don't know if im messed up for thinking this but the world is already overpopulated which is becoming a serious problem as we are starting to run out of recourses, we should be slowing this problem down or we will be giving birth to children that will have to live alternatively than we lived because we wasted the resources. If a woman gets raped she should have full authorization to have an abortion and take the pill without being stopped because people think its murder Edit I'm overwhelmed at how many people have replied and I'm sorry if I can't read all your points but yeah sorry if my points are over the place","conclusion":"Abortion should be legal in every country and to not be frowned upon."}
{"id":"2abe9076-6956-417e-b690-743cf154bd4c","argument":"As I understand it, the basis for utilitarian philosophy is that whatever action produces the most happiness in the world is good, and those actions which produce less or take away from global happiness are less moral or evil. The enslavement of the minority by the majority, with the minority doing all manner of unpleasant jobs, or working to facilitate happiness for the majority, would produce more total happiness. Because I regard slavery of anyone as fundamentally evil except for the forced labor of convicted felons utilitarianism is therefore an unacceptable and horrific moral philosophy. Change my view","conclusion":"According to a utilitarian ethics system, certain forms of slavery are permissible perhaps a moral requirement, and this makes utilitarianism a dangerous philosophy."}
{"id":"d48aeb4f-3d1a-487c-b52c-ff77db2378b0","argument":"Maroon communities may develop as newly-escaped slaves find shelter in areas where neither the British or us can find them. These communities would likely see us as enemies.","conclusion":"This act would create a divide between our community and other slaves."}
{"id":"b7ac71b3-146a-40f6-b34f-ce7ce9635ddb","argument":"As the title says, I think that it just makes more sense. Compare the two first, we have the more common H2G2. I see where it's coming from H itch H iker's G uide to the G alaxy. Two Hs and two Gs, so H2G2. But I think that HG2G, for H itchhiker's G uide to 2 the G alaxy, makes more sense in that instead of having two characters in the initialism for one word, each character has one word, and more words have characters. If you expand the initialisms, for H2G2 you would have HitchHiker's Guide Galaxy. You can tell what it is, but when you compare it to HG2G's Hitchhiker's Guide 2 Galaxy, it doesn't make as much sense.","conclusion":"HG2G is a much better initialism for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy than the more widely used H2G2."}
{"id":"dcf69368-e518-4822-8e89-24396ae0037b","argument":"Of course it depends on what exactly you're watching, but I think that watching TV can increase emotional intelligence, as well as make people more educated. Identifying with characters in TV shows can make it easier to empathize with people in real life. I think TV gets a bad rep because it's easier to watch TV than to read books, and maybe has less benefits in some ways compared to literature, but it's still better than not consuming any kind of media. I think in particular watching shows that tease your mind like Lost and Black Mirror can be intellectually beneficial. Knowing TV well can help you socially too because it gives you something to talk about and something in common with millions of people. I don't know about you, but I never want to be that douche who smugly proclaims I don't watch TV when someone brings up television. I think TV is only bad for you when consumed in excess, like anything else. You don't want it to get in the way of getting exercise or have it be a substitute for real life, but in moderation I think watching TV helps keep your mind sharp. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Watching TV is good for you"}
{"id":"583d2613-b7be-4dda-93c5-5a4bd079f509","argument":"we should legalize sex selection as people have every right to chose the sex of the child they wish to raise.","conclusion":"It is within the freedoms of the parents to select the sex of the child"}
{"id":"79068b4c-a424-4e8d-88e7-921d398e271e","argument":"With all due respect to those struggling to make ends meet. Also, my view discounts those who have a physical or mental disability that prevents them from taking just any job. Reading this post about a guy who got into a bad situation and is running out of income and is nearing the end of the road and considering suicide not trying to make light of his situation . It left me wondering, why is it that he can not make ends meet? I look through job postings quite often out of curiosity. I often see the same jobs being posted over and over again without getting filled. As an example, I took one of the consistently most economically depressed areas of the country Detroit and looked to see what is being advertised. Note this is just the LABOR section and does not even begin to touch skilled workers. I see CDL training programs that pay 15 hr . Lawn care, maintenance, cleaners, etc that pay around the same. A lot of these positions are no experience required, training provided. Not to sound affluent I am middle class, but I am lucky enough to have done well and would love to get weekly lawn care and so would most of my neighbors and friends that charges less than 30 week to put this in perspective, I can mow, edge, weed, prune and fertilize my whole property in under 1 hour . Housekeepers in this area run about 25 hour independent the big ones run 35 hour . It just seems to me that if somebody wanted to do the job, I could get somebody to clean my house for 15 hr, and somebody to take care of the yard for 25 week. However, despite there being a 5 jobless rate national average is 6.3 in our area, there are not enough people willing to do these jobs that those who are can demand a premium. I know I pick on a few jobs, but I can list off a whole slew of jobs that provide little to no startup costs that have tons of positions open or competition needed that are not filled. It just seems to me that the general attitude is 'but I have a college degree so I deserve a desk job in an AC office that pays salary and benefits and 401K'. Even in Yuma, AZ with a near 30 unemployment rate, I see job listings for some of the more labor intensive positions. I don't even begin to touch on relocation I understand that there may be reasons that prevent someone from moving. I've talked to people who just don't want to move they have the capability, but they like where they are, and yet they are in a bad situation and unable to find work. Yet there are areas with higher demand in jobs that again require no skills, but they would rather stay put and risk homelesness than risk a move. Thoughts appreciated.","conclusion":"I believe joblesness is not an issue of there not being any jobs, but an issue of not there not being any jobs that the person wants to do."}
{"id":"22b34e25-3846-42ae-a652-b047675b17f1","argument":"I think it's pretty simple. You earned money and you can spend them on whatever you want. If you want to lose them in casino that you should be allowed to do this. You are not hurting anyone. You can't do anything dangerous because of gambling like after some hard drugs for example . People are spending their money on many useless things from social point of view. If you can spend your money on gaming pc or expensive clothes why you can't spend them on poker or bet on your favorite team? A vast majority of people will not be addicted anyway. I feel like government treats people like children.","conclusion":"Gambling should be legal"}
{"id":"fae48c37-1a8a-445b-935b-ed4aa18eb288","argument":"If we were to accept that for everyone, then political prisoners who are fighting for a cause will be tortured and disrespected as well, even if they did no physical harm to anyone, jeopardizing their lives for telling the truth and helping people access that knowledge.","conclusion":"If torture is allowed, then it could easily be misused or performed in excess."}
{"id":"ff852c7f-a5aa-44e8-bb33-da20fee1fdb6","argument":"CBE encourages students to apply learning to real-world problems rather than memorizing facts for a test.","conclusion":"Schools should eliminate grades and replace them with competency based education"}
{"id":"ea16d26a-6f29-4839-a80e-cf06879ae71f","argument":"I have this discussion at least once a year. What's your favourite Christmas film? Diehard Die Hard isn't a Christmas film , it's a fantastic, genre defining action film, which happens to be set at Christmas. Christmas is not central to the plot. Just because it features a santa hat, and the line ho ho ho now I have a machine gun doesn't make it a Christmas film. These are examples Christmas movies Muppets Christmas Carol Home Alone Elf Santa Clause The Movie The Nightmare before Christmas The Polar Express If you accept Die Hard as a Christmas film, you also have to accept Prometheus Eyes Wide Shut In Bruges Mean Girls No no no. .","conclusion":"Die Hard is not a Christmas movie."}
{"id":"b046cd88-f240-422d-8cc6-cbc405c64183","argument":"If, in order to meet with his counterpart, a \u2018rogue leader\u2019 needs to compromise on his and his country\u2019s position even before he gets to the table, this would be a signal of weakness to his opponents at home and those vying for his job. For example, in North Korea, which is going through a dynastic transition1, the new leader Kim Jong Un is yet to become established and consolidate his status as dictator. Any concession to the sate\u2019s designated mortal enemy, the US, might jeopardise the succession. Similarly, in Iran where Ahmadinejad has fallen from the graces of the supreme religious leader, the Ayatollah2, agreeing to preconditions in order to get a meeting with Obama would signal to the Iranian President\u2019s rivals that it may be a good moment to attempt to force a change of guard. 1 \u201cProfile: Kim Jong un\u201d. BBC. 31 December 2011. 2 \u201cAhmadinejad v Ayatollah: Who will win Iran dustup?\u201d BBC. 8 July 2011.","conclusion":"Agreeing to preconditions can damage a leader\u2019s position at home."}
{"id":"cb293e7b-8ccc-46ad-bf29-b9f9b4dd542d","argument":"The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees UNHCR was created in 1951 and was put in charge of protecting refugees and finding solutions for their future.","conclusion":"The UDHR has been used as the base of many legally binding international agreements."}
{"id":"a7a64dd4-0f94-4eb3-b1aa-2f59b3a47a83","argument":"Pence has been organizing a bible study for Cabinet officers in the White House hosted by a fundamentalist, evangelical pastor.","conclusion":"It is improbable that Pence would ever be able to separate his religious convictions from his political agenda."}
{"id":"0a54b9fc-0c18-4a0f-bed5-29fbafd1cb9b","argument":"I am tired of seeing this topic discussed on sports talk shows, twitter, and the news. As a college student and a major sports fan at a Big 12 school, I hear it on campus all of the time during class discussions. It always surprises me how many people believe that the athletes should be paid. I'm going to provide a few specific points that I feel are often ignored when this topic is brought up. The education benefits Basically any athlete that has a chance at making it in to the next level is on full scholarship, and let's be honest, most of them still won't make it that far. At my school, we have an awesome academic facility reserved for student athletes that is open from 7am 11pm. At this facility, athletes can receive free tutoring, easily isolate themselves for studying, and take their tests verbally. They also have access to computers, printers, calculators, and other necessary tech needed for school. They do not have to fight the crowds at the library, and are chaperoned by non athlete students that are on work study. I know for a fact that many student athletes at my school do not take their education seriously while they are here. They forget that not everyone has the same access to the facilities that they do, and many have the We're not here to play school, we're here to play football mindset. Here is a quote from someone that works in the facility They get their own mini study hall equipped with all of their counsellors on hand every day, as well as all of their own tutors for every subject on hand every day. A lot of tutors stay until late in the evening helping them and come in early. Before I've asked redacted why he's still hanging around at 9 30 he has actually said because football players can't do anything for themselves . They pretty much carry them through most homework that they have. They get free school supplies at will like notecards, pencils, scantrons which we have to pay for . Private study rooms. A big one I learned is free textbooks. They rent from the athletic program so they don't even have to go buy or even find out what textbook they need. It just comes to them in a package and they turn it back in at the end of the year. Non academic benefits At my school, football players are provided with a high protein fiber carb breakfast and dinner about 5 days a week, free of charge. Other athletes receive this meal throughout the week, but their schedule and frequency is typically tied to their respective seasons. For almost three years now, I have worked in the kitchen helping prep the daily meals for the athletes, so I have had first hand experience at the quality and quantity of food that they receive. I am not sure if a full scholarship also entitles them to a campus meal plan, but if so, then that means that they have the option to eat at the athletic facility and anywhere on campus for free. Athletes of all sports also receive tons of free nike clothes and shoes. Not to mention, if the football players make it to a bowl game, they receive a gift package of clothes and other items such as an Xbox, iPad, etc. At our football stadium, we have a display case of the gift packages for our school's recent bowl games. Where do you draw the line? One of the most popular points I've seen and heard is the fact that the NCAA, schools, and sponsors make tons of money off of these athletes on TV. Let's take football, for example. Are we tailoring the pay by money brought in each season? If so, Alabama, Clemson, Ohio State, etc. all have a clear advantage over competing teams that have smaller fanbases and play on national TV far less often. Okay, let's pay a flat rate across the board. Are we including all schools? Divisions? Or just the ones that play on major networks? If we include all schools, you're telling me that athletes at Missouri State deserve to get paid the same as Bama's athletes playing at prime time almost every weekend? If you pay by network coverage, the more prestigious programs would have a complete monopoly over recruiting. Students would sacrifice playing time for a paycheck. Why play for free at a smaller school when you can go to a bigger school and get paid? I just think that this entire point creates far more questions than solutions, and I didn't even talk about the fact that it's tough to draw the line across paying athletes from other collegiate sports as well. An internship for the NFL Now this point might sound a little abstract, but I believe that athletes should view their college playing experience as something like an internship for the next level. They are tested to see how they do under high pressure situations in front of a big crowd. If they prove their ability, they get paid millions of dollars in their mid twenties, which is far more than any non athlete would typically make at that age. If they don't make it, well, you were at a college for three to four years. What were you doing? I always hear the argument that not all athletes are on full scholarship. Well the way I see it, if you're not good enough for your school to pave the way for you to play there, you're not good enough to play at the next level. If you prove everyone wrong, great. If you didn't have a backup plan, I don't feel sorry for you. Now, many of these points are derived from experiences at my school. I realize other schools may not have as many benefits to offer their students, but I also know that there are many schools that can offer much more. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Collegiate athletes should not be paid."}
{"id":"95bd2b1c-e80c-45ef-a511-0fe8ad146acf","argument":"Japan, whose national debt stands at 200% of GDP,1 has accumulated debt partially due to social programs for its aging population.2 Today, Japan struggles merely to make interest payments on its debt, thereby preventing it from directing its funds towards reducing the debt itself.3 Europe has the same problem, albeit in a less severe form. Once government entitlement programs are established, they are very difficult to get eliminate. Once these programs become unaffordable, the government finds itself in a situation of perpetual debt that it cannot get out of. This is a particular problem in Europe as the continent is aging. Every member of the European Union has an aging population. Encouraging economic growth in countries that are old and getting older is difficult because they are less inclined to take risks and be innovative.4 While growth and thus tax take slows the costs to the government will rise due to increasing healthcare costs and pensions. Thus, a balanced budget must be a government\u2019s first priority. 1 Kevin Voigt, \u201cJapan\u2019s New Leader: A Snowball\u2019s Chance,\u201d CNN, August 30, 2011. 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid. 4 McArdle, Megan, \u2018Europe\u2019s Real Crisis\u2019, the Atlantic, April 2012,","conclusion":"Once a country starts to get far into debt, getting out becomes more and more infeasible."}
{"id":"4f851727-923c-4223-82f1-5aea9f462c4f","argument":"According to the UN Women organization, \"There are an estimated 245 million widows worldwide, 115 million of whom live in poverty and suffer from social stigmatization and economic deprivation largely because they have lost their husbands.\"","conclusion":"Many widows, divorcees and single mothers have a hard time finding a stable partner as they are deemed undesirable."}
{"id":"d4fefa16-03df-42c8-b9c4-43a3c82d307a","argument":"I'm currently studying History in London, therefore something I am not really considering is how a liberal arts degrees falls in place in this , as I don't know much about how those degrees are structured. And before going further, I know it's going to be necessary to explain what I mean by value . In this , my definition is simple the more valuable degree is the one that is more likely to bring you economic success after graduating university. I do believe that someone who loves the Russian language and Russian culture could derive great value from studying Russian at undergraduate, then going on to find work translating Russian history texts to English, but for now let's disregard this form of value and talk only about economic value. Another way of looking at it is that the companies, firms, job prospects that pay the most, will much more likely higher an undergraduate with a degree in CS or Business Management or Engineering than one in History or Philosophy or English Literature. To dispute this, perhaps you could give me examples of how big consultancy companies or banks actually higher Historians and Philosophers at a comparable percentage as well, or if there are other industries that I have not considered or are not aware of who hire Historians and Philosophers and pay high wages. Please change my view.","conclusion":"Studying undergraduate CS, Business Management etc. is significantly more valuable than a humanities\/English\/language course."}
{"id":"77967a40-d155-4170-b756-78a6f46c10d6","argument":"There is a large grey area between 'hate speech' and 'freedom of expression'. North Korea and Russian governments could easily claim that allowing people to publish anti-government articles is 'hate speech' because it is inciting hatred towards a particular group the government without justification in their opinion.","conclusion":"These countries Russia\/North Korea have banned freedom of expression, not just hate speech. Therefore, they shouldn't count as examples."}
{"id":"6828baa1-d834-4e8a-91a0-07f4b5f495f0","argument":"The same group who is supporting Donald Trump, someone who fucks up nearly daily and comes off as an asshole. The same group who will hoard any police brutality article tweet desperately looking for reasons to justify the policeman's actions. The same group who overall is anti gay rights and transphobic. The same group that will adamantly stand behind gun rights and while on a post about any school shooting with their sole reason being muh second amendment . The same group that will openly discriminate and criticize anyone who is muslim. The same group who will respond with BlueLivesMatter or AllLivesMatter in response to any pro BLM posts. The same group who will shame anyone who is into violent video games music over christian values. Is the last group that should take a Pro Life stance or a Christian values stance on shit when a lot of their opinions has to do with the fact of being anti equality or anti peace. Honestly how the fuck do you go from saying So much wrong goes on in the world due to lack of GOD. and liberals are evil for wanting to kill humans pro choice then the very same day start looking for every excuse in the world to defend police brutality, gun violence and defend discrimination in general? You can't take a moral high ground if you are going to start defending a lot of negative views.","conclusion":"Conservatives are the last people who should take a moral high ground against leftists."}
{"id":"62a174c1-0a86-4af9-b488-d3da16ee0035","argument":"For example, the best possible world may include the ability to make significant moral choices. Yet significant moral choices always involve the potential of suffering this is what makes them significant. Therefore, suffering may be necessary in order for people to make any morally-significant choices, which may constitute a greater world than one in which no such choices can be made.","conclusion":"The best possible world may still logically require the existence of evil and suffering."}
{"id":"c7e8be9d-d5f6-4299-92a4-028ffca447f7","argument":"I don't know how common this is in four year universities I've talked to my friends in four year universities and they say it varies based on class size and the professor. I go to a community college, and the schoolwide policy is that if you miss more than 20 of a class, you're dropped from the class. For a sixteen week class that meets twice a week, that's about six days, to give you an example. I believe the professors have to manually drop you, and some are willing to work with you, especially if you have an actual emergency some are strict and give no exceptions. The average class size is around 25 40ish students, so the professor usually starts learning your name and face and it's easier to see if someone's absent. I disagree with this, because I believe that as long as the student is getting their work done, who cares just how many days they're actually in class? I think it's fair to require attendance on test quiz days so the student doesn't just show up two days later wanting to make it up, but for the most part, class is just about reading directly from the textbook or copying down notes that most instructors post online anyway. A huge number of my classmates have jobs and families to take care of, so it's not realistic to expect them to be in class every single day when it's something that could easily be done at home. For some classes, every assignment of the semester is posted online at the beginning of the semester, so someone could get all of that done ahead of time if they wanted to, and what's the point in being forced to continue coming to class if you finished all the coursework in the first month? I can understand high schools having mandatory attendance policies, because the kids are required by law to be there, but we're adults and I think we should be allowed to make our own decisions and deal with the possible consequences. Anyway, change my view?","conclusion":"I believe mandatory attendance policies in college are stupid and unnecessary,"}
{"id":"2ea93ab2-ef63-4602-b3ef-cb167c7dd146","argument":"Faith in law enforcement is a variable thing regardless; many groups and individuals feel targeted for a wide spectrum of reasons i.e. women who are sexually assaulted, groups from certain areas or socioeconomic backgrounds, etc. Banning a potentially legitimate resource is not the way to combat such issues; more holistic reform is needed.","conclusion":"There is already rampant distrust of law enforcement in the modern world. Establishing further control would only further ostracize the law enforcement community."}
{"id":"34591922-b4e8-4d27-b6b9-e99adf2495d8","argument":"Title Logical tautologies ought to be considered as objectively true and occasionally meaningful Hello r changemyview, I\u2019m a logician from theoretical computer science testing a more philosophical idea. Since r askphilosophy no longer tests hypotheses, and my university\u2019s philosophy department probably has better things to do than test another non expert\u2019s totally original idea . I\u2019m posting it here to test it out here, I reckon given the nature of this subreddit there would be a few eager experts in epistemology here as well. A logical tautology is a formal statement that is true under all possible assignments worlds . An example of a tautology written informally would be \u201cx implies x\u201d, formally we could write this using symbols like \u201cx\u2192x\u201d. The condition on truth in a tautology means that no matter how we interpret the physical world and regardless of our personal feelings beside perhaps what language we understand , tautologies are true. This I believe, qualifies it for objective truth. While some of you might be convinced tautologies are true, and would be fine with it being considered objective, the second part about it being meaningful may not be fine to you. To a layperson, a tautology is usually regarded as a \u201cuseless sentence\u201d, this is because there are many examples of tautologies like \u201cx implies x\u201d that are obvious and seemingly get you nowhere. Perhaps some people think that while tautologies would technically be objectively true they don\u2019t really count as they convey no new information. My argument that some tautologies are useful in that they can give us non obvious information. My argument here assumes Church\u2019s thesis, which states that human computation cannot exceed that of Turing\u2019s machine a theoretical read write machine . Let us look at the class of all formal tautologies in classical propositional logic, I bring up this logic because it is one of the simplest. The class of tautologies is CoNP complete see Cook\u2019s Theorem , meaning that if there was an effective polynomial time procedure that could recognise a tautology polynomial time is considered the same as easy in TCS , this would show that the famous millennium prize problem would be solved, giving P NP. In complexity theory, most experts believe that P does not equal NP, so this would mean assuming Church\u2019s thesis that human thought has no way of deciding every tautology in polynomial time. If we use a more expressive classical logic like QBF or first order logic the problem gets even worse than P vs NP. I\u2019ve made three assumptions, 1 Polynomial time computable easily computable 2 complexity theoretic Church\u2019s Thesis 3 P NP And from them we get that \u201cthere are some tautologies that are hard for humans to recognise as tautologies\u201d. These are the non obvious meaningful tautologies I refer to. Anticipated objections 1 Objection You\u2019ve assumed P NP assuming the classical Turing machine model, what about quantum computing? Answer Under quantum computing, while some cryptographic problems become easy, NP hard problems are still expected not to have polynomial time algorithms 2 a Objection You are assuming classical logic as the one true logic, based on your subjective opinion. Answer it is true that I am assuming classical logic but you could apply this to logical validities in any logic aside from deliberately bad ones where my argument breaks down and no alternative argument can be made . b Objection Tautologies aren\u2019t objective, they are subject to the assumptions you make, like everything else. Answer while you must make logical rules for tautologies to arise, I still believe that pragmatically you ought to couple the definition of objectivity to the logic you are assuming, trying to navigate any truth without an underlying logic is a bad idea. I also don\u2019t think a definition of objectivity where nothing is objective is the best definition. Okay but how do I change your view? You can tackle any one of the three assumptions 1 Polynomial time computable easily computable 2 complexity theoretic Church\u2019s Thesis 3 P NP This is a terrible idea if you are not an expert, in fact I reckon only a handful of people in the world could make a convincing case to reject the last two. You can try anyway What\u2019s probably more manageable, is to find where my argument here might not work, or point out further assumptions I\u2019m not aware I\u2019m making. What I expect most to be challenged on is my use of definitions \u2018objectivity\u2019, \u2018non obvious\u2019. I\u2019ve probably killed a few sacred cows by defining them the way I\u2019ve defined them. If you object to them explain why I ought not to use them in this way. Of course if you think you can change my view in another way then go ahead as well. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"Logical tautologies ought to be considered as objectively true and occasionally meaningful"}
{"id":"d580362f-e2d7-45b3-ba7f-2a6a76c5bcbc","argument":"While some functions, e.g. vision and speech, can be attributed to particular sections of the brain activities associated with consciousness eg reasoning, recognition, selfhood, are harder to attribute to particular regions. It appears, therefore, that consciousness arises from the cohesive operation of the brain, and it is not possible to rule out a non-physical element to that operation. Claims about the persistence of this element after death are not possible to rule out.","conclusion":"The brain's ability to affect one's consciousness is not sufficient reason to attribute the full extent of one's consciousness to the brain."}
{"id":"b3daee7b-8543-456a-b0b6-c69b994fcfde","argument":"Bitcoin has been around for some years now. It has been used to generate income, exchange money anonymously, and assist criminal organizations. Bitcoin is a great and incredible feat. It has many advantages, but I feel that since it is an unregulated currency it is easy to use for nefarious purposes. One of the biggest users of Bitcoin was Silk Road, the drug trafficking organization in the US. Bitcoin provided an easy simple way for them to transfer large sums of their money to other recipients quickly, effectively, and anonymously. When Silk Road was finally shut down this happened to Bitcoin. If Silk Road utilized that much of Bitcoin, imagine how much more of it is being used for other criminal organizations. I don't see any solution to this issue except that the governments would have to deal with it on their own and take the organizations down from their sides. The next question you ask yourself is, is that fair to the government? Should they be spending so much more effort, so many more of our tax dollars to try and break an organization, that could be severely crippled by being unable to use Bitcoin to transfer their purchases? These are all questions that I am asking myself and are pointing me in the direction to believe that Bitcoin, while useful, does more harm than good in the long run.","conclusion":"Bitcoin is bad in the long run, because it is unregulated and therefore attracts criminal organizations."}
{"id":"ba50b101-dd38-4e69-b146-ef7caa52326b","argument":"Several weeks ago I saw this article how scientists are currently trying to revolutionalize reproductive medicine. This process is called In Vitro Gametogensis or IVG for short. IVG is a medical procedure that allows doctors and personnel who specialize in reproductive care to create gametes sperm egg cells using skin cells. Even though this procedure is not yet ready for humans, it may one day become a thing. So on to my view. Given that there are numerous individuals who are infertile and who desire to have biological children, it would be disheartening to not allow infertile couples to produce biological children. I believe that while adoption can be a great thing for prospective parents, having a biological child would be a preferred option. For instance, in the United States, the adoption process can be complicated, expensive, and difficult for those who would like to adopt a newborn or toddler. I do concede that IVG can introduce some risks in regards to the creation of designer babies . My solution to that would be to enact legislation that makes the usage of IVG to produce offspring with 'handpicked' characteristics illegal while declaring IVG in all other cases as legal. Also, let us try to see this from a utilitarian point of view. If infertile couples can have biological children, and that makes the couple happy that their genes can pass down to the next generation, then why stop them from doing so? Many have stated that those who disapprove of IVG tend to be the same people who hold predjudiced view towards LGBT people, the same group of people who would greatly benefit from this fertility treatment. Also, it saddens me that some people are trying to limit the freedom of what others do with their genetic material just because a certain medical procedure doesn't allign with their worldview. Let us take the harm principal if a married opposite sex couple, in which the wife is infertile, were to have a baby through IVG IVF surrogracy, the process would result in the parents being happy, possibly happier than adopting a child, and that act would not adversely impact the health and well being of someone who does not approve of IVG. What I am saying is If you don't approve of IVG, then don't do it. and live and let live . Personally, I feel that the decision to have a child through IVG is ultimately a personal choice and the government should not make decisions for reproductive healthcare providers and patients with the obvious exception of selecting desirable genes. So, there it is. Now please change my view. gt This is a footnote from the  moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us Happy ing","conclusion":"In Vitro Gametogenesis is morally permissible and should be legal and regulated"}
{"id":"c16d5ac6-a854-4834-998b-e3c391a005a1","argument":"The homophobic slur, \"f****t\" is just as offensive as \"n*****\", the latter of which is almost universally condemned.","conclusion":"The song, Fairytale of New York includes a homophobic slur \"f*****\"."}
{"id":"6179e222-c885-4d18-9bd1-d7e2b7944cae","argument":"Studies have shown that 2\/3 of the retailers that filed for bankruptcy in 2016 and 2017 were backed by private equity firms.","conclusion":"There is sufficient research to suggest that private equity firms drive struggling businesses to bankruptcy."}
{"id":"6b3478f7-308b-4da8-9de5-d826a4bcdf36","argument":"The increase in low-cost Mexican goods has benefitted US consumers1, thereby improving the standard of living for working Americans. US exports have increased by $104 billion2, thereby bolstering manufacturing. While some jobs have been lost due to NAFTA, these have been primarily low-skill jobs; reducing the number of low-skill jobs in the economy allows the US to concentrate on more profitable, white-collar jobs. And even these low skilled workers benefit from having to pay less for their goods. 1 Marla Dickerson, \"NAFTA has had its Tradeoffs for the U.S.: Consumers and Global Companies Benefitted, but Critics See Pitfalls,\" Los Angeles Times, March 3, 2008. 2 Robert Scott, Carlos Salas, Bruce Campbell, \"Revisiting NAFTA: Still Not Good for North America's Workers,\" Economic Policy Institute, September 28, 2006, 5.","conclusion":"The US has benefitted from NAFTA through lower prices and increased trade"}
{"id":"b0f12042-b195-4ea5-af26-41a8a669fbd5","argument":"In Return of the Jedi, the Emperor lures the rebels into a trap by letting them learn about the new Death Star. It is hard to comprehend why he didn't stop at that, but instead also gave them the vital information that they subsequently used to disable the Death Star's shields and destroy it.","conclusion":"The older Star Wars movies, too, had numerous characters make decisions that are hard to comprehend. The Last Jedi does not stand out in this regard."}
{"id":"b7d39a5f-bf2d-4c34-ab1c-1f538fcc680e","argument":"These images are simply a moment in someone's life that have been optimized and not a representation of the person's body long-term.","conclusion":"Social media, TV and the internet in general promote an aesthetic canon that is overwhelmingly unreal, modified, staged."}
{"id":"c1ac2acb-60a6-4d20-a21d-13aef19e5a87","argument":"This therapy explicitly uses client's religious beliefs to identify and replace unhelpful thoughts and behaviors by focusing on forgiveness, gratefulness, altruistic behaviors, and engagement in social activities.","conclusion":"Prayer and religious therapy is used to bring people on the righteous path."}
{"id":"e63983f7-ceb0-4c3a-b387-b47875678321","argument":"Trump has stated that he is \"totally flexible on very, very many issues\" His clear shift on many public issues indicates a lack of clear ideological agenda.","conclusion":"Pence is more doctrinal conservative, while Donald Trump is less beholden to ideology and thus more able to do what he believes is best."}
{"id":"854afa6a-61b1-49e3-8178-5d80ba370112","argument":"This occurs in Australia, at least in certain states. My main argument for it is that it saves tax money. By giving some money to private schools though less money than to public a private school student will cost the government less money than will a public school student. Private schools become more affordable and thus more parents will send their children there. Where I am from, while private schools still have an elitist attitude of sorts, it is far less elitist than in the UK or USA at least, as I understand it . You could argue that this is unfair and that everyone deserves the same education, but unless you wipe out private schools altogether, I believe the system I am describing and that is used in Australia creates a system that is more equal than in the USA or the UK.","conclusion":"I believe private schools should receive some government funding."}
{"id":"53fa410a-82b8-4ce9-9e14-657d4befc77b","argument":"I'm not arguing that the internet should only be used for academic purposes, I like to use it to talk to people and watch videos and everything else it's good for. But I feel in a time where libraries and the internet are available to almost everyone in first and some second world countries, ignorance is not excusable. People should devote bits of their spare time to learning about something new, no matter what that new thing is. You can learn any major language, most kinds of skills, history, economics, government, psychology, science, and so much more online. There are so many interesting things to learn about, and the full potential of the internet shouldn't be wasted on only looking at funny pictures of cats or reading r askreddit threads. Additionally, general ignorance to basic things shouldn't be excused either, when one can find a five minute video or an ELI if they just searched for it. TL DR The internet has so much potential and people just squander it on useless things.","conclusion":"Not using the resources available to us, like the internet or libraries, to learn more about things should be embarrassing and in an age of so much information easily accessible, ignorance is not excusable."}
{"id":"37d9d998-7cc8-4ee5-a187-dd14d4707b06","argument":"All the arguments I\u2019ve seen supporting self driving cars are about how they will save lives by removing human error, and don\u2019t get me wrong the idea of a world without drunk drivers is appealing to me. But I can\u2019t help but feel the same types of arguments were used in \u201cthe war on terror\u201d to suppress civil liberties and increase surveillance. Think about it. You will eventually have a car which is connected to the internet making decisions over which you will be unable to decide. Imagine, for example, if you\u2019re trying to cross the land border between Morocco and Algeria. With a regular car, you could probably sneak across the border. With a car connected to the internet, it could either not let you cross or simply redirect your route to the nearest police station. Or imagine if you\u2019re trying to run from a totalitarian regime like North Korea or the Phillipines. If you get declared an enemy of the state while driving then the car can simply imprison you and deliver you to your captors. I am by no means some conspiracy theorist, but I feel that at a certain point freedom is more important than reducing road deaths","conclusion":"The true danger of self-driving cars is the loss of freedom, and it will be easy for totalitarian governments to exploit this"}
{"id":"b1a83b60-2ef5-4619-8836-6cf05f6bec5b","argument":"For as long as I can remember I have been a supporter of socialism with the ultimate goal of one day creating a fully communist global society. In my younger years, before I began reading intensively, I would simply think that there was something wrong with the world. Then at the end of elementary school and the beginning of middle school I began reading quite a bit. I've read almost every piece of literature that most would consider classics or essential reading. I knew as soon as I was able to put a name to the ideology that I felt inside me that I was a communist. That was around the eighth grade. I'm now 32 and I am a member of several grassroots socialist organizations some of which I helped create and a member of PSL. Change my view Reddit Good luck","conclusion":"I am an ardent Communist and believe in violent revolution on a global scale"}
{"id":"61f4a548-2f03-4fdc-a165-32666c34763f","argument":"At the point at which the government tacitly concedes that it is possible to consent to violence, it makes it harder to prosecute other forms of violence in society because it adds an additional need for the prosecution to prove that the victim was not consenting.","conclusion":"It is problematic of governments to suggest that it is possible to consent to have violence enacted upon you."}
{"id":"0fdc7f1b-6f16-43a7-b539-550901de11e8","argument":"I know this is an unpopular opinion, but I don't like Superman. For me, he is literally too perfect, and as such, he doesn't have a personality. I find this to be a huge character flaw, and I just want a character that actually has weakness inside of him. Yes, I realize his weakness is Kryptonite, but he has no mortal weakness besides his love for Lois Lane, and that's not a very interesting weakness in the first place. I just want someone to show me how imperfect Superman is and that he actually has a spectrum of emotion.","conclusion":"Superman is too perfect and because of this his stories aren't compelling"}
{"id":"7608598e-6819-40f8-8d35-02ba86d16854","argument":"Just for context, I'm a heterosexual cis male, so I couldn't be more distanced from goings on in the LGBTQ community. So I do apologise in advance if I end up ruffling feathers with my ignorance. This idea concept question is my attempt at reducing my ignorance somewhat. I completely fail to understand why people stopped using gender as an identifier of biological sex and whether or not someone identifies with that sex, with their body, and somehow managed to start using gender to enforce gender stereotypes, rather than combat them. Let me try to explain what I mean by this. The way I understand it and please correct me if I am wrong on this people are using terms such as agender, pangender, non binary and genderfluid or sometimes, literally anything to identify their gender because they feel the binary system cannot be applied to them. Is this reason not because gender stereotypes weigh too heavily on the male and female genders that they do not identify with those? If that is so, and they feel that their identity cannot be tied to the binary genders, then why would that be the case for non binary genders? Wouldn't it just be better to come to terms with the idea that one's gender has no bearing on one's personality, traits, preferences, identity? I personally feel like it would make a lot more sense to separate what one identifies with physically their sex, which is what binary genders encompass from one's personality, which needn't be tied to gender at all. This is also the reason why I personally, at the time of writing, do not believe there is a gender spectrum, as I feel it's simply incorrect to tie someone's inner workings to a gender and enforce gender stereotypes rather than combat them. Is this line of thinking too simplistic? Or am I just getting it all completely wrong? Alright. I know do believe acknowledge think there is a gender spectrum. However, I also think that it enforces gender stereotypes and that it is a bad thing. It was a semantics issue, mostly. It is now clear to me that male and female can both refer to the sex as well as the gender. It's a silly realisation, I know, but it does make for a distinct difference between male sex traits and male gender traits, for example. It was my personal cis bias that so closely intertwined the terms gender and sex, because those are the same to me. Talk about a bias blind spot. I'll get into the comments that appeared while I was adding this now.","conclusion":"There is no gender spectrum"}
{"id":"e2252d59-9852-49f4-abd7-79dd3dfefa58","argument":"The human body is working different in dangerous situations. His senses are strengthenend. His smell is getting better for example.spiegel.de","conclusion":"Humans have very good instincts, they sense if something is wrong. Like animals."}
{"id":"2031ca6a-53e1-4e75-a8cd-26e3be900b4e","argument":"This is a commonly held image of what evil means and even as a social construct, benefits the many who do not act this way over the few who do","conclusion":"Evil is inflicting unwanted or unnecessary pain, injury, or suffering in another human being."}
{"id":"6f6800e5-d95e-43a4-9028-95fd70a66efd","argument":"This means that debaters are able to come up with solutions, instead of new fights.","conclusion":"Debaters are used to dealing with problems, resolving them and shaking hands after each and every discussion."}
{"id":"2b288fbe-3c02-43ca-83bf-de102e33e44d","argument":"I believe that the only true moral comes from utilitarianism as the only sensible definition of good and bad comes from a increase in overall happiness and decrease in overall suffering. I also believe that all moral and thus political decisions should be based on utilitarianism and all morals coming from anywhere else should be left out politics and life in general. Before saying that oh that would just lead to a technocracy where human life is rendered meaningless . That would be against utilitarianism since that would most definitely lead to suffering. Also i would say that everyone knows that this view is the right one. Having discussed morals with people from nearly every single religion, every single political affiliation etc, no matter what they propose as morals they always defend it using it is best for all of us . Even strict theologians resort to defending their religious morals via utilitarianism.","conclusion":"I believe that utilitarianism is the only right view on moral and politics"}
{"id":"8b44eaeb-451c-4c0e-9543-8fd6dd473aaa","argument":"Crystal Mangum was raped by Duke lax players. For those who don't remember, about 10 years ago the nation was rocked when a black, single mother and state college student accused a group of wealthy, white Duke athletes of raping her. Charges were ultimately dropped but they shouldn't have been. Charges were dropped because the wealthy, white Duke athletes were able to hire a dream team of attorney's to cast doubt on the state's case, specifically their lack of DNA evidence but rapists often leave 0 DNA evidence behind. Despite the lack of DNA evidence, there's a plethora of evidence against the athletes. DNA evidence was actually found in the bathroom, exactly where Mangum said she was raped. Her partner that night corroborates her story about being dragged into the bathroom. Doctors testified that there was clear evidence of penetration when she went to the hospital. Psychologists testified she was traumatized consistently with being raped. She was able to pick all three players out of a lineup. There's also a long history of racism among North Carolina's police and elected officials. With the above evidence, charges should have never been dropped and the wealthy, white privileged athletes should have been convicted.","conclusion":"Crystal Mangum was raped by Duke lax players"}
{"id":"98b0128c-0a78-4638-ab26-672ef3a38edb","argument":"Much like The Racial Integrity Laws made use of involuntary sterilisation to enforce societal racial cleansing, the parental licensing policy could be used to deter or restrict people of certain races from having and raising children.","conclusion":"A regime bent on eugenics or racial supremacy could use a law like this to allow only parents of a preferred race to procreate and not other races."}
{"id":"263a23b1-169a-40fb-a48d-9adcdc230712","argument":"I will be specifically discussing minimum wage workers in the United States. All over the country workers are demanding higher wages for a multitude of reasons can't live on current wage, unethical, etc . A wage should be what the market values the labor to be worth. If as a business owner I can hire someone for 8 an hr flipping burgers why would I start paying him 15 instead to do the same job and double my payroll costs? If the business owner feels like being nice, then sure cough it up and pay the workers more. Why should the government be able to dictate the amount a business owner should pay its workers? If wages go up businesses will Cut down employee hours to maintain profitability Business owners took the risk to create these enterprises why should they be forced to pay out more money? Corporations will cut down on employees and find other ways to maintain profitability such as investments in automation and moving more jobs overseas Shareholders will demand corporations to maintain their profitability thus leading to ways to cut down payroll expenses Businesses barely profitable or currently unprofitable may collapse Small businesses are the largest employers in America, not all of them are profitable and for some of them payrolls are a very significant part of their expenses What about the workers not receiving a wage? How will they feel and will they start making demands? Will this lead to a chain reaction where everyone starts demanding higher wages? example a worker whose labor was originally valued at 15, may not be entry level and has either higher education or more experience suddenly this person's labor is being valued at the exact same as someone just starting to flip burgers People argue that by raising wages people will need to use government services less, therefore leading to tax savings for businesses. How much in tax savings are we talking about? In my opinion taxes are already absurdly high ~40 or more factoring in federal, state, municipal . If we double minimum wage are we cutting taxes by 10 20 ? Please discuss, I'm eager to learn what some of you from a different perspective have to say. Thanks to everyone in advance for participating.","conclusion":"Workers should be paid according to what the market values their labor at"}
{"id":"3d815543-2ce2-4084-86fc-74e5cd09407b","argument":"a common theme on reddit i see very often is people complaining about student loan debt and how they wish they didnt have to pay back the money they took out i dont understand why someone would financially cripple themselves for the sake of a degree, when there are hundreds of other ways to get a job make a career. why spent what you dont have? thats money 101 saving money for college really isnt all that hard, and i especially dont understand people who saddle themselves with extreme loans just to go to a private university while CC Military is a perfectly viable option for them. finally, i think everyone having a degree regardless of debt creates insane market saturation and makes it tough for financially responsible people with families that actually worked hard and made good money decisions to find a job it also reduces the value of a degree, something that many people actually saved and sacrificed to obtain. i think only people with the money to afford to go to school footing the bill themselves deserve a degree. also why all the hate for people who actually paid for school with their money, not Uncle Sam's???","conclusion":"taking out student loans is financially irresponsible and those who cant pay out of pocket dont deserve higher education."}
{"id":"a8c1b0cb-44fe-4b5c-9091-304cc03db532","argument":"Increasingly over the last decade the police in America have become more and more aggressive and abusive of their powers. Almost daily we hear of police shooting and killing unarmed and unthreatening citizens along with animals. Most times these cops are given a slap on the wrist or paid leave at worst. I understand that they serve a vital function in our society, but has become evident that they are abusing that trust. In many places they have tried to Institute personally mounted cameras which have been proven to lower incidents and false abuse claims, yet police departments have been adamant against implementation. This leads me to believe that they are trying to hide criminal activity and widespread systemic abuse. If i smoke marijuana I am infinitely more prone to danger from police then from anyone or anything else. And with the increasing militarization this threat is ever increasing.","conclusion":"Fuck the police"}
{"id":"41aabf6e-211c-4d6f-823b-d3447b57a74c","argument":"Meat comes from a living source that only dies in order for us to sustain our own living. We say it is morally incorrect to kill another human being but for an animal it is okay? This belief is hypocritical in nature.","conclusion":"All animals have a right to live and be free of suffering."}
{"id":"3298847d-f324-453e-9777-bf6023f7f68c","argument":"If students are told from a young age that their academic abilities are limited, it is likely to become a self-fulfilling prophecy.","conclusion":"Some students blossom later than others. Separating them early is to their disadvantage."}
{"id":"d4f24379-6a74-4121-8eaf-ba602c6d7b5e","argument":"Technological developments have only come so far, but they still have a ways to go. We still do not have teleportation or time travel covered.","conclusion":"Low education leads to an inability to solve world problems."}
{"id":"2c5a48fc-6291-4bb5-b2be-5a5fb5f5c888","argument":"Ninety countries are responsible for 2\/3rds of the world's global warming emissions; any measures possible need to be used to reduce their emissions, including a decrease in productivity.","conclusion":"Increased leisure time means less time producing. This will reduce resource depletion and help to slow the negative effects of climate change."}
{"id":"610ebd92-2ea0-4e55-af7c-afec9713ed27","argument":"It is a serious problem that causes any number of effects, from pain to headaches, and can leave sufferers bedridden.","conclusion":"Period pain, known as dysmenorrhea, can impair a person's fitness to work."}
{"id":"e88aaa9d-d429-49e0-b3fb-1b26351b90be","argument":"Why is reform needed? Well for one, to end all the confusion; there are just too many differences of opinion among the ulema of Islam. Consistency is needed. I believe that what Islam also needs is a little humor, some joy and hope, to enter the lives of adherents.","conclusion":"Islam needs a reform to be compatible with the modern world."}
{"id":"747832bb-d063-486c-a1a4-16341ac82160","argument":"My Assumptions The climate change crisis currently constitutes the biggest threat to humankind. Climate scientists have been adamant about the severity of this crisis. Political stability, economic development , and individual liberties are the predominant global values which national governments attempt to at least pay lip service to, if not dogmatically adhere to. My Views Worries Humankind faces a crisis in the form of climate change which requires immediate and unwavering political willpower to solve. However, humans will vote for their own interests if they are given the chance, and this tendency to favor short term economic gain and personal freedoms actually results in a failure to adequately address the climate change crisis. Democracies do not require strong leadership to survive, in fact, weak leadership which seeks to maintain status quo economic and social realities are extremely successful at winning elections. This presents a problem, if the political elite are unwilling to enforce tough reforms on our societies and economies which depend on the destruction of the earth in order to fuel economic growth and unsustainable lifestyles, humans will ultimately fail to address the climate change crisis. Where can we find democratically elected governments which have implemented policies which will harm their nation's economy in order to positively address climate change? It seems the very idea of an elected government openly taking action to shrink their national economy is ludicrous to imagine, but if humanity's tolerance of economic pains is so low that we can overlook the climate change crisis in order to maintain economic growth even in ultra wealthy countries, humanity will fail to elect leaders that can solve the climate change crisis. Here are some of the kinds of basically revolutionary reforms which could make the biggest impact on anthropocentric climate change as I see it Strict population controls, including actively incentivizing voluntary sterilization. Strict controls on consumption, intended to curb green house gas accumulation e.x. strict meat and fish rationing, strict fossil fuel rationing, strict limitations on industrial production of luxury goods, etc. Strict controls on overseas shipping, strict regulations on construction of infrastructure which creates green house gasses, etc. Policies such as the ones outlined above seem impossible to achieve in a democratic system due to the profound effect they would have on the global economy, and the reactionary attitudes of the typical voter towards policy that could reduce the convenience and luxury of their lifestyle. I'd really like my view changed, since this train of thought has kept me up at night. I really don't see how someone who cares about the future of the environment and by extension, our species could possibly feel anything but powerless to prevent the man made destruction of our environment. I really can't imagine humanity solving the climate change crisis without the intervention of a higher power, much in the same way that humans don't expect invasive species in the wild to restrain themselves without human intervention.","conclusion":"Democracies do not produce strong enough leadership to solve humanity's greatest crisis: environmental destruction."}
{"id":"c76e38c6-f591-4ed5-9fae-a1a3a40fe5ed","argument":"I am proud of this protest from the volunteers that moderate sub reddits both large and small. However, I keep reading that many want this to be about the dismissal of Victoria. If you read the various ELI5 or Out of the Loop explanations, the initial reasons that IAMA and other AMA style sub reddits went dark were not out of protest but out of necessity to get breathing room to know how to handle the situation. Victoria as a reddit admin was a key player for how the workings of AMAs happened and she was no longer available well, she agreed to volunteer support . The lead moderator did add though that lack of communication from reddit admins made this situation much worse that it needed to be. What started the actual protests were sub reddits going dark in solidarity. They also had experience with reddit admins not making the job of moderating large sub reddits any easier. Third party software is used when it should be available from the main servers. There's no communication with regards to changes to policy or something that will impact sub reddits. I do not know Victoria. She may be a nice lady and her bosses are evil for firing her. She may have done something evil and her heroic bosses stopped her from doing more damage. She may have had to leave quickly and her bosses agreed. We do not know. Even more so we should not make the protest about one person and one event when we do not know the whole story. Instead, it should be about the fact that sub reddit moderators were blind sided yet again with admin decisions. That way, even if it turns out that the dismissal was justified, the protests are also justified because it was about a history of reddit admin actions and not just this one event that was the match to the spilled can of gasoline.","conclusion":"The reddit going dark protest should not be about Victoria and the AMA subs. Instead it should be about subreddits that have problems with reddit admins."}
{"id":"1f32c724-4768-4739-8889-bf7c45f0a5f2","argument":"If guns were treated like other potentially lethally dangerous devices Cars, Planes, Industrial Power Tools a license, granted only upon passing a competency test, would be required for ownership and operation. The requirement to pass a state administered test would raise the competency level of all gun owners in the storage, maintenance and operation of their firearms, thereby reducing the number of accidental shootings.","conclusion":"Stricter gun control legislation would decrease the number of gun-related deaths."}
{"id":"3b636759-797f-4599-a6dd-06a4afa32c0c","argument":"Drugs like LSD and psylocybin are, physically, completely safe. Their only side effects are mental, and those are unlikely to affect infrequent users unless they have a family history of mental illness, in which case they are obviously not part of the most people I'm talking about. Many people who have used these drugs including Aldous Huxley, Steve Jobs, Carl Sagan I think, but I'm not 100 about him , and Thomas Pynchon find the experience to offer an interesting new perspective on issues in their lives, and even in some cases are inspired in future endeavors. Note that I'm not saying that drugs have any kind of shamanic power or anything like that. I think they alter consciousness by changing brain chemistry, nothing more and nothing less. Most people, I think, don't realize the possibilities of consciousness. For example, it is entirely possible to be conscious and think logically without holding any conception of yourself as distinct from the world around you. I'm not suggesting that people should use these drugs frequently, or that it should be mandatory or anything like that. But I do think it should be legal and somewhat encouraged as a learning experience, in the same way that people say everyone should climb a mountain once in their lives.","conclusion":"I believe it is, for most people, a beneficial experience to use psychedelic drugs"}
{"id":"0fb6577b-18de-41e5-b761-b3f2e7db1b43","argument":"I often find people or articles claiming that cold weather doesn't make you sick. The argument being that it is not the cold but viruses that make you sick theoretically. I have not a huge medical background but it seems pretty clear to me that cold weather weakens your body a lot, which as a result, make make us much vulnerable to sickness. It means that with an equal exposure to viruses and bacteria, cold weather will make you sick. The way I hear it is like this someone dies from getting shot, and some guy claims that he didn't die because he got shot, but because the blood left his body the causality chain seems pretty clear to me. If I am missing something, please .","conclusion":"Cold weather do make people sick."}
{"id":"340b802b-f5c7-48da-87bd-897989958887","argument":"According to a 2015 survey, 93% of Palestinians hold anti-Semitic views. It is unlikely a recognition of Israel as a Jewish state will do anything to solve this principal animosity.","conclusion":"The mutual perceptions in this conflict make it very difficult to bring people together. The conflict between Israelis and Palestinians would likely continue within the new state."}
{"id":"0dbcc69c-aae3-4b09-8655-0afb851f7700","argument":"US security assistance to Islamabad was cut off after a critical tweet by Donald Trump. This included $255 million in Foreign Military Financing and about $900 million in the Coalition Support Fund CSF.","conclusion":"Trump has called for increased pressure on Pakistan, a constant supporter of the Afghan Taliban."}
{"id":"7c24cd61-7a71-4dd5-a5ba-98e9fb155a68","argument":"Up to one in three children with a working single parent is living in poverty.","conclusion":"There is only one income that can feed a child."}
{"id":"191d47d1-c34d-49a6-b50b-d100e6d8929a","argument":"Religion allows societies to feel hope and to see light in the most darkest periods.","conclusion":"Religion is good for the psycho-social wellness of its followers."}
{"id":"0cb15e60-c972-46ad-bf23-322de61dd343","argument":"Our system of Government was set up with the belief that every citizen living in America would own an equal peace of land, including the water, not any one person, State, or Corporation could own it all. To make sure we all got a fair share of this wealth, we created a tax system that would force those who wished to get rich to have to pay for that privileged by paying more taxes then the poor and force our Government to care of the less fortunate. So they can never legally own more votes.","conclusion":"This would deepen the ideological rift between society's socioeconomic layers."}
{"id":"a2b3129e-2988-423e-a4c1-93ec4b3006b6","argument":"US-SPECIFIC ARGUMENT: It is true that the promotion of religion is constitutionally not allowed in schools: however, scientific creationism, while it has religious implications, is legitimate science - if teaching creationism implies the truth of the Christian position which it does not necessarily, as some Muslims and Jews would support it then that simply reflects the fact that the Christian position on this is correct.","conclusion":"US-SPECIFIC ARGUMENT: It is true that the promotion of religion is constitutionally not allowed in s..."}
{"id":"c03c987b-6045-485e-8b05-69d94b29dd41","argument":"Trans women benefit from the higher testosterone levels present in their traditionally-male hormonal systems. Even with synthetic hormone treatments, research suggests these women retain an advantage over their cis female peers.","conclusion":"Male anatomy, especially bone structure and sheer size, give transgender women an unfair advantage over cisgendered women."}